582594	C Kompany (alternatively "C Company") is a 2008 Bollywood comedy film directed by debutant Sachin Yardi, and produced by Ekta Kapoor and Shobha Kapoor. The film stars Tusshar Kapoor, Rajpal Yadav, Raima Sen and Anupam Kher. It released on 29 August 2008 to negative reviews from critics, and was a failure at the box office. Plot. Three individuals - Akshay (Tusshar Kapoor), Mr. Joshi (Anupam Kher) and Lambodar Jha(Rajpal Yadav) have their own share of troubles as a common man. While Akshay is a struggling crime reporter, Mr. Joshi is a retired accountant troubled by his ungrateful son. Lambodhar works as a mascot in a mall, but tells his son he has a business. Lambodar finds it difficult to deal with his wife over his job and is very aggressive to tall people, because he is very short and is often made fun of. Together they share their plight and find solace in each other's company. Akshay wants to marry the love of his life,Priya(Raima Sen), the sister of the leader of D Company, Dattu Bhai. Mr. Joshi wants to get 1 Crore from his son which he claims he has a right to, since Mr. Joshi has spent 1 Crore raising his son. Akshay wants a portion of this money to run away from India with his girlfriend. To get this money, the trio call Joshi's son, claiming to be from a large gang and threaten to kill his family if he does not comply. Through a series of events, this matter becomes public and the trio try to keep it secret. Joshi has a friend whose apartment complex is being taken down by people backed by the D Company. Joshi and Lambhodhar plant a fake bomb in the car of a big D Company backed businessman, saying that the next time, they could easily put a real bomb if the businessman doesn't stop the destruction of the apartment complex. A show called "Sarkar ya C Kkompany" is aired on Zee TV, with Akshay as the anchor. In the show, people call in with their problems and the viewers see if C Kkompany helps or the Sarkar (government). The trio decide to help many people out of sympathy. However, the leader of D Company tries his best to discover the identity of the C Kkompany. He finds out that C Kkompany will be extorting 1 million from Joshi's son, and goes to the meeting point (a Carnival) to kill the C Kkompany members. He catches the trio, but lets them go and changes his ways. In the end, Akshay gets married to Priya, with Datto Bhai happily watching. Mr. Joshi gets his son's 1 Crore Rs., and claims he got a lottery to hide the fact that he was C Kkompany and that he extorted the money. Lambodar starts his own business, and you have to be at least 6 feet tall to work there. The three live happily ever after, and the movie ends. The tale of C KKcompany continues and it is found that now Sadashiv Pradhan is making the calls on C KKcompany behalf, unknown to Lambodhar, Joshi and Akshay. Lambodhar, Joshi and Akshay explain this to Dattubhai when questioned. Cast. Special appearances as themselves; Production. Sachin Yardi, who previously worked as a screenwriter for films such as "Kyaa Kool Hai Hum" (2005) and "Traffic Signal" (2007), got an idea for a story which dealt with ordinary men placed in extraordinary situations. He worked on the script for six months and invested much time on the character sketches. Speaking about his directorial debut, Yardi felt direction to be a satisfying experience and helped him have control over his script. After filming, he felt that the film was executed in the way he wanted it and was quite confident about the way it shaped up. Until this film, Raima Sen appeared in supporting roles in several films such as "Chokher Bali" (2003), "Parineeta" (2005), and "Honeymoon Travels Pvt. Ltd." (2007). This was the first time in her commercial movie career that she portrayed a lead character's role. Quite unlike her real life love for food, Sen portrays a role of a dietitian. Tusshar Kapoor, the sibling brother of producer Ekta Kapoor, loved to work in the film due to his sister's conviction to the film.
1165452	Patricia "Pat" Crowley (born September 17, 1933) is an American film and television actress. Biography. Career. Crowley played Sally Carver in the film "Forever Female" (1953), starring Ginger Rogers and William Holden. She starred as Doctor Autumn Claypool alongside Martin and Lewis in "Money from Home" (1953), as well as in their final film together "Hollywood or Bust" (1956), where she played Terry Roberts. Her roles in "Forever Female" and "Money from Home" led to her receiving the Golden Globe Award for New Star of the Year - Actress. Crowley made guest appearances in several television series in the 1950s and 1960s, including the pilot for "The Untouchables", " Crossroads", "Riverboat", "The DuPont Show with June Allyson", "The Eleventh Hour", "The Roaring 20s", "Mr. Novak", "The Twilight Zone", "The Fugitive", "The Man from U.N.C.L.E.", "87th Precinct" and "" (episode "Competition"). She was the only actress to appear as leading lady for both James Garner and Roger Moore in the same episode of "Maverick", "The Rivals," a 1958 reworking of Richard Brinsley Sheridan's 1775 comedy of manners play. She starred from 1965 to 1967 as Joan Nash in the NBC-MGM television sitcom "Please Don't Eat the Daisies", based on the 1957 book by Jean Kerr and the 1960 Doris Day film of the same name. A frequent guest star of popular series, Crowley also sang and danced on "The Dean Martin Show" and appeared in dramatic roles on "Charlie's Angels", "Columbo", "Police Woman", "The Streets of San Francisco", "Hawaii 5-0", and "The Rockford Files", as well as sitcoms like "Happy Days", "The Love Boat", "Empty Nest,Roseanne" and, more recently, "Frasier" and "Friends". Crowley is known to a later era of television viewers for her roles on the serials "Generations" from 1989 to 1990, "Port Charles" from 1997 to 2003, and "The Bold and the Beautiful" in 2005. She had also appeared as the doomed Emily Fallmont on ten episodes of the nighttime soap opera "Dynasty" in 1986. More recently, Crowley portrayed the widow of baseball's Roger Maris in the biopic "61*", directed by Billy Crystal. She appeared in a 2006 episode of "The Closer" and a 2009 episode of "Cold Case". Personal life. Crowley is the daughter of Helen and Vincent Crowley, a mine foreman. Her older sister Ann Crowley is an actress and singer. In 1957, she married Edward Gregory Hookstratten, an entertainment and sports lawyer. They had two children, Jon (born 1958) and Ann (born 1960). After they divorced, she wed producer Andy Friendly in 1986. Crowley was often confused with her acting contemporary Kathleen Crowley, who appeared as the guest leading lady in different episodes of most of the same television series. The two Crowleys never appeared together, however, and were not related. Fess Parker noted in his Archive of American Television interview that there were two actresses named Crowley whom everyone was always mixing up, one tall (Pat) and one short (Kathleen), and that he was paired for one project, despite being six and half feet tall, with the shorter Crowley. In the 1950s, Crowley rotated her billing from "Patricia Crowley" to "Pat Crowley" and back again, even on some of the same television series, including "Maverick".
1685334	La mujer de mi hermano ("The wife of my brother") is a 2005 Mexican film directed by Ricardo de Montreuil, based on the novel of the same name by the Peruvian writer, journalist and TV host Jaime Bayly. It starred Bárbara Mori, Manolo Cardona, Christian Meier, and Mexican legend Angélica Aragón. Its soundtrack was given by Pakistani singer Atif Aslam. Plot. Structure. "La Mujer De Mi Hermano" ( "My Brother's Wife") could be considered in a category of films that critic Alissa Quart calls 'hyperlink movies', in which multiple stories take place, each affecting the other in ways that characters are unaware of, all the while using radically different aesthetic and cinematic techniques to define the "mise en scène" of each storyline. Synopsis. A woman bored with marriage discovers the pleasure and pain of infidelity in this stylish drama from Mexico. Zoe (Bárbara Mori) is a beautiful woman who has been married to Ignacio (Christian Meier) for nearly a decade. While Zoe still loves her husband, she feels the spark has gone out of their relationship, and she's become restless and anxious. Hoping to find the excitement she craves in forbidden fruit, Zoe falls into an affair with Gonzalo (Manolo Cardona), Ignacio's rough-edged but handsome brother. Zoe and Gonzalo's passionate affair is deeply satisfying to them both, but the adulterous couple must deal with the sharp sting of betrayal when Ignacio finds out they've been sleeping together. However the story takes a big turn when we find out the affair has only been a revenge towards his brother for Gonzalo. He is taking revenge for his brother raping him when he was younger therefore destroying his life. Adaptation. For this film, director Ricardo de Montreuil and novelist Bayly intended to take the story in a separate and somewhat different direction than the novel. "When María Eugenia Argomedo and I began collaborating on the script, we were hoping to make something new out of the material, rather than simply reproducing the book onto film," said Montreuil on an IFC interview. Reviews. The film received mixed reviews from critics. They attacked the film's plot for being overtly dramatic, while defenders interpreted it as a truthful film, one that tries to depict the most realistic aspects of relationships. "La Mujer de mi Hermano" rates poorly on RottenTomatoes.com, with a 21% approval rating, the consensus being, "No better than an R-rated "telenovela", with the requisite love..." It currently holds a 41% rating on Metacritic, which indicates "some medium reaction." Soundtrack. The song "Maula" was sung by Atif Aslam (Pakistani Pop Singer). Box office. By the time the movie debuted in the Festival de Cine Iberoamericano de Huelva on November 26, 2005, it had already been seen in Mexico by 850,000 people. The film won second place at the festival that year, after Luis Mandoki's "Voces inocentes", and was expected to reach one million total spectators and two million dollars at the box-office.
1059868	Nicolas Kent "Nick" Stahl (born December 5, 1979) is an American actor. Starting out as a child actor, he gained recognition for his performance in the 1993 film "The Man Without a Face" and then embarked on a successful career as a child actor. He later transitioned into his adult career with roles in "In the Bedroom", "Bully", "Sin City", the HBO series "Carnivàle", and the film "", in which he took over the role of John Connor, originally played by Edward Furlong. He also starred in the 2010 film "Mirrors 2". Early life. Stahl was born in Harlingen, Texas, the son of Donna Lynn, a brokerage assistant and William Kent Stahl, a businessman. He was raised in Plano and Richardson. Career. The 1993 film "The Man Without a Face", co-starring Mel Gibson, helped boost his career at the age of 13. His first professional casting was in "Stranger at My Door", although he had been acting in children's plays since he was four years old. In 1996 he played the role of Puck in Benjamin Britten's opera "A Midsummer Night's Dream" at The Metropolitan Opera in New York. In 1998 he played a doomed young soldier during the World War II Pacific War in "The Thin Red Line". Recent films include "How to Rob a Bank" (2007), "Sleepwalking" (2008), "Quid Pro Quo" (2008). Stahl has played two villains: Bobby Kent in the film "Bully" and Roark Jr./Yellow Bastard in "Sin City". Stahl did not reprise his role as John Connor in "Terminator Salvation". Instead Christian Bale took over. Stahl noted the film's concept as a "a jump to the future, so my character will be quite a bit older." Stahl starred as Max Matheson in the sequel to "Mirrors", directed by Victor Garcia and penned by Matt Venne. Personal life. Stahl married actress Rose Murphy in June 2009. The couple have a daughter, Marlo. Stahl and Murphy separated in January 2012. On December 27, 2012 he was arrested in a Los Angeles adult movie store for allegedly committing a lewd act. He was charged with a misdemeanor for 'lewd conduct' while watching a movie in a supposedly private booth.
1058133	Warwick Ashley Davis (born 3 February 1970) is an English actor. He played the title characters in "Willow" and the "Leprechaun" film series, the Ewok Wicket in "" and Professor Filius Flitwick in the "Harry Potter" films. Davis has also starred as a fictionalised version of himself in the sitcom "Life's Too Short", written and directed by Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant. Because of his dwarfism, Davis is tall. Early life. Warwick Davis was born in Epsom, Surrey, to an insurance broker and his wife. Davis also has a younger sister. He was educated at Chinthurst School and later the City of London Freemen's School. When Davis was 11, his grandmother heard a radio advert calling for people who were 4 ft. tall or shorter to be in "". To Davis, who was a fan of the "Star Wars" films, it was a dream come true. On the set of "Return of the Jedi", Mark Hamill bought Davis every single "Star Wars" figure he did not have. Career. He was originally cast as an extra Ewok, but when Kenny Baker, who was originally going to be Wicket, fell ill, George Lucas picked Davis to be the new Wicket after seeing how he carried himself as an Ewok. Davis based his Ewok movements on his dog, who would tilt his head from side to side whenever he saw something strange. During production on the film, Davis was the subject of a short mockumentary film about his experience as Wicket, titled "Return of the Ewok", made by "Return of the Jedi"'s first assistant director, David Tomblin. The unreleased film was a fictional look at his decision to become an actor and act in the film and his transformation into Wicket the Ewok. Davis reprised his role as Wicket in the ABC made-for-TV films ' and '. In 1987, Davis was called to Elstree Studios in London to meet with Ron Howard and George Lucas to discuss a new film project called "Willow", which was written with Davis specifically in mind. "Willow" was his first opportunity to act with his face visible. He co-starred with Val Kilmer in the film, which received a Royal Premiere before the Prince and Princess of Wales. He then moved to television to be in the BBC Television adaptation of the classic "The Chronicles of Narnia", specifically in "Prince Caspian", "The Voyage of the Dawn Treader" (as Reepicheep), and "The Silver Chair" (as Glimfeather) and an episode of "Zorro" filmed in Madrid. In 1993, he played the villainous Irish goblin in "Leprechaun". He then returned to the "Star Wars" universe, playing three roles in "": Weazel, a gambler sitting next to Watto at the Podrace; Wald, who was Anakin's Rodian buddy; and Yoda in some scenes where Yoda was seen walking. Davis played the role of Professor Filius Flitwick in the "Harry Potter" films. Davis played a white-moustached Flitwick in the first two films, and then a black-haired unnamed chorus conductor (presumably Flitwick but not credited as such) for the third instalment of the series. In the fourth film, Flitwick is younger looking, with short, brown hair and a trimmed moustache. In addition to playing Flitwick, Davis played the role of the goblin Griphook in "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows", despite the role being played previously by fellow dwarf actor Verne Troyer. In 2004, Davis played the character "Plates" in the indie film "Skinned Deep", directed by special effects artist Gabriel Bartalos. In 2006, Davis appeared, alongside fellow "Harry Potter" star Daniel Radcliffe, in an episode of BBC's comedy series "Extras" as a satirical version of himself. Davis starred in the film version of "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy", as the "body" of Marvin the Paranoid Android (the voice was provided by Alan Rickman). In December 2006, Davis starred in the pantomime "Snow White and the Seven Dwarves" at the Opera House, Manchester, and again in 2007–08 at the New Wimbledon Theatre. Davis appeared in "", in which he played Nikabrik the Dwarf, adding to his previous involvement in TV adaptations of the "Chronicles of Narnia" series. He also appeared as a contestant on the 2007 series of Children in Need reality show Celebrity Scissorhands. Davis starred as a fictional version of himself in "Life's Too Short", written by Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant, who also starred. In December 2012, Davis returned to New Wimbledon Theatre to reprise his role in "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs". Other. In addition to his acting career, in 1995 Davis co-founded, with fellow dwarf actor and father-in-law Peter Burroughs, the talent agency Willow Management, that specialises in representing actors under five feet tall. Many of Davis's co-stars and fellow dwarf actors from "Star Wars", "Willow", "Labyrinth" and the "Harry Potter" series are represented by the agency. In 2004, the agency also began representing actors over seven feet tall who had also suffered from being confined to "niche" roles. Over 40 members of Willow Management were cast as goblins in "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2". In April 2010, Davis published his autobiography, "Size Matters Not: The Extraordinary Life and Career of Warwick Davis", with a foreword by George Lucas. In January 2013 he appeared in a Comic Relief episode of "The Great British Bake Off", winning that episode's title of "Comic Relief Star Baker". In March 2013 he presented an episode of the ITV series "Perspectives": "Warwick Davis – The Seven Dwarfs of Auschwitz", in which he explored the story of the Ovitz family, a touring musical troupe which included seven dwarfs who survived the Nazi Auschwitz concentration camp and the experiments of Josef Mengele. Personal life. Unlike most dwarfs (70%) who have a condition called achondroplasia, Davis' dwarfism is caused by an extremely rare genetic condition called spondyloepiphyseal dysplasia congenita (SED). He has said the only real drawback to being small was the associated health problems. Of his own dwarfism, Davis has said, "As you get older, you can suffer from painful hips, and our joints wear a lot quicker than for people of average height". Davis is married and has two children, who live in Yaxley near Peterborough, Cambridgeshire. His wife, Samantha (b. 1971) has achondroplasia, and his two children also have SED. Samantha is the daughter of his business partner Peter Burroughs, and the sister of actress Hayley Burroughs. Davis met the Burroughs family while filming "Willow", where they had minor roles as Nelwyn villagers.
592212	Gaalipata () is a 2008 Kannada-language film directed by Yogaraj Bhat of "Mungaru Male" fame. The film features an ensemble cast of Ganesh, Diganth, Rajesh Krishnan, Daisy Bopanna, Neethu and Bhavana Rao. The music for the film was composed by V. Harikrishna. Plot. Three friends, Ganesh (Ganesh), Diganth (Diganth) and Kitty (Rajesh Krishnan) come to Mugilupete. Ganesh falls in love with Sowmya (Daisy Bopanna), a widow, staying with her in-laws Kodandaram (Anant Nag) and Padma (Padmaja Rao) while Diganth and Kitty fall for Kodandaram's daughters Radha (Neethoo) and Pavani (Bhavana Rao) respectively. While Diganth-Radha and Kitty-Pavani get the green signal for marriage, Sowmya is hesitant to accept Ganesh as her life partner. The director shows how Ganesh wins her heart in a unique way. Shooting locations. Most part of the outdoor scenery of "Gaalipata" was shot in "Kodachadri" Kodachadri shivamoga district. Yogaraj Bhat chose "Kodachadri" and represented it as "Mugilupete" where the three friends arrive. Box office. "Gaalipata" had a huge publicity campaign. The film had a strong opening, but it lost steam and ended up completing just 100 days in its main theater. It largely went well with the multiplex crowd and it went for a 175-day run in PVR cinemas Bengaluru. Awards. Ganesh won the Best Actor Award (Kannada) at the 56th Filmfare Awards South, held in Hyderabad. In total, the movie won three awards including Best Music (V. Harikrishna) and Best Lyricist (Jayanth Kaikini for "Minchaagi Neenu Baralu"). Soundtrack. V. Harikrishna's songs for the film, including "Akaasha Ishte Yaakideyo", "Minchaagi Neenu Baralu" and "Na Dheem Dheem Tana" became hits and received significant air-time on television and radio channels.
1166650	Eric Cuthbert Christmas (19 March 1916 – 22 July 2000) was a British stage and screen actor, with over 40 films and several more television roles to his credit. He was well known for his role as Mr. Carter, the principal of Angel Beach High School, in the 1982 hit comedy "Porky's", the 1983 sequel "", and the 1985 sequel "Porky's Revenge!". He was also well known for his sporadic role as Reverend Diddymoe in the NBC sitcom, "Amen". Christmas was born in London, England and later emigrated to Canada. His role as a priest in the 1971 film "Harold and Maude" includes a memorable monologue to an off-camera Harold, in which he discusses, with increasing nausea and disgust, how the thought of Harold's sexual affair with a much older woman "makes want...to vomit." His other film roles include "The Philadelphia Experiment" (1984), "Bugsy" (1991), "Almost Dead" (1994), "" (1994), "Air Bud" (1997) and his final feature film "MouseHunt" (1997). Christmas also made guest appearances in many television shows, including "Adventures in Rainbow Country", "Due South", "ER", "Night Court", "Wiseguy" (as Harry "The Hunch" Shanstra), "Seinfeld" (as Jeffery Haarwood), "Cheers", "Home Improvement" (as Sir Larry the Magician), "Coach", "The Golden Palace", "The X-Files", "Booker", "Matlock", "Walker Texas Ranger", "Roseanne", "Major Dad" and "Ally McBeal". From 1995-96 he played Father Francis on Days of Our Lives, a key role in the infamous possession of Marlena Evans. He also acted in and directed productions of San Diego, California's Old Globe Theatre's Shakespeare Festivals for many years. During the 1970s and '80s, Christmas was a drama professor at the University of California, San Diego.
940296	"Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book" is a 1994 American adventure film directed by Stephen Sommers based on the Mowgli stories in "The Jungle Book" and "The Second Jungle Book" by Rudyard Kipling. The film stars Jason Scott Lee as Mowgli, Cary Elwes as his friend-turned-adversary Captain Boone, and Lena Headey as Mowgli's eventual love interest Kitty. Plot. During the times of the British Raj in India, Mowgli is the 5-year-old son of the widowed Nathoo. Nathoo works as a tour guide. On one of his tours, he is leading Colonel Geoffrey Brydon and his men as well as Brydon's 5-year-old daughter Katherine, with whom Mowgli nicknames "Kitty" and is close friends. That night, Shere Khan attacks the encampment, killing some soldiers who had been hunting for fun in the jungle earlier, which had enraged Khan. When he tries to kill the third hunter, Buldeo, Nathoo defends Buldeo and is mauled to death by Shere Khan. In the confusion, Mowgli is lost in the jungle (so is left unaware of his father's death) - Brydon and his men now believe Mowgli has too been killed. Mowgli is soon spotted by Bagheera the gentle panther, who brings the boy to the wolf pack. Mowgli also befriends a bear cub named Baloo. Years later, Mowgli, now a young man, discovers Monkey City, a legendary ancient city filled with treasure, owned by King Louie who has his treasure guarded by Kaa the python.
581771	Bawandar (English title: "The Sand Storm") is a 2000 Indian film, based on the true story of Bhanwari Devi, a rape victim from Rajasthan, India. The film depicts the personal trauma, public humiliation and legal injustice that Bhanwari Devi went through, while pursuing justice in the Indian courts. Plot. "Bawandar" is based on the true story of Bhanwari Devi's gang-rape case. The names of characters and places have been changed for legal reasons. For example, Bhanwari's character is called Sanwari, her husband Mohan's character is called Sohan, and their village is called Dhabri (Bhateri in real life). The story is introduced through first-part narration by a foreign reporter called Amy (Laila Rouass), who has read about Sanwari's case in a newspaper. Amy and her friend-cum-interpreter Ravi (Rahul Khanna) visit Sanwari's village to investigate the matter, five years after the gang rape incident. On their arrival in Rajasthan, they encounter an old man Sohan (Raghuvir Yadav), who helps them on their way to a village where they encounter Sanwari's rapists. Sohan turns out to be Sanwari's husband, and tells the tale of Sanwari's rape case. Shobha (Deepti Naval) is a social worker who works for the Government of India. Her job involves create awareness against child-marriage and other social evils. In Dhabri, she recruits Sanwari (Nandita Das) as a "saathin", a grassroots worker employed as part of the Women's Development Project run by the Government of Rajasthan. Sanwari is a low-caste potter; her husband Sohan is a rickshaw-puller, and the couple has a young girl called Kamli. As part of her job, Sanwari educates the womenfolk in the village against child marriages, and invites ire of the conservative village elders. Most of these villagers belong to the Gurjar community, which is upper in the caste hierarchy. Five men decide to teach Sanwari a lesson, when she informs the police about a child marriage happening in the Gurjar community. They beat up her husband and gang-rape her. Sanwari and Sohan go to the police station, but the inspector (Ravi Jhankal) refuses to lodge a First Information Report in absence of a medical report. The doctor won't issue a medical report in absence of a court order. With Shobha's help, the couple finally manages to get a court order. With the court order, they get a medical certificate in Jaipur, and a complaint is lodged two days after the incident. However, the rapists are not arrested and roam around freely, boasting about their experience with Sanwari. Sanwari's case gets nation-wide attention and the Prime Minister of India himself entrusts the investigation to the Central Bureau of Investigation. A women's NGO in Delhi also tries to help Sanwari. The accused are arrested and tried in the court, but they are backed by the local MLA Dhanraj Meena (Govind Namdeo). Meena hires a lawyer called Purohit to defend the accused. A Gurjar lawyer (Gulshan Grover) defends Saanwari, but faces pressure from his community to favor the accuse. The judges handling the case are transferred multiple times, and the final judgement goes against her. Bhanwari refuses to give up her fight for justice, in spite of unhelpful villagers and relatives, an incompetent police force, and a corrupt judicial system. Controversies. Before the film's release, Bhanwari Devi stated that the filmmakers didn't discuss the film with her, she never took any money from them and she wasn't shown the film. Sukhmani Singh, a journalist, reported that Bhanwari Devi was "weary, resigned and bitter". According to him, a small-time political worker and businessman describing Bhanwari as a "rakhi sister" had brokered a deal with Mundhra for the film. The director Jag Mundhra stated that he had screened the film for Bhanwari and her family. He also stated that he took Bhanwari to HDFC Bank's Jaipur branch, opened an account in her name, and deposited £3,000 from the film's London charity show in the account. According to him, Bhnawari might be reluctant to admit receiving the money, fearing opposition from women activists. In 2007, Shivam Vij reported that "Bhanwari Devi is most angry with those who made the film Bawandar". Some women's organizations opposed the film due to concerns about Bhanwari Devi being exposed to hostile public scrutiny. The police also felt that the film "falsifies their role inexcusably". There was also concern that the film may end up annoying the Gurjar community, to which the accused belong. The State Government was apprehensive about the film leading to caste-based tensions. The film was submitted to the examining committee of the Central Board of Film Certification on 18 September 2000. The committee head Asha Parekh despatched it to the revising committee, which saw the film on 6 October, and gave it the expected "Adult" certificate. It recommended five cuts, two of which were described by the journalist Pinki Virani as "grotesquely unfair to Bhanwari Devi". The first cut was Bhanwari Devi and her husband being held down by men, as she is raped by an uncle-nephew pair. The censors found inappropriate the forcing apart of the woman's legs. The second cut was the "visuals of suggestive masturbation by a police officer". Music. The music of the film was composed by Vishwa Mohan Bhatt, and released under the label Saregama-HMVGenre. It featured following tracks: Awards. The film was showcased at several international film festivals and won multiple awards:
1062182	Raquel Welch (born Jo Raquel Tejada; September 5, 1940) is an American actress and sex symbol. She first won attention for her role in "Fantastic Voyage" (1966), after which she won a contract with 20th Century Fox. They loaned her to a British studio where she made "One Million Years B.C." (1966). Although she had only three lines in the film, the doe-skin bikini she wore became a best-selling poster that turned her into an iconic sex symbol and catapulted her to stardom. She later starred in notable films like "Bedazzled" (1967), "Bandolero!" (1968), "100 Rifles" (1969) and "Myra Breckinridge" (1970). She made several television variety specials. Welch is, as of 2013, a spokesperson for Foster Grant. Early life. Welch was born Jo Raquel Tejada in Chicago, Illinois. Her father, Armando Carlos Tejada Urquizo (1911–1976), was an aeronautical engineer from La Paz, Bolivia. Her mother, Josephine Sarah (née Hall; 1909–2000), was American-born, the daughter of architect Emery Stanford Hall and wife Clara Louise Adams. As a young girl Raquel wanted to perform. She studied ballet from age seven to seventeen but gave it up after her instructor told her that she didn't have the right figure. Her parents divorced after moving to California. At age 14, she won a beauty title as Miss Photogenic, Miss Contour, While attending La Jolla High School she won the title of Miss Fairest of the Fair at the San Diego County Fair. Welch graduated from high school in 1957 and a year later, after becoming pregnant, married her high school sweetheart, James Welch on May 8, 1959. They had two children, Damon (born November 6, 1959) and Latanne Welch (born December 26, 1961), but they separated in 1961 and divorced in 1964. She married producer Patrick Curtis in 1966 and divorced him in 1972. In 1980, she began a 10-year marriage to André Weinfeld. Welch wed Richard Palmer in 1999 but then separated from him in 2008. Welch has stated that she doesn't intend to marry again. Professional career. Seeking an acting career, Welch won a scholarship in drama, took classes at San Diego State College and won several parts in local theater productions. In 1959, she played the title role in "The Ramona Pageant", a yearly outdoor play at Hemet, California, which is based on the novel "Ramona" by Helen Hunt Jackson and Bob Biloe. She got a job as a weather forecaster at KFMB, a local San Diego television station. Due to her demanding work schedule, she quit school. After her separation from James Welch, she moved with her two children to Dallas, Texas, where she made a "precarious living" as a model for Neiman Marcus and a cocktail waitress. She initially intended to move to New York City from there, but moved back to Los Angeles in 1963 and started applying for roles with the movie studios. During this period of time, she met former child star and Hollywood agent Patrick Curtis who became her personal and business manager. They developed a plan to turn Welch into a sex symbol. To avoid typecasting as a Latino, he convinced her to use her husband's last name. He also persuaded her to get plastic surgery to reduce the profile of her nose. She was cast in small parts in two films and landed small roles in the television series "Bewitched", "McHale's Navy" and "The Virginian". She also got work on the weekly variety series "The Hollywood Palace" as a billboard girl and presenter. She was one of many women who auditioned for the role of Mary Ann Summers on the television series "Gilligan's Island". Welch's first featured role was in beach film "A Swingin' Summer" (1965). That same year, she won the Deb Star and was noticed by the wife of producer Saul David, who recommended her to 20th Century Fox, where with the help of Curtis she landed a contract. She agreed to seven-year nonexclusive contract, five pictures over the next five years and two floater. She was cast in a leading role in the sci-fi film "Fantastic Voyage" (1966), in which she portrayed a member of a medical team that is miniaturized and injected into the body of an injured diplomat with the mission to save his life. The film was a hit and made her a star. She was the last star to be created under the studio system. "One Million Years B.C.". Fox Studio loaned Welch to Hammer Studios in Britain where she starred in a remake of "One Million Years B.C." (1966). Her only costume was a two-piece deer skin bikini. She was described as "wearing mankind's first bikini" and the fur bikini was described as a "definitive look of the 1960s". One author said, "although she had only three lines in the film, her luscious figure in a fur bikini made her a star and the dream girl of millions of young moviegoers". A publicity still of her in the bikini became a best-selling poster and turned her into an instant pin-up girl. The film raised Welch's stature as a leading sex symbol of the era. In 2011, "Time" listed Welch's "B.C." bikini in the "Top Ten Bikinis in Pop Culture". Later roles. After her appearance as lust incarnate in the hit "Bedazzled", she returned to the United States and appeared in the Western film "Bandolero!", with James Stewart and Dean Martin, which was followed by the private-eye drama "Lady in Cement" with Frank Sinatra. Her looks and fame led "Playboy" to dub her the "Most Desired Woman" of the 1970s. Welch presented at the Academy Award ceremony several times during the 1970s due to her popularity. She accepted the Best Supporting Actress Oscar on behalf of fellow actress Goldie Hawn when she could not be there to accept it. Welch's most controversial role came in the notorious "Myra Breckinridge". She took the part as the film's transsexual heroine in an attempt to be taken seriously as an actress, but the movie was a failure. Welch starred in the movie, "100 Rifles", a 1969 western directed by Tom Gries. The film also starred Jim Brown, Burt Reynolds, and Fernando Lamas. Television special. In 1970, Welch teamed up with Tom Jones and producer/choreographer David Winters of Winters-Rosen Productions for the television special "Raquel!", considered by some viewers to be a classic pairing together of 1970s popular culture icons in their prime. The multi million-dollar television song-and-dance extravaganza was filmed around the world, from Paris to Mexico. The show featured lavish production numbers of classic songs from the era, extravagant costumes, and notable guest performances, including John Wayne and Bob Hope in the Wild West. She also appeared in a season three episode of "The Muppet Show" (1978). In addition to her television special, "Raquel!", her television appearances include the movies "The Legend of Walks Far Woman" and "Right to Die" in which she turned in a stirring performance as a woman stricken with Lou Gehrig's disease, and in the PBS series "", about a Mexican American family in East Los Angeles. She has appeared in the night-time soap opera "Central Park West" and made infomercials and exercise videos. Additional film roles. She followed that with a series of films that included "The Three Musketeers" and "The Wild Party". The actress was due to star in an 1982 adaptation of John Steinbeck's "Cannery Row", but was fired by the producers a few days into production. The producers said that at 40 years old she was too old to play the character. She was replaced with Debra Winger. Welch sued and collected a $10.8 million settlement. Singing career. In 1987, she flirted with a pop singing career, thus releasing the dance single "This Girl's Back In Town". She has performed in a one-woman nightclub musical act in Las Vegas and has starred on Broadway in "Woman of the Year", receiving praise for following Lauren Bacall in the title role. She also starred in "Victor/Victoria", having less success following Julie Andrews and Liza Minnelli in the title roles. Guest television appearances. In a 1997 episode of the comedy series "Seinfeld", entitled "The Summer of George", Welch played a highly temperamental version of herself, assaulting series characters Kramer and Elaine, the former because he fired her from an acting job and the latter because Welch mistakenly thought that Elaine was mocking her. She also appeared as a guest on the American comedy series "Sabrina, the Teenage Witch", as Sabrina's flamboyant Aunt Vesta. In 2001, she had a supporting role in the hit comedy film "Legally Blonde" opposite Reese Witherspoon. She also appeared in "Welcome to the Captain", which premiered on CBS television on February 4, 2008. Achievements and awards. In 1974, Welch won a Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture Actress in a Musical or Comedy for "The Three Musketeers". She was also nominated for a Golden Globe Award for her performance in the television drama "Right to Die" (1987). Beauty and business career. "The Raquel Welch Total Beauty and Fitness Program" book and videos were first released in 1984. The book, written by Welch with photographs by André Weinfeld, includes a hatha yoga fitness program, her views on healthy living and nutrition, as well as beauty and personal style. The Multi-Platinum collection of Fitness and Yoga videos were produced and directed by André Weinfeld. As a businesswoman, Welch succeeded with her signature line of wigs. She also began a jewelry and skincare line, although neither of those ventures compared to the success of her wig collection "HAIRuWEAR". In January 2007, Welch was selected as the newest face of MAC Cosmetics Beauty Icon series. Her line features several limited-edition makeup shades in glossy black and tiger-print packaging. Personal life. Welch has been married to: Welch is the mother of Damon Welch (born November 6, 1959) and actress Tahnee Welch (born Latanne Rene Welch, December 26, 1961). Tahnee followed her mother's December 1979 example and appeared on the cover of "Playboy" in the November 1995 issue and in a nude pictorial inside it.
1016211	Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame is a 2010 epic mystery film that is a fictional account of Di Renjie, one of the most celebrated officials of the Tang Dynasty. A co-production between China and Hong Kong, the film was directed by Tsui Hark from a screenplay written by Chen Kuofu. The film stars Andy Lau and features art direction and fight choreography by Sammo Hung. The film's supporting cast includes Carina Lau, Li Bingbing, Deng Chao and Tony Leung Ka-fai. Principal photography for "Detective Dee" began in May 2009; the film was shot at Hengdian World Studios in Zhejiang, China. "Detective Dee" was released in China on 29 September 2010 and in Hong Kong on 30 September 2010. The film was nominated for the Golden Lion at the 2010 Venice Film Festival. The film also made its North America debut by premiering at the 2010 Toronto International Film Festival. The character of Judge Dee was made famous in western countries by Robert van Gulik, who wrote 17 new Judge Dee mysteries between 1946 and 1967. The series is now being continued by French author Frédéric Lenormand. An entitled prequel directed by Hark is planned for 2013, with Mark Chao as young Detective Dee. Plot. In year 689 of the Tang Dynasty, Wu Zetian (Carina Lau) is about to be crowned the first Empress in China despite opposition from Tang officials. To mark this occasion, she is having a colossal Buddha figure built overlooking her palace. However an official inspecting the Buddha's progress mysteriously erupts into flames. Pei Donglai (Deng Chao), an officer in the penal system, and his superior investigate and interrogates the supervising builder, a man named Shatuo, who was imprisoned and lost his hand after he took part in a rebellion 8 years ago. Pei's superior catches fire soon after in the palace courtyard in front of the Empress as she is overseeing her palace guards.
1270234	Steamboat Bill Jr. is a 1928 feature-length comedy silent film featuring Buster Keaton. Released by United Artists, the film is the last product of Keaton's independent production team and set of gag writers. It was not a box-office success and proved to be the last picture Keaton would make for United Artists. Keaton would end up moving to MGM where he would make one last film with his trademark style, "The Cameraman", before all of his creative control was taken away by the studio. The director was Charles Reisner, the credited writer was Carl Harbaugh (although Keaton wrote the film and publicly called Harbaugh useless but "on the payroll"), and also featured Ernest Torrence, Marion Byron, and Tom Lewis. The film was named after a popular Arthur Collins song, "Steamboat Bill". Plot. William "Steamboat Bill" Canfield is the owner and captain of a paddle steamer that has seen better days. He eagerly awaits the arrival of his college student son, whom he has not seen since the lad was a baby, expecting a big, husky man like himself to help him compete with businessman John James King and his brand new, luxurious riverboat. He is sorely disappointed with his slight, awkward offspring, who shows up with a pencil moustache, a ukulele and a beret. He becomes outraged when he discovers that his son and King's daughter Kitty, also visiting her father, know each other and are in love. Both business rivals are determined to break up the relationship. When Canfield's ship is condemned as unsafe, he accuses King of orchestrating it. He assaults his enemy and is put in jail. His son tries to free him by bringing him a loaf of bread with tools hidden inside, but his scheme is detected. The sheriff hits Canfield Jr. on the head, sending him to the hospital. Then a cyclone hits, tearing down buildings and endangering the ships. As Canfield Jr. makes his way through the town, a building front falls all around him - Keaton's best known stunt. He reaches his father's ship and rescues first Kitty (stranded on a floating house), then his father (by ramming the ship into the sinking jail, which has also been blown into the river), and finally Kitty's father. When Kitty goes to her hero, she is puzzled when he jumps into the water. However, his purpose becomes clear when he returns, towing a minister in a lifebuoy. Production. The cyclone sequence was shot in Sacramento, California. Original plans called for an ending with a flood sequence, but the devastating 1927 Mississippi River Flood caused a rewrite on short notice. $135,000 worth of breakaway street sets were built on a riverbank, to be systematic destroyed with six powerful Liberty-motor wind machines and a crane. Keaton himself, who calculated and performed his own stunts, was suspended on a cable from the crane which hurled him from place to place as if airborne. The sequence is punctuated by Keaton's single most famous stunt. He stands in the street, making his way through the destruction, when an entire building facade collapses onto him. The open attic window fits neatly around Keaton's body as it falls, coming within inches of flattening him. (Keaton had performed a similar, though smaller scale, stunt eight years earlier in the short film "One Week"). Keaton did the stunt himself with a real building section and no trickery. It has been claimed that if he had stood just inches off the correct spot, Keaton would have been seriously injured or killed. Keaton's third wife Eleanor suggested that he took such risks due to despair over financial problems, his failing first marriage, and the imminent loss of his filmmaking independence. Evidence that Keaton was suicidal, however, is scant and he was known throughout his career for doing dangerous stunts, including a fall from a railroad water tower tube in 1924's "Sherlock, Jr." in which his neck was actually fractured when he hit the rail below. The stunt has been re-created several times on film and television, though usually with facades made from lighter materials. One example is the 1991 "MacGyver" episode "Deadly Silents". Legendary Hong Kong film star Jackie Chan has often cited Keaton's acrobatics—and this stunt in particular—as one of his primary influences. It is claimed that an early version of the film showed the perpetually stone-faced Keaton with a wide grin during the final scene and that the gag tested very poorly and was cut. No footage of the scene is known to have survived and the story may be apocryphal as the final scene could only have been shot once due to the elaborate set-up required for the falling building. It is one of the few Keaton films to reference his fame. At the time of filming, he had stopped wearing his trademark pork pie hat with a short flat crown. During an early scene in which his character tries on various hats (something that was copied several times in other films), he tries on several pork pie hats similar to the one he generally wore, but with higher crowns or wider brims or of slightly different colors. The character briefly has the trademark cap set on his head, but quickly rejects it, tossing it away. Reception. "Steamboat Bill, Jr." received mixed reviews upon its release. "Variety" described the film as "a pip of a comedy" and "one of Keaton's best." The reviewer from "The Film Spectator" appointed it "as perhaps the best comedy of the year thus far" and advised "exhibitors should go after it." A less enthusiastic review from "Harrison's Reports" stated "there are many situations all the way through that cause laughs" while noting that "the plot is nonsensical." Morduant Hall of the "New York Times" called the film a "gloomy comedy" and a "sorry affair." Over the years, "Steamboat Bill, Jr." has become regarded as a masterpiece of its era. Currently, review aggregate Rotten Tomatoes reports that 100% of critics have given the film a positive review based on 16 reviews, with an average score of 9.1/10, with an audience rating above 90%. The film was included in the book "1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die". Many modern audiences may be most familiar with the film for its inspiring the title of Walt Disney's "Steamboat Willie", the debut of Mickey Mouse.
719535	House of Fears is a 2007 horror film, directed by Ryan Little. It stars Corri English, Sandra McCoy, Michael J. Pagan, Corey Sevier and Alice Greczyn. The film was released Direct-to-DVD on April 27, 2009 in the UK. The DVD release in the USA was distributed by Your Indie Films. The movie features a cameo from American actor Jared Padalecki. Plot. The film opens with a man and a woman arriving at a digging site somewhere in Africa. The man enters a nearby cave, and finds all the workers brutally murdered, while the woman discovers a monkey statue. As the pair flee the scene, the woman takes the statue with her. In Salem, Oregon, America a security guard, Hamadi (Kelvin Clayton) arrives at 'The House of Fears' with his guard dog. Entering the haunted house, Hamadi finds a box containing the monkey statue. He senses something is wrong, but is attacked by his dog before he can leave. Meanwhile, Samantha (Corri English) has recently moved in with her step-sister, Hailey (Sandra McCoy), after her mother re-married. While Hailey is sneaking out to a party, she is caught and made to take Samantha, much to the displeasure of Hailey, as they do not get along. While at the party, Hailey and her group of friends, Carter (Corey Sevier), Zane (Eliot Benjamin), Devon (Michael J. Pagan) and Candice (Alice Greczyn) decide to sneak into the 'The House of Fears' to get a sneak peek, before the opening the following night, Samantha is also brought along. As the group arrive at the haunted house, Zane allows them in and switches on the power, bringing the house to life. He attempts to contact his co-worker Hamadi on the radio but can not reach him. Devon and Candice find the monkey statue, but are told to leave it in the box by Zane. As Zane leads the group through the house, an angry Hailey picks on Samantha, while Zane attempts to get Candice to break up with Devon. As they all begin to have fun, Hailey apologises to Samantha for bullying her, telling her she is still angry at her dad for remarrying. Zane realizes that he will not be able to break up Devon and Candice, so switches plans and asks Carter to swap dates with him. Carter agrees, disappointing Hailey as she likes Carter. Zane reveals to the others his fear is sharp knives, Candice being scared of suffocating and Hailey being claustrophobic. Zane sneaks off from the others and dress up in a miners suit. He jumps out at the group to scare them, before sending them off into the ancient Mummy section of the house. Zane stays behind to re-dress the mannequin he took the costume off. After doing so, the mannequin comes alive and stabs him to death. While in the mummy's tomb, Hailey tells Carter her feelings about his swapping dates, causing the pair to fall out. Suddenly, a faulty prop cuts Candice's arm and the group hear the dying screams of Zane, prompting the group to want to leave. They go back to tell Zane, but find a pool of blood, and Candice realizes someone else is in the house. The group believe it to be another joke by Zane, and make Candice stay. However, Samantha soon finds Zane's body, and the group discover their phones do not work in the house. They panic and try to leave, all the while being stalked by a mysterious shadow. They go to the back-stage of the house to escape, but Candice is seperacted from the others. She becomes lost and winds up in the mummy's tomb, where she becomes trapped when the doors close. The rest of the group realize her absence and return to find her, guided by her screams. In the mummy's tomb, sand begins to pour out of the roof, filling up the room. The group make it to the door, but find it sealed shut. Suddenly, mummified hands emerge from the sand and pull Candice under, suffocating her. The sand clears away and the group manage to open the door to find a dead Candice. Devon mourns his girlfriend, before they decide to move on. They make it to the front door, but the key will not work in the lock, and they discover the phone in the office missing. They find a map that shows them another exit, however it is on the other side of the house. They gather weapons, including a gun and a circular saw, before making their way through the house. They make their way to an Insane Asylum, where they find a terrified Hamadi begging for help. They try to help him, however he tells them the statue will bring their fears to life. At first they do not believe him, however Samantha reminds the others of the statue they found earlier, and that both Zane and Candice were murdered by their fear. Suddenly, the group are attacked by a scarecrow. They all flee, apart from Hamadi who is attacked by his evil dog. As they regroup after escaping, Samantha tells the others her fear is a scarecrow. Before long, a creepy grave-digger attacks the group. They escape the man, and run into another room where Samantha hears the office phone ringing. She finds the phone, but the scarecrow once again appears. Samantha, Hailey and Devon flee while Carter fights the scarecrow, but is ultimately electrocuted to death. The remaining survivors enter a clown section, where Devon becomes separated from the others. A clown stalks him, hysterically laughing. Devon attempts to shoot the clown dead, but the girls find him and they run into a house of mirrors. As they make their way through, Hailey is attacked by the grave-keeper and dragged away from the others. She attempts to escape, but she is knocked out by the man. She awakens some time later in a coffin, the man barricading her in. While Samantha and Devon attempt to find her, they are attacked by the clown, who drags Devon off into the darkness before killing him. As Samantha finds the exit, she hears Hailey screaming for her help. Samantha decides to go back to rescue her, and manages to defeat the grave-keeper and save Hailey. As the girls make their way to the exit, the scarecrow shows up and chases them. It catches up with them, and they manage to cut one of its arms off with the circular saw, however this breaks in the process. They run away, only for Samantha to be once more attacked. As the scarecrow is about to strangle her to death, she manages to break the statue, killing the scarecrow and allowing her and Hailey to escape The House of Fears. As they exit the House of Fears, the statue can be seen shaking, presumably to reassemble itself.
1132297	Cara Mia Dianne Wayans (born April 18, 1987) is an American actress. She is the daughter of actor and comedian Damon Wayans and part of the Wayans family. ("cara mia" means "dear of mine" in Italian) Career. She first appeared in the 1994 film "Blankman" as a little girl. She later appeared in Will Smith's 1998 music video "Just the Two of Us" along with her father Damon. She has acted on her father's hit comedy show "My Wife and Kids" and 2009 film "Dance Flick" as Club Girl. Personal life. Wayans graduated from University of California, Berkeley in 2009.
1375735	Donald Harvey Francks or "Iron Buffalo" (born February 28, 1932) is a Canadian actor, vocalist and jazz musician. Personal life and work. Francks was born and raised in Burnaby Vancouver British Columbia. He once attributed his voice talent and career to free elocution lessons by Muriel Davis from age eight.
393909	Portrait of a Beauty (미인도, "Miindo") is a 2008 South Korean film directed by Jeon Yoon-soo. Adapted from the novel "Painter of the Wind" by Lee Jeong-myeong, the film portrays Joseon-era painter Shin Yun-bok (better known by his pen name, Hyewon) as being a woman disguised as a man. The Korean entertainment industry has been criticised by scholars for distorting historical facts about the painter, who was unquestionably a man. "Portrait of a Beauty" opened in South Korean theatres on 13 November 2008. The film was the 8th most attended film of 2008 with 2,364,482 tickets sold. Plot. Retired court painter Shin Han-pyeong seeks to settle an old score with the most sought after painter of that time, Kim Hong-do (Kim Yeong-ho). Shin raises his son to surpass Kim Hong-do, but his son commits suicide over his lack of talent. The father then pushes his daughter Yun-jeong to disguise herself as her brother and enter the world of court painters. Now the grown-up Yun-jeong (Kim Min-sun), better known as "Hyewon" - the pen name of Shin Yun-bok, finally enters the court and learns to paint under the guidance of Kim Hong-do, who is trusted by King Jeongjo. Kim Hong-do quickly notices Yun-bok's huge potential as well as his girlish features. Things remain normal until Yun-bok goes out and comes across a playful seller of mirrors, Kang-mu (Kim Nam-gil). When their romantic adventure takes off, it is Kim Hong-do who ends up heartbroken. Kim's jealousy, and his desire to own Yun-bok physically and emotionally, soars to a perilous level. Shin Yun-bok, better known by the pen name Hyewon, was a real figure who produced a host of thematically provocative and artistically excellent paintings in the 18th century. However, not one record of the painter still exists. A story about a genius painter who loved his patron’s lover and then lost everything, only to leave a miindo of the lady. Awards and nominations. 2009 Blue Dragon Film Awards 2009 Grand Bell Awards
655965	Kelly Ann Hu (; born February 13, 1968) is an American actress and former fashion model. She was Miss Teen USA 1985 and Miss Hawaii USA 1993. Hu is best known for her role as Dr. Rae Chang on the American television soap opera "Sunset Beach" (1997). She has since starred in numerous TV shows and films including "Nash Bridges" (1997–1998), "The Scorpion King" (2002), "Cradle 2 the Grave" (2003), "X-Men 2" as Yuriko Oyama/Lady Deathstrike (2003), "Underclassman" (2005), "The Tournament" (2009), "The Vampire Diaries" (2010–2011) and "White Frog" (2012). She currently stars as China White on the "CW" series "Arrow" (2012-present) and Abigail Cho on the "SyFy Network" series "Warehouse 13" (2013–present). Early life. Hu was born in Honolulu, Hawaii, the daughter of Juanita, an engineering drafter for Honolulu, and Herbert Hu, a salesman and exotic bird breeder. Her parents divorced during Hu's childhood. Her brother, Glenn, is a Resource Manager in the United States Army. She is of Native Hawaiian, English American and Chinese American descent. She attended Maemae Elementary School and Kamehameha Schools in Honolulu, Hawaii. She graduated from Pepperdine University in Malibu, California.
1055907	Nights of Cabiria () is a 1957 Italian drama film directed by Federico Fellini and starring Giulietta Masina, François Périer, and Amedeo Nazzari. Based on a story by Fellini, the film is about a waifish prostitute who wanders the streets of Rome looking for true love but finds only heartbreak. In 1998, the film was re-released, newly restored and with a crucial scene that censors had cut. Plot. The film opens with a happy and laughing Cabiria standing on a river bank with her current boyfriend and live-in lover. He pushes her into the river and steals her purse which is full of money. She cannot swim and nearly drowns, but is rescued and revived at the last possible moment by helpful ordinary people who live a little further down the river. The rest of the plot follows Cabiria as she plies her trade, interacts with her best friend and neighbor Wanda, and searches for a chance to better her life. She is frequently mistreated and taken advantage of, but she has some interesting adventures, and manages to keep her basic attitude to life positive. Eventually, she meets Oscar, an accountant, who seems genuinely kind and who promises her a happy future. At first she is cautious and suspicious, but after several meetings she falls passionately in love with him and they are to be married—after only a few weeks. However, during a walk in a wooded area, on a cliff overlooking a lake Oscar becomes distant and starts acting nervous. Cabiria realizes that—just like her earlier lover—Oscar intends to push her over the cliff and steal her money (she sold her house and possessions and keeps all the money in her purse). She throws her purse at his feet, sobbing in convulsions on the ground as he abandons her. She later picks herself up and stumbles out of the wood in tears. In the film's famous last sequence, Cabiria walks the long road back to town when she is met by a group of young people riding scooters, playing music, and dancing. They happily form an impromptu parade around her until she begins to smile through her tears. Production. The name Cabiria is borrowed from the 1914 Italian film "Cabiria", while the character of Cabiria herself is taken from a brief scene in Fellini's earlier film "The White Sheik". It was Masina's performance in that earlier film that inspired Fellini to make this film. But no one in Italy was willing to finance a film which featured prostitutes as heroines. Finally, Dino de Laurentiis agreed to put up the money. Fellini based some of the characters on a real prostitute whom he had met while filming "Il Bidone". For authenticity, he had Pier Paolo Pasolini, known for his familiarity with Rome's criminal underworld, help with the dialogue. "Nights of Cabiria" was filmed in many areas around Italy, including Acilia, Castel Gandolfo, Cinecittà, Santuario della Madonna del Divino Amore, and the Tiber River. Reception. At the time of the film's first American release, "New York Times" critic Bosley Crowther gave the film a mixed review: "Like "La Strada" and several other of the post-war Italian neo-realistic films, this one is aimed more surely toward the development of a theme than a plot. Its interest is not so much the conflicts that occur in the life of the heroine as the deep, underlying implications of human pathos that the pattern of her life shows...But there are two weaknesses in "Cabiria." It has a sordid atmosphere and there is something elusive and insufficient about the character of the heroine. Her get-up is weird and illogical for the milieu in which she lives and her farcical mannerisms clash with the ugly realism of the theme." Forty years later, the "Times" carried a new review by Crowther's successor, Janet Maslin. She called the film "a cinematic masterpiece", and added that the final shot of Cabiria is worth more than "all the fire-breathing blockbusters Hollywood has to offer." Film critic Roger Ebert reviewed mainly the plot and Fellini's background: "Fellini's roots as a filmmaker are in the postwar Italian Neorealist movement (he worked for Rossellini on "Rome, Open City" in 1945), and his early films have a grittiness that is gradually replaced by the dazzling phantasms of the later ones. "Nights of Cabiria" is transitional; it points toward the visual freedom of "La Dolce Vita" while still remaining attentive to the real world of postwar Rome. The scene involving the good samaritan provides a framework to show people living in city caves and under bridges, but even more touching is the scene where Cabiria turns over the keys of her house to the large and desperately poor family that has purchased it." French director François Truffaut thought "Cabiria" was Fellini's best film to date upon its original 1957 release. The review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reported that 97% of critics gave the film a positive review, based on 36 reviews. Legacy. The American musical and its respective film adaptation "Sweet Charity" is based on Fellini's screenplay.
582661	King Uncle is a Hindi movie which was directed by Rakesh Roshan and released in India in 1993. The film stars Jackie Shroff, Shahrukh Khan, Anu Agarwal, Paresh Rawal, Pooja Ruparel, Deven Verma and Nagma in pivotal roles. It was a surprise-hit of 1993 and had a theatrical run for around 100 days.
674409	Im Juli. () is a 2000 German-Turkish road movie. Plot. At the beginning of his summer holiday, a somewhat naive trainee teacher Daniel (Moritz Bleibtreu) buys a ring from a stall run by a neighbor, the aspiring artist and street vendor Juli (in German, "Juli" would be a common nickname for someone named "Julia"; Christiane Paul). The ring bears a Mayan sun symbol, which, according to Juli, has the power to lead him to the woman of his dreams, whom he will recognise by a similar sun symbol. As Juli has the ring's counterpart, and as she is in love with him, she invites Daniel to a party that evening, hoping that they will meet. Curious, Daniel goes to the party and meets Melek (İdil Üner), a young Turkish woman who is wearing a T-shirt imprinted with a sun symbol. Convinced that she is the woman of his dreams, Daniel talks to her. Melek is only passing through and looking for a place to spend the night. After spending the evening together seeing the sights of Hamburg, Daniel invites her to spend the night in his apartment. Daniel and Melek leave the party just as Juli arrives. She sees them leave together. In her disappointment, she decides to leave town. Next day she goes to the Autobahn to hitch a ride, with no predetermined destination. As fate would have it, Daniel is the first car to stop, on his way back from the airport, where he has just dropped Melek off. He has decided to drive to Istanbul in search of Melek, who, as she told him, will be under the bridge over the Bosporus at a certain time a few days later, although he does not know why. Daniel takes Juli with him in his stoner roommate's rusty old car. And this is the beginning a long and exciting trip across a scorching hot Southeastern Europe. Symbolism. The film opens with an eclipse, an event in which the sun and the moon cross paths. Daniel crosses paths with Luna, whose name means "moon," and suffers the consequences. July is a sunny month.
744132	Ajay Kalahastri Naidu (born February 12, 1972) is an American actor. Early life and education. Naidu, an Indian American, was born on February 12, 1972 in Evanston, Illinois. His parents came from India to the United States in 1964. He attended Evanston Township High School. He trained with the American Repertory Theater's Institute for Advanced Theater Training at Harvard University. Career. Naidu's first professional acting job was the film "Touch and Go" (released in 1986) which he won from an open call. He starred in the TV movie, "Lady Blue" (1985) as Paquito. This was followed by an "ABC Afterschool Special" episode, "No Greater Gift" (1985), where he played Nick Santana, a 12-year-old boy with a terminal illness. Naidu then appeared in the "MacGyver" TV series' first season episode, "To Be a Man" in 1986. Other film credits when younger include "Where the River Runs Black" (1986) and "Vice Versa" (1988). Between 1988 and 1995 he worked extensively in classical theatre. Naidu returned to film acting in "SubUrbia" (1996), where he was praised for his role as the convenience store owner, Nazeer Choudhury, and for which he was nominated for an independent spirit award for best supporting actor. On screen, Naidu starred in the cult film "Office Space", as well as appearing in films such as "K-Pax", "Subway Stories", "π", "Requiem for a Dream", "Bad Santa", "The War Within", "The Guru", "Waterborne", "Loins of Punjab Presents" and many more. He co-starred as a series regular in the sitcom "LateLine" and had guest starring roles on the television dramas "The Sopranos", "The West Wing" and "Bored to Death". Naidu has been working extensively with musicians from the Asian underground music movement for many years as a dancer and an M.C. His vocals have appeared on many records, most notably Talvin Singh's mercury award winner "OK". In 2006, Naidu directed his first feature film "Ashes" which had its release in 2010 and for which he won Best Actor accolades from the MIACC Film Festival in New York and the London Asian Film Festival. Naidu's most recent theatre credits include "The Master" and "Margarita" with Complicite, a world tour of Shakespeare's "Measure for Measure" with Complicite, "The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui" alongside Al Pacino, directed by Simon McBurney and "The Little Flower of East Orange" alongside Ellyn Burstyn at New York's Public Theater directed by Phillip Seymour Hoffman. In 2001 Naidu's solo theatre piece "Darwaza" was a sold-out hit at New York's Labyrinth Theatre. Personal life. Naidu is engaged to actress Heather Burns.
1104208	Donald Ervin Knuth ( ; born January 10, 1938) is an American computer scientist, mathematician, and Professor Emeritus at Stanford University. He is the author of the multi-volume work "The Art of Computer Programming". Knuth has been called the "father" of the analysis of algorithms. He contributed to the development of the rigorous analysis of the computational complexity of algorithms and systematized formal mathematical techniques for it. In the process he also popularized the asymptotic notation. In addition to fundamental contributions in several branches of theoretical computer science, Knuth is the creator of the TeX computer typesetting system, the related METAFONT font definition language and rendering system, and the Computer Modern family of typefaces. As a writer and scholar, Knuth created the WEB and CWEB computer programming systems designed to encourage and facilitate literate programming, and designed the MIX/MMIX instruction set architectures. As a member of the academic and scientific community, Knuth is strongly opposed to the policy of granting software patents. He has expressed his disagreement directly to the patent offices of the United States and Europe. Early life. Knuth was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where his father owned a small printing business and taught bookkeeping at Milwaukee Lutheran High School, where he enrolled, earning achievement awards. He applied his intelligence in unconventional ways, winning a contest when he was in eighth grade by finding over 4,500 words that could be formed from the letters in "Ziegler's Giant Bar"; the judges had only about 2,500 words on their master list. This won him a television set for his school and a candy bar for everyone in his class. Education. Knuth had a difficult time choosing physics over music as his major at Case Institute of Technology (now part of Case Western Reserve University). He also joined Beta Nu Chapter of the Theta Chi fraternity. While studying physics at the Case Institute of Technology, Knuth was introduced to the IBM 650, one of the early mainframes. After reading the computer's manual, Knuth decided to rewrite the assembly and compiler code for the machine used in his school, because he believed he could do it better. In 1958, Knuth constructed a program based on the value of each player that could help his school basketball team win the league. This was so novel a proposition at the time that it got picked up and published by "Newsweek" and also covered by Walter Cronkite on the "CBS Evening News". Knuth was one of the founding editors of the "Engineering and Science Review", which won a national award as best technical magazine in 1959. He then switched from physics to mathematics, and in 1960 he received his bachelor of science degree, simultaneously being given a master of science degree by a special award of the faculty who considered his work exceptionally outstanding. In 1963, he earned a PhD in mathematics (advisor: Marshall Hall) from the California Institute of Technology, and began to work there as associate professor and began work on "The Art of Computer Programming". He had initially accepted a commission to write a book on compilers which would later become the multi-volume "The Art of Computer Programming". This work was originally planned to be a single book, and then planned as a six- and then seven-volume series. In 1968, just before he published the first volume, Knuth accepted a job working on problems for the National Security Agency (NSA) through their FFRDC the Institute for Defense Analyses (IDA) Communications Research Division situated at the time on the Princeton campus in the Von Neumann building as stated in his curriculum vitae. It seems likely Knuth left the position and joined the faculty of Stanford University because of his political beliefs and the volatile political climate on the campus at the time. Writings. "The Art of Computer Programming" ("TAOCP"). Computer science was then taking its first hesitant steps. "It was a totally new field," Knuth recalls, "with no real identity. And the standard of available publications was not that high. A lot of the papers coming out were quite simply wrong. [...] So one of my motivations was to put straight a story that had been very badly told." After producing the third volume of his series in 1976, he expressed such frustration with the nascent state of the then newly-developed electronic publishing tools (especially those that provided input to phototypesetters) that he took time out to work on typesetting and created the TeX and METAFONT tools. , the first three volumes and part one of volume four of his series have been published. Other works. He is also the author of "Surreal Numbers", a mathematical novelette on John Conway's set theory construction of an alternate system of numbers. Instead of simply explaining the subject, the book seeks to show the development of the mathematics. Knuth wanted the book to prepare students for doing original, creative research. In 1995, Knuth wrote the foreword to the book "A=B" by Marko Petkovsek, Herbert Wilf and Doron Zeilberger. Knuth is also an occasional contributor of language puzzles to "". Religious beliefs and work. In addition to his writings on computer science, Knuth, a Christian, specifically a Lutheran, is also the author of "3:16 Bible Texts Illuminated", in which he examines the Bible by a process of systematic sampling, namely an analysis of chapter 3, verse 16 of each book. Each verse is accompanied by a rendering in calligraphic art, contributed by a group of calligraphers under the leadership of Hermann Zapf. Subsequently he was invited to give a set of lectures on his project, resulting in another book, . Health concerns. In 2006, Knuth was diagnosed with prostate cancer. He underwent surgery in December that year and started "a little bit of radiation therapy... as a precaution but the prognosis looks pretty good", as he reported in his video autobiography. Computer musings. Knuth gives informal lectures a few times a year at Stanford University, which he called Computer Musings. He was also a visiting professor at the Oxford University Computing Laboratory in the United Kingdom and an Honorary Fellow of Magdalen College. Humor. Knuth is known for his "professional humor". Awards. In 1971, Knuth was the recipient of the first ACM Grace Murray Hopper Award. He has received various other awards including the Turing Award, the National Medal of Science, the John von Neumann Medal, and the Kyoto Prize. In recognition of Knuth's contributions to the field of computer science, in 1990 he was awarded the one-of-a-kind academic title of "Professor of The Art of Computer Programming", which has since been revised to "Professor Emeritus of The Art of Computer Programming". In 1992, he became an associate of the French Academy of Sciences. Also that year, he retired from regular research and teaching at Stanford University in order to finish "The Art of Computer Programming". In 2003 he was elected as a foreign member of the Royal Society. Knuth was elected as a Fellow (first class of Fellows) of the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics in 2009 for his outstanding contributions to mathematics. He is a member of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters. In 2012 he became a fellow of the American Mathematical Society. Honors bestowed on Knuth include: Works. A short list of his works:
803965	Fra Luca Bartolomeo de Pacioli (sometimes "Paccioli" or "Paciolo"; 1445–1517) was an Italian mathematician, Franciscan friar, collaborator with Leonardo da Vinci, and seminal contributor to the field now known as accounting. He was also called Luca di Borgo after his birthplace, Borgo Sansepolcro, Tuscany. Life. Luca Pacioli was born in 1445 in Sansepolcro (Tuscany) where he received an abbaco education. This was education in the vernacular (i.e. the local tongue) rather than Latin and focused on the knowledge required of merchants. He moved to Venice around 1464, where he continued his own education while working as a tutor to the three sons of a merchant. It was during this period that he wrote his first book, a treatise on arithmetic for the boys he was tutoring. Between 1472 and 1475, he became a Franciscan friar. In 1475, he started teaching in Perugia, first as a private teacher, from 1477 holding the first chair in mathematics. He wrote a comprehensive textbook in the vernacular for his students. He continued to work as a private tutor of mathematics and was, in fact, instructed to stop teaching at this level in Sansepolcro in 1491. In 1494, his first book to be printed, "Summa de arithmetica, geometria, proportioni et proportionalità", was published in Venice. In 1497, he accepted an invitation from duke Ludovico Sforza to work in Milan. There he met, collaborated with, lived with, and taught mathematics to Leonardo da Vinci. In 1499, Pacioli and Leonardo were forced to flee Milan when Louis XII of France seized the city and drove out their patron. Their paths appear to have finally separated around 1506. Pacioli died at about the age of 70 in 1517, most likely in Sansepolcro where it is thought that he had spent much of his final years. Mathematics. Pacioli published several works on mathematics, including: Translation of Piero della Francesca's work. The majority of the second volume of "Summa de arithmetica, geometria, proportioni et proportionalità" was a slightly rewritten version of one of Piero della Francesca's works. The third volume of Pacioli's "De divina proportione" was an Italian translation of Piero della Francesca's Latin writings "On Five Regular Solids". In neither case, did Pacioli include an attribution to Piero. He was severely criticized for this and accused of plagiarism by sixteenth-century art historian and biographer Giorgio Vasari. R. Emmett Taylor (1889–1956) said that Pacioli may have had nothing to do with the translated volume "De divina proportione", and that it may just have been appended to his work. However, no such defence can be presented concerning the inclusion of Piero della Francesca's material in Pacioli's Suma. Chess. Pacioli also wrote an unpublished treatise on chess, "De ludo scacchorum" ("On the Game of Chess"). Long thought to have been lost, a surviving manuscript was rediscovered in 2006, in the 22,000-volume library of Count Guglielmo Coronini. A facsimile edition of the book was published in Pacioli's home town of Sansepolcro in 2008. Based on Leonardo da Vinci's long association with the author and his having illustrated "De divina proportione", some scholars speculate that Leonardo either drew the chess problems that appear in the manuscript or at least designed the chess pieces used in the problems.
1704926	The World According to Monsanto is a 2008 film directed by Marie-Monique Robin. Originally released in French as "Le monde selon Monsanto", the film is based on Robin's three-year long investigation into the corporate practices around the world of the United States multinational corporation, Monsanto. "The World According to Monsanto" is also a book written by Marie-Monique Robin, winner of the Rachel Carson Prize (a Norwegian prize for female environmentalists), which has been translated into many languages. Synopsis. The film reports many controversies surrounding the use and promotion of genetically modified seeds, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), Agent Orange, and bovine growth hormone. Cases in the United States (including Anniston, Alabama), Canada, India, Mexico, Paraguay, the United Kingdom (Scotland) and France, are explored, claiming that the corporation's collusion with governments, pressure tactics, suppression and manipulation of scientific data, and extra-legal practices aided the company's attempts at dominating global agriculture. Scientists, representatives of the United States Food and Drug Administration and the United States Environmental Protection Agency, civil society representatives, victims of the company’s activities, lawyers, and politicians are interviewed. In March 2008, French journalist Marie-Monique Robin released the results of her three years of worldwide research into Monsanto. A book was published by La Découverte, a French editor, and a video documentary, "Le Monde selon Monsanto" ("The World According to Monsanto"), was released on DVD and shown on Arte, the Franco-German culture TV channel. Robin travels to India, Mexico, Argentina, and Paraguay to see how Monsanto's genetically modified organisms (GMOs) have affected local farmers using it for their crops. The film claims that GMO use has increased suicide rates of farmers in India. However, research by IFPRI has shown that this is not the case.
1052031	Murmur of the Heart () is a 1971 French film by French director Louis Malle that tells a coming of age story about a 14-year-old boy growing up in bourgeois surroundings in post-World War II Dijon, France. The film proved to be a box office success across Europe, gaining 2,652,870 admissions in France, and even 62,172 admissions in Hungary. The film was also a modest hit in the United States, grossing US$1,160,784. Synopsis. The film starts by showing the adventures of the boy in school and his first sexual experience at a brothel. When the boy is found to have a heart murmur after a bout of scarlet fever, he goes with his mother to a sanatorium. Jazz music by Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie, along with books by Bataille, Proust and Camus, feature prominently in the film. Nominations. "Murmur of the Heart" was nominated for Best Original Screenplay at the 1973 Academy Awards. It was also in competition, in the French part of the official selection, at the 1971 Cannes Film Festival.
1508351	Idaho Transfer is a 1973 science fiction film directed by Peter Fonda. It stars Kelley Bohanon, Kevin Hearst, Dale Hopkins, and Keith Carradine. Plot summary. Teenager Karen Braden (Kelley Bohanon) is a troubled mental hospital outpatient who is taken by her father George and sister Isa to a government facility near the Craters of the Moon lava fields in Idaho. The project there was commissioned to develop matter transference, but made a different discovery: time travel. They also discovered that a mysterious ecological catastrophe will soon wipe out civilization.
1163798	Johnnie Lucille Collier (April 12, 1923 – January 22, 2004), known professionally as Ann Miller, was an American dancer, singer and actress. She is remembered for her work in Hollywood musical films of the 1940s and '50s. Early life. Miller was born in Chireno, Texas to Clara Emma (née Birdwell) and John Alfred Collier, a criminal lawyer who represented the Barrow Gang, Machine Gun Kelly, and Baby Face Nelson, among others. Miller's maternal grandmother was Cherokee. Miller's father insisted on the name Johnnie because he had wanted a boy, but she was often called Annie. She began to take dance classes at the age of 5, after suffering from a case of rickets. Her mother believed that these classes would help strengthen her young daughter's legs.
1100459	Alonzo Church (June 14, 1903 – August 11, 1995) was an American mathematician and logician who made major contributions to mathematical logic and the foundations of theoretical computer science. He is best known for the lambda calculus, Church–Turing thesis, proving the undecidability of the Entscheidungsproblem, Frege–Church ontology, and the Church–Rosser theorem. Life. Alonzo Church was born on June 14, 1903 in Washington, D.C. where his father, Samuel Robbins Church, was the judge of the Municipal Court for the District of Columbia. The family later moved to Virginia after his father lost this position because of failing eyesight. With help from his uncle, also named Alonzo Church, he was able to attend the Ridgefield School for Boys in Ridgefield, Connecticut. After graduating from Ridgefield in 1920, Church attended Princeton University where he was an exceptional student, publishing his first paper, on Lorentz transformations, and graduating in 1924 with a degree in mathematics. He stayed at Princeton, earning a Ph.D. in mathematics in three years under Oswald Veblen. He married Mary Julia Kuczinski in 1925 and the couple had three children, Alonzo Church, Jr. (1929), Mary Ann (1933) and Mildred (1938).
586241	Kana Kanmani is a 2009 family horror film by Akku Akbar starring Jayaram and Padmapriya. The film is a remake of the director's previous Hindi film "". Plot. Roy (Jayaram) is a successful architect married to Maya (Padmapriya) with a daughter named Anakha(pet name Anu). Roy decides to take his family on a vacation to Singapore, but Anu insists that they first go to Roy's old home. They agree to go there first, stay for 4 days, and then go to Singapore. But upon arriving at the old house, Anu starts behaving strangely and soon Roy and Maya understand that she is infected by the ghost of their unborn child Shivani, who was aborted. It was at this house both that Maya conceived Shivani and that they decided to abort the pregnancy. Shivani tells them that she is envious of the love that Roy and Maya are giving Anu, and that she will kill Anu as revenge. Roy and Maya try to escape in vain. Roy calls his friend Raveendran to his house. They all anxiously pray and wait until the time when Shivani said she would kill Anu. By that time, Shivani has changed her mind, after seeing the parents' love for Anu, and spares her life. The movie ends with Roy and Maya accepting Shivani's presence in their world and giving her space.
1051097	Au hasard Balthazar, (; meaning "Balthazar, At Random"), also known as "Balthazar", is a 1966 French film directed by Robert Bresson, starring Anne Wiazemsky.
1063693	Gabrielle Monique Union (born October 29, 1972) is an American actress and former model. Among her notable roles is as the cheerleader opposite Kirsten Dunst in the film "Bring It On". Union starred opposite Will Smith and Martin Lawrence in the blockbuster film "Bad Boys II" and played a medical doctor in the CBS drama series "City of Angels". She starred with LL Cool J in "Deliver Us from Eva" in 2003. Early life. Union was born in Omaha, Nebraska, in 1972, the middle child in a family of four daughters. She is the daughter of Theresa (née Glass), a former dancer, social worker, and phone company manager, and Sylvester C. Union, an AT&T manager and military sergeant. Union's early childhood years were spent as part of a rich African American community. Her large family had been in the Omaha area for many generations. She was raised Catholic. When Union was eight years old, she and her family moved to Pleasanton, California, where she grew up and attended Foothill High School. In high school, Union was an all-star point guard in basketball and a year-round athlete, also playing in soccer and ran track. Career. Union attended the University of Nebraska before moving on to Cuesta College. She eventually transferred to UCLA and earned a degree in sociology. While studying there, she interned at the Judith Fontaine Modeling & Talent Agency to earn extra academic credits. Invited by the agency's owner, Judith Fontaine, Union started working as a model to pay off college loans. Union started her acting career in minor roles. Most were in teen movies such as "10 Things I Hate About You" and "Love and Basketball". In 1997, Union appeared in the sixth-season episode of """ – Sons and Daughters" as the Klingon N'Garen. She also appeared in "Sister, Sister" as Vanessa, in "Smart Guy" as Denise, and in five episodes of "7th Heaven" as Keesha Hamilton. In 2000, Union landed the role of Isis in the cheerleading movie "Bring it On" opposite Kirsten Dunst. "Bring It On" helped push Union into the mainstream and she began gaining more exposure. This led to Union being cast in the CBS television drama "City of Angels" as Dr. Courtney Ellis. Union was cast in her first leading role in the 2003 film "Deliver Us from Eva" with rapper L.L. Cool J. This was her second time working with the rapper since making a cameo in his video "Paradise" in 2002. The film received fair reviews from critics and it showed that Union was a leading lady. Union landed the role of Will Smith's character's girlfriend Syd in the film "Bad Boys II", a box office success grossing over $273 million worldwide. Union starred with Academy Award winner Jamie Foxx in the film "Breakin' All the Rules" in 2004. Union starred in the short-lived 2005 ABC series "Night Stalker". She has also starred in the independent drama films "Neo Ned" and "Constellation", the latter of which was released to theaters. She won an award for Best Actress in "Neo Ned" at the Palm Beach International Film Festival, and the film received awards at several festivals. She starred in the 2005 remake of "The Honeymooners" with comedian Cedric The Entertainer. In 2006, she starred as Busta Rhymes' love interest in the music video for Rhymes' "I Love My Chick". Union starred in the 2007 films "Daddy's Little Girls" by Tyler Perry (released on Valentine's Day) and the Christmas film "The Perfect Holiday" which opened on December 12. In an interview with "Art Nouveau Magazine", Union complained about the lack of roles for black actresses and actors in Hollywood: "There used to be specifically written black, if you knew Denzel was doing a movie you knew his wife, girl or love interest was going to be black [but that’s not necessarily the case anymore. You’re in that room with every amazingly talented actress of every hue, and it’s a dogfight, it’s hard". In 2008, Union appeared on "Ugly Betty" for 3 episodes (36–38) as Renee, Wilhelmina Slater's (Vanessa L. Williams) sister and Daniel Meade's (Eric Mabius) love interest. She also made a cameo appearance in the music video for Ne-Yo's "Miss Independent". She joined the cast of the U.S. television series "Life" on NBC and appeared in four episodes prior to the cancellation of series in May 2009. She appeared in the ABC series "FlashForward" alongside John Cho and Joseph Fiennes as Zoey Andata, a role for which she got nominated for an NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series. In 2013, Union starred in Ava DuVernay's short film "The Door" as part of Miu Miu's Women's Tales campaign. Current and upcoming projects. In 2012, she worked with Tyler Perry on the romantic comedy "Good Deeds" playing the role of Natalie, the soon to be wife of Perry's character Wesley Deeds. She now appears in Steve Harvey's movie "Think Like A Man", another romantic comedy which is based on his book Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man. The movie debuted at No. 1 during the weekend of April 20, 2012. In 2013, she began as the star of the BET network show "Being Mary Jane". In 2012, Union was featured in the documentary Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide premiering on PBS October 1 and 2. The series profiles women and girls, along with the organizations that support them, from developing countries who suffer from atrocities, including rape, human sex trafficking and female genital mutilation, and how they deal with these challenges. The Half the Sky PBS TV series is produced by Show of Force along with Fugitive Films. Personal life. In 1992, at age 19, Union was attacked and raped at her part-time job in a shoe store. Her attacker later turned himself in and was sentenced to 33 years in prison. She has since become an advocate for survivors of assault. Union is an Ambassador in Susan G. Komen for the Cure's Circle of Promise. She ran in the Global Race for the Cure in Washington D.C. on Saturday, June 2, 2012, in honor of her late friend Kristen Martinez, who lost her battle with breast cancer. On May 5, 2001, Union married football player Chris Howard; they divorced in 2006. Since 2007 she has been in a relationship with NBA basketball player Dwyane Wade.
1164021	James Richard Gammon (April 20, 1940 – July 16, 2010) was an American actor, known for playing grizzled "good ol' boy" types in numerous films and television series. Biography. Early life. Gammon was born in Newman, the son of Doris Latimer (née Toppe), a farm girl, and Donald Gammon, a musician. After his parents divorced and he bounced around home to home, he made his way to Orlando, Florida. He worked at Orlando's ABC TV affiliate WLOF Channel 9 as a cameraman and director. In his 20s, he packed up and moved to Hollywood to try and find work. Acting career. His early television credits include appearing twice as Deputy Virgil Bramley in the NBC western series "The Road West" in the 1966–1967 season, which co-starred Barry Sullivan, Andrew Prine, and Glenn Corbett. In the 1970s, he helped found the Met Theatre in Los Angeles. While performing there, a rep from The Public Theater saw him and had him cast as Weston in Sam Shepard's "Curse of the Starving Class" in 1978. The two became friends afterward. He made his sole Broadway appearance as "Dodge" in a revival of Sam Shepard's "Buried Child". He was nominated for a Tony Award for his performance. He also appeared on stage in Shepard's San Francisco debut of "The Late Henry Moss" along with Nick Nolte, Sean Penn, Cheech Marin and Woody Harrelson in 2000. Gammon may be best-remembered for his characters Lou Brown, manager of the Cleveland Indians in the "Major League" films, and Nick Bridges, the father of Don Johnson's title character in the television series "Nash Bridges". He appeared in the films "Cool Hand Luke" (1967), "Urban Cowboy" (1980), "Silverado" (1985), "Noon Wine" (1985), "The Milagro Beanfield War" (1988), "Major League" (1989), "The Adventures of Huck Finn" (1993), "Major League II" (1994), "Wyatt Earp" (1994), "Wild Bill" (1995), "Truman" (1995), "Cold Mountain" (2003), and more recently "Appaloosa" (2008). He also had an uncredited role in "Natural Born Killers" (1994). Gammon portrayed a Korean War veteran on the hit ABC series "Grey's Anatomy". He played Charles Goodnight in "Streets of Laredo". In 2006, he played the stern grandfather, Sam, brother of notorious outlaw Butch Cassidy, in the film "". Gammon also plays a supporting role in "Appaloosa" (2008). Gammon provided the voices of the animated characters Marv Loach and Floyd Turbeaux in the 1999 Warner Bros. feature film "The Iron Giant". Death. Gammon died of adrenal gland and liver cancer in Costa Mesa. Legacy. His friend, Sam Shepard, said this of Gammon: "This was a guy who could act circles around most other actors, and he never pretended to be other than a working kind of actor." He would go on to say about the star-studded cast of "The Late Henry Moss", "I mean, a bunch of notoriously famous guys, and every single one of them would come up to me, alone, and say, ‘Who’s that Jim Gammon guy? Where did he come from?’" Shepard also would talk about why he cast Gammon, saying: "You’re probably aware of the notorious father figures in my plays, alcoholic Midwesterners who leave their families and get lost in the Southwestern desert. Jimmy had that familiarity about him with the way I grew up, the guys with the voice and the face and the whiskey. He definitely rang a bell with me." Personal life. His first marriage ended in divorce. He has a brother, Phillip, and a sister, Sandra (Glaudell). He was married to Nancy Jane Kapusta from 1972 until his death. He has two daughters, Allison Mann and Amy Gammon.
589740	Pati Patni Aur Woh is a 1978 Hindi movie directed by B. R. Chopra. The film stars Sanjeev Kumar, Vidya Sinha, Ranjeeta, and in guest appearances Rishi Kapoor, Neetu Singh and Parveen Babi. Summary. The film is a comical take on extra-marital affairs. Ranjeet Chaddha (Sanjeev Kumar) & Sharda (Vidya Sinha) meet, fall in love & get married. Eventually, Ranjeet gets a promotion, a higher salary & a temptation - Nirmala Deshpande (Ranjeeta), his new secretary. Ranjeet lies to Nirmala—to get her sympathy—that his wife is terminally ill. Nirmala feels sorry for Ranjeet and gets close to him. Ranjeet uses this to further his plans. But when everything is going as planned, Sharda gets suspicious. She spies on them & learns the truth. When Ranjeet gets busted in front of both the women, the proverbial hell breaks loose. Plot. The film starts off indicating the parallels of the story with that of Adam & Eve. Here, Adam is Ranjeet, Eve is Sharda while the apple is Nirmala. Ranjeet is newly employed in a company, whose pay scales can be gauged from the fact that he goes to work on a bicycle. However, this bicycle itself brings him face-to-face with Sharda, when he bumps into her by accident. Sharda's bicycle gets badly damaged & Ranjeet drops her off. Th same evening, Ranjeet goes to the wedding of his friend (Asrani), a co-worker & a poet. Sharda is also present at the ceremony. Sharda & Ranjeet's love blossoms from there & soon they get married. In the course of a few years, Ranjeet is Sales Manager of the company and father of a son. Sharda & Ranjeet are still living in marital bliss. That is, until Nirmala, Ranjeet's new secretary, shows up. Ranjeet is inexplicably attracted to Nirmala. She is an honest girl who is trying to make two ends meet. She is much more beautiful compared to Sharda. But most of all, she knows nothing about Ranjeet's true intentions & his married life. Ranjeet is initially upset with his thoughts about her, but finally gives in. He carefully plans his further steps. He pretends to be the helpless grieving husband of a cancer stricken wife, who won't live much longer. Nirmala feels sorry for him, thus making it easier for him to get close to her. Nobody, not Sharda, not even his closest friend, suspects a thing. One day, Ranjeet bluffs to Sharda that he will be late coming home as he has a meeting. He takes Nirmala out to dinner. Next day, Sharda finds Nirmala's handkerchief, with lipstick marks on it, in Ranjeet's pocket. She immediately confronts Ranjeet, who makes up a story about a co-worker whose handkerchief he may have accidentally taken. Sharda reluctantly believes him. Ranjeet decides to take his next steps more carefully. Sharda too starts thinking that her fears were unfounded. Ranjeet makes even more interesting back up plans: He prepares two books of poetry, professing his love. The poems are the same in both, only one book contains Nirmala's name, and the other contains Sharda's. Ranjeet courts Nirmala without Sharda's knowledge. The turning point comes when Sharda sees him in a hotel with Nirmala. She later asks him about his meeting, about which the clueless Ranjeet lies. Sharda's fears are confirmed. She starts spying on him & Nirmala, taking incriminating pictures. After sufficient evidence is obtained, she secretly meets Nirmala, posing as a journalist. Nirmala, who hasn't seen Ranjeet's "ailing wife" yet, thinks Sharda intends to blackmail her. But Sharda reassures her that she won't. Nirmala spills all the beans, upon which Sharda reveals her true identity. Meanwhile, Ranjeet gets another promotion & rushes home happily to tell his wife about it. Sharda catches him unawares and lets him know that he is busted. Ranjeet does not know what has hit him. He turns round, only to see Nirmala behind him. Sharda tells him that she is leaving him & the divorce papers will be soon sent to him. Sharda & Nirmala console each other. Ranjeet calls upon his friend & lies that Nirmala has said some malicious lies to Sharda about him. Ranjeet's friend sides with him & lies about Nirmala's character. Sharda exposes Ranjeet in front of him as well, with help of the evidence she has collected. Sharda tells Ranjeet to choose either her or Nirmala. Ranjeet quietly gives Nirmala some money & lies to her, in a last-ditch attempt at damage control. But honest Nirmala returns the money to Sharda, making things even worse for Ranjeet. Sharda prepares to walk out on Ranjeet, while Nirmala resigns and leaves Ranjeet as well. Sharda comes to visit Ranjeet one last time, when their innocent son asks what is happening. Sharda decides to give Ranjeet another chance, if only for their son and soon life comes back on track. But soon another secretary(Parveen Babi) joins the office & Ranjeet tries to resort to his antics once more. Just by coincidence, Ranjeet's friend suddenly walks in & Ranjeet backs off, taking this as a warning.
1038298	Miss Austen Regrets is a BBC-produced drama film. The film is based on the last few years of Jane Austen's life as she looks back on her life and loves and helps her favourite niece, Fanny, find a husband. In North America, it was first aired 3 February 2008 by the PBS Masterpiece drama anthology television series as part of "The Complete Jane Austen", the United States version of The Jane Austen Season. In the UK, "Miss Austen Regrets" was aired separate from the dramas (broadcast by ITV in 2007) on BBC 1 at 8pm on 27 April 2008.
1060737	Emma Charlotte Duerre Watson (born 15 April 1990) is an English actress and model. She rose to prominence playing Hermione Granger in the "Harry Potter" film series; she was cast as Hermione at the age of nine, having previously acted only in school plays. She starred in all eight "Harry Potter" films, alongside Daniel Radcliffe and Rupert Grint. Watson's work on the "Harry Potter" series has earned her several awards and more than £. She made her modelling debut for Burberry's autumn/winter campaign in 2009. In 2007, Watson announced her involvement in "The Tale of Despereaux" and the television adaptation of the novel "Ballet Shoes", which was broadcast on 26 December 2007 to an audience of 5.2 million. "The Tale of Despereaux", based on the novel by Kate DiCamillo, was released in 2008 and grossed more than US $86 million in worldwide sales. In 2012, she starred in Stephen Chbosky's film adaptation of "The Perks of Being a Wallflower", and was cast in the role of Ila in Darren Aronofsky's biblical epic "Noah". Early life and education. Emma Watson was born in Paris, France, the daughter of English lawyers Jacqueline Luesby and Chris Watson. Watson lived in Paris until the age of five. Her parents separated when she was young; following their divorce, she moved with her mother and younger brother to Oxfordshire, spending weekends at her father's house in London. Watson has stated that she speaks some French, though "not as well" as she used to. After moving to Oxford with her mother and brother, Watson attended the Dragon School in Oxford, remaining there until 2003. From the age of six, she wanted to become an actress, and trained at the Oxford branch of Stagecoach Theatre Arts, a part-time theatre school where she studied singing, dancing, and acting. By the age of ten, she had performed in various Stagecoach productions and school plays, including "Arthur: The Young Years" and "The Happy Prince", but she had never acted professionally before the "Harry Potter" series. Following the Dragon School, Watson moved on to Headington School. While on film sets, she and her peers were tutored for up to five hours a day. In June 2006, she took GCSE examinations in ten subjects, achieving eight A* and two A grades. Career. 1999–2003: Beginnings and breakthrough. In 1999, casting began for "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone" (released as "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" in the United States), the film adaptation of British author J. K. Rowling's best-selling novel. Casting agents found Watson through her Oxford theatre teacher, and producers were impressed by her confidence. After eight auditions, producer David Heyman told Watson and fellow applicants Daniel Radcliffe and Rupert Grint that they had been cast for the roles of the schoolfriends Hermione Granger, Harry Potter and Ron Weasley respectively. Rowling supported Watson from her first screen test. The release of "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone" in 2001 was Watson's debut screen performance. The film broke records for opening-day sales and opening-weekend takings and was the highest-grossing film of 2001. Critics praised the performances of the three leads, often singling out Watson for particular acclaim; "The Daily Telegraph" called her performance "admirable", and IGN said she "stole the show". Watson was nominated for five awards for her performance in "Philosopher's Stone", winning the Young Artist Award for Leading Young Actress. A year later, Watson again starred as Hermione in "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets", the second instalment of the series. Reviewers praised the lead actors' performances. The "Los Angeles Times" said Watson and her peers had matured between films, while "The Times" criticised director Chris Columbus for "under-employing" Watson's hugely popular character. Watson received an Otto Award from the German magazine "Bravo" for her performance. 2004–2011: Continued success with "Harry Potter". In 2004, "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban" was released. Watson was appreciative of the more assertive role Hermione played, calling her character "charismatic" and "a fantastic role to play". Although critics panned Radcliffe's performance, labelling him "wooden", they praised Watson; "The New York Times" lauded her performance, saying "Luckily Mr. Radcliffe's blandness is offset by Ms. Watson's spiky impatience. Harry may show off his expanding wizardly skills ... but Hermione ... earns the loudest applause with a decidedly unmagical punch to Draco Malfoy's deserving nose." Although "Prisoner of Azkaban" proved to be the lowest-grossing "Harry Potter" film of the entire series, Watson's personal performance won her two Otto Awards and the Child Performance of the Year award from "Total Film". With "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire" (2005), both Watson and the "Harry Potter" film series reached new milestones. The film set records for a "Harry Potter" opening weekend, a non-May opening weekend in the US, and an opening weekend in the UK. Critics praised the increasing maturity of Watson and her teenage co-stars; "The New York Times" called her performance "touchingly earnest". For Watson, much of the humour of the film sprang from the tension among the three lead characters as they matured. She said, "I loved all the arguing. ... I think it's much more realistic that they would argue and that there would be problems." Nominated for three awards for "Goblet of Fire", Watson won a bronze Otto Award. Later that year, Watson became the youngest person to appear on the cover of "Teen Vogue", an appearance she reprised in August 2009. In 2006, Watson played Hermione in "The Queen's Handbag", a special mini-episode of "Harry Potter" in celebration of Queen Elizabeth II's 80th birthday. The fifth film in the "Harry Potter" franchise, "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix", was released in 2007. A huge financial success, the film set a record worldwide opening-weekend gross of $332.7 million. Watson won the inaugural National Movie Award for Best Female Performance. As the fame of the actress and the series continued, Watson and fellow "Harry Potter" co-stars Daniel Radcliffe and Rupert Grint left imprints of their hands, feet and wands in front of Grauman's Chinese Theater in Hollywood on 9 July 2007. By July 2007, Watson's work in the "Harry Potter" series was said to have earned her more than £10 million, and she acknowledged she would never have to work for money again. In March 2009, she was ranked 6th on the "Forbes" list of "Most Valuable Young Stars", and in February 2010, she was named as Hollywood's highest paid female star, having earned an estimated £19 million in 2009. Despite the success of "Order of the Phoenix", the future of the "Harry Potter" franchise became surrounded in doubt, as all three lead actors were hesitant to sign on to continue their roles for the final two episodes. Radcliffe eventually signed for the final films on 2 March 2007, but Watson was considerably more hesitant. She explained that the decision was significant, as the films represented a further four-year commitment to the role, but eventually conceded that she "could never let role of Hermione go", signing for the role on 23 March 2007. Watson's first non-"Potter" role was the 2007 BBC film "Ballet Shoes", an adaptation of the novel of the same title by Noel Streatfeild. The film's director, Sandra Goldbacher, commented that Watson was "perfect" for the starring role of aspiring actress Pauline Fossil: "She has a piercing, delicate aura that makes you want to gaze and gaze at her." "Ballet Shoes" was broadcast in the UK on Boxing Day 2007 to an audience of 5.7 million viewers, to mixed reviews. Watson also lent her voice to the role of Princess Pea in the animated film "The Tale of Despereaux", a children's comedy starring Matthew Broderick with Harry Potter co-star Robbie Coltrane (playing the character of Rubeus Hagrid) also starring in the film. Principal photography for the sixth film began in late 2007, with Watson's part being filmed from 18 December to 17 May 2008. "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" premiered on 15 July 2009, having been delayed from November 2008. With the lead actors now in their late teens, critics were increasingly willing to review them on the same level as the rest of the film's all-star cast, which the "Los Angeles Times" described as "a comprehensive guide to contemporary UK acting". "The Washington Post" felt Watson to have given " most charming performance to date", while "The Daily Telegraph" described the lead actors as "newly-liberated and energised, eager to give all they have to what's left of the series". "The Tale of Despereaux" was released in December 2008 and grossed $87 million worldwide. In December 2008, Watson stated she wanted to go to university after she completed the Potter series. Watson's filming for the final instalment of the "Harry Potter" series, "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows", began on 18 February 2009 and ended on 12 June 2010. For financial and scripting reasons, the original book was divided into two films which were shot consecutively. "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 1" was released in November 2010 while the second film was released in July 2011. She also appeared in a music video for One Night Only, after meeting lead singer George Craig at the 2010 Winter/Summer Burberry advertising campaign. The video, "Say You Don't Want It", was screened on Channel 4 on 26 June 2010 and released on 16 August. In her first post-"Harry Potter" film, Watson appeared in 2011's "My Week with Marilyn" as Lucy, a wardrobe assistant who has a few dates with the main character, Colin Clark. 2012–present: Upcoming projects. In May 2010, Watson was reported to be in talks to star in a film adaptation of "The Perks of Being a Wallflower". Filming began in summer 2011 and the film was released in September 2012. In "The Bling Ring" (2013), Watson stars as Nicki. The film is based on the real-life Bling Ring robberies, with Watson playing a fictionalized version of Alexis Neiers - a television personality who was one of seven teenagers involved in the robberies. While the film mostly received mixed reviews, critics gave almost unanimous praise for Watson's portrayal of Nicki in the film. Watson also had a supporting role in the apocalyptic comedy "This Is the End" (2013), where she played herself. In June 2012, Watson was confirmed for the role of Ila in Darren Aronofsky's "Noah", which began filming the following month for a March 2014 release. In August 2012, she confirmed that she would begin filming Guillermo del Toro's "Beauty and the Beast" in the summer of 2013, ahead of a release in 2014. In March 2013, it was reported that Watson was in negotiations to star as the titular character in a live-action Disney adaptation of "Cinderella". Kenneth Branagh was attached to direct the adaptation, while Cate Blanchett had reportedly agreed the evil stepmother. Watson was offered the role, but turned it down.
1163907	Barbara Eden (born August 23, 1931) is an American film and television actress and singer who is best known for starring as the title role in the sitcom "I Dream of Jeannie". Early years. Eden was born Barbara Jean Morehead in Tucson, Arizona, the daughter of Alice Mary (née Franklin) and Hubert Henry Morehead. Her parents divorced when she was three; she and her mother, Alice, moved to San Francisco, where later her mother married Harrison Connor Huffman, a telephone lineman. The Great Depression deeply affected the Huffman family, and as they were unable to afford many luxuries, Barbara's mother entertained the children by singing songs. This musical background left a lasting impression on the actress, who began taking acting classes because she felt it might help her improve her singing. Her first public performance was singing in the church choir, where she sang the solos. When she was 14 she sang in local bands for $10 a night in night clubs. At age 16, she became a member of Actor's Equity. She studied singing at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music and acting with the Elizabeth Holloway School of Theatre. She graduated from Abraham Lincoln High School in San Francisco in the Spring Class of 1949 and studied theater for one year at City College of San Francisco. She was then elected Miss San Francisco, as Barbara Huffman, in 1951. Barbara also entered the Miss California pageant, but did not win. TV and film roles. Eden made featured appearances on television shows such as "The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson" (as "Barbara Morehead" and "Barbara Huffman"), "The West Point Story", "Highway Patrol", "Private Secretary", "I Love Lucy", "The Millionaire", "", "Crossroads", "Perry Mason", "Gunsmoke", "December Bride", "Bachelor Father", "Father Knows Best", "Adventures in Paradise", "The Andy Griffith Show", "Cain's Hundred", "Saints and Sinners", "The Virginian", "Slattery's People", "The Rogues", and the series finale of "Route 66" playing the role of Margo. She guest starred in four episodes of "Burke's Law", playing different roles each time. She was an uncredited extra in the movie "The Tarnished Angels" with Rock Hudson, in partnership with 20th Century Fox studios. She then starred in the syndicated comedy "How To Marry A Millionaire". The show was based on the film of the same name. Discovery in the Hollywood sense came when she starred in a play with James Drury. Film director Mark Robson, who later directed her in the movie "From The Terrace", had come to the play and wanted her for 20th Century Fox studios. Her screen test was the Joanne Woodward role in "No Down Payment". Though she did not get the role, the studio gave her a contract. Eden did a screen test for the role of Betty Anderson in the 1957 film version of "Peyton Place", though Terry Moore got the role. She had minor roles in "Bailout At 43,000", "Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?" and "The Wayward Girl", and then became a leading lady in films and starred opposite Gary Crosby, Barry Coe, and Sal Mineo in "A Private's Affair", and had a co-starring role in "Flaming Star" (1960), with Elvis Presley. The following year, she played in a supporting role as Lt. Cathy Connors in Irwin Allen's "Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea". She starred in "The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm", a George Pal-directed Cinerama film for MGM, and another Irwin Allen production for 20th Century Fox "Five Weeks in a Balloon" (1962). Eden was also the female lead in the 1962 20th Century Fox comedy "Swingin' Along", starring the comedy team of Tommy Noonan and Peter Marshall, in their final joint screen appearance. She did a screen test with Andy Williams for the 20th Century Fox movie "State Fair", but didn't get the role. Her last film for 20th Century Fox was "The Yellow Canary" (1963). She left Fox studios (due to budget cuts) and began guest-starring in shows such as "Saints And Sinners" and also doing films for MGM, Universal, and Columbia. She played supporting roles over the next few years, including "The Brass Bottle", and the notable, if odd, movie "7 Faces of Dr. Lao", both with Tony Randall. In "The New Interns", she co-starred with Michael Callan. Then she signed to become "Jeannie," a genie in a bottle rescued by an astronaut in the television sitcom "I Dream of Jeannie". She played this role for five years and 139 episodes. Eden also played Jeannie's sister in eight episodes and Jeannie's mother in at least one. After that, Eden did an unaired pilot, "The Barbara Eden Show", and another pilot, "The Toy Game". She also began starring in and sometimes producing a string of successful made-for-TV movies, making at least one a year for one of the networks and they all were top-rated. Her first TV movie was called "The Feminist And The Fuzz". Although she is best known for comedy, most of these films were dramas, as when she starred with her "Jeannie" co-star Larry Hagman in "A Howling in the Woods" (1971). She starred in "The Woman Hunter" (1972) with Robert Vaughn, an earlier co-star from "Gunsmoke". In "The Stranger Within" (1974), Eden plays unwitting housewife Ann Collins, who becomes one of many earthling women who are impregnated by extraterrestrials. Like the mother-to-be in "Rosemary's Baby", Ann develops unusual prenatal cravings (in this case, coffee grounds, massive amounts of salt, and blood-rare meat). The screenplay was written by Richard Matheson and directed by Lee Philips. Eden played Liz Stonestreet, a former policewoman now private detective investigating the disappearance of a missing heiress, in a critically acclaimed TV movie "Stonestreet: Who Killed The Centerfold Model?" (1977), co-starring Louise Latham, James Ingersoll, Elaine Giftos, Ann Dusenberry. and Sally Kirkland. She played Lee Rawlins, a woman who worked at a department store, in the ABC TV movie "The Girls in The Office" (1979), and starred in and co-produced with her own production company (MI-Bar Productions) the NBC TV movie romantic comedy "The Secret Life of Kathy McCormick" (1988), about "a simple grocery clerk, who finds her way into her local high society and the life of a wealthy suitor who thinks she's a stockbroker." In addition, she starred in and produced the romantic comedy TV movie "Opposites Attract" (1990), co-starring John Forsythe, their first joint screen appearance since her guest-starring role in a 1957 episode of his "Bachelor Father" TV series. "I Dream of Jeannie". In 1965, Eden signed a contract with Sidney Sheldon to star on his up-and-coming fantasy sitcom "I Dream of Jeannie" that would air on NBC. After various brunette starlets and beauty queens unsuccessfully tried out for the role she was approached by Sheldon who had seen her in "The Brass Bottle" and had been recommended by various colleagues. Eden played Jeannie, a beautiful genie set free from her bottle by astronaut and United States Air Force captain (later major) Anthony Nelson, played by Larry Hagman. Hoped to be a blockbuster like its rival-show "Bewitched", "I Dream of Jeannie" was only a mild ratings success, topping off its first year at #27, tying with "Lassie". The series spent its second, third, and fifth seasons out of the top thirty programs. Season four proved to be the sitcom's most successful year, ending at #26. In the series, Eden wore her trademark "Jeannie Costume", a costume that was designed by Gwen Wakeling with the colors pink and red chosen by Eden. During the second season reporters visiting the set would joke that Eden had no navel as it was almost never visible when in costume. The story picked up momentum and as it did the network censors began to insist that her navel remain hidden. In the fourth season George Schlatter the creator of "Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In" expressed a desire to premiere Eden's navel on his show. As soon as his intentions were revealed the network held a meeting of executives to discuss his idea and it was deemed inappropriate to do so. However, her navel is glimpsed in a few season four and season five episodes, much to the dislike of the censors. After four years of dating, Jeannie and Anthony got married in the show's fifth season, a decision that was forced by the network. Eden complained to the network about the two marrying, claiming that this change in the plotline would take away from the show's humor and the sexual tension between Jeannie and Anthony. However, even after the change, the network had grown tired of the series by the end of the 1969-1970 television season and canceled the show after five seasons and 139 episodes. The series became hugely popular during decades of syndication and has had two spin-off reunion movies. The first, "" a 1985 television movie, starred all the original cast excluding Larry Hagman, who declined the chance to return. The role of Anthony Nelson was played by Wayne Rogers for this film only. The second television spin-off movie of the series aired in 1991 and was called "I Still Dream of Jeannie", in which Hagman was still absent—Anthony Nelson doesn't appear in this film at all. In recent history, several mentions of a third "I Dream of Jeannie" movie has come to attention; however, no projects have been cast or even written. Later career. She continued to appear regularly on stage, starring in the play "Blithe Spirit", and in television specials like "Telly...Who Loves Ya Baby?" with Telly Savalas, and "The Best of Everything" with Hal Linden and Dorothy Loudon. In 1978, she starred in the feature film "Harper Valley PTA", based on the popular country song. This led to a namesake television series in 1981; in both the movie and the TV series, she played the show's heroine, Stella Johnson. The show won 11 of its 13 time slots during its first season. It was a comedy version of "Peyton Place" with Anne Francine playing wealthy villain Flora Simpson Reilly. In one episode Stella dressed in a blue and gold genie costume and in another she played both Stella and her cousin Della Smith (similar to Jeannie's evil twin-sister character). The show "Harper Valley PTA" began January 16, 1981, and was renamed simply "Harper Valley" when the show began its second season on October 29, 1981. The show ran until August 14, 1982, producing 29 episodes for NBC and Universal MCA, which were rerun in 2000 by TV Land. From April 3 through September 16, 1984, Eden starred in the Lee Guber and Shelly Gross national production of the John Kander and Fred Ebb Tony Award-winning musical comedy "Woman Of The Year", playing the role of Tess Harding Craig, alongside Don Chastain (as Sam Craig), and Marilyn Cooper (as Jan Donovan, reprising her Tony Award-winning role on Broadway). In 1990, Eden had a recurring role of a billionairess seeking revenge against J. R. Ewing in five episodes of the final season of "Dallas", playing the captivating character Lee Ann De La Vega, reuniting her with her "I Dream of Jeannie" co-star Hagman. In her final episode, the character admits that her maiden name was "Lee Ann Nelson", which was a production gag, as "Nelson" was the surname of Hagman's character, and Eden's character's married name, in "I Dream of Jeannie".
1099794	Nearest neighbor search (NNS), also known as proximity search, similarity search or closest point search, is an optimization problem for finding closest points in metric spaces. The problem is: given a set "S" of points in a metric space "M" and a query point "q" ∈ "M", find the closest point in "S" to "q". In many cases, "M" is taken to be "d"-dimensional Euclidean space and distance is measured by Euclidean distance, Manhattan distance or other distance metric. Donald Knuth in vol. 3 of "The Art of Computer Programming" (1973) called it the post-office problem, referring to an application of assigning to a residence the nearest post office. Applications. The nearest neighbor search problem arises in numerous fields of application, including: Methods. Various solutions to the NNS problem have been proposed. The quality and usefulness of the algorithms are determined by the time complexity of queries as well as the space complexity of any search data structures that must be maintained. The informal observation usually referred to as the curse of dimensionality states that there is no general-purpose exact solution for NNS in high-dimensional Euclidean space using polynomial preprocessing and polylogarithmic search time. Linear search. The simplest solution to the NNS problem is to compute the distance from the query point to every other point in the database, keeping track of the "best so far". This algorithm, sometimes referred to as the naive approach, has a running time of "O"("Nd") where "N" is the cardinality of "S" and "d" is the dimensionality of "M". There are no search data structures to maintain, so linear search has no space complexity beyond the storage of the database. Naive search can, on average, outperform space partitioning approaches on higher dimensional spaces. Space partitioning. Since the 1970s, branch and bound methodology has been applied to the problem. In the case of Euclidean space this approach is known as spatial index or spatial access methods. Several space-partitioning methods have been developed for solving the NNS problem. Perhaps the simplest is the k-d tree, which iteratively bisects the search space into two regions containing half of the points of the parent region. Queries are performed via traversal of the tree from the root to a leaf by evaluating the query point at each split. Depending on the distance specified in the query, neighboring branches that might contain hits may also need to be evaluated. For constant dimension query time, average complexity is "O"(log "N") in the case of randomly distributed points, worst case complexity analyses have been performed. Alternatively the R-tree data structure was designed to support nearest neighbor search in dynamic context, as it has efficient algorithms for insertions and deletions.
1068082	"World's Greatest Dad" is a 2009 American black comedy film written and directed by Bobcat Goldthwait. It stars Robin Williams, Daryl Sabara, and Alexie Gilmore. The film was released on July 24 on video on demand providers before its limited theatrical release on August 21, 2009. Plot. Lance Clayton (Robin Williams) is a single father and high-school English teacher who dreams of becoming a famous writer. He narrates that he will quit writing if his next book fails and that he is scared of being alone. He unsuccessfully tries to bond with his 15 year old underachieving, manipulative, hostile, sex-obsessed teenage son Kyle (Sabara). Kyle is a student at the school where Lance teaches an unpopular poetry class. His only friend is Andrew, a fellow student who spends his evenings at the Claytons' house trying to avoid his embarrassing alcoholic mother. He is respectful and starkly different from Kyle. Kyle's consistently poor academic performance and vile behavior gain the attention of the school principal, who advises Lance that Kyle should transfer to a special-needs school. Lance meanwhile is in a non-committal relationship with a younger teacher named Claire, who is spending time with a fellow teacher named Mike who runs a more successful class than Lance. On nights when Claire cancels their dates and he is all alone, Lance bonds with his elderly neighbor. One night, after Kyle and Lance spend an evening with Claire, Lance discovers in horror that Kyle has accidentally strangled himself in an autoerotic asphyxiation accident in his bedroom, looking at a picture of Claire's underwear that he snuck under the table with his cell phone that night. To avoid embarrassing his son and himself, he stages Kyle’s death as an intentional suicide. He writes a suicide note on Kyle’s computer and hangs his son’s body in the closet. Initially, most of the students and faculty at Lance's school are uninterested in Kyle's death, Kyle having been a very unpopular and unlikeable person. However, a classmate later obtains the suicide note from police records and publishes it in the school newspaper. The note strikes a chord with the students and faculty, and suddenly many students claim to have been friends with Kyle and are touched by how deep and intelligent he shows himself to be in his writings. Enjoying the attention his writing is finally receiving, Lance decides to write and publish a phony journal that was supposedly written by his son before his death. Kyle becomes something of a post-mortem cult phenomenon at the school, and soon Lance begins to receive the attention and adoration that he had always desired. He begins spending more time with Claire, his class becomes more popular, and students treat him as a friend. Andrew finds Kyle’s suicide note and journals as highly uncharacteristic based on Kyle's personality when he was alive, but Lance brushes him off when Andrew confronts him. The journal soon attracts the attention of book publishers and Lance lands a television appearance on a nationally broadcast talk show. The school principal then decides to rename the school library in Kyle’s honor, despite Kyle's attitude at school during his lifetime and the fact that the principal had at one point suggested that Kyle be transferred. Lance's work, though published under false pretenses, earns him all the fame and appreciation he has dreamed of. At the library dedication, pressed by a combination of his guilt over exploiting his son’s death, his mounting hatred for the hypocrites who claimed false friendship, and the faculty’s new-found admiration of the “genius” of his dead son, Lance confesses before the school. He declares none of them liked Kyle, but that he loved his son, even though he was unpleasant and unintelligent, and that Lance wrote his suicide note and journal to cover up his son's accidental death. Claire slaps Lance and approaches Mike, the principal and students glare and sneer at him, but Lance feels reborn having realized that being alone is not the worst thing. Lance becomes the new social pariah and is hated by everyone, but Andrew tells him he knew Lance wrote the journal and that he enjoyed it and feels Lance should keep writing. The final scene shows both of them happily watching zombie movies and eating pot brownies with Lance's neighbor. Production. The film was shot in Seattle, Washington, largely at the former F.A. McDonald School in Wallingford. Seattle resident and former Nirvana bassist Krist Novoselic has a wordless cameo while consoling Williams' character at a newspaper stand (Goldthwait had previously opened for Nirvana, the cameo may be a reference to Cobain's suicide). Bruce Hornsby appears as himself at the library dedication. Home video. The DVD was released on December 8, 2009 and featured an audio commentary track with the director, deleted scenes, outtakes, and a making of featurette. Reception. "World's Greatest Dad" received generally positive reviews from critics, holding a "Fresh" rating of 89% on Rotten Tomatoes, based on 115 reviews, with the consensus: ""World's Greatest Dad" is a risky, deadpan, dark comedy that effectively explores the nature of posthumous cults of celebrity." Metacritic reported that the film had an average score of 69 out of 100, based on 23 reviews. The film was a hit at the Sundance Film Festival, the website hailing it as a "lusciously perverse, and refreshingly original comedy that tackles love, loss, and our curious quest for infamy." It also commented on Robin Williams' performance as outstanding. Sandra L. Frey observed the film's portrayal of teen angst, and said that the film also reminds the audience that adults can offer strong angst of their own. Devin Faraci called the film "brilliant" and "genius." Paul Fischer named it as one of the best films of the year. Ben Lyons and Ben Mankiewicz both gave the film favorable reviews on "At The Movies". Mankiewicz saluted Daryl Sabara's performance as exceptionally well done, commented on the film's "remarkably funny script," and overall considered it a "little gem." Tom Rougvieq from the Whitstable Times gave it a 3 out of 4 stars and called it a refreshing comedy of the age, praising its originality and Robin Williams' performance. Roger Ebert of the "Chicago Sun-Times" gave "World's Greatest Dad" 3 out of 4 stars, but noticed that the material could have been even darker in its satire, and he questioned whether it was the director's intention.
585568	Nammal is a blockbuster Malayalam movie released in 2002. It is directed by the notable director, Kamal and produced by David Kachapalli. The movie stars Jishnu, Siddharth, Renuka Menon and Bhavana. It is best known for its award winning song, "Sukamanee Nilavu", sung by Vidhu Prathap and Jyotsana. The movie was shot in the campus of Government Engineering College, Thrissur and Holy Trinity School, Palakkad. Other members of the cast include Vigeesh and Innocent. The music director is Mohan Sithara and songs were penned by Kaithapram Damodaran Namboothiri. Plot. Nammal is another campus movie from Kamal after Niram. What is different this time is Kamal introduces new faces Siddharth and Jishnu. Kamal provides glimpses of the new campus with adventure in his movie with these debutants. Snehalatha (Suhasini) takes charge as the Principal in a college where Shyam (Siddharth) and Sivan (Jishnu) are the heroes. Shyam and Sivan are fun filled characters as well as naughty. Aparna (Renuka Menon) is teased and ragged by the duo, who happens to be the daughter of Principal's friend. Aparna complaints and Snehalatha takes action against Shyam and Shivan. Soon to her surpurise she discovers that Shyam and Shivan are orphans, hardworking and their guardian is a priest (Balachandra Menon). But the real twist to the story happens when Snehalatha finds out that one of them is her son. Suhasini has done a splendid job backed by a strong character. Music by Mohan Sitara's and script by Kalavoor Ravi kumar. Awards. Malayalam Movie Awards 2002
586093	Oru Naal Varum (; ) is a 2010 Malayalam satirical film produced by Maniyanpilla Raju and directed by T. K. Rajeev Kumar. It was scripted by Sreenivasan. The film marks the Malayalam film debut of the Bollywood actress Sameera Reddy. Plot. The plot of the film is about corruption in India. It opens with Gopi Krishnan (Sreenivasan) and his wife (Devayani) and daughter Dhanya (Nazriya Nazim) enjoying themselves at Kutralam Waterfalls. Soon it is revealed that Gopi Krishnan is a corrupt assistant town planner using a government vehicle to come on holiday in Tamil Nadu during his duty hours. As his driver (Suraj Venjaramood) takes him back to his station in Kerala he has an altercation with protagonist Sukumaran (Mohanlal), whose identity and profession are not yet revealed. Sukumaran lives in a rented flat with his daughter (Esther). Later Sukumaran is seen at the town planning office trying to get a building permit, and meets Vasudevan (Nedumudi Venu), who is also having difficulty with building permits. As the film progresses, the audience comes to learn that Sukumaran is not the simple citizen he seems, but a vigilance officer named Nandhakumar trying to arrest Gopi Krishnan in a corruption case. There is also a sub-plot involving the child custody battle between Nandhakumar and his wife Meera (Sameera Reddy). Nandhakumar makes three attempts to get evidence against Gopi Krishnan. The first two fail, because Nandhakumar's subordinate Sunny leaked the plans to Gopi Krishnan. Vasudevan commits suicide after the first failure. Finally after catching Sunny, the third attempt succeeds (though there is confusion over the evidence and some thugs attempt to murder Gopi Krishnan while he is in police custody). However Nandhakumar loses his court case against his wife and has to give up his daughter. Faced with the collapse of his corrupt life, Gopi Krishnan agrees to work with Nandhakumar to root out corrupt real estate developers. The film closes with Meera returning Nandhakumar's daughter to him, saying that she could not handle her crying for her father all the time.
581918	Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam (English: "I Have Given My Heart, Darling") is a 1999 Bollywood romantic drama film directed by Sanjay Leela Bhansali. It was released in the English-speaking world as Straight from the Heart. The film stars Salman Khan, Ajay Devgan, and Aishwarya Rai. The story is adopted from Maitreyi Devi's Bengali novel "Na Hanyate", and is based on a love triangle. It also reflects the influence of the German novella "Immensee" and the 1943 Nazi era film based on it, "Immensee".
66221	Richard Merritt Montague (September 20, 1930 – March 7, 1971) was an American mathematician and philosopher. Career. At the University of California, Berkeley, Montague earned a B.A. in Philosophy in 1950, an M.A. in Mathematics in 1953, and a Ph.D. in Philosophy 1957, the latter under the direction of the mathematician and logician Alfred Tarski. Montague, one of Tarski's most accomplished American students, spent his entire career teaching in the UCLA Department of Philosophy, where he supervised the dissertations of Nino Cocchiarella and Hans Kamp. Montague wrote on the foundations of logic and set theory, as would befit a student of Tarski. His Ph.D. dissertation, titled "Contributions to the Axiomatic Foundations of Set Theory", contained the first proof that all possible axiomatizations of the standard axiomatic set theory ZFC must contain infinitely many axioms. In other words, ZFC cannot be finitely axiomatized. He pioneered a logical approach to natural language semantics which became known as Montague grammar. This approach to language has been especially influential among certain computational linguists—perhaps more so than among more traditional philosophers of language. Montague was an accomplished organist and a successful real estate investor. He died violently in his own home; the crime is unsolved to this day. Anita Feferman and Solomon Feferman argue that he usually went to bars "cruising" and bringing people home with him. On the day that he was murdered, he brought home several people "for some kind of soirée", but they instead robbed his house and strangled him. His life and work provide the inspiration for the novel "The Semantics of Murder" (Aifric Campbell 2008: 250 ISBN 978-1-85242-996-6).
1164632	Elizabeth Welter Wilson (born April 4, 1921) is a Tony Award-winning American actress. She was elected to the Theatre Hall of Fame in 2007. Life and career. Wilson was born in Grand Rapids, Michigan, the daughter of Marie Ethel (née Welter) and Henry Dunning Wilson, who was an insurance agent. Wilson attended the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York City, then studied with Sanford Meisner at the Neighborhood Playhouse. She made her Broadway debut in "Picnic" in 1953. Her stage credits include "Desk Set", "The Good Woman of Szechuan", "Sticks and Bones", "Uncle Vanya", "Threepenny Opera", "The Importance of Being Earnest", "Morning's at Seven", "You Can't Take It with You", "Ah, Wilderness!", and "A Delicate Balance". Wilson made her screen debut reprising her stage role in the 1955 film adaptation of "Picnic". Additional credits include "The Goddess", "A Child is Waiting", "The Birds", "The Graduate", "Catch-22", "The Day of the Dolphin", "The Prisoner of Second Avenue", "Nine to Five", "Grace Quigley", "Regarding Henry", "The Tunnel of Love", "Nora's Christmas Gift" (made by Bonneville Productions and "The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints"), "The Addams Family", and "Quiz Show". She portrayed Franklin Roosevelt's mother, Sara Ann Delano Roosevelt, in "Hyde Park on Hudson" (2012). Wilson's television credits include such early anthology series as "Kraft Television Theatre", "The United States Steel Hour", and "Armstrong Circle Theatre". She was a regular on the primetime drama "East Side/West Side" and sitcom "Doc" and has appeared in "Dark Shadows", "Another World", "All in the Family", "Murder, She Wrote", and "".
1702600	Animals United () is a 2010 German 3D computer-animated comedy-adventure film directed by Reinhard Klooss and Holger Tappe, starring Ralf Schmitz and Thomas Fritsch as a meerkat called Billy and a lion called Socrates in the African Okavango Delta who go on a quest to discover why their river has unexpectedly dried up. It is based on the 1949 book with the same title by Erich Kästner. The screenplay for the film was written by Oliver Huzly and Reinhard Kloos and the soundtrack was composed by David Newman. An English-language dub stars James Cordon and Stephen Fry. Plot. The film is set in Africa's Okavango Delta, and the main characters are a meerkat named Billy and a lion named Socrates. The annual flood has failed to arrive in the Delta, water has become scarce and the native animals fiercely fight over it. Billy and Socrates set out to find more water, and during their quest they meet a rag-tag group of animals from across the world: a polar bear, a kangaroo, a Tasmanian devil, a pair of Galápagos tortoises and a French Rooster, all of whom have had their lives ruined by humans in some way and have travelled to Africa. The animals soon discover the reason for the lack of water in the Delta: a dam has been constructed to supply energy for a luxury resort. Humans kidnap Socrates and hold him captive in the resort, so Billy leads the animals in a plan to free Socrates and break the dam to bring water back to the Delta. After the party, they all approach New York City with blue whales. Reception. Reviews for the film were generally negative, with the aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes reporting that 25% of critics have given the film a positive review, with an average rating 3.8 out of 10.
1245522	The Interrupters is a 2011 documentary film, produced by Kartemquin Films, that tells the story of three violence interrupters who try to protect their Chicago communities from the violence they once employed. It examines a year in which Chicago drew national headlines for violence and murder that plagued the city. The film features the work of CeaseFire, an initiative of the Chicago Project for Violence Prevention. In 2004, Tio Hardiman (ex-Director of CeaseFire Illinois) created and implemented The Violence Interrupter concept. Violence interrupters Ameena Matthews, Cobe Williams and Eddie Bocanegra look back on their past experiences with street violence to try to steer young men and women in the right direction. Matthews, the daughter of former Chicago gang leader Jeff Fort, comes to the aid of the mother of Derrion Albert, a Chicago high school student whose death made national headlines when it was captured on videotape. Produced by Kartemquin Films, "The Interrupters" is directed by Steve James, director of the highly acclaimed documentary, "Hoop Dreams", and co-produced by Alex Kotlowitz, author of the award winning book, . Setting. The documentary takes place on Chicago's South Side in a myriad of troubled communities. One of the main communities featured is Englewood. Englewood lies approximately 12 miles south of the Loop and began as a home to German and Irish farm and railroad workers. However, after World War II, Englewood and the South Side of Chicago as a whole became known as the "Black Belt." This is in reference to the predominately African American population moving to this area. As of the year 2000, 0.6% of Englewood residents are White, while 98.2% are Black or African American. Only 5.2% of Englewood residents over the age of twenty-five have obtained a bachelor degree or higher. The unemployment rate of Englewood residents over the age of sixteen is 25.8%. With unemployment so high, troubled residents turn to gang involvement and drug trafficking as means to make money. The crime statistics for February 24, 2012 detail thirty-three documented crimes in a span of twenty-four hours. One third of those crimes were narcotic offenses. Most of the drug activity can be traced back to two notorious gangs that run the area: The Gangster Disciples and the Black P Stones. The Interrupter's Ameena Matthews has ties to the Black P Stone as her father, Jeff Fort was the founder and leader. Release and reception. "The Interrupters" premiered at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival. On March 3, 2011, "The Interrupters" made its international premiere at the 2011 Adelaide Film Festival in Australia. The film also picked up the Special Jury Award at the 18th annual Sheffield Doc/Fest - the UK's largest documentary festival - in June 2011. It was broadcast in Canada on the CBC News Network documentary series "The Passionate Eye" on January 28, 2012. It was broadcast as part of the PBS series, Frontline, in February 2012. Early reviews for the film suggested that "The Interrupters" was an early candidate for a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature, but it was not nominated. The film holds a "Certified Fresh" 100% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 83 reviews, with the consensus stating "Impeccably crafted and edited, The Interrupters is a tough and honest documentary about street violence that truly has the power to inspire change."
729599	Sir Christopher Michael Wren PRS (20 October 1632 – 25 February 1723) is one of the most highly acclaimed English architects in history. He was accorded responsibility for rebuilding 52 churches in the City of London after the Great Fire in 1666, including his masterpiece, St. Paul's Cathedral, on Ludgate Hill, completed in 1710.
830476	Kari Matchett is a Canadian television and film actress. She played Mariel Underlay in "Invasion," Lisa Miller in "24", and Kate Filmore in the cult favorite science fiction movie "". She currently appears in the USA television series "Covert Affairs." Biography. Early life and education. Matchett was born in Spalding, Saskatchewan. She attended high school at Lethbridge Collegiate Institute in Lethbridge, Alberta. She attended the National Theatre School in Montreal and the Moscow Theatre School. Matchett performed on stage for three years at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival in Ontario. Career. In Canada, her first major role was on "The Rez," and her first starring role was as Colleen Blessed in "Power Play" (1998–2000). Matchett was a cast member on the A&E Network TV series "A Nero Wolfe Mystery" (2001–2002), with Timothy Hutton in which she played several characters, including a recurring role as Lily Rowan. On "Wonderfalls", she played Beth, the lesbian love interest of the main character's sister. In 2002, she played Kate Filmore in the science fiction/horror movie "". In 2003, she starred with Timothy Hutton in the Syfy miniseries "Five Days to Midnight". Her next role was as Detective Elaine Bender in "Blue Murder" in 2004. She previously guest starred on "Blue Murder" in 2001 as a suspect in a murder investigation, for which she won the prestigious Gemini Award. In 2005, Matchett starred in ABC TV series, "Invasion", a series about aliens taking the form of humans. She also appeared in "". She also appeared as Mary Tate on "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip". She appeared in both "Shark" and "Wild Card". She played a single mother stalked by her boyfriend in "Intimate Stranger", in 2006. In the same year she starred with Peter Krause in "Civic Duty" as Marla, who discovers her husband's Islamophobic psychosis. In 2007, she joined the cast of "24", as Lisa Miller. In June 2007, Matchett played Kate Armstrong in the TNT series "Heartland". In 2007 and 2008, Matchett was cast as ER chief Skye Wexler on "ER". In 2008 and 2009, she played Dennis Hopper's daughter, Jules, in the critically acclaimed Starz series "Crash". She had a recurring role in the TNT series "Leverage", reunited with "Nero Wolfe" co-star, Timothy Hutton, portraying Hutton's ex-wife. Matchett currently stars as high-ranking CIA official Joan Campbell in the USA Network series "Covert Affairs" (2010–present). Matchett plays a supporting role in Terrence Malick's "The Tree of Life", with Sean Penn and Brad Pitt. Shot in 2008, the film premiered in competition at the Cannes Film Festival in May 2011 and received the Palme d'Or. Personal life. Matchett is the mother of Jude Lyon Matchett.
581840	Sushma Seth () is an Indian film, television, and stage actress. She started her career in the late 1970s, and has been known for playing the mother and the grandmother in movies and television. She is most known as the role of Dadi in pioneering TV soap "Hum Log" (1984–1985). She is also a theatre actor and worker, founder member of theatre group, Delhi-based Yatrik. She's worked with famous directors like Dev Raj Ankur, Ram Gopal Bajaj, Manish Joshi Bismil, Chander Shekhar Sharma. Early life and education. Brought up in Delhi, 1940s, she completed her schooling from Convent of Jesus and Mary, New Delhi. Thereafter she did a teachers training diploma in home science, Lady Irwin College, New Delhi, Associate in Science diploma, Briarcliff College, New York, USA and later Bachelor of Fine Arts, from Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, USA. Career. Seth has starred in some of the biggest hits in the Indian industry including "Silsila (film)","Prem Rog", "Ram Teri Ganga Maili", "Chandni", "Deewana", "Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham" and "Kal Ho Naa Ho". She debuted Shyam Benegal's 1978 period film "Junoon", in which she played Shashi Kapoor's aunt. She received a nomination for Filmfare Best Supporting Actress Award for her role in the 1985 B R Chopra film "Tawaif". She has played the mother and grandmother of almost every Bollywood star including Rishi Kapoor, Akshay Kumar, Shahrukh Khan, Hrithik Roshan, Anil Kapoor and Preity Zinta. Apart from acting in Bollywood films she has also appeared in TV series like sitcom "Dekh Bhai Dekh" (1993), directed by Anand Mahendroo, where she played the matriarch of the Divan family. She has also worked with eminent theatre directors like Ram Gopal Bajaj and Manish Joshi Bismil. Her most memorable, however, remains for the TV soap "Hum Log", telecast in the early 80s on Doordarshan, in which she played Daadi (the grandmother). Seth was so popular that her character, who was shown suffering from throat cancer, had to be extended on viewer's demand. She also appeared in the legendary Punjabi film "Chann Pardesi" (1980).
626829	Bedtime for Bonzo is a 1951 comedy film directed by Frederick de Cordova, starring future U.S. President Ronald Reagan and Diana Lynn. It revolves around the attempts of the central character, Professor Peter Boyd (Ronald Reagan), to teach human morals to a chimpanzee, hoping to solve the "nature versus nurture" question. He hires a woman (Diana Lynn) to pose as the chimp's mother while he plays father to it, and uses 1950s-era child rearing techniques. This movie is one of the most remembered of Reagan's acting career and renewed his popularity as a movie star for a while. Reagan, however, never even saw the film until 1984. The film was later referenced in connection with Reagan in the 1986 Ramones song "My Brain Is Hanging Upside Down (Bonzo Goes to Bitburg)", in the 1986 Dead Kennedys album "Bedtime for Democracy" and in a track on a 1984 Jerry Harrison record, sampling Reagan and credited to "Bonzo Goes to Washington". A song unflattering to Reagan entitled "Bad Time for Bonzo" is featured on The Damned's fourth studio album, "Strawberries". It was also referenced in a "Calvin and Hobbes" comic strip, "Bloom County" comic strip (October 11, 1981), as well as in the Strontium Dog comic story "Bitch", published in 2000AD (comic), which featured President Ronald Reagan being kidnapped out of his own era and taken into the far flung future setting of the comic. Other notable references include the 1966 Stan Freberg comedy album "Freberg Underground", and the 1986 video of the British band Genesis's song "Land Of Confusion". A sequel was released entitled "Bonzo Goes to College" (1952), but featured neither lead performer from the original. References. The movie is also referenced in the MMORPG DC Universe online. At the end of the two player duo "Gorilla Grodd's Laboratory" The Flash quips at Gorilla Grodd "It's bedtime for Bonzo".
930363	Gang of Roses is a 2003 Western action drama film written and directed by Jean-Claude La Marre. It starred Monica Calhoun, Lil' Kim, Lisa Raye, Charity Hill, Bobby Brown, Stacy Dash, and Marie Matiko.
1082750	Room in Rome () is a 2010 Spanish erotic romance film, featuring relations of two young women (Alba and Natasha) in a hotel room in Rome. The plot is loosely based on another film, "En la cama" ("In Bed"). "Room in Rome" was Julio Medem’s first English language film. Plot. Alba (Elena Anaya) seduces a stranger Natasha (Natasha Yarovenko) to her hotel room (the details of how they meet in a club are left vague) in what seems merely a harmless sexual adventure crowning their last night in Rome. Natasha is at first quite reluctant insisting she's straight, but Alba appears to know her way around that hesitance. It is clear that Alba has done this before. However, through stories, memories and connection with artworks in the room, the two connect deeply, descending more and more into the depths of truth, trust, and ultimately love. The lovers eventually agree to part ways, returning to their previous lives in Russia and Spain. The ending of the film remains ambiguous about their parting. Production. The place where the hotel in the movie is located is an empty square called Piazzetta di San Simeone, the same square that is used in the opening and closing shots of the film. The principal photography of the film took place in Rome and Madrid from January 26 to February 27, 2009. References. Notes
1164838	Bernard Whalen "Bert" Convy (July 23, 1933 – July 15, 1991) was an American actor, singer, game show host and panelist known for his tenure as the host for "Tattletales", "Super Password", and "Win, Lose or Draw". Early life. Convy was born in St. Louis, Missouri, the son of Monica ("née" Whalen) and Bert Fleming Convy. Convy's family moved to Los Angeles when he was seven years old. He later attended North Hollywood High School where he was an all-around athlete. He was signed by the Philadelphia Phillies when he was just 17, playing two years of minor league baseball in 1951–52. He later joined the 1950s vocal band, The Cheers, who had a Top 10 hit in 1955 with "Black Denim Trousers And Motorcycle Boots". Convy later attended UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television where he received a bachelor's degree. Career. Early years. Convy started his career in the entertainment business as a featured performer and singer in the "Billy Barnes Revues" of the 1950s and 1960s. He appeared in the 1961 Warner Brothers drama "Susan Slade", playing Troy Donahue′s rival for the affections of Connie Stevens. Convy went on to became a Broadway actor, starring as Perchick in the original cast of "Fiddler on the Roof" (1964), "The Impossible Years" (1965), and creating the role of Cliff Bradshaw in "Cabaret" (1966). He also appeared in the Roger Corman film "A Bucket of Blood", playing Lou Raby; and the soap opera "Love of Life", playing Glenn Hamilton, a rapist. Game show host. In the 1960s and 1970s, Convy was a popular semi-regular panelist on several game shows, including "What′s My Line?", "To Tell the Truth", "The Match Game" and "Password". He soon took the podium himself as host of several game shows, including the fourth edition of "Password", "Super Password" (1984–1989), and "Tattletales" (1974–1978, 1982–1984), for which he was awarded an Emmy for Best Game Show Host in 1977. In 1979, he appeared on "Password Plus" with Elizabeth Montgomery, Carol Burnett, Phyllis Diller, Judy Norton Taylor, Marcia Wallace, and Elaine Joyce, and Allen Ludden, the main host. Convy also hosted the first two seasons of the syndicated version of "Win, Lose or Draw" (1987–1989), which he co-produced with Burt Reynolds (under Burt and Bert Productions). The third and final season (1989–1990) of "Win, Lose or Draw" was hosted by Robb Weller, freeing up Convy to host his last game show (which he also produced), "3rd Degree", a syndicated program that ran during the 1989–90 TV season. Convy was planned as host for the 1990 revival of "Match Game", but he was too ill to do so; comedian and "Love Me, Love Me Not" host Ross Shafer took the role instead. Acting. In the 1960–1961 season, Convy guest starred on Pat O′Brien′s short-lived ABC sitcom, "Harrigan and Son", as well as guest-starring on the ABC private detective show "77 Sunset Strip" in the role of David. He was also cast on an episode of CBS′s "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" as Jack Foster, a friend of Mary′s, alongside future "Alice" co-star, Beth Howland. In 1973, Convy was a guest star in an episode of "Hawaii Five O". He attempted to parlay his fame in a short-lived variety series, "The Late Summer Early Fall Bert Convy Show" in 1976. In 1979, he appeared with the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders in a movie of the same name. In 1970, Convy played Paul Revere in the TV series "Bewitched" on the episode ″Paul Revere Rides Again″. He also appeared in episodes of three other CBS series: "Hawaii Five-O", starring Jack Lord; "", starring Peter Graves; and "The New Phil Silvers Show", with comedian Phil Silvers, and starred in the premiere episode of "Fantasy Island" with Ricardo Montalban, and had a supporting role in the pilot episode of "Murder, She Wrote" with Angela Lansbury, as well as a role in a later episode. His credits also include a guest starring role on ABC′s "Charlie′s Angels" episode ″Love Boat Angels″ in 1979, which coincidentally was the first episode for new Angel, Shelley Hack. In 1983, Convy briefly returned to scripted series television in the ABC sitcom "It′s Not Easy", playing opposite Ken Howard. Convy joined the project when it was recast, after its intended premiere in the 1982–83 season was delayed; he earned the role originally given to Larry Breeding, who was killed in a car accident in September 1982 after the first pilot was shot. Convy also starred in several movies, most memorably in the film "Semi-Tough" (1977) where he played a caricature of Werner Erhard named ″Friedrich Bismark″. He starred in French director Philippe de Broca′s "Les Caprices de Marie" ("Give Her the Moon", 1970). He also played a teacher named Jeff Reed in the horror movie "Jennifer". In 1979, he starred in the movie "Racquet", as a tennis star. He also made a fine appearance in "Help Wanted: Male" (1982). In addition, he directed the 1986 comedy "Weekend Warriors". In 1980, Convy produced and directed the Goodspeed Opera House premiere of the musical "Zapata", music and lyrics by Harry Nilsson and Perry Botkin, Jr., libretto by Allan Katz. Convy's final feature film was the 1981 movie "The Cannonball Run", in which he played a character named Bradford Compton. Personal life. Convy was married twice. He married Anne Anderson in 1959 with whom he had three children: Jennifer, Joshua, and Jonah. Convy and Anderson divorced in 1991. Convy married his second wife, Catherine Hill, five months before his death. Death. In April 1990, Convy was admitted to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center after collapsing while visiting his mother there, and was diagnosed with a brain tumor. He died from the tumor on July 15, 1991 at his home in Brentwood. He is buried in Forest Lawn – Hollywood Hills Cemetery.
1103200	Isaac Barrow (October 1630 – 4 May 1677) was an English Christian theologian, and mathematician who is generally given credit for his early role in the development of infinitesimal calculus; in particular, for the discovery of the fundamental theorem of calculus. His work centered on the properties of the tangent; Barrow was the first to calculate the tangents of the kappa curve. Isaac Newton was a student of Barrow's, and Newton went on to develop calculus in a modern form. The lunar crater Barrow is named after him. Biography. Barrow was born in London. He was the son of Thomas Barrow, a linen draper by trade. In 1624, Thomas married Ann, daughter of William Buggin of North Cray, Kent and their son Isaac was born in 1630. It appears that Barrow was the only child of his union - certainly the only child to survive infancy. Ann died c. 1634, and the widowed father sent the lad to his grandfather, Isaac, the Cambridgeshire J.P., who resided at Spinney Abbey. Within two years, however, Thomas remarried, the new wife was Katherine Oxinden, sister of Henry Oxinden of Maydekin, Kent. Of this marriage, at least one daughter, Elizabeth (born 1641), in known to have survived. Isaac went to school first at Charterhouse (where he was so turbulent and pugnacious that his father was heard to pray that if it pleased God to take any of his children he could best spare Isaac), and subsequently to Felsted School, where he settled and learned under the brilliant puritan Headmaster Martin Holbeach who ten years previously had educated John Wallis. Having learnt Greek, Hebrew, Latin and logic at Felsted, in preparation for university studies, he continued his education at Trinity College, Cambridge; his uncle and namesake Isaac Barrow, afterwards Bishop of St Asaph, was a Fellow of Peterhouse. He took to hard study, distinguishing himself in classics and mathematics; after taking his degree in 1648, he was elected to a fellowship in 1649. Barrow received an MA from Cambridge in 1652 as a student of James Duport; he then resided for a few years in college, and became candidate for the Greek Professorship at Cambridge, but in 1655 he was driven out by the persecution of the Independents. He spent the next four years travelling across France, Italy and even Constantinople, and after many adventures returned to England in 1659. He is described as "low in stature, lean, and of a pale complexion, "slovenly in his dress, and having a committed and long-standing habit of tobacco use (an " smoker "). He was otherwise known for his courageousness, particularly noted is the occasion of whilst journeying in the East, his having saved the ship to which he were upon by the merits of his own prowess, from capture by pirates. In respect to his courtly activities his aptitude to wit earned him favour with Charles II, and the respect of his fellow courtiers, in his writings one might find accordingly, a sustained and somewhat stately eloquence. An altogether impressive personage of the time, having lived a blameless life into which he exercised conduct with due care and conscientiousness . Career. In 1660, he was ordained and appointed to the Regius Professorship of Greek at Cambridge. In 1662 he was made professor of geometry at Gresham College, and in 1663 was selected as the first occupier of the Lucasian chair at Cambridge. During his tenure of this chair he published two mathematical works of great learning and elegance, the first on geometry and the second on optics. In 1669 he resigned his professorship in favour of Isaac Newton. About this time, Barrow composed his "Expositions of the Creed, The Lord's Prayer, Decalogue, and Sacraments". For the remainder of his life he devoted himself to the study of divinity. He was made a D.D. by Royal mandate in 1670, and two years later Master of Trinity College (1672), where he founded the library, and held the post until his death. Besides the works above mentioned, he wrote other important treatises on mathematics, but in literature his place is chiefly supported by his sermons, which are masterpieces of argumentative eloquence, while his treatise on the "Pope's Supremacy" is regarded as one of the most perfect specimens of controversy in existence. Barrow's character as a man was in all respects worthy of his great talents, though he had a strong vein of eccentricity. He died unmarried in London at the early age of 47, and was buried at Westminster Abbey. His earliest work was a complete edition of the "Elements" of Euclid, which he issued in Latin in 1655, and in English in 1660; in 1657 he published an edition of the "Data". His lectures, delivered in 1664, 1665, and 1666, were published in 1683 under the title "Lectiones Mathematicae"; these are mostly on the metaphysical basis for mathematical truths. His lectures for 1667 were published in the same year, and suggest the analysis by which Archimedes was led to his chief results. In 1669 he issued his "Lectiones Opticae et Geometricae". It is said in the preface that Newton revised and corrected these lectures, adding matter of his own, but it seems probable from Newton's remarks in the fluxional controversy that the additions were confined to the parts which dealt with optics. This, which is his most important work in mathematics, was republished with a few minor alterations in 1674. In 1675 he published an edition with numerous comments of the first four books of the "On Conic Sections" of Apollonius of Perga, and of the extant works of Archimedes and Theodosius of Bithynia. In the optical lectures many problems connected with the reflection and refraction of light are treated with ingenuity. The geometrical focus of a point seen by reflection or refraction is defined; and it is explained that the image of an object is the locus of the geometrical foci of every point on it. Barrow also worked out a few of the easier properties of thin lenses, and considerably simplified the Cartesian explanation of the rainbow. Barrow was the first to find the integral of the secant function in closed form, thereby proving a conjecture that was well-known at the time. Calculating tangents. The geometrical lectures contain some new ways of determining the areas and tangents of curves. The most celebrated of these is the method given for the determination of tangents to curves, and this is sufficiently important to require a detailed notice, because it illustrates the way in which Barrow, Hudde and Sluze were working on the lines suggested by Fermat towards the methods of the differential calculus. Fermat had observed that the tangent at a point "P" on a curve was determined if one other point besides "P" on it were known; hence, if the length of the subtangent "MT' could be found (thus determining the point "T"), then the line "TP" would be the required tangent. Now Barrow remarked that if the abscissa and ordinate at a point "Q" adjacent to "P" were drawn, he got a small triangle "PQR" (which he called the differential triangle, because its sides "PR" and "PQ" were the differences of the abscissae and ordinates of "P" and "Q"), so that To find "QR" : "RP" he supposed that "x", "y" were the co-ordinates of "P", and "x" − "e", "y" − "a" those of "Q" (Barrow actually used "p" for "x" and "m" for "y", but this article uses the standard modern notation). Substituting the co-ordinates of "Q" in the equation of the curve, and neglecting the squares and higher powers of "e" and "a" as compared with their first powers, he obtained "e" : "a". The ratio "a"/"e" was subsequently (in accordance with a suggestion made by Sluze) termed the angular coefficient of the tangent at the point. Barrow applied this method to the curves It will be sufficient here to take as an illustration the simpler case of the parabola "y"2 = "px".
1164524	Margaret Brainard Hamilton (December 9, 1902 – May 16, 1985) was an American film character actress best known for her portrayal of the malevolent Miss Almira Gulch and the Wicked Witch of the West in Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer's musical film "The Wizard of Oz" (1939). A former schoolteacher, she worked as a character actor in films for seven years before she was offered the role that defined her public image. The Wicked Witch of the West was eventually ranked No. 4 in the American Film Institute's list of the 50 Best Movie Villains of All Time, making her the highest ranking female villain In later years, Hamilton made frequent cameo appearances on television sitcoms and commercials. She also gained recognition for her work as an advocate of causes designed to benefit children and animals, and retained a lifelong commitment to public education. Early life. Hamilton was born to Walter J. Hamilton, and his wife, Jennie (née Adams), in Cleveland, Ohio, and was the youngest of four children. She later attended Hathaway Brown School in Shaker Heights, Ohio. Drawn to the theater at an early age, Hamilton made her stage debut in 1923. Hamilton also practiced her craft doing children's theater while she was a Junior League of Cleveland member. She later moved to Painesville, Ohio. Before she turned to acting exclusively, her parents insisted that she attend Wheelock College in Boston, which she did, later becoming a kindergarten teacher.
1065938	North Dallas Forty is a 1979 film drama starring Nick Nolte, Mac Davis, and G. D. Spradlin set in the world of American professional football. It was directed by Ted Kotcheff and based on the best-selling novel by Peter Gent. The screenplay was by Kotcheff, Gent, Frank Yablans and Nancy Dowd (uncredited). Plot. Wide receiver Phil Elliott plays for a 1970s era professional football team based in Dallas, Texas named the North Dallas Bulls, which closely resembles the Dallas Cowboys. The aging Elliott is struggling to stay competitive and relies heavily on painkillers. Elliott and popular quarterback Seth Maxwell are outstanding players, but they also characterize the drug-, sex-, and alcohol-fueled party atmosphere of NFL teams of that era. Elliott only wants to play the game, retire, and own a home with his girlfriend Charlotte.
1084499	The Culpepper Cattle Co. is a 1972 Revisionist Western film produced by Twentieth Century Fox. It was directed by Dick Richards and starred Billy Green Bush as Frank Culpepper and Gary Grimes as Ben Mockridge. This was the first credited film for Jerry Bruckheimer, for which he received an associate producer credit. Its tagline is “How many men do you have to kill before you become the great American cowboy?” and also "The boy from "Summer of '42" becomes a man on the cattle drive of 1866", which references a similar coming of age film starting Gary Grimes. The film is typical of the 'hyper-realism' of many early 1970's revisionist westerns. It is particularly noted for it's graining photography and use of sepia toning in some scenes. Synopsis. Ben Mockridge (Gary Grimes) is a young man proud of his $4 handgun and enamored of “cowboyin”. He asks Frank Culpepper (Billy Green Bush) if he can join his cattle drive to Fort Lewis, Colorado. Culpepper (a reformed gunslinger) reluctantly agrees and sends Ben to the cook (Raymond Guth) to be his “little Mary”. Ben quickly discovers that the adults have little interest in young’ns, and "no" interest in “showing him the ropes”. Culpepper nevertheless assigns Ben tasks the greenhorn handles poorly — or simply fails at — repeatedly causing serious trouble. After rustlers stampede the herd, Culpepper tracks them to a box canyon. When the rustlers’ leader (Royal Dano) demands 50 cents a head for having rounded up and taken care of the cattle, Culpepper will have none of it. He and his hands kill the rustlers, not hesitating to gun down disarmed men, or repeatedly shoot anyone still moving. They lose four of their own in the fight. Culpepper directs Ben to a cantina a day’s ride off, to find Russ Caldwell. Before he can reach the cantina, Ben is accosted by trappers who take his horse and gun. Once Ben finds Caldwell (Geoffrey Lewis), he and three of his buddies agree to join the drive. When they cross the trappers’ path, there’s no parlaying — they immediately kill the trappers and take their possessions. When Ben stands night watch, he's unprepared for a one-eyed man (Gregory Sierra) trying to steal the horses. Instead of immediately shooting him, Ben lets the man distract him with his talk, and is overcome by another thief. Culpepper is outraged at Ben's stupidity. The horse theft “tears it”, and Culpepper decides to toss Ben on a stage, regardless of where it's headed. When Culpepper & Co. enter a town where they hope to buy horses and send off the greenhorn, they stop at a saloon, where Ben recognizes one of the patrons as the one-eyed horse thief. Another shoot-out ensues, with Ben "redeeming" himself by killing the bartender as the latter reaches for his shotgun. As before, Culpepper’s adversaries wind up dead, an unlikely survivor directing Culpepper to the horses. When Ben handles Caldwell’s gun without his permission, the touchy Caldwell goes into a snit, and knocks Ben to the ground. When one of the hands calls Caldwell an SOB for striking Ben, Caldwell demands a gun fight to reclaim his “honor". The hand decides it isn’t worth the trouble and leaves the drive. “You cost me a good man, boy.” When they reach an area with grass and water, Culpepper leaves the cattle to graze, looking for the landowner to pay him. The owner, Thornton Pierce (John McLiam), tells Culpepper he should have "asked" first, and demands $200 as down-payment simply for having trespassed. This time, Culpepper & Co. are outgunned, and forced to surrender their sidearms, which they view as a symbolic castration. Moving out the cattle, Culpepper & Co. encounter a group of religious “pilgrims”, led by Nathaniel Green (Anthony James), who invites them to stay and water their cattle. He says God has led his party here, and they intend to settle. Not surprisingly, Pierce and his thugs show up, claiming “this land is mine”, and gives "everyone" — Green and his people included — an hour to get off. Green is convinced Culpepper was sent by God to help. Culpepper responds that Green need only leave to be safe, which is what "he" intends to do, as it’s less than two weeks to Fort Lewis, and selling his cattle is all he cares about. Ben decides to stay, feeling he can help in some unspecified manner. As Culpepper & Co. ride off, their consciences (and lust for revenge) get the better of them, and they return to defend Green & party from Pierce. In the ensuing shootout, "everyone" in the Culpepper and Pierce parties — except Ben — is killed. Revealing his hypocrisy and ingratitude, Green tells Ben that they aren’t going to stay after all, as the ground has been stained with blood. "God never intended us to stay — he was only testin us." An angry Ben forces them to bury the bodies, then discards his gun and rides off, to parts unknown. Historic accuracy. "The Culpepper Cattle Co." has been praised for its attention to detail and period atmosphere. A subtle example is seen when Frank Culpepper leans against a water barrel and his arm above the wrist is exposed — it’s white, untanned. People rarely took off "any" clothing in public (there’s a comic moment when the cook is embarrassed to be seen with his shirt off), and the idea of an “all-over” tan would have been absurd, if not incomprehensible. (Only working folk had a tan.) Cowboys were “fish-belly white” over most of their bodies. The opening title sequence mixes genuine period photographs with sepia tinted posed images of the cast members. The story is almost casually violent, but this has to be seen in the context of the offenses against Frank Culpepper and his party. These included horse and cattle theft, which were usually punishable by hanging. As there was no practical way to haul the thieves into court, Culpepper was justified in dispensing immediate “justice”, however brutal. Culpepper’s final act of justice is to wipe out the evil agro-Capitalist (the villain in scores of Westerns) and his horde. By contemporary standards, the grass-fed cattle are rather scrawny, as fattening them up on corn had not become general practice. Even if it had, there would have been little point in adding weight to animals who would only "walk it off" on a long drive. The 1866 date of the story is plausible. This was the same year Goodnight and Loving made their first long cattle drive. The film’s principal anachronism is showing most of the cowhands with beards. Contemporary photos indicate that, while cowboys often had moustaches (sometimes quite fancy), beards were not common — one out of twenty cowboys, perhaps. This was unusual in an era (extending to the end of the 19th century) where a high percentage of men took pride in having full beards. References. http://www.philipbrophy.com/projects/rstff/RewrittenWesterns_C.html
1225485	Lynn Fontanne (; 6 December 1887 – 30 July 1983) was a British-born American-based actress and major stage star in the United States for over 40 years. She teamed with her husband, Alfred Lunt. Lunt and Fontanne shared a special Tony Award in 1970. They both won Emmy Awards in 1965, and Fontanne was a Kennedy Center honoree in 1980. Career. Born Lillie Louise Fontanne in Woodford, London of French and Irish descent, she drew acclaim in 1921 playing the title role in the George S. Kaufman-Marc Connelly's farce, "Dulcy". Dorothy Parker memorialized her performance in verse:"Dulcy", take our gratitude,/All your words are golden ones./Mistress of the platitude,/Queen of all the old ones./You, at last, are something new/'Neath the theatre's dome. I'd/Mention to the cosmos, you/Swing a wicked bromide. ... She soon became celebrated for her skill as an actress in high comedy, excelling in witty roles written for her by Noël Coward, S.N. Behrman and Robert Sherwood. However, she enjoyed one of the greatest critical successes of her career as Nina Leeds, the desperate heroine of Eugene O'Neill's controversial nine-act drama, "Strange Interlude". From the late 1920s on, Fontanne acted exclusively in vehicles also starring her husband. Among their greatest theater triumphs were "Design for Living" (1933), "The Taming of the Shrew" (1935–36), "Idiot's Delight" (1936), "There Shall Be No Night" (1940) and "Quadrille" (1952). "Design for Living", which Noël Coward wrote expressly for himself and the Lunts, was so risqué, with its theme of bisexuality and a ménage à trois, that Coward premiered it in New York, knowing it would not survive the censor in London. The duo remained active onstage until retiring in 1960. Fontanne was nominated for a Best Actress Tony for one of her last stage roles, in "The Visit" (1959).
1103023	Jean Bourgain (born 28 February 1954) is a Belgian mathematician. He has been a faculty member at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign and, from 1985 until 1995, professor at Institut des Hautes Études Scientifiques at Bures-sur-Yvette in France, and since 1994 at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey. He is currently an editor for the Annals of Mathematics. He received his Ph.D. from the Vrije Universiteit Brussel in 1977. His work is in various areas of mathematical analysis such as the geometry of Banach spaces, harmonic analysis, analytic number theory, combinatorics, ergodic theory, partial differential equations, spectral theory and recently also in group theory. He has been recognised by a number of awards, most notably the Fields Medal in 1994. In 2000 Bourgain connected the Kakeya problem to arithmetic combinatorics. In 2009 Bourgain was elected a foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. In 2010 he received the Shaw Prize in Mathematics. In 2012 he and Terence Tao received the Crafoord Prize in Mathematics from the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.
1169171	Timothy Daniel "Tim" Considine (born December 31, 1940, in Los Angeles, California) is a former American child actor and young adult actor who was popular in the late 1950s and early 1960s. He later became a writer, photographer, and automotive historian. Life and career. Considine was born to a show business family. His mother, Carmen, was of half Greek ancestry. His maternal grandfather was theater magnate Alexander Pantages, while on his father's side, John Considine, Jr., he is of Irish descent and grandson of Pantages' rival vaudeville impresario John Considine. His older brother is actor John Considine. His uncle Bob Considine was a King Features Syndicate columnist. Considine's most famous acting roles were in the 1955–1957 Disney TV serials "Spin and Marty" (he played Spin) and "The Hardy Boys" (he played older brother Frank opposite Tommy Kirk as Joe), both of which appeared in 15-minute segments on the "Mickey Mouse Club"; in the Disney show "Swamp Fox" as Gabriel Marion, nephew of Francis Marion; in the Disney motion picture "The Shaggy Dog"; and as the eldest son, "Mike Douglas", in the first years of the long-running television series "My Three Sons", when it aired on ABC. In both "The Shaggy Dog" and "My Three Sons", he starred with Fred MacMurray. On December 31, 1959, his 19th birthday and before "My Three Sons" debuted, Considine appeared as Jamie Frederick in the episode "Bound Boy" on CBS's "Johnny Ringo" western television series, starring Don Durant in the title role. In the story line, a rancher is investigated for turning orphaned boys into virtual slaves. The following year, Considine played the role of Franklin D. Roosevelt's eldest son James between ages 14–17, in the 1960 feature film "Sunrise at Campobello". He also had a notable role in the 1970 film, "Patton", as one of two shell-shocked soldiers slapped by General George S. Patton, Jr., who believes them to be cowards. As an adult, Considine is an automobile historian, photographer, and writer who specializes in motor sports. He is the author of "The Photographic Dictionary of Soccer" (1979, ISBN 0-446-87953-3), "The Language of Sport" (1982, ISBN 0-87196-653-0), and "American Grand Prix Racing: A Century of Drivers and Cars" (1997, ISBN 0-7603-0210-3). He has also filled in for the late William Safire as writer of the "On Language" column in "The New York Times Magazine". In 2000, Considine and David Stollery, his co-star in the "Spin and Marty" serials, made cameo appearances in "The New Adventures of Spin and Marty: Suspect Behavior", a made-for-TV movie on the ABC network. A DVD version of the was released in December 2005 as part of the fifth wave of the "Walt Disney Treasures" series. On the 50th anniversary of the serial's premiere, Considine and Stollery are interviewed by Leonard Maltin as a DVD bonus feature about their experiences filming the hit series. On June 19, 2010, he participated in the "My Three Sons" 50th Anniversary Reunion at the Paley Center for Media in Beverly Hills, California. Most surviving cast members appeared at the event except for Dawn Lyn who was living in Germany at the time and Don Grady who prior to his death in 2012 was in Europe for that summer receiving treatment for cancer.
1056774	A Private Function is a 1984 British comedy film starring Michael Palin and Maggie Smith. The film was predominantly filmed in Ilkley and Ben Rhydding, West Yorkshire. The film was screened in the Un Certain Regard section at the 1985 Cannes Film Festival. Plot. In a small Northern English town in 1947 the citizens endure continuing food rationing. Some local businessmen want to hold a party to celebrate the royal wedding of Princess Elizabeth to Prince Philip and illegally decide to raise a pig for that occasion. However, the pig gets stolen by Gilbert Chilvers (Michael Palin), who was encouraged to do so by his wife Joyce (Maggie Smith). Meanwhile a food inspector is determined to stop activities circumventing the food rationing. Production. Three pigs were used in the filming of "A Private Function", all named Betty. Producer Mark Shivas was advised by Intellectual Animals UK that the pigs used should be female and six months old so as to not be too large or aggressive. However, the pigs were "unpredictable and often quite dangerous". During filming of one of the kitchen scenes, Maggie Smith was hemmed in by one of the pigs and needed to vault over the back of it in order to escape. Awards. The film won three BAFTA Film Awards: best actress for Maggie Smith, best supporting actress for Liz Smith and best supporting actor for Denholm Elliott. It was also nominated for Best Original Screenplay (Alan Bennett) and Best Film. Musical adaptation. A musical based on the film opened in the West End in April 2011 under the new title "Betty Blue Eyes". It is produced by Cameron Mackintosh and opened at the Novello Theatre. It starred Reece Shearsmith, of "The League of Gentlemen" fame, as Gilbert and actress Sarah Lancashire as Joyce.
1095441	Joseph Valentin Boussinesq () (13 March 1842 – 19 February 1929) was a French mathematician and physicist who made significant contributions to the theory of hydrodynamics, vibration, light, and heat. From 1872 to 1886, he was appointed professor at Faculty of Sciences of Lille, lecturing differential and integral calculus at Institut industriel du Nord (École centrale de Lille). From 1896 to his retirement in 1918, he was professor of mechanics at Faculty of Sciences of Paris. John Scott Russell experimentally observed his great solitary wave of translation in 1834 and reported it during the 1844 Meeting of the British Association for the advancement of science. Subsequently this was developed into the modern physics of solitons. In 1871, Boussinesq published the first mathematical theory to support Russell's experimental observation, and in 1877 introduced the KdV equation. In 1876, Lord Rayleigh published his mathematical theory to support Russell's experimental observation. At the end of his paper, Lord Rayleigh admitted that Boussinesq's theory came before his. In 1897 he published "Théorie de l' écoulement tourbillonnant et tumultueux des liquides," a work that greatly contributed to the study of turbulence and hydrodynamics. The word "turbulence" was never used by Boussinesq. He used sentences such as "écoulement tourbillonnant et tumultueux". The first mention of the word "turbulence" in French or English scientific fluid mechanics literature (the word "turbulence" existed in other context) can be found in a paper by Lord Kelvin in 1887.
657791	And Once Again is a 2010 Indian family drama film directed by Amol Palekar. The film premiered in Mumbai on 20 August 2010. Plot. Rishi (Rajat Kapoor) is coming to terms with the loss of his wife and son while being posted in a foreign country. Trying his level best to let go of the past and move on, he takes help of a therapist whose daughter Manu (Rituparna Sengupta) he marries at a later stage. During a visit to Sikkim, Rishi stumbles upon a female monk who reminds him of his first wife Savitri (Antara Mali). There is an uncanny resemblance between the two. It not only baffles him but also sends his life spiralling out of control. After sharing his experience with Manu and telling her about the similarity, he decides to investigate the situation. What follows is an unpredictable journey where he revisits his past, confronts the present and questions his future.
674427	The Berlin Affair () is a 1985 Italo-German film, directed by Liliana Cavani and starring Gudrun Landgrebe, Kevin McNally and Mio Takaki. Set in Berlin, 1938, it sees the wife of a rising Nazi diplomat fall in love with Mitsuko Matsugae, the daughter of the Japanese Ambassador and an artist. Her husband finds out, and moves to break up the affair. However he soon falls in love with Mitsuko himself, leading to the intervention of officials higher in the system. The film is based upon the novel "Quicksand" by Jun'ichirō Tanizaki. Plot. Berlin 1938: Louise von Hollendorf is married to Heinz, a German senior diplomat at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. She decides to take drawing lessons at the institute of Fine Arts. At the institute, Louise meets Mitsuko Matsugae, a young and alluring daughter of the Japanese Ambassador. Captivated by Mitsuko's beauty, Louise asks her to model for her sketching practice. Rumor spreads at the institute that the two woman are romantically engaged. Rather than driving them apart the rumors bring the two friends closer together and soon they have a passionate affair. As Louise later confides to her professor, "One moment we were laughing, the next, we were making love". They have their romantic encounters first at Louise's house and later at a seedy hotel. After spending more and more time together Louise falls in love with Mitsuko.
695624	Shoot on Sight is a 2007 film directed by Jag Mundhra and produced by Aron Govil. The film was marketed and distributed globally by Aron Govil Productions Inc. The cast includes Brian Cox, Sadie Frost, Naseeruddin Shah and Om Puri. Plot. Tariq Ali (played by Naseeruddin Shah), a Muslim police commander of Scotland Yard, is asked to hunt down suspected suicide-bombers against the backdrop of the 7 July bombings in London. Ali's task becomes more complicated as an innocent Muslim is killed by armed police on the Underground. Ali, a Lahore-born British citizen married to an English woman with two children, is himself distrusted by his colleagues, despite his long service in the Metropolitan Police. Production. "Shoot on Sight" is a story based on Operation Kratos, the police "shoot-to-kill" policy applied to suspected suicide-bombers after the 7 July 2005 London bombings. The shooting of the innocent Muslim in the Underground is based on an actual event, the shooting of an innocent Brazilian on 22 July 2005 whom police thought to be a Muslim terrorist about to detonate a suicide bomb.
588975	Vinod Mehra () (Born 13 February 1945 Died 30 October 1990) was an Indian actor in Bollywood films. He started out as a child actor in a few films in the late 1950s before starting his film career as an adult in 1971 acting in over 100 films through to his death at the age of 45 in 1990. He was also the producer and director of the film "Gurudev" which was released 3 years after his death. Career. Mehra made his debut in the 1958 film "Raagni" as a child artist playing the younger version of the character played by Kishore Kumar. After playing a few more minor roles as a child, he started his film career as an adult in 1971 with "Ek Thi Rita", a smash hit based on the English play, 'A Girl Called Rita', along with Tanuja. This was followed by the film "Parday Ke Peechhay" opposite debutant Yogeeta Bali followed by "Elaan" (with Rekha), "Amar Prem" (1972) and "Lal Patthar", though it was only Shakti Samanta's "Anuraag" (1972) with Maushmi Chatterjee, which established him as an actor. He went on to appear in over 100 films in his career spanning over two decades. He played the lead role in some of his earlier films but often acted in many multi-starrers as the secondary lead or played supporting roles such as a brother, friend, uncle, father and police officer. He worked with many actors like Amitabh Bachchan, Sanjeev Kumar, Rajesh Khanna, Sunil Dutt and Dharmendra. His frequent female co-stars included Rekha, Maushmi Chatterjee, Yogeeta Bali, Shabana Azmi and Bindiya Goswami. Some of his prominent films were "Nagin", "Jaani Dushman", "Ghar", "Swarg Narak", "Kartavya", '"Sajan Bina Suhagan", "Jurmaana", "Ek Hi Raasta", "Ye Kaisa Insaaf" "Sweekar Kiya Maine" and "Khud-Daar". He received Filmfare Nominations as Best Supporting Actor for "Anurodh" (1977), "Amar Deep" (1979), and "Bemisal" (1982). He also played the leading role in a Punjabi film "Maujaan Dubai Diyaan" in 1985. He turned producer and director with the film "Gurudev" in the late 1980s, with Sridevi, Rishi Kapoor and Anil Kapoor in the lead. He died of a heart attack before completion of the film at the age of 45 in October 1990. The film was released in 1993 after director Raj Sippy completed the film. Many of his delayed films were released after his death and dedicated to his memory. Some films, such as "Insaniyat" (1994) and "Aurat Aurat Aurat" (1996), were delayed and re-written so as not to involve his character. Personal life and family. Vinod Mehra was born in Amritsar, India in 1945. He was married three times. His first marriage to Meena Broca was arranged by his mother. The marriage was reportedly not consummated as Vinod had a heart attack shortly after the marriage. Once he recovered, he married his frequent leading lady Bindiya Goswami while still married to Meena. Meena left him and returned to her parents' house. His marriage to Bindiya also quickly dissolved, and she soon married director J. P. Dutta. He was said to be married to superstar Rekha, although in a 2004 television interview with Simi Garewal, she denied being married to him, referring to him as a "well-wisher." His last marriage, to Kiran lasted until his death. The couple had two children: Soniya (born in 1988) and Rohan. After their father's death, Soniya and Rohan were brought up in Kenya. Soniya went to London for further education. She made her film debut in "Victoria No. 203" which is a remake of the 1972 classic of the same name.
585145	Road to Sangam (, ) is a 2009 Bollywood film written and directed by Amit Rai. The film features Bollywood actors Paresh Rawal, Om Puri and Pawan Malhotra.
1163362	Jane Leeves (born 18 April 1961) is an English film, stage and television actress, comedian, singer and dancer.
1041771	Ships with Wings is a 1941 British war film directed by Sergei Nolbandov and starring John Clements, Leslie Banks and Jane Baxter. During the Second World War the British fleet air arm fight the Germans in Greece. Release. The film premiered in November 1941 and went on general release in January 1942. It was a commercial success and was the second most popular film in British cinemas that month behind "It Started with Eve". The sinking of the Ark Royal, on which a number of scenes were set and shot, in November 1941 added a sense of topicality to the film.
1044677	Moon Zero Two is a science fiction film produced by Hammer Films and released in 1969. It was billed as a 'space western'. The film did very poorly at the box-office, but has become a minor cult classic due to its having been featured on an early episode of "Mystery Science Theater 3000". "Moon Zero Two" was filmed at Elstree Studios in Hertfordshire, England. The screenplay was by Michael Carreras from an original story by Gavin Lyall, Frank Hardman and Martin Davison. It was produced by Michael Carreras, directed by Roy Ward Baker, was filmed in Technicolor and was 100 minutes in duration. Plot. In the year 2021 the moon is in the process of being colonized, and this new frontier is attracting a diverse group of people to settlements such as Moon City, Farside 5 and others.
1055940	Red Tails is a 2012 American war film produced by Lucasfilm and released by 20th Century Fox. The film is a fictionalized portrayal of the Tuskegee Airmen, a group of African American United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) servicemen during World War II. Filmed in 2009, "Red Tails" was directed by Anthony Hemingway from an original screenplay by John Ridley, with additional material shot the following year with executive producer George Lucas as director and Aaron McGruder as writer of the reshoots. "Red Tails" is the first Lucasfilm production since the 1994 film "Radioland Murders" that is not associated with the "Indiana Jones" or "Star Wars" franchises. The film stars Cuba Gooding, Jr. (who previously starred in "The Tuskegee Airmen," an HBO made-for-television film about the same group of pilots) in his first theatrical film in five years, and Terrence Howard (who had also portrayed a Tuskegee pilot in "Hart's War")."Red Tails" was also mixed in 3D sound by Barco. Plot. In 1944, as the air war over Europe is entering a deadly phase with increasing losses of bombers, the 332d Fighter Group (the Tuskegee Airmen) consisting of young African American USAAF fighter pilots, after enduring racism throughout their recruitment and training in the Tuskegee training program, are finally sent into combat in Italy. Although flying worn-out Curtiss P-40 Warhawk aircraft and chafing at their ground attack missions against trains and enemy ground transport, the Tuskegee Airmen recognize that they may never fight the Luftwaffe in fighter-to-fighter combat. The tight-knit group of Capt. Martin "Easy" Julian (Nate Parker), 1st Lt. Joe "Lightning" Little (David Oyelowo), 2nd Lt. Ray "Ray Gun" or "Junior" Gannon (Tristan Wilds), 2nd Lt. Andrew "Smokey" Salem (Ne-Yo), and 2nd Lt. Samuel "Joker" George (Elijah Kelley) under the guidance of Major Emanuel Stance (Cuba Gooding, Jr.) and Col. A.J. Bullard (Terrence Howard), face a white military bureaucracy still resistant to accepting black flyers as equals. Strife develops between roommates and best friends, Easy and Lightning, each of whom are battling their own inner demons; Lightning is a hotheaded and reckless pilot who takes too many risks, while Easy is an alcoholic prone to self-doubt. After returning to base from a mission, Lightning spies a pretty Italian girl named Sofia (Daniela Ruah), becomes instantly infatuated with her, and starts a relationship.
590067	Half ticket, directed by Kalidas, is a 1962 Bollywood classic film starring Kishore Kumar, Madhubala, Helen and Pran. Synopsis. Vijay (Kishore Kumar) is the good-for-nothing son of a rich industrialist, who becomes bored of his father’s constant railing and the efforts to marry him off, with the intention of getting him “settled” in life. So Vijay walks out of his home and decides to leave for Bombay and start life afresh in the big city, but he doesn’t have enough money to get himself a ticket! Vijay gets a burst of inspiration from a plump child called Munnah, who is waiting in line with his mother (Tun Tun), and decides to pass himself off a child in order to get the eponymous half-ticket. Now disguised as Munnah, Vijay is used as a mule for a diamond smuggler (Pran) without his knowledge. On the train, Vijay also meets Rajnidevi (Madhubala) and falls in love with her. The rest of the film follows Vijay's exploits as he avoids capture by the diamond smuggler and his girlfriend (Shammi), romances Rajnidevi while avoiding her auntie-ji (Manorama), and reunites with his father. The film is based on the Hollywood movie You're Never Too Young. Some hilarious scenes: Vijay at Interview- prompted for "MASKA" (Flattery). Dinner at Vijay's home, called by his father to Board of Directors. Would-be Father-in-Law comes to see Vijay as a bridegroom for her daughter.
589531	Humjoli is a 1970 Hindi film produced by Prasan Kapoor and directed by Ramanna. The film stars Jeetendra, Leena Chandavarkar, Pran, Mehmood, Mumtaz and Aruna Irani. The music is by Laxmikant Pyarelal. The movie is a remake of 1964 hit Tamil Film Panakkara Kudumbam. Plot. Village-based Gopalnath (Pran) had always dreamed of becoming rich. On a visit to Bombay city, his dreams are fulfilled when he agrees to marry plain-looking Roopa, the sole heiress of a wealthy man (Nazir Hussain). Unknown to Roopa, Gopalnath loves fellow-villager, Shyama (Shashikala). After the passing away of Roopa's dad, Roopa gives birth to a baby girl, Ranibala. Gopalnath arranges to have Roopa killed; marries Shyama; and let Ranibala live in a hostel. Years later, his past comes to haunt him in the shape and form of Shyama's relatives, and Ranibala's suitor, Manmohan, who will not leave any stone unturned to blackmail Gopalnath for the rest of his life
583017	Shakalaka Boom Boom is a 2007 Bollywood musical thriller film directed and produced by Suneel Darshan and written by Anurag Kashyap. The film stars Bobby Deol, Upen Patel, Celina Jaitley and Kangna Ranaut in the lead. It released on 6 April 2007, and received mixed response from critics. "Shakalaka Boom Boom" is based on conflicts and the power game involved in the functioning of the music industry. The film was partly shot in South Africa. Upon release it did moderately well at the box office but was critically panned, though the acting of newcomer Upen Patel was very praised, as well as Bobby Deol's role as a first-time villain. The movie worked for the musical fans. Plot summary. "Shakalaka Boom Boom" follows the tale of a jealous, selfish and greedy music artist, AJ (Bobby Deol). AJ is one of the finest music artists in the industry, and is currently under a stop since he can't think of a new project. AJ is in love with the hot and sexy Ruhi (Kangna Ranaut) and hopes to tell her how he feels however a wannabe singer, Reggie (Upen Patel) appears who falls in love with Ruhi and woos her before AJ can.
1162692	Adrian George Zmed (born March 14, 1954) is an American television personality and film actor noted for the roles of "Johnny Nogerelli" in "Grease 2" and "Officer Vince Romano" in the "T.J. Hooker" television series. Early life. Zmed was born in Chicago on March 14, 1954, the son of George Zmed (b. April 24, 1916 — d. January 12, 2010), a Romanian Orthodox priest, who served from 1952 until his retirement in 1983, and his wife, Persida (née Golub). His father, George, was a first-generation American born in Chicago to Romanian parents, Nicolae and Paraschiva (née Bălan), who had immigrated from Comloşu Mare, Timişoara in the early 20th century. At the age of five, George and his family returned to Romania where he was educated, and lived there until returning to the United States in November 1952. George married Romanian-born Persida Golub on October 15, 1942 in Timisoara. The couple had three sons, in the following order: Cornel, Walter, and Adrian, which, in turn, gave them eight grandchildren. Zmed graduated from Lane Tech High School in Chicago. He began playing football as halfback for the Lane Tech High School team until he broke a bone in his leg, which in turn punctured a major artery, while playing. He quit sports and began acting, appearing in his high school's production of "Guys and Dolls". After being featured on a local TV show as one of Chicago's top high school performers, Zmed transferred to the Goodman School of Drama and began studying voice at the Chicago Conservatory of Music.
1054677	Thunderheart is a 1992 contemporary western mystery film directed by Michael Apted from an original screenplay by John Fusco. The film is a loosely based fictional portrayal of events relating to the Wounded Knee incident in 1973. Followers of the American Indian Movement seized the South Dakota town of Wounded Knee in protest against federal government policy regarding Native Americans. Incorporated in the plot is the character of Ray Levoi, played by actor Val Kilmer, as an FBI agent with Sioux heritage investigating a murder on a Native American reservation. Sam Shepard, Graham Greene, Fred Ward and Sheila Tousey star in principal supporting roles. Also in 1992, Apted had previously directed a documentary surrounding a Native American activist episode involving the murder of FBI agents titled "Incident at Oglala". The documentary depicts the indictment of activist Leonard Peltier during a 1975 shootout on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation.
584808	Sringaram is a 2007 Indian Tamil period-drama film directed by debutant Saradha Ramanathan, a popular dancer. Co-written by novelist Indra Soundar Rajan and produced by Padmini Ravi, herself a dancer, it stars Aditi Rao Hydari, in her feature film debut, in the lead role, alongside Manoj K. Jayan, Hamsa Moily and Y. Gee. Mahendra. The film depicts the life of a Devadasi during the 1920s. "Sringaram" became highly critically acclaimed, winning three prizes at the 53rd National Film Awards and two Tamil Nadu State Film Awards, besides being screened at several international film festivals, much prior to its theatrical release on 5 October 2007. Accolades. The film was screened at following film festivals: Soundtrack. The film's score and soundtrack were composed by renowned violinist Padma Bhushan Lalgudi Jayaraman. The soundtrack album features 14 tracks, most of them sung by carnatic musicians. Lyrics were penned by Swati VAR. Jayaraman eventually won a National Film Award for Best Music Direction for the film's score. "Sringaram" is notably his first and till date only work for a feature film.
590338	Biswajit (full name Biswajit Deb Chatterjee, Hindi: बिस्वजित चॅटर्जी, Bengali: বিশ্বজিৎ চ্যাটার্জী) is a Bengali/Hindi actor. He was born in Calcutta, West Bengal on Monday,14th Dec 1936 and later went to Bombay to do some Hindi films. Early career. After a couple of films in Calcutta like "Mayamrigo" (1960) and "Dui Bhai" (1961), Biswajit went to Bombay. In 1962, he did his film, "Bees Saal Baad" followed by "Kohraa", "Bin Badal Barsat", "Majboor", "Kaise Kahoon", "Paisa Ya Pyaar". He acted in films like "Mere Sanam" (1965), "Shehnai", "Aasra"(1964), "Night in London", "Yeh Raat Phir Naa Ayegi" (1966), "April Fool" (1964), "Kismat" (1968),"Do Kaliyan" (1968), "Ishq Par Zor Nahin" and "Sharaarat" (1972). He was mostly paired with actresses like Asha Parekh, Waheeda Rehmaan, Mumtaz, Mala Sinha and Rajshree. Biswajit appeared in Rekha's debut film "Anjana Safar" (1969) (later re-titled "Do Shikaari"). Though "Anjana Safar" was blocked by the censors and not released until 10 years later, a scene from the film which shows him kissing Rekha appeared on the pages of the Asian edition of "Life" magazine.
403318	Candy Darling (November 24, 1944 – March 21, 1974) was an American actress, best known as a Warhol Superstar. A Trans woman, she starred in Andy Warhol's films "Flesh" (1968) and "Women in Revolt" (1971), and was a muse of the protopunk band The Velvet Underground. Early life. Candy Darling was born James Lawrence Slattery in Forest Hills, Queens, child of Theresa Phelan, a bookkeeper at Manhattan's Jockey Club, and James (Jim) Slattery, who was described as a violent alcoholic. There is some conjecture around her year of birth. According to former Warhol associate, Bob Colacello, Candy was born in 1946, while IMDb has listed her year of birth as 1948. Her friend, roommate, and posthumous editor, Jeremiah Newton, states that she was born on November 24, 1944. Darling's early years were spent in Massapequa Park, Long Island, where she and her mother had moved after her parents divorced. Her half-brother Warren, a product of Theresa Slattery's first marriage, left home for the U.S. military, leaving Jimmy as the only child. Warren later denied his connection to her. She spent much of her childhood watching television and old Hollywood movies, from which she learned to impersonate her favorite actresses, such as Joan Bennett and Kim Novak. In 1961 she signed up for a course at the DeVern School of Cosmetology in Baldwin, on Long Island. She claimed to have "learned about the mysteries of sex from a salesman in a local children's shoe store" and finally revealed an inclination towards crossdressing when her mother confronted her about local rumors, which described her as dressing as a girl and frequenting a local gay bar called The Hayloft. In response, Jimmy left the room and reappeared in full feminine attire. Her mother later said that, "I knew then... that I couldn't stop Jimmy. Candy was just too beautiful and talented." Late at night, Darling would often take a short taxi ride to the LIRR train station, avoiding the attention of neighbors she would receive if she walked. There she would take the train to Manhattan, frequently sitting across from Long Island starlet Joey Heatherton. Once there, she referred to her Cape Cod-style home, at 79 First Avenue in Massapequa Park, as her "country house" and hung out in Greenwich Village, meeting people through the circle of Seymour Levy, on Bleecker Street. Darling met Jeremiah Newton in the summer of 1966. Newton was on his first trip to the Village from his home in Flushing, Queens. The two would become friends and roommates, living together in Manhattan and Brooklyn until the time of Darling's death in 1974. Her first assumed name was Hope Slattery. According to Bob Colacello, Darling adopted this name sometime in 1963/1964 after she started going to gay bars in Manhattan and making visits to a doctor on Fifth Avenue for hormone injections. Jackie Curtis stated that Candy adopted the name from a well-known Off-Off Broadway actress named Hope Stansbury, with whom she lived for a few months in an apartment behind the Caffe Cino so that she could study her. Holly Woodlawn remembers that Darling's name evolved from Hope Dahl to Candy Dahl and then to Candy Cane. Jeremiah Newton believed she adopted her forename out of a love for sweets. In her autobiography, Woodlawn recalled that Darling had adopted the name because a friend of hers affectionately called her "darling" so often that it finally stuck. The Warhol years. Before they met, in 1967, Darling saw Andy Warhol at the after-hours club called The Tenth of Always. Candy was with Jackie Curtis, who invited Warhol to a play that she had written and directed, called "Glamour, Glory and Gold", starring Darling, as "Nona Noonan", and a young Robert De Niro, who played six parts in the play. It was performed at Bastiano's Cellar Studio on Waverly Place. Taylor Mead brought Warhol to see it and afterwards went to the club Salvation in Sheridan Square, where he was joined by Candy and Curtis at his table. Warhol cast Darling in a short comedic scene in "Flesh" (1968) with Jackie Curtis and Joe Dallesandro. After "Flesh", Candy was cast in a central role in "Women In Revolt" (1971). She played a Long Island socialite, drawn into a woman's liberation group called PIGS (Politically Involved Girls), by a character played by Curtis. Interrupted by cast disputes encouraged by Warhol, "Women in Revolt" took longer to film than its predecessor and went through several title changes before it was released. Darling wanted it called "Blonde on a Bum Trip" since she was the blonde, while Curtis and Woodlawn told her it was more like "Bum on a Blonde Trip", titles which were both used in the film during Candy's interview scene. "Women in Revolt" was first shown at the first Los Angeles Filmex as "Sex". Later it was shown as "Andy Warhol's Women", a homage to George Cukor. Unable to get a distributor for the film, Warhol rented out the Cine Malibu on East 59th Street and launched the film with a celebrity preview on February 16, 1972. After the screening there was a dinner in Candy's honor at Le Parc Périgord restaurant, on Park Avenue, followed by a party at Francesco Scavullo's townhouse, where they watched TV reviews of the movie, some of which called it "a rip-off", and that it "looked as if it were filmed underwater," and "proves once again that Andy Warhol has no talent. But we knew that since the Campbell's Soup cans." Among the guests at Darling's party were D.D. Ryan, Sylvia Miles, George Plimpton, Halston, Giorgio di Sant 'Angelo and Egon and Diane von Furstenberg. Jackie Curtis stood out in the cold, along with other gate crashers. When a security guard asked, "My God, what are they giving away in there?" one of the guests responded, "Would you believe, a transvestite?" The day after the celebrity preview a group of women wearing army jackets, pea coats, jeans and boots and carrying protest signs demonstrated outside the cinema against the film, which they thought was anti-women's liberation. When Darling heard about this, she said, "Who do these dykes think they are anyway?... Well, I just hope they all read Vincent Canby's review in today's "Times". He said I look like a cross between Kim Novak and Pat Nixon. It's true - I do have Pat Nixon's nose." After Warhol. Candy Darling went on to appear in other independent films, including "Brand X", by Wynn Chamberlain, "Silent Night, Bloody Night", as well as a co-starring role as a victim of trans-bashing in "Some of My Best Friends Are..." She also appeared in "Klute" with Jane Fonda and "Lady Liberty" with Sophia Loren. In 1971 she went to Vienna to make two films with director Werner Schroeter; "The Death of Maria Malibran", and another one that was never released. Her attempt at breaking into the mainstream movie circuit, by campaigning for the leading role in "Myra Breckinridge", (1970) led to rejection and bitterness. Her theatre credits include two Jackie Curtis plays, "Glamour, Glory and Gold" (1967) and "Vain Victory: The Vicissitudes of the Damned" (1971), She was also in Tennessee Williams' play, "Small Craft Warnings", at the invitation of Williams himself. She starred in the 1973 Off-Broadway revival of "The White Whore and the Bit Player", a 1964 play by Tom Eyen. Darling's character, a Hollywood actress known only as "the Whore", was based on Marilyn Monroe. As a review of the play stated, "With her teased platinum hair and practiced pouts, Miss Darling looks like her character and resolutely keeps her acting little-girl-lost. The role-playing aspect works to her advantage. She could, after all, be a male lunatic pretending to be the White Whore." Illness and death. Darling died of lymphoma on March 21, 1974, aged 29, at the Columbus Hospital division of the Cabrini Health Center. In a letter written on her deathbed and intended for Andy Warhol and his followers, Darling said, "Unfortunately before my death I had no desire left for life . . . I am just so bored by everything. You might say bored to death. Did you know I couldn't last. I always knew it. I wish I could meet you all again." Her funeral, held at the Frank E. Campbell Funeral Chapel, was attended by huge crowds, including friends Peter Allen, Pat Ast, Eric Emerson, Maxime de la Falaise, Jane Holzer, Sylvia Miles, Julie Newmar, Kenneth Jay Lane, and John and Genevieve Waite. Darling's brother Warren, not having seen her in years and unaware that she had been living as a woman, was said to have been visibly shaken by her feminine appearance. Darling's birth name was never spoken by the minister or any of the eulogizers. A piano piece was played by Faith Dane. Gloria Swanson was remembered for saluting Darling's coffin. Candy Darling was cremated, her ashes interred by her friend Jeremiah Newton in the Cherry Valley Cemetery, located in Cherry Valley, New York, a tiny historical village located at the foot of the Catskill Mountains. Portrayals in film. Candy Darling was first portrayed by Stephen Dorff in the 1996 film "I Shot Andy Warhol". A feature length documentary on Candy, titled "Beautiful Darling", premiered at the Berlin International Film Festival (or Berlinale) in February 2010. The documentary features archival film and video footage, photographs, personal papers, archival audio interviews with Tennessee Williams, Valerie Solanas, Jackie Curtis and Candy's mother, as well as contemporary HD interviews with Holly Woodlawn, Fran Lebowitz, John Waters, Julie Newmar, Peter Beard and Taylor Mead. Chloë Sevigny narrates the film, voicing Candy's private diary entries and personal letters. The film was directed by James Rasin and produced by Jeremiah Newton and Elisabeth Bentley. Darling appears as a character in the 2011 HBO film "Cinema Verite" portrayed by Willam Belli. Portrayals on stage. Candy was portrayed by Broadway actor Brian Charles Rooney in "Pop!" a musical by Anna K. Jacobs & Maggie-Kate Coleman, at Yale Repertory Theatre, directed by Mark Brokaw (Broadway: After Miss Julie, How I Learned to Drive, etc.): November - December 2009
1091999	Eugene Paul "E. P." Wigner (; November 17, 1902 – January 1, 1995), was a Hungarian American theoretical physicist and mathematician. He received a share of the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1963 "for his contributions to the theory of the atomic nucleus and the elementary particles, particularly through the discovery and application of fundamental symmetry principles"; the other half of the award was shared between Maria Goeppert-Mayer and J. Hans D. Jensen. Wigner is notable for having laid the foundation for the theory of symmetries in quantum mechanics as well as for his research into the structure of the atomic nucleus. It was Eugene Wigner who first identified Xe-135 "poisoning" in nuclear reactors, and for this reason it is sometimes referred to as "Wigner poisoning". Wigner is also important for his work in pure mathematics, having authored a number of theorems. In particular, Wigner's theorem is a cornerstone in the mathematical formulation of quantum mechanics. Early life. Wigner Jenő Pál was born in Budapest, Austria-Hungary on November 17, 1902, to middle class Jewish parents, Elisabeth (Einhorn) and Anthony Wigner, a leather tanner. He had an older sister, Bertha, known as Biri, and a younger sister Margit, known as Manci, who later married British theoretical physicist Paul Dirac. He was home schooled by a professional teacher until the age of 9, when he started school at the third grade. During this period, Wigner developed an interest in mathematical problems. At the age of 11, Wigner contracted what his doctors believed to be tuberculosis. His parents sent him to live for six weeks in a sanatorium in the Austrian mountains, before the doctors concluded that the diagnosis was mistaken.
586567	Mr. and Mrs. Iyer is a 2002 Indian drama film written and directed by Aparna Sen and produced by N. Venkatesan. The film features Aparna Sen's daughter Konkona Sen Sharma as Meenakshi Iyer, a Tamil Iyer Brahmin who is a Hindu. Rahul Bose portrays the character of Raja Chowdhury, a Bengali Muslim wildlife photographer. The story revolves around these two lead characters during a fateful bus journey amidst the carnages of a communal strife in India. Zakir Hussain, an Indian tabla maestro, composed the background score and music for the film; Goutam Ghose, a film director himself, was the cinematographer. "Mr. and Mrs. Iyer" premiered at the Locarno International Film Festival in Switzerland and was showcased at other prominent film festivals. The film opened to Indian audiences on 19 July 2002. It was met with critical acclaim upon release, and won several national and international awards, including the Golden Maile award at the Hawaii International Film Festival and the Nargis Dutt Award for Best Feature Film on National Integration in India. The film, which was also released as a DVD, had English as its predominant language with a sporadic use of Hindi, Tamil, and Bengali. Plot. Meenakshi Iyer (Konkona Sen Sharma), with her infant son, Santhanam, embarks on a bus journey to return to her husband, from her parents' place. At the bus station, Meenakshi and Raja Chowdhury (Rahul Bose) get introduced to each other through a common friend. Raja, a wildlife photographer, is requested by Meenakshi's parents to look after their daughter and baby grandson during the journey. The passengers of the bus include a boisterous group of youngsters, two Sikh men, an elderly Muslim couple, a young couple high on romance, a mentally challenged boy and his mother, and some card-playing men. The bus faces a roadblock and the bus driver attempts a detour, but is stopped by traffic jam caused by sectarian violence between Hindus and Muslims in nearby areas. Raja reveals his Muslim identity to Meenakshi. As someone who comes from a high caste and conservative Hindu Brahmin family, Meenakshi shudders at the very fact that during their travel she drank water offered by Raja, a Muslim. "Please. Don't touch me" is her shocked reply. Raja contemplates leaving the bus, but is forced to get inside the bus by the patrolling police who informs that a curfew has been declared due to the riot. After the police leaves to scout other areas, a rioting Hindu mob arrives and forcibly enters the bus. They begin interrogating passengers about their religious identities and when in doubt, they even resort to check if the person is circumcised. In order to protect himself from them, one of the passengers—Jewish and hence circumcised—points out the old Muslim couple to divert the mob's attention. The mob's leader drags the old couple out of the bus. One teenager resists this, but she is thrashed by the leader. As Raja attempts to rise in revolt, Meenakshi plants Santhanam on his lap, ordering him to hold the baby with an intent to shield Raja's Muslim identity. The mob asks about their identities, and Meenaksi tells the leader that Raja and she are Mr. and Mrs. Iyer. After this chilly encounter, the passengers spend the night in the bus. In the morning, the passengers trek to a nearby village to seek accommodation. Raja and Meenakshi, identifying themselves as Mr. and Mrs. Iyer, fail to find any accommodation. However, the police officer, who was patrolling the earlier evening, bails them out by providing shelter at an abandoned forest bungalow. They are provided with the single usable bedroom available in the bungalow. Meenakshi refuses to share the room with Raja, and curses herself for coming along with a stranger. Raja confronts her on her outdated prejudices about caste and religion. After a brief quarrel, Raja allows her the comfort of the bedroom and prefers to sleep outside. The next morning when Meenakshi does not find Raja, she gets worried and angry as to why he left Santhanam and her in such a place. Soon, she feels relieved to find Raja sleeping outside. After they reach a restaurant in the nearby village, they meet the teenagers on the bus. The teenage girls are excited and curious to know about Meenaakshi and Raja's love story. To keep their farce alive, both of them cook up an impromptu story right from how they met till where they went for their honeymoon. During their stay at the bungalow, they discover each other's beliefs and understanding of religion. That night, as they witness a horrific murder by one of the mobs, a shocked Meenakshi is comforted by Raja.
583368	Main Aisa Hi Hoon (Hindi: मैं ऐसा ही हूँ, Urdu: میں ایسا ہی ہوں English: "I Am Like This") is a Bollywood film released in 2005. It was directed by Harry Baweja and stars Ajay Devgan, Sushmita Sen, Esha Deol and Anupam Kher. This film is an unofficial remake of the American drama film "I Am Sam" written and directed by Jessie Nelson, and starring Sean Penn as a father with a developmental disability. Synopsis. Mentally challenged Indraneel Thakur (Ajay Devgan) works as a waiter in a coffee shop while he raises his daughter Gungun (Rucha Vaidya) as a single parent. Gungun loves him very much and in an attempt to remain at his level, refuses to go to school. Gungun's mother Maya Trivedi (Esha Deol) came into Neel's life when she needed someone desperately. After giving birth to her she disappeared never to be seen again. For seven years Neel has looked after the child and both are happy together. However Maya's father Dayanath Trivedi (Anupam Kher) comes to India for his granddaughter. Ons Gungun's birthday, Neel has a surprise party for her. Gungun is upset and leaves. Taking advantage of Gungun leaving her house, Dayanath gives Neel a court notice and soon takes Neel to court. With the help of the townspeople Neel is introduced to Niti Khanna (Sushmita Sen), a lawyer and single mother dealing with her own problems. Her son, Rahul, won't listen to her. Niti initially doesn't agree to represent Neel, but when Rahul meets Neel and becomes his friend, Niti realized that she should help him. A custody battle ensues. It is found out that Maya was on drugs and died because of it which is why she didn't return to her father or Neel. When the case is nearing completion and Dayanath's has almost won, Niti decides to marry Indraneel, after a fifteen minutes recess Niti presents the marriage papers to the judge, and the judge declares that Gungun will be in custody of Indraneel and Niti, Gungun accepts Niti as her mother and Rahul as her brother. Dayanth regrets being mean to Indraneel and accepts him as his son-in-law before flying back to London.
1017966	Erotic Ghost Story () is a Hong Kong erotic film remake of the 1987 film "The Witches of Eastwick". Directed by Lam Ngai Kai and starring Amy Yip, So Man, Hitomi Kudo and Manfred Wong, it was released in 1990, though it was first screened in 1987 at the Sitges Film Festival in Spain. Synopsis. "Erotic Ghost Story" revolves around three fairies (played by Yip, Man and Kudô) who have attained human form. Upon helping a hapless scholar, the trio begin to have lustful thoughts about him. This soon leads to many erotic romps and the eventual discovery that he is a dangerous demon. Impact. "Erotic Ghost Story" was a breakthrough film for Amy Yip, who went on to have a career starring in similarly sexy roles such as "Sex and Zen", garnering a cult following of fans in the process. The film was also followed by three sequels, which only the last-two were unrelated in plot. "Erotic Ghost Story II" is particularly notable for featuring Anthony Wong Chau Sang in an early role.
1058990	Josef Sommer (born June 26, 1934) is an American-German stage and film actor.
1062400	Djimon Gaston Hounsou (; ; born April 24, 1964) is a Beninese-born American actor and model. As an actor, Hounsou has been nominated for two Academy Awards. Early life. Djimon Hounsou was born in Cotonou, Bénin, in 1964, to Albertine and Pierre Hounsou, a cook. He emigrated to Lyon in France at the age of thirteen with his brother, Edmond. Soon after arriving in France, Hounsou dropped out of school and became homeless for a time. A chance meeting with a photographer led to Hounsou being introduced to fashion designer Thierry Mugler, who encouraged Hounsou to pursue a modeling career. In 1987, Hounsou became a model and established a career in Paris. He moved to the United States in 1990. Career. Acting. In 1989 and 1991, Hounsou appeared in the music videos for "Straight Up" by Paula Abdul and "Love Will Never Do (Without You)" by Janet Jackson. Hounsou's film debut was in the 1990 Sandra Bernhard film "Without You I'm Nothing". He had television parts on "Beverly Hills, 90210" and "ER" and a guest starring role on "Alias". Hounsou received a larger role in the science fiction film "Stargate". Hounsou received wide critical acclaim and a Golden Globe Award nomination for his role as Cinqué in the 1997 Steven Spielberg film "Amistad". He gained further notice as Juba in the 2000 film "Gladiator". In 2004, Hounsou was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for "In America", making him the fourth African male to be nominated for an Oscar. That same year, Charlize Theron, a South African actress, was nominated for Best Actress and won for her work in "Monster", and was the first time that one African man and one African woman were nominated for an Oscar in the same year. In 2006, he won the National Board of Review Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in "Blood Diamond"; he received Broadcast Film Critics Association, Screen Actors Guild Award, and Academy Award nominations for this performance. Hounsou also acted in a supporting role in the 2009 science fiction film "Push", as Agent Henry Carver. In 2011, he starred as a French commando in the French film "Forces spéciales". Director Tim Story told IGN that if he were to do a third "Fantastic Four" movie, he would like to have Hounsou as the Black Panther. In November 2008, it was announced that Hounsou would be providing the voice of the Black Panther in the upcoming animated series of the same name. Hounsou has signed on to play Abdiel in the film version of John Milton's "Paradise Lost" with Benjamin Walker and Bradley Cooper. Modeling. On February 24, 2007, it was announced that Hounsou would be the new Calvin Klein underwear model. Starting with the fall 2007 season, he was featured in the brand’s global print advertising campaign including the launch of their new Calvin Klein Steel product line. Other work. In 2010, Hounsou was featured as the narrator in ESPN's running series of "32 teams, 1 dream" commercials for the 2010 FIFA World Cup. Hounsou spoke at the Summit on Climate Change at the United Nations on Tuesday, September 22, 2009. On Tuesday, December 1, 2009, Hounsou told French media that developed countries “need to be held accountable” for their contribution to climate change. Personal life. In 2007, Hounsou began dating model Kimora Lee Simmons. On May 30, 2009, Simmons gave birth to their son, Kenzo Lee Hounsou, reportedly named because "Kenzo" means "three" (Kimora's third child). Hounsou and Simmons visited Hounsou's family in his native Benin in the summer of 2008, where the two participated in a traditional commitment ceremony. The couple were adorned in traditional clothing and used the ceremony, in the presence of Hounsou's family, to solidify that they are "dedicated to each other 100%." The two, however, emphasized that the ceremony was not a wedding. In the début of Kimora Lee Simmons' show, "Life in the Fab Lane", he was billed as her husband. Hounsou and Simmons, who were never legally married in the United States, announced their separation in November 2012.
400682	Danielle Schneider is an American actress, comedian and writer. Career. Schneider appeared regularly as a panelist on "Best Week Ever" and various other VH1 commentary programs. She has played a Paris Hilton-like debutante on Fox's "My Big Fat Obnoxious Boss", she starred in Trio's "The Pop Culture Round-Up: White Noise", Comedy Central's "Contest Searchlight" with Denis Leary, was a cast member of VH1's prank show "Sledgehammer", guest-starred on NBC's "Happy Family" and Comedy Central's "Crossballs". Schneider has appeared on "Late Night with Conan O'Brien" and voiced various characters on MTV's "Celebrity Deathmatch" and the PBS Kids GO! series "WordGirl". She most recently co-starred as Krista in the Spike TV improvised comedy series "Players" in 2010. Schneider is a graduate of New York University's Tisch School of the Arts. She has been a performer and teacher at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre in New York City, where she was a member of the improvisational comedy troupe Respecto Montalban. In 2002, her show "Eye Candy", which she co-wrote and starred in with Dannah Feinglass, was selected for the HBO/U.S. Comedy Arts Festival in Aspen, CO. Her latest work with Feinglass is "Let's Get Awkward" at the Los Angeles UCBT. Schneider and Feinglass are currently working on scripts for the upcoming movies "Beverly Hills Chihuahua 2" and "Boys Are Stupid, Throw Rocks at Them". Personal life. Schneider lives in Los Angeles and is married to comedian Matt Besser.
589667	Aap Ke Deewane is a 1980 Hindi movie produced 'unofficially' by Rakesh Roshan [( official producer was Vimal Kumar )] and directed by Surendra Mohan. The film stars Rakesh Roshan, Rishi Kapoor, Pran, Ashok Kumar, Tina Munim, Ranjeet, Deven Verma, Hrithik Roshan, Keshto Mukherjee and Poonam Dhillon. Jeetendra has a guest appearance. The film's music is by the producer's brother Rajesh Roshan. The lyrics were penned by the legendary Anand Bakshi. The film did good business due to its freshness and haunting music. The film is Rakesh Roshan's first attempt at production, going forward he produced and directed films. Rishi Kapoor and Jeetendra being off screen friends of his, he had a song put in to ensure the 3 get together on screen too as Jeetendra did not have a role in the film and is present only in the song. The script required a brief visual flashback showing how the two central characters, played by Rishi Kapoor and Rakesh Roshan, had originally become friends as children. Rakesh Roshan's actual son -- future Hindi film superstar actor Hrithik Roshan, but then aged only 6 -- appears momentarily in "Aap Ke Deewane" as the child-version of the character otherwise played by his father, sharing his tricyle with the other child on a beach.
327431	John Burke Krasinski (; born October 20, 1979) is an American actor, film director, and writer. He is most widely known for playing Jim Halpert on the NBC sitcom "The Office". He has appeared in many films, including "Away We Go", "Leatherheads", "License to Wed", "Big Miracle", "Something Borrowed", "It's Complicated", and "Promised Land". Early life. Krasinski was born in Newton, Massachusetts, the son of a Polish-American father, internist Dr. Ronald Krasinski, and an Irish-American mother, Mary Clare (née Doyle). He has two older brothers, Kevin and Paul, and was raised Roman Catholic. Krasinski's first stage experience was starring as Daddy Warbucks in a 6th-grade school production of "Annie". His next role was in a satirical play written and cast by his "Office" co-star B.J. Novak when they were high school seniors. The two graduated from Newton South High School in 1997. Before entering college, Krasinski taught English in Costa Rica. From there, he went to Brown University, studying theatre arts under Lowry Marshall and John Emigh, and graduating in 2001 as a playwright with an honors thesis entitled "Contents Under Pressure". During his time at Brown, he was a member of the sketch comedy group Out of Bounds. In college, he also helped coach youth basketball at The Gordon School in East Providence, Rhode Island. He then attended the National Theater Institute in Waterford, Connecticut. Career. Television and feature films. Besides training at the National Theater Institute, he also studied at The Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford-upon-Avon, England, and The Actors Center in New York City. After graduating from Brown University, Krasinski went to New York City to pursue acting, appearing in commercials and guest spots on television shows, as well as doing readings of off-Broadway plays while working as a waiter. He starred in the play "What the Eunuch Saw", which was written and directed by former college classmates Emily O'Dell and Isaac Robert Hurwitz. In 2000, Krasinski was a script intern on "Late Night with Conan O'Brien". Krasinski filmed the footage of Scranton, Pennsylvania, for "The Office", including the clips shown in the opening credits. Krasinski directed an episode of "The Office", titled "Sabre", the fifteenth episode of "The Office"'s sixth season. He also directed the third episode of the show's eighth season, titled "Lotto" and the sixth episode of the show's ninth season, titled "The Boat." Krasinski starred as Gideon in "A New Wave", released in 2007. He also starred as Brevin in the Gregg Araki film "Smiley Face", filmed in 2006. More recently, he had major roles in the films "License to Wed", with Mandy Moore and Robin Williams, and "Leatherheads" with George Clooney and Renée Zellweger. From April to June 2008 he filmed "Away We Go", directed by Sam Mendes and co-starring Maya Rudolph. He appeared with Meryl Streep, Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin in the Nancy Meyers romantic comedy "It's Complicated", released in late 2009. In 2006, Krasinski wrote and directed "Brief Interviews with Hideous Men", an adaptation of David Foster Wallace's collection of short stories. It premiered at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival. Krasinski's other television credits include ', "Without A Trace", "Ed", "American Dad!", and an episode of '. His feature film credits include "Kinsey", "Duane Hopwood", "Jarhead", "The Holiday" and "Shrek the Third". He also had minor roles in "For Your Consideration" and "Dreamgirls". Krasinski played the role of Ethan in a film adaptation of the novel "Something Borrowed". He also signed on to star with Drew Barrymore in "Big Miracle". Krasinski also played the lead, Peter, in an indie movie, released September 6, 2012, called "Nobody Walks". He will appear in and also serve as executive producer alongside Aaron Sorkin on an HBO miniseries about the Chateau Marmont Hotel. Krasinski co-wrote "Promised Land" with Matt Damon and also appeared in it, filmed in April 2012 and released on December 28, 2012. Krasinski was also one of the top candidates to play the lead role in "". Chris Evans eventually got the part. Other work. Beginning in March 2006, Krasinski narrated a series of commercials for Ask.com. He has also narrated commercials for Apple TV, Verizon Wireless, Esurance, BlackBerry Storm, My Coke Rewards, and Carnival Cruise Lines, and has appeared in print advertisements for Gap. In April 2011, he starred in a New Era/Major League Baseball ad campaign with Alec Baldwin, playing off the rivalry between the Boston Red Sox and New York Yankees. In 2012, he started narrating the show Head Games on the Discovery Channel. Personal life. In November 2008, Krasinski began dating British actress Emily Blunt. They became engaged in August 2009, and married on July 10, 2010 in Como, Italy.
1072251	Plot. In "Gamera vs. Jiger", Gamera has his hands full right from the very beginning. Japan is preparing for the 1970 World's Fair, to be held in Osaka. Construction of the various buildings and pavilions is well under way. On Wester Island in the Pacific Ocean, a large statue of mysterious origin (called the Devil's Whistle) is located by scientists. Workers from the Expo are interested in returning the statue for display, and try to remove it for transport by ship. The removal of the statue is hampered first by a tribal member of the Wester Island people, then by the unexpected arrival of Gamera, who aggressively attempts to prevent the removal of the statue, only to be shot at by the crew instead. The statue is removed from the island successfully after a volcano erupts. Shortly after departing the island, members of the ship's crew begin to fall ill. The statue appears to be the source of the outbreak, as it makes a continuous piercing sound, driving many of the crew members insane. Later analysis reveals the presence of a central shaft that runs nearly the length of the statue top-to-bottom. The position of the opening on the statue is creating the high-pitched 'squeal', as air passes through it. After the statue is removed, Jiger makes her first appearance and gets Gamera's immediate attention. The first of several fights ensues, and Jiger wins by shooting projectile quills from her face. The quills impale Gamera's arms and legs, piercing all the way through and preventing Gamera from withdrawing his limbs into his shell and taking flight. To make matters worse, Gamera is on his back and cannot move. He pulls himself up with his tail using a large rock and then removes the offending quills from his limbs and is finally able to fly after Jiger. Meanwhile, Jiger is actively seeking the statue, because it is making a horrible ringing sound that is causing her tremendous pain. Jiger lets nothing impede that hunt as she splits two ships in half and starts tearing through Osaka. Scientists are beside themselves as Jiger displays another weapon: a heat ray that vaporizes not only flesh but entire city blocks. The JSDF does make a token effort to kill the kaiju, but her quills knock down the F-104 fighters, ending that involvement. Gamera returns for round two as the fight is witnessed by several children. Gamera knocks Jiger around and has the upper hand until Jiger pulls Gamera to her. Jiger extends a stinger from her tail and inserts the barb into Gamera's chest, laying an egg inside his lung. Gamera staggers away, roaring in agony. Finally, he barely makes it to the bay and his body turn a chalky white color, almost like ice. Gamera is presumed to have been killed at this point as Jiger heads straight to the World's Fair. Jiger finally obtains her goal of the statue, and throws it into the ocean, ending the painful noise. The scientists were checking out possible causes of the noise, as it affected humans, causing temporary insanity. The children convinced them to do a medical exam on the comatose Gamera, where it's discovered that there's a dark spot on one of his lungs. One of the scientists served as a zoo director and realised that the spot might not be a fast spreading cancer, but actually a parasitic infant Jiger growing inside Gamera. (By way of demonstrating his theory he plays, in one of the film's more notable sequences, actual black-and-white science documentary footage of an infected elephant's trunk being surgically sliced open, spilling out an oleaginous mass of parasitical larvae.) An operation is needed to remove the threat, so the children took the initiative by taking a walkie talkie and a mini-sub. Communication is established with the kids and they enter Gamera through his open mouth, and after almost going into his stomach, they arrive at the problem lung. The children are able to exit the sub and walk around in the lung. There, they discover the baby. The baby looks like a tiny version of his mother, except that instead of shooting quills, the baby squirts sticky goo. The baby attacks them but he has a weakness just like the adult: white noise. The kids discover this is actually a fatal weakness and manage to kill the baby using static from their radio. They leave Gamera's body and report their findings to the scientists. They rig up large speakers to keep Jiger at bay, as well as figuring out that power would have to also be run into Gamera, who cannot recover on his own. The children make a final trip inside Gamera to hook up a set of power lines directly to his heart. Jiger is kept still by the speakers playing the white noise. It's not enough to kill Jiger, but buys enough time for the other plan to start. Gamera is subjected to high voltage shock before the electrical grid overloads. It's enough that Gamera revives on his own. Gamera flies over to the World's Fair for the final battle. Jiger tries every weapon she's got, but Gamera has learned from his previous battles with her. After her spears fail to affect him, Jiger then uses her heat ray, the one weapon she'd yet to use on him. It doesn't affect Gamera's shell or even skin (likely due to Gamera's resistance to heat) but the sound it generates threatens to rupture his ear drums. Luckily, Gamera is able to put power poles in his ears to protect them from the sound. After trying all her other attacks, Jiger resorts to her tail stinger again but Gamera is prepared for it this time and uses a building to smash her tail and destroy the stinger. Gamera body-slams Jiger several times from great heights, but Jiger isn't really affected. However, it buys Gamera the time needed to go into the ocean to retrieve the statue from the sea floor. Jiger, enraged by the statue's return attempts to catch the flying Gamera. Gamera taunts Jiger with the statue, who tries in vain to catch Gamera and retrieve the statue. Gamera finally ends the fight by throwing the statue at Jiger, which embeds itself in Jiger's skull, killing her. Gamera then returns the devil beast to Wester Island. Jiger. Jiger is a large, quadrupedal reptile, with a head adorned with quills protruding from her face. Along her back is a long dorsal fin, and on sides of her body, behind the head, are a pair of organic thrusters that enhance her jumping ability and is also the first female kaiju in the Gamera series.
583621	Jashnn — The Music Within written by Shagufta Rafiq, directed by Raksha Mistry & Hasnain S Hyderabadwala, is a 2009 Bollywood movie starring Adhyayan Suman, Anjana Sukhani, Shahana Goswami and Humayun Saeed. It is produced by Vishesh Films. Synopsis. Jashnn the movie, is based on the character Akash Verma (Adhyayan Suman), a 23 year old man, who thirsts to becoming a singing icon that can blaze a trail for himself among the galaxy of existing stars. But though he has dreams in his heart, he has been unable to find that distinctive voice that he can call his own, that will propel him to the top. Only when he's shattered by life and unflinchingly looks at the sordid truth straight in the face — that he is freeloading off his elder sister Nisha (Shahana Goswami), who in order to offer Akash a decent life style, has become the mistress of a rich businessman, Aman Bajaj (Humayun Saeed). Even though she is just a mistress, she is able to touch Aman's inner core. Call it irony or a twist of fate, but the person who sees Akash through this dark times and mentors him when he's down and out is none other than the sister of the very person who Akash hates most in the world - Aman Bajaj. It is Sara Bajaj (Anjana Sukhani), Aman's sister, who makes him realize that he is an extremely talented man who is simply going through a bad phase and that the biggest crime a human being can commit, is to give up on himself. Spurred by life's bittersweet lessons, and Sara's genuine love and support, Akash, in the harshest winter of his life discovers an invincible summer within himself, thereby discovering his own voice. With this very special tune which has been soaked with the passion of his lived life, he not only touches his inexhaustible potential and becomes an overnight star but also brings dignity it his beleaguered sister, humbles his biggest detractor Aman Bajaj and in the process, lives up to the faith that Sara had in him all along. Music. Music of Jashnn is composed by Toshi-Sharib, Nouman Javaid and Sandesh Shandilya with lyrics provided by Kumaar, Nouman Javaid and Neelesh Misra.
1056788	Gangster No. 1 is a 2000 British crime film directed by Paul McGuigan. It stars Paul Bettany in the title role, and features Malcolm McDowell, David Thewlis and Saffron Burrows. Plot. The film opens with an unnamed, veteran British gangster (McDowell) attending a boxing match with friends. Upon hearing in conversation that a gangster by the name of Freddie Mays is to be released from prison after completing a 30-year sentence, he becomes upset and leaves without a word. The narrative moves back in time to the 1960s, showing a younger Gangster (Bettany). He comes to the attention of a very influential London gangster, Freddie Mays (Thewlis), who recruits him to be an enforcer. The Gangster is eager to please, and while his violent actions at first dismay Mays, he soon proves his loyalty to Mays with creative ways of murder. However, the Gangster quickly becomes obsessed with and deeply jealous of Mays' glamourous lifestyle and success. The Gangster soon discovers that Mays' main rival, Lennie Taylor (Jamie Foreman), is planning on killing Mays. Instead of warning his boss, the Gangster decides to let the attack take place, killing the only other member of his own gang who knew of the impending attack. It goes on as planned, and the Gangster sits in a car nearby to watch as Lennie and his gang shoot and stab Mays and slit the throat of his fiancée, Karen (Saffron Burrows). Later that same night the Gangster goes to Lennie's flat, shoots him in the leg, and then tortures him to death. The Gangster discovers the following day that Mays did not die in the attack, and is hospitalised. Upon Mays' recovery, he is unjustly convicted of Taylor's murder and sent to prison for a 30-year sentence. With Mays out of his way, the Gangster becomes leader of the gang and consolidates his power over the city's underworld. In a sequence spanning the intervening years between 1968 and 1999, he organizes a bank heist, opens a casino, fixes horse races, and builds his gang to over 300 men. The film's narrative returns to the aged Gangster at the boxing event. The Gangster discovers that Karen also did not die, and is due to marry Mays, who has left prison a changed man. Meeting Mays in the flat that once belonged to him, the Gangster angrily denounces Mays, but Mays seemingly has no fight left in him, wanting only to marry Karen and retire in peace. The Gangster is infuriated that Mays is seemingly happier with nothing than the Gangster is with everything, and threatens Mays with a gun. He then gives Mays the gun and begs him to kill him, but Mays leaves. The film closes with the Gangster, having apparently lost his mind, committing suicide by stepping off the top of a building, with his last words being "I'm number one". Critical reception. The film was met with a generally positive critical reception and currently holds a "Certified Fresh" score of 73% at Rotten Tomatoes based on 51 reviews. Critics disliked the violence present throughout the movie but praised the performances and style.
433520	Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (; 27 January 1832 – 14 January 1898), better known by his pen name, Lewis Carroll (), was an English writer, mathematician, logician, Anglican deacon and photographer. His most famous writings are "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" and its sequel "Through the Looking-Glass", as well as the poems "The Hunting of the Snark" and "Jabberwocky", all examples of the genre of literary nonsense. He is noted for his facility at word play, logic, and fantasy, and there are societies in many parts of the world (including the United Kingdom, Japan, the United States, and New Zealand) dedicated to the enjoyment and promotion of his works and the investigation of his life. Antecedents. Dodgson's family was predominantly northern English, with Irish connections. Conservative and High Church Anglican, most of Dodgson's ancestors were army officers or Church of England clergy. His great-grandfather, also named Charles Dodgson, had risen through the ranks of the church to become the Bishop of Elphin. His grandfather, another Charles, had been an army captain, killed in action in Ireland in 1803 when his two sons were hardly more than babies. His mother's name was Frances Jane Lutwidge. The oldest of these sons – yet another Charles Dodgson – was Carroll's father. He reverted to the other family tradition and took holy orders. He went to Westminster School, and then to Christ Church, Oxford. He was mathematically gifted and won a double first degree, which could have been the prelude to a brilliant academic career. Instead he married his first cousin in 1827 and became a country parson. Dodgson was born in the little parsonage of Daresbury in Cheshire near the towns of Warrington and Runcorn, the eldest boy but already the third child of the four-and-a-half-year-old marriage. Eight more children were to follow. When Charles was 11, his father was given the living of Croft-on-Tees in North Yorkshire, and the whole family moved to the spacious rectory. This remained their home for the next twenty-five years. Young Charles' father was an active and highly conservative cleric of the Church of England who later became the Archdeacon of Richmond and involved himself, sometimes influentially, in the intense religious disputes that were dividing the church. He was High Church, inclining to Anglo-Catholicism, an admirer of John Henry Newman and the Tractarian movement, and did his best to instill such views in his children. Young Charles was to develop an ambiguous relationship with his father's values and with the Church of England as a whole. Education. Home life. During his early youth, Dodgson was educated at home. His "reading lists" preserved in the family archives testify to a precocious intellect: at the age of seven the child was reading "The Pilgrim's Progress". He also suffered from a stammer – a condition shared by most of his siblings – that often influenced his social life throughout his years. At age twelve he was sent to Richmond Grammar School (now part of Richmond School) at nearby Richmond. Rugby. In 1846, young Dodgson moved on to Rugby School, where he was evidently less happy, for as he wrote some years after leaving the place: Scholastically, though, he excelled with apparent ease. "I have not had a more promising boy at his age since I came to Rugby", observed R. B. Mayor, then Mathematics master. Oxford. He left Rugby at the end of 1849 and matriculated at Oxford in May 1850 as a member of his father's old college, Christ Church. After waiting for rooms in college to become available, he went into residence in January 1851. He had been at Oxford only two days when he received a summons home. His mother had died of "inflammation of the brain" – perhaps meningitis or a stroke – at the age of forty-seven. His early academic career veered between high promise and irresistible distraction. He did not always work hard, but was exceptionally gifted and achievement came easily to him. In 1852 he obtained first-class honours in Mathematics Moderations, and was shortly thereafter nominated to a Studentship by his father's old friend, Canon Edward Pusey. In 1854 he obtained first-class honours in the Final Honours School of Mathematics, standing first on the list, graduating Bachelor of Arts., He remained at Christ Church studying and teaching, but the next year he failed an important scholarship through his self-confessed inability to apply himself to study. Even so, his talent as a mathematician won him the Christ Church Mathematical Lectureship in 1855, which he continued to hold for the next twenty-six years. Despite early unhappiness, Dodgson was to remain at Christ Church, in various capacities, until his death. Character and appearance. Health challenges. The young adult Charles Dodgson was about six feet tall, slender, and had curling brown hair and blue or grey eyes (depending on the account). He was described in later life as somewhat asymmetrical, and as carrying himself rather stiffly and awkwardly, though this may be on account of a knee injury sustained in middle age. As a very young child, he suffered a fever that left him deaf in one ear. At the age of 17, he suffered a severe attack of whooping cough, which was probably responsible for his chronically weak chest in later life. Another defect he carried into adulthood was what he referred to as his "hesitation", a stammer he acquired in early childhood and which plagued him throughout his life. The stammer has always been a potent part of the conceptions of Dodgson; it is part of the belief that he stammered only in adult company and was free and fluent with children, but there is no evidence to support this idea. Many children of his acquaintance remembered the stammer while many adults failed to notice it. Dodgson himself seems to have been far more acutely aware of it than most people he met; it is said he caricatured himself as the Dodo in "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland", referring to his difficulty in pronouncing his last name, but this is one of the many "facts" often-repeated, for which no first-hand evidence remains. He did indeed refer to himself as the dodo, but that this reference was to his stammer is simply speculation. Although Dodgson's stammer troubled him, it was never so debilitating that it prevented him from applying his other personal qualities to do well in society. At a time when people commonly devised their own amusements and when singing and recitation were required social skills, the young Dodgson was well equipped to be an engaging entertainer. He reportedly could sing tolerably well and was not afraid to do so before an audience. He was adept at mimicry and storytelling, and was reputedly quite good at charades. Social connections. In the interim between his early published writing and the success of the "Alice" books, Dodgson began to move in the pre-Raphaelite social circle. He first met John Ruskin in 1857 and became friendly with him. He developed a close relationship with Dante Gabriel Rossetti and his family, and also knew William Holman Hunt, John Everett Millais, and Arthur Hughes, among other artists. He also knew the fairy-tale author George MacDonald well – it was the enthusiastic reception of "Alice" by the young MacDonald children that convinced him to submit the work for publication. Politics, religion and philosophy. In broad terms, Dodgson has traditionally been regarded as politically, religiously, and personally conservative. Martin Gardner labels Dodgson as a Tory who was "awed by lords and inclined to be snobbish towards inferiors." The Reverend W. Tuckwell, in his "Reminiscences of Oxford" (1900), regarded him as "austere, shy, precise, absorbed in mathematical reverie, watchfully tenacious of his dignity, stiffly conservative in political, theological, social theory, his life mapped out in squares like Alice's landscape." However, Dodgson also expressed interest in philosophies and religions that seem at odds with this assessment. For example, he was a founding member of the Society for Psychical Research. It has been argued by the proponents of the 'Carroll Myth' that these factors require a reconsideration of Gardner's diagnosis, and that perhaps, Dodgson's true outlook was more complex than previously believed (see 'the Carroll Myth' below). Dodgson wrote some studies of various philosophical arguments. In 1894, he published a version of his Barbershop paradox in "Mind" which generated responses from many logicians of his time. In 1895, he developed a philosophical regressus-argument on deductive reasoning in his article "What the Tortoise Said to Achilles", which appeared in one of the early volumes of the philosophical journal "Mind". The article was reprinted in the same journal a hundred years later, in 1995, with a subsequent article by Simon Blackburn titled "Practical Tortoise Raising". Artistic activities. Literature. From a young age, Dodgson wrote poetry and short stories, both contributing heavily to the family magazine "Mischmasch" and later sending them to various magazines, enjoying moderate success. Between 1854 and 1856, his work appeared in the national publications, "The Comic Times" and "The Train", as well as smaller magazines like the "Whitby Gazette" and the "Oxford Critic". Most of this output was humorous, sometimes satirical, but his standards and ambitions were exacting. "I do not think I have yet written anything worthy of real publication (in which I do not include the "Whitby Gazette" or the "Oxonian Advertiser"), but I do not despair of doing so some day," he wrote in July 1855. Sometime after 1850, he did write puppet plays for his siblings' entertainment, of which one has survived, La Guida di Bragia. In 1856 he published his first piece of work under the name that would make him famous. A romantic poem called "Solitude" appeared in "The Train" under the authorship of "Lewis Carroll". This pseudonym was a play on his real name; "Lewis" was the anglicised form of "Ludovicus", which was the Latin for "Lutwidge", and "Carroll" an Irish surname similar to the Latin name "Carolus", from which comes the name "Charles". The transition went as follows: "Charles Lutwidge" translated into Latin as "Carolus Ludovicus". This was then translated back into English as "Carroll Lewis" and then reversed to make "Lewis Carroll". "Alice" books. In the same year, 1856, a new dean, Henry Liddell, arrived at Christ Church, bringing with him his young family, all of whom would figure largely in Dodgson's life and, over the following years, greatly influence his writing career. Dodgson became close friends with Liddell's wife, Lorina, and their children, particularly the three sisters: Lorina, Edith and Alice Liddell. He was for many years widely assumed to have derived his own "Alice" from Alice Liddell. This was given some apparent substance by the fact the acrostic poem at the end of "Through the Looking Glass" spells out her name and also that there are many superficial references to her hidden in the text of both books. It has been noted that Dodgson himself repeatedly denied in later life that his "little heroine" was based on any real child, and frequently dedicated his works to girls of his acquaintance, adding their names in acrostic poems at the beginning of the text. Gertrude Chataway's name appears in this form at the beginning of "The Hunting of the Snark" and it is not suggested that this means any of the characters in the narrative are based on her. Though information is scarce (Dodgson's diaries for the years 1858–1862 are missing), it does seem clear that his friendship with the Liddell family was an important part of his life in the late 1850s and he grew into the habit of taking the children (first the boy, Harry, and later the three girls) on rowing trips accompanied by an adult friend to nearby Nuneham Courtenay or Godstow. It was on one such expedition, on 4 July 1862, that Dodgson invented the outline of the story that eventually became his first and largest commercial success. Having told the story and been begged by Alice Liddell to write it down, Dodgson eventually (after much delay) presented her with a handwritten, illustrated manuscript entitled "Alice's Adventures Under Ground" in November 1864. Before this, the family of friend and mentor George MacDonald read Dodgson's incomplete manuscript, and the enthusiasm of the MacDonald children encouraged Dodgson to seek publication. In 1863, he had taken the unfinished manuscript to Macmillan the publisher, who liked it immediately. After the possible alternative titles "Alice Among the Fairies" and "Alice's Golden Hour" were rejected, the work was finally published as "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" in 1865 under the Lewis Carroll pen-name, which Dodgson had first used some nine years earlier. The illustrations this time were by Sir John Tenniel; Dodgson evidently thought that a published book would need the skills of a professional artist. Annotated versions provide insights into many of the ideas and hidden meanings that are prevalent in these books. The overwhelming commercial success of the first Alice book changed Dodgson's life in many ways. The fame of his alter ego "Lewis Carroll" soon spread around the world. He was inundated with fan mail and with sometimes unwanted attention. Indeed, according to one popular story, Queen Victoria herself enjoyed "Alice In Wonderland" so much that she suggested he dedicate his next book to her, and was accordingly presented with his next work, a scholarly mathematical volume entitled "An Elementary Treatise on Determinants". Dodgson himself vehemently denied this story, commenting "...It is utterly false in every particular: nothing even resembling it has occurred"; and it is unlikely for other reasons: as T.B. Strong comments in a "Times" article, "It would have been clean contrary to all his practice to identify author of Alice with the author of his mathematical works". He also began earning quite substantial sums of money but continued with his seemingly disliked post at Christ Church. Late in 1871, a sequel – "Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There" – was published. (The title page of the first edition erroneously gives "1872" as the date of publication.) Its somewhat darker mood possibly reflects the changes in Dodgson's life. His father had recently died (1868), plunging him into a depression that lasted some years. "The Hunting of the Snark". In 1876, Dodgson produced his last great work, "The Hunting of the Snark", a fantastical "nonsense" poem, exploring the adventures of a bizarre crew of tradesmen, and one beaver, who set off to find the eponymous creature. The painter Dante Gabriel Rossetti reputedly became convinced the poem was about him. Photography. In 1856, Dodgson took up the new art form of photography, first under the influence of his uncle Skeffington Lutwidge, and later his Oxford friend Reginald Southey. He soon excelled at the art and became a well-known gentleman-photographer, and he seems even to have toyed with the idea of making a living out of it in his very early years. A recent study by Roger Taylor and Edward Wakeling exhaustively lists every surviving print, and Taylor calculates that just over fifty percent of his surviving work depicts young girls, though this may be a highly distorted figure as approximately 60% of his original photographic portfolio is now missing, so any firm conclusions are difficult. Dodgson also made many studies of men, women, male children and landscapes; his subjects also include skeletons, dolls, dogs, statues and paintings, and trees. His pictures of children were taken with a parent in attendance and many of the pictures were taken in the Liddell garden, because natural sunlight was required for good exposures. He also found photography to be a useful entrée into higher social circles. During the most productive part of his career, he made portraits of notable sitters such as John Everett Millais, Ellen Terry, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Julia Margaret Cameron, Michael Faraday, Lord Salisbury, and Alfred, Lord Tennyson. Dodgson abruptly ceased photography in 1880. Over 24 years, he had completely mastered the medium, set up his own studio on the roof of Tom Quad, and created around 3,000 images. Fewer than 1,000 have survived time and deliberate destruction. He reported that he stopped taking photographs because keeping his studio working was difficult (he used the wet collodion process) and commercial photographers (who started using the dry-plate process in the 1870s) took pictures more quickly. With the advent of Modernism, tastes changed, and his photography was forgotten from around 1920 until the 1960s. Inventions. To promote letter writing, Dodgson invented "The Wonderland Postage-Stamp Case" in 1889. This was a cloth-backed folder with twelve slots, two marked for inserting the then most commonly used penny stamp, and one each for the other current denominations to one shilling. The folder was then put into a slip case decorated with a picture of Alice on the front and the Cheshire Cat on the back. All could be conveniently carried in a pocket or purse. When issued it also included a copy of Carroll's pamphletted lecture, "Eight or Nine Wise Words About Letter-Writing". Another invention is a writing tablet called the nyctograph for use at night that allowed for note-taking in the dark; thus eliminating the trouble of getting out of bed and striking a light when one wakes with an idea. The device consisted of a gridded card with sixteen squares and system of symbols representing an alphabet of Dodgson's design, using letter shapes similar to the Graffiti writing system on a Palm device. Among the games he devised outside of logic there are a number of word games, including an early version of what today is known as Scrabble. He also appears to have invented, or at least certainly popularised, the "doublet" (see word ladder), a form of brain-teaser that is still popular today: the game of changing one word into another by altering one letter at a time, each successive change always resulting in a genuine word. For instance, CAT is transformed into DOG by the following steps: CAT, COT, DOT, DOG. Other items include a rule for finding the day of the week for any date; a means for justifying right margins on a typewriter; a steering device for a velociam (a type of tricycle); new systems of parliamentary representation; more nearly fair elimination rules for tennis tournaments; a new sort of postal money order; rules for reckoning postage; rules for a win in betting; rules for dividing a number by various divisors; a cardboard scale for the college common room he worked in later in life, which, held next to a glass, ensured the right amount of liqueur for the price paid; a double-sided adhesive strip for things like the fastening of envelopes or mounting things in books; a device for helping a bedridden invalid to read from a book placed sideways; and at least two ciphers for cryptography. Mathematical work. Within the academic discipline of mathematics, Dodgson worked primarily in the fields of geometry, linear and matrix algebra, mathematical logic and recreational mathematics, producing nearly a dozen books under his real name. Dodgson also developed new ideas in linear algebra (e.g. the first printed proof of the Kronecker-Capelli theorem), probability, and the study of elections (e.g., Dodgson's method) and committees; some of this work was not published until well after his death. He worked as the Mathematical Lecturer at Christ Church (college),Oxford, an occupation that gave him some financial security. His mathematical work attracted renewed interest in the late 20th century. Martin Gardner's book on logic machines and diagrams, and William Warren Bartley's posthumous publication of the second part of Carroll's symbolic logic book have sparked a reevaluation of Carroll's contributions to symbolic logic. Robbins' and Rumsey's investigation of Dodgson condensation, a method of evaluating determinants, led them to the Alternating Sign Matrix conjecture, now a theorem. The discovery in the 1990s of additional ciphers that Carroll had constructed, in addition to his "Memoria Technica", showed that he had employed sophisticated mathematical ideas to their creation. Later years. Over the remaining twenty years of his life, throughout his growing wealth and fame, his existence remained little changed. He continued to teach at Christ Church until 1881, and remained in residence there until his death. His last novel, the two-volume "Sylvie and Bruno", was published in 1889 and 1893 respectively. It achieved nowhere near the success of the "Alice" books. Its intricacy was apparently not appreciated by contemporary readers. The reviews and its sales, only 13,000 copies, were disappointing. The only occasion on which (as far as is known) he travelled abroad was a trip to Russia in 1867 as an ecclesiastical together with the Reverend Henry Liddon. He recounts the travel in his "Russian Journal", which was first commercially published in 1935. On his way to Russia and back he also saw different cities in Belgium, Germany, the partitioned Poland, and France. He died on 14 January 1898 at his sisters' home, "The Chestnuts" in Guildford, of pneumonia following influenza. He was two weeks away from turning 66 years old. He is buried in Guildford at the Mount Cemetery. Controversies and mysteries. Suggestions of paedophilia. Stuart Dodgson Collingwood (Dodgson's nephew and biographer) wrote: Despite comments like this, Dodgson's friendships with young girls and psychological readings of his work – especially his photographs of nude or semi-nude girls – have all led to speculation that he was a paedophile. This possibility has underpinned numerous modern interpretations of his life and work, particularly Dennis Potter's play "Alice" and his screenplay for the motion picture, "Dreamchild", Robert Wilson's "Alice", and a number of recent biographies, including Michael Bakewell's "Lewis Carroll: A Biography" (1996), Donald Thomas's "Lewis Carroll: A Portrait with Background" (1995), and Morton N. Cohen's "Lewis Carroll: A Biography" (1995). All of these works more or less unequivocally assume that Dodgson was a paedophile, albeit a repressed and celibate one. Cohen claims Dodgson's "sexual energies sought unconventional outlets", and further writes: Cohen notes that Dodgson "apparently convinced many of his friends that his attachment to the nude female child form was free of any eroticism", but adds that "later generations look beneath the surface" (p. 229). Cohen and other biographers argue that Dodgson may have wanted to marry the 11-year-old Alice Liddell, and that this was the cause of the unexplained "break" with the family in June 1863. There has never been significant evidence to support the idea, however, and the 1996 discovery of the "cut pages in diary document" (see below) seems to make it highly probable that the 1863 "break" had nothing to do with Alice, but was perhaps connected with rumours involving her older sister Lorina (born 11 May 1849, so she would have been 14 at the time), her governess, or her mother who was also nicknamed "Ina". Some writers, e.g., Derek Hudson and Roger Lancelyn Green, stop short of identifying Dodgson as a paedophile, but concur that he had a passion for small female children and next to no interest in the adult world. The basis for scholars' speculation regarding Dodgson's interest in female children has been challenged in the last ten years by several writers and scholars. "Carroll Myth". Since 1999 a group of scholars, notably Karoline Leach, Hugues Lebailly and Sherry L. Ackerman, John Tufail, Douglas Nickel and others, argue that what Leach terms the "Carroll Myth" has wildly distorted biographical perception of his life and his work. Those such as Carolyn Sigler and Cristopher Hollingsworth have joined the ranks of those calling for a major reassessment. Leach's book, "In the Shadow of the Dreamchild", claims that: In more detail, Lebailly has endeavoured to set Dodgson's child-photography within the "Victorian Child Cult", which perceived child-nudity as essentially an expression of innocence. Lebailly claims that studies of child nudes were mainstream and fashionable in Dodgson's time and that most photographers, including Oscar Gustave Rejlander and Julia Margaret Cameron, made them as a matter of course. Lebailly continues that child nudes even appeared on Victorian Christmas cards, implying a very different social and aesthetic assessment of such material. Lebailly concludes that it has been an error of Dodgson's biographers to view his child-photography with 20th- or 21st-century eyes, and to have presented it as some form of personal idiosyncrasy, when it was in fact a response to a prevalent aesthetic and philosophical movement of the time. Leach's reappraisal of Dodgson focused in particular on his controversial sexuality. She argues that the allegations of paedophilia rose initially from a misunderstanding of Victorian morals, as well as the mistaken idea, fostered by Dodgson's various biographers, that he had no interest in adult women. She termed the traditional image of Dodgson "the Carroll Myth". She drew attention to the large amounts of evidence in his diaries and letters that he was also keenly interested in adult women, married and single, and enjoyed several scandalous (by the social standards of his time) relationships with them. She also pointed to the fact that many of those he described as "child-friends" were girls in their late teens and even twenties. She argues that suggestions of paedophilia evolved only many years after his death, when his well-meaning family had suppressed all evidence of his relationships with women in an effort to preserve his reputation, thus giving a false impression of a man interested only in little girls. Similarly, Leach traces the claim that many of Carroll's female friendships ended when the girls reached the age of fourteen to a 1932 biography by Langford Reed. Ordination. Dodgson had been groomed for the ordained ministry in the Anglican Church from a very early age and was expected, as a condition of his residency at Christ Church, to take holy orders within four years of obtaining his master's degree. He delayed the process for some time but eventually took deacon's orders on 22 December 1861. But when the time came a year later to progress to priestly orders, Dodgson appealed to the dean for permission not to proceed. This was against college rules and initially Dean Liddell told him he would have to consult the college ruling body, which would almost undoubtedly have resulted in his being expelled. For unknown reasons, Dean Liddell changed his mind overnight and permitted Dodgson to remain at the college in defiance of the rules. Uniquely amongst senior students of his time Dodgson never became a priest. There is currently no conclusive evidence about why Dodgson rejected the priesthood. Some have suggested his stammer made him reluctant to take the step, because he was afraid of having to preach. Wilson quotes letters by Dodgson describing difficulty in reading lessons and prayers rather than preaching in his own words. But Dodgson did indeed preach in later life, even though not in priest's orders, so it seems unlikely his impediment was a major factor affecting his choice. Wilson also points out that the then Bishop of Oxford, Samuel Wilberforce, who ordained Dodgson, had strong views against clergy going to the theatre, one of Dodgson's great interests. Others have suggested that he was having serious doubts about Anglicanism. He was interested in minority forms of Christianity (he was an admirer of F.D. Maurice) and "alternative" religions (theosophy). Dodgson became deeply troubled by an unexplained sense of sin and guilt at this time (the early 1860s) and frequently expressed the view in his diaries that he was a "vile and worthless" sinner, unworthy of the priesthood, and this sense of sin and unworthiness may well have affected his decision to abandon being ordained to the priesthood. Missing diaries. At least four complete volumes and around seven pages of text are missing from Dodgson's 13 diaries. The loss of the volumes remains unexplained; the pages have been deliberately removed by an unknown hand. Most scholars assume the diary material was removed by family members in the interests of preserving the family name, but this has not been proven. Except for one page, the period of his diaries from which material is missing is between 1853 and 1863 (when Dodgson was 21–31 years old). This was a period when Dodgson began suffering great mental and spiritual anguish and confessing to an overwhelming sense of his own sin. This was also the period of time when he composed his extensive love poetry, leading to speculation that the poems may have been autobiographical. Many theories have been put forward to explain the missing material. A popular explanation for one particular missing page (27 June 1863) is that it might have been torn out to conceal a proposal of marriage on that day by Dodgson to the 11-year-old Alice Liddell; there has never been any evidence to suggest this was so, and a paper discovered by Karoline Leach in the Dodgson family archive in 1996 offers some evidence to the contrary. This paper, known as the "cut pages in diary document", was compiled by various members of Carroll's family after his death. Part of it may have been written at the time the pages were destroyed, though this is unclear. The document offers a brief summary of two diary pages that are now missing, including the one for 27 June 1863. The summary for this page states that Mrs. Liddell told Dodgson there was gossip circulating about him and the Liddell family's governess, as well as about his relationship with "Ina", presumably Alice's older sister, Lorina Liddell. The "break" with the Liddell family that occurred soon after was presumably in response to this gossip. An alternative interpretation has been made regarding Carroll's rumoured involvement with "Ina": Lorina was also the name of Alice Liddell's mother. What is deemed most crucial and surprising is that the document seems to imply Dodgson's break with the family was not connected with Alice at all. But until a primary source is discovered, the events of 27 June 1863 remain inconclusive. Migraine and epilepsy. In his diary for 1880, Dodgson recorded experiencing his first episode of migraine with aura, describing very accurately the process of 'moving fortifications' that are a manifestation of the aura stage of the syndrome. Unfortunately there is no clear evidence to show whether this was his first experience of migraine "per se", or if he may have previously suffered the far more common form of migraine without aura, although the latter seems most likely, given the fact that migraine most commonly develops in the teens or early adulthood. Another form of migraine aura, Alice in Wonderland syndrome, has been named after Dodgson's little heroine, because its manifestation can resemble the sudden size-changes in the book. Also known as micropsia and macropsia, it is a brain condition affecting the way objects are perceived by the mind. For example, an afflicted person may look at a larger object, like a basketball, and perceive it as if it were the size of a golf ball. Some authors have suggested that Dodgson may have suffered from this type of aura, and used it as an inspiration in his work, but there is no evidence that he did. Dodgson also suffered two attacks in which he lost consciousness. He was diagnosed by three different doctors; a Dr. Morshead, Dr. Brooks, and Dr. Stedman, believed the attack and a consequent attack to be an "epileptiform" seizure (initially thought to be fainting, but Brooks changed his mind). Some have concluded from this he was a lifetime sufferer of this condition, but there is no evidence of this in his diaries beyond the diagnosis of the two attacks already mentioned. Some authors, in particular Sadi Ranson, have suggested Carroll may have suffered from temporal lobe epilepsy in which consciousness is not always completely lost, but altered, and in which the symptoms mimic many of the same experiences as Alice in Wonderland. Carroll had at least one incidence in which he suffered full loss of consciousness and awoke with a bloody nose, which he recorded in his diary and noted that the episode left him not feeling himself for "quite sometime afterward". This attack was diagnosed as possibly "epileptiform" and Carroll himself later wrote of his "seizures" in the same diary. Most of the standard diagnostic tests of today were not available in the nineteenth century. Recently, Dr Yvonne Hart, consultant neurologist at the Radcliffe Hospital, Oxford, considered Dodgson's symptoms. Her conclusion, quoted in Jenny Woolf's "The Mystery of Lewis Carroll", is that Dodgson very likely had migraine, and may have had epilepsy, but she emphasises that she would have considerable doubt about making a diagnosis of epilepsy without further information. Memorials. On Copenhagen Street, Islington is the Lewis Carroll Children's Library.
1162348	William "Billy" Gardell (born August 20, 1969) is an American stand-up comedian, actor, voice artist, and comedian. He has been visible within the comedy world industry since 1989. Gardell currently plays police officer Mike Biggs on "Mike & Molly". He also made an appearance in a dozen episodes of "My Name Is Earl" as a police officer. Gardell voiced Santa in "", as well as starring on "Sullivan & Son" in the recurring role of Lyle Winkler. Early life. Born in Swissvale, Pennsylvania (Pittsburgh), Gardell attended Winter Park High School in Orange County, Florida during the mid-1980s. As a child, he moved to Florida with his mother and younger brother and sister after his parents divorced and only visited Pennsylvania in the summers. He has said living in Florida was a positive experience. At the age of 15, he started working at a department store warehouse in the receiving area where he would unload trucks and stack pallets. In 1987, he started cleaning bathrooms, seating people and answering phones at a local comedy club, Bonkerz. On December 28th, he started performing at the comedy club's open-mic nights after he made a dare with some co-workers. "If I didn't do an open mic night, I couldn't cover the bet. I was running my mouth that I would do it. They bet me I wouldn't", he explained. He eventually started opening for Dennis Miller and George Carlin.
1058262	Robert Patrick "Bob" Gunton, Jr. (born November 15, 1945) is an American actor. He is known for playing strict, authoritarian characters, with his best known roles as Warden Samuel Norton in the 1994 prison film "The Shawshank Redemption", Chief George Earle in 1993's "Demolition Man", Dr. Walcott, the domineering dean of Virginia Medical School in "Patch Adams" and President Juan Peron in the original Broadway production of "Evita" for which he received a Tony Award nomination. Early life and education. Gunton was born in Santa Monica, California, the son of Rose Marie (née Banovetz) and Robert Patrick Gunton, Sr., a labor union executive. He attended Mater Dei High School in Santa Ana, California, the Paulist Seminary St Peter's College, in Baltimore, Maryland, and the University of California, Irvine. At one point, he had planned to become a Catholic priest. Gunton served in the U.S. Army (1969-71), earning the Vietnam Service Medal and a Bronze Star for valor. Career. Gunton played the role of Juan Peron in the original Broadway production of "Evita", earning a Tony Award nomination for Best Featured Actor in a Musical for his performance. He later starred in the title role of a 1989 Broadway revival of "Sweeney Todd" and received a second Tony nomination for his portrayal. Additional Broadway credits include "Working", "King of Hearts", "The Music Women", "How I Got That Story", and "Big River". Gunton portrayed President Richard Nixon in a recreation of the Watergate tapes incident for "Nightline". Gunton is also known for his guest starring role as Captain Benjamin Maxwell in the well-received 1991 "" episode "The Wounded". Gunton played Warden Samuel Norton, the head of Shawshank State Prison and the primary antagonist in "The Shawshank Redemption" opposite Tim Robbins.
1744021	Johnny Yong Bosch (born January 6, 1976) is an American actor, voice actor, martial artist, and musician who is best known for portraying Adam Park in "Mighty Morphin Power Rangers" and the English voices of Ichigo Kurosaki in the anime series "Bleach", Itsuki Koizumi in "The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya", Vash the Stampede in "Trigun" and Lelouch Lamperouge in "", a two-time American Anime Award nominee, and is also a lead singer in the band Eyeshine. Personal life. John Jay Bosch was born in Kansas City, Missouri, and raised in Garland, Texas. His mother is Korean, and his father is of German and Irish descent. Career. Power Rangers. Bosch is best known for his role as Adam Park in the show "Mighty Morphin Power Rangers", for which he was cast in July 1994. In 1997 during "Power Rangers Turbo" he was kicked off the show due to Jason David Frank and Catherine Sutherland wanting to leave the show in addition to Saban's decision to retire Bosch's and Nakia Burrise's characters. At the request of Koichi Sakamoto, he appeared in an episode of "Power Rangers in Space" in 1998 and later returned for two episodes (celebrating 15 years of the franchise) in "Power Rangers Operation Overdrive" in 2007. Voice acting. Bosch voiced Vash the Stampede in "Trigun" as his first job and for various Japanese anime and video games. In 2006, he worked once again with Koichi Sakamoto on the film "Broken Path". In 2007, Bosch co-starred alongside Ray Park in a comic-book style action film, "Hellbinders". He does the motion capturing and voice of Nero in "Devil May Cry 4", making him the third actor involved with Power Rangers to have a role in the "Devil May Cry" series, after Reuben Langdon, who voices and motion capture for Dante in "Devil May Cry 3" (and "DMC4"), and Daniel Southworth, who voiced and did motion capture for Vergil, also in "DMC3", and for Credo, in "DMC4". Recently, he voiced Final Fantasy game's character Firion in ', and "Dissidia 012 Final Fantasy", Yang in "Super Street Fighter IV Arcade Edition", Zero of "Mega Man X" fame in ', Tohru Adachi and the protagonist Yu Narukami in the Persona 4 games and anime adaptation, and host of AnimeTV, which started its second season on Revision3. Production. Bosch had been cast as the English voice of five characters for voice actor Jun Fukuyama: In addition, he had been cast as the English voice of four characters for voice actor Tomokazu Seki: Bosch has voiced three characters which Funimation voice actor Micah Solusod later voices over:
177677	Heinz-Otto Peitgen (born April 30, 1945 in Bruch, Nümbrecht near Cologne) is a German mathematician and currently serves as President of Jacobs University. Peitgen is one of the most prominent researchers in the study of fractals. Life. Peitgen studied mathematics, physics and economics from 1965 until 1971 in Bonn, later working for six years at the Institute for Applied Mathematics at the University of Bonn under Christian Fenske, where he received his PhD in 1973. His doctoral dissertation was entitled “Asymptotische Fixpunktsätze und Stabilität” (English: “Asymptotic Fixed-point Theorems and Stability”). After receiving his habilitation in 1977, he first taught as a private docent in Bonn before being awarded a professorship in mathematics at the University of Bremen. There, he was deeply involved in the establishment and development of an Institute for Dynamical Systems, where in 1982 he set up a computer graphics laboratory for mathematical experiments. Since 1992, Peitgen has served as the founder and director of the Center for Complex Systems and Visualization (Centrum für Complexe Systeme und Visualisierung - CeVis) at the University of Bremen. His research work emphasizes dynamical systems, numerical analysis, image analysis and data analysis, as well as the use of computers in image-based medical diagnostics. From 1985 until 1991, Peitgen was a professor of mathematics at the University of California, Santa Cruz; since 1991 he has been a professor of mathematics at Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton. In 1995, he founded the Center for Medical Image Computing, MeVis Research GmbH, in Bremen, which became a Fraunhofer Society institute at the beginning of 2009 and is now called the Fraunhofer MEVIS - Institute for Medical Image Computing. Peitgen still manages the institute. In 1997, Peitgen and some of his colleagues founded a new company, MeVis Medical Solutions AG, MMS, which has been listed on the German stock market since 2007. MMS is one of the world’s leading independent producers of software products for image-based medicine, particularly digital radiology. With its software solutions, it provides medical practitioners with substantial added value in screening and diagnostics as well as therapy and intervention planning for cancer, particularly breast cancer, neurology and lung conditions. Peitgen is the Chairman of the Supervisory Board. Peitgen has been appointed to chairs at several German and American universities and has served as a visiting professor at universities in Belgium, Brazil, Canada, the USA, Mexico and Italy. He is the author of several award-winning books and films that have helped to publicize fractal geometry and chaos theory around the world and is co-editor of several professional journals with an international readership. The scientific disciplines in which he specializes include mathematics, computer science and medicine: dynamical systems, numerical analysis, fractal geometry, chaos theory, computer graphics, image processing, data analysis and IT support for image-based medical diagnostics and treatment. In 1992, Peitgen was elected as a member of the European Academy of Sciences and Arts and in 2008 as a member of the Goettingen Academy of Sciences. University Leadership. On January 1, 2013, Dr. Peitgen took over as President of Jacobs University (Former International University Bremen), Bremen, Germany. He is the successor to former President Joachim Treusch. Awards. 2005 Werner Körte Medaille in gold - presented by the German association for surgery (DGCH) for the development of a software visualization program, which is used by surgeons to understand possible complications and determine improved procedures for complicated liver-surgical interventions.
1680112	Survival Island, also known as "Three", is a 2005 film written and directed by Stewart Raffill. It stars Billy Zane, Kelly Brook, and Juan Pablo Di Pace. Plot. The film revolves around Jack Ryan (Billy Zane) and Jennifer (Kelly Brook), a rich couple who are yachting in the Caribbean during Christmas. One of their crew is the handsome Manuel (Juan Pablo Di Pace), who is cursed by his angry ex-girlfriend as he prepares to leave on the yacht. He is clearly bothered and has a difficult time fulfilling requests for the crew and guests. After the captain confronts him, Manuel quits and throws down a rag as he storms out of the galley. The rag lands on a gas flame and causes the entire yacht to catch fire. The captain is unable to control the blaze with a fire extinguisher so they abandon ship. Their lifeboats are capsized by a storm later that night and everyone becomes separated. Washing up on a deserted island, Jennifer is completely alone until she sees the body of the captain in the water. As she attempts to resuscitate him, Manuel appears and also unsuccessfully tries to revive the man. They bury the captain and, under Manuel's guidance, set out to build a shelter and find food. Eventually, Jack also turns up on the island. Although things go smoothly for a little while, Jack eventually suspects Manuel of having designs on his wife and declares the man his enemy, promising to ruin his life once they get off the island. Manuel responds that Jack had better get home soon, because he can ruin Jack's life right there on the island. This puts Jennifer in the uncomfortable position of her loyalty to Jack conflicting with the realization that they both need Manuel's help to survive. A proud man, Jack insists that he can provide for them both, but it quickly becomes apparent that he cannot. Jack and Jennifer's relationship also starts quickly deteriorating. Jack steals Manuel's goggles to go fishing one day and when Manuel discovers this, he threatens to kill Jack. Jennifer attempts to get him to calm down and, in a fit of passion, they have sex. Afterwards, Manuel reveals that he has loved Jennifer from the moment he first saw her, but it is also clear that this is a way for him to hurt Jack. When Jack returns, Jennifer accidentally hints at him what had happened and Jack furiously rejects her. He breaks up with her and drags her by the hair to Manuel's hut so she can live with him. While fishing another day, Jack finds a boat on the ocean floor. He drags it to shore and attempts to repair it. Later, Manuel proposes Jennifer a midnight swim and as they start having sex, Jennifer gives Manuel the idea of stealing the boat so they can get away together from the island. They plan to do so while Jack is out fishing. However, they do not get far before the boat begins to sink and they realize that Jack's plan all along was for them to take the boat and drown. They are forced to swim back to the island and to Jack, who attacks the now-exhausted Manuel with a spear. The following day, an intense fight sequence ensues, interwoven with scenes of Manuel's ex-girlfriend performing a voodoo ceremony. The scene climaxes when Jennifer pins Jack to the ground, attempting to kill him with his own knife. Manuel, with Jack's spear stuck in his back, picks up a heavy rock with which to crush Jack. He loses his balance and falls backward, impaling himself on the spear, to Jennifer's horror. Simultaneously, the voodoo girl impales his effigy on a spike. One year later, a yachting family drops anchor near the island and explores it, discovering Jennifer asleep in her hut. She, still somewhat distraught over Manuel's death, leaves with them, but does not mention that her husband is also on the island. Jack, who is fishing, sees her leaving on the yacht and calls out, but Jennifer, who had also stolen his lighter so he could not make anymore fires, ignores him out of revenge and the family inside the boat cannot hear him. Jack is abandoned on the island and his eventual fate is left ambiguous. Production and release. The film was produced during 2003 and was originally set for cinema release under the title "Three" in 2004. "Three" went on limited cinematic release on May 3, 2006, in the United Kingdom before being released to DVD on August 21, 2006. The cinematic release lasted for just one week in many cinemas. "Three" was released on DVD in the United States on August 15, 2006. It was also released theatrically in a number of European countries under its original title. Actors Billy Zane and Kelly Brook met during the course of filming and later became engaged. In late 2005 Zane and Brook unsuccessfully challenged the film's producers to remove Brook's nude scenes from the movie. However, the eventual DVD release kept these scenes intact. Critical reception. "Three" as it was known in the UK suffered from poor reviews, gaining a rare one-star rating on the BBC Movies website. Robert Hanks of "The Independent" said "["Three" is] an unholy amalgam of "Lord of the Flies", "The Blue Lagoon" and "The Admirable Crichton" ... At odd moments it rises to risibility, but mostly it is just dull..." Awards. Wins
1052435	A Man Escaped or: The Wind Bloweth Where It Listeth () is a 1956 French film directed by Robert Bresson. It is based on the memoirs of André Devigny, a prisoner of war held at Fort Montluc during World War II. The protagonist of the film is called Fontaine. The second part of the title comes from the Bible, John 3:8, and in English it is worded this way only in the Authorized King James Version (more recent translations using words like "wants" (which is the title in French) or "pleases" instead of "listeth"). Bresson, like Devigny and the character Fontaine, was imprisoned by Nazis as a member of the French Resistance. The soundtrack uses "Kyrie" from Mozart's "Great Mass in C minor", K. 427. The film was entered into the 1957 Cannes Film Festival. Plot summary. After the establishing shot of Montluc prison, but before the opening credits, the camera rests on a plaque commemorating the 7,000 men who died there at the hands of the Nazis. On the way to jail, Fontaine (François Leterrier), a member of the French Resistance, seizes an opportunity to escape his Nazi captors when the car carrying him is forced to stop, but he is soon apprehended, beaten for his attempt, handcuffed and taken to the jail. At first he is incarcerated in a cell on the first floor of the prison, and he is able to talk to three French men who are exercising in the courtyard. The men obtain a safety pin for Fontaine, which gives him the ability to unlock his handcuffs. This turns out to be pointless because, in reassigning him to a cell on the top floor, the guards remove his handcuffs anyway. Once in cell 107 on the top floor, Fontaine begins inspecting the door and figures out that the boards are joined together with low quality wood. Using an iron spoon he deliberately neglects to return after a meal, he begins to chip away at the wood. After weeks of work, he is able to remove three boards from the door, roam the hallway, get back in his cell and restore the appearance of the door. Fontaine is not the only prisoner trying to escape. Orsini (Jacques Ertaud) makes an attempt, but fails to get very far because his rope broke at the second wall. Orsini is tossed back in his cell and beaten up by the guards, and is to be executed within a few days. Fontaine is not deterred from his plan; he makes hooks from the light-fitting in his cell. He then fashions himself ropes from old blankets and fastens the hooks to the rope with wires taken from his bed. The other prisoners grow somewhat skeptical of his escape plans, saying he is taking too long. After being taken to headquarters to be informed that he is sentenced to execution, Fontaine is taken back to jail and put back in the same cell. Soon he gets a cellmate, François Jost (Charles Le Clainche), a sixteen-year-old young man who had joined the German army. Fontaine is not sure whether he can trust Jost (whom he sees speaking on friendly terms with a Nazi guard) and realizes he'll either have to kill him or take him with him in the escape. In the end, after Jost admits he too wants to escape, he chooses to trust the boy and tells him the plan. One night, they escape by gaining access to the roof of the building, roping down to the courtyard, killing the Nazi guard there, climbing the wall and then roping to an adjacent building. They walk away from the prison undetected, and the film ends. Production. The film is based on the memoirs of André Devigny, who escaped from the Fort Montluc in Lyon in 1943, during World War II. DVD and Blu-ray release. New Yorker Video released the film on Region 1 DVD in 2004; it is currently out of print. Artificial Eye brought out a Region 2 version in the UK in April 2008. This disc contains a superior audio/video presentation and contains a Dutch documentary, The Road to Bresson, as an extra. Madman Entertainment released a Region 4 Australian DVD in July 2009. This release contains a scholarly audio commentary by Professor Ross Gibson of the Sydney College of the Arts, University of Sydney. Gaumont released a Blu-ray Disc in France on November 2, 2010.
1104799	Jacob Bernoulli (also known as James or Jacques) (27 December 1654/6 January 1655 – 16 August 1705) was one of the many prominent mathematicians in the Bernoulli family. He was an early proponent of Leibnizian calculus and had sided with Leibniz during the Leibniz–Newton calculus controversy. He is known for his numerous contributions to calculus, and along with his brother Johann, was one of the founders the calculus of variations. However, his most important contribution was in the field of probability, where he derived the first version of the law of large numbers in his work "Ars Conjectandi". Biography. Jacob Bernoulli was born in Basel, Switzerland. Following his father's wish, he studied theology and entered the ministry. But contrary to the desires of his parents, he also studied mathematics and astronomy. He traveled throughout Europe from 1676 to 1682, learning about the latest discoveries in mathematics and the sciences under leading figures of the time. This included the work of Hudde, Robert Boyle, and Robert Hooke. During this time he also produced an incorrect theory of comets. Bernoulli returned to Switzerland and began teaching mechanics at the University in Basel from 1683. In 1684 he married Judith Stupanus; and they had two children. During this decade, he also began a fertile research career. His travels allowed him to establish correspondence with many leading mathematicians and scientists of his era, which he maintained throughout his life. During this time, he studied the new discoveries in mathematics, including Christian Huygens's "De ratiociniis in aleae ludo", Descartes' "Geometrie" and Frans van Schooten's supplements of it. He also studied Isaac Barrow and John Wallis, leading to his interest in infinitesimal geometry. Apart from these, it was between 1684 and 1689 that much of the results that was to make up "Ars Conjectandi" was discovered. He was appointed professor of mathematics at the University of Basel in 1687, remaining in this position for the rest of his life. By that time, he had begun tutoring his brother Johann Bernoulli on mathematical topics. The two brothers began to study the calculus as presented by Leibniz in his 1684 paper on the differential calculus in "Nova Methodus pro Maximis et Minimis, itemque Tangentibus..." published in "Acta Eruditorum". They also studied the publications of von Tschirnhaus. It must be understood that Leibniz's publications on the calculus were very obscure to mathematicians of that time and the Bernoullis were the first to try to understand and apply Leibniz's theories. Jacob collaborated with his brother on various applications of calculus. However the atmosphere of collaboration between the two brothers turned into rivalry as Johann's own mathematical genius began to mature, with both of them attacking each other in print, and posing difficult mathematical challenges to test each other's skills. By 1697 the relationship had completely broken down. Jacob Bernoulli died in 1705. Bernoulli chose a figure of a logarithmic spiral and the motto "Eadem mutata resurgo" "("Changed and yet the same, I rise again")" for his gravestone; the spiral executed by the stonemasons was, however, an Archimedean spiral, “Bernoulli wrote that the logarithmic spiral ‘may be used as a symbol, either of fortitude and constancy in adversity, or of the human body, which after all its changes, even after death, will be restored to its exact and perfect self’.” (Livio 2002: 116). His grave is in Basel Munster or Cathedral where the gravestone shown below is located. The lunar crater Bernoulli is also named after him jointly with his brother Johann. Important works. Jacob Bernoulli's first important contributions were a pamphlet on the parallels of logic and algebra published in 1685, work on probability in 1685 and geometry in 1687. His geometry result gave a construction to divide any triangle into four equal parts with two perpendicular lines. By 1689 he had published important work on infinite series and published his law of large numbers in probability theory. Jacob Bernoulli published five treatises on infinite series between 1682 and 1704. The first two of these contained many results, such as fundamental result that formula_1 diverges, which Bernoulli believed were new but they had actually been proved by Mengoli 40 years earlier. Bernoulli could not find a closed form for formula_2, but he did show that it converged to a finite limit less than 2. Euler was the first to find the sum of this series in 1737. Bernoulli also studied the exponential series which came out of examining compound interest. In May 1690 in a paper published in "Acta Eruditorum", Jacob Bernoulli showed that the problem of determining the isochrone is equivalent to solving a first-order nonlinear differential equation. The isochrone, or curve of constant descent, is the curve along which a particle will descend under gravity from any point to the bottom in exactly the same time, no matter what the starting point. It had been studied by Huygens in 1687 and Leibniz in 1689. After finding the differential equation, Bernoulli then solved it by what we now call separation of variables. Jacob Bernoulli's paper of 1690 is important for the history of calculus, since the term integral appears for the first time with its integration meaning. In 1696 Bernoulli solved the equation, now called the Bernoulli differential equation, Jacob Bernoulli also discovered a general method to determine evolutes of a curve as the envelope of its circles of curvature. He also investigated caustic curves and in particular he studied these associated curves of the parabola, the logarithmic spiral and epicycloids around 1692. The lemniscate of Bernoulli was first conceived by Jacob Bernoulli in 1694. In 1695 he investigated the drawbridge problem which seeks the curve required so that a weight sliding along the cable always keeps the drawbridge balanced. Jacob Bernoulli's most original work was Ars Conjectandi published in Basel in 1713, eight years after his death. The work was incomplete at the time of his death but it is still a work of the greatest significance in the theory of probability. In the book Bernoulli reviewed work of others on probability, in particular work by van Schooten, Leibniz, and Prestet. The Bernoulli numbers appear in the book in a discussion of the exponential series. Many examples are given on how much one would expect to win playing various game of chance. The term Bernoulli trial result from this work. There are interesting thoughts on what probability really is: ... probability as a measurable degree of certainty; necessity and chance; moral versus mathematical expectation; a priori an a posteriori probability; expectation of winning when players are divided according to dexterity; regard of all available arguments, their valuation, and their calculable evaluation; law of large numbers ... Bernoulli was one of the most significant promoters of the formal methods of higher analysis. Astuteness and elegance are seldom found in his method of presentation and expression, but there is a maximum of integrity. Discovery of the mathematical constant e. Bernoulli discovered the constant e by studying a question about compound interest which required him to find the value of the following expression (which is in fact ): One example is an account that starts with $1.00 and pays 100 percent interest per year. If the interest is credited once, at the end of the year, the value is $2.00; but if the interest is computed and added twice in the year, the $1 is multiplied by 1.5 twice, yielding $1.00×1.5² = $2.25. Compounding quarterly yields $1.00×1.254 = $2.4414..., and compounding monthly yields $1.00×(1.0833...)12 = $2.613035... Bernoulli noticed that this sequence approaches a limit (the force of interest) for more and smaller compounding intervals. Compounding weekly yields $2.692597..., while compounding daily yields $2.714567..., just two cents more. Using as the number of compounding intervals, with interest of 100%/ in each interval, the limit for large is the number that came to be known as ; with "continuous" compounding, the account value will reach $2.7182818... More generally, an account that starts at $1, and yields (1+) dollars at simple interest, will yield dollars with continuous compounding. Translation of Latin inscription on Bernouilli's tomb. "IACOBUS BERNOULLI MATHEMATICUS INCOMPARABILIS ACAD. BASIL. VLTRA XVIII ANNOS PROF. ACADEM. ITEM REGIAE PARIS. ET BEROLIN. SOCIUS
1067148	Coffee and Cigarettes is the title of three short films and a 2003 feature film by independent director Jim Jarmusch. The 2003 film consists of 11 short stories which share coffee and cigarettes as a common thread, and includes the earlier three films. Themes. The film is composed of a comic series of short vignettes shot in black and white built on one another to create a cumulative effect, as the characters discuss things such as caffeine popsicles, Paris in the 1920s, and the use of nicotine as an insecticide – all the while sitting around drinking coffee and smoking cigarettes. The theme of the film is absorption in the obsessions, joys, and addictions of life, and there are many common threads between vignettes, such as the Tesla coil, medical knowledge, the suggestion that coffee and cigarettes don't make for a healthy meal (generally lunch), cousins, The Lees (Cinqué, Joie, and a mention of Spike), delirium, miscommunication, musicians, the similarities between musicianship and medical skill, industrial music, acknowledged fame, and the idea of drinking coffee before sleeping in order to have fast dreams. In each of the segments of the film, the common motif of alternating black and white tiles can be seen in some fashion. The visual use of black and white relates to the theme of interpersonal contrasts, as each vignette features two people who disagree completely yet manage to sit amicably at the same table. Plot segments. The eleven segments that make up the film are as follows: Strange to Meet You. This is the original 1986 short "Coffee and Cigarettes" with Roberto Benigni and Steven Wright having a conversation about coffee and cigarettes. Twins. Originally the 1989 short "Coffee and Cigarettes, Memphis Version" – aka "Coffee and Cigarettes II" – this segment features Joie Lee and Cinqué Lee as the titular twins and Steve Buscemi as the waiter who expounds on his theory on Elvis Presley's evil twin. Cinqué Lee also appears in "Jack Shows Meg his Tesla Coil". The scene also features a recounting of the urban legend that Elvis Presley made racist comments about Blacks during a magazine interview. Somewhere in California. Filmed in 1993 as the short "Coffee and Cigarettes - Somewhere in California", and won the Short Film Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival. In this segment musicians Iggy Pop and Tom Waits smoke cigarettes to celebrate that they quit smoking, drink some coffee and make awkward conversation. Those Things'll Kill Ya. Joseph Rigano and Vinny Vella have a conversation over coffee about the dangers of smoking. The silent Vinny Vella Jr. also appears to beg his father for money, which is given in exchange for affection, which is not provided. Renée. Renée French (played by herself) drinks coffee while looking through a gun magazine. E.J. Rodríguez plays the waiter, who is anxious to be of service. He initially approaches her to serve more coffee, to which she reacts by saying "I had the right color, right temperature, it was perfect". After that, he comes back several times, hesitates, and leaves. He seems intent on striking a conversation with her. No Problem. Alex Descas and Isaach De Bankolé are a couple of friends who meet and talk over some coffee and cigarettes. Alex has no problems, or so he answers to Isaach's repeated questioning. At the end of the scene, Alex takes out a pair of dice and rolls three sets of doubles.
1017470	Cynthia Rothrock (born March 8, 1957) is an American martial artist and actress specializing in martial arts films. Martial arts achievements. Rothrock is five-time World Karate Champion in forms and weapons between 1981 and 1985. These categories are not combat-oriented, being displays of fluidity of movement rather than fighting, and are therefore not segregated into male and female categories but fully open to both sexes. She holds six Black belts in various Far Eastern martial disciplines, including Tang Soo Do (also "tangsudo", Korean), Tae Kwon Do (Korean), Eagle Claw (Chinese), Wu Shu (contemporary Chinese), Northern Shaolin (classical Chinese), and Pai Lum Tao Kung Fu (contemporary Chinese). She received her 6th degree black belt in Tang Soo Do Moo Duk Kwan in 2006. She was tested by Grand Master Robert Kovaleski, 7th Dan and chair of the I.T.M.A., and was promoted to 7th degree black belt by Kovaleski in 2011. She also works as a martial arts instructor; her favorite weapons are the hook swords. Film career. Acting. Northern California was her home in 1983 where she worked with the West Coast Demonstration Team. At this time Golden Harvest was searching in Los Angeles for the next Bruce Lee. Rothrock's forms and maneuvers were observed and Golden Harvest signed a contract with her. It was two years (1985) later that she made her first martial arts movie for them, "Yes, Madam" (also known as "Police Assassins" or "In the Line of Duty Part 2") which also starred Michelle Yeoh. It proved to be a box office success. She ended up staying in Hong Kong until 1988 doing seven films there.
1376758	Gregory Michael Cipes (born January 4, 1980) is an American voice and film actor. He is also a singer, musician, composer, and professional surfer. Early life. Cipes was born in Coral Springs, Florida, the son of Robin Mrasek and Geoff Cipes. Career. Cipes was ranked #3 Junior Professional Surfer in the U.S. in 1998, the year he began his career in cinema. Voice work. Cipes' best known role is Beast Boy in the "Teen Titans" animated series. He would continue to reprise the role in the series spin-off movie: "", as well as the video games: Teen Titans, the video game adaption of the Series and the online video game: "DC Universe Online", and was the voice of Atlas in the 2003 "Astro Boy" anime series. He is also widely known for his past role as the voice of Kevin Levin in Ben 10 Alien Force and in future variations of the Ben 10 Franchise. He is also referred to in the comic Teen Titans Go #26 as a stunt double named Craig Snipes. In 2012, he began working on Nickelodeon's "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" as Michelangelo. Movies. Cipes played the character Tyler in the 2003 horror film "Inhabited" and the character Reed in the 2006 comedy film "Pledge This!" and also had a small role in "John Tucker Must Die" and "Boys & Girls Guide To Getting Down". He played the role of Hippie Diplomat in "The Onion Movie" and Zack in the horror movie "Simon Says". He was featured in Deon Taylor's 2008 movie "Nite Tales" and played a cowboy racecar driver named Dwight in 2009's film "Fast & Furious". Television. Cipes has made numerous appearances on television in both commercials and television programs. He was one of seven friends in the MTV reality show "Twentyfourseven". Cipes made some guest appearances on "One on One" as Butter, one of Arnaz Ballard's band members. He guest starred on "House M.D." in the episode "Family" as a cane salesman. He has made appearances in the television series "Gilmore Girls", in the season four episode "Ted Koppel's Big Night Out", and "Deadwood". Cipes has also guest starred in an episode of "Ghost Whisperer" in the episode "Love Still Won't Die". He appeared as a freegan in the "Bones" season six episode "The Body and the Bounty". He is also the voice of Steve Jackson on the television series "Fish Hooks". He also plays a man who camps out in Roseanne's yard in her series "Roseanne's Nuts". Music. Cipes is the frontman for the reggae/hip-hop band, Cipes and the People. The band has developed a following in Southern California, and other parts of the U.S. and Asia. Their first album, "Conscious Revolution", was released by High Valley Entertainment in October 2007. The song "Rescue" on the band's 2007 debut release "Conscious Revolution" features teenage pop star Jesse McCartney. Cipes also works as a singer in clubs in Los Angeles. Personal life. Since Greg was 8 years old he has eaten a vegetarian diet. In 2009 he became vegan He also owns three dogs, Shadow, Marley, and Timber, and is very close to them. His favorite musician is reggae king, Bob Marley.
1040587	Rachel Shelley (born 25 August 1969) is an English actress and model. She is best known for playing Helena Peabody in the Showtime series "The L Word" and Elizabeth Russell in the Oscar-nominated Bollywood epic "Lagaan". Early life. Shelley was born in Swindon, Wiltshire, England, and was brought up primarily in London. After graduating from the University of Sheffield with a B.A. Hons in English and Drama, she joined a local theatre company in Edinburgh and set up a community theatre company in Sheffield before moving to London to further her acting career. Career. Shelley is perhaps best known for playing Helena Peabody in the Showtime hit series "The L Word". Other parts include Elizabeth Russell in the Oscar-nominated Bollywood film "Lagaan" in 2001, and the beauty whose tragic loss drives Charles Castle mad in the 1997 film "Photographing Fairies". In 2012 and early 2013, she played the recurring role of Yvonne Rippon, a police superintendent who had a relationship with established character Nick Jordan, in popular BBC medical drama "Casualty". Shelley left the series on 19 January 2013. Apart from acting, Shelley has written articles for The Guardian and DIVA Magazine. Personal life. Shelley lives in London with her partner Matthew Parkhill, who is a TV writer, director and producer. They have a daughter, born on September 8, 2009.
1061131	The Mask of Zorro is a 1998 American swashbuckler film based on the Zorro character created by Johnston McCulley. It was directed by Martin Campbell and stars Antonio Banderas and Anthony Hopkins. In the story, the original Zorro (Hopkins) escapes from prison to find his long-lost daughter (Zeta-Jones) and avenge the death of his wife against the corrupt governor (Wilson). He is aided by his successor (Banderas), who also pursues his own vendetta. Steven Spielberg's Amblin Entertainment had developed the film for TriStar Pictures with directors Mikael Salomon and Robert Rodriguez before Campbell signed on in 1996. Salomon cast Sean Connery as Don Diego de la Vega, while Rodriguez brought Banderas in the lead role. Connery dropped out and was replaced with Hopkins, and "The Mask of Zorro" began filming in January 1997 at Estudios Churubusco in Mexico City, Mexico. The film was released in the United States on July 17, 1998 with both financial and critical success. "The Legend of Zorro", a sequel also starring Banderas and Zeta-Jones, and directed by Campbell, was released in 2005, but failed to receive the overall positive reception of its predecessor. Plot. In 1821, Don Diego de la Vega (Anthony Hopkins) a Spanish nobleman fights against Spain in the Mexican War of Independence as Zorro, a mysterious avenger who defends the Mexican peasants and commoners of Las Californias. Don Rafael Montero (Stuart Wilson), the cruel governor of the region, learns de la Vega's identity. Arresting de la Vega in his home, his beloved wife Esperanza (Julieta Rosen) is accidentally killed by one of Montero's soldiers. Montero kills the soldier for murdering Esperanza, imprisons de la Vega, and takes his infant daughter, Elena, as his own and leaves for Spain. Twenty years later, Montero returns from exile in Spain with Elena (Catherine Zeta-Jones), who has grown into a beautiful woman, by his side. He is planning to turn California into an independent republic. However, his reappearance also awakens a long-dormant de la Vega, who has spent two decades living in anonymity during his imprisonment. He escapes from prison, and as he plans his revenge on Montero, de la Vega encounters a thief, Alejandro Murrieta (Antonio Banderas), who, along with his brother, greatly admired Zorro as a child and even had a small hand in the hero's last great exploit.
1018138	Silver Hawk (, originally "Flying Falcon") is a 2004 Hong Kong film starring Michelle Yeoh, Richie Ren, Luke Goss, Michael Jai White and Li Bingbing, directed by Jingle Ma. Yeoh plays the title character, a masked comic book style heroine who rides a motorcycle, saves kidnapped pandas and uses her martial arts moves on the bad guys. The masked heroine theme dates back to Huang Ying, a 1948 Shanghai book by Xiao Ping. Plot. Silver Hawk riding her motorcycle through China. She is chasing thugs who have stolen pandas and are getting away in a truck. She attaches her bike to the truck, jumps on top of and fights the men in the truck until they give up. She heads back to Polaris City (located where Hong Kong is in our world) where she meets an old childhood friend, Rich Man. Then a flashback occurs, going back to the martial arts training academy. He is the new head of the police department. He recognizes Lulu, Silver Hawks's name in real life, from magazine covers. He tells her of his mission to arrest Silver Hawk. When they arrive at the airport, he asks for her phone number, but she asks for his phone instead. She implants a tracking chip so she can overhear his conversations and agrees to a date if he can recall who she is. At home, she is telling her assistant Mimi about her trip when her adoptive aunt arrives with Professor Ho Chung for a blind date. Prof. Ho starts to tell her of his new project when she gets word of a bank robbery. She suggests going to the movies and leaves. The pattern of fighting crooks and disappearing before the police arrive repeats until she arrives at a mugging. This is really a sting for Rich Man to arrest her, but she fends him off and handcuffs him to a pole. As she leaves, he yells that she's leaving without a goodbye. This triggers a flashback to when she left the academy with a monk who would train her further in kung fu, leaving him heartbroken. Back at home, she finds the professor's assistant waiting in his place. The assistant, Kit, escorts her to the professor's demonstration of his project: an A.I. chip that would tap into several databases with information about the user to suggest ways for the user to improve his or her way of life. Lulu doesn't like it because it might infringe on free will. Later, Kit reveals he is a Silver Hawk fan and Man, who is there to provide security, recognizes his "little sister." Then the professor is kidnapped by Morris and Jane, with the police and Silver Hawk soon giving chase. At one point, the escape truck is blocked and the two kidnappers get out to slow the pursuit until the truck can move. Silver Hawk battles the two while a camera on his head sends images of her to his boss. The chase ends at an outdoor wedding where she chooses to save the bride instead of following the crooks. While Man investigates Shiraishi Inc., who expressed interest in Ho's chip, Ho is brought before Alexander Wolfe, who wants his chip to take over the minds of the phone's users. He coerces Prof. Ho into helping him. Man's investigation takes him to Zenda City (a.k.a. Tokyo), where Shiraishi is headquartered. His friend on the local force, Lt. Lisa Hayashi, takes him to the CEO, who is already seeing his niece, Lulu Wong. Later, the CEO's daughter Tina is kidnapped by Morris and Jane, and Lulu intervenes. The camera on Morris' head transmits images of Lulu to his boss (Wolfe), who deduces who Silver Hawk is. The crooks escape, and Man brings her to the local police station and asks her about her kung fu skills, which she had earlier denied maintaining. Outside the station, they see the CEO driving away and follow him, knowing that he'd refused to cooperate with police. They tail him to a meeting with Wolfe, who whisks him away in a helicopter before the two can intervene. All Lulu can do is take a picture of Wolfe and later send it to Kit, knowing that he's a fan. Wolfe wants the CEO to put Ho's chip in a new phone and distribute them in exchange for his daughter. Later, he forces Prof. Ho to speed up his preparation of the subliminal messages that phones will transmit, despite possible long-term damage to the user's mind. Ho manages to slip a secret message into the phone's computer code. Days later, Shiraishi is promoting its new phone, and the CEO is more focused on that than on seeing Lulu about his daughter. Lulu goes to her apartment and finds flowers and a message from Wolfe to meet him about Tina. As she's about to leave, she finds Man, who has begun to guess who Silver Hawk is, waiting outside to talk to her. She tells him to wait in the hotel bar, but he leaves some tracking chips on top of the door. when she leaves, the chips fall onto her hair, and he tracks her to her meeting. Inside the building, she meets Wolfe, who then sends four men attached to bungee cords to attack Silver Hawk and leap away before she can respond. She manages to fend them off until Wolfe injures her shoulder with his prosthetic arms. She then uses one bungee cord to leap up to a window and escape. Man tracks her to where she'd passed out from the pain and takes her to his apartment to confront her about her vigilante actions. This is interrupted when Kit walks in and start to blab about the e-mail he'd sent her about Wolfe. Man drags him away to get the information about Wolfe. That interrogation is interrupted by a newsflash about the CEO's support of Wolfe to run for premier. Kit sees how unnatural the CEO's face is; Man sees he's wearing a new phone. The two investigate the connection. As Lulu bathes to heal her shoulder, she recalls a lesson her teacher gave her about the nature of water and kung fu. This gives her an idea on how to deal with Wolfe. The next day, Kit has discovered the secret message Prof. Ho put in the code. Wolfe plans to activate the mind control in a few hours, but they don't know where to look for him until Silver Hawk sends them the address. There, the police battle Wolfe's thugs until Silver Hawk arrives to help put them away. Kit finds a way to Wolfe's lair and then tend to Prof. Ho while Silver Hawk and Man battle Wolfe and his men. She uses cloths attached to her flying blades to subdue his prosthetics, and she and Man finally defeat him. But they must use Wolfe's retinal scan to stop the process, so Kit tricks him into opening his eyes. This foils his plan but also activates the self-destruct system. Silver Hawk and the rest escape, but Wolfe is crushed to death. Back in Polaris City, Lulu has a date with Man. He's called away on official business, leaving the question of whether he'd arrest Lulu unanswered. Silver Hawk later drives up next to man, and the two tease each other about their signature moves.
972120	Fantastic Planet (, lit. "The Wild Planet") is a 1973 cutout stop motion science fiction allegorical film directed by René Laloux, production designed by Roland Topor, written by both of them and animated at Jiří Trnka Studio. The film was an international production between France and Czechoslovakia and was distributed in the United States by Roger Corman. It won the special jury prize at the 1973 Cannes Film Festival. The story is based on the novel "Oms en série", by the French writer Stefan Wul. A working title for the film while it was in development was "Sur la planète Ygam" ("On the Planet Ygam"). The film had a total of 809,945 admissions in France. Plot. The film depicts a future in which human beings, known as "Oms" (a homonym of the French-language word hommes, meaning men), are creatures on the Traags' home planet. The Traags are an alien species which is humanoid in shape but a hundred times larger than humans and they live much longer than human beings. Although some Oms are domesticated as pets, they are seen as pests and are periodically exterminated. A group of Traag children accidentally kill an Om woman during play. Unfortunately her death leaves an orphaned infant, who is taken in by an adult Traag as a pet for his child, Tiva. Tiva’s father just happens to be master Sinh, the Traag great Aedile and after some time, when the child and pet are playing, they surprise him and several of his compatriots during a ritual melding session. It is revealed that many Traag children have Oms like Tiva's. The bond created between the Traag child, Tiva, and the Om, named Terr (word play on the French word Terre, meaning Earth) deepens as time passes by. Tiva's education is supplied by the use of a headset that transmits knowledge directly into the brain of the user. Because she enjoys having Terr in her hand when she is having her "infos," Terr begins to acquire the Traag knowledge. Terr begins to realize who and what he is, and escapes, taking the headset with him. He eventually finds other Oms and after some tribulation, is accepted into a tribe. Over the next several scenes, it is shown how the Oms have adapted to life on the Traags' planet. One day, the now-literate Oms reads a new sign on one of the walls, and learns the park is about to be "de-Omized." The de-Omizing is accomplished using disks that release a poison gas. A great many Oms perish from this gas, but a sizable number still manage to escape. The Oms retaliate and manage to kill one of their Traag attackers. The death of the Traag puts the Council in an uproar. De-Omizing is stepped up to a much higher priority, new technologies are developed, and extermination frequency greatly increases. Fatalities resulting from Traag attempts to de-Omize are minimized by the creation and organized use of shelters, but the Traags' updated technologies become ever more aggressive, and when an automated scout detects the persistent Om settlement, it summons an array of lethal devices. The Oms launch manned rockets toward the Fantastic Planet, where they discover headless humanoid statues. As Traag meditation bubbles descend to alight atop the statues, the statues begin to dance. This is the secret that animates the statues and allows the Traags to reproduce. When the feet of the dancing statues threaten the rockets, the Oms use disintegration weapons to shatter the statues, which in turn makes thousands of meditative Traag to go insane. Pandemonium reigns in the Council chamber, for it seems the two species will destroy one another if they cannot find a way to live together. While the Traag council continues to think of revenge, it is proposed that the two species finally create peace between each other. The last scene proves that peace has been made as an Om steps down off an outstretched Traag hand, removes his silly hat and assumes a posture of confidence and self-assertion. Themes. The film is chiefly noted for its surreal imagery, the work of French writer and artist Roland Topor. The landscape of the Traag planet is full of strange creatures, including a cackling predator which traps small fluttering animals in its cage-like nose, shakes them to death and hurls them to the ground. The Traag practice of meditation, whereby they commune psychically with each other and with different species, is shown in transformations of their shape and colour. The interaction of science and superstition is most apparent in the Wizard, who resists the knowledge that Terr brings, fearing it will erode the power he maintains. Knowledge trumps ignorance, but in this case only after surviving an attempted assassination. Terr's drive to share knowledge overpowers the fear of an unknown people. Only his courage to save others not of his adopted tribe allows that tribe to overcome the loss of their leader. The Traags and Oms finally learn to live in peace and mutual benefit; presumably any groups can if they and their leaders really want to. This may have been a theme favoured by the filmmakers as it was made and released during the Cold War (the source novel was first published in 1957). Soundtrack. The music was composed by Alain Goraguer. Televised airings. RTV (Retro Television Network) ran "Fantastic Planet" on January 2, 2011, as part of its "Offbeat Cinema" presentation originally aired in Buffalo, NY by WKBW-TV, channel 7. "Fantastic Planet" appeared at least once in the 1980s on USA Network's Night Flight weekend program. In the United Kingdom and Ireland it has been shown on the Sky Arts channel and has been available on demand via the Sky Anytime service. References in other works. Madlib cites the film as an influence, using visuals from the film on his album covers and samples of the soundtrack on his songs. The song "Come On Feet", on his album "The Unseen", contains many samples from the movie, including the recurring melody of the main theme. The band Failure named its third full-length album after the film. In the movie "The Cell", Jennifer Lopez's character Catherine Deane watches the movie on her bedroom television.
1067825	The Tale of Sweeney Todd is a 1998 American television movie directed by John Schlesinger. The teleplay by Peter Buckman was adapted from a story by Peter Shaw. It was broadcast in the United States by Showtime on April 19, 1998 and released on videotape in France the following month. It later was released as a feature film in select foreign markets. Plot. Set in 19th century London, the story focuses on Sweeney Todd (Ben Kingsley), a murderous barber/dentist whose business provides him with two profitable sidelines, the sale of his victims' jewelry and the disposal of their bodies to his mistress Mrs. Lovett (Joanna Lumley), who uses them to prepare meat pies for her unsuspecting clientele. American Ben Carlyle (Campbell Scott) arrives in the city to track down wealthy diamond merchant Alfred Mannheim and $50,000 worth of jewels he had sold to Carlyle's employer but failed to deliver. Mannheim's staff advises Carlyle their boss disappeared without a trace weeks earlier, and he posts notices offering a reward for information leading to his discovery. Charlie (Sean Flanagan), a mute orphan who works as an assistant to Todd, recognizes Mannheim as a man the barber shaved just prior to his disappearance. Realizing his dastardly deeds are in danger of being revealed, Todd imprisons the boy in his basement. Meanwhile, Carlyle is seeking the assistance of the corrupt local police and an amiable serving wench named Alice, who happens to be Todd's ward, with his quest. When his suspicions about the ingredients of Mrs. Lovett's pies are all but confirmed by a chemist, he hides himself in a burlap sack and has himself deposited in her pie shop cellar with a delivery of meat. There he makes a gruesome discovery that spurs him to confront Todd, who overpowers and binds him. As he prepares his instruments to torture Carlyle to death, he explains what led him to a life of murder and cannibalism. Charlie, who has managed to free himself from his shackles, stabs Todd in the back, killing him. He then frees Carlyle, who sets the building on fire before escaping with the boy. Production. The character of Sweeney Todd, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street, originated in an 1846 Penny Dreadful entitled "The String of Pearls". The following year, George Dibdin-Pitt adapted the story for a stage melodrama. A directed by George King was the first screen version. Christopher Bond's 1973 stage adaptation was musicalized by Stephen Sondheim in 1979. Schlesinger's film is a dramatic departure from the previous narratives. It dispenses with all the characters except Todd and Lovett, adds the plotline involving the missing diamonds, and offers a completely different reason for Todd's murder spree.
655453	Kenya Summer Moore (born January 24, 1971) is an American actress, model, author, and producer. She won the 1993 Miss Michigan USA and Miss USA 1993 titles and finished in the top six of the Miss Universe 1993 pageant. Additionally, she founded the Kenya Moore Foundation, a charity which awards scholarships to underprivileged girls from her high school alma mater. Early life. Moore was born in Detroit, Michigan and was raised by her grandmother and aunt. She graduated from Cass Technical High School and attended Wayne State University, where she majored in psychology. Pageants. Moore won Miss Michigan USA (1993) and then Miss USA 1993; in the latter pageant she was crowned by outgoing titleholder, Shannon Marketic of California. Moore became the second Miss USA titleholder from Michigan and the second African-American winner. She then represented the USA in Miss Universe 1993 Post-pageant career. Moore successfully leveraged her pageant wins into appearances in several television programs including: "Video Soul", "The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air", "Martin", "Homeboys in Outer Space", "Sparks", "Smart Guy", "Living Single", "Damon", "The Steve Harvey Show", "In the House", "The Jamie Foxx Show", "The Parent 'Hood", "Nubian Goddess", "Men, Women & Dogs", "The Parkers", "Girlfriends", "Under One Roof", and "Meet The Browns" She has also appeared on the covers of "Glamour", "Seventeen", "Ebony", and "Essence" magazines and can be seen in the music videos for Jermaine Dupri's "Money Ain't a Thang" (1998), Shai's "I Don't Wanna Be Alone" (1996), and Nas' "Street Dreams" (1996). Additionally, Moore has appeared in several films: "Waiting to Exhale" (1995), "Trois" (2000), "Deliver Us from Eva" (2003), "Brothers in Arms" (2005), "I Know Who Killed Me" (2007), and "" (2010). In 2012, Moore joined the season five cast of "The Real Housewives of Atlanta". In 2013, she released a workout DVD titled "Kenya Moore: Booty Boot Camp". Production. Moore was credited as producer/director of the film "Haitian Nights"; after the project lost its director for unspecified reasons, Moore took over the production and completed the film. When the film failed to find distribution, Moore founded Moore Vision Media, an independent movie production and home-video distribution company. The company's first production was "The Confidant", released by Universal Vivendi on August 24, 2010.
1266819	Millicent Lilian "Peg" Entwistle (5 February 1908 – c. 16 September 1932) was a Welsh-born English stage and screen actress. Entwistle began her stage career in 1925, appearing in several Broadway productions. She appeared in only one film, "Thirteen Women", which was released after her death. Entwistle gained notoriety after she jumped to her death from the "H" on the Hollywoodland sign in September 1932 at the age of 24. Early life. Born Millicent Lilian Entwistle in Port Talbot, Wales, to English parents, Robert Symes and Emily (née Stevenson) Entwistle, she spent her early life in West Kensington, London. It is often reported that her mother Emily died when she was very young, but there is no documented evidence supporting this. There is, however, a Last Will and Testament dated 15 December 1922, in the Entwistle family archives, in which Robert Entwistle specifically stated that "Millicent Lilian Entwistle is the daughter of my first wife whom I divorced and the custody of my said daughter was awarded to me. I do not desire my said daughter to be at any time in the custody or control of her said mother."
1063683	Waiting to Exhale is a 1995 American romantic drama film directed by Forest Whitaker (in his feature film directorial debut) and starring Whitney Houston and Angela Bassett. The film was adapted from the 1992 novel of the same name by Terry McMillan. Loretta Devine, Lela Rochon, Dennis Haysbert, Michael Beach, Gregory Hines, Donald Faison, and Mykelti Williamson rounded out the rest of the cast. The original music score was composed by Kenneth "Babyface" Edmonds. The story centers on four female friends living in the Phoenix, Arizona area and their relationships with men and one another. All of them are "holding their breath" until the day they can feel comfortable in a committed relationship with a man. The film is notable for having an all-African American cast. The "Los Angeles Times" called it a "social phenomenon". Plot. "Friends are the People who let you be yourself - and Never let you forget it" "Waiting to Exhale" is a story about four African-American women — Savannah, Robin, Bernadine, and Gloria—who go through different stages of love and life. Savannah "’Vannah" Jackson is a successful television producer who holds on to the belief that one day her married lover will leave his wife for her. Bernadine "Bernie" Harris, abandons her own career dreams and desire of having a catering business to raise a family, and support her husband, who leaves her for a white woman. Robin Stokes is a high-powered executive and the long-time mistress of married Russell, who has problems finding a decent man of her own after dumping him. Gloria "Glo" Matthews is a beauty salon owner and single mother. After years alone, and finding out that her ex-husband who is also the father of her son, has come out of the closet as gay, she falls in love with a new neighbor, Marvin King. The four friends get together to provide support, listen to each other vent about life and love, and have fun, as they go through life's trials and tribulations. Savannah ends up dumping her married lover for good. Bernadine gets a big divorce settlement from her ex-husband. Robin ends up pregnant by her married lover, but dumps him and decides to raise the baby on her own. Gloria lets her son go on the "Up With People" trip to Spain and apologizes to her neighbor for snapping at him when he suggested that she should let her son grow up and experience the world. Reception and box office. "Waiting to Exhale" was a financial success, opening at number-one at the North American box office, grossing $14.1 million in its first weekend of release. In total, the film grossed $67.05 million in North America, and $14.4 internationally, for a total worldwide gross of $81.45 million. Its widest release was in just over 1,400 theatres and was the 26th highest-grossing film of 1995.
485204	Richard Charles "Dick" Lewontin (born March 29, 1929) is an American evolutionary biologist, geneticist, academic and social commentator. A leader in developing the mathematical basis of population genetics and evolutionary theory, he pioneered the application of techniques from molecular biology, such as gel electrophoresis, to questions of genetic variation and evolution. In a pair of 1966 papers co-authored with J.L. Hubby in the journal "Genetics", Lewontin helped set the stage for the modern field of molecular evolution. In 1979 he and Stephen Jay Gould introduced the term "spandrel" into evolutionary theory. From 1973 to 1998, he held an endowed chair in zoology and biology at Harvard University, and since 2003 has been a research professor there. Lewontin strongly opposes genetic determinism, especially as allegedly propounded by researchers in behavioral genetics. Early life and education. Lewontin was born in New York City to parents descended from late 19th-century Eastern European Jewish immigrants. He attended Forest Hills High School and the École Libre des Hautes Études in New York. In 1951 he graduated from Harvard College (BS, biology). In 1952, Lewontin received a master's degree in mathematical statistics, followed by a doctorate in zoology in 1954, both from Columbia University, where he was a student of Theodosius Dobzhansky. He held faculty positions at North Carolina State University, the University of Rochester, and the University of Chicago. In 1973 Lewontin was appointed as Alexander Agassiz Professor of Zoology and Professor of Biology at Harvard University, holding the position until 1998. Career. Work in population genetics. Lewontin has worked in both theoretical and experimental population genetics. A hallmark of his work has been an interest in new technology. He was the first person to do a computer simulation of the behavior of a single locus (previous simulation work having been of models with multiple loci). In 1960 he and Ken-Ichi Kojima were the first population geneticists to give the equations for change of haplotype frequencies with interacting natural selection at two loci. This set off a wave of theoretical work on two-locus selection in the 1960s and 1970s. Their paper gave a theoretical derivation of the equilibria expected, and also investigated the dynamics of the model by computer iteration. Lewontin later introduced the D' measure of linkage disequilibrium. (An achievement that he would be less happy to claim is that he introduced the name "linkage disequilibrium" itself, one about which many population geneticists have been unenthusiastic). In 1966, he and Jack Hubby published a paper that revolutionized population genetics. They used protein gel electrophoresis to survey dozens of loci in "Drosophila pseudoobscura", and reported that a large fraction of the loci were polymorphic, and that at the average locus there was about a 15% chance that the individual was heterozygous. (Harry Harris reported similar results for humans at about the same time). Previous work with gel electrophoresis had been reports of variation in single loci and did not give any sense of how common variation was. Lewontin and Hubby's paper also discussed the possible explanation of the high levels of variability by either balancing selection or neutral mutation. Although they did not commit themselves to advocating neutrality, this was the first clear statement of the neutral theory for levels of variability within species. Lewontin and Hubby's paper had great impact—the discovery of high levels of molecular variability gave population geneticists ample material to work on, and gave them access to variation at single loci. The possible theoretical explanations of this rampant polymorphism became the focus of most population genetics work thereafter. Martin Kreitman was later to do a pioneering survey of population-level variability in DNA sequences while a Ph.D. student in Lewontin's lab. Work on human genetic diversity. In a landmark paper, in 1972 Lewontin identified that most of the variation (80–85%) within human populations is found within local geographic groups and differences attributable to traditional "race" groups are a minor part of human genetic variability (1–15%). He argued that the probability of racial misclassification of an individual based on variation in a single genetic locus is approximately 30% and the misclassification probability becomes close to zero if enough loci are studied. In a 2003 paper, A.W.F. Edwards criticized Lewontin's conclusion that race is an invalid taxonomic construct, terming it Lewontin's fallacy. Critique of orthodox evolutionary biology. In 1975, when E. O. Wilson's book "Sociobiology" proposed evolutionary explanations for human social behaviors, a number of biologists responded negatively, including Lewontin, Stephen Jay Gould, Ruth Hubbard, and others. Lewontin and his late Harvard colleague Stephen Jay Gould introduced the term spandrel to evolutionary biology, inspired by the architectural term "spandrel", in an influential 1979 paper, "The spandrels of San Marco and the Panglossian paradigm: a critique of the adaptationist programme." "Spandrels" were described as features of an organism that exist as a necessary consequence of other (perhaps adaptive) features, but do not directly improve fitness (and thus are not necessarily adaptive). The relative frequency of spandrels versus adaptations continues to stir controversy in evolutionary biology. Lewontin was an early proponent of a hierarchy of levels of selection in his article, "The Units of Selection". He has been a major influence on philosophers of biology, notably William C. Wimsatt (who taught with Lewontin and Richard Levins at the University of Chicago), Robert Brandon and Elisabeth Lloyd (who studied with Lewontin as graduate students), Philip Kitcher, and Elliott Sober. Lewontin briefly argued for the historical nature of biological causality in "Is Nature Probable or Capricious?" In "Organism and Environment" in "Scientia", and in more popular form in the last chapter of "Biology as Ideology", Lewontin argued that while traditional Darwinism has portrayed the organism as a passive recipient of environmental influences, a correct understanding should emphasize the organism as an active constructor of its own environment. Niches are not pre-formed, empty receptacles into which organisms are inserted, but are defined and created by organisms. The organism-environment relationship is reciprocal and dialectical. M.W. Feldman, K.N. Laland, and F.J. Odling-Smee, among others, have developed Lewontin's conception in more detailed models. In the adaptationist view of evolution, the organism is a function of both the organism and environment, while the environment is only a function of itself. The environment is seen as autonomous and unshaped by the organism. Lewontin instead believed in a constructivist view, in which the organism is a function of the organism and environment, with the environment being a function of the organism and environment as well. This means that the organism shapes the environment as the environment shapes the organism. The organism shapes the environment for future generations. Lewontin has long been a critic of traditional neo-Darwinian approaches to adaptation. In his article "Adaptation" in the Italian "Enciclopedia Einaudi", and in a toned-down version in "Scientific American," he emphasized the need to give an engineering characterization of adaptation separate from measurement of number of offspring, rather than simply assuming organs or organisms are at adaptive optima. Lewontin has said that his more general, technical criticism of adaptationism grew out of his recognition that the fallacies of sociobiology reflect fundamentally flawed assumptions of adaptiveness of all traits in much of the modern evolutionary synthesis. Lewontin accused neo-Darwinists of telling "Just So Stories" when they try to show how natural selection explains such novelties as long-necked giraffes. Sociobiology and evolutionary psychology. Along with others, such as Gould, Lewontin has been a persistent critic of some themes in neo-Darwinism. Specifically, he has criticised proponents of sociobiology and evolutionary psychology such as Edward O. Wilson and Richard Dawkins, who attempt to explain animal behaviour and social structures in terms of evolutionary advantage or strategy. He and others criticize this approach when applied to humans, as he sees it as genetic determinism. In his writing, Lewontin suggests a more nuanced view of evolution is needed, which requires a more careful understanding of the context of the whole organism as well as the environment. Such concerns about what he views as the oversimplification of genetics has led Lewontin to be a frequent participant in debates, and an active life as a public intellectual. He has lectured widely to promote his views on evolutionary biology and science. In books such as "Not in Our Genes" (co-authored with Steven Rose and Leon J. Kamin) and numerous articles, Lewontin has questioned much of the claimed heritability of human behavioral traits, such as intelligence as measured by IQ tests. Some academics have criticized him for rejecting sociobiology for non-scientific reasons. Edward Wilson (1995) suggested that Lewontin's political beliefs affected his scientific view. Lewontin has at times identified himself as Marxist, and admitted that his ideological views have affected his scientific work (Levins and Lewontin 1985). Others such as Kitcher (1985) have countered that Lewontin's criticisms of sociobiology are genuine scientific concerns about the discipline. He wrote that attacking Lewontin's motives amounts to an "ad hominem" argument. Agribusiness. Lewontin has written on the economics of agribusiness. He has contended that hybrid corn was developed and propagated not because of its superior quality, but because it allowed agribusiness corporations to force farmers to buy new seed each year rather than plant seed produced by their previous crop of corn. Lewontin testified in an unsuccessful suit in California challenging the state's financing of research to develop automatic tomato pickers. This favored the profits of agribusiness over the employment of farm workers. Personal life. As of 2003, Lewontin was the Alexander Agassiz Research Professor at Harvard. He has worked with and had great influence on many philosophers of biology, including William C. Wimsatt, Elliott Sober, Philip Kitcher, Elisabeth Lloyd, Peter Godfrey-Smith, Sahotra Sarkar, and Robert Brandon, often inviting them to work in his lab.
960769	Chadwick Steven "Chad" McQueen (born December 28, 1960) is an American actor, film producer, martial artist and race car driver. He was born in Los Angeles, California to American actor Steve McQueen and Filipino actress Neile Adams. Personal life. McQueen was married to Stacey Toten from 1987 to 1990. Together they had one son, actor Steven R. McQueen, who is currently playing the role of Jeremy Gilbert in the TV series "The Vampire Diaries". Chad is also the stepbrother of producer and screenwriter Josh Evans (through his father's marriage to Ali MacGraw). Film. McQueen has worked as a film actor for some time, appearing as Dutch in "The Karate Kid" and "The Karate Kid Part II", and many other roles including a role in the 1995 film "New York Cop" with Mira Sorvino and in the action films "Red Line" and "Death Ring". He has also worked as a producer, winning a Telly Award for his documentary "Filming at Speed". He has appeared on numerous television programs related to motorsports, including Hot Rod TV and Celebrity Rides. Racing career. McQueen's racing career began early as he piloted a Porsche 917 from his father's lap while shooting the film "Le Mans". He teamed with Belgian racing legend Jacky Ickx and his daughter Vanina, piloting a trio of Porsche 959s restored by Porsche Motorsports for the 2004 Goodwood event. McQueen has competed in several types of racing from Motocross to the Baja 1000. At age 6, he won his class in the World Mini Grand Prix. In 2004, he qualified for the SCCA Runoffs, winning multiple events. Racing for Westernesse Racing, he finished 4th. In January 2006, he was seriously injured (suffering a broken lower left leg, as well as a pair of fractures to his vertebrae and multiple rib fractures) in an accident at the Daytona International Speedway while practicing for the 24 Hours of Daytona Sports Car race. McQueen now says that his driving days are over. He returned to Daytona during the 2007 Rolex 24 Hours of Daytona race to thank the medics and track workers who he says saved his life. In November 2007, he returned to the Daytona International Speedway and got behind the wheel of the Brumos 1975 Ecurie Escargot RSR, driving it in the exhibitions at the Porsche Rennsport Reunion III. In January 2010, he started McQueen Racing LLC, a company which partners with leaders in the motorcycle and custom car industries to create limited edition high performance motorcycles and automobile transbrakes.
900620	Vincere is a film that is based on the life of the first wife of Benito Mussolini. It stars Giovanna Mezzogiorno as Ida Dalser and Filippo Timi as Benito Albino Mussolini. It was filmed under the direction of Marco Bellocchio, who also wrote the screenplay with Daniela Ceselli, and it was released 22 May 2009 in Italy. It was the only Italian film in competition at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival. It won four Awards at the Chicago International Film Festival (Cinematography, Actor (Filippo Timi), Actress (Giovanna Mezzogiorno) and Director) and won four Silver Ribbon (Actress (Giovanna Mezzogiorno), Cinematography, Editing and Art Direction). Giovanna Mezzogiorno was rewarded with the National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Actress 2010. Plot. The movie relates the story of Ida Dalser, who fell in love with the future Italian Fascist leader, Benito Mussolini, supported him while he was unemployed in the early 1910s, and married him, presumably around 1914. She bore Mussolini a son, Benito Albino, before the outbreak of World War I. The two lost touch during the war years and, upon discovering him again in a hospital during the war, she also discovered Rachele Guidi, who had married Mussolini in 1915, and a daughter born in 1910 when Guidi and Mussolini were living together.
1058279	Teresa Mary Palmer (born 26 February 1986) is an Australian actress. She made her film debut in the suicide drama "". Palmer was seen in "The Grudge 2" in 2006, in "December Boys", alongside Daniel Radcliffe, and in the 2008 children's fantasy "Bedtime Stories", with Adam Sandler. She appeared in "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" in 2010, with Nicolas Cage and Jay Baruchel, and her films in 2011 include a turn as an alien in the sci-fi film "I Am Number Four", and playing Topher Grace's love interest in "Take Me Home Tonight". In 2013, she starred in the zombie love story, "Warm Bodies", and the romantic war film, "Love and Honor", opposite Liam Hemsworth. Early life. Palmer was born and raised in Adelaide, South Australia. She is the only child of Kevin Palmer, an investor, and Paula Sanders, a former nurse and missionary. Her parents divorced when she was three. She has a stepmother, Kaaren Palmer, as well as two half-sisters and two stepbrothers, who lived with her father. Palmer stated to "Interview" that she "came from rather humble beginnings"; she lived in public housing with her mother, and grew up on her father's farm in the Adelaide Hills. Palmer was named after Mother Teresa by her mother, and has stated that she had a "tough upbringing" due to her mother's manic depression. Palmer was a student at Mercedes College, a private Catholic day school, and won a local casting audition, "Search for a Movie Star", in 2003. Her first acting job was dressing up as Strawberry Shortcake and Santa's Little Helper on weekends for promotions in shopping centres near Adelaide. Palmer went to acting classes for a couple of years and appeared in a few television commercials. She was a fast food attendant at Hungry Jack's in Rundle Mall in 2005, before working at clothing retailers Supré, Mambo Australia, and Cotton On. After graduating from high school, Palmer got a call from her local talent agent about appearing in a student film, "". The director had seen her head shot on the acting agency's website and wanted her to be in the movie. Palmer thought that she would work in an animal rescue service, and eventually open her own animal welfare agency. She was accepted into university to study teaching and was taking a course on journalism, but had always dreamt of acting. Palmer quit university to work on the film. Acting. Beginnings in Australia. Palmer had been an extra on "Deck Dogz" (2005), and other films shot in Adelaide. At the age of 18, she was cast by filmmaker Murali K. Thalluri in the independent Australian film "". Palmer portrayed Melody in the film, a popular high school student who becomes suicidal after being impregnated by her brother. She was nominated for the 2006 Australian Film Institute Award for Best Lead Actress for her performance. She then signed with a talent agent in Sydney. A role in "Wolf Creek" (2005) followed, in a pool party scene. Palmer starred in the psychological thriller "Restraint", with English actor Stephen Moyer and Calvin Klein model Travis Fimmel. Shot on location around New South Wales in mid-2005, the film was written by Dave Warner and directed by David Denneen. Palmer was named an Australian "star of tomorrow" by "Screen International" that year. She then starred in "December Boys", a coming-of-age film set in the 1960s, based on a novel by Michael Noonan. She played Lucy, who has a romance with Daniel Radcliffe's character on a remote beach resort. Palmer studied Dominique Swain's performance in "Lolita" (1997) to capture her character's overt sexuality. The film began shooting in November 2005 on the south coast of Australia. "2:37" premiered at the 2006 Cannes Film Festival in Un Certain Regard selection. The film received a standing ovation, a turning point for Palmer, giving her confidence in acting as a career. The trip to Cannes lead her to meet her manager, David Seltzer, and American talent agents. She signed with the William Morris Agency. Move to Hollywood. Palmer was cast to star with Tom Sturridge in her first American feature, "Jumper", a science fiction film directed by Doug Liman. Her part was later recast when the lead characters were rewritten for older actors; her role went to Rachel Bilson. Palmer was devastated from losing the role and returned to Adelaide for a few months. She made her Hollywood feature film debut in "The Grudge 2" in 2006, a horror sequel starring Amber Tamblyn and Sarah Michelle Gellar. Palmer described her character, Vanessa, as "the bitchy schoolgirl". In early 2007, Palmer was cast as Tori Frederking in the comedy "Take Me Home Tonight", starring Anna Faris, Dan Fogler and Topher Grace. Set in the 1980s, the film was directed by Michael Dowse and released in March 2011. Palmer starred in the film clip for the 2007 single "Breaking Up", by the band Eskimo Joe, shot in Newcastle. Palmer jumps into the sea with the band's singer, Kavyen Temperley. Palmer relocated from Semaphore Beach in Adelaide to Los Angeles in May 2007 to further her career, and began auditioning for films. She stated that Los Angeles was "a big adjustment" and "very different" from her home in Australia. She went through a period of loneliness and depression, and considered going back home until she made friends there. In November 2007, Palmer was cast as the villain, Talia al Ghul, in the DC Comics superhero film, "Justice League of America", alongside D.J. Cotrona, Adam Brody, Anton Yelchin, Common and Megan Gale. George Miller was set to direct the film, but it was cancelled by Warner Bros. due to script rewrite issues and the 2007–2008 Writers Guild of America strike.
158478	Black Samurai is a 1977 American blaxploitation film directed by Al Adamson, starring Jim Kelly. The script is credited to B. Readick, with additional story ideas from Marco Joachim. The film is based on a novel of the same name, by Marc Olden. Plot. Robert Sand, agent of D.R.A.G.O.N. Defense Reserve Agency Guardian Of Nations, is playing tennis on his vacation with a beautiful black girl, when his commanding officers ask him to save a Chinese girl named Toki who happens to be Sand's girlfriend, and the daughter of a top Eastern Ambassador. The ransom for the abduction was the secret for a terrific new weapon - the freeze bomb - but the 'Warlock' behind the deed is also into the business of drug dealing and Voodoo ritual murders. The search takes him from Hong Kong to California through Miami, and plenty of action, against bad men, bad girls, and bad animals.
1067448	Joseph "Joe" Viterelli (March 10, 1937 – January 28, 2004) was an American actor. Joe Viterelli was born to Italian immigrants in the Bronx, New York. Before Viterelli became an actor, he had befriended director Leo Penn (actor Sean Penn's father), who initially tried but failed to persuade Viterelli to pursue acting because of his unique and typically Italian looks. Some years later, Sean Penn approached Viterelli and asked him to try out for a part as a favor; Viterelli did and went on to appear in "State of Grace" and then in over 40 other movies. Death. Viterelli died on January 28, 2004, aged 66, in Las Vegas, Nevada due to a severe stomach hemorrhage, a complication of just-completed heart surgery. His last film role was as "Jelly" in Harold Ramis's "Analyze That".; his final acting credit was as a mobster in a 2004 Super Bowl ad for Staples, Inc.
1043358	Charles Lloyd-Pack (10 October 1902 — 22 December 1983) was a British film, television and stage actor. He was born in London, England. He was seen in several horror films produced by the Hammer Studios including "Dracula", "The Man Who Could Cheat Death", "The Revenge of Frankenstein" and "The Reptile" and "Quatermass 2", the film version of the 1955 BBC TV serial. His best known role was Professor Marks in the British television series "Strange Report" but he is also known from other television appearances in "The Avengers", "The Adventures of Robin Hood" and "The Prisoner". Personal life. He married Ulrike Elizabeth Pulay (25 April 1921 – 2000), in 1941 Windsor, and is the father of actor Roger Lloyd-Pack and stage manager Christopher Lloyd-Pack and the grandfather of actress Emily Lloyd.
1068789	Megaforce (or MegaForce), is an action film made in 1982 directed by former stuntman Hal Needham. The film starred Barry Bostwick, Persis Khambatta, Michael Beck, Edward Mulhare, Evan C. Kim, Ralph Wilcox, and Henry Silva. The film featured a "phantom Army of super elite fighting men whose weapons are the most powerful science can devise", including realistic 3-D holograms and combat vehicles such as a motorcycle called the "Delta MK 4 Megafighter" equipped with missile launchers. The movie included extreme scenarios such as motorcycles and dune buggies launching missiles which proved lethal for main battle tanks. The dune buggies, "megadestroyers" or "megacruisers", also had lasers that could destroy a tank in a single shot. The vehicles were also coated with a photo-sensitive paint that was a white, tan, and black lightning-bolt scheme during the day and darkened to a solid black camouflage at night. In the film finale, the main character's motorcycle activates small (~2 ft or 0.6 m) fold-out wings and flies. The movie was made into a computer game most notably for the Atari 2600. The film was a critical and commercial failure in its release and was nominated for three Razzie Awards, Worst Picture, Worst Director and Worst Supporting Actor (Michael Beck). A sequel titled "Deeds Not Words" was considered, but it was scrapped due to poor performance of the original film. "Delta Force", the 1986 Chuck Norris blockbuster, had a plot very similar to "MegaForce", and in the movie, Norris rides a motorbike which fires missiles. Plot synopsis. The story involves two fictional countries, the peaceful Republic of Sardun and their aggressive neighbor Gamibia. Unable to defend themselves from the Gamibia incursion, Sardun sends Major Zara (Persis Khambatta) and General Byrne-White (Edward Mulhare) to ask the help of "MegaForce" – a secret mercenary army composed of international soldiers of fortune, equipped with advanced weapons and vehicles. The "MegaForce" leader, Commander Ace Hunter (Barry Bostwick) accepts the peacekeeping mission when he learns his rival, and former military academy friend, Duke Gurerra (Henry Silva) is leading the Gamibia invasion. While Hunter composes an elaborate battle plan to destroy Gurerra's forces, Zara tries out to become a member of "MegaForce." Although she passes the tests, Hunter's growing feelings of love toward her prevent him from accepting her on for such a dangerous mission. Eventually, "MegaForce" successfully para-drops its attack vehicles into Gamibia and Hunter mounts his sneak attack against Gurerra's forces. Although they manage to destroy his base, Gurerra has set a trap for them at the team's only means of escape – a dry lake bed where the cargo planes will pick them up. Gurerra sends his tanks to secure the lake bed while Hunter comes up with a plan to attack Gurerra from behind by crossing over a mountain range the enemy tanks had turned their backs toward. The plan succeeds, and "MegaForce" manages to break through Gurerra's tanks, but one of "MegaForce's" cargo planes is damaged in the process. Having to abandon their hi-tech vehicles, (which they program to self-destruct), the team successfully makes it on foot to the last plane, except for Hunter. The commander, instead, makes his own dramatic escape on his motorcycle after it deploys airfoils and a rocket motor and catches up with the cargo plane in midair. Although he has lost the battle, Gurerra shows admiration for Hunter's cunning, and he gives his old friend a thumbs up. In popular culture. In the DVD introduction to the season two "South Park" episode, "The Mexican Staring Frog of Southern Sri Lanka", Trey Parker graphically describes "MegaForce" as if it were the plot for what the viewer is about to see. Matt Stone stops Parker mid-sentence and reminds him that he is describing the movie "MegaForce" and not their episode. A disappointed Parker remembers and says, "We should have done "MegaForce", that was a sweet movie, we should have done that." Their film "" includes a number of apparent references to the film, including similar scenes of a flying motorcycle and an underground base where the hero meets various specialists. Mattel also produced a Vertibird and Hot Wheels play sets based on the "MegaForce" theme. A video game based on the film was released in 1982 on the Atari 2600. An album was released on Boardwalk Records, with the theme song done by the group 707, was released as a single reaching the mid level of the charts in the U.S.A. and Canada. The soundtrack was released on Compact Disc in 2011 by BSX Records.
774929	One Magic Christmas is a 1985 American holiday film from Walt Disney Pictures directed by Phillip Borsos and starring Mary Steenburgen and Harry Dean Stanton. It was filmed in Meaford, Ontario, Canada. Plot. Ginny Grainger (Steenburgen) is the mother of two children, Abbie (Harnois) and Cal (Magwood). Her husband, Jack (Basaraba), has been out of work since June, and the family has to move out of the company house by January 1. He enjoys fixing bikes in his basement and hopes to give a bike to his children's friend, Molly Monaghan, who is poor and that's all she wants for Christmas. Although Jack would like to open a bike shop of his own, doing so would use up all their savings, which Ginny sees as a foolish move. In order to make ends meet, she works as a cashier at a grocery store. Christmas is looming on the horizon which is causing even more trouble for Ginny and like Scrooge, she loses sight of the true meaning of Christmas. One night, Abbie goes across the street to the mailbox to send a letter to Santa Claus. After she mails it, Gideon (Harry Dean Stanton), an angel who has been watching the Graingers, retrieves Abbie's letter from the mailbox and returns it to her saying that her mother should mail it. She agrees, and as she's crossing the street to return to the house, a car barrels down the road towards her. Gideon stops the impending accident and allows Abbie to cross the street without incident. The next day, the Graingers visit Jack's grandfather. He gives the children presents: Cal a book his mother used to read to him and Abbie a snow globe of the North Pole. That night Gideon visits Abbie in her room only to learn that Ginny did not mail Abbie's letter to Santa Claus. While talking to her, he purposely drops the snow globe she has been given and it breaks, but then he magically repairs it. He says he can fix a glass ball, but not her mother. Gideon tells Abbie that some things are going to happen tomorrow and not to be afraid. Meanwhile, Ginny and Jack are in the kitchen talking about their finances. He reiterates his desire to open a bike business, but she feels that he should find a new job, as the time to start turning a profit from a business would be too long. Frustrated, Jack storms out of the house to go for a walk. Ginny races after him to try to work things out. Ominously, all the Christmas lights begin turning off all around her, as to show that the last of the Christmas spirit has been drained from her.
589071	Roti Kapda Aur Makaan () is a 1974 Indian Bollywood Hindi-language film. It was written, produced, directed by and stars Manoj Kumar, alongside Shashi Kapoor, Zeenat Aman, Amitabh Bachchan, Moushumi Chatterjee, Prem Nath and Madan Puri in pivotal roles. Laxmikant Pyarelal were the music directors. The title of the movie is based on the Urdu phrase referring to the bare necessities of life, which was popularized in the late 1960s by Zulfikar Ali Bhutto ahead of the Pakistani general election, 1970. The film was the highest grossing Indian film of 1974 and one of the biggest blockbusters of Manoj Kumar. It also gave a boost to the career of Amitabh Bachchan who was then strengthening his position in the film industry. Synopsis. After the retirement of his dad (Krishan Dhawan), the responsibility is on Bharat (Manoj Kumar) to look after his Delhi-based family. He has two younger college-going brothers, Vijay (Amitabh Bachchan) and Deepak (Dheeraj Kumar) and a sister of marriage age, Champa (Meena T.). Although Bharat himself is a college graduate, the only work he can find is as a low-paid singer, much to the frustration of his girlfriend, Sheetal (Zeenat Aman). Meanwhile, Vijay has turned to crime as a last option to provide for the family, but after an argument with Bharat, he leaves home to join the army. Sheetal starts working as a secretary for rich businessman Mohan Babu (Shashi Kapoor) and Mohan becomes attracted to her. She too becomes attracted to Mohan Babu but is more interested in his wealth and luxury. She loves Bharat but cannot contemplate a life in poverty. Bharat finally finds a job as a builder but starts to realise that Sheetal is slowly drifting away from his life. Afterwards he loses his job as a builder after the government takes over the building site currently being constructed and his financial problems increase further. When Sheetal's boss, Mohan Babu, proposes marriage, she accepts and soon both are engaged leaving Bharat heartbroken. After losing his love, Bharat also loses his father, devastating him and leaving him unable to deal with his life. Frustrated, Bharat burns his diploma on his father's funeral pyre. Meanwhile, his sister Champa has found a suitor, but Bharat has no money to pay for the wedding and it cannot go ahead. Still depressed at the state of his life, Bharat soon finds salvation by helping a poor girl, Tulsi (Moushumi Chatterjee), who also lives in poverty but gets by. He also makes friends with Sardar Harnam Singh (Prem Nath) who comes to his rescue when he attempts to save Tulsi from a gang of hoodlums. He then receives an offer from a corrupt businessman named Nekiram (Madan Puri) who persuades Bharat to do his illegal activities and he and his family will finally come out of poverty and be wealthy. The plot centers on whether Bharat agree to this, or whether his moral nature stop him from turning to crime to provide for his family.Telugu movie "Jeevana Poratam", starring Vijayashanthi, is a remake of this movie.
1224548	Brian Bedford (born 16 February 1935) is an English actor. He has appeared on the stage and in film, and is known for both acting in and directing Shakespeare. Life and career. Bedford was born in Morley, West Riding of Yorkshire, the son of Ellen (née O'Donnell) and Arthur Bedford, a postman. Bedford attended the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London from 1952–1954 and was in the same class as Albert Finney, Alan Bates and Peter O'Toole. Primarily a stage actor, he is known for his English-speaking interpretations of the French playwright Molière, including Tony Award nominated performances in "Tartuffe", "The Molière Comedies" (a double bill of the short plays "The School for Husbands" and "The Imaginary Cuckold") and "The School for Wives", for which he received the Tony Award for Best Performance by a Leading Actor in a Play. He has done a great deal of Shakespearean work, notably as Ariel in "The Tempest" opposite John Gielgud's Prospero in 1958, Angelo in "Measure for Measure" at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival in 1975 and 1976, and The Public Theater's New York Shakespeare Festival Shakespeare in the Park productions of "As You Like It" (as Orlando), and "Timon of Athens" (as Timon), the latter based on a production he originated with the National Actors Theatre in 1993 and which he eventually played on Broadway. Bedford's additional Broadway credits include "The Seven Descents of Myrtle", "Private Lives", "Two Shakespearean Actors", "London Assurance" and "Jumpers". Bedford appeared with James Garner in the 1966 film "Grand Prix", and in 1967 he was a regular on the short-lived CBS television series "Coronet Blue." He provided the voice of Robin Hood in the 1973 Disney film of the same name. In 1997 Bedford was inducted into the American Theatre Hall of Fame. Other honours include the Obie, the Outer Circle Critics Award, the Drama Desk Award, and the LA Drama Critics Award. In 2009, Bedford starred as "Lady Bracknell" in "The Importance of Being Earnest", marking 27 seasons of acting and/or directing, at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival in Canada. He repeated the role in 2010 (in a double role as both actor and director) for the Roundabout Theatre in New York, which earned him a 2011 Tony Award nomination for Best Performance by a Leading Actor in a Play. Bedford shares a renovated home in Stratford with fellow actor Tim MacDonald. Awards and nominations. Tony Awards Drama Desk Awards
1055233	Jason Gedrick (born Jason Michael Gedroic; February 7, 1965 in Chicago, Illinois) is an American actor best known for his work on the television series "Murder One" and "Boomtown" and the motion picture "Iron Eagle". Early Life. Gedrick began his career as an extra in films such as "Bad Boys" (1983) and "Risky Business" (1983). After roles in "The Heavenly Kid" (1985), "Iron Eagle" (1986), Promised Land (1987) with director Michael Hoffman, "Iron Eagle II" (1988 in an uncredited role for the first few minutes of the movie), "Born on the Fourth of July" (1989), "Backdraft" (1991), and "Crossing the Bridge" (1992), Gedrick appeared in television series such as "Class of '96" (1993) and "Sweet Justice" (1994). In 1994, Gedrick starred in the film "The Force" with Yasmine Bleeth and Kim Delaney. Career. Gedrick's big break was in Steven Bochco's innovative 1995 series "Murder One". The series followed the trial of Gedrick's character, bad-boy actor Neil Avedon, alleged to have murdered a 15-year-old girl. The series—which also starred such talent as Daniel Benzali, Patricia Clarkson, Mary McCormack, Dylan Baker, and Stanley Tucci—was a runaway success. Due to this, a second season was commissioned. Due to network concerns, the new season featured several small cases rather than one big one. Anthony LaPaglia stepped in to replace the cast such as Benzali, Tucci and Gedrick, who had left, and the series was canceled midway through its second season.
899526	Accattone is a 1961 Italian drama film written and directed by Pier Paolo Pasolini. Despite being filmed from an original screenplay, academics perceive "Accattone" as a cinematic rendition of Pasolini's earlier novels, particularly "Boys of Life" and "A Violent Life". It is Pasolini's first film as director, employing what would later be seen as trademark Pasolini characteristics; a cast of non-professional actors hailing from where the movie is set, and thematic emphasis on impoverished individuals. While many people were surprised by Pasolini's shift from literature to film, he had considered attending the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia in Rome before WWII. Pasolini had cooperated with Federico Fellini on "Le notti di Cabiria" and considered cinema to be writing with reality. The word "Accattone" is a slang term mainly used for beggars, referring to people who never do well, who are lazy, and who rarely hold down a job. Accattone is a story of pimps, prostitutes and thieves, the same topic as his novels. Peasant culture is celebrated, in contrast to Italy's postwar economic reforms. Pasolini’s choice of topics was scandalous, as was his blurring of the lines between the sacred and the profane. Although Pasolini tried to distance himself from neorealism, the film is considered to be a kind of second neorealism, with one critic believing it "may be the grimmest movie" he'd ever seen. Plot. Vittorio (Franco Citti), nicknamed "Accattone" (meaning 'beggar' in Italian), leads a mostly serene life as a pimp until his prostitute, Maddalena, is hurt by his rivals and sent to prison. Finding himself without a steady income, and not much inclination for working himself, he discovers the naive Stella and tries to lure her into prostituting herself for him. Hesitant at first, she later embraces her new profession (and her clients) more willingly. However, it is too late for Accattone, who, after a bizarre vision of his own death, is killed in a traffic accident when he tries to evade the police on a stolen motorcycle. Awards. Franco Citti was nominated for the BAFTA Award for Best Foreign Actor in 1963 for his title role. References in popular culture. The British singer/songwriter Morrissey refers to "Accattone" in a song called "You Have Killed Me" from his 2006 album "Ringleader of the Tormentors". The first verse of the song is: "Pasolini is me, 'Accattone' you'll be..."
1557454	Dark Floors – The Lordi Motion Picture is a Finnish horror film. The film was released in February 2008 and stars William Hope, Leon Herbert, Philip Bretherton, Ronald Pickup, and Skye Bennett. The film also features all of the Lordi band members playing the monsters. Mr. Lordi has also designed the logo of the movie. A new Lordi song, "Beast Loose In Paradise", is featured in the end credits of the movie. Story. Sarah (Skye Bennett) is an autistic girl, residing at 'St. Mary's Hospital'. Her father, Ben (Noah Huntley), concerned about the state of the hospital, finally decides to take his daughter home as an MRI catches fire with Sarah inside it. They board an elevator with a group of strangers, including a businessman, Jonathan or "Jon" (William Hope), a nurse named Emily (Dominique McElligott), tramp Tobias (Ronald Pickup), and security guard Rick (Leon Herbert), but when the elevator reaches the next floor down, the hospital is abandoned. It soon becomes clear the safety of the group rests upon Sarah. Production. Dark Floors was a concept that Mr. Lordi had maintained interest in since he had first launched his band. Horror films had played a key role in shaping the look of the Lordi costumes. Indeed, with the production of 'The Kin' in 2004, Mr. Lordi's expertise in makeup, costume design and prosthesis had gained him some considerable experience. Shortly after the band's Eurovision victory, Mr. Lordi asked film producer Markus Selin to contact him with any movie ideas he may have. Mr. Lordi had previously worked with Selin as a storyboard artist. Actors. The vast majority of leading actors in the film are British, a choice made by Mr. Lordi. The film was produced between March and April 2007. The general populace of Oulu largely played the background characters, from the living nurses to the dead, yet animate, bodies. Amputees were also largely asked for, to play the zombies, and many were willing to collaborate. Each extra had five minutes screen time maximum. Lordi's part in the film. All of Lordi's then-current lineup are present within the film. The band had been working on an accompanying end credits song (which turned out to be Beast Loose in Paradise). Performing this song for the end credits, the band members believed, would not ruin the atmosphere that became one of Dark Floors's strong points. Indeed, none of the Lordi members have spoken dialogue in the film, choosing instead to communicate with roars and growls. In addition, stunt extras were used when certain shots were difficult for the actual members to pull off, notably a stunt double actually running in Ox's costume. Only Awa was present in the film by means of special effects; her scenes were shot using green screen. The four other members – Mr. Lordi, Kita, Ox and Amen – were all present in person for their scenes. Putaansuu, in addition to designing the film's logo, conceived a large portion of the story, and co-wrote the aforementioned song 'Beast Loose In Paradise.' The film's atmospheric musical underscore was composed by Ville Hang. During most of Dark Floors' production, Lordi was actively involved in Ozzy Osbourne's Ozzfest tour, with stunt doubles filling in for them for certain scenes. Nonetheless, each member took an active part in the overall development of the movie. An example of a scene shot without the involvement of one of the actual bandmembers occurs in the morgue scene, in which Kita pulls out one corpse's internal organs. Budget. The full budget of Dark Floors reached $4.3 million (U.S.), making it one of the most expensive movies made in Finland. Most of the budget was spent on special effects design, set construction, and a large marketing campaign, along with the post-production process. Scenery and Special Effects. The sets were the largest constructed in Finland, taking up a massive 1700 square metres during the basement carpark scene. Electrical work was very much conventional, using the same method as for a family home. It had been originally planned to shoot the film on location in the Baltics, but the village of Oulu was chosen instead, with special effects used to replicate a city when necessary. The production team visited hospitals to research the workings of an X-ray, thereby adding both credibility and authenticity to the CGI-rendered X-rays shown. When principal photography was completed, the extended post-production phase was launched, including the insertion of Awa's ghostly appearance. This served to complement the other special effects that contributed in no small measure to the film's overall look. Advertisement and promotions. The film was originally intended to premiere in 2007, at the Eurovision song contest in Helsinki, whose opening number, featuring Lordi, with a performance of 'Hard Rock Hallelujah.' Unfortunately, the team could not finish their tasks in time; moreover, Lordi were already putting final touches on their Bringing Back the Balls to Europe tour. Post-production was therefore expanded into May of the same year, and was eventually rescheduled to December. The press conference was held at the Cannes Film Festival the weekend of the 19th and 20 May 2007. Lordi appeared personally, as did director Pete Riski, producer Markus Selin, and virtually all the leading actors. All involved responded to questions, and shared unusual anecdotes on making the film. Dark Floors was slowly 'leaked' by way of a marketing campaign, and the press were permitted to witness the production of Kita's lift scene, although everything else was kept under wraps. DVD releases. The film was released on Region 2 DVD in the UK by Metrodome Distribution on 20 April 2009, priced at £12.99 RRP. The release includes several extra features, listed as "Behind the Scenes of "Dark Floors"", "Cast & Crew Interviews", and ""Dark Floors" World Premiere featurette including Q&A with Lordi, the cast and crew and a live Lordi performance". The film is rated 18 by the BBFC for "strong bloody violence and horror". Even though the film was a box office disappointment in Finland, it rose to gold in the DVD charts.
1062729	Martin Donovan (born August 19, 1957) is an American film, stage and television actor. He has had a long collaboration with director Hal Hartley, appearing in many of Hartley's films, such as "Trust" (1990), "Surviving Desire" (1991), "Simple Men" (1992), "Flirt" (1993), "Amateur" (1994), and "The Book of Life" (1998; in which he played Jesus). Donovan played Peter Scottson, a DEA agent, on Showtime's cable series "Weeds", before his character was eliminated from the show. He made his writing/directorial debut in 2011 with the film "Collaborator". Early life. Donovan was born Martin P. Smith in Reseda, California to an Irish American middle-class family. He and his three siblings were raised Catholic. He graduated from Crespi Carmelite High School and attended Pierce College for two years. He attended American Theater Arts, a combined conservatory and theater company in Los Angeles, where he appeared in the plays "Richard's Cork Leg" by Brendan Behan and "Private Life of the Master Race" by Bertold Brecht.
589166	Reshma Aur Shera (translation: "Reshma and Shera") is a 1972 Hindi film starring Waheeda Rehman as Reshma and Sunil Dutt as Shera. Dutt produced and directed the film. It also stars Vinod Khanna, Amitabh Bachchan, Raakhee and Amrish Puri. Sunil Dutt's son Sanjay Dutt who was 13 years at the time appears briefly as a qawali singer in his first film appearance.
1061380	Elliott Gould (born Elliott Goldstein; August 29, 1938) is an American actor. He began acting in Hollywood films during the 1960s, and has remained prolific ever since. Some of his most notable films include "M*A*S*H" (1970), "The Long Goodbye" (1973), and "Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice" (1969), for which he received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. In recent years, he has starred in a recurring role as Jack Geller on "Friends" (1994–2003) and as Reuben Tishkoff in "Ocean's Eleven" (2001), "Ocean's Twelve" (2004), and "Ocean's Thirteen" (2007). Early life. Gould was born in Brooklyn, New York. His mother, Lucille (née Raver), sold artificial flowers to beauty shops, and his father, Bernard Goldstein, worked in the garment business as a textiles buyer. His family was Jewish, and his grandparents were immigrants from Ukraine, Poland, and Russia. He graduated from the Professional Children's School. Career. Gould was one of the most prominent American film actors of the early 1970s, best known for playing Trapper John in Robert Altman's satirical 1970 film "MASH". "Time" magazine placed him on one of its covers in 1970, when he was at the brief height of his long career, calling him a "star for an uptight age". Other notable film roles include "Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice" (which earned him an Academy Award nomination), "A Bridge Too Far", "Capricorn One", and a remake of "The Lady Vanishes". Gould played the detective Philip Marlowe in Altman's 1973 film "The Long Goodbye" (the role had previously been played by such distinguished actors as Humphrey Bogart and Dick Powell, and would later be essayed by Robert Mitchum). He hosted "Saturday Night Live" six times, his final time being the first episode of the disastrous Jean Doumanian season (season 6) in November 1980, where he was shocked to find that the original cast and producer had left and a new cast and producer had taken their place. He has never hosted after that, but has appeared in a season 16 (1990–1991) episode hosted by Tom Hanks where Hanks is welcomed into the Five-Timers club, a society for celebrities who have hosted "SNL" five times or more. Also in 1980, Gould filmed two movies for Disney studios, "The Last Flight of Noah's Ark" and "The Devil and Max Devlin", in which he co-starred with Bill Cosby. Gould's Broadway theatre credits include "Irma La Douce", "Say, Darling", "I Can Get It for You Wholesale" (in which he met Barbra Streisand), "Drat! The Cat!", and "Little Murders". He purchased the screen rights to Little Murders, and in addition to acting in the film version, served as uncredited executive producer. His career slowed down after a series of critical and commercial flops in the mid-to-late 1970s, but he has remained steadily employed in supporting and character roles in television and movies. He starred in a sitcom called "E/R" in 1984–1985, and had a recurring guest role on "Friends" as Jack Geller, the father of Monica and Ross Geller. Gould received critical praise for his performances as an aging mobster in Warren Beatty's 1991 film "Bugsy" and as the boyfriend of the protagonist's mother in "American History X" (1998). He also co-starred as Reuben Tishkoff in the popular "caper" film "Ocean's Eleven" (2001), and its sequels: "Ocean's Twelve" (2004), and "Ocean's Thirteen" (2007). In 2005 he was the guest star in a feature-length episode of the UK TV series "Poirot", "The Mystery of the Blue Train". Gould is most recently seen on advertisements for Save Ellis Island and is heard on radio commercials, most notably introducing himself by name on spots for the Gordon Flesch Company, a Madison, Wisconsin-based office products supplier. He has also loaned his voice to several animated series, most notable among them, the Disney Channel animated series "Kim Possible" and the 2006 video game . Gould became one of the many celebrity producers of The 1 Second Film collaboration in June 2009. In November 2009 Elliott Gould signed on for a guest spot on "Law & Order", playing a disgruntled business owner who takes the law into his own hands after a crime spree in his Harlem neighborhood. In July 2010 it was announced that Gould had signed on to guest-star in the second episode of the next season of "". Gould currently serves on the Screen Actors Guild National Board of Directors and has done so for the past six years. He has recently undergone hip replacement surgery. Personal life. Gould has said that he has a "very deep Jewish identity". He has been married three times, twice to the same woman:
1059183	"Monty Python's Life of Brian, also known as Life of Brian", is a 1979 British comedy film starring and written by the comedy group Monty Python (Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, Terry Jones and Michael Palin), and directed by Jones. It tells the story of Brian Cohen (played by Chapman), a young Jewish man who is born on the same day as, and next door to, Jesus Christ and is subsequently mistaken for the Messiah. The film contains themes of religious satire that were controversial at the time of its release, drawing accusations of blasphemy and protests from some religious groups. Thirty-nine local authorities in the UK either imposed an outright ban, or imposed an X (18 years) certificate, effectively preventing the film from being shown, as the distributors said the film could not be shown unless it was unedited and carried the original AA (14) certificate. Some countries, including Ireland and Norway, banned its showing, with a few of these bans lasting decades. The film makers used such notoriety to benefit their marketing campaign, with posters stating "So funny it was banned in Norway!". The film was a box-office success, grossing fourth-highest of any film in the United Kingdom in 1979 and highest of any British film in the United States that year. It has remained popular since then, receiving positive reviews. The film received a 96% "Fresh" rating on Rotten Tomatoes with the consensus "One of the more cutting-edge films of the 1970s, this religious farce from the classic comedy troupe is as poignant as it is funny and satirical", and it was named "greatest comedy film of all time" by several magazines and television networks. It is the first Monty Python film to receive an R rating in the United States. Plot. Brian Cohen is born in a stable a few doors from the one in which Jesus is born, which initially confuses the three wise men who come to praise the future King of the Jews. Brian grows up an idealistic young man who resents the continuing Roman occupation of Judea. While attending Jesus' Sermon on the Mount, Brian becomes infatuated with an attractive young rebel, Judith. His desire for her and hatred for the Romans lead him to join the People's Front of Judea (PFJ), one of many fractious and bickering independence movements, who spend more time fighting each other than the Romans. After several misadventures, and escaping from Pontius Pilate, the fugitive winds up in a line-up of would-be mystics and prophets who harangue the passing crowd in a plaza. Forced to come up with something plausible in order to blend in and keep the guards off his back, Brian babbles pseudo-religious truisms, and quickly attracts a small but intrigued audience. Once the guards have left, Brian tries to put the episode behind him, but he has unintentionally inspired a movement. He grows frantic when he finds that some people have started to follow him around, with even the slightest unusual occurrence being hailed as a "miracle". After slipping away from the mob, Brian runs into Judith, and they spend the night together. In the morning, Brian opens the curtains to discover an enormous crowd of people outside his mother's house, all proclaiming him to be the Messiah. Brian's mother protests: "He's not the Messiah, he's a very naughty boy". Brian finds himself unable to change their minds, because his every word and action are immediately seized as points of doctrine. Neither can the hapless Brian find solace back at the PFJ's headquarters, where people fling their afflicted bodies at him demanding miracle cures. After sneaking out the back, Brian finally is captured and scheduled to be crucified. Meanwhile, a huge crowd has assembled outside the palace. Pilate (together with the visiting Biggus Dickus) tries to quell the feeling of revolution by granting them the decision of who should be pardoned. The crowd, however, simply shouts out names containing the letter "r", in order to mock Pilate's speech impediment. Eventually, Judith appears in the crowd and calls for the release of Brian, which the crowd echoes, since the name contains the letter "r". Pilate then agrees to "welease Bwian". The order from Pilate is eventually relayed to the guards, but in a moment parodying the climax of the film "Spartacus", various crucified people all claim to be "Brian of Nazareth" (one man shouting "I'm Brian and so's my wife") and the wrong man is released. Various other opportunities for a reprieve for Brian are denied as, one by one, his "allies" (including Judith and his mother) step forward to explain why they are leaving the "noble freedom fighter" hanging in the hot sun. Hope is renewed when the Judean People's Front come charging towards the Romans, but as a political statement they intentionally commit suicide rather than concentrating their efforts in liberating Brian and his fellow sufferers. Condemned to a long and painful death, Brian finds his spirits lifted by his fellow sufferers, who break into song with "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life". Cast. A list of all the characters given actual names in the script, or with a spoken role. All names and character descriptions are taken from the published script. Each Python (especially Terry Gilliam) also played various bystanders and hangers-on. The Pythons themselves are listed first (in alphabetical order) followed by the rest of the cast in order of appearance. Several characters remained unnamed during the film but do have names that are used in the soundtrack album track listing and elsewhere. There is no mention in the film of the fact that Eric Idle's ever-cheerful joker is called 'Mr. Cheeky', or that the Roman guard played by Michael Palin is named 'Nisus Wettus'. Spike Milligan plays a prophet, ignored because his acolytes are chasing after Brian. By coincidence he was visiting his old World War II battlefields in Tunisia where the film was being made. The Pythons were alerted to this one morning and he was promptly included in the scene that just happened to be being filmed. He disappeared again in the afternoon before he could be included in any of the close-up or publicity shots for the film. Production. There are various stories about the origins of "Life of Brian". Shortly after the release of "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" (1975), Eric Idle flippantly suggested that the title of the Pythons' forthcoming feature would be "Jesus Christ – Lust for Glory" (a play on the UK title for the 1970 American film "Patton"). This was after he had become frustrated at repeatedly being asked what it would be called, despite the troupe not having given the matter of a third film any consideration. However, they shared a distrust of organised religion, and, after witnessing the critically acclaimed "Holy Grail"'s enormous financial turnover, confirming an appetite among the fans for more cinematic endeavours, they soon began to seriously consider a film lampooning the New Testament era in the same way "Holy Grail" had lampooned Arthurian legend. All they needed was an idea for a plot. Eric Idle and Terry Gilliam, while promoting "Holy Grail" in Amsterdam, had come up with a sketch in which Jesus' cross was falling apart because of the idiotic carpenters who built it and he angrily tells them how to do it correctly. However, after an early brainstorming stage, and despite being non-believers, they agreed that Jesus was "definitely a good guy" and found nothing to mock in his actual teachings: "He's not particularly funny, what he's saying isn't mockable, it's very decent stuff..." said Idle later. After settling on the name Brian for their new protagonist, one idea considered was that of "the 13th disciple". The focus eventually shifted to a separate individual born at a similar time and location, who would be mistaken for the Messiah, but had no desire to be followed as such. Writing began in December 1976, with a first draft completed by mid-1977. The final pre-production draft was ready in January 1978, following "a concentrated two-week writing and water-skiing period in Barbados". The film would not have been made without former Beatle and Python fan George Harrison, who set up HandMade Films to help fund it at a cost of £3 million. Harrison put up the money for it as he "wanted to see the movie" (a move later described by Terry Jones as the "world's most expensive cinema ticket"). The original backers, EMI Films, had been scared off at the last minute by the subject matter, particularly Bernard Delfont. As a result, the very last words in the film are: "I said to him, 'Bernie, they'll never make their money back on this one'", teasing Delfont for his lack of faith in the project. Terry Gilliam later said, "They pulled out on the Thursday. The crew was supposed to be leaving on the Saturday. Disastrous. It was because they read the script... finally." As a reward for his help, Harrison appears in a cameo appearance as Mr. Papadopoulos, "owner of the Mount", who briefly shakes hands with Brian in a crowd scene (this happens at 1h06min of the film). His one word of dialogue (a cheery Scouse, but out-of-place-in-Judea, "ullo") had to be dubbed in later. Directing duties were handled solely by Terry Jones on this project, having amicably agreed with Gilliam (who co-directed "Holy Grail") that Jones' approach to film-making was better suited for Python's general performing style. "Holy Grail"'s production had often been stilted by their differences behind the camera. Gilliam again contributed two animated sequences (one being the opening credits) and took charge of set design. However, this did not put an absolute end to their feuding. On the DVD commentary, Gilliam expresses great pride in one set in particular, the main hall of Pilate's fortress, which had been designed so that it accurately looked like an old Judean temple that the Romans had converted by dumping their structural artifacts (such as marble floors and columns) on top. He later reveals his consternation at Jones not paying enough attention to it in the cinematography. Gilliam also worked on the matte paintings, useful in particular for the very first shot of the three wise men against a starscape and in giving the illusion of the whole of the outside of the fortress being covered in graffiti. Perhaps the most significant contribution from Gilliam was the scene where Brian accidentally leaps off a high building and inadvertently lands inside a starship about to engage in an interstellar war. This was done "in camera" using a hand-built model starship and miniature pyrotechnics; clearly this was influenced by the epic film "Star Wars". Afterwards, George Lucas met Terry Gilliam in San Francisco and praised Gilliam for his work. The film was shot on location in Monastir, Tunisia, which allowed the production to reuse sets from Franco Zeffirelli's "Jesus of Nazareth" (1977). Many locals were employed as extras on "Life of Brian". Director Terry Jones noted, "They were all very knowing because they'd all worked for Franco Zeffirelli on "Jesus of Nazareth", so I had these elderly Tunisians telling me, 'Well, Mr Zeffirelli wouldn't have done it like that, you know.'" Further location shooting took place in Sousse (Jerusalem outer walls and gateway), Carthage (Roman amphitheatre) and Matmata, Tunisia (Sermon on the Mount and Crucifixion). Graham Chapman, still suffering from alcoholism, was so determined to play the lead role – at one point coveted by Cleese – that he dried out in time for filming, so much so that he was also able to act as the on-set doctor on top of his acting duties. Following shooting between 16 September and 12 November 1978, a two-hour-long rough cut of the film was put together for its first private showing in January 1979. Over the next few months "Life of Brian" was re-edited and re-screened a number of times for different preview audiences before the final cut was complete, losing a number of entire filmed sequences (see "Lost scenes" below). Religious satire and blasphemy accusations. Richard Webster comments in his "A Brief History of Blasphemy" that, "internalised censorship played a significant role in the handling" of "Monty Python's Life of Brian". In his view, "As a satire on religion, this film might well be considered a rather slight production. As blasphemy it was, even in its original version, extremely mild. Yet the film was surrounded from its inception by intense anxiety, in some quarters of the Establishment, about the offence it might cause. As a result it gained a certificate for general release only after some cuts had been made. Perhaps more importantly still, the film was shunned by the BBC and ITV, who declined to show it for fear of offending Christians in the UK. Once again a blasphemy was restrained - or its circulation effectively curtailed - not by the force of law but by the internalisation of this law." However, on its initial release in the UK, the film was banned by several town councils – some of which had no cinemas within their boundaries, or had not even seen the film. A member of Harrogate council, one of those that banned the film, revealed during a television interview that the council had not seen the film, and had based their opinion on what they had been told by the Nationwide Festival of Light, of which they knew nothing. Some bans continued into the 21st century. In 2008, Torbay Council finally permitted the film to be shown after it won an online vote for the English Riviera International Comedy Film Festival. In 2009, it was announced that a thirty-year old ban of the film in the Welsh town of Aberystwyth was finally lifted, and the subsequent showing was attended by Terry Jones and Michael Palin alongside mayor Sue Jones-Davies (who portrayed Judith Iscariot in the film). However, before the showing, an Aberystwyth University student discovered that the film had never been banned in Aberystwyth, but was shown (or was scheduled to be shown) at a cinema in the town in 1981. In 2013, public screening of the film on Good Friday is still banned in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia, despite protests by local atheists. In New York, screenings were picketed by both rabbis and nuns ("Nuns with banners!" observed Michael Palin). It was also banned for eight years in Ireland and for a year in Norway (it was marketed in Sweden as "The film so funny that it was banned in Norway"). During the film's theatrical run in Finland, a text explaining that the film was a parody of Hollywood historical epics was added to the opening credits. In the UK, Mary Whitehouse and other campaigners launched waves of leaflets and picketed at and around cinemas that showed the film, a move that was only felt to have ironically boosted the publicity. Leaflets arguing against the film's representation of the New Testament (for example, suggesting that the Wise Men would not have approached the wrong stable as they do in the opening of the film) were documented in Robert Hewison's book "Monty Python: The Case Against". One of the most controversial scenes was the film's ending: Brian's crucifixion. Many Christian protesters said that it was mocking Jesus' suffering by turning it into a "Jolly Boys Outing" (such as when Mr Cheeky turns to Brian and says: "See, not so bad once you're up!"), capped by Brian's fellow sufferers suddenly bursting into song. This is also reinforced by the fact that several characters throughout the film claim crucifixion is not as bad as it seems, such as when Brian asks his cellmate in prison what will happen to him, he replies; "Oh, you'll probably get away with crucifixion." and when Matthias, the old man who works with the PFJ dismisses crucifixion as "a doddle" and says being stabbed would be worse. The director, Terry Jones, issued the following riposte to this criticism: "Any religion that makes a form of torture into an icon that they worship seems to me a pretty sick sort of religion quite honestly". Religious figures later responded by saying that Jones did not seem to understand the meaning of the crucifix symbol or its significance to Christians as a reminder of the suffering and death Christ endured for their sake. They also argued that crucifixion was a standard form of execution in ancient times and not just one especially reserved for Jesus. The Pythons often prided themselves on the depths of the historical research they had taken before writing the script. They all believe that, as a consequence, the film portrays 1st century Judea more accurately than actual Biblical epics, with its focus centred more on the average person of the era. Shortly after the film was released, Cleese and Palin engaged in what would become a notorious debate on the BBC2 discussion programme "Friday Night, Saturday Morning", in which Malcolm Muggeridge and Mervyn Stockwood, the Bishop of Southwark, put the case against the film. Muggeridge and the Bishop had arrived 15 minutes late to see a screening of the picture prior to the debate, missing the establishing scenes demonstrating that Brian and Jesus were two different characters, and hence contended that it was a send-up of Christ himself. Both Pythons later felt that there had been a strange role reversal in the manner of the debate, with two young upstart comedians attempting to make serious, well-researched points, while the establishment figures engaged in cheap jibes and point scoring. They also expressed disappointment in Muggeridge, whom all in Python had previously respected as a satirist. Cleese expressed that his reputation had "plummeted" in his eyes, while Palin commented that, "He was just being Muggeridge, preferring to have a very strong contrary opinion as opposed to none at all". Muggeridge's verdict on the film was that it was "Such a tenth-rate film that it couldn't possibly destroy anyone's genuine faith". The Pythons unanimously deny that they were ever out to destroy people's faith. On the DVD audio commentary, they contend that the film is heretical because it lampoons the practices of modern organised religion, but that it does not blasphemously lampoon the God that Christians and Jews worship. When Jesus does appear in the film (on the Mount, speaking the Beatitudes), he is played straight (by actor Kenneth Colley) and portrayed with respect. The music and lighting make it clear that there is a genuine aura around him. The comedy begins when members of the crowd mishear his statements of peace, love and tolerance ("I think he said, 'blessed are the cheese makers'"). Importantly, he is distinct from the character of Brian, which is also evident in the scene where an annoying and ungrateful ex-leper pesters Brian for money, while moaning that since Jesus cured him, he has lost his source of income in the begging trade (referring to Jesus as a "bloody do-gooder"). James Crossley, however, has argued that the film makes the distinction between Jesus and the character of Brian to make a contrast between the traditional Christ of both faith and cinema and the historical figure of Jesus in critical scholarship and how critical scholars have argued that ideas later got attributed to Jesus by his followers. Crossley points out that the film uses a number of potentially controversial scholarly theories about Jesus but now with reference to Brian, such as the Messianic Secret, the Jewishness of Jesus, Jesus the revolutionary, and having a single mother. Not all the Pythons agree on the definition of the movie's tone. There was a brief exchange that occurred when the surviving members reunited in Aspen, Colorado, in 1998 for a show that was broadcast on HBO and has since become available on video. The appearance was billed as the "U.S. Comedy Arts Festival Tribute to Monty Python", although video releases have gone by varying titles, including "Monty Python Live at Aspen (1998)". The programme mostly consists of an interview, on stage, by U.S. comedian Robert Klein. In the section where "Life of Brian" is being discussed, Terry Jones says, "I think the film is heretical, but it’s not blasphemous". Eric Idle can be heard to concur, adding, "It’s a heresy". However, John Cleese, disagreeing, counters, "I don’t think it’s a heresy. It's making fun of the way that people misunderstand the teaching". Jones responds, "Of course it's a heresy, John! It's attacking the Church! And that has to be heretical". Cleese replies, "No, it's not attacking the Church, necessarily. It's about people who cannot agree with each other". In a later interview Jones said the film “isn't blasphemous because it doesn’t touch on belief at all. It is heretical, because it touches on dogma and the interpretation of belief, rather than belief itself.” The film continues to cause controversy; in February 2007 the Church of St Thomas the Martyr in Newcastle upon Tyne held a public screening in the church itself, with song-sheets, organ accompaniment, stewards in costume and false beards for female members of the audience (alluding to an early scene where a group of women disguise themselves as men so that they are able to take part in a stoning). Although the screening was a sell-out, some Christian groups, notably the conservative Christian Voice, were highly critical of the decision to allow the screening to go ahead. Stephen Green, the head of Christian Voice, insisted that "You don't promote Christ to the community by taking the mick out of him". The Reverend Jonathan Adams, one of the church's clergy, defended his taste in comedy, saying that it did not mock Jesus, and that it raised important issues about the hypocrisy and stupidity that can affect religion. Again on the film's DVD commentary, Cleese also spoke up for religious people who have come forward and congratulated him and his colleagues on the film's highlighting of double standards among purported followers of their own faith. Political satire. The film pokes fun at revolutionary groups and 1970s British left-wing politics. "What the film does do is place modern stereotypes in a historical setting, which enables it to indulge in a number of sharp digs, particularly at trade unionists and guerilla organisations". The groups in the film all oppose the Roman occupation of Judea, but fall into the familiar pattern of intense competition among factions that appears, to an outsider, to be over ideological distinctions so small as to be invisible; "ideological purity", as Cleese once described it. Michael Palin says that the various separatist movements were modelled on "modern resistance groups, all with obscure acronyms which they can never remember and their conflicting agendas". The People's Front of Judea, composed of the Pythons' characters, harangue their "rivals" with cries of "splitters" and stand vehemently opposed to the Judean People's Front, the Judean Popular People's Front, the Campaign for a Free Galilee, and the Popular Front of Judea (the last composed of a single old man, mocking the size of real revolutionary Trotskyist factions). The infighting among revolutionary organisations is demonstrated most dramatically when the PFJ attempts to kidnap Pontius Pilate's wife, but encounters agents of the Campaign for a Free Galilee, and the two factions begin a violent brawl over which of them conceived of the plan first. When Brian exhorts them to cease their fighting to struggle "against the common enemy," the revolutionaries stop and cry in unison, "the Judean People's Front!" However, they soon resume their fighting and, with two Roman legionnaires watching bemusedly, continue until Brian is left the only survivor, at which point he is captured. Other scenes have the freedom fighters wasting time in debate, with one of the debated items being that they should not waste their time debating so much. There is also a famous scene in which Reg gives a revolutionary speech asking, "What have the Romans ever done for us?" at which point the listeners outline all forms of positive aspects of the Roman occupation such as sanitation, medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, a fresh water system, public health and peace, followed by "what have the Romans ever done for us except sanitation, medicine, education...". Python biographer George Perry notes, "The People's Liberation Front of Judea conducts its meetings as though they have been convened by a group of shop stewards". Lost scenes. A number of scenes were cut after filming. Five deleted scenes, a total of 13 minutes, including the controversial "Otto", were first made available in 1997 on the Criterion Collection Laserdisc. An unknown amount of raw footage was destroyed in 1998 by the company that bought Handmade Films. However, a number of them (of varying quality) were shown the following year on the Paramount Comedy Channel in the UK; it has not been disclosed how these scenes were saved or where they came from; possibly the source was the Criterion laserdisc. The scenes shown included 3 shepherds discussing sheep and completely missing the arrival of the angel heralding Jesus's birth, which would have been at the very start of the movie; a segment showing the attempted kidnap of Pilate's wife (a large woman played by John Case) whose escape results in a fistfight; a scene introducing hardline Zionist Otto, leader of the Judean People's Front (played by Eric Idle) and his men who practice a suicide run in the courtyard; and a brief scene in which Judith releases some birds into the air in an attempt to summon help. The shepherds' scene has badly distorted sound, and the kidnap scene has poor colour quality. The same scenes that were on the Criterion laserdisc can now be found on the Criterion Collection DVD. The most controversial cuts were the scenes involving Otto, initially a recurring character, who had a thin Adolf Hitler-esque moustache and spoke with a German accent, shouting accusations of "racial impurity" at people whose conceptions were similar to Brian's (Roman centurion rape of native Judean women), and other Nazi-based phrases. The logo of the Judean People's Front, designed by Terry Gilliam, was a Star of David with a small line added to each point so it resembled a swastika, most familiar in the West as the symbol of the anti-Semitic Nazi movement. The rest of this faction also all had the same thin moustaches, and wore a spike on their helmets, similar to those on Imperial German helmets. The official reason for the cutting was that Otto's dialogue slowed down the narrative. However, Gilliam, writing in "The Pythons Autobiography by The Pythons", said he thought it should have stayed, saying "Listen, we've alienated the Christians, let's get the Jews now". Idle himself was said to have been uncomfortable with the character; "It's essentially a pretty savage attack on rabid Zionism, suggesting it's rather akin to Nazism, which is a bit strong to take, but certainly a point of view". Michael Palin's personal journal entries from the period when various edits of "Brian" were being test-screened consistently reference the Pythons' and filmmakers' concerns that the Otto scenes were slowing the story down and thus were top of the list to be chopped from the final cut of the film. However, Oxford Brookes University historian David Nash says the removal of the scene represented "a form of self-censorship" and the Otto sequence "which involved a character representative of extreme forms of Zionism" was cut "in the interests of smoothing the way for the film's distribution in America." The only scene with Otto that remains in the film is during the crucifixion sequence. Otto arrives with his "crack suicide squad", sending the Roman soldiers fleeing in terror. Instead of doing anything useful, they "attack" by committing mass suicide in front of the cross ("Zat showed 'em, huh?" says the dying Otto, to which Brian despondently replies "You silly sods!"), ending Brian's hope of rescue (they do however show some signs of life during the famous rendition of "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life" when they are seen waving their toes in unison in time to the music). Terry Jones once mentioned that the only reason this excerpt was not cut too was due to continuity reasons, as their dead bodies were very prominently placed throughout the rest of the scene. He acknowledged that some of the humour of this sole remaining contribution was lost through the earlier edits, but felt they were necessary to the overall pacing. Otto's scenes, and those with Pilate's wife, were cut from the film after the script had gone to the publishers, and so they can be found in the published version of the script. Also present is a scene where, after Brian has led the Fifth Legion to the headquarters of the People's Front of Judea, Reg (John Cleese) says "You cunt!! You stupid, bird-brained, flat-headed..." The profanity was overdubbed to "you klutz" before the film was released. Cleese approved of this editing as he felt the reaction to the four-letter word would "get in the way of the comedy". An early listing of the sequence of sketches reprinted in "Monty Python: The Case Against" by Robert Hewison reveals that the film was to have begun with a set of sketches at an English public school. Much of this material was first printed in the "MONTYPYTHONSCRAPBOOK" that accompanied the original script publication of "The Life of Brian" and then subsequently reused. The song "All Things Dull and Ugly" and the parody scripture reading "Martyrdom of St. Victor" were performed on "Monty Python's Contractual Obligation Album" (1980). The idea of a violent rugby match between school masters and small boys was filmed in "Monty Python's The Meaning of Life" (1983). A sketch about a boy who dies at school appeared on the unreleased "The Hastily Cobbled Together for a Fast Buck Album" (1981). Box office. For the original British and Australian releases, a spoof travelogue narrated by John Cleese, "Away From It All", was shown before the film itself. It consisted mostly of stock travelogue footage and featured arch comments from Cleese. For instance, a shot of Bulgarian girls in ceremonial dresses was accompanied by the comment "Hard to believe, isn't it, that these simple happy folk are dedicated to the destruction of Western Civilisation as we know it!", Communist Bulgaria being a member of the Warsaw Pact at the time. Not only was this a spoof of travelogues "per se", it was a protest against the then common practice in Britain of showing cheaply made banal short features before a main feature. "Life of Brian" opened on 17 August 1979 in five North American theatres and grossed $140,034 USD ($28,007 per screen) in its opening weekend. Its total gross was $19,398,164 USD. It was the highest grossing British film in North America that year. In addition, the film was the fourth highest grossing film in Britain in 1979. On 30 April 2004, "Life of Brian" was re-released on five North American screens to "cash in" (as Terry Jones put it) on the box office success of Mel Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ". It grossed $26,376 USD ($5,275 per screen) in its opening weekend. It ran until October 2004, playing at 28 screens at its widest point, eventually grossing $646,124 USD during its re-release. By comparison, a re-release of "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" had earned $1.8 million USD three years earlier. A DVD of the film was also released that year. Album. An album was also released by Monty Python in 1979 in conjunction with the film. In addition to the "Brian Song" and "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life", it contains scenes from the film with brief linking sections performed by Eric Idle and Graham Chapman. The album opens with a brief rendition of "Hava Nagila" on Scottish bagpipes. A CD version was released in 1997. Legacy. "Life of Brian" has regularly been cited as a serious contender for the title "greatest comedy film of all time", and has been named as such in polls conducted by "Total Film" magazine in 2000, the British TV network Channel 4 in 2006 and "The Guardian" newspaper in 2007. Rotten Tomatoes lists it as one of the best reviewed comedies, with a 96% approval rating from 44 published reviews. Internet Movie Database includes the film in its list of the top 250 movies of all time. A 2011 poll by "Time Out" magazine ranked it as the third greatest comedy film ever made, behind "Airplane!" and "This is Spinal Tap". The BFI declared "Life of Brian" to be the 28th best British film of all time, in their equivalent of the AFI's original 100 Years...100 Movies list. It was the seventh highest ranking comedy on this list (four of the better placed efforts were classic Ealing Films). Another Channel 4 poll in 2001 named it the 23rd greatest film of all time (the only comedy that came higher on this occasion was Billy Wilder's "Some Like It Hot", which was ranked 5th). The line, "He's not the Messiah, he's a very naughty boy!", spoken by Brian's mother Mandy to the crowd assembled outside her house, has been voted by readers of BOL.com the funniest line in film history. This poll also featured two of the film's other famous lines ("What have the Romans ever done for us?" and "I'm Brian and so's my wife") in the top 10. Spin-offs. Spin-offs include a script-book "The Life of Brian of Nazareth", which is backed by "MONTYPYTHONSCRAPBOOK"... (The printing of this book also caused problems, since there are rarely used technical laws in the UK against "blasphemy" dictating what can and cannot be written about religion – the publisher refused to print both halves of the book, and original prints were by two companies). "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life" was later re-released with great success, after being sung by British football fans. Its popularity became truly evident in 1982 during the Falklands War when sailors aboard the destroyer HMS "Sheffield", severely damaged in an Argentinean Exocet missile attack on 4 May, started singing it while awaiting rescue. Indeed, many people have come to see the song as a life-affirming ode to optimism. One of its more famous renditions was by the dignitaries of Manchester's bid to host the 2000 Olympic Games, just after they were awarded to Sydney. Idle later performed the song as part of the 2012 Olympic Games closing ceremony. "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life" is also featured in Eric Idle's "Spamalot", a Broadway musical based upon "Monty Python and the Holy Grail", and was sung by the rest of the Monty Python group at Graham Chapman's memorial service and at the "Monty Python Live At Aspen" special. The song is a staple at Iron Maiden concerts, where the recording is played after the final encore. An album of the songs sung in "Monty Python's Life of Brian" has been released on the Disky label. Julian Doyle, the film's editor, has written a book "The Life of Brian/Jesus", which not only describes the filmmaking and editing process but argues that Monty Python's film is the most accurate Biblical film ever made. In October 2008, a memoir by Kim "Howard" Johnson titled "Monty Python's Tunisian Holiday: My Life with Brian" was released. Johnson became friendly with the Pythons during the filming of "Life of Brian" and his notes and memories of the behind-the-scenes filming and make-up. In October 2011, BBC Four premiered the made-for-television comedy film "Holy Flying Circus", written by Tony Roche and directed by Owen Harris. The "Pythonesque" film explored the events surrounding the 1979 television debate on talk show "Friday Night, Saturday Morning" between John Cleese and Michael Palin and Malcolm Muggeridge and Mervyn Stockwood, the then Bishop of Southwark. Oratorio. With the success of Eric Idle's musical retelling of "Monty Python and the Holy Grail", called "Spamalot", Idle announced that he would be giving "Life of Brian" a similar treatment. The oratorio, called "Not the Messiah (He's a Very Naughty Boy)", was commissioned to be part of the festival called Luminato in Toronto, Ontario, in June 2007, and was written/scored by Idle and John Du Prez, who also worked with Idle on "Spamalot". "Not the Messiah" is a spoof of Handel's oratorio "Messiah". It runs approximately 50 minutes, and was conducted at its World Premiere by Toronto Symphony Orchestra music director Peter Oundjian, who is Idle's cousin. "Not the Messiah" received its U.S. premiere at the Caramoor International Music Festival in Katonah, New York. Cousins Peter Oundjian (Caramoor's Artistic Advisor and Principal Conductor) and Eric Idle joined forces once again for a double performance of the oratorio in July 2007. Appearances in other media. In a "Not the Nine O'Clock News" sketch, a bishop who has made a scandalous film called "The Life of Christ" is hauled over the coals by a representative of the "Church of Python", claiming that the film is an attack on "Our Lord, John Cleese" and on the members of Python, who, in the sketch, are the objects of Britain's true religious faith. This was a parody of the infamous "Friday Night, Saturday Morning" programme, broadcast a week previously. The director of the film (played by Rowan Atkinson) claims that the reaction to the film has surprised him, as he "didn't expect the Spanish Inquisition." "Talk Radio" host John Williams, of Chicago's WGN 720 AM, has used "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life" from "Life of Brian" in a segment of his Friday shows. The segment is used to highlight good events from the past week in listeners' lives and to generally celebrate the end of the work week. In the 1997 Oscar winning film "As Good as It Gets", the misanthropic character played by Jack Nicholson sings "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life" as evidence of the character's change in attitude. A BBC history series "What the Romans Did for Us", written and presented by Adam Hart-Davis and first broadcast in 2000, takes its title from John Cleese's rhetorical question "What have the Romans ever done for us?" in one of the film's scenes. (Cleese himself parodied this line in a 1986 BBC advert defending the Television Licence Fee: "What has the BBC ever given us?") Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair in his Prime Minister's Questions of 3 May 2006 made a shorthand reference to the types of political groups, "Judean People's Front" or "People's Front of Judea", lampooned in "Life of Brian". This was in response to a question from the MP David Clelland, asking "What has the Labour government ever done for us?" – itself a parody of John Cleese's "What have the Romans ever done for us?" On New Year's Day 2007, and again on New Year's Eve, UK television station Channel 4 dedicated an entire evening to the Monty Python phenomenon, during which an hour-long documentary was broadcast called "The Secret Life of Brian" about the making of "The Life of Brian" and the controversy that was caused by its release. The Pythons featured in the documentary and reflected upon the events that surrounded the film. This was followed by a screening of the film itself. The documentary (in a slightly extended form) was one of the special features on the 2007 DVD re-release – the "Immaculate Edition", also the first Python release on Blu-ray.
713797	Alexander Abian (January 1, 1923—July 1999) was an Armenian-American mathematician who taught for many years at Iowa State University and became notable for his frequent posts to various Usenet newsgroups. Life. Abian was born in Tabriz, Iran, and was of Iranian Armenian ethnicity. After earning an undergraduate degree in Iran, he emigrated to the United States in 1950, where he received a master's degree from the University of Chicago. Abian then obtained a Ph.D. from the University of Cincinnati, where he wrote a dissertation on a topic in invariant theory under the direction of Isaac Barnett. After teaching posts in Tennessee, New York, Pennsylvania, and Ohio, he joined the faculty of Iowa State in 1967. He wrote three books and published more than two hundred papers. Moonless Earth theory. Abian gained a degree of international notoriety for his claim that blowing up the Moon would solve virtually every problem of human existence. He made this claim in 1991 in a campus newspaper. Stating that a Moonless Earth wouldn't wobble, eliminating both the seasons and its associated events like heat waves, snowstorms and hurricanes. Refutations were given toward that idea by NASA saying that part of the exploded Moon would come back as a meteorite impacting the Earth and causing sufficient damage to extinguish all life, while restoring the seasons in the process. Just before he died, Abian said that "Those critics who say 'Dismiss Abian's ideas' are very close to those who dismissed Galileo." This claim and others, made in thousands of Usenet posts during the last portion of his life, gained Abian mention (not entirely favorable) and even interviews in such diverse publications as "Omni", "People", and "The Wall Street Journal".
1062923	Daniel Sallis "Danny" Huston (born May 14, 1962) is an award-winning actor, writer and director.  Huston got his start directing "Mr. North" starring Anthony Edwards, Robert Mitchum and his sister, Anjelica Huston. Later, Huston gave his breakthrough acting performance in the independent film "Ivans Xtc" and was nominated for Best Male Performance at the Independent Spirit Awards in 2003.  His film credits include but are not limited to "Birth" opposite Nicole Kidman, Martin Scorsese’s "The Aviator", for which the ensemble cast was nominated for a 2004 Screen Actors Guild Award, "The Constant Gardener", for which he received the Golden Satellite Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance; Sofia Coppola’s "Marie Antoinette", Peter Berg’s "The Kingdom", Ridley Scott’s "Robin Hood" and Sacha Gervasi’s "Hitchcock".  Huston’s latest film, "The Congress", opened the 45th Director’s Fortnight sidebar at the Cannes Film Festival on May 16, 2013.       Huston is currently filming the Weinstein Company film "Big Eyes" where he will star alongside Christoph Waltz, Amy Adams, Krysten Ritter and Jason Schwartzman.  The film is directed by Tim Burton. Early life. Huston was born in Rome, Italy. He is the son of actress Zoe Sallis and director John Huston, half-brother of actress Anjelica Huston and screenwriter Tony Huston, uncle of actor Jack Huston, stepbrother of writer and editor Allegra Huston, and grandson of Academy Award-winning actor Walter Huston. His mother, Zoe Sallis, was an actress and author whose ancestry was Indian and English. Huston was conceived as a result of an affair between Sallis and John Huston. Career. His father, John Huston, produced Danny's first feature as a director, "Mr. North", an adaptation of Thornton Wilder's last novel, "Theophilus North". In 1995's "Leaving Las Vegas", he moved in front of the camera and has since acted in over 20 films. He gave his breakthrough acting performance in the independent film "Ivans Xtc". The Bernard Rose feature was nominated for several Independent Spirit Awards in 2003, including Best Male Performance for Huston’s portrayal of Hollywood talent agent Ivan Beckman. Huston has worked nonstop as an actor ever since. Soon after "Ivans Xtc", he worked on Martin Scorsese's "The Aviator" alongside Leonardo DiCaprio and Alec Baldwin, for which the ensemble cast was nominated for a 2004 SAG Award. In 2006, Huston received the Golden Satellite Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance as Sandy Woodrow in Fernando Meirelles' "The Constant Gardener". That same year, Huston starred in the critically acclaimed Australian "western" "The Proposition" alongside Guy Pearce and Emily Watson. The film premiered at the Sundance Film Festival.
1103564	In numerical analysis, numerical integration constitutes a broad family of algorithms for calculating the numerical value of a definite integral, and by extension, the term is also sometimes used to describe the numerical solution of differential equations. This article focuses on calculation of definite integrals. The term numerical quadrature (often abbreviated to "quadrature") is more or less a synonym for "numerical integration", especially as applied to one-dimensional integrals. Numerical integration over more than one dimension is sometimes described as cubature, although the meaning of "quadrature" is understood for higher dimensional integration as well. The basic problem in numerical integration is to compute an approximate solution to a definite integral to a given degree of accuracy. If is a smooth function integrated over a small number of dimensions, and the domain of integration is bounded, there are many methods for approximating the integral to the desired precison. History. Quadrature is a historical mathematical term which means calculating area. Quadrature problems have served as one of the main sources of mathematical analysis. Mathematicians of Ancient Greece, according to the Pythagorean doctrine, understood calculation of area as the process of constructing geometrically a square having the same area ("squaring"). That is why the process was named quadrature. For example, a quadrature of the circle, Lune of Hippocrates, The Quadrature of the Parabola. This construction must be performed only by means of compass and straightedge. For a quadrature of a rectangle with the sides "a" and "b" it is necessary to construct a square with the side formula_2 (the Geometric mean of "a" and "b"). For this purpose it is possible to use the following fact: if we draw the circle with the sum of "a" and "b" as the diameter, then the height BH (from a point of their connection to crossing with a circle) equals their geometric mean. The similar geometrical construction solves a problem of a quadrature for a parallelogram and a triangle. Problems of quadrature for curvilinear figures are much more difficult. The quadrature of the circle with compass and straightedge had been proved in the 19th century to be impossible. Nevertheless, for some figures (for example Lune of Hippocrates) a quadrature can be performed. The quadratures of a sphere surface and a parabola segment done by Archimedes became the highest achievement of the antique analysis. For the proof of the results Archimedes used the Method of exhaustion of Eudoxus. In medieval Europe the quadrature meant calculation of area by any method. More often the Method of indivisibles was used; it was less rigorous, but more simple and powerful. With its help Galileo Galilei and Gilles de Roberval found the area of a cycloid arch, Grégoire de Saint-Vincent investigated the area under a hyperbola ("Opus Geometricum", 1647), and Alphonse Antonio de Sarasa, de Saint-Vincent's pupil and commentator noted the relation of this area to logarithms. John Wallis algebrised this method: he wrote in his "Arithmetica Infinitorum" (1656) series which we now call the definite integral, and he calculated their values. Isaac Barrow and James Gregory made further progress: quadratures for some algebraic curves and spirals. Christiaan Huygens successfully performed a quadrature of some Solids of revolution. The quadrature of the hyperbola by Saint-Vincent and de Sarasa provided a new function, the natural logarithm, of critical importance.
583344	F.A.L.T.U (Full expansion: Fakirchand and Lakirchand Trust University, English translation: "Useless") is a Hindi energetic comedy film directed by Remo D'Souza and produced by Vashu Bhagnani under the banner Puja Entertainment (India) Ltd. It is a remake of the 2006 comedy, "Accepted". It stars Jackky Bhagnani, Puja Gupta, Arshad Warsi and Ritesh Deshmukh in the lead roles. Angad Bedi, Chandan Roy Sanyal, Akbar Khan, Boman Irani, Darshan Jariwala and others appear in supporting roles. The film released on 1 April 2011, to generally negative reviews from critics, though was a moderate success at the box office. Plot. The plot is identical to the movie Accepted. The story revolves around a group of friends, Ritesh (Jackky), Nanj (Angad) and Puja (Puja), who all received extremely bad marks in their exams. One of their close friends, Vishnu (Chandan) has passed with top marks in pressure of his father, and has enrolled into the top high school of India. In order to make their parents happy & proud, the four friends create a fake university titled ""Fakirchand and Lakirchand Trust University (short for F.A.L.T.U)"" with the help of Ritesh's childhood friend Google (Arshad Warsi). Things take a turn for the worse when the parents would like to see the university F.A.L.T.U. To make things go right, Ritesh & Google hire a fake principal, Bajirao (Riteish) to act as the principal for one day. However, after the parents' visit, a bunch of foolish kids apply for F.A.L.T.U thinking its a real university. Unable to send them back, the trio, along with Vishnu, Google & Bajirao, turn F.A.L.T.U into an official trust university. Soon enough, the government files a case against every student/member of F.A.L.T.U for creating a fake college. Now the group of friends must fight for their rights, and keep F.A.L.T.U as a university in order to give the kids education. Soundtrack. The film's soundtrack is composed by Sachin-Jigar with lyrics penned by Irshad Kamil. The song "Le Ja Tu Mujhe" by Atif Aslam was in the top 10 chart busters of 2011, although it was his worst attempt. Soundtrack. Track listing. The soundtrack contains 11 songs. Reception. The film received mixed response from critics worldwide. Taran Adarsh of Bollywood Hungama gave the film 3.5/5 claiming it to be a "coming-of-age energetic film which we need for a long time!" Rajeev Masand from CNN-IBN gave the film 1.5/5 and said "I'm going with one-and-a-half out of five for 'Faltu'. Getting a root canal is less painful."[http://ibnlive.in.com/news/masand-faltu-is-a-dumb-comedy/147995-47-84.html]. At the box office, unlike its critical reception, "F.A.L.T.U" performed slightly well and grossed 12.50 crores on its opening weekend in India. The film collected Rs.23.97 crores in its full theatrical run, and was declared above average at the box office. Premiere. Since "F.A.L.T.U" was the surprise hit of the year, it premiered on the Asian channel MAX on 12 June 2013 to day 09:30 AM.
1058545	Conan the Destroyer is a 1984 American sword and sorcery/adventure film directed by Richard Fleischer, starring Arnold Schwarzenegger and Mako Iwamatsu reprising their roles as Conan and Akiro the wizard, respectively. The cast also includes Grace Jones, Wilt Chamberlain, Tracey Walter and Olivia d'Abo. It is the sequel to "Conan the Barbarian". The film was moderately successful at the box office in the U.S., and very successful internationally, although critical response was not as strong as for the original film. Plot. While praying at an altar with his traveling companion and fellow thief Malak (Tracey Walter), Conan (Arnold Schwarzenegger) is confronted by Queen Taramis (Sarah Douglas) of Shadizar, who tests the pair in combat with several of her guards. She tells him that she has a quest for him, but he initially refuses her. The Queen uses her power to learn his greatest desire, and promises to resurrect Conan's beloved Valeria. Conan agrees to the quest. The Queen states that her niece, Jehnna (Olivia d'Abo), is destined to find a special jewel that can be used to obtain an artifact that will awaken the dreaming god, Dagoth. She tasks Conan and Malak to protect Jehnna on this journey, to be accompanied by the captain of the Queen's guard, Bombaata (Wilt Chamberlain). Secretly, the Queen has instructed Bombaata to kill Conan once the task is complete so they can sacrifice Jehnna to the god. Because the gem is secured in the fortress of a powerful wizard, Conan seeks the help of his friend, the wizard Akiro (Mako). Akiro must first be rescued from a tribe of cannibals who plan to eat him to absorb his magic. Afterwards they meet Zula (Grace Jones), a powerful warrior and bandit, whom Jehnna and Conan rescue from vengeful villagers; considering herself indebted to Conan for saving her life, she offers to join their quest. They reach the wizard Toth-Amon's (Pat Roach) icy castle upon a lake, and make camp for the night. While they sleep, the wizard transforms into a bird of smoke and kidnaps Jehnna. The company assault the castle and Conan is able to defeat the wizard, but in doing so he disrupts the magic binding the castle together forcing their hasty retreat. With the jewel now in hand they travel to the place where the horn is hidden. Jehnna expresses romantic interest in Conan, but he drunkenly rebuffs her and declares his devotion to Valeria.
1065544	Charley Varrick is a 1973 crime film directed by Don Siegel and starring Walter Matthau, Andrew Robinson, Joe Don Baker and John Vernon. The film was based on the novel "The Looters" by John H. Reese. Tom Tully had a small part as a shopkeeper in a wheelchair. This was his last film. Plot. Charley Varrick (Matthau) is a crop-duster and former stunt pilot by trade. The aging trailer-park dweller has clearly not been too successful. Together with three others, including his wife Nadine and edgy Harman Sullivan, a heavily disguised Varrick robs a small bank in Tres Cruces, New Mexico. During the robbery, two policemen and the fourth robber are killed and Nadine is mortally wounded. Varrick and Sullivan find themselves with $765,118 — far more money than they expected. The bank manager, timid Harold Young, reports only $2,000 stolen. Realizing they have stolen the proceeds of a mob money laundering operation, Varrick and Sullivan find themselves in trouble not only with the police but with several shady characters, in particular mob money man Maynard Boyle and an amoral hired killer called Molly. Also being threatened by his partner Sullivan, who wants to spend the money immediately rather than lying low for years until the heat is off, Varrick decides to double-cross him before Sullivan can do the same to him. He makes a plan to flee the country and puts in a rush order for two fake passports with Jewell Everett, a pretty photographer. She promptly betrays Varrick and puts Molly on his trail. The sadistic Molly catches up with Sullivan at the trailer, brutally beating and killing him while attempting to determine Varrick's whereabouts. Boyle, meanwhile, terrifies the mousy bank manager Young with the threat that the mob will suspect the robbery to be an inside job. One of the descriptions of torture that Boyle suggests will befall Young involves a pair of pliers and a blowtorch. Rather than submit to such treatment, Young commits suicide by shooting himself. Varrick flies his plane to Reno, where he surprises and seduces Boyle's secretary, Sybil Fort, who urges Varrick not to trust her boss. Nonetheless, Varrick sets up a meeting with Boyle in a remote automobile wrecking yard back in New Mexico, arriving for it in his crop duster. He greets Boyle so warmly that Molly becomes convinced the men must be partners. Molly angrily runs down Boyle with his car. Molly then proceeds to stalk Varrick, who tries to escape by plane. Molly damages the crop-duster's tail with his car before it can take off. Varrick's crippled plane flips over. Flat on his back in the wreckage, Varrick can do nothing to save himself except tell Molly where the money is hidden. Seemingly in mortal danger, Varrick has actually set a booby trap for Molly, flipping the plane on purpose, a trick he learned back in his barnstorming days. Molly goes to retrieve the hidden money and is blown up. In the remains of the explosion are a number of hundred-dollar bills and Sullivan's body, to be mistaken for that of Varrick, who had earlier switched dental records. Varrick scoops up the remaining money and makes his getaway. Locations. "Charley Varrick" was set in New Mexico, but filmed primarily in two Nevada towns, Dayton and Genoa. The opening bank robbery exterior shots were filmed in Genoa at the old court house. The police chase of Varrick and his gang were filmed nearby at Genoa Lane, and U.S. Route 395. The interior bank scenes were filmed in Minden. The trailer park scenes were shot in Dayton at the trailer park near today's Red Hawk Casino (closed in 2008) and the Carson River, near U.S. Route 50, at the corner of Hart and Louie Streets. The closing plane flight scene was filmed at City Auto Wrecking, located at Rt. 1 Mustang Exit, Sparks, near the defunct but now reopened Mustang Ranch brothel, ten miles east of Reno. The Chinese restaurant scene was filmed at 538 S. Virginia St., Reno, Nevada. Today a Starbucks coffee shop and Ceol Irish Pub are at this location in Reno. The photographer's studio and gun store scenes were filmed in Gardnerville. Director Don Siegel filmed several of his movies in northern Nevada, including "Charley Varrick", "The Shootist" and "Jinxed!" The little boy who tells the sheriff he's got blood on his head and asks if he's gonna die is played by Walter Matthau's real life son, Charles, and the apartment building where Varrick meets Miss Fort is the Arlington Towers in Reno. Awards. British Academy of Film and Television Arts Awards — Best Actor, 1974, Walter Matthau Award nominations. British Academy of Film and Television Arts Awards — Best Editing, 1974, Frank Morriss DVD release. The film was released as a Region 1 DVD on December 28, 2004. It has no extras. On February 14, 2008 the film was released as a Region 2 DVD in Europe in Widescreen and some Special Features.Both Versions are uncut. Production notes. Director Don Siegel wanted Varrick's company's motto, "Last of the Independents," to be the title of the film. The motto appears on the movie poster and briefly as a subtitle in the film trailer.
584314	June R is a 2006 Tamil drama film directed by Revathy Varmha. The film stars Jyothika in the title role with Kushboo, Saritha and Biju Menon in supporting roles. The film's soundtrack are composed by Malayalam composer Sharreth, while Madhu Ambat was the cinematographer. The film opened in February 2006 and received good reviews from critics and good at the box office. Plot. June R (Jyotika), an orphan, was born in the month of June, for which she was named. She works in an advertising agency. One day she happens to come across a middle-aged woman (Saritha) hurt badly in an accident. She admits her in hospital and tells the doctor that it is her mother Rajalakshmi in order to save her life from the regular hierarchical rules of the hospital. Coming to Rajalakshmi (named by June) who happens to be Mrs. Raniammal, a widowed woman who strives to bring up her only son Arun (Biju menon) whereas Arun smitten by his wife's words for the wealth and money of his mother, plans to send her away from his home to an orphanage in order to settle with his wife in New York City. Deeply hurt, Raniammal finds solace in June's company, who also longs for a motherly love since childhood. June decides to take Rajalakshmi to her house and calls her mom. Both together (June and Rajalakshmi) cherish life who once were starved for love. later her son comes back again to take his mother back, Rajalakshmi realising her sons evil thoughts refuses to get back to him. later on Rajalakshmi's refusal he visits June and quarrels with her to give back his mother, June baffles with his sudden love for his mother. this implies an emotional entangle between the both meanwhile Rajalakshmi falls sick and June on seeing Raniammal's pathetic condition brings her brother (Ravikumar) whom she wanted to meet before she dies. On visiting Rajalakshmi's home town she unveils the mystery behind his sudden love for his mother. now entrant Amudha (Kushboo) a noted and leading lawyer aids June to get back her new mother legally ,prostrating Arun's wicked thoughts in the law of court . at last the judgement favours June though June succeeds in her mission of getting back her mother, but fate has some storm in its store , June finds Rajalakshmi dead when she comes back. Now comes Raja (actor Suriya who plays a cameo ), a rich client of June's advertising agency falls in love with her who consoles her on this uncompensable loss and takes her along with him, just the way her mother Rajalakshmi wished. Production. Revathy Varma had published "June R" as a novelette in an English periodical called Woman's Era and wanted to make the story into a feature film. She approached a Hindi film producer in Mumbai and decided that Jaya Bachchan, Tabu and Kareena Kapoor would play the lead roles in the film. Actress Jyothika suggested that the film should be made in Tamil first and production began and Kushboo was roped in for a key role. Saritha for another senior role in the film. Biju Menon, a Malayalam actor, was also picked to play a leading role in the film. The team also hoped to release the film in Telugu simultaneously. Release. The film was initially scheduled for release in September 2005 but was later pushed back to release in the Diwali season of 2005 so the film could be promoted more heavily. However the film failed to release then and no distributors were interested in picking up the film as it had no commercial value. Thus in January 2006, the team shot scenes featuring actor Suriya with some minor changes to the script to build up the film's appeal. The film was caught up when Kushboo's films were temporarily banned after her comments on pre-marital sex angered Indian political parties. The film gained poor reviews with Indiaglitz.com citing "that the debutant director Revathy Verma has tried to flesh out the emotions of a girl longing for a motherly touch. But has ended up giving a movie with many loose-ends." Another critic cited that "June R is a worst movie of late. It is a good example of how not to make a move. It is easy to pinpoint where the problem lies. It is in all spheres: screenplay, storyline, flow, and script." Sify.com noted that the film "turned out to be a damp squib" adding that "first and foremost the debutant director has no clue about filmmaking and the whole affair looks amateurish and shoddy." Revathy Varmha began remaking the film in Hindi as "Aap Ke Liye Hum" in 2009 The film would star Jaya Bachchan, Ayesha Takia Azmi, Ranvir Shorey and Raveena Tandon. R. Madhavan was also signed up for a large sum for the film but left the project after a single schedule. The film remains stuck and unreleased. Soundtrack. The soundtrack of the film was composed by Sharreth, being his second release in Tamil after the dubbed Malayalam film, "Magic Magic 3D" (2003). The audio of "June R" was launched at Green Park Hotel in Chennai on 10 September 2005 by Balamurali Krishna, with singer Usha Uthup also in attendance.
1101960	Nicolas Bourbaki is the collective pseudonym under which a group of (mainly French) 20th-century mathematicians wrote a series of books presenting an exposition of modern advanced mathematics, beginning in 1935. With the goal of founding all of mathematics on set theory, the group strove for rigour and generality. Their work led to the discovery of several concepts and terminologies still discussed. While there is no Nicolas Bourbaki, the Bourbaki group, officially known as the "Association des collaborateurs de Nicolas Bourbaki" (Association of Collaborators of Nicolas Bourbaki), has an office at the École Normale Supérieure in Paris. Books by Bourbaki. Bourbaki's main work is the "Elements of Mathematics (Éléments de mathématique)" series. This series aims to be a completely self-contained treatment of the core areas of modern mathematics. Assuming no special knowledge of mathematics, it tries to take up mathematics from the very beginning, proceed axiomatically and give complete proofs. and later The book "Variétés différentielles et analytiques" was a "fascicule de résultats", that is, a summary of results, on the theory of manifolds, rather than a worked-out exposition. A final volume IX on spectral theory ("Théories spectrales") from 1983 marked the presumed end of the publishing project; but a further commutative algebra fascicle was produced in 1998 and the eighth chapter of Algèbre was published in 2012. Besides the "Éléments de mathématique" series, lectures from the Séminaire Bourbaki also have been periodically published in book form since 1948. Influence on mathematics in general. Notations introduced by Bourbaki include the symbol formula_1 for the empty set and a dangerous bend symbol, and the terms "injective", "surjective", and "bijective". The emphasis on rigour may be seen as a reaction to the work of Henri Poincaré, who stressed the importance of free-flowing mathematical intuition, at a cost of completeness in presentation. The impact of Bourbaki's work initially was great on many active research mathematicians world-wide. It provoked some hostility, too, mostly on the side of classical analysts; they approved of rigour but not of high abstraction. Around 1950, also, some parts of geometry were still not fully axiomatic — in less prominent developments, one way or another, these were brought into line with the new foundational standards, or quietly dropped. This undoubtedly led to a gulf with the way theoretical physics is practiced. Bourbaki's direct influence has decreased over time. This is partly because certain concepts which are now important, such as the machinery of category theory, are not covered in the treatise. The completely uniform and essentially linear referential structure of the books became difficult to apply to areas closer to current research than the already mature ones treated in the published books, and thus publishing activity diminished significantly from the 1970s. It also mattered that, while especially algebraic structures can be naturally defined in Bourbaki's terms, there are areas where the Bourbaki approach was less straightforward to apply. On the other hand, the approach and rigour advocated by Bourbaki have permeated the current mathematical practices to such extent that the task undertaken was completed. This is particularly true for the less applied parts of mathematics. The Bourbaki seminar series founded in post-WWII Paris continues. It is an important source of survey articles, written in a prescribed, careful style. The idea is that the presentation should be on the level of specialists, but should be tailored to an audience which is "not" specialized in the particular field. The group. Accounts of the early days vary, but original documents have now come to light. The founding members were all connected to the École Normale Supérieure in Paris and included Henri Cartan, Claude Chevalley, Jean Coulomb, Jean Delsarte, Jean Dieudonné, Charles Ehresmann, René de Possel, Szolem Mandelbrojt and André Weil. There was a preliminary meeting, towards the end of 1934. Jean Leray and Paul Dubreil were present at the preliminary meeting but dropped out before the group actually formed. Other notable participants in later days were Hyman Bass, Laurent Schwartz, Jean-Pierre Serre, Alexander Grothendieck, Jean-Louis Koszul, Samuel Eilenberg, Serge Lang and Roger Godement. The original goal of the group had been to compile an improved mathematical analysis text; it was soon decided that a more comprehensive treatment of all of mathematics was necessary. There was no official status of membership, and at the time the group was quite secretive and also fond of supplying disinformation. Regular meetings were scheduled (totalling about 4 weeks a year), during which the group would discuss vigorously every proposed line of every book. Members had to resign by age 50. The atmosphere in the group can be illustrated by an anecdote told by Laurent Schwartz. Dieudonné regularly and spectacularly threatened to resign unless topics were treated in their logical order, and after a while others played on this for a joke. Godement's wife wanted to see Dieudonné announcing his resignation, and so on one occasion while she was there Schwartz deliberately brought up again the question of permuting the order in which measure theory and topological vector spaces were to be handled, to precipitate a guaranteed crisis. The name "Bourbaki" refers to a French general Charles Denis Bourbaki; it was adopted by the group as a reference to a student anecdote about a hoax mathematical lecture, and also possibly to a statue. It was certainly a reference to Greek mathematics, Bourbaki being of Greek extraction. It is a valid reading to take the name as implying a transplantation of the tradition of Euclid to a France of the 1930s, with soured expectations. Appraisal of the Bourbaki perspective. The underlying drive, in Weil and Chevalley at least, was the perceived need for French mathematics to absorb the best ideas of the Göttingen school, particularly Hilbert and the modern algebra school of Emmy Noether, Artin and van der Waerden. It is fairly clear that the Bourbaki point of view, while "encyclopedic", was never intended as "neutral". Quite the opposite: it was more a question of trying to make a consistent whole out of some enthusiasms, for example for Hilbert's legacy, with emphasis on formalism and axiomatics. But always through a transforming process of reception and selection — their ability to sustain this collective, critical approach has been described as "something unusual". The following is a list of some of the criticisms commonly made of the Bourbaki approach. Pierre Cartier, a Bourbaki member 1955–1983, commented explicitly on several of these points: "...essentially no analysis beyond the foundations: nothing about partial differential equations, nothing about probability. There is also nothing about combinatorics, nothing about algebraic topology, nothing about concrete geometry. And Bourbaki never seriously considered logic. Dieudonné himself was very vocal against logic. Anything connected with mathematical physics is totally absent from Bourbaki's text. Furthermore, Bourbaki make no use of pictures in their presentation. Pierre Cartier, in the article cited above, is quoted as later saying "The Bourbaki were Puritans, and Puritans are strongly opposed to pictorial representations of truths of their faith." In general, Bourbaki has been criticized for reducing geometry as a whole to abstract algebra and soft analysis. Dieudonné as speaker for Bourbaki. Public discussion of, and justification for, Bourbaki's thoughts has in general been through Jean Dieudonné (who initially was the 'scribe' of the group) writing under his own name. In a survey of "le choix bourbachique" written in 1977, he did not shy away from a hierarchical development of the 'important' mathematics of the time. He also wrote extensively under his own name: nine volumes on analysis, perhaps in belated fulfillment of the original project or pretext; and also on other topics mostly connected with algebraic geometry. While Dieudonné could reasonably speak on Bourbaki's encyclopedic tendency and tradition, it may be doubted—after innumerable frank "tais-toi, Dieudonné!" ("Hush, Dieudonné!") remarks at the meetings—whether all others agreed with him about mathematical writing and research. In particular Serre has often championed greater attention to problem-solving, within number theory especially, not an area treated in the main Bourbaki texts. Dieudonné stated the view that most workers in mathematics were doing ground-clearing work, in order that a future Riemann could find the way ahead intuitively open. He pointed to the way the axiomatic method can be used as a tool for problem-solving, for example by Alexander Grothendieck. Others found him too close to Grothendieck to be an unbiased observer. Comments in Pál Turán's 1970 speech on the award of a Fields Medal to Alan Baker about theory-building and problem-solving were a reply from the traditionalist camp at the next opportunity, Grothendieck having received the previous Fields Medal "in absentia" in 1966. Bourbaki's influence on mathematics education. While several of Bourbaki's books have become standard references in their fields, some have felt that the austere presentation makes them unsuitable as textbooks. The books' influence may have been at its strongest when few other graduate-level texts in current pure mathematics were available, between 1950 and 1960. In the longer term, the manifesto of Bourbaki has had a definite and deep influence. In secondary education the new math movement corresponded to teachers influenced by Bourbaki. In France the change was secured by the Lichnerowicz Commission. The influence on graduate education in pure mathematics is perhaps most noticeable in the treatment now current of Lie groups and Lie algebras. Dieudonné at one point said 'one can do nothing serious without them', for which he was reproached; but the change in Lie theory to its everyday usage owes much to the type of exposition Bourbaki championed. Beforehand Jacques Hadamard despaired of ever getting a clear idea of it.
1048870	The Devil and Max Devlin is a 1981 film produced by Walt Disney Productions, directed by Steven Hilliard Stern and starring Elliott Gould, Bill Cosby and Susan Anspach. Gould praised this film in interviews as the finest he ever did (along with the other Disney film "The Last Flight of Noah's Ark").
65071	Imre Lakatos ( ; November 9, 1922 – February 2, 1974) was a Hungarian philosopher of mathematics and science, known for his thesis of the fallibility of mathematics and its 'methodology of proofs and refutations' in its pre-axiomatic stages of development, and also for introducing the concept of the 'research programme' in his methodology of scientific research programmes. Life. Lakatos was born Imre (Avrum) Lipschitz to a Jewish family in Debrecen, Hungary in 1922. He received a degree in mathematics, physics, and philosophy from the University of Debrecen in 1944. He avoided Nazi persecution of Jews by changing his name to Imre Molnár. His mother and grandmother died in Auschwitz. He became an active communist during the Second World War. He changed his last name once again to "Lakatos" (Locksmith) in honor of Géza Lakatos. After the war, from 1947 he worked as a senior official in the Hungarian ministry of education. He also continued his education with a PhD at Debrecen University awarded in 1948, and also attended György Lukács's weekly Wednesday afternoon private seminars. He also studied at the Moscow State University under the supervision of Sofya Yanovskaya in 1949. When he returned, however, he found himself on the losing side of internal arguments within the Hungarian communist party and was imprisoned on charges of revisionism from 1950 to 1953. More of Lakatos' activities in Hungary after World War II have recently become known. After his release, Lakatos returned to academic life, doing mathematical research and translating George Pólya's "How to Solve It" into Hungarian. Still nominally a communist, his political views had shifted markedly and he was involved with at least one dissident student group in the lead-up to the 1956 Hungarian Revolution. After the Soviet Union invaded Hungary in November 1956, Lakatos fled to Vienna, and later reached England. He received a doctorate in philosophy in 1961 from the University of Cambridge. The book "Proofs and Refutations: The Logic of Mathematical Discovery", published after his death, is based on this work. Lakatos never obtained British Citizenship. In 1960 he was appointed to a position in the London School of Economics, where he wrote on the philosophy of mathematics and the philosophy of science. The LSE philosophy of science department at that time included Karl Popper, Joseph Agassi and John Watkins. It was Agassi who first introduced Lakatos to Popper under the rubric of his applying a fallibilist methodology of conjectures and refutations to mathematics in his Cambridge PhD thesis. With co-editor Alan Musgrave, he edited the often cited "Criticism and the Growth of Knowledge", the "Proceedings" of the International Colloquium in the Philosophy of Science, London, 1965. Published in 1970, the 1965 Colloquium included well-known speakers delivering papers in response to Thomas Kuhn's ""The Structure of Scientific Revolutions"". Lakatos remained at the London School of Economics until his sudden death in 1974 of a heart attack, aged just 51. The Lakatos Award was set up by the school in his memory. In January 1971 he became editor of the internationally prestigious "British Journal for the Philosophy of Science" until his death in 1974, after which it was then edited jointly for many years by his LSE colleagues John W. N. Watkins and John Worrall, Lakatos's ex-research assistant. His last LSE lectures in scientific method in Lent Term 1973 along with parts of his correspondence with his friend and critic Paul Feyerabend have been published in "For and Against Method" (ISBN 0-226-46774-0). Lakatos and his colleague Spiro Latsis organised an international conference devoted entirely to historical case studies in Lakatos's methodology of research programmes in physical sciences and economics, to be held in Greece in 1974, and which still went ahead following Lakatos's death in February 1974. These case studies in such as Einstein's relativity programme, Fresnel's wave theory of light and neoclassical economics, were published by Cambridge University Press in two separate volumes in 1976, one devoted to physical sciences and Lakatos's general programme for rewriting the history of science, with a concluding critique by his great friend Paul Feyerabend, and the other devoted to economics. Proofs and refutations, mathematics. Lakatos' philosophy of mathematics was inspired by both Hegel's and Marx' dialectic, by Karl Popper's theory of knowledge, and by the work of mathematician George Polya. The 1976 book "Proofs and Refutations" is based on the first three chapters of his four chapter 1961 doctoral thesis "Essays in the logic of mathematical discovery". But its first chapter is Lakatos's own revision of its chapter 1 that was first published as "Proofs and Refutations" in four parts in 1963-4 in "The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science". It is largely taken up by a fictional dialogue set in a mathematics class. The students are attempting to prove the formula for the Euler characteristic in algebraic topology, which is a theorem about the properties of polyhedra, namely that for all polyhedra the number of their (V)ertices minus the number of their (E)dges plus the number of their (F)aces is 2:  (V – E + F = 2). The dialogue is meant to represent the actual series of attempted proofs which mathematicians historically offered for the conjecture, only to be repeatedly refuted by counterexamples. Often the students paraphrase famous mathematicians such as Cauchy, as noted in Lakatos's extensive footnotes. What Lakatos tried to establish was that no theorem of informal mathematics is final or perfect. This means that we should not think that a theorem is ultimately true, only that no counterexample has yet been found. Once a counterexample, i.e. an entity contradicting/not explained by the theorem is found, we adjust the theorem, possibly extending the domain of its validity. This is a continuous way our knowledge accumulates, through the logic and process of proofs and refutations. (If axioms are given for a branch of mathematics, however, Lakatos claimed that proofs from those axioms were tautological, i.e. logically true.) Lakatos proposed an account of mathematical knowledge based on the idea of heuristics. In "Proofs and Refutations" the concept of 'heuristic' was not well developed, although Lakatos gave several basic rules for finding proofs and counterexamples to conjectures. He thought that mathematical 'thought experiments' are a valid way to discover mathematical conjectures and proofs, and sometimes called his philosophy 'quasi-empiricism'. However, he also conceived of the mathematical community as carrying on a kind of dialectic to decide which mathematical proofs are valid and which are not. Therefore he fundamentally disagreed with the 'formalist' conception of proof which prevailed in Frege's and Russell's logicism, which defines proof simply in terms of "formal" validity. On its first publication as a paper in "The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science" in 1963-4, "Proofs and Refutations" became highly influential on new work in the philosophy of mathematics, although few agreed with Lakatos' strong disapproval of formal proof. Before his death he had been planning to return to the philosophy of mathematics and apply his theory of research programmes to it. Lakatos, Worrall and Zahar use Poincaré (1893) to answer one of the major problems perceived by critics, namely that the pattern of mathematical research depicted in "Proofs and Refutations" does not faithfully represent most of the actual activity of contemporary mathematicians. Cauchy and uniform convergence. In a 1966 text published as (Lakatos 1978), Lakatos re-examines the history of the calculus, with special regard to Augustin-Louis Cauchy and the concept of uniform convergence, in the light of non-standard analysis. Lakatos is concerned that historians of mathematics should not judge the evolution of mathematics in terms of currently fashionable theories. As an illustration, he examines Cauchy's proof that the sum of a series of continuous functions is itself continuous. Lakatos is critical of those who would see Cauchy's proof, with its failure to make explicit a suitable convergence hypothesis, merely as an inadequate approach to Weierstrassian analysis. Lakatos sees in such an approach a failure to realize that Cauchy's concept of the continuum differed from currently dominant views. Research programmes. Lakatos's second major contribution to the philosophy of science was his model of the 'research programme', which he formulated in an attempt to resolve the perceived conflict between Popper's falsificationism and the revolutionary structure of science described by Kuhn. Popper's standard of falsificationism was widely taken to imply that a theory should be abandoned as soon as any evidence appears to challenge it, while Kuhn's descriptions of scientific activity were taken to imply that science was most constructive when it upheld a system of popular, or 'normal', theories, despite anomalies. Lakatos' model of the research programme aims to combine Popper's adherence to empirical validity with Kuhn's appreciation for conventional consistency. A Lakatosian research programme is based on a hard core of theoretical assumptions that cannot be abandoned or altered without abandoning the programme altogether. More modest and specific theories that are formulated in order to explain evidence that threatens the 'hard core' are termed auxiliary hypotheses. Auxiliary hypotheses are considered expendable by the adherents of the research programme - they may be altered or abandoned as empirical discoveries require in order to 'protect' the 'hard core'. Whereas Popper was generally read as hostile toward such "ad hoc" theoretical amendments, Lakatos argued that they can be "progressive", i.e. productive, when they enhance the programme's explanatory and/or predictive power, and that they are at least permissible until some better system of theories is devised and the research programme is replaced entirely. The difference between a "progressive" and a "degenerative" research programme lies, for Lakatos, in whether the recent changes to its auxiliary hypotheses have achieved this greater explanatory/predictive power or whether they have been made simply out of the necessity of offering some response in the face of new and troublesome evidence. A degenerative research programme indicates that a new and more progressive system of theories should be sought to replace the currently prevailing one, but until such a system of theories can be conceived of and agreed upon, abandonment of the current one would only further weaken our explanatory power and was therefore unacceptable for Lakatos. Lakatos's primary example of a research programme that had been successful in its time and then progressively replaced is that founded by Isaac Newton, with his three laws of motion forming the 'hard core'. The Lakatosian research programme deliberately provides a framework within which research can be conducted on the basis of 'first principles' (the 'hard core') which are shared by those involved in the research programme and accepted for the purpose of that research without further proof or debate. In this regard, it is similar to Kuhn's notion of a paradigm. Lakatos sought to replace Kuhn's paradigm, guided by an irrational 'psychology of discovery', with a research programme no less coherent or consistent yet guided by Popper's objectively valid logic of discovery. Lakatos was following Pierre Duhem's idea that one can always protect a cherished theory (or part of one) from hostile evidence by redirecting the criticism toward other theories or parts thereof. (See "Confirmation holism" and Duhem-Quine thesis). This difficulty with falsificationism had been acknowledged by Popper. Popper's theory, Falsificationism, proposed that scientists put forward theories and that nature 'shouts NO' in the form of an inconsistent observation. According to Popper, it is irrational for scientists to maintain their theories in the face of Nature's rejection, as Kuhn had described them doing. For Lakatos, however, ""It is not that we propose a theory and Nature may shout NO; rather, we propose a maze of theories, and nature may shout INCONSISTENT"". The continued adherence to a programme's 'hard core', augmented with adaptable auxiliary hypotheses, reflects Lakatos's less strict standard of falsificationism. Lakatos saw himself as merely extending Popper's ideas, which changed over time and were interpreted by many in conflicting ways. He contrasted "Popper", the "naive falsificationist" who demanded unconditional rejection of any theory in the face of any anomaly (an interpretation Lakatos saw as erroneous but that he nevertheless referred to often); "Popper1", the more nuanced and conservatively interpreted philosopher; and "Popper2", the "sophisticated methodological falsificationist" that Lakatos claims is the logical extension of the correctly interpreted ideas of "Popper1" (and who is therefore essentially Lakatos himself). It is, therefore, very difficult to determine which ideas and arguments concerning the research programme should be credited to whom. While Lakatos dubbed his theory "sophisticated methodological falsificationism", it is not "methodological" in the strict sense of asserting universal methodological rules by which all scientific research must abide. Rather, it is methodological only in that theories are only abandoned according to a methodical progression from worse theories to better theories - a stipulation overlooked by what Lakatos terms "dogmatic falsificationism". Methodological assertions in the strict sense, pertaining to which methods are valid and which are invalid, are, themselves, contained within the research programmes that choose to adhere to them, and should be judged according to whether the research programmes that adhere to them prove progressive or degenerative. Lakatos divided these 'methodological rules' within a research programme into its 'negative heuristics', IE what research methods and approaches to avoid, and its 'positive heuristics', IE what research methods and approaches to prefer. Lakatos claimed that not all changes of the auxiliary hypotheses of a research programme (which he calls 'problem shifts') are equally productive or acceptable. He took the view that these 'problem shifts' should be evaluated not just by their ability to defend the 'hard core' by explaining apparent anomalies, but also by their ability to produce new facts, in the form of predictions or additional explanations. Adjustments that accomplish nothing more than the maintenance of the 'hard core' mark the research programme as degenerative. Lakatos' model provides for the possibility of a research programme that is not only continued in the presence of troublesome anomalies but that remains progressive despite them. For Lakatos, it is essentially necessary to continue on with a theory that we basically know cannot be completely true, and it is even possible to make scientific progress in doing so, as long as we remain receptive to a better research programme that may eventually be conceived of. In this sense, it is, for Lakatos, an acknowledged misnomer to refer to 'falsification' or 'refutation', when it is not the truth or falsity of a theory that is solely determining whether we consider it 'falsified', but also the availability of a "less false" theory. A theory cannot be rightfully 'falsified', according to Lakatos, until it is superseded by a better (i.e. more progressive) research programme. This is what he says is happening in the historical periods Kuhn describes as revolutions and what makes them rational as opposed to mere leaps of faith or periods of deranged social psychology, as Kuhn argued. Pseudoscience. According to the demarcation criterion of pseudoscience originally proposed by Lakatos, a theory is pseudoscientific if it fails to make any novel predictions of previously unknown phenomena, in contrast with scientific theories, which predict novel fact(s). Progressive scientific theories are those which have their novel facts confirmed and degenerate scientific theories are those whose predictions of novel facts are refuted. As he put it: "A given fact is explained scientifically only if a new fact is predicted with it...The idea of growth and the concept of empirical character are soldered into one." See pages 34–5 of "The Methodology of Scientific Research Programmes", 1978. Lakatos's own key examples of pseudoscience were Ptolemaic astronomy, Immanuel Velikovsky's planetary cosmogony, Freudian psychoanalysis, 20th century "Soviet" Marxism, Lysenko's biology, Niels Bohr's Quantum Mechanics post-1924, astrology, psychiatry, sociology, neoclassical economics, and Darwin's theory. Darwin's theory. In his 1973 LSE Scientific Method Lecture 1 he also claimed that "nobody to date has yet found a demarcation criterion according to which Darwin can be described as scientific". Almost 20 years after Lakatos's 1973 'challenge' on the scientificity of Darwin, in her 1991 "The Ant and the Peacock" (pp31–2), LSE lecturer and ex-colleague of Lakatos, Helena Cronin, attempted to establish that Darwinian theory was empirically scientific in respect of at least being supported by evidence of likeness in the diversity of life forms in the world, allegedly explained by descent with modification. She concluded that "our usual idea of corroboration as requiring the successful prediction of novel facts...Darwinian theory was not strong on temporally novel predictions". She was equivocal about whether it did or did not make any novel predictions, only saying " "For the most part" this evidence was already well known, thoroughly documented by pre-Darwinian natural history.added". Cronin did not state what other part of the evidence was not already well known, but did then assert that it was scientific on the weaker Zahar criterion of providing independent novel explanation of old already well known facts. However, she failed to demonstrate that it provided any confirmed nomological-deductive explanation of any old facts of likeness within evolutionary diversity, making an assertion that it did so, without proof. The Milton Friedman neoclassical economics case study. In August 1972, a case study of the methodology of neoclassical economics by Lakatos's London School of Economics colleague Spiro Latsis published in "The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science" found Milton Friedman's methodology to be 'pseudo-scientific' in terms of Lakatos's evaluative philosophy of science, according to which the demarcation between scientific and pseudo-scientific theories consists of their at least predicting testable empirical novel facts or not. Latsis claimed that Friedman's instrumentalist methodology of neoclassical economics had never predicted any novel facts. In defense, Friedman wrote a three-page letter to Latsis in December 1972, counter-claiming that the neoclassical monopoly competition model had in fact shown empirical progress by predicting phenomena not previously observed that were also subsequently confirmed by empirical evidence. The example he gave was a prediction of Chamberlain's monopolistic competition model that "the standard explanation for the Standard Oil monopoly was wrong", which he said had been theoretically predicted by Aaron Director, his brother-in-law, and empirically confirmed by Magee. Lakatos invited Friedman to submit a discussion note based on his December 1972 letter to Latsis for publication in a symposium on the issue of the scientific status or not of neoclassical economics, but Friedman never took up the invitation. In 1996 Elizabeth Granitz and Benjamin Klein uncovered how Standard Oil used its dominant position in refining to sell refined oil at a monopoly price, and purchase crude at a monopoly price. [http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/725768?uid=3739560&uid=2&uid=4&uid=3739256&sid=21102605694677] McGee's revisionist analysis has been heavily criticized, for reasons that demonstrate Lakatos' critique was accurate.
585102	Shankar Dada Zindabad (translation: "Long Live Shankar Dada") is an 2007 Telugu film which is a remake of the 2006 Hindi blockbuster "Lage Raho Munnabhai". Rajkumar Hirani, the director and co-screenwriter of the Munna Bhai series, is one of the screenwriters for this film (along with the Paruchuri Brothers). In addition, Dilip Prabhavalkar reprised his role as Mahatma Gandhi. It is the sequel to the 2004 film, "Shankar Dada MBBS". The film directed by Prabhu Deva, stars Chiranjeevi as Shankar Dada, Srikanth as A.T.M (Any Time Murder), Sayaji Shinde, Karishma Kotak, Sadha and Raja . The music is scored by Devi Sri Prasad. The movie, released on 27 July 2007 opened to very mediocre reviews. Plot. Shankar Dada (Chiranjeevi) is a local dada and ATM (Any Time Murder) (Srikanth) is like his brother. Shankar is in love with Jahnavi (Karishma Kotak) who works at a radio station. She also owns the second innings house. The only problem is that she does not know that Shankar is a dada and believes that he is a professor. When Rajalingam (Sayaji Shinde) takes the second innings house Jahnavi, Shankar and the residents of the second innings decide to camp in front of his house. What happens when Jahnavi finds out who Shankar really is? Reception. Even though the movie opened to packed houses, it later on turned out to be only an average grosser. The movie did not go down well with the audience, as well as the critics.
981169	Martin Wilhelm Kutta (November 3, 1867 – December 25, 1944) was a German mathematician. Kutta was born in Pitschen, Upper Silesia (today Byczyna, Poland). He attended the University of Breslau from 1885 to 1890, and continued his studies in Munich until 1894, where he became the assistant of Walther Franz Anton von Dyck. From 1898, he spent a year at the University of Cambridge. He was professor at the RWTH Aachen from 1900 to 1912. Kutta became professor at the University of Stuttgart in 1912, where he stayed until his retirement in 1935. In 1901, he co-developed the Runge-Kutta method, used to solve ordinary differential equations numerically. He is also remembered for the Zhukovsky-Kutta aerofoil, the Kutta-Zhukovsky theorem and the Kutta condition in aerodynamics.
520216	Sukob (titled The Wedding Curse internationally) is a 2006 Filipino horror film starring Kris Aquino and Claudine Barretto. The movie was directed by Chito S. Roño who previously worked with Aquino in the 2004 hit horror film Feng Shui. "Sukob" is considered as the highest-grossing Filipino film of all-time earning PHP 186 million until in 2009 when it was surpassed by You Changed My Life in box office. The film's premise is based on a Filipino superstition in which one should not get married in the same year an immediate relative dies or is married or no siblings should be married within a year. Plot. Overseas Filipino Worker Sandy (Kris Aquino) return to the Philippines with Dale (Wendell Ramos) from Dubai, United Arab Emirates in preparation for their wedding. After returning to her home, Sandy learns from a caretaker of her neighbor's house that Helen, Sandy's childhood friend, had died along with her family years ago. She tried to convince her mother, Tessie (Boots Anson-Roa) about what happened to Helen. A short time after the death of Helen's father Dr. Quisumbing, Helen plans her wedding but is advised that she must postpone the wedding because her marriage will be cursed which one should not marry within the same year when an immediate family member passed away. Helen didn't heed the warning and resumes the wedding. A few weeks after the wedding, Helen's husband dies in a plane crash. As Helen goes to the crash site, she dies in a bus accident. A few weeks later, Helen's mother suddenly disappears inside her house. After several years, their house has been abandoned after their deaths and no other tenants had sold it. Meanwhile in Bibiclat, Aliaga, Diana (Claudine Barretto) and Brian (Bernard Palanca) celebrates their marriage when they were interrupted along with the other sponsors by a sound of a funeral toll from the belfry of the church. After they resume the wedding, Diana saw the glimpse of a mysterious flower girl watching her during the reception. The next day, Sandy and Dale proceeds with their wedding. During the ceremony, Sandy became bewildered and her nose began to bleed. While Sandy resume her rites with Dale, she saw the ghostly flower girl in front of her. Meanwhile, Diana witness Brian accidentally fell off the roof of their house. She, Erning (Jhong Hilario) and the other builders take him to the local hospital but dies from his defenestration. At the morgue while Diana was mourning of Brian's loss, the flower girl suddenly appears before Brian's mother Belen (Raquel Villavicencio), Diana's aunt Lagring, Erning and Lagring's daughter Grace (Glaiza de Castro) arrive. The flower girl had vanish but Brian's carcass suddenly disappears and left Diana's wedding veil, which she tried to find it earlier. After their reception, Sandy and Dale witness the van of Sandy's friends Betsy and Edith had crash down the cliff. The guests couldn't find their bodies and found Sandy's wedding veil inside the van. Joya (Maja Salvador), the subconscious daughter of Dale's cousin Paola (Maurene Mauricio), was present at the accident and also saw the flower girl at the reception earlier. She recalls to Sandy in her vision about what happened to Helen's wedding. Joya believes that Helen's wedding started this happening. After Joya left, the police give the veil to Sandy, who was anxious of how it got here after it was packed at the box along with the other wedding customs from the accident. After returning to her home, Diana follows her husband's ghost into the forest as Lagring and Grace goes after her. Diana stops at the forest and tried to find him but finds Brian's writing on a tree, seeking for his distress before Grace arrive. They suddenly saw the flower girl when Lagring is rammed by a speeding bus, leaving Diana's bridal cord from the accident.
55682	William Whiston (9 December 1667 – 22 August 1752) was an English theologian, historian, and mathematician, a leading figure in the popularisation of the ideas of Isaac Newton. He is now probably best known for his translation of the "Antiquities of the Jews" and other works by Josephus, his "A New Theory of the Earth", and his Arianism.
1044697	The Legend of Hell House is a 1973 British horror film directed by John Hough and starring Pamela Franklin, Roddy McDowall, Clive Revill, and Gayle Hunnicutt. The screenplay was written by Richard Matheson based on his own novel "Hell House". Plot. Physicist Lionel Barrett is enlisted by an eccentric millionaire, Mr. Deutsch, to make an investigation into "survival after death" in "the one place where it has yet to be refuted." This is the Belasco House, the "Mount Everest of haunted houses," originally owned by the notorious "Roaring Giant" Emeric Belasco, a six-foot-five perverted millionaire and supposed murderer, who disappeared soon after a massacre at his home. The house is believed to be haunted by numerous spirits, the victims of Belasco's twisted and sadistic desires. Accompanying Barrett are his wife, Edith, as well as two mediums: a mental medium and Spiritualist minister, Florence Tanner, and a physical medium, Ben Fischer, who is also the sole survivor of an earlier investigation. The rationalist Barrett is rudely sceptical of Tanner's Christian faith and spiritual beliefs, asserting that there is nothing but unfocused electromagnetic energy in the house. Barrett brings a machine he has developed, which he believes will rid the house of any paranormal presence or force. Though not a physical medium, Tanner begins to manifest physical phenomena inside the house. When, after a quarrel with Tanner, Barrett is attacked by invisible forces, he suspects that Tanner may be using the house's energy against him. Meanwhile Fischer remains aloof, with his mind closed to the house's influence, and is only there to collect the generous pay offered him to return. Edith Barrett is subjected to erotic visions late at night, which seem linked to her lackluster sex life. She goes downstairs and, in a seeming trance, disrobes and demands sex from Fischer. He instead strikes her, snapping her out of the trance, and she returns to herself, horrified and ashamed. A second incident occurs a day or so later (this time, she is awake but uninhibited due to alcohol); her husband arrives a moment later to witness her advances to Fischer and is resentful, stating to Fischer's face that he believes that Fischer no longer has any psychic ability and that "Mr. Deutsch is wasting one-third of his money!" Stricken by the accusation, Fischer finally drops his psychic shields but is immediately attacked. Tanner, convinced that one of the "surviving personalities" is Belasco's tormented son Daniel and determined to prove it at all costs, finds a human skeleton chained behind a wall. Believing it to be Daniel, Tanner and Fischer bury the body outside the house and Tanner performs a funeral. Despite this, Daniel's personality continues to haunt Tanner; she is scratched violently by a possessed cat and Barrett, seeing the scratches, suspects that Tanner may be mutilating herself. In an attempt to put the supposed Daniel to rest, Tanner gives herself to the entity sexually, and later appears to be possessed herself, temporarily. Barrett's machine is assembled. Tanner attempts to destroy it, thinking that it will harm the spirits in the house, but is prevented. She enters the chapel, the unholy heart of the house, in an attempt to warn the spirits, and is crushed by a falling crucifix. (During her dying moments, she leaves a clue written in her own blood, to the true source of the haunting, which she now knows.) Barrett meanwhile activates his machine, which seems to be effective. Finally activating his psychic abilities as he wanders in the house, Fischer declares the place "completely clear!" in astonishment. However, soon afterwards, violent psychic activity resumes and Barrett is killed. Fischer decides finally to confront the house, with Edith accompanying him despite her misgivings. In the chapel, a confrontation ensues: thanks to clues from the manner in which Tanner, Barrett and the previous investigators had died, Fischer deduces that Belasco is the sole entity haunting the house, masquerading as many. He taunts Belasco, declaring him a "son of a whore", and that he was no "roaring giant", but likely a "funny little dried-up bastard" who fooled everyone about his alleged height. Even as objects begin to hurl themselves at Fischer, he continues to defy the entity, until all becomes still, and a portion of the chapel wall shatters, revealing a hidden door. Going inside, Fischer and Edith discover a lead-lined room, containing Belasco's preserved body seated in a chair. Pulling out a pocketknife, Fischer rips open Belasco's trouser leg, discovering his final secret: a pair of prosthetic legs. Fischer and Edith realise Belasco had had his own stunted legs amputated, and used the prosthetics in a grotesque attempt to appear imposing. Belasco had the lead lined room specially built (Belasco himself possibly suspecting the electromagnetic nature of life after death that Barrett's theories predicted), in the event of his death, to preserve his spirit, afraid of what may happen otherwise. With the room now open, Fischer activates Barrett's machine a second time, and he and Edith leave the house, expressing hopes that Barrett and Tanner will guide Belasco to the afterlife without fear. Cast. Pamela Franklin – Florence Tanner Roddy McDowall – Benjamin Franklin Fischer Clive Revill – Dr. Lionel Barrett Gayle Hunnicutt – Mrs. Ann Barrett Roland Culver – Mr. (Rudolph) Deutsch Peter Bowles – Hanley Michael Gough – Emeric Belasco (uncredited) Production. Production began on 23 October 1972. "The Legend of Hell House" is one of only two productions of James H. Nicholson after his departure from American International Pictures — a company he had run, along with Samuel Z. Arkoff, since 1954. Nicholson died of a brain tumour in December 1972, before the film's release in June 1973. Nicholson's company, Academy Pictures Corporation, also released "Dirty Mary, Crazy Larry" through Twentieth Century Fox in 1974. Matheson's screenplay drastically reduced some of the more extreme elements of the novel, particularly the sexuality. In the original novel, the house was located in Maine, in the United States, and the investigative team is composed of Americans. The external shots of the house were in the movie filmed at Wykehurst Park, East Sussex. Mr. Deutsch's mansion in the opening sequence is Blenheim Palace in Woodstock, Oxfordshire. The interior shot of the long room is the palace's library. The role of Belasco was played by an uncredited Michael Gough, familiar to modern audiences from his role as Alfred Pennyworth in the Tim Burton movie "Batman." His part consisted of a couple of recorded lines and an on-camera appearance as an embalmed corpse seated upright in a chair. The books that Edith Barrett sees standing the cabinet are titled, from left to right; "Obsessive Acts And Religious Practices" by Sigmund Freud; "The Worship of Priapus" by Richard Payne Knight; "The Psychology of Sex" by Havelock Ellis;, "Sin And Sex;" "Conation Volition;" "Sex And Celibacy" by T. Long; "The Anatomy of Abuses" by Philip Stubbs; "Phallic Worship;" and "Autoerotic Phenomena in Adolescence" by K. Menzies. Soundtrack. The film features an electronic music score and sound effects created by Delia Derbyshire and Brian Hodgson recorded at Hodgson's Electrophon studio in London. The soundtrack is currently unavailable commercially. Reception. Critical response to "The Legend of Hell House" varied. In 1976, Roger Ebert wrote in his review of "Burnt Offerings" that ""The Legend of Hell House" brought out the fun in this sort or material very well." In his "2002 Movie & Video Guide", Leonard Maltin gave the film three of four stars and called it "Not the usual ghost story, and certain to curl a few hairs." "Time Out" called the film disappointing but approved of Pamela Franklin's performance. "TV Guide" stated that "While director John Hough does a fine job with the things-that-go-bump-in-the-night aspects of the material, he fails to breathe any life into Richard Matheson's woefully underdeveloped screenplay." See also. "The Haunting," (1963) an earlier film with a similar premise, based on the 1959 novel, "The Haunting of Hill House."
1161846	Georgia Bright Engel (born July 28, 1948) is an American film, television, and stage actress who is best known for her roles as Georgette Franklin Baxter on "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" and Pat MacDougall on "Everybody Loves Raymond". Early life. Engel was born in Washington, D.C., the daughter of Ruth Caroline (née Hendron) and Benjamin Franklin Engel, who was a Coast Guard officer, eventually achieving the rank of Vice Admiral. Engel attended Walter Johnson High School and the Academy of the Washington Ballet from which she graduated. She earned her college degree from the University of Hawaii at Manoa. Her sister, Robin Ruth Engel, was Miss Hawaii, 1967. Career. After college, Engel appeared in musical productions with Washington's American Light Opera Company. She moved to New York City in 1969, appearing off-Broadway in "Lend an Ear", and for a year as Minnie Fay in the Broadway production of "Hello, Dolly!". A 1971 off Broadway production of "The House of Blue Leaves" eventually played in Los Angeles, where Engel was seen by Mary Tyler Moore and her husband, producer Grant Tinker, her soon-to-be employers. Engel appeared as Georgette Franklin Baxter on "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" from 1972 until the show ended in 1977. The role won her two Emmy nominations. After that series ended, she teamed up with former "Mary Tyler Moore Show" co-star Betty White for "The Betty White Show" during its first and only (1977–1978) season. She later co-starred in two short-lived 1980 sitcoms, "Goodtime Girls", as Loretta Smoot, and in "Jennifer Slept Here" featuring Ann Jillian. Engel had a recurring role on "Coach" as Shirley Burleigh and starred as the voice of Love-a-Lot Bear in "The Care Bears Movie" (1985). She played a good witch in a 2007 recurring role of Esmeralda on the now-defunct NBC soap opera "Passions". Engel received consecutive Emmy nominations as outstanding guest actress in a comedy series in 2003, 2004, and 2005 for her role on "Everybody Loves Raymond" as Robert Barone's mother-in-law, Pat MacDougall. While her movie appearances have been sporadic, she made an auspicious film debut in Milos Forman's first English language movie "Taking Off" for which she was nominated for a British Academy Award for best supporting actress. Other film appearances include "The Outside Man", "Signs of Life", "Papa Was a Preacher", "The Sweetest Thing" and the made-for-TV movies "The Day the Women Got Even" and "". She lent her voice to the animated films "Open Season", "Open Season 2", "Dr. Dolittle 2", and "Open Season 3". She returned to her stage roots in 2006, appearing on Broadway in the musical "The Drowsy Chaperone", with Sutton Foster and Edward Hibbert. She created the role of Mrs. Tottendale, which she continued to perform into 2007. In September 2007, she reprised the role in Toronto on the North American tour. She performed the role at the Orpheum Theater in San Francisco, an engagement that ended on Sunday, August 17, 2008. For the summers of 2004, 2005, 2007, 2009, and 2010, she appeared in main roles in various productions at The Muny Theater in Forest Park in St. Louis, Missouri. Most recently, she appeared at the Ogunquit Playhouse in Ogunquit, Maine, as Mrs. Tottendale.
635959	Samuel Stewart "Sam" Witwer (born October 20, 1977) is an American actor and musician. He has portrayed Lt. Crashdown in "Battlestar Galactica", Davis Bloome in "Smallville", and vampire Aidan Waite of the US/Canadian remake of BBC's supernatural drama series "Being Human" on Syfy in the US and Space in Canada. He also voiced main protagonist Galen Marek/Starkiller in the successful multimedia project ' as well as The Son & Darth Maul for Cartoon Network's ' Early life. Witwer grew up in Glenview, Illinois, a small suburb outside of Chicago. He attended Glenbrook South High School, during which time he was involved in drama and theater classes, as well as being the lead singer of a high school band called "Love Plumber". He attended the Juilliard School for a time before moving to Los Angeles. Acting. Witwer claims that his first on-screen credit was that of a Chicago Bulls commercial. He soon found himself in speaking roles on hit television series, such as "ER". Witwer's first major recurring role came in the form of portraying Lt. Crashdown on "Battlestar Galactica", although he has credited much of his current success to his role as Neil Perry on the Showtime series "Dexter". Witwer also appeared as Private Wayne Jessup in the movie "The Mist". From 2008 to 2009, Witwer was cast Season 8 of "Smallville" as Davis Bloome, a charming paramedic who struggles with a darkness within as he is the human camouflage of Doomsday, a character in the comics best known for being the only villain to have killed Superman. While Witwer played Davis, Doomsday was played by stuntman Dario Delacio. Although uncredited, Witwer also played the full-physical form of the show's version of Zod at the end of the Season 8 finale (while the role would later be played in Season 9 by British actor Callum Blue). Witwer's performance in "Smallville" was incredibly well-received, and he has stated that his experience on the show had opened more opportunities for him in the future of acting. Witwer made a cameo appearance in "The Walking Dead" as a dying soldier in the Season 1 episode "Days Gone Bye" which reunited him with director Frank Darabont from "The Mist". Witwer is now currently starring in the North American remake of "Being Human". He plays the role of vampire Aidan Waite. Roleplaying Games. Sam is an avid player of both electronic games and pen-and-paper roleplaying games. This is a hobby that he has actively pursued for years. He has been a frequent guest on the Podcast "Order 66" and has expressed a love for "Star Wars" Roleplaying games "" (by West End Games) to "Star Wars Roleplaying Game" (by Wizards of the Coast). Sam appeared in episode 19 of Geek and Sundry's "Tabletop" playing the Dragon Age roleplaying game. "Star Wars" career. A lifelong "Star Wars" fan, Witwer provided both his voice and likeness for lead character Galen Marek/Starkiller (Darth Vader's secret apprentice) in the 2008 video game ' and 2010 sequel '. He has since received much praise for his contribution to the role. He has also voiced Darth Sidious (Emperor Palpatine) in both games. For ', Witwer had also vocally performed the Son in a three episode story arc (known as the Mortis trilogy) in Season 3 as well as the iconic Sith Lord Darth Maul in the Season 4 finale episodes and in four episodes of Season 5. He also lent his voice for Darth Maul in other projects such as the "Star Wars: Episode I Brisk" commercial as well as the Cartoon Network special '. Sam attended "The Clone Wars" Season 5 Red Carpet Premier in Orlando Florida on August 24, 2012 during Celebration VI along with some of his co-stars Matt Lanter, James Arnold Taylor, Dee Bradley Baker, Tom Kane, Daniel Logan, Stephen Stanton and Ashley Eckstein as well as Supervising Director Dave Filoni. During Celebration VI, he also had his very own panel called Sam Witwer "The Maul Within" on August 26, 2012. In 2013 he attended for the very first time the annual event, Star Wars Weekends at Disney's Hollywood Studios in Orlando, Florida for a three day weekend and fans praised him for his roles in "The Force Unleashed" games and on "The Clone Wars". During the live show "Behind the Force", Sam showed his acting skills by saying one or two lines of the characters that he's played in the "Star Wars" universe. Music. Witwer states that his first love is music and he is consequently the lead singer of his own band: "The Crashtones". They released their first CD, entitled "Colorful of the Stereo" in 2006. Witwer has since assembled a live line-up consisting of professional musicians and others, including Glenn Howerton of "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia" with whom he plays gigs whenever time allows it. Witwer gives regular interviews and is a recurring guest on d20 Radio's Order 66 podcast and Rebel Force Radio. He currently resides in North Hollywood, Los Angeles, California.
1509708	Il Capo dei Capi ("The Boss of the Bosses") is a six-part Italian miniseries which debuted on Canale 5 between October and November 2007. It tells the story of Salvatore Riina, alias Totò u Curtu, a mafioso boss from Corleone, Sicily. Riina is played by Palermo-born actor, Claudio Gioè, and the series was directed by Alexis Sweet and Enzo Monteleone. The film is inspired from the eponymous book-inquiry of Giuseppe D'Avanzo and Attilio Bolzoni. The series was broadcast in the UK in Spring 2013 on the Sky Arts channel, retitled Corleone and split into 12 one-hour episodes. Plot. First episode (1943–1958). 15 January 1993. Cosa nostra 'superboss' Salvatore Riina has been arrested after 23 years, and receives a visit in prison from his childhood friend, Biagio Schiarò, triggering a flashback. In 1943, as a boy of 13 years, Riina is working in the fields around the town of Corleone when he finds a buried bomb. His father decides to take the bomb home, in order to extract the gunpowder from inside in order to sell it to hunters in order to supplement his very low farm labourer's income. The bomb explodes, killing Riina's father and younger brother, and leaving Salvatore as the head of the family to lead a life of misery. Tired of living in poverty, Totò, together with his friends Bernardo Provenzano (aka Binnu), Calogero Bagarella and Biagio Schirò, begins to work for Luciano Liggio, Picciotto of the boss Michele Navarra, who meanwhile orders the kidnapping and murder of Placido Rizzotto. Soon after, Totò gets into a murderous fight with 'Menico, the son of miller to whom Totò sells his grain, and ends up in prison; meanwhile Schiarò's change of heart takes him back to school. Six years later, Totò, an adult by now, is freed. Waiting outside the prison gates are Provenzano, Bagarella and a new member of the gang, Luciano Maino. Riina soon picks up where he left off in Liggio's gang: intent on more power and infamy, the gang murder the capo Michele Navarra and plan to expand towards Palermo. Schirò, meanwhile, has become a police officer and is working with Chief Inspector Angelo Mangano on Liggio and his gang. Totò meets the studious younger sister of Calogero Bargarella, Ninetta, and falls in love. It soon emerges that Ninetta is a close friend of Teresa, who in turn is dating Biagio Schirò. Second episode (1963–1969). The full Corleonese Clan (Luciano Liggio, Totò Riina, Bernardo Provenzano, Calogero Bagarella and Luciano Maino) prepare to go to Palermo for a 'business discussion' with Salvatore La Barbera and Vito Vianvimino. As soon as they arrive, they begin straight away to demand respect: first killing a butcher who would not pay for a load of clandestine meat, then killing an accountant who had paid protection to the wrong family. One evening, while the Corleonesi are in a night club (where Maino meets a girl, Maria Nigro) Salvatore La Barbera is kidnapped and killed by Michele Cavataio. All the other mafiosi in La Barbera's clan flee from Palermo. Back in Corleone, Totò's relationship with Ninetta Bagarella strengthens. Biagio discovers from Teresa that word has it that Riina will be at Ninetta's one evening, and organizes a search. Nevertheless, Totò manages to hide both himself and his friend Calogero, and neither are caught. Totò promises to Ninetta not to enact revenge on Teresa for the betrayal, but she tells him that she had already decided to break all links to her friend, rather to continue her relationship in secret with him. On June 30, 1963, in the Ciaculli quarter of Palermo, a police officer notices a parked Alfa Giulietta. Unaware that the car is packed with explosives, an officer opens the boot which triggers the bomb inside which kills seven people. This leads to many arrests, with many other mafiosi, including the Corleonesi, going into hiding. Maino refuses to do so, preferring to stay in Palermo with his girlfriend. While fleeing from Corleone, Totò and Calogero are stopped by a police patrol. Calogero manages to escape but Totò is arrested; he attempts to provide forged identity documents but these fail when he is recognized by Biagio. A few days later, Biagio tells Teresa (who has just graduated) that Riina has been caught, and that the two can marry without threat. At the same time, an eavesdropping Ninetta (also recently graduated) overhears everything. Schirò goes to the parents of Teresa to ask her hand in marriage and, after an awkward conversation with her father, is given their blessing. Meanwhile Maria, Maino's girlfriend, discovers his hidden life via the newspapers, and convinces him to go to the police. He tells Judge Cesare Terranova everything he knows about the Corleonesi. Shortly after, Luciano Liggio too is arrested by Commissario Mangano and Schirò, discovered hiding in the wardrobe of the ex-girlfriend of Placido Rizzotto. The Bari trial begins, and Maino stands as witness, fingering directly Totò and his companions, and testifying to all of their murders. Despite this concrete proof, Liggio, Riina and the other convicts are released thanks to a lack of evidence - the jury had been threatened. A few days after the trial, Luciano Maino is found, hanging, at his home. Third episode (1969-1978). Biagio and Teresa have married, and have a baby (Antonio) at the beginning of the episode. Simultaneously Riina and his fellow mafiosi - Provenzano, Bagarella and two other men, soldiers of Tano Badalamenti, boss of Cinisi - enter the offices of Michele Cavataio dressed as police officers of the Guardia di Finanza. The aim of the attack is to assassinate Cavataio, who had earlier killed Salvatore La Barbera. One of Badalamenti's henchmen, nervously lets his gun fire, killing two men and triggering a massacre - no longer under cover, they have to murder five others before reaching Cavataio. Following a spree of bullets, Cavataio feings death until Totò and Calogero enter, when he turns and shoots, hitting and killing Bagarella. Enraged, Provenzano responds by beating Cavataio to death with the butt of his gun. In Corleone, Totò informs his own sister, and girlfriend of Calogero, Arcangela, of his friends death. He then calls on his Ninetta, Calogero's sister, calling her away from her teaching job and giving her the news; meanwhile Schirò requests a transfer to Palermo. Needing cash in order to make key investments in Palermo, Riina decides to kidnap the young lad, Antonio Caruso, from the town hall while visiting now mayor Vito Ciancimino. This triggers the disdain of the mafiosi of Palermo, in particular bosses Stefano Bontade and Giuseppe Di Cristina. On May 5, 1971, Riina orders the homicide of District Attorney Pietro Scaglione, and during the ambush Maresciallo Lo Russo is also killed. Totò wishes to flee with Ninetta to Venice, and marry. Having discovered the body of Bagarella, the police decide to search the home of his sister, Arcangela, and find a photo of Ninetta and Totò. Implicated, the police arrest Ninetta. During her trial, Vito Maranza, one of Riina's men, goes to Biagio's house and kidnaps Teresa and Antonio, holding them to ransom until Bagarella is released. Luciano Liggio is arrested in Milan by commissario Mangano, as a consequence Riina becomes the main capo of the Corleonesi Clan, and is chosen by Don Michele Greco as his 'prediletto' (his favourite). Two of Riina's soldati are ordered to kill Giuseppe Di Cristina but fail, killing instead his driver. Shadowing Di Cristina, they discover that he is collaborating with Commissario Boris Giuliano. Meanwhile Totò and Ninetta marry. Some of the mafiosi - Pippo Calderone, Badalamenti and Di Cristina - begin to have problems with Totò, and their interaction becomes cold. At a successive meeting of the Commissione, Riina asks for their lives and is given permission to kill only Cristina, though he also kills Calderone. At the end of the episode, Silvio Albertini, an honest colleague of Schirò, chances upon the hiding place of Riina, his wife and Provenzano. He immediately telephones Biagio from a phone box, and summons him to the location. As soon as he arrives, Schirò heads up to the apartment and finds Silvio's lifeless body on the floor. Suddenly, Riina's two soldati appear and beat Schirò. Riina emerges and warns his old friend to leave his family alone, especially Ninetta, before knocking him out cold. Curiosity. The miniseries has been watched by Salvatore Riina, now that he is in prison, raising some criticism on the coverage of the topic.
585115	Gaayam 2 is a 2010 Telugu film, directed by Praveen Sri, an associate of Ram Gopal Varma.
1071713	Su-ki-da is a 2005 Japanese drama/romance film. The plot centers on two teenagers who deal with tragedy and then have to grow up. It was written and directed by Hiroshi Ishikawa and stars Hidetoshi Nishijima, Hiromi Nagasaku, Eita, and Aoi Miyazaki. Plot. Yosuke is a high school student in Tokyo, Japan. He spends most of his free time sitting outside near a floodgate and playing a short tune on his acoustic guitar - the same few notes every time. He is usually joined by a girl in his class, Yu, who simply sits near him and listens to his music. Yu has a crush on Yosuke but does not tell him. After listening to him play the guitar, she goes home and hums the notes to her older sister. Her older sister used to have a serious boyfriend, but he has died recently, and she is still mourning for him. One day, Yosuke asks Yu about her sister. He is attracted to Yu's sister, and Yu sets up a few meetings between them. He also gets Yu to wear her sister's old school uniform for a day. While talking with Yosuke after school, Yu finally kisses him, but Yosuke just walks away; Yu is left there, crying. Yosuke keeps meeting Yu's sister, but before one meeting, Yu's sister gets hit by a truck while walking over to see him. She goes into a coma. Yu and Yosuke visit her at the hospital, and on their way home, Yu tells Yosuke that she wants to hear his song on the guitar when he finishes it. The two do not see each other again for 17 years. During that time, Yosuke enters the music production business and eventually gives up his guitar playing. He lives alone in an apartment. One day, he sees an intoxicated woman lying in the street and a man standing over her. Yosuke stares at the man, presumably a robber, and the man walks away. Yosuke goes into the studio a few days later and listens as a woman records some music on her guitar. During a break in recording, she looks at him and plays a few notes from the song he made in his school days. He realizes that the woman is Yu. After catching up, the two go back to Yosuke's apartment and drink sake. Eventually, Yosuke asks about Yu's sister and finds out that she is still in a coma. Yu starts to cry, and Yosuke comforts her. They then kiss each other for the second time in their lives. Afterwards, they visit Yu's sister at the hospital, and Yu leaves at the train station. Yosuke looks her up in the phone book and calls to say that he wants to play the finished song for her. They set up a meeting. On the way there, Yosuke gets stabbed by the same man who before had planned to rob the drunk woman. Yosuke lies in the street, bleeding, while Yu waits for him. Yosuke ends up in the hospital. Yu sits there by his side, and when he finally regains consciousness, she whispers, "I love you." Yosuke then replies that he loves her, too. Production. The film was directed by Hiroshi Ishikawa and was his second full-length feature, after the 2003 film "Tokyo.Sora". In addition to directing, Ishikawa was also the writer, editor, and cimematographer. Yoko Kanno composed the score, including Yosuke's song that plays throughout most of the film. It was shot in Tokyo, Japan. The Japanese title "Su-ki-da" translates to "I love you" in English. Release and reception. "Su-ki-da" was premiered at the New Montreal Film Festival on September 23, 2005. It won one award, the Silver Iris for Best Director. The film was released in Japan on February 26, 2006 and was also shown at the Hong Kong International Film Festival on April 8. Critical reviews were mixed. According to "Variety"'s Eddie Cockrell (who viewed it at the NMFF), the film was filled with "unchecked indulgences." He criticized the director, writing that: "Jump cuts, cryptic silences, shots of various cloud formations and long takes bereft of movement are key weapons in Ishikawa's self-consciously arty arsenal, with little in the way of story or character development to engage viewers; Gus van Sant he's not." On the other hand, DVDBeaver.com praised the film for its "heartfelt story," "excellent visuals," and "great cast." The reviewer noted its lack of dialogue but also said that "the characters' body language says more than any words could ever express." The DVD was released in Japan on September 22, 2006, by Big Time Entertainment. It includes English and French subtitles.
1059466	Ice Station Zebra is a 1968 cold-war era suspense and espionage film directed by John Sturges, starring Rock Hudson, Patrick McGoohan, Ernest Borgnine, and Jim Brown. The screenplay by Alistair MacLean, Douglas Heyes, Harry Julian Fink, and W. R. Burnett is loosely based upon MacLean's 1963 novel of the same name. Both have parallels to real-life events that took place in 1959. The film was photographed in Super Panavision 70 by Daniel L. Fapp, and presented in 70 mm Cinerama in premiere engagements. The original music score is by Michel Legrand. The movie has an all-male cast. Plot summary. Part One. A satellite reenters the atmosphere and ejects a capsule which parachutes to the Arctic, coordinates 85N 21W (approx 320 miles WNW of Nord, Greenland, in the Arctic Ocean ice pack). During an ice storm, a figure soon approaches, guided by a homing beacon, while a second individual secretly watches from nearby. The scene shifts to Commander James Ferraday (Rock Hudson), captain of the U.S. nuclear attack submarine USS "Tigerfish" (SSN-509), stationed at Holy Loch, Scotland. He is ordered by Admiral Garvey (Lloyd Nolan) to rescue the personnel of "Drift Ice Station Zebra", a British civilian scientific weather station moving with the ice pack. However, the mission is actually a cover for a highly classified assignment. Ferraday welcomes aboard British intelligence agent Mr. "Jones" (Patrick McGoohan) and a Marine platoon. While underway, a SH-2 Sea Sprite helicopter delivers combat commander Captain Anders (Jim Brown), who takes command of the Marines, and Boris Vaslov (Ernest Borgnine), an amiable Russian defector and spy, who is a trusted colleague of Jones. The "Tigerfish" makes its way under the ice to "Zebra"’s last-known position. Ferraday decides to use a torpedo to blast an opening in the thick ice. However, the crewmen suddenly find the torpedo tube is open at both ends, killing torpedo officer Lt. Mills as seawater floods in, plunging the sub toward its rated crush depth. Jones helps to close the tube but even so, Ferraday and his crew are barely able to save themselves. During the investigation of the torpedo tube, Ferraday quickly determines that this malfunction should be impossible but Jones describes how someone could intentionally rig the tube to malfunction. Both Jones and Ferraday conclude that there is a saboteur aboard. Ferraday suspects Vaslov, while Jones suspects Anders, who is the least known member of the rescue team to Jones, Ferraday and Vaslov, and universally disliked for his harsh methods. Jones demands Ferraday complete the mission regardless of the risk, and Ferraday refuses, unless he knows the purpose of the mission first. At that moment, an area of thin ice is located, and Ferraday surfaces the "Tigerfish".
64856	Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell, OM, FRS (18 May 1872 – 2 February 1970) was a British philosopher, logician, mathematician, historian, and social critic. At various points in his life he considered himself a liberal, a socialist, and a pacifist, but he also admitted that he had never been any of these in any profound sense. He was born in Monmouthshire, into one of the most prominent aristocratic families in Britain. Russell led the British "revolt against idealism" in the early 20th century. He is considered one of the founders of analytic philosophy along with his predecessor Gottlob Frege and his protégé Ludwig Wittgenstein. He is widely held to be one of the 20th century's premier logicians. He co-authored, with A. N. Whitehead, "Principia Mathematica", an attempt to ground mathematics on logic. His philosophical essay "On Denoting" has been considered a "paradigm of philosophy". His work has had a considerable influence on logic, mathematics, set theory, linguistics, artificial intelligence, computer science (see type theory and type system), and philosophy, especially philosophy of language, epistemology, and metaphysics. Russell was a prominent anti-war activist; he championed anti-imperialism and went to prison for his pacifism during World War I. Later, he campaigned against Adolf Hitler, then criticised Stalinist totalitarianism, attacked the involvement of the United States of America in the Vietnam War, and was an outspoken proponent of nuclear disarmament. In 1950 Russell was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature "in recognition of his varied and significant writings in which he champions humanitarian ideals and freedom of thought." Biography. Early life and background. Bertrand Russell was born on 18 May 1872 at Ravenscroft, Trellech, Monmouthshire, into an influential and liberal family of the British aristocracy. His parents, Viscount and Viscountess Amberley, were radical for their times. Lord Amberley consented to his wife's affair with their children's tutor, the biologist Douglas Spalding. Both were early advocates of birth control at a time when this was considered scandalous. Lord Amberley was an atheist and his atheism was evident when he asked the philosopher John Stuart Mill to act as Russell's secular godfather. Mill died the year after Russell's birth, but his writings had a great effect on Russell's life. His paternal grandfather, the Earl Russell, had twice been asked by Queen Victoria to form a government, serving her as Prime Minister in the 1840s and 1860s. The Russells had been prominent in England for several centuries before this, coming to power and the peerage with the rise of the Tudor dynasty. They established themselves as one of Britain's leading Whig families, and participated in every great political event from the Dissolution of the Monasteries in 1536–40 to the Glorious Revolution in 1688–89 and the Great Reform Act in 1832. Lady Amberley was the daughter of Lord and Lady Stanley of Alderley. Russell often feared the ridicule of his maternal grandmother, one of the campaigners for education of women. Childhood and adolescence. Russell had two siblings: Frank (nearly seven years older than Bertrand), and Rachel (four years older). In June 1874 Russell's mother died of diphtheria, followed shortly by Rachel's death. In January 1876, his father died of bronchitis following a long period of depression. Frank and Bertrand were placed in the care of their staunchly Victorian paternal grandparents, who lived at Pembroke Lodge in Richmond Park. His grandfather, former Prime Minister John Russell, died in 1878, and was remembered by Russell as a kindly old man in a wheelchair. His grandmother, the Countess Russell (née Lady Frances Elliot), was the dominant family figure for the rest of Russell's childhood and youth. The countess was from a Scottish Presbyterian family, and successfully petitioned the Court of Chancery to set aside a provision in Amberley's will requiring the children to be raised as agnostics. Despite her religious conservatism, she held progressive views in other areas (accepting Darwinism and supporting Irish Home Rule), and her influence on Bertrand Russell's outlook on social justice and standing up for principle remained with him throughout his life (one could challenge this view that Bertrand stood up for his principles, based on Bertrand Russell's own well-known quote: "I would never die for my beliefs, I could be wrong.") —her favourite Bible verse, 'Thou shalt not follow a multitude to do evil' (Exodus 23:2), became his motto. The atmosphere at Pembroke Lodge was one of frequent prayer, emotional repression, and formality; Frank reacted to this with open rebellion, but the young Bertrand learned to hide his feelings. Russell's adolescence was very lonely, and he often contemplated suicide. He remarked in his autobiography that his keenest interests were in religion and mathematics, and that only the wish to know more mathematics kept him from suicide. He was educated at home by a series of tutors. At age 11, his brother Frank introduced him to the work of Euclid, which transformed Russell's life. During these formative years he also discovered the works of Percy Bysshe Shelley. In his autobiography, he writes: "I spent all my spare time reading him, and learning him by heart, knowing no one to whom I could speak of what I thought or felt, I used to reflect how wonderful it would have been to know Shelley, and to wonder whether I should meet any live human being with whom I should feel so much sympathy." Russell claimed that beginning at age 15, he spent considerable time thinking about the validity of Christian religious dogma, which he found very unconvincing. At this age, he came to the conclusion that there is no free will and, two years later, that there is no life after death. Finally, at the age of 18, after reading Mill's "Autobiography", he abandoned the "First Cause" argument and became an atheist. University and first marriage. Russell won a scholarship to read for the Mathematical Tripos at Trinity College, Cambridge, and commenced his studies there in 1890, taking as coach Robert Rumsey Webb. He became acquainted with the younger George Edward Moore and came under the influence of Alfred North Whitehead, who recommended him to the Cambridge Apostles. He quickly distinguished himself in mathematics and philosophy, graduating as a high Wrangler in 1893 and becoming a Fellow in the latter in 1895. Russell first met the American Quaker Alys Pearsall Smith when he was 17 years old. He became a friend of the Pearsall Smith family—they knew him primarily as 'Lord John's grandson' and enjoyed showing him off—and travelled with them to the continent; it was in their company that Russell visited the Paris Exhibition of 1889 and was able to climb the Eiffel Tower soon after it was completed. He soon fell in love with the puritanical, high-minded Alys, who was a graduate of Bryn Mawr College near Philadelphia, and, contrary to his grandmother's wishes, married her on 13 December 1894. Their marriage began to fall apart in 1901 when it occurred to Russell, while he was cycling, that he no longer loved her. She asked him if he loved her and he replied that he didn't. Russell also disliked Alys's mother, finding her controlling and cruel. It was to be a hollow shell of a marriage and they finally divorced in 1921, after a lengthy period of separation. During this period, Russell had passionate (and often simultaneous) affairs with a number of women, including Lady Ottoline Morrell and the actress Lady Constance Malleson. Early career. Russell began his published work in 1896 with "German Social Democracy", a study in politics that was an early indication of a lifelong interest in political and social theory. In 1896 he taught German social democracy at the London School of Economics, where he also lectured on the science of power in the autumn of 1937. He was a member of the Coefficients dining club of social reformers set up in 1902 by the Fabian campaigners Sidney and Beatrice Webb. He now started an intensive study of the foundations of mathematics at Trinity, during which he discovered Russell's paradox, which challenged the foundations of set theory. In 1903 he published his first important book on mathematical logic, "The Principles of Mathematics", arguing that mathematics could be deduced from a very small number of principles, a work which contributed significantly to the cause of logicism. At the age of 29, in February 1901, Russell underwent what he called a "sort of mystic illumination", after witnessing Whitehead's wife's acute suffering in an angina attack. "I found myself filled with semi-mystical feelings about beauty... and with a desire almost as profound as that of the Buddha to find some philosophy which should make human life endurable", Russell would later recall. "At the end of those five minutes, I had become a completely different person." In 1905 he wrote the essay "On Denoting", which was published in the philosophical journal "Mind". Russell became a fellow of the Royal Society in 1908. The first of three volumes of "Principia Mathematica", written with Whitehead, was published in 1910, which, along with the earlier "The Principles of Mathematics", soon made Russell world-famous in his field. In 1910 he became a lecturer in the University of Cambridge, where he was approached by the Austrian engineering student Ludwig Wittgenstein, who became his PhD student. Russell viewed Wittgenstein as a genius and a successor who would continue his work on logic. He spent hours dealing with Wittgenstein's various phobias and his frequent bouts of despair. This was often a drain on Russell's energy, but Russell continued to be fascinated by him and encouraged his academic development, including the publication of Wittgenstein's "Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus" in 1922. Russell delivered his lectures on Logical Atomism, his version of these ideas, in 1918, before the end of the First World War. Wittgenstein was, at that time, serving in the Austrian Army and would subsequently spend nine more months in an Italian prisoner of war camp at the end of the conflict. First World War. During the First World War, Russell was one of the very few people to engage in active pacifist activities, and in 1916, he was dismissed from Trinity College following his conviction under the Defence of the Realm Act. He was charged a fine of £100, which he refused to pay, hoping that he would be sent to prison. However, his books were sold at auction to raise the money. The books were bought by friends; he later treasured his copy of the King James Bible that was stamped "Confiscated by Cambridge Police." A later conviction for publicly lecturing against inviting the US to enter the war on Britain's side resulted in six months' imprisonment in Brixton prison (see "Bertrand Russell's views on society") in 1918. While in prison, Russell read enormously, and wrote the book "Introduction to Mathematical Philosophy". He was reinstated in 1919, resigned in 1920, was Tarner Lecturer 1926, and became a Fellow again 1944–49. Between the wars and second marriage. In August 1920 Russell travelled to Russia as part of an official delegation sent by the British government to investigate the effects of the Russian Revolution. He met Vladimir Lenin and had an hour-long conversation with him. In his autobiography, he mentions that he found Lenin rather disappointing, sensing an "impish cruelty" in him and comparing him to "an opinionated professor". He cruised down the Volga on a steamship. Russell's lover Dora Black, a British author, feminist and socialist campaigner, visited Russia independently at the same time—she was enthusiastic about the revolution, but Russell's experiences destroyed his previous tentative support for it. He wrote a book "The Practice and Theory of Bolshevism" about his experiences on this trip, taken with a group of 24 others from Britain, all of whom came home thinking well of the régime, despite Russell's attempts to change their minds. For example, he told them that he heard shots fired in the middle of the night and was sure these were clandestine executions, but the others maintained that it was only cars backfiring. Russell subsequently lectured in Beijing on philosophy for one year, accompanied by Dora. He went there with optimism and hope, as China was then on a new path. Other scholars present in China at the time included Rabindranath Tagore, the Nobel laureate Indian poet. While in China, Russell became gravely ill with pneumonia, and incorrect reports of his death were published in the Japanese press. When the couple visited Japan on their return journey, Dora notified the world that "Mr. Bertrand Russell, having died according to the Japanese press, is unable to give interviews to Japanese journalists." The press, not appreciating the sarcasm, were not amused. Dora was six months pregnant when the couple returned to England on 26 August 1921. Russell arranged a hasty divorce from Alys, marrying Dora six days after the divorce was finalised, on 27 September 1921. Their children were John Conrad Russell, 4th Earl Russell, born on 16 November 1921, and Katharine Jane Russell (now Lady Katharine Tait), born on 29 December 1923. Russell supported his family during this time by writing popular books explaining matters of physics, ethics, and education to the layman. Some have suggested that at this point he had an affair with Vivienne Haigh-Wood, the English governess and writer, and first wife of T. S. Eliot. Together with Dora, he founded the experimental Beacon Hill School in 1927. The school was run from a succession of different locations, including its original premises at the Russells' residence, Telegraph House, near Harting, West Sussex. On 8 July 1930 Dora gave birth to her third child, a daughter, Harriet Ruth. After he left the school in 1932, Dora continued it until 1943. Upon the death of his elder brother Frank, in 1931, Russell became the 3rd Earl Russell. He once said that his title was primarily useful for securing hotel rooms. Russell's marriage to Dora grew increasingly tenuous, and it reached a breaking point over her having two children with an American journalist, Griffin Barry. They separated in 1932 and finally divorced. On 18 January 1936, Russell married his third wife, an Oxford undergraduate named Patricia ("Peter") Spence, who had been his children's governess since 1930. Russell and Peter had one son, Conrad Sebastian Robert Russell, 5th Earl Russell, who became a prominent historian and one of the leading figures in the Liberal Democratic party. During the 1930s, Russell became a close friend and collaborator of V. K. Krishna Menon, then secretary of the India League, the foremost lobby for Indian independence in Great Britain. Second World War. Russell opposed rearmament against Nazi Germany, but in 1940 changed his view that avoiding a full scale world war was more important than defeating Hitler. He concluded that Adolf Hitler taking over all of Europe would be a permanent threat to democracy. In 1943, he adopted a stance toward large-scale warfare, "Relative Political Pacifism": War was always a great evil, but in some particularly extreme circumstances, it may be the lesser of two evils. Before the Second World War, Russell taught at the University of Chicago, later moving on to Los Angeles to lecture at the UCLA Department of Philosophy. He was appointed professor at the City College of New York in 1940, but after a public outcry, the appointment was annulled by a court judgement: his opinions (especially those relating to sexual morality, detailed in "Marriage and Morals" ten years earlier) made him "morally unfit" to teach at the college. The protest was started by the mother of a student who would not have been eligible for his graduate-level course in mathematical logic. Many intellectuals, led by John Dewey, protested against his treatment. Albert Einstein's often-quoted aphorism that "Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds ... " originated in his open letter in support of Russell, during this time. Dewey and Horace M. Kallen edited a collection of articles on the CCNY affair in "The Bertrand Russell Case". He soon joined the Barnes Foundation, lecturing to a varied audience on the history of philosophy; these lectures formed the basis of "A History of Western Philosophy". His relationship with the eccentric Albert C. Barnes soon soured, and he returned to Britain in 1944 to rejoin the faculty of Trinity College. Later life. During the 1940s and 1950s, Russell participated in many broadcasts over the BBC, particularly "The Brains Trust" and the Third Programme, on various topical and philosophical subjects. By this time Russell was world-famous outside of academic circles, frequently the subject or author of magazine and newspaper articles, and was called upon to offer opinions on a wide variety of subjects, even mundane ones. En route to one of his lectures in Trondheim, Russell was one of 24 survivors (among a total of 43 passengers) in an aeroplane crash in Hommelvik in October 1948. He said he owed his life to smoking since the people who drowned were in the non-smoking part of the plane. "A History of Western Philosophy" (1945) became a best-seller, and provided Russell with a steady income for the remainder of his life. In a speech in 1948, Russell said that if the USSR's aggression continued, it would be morally worse to go to war after the USSR possessed an atomic bomb than before it possessed one, because if the USSR had no bomb the West's victory would come more swiftly and with fewer casualties than if there were atom bombs on both sides. At that time, only the United States possessed an atomic bomb, and the USSR was pursuing an extremely aggressive policy towards the countries in Eastern Europe which it was absorbing into its sphere of influence. Many understood Russell's comments to mean that Russell approved of a first strike in a war with the USSR, including Nigel Lawson, who was present when Russell spoke. Others, including Griffin, who obtained a transcript of the speech, have argued that he was merely explaining the usefulness of America's atomic arsenal in deterring the USSR from continuing its domination of Eastern Europe. In 1948, Russell was invited by the BBC to deliver the inaugural Reith Lectures—what was to become an annual series of lectures, still broadcast by the BBC. His series of six broadcasts, titled "Authority and the Individual", explored themes such as the role of individual initiative in the development of a community and the role of state control in a progressive society. Russell continued to write about philosophy. He wrote a foreword to "Words and Things" by Ernest Gellner, which was highly critical of the later thought of Ludwig Wittgenstein and of Ordinary language philosophy. Gilbert Ryle refused to have the book reviewed in the philosophical journal "Mind", which caused Russell to respond via "The Times". The result was a month-long correspondence in "The Times" between the supporters and detractors of ordinary language philosophy, which was only ended when the paper published an editorial critical of both sides but agreeing with the opponents of ordinary language philosophy. In the King's Birthday Honours of 9 June 1949, Russell was awarded the Order of Merit, and the following year he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. When he was given the Order of Merit, George VI was affable but slightly embarrassed at decorating a former jailbird, saying that "You have sometimes behaved in a manner that would not do if generally adopted." Russell merely smiled, but afterwards claimed that the reply "That's right, just like your brother" immediately came to mind. In 1952 Russell was divorced by Spence, with whom he had been very unhappy. Conrad, Russell's son by Spence, did not see his father between the time of the divorce and 1968 (at which time his decision to meet his father caused a permanent breach with his mother). Russell married his fourth wife, Edith Finch, soon after the divorce, on 15 December 1952. They had known each other since 1925, and Edith had taught English at Bryn Mawr College near Philadelphia, sharing a house for 20 years with Russell's old friend Lucy Donnelly. Edith remained with him until his death, and, by all accounts, their marriage was a happy, close, and loving one. Russell's eldest son, John, suffered from serious mental illness, which was the source of ongoing disputes between Russell and John's mother, Russell's former wife, Dora. John's wife Susan was also mentally ill, and eventually Russell and Edith became the legal guardians of their three daughters (two of whom were later found to have schizophrenia). At the age of 89, in September 1961, Russell was jailed for seven days in Brixton Prison after taking part in an anti-nuclear demonstration in London, for "breach of peace". The magistrate offered to exempt him from jail if he pledged himself to "good behaviour", to which Russell replied: "No, I won't." In 1962 Russell played a public role in the Cuban Missile Crisis: in an exchange of telegrams with Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev, Khrushchev assured him that the Soviet government would not be reckless. Russell also wrote to John F. Kennedy, who returned his telegram unopened. According to historian Peter Knight, after the John F. Kennedy assassination, Russell, "prompted by the emerging work of the lawyer Mark Lane in the US ... rallied support from other noteworthy and left-leaning compatriots to form a "Who Killed Kennedy Committee" in June 1964, members of which included Michael Foot MP, Caroline Benn, the publisher Victor Gollancz, the writers John Arden and J. B. Priestley, and the Oxford history professor Hugh Trevor-Roper. Russell published a highly critical article weeks before the Warren Commission Report was published, setting forth "16 Questions on the Assassination" and equating the Oswald case with the Dreyfus affair of late 19th century France, in which the state wrongly convicted an innocent man. Russell also criticized the American press for failing to heed any voices critical of the official version. Political causes. Russell spent the 1950s and 1960s engaged in various political causes, primarily related to nuclear disarmament and opposing the Vietnam War (see also Russell Vietnam War Crimes Tribunal). The 1955 Russell–Einstein Manifesto was a document calling for nuclear disarmament and was signed by 11 of the most prominent nuclear physicists and intellectuals of the time. He wrote a great many letters to world leaders during this period. He was in contact with Lionel Rogosin while the latter was filming his anti-war film "Good Times, Wonderful Times" in the 1960s. He became a hero to many of the youthful members of the New Left. In early 1963, in particular, Russell became increasingly vocal about his disapproval of what he felt to be the US government's near-genocidal policies in South Vietnam. In 1963 he became the inaugural recipient of the Jerusalem Prize, an award for writers concerned with the freedom of the individual in society. In October 1965 he tore up his Labour Party card because he suspected the party was going to send soldiers to support the US in the Vietnam War. Final years and death. Russell published his three-volume autobiography in 1967, 1968, and 1969. Russell made a cameo appearance playing himself in the anti-war Hindi film "Aman" which was released in India in 1967. This was Russell's only appearance in a feature film. On 23 November 1969 he wrote to "The Times" newspaper saying that the preparation for show trials in Czechoslovakia was "highly alarming". The same month, he appealed to Secretary General U Thant of the United Nations to support an international war crimes commission to investigate alleged torture and genocide by the United States in South Vietnam during the Vietnam War. The following month, he protested to Alexei Kosygin over the expulsion of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn from the Writers Union. On 31 January 1970 Russell issued a statement which condemned Israel's aggression in the Middle East, and in particular, Israeli bombing raids being carried out deep in Egyptian territory as part of the War of Attrition, and called for an Israeli withdrawal to the pre-1967 borders. This was Russell's final political statement or act. It was read out at the International Conference of Parliamentarians in Cairo on 3 February 1970, the day after his death. Russell died of influenza on 2 February 1970 at his home, Plas Penrhyn, in Penrhyndeudraeth, Merionethshire, Wales. His body was cremated in Colwyn Bay on 5 February 1970. In accordance with his will, there was no religious ceremony; his ashes were scattered over the Welsh mountains later that year. In 1980 a memorial to Russell was commissioned by a committee including the philosopher A. J. Ayer. It consists of a bust of Russell in Red Lion Square in London sculpted by Marcelle Quinton. Titles and honours from birth. Russell held throughout his life the following titles and honours: Views. Views on philosophy. Russell is generally credited with being one of the founders of analytic philosophy. He was deeply impressed by Gottfried Leibniz (1646–1716), and wrote on every major area of philosophy except aesthetics. He was particularly prolific in the field of metaphysics, the logic and the philosophy of mathematics, the philosophy of language, ethics and epistemology. When Brand Blanshard asked Russell why he didn't write on aesthetics, Russell replied that he didn't know anything about it, "but that is not a very good excuse, for my friends tell me it has not deterred me from writing on other subjects." Views on religion. Russell described himself as an atheist, "speaking popularly" and "in regard to the Christian God", but "speaking to a purely philosophical audience", an agnostic. For most of his adult life Russell maintained that religion is little more than superstition and, despite any positive effects that religion might have, it is largely harmful to people. He believed that religion and the religious outlook (he considered Communism, Capitalism, Secular Humanism, Socialism, and other systematic ideologies to be forms of religion) serve to impede knowledge and foster fear and dependency, and are responsible for much of the war, oppression, and misery that have beset the world. He was a member of the Advisory Council of the British Humanist Association and President of Cardiff Humanists until his death. Views on society. Political and social activism occupied much of Russell's time for most of his life. Russell remained politically active almost to the end of his life, writing to and exhorting world leaders and lending his name to various causes. Russell argued for a "scientific society", where war would be abolished, the growth of population limited, and prosperity shared. He suggested the establishment of a "single supreme world government" able to enforce peace, claiming that "the only thing that will redeem mankind is co-operation". In 'Reflections on My Eightieth Birthday' ("Postscript" in his "Autobiography"), Russell wrote: "I have lived in the pursuit of a vision, both personal and social. Personal: to care for what is noble, for what is beautiful, for what is gentle; to allow moments of insight to give wisdom at more mundane times. Social: to see in imagination the society that is to be created, where individuals grow freely, and where hate and greed and envy die because there is nothing to nourish them. These things I believe, and the world, for all its horrors, has left me unshaken." Selected bibliography. A selected bibliography of Russell's books in English, sorted by year of first publication: Russell also wrote many pamphlets, introductions, articles, and letters to the editor. One pamphlet titled, "I Appeal unto Caesar: the case of the conscientious objectors", ghost written for Margaret Hobhouse, the mother of imprisoned peace activist Stephen Henry Hobhouse allegedly helped secure the release of hundreds of conscientious objectors from prison. His works can be found in anthologies and collections, perhaps most notably "The Collected Papers of Bertrand Russell", which McMaster University began publishing in 1983. This collection of his shorter and previously unpublished works is now up to 16 volumes, and many more are forthcoming. An additional three volumes catalogue just his bibliography. The Russell Archives at McMaster University possess over 30,000 of his letters.
1055906	La Dolce Vita (; Italian for "the sweet life" or "the good life") is a 1960 comedy-drama film written and directed by the critically acclaimed director Federico Fellini. The film is a story of a passive journalist's week in Rome, and his search for both happiness and love that will never come. "La Dolce Vita" won the "Palme d'Or" (Golden Palm) at the 1960 Cannes Film Festival and the Oscar for Best Costumes. Plot. Based on the most common interpretation of the storyline, the film can be divided into a prologue, seven major episodes interrupted by an intermezzo, and an epilogue. If the evenings of each episode were joined with the morning of the respective preceding episode together as a day, they would form seven consecutive days, which may not necessarily be the case. Prologue. "1st Day Sequence": A helicopter transports a statue of Christ over an ancient Roman aqueduct outside Rome while a second, Marcello's news helicopter, follows it into the city. The news helicopter is momentarily sidetracked by a group of bikini-clad women sunbathing on the rooftop of a high-rise apartment building. Hovering above, Marcello uses gestures to elicit phone numbers from them but fails in his attempt then shrugs and continues on following the statue into Saint Peter's Square. Episode 1. "1st Night Sequence": Marcello meets Maddalena (Anouk Aimée) by chance in an exclusive nightclub. A beautiful and wealthy heiress, Maddalena is tired of Rome and constantly in search of new sensations while Marcello finds Rome suits him as a jungle he can hide in. They make love in the bedroom of a prostitute to whom they had given a ride home in Maddalena’s Cadillac. "1st Dawn Sequence": Marcello returns to his apartment at dawn to find that his fiancée, Emma (Yvonne Furneaux), has overdosed. On the way to the hospital, he declares his everlasting love to her and again as she lies in a semiconscious state in the emergency room. While waiting frantically for her recovery, however, he tries to make a phone call to Maddalena. Episode 2. "2nd Day Sequence": That day, he goes on assignment for the arrival of Sylvia (Anita Ekberg), a famous Swedish-American actress, at Ciampino airport where she is met by a horde of news reporters. During Sylvia's press conference, Marcello calls home to ensure Emma has taken her medication while reassuring her that he is not alone with Sylvia. After the film star confidently replies to the barrage of journalists' questions, Marcello casually recommends that Sylvia be taken on a tour of St Peter's. Inside St Peter's dome, a news reporter complains that Sylvia is "an elevator" because none of them can match her energetic climb up the numerous flights of stairs. Inspired, Marcello maneuvers forward to be alone with her when they finally reach the balcony overlooking the Vatican. "2nd Night Sequence": That evening, the infatuated Marcello dances with Sylvia in the Baths of Caracalla. Sylvia's natural sensuality triggers raucous partying while Robert (Lex Barker), her bored fiancé, reads a newspaper. His humiliating remark to her causes Sylvia to leave the group, eagerly followed by Marcello and his paparazzi colleagues. Finding themselves alone, Marcello and Sylvia spend the rest of the evening in the alleys of Rome where they wade into the Trevi Fountain. "2nd Dawn Sequence": Like a magic spell that has suddenly been broken, dawn arrives at the very moment Sylvia playfully "anoints" Marcello's head with fountain water. They drive back to Sylvia's hotel to find an enraged Robert waiting for her in his car. Robert slaps Sylvia, orders her to go to bed, and then assaults Marcello who takes it in stride. Episode 3a. "3rd Day Sequence": Marcello meets Steiner (Alain Cuny), his distinguished intellectual friend, inside a church playing Bach on the organ. Steiner shows off his book of Sanskrit grammar. Episode 4. "4th Day Sequence": Late afternoon, Marcello, his photographer friend Paparazzo (Walter Santesso), and Emma drive to the outskirts of Rome to cover the story of the purported sighting of the Madonna by two children. Although the Catholic Church is officially skeptical, a huge crowd of devotees and reporters gathers at the site. "3rd Night Sequence": That night, the event is broadcast over Italian radio and television. Blindly following the two children from corner to corner in a downpour, the crowd tears a small tree apart for its branches and leaves said to have sheltered the Madonna. Meanwhile, Emma prays to the Virgin Mary to be given sole possession of Marcello's heart. "3rd Dawn Sequence": The gathering ends at dawn with the crowd mourning a sick child, a pilgrim brought by his mother to be healed, but trampled to death in the melee. Episode 3b. "4th Night Sequence": One evening, Marcello and Emma attend a gathering at Steiner’s luxurious home where they are introduced to a group of intellectuals who recite poetry, strum the guitar, offer philosophical ideas, and listen to sounds of nature recorded on tape. While one of the women declares it better not to get married so that one does not need to choose, Marcello responds that it is better to be chosen than to choose. Emma appears enchanted with Steiner's home and children, telling Marcello that one day he will have a home like Steiner's. Outside on the terrace, Marcello confesses to Steiner his admiration for all he stands for, but Steiner admits he is torn between the security that a materialistic life affords and his longing for a more spiritual albeit insecure way of life. Steiner philosophizes about the need for love in the world and fears what his children may grow up to face one day. Intermezzo. "5th Day Sequence": Marcello spends the afternoon working on his novel at a seaside restaurant where he meets Paola (Valeria Ciangottini), a young waitress from Perugia playing Perez Prado's cha-cha "Patricia" on the jukebox and then humming its tune. He asks her if she has a boyfriend, then describes her as an angel in Umbrian paintings. Episode 5. "5th Night Sequence": Marcello meets his father (Annibale Ninchi) visiting Rome on the Via Veneto. With Paparazzo, they go to the Cha-Cha-Cha Club where Marcello introduces his father to Fanny (Magali Noël), a beautiful dancer and one of his past one-night stands (he had promised to get her picture in the paper, but failed to do it). Fanny takes a liking to his father. Marcello tells Paparazzo that as a child he had never seen much of his father, who would spend weeks away from home. Fanny invites Marcello’s father back to her flat, and two other dancers invite the two younger men to go with them. Marcello leaves the others when they get to the dancers' neighborhood. Fanny comes out of her house, upset that Marcello's father has gotten ill. "4th Dawn Sequence": Marcello's father has suffered what seems to be a mild heart attack. Marcello wants him to stay with him in Rome so they can get to know each other, but his father, weakened, wants to go home and gets in a taxi to catch the first train home. He leaves Marcello forlorn, on the street, watching the taxi leave. Episode 6. "6th Night Sequence": Marcello, Nico (playing herself), and other friends met on the Via Veneto are driven to a castle owned by aristocrats at Bassano di Sutri outside Rome. There is already a party long in progress, and the party-goers are bleary-eyed and intoxicated. By chance, Marcello meets Maddalena again. The two of them explore a suite of ruins annexed to the castle. Maddalena seats Marcello in a vast room and then closets herself in another room connected by an echo chamber. As a disembodied voice, Maddalena asks him to marry her; Marcello professes his love for her, avoiding answering her proposal. Another man kisses and embraces Maddalena, who loses interest in Marcello. He rejoins the group, and eventually spends the night with Jane (Audrey McDonald), an American artist and heiress. "5th Dawn Sequence": Burnt out and bleary-eyed, the group returns at dawn to the main section of the castle, to be met by the matriarch of the castle, who is on her way to mass, accompanied by priests in a procession. Episode 3c. "7th Night Sequence": Marcello and Emma are alone in his sports car on an isolated road. Emma starts an argument by protesting her love, and tries to get out of the car; Marcello pleads with her not to get out. Emma says that Marcello will never find another woman who loves him the way she does. Marcello becomes enraged at her, telling her that he cannot live with her maternal and smothering love. He now wants her to get out of the car, and she refuses. With some violence (a bite from her and a slap from him), he throws her out of the car and drives off. She is left alone on a dark, lonely road, in the dark. After some hours (it is now dawn), Emma is still alone on the road, holding flowers, when she hears his car approaching. She gets in the car without saying a word. "6th Dawn Sequence": Marcello and Emma are asleep in bed, tenderly intertwined; Marcello receives a phone call. He rushes to the Steiners' apartment and learns that Steiner has killed himself and his two children. "6th Day Sequence": After waiting with the police for Steiner’s wife to return home, he meets her outside to break the terrible news while paparazzi swarm around her snapping pictures. Episode 7. "8th Night Sequence": An unspecified amount of time later, an older Marcello—now with gray in his hair—and a group of partygoers break into a Fregene beach house owned by Riccardo, a friend of Marcello's. To celebrate her recent divorce from Riccardo, Nadia performs a striptease to Perez Prado's cha-cha "Patricia". The drunken Marcello attempts to provoke the other partygoers into an orgy. Due to their inebriated states, however, the party descends into mayhem with Marcello throwing pillow feathers around the room as he rides a young woman crawling on her hands and knees. Riccardo shows up at the house and angrily tells the partiers to leave. Epilogue. "7th Dawn Sequence": The party proceeds to the beach at dawn where they find a modern-day leviathan, a bloated, stingray-like creature, caught in the fishermen's nets. In his stupor, Marcello comments on how its eyes stare even in death. "7th Day Sequence": Paola, the adolescent waitress from the seaside restaurant in Fregene, calls to Marcello from across an estuary but the words they exchange are lost on the wind, drowned out by the crash of the waves. He signals his inability to understand what she is saying or interpret her gestures. He shrugs and returns to the partygoers; one of the women joins him and they hold hands as they walk away from the beach. In a long final close-up, Paola waves to Marcello then stands watching him with an enigmatic smile. Themes and motifs. Marcello is a journalist in Rome during the late 1950s who covers tabloid news of movie stars, religious visions and the self-indulgent aristocracy while searching for a more meaningful way of life. Depicting the ease, confusion, and frequency with which Marcello is distracted by women, the film's theme "is predominantly café society, the diverse and glittery world rebuilt upon the ruins and poverty" of the Italian postwar period. In the film's opening sequence, a plaster statue of Christ the Labourer suspended by cables from a helicopter, flies past the ruins of an ancient Roman aqueduct. The statue is being taken to the Pope at the Vatican. Journalist Marcello and a photographer named Paparazzo follow in a second helicopter. The symbolism of Christ, arms outstretched as if blessing all of Rome as it flies overhead, is soon replaced by the profane lifestyle and neomodern architecture of the "new" Rome founded on the economic miracle of the late 1950s. (Much of this was actually filmed in Cinecittà or in EUR, the Mussolini-style area south of Rome.) The delivery of the statue is the first of many recurring scenes placing religious icons in the midst of characters demonstrating their "modern" morality influenced by the booming economy and the emerging mass-consumer lifestyle. Censorship. Perceived by the Catholic Church as a parody of Christ's second coming, the scene and the entire film were condemned by the Vatican newspaper "L'Osservatore Romano" in 1960. Subject to widespread censorship, the film was banned in Spain until 1975 after the death of Franco. Umberto Tupini, the Minister of Culture of the Tambroni government censored it and other "shameful films". Production. Critics have often commented on the extravagant costumes used throughout Fellini's films. In various interviews, Fellini claimed that the film's initial inspiration was in fact this particular style. Brunello Rondi, Fellini's co-screenwriter and long-time collaborator, confirmed this view explaining that "the fashion of women's sack dresses which possessed that sense of luxurious butterflying out around a body that might be physically beautiful but not morally so; these sack dresses struck Fellini because they rendered a woman very gorgeous who could, instead, be a skeleton of squalor and solitude inside." Credit for the creation of Steiner (played by Alain Cuny), the intellectual who commits suicide after shooting his two children, goes to co-screenwriter Tullio Pinelli. Having gone to school with Italian novelist Cesare Pavese, Pinelli had closely followed the writer's career and felt that his over-intellectualism had become emotionally sterile, leading to his suicide in a Turin hotel in 1950. This idea of a "burnt-out existence" is carried over to Steiner in the party episode where the sounds of nature are not to be experienced first-hand by himself and his guests but in the virtual world of tape recordings. Most of the film was shot at the Cinecittà Studios in Rome. Set designer Piero Gherardi created over eighty locations, including the Via Veneto, the dome of Saint Peter's with the staircase leading up to it, and various nightclubs. However, other sequences were shot on location such as the party at the aristocrats' castle filmed in the real Bassano di Sutri palace north of Rome. (Some of the servants, waiters, and guests were played by real aristocrats.) Fellini combined constructed sets with location shots, depending on script requirements—a real location often "gave birth to the modified scene and, consequently, the newly constructed set." The film's famous last scenes where the monster fish is pulled out of the sea and Marcello waves goodbye to Paola (the teenage "Umbrian angel") were shot on location at Passo Oscuro, a small resort town situated on the Italian coast 30 kilometers north of Rome. Fellini scrapped a major sequence that would have involved the relationship of Marcello with Dolores, an older writer living in a tower, to be played by 1930s Academy Award-winning actress Luise Rainer. If the director’s dealings with Rainer "who used to involve Fellini in futile discussion" were problematic, biographer Kezich argues that while rewriting the screenplay, the Dolores character grew "hyperbolic" and Fellini decided to jettison "the entire story line." The famous scene in the Trevi Fountain was shot over a week in winter: in March according to the BBC, in late January according to Anita Ekberg. Fellini claimed that Ekberg stood in the cold water in her dress for hours without any trouble while Mastroianni had to wear a wetsuit beneath his clothes - to no avail. It was only after the actor "polished off a bottle of vodka" and "was completely pissed" that Fellini could shoot the scene. The character of Paparazzo, the news photographer (Walter Santesso), was inspired by photojournalist Tazio Secchiaroli and is the origin of the word "paparazzi" used in many languages to describe intrusive photographers. As to the origin of the character's name itself, Fellini scholar Peter Bondanella argues that although "it is indeed an Italian family name, the word is probably a corruption of the word "papataceo", a large and bothersome mosquito. Ennio Flaiano, the film's co-screenwriter and creator of Paparazzo, reports that he took the name from a character in a novel by George Gissing." Gissing's character, Signor Paparazzo, is found in his travel book, "By the Ionian Sea" (1901). Structure. Seven principal episodes. The most common interpretation of the film is a mosaic, its parts linked by the protagonist, Marcello Rubini, a journalist. The seven principal episodes are as follows: Interrupting these seven episodes is the restaurant sequence with the angelic Paola; they are framed by a prologue (Christ statue over Rome) and epilogue (the monster fish), giving the film its innovative and symmetrically symbolic structure. The evocations are obvious: seven deadly sins, seven sacraments, seven virtues, seven days of creation. Other critics claim that this widespread view of the film's structure is inaccurate. Peter Bondanella, for example, argues that "any critic of "La dolce vita" not mesmerized by the magic number seven will find it almost impossible to organize the numerous sequences on a strictly numerological basis." An aesthetic of disparity. Critic Robert Richardson suggests that the originality of "La dolce vita" lies in a new form of film narrative that mines "an aesthetic of disparity." Abandoning traditional plot and conventional "character development," Fellini and co-screenwriters Ennio Flaiano and Tullio Pinelli, forged a cinematic narrative that rejected continuity, unnecessary explanations, and narrative logic in favour of seven non-linear encounters between Marcello, a kind of Dantesque Pilgrim, and an underworld of 120 different characters. These encounters build up a cumulative impression on the viewer that finds resolution in an "overpowering sense of the disparity between what life has been or could be, and what it actually is." In a device used earlier in his films, Fellini orders the disparate succession of sequences as movements from evening to dawn. Also employed as an ordering device is the image of a downward spiral that Marcello sets in motion when descending the first of several staircases (including ladders) that open and close each major episode. The upshot is that the film's aesthetic form, rather than its content, embodies the overall theme of Rome as a moral wasteland. Critical reception. Writing for "L'Espresso", Italian novelist Alberto Moravia highlighted the film's variations in tone: "Highly expressive throughout, Fellini seems to change the tone according to the subject matter of each episode, ranging from expressionist caricature to pure neo-realism. In general, the tendency to caricature is greater the more severe the film's moral judgement although this is never totally contemptuous, there being always a touch of complacence and participation, as in the final orgy scene or the episode at the aristocrats' castle outside Rome, the latter being particularly effective for its descriptive acuteness and narrative rhythm." In "Filmcritica XI", Italian poet and film director Pier Paolo Pasolini argued that ""La dolce vita" was too important to be discussed as one would normally discuss a film. Though not as great as Chaplin, Eisenstein or Mizoguchi, Fellini is unquestionably an author rather than a director. The film is therefore his and his alone... The camera moves and fixes the image in such a way as to create a sort of diaphragm around each object, thus making the object’s relationship to the world appear as irrational and magical. As each new episode begins, the camera is already in motion using complicated movements. Frequently, however, these sinuous movements are brutally punctuated by a very simple documentary shot, like a quotation written in everyday language". In France, Jacques Doniol-Valcroze, film critic and co-founder of "Cahiers du cinéma", felt that "what "La dolce vita" lacks is the structure of a masterpiece. In fact, the film has no proper structure: it is a succession of cinematic moments, some more convincing than others… In the face of criticism, "La Dolce Vita" disintegrates, leaving behind little more than a sequence of events with no common denominator linking them into a meaningful whole". The "New York Times" film critic Bosley Crowther praised Fellini’s “brilliantly graphic estimation of a whole swath of society in sad decay and, eventually, a withering commentary on the tragedy of the over-civilized… Fellini is nothing if not fertile, fierce and urbane in calculating the social scene around him and packing it onto the screen. He has an uncanny eye for finding the offbeat and grotesque incident, the gross and bizarre occurrence that exposes a glaring irony. He has, too, a splendid sense of balance and a deliciously sardonic wit that not only guided his cameras but also affected the writing of the script. In sum, it is an awesome picture, licentious in content but moral and vastly sophisticated in its attitude and what it says". To this day, "La Dolce Vita" remains a classic and one of the most critically acclaimed films of all time. Film critic Roger Ebert considered it Fellini’s best film and listed it in his Top 10. He mentioned in his "great movies" review of the film that "Fellini and Marcello had taken a moment of discovery and made it immortal". The movie earned $6 million in North American rentals on original release. The film was re-released in North America in 1966 and earned $1.5 million in rentals. Awards and recognition. "La dolce vita" was hailed as "one of the most widely seen and acclaimed European movies of the 1960s" by "The New York Times". It was nominated for four Academy Awards, winning one for Best Costume Design: Black-and-White. "La dolce vita" also earned the "Palme d'Or" (Golden Palm) at the 1960 Cannes Film Festival. It was voted the 6th Greatest film of all time by Entertainment Weekly. In 2010, the film was ranked #11 in "Empire" magazine's "The 100 Best Films Of World Cinema". In popular culture. The film has influenced or else been referenced in contemporary films, television shows, and songs. In Sofia Coppola's "Lost in Translation" (2003), Kelly's interview for "LIT" resembles Sylvia's interview scenes in "La dolce vita". Charlotte and Bob later meet in the middle of the night and watch the famous Trevi Fountain sequence while drinking sake. Coppola said, "I saw that movie on TV when I was in Japan. It's not plot-driven, it's about them wandering around. And there was something with the Japanese subtitles and them speaking Italian - it had a truly enchanting quality". Steve Martin's "L.A. Story" (1991) opens with a hotdog stand dangling under a helicopter passing by a roof-top pool with the sunbathing women waving as it passes, a reference to the opening scene of a statue of Christ being carried into the Vatican in "La dolce vita". In "Goodbye Lenin" (2003), directed by Wolfgang Becker, a statue of Lenin is flown across Berlin, recalling the opening scene of Fellini's film. The title of Korean film, "A Bittersweet Life" (2005), is a pun on the English translation of "La dolce vita" ("The Sweet Life") and the restaurant that the protagonist enforces for the mob is called "La Dolce Vita". The two protagonists of Marcos Carnevale's "Elsa y Fred" (2005) recreate the scene in the Fontana di Trevi performed originally by Ekberg and Mastroianni while in Simon Pegg's "How to Lose Friends & Alienate People" (2008), Alison (Kirsten Dunst) cites "La dolce vita" as her favourite movie. Fellini's film is later shown playing on a large, outdoor cinema screen. In the "Daria" episode "Fire", Daria is quoted saying "watching a dead fish wash up on shore always puts "me" in a good mood" in reference to recommending the film earlier in the episode. Woody Allen's "Celebrity" (1998) is a New York-set re-working of "La dolce vita" with Kenneth Branagh taking up Mastroianni's role, and Winona Ryder and Charlize Theron taking on the roles held by Anouk Aimée and Anita Ekberg, respectively. Comediennes Dawn French and Jennifer Saunders drew from "La dolce vita" (among other Fellini films) for an episode of their television series, "French & Saunders". Entitled "Franco E Sandro", the episode parodied the surreal motifs in Fellini's films, including replacing the flight of the Christ statue with a statue of Madonna. In the episode "Marco Polo" of the TV series "The Sopranos", Junior Soprano falls asleep watching "La dolce vita". When Bobby Baccalieri enters the room, Junior wakes up and comments on the statue of Christ hanging from the helicopter saying, "You can tell it's fake." Homer Simpson dresses for his date with Marge in "Some Enchanted Evening" while humming the theme from "La dolce vita". Steiner's pessimistic speech about the future is quoted in an English translation in the song "The Certainty of Chance" by The Divine Comedy from their 1998 album "Fin de Siècle". It is the speech that begins, "Sometimes at night the darkness and silence frightens me. Peace frightens me. I feel it's only a facade, hiding the face of hell." Fashion model and singer Christa Päffgen, who adopted the pseudonym of Nico and later performed with The Velvet Underground before pursuing a solo career, plays herself in the "party of the nobles" scene. Adriano Celentano, who later became famous in Italy as a singer and actor, appears in the scene in the pseudo-ancient Roman nightclub, where Marcello makes his first advances to Sylvia. Bob Dylan's "Motorpsycho Nitemare" from "Another Side of Bob Dylan" (1964) references the title of the film as does Blondie's "Pretty Baby" from "Parallel Lines" (1978). Tributes to Fellini in the "Director's Cut" of "Cinema Paradiso" (1988) include a helicopter suspending a statue of Christ over the city and scenes in which the Trevi Fountain is used as a backdrop while Toto, the main character, grows up to be a famous film director. The 2003 film "Under the Tuscan Sun" has a tribute to the famous scene in the Trevi Fountain. One of the characters (Catherine), dances in a fountain in a manner reminiscent of Anita Ekberg's scene.
1165306	Robert J. Wilke (May 18, 1914 – March 28, 1989) was a prolific American film and television actor noted primarily for his roles as villains, mostly in Westerns.
629148	Accidents Happen is a 2010 Australian coming of age comedy drama film directed by Andrew Lancaster and starring Geena Davis, Harrison Gilbertson, Sebastian Gregory, Harry Cook, Joel Tobeck and Sarah Woods. Written by Brian Carbee, based on his own childhood and adolescence, the story revolves around an accident-prone teenage boy and his family. The film was shot in Sydney, New South Wales over June – July 2008, and opened in Australia on 22 April 2010. Premise. In 1974, the Conway family are at a drive-in theater in Connecticut watching The Three Stooges. The parents are Gloria (Geena Davis), a foul mouthed and strict mother who would always take responsibility over the family, Ray (Joel Tobeck), an easy going father, and siblings Linda, Gene, Larry (Harry Cook) and Billy (Harrison Gilbertson) who is an accident-prone child. In the meantime, the Conway's neighbor, Douglas "Doug" Post (Sebastian Gregory), to whom Gloria hates and often calls him names because he is the one who causes problems that could be offensive towards the family, drives by on his bike and Gene leads him up to the top of the drive-in screen. Gene then urinates out of the screen and while an infuriated Gloria trips as she approaches the screen, the police are dispatched to handle the situation as the horns of infuriated and confused guests are heard honking at Gene and Doug. While driving back home, the argument over the incident causes their car to collide with a pick up truck during a rainy night. Although Gloria, Ray, Billy, Larry and Doug only suffer minor injuries, Linda is killed and Gene is severely injured with severe brain damage (that could be fatal in a matter of years) and is left paralyzed from the head down. In 1982, 8 years after the accident, Ray is divorced and there are more problems not only concerning about Doug, but also about Gene's severe condition as he could die in any day or any month. 15-year-old Billy is still friends with Doug even after the accident. One night, an argument over a TV dinner (with turkey) causes Larry, now a belligerent alcoholic, to throw the dinner at Billy, injuring his back. When Doug overhears whats going on, he intervenes and gets into a short scuffle with Larry. After streaking and robbing a convenience store, Billy and Doug are playing when he causes an almighty crash with a bowling ball and a moving car, actually killing Doug's father by accident. Just a few days after the incident, Larry's non-stop harassment causes Billy to fight against his older brother, and when Gloria breaks up the scuffle and discovers a gauze on Billy's back (when Larry deliberately threw the TV dinner at his brother, and on the newspapers regarding the robbery that Billy was wearing the gauze), Larry tells her that it was Billy and Doug who went streaking and stealing things. As a result, an infuriated Gloria threatens to have Billy's former father take him away along with Larry and is told that he will not see Doug again; if Billy does see Doug again, trouble will be on Billy's way if that rule was violated. Although she knows what Billy and Doug did, Gloria does not know what really happened at the car crash.
1044647	The Evil of Frankenstein is a 1964 British Hammer Film Productions film directed by Freddie Francis. It stars Peter Cushing and New Zealand wrestler Kiwi Kingston. The film's version of the Monster is noted for resembling the one in Universal Pictures' original "Frankenstein" series of the 1930s and 1940s, including the distinctive laboratory sets as well as the flat-headed look of Jack Pierce's monster make-up which had been designed for Boris Karloff. Earlier Frankenstein films by Hammer had studiously avoided such similarities for copyright reasons. However, a new film distribution deal had been made between Hammer and Universal. As a result, Hammer had free rein to duplicate make-up and set elements. Storyline. Prologue. A child witnesses an intruder steal the corpse of one of her recently dead relatives. Terrified, the child flees from the cabin where she is hiding. Running through the forest, a hand reaches out to her. The girl screams and runs away. The figure is revealed to be Baron Victor Frankenstein. The body-snatcher takes the corpse to Frankenstein's secret laboratory. The Baron tells his assistant, Hans, to pay the man. When the body-snatcher asks what he'll do with the body, Frankenstein says he intends to cut out the deceased man's heart, remarking; "He won't be needing it". Plot. Meanwhile a local priest discovers the theft and is morally outraged. The young child of the deceased who witnessed the theft identifies both the body-snatcher and his employer. The priest angrily confronts each in turn, and interrupts Frankenstein's attempt to restore life to the heart, smashing vital equipment in the lab. Forced to leave town because of their experiments, Frankenstein and Hans return to the Baron's hometown of Karlstaad, where they plan to sell valuables from the abandoned Frankenstein chateau to fund new work. Nearing the village, the pair nearly run over a wild haired, deaf-mute young woman, who is being accosted by a couple of thugs. Hans tries to help her, but she flees to the hills. The men find a festival is in progress and are able to pass through the village unquestioned. Upon their arrival, the chateau is found to have been apparently looted by the locals and the laboratory appears to be in ruins. As Hans pours the Baron a drink, Frankenstein recounts to Hans the events that led to his exile: Ten years prior, he had brought a being to life. While reasonably functional in most aspects, the creature would eat nothing but fresh, raw meat and wantonly killed local livestock, eating their entrails. A police constable and some farmers encountered the creature with Frankenstein in the woods, and shot at both of them. Frankenstein suffered a grazed arm, the monster a non-lethal head wound. Baron Frankenstein was arrested, while the creature escaped to a nearby mountain. (He is seen falling into a crevice after the sound of another gunshot.) Frankenstein was briefly imprisoned, charged with assault of a police officer and having committed acts of heresy. He was fined and exiled, since up to that point the creature had not caused any human harm. The flashback sequence ends with the Baron lamenting the destruction of things humanity doesn't understand (a theme he repeats throughout the film). The following day, the Baron and Hans enter Karlstaad for a meal, donning festival masks as a precaution. They enter a crowded inn and place an order. While waiting, Frankenstein spies the corrupt Burgomeister wearing one of his rings and is outraged, causing a scene which forces a hasty departure. The authorities have now recognised him, so the Baron flees with Hans through the village festival, eventually hiding at the hypnotist, Zoltan's, exhibit. The arrogant Zoltan clashes with the police and is arrested, covering the escape of Frankenstein and Hans. Later that evening, Frankenstein bursts into the Burgomeister's apartments, again outraged at finding the corrupt official has largely stolen for himself Frankenstein's "confiscated" valuables. During his tirade, the police (led by the constable who had originally shot the creature – now the Chief of Police) breaks in to arrest the Baron. Frankenstein manages to escape. He and Hans retreat to the mountains where they again encounter the deaf girl. She leads them to her makeshift shelter in a cave to avoid an impending storm and soon, all go to sleep. Sometime later, the waif awakens and skulks off, awakening Frankenstein. Curious, he searches through the cave and finds his original creation frozen inside a glacier. Calling Hans, they build a fire; thaw the creature out; carry it down the mountainside to the chateau; and restore it to life. However, the creature's brain, while functioning, will not respond to commands. Frankenstein, desperate to restore active consciousness to his creation, comes up with the idea of obtaining the services of Zoltan, the hypnotist, to reanimate the creature's mind. Zoltan has been banished from Karlstaad for not having a license to perform. After clever psychological manipulation by the Baron, he agrees to the task. Zoltan is successful but has less than scientific interests at heart. With the monster responding only to his commands, Zoltan uses the creature to rob and take revenge upon the town's authorities. Frankenstein evicts Zoltan, who then instructs the creature to attack Frankenstein. He wards off the monster's attack with an oil lamp, frightening the monster. The creature in turn brutally kills Zoltan, who is blocking the creature's path. The creature quickly goes into a fit of violent rage. The Baron orders Hans to get the girl out of the room while he tries to confront his creation. In the middle of its rampage, the monster rips apart the electrical components which had been used to resurrect it, causing a fire to break out in the laboratory. Frankenstein tries to give the creature a dose of chloroform to subdue it, but it drinks it instead. Disgusted and poisoned, the creature stumbles, knocking over bottles of flammable liquids and causing a switch to short-circuit and explode into flames. Hans asks the Baron if he can hear him, but Frankenstein orders Hans to get away from the place while he tries to shift the rubble blocking the doorway. The creature stumbles about in terror of the surrounding flames. Realizing that there is no other way out, the Baron grabs a chain and launches himself into the midst of the inferno in a desperate attempt to find another exit. From a distance, the villagers see Hans and the girl fleeing from the chateau. They look back to see black smoke pouring out from the tower where the laboratory is. Suddenly there is an explosion and half of the tower is thrown over the edge of the cliff. Seeing this, Hans murmurs to himself that; "They beat you after all"... The fate of Baron Frankenstein is unknown. Continuity. The film breaks continuity from the preceding film, "The Revenge of Frankenstein", and starts a new saga of Hammer "Frankenstein" films. "The Revenge of Frankenstein" ended with the Baron badly beaten, and his brain transplanted into an identical body of his which he had made earlier and flees to London with his assistant Dr Klove, where Frankenstein assumed the alias 'Dr Franks'. From the start of " The Evil of Frankenstein", the Baron has somehow returned to Eastern Europe with a new assistant, Hans, and has already begun work on a new Creature. Critical reception. Allmovie's review of the film was mixed to negative, calling it "dismal" and "the worst of Hammer Films' Frankenstein series". Modern reviews have been more merciful than its original reception. The film currently holds a three star rating (6/10) on IMDb and an average 50% on Rotten Tomatoes. Home video release. In North America, the film was released on 6 September 2005 along with seven other Hammer horror films on the 4-DVD set "The Hammer Horror Series" (ASIN: B0009X770O), which is part of MCA-Universal's "Franchise Collection".
1251179	Hastey Hastey is a 2008 Hindi comedy film starring Jimmy Shergill, Rajpal Yadav, newcomers Nisha Rawal and Monishka. It is directed by Tonny and produced by Go Cam Films in association with Inox. Music. The title song of the film is sung by the producer, Kumar Shivram who is successful as a "double diamond" in the MLM Amway Global. "Almaad Sere Khuda" is another popular track of the film sung by Zubeen Garg.
1039691	Ian William Richardson, CBE (7 April 19349 February 2007) was a Scottish actor. He is best known for his portrayal of the Machiavellian Tory politician Francis Urquhart in the BBC's "House of Cards" trilogy. Richardson was also a leading Shakespearean stage actor. Early life. Richardson was born in Edinburgh, the son of Margaret (née Drummond) and John Richardson. He was educated in the city, at Balgreen Primary School, Tynecastle High School and George Heriot's School. He first appeared on stage at the age of fourteen, in an amateur production of "A Tale of Two Cities". The director encouraged his talent, but warned that he would need to lose his Scottish accent to progress as an actor. His mother arranged elocution lessons and he became a stage manager with the semi-professional Edinburgh People's Theatre. After National Service in the Army (part of which he spent as an announcer and drama director with the British Forces Broadcasting Service) he obtained a place at the College of Dramatic Arts in Glasgow. After a period at the Birmingham Repertory Theatre he appeared with the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC), of which he was a founding member, from 1960 to 1975. Stage work. Although he later gained his highest profile in film and television work such as "House of Cards" (1990), Ian Richardson was primarily a classical stage actor. His first engagement after training was with Birmingham Repertory Theatre, where his performance of "Hamlet" led to an offer of a place with the RSC. He was a versatile member of the company for more than fifteen years, playing villainy, comedy and tragedy to equal effect. He was The Herald in Peter Brook's production of "Marat/Sade" in London in 1964; in the New York transfer he took the lead role of Marat (and so became the first actor to appear nude on the Broadway stage), a performance he repeated for the 1967 film version. In 1972, he appeared in the musical "Trelawney", with which the Bristol Old Vic reopened after its refurbishment. It proved a great success, transferring to London, first to Sadler's Wells and later to The Savoy. Richardson played the hero, Tom Wrench, a small-part player who wants t write about "real people". He had a song, "Walking On", lamenting his lack of scope in the company, in which he explains that as a "walking gentleman" he will be forever "walking on", whilst Rose Trelawney will go on to be a star. While at the RSC, Richardson played leading roles in many productions for director John Barton. These included the title role in "Coriolanus" (1967), Cassius in "Julius Caesar" (1968), Angelo in "Measure for Measure" (1970) and Iachimo in "Cymbeline". Work for other directors at Stratford included the title role in "Pericles" (1969), directed by Terry Hands; the title role in "Richard III" (1975), directed by Barry Kyle; and Berowne in David Jones's production of "Love's Labours Lost" (1973). The role of Berowne was cited by Richardson as one of his all-time favourite parts. Richardson's "Richard II" (alternating the parts of the king and Bolingbroke with Richard Pasco) in 1974, and repeated in New York and London in the following year, was hugely celebrated: A significant Shakespearean cameo role was a brief performance as Hamlet in the gravedigger scene as part of episode six, "Protest and Communication", of Kenneth Clark's "Civilisation" television series in 1969. This was performed at Kirby Hall in Northamptonshire with Patrick Stewart as Horatio and Ronald Lacey as the gravedigger. On leaving the RSC, he played Professor Henry Higgins in the Broadway revival of "My Fair Lady" (1976) and received the Drama Desk Award and a Tony nomination. He also appeared on Broadway in the original production of Edward Albee's play "Lolita" (1981), an adaptation of Vladimir Nabokov's book, but this is not regarded as having been a success. In 2002 Richardson joined Sir Derek Jacobi, Sir Donald Sinden and Dame Diana Rigg in an international tour of "The Hollow Crown". A Canadian tour substituted Alan Howard for Jacobi and Vanessa Redgrave for Rigg. He also appeared in "The Creeper" by Pauline Macaulay at the Playhouse Theatre in London, and on tour. His last stage appearance was in 2006 as Sir Epicure Mammon in "The Alchemist" at the National Theatre in London. Films and television. Earlier career. In 1963 he played "Le Beau" in Michael Elliott's television production of "As You Like It", playing alongside Vanessa Redgrave. In 1964 he played "Antipholus of Ephesus" in "The Comedy of Errors" as part of the "Festival" TV series. In 1967 he played The Constable in "A Man Takes a Drink" as part of a TV series entitled "The Revenue Men". He played Bertram in John Barton's television version of "All's Well That Ends Well" in 1968 as well as playing Oberon in the Peter Hall film of "A Midsummer Night's Dream" the same year. He took part in the TV production of John Mortimer's "A Voyage Round My Father" in "Plays of Today" in 1969 as well as playing in "The Canterbury Tales" (1969) TV series. He played one musical role on film - the Priest in "Man of La Mancha", the 1972 screen version of the Broadway musical. In 1972 he played Anthony Beavis in the TV series "Eyeless in Gaza". In 1974 he played King Richard II/Bolingbroke in "Richard II" part of the "Camera Three" TV series. In 1978 he played Robespierre in the BBC's "Play of the Month" production of "Danton's Death". In 1979 he played Field Marshal Sir Bernard Montgomery in the "Ike" TV mini series. His first major role was his appearance as Bill Haydon ("Tailor") in the BBC adaptation of "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy" (1979). He played the part of Bernard Montgomery in "Churchill and the Generals" in 1979, a BBC television videotaped play concerning the relationship between Winston Churchill and generals of the Allied forces between 1940 and 1945. In the 1980s he became well known as Major Neuheim in the award-winning "Private Schulz", and more notably Sir Godber Evans in Channel 4's adaptation of "Porterhouse Blue". He appeared in "Brazil" (1985), and Jawaharlal Nehru in the 1986 television serial, "Lord Mountbatten: The Last Viceroy", and in 1988 he played Edward Spencer, the eccentric and oblivious English landowner in 1920s' Ireland in "Troubles", from J. G. Farrell's award-winning novel. In 1987, he played a variation on this role, when he portrayed the Bishop of Motopo in the non-musical television film "Monsignor Quixote", based on Graham Greene's modernized take on the Quixote story. He played Sir Nigel Irvine in John Mackenzie's adaptation of Frederick Forsyth's novel "The Fouth Protocol" (1987). Later career. Richardson's most acclaimed television role was as Machiavellian politician Francis Urquhart in the BBC adaptation of Michael Dobbs's "House of Cards" trilogy. He won the BAFTA Best Television Actor Award for his portrayal in the first series, "House of Cards" (1990), and was nominated for both of the sequels "To Play the King" (1993) and "The Final Cut" (1995). He also received another BAFTA film nomination for his role as Falkland Islands governor Sir Rex Hunt in the 1992 film "An Ungentlemanly Act", and played another corrupt politician, Michael Spearpoint, British Director of the European Economic Community in the ambitious satirical series "The Gravy Train" and "The Gravy Train Goes East". He narrated the 1996 BBC docudrama "A Royal Scandal". His other roles in this period include "Dark City" (1998), Polonius in "Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead" (1990), wine dealer Sir Mason Harwood in "The Year Of The Comet" (1992), the French ambassador in "M. Butterfly" (1993), Martin Landau's butler in "B*A*P*S" (1997), Cruella de Vil's solicitor, Mr. Torte, in the live action film "102 Dalmatians" (2000) and "From Hell" (2001). In 1999, he became known to a young audience as the titular character Stephen Tyler in both series of the family drama "The Magician's House" (1999–2000). Following this he played Lord Groan in the major BBC production "Gormenghast" (2000), and later that year he starred in the BBC production "" (2000–2001) (also screened in PBS's "Mystery!" series in the US), playing Arthur Conan Doyle's mentor, Dr. Joseph Bell, a role he welcomed as an opportunity to play a character from his native Edinburgh. He had earlier played Sherlock Holmes in two 1980s television versions of "The Hound of the Baskervilles" and "The Sign of Four". In 2003 he once more returned to fantasy in the recurring role of the villainous Canon Black in the short-lived BBC cult series "Strange". In 2005, he took on the role of a curiously detached Chancellor in the highly successful TV drama "Bleak House". In that year he appeared in ITV's main Christmas drama "The Booze Cruise 2", playing Marcus Foster, a slimy upper class businessman forced to spend time with "the lower classes". He returned to this role for a sequel the following Easter. In June 2006 he was made an honorary Doctor of the University of Stirling. The honour was conferred on him by the university's chancellor, fellow actor Dame Diana Rigg. In December 2006, Richardson starred in Sky One's two-part adaptation of the Terry Pratchett novel "Hogfather". He voiced the main character of the novel, Death, who steps in to take over the role of the Father Christmas-like Hogfather. The DVD of that miniseries, released shortly after his death, opens with a dedication to his memory. He was also familiar to American television viewers as the man in the Rolls-Royce who asks "Pardon me, would you have any Grey Poupon?" in commercials for this Dijon mustard. During the last fifteen years of his life Richardson appeared five times on television acting opposite his son, Miles Richardson, though this was usually with one or other in a minor role. In ITV's "Marple", an uncredited Miles played Ian Richardson's son. He also played the Judge in the family-based film, "The Adventures of Greyfriars Bobby" (2005). His final film appearance was as Judge Langlois in "Becoming Jane", released shortly after his death. Death. Ian Richardson died in his sleep of a heart attack on the morning of 9 February 2007, aged 72. According to his agent, he had not been ill and had in fact been due to start filming an episode of "Midsomer Murders" the following week. He was survived by his wife, Maroussia Frank, an actress, and two sons, one of whom, Miles, is an actor with the Royal Shakespeare Company. His widow and his son Miles placed his ashes in the foundations of the auditorium of the Royal Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford during its renovations in 2008. Dame Helen Mirren dedicated her 2006 Best Actress BAFTA award for her portrayal of Queen Elizabeth II in the film "The Queen" to Ian Richardson. While conducting her acceptance speech, she said that without his support early in her career she might not have been so successful, before breaking down and leaving the stage. Honours. He was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 1989.
1061840	Aaron Edward Eckhart (born March 12, 1968) is an American film and stage actor. Born in California, he moved to England at the age of 13, when his father relocated the family. Several years later, he began his acting career by performing in school plays, before moving to Sydney, Australia, for his high school senior year. He left high school without graduating, but earned a diploma through an adult education course, and graduated from Brigham Young University in 1994 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in film. For much of the mid-1990s, he lived in New York City as a struggling, unemployed actor. As an undergraduate at Brigham Young, Eckhart met director and writer Neil LaBute, who cast him in several of his own original plays. Five years later Eckhart made a debut as an unctuous, sociopathic ladies' man in LaBute's black comedy film, "In the Company of Men" (1997). Under LaBute's guidance he worked in the director's films, "Your Friends & Neighbors" (1998), "Nurse Betty" (2000), and "Possession" (2002). Eckhart gained wide recognition as George in Steven Soderbergh's critically acclaimed film, "Erin Brockovich" (2000), and in 2006 received a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actor for his portrayal of Nick Naylor in "Thank You for Smoking". Another mainstream breakout occurred in 2008 when he starred in the blockbuster Batman film "The Dark Knight" as District Attorney Harvey Dent. Other key roles include "The Pledge" (2001), "The Core" (2003) and "Rabbit Hole" (2010). Early life. Eckhart was born in Cupertino, California, the son of Mary Martha Eckhart (née Lawrence), a poet and children's author, and James Conrad Eckhart, a computer executive. He is the youngest of three brothers. His father was of German (including German-Russian) descent, while his mother was of English, Scottish, Northern Irish, and German ancestry. He was raised as a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Mormon), and served a two-year LDS mission in France and Switzerland. Eckhart's family relocated to England in 1981, following his father's job in information technology. The family resided in Surrey, South East England, first in Walton-on-Thames, later moving to Cobham. While living in England Eckhart attended American Community School, now known as ACS International Schools, where he was first introduced to acting, starring in a school production as Charlie Brown. In 1985 he moved to Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, where he attended American International School of Sydney for his high school senior year; he further developed his acting skills in productions like "Waiting for Godot", where he admits that he did a "terrible" production. In the fall of his senior year Eckhart left the school in order to take a job working at Warringah Mall movie theater. He eventually earned his diploma through an adult education course. This also allowed Eckhart time to enjoy a year of surfing and skiing in Hawaii and the coastal waters of France. In 1988, Eckhart returned to the United States and enrolled as a film major at Brigham Young University–Hawaii, but later transferred to Brigham Young University (BYU) in Provo, Utah. He graduated in 1994 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree. Career. Early work. While at Brigham Young University, Eckhart appeared in the Mormon-themed film, "Godly Sorrow", and the role marked Eckhart's professional debut. At this time he met director/writer Neil LaBute, who cast him in several of his own original plays. After graduating from BYU, Eckhart moved to New York City, acquired an agent, and took various occasional jobs, including bartending, bus driving, and construction work. His first television roles were in commercials. In 1994 he appeared as an extra on the television drama series, "Beverly Hills, 90210". Eckhart followed this small part with roles in documentary re-enactments (Ancient Secrets of the Bible: Samson), made-for-television movies, and short-lived programs like "Aliens in the Family". In 1997 Eckhart was approached by Neil LaBute to star in a film adaptation of LaBute's stage play, "In the Company of Men". He played a frustrated white-collar worker who planned to woo a deaf office worker, gain her affections, then suddenly dump her. The film, his first feature to reach theaters, was critically well received, with Desson Howe of "The Washington Post" reporting that Eckhart is the "movie's most malignant presence" and that he "is in chilling command as a sort of satanic prince in shirtsleeves". "In the Company of Men" was a critical success, winning Best First Film at the 63rd annual New York Film Critics Circle Award. His performance won him the Independent Spirit Award in the category of Best Debut Performance. The film was ranked as one of "The 25 Most Dangerous Movies" by "Premiere" magazine. The following year Eckhart starred in another LaBute feature, "Your Friends & Neighbors" (1998), as Barry, a sexually frustrated husband in a dysfunctional marriage. For the role Eckhart was required to gain weight. In 1999 he starred opposite Elisabeth Shue in "Molly", a romantic comedy-drama in which he played the self-absorbed brother of an autistic woman who was cured by surgery. Eckhart also starred that year as a football coach, an offensive coordinator in Oliver Stone's "Any Given Sunday". Critical success. Eckhart first gained wide exposure in 2000 as George, a pony-tailed, goateed biker, in Steven Soderbergh's drama, "Erin Brockovich". The film was met with reasonable reviews, and was a box office success, earning $256 million worldwide. His performance was well received by critics; "Entertainment Weekly"'s Owen Gleiberman, wrote that Eckhart "may be playing a bit of an ideal [...] but he makes goodness as palpable as he did yuppie evil in 'In the Company of Men'." In an August 2004 interview, Eckhart claimed that he had not worked for nearly a year before he was cast in the movie. "I felt like I sort of was getting away from what I wanted to do as an actor. [...] I had nine months off, but it wasn't a vacation. Sure, I didn't earn any money for nine months, but every day I was reading scripts, I was producing my own material, I was taking meetings, I was working on my craft." Following the release of "Erin Brockovich", Eckhart co-starred with Renée Zellweger in LaBute's "Nurse Betty" (2000). He next appeared in Sean Penn's mystery feature "The Pledge" (2001), in which he played a young detective partnered with a veteran detective, played by Jack Nicholson. The movie received generally favorable reviews, but it did not fare particularly well at the box office. The following year, he collaborated with LaBute in a film adaptation of the Man Booker Prize-winning novel "Possession" (2002). In 2003, Eckhart co-starred with Hilary Swank in "The Core", a film about a geophysicist who tries to detonate a nuclear device in order to save the world from destruction. The film was critically and financially unsuccessful. Also in 2003, he appeared in "The Missing", in which he played Cate Blanchett's lover, and in the action-thriller "Paycheck" opposite Ben Affleck. "Paycheck", based on a short story by science fiction writer Philip K. Dick, garnered generally negative reception. Film critic Roger Ebert of the "Chicago Sun-Times" gave the film two stars (out of four), saying that he "enjoyed the movie" but felt that it "exploits story for its action and plot potential, but never really develops it." The following year, away from film, Eckhart guest starred in two episodes of NBC's comedy sitcom "Frasier", where he played a boyfriend of Charlotte, Dr. Frasier Crane's love interest. His next film role was in E. Elias Merhige's thriller "Suspect Zero", a movie about an FBI agent who tracks down a killer who murders serial killers. Upon release, the movie received broadly negative reviews. Despite the reception, Eckhart's performance was favored by critics; "Newsday" wrote that Eckhart was a "classically handsome leading man ... but Merhige demands of him complexity and anguish." "Suspect Zero" was a box office disappointment, earning $11 million worldwide. Also in 2004, Eckhart starred on the London stage, opposite Julia Stiles, in David Mamet's "Oleanna" at the Garrick Theatre. The drama ran until mid-2004. For this performance, Eckhart received favorable critical reviews. In 2005, returning to film, Eckhart appeared in "Neverwas" as a therapist who takes a job at a rundown mental hospital that once treated his father (Nick Nolte). The feature was never given a full theatrical release, eventually being released straight to DVD in 2007. Worldwide recognition. Eckhart's next project was "Thank You for Smoking", in which he played Nick Naylor, a tobacco lobbyist who researched the link between smoking cigarettes and lung cancer. Eckhart said that he felt challenged playing the role: "You have to say these words that are crazy, and yet do it with a smile on your face and have the audience like you. At one point, I'm doing a talk show with a kid who's dying of cancer, and he's going through chemotherapy and the whole thing, and I spin it so the anti-smoking people are the bad guys and I'm the good guy, and I'm this guy's best friend. I mean, it's whacked out." The film was screened at a special presentation at the 30th annual Toronto International Film Festival in 2005. It had a limited release in March 2006 and was released worldwide the following month. For his performance, Eckhart received a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actor in a Motion Picture Musical or Comedy. A contributor of "USA Today" wrote that he gave a "standout, whip-smart performance" citing that as Nick Naylor he kept him "likable even in his cynicism." In the "Seattle Post-Intelligencer" review of the film, it was reported that "Under his chummy but compassionless smile" Eckhart radiated charm and "Naylor's true joys: manipulating arguments, steering debate, cooking words." In this same year, he starred with Helena Bonham Carter in "Conversations with Other Women" (2006). While promoting this film, Eckhart revealed that he wishes not to be typecast or repeat himself, saying he does not want to play any more villains. He appeared in the 2006 film noir "The Black Dahlia"—based on a real 1947 crime—as Sergeant Leland "Lee" Blanchard, a detective investigating the murder of Elizabeth Short, later dubbed the "Black Dahlia". The film premiered at the 63rd Venice International Film Festival. Reception for the movie was mixed, but many critics enjoyed Eckhart's performance; "Time Out" magazine praised Eckhart and co-star Hilary Swank for their performances, writing "...both great in their secondary roles." Internationally viewed as a sex symbol, he was named one of "People" magazine's 100 Most Beautiful People in 2006. The following year, Eckhart was invited to join the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. He starred in "No Reservations" (2007), a remake of the 2001 German romantic comedy, "Mostly Martha". He starred opposite Catherine Zeta-Jones as an up-and-coming hotshot chef. The film was met with mixed reviews and was unfavorably compared to the original film. Eckhart starred in the 2008 comedy "Meet Bill", in which he played the eponymous character, a sad executive working at his father-in-law's bank. He gained 30 pounds and donned a fat suit for the role. Also in 2008, Eckhart portrayed the comic book character, Harvey Dent/Two-Face, in Christopher Nolan's "The Dark Knight", the sequel to the 2005 film "Batman Begins". Nolan's decision to cast Eckhart was based on his portrayal of corrupt characters in the films "In the Company of Men", "The Black Dahlia", and "Thank You For Smoking". He noted in his depiction of the character that " is still true to himself. He's a crime fighter, he's not killing good people. He's not a bad guy, not purely", while admitting "I'm interested in good guys gone wrong." "The Dark Knight" was a big financial and critical success, setting a new opening weekend box office record for North America. With revenue of $1 billion worldwide, it became the fourth highest grossing film of all time, and the highest grossing film of Eckhart's career. Roger Ebert opined that Eckhart did an "especially good job" as his character in the feature, while "Premiere" magazine also enjoyed his performance, noting that he "makes you believe in his ill-fated ambition ... of morphing into the conniving Two-Face." Following the success of "The Dark Knight", Eckhart next appeared in Alan Ball's "Towelhead" (2008), an adaption of the Alicia Erian novel of the same name, in which he played a Gulf War Army reservist who sexually abuses his 13-year-old Arab-American neighbor. The film was screened under the name "Nothing is Private" at the 2007 Toronto International Film Festival. When he was first approached for the role, Eckhart revealed that he did not want to play a "pedophile". When asked about the sex scenes, Eckhart said: "Those were difficult times ... The way I did it was to really trust Alan. It was in the words. I really trusted Summer , and I tried to get her to trust me, to build a relationship when we were doing physical scenes. We'd really rehearse them mechanically, and I'd say, 'OK, I'm going to put my hand here, I'm going to do this.' ... I think I found it more difficult." "Towelhead" was critically and financially unsuccessful. He next co-starred with Jennifer Aniston in the romantic drama, "Love Happens", released in September 2009, as a motivational speaker coming to terms with his own grief. The movie received ambivalent reviews, with a contributor of the "Orlando Sentinel" reporting that Eckhart plays "broken" for the whole movie. The following year he starred alongside Nicole Kidman in "Rabbit Hole" (2010), an adaption of David Lindsay-Abaire's 2005 drama of the same name. The feature premiered at the 2010 Toronto International Film Festival. In 2011, Eckhart starred in Jonathan Liebesman's science fiction film "", in which he portrayed a combat veteran Marine platoon sergeant. The film was set in modern-day Los Angeles during a global alien invasion, and followed a platoon of U.S. Marines who are joined by an Air Force special operations sergeant and some Army infantry soldiers in combat operations against the alien enemy. He appeared alongside Johnny Depp, Richard Jenkins, and Amber Heard in Hunter S. Thompson's novel adaptation "The Rum Diary", directed by Bruce Robinson. In the film, Eckhart played Sanderson, a wealthy landowner, who believes everything has a price and introduces Paul Kemp (Depp) to a different standard of living. He recently appeared as the U.S. President who has taken hostage in the 2013 action thriller "Olympus Has Fallen". For the future, among the actors Eckhart hopes to work with are Jeff Bridges and Angelina Jolie. Personal life. Eckhart once was engaged to actress Emily Cline whom he met during filming of "In the Company of Men", but they separated in 1998. He always has been reluctant in speaking about his relationships in interviews. Eckhart dated country music songwriter and member of SHeDAISY, Kristyn Osborn, from 2006-2007. He appeared in the group's video for their single, "I'm Taking the Wheel". In various interviews Eckhart has talked about his beliefs, his way of life, and his future career ambitions. Talking to "Entertainment Weekly" regarding his Mormon faith, he revealed: "I'm sure people think I'm a Mormon, but I don't know that I'm a Mormon anymore, you know? To be honest, to be perfectly clear, I'd be a hypocrite if I did say that I was, just because I haven't lived that lifestyle for so many years." In other interviews he has divulged that, through hypnosis, he quit drinking, smoking, and partying, and that in his spare time, he enjoys photography. In an interview with "Parade" magazine, Eckhart revealed that before he discovered acting, he wanted to become a songwriter.
1067087	Jason X (also known as Friday the 13th Part X: Jason X) is a 2001 science fiction horror slasher film directed by James Isaac. It is the tenth in the "Friday the 13th" film series and stars Kane Hodder as the undead mass murderer Jason Voorhees, the film made $16,951,798 worldwide with a budget of $14 million. Thus far, it is the last appearance of Kane Hodder in the role of Jason Voorhees. The film was conceived by Todd Farmer and was the only pitch he gave to the studio for the movie, having suggested sending Jason into space as a means to advance the film series while "Freddy vs. Jason" was still in development hell and is set in the future so as not to confuse the continuity of the series. Plot. In 2008, Jason Voorhees is captured by the United States government and held at the Crystal Lake Research Facility. In 2010, a government scientist, decides to place Jason in "ice" after several attempts to kill him. While Private Tanner Heflin places a blanket on Jason, Doctor Lisa Harris, Sergeant Trent, and a few soldiers hope to further research Jason's rapid cellular regeneration and try to take Jason. They pull off the blanket covering his body, but find Calvert dead instead. Having broken free of his restraints, Jason kills the soldiers. Rowan lures Jason into a "ice" pod and activates it. Then Jason ruptures the pod with his machete and stabs Rowan in the abdomen, spilling ice fluid into the sealed room and freezing them both. In the year 2455, Earth has become too polluted to support life and has moved to a new planet, Earth Two. Three students, Tsunaron, Janessa and Azrael are on a field trip led by Professor Brandon Lowe who is accompanied by an Android robot, KM-14. They enter the Crystal Lake facility and find the still frozen Jason and Rowan, whom they bring to their spaceship, the "Apache". Also on the ship are Lowe's remaining students, Kinsa, Waylander and Stoney. They reanimate Rowan while Jason is pronounced dead and left in the morgue. Lowe's intern, Adrienne, is ordered to dissect Jason's body. Lowe, who is in serious debt, calls his financial backer Dieter Perez of the "Solaris", who notes that Jason's body could be worth a substantial amount to a collector. While Stoney has sex with Kinsa, Jason comes back to life and attacks Adrienne and then freezes her face with liquid nitrogen before smashing her head on a counter. Jason takes a machete-shaped surgical tool and makes his way through the ship. He stabs Stoney in the chest and drags him away, to Kinsa's horror. Sergeant Brodski leads a group of soldiers to attack Jason. Meanwhile, Jason attacks and kills Dallas and Azrael. He then tries to attack Crutch, but Brodski and his soldiers save him. Jason disappears, and after Brodski splits up his team, Jason kills them.
1028691	Bryce Owen Johnson (born April 18, 1977) is an American actor. Early life. Johnson was raised in Reno, Nevada before moving to Denver, Colorado at 5 with his newly divorced mother along with his two brothers where he graduated from high school in 1995. Afterwards, the family relocated to Sioux City, Iowa where Bryce attended acting classes at the local community college before deciding to embark on his acting career. Career. He headed for Hollywood at 19 after his mother encouraged him not to join the navy. While working odd-jobs to pay the bills he searched around looking for auditions and enrolled at Pasadena's American Academy of Dramatic Arts. He was receiving minor work until his big break came in 1999 when he was cast as Josh Ford in The WB's "Popular". Also in that year he was part of the cast of MTV series "Undressed". After the show ended in 2001, he continued on the platform of more teen-oriented projects with minor guest roles on "Dawson's Creek", "Gilmore Girls" and other teenage shows. By the time he approached his mid 20s, he said he wanted to branch into more adult and challenging roles trying to stay clear of the teen genre. 2004 saw him playing a gay cheerleader in "Bring It On Again" and starring in two films screened at the Sundance Film Festival, "Home of Phobia" and the controversial "Harry + Max". In 2003 he returned to television in an unaired series, "Still Life", and made appearances on "What I Like About You", "Nip/Tuck", and "House M.D" while doing voice-over work for video games. In 2006 he starred in another controversial film, "Sleeping Dogs Lie", with Melinda Page Hamilton which also screened at the Sundance Film Festival. He is a series regular on "Lone Star" portraying Drew Thatcher, and also has a recurring role as Detective Darren Wilden on "Pretty Little Liars". In 2011, Johnson starred in MTV's "Death Valley" as UTF police officer Billy Pierce. That same year, he played a supporting role as Chad in the dark romantic comedy "Hit List".
1059792	Amber Laura Heard (born April 22, 1986) is an American actress and model. She played the lead and title character in "All the Boys Love Mandy Lane", which debuted at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2006. Heard's first starring role came in 2007 on the CW television show "Hidden Palms". Her breakthrough came in 2008 with roles in "Never Back Down" and "Pineapple Express". In 2009, Heard starred in "The Stepfather" and also had a small role in the horror-comedy "Zombieland". She next starred in "The Joneses" and "And Soon the Darkness" (both 2010), John Carpenter's "The Ward", alongside Nicolas Cage in "Drive Angry", and alongside Johnny Depp in "The Rum Diary. Early life. Heard was born and raised in Austin, Texas. Her father, David, is a contractor, and her mother, Paige (née Parsons), is an internet researcher for the state. She attended St. Michael's Catholic Academy in Austin until her junior year, when she left to pursue a career in Hollywood. As a teenager, Heard was active in her school's drama department and appeared in local commercials and campaigns. She read books by authors such as George Orwell and Salman Rushdie. At the age of 16, her best friend died in a car crash and Heard, who was raised Catholic, subsequently declared herself an atheist after being introduced to the works of Ayn Rand by her then-boyfriend. She has said of Rand, "I've read all of her books. Ever since then, I have been obsessed with her ideals. All I've ever needed is myself." Dropping out of school at the age of 17, she went to New York to start a career in modeling, then relocated to Los Angeles to get into acting. Career. Once in Los Angeles, Heard made appearances in various TV shows and two music videos, Kenny Chesney's "There Goes My Life" and Eisley's "I Wasn't Prepared". She was cast as Liz in the pilot episode of The WB's "Jack & Bobby" (2004), as Riley in an episode of "The Mountain" (2004) and she had a brief cameo as a salesgirl in "The O.C." (2005). Her first movie role was Maria in "Friday Night Lights" (2004). She next starred as Shay in "Side FX" (2005), an independent horror film, and had supporting roles in "Drop Dead Sexy" (2005), "Price to Pay" (2006) and "You Are Here" (2006). Heard had more prominent parts in Niki Caro's "North Country" (2005) and in Nick Cassavetes' "Alpha Dog" (2006). In 2006, she starred in an episode of "Criminal Minds" as Lila Archer, a love interest of main character Spencer Reid. Heard was next cast in the CW Network's "Hidden Palms". On the show she portrayed Greta Matthews, who suffered the losses of both her mother and boyfriend, Eddie, and befriends Johnny, the anti-hero of the show. In order to get the part, Heard was asked to lose weight. It took her four months between the pilot and the second episode to lose 25 pounds, giving up alcohol, increasing her workouts and following a macrobiotic diet (no meat, dairy or processed sugar). "Hidden Palms" premiered in the US on May 30, 2007. Ultimately, The CW wrapped the summer series early; instead of the initial 12 episode arc, only eight were aired. The show ended on July 4, two weeks earlier than originally planned. She was next cast in the title role in "All the Boys Love Mandy Lane". The horror film premiered at the Toronto Film Festival in September 2006, immediately generating buzz and landing a deal with Harvey Weinstein. However, nearly a year after its Toronto debut, the movie had not reached theaters. In July 2007, "Mandy Lane" found a new distribution home and the film finally was released in 2008 with a February UK release and DVD release in June. In 2007, Heard also appeared in the short movie "Day 73 with Sarah" and Jess Manafort's indie drama "Remember the Daze" (aka "The Beautiful Ordinary"), which premiered at the Los Angeles Film Festival in June and opened in limited release in April 2008. She then appeared in the Judd Apatow-produced, Rogen and Goldberg-written comedy "Pineapple Express" and the martial arts drama "Never Back Down", released in 2008, back-to-back. The latter opened in March and Heard played the role of the free-spirited Baja Miller who falls for Sean Faris' Jake Tyler. Heard also made a brief appearance in Showtime's "Californication" and joined the ensemble cast of "The Informers", based on Bret Easton Ellis' novel of the same title, set to be released in 2009. She also filmed the horror film "The Stepfather" and the comedy film "Ex-Terminators" back-to-back in 2008 while promoting "Never Back Down", "Mandy Lane" and "Remember the Daze". In late 2008, she filmed "The River Why" and "The Joneses"; two independent features. At the beginning of 2009, "The Informers" made its premiere at the Sundance Film Festival. The reviews were mostly negative. Heard next appeared in "Zombieland", playing a small role as the object of Jesse Eisenberg’s affection who turns into a zombie. She will subsequently appear in John Carpenter's "The Ward". In March, Heard began filming "The Rum Diary", opposite Johnny Depp, in Puerto Rico. Heard was reported to have won the role out over Scarlett Johansson and Keira Knightley. In 2010, she starred in and produced "And Soon the Darkness", co-starring Odette Yustman and Karl Urban. In the October 2009 issue of "Teen Vogue", Amber described her role as Johnny Depp's love interest in the film, "The Rum Diary", as "the best experience of my life." In February 2010, Heard was cast in "Drive Angry", a 3-D action thriller directed by Patrick Lussier and released in February 2011. In February 2011, she appeared on "Top Gear" in the UK. She talked about her love of guns and muscle cars, and revealed that she used to line-dance in Texas bars. She co-stars in the 2013 films "Machete Kills" and "Paranoia". In August 2012, Heard was in talks to replace Kristen Stewart, who abruptly dropped out in Nick Cassavetes' upcoming thriller "Cali". Heard will play Mya, who goes along with her lover, played by Alex Pettyfer, in filming a fake snuff film. They make a lot of money and escape Los Angeles only to return a year later to try and rescue Mya’s sister from a group of suspected thugs. Personal life. Heard came out in 2010, at GLAAD's 25th anniversary event. She dated photographer Tasya van Ree from 2008 until 2011. She has said about her sexuality: "I don't label myself one way or another—I have had successful relationships with men and now a woman. I love who I love; it's the person that matters." Heard grew up around guns, and owns a .357 Magnum. A fan of muscle cars, she drives a 1968 Ford Mustang.
578486	The Love of Siam (, , pronounced ) is a 2007 Thai gay-themed romantic-drama film written and directed by Chookiat Sakveerakul. A multi-layered family drama, a groundbreaking element of the story is a gay romance between two teenage boys. The film was released in Thailand on November 22, 2007. The fact that the gay storyline was not apparent from the film's promotional material initially caused controversy, but the film was received with critical acclaim and proved financially successful. It dominated Thailand's 2007 film awards season, winning the Best Picture category in all major events, Plot. Ten-year old Mew and Tong are neighbors. Mew is a soft-featured but stubborn child, while Tong is a more masculine, energetic boy who lives with his parents and sister, a Roman Catholic ethnic Chinese family. Tong wants to befriend Mew, but the quiet boy and his outgoing neighbor are not initially close. At school, effeminate Mew is teased by several other students and harassed until Tong steps in to defend him. Tong receives injuries and now they begin a friendship. Mew plays on his late grandpa's piano and is joined by his grandma, who begins to play an old Chinese song. Mew asks his grandma why she liked this song and his grandma responds that it was played for her by his grandpa. She explains that one day, Mew will understand the meaning of the song. Tong's family goes on vacation to Chiang Mai and his older sister, Tang, begs her mother to be allow her to stay on with her friends a couple days more. Tong buys Mew a present and decides to give it to Mew piece by piece in a game similar to a treasure hunt, a tradition in his family. One by one, Mew finds all of the pieces except for the last one which is hidden in a tree. The tree is cut down just as Mew is about to retrieve it leaving the present Tong bought for Mew incomplete. Tong is disappointed at their misfortune, but Mew remains grateful for Tong's efforts. Tong's parents are unable to contact Tang in Chiang Mai, and go there to look for her, fearing she may be lost in the mountains. Tong devastated that his sister is missing, and cries while Mew tries to comfort him. Tong's parents are unable to find Tang, and the family decides to move to Bangkok. After giving Mew some parting words, Tong looks back to find Mew wiping his eyes with his sleeve as Tong's family's car drives away. Six years pass. Tong's father Korn is a severe alcoholic, due to his guilt for losing his daughter. Tong has a pretty—but uptight—girlfriend, Donut. Tong and Mew are reunited during their senior year of high school at Siam Square. The musically talented Mew is the lead singer of a boy band called August. The meeting stirs up old feelings that Mew has harbored since boyhood, his love for Tong. The manager of Mew's band, Aod, instructs the young musicians—their songwriter Mew in particular—that they must write a song about love in order to sell more records. He assigns them a new assistant manager, June. Coincidentally, June looks just like Tong's missing sister, Tang. When Tong eventually meets her, he and his mother, Sunee, devise to a plan to hire June to pretend she is Tang, in hopes that it will pull Korn out of his alcoholic depression. June's performance convinces Korn, despite gaffes such as saying a Buddhist prayer instead of Catholic Grace at the dinner table. Amazingly to Sunee, June seems to already know much of the family's past. June passes it off as her creative imagination. Mew is also the object of an unrequited crush from an obsessive neighbor girl, Ying, who is trying to use a voodoo doll and other tricks to make Mew like her. Unfortunately for her, Mew is more interested in his boyhood friend Tong, who has become his inspiration for writing the new love song. Aod and Mew's bandmates are impressed with Mew's composition. As part of the deception with "Tang," a backyard party is held in honor of her return, and Mew's band August provides the entertainment. Singing the new love song for the first time in public, Mew's eyes lock intensely with Tong's. After the party, when everyone has left, the two boys share a prolonged kiss. Unseen, Sunee accidentally witnesses their kiss. The next day, she firmly commands Mew to stay away from her son. When Tong finds out that his mother has interfered, an argument ensues, but her actions succeeded in creating a rift between the teens. Mew is heartbroken and loses his musical inspiration, so he quits the band. Korn's alcoholism leads to a liver condition which sends him to a hospital. While in the hospital, June questions the effectiveness of the "Tang" ruse, noting that Korn has not reduced his alcohol consumption. She leaves, and does not answer when Korn asks her whether she will return for Christmas. After she leaves, Korn starts eating more and begins takes his liver medication. At Christmas time, as Tong and his mother are decorating their Christmas tree, he shows her how controlling she is. June has saved money and heads off in a bus to Chiang Mai. It is not clear whether June and Tang were the same person. Tong goes to Siam Square for a date with Donut. Mew has rejoined the band, and they are playing nearby. Tong abandons Donut, telling her they are no longer together. He then rushes to see Mew sing and is guided there by Ying, who has accepted the fact that Mew loves Tong. After the performance, Tong gives Mew his Christmas gift, the missing nose from the wooden doll that Tong gave him when they were children. Tong then tells Mew, "I can't be your boyfriend, but that doesn't mean I don't love you."
1055320	Joseph "Joe" Estevez (born February 13, 1946) is an American actor, director, and producer. He is the younger brother of actor Martin Sheen and the uncle of Emilio Estevez, Charlie Sheen, Renée Estevez, and Ramon Estevez. Biography. Early life. Estevez was born in Dayton, Ohio to a Catholic, Galician-born father, Francisco Estevez, and an Irish mother, Mary Anne (née Phelan). He is one of ten children, nine boys and one girl. As a child, he lived in the South Park neighborhood of Dayton. During a family trip in April 1959, he participated in the White House Easter Egg Roll and met President Dwight D. Eisenhower. He attended Chaminade High School, a Catholic High School located in Dayton. Upon his graduation, he enlisted and served in the United States Navy. Career. After serving in the U.S. Navy, Estevez began pursuing an acting career starting in the early 1970s. He initially used his mother's maiden name, Phelan, before using his surname, Estevez. Throughout his career, Estevez has appeared in numerous film and television roles in lead, supporting, and minor parts playing protagonists and antagonists, and he frequently appears in moderate and low-budget independent features and B-movies. In addition, he has worked as a voice-over artist and performs in stage productions. He has expressed in an interview that he wants to make movies that make a difference. He plays a villain, Cyrus, in the 2012 film "Doonby", which features former "Dukes of Hazzard" star John Schneider as a mysterious stranger who comes into a small town and falls in love with the spoiled daughter of Estevez's character, the local doctor. He also co-stars with David Faustino in the feature "Not Another B Movie" released by Troma Entertainment in 2011. Personal life. Joe Estevez has been married twice and is the father of three daughters. His second wife is actress Constance Anderson. Estevez, unlike his older brother Martin Sheen, is politically conservative. The brothers' voices sound similar, and Estevez famously did the voice over for a National Shooting Sports Foundation pro-gunmaker commercial in 2000; at the time, his brother was famous for playing a fictional President of the United States on the television show "The West Wing". In response, Martin Sheen, who's been famous for his progressive politics starred in a pro-gun control commercial that same year.
1044977	Summer Phoenix (born Summer Joy Bottom; December 10, 1978) is an American actress and model. She is the youngest sibling of the late River Phoenix, Rain Phoenix, Joaquin Phoenix, and Liberty Phoenix, and is married to actor Casey Affleck. Early life. Summer was raised in Southern California, but spent her teen years in Central Florida, where she was born. Her mother, Arlyn Sharon (née Dunetz), was born in the Bronx, New York, to Jewish parents from Hungary and Russia. Her father, John Lee Bottom, was a lapsed Catholic from Fontana, California. In 1968, Phoenix's mother left her family and moved to California, meeting Phoenix's father while hitch-hiking. They married in 1969 and joined the religious cult the Children of God, working as missionaries and fruit pickers in South America. Phoenix has four siblings: two brothers, actors Joaquin (Leaf) and the late River, and two sisters, Rain and Liberty. She attended New York University's Tisch School of the Arts, but left before graduating to pursue a career in film. Career. Summer was a child actor, working with agent Iris Burton along with her brothers and sister at the age of two, and went on to have guest roles in "Murder She Wrote", "Growing Pains" and "Airwolf". She appeared in the TV movie "Kate's Secret" and in "Russkies", playing the younger sister of real life brother Joaquin. Phoenix later appeared in "Wasted", "The Laramie Project", "SLC Punk!", "Dinner Rush", "The Believer", and "The Faculty". She played leads in "Esther Kahn" (2000) and "Suzie Gold" (2004). In 2002, Phoenix starred in a three-month run of "This is Our Youth" at the Garrick Theatre alongside Matt Damon and Casey Affleck. She was a member of the rock band The Causey Way with her sister Rain. She later made guest appearances on albums by Rain's band, the Papercranes. Personal life. Summer is a vegan. She is an avid supporter of several environmental and animal rights causes and charities, including PETA. She became engaged to Casey Affleck on December 25, 2003, and gave birth to a son, Indiana August, on May 31, 2004, in Amsterdam. Phoenix and Affleck married on June 3, 2006 in Savannah, Georgia, and had a second son, Atticus, on January 12, 2008. She now owns and runs the vintage clothing boutiques Some Odd Rubies, with stores in New York and Los Angeles, along with friends Odessa Whitmire and Ruby Canner.
583868	Pugaippadam () is a 2010 Indian Tamil-language memoir-drama film written and directed by newcomer Rajesh Lingam, starring Priya Anand of "Vaamanan" fame along with 6 newcomers, namely Amjad, Harish, Sivam, Nandha, Mrinalini and Yamini, in lead roles. The film was released on 1 January 2010. Production. The film was announced in May 2008, with the director being an associate of Selvaraghavan. The cast was almost entirely newcomers with the male lead, Amjad, being associated with Radio One. Priya Anand, whose second film "Vaamanan" released before "Pugaippadam", was also introduced. A noted orator and professor Gnanasambandham was announced to don an important role in this film, whilst Gangai Amaran, was chosen to score the music. Release. Reception. The film opened in only a few centres across Chennai, Tamil Nadu to a below average opening. The film which grossed 1,70,670 in the opening weekend, failed commercially at the box-office. Reviews. Upon release, the film received mixed reviews. A reviewer from Behindwoods.com claimed that the overall the film "does manage to live up to the liveliness and energy that we associate with a campus movie" with the first half being "colorful and enjoyable with humor mixed at places", also giving praise to the "touching" climax. However, the reviewer goes on to claim that the "entire movie appears episodic and fragmented" with the flow is "definitely missing at many places, which is a sore point". The cast also received mixed reviews with Shanmugasundaram’s role being criticized whilst Venkat, appearing as a professor, "fits the bill" whilst the young debut stars "have done their parts well". The crew of the film was adjudged by Behindwoods to have handled the camera "very well, capturing the scenic beauty of the landscape". Whilst the director, Rajesh Lingam, has "proved that he has the right stuff in him to make good movies if he gets the right material". Music by Gangai Amaran was also appreciated, with the song "Oru Kudaiyil", being singled out by the reviewer. Soundtrack. The soundtrack was composed by music director Gangai Amaran.
1015866	Shing Fui On (成奎安; 1 February 1955 - 27 August 2009) was a Hong Kong actor, best known for his supporting roles in Hong Kong cinema. He had only one leading role in his entire career. Biography. Shing Fui-On was the fourth of five siblings. Due to family poverty, Shing had to drop out of school at the age of 13. At the age of 15, he worked as an extra at Shaw Brothers, and later moved to Golden Harvest before working at a dance hall. Shing Fui On was an original resident of Sai Kung's Nam Wai Village. In 2003, he was elected the village chief. In 2007, he was elected to the post for a fifth time. Career. During his film career, Shing is always famous for portraying villains and comedic characters, due to his large stature and deep and grumpy voice. Shin often appeared as a supporting actor in films with Chow Yun-fat including "A Better Tomorrow", "A Better Tomorrow II", "The Killer", "Tiger on Beat", "Prison on Fire", "God of Gamblers" and "The Greatest Lover" (a Hong Kong adaption of the Pygmalion/My Fair Lady plot). His only lead role was in the 1994 Category III film "The Blue Jean Monster". His last feature film role was the 2007 film "The Detective". Shing worked on a total of 95 feature films in one four-year span (1988–1991) and earned over 230 credits during his career. Death. In October 2004, Shing discovered that he had been diagnosed with nasopharyngeal carcinoma, which had already reached his lungs. His condition became stable after electro and chemotherapy. However, his mouth was no longer able to produce saliva, and Shing was left with 20% hearing in his right ear. In 2008, Shing's condition worsened. Reportedly his cancer reached his liver and caused his death, he also supposedly weighed less than 100 pounds. Shing died from the disease on 27 August 2009 at 11:45 p.m. at the Hong Kong Baptist Hospital in Kowloon, Hong Kong.
520799	My Amnesia Girl is a 2010 Filipino romantic film starring John Lloyd Cruz and Toni Gonzaga. It was released by Star Cinema and directed by Cathy Garcia-Molina The film is the highest grossing Filipino film of 2010. It currently holds the title of eleventh highest grossing Filipino film of all time. Plot. When Apollo (John Lloyd Cruz) finds himself surrounded by friends who are beginning to settle down, he is faced with the possibility of finding his true love. It all boils down to one name: Irene. It must be fate then, when he once again sees Irene (Toni Gonzaga), his ex-girlfriend from 3 years ago with whom he had the best memories with. Apollo and Irene were a perfect couple, and were engaged to be married. It all ended at the altar when Apollo had a bout of cold feet and left Irene alone in the aisle. Now, Irene has no recollection of Apollo, having acquired “amnesia” shortly after their separation. Apollo sees this as the perfect opportunity to pursue Irene again, and be able to undo all the mistakes he made in the past, by offering Irene the best memories she could ever have. True love is difficult to resist, they learn. Just when they find themselves ready to commit to each other, the pains from the past catch up with them, challenging them to finally own up to the mistakes made and lies said, and eventually realize what it is to forgive and forget. Reception. The film was well received by the critics and became commercially successful. It is considered the highest grossing film of 2010 having a total gross of P164 million pesos nationwide. Cruz and Gonzaga were respectively named as the "Box-Office King and Queen" of 2010, by SM Cinemas.
153159	Viva Cuba is a 2005 Cuban film, directed by Juan Carlos Cremata and Iraida Malberti Cabrera, and written by Cremata and Manolito Rodriguez. It was the first Cuban film to be awarded the ‘Grand Prix Écrans Juniors’ for children’s cinema at the 2005 Cannes Film Festival. In "Viva Cuba", a road movie fairy tale, Cremata tackles localized Cuban problems from the literal point of view of the country’s children. He lowers the camera to the eye level of the film’s protagonists, Malú (Malú Tarrau Broche) and Jorgito (Jorgito Miló Ávila). Background. "Viva Cuba" is a Cuban independent film that explores emigration and the effects it can have on children who have to leave friends and extended families behind. Youngsters are often uprooted without being consulted and then must contend with their new surroundings. In one scene, Malú and Jorgito discuss when they might reunite. The best they can hope for is to forget one another as their lives change and they face new pleasures and challenges. The viewer knows they are unlikely to ever see each other again, unless Malú’s mother can be granted re-entry, which is extremely unlikely given the state of Cuban immigration laws. Plot. Malú is from an upper-class family and her single mother does not want her to play with Jorgito, as she thinks his background is coarse and common-place. Jorgito's mother, a poor socialist proud of her family's social standing, places similar restrictions on her son. What neither woman recognizes is the immense strength of the bond between Malú and Jorgito. When the children find out that Malú's mother is planning to leave Cuba to go to another country (she has a boyfriend there), they decide to run away and travel to the other side of the island to find Malú's father and persuade him against signing the forms that would allow Malú and her mother to leave the country. Both children are seen preparing for the journey and their social statuses are greatly contrasted: Malú's clean clothes, her plastic drinking cup at breakfast and her toys; Jorgito's uncleaned clothes, the use of a metal cup for the latter's breakfast. The two children embark on a journey, avoiding the police sent to search for them. The disappearances of both children bring their two mothers closer together in their grief. Jorgito loses the map and tensions rise between the two children. They insult each other; Malú bringing up Jorgito's social status, and Jorgito calling Malú's mother a slut. When they reach the lighthouse where Malú's father works, the forms had already been signed before she could persuade him otherwise. The parents (minus Malú's father), having flown to the lighthouse before the kids got there, begin to beat their children and argue among each other. The two children run away from the fight and console each other by the shore; a silent goodbye. Reception. "Viva Cuba" is unique in that, with the exception of Juan Padrón's animated features, it is the first Cuban live-action feature film addressed specifically to an audience of children. The film became a box office hit and went on to win many awards nationally and internationally as it was displayed at many film festivals around the world, including 2005 Cannes Film Festival, where it won the Grand Prix Ecrans Juniors Award, plus awards in countries as diverse as Australia, Italy, Guatemala, Germany, France, and Taiwan. In 2008, it was shown all over Venezuela. Awards. "Viva Cuba" won 34 national and international awards in all, including:
1595930	Dwight David Yoakam (born October 23, 1956) is an American singer-songwriter, actor and film director, most famous for his pioneering country music. Popular since the early 1980s, he has recorded more than 21 albums and compilations, charted more than 30 singles on the "Billboard" Hot Country Songs charts, and sold more than 25 million records. Yoakam has recorded 5 Billboard #1 Albums, 12 Gold Albums, and 9 Platinum Albums, including the Triple Platinum "This Time".
1265277	Charles Farrell (August 9, 1901 – May 6, 1990) was an American film actor of the 1920s silent era and into the 1930s, and later a television actor. Farrell is probably best recalled for his onscreen romances with actress Janet Gaynor in more than a dozen films, including "Seventh Heaven", "Street Angel", and "Lucky Star". Biography. Career. Born in Walpole, Massachusetts, He began his career in Hollywood as a bit player for Paramount Pictures. Farrell did extra work for films ranging from "The Hunchback of Notre Dame" with Lon Chaney, Sr., Cecil B. DeMille's "The Ten Commandments", and "The Cheat" with Pola Negri. Farrell continued to work throughout the next few years in relatively minor roles without much success until he was signed by Fox Studios and was paired with fellow newcomer Janet Gaynor in the romantic drama "Seventh Heaven". The film was a public and critical success and Farrell and Gaynor would go on to star opposite one another in more than a dozen films throughout the late 1920s and into the talkie era of the early 1930s. Unlike many of his silent screen peers, Farrell had little difficulty with "voice troubles" and remained a publicly popular actor throughout the sound era. Early 1950s. During the early 1950s, a decade after his career in motion pictures had ended, Farrell began appearing on the television series "My Little Margie", which aired on CBS and NBC between 1952 and 1955. He played the role of the widower Vern Albright, the father of a young woman, Margie Albright with a knack for getting into trouble, portrayed by Gale Storm. In 1956, Farrell starred in his own television program, "The Charles Farrell Show". In the 1960s he also appeared on various British TV series such as "Danger Man". Personal life and retirement. Farrell married former actress Virginia Valli on February 14, 1931, and the couple was married until Valli's death from a stroke on September 24, 1968. After retiring from his acting career, Farrell became a resident of the desert city of Palm Springs, California. He opened the popular Palm Springs Racquet Club in the city with fellow actor Ralph Bellamy. A major factor in the prosperity of Palm Springs in the 1950s, Farrell was elected mayor of the community in 1953, a position that he held for seven years. Farrell died from a heart attack in 1990. He was interred at the Welwood Murray Cemetery there. Awards. For his contribution to both motion pictures and television, Charles Farrell was awarded two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in Hollywood at the following locations: 7021 Hollywood Blvd. (motion pictures), and 1617 Vine Street (television). In 1992, a Golden Palm Star on the Palm Springs, California, Walk of Stars was dedicated to him. Filmography. Features: Short Subjects:
1061729	Kiefer William Frederick Dempsey George Rufus Sutherland (born 21 December 1966) is a British-born Canadian actor, film producer, and film director. He is best known for his portrayal of Jack Bauer on the Fox series "24" for which he won an Emmy Award, a Golden Globe Award, two Screen Actors Guild Awards, and two Satellite Awards. He also starred as Martin Bohm in the Fox drama "Touch", and will provide the English voice of Big Boss in the upcoming "". Early life. Sutherland was born in London, the son of Donald Sutherland and Shirley Douglas, both of whom are successful Canadian actors. He is of primarily Scottish descent, with some English and German ancestry. His maternal grandfather was Scottish-born Canadian politician and former Premier of Saskatchewan Tommy Douglas, who is widely credited for bringing universal health care to Canada. Sutherland is named after American-born writer and director Warren Kiefer, who, under the assumed name of Lorenzo Sabatini, directed Donald Sutherland in his very first feature film, the Italian low-budget horror film "Il castello dei morti vivi" ("Castle of the Living Dead"). Sutherland's family moved to Corona, California. His parents divorced in 1970. In 1975, Sutherland moved with his mother to Toronto. He attended elementary school at Crescent Town Elementary School, St. Clair Junior High East York, and John G. Althouse Middle School in Toronto. He attended five different high schools, including St. Andrew's College, Martingrove Collegiate Institute, Harbord Collegiate Institute, Silverthorn Collegiate Institute, Malvern Collegiate Institute, and Annex Village Campus. He also spent a semester at Regina Mundi Catholic College in London (Ontario) and attended weekend acting lessons at Sir Frederick Banting Secondary School. Sutherland told "Jimmy Kimmel Live!" (2009) that he and Robert Downey, Jr. were roommates for three years when he first moved to Hollywood to pursue his career in acting. Career. "Stand by Me" was the first film Sutherland made in the United States. He played the neighborhood bully in this coming of age story about the search for a dead body. Sutherland has appeared in more than 70 films, most notably "", "A Few Good Men", "Flatliners", "Young Guns", "The Vanishing", "The Three Musketeers", "Eye for an Eye", "Dark City", "A Time To Kill", and "The Sentinel". The actor is also a frequent collaborator with director Joel Schumacher, and has appeared in "The Lost Boys", "Flatliners", "Phone Booth" and the big screen adaptation of "A Time to Kill". In "The Lost Boys", Sutherland was reunited with actor Cory Feldman, who he had previously worked with on "Stand by Me". In 2005, Sutherland was inducted into Canada's Walk of Fame in Toronto, where both of his parents have also been inducted. In 2009, he was awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Sutherland was the first "Inside the Actors Studio" guest to be the child of a former guest; his father, Donald, appeared on the show in 1998. Sutherland was featured on the cover of the April 2006 edition of "Rolling Stone", in an article entitled "Alone in the Dark with Kiefer Sutherland." The article began with Sutherland revealing his interest to be killed off in "24". However, he stated, "Don't get me wrong. I love what I do." It also revealed that he devoted 10 months a year working on "24". He has starred in Japanese commercials for CalorieMate, performing a parody of his Jack Bauer character. Sutherland also provides voice-overs for the current ad campaign for the Ford Motor Company of Canada. In mid-2006, he voiced the Apple, Inc. advertisement announcing the inclusion of Intel chips in their Macintosh computer line. He also voices the introduction to NHL games on the Versus network in the U.S. He has appeared in a Brazilian TV commercials for Citroën C4 sedan and a voice-over for a commercial for Bank of America. He voices Sgt. Roebuck in Treyarch's video game ' and will voice Punished Snake (aka Big Boss) in the upcoming ', taking over the role originally performed by David Hayter, as to provide an older voice to the aging character's role. Sutherland is a celebrity producer of "The 1 Second Film". In 2011, he made his Broadway debut, opposite Brian Cox, Jim Gaffigan, Chris Noth and Jason Patric in the Broadway revival of "That Championship Season", which opened in March 2011. The show has since closed. Sutherland stars in the Fox television series "Touch". Sutherland plays the father of an autistic boy who does not like to be touched, while the son also communicates future humanity interrelated events to his father through numbers and mathematics. "24". Since 2001, Sutherland has been associated most widely with the role of Jack Bauer, on the critically acclaimed television series "24". After being nominated four times for the "Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series" Primetime Emmy Award, Sutherland won the award in 2006 for his role in "24"'s fifth season. In the opening skit of the 2006 Primetime Emmy Awards, Sutherland made an appearance as his "24" character, Jack Bauer. He was also nominated for Best actor in a Drama Television Series in the 2007 Golden Globe Awards for "24". According to his 2006 contract, his salary of $40 million for three seasons of the show made him the highest-earning actor on television. Sutherland constantly emphasizes that the show is merely "entertainment." The Dean of the United States Military Academy, Brigadier General Patrick Finnegan, visited the set of "24" in February 2007 to urge the show's makers to reduce the number of torture scenes and Sutherland accepted an invitation from the U.S. military to tell West Point cadets that it is wrong to torture prisoners. In an interview with "OK!" Magazine, Howard Gordon says that it would be an "unbearable loss" if they killed off Sutherland's character. In an interview with Charlie Rose on 12 January 2007, Sutherland made clear statements of his opposition to torture, specifically that, "...it is widely known that you can torture someone and they'll basically tell you exactly what you want to hear, whether it's true or not, if you put someone in enough pain. Torture is not a way of procuring information. The way of procuring information is in fact quite the opposite, and unfortunately that takes a lot of time." (see minute 19:00) In another interview on 20 November 2008, Rose asked Sutherland, "You'd shut down Guantanamo tomorrow, would you not?" Sutherland's reply, "Me personally? Absolutely. And unless you can charge those detainees, I'd let them go too. The Constitution makes that really clear." (see minute 18:30) On 14 February 2010, Fox TV announced they were temporarily suspending production of Season 8 of "24" due to a ruptured cyst near one of Sutherland's kidneys. According to the report, he waited a few days before going in to have "elective surgery" performed. It was anticipated that he would return after a week, but a further few days was needed and Fox reported that his return to set would be 1 March. On 26 March 2010, it was announced that "24" would end at the conclusion of the 8th season, paving the way for the "24" feature film to go into production. Production was anticipated to begin at the beginning of 2011. On 9 May 2013, Deadline.com suggested that Kiefer Sutherland is in talks with FOX to start a new, limited series of "24". On 14 May 2013, it was confirmed that the show will return for a limited series. Personal life. Family and relationships. Sutherland has a twin sister who is a TV post-production supervisor in Toronto. Sutherland has one daughter from his first marriage to Camelia Kath, the widow of Chicago guitarist/singer Terry Kath, to whom he was married from 1987 to 1990. Through his marriage to Camelia, he became stepfather to Michelle Kath, who has two sons. Julia Roberts met Sutherland in 1990, when they co-starred in "Flatliners". In August 1990, Roberts and Sutherland announced their engagement, with an elaborate studio-planned wedding scheduled for 14 June 1991. Roberts broke the engagement three days before the wedding allegedly because Sutherland had been meeting with a stripper named Amanda Rice. Sutherland denied having an affair with Rice and said that they only met because he liked to play pool. On the day of what was supposed to be their wedding, Roberts went to Ireland with Sutherland's friend Jason Patric. On 29 June 1996, Sutherland married Kelly Winn. The couple separated in 1999 and he filed for divorce in 2004. The divorce was finalized on 16 May 2008. Hobbies. Sutherland is a guitar collector, the majority of which are Gibson Les Pauls. Recently, the Gibson Custom shop released a guitar (signed by Sutherland), the KS-336, as part of their 'Inspired By' series. When Queen appeared on VH1 in 2006 for the Rock Honors Event, Sutherland gave Queen's introduction and announced that they are his favorite band, and that he has listened to them ever since he was a child. Sutherland is an American football fan, particularly of USC Trojans football, and recorded a birthday message for former USC head coach Pete Carroll's 56th birthday. After losing a bet to friend Dave Andreychuk over the 2010 New England Patriots versus Baltimore Ravens playoff game, Sutherland was forced to appear on the "Late Show with David Letterman" wearing a dress. He is also a NASCAR fan. He narrated the IMAX film "NASCAR: The IMAX Experience". Additionally, his character Jack Bauer in "24" has used the name of team owner Jack Roush as an alias. Additionally, Sutherland paints. One of his paintings served as the cover art for the twelfth edition of the "Live X" acoustic compilation series released by the American alternative rock radio station WNNX. In the late 1990s, Sutherland, inspired by the experience in his films "Young Guns", "The Cowboy Way", and "Cowboy Up", retired from acting briefly to pursue the rodeo circuit. He purchased a ranch in Montana, and travelled on the road with the rodeo, he participated in numerous roping contests, two of which he won in Phoenix and Albuquerque. Legal troubles. Sutherland was arrested in Los Angeles on 25 September 2007, on drunk driving charges, after performing poorly on a field sobriety test. His test exceeded the state's legal blood alcohol limit, and he was later released on a $25,000 bail. Sutherland pleaded no contest to the DUI charge and was sentenced to 48 days in jail. Initially, he arranged to split his sentence and spend 18 days in jail during "24's" winter break in late December and early January 2008; the Hollywood writers' strike interrupted production, allowing him to serve his sentence in 48 consecutive days. Sutherland surrendered to NYPD on 7 May 2009 for head-butting fashion designer Jack McCollough, founder and co-designer of Proenza Schouler, at the Mercer Hotel in SoHo following a fundraiser for the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Several weeks later, Sutherland and McCollough issued a joint statement in which Sutherland apologized; police later dropped the charges. Business ventures. Sutherland is the co-owner (along with Jude Cole) of the independent record label Ironworks. Sutherland reportedly fell victim to a financial scam involving cattle in 2010. According to the Associated Press, the perpetrator, Michael Wayne Carr, allegedly took US $869,000 from Sutherland, ostensibly on the account of steers to be purchased. Prosecutors alleged that Carr never purchased the steers. Carr pleaded guilty and was ordered to pay US $956,000 in restitution to Sutherland and his investment partner. Awards and nominations. Ranked No. 68 on the 2006 Forbes Celebrity 100 list of the world's most powerful celebrities. His earnings were a reported $23 million.
1091443	Edmond Halley, FRS (; 8 November 1656 – 14 January 1742) was an English astronomer, geophysicist, mathematician, meteorologist, and physicist who is best known for computing the orbit of the eponymous Halley's Comet. He was the second Astronomer Royal in Britain, succeeding John Flamsteed. Biography and career. Halley was born in Haggerston, Shoreditch, England. His father, Edmond Halley Sr., came from a Derbyshire family and was a wealthy soap-maker in London. As a child, Halley was very interested in mathematics. He studied at St Paul's School, and from 1673 at The Queen's College, Oxford. While an undergraduate, Halley published papers on the Solar System and sunspots. Halley became an assistant to John Flamsteed, the Astronomer Royal at the Greenwich Observatory, in 1675, and among other things, had the job of assigning what is now called Flamsteed numbers to stars. In 1676, Halley visited the south Atlantic island of Saint Helena and set up an observatory with a large sextant with telescopic sights to catalogue the stars of the southern hemisphere. While there he observed a transit of Mercury, and realised that a similar transit of Venus could be used to determine the absolute size of the Solar System. He returned to England in May 1678. In the following year he went to Danzig (Gdańsk) on behalf of the Royal Society to help resolve a dispute. Because astronomer Johannes Hevelius did not use a telescope, his observations had been questioned by
582365	Yamla Pagla Deewana is a 2011 Hindi comedy drama film directed by Samir Karnik, featuring Dharmendra, Sunny Deol, and Bobby Deol in the lead roles. The film marks the second pair-up between the Deol family, after their last sports hit, "Apne" (2007). The film's title is inspired from the song "Main Jat Yamla Pagla Deewana" from the 1975 film, "Pratigya" also starring Dharmendra. The theatrical trailer of the film unveiled on 5 November 2010, whilst the film released on 14 January 2011, and received good response upon release. It turned out to be an box office hit. Plot. Paramvir Singh (Sunny Deol) is a Non-resident Indian (NRI) living happily with his Canadian wife Mary (Emma Brown Garett) along with his two kids Karam and Veer and his mother (Nafisa Ali) in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. Years ago, after the birth of Paramvir's younger brother Gajodhar, Paramvir's father, Dharam Singh (Dharmendra) had ran away from home and took Gajodhar with him, due to difficulties with the family. Back in reality, a Canadian comes to visit Paramvir at his home, where he sees Dharam Singh's photo. The Canadian recognises Dharam as a thief who had robbed him when he went to tour in Banaras. Upon hearing this news, Paramvir's mother sends him to Banaras to find his father, and younger brother. When Paramvir reaches Banaras, he meets a youngster who cons him off all his money. Seeking help, Paramvir lands up at a bar, where he sees both Dharam Singh, and his brother Gajodhar Singh (Bobby Deol), who has now grown up. Paramvir realises Gajodhar is in fact the youngster who had earlier conned him, and is disappointed to see both his father and brother are con-men. When Paramvir sees Dharam alone, he confronts him and tells him his identity. However, Dharam refuses to acknowledge him as his son. Soon, Paramvir saves Gajodhar from getting attacked by goons, to which Gajodhar befriends him and accepts him to their team, not knowing that he is his little brother. During this time, Gajodhar falls in love with Saheba (Kulraj Randhawa), a Punjabi author. Dharam and Paramvir help him woo her, and the two start an relationship. Soon enough, Saheba's tough brothers find out, and beat Gajodhar up, and take Saheba back to Punjab. When Dharam sees that Gajodhar is hopeless, he breaks out, and asks Paramvir to help, and acknowledges that he is his father but he shouldn't tell Gajodhar anything about that, after which Paramvir and Gajodhar move to Punjab to get back his love. Saheba's elder brother Joginder Singh (Anupam Kher) and her other brothers want to marry her to an NRI. Upon hearing this, Paramvir disguises Gajodhar up to make him look like a Punjabi, and sends him to Saheba's house, pretending to be an NRI named Karamvir. Joginder, after meeting both of them, decides that they would marry their sister to Paramvir, not to Gajodhar. After this Paramvir tries many ideas to get rejected by them. Gajodhar tries to run with Saheba many times, but always gets into a serious problem and all the plans fail. Then Dharam shows up at the last moment with Parmavir's wife who thinks mistakenly that he is re-marrying. Between all this confusion, there is a hopeless politician trying to get his sister married to an NRI. An NRI trying to get rejected by this hopeless politician, and two lovers trying to run away and get married. Production. The filming started in February 2010. Director Samir Karnik along with the lead cast of Dharmendra and Sunny Deol started shooting in Varanasi in April 2010. The shooting was disrupted twice, first in March, due to the hospitalisation of Dharmendra, and then in July, when Sunny Deol faced back problems while filming an action sequence. Reception. Critical response. The film received mostly positive reviews from critics. Taran Adarsh of "Bollywood Hungama" gave the film 3.5 stars out of 5 saying "it reminds the audience of the films of yesteryear with the typical masala." Gaurav Malani of the "Times of India" states, "This one is an entertainer and not without a reason". Mayank Shekhar of "Hindustan Times" rated it 2.5/5. Rajeev Masand of "CNN-IBN" says ""Yamla Pagla Deewana" is enjoyable" giving it 2.5 out of 5 stars. Pankaj Sabnani of Glamsham.com gave 3 out of 5 stating "The right dose of action, drama and comedy, combined with a fine story make "Yamla Pagla Deewana" a paisa vasool entertainer. Go for it!" Box office. "Yamla Pagla Deewana" opened to a good response in India, raking in 240 million net over its first weekend and approximately 350 million net at the end of its first week. The film did particularly well in Punjab, Delhi and UP. It grossed approximately 8.50 crore in its second weekend taking the total gross to 430 million in ten days. The film had a 300% increase in collections on Republic Day and grossed 495.0 million by the end of its second week. In its third week, the film collected 35.1 million. After seven weeks the film's net collections were 547.2 million. In overseas markets, the film grossed around US$3,030,000. The total worldwide gross of the film amounted to 865.0 million. Soundtrack. The music of the film is composed by Pyarelal, Anu Malik, RDB, Nouman Javaid, Sandesh Shandilya, Rahul Seth, and Sanjoy Chowdhary. The lyrics are penned by Anand Bakshi, RDB, Rahul Seth, Nouman Javaid, Anu Malik, Irshad Kamil & Dharmendra Sequel. "Main article; Yamla Pagla Deewana 2" The sequel was announced after the success of the original, and the project began filming in September 2012. The first look of the film was also unveiled after its first schedule was completed also in September 2012. The sequel features the trio of Dharmendra, Sunny Deol and Bobby Deol reprising their roles, with Neha Sharma and debutant Kristina Akheeva as female leads. "Yamla Pagla Deewana 2" released on 7 June 2013, and received mixed to negative response.
458178	George Brinton Thomas, Jr. (January 11, 1914 – October 31, 2006) was a professor of mathematics at MIT. He is best known for being the author of a widely-used calculus textbook. Early life. Born in Boise, Idaho, Thomas' early years were difficult. His father, George Brinton Thomas Sr., was a bank employee, and his mother, Georgia Fay Thomas (née Goin), died in the 1919 Influenza Epidemic, just eight days before his fifth birthday. His father remarried shortly thereafter, to Lena Steward. They lived in a tent with a wooden floor and a coal stove. After his stepmother Lena died from complications due to childbirth, the father and son moved to the Spokane Valley in Washington State, where they both attended Spokane University. George Thomas Sr. married again, to Mary Gertrude Johnson. Thomas began attending Washington State College (now Washington State University), after Spokane University went bankrupt. There, he earned a B.A. in 1934 and an M.A. in 1936, both in mathematics and mathematics education. On August 15, 1936, Thomas married Jane Heath at her family's home in South Bend, Washington. The couple lived in Pullman, Washington for a year; Thomas worked at a local shoe store to save money for further graduate education. In 1937, Thomas was accepted into the graduate mathematics program at Cornell University. At Cornell, Thomas worked as an instructor while pursuing his research in number theory. Academic career. Thomas finished his doctoral work in 1940 and was immediately hired by MIT for a one-year teaching appointment. He was well liked at MIT, and was invited to join the faculty after his teaching fellowship ended. During the Second World War, Thomas was involved in early computation systems and programmed the differential analyzer to calculate firing tables for the Navy. In 1952, George and Jane Thomas moved into the Conantum community in Concord, Massachusetts, where many younger Harvard and MIT faculty members lived. "Calculus and Analytical Geometry". In 1951, Addison-Wesley was then a new publishing company specializing in textbooks and technical literature. The management was unhappy with the calculus textbook they were then publishing, so they approached Thomas, asking if he could revise the book. Instead, he went ahead with an entirely new book. The first edition came out in 1952; "Calculus and Analytical Geometry" is now in its twelfth edition and is in use worldwide. Commitment to education. Thomas became involved with math and science education in America's primary and secondary schools some years before the Soviet Union launched Sputnik. From 1955 to 1957, he served on the board of governors of the Mathematical Association of America and was the group's first vice president from 1958 to 1959. From 1956 to 1959, he served on the executive committee of the mathematics division of the American Society for Engineering Education. He also served on the Commission on Mathematics of the College Entrance Examination Board. Thomas used the positions to speak out on mathematics education reform in high schools and universities. In the late 1950s, Thomas went to India with a grant from the Ford Foundation to train mathematics instructors. Later life. Jane Thomas died in 1975 from breast cancer. In 1980, Thomas married Thais Erving; she died in 1983, also from breast cancer. In 1978, Thomas retired from full-time teaching. He became interested in religion, attending the Unity Church and later taking up Christian Science. Thomas died in Foxdale Village in State College, Pennsylvania, a retirement community centered around the needs of retired academics.
1174612	Lili Haydn (born in Toronto, Canada) is a violinist, vocalist, composer, guitarist, and actress. As a child, she pursued a career as an actress; at age eight she discovered the violin and began to focus on classical music. By the time Haydn was fifteen, she had played with the Los Angeles Philharmonic. After graduating from Brown University with a B.A. in Political Science, Haydn started composing original songs and became one of the most requested session violinists around Los Angeles. By the time she signed with Atlantic in 1997, she had embraced a variety of genres, having played with Quwaali musician Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, Porno for Pyros, Tracy Chapman, The Jayhawks, Brandy, Tony! Toni! Tone!, No Doubt, Tom Petty and more. In addition, she has played with, sung with, and opened for Sting, Josh Groban, Herbie Hancock, Robert Plant & Jimmy Page, Matchbox 20, Seal, and George Clinton, who calls her "the Jimi Hendrix of the violin". Career. As a child actress, Haydn may be best remembered as the young, smart and sassy daughter, Belinda Capuletti, from the 1983 Rodney Dangerfield movie "Easy Money". She also appeared in the first "Not Quite Human" TV movie in 1987, and was a regular cast member on the syndicated "The New Gidget". Her debut album, "Lili", was released in the fall of 1997 and was followed by "Light Blue Sun" in 2003 and "Place Between Places" in 2008, which she promoted with television and radio appearances such as The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, and NPR. She has a bit part in the Michael Keaton movie "Jack Frost". She contributed to the score of the Edward Burns/Jennifer Aniston film "She's the One" (1996), as well as several films with Hans Zimmer, including Disney's "". Haydn won a fellowship to the Sundance Film Institute composing in 2009, and has composed the film scores for three films, "Jacklight", "The Horse Boy" (premiered at Sundance Film Festival and released in 2009 by Zeitgeist Films), and "The Lightmaker". In 2008, Haydn accompanied Roger Waters at the Coachella music festival when they played "Dark Side of the Moon". Haydn also performed on Cyndi Lauper's True Colors Tour 2008. That same year she appeared on the cable TV series, "Californication". Affiliations. A social activist, Lili also performs regularly for various human rights organizations, including Amnesty International, Operation USA, Human Rights Watch, Human Rights Action Center; and her song “Unfolding Grace” appears on a CD compilation with U2 and Sting which benefits Aung San Suu Kyi and the Burmese pro-democracy movement.
1716328	Antoine Augustin Cournot (28 August 1801 – 31 March 1877) was a French philosopher and mathematician. Antoine Augustin Cournot was born at Gray, Haute-Saône. In 1821 he entered one of the most prestigious Grande École, the École Normale Supérieure, and in 1829 he had earned a doctoral degree in mathematics, with mechanics as his main thesis supplemented by astronomy. After graduating, Cournot held many positions as professor of analysis and mechanics, chief examiner for undergraduate students, and rector of Dijon Academy. Cournot was mainly a mathematician, but did have some influence over economics. His theories on monopolies and duopolies are still famous. In 1838 the book "Researches on the Mathematical Principles of the Theory of Wealth" was published, in which he used the application of the formulas and symbols of mathematics in economic analysis. This book was highly criticized and not very successful during Cournot's lifetime, and he did try to rewrite it twice, but it still has influence in economics today. Today many economists believe this book to be the point of departure for modern economic analysis. Cournot introduced the ideas of functions and probability into economic analysis. He derived the first formula for the rule of supply and demand as a function of price and in fact was the first to draw supply and demand curves on a graph, anticipating the work of Alfred Marshall by roughly thirty years. The Cournot duopoly model developed in his book also introduced the concept of a (pure strategy) Nash equilibrium, the Reaction function and best-response dynamics.
626836	Rochelle Aytes (born May 17, 1976) is an American actress. She is best known for playing Lisa Breaux in "Madea's Family Reunion". She currently stars as April Malloy in ABC drama series "Mistresses". Early life. Rochelle Aytes was born in New York City, New York and attended LaGuardia High School. She graduated with a BA in Fine Arts from State University of New York Purchase College. Career. In 2004 she starred in the film "White Chicks" as Denise Porter, and more recently in the 2009 TV series "The Forgotten" as Detective Grace Russell who teams up with a volunteer group, including former Chicago police detective, Christian Slater, to solve cases of missing or unidentified homicide victims. She is most remembered for playing Lisa Breaux in Tyler Perry's "Madea's Family Reunion", where Aytes plays a woman who is caught in a relationship in which her fiancé (Blair Underwood) beats and threatens her. In 2006, she played Nicole Jamieson in the test pilot episodes of "Tyler Perry's House of Payne". She also provides the voice for Rochelle in "Left 4 Dead 2". In 2007 she guest starred in the Fox series "Bones" as Felicia Saroyan, the sister of Lab Supervisor, Cam. She starred in the independent film "Trick 'r Treat" She played role Leigh Barnthouse in the 2007 Fox series "Drive". She also played Tara Kole in the TV show "NCIS" from CBS. She also appeared in the TNT drama series "Dark Blue" in 2010. From 2010 to 2011 she had a recurring role in the ABC-TV series "Detroit 1-8-7" as prosecutor Alice Williams, until her character was murdered in the episode "Key to the City", which aired on January 11, 2011. In 2011 she guest starred in three episodes as Amber James, the former girlfriend of Keith Watson, in the seventh season of ABC series "Desperate Housewives". She is represented by Ryan Daly of Zero Gravity Management. Aytes stars on the 2013 ABC drama series "Mistresses" about the lives of four female friends and their involvement in an array of illicit and complex relationships.
583041	Yeh Zindagi Ka Safar (English: "Journey of Life") is a 2001 Bollywood film, directed by Tanuja Chandra and produced by Mukesh Bhatt. Upon release, it flopped miserably at the box office. Synopsis. 20-year-old Sarena's (Ameesha Patel) world is picture perfect — she has an adorable relationship with her industrialist father Vivek Devan (Gulshan Grover) and is on the verge of major stardom as a pop singer. Jai's (Jimmy Shergill) world is poles apart. As the struggling editor of a near-bankrupt tabloid, he dreams of one day having an office in pricey Nariman Point. He searches for a sensational story that'll get him there. Jai stumbles upon the secret that pop star Sarena is not the real daughter of industrialist Vivek Devan, who had taken great pains to ensure that no one knew she was adopted. Jai realises that this could be the story he was looking for and goes ahead and publishes it, thus incurring the wrath of Vivek Devan. An enraged Vivek Devan takes legal action against the errant journalist, and he tries to suppress any further information being leaked. Sarena, however, notices her father's anxiety and confronts him, only to discover that Jai, despite his crude ways of going about it, had written the truth. Ignoring her father's protests, Sarena goes in search of her mother. At every stage, her companion in her mission is Jai, who follows her through the journey from Mumbai to Ooty to get the legal notice withdrawn. With no headway in her search, Sarena seeks Jai's help, inspired by his go-getting ways. As Sarena discovers layer upon devastating layer of truth behind her identity, Jai too learns many things about life. On the trip, they fall in love. When Sarena meets her mother, she is glad, but her mother doesn't seem pleased. She rejects Sarena by stating that she doesn't have a daughter. It turns out that Sarena's mother was raped by a police officer, and Sarena was the product of that disastrous event. Horrified by the truth, Sarena teams up with Jai to fix the injustice done to her mother. All ends well, as Sarena's mother is able to get justice, the police inspector gets arrested, and Sarena and Jai get married.
582806	Raju Ban Gaya Gentleman (Devnagari: राजू बन गया जेन्टलमैन, English: "Raju became a gentleman") is a 1992 Bollywood comedy movie directed by Aziz Mirza starring Shahrukh Khan, Juhi Chawla, Amrita Singh and Nana Patekar. Khan plays Raj Mathur, a young engineering graduate from Darjeeling who comes to Bombay hoping to become an important engineer. This movie was released on 25th birthday of Juhi Chawla. Five years later, the film was dubbed for release in Japan. Synopsis. The story line draws its inspiration from A Place in the Sun. Raj Mathur (Shahrukh Khan) is a young engineering graduate from Darjeeling who comes to Bombay with only one ambition - to become a big engineer. In Bombay, he arrives in a lower middle-class locality in search of a distant relative, only to discover he has left years before. He spends the night at a temple, where he meets a philosophical streetside performer Jai (Nana Patekar), who becomes a close friend and gives him a place to stay.
393993	Please Teach Me English (; lit. "The Complete Mastering of English") is a 2003 South Korean comedy about a young woman who begins English lessons after she is unable to help a foreigner at her government office. Synopsis. Mun-su (Jang Hyuk) and Na Young-ju (Lee Na-young) are classmates in a private English class. Mun-su frequently chases women while working in his shoe shop. However, Young-ju has an unreciprocated interest in him. They eventually became friends, and frequently sit together in class.
581191	The Other End of the Line is a romantic comedy film released in 2008 starring Jesse Metcalfe, Shriya Saran and Anupam Kher. James Dodson directed the project. The film is based on an employee at an Indian call-center who travels to San Francisco to be with a guy she falls for over the phone. The tagline is "Two countries. Two cultures. One chance at love." It is the first combination between the Indian powerhouse production house, Adlabs with their American counterpart MGM. The film was co-produced by the Indian-American producer Ashok Amritraj and Patrick Aiello.It was a low-budget film,which reportedly cost $2.5 million. Filming began in October 2007 in Mumbai, and continued in San Francisco during 2008. The film was released on October 31, 2008. Plot. Priya Sethi (Shriya Saran) indulges her infatuation with American culture by working nights (while Americans are at work, on the other side of the world) at the Citi One Bank Card call center in Mumbai, India. Speaking in a perfect American English accent, she tells her customers her name is Jennifer David and a native of San Francisco. Her conservative father Rajeev (Anupam Kher) is unhappy that she is so eager to forsake her own culture for another, but will be pleased when she goes through with her arranged marriage to wealthy but childishly dull Vikram. Priya, posing as Jennifer David, happens to call the handsome and charming Granger Woodruff (Jesse Metcalfe) to help him with the fraudulent charges on his credit card. Priya and Granger have an instant connection over the phone. Unable to suppress the intrigue their easy chemistry offers, Priya agrees to meet Granger in San Francisco. When Priya goes to the meeting place, he doesn't recognize her. As she is attempting to check out of the hotel, they stumble into each other and finally meet, but Priya does not tell him that she is Jennifer. They immediately hit it off and he invites her out to dinner. Priya and Granger's relationship blossoms as they share a wonderfully romantic date the following day. They tour the City by the Bay by cable car, sample some especially spicy curry (much to his chagrin), and nearly—but not quite—kiss with the Golden Gate Bridge as a backdrop. Improbably, they are falling in love. However, Priya's family has arrived to bring their wayward daughter home a la "Coming to America" and elude the shame of her escapades. Granger struggles with himself mentally for having abandoned Jennifer David for Priya instead, but still doesn't know that the Priya and Jennifer are the same person. Meanwhile, both lovers wonder if they just might be too different for their love to actually be possible. Eventually, Priya and Granger are found out by her parents and he learns that Priya is actually Jennifer David, and also that she is engaged to Vikram. He is angry that she deceived him, and painfully decides to cut their ties. All of Priya's family is happy for the relationship to have ended, except for her 80 year-old Aunt who advises her that life is too short to live to make only others happy. Priya goes to Granger's hotel to fight for their love but is shattered when she finds his previous girlfriend Emory in the hotel room with him. She is extremely upset that he could forget about her so easily, and he lets her leave and walk out of his life as if forever. Back in India, Priya can't bring herself to accept a lackluster life with Vikram. As she struggles to gently disengage without hurting her family, announcing to her betrothed's family that she must develop as a person, her once-future father in law calls her a rude name. Amazingly, her father forcefully stands up for her, points out that whenever she enters a room, people smile, and that he loves her. Granger, too, feels something is missing. While giving the traditional Best Man's Toast at a wedding, he quotes the groom, his childhood best friend: "Nothing should ever hold a man back from his future." Shocked speechless before finishing the toast, he realizes what he may still be able to save. He rushes to the airport, furiously calling the bank in Mumbai with the help of a Hindi-speaking cab driver. Priya has thrown herself back into her work, accepting a promotion to help her coworkers become as effective as she is channeling American attitudes and accent. Just as she is counseling a young man to control his emotions to better serve the bank and its customers, Granger strides into Priya's call center and cautiously declares his devotion. With a hundred eyes on the couple, a coworker coaxes, "Kiss him! Kiss him!" They kiss for the first time to the cheers of her crew. After her shift, as morning breaks, the apprehensive couple finds her family enjoying an open-air breakfast in their sun-dappled garden. Granger bravely attempts to win the approval of Priya's father by promising to honor her and her culture in phonetic but crude Hindi. Granger formally repeats his commitment to respect and care for her. Father thinks it over for a few moments as the family watches him intently, and he graciously accepts the young man, welcoming him to breakfast. Box office. Overall boxoffice gross was US$507,534.
713797	Alexander Abian (January 1, 1923—July 1999) was an Armenian-American mathematician who taught for many years at Iowa State University and became notable for his frequent posts to various Usenet newsgroups. Life. Abian was born in Tabriz, Iran, and was of Iranian Armenian ethnicity. After earning an undergraduate degree in Iran, he emigrated to the United States in 1950, where he received a master's degree from the University of Chicago. Abian then obtained a Ph.D. from the University of Cincinnati, where he wrote a dissertation on a topic in invariant theory under the direction of Isaac Barnett. After teaching posts in Tennessee, New York, Pennsylvania, and Ohio, he joined the faculty of Iowa State in 1967. He wrote three books and published more than two hundred papers. Moonless Earth theory. Abian gained a degree of international notoriety for his claim that blowing up the Moon would solve virtually every problem of human existence. He made this claim in 1991 in a campus newspaper. Stating that a Moonless Earth wouldn't wobble, eliminating both the seasons and its associated events like heat waves, snowstorms and hurricanes. Refutations were given toward that idea by NASA saying that part of the exploded Moon would come back as a meteorite impacting the Earth and causing sufficient damage to extinguish all life, while restoring the seasons in the process. Just before he died, Abian said that "Those critics who say 'Dismiss Abian's ideas' are very close to those who dismissed Galileo." This claim and others, made in thousands of Usenet posts during the last portion of his life, gained Abian mention (not entirely favorable) and even interviews in such diverse publications as "Omni", "People", and "The Wall Street Journal".
587506	Aayiram Vilakku () is a 2011 Indian Tamil action film directed by S.P.Hosimin, in his second venture, starring Sathyaraj and Shanthnoo in the lead roles, whilst, Sana Khan and Suman play pivotal roles. The film, produced by HMI Pictures and scored by Srikanth Deva, was released on 23 September 2011. The movie received positive reviews. Plot. The film opens when a child named Tarun starts asking his father Gopal
1060371	Megan Denise Fox (born May 16, 1986) is an American actress and model. She began her acting career in 2001, with several minor television and film roles, and played a regular role on the "Hope & Faith" television show. In 2004, she made her film debut with a role in "Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen". In 2007, she co-starred as Mikaela Banes, the love interest of Shia LaBeouf's character, in the blockbuster film, "Transformers", which became her breakout role. Fox reprised her role in the 2009 sequel, "". Later in 2009, she starred as the eponymous lead in the film "Jennifer's Body." Fox is also considered one of the modern female sex symbols and has appeared in magazines such as "Maxim", "Rolling Stone" and "FHM". Early life. Fox was born in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, the daughter of Gloria Darlene (née Cisson) and Franklin Thomas Fox. She has stated that she has Irish, French, and Native American ancestry. She was raised "very strictly Pentecostal", but later attended Catholic school for 12 years. Fox's parents divorced when she was young. Fox's mother later remarried, and she and her sister were raised by her mother and her stepfather, Tony Tonachio. She said that the two were "very strict" and that she was not allowed to have a boyfriend or invite friends to her house. She lived with her mother until she made enough money to support herself. Fox began her training in drama and dance at age five, in Kingston, Tennessee. She attended a dance class at the community center there and was involved in Kingston Elementary School's chorus and the Kingston Clippers swim team. At 10 years of age, after moving to St. Petersburg, Florida, Fox continued her training. When she was 13 years old, Fox began modeling after winning several awards at the 1999 American Modeling and Talent Convention in Hilton Head, South Carolina. At age 17, she tested out of school via correspondence in order to move to Los Angeles, California. Fox has spoken extensively of her time in education; that in middle school she was bullied and picked on and she ate lunch in the bathroom to avoid being "pelted with ketchup packets". She said that the problem was not her looks, but that she had "always gotten along better with boys" and that "rubbed some people the wrong way". Fox also said of high school that she was never popular and that "everyone hated me, and I was a total outcast, my friends were always guys, I have a very aggressive personality, and girls didn’t like me for that. I’ve had only one great girlfriend my whole life". In the same interview, she mentions that she hated school and has never been "a big believer in formal education" and that "the education I was getting seemed irrelevant. So, I was sort of checked out on that part of it". Career. At 16, Fox made her acting debut in the 2001 film "Holiday in the Sun", as spoiled heiress Brianna Wallace and rival of Alex Stewart (Ashley Olsen), which was released direct-to-DVD on November 20, 2001. In the next several years she guest-starred on "What I Like About You" and "Two and a Half Men", as well as being an uncredited extra in "Bad Boys II" (2003). In 2004, she made her film debut in "Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen" co-starring opposite Lindsay Lohan, playing the supporting role of Carla Santini, a rival of Lola (Lohan). Fox was also cast in a regular role on the ABC sitcom "Hope & Faith", in which she portrayed Sydney Shanowski, replacing Nicole Paggi. Fox appeared in seasons 2 to 3, until the show was cancelled in 2006. In 2007, Fox won the lead female role of Mikaela Banes in the 2007 live-action film "Transformers", based on the toy and cartoon saga of the same name. Fox played the love interest of Shia LaBeouf's character Sam Witwicky. Fox was nominated for an MTV Movie Award in the category of "Breakthrough Performance", and was also nominated for three Teen Choice Awards. Fox had signed on for two more "Transformers" sequels. Fox reprised her role as Mikaela Banes in the "Transformer" sequel, '. There was some controversy surrounding Fox's appearance while filming the sequel of "Transformers" when Michael Bay, the film's director, ordered the actress to gain 10 pounds. The film was released worldwide on June 24, 2009. Fox was to star in the third installment, ', but was not included because of her statements comparing working under director Bay to working for Hitler (see below). Co-star Shia LaBeouf said, "Criticism is one thing. Then there's public name-calling, which turns into high-school bashing. Which you can't do." Bay similarly amended his previous statements of support of Fox, and told "GQ" in June that Fox was fired on orders of executive producer Steven Spielberg. After departing the Transformers franchise, Fox had her first lead role playing the title character in "Jennifer's Body", written by Academy Award-winning screenwriter Diablo Cody.
1162766	Eugene Harrison Roche (September 22, 1928 – July 28, 2004) was an American actor ("Foul Play", "Soap") . He was the original "Ajax Man" in 1970s television commercials. Personal life. Roche was born and raised in Boston, Massachusetts, the son of Mary M. (née Finnegan) and Robert F. Roche, who was at the time serving in the U.S. Navy. He was the father of nine children including actors Eamonn Roche, Brogan Roche, and Emmy Award-winning writer/producer Sean Roche. Roche died in Los Angeles, California from a heart attack, aged 75. Career. Roche made his Broadway debut in 1961 as a bit player in the play "Blood, Sweat and Stanley Poole" with Darren McGavin and went on to act in "Mother Courage" with Anne Bancroft in 1963 and "The White House" with Helen Hayes in 1964. In Hollywood, Roche would go on to appear in myriad supporting character roles, both dramatic and comedic, that would define his acting career.
783478	Tune in Tomorrow is a 1990 film comedy directed by Jon Amiel.
584753	Venkataraghavan Ranganathan , better known as Raaghav on screen, is film actor and television personality in Tamil Nadu, India. Before his break into films, he appeared in season 1 of "Jodi Number One". Career. He first appeared in supporting roles in several films, he made his debut as the lead hero with, "Nanjupuram". He is a gold medalist from College of Engineering, Guindy,Chennai. He then went on to further his studies in the University of Illinois and later came back to Chennai, where he worked as a software engineer. But due to his passion for media, he shifted to a career of acting. He got married to his TV co star Preetha. He and his wife appeared together in Jodi Number 1 in Vijay TV and Maanada Mayilada in Kalaignar TV. In borth the reality shows they were the 1st runner up.
1055547	The Perfect Holiday is a 2007 family comedy film starring Gabrielle Union, Morris Chestnut, and Terrence Howard and is produced by Academy Award-nominated actress Queen Latifah, who also narrates the movie. The film was released on December 12, 2007. The film has also appeared on many television networks, including Disney Channel and Family. Tagline: "This Christmas, the perfect man just happens to be Santa." Plot. Benjamin (Chestnut) is an aspiring songwriter who attempts to break into the music business by giving a copy of his recording track of a Christmas album to a rap artist named J-Jizzy (Charles Q. Murphy). Nancy (Union) is a divorced mother, who is too busy taking care of her three children to take care of herself. Her daughter Emily (Khail Bryant) overhears her mother say that she wished for a compliment from a man, and the daughter tells the local mall's Santa Claus about her mother's wish.
583775	Sivappathigaram (2006) is a Tamil film directed by Karu Pazhaniappan. The film stars Vishal, Mamta Mohandas, Manivannan, Rajan P. Dev, Upendra Limaye, Ganja Karuppu and Raghuvaran. The film's score and soundtrack are composed by Vidyasagar. Mamta Mohandas made her debut in Tamil with this film. The film was released on November 2006 to favourable reviews, but became a commercial failure. Plot. Professor Ilango comes to his native village near Theni, with his college going daughter, Charulatha (Mamta Mohandas). He has taken voluntary retirement from his college service and has come to live in his ancestral house. He plans to do research on folk songs and release a collection as a book. His student Sathiyamurthy (Vishal) assists him in this venture. Charulatha falls for Sathiya, on keenly observing his intellect, humaneness and social awareness. Meanwhile elections are announced to the State Legislature and the parties start finalizing the candidates for the constituencies. When the candidates start filing nominations, the dreadful things happen. Some candidates from both the major parties are murdered and all the candidates get jittery. Lot of candidates withdraw from the fray fearing death. The parties are in a fix on what to do. The Police are on the trace out for the killer. The Election Commission postpones the elections. When the police tighten their noose and tie loose ends, the killer is traced. The trail leads to Sathiyamurthy and it is found that he is aided in this bloodshed by Professor Ilango. Police arrest Ilango. At the same time Charu reveals her mind to Sathiya during their travel to Hyderabad. Sathiya reveals his undercover deeds. He also tells her about the bitter and gory events which forced himself and Professor Ilango to resort to this task of cleansing the society of the current breed of dangerous, inhuman and selfish politicians.
583195	Zokkomon () is 2011 Bollywood action superhero film, released by Disney World Cinemas, written and directed by Satyajit Bhatkal. Starring "Darsheel Safary" in the leading role, "Zokkomon" is Disney's fourth involvement in a production for the Indian market (after the computer-animated "Roadside Romeo", Tollywood movie "Anaganaga O Dheerudu" and the live-action "Do Dooni Chaar"). The music has been composed by Shankar Ehsaan Loy. Plot. Kunal (Darsheel Safary), an orphaned boy, discovers how cruel life is when he is abandoned by his heartless uncle (Anupam Kher). Left to fend for himself, Kunal soon realizes the hero within and begins his epic journey of adventure and transformation to become Zokkomon. Soundtrack. The music is composed by Shankar Ehsaan Loy. Lyrics are penned by Ramesh,Lakshmi and Javed Akhtar Release. The movie was originally scheduled for release on May 7, 2010, but due to scheduling conflicts with "Bumm Bumm Bole", another film starring Safary, the release date was moved to April 22, 2011. Home Media. The film was released by Buena Vista Home Entertainment on DVD, digital Download, and on demand on July 26, 2011. The release will be produced in DVD widescreen and include a Hindi language track plus English subtitles. Reception. Critical response. Zokkomon has received favorable reviews from film critics. Los Angeles Times film critic Kevin Thomas describes "Zokkomon " as a "lively and engaging family film" that has "more substance and cohesiveness than much Bollywood fare." Robert Koehler of Variety calls the production package under Satyajit Bhatkal's direction "thoroughly pro," while Kirk Honeycutt of The Hollywood Reporter says that the first live-action film from Disney Studios India is "designed to give Indian kids their first superhero."
582658	Deewane is a 2000 Bollywood romantic drama film that stars Urmila Matondkar, Mahima Chaudhary, and Ajay Devgn in a double role. Plot. Vishal (Ajay Devgan), is a very hard-working officer who takes care of his family. He loves Sapna (Urmila Matondkar). His uncle, Lekhraj (Paresh Rawal), is trying to kill Vishal because he is a criminal whom Vishal is trying to unveil but does not know it is his uncle whom he respects. Then a robbery happens and Arun (Ajay Devgan) is the robber who is the duplicate of Vishal. Then Vishal was telling the Commissioner (Shivaji Satham), about Arun and him being his duplicate when he is shot by Lehkraj's son because he is on his father's side. Then Vishal goes into a coma and then the Commissioner makes a scheme with Arun to portray him as Vishal in the world's eyes so criminals have a fear of Vishal. Arun's two friends, pooja (Mahima Chaudhry) (who loves Arun but Arun doesn't), and Okay (Johnny Lever). When the Commissioner was talking with Arun, Pooja comes and the Commissioner tells Arun to hide behind the one-way transparent mirror. When Sapna comes, Arun instantly falls in love at first sight. When she was seeing through the mirror she did not see Arun but he saw her. Then the Commissioner tells Vishals family that Arun is Vishal. Time passes by and Vishal comes back from coma and Sapna is shocked and starts to hate Arun because of him not being Vishal and not telling her. Then as time passes, Arun keeps coming back because Vishal needs to be concentrating on his criminals and Sapna so he tells Arun to look after Sapna. One day Sapna tells Arun that "she spent time with Arun" thinking that whom she talking to is Vishal (but it is actually Arun she is talking to). She then starts to love Arun. Then Pooja finds out that Arun loves Sapna and Pooja is heartbroken. Sapna comes to Arun and asks him what should she do. He tells her that he does not deserve her but Vishal does. Vishal's and Sapna's marriage is arrange and the Commissioner finds out that the uncle of Vishal is the one who is terrorizing the city and Vishal is informed by him. Then the uncle shoots Arun trying to shoot Vishal. His uncle and his son are arrested and Arun survives. Just as he is leaving, he is stopped by Vishal and is told why is he leaving without Sapna. Then it is revealed that when Pooja was telling Arun that Sapna loves Arun, she was actually talking to Vishal.Then Vishal unites Arun and Sapna. In the end, Vishal goes his own way, and so does Pooja.
583345	Money Hai Toh Honey Hai is a Bollywood comedy film directed by Ganesh Acharya and produced by Kumar Mangat. It features a cast of stars including Govinda, Aftab Shivdasani, Upen Patel, Hansika Motwani, Celina Jaitley and Manoj Bajpai in the lead roles with Ravi Kissen and Prem Chopra in supporting roles. Esha Deol and the director of the film Ganesh Acharya make special appearances.
1064511	Two Weeks Notice is a 2002 romantic comedy film starring Hugh Grant and Sandra Bullock from Warner Bros. Pictures. The film was written and directed by Marc Lawrence. Although response was mixed, the film received a successful box office run, both in the United States and globally. Plot. Lucy Kelson (Sandra Bullock) is a liberal lawyer who specializes in environmental law in New York City. George Wade (Hugh Grant) is an immature billionaire real estate tycoon who has almost everything and knows almost nothing. Lucy's hard work and devotion to others contrast sharply with George's world weary recklessness and greed. Lucy meets George in an attempt to stop the destruction of the Coney Island community center from her childhood. He attempts to hire her to replace his old Chief Counsel, Amber. She knows of his playboy tendencies, but he promises to protect the community center if she works for him. She soon finds that what he really requires is advice in all aspects of his life. She becomes his indispensable aide, and he calls her for every little thing. She finally gets fed up with the situation and gives him her two weeks' notice of resignation after he sends her a message of an "emergency" while she is at her friend's wedding, since the emergency is, as she finds out, that he is unable to choose what to wear to an event. He is deeply troubled by her resignation and tries to convince her to stay. He also tries to block her from getting any other jobs, as an attempt to make her stay. He finally gives in and has her train her replacement, the attractive and flirtatious June Carver (Alicia Witt), before she quits. Lucy then gets jealous of June before she leaves. After she's gone, George realizes that his time with her has really changed him, as he keeps the promise he made to her in the beginning even if it means it costs his company millions. Meanwhile, in her new job, Lucy is missing him terribly. He goes in search for her, and they confess their feelings for each other. The movie ends with Lucy ordering take out in her apartment with George making jokes about the size of the apartment. Usually when she orders and is asked how many, Lucy replies, "one," but this time, with a sly smile, Lucy replies, "this is for two." Box office. The film opened at 2 at the U.S. Box office, raking in USD14,328,494 in its opening weekend, behind "". It had a total domestic gross of $93,354,851 and an overall gross of $199,043,242.
1162725	Haley Michelle Ramm (born March 26, 1992) is an American actress. She played a young Jean Grey in "" and appeared in multiple episodes of the CBS drama "Without a Trace" throughout 2007 and 2008. Early life. Ramm was born five weeks premature in Collin County, Texas. She is the daughter of Barbara (née Wilson) Ramm and Hugh Schneider Ramm. Sister of Hugh At the age of three, she began dancing in local studios. At nine, she began booking roles in indies and shorts. She has appeared in nationwide commercials for Hasbro and Dell Computers. She was featured on the May and June issues of American Girl in 2002. Two years later, she moved to Los Angeles, California. She appeared in one episode of iCarly alongside her best friend, Miranda Cosgrove. Acting career. In 2005, she acted in the movie "Seventy-8" as April Rowlands. The movie premiered at the Hollywood Film Festival. Ramm moved to Los Angeles at age 11 with her mother; her father and brother stayed behind in Texas for the first few years. Ramm was called for roles in "Flightplan" and the comedy "Yours, Mine and Ours", and on television shows such as ', ' and "Yes, Dear". In 2006, she appeared in ' as the young Jean Grey. In 2007, Ramm was in the movie "Mr. Blue Sky" as Jessica Green. Next, she appeared as Samantha Jensen in '. Her most recent projects include the role of Gwen Tennyson in "", and a recurring role on the series "Without a Trace". In 2007, she appeared as the young Carine in "Into the Wild". Ramm has a role in the 2010 French horror film "Rubber" as Fiona. Haley was cast as a younger version of Jennifer Aniston's character in "Rumor Has It…", and while her scenes did not make the final cut, she can be seen in various photos throughout the film. She appeared in the 2005 film "Yours, Mine and Ours" and again in a 2009 episode of "iCarly". Ramm is a StarPower Ambassador for Starlight Children’s Foundation, encouraging other young people to commit their time, energy and resources to help other kids and working with Starlight to brighten the lives of seriously ill children. In 2011, she portrayed victim Jessica Hamilton in the video game L.A. Noire.
673919	Wolfgang Preiss (27 February 1910 – 27 November 2002) was a German theatre, film and television actor. The son of a teacher, in the early 1930s Preiss studied philosophy, German and drama. He also took private acting classes with Hans Schlenck, making his stage début in Munich in 1932. He went to appear in various theatre productions in Heidelberg, Königsberg, Bonn, Bremen, Stuttgart and Berlin.
1054293	D-Tox is a 2002 American psychological crime thriller film directed by Jim Gillespie, starring Sylvester Stallone, Tom Berenger, Charles S. Dutton, Robert Patrick, Polly Walker, Jeffrey Wright and Kris Kristofferson. The film was based on the 1999 novel "Jitter Joint", written by Howard Swindle, released internationally by United International Pictures. It was not released in the United States until three years later, where it was given a limited release under the title Eye See You by DEJ Productions. Plot. FBI agent Jake Malloy is pursuing a serial killer who specializes in killing police officers. Malloy's former partner becomes one of the victims. While Malloy is at his partner's home, the murderer calls Malloy from Malloy's home while Mary, his girlfriend, is there. The killer tells Malloy that he pursued him four years before for a series of prostitute murders; he is holding a grudge and is going to kill Mary. Malloy rushes home to find Mary dead. When the killer's hideout is found, Seattle police and the FBI blockade the area before Malloy arrives. Malloy pursues the killer only to find that he appears to have committed suicide. Three months later, Malloy descends into alcoholism over Mary's murder. After Malloy slits his wrists in an unsuccessful suicide attempt, his best friend and supervising officer, Agent Chuck Hendricks, enrolls Malloy in a rehabilitation program designed for law enforcement officers. The clinic was formerly an abandoned military base. Dr. John "Doc" Mitchell, a former cop and recovering alcoholic, established the rehab center as a way of dealing with his own problems. Hendricks stays in Wyoming to ensure Malloy will be okay. Malloy meets several other officers who are patients in the clinic, including Peter Noah, an arrogant and paranoid ex-SWAT officer, Frank Slater, a cynical, opinionated British police officer, Willie Jones, a religious homicide detective, Jaworski, an alcoholic narcotics cop who attempted suicide, Lopez, a bad-mouthed LAPD officer and McKenzie, an elderly member of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police who saw his partner get killed. He also meets several staff members, including Doc's assistant and mechanic Hank and compassionate resident psychiatrist and nurse Jenny Munroe, whom Malloy develops a bond with.
583996	Kuselan () is a 2008 Tamil drama film directed by P. Vasu. A remake of the Malayalam film "Kadha Parayumbol", it was produced by Pushpa Kandaswamy, Aswani Dutt and G. P. Vijayakumar in two languages. "Kuselan" stars Pasupathy and Meena in lead roles. Rajinikanth plays an extended cameo role, as does Nayantara. The film was simultaneously made in Telugu as "Kathanayakudu" with a slightly different cast. The plot revolves around a villager, who had shared a strong friendship with a popular cinema actor in his youth. However, due to their different careers they were forced to part ways, one becoming a national figure, the other, a village barber. Decades later, the actor returns to the village to participate in his film's shooting. Whilst the entire village become excited about the prospect of seeing the actor, the barber fears that his old friend would have forgotten him and would neglect him. "Kuselan" opened to audiences on 1 August 2008, taking the third largest opening for a Tamil film up until the date of release. Despite the hype before release, the film ended up evoking negative reviews, mainly because it was termed as a Rajinikanth-starrer, although he made it clear that it was a guest appearance. Plot. Balakrishnan (Pasupathy) is the owner of a barber shop in a remote village. His family consists of his wife Sridevi (Meena) and three children. Balakrishnan struggles to persuade customers to visit his barber shop while his competitor Shanmugham (Vadivelu), former worker of Balakrishnan who has his own barber shop across from Balakrishnan's, uses cunning means to make business in haircutting. Balakrishnan's downfall in business causes him to neglect paying his children's school fees. Although he struggles to make a living, he still enjoys spending time with his family. News spreads through the village by Nagaraj (Santhanam) that superstar Ashok Kumar (Rajinikanth), a popular film actor, will be arriving for a shooting schedule. While the rest of the village celebrates in shock and excitement, the news does not impress Balakrishnan, who was best friends with the actor during their childhood days. The two have not met one another for nearly 25 years. Balakrishnan is often bothered by Sridevi, and his children to introduce them to Ashok Kumar. Kuppuswamy (Livingston), a financier who is keen on making a film and who was once disgusted by Balakrishnan's barber shop, tries to woo him into introducing him to Ashok Kumar so that he can make a film with him. Meanwhile, Sridevi spends her time bragging to her neighbours about her husband being friends with the super star. In the other part of town, Ashok Kumar is given tight security, led by the deputy commissioner Senthilnathan (Prabhu Ganesan) due to the possibility of misbehaviour among the crowd who spend their time hanging out in front of every shoot location, eager to get a glimpse of the superstar. Ashok Kumar is shown taking part in the filmings of "Annamalai: Part 2", "Chandramukhi: Part 2", (fictional sequels of "Annamalai" and "Chandramukhi") and "Kuselan", along with his co-star Nayantara (Nayantara). Balakrishnan tries to meet with his childhood friend, but he is never able to make it to him through the large crowd. Shanmugham also tries every possible way to meet with the superstar so that he can get a photo with him and humorously fails. The headmistress of the local convent school (Geetha) visits Balakrishnan and asks him if he could get Ashok Kumar to attend their school's upcoming annual function. Balakrishnan hesitates at first but later agrees to do so. Balakrishnan continues to attempt to confront the superstar, however with no success. On the other hand, Shanmugham finally falls into Ashok Kumar's backyard by accident and, and to his utmost surprise, gets the chance to speak with the celebrity. Days pass by and the staff and parents of the school complain to Balakrishnan during their parents meeting about inviting the superstar. Balakrishnan, again, agrees to confront the actor but goes without doing so. The headmistress decides that it is only better if she invites the superstar. She visits him, with two other school secretaries, which includes Mr. Srinivasan (R. Sundarrajan), who arrogantly questions Ashok Kumar about his films and his personal decisions. Despite the irritation received from Srinivasan, the star accepts their invitation to and agrees to attend, as long as Srinivasan isn't around. The day of the school function arrives and the school prepares for the arrival of Ashok Kumar. Back at Balakrishnan's house, Balakrishnan who is saddened because of his children; they are angry at him father for not taking them to see the super star, does not want to attend the school function. Sridevi shows her admiration for Ashok Kumar and her willingness to attend the function. Balakrishnan shows his willingness to grant at least her wish to see the super star and agrees to attend the function. At the school, Balakrishnan and Sridevi are wide-eyed to see Ashok Kumar walk across the stage. In his speech, Ashok Kumar praises the students and teachers of the school and receives many applauses. Srinivasan then learns that Ashok Kumar had a great respect for teachers. He brings forth his past, as a child. He explains his poor and harsh lifestyle during his childhood days. On that note, he the recalls his memories of his childhood friend, Balakrishnan, who, according to Ashok Kumar, cared for him so much and spent a lot for him. Ashok Kumar tells the audience that it was Balakrishnan who sold his own jewelry to send him to Madras to join a film institute. Ashok Kumar wipes away his tears as he expresses his sorrow for not being able to see his friend since then. Ashok Kumar then apologizes to the audience and ends his speech on a happy note. A broken-hearted Balakrishnan, returns home in tears after seeing his best friend cry on stage for him. As he weeps to his wife and children, he sees Ashok Kumar at his doorstep, forming the climax of the film. Balakrishnan slowly walks up to his long-lost friend and the two embrace and wipe away their tears. After they settle down, Ashok Kumar tells Balakrishnan that him and his family must live with him thereafter. When Balakrishnan declines the offer, Ashok Kumar and the children utter one of his famous punch dialogues (from "Badsha"). Ashok Kumar takes Balakrishnan outside, and to Balakrishnan's surprise, he sees the entire village crowded in front of his house. Ashok Kumar yells out to everyone in happiness that Balakrishnan is his best friend. Just when Ashok Kumar leaves, Balakrishnan feeds Ashok Kumar and Ashok Kumar feeds him back – a sentimental scene. The film ends showing Balakrishnan and Ashok Kumar walking away together and a moral of friendship is given (voiced by Rajinikanth). Cast. Special appearances Production. Development. Following P. Vasu and Rajinikanth's film, "Chandramukhi" in 2005, Vasu had been keen to re-cast Rajnikanth in another role and, before signing "Kuselan", he had narrated a story titled "Vettaiyan", which would have been a sequel of a character featured in "Chandramukhi". Early in 2008, Rajnikanth signed up for S. Shankar's "Enthiran", while "Kuselan" was launched at the Taj Coromandel in Chennai on 14 January 2008 coinciding with Pongal. The director, P. Vasu signed up Rajnikanth and Pasupathy to portray the lead roles, while director K. Balachandar agreed to produce the Tamil version of the film along with G.P. Vijayakumar's Seven Arts Productions, while Aswani Dutt agreed to produce the film in Telugu with Rajnikanth and Jagapati Babu in the lead roles. The film is a remake of the Malayalam movie, "Kadha Parayumbol" which was written by Sreenivasan who also played the lead role in the movie. Vasu made it clear that Rajinikanth would not be doing an honorary role in the film, which Mammooty had portrayed in the original, but will play a full role, describing that "the whole story revolves around him ". The film's launch was halted on 7 March 2008 at the AVM Studios in Chennai with the leading artistes present. P. Vasu, while talking to the media mentioned that the shooting lasted 82 days with the versions being shot simultaneously and that most of the movie was shot inside the Ramoji Rao film city, with other destinations including Kerala and Pollachi. A promotional event took place on 19 July 2008 at the Jawarhalal Nehru Stadium. The event focused on the music by G. V. Prakash Kumar. Casting. Apart from the role of Rajnikanth, Vasu intended to use entirely different casts in either version of the bilingual film.Livingston, Manobala and Santhana Bharathi were added to the cast of the Tamil version, along with Vadivelu who pipped Vivek, Santhanam and Goundamani to land the role, even though Santhanam managed another role in the film. Furthermore, director S. P. Muthuraman agreed to play a guest role in the film. Despite Trisha Krishnan's request to appear opposite Rajnikanth, Nayantara accepted the role, however finding a female lead opposite Pasupathy was more difficult for the director, with Simran Bagga, Tabu and Sneha all being considered for the role in the Tamil version. However, Meena who played the role in the original, was offered the role in early February 2008 and accepted it. Throughout the production stages, it had been indicated that several prominent film personalities will appear in cameo appearances throughout the film, however no leading actors were approached. Indications later revealed that five actresses would appear opposite Rajnikanth in a song with the selected being Nayantara, Mamta Mohandas, Kushboo, Suja and Sneha all of whom apart from Nayantara, play minor roles. G. V. Prakash Kumar operated as the music composer while Arvind Krishna was the cinematographer. Soundtrack. The soundtrack of "Kuselan" was released on 30 June 2008. The background score has been composed by G. V. Prakash Kumar along with five songs. The song "Cinema Cinema" commemorates the 75th anniversary of Tamil cinema. Surya Sivakumar, Sneha, Mamta Mohandas, Dhanush, Kushboo Sundar and Soundarya Rajinikanth appear in this song along with Rajinikanth, Nayantara and Vijayakumar. Sivaji Ganesan, M. G. Ramachandran, Rajkumar and N. T. Rama Rao, are also shown in this song. Release. Reception. "Kuselan" became the third largest release in the history of Tamil cinema, extracting 1000 prints worldwide, numbers exceeded only by Rajnikanth's previous venture, "Sivaji". The film upon release, despite the initial hype before release, received negative reviews and unexpectedly took a lukewarm opening at the box office. Unlike previous Rajnikanth films, on day two of its release, tickets were available in almost all theatres across Tamil Nadu, with the film failing to get advance bookings. Traders blamed the producers for using Rajinikanth's "larger than life image" to sell it to distributors, Pyramid Saimira for $12 million, when they knew very well that he was only doing a special appearance. More than $1 million worth of pirated DVDs were seized around India featuring "Kuselan". In Karnataka, Rajnikanth's home state, "Kuselan" failed to bring in $300,000, despite being sold for $600,000. Pyramid Saimeera declared a loss of 403.2 million in the 3rd financial quarter of 2008 (a loss of nearly US $8 million, the highest loss for a single film in the Tamil film industry's 100-year history). Overseas, "Kuselan" opened at number 12 at the UK box office, but slid heavily the following week. The film was still labelled as a "colossal flop". Critical response. The film, upon release, garnered mainly negative reviews. Rediff.com criticized the film as "rushed", however praised Pasupathy mentioning that he comes "out the winner" in acting scenes, citing that his portrayal was "poetic". Meena is criticized, with the reviewer claiming that she "tries hard to re-create the original version's magic, but perhaps she has been told to over-do it for Tamil: she wears lipstick and pastel shades of saris for every other scene, while trying to prove that they have no idea where the next meal's going to come from". As for the script, "the freshness of the original has been denuded a little to accommodate dialogues that extol the many virtues of the superstar", becoming worse than that of the original. Whilst labelling Vadivelu as providing "antics are the ones that really make you grin", the rest of the supporting actors Manobala, M. S. Baskar, Livingston and Vaiyapuri "are absolutely wasted". Director P. Vasu is criticized by claiming that his "script must shoulder the responsibility of how Kuselan has ultimately turned out" with the only saving grace being "the original story, which pulls the screenplay from descending into nothing". G. V. Prakash Kumar and Thotta Tharani were also singled out by the Rediff reviewer for their adequate performances in their respective fields. Reviewers also claimed that the producers and P. Vasu had attempted to capitalize on Rajnikanth's fan following in the film. The Deccan Herald reported that "It’s a big con to exploit brand Rajni and make a quick buck. He himself gallops in on a flying horse almost half way through the tortuous proceedings. His oneliners and quirks fall flat. If at all we are able to see flashes of the Rajni of yore, it’s towards the dying moments. By then it’s too late". This claim was echoed by one Sify.com review claiming the film "tries desperately to glorify Rajinikanth’s larger than life superstardom and create a halo around him as a do-gooder and a saint in real life. It loses its focus and moves away from the gist of the original, which was a simple story about human emotions, based on friendship between an ordinary barber and a superstar." In contrast, another Sify.com review praised the film labelling it as "above average". It claims that "Rajinikanth towers above all others, especially in the climax scene where there is a lot of melodrama and the human emotions are well etched out". Pasupathy has a "pained expression throughout" whilst "Meena just repeats her performance in the Malayalam version". It however criticizes Vadivelu who is described as "a bit crass and below-the-belt", in reference to his scenes with Sona Heiden. It adds that "Kuselan is quite an enjoyable watch and is different from previous Rajinikanth films" and that the "touching climax will leave a lump in your throat". Controversy. During the 2008 hunger strike organised by SIFAA against Karnataka's stance on the Hogenakkal Falls water dispute, he reprimanded politicians in Karnataka. Further, he appealed to leaders not to inflame the water project issue for political gains and requested that the issue should be resolved soon. He urged the Karnataka politicians "to speak the truth". "They cannot be fooled and will not remain silent if you continue to act in such manner," he stated. Vatal Nagaraj, a Kannada activist and leader of the Kannada Chaluvali Paksha, demanded an apology from Rajinikanth and threatened that he would not be allowed in the state of Karnataka and all his films would be boycotted. In an effort to save the economy of Tamil cinema in Karnataka and ensure welfare of Tamil Nadu-based filmmakers, Rajinikanth made a brief media appearance on the news channel TV9 Kannada and clarified his speech, issuing an apology. Following the release of "Kuselan" in Karnataka, Rajinikanth thanked the Kannada film industry for allowing the release of the film and lifting the ban. Fellow actors R. Sarathkumar, Sathyaraj and Radha Ravi condemned the apology, with the latter calling it a "disgrace to Tamils".
588454	Veda Archana Sastry (born on 8 October) is an Indian film actress, known for her works predominantly in Telugu cinema, and few Tamil, Kannada and Malayalam films. Debuting as Veda in "Tapana", she subsequently changed her stage name to Archana, by which she was more popularly known. She is perhaps best known for her performances in "Nenu", "Nuvvostanante Nenoddantana" and "Aa Dinagalu".
1164132	Henry Enrique "Erik" Estrada (born March 16, 1949) is an American actor and reserve police officer, known for his co-starring lead role in the 1977–1983 United States police television series "CHiPs". He later became known for his work in Spanish language telenovelas, and in more recent years, his appearances in reality television shows and infomercials and as a regular voice on the Adult Swim series "Sealab 2021". Life and career. Early life. Estrada was born on March 16, 1949 in East Harlem, Manhattan, New York City, the son of Carmen, a seamstress, and Renildo Estrada. He is of Puerto Rican descent. 1970-2000. In the 1970 film version of "The Cross and the Switchblade", Estrada made his film debut in the role of Nicky Cruz alongside Pat Boone who played the role of David Wilkerson. In 1974, Estrada took part in the disaster film, "Airport 1975", where he played a role as the flight engineer on a Boeing 747. His character was killed in a midair collision. Two years later, he was a player in the military historical epic "Midway", as a fictional airman Ens. "Chili Bean" Ramos. Starting in 1977, Estrada co-starred as Frank "Ponch" Poncharello in the TV series "CHiPs". In 1978, he began training in martial arts with SeishinDo Kenpo instructor Frank Argelander (aka Frank Landers), to prepare for a two-part episode of the series. The two of them appear on the cover of "Fighting Stars Magazine" that same year, discussing Estrada's training regime. On August 6, 1979, Estrada was seriously injured while filming a scene on the set of CHiPs, fracturing several ribs and breaking both wrists after he was thrown from his motorcycle. Later in 1979, Estrada was voted one of "The 10 Sexiest Bachelors in the World" by "People" magazine and was featured on the cover of the November issue. Following a salary dispute with NBC in the fall of 1981, Estrada was briefly replaced by Olympic Gold Medalist and actor Bruce Jenner. CHiPs was eventually canceled in 1983. In the 1980s, Estrada appeared in a string of low-budget films. He made a return to series television in a 1987 three-part episode of the police drama "Hunter". In the 1990s, Estrada played the role of Johnny, a Tijuana trucker, in the Televisa telenovela "Dos mujeres, un camino" ("Two women, one road"). Originally slated for 100 episodes, the show went to 400-plus episodes and became the biggest telenovela in Latin American history. He was reportedly paid one million dollars for that role. In 1994, Estrada began co-hosting the syndicated outdoor adventure show "American Adventurer" which ran until 2004. In 1995, he made a special guest appearance as Ponch in punk rock band Bad Religion's music video "Infected" as well as in the video for the Butthole Surfers's video for "Pepper". He has also been seen on a few episodes of "Sabrina, The Teenage Witch" as himself, seen in a daydream cloud in Hilda's mind and driving a car as Hilda zapped herself in his car. In 1997, Estrada wrote his autobiography, "Erik Estrada: My Road from Harlem to Hollywood". In 1998, he returned as the character Francis "Ponch" Poncherello in the TNT made-for-TV movie "CHiPs '99", along with the rest of the original cast. 2000s. In 2001, Estrada landed a role on the daytime drama, "The Bold and the Beautiful" as Eduardo Dominguez. In 2002, he played a game show host on the Disney Channel series "Lizzie McGuire" with Hilary Duff. He has also had a regular role doing voiceovers for the Cartoon Network show "Sealab 2021", where he would parody himself. He also appeared in an episode of another Cartoon Network show, "", which features a character named Moltar who has an obsession with Estrada and CHiPS, as a guest. Estrada has also guest-starred on the children's cartoon "Maya and Miguel". Estrada has appeared in music videos, such as Eminem's music video "Just Lose it". There is a band named after him (Estradasphere) based in Santa Cruz, California. Estrada also made guest appearances on "The Wayans Bros.", "Unhappily Ever After", the Nickelodeon comedy "Drake & Josh", NBC's "Scrubs" and ABC's "According to Jim". Estrada has done a long-running series of infomercials as a national spokesman for National Recreational Properties, selling undeveloped real estate property in such locations as Siskiyou County, California; Lake Shastina, California; California City, California; Ocean Shores, Washington; Colorado; and recently, Tellico Village, Tennessee and Bella Vista, Arkansas. National Recreational Properties has come under criticism of routinely misleading buyers into grossly overpaying up to $60,000 for raw land that is not under any plans for development. As a result, unsuspecting buyers end up with plots of land located in areas with no municipal infrastructure i.e. no roads, water, power and no sewage system. After unsuccessfully attempting to sell the land, which could only be worth $2,000, desperate owners often cease paying taxes. At which point National Recreational Properties recoups the property and resells it again, often at an even higher price. Estrada began appearing in Burger King TV commercials in September 2009 where he attended a class on endorsing products led by Tony Stewart. During the spoof, Estrada seeks to understand why American consumers were not interested in purchasing his "Estrada" sunglasses that noticeably had his last name written boldly across the lens. Estrada has appeared in recent years in a number of reality television shows. In 2004 he starred in both the second season of "The Surreal Life" and in "Discovery Health Body Challenge". He also starred in the short-lived CBS reality show, "Armed & Famous". In 2008, Estrada appeared in "Husband for Hire", a television movie starring Nadine Velazquez and Mario López. After a series of specials, in 2010 Estrada and Laura McKenzie began co-hosting a weekly series, "The World's Funniest Moments", which began as a myNetworkTV series hosted by Arsenio Hall. Erik Estrada was contestant on the second season of the Spanish Univision reality show "Mira Quien Baila", where 10 contestants are chosen to perform different styles of dancing and each Sunday one of them is eliminated. In 2013, he starred in "Finding Faith", a film about a young teenager who is kidnapped from a meeting planned online. The story of sexual predation, is based on true incidents investigated by the Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force. Estrada toured with the film, aiming to educate parents and young people about the dangers of online grooming.
1035041	Annette Badland (born 1950 in Edgbaston, Birmingham) is an English actress known for a wide range of roles on TV, radio and film. Biography. Her training took place at East 15 Acting School, London. She has appeared in many television roles including Bergerac (1981–1984), "2point4 children", "Making Out", "Summer Hill", "Jackanory", "Archer's Goon", "The Demon Headmaster", "The Worst Witch", "The Queen's Nose" and "Coronation Street", as well as an early appearance in series one of the "Hale & Pace" show in a number of sketches. In 1989, Badland also appeared in "The Rough and The Smooth", an episode of "All Creatures Great and Small". She played the recurring villain Blon Fel-Fotch Pasameer-Day Slitheen a.k.a. "Margaret Blaine" in the 2005 series of "Doctor Who". She also provides commentary on the "Doctor Who" Complete Series One Box Set, on the episodes "World War Three" and "Boom Town". In 2006 she put in an appearance at Larkhall Prison for the eighth series of ITV1 drama "Bad Girls". She played Angela Robbins, a disturbing inmate who was suffering from Dissociative Identity Disorder. She has also appeared in many films including "A Little Princess" (1986), "Jabberwocky" (1977), "Little Voice" (1998) and more recently "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" (2005). Badland has performed in several radio dramas including BBC Radio 4's "Rolling Home" (2001), "Smelling of Roses" (2003) and an adaptation of George MacDonald's novel "At the Back of the North Wind". In 2005 she took the role of Hazel Woolley, the "bad seed" adopted daughter of Jack Woolley in the long-running radio soap opera "The Archers", and in 2008 appeared in the radio serial "The Way We Live Right Now" as Tilly Carbury.
1105255	Maxwell Herman Alexander "Max" Newman, FRS (7 February 1897 – 22 February 1984) was a British mathematician and codebreaker. His work in World War II led to the construction of Colossus, the first operational electronic computer, and he established the Royal Society Computing Machine Laboratory at the University of Manchester which produced the first working stored program electronic computer in 1948, the Manchester Small-Scale Experimental Machine. Education and early life. Max Newman was born Maxwell Neumann in Chelsea, London, England, on 7 February 1897. His father was Herman Alexander Neumann, originally from the German city of Bromberg (now in Poland) who had emigrated with his family to London at the age of 15. Herman worked as a secretary in a company, and married Sarah Ann (Pike), an English schoolteacher, in 1896. The family moved to Dulwich in 1903, and Newman attended Goodrich Road school, then City of London School from 1908. At school, he excelled in classics and in mathematics. He played chess and the piano well. Newman won a scholarship to study mathematics at St John's College, Cambridge in 1915, and in 1916 gained a first in part I of the Cambridge Mathematical Tripos. World War I. His studies were postponed by World War I. His father was interned as an enemy alien after the start of the war in 1914, and upon his release he returned to Germany. In 1916, Newman changed his name by deed poll to the anglicised "Newman" and Sarah did likewise in 1920. In January 1917 Newman took up a teaching post at Archbishop Holgate's Grammar School in York, leaving in April 1918. He spent some months in the Royal Army Pay Corps, and then taught at Chigwell School for six months in 1919 before returning to Cambridge. He was called up for military service in February 1918, but claimed conscientious objection due to his beliefs and his father's country of origin, and thereby avoided any direct role in the fighting. Between the wars. Graduation. He resumed his interrupted studies in October 1919, and graduated in 1921 as a wrangler (equivalent to a first) in Part II of the Mathematical Tripos, and gained distinction in Schedule B (the equivalent of Part III). His dissertation considered the use of 'symbolic machines' in physics, foreshadowing his later interest in computing machines. Early academic career. On 5 November 1923 he was elected a Fellow of St John's. He worked on the foundations of combinatorial topology, and proposed that a notion of equivalence be defined using only three elementary "moves". Newman's definition avoided difficulties that had arisen from previous definitions of the concept. Publishing over twenty papers established his reputation as an "expert in modern topology". Newman wrote "Elements of the topology of plane sets of points", a definitive work on general topology, and still highly recommended as an undergraduate text. He also published papers on mathematical logic, and solved a special case of Hilbert's fifth problem. He was appointed a lecturer in mathematics at Cambridge in 1927, where his 1935 lectures on the Foundations of Mathematics and Gödel's Theorem inspired Alan Turing to embark on his pioneering work on the "Entscheidungsproblem" (decision problem) using a hypothetical computing machine. In spring 1936, Newman was presented by Turing with a draft of "On Computable Numbers with an Application to the Entscheidungsproblem". He realised the paper's importance and helped ensure swift publication. Newman subsequently arranged for Turing to visit Princeton where Alonzo Church was working on the same problem but using his Lambda calculus. During this period, Newman started to share Turing's dream of building a stored-program computing machine. During this time at Cambridge, he developed close friendships with Patrick Blackett, Henry Whitehead and Lionel Penrose.
1377234	The Suite Life Movie is a 2011 comedy-drama science fiction film directed by Sean McNamara, written by Michael Saltzman, and starring Dylan and Cole Sprouse, Brenda Song, Debby Ryan, Matthew Timmons, John Ducey, Matthew Glave, and Phill Lewis. The Disney Channel Original Movie is based on the pair of Disney Channel sitcoms "The Suite Life of Zack & Cody" and "The Suite Life on Deck" created by Danny Kallis and Jim Geoghan. Dylan and Cole Sprouse were also co-producers for the movie. The film premiered on March 25, 2011 on the Disney Channel. A sneak peek was shown during the Disney Channel "Shake It Up" New Years event. Plot. After making plans to spend spring break with his girlfriend Bailey Pickett (Debby Ryan), Cody Martin (Cole Sprouse) decides to leave the SS "Tipton", a large cruise ship where he attends school, to work as an intern for Dr. Donald Spaulding (John Ducey) at a prestigious research firm instead. He does so in hopes of obtaining a scholarship to Yale. When Cody's twin brother Zack (Dylan Sprouse) reveals Cody's plans to Bailey before Cody could, however, she becomes infuriated that Cody canceled his plans with her and refuses to speak to him. Meanwhile, Zack asks Cody for his car, which their parents will give to Cody when he goes to college, but Cody refuses. However, after Zack runs a billion-dollar submarine into the seawall in an attempt to impress a cute science assistant, and Cody does the same trying to stop him, the equipment is lost and Cody is kicked out of the program and fired. Furious, Cody tells Zack he hates him and vows to never forgive him, claiming they may be twins, but they definitely are not brothers. Elsewhere, the hotel heiress London Tipton (Brenda Song) accidentally eats a fruit given to the dolphins which allows her to comprehend them. The Martin twins later learn that although Cody will no longer be eligible to work as Dr. Spaulding's intern, both boys are ideal for the Gemini Project, a massive project by Dr. Ronald Olsen (Matthew Glave), who studies the physical and emotional connection of twins. Though it takes them much thought, the brothers agree and land themselves in a camp among hundreds of other twins. Dr. Olsen explains to them that the purpose of the project is to create an emotional bond between people that he hopes will put an end to evil in the world. By doing this, according to Dr. Olsen, he must form a bond between twins. Over the course of the project, which uses the same fruit as Dr. Spaulding's experiments, Zack and Cody form a bond: first a physical bond, in which they can sense what the other is feeling, then empathy, or an emotional bond. After they develop these bonds, they overhear a conversation that reveals that Dr. Olsen has evil intentions. Meanwhile, Bailey discovers Cody's letter and reads it. She realizes Cody only wanted to obtain a scholarship to Yale and goes with London and Woody (Matthew Timmons) to find him. At the institute, London learns from a dolphin that Zack and Cody are at the Gemini Project and alerts Dr. Spaulding who claims that the Martin twins may be in danger. Bailey calls the manager of the SS "Tipton", Mr. Moseby (Phill Lewis), to the site of the Gemini Project while they all go to save Zack and Cody. During this time, the brothers attempt to flee the island and the army of twins, who are now mind-controlled to go after the two. The army succeeds, as Zack and Cody are captured and taken back to the laboratory, where Bailey, London, Woody, and Dr. Spaulding find them. Dr. Olsen reveals that he is Dr. Spaulding's evil twin and explains that he spied on Zack and Cody earlier in the movie. After telling each other off, Zack and Cody begin to merge, but the merge is unsuccessful because the twins get into an argument that escalates into a physical altercation, ultimately destroying the Gemini Project. Ronald claims he will merge everyone and attempts to reboot the machine, but he is stopped by Cody who quickly forms a plan, and he and Zack give the special fruit to the Spaulding twins, who finally understand each other by telepathically discovering that they wanted to be like each other all along. Mr. Moseby comes in with the police who arrest Ronald. Zack and Cody now understand that they make a "pretty good team." Afterward, Cody and Bailey have reconciled and visited landmarks together and Zack is driving his car, which Cody finally agreed to let him have. On the dock, Zack parks the car in a shipping area and sees his friends and brother on the SS "Tipton". Unfortunately, the car is crushed by a shipping crate containing London's summer clothes. While Zack stares in shock, the movie ends with Mr. Moseby saying, "Well, spring break is over. Now if I could just make it to summer vacation." Home media. The movie was made available on iTunes starting April 5, 2011 and on Netflix to stream on April 24, 2011. Reception. Sarah Peel of "BSC Kids" was positive about the film, saying the film was "typical" but said she was surprised at "just how funny it was". She later went on to say that it was a good film for younger children to watch. She gave the film a 7 out of 10. The movie premiered with 5.228 million viewers.
1044672	Dr. Shekel and Sister Hyde is a 1971 British film directed by Roy Ward Baker based on the short story "Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde" by Robert Louis Stevenson. The film was made by British studio Hammer Film Productions and was their second adaptation of the story after their 1960 film "The Two Faces of Dr. Jekyll". The film is notable for showing Shekel transform into a female Hyde; it also incorporates into the plot aspects of the historical Jack the Ripper and Burke and Hare cases. The two characters were played by the film's stars, Ralph Bates and Martine Beswick. A remake of the film was reportedly under consideration as of 2011. Plot. While searching for an elixir of life, Dr. Henry Shekel begins using female hormones taken from fresh cadavers supplied by Burke and Hare, reasoning that these hormones will help him to extend his life since women traditionally live for longer than men. These have the effect of not only altering his character (for the worse) but also of changing his gender, transforming him into a beautiful but evil woman. To explain the sudden appearance of his female half around the house, he calls himself Mrs. Hyde, saying she is Shekel's widowed sister. Dr. Shekel soon falls in love with Susan Spencer, the upstairs tenant, but Sister Hyde develops a lust for her brother. Dr. Shekel soon finds that his serum requires a regular supply of female hormones to maintain its effect, necessitating the killing of young girls. Burke and Hare supply his needs but their criminal activities are uncovered. Burke is lynched by a mob and Hare blinded. The doctor decides to take the matters into his own hands and commits the murders attributed to Jack the Ripper. Dr. Shekel abhors this, but Sister Hyde relishes the killings as she begins to take control, even killing Shekel's friend Professor Robertson when he attempts to question Hyde about the murders. As the two personalities begin to struggle for dominance, Dr. Shekel only just manages to thwart Sister Hyde's attempt to kill Susan. He then commits one last murder to find a way to stabilize his condition, but he is interrupted by the police after a comment by Hare leads them to realize the similarity between Shekel's earlier experiments on cadavers and the Ripper murders. As Dr. Shekel tries to escape by climbing along the outside of a building, he transforms into Sister Hyde, who, lacking his strength, falls to the ground, dying as a twisted amalgamation of male and female. Critical reception. "Time Out" called the film "enormous fun" and an "admirably successful attempt to ring new changes on an old theme".
1087570	Ralph William Gosper, Jr. (born 1943), known as Bill Gosper, is an American mathematician and programmer from Pennsauken Township, New Jersey. Along with Richard Greenblatt, he may be considered to have founded the hacker community, and he holds a place of pride in the Lisp community.
774484	Jesus of Montreal () is a 1989 Canadian film directed by Denys Arcand. Plot and allegory. The film centers on a group of actors in Montreal, Canada who are gathered by Daniel, an actor hired by a Roman Catholic site of pilgrimage ("le sanctuaire") to present a Passion play in its gardens.
1015424	Baghead is a 2008 comedy/horror film directed by Jay Duplass and Mark Duplass. Its limited release began on 25 July 2008. Plot. Four actors go to a cabin in the woods to write, direct, and act in a film that will jump-start their careers. Their idea is a horror film about a man with a bag over his head, but what happens when that man mysteriously shows up? Reception. This film received mostly positive reviews from Duane Byrge ("The Hollywood Reporter"), Bill Weber ("Slant Magazine"), Peter Debruge ("Variety") and Scott Weinberg (FEARnet). It also received two "See It"s from Michael Phillips and Richard Roeper during "At the Movies". The film currently holds a rating of 77% on review aggregator RottenTomatoes, based on 91 reviews.
1759118	3 Giant Men (AKA: "Captain America and Santo vs. Spider-Man"; ) is a 1973 Turkish cult action film, directed by T. Fikret Uçak and written by Doğan Tamer based on the characters created by Steve Ditko, Jack Kirby, Stan Lee, Joe Simon and Rodolfo Guzmán Huerta, featuring Aytekin Akkaya as Captain America and Yavuz Selekman as Santo called to Istanbul on a special mission to stop the villainous Spider-Man and his criminal gang. The film, which went on nationwide general release across the country on , was completely unauthorized by the copyright owners of the characters depicted. Plot. The story takes place in Istanbul, where a violent criminal organization led by Spider-Man ("Spider's Gang") surfaces in the city with counterfeit United States dollars. A small task-force consisting of Captain America, Santo and Captain America's girlfriend Julia arrives to help local police stop Spider-Man and his gang. Captain America's girlfriend, who has infiltrated Spider-Man's hideout, is captured and taken to a house in a remote location. She manages to send an SOS signal to the Captain. Captain America saves Julia and chases after Spider-Man, who manages to escape. Meanwhile, Mexico's national superhero/wrestler, Santo, infiltrates the dojo that is used as a front for counterfeiting. After being captured, he manages to escape along with incriminating evidence. Captain and Santo raid a very important hideout where most of the counterfeiting operation is taking place. They manage to shut down the hideout while Spider-Man kills a couple, steals a statue and runs away.
1103579	In mathematics, discretization concerns the process of transferring continuous models and equations into discrete counterparts. This process is usually carried out as a first step toward making them suitable for numerical evaluation and implementation on digital computers. In order to be processed on a digital computer another process named quantization is essential. Discretization is also related to discrete mathematics, and is an important component of granular computing. In this context, "discretization" may also refer to modification of variable of category "granularity", as when multiple discrete variables are aggregated or multiple discrete categories fused. Discretization of linear state space models. Discretization is also concerned with the transformation of continuous differential equations into discrete difference equations, suitable for numerical computing. The following continuous-time state space model where "v" and "w" are continuous zero-mean white noise sources with covariances can be discretized, assuming zero-order hold for the input "u" and continuous integration for the noise "v", to with covariances where and formula_16 is the sample time, although formula_17 is the transposed matrix of formula_11. A clever trick to compute "Ad" and "Bd" in one step is by utilizing the following property, p. 215: and then having Discretization of process noise. Numerical evaluation of formula_22 is a bit trickier due to the matrix exponential integral. It can, however, be computed by first constructing a matrix, and computing the exponential of it (Van Loan, 1978): The discretized process noise is then evaluated by multiplying the transpose of the lower-right partition of G with the upper-right partition of G: Derivation. Starting with the continuous model we know that the matrix exponential is and by premultiplying the model we get which we recognize as and by integrating.. which is an analytical solution to the continuous model. Now we want to discretise the above expression. We assume that u is constant during each timestep. We recognize the bracketed expression as formula_36, and the second term can be simplified by substituting formula_37. We also assume that formula_38 is constant during the integral, which in turn yields which is an exact solution to the discretization problem. Approximations. Exact discretization may sometimes be intractable due to the heavy matrix exponential and integral operations involved. It is much easier to calculate an approximate discrete model, based on that for small timesteps formula_40. The approximate solution then becomes: Other possible approximations are formula_42 and formula_43. Each of them have different stability properties. The last one is known as the bilinear transform, or Tustin transform, and preserves the (in)stability of the continuous-time system. Discretization of continuous features. In statistics and machine learning, discretization refers to the process of converting continuous features or variables to discretized or nominal features. This can be useful when creating probability mass functions.
561416	Ek Anek Aur Ekta or "One, Many, and Unity" (also known as "Ek Chidiya, Anek Chidiyan" after the title song) is a traditionally animated short educational film released by the Films Division of India (Government of India). It was released in 1974. It was aired on the state-owned Doordarshan and became very popular among children. Summary. The film was intended to teach the value of unity and teamwork to children. It also contains the message of how India is stronger if its citizens stand united, regardless of cultural differences. It begins with a group of children playing in a garden with one of them asking his elder sister, "Didi, yeh anek kya hota hai?", or in English, "Sis, what do you mean by Many?". The rest of the film is the sister's reply, using a metaphorical story of how a group of birds escape a bird catcher by uniting to recruit their friends, a group of mice. The team. The film was directed by Vijaya Mulay. The film's design, animation and creation was done by Bhimsain Khurana. The lyrics of "Hind Desh ke Niwasi" were by Pandit Vinaychandra Maudralya. Sadhna Sargam sang "Ek Chidiya, Anek Chidiyan" when she was only five years old. The assistants were S.M. Hasan, Mahesh Taavre and Girish Rao. The film won the National Film Award for Best Educational Film., and it was the first film from the animation studios of then Center for Education Technology. The film also won the Best Children's Film award in Japan. The film is considered to be one of India's greatest examples of animation story-telling, and well remembered by the 80s generation as a classic illustration of "Anekta mein Ekta".
1045604	The Private Life of Don Juan is a 1934 British historical comedy-drama film directed by Alexander Korda and starring Douglas Fairbanks, Merle Oberon and Benita Hume. It was Fairbanks' final film role. The film is about the life of the aging Don Juan, based on the 1920 play "L'homme à la Rose" by Henry Bataille. It was made by Korda's London Film Productions at Elstree Studios and distributed by United Artists under an agreement Korda had recently signed with them. Synopsis. After many years in exile, Don Juan returns to Seville in secret. His wife has threatened to have him thrown in prison. Next morning he is surprised to find that all the town knows he is back (not surprising really as he had a big sword fight on arrival). Rodrigo, an admirer of his, follows Don Juan everywhere, wanting to be just like him, and able to give a good impression of him. Don Juan prepares to flee to France but Rodrigo is killed by a jealous husband who believes he is Don Juan and all Seville now believes him dead. He attends his own magnificent funeral, but finds many discomforts now while pretending that Don Juan is dead, before finally sorting things out.
1056348	Brotherhood of the Wolf () is a 2001 French historical drama thriller film directed by Christophe Gans, written by Gans and Stéphane Cabel, starring Samuel Le Bihan, Mark Dacascos, Emilie Dequenne, Monica Bellucci, and Vincent Cassel.
1502348	Skylar Astin (born Skylar Astin Lipstein; September 23, 1987) is an American actor and singer. He is known for playing Georg in the Tony Award-winning stage musical "Spring Awakening", and for his roles in the films "Hamlet 2" (2008), "Taking Woodstock" (2009), "Pitch Perfect" (2012), and "21 & Over" (2013). Early life and education. Astin was born in New York City and grew up in Rockland County, New York. He is the son of Meryl and Barry Lipstein. He has a sister, Brielle, and two brothers, Milan and Jace. Astin is Jewish. Having graduated from Clarkstown High School North, he attended Stagedoor Manor summer camp. He was also a student at the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University, but took a leave of absence when cast in "Spring Awakening". When he was fifteen, his agent selected his middle name, Astin, as his stage name. Career. Astin's final performance in "Spring Awakening" was July 19, 2008. Astin took on the role of Mark Cohen in a production of "Rent", directed by Neil Patrick Harris, at the Hollywood Bowl on August 6–8, 2010. Astin played Rand Posin in the movie "Hamlet 2". He sang "Raped in the Face" on the soundtrack along with Phoebe Strole, who was his co-star in the film, and the film's star, Steve Coogan. Screenings of the film at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival led to Astin signing on with United Talent Agency.
1056217	"For the article about the theatre genre, see Summer stock theatre." Summer Stock, known as If You Feel Like Singing in the UK, is a Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer musical made in 1950. The film was directed by Charles Walters and stars Judy Garland and Gene Kelly and features Eddie Bracken, Gloria DeHaven, Marjorie Main, and Phil Silvers. Nicholas Castle Sr was the choreographer.
903791	Cocaine Cowboys is a 2006 documentary film directed by Billy Corben and produced by Alfred Spellman and Billy Corben through their Miami-based media studio Rakontur. The film explores the rise of cocaine and resulting crime epidemic that swept the American city of Miami, Florida in the 1970s and 1980s. The producers of "Cocaine Cowboys" use interviews with law enforcement, journalists, lawyers, former drug smugglers and gang members to provide a first hand perspective of the Miami drug war. Synopsis. "Cocaine Cowboys" chronicles the development of the illegal drug trade in Miami during the 1970s and 1980s with interviews of both law enforcement and organized crime leaders, in addition to news footage from the era. The film reveals that in the 1960s and early 1970s, marijuana was the primary import drug into the region. During the 1970s, marijuana imports were replaced by the much more lucrative cocaine imports; as more cocaine was smuggled into the United States, the price dropped, allowing it to turn "blue collar," and be available to a wider market. Drug importers reveal several of the different methods used to import the drug into Florida. The primary methods used to import the narcotics were by boat or by air. The drug importers also reveal the complexity of their methods of importation. The logistics involved with the importation included the purchase and financing of legitimate businesses to provide cover for illegal operations, the use of sophisticated electronic homing devices, and other elaborate transportation schemes. The film also discusses how importers sometimes had difficulty storing all the money they made, resulting in them setting up a relationship with Noriega in Panama, as well as buying up entire neighborhoods of houses, putting money into infrastructure, as well as side projects, such as race horses. The distribution networks were also highly elaborate, and many people were involved locally and nationally in the consumption of the imported cocaine. Importers reveal that condominiums were purchased near particular ocean waterways to provide a monitoring post for Coast Guard and local police patrol boats. Importers reveal the use of high-tech radio monitoring equipment used to monitor the radio frequencies of Federal, State, and local authorities in order to warn incoming boats and airplanes. The film reveals that much of the economic growth which took place in Miami during this time period was a benefit of the drug trade. As members of the drug trade made immense amounts of money, this money flowed in large amounts into legitimate businesses. As a result, drug money indirectly financed the construction of many of the modern high-rise buildings in southern Florida. Later, when law enforcement pressure drove many major players out of the picture, many high-end stores and businesses closed because of plummeting sales. Also documented in the film is the gangland violence associated with the trade. The interviewees in the film argue that Griselda Blanco, an infamous crime family matriarch, played a major role in the history of the drug trade in Miami and other cities across America. It was the lawless and corrupt atmosphere, primarily from Blanco's operations, that led to the gangsters' being dubbed the "Cocaine Cowboys". Distribution. The film premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival in April 2006, and distribution rights to the film in English speaking territories were licensed to Magnolia Pictures. The film opened in U.S. theaters with a limited release on October 27, 2006. Jan Hammer composed and performed the film's original score. Related media. The film began appearing on Showtime on December 7, 2007. Legacy. The drug trafficking ring, writes "Telegraph" reporter Jacqui Goddard: "turned 1980s Miami into the most violent city since Prohibition-era Chicago - inspiring the television series "Miami Vice" and the movie "Scarface"" (1983). Remake. Leonardo DiCaprio and Mark Wahlberg are going to star in the 2014 remake of the "Cocaine Cowboys"
585245	Unnal Mudiyum Thambi (You can, Brother) is a Tamil language film starring Kamal Haasan in the lead role. The movie, a re-make of the Telugu film "Rudraveena", was released on 9 August 1988. Plot. Kamal Haasan is the younger son of an illustrious Carnatic music maestro, (Gemini Ganesan). The father is a strict disciplinarian who is very class conscious and cares only for his art. The maestro's elder son is born mute and hence had to take to an instrument, the nadhaswaram, which he is quite adept at.
1163309	Florence Agnes Henderson (born February 14, 1934) is an American actress and singer. She is best known for her role of Carol Brady on the ABC sitcom "The Brady Bunch" from 1969 to 1974. Florence also has had a strong constant presence on television since the 1950`s and has hosted several long-running cooking and variety shows over the years. Henderson also has appeared on as a guest on many scripted and non-scripted (talk and reality shows) over the years. She may also be known for being a contestant on "Dancing with the Stars" in 2010. Henderson currently hosts her own talk show, "The Florence Henderson Show", on RLTV. Early life. Henderson, the youngest of ten children, was born in Dale, Indiana, a small town in the southwest region of the state. Henderson was a daughter of Elizabeth (née Elder), a homemaker, and Joseph Henderson, a tobacco sharecropper. She is of English origin. Raised a Roman Catholic, she graduated from St. Francis Academy in Owensboro, Kentucky, in 1951; shortly thereafter, she went to New York City, enrolling in the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. She is an Alumna Initiate of the Alpha Chi chapter of Delta Zeta sorority. Career. Henderson started her career on the stage, performing in musicals, such as the touring production of "Oklahoma!" and "South Pacific" at Lincoln Center. She debuted on Broadway in the musical "Wish You Were Here" in 1952 and later starred on Broadway in the long-running 1954 musical, "Fanny" (888 performances) in which she originated the title role. Henderson also appeared on Broadway in "The Girl Who Came to Supper" (1963). In 1962, she won the Sarah Siddons Award for her work in Chicago theatre, and the same year became the first woman to guest host "The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson". She also joined the ranks of what was then called "The "Today" Girl" on NBC's long running morning show, doing weather and light news, a position also once held by Barbara Walters. Her most widely seen role was as Carol Brady in "The Brady Bunch" which aired on ABC from 1969 until 1974. Henderson's best friend, Shirley Jones, had previously turned down the role as at the time she wasn't ready to do a TV series and she needed to spend more time with her family. Primarily owing to her role in "The Brady Bunch", Henderson was ranked by TV Land and "Entertainment Weekly" as one of the 100 Greatest TV Icons. Henderson was a frequent panelist on the original version of the television game show "Hollywood Squares" and made occasional appearances on "The $25,000 Pyramid". Henderson was the spokeswoman for Wesson cooking oil from 1976 to 1996. During that time, she hosted a cooking show on TNN called "Country Kitchen", and also did ads for Prange's, a former Wisconsin department store chain. Henderson co-hosted the talk show "Later Today" on NBC (1999–2000) with co-hosts Jodi Applegate and Asha Blake. In the 2000s, she was the spokeswoman for Polident denture cleanser. In 2003, Henderson seemed to poke fun at her wholesome image by appearing in a Pepsi Twist television commercial with Ozzy Osbourne. Henderson has also appeared with her TV children, as with Christopher Knight on the reality television series "My Fair Brady". She is also in the sixth season of VH1's "The Surreal Life". In most years since the mid-1990s, the song "God Bless America" has been performed by Henderson at the Indianapolis 500 accompanied by the Purdue All-American Marching Band, Henderson being a friend of the Hulman-George family, the owners of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. She appeared in the "Weird Al" Yankovic video for "Amish Paradise" and co-hosted the daily talk show "Living Live" with former "Designing Women" star Meshach Taylor on Retirement Living TV. The show was reworked to focus on her and was renamed "The Florence Henderson Show". In 2002 she made a memorable guest appearance on comedy improv show "Whose Line Is It Anyway?", participating in on-screen kisses with Ryan Stiles and Colin Mochrie. Since 2008, Henderson has been the host of her own television series, "The Florence Henderson Show", which airs on RLTV (Retirement Living TV). The show was nominated for an Emmy Award in 2010. In May 2010, Henderson did a series of promotional radio ads for Fox. On the July 12, 2010 edition of "WWE Raw", Henderson appeared as the night's guest host. Henderson was one of twelve celebrities competing on the eleventh season of Dancing with the Stars which premiered on September 20, 2010. Her professional partner was Corky Ballas. On October 19, 2010 she was voted off the show. Henderson made a special appearance on May 11, 2012 in a special Mother's Day episode on "The Price Is Right" with Drew Carey, displaying prizes as well as one of the showcases. Personal life. In the mid-1950s Henderson was diagnosed with a bone deformation of the middle ear, and she had to have surgery to prevent deafness (later she was made an honorary member of the Delta Zeta sorority, which does a lot of work for the House Ear Institute and the hearing impaired). Henderson married Ira Bernstein in January 1956, and the couple had four children, Barbara, Joseph, Robert, and Elizabeth. During the filming of "The Brady Bunch" in Los Angeles, Henderson returned to the family's New York home each weekend to spend time with her children. In her autobiography "Life Is Not A Stage" she acknowledges her infidelity during her marriage to Bernstein including an affair with then-New York City Mayor, John Lindsay, who the actress claims gave her crab lice. She divorced Bernstein in 1985 after almost 29 years of marriage. She later married John Kappas, a hypnotherapist and founder of the Hypnosis Motivation Institute, whom she met while battling depression in the mid-1980s; Kappas died in 2002. Henderson studied hypnotherapy and is a certified hypnotherapist. In the 2000s she has been a supporter of the Sisters of St. Benedict in Ferdinand, Indiana; one of the Sisters was her teacher when she was young. She has appeared in a number of their promotional videos and has helped in fund-raising efforts. She has won money for the Sisters on the game show "The Weakest Link" and on a classic-television-themed episode of "Who Wants To Be a Millionaire" in 2001, winning $32,000 in their name. On the show Florence used her son Joseph as a Phone-a-Friend lifeline for the $64,000 question on a question about laser colors and answered correctly; she got the $125,000 question wrong, however, and lost $32,000. When Florence appeared on the VH1 show "The Surreal Life", she made a point of showing respect for the Catholic Church and the Sisters of St. Benedict by refusing to dress in a nun's costume for a comedy skit.
1463198	Chakravarthi Padmanabhan Ramanujam (January 9, 1938 – October 27, 1974) was an Indian mathematician who worked in the fields of number theory and algebraic geometry. He was elected a Fellow of the Indian Academy of Sciences in 1973. Like his namesake Srinivasa Ramanujan, Ramanujam also had a very short life. As David Mumford put it, Ramanujam felt that the spirit of mathematics demanded of him not merely routine developments but the right theorem on any given topic. "He wanted mathematics to be beautiful and to be clear and simple. He was sometimes tormented by the difficulty of these high standards, but in retrospect, it is clear to us how often he succeeded in adding to our knowledge, results both new, beautiful and with a genuinely original stamp". Early life and education. Ramanujam was born on January 9, 1938 in Madras (now Chennai), India, as the eldest of seven, to Chakravarthi Srinivasa Padmanabhan. He finished his schooling and joined Loyola College in Madras in 1952. He wanted to specialize in mathematics and he set out to master it with vigour and passion. He also enjoyed music and his favorite musician was Dr. M. D. Ramanathan, a maverick concert musician.His teacher and friend at this time was Father Racine, a missionary who had obtained his doctorate under the supervision of Élie Cartan. With Father Racine's encouragement and recommendation, Ramanujam applied to the graduate school at the TATA Institute of Fundamental Research in Bombay and was admitted to TIFR. His father had wanted him to join the Indian Statistical Institute in Calcutta as he had passed the entrance exam meritoriously. Career. Ramanujam set out for Mumbai at the age of eighteen to pursue his interest in mathematics. He and his friend and schoolmate Raghavan Narasimhan, and S. Ramanan joined TIFR together in 1957. At the Tata Institute there was a stream of first rate visiting mathematicians from all over the world. It was a tradition for some graduate student to write up the notes of each course of lectures. Accordingly, Ramanujam wrote up in his first year, the notes of Max Deuring's lectures on "Algebraic functions of one variable". It was a nontrivial effort and the notes were written clearly and were well received. The analytical mind was much in evidence in this effort as he could simplify and extend the notes within a short time period. "He could reduce difficult solutions to be simple and elegant due to his deep knowledge of the subject matter" states Ramanan. "Max Deuring's lectures gave him a taste for Algebraic Number Theory. He studied not only algebraic geometry and analytic number theory of which he displayed a deep knowledge but he became an expert in several other allied subjects as well". On the suggestion of his doctoral advisor, K. G. Ramanathan, he began working on a problem relating to the work of the German number theorist Carl Ludwig Siegel. In the course of proving the main result to the effect that every cubic form in 54 variables over any algebraic number field K had a non-trivial zero over that field, he had also simplified the earlier method of Siegel. He took up Waring's problem in algebraic number fields and got interesting results. In recognition of his work and his contribution to Number Theory, the Institute promoted him as Associate Professor. He protested against this promotion as 'undeserved', and had to be persuaded to accept the position. He proceeded to write his thesis in 1966 and took his Doctoral examination in 1967. Dr. Siegel who was one of the examiners was highly impressed with the young man's depth of knowledge and his great mathematical abilities. Ramanujam was a scribe for Igor Shafarevich's course of lectures in 1965 on minimal models and birational transformation of two dimensional schemes. Professor Shafarevich subsequently wrote to say that Ramanujam not only corrected his mistakes but complemented the proofs of many results. The same was the case with Mumford's lectures on abelian varieties which was delivered at TIFR around 1967. Mumford wrote in the preface to his book that the notes improved upon his work and that his current work on abelian varieties was a joint effort between him and Ramanujam. A little known fact is that during this time he started teaching himself German, Italian, Russian and French so that he could study mathematical works in their original form. His personal library contained quite a few non-English mathematical works. Illness and death. Between 1964 and 1968, he was making great strides in Number theory and his contacts with Shafarevich and Mumford led him on to Algebraic Geometry. According to Ramanathan and other colleagues, his progress and deep understanding of Algebraic Geometry was phenomenal. In 1964, based on his participation in the International Colloquium on Differential Analysis, he earned the respect of Alexander Grothendieck and David Mumford who invited him to Paris and Harvard. He accepted the invitation and was in Paris, but for a brief period. He was diagnosed in 1964 with schizophrenia with severe depression and left Paris for Chennai. He later decided to quit his position at TIFR. He quit his post at Mumbai in 1965 after a bout of illness and secured a tenured position as a Professor in Chandigarh, Punjab. There he met the young student Chitikila Musili, who later went on to prove interesting results in the geometry connected with the theory of Lie groups and wrote good expository books. Ramanujam stayed in Chandigarh only 8 months and he had to return to Chennai again for treatment. TIFR was his real home and he was back there again in June 1965. Around this time he accepted an invitation from Institut des Hautes Études Scientifiques, near Paris. He was barely there before he was flown back to Chennai. Unfortunately schizophrenia, a highly treatable condition today, was not properly diagnosed and treated at that time. Thus he continued until the end of his life - to be highly creative for short periods before the recurrent illness overtook him. Again, in 1970, he sent his resignation letter to TIFR but the institute would not take it seriously. Around this time, Mumford invited him to Warwick as a visiting professor during the Algebraic Geometry year. Mumford writes that he spent many delightful evenings with him and that his presence contributed importantly to the success of the Algebraic Geometry year. A famous paper written during this time, by Michael Artin and David Mumford acknowledges Ramanujam's suggestions and help. He also had a short tenure at Turin where he was widely appreciated and accepted. Just after his death a commemorative hall was named after him in the former Istituto di Matematica (Institute of Mathematics) of the university of Genoa. Back in India after his year at the University of Warwick, Ramanujam requested for a Professorship at the Tata Institute but to be made tenable in their Bangalore campus. The Tata Institute had an applied mathematics wing in Bangalore. Although Ramanjuam had nothing to do with this area, the Institute, wishing him to continue his research, made a special arrangement by which he could stay and work there. By this time, he was deeply affected and depressed by his illness. He was put in charge of a new branch dealing with applied mathematics. He settled down in Bangalore but again in the depths of depression caused by his illness, he tried to leave the Institute and obtain a university teaching post. During one of the attacks, he tried to take his life, but was rescued in time. However, late one evening on October 27, 1974, after a lively discussion with a visiting foreign professor he took his life with an overdose of barbiturates. He was barely thirty seven.
1063306	Mark Anthony McDermott (born October 26, 1961), known professionally as Dylan McDermott, is an American actor, known for his role as lawyer and law firm head Bobby Donnell on the television legal drama "The Practice", which earned him a Golden Globe and an Emmy nomination, and his roles in the first two seasons of "American Horror Story". He also starred in the TNT series "Dark Blue" as Lt. Carter Shaw. McDermott currently stars as FBI Special Agent Duncan Carlisle in the CBS drama "Hostages". Early life. Mark Anthony McDermott was born in Waterbury, Connecticut, the son of Diane (née Marino) and Richard McDermott. His father was of Irish descent, and his mother had Italian, English, Irish, and French ancestry. His mother was fifteen and his father was seventeen when he was born. He has a younger sister, Robin. By 1967, the couple had divorced, and Diane and her two children were living with her mother. On February 9, 1967, his mother was shot dead. Her death was originally ruled an accident. Police later claimed that evidence they found would be enough to file murder charges against John Sponza, who had been living with Diane McDermott at the time. Sponza had told authorities that she accidentally shot herself after picking up a gun he had been cleaning. Sponza, who police say had ties to organized crime, was shot dead in 1972, his body found in the trunk of a car in a Waltham, Massachusetts, grocery store parking lot. Dylan was 5-years-old when his mother died. He and his sister were raised by their maternal grandmother, Avis (Rogers) Marino, in Waterbury. As a teenager, McDermott began taking trips to visit his father, who owned the West Fourth Street Saloon in Greenwich Village. The two would go to the movies and the younger McDermott would work in his father's bar serving drinks and breaking up fights. He would also fast talk his way into the Mudd Club and Studio 54. McDermott was uncomfortable with himself as a teenager, saying he had a "Dorothy Hamill hairdo". He began to imitate his acting heroes, such as Marlon Brando and Humphrey Bogart, to adopt their demeanor. McDermott graduated from Holy Cross High School, Waterbury.
587541	Itlu Sravani Subramanyam is a 2001 Tollywood film written and directed by Puri Jagannadh. This film stars Ravi Teja, Tanu Roy, and Samrin in the main roles. Plot. The movie starts with Sravani (Tanu Roy) and Subramanyam (Ravi Teja), strangers to each other, meeting at suicide point of Vizag seashore. They realize that their goal is the same. Suicide, that is! They describe to each other their reasons to end their lives and duly write suicide notes. Sravani's reason is her nagging relatives who are also guardians of her. They are after Sravani's ancestral money. A friend who took a lump some of money by offering to get a job in Dubai cheated Subramanyam. Sravani and Subramanyam fulfil their last wishes with the help of each other. They consume ample amount of sleeping pills in a bid to end their lives in the room of Subramanyam. The house owner rescues them. Subramanyam lands up with a plum job later as the relatives of Sravani take her back to the home. Subramanyam's marriage gets fixed with a girl of his mother's choice and Sravani's marriage with her maternal uncle. Sravani and Subramanyam flee from their respective marriage halls independently. The rest of the film is about how the lovers unite. In this film, Samrin acts as the boss's daughter loving Ravi Teja. She is the glamor doll of the film and turned out to be a big relief for this otherwise serious love subject. She added another angle to the love to make this film triangular. Music for this film was by Chakri. K. Dutt worked as the cinematographer for this film. Some bits of this movie are seen in Hindi movie, Anjaana Anjaani directed by Siddharth Anand starring Priyanka Chopra and Ranbir Kapoor.
1063356	Greta Scacchi (born 18 February 1960) is an Italian-Australian actress. Early life. Scacchi was born Greta Gracco in Milan, Italy, on 18 February 1960, the daughter of Luca Scacchi Gracco, an Italian art dealer and painter, and Pamela, an English dancer and antiques dealer. Scacchi's parents divorced when she was four, and her mother returned to her native England with Greta and her two older brothers, first to London, then to Haywards Heath, West Sussex. In 1975, after her mother's remarriage to Giovanni Carsaniga, the family settled in Perth, Australia, where she attended Hollywood Senior High School and the University of Western Australia (UWA). She made her theatrical debut at UWA's New Dolphin Theatre in Edward Bond's play "Early Morning". Career. In 1977, Scacchi left UWA to return to England to pursue an acting career, studying at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School, with Miranda Richardson and Amanda Redman. In 1982, she made her film debut in the German movie, "Das Zweite Gesicht" ("The Second Face"), and gave versatile performances in films, such as "Heat and Dust" (1983), "The Ebony Tower" (1984), "The Coca Cola Kid" (1985), "White Mischief" (1987), "Presumed Innocent" (1990), "The Player" (1992) and "Country Life" (1994). She turned down the role of Catherine Trammell in "Basic Instinct" (1992). In 1996, she won an Emmy Award for her work as Empress Alexandra Fyodorovna of Russia in the television film, "", and was nominated for a Golden Globe and numerous other awards. In 2007, she received an Emmy Award nomination for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Miniseries or a Movie for "Broken Trail". Scacchi is fluent in English, French, German and Italian, which has made her a popular choice for European casting directors and has been an asset when working for European directors and producers. In May 2011, she appeared alongside Anita Dobson in the play "Bette and Joan" at London's Arts Theatre, directed by Bill Alexander, about the personal and professional relationship between Bette Davis and Joan Crawford. Personal life. Scacchi was in a relationship with New Zealand musician Tim Finn from 1983–89. A marriage to American actor Vincent D'Onofrio (1989–1993) produced a daughter, Leila (born March 1992). Scacchi also has a son Matteo (born 1998) by her cousin Carlo Mantegazza. Scacchi applied for British citizenship after turning 18, but was turned down because her father was not a British citizen. After appealing unsuccessfully, she decided not to apply for it again, and retained her Italian citizenship. In January 1995, she became an Australian citizen and has since had dual nationality. She lived for many years in Hurstpierpoint until moving in early 2011 to a rented property in East Grinstead because of a dispute with her neighbour.
1165158	Beverly Garland (October 17, 1926 – December 5, 2008) was an American film and television actress, businesswoman, and hotel owner. Garland gained prominence for her role as Fred MacMurray's second wife, Barbara Harper Douglas, in the 1960s sitcom "My Three Sons",a role which she played from 1969 until the series ended in 1972 and for which she is particularly identified. In the 1980s, she co-starred as Kate Jackson's widowed mother, "Dotty West", in the CBS television series "Scarecrow and Mrs. King". She also had a recurring role as Ginger Jackson on The WB Television Network series "7th Heaven". Biography. Early life and career. Garland was born Beverly Lucy Fessenden in Santa Cruz, California, the daughter of Amelia Rose, a businesswoman, and James Atkins Fessenden, a singer and salesman. Garland grew up in Glendale, California. Her 1950s acting roles tended to be tough women who could handle themselves in violent situations. One such role was as a secrets-keeping secretary in the classic film noir "D.O.A"—in which her screen credit was "Beverly Campbell." 1956 was a busy year for Garland: she played a female marshal in the Western "Gunslinger" with Chris Alcaide as her deputy; a prison escapee in "Swamp Women"; and a scientist's wife who battles an alien in "It Conquered the World". All three movies were directed by Roger Corman and riffed in the 1990s by "Mystery Science Theater 3000". Television success. Garland from 1957 to 1958 as undercover police officer "Casey Jones" in the syndicated television series "Decoy". Oddly, Alan Hale, Jr., appeared at the time in a syndicated adventure series, "Casey Jones", loosely based on the railroad engineer from Tennessee. "Decoy" is the first American television police series with a woman in the starring role. It lasted a single season of thirty-nine episodes. Garland guest starred in 1956 as Nelli Austin, a rodeo sharpshooter, in the episode "Rodeo Rough House" of Rod Cameron's syndicated drama series, "State Trooper". Claude Akins appeared in this episode as the murderous but unnamed rodeo clown. Garland and Akins appeared together again in the 1963 episode "The Chooser of the Slain" of the ABC/Warner Brothers western series, "The Dakotas".
1054493	Thomas John Guiry (born October 12, 1981) is an American actor. Guiry was born in Trenton, New Jersey and attended St. Gregory the Great school in Hamilton Township, Mercer County, New Jersey from kindergarten through eighth grade, and then high school at Notre Dame High School in Lawrenceville, New Jersey. In 1989, he briefly starred in a small role as a basketball team captain in the episode titled "Loosiers" (originally aired February 28th) from the second season of The Wonder Years. His most notable appearances were in "The Sandlot", "The Mudge Boy", and "The Four Diamonds". Guiry played Jimmy Donnelly on the NBC drama "The Black Donnellys." In August of 2013, Tom Guiry was arrested at George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston, Texas for allegedly head-butting a police officer after he was told he was too drunk to board a flight. This came just one month after a "Sandlot" reunion for the movies 20th anniversary in Utah, where it was originally filmed though Guiry was unable to attend the reunion.
595392	Plot. The plot-summaries of the shorts are listed below in the order that they run in the DVD release, which is not the chronological order. Chronologically, the order would be: The other four shorts ("Program", "World Record", "Beyond", and "Matriculated") are independent of the events of any other installment. While they generically deal with the virtual reality of the Matrix, and the Zion rebels, conceivably they could take place at any point in the generations-long struggle between the human rebels and the Machines running the Matrix. Like the Matrix trilogy, the entire movie except "The Final Flight of the Osiris" was rated R by the MPAA mainly for its Sci-Fi violence. When it was released on DVD, it was unrated. Final Flight of the Osiris. Final Flight of the Osiris was written by the The Wachowskis and directed by Andy Jones, with CG-animation production and design by Square Pictures, this segment is rated PG-13 by the MPAA for "Sci-Fi Violence, Sensuality and Language". The short is a direct prequel leading into the events of "The Matrix Reloaded". This sequence demonstrates the state-of-the-art in digital look-alikes in 2003 should photorealism have been the team's goal. One notices that in 2003 certain things still look unreal like eyelids meeting the eyes, eyelid meeting eyelid, running motions and free hair. Normal motions are much more difficult to make believable than fancy martial arts scenes. Thadeus (Kevin Michael Richardson), a muscular man and an athletic woman called Jue (Pamela Adlon) engage in a blindfolded sword fight in a virtual-reality dojo. With each slice of their swords, they remove another piece of each other's clothing. Immediately after cutting the other down to their underwear, they lift their blindfolds to peek at the other. As the two are about to kiss, they are interrupted by an alarm and the simulation ends. In the next scene, the ship "Osiris" is headed for Junction 21 when Robbie (Tom Kenny), the operator, picks up an army of Sentinels on his HR scans. The ship flees into an uncharted tunnel, where it encounters a smaller group of Sentinels patrolling the area. The crew members man the onboard guns and destroy the patrol. The ship then emerges on the surface, four kilometers directly above Zion and close to the Sentinel army. There, the crew members see that the Machines are using gigantic drills to tunnel their way down to Zion. The Sentinel army soon detects the Osiris and pursues the ship. Captain Thadeus decides Zion must be warned, and his shipmate Jue volunteers to broadcast herself into the Matrix to deliver the warning while the ship is doggedly pursued. Jue and Thadeus admit to peeking at each other in the VR simulation. Entering the Matrix on a high rooftop, Jue jumps off and acrobatically makes her way down through power poles between two buildings. When she lands in the alley below, a ripple effect is created by her impact. She drops off a package into a mail box; the package sets the prologue for Enter the Matrix. She attempts to contact Thadeus via a cell phone as the "Osiris" is overcome by Sentinels and crashes. The Sentinels tear their way into the ship. At the time of the call, Thadeus is making a last stand to hold off the Sentinels. Shortly after Jue says "Thadeus" over her cell phone, the "Osiris" explodes, destroying many of the pursuing Sentinels. In the Matrix, Jue falls to the ground, dead, her body having been destroyed on the ship. The Second Renaissance. With increasing numbers of people released from all labor, the human population has become lazy, arrogant, and corrupt. Despite this, the machines were content with serving humanity and, as the narrator states, "for a time, it "status quo" was good". This phrase is a reference to one of the most famous phrases of "Genesis", consistent with the Biblical references seen throughout the original "Matrix" films, and is one of numerous references to "Genesis" in particular present in "Second Renaissance". The relationship between humans and machines changes in the year 2090, when a domestic android is threatened by its owner. The android, named B1-66ER in what appears to be a reference to the character Bigger Thomas from the 1940 novel "Native Son", then kills the owner, his pets, and a mechanic instructed to deactivate the robot. This murder is the first incident of an artificially intelligent machine killing a human. B1-66ER is arrested and put on trial, but justifies the crime as self-defense, stating that it "did not want to die". During the trial scene, there is a voice-over of Clarence Darrow (the defense attorney) quoting a famous line from the "Dred Scott v. Sandford" case in 1856 in his closing statement, which implicitly ruled that African Americans were not entitled to citizenship under United States law. Using this as a precedent, the prosecution argues that machines are not entitled to the same rights as human beings, and specifically that human beings have a right to destroy their property, while the defense urges the listener not to repeat history, and to judge B1-66ER as a human and not a machine (a longer version of Darrow's closing statement can be read in the comic "Bits and Pieces of Information" from "The Matrix Comics Volume 1").
394180	Jo Seung-woo (born February 12, 1980) is a South Korean actor and musical star best known for his roles in "Marathon", "" and "Jekyll and Hyde". Career. Jo Seung-woo grew up in a musical family: his father Jo Kyung-soo is a singer, and his older sister Jo Seo-yeon acts in musicals. Jo himself also dreamed of becoming a musical actor from an early age, however in 1999 while a student at Dankook University he was persuaded to join auditions for Im Kwon-taek's film "Chunhyang", and he ended up winning the part from among a field of 1,000 actors. "Chunhyang" would screen as the first Korean film in competition at Cannes, although domestically it failed to attract much of an audience. Jo did go on to appear in musicals after his film debut, acting in local productions "Subway Line 1" and "The Last Empress." Soon he was drawn back into the film industry, however, with a key supporting role in "Wanee and Junah" (2001), plus leading roles in "Who R. U.?" (2002) and Kwak Jae-yong's popular "The Classic" (2003). Particularly after "The Classic" his popularity continued to grow, and in 2004 he appeared in Im Kwon-taek's 99th film "Low Life", which flopped at the box office. Jo's breakthrough would come in early 2005, when he played an autistic boy in the smash hit "Marathon". With over 5 million tickets sold to the film, Jo attracted great praise for his naturalistic performance and won Best Actor at the 2005 Grand Bell Awards. In November he was even presented with a Best Actor award in the foreign film category of China's Hundred Flowers Awards. Nonetheless, he continued to pursue his career in musicals, with critically acclaimed appearances in "Hedwig and the Angry Inch" and "Jekyll and Hyde" that had fans scrambling to find tickets. His success at pursuing both film and musicals make him an unusual case among contemporary actors. Jo starred in "Love Phobia" (2006) opposite then-girlfriend Kang Hye-jung (the high-profile couple broke up in 2007). He then headlined "", the 2006 film adaptation of Huh Young-man's manhwa, which went on to become one of the biggest Korean blockbuster hits of all time. He followed that with "Go Go 70s", about a rock and roll band during the height of the Park Chung-hee military regime, and "The Sword with No Name", in which he played a fictional royal guard in love with Empress Myeongseong.
1100580	Roger Cotes FRS (10 July 1682 – 5 June 1716) was an English mathematician, known for working closely with Isaac Newton by proofreading the second edition of his famous book, the "Principia", before publication. He also invented the quadrature formulas known as Newton–Cotes formulas and first introduced what is known today as Euler's formula. He was the first Plumian Professor at Cambridge University from 1707 until his death. Early life. Cotes was born in Burbage, Leicestershire. His parents were Robert, the rector of Burbage, and his wife Grace "née" Farmer. Roger had an elder brother, Anthony (born 1681) and a younger sister, Susanna (born 1683). At first Roger attended Leicester School where his mathematical talent was recognised. His aunt Hannah had married Rev. John Smith, and Smith took on the role of tutor to encourage Roger's talent. The Smiths' son, Robert Smith, would become a close associate of Roger Cotes throughout his life. Cotes later studied at St Paul's School in London and entered Trinity College, Cambridge in 1699. He graduated BA in 1702 and MA in 1706. Astronomy. Roger Cotes's contributions to modern computational methods lie heavily in the fields of astronomy and mathematics. Cotes began his educational career with a focus on astronomy. He became a fellow of Trinity College in 1707, and at age 26 he became the first Plumian Professor of Astronomy and Experimental Philosophy. On his appointment to professor, he opened a subscription list in an effort to provide an observatory for Trinity. Unfortunately, the observatory still was unfinished when Cotes died, and was demolished in 1797. In correspondence with Isaac Newton, Cotes designed a heliostat telescope with a mirror revolving by clockwork. He recomputed the solar and planetary tables of Giovanni Domenico Cassini and John Flamsteed, and he intended to create tables of the moon's motion, based on Newtonian principles. Finally, in 1707 he formed a school of physical sciences at Trinity in partnership with William Whiston. The "Principia". From 1709 to 1713, Cotes became heavily involved with the second edition of Newton's "Principia", a book that explained Newton's theory of universal gravitation. The first edition of "Principia" had only a few copies printed and was in need of revision to include Newton's works and principles of lunar and planetary theory. Newton at first had a casual approach to the revision, since he had all but given up scientific work. However, through the vigorous passion displayed by Cotes, Newton's scientific hunger was once again reignited. The two spent nearly three and half years collaborating on the work, in which they fully deduce, from Newton's laws of motion, the theory of the moon, the equinoxes, and the orbits of comets. Only 750 copies of the second edition were printed. However, a pirate copy from Amsterdam met all other demand. As reward to Cotes, he was given a share of the profits and 12 copies of his own. Cotes's original contribution to the work was a preface which supported the scientific superiority of Newton's principles over the then popular vortex theory of gravity advocated by René Descartes. Cotes concluded that the Newton's law of gravitation was confirmed by observation of celestial phenomenon that were inconsistent with the vortex phenomena that Cartesian critics alleged. Mathematics. Cotes's major original work was in mathematics, especially in the fields of integral calculus, logarithms, and numerical analysis. He published only one scientific paper in his lifetime, entitled "Logometrica", in which he successfully constructs the logarithmic spiral. After his death, many of Cotes's mathematical papers were hastily edited by Robert Smith and published in a book, "Harmonia mensurarum". Cotes's additional works were later published in Thomas Simpson's "The Doctrine and Application of Fluxions". Although Cotes's style was somewhat obscure, his systematic approach to integration and mathematical theory was highly regarded by his peers. Cotes discovered an important theorem on the nth roots of unity, foresaw the method of least squares, and he discovered a method for integrating rational fractions with binomial denominators. He was also praised for his efforts in numerical methods, especially in interpolation methods and his table construction techniques. He was regarded as one of the few British mathematicians capable of following the powerful work of Sir Isaac Newton. Death and assessment. Cotes died from a violent fever in Cambridge in 1716 at the early age of 33. Isaac Newton remarked, "If he had lived we would have known something."
659758	Rockmond Dunbar (born January 11, 1971 in Berkeley, California) is an American actor. He is perhaps best known for his roles as Kenny Chadway on the Showtime television drama series "Soul Food", and as Benjamin Miles "C-Note" Franklin on the FOX television drama series "Prison Break". Career. Television. Dunbar is well known for his leading role as Kenny Chadway on the television series "Soul Food". He landed a regular role as Benjamin Miles "C-Note" Franklin on the United States television series "Prison Break". In 2007, Dunbar starred on the short-lived TNT medical drama "Heartland". He made a guest appearance on "Noah's Arc" as himself to give Noah (screenwriter and the main character of the show) some ideas about his movie "Fine Art". He also had a recurring role on the UPN series "Girlfriends", and is also known for his role as "Pookie" on the television series "The Game". He was also a regular on the short-lived FX series "Terriers". Dunbar's other TV credits include guest appearances in "Earth 2", "Felicity", "The Pretender", "Two Guys and a Girl", and "North Shore". In 2011 he joined the cast of FX's hit show "Sons of Anarchy" as the new Sheriff of Charming, Eli Roosevelt. Film. His film projects include "Punks" (which debuted at the 2000 Sundance Film Festival), "Misery Loves Company", "Sick Puppies", "Whodunit", "Dirty Laundry", "All About You" and "Kiss Kiss Bang Bang". Other. Dunbar has contributed to the art world through the mixed media exhibit, "ARTHERAPY". Dunbar posed for the November 2003 issue of "Playgirl" magazine. Personal life. According a DNA analysis, his ancestries are mainly the Yoruba people of Nigeria. Became engaged to his girlfriend of less than one year, fellow actress and writer, Maya Gilbert. The duo's engagement took place in Montego Bay, Jamaica on December 30, 2012.
672924	Nicole Beharie (born January 3, 1985) is an American actress. She is known for her roles in "American Violet" (2008), "Shame" (2011), and "42" (2013). Since September 2013, she has starred in the Fox fantasy series "Sleepy Hollow." Early life and education. Beharie was born in West Palm Beach, Florida. She attended Orangeburg Wilkinson High School in Orangeburg, South Carolina, and is 2003 graduate of the South Carolina Governor's School for the Arts & Humanities, a public residential high school in Greenville. Beharie was then accepted into the Juilliard School performing arts conservatory (Drama Division "Group 36": 2003–2007). She was awarded a Shakespeare scholarship and trained in England.
1065724	Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia () is a 1974 American cult action film directed by Sam Peckinpah and featuring Warren Oates. Made in Mexico on a low budget after the commercial failure of "Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid" (1973), Peckinpah claimed that, of all his films, "Alfredo García" was the only one released as he had intended. The film was a box-office and critical failure at the time, but has gained a new following and stature in the decades since. Plot. Teresa, the pregnant teenage daughter of a powerful man known only as "El Jefe" (Spanish, "The Boss") (Emilio Fernández), is summoned before her father and interrogated as to the identity of her unborn child's father. Under torture, she identifies the father as Alfredo Garcia whom El Jefe had been grooming to be his successor. Infuriated, El Jefe offers a $1 million reward to whoever will "bring me the head of Alfredo Garcia". The search progresses for two months. In Mexico City, two of El Jefe's personal henchmen, a pair of business-suit clad dispassionate hitmen, Sappensly (Robert Webber) and Quill (Gig Young), enter a saloon and encounter Bennie (Warren Oates), a retired United States Army officer who makes a meager living as a piano player and bar manager. The two men ask about Garcia, believing that they will have more luck getting answers out of a fellow American. Bennie plays dumb, saying that the name is familiar but that he doesn't know who Garcia is. It turns out that everyone in the bar knows who Garcia is; they simply don't know where he is. Bennie goes to meet his girlfriend, Elita (Isela Vega), a prostitute at a bordello. Elita admits to having cheated on Bennie with Garcia, who had professed his love for her, something Bennie refuses to do. Elita informs him that Garcia died in a drunk driving accident the previous week. Bennie is excited by the possibility of making money by simply digging up the body. He goes to Sappensly and Quill, in the hotel room of their boss, Max, and makes a deal for US$10,000 for Garcia's head, plus two hundred dollars in advance for expenses. Bennie convinces Elita to go on a road trip with him to visit Garcia's grave, claiming that he only wants proof that Garcia is in fact dead and no longer a threat to their relationship. "En route", Bennie proposes, promising that their future will soon change, and she can retire from prostitution. Elita is cautious, and warns Bennie against trying to upset their "status quo". On the road, Bennie and Elita are accosted by two bikers (one played by Kris Kristofferson), who pull guns and decide to rape Elita. Bennie seems unsure how to react. Elita agrees to have sex with the bikers if they spare Bennie's life, and goes off with the biker played by Kristofferson. He rips off her shirt to look at her breasts, lets her slap him twice, slaps her back, then walks away: she follows. Bennie knocks the first biker unconscious while he's playing Elita's guitar. He takes the gun and seeks the other biker and Elita. She is now passionately kissing the biker, and ready to make love with him. Bennie finds them together; then shoots him dead, as well as the first biker. He confesses to Elita his plan to decapitate Garcia's corpse and sell it for money. Elita is disgusted, and, still shaken from what has just happened, begs Bennie to give up this quest and return to Mexico City, where they can be married and live a modest life of relative peace. Bennie again refuses, but agrees to marry Elita in the church of the town where Garcia is buried. They find Garcia's grave, but when he opens the coffin, Bennie is struck from behind with his shovel by an unseen assailant. He wakes up to find himself half-buried in the grave with Elita, who is dead. The corpse of Garcia has been decapitated. Bennie learns from villagers that his assailants are driving a station wagon. He catches up with the men after they blow out a tire. Bennie shoots them, searches their car and claims Garcia's head. Stopping at a roadside restaurant, he packs the sack containing the head with ice to preserve it for the journey home. Bennie begins addressing the head as if Garcia were still alive, first blaming Alfredo for Elita's death and then conceding that both of them probably loved her equally. Bennie is ambushed by members of Garcia's family. They re-claim the head and are about to kill Bennie when they are interrupted by the arrival of Sappensly and Quill. The hitmen pretend to ask for directions. Quill produces a sub-machine gun and murders most of Garcia's family, but is fatally shot by one of them. As Sappensly sorrowfully looks at Quill's corpse, Bennie asks: "Do I get paid?" Sappensly turns to shoot but Bennie kills him, takes Garcia's head, and returns to Mexico City, "arguing" with Garcia's head all the while. At his apartment, Bennie gives Garcia's head a shower and then brings the head to Max's hotel room, feigning willingness to surrender the head for his $10,000, but then revealing that he is no longer motivated by money; rather, he blames Elita's death on the bounty and intends to kill everyone involved. Several men pull guns but Bennie manages to evade fire and kill them all. He takes a business card from the desk with El Jefe's address on it. El Jefe greets him as a hero and gives him a briefcase containing the promised million-dollar bounty. Bennie calmly relates how many people died for Garcia's head, including his beloved. El Jefe responds apathetically, telling Bennie to take his money and throw Garcia's head to the pigs on the way out. Infuriated that the object responsible for Elita's death is viewed as nothing more than garbage, Bennie first guns down El Jefe and then all of his bodyguards. Teresa enters with her newborn son as Bennie points a gun at El Jefe's head, but hesitates to shoot. She tersely urges Bennie to kill her father, and Bennie obliges, taking along the head as he leaves the scene with the words: "You take care of the boy. And I'll take care of the father." Bennie makes a mad dash to escape, but is gunned down at the gates to El Jefe's estate. Development. Director Sam Peckinpah was working on "The Ballad of Cable Hogue" when screenwriter and long-time friend Frank Kowalski told him an idea for a film: "I got a great title: ""Bring Me the Head of"...,' - and he had some other name - 'and the hook is that the guy is already dead'." Peckinpah loved it and began writing on it then and also in England while making "Straw Dogs". He went on to write the shooting screenplay with Gordon Dawson. Producer Martin Baum had formed his own independent production company, Optimus Productions, and had a deal with United Artists. Peckinpah approached him with 25 pages of the film's script. Baum read it and liked it. United Artists agreed to pay Peckinpah to write the script but he told Baum that he did not want any money for it because he owed him one. Peckinpah told Baum that if United Artists liked the script then they could pay him. Peckinpah started pre-production in mid-August 1973 in Mexico City. With the exception of a few key people, the crew was entirely Mexicans. He hired director of photography Alex Phillips, Jr., one of Mexico's premiere cameramen. They bonded over a dislike for wide-angle lenses, an admiration for zooms and multiple camera setups. Peckinpah told him, "I make very few takes, but I shoot a lot of film because I like to change angles. I shoot with editing in the back of my mind". While scouting locations, he relied extensively on his gut instinct and desire to portray a gritty, realistic vision he had of Mexico. He spent a lot of time searching for the right bar that would be Bennie's workplace. Peckinpah finally discovered a place in the Plaza Garibaldi known as "Tlaque-Paque". He looked around and said, "this is dressed. This is for real". Mexican members of the crew told him that the bar's owner had an infamous reputation and it was rumored that he once killed a woman there, serving very little jail time because he bribed the right people in positions of power. "Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia" went into production in late September 1973 and in an October issue of "Variety" magazine, Peckinpah was quoted as saying, "For me, Hollywood no longer exists. It's past history. I've decided to stay in Mexico because I believe I can make my pictures with greater freedom from here". This upset the Motion Picture and Television Unions and they openly censured the director for his statement at their National Conference in Detroit. They also threatened "Alfredo Garcia" with union boycotts upon its release, labeling it a "runaway" production. In his defense, Peckinpah claimed that he was misquoted. Before the film was to be released, the unions relented on their boycott threat. As principal photography continued into the month of December, the demands - both physical and mental - were taking their toll on the cast and crew. To help relieve the tension, Peckinpah and the producers bought out a local bar and threw a surprise party. Principal photography ended three days before Christmas and the director took a week off before supervising the editing of the film. Reception. On its release in 1974, "Bring Me the Head of Alfredo García" was disapproved by viewers and critics, and failed at the box office. However, the film has since found a contemporary audience, maintaining a 81 percent fresh rating at Rotten Tomatoes. Years later "Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia" was included as one of the choices in the book "The Fifty Worst Films of All Time". Some film critics (including Michael Medved) argue that "Bring Me the Head of Alfredo García" is one of the worst films ever made, while others (among them Roger Ebert and Slant Magazine) consider it a masterpiece. Michael Sragow of "New York" magazine called it "a catastrophe so huge that those who once ranked Peckinpah with Hemingway may now invoke Mickey Spillane". Popular culture references. In the 1985 comedy film "Fletch", Chevy Chase (after fainting in an operating room) asks a nurse, "do you have the Beatles' White Album? Never mind, just get me a cup of hot fat. And bring me the head of Alfredo Garcia while you're out there." In the "Film Club" round of the popular long running BBC Radio 4 panel comedy "I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue", regular reference is made to this film with one or more words changed to satisfy that week's theme of comedy film titles - usually by Graeme Garden. In the episode of "Futurama" "Overclockwise", Mom tells the Hoverfish "Bring me the clock of Bender Rodriguez" in reference to the film. In the "Sandman Slim" series of novels by author Richard Kadrey, protagonist Stark gives his reluctant sidekick, a severed but still alive head, the nickname "Alfredo Garcia," and makes many references to the character throughout the series. In the 1993 film Demolition Man, the police officer played by Benjamin Bratt is called Alfredo Garcia in reference to the film.
499705	Virtual Sexuality is a 1999 film about a young woman who designs the perfect man at a virtual reality convention, but then an accident occurs causing the man to be brought to life. It was directed by Nick Hurran. Synopsis. 17-year-old Justine (Laura Fraser) bemoans being a virgin so, after being stood-up on a date, goes to a virtual reality exhibition with friend Chas (Luke DeLacey). There she encounters a virtual makeover machine which she uses to create a 3-D image of her perfect man. After a freak power-cut Justine finds herself inside that male body, becoming her own ideal mate (Rupert Penry-Jones). Naming this alternate self "Jake", she/he moves in with Chas to try and come to terms with being a teenage boy.
1058635	Sean Patrick Flanery (born October 11, 1965) is an American actor, known for playing Connor McManus in "The Boondock Saints", Greg Stillson in "The Dead Zone", Jeremy "Powder" Reed in "Powder", Indiana Jones in "The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles", as well as Bobby Dagen in "Saw 3D". He is also known for his role as Sam Gibson on "The Young and the Restless" in 2011. He starred in Devil's Carnival, a short film which was screened on tour beginning in April, 2012. Early life. Flanery was born in Lake Charles, Louisiana, and was raised in Houston, Texas. Acting career. Flanery started acting in college after he joined an acting class to meet a girl on whom he had a crush. He later moved to Los Angeles, California, in order to pursue his acting career. Since 1988 he has appeared in over 53 films, including "Powder", "Simply Irresistible" and "D-Tox". He is best known, however, for playing Connor MacManus in "The Boondock Saints" and Indiana Jones in "The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles". He had a brief role as the ascended being, Orlin, in the "Stargate SG-1" episode "Ascension". He appeared on the TV show "The Dead Zone" in the role of Vice-President, Greg Stillson, until its cancellation. Flanery also appeared in an installment of Showtime's "Masters of Horror" playing a town sheriff who later became one of the antagonistic entity's possessed hosts in the episode "The Damned Thing". In March 2010 he was cast in the lead role in the sci-fi horror film "Mongolian Death Worm". He also had a supporting role in 2010's "Saw 3D". Flanery appeared in The Black Keys' music video "Howlin' For You", which was released on February 10, 2011. In April 2011 Flanery headed to the CBS soap "The Young and the Restless," playing the part of Sam, Sharon Newman's boyfriend from New Mexico. Personal life. Flanery has a black belt (promoted May 4, 2008) in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu under Shawn Williams and a black belt in Karate. He has a dog, Donut, named after the donuts she devoured shortly after being adopted by Flanery.
1054798	I Love Your Work is an American psychological thriller film completed in 2003 and released theatrically in 2005. The film was directed by Adam Goldberg and written by Goldberg and Adrian Butchart. An indictment of celebrity culture, it was not a commercial success. The cast includes Giovanni Ribisi, Christina Ricci, and Vince Vaughn. The movie premiered on September 5, 2003 at the Toronto Film Festival. The DVD was distributed by THINKFilm on March 28, 2006. Plot summary. Gray Evans, a movie star, is losing his grip on reality, unable to adjust to his own celebrity, and addicted to romantic fantasies about idealistic love and his once simple life. With his celebrity marriage to the beautiful actress Mia already strained by jealousy and frustration after only a year together, Gray is looking for escape. An avid photographer, his voyeuristic nature leads him to a local video store, where an encounter with the video clerk's wife Jane leads to a dangerous obsession over what he imagines to be an ideal love. Gray falls further over the edge, as his conceptions of love and reality are further blurred by the similarities between Jane and his ex-girlfriend Shana to the point where obsession becomes delusion. Gray's life is further complicated by the realities of his own celebrity, an obsessive fan and the need for him to create his public persona as a successful man with a successful marriage. Profession, obsession, and delusion twist together beyond repair when Gray pulls the video clerk, an ambitious screenwriter, into his world by offering to make a movie with him. Their relationship succeeds in bringing him closer to Jane but takes away any last hold on reality, as his fantasy leads to destruction. The layered narrative swings around on itself, taking us on a journey through love, madness and paranoia all the while holding on to a darkly comic view of its own absurd world of crazy Russian bodyguards, loyal assistants, playboy producers and true celebrity. Themes. The cause for Gray’s madness in the film is his obsession with himself. Even Gray's profession revolved around narcissism. Being an actor, he was constantly watching himself in movies and magazines. For example, in the beginning of the film Gray was at his movie with Shana where he was watching himself in the movie while he was chased by himself. An example of Gray's narcissistic tendencies is when he was having a dream where Gray and Shauna were sitting on their couch watching themselves on television watching themselves watch television. Another example of Adam Goldberg's adaptation of narcissism is where Gray was glancing at the television and a talk show about narcissism just happened to be playing, and the host's guest seemed to be directing the full weight of her attention upon Gray. Gray, being so wrapped up in his own thoughts, completely disregarded what the woman had said. The selfish behavior and concern only for his career cause him to end up with the life he always dreamed of. However, he realizes the life he dreamed of does not make him happy and regrets all that he has done. Symbolism. Since Gray keeps confusing the three characters with each other and himself, it's only fitting that their names, John, Jane, and Shauna, are all variations on the same name, with the same root meaning ("God is gracious.") The number 4 appears on door numbers, its release date, and the VHS credit beginning time (1:44:44). It is also present in the film as the video store's address and as the date on which John's letter is written to Gray (04/04/04). The idea of the Four Temperaments He exhibits behavior from each of the four temperaments throughout the film. His disappointment is characteristic of the melancholic, his anger and instability true of the choeric, during his day at the park he is trying to fit in as the sanguine temperament strives to, and the lazy phlegmatic who is calm and unemotional as Gray is towards Mia near the end of the film.
586275	Prajapathi is a Malayalam movie directed by Ranjith. The film has Mammootty in the lead role with Kannada actress Aditi Rao Hydari doing the female lead. Sandhya is also in the cast. The music is by Tej Manoj and lyrics are by Girish Puthencherry. The film was shot close to Gopichettipalayam in Tamil Nadu. Plot. Devar madom Narayanan (Mammootty) is accused of killing his father, for being cruel to his mother, at the age of 13 and serves a sentence in a juvenile home. When he returns, he becomes leader of the people of Perumalpuram village. He ensures the village is devoid of all wrong doers by expelling them from the village. His enemies are his uncle Kunjambu Nair (Nedumudi Venu) and wife Indrani (Seema). Kunjambu Nair hated Narayanan killing his brother, although Kunjambu Nair and his son Giri (Siddique) tried in many ways to kill Narayanan. At one point Giri almost succeeded in killing Devar madom Narayanan. But Narayanan again didn’t react. He was on good terms with Kunjambu Nair’s daughter (Sandhya) and his Murapennu (Aditi Rao). Giri tries to sell his land in Perumalpuram to some outsider whose arrival, Narayanan knew, would destroy the harmony of the village. That is when Narayanan decides to react.
1162803	Jordana Ariel Spiro (born April 12, 1977) is an American film and television actress, known for starring in the TBS comedy series "My Boys" as P.J. Franklin. Life and career. Spiro was born and raised in Manhattan. She was raised Jewish. Spiro has a brother and three sisters. Spiro studied at the Circle in the Square Theatre school and briefly attended the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London. In fall 2009, she began the MFA Program in Filmmaking at Columbia University. Spiro currently splits her time between Los Angeles and New York. Spiro starred in the TBS original comedy series "My Boys". She played the role of P.J., a twenty-something “guy's girl”, and sports reporter who tries to find romance within her world that is dominated by male friends. The series wrapped its fourth and final season on TBS in 2010. Spiro also appeared in the 2009 comedy "" alongside Jeremy Piven, Ed Helms and Rob Riggle, and produced by Will Ferrell and Adam McKay. "The Goods" was directed by Neal Brennan. Additional credits include "The Year of Getting to Know Us" which premiered at the 2008 Sundance film festival, IFC's "Alone with Her", as well as guest appearances on "Cold Case", "Out of Practice", and "". Spiro was scheduled to star in the planned 2010–11 television series "Love Bites", but fell out of the role in June 2010 due to other contractual obligations. Spiro was most recently cast alongside Nicolas Cage and Nicole Kidman in the thriller, "Trespass". She was a guest star on the Showtime 2011 season of "Dexter". For the 2012–13 season, she had the lead role in the Fox-TV medical/crime drama "The Mob Doctor".
1038269	Aisling Loftus (born 1 September 1990 in Nottingham, Nottinghamshire) is an English actress. She is the daughter of Irish parents, Paddy and Eileen, and has an older sister, Aoife. Life and career. Loftus began acting aged nine at the Carlton Workshops, and later took her A-Levels at the Becket School in Nottingham. She played several small roles in television dramas and films, including "This Is England". Loftus made her mainstream television debut in 2000 aged 10 when she appeared in an episode of "Peak Practice". Subsequently, Loftus has appeared in various television series, including "Casualty", "Doctors", "The Bill" (2008), and in the ITV comedy drama "The Fattest Man in Britain" starring Timothy Spall and Bobby Ball In 2008 Loftus was described as a 'Star of Tomorrow' in "Screen International" magazine. She also appeared in Daniel Elliott’s short "Jade", which won a Silver Bear at the Berlin International Film Festival in 2009. In 2010 Loftus starred in the BBC drama "Five Daughters", as murder victim Gemma Adams. In July of the same year she took the leading female role in another BBC drama, "Dive", by BAFTA award winning Dominic Savage and Simon Stevens, in a cast that included Skins actor Jack O'Connell, Eddie Marsan, Gina Mckee, Joseph Mawle and Ewen Bremner. "Dive" was critically acclaimed, Euan Ferguson of The Observer predicting that Aisling "Ash" Loftus will be a "phenomenon". Loftus played Leonie Fowler in the summer box office hit "Spur of the Moment" by Anya Reiss at the Royal Court Theatre in 2010 in London where she has received favourable reviews with Dominic Cavendish of the Telegraph calling her ""superb""' In 2011 Loftus starred in a new BBC TV film version of "The Borrowers" broadcast on Boxing Day, as Arrietty. This was followed up in 2012 with roles in 2 BBC series : Jade in "Public Enemies" & Cassandra in "Good Cop" and in 2013 by the role of Agnes Towler in "Mr Selfridge". Personal life. She is dating the actor Jacob Anderson.
1057964	James Karen (born November 28, 1923) is an American character actor of Broadway, film and television, perhaps most well known as Frank, the frantic worker of Uneeda Medical Supply in the 1985 film The Return of the Living Dead. Life and career. Karen was born Jacob Karnofsky in Wilkes-Barre, in northeastern Pennsylvania, the son of Russian-born Jewish immigrants Mae (née Freed) and Joseph H. Karnofsky, a produce dealer. As a young man, Karen was encouraged to be an actor by U.S. Congressman Daniel J. Flood, who was an amateur thespian himself, recruiting him into a production at the Little Theatre of Wilkes-Barre. He attended the Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theatre in New York. His big break came when he was asked to understudy Karl Malden in the original Broadway production of "A Streetcar Named Desire". On television he played Dr. Burke on "As the World Turns" and was the original Lincoln Tyler on "All My Children". He is perhaps best known for his recurring role on the television series "Eight Is Enough". He is also well-known on the east coast for his 20 years as television and radio spokesman for the Pathmark supermarket chain. He also appeared in the "Golden Girls" as a prospective love interest for Dorothy. He is also known for playing the evil tycoon Nathan Lassiter, who killed the town of Walnut Grove in the final TV movie of "Little House on the Prairie". A life member of The Actors Studio, Karen's notable film credits include 1979's "The China Syndrome", 1982's "Poltergeist", 1985's "The Return of the Living Dead", 1987's "Wall Street" and most recently in 2006's "The Pursuit of Happyness". Full filmography is below. He was married to Susan Reed, the former actress and folk singer. They divorced in 1967, and in 1986, he married current wife Alba Francesca. Karen has one child and two grandchildren. Further reading. Voisin, Scott, "Character Kings: Hollywood's Familiar Faces Discuss the Art & Business of Acting." BearManor Media, 2009. ISBN 978-1-59393-342-5. Psychotronic Video Magazine, 1997 no.24 "James Karen" by writer/interviewer Dennis Daniel. Filmfax Magazine, December 2010 no. 125 "Frankenstein Meets The Space Monster" Part one by writers/interviewers Lawrence Fultz Jr. and Paul Parla, massive 22 page, two part article and multiple interviews concerning the film.
1062755	Finding Neverland is a 2004 American semi-biographical film about playwright J. M. Barrie and his relationship with a family who inspired him to create "Peter Pan", directed by Marc Forster. The screenplay by David Magee is based on the play "The Man Who Was Peter Pan" by Allan Knee. The film was nominated for several Oscars, including Best Picture, Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Actor for Johnny Depp's portrayal of J. M. Barrie, and won one for Jan A. P. Kaczmarek's musical score. Plot. The story focuses on Scottish writer J. M. Barrie, his platonic relationship with Sylvia Llewelyn Davies, and his close friendship with her sons, who inspire the classic play "Peter Pan, or The Boy Who Never Grew Up". Following the dismal reception of his latest play, "Little Mary", Barrie meets the widowed Sylvia and her four young sons in Kensington Gardens, and a strong friendship develops between them. He proves to be a great playmate and surrogate father figure for the boys, and their imaginative antics give him ideas which he incorporates into a play about boys who do not want to grow up, especially one named after troubled young Peter Llewelyn Davies. Barrie's wife Mary, who eventually divorces him, and Sylvia's mother Emma du Maurier, object to the amount of time Barrie spends with the Llewelyn Davies family. Emma also seeks to control her daughter and grandsons, especially as Sylvia becomes increasingly weak from an unidentified illness. Producer Charles Frohman skeptically agrees to mount "Peter Pan" despite his belief it holds no appeal for upper-class theatergoers. Barrie peppers the opening night audience with children from a nearby orphanage, and the adults present react to their infectious delight with an appreciation of their own. The play proves to be a huge success. Because Sylvia is too ill to attend the production, Barrie arranges to have an abridged production of it performed in her home. She dies shortly afterward, and Barrie finds that her will is to have him and her mother look after the boys, an arrangement agreeable to both. Cast. In addition to Johnny Depp as Barrie and Kate Winslet as Sylvia Davies, the film stars Dustin Hoffman as producer Charles Frohman, Julie Christie as Sylvia's mother Emma du Maurier, and Radha Mitchell (who had starred in Forster's "Everything Put Together") as Barrie's wife Mary. Hoffman had appeared a dozen years earlier in title role of the Peter Pan sequel "Hook" (1991). The original screenplay for this film included a scene in which his character – the play's skeptical producer – was to put on the Captain Hook costume and read some of his lines to point out how silly he found it. Hoffman objected to this, so the scene was rewritten for him to simply read aloud and ridicule character names from the play. The Llewelyn Davies boys are portrayed by Freddie Highmore (Peter), Nick Roud (George), Joe Prospero (Jack), and Luke Spill (Michael). Highmore's performance in this movie led Johnny Depp to suggest him to Tim Burton for "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory", in which Highmore played Charlie Bucket and Depp played Willy Wonka. Ian Hart appears as Barrie's friend Arthur Conan Doyle. Oliver Fox plays Mary's lover Gilbert Cannan. Within the film are scenes of a production of the play, featuring Kelly Macdonald as "Peter Pan", Angus Barnett as "Nana", Toby Jones as "Smee", Kate Maberly as "Wendy Darling", Matt Green as "John Darling", Catrin Rhys as "Michael Darling", Tim Potter as "Captain Hook"/"George Darling", and Jane Booker as "Mary Darling". Mackenzie Crook plays Mr. Jaspers, the theatre usher. Eileen Essell, 82 years old at the time, makes one of her first feature film appearances, as Mrs. Snow, an elderly friend and fan of Barrie's. Like Highmore, she also followed Depp to a role in "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory". Jimmy Gardner plays her husband. Production. "Finding Neverland" originally was scheduled to be released in the autumn of 2003. Columbia Pictures, which owned the film rights to Barrie's original play and was adapting it for theatrical release the same year, refused to allow Miramax to use scenes from the play in "Finding Neverland" if it were released during the same year. Miramax agreed to delay the release in exchange for the rights to reproduce scenes from the stage production within the film. "Finding Neverland" opened in 2004, 100 years after Barrie's play opened. Richmond Theatre in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames doubled as the "Duke of York's Theatre" - the venue in which "Peter Pan" was first presented. Exterior scenes were filmed in Hyde Park, Brompton Cemetery and Kensington Gardens. According to commentary on the DVD release, the structure used as Barrie's summer cottage was located near Kent. Interiors were filmed in the Pinewood Studios in Buckinghamshire and the Shepperton Studios in Surrey. Release. The film premiered at the Venice Film Festival. It was shown at the Telluride Film Festival, the Haifa Film Festival, the Athens Panorama European Film Festival, the Mill Valley Film Festival, the Chicago International Film Festival, and the Leeds International Film Festival before opening in the UK on October 29, 2004. It had a limited release in the United States on November 12, 2004, and opened more widely on November 24, 2004. Box office. The film was budgeted at $25 million. It grossed $51,676,606 in the US and $67 million in foreign markets for a total worldwide box office of $118,676,606. Critical reception. In her review in "The Times", Wendy Ide called the film "charming but rather idiosyncratic" and added, "A mixture of domestic drama, tragedy and exuberant fantasy, the film blends moist-eyed nostalgia with the cruel disappointments of a marriage break-up; a childlike playfulness and unpredictability with a portrait of a treacherously unforgiving and rigid Edwardian society. It could appeal to everyone from preteens to pensioners, or it could appeal to no one at all. Ultimately this unconventionality is probably one of the film’s main strengths. And if the tone veers a little haphazardly between fantasy and cold, hard reality, well, perhaps that is the most effective way of taking us into the mind of the film's mercurial protagonist." Manohla Dargis of "The New York Times" said it "is the kind of film where even the smallest crack has been sealed. Instead of real quirks, strange habits, moments of everyday gas, gurgle and grunting, movies like this give us sumptuous production design, meticulous costumes and stories meant to leave us dewy-eyed and thoughtful, if never actually disturbed… The problem isn't the liberties the filmmakers take with reality, but that this isn't an engaging bowdlerization… Johnny Depp neither soars nor crashes, but moseys forward with vague purpose and actorly restraint… and Ms. Winslet are pleasant to watch, as are the actors who play the Davies boys, but they haven't been pushed to their limits." In the "San Francisco Chronicle", Mick LaSalle observed the film "ends so beautifully, so poignantly and so aptly that there's a big temptation to forget that most of what precedes the ending is tiresome drivel, that Johnny Depp's performance… is precious and uninsightful, and that almost all of the movie's magic derives directly from scenes lifted from Barrie's play. … Winslet's no-nonsense strength is especially appreciated… Another actress would have followed Depp into the quicksand of faux-poetic self-indulgence. But Winslet is direct, grounded and heartfelt in a recognizably human way. Dustin Hoffman, as Barrie's producer, also steers clear of Depp's rhythms, though he has trouble deciding whether the producer is British or American." Peter Travers of "Rolling Stone" rated the film 3½ out of a possible four stars and called it "glorious entertainment… magical, not mush." About Depp he said, "It's too early to speculate on how will grow as an actor. Based on "Finding Neverland", it's not too early to call him a great one." In the "St. Petersburg Times", Steve Persall graded the film B and commented, "A first viewing of "Finding Neverland" was tear-inducing and completely satisfying. Seeing it again was a mistake, less of my own than Forster's, who didn't make a movie that can sustain its magic beyond first impressions. Problems with David Magee's screenplay that initially could be shrugged off—occasionally slow pacing, melodramatic plot twists—became glaring. With familiarity, the fantasy simply wasn't as fanciful. It felt like growing up, and it was disappointing. On the other hand, many of the film's qualities are too strong to falter, starting with another fascinating man-child performance by Johnny Depp as Barrie." Carina Chocano of the "Los Angeles Times" described the film as "gently seductive, genuinely tender and often moving without being maudlin" and added, "Depp and Winslet share a rare combination of airiness, earthiness and sharp, wry intelligence." Stage adaptation. On February 6, 2011, La Jolla Playhouse, California, announced that they would produce a new stage musical based on the film with the book by Allan Knee, score by Scott Frankel (music) and Michael Korie (lyrics), and directed and choreographed by Rob Ashford. A planned production at La Jolla Playhouse was not held. A developmental reading was held in New York on March 31, 2011, with Julian Ovenden, Kelli O'Hara, Tony Roberts, Mary Beth Peil, Michael Cumpsty, and Meredith Patterson, directed by Ashford. The adaptation had its world premiere on 22 September 2012 at Curve in Leicester. Directed by Rob Ashford, it stars Julian Ovenden as J.M Barrie and West End actress Rosalie Craig as Sylvia Llewelyn Davies. On September 4, 2013, it was announced that producer Harvey Weinstein has hired Barry Weissler as executive producer. They plan on opening a revised version of the musical at the American Repertory Theater, Cambridge, Massachusetts in 2014. The revised musical has a new creative team, with Diane Paulus as director, a new book by James Graham and songs mainly by Gary Barlow, with a few songs from the original composers. A private reading was held in September 2013 with Brian d’Arcy James as Barrie and Jason Alexander as the "nagging theater producer'.
583567	Dil Diya Hai (Hindi: दिल दिया है, Urdu: دل دیا ہے) is a 2006 Bollywood film from the makers of Aashiq Banaya Apne. It stars Emraan Hashmi, Geeta Basra, Ashmit Patel and Mithun Chakraborty Sound Track. The movie has six songs composed by Himesh Reshammiya. The songs "Afsana", "Yaadaan Teriyaan", "Mile Ho Tum" and "Dil Diya" were huge hits. "Afsana" being the most popular one. The sound track also features a remix version of every song. The remixes were rendered by DJ Akbar Sami.
1061157	Norma Rae is a 1979 American drama film that tells the story of a factory worker from a small town in North Carolina, who becomes involved in the labor union activities at the textile factory where she works. The film stars Sally Field in the title role, Beau Bridges as Norma Rae's husband, Sonny, and Ron Leibman as union organizer Reuben Warshowsky. The movie was written by Harriet Frank, Jr. and Irving Ravetch, and was directed by Martin Ritt. It is based on the true story of Crystal Lee Sutton, which was told in the 1975 book "Crystal Lee, a Woman of Inheritance" by "New York Times" reporter Henry P. Leifermann. Sally Field won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her portrayal as Norma Rae Webster. "Norma Rae" won a total of two awards, plus six other nominations. The film was selected for inclusion in the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress in 2011. Plot. Norma Rae Webster is a minimum-wage worker in a cotton mill that has taken too much of a toll on the health of her family for her to ignore their Dickensian working conditions. After hearing a speech by a New York union organizer Reuben Warshowsky, Norma Rae decides to join the effort to unionize her shop. This causes conflict at home when Norma Rae's husband, Sonny, says she's not spending enough time in the home.
1052019	Le Doulos () is a 1962 French crime film directed by Jean-Pierre Melville. It was released theatrically as The Finger Man in the English-speaking world, but all video and DVD releases have used the French title. Intertitles at the beginning of the film explain that its title refers both to a kind of hat and to the slang term for a police informer. "Le Doulos" is based on a novel by Pierre Lesou. While the film comes before Melville’s masterpieces of the genre, "Le Samouraï" (1967) and "Le Cercle rouge" (1970), one can unmistakably observe several of Melville’s trademark techniques in this film. Plot. The narrative unfolds through two characters, Maurice and Silien, and consistently switches back and forth between them, leading the audience to grasp randomly for a distinct main character or hero (despite the fact that both are criminal anti-heroes). Through Maurice and Silien’s actions, the film explores just how deeply qualities such as friendship and loyalty run. "Le Doulos" begins by introducing us to Maurice, an ex-con, just released from prison after serving a six-year sentence. He then murders his friend, Gilbert, and steals the jewels he had been hiding, products of a recent heist. Shortly afterwards, Maurice plans a heist of a rich man’s estate and shares his plan with Silien, who is rumored to be a police informant. Silien is later picked up and questioned by the police. The film unfolds from there, incorporating a number of plot twists revealed through Melville’s traditionally styled hard-boiled dialogue and picturesque visuals. Visual themes. Melville’s films balance a fine line between genres – while "Le Doulos" could be seen as a simple gangster film, Melville has intricately interwoven critical elements of classic film noir, drama and French new wave filmmaking. Melville even incorporates vague, but noticeable, elements of that could later be called “magical realism.” Several sets are manipulated to intensify the feelings of the characters. For example: in a wide-shot, a character stands under the light of a single lamppost in the middle of a field, wrapped in a heavy mist.
1163318	Dixie Virginia Carter (May 25, 1939 – April 10, 2010) was an American film, television and stage actress, best known for her role as Julia Sugarbaker in the CBS sitcom " Designing Women" (1986–1993). She is also known for her roles as Randi King on the CBS legal drama "Family Law" (1999–2002), Assistant District Attorney, Brandy Henderson on the CBS soap "The Edge of Night" (1974–1976), and as Gloria Hodge on the ABC series "Desperate Housewives" (2006–2007). Early life. Carter was born in McLemoresville, Tennessee, and spent many of her early years in Memphis. She attended college at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville and Southwestern at Memphis (now Rhodes College). She was a graduate of Memphis State with a degree in English. At school, she was a member of the Delta Delta Delta sorority. In 1959, Carter competed in the Miss Tennessee pageant, where she placed first runner-up to Mickie Weyland. Ms. Carter won the Miss Volunteer beauty pageant at the University of Tennessee in the same year. Career. In 1960, Carter made her professional stage debut in a Memphis production of "Carousel". She moved to New York City in 1963 and got a part in a production of Shakespeare's "The Winter's Tale". in 1967, she began an eight-year hiatus from acting, to focus on raising her two daughters; she returned to the craft in 1974, when she filled in for actress Nancy Pinkerton as Dorian Cramer on "One Life to Live", while Pinkerton was on maternity leave. She subsequently was cast in the role of Assistant D.A. Olivia Brandeis "Brandy" Henderson on the soap opera "The Edge of Night", on which she appeared from 1974 to 1976. (She went along with the show when it switched from CBS to ABC.) Carter took the role even though some advised her that doing a daytime soap might negatively affect her career. However, it was with this role that Carter was first noticed, and after leaving "Edge of Night" in 1976, she relocated from New York to Los Angeles and pursued prime-time television roles.
1388033	Daniel Kálmán Biss (born August 27, 1977) is an American mathematician and member of the Illinois Senate from the 9th district, serving since January 2013. The district includes Chicago's northern suburbs, including Evanston, Glencoe, Glenview, Golf, Morton Grove, Northbrook, Northfield, Skokie, Wilmette, and Winnetka. Biss previously served in the Illinois House of Representatives from 2011 to 2013. Personal life, education and mathematical career. Biss was born into a family of musicians: his brother is the noted pianist Jonathan Biss, his parents are the violinists Paul Biss and Miriam Fried, and his grandmother was the Russian-born cellist Raya Garbousova.
1164293	Courtney Peldon (born April 13, 1981) is an American television and film actress. Personal life. Peldon was born in New York City, New York. Her younger sister Ashley Peldon is also an actress. Both she and Ashley became involved in the entertainment industry as child actors. Peldon graduated from Skidmore College where she majored in Abnormal psychology and minored in Film. She has started her own line of jewelry called "Charmed Jewelry". Career. Peldon is perhaps best known for her three seasons as Jonathan Taylor Thomas's on-screen girlfriend Lauren on "Home Improvement", and for her three seasons on "Boston Public". She has appeared in many roles on various television shows such as "That '70s Show", "Entourage", "The Pretender", "", "Renegade" and "Nash Bridges" to name a few. She has also had roles in several films including "Angel Heart" with Robert De Niro and Mickey Rourke, "Out on a Limb" with Matthew Broderick, "Little Giants", indie favorite "Skin Walker", "National Lampoon's Adam & Eve", Tobe Hooper's "Mortuary", the Farrelly brothers' comedy "Say It Isn't So", and most recently the science-fiction thriller "InAlienable" with Walter Koenig and Richard Hatch, the psychological thriller "The Road to Hell" with Michael Paré and she's slated to star in the new film "2001 Maniacs: Beverly Hellbillys" alongside Robert Englund and her sister Ashley Peldon. Peldon also starred on Broadway at the age of 8 in the Gershwin Theatre smash hit "Meet Me in St. Louis" for the show's entire run in the role of 'Tootie', originated by Margaret O'Brien in the Judy Garland film version. Awards and nominations. She is a multiple and a nine years consecutive nominee and award winner of a Young Artist Award at the Young Artist Awards:
584055	Reema Sen (born on 29 October 1981) is an Indian actress and model. Early life. Reema Sen was born in Kolkata on 29 October 1981. She completed high school from St. Thomas Girls School in Khidderpore, Kolkatta, after which her family moved to Mumbai. Personal life. Reema Sen married businessman Shiv Karan Singh in 2012. She gave birth to her first child, a boy, on 22 February 2013. Career. Music videos. She appeared in the video of the song "Chandini Raatein". she is till date considered as one of the versatile and leading actress of kollywood.. Film career. In Mumbai, she began her modelling career, appearing in a number of advertising campaigns. She then moved to acting with a block-buster Telugu film "Chitram", in which she acted opposite Uday Kiran. She also appeared in the Tamil film, "Minnale", which was very successful. Her first Hindi film "Hum Ho Gaye Aapke" flopped, and she decided to continue working in Tamil cinema. Her appearance in the Tamil film, "Rendu", was successful. People found her facial expressions in the film Thimiru endearing and her performance in "Vallavan" was applauded. Her role in Aayirathil Oruvan was highly praised by viewers and critics. Obscenity charges. In April 2006, a Madurai court issued non-bailable warrants against Sen and Shilpa Shetty for "posing in an obscene manner" in photographs published by the Tamil newspaper "Dinakaran", owned by Sun Group. The report stated that the two actresses had failed to comply with earlier summons for the same reason, hence the issuance of the warrants. The petitioner submitted that the paper had published ""very sexy blow-ups and medium blow-ups"" in its December 2005 and January 2006 issues, and which allegedly violated the Indecent Representation of Women (Prohibition) Act 1986, Young Persons (Harmful Publications) Act 1956, and the Indian Penal Code Section 292 (Sale of Obscene Books). The petitioner further demanded that the images should be confiscated under the terms of the Press and Registration of Book Act 1867. In January 2007 outgoing Chief Justice Y.K. Sabharwal confirmed that Sen had written to him in order to enunciate guidelines against frivolous lawsuits against artists, but refused her plea on the grounds that she should have filed a formal petition instead of writing a letter.
1101117	Eric Temple Bell (February 7, 1883 – December 21, 1960) was a mathematician and science fiction author born in Scotland who lived in the U.S. for most of his life. He published his non-fiction under his given name and his fiction as John Taine. Biography. He was born in Peterhead, Scotland, but his father, a fish-factor, moved to San Jose, California in 1884, when he was fifteen months old. The family returned to Bedford, England after his father's death, on January 4, 1896. Bell returned to the United States, by way of Montreal in 1902. Bell attended Stanford University, the University of Washington, and Columbia University (where he was a student of Cassius Jackson Keyser). He was on the faculty first at the University of Washington and later at the California Institute of Technology.
1163512	Joanna Kerns (born February 12, 1953) is an American actress and director best known for her role as Maggie Seaver on the family situation comedy "Growing Pains" from 1985–1992. Early life. Kerns was born Joanne Crussie DeVarona in San Francisco, California. Her father, David Thomas DeVarona, was an insurance agent, and her mother, Martha Louise (née Smith), was a clothing store manager. Kerns is the third child of four. She has an older brother and a younger brother, as well as an older sister. Her older sister, Donna de Varona, is a famed Olympic gold medal swimmer, who won 2 gold medals in the 1964 Olympics. Their aunt is silent film actress Miriam Cooper. Growing up, Kerns was in competition with her sister, Donna, who won two gold medals in swimming in 1964. Kerns stated in an interview, "Donna was the golden girl. There was pressure inside me to duplicate Donna's success" (Wallace 16). Joanna tried swimming, but realized it was not her sport, so she switched from swimming to gymnastics. In fact, Joanna became so good at gymnastics that she competed in the Olympic trials in 1968 and ranked 14th out of 28 (Wallace 16). Career. Early roles. Kerns got her start in show business as a dancer before turning to acting. She attended UCLA and majored in dance. It was here where she saw an advertisement for a Gene Kelly production called "Clown Around". Joanna jumped at the chance to audition. She joked in an interview that she sent the casting crew a high school senior picture of herself and all of her grades, hoping to get the part. Taking the part; however, would mean she would have to drop out of college and move to New York. Kerns jumped at the chance and did just that. After "Clown Around", Joanna also got parts in the New York Shakespeare Festival's production of "Two Gentlemen of Verona' and "Ulysses in Nighttown where she was directed by Burgess Meredith" (Wallace 16). Meredith and Kerns had a wonderful working relationship. Later in life, Kerns recalled that Burgess Meredith was a great influence on her, saying, "Burgess was the one person who really influenced my acting career" (Radovsky). Meredith also introduced Kerns to Peggy Feury, whom Kerns studied acting under. In 1972, she moved back to California and landed a job as a backup dancer at Disneyland and started going on auditions for TV commercials and steady acting jobs. During the late 1970s and early 1980s, Kerns turned heads and started making a name for herself in guest spots on many televisions shows that included: "The A-Team", "Starsky & Hutch", "Street Hawk", "Laverne and Shirley", "Three's Company", "Hill Street Blues", "The Love Boat", "Hunter", "Magnum, P.I." and "V", as well as many commercials. During an interview, Kerns said, "I kind of was always looking for the next thing; I auditioned for anything, hoping to get a big break" (Lifetime's "Intimate Portrait"). Then, Kerns got her first steady acting job in 1983, starring as Pat Devon in a new CBS series called "The Four Seasons", which lasted only one season. The sitcom was about three couples who all lived under the same roof in California. Although the show was not received well by television critics, her part proved to producers that she was capable of acting as a leading lady. "Growing Pains". Soon after the cancellation of "The Four Seasons", Kerns was looking for another job when she auditioned for a new series in late 1984, called "Growing Pains". She auditioned with Alan Thicke, who was just coming off of the failure of his TV talk show "Thicke of the Night". Kerns joked in many interviews that she and Alan had immediate chemistry, especially when she kissed him on his nose by accident during their audition together. Kerns and Thicke's chemistry won them both the parts, and the two became great friends off the show. (They both had many things in common, including both being newly divorced and both being single parents). During the success of "Growing Pains", Kerns began to star in television movies where she played controversial parts much different than the beloved all American mom, Maggie Seaver from "Growing Pains". One such performance that shocked audiences was her 1992 movie, "The Nightman", in which Kerns played a highly sexual business woman who was a motel owner. Her many TV movies include: "Those She Left Behind", "Blind Faith", "", "Shameful Secrets", "No One Could Protect Her" and many more. Post-"Growing Pains" roles and directorial career. After "Growing Pains" ended, Kerns turned to directing. She was granted the opportunity to direct one episode of "Growing Pains" while starring on the show and got hooked. In an interview, Kerns stated, "Directing is where I've always wanted to go" (Radovsky 38). She loved directing and decided to change the focus of her career from acting to directing, but makes rare appearances in front of the camera when the right part comes along. She has also directed episodes of television shows including "Dawson's Creek", "Titans", "Scrubs", "Private Practice", "Psych", "Grey's Anatomy", "Privileged", "ER", "Ghost Whisperer," "Army Wives, and Switched at Birth". Kerns even got a big break when she was able to direct Annie Potts in an original made for television movie for Lifetime TV entitled: "Defending Our Kids: The Julie Posey Story". Since then, Kerns has directed a number of shorts. Kerns has also made notable appearances in feature films, including "A*P*E", "Girl, Interrupted" and the 2007 comedy "Knocked Up". She has also co-founded the Lucy Awards given to women in acting. Kerns was a member of the Motion Picture and Television Fund Board of Trustees from 2004 through 2008.
330389	Richard Wesley Hamming (February 11, 1915 – January 7, 1998) was an American mathematician whose work had many implications for computer science and telecommunications. His contributions include the Hamming code (which makes use of a Hamming matrix), the Hamming window (described in Section 5.8 of his book "Digital Filters"), Hamming numbers, sphere-packing (or hamming bound) and the Hamming distance. Biography. He received his bachelor's degree from the University of Chicago in 1937, a master's degree from the University of Nebraska in 1939, and finally a Ph.D. from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1942. He was a professor at the University of Louisville during World War II, and left to work on the Manhattan Project in 1945, programming one of the earliest electronic digital computers to calculate the solution to equations provided by the project's physicists. The objective of the program was to discover if the detonation of an atomic bomb would ignite the atmosphere. The result of the computation was that this would not occur, and so the United States used the bomb, first in a test in New Mexico, and then twice against Japan. Later, from 1946 to 1976, he worked at the Bell Telephone Laboratories, where he collaborated with Claude E. Shannon. During this period, he was an Adjunct Professor at the City College of New York, School of Engineering. On July 23, 1976 he moved to the Naval Postgraduate School, where he worked as an Adjunct Professor until 1997, when he became Professor Emeritus. He died a year later in 1998. He was a founder and president of the Association for Computing Machinery. His philosophy on scientific computing appears as preface to his 1962 book on numerical methods: "The purpose of computing is insight, not numbers." Awards and professional recognition. The IEEE Richard W. Hamming Medal, named after him, is an award given annually by Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), for "exceptional contributions to information sciences, systems and technology", and he was the first recipient of this medal.
1373493	Charity Shea (born December 4, 1983 in Denver, Colorado) is an American actress. She has two sisters. She is best known for her role as troubled teenager Samantha Best in "The Best Years". She has starred in films including "Alpha Dog" with Justin Timberlake and Bruce Willis. She appears as "April" on the Vh1 series "Single Ladies" a drama series, starring alongside Denise Vasi & LisaRaye McCoy.
1065666	Dagmara Domińczyk (born July 17, 1976) is a Polish-American actress. She is the wife of actor Patrick Wilson. Early life and education. Dominczyk was born in Kielce, the daughter of Miroslaw Dominczyk, a leader in the Polish Solidarity movement. She moved with her family to New York City in 1983 as asylum seekers due to her parents' political associations (her father's involvement with Amnesty International and the Solidarity movement).
1057384	Major League II is a 1994 sequel to the 1989 film "Major League". "Major League II" stars most of the same cast from the original, including Charlie Sheen, Tom Berenger, and Corbin Bernsen. Absent from this film is Wesley Snipes, who played Willie Mays Hayes in the first film and who by 1994 had become a film star in his own right. Omar Epps took over his role. "Major League II" also welcomes some new faces to the team. David Keith plays Jack Parkman, a selfish superstar catcher who is looking to replace the aging Jake Taylor (Tom Berenger) as the starter. Takaaki Ishibashi of Japanese comedic duo Tunnels is a new outfielder, Isuro "Kamikazi" Tanaka, who helps excite the team. Eric Bruskotter is the rookie catcher Rube Baker who is getting used to the MLB life. Randy Quaid makes a cameo appearance in the film as an extremely loyal fan of the team. Background. The film was directed by David S. Ward, who also directed the first installment of the "Major League" series, in addition to other films, such as "The Program" and "Down Periscope". In addition to Sheen, Berenger, Bernsen, Epps, Keith, and Takaaki, "Major League II" has an additional cast of Dennis Haysbert, James Gammon, Bob Uecker, and Margaret Whitton, all of whom returned from the first film. The film touches on the follow-up season of the Cleveland Indians successful season in the first film. Success has spoiled the team and many of its players. Roger Dorn has retired and purchased the team. New relationships are revealed that have affected play on the field. The film was released in March 1994 and eventually grossed over $30 million at the U.S. box office. The film and its sequel "" were not as well received as the first film, which is considered by many now to be a classic. The film has many cameo appearances by current and former MLB players such as Steve Yeager and Kevin Hickey, as well as several entertainers such as Jesse Ventura and Randy Quaid. The film was shot at various locations in Baltimore, Maryland, Chicago, Illinois, Cleveland, Ohio, and Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Various sports stadiums were also used in filming, including Memorial Stadium, Oriole Park at Camden Yards, Metro Bank Park and U.S. Cellular Field (then called Comiskey Park) in Chicago. Because the film was made between the Indians last season at Cleveland Stadium and before the opening of Progressive Field, (originally Jacobs Field) Oriole Park at Camden Yards was used. The producers felt that the Orioles' new stadium could stand in as a close likeness for the Indians' new home. Coincidentally, a year after this film was released, the actual Cleveland Indians team made it to the 1995 World Series, which was the team's first playoff appearance in 41 years. The Indians ended up losing in 6 games to the Atlanta Braves. In the lead-up to Game 3, the first World Series game played in Cleveland in 41 years, the PA system played "The House Is Rockin," the song from the end of "Major League II". In another coincidence, Bob Uecker (Harry Doyle) served as a commentator for the 1995 World Series television coverage on NBC. Plot. Last season, the Cleveland Indians won the division title by beating the New York Yankees in a one-game playoff, but they were defeated in the ALCS by the Chicago White Sox. The success of last season has changed the attitudes of the Indians. Pitching sensation Rick "Wild Thing" Vaughn (Charlie Sheen) is now a bland yuppie concerned about his endorsement potential, causing him to lose the edge on his fastball and to rely on highly ineffective breaking balls that he gives intimidating names to. Home run hitter Pedro Cerrano (Dennis Haysbert) underwent a spiritual conversion, from aggressive voodoo to placid Buddhism, which affects his competitive spirit. Conceited player Roger Dorn (Corbin Bernsen) retired and bought the team from Rachel Phelps (Margaret Whitton). Aging catcher Jake Taylor (Tom Berenger) has also retired to become one of the coaches who work for manager Lou Brown (James Gammon). And Willie Mays Hayes (Omar Epps) is still as fast as ever, but he has added some power to his hitting and a sprained knee from performing stunts in his new movie. However, Dorn signs arrogant power hitting catcher Jack Parkman (David Keith) as an offseason free agent, and minor league catcher Rube Baker (Eric Bruskotter) makes the team out of spring training, despite having a problem returning the ball to the pitcher.
581170	Avasara Police 100 is a Tamil language film starring and directed by K. Bhagyaraj with M. G. Ramachandran in the lead role. The film was released in the 1990. Approx 4000 ft of MGR's unfinished 1977 film Anna Nee En Deivam directed by C.V Sridhar was incorporated into totally new plot, resulting into this film. The MGR footage includes few scenes and two songs composed by M. S. Viswanathan. M. N. Nambiar, Sangeetha and V.S. Raghavan are 3 actors who reprised their role in the new film. The film was remade in Hindi as Gopi Kishan in 1994 with Suniel Shetty. Plot. This film starts with Ramu (K. Bhagyaraj) searching for his father who raped his mother. From his mother he finds out through flash backs that his uncle is MGR and father is Nambiar. In the process he also meet his twin brother Police Constable Veerasamy Naidu (also K. Bhagyaraj). How the 2 brothers unite their parents and defeat the bad guys forms the crux of the story.
1253616	Bruce Herbert Glover (born May 2, 1932) is an American character actor perhaps best known for his portrayal of the assassin Mr. Wint in the James Bond film "Diamonds Are Forever" (1971). He is also the father of actor Crispin Glover. Life and career. Glover was born in Chicago, Illinois to Eva Elvira (née Hedstrom) and Herbert Homan Glover. He is of English, Czech, and Swedish descent. He began acting with numerous appearances on various television shows including "My Favorite Martian" (1963), "Perry Mason": "The Case of the Golden Girls" (1965), "The Rat Patrol" (1966), "Hawk" (1966), "The Mod Squad" (1968), "" (1970), and "Bearcats!" (1971). In 1971, Glover and jazz musician Putter Smith portrayed the assassins Mr. Wint and Mr. Kidd, respectively, in the James Bond film "Diamonds Are Forever".
1034188	George Sewell (31 August 1924 – 2 April 2007) was an English actor. Early life and early career. The son of a Hoxton printer and a florist; Sewell left school at age 14 and worked briefly in the printing trade before switching to building work, specifically the repair of bomb-damaged houses. He then trained as a Royal Air Force pilot, though too late to see action during World War II. After his demob, Sewell joined the Merchant Navy, serving as a steward for the Cunard Line, on the and on their Atlantic crossings to New York. He worked as a street photographer, assisted a French roller-skating team and was drummer and assistant road manager of a rumba band. He also travelled Europe as a motor coach courier travelling around Europe for a holiday company. Acting career. Sewell had not considered acting until, aged 35, he met the actor Dudley Sutton by chance in a pub. Sutton recommended that Sewell audition for a production by Joan Littlewood's Theatre Workshop of "Fings Ain't Wot They Used T'Be". Sewell did so, and made his acting debut as a policeman in the show both at the Theatre Royal, Stratford East and in the West End. He went on to star in two other Littlewood productions, "Sparrers Can't Sing" (1962) and as Field Marshal Haig in "Oh! What a Lovely War" (1963) which later went to Paris and Broadway. The experience garnered from stage acting led to a long career in both film and television. For many years Sewell was the gritty face of crime and law enforcement in a huge array of television series. Amongst his early roles, he was the tallyman in Ken Loach's TV play "Up The Junction" (1965), a criminal who runs off with a teenage girl in "Softly, Softly" (1966), a hard-nosed building engineer in "The Power Game" (1965–66), a cowardly informer in "Man in a Suitcase" (1967), and a seedy private eye in "Spindoe" (1968). In 1970 he played Colonel Alec Freeman in the first series of Gerry Anderson's live-action science-fiction drama "UFO". In 1973, Euston Films reinvigorated the TV series "Special Branch", formerly a videotaped series starring Derren Nesbitt. Sewell was brought in to play the defining character of DCI Alan Craven. The show ran for two seasons with Sewell, and is very fondly remembered - not least as a stylistic forerunner of crime drama "The Sweeney" (in which Sewell also appeared - as a villain). Later Sewell was to parody this role as Supt Frank Cottam in the Jasper Carrott/Robert Powell comedy, "The Detectives". Later television appearances include "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy" (1979), in which he played Mendel, and the "Doctor Who" story "Remembrance of the Daleks", (1988), in which he played a fascist called Mr Ratcliffe. He also appeared frequently in cinema films, notably "This Sporting Life" (1963), "Poor Cow" (1967) and "Get Carter" (1971). His brother, Danny Sewell, a former boxer, also became an actor.
1099269	Non-linear least squares is the form of least squares analysis used to fit a set of "m" observations with a model that is non-linear in "n" unknown parameters ("m" > "n"). It is used in some forms of non-linear regression. The basis of the method is to approximate the model by a linear one and to refine the parameters by successive iterations. There are many similarities to linear least squares, but also some significant differences. Theory. Consider a set of formula_1 data points, formula_2 and a curve (model function) formula_3 that in addition to the variable formula_4 also depends on formula_5 parameters, formula_6 with formula_7 It is desired to find the vector formula_8 of parameters such that the curve fits best the given data in the least squares sense, that is, the sum of squares
1039595	Samuel Alexander Joseph West, also known as Sam West (born 19 June 1966), is a British actor and director. He is perhaps best known for his role in the film "Howards End" and his work on stage (including the award-winning play "Enron)". Early life and education. West was born in Hammersmith, west London, the elder son of actors Prunella Scales and Timothy West and the grandson of the late actor Lockwood West. He was educated at Alleyn's School, a co-educational independent school in Dulwich, London, and at Lady Margaret Hall at the University of Oxford, where he studied English Literature and was president of the Experimental Theatre Club. Career. West works as an actor in a variety of dramatic media including theatre, film, television and radio. He has also made a career as a director on stage and radio. West has narrated many television documentaries, including the acclaimed series "". He often appears as reciter with orchestras (see below) and performed at the Last Night of the Proms in 2002. Stage. West made his London stage debut in February 1989 at the Orange Tree Theatre, playing Michael in Cocteau's "Les Parents Terribles", of which critic John Thaxter wrote: "He invests the role with a warmth and validity that silences sniggers that could so easily greet a lesser performance of this difficult role, and he lets us share the tumbling emotions of a juvenile torn between romantic first love and filial duty." (Richmond & Twickenham Times, 10 February 1989). Since then, West has appeared frequently on stage; he played Valentine in the first ever production of Tom Stoppard's "Arcadia" at the National Theatre in 1993 and later spent two seasons with the Royal Shakespeare Company playing the title roles in "Richard II" and "Hamlet", both directed by Steven Pimlott. In 2002, West made his stage directorial debut with "The Lady's Not for Burning" at the Minerva Theatre, Chichester. He was appointed artistic director of Sheffield Theatres - succeeding Michael Grandage - in 2005. During his time as artistic director West revived the controversial "The Romans in Britain" and also directed "As You Like It" as part of the RSC's Complete Works Festival. West left Sheffield when the theatre closed for refurbishment in 2007 and made his West End directorial debut with the first major revival of "Dealer's Choice" following its transferral to the Trafalgar Studios. He also continued his acting career: in 2007 he appeared alongside Toby Stephens and Dervla Kirwan in "Betrayal" at the Donmar Warehouse, in November 2008 he played Harry in the Donmar revival of T. S. Eliot's "The Family Reunion" and in 2009 he starred as Jeffrey Skilling in "Enron" by Lucy Prebble. His 2008 production of "Waste" at the Almeida Theatre was chosen by "The Times" as one of its "Productions of the Decade". From November 2012 to January 2013 he appeared as Astrov in a production of "Uncle Vanya" at the Vaudeville Theatre Film. In 1991, West played the lower-middle-class clerk Leonard Bast in the Merchant Ivory film adaptation of E. M. Forster's novel "Howards End" (released 1992) opposite Emma Thompson, Helena Bonham Carter and Anthony Hopkins. For this role, he was nominated for best supporting actor at the 1993 BAFTA Film Awards. Two years later he again appeared with Thompson in the film "Carrington". His film career has continued with roles in a number of well known films, such as Zeffirelli's "Jane Eyre", "Notting Hill", "Iris" and "Van Helsing". In 2004, he appeared in the year's highest rated mini-series on German television, "Die Nibelungen", which was released in the USA in 2006 as "". In 2012 he played King George VI in "Hyde Park on Hudson". Television. He is a familiar face on television appearing in many long-running series: "Midsomer Murders", "Waking the Dead" and "Poirot" as well as one-off dramas. He played Anthony Blunt in "Cambridge Spies", a BBC production about the four British spies, starring alongside Toby Stephens (Philby), Tom Hollander (Burgess) and Rupert Penry-Jones (Maclean). In 2006 he took the lead role in a BBC production of "Random Quest" adapted from the short story by John Wyndham and the next year played Ted Heath in "Margaret Thatcher - The Long Walk to Finchley", also for the BBC. In 2010 he played Peter Scabius in the televised adaptation of William Boyd's novel "Any Human Heart", while in 2011 he starred as Zak Gist in the ITV series "Eternal Law". Radio. West is regularly heard on radio as a reader or reciter and has performed in many radio dramas, including "Otherkin" by Laura Wade, "Present Laughter" by Noël Coward, Len Deighton's "Bomber", "Life and Fate" by Vasily Grossman, Michael Frayn's "Here" and "The Homecoming" as Lenny to Harold Pinter's Max. In 2011 he made his radio directing debut with a production of "Money" by Edward Bulwer-Lytton on BBC Radio 3. Personal life. As a choral singer, West participated in the May 2006 Choir of London tour to Jerusalem and the West Bank, where he also gave poetry readings as part of the concert programme. In April 2007, he again joined the Choir of London in their tour of Palestine, directing "The Magic Flute". West became the patron of Sheffield Philharmonic Chorus in February 2008, having been the narrator for a concert of theirs in February 2002. He is also a patron of London children's charity Scene & Heard, Eastside Educational Trust and Mousetrap Theatre projects. Between 2007 and 2011, he lived with playwright Laura Wade. West has appeared alongside his actor parents on several occasions; with his mother Prunella Scales in "Howards End" and "Stiff Upper Lips", and with his father Timothy West on stage in "A Number", "Henry IV Part I" and "Part II". In two films—"Iris" (2001) and the 1996 television film "Over Here"—Sam and his father have played the same character at different ages. In 2002 all three family members performed in Stravinsky's "The Soldiers Tale" at the St Magnus Festival on Orkney and in 2006 they gave a rehearsed reading of the Harold Pinter play "Family Voices" as part of the Sheffield Theatres Pinter season. While at university, West was a member of the Socialist Workers Party and later briefly the Socialist Alliance. West has been a left-wing activist for many years; he was a critic of Tony Blair's New Labour government. On 26 March 2011 he spoke at the TUC March for the Alternative. Samuel West has written essays on "Richard II" for the Cambridge University Press series "Players of Shakespeare", on "Hamlet" for Michael Dobson's CUP study "Performing Shakespeare's Tragedies Today" and on "Shakespeare and Love" for BBC Radio 3. He has published articles on Harold Pinter and on the Shipping Forecast. He also writes frequently and speaks in public about arts funding. West is an Associate Artist of the Royal Shakespeare Company, Chair of the National Campaign for the Arts and a member of the council of the British Actors' Union, Equity. He is a keen birdwatcher. Television. He has also narrated nine "Timewatch" documentary films for the director Jonathan Gili, four seasons of the series "The Private Life of a Masterpiece" and five BBC documentary series for producer Laurence Rees: Audiobooks, reciting and work with musicians. West has recorded over fifty audiobooks, among which are the Shakespeare plays "All's Well That Ends Well", "Coriolanus", "Henry V", "The Merchant of Venice", "A Midsummer Night's Dream," "Much Ado About Nothing", "Richard II" and "Macbeth" (directed by Steven Berkoff), the Wind on Fire trilogy by William Nicholson ("The Wind Singer", "Slaves of the Mastery" and "Firesong"), the Arthur trilogy by Kevin Crossley-Holland ("The Seeing Stone", "At the Crossing Places" and" King of the Middle March"), five books by Sebastian Faulks ("Charlotte Gray", "Birdsong", "The Girl at the Lion d'Or", "Human Traces" and "A Possible Life"), four by Michael Ridpath ("Trading Reality", "Final Venture", "Free to Trade", and "The Marketmaker"), two by George Orwell ("Nineteen Eighty-Four" and "Homage to Catalonia"), two by Mary Wesley ("An Imaginative Experience" and "Part of the Furniture"), two by Robert Goddard ("Closed Circle" and "In Pale Battalions") and several compilations of poetry "(Realms of Gold: Letters and Poems of John Keats", "Bright Star", "The Collected Works of Shelley", "Seven Ages", "Great Narrative Poems of the Romantic Age" and "A Shropshire Lad)". Also "Faust", "Bomber", "Doctor Who: The Vengeance of Morbius", "Empire of the Sun", "Brighton Rock", "Fair Stood the Wind for France", "Fluke", "Great Speeches in History", "How Proust Can Change Your Life", "Lady Windermere's Fan", "Peter Pan", "The Alchemist", "The Day of the Triffids", "The Hairy Hands", "The Lives of Christopher Chant", "The Man Who Made Husbands Jealous", "The Queen's Man", "The Solitaire Mystery", "The Swimming Pool Library", "The Two Destinies", "The Velveteen Rabbit", "The Way I Found Her", "The Way to Dusty Death", "The Woodlanders", "Under the Net", "Wuthering Heights" and Philip Pullman's "Grimm Tales for Young and Old". As a reciter West has worked with all the major British orchestras, as well as the Strasbourg Philharmonic Orchestra, Dallas Symphony Orchestra and the National Symphony Orchestra in Washington, D.C.. Works include Stravinsky's "Oedipus Rex" and "The Soldier's Tale", Prokofiev's "Eugene Onegin", Beethoven's "Egmont", Schoenburg's "Ode To Napoleon", Strauss' "Enoch Arden", Saint-Saëns’ "Carnival of the Animals", Bernstein's "Kaddish", Walton's "Façade" and "Henry V", "Night Mail" and "The Way to the Sea" by Britten and Auden, the world premieres of "Concrete" by Judith Weir at the Barbican and Howard Goodall’s "Jason and the Argonauts" at the Royal Albert Hall and the UK premiere of Jonathan Harvey's final piece "Weltethos" at the Symphony Hall, Birmingham. In 2007 West made his New York recital debut in the first performance of "Little Red Violin" by Anne Dudley and Steven Isserlis. He has performed at the Proms five times, including the suite version of "Henry V" at the 2002 Last Night of the Proms. He has also appeared with the Nash Ensemble, the Raphael Ensemble, The Hebrides Ensemble, Ensemble 360 and the Lindsay, Dante and Endellion Quartets at the Wigmore Hall, London. Recordings include Prokofief's "Eugene Onegin" with Sinfonia 21 and Edward Downes, "Salad Days" and Walton's "Henry V" with the BBC Symphony Orchestra and Leonard Slatkin. In November 2010, West performed a new English translation of Grieg's complete incidental music to Ibsen’s play "Peer Gynt" with Southampton Philharmonic Choir at Southampton Guildhall. In June 2012, West recorded an English narration of "The Book about Moomin, Mymble and Little My" by Tove Jansson for an interactive audiobook developed by Spinfy and published by Sort of Books. In June 2013 he appeared in the video for "Handyman Blues" by Billy Bragg, directed by Johnny Vegas. In summer 2013 he toured with Ruthie Culver and the UtterJazz quintet performing a programme of Britten and Auden songs and poems. Awards and nominations. As actor As reader Samuel West has received nine AudioFile Earphones Awards for his narration: "The Day of the Triffids" by John Wyndham (1996), "Peter Pan" by J.M.Barrie (1997), "Charlotte Gray" by Sebastian Faulks (1999), "The Way I Found Her" by Rose Tremain (2000), "The Swimming Pool Library" by Alan Hollinghurst (2007), "Faust" by Goethe (2011), "A Shropshire Lad" by A. E. Housman (2011), "A Possible Life" by Sebastian Faulks (2012) and Philip Pullman's "Grimm Tales for Young and Old" (2013)
632830	Sarah Victoria "Torri" Higginson (born December 6, 1969 in Burlington, Ontario) is a Canadian actress. She is best known for her roles in the "TekWar" movies and series, "The English Patient", "Bliss", and "Stargate Atlantis". She is also a theater actress and has appeared in "Three Tall Women", "Weldon Rising" and "Picasso at the Lapin Agile". Career. In 1995, two years prior to "Stargate SG-1"'s premiere, Higginson starred in the movie "Jungleground" with three other actors from the Stargate franchise: Peter Williams (Apophis), JR Bourne (Martouf), and Lexa Doig (Dr. Lam). Higginson took over the role of Dr. Elizabeth Weir from Jessica Steen in a guest spot on the season eight opener of "Stargate SG-1". She was then carried over as the leader of the Atlantis expedition on "Stargate Atlantis" and continued playing that role until the end of the show's third season, afterwards being reduced from a main cast member to a recurring role in the fourth season. She did not reprise the role for the show's fifth season.
1064177	Alien Resurrection is a 1997 American science fiction film by 20th Century Fox, and the fourth and final installment of the "Alien" franchise. The film was directed by French filmmaker Jean-Pierre Jeunet, with a screenplay by Joss Whedon. "Alien Resurrection" was the first film in the "Alien" series to be filmed outside of England, at Fox studios in Los Angeles, California. In the film, which is set 200 years after the preceding installment "Alien 3" (1992), Ellen Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) is cloned and an Alien queen is surgically removed from her body. The United Systems Military hopes to breed Aliens to study and research on the spaceship "USM Auriga", using human hosts kidnapped and delivered to them by a group of mercenaries. The Aliens escape their enclosures, while Ripley and the mercenaries attempt to escape and destroy the "Auriga" before it reaches its destination, Earth. "Alien Resurrection" was released on November 26, 1997 and received mixed reviews from film critics. Roger Ebert of the "Chicago Sun-Times" felt "there is not a single shot in the movie to fill one with wonder", while Desson Thomson of "The Washington Post" said the film "satisfactorily recycles the great surprises that made the first movie so powerful". The film earned $161 million, recouping more than twice its $75 million budget. Plot. Two hundred years after the events of "Alien 3", military scientists on the outer space vessel USM "Auriga" create a clone of Ellen Ripley (Sigourney Weaver), using DNA from blood samples taken before her death. They extract the embryo of an Alien queen that had been growing inside her at the time of her death, raise it, and collect its eggs for further use. The Ripley clone is kept alive for further study. As a result of her DNA being mixed with the Alien's during the cloning process, she develops enhanced strength and reflexes, acidic blood, and an empathic link with the Aliens. A group of mercenaries, Elgyn (Michael Wincott), Johner (Ron Perlman), Christie (Gary Dourdan), Vriess (Dominique Pinon), Hillard (Kim Flowers), and Call (Winona Ryder), arrive in their ship, the "Betty", delivering several kidnapped humans in stasis. The military scientists use the kidnapped humans as hosts for the Aliens, raising several adult Aliens for study. The "Betty" crew soon encounter Ripley. Call recognizes her name and tries to kill her, believing she may be used to create more Aliens. Call is too late; the Aliens have already matured and quickly escape confinement, damaging the "Auriga" and killing most of its crew. Military scientist Dr. Wren (J. E. Freeman) reveals that the ship's default command in an emergency is to return to Earth. Realizing this will unleash the Aliens on Earth, Ripley, the mercenaries, Wren, a Marine named DiStefano (Raymond Cruz), and surviving Alien host Purvis (Leland Orser) decide to head for the "Betty" and use it to destroy the "Auriga". As the group make their way through the damaged ship, Frank, Sabra, and Christie are killed by Aliens. Call is revealed to be an android after Wren betrays the group. Using her ability to interface with the "Auriga"'s systems, she sets it on a collision course with Earth, hoping to destroy the Aliens in the crash. Wren takes Call hostage, demanding that she abort the collision. Purvis holds Wren's head to his chest just as the Alien embryo he is carrying bursts through his ribcage, causing it to go through Wren's head and kill him. Ripley discovers that the Alien queen has gained a human ability from her DNA as well: now possessing a womb, it can give birth to live offspring without the need for eggs and human hosts. The resulting newborn, bearing a mixture of human and Alien traits, recognizes Ripley as its mother and kills the Alien queen and Dr. Gediman (Brad Dourif). Ripley and the surviving mercenaries make their way to the "Betty". As they launch, the newborn hybrid attacks Call and kills DiStefano. Ripley kills it by using her own acidic blood to burn a hole through a viewpane, causing the creature to be sucked violently through the hole and into the vacuum of space. The survivors escape in the "Betty" as the "Auriga" collides with Earth. Production. Origins. Impressed with his work as a screenwriter, 20th Century Fox hired Joss Whedon to write the film's script. Whedon's initial screenplay had a third act on Earth, with a final battle for Earth itself. Whedon wrote five versions of the final act, none of which ended up in the film. The studio initially imagined that the film would center around a clone of the character Newt from "Aliens", as the Ellen Ripley character had died at the end of "Alien 3". Whedon composed a thirty-page treatment surrounding this idea before being informed that the studio, though impressed with his script, now intended to base the story on a clone of Ripley, whom they saw as the anchor of the series. Whedon had to rewrite the script in a way that would bring back the Ripley character, a task he found difficult. The idea of cloning was suggested by producers David Giler and Walter Hill, who opposed the production of "Alien Resurrection", as they thought it would ruin the franchise. Sigourney Weaver, who had played Ripley throughout the series, wanted to liberate the character in "Alien 3" as she did not want Ripley to become "a figure of fun" who would continuously "wake up with monsters running around". The possibility of an "Alien vs. Predator" film was another reason for the character's death, as she thought the concept "sounded awful". However, Weaver was impressed with Whedon's script. She thought that the error during Ripley's cloning process would allow her to further explore the character, since Ripley becoming part human and part alien would create uncertainty about where her loyalties lay. This was an interesting concept to Weaver, who thought the film brought back the spirit of "Alien" and "Aliens". Weaver received a co-producer's credit and was reportedly paid $11 million. Direction and design. "Trainspotting" director Danny Boyle was the producers' first choice to direct the film. Boyle and his producer met with effects supervisors to discuss the film, but he was not interested in pursuing the project. Peter Jackson was also approached, but declined as he could not get excited about an "Alien" film. In 1995, after the release of "The Usual Suspects", 20th Century Fox approached Bryan Singer to direct. Jean-Pierre Jeunet was asked to direct, as the film's producers believed he had a unique visual style. Jeunet had just completed the script to "Amélie" and was surprised he was offered the job for "Alien Resurrection", as he thought the franchise had finished with "Alien 3" and believed that making a sequel was a bad idea. Jeunet, however, accepted the project with a budget of $70 million. He required an interpreter as he did not speak much English when filming began. Jeunet hired French special effects supervisor Pitof and cinematographer Darius Khondji, both of whom he had worked with on "The City of Lost Children". Jeunet and his crew watched the latest science fiction and "Alien" films as reference material, and obtained production reports from the "Alien" films to study the camera setups. Jeunet was given creative control, contributing several elements to the script including five different endings, although the expensive ones were dismissed. He also opted to make the film a dark comedy and was encouraged to include more violence. In June 1996, Jeunet's frequent co-director, conceptual artist Marc Caro had drawn rough sketches of characters' costumes, which were shown to veteran costume designer Bob Ringwood. Ringwood made several modifications for the final design. Creatures. Special effects company Amalgamated Dynamics Incorporated (ADI) was hired for the film, having previously worked on "Alien 3". ADI founders Tom Woodruff, Jr. and Alec Gillis also had experience working with Stan Winston on "Aliens". ADI based their designs and modifications of the Alien creatures on the film's script, which included the creatures having pointed tails for swimming, making their head domes and chins more pointed, and establishing them to appear more vicious using techniques of camera angles and shot duration. After receiving the director's approval, ADI began to create small sculptures, sketches, paintings, and life-size models. Jeunet asked ADI to lean towards making the human/Alien hybrid creature more human than Alien. An early concept was to replicate Sigourney Weaver's features, although the crew felt this design would be too similar to the design of the creature Sil from the 1995 film "Species". Eyes and a nose were added to the hybrid to allow it to have more expressions and communicate more emotion than the Aliens, so that it would have more depth as a character rather than being "just a killing machine". Jeunet was adamant about the hybrid having genitalia which resembled a mix of both male and female sexes. 20th Century Fox was uncomfortable with this, however, and Jeunet eventually changed his mind, feeling that "even for a Frenchman, it's too much". The genitalia were removed during post-production using digital effects techniques. The animatronic hybrid required nine puppeteers and was the most complex animatronic in the film. Filming. "Alien Resurrection" was filmed at Fox studios in Los Angeles, California, from October 1996 to February 1997. Jeunet had difficulty securing studio space, as the filming of Hollywood blockbusters such as "Titanic", "Starship Troopers", and "" were taking place at the same time. "Alien Resurrection" was the first installment in the "Alien" series to be filmed outside of England, a decision made by Weaver, who believed that the previous films' travel schedules exhausted the crew. The underwater scene was the first to be shot, and for its filming Stage 16 at Fox Studios was reconstructed into a 36 by 45 meter tank, 4.5 meters deep, containing 548,000 gallons of water. The decision was made to convert the stage rather than film the scene elsewhere, since moving the film crew to the nearest adequate facility in San Diego would have been too costly for a single scene, and by converting Stage 16 20th Century Fox would be able to use the tank for future films. Because of the aquatic filming, the ability to swim was a prerequisite for cast and crew when signing onto the film. The cast trained in swimming pools in Los Angeles with professional divers to learn how to use the equipment. An additional two and a half weeks of training took place at the studio with stunt coordinator Ernie Orsatti and underwater cinematographer Peter Romano. Weaver, however, was unable to participate in most of the training due to commitments on Broadway. Winona Ryder faced a challenge with the scene, as she had nearly drowned at age 12 and had not been in the water since. She suggested using a body double, but knew that it would be too obvious to audiences due to the difference in hair length. She filmed the scene, but suffered from anxiety on the first day of filming. Director Jeunet wanted to display Ripley's new powers, including a scene in which Ripley throws a basketball through a hoop while facing the opposite direction. Weaver trained for ten days and averaged one out of six baskets, although the distance required for filming was farther than she had practiced. Jeunet was concerned about the time being spent on the shot and wanted to either use a machine to throw the ball or to insert it later using computer-generated imagery (CGI). Weaver, however, was determined to make the shot authentic, and got the ball in perfectly on the sixth take. The ball was out of frame for a moment during the shot, and Pitof offered to edit it so that the ball was on-screen for the entire scene, but Weaver refused. Ron Perlman broke character when she made the basket, and turned to the camera to say "Oh my god!" There was enough of a pause between Weaver's basket and Perlman's statement for the film's editors to cut the scene accordingly during post-production. Visual effects and miniatures. The film's script was laid out similar to a comic book, with pictures on the left and dialog and descriptions on the right. Jeunet planned every shot, which made it easier for visual effects artists to do their work. Blue Sky Studios was hired to create the first CGI Aliens to appear on film. Impressed with the company's work on "Joe's Apartment" creating CGI cockroaches, Jeunet and Pitof opted to hire the company to create 30 to 40 shots of CGI Aliens. The decision was made to use CGI Aliens rather than puppets or suited actors whenever the creatures' legs were in frame, as Jeunet felt that a man in a suit is easy to distinguish when the full body is seen. All of the spaceships in the film were miniatures, as visual effects supervisors believed CGI was not effective enough to create realistic spaceships. The USM Auriga was originally designed by artist Nigel Phelps and resembled a medical instrument. This design proved to be too vertical for the film's opening shot, in which the camera pans out to show the ship, and did not appear satisfactory in the film's 2.35:1 aspect ratio. Three days before the design had to be finalized, Jeunet rejected it. Phelps, production illustrator Jim Martin, and concept artist Sylvain Despretz were tasked to redesign the ship. Jeunet felt Martin's design was too much like a space station, while he accepted Despretz's design due to its streamlined and horizontal appearance. Music. Composer John Frizzell was encouraged by a friend to audition to compose "Alien Resurrection"'s film score. Frizzell sent in four cassettes and received a call from 20th Century Fox about the fourth, which contained music from "The Empty Mirror". Impressed with his work, Fox representative Robert Kraft had a short meeting with Frizzell and hired him. Frizzell spent seven months writing and recording the score, which Jeunet requested to be very different and unique from the previous films in the series. This included themes of romance and eroticism, incorporating sound effects such as a gong and rub rod. The cue "They Swim" took one month to complete as Jeunet was not pleased with Frizzell's original version, although the final result was a mix between the first and third versions he had composed. Release. Box office. A pre-screening of "Alien Resurrection" was held in Camarillo, California, and the film was released in North America on November 26, 1997. Debuting at number two at the box office behind "Flubber", "Alien Resurrection" grossed $25 million in its first five days–$16 million over the weekend, for an average of $6,821 per 2,415 theaters. The film grossed $47.7 million in North America, the least successful of the "Alien" series on that continent. It was well received internationally, however, with a gross of $113.5 million, bringing its total gross to $161.2 million. It was the 43rd highest grossing film in North America in 1997. Critical reception. "Alien Resurrection" received mixed reviews from film critics, though it was generally regarded as a slight improvement over "Alien 3". The film scored 63% on Metacritic based on 21 reviews, and 52% on Rotten Tomatoes based on 69 reviews.
1683624	Silvia Pasquel (born Silvia Banquells Pinal; 13 October 1949) is a Mexican actress. Family. Pasquel was born into a show business family: her father, Rafael Banquells, was a famous Cuban-born actor and director. Her mother is Silvia Pinal, an actress very well known throughout Latin America and Spain. She chose the professional surname of "Pasquel" as a combination of her father's and mother's last names. Pasquel's siblings are also famous: her siblings on mother's side are actresses Viridiana Alatriste, singer Alejandra Guzmán and Luis Enrique Guzmán Pinal. Both Alejandra and Luis Enrique were a product of Pasquel's mother's third marriage to Mexican once teen idol Enrique Guzmán. Viridiana died as a consequence of a car accident. She is a half-sister of the actress and singer Rocío Banquells. Rocío is the daughter of Pasquel's father with his third wife, actress Dina de Marco. Her other siblings on father's side are Janette, Mary Paz, Ariadne and Rafael II. In an interview, Pasquel said that because of the age difference between herself and her siblings, she was more motherly to them than sisterly. Pasquel has been married twice, the first time at age 16 because her mother wanted her to be married as a virgin. Her first husband was the rocker Mike Salas. Her daughter, Stephanie Salas, is also a famous telenovela actress and an aspiring singer in Mexico. Her granddaughter, Michelle Salas, is Luis Miguel's daughter. Her second husband is Fernando Frade. His daughter, named Viridiana (in honor of her dead sister) died in an accident in a pool in 1987. Pasquel, her mother, and two of her of sisters—Banquells and Guzman—have been inducted into the Paseo de las Luminarias in Mexico City. Pasquel was inducted for her work in movies and television. Career. 1960s. At the age of nineteen, Pasquel did her first movie, "El Despertar del Lobo" ("The Wolf's Awakening"). That movie was made in 1968, the year in which Pasquel became very famous in Mexico. She followed her first film with her telenovela debut, in "Los Inconformes" ("The Nonconformists"). In 1969, she took part in a movie about wrestling, starring alongside Santo and his wrestling enemy, Blue Demon, in "Santo Contra Blue Demon en la Atlantida" ("Santo versus Blue Demon at the Atlantida"). She also appeared in two other films in 1969, "Una Mujer Honesta" ("An Honest Woman") and "La Casa del Farol Rojo" ("The Redlight House"). 1970s. The decade of the 1970s was a very busy one for Pasquel, as she starred in multiple films, soap operas, and even in magazine soaps, which were popular in Latin America then. In 1970, she starred in "Me he de comer esa tuna" ("I Shall Eat That Prickly Pear"), "La Cruz de Mariza Cruzes" ("Mariza Cruzes' Cross") and in "El Mariachi", the only telenovela she did that year. In 1971, she played "Gianna Donatti" in the telenovela "Muchacha Italiana Viene a Casarse" ("Italian Girl Comes to Get Married") with Angélica María. That soap opera was a major hit, and Pasquel followed her work there with another telenovela, "La Recogida" ("The Step-Daughter"). Her one movie in 1971 was "Secreto de Confesion" ("Confession Secret"). 1972 proved to be a relatively easy year for Pasquel, whose fame had already spread to the rest of Latin America and among Hispanics in the United States. She participated in only one movie and no soap operas. Her movie that year was named "Cinco Mil Dolares de Recompensa" ("Five Thousand Dollars Reward"). She participated alongside Chabelo, a very popular children's actor of the era, in 1973's "Chabelo y Pepito contra los Monstruos" ("Chabelo and Pepito Against the Monsters"). This was followed by another telenovela, "El Amor Tiene Cara de Mujer" ("Love has a Woman's Face"). She finished 1973 playing "Maritza" in "Mi Rival" (My Rival). Pasquel did two soap operas in 1974, each of which proved to be important in her career: in "Ha LLegado una Intrusa" ("An Intruder has Arrived", remade during the 1990s as "La Usurpadora"), she played two roles in the same drama for the first time in her career, acting as twins "Veronina and Hilda Moreno". "Mundo de Juguete" ("Toy World"), meanwhile, became one of the most successful Mexican telenovelas of the era. After "El Milagro de Vivir" (The Miracle of Living), a 1975 soap opera, Pasquel began slowing her on screen work rate, and she took 1976 off to return in 1977, with another soap opera, named "Humillados y Ofendidos" ("Humiliated and Offended"). Once again, she took a full year off the screens in 1978 and returned in 1979 with a movie named "Johnny Chicano" and a soap named "J.J. Juez". 1980s. By the 1980s, Pasquel was already a family woman, a fact which contributed to a further slowdown of her screen career. She participated in 1980's "Al Rojo Vivo" (loosely translated to "Very Red"), in 1982's "El Amor Nunca Muere" ("Love Never Dies"), 1983's "Cuando los Hijos se Van" ("When Children Leave"), and 1987's "Los Años Perdidos" ("The Lost Years"). She took off three more years after that, returning in 1990 to participate in one episode of the popular television show, "Mujer, Casos de la Vida Real", which is hosted by her mother. The chapter she appeared in was based on a real life story of a rape victim. Soon after, she made another telenovela, "Dias sin Luna" ("Days Without a Moon"). Her return to soap operas was followed by her return to film, with two movies made in 1991: "Politico por Error" ("Politician by Mistake") and "Asalto" ("Robbery"). 1990s. In 1990, a teen-oriented soap opera, "Alcanzar una estrella" ("Reaching a Star"), with Eduardo Capetillo, had become a major hit on Mexican television. Pasquel acted in that production's 1991 sequel, "Alcanzar una estrella II", where she acted alongside Capetillo, Sasha Sokol and a budding Puerto Rican star named Ricky Martin. She followed that with 1993's "Las Secretas Intenciones" ("Secret Intentions"). and 1995's comedy film "El Superman...Dilon Dos" ("The Super...lacy one, Part Two"). In 1996, she participated in "Para Toda la Vida" ("Forever"), which was another telenovela. She returned once again in 1998's "Huracan", where she played "Caridad". 2000s. She starred as "Zulema" in 2000's "Mi Destino Eres Tu" ("You Are My Destiny"). In 2001, she participated in another major Mexican telenovela hit, "El Manantial" ("The Cascade"). That same year, she worked as "Silvia" in "Aventuras en el Tiempo" ("Time Adventures"). During 2002, she participated in a very large number of episodes of "Mujer, Casos de la Vida Real". She also participated, , in the Mexican soap opera "Amarte es mi Pecado" ("My Sin is Loving You"). Her latest appearance was, , in the soap opera "Yo amo a Juan Querendón". On stage, Pasquel have a great success in 1979 in the play "Claudia me quieren volver loco". 2010s. In 2013, Pasquel is slated to return to soap operas with "Qué pobres tan ricos" from the hit producer of "Por Ella Soy Eva", Rosy Ocampo.
1066544	Shallow Hal is a 2001 romantic comedy film starring Gwyneth Paltrow, Jack Black, and Jason Alexander. It was directed by the Farrelly brothers and filmed in and around Charlotte, North Carolina as well as Sterling and Princeton, Massachusetts at Wachusett Mountain. Plot. Hal Larson (Jack Black) is a superficial man whose fixation on the physical beauty of women gets in the way of seeing them for their inner beauty. Hal and his equally shallow friend, Mauricio Wilson (Jason Alexander), spend their nights obnoxiously hitting on beautiful women at nightclubs. Hal's work life is steady, but he is dismayed after being passed over for a long-sought promotion. By a twist of fate, Hal becomes trapped in an elevator with famous American life coach Tony Robbins. Getting to know Hal while awaiting the workmen's effort to get the elevator operational again, Tony Robbins sympathizes with Hal's work disappointment but tries to figure out his ideas about women, so he hypnotizes him into only seeing physical manifestations of a person's inner beauty. Hal agrees to Robbins' suggestion but does not catch on to the fact it is hypnosis, and later meets and is smitten by Rosemary Shanahan (Gwyneth Paltrow), the daughter of Steve Shanahan (Joe Viterelli), the president of the company where Hal is employed. Rosemary is morbidly obese, but Hal sees her as a slender and beautiful trophy blonde because of her kind and generous personality. Mr. Shanahan is not certain about Hal dating his daughter, thinking that Hal may be going to any lengths to get to the top of the corporate ladder. Used to being overlooked by men due to her appearance, Rosemary initially interprets Hal’s interest in her as mocking, but begins to date Hal when she realizes his feelings for her are authentic. Mauricio becomes increasingly worried about Hal's new taste in women and convinces Robbins to give him the trigger phrase to undo the hypnosis. Mauricio phones Hal while Hal is on a date with Rosemary and says the trigger phrase, "Shallow Hal wants a gal", which serves to break Hal's hypnosis. Mauricio confesses to Hal the truth about Robbins' hypnotherapy, but Hal does not believe this until he runs into Katrina (Brooke Burns), a woman who initially appeared beautiful to him due to her internal beauty, but whom Hal now sees in her true, unattractive state. Hal begins to avoid Rosemary, who in turn becomes melancholic without him around. Distraught that he has not been seeing the "real" Rosemary, Hal accepts a dinner invitation from his neighbour, Jill, with whom he once had an unsuccessful date. The two dine together and Jill tells Hal that she has observed him overcoming his shallow nature and that she is interested in dating him now. However, Hal realizes that his true feelings are for Rosemary, who has coincidentally arrived at the same restaurant with her family and sees Hal and Jill seated together. Assuming the worst, Rosemary leaves in tears. Not recognizing Rosemary, Hal walks right by her on his way to the pay phone, ironically to reaffirm her of his feelings. Confused and distraught, Rosemary calls Hal a "psycho" over the phone and effectively breaks up with him. Five days later, Steve chastises Hal and coldly informs him that Rosemary’s Peace Corps partner wants to be in a relationship with her again. Hal attempts to find Rosemary, but instead encounters a young patient named Cadence at the hospital where Rosemary volunteers. Previously, due to Robbins’ hypnosis, Hal saw Cadence as a perfect little girl; he now sees that there are severe burns all over Cadence’s face. Hal then realizes that he doesn’t need hypnosis to see people’s true inner beauty. Rosemary decides to leave the country to rejoin the Peace Corps. Hal, during his search for Rosemary, finds that Mauricio had his own reason for stopping Hal's hypnosis: He has a vestigial tail, his shame over which has prevented him from ever getting close to a woman. Mauricio confesses that he was jealous of Hal's happiness and is afraid of starting relationships with women. Hal makes up with Mauricio and decides to try to reconcile with Rosemary. Hal arrives at the Shanahan mansion, where a bon voyage party for Rosemary is underway. Rosemary initially rebuffs Hal's presence, but then accepts his apology when Hal professes his love for her. Rosemary then informs Hal that she is still leaving on her Peace Corps mission, at which point Hal says that he is coming too, having just been sworn-in to the Peace Corps. Hal and Rosemary reconcile and are cheered by the crowd as they kiss. He tries to carry her bridal-style to the car, but finds he can’t lift her, so she carries him to the car instead. As they drive off, Mauricio meets a woman who loves dogs and the two walk off together as he wags his "tail". Production. The Farrelly Brothers admitted that this was a little bit different from some of their previous comedies, but as with all their movies they like for the audience to feel a connection with each of the characters. "Shallow Hal" was a more emotional movie and the producers spent a lot of time trying to ensure it would not be portrayed as a mere "fat joke" type of movie, but one that has a strong message associated with it. Gwyneth Paltrow played both roles, slim and fat Rosemary (except for a couple of close-up shots of fat Rosemary below the neck, which were played by her body double Ivy Snitzer), and had to wear a specially designed 25 pound fatsuit and encapsulating prosthetic make-up. The make-up effects for Rosemary, Rosemary's mother, and all of the secondary characters was designed and created by Tony Gardner and his company Alterian, Inc. Reception. In its opening weekend at the U.S. box office, the film opened at #2 behind "Monsters, Inc.". It grossed $141,069,860, of which $70,703,043 was in the United States. Critical reviews were mixed. Review website Rotten Tomatoes gives the film a score of 51% based on 121 reviews, and an average rating of 5.4/10, with the consensus: "While surprisingly sweeter and warm-hearted than previous Farrelly outings, "Shallow Hal" is also less funny and more bland." Roger Ebert gave a positive response of three-out-of-four stars, writing, ""Shallow Hal" is often very funny, but it is also surprisingly moving at times."
752064	The Harder They Come is a 1972 Jamaican crime film directed by Perry Henzell and co-written by Trevor D. Rhone, and starring Jimmy Cliff.
1058429	Armand Douglas "Armie" Hammer (born August 28, 1986) is an American actor. He is known for his portrayal of the Winklevoss twins in the 2010 film "The Social Network", Clyde Tolson in "J. Edgar" (2011), and Prince Andrew Alcott in "Mirror Mirror" (2012). He plays the title character in the 2013 feature film "The Lone Ranger". Personal life and family. Hammer was born in Los Angeles, California. His mother, Dru Ann (née Mobley), is a former bank loan officer, and his father, Michael Armand Hammer, owns several businesses, including Knoedler Publishing and Armand Hammer Productions (a film/television production company). He has a brother, Viktor. Hammer's paternal great-grandfather was oil tycoon and philanthropist Armand Hammer; Armand Hammer's parents were Russian Jewish immigrants, and Armand Hammer's father, Julius Hammer, who was from Odessa, "founded the Communist Party in New York". Armie's paternal great-grandmother was Russian-born actress and singer Olga Vadina (Von Root), the daughter of a czarist general. Armie's paternal grandmother was from Texas, while his mother's family is from Tulsa, Oklahoma. Armie has described his background as "half Jewish". In 2013, genealogical research by Ancestry.com stated that one of his eight times great-grandfathers was Cherokee chief Kanagatucko. He also has English and Scots-Irish ancestry. Hammer lived in the Dallas enclave of Highland Park for several years. When he was seven, his family moved to the Cayman Islands, where they lived for five years, and then settled back in Los Angeles. He attended Faulkner's Academy in Governor's Harbour, Grace Christian Academy in the Cayman Islands (a school founded by his father), and later went to Los Angeles Baptist High School in the San Fernando Valley. He dropped out of high school in eleventh grade to pursue an acting career. Subsequently, he took college courses (at Pasadena City College, in Pasadena, California, and the University of California, Los Angeles). Hammer has stated that "for all intents and purposes", his parents disowned him when he dropped out of high school and began acting. In 2010, Hammer married television personality Elizabeth Chambers, in a church wedding. The two were introduced by Hammer's friend, artist Tyler Ramsey. In a 2008 interview, Hammer stated, regarding his religious beliefs, "I have my own spiritual life, and I value it very much". Career. After appearing in the television series "Veronica Mars", "Gossip Girl", "Reaper", and "Desperate Housewives", Hammer played the Christian evangelist Billy Graham in "", which premiered in October 2008. The film garnered Hammer a “Faith and Values Award” nomination in the Grace Award category, which is awarded for the Most Inspiring Performance in Movie or Television by Mediaguide, an organization which provides movie reviews from a Christian perspective. He played Harrison Bergeron in "2081", based on the short story "Harrison Bergeron" by author Kurt Vonnegut, which premiered at the Seattle International Film Festival. In 2007, Hammer was hand-picked by filmmaker George Miller, after a long search, to star in "Justice League: Mortal" as Batman/Bruce Wayne. The film was to be directed by Miller, but Miller left the project. In 2010, Hammer co-starred in David Fincher's "The Social Network", about the creation of Facebook. He portrayed the identical twins Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, with Josh Pence, using CGI. Hammer stated that he had to learn how to row on both sides of a boat in order to play the twins, who are rowing champions. His next role was in Clint Eastwood's "J. Edgar", a drama about J. Edgar Hoover. He co-starred with Julia Roberts and Lily Collins in "Mirror Mirror" (2012), playing Prince Andrew Alcott, rather than the traditional Prince Charming. In January 2012, he voiced the Winklevoss twins in an episode of "The Simpsons" titled "The D'oh-cial Network". Hammer played the Lone Ranger, alongside Johnny Depp as Tonto, in the 2013 adaptation of the radio and film serials. In 2013, he was announced to co-star with Henry Cavill in director Guy Ritchie's film adaptation of the 1960s TV show "The Man from U.N.C.L.E."
1063610	Meet the Spartans is a 2008 parody film directed by Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer. Similar to past movies, such as "Scary Movie", "Date Movie", and most recently "Epic Movie", it directs parodies at various films. Although it references many movies, TV shows, people and pop cultural events, it focuses mainly on the 2007 film "300". It opened #1 in the US box office, despite receiving overwhelmingly negative reviews. The film stars Sean Maguire, Carmen Electra and Kevin Sorbo as The Captain. Plot. The film opens with a Spartan elder inspecting an ugly, talking baby (an ogre from "Shrek the Third"); it is abandoned to die for its deformity. A second baby, who is Vietnamese, is adopted by Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie. Baby Leonidas is then inspected, having a six-pack, biceps and beard from birth. He is accepted as a Spartan and prepared for kinghood through his childhood training, from fighting his grandmother to enduring torture (a la Casino Royale). Leonidas (Sean Maguire) is then cast out into the wild, and survives the harsh winter and a gangsta penguin (Happy Feet). Returning a king for his inauguration wearing a penguin skin hat, Leonidas sees Margo (Carmen Electra) erotically dancing and asks her to marry him, to which she responds by giving him the combination to her chastity belt. Years later, Leonidas is training his son when Captain (Kevin Sorbo) informs him that a Persian messenger has arrived. Accompanied by the Spartan politician Traitoro, the messenger has come to present Xerxes' demands for Sparta's submission. Leonidas arrives to greet the messenger in the Spartan way (high-fives for the women and open mouth tongue kisses for the men). After growing angry with both the messenger's disrespect and finding him making out with his wife, Leonidas kicks him into the 'pit of death'. Despite "Traitoro's" advice that the messenger's guards are now needed to convey the actual message, Leonidas kicks them in as well. Afterwards, he dumps in several other people he simply dislikes, including Britney Spears (Nicole Parker), Sanjaya Malakar and the judges for "American Idol" before having Ryan Seacrest fling himself in. Resolving to face the Persians, Leonidas visits the Oracle, for any advice. The Oracle, Ugly Betty, reveals that Leonidas will die should he go to war. After reaching a decision while spending the night with his wife, Leonidas meets the soldiers assembled for his departure to Thermopylae, and finds that only 13 (not 300) were accepted in the army, since there were stringent specifications to be accepted— "Hunky with deep Mediterranean tans, hot bods, and well-endowed". Three among them include Captain, his son, Sonio, and a slightly unfit Spartan named Dilio, who, as the Captain states, "Has a lot of heart...and nice man boobs." Once at the Hot Gates, they encounter the deformed Paris Hilton (also played by Parker), who tells Leonidas and the Captain about a secret goat path above the Hot Gates that Xerxes could use to outflank the Spartans. When she asks to be made a Spartan soldier, Leonidas rejects her as unqualified due to her inability to use a spear correctly. Leonidas and his platoon soon face off with Xerxes' messenger and his Immortals, beating them in a dance contest before driving them off a cliff. Xerxes (Ken Davitian), who, is described as, "sort of looked like that fat guy from "Borat"", impressed, personally approaches Leonidas and attempts to bribe him. The Spartan king declines, saying that he will instead make him fall. The Spartans then face the Persian army in a "Yo Momma" fight. The Spartans end with a victory, in spite of Dilio having his eyes scratched out. Though victory seemed to be in the Spartans' grasp, Paris Hilton betrays the Spartans and reveals the location of the goat path to Xerxes in return for various gifts. Using a CGI army (with the blue screen blatantly shown), Xerxes meets the twelve remaining Spartans and the war is on. Meanwhile, back in Sparta, Queen Margo has several confrontations with Traitoro, because he is the vital vote in sending more troops to assist her husband. Following her address to the Council, Traitoro publicly betrays the Queen. She defeats him in battle. Evidence is shown he is a traitor, uniting the council with the queen. At the Battle of Thermopylae, the Persians introduce their secret weapons: Ghost Rider and Rocky Balboa, who kills Sonio with a decapitating uppercut before his father avenges him with Botox poisoning. But when Captain is struck down by Xerxes, Leonidas pursues Xerxes and plays Grand Theft Auto. Managing to find the "Transformer Cube", Xerxes uses it in a car to become "Xerxestron" as he shows off his powers to access the "Leave Britney Alone!" video on YouTube. However, Xerxestron trips on his extension cord, fulfilling Leonidas' vow that he would fall at the cost of himself and surviving Spartans being crushed. The blind Dilio, who left prior to the final battle, eventually returns to Sparta to tell of Leonidas' final moments. A year later, Dilio leads a force of one hundred real Spartans and several thousand CGI-ones to defeat the Persians, but the blind warrior ends up going the wrong way. They end up in Malibu where they knock Lindsay Lohan down as she is leaving rehab (again). The film ends with a musical number set to Gloria Gaynor's "I Will Survive" performed on "American Idol" by all of the characters in the film. Critical reception. The film received overwhelmingly negative reviews from critics. Rotten Tomatoes ranked the film 25th in the 100 worst reviewed films of the 2000s, with a rating of 2%." Metacritic reported the film had an average score of 9 out of 100, based on 11 reviews — indicating "extreme dislike or disgust" and being the worst received film by the director on the site. One reviewer in Scotland's "The Sunday Herald" gave the film a score of zero, as did Ireland's Day and Night while an Australian newspaper review described it as being "as funny as a burning orphanage". The Radio Times said "After enduring the torturously unfunny "Date Movie" and "Epic Movie", one could be forgiven for concluding that the art of cinematic parody was in terminal decline. This latest installment in Friedberg and Seltzer's franchise hammers a final nail into the coffin with an utterly atrocious collection of imbecilic skits... it's junk-food cinema at its worst. One cringes to think what future cultural historians will make of it… and us." In London, "The Times" reviewer Wendy Ide suggested that the producers of the film were not aiming for 'laughs' but "a simian grunt of recognition from an audience that must have been practically brain-dead to fork out £10 to see a film that can’t even master the concept of out-takes?". This film was the lowest-rated of the 2008 film season. Most of the film's criticism consisted of not having many actual jokes and instead having an over-reliance on pop culture references. Several recurring gags were criticized for being overused, such as throwing various celebrities down the Pit of Death or the ambiguous sexuality of the Spartans. The film's score by Christopher Lennertz was commended by Christian Clemmensen from Filmtracks.com, who considered it one of the biggest "guilty pleasures" of 2008. Upon news of "Meet the Spartans" box office success, "The Soup" staff created a sketch that parodies all previous "Parody Movies" by mentioning the film's weak comedy stunts. On January 21, 2009, the film received five nominations for the 29th Golden Raspberry Awards: Worst Picture (jointly with "Disaster Movie"), Worst Supporting Actress (Electra), Worst Director, Worst Screenplay, and Worst Prequel, Remake, Rip-Off, or Sequel. Box office performance. Despite the overwhelmingly negative critical reaction, the film opened #1 at the US box office, grossing $18,505,530 over its opening weekend, narrowly edging out fellow newcomer "Rambo", which was briefly parodied in the credits of this film. The film dropped 60.4% in its second weekend grossing $7,336,595 expanding to 2643 theaters while ranking fourth at the box office. The film grossed $38,233,676 in the United States and Canada and grossed $45,787,889 Internationally, adding up to a Worldwide gross of $84,021,565. Home media. The film was released on Blu-ray Disc and DVD on June 3, 2008, in an "Unrated Pit of Death" Edition and a PG-13/theatrical release of the film. The theatrical cut does not include extras but includes widescreen and full screen versions on one dual disc. A "ruder & cruder" version was later released in the UK on August 18.
1060261	Thomas Roy "Tom" Skerritt (born August 25, 1933) is an American actor who has appeared in more than forty films and more than two hundred television episodes since 1962. He is best known for his roles in "MASH", "Alien", "Top Gun", "A River Runs Through It", "Up in Smoke", and the television series "Picket Fences". Early life. Skerritt was born in Detroit, Michigan, the son of Helen, a homemaker, and Roy Skerritt, a businessman. A 1951 graduate of Detroit's Mackenzie High School, Skerritt attended Wayne State University and the University of California, Los Angeles. Career. Skerritt made his film debut in "War Hunt", produced by Terry Sanders and released in 1962. Skerritt's notable film appearances include "MASH" (1970), "Harold and Maude" (credited as "M. Borman", 1971), "Big Bad Mama", Cheech & Chong's "Up in Smoke" (1978), "Ice Castles" (1978), as Captain Dallas in "Alien" (1979), as a would-be astronaut in "Contact" (1997) and "SpaceCamp" (1986), and in "Top Gun" (1986) as Commander Mike "Viper" Metcalf. In 1988, he starred with Nancy Allen and Lara Flynn Boyle in "Poltergeist III". Skerrit guest starred in the television series "The Real McCoys" (as a letter carrier), "Bonanza" (1964), "Gunsmoke", and as Evan Drake on "Cheers". He then appeared in CBS's "Picket Fences" (1992–1996), in the role of Sheriff Jimmy Brock, for which he won an Emmy Award. More recently, he has starred in "Homeland Security" and "The Grid". He portrayed the deceased William Walker on "Brothers and Sisters", having appeared in the pilot as well as in several flashbacks since. This was his second time playing the husband of Sally Field, the first having been in the film "Steel Magnolias", set in Natchitoches, Louisiana. He played the role of Ezekiel on ABC Family's "Fallen" miniseries. He also appeared as the guide on the showcase website for Microsoft's Windows Vista operating system. He lent his voice in the 2005 video game "Gun", where he voices as Clay Allison. He guest starred in seasons 3 and 4 of "Leverage" as Nate Ford's father. In February 2012, Skerrit played the title role in Pacific Northwest Ballet's production of "Don Quixote". The New York Times Skerritt is a co-founder of TheFilmSchool, in which he is also an instructor. Personal life. Since 1988, he has divided his domestic life between his Lake Washington home in suburban Seattle, Washington, and a second home on Lopez Island in the San Juan Islands. Skerritt has three sons and one daughter and an adopted daughter with his current wife. Awards and nominations. Blockbuster Entertainment Awards DVD Exclusive Awards Emmy Awards Genie Awards Golden Globe Awards National Board of Review of Motion Pictures Saturn Awards Screen Actors Guild Awards Western Heritage Awards
581801	Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro (Devnagari: जाने भी दो यारों, English: Just Let It Go, Friends) is a 1983 Hindi film directed by Kundan Shah and produced by NFDC. It is a dark satire on the rampant corruption in Indian politics, bureaucracy, news media and business, and stars an ensemble cast that includes the likes of Naseeruddin Shah, Ravi Baswani, Om Puri, Pankaj Kapur, Satish Shah, Satish Kaushik, Bhakti Barve and Neena Gupta. Kundan Shah won the 1984 Indira Gandhi Award for Best First Film of a Director for his work. 'Indiatimes Movies' ranks the film amongst the 'Top 25 Must See Bollywood Films'. The film was part of the NFDC Retrospective at India International Film Festival in 2006 Synopsis. Professional photographers Vinod Chopra (Naseeruddin Shah) and Sudhir Mishra (Ravi Baswani) open a photo studio in the prestigious Haji Ali area in Mumbai, and hope to make enough money to keep it running. After a disastrous start, they are given some work by the editor of "Khabardar", a publication that exposes the scandalous lives of the rich and the famous. They accept it and start working with the editor, Shobha Sen (Bhakti Barve), on a story exposing the dealings between an unscrupulous builder, Tarneja (Pankaj Kapoor), and corrupt Municipal Commissioner D'Mello (Satish Shah). During their investigation, they find out that another builder Ahuja (Om Puri) too is involved in this dealing. While working on their story, Sudhir and Vinod decide to enter a photography contest that carries a prize money of Rs.5000/-, and take a number of photographs all over the city. On developing their pictures, in one of the photographs they see a man shooting someone. Upon enlarging it, they realize that the killer is none other than Tarneja. They immediately return to the park where they had shot that picture and realize that the body is lying behind the bushes. Before the duo get to the body, it disappears, but they manage to retrieve one of a pair of gold cuff links. Sometime later, they attend the inauguration of a bridge dedicated to the memory of late Municipal Commissioner D'Mello who is supposed to have died of a terminal disease. It is there that they discover the other cuff link. They return at night and dig up that area and unearth a coffin containing the dead body of D'Mello. The duo take a number of photographs of the corpse, and wheel it with them with the hopes of exposing Tarneja. Suddenly the body disappears. Later they find out that the body is with Tarneja's rival, Ahuja who had, in an inebriated condition, carried the coffin tied to his car to his farm house. They provide this information to Shobha, who in turn starts blackmailing Tarneja. He invites her and her associates to crack a deal, and plants a bomb to kill them. Unfortunately, the bomb explodes right in the face of Tarneja and his henchmen, and the trio escape from the scene. Later, the duo realize that Shobha and Ahuja are up to no good, and so they take the corpse, and wheel it with them, but not before Tarneja, Ahuja, the new Municipal Commissioner Srivastav (Deepak Qazir), Shobha and others also get involved, resulting in a series of comic mix-ups including one with some burkha-clad women. The climax is set upon a stage dramatization of the Mahabharata, particularly the enactment of the Draupadi Cheer-Haran episode, which is turned on its head with the duo and the group following them inserting themselves into the scene. The corpse plays Draupadi and the vile Duryodhana, who orders the disrobing in the original version, ends up pledging to save Draupadi's honor at any cost. To make things even more hilarious, a new act - that of the ill-fated romance of Salim and Anarkali - is introduced, with the corpse playing Anarkali.
939534	Eloise at the Plaza is a live-action film based on the Eloise series of children's books drawn and written by Kay Thompson and Hilary Knight. It stars young Sofia Vassilieva as Eloise, an irrepressible six-year-old girl who lives in the penthouse at the top of the Plaza Hotel in New York City. This film was produced by Handmade Films and DiVoli Pictures for Walt Disney Television with distribution handled by the ABC Television Network, and released on both VHS and DVD by Buena Vista Home Entertainment in 2003. Plot. Eloise is a fun-loving six-year-old girl with a knack for finding adventure every place she looks. While under the care of her "rawther" wonderful nanny (Julie Andrews), Eloise tries to play matchmaker to a lonely prince and wrangle an invitation to the society event of the season.
587584	Indrudu Chandrudu () is a 1989 Telugu-language film starring Kamal Haasan and Vijayashanti in lead roles. The story of the film is inspired by Richard Dreyfuss's 1988 film "Moon Over Parador", which was based on a short story by Charles G. Booth called "Caviar for His Excellency". It was later dubbed in Tamil as "Indran Chandran" and in Hindi as "Mayor Saab". Plot. G.K Rayadu (Kamal Haasan) is a corrupt Mayor and along with his assistant Charan Raj takes bribe and sells a market to a rich businessman and forces the poor people doing business in the land to move out threatening physical harm. Although Rayadu is married (to Srividya), he has a mistress. Rayadu comes to find out that his assistant and his mistress are married and has been cheating him out of his money for a long time. He finds the assistant’s stash of diamonds and takes it. After spending some time with his wife and kids, Rayadu gets a change of heart and decides to expose his and his assistant’s illegal activities. Before he leaves, he hides the diamonds inside one of his children’s toys. His assistant finds out, murders Rayadu in a fit of rage and stores the body in a freezer. Panicking that soon people will realize that the Mayor is missing, he notices Rayadu's younger lookalike, Chandram (Kamal Haasan) in a mental institution. Deducting that Chandram is faking his mental breakdown to beat a murder charge and avoid jail, they blackmail Chandram into playing the Mayor till a major deal is completed and the assistant gets a lot of money. Chandram is promised freedom if he is successful. Chandram learns Rayadu’s speech and mannerisms and with heavy prosthetics and make up, becomes a suitable double for the Mayor.
588439	Adhu Oru Kana Kaalam () is a 2005 Tamil drama film written and directed by Balu Mahendra. The film featured Dhanush and Priyamani in lead roles, while Karunas and Delhi Ganesh played supporting roles. The music for the was scored by Ilaiyaraaja, while Sai Suresh produced the venture. The film was loosely based on the director's 1982 Telugu film "Nireekshana" as well "Yathra" (1985), which featured Mammootty in the lead role. The film was released on 1 November 2005, coinciding with Diwali, and received a below average response commercially. Plot. Srinivasan (Dhanush) escapes from jail and hitches a ride on a truck to meet his love Thulasi (Priya Mani). He reveals his flashback to the lorry driver, telling him of the disputes between his ambitious father and himself. When the parents leave home for a week, Srinivasan is left in the maid's care. Soon, he meets the maid's daughter, Thulasi, his childhood playmate and they fall in love. As expected, his father objects to his son falling in love with the servant's daughter. One day, Srinivasan and his friends land up in prison for crashing their car on a police vehicle. While at the police station, Srinivasan locks horns with an inmate in jail and when he pushes him in a fit of rage, he sustains a serious head injury subsequently killing him. Eventually Srinivasan gets convicted for 10-year-rigorous imprisonment. His mother dies; Thulasi's family goes bankrupt and leaves to their native village in Ooty. A dejected Srinivasan escapes from prison to meet Thulasi. Whether the two join together forms the rest of the story. Production. Following the success of "Kadhal Kondein" (2003), Balu Mahendra signed on Dhanush to appear in his next film in July 2003. Initially the director revealed that the film titled "Adhu Oru Kana Kaalam" would be an extension to his 1979 film "Azhiyadha Kolangal" stating that Dhanush would play a teenager infatuated by a woman who is fifteen years older than him to be played by Ramya Krishnan. However he opted against doing that story and decided to build his film around two of his Malayalam films from the 1980s - "Nireekshana" and "Yathra", and the title of the film was subsequently changed to "Unakkae Uyiranaen". It was later changed back to the original title before release. The shoot for the film began in December 2003 with scenes featuring the lead pair shot in Chennai. The film was shot in Hogenakkal Falls in November 2004, with Dhanush getting married to Aishwarya Rajinikanth in between schedules. He consequently also delayed his honeymoon, to commit to a 15 day schedule for the film in December 2004. During the making of the film, Dhanush also struck up a friendship with assistant director Vetrimaaran, and the pair have since come together for three films. The film was delayed through late 2004 after the director fell ill. In August 2005, the film faced criticism for a promotional hoarding put up in Chennai which featured photographs of Priyamani and Dhanush in a compromising position. It became the second such film during the period, where they were forced to remove the hoardings due to public protest after Silambarasan's "Vallavan". Further trouble occurred in October 2005, Balu Mahendra approached the police seeking action to secure a sum of Rs 3.75 lakh, an outstanding amount of his salary for directing the movie, from the producer Sai Suresh and matters were resolved quickly. Although early reports suggested that Dhanush would be the distributor, producer Vishwas Sundar, bought the distribution rights and subsequently released the film in the Diwali season of 2005. After the film's release, members of the regional censor board complained that the promos of "Adhu Oru Kana Kaalam" were being shown on television without mentioning that the film had an "adult" certificate. At the time of censoring, Balu Mahendra was not willing to cut the scene between the lead pair of Dhanush and Priya Mani and opted for an “A” certificate, which he subsequently refused to note down in the promotions. Release. The film received mixed reviews, with Shobha Warrier of Rediff.com stating that the film "disappointed", criticizing the film in comparison to Mahendra's earlier work, "Yathra". The Hindu's critic noted that "excelling in technical aspects, the film falls short in the area of storyline." In comparison, Indiaglitz.com noted that "Balu Mahendra's direction is from the heart. Yet, there is a cerebral touch. He takes up subjects that are every-day, but infuses in them a special meaning. He gives his own interpretation" The critic also proceeded to praise the performances of the lead pair. "Adhu Oru Kana Kaalam" opened alongside other big films like Vijay-starrer "Sivakasi" and the Vikram-starrer "Majaa" and thus took a lukewarm opening at the box office. The film was described by trade pundits as a "complete wash-out". Soundtrack. The soundtrack of the film, composed by Ilaiyaraaja.
1034363	Robert Hardy, CBE, FSA (born 29 October 1925) is an English actor with a long career in the theatre, film and television. Early life. Timothy Sydney Robert Hardy was born in Cheltenham, England, the son of Jocelyn (née Dugdale) and Henry Harrison Hardy. His father was headmaster of Cheltenham College. He was educated at Rugby School and Magdalen College, Oxford University, where his studies were interrupted by service in the Royal Air Force, after which he returned to gain a BA (Hons) in English. On BBC Radio Four's "Desert Island Discs" he described the degree he obtained as "shabby", although he treasures the time spent studying under C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien. Career. Hardy began his career as a classical actor. In 1959 he appeared as Sicinius opposite Laurence Olivier in "Coriolanus" at Stratford-upon-Avon, directed by Peter Hall. He then appeared in Shakespeare's "Henry V" on stage and in television's "An Age of Kings" (1960), and subsequently played Coriolanus in "The Spread of the Eagle" (BBC, 1963) and Sir Toby Belch for the BBC Television Shakespeare in 1980. Over the years, Hardy has played a range of parts on television and film. His first continuing role in a TV series was as businessman Alec Stewart in the award-winning oil company drama "The Troubleshooters" for the BBC, which he played from 1966 to 1970. He won further acclaim for his portrayal of the mentally-unhinged Abwehr Sgt. Gratz in LWT's 1969 war drama "Manhunt". In 1975, Hardy portrayed Prince Albert in the award-winning 13-hour serial "Edward the Seventh". He was seen as the senior veterinarian Siegfried Farnon in the long-running "All Creatures Great and Small" (1978–1990), an adaptation of James Herriot's novels. Hardy also made an appearance in the 1986–88 ITV comedy series "Hot Metal", in which he played the dual roles of newspaper proprietor Twiggy Rathbone (who bore more than a passing resemblance to Rupert Murdoch) and his editor, Russell Spam. In 1993 Hardy appeared in an episode of "Inspector Morse", playing Andrew Baydon in "Twilight of the Gods". Hardy played the part of the successful businessman with a murky wartime past with a characteristic blend of the vulnerable and the bombastic. In 2002 he played the role of pompous and eccentric Professor Neddy Welch in a WTTV/WGBH Boston co-production of "Lucky Jim", adapted from the novel by Kingsley Amis. It aired originally as part of the "Masterpiece" series on PBS in the U.S. and starred Stephen Tompkinson in the title role of Jim Dixon, a luckless lecturer at a provincial British university. In 2010 Hardy appeared in an episode of "Lewis", playing Sir Malcolm in "Dark Matter". Hardy holds the distinction of having played both Winston Churchill and Franklin D. Roosevelt, each on more than one occasion. He played Churchill most notably in "" (1981), for which he won a BAFTA award, but also in "The Sittaford Mystery", "Bomber Harris" and "War and Remembrance". He played Roosevelt in the BBC serial, "Bertie and Elizabeth", and in the French TV mini-series, "Le Grand Charles", about the life of Charles de Gaulle. Returning to his Churchill experience, on 20 August 2010 he read Churchill's famous wartime address "Never was so much owed by so many to so few" at a ceremony to mark the 70th anniversary of the speech. He also played Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester in "Elizabeth R", and Prince Albert in "Edward the Seventh" (known as "Edward the King" to the American audience). He took the role of Sir John Middleton in the 1995 film version of "Sense and Sensibility". His big screen roles include Minister of Magic Cornelius Fudge in the "Harry Potter" films. On radio he played Lord Malan in "His Master's Voice". His voice performance as Robin Hood in "Tale Spinners For Children", an LP from the 1960s, is considered one of the best Robin Hood renditions. His voice was also the voice of D'Artagnan in "The Three Musketeers", and of Frédéric Chopin, in "The Story of Chopin". Awards. He was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the Queen's Birthday Honours of 1981. Personal life. His first marriage, in 1952, was to Elizabeth Fox, the daughter of Sir Lionel Fox. This marriage ended in 1956. In 1961 he married Sally Pearson, the daughter of Dame Gladys Cooper and sister-in-law of Robert Morley. This marriage ended in 1986. Robert Hardy has three children. He was a close friend of actor Richard Burton, whom he met at Oxford University. He shared some memories of their wartime friendship and read extracts from Burton's newly published diaries at this year's Cheltenham Literature Festival (2012). While playing Henry V, Hardy developed an interest in medieval warfare, and he later wrote and presented an acclaimed television documentary on the subject of the Battle of Agincourt. He has also written two books on the subject of the longbow, "Longbow: A Social and Military History" and "The Great War Bow" with Matthew Strickland. He was one of the experts consulted by the archaeologist responsible for raising the "Mary Rose". He was Master of the Worshipful Company of Bowyers of the City of London from 1988 to 1990. In 1996 he was elected a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries. In February 2013, Hardy withdrew from his scheduled performance as Winston Churchill in Peter Morgan's play, "The Audience", after suffering cracked ribs as the result of a fall.
725448	Michael Damian Weir (born April 26, 1962) is an American actor, Billboard #1 recording artist and producer, best known for his role as singer Danny Romalotti on the soap opera "The Young and the Restless", which he played from 1980 to 1998 and reprised as a guest star on several different occasions, the most recent being Spring/Summer 2012. Career. At a performance at The Troubador, with the Weir family band (The Weirz), Damian was recognized from an 1981 appearance on American Bandstand, Michael Damian Weir was approached and agreed to play the part of a struggling singer (Danny Romalotti) on the daytime television series, "The Young and the Restless". After twelve years with "The Young and the Restless", Damian landed the starring role in the Broadway production of the Andrew Lloyd Webber/Tim Rice musical, "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat". With Damian cast as Joseph, at the Pantages Theatre (Hollywood), the production set a single day box-office record and also set a historical record for the highest weekly gross for a Broadway revival while playing at the Minskoff Theatre, week ending January 2, 1994. "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat" had 231 performances at the Minskoff Theatre from November 10, 1993 to May 29, 1994; the 1993, Polydor Records, cast album earned a Grammy Award nomination in the "Best Musical Show Album" category. Damian revisited the role of Danny Romalotti on "The Young and the Restless" in March 2008, as part of the show's 35th anniversary celebration and the role of Romalotti was revisited again in 2012. In addition to his television and theatre career, Damian has released five albums and has had eight top 40 hits, including his number-one cover of the David Essex song "Rock On" from the soundtrack to "Dream a Little Dream", which earned him his first gold record. He also won a BMI Song-writing Award for his hit single, "Was It Nothing at All". Damian later remade "Rock On" along with some of his past hits on his album released March 3, 2009, on Caption Records. In 1981, Michael Damian's first release, "She Did It," was a remake of a number 23 hit from 1977 by singer/songwriter Eric Carmen. Damian also recorded an alternate version of the theme song to NBC TV series "Saved by the Bell" which was used during the first and second seasons.
1073478	Alien Raiders is a 2008 American science fiction horror film, starring Carlos Bernard, Rockmond Dunbar and Mathew St. Patrick. The film is Ben Rock's first feature film as a director. The film was produced by Daniel Myrick, John Shiban, and Tony Krantz, and was released by Warner Home Video and Raw Feed in September 2008.
1350238	Office Romance (, translit. "Sluzhebnyy roman") is a Soviet comedy film directed by Eldar Ryazanov. It was filmed at Mosfilm and released in 1977. The film's plot is based on the stageplay "Co-workers" (, translit. "Sosluzhivtsy") written by Eldar Ryazanov and Emil Braginsky, and tells the story of Ludmila Kalugina, a general manager of a statistical bureau, and her subordinate, economist Anatoly Novoseltsev, who come from mutual aversion to love.
657641	When Harry Tries to Marry is a 2010 romantic comedy film, co-written, produced and directed by Nayan Padrai and starring Rahul Rai, Stefanie Estes, and Freishia Bomanbehram. Development and release. Initially a featured screenplay project at the Sundance Institute Independent Producers’ Conference in 2004; and a top-ten finalist of the Creative Screenwriting contest in 2009, filming commenced on the film on October 21, 2009 in New York City, with additional location shooting in Kutch, India. The film had its world premiere at the Austin Film Festival on October 22, 2010 and later played at the Mumbai Film Festival on October 27, 2010. Subsequently, the film won Best Film (Audience Award), Best Crossover Film, and Best New Talent (Rahul Rai) at the Gala Dinner held at BAFTA by the London Asian Film Festival. The film also won Best Feature Film (Comedy) at the Jersey Shore Film Festival, and was an official selection of the inaugural Gold Coast International Film Festival.
1059256	Forgetting Sarah Marshall is a 2008 American romantic comedy-drama film directed by Nicholas Stoller and starring Jason Segel, Kristen Bell, Mila Kunis and Russell Brand. The film, which was written by Segel and co-produced by Judd Apatow, was released by Universal Studios. Filming began in April 2007 at the Turtle Bay Resort on the North Shore of Oahu Island in Hawaii. The film was released for North American theaters on April 18, 2008 and in the UK a week later on April 25, 2008. The puppets seen in the film were created by Jim Henson's Creature Shop. The story revolves around Peter Bretter, who is a music composer for a TV show that happens to feature his girlfriend, Sarah Marshall, in the lead role. After a five-year relationship, Sarah abruptly breaks up with Peter. Devastated by this event, he chooses to go on a vacation in Hawaii, in order to try to move forward with his life. Trouble ensues when he runs into his ex on the island as she is vacationing with her new boyfriend. Plot. Composer Peter Bretter (Jason Segel) is in a five-year relationship with actress Sarah Marshall (Kristen Bell), who stars in a -like television show, "Crime Scene: Scene of the Crime." One day, as Peter stands stark naked in their apartment, Sarah announces that she is breaking up with him. Devastated, and unable to banish his grief through one-night stands, Peter takes a trip to Hawaii. However, the vacation is ruined when he learns that Sarah and her new rockstar boyfriend Aldous Snow (Russell Brand) are also guests of the resort. Taking pity on him, hotel concierge Rachel (Mila Kunis) offers him an expensive suite for free in exchange for cleaning up the room himself. Peter begins spending time with Rachel and starts to develop feelings for her. Meanwhile, the relationship between Sarah and Aldous begins to falter. Much of the discord is triggered by the news that Sarah’s TV show has been canceled and Aldous is about to embark on a World Tour with his group, Infant Sorrow, for fourteen months. During a day of surf and sand Aldous and Peter run into each other and begin talking. Inadvertently, Aldous informs Peter that he and Sarah began having sex a full year before she broke up with Peter. When Peter confronts Sarah, she tells him she began feeling disconnected emotionally from him and she couldn't do anything to make their relationship work. Further exacerbating the situation is Sarah's obvious jealousy of the budding relationship between Peter and Rachel, while Peter (through observing Sarah's relationship with Aldous) begins to realize that his relationship with her wasn't as great as he remembered. Later, Sarah, Aldous, Peter and Rachel share an awkward dinner together. After the dinner, Peter takes Rachel back to his hotel room and they begin to have sex. Sarah hears them through the wall and initiates sex with Aldous, moaning loudly for the benefit of the couple next door, and Rachel and Peter turn the situation into a game and become even louder. When Aldous realizes Sarah is clearly putting on a performance to try and get a rise out of Peter, he stops the sex and tells her the trip was a mistake as she's clearly not over Peter. They bicker furiously and cruelly, prompting Aldous to announce that the relationship is over. The next day Peter encounters Aldous, and learns that he and Sarah have broken up and that he is flying back to England. Peter goes to Sarah's room to console her where she admits she still loves him and tries to rekindle their romance. The two start to engage in sexual activity, but Peter abruptly cuts it off because of his feelings for Rachel, and his now ambivalent feelings towards Sarah. Peter immediately goes to Rachel to confess what happened, but she is hurt and demands that he leave and never contact her again. Before leaving, Peter takes down a naked picture of Rachel from a local bar and gets badly beaten by the owner.
343401	Meatballs Part II is a 1984 film that was a sequel to the 1979 movie "Meatballs". The film starred Richard Mulligan, Hamilton Camp, Kim Richards, John Mengatti, Paul Reubens, Misty Rowe, John Larroquette, Blackie Dammett, Donald Gibb and Jason Luque. Plot. This in-name-only sequel to the first Meatballs summer camp movie sets us at Camp Sasquatch and revolves around two main plots. The owner of Sasquatch, Giddy, tries to keep his camp open after Hershey, the owner of Camp Patton located just across the lake, wants to buy the entire lake area for Camp Patton. Giddy suggests settling the issue with the traditional end-of-the-summer boxing match over rights to the lake. A tough, inner city punk named Flash is at Camp Sasquatch for community service as a counselor-in-training. Flash is recruited to box in order to save Sasquatch. The second main subplot involves Cheryl. She is a naive teen whom Flash sets his sights on. Cheryl's teenage girl co-campers arrange for Cheryl to see a man naked after she confesses she's never seen a "pinky." Also in the movie, an alien is also staying at the camp for the summer.
1039571	Richard Griffiths, OBE (31 July 1947 – 28 March 2013) was an English actor of stage, film and television. He received the Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actor, the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Actor in a Play, the Outer Critics Circle Award for Best Featured Actor and a Tony Award for Best Performance by a Leading Actor in a Play, all for his role in the play "The History Boys". He is also known for his portrayal of Vernon Dursley in the "Harry Potter" films, Uncle Monty in "Withnail and I", Henry Crabbe in "Pie in the Sky", and King George II in "". He also appeared as a British journalist in Richard Attenborough's Oscar-winning 1982 film "Gandhi". Early years. Griffiths was born in Thornaby-on-Tees, North Riding of Yorkshire, England, the son of Jane (née Denmark) and Thomas Griffiths. His father was a steelworker who also fought in pubs for money, while his mother's occupation was described as "bagger". He and his brother John were raised in the Roman Catholic faith. His parents were both deaf, and he learned sign language at an early age in order to communicate with them. During his childhood he attempted to run away from home many times. He dropped out of Our Lady & St Bede School in Stockton-On-Tees at age 15 and worked as a porter for Littlewoods for a while, but his boss eventually convinced him to go back to school. He decided to attend a drama class at Stockton & Billingham College. He continued his education in drama at Manchester Polytechnic School of Drama (present-day Manchester School of Theatre). Career. After graduating, Griffiths earned a spot on BBC Radio. He also worked in small theatres, sometimes acting and sometimes managing. He built up an early reputation as a Shakespearean clown with portrayals of the Constable in "The Comedy of Errors" and Falstaff in "The Merry Wives of Windsor" with the Royal Shakespeare Company, and went on to play the King in "Henry VIII". He eventually settled in Manchester and began to get lead roles in plays. From there he began to appear on television and then got his big break in film in "It Shouldn't Happen to a Vet" (1975). By the early 1980s, he was selected for the lead role in the BBC drama serial "Bird of Prey", an early computer-conspiracy thriller. His character, Henry Jay, was reprised in "Bird of Prey 2" (1984). In 1981 he also gave a memorable performance as Chilean secret police victim William Beausire in an edition of the BBC "Prisoners of Conscience" series. He went on to supporting roles in a number of major films, including "The French Lieutenant's Woman", "Chariots of Fire", and "Gandhi". On stage, in 1985–86 he performed the role of Verdi in Julian Mitchell's "After Aida", in Wales and at the Old Vic Theatre in London. Griffiths' film roles were in both contemporary and period pieces such as "Gorky Park" (1983), "Withnail and I" (1987), "King Ralph" (1991), "" (1991), "Guarding Tess" (1994) and "Sleepy Hollow" (1999). Later, he was seen as Harry Potter's cruel uncle Vernon Dursley in the "Harry Potter" series ("Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone", "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets", "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban", "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix", and "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 1". He appeared as Inspector Henry Crabbe, disillusioned policeman and pie chef extraordinaire, in the British detective drama "Pie in the Sky", a role which was created specifically for him. He also made an extended appearance in the 2005 version of Charles Dickens' "Bleak House". In 2004, he originated the role of Hector (the teacher) in Alan Bennett's play "The History Boys", directed by Nicholas Hytner, winning the 2005 Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actor. During the play's subsequent United States run, he added a Drama Desk Award, an Outer Critics Circle Award, and a Tony Award. He reprised his role in the film version which was released in October 2006. Together with his "Harry Potter" co-star Daniel Radcliffe, who plays Harry Potter, he appeared in a stage revival of Peter Shaffer's "Equus" at the Gielgud Theatre in London, and later from October 2008 in a short run of the play at the Broadhurst Theatre on Broadway which ended in February 2009. Later in 2009 he replaced Michael Gambon as W.H. Auden prior to the premiere of "The Habit of Art" at the National Theatre, once again directed by Hytner. Griffiths was considered for the part of the Doctor in "Doctor Who" following Tom Baker's departure in 1981, but was unavailable. He was strongly considered once again to take on the role of the Eighth Doctor, had the series continued past 1989. Coincidentally, his two principal co-stars from "Withnail and I"—Paul McGann and Richard E. Grant—went on to play the role in some capacity. Griffiths has also performed in adaptations of the "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy", providing the voice for Slartibartfast for the radio adaptation of "Life, the Universe and Everything" and playing the Vogon Jeltz in the film version of "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy". He has also appeared in "Bedtime Stories" with Adam Sandler, and as a special guest in "". Griffiths asked a member of the audience to leave a performance of "Heroes" after her phone rang three times. This interruption of a performance because of audience distraction happened three times in his career. Griffiths appeared as King George II in 2011's "". He appeared in the first episode of the television series "Episodes" as Julian Bullard. In April 2012, Griffiths starred, with Danny DeVito, in a revival of the Neil Simon play "The Sunshine Boys". The show previewed at the Savoy Theatre from 27 April 2012, opening on 17 May and playing a limited 12-week season until 28 July. Personal life. Griffiths met Heather Gibson in 1973 and they married in 1980. He had no children. He was awarded an honorary degree from Teesside University in 2006 and was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2008 New Year Honours. Death. Griffiths died aged 65 at the University Hospital Coventry on 28 March 2013 after complications following heart surgery.
1105015	Maria Gaetana Agnesi (May 16, 1718 – January 9, 1799) was an Italian mathematician and philosopher. She is credited with writing the first book discussing both differential and integral calculus and was an honorary member of the faculty at the University of Bologna. She devoted the last four decades of her life to studying theology (especially patristics) and to serving the poor. Maria Teresa Agnesi Pinottini, clavicembalist and composer, was her sister. Early life. Maria Gaetana Agnesi was born in Milan on May 16, 1718, to a wealthy and literate family. Her father wanted to elevate his family into the Milanese nobility. In order to achieve his goal, he had married in 1717 Anna Fortunata Brivio. Her mother's death provided her the excuse to retire from public life. She took over management of the household. Having been born in Milan, Maria was recognized as a child prodigy very early; she could speak both Italian and French at five years of age. By her thirteenth birthday she had acquired Greek, Hebrew, Spanish, German, Latin, and was referred to as the "Walking Polyglot". She even educated her younger brothers. When she was 9 years old, she composed and delivered an hour-long speech in Latin to some of the most distinguished intellectuals of the day. The subject was women's right to be educated. When she was fifteen, her father began to regularly gather in his house a circle of the most learned men in Bologna, before whom she read and maintained a series of theses on the most abstruse philosophical questions. Records of these meetings are given in Charles de Brosses' "Lettres sur l'Italie" and in the "Propositiones Philosophicae", which her father had published in 1738. Maria was very shy in nature and did not like these meetings. Although her father refused to grant this wish of joining a convent, he agreed to let her live from that time on in an almost conventual semi-retirement, avoiding all interactions with society and devoting herself entirely to the study of mathematics. During that time, Maria studied both differential and integral calculus. Her father, Pietro Agnesi, also married twice more after Maria's mother died, so that Maria Agnesi ended up the oldest of 21 children. In addition to her performances and lessons, her responsibility was to teach her siblings. This task kept her from her own goal of entering a convent. Fellow philosophers thought she was extremely beautiful and her family was recognized as one of the wealthiest in Milan. Maria became a professor at the University of Bologna. Contributions to mathematics. "Instituzioni analitiche". The most valuable result of her labours was the "Instituzioni analitiche ad uso della gioventù italiana", a work of great merit, which was published at Milan in 1748 and "was regarded as the best introduction extant to the works of Euler." The first volume treats of the analysis of finite quantities and the second of the analysis of infinitesimals. A French translation of the second volume by P. T. d'Antelmy, with additions by Charles Bossut (1730–1814), was published in Paris in 1775; and an English translation of the whole work by John Colson (1680–1760), the Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge, "inspected" by John Hellins, was published in 1801 at the expense of Baron Maseres. Witch of Agnesi. The "Instituzioni analitiche...", among other things, discussed a curve earlier studied and constructed by Pierre de Fermat and Guido Grandi. Grandi called the curve "versoria" in Latin and suggested the term "versiera" for Italian, possibly as a pun: 'versoria' is a nautical term, "sheet", while "versiera/aversiera" is "she-devil", "witch", from Latin "Adversarius", an alias for "devil" (Adversary of God). For whatever reasons, after translations and publications of the "Instituzioni analitiche..." the curve has become known as the "Witch of Agnesi". Other. Agnesi also wrote a commentary on the "Traité analytique des sections coniques du marquis de l'Hôpital", which, though highly praised by those who saw it in manuscript, was never published. Later life. In 1750, on the illness of her father, she was appointed by Pope Benedict XIV to the chair of mathematics and natural philosophy and physics at Bologna. She was the first woman to be appointed professor at a university. After the death of her father in 1752 she carried out a long-cherished purpose by giving herself to the study of theology, and especially of the Fathers and devoted herself to the poor, homeless, and sick. After holding for some years the office of director of the Hospice Trivulzio for Blue Nuns at Milan, she herself joined the sisterhood, and in this austere order ended her days, though the terms of her death are unknown.
1510203	Dear Mr. Gacy is a 2010 Canadian drama thriller film directed by Svetozar Ristovski, starring William Forsythe and Jesse Moss. The film is based on Jason Moss's memoir, "The Last Victim". Plot. As part of his college thesis, Jason Moss (Jesse Moss), a criminology student, decides to write to serial killers and attempt to gain their trust through impersonating a typical victim or admirer. Moss sends a carefully crafted letter to John Wayne Gacy (William Forsythe) in prison, portraying himself as a vulnerable, sexually confused boy. The letter is an intricate plan to get inside Gacy's head in hopes of uncovering new information regarding his murders that will aid Moss in writing a standout term paper. The film unfolds as Gacy, suspicious at first, puts Moss through intense emotional tests via letters and collect calls, all of which lead to strained relationships with his girlfriend and family before an eventual face-to-face visit in prison. The film ends with a real-life interview with the real Jason Moss, and shows the real photo taken of Moss and Gacy several days before the execution, stating that Moss went on to graduate and write a book on his relationship with Gacy before committing suicide in June 2006. Production. The film based on the real life story of Jason Moss, who as a college student attending UNLV, corresponded with five prominent serial killers on death row in an attempt to determine if there was more to be learned if one was to impersonate their typical victims or act as an ardent admirer. The focus of the film is Moss' interaction with John Wayne Gacy (convicted of murdering 33 young men and boys), with whom he developed the strongest relationship. Screenwriter Kellie Madison approached Clark Peterson, executive producer of "Monster", to attempt to bring the story to life. It was during the course of their discussions with Moss, who was thrilled at the prospect of developing his novel "The Last Victim" into a film, that they learned of his suicide on June 6, 2006. After an appropriate period of time had passed, they approached Moss’ widow and ultimately were able to gain acceptance of the proposal, and "Dear Mr. Gacy" was developed. This is Kellie Madison’s first adaptation to the big screen. The film was shot in Vancouver, British Columbia. Release. "Dear Mr. Gacy" premiered on Canadian TV on May 11, 2010, and was released on video later in the year.
582749	Kamaal Khan (born 12 March 1972 in Highgate, North London) is a Bollywood/Hindi Pop singer, actor, songwriter, music producer and businessman.
930461	An Old Fashioned Thanksgiving is a television film based on a short story by Louisa May Alcott. Filmed on location in Canada, the film premiered on Hallmark Channel on November 22, 2008. It is followed by the sequel, "An Old Fashioned Christmas" which aired on December 11, 2010. Synopsis. Widow Mary Bassett (Helene Joy) and her 3 children have hit difficult times on their farm; it is especially apparent when they cannot even afford a turkey for their Thanksgiving dinner. Oldest daughter Tilly (Tatiana Maslany) writes to Mary’s wealthy and estranged mother Isabella (Jacqueline Bisset), exaggerating their situation in a lengthy letter. Isabella comes to the farm to offer her help and finds a kindred spirit in Tilly. However, Mary resents her mother’s attempts to help them out of their financial difficulties. Reception. The film did very well for Hallmark Channel when it premiered. It gained 5.2 million viewers, delivering a 3.2 household rating and nearly 2.8 million homes, making it the highest-rated cable movie of the premiere day and week. It also ranked #1 in the time period for household and total viewer ratings and deliveries, and boosted the network to rank #1 in Prime Time for the day. This made Hallmark Channel rank #6 for the week. This made the film the fifth-highest-rated original movie in the network’s history to its date, and its fourth-most-watched original movie among households. It is also the network’s most watched and highest-rated November original movie ever. Critics' reviews, however, were mixed. "Star" magazine called the film "stuffy,", while the "TV Examiner" claimed "Hallmark Channel has cranked a sweet, ultimately uplifting old school holiday film" and called it an "old style of made-for-TV film."
437834	Arthur T. Benjamin (born March 19, 1961) is an American mathematician who specializes in combinatorics. Since 1989 he has been a Professor of Mathematics at Harvey Mudd College. He is known for mental math capabilities and mathemagics performances. These have included shows at the Magic Castle and TED. He is also the first mathematician to have been featured on the Colbert Report. He has a Bachelor of Science with highest honors in Applied Mathematics from Carnegie Mellon University in 1983, a Master of Science in Engineering in Mathematical Sciences in 1985 and a Doctor of Philosophy from Johns Hopkins University in 1989; his PhD dissertation was titled "Turnpike Structures for Optimal Maneuvers". During his freshman year at CMU he wrote the lyrics and created the magic effects for the musical comedy, "Kije!", in collaboration with author Scott McGregor and composer Arthur Darrell Turner. This musical was the winner of an annual competition and was first performed as the CMU's Spring Musical in 1980. The Mathematical Association of America gave him a regional award for distinguished teaching in 1999 and a national one in 2000. He was the Mathematical Association of America's George Pólya Lecturer for 2006-8. In 2012 he became a fellow of the American Mathematical Society. He also filmed a series of The Teaching Company lectures called "The Joy of Mathematics", "Discrete Mathematics", and "The Secrets of Mental Math". "Mathemagics", a multimedia disc released for the 3DO Interactive Multiplayer in 1994, consists largely of short demonstrations and lessons by Benjamin in mental math and mathemagics. Benjamin was one of the performers at the inaugural San Diego Science Festival on April 4, 2009. Benjamin won the American Backgammon Tour in 1997. He has written a book named "Think like a Math Genius" in which he shares ways to work with numbers quickly in mind without use of paper and pencil.
1163801	Martha Ellen Scott (September 22, 1912 – May 28, 2003) was an Oscar-nominated American actress. She was featured in major films like "Ben-Hur", "The Ten Commandments", and "Our Town" Scott often appeared in supporting roles as the mother of the lead character in numerous films and television shows. Early life. Scott was born in Jamesport, Missouri, the daughter of Letha (née McKinley) and Walter Scott, an engineer and garage owner; her mother was a second-cousin of U.S. President William McKinley. The Scott family remained in Jamesport until Martha was thirteen years old when they moved to Kansas City, Missouri and eventually to Detroit Michigan. Scott became interested in acting in high school, an interest she furthered by attending the University of Michigan, earning a Bachelors Degree in Drama in 1934. Career. Stage. Martha Scott received a career boost right out of college when she appeared with the Globe Theatre Troupe in a series of Shakespeare productions at the Century of Progress world's fair in Chicago in 1934. Following that she moved to New York City, where she found steady work both in stock stage productions and in radio dramas. In 1938 she made her Broadway debut in the original staging of Thornton Wilder's play "Our Town" as Emily Webb, the tragic young woman who dies in childbirth. Film. Two years later Martha Scott reprised the role of Emily in her film debut as "Our Town" was brought to the silver screen. Her critically acclaimed performance earned Scott an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress. The newcomer Scott was up against some of Hollywood's biggest names for the award -- Katharine Hepburn, Joan Fontaine, Bette Davis, and the winner Ginger Rogers. With an Oscar nomination on her resume' Scott found steady movie work for the next four decades, appearing in some major epics like "The Ten Commandments", "Ben-Hur", "The Desperate Hours", and "Airport 1975". Charlton Heston was a frequent co-star with Scott on both stage and screen, as she told an interviewer in 1988: ""I played his mother twice and his wife twice. I was his mother in Ben Hur and The Ten Commandments. I was his wife on the stage in New York in Design For a Stained Glass Window and The Tumbler in London."" Producer. In 1968, Scott joined Henry Fonda and Robert Ryan in forming a theatrical production company called "The Plumstead Playhouse". It later became the Plumstead Theatre Company and moved to Los Angeles. The company produced "First Monday in October", both on stage and on film (Walter Matthau and Jill Clayburgh appeared in the film). Scott co-produced both versions. Her last production was "Twelve Angry Men", which was performed at the Henry Fonda Theatre in Hollywood, California. Television. Martha Scott first began appearing in TV roles in the medium's early days. Her first came in 1950 on the "Nash Airflyte Theater" followed by several guest appearances on "Robert Montgomery Presents" and other shows of televisions "golden age". This pattern of guest episodic roles continued through the 1960s with appearances on "Route 66", "Ironside", and "The Courtship of Eddie's Father" among others. Scott was a frequent TV guest star in the 1970s. She had recurring roles as Bob Newhart's mother on "The Bob Newhart Show", the mother of Colonel Steve Austin (Lee Majors) on both "The Six Million Dollar Man" and "The Bionic Woman" as well as Patricia Shepard, Sue Ellen and Kristin's mother on "Dallas". Scott was cast in single episode guest appearances on several hit shows of the era like "The Sandy Duncan Show", "Columbo: Playback" (1975), "The Mod Squad, and "Marcus Welby, M.D.", and "The Love Boat". In the 1980s she had a regular role on the short-lived series "Secrets of Midland Heights", several television movies, and single-episode appearances in shows like "Magnum, P.I.", "The Paper Chase", and "Highway to Heaven". In the late 1980s, she and Jeffrey Lynn acted in an episode of "Murder, She Wrote", which was a direct sequel to their 1949 feature film "Strange Bargain". Martha Scott's final acting role on television came in 1990 in the movie "Daughter of the Streets". Personal life. Martha Scott was twice-married. First to radio producer and announcer Carlton Alsop from 1940 to 1946, and then to jazz pianist and composer Mel Powell from 1946 until his death in 1998. She had one child with Alsop, son Carlton Scott Alsop, and two daughters—Mary Powell Harpel and Kathleen Powell—with her second husband. According to son Scott his mother never forgot about her childhood hometown, using the mental image of a Jamesport cemetery in preparation for her Oscar-nominated role in "Our Town". Said Alsop ""She told me she used that place as her image because it's so serene and beautiful"" and that her deceased McKinley and Scott relatives ""became the Gibbs and the Webbs in the play."" Martha Scott died on May 28, 2003 in California. Per her last wishes she was interred next to her husband, Mel Powell, in the Masonic Cemetery in her native Jamesport, Missouri. Honors. Martha Scott has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, next to the Fonda Theatre.
1067390	How High is a 2001 stoner comedy starring Method Man and Redman, written by Dustin Lee Abraham, and director Jesse Dylan's debut feature film. "Entertainment Weekly" rated it third in their "Best Stoner Movie" top ten list. The movie also won the Stony Award of 2002 for the Best Stoner Movie, but received highly negative reviews according to Rotten Tomatoes. Plot. The plot is centered around two underachieving pot smokers: Silas (Method Man) and Jamal (Redman). When Silas's friend Ivory (Chuck Davis) dies, Silas uses his ashes as fertilizer for a new batch of marijuana. While both are sitting in the parking lot before taking their "THC" (Testing for Higher Credentials, a parody of the SAT in allusion to Tetrahydrocannabinol) exams for college, neither is able to smoke his individual marijuana stash without the help of the other. They soon discover that smoking Silas's new batch summons the ghost of the recently deceased Ivory, visible to just the two of them. Ivory tells them the test answers as they take the test and they both score perfect scores. Several dubious colleges offer the pair scholarships, but none of them are appealing. Eventually, Chancellor Huntley (Fred Willard) suggests the two apply to Harvard University. Once there, they meet Bart (Chris Elwood), captain of the rowing team, his girlfriend Lauren (Lark Voorhies), I Need Money (Al Shearer), and their roommates Jeffrey (Justin Urich) & Tuan (Trieu Tran). Once they are settled in, they visit Dean Carl Cain (Obba Babatundé) who tells them that per the terms of their scholarship, they must maintain a minimum grade point average of 2.0 in order to remain at Harvard, or else face expulsion. Jamal joins the rowing team hoping to outrank Bart, and Silas enrolls in the Botany class to develop his "herbal" skills (as opposed to verbal). They both enroll in black history together, although there are two other classes in which they have enrolled alone. Throughout the first half of the school year, they pass every test with the help of Ivory. Silas continues to woo and study with Lauren, while Jamal dates the U.S. vice president's daughter Jamie (Essence Atkins). Also during the first half of the semester, they pull pranks and steal, which angers Bart, Jeffrey (who is pledging for a Final Club), and Dean Cain. However, things go downhill after Silas and Jamal's raucous Halloween party. At the party, Gerald (T.J. Thyne), the volunteer officer whose bicycle was stolen and crushed by I Need Money, steals and smokes the Ivory plant, leaving the pair without access to Ivory. Silas begins working on a truth serum for his Botany class, using plant extracts. Silas concludes that, if his experiment works, he will earn an A in Botany, and a guarantee of a next semester. However, his experiment fails numerous times. Before midterm examinations, Jamal suggests they go to a graveyard, dig up a "smart dead guy", and smoke his remains; Silas suggests simply that they study hard for a few hours a day while high. They try Silas's plan, but it does not pan out, as they end up failing almost all of their midterm exams. Desperate to stay in Harvard, they try Jamal's plan, but it proves fruitless, as well. Meanwhile, Gerald, who has morphed into a complete stoner, sees Ivory during one of his binges, and, at Ivory's behest, returns the remnants of the Ivory plant to Jamal and Silas. However, because very little remains due to Gerald's abuse of the plant, Jamal and Silas continue to fail their classes (which excites Dean Cain). With the last final exam approaching, Jamal and Silas resign themselves to give up. However, Jeffrey reminds Silas of his guarantee of another semester if he can successfully fix his truth serum experiment. Silas ultimately does, having found a solution in which the last of Ivory's leaves could be used to counteract nausea. Nonetheless, because of their low grades, Jamal and Silas do not receive an invitation to the Harvard Alumni party. Dean Cain, clearly thrilled with this result, tells Bart he does not have to worry about the pair showing up or staying in Harvard. However, that changes when Jamie invites them both as her dates, as her father is an alumnus. At the party, Silas makes things a bit more interesting by testing out his truth serum experiment, which proves successful. At Lauren's presentation at the alumni party of Benjamin Franklin's artifacts, she shocks everyone with her discovery: the artifacts turn out to be a bong. Dean Cain is outraged by this finding, but the Chancellor decides that he has had it with the Dean and fires him. Jamal and Silas are proud that the serum worked, a celebration that was almost short-lived, as Dean Cain returns and unsuccessfully attempts to kill them both. He is eventually apprehended by Secret Service. At the end, Jamal and Silas are able to stay, Jamal and Jamie get approval of Jamie's father to date, and Lauren leaves Bart for Silas because Bart was a douchebag. Reception. The film garnered mostly negative reviews from critics, as it currently holds a 27% rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 52 reviews with the consensus stating: ""How High" is a lazily constructed stoner movie filled with lame, vulgar jokes". Despite this,the film has received a strong cult following.
1051986	The Young Girls of Rochefort (; literally "The Young Ladies of Rochefort") is a 1967 French musical film written and directed by Jacques Demy, starring Catherine Deneuve, her sister Françoise Dorléac, Jacques Perrin, Michel Piccoli, Danielle Darrieux, George Chakiris, Grover Dale and Gene Kelly. The choreography was by Norman Maen. Michel Legrand composed the score, to Demy's lyrics. The most famous songs from this film score, which is generally less acclaimed than that for "The Umbrellas of Cherbourg", are "A Pair of Twins" ("Chanson des Jumelles" in French) and "You Must Believe in Spring" ("Chanson de Maxence"). The film was nominated for Academy Awards for Best Original Score (Original or Adaptation). The film was also another big success for Demy in France with a total of 1,319,432 admissions. Plot summary. "The Young Girls of Rochefort" takes place over the course of one weekend in the seaside town of Rochefort, where a fair is coming to the town square. The story centers on twin sisters Delphine (Deneuve) and Solange (Dorléac) — Delphine teaches ballet classes and Solange gives music lessons for a living, but each longs to find her ideal love and a life outside of Rochefort. When the fair comes to town, Delphine and Solange meet two smooth-talking but kind-hearted carnies, Étienne (George Chakiris) and Bill (Grover Dale).
480191	Dennis Christopher (born December 2, 1955) is an American film actor. He is known for his roles in "Breaking Away" and in "Fade to Black". He has appeared in nearly 40 movies and made-for-TV movies since 1975.
190204	Two Days in April is a 2007 documentary film by director Don Argott that follows four NFL prospects (Derek Hagan, Clint Ingram, DonTrell Moore and Travis Wilson) through the process of preparing for and participating in the 2006 NFL Draft. The film received its name in reference to the NFL Draft Weekend, and focuses on the intense training leading up to the NFL Draft and the emotional roller coaster of draft day. Three of the players were selected within six picks of each other in the third round. Other individuals in the documentary include Bruce Allen, Tom Condon, Chuck Cook, Jon Gruden, Steve Hale, Michael Johnson, Mel Kiper, Andy Reid, Marty Schottenheimer, Dick Selcer, Rob Stone, Lionel Taylor, Travis Wilson, and Wendy Wilson. Background. In the fall of 2005, Dave Broome, executive producer of "The Biggest Loser", learned of the Tom Condon film concept where cameras would follow Condon's latest clients as they prepared for the 2006 NFL Draft. Condon himself did not expect payment, but requested being listed as an executive producer on the project. After studying the idea, Broome decided the concept would be better suited for a documentary than for a feature film, modifying the original Condon concept of simply following the subjects to include interviews and personal vignettes within the narrative. Upon Condon's agreeing, Broome arranged financing and distribution. When Red Envelope Entertainment gave the go-ahead, Broome in 2005 hired Don Argott to direct, and in winter 2006, Argott and Condon went to the IMG training academy in Bradenton, Florida to meet the players and begin filming. However, during production, Condon left IMG to join Creative Artists Agency, taking his clients with him. One of the contractual conditions for filming IMG athletes at the IMG Academy, was that the film would be subject to IMG's artistic approval. With Condon leaving the project, Broome and Argott were worried that IMG would invoke this clause to shut down the project. After completion of principal filming, Argott spent several months editing more than 150 hours of video to create the 92-minute film. Red Envelope Entertainment promoted the film to home video and television distribution contacts, and even considered trimming the film to a 42-minute length for ESPN to include as part of their 2007 NFL Draft coverage. However, during the film's post-production, Netflix learned that Condon refused to sign a release to appear on film. According to his attorney, Condon was unhappy after seeing a screening of the film, believing that it did not reflect his clients or the draft processes properly, and asserting that the production company had verbally promised him the final right to artistic sign-off. Broome contended that Condon wished to sabotage the project because he did not do well in the draft and was worried other sports agents might use this as leverage against him. Broome further denied that he or any producer would ever verbally give away final approval to a subject in a documentary. In 2007, the NFL and NFL Properties expressed concerns about whether the filmmakers had obtained rights to certain used footage, and shortly thereafter ESPN broke off negotiations. Broome felt this was because ESPN would rightly question why an executive producer would disavow a project and why the NFL would question rights to air footage. And when the 2007 NFL Draft passed without the film being able to be aired, Broome's production company, First and Ten Productions, filed a lawsuit against Condon and NFL Productions. Included among their charges were "intentional interference with a contractual relationship," alleging that "Condon willfully and maliciously interfered ... by falsely representing to the National Football League that Plaintiff had not obtained all necessary rights to the combine footage or to the use of Condon's name, image and likeness." The suit against the NFL was settled for undsclosed terms and they were subsequently removed as defendants in the lawsuit, leaving Condon as sole defendant.
1044255	Michael Ripper (27 January 1913 – 28 June 2000) was an English character actor born in Portsmouth, Hampshire. He began his film career in quota quickies in the 1930s and until the late 1950s was virtually unknown; he was seldom credited. He played one of the two murderers in the Olivier film version of "Richard III" (1955). Ripper became a mainstay in Hammer Film Productions playing supporting character roles: coachmen, peasants, tavern keepers, pirates and sidekicks. Appearing in more of the company's films than any other performer, these included "The Revenge of Frankenstein" (1958), "The Mummy" (1959), "Brides of Dracula" (1960), "The Camp on Blood Island" (1958), "Captain Clegg" (1962), "The Scarlet Blade" (1963), "The Mummy's Shroud" (1967), and "Plague of the Zombies" (1966). Occasionally he was disguised almost beyond recognition, yet his raspy voice remained unmistakable. Some of his parts were little better than glorified bits (as in "The Curse of the Mummy's Tomb"), but his penultimate role for Hammer Films was a significant supporting part as a landlord in "Scars of Dracula" in 1970. (His very last Hammer role was as a railway worker in the atypical comedy "That's Your Funeral" two years later.) He is also well remembered for his role as the liftman in four of the "St. Trinian's" comedies, and on television for his role as Thomas the chauffeur in the BBC comedy "Butterflies" (1978–83) and as Burke, one of the two criminals in the youth television series "Freewheelers" (1968–71). His other TV roles include Phunkey in "The Pickwick Papers" (1985) and the Drones Porter in "Jeeves and Wooster" (1990–91).
584649	Vathiyar () is a 2006 Tamil action film directed by A. Venkatesh starring Arjun and Mallika Kapoor. It was released on November 10, 2006 and was considered as above-average grosser at the Box Office. Plot. Dorai (Arjun) is a do-gooder don. But a police force led by ACP Easwara Pandian (Prakash Raj) and his sidekick (Sathyan) are after him. However, the poor need him as he is a Good Samaritan running an orphanage. He has help from his friends (Manivannan and Vadivelu). But Dorai has a problem. His mother (Sujatha) doesn’t approve of his ways. She feels that he is just a loutish goon. There is also Anjali (Mallika Kapoor), a TV journalist, who is in love with Dorai because of his dare devil ways. Dorai has a past too. He was just an honest-to-goodness school teacher, who ends up as the deathly Dorai after a fire ravages a school and kills several children. The incident forces him to take on the system of venal officials and politics. Now, Dorai’s biggest task is to nip a dark and dire politician who wants to bomb the city. The rest, as they, is all cinematic clichés. Production. The film was officially launched at AVM Studios on 2006. Tulip Joshi was originally selected as the heroine but she was thrown out of the film as the crew couldn't control her starry tantrums and Mallika Kapoor was selected instead. Singer Blaze was selected to make a cameo appearance. The scene where Arjun defuses a bomb in Vinayaka Chathurthi was shot in Sri Perumbudur and cost twenty lakhs. Assistant Director Rajkumar has lodged a complaint with the Chennai Police Commissioner stating that his story has been stolen and made as Vathiyar. However, Arjun has denied the accusations that he had walked off with Rajkumar’s script. "I have no reasons to steal someone else’s work and call it mine. Vathiyar is my own creation", Arjun declared. Release. The film was originally slated to release on Diwali, but since producer failed to pay the amount to financier, the movie was delayed for a month and finally released on November 10, 2006. Reviews. Nowrunning wrote: "Except for the action sequences there is nothing much to write about the movie". Hindu wrote: "The story is by Arjun and director A. Venkatesh has neatly woven the script to make it enjoyable for the masses". Indiaglitz wrote: "Vathiyar is Basha meets Gentleman meets countless vigilante justice movies. The story and treatment are on typical lines". Music. Song composing and background score was done by D. Imman.
1164277	David Alan Grier (born June 30, 1956), also known as DAG, is an American actor and comedian known for his work on the sketch comedy television show "In Living Color". Early life. Grier was born in Detroit, the son of Aretas Ruth (née Dudley) and William Henry Grier, a psychiatrist and writer who co-wrote the book "Black Rage". He graduated from Detroit's magnet high school, Cass Tech, and received a B.A. from the University of Michigan, and an M.F.A. from the Yale School of Drama. Immediately after graduating, he landed the role of Jackie Robinson in the short-lived Broadway musical "The First", directed by Martin Charnin and written by Joel Siegel. Career. Grier got his start on the National Public Radio radio drama adaptation of "Star Wars" in 1980. He was the voice of a nameless X-wing fighter pilot during the Battle of Yavin. Grier was nominated for a Tony Award for Best Featured Actor in a Musical and won the Theatre World Award for "The First". He later starred as James "Thunder" Early in the hit Broadway musical "Dreamgirls". Grier made his film debut in 1983 in "Streamers", directed by Robert Altman. He won the Golden Lion for Best Actor at the Venice Film Festival for the film. He also appeared in the Negro Ensemble Company production "A Soldier's Play" and reprised his role in the film version "A Soldier's Story". Grier also appeared as a geology professor at the fictitious Hillman College in the show "A Different World" where he was a crush of several of the girls on the show including lead character Denise Huxtable played by actress Lisa Bonet. "In Living Color". Although primarily known for his dramatic work, Grier began to shift towards comedy, making memorable appearances in the cult films "Amazon Women on the Moon" and "I'm Gonna Git You Sucka". Keenen Ivory Wayans, the director of "Sucka", cast Grier in his new variety show "In Living Color". It became a ratings hit and won an Emmy for Outstanding Variety Series. Grier became a popular cast member through his characters, which ranged from hyperactive children to crotchety old men. Among his prominent characters were obnoxious, megaphone-blaring shop teacher Al MacAfee; the elderly Mr. Brooks, whose autumn years are a never-ending verbal battle with his wife; Calhoun Tubbs, a blues musician with very limited creativity; a member of Funky Finger Productions, a production company with more ambition than resources; and, most famously, flamboyant and effeminate Antoine Merriweather in the "Men on..." sketch series. He also played Rev. Leon Lonnie Love on the TV series "Martin". After his success on the show, Grier began appearing in comedies such as "Boomerang" (as Eddie Murphy's shy friend Gerard) "Blankman" (with Damon Wayans), "In the Army Now" (as Fred Ostroff) along with Pauley Shore and Andy Dick in 1994, and as a policeman whose car is memorably crushed and eaten by a giant pod in "Jumanji". Grier also gave a strong dramatic performance as an abusive father in Rusty Cundieff's horror anthology Tales from the Hood.Grier appeared with Tom Arnold in the 1997 comedy "McHale's Navy" as Ensign Charles Parker. In 1999, he made a guest appearance as himself on the "Aw, Here it Goes to Hollywood" episode of Nickelodeon's sitcom, "Kenan & Kel". Acting Career. After the cancellation of "In Living Color", Grier starred in the short-lived sitcoms "The Preston Episodes", "Damon" (with "In Living Color" co-star Damon Wayans), and "DAG". Grier had a cameo in the Robert De Niro /Edward Burns movie "15 Minutes" as a Central Park mugger. In a departure from the childlike roles he often played on "In Living Color", he portrayed an abusive father in Rusty Cundieff's anthology film "Tales from the Hood". He began doing stand-up comedy and was an instant success. He hosted the Comedy Central series "Premium Blend". Grier returned to Broadway to perform in the musical "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum". In 2002, Grier joined the cast of the improv-based ABC sitcom and Bonnie Hunt vehicle "Life with Bonnie" which ran only two seasons. During this time, he continued to appear in comedy films but also returned to drama in the films "Baadasssss!" and "The Woodsman". He starred in his own Comedy Central stand-up special "The Book of David: The Cult Figure's Manifesto". He is also a frequent guest on the Comedy Central show "Crank Yankers". Grier was the host of the NBC show "Thank God You're Here." He also appeared in the revival production of "The Wiz" at the La Jolla Playhouse directed by Des McAnuff. Grier starred in "" playing the villain, Shelly Bragg. He appeared as Uncle Henry in the ABC 2005 television movie "The Muppets' Wizard of Oz". In October 2008, Grier hosted "Chocolate News", a Comedy Central spoof of a TV news magazine show. Comedy Central did not renew the show for a second season. Grier appeared as Sugar Bear in the 2009 movie "Dance Flick". He also provided the voice for Kobe Bryant in the Nike puppet commercials. He returned to Broadway for the premiere of "Race", written and directed by David Mamet, opposite James Spader, Kerry Washington, and Richard Thomas, which opened at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre on December 6, 2009. Grier received his second Tony Award nomination for his role. Grier is currently appearing on Broadway as Sportin' Life in the Gershwins' "Porgy and Bess", which opened at the Richard Rodgers Theatre on January 12, 2012, alongside Norm Lewis and Audra McDonald. He was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Performance by a Featured Actor in a Musical for this role. In addition to his Tony Award nomination, Grier received a 2013 Grammy nomination for Best Musical Theater Album for his performance on the cast recording of the play. Grier guest-starred in Season 6 of FOX's "Bones". He played Professor Bunsen Jude the Science Dude, the host of a children's TV program. This character was inspired by Bill Nye "the Science Guy". In May 2013, Grier appeared in "Tyler Perry Presents Peeples", playing the role of Virgil Peeples, alongside Kerry Washington and Craig Robinson. Grier will begin shooting "The Watsons Go To Birmingham" in 2013, a Hallmark Channel adaptation of Christopher Paul Curtis' 1995 Newbery Medal-winning novel, "The Watsons Go to Birmingham – 1963". "Loveline". He was often referred to as the third host of the radio show "Loveline", as he was a frequent guest and guest host (usually filling in for Adam Carolla). One of his most famous contributions was a bit where he began calling out various pharmaceutical drugs Dr. Drew was recommending to a caller as though they were the names of black children being yelled at by their parents. The episode aired on 09/07/2005 towards the end of the show. Also, on one of his other infamous episodes on September 25, 2002, David stops by lamenting his recent breakup with his girlfriend of four years. He recently (at the time) found out she had been cheating on him with multiple famous actors, at one point in the show DAG coughs while saying the names to avoid legal troubles. During the show Engineer Anderson slows down the recording and plays it back, and the listeners are able to discern the names Tom Sizemore, Colin Farrell and Cuba Gooding Jr. from them. Grier's supposed last appearance on "Loveline" was April 16, 2006. On his MySpace page, Grier posted: On March 3, 2009, David was a guest on "The Adam Carolla Podcast". He explained that the reason he was not asked back on "Loveline" was because the producers of the show did not want him back on despite Dr. Drew pushing for him to again be a guest. While Dr. Drew wasn't initially upfront with him about this, David has no hard feelings toward him and Dr. Drew has since apologized for what happened. Shortly thereafter, Dr. Drew explained on Loveline what had happened and expressed his intent to petition the producers for David to return, and on August 10, 2009, his request was finally granted: After over 3 years, David was once again on Loveline, joining former host Adam Carolla and Dr. Bruce Heischober. "The Adam Carolla Show". Grier has made many guest appearances on the "Adam Carolla Show", usually to plug his improv performances. One of his recurring bits is where he enacts a heavy-set black woman named Peanut who does a terrible job answering the phones for "The Adam Carolla Show". He also frequently antagonizes the co-host Alison Rosen. He does this by snoring loudly while Alison reads the news and also by referring to her as "Teresa" or "Fake Teresa," the name of Alison's predecessor. "Dancing with the Stars". David was a contestant on the 8th season of "Dancing with the Stars", partnered with Kym Johnson. By the fourth week of the competition, Grier announced that he had lost 26 pounds. He was eliminated in the fifth week. "Dave, Shelley, and Chainsaw (DSC) Show". David made an appearance on the DSC Show (San Diego Jack 100.7 FM) on October 5, 2012 before performances at The Madhouse Comedy Club. He mentioned the "other" David Alan Grier and the "Farrakhan - The Musical" stories. Other work. Grier co-starred with Jon Stewart in "Elmopalooza", as the director of Jon's production crew. In 2008 Grier starred in the Comedy Central TV series "Chocolate News" which had satirical sketches about current events and news stories. It lasted for 1 season (10 episodes). Grier's first book "" was published by Simon & Schuster in 2009. The book recounts Grier's own life story, and was co-authored by Alan Eisenstock. Personal life. Grier was previously married to Maritza Rivera but they were divorced in 1995. In July 2007, he married Christine Y. Kim, Associate Curator at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Kim gave birth to their daughter Luisa Danbi Grier-Kim on January 10, 2008 at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. On June 9, 2009, according to TMZ, Kim filed for divorce, citing irreconcilable differences. Grier is a fan of motorcycles and owns the rare Yamaha YZF-R1 Limited Edition and on the August 10, 2009 episode of Loveline agreed to auction it to aid Bryan Bishop's Tumor Fund before storming out while Carolla and the audio engineer bickered on air. Grier is also a Black Belt in taekwondo. Grier was able to showcase his skills in the 1994 film "Blankman" as his character, Kevin Walker (The Other Guy) was shown to be particularly adept in martial arts.
1061659	Candice Patricia Bergen (born May 9, 1946) is an American actress, producer and former fashion model. She is known for starring in two TV series, as the title character on the situation comedy "Murphy Brown", for which she won five Emmy Awards and two Golden Globe Awards; and as Shirley Schmidt on the comedy-drama "Boston Legal", for which she was nominated for two Emmys, a Golden Globe, and a Screen Actors Guild Award.
1557967	Vernon Bruce Dent (February 16, 1895 – November 5, 1963) was a comic actor who appeared in over 400 films in his career. He co-starred in many short films for Columbia Pictures, frequently as the foil to the Three Stooges. Early career. In the early 1920s, Dent was a fixture at the Mack Sennett studio, working with comedians Billy Bevan, Andy Clyde, and especially Harry Langdon. Dent alternately played breezy pals and blustery authority figures opposite Langdon's timid character.
1161157	Jonathan Ray Banks (born January 31, 1947) is an American actor in film and television. His first notable film roles were in the films "Airplane!", "48 Hrs." and "Beverly Hills Cop". Banks has received critical acclaim for the TV series "Wiseguy" and "Breaking Bad". Early life. Banks was born in Washington, D.C. in 1947. His mother worked for the CIA. Banks attended Indiana University Bloomington where he was a classmate of Kevin Kline. During that time, they participated together in a production of "The Threepenny Opera". Banks dropped out of Indiana University to join a touring company as a stage manager. He went to Australia with the company and stayed on working in theatre there. Career. In 1974, he moved to Los Angeles and performed on stage before picking up bit parts on television. Probably his best-known movie roles are in two films starring Eddie Murphy: "48 Hrs." and "Beverly Hills Cop". In "48 Hrs." he plays a character who is a friend of the lead and is killed by the villain, beginning the lead characters' story. In "Beverly Hills Cop", he plays a villain who kills the lead characters' friend and begins his story. Other movie roles include appearances in "Armed and Dangerous", "Buckaroo Banzai". "Freejack", "Flipper", "Airplane!", "Gremlins", "Murder Me, Murder You", and "". His most recent film to date is the 2013 film "Identity Thief". His biggest break on television came in 1987 with the series "Wiseguy", in which he played Frank McPike for four years, a role which led to a Primetime Emmy Award nomination. Although his character was primarily the hero's mentor, stories occasionally featured McPike as hero. In 1981, he appeared as Dutch Schultz on the NBC series "the Gangster Chronicles". He also starred on the short-lived science fiction TV series 'Otherworld', as Kommander Nuveen Kroll and in the sitcom "Fired Up". Banks has also made guest appearances on TV shows including "Alias", "CSI", "Castle", "Day Break", "Dexter", ', "Hunter", "Matlock", "SeaQuest DSV", ', "Women of the House", "Walker Texas Ranger", "ER", "Cold Case", "Shark", "Modern Family", "", "Lie to me","Two and a Half Men", and "Vegas". In the second season finale of "Breaking Bad", Banks appeared as "fixer" Mike Ehrmantraut. His character became a series regular for the third, fourth, and fifth seasons. For the fifth season, Banks received a Primetime Emmy Award nomination for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series. Banks guest starred in "Parks and Recreation" as Ben Wyatt's father in the fifth season.
1162545	Clifford Charles "Cliff" Arquette (December 27, 1905 – September 23, 1974) was an American actor and comedian, famous for his TV role as Charley Weaver. Early life and career. Arquette was born in Toledo, Ohio, the son of Winifred (née Clark) and Charles Augustus Arquette, a vaudevillian. He was the patriarch of the Arquette show business family, which became famous because of him. Arquette was the father of actor Lewis Arquette and the grandfather of actors Patricia, Rosanna, Alexis, Richmond, and David Arquette. He was a night club pianist, later joining the Henry Halstead orchestra in 1923. In the late 1930s, Arquette invented the modern rubber theatrical prosthetic mask, flexible enough to allow changing facial expressions, and porous enough to allow air to reach the actor's skin. Arquette had been a busy, yet not nationally known, performer in radio, theatre, and motion pictures until 1956, when he retired from show business. At one time, he was credited with performing in 13 different daily radio shows at different stations in the Chicago market, getting from one studio to the other by way of motorboats along the Chicago River through its downtown. One such radio series he performed on was "The Adventures of Wild Bill Hickok" Arquette and Dave Willock had their own radio show, "Dave and Charley", in the early 1950s as well as a television show by the same name that was on the air for three months. Arquette performed on the shows as Charley Weaver. The story that Arquette later told about his big break was that one night in the late 1950s he was watching "The Tonight Show". Host Jack Paar happened to ask the rhetorical question, "Whatever became of Cliff Arquette?" That startled Arquette so much that, "I almost dropped my Scotch!"
1074136	Modern Girls is a 1986 comedy film. The film is directed by Jerry Kramer and stars Virginia Madsen, Daphne Zuniga and Cynthia Gibb. Plot Summary. Three girls, Margo, Kelly, and Cece are roommates living in Los Angeles and enjoying the vibrant and decadent night life of 1980s Los Angeles.
1062945	Happy-Go-Lucky is a 2008 British comedy-drama film written and directed by Mike Leigh. The screenplay focuses on a cheerful and optimistic primary-school teacher and her relationships with those around her. The film was well received by critics and resulted in a number of awards for Leigh, lead actress Sally Hawkins and supporting actor Eddie Marsan. Synopsis. When Poppy takes driving lessons for the first time, her positive attitude contrasts starkly with her gloomy, intolerant and cynical driving instructor, Scott. He is emotionally repressed, has anger problems and becomes extremely agitated by Poppy's casual attitude towards driving. As Poppy gets to know him, it becomes evident that Scott believes in conspiracy theories. His beliefs are partly attributable to his racist and misogynistic views, which make it hard for him to get along with others. Scott seems to be angered by Poppy's sunny personality and what he perceives as a lack of responsibility and concern for driving safety. Scott is exceptionally irritated by Poppy's choice of footwear (a pair of high-heeled boots), which he feels compromises her ability to drive. From the outset he feels Poppy does not take her lessons seriously and is careless. Poppy, however, does have the capacity to be responsible. At school Poppy observes one of her pupils bullying one of his classmates. Rather than becoming angry, she worries about him and takes the appropriate action. After speaking with her student, she comes to the correct conclusion that her student is being abused at home. A social worker, Tim, is brought in to handle the boy's case. Through Tim and the pupil's interactions, the latter reveals that his mother's boyfriend has been beating him. Tim and Poppy begin dating. Poppy, Zoe, and Poppy's younger sister, Suzy, go to visit another sister, Helen, who lives with her husband in Southend-on-Sea and is pregnant. Helen proves to be a very judgemental person and tells Poppy she needs to "take life seriously", "not get drunk every night" and plan for the future. Poppy responds that she is happy with her life as it is. Helen tries to convince Poppy to be more responsible condescendingly telling her she's too childish, but Poppy insists that she's happy and ignores her advice. Returning home, Poppy sees Scott standing across the street from her flat, and when she calls his name, he runs away. When she confronts him he insists he had been visiting his mother in Stevenage at the time she saw him. Scott later sees Poppy with her new boyfriend, Tim, and he becomes angry. During Poppy's subsequent driving lesson, Scott drives erratically while ranting about other drivers and society. When he gives Poppy the keys to his car, she tells him he is in no condition to give a driving lesson, and she will drive him home. Scott tries to get his keys back and physically attacks Poppy. She manages to escape his grasp, then in a long, rambling diatribe Scott accuses Poppy of trying to seduce him, revealing his romantic feelings for her. Unable to reason with him, Poppy waits until he has calmed down then gives the keys back, telling him the lesson will be their last. The film ends with Poppy and Zoe rowing a boat in Regent's Park, as Poppy takes a mobile phone call from Tim, and Zoe advises Poppy to think about "giving up being nice to everyone." Poppy dismisses the advice, cheerfully but not naively. Production. The film is Mike Leigh's first film shot in the 2.35 aspect ratio anamorphic format. The film was shot on location in Camden Lock, Camden Market, Regent's Park, Stroud Green, Finsbury Park, Lambeth, and Tufnell Park in London and Southend-on-Sea in Essex. In "Behind the Wheel of Happy-Go-Lucky", a bonus feature on the DVD release of the film, director Leigh, cinematographer Dick Pope, and stars Sally Hawkins and Eddie Marsan discuss the logistics of filming the lengthy scenes in which Poppy is learning how to drive. Five miniature cameras were hidden throughout the vehicle, and at times Leigh was wedged on the floor behind the front seats. Although the actors were required to adhere to basic plot premises, a large percentage of their dialogue was improvised, forcing them to react to stimuli outside the car and interact in character while concentrating on their driving. In "Happy-in-Character", another DVD bonus feature, Leigh and the actors discuss how the director works with his cast one-on-one to help them fully create their characters before actual filming begins. Because Scott is such a troubled individual, Eddie Marsan thought he was preparing for a heavy drama, and it wasn't until he started working with Sally Hawkins that he realised how funny the film actually was. The film premiered at the Berlin International Film Festival and was shown at the Dublin Film Festival before going into theatrical release in the UK on 18 April 2008. It later was featured at the Telluride Film Festival, the Toronto International Film Festival, the Rio de Janeiro International Film Festival, the New York Film Festival, the Athens Film Festival, the Mill Valley Film Festival, the Morelia Film Festival, the Chicago International Film Festival, the Warsaw International FilmFest, and the Tokyo International Film Festival. Critical reception. Rotten Tomatoes reported 93% of critics were positive about the film, based on 141 reviews. Peter Bradshaw of "The Guardian" rated the film four out of five stars and said, "Mike Leigh's trademarked cartoony dialogue, as ever lending a neo-Dickensian compression and intensity to the proceedings, is an acquired taste and I have gladly acquired it, though some haven't. I am not quite sure what I think about the big, final confrontation between Poppy and Scott. It is well-acted and composed, and Marsan is ferociously convincing, yet the episode is closed off a little too neatly, and Poppy seems eerily unaffected by this or anything else. The effect is a kind of odd and steely invulnerability: not unattractive exactly, but disconcerting. Hawkins plays it superbly though: exactly right for the part and utterly at ease with a role that is uniquely demanding. In the factory-farmed blandness of the movies, "Happy-Go-Lucky" has a strong, real taste." Philip French of "The Observer" called the film "as funny, serious, life-affirming and beautifully performed as anything Leigh has done, but with a lightness of touch only previously found in his Gilbert and Sullivan movie, "Topsy-Turvy"." Manohla Dargis of the "New York Times" called the film "so closely tuned to the pulse of communal life, to the rhythms of how people work, play and struggle together, it captures the larger picture along with the smaller. Like Poppy, the bright focus of this expansive, moving film, Mr. Leigh isn’t one to go it alone. Played by a glorious Sally Hawkins – a gurgling, burbling stream of gasps, giggles and words – Poppy . . . keeps moving forward and dancing and jumping and laughing and nodding her dark, delicate head as if she were agreeing not just with this or that friend but also with life itself. She's altogether charming or perhaps maddening – much depends on whether you wear rose-colored specs – recognizably human and every inch a calculated work of art." Roger Ebert of the "Chicago Sun-Times" rated the film four stars and called Sally Hawkins "a joy to behold." He added, "This is Mike Leigh's funniest film since "Life Is Sweet". Of course he hasn't ever made a "completely" funny film, and "Happy-Go-Lucky" has scenes that are not funny, not at all. There are always undercurrents and oddness." Peter Travers of "Rolling Stone" rated the film 3½ out of four stars and commented, "Get ready for Sally Hawkins, a dynamo of an actress who will have her way with you in "Happy-Go-Lucky", leaving you enchanted, enraged to the point of madness and utterly dazzled. No list of the year's best performances should be made without her." He added, "In lesser hands, the film would go off the deep end into cheap theatrics. But Leigh . . . keeps the emotions in balance by keeping them real. There's something raw in Hawkins that wins our empathy for Poppy. Thanks to her, "Happy-Go-Lucky" is more than a movie, it's a gift." Ruthe Stein of the "San Francisco Chronicle" stated, "The key to enjoying the film, a minor effort by Leigh, is warming up to Poppy. Her bubbly personality may be too much for some. She's like a walking, talking smiley face. Fortunately, as Leigh proved in "Secrets & Lies" and "Vera Drake", he has a keen eye for actresses, and he has found in Sally Hawkins the consummate Poppy." "Time Out London" observed "You know you’re watching something both delightfully light-footed and acutely meaningful when Leigh moves so nimbly between scenes at Poppy's school, her flamenco class and her driving lessons . . . It's a funny film . . . and, crucially, it aches with truth." Top ten lists. The film was cited as one of the ten best films of 2008 by many critics, including Manohla Dargis, Stephen Holden, and A.O. Scott of the "New York Times", Liam Lacey of "The Globe and Mail", Ray Bennett of "The Hollywood Reporter", Shawn Levy of "The Oregonian", Carrie Rickey of "The Philadelphia Inquirer", David Edelstein of "New York", Elizabeth Weitzman of the "New York Daily News", Kimberly Jones of "The Austin Chronicle", Michael Sragow of "The Baltimore Sun", Kenneth Turan of the "Los Angeles Times", Ann Hornaday of "The Washington Post", Lisa Schwarzbaum of "Entertainment Weekly", Dennis Harvey of "Variety", and Steve Rea of "The Philadelphia Inquirer". Also, Armond White of the New York Press named Happy Go Lucky the best film of 2008. DVD release. The Region 1 DVD was released on 10 March 2009. It is in anamorphic widescreen format with an audio track in English and subtitles in English and Spanish. Bonus features include commentary by screenwriter/director Mike Leigh, "Behind the Wheel of Happy-Go-Lucky", and "Happy-in-Character".
633782	Richard William "Wil" Wheaton III (born July 29, 1972) is an American actor, blogger and writer, known for his portrayals of Wesley Crusher on the television series "", Gordie Lachance in the film "Stand by Me", Joey Trotta in "Toy Soldiers", and for his recurring role as a fictionalized version of himself on the CBS sitcom "The Big Bang Theory". Early life. Wheaton was born in Burbank, California, to Debbie (née O'Connor), an actress, and Richard William Wheaton, Jr., a medical specialist. He has a brother, Jeremy, and a sister, Amy. Both appeared uncredited in the episode "" of "Star Trek: The Next Generation". Amy also appeared alongside Wheaton in "The Curse". Career. Acting. Wheaton made his acting debut in the 1981 television film "A Long Way Home", and his first cinema role was as Martin Brisby in the 1982 animated film "The Secret of NIMH", the movie adaptation of Robert C. O'Brien's "Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH". He had a minor role in the 1984 movie "The Last Starfighter" as Louis' friend but it was cut out. He first gained widespread attention in 1986 as Gordie Lachance in "Stand by Me", the film adaptation of Stephen King's "The Body". "Star Trek". From 1987 to 1990, he played Wesley Crusher in the first four seasons of '. This became a recurring role later in the series. Although his "Star Trek" character, and by extension Wheaton himself, was disliked by a vocal group of Trekkies during "TNGs first run, he commented about his critics in an interview for WebTalk Radio: Wheaton's popularity among "Star Trek" fandom is covered in a number of web comics. "ArcaneTimes" of March 25, 2005 offers a sympathetic position. "Something Positive" presents a range of opinions as part of the storyline "Mike's Kid". "Abstruse Goose" tries to distinguish between the character and the actor. Post-"Star Trek". In 1991, he played Joey Trotta in the action film "Toy Soldiers". After leaving "Star Trek", Wheaton moved to Topeka, Kansas, to work for NewTek, where he helped to develop the Video Toaster 4000, doing product testing and quality control. He later used his public profile to serve as a technology evangelist for the product. Wheaton said this was a period of growth in his life, and living away from Los Angeles helped him deal with anger issues. He came back to Los Angeles, attended acting school for five years, then re-entered the acting world. In the late 1990s, Wheaton appeared in several independent films, including the award-winning "The Good Things", in which he portrays a frustrated Kansas tollbooth worker. It was selected Best Short Film at the 2002 Deauville Film Festival. He received the Best Actor award at the 2002 Melbourne Underground Film Festival for his performance in "Jane White Is Sick & Twisted". Voice work. He has worked as a voice actor in cartoons, video games, audiobooks, and anime, beginning with the role of young Martin Brisby in "The Secret of NIMH" at age 10. His most noteworthy credits include the roles of Aqualad in the cartoon "Teen Titans", the voice of radio journalist Richard Burns in ', Kyle in the Nickelodeon cartoon, "Kyle + Rosemary", himself and various other characters on both "Family Guy" and "Seth MacFarlane's Cavalcade of Cartoon Comedy", the second Blue Beetle, Ted Kord, on ' in the episode "Fall of the Blue Beetle!", Yakumo in "", Menma in "Naruto", Hans in "Slayers Evolution-R" and Aaron Terzieff in "Mobile Suit Gundam Unicorn". He appeared as himself in a skit on nerdcore rapper MC Frontalot's 2008 album "Final Boss" attempting to be a rapper, whose rhymes only involved shellfish. He later collaborated with Frontalot on "Your Friend Wil", a track from the 2010 album "Zero Day" on the subject of Wheaton's Law. Wheaton and Frontalot have both appeared at the Penny Arcade Expo (PAX). Wheaton has also narrated a number of bestselling audiobooks, mostly in the science-fiction and fantasy category, including "Ready Player One" by Ernest Cline, "Redshirts" by John Scalzi, and books 6–10 of the "Chronicles of Amber" series by Roger Zelazny. TV and web series guest appearances. He was a contestant on a 2001 episode of "The Weakest Link" featuring "Star Trek" actors attempting to win money for charity. Wheaton's had guest appearances on the November 23, 2007 episode of the TV series "Numb3rs", and the October 22, 2008 episode of the series "Criminal Minds". He has also appeared in Internet presentations, including a cameo in a comedy sketch ("Lock Out") for LoadingReadyRun (and a reprise of the same the following year in CommodoreHustle 4), and the May 30, 2008 episode of the Internet series "Gorgeous Tiny Chicken Machine Show". Wheaton appears in seasons three, four and five of the web series "The Guild" as Fawkes, the leader for a rival guild known as Axis of Anarchy. He also appears in seasons two, three and four of the TV series "Leverage", as rival computer hacker Colin "Chaos" Mason, antagonist to Leverage team hacker Alec Hardison. He makes regular appearances in many web productions for Geek & Sundry. He appeared as himself in several episodes of situation comedy "The Big Bang Theory", starting in the fifth episode of the third season "The Creepy Candy Coating Corollary" (2009). On the show, Wheaton behaves in comically petty and manipulative ways towards main character Sheldon Cooper, who regards him an archenemy until the fifth season episode "The Russian Rocket Reaction", when they make amends and become friends. Wheaton appears in twelve episodes in a recurring, guest-starring role on "Eureka", playing Dr. Isaac Parrish, the head of the Non-Lethal Weapons Lab at Global Dynamics and a thorn in Fargo's side. Live shows. Wheaton has performed improvisational and sketch comedy at the ACME Comedy Theater in Hollywood. He has a traveling sketch comedy/improv troupe called "EarnestBorg9" that performs science fiction-related comedy at conventions. Wheaton is one of the three headline acts of the w00tstock shows, appearing in nearly all of them when his filming schedule has allowed. Hosting. From September 2006 to September 2007, he hosted a Revision3 syndicated video podcast called "InDigital" along with Jessica Corbin and veteran host Hahn Choi. Wheaton hosted a NASA video on the Mars "Curiosity" rover which landed on Monday August 6, 2012. He has also hosted "2nd Watch," interviews with cast members and producers of the science-fiction series Falling Skies that appears on-line after each episode.
1060615	Martha Campbell Plimpton (born November 16, 1970) is an American actress, singer and former model. Plimpton is a screen, stage and television actress. She first appeared as Jonsy in the feature film "The River Rat" (1984) before rising to prominence in the Richard Donner film "The Goonies" (1985) portraying the character Stef. She then appeared in "The Mosquito Coast" (1986) portraying Emily Spellgood. Plimpton's role garnered favorable recognition within the feature film industry. Throughout her career Plimpton has appeared in feature films, including "Running on Empty" (1988), "Parenthood" (1989), "Eye of God" (1997), "The Sleepy Time Gal" (2001), "Hair High" (2004) and "Small Town Murder Songs" (2011). Plimpton developed and established a successful career on stage. She has appeared on Broadway and theater. She is recognized on Broadway for her roles in "The Coast of Utopia " (2006–2007), "Top Girls" (2007–2008), "Pal Joey" (2008–2009) and "Shining City" (2006–2007). She has performed in theatre productions of "The Playboy of the Western World", "A Midsummer Night's Dream", "The Glass Menagerie", "Hedda Gabler", "The Sisters Rosensweig", "The Heidi Chronicles" and "Uncle Vanya". Off-Broadway, she appeared in "Boston Marriage" (2002), "Pericles, Prince of Tyre" (2002) and Runaways (2002). Plimpton has appeared in guest roles in television: "Family Ties" (1985), "ER" (1999), ' (2002), "7th Heaven" (2004), ' (2006), "Surface" (2006), "The Good Wife" (2009, 2010 & 2012), "Medium" (2009), "Greys Anatomy" (2009), "Fringe" (2010) and "How To Make It In America" (2010). Plimpton currently plays Virginia Chance on the FOX television series "Raising Hope". For this role she received a Primetime Emmy Award nomination for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series in 2011. Plimpton's roles in film and television are generally viewed favorably among viewers and critics. Plimpton has garnered three consecutive Tony Award nominations: A Best Featured Actress in a Play in 2007 for her role in "Top Girls." Best Featured Actress in a Play again in 2008 for "Coast of Utopia." Best Featured Actress in a Musical in 2009 for "Pal Joey." Plimpton's roles in television have earned three Prime time Emmy Award nominations, two of which were for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Drama Series. In 2002, she was nominated for portraying Claire Rinato on "" and won in 2012 for portraying Patti Nyholm on "The Good Wife". In 2011, she was nominated for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series for her critically praised portrayal of Virginia Chance on "Raising Hope". Early life. Plimpton was born Martha Campbell Carradine and was raised in New York City, the daughter of Keith Carradine and Shelley Plimpton. Her parents met while performing in the original Broadway run of "Hair". Her paternal grandfather was actor John Carradine and she is the niece of Robert and David Carradine. She is a "very distant" cousin of writer and editor George Plimpton, and, despite the different spelling, cartoonist Bill Plympton. She attended the Professional Children's School in Manhattan. Her first stage appearance was when her mother brought her on stage in costume for the curtain call of the short-lived Broadway play "The Leaf People". Career. 1980s. Plimpton began her career as a model, securing an early 1980s campaign for Calvin Klein, making an impression as a sophisticated but tomboyish little girl. She made her screen debut in 1981, when at age 11 she had a small part in the film "Rollover". In 1984, she appeared in the Deep South drama "The River Rat" opposite Tommy Lee Jones. Her breakthrough performance was as Stef Steinbrenner in the 1985 film "The Goonies". She also appeared that year on the television sitcom "Family Ties". This began a trend of Plimpton being typecast in the role of a rebellious tomboy, beginning with her critically lauded performance as the Reverend Spellgood (Andre Gregory)'s daughter in the 1986 film "The Mosquito Coast", starring Harrison Ford. The critically praised but commercially unsuccessful 1987 film "Shy People" (co-starred with Barbara Hershey and Jill Clayburgh) was followed by a performance in the 1988 ensemble comedy "Stars and Bars." This was released shortly before "Running on Empty", an Academy Award-nominated film starring River Phoenix, for which she was nominated for a Young Artist Award. She began a career trend, making small independent film appearances with supporting roles in big-budget films. She appeared in the 1989 Woody Allen film "Another Woman"; that year, she co-starred with Jami Gertz as a cancer patient in the German film "Zwei Frauen" (released in America as "Silence Like Glass"). The film was nominated for Outstanding Feature Film at the German Film Awards. Plimpton shaved her head to play a cancer patient in "Zwei Frauen," and her reputation for playing rebellious teenagers secured her the role of the indignant teenage daughter (who shaves her head) of Dianne Wiest in "Parenthood." Plimpton appeared with Joaquin Phoenix (then credited as Leaf Phoenix), who portrayed her brother. "Parenthood" grossed over $126 million and received two Academy Award nominations, her most successful movie appearance since "The Goonies." 1990s. In 1991, Plimpton appeared in the Robert De Niro film "Stanley & Iris" in a supporting role. She also appeared in theTV movie "A Woman At War" as the lead, Helene Moskiewicz alongside Eric Stolz. In 1992, Plimpton appeared as a lesbian terrorist in the independent film "Inside Monkey Zetterland". She played the starring role in the film "Samantha". The success of "Samantha" garnered Plimpton a variety of roles in 1993. She appeared with Cuba Gooding, Jr., in the television film "Daybreak" and was a part of the largely improvised television film "Chantilly Lace". She had a featured role in the big-budget films "Josh and S.A.M." and played the lead in the critically blasted film adaptation of the Carolyn Chute novel "The Beans of Egypt, Maine". Plimpton also appeared as herself in the independent film "My Life's in Turnaround", a movie about filmmakers trying to make a movie. Plimpton continued to appearance in featured roles in both independent films and mainstream movies from 1994 through 1997, most notably as a close friend of radical feminist Valerie Solanas in the film "I Shot Andy Warhol". In 1997, the Showtime Network cast Plimpton as the female lead in the television film, '. This show was a retooling of the classic television show by the same name, and the characters were descendants of Lawrence Preston, a role reprised by actor E.G. Marshall. The intent was to spin the program off as a series akin to "Law & Order", but Marshall died in 1998. Two more episodes (' and "") were aired that year. The decision was made to not continue production (despite high ratings and critical praise) due to Marshall's death.
1089944	Computational electromagnetics, computational electrodynamics or electromagnetic modeling is the process of modeling the interaction of electromagnetic fields with physical objects and the environment. It typically involves using computationally efficient approximations to Maxwell's equations and is used to calculate antenna performance, electromagnetic compatibility, radar cross section and electromagnetic wave propagation when not in free space. A specific part of computational electromagnetics deals with electromagnetic radiation scattered and absorbed by small particles. Background. Several real-world electromagnetic problems like scattering, radiation, waveguiding etc., are not analytically calculable, for the multitude of irregular geometries found in actual devices. Computational numerical techniques can overcome the inability to derive closed form solutions of Maxwell's equations under various constitutive relations of media, and boundary conditions. This makes "computational electromagnetics" (CEM), important to the design, and modeling of antenna, radar, satellite and other communication systems, nanophotonic devices and high speed silicon electronics, medical imaging, cell-phone antenna design, among other applications. CEM typically solves the problem of computing the "E" (Electric), and "H" (Magnetic) fields across the problem domain (e.g., to calculate antenna radiation pattern for an arbitrarily shaped antenna structure). Also calculating power flow direction (Poynting vector), a waveguide's normal modes, media-generated wave dispersion, and scattering can be computed from the "E" and "H" fields. CEM models may or may not assume symmetry, simplifying real world structures to idealized cylinders, spheres, and other regular geometrical objects. CEM models extensively make use of symmetry, and solve for reduced dimensionality from 3 spatial dimensions to 2D and even 1D. An eigenvalue problem formulation of CEM allows us to calculate steady state normal modes in a structure. Transient response and impulse field effects are more accurately modeled by CEM in time domain, by FDTD. Curved geometrical objects are treated more accurately as finite elements FEM, or non-orthogonal grids. Beam propagation method can solve for the power flow in waveguides. CEM is application specific, even if different techniques converge to the same field and power distributions in the modeled domain. Overview of methods. One approach is to discretize the space in terms of grids (both orthogonal, and non-orthogonal) and solving Maxwell's equations at each point in the grid. Discretization consumes computer memory, and solving the equations takes significant time. Large scale CEM problems face memory and CPU limitations. As of 2007, CEM problems require supercomputers, high performance clusters, vector processors and/or parallel computer. Typical formulations involve either time-stepping through the equations over the whole domain for each time instant; or through banded matrix inversion to calculate the weights of basis functions, when modeled by finite element methods; or matrix products when using transfer matrix methods; or calculating integrals when using method of moments (MoM); or using fast fourier transforms, and time iterations when calculating by the split-step method or by BPM. Choice of methods. Choosing the right technique for solving a problem is important, as choosing the wrong one can either result in incorrect results, or results which take excessively long to compute. However, the name of a technique does not always tell one how it is implemented, especially for commercial tools, which will often have more than one solver.
589762	Jab Jab Phool Khile ('Whenever the flowers bloomed) (, ) is a 1965 Indian Hindi movie. It stars Shashi Kapoor and Nanda. The story is of a poor boy who is a boatman in Kashmir and falls in love with a rich tourist. The film became a "blockbuster" at the box office. The songs by music composing duo Kalyanji Anandji assisted by then little-known Laxmikant Pyarelal are highlights of the film (lyrics by Anand Bakshi). Plot. After returning from overseas, heiress Rita is stressed out and needs to go someplace to unwind. She chooses Kashmir and, upon arrival, rents a houseboat from the owner, Raja. After a few misunderstandings, they are attracted to each other and soon fall in love. This romance is not looked upon favorably by Raj Bahadur Chunilal, Rita's dad, as he would prefer his daughter marry a suitor he has chosen for her: Kishore. Rita dislikes Kishore and will only marry Raja; the wily Raj Bahadur devises a plan that will let him keep the cake and eat it too.
1674341	John Allen Paulos (born July 4, 1945) is an American professor of mathematics at Temple University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania who has gained fame as a writer and speaker on mathematics and the importance of mathematical literacy. Early life. Paulos grew up in Chicago, Illinois and Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He received his Ph.D. in mathematics from the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Career. His academic work is mainly in mathematical logic and probability theory. His book "Innumeracy: Mathematical Illiteracy and its Consequences" (1988) was an influential bestseller and "A Mathematician Reads the Newspaper" (1995) extended the critique.
590350	Teen Yaari Katha (Bengali: তিন ইয়ারী কথা; English: Tale of Three Friends) is a 2012 Bengali language comedy film by the director team of Sudeshna Roy and Abhijit Guha. The Bengali musical group Bhoomi composed the film's music. The film tells the story of three middle class friends and their personal struggles. The film's release was delayed by censors due to its sexual themes. It premiered at the 2006 Osian Film Festival and was screened at the World Film Festival of Bangkok and the Kolkata Film Festival. Synopsis. Biloo sells newspapers, Shyamal drives an autorickshaw and Antu is unemployed. The friends share a room in Billu's uncle's house in the Kolkata suburbs. Each friend becomes involved with different girls; Antu secretly likes fellow acting student Dola, Shyamal has fallen for his boss cum lanlord's daughter Mamoni, and Biloo is obsessed with Sreeradha who lives next door.
582989	Shaadi Karke Phas Gaya Yaar is a Bollywood film directed by K. S. Adhiyaman best known for directing "Hum Tumhare Hain Sanam" (2002). Salman Khan and Shilpa Shetty star in the lead roles as husband and wife. Reema Lagoo, Mohnish Behl and Shakti Kapoor also star in the film. The film kept getting delayed but finally released on 4 August 2006, it was a box office failure. The film is a remake of the Tamil, Madhavan starrer, "Priyasakhi". Shooting took place in London, United Kingdom and in India. The film was earlier titled "Dil Chura Ke Chal Diye". Synopsis. Ayaan lives a very wealthy lifestyle with his married brother, Karan and his wife, Anju; a younger sister, Yamini, and brother, Rahul; his mom, and grandma; and runs a garage. One day he meets with beautiful model, Ahana, and falls head over heels in love with her. She forgets her personal diary at his garage, and through this Ayaan woos, wins her heart, and both get married. Ahana soon finds out that despite of Ayaan's wealth, his family is very conservative and tradition-bound. This causes some bitterness between the newly-weds, which gets worse when she becomes pregnant and wants to abort the child. While visiting her mom on their dog's birthday, Ahana has an accident which results in a miscarriage. Ayaan blames her for losing the child, but his mother convinces him and he apologizes. Few months later, Ahana becomes pregnant again, and that's when she finds out that Ayaan had pulled wool over her eyes through her personal diary. Watch what happens when Ahana decides to get drunk on her birthday and expose Ayaan publicly.
588117	Thandavam is a Malayalam action film released in 2002. Directed by Shaji Kailas, this film had a huge star cast including Mohanlal, Kiran Rathod, Nedumudi Venu, Captain Raju, Saikumar, Manoj K. Jayan and Jagadish. Though, Thandavam had one of the best initial pull in the history of Malayalam cinema, it failed to satisfy even the hardcore Mohanlal fans. Plot. The story centers on Kasinathan (Mohanlal), a pragmatic but playful businessman keen on general welfare of his men also running a resort and massage parlour as a side business. Kasinathan is the younger brother of Swaminathan (Nedumudi Venu), the heir to Valiyamangalam Malika and the head of erstwhile feudal Midhilapuri. Midhilapuri is an idyllic village prospered through judicious use of agriculture as the path to good life. Kasinathan is powerful in his own right and is tipped to succeed influential politician Menon (Janardhanan) in Kerala politics. Kasinathan has a secret admirer in the form of a mysterious girl (Kiran Rathod) who drops messages and love hints everyday. But Kasinathan has still better issues to worry about! The burning issue of providing drinking water supply to Udayankara colony is time and again sabotaged by Cherpunkal Shankar Das (Saikumar), a wily and unscrupulous politician of crassiest morals who is intent on teaching a lesson to the alleged loyalty of the people who continue to support righteous politicians. The reciprocal justice is carried out by Kasinathan who in a strategic move corners Shankar Das in a compromising position with a serial actress (Maya Viswanath)and blackmails him to release permission for water supply in the village. Shankar Das is forced to resign from the cabinet. Ensuing celebration is amply enjoyed in a rain dance song by Kasinathan with all and sundry of his devoted satellites including characters Murugan (Jagadish),Vellapulli Mathachan(Jagathy Sreekumar), Tomi (Vijayakumar), Basheer (Salim Kumar) Pushpakumaran (Maniyanpilla Raju) etc. Kasinathan's secret lover turns out to be Meenakshi the only sister of his good friend DYSP Rajeevan (Captain Raju) The upcoming business man Dasappan Gounder (Manoj K. Jayan) and his henchmen smells an opportunity to market Cola drinks in Midhilapuri and approaches Swaminathan to start a mutually profitable business deal. Swaminathan in his idealist moral sense is staunchly against the endeavour. Disappointed Gounder joins force with Shankar Das and craftily plots death of Swaminathan in a planned operation. The disappearance of Swaminthan moderates Kasinathan to an extent. He decides to don the garb of saviour of Midhilapauri and returns to his Valiyamangalam Malika. In a chance encounter, Kasinathan learns of the cause of death of his elder brother as planned murder perpetrated by Gounder, DYSP and Shankar Das. This unleashes the beast within him and true to his name, Kasinathan trounces on the hapless Gounder and Shankar Das to a vegetative life death end in the climax. Dasappan Gounder is lured to a barn and is thrashed to senselessness by Kasinathan. Meanwhile, Shankar Das is on a self-imposed pilgrimage to gather strength for a showdown with Kasinathan. He is eventually caught in the middle of the Kayakalpa treatment at an ashram and goes mad in the end, a just retribution to a life full of sins and debauched deeds.
1265866	Conrad Nagel ( – ) was an American screen actor and matinee idol of the silent film era and beyond. He was also a well-known television actor and radio performer. Biography. Born in Keokuk, Iowa, into an upper-middle-class family, he was the son of a musician father, Frank, and a mother, Frances (née Murphy), who was a locally praised singer. Nagel's mother died early in his life, and he always attributed his artistic inclination to growing up in a family environment that encouraged self-expression. His father, Frank, became dean of the music conservatory at Highland Park College and when Nagel was three, the family moved to Des Moines. After graduating from Highland Park College at Des Moines, Iowa, Nagel left for California to pursue a career in the relatively new medium of motion pictures where he garnered instant attention from the Hollywood studio executives. With his frame, blue eyes, and wavy blond hair; the young, Midwestern Nagel was seen by studio executives as a potentially wholesome matinee idol whose unpretentious all-American charm would surely appeal to the nation's nascent film-goers. Nagel was immediately cast in film roles that cemented his "unspoiled lover" image. His first film was the 1918 retelling of the Louisa May Alcott classic, "Little Women", which quickly captured the public's attention and set Nagel on a path to silent film stardom. His breakout role came in the 1920 film, "The Fighting Chance", opposite Swedish starlet Anna Q. Nilsson.
1449185	Terence Graham Parry Jones (born 1 February 1942) is a British comedian, screenwriter, actor, film director, author, political commentator, and TV host. He is best known as a member of the Monty Python comedy team. Early life. Jones was born in the seaside town of Colwyn Bay, on the north coast of Wales. The family home was named "Bodchwil". His father was stationed with the RAF in India. When Jones was 4½, the family moved to Surrey in England. Jones was educated at the Royal Grammar School in Guildford, where he was head boy in the 1960-61 academic year. He read English at St Edmund Hall, Oxford, but "strayed into history". He graduated with a 2:1. While there, he performed comedy with future Monty Python castmate Michael Palin in The Oxford Revue. Career history. Before Python. Jones appeared in "Twice a Fortnight" with Michael Palin, Graeme Garden, Bill Oddie and Jonathan Lynn, as well as the television series "The Complete and Utter History of Britain" (1969). He appeared in "Do Not Adjust Your Set" (1967–69) with Palin, Eric Idle and David Jason. He wrote for "The Frost Report" and several other David Frost programmes on British television. Along with Palin, he wrote lyrics for the 1968 Barry Booth album "Diversions". Early on, Jones was interested in devising a fresh format for the Python TV shows, and it was largely he who developed the stream-of-consciousness style which abandoned punchlines and encouraged the fluid movement of one sketch into another, allowing the troupe's conceptual humour the space to “breathe”. Jones took a keen interest in the direction of the show. As demonstrated in many of his sketches with Palin, Jones was interested in making comedy that was visually impressive, feeling that interesting settings augmented, rather than detracted from, the humour. His methods encouraged many future television comedians to break away from conventional studio-bound shooting styles, as demonstrated by shows such as "Green Wing", "Little Britain" and "The League of Gentlemen". Of Jones' contributions as a performer, his depictions of middle-aged women are among the most memorable. His humour, in collaboration with Palin, tends to be conceptual in nature. A typical Palin/Jones sketch draws its humour from the absurdity of the scenario. For example, in the “Summarise Proust Competition”, Jones plays a cheesy game show host who gives contestants 15 seconds to condense Marcel Proust's lengthy work "À la recherche du temps perdu". Jones was also noted for his gifts as a Chaplinesque physical comedian. His performance in the "Undressing in Public" sketch, for instance, is done in total silence. Directorial work. Jones co-directed "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" with Terry Gilliam, and was sole director on two further Monty Python movies, "Life of Brian" and "Monty Python's The Meaning of Life". As a film director, Jones finally gained fuller control of the projects and devised a visual style that complemented the humour. His later films include "Erik the Viking" (1989) and "The Wind in the Willows" (1996). In 2008, Jones wrote and directed an opera titled "Evil Machines". In 2011, he was commissioned to direct and write the libretto for another opera, entitled "The Doctor's Tale". On the commentary track of the 2004 "2 Disc Special Edition" DVD for the film "Monty Python's The Meaning of Life", Terry Jones stated that to his knowledge Ireland had banned only four movies, three of which he had directed: "The Meaning of Life", "Monty Python's Life of Brian" and "Personal Services". Animation. He was the creator and co-producer of the animated television program "Blazing Dragons", which ran for two seasons. Set in a fantasy medieval setting, the series' protagonists are dragons who are beset by evil humans, reversing a common story convention. When the series was broadcast on US television, several episodes were censored due to minor cursing and the implied sexuality of an overtly effeminate character named "Sir Blaze". It was turned into a game for the Sega Saturn in 1994, which starred Jones's voice. As an author. He co-wrote "Ripping Yarns" with Palin, and wrote the screenplay for "Labyrinth" (1986), although his draft went through several rewrites and several other writers before being filmed; much of the finished film wasn't written by Jones at all. He has also written numerous works for children, including "Fantastic Stories", "The Beast with a Thousand Teeth", and a collection of Comic Verse called "The Curse of the Vampire's Socks". He has written books and presented television documentaries on medieval and ancient history and the history of numeral systems. His series often challenge popular views of history: for example, "Terry Jones' Medieval Lives" (2004) (for which he received a 2004 Emmy nomination for "Outstanding Writing for Nonfiction Programming") argues that the Middle Ages was a more sophisticated period than is popularly thought, and "Terry Jones' Barbarians" (2006) presents the cultural achievements of peoples conquered by the Roman Empire in a more positive light than Roman historians typically have, while criticising the Romans as the true "barbarians" who exploited and destroyed higher civilisations. He has written numerous editorials for "The Guardian, The Daily Telegraph" and "The Observer" condemning the Iraq war. Many of these editorials were published in a paperback collection titled "Terry Jones's War on the War on Terror". "Chaucer's Knight: The Portrait of a Medieval Mercenary" (1980) offers an alternative take on the historical view of Geoffrey Chaucer's "The Knight's Tale" as being a paragon of Christian virtue. Jones asserts that, after closer examination of historical rather than literary context, the Knight is actually a typical mercenary and a potentially cold-blooded killer. His most recent book, "Evil Machines", was launched by the online publishing house Unbound at the Adam Street Club in London on 4 November 2011. "Evil Machines" is the first book to be published by a crowd funding website dedicated solely to books. Jones provided significant support to Unbound as they developed their publishing concept. He is also a member of the UK Poetry Society, and his poems have appeared in "Poetry Review". Working with musicians. Jones has performed with The Carnival Band and appears on their 2007 CD "Ringing the changes" (Park Records PRKCD98). In January 2008, the Teatro São Luiz, in Lisbon, Portugal, premiered "Evil Machines" – a musical play, written by Jones (based on his book) and with original music by Portuguese composer Luis Tinoco. Jones was invited by the Teatro São Luiz to write and direct the play, after a very successful run of "Contos Fantásticos", a short play based on Jones' "Fantastic Stories", also with music by Luis Tinoco. In January 2012, it was announced that Jones is working with songwriter/producer Jim Steinman on a heavy metal version of "The Nutcracker." As performer. Apart from a cameo in Terry Gilliam's "Jabberwocky" and a memorable minor role as a drunken vicar in BBC sitcom "The Young Ones", Jones has rarely appeared in work outside of his own projects. Since January 2009, however, he has provided narration for "The Legend of Dick and Dom", a CBBC fantasy series set in the Middle Ages. In 2009 Jones took part in the BBC Wales programme "Coming Home" about his Welsh family history. Personal life. Jones married Alison Telfer in 1970, and they have two children together, Sally (born in 1974), and Bill (born in 1976). The marriage broke down after he admitted to falling in love with 26-year-old student Anna Söderström. On 21 October 2006, it was reported in "The Daily Mirror" that Jones had been diagnosed with bowel cancer. Another article dated three days later, also by "The Mirror", indicated that the exploratory surgery performed on Jones had good results. It was reported in the British media on 27 April 2009 that Jones was due to become a father for the third time in autumn 2009, by way of Söderström. But he remained married to Telfer. Jones's daughter Siri was born in early September 2009. Political articles. Jones has published a number of articles on political and social commentary, principally in newspapers "The Daily Telegraph", "The Guardian", "The Independent", and "The Observer". Many of these articles criticised the war on terror, belittling it as "declaring war on an abstract noun" and comparing it to attempting to "annihilate mockery". Collaborations. Jones and Gavin Scott have been working for years on a script for a "sci-fi farce combining CGI and live action" tentatively called "Absolutely Anything"; the film is expected to begin principal photography in spring 2012, with Terry Gilliam, John Cleese, and Michael Palin agreeing to "provide voices for a group of aliens".
1090736	Lucio Russo (born 22 November 1944) is an Italian physicist, mathematician and historian of science. Born in Venice, he teaches at the Mathematics Department of the Science College in the University of Rome Tor Vergata. In the history of science, he has reconstructed some contributions of the Hellenistic astronomer Hipparchus, through the analysis of his surviving works, reconstructed the proof of heliocentrism attributed by Plutarch to Seleucus of Seleucia and studied the history of theories of tides, from the Hellenistic to modern age. "The Forgotten Revolution". Theory. In "The Forgotten Revolution: How Science Was Born in 300 BC and Why It Had to Be Reborn" (Italian: "La rivoluzione dimenticata"), Russo stresses the well-established fact that Hellenistic science reached heights not achieved by the Classical age science, and proposes that it went further than ordinarily thought. These results were lost with the Roman conquest and during the Middle Ages, because the scholars of that period did not have the capability to understand them. The legacy of Hellenistic science was one of the bases of the scientific revolution of the 16th century, as ancient texts started once again to be available in Europe. According to Russo, Hellenistic scientists were not simply forerunners, but actually achieved scientific results of high importance, in the fields of "mathematics, solid and fluid mechanics, optics, astronomy, anatomy, physiology, scientific medicine", even psychological analysis. They may have even discovered the inverse square law of gravitation (Russo's argument on this point hinges on well-established, but seldom discussed, evidence). Hellenistic scientists, among whom Euclid, Archimedes, Eratosthenes, developed an axiomatic and deductive way of argumentation. When this way of argumentation was dropped, the ability to understand the results went lost as well. Thus Russo conjectures that the definitions of elementary geometric objects were introduced in Euclid's "Elements" by Heron of Alexandria, 400 years after the work was completed. More concretely, Russo shows how the theory of tides must have been well-developed in Antiquity, because several pre-Newtonian sources relay various complementary parts of the theory without grasping their import or justification (getting the empirical facts wrong but the theory right). A second contribution of Russo's is the conclusion that "the post-Renaissance scientific revolution of the seventeenth century was basically due to the conscious recovery of the Hellenistic science (not even to its full extent, reached only in the second half of the nineteenth century with Richard Dedekind's and Karl Weierstrass's isolation of the real number concept directly out of Euclid's definition of proportion)."
1068097	Hollow Man 2 is a science fiction horror film directed by Claudio Fäh and starring Peter Facinelli, Laura Regan and Christian Slater. It is the sequel to the film "Hollow Man". It was released direct-to-video on May 23, 2006 with the tag line "There's More to Terror Than Meets The Eye". Plot. At a cocktail party at the Reisner Institute, a Washington think tank, a scientist named Dylan is suddenly manipulated by an invisible force, which drags him into a nearby bathroom and brutally throws him around. He mentions another scientist, Maggie Dalton, who knows the formula the invisible man is looking for. Seemingly accepting this, the invisible man releases him and tells him not to tell anyone he was there. No sooner has he left, than Dylan attempts to call someone on his cell phone, but the invisible man, who only pretended to leave, smashes the phone and slashes Dylan's throat. The police arrive at the laboratory to conduct a murder investigation, but the laboratory's military supervisor, Colonel Gavin Bishop, insists it is an internal military situation and the police have no jurisdiction. Fearing attacks on the remaining scientists, the lab's owner, Dr. William Reisner, employs Turner and his partner, Detective Lisa Martinez, to protect Maggie, but refuses to divulge any information on the nature of his work. The two detectives stand guard outside Maggie's house. When Lisa opens the door to let the cat in, the invisible man sneaks past her into the house. Just as he reaches the study where Maggie is, Lisa tracks him down, and he throttles her with a lamp wire. Suddenly, military commandos appear and storm the house, using night vision cameras to target and corner the invisible man. Outside, Turner confronts Bishop, realizing that he and Lisa were used to lure the invisible man to the house. Several stun grenades go off around the house, blinding the commandos and allowing the invisible man to escape in pursuit of Turner and Maggie. He almost catches up to them, but is struck and badly injured by a car, and flees. Maggie is taken into protective custody by the police, where Frank's superior and friend, Captain Tom Harrison, has received orders to have her transferred to military custody. Frank helps Maggie escape from the police station and they flee in a stolen car. Bishop and Reisner, knowing their careers would end if Maggie talks, declare them fugitives. Maggie finally tells Turner that five years before, a team broke the code for human invisibility, but something went wrong and all but two of them were killed, and the program was scrapped. A year later, the Reisner Institute restarted the experiments as a covertly Department of Defense funded operation to create an undetectable soldier, codenamed "Silent Knight". The resulting serum does turn human tissue invisible, but with adverse effects: it allows light to pass directly through a person, and the radiation damages the cells and causes physical and mental degradation, killing the person slowly. Maggie developed a compound called the "Buffer" to protect test subjects from that radiation. A soldier named Michael Griffin volunteered, and the serum succeeded, but the Buffer failed and Griffin seemingly died, which in turn got Maggie fired. She believes Griffin faked his death so he could use his powers without restraint, but now needs the antidote to the radiation before he dies. Maggie receives a message from a man named Ludlow, who has been in contact with her for weeks. Turner uses his contacts to find the hiding place of Ludlow, a soldier enlisted into the program before Griffin. He fled, but is now slowly dying from radiation. Ludlow has also been tracking Griffin, and reveals the true story to his supposed "death" and the program itself: Operation Silent Knight was never about national security, and Griffin was never given the Buffer, as they used him to assassinate their political enemies. Meanwhile, Griffin takes Bishop hostage, who attempts to reason with him and then, getting desperate, stabs him with a pen. Griffin in turn kills him and goes to locate Ludlow's whereabouts on Bishop's computer. He arrives at the hideout and attacks Turner, but Ludlow sacrifices himself to save the detective; Turner and Maggie escape. Griffin decides to make them return by kidnapping Maggie's sister. When they meet at the train station where he is hiding, Griffin silently captures Maggie and tries to turn her invisible so he can take her unnoticed, but Turner stops him. After a short fight, Griffin escapes with Maggie, and Turner is left with the arriving Reisner and his guards. A short time later, Reisner pursues an invisible man, but is soon captured and held by him. Thinking it is Griffin, he offers to send for the Buffer. The figure, however, is Turner, who used Griffin's discarded syringe to become invisible as well. Reisner backs away from him and is hit and killed by a speeding car. Griffin takes Maggie to her old college laboratory to create the Buffer for him. Griffin forces her to inject herself with it first, than injects himself with another dose. With his survival seemingly assured, Griffin tries to kill Maggie, but Turner intervenes and knocks him out of the laboratory window. Turner runs outside where Griffin knocks him unconscious. As Griffin slowly turns visible, Maggie reveals that he has been poisoned, as the Buffer is based on rat poison; she deliberately left the doses she made from the poison just toxic enough to kill them both, and loses consciousness. Enraged, Griffin takes a shovel and attempts to kill her, but a now-conscious Turner stops him and kills him with the shovel. He then carries Maggie away for medical attention, leaving Griffin's body outside in the rain. A few days later, Maggie is recovering in hospital and is poised to be released. Heather tells her that Turner has not been found. Maggie insists that he will come back to her, as she knows he needs her. Outside, they are being watched by an invisible man in a hood who then walks away. Reception and reviews. "Hollow Man 2", as a direct-to-video release, had lower expectations than its preceding film. Its reviews have been almost uniformly negative; some reviews at best indicate it as average. Rotten Tomatoes chronicles only a few reviews, all of which designate the film as "rotten".
1055101	Eva Birthistle (born 1 January 1974) is an Irish actress, best known for her role in "Ae Fond Kiss". She won the London Film Critics Circle British Actress of the Year Award in 2004, and has twice won the IFTA Best Actress in a Leading Role (Film) award. Biography. Born in Bray, Ireland, the daughter of a farmer, the family moved to Derry, Northern Ireland, when she was 14. She was raised Roman Catholic. As a teenager, Eva went to Dublin to study acting at the The Gaiety School of Acting. On 31 December 2006, she married her long-time partner Raife Burchell from the band Jetplane Landing. They live in Notting Hill, West London. Career. In 1995, she got her first TV role as Regina Crosbie in the serial "Glenroe". She stayed for three years until 1998. She was offered her first feature film in 1997, "All Souls' Day" by Alan Gilsenan. She played a variety of roles in Irish films, including "Drinking Crude" (1997), co-starring Colin Farrell, and TV movie "Miracle at Midnight" (1998), with Mia Farrow. In 2002, Eva appeared in two dramas about the same challenging subject, Bloody Sunday: the documentary-style TV drama "Bloody Sunday", starring James Nesbitt, and "Sunday", written by Jimmy McGovern. In 2003, she appeared in the TV series "Trust" before starring as Roisin Hanlon in the Ken Loach movie "Ae Fond Kiss..." (2003-04), which won her the 2005 London Critics Circle Film Award as "British Actress of the Year". She appeared in Neil Jordan's "Breakfast on Pluto", Ol Parker's "Imagine Me & You" and "Save Angel Hope" by Lukas Erni in 2005, and in Brian Kirk's "Middletown" in 2006. Birthistle starred as human rights lawyer Jane Lavery in the TV conspiracy drama "The State Within" in 2006. In late 2007, she featured as Rembrandt's wife Saskia van Uylenburg in the historical drama, "Nightwatching" by Peter Greenaway.
1040818	David Tennant (born David John McDonald; 18 April 1971) is a Scottish actor, best known for his roles as the tenth incarnation of the Doctor in the British television series "Doctor Who", the title role in the TV serial "Casanova" (2005) and as Barty Crouch, Jr., in the film "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire" (2005). In addition to his appearances on screen, Tennant has worked as a voice actor, and appeared in a critically acclaimed stage production of "Hamlet." Early life. Tennant, the son of Essdale Helen (née McLeod) and The Rev. Alexander "Sandy" McDonald, was born in Bathgate, West Lothian. He grew up with his brother Blair and sister Karen in Ralston, Renfrewshire, where his father was the local Church of Scotland Minister and former Moderator. Tennant's maternal great-grandparents, William and Agnes Blair, were staunch Protestants from Derry in Ulster, the northern province of Ireland, and were among the signatories of the Ulster Covenant in 1912; William was a member of the Grand Orange Lodge of Ireland. Tennant's maternal grandfather, footballer Archie McLeod, met William and Agnes's daughter Nellie while playing for Derry City. McLeod's parents were from the Isle of Mull in the Scottish Highlands and are descended from tenant farmers. At the age of three, Tennant told his parents that he wanted to become an actor because he was a fan of "Doctor Who", but they tried to encourage him to aim for more conventional work. He watched almost every "Doctor Who" episode for years, and he spoke to Tom Baker at a book-signing event in Glasgow. Tennant says he was "absurdly single-minded" in pursuing an acting career. Tennant was educated at Ralston Primary and Paisley Grammar School, where he enjoyed a fruitful relationship with English language teacher Moira Robertson, who was among the first to recognise his potential. He acted in school productions throughout primary and secondary school. Tennant's talent at this young age was spotted by actress Edith MacArthur; after seeing his first role at age 11, she told his parents he would become a successful stage actor. Tennant also attended Saturday classes at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama; at 16, he passed an audition for the Academy, one of their youngest students, and studied there between the ages of 17 and 20, taking his stage name from the Pet Shop Boys frontman Neil Tennant after reading a copy of "Smash Hits" magazine because there was another David McDonald already on the books of the Equity union. Tennant was flatmates with friend Louise Delamere while at the Academy and gained a Bachelor of Arts in acting. Career. Early work. Tennant made his professional acting debut while still in secondary school. When he was 16, he acted in an anti-smoking film made by the Glasgow Health Board which aired on television and was also screened in schools. The following year, he played a role in an episode of "Dramarama". Tennant's first professional role upon graduating from drama school was in a staging of "The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui" costarring Ashley Jensen, one of a few plays in which he performed as part of the agitprop . Tennant also made an early television appearance in the Scottish TV sitcom "Rab C Nesbitt" as a transsexual barmaid called Davina. In the 1990s, Tennant appeared in several plays at the Dundee Repertory Theatre. Tennant's first major TV role was as the manic depressive Campbell in the Scottish drama series "Takin' Over the Asylum" (1994). During filming, Tennant met comic actress and writer Arabella Weir. When he moved to London shortly afterwards he lodged with Weir for five years and became godfather to her youngest child. He has subsequently appeared alongside Weir in many productions; as a guest in her spoof television series "Posh Nosh", in the "Doctor Who" audio drama "Exile" (during which Weir played an alternate version of the Doctor), and as panellists on the "West Wing Ultimate Quiz" on More4 (Weir later guest starred on "Doctor Who" itself after Tennant left the series). One of his earliest big screen roles was in "Jude" (1996), in which he shared a scene with Christopher Eccleston, playing a drunken undergraduate who challenges Eccleston's Jude to prove his intellect. Coincidentally, Eccleston portrayed the incarnation of The Doctor immediately preceding Tennant's. Tennant developed his career in the British theatre, frequently performing with the Royal Shakespeare Company. His first Shakespearean role for the RSC was in "As You Like It" (1996); having auditioned for the role of Orlando, the romantic lead, he was instead cast as the jester Touchstone, which he played in his natural Scottish accent. He subsequently specialised in comic roles, playing Antipholus of Syracuse in "The Comedy of Errors" and Captain Jack Absolute in "The Rivals", although he also played the tragic role of Romeo in "Romeo and Juliet". Tennant also contributed to several audio dramatisations of Shakespeare for the Arkangel Shakespeare series (1998). His roles include a reprisal of his Antipholus of Syracuse in "The Comedy of Errors", as well as Launcelot Gobbo in "The Merchant of Venice", Edgar/Poor Tom in "King Lear", and Mercutio in "Romeo and Juliet", all of which he performs in his natural accent. In 1995, Tennant appeared at the Royal National Theatre, London, playing the role of Nicholas Beckett in Joe Orton's "What the Butler Saw". In television, Tennant appeared in the first episode of Reeves and Mortimer's revamped "Randall & Hopkirk (Deceased)" in 2000, playing an eccentric artist. This is one of his few TV roles in his native Scottish accent. During the Christmas season of 2002, he starred in a series of television advertisements for Boots the Chemists. Tennant began to appear on television more prominently in 2004 and 2005, when he appeared in a dramatisation of "He Knew He Was Right" (2004), "Blackpool" (2004), "Casanova" (2005), and "The Quatermass Experiment" (2005). In film, he appeared in Stephen Fry's "Bright Young Things" (2003) and played Barty Crouch Jr. in "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire" (2005). "Doctor Who" (2005–2010, 2013). "Doctor Who" returned to British screens in 2005, with Christopher Eccleston playing the role of the Ninth Doctor in the first series. Tennant replaced him as of the second series, making his first, brief appearance as the Tenth Doctor in the episode "The Parting of the Ways" (2005) at the end of the regeneration scene, and also appeared in a special shown as part of the 2005 Children in Need appeal, broadcast on 18 November 2005. He began filming the new series of "Doctor Who" in late July 2005. His first full-length outing as the Doctor was a 60-minute special, "The Christmas Invasion", first broadcast on Christmas Day 2005. Tennant had been formally offered the role of the Doctor during rehearsals for "The Quatermass Experiment". Although the casting was not officially announced until later in April, both castmates and crew became aware of the speculation surrounding Tennant; in the live broadcast Jason Flemyng (Quatermass) changed his first line to Tennant's Dr Briscoe from "Good to have you back Gordon" to "Good to have you back "Doctor"" as a deliberate reference. Tennant has expressed enthusiasm about fulfilling his childhood dream. He remarked in a radio interview: "Who wouldn't want to be the Doctor? I've even got my own TARDIS!" In 2006, readers of "Doctor Who Magazine" voted Tennant "Best Doctor" over perennial favourite Tom Baker. In 2007, Tennant's Doctor was voted the "coolest character on UK television" in a "Radio Times" survey. When Tennant was cast as Eccleston's successor, he had wanted to use his native Scottish accent and become "the first kilted Doctor" according to an interview in the "Daily Star", but writer Russell T Davies did not want the Doctor's accent "touring the regions", so he used Estuary English instead. Tennant was able to use his Scottish accent during his time on the series, however, when the Doctor briefly masquerades as "Dr Jamie McCrimmon" of Edinburgh in "Tooth and Claw" - a nod to the Second Doctor's companion. Tennant had previously had a small role in the BBC's animated "Doctor Who" webcast "Scream of the Shalka". Not originally cast in the production, Tennant happened to be recording a radio play in a neighbouring studio, and when he discovered what was being recorded next door managed to convince the director to give him a small role. This personal enthusiasm for the series had also been expressed by his participation in several audio plays based on the "Doctor Who" television series which had been produced by Big Finish Productions, although he did not play the Doctor in any of these productions. His first such role was in the Seventh Doctor audio "Colditz", where he played a Nazi lieutenant guard at Colditz Castle. In 2004 Tennant played a lead role in the Big Finish audio play series "Dalek Empire III". He played the part of Galanar, a young man who is given an assignment to discover the secrets of the Daleks. In 2005, he starred in "" for Big Finish, recreating his role of Brimmicombe-Wood from a Doctor Who Unbound play, "Sympathy for the Devil". In both of these audio productions Tennant worked alongside Doctor Who alumnus Nicholas Courtney, who reprised the character of Sir Alastair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart. He also played an unnamed Time Lord in another Doctor Who Unbound play "Exile". "UNIT: The Wasting", was recorded between Tennant getting the role of the Doctor and it being announced. He also played the title role in Big Finish's adaptation of Bryan Talbot's "The Adventures of Luther Arkwright" (2005). In 2006, he recorded abridged audio books of "The Stone Rose" by Jacqueline Rayner, "The Feast of the Drowned" by Stephen Cole and "The Resurrection Casket" by Justin Richards, for BBC Worldwide. He made his directorial debut on the "Doctor Who Confidential" episode that accompanies Steven Moffat's episode "Blink", entitled "Do You Remember The First Time?", which aired on 9 June 2007. In 2007, Tennant's Tenth Doctor appeared with Peter Davison's Fifth Doctor in a "Doctor Who" special for Children in Need, written by Steven Moffat and entitled "Time Crash". This was the first "multi-Doctor" story in the series since "The Two Doctors" in 1985 (not counting the 1993 special "Dimensions in Time"). Tennant also later performed alongside Davison's daughter, Georgia Moffett, in the 2008 episode "The Doctor's Daughter" with her taking the titular role as Jenny. Tennant also featured as the Doctor in an animated version of "Doctor Who" for "Totally Doctor Who", "The Infinite Quest", which aired on CBBC. He also starred as the Doctor in another animated six-part "Doctor Who" series, "Dreamland". Tennant guest starred as the Doctor in a two-part story in "Doctor Who" spin-off "The Sarah Jane Adventures", broadcast in October 2009. Tennant continued to play the Tenth Doctor into the revived programme's fourth series in 2008. However, on 29 October 2008, Tennant announced that he would be stepping down from the role after three full series. He played the Doctor in four special episodes in 2009, before his final episode aired on 1 January 2010. The "Daily Mirror" reported that Tennant was forbidden from attending "Doctor Who" fan conventions while playing the role. This was done to avoid the chance that Tennant could accidentally let slip any plot points during filming of the series. The BBC announced on 30 March 2013 that Tennant and Billie Piper will return to "Doctor Who" for the 50th anniversary special in late 2013, alongside current Doctor Matt Smith and companion Jenna-Louise Coleman (as the Eleventh Doctor and Clara Oswald, respectively). Other television roles (2005–present). While playing the Doctor, Tennant was also in the early December 2005 ITV drama "Secret Smile". His performance as Jimmy Porter in "Look Back in Anger" at the Theatre Royal, Bath and Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh was recorded by the National Video Archive of Performance for the Victoria and Albert Museum Theatre Collection. He revived this performance for the anniversary of the Royal Court Theatre in a rehearsed reading. In January 2006, he took a one-day break from shooting "Doctor Who" to play Richard Hoggart in a dramatisation of the 1960 "Lady Chatterley's Lover" obscenity trial, "The Chatterley Affair". The play was written by Andrew Davies and directed by "Doctor Who"s James Hawes for the digital television channel BBC Four. Hoggart's son Simon Hoggart praised Tennant's performance in "The Guardian" newspaper. On 25 February 2007, Tennant starred in "Recovery", a 90-minute BBC One drama written by Tony Marchant. Tennant played Alan, a self-made building site manager who attempted to rebuild his life after suffering a debilitating brain injury. His costar in the drama was friend Sarah Parish, with whom he had previously appeared in "Blackpool" and an episode of "Doctor Who". She joked that "we're like George and Mildred – in 20 years' time we'll probably be doing a ropey old sitcom in a terraced house in Preston." Later in 2007 he starred in "Learners", a BBC comedy drama written by and starring Jessica Hynes (another "Doctor Who" costar, in the episodes "Human Nature", "The Family of Blood" and "The End of Time"), in which he played a Christian driving instructor who became the object of a student's affection. "Learners" was broadcast on BBC One on 11 November 2007. Tennant had a cameo appearance as the Doctor in the 2007 finale episode of the BBC/HBO comedy series "Extras" alongside Ricky Gervais. In November 2008 Tennant played Sir Arthur Eddington in the BBC and HBO biopic "Einstein and Eddington", which was filmed in Cambridge and Hungary. In 2009 he worked on a TV film version of the RSC's 2008 "Hamlet" for BBC Two. From October 2009, he hosted the "Masterpiece Contemporary" programming strand on the American Public Broadcasting Service. In December 2009, he filmed the lead in an NBC pilot, "Rex Is Not Your Lawyer", playing Rex, a Chicago lawyer who starts to coach clients to represent themselves when he starts suffering panic attacks. The pilot was not picked up and the project was shelved. In October 2010 he starred as Dave, a man struggling to raise five children after the death of his partner, in the British drama "Single Father". For this role he was nominated as Best Actor at the Royal Television Society Programme Awards 2010. In 2011 he starred in the BBC Two British TV film "United", which tells the story of the Manchester United "Busby Babes" team and the 1958 Munich air disaster, playing coach and assistant manager Jimmy Murphy. In September 2011, he appeared in a guest role in one episode of the comedy series "This is Jinsy", and also started filming "True Love", a semi-improvised BBC One drama series, on location in Margate, Kent. The series aired in June 2012. In April 2012, Tennant played lead in a one-off drama "The Minor Character" for Sky Arts. Between April and June, he filmed "Spies of Warsaw" for BBC Four, in the lead role of Jean-François Mercier. This drama series shot in Poland is an adaptation of Alan Furst's novel "The Spies of Warsaw". Tennant auditioned for the role of Hannibal Lecter in NBC's "Hannibal"; he was narrowly beaten for the part by Mads Mikkelson, but show developer Bryan Fuller has indicated that he was sufficiently impressed by Tennant that he would like to cast him in another role in the series. On 9 June 2012, he started filming the 3-part political drama series "The Politician's Husband" for BBC Two, playing an ambitious cabinet minister who takes drastic action when his wife's career starts to outshine his. Also in June it was announced that Tennant would star in the new ITV detective series "Broadchurch". The series was filmed in Bristol and Bridport, Dorset between August and November 2012, and aired in March 2013 . Tennant also presented the new comedy quiz show "Comedy World Cup", in Autumn 2012 which ran on Saturday nights for seven episodes. Between late January and March 2013 Tennant filmed "The Escape Artist" for BBC One. Tennant played Will Burton, a talented junior barrister who "specialises in spiriting people out of tight legal corners". The series is due to be shown on BBC One in the Autumn of 2013. Other work (2007–present). Tennant was the "Star in a Reasonably Priced Car" on "Top Gear" in December 2007, where he claimed to have unsuccessfully auditioned for a role on "Taggart" 26 times. Tennant is the voice behind the 2007 advertising campaign for catalogue retailer Argos, and appeared in adverts for The Proclaimers' 2007 album and learndirect in June 2008 (using his natural Scottish accent in both). Tennant also lent his voice to adverts for Tesco Mobile, Nintendo Wii, and American Express. Tennant appeared in Derren Brown's "Trick or Treat". In the 26 April – 2 May issue of "TV & Satellite Week", Brown is quoted as saying: "One of the appeals of "Doctor Who" for David is time travel, so I wanted to give him that experience. He was open and up for it, and I got a good reaction. He's a real screamer!" The episode aired on Channel 4 on 16 May 2008, and showed Tennant apparently predicting future events correctly by using automatic writing. Tennant also returned for the final episode of the series with the rest of the participants from the other episodes in the series to take part in one final experiment. Tennant appeared in the 2008 episode "Holofile 703: Us and Phlegm" of the radio series "Nebulous" (a parody of "Doctor Who") in the role of Doctor Beep, using his Lothian accent. Also in 2008, Tennant voiced the character of Hamish the Hunter in the 2008 English language DVD rerelease of the 2006 animated Norwegian film, "Free Jimmy", alongside Woody Harrelson. The English-language version of the film has dialogue written by Simon Pegg, who also starred in it as a main voice actor. In early 2009, Tennant narrated the digital planetarium space dome film "We are Astronomers" commissioned by the UK's National Space Centre. On 13 March 2009, he presented Red Nose Day 2009 with Davina McCall. He joined Franz Ferdinand onstage to play the guitar on their song "No You Girls" on a special Comic Relief edition of "Top of the Pops". In summer 2009, Tennant filmed "". The film was released in December 2009. In November 2009, Tennant cohosted the Absolute Radio Breakfast Show with Christian O'Connell for three consecutive days. He returned to cohost the show for one day in October 2010 and again in September 2011. Tennant also provides the narration and all the character voices for the audio book versions of the "Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III" stories by Cressida Cowell such as "How to Train Your Dragon". In these audio books, Tennant employs his vocal skills to create a vast cast of recognisably distinct voices. Some of his most memorable characterisations include the Norfolk yokel of Norbert the Nutjob, the broad Glaswegian of Gobber the Belch, the hissing and whining Cockney of Toothless the Dragon and the sly insinuations of Alvin the Treacherous. He also played the role of Spitelout in the recent animated film adaption of said books. On 7 March 2010, he also appeared as George in a one-part BBC Radio 4 adaptation of "Of Mice and Men" in the "Classic Serial" strand. Tennant appeared alongside former costar Catherine Tate in the Shakespeare comedy "Much Ado About Nothing" at London's Wyndham's Theatre from 16 May 2011 to 3 September 2011. For his performance as Benedick he won the BroadwayWorld UK Award for Best Leading Actor in a Play. In September 2011, it was announced that Tennant will voice a character in the movie adaptation of "Postman Pat" named "You Know You're the One" with a planned 3D theatrical release for spring 2013. In October 2011, Tennant started shooting the semi-improvised comedy film "" in Coventry. Tennant plays two roles: the main character, put-upon teacher Mr Peterson, and his "golden boy" twin brother and rival. Tennant appeared in a multi-million-pound campaign for Virgin Media. One advert was voluntarily withdrawn after a complaint lodged by BBC Worldwide, which believed that the advert broke the corporation's guidelines by featuring references to "Doctor Who" that appeared to be a commercial endorsement of the service. In May 2013 it was announced that Tennant is due to appear alongside Rosamund Pike in a BBC/Origin Pictures film called "What We Did on Our Holiday", a semi-improvised comedy from the writers of the popular BBC sit-com "Outnumbered". Filming is due to commence in mid June 2013, with a cinematic release planned for sometime in 2014. Royal Shakespeare Company (2008–present). Despite his recent focus on television work, Tennant has described theatre work as his "default way of being". It was announced on 30 August 2007 that he would join the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC), to play Hamlet (alongside Patrick Stewart) and Berowne (in "Love's Labours Lost") during 2008. From August to November 2008 he appeared at the Courtyard Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon as Hamlet, playing that role in repertory with Berowne that October and November. "Hamlet" transferred to the Novello Theatre in London's West End in December 2008, but Tennant suffered a prolapsed disc during previews and was unable to perform from 8 December 2008 until 2 January 2009, during which time the role was played by his understudy Edward Bennett. He returned to his role in the production on 3 January 2009, and appeared until the run ended on 10 January. On 12 April 2011, a photograph of Tennant as Hamlet featured on a stamp issued by the Royal Mail to mark the RSC's fiftieth anniversary. In January 2012, Tennant was appointed to the Royal Shakespeare Company board, to be on the selection committee interviewing and choosing the new artistic director. It was announced on 23 January 2013 that Tennant will return to the RSC for the company's 2013 winter season, playing the title role in "Richard II" at Stratford-upon-Avon (from 10 October to 16 November) and transferring to the Barbican Centre in London (from 9 December to 25 January 2014). Personal life. Tennant married actress Georgia Moffett, who played his Doctor's genetically created daughter in the "Doctor Who" episode "The Doctor's Daughter" (and is also the real-life daughter of Fifth Doctor actor Peter Davison), on 30 December 2011. Tennant and Moffett have a daughter, Olive, born in March 2011, a son named Wilfred and he adopted her then nine-year-old son, Ty, in September 2011. Tennant does not discuss his personal life, especially his relationships, in interviews. "Relationships are hard enough with the people you're having them with, let alone talking about them in public," he said in December 2009. He believes that religion "must have" shaped his character, and he is an occasional churchgoer. On 5 January 2013, Jonathan Ross announced on Tennant's behalf, during an interview with Tennant, that Moffett was pregnant for the third time. In 2008 Tennant was voted "Greenest Star on the Planet" in an online vote held by Playhouse Disney as part of the Playing for the Planet Awards. Later that year he underwent surgery for a prolapsed disc. Tennant is a supporter of the Labour Party and appeared in a party political broadcast for them in 2005. In 2010 he declared his support for then British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, in April 2010 he lent his voice to a Labour Party election broadcast and in 2012 introduced Labour leader Ed Miliband at the Labour Party Conference. He is a celebrity patron of the Association for International Cancer Research. In December 2005, "The Stage" newspaper listed Tennant at No. 6 in its "Top Ten" listing of the most influential British television artists of the year, citing his roles in "Blackpool", "Casanova", "Secret Smile", and "Doctor Who". In January 2006, readers of the British gay and lesbian newspaper "The Pink Paper" voted Tennant the "Sexiest Man in the Universe" over David Beckham and Brad Pitt. A poll of over 10,000 women for the March 2006 issue of "New Woman" magazine ranked him 20th in their list of the "Top 100 Men". In October 2006, Tennant was named as "Scotland's most stylish male" in the Scottish Style Awards. He was named "Coolest Man on TV" of 2007 in a Radio Times survey. He also won the National Television Awards award for Most Popular Actor in 2006, 2007, 2008 and 2010. He was voted 16th Sexiest Man In The World by a 2008 Cosmopolitan survey. Tennant was ranked the 24th most influential person in the British media, in the 9 July 2007 "MediaGuardian" supplement of "The Guardian". He appeared in the paper's annual media rankings in 2006. In December 2008, he was named as one of the most influential people in show business by British theatre and entertainment magazine "The Stage", making him the fifth actor to achieve a ranking in the top 20 (in a list typically dominated by producers and directors). One of the editors for "The Stage" said that Tennant placed highly on the list because he was "the biggest box office draw in recent memory". Tennant was voted as the third best dressed man in Britain in GQ reader's poll for 2013. Tennant's popularity has led to impersonations of him on various social networking sites, leading the BBC to issue a statement making it clear that Tennant does not use any of these sites and any account or message purporting to be or from him is fake.
1058759	Inspector Gadget 2 (IG2) is a live-action direct-to-video comedy film, released to VHS and DVD in March 2003. It was based upon the cartoon series created by DiC Entertainment and is a direct-to-video sequel to the 1999 Walt Disney Pictures film "Inspector Gadget" and also released by DIC Entertainment. It was filmed in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. The second film departs slightly from the first one. Inspector Gadget and Dr. Claw are never referenced as John Brown and Sanford Scolex – their respective civilian names from the first movie, though Claw's communicator clearly is labeled "Scolex Industries", indicating that his name is still Sanford Scolex. In addition to this, none of the 1999 film's actors return to reprise their roles (with the exception of D. L. Hughley, who voices the Gadgetmobile). Also, Gadget's love interest from the first movie is gone and is replaced by G2. Gadget is more foolishly inept and unable to control his now glitch-ridden gadgets. As a homage to the original cartoon, Claw's face is never seen and speaks with a deep, gruff voice. In the previous film, Claw's face was visible and was an upper-class business man. He appears to be older in age than he was in the original, although the story only takes place a year later. Plot. One year after the events of the first film, the evil genius, Dr. Claw (Tony Martin), escapes from Riverton Prison, Chief Quimby (Mark Mitchell), Mayor Wilson (Sigrid Thornton) and Baxter (Bruce Spence) unveil a new upgraded female Gadget-type android Gadget Model #2 (G2 for short) (Elaine Hendrix), to replace the now malfunctioning Gadget (French Stewart) believing that he won't succeed with his glitches. Gadget soon falls for G2, but G2 turns down his offer to join forces, saying she works alone, having Quimby to tell Gadget to step down from his job and go back to patrolling the roads for speeders. However when Gadget does so he infuriates Chief Quimby for arresting his mother for going .3 miles per hour over the speed limit but most importantly for driving without a license; and charging it as "Drag Racing." Gadget is told to release Quimby's mother but when Quimby finally interprets the crime well he reluctantly fines her some money and puts Gadget on probation. Meanwhile, Dr. Claw has fled to a deserted Bowling Factory headquarters with new henchmen he released from prison, Brick and McKibble. Dr. Claw plans to steal 5 trillion dollars worth of gold from the Federal Reserve in Riverton and stalling the city from the crime with a weapon. Gadget's niece, Penny (Caitlin Wachs) points out a job ad in the papers for minions of Claw. Gadget goes undercover to the bar specified in the ad in an attempt to find Claw dressed as a hooligan so he can have his job back, but instead ends up causing a bar brawl, which G2 later breaks up the fight. Penny, wanting to prove to Gadget her ability as a detective, also goes to the bar with Brain, and finds out that Claw is planning a heist at the Concentrated Industries warehouse and tells Gadget and G2. Despite being warned by Quimby that he will be fired if he goes whithin 100 yards of G2's stakeout, Gadget goes, and in attempt to help G2, sabotages G2's stakeout allowing Claw's minions to escape with stolen ion fuel cells. Quimby does not fire Gadget as promised but instead punishes Gadget by making him spend his next 3 days in his job as a bathroom janitor.
1103524	In computational mathematics, an iterative method is a mathematical procedure that generates a sequence of improving approximate solutions for a class of problems. A specific implementation of an iterative method, including the termination criteria, is an algorithm of the iterative method. An iterative method is called convergent if the corresponding sequence converges for given initial approximations. A mathematically rigorous convergence analysis of an iterative method is usually performed; however, heuristic-based iterative methods are also common. In the problems of finding the root of an equation (or a solution of a system of equations), an iterative method uses an initial guess to generate successive approximations to a solution. In contrast, direct methods attempt to solve the problem by a finite sequence of operations. In the absence of rounding errors, direct methods would deliver an exact solution (like solving a linear system of equations "Ax" = "b" by Gaussian elimination). Iterative methods are often the only choice for nonlinear equations. However, iterative methods are often useful even for linear problems involving a large number of variables (sometimes of the order of millions), where direct methods would be prohibitively expensive (and in some cases impossible) even with the best available computing power. Attractive fixed points. If an equation can be put into the form "f"("x") = "x", and a solution x is an attractive fixed point of the function "f", then one may begin with a point "x"1 in the basin of attraction of x, and let "x""n"+1 = "f"("x""n") for "n" ≥ 1, and the sequence {"x""n"}"n" ≥ 1 will converge to the solution x. If the function "f" is continuously differentiable, a sufficient condition for convergence is that the spectral radius of the derivative is strictly bounded by one in a neighborhood of the fixed point. If this condition holds at the fixed point, then a sufficiently small neighborhood (basin of attraction) must exist. Linear systems. In the case of a system of linear equations, the two main classes of iterative methods are the stationary iterative methods, and the more general Krylov subspace methods. Stationary iterative methods. Stationary iterative methods solve a linear system with an operator approximating the original one; and based on a measurement of the error in the result (the residual), form a "correction equation" for which this process is repeated. While these methods are simple to derive, implement, and analyze, convergence is only guaranteed for a limited class of matrices. Examples of stationary iterative methods are the Jacobi method, Gauss–Seidel method and the Successive over-relaxation method. Linear stationary iterative methods are also called relaxation methods. Krylov subspace methods. Krylov subspace methods work by forming a basis of the sequence of successive matrix powers times the initial residual (the Krylov sequence). The approximations to the solution are then formed by minimizing the residual over the subspace formed. The prototypical method in this class is the conjugate gradient method (CG). Other methods are the generalized minimal residual method (GMRES) and the biconjugate gradient method (BiCG). Convergence of Krylov subspace methods. Since these methods form a basis, it is evident that the method converges in "N" iterations, where "N" is the system size. However, in the presence of rounding errors this statement does not hold; moreover, in practice "N" can be very large, and the iterative process reaches sufficient accuracy already far earlier. The analysis of these methods is hard, depending on a complicated function of the spectrum of the operator. Preconditioners. The approximating operator that appears in stationary iterative methods can also be incorporated in Krylov subspace methods such as GMRES (alternatively, preconditioned Krylov methods can be considered as accelerations of stationary iterative methods), where they become transformations of the original operator to a presumably better conditioned one. The construction of preconditioners is a large research area. History. Probably the first iterative method for solving a linear system appeared in a letter of Gauss to a student of his. He proposed solving a 4-by-4 system of equations by repeatedly solving the component in which the residual was the largest.
584544	Thavasi (Tamil : தவசி) is a 2001 Tamil action film directed by Udaya Shankar starring Vijayakanth in dual role, with Soundarya, Jayasudha and Nassar playing other pivotal roles.
629336	Barry Otto (born 1941) is an Australian actor with a long list of memorable roles on stage and in film. Career. Otto received an AFI Award for Best Supporting Actor in "Strictly Ballroom" as well as being nominated for "Bliss", "Cosi" and "The More Things Change...". He is the father of actresses Gracie Otto and Miranda Otto. Otto is also a keen amateur artist, often painting members of his family, and has twice entered the Archibald Prize.
1103110	Alexander Merkurjev (, born September 25, 1955) is a Russian-born American mathematician, who has made major contributions to the field of algebra. Currently Merkurjev is a professor at the University of California, Los Angeles. Awards and distinctions. In 1982 Merkurjev won the Young Mathematician Prize of the Petersburg Mathematical Society for his work on algebraic K-theory. In 1986 he was an invited speaker at the International Congress of Mathematicians in Berkeley, California, and his talk was entitled "Milnor K-theory and Galois cohomology". In 1995 he won the Humboldt Prize, an international prize awarded to renowned scholars. Merkurjev gave a plenary talk at the 2nd European Congress of Mathematics in Budapest, Hungary in 1996. In 2012 he won the Cole Prize in Algebra for his work on the essential dimension of groups. In 2012 he became a fellow of the American Mathematical Society. Work. Merkurjev's work focuses on algebraic groups, quadratic forms, Galois cohomology, algebraic K-theory and central simple algebras. In the early 1980s Merkurjev proved a fundamental result about the structure of central simple algebras of period dividing 2, which relates the 2-torsion of the Brauer group with Milnor K-theory. In subsequent work with Suslin this was extended to higher torsion as the Merkurjev–Suslin theorem, recently generalized in the norm residue isomorphism theorem (previously known as the Bloch-Kato conjecture), proven in full generality by Rost and Voevodsky. In the late 1990s Merkurjev gave the most general approach to the notion of essential dimension, introduced by Buhler and Reichstein, and made fundamental contributions to that field. In particular Merkurjev determined the essential p-dimension of central simple algebras of degree formula_1 (for a prime p) and, in joint work with Karpenko, the essential dimension of finite "p"-groups.
591855	Okariki Okaru ()(English:One for the other) is a classical movie, directed by Director-turned-Cinematographer Rasool Ellore. It starred Tamil actor, Srikanth and Aarthi Chhabria. The film was dubbed in Tamil as "Unnai Paartha Naal Mudhal" with comedy track of Ramesh Khanna added for Tamil version. Synopsis. Swapna (Aarthi Chabria) is a NRI who has come to India for a visit along with her grandfather. Kameshwar rao (Srikanth) is on a pilgrimage to Kaasi on the request of his grandmother as he had completed graduation successfully. Kamesh sees Swapna at a railway station and falls in love with her at the first sight. Swapna along with her grandfather leave for their relative's place in a hurry without giving a chance for Swapna to inform Rahul, but somehow Swapna places a note in Rahul's wallet before leaving. When Swapna goes to her relative's house she learns that it was her engagement which is being arranged and is upset. Her father comes in between for the engagement and stops it as the relatives had actually cheated them on business due to which Swapna's uncle (father's brother) succumbs to a cardiac arrest.
65133	Frank Plumpton Ramsey (22 February 1903 – 19 January 1930) was a precocious British mathematician, philosopher and economist who died at the age of 26. He was a close friend of Ludwig Wittgenstein and was instrumental in translating Wittgenstein's "Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus" into English, as well as persuading Wittgenstein to return to philosophy and Cambridge. Life. Ramsey was born on 22 February 1903 in Cambridge where his father Arthur Stanley Ramsey (1867–1954), also a mathematician, was President of Magdalene College. His mother was Mary Agnes Stanley (1875–1927). He was the eldest of two brothers and two sisters, and his brother Michael Ramsey, the only one of the four siblings who was to remain Christian, later became Archbishop of Canterbury. He entered Winchester College in 1915 and later returned to Cambridge to study mathematics at Trinity College. While studying mathematics at Trinity College, Ramsey became a student to John Maynard Keynes, and an active member in the Apostles, a Cambridge discussion group. In 1923, he received his bachelors degree in mathematics with high honors. Easy-going, simple and modest, Ramsey had many interests besides his scientific work. Even as a teenager Ramsey exhibited both a profound ability and, as attested by his brother, an extremely diverse range of interests: Ramsey suffered mildly from depression, and was intellectually interested in psychoanalysis. While writing his dissertation he went to Vienna to be psychoanalysed by Theodor Reik, a disciple of Freud. As one of the justifications for undertaking therapy, he asserted in a letter to his mother that unconscious impulses might even affect the work of a mathematician. Ramsey returned to England in 1924, and with John Maynard Keynes's support he became a fellow of King's College, Cambridge, being the second person ever to be elected without having previously studied at King's College. In September 1925 he married Lettice Baker, the wedding taking place in a Register Office since Ramsey was, as his wife described him, a ‘militant atheist’. (She subsequently ran a photography practice in Cambridge for many years ["Ramsey and Muspratt"].) The marriage produced two daughters. Despite his atheism, Ramsey was quite tolerant towards his brother when the latter decided to become a priest in the Church of England. In 1926 he became a university lecturer in mathematics and later a Director of Studies in Mathematics at King's College. Ramsey and Wittgenstein. When I. A. Richards and C. K. Ogden, both Fellows of Magdalene, first met Ramsey, he expressed his interest in learning German. According to Richards, he mastered the language "in almost hardly over a week", although other sources show he took before that one year of German in school. Ramsey was then able, at the age of 19, to make the first draft of the translation of the German text of Wittgenstein’s "Tractatus Logico Philosophicus". Ramsey was impressed by Wittgenstein’s work and after graduating as Senior Wrangler in the Mathematical Tripos of 1923 he made a journey to Austria to visit Wittgenstein, at that time teaching in a primary school in the small community of Puchberg am Schneeberg. For two weeks Ramsey discussed the difficulties he was facing in understanding the "Tractatus". Wittgenstein made some corrections to the English translation in Ramsey’s copy and some annotations and changes to the German text that subsequently appeared in the second edition in 1933. Ramsey and John Maynard Keynes cooperated to try to bring Ludwig Wittgenstein back to Cambridge (he had been a student there before World War I). Once Wittgenstein had returned to Cambridge, Ramsey became his nominal supervisor. Wittgenstein submitted the "Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus" as his doctoral thesis. G.E. Moore and Bertrand Russell acted as examiners. Later, the three of them arranged financial aid for Wittgenstein to help him continue his research work. In 1929 Ramsey and Wittgenstein regularly discussed issues in mathematics and philosophy with Piero Sraffa, an Italian economist who had been brought to Cambridge by Keynes after Sraffa had aroused Benito Mussolini’s ire by publishing an article critical of the Fascist regime in the "Manchester Guardian". The contributions of Ramsey to these conversations were acknowledged by both Sraffa and Wittgenstein in their later work. Early death. Suffering from chronic liver problems, Ramsey developed jaundice after an abdominal operation and died on 19 January 1930 at Guy's Hospital in London at the age of 26. He is buried in the Parish of the Ascension Burial Ground in Cambridge; his father (1867–1954) and mother (1875–1927) are buried in the same plot. Ramsey’s notes and manuscripts were acquired by Nicholas Rescher for the Archives of Scientific Philosophy and the University of Pittsburgh. This Ramsey collection contains only a few letters but a great many drafts of papers and book chapters, some still unpublished. The Decision Analysis Society annually awards the Frank P. Ramsey Medal to recognise substantial contributions to decision theory and its application to important classes of real decision problems. Work. Mathematical logic. One of the theorems proved by Ramsey in his 1928 paper "On a problem of formal logic" now bears his name (Ramsey's theorem). While this theorem is the work Ramsey is probably best remembered for, he only proved it in passing, as a minor lemma along the way to his true goal in the paper, solving a special case of the decision problem for first-order logic, namely the decidability of what is now called the Bernays–Schönfinkel–Ramsey class of first-order logic, as well as a characterization of the spectrum of sentences in this fragment of logic. Alonzo Church would go on to show that the general case of the decision problem for first-order logic is unsolvable (see Church's theorem). A great amount of later work in mathematics was fruitfully developed out of the ostensibly minor lemma, which turned out to be an important early result in combinatorics, supporting the idea that within some sufficiently large systems, however disordered, there must be some order. So fruitful, in fact, was Ramsey's theorem that today there is an entire branch of mathematics, known as Ramsey theory, which is dedicated to studying similar results. Philosophy. His philosophical works included "Universals" (1925), "Facts and propositions" (1927) (which proposed a redundancy theory of truth), "Universals of law and of fact" (1928), "Knowledge" (1929), "Theories" (1929), "On Truth" (1929), and "General propositions and causality" (1929). Wittgenstein mentions him in the introduction to his "Philosophical Investigations" as an influence. Economics. Keynes and Pigou encouraged Ramsey to work on economics as "From a very early age, about sixteen I think, his precocious mind was intensely interested in economic problems" (Keynes, 1933). Ramsey responded to Keynes's urging by writing three papers in economic theory all of which were of fundamental importance, though it was many years before they received their proper recognition by the community of economists. Ramsey’s three papers, described below in detail, were on subjective probability and utility (1926), optimal taxation (1927) and optimal one-sector economic growth (1928). The economist Paul Samuelson described them in 1970 as "three great legacies – legacies that were for the most part mere by-products of his major interest in the foundations of mathematics and knowledge." A mathematical theory of saving. This significant paper was published in The Economic Journal, and involved "a strategically beautiful application of the calculus of variations" (Paul Samuelson) in order to determine the optimal amount an economy should invest (save) rather than consume so as to maximize future utility, or in Ramsey’s words "how much of its income should a nation save?" (Ramsey, 1928). Keynes described the article as "one of the most remarkable contributions to mathematical economics ever made, both in respect of the intrinsic importance and difficulty of its subject, the power and elegance of the technical methods employed, and the clear purity of illumination with which the writer's mind is felt by the reader to play about its subject. The article is terribly difficult reading for an economist, but it is not difficult to appreciate how scientific and aesthetic qualities are combined in it together" (Keynes 1933). The Ramsey model is today acknowledged as the starting point for optimal accumulation theory although its importance was not recognized until many years after its first publication. The main contributions of the model were firstly the initial question Ramsey posed on how much savings should be and secondly the method of analysis, the intertemporal maximization (optimization) of collective or individual utility by applying techniques of dynamic optimization. Tjalling C. Koopmans and David Cass modified the Ramsey model incorporating the dynamic features of population growth at a steady rate and of Harrod-neutral technical progress again at a steady rate, giving birth to a model named the Ramsey–Cass–Koopmans model where the objective now is to maximize household’s utility function. A contribution to the theory of taxation. In this paper Ramsey's contribution to economic theory was the elegant concept of Ramsey pricing. This is applicable in situations where a (regulated) monopolist wants to maximize consumer surplus whilst at the same time ensuring that its costs are adequately covered. This is achieved by setting the price such that the markup over marginal cost is inversely proportional to the price elasticity of demand for that good. Like its predecessor this paper was published in The Economic Journal in 1927. Ramsey poses the question that is to be solved at the beginning of the article: "a given revenue is to be raised by proportionate taxes on some or all uses of income, the taxes on different uses being possibly at different rates; how much should these rates be adjusted in order that the decrement of utility may be a minimum?" (Ramsey 1927). The problem was suggested to him by the economist Arthur Pigou and the paper was Ramsey’s answer to the problem. Truth and probability. Keynes in his "A Treatise on Probability" (1921) argued against the subjective approach in epistemic probabilities. For Keynes, subjectivity of probabilities doesn’t matter as much, as for him there is an objective relationship between knowledge and probabilities, as knowledge is disembodied and not personal. Ramsey in his article disagrees with Keynes’s approach as for him there is a difference between the notions of probability in physics and in logic. For Ramsey probability is not related to a disembodied body of knowledge but is related to the knowledge that each individual possesses alone. Thus personal beliefs that are formulated by this individual knowledge govern probabilities leading to the notion of subjective probability. Consequently, subjective probabilities can be inferred by observing actions that reflect individuals' personal beliefs. Ramsey argued that the degree of probability that an individual attaches to a particular outcome can be measured by finding what odds the individual would accept when betting on that outcome. Ramsey suggested a way of deriving a consistent theory of choice under uncertainty that could isolate beliefs from preferences while still maintaining subjective probabilities. Despite the fact that Ramsey’s work on probabilities was of great importance again no one paid any attention to it until the publication of Theory of Games and Economic Behavior of John von Neumann and Oskar Morgenstern in 1944 (1947 2nd ed.)
628190	Crocodile Dundee in Los Angeles (also known as Crocodile Dundee 3) is a 2001 Australian-American comedy film, directed by Simon Wincer and starring Paul Hogan. It is the sequel to the 1988 film ""Crocodile" Dundee II" and the 1986 film ""Crocodile" Dundee" and the third and final film of the trilogy. Hogan and Linda Kozlowski reprise their roles as Michael "Crocodile" Dundee and Sue Charlton, respectively. The film was shot on location in Los Angeles and in Queensland. Actor Paul Hogan reported that the inspiration for the storyline came during a tour of Litomyšl, Czech Republic in 1993. Plot. At the beginning of the film, protagonist Michael "Crocodile" Dundee (Paul Hogan) is living in the Australian Outback with Sue Charlton (Linda Kozlowski) and their young son Mikey (Serge Cockburn). Because Crocodile hunting has been made illegal, Mick is reduced to wrestling crocodiles for the entertainment of tourists, having as his rival in the business another Outback survivalist named Jacko (Alec Wilson). When an opportunity arises for Sue to become the Los Angeles bureau chief of a newspaper owned by her father, Mick and his family cross the Pacific to California. In the United States, Mick and his son's encounters with the locals cause cross-cultural mishaps. Mick becomes an undercover amateur sleuth helping to probe the mysterious death of his wife's predecessor at the newspaper, while Mikey attends a local school, where he quickly impresses his classmates and teacher with his outback survival skills. Because the case takes up so much of their time, Mick and Sue eventually call in Jacko to babysit their son; gradually, Jacko and Mikey's teacher become interested in each other. It is revealed that the dead reporter had been investigating a film studio, which is about to make a sequel to the action film "Lethal Agent", despite the title's commercial failure. Mick becomes suspicious when several paintings from Southern Europe are brought onto the set; although at first he suspects drug smuggling, the pictures themselves are revealed to be missing art from a museum in former Yugoslavia thought lost in the recent civil wars. They are to appear in the movie as mere props, to be publicly 'destroyed' in a scene in which they are set on fire, at which point they will have been exchanged for copies. Attempting to secure one of the paintings as evidence, Mick, Sue, and Jacko run afoul of the studio director and his thugs. Using the studio's props and two lions used in filming to defeat the gangsters, Mick and Sue solve the case and return to Australia, where they are officially married. Reception. This film was nominated for a Razzie Award for Worst Remake or Sequel but the lost the trophy to "Planet of the Apes". It received negative reviews from critics. According to Rotten Tomatoes only 11% of 79 critics rated the movie favorably. Box office. The film grossed $7,759,103 at the box office in Australia. The movie debuted in 4th place at the US box office behind "Bridget Jones's Diary" (which was #1 in its second weekend), "Spy Kids" and "Along Came a Spider". It grossed only $39 million worldwide, well below the total gross of the previous two films.
582088	Love Aaj Kal (English translation: "Love Nowadays") is a 2009 Bollywood romantic comedy drama film starring Saif Ali Khan and Deepika Padukone in lead roles with Rahul Khanna, Rishi Kapoor and Giselli Monteiro in supporting roles. The film is directed by Imtiaz Ali and produced by Saif Ali Khan and Dinesh Vijan. The film portrays the feeling of pure love which never changes, although the perspective of realizing one's soulmate has changed over time. Although there was a lot of pre-release speculation that the film was a remake of the 2005 Taiwanese film, "Three Times", post-release reviews have proven that this is not the case. This film was remade into Telugu as "Teen Maar" with Pawan Kalyan and Trisha Krishnan in lead roles. Plot. Jai and Meera are a modern-day couple living in England. They are happy with each other, but do not believe in tying each other down so, when career beckons, they have a mutual break-up, but decide to remain friends. Meera goes to India, while Jai stays in England, hoping to be called to San Francisco, where working at the Golden Gate is his dream job. Jai begins to date a blonde named Jo, while Meera returns the feeling of her boss, Vikram. The couple believe they have moved on. Running side-by-side, but in a different time, is the tale of Veer Singh. A great believer of love, the Sikh narrates his love story to Jai to try to convince him not to let Meera go from his life. He tells how he fell for a girl called Harleen, who moved to Calcutta. He traveled a thousand miles, by train, only to see her face. He also explains how things were different, and the couples then had a lot more respect for each other. Jai ridicules Veer, who vowed to marry Harleen even before he had gotten to talk to her. But, on Veer's insistence, the young man concedes to pay Meera a surprise visit in India. Meera is stunned, and the two lie to both Jo and Vikram to spend time with each other. They go out as friends, and realize how much they still like each other's company. Meanwhile, Jai and Jo break up as Jai is unable to reciprocate the deeper feelings that Jo longs for. On the day Jai is to leave, Vikram proposes to Meera. She meets Jai secretly, who tells her she should take a decision after thinking. Angry, Meera tells him to leave her life, and that they can no longer have any contact or else she will never be able to really move on. Parallel to this, we find that Harleen has told Veer she was engaged without being told, and he must leave her. Jai is surprised on Meera's wedding, and tells her nothing can be done now. He goes back, and gets his dream job in San Francisco the same day Meera realizes her marriage is a mistake. She tells Vikram the truth and calls Jai, but he tells her about the Golden Gate before she can tell him what is on her mind. Realizing he is going to San Francisco, she tells him nothing but returns to Vikram's house, dejected. Parallel to this, Veer Singh declares his intentions of marrying Harleen but is badly beaten by her family. Jai slowly begins to lose interest in his "dream job" and is beaten badly by some thugs when, while being mugged, he refuses to give them a picture of Meera. He then realizes he still loves her, and goes back to India. He finds Vikram, who informs him that Meera left him the day that he, Jai, had told her about his job in San Francisco. In the past storyline, Veer Singh travels to Harleen's house on the day of her wedding, and convinces her mother that Harleen can only be happy with him. Harleen's mother lets Veer Singh secretly sneak out with her daughter, and the two marry to have a happily ever after. In the present, Jai goes to Meera's work, at the Old Fort, and they have a heart-touching reunion. In the end, the song Aahun Aahun is played in the theme of Aam Janta (Hindi: आम जनता;meaning "common man') and Pratigya, in which Veer Singh represents Pratigya, while Jai represents Aam Janta. Each shows his different way of love, but both conclude that love has never changed. It shows that, even though people these days try to make themselves believe that love is just an infatuation that goes away with time and that there is no such thing as "true love" or "soulmate", in their hearts they still love each other with that passion. Production. The shooting of the film started on May 2008 and took place in the railway station of Patiala, Red Fort, Purana Qila and on the streets of Delhi. Parts have been shot in London, San Francisco, and Kolkata. The building used as Golden Gate, Inc. in the film is actually the City of San Jose City Hall, commonly known as the Rotunda. The film wasn't given a name until January 2009, after shooting was complete. Release. Marketing. The producers of the film inked marketing tie-ups with 2009 ICC World Twenty20, Shoppers Stop and Bajaj Allianz Life Insurance. The apparel worn by the lead cast is exclusively available at Shoppers Stop. With Bajaj Allianz they have a tie up to share the special moments where they could win a chance to meet Saif Ali Khan, the protagonist and the producer of the movie. The tie up with ICC Twenty20 World Cup 2009 was that both Deepika and Saif will be in England before the tournament begins, with Saif expected to commentate on matches for Indian television. Reception. Critical Reception. The movie received a positive to mixed reception from critics. Taran Adarsh of Bollywood Hungama gave the movie 4 stars out of 5, saying that "On the whole, LOVE AAJ KAL is for the young and romantic at heart. Sure, it's not perfect, but the terrific performances, melodious music and stirring emotional moments more than compensate for the hiccups." Nikhat Kazmi of Times of India gave the movie 4 stars in a scale of 5, concluding that "Go watch it for it's GenNow feel and it's ekdum modern appeal." Sonia Chopra of Sify gave the movie 3.5 stars out of 5, commenting that "With lilting music and characters you'll love, Imtiaz Ali brings out one of the most romantic films in recent times. It's a love story of the aam junta, with a delicious contemporary edge. Go get your fill." Shubhra Gupta of Indian Express gave the movie 3 stars in a scale of 5, noting that "It’s hard not to warm up to a film which is, at its core, likeable. I just wish I could have liked it more." Aniruddha Guha of DNA India gave the movie 3 stars out of 5, writing that "Though Love Aaj Kal may not quite be the film you expect it to be, it does not leave you feeling disappointed either. Watch it without too many expectations and you will come back smiling. And if you have wanted to ask someone out for a while, this film is the perfect ice-breaker." Raja Sen of Rediff gave the movie 2.5 stars in a scale of 5, stating that "Love Aaj Kal is a harmless, watchable film – sad, because it could have been truly special. It has its moments in the first half, while the second half is an over-melodramatic drag." Rajeev Masand of CNN-IBN gave the movie 2 stars out of 5, pointing that "The film in the end is ordinary stuff, watchable but never memorable like the director's previous efforts, the far superior Socha Na Tha and Jab We Met. I'm going with two out of five and an average rating for Love Aaj Kal. It's like that plump mango you bite into only to discover it's not ripe yet. Watch it nevertheless for the sharp dialogue and some clever humor." Box Office. "Love Aaj Kal" netted in its first week. and in its second week. "Love Aaj Kal" netted in India. It was declared a super hit by "Box Office India", grossing . Soundtrack. The music of "Love Aaj Kal" is composed by Pritam with lyrics penned by Irshad Kamil. The album earned Pritam his first IIFA Best Music Director Award.
1059963	The Ghost and Mrs. Muir (1947) is a romantic fantasy film starring Gene Tierney and Rex Harrison. It is based on a 1945 novel written by Josephine Leslie under the pseudonym of R. A. Dick. In 1945, 20th Century Fox bought the film rights to the novel, which had been published only in the United Kingdom at that time. It was shot entirely in California. Plot. In early 1900s England, a young widow, Lucy Muir (Gene Tierney), moves to the seaside village of Whitecliff and into Gull Cottage with her daughter Anna (Natalie Wood) and her maid Martha (Edna Best), despite the fierce disapproval of her mother- and sister-in-law. She rents the house despite discovering that the house is haunted. On the first night, she is visited by the ghostly apparition of the former owner, a roguish, but harmless sea captain named Daniel Gregg (Rex Harrison), who reluctantly promises to make himself known only to her; Anna is too young for ghosts. When Lucy's investment income dries up, he dictates to her his memoirs, entitled "Blood and Swash". His racy recollections make the book a bestseller, allowing Lucy to stay in the house. During the course of writing the book, they fall in love, but as both realise it is a hopeless situation, Daniel tells her she should find a real (live) man. When she visits the publisher in London she becomes attracted to suave Miles Fairley (George Sanders), a writer of children's stories known as "Uncle Neddy" who helps her obtain an interview. Despite a rocky beginning, the publisher agrees to publish the captain's book. Fairley follows her back to Whitecliff and begins a whirlwind courtship. Captain Gregg, initially jealous of their relationship, decides finally to disappear and cease being an obstacle to her happiness. He convinces her that he was all a dream whilst she sleeps. Shortly thereafter while visiting her publisher in London, Lucy pays a surprise visit to Fairley's home and discovers that not only is Miles already married with two children, but that this sort of thing has happened before with other women. Lucy leaves heartbroken and returns to spend the rest of her life as a single woman in Gull Cottage with Martha to look after her. About ten years later, Anna (Vanessa Brown) returns with her Navy lieutenant fiancé and tells her mother that she knew about Captain Gregg and Miles Fairley all the time, rekindling faint memories in her mother of the captain (it is also revealed that Fairley has become fat and bald and that his wife and children finally left him). Lucy spends a long peaceful life at the cottage. Captain Gregg appears before her at the moment of her death – reaching out, he lifts her young spirit free of her body. The two walk out of the front door arm in arm, into the mist. Awards. "The Ghost and Mrs. Muir" received a 1947 Academy Award nomination for Cinematography. Adaptations to other media. "The Ghost and Mrs. Muir" was adapted as an hour-long radio play on the December 1, 1947 broadcast of "Lux Radio Theater" with Charles Boyer and Madeleine Carroll, and was also adapted on the August 16, 1951 "Screen Director's Playhouse" with Boyer and Jane Wyatt. From 1968 to 1970, a TV sitcom entitled "The Ghost & Mrs. Muir" starring Hope Lange and Edward Mulhare aired on NBC and ABC with the same premise as the book and film, but with a contemporary American setting. Mrs. Muir's first name was changed from 'Lucy' to 'Carolyn' for the series. DVD release. The film was released on DVD by 20th Century Fox as part of their 20th Century Fox Studio Classics collection. External links. Streaming audio
1211347	Viva La Bands is a series of CDs compiled by skater/"Jackass" alumnus Bam Margera, featuring songs from some of his favorite bands. It was released on June 21, 2005. A second volume, "Viva la Bands, Volume 2", was released in September 2007, coinciding with an American tour headlined by bands like Cradle of Filth, Gwar, CKY and Vains of Jenna. Bonus content. The CD was packaged with a DVD with never-before-seen video footage of Bam and the CKY crew, presumably shot for the series "Viva La Bam".
1063618	Joe Dirt is a 2001 American comedy film starring David Spade, Dennis Miller, Christopher Walken, Brian Thompson, Brittany Daniel, Jaime Pressly, Erik Per Sullivan, Adam Beach and Kid Rock. The film was written by Spade and Fred Wolf and produced by Robert Simonds. Plot. Joe Dirt (David Spade) works as a custodian at a Los Angeles radio station and lives in a boiler room in the basement of the facility. When a producer at the station discovers Joe getting bullied in the hallway, the producer finds Joe's natural white trash demeanor too extravagant to be believed, and insists he be brought into the studio to talk live on the air with famous disc jockey named Zander Kelly (Dennis Miller). Joe tells his life story, beginning with him being inadvertently left behind by his parents at the Grand Canyon when he was eight years old. After growing up in a series of bizarre foster homes, Joe finds himself living in the outskirts of the village of Silvertown where he pursues a love interest, Brandy (Brittany Daniel). The local bully Robby (Kid Rock) also has a crush on Brandy. After a bizarre twist of events leads to the death of Brandy's beloved dog, Charlie, Joe feels the need to seek out his parents. The search leads Joe on a series of adventures, meeting colorful characters like Kicking Wing the Native American fireworks salesman and Charlene the gator farm owner. All the while, he lives by working odd jobs. Parodying the lotion scene from "The Silence of the Lambs", Joe narrowly escapes death when captured by Buffalo Bob (Brian Thompson). He then ends up in New Orleans where he works as a high school janitor/handyman with a former mobster in the Witness Protection Program, Clem Doore (Christopher Walken). While Zander and the listening audience are initially amused at Joe's expense, his optimistic outlook on life and good-natured self deprecation win over Zander and the audience. Eventually, Joe lands his janitorial job at the Los Angeles radio station where he recounts how, at one point, he decided to give up the search and return to Silvertown to be with Brandy. When he got there, Robby informed him that Brandy found Joe's parents, but instructed Robby not to tell Joe. Robby produced a note from Brandy to prove it. Hearing this, Zander insists on getting Brandy on the phone to find out why she did this. Brandy admits to writing the note to Robby. She did it because she wanted to tell Joe in person, but never had the opportunity. Brandy goes on to tell Joe that his parents were killed the day they were at the Grand Canyon and pleads with Joe to come back to Silvertown. Joe is unaware that recounting his story on the radio has made him an overnight media sensation. An appearance on "TRL" with Carson Daly results in a phone call from a woman claiming to be Joe's mother. Joe goes to meet her, but is disappointed to discover that his parents (Fred Ward and Caroline Aaron) are really just using Joe's publicity to help sell her homemade clown figurines, and that they intentionally abandoned him at the Grand Canyon. Angry and sad, he destroys the clown figurines and storms out, cutting his ties with his parents. Depressed, Joe goes to a bridge to commit suicide, but Brandy appears and says that she had told Joe his parents were dead just to protect him when she found out what horrible people they were. A policeman on horseback lassoes Joe's legs with bungee jumping cord to stop him from jumping, in the process inadvertently causing Joe to fall off the bridge. The bungee cord saves Joe from the fall, but bouncing back upward, he hits his head on the underside of the bridge and is knocked unconscious. Joe wakes up in Brandy's house surrounded by Brandy and other friends he has met on his journey. Brandy pays the impound lot to get Joe's Plymouth back and she has a new dog, who is the offspring of her deceased dog. Just as they get ready to drive away, Robby suddenly drives by and taunts Joe, saying that no one wants him around in Silvertown, no matter how famous he is. Clem comes to Joe's defense and threatens Robby as Charlene taunts Robby's car. At that point, they all realize that they are like a family. With his new family Joe rides off into the sunset, leaving a frustrated Robby in the dust, his car now damaged by the rocks Joe's car deflected from the ground. Production. According to the commentary, Bryce Canyon subbed for the Grand Canyon scenes in Joe Dirt's flashbacks. Reception. The film's critical reception has been generally negative. The film has an average rating of 3 out of 10 with an 11% fresh rating at Rotten Tomatoes, with the consensus stating, "If you fall within the target audience of "Joe Dirt", you may find it funny. Otherwise, the jokes will seem like a tired retread." Despite reviews, "Joe Dirt" recouped its $17.7 million budget at the box office, and grossed over $27 million domestically. Ebert and Roeper both gave the film a thumbs down. Richard Roeper called the comedy for being predictable and strained, and said that the radio station storyline was "absurd". Roger Ebert agreed, but praised Spade for taking on a different role than he is normally associated with, and added that Spade's performance was convincing, despite the film's other shortcomings. That being said, Ebert would go on to include "Joe Dirt" as one of his most hated films of all time under the category of "alleged comedies" and going on to state, "What movies, including "Joe Dirt," often do not understand is that the act of being buried in crap is not in and of itself funny." The second verse of "Weird Al" Yankovic's "Close but No Cigar" from his album "Straight Outta Lynwood" contains the lyrics "I thought after all these years of searching around, I'd found my soulmate finally/But one day I found out she actually owned a copy of "Joe Dirt" on DVD." TV series. In early 2010, Spade worked on a pilot with TBS for an animated series based on the film.
1036376	Bennet Evan "Ben" Miller (born 24 February 1966) is an English comedian, actor, and director. He is best known as one half of comedy double act Armstrong and Miller, along with Alexander Armstrong and for starring as James Lester on ITV's science fiction programme Primeval. Miller and Armstrong wrote and starred in the Channel 4 sketch show "Armstrong and Miller", and the more recent BBC television sketch show "The Armstrong and Miller Show". As of 2011, he is starring in the crime drama series "Death in Paradise". He is also known for his role as Bough alongside Rowan Atkinson in the 2003 film "Johnny English". Early life and education. Miller was born in London, England, and grew up in Nantwich, Cheshire. His paternal grandfather was a Lithuanian-born tailor who lived in London's East End; his father, Michael Miller, was a lecturer in American Literature at the City of Birmingham Polytechnic; and his Welsh mother, Marion, taught English at South Cheshire College. He has two younger sisters, Leah and Bronwen. He was educated at Malbank School and Sixth Form College, his local comprehensive school in Nantwich, Cheshire. He then studied natural sciences at St Catharine's College, Cambridge, where he acted with and dated Rachel Weisz. He remained at Cambridge to study for a Ph.D. in solid state physics, titled "Novel quantum effects in low-temperature quasi-zero dimensional mesoscopic electron systems," but later abandoned his thesis to pursue a career in comedy. Miller's interest in comedy began when a friend asked him to help ferry around the judges of the National Student Drama Festival, which was being held that year in Cambridge. Having already finished his undergraduate degree, he then joined the Footlights in 1989 alongside the likes of Andy Parsons, David Wolstencroft and Sue Perkins and went on to direct a revue. Career. Miller decided not to continue his doctorate studies and moved to London to pursue a career in comedy. He was introduced to fellow Cambridge graduate Alexander Armstrong in 1992, at the TBA Sketch Comedy Group, a comedy club which ran at the Gate Theatre Studio, Notting Hill throughout the 1990s. They performed their first full-length show at the Edinburgh Fringe in 1994, and returned in 1996, whereupon they were nominated for the Perrier Comedy Award. Their success resulted in the commissioning of the television series "Armstrong and Miller", which ran for four series in total from 1997 to 2001 – one on the Paramount Comedy Channel, and three on Channel 4. The duo had their own radio show with the same name on BBC Radio 4 in 1998, which featured many of the sketches and characters from their TV series, and a second show, "Children's Hour with Armstrong and Miller", later in the same year. After a six-year break, the show was recommissioned for Hattrick Productions as "The Armstrong and Miller Show" and is currently in its third series. In 2001, Miller starred in Steve Coogan's first feature film, the British comedy "The Parole Officer." In 2003 he played the role of 'Bough', sidekick to Rowan Atkinson's title character in the film "Johnny English". In 2004 he co-starred in "The Prince and Me". In 2004 and 2005, he starred in two consecutive series of the BBC television series "The Worst Week of My Life," alongside Sarah Alexander, followed in 2006 by a three-part Christmas special, "The Worst Christmas of My Life". Since 2007 he is starring as James Lester in ITV's sci-fi drama "Primeval," and as Mr Jonathan in the Australian film "". From 2001 until 2007, Miller provided the voice for the ITV Digital and now PG Tips Monkey, in a popular series of television advertisements featuring Johnny Vegas. In 2008, he appeared in three ITV1 series, as television producer Jonathan Pope in Tony Jordan's series "Moving Wallpaper". He also starred in "Thank God You're Here". In 2010 he made his directorial debut with the film "Huge". In 2011 (as revealed by Miller on Twitter), he reprised his role as James Lester in "Primeval". Since November 2011, he has been in "The Ladykillers" at the Gielgud Theatre playing Louis Harvey. He also launched his book 'It's Not Rocket Science' opening a book tour at the Royal Society on July 23 of 2012 in London. Also has appeared at the C4 British Comedy Awards with Alexander Armstrong, has filmed an episode of 'Room 101' and a 'Comic Relief' Pointless Special, both due to air early 2013. One of his more recent successes, is starring in the hit BBC TV Series "Death in Paradise", where he plays DI Richard Poole. Series 2 of Death in Paradise aired on BBC one from the 8th of January to the 26th of February 2013. A third series of Death in Paradise was commissioned for early 2014. However on April 9, 2013 it was announced that Ben Miller will be departing Death in Paradise during season 3 and is to be replaced by actor Kris Marshall. Filming of Death in Paradise began in March 2013, and Miller left in May 2013 half way through filming the series, when Kris Marshall took over the role. Ben has also been filming in 'Molly Moon' a feature film due for release in 2013 or 2014, the date yet to be finalized. Miller was also cast with Billy Connolly and David Tennant to appear in a new film "What We Did on Our Holiday" due to start filming in Scotland from June 17, 2013. Starring alongside Nancy Carroll and Diana Vickers, he is to play the lead role of Robert Houston in the new play The Duck House by Dan Patterson and Colin Swash. The show is a political satire based on the UK parliamentary expenses scandal. Production. Miller directed a television pilot, which subsequently became the first episode of Steve Coogan's 2006 British BBC TV Comedy series "Saxondale." With Armstrong, he has formed a production company named Toff Media. Awards. Miller was awarded a Judges' Commendation for his portrayal of Hamlet at the 1990 National Student Drama Festival. He co-wrote "MindGym", winner of the first BAFTA Interactive Entertainment Award for comedy in 1998, with Tim Wright and Adam Gee. He and Armstrong won a BCA Award for The Armstrong and Miller Show. In 2010 they also won a BAFTA for The Armstrong and Miller Show. Personal life. Miller was married to Belinda Stewart-Wilson (who guest-starred with him in Series 3 of "Primeval"), they divorced in 2011. They have a son, Jackson a.k.a Sonny, (born 2006). Miller also has a son, Harrison born late 2011, with his partner, production executive Jessica Parker. A talented musician, Miller plays the guitar and drums Rob Brydon is often mistaken for Miller, with whom he appeared on an episode of "QI", first broadcast on 20 February 2009 (Series 6. 9). As a joke, they dressed in similar shirts and shared a narcissistic kiss.
706451	Yeelen (Bambara for "brightness"/"light") is a 1987 Malian film directed by Souleymane Cissé. It is filmed in the Bambara and Fula languages, and is based on a legend told by the Bambara people. Though the era is undefined, it is presumably set in the 13th century in the Mali Empire and is a heroic quest narrative featuring magic and precognition. It stars Issiaka Kane as Niankoro, a young African man who possesses magical powers. Niamanto Sanogo plays Niankoro's father, who is tracking his son through the Bambara, Fulani and Dogon lands of West Africa using a magical wooden post to guide him. "Yeelen" was met with wide critical success, and was awarded the Jury Prize at the 1987 Cannes Film Festival. It was also nominated for the Golden Palm award for the same year. References. Samuel Lelièvre, "La Lumière de Souleymane Cissé. Cinéma et Culture", Paris, L'Harmattan, 2013 (ISBN 978-2-343-00201-9). See Wikipedia French article at http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yeelen for bibliographical references.
589675	Anokhi Raat (""Strange Night"") is a 1968 Hindi film produced by L. B. Lachman and L. B. Thakur and directed by Asit Sen. The film stars Sanjeev Kumar, Zaheeda Hussain, Aruna Irani, Keshto Mukherjee and Parikshat Sahni. It has music by Salil Choudhary and Roshan. The film has some outstanding songs that include "Oh re taal mile", "Mahalon ka raja mila", "Mile na phool to", and "Dulhan se tumhara milan hoga". Plot. The events depicted in the film take place on a single night and results in several characters sharing their life stories. It is a fascinating depiction of some of the challenges faced by the poor and by women in Indian society, some of which continue to this day.
582301	Chori Chori Chupke Chupke is a 2001 Hindi movie directed by the successful pair Abbas-Mustan. It stars Preity Zinta, Salman Khan and Rani Mukerji . "Chori Chori Chupke Chupke" is probably the first Bollywood movie to handle the taboo issue of surrogate childbirth.
586722	Anita Raj (born 13 August 1962) is a former Bollywood actress who was popular in the 1980s. She had began her Hindi film career with the love story Premgeet (1982) opposite Raj Babbar. While shooting of film Karishma Kudrat Ka she and director Sunil Hingorani fell in love and got married in 1986.
674142	Emma Tiger Schweiger (born 26 October 2002), also known as Emma Schweiger, is a German child actress. She is known for having played the role of Cheyenne Blue in the 2007 film "Keinohrhasen" and its 2009 sequel "Zweiohrküken" and the role of Magdalena in "Kokowääh" and its 2013 sequel "Kokowääh 2", all directed by her father Til Schweiger. Family. Emma Tiger Schweiger was born on 26 October 2002 in Los Angeles, California to German actor Til Schweiger and American fashion model Dana Carlson. She is the youngest of four children, after Valentin (born 1995), Luna (born 1997) and Lilli (born 1998). All four of them are child actors, having first appeared in the 2007 film "Keinohrhasen" and its 2009 sequel "Zweiohrküken", directed by their father. Her parents separated in 2005. Schweiger now lives with her mother in Hamburg. Career. Schweiger made her film debut as Cheyenne Blue in "Keinohrhasen" (2007), co–starring Nora Tschirner and her father Til Schweiger, who also directed the film. In 2009, she reprised her role in the "Keinohrhasen" sequel, "Zweiohrküken". In 2011, Schweiger starred along with her father in his new film "Kokowääh" and has since reprised her role in the sequel "Kokowääh 2".
585354	Shalini Kumar, also known simply as Shalini, is an Indian film actress who debuted, at the age of 4, as a child artist in the Malayalam film "Ente Mamattikkuttiyammakku" which was produced by Navodaya Studio. She continued to appear in many films as a child actor, credited as Baby Shalini. After a break of several years, she returned to the industry by appearing in her first lead role in "Aniyathi Pravu" which went on to become a blockbuster. She later appeared in highly successful films in Malayalam and Tamil such as "Kadhalukku Mariyadhai" (1997), "Niram" (1999), "Amarkalam" (1999) and "Alaipayuthey" (2000). Shalini is married to Tamil film actor Ajith Kumar. Early and personal life. She was born in India to a Malayali-Christian household. She attended Fatima Mat. Hr. Sec School, Adarsh Vidyalaya, Chennai and Church Park Convent, Chennai. She is the middle child. Her younger sister Shamili and her older brother Richard Rishi are also employed in the film industry. Shalini has stated that she enjoys badminton and has played in a few state-level tournaments. In 1999, during the shoot of Saran's Amarkalam, Ajith began to date his co-star Shalini. At that time, their involvement made him a regular subject of tabloid gossip, a role to which he was accustomed following his previous relationship. Ajith proposed to Shalini in June 1999, and following consultations with her family, she agreed. They were married in April 2000 in Chennai in a grand ceremony. As both were of different religions, Ajith being a Hindu Brahmin and Shalini being Protestant Christian, they were married together under the customs of both religions. After their marriage, Shalini retired as an actress and became a full-time housewife, following the completion of two unfinished projects. On 3 January 2008, their daughter, Anoushka, was born in Chennai. Career. Shalini started her career as a child artist in "Ente Mamattikkuttiyammakku" and she acted in all the films under the direction of Fazil. She went to study, she returned to acting with "Aniyathipravu" which was successful. Initially Fazil was keen on casting a debutant in the lead female role, but Shalini inisted that she should also star in the Tamil version. Her performance was praised especially Indolink.com recommending the film and citing that "Shalini returns in this film with a good performance". The success of the film prompted the director to make another film with the lead pair in 2000, "Kannukkul Nilavu" which received positive reviews and was a success at the box office. Her next film was "Amarkalam", Saran initially approached Shalini, who was studying at the time and she refused but after a three-month pursuit, he finally got her to sign on as well. She was offered a role in "Padayappa" which she rejected.
1376075	Chiara Zanni (born July 19, 1978) is a Canadian actress and voice actress, performing in movies such as ' as Hahli, playing the title role in "Hamtaro", Young Joe (2001) in "Cyborg 009", Jubilee in ', Bon Bon in "My Little Pony Tales" and Nori, the mermaid in "". She also appears briefly in "X2: X-Men United" as a tour guide in the White House. Chiara is best known as Amy Ryan in the television series "About a Girl", where she plays a twenty-year-old woman, and also as the voice of Hakudoushi in "InuYasha" and the titular character of "What about Mimi?". As well as appearing on a number of on-camera projects, Chiara is currently working on various animated series, including, "Storm Hawks", "Ricky Sprocket" and "Sushi Pack". Life and career. Zanni was born in Vancouver, British Columbia to Italian father and British mom. Chiara started her career at the age of eight, when she was cast as the "Pokey Little Puppy" in a cartoon called "Little Golden Bookland" and hasn't stopped working since. Chiara has acted in feature films "X-Men", "40 Days and 40 Nights", "Come l'America", "In the Land of Women", and "Good Luck Chuck". Her twin sister is Asheleigh Zanni. Her TV appearances include "Supernatural", "Stargate Atlantis", "Edgemont", "Trophy Wife", "Bye Bye Birdie", "First to Die", and "Post Mortem". If Chiara sounds familiar, that's probably because she's also done voice work including roles in "Cyborg 009", "Zeke's Pad", "Hamtaro", "Trollz", "My Little Pony", "Polly Pockets", ', ', "", "Bionicle", "Inuyasha", "Storm Hawks", and "Oban Star-Racers.
900274	Cannibal Holocaust is a 1980 Italian cannibal film directed by Ruggero Deodato from a screenplay by Gianfranco Clerici, starring Carl Gabriel Yorke, Robert Kerman, Francesca Ciardi and Luca Barbareschi. "Cannibal Holocaust" was filmed in the Amazon Rainforest with real indigenous tribes interacting with American and Italian actors. The film tells the story of a missing documentary film crew who had gone to the Amazon to film cannibal tribes. A rescue mission, led by the New York University anthropologist Harold Monroe, recovers the film crew's lost cans of film, which an American television station wishes to broadcast. Upon viewing the reels, Monroe is appalled by the team's actions, and after learning their fate, he objects to the station's intent to air the documentary. "Cannibal Holocaust" is unique for its "found footage" structure, in which the gradual revelation of the recovered film's content functions similar to a flashback. The film's notion of "recovered footage" has influenced the now-popular genre of found footage horror films, such as "The Blair Witch Project". "Cannibal Holocaust" achieved notoriety as its graphic violence aroused a great deal of controversy. After its premiere in Italy, it was seized by a local magistrate, and Deodato was arrested on obscenity charges. He was charged with making a snuff film due to rumors that claimed some actors were killed on camera. Although Deodato was later cleared, the film was banned in Italy, Australia, and several other countries due to its disturbing portrayal of graphic brutality, sexual assault, and animal violence. Some nations have since revoked the ban, but the film is still banned in several countries. Critics have suggested that the film is a commentary about civilized versus uncivilized society. Plot. The film opens with a television documentary about a missing film crew from the United States that disappeared on an expedition to the Amazon Basin to make a documentary about indigenous cannibal tribes. The team was Alan Yates, the director; Faye Daniels, his girlfriend, along with a script girl; and two cameramen, Jack Anders and Mark Tomaso. Harold Monroe, a New York University anthropologist, has agreed to lead a rescue team and flies to the Amazon to meet his guides, Chaco and his assistant, Miguel. The group has a hostage captured by the military from a local tribe called the Yacumo, and they use him to help negotiate with the natives. The team arranges his release in exchange for being taken to the Yacumo village. There, the team initially meets hostility and learns that the film group had caused great unrest among the people. The next day, Monroe and his guides head deeper into the rainforest to locate two warring tribes, the Ya̧nomamö and the Shamatari. Following a group of Shamatari warriors to a riverbank, they intervene and save a smaller group of Ya̧nomamö from death in a conflict between the groups. The Ya̧nomamö invite Monroe and his team back to their village, where they are treated with suspicion. To gain the villagers' trust, Monroe bathes naked in a river. A group of Ya̧nomamö women emerge to take him to a shrine, which he learns holds the bones of the missing American filmmakers. Angry, Monroe confronts the Ya̧nomamö, during which time he plays a tape recorder for them. Intrigued, the natives agree to trade it for the first team's surviving reels of film during a cannibalistic ceremony, in which Monroe has to take part. Back in New York, executives of the Pan American Broadcast Company invite Monroe to host a broadcast of a documentary to be made from the recovered film. Monroe wants to see the raw footage first. The executives introduce him to Yates's work by showing an excerpt from his previous documentary, "The Last Road to Hell". One of the executives tells Monroe that Yates staged the scene to get more exciting footage. Monroe reviews the footage, which first follows the group's trek through the jungle. They promptly spot a large turtle, which they butcher and eat. Their guide, Felipe, is then bitten by a venomous snake. The group amputates Felipe's leg with a machete in an attempt to save his life, but he quickly dies and is left behind. The remaining four succeed in locating the Yacumo. Jack shoots one in the leg so they can easily follow him to the village. The second reel starts with the group's arrival at the Yacumo village. They force the entire tribe into a hut and burn it down in order to stage a scene for the film. Monroe expresses concerns over the staged scenes and poor treatment of the natives, but his worries are ignored. Monroe expresses his disgust to station executives about their decision to air the documentary. To convince them of his view, he shows the remaining, unedited footage, which only he has seen. The final two reels begin with the team locating a young Ya̧nomamö girl, whom the men gang-rape as Faye tries to stop them. Later, the team films the girl impaled on a wooden pole, where they claim the natives killed her. After they move on, the Ya̧nomamö attack the team in revenge for the girl's rape and death. Jack is hit by a spear, and Alan shoots him so the team can film how the natives mutilate his corpse. As the three surviving team members try to escape the scene, Faye is captured. Alan insists they try to rescue her. Mark continues to film as she is raped and beheaded. The Ya̧nomamö immediately locate the last two team members as the footage ends with Alan's bloody face. Disturbed by what they have just seen, the executives order the footage destroyed, and as Monroe leaves the station, he declares: "I wonder who the real cannibals are?". Production. Production began in 1979, when Deodato was contacted by German film producers to make a film similar to "Jungle Holocaust", which was also directed by Deodato. He accepted the project and immediately went in search of a producer, choosing his friend Francesco Palaggi. The two first flew to Colombia to scout for filming locations. Leticia was chosen as the principal filming location after Deodato met a Colombian documentary filmmaker at the airport in Bogotá, who suggested the town as a location ideal for filming. Other locations had been considered, specifically the locations where the film "Queimada" (1969), directed by Gillo Pontecorvo, had been shot, but Deodato rejected these locations due to lack of suitable rainforest. Leticia was only accessible by aircraft, and from there, the cast and crew had to travel by boat to reach the set. The locale presented many problems for the production, in particular the heat and sudden rain storms, which sporadically delayed filming. Writing. Deodato said he conceived of the film while talking to his son about news coverage of the terrorism of the Red Brigades. Deodato thought that the media focused on portraying their violence with little regard for journalistic integrity and believed that the media staged certain news angles. He said the film team in "Cannibal Holocaust" symbolized the Italian media. The Italian screenwriter Gianfranco Clerici wrote the script. He had collaborated with Deodato in his previous film, "Ultimo mondo cannibale", and had written other horror films. Changes from Clerici's original screenplay included certain characters' names in the American film crew. Clerici also wrote several scenes that did not make the film's final cut. One was said to show a group of Ya̧nomamö cutting off the leg of a Shamatari warrior and feeding him to piranha in the river. The underwater camera did not operate properly, and the piranha were difficult to control, so Deodato reportedly dropped the scene. Still photographs taken during the scene are its only known depiction, and as a result, the "Piranha Scene" is a popular topic amongst fans of the film. Casting. For the film, Deodato cast many inexperienced stage actors from the Actors Studio in New York City. Luca Barbareschi and Francesca Ciardi were cast in part because they were Italian actors who also spoke English. Deodato decided to make the film in English to appeal to a wider audience and to lend the film credibility. He also needed to establish a European nationality so the film could be more easily distributed among European countries. Under Italian law, for the film to be recognized as Italian, Deodato had to have at least two native Italian-speaking actors to star in the movie. Deodato also hired Perry Pirkanen and another actor from the Actors' Studio. The latter dropped out shortly before the production team left for the Amazon (he appears in the film as an ex-colleague of Yates). The casting director, Bill Williams, chose Carl Gabriel Yorke for the role. Yorke was chosen in part because he was the right size for the costumes and boots, which had already been purchased. Robert Kerman had years of experience working in adult films under the pseudonym Richard Bolla, including the well-known "Debbie Does Dallas". Kerman was recommended to Deodato for his previous film, "The Concorde Affair", in which Kerman played an air traffic controller. Kerman went on to star in the Italian cannibal films "Mangiati vivi!" ("Eaten Alive") and "Cannibal ferox", both directed by Umberto Lenzi. Kerman's girlfriend was cast as one of the station executives, as the production needed an actress to be available in both New York City and Rome. Direction. The film historian David Kerekes contends that the film's sense of reality is based on the direction and the treatment of the film team's recovered footage. Deodato filmed "Cannibal Holocaust" using the "cinéma vérité" technique he learned from his mentor Roberto Rossellini, a style which production designer Massimo Antonello Gelend called "hyperrealistic." David Carter of the cult horror webzine "Savage Cinema" says that Deodato's methods added a first-person quality to the film team's footage, claiming, "The viewer feels as if they are there with the crew, experiencing the horrors with them." Kerekes says, the "...shaky hand-held camerawork commands a certain realism, and 'The Green Inferno,' the ill-fated team's film-within-a-film here, is no exception." He writes, "...this very instability gives the 'Green Inferno' film its authentic quality." Deodato was proud of other aspects of the cinematography, namely the numerous moving shots using a standard, shoulder-mounted camera (that is, without the use of a steadicam). Kerekes noted the animal slaughter and inclusion of footage from "The Last Road to Hell" as adding to the sense of reality of the film. Lloyd Kaufman of Troma Entertainment compares these scenes to Vsevolod Pudovkin's theory of montage, saying, "In "Cannibal Holocaust", we see the actors kill and rip apart a giant sea turtle and other animals. The brain has been conditioned to accept that which it's now seeing as real. This mixture of real and staged violence, combined with the handheld camerawork and the rough, unedited quality of the second half of the movie, is certainly enough to convince someone that what they are watching is real." Deodato says he included the execution footage in "The Last Road to Hell" to draw similarities between "Cannibal Holocaust" and the Mondo filmmaking of Gualtiero Jacopetti. Filming. Principal photography began on 4 June 1979, but it was delayed shortly while awaiting the arrival of Yorke. The scenes featuring the film team were shot first with handheld 16mm cameras in a cinéma vérité style that mimicked an observational documentary. After shooting with the film team was completed, Kerman flew down to film his scenes in the rainforest and then to New York to film exterior shots in the city. The interior shots of New York were later filmed in a studio in Rome. Production on the film was delayed numerous times while filming in the Amazon. After the original actor to play Alan Yates dropped out, filming was halted for two weeks as new casting calls began, and the crew awaited the arrival of Yorke from New York City. During principal filming with Kerman, the father of the actor who played Miguel was murdered, and production was again halted as the actor flew back to Bogotá to attend his father's funeral. Tensions on the set were high, due in part to the location and to the content of the film itself. Yorke describes the set as having "a level of cruelty unknown to me," while Kerman described Deodato as remorseless and uncaring (he and Deodato got into long, drawn-out arguments every day of shooting, usually because of remarks made by Deodato). One particular aspect that led to disagreement amongst the crew was the genuine killing of animals. Kerman stormed off the set while the death of the coatimundi was filmed, and Yorke refused to participate in the killing of the pig (which he was originally scripted to execute), leaving the duty to Luca Barbareschi. The squeal of the pig when it was shot even caused him to botch a long monologue, and retakes were not an option because they had no access to additional pigs. Perry Pirkanen also cried after filming the "Turtle Scene". Other cast members who objected to the film's content include actress Francesca Ciardi, who did not want to bare her breasts during the sex scene between her and Carl Yorke. When she refused to comply with Deodato's direction, he dragged her off the set and screamed at her in Italian. She had earlier suggested that she and Yorke actually have sex in the jungle before filming, in order to relieve the tension of the upcoming scene. When Yorke declined, she grew upset with him, alienating him for the rest of the shoot. These tensions were further heightened by unscrupulous payment practices. Yorke's first payment for the film came in the form of Colombian pesos and was less than what had been agreed upon. Yorke refused to continue shooting until he was paid fairly in United States dollars. The native extras also went unpaid for their work despite their involvement in numerous dangerous scenes, including a scene in which they were forced to stay inside a burning hut for a prolonged period of time. Robert Kerman has also noted unfair treatment of the natives by Deodato, stating, "He was a sadist. He was particularly sadistic to people that couldn't answer back, people that were Colombian, people that were Italian but could be sent home". Reaction. "Cannibal Holocaust" premiered on 7 February 1980 in the Italian city of Milan. Although the courts confiscated the film based on a citizen's complaint, the initial audience reaction was positive. After seeing the film, director Sergio Leone wrote a letter to Deodato, which stated , "Dear Ruggero, what a movie! The second part is a masterpiece of cinematographic realism, but everything seems so real that I think you will get in trouble with all the world." In the ten days before it was seized, the film had grossed approximately $2 million. Critical response. Critics remain split on their stances of "Cannibal Holocaust". Supporters of the film cite it as a serious and well-made social commentary on the modern world. Tim Brayton says the film is "...basically perfect: it achieves its goals in virtually every respect. Deodato made a movie whose purpose is to make me feel awful, and I do". Sean Axmaker praised the structure and set-up of the film, saying, "It's a weird movie with an awkward narrative, which Deodato makes all the more effective with his grimy sheen of documentary realism, while Riz Ortolani's unsettlingly lovely, elegiac score provides a weird undercurrent." Jason Buchanan of Allmovie said, "...while it's hard to defend the director for some of the truly repugnant images with which he has chosen to convey his message, there is indeed an underlying point to the film, if one is able to look beyond the sometimes unwatchable images that assault the viewer." Detractors, however, criticize the acting, the over-the-top gore, and the genuine animal slayings and point to an alleged hypocrisy that the film presents. Nick Schager criticized the brutality of the film, saying, "As clearly elucidated by its shocking gruesomeness—as well as its unabashedly racist portrait of indigenous folks it purports to sympathize with—the actual savages involved with "Cannibal Holocaust" are the ones behind the camera." Some argue that Schager's racism argument is supported by the fact that the real indigenous peoples in Brazil whose names were used in the film—the Yanomamo and Shamatari—are not fierce enemies as portrayed in the film, nor is either tribe truly cannibalistic (although the Yanomamo do partake in a form of post-mortem ritual cannibalism). Robert Firsching of Allmovie made similar criticisms of the film's content, saying, "While the film is undoubtedly gruesome enough to satisfy fans, its mixture of nauseating mondo animal slaughter, repulsive sexual violence, and pie-faced attempts at socially conscious moralizing make it rather distasteful morally as well." Slant Magazine's Eric Henderson said it is "...artful enough to demand serious critical consideration, yet foul enough to christen you a pervert for even bothering." "Cannibal Holocaust" currently holds a 60% "Fresh" rating on the film review aggregate website Rotten Tomatoes, with an average rating of 5/10. In recent years, "Cannibal Holocaust" has received accolades in various publications, as well as cult following. The British film magazine "Total Film" ranked "Cannibal Holocaust" as the tenth greatest horror film of all time, and the film was included in a similar list of the top 25 horror films compiled by "Wired". The film also came in eighth on IGN's list of the ten greatest grindhouse films. Interpretations. "Cannibal Holocaust" is seen by some as social commentary on various aspects of modern civilization by comparing Western society to that of the cannibals. David Carter says ""Cannibal Holocaust" is not merely focused on the societal taboo of flesh eating. The greater theme of the film is the difference between the civilized and the uncivilized. Though the graphic violence can be hard for most to stomach, the most disturbing aspect of the film is what Deodato is saying about modern society. The film asks the questions 'What is it to be 'civilized'?' and 'Is it a good thing?'" Mark Goodall, author of "Sweet & Savage: The World Through the Shockumentary Film Lens", also contends the film's message is "...the rape of the natural world by the unnatural; the exploitation of 'primitive' cultures for western entertainment." Deodato's intentions regarding the Italian media coverage of the Red Brigades have also fallen under critical examination and has been expanded to include all sensationalism. Carter explores this, claiming that "lack of journalistic integrity is shown through the interaction between Professor Monroe and the news agency that had backed the documentary crew. They continually push Monroe to finish editing the footage because blood and guts equal ratings." Director Lloyd Kaufman claims that this form of exploitative journalism can still be seen in the media today and in programming such as reality television. Despite these interpretations, Deodato has said in interviews that he had no intentions in "Cannibal Holocaust" but to make a film about cannibals. Actor Luca Barbareschi asserts this as well and believes that Deodato only uses his films to "put on a show". Robert Kerman contradicts these assertions, however, stating that Deodato did tell him of political concerns involving the media in the making of this film. These interpretations have also been criticized as hypocritical and poor justification for the film's content, as "Cannibal Holocaust" itself is highly sensationalized. Firsching claims that "The fact that the film's sole spokesperson for the anti-exploitation perspective is played by porno star Kerman should give an indication of where its sympathies lie", while Schager says Deodato is "pathetically justifying the unrepentant carnage by posthumously damning his eaten filmmaker protagonists with a 'who are the real monsters – the cannibals or us?' anti-imperialism morale". Controversy. Since its original release, "Cannibal Holocaust" has been the target of censorship by moral and animal activists. Other than graphic gore, the film contains several scenes of sexual violence and genuine cruelty to animals, issues which find "Cannibal Holocaust" in the midst of controversy to this day. Due to this notoriety, "Cannibal Holocaust" has been marketed as having been banned in over 50 countries. In 2006, "Entertainment Weekly" magazine named "Cannibal Holocaust" as the 20th most controversial film of all-time. Snuff film allegations. The original controversy that surrounded the film's release was the belief that "Cannibal Holocaust" was an actual snuff film, or that the actors were murdered in order to film their deaths for the movie; these allegations were originally suggested in January 1981 in an article by the French magazine "Photo". The film was confiscated ten days after its premiere in Milan, and Deodato was arrested. Although he was originally charged with obscenity, the charges were amended to include murder, as the courts not only believed that the four actors portraying the missing film crew were killed for the camera, but that the actress in the impalement scene was actually skewered in such a manner. To make matters worse for Deodato, the actors had signed contracts with him and the producers ensuring that they would not appear in any type of media, motion pictures, or commercials for one year after the film's release in order to promote the idea that the film was truly the recovered footage of missing documentarians. Thus, when Deodato claimed that he had not killed the group, questions arose as to why the actors were in no other media if they were alive. Eventually, Deodato was able to prove that the violence was staged. He contacted Luca Barbareschi and told him to gather the other three actors. After he voided the contracts in order to avoid life in prison, Deodato brought the foursome onto the set of an Italian television show, which satisfied the courts. He still had to prove, however, that the impalement scene was merely a special effect. In court, he explained how the effect was achieved: a bicycle seat was attached to the end of an iron pole, upon which the actress sat. She then held a short length of balsa wood in her mouth and looked skyward, thus giving the appearance of impalement. Deodato also provided pictures of the girl interacting with the crew after the scene had been filmed. After they were presented with this evidence, the courts dropped all murder charges against Deodato. Although Deodato was exonerated for murder, the courts decided to ban "Cannibal Holocaust" because of the genuine animal slayings, citing animal cruelty laws. Due to this ruling, Deodato, the producers, screenwriter, and the United Artists representative each received a four-month suspended sentence after they were convicted of obscenity and violence. Deodato fought in the courts for three additional years to get his film un-banned. In 1984, the courts ruled in favor of Deodato, and "Cannibal Holocaust" was granted a rating certificate of VM18 for a cut print. It would later be re-released uncut. International censorship. "Cannibal Holocaust" also faced censorship issues in countries around the world. In 1981, video releases were not required to pass before the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) for certification in the UK. "Cannibal Holocaust" was released straight-to-video there, thus circumventing the possible banning of the film. In 1983, the Department of Public Prosecutions compiled a list of 72 video releases that were not brought before the BBFC for certification and declared them prosecutable for obscenity. This list of "video nasties" included "Cannibal Holocaust", which was successfully prosecuted and banned. The film was also banned in Australia, Norway, Finland, New Zealand and several other countries in 1984. In 2005, the Office of Film and Literature Classification in Australia revoked the ban, passing "Cannibal Holocaust" with an R18+ rating (with the consumer advice "High level sexual violence, high level violence, animal cruelty") for the uncut print. In 2006, the film was banned in its entirety by the OFLC in New Zealand. Cuts to retain an R18 classification were offered by the Office, but they were eventually refused. In 2011, after numerous versions with extensive mandated cuts had been released in years prior, the BBFC waived all but one of their previous edits, passing "Cannibal Holocaust" with 15 seconds of cuts. It was determined that the only scene that breached the BBFC's guidelines was the killing of a coatimundi, and the BBFC acknowledged that previous cuts were reactionary to the film's reputation. The film is still forbidden in other countries. For example, the Film Censorship Board of Malaysia banned the film outright in Malaysia due to "Extremely high impact violence and offensive depictions of cruelty". The film was later rejected in Singapore due to "very high impact violence and offensive depictions of animal cruelty that may cause controversy in Singapore". In 1992, the film was banned outright in Iceland due to "very high impact violence and offensive depictions of both human and animal cruelty". As of 2012, the film is still banned in Malaysia, Singapore, Iceland, Germany, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, India, Vietnam, Iran and New Zealand. Animal cruelty. Many of the censorship issues with "Cannibal Holocaust" concern the on-screen killings of animals, which remains a major issue today. Deodato himself has condemned his past actions, saying "I was stupid to introduce animals." Seven animals were killed during the film's production, six of which are seen on screen: Film historian Andrew DeVos has argued that the animal deaths have been harshly condemned because of the film's classification as exploitation, whereas animal mutilations in movies perceived by critics to be classics or art films are often ignored. DeVos cites several examples of this double standard, including "Rules of the Game", "El Topo", and "Apocalypse Now". While in the movie it appears that only six animals are killed, the scene depicting the monkey's death was shot twice, resulting in the death of two monkeys. Both of the animals were eaten by indigenous cast members (who consider monkey brains a delicacy). Film influence. Deodato drew influence from the works of Paolo Cavara, Gualtiero Jacopetti, and Franco Prosperi, documentary filmmakers of whom Deodato was a fan. Prosperi and Jacopetti produced several Mondo films, which are documentaries similar to the one made in "Cannibal Holocaust". These documentaries focused on sensationalistic and graphic content from around the world, including bizarre local customs, death, and general cruelty. Deodato followed suit in ways of similar content, such as graphic violence and animal slayings. Although fictional, Deodato created a similar exposé of worldly violence, such as Cavara's, Prosperi's and Jacopetti's "Mondo cane". Certain scenes in "Cannibal Holocaust" have been noted as being similar to scenes in Antonio Climati's Mondo film "Savana violenta", specifically the scene in which Monroe bathes naked in the river and the scene of the forced abortion rite. The cinéma vérité style used heavily in "Cannibal Holocaust" also was used before in Climati's first Mondo film, "Ultime grida dalla savana", in a scene where a tourist is attacked and killed by a pride of lions. Another scene, in which a native man is captured, tortured, and murdered by mercenaries in South America, uses a similar filming style, and both scenes may have been influential on Deodato's direction. Mark Goodall, author of "Sweet & Savage: The World Through the Documentary Film Lens", and David Slater and David Kerekes, authors of "Killing for Culture: An Illustrated History of Death Film from Mondo to Snuff", have also suggested that Deodato was attempting to comment on the documentary works of Climati with his film. "Cannibal Holocaust" was innovative in its plot structure, specifically with the concept of the "found footage" being brought back to civilization and later viewed to determine the fate of the crew that shot it. Later films, such as "The Last Broadcast" and "The Blair Witch Project", use similar devices. Each film uses the idea of a lost film team making a documentary in the wilderness, and their footage returned. Advertisements for "The Blair Witch Project" also promoted the idea that the footage is genuine. Deodato has acknowledged the similarities between his film and "The Blair Witch Project", and though he holds no malice against the producers, he is frustrated at the publicity that "The Blair Witch Project" received for being an original production. The producers of "The Last Broadcast" have denied that "Cannibal Holocaust" was a major influence. "Cannibal Holocaust" bears similarities to other cannibal films made during the same time period, notably "Cannibal ferox", which also stars Kerman and Pirkanen. Although "Cannibal ferox" director Umberto Lenzi has not acknowledged any influence, star Giovanni Lombardo Radice says "Cannibal ferox" was made based on the success of "Cannibal Holocaust". "Cannibal Holocaust" also spawned numerous and similar unofficial sequels, some with scenes mirrored from the original. Soundtrack. The film's soundtrack was composed entirely by Italian composer Riz Ortolani, whom Deodato specifically requested because of Ortolani's work in "Mondo Cane", particularly the film's main theme, "Ti guarderò nel cuore" (also known as "More"). The music itself is a variety of styles, from a gentle melody in the "Main Theme", to a sad and flowing score in "Crucified Woman", and faster and more upbeat tracks in "Cameraman's Recreation", "Relaxing in the Savannah", and "Drinking Coco". The instrumentals are equally mixed, ranging from full orchestras to electronics and synthesizers. The original soundtrack release was a limited release of 1,000 copies in Germany in 1995, on the Lucertola Media label. In August 2005, the soundtrack was released again, this time in the United States, on the Coffin Records label. Alternate versions and sequels. Due to its graphic content, there are several different versions of "Cannibal Holocaust" in circulation which are edited to certain degrees. Other versions also contain alternate footage that does not depict nudity, shot specifically for Middle Eastern markets. Many uncut releases also differ in content as there are multiple versions of the "Last Road to Hell" segment of the film, which includes footage of genuine political executions from Nigeria and South East Asia. An extended version of "The Last Road to Hell" includes approximately ten seconds of footage not seen in an alternate, shorter version. This additional footage includes a wide-angle shot of firing-squad executions, a close-up of a dead victim, and extended footage of bodies being carried into the back of a truck. The longer version also includes different titles that correctly name the film team as they appear in the final film, while the shorter version gives the names of the film team that originally appear in the script. The longer version of ""The Last Road to Hell"" is no longer found in the film's negatives, but it was included in the original Dutch Ultrabit DVD release by EC Entertainment in 1999. This digital version has since been re-released and licensed for other various DVD releases in Europe. The Grindhouse Releasing DVD release in the United States and the Siren Visual release in Australia have the shorter version of ""The Last Road to Hell"" within the feature film but include the extended version in the special features on the first disc. Although no official sequel has been released, several films have adopted the moniker "Cannibal Holocaust II" as to be associated with "Cannibal Holocaust"s notoriety. These films were originally released under different titles that were then changed for various releases, although none have been directed by or associated with Deodato. The first of said films came in 1985 with Mario Gariazzo's "Schiave bianche: violenza in Amazzonia". Known in English as "Amazonia: The Catherine Miles Story", it has also been released on European DVD as "Cannibal Holocaust 2: The Catherine Miles Story". In 1988, mondo director Antonio Climati made his film "Natura contro", which was released as "Cannibal Holocaust II" in Thailand and the United Kingdom. Italian director Bruno Mattei also made two straight-to-video films back to back in 2003, which have been released as "Cannibal Holocaust" sequels in Japan. In 2005, Deodato officially announced that he planned to make a companion piece to "Cannibal Holocaust" entitled "Cannibals". Deodato was originally hesitant about directing his new film, as he thought that he would make it too violent for American audiences. While in Prague filming his cameo appearance in "", however, Deodato viewed the first film and decided that he would direct after all, citing "Hostel" as a similarly violent film that made a mainstream release in America. Although the screenplay, written by Christine Conradt, was completed, a financial conflict between Deodato and the film's producer led to the project's cancellation.
1044250	Quatermass 2 (US title: Enemy From Space) is a 1957 British science fiction horror film. Made by Hammer Film Productions, it is a sequel to an earlier Hammer film "The Quatermass Xperiment". Like its predecessor, it is based on a BBC Television serial – "Quatermass II" – written by Nigel Kneale. It was directed by Val Guest and stars Brian Donlevy reprising his role as the eponymous Professor Bernard Quatermass, making him the only actor to play the character on screen twice. John Longden, Sid James, Bryan Forbes, William Franklyn and Vera Day appear in supporting roles. The plot concerns Quatermass' investigation of reports of strange meteorite showers in England. His inquires lead him to a huge industrial plant, strikingly similar to his own plans for a Moon colony. This top-secret plant is in fact the centre of a conspiracy involving alien infiltration of the highest echelons of the British Government. Quatermass struggles to convince a sceptical public of the threat before it is too late. The first "Quatermass" film had been a major success for Hammer and, eager for a sequel, they purchased the rights to Nigel Kneale's follow up before the BBC had even begun transmission of the new serial. For this adaptation, Nigel Kneale himself was allowed to write the first draft of the screenplay, although subsequent drafts were worked on by director Val Guest. The plot is a condensed but largely faithful retelling of the original television serial. The main difference between the two versions is at the climax: in the television version Quatermass blasts off in a rocket to confront the aliens in outer space whereas in the film the rocket is fired, unmanned, to destroy the aliens' asteroid base. Returning director Val Guest once again employed many cinema vérité techniques to present the fantastic elements of the plot with the greatest degree of realism. Nigel Kneale was critical of the final film, mainly on account of the return of Brian Donlevy in the lead role. Kneale was unhappy with Donlevy's interpretation of the character and also claimed the actor's performance was marred by his alcoholism, a claim repudiated by Val Guest. Although "Quatermass 2" was financially successful, its box office performance was eclipsed by the massive success of another Hammer film, "The Curse of Frankenstein", which was to be the first of their many Gothic horror films. As a result, it would be ten years before Hammer adapted the next "Quatermass" serial for the cinema with "Quatermass and the Pit" in 1967. "Quatermass 2" was, however, the first film Hammer pre-sold the distribution rights in the United States, a financial model that would quickly become the norm for subsequent Hammer productions. Plot. As Quatermass (Brian Donlevy) struggles to gain Government support for his plans for the colonisation of the Moon, he becomes interested in reports of meteorites landing in an area known as Winnerden Flats. Travelling to the area with his colleague, Marsh (Bryan Forbes), Quatermass is astounded to find a huge complex under construction, apparently based on his plans for a Moon colony. Marsh finds one of the meteorites, which cracks open leaving him injured with a V-shaped mark on his face. Armed guards from the plant, who are sporting similar V-shaped marks, arrive and take Marsh away. Quatermass is knocked down and ordered away by men with machine guns. Trying to discover what is going on at the plant and what has happened to Marsh, Quatermass contacts Inspector Lomax (John Longden), the police officer who assisted him in "The Quatermass Xperiment". Lomax puts him in touch with Vincent Broadhead (Tom Chatto), a member of parliament who has been trying to uncover the veil of secrecy surrounding Winnerden Flats. Quatermass joins Broadhead on an official tour of the complex, which, he is told, has been built to manufacture artificial food. Slipping away from the visiting party, Broadhead attempts to get inside one of the large domes that dominate the plant's skyline. Quatermass finds him dying, covered in a poisonous black slime. Shot at by guards as he exits the plant, Quatermass returns to Lomax, explaining that he believes that plant is indeed making food, but not for human consumption. Instead its purpose is to provide a suitable environment for alien creatures that are inside the great domes. Lomax attempts to alert his superiors but when he meets the Commissioner of Police, he notices he too is sporting the V-shaped mark. The aliens have taken control of the government. Quatermass and Lomax turn instead to the press, in the form of journalist Jimmy Hall (Sid James). Hall is sceptical of their story and asks to visit Winnerden Flats himself. They visit the local community centre where they receive a hostile reception from the locals employed to do the building work at the plant. However, the mood changes when one of the meteorites crashes through the roof of the building and injures barmaid Sheila (Vera Day). Armed guards from the plant arrive and gun down Hall when he telephones the press about what is going on. The villagers form a mob and march on the plant. Rushing the gates, Quatermass, Lomax and the villagers barricade themselves into the pressure control room. Realising that the Earth's atmosphere must be poisonous to the creatures, Quatermass sabotages their life support system, pumping oxygen into the domes. Simultaneously, Quatermass' assistant, Brand (William Franklyn) sacrifices his life to launch the Quatermass 2 rocket at an asteroid in Earth's shadow that they believe the aliens are using to stage their invasion. The creatures can combine to create 150-foot tall monsters that burst from the domes and run amok. The rocket strikes the asteroid, destroying it in a nuclear explosion. Their base gone, the giant creatures die and the V-shaped marks disappear from those affected, leaving them with no memory of having been under alien control. As they head back to the village, Lomax comments how he'll do his final report on the entire affair. Quatermass questions how final will it be... Production. Origins. "The Quatermass Xperiment" had been a major success for Hammer Films upon its release in 1955, becoming the company's biggest grossing film up to that time. Hammer quickly moved to capitalise on this success with a sequel. They approached Quatermass' creator, Nigel Kneale, with a proposal for a new Quatermass story to be titled "X the Unknown". Kneale refused permission to use Quatermass, however, but the film went ahead nonetheless with a newly created scientist character, very much in the Quatermass mould, played by Dean Jagger, and was released in 1956. In the meantime, Kneale had written a new Quatermass serial for the BBC, titled "Quatermass II", which was broadcast on BBC Television in October and November 1955. Hammer secured the rights to make a film adaptation of "Quatermass II" in September 1955, before the television version had even been transmitted. Writing. Nigel Kneale had been unhappy with Hammer's adaptation of "The Quatermass Experiment", partly because he received no extra remuneration from the sale of the film rights and partly because of the changes made in the film to his original television script. In the wake of his dissatisfaction, Kneale exerted pressure on the BBC to allow him to be more involved in the sale of the rights to his work. Despite being in the final months of his BBC contract, Kneale was allowed to collaborate with Hammer on the adaptation of "Quatermass II". The first draft of the screenplay was written by Kneale with input from producer Anthony Hinds. Subsequent drafts were worked on by director Val Guest, as he had done before on "The Quatermass Xperiment". Guest recalled of Kneale's script that there was “lots of philosophising and very down-to-earth thinking but it was too long, it would not have held screenwise. So, again, I had to tailor it and sharpen it and hopefully not ruin it”. The script was submitted to the British Board of Film Censors (BBFC) in April 1956. BBFC reader Audrey Field commented, “There should be the customary general caution that the sky is not the limit, either in sights or sounds”. The BBFC's main objection was to a scene in which a guard from the Winnerden Flats complex murders a family having a picnic. This scene was omitted from the final film, although it is present in the original television presentation. As with "The Quatermass Xperiment", the screenplay for "Quatermass 2" condenses many of the events of the original. The most significant change is at the climax: in the television version Quatermass and his assistant, Pugh, use Quatermass' rocket to travel to the asteroid to take on the aliens on their home turf whereas in the film the rocket is fired, unmanned, at the asteroid to destroy it. Several characters from the television version do not appear in the film, most notably Quatermass' daughter, Paula, and his assistant, Leo Pugh. Conversely, the character of Inspector Lomax reappears in the film version, having previously been in "The Quatermass Xperiment", but does not appear in the television version. The character of Sheila the barmaid also appears only in the film version. Casting. Other actors appearing in the film include Charles Lloyd Pack, Tom Chatto, John Van Eyssen, Percy Herbert, Michael Ripper and John Rae. Filming. Val Guest, who had directed "The Quatermass Xperiment", returned for "Quatermass 2". Guest once again sought to create a film that felt as real as possible, using many cinema vérité techniques such as hand-held cameras. He was assisted in this respect by the moody, overcast cinematography of director of photography Gerald Gibbs; Gibbs also made extensive use of day for night photography for the film's climactic scenes. Guest planned each days’ shooting carefully, creating meticulous storyboards detailing all the shots he wanted to make that day. Filming took place between 28 May and 13 July 1956. The film's budget, at £92,000, was much larger than that of "The Quatermass Xperiment". The bigger budget was achieved by the advance sale of the distribution rights in the United States to United Artists. United Artists contributed some £64,000 towards the production of the film as well as Brian Donlevy's $25,000 fee and his airfare to London from the US. The larger budget allowed for greater use of location filming in the making of the film than had been possible for its predecessor. The key location used was the oil refinery at Shell Haven in Stanford-le-Hope which doubled as the secret Winnerden Flats complex. This was the exact same location used in the BBC television production of the story. Despite its size, the plant was run by a relatively small number of personnel; this made Guest's job of making the plant appear eerily deserted easier. Guest was also surprised at how relaxed the plant's management were about allowing him to stage the climactic gun battle at such a potentially flammable location. Focus puller Harry Oakes recalled, however, that a Newman-Sinclair clockwork camera had to be used for some scenes because of the danger posed by sparks from electrical equipment. The scenes of Vincent Broadhead emerging from one of the domes covered in the noxious black slime were particularly difficult to realise, necessitating many retakes. Tom Chatto, playing Broadhead, whose wife was a leading casting director, joked after the scene was finally completed, "Remind me to talk to my wife about casting me in this". The Shell Haven location was further enhanced by the use of matte paintings created by special effects designer Les Bowie to add the giant domes within which the aliens were incubated. Other locations used included the real-life new town of Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire, which was under construction at the time and doubled for the fictional new town of Winnerden Flats. Other scenes were shot in London including Trafalgar Square, where the police agreed to hold up the traffic for just two minutes to allow Guest take shots of trucks ferrying equipment through London to Winnerden Flats, and in the foyer of the House of Lords for the scene where Quatermass first meets Vincent Broadhead. The climactic scenes of the hurricane caused by the explosion of the Winnerden Flats complex was shot on the South Downs near Brighton. A minor mishap occurred during the filming of this scene when the wind machines blew Brian Donlevy's toupee off his head and the crew had to chase after it. As well as shooting on location, Guest and his crew made use of Stages 2 and 5 of the New Elstree Studios, the first Hammer production to shoot there. This was production designer Bernard Robinson's first film for Hammer; he went on to become their regular set designer, working on many Hammer films. Reception. "Quatermass 2" received its first public airing at a trade show on 22 March 1957 with its première, at the London Pavilion, following on 24 May 1957. It went on general release, with supporting feature "And God Created Woman" on 17 June 1957. The film received an ‘X’ Certificate from the BBFC. It was released in the United States under the title "Enemy From Space". "Quatermass 2" received mixed reviews on release. Campbell Dixon, in "The Daily Telegraph" found the film “all good grisly fun, if this is the sort of thing you enjoy”. The reviewer in "The Times" remarked, “the writer of the original story, Mr Nigel Kneale, and the director, Mr Val Guest, between them keep things moving at the right speed, without digressions. The film has an air of respect for the issues touched on, and this impression is confirmed by the acting generally”. On the other hand, Jympson Harman of the "Evening News" wrote, “Science-fiction hokum can be convincing, exciting or just plain laughable. "Quatermass II" fails on all these scores, I am afraid”. Similarly, the reviewer in the "Daily Herald" felt, “The whole thing is daft and full of stilted dialogue. [...] At the end a detective says: “How am I going to make a report on all this?” I felt the same way”. Legacy. Although commercially successful, "Quatermass 2"’s release was largely overshadowed by the box-office record breaking performance of Hammer's "The Curse of Frankenstein", which was also released in May 1957. For this reason, although Nigel Kneale had written a new Quatermass serial for the BBC, "Quatermass and the Pit" (broadcast December 1958 to January 1959), Hammer did not acquire the rights until 1961 and the film version did not appear until 1967. "Quatermass 2" is notable, however, for being the first film Hammer pre-sold to a major US distributor, in this case United Artists. This new finance and distribution deal would become the norm for subsequent Hammer films and led to them eventually winding down their own distribution arm, Exclusive Films, in the mid-1960s. Critical opinion of "Quatermass 2" in the years since its release remains divided. Writing in "Science Fiction in the Cinema", John Baxter found the film “a faithful but ponderous adaptation of Kneale's TV sequel. There are effective sequences, director Guest and cameraman Gerald Gibbs shooting with light lancing up through the shadows in a manner reminiscent of Jacques Tourneur's "Night (or Curse) of the Demon". Otherwise the film is indifferent”. Similarly, John Brosnan, in his book "The Primal Screen" wrote, “"Quatermass 2" isn't as good as the first one, despite a bigger budget. Again the theme is possession (all four "Quatermass" stories are variations on the same theme) with Kneale again cleverly mixing sf with the supernatural. The alien invasion may be sf but it is presented with the trappings of traditional horror, such as the V-shaped "mark of the devil" that all possessed people display”. On the other hand, Bill Warren, in "Keep Watching The Skies!" found "Quatermass 2" to be “one of the best science fiction films of the 1950s. It is not notably better than ["The Quatermass Xperiment"], but the story idea is more involving, the production is livelier and there are more events in the unfolding of the story”. Kim Newman in 1986 praised the film as "extraordinary" and, comparing it to "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" (1956), Newman notes that while Don Siegel’s film is "a general allegory" about dehumanisation and conformity, "Quatermass 2" is “a specific attack on the Conservative Government of the time, down to the inclusion of several characters obviously based on real political figures”. The League of Gentlemen's Mark Gatiss, mentions on the DVD commentary for the First Series, that during the scene where Benjamin phones Barbara to arrange an exit from Royston Vasey, two workmen who have been abducted by Tubs and Edward escape, covered in tar, was inspired by a scene during which Vincent Broadhead is covered in "Synthetic Food" from one of the storage tanks. DVD release. "Quatermass 2" was released on region 2 DVD by DD Video in 2003. It contained a number of extra features including a commentary by director Val Guest and writer Nigel Kneale as well as an interview with Val Guest and a trailer from the United States for "Enemy From Space", as the film was known there. In other media. The film was adapted into a 15-page comic strip for the August 1978 issue of the magazine "Hammer's Halls of Horror" (volume 2, # 23, published by Top Sellers Limited). It was drawn by David Lloyd from a script by Steve Parkhouse. The strip was titled "Enemy from Space (Quatermass II)".
1170176	Johnny Sheffield (April 11, 1931 – October 15, 2010) was an American child actor. Early life. He was born as John Matthew Sheffield Cassan in Pasadena, California, the second child of actor Reginald Sheffield and Louise Van Loon (January 21, 1905 – April 14, 1987). His older sister was Mary Alice Sheffield Cassan and his younger brother was William Hart Sheffield Cassan (actor Billy Sheffield).
501348	Anthony De Sando (born December 4, 1965), also known as Anthony Joseph De Santis, is an American actor. He is of Italian descent, his grandparents were immigrants from the southern Italian regions, they emigrated due to better work opportunities to the United States. De Sando is often being displayed as a jocker and dappered villain in mob films such as "New Jack City". He was born in Jersey City, New Jersey. He has appeared in such television series as "L.A. Law", "Crossing Jordan", "NYPD Blue", "Without a Trace" and "Sex and the City". One of his most prominent roles is Brendan Filone in "The Sopranos". He also starred in "Federal Hill" and "A Day In Black And White" and co-starred in the movies "Cement", "Beer League" and "The Whole Shebang". He also did the voice of Reggie in "" video game. Recently he appeared as a character in Dito Montiel's films "A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints" and "Fighting".
1505939	Parting Glances is an American film shot in 1984 and released in 1986. With its realistic look at urban gay life in the Ronald Reagan era and at the height of the AIDS crisis, many film critics consider it an important movie in the history of gay cinema. It was also one of the first American films to address the AIDS/HIV pandemic. First-time director Bill Sherwood died of complications due to AIDS in 1990 without ever completing another film. Description. The story revolves around a gay male couple, Robert and Michael, in their late twenties, living in New York City. Robert (John Bolger) is leaving for two years on a work assignment in Africa while his partner, Michael (Richard Ganoung), stays behind. Michael's ex-boyfriend, Nick (Steve Buscemi), for whom Michael cooks, looks after and is still in love with, has AIDS. "Parting Glances" plays out over a 24 hour period with scenes taking place at a farewell party for Robert hosted by the couple's friend, Joan (Kathy Kinney), and at a dinner party hosted by Robert's employer, Cecil (Patrick Tull), and his wife, Betty (Yolande Bavan), who have an unconventional marriage. While classified as a drama, the film also contains many comedic moments. Critics praised the movie's witty, realistic dialogue and detailed evocation of gay and gay-friendly urbanites in 1980s Manhattan. "Parting Glances" was also one of the first motion pictures to deal frankly and realistically with the subject of AIDS, and the impact of the then relatively new disease on the gay community. In one scene, Nick talks fondly of the 1970s and early 1980s era of decadence to a younger, college-aged gay man.
1163710	Walter Davis Pidgeon (September 23, 1897 – September 25, 1984) was an American actor of Canadian birth who starred in many films, including "Mrs. Miniver", "The Bad and the Beautiful", "Forbidden Planet", "Advise & Consent", "Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea", "Funny Girl" and "Harry in Your Pocket". Early life. Born in Saint John, New Brunswick, Pidgeon was the son of Hannah (née Sanborn), a housewife, and Caleb Burpee Pidgeon, a haberdasher. Pidgeon attended local schools and the University of New Brunswick, where he studied law and drama. His university education was interrupted by World War I, and he enlisted in the 65th Battery, Royal Canadian Field Artillery. Pidgeon never saw action, however, as he was severely injured in an accident. He was crushed between two gun carriages and spent seventeen months in a military hospital. Following the war, he moved to Boston, Massachusetts, where he worked as a bank runner, at the same time studying voice at the New England Conservatory of Music. He was a classically trained baritone. Career. Discontented with banking, Pidgeon moved to New York City, where he walked into the office of E.E. Clive, announced that he could act and sing and could prove it. After acting on stage for several years, he made his Broadway debut in 1925. Pidgeon made a number of silent films in the 1920s. However, he became a huge star with the arrival of talkies, thanks to his singing voice. He starred in extravagant early Technicolor musicals, including "The Bride of the Regiment" (1930), "Sweet Kitty Bellairs" (1930), "Viennese Nights" (1930) and "Kiss Me Again" (1931). He became associated with musicals; however, when the public grew weary of them, his career began to falter. He was relegated to playing secondary roles in films like "Saratoga" and "The Girl of the Golden West". One of his better known roles was in "The Dark Command", where he portrayed the villain (loosely based on American Civil War guerrilla William C. Quantrill) opposite John Wayne, Claire Trevor, and a young Roy Rogers. It was not until he starred in the Academy Award-winning Best Picture "How Green Was My Valley" (1941) that his popularity rebounded. He then starred opposite Greer Garson in "Blossoms in the Dust" (1941), "Mrs. Miniver" (1942) (for which he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor) and its sequel, "The Miniver Story" in 1950. He was also nominated in 1944 for "Madame Curie", again opposite Garson. His partnership with her continued throughout the 1940s and into the 1950s with Mrs. Parkington (1944), Julia Misbehaves (1948), That Forsyte Woman (1949), and finallly Scandal at Scourie (1953). He also starred as Chip Collyer in the comedy "Week-End at the Waldorf" (1945) and later as Colonel Michael S. 'Hooky' Nicobar, who is given the difficult task of repatriating Russians in post-World War II Vienna in the drama film "The Red Danube" (1949). Although he continued to make art films, including "The Bad and the Beautiful" and "Forbidden Planet" (the latter based on Shakespeare's "The Tempest"), Pidgeon returned to work on Broadway in the mid-1950s after a twenty-year absence, and was featured in "Take Me Along" with Jackie Gleason. He received a Tony Award nomination for the musical play. He continued making films, playing James Haggin in Walt Disney's "Big Red" (1962), and as the Senate Majority Leader in Otto Preminger's "Advise & Consent". His role as Florenz Ziegfeld in "Funny Girl" (1968) was well received. Later, he played Casey, James Coburn's sidekick in "Harry in Your Pocket" (1973). And Admiral Harriman Nelson in 1961's "Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea". It was only eight days before the death of Pidgeon, that Richard Basehart, who played the role of Adm. Harriman Nelson in the TV series "Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea" had passed away. In addition, Pidgeon guest-starred in the episode "King of the Valley" (November 26, 1959) of CBS's "Dick Powell's Zane Grey Theater". Pidgeon plays Dave King, a prosperous rancher who quarrels with his banker over a $10,000 loan. When the banker dies of a heart attack on the job after a confrontation with King, it is discovered that the bank is missing $50,000. Leora Dana plays Anne Coleman, the banker's widow and the rancher's former paramour. The banker lost the funds with a bad investment, but the irate and uninformed townspeople are blaming King. Karl Swenson appears in this episode as Will Harmon.
1047721	The Decalogue - One () is the first part of a television series "The Decalogue" by Polish director Krzysztof Kieślowski, connected to the first imperative of the Ten Commandments: ""I am the Lord your God; you shall have no other gods before me."" A university professor (Henryk Baranowski) trains his young son in the use of reason and the scientific method, but is confronted with the unpredictability of fate. Reason is deified with tragic results. Plot. Krzysztof lives alone with Paweł, his 12-year old and highly intelligent son, and introduces him to the world of personal computers. They have several PCs in their flat and do many experiments with programming such as opening/closing the doors or turning on/off the tap water with help of the PC.
584432	Engal Anna is an Indian Tamil film released in 2004. It is the Tamil version of the Malayalam film "Chronic Bachelor". It was declare a successful film and managed to collect 30crores. Plot. The film opens with a flashback showing the family feud between families of SundarlinzgaPrabakar (Vijayakanth) and Bhavani (Indraja). SundarlinzgaPrabakar and Bhavani are in love. The murder of Bhavani's father, is wrongly accused on SP's father. He starts to help Bhavani's family and mortgages his own house to finance her factory with the intention of making it up to them as he still believes that it's his father who killed Bhavani's father. But Bhavani is now trying to take revenge for her father's murder. SP's mother is now on her deathbed. While in the hospital, his mom tells how his father had a different wife and he should ask them forgiveness. He storms into Bhavani's house and accuses her uncle (who really killed Bhavni's dad), also trying to make her understand the truth but she doesn't believe him. Then SundarlinzgaPrabakar says he doesn't love her any more and vows that he will never trust a woman by remaining a chronic bachelor forever. Then film comes to the present time showing a legal battle between SundarlinzgaPrabakar(now called SP) and Bhavani. Bhavani becomes furious when SP wins the legal battle to get back his house. She threatens to destroy SP. From here, the story moves to the day to day life of SP and falls into a comic track throughout the first half. SP is now a successful businessman. SP has a stepsister, Parvati (Swarnamalya), who is his father's daughter from the other wife. He now lives for her. But she doesn't know that SP is her brother, although she stays next door to him. Mayilu (Vadivelu) is SP's aide and he too is a bachelor. Gowri (Namitha) comes to stay in the hostel where Sandhya stays and tries to win the heart of SP. But SP considers her a nuisance. SP agrees to take care of Kannan (Prabhu Deva). He is the son of Manivannan, his uncle who had helped SP to become a successful businessman. Prabhu Deva is a flirt and womanizer so his mother wants SP to take care of him and change his behaviours for the better. But what SP and his mother doesn't know is that Kannan has only agreed to stay in the house when he comes to know that Parvathi lives next door to SP and in order too woo her. Comical scenes recur throughout the movie, where Mayilu, who doesn't like Kannan and his friend Cheenu (Pandiya Rajan) staying with them, tries to get them out of the house. Gowri comes to know SP is sponsoring Parvathi's studies and confronts him. SP tells her that Parvathi is his sister. Gowri then asks Parvathi to call SP for her birthday party. But SP gets upset and confronts Gowri. Gowri then reveals that her sponsor was SP all the while. During the birthday party, Bhavani comes and takes Gowri away. Then it becomes clear that Gowri is Bhavani's sister. Rivalry arises between Gowri and Bhavani. Parvathi starts showing affection towards Kannan but says it's wrong and walks away. At this time, Bhavani's brother and his gang come to kidnap her. While rescuing Parvathi from Bhavani's brother, Kannan decides to bring Gowri back too. Then Gowri's family members come to take her forcefully, but is stopped by Kannan. When told off by SP for doing so, he tells Mayil that he will sponsor the girl that loves SP like how SP sponsors the girl that he loves. That's when SP asks Parvathi to move to his house. Kannan and Cheenu are moved to the guest house. Parvathi shows affection to Kannan. One day SP and Mayilu catch Kannan trying to reach Parvathi through the balcony. That is where SP knows that both of them love each other. He tells Kannan to promise that he will never look at another girl in his life and she (being Parvathi) should be the only one, which Kannan agrees to whole-heartedly. He fixes the marriage of Kannan and Parvathi. He transfers everything he has to Parvathi's name because Kannan's family thought Parvathi was an orphan. SP tells everything to Kannan's parents which is overheard by Parvathi who runs home crying. SP upset runs to comfort her, where he explains how he will live his life as an apology to her mother's curses. But Parvathi tells that her mother loved him and told her to ask forgiveness if she sees him. Now Parvathi and SP re-unite as siblings. During the marriage festivities, Bhavani and her brother come to prevent the celebrations. Along with them comes the elder brother of Sandhya, Veerapandi. He challenges SP, saying that he has more right over Parvathi as he is her brother, while SP is just a stepbrother. Veerapandi then claims all of SP's property, which SP is willing to give, provided Parvathi lives happily and marries Kannan. Bhavani's household members uses Veerapandi to take advantage of SP; first by trying to snatch his company then trying to snatch his home. In the brawl, SP vows that Parvathi will marry Kannan and he will wipe off everyone who stands in the way. Bhavani then tells SP that Parvathi will be married off to Bhavani's brother. Veerapandi supports in the name of revenge. Parvathi, torn between two brothers, comes running when the brothers fight among themselves on the account of who Parvathi will marry. She says she wants to be happy with both her brothers so to stop fighting. Parvathi has been emotionally forced to marry Bhavani's brother. She is rescued by Prabhu Deva, Mayilu and Cheenu. SP goes and pours kerosine on Bhavani to get her husband to tell the truth and he finally admits that it was him and his dad. He says how his father has done it for the money but he done it because he loved her and she was his life. Bhavani realizes her mistakes and goes to SP's house to apologize. But she tells SP that only thing she can now offer is the marriage proposal of her sister Gowri to SP. SP initially refuses when Kannan tells that he'll also remain bachelor if SP doesn't marry. SP finally agrees and tells everyone to go inside with Gowri.
584825	Parama Veera Chakra is a 2011 Tollywood patriotic film directed by veteran Dasari Narayana Rao and produced by C. Kalyan under the Teja Cinema banner. It was the 150th film directed by Dasari. The film had an ensemble cast starring Nandamuri Balakrishna, Ameesha Patel, Sheela, Neha Dhupia, Jayasudha, Roja and Murali Mohan. The music was composed by Mani Sharma. The film released during the 2011 Sankranthi weekend to poor reviews and was a box-office failure. However, it won the Sarojini Devi Award for a Film on National Integration at the 2010 Nandi Awards. Soundtrack. The soundtrack and background score is composed by Mani Sharma. The audio was released on 29 December 2010. The audio function of the movie is held at Shilpakala Vedika in Hyderabad. The audio rights of the soundtrack were purchased by Aditya Music.
178031	Johann Philipp Gustav von Jolly (26 September 1809 – 24 December 1884) was a German physicist and mathematician. Born in Mannheim as the son of merchant Louis Jolly and Marie Eleonore Jolly, he studied science in Heidelberg, Vienna and Berlin. After his studies, he was appointed professor of mathematics in Heidelberg in 1839 and in physics in 1846. He moved to Munich in 1854 where he took the position once held by Georg Simon Ohm. In 1854 he was knighted (and henceforth referred to as von Jolly). Jolly was first and foremost an experimental physicist. He measured the acceleration due to gravity with precision weights and also worked on osmosis. One of his students at the University of Munich was Max Planck, whom he advised in 1878 not to go into physics, saying, "in this field, almost everything is already discovered, and all that remains is to fill a few unimportant holes." Planck replied that he didn't wish to discover new things, only to understand the known fundamentals of the field. Nevertheless, Planck's work opened up the field of quantum physics. Jolly died in Munich.
1064982	Cold Creek Manor is a 2003 American psychological thriller film directed by Mike Figgis. The screenplay by Richard Jefferies focuses on a family terrorized by the former owner of the rural estate they bought in foreclosure. The film stars Dennis Quaid, Sharon Stone, Stephen Dorff, Juliette Lewis, Kristen Stewart and Christopher Plummer. Plot. When documentary filmmaker Cooper Tilson and his wife Leah decide life in New York City has become unbearable, they and their children Kristen and Jesse move into a decaying mansion filled with the possessions of the previous family. They befriend local tavern owners Ray and Ellen Pinski and their daughter Stephanie. As Cooper begins to sort through the many documents and family photographs scattered throughout the house, he decides to commit its history to film. Converting the old building into their dream house becomes a nightmare for the Tilsons when previous owner Dale Massie, recently released from prison, shows up and pressures Cooper into hiring him to help with the renovations. While he initially proves to be a good worker, the underlying sense of menace he projects is unsettling. A series of terrifying incidents, including Cooper's being pursued by an unknown car, the sudden appearance of the poisonous snakes in the house, and the killing of the horse given to them by the Pinskis leads the Tilsons to research the estate's dark past. Hoping to glean some details about its history, Cooper visits Dale's aging and slightly demented father in the nursing home where he is living. Disjointed comments made by the elderly man lead Cooper to believe Dale murdered his wife and children, and he begins to search his property for their remains. Sheriff Annie Ferguson, sister of Dale's battered, slatternly girlfriend Ruby, is skeptical about Dale's guilt, but slowly comes to realize Cooper may be right. Cooper's suspicions are confirmed when he and Leah discover three skeletons in Devil's Throat, a deep well, hidden in the woods. Using a walkie talkie, he contacts Sheriff Ferguson, unaware she has been attacked and disabled by Dale, who punctures the tires on Cooper's truck and sets Leah's car on fire to prevent them from escaping. Trapping them in the house in the middle of a storm that has knocked out the electricity, he forces them to rely on their wits and physical prowess to save themselves. Dale finally corners Cooper and Leah on the roof after chasing them through the mansion. Dale, now raving mad, openly declares his insanity as well as his intent to kill them and throw them down the Devil's Throat like his family. However, the couple is able to turn the tables on their tormentor by charging him with a line of rope that knocks him off his feet. They quickly tie him down against a roof lantern before he can break free. Cooper then takes the killing tool and taunts Dale as Dale had done to him, before shattering the skylight, sending the screaming Dale to his death. The film then cuts to show that the bodies of Dale's family are now rightly entombed in the family graveyard at Cold Creek Manor and that Cooper and his family have finally attained their wanted peace. Production. The film was shot on location in Cambridge, Kitchener, Ayr, and Toronto (all in Ontario). The soundtrack includes "All My Ex's Live in Texas" by George Strait and "On the Road Again" by Canned Heat. Critical reception. The movie received negative reviews from critics. It holds a 12% rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 109 reviews. Stephen Holden of the "New York Times" observed, "A serious filmmaker like Mike Figgis can be forgiven, I suppose, for slumming, when he's got a cast as stellar as the one that infuses the scream-by-numbers thriller "Cold Creek Manor" with more psychological credibility than its screenplay merits." He said the film "belongs to the "Cape Fear" tradition of thrillers in which the mettle of a civilized family man is tested in a life-or-death struggle with crude macho evil." Roger Ebert of the "Chicago Sun-Times" rated the film 1½ stars and called it "an anthology of cliches" and "a thriller that thrills us only if we abandon all common sense." He added, "Of course preposterous things happen in all thrillers, but there must be at least a gesture in the direction of plausibility, or we lose patience." Edward Guthmann of the "San Francisco Chronicle" said, "As haunted-house thrillers go, "Cold Creek Manor" is more ludicrous than the average but at the same time more handsomely produced. Hokum with a big-budget gloss, it's a simple, formulaic nail-biter ... The script ... grafts from every possible thriller – most of which had pilfered their predecessors – and loads on implausibilities until we wonder why the actors play it seriously." Peter Travers of "Rolling Stone" rated the film one star and commented, "It's sad to see risk-taking director Mike Figgis do a generic thriller for a paycheck and then not even screw with the rules . . . the only things haunting this movie are cliches." Steve Persall of the "St. Petersburg Times" graded the film D and thought "all this bad acting and run-of-the-thrill dialogue might be entertaining if something would just happen besides a silly snake scare and a wan truck chase. The movie plays like an all-star episode of "This Old House" for the first hour, a telenovela for the next 30 minutes, then, finally, a hack boogeyman flick in the last reel. This isn't a movie, it's channel surfing." Todd McCarthy of "Variety" called the film "a woefully predictable imperiled-yuppie-family-under-siege suspenser that hardly seems worth the attention of its relatively high-profile participants. Taking a break from his multiple-perspective digicam experiments, helmer Mike Figgis displays at best a half-hearted interest in delivering the commercial genre goods, while Dennis Quaid and Sharon Stone fish in vain to find any angles to play in their dimension-free characters." Box office. The film opened in 2,035 theaters in the United States on September 19, 2003 and grossed $8,190,574 in its opening weekend, ranking #5 at the box office behind "Underworld", "Secondhand Lions", "The Fighting Temptations", and "Once Upon a Time in Mexico". It eventually earned $21,386,011 in the US and $7,733,423 in foreign markets for a total worldwide box office of $29,119,434. DVD release. Buena Vista Home Entertainment released the film on Region 1 DVD on March 2, 2004. It is in anamorphic widescreen format with audio tracks in English and French and subtitles in Spanish. Bonus features include commentary with director Mike Figgis; deleted scenes and an alternate ending; "Rules of the Game", in which Figgis discusses the components of a psychological thriller; and "Cooper's Documentary", in which he discusses the process of making the film within the film.
1061101	Corey Scott Feldman (born July 16, 1971) is an American actor, former child actor, and singer. He became known during the 1980s, with roles in the films ', ', "The Goonies", "Stand by Me", "The Lost Boys", "License to Drive", "Dream a Little Dream", "Gremlins", "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles", and "The 'Burbs". Feldman is also the lead singer for the ska band Truth Movement. Early life. Feldman was born in the Chatsworth district of Los Angeles, California, the second of five children of Sheila (née Goldstein), his childhood manager, and Bob Feldman (of The Strangeloves), a musician who eventually owned his own talent agency aimed at modeling other children's careers after his son's. Feldman was raised Jewish. He has an older sister Mindy (a member of The New Mickey Mouse Club), a younger sister, Brittnie, and two younger brothers, Eden and Devin. Career. Feldman started his career at the age of three, appearing in a McDonald's commercial. In his youth he appeared in over 100 television commercials and on 50 television shows, including "The Bad News Bears", "Mork & Mindy", "Eight is Enough", "One Day at a Time". and "Cheers". In 1981, he appeared in NBC's musical comedy children's special "How to Eat Like a Child" alongside other future child stars Billy Jacoby and Georg Olden. He debuted in the films "Time After Time" and Disney's "The Fox and the Hound", and then went on to feature in several high-grossing movies (including a fair amount of number-one movies) in a row. These movies included "" (1984), "Gremlins" (1984), "The Goonies" (1985), and "Stand By Me" (1986), alongside River Phoenix, Wil Wheaton, and Jerry O'Connell. In 1987, Feldman appeared with Corey Haim in "The Lost Boys". This film marked the first on-screen pairing of Feldman and Haim, who became known as "The Two Coreys". The pair went on to star in a string of films, including "License to Drive" (1988) and "Dream a Little Dream" (1989). In 1989, Feldman appeared in "The 'Burbs" opposite Tom Hanks and Carrie Fisher. Feldman began the 1990s providing the voice of Donatello for the first "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" live-action film. After a public battle with drugs, Feldman fought to re-establish his life and career by working with youths, starring in several lesser-known films, and branching out with an album of New Jack Swing music, entitled "Love Left". He returned to the big screen with "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III" where he again did the voice of Donatello, and starred in the Richard Donner/Robert Zemeckis/Joel Silver film "Tales From The Crypt Presents: Bordello of Blood", opposite Dennis Miller. He continued working with his friend Corey Haim on independent films, including a sequel to their last mainstream film together, Dream A Little Dream 2. In 1996, Feldman directed his first and thus far only motion picture, a slapstick comedy called 'Busted' where Haim played a leading role. This would be the last film that they would do as "The Two Coreys". In the late 1990s, Feldman starred in the CBS series "Dweebs" and then released his second album, "Still Searching for Soul", with his band Corey Feldman's Truth Movement. In 1999, Feldman appeared in New Found Glory's "Hit or Miss" music video as Officer Corey Feldman. In 1999, he made an appearance in the TV show "". In 2002, Feldman released a solo album, "Former Child Actor", and promoted it with a second US tour. In 2003, he appeared in the first celebrity-driven reality series "The Surreal Life" on The WB. On the show, he publicly married Susie Sprague. The next year, he made a cameo appearance in the film "" starring David Spade. He appeared in the Moby music video "We Are All Made Of Stars". In 2004, Feldman made a cameo appearance in the independent sci-fi comedy "Space Daze" which was distributed by Troma Entertainment in 2005, and starred in the made-for-TV slasher crossover film Puppet Master vs. Demonic Toys which aired 18 December 2004 on NBCUniversal's SyFy network. In 2005, Feldman made his stage debut in the positively reviewed off-Broadway play "Fatal Attraction, a Greek Tragedy", a parody of the seminal 1987 film "Fatal Attraction" directed by Timothy Haskell. Feldman played the lead character, named Michael Douglas. Feldman appeared in the theatrical release "My Date with Drew" and was the voice of "Sprx-77" in the Toon Disney/ABC Family series "Super Robot Monkey Team Hyperforce Go!". In 2007, Feldman and Corey Haim began a non-scripted reality TV show entitled, "The Two Coreys", on the A&E Network. Haim and Feldman began taping on December 4, 2006. The show premiered on July 29, 2007. In the winter of 2007, Feldman's new film, "Terror Inside", was released after the premiere of the A&E show. It was filmed in the Greater Orlando area by Minott Lenders, an independent film company based in Florida. In January 2008, Feldman, his wife, and Haim started production on the second season of the television show "The Two Coreys". Feldman was also Executive Producer for both seasons. On July 29, 2008, Warner Premiere released "", a sequel to the 1987 horror film "The Lost Boys", on DVD and Blu-ray. In the film, Feldman reprises his role of vampire hunter Edgar Frog. Feldman's other acting work for 2008 included "Lucky Fritz" and "Operation Belvis Bash". In 2010, Feldman made an appearance in the music video for "1983" by Neon Trees. In 2011, Feldman also appeared in the music video for Katy Perry's single "Last Friday Night (T.G.I.F.)" In summer 2011, Feldman started shooting for the horror film "Six Degrees of Hell" in Saylorsburg, PA. The majority of the film was shot at the Hotel of Horror haunted attraction. In January 2012, Feldman joined the U.K. television show "Dancing on Ice" with American pair skater Brooke Castile, and was eliminated in the fourth week of the show. In April 2013, Feldman also appeared in the music video for Mac Miller's single "S.D.S." In April 2013, Feldman appeared on the TV Show Border Security International. Personal life. Feldman stated that he began the "Emancipation Proclamation in Hollywood" at age fifteen, when he was granted emancipation from his parents. He stated that he was worth $1 million by age 15, and by the time the judge court-ordered the bank records to come forward, only $40,000 remained. Feldman was married to actress Vanessa Marcil from 1989 until 1993. Feldman met actress and model Susie Sprague in a nightclub in January 2002. They married on October 30 that year, on the final episode of the first season of "The Surreal Life". The ceremony was co-officiated by a rabbi and by M.C. Hammer, an ordained minister. In October 2009, the couple split after seven years of marriage. Later that month, Sprague filed for divorce, citing irreconcilable differences. She sought full custody of their son, with Feldman having visitation rights. She also sought spousal support. Feldman sought joint custody and wanted the court to block Sprague's spousal support demand. Feldman is an advocate for animal welfare and animal rights and has adhered to a vegetarian diet since he was about thirteen years old. He appeared with his wife in a PETA ad campaign promoting vegetarianism. He was awarded the Paws of Fame Award by the Wildlife Way Station for his dedication to animal rights. In an August 2011 interview, Feldman said that Hollywood's biggest secret was pedophilia and that he was a victim of it in the 1980s. Michael Jackson. During February 2005, Feldman was subpoenaed to testify against Michael Jackson in his child molestation trial. The singer was accused of molesting a 15-year-old boy, believed to be a cancer survivor, who spent time at his Neverland Ranch and who appeared in Martin Bashir's 2003 British documentary "Living With Michael Jackson". Feldman said, "I started looking at each piece of information, and with that came this sickening realization that there have been many occurrences in my life and in my relationship to Michael that have created a question of doubt." Feldman accused Michael Jackson of damaging his childhood by befriending and then abandoning him. The two became close after Feldman found fame as a young star in "Gremlins", "The Goonies", and "Stand by Me". Feldman admitted Jackson helped many children by becoming a friend and mentor – but claimed he did more harm than good, by dropping kids when he grew bored. The actor said, "He did real damage in my overall life. I was a 12-year-old boy who was hurt by his family and ignored by people at school. Michael would sit and talk to me for hours and he would listen. Then he would get bored. The biggest thing that Michael's done to children is befriending the ones that are in need and then abandoning them." When Jackson died, Feldman dedicated a Los Angeles hospital concert with his rock band Truth Movement to the singer. Feldman told the crowd Jackson was watching over the show. "I didn't feel I could pull myself together to do a show tonight," Feldman told "People" magazine after the show. "It's been really difficult, honestly. I'm all shaken up right now. I had to do a lot of acting, basically, to get through the last 48 hours". Of the events of the week Jackson died, said Feldman, "It was shocking, and I think I'm still in shock, to an extent. I don't think I have fully, completely come to terms with it yet. I have waves and flashes. One moment, I feel fine and I'm myself. Then all of a sudden, it hits me, and I go, 'Wow, he's really gone.' It's very troubling."
692381	Sunshine Daydream is a music documentary film starring the rock band the Grateful Dead. It was shot at their August 27, 1972 concert at the Old Renaissance Faire Grounds in Veneta, Oregon. Unreleased for many years, the movie was sometimes shown at small film festivals, and bootleg recordings of it circulated on VHS and DVD, and as digital downloads. A digitally remastered and reedited official version of the film was released on August 1, 2013, showing only one time in selected theaters. It was screened with "Grateful Days", a new documentary short that includes interviews with some of the concert attendees. "Sunshine Daydream" was released on DVD and Blu-ray on September 17, 2013. Sunshine Daydream is also a live album containing the complete August 27, 1972 Grateful Dead concert. Produced as a 3–disc CD and as a 4-disc LP, it was released by Rhino Records on September 17, 2013. The name "Sunshine Daydream" is taken from the coda section of the Dead song "Sugar Magnolia". Concert. The lineup of the Grateful Dead for this concert—and for all their concerts from July 1972 to October 1974—was Jerry Garcia on guitar and vocals, Bob Weir on guitar and vocals, Phil Lesh on bass and vocals, Keith Godchaux on keyboards, Donna Jean Godchaux on vocals, and Bill Kreutzmann on drums. The show was a benefit for the Springfield Creamery in nearby Springfield, Oregon. Merry Pranksters Ken Kesey and Ken Babbs emceed the concert. The Dead played all afternoon and into the dark after an opening set by the New Riders of the Purple Sage. In 2004, the New Riders' performance was released as an album called "Veneta, Oregon, 8/27/72". Film. Production. The concert was filmed using four 16 mm cameras, in the woods of the Oregon Coast Range foothills, on the grounds of the Oregon Country Fair. Originally even more cameras had been planned, under an ambitious scheme: "The plot was to develop a signature visual style of representing the band: a camera for each of the 16 channels (at least!) emphasizing the visual kinetics of the music making itself as well as the enormous open communication within the band." Album. Sunshine Daydream is a live album by the rock band the Grateful Dead. It contains the complete concert recorded on August 27, 1972 at the Old Renaissance Faire Grounds in Veneta, Oregon. Produced as a 3–disc CD and as a 4-disc LP, it was released by Rhino Records on September 17, 2013. The album debuted at #19 on the Billboard 200 on October 5, 2013. It was the second time in history and the first time since "In the Dark" in 1987 that the Grateful Dead had a top 20 album. Critical Reception. On AllMusic, Fred Thomas said, "The three sets here have everything that made this one of the most colorful and captivating eras of the Dead's live playing. Somewhere between the caveman psychedelia of their beginnings and the bluegrass-steeped folk-rock of their most popular studio albums "American Beauty" and "Workingman's Dead", Garcia and company refined their live jamming skills into something that seemed almost like a mental synchronization at its best... A long-traded fan favorite, "Sunshine Daydream" finally sees a properly mixed presentation of the 16-track master tapes of nearly three hours of one of the Grateful Dead's finest concert moments. It's essential listening for Deadheads and possibly the best place for the curious to jump in." Track listing. Disc 1 Disc 2 Disc 3
1750057	Aiba began his career in the entertainment industry when he joined the Japanese talent agency Johnny & Associates in 1996 at the age of 13. Prior to his debut as a singer with Arashi in 1999, Aiba started an acting career when he was cast as the lead role of Gordie for the stage play "Stand by Me", which was based on the film of the same name. About five years after his debut as a singer with Arashi in 1999, he became one of the co-hosts of the variety show in 2004, making him the first member of Arashi to regularly participate in a variety show not primarily hosted by Arashi. Early life. Aiba was born in Hanamigawa, Chiba as the first child of his family. He has a younger brother who is four years younger. Aiba was raised by his grandparents until he was four years old because his parents were busy running their newly opened Chinese cuisine restaurant then. Prior to joining Johnny & Associates, Aiba watched a program called and saw SMAP playing basketball on television. Wanting to play basketball with them, he sent in the application to join the talent agency himself, without exactly knowing what the agency specialized in until the day of auditions. Aiba became a Johnny's Jr. in August 1996 at the age of . Music career. In collaboration with the other members, he has written the lyrics to "Fight Song" and "5x10". For his solo song "Hello Goodbye", Aiba played the harmonica portion of the song throughout Arashi's "Arashi Marks 2008 Dream-A-Live" and "Arashi Marks Arashi Around Asia 2008" concert tours. Aiba also used to play the saxophone; however, due to the collapse of one of his lungs in 2002, he was forced to stop playing due to the operation he had to undergo. Acting career. Stage. Aiba began acting in a 1997 stage play based on an American coming of age film called "Stand by Me" with future bandmates Jun Matsumoto and Kazunari Ninomiya. In 2005, Aiba took up the lead role of , a naive but honest station attendant living in a world after a World War III nuclear war, in . In 2007, Aiba portrayed Adam, a shy young man with a heart defect, in . It was the first stage adaptation of the 1993 film "Untamed Heart". In early 2008, Aiba was given the lead role of Colin Briggs in the stage play called "Greenfingers", which was adapted from the movie of the same name. Aiba reunited with director , who has been the director for his stage plays since 2005, and took on the lead role for , which ran from May 5 to May 24, 2010. He portrayed a young man hovering over life and death due to a violent traffic accident. Drama. In 1997, Aiba made his drama debut portraying Akira, one of the many children left to survive in a city under government lockdown after a mysterious disease wipes out all the adults, in the drama . After the announcement of the formation of Arashi in September 1999 and their position as supporters for the 1999 Volleyball World Cup competition, all five members starred together for the first time in the volleyball-centered short drama "V no Arashi". Although Aiba was featured in a number of dramas such as and , he became more known for his appearances in variety shows instead and went on to focus on stage productions after "Yankee Bokō ni Kaeru". On August 2, 2009, it was announced that Aiba would not only act in his first drama series in nearly six years but also star as the lead actor for the first time. In "My Girl", Aiba portrayed a young man who discovers that he has a five-year-old daughter after receiving the news that his girlfriend, who he has not seen in six years, was killed in an accident. In January 2010, Aiba co-starred with the other members of Arashi in the human suspense drama special "Saigo no Yakusoku". He portrayed , a 28-year-old coffee shop employee who is caught up in a building hijack. Starting January 2011, Aiba starred as genius bartender in the drama adaptation of the manga "Bartender". Aiba also made a guest appearance on the final episode of bandmate Ninomiya's drama , which aired on December 21, 2010. In April 2012, Aiba once again starred in a lead role as "Katayama Yoshitaro" in the NTV drama adaption of the similarly named novel series, " Mikeneko Holmes no Suiri (三毛猫ホームズの推理). In 2013 he will take the lead role as a doctor in "last hope" Film. In 2002, he made his motion picture debut in , Arashi's first movie together, as the lead character Shun. He subsequently reprised his role for the 2004 sequel . The group once again came together in 2007 to co-star in with Aiba portraying an aspiring singer in the 1960s. Other ventures. Radio. Since October 5, 2001, Aiba has his own radio show "Arashi's Aiba Masaki no Rekomen! Arashi Remix", which currently broadcasts on JOQR. On May 17, 2009, Aiba hosted a special radio program on Tokyo FM called . Variety show host. In 2004, Aiba became a regular part of Ken Shimura's variety show "Tensai Shimura Dōbutsuen". With co-hosts of the show such as Tomomitsu Yamaguchi, Sayaka Aoki and Becky, Aiba interacts with various wild animals such as tigers, pandas and crocodiles in zoos both in and out of Japan such as Singapore, South Africa, Philippines and Indonesia. Field navigator. From July 18 to July 19, 2009, Aiba was appointed a Field Navigator for the . He was once again a navigator on October 18, 2009 for the . In July 2010, Aiba was a Field Navigator for the . Aiba was the official navigator for Fuji Television's coverage of the 2010 World Artistic Gymnastics Championships, which was held in Rotterdam, Netherlands from October 16 to October 24, 2010.
586272	Penpattanam () is a 2010 Malayalam film by V. M. Vinu. This films takes a look at the struggle for survival of four women who are Kudumbasree workers portrayed by Revathi, KPAC Lalitha, Shwetha Menon and Vishnupriya. Plot. The film is about the struggle for survival of four women who are Kudumbasree workers. Girija (Revathi) is a widow with 2 school going girls. Suhara (Shwetha Menon) has her husband (Saddiq) bed-ridden after an accident and his operation requires a huge amount. Santha aka "Santhedatthi" (K. P. A. C. Lalitha) has to work even in her old age to support her drunkard son and family. Raji lost her parents and lives at the mercy of her sister and sister's husband. Raji is in love with Mani (Kailash) who is now a plumber but was connected to underworld before. Raji's sister's husband, who is a policeman opposes her relation with Mani. The four makes a living working as city cleaners with Kudumbasree in Kozhikode Corporation. Girija and Santhedatthi take money from the money lender Unnithan Muthalali (Nedumudi Venu). One day the four find 30 lakhs rupees ( 3,000,000) left in a waste bin. Initially they went to handover the money to police but later decided against it, due to their necessity for money, and handded over the money to Unnithan muthalali who agrees to pay them a good interest every month. Meanwhile, police finds a corpse in the city and found out that the person who got murdered was a hawala (black money) agent. Police, led by Circle Inspector Antony (Lal), started investigating about the missing money and the clues led to the four women. Meanwhile, Raji got engaged to Mani. The four were interrogated by the police. Initially they denied any involvement and were remanded and sent to sub-jail. There Raji was attacked by three women with immoral intentions. Suhara fought them all and saved Raji. They were released on bail with the help of Adv. Maheswari Iyer (Praveena). Later Girija asked the money back from Unnithan, but Unnithan initially denied to return the money and demanded Girija to share his bed for the money. Girija informed this to the others and they together fought Unnithan and tricked him to retrieve the money. Finally they got the news that some charity will sponsor the operation of Suhara's husband. They handed over the money to the widow of the hawala agent who was murdered for the money. Inspector Antony understands the whole story but finally let all the four free, since they didn't take the money for themselves but handed it over to the ones who really deserve it. Production. Actress Shwetha Menon was injured on May 20, 2010 while shooting for "Penpattanam" at Kozhikode. She was injured on her right arm, hacked accidentally in a scene. Following this injury which resulted in a nerve being cut off, the actress has undergone a minor surgery.
1164589	Kristen Johnston (born September 20, 1967) is an American stage, film, and television actress. She is most famous for her two-time Emmy Award-winning role as Sally Solomon in the television series "3rd Rock from the Sun". She also starred as Wilma Flintstone in "The Flintstones in Viva Rock Vegas". She currently appears as Holly Franklin in the sitcom "The Exes". Early life. Johnston is of English ancestry and was born in Washington, D.C. Johnston was raised mostly in Fox Point, Wisconsin, a suburb of Milwaukee, where she attended St. Eugene's Catholic Grade School and Whitefish Bay High School. She spent some of her teen years in Sweden and in South America. She earned a B.F.A. degree in drama at New York University. Career. Johnston made her professional stage debut with New York's Atlantic Theater Company, which was founded by playwright David Mamet. During her association with that company, she appeared in such productions as "As You Like It", "Girl's Talk", "Stage Door", "Author's Voice", "Portrait of a Woman" and "Rosemary for Remembrance". She teaches acting at New York University. She has performed with the Naked Angels Theatre Company in "The Stand-In" and "Hot Keys", and with New York Stage and Film in "Kim's Sister", with David Strathairn and Jane Adams. For her performance in "The Lights" at Lincoln Center Theater, Johnston was nominated for a Drama Desk Award as Best Supporting Actress. The show brought her to the attention of a Carsey-Werner television executive. After numerous auditions in 1996 for the TV series "3rd Rock from the Sun", she won the role of Sally Solomon. She starred in the series from 1996 to 2001 along with John Lithgow, Jane Curtin, French Stewart, and Joseph Gordon-Levitt, and the role earned her two Emmy Awards for best supporting actress in a comedy series. Johnston made her feature film debut in "The Debt", winner of Best Short at the 1993 Cannes Film Festival. In 1995, she played Kate in "Backfire!" Other television credits include guest-starring roles on the series "Chicago Hope", "Hearts Afire", and "The Five Mrs. Buchanans". She was also the narrator in "Microscopic Milton" on the Disney Channel. Her significant roles in commercially-successful movies included "" in 1999, "Austin Powers in Goldmember" in 2002 and "Music and Lyrics" in 2007. In 1998 she was a spokesmodel for the Clairol company, as well as appearing on the Bad Religion's "No Substance" album cover. Johnston appeared in the sixth and final season of "Sex and the City". In the episode entitled "", her character, Lexi Featherston, an aging party girl, accidentally falls out of a window and dies (after saying, "I'm so bored I could die."), prompting Carrie Bradshaw (played by Sarah Jessica Parker) to re-examine her life. In 2005 Johnston featured in six episodes of NBC's "ER". She was cast as Patsy in a proposed American remake of the British TV show "Absolutely Fabulous", but the series was never picked up by a network. She appeared in a recurring role in the 2009 season of "Ugly Betty" and had a single episode appearance as a dominatrix in the second season opener of "Bored to Death". Since 2009 she has taught acting at NYU. She also mentors local girls from New York City on self-esteem issues. She appears in "The Exes", which debuted on TV Land on November 30, 2011, and airs on Wednesday nights at 10:30 p.m. She recently appeared in Amy Heckerling's "Vamps".
900271	Carl Gabriel Yorke (born November 23, 1952) is an American actor. He was one of four actors who the Italian police believed had been murdered in the making of the 1980 horror film "Cannibal Holocaust". So realistic was the film that shortly after it was released its director Ruggero Deodato was arrested for murder. The actors had signed contracts to stay out of the media for a year in order to fuel rumours that the film was a snuff movie. The court was only convinced that they were alive when the contracts were cancelled and the actors appeared on a television show as proof.
1033893	Colin George Blakely (23 September 1930 – 7 May 1987) was a Northern Irish character actor. Early life. Born in Bangor, County Down, Northern Ireland, Blakely attended Sedbergh School in Yorkshire. At 18 he started work in his family's sports goods shop, before going on to work as a timber-loader on the railways. In 1957, after a spell of amateur dramatics with the Bangor Operatic Society, he turned professional with the Group Theatre, Belfast. Career. In 1957, at the age of 27, Blakely made his stage debut as Dick McCardle in "Master of the House". He also appeared in several Ulster Group Theatre productions, including Gerard McLarnon's "Bonefire" (1958) and Patricia O'Connor's "A Sparrow Falls" (1959). From 1957 to 1959 he was at the Royal Court Theatre, appearing in "Cock-A-Doodle Dandy", "Serjeant Musgrave's Dance" and, to critical approval, "The Naming of Murderers Rock". In 1961, he joined the Royal Shakespeare Company at Stratford-upon-Avon and from 1963 to 1968 was with the National Theatre at the Old Vic. In 1969, Blakely's controversial role as Jesus Christ in Dennis Potter's "Son of Man" gained him wide recognition. From that time onwards, he was a regular on British television, and in the same year played the leading role in a BBC adaptation of Trollope's "The Way We Live Now". Among the many stage plays in which he appeared were "The Recruiting Officer", "Saint Joan", "Royal Hunt of the Sun", "Filumena", "Volpone" and "Oedipus". He returned to the Royal Shakespeare in 1972 in Harold Pinter's "Old Times" and was subsequently in many West End plays. Film roles included Maurice Braithwaite in "This Sporting Life" (1963), Vahlin in "The Long Ships", Dr. Watson to Robert Stephens's Holmes in "The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes" (1970), and Joseph Stalin in Jack Gold's "Red Monarch" (1983). In the 1975 British film, "It Shouldn't Happen to a Vet", derived from the James Herriot books, Blakely played the eccentric Siegfried Farnon. He also appeared in "A Man for All Seasons" (1966), "Young Winston" (1972), "The National Health" (1973), "Murder on the Orient Express" (1974), "The Pink Panther Strikes Again" (1976), "Equus" (1977), "The Dogs of War" (1980), "Nijinsky" (1980) and "Evil Under the Sun" (1982). A noted Shakespearean actor, Blakely appeared on television as Antony in "Antony and Cleopatra" (1981), directed by Jonathan Miller as part of the BBC Television Shakespeare series; and as Kent in the 1983 Granada Television version of "King Lear" which starred Laurence Olivier. Other television appearances included "Loophole" (1981), "Red Monarch" (1983), "The Beiderbecke Affair" (1985), "Operation Julie" (1985) and "Paradise Postponed" (1986). Personal life. Blakely was married to actress Margaret Whiting for 26 years and had three sons, including twins. He died of leukemia at the peak of his career, aged 56.
583654	Gayatri Jayaraman is an Indian film actress, who has appeared in predominantly Tamil, Kannada, Telugu and Malayalam language films. Early life. Gayatri Jayaraman was born on 27 September 1984 to Jayaraman, an auditor, and Chitra, a housewife. She was educated at Adarsh Vidyalaya and then Church Park in Mumbai. Gayatri grew up in Shahabad near Gulbarga till she was four years old before her family headed to Madras. She spent a year in Bangalore when in her eighth standard and this helped her pick up Kannada. Gayatri initially wanted to pursue a career in medicine and despite getting 94 percent in board exams, she did not get a medical seat, and hence began reading a B.Sc in Life Science at IGNOU. Gayatri balanced her time between modeling and education and thus also went on to study physiotherapy at SRM College in Chennai. About her decision to simultaneously pursue qualifications she revealed that "the average life of an actress on screen is maximum four years" and that "she can always return to physiotherapy once my career as an actress is over". She took up her first modelling assignments for Nailli Silks, followed by Kumaran Silks, Pothys and Chennai Silks while also participating in the beauty pageants, winning the Miss Tamil Nadu title in October, 1997 and Miss South India title in 1998. She entered the final stages of Femina Miss India 2000, after being selected among the 26 finalists from 8000 entries and made it through to the final 5, eventually finishing fourth. She has also been a video jockey on television, having appeared for Fanta "Illimai Pudhumai" on Sun TV and "Telephone Manipol" on Vijay TV. Career. Gayathri started her career as an actress with director K. Balachander's tele-serial "Azhukku Veshti" and rejected offers from promienent directors such as Arjun before she decided to make her debut by featuring in Nagabharana's "Neela". "Neela", a Kannada film about a tribal singer with cancer, won critical acclaim at the box office and was selected as one of the thirty-two Indian films to feature at the International Film Festival of India. Gayatri won a Cinema Express Award for her performance, with a critic describing it as a "matured performance gives an impression of her being an experienced actress". She next appeared in an item number in Santosh Sivan's "Asoka" as a dancer on a boat in the song "Raat Ka Nasha" beside Kareena Kapoor. She made her Tamil film debut after being approached by producer KRG to feature in his "Manadhai Thirudivittai" opposite Prabhu Deva. Gayatri, post-release, remarked that her role in the film was changed, with Kausalya playing the role that she had signed on to portray. The film became a commercial failure, although her appearance in the song "Manjakattu Mynaa" got her noticed.
1039967	Samantha Bond (born 27 November 1961) is an English actress best known for her roles as Miss Moneypenny in the James Bond films during the Pierce Brosnan years, as Auntie Angela in the BBC comedy "Outnumbered" and as Lady Rosamund Painswick in "Downton Abbey". Early life. Samantha Bond is the daughter of actor Philip Bond and TV producer Pat Sandys, and is the sister of the actress Abigail Bond and the journalist Matthew Bond. She attended the Godolphin and Latymer School, and trained at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School and is a resident of St Margarets, London. Career. She has appeared in many television series, notably the 1997 adaptation of "Emma" starring Kate Beckinsale. She is a member of the Royal Shakespeare Company and starred opposite Dame Judi Dench in David Hare's award-winning play "Amy's View" at the Royal National Theatre. In 1983, she appeared in the original Southampton production of "Daisy Pulls It Off" before it moved to the West End. Also in 1983 she appeared in "Mansfield Park" and in the fourth series of "Rumpole of the Bailey", where she played Rumpole's pupil 'Mizz' Liz Probert. In 1985, she appeared in the BBC's adaptation of "A Murder is Announced", a Miss Marple novel by Agatha Christie.
1026524	Connie Francis (born Concetta Rosa Maria Franconero, December 12, 1938) is an American pop singer of Italian heritage and the top-charting female vocalist of the 1950s and 1960s. Although her chart success waned in the second half of the 1960s, Francis remained a top concert draw. Despite several severe interruptions in her career, she is still active as a recording and performing artist. History. 1938–1955: Early life and first appearances. Francis was born in the Italian Down Neck, or Ironbound, neighborhood of Newark, New Jersey, the first child of George Franconero, Sr., and Ida Franconero (née Ferrari-di Vito), spending her first years in a Brooklyn neighborhood on Utica Avenue/St. Marks Avenue before the family moved to New Jersey. Growing up in an Italian-Jewish neighborhood, Francis became fluent in Yiddish, which would lead her to later record songs in Yiddish and Hebrew. In her autobiography "Who's Sorry Now?", published in 1984, Francis recalls that she was encouraged by her father, George Franconero, Sr., to appear regularly at talent contests, pageants and other neighborhood festivities from the age of 4 as a singer and accordion player. Francis attended Newark Arts High School in 1951 and 1952. She and her family moved to Belleville, New Jersey, where she graduated as salutatorian from Belleville High School Class of 1955. During this time, Francis continued to perform at neighborhood festivities and talent shows (some of which were broadcast on television), appearing alternately as Concetta Franconero and Connie Franconero. Under the latter name she also appeared on NBC's variety show "Startime Kids" between 1953 and 1955. During the rehearsals for her appearance on "Arthur Godfrey's Talent Scouts", Francis was advised by Godfrey to change her stage name to Connie Francis for the sake of easier pronunciation. Godfrey also told her to drop the accordion – advice she gladly followed, as she had begun to hate the large and heavy instrument. Around the same time, Francis took a job as a singer on demonstration records, which were brought to the attention of established singers and/or their management who would subsequently choose or decline to record the song for a professional commercial record. 1955–1957: Recording contract and commercial failure. In 1955, "Startime Kids" went off air. In May that same year, George Franconero Sr. and Francis' manager George Scheck raised the cash for a recording session of four songs which they hoped to sell to a major record under Francis' own name. The story goes that every record label they tried turned her down, mainly because, as a demo singer, Francis could copy other popular singers of the day like Kitty Kallen or Kay Starr, but had not yet developed a distinctive sound of her own. Finally, even when MGM Records decided to sign a contract with her, it was basically because one track she had recorded, "Freddy", happened to be the name of the son of a company executive, Harry A. Myerson, who thought of this song as a nice birthday gift. Hence, "Freddy" was released as Francis' first single, which turned out to be a commercial failure, just as her following eight solo singles.
1059088	Mark Margolis (born November 26, 1939) is an American actor who has been appearing in films since 1976. Life and career. Margolis was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to a Jewish immigrant family from Europe. He went to Temple University briefly before moving to New York City, where he studied drama with Stella Adler and at the Actors Studio. He is noted for his supporting roles in "Scarface" and the films of Darren Aronofsky: "π", "Requiem for a Dream", "The Fountain", "The Wrestler", and "Black Swan". Aronofsky wrote the role of Father Avila in "The Fountain" specifically for Margolis. He has had recurring roles on numerous TV shows, including "The Equalizer", "Quantum Leap", "Oz", "Law & Order", "Crossing Jordan", "Californication", and "Breaking Bad". For his role in "Breaking Bad", Margolis received a nomination for a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series. In 1991, he played Helmut Dieter in soap opera "Santa Barbara".
1060884	Russell Albion "Russ" Meyer (March 21, 1922 – September 18, 2004) was a U.S. motion picture director, producer, screenwriter, cinematographer, editor, actor and photographer. Meyer is known primarily for writing and directing a series of successful low-budget sexploitation films that featured campy humor, sly satire and large-breasted women such as "Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!". Early years. Russ Meyer was born in San Leandro, California, to William Arthur Meyer, a German-American Oakland police officer, and his wife, Lydia Lucinda Hauck (née Howe). His parents divorced shortly after he was born, and Meyer was to have virtually no contact with his father during his life. When he was fourteen years old, his mother pawned her wedding ring in order to buy him an 8mm film camera. He made a number of amateur films at the age of 15, and served during World War II as a U.S. Army combat cameraman for the 166th Signal Photo Company. In the Army Meyer forged his strongest friendships, and he would later ask many of his fellow combat cameramen to work on his films. Much of Meyer's work during World War II can be seen in newsreels and in the film "Patton" (1971). On his return to civilian life, he was unable to secure cinematography work in Hollywood due to a dearth of industry connections. He made industrial films, freelanced as a still photographer for mainstream films (he did the still photography for "Giant"), and became a well known glamour photographer whose work included some of the initial shoots for Hugh Hefner's "Playboy" magazine. Meyer would go on to shoot three "Playboy" centerfolds during the magazine's early years, one of his wife Eve Meyer in 1955. He also shot a pictorial of then-wife Edy Williams in March 1973. Film career. His first feature, the nudist comedy "The Immoral Mr. Teas" (1959), cost $24,000 to produce and eventually grossed more than $1,000,000 on the independent/exploitation circuit, ensconcing Meyer as "King of the Nudies." Over the next decade, he made nearly 20 movies with a trademark blend of odd humor, huge-breasted starlets and All-American sleaze, including such notable films as "Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!" (1965) and "Vixen!" (1968). Russ Meyer was a true auteur who wrote, directed, edited, photographed and distributed all his own films. He was able to finance each new film from the proceeds of the earlier ones, and became very wealthy in the process. Unlike many independent directors of his era, he chose to cast actresses like Shari Eubank or Cynthia Myers who were considered extremely beautiful and wholesome. Meyer's output can be divided into several eras. Earlier works like "The Immoral Mr. Teas", "Eve and the Handyman", and the Western-themed "Wild Gals of the Naked West" were stylistically similar to the nudie cutie fare of the era, though separated from the pack by their superior color cinematography. 1964's "Lorna" saw the ever-economical director revert to black-and-white; with this change came a greater emphasis on storyline, almost theatrical violence, domineeringly psychosexual women, and their insipid male counterparts. The "Gothic" period (as it was termed by Meyer) reached its apex with the commercially underwhelming "Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!", which would eventually be reclaimed as a cult classic. It has a following all over the world and has inspired countless imitations, music videos and tributes. After producing the popular mockumentary "Mondo Topless" (1966) with the remnants of his production company's assets and two mildly successful color melodramas, Meyer made headlines once again in 1968 with the controversial, "Vixen!". Although its lesbian overtones are tame by today's standards, the film — designed by Meyer and long-time cohort Jim Ryan as a reaction to provocative European art films — grossed millions on a five-figure budget and captured the zeitgeist just as "The Immoral Mr. Teas" had a decade earlier. He followed it with "Cherry, Harry & Raquel!" (1970), which utilized long montages of the California landscape (replete with anti-marijuana voiceovers) and Uschi Digard dancing in the desert as the film's "lost soul." These plot devices were necessitated after lead actress Linda Ashton left the shoot early, forcing Meyer to compensate for 20 minutes of unshot footage. After the unexpected success of "Easy Rider", and impressed by Meyer's frugality and profitability, 20th Century Fox signed him to produce and direct a proposed sequel to "Valley of the Dolls" in 1969, fulfilling his longstanding ambition to direct for a major Hollywood studio. What eventually appeared was "Beyond the Valley of the Dolls" (1970), scripted by film critic (and Meyer devotee) Roger Ebert and bearing no relation to the novel or film's continuity (a development necessitated after Jacqueline Susann sued the studio). Many critics perceive the film as perhaps the greatest expression of his intentionally vapid surrealism — Meyer went so far as to refer to it as his definitive work in several interviews. Others, such as "Variety", saw "B.V.D.," "as funny as a burning orphanage and a treat for the emotionally retarded." Contractually stipulated to produce an R-rated film, the brutally violent climax (depicting a decapitation) ensured an X rating (eventually reclassified to NC-17 in 1990). Though disowned by the studio for decades to come and amid gripes from the director after he attempted to recut the film to include more titillating scenes after the ratings debacle, it still earned $9 million domestically in the United States on a budget of $900,000. After making his most subdued film, a commercially unsuccessful adaptation of the popular Irving Wallace novel "The Seven Minutes" (1971) for Fox, Meyer returned to grindhouse-style independent cinema in 1973 with the blaxploitation period piece "Black Snake", which was dismissed by critics and audiences as incoherent. In 1975, he released "Supervixens", a return to the world of big bosoms, square jaws, and the Mojave desert that earned $17 million in the United States on a shoestring budget. Meyer's theatrical career ended with the release of the surreal "Up!" (1976) and 1979's "Beneath the Valley of the Ultra-Vixens", his most sexually graphic films. Film historians and fans have called these last three films "Bustoons" because Russ Meyer's use of color and mise en scène recalled larger than life pop art settings and cartoonish characters. In 1977, Malcolm McLaren hired Meyer to direct a film starring The Sex Pistols. Meyer handed the scriptwriting duties over to Ebert, who, in collaboration with McLaren, produced a screenplay entitled "Who Killed Bambi?" According to Ebert, filming ended after a day and a half when the electricians walked off the set after McLaren was unable to pay them. (McLaren has claimed that the project was scrapped at the behest of the main financier and Meyer's erstwhile employer—20th Century Fox—whose board of directors considered the prospect of a Meyer production to be untenable and incompatible with the insurgent family values ethos in popular culture.) The project ultimately evolved into "The Great Rock & Roll Swindle". Despite the fact that hardcore pornographic films would overtake Meyer's softcore market share, he retired from filmmaking in the late 1970s a very wealthy man. Use of satire. Russ Meyer was also adept at mocking moral stereotypes and flagrantly lampooning conservative American values. Many of his films feature a narrator who attempts to give the audience a "moral roadmap" of what they are watching. Like contemporary Terry Southern, Meyer realized that sex — as one of the few common interests among most humans — was a natural vehicle for satirizing values and conventions held by the Greatest Generation. According to Roger Ebert in a commentary recorded for the DVD release of "Beyond the Valley of the Dolls", Meyer continually reiterated that this irreverence was the true secret to his artistic success. Meyer was also known for his quick wit. While participating with Ebert in a panel discussion at Yale University, he was confronted by an angry woman who accused him of being "nothing but a breast man." His immediate reply: "That's only the half of it." Big breast fixation, or the Meyer physical archetype. Russ Meyer's lifelong unabashed fixation on large breasts featured prominently in all his films and is his best known character trait both as an artist and as a person. His discoveries include Kitten Natividad, Erica Gavin, Lorna Maitland, Tura Satana, and Uschi Digard among many others. The majority of them were naturally large breasted and he occasionally cast women in their first trimesters of pregnancy as it enhanced their breast size even further. Rarely were there cosmetically enhanced breasts in any of his films until "Up!" (1976) and "Beneath the Valley of the Ultra-Vixens" (1979). However, by the early 1980s, when surgical advancements had made the gargantuan breasts of Meyer's fantasies a reality, many felt he had started viewing the female body as simply a "tit transportation device" and that his aesthetic vision was no longer attractive or vibrant. Darlene Gray, a natural 36H-22-33 from Great Britain, who appeared in "Mondo Topless" (1966) is said to be Russ Meyer's most busty discovery. The Russ Meyer female physical archetype is fairly complex to decipher. Firstly, it's not to be confused with today's surgically enhanced Hollywood porn starlets or even slim, naturally endowed actresses. Russ Meyer was almost as much about a shapely 1950s hip-to-waist ratio or "wasp waist" as he was about very large breasts. The six-pack abdominal muscles and built-up squarish appearance of modern Hollywood figures do not mesh with his pin-up aesthetic. Secondly, he required that even his most busty actresses looked good braless; "gravity-defying" and "cantilevered" became two of his favorite expressions. In his films such as "Vixen!" and "Cherry, Harry & Raquel!" some of the actresses do not have large (by Russ Meyer standards) breasts yet their chests are always accentuated with very clever camera angles and well constructed bras. Reportedly, Erica Gavin was cast as the lead in "Vixen!" because her "smaller" bust would make the character "more relatable to women." He went on record numerous times to say that Anita Ekberg was the most beautiful woman he ever photographed and that her 39DD breasts were the biggest in A-list Hollywood history, dwarfing both Jayne Mansfield and Sabrina. Dolly Parton was the only modern Hollywood actress Meyer ever expressed interest in working with. While he often referred to his actresses as "Junoesque" and "Amazonian" this was probably more in their spirit than their actual physiques" as Meyer rarely cast very tall or symmetrically built actresses with strong legs and large posteriors. So while the general public could easily perceive Jane Russell or Sophia Loren as "Russ Meyer material", their balanced bodies did not mesh with Meyer's precise aesthetic preferences." And indeed Meyer said many times that it was Gina Lollobrigida's smaller breasted figure that he preferred visually over her larger breasted, taller and bigger hipped rival, Sophia Loren. Thus Meyer's oeuvre shows the viewer that while his actresses could easily be described as voluptuous, buxom and curvaceous, it's debatable to some if they were strapping, stately or even statuesque as Meyer readily proclaimed." The tallest actress Meyer ever cast in a lead was the , slim hipped, huge breasted Lorna Maitland (working with whom he admitted he found intimidating). Nearly all the other women he featured were no taller than . Tura Satana's performance as Varla in "Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!" was Meyer's only true portrayal of the large, strong and aggressive Amazonian archetype in the classic visual sense. Female empowerment. Film historian Jimmy McDonough posits that Russ Meyer's usage of physically and sexually overwhelming female characters places him in his own separate genre. He argues that despite portraying women as sex objects, Meyer nonetheless depicts them as more powerful than men and is therefore an inadvertent feminist filmmaker. In many of Meyer's films women eventually defeat men, winning sexual fulfillment as their reward, e.g., Super Vixen ("Supervixens"), Margo Winchester ("Up!") and Lavonia Shed ("Beneath the Valley of the Ultra-Vixens"). And even in the 1950s and '60s his films were sometimes centered on a woman's need and struggle for sexual satisfaction ("Lorna", "Good Morning and... Goodbye!" and "Beneath the Valley of the Ultra-Vixens"). Additionally, Russ Meyer's female characters were often allowed to express anger and violence towards men ("Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!" and "Supervixens"). Yet in his research, McDonough also notes that Meyer's female characters were limited in how powerful they could appear; often the female lead is raped ("Up!" and "Lorna") or brutally murdered ("Beyond the Valley of the Dolls", "Supervixens", "Lorna" and "Blacksnake"). While Russ Meyer may have championed powerful woman characters, he also forced them into violent and terrifying situations, making them prove their physical and mental strength against tremendous odds. He also ensured that women's breasts were at least semi-exposed during these ordeals for comic or erotic effect. Furthermore, according to frequent collaborator and longtime lover Kitten Natividad, Meyer's love of dominant women extended to his personal life, and he was almost always in a tumultuous relationship. Personal and family life. It was in World War II that, according to Meyer, he found himself at a French brothel with Ernest Hemingway who, upon finding out that Meyer was a virgin, offered him the prostitute of his choice. Meyer picked the one with the largest breasts. Despite his reputation as a Rabelaisian man, Russ Meyer never employed the casting couch and rarely slept with any of his actresses. He had no children though there were rumored unsuccessful pregnancies with his second wife Edy Williams and last serious girlfriend, Melissa Mounds, who was also found guilty of assaulting him in 1999. There is a long standing rumor among his closest friends and at least one biographer that he had a son in 1964 with a secret lover who he would refer to only as "Miss Mattress" or "Janet Buxton". Meyer was very upfront throughout his life about being too selfish to be a father or even a caring partner, or husband. Yet he is also said to have been very generous with all his friends and acquaintances, and never isolated friends from one another. Biographers have attributed most of his brutish and eccentric nature to the fact that he was abandoned by his father, an Oakland police officer and overly coddled by his mother, Lydia, who was married six times. Meyer had a half sister, Lucinda, who was diagnosed in her twenties with paranoid schizophrenia and was committed to California State mental institutions until her death in 1999. Mental illness ran in his family and it was something he secretly feared. During his entire life Russ Meyer spoke with only the highest reverence for his mother and sister. Meyer was married to: Contrary to some accounts, Meyer was never married to Kitten Natividad, his longtime companion and the star of his final two films. Final years. Meyer owned the rights to nearly all of his films and spent the majority of the 1980s and 1990s making millions reselling his films on the home video and DVD market. He worked out of the very same Los Angeles, California home he lived in and usually answered the phone to take orders himself. A major retrospective of his work was given at The British Film Institute (1982), the Chicago Film Festival honored him in 1985, and many revival movie houses booked his films for midnight movie marathons. He also worked obsessively for over a decade on a massive three volume autobiography entitled "A Clean Breast". Finally printed in 2000, it features numerous excerpts of reviews, clever details of each of his films and countless photos and erotic musings. Starting in the mid-1990s Meyer had frequent fits and bouts of memory loss. By 2000, he was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease, and his health and well-being were thereafter looked after by Janice Cowart, his secretary and estate executor. That same year, with no wife or children to claim his wealth, Meyer willed that the majority of his money and estate would be sent to the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in honor of his late mother. Russ Meyer died at his home in the Hollywood Hills, of complications of pneumonia, on September 18, 2004. He was 82 years old. Meyer's grave is located at Stockton Rural Cemetery in San Joaquin County, Stockton. His headstone reads: Fox Searchlight Pictures is currently negotiating the rights to create a biopic covering the early years of Meyer's career.
1183713	Clifford Joseph Harris, Jr. (born September 25, 1980), better known by his stage name T.I., his nickname Tip and his alter ego T.I.P., is an American rapper, record producer, actor and entrepreneur, from Bankhead, Atlanta, Georgia. He embarked on his music career with his longtime friends and fellow rappers in the Southern hip hop group Pimp Squad Click (P$C). T.I. is also the founder and co-chief executive officer (CEO) of Grand Hustle Records, which he launched in 2003. In 2009, "Billboard" ranked him as the 27th Artist of the 2000s decade. T.I. has released eight studio albums ("I'm Serious", "Trap Muzik", "Urban Legend", "King", "T.I. vs. T.I.P.", "Paper Trail", "No Mercy" and ""), with the most recent seven being highly successful on the commercial market. He has won three Grammy Awards during his career. He has also released successful singles such as "Bring Em Out", "What You Know", "Big Shit Poppin' (Do It)", "Swagga Like Us" (featuring Kanye West, Jay-Z and Lil Wayne), "Dead and Gone" (featuring Justin Timberlake) and "Ball" (featuring Lil Wayne). He began to gain prominence with 2003's "Trap Muzik", also appearing on Destiny's Child's top ten single "Soldier", with Lil Wayne in 2004. T.I.'s sixth album, 2008's "Paper Trail", became his most successful album to date, with first-week sales of 568,000 copies in the United States, making it T.I.'s third chart topping album in a row. It included three international hit singles "Whatever You Like", "Live Your Life" (featuring Rihanna) and "Dead and Gone". He plans to release the second installment to his "Trouble Man" series, "Trouble Man II: He Who Wears the Crown", a collaborative album with his Grand Hustle signee B.o.B, tentatively titled "The Man and the Martian", and a compilation album showcasing his label Grand Hustle, all in the near future. He has served two stints in county jail, twice for probation violations and a federal prison bid for a U.S. federal weapons charge. While serving 11 months in prison he released his seventh studio album, "No Mercy" (2010). T.I. has also had a successful acting career, starring in the films "ATL", "Takers" and "Identity Thief". He is also a published author, having written two novels "Power & Beauty" (2011) and "Trouble & Triumph" (2012), which were both released to moderate success. Biography. 1980–2000: Early life and career beginnings. Clifford Joseph Harris Jr. was born on September 25, 1980, in Atlanta, Georgia, the son of Clifford "Buddy" Harris, Sr. and Violeta Morgan. He was raised by his grandparents in Atlanta's Bankhead neighborhood. His father resided in New York, and he would often go there to visit. Buddy Harris suffered from Alzheimer's disease and died from the disease. T.I. began rapping at age eight. He attended Douglass High School, but later dropped out. As a teenager, he dealt drugs. By age 14, he had been arrested several times. He was nicknamed "Tip" after his paternal great-grandfather. He was once known as Rubber Band Man, a reference to the custom of wearing rubber bands around the wrist to denote wealth in terms of drugs or money. In 1996, T.I. befriended local rapper Big Kuntry King, T.I. who was already known around Atlanta as a skilled lyricist, and together they sold mixtapes out the trunk of their car. Kawan "KP" Prather, a record executive, discovered T.I. and then signed him to his record label Ghet-O-Vision Entertainment. Upon signing with Arista Records subsidiary LaFace Records in 2000, he shortened his name to T.I. out of respect for label mate Q-Tip. 2001–02: "I'm Serious". T.I. released his debut album, "I'm Serious", in October 2001 through Arista Records. The album spawned the eponymous single, which featured Jamaican reggae entertainer Beenie Man. His debut single, "I'm Serious," was released on June 26, 2001. The single received little airplay and failed to chart. The album featured guest appearances from Pharrell Williams of The Neptunes (who called him "the Jay-Z of the South"), Jazze Pha, Too Short, Bone Crusher, Lil Jon, Pastor Troy, YoungBloodZ and his southern hip hop group P$C. The album included production from The Neptunes, DJ Toomp, Madvac, and The Grand Hustle Team. Despite the album's guests appearances and production team, the album peaked at number 98 and only sold 163,000 copies in the United States. Critics pointed to the fact that many of the tracks sounded the same and that a few were blatant rip-offs. Other critics commented saying, "T.I. claims to be the king of the South, but fails to show and prove. He does, however, have potential. If his talent ever matches his confidence, he may be headed for stardom." Due to the poor commercial reception of the album, T.I. was dropped from Arista Records. He then formed Grand Hustle Entertainment and began releasing several mixtapes with the assistance of DJ Drama. He resurfaced in the summer of 2003 alongside fellow Atlanta rapper and former label-mate Bone Crusher, on the song "Never Scared." His mixtapes and mainstream exposure from "Never Scared" eventually recaptured major label attention and he signed a joint venture deal with Atlantic Records. 2003–05: "Trap Muzik" and "Urban Legend". T.I. released his second album "Trap Muzik" on August 19, 2003 through Grand Hustle Records; it debuted at number four and sold 109,000 copies in its first week. It spawned the singles "24s", "Be Easy", "Rubberband Man", and "Let's Get Away". The album featured guest appearances from 8Ball & MJG, Jazze Pha, Bun B and Mac Boney and was produced by Jazze Pha, Kanye West, David Banner, Madvac and DJ Toomp.Upon its release, Trap Muzik received generally favorable reviews from most music critics, who generally regarded it as a major improvement over his debut album, "I'm Serious". This included Complex naming the album one of the classic albums of the last decade in 2012. on February 20, 2013 allhiphop.com placed it as #5 as the best southern hip-hop album of all time. In March 2004, a warrant was issued for T.I.'s arrest after he violated his probation of a 1997 drug conviction. He was sentenced to three years in prison. While imprisoned in Cobb County, Georgia, he filmed an unauthorized music video. One month later, he was allowed a work release program. T.I. was on probation stemming from a 1998 conviction for violating a state controlled substances act and for giving false information. After being released on probation, he earned a litany of probation violations in several counties around Georgia for offenses ranging from possession of a firearm to possession of marijuana. In 2006, after appearing in an Atlanta court on (May 10) and having charges that he threatened a man outside a strip club last year dropped for lack of evidence, T.I. was arrested on an outstanding probation violation warrant from Florida. The warrant claimed that T.I. did not complete the required number of community service hours he was sentenced for a 2003 battery of a female sheriff deputy at University Mall in Tampa. T.I. was detained by several mall Security Guards at the time of the incident. According to WSB-TV Atlanta, the rapper’s attorney said that the problem was nothing more than a "technical matter" between Georgia and Florida. The confusion arose because T.I. was also sentenced to community service in Georgia for driving with a suspended license, for which he did complete 75 hours of community service in his home state. The rapper was released on bail shortly after being arrested, and was expected to surrender to Florida state authorities the following week to resolve the matter. T.I. released his third studio album, "Urban Legend", in November 2004. It debuted at number seven on the "Billboard" 200, selling 193,000 copies in its first week. The album's lead single, "Bring Em Out", produced by Swizz Beatz, was released in January 2005 and became his first top ten hit, peaking at number nine on the Billboard Hot 100, while the second single "U Don't Know Me" peaked at number twenty-three on the "Billboard" Hot 100. His third single "ASAP" reached number 75 on the U.S. charts, number 18 on the U.S. R&B/Hip-Hop charts and number 14 on the Rap chart. T.I. created a video for "ASAP"/"Motivation". However, "Motivation" only made it to number 62 on the U.S. R&B/Hip-Hop singles chart. He was featured on Destiny's Child's 2004 single "Soldier" along with Lil Wayne, peaking at number three on the U.S. Hot 100 and the U.S. R&B Charts. In 2006, T.I. received two Grammy Award nominations for Best Song Collaboration ("Soldier" w/ Destiny's Child & Lil Wayne) and Best Rap Solo Performance for "U Don't Know Me" at The 48th Grammy Awards. That same year he won Rap Artist of the Year, Rap Album Of The Year, Rap Album Artist Of The Year, Rap Song Artist of the Year and Video Clip Artist of the Year on the Billboard Music Award and Best Male Hip-Hop Artist on the BET Awards. 2006–07: "King", "T.I. vs. T.I.P." and federal weapons charges. T.I.'s fourth album, "King", debuted at number one on the "Billboard" 200 chart in the first half of 2006, selling 522,000 copies in its first week. T.I. released "Front Back" and "Ride with Me" as promotional singles prior to the release of the album. The singles garnered little attention. The album's lead single "What You Know," became a hit in the U.S. and helped promote not only the album, but also "ATL," the film T.I. starred in that coincided with the album's release. The album also spawned the singles, "Why You Wanna," "Live in the Sky," and a remix of "Top Back," which was also included on the Grand Hustle compilation album "." "King" earned numerous awards and nominations including a Grammy Award nomination for Best Rap Album. He was also featured on newly-signed Grand Hustle artist Young Dro's debut single "Shoulder Lean", which reached the top ten on the U.S. Hot 100 and #1 on the U.S. Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs and Hot Rap Tracks. "What You Know" won a Grammy Award for Best Rap Solo Performance and was nominated for Best Rap Song at the 49th Grammy Awards. Also that year, T.I. collaborated with Justin Timberlake for "My Love," which proved to be a worldwide hit, and won a Grammy Award for Best Rap/Sung Collaboration with Timberlake at the 49th Annual Grammy Awards and also won Best Male Hip-Hop Artist at the BET Awards for the second straight time. He then served as a featured performer on "We Takin' Over" by DJ Khaled also featuring Akon, Fat Joe, Rick Ross, Birdman and Lil Wayne. T.I. released his fifth album, "T.I. vs. T.I.P.", on July 3, 2007. The lead single from the album was "Big Shit Poppin' (Do It)," which was produced by Mannie Fresh and was released to radio stations on April 17, 2007. The second single, "You Know What It Is" featuring Wyclef Jean, was released June 12, 2007. "T.I. vs. T.I.P." sold 468,000 copies in the United States, according to Nielsen SoundScan, and debuted at number one on the "Billboard" 200 and the Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart. It was T.I.'s second chart-topper in a row: "King" opened at number one on the Billboard 200 with 522,000 copies in late March 2006. The album included guest performances from Jay-Z, Busta Rhymes, Wyclef Jean, Nelly, and Eminem, and production by Eminem, Jeff Bass, Mannie Fresh, Grand Hustle, The Runners, Just Blaze, Wyclef Jean and Danja. Absent from this album's production lineup was T.I.'s longtime producer DJ Toomp and The Neptunes. In October 2007, T.I. released his third single, "Hurt," featuring Busta Rhymes and Alfamega. On October 13, 2007, federal authorities arrested T.I. four hours before the BET Hip-Hop Awards in Atlanta. He was charged with two felonies — possession of three unregistered machine guns and two silencers, and possession of firearms by a convicted felon. The arrest was made in the parking lot of a downtown shopping center, which a witness identified as the Walgreens drug store at the corner of North and Piedmont Avenues. T.I. was arrested after allegedly trying to purchase the guns from a "cooperating witness" with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. According to federal officials, the witness had been cooperating with authorities a few days prior to the T.I. arrest, when the cooperating witness was arrested on charges of trying to purchase guns from a federal agent. The witness had been working as T.I.'s bodyguard since July, authorities said. T.I. walked out of the Atlanta United States District Court after appearing before U.S. Magistrate Judge Alan J. Baverman on October 26, 2007. Judge Alan J. Baverman required T.I. post a $3 million bond, $2 million in cash and $1 million in equity on property he owns. The rapper was required to remain at home except for medical appointments and court appearances. The only people allowed to live with him were his girlfriend and children. Visitors were required to be approved by the court. 2008–09: "Paper Trail" and prison sentence. T.I.'s suppression hearing was scheduled for February 19, 2008. The performer later pleaded guilty to U.S. federal weapons charges. He was sentenced to an undefined prison sentence, a year of house arrest and 1,500 hours of community service. In an interview with MTV about serving prison time, T.I. stated, "Presumably, while I'm there, I'll be able to strategize my comeback." He went on to say that he would not "just be sitting still doing nothing". At that time T.I. collaborated with Mariah Carey on the "I'll Be Lovin' U Long Time" remix, peaking at number 58 on the U.S. Hot 100 and number 36 on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs. While under house arrest, T.I. began writing lyrics down on paper for his following album. The first promotional single from the album, "No Matter What," was released in April 2008. The music video was released on June 2008 on MTV's FN Premieres. The second promotional single was "Swing Ya Rag" which featured vocals and production from Swizz Beatz. The official lead single was "Whatever You Like," released in July 2008, and became his most successful single of his career so far, breaking the record for the highest jump to number one on the "Billboard" Hot 100, jumping from number 71 to number one. Also becoming T.I.'s first solo number one on the chart. T.I. released his sixth album, "Paper Trail", in September 2008. The title of the album refers to the lyrics he had written down on paper. Like many other rappers, T.I. abandoned this style of rapping after his debut album "I'm Serious" by just memorizing lyrics. His representative explained that T.I. wanted to "take more time to really put something down time". The album debuted at number one on the "Billboard" 200 selling 568,000 copies in the United States. The second single from the album, "Swagga Like Us", featuring Kanye West, Jay-Z and Lil Wayne, debuted and peaked at number five on the "Billboard" Hot 100. With the third single "Live Your Life" featuring Rihanna, T.I. broke his own record on the "Billboard" Hot 100 when it jumped from number 80 to the number one. The fourth single "Dead and Gone", featuring Justin Timberlake, peaked at number two for five weeks on the "Billboard" Hot 100, eventually going on to be nominated during the 52nd Grammy Awards for both "Best Rap/Sung Collaboration" and "Best Rap Song". During the 51st Grammy Awards, he was nominated for four Grammy Awards, eventually winning Best Rap Performance by a Duo Or a Group for "Swagga Like Us". "Remember Me", featuring Mary J. Blige, was released digitally on July 7, 2009. It was the planned first single from the re-release of T.I.'s sixth studio album, "Paper Trail", but the re-release was eventually shelved. The single peaked at number 29 on the "Billboard" Hot 100. On October 6, "Hell of a Life" was released digitally and went on to peak at number 54 on the "Billboard" Hot 100. In 2009, T.I. appeared as himself on an episode of "". On the episode, he took the comedienne to Roscoe's House of Chicken and Waffles in LA and gave her a lesson on how to "swagger." On November 21, 2008, T.I. testified in the murder trial of a member of his entourage and a close friend, Philant Johnson (1980–2006), who was murdered in a shooting that occurred after a post-concert party at a club. T.I. has dedicated several songs to Johnson, from the single version of "Live in the Sky" to his more recent hit "Dead and Gone" where Johnson's grave can be seen in the video. On March 27, 2009, U.S. District Judge Charles A. Pannell, Jr. sentenced T.I. to one year and one day in prison and ordered to pay $100,300 for federal weapons charges; T.I. had his sentence reduced from a maximum 10 years and a $250,000 fine with a plea bargain. On May 26, 2009, T.I. began serving his sentence in Forrest City, Arkansas. Two days prior to being imprisoned, T.I. performed a farewell concert at the Philips Arena in Atlanta, Georgia. T.I. was released from FCC Forrest City on December 22, 2009 and was moved into a halfway house in Atlanta. T.I. had the Federal Bureau of Prisons ID 59458-019 and was released from CCM Atlanta on March 26, 2010. After his release from prison, he was subjected to an audit of his finances, drug counseling, DNA testing, and random searches of his property. 2010–2011: "No Mercy" and drug charges. On March 26, 2010, T.I. was released from the halfway house. Soon after his release he was in the studio working on his seventh studio album titled "King Uncaged". Jim Jonsin, the producer who previously worked with him on his single, "Whatever You Like" and R&B singer Trey Songz, were scheduled to work on the project. T.I. made his first public appearance since prison, stepping out with then fiancée Tameka "Tiny" Cottle in support of her Alzheimer's research fundraiser "For the Love of Our Fathers" at Atlanta's Opera venue. "I am very well, very happy to be seen," said T.I., who joined Cottle onstage at the end of the benefit. T.I. released a new promotional single titled "I'm Back" on March 8, 2010. The single peaked at #44 on Billboard's Hot 100 charts. Around this time, he made a featured guest appearance on Diddy-Dirty Money's single "Hello Good Morning", the single peaked at #27 in US and charted internationally in eight other countries. He also made a guest appearance on Larry King Live on May 13, to discuss with Larry King about his nine-month prison term on federal gun charges and other topics. T.I. released a promotional soundtrack single entitled, "Yeah Ya Know (Takers)" on May 24. It peaked at number forty-four on Billboard Hot 100 and number sixty-eight on Canadian Hot 100. T.I. released another promotional single entitled; "Got Your Back" which featured American R&B singer Keri Hilson and peaked at number thirty-eight in the US. Later, T.I. made more featured single appearances such as Jamie Foxx's single "Winner" also featuring Justin Timberlake and Drake's single "Fancy" also featuring Swizz Beatz. Both singles made charted on the Billboard charts peaking at the top 50. Prior to the album's release T.I. decided to release a mixtape titled "Fuck a Mixtape"; the move was somewhat controversial due to its title, with many feeling he was insulting the Mixtape format. T.I. has addressed the issue by stating that it was a response to all the people who told him to just focus on an album and not on a mixtape. T.I. further defended his decision to release a mixtape by saying: "I already have 60, 70 songs. A lot of these songs are period pieces that speak volumes to what's going on right now. If I hold onto them next year or the year after, they'll be dated, because my life will be in another direction. If I'm not gonna put it on the album — and they all can't make the album — then they might as well have another platform to present it to the world". On September 1, T.I. and his wife Tiny were arrested on drug charges in Los Angeles. The arrest for drug charges led to T.I. being sentenced on October 15, 2010 to 11 months in prison for violating the terms of his probation, specifically for possessing ecstasy, testing positive for opiates and associating with a convicted felon. On October 25, the drug charges against T.I. were dropped. T.I. scrapped "King Uncaged" as the title for his seventh studio album and renamed it "No Mercy" due to his new prison sentencing. He then released the lead single from the newly titled album, "Get Back Up" featuring Chris Brown, on the same day that he was sentenced back to prison for violating the terms of his probation. "Get Back Up" peaked at number seventy in the US. On November 1, T.I. reported back to the Forrest City Federal Facility to serve his 11-month sentence. His date of release was set to be September 29, 2011. "No Mercy" was released on December 7, 2010. The album peaked at number four in the US and it sold over 159,000 copies in its first week. RIAA certified "No Mercy" Gold with over 500,000 copies sold. His second and final single from the album was "That's All She Wrote" his second collaboration with Eminem, and was released on December 19, peaking at number eighteen in the US. T.I. was nominated for two Grammy Awards for Best Rap Solo Performance for "I'm Back" and Grammy Award for Best Rap Performance by a Duo or Group (Fancy with Drake and Swizz Beatz) at the 53rd Grammy Awards. He was also nominated for a Soul Train Music Award for Best Hip Hop Song of the Year for "Got Your Back" and he earned three BET Hip Hop Awards nominations for Hustler of the Year, Made You Look Award, and Best Club Banger for "Hello Good Morning". In early June 2011, T.I. said in a letter: "I’ll be releasing a record in the near future (couple of weeks tops) to hold y’all over til I get back in action." On June 30, 2011, a new song was released onto T.I.'s official website and on his official YouTube channel - titled "We Don't Get Down Like Y'all", which features fellow Grand Hustle rapper B.o.B on the hook. While commenting on the song, T.I. said in another letter; "It's a song that I did soon after my release last time. What inspired me to write this record was the differences in how we do us and how they do them suddenly became incredibly evident in just a very short period of time." It was originally only available on Atlantic Records's online store. The song was available on iTunes and other vendors, such as Spotify on August 9 and it peaked at number seventy-eight in the US. On August 31, T.I. was released from Forrest City Correctional Facility in Arkansas at 7:29 a.m. and was sent to a community living facility to serve out the rest of his 11 month prison sentence. He then released a statement on Twitter saying: "The storm is over & da sun back out. IT'S OUR TIME TO SHINE SHAWTY!!!!! Welcome to the beginning of our Happy Ending!!!!" T.I. inked a deal with VH1 for a new reality show that will follow him as he re-adjusts to life as a free man after the incarceration and he also announced he working on a novel entitled, "Power & Beauty" which was set to be released in October. He was sent back to federal custody on September 1, less than 48 hours after his release due to a dispute involving T.I. taking a luxury bus from a prison in Arkansas to a halfway house facility in Atlanta. T.I.'s attorney, Steve Sadow, told the Associated Press that the Federal Bureau of Prisons has moved T.I. to a different facility and clarified that the dispute was not drug related. T.I. was later released from prison and was sent back to the halfway house, where he was released on September 29, at midnight. 2011-2012: "Trouble Man: Heavy Is the Head". After his release from prison, T.I. appeared on several remixes including; "Spend It" by 2 Chainz, "Sleazy" by Kesha, "Niggas in Paris" with Jay-Z and Kanye West, "Hard White (Up in the Club)" by Yelawolf also featuring Slaughterhouse, "Ima Boss" by Meek Mill alongside a freestyle over Drake's "Headlines", and Lil Wayne's "She Will". He was also featured on southern rapper Future's second single "Magic", taken from his debut studio album "Pluto", which was the first song he hopped on after his release from prison according to Future. T.I. revealed the title of his eighth studio album to be "Trouble Man". The title was partly inspired by Marvin Gaye’s 1972 song of the same name, he revealed on "Billboard". In a previous interview with "Rolling Stone"; he said he was debating between two titles, "Trouble Man" and "Kill the King". The third promotional single "Pyro", was released on November 21. On December 5, his new reality show "" premiered on Vh1 at 9p after the first full episodes were leaked onto the internet. In preparation for the album, T.I. released a mixtape entitled, "Fuck da City Up" on New Year's Day. Two songs off the mixtape charted on the "Billboard" Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs, "Popped Off", featuring vocals and production from Dr. Dre and "This Time of Night" featuring Nelly, respectively. While on set for the "Strange Clouds" music video, MTV interviewed B.o.B and confronted him of a rumor that he and T.I. are working on a collaborative album. B.o.B responded: "The joint album, it actually started as a joke. Tip would always refer to me as 'the Martian', and in one of his lyrics, he said, ‘It’s the man and the Martian,’ and we said, ‘Man that could be an album title.’ We kinda just played around with it. But it seems to be taking form in a very organic way." On December 1, 2011, B.o.B appeared on New York City's Hot 97 radio station and confirmed that he and T.I. are indeed working on a collaborative album titled "The Man and the Martian". On March 1, 2012, T.I. announced he signed Iggy Azalea, Chipmunk and Trae Tha Truth to Grand Hustle Records. He was executive producer on Azalea's debut extended play "Glory" and was featured on her debut single "Murda Bizness", which premiered March 26, 2012. On March 30, T.I. released a snippet of "Love This Life", "Trouble Man"'s promotional single, produced by Mars of 1500 or Nothin'. The song was officially released on April 2, where the song peaked at number eight-one in the US. T.I. joined Reggae singer, Sean Kingston for his new single "Back 2 Life (Live It Up)". He shot the video for the track, which also sampled Soul II Soul’s 1989 chart-topping hit "Back to Life (However Do You Want Me)". The song peaked at number fifty-two in Canada. During his visit to Angie Martinez's radio show, he revealed that the album will be released on September 4. He recorded collaborations with Trey Songz and Usher. ""It’s just a dope, dope collabo". "Usher and Tip, two Atlanta natives,"" Rico Love told Rap-Up.com. ""This time I finally feel like they got a record that’s gonna be a humongous hit."" T.I.’s VH1 reality show "" was renewed for a second season, which airs on September 3. T.I. released another promotional song off "Trouble Man" on May 15, entitled "Like That". T.I. appeared on Trey Songz's second single off his album "Chapter V" titled "2 Reasons". The song peaked at number forty-three in the US. Another promotional single off "Trouble Man", entitled "Go Get It" was released on July 17. The song peaked at number seventy-seven and number eighty-six in Canada. In September, T.I. appeared on "106 & Park" to promote his book "Trouble & Triumph", a sequel to his previous novel "Power & Beauty". During his visit, he announced a new release date for his album set for December 18. He revealed that the album will feature collaborations from Pharrell, André 3000, Cee Lo Green, R. Kelly, Lil Wayne, and ASAP Rocky. He also stated that he's working on a women's clothing line from A.K.O.O.. He later released a new song "Trap Back Jumpin’", which he premiered during his visit on Angie Martinez’s radio show. On October 9, 2012, T.I. was featured on the annual BET Hip Hop Awards cypher, alongside his Grand Hustle artists Iggy Azalea, B.o.B, Chip and Trae tha Truth. A song titled "Ball", was released on October 16, as the lead single from his upcoming eighth studio album. The song featured fellow American rapper Lil Wayne and was produced by American record producer Rico Love, alongside Earl & E. The song peaked at number fifty in the US and number fifty-eight in the Canada. On October 23, he previewed twelve tracks from the album at its listening party in New York City, and also revealed their titles. The tracks previewed feature artists such as Kendrick Lamar. In the following month, T.I. leaked the illustrated cover art from his newly named album entitled, "" along with the track list and a few newly added features from the album. T.I. explained, "I think it’s a lot more urban than "Paper Trail", and less apologetic than "No Mercy". I think it’s more diversified than "T.I. vs. T.I.P." though. It’s got a lotta heart, it’s got a lotta edge. It’s a creative album. It’s probably harder than most of the shit that’s coming out right now." "Sorry" featuring Andre 3000 was released as the fifth promotional single via iTunes on November 27. "Sorry" peaked at number 36 on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs. Then "Hello" featuring Cee-Lo was released to iTunes on December 11 as the sixth promotional single. The album debuted at number two on the US Billboard 200, with first-week sales of 179,000 copies in the United States. As of July 11, 2013, it has sold 485,000 copies. 2012-present: "Trouble Man II: He Who Wears the Crown" and "Hustle Gang" compilation. Shortly before "Trouble Man: Heavy Is the Head" was released, T.I. announced he would release the sequel as his next album, titled "Trouble Man II: He Who Wears the Crown". The sequel is due to T.I. recording more material than needed, being cited by T.I. as much as 120 songs. In early January 2013, B.o.B announced an upcoming Grand Hustle compilation album titled "Hustle Gang". On January 18, 2013 it was announced T.I. drew a close to his 10 year contract with Atlantic records the month before, after releasing "Trouble Man: Heavy Is the Head". It was reported he proposed a $75 million deal for any label that wants to provide a home for him and his imprint. TMZ reported that T.I. has drawn up the details, which include "3 albums, 10-20 percent of publishing, touring, merchandise, film and TV rights, corporate endorsement deals, as well as exclusive signing of all Grand Hustle artists". T.I. was also allegedly being coaxed by some of the biggest names in the industry. There were reports that Jay-Z was looking to sign T.I., hoping to add him to the Roc Nation roster. T.I. also had an exclusive dinner at Katana with Dr. Dre, who is thought to have proposed an Interscope signing to the rapper. T.I. had also met with Sony, who offered him $50 Million, and spoke with Universal later that week. In February 2013, T.I. revealed he chose "Hello", as the third official single from "Trouble Man: Heavy Is the Head". According to T.I., the Cee Lo Green-featured song was selected due to its heavy radio play. On March 8, 2013 T.I. told Rap-Up that he was already 60-70% completed with "Trouble Man II: He Who Wears the Crown". He also spoke on the Grand Hustle compilation, "Hustle Gang", which B.o.B announced earlier in January. In March 2013, T.I. revealed he would soon be filming the music video for "Hello". On March 19, 2013 T.I. performed "Hello" on "Jimmy Kimmel Live!". In March, T.I. and B.o.B filmed the music video for "Memories Back Then", a song featuring Kendrick Lamar and Kris Stephens. The song, which was recorded for "Trouble Man: Heavy Is the Head", originally sampled "Somebody That I Used to Know", as performed by Gotye. T.I. said to Rap-Up. Although the track failed to appear on "Trouble Man", due to sample-clearance issues, it was released as the lead single from the "Hustle Gang" compilation album. On March 26, 2013, T.I. appeared alongside Pharrell on Robin Thicke's lead single "Blurred Lines"of his album of the same name. The song has been a worldwide hit, has peaked at #1 on the Billboard Hot 100, and has also reached number one in 13 more countries including the United Kingdom and Germany. Making it T.I.'s fourth Billboard Hot 100 number one single. On March 21, 2013, Lil Wayne announced he and would be headlining the second "America's Most Wanted Tour" along with T.I.. T.I. explained that the tour will begin on July 5 and go through September 1, 2013. French Montana and 2 Chainz were later confirmed to join the tour, among others to be announced. The first "America's Most Wanted Tour" took place five years prior and featured Young Jeezy, Soulja Boy, Pleasure P, Jeremih and Young Money. On May 21, 2013, T.I. released a single titled "Wit Me" featuring Lil Wayne. The song peaked at #80 in US. In a July 2013 interview, with Power 98 FM, T.I. touched on his upcoming album, "Trouble Man II: He Who Wears the Crown". While he didn’t reveal many album specifics, he did promise a project that would make whoever decides to distribute the album very “happy.” “I’ve been working on this one since the last one dropped,” T.I. revealed. “I haven’t decided exactly where I’m going to take new album yet as far as a company for distribution, but wherever I take it, there’s going to be some happy people in that building.” On September 1, 2013, it was revealed that T.I. would feature on Lady Gaga's song, "Jewels & Drugs", alongside Too Short and Twista. The song will appear on her album, "ARTPOP". Other ventures. Acting career. In 2006 T.I. starred in his first film, "ATL", which was loosely based on the rapper's life growing up in Atlanta and attending a skating rink named "Cascade". The other cast members included Lauren London, Antwan Patton, Evan Ross, Mykelti Williamson, Jason Weaver, and Keith David. The movie was written by Tina Gordon Chism and Antwone Fisher, produced by Timothy M. Bourne, Tionne Watkins, and Will Smith, and directed by Christopher Robinson. T.I. played the character Rashad Swann, an orphaned 17-year-old senior in high school. In its opening weekend, the film grossed a total of $11.5 million, ranking third in the United States box office, and went on to gross $21.2 million. He also appeared in "American Gangster" as Stevie Lucas, Drug Kingpin Frank Lucas' nephew. T.I. starred in the crime heist film "Takers" (originally called Bone Deep) as Ghost. The film was directed by John Luessenhop and was produced by William Packer, Michael Ealy, Tom Lassally, Jason Geter, Gary Gilbert and T.I. himself. The film was released on August 27, 2010 through Grand Hustle Films and Rainforest Films distributed by Screen Gems. The film also includes Chris Brown, Idris Elba, Matt Dillon, Paul Walker, Hayden Christensen, and Zoe Saldana. "Takers" debuted at number one at the American box office at 20.5 million in its opening weekend. Music and film producing. T.I. was executive producer of B.G.'s seventh album "Too Hood 2 Be Hollywood",and has produced for artists like Mariah Carey, Cassidy, Rick Ross, Maino, B.o.B, Yung Joc, Young Dro, and himself. He also executive produced the soundtrack to the film "Hustle & Flow" and released the collection through his record label. In 2012, he executive produced Grand Hustle's newest addition Iggy Azalea's EP, "Glory". T.I. a songwriter, is also a ghostwriter, having written for Diddy, Dr. Dre, Bun B, Keyshia Cole and Bow Wow. T.I. also launched his own film company, Grand Hustle Films. In late 2007, T.I. linked up with Los Angeles-based production company 828 Entertainment to executive produce a new reality show titled "Life on Mars" which chronicles the life of young prodigy music producer LaMar "MARS" Edwards, of production team 1500 or Nothin'. T.I. partnered 828 Entertainment with his company Grand Hustle Records to produce a slate of both television and film projects. He also created a reality show on MTV called "T.I.'s Road to Redemption". Community work. In addition to helping with Hurricane Katrina relief efforts, T.I. worked with troubled youths at Paulding Detention Center in Atlanta, provided scholarships for single parent families at Boys and Girls Clubs, and headlined the Boost Mobile Rockcorps concert at New York's Radio City Music Hall, which featured such performers as Fat Joe, Slim Thug, and Kanye West, and was held exclusively for community service volunteers. As part of his community service time, T.I. has come to a number of middle-grade and high schools in Georgia, where he speaks with the students in an assembly holding a positive message, while maintaining a philanthropic view about morals and growing up in the same areas as himself. In June 2005, The Lisa "Left Eye" Lopes Foundation, named for the deceased member of multi-platinum female group TLC, and Atlanta's V-103 honored T.I. with the 2005 Lisa Lopes Award for groundbreaking achievements in music and community service which was court ordered. With this steady list of growing accomplishments T.I. is being recognized as the "Jay-Z of the South," according to Pharrell Williams of multi-platinum production team The Neptunes. T.I.'s night club, Club Crucial, hosted a giveaway of 200 bicycles to neighborhood children in the Boys and Girls Club with V-103 announcer Greg Street. Upon being asked his opinion on Obama supporting gay marriage, he responded that people should be free to do what they want to do. Business ventures. Forbes Magazine announced its first ever Hip-Hop Cash Kings list early 2007 with list of the top 20 hip-hop earning artists for the previous business year. T.I. was listed on their list three times. T.I. opened his own nightclub, "Club Crucial" in Bankhead, Atlanta. It is considered one of the most popular clubs in Atlanta and features full entertainment centers with large flat screen TVs, pool rooms, VIP rooms, food, etc. Celebrities such as Monica, Big Boi, Mike Epps, Shawty Lo make appearances there. The club also hosts weekly events such as Monday night "Open Mic Night", "Free Fridays", and "Celebrity Saturdays" where local hip-hop artists are known to come perform their songs at the club. Chevrolet secured an endorsement deal with T.I. earlier in 2007 to promote their line of cars, with a focus on the new Impala. Due to his arrest for federal gun charges, he was on the verge of losing his deal with the company. T.I. had an endorsement with a social networking website focusing on the hip-hop culture named "StreetCred". The website was founded in 2007 by investment banker Rocky Williform. Celebrities such as Diddy, Lil' Kim, and Jeezy had accounts on the website. As of 2008, the website was temporarily shut down until further notice. On June 29, T.I. was named Global Creative Consultant of Rémy Martin Cognac. "XXL Magazine" revealed that the partnership will include collaborative projects and a focus on continuing the philanthropic works of his K.I.N.G. Foundation. He also announced on Chelsea Lately that he will be releasing his own signature brand of the liquor. T.I. lost his endorsement deal with Axe body spray after his arrest for drug possession. Controversies. Ludacris. A dispute with Ludacris started when T.I. saw Disturbing tha Peace rapper I-20's video. In the video, a man wearing a shirt which said "Trap House" was being beaten. T.I. mistook the logo to refer to "Trap Muzik". Former G-Unit artist Young Buck asked fellow Southern rappers T.I. and Ludacris to appear on his new record on the track "Stomp". T.I. recorded a verse which contained a line that Young Buck considered to be an underhanded snub towards Ludacris: ""Me gettin' beat down?/That's ludicrous/"". Young Buck spoke to Ludacris about the verse, to maintain his neutrality in the controversy. Ludacris then recorded the verse that can be found on the album. T.I's record company wanted Ludacris to change his verse before they sanctioned it but Ludacris refused and T.I. was therefore replaced by Game on the album version. On June 24, 2007, at the Sunset Tower Hotel in West Hollywood, California, T.I. was involved in a brawl. During a luncheon held by Kevin Liles of Warner Music Group (parent company of T.I.'s label, Atlantic Records), the MC got into a fight with Ludacris' manager Chaka Zulu. According to witnesses, T.I. punched Zulu in the face and choked him and a brief melee ensued. T.I. brought home the award for Best Hip-Hop Artist at the BET Awards, and took the opportunity to apologize for his scuffle with Disturbing tha Peace executive Chaka Zulu earlier in the week. While accepting his award, he expressed regret over the situation. "They say it's a fine line between brilliance and insanity," he said, in an apparent reference to his troublesome alter ego, T.I.P. During the broadcast, cameras showed his onetime rival Ludacris smiling in the audience. The audience stood up and applauded T.I. The two rappers have since resolved the dispute and have collaborated on two songs: "Wish You Would" on Ludacris's sixth studio album, "Theater of the Mind", and "On Top of the World" on T.I.'s sixth studio album, "Paper Trail". The original version of the latter had Kanye West. Lil' Flip. According to AllHipHop, T.I. and Lil' Flip had an altercation in Lil' Flip's neighborhood, the Cloverland section of Houston. It has been said that T.I. went there to create a DVD exposing Lil' Flip to be a fraud. When T.I. went to Cloverland with his entourage, he was met by Flip and his people. Then it was said a fight broke out with one of the members of Lil Flip's entourage started swinging at T.I. until one of T.I.'s bodyguards started shooting. The same day T.I. went on a Houston, Texas radio station talking about the altercation. He revealed that he had the tape and he was going to release it with an upcoming mixtape, but that did not happen because James Prince stopped him from distributing the tape. It is unknown whether T.I. still has the tape or not. The feud was squashed by Rap-a-Lot's Prince after having them sit down and resolve their feud. The feud was documented by the Houston Press. Shawty Lo. In 2008, T.I. was involved in a highly publicized feud with Shawty Lo. The feud was characterized by Shawty Lo's track "Dunn Dunn", and T.I.'s reply in "What Up, What's Haapnin". The song "Dunn Dunn" appears to question T.I.'s roots in Bankhead. The music video for "What Up, What's Haapnin" was shot in Shawty Lo's housing project Bowen Homes, an apparent insult towards Shawty Lo. In an interview, T.I. insisted that his song "No Matter What" was only partially aimed at Shawty Lo. The feud reached its climax at the November 2008 "Dirty Awards" where the entourages of both artists clashed during the ceremony, forcing it to be shut down. Two incidents forced police to use pepper-spray and evacuate the audience. The feud was publicly squashed on March 7, 2009, when Shawty Lo and T.I. appeared on-stage together at Club Crucial in Bankhead, for T.I.'s farewell concert. After this performance, T.I. gave an interview to MTV, in which he stated that the feud with Shawty Lo was exaggerated by the media, and was not a 'beef'. Personal life. Family. T.I. has been in a relationship with former Xscape member Tameka "Tiny" Cottle since 2001. The couple married on July 30, 2010 in Miami Beach, Florida. Together, they have two sons: Clifford "King" Joseph Harris III, born August 25, 2004, and Major Philant Harris, born May 16, 2008. Their daughter Lelah Amore Harris was stillborn on March 22, 2007, six months into a complicated pregnancy. In addition, T.I has 2 sons by Lashon Dixon: Messiah Ya' Majesty Harris, born on February 2, 2000, and Domani Uriah Harris, born in March 19, 2001. T.I. also has a daughter named Deyjah Imani Harris, born in June 17, 2001, from a relationship with American R&B singer Ms. Niko. Through his marriage to Cottle, T.I. has one stepdaughter, Zonnique Jailee Pullins, born in 1996 to Cottle and Zonnie Zebo Pullins. Rescue of suicidal man. T.I. has been praised for helping a twenty-four-year-old suicidal man in Atlanta named Joshua Starks, convincing the man not to go through with jumping from a 22-story building. On October 13, 2010, T.I. reportedly heard about the situation on the radio and drove to the scene at Atlanta's 400 Colony Square Building. He drove to the site, and asked the police if he could help Starks. T.I. then talked to the man, and convinced him not to jump. Afterwards, T.I. stated "For one, I'm not taking any credit. I didn't do it... I could've just as well came down there and it could have been resolved in another way. The fact of the matter is that God put me in a position to help, and I can't take any credit for that."
1164122	Cleavon Jake Little (June 1, 1939 – October 22, 1992) was an American film and theatre actor. Little was widely known for his lead role as Sheriff Bart in the 1974 Mel Brooks comedy "Blazing Saddles". He also was the irreverent Dr. Jerry Noland in the early 1970s sitcom "Temperatures Rising." In 1978, he played "The Prince of Darkness" in the radio station comedy "FM", previously having played the role of radio personality Super Soul in the 1971 action film "Vanishing Point". His later work included the 1984 film "Toy Soldiers". Early life. Little was born in Chickasha, Oklahoma, and was the brother of singer DeEtta Little, best known for her performance of "Gonna Fly Now", the main theme to "Rocky". He grew up in California and attended college initially at San Diego City College, and then at San Diego State University where he earned a bachelor's degree in dramatic arts. After receiving a full scholarship to graduate school at Juilliard he moved to New York. After completing studies at Juilliard, Little trained at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. Career. Little made his professional debut in February 1967, appearing Off-Broadway at The Village Gate as the Muslim Witch in the original production of Barbara Garson's "MacBird". This was followed by the role of Foxtrot in the original production of Bruce Jay Friedman's long-running play "Scuba Duba" which premiered in October 1967. The following year, he made his first film appearance in a small uncredited role in "What's So Bad About Feeling Good?", as well as his first television appearance as a guest star on two episodes of "Felony Squad". A series of small roles followed in films such as "John and Mary" (1969) and "Cotton Comes to Harlem" (1970).
1065366	The Man Who Knew Too Little is a 1997 American comedy espionage film starring Bill Murray, directed by Jon Amiel, and written by Robert Farrar and Howard Franklin. The film is based on Farrar's novel "Watch That Man", and the title is a parody of Alfred Hitchcock's 1934 film "The Man Who Knew Too Much" and its 1956 remake of the same title. Plot. Wallace Ritchie (Murray) flies from Des Moines, Iowa to England to spend his birthday with his brother, James (Peter Gallagher), the same evening James is to hold a business dinner. Though James is all too happy to spend time with Wally, his presence threatens to sour the evening, and so James sets Wallace up with an interactive improv theatre business, the "Theatre of Life," which promises to treat the participant as a character in a crime drama. Before the night begins, James hands Wallace a pair of Ambassador cigars, promising to "fire them up" before midnight in celebration of Wally's birthday. Trouble begins when Wallace answers a phone call intended for a hitman at the same payphone that the Theatre of Life uses for its act. The contact, Sir Roger Daggenhurst (Richard Wilson), mistakes Wallace as a hitman he'd hired named Spencer. Thinking it's part of the act, Wallace uses that identity. The real Spencer (Terry O'Neill) picks up the phone call meant for Wally and murders one of the actors, prompting a search for Wallace. Sir Roger, his assistant Hawkins (Simon Chandler), the British Defense Minister Gilbert Embleton (John Standing), and a Russian intelligence member Sergei (Nicholas Woodeson) plan to detonate an explosive device (disguised as a Matryoshka doll) during a dinner between British and Russian dignitaries, in order to rekindle the Cold War and replace their aging technology. Still believing he's acting with the Theatre of Life even after he is comedically mugged, Wally meets Lori (Joanne Whalley), Embleton's call-girl. Lori plans to blackmail Embleton for a substantial amount of money using letters that detail the assassination plot. Spencer was hired specifically to eliminate her and destroy the letters. Wallace scares off Embleton when he arrives to look for them and drives Spencer off. Fearing their plot will be revealed, Daggenhurst hires two "plumbers", while Sergei hires now-inactive spy Boris "The Butcher" Blavasky (Alfred Molina), all charged with eliminating "Spencer". Boris succeeds in killing the real Spencer, but Wallace and Lori come back, retrieving the letters. When Wallace uses Spencer's communicator during a conversation with Daggenhurst, he tells him that "I know a couple of guys who're hoping to fire up some big Ambassadors, at 11:59," referring to James' promise. Thinking the words refer to the assassination plot, both sides believe he is an American spy that has caught on to their scheme. After a police chase ends with Daggenhurst convincing the police that Wallace is a spy, Daggenhurst offers Wallace and Lori 3 million British pounds in return for the letters, at the same hotel where the dinner is taking place. This is a ruse to capture them both and kill them off. All the while Wally gets close to his "co-star" Lori, who confesses she'd love to study acting once they're paid. Wally contacts James, but is captured, prompting James to call the Theatre for more time. By this point, the police have interrogated the actors and are waiting for answers from James, who thinks the officer he's talking to is an uncooperative actor. Believing James is an accomplice to the murder, they send a strike team to foil what they believe was a terrorist plot. However, James has already left to seek Wally at the hotel, having seen the news report that Wallace had murdered an actor. Wally meets Boris face-to-face, but Boris' attempts to find out who he's working for with truth serum fails (though in reality it had succeeded when Wally tells them he works for Blockbuster Video). Boris opts for torture by Dr. Rudmilla Kropotkin (Geraldine James), but Wally and Lori escape. Lori and Wally separate, while James is captured and sent to Dr. Kropotkin while looking for Wally. Wally unwittingly finds himself as part of a group of Russian folk dancers. During the routine, he uses the Matryoshka doll bomb, disarms it seconds before it goes off, blocks a poison dart from Boris, and completely steals the show with his improvised dancing. Realizing their plot has failed, Sergei and Daggenhurst bring out two bags containing the promised 3 million for Wallace and Lori and release James, who is exhausted but otherwise fine after his torture session. Boris congratulates Wallace for his impressive covert skills and gives him a souvenir pistol, telling Wallace he will continue his butcher shop business. Sergei and Daggenhurst attempt to escape with half the money and discover Wally's doll, which they believe is only a normal one he picked out for himself. They are proven wrong when they realign the doll, reactivating the bomb and blowing them up, just as Wally and Lori share a kiss. Some time later on an exotic beach Wally unwittingly incapacitates a spy (named Venkman, a homage to Murray's character in Ghostbusters), passing a test by an unknown American espionage group. Believing he is capable of being a top agent, they offer him a position on "the team". Thinking that they wish to make him a movie star, Wallace accepts their offer. The movie ends with Wallace persuading them to act like dogs, desperate to have him join them.
1059697	Epic Movie is a 2007 American parody film directed and written by Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer and produced by Paul Schiff. It was made in a similar style to "Date Movie", Friedberg and Seltzer's previous film, but as a spoof of the "Epic" style of films, hence the name. The film mostly references "", the "Harry Potter" films and Tim Burton's version of "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory". The song "Ms. New Booty" by Bubba Sparxxx gained commercial attention for being featured in "Epic Movie". Plot. The film begins with a parody of "The Da Vinci Code". Lucy (Jayma Mays), finds that her adopted father (David Carradine), a museum curator, has been attacked by Silas (Kevin Hart). Before dying, he gives clues which lead her to a "Golden Ticket" in a vending machine candy bar. Edward (Kal Penn) lives at a Mexican monastery. Ignacio (Jareb Dauplaise) becomes enraged at Edward's displeasure at the living conditions and has him thrown out the window. On the way Edward grabs a Monk's "Golden Ticket". Next, the film introduces Susan (Faune Chambers). She is going to Namibia to meet her new adoptive parents. While she orders water, snakes come out and hijack the plane. Samuel L. Jackson (James Walker, Sr.) pops up and starts repeatedly saying "I have had it with these God damn snakes on this God damn plane!" and then throws Susan out of the plane so that she would be safe. Susan falls on Paris Hilton and finds her "Golden Ticket" in Paris' purse. Then the film introduces Peter (Adam Campbell), a mutant. He asks Mystique (Carmen Electra) to come with him to the homecoming dance. Peter is bullied by Mystique's boyfriend, Wolverine (Vince Vieluf), and the Headmaster, Magneto (Jim Piddock). As Magneto wills a locker door to open and knock Peter to the ground, another student's "Golden Ticket" falls onto Peter's chest. All four meet up at Willy's Chocolate Factory. Willy (Crispin Glover) reveals he plans to use them all as the 'special ingredient' in the treats (which is actual human parts). In an effort to hide from the maniacal Willy, Lucy soon finds a . On the other side, in the middle of a wintry forest, she finds Mr. Tumnus (Héctor Jiménez). He welcomes Lucy to Gnarnia. Feeling a burst of compassion, he manages to warn Lucy of the danger she is in. Edward follows Lucy to Gnarnia and meets the White Bitch (Jennifer Coolidge). She convinces him to trap the other orphans and he can be the king of Gnarnia in her White Castle. All four main characters makes his or her way to Mr. Tumnus' house, where the orphans discover that they are all related to one another, and that the White Bitch killed their parents. They ally themselves with Harry Beaver (Katt Williams), Tumnus' life partner. While this is occurring, Peter dreams that he is Superman, but in the dream he gets shot in the eye and falls off a building. Edward sneaks off to the White Bitch's castle. Despite realizing she intends evil, the White Bitch flashes Edward her breasts, hypnotizing him into giving up the information on the orphans; he is then imprisoned. The White Bitch sends Silas after the trio; Tumnus sacrifices himself to ensure their safety. They end up meeting a graying Harry Potter (Kevin McDonald), along with a balding Ron Weasley (George Alvarez), and a pregnant Hermione Granger (Crista Flanagan) in Hogwarts. They all help Lucy, Susan, and Peter train for the war against the White Bitch. It's soon revealed she plans to create a new continent for her followers via a magic crystal; she acknowledges this is the same plot as "Superman Returns". Edward escapes with the assistance of Captain Jack Swallows, only to find out later that it was a ruse as the Captain tricks needed intelligence out of Edward. Jack is then stabbed by the White Bitch as the crystal is lost in the ocean, putting the witch's plan in motion. Upon finishing their training, Lucy, Susan, and Peter head to the camp of Aslo (Fred Willard). Aslo agrees to help Edward in exchange for a foursome and a Dutch oven. Managing to kill Silas while breaking Edward out, Aslo is slain by the White Bitch. Despite this, they have a pre-battle party, during which Peter and Mystique (who, along with the others who bullied Peter, had come to help the trio) make love. Susan gets drunk and vomits everywhere; this so disgusts their new army that nobody shows up to help the orphans the next day. Despite the presence of a revenge-craving Jack on a giant wooden wheel, the four siblings are easily dispatched. Peter is about to be slain when he finds the remote from the film "Click" (2006), using the device's reality altering powers to save his siblings; they kill the army and erase the White Bitch's plot. Although the others attempt to kill her while frozen, Peter declares the White Bitch will receive a fair and just trial in the new Gnarnia. Moments later, Jack's wheel crushes her. The four are crowned the new rulers of the land: Peter the Heroic; Susan the Just; Edward the Loyal; and Lucy the Dumbshit. Tumnus then shows up; he is still recovering from his battle with Silas. Decades later, the four now elderly rulers find the wardrobe again. They appear moments after they had left, now young again. Borat congratulates them on a happy ending but, then, the four are smashed to death by Jack's wheel. Extended version. The unrated, longer version (released in the UK as the "Rude & Crude Unseen Version") of the film features some scenes not shown in the theatrical version. Willy Wonka comes in and says: "I told you it was going to be an epic adventure." Willy Wonka then goes in the wardrobe and puts out a "do not disturb" sign that refers to the girl in the wardrobe. The Oompa-Loompas come in and start singing the Willy Wonka theme song. The four are then crushed by the wheel. Also, during the scene where Lucy is crushed under the junk that falls out of the "Narnia" closet, the girl who runs out is nude, as opposed to wearing a bikini. In the "Snakes on a Plane" scene, when the Samuel L. Jackson lookalike yells, he replaces "God damn" with "motherfuckin'". Box office. "Epic Movie" debuted at #1 at the box office with a gross of $18.6 million over the opening weekend. As of May 8, 2007 the film has grossed $86,865,564, with $39,739,367 of that amount earned domestically, despite negative reviews from critics. The film was an economic success for its producers not least because it had a comparatively low budget, estimated at $20 million (the same as "Date Movie"). Critical reception. Despite being a financial success, the film received overwhelmingly negative reviews. Rotten Tomatoes ranked the film 21st in the 100 worst reviewed films of the 2000s, with a rating of 2%. A. O. Scott of "The New York Times" called the film "irreverent and also appreciative, dragging its satiric prey down to the lowest pop-cultural denominator" and added, "The humor is coarse and occasionally funny. The archly bombastic score . . . is the only thing you might call witty. But happily, Jennifer Coolidge and Fred Willard show up . . . to add some easy, demented class." Mick LaSalle of the "San Francisco Chronicle" thought "only a complete idiot could think "Epic Movie" is remotely funny or worth making at all." Describing it as "so bereft of anything resembling wit or inspiration", he wondered, "What were the perpetrators, uh filmmakers, thinking?" In the "Los Angeles Times", Alex Chun called the film "nothing more than a disjointed series of scenes and references cobbled together as a backdrop for sophomoric humor," and Ronnie Scheib of "Variety" said it was "epically unfunny" and "unlikely to join the list of blockbusters it lampoons." The Radio Times said "There's very little that's epic about this senseless parody, but then there's very little that's funny about it, either... It's mind-numbingly, tediously unamusing and is so devoid of imagination it even parodies self-mocking films." Awards and nominations. Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer were nominated for the "Worst Screenplay" award at the 28th Golden Raspberry Awards. Additionally, the film garnered nominations in two other categories, Worst Remake or Rip-Off and Worst Supporting Actress for Carmen Electra. Home video. The film was released on DVD on May 22, 2007, in an unrated version, and a theatrical version as well. As of late 2009, 1,040,120 DVDs were sold, bringing in $16,807,388.
1043996	A King in New York is a 1957 British comedy film directed by and starring Charlie Chaplin in his last leading role, which presents a satirical view of certain aspects of United States politics and society. The film was produced in Europe after Chaplin's exile from the US in 1952. It did not open in the United States until 1967. Plot. "One of the minor annoyances in modern life is a revolution." Due to a revolution in his country, King Igor Shahdov (Charlie Chaplin) comes to New York City with almost no money, his securities having been stolen by his own Prime Minister. He tries to contact the Atomic Energy Commission with his ideas for using atomic power to create a utopia. At a dinner party, some of which is televised live (unbeknownst to him), he reveals he's had some experience in the theater. He's approached to do TV commercials but doesn't like the idea. Later, he does make a few commercials in order to get some money. Invited to speak at a progressive school, he meets Rupert Macabee (Michael Chaplin), editor of the school paper, a ten-year-old historian who gives him a stern anarchist lecture. Although Rupert himself says he distrusts all forms of government, his parents are communists. Shahdov is subsequently suspected as a communist himself and has to face one of Joseph McCarthy's hearings. He is cleared of all charges and decides to join his estranged queen in Paris for a reconciliation. But Rupert's parents are jailed, and authorities force the child to reveal the names of his parents' friends. Grieving and guilt-ridden, he is presented to King Shahdov as a "patriot". Shahdov reassures him that the anti-communist scare is a lot of nonsense, and invites him to come to Europe with his parents for a visit. In a cataclysmic scene, Shadov accidentally directs a strong stream of water from a fire hose at the members of HUAC, who scatter in panic - a bit of wish fulfilment, considering Chaplin's own bitter experience with that body. In addition to its condemnation of HUAC's methods, the film takes witty potshots at American commercialism, popular music and film. A dinner party scene includes a number of satirical portrayals of actors and public figures of the period, including Sophie Tucker; and the King attends a film preview for "Man or Woman?" ("Glen or Glenda"). Reception. The film did well in Europe, but its lack of US distribution severely hampered its commercial impact. Even today, fans and critics are sharply divided over the film's merits. The film received a "fresh" rating of 80% on the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, based on 10 reviews. Cast. Charlie Chaplin ... King Shahdov
584288	Thambi () is Tamil film released in 2006. The Madhavan, Pooja starrer is directed by Seeman. It carries the message that violence doesn't pay, and is not the answer to the problems of today. Plot. Angry young man Thambi Velu Thondaiman (Madhavan) fights against all types of evils in the society. So, he runs into Sankara Pandian (Biju Menon), a local rowdy who brings violence into the city. Thambi is determined to vanquish Sankara Pandian's activities in the society and his fearless attitude brings fear into the face of Sanakara Pandian's gang. Meanwhile, he comes across a pretty girl named Archana (Pooja). She originally mistakes him to be a gangster, as she has seen him fighting with the rowdies. But she falls in love with him later after realizing his true nature. Thambi thwarts Sankara Pandian's terrorizing plans with the help of his close associates. At this very moment, a flashback unravels how Sankara Pandian's gang kills Thambi's family after Thambi identifies the killer of a youth. The murderer is Sanakara Pandian's brother Saravana Pandian (Shanmuga Rajeswaran). Shankara Pandian tries to bring about terror among the people for political reasons while Thambi tries to prevent the disaster. Later on, Thambi succeeds in changing Shankara Pandian's heart. However, Saravana Pandian is out to kill him, after coming out of the prison. The rest of the film has exciting encounters and the movie ends with a titillating climax, on a positive note for everyone.
1039403	Tobias Menzies (born 7 March 1974) is an English stage, television and film actor. He is best known for his TV roles as Brutus on "Rome" (2005 - 2007) and as Edmure Tully on "Game of Thrones" (2013). Early years. Menzies attended the liberal Frensham Heights School near Farnham in Surrey at the same time as Hattie Morahan and Jim Sturgess. He went on to attend Stratford-upon-Avon College's "Year-out" drama course in 1993–94. He graduated from the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (1998) and was trained in the Steiner System, which includes movement, singing and musical instrumentation. Career. Menzies worked with the Spontaneity Shop, a British improv comedy company. He began his TV and film career in some of British television's most popular series, including "Foyle's War", "Midsomer Murders" and "Casualty". He also appeared in "A Very Social Secretary" directed by Jon Jones, which launched UK Channel 4's spin-off station, More4. He is best known to international audiences for his starring role as Marcus Junius Brutus, Julius Caesar's friend and later co-assassin, in the award-winning but short-lived HBO/BBC epic series "Rome" (2005–07). Menzies had a major role in "The Low Down" with Aidan Gillen, and was featured in the 2006 "reboot" of the James Bond film franchise, "Casino Royale", as M's aide, Villiers. He has worked extensively on the stage, with credits including the young teacher Irwin in Alan Bennett's "The History Boys" (which Nicholas Hytner directed at the Royal National Theatre), and Michael Blakemore's West End production of "Three Sisters" for which he was nominated for the Ian Charleson Award. Of his role in "The History Boys", one reviewer wrote:
1163628	Red Buttons (born Aaron Chwatt; February 5, 1919 – July 13, 2006) was an American comedian and Academy Award winning actor. Early life. Red Buttons was born Aaron Chwatt on February 5, 1919 in New York City, to Jewish immigrants Sophie (née Baker) and Michael Chwatt. At sixteen years old, Chwatt got a job as an entertaining bellhop at Ryan's Tavern in City Island, Bronx. The combination of his red hair and the large, shiny buttons on the bellhop uniforms inspired orchestra leader Charles "Dinty" Moore to call him "Red Buttons," the name under which he would later perform. Later that same summer, Buttons worked on the Borscht Belt; his straight man was Robert Alda. Red Buttons was working at the Irvington Hotel in South Fallsburg, NY, when the Master of Ceremonies became incapacitated, and he asked for the chance to replace him. In 1939, Buttons started working for Minsky's Burlesque; in 1941, José Ferrer chose Buttons to appear in a Broadway show "The Admiral Had a Wife". The show was a farce set in Pearl Harbor, and it was due to open on December 8, 1941. It never did, as it was deemed inappropriate after the Japanese attack. In later years, Buttons would joke that the Japanese only attacked Pearl Harbor to keep him off Broadway. Career. In September 1942, Buttons made his Broadway debut in "Vickie" with Ferrer and Uta Hagen. Later that year, he appeared in the Minsky's show "Wine, Women and Song;" this was the last Burlesque show in New York City history, as the Mayor La Guardia administration closed it down. Buttons was on stage when the show was raided. Drafted into the United States Army Air Forces, Buttons in 1943 appeared in the Army Air Forces' Broadway show "Winged Victory", along with several future stars, including Mario Lanza, John Forsythe, Karl Malden and Lee J. Cobb. A year later he appeared in Darryl F. Zanuck's movie version of "Winged Victory", directed by George Cukor. Buttons also entertained troops in the European Theater in the same unit as Mickey Rooney. After the war, Buttons continued to do Broadway shows. He also performed at Broadway movie houses with the Big Bands. In 1952, Buttons received his own variety series on television, "The Red Buttons Show"," which ran for three years, and achieved high levels of success. In 1953, he recorded and had a two-sided hit with "Strange Things Are Happening/The Ho Ho Song", with both sides/songs essentially being the same.
1062087	Elisabeth Judson Shue (born October 6, 1963) is an American actress, known for her roles in the films "The Karate Kid", "Adventures in Babysitting", "Cocktail", "Back to the Future Parts II", "III", "The Saint" and "Leaving Las Vegas", for which she won five acting awards and was nominated for an Academy Award, a Golden Globe and a BAFTA. In February 2012, she began starring as Julie Finlay in the CBS police drama "". Early life. Shue was born in Wilmington, Delaware. Her mother, Anne Brewster (née Wells), was vice president of the private banking division of the Chemical Banking Corporation. Her father, James William Shue, a lawyer and real estate developer, was the president of the International Food and Beverage Corporation. Shue grew up in Bergen and Essex counties in New Jersey. Her parents divorced when she was nine. Shue's mother was a descendant of Pilgrim leader William Brewster, while her father's family emigrated from Germany to Pennsylvania in the early 19th century. Shue was raised with her three brothers and was very close to her siblings. Her younger brother, Andrew, is also an actor, best known for his role as Billy Campbell in the Fox series "Melrose Place". Shue graduated from Columbia High School, in Maplewood, New Jersey, where she and Andrew were inducted into the school's Hall of Fame in 1994. Shue attended Wellesley College and in her junior year, was inspired by a friend to work in television commercials and as a way to pay for college. She transferred to Harvard University in 1985, from which she withdrew to pursue her acting career with one semester short of earning her degree. The same year she left Harvard, 1988, her brother, William, died from a swimming accident while on a family vacation. She returned to Harvard in 1997 and completed her BA in Political Science in 2000. Career. 1980s and early 1990s. During her studies at Columbia H.S. and after her parents' divorce, she acted in television commercials. Shue became a common sight in ads for Burger King, DeBeers diamonds, and Hellman's mayonnaise.
1164834	Joanna Pettet (born Joanna Jane Salmon on 16 November 1942 in London, England) is a former British actress. Biography. Her parents, Harold Nigel Edgerton Salmon, a British Royal Air Force pilot killed in World War II, and mother, Cecily J. Tremaine, were married in London in 1940. After the war, her widowed mother remarried and settled in Canada, where young Joanna was adopted by her stepfather and assumed his surname of "Pettet". She studied with Sanford Meisner at the Neighborhood Playhouse, as well as at the Lincoln Center, and got her start on Broadway in such plays as "Take Her, She's Mine", "The Chinese Prime Minister" and "Poor Richard", with Alan Bates and Gene Hackman, before she was discovered by director Sidney Lumet for his sumptuous 1966 film adaptation of Mary McCarthy's novel, "The Group". The success of that film launched a film career that included roles in "The Night of the Generals" (1967), as Mata Bond in the James Bond spoof "Casino Royale" (1967), Peter Yates's "Robbery" (1967) with Stanley Baker, the strange Western drama "Blue" (1968) with Terence Stamp, and the Victorian period comedy, " The Best House in London" (1969). In 1968 she married the American actor Alex Cord and gave birth to a son later that year. She and Cord were divorced in 1989 after 21 years of marriage. She never remarried. Although she co-starred with actor Rod Taylor in the 1980 thriller, "Cry of the Innocent", her feature film appearances became sporadic. However, Pettet re-emerged as the star of over a dozen made-for-television movies, including "The Delphi Bureau" (1972), "The Weekend Nun" (1972), "Footsteps" (1972), "Pioneer Woman" (1973), "A Cry in the Wilderness" (1974), "The Desperate Miles" (1975), "The Hancocks" (1976), "Sex and the Married Woman" (1977), and "The Return of Frank Cannon" (1980). She also starred in the NBC miniseries "Captains and the Kings" (1976), guest-starred four times on the classic Rod Serling anthology series "Night Gallery", was a frequent guest on both "Fantasy Island" and "The Love Boat" (appearing three separate times on each series), and had a recurring role on "Knots Landing" in 1983 as Janet Baines, an LAPD homicide detective investigating the murder of singer Ciji Dunne (played by Lisa Hartman). Later years. Her last acting appearance was in a "bad action film" called "Terror in Paradise" in 1990 that was produced by Roger Corman and his frequent Philippine associate Cirio Santiago. During filming in the Philippines she was held hostage by rebels, led by Gregorio Honasan, attempting to overthrow Corazon Aquino, and managed to escape the hotel where she was being held before fleeing the country. By then, she had lost her enthusiasm for acting and decided it was time to bow out gracefully from the entertainment industry. The grief over the sudden death in 1995 of her 26-year-old son, Damien Zachary Cord, born from her marriage to actor Alex Cord, caused Pettet to retreat even further from Hollywood. For a time, she lived in a remote area in California until she moved to London, where she was actor Alan Bates's companion; he died from pancreatic cancer in London in 2003 at the age of sixty-nine.
588139	Anand Kumar (born 1 January 1973) is an Indian mathematician and a columnist for various national and international mathematical journals and magazines. He is best known for his Super 30 programme, which he started in Patna, Bihar in 2002, and which coaches economically backward students for IIT-JEE, the entrance examination for the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs). By 2013, 281 of the 330 had made it to IITs and Discovery Channel showcased his work in a documentary. Early life. Anand Kumar was born in Patna, Bihar. His father was a post office clerk in Bihar. His father could not afford private schooling for his children, and Anand attended a Hindi medium government school, where he developed his deep interest in Mathematics. During graduation, Kumar submitted papers on Number Theory, which were published in "Mathematical Spectrum" and "The Mathematical Gazette". Anand secured admission to Cambridge University, but could not attend because of his father's death and his financial condition, even after looking for sponsor in 1994-1995, both in Patna and Delhi. Kumar would work on Mathematics during day time and would sell "papads" in evenings with his mother, who had started a small business from home, to support her family. He also tutored students in maths to earn extra money. Since Patna University library did not have foreign journals, for his own study, he would travel every weekend on a six-hour train journey to Varanasi, where his younger brother, learning violin under N. Rajam, had a hostel room. Thus he would spend Saturday and Sunday at the Central Library, BHU and return to Patna on Monday morning. Teaching career and Super 30. In 1992, Kumar began teaching Mathematics. He rented a classroom for Rs 500 a month, and began his own institute, the Ramanujan School of Mathematics (RSM). Within the space of year, his class grew from two students to thirty-six, and after three years there were almost 500 students enrolled. Then in early 2000, when a poor student came to him seeking coaching for IIT-JEE, who couldn't afford the annual admission fee due to poverty, Kumar was motivated to start the Super 30 programme in 2002, for which he is now well-known. Every year in May, since 2002, the Ramanujan School of Mathematics holds a competitive test to select 30 students for the ‘Super 30’ scheme. Many students appear at the test, and eventually he takes thirty intelligent students from economically backward sections, tutors them, and provides study materials and lodging for a year. He prepares them for the Joint Entrance Examination for the Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT). His mother, Jayanti Devi, cooks for the students, and his brother Pranav Kumar takes care of the management. During 2003-2013, 281 students out of 330 have made it to the IITs. In 2010, all the students of Super 30 cleared IIT JEE entrance making it a three in a row for the institution. Anand Kumar has no financial support for Super 30 from any government as well as private agencies, and manages on the tuition fee he earns from the Ramanujam Institute. After the success of Super 30 and its growing popularity, he got many offers from the private – both national and international companies - as well as the government for financial help, but he always refused it. He wanted to sustain Super 30 through his own efforts. After three consecutive 30/30 results in 2008-2010, in 2011, 24 of the 30 students cleared IIT JEE.In 2012, 27 of the 30 students and in 2013, 28 out of 30 students cleared the prestigious IIT JEE examination. Anand Kumar does not accept donation for the programme. His team creates the fund by organizing evening classes in Patna. Recognition. In March 2009, Discovery Channel broadcast a one-hour-long programme on Super 30, and half a page has been devoted to Kumar in "The New York Times". Actress and ex-Miss Japan Norika Fujiwara visited Patna to make a documentary on Anand’s initiatives. Kumar has been featured in programmes by the BBC. He has spoken about his experiences at Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad. Kumar is in the Limca Book of Records (2009) for his contribution in helping poor students crack IIT-JEE by providing them free coaching. Time Magazine has selected mathematician Anand Kumar's school - Super 30 - in the list of Best of Asia 2010. Anand Kumar was awarded the S. Ramanujan Award for 2010 by the Institute for Research and Documentation in Social Sciences (IRDS) in July 2010.
142173	Barry Munday (alternatively known as Family Jewels ) is a 2010 American comedy film directed by Chris D'Arienzo; it is based on the novel "Life is a Strange Place" by Frank Turner Hollon. The film stars Patrick Wilson as the titular character, as well as Judy Greer, Malcolm McDowell, Chloë Sevigny, Cybill Shepherd, Billy Dee Williams, Emily Procter, Colin Hanks, Jean Smart, Mae Whitman, and Kyle Gass. It premiered at the South by Southwest Film Festival in March 2010. The film was released on October 1, 2010. Plot. Barry Munday (Patrick Wilson), a lonely womanizer, wakes up after being attacked to realize that he's missing his family jewels. To make matters worse, he learns he's facing a paternity lawsuit filed by a woman, Ginger (Judy Greer), he can't remember having sex with. Though unintentional, the two discover that their meeting and subsequent "accidents" opened up new opportunities for personal growth and relationships.
582246	Dhan Dhana Dhan Goal () is a 2007 Bollywood sport film. It was released on 29 November 2007, produced by Ronnie Screwvala and directed by Vivek Agnihotri for UTV Motion Pictures. The film stars John Abraham, Bipasha Basu, Arshad Warsi and Boman Irani. The film's soundtrack is composed by Pritam with lyrics by Javed Akhtar. "Dhan Dhana Dhan Goal" is a contemporary fictional story of the South Asian community in the UK, told through the prism of professional football. The film received positive reviews though the film was only moderately successful at the box-office and was declared "Below average" by Box Office India. Soundtrack. The soundtrack for the film was released on November 2007. It has been given a rating of 3 out of 5 on indiaFm.com.
1060285	Leslie Mann (born March 26, 1972) is an American actress best known for her roles in comedic films such as "The Cable Guy" (1996), "George of the Jungle" (1997) "The 40-Year-Old Virgin" (2005), "Knocked Up" (2007), "17 Again" (2009), "Funny People" (2009), "Rio" (2011), " The Change-Up" (2011), and "This Is 40" (2012), many of which are collaborations with her husband, Judd Apatow. In 2012, "Elle" named her "Hollywood's queen of comedy". Early life. Mann was born in San Francisco, California, and grew up in Newport Beach. Mann was raised by her mother, a real estate agent who had married three times. Mann has stated of her father, "My dad is ... I don't really have one. I mean, he does exist, but I have zero relationship with him". Mann has two siblings and three older step-brothers. She has said that she was "very shy, kind of pent-up" during her youth. Mann graduated from Corona del Mar High School, and studied acting at the Joanne Baron / D. W. Brown Studio and with comedy improv troupe The Groundlings. Career. Leslie Mann began her career at 18 appearing in a number of television commercials. In a 2012 interview with "Elle" magazine, she recalled that one was for a nail polish brand called Nouvage, in which she had to dance to Prince's "Kiss" on roller skates for the audition. In 1995, Mann was chosen from an open audition of 500 candidates for her first big movie role in "The Cable Guy" (1996). Mann followed with performances including guest-starring in "Freaks & Geeks", as well as appearing in Sam Weisman's "George of The Jungle" alongside Brendan Fraser, "Big Daddy" with Adam Sandler, "Orange County" opposite Jack Black, and "The 40-Year-Old Virgin" with Steve Carell.
588803	Tere Bina Jiya Nahin Jaye (formerly "Hhey Gujju") is a 2010 Bollywood romantic comedy film from Viacom 18 Motion Pictures. After production difficulties, Viacom 18 Motion Pictures decided in December 2008 to rename the film after the Himesh Reshammiya song Tere Bina Jiya Nahin Jaye.
1163039	Tichina Rolanda Arnold (born June 28, 1969) is an American actress and singer. She is best known for having portrayed the roles of Pamela James on the FOX sitcom "Martin" and the family matriarch Rochelle on the UPN/CW sitcom "Everybody Hates Chris". She currently portrays Judi Mann in the TV Land original sitcom "Happily Divorced" Early life. Tichina Arnold was born to a middle-class African-American family in Queens, New York. Her mother was a sanitation department worker and her father was a police officer. She attended the Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts. Her penchant for performing began in her childhood, holding church congregations enthralled as a four-year-old. When she turned eight, her mother and uncle encouraged her to audition, and she won a part in her first play "The Me Nobody Knows" at the Billie Holiday Theater in Brooklyn . She continued to perform in the theater and at supper clubs, starring in such productions as "Hair", "Romance" and "Hard Times". She then landed bit parts in TV movies such as "The Brass Ring" in 1983 and PBS' "House of Dies Drear" the year after. Arnold has one sister. Career. In 1986, Tichina Arnold appeared as Crystal, one of the three chorus girls who perform R&B numbers in Frank Oz's film musical "Little Shop of Horrors" along with future "Martin" co-star Tisha Campbell. Arnold was only 17 at the time, and her career continued steadily after that, with a role or two almost every year, including the films "How I Got into College" and the Paul Mazursky/Woody Allen collaboration "Scenes from a Mall" (1991). In February 1987 Arnold scored her first big break on television, with a permanent role on the soap opera "Ryan's Hope". Her critically lauded role, as young heroine Zena Brown, landed her a Daytime Emmy Award nomination in 1988. She continued in the role until the series ended in January 1989. Arnold's best-known television role was Pamela James on Martin Lawrence's sitcom "Martin" (1992–1997). She also played the role of Nicole Barnes on the sitcom "One on One". In 2000, she was reunited with Martin Lawrence in "Big Momma's House". In 2007, she again reunited with Lawrence (this time as his wife) in the big screen road comedy/buddy film "Wild Hogs". In 2003, she appeared in "Civil Brand". In a departure from her normally comedic casting, she played the title role in "The Lena Baker Story", which was about the first woman to be executed by the electric chair in Georgia. Arnold played the role of the matriarch, Rochelle, on the sitcom "Everybody Hates Chris" which premiered in September 2005 and ended in May 2009. She also played the voice of the friend in "The Boondocks", episode "Attack of the Killer Kung-fu Wolf Bitch" which aired in 2007. Her most recent stage credits, include: The Wiz Revival at the NY City Center as the part of Evillene, The Wicked Witch of the West. In 2010 she guest starred in the one-hour episode premiere of the Disney XD Original Series "Pair of Kings" as Aunt Nancy, and also reprise her role for one more episode. Although not as widely known for her work in music, Arnold has experienced success as a recording artist; she co-wrote and performed the duet, "Movin Up," which reached #2 on the Billboard Club Play chart with fellow high school alum and house music artist Inaya Day. Arnold is credited using the moniker China Ro, a pseudonym that was derived from the using only the latter part of her first name and the first two letters of her middle name. Tichina Arnold currently stars as the best friend of Fran Drescher in the TV Land sitcom "Happily Divorced", which is based on Fran Drescher's real-life marriage and divorce to series co-creator Peter Marc Jacobson. Personal life. In 1998, Arnold started her own company of designer headgear called "China Moon Rags". The headbands were Swarovski crystal-embroidered bandanas. Celebrities such as her best friend Tisha Campbell, Janet Jackson, Vivica A. Fox, Regina King, Christina Aguilera and LisaRaye McCoy have modeled and been seen wearing Arnold's designs. When her daughter was born, she stopped production. Arnold has a daughter, Alijah Kai (born March 16, 2004 ), with music producer Carvin Haggins. On August 19, 2012, Arnold married St. Johns men's basketball assistant coach Rico Hines in Honolulu, Hawaii.
1060249	Henry Zuckerman, better known as Buck Henry (born December 9, 1930), is an American actor, writer, film director, and television director. Early life. Henry was born in New York City, the son of silent film actress Ruth Taylor and Paul Stuart Zuckerman (April 15, 1899–1965), a former Air Force general and stockbroker.
1067724	Babylon A.D. is a 2008 French American science fiction action film based on the novel "Babylon Babies" by Maurice Georges Dantec. The film was directed by Mathieu Kassovitz and stars Vin Diesel. It was released on 29 August 2008 in the United States. Plot. In the near future, a mercenary named Toorop (Vin Diesel) accepts a contract from a Russian mobster, Gorsky (Gérard Depardieu), who instructs him to bring a young woman known only as Aurora (Mélanie Thierry) to New York City. In order to reach this goal, Gorsky gives Toorop a variety of weapons as well as a UN passport that has to be injected under the skin of the neck. Toorop, along with the girl and her guardian nun Sister Rebeka (Michelle Yeoh), travels from the Noelite Convent in Mongolia to reach New York via Russia. The towns and cities of Russia have been turned into dangerous, overpopulated slums by war and terrorist activity, forcing Toorop, Aurora, and Rebeka to face dangers of the human element, while fleeing from an unknown group of mercenaries claiming to have been sent by Aurora's supposedly dead father. The stress of humanity's situation causes Aurora to act out in strange ways that neither Toorop nor Rebeka can explain. On one such occasion, Aurora seems for no reason to panic and run from a crowded train station, just before it explodes. Later, they board a submarine that carries refugees to Canada. However, to avoid satellite detection, the submarine is forced to leave some behind, even resorting to shooting them. Aurora, infuriated by the loss of life, starts to operate the 30-year-old submarine, without having ever learned about it. Sister Rebeka explains to Toorop that Aurora could speak nineteen different languages by the age of two, and always seems to know things she has never learned. Three months before leaving with Toorop, she has begun acting in ways she never had before. This occurred after a visit by a Noelite doctor who had administered a pill to Aurora. The doctor tells her to go to New York City and arranges for Toorop to take them. Once in Harlem, a news broadcast about the bombing of the convent causes the group to realize that there is more going on than they know. The Noelites have become a major new salvationist religion, which vast numbers of people cling to as the world spirals out of control. However, in private meetings, it is seen that their High Priestess is really just after power, and tries to use various invented miracles to get more people to believe in the truth of her religion. Gorsky, working for the Noelites, had planted a tracking device in Toorop's passport, and then bombed the convent when he knew they were in the United States. The doctor who earlier saw Aurora in the convent then appears to examine her again. When he leaves, Aurora reveals (without being told) that she is pregnant with twins, even though she is a virgin. Looking outside, Toorop sees Gorsky's men as well as the Noelite group, heavily armed and waiting for them. The High Priestess then calls Toorop and asks him to bring Aurora outside. Just before they take her away, Toorop changes his mind and starts a firefight with the two groups with the ultimate goal of getting the two women to safety. However, because of the tracking devices, Gorsky's men can lock onto Toorop with tracking rockets. Rebeka is shot and killed defending Aurora, who in turn shoots Toorop saying the words, "I need you to live". By dying, the rocket goes off target and explodes near Aurora instead. In fact, Aurora survives the rocket explosion by uncertain means. Toorop's body is revived by Dr. Arthur Darquandier (Lambert Wilson), using advanced medical techniques, but Toorop's right arm and left leg are replaced with cybernetics to undo the damage of being dead for over two hours. Darquandier explains that when Aurora was a fetus, he enhanced her by using a supercomputer to 'implant' intelligence into her brain. It is also implied that the Noelite group had him create Aurora to become pregnant at a certain time in order to use her as a 'virgin birth' for their religion, and for his sake. After she was born, the Noelites hired Gorsky to kill Darquandier, but Gorsky failed to kill Darquandier in an explosion. Darquandier remained 'dead' until he found his daughter in Russia with Toorop. Doctor Darquandier uses a machine to go through Toorop's memory to find what Aurora said to him before Toorop 'died.' In Toorop's memory, Aurora tells Toorop to "go home." Toorop, as well as several of Darquandier's men, leave the facility. En route to Darquandier's lab, the High Priestess calls Gorsky, at which point he is killed by a nuclear missile sent to him by the High Priestess. Darquandier is later killed by the High Priestess, but it is too late, since Toorop has already escaped. Toorop goes to his old house in the forest and finds Aurora, and takes her to a hospital where she dies after giving birth. Aurora was "designed to breed", not to live, so her death at childbirth was preprogrammed. Toorop is left to take care of her two children. Production. Mathieu Kassovitz developed an English-language film adaptation of Maurice Georges Dantec's French novel "Babylon Babies" for five years; in June 2005, this project got financed from StudioCanal and Twentieth Century Fox. The adapted screenplay was written by Kassovitz and screenwriter Éric Besnard. Production was initially slated to begin in February 2006 in Canada and Eastern Europe. French actor Vincent Cassel was initially sought to be cast in the lead role. In February 2006, actor Vin Diesel entered negotiations to star in the film, titled "Babylon A.D.", dropping out of the lead role of "Hitman" in the process. Production of the futuristic thriller about genetic manipulation was slated to begin in June 2006. By February 2007, filming was slated to wrap in April to release "Babylon A.D." in time for the coming Thanksgiving. In February, filming took place at Barrandov Studios. In March 2007, the filming crew, having shot in the Czech Republic, took a two-week hiatus to deal with uncooperative weather, such as the lack of snow, and problems with set construction. Crew members scouted Iceland for locations with snow to shoot six to eight days of footage, which was supposed to be done in February. Filming was also done with the leads Diesel, Michelle Yeoh, and Mélanie Thierry in Ostrava in March. The French visual effects company BUF Compagnie was contracted to develop the film's effects under the supervision of Stephane Ceretti. In April 2007, "Babylon A.D." was reported to be over-budget and three weeks behind schedule. A lack of snow meant a skiing sequence to be shot in Eastern Europe had to be moved to Sweden. Later in the month, actor Lambert Wilson was cast into the film. Filming was completed in May 2007. American artist Khem Caigan designed the sigil that appears as a tattoo on the right side of Toorop's neck – an emblem which originally appeared in the Schlangekraft "Necronomicon" in 1977. Mathieu Kassovitz said that 20th Century Fox interfered throughout production, and he never had a chance to shoot a scene the way it was scripted, or the way he wanted it to be. Music. The music of "Babylon A.D." was written by Icelandic composer Atli Örvarsson. The musical alliance Achozen, represented by Shavo Odadjian and RZA performed the score for the film. Music producer Hans Zimmer described the intended style: "Musically, our objective was to merge the sounds and energies of hip hop with classical music, seamlessly melting them into an unusual soundscape." Release. "Babylon A.D." was originally stated to be released in the United States on 29 February 2008, but its release was postponed to 29 August 2008. As of 31 January 2009, the film grossed $22,532,572 in the United States and $49,573,118 in foreign countries totaling a worldwide gross of $72,105,690 . The film was placed #2 behind "Tropic Thunder" with $9,484,267 in 3,390 theaters with a $2,798 average. The film has the eighth-highest 4-day Labor Day gross since 1982. Despite its worldwide box office gross of over $72 million, the film is considered a very minor success considering its production budget of $70 million. Reception. The film was generally panned by critics. Metacritic compiled a 26% rating based on 15 reviews. Rotten Tomatoes gives the film a 7% approval rating based on 98 reviews (91 negative, 7 positive). Blu-ray Disc and DVD. "Babylon A.D." was released on 6 January 2009 on Blu-ray Disc and DVD. The single disc included no features but contained the theatrical version and (on the reverse side) the unrated version. The two-disc unrated edition contained only the unrated version, which ran ten minutes longer than the theatrical cut. It also included four behind-the-scenes featurettes, a digital graphic novel prequel to the film, a still gallery, and a digital copy. The two-disc Blu-ray Disc edition contained all of that plus an exclusive picture-in-picture feature. In Europe only the unrated version has been released. The unrated version differed greatly from the theatrical version. The ending was cut short and did not show the full-length ending that was in the theatrical version, followed by more expletives. Other short scenes were put in as well.
583679	Kadhalan (English: "Boyfriend") is a 1994 Tamil action-romance film written and directed by S. Shankar. The film's score and soundtrack were composed by A. R. Rahman. The film stars Prabhu Deva and Nagma in the lead roles. Actor Vikram had dubbed his voice for Prabhu Deva in the film. The song "Mukkabla" from the movie, became a national sensation, and owing to the rage that the song created, "Kadhalan" was dubbed in Hindi as "Humse Hai Muqabala" and in Telugu as "Premikudu".
1063503	High Crimes is a 2002 American thriller film directed by Carl Franklin and starring Ashley Judd and Morgan Freeman, reunited from the 1997 film "Kiss the Girls". The screenplay by Yuri Zeltser and Grace Cary Bickley is based on Joseph Finder's eponymous 1998 novel. Plot. Attorney, Claire Kubik (Ashley Judd), and her woodworker husband, Tom (James Caviezel), find their idyllic life in Marin County, California shattered when, during a Christmas shopping excursion in San Francisco's Union Square, he is captured by the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation and charged with the murders of nine peasants in a remote village in El Salvador in 1988. Claire is shocked to discover Tom, whose real name is Ronald Chapman, was a covert military operative serving in the United States Marine Corps and has been on the run for the past fourteen years. Tom admits he was present at the scene of the mass murders but staunchly denies any involvement in the killings. He insists he has been scapegoated in order to conceal the identity of the real culprit, Major James Hernandez (Juan Carlos Hernández), now the aide of Brigadier General Bill Marks (Bruce Davison). First Lieutenant Terence Embry (Adam Scott) is assigned to defend Tom, but his youth and lack of experience prompt Claire to decide to defend her husband, as well. When she realizes she needs help from someone familiar with the workings of a military court, she hires Charlie Grimes (Morgan Freeman), an embittered former military attorney who has a grudge against the military brass, to assist her. Three of the five key witnesses, who previously testified Tom was guilty, have died under seemingly mysterious circumstances, raising Claire and Charlie's suspicions. As the trial proceeds, they uncover a massive cover-up perpetrated by one of the military's highest ranking officials. Also creating problems are the sudden appearance of a resident of the village where the mass murder took place, who insists Tom was responsible; Embry's romantic involvement with Claire's irresponsible sister Jackie (Amanda Peet), which leads Claire to assume that he leaked details about secrets she has uncovered to the prosecution; and Charlie's falling off the wagon after more than a year of sobriety.
1030200	Vinyan is a 2008 drama film with horror themes directed and co-written by Fabrice du Welz. The film was du Welz's second as a director. The film premiered at the Venice Film Festival on 30 August 2008. Reviews towards the film were slightly positive, receiving an aggregated score of 56% from Rotten Tomatoes. Plot. Jeanne and Paul are a wealthy couple who were in Thailand helping to establish an orphanage when the 2004 tsunami leveled the island. Jeanne and Paul had a young son who disappeared in the storm, and since his body has never been found, Jeanne holds out hope that he might still be alive, a hope that becomes a desperate concern when she sees a video of children being held by kidnappers in Burma which shows a child who looks like her boy. Eager to find out the truth, Paul pays a hefty fee to local outlaw Mr. Gao to escort him and Jeanne into a forbidden zone known only to Thailand's criminal underclass near the Burmese border. Jeanne and Paul soon find themselves out of their depth in a strange land they do not understand where dangerous men commune with the spirits of the dead. Release. The film first appeared in North America at the Toronto International Film Festival, where it premiered on 5 September 2008.
1163037	Douglas Bourne, (born January 7, 1970) better known as Doug E. Doug, is an American actor, comedian, screenwriter, producer, and film director. He started his career at age 17 as a stand-up comedian. He is best known for his roles as Griffin Vesey on the CBS sitcom "Cosby", Sanka Coffie in the film "Cool Runnings" and as the voice of Bernie in the animated film "Shark Tale". Early life. Douglas Bourne was born in Brooklyn, New York to a Jamaican father and African American mother. Career. Doug has appeared in a number of films, including "Jungle Fever" (1991), "Hangin' with the Homeboys" (1991), "Class Act" (1992), "Cool Runnings" (1993), "Operation Dumbo Drop" (1995), the remake of Disney's "That Darn Cat" (1997), and "Eight Legged Freaks" (2002). He was the star of his own short-lived ABC sitcom, "Where I Live", a show which won the acclaim of Bill Cosby, and subsequently played Hilton Lucas' boarder and surrogate son Griffin Vesey on "Cosby". In 2004, he had a voice role in the animated feature "Shark Tale", and also appeared on an episode of "". Professional career. Doug E. Doug is managed by Brian Stern at Brillstein Entertainment Partners in Beverly Hills, CA, USA. Doug E. Doug started off his career as a stand-up comic at the young age of 17. Doug was first seen at the Apollo Theater by Russell Simmons, who then asked Doug to write and host a syndicated late-night program Simmons produced called "The New Music Report". His entrance into film began when he spoke one line in Spike Lee's film "Mo' Better Blues". Doug is known to movie viewers for his starring role as the spirited pushcart operator turned bobsled racer in "Cool Runnings". The movie is based on the true story of the first Jamaica national bobsled team trying to make it to the Winter Olympics. Doug is also known for his roles as the ne'er do well Willie Stevens in "Hangin' with the Homeboys". For this role, he received an Independent Spirit Award nomination for Best Actor. He played a class comedian in Class Act, a soldier enlisted for an unusual duty in Operation Dumbo Drop, an ill-fated high school student in the horror epic Dr. Giggles, and an FBI agent in the 1997 remake of That Darn Cat. In the Warner Brothers science fiction comedy Eight Legged Freaks, he portrayed a paranoid small-town radio host with visions of an alien invasion. In the animated DreamWorks film, Shark Tale, his is the voice of Bernie the jellyfish. In television, Doug starred in the ABC series "Where I Live", a show developed around his life and on which he served as co-producer. In the series, he portrayed Douglas Saint Martin, a quirky teenager growing up in a working-class Caribbean family in New York. Doug also co-hosted the VH-1 series "Rock of Ages" and spent four seasons starring as the character Griffin in the television series "Cosby". On the Nickelodeon animated show, "Little Bill", Doug is the voice of Percy the pet store owner. Doug guest-starred in "Touched by An Angel", "Law and Order: SVU", and NBC's "Conviction". In theater, Doug starred in the musical "Purlie". It ran from March 31 through April 3, 2005. Doug made his debut as a director/producer with the screenplay "Citizen James", in which he also co-wrote and starred. "Citizen James" aired on Starz Encore/ BET Movies
1039735	Damian Watcyn Lewis (born 11 February 1971) is a British actor and producer. His roles include Soames Forsyte in the ITV remake of "The Forsyte Saga", Detective Charlie Crews in the NBC drama "Life" and Major Richard Winters in the HBO miniseries "Band of Brothers". He stars as Marine Sergeant Nicholas Brody in the Showtime series "Homeland", a performance which has earned him an Emmy and Golden Globe. Personal life. Lewis was born in St John's Wood, to Charlotte Mary (née Bowater) and J. Watcyn Lewis, a city broker. His paternal grandparents were Welsh.
629384	John Meillon (1 May 193411 August 1989) was an Australian character actor, known for many straight as well as comedy roles, he became most widely known internationally however as Walter Reilly in the films ""Crocodile" Dundee" and ""Crocodile" Dundee II". He also voiced Victoria Bitter beer adverts which continued to run with his narration long after his death. Biography. Meillon was born in Mosman, Sydney. His younger brother was director Bob Meillon (1943–2012). He began his acting career at the age of eleven in the ABC's radio serial "Stumpy", and made his first stage appearance the following year. He joined the Shakespeare Touring Company when he was sixteen. Like many actors of his generation from 1959 to 1965 he worked in England. He had a recurring role in the TV series "My Name's McGooley, What's Yours?". He featured in two episodes of "Skippy" in 1968 and 1969 appearing as "Nimble Norris". In 1976, he won the AACTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role for his role of 'Casey' in the film "The Fourth Wish" (1976). With his rich baritone, Meillon was used extensively in voice over work- the most famous being his work as the "you can get it any old how" Victoria Bitter narrator. He married Australian actress June Salter in 1958. They were divorced in 1971. They had one son, John Meillon, Jr. He then married actress Bunny Gibson ("Rita the Eta Eater") on 5 April 1972: they also had a son. He died in 1989, of liver disease.
813665	Bigger Than Life is an American DeLuxe Color CinemaScope film made in 1956 directed by Nicholas Ray and starring James Mason, who also co-wrote and produced the film, about a school teacher and family man whose life spins out of control upon becoming addicted to cortisone. The film co-stars Barbara Rush as his wife and Walter Matthau as his closest friend, a fellow teacher. Though it was a box-office flop upon its initial release, many modern critics hail it as a masterpiece and brilliant indictment of contemporary attitudes towards mental illness and addiction. "Bigger Than Life" was based on a 1955 "The New Yorker" article by medical writer Berton Roueché entitled "Ten Feet Tall". Plot. Schoolteacher and family man Ed Avery (James Mason), who has been suffering bouts of severe pain and even blackouts, is hospitalized with what's diagnosed as polyarteritis nodosa, a rare inflammation of the arteries. Told by doctors that he probably has only months to live, Ed agrees to an experimental treatment: doses of the hormone cortisone. Ed makes a remarkable recovery. He returns home to his wife, Lou (Barbara Rush), and their son, Richie (Christopher Olsen). He must keep taking cortisone tablets regularly to prevent a recurrence of his illness. But the 'miracle' cure turns into a nightmare when Ed begins to misuse the tablets, causing him to experience wild mood swings and, ultimately, a psychotic episode which threatens the safety of his family. Reception. "Bigger Than Life" was extremely controversial upon its release . Its critique of the patriarchal family was considered shocking for the time, and it was not a financial success ; however the film was extremely popular with the critics at the "Cahiers du cinéma" and in 1963 Jean-Luc Godard named it one of the "Ten Best American Sound Films".
1049388	That Funny Feeling is a 1965 American romantic comedy film starring Sandra Dee, Bobby Darin, and Donald O'Connor. This was the third film pairing of Dee and then-husband Darin, following 1961's "Come September" and 1962's "If a Man Answers". It was the second film that O'Connor and Kathleen Freeman (who played a lady in a telephone booth) made together, the first being "Singin' in the Rain". Plot. Joan Howell intends to be an actress, but for now she's working as a maid. Three different times, she accidentally bumps into Tom Milford, a successful publishing executive, who then asks her for a date. Ashamed of her own modest home, Joan invites him to the lavish apartment of one of her clients, pretending it is hers. What she doesn't know, because she and her employer have never met, is that the apartment is Tom's. He is shocked to find himself being welcomed to his own place. To see how far Joan is prepared to go, Tom moves in with his pal Harvey and goes along with it. As soon as Joan becomes aware of the truth, however, she gets even by throwing a party with girls pretending to be prostitutes, whereupon the party is promptly raided by the cops.
583266	Bardhaasht is a Bollywood drama and thriller film released in 2004. The director is E. Niwas. It is based on the screenplay written by Vikram Bhatt. The main cast of the movie is Bobby Deol, Lara Dutta and Rahul Dev. "Bardaasht" is noted for its gritty and brutal portrayal of police force and triumph of human will and justice in the form of Major Aditya Shrivastava portrayed by Bobby Deol. Synopsis. Aditya Shrivastav (Bobby Deol) is a deserted army officer. He has a brother, Anuj (Ritesh Deshmukh). Anuj gets angry at Aditya one day and runs away. ACP Yashwant Thakur (Rahul Dev) helps Aditya find Anuj and later tells him that Anuj was killed in an encounter. Aditya reads a police report which states that Anuj was running away with drugs and was shot dead on the spot. Aditya can't quite believe this so he investigates it. He later meets Ramona (Tara Sharma), who reveals that ACP Yashwant Thakur and his two other police officers brutally killed Anuj for no apparent reason and lied to cover it up. Aditya wants to take the matter to court and chooses Payal (Lara Dutta) as his lawyer. However, after losing the case, Aditya decides to take matters into his own hands by holding the three until they confess their crime. He is successful and, having secretly recorded this evidence, shows it to the police commissioner. Critical reception. Released in April 2004 "Bardaasht" received acclaimed critical reception. Taran Adarsh of Bollywood Hungama praised Bobby Deol's performance and wrote "BARDAASHT is a triumph for Bobby Deol, who takes full advantage of the role offered to him and gives his best shot. He displays the gamut of emotions like a seasoned performer and delivers a knock-out performance. In fact, it won't be wrong to state that this is amongst Bobby's best performance to date!" Rediff.com praises "Bardaasht" and writes "Bardaasht is pretty strong on the performance front. Bobby Deol does a good job. Look out for him in the scene where he sees his kid brother's dead body. His body language is frail, broken and numb" citing Deol's power-packed performance.
1071649	The manga was adapted into a film in 1990 by Shun Nakahara, and a remake was released in November 2008. Theatrical stage productions debuted at the Tokyo Metropolitan Art Space in 1994 and at the Aoyama Round Theatre in 2007 and 2009. Plot. The drama club of Oka Academy an all girl high school put on the play "The Cherry Orchard" by Anton Chekhov for the anniversary of the school's founding. Each chapter follows the life of one of the club members while the preparations for the play go on. Media. Live-action films. The manga was adapted into a film in 1990 by Shun Nakahara, a remake was announced in 2007 by the same director and was released in November 2008. The plot is similar to the original manga, in which a modern-day all girls high school traditionally celebrates its anniversary by staging Chekov's play, but the faculty consider canceling the play because Noriko, a senior, was seen smoking in a coffee shop with students from a rival school. Theatre series. Two stage productions have been adapted, one at the Tokyo Metropolitan Art Space in 1994 and another at the Aoyama Round Theatre in 2007 and 2009. Reception. James Welker thinks the manga "could be included in the lesbian manga canon." The 1990 film won the Best Film awards at the 15th Hochi Film Award and at the 12th Yokohama Film Festival and it was nominated for Best Film at the 14th Japan Academy Prize.
1016329	Naked Killer () is a 1992 Hong Kong film written and produced by Wong Jing, and directed by Clarence Fok Yiu-leung. The film stars Chingmy Yau, Simon Yam and Carrie Ng.
1104110	Maria Chudnovsky (born January 6, 1977) is an Israeli-American mathematician. She is a 2012 MacArthur Fellow.
1072148	Takeshis' is a 2005 Japanese film directed, written, edited by, and starring Takeshi Kitano. It is the first film in Kitano's surrealist autobiographical trilogy, being followed by "Glory to the Filmmaker!", and "Achilles and the Tortoise". Film Structure. The original working title of "Takeshis"' was "Fractal", suggesting the film's structure. The film has nested story-lines and depicts an "8½"-like identity crisis theme in autobiographical style. It is also strongly characterised by a series of surrealistic motives linked by chance encounters.
588003	Azhiyadha Kolangal is a Tamil language film directed by Balu Mahendra starring Prathap K. Pothan and Shobha. Kamal Haasan played a guest role in the film. This movie is a story about the events that happen during the adolescent age of three friends who live in a small village. Filmed in very beautiful scenic locations, the movie takes one through an exotic joy ride of emotions, first love and the agony of death.
590626	Vanisri or Ratna Kumari (born 3 August 1948), also known as Vanisree or Vanishree, is a popular Telugu actress in the mid-1960s to the late 1970s. Her portfolio also includes Kannada and Tamil films. Early life. Vanisri was born in Nellore, Andhra Pradesh, India in 1948. Actor S V Ranga Rao gave her screen name "Vanisri". Career. She gained attention with a supporting role in a film penned by K. Balachander titled "Sukha Dukhalu" (1967), where the famous song "Idi Mallela Velayani" was picturized on her. It led to her first starring role in Telugu films, "Marapurani Kadha" (1967). She remained a heroine after this film and held the top spot through most of the 1970s.
1748425	, known officially as Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle the Movie: The Princess in the Birdcage Kingdom, is an animated short film based on the ' manga by the group Clamp. It was adapted by the animation studio Production I.G and premiered in Japanese theaters on August 20, 2005 in conjunction with ', another animated film by Production I.G. It is set between the two seasons of the anime series from "Tsubasa" by Bee Train, and continues 's group's journey to find 's "feathers" in different worlds, which will help her recover her memory. In the journey, they arrive at the Country of Birdcages, where one of Sakura's feathers is located. The idea of the "Tsubasa" and "xxxHolic" films was conceived by Kodansha, the Japanese publisher behind both manga. After convincing Production I.G to develop them, the director chosen for the "Tsubasa" film was Junichi Fujisaku who accepted such role after receiving positive comments about the series. Like in the TV series, Yuki Kajiura was the score's composer and was guided by producer Tetsuya Nakatake. In North America, "The Princess in the Birdcage Kingdom" was licensed by Funimation Entertainment who released it alongside "A Midsummer Night's Dream" and episodes from the "Tsubasa" anime. "The Princess in the Birdcage Kingdom" has received mixed responses by publications from manga, anime and other media; while positive comments were made regarding the film's animation and pacing, the short length has been heavily for being just a little longer than the ones used in the TV episodes. Plot. In their continuing journey to find the feathers that are the fragments of 's lost memory, , , , and Sakura move through time and space with Mokona. Here, they visit the "Country of Birdcages," a seemingly peaceful country where people and birds live together, each person having a bird companion. From their arrival, Syaoran, Sakura and Mokona are separated from Kurogane and Fai who are confronted by warriors from the king and ultimately captured. Syaoran, Sakura and Mokona meet a kid name Koruri who introduces them to her princess, an alternate persona from . Tomoyo explains to Syaoran's group that about how the king, her uncle, maintains oppressed citizens, having had their birds taken from them, and plans to use a key to seal the country. They are then attacked by the king's bird-like soldier, who easily defeat the opposing Syaoran and Tomoyo's commander, and kidnap Tomoyo and Mokona. Syaoran, Sakura, Koruri and the commander proceed to infiltrate into the king's castle to rescue Tomoyo. The king then manages to unleash Dodo, an enormous bird who was sealed in the country, and it becomes the king's subordinate. Fai, Kurogane and Mokona manage to escape from their cages and are confronted by creatures born from Dodo. They manage to reunite with Syaoran's group who go to the upper floors from the castle to stop the king. Sakura gives Syaoran a ring Tomoyo previously gave her, and Syaoran confronts Dodo, realizing it is composed of all the birds from the citizens. Tomoyo's bird, Lei-Fan, appears to aid Syaoran fight Dodo, who is carrying the king. Tomoyo tells Syaoran to use her ring to fight the king which causes Syaoran to be surrounded by fire, and launches himself to destroy Dodo. Syaoran also knocks out the king whose body dissolves into a bird, leaving one of Sakura's feathers behind. However, as a result of using the ring, the country remains trapped in darkness, and Syaoran's group request help to the Dimensional Witch Yūko Ichihara. Tomoyo gives Yūko her bell, sacrificing the relationship between all the citizens and the birds, in exchange of a key that frees the country from its darkness. Production. Kodansha, the company that publishes both "Tsubasa" and "xxxHolic" manga, came up with the idea of developing both films and ended up contacting Production I.G to develop them. They decided to put Toru Kawaguchi and Tetsuya Nakatake as producers from the two films. Considering "Tsubasa"s popularity in Japan and the fame from Production I.G. Natakate wanted it to be enjoyable to viewers. The film was directed by Itsuro Kawasaki and written by both Midori Goto and Junichi Fujisaku with character designs provided by Yoko Kikuchi and music provided by Yuki Kajiura. Iwasake first met producer Nakatake who told him about how they were working in "The Princess of the Birdcage Kingdom", but still did not choose a director. Iwasake comments that people from Production I.G. had already requested to work in such film but he declines, to which he adds he thinks it was a misunderstanding as he was busy working in an anime TV series. It was Iwasake's first work in an animated film as he was not very familiar with them, but thanks to this, he came to understand the importance of films. He initially had doubts about making a film based on "Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle" as he noted that nowadays people tended to do it to every popular manga, and he originally wished to focus on less popular series. As he was told by many people that "Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle" was an entertaining manga, Iwasake decided to read it once the film finished development. As he read it, he was satisfied because it was what he had in mind when making the film and particularly praised Clamp's illustrations and designs. When Yoko Kikuchi was assigned as the character designer, Iwasake stated "people in charge we were very lucky" as he was already related with the works of Kikuchi, who liked working the film due to her attachment with the character of Sakura.
1164168	Rue McClanahan (February 21, 1934 – June 3, 2010) was an American actress, best known for her roles on television as Vivian Harmon on "Maude", Fran Crowley on "Mama's Family", and Blanche Devereaux on "The Golden Girls", for which she won an Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series in 1987. Early life. McClanahan was born Eddi-Rue McClanahan in Healdton, Oklahoma, the daughter of Dreda Rheua-Nell (née Medaris), a beautician, and William Edwin "Bill" McClanahan (July 4, 1908 – February 20, 1999) a building contractor. She and her family were Methodists. She was of Irish and Choctaw ancestry. Her Choctaw great-grandfather was named Running Hawk according to her autobiography "My First Five Husbands... and the Ones Who Got Away" (2007). She grew up in Ardmore, Oklahoma; she graduated from Ardmore High School. McClanahan earned a Bachelor of Arts degree at the University of Tulsa, where she majored in German and Theater and joined the Kappa Alpha Theta sorority. She was also a National Honor Society Member. Early career. A life member of The Actors Studio, McClanahan made her professional stage début at Pennsylvania's Erie Playhouse in 1957, in the play "Inherit the Wind". She began acting on off-Broadway in New York City in 1957, but did not make her Broadway début until 1969, when she portrayed Sally Weber in the original production of John Sebastian and Murray Schisgal's musical, "Jimmy Shine", with Dustin Hoffman in the title role. Her role as Caroline Johnson on "Another World" (from July 1970 to September 1971) brought her notice. On the show, while taking care of twins Michael and Marianne Randolph, Caroline fell in love with their father, John, and began poisoning their mother, Pat. The short-term role was extended to more than a year before Caroline was finally brought to justice after kidnapping the twins. Once her role on "Another World" ended, McClanahan joined the cast of the CBS soap "Where the Heart Is", in which she played Margaret Jardin. Primetime success. "Maude". On "Maude", broadcast from 1972 to 1978, McClanahan played Maude's (Bea Arthur) best friend, Vivian Harmon, wife of Dr. Arthur Harmon (Conrad Bain). "The Golden Girls". On "The Golden Girls" (1985–1992) and the short-lived successor "The Golden Palace", McClanahan portrayed man-crazed southern belle Blanche Devereaux, owner of a house in which she lived and rented out to her three roommates and best friends: Dorothy Zbornak (Bea Arthur), Rose Nylund (Betty White), and Sophia Petrillo (Estelle Getty). McClanahan received an Emmy Award in 1987 for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series for her work on the show. Other work. She also appeared as a leader of Al-Anon in a 1970s informational video called "Slight Drinking Problem," in which Patty Duke played the enabling and eventually self-empowered wife of an alcoholic. In feature films McClanahan starred in 1961's "The Rotten Apple", as well as "Walk the Angry Beach" in 1968. In 1971 she played a vicious fag hag in the film "Some of My Best Friends Are...", which was set in a gay bar. In 1990, McClanahan starred as Matilda Joslyn Gage, mother-in-law of L. Frank Baum in the made-for-TV movie "". McClanahan guest-starred on "Newhart", and played Aunt Fran Crowley on the first two seasons of "Mama's Family". She also voice-acted in cartoons, voicing Scarlett in the 1997 Fox Christmas special Annabelle's Wish. She played the role of Steve's grandmother in the "Blue's Clues" video "Blue's Big Treasure Hunt" (1999). In the 1994 "Spider-Man: The Animated Series" episode "Doctor Octopus: Armed And Dangerous", she was Anastasia Hardy. The 2007 "King of the Hill" episode "Hair Today, Gone Today" cast her as Bunny. In 2009, she appeared in an episode of "Law & Order" as a woman who had an affair with John F. Kennedy. Later life. An animal welfare advocate and vegetarian, McClanahan was one of the first celebrity supporters of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA). McClanahan also supported Alley Cat Allies, a nonprofit advocacy organization dedicated to transforming communities to protect and improve the lives of cats, and appeared in a public service announcement for the organization in early 2010. A Democrat, in December 2003 she wrote a letter informing Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry that his pheasant hunting had cost him her vote and respect. In a July 2008 interview, she weighed in on the 2008 Presidential campaigns. Regarding Barack Obama, she said: In 2003, she appeared in the musical romantic comedy film "The Fighting Temptations" as Nancy Stringer, which costarred Cuba Gooding, Jr., Beyoncé Knowles, Mike Epps and Steve Harvey. She replaced Carole Shelley as Madame Morrible in the musical "Wicked" on May 31, 2005. She played the role for eight months and departed the cast January 8, 2006. She was replaced by Carol Kane on January 10, 2006. Her autobiography, "My First Five Husbands ... and the Ones Who Got Away", was released in 2007. In June 2008, "The Golden Girls" was awarded the 'Pop Culture' award at the Sixth Annual TV Land Awards. McClanahan accepted the award with costars Bea Arthur and Betty White. McClanahan's final acting role was in the cable series "" on the Logo network, which premiered July 23, 2008, playing Peggy Ingram, the older sister of Sissy Hickey and mother of Latrelle, LaVonda and Earl "Brother Boy". Rue was a supporter of lesbian and gay rights, including advocating for same-sex marriage in the United States. In January 2009, she appeared in the star-studded "Defying Inequality: The Broadway ConcertA Celebrity Benefit for Equal Rights". Health and death. In June 1997, McClanahan was diagnosed with breast cancer, for which she was treated successfully. On November 14, 2009, she was to be honored for her lifetime achievements at an event "Golden: A Gala Tribute to Rue McClanahan" at the Castro Theatre in San Francisco, California. The event was postponed due to McClanahan's hospitalization. She had triple bypass surgery on November 4. It was announced on January 14, 2010, by "Entertainment Tonight" that, while recovering from surgery, she had suffered a minor stroke. In March 2010, fellow "Golden Girls" cast member Betty White reported on "The Ellen DeGeneres Show" that McClanahan was doing well and that her speech had returned to normal. McClanahan died on June 3, 2010, at the age of 76, at New York–Presbyterian Hospital after she suffered a brain hemorrhage. She was cremated after her death. McClanahan's longtime friend Betty White, who co-starred with her on both "Mama's Family" and "The Golden Girls", told "Entertainment Tonight" that McClanahan was a "close and dear friend" and that her death "hurts more than I ever thought it would". McClanahan was survived by her sixth husband, Morrow Wilson (from whom she separated in 2009); her son from her first marriage, Mark Bish of Austin, Texas; her sister, Melinda L. McClanahan, of Silver City, New Mexico; and a nephew, Brendan Kinkade. There were no funeral services for McClanahan so her family created an official memorial page on Facebook to honor her, and memorial services were held during the summer of 2010 in New York and Los Angeles. On June 10, 2010, McClanahan's New York apartment, with several unique design details, went on the market for $2.25 million. In honor of her memory, WE tv, which airs reruns of "The Golden Girls", had a weeklong memoriam for McClanahan airing episodes featuring the best of Blanche from June 711, 2010. Nominations and awards. Emmy Award Nominations: Golden Globe Nominations: Obie Awards (off-Broadway): Golden Apple Awards: TV Land Awards:
643245	Cleve Barry Moler is a mathematician and computer programmer specializing in numerical analysis. In the mid to late 1970s, he was one of the authors of LINPACK and EISPACK, Fortran libraries for numerical computing. He invented MATLAB, a numerical computing package, to give his students at the University of New Mexico easy access to these libraries without writing Fortran. In 1984, he co-founded MathWorks with Jack Little to commercialize this program. He received his bachelor's degree from California Institute of Technology in 1961, and a Ph.D. from Stanford University, all in mathematics. He was a professor of mathematics and computer science for almost 20 years at the University of Michigan, Stanford University, and the University of New Mexico. Before joining MathWorks full-time in 1989, he also worked for Intel Hypercube and Ardent Computer Corporation. He is also co-author of four textbooks on numerical methods and is a member of the Association for Computing Machinery. He was vice-president of the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics and currently sits on its Board of Trustees. He started serving a two year term as president of SIAM in January 2007. He was elected to the National Academy of Engineering on February 14, 1997. He received an honorary degree from Linköping University, Sweden. He received an honorary degree of Doctor of Mathematics from the University of Waterloo on June 16, 2001. On April 30, 2004, he was appointed Honorary Doctor (doctor technices, honoris causa) at the Technical University of Denmark. In April 2012, the IEEE Computer Society named Cleve the recipient of the 2012 Computer Pioneer Award.
1162133	Lisa Ann Walter (born August 3, 1963) is an American actress, comedienne, writer and film producer. She has appeared in such films as the 1998 version of "The Parent Trap", "Bruce Almighty", "Shall We Dance", and "War of the Worlds" as Cheryl. Walter also created and starred in the short-lived 1996-1997 sitcom, "Life's Work". She was a judge on ABC's reality television series "". She also won for her charity in a celebrity edition of "The Weakest Link". Early life. Walter was born and raised in suburban Silver Spring, Maryland, near Washington, D.C., where she remembers "always liking to show off" as a child. She was a high-achieving student and always the class clown. Walter's father worked at NASA and indulged his own love of performing after-hours in local community theater. Her mother was a teacher, later working at the local courthouse. Her parents, both native New Yorkers, divorced when Walter was in elementary school. She attended Montgomery Blair High School, Silver Spring, Maryland, finally studying drama at the Catholic University of America under the tutelage of the renowned Father Gilbert Hartke. She began appearing in various regional and dinner theater productions, and met her future spouse, Sam Baum, while performing in "A Streetcar Named Desire". They married before moving to New York, where both began various day jobs while raising their baby, shoehorning in frequent auditions and roles various off-Broadway venues. Walter performed at amateur night contests at some of the noted comedy clubs. Career. After five years of standup comedy, she was cast to star in her own Fox Network comedy series, "My Wildest Dreams", followed by an ABC sitcom, "Life's Work", which she both created and starred in. Walter also co-starred in the Bravo series "Breaking News" and in the NBC sitcom "Emeril". In addition to "Bruce Almighty" (2003) and "Shall We Dance" (2004), Walter co-starred in the Disney film "The Parent Trap" (1998). In the remake of the original classic, she appeared as the nanny to Dennis Quaid's daughter, who was played by a young Lindsay Lohan. Prior to that, she played Whoopi Goldberg's tarty sidekick Claudine in "Eddie" (1996). In early 2007, Walter had a supporting role as Mabel the bartender in the MyNetworkTV soap opera "Watch Over Me". That summer, she served as a judge on the ABC reality TV show "The Next Best Thing", which searched for the best celebrity impersonators in America. In the Spring of 2008, she was in the comedy film "Drillbit Taylor", and also starred on the VH1 reality series "Celebracadabra", in which celebrities competed to see who was the best magician among them. She made it to the final three but was eliminated in the sixth episode. She has developed a series for the Oxygen network called "Dance Your Ass Off". Her comic memoir, "The Best Thing About My Ass Is That It's Behind Me" is being published in May, 2011. On May 18, 2011 Los Angeles talk radio station KFI announced that Walter would be assuming the 4pm-7pm slot on Saturdays and Sundays. She now hosts the popular "Fabulous Lisa Ann Walter Show" from 4pm-6pm on Saturday and Sunday. Personal life. Walter resides in Los Angeles with her four children, including son Jordan, daughter Delia, and twin boys Simon and Spencer. She is developing enough material for a return to standup comedy.
1253695	Never Say Never Again is a 1983 spy film based on the James Bond novel "Thunderball", which was previously adapted in 1965 under that name. Unlike the majority of Bond films, "Never Say Never Again" was not produced by Eon Productions, but by an independent production company, one of whose members was Kevin McClory, one of the original writers of the "Thunderball" storyline with Ian Fleming and Jack Whittingham. McClory retained the filming rights of the novel following a long legal battle dating from the 1960s. The film was directed by Irvin Kershner and, like "Thunderball", stars Sean Connery as British Secret Service agent James Bond, 007, marking his return to the role 12 years after "Diamonds Are Forever". The film's title references how Connery said to the press in 1971 that he would "never again" play James Bond. As Connery was 52 at the time of filming, the storyline features an ageing Bond, who is brought back into action to investigate the theft of two nuclear weapons by SPECTRE. Filming locations included France, Spain, the Bahamas and Elstree Studios in England. "Never Say Never Again" was released by Warner Bros. in the autumn of 1983. It opened to positive critic reviews and was a commercial success, grossing $160 million at the box office, although this was less overall than the Eon-produced Bond film released in June of the same year, "Octopussy". In 1997 the distribution rights of "Never Say Never Again" were purchased by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, which distributes Eon's Bond films, and the company has handled subsequent home video releases of the film. Plot. After MI6 agent James Bond, 007, fails a routine training exercise, his superior, M, orders Bond to a health clinic outside London to get back into shape. While there, Bond witnesses a mysterious nurse named Fatima Blush giving a sadomasochistic beating to a patient in a nearby room. The man's face is bandaged and after Blush finishes her beating, Bond sees the patient using a machine which scans his eye. Bond is seen by Blush and an attempt is subsequently made to kill him in the clinic gym, but Bond manages to defeat the assassin. Blush and her charge, a United States Air Force pilot named Jack Petachi, are operatives of SPECTRE, a criminal organisation run by Ernst Stavro Blofeld. Petachi has undergone an operation on his right eye to make it match the retinal pattern of the US President, which he uses to circumvent iris recognition security at an American military base in England. While doing so, he replaces the dummy warheads in two cruise missiles with live nuclear warheads; SPECTRE then obtains the warheads to extort billions of dollars from NATO governments. Blush subsequently murders Petachi. Under orders from the Prime Minister, M reluctantly reactivates the double-0 section and Bond is assigned the task of tracking down the missing weapons. He meets Domino Petachi, the pilot's sister, and her wealthy lover, Maximillian Largo, a SPECTRE agent. Bond follows Largo and his yacht to the Bahamas, where he spars with Blush and Largo. Bond is informed by Nigel Small-Fawcett of the British Consulate that Largo's yacht is now heading for Nice, France. There, Bond joins forces with his CIA counterpart, Felix Leiter. Bond goes to a beauty salon where he poses as an employee and, whilst giving Domino a massage, is informed by her that Largo is hosting an event at a casino that evening. At the charity event, Largo and Bond play a 3-D video game called "Domination", which Bond ultimately wins; Bond then informs Domino of her brother's death. Bond returns to his villa to find Nicole, his French contact, dead, having been killed by Blush. After a vehicle chase on his motorbike, Blush captures Bond. Forced to write his memoirs putting her as his "Number One" sexual partner, Bond uses his Q-branch-issue fountain pen to shoot Blush. Bond and Felix then attempt to board Largo's motor yacht, the "Flying Saucer", in search of the missing nuclear warheads. Bond becomes trapped and is taken, with Domino, to Palmyra, Largo's base of operations in North Africa. Largo punishes Domino for betraying him by auctioning her off to some passing Arabs. Bond subsequently escapes and rescues Domino. After her rescue, Domino and Bond reunite with Felix on a US Navy submarine and track Largo to a location known as the Tears of Allah, below a desert oasis. Bond and Leiter infiltrate the underground facility and a gun battle erupts between Felix's team and Largo's men in the temple. In the confusion Largo makes a getaway with one of the warheads. Bond catches and fights Largo underwater. Just as Largo tries to detonate the last bomb, he is killed by Domino, taking revenge for her brother's death. Bond then returns to the Bahamas with Domino. Production. "Never Say Never Again" had its origins in the early 1960s following the controversy over the 1961 "Thunderball" novel. Fleming, along with independent producer Kevin McClory and scriptwriter Jack Whittingham had worked together on a script for a potential Bond film, to be called "Longitude 78 West", which was subsequently abandoned because of the costs involved. Fleming, "always reluctant to let a good idea lie idle", turned this into the novel "Thunderball" which did not credit either McClory or Whittingham; McClory then took Fleming to the High Court in London for breach of copyright and the matter was settled in 1963. After Eon Productions started producing the Bond films, they subsequently made a deal with McClory, who would produce "Thunderball", and then not make any further version of the novel for a period of ten years following the release of the Eon-produced version in 1965. In the mid-1970s McClory again started working on a project to bring a "Thunderball" adaptation to production and, with the working title "Warhead", he brought writer Len Deighton together with Sean Connery to work on a script. The script ran into difficulties after accusations from Eon Productions that the project had gone beyond copyright restrictions, which confined McClory to a film based on the "Thunderball" novel only, and once again the project was deferred. Towards the end of the 1970s developments were reported on the project under the name "James Bond of the Secret Service", but when producer Jack Schwartzman became involved and cleared a number of the legal issues that still surrounded the project he brought on board scriptwriter Lorenzo Semple Jr to work on the screenplay. Connery was unhappy with some aspects of the work and asked British television writers Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais to undertake re-writes, although they went uncredited for their efforts because of a restriction by the Writers Guild of America. The film underwent one final change in title: after Connery had finished filming "Diamonds Are Forever" he had pledged that he would "never" play Bond again. Connery's wife, Micheline, suggested the title "Never Say Never Again", referring to her husband's vow and the producers acknowledged her contribution by listing on the end credits "Title "Never Say Never Again" by: Micheline Connery". A final attempt by Fleming's trustees to block the film was made in the High Courts in London in the spring of 1983, but these were thrown out by the court and "Never Say Never Again" was permitted to proceed. Cast and crew. When producer Kevin McClory had first planned the film in 1964 he held initial talks with Richard Burton for the part of Bond, although the project came to nothing because of the legal issues involved. When the "Warhead" project was launched in the late 1970s, a number of actors were mentioned in the trade press, including Orson Welles for the part of Blofeld, Trevor Howard to play M and Richard Attenborough as director. In 1978 the working title "James Bond of the Secret Service" was being used and Connery was in the frame once again, potentially going head-to-head with the next Eon Bond film, "Moonraker". By 1980, with legal issues again causing the project to flounder, Connery thought himself unlikely to play the role, as he stated in an interview in the "Sunday Express" "when I first worked on the script with Len I had no thought of actually being in the film". When producer Jack Schwartzman became involved, he asked Connery to play Bond: Connery agreed, asking (and getting) a fee of $3 million, ($ million in dollars) a percentage of the profits, as well as casting and script approval. Subsequent to Connery reprising the role, the script has several references to Bond's advancing years – playing on Connery being 52 at the time of filming – and academic Jeremy Black has pointed out that there are other aspects of age and disillusionment in the film, such as the Shrubland's porter referring to Bond's car ("they don't make them like that any more"), the new M having no use for the 00 section and Q with his reduced budgets. For the main villain in the film, Maximillian Largo, Connery suggested Klaus Maria Brandauer, the lead of the 1981 Academy Award-winning Hungarian film "Mephisto". Through the same route came Max von Sydow as Ernst Stavro Blofeld, although he still retained his Eon-originated white cat in the film. For the femme fatale, Director Irvin Kershner selected former model and "Playboy" cover girl Barbara Carrera to play Fatima Blush – the name coming from one of the early scripts of "Thunderball". Carrera's performance as Fatima Blush earned her a Golden Globe Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress, which she lost to Cher for her role in "Silkwood". Micheline Connery, Sean's wife, had met up-and-coming actress Kim Basinger at a hotel in London and suggested her to Connery, which he agreed upon. For the role of Felix Leiter, Connery spoke with Bernie Casey, saying that as the Leiter role was never remembered by audiences, using a black Leiter may make him more memorable. Others cast included comedian Rowan Atkinson, who would later parody Bond in his role of "Johnny English". Former Eon Productions' editor and director of "On Her Majesty's Secret Service", Peter R. Hunt, was approached to direct the film but declined due to his previous work with Eon. Irvin Kershner, who had achieved success in 1980 with "" was then hired. A number of the crew from the 1981 film "Raiders of the Lost Ark" were also appointed, including first assistant director David Tomblin; director of photography Douglas Slocombe and production designers Philip Harrison and Stephen Grimes. Filming. Filming for "Never Say Never Again" began on 27 September 1982 on the French Riviera for two months before moving to Nassau, the Bahamas in mid-November where filming took place at Clifton Pier, which was also one of the locations used in "Thunderball". The Spanish city of Almería was also used as a location. Largo's Palmyran fortress was actually historic Fort Carré in Antibes. For Largo's ship, the "Flying Saucer", the yacht "Nabila", owned by Saudi billionaire, Adnan Khashoggi, was used. The boat, now owned by Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal, has subsequently been renamed the "Kingdom 5KR". Principal photography finished at Elstree Studios where interior shots were filmed. Elstree also housed the Tears of Allah underwater cavern, which took three months to construct. Most of the filming was completed in the spring of 1983, although there was some additional shooting during the summer of 1983. Production on the film was troubled with Connery taking on many of the production duties with assistant director David Tomblin. Director Irvin Kershner was critical of producer Jack Schwartzman, saying that whilst he was a good businessman "he didn't have the experience of a film producer". After the production ran out of money, Schwartzman had to fund further production out of his own pocket and later admitted he had underestimated the amount the film would cost to make. Many of the elements of the Eon-produced Bond films were not present in "Never Say Never Again" for legal reasons. These included the gun barrel sequence, where a screen full of 007 symbols appeared instead, and similarly there was no "James Bond Theme" to use, although no effort was made to supplement another tune. "Never Say Never Again" did not use a pre-credits sequence, which was filmed but not used; instead the film opens with the credits run over the top of the opening sequence of Bond on a training mission. Music. The music for "Never Say Never Again" was written by Michel Legrand, who composed a score similar to his work as a jazz pianist. The score has been criticised as "anachronistic and misjudged", "bizzarely intermittent" and "the most disappointing feature of the film". Legrand also wrote the main theme "Never Say Never Again", which featured lyrics by Alan and Marilyn Bergman—who had also worked with Legrand in the Academy Award winning song "The Windmills of Your Mind"—and was performed by Lani Hall after Bonnie Tyler, who disliked the song, had reluctantly declined. Phyllis Hyman also recorded a potential theme song, written by Stephen Forsyth and Jim Ryan, but the song—an unsolicited submission—was passed over given Legrand's contractual obligations with the music. Release and reception. "Never Say Never Again" premiered in New York on 7 October 1983, grossing $9.72 million ($ million in dollars) on its first weekend, which was reported to be "the best opening record of any James Bond film" up to that point and surpassing "Octopussy"'s $8.9 million ($ million in dollars) from June that year. The film went on general release in the US in 1,500 cinemas on 14 October 1983 and had its UK premiere at the Warner West End cinema in Leicester Square on 14 December 1983. Worldwide, "Never Say Never Again" grossed $160 million in box office returns, which was a solid return on the budget of $36 million. Warner Bros. released "Never Say Never Again" on VHS and Betamax in 1984, and on laserdisc in 1995. After Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer purchased the distribution rights in 1997 (see Legacy, below), the company has released the film on both VHS and DVD in 2001, and on Blu-ray in 2009. Contemporary reviews. "Never Say Never Again" was broadly welcomed and praised by the critics: Ian Christie, writing in the "Daily Express", said that "Never Say Never Again" was "one of the better Bonds", finding the film "superbly witty and entertaining, ... the dialogue is crisp and the fight scenes imaginative." Christie also thought that "Connery has lost none of his charm and, if anything, is more appealing than ever as the stylish resolute hero." David Robinson, writing in "The Times" also concentrated on Connery, saying that: "Connery ... is back, looking hardly a day older or thicker, and still outclassing every other exponent of the role, in the goodnatured throwaway with which he parries all the sex and violence on the way". For Robinson, the presence of Connery and Klaus Maria Brandauer as Maximillian Largo "very nearly make it all worthwhile." The reviewer for "Time Out" summed up "Never Say Never Again" saying "The action's good, the photography excellent, the sets decent; but the real clincher is the fact that Bond is once more played by a man with the right stuff." Derek Malcolm in "The Guardian" showed himself to be a fan of Connery's Bond, saying the film contains "the best Bond in the business", but nevertheless did not find "Never Say Never Again" any more enjoyable than the recently released "Octopussy" (starring Roger Moore), or "that either of them came very near to matching "Dr. No" or "From Russia with Love"." Malcolm's main issue with the film was that he had a "feeling that a constant struggle was going on between a desire to make a huge box-office success and the effort to make character as important as stunts." Malcolm summed up that "the mix remains obstinately the same-up to scratch but not surpassing it." Writing in "The Guardian"'s sister paper, "The Observer", Philip French noted that "this curiously muted film ends up making no contribution of its own and inviting damaging comparisons with the original, hyper-confident "Thunderball"". French concluded that "like an hour-glass full of damp sand, the picture moves with increasing slowness as it approaches a confused climax in the Persian Gulf." Writing for "Newsweek", critic Jack Kroll thought the early part of the film was handled "with wit and style", although he went on to say that the director was "hamstrung by Lorenzo Semple's script". Richard Schickel, writing in "Time" magazine praised the film and its cast. He wrote that Klaus Maria Brandauer's character was "played with silky, neurotic charm", whilst Barbara Carrera, playing Fatima Blush, "deftly parodies all the fatal femmes who have slithered through Bond's career". Schickel's highest praise was saved for the return of Connery, observing "it is good to see Connery's grave stylishness in this role again. It makes Bond's cynicism and opportunism seem the product of genuine worldliness (and world weariness) as opposed to Roger Moore's mere twirpishness." Janet Maslin, writing in "The New York Times", was broadly praising of the film, saying she thought that "Never Say Never Again" "has noticeably more humor and character than the Bond films usually provide. It has a marvelous villain in Largo." Maslin also thought highly of Connery in the role, observing that "in "Never Say Never Again", the formula is broadened to accommodate an older, seasoned man of much greater stature, and Mr. Connery expertly fills the bill." Writing in "The Washington Post", Gary Arnold was fulsome in his praise, saying that "Never Say Never Again" is "one of the best James Bond adventure thrillers ever made", going on to say that "this picture is likely to remain a cherished, savory example of commercial filmmaking at its most astute and accomplished." Arnold went further, saying that ""Never Say Never Again" is the best acted Bond picture ever made, because it clearly surpasses any predecessors in the area of inventive and clever character delineation". The critic for "The Globe and Mail", Jay Scott, also praised the film, saying that "Never Say Never Again" "may be the only instalment of the long-running series that has been helmed by a first-rate director". According to Scott, the director, with high quality support cast, resulted in the "classiest of all the Bonds". Roger Ebert gave the film 3½ out of 4 stars, and wrote that "Never Say Never Again", while consisting of a basic "Bond plot", was different from other Bond films: "For one thing, there's more of a human element in the movie, and it comes from Klaus Maria Brandauer, as Largo." Ebert went on to add, "there was never a Beatles reunion ... but here, by God, is Sean Connery as Sir James Bond. Good work, 007." Reflective reviews. Because "Never Say Never Again" is not an Eon-produced film, it has not been included in a number of subsequent reviews. Norman Wilner of MSN said that 1967's "Casino Royale" and "Never Say Never Again" "exist outside the 'official' continuity, are excluded from this list, just as they're absent from MGM's megabox. But take my word for it; they're both pretty awful". Of the more recent reviews, opinion on "Never Say Never Again" is still mixed: film review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes lists the film with a 59% rating from 39 reviews. The score is still more positive than some of the Eon films, with Rotten Tomatoes ranking "Never Say Never Again" 16th among all Bond films in 2008. "Empire" gives the film three of a possible five stars, observing that "Connery was perhaps wise to call it quits the first time round". IGN gave "Never Say Never Again" a score of 5 out of ten, claiming that the film "is more miss than hit". The review also thought that the film was "marred with too many clunky exposition scenes and not enough moments of Bond being Bond". In 1995 Michael Sauter of "Entertainment Weekly" rated "Never Say Never Again" as the ninth best Bond film to that point, after seventeen films had been released. Sauter thought the film "is successful only as a portrait of an over-the-hill superhero." He did admit, however that "even past his prime, Connery proves that nobody does it better". James Berardinelli, in his review of " Never Say Never Again", thinks the re-writing of the "Thunderball" story has led to a film which has "a hokey, jokey feel, is possibly the worst-written Bond script of all". Berardinelli concludes that "it's a major disappointment that, having lured back the original 007, the film makers couldn't offer him something better than this drawn-out, hackneyed story." Critic Danny Peary wrote that "it was great to see Sean Connery return as James Bond after a dozen years". He also thought the supporting cast was good, saying that Klaus Maria Brandauer's Largo was "neurotic, vulnerable ... one of the most complex of Bond's foes" and that Barbara Carrera and Kim Basinger "make lasting impressions." Peary also wrote that the "film is exotic, well acted, and stylishly directed ... It would be one of the best Bond films if the finale weren't disappointing. When will filmmakers realize that underwater fight scenes don't work because viewers usually can't tell the hero and villain apart and they know doubles are being used?" Legacy. In the 1990s, McClory announced plans to make another adaptation of the "Thunderball" story, "Warhead 2000 AD", with Timothy Dalton in the lead role, but this was eventually scrapped. In 1997 the Sony Corporation acquired all or some of McClory's rights in an undisclosed deal, and subsequently announced that it intended to make a series of Bond films, as the company also held the rights to "Casino Royale". This move prompted a round of litigation from MGM, which was settled in an out-of-court settlement in which Sony gave up all claims on Bond, although McClory still claimed he would proceed with another Bond film, and continued his case against MGM and Danjaq; on 27 August 2001 the court rejected McClory's suit. McClory died in 2006. On 4 December 1997, MGM announced that the company had purchased the rights to "Never Say Never Again" from Schwartzman's company Taliafilm. The company has since handled the release of both the DVD and Blu-ray editions of the film.
1059424	Larry Bishop (born November 30, 1948) is an American actor, screenwriter and movie director. He is the son of Sylvia Ruzga and comedian Joey Bishop. He has been featured in many Hollywood movies including "Hell Ride. Early life. Bishop attended Beverly Hills High School. His fellow alumni Reiner and Richard Dreyfuss appear with him in "Mad Dog Time", as does Joey Bishop. Career. His television credits include writing for (and appearances on) "The Hollywood Palace" (with then-partner Rob Reiner), and appearances on "I Dream of Jeannie", "Love, American Style", "Laverne and Shirley" and "Kung Fu". His movie credits include roles in "", "The Big Fix", "The Savage Seven", and as the hook-handed musician Abraham "The Hook" Salteen in "Wild in the Streets". He wrote, directed and appeared in "Mad Dog Time" in 1996, reuniting him with "Streets" costar Christopher Jones. His most recent movies are 2008's "Hell Ride", in collaboration with Quentin Tarantino, and 2010's "Forgotten Pills".
1105215	Caspar Wessel (June 8, 1745, Vestby – March 25, 1818, Copenhagen) was a Norwegian-Danish mathematician and cartographer. In 1799, Wessel was the first person to describe the geometrical interpretation of complex numbers as points in the complex plane. He was the younger brother of poet and playwright Johan Herman Wessel. Biography. Wessel was born in Jonsrud, Vestby, Akershus, Norway. In 1763, having completed secondary school, he went to Denmark for further studies. He attended the University of Copenhagen and acquired the degree of "candidatus juris" in 1778. From 1794, however, he was employed as a surveyor (from 1798 as Royal inspector of Surveying). It was the mathematical aspect of surveying that led him to exploring the geometrical significance of complex numbers. His fundamental paper, "Om directionens analytiske betegning," was published in 1799 by the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters. Since it was in Danish, it passed almost unnoticed, and the same results were later independently rediscovered by Argand in 1806 and Gauss in 1831. One of the more prominent ideas presented in "On the Analytical Representation of Direction" was that of vectors. Even though this was not Wessel's main intention with the publication, he felt that a geometrical concept of numbers, with length and direction, was needed. Wessel's approach on addition was: "Two straight lines are added if we unite them in such a way that the second line begins where the first one ends and then pass a straight line from the first to the last point of the united lines. This line is the sum of the united lines". This is the same idea as used today when summing vectors.
1218698	Ferrari Ki Sawaari is a 2012 Hindi sports comedy film directed by Rajesh Mapuskar. The film is written by Rajesh Mapuskar and produced by Vidhu Vinod Chopra who is an indian producer, starring Sharman Joshi in the lead. The film was released on 15 June 2012. Synopsis. A little boy, Kayo (Ritvik Sahore) thinks of nothing but playing cricket. His father, Rusy (Sharman Joshi), thinks of nothing but his little boy. To fulfill his son's dream of playing at the Lord's Cricket Ground, the honest and upright Rusy performs his first small act of dishonesty: he borrows the gleaming red Ferrari owned by Sachin Tendulkar, for one day. The only problem is he doesn't inform its legendary owner. A wild, breathless, bumpy ride begins, a ride that leads to a menagerie of amazing characters: a wedding planner who'll stop at nothing, a Laurel-and-Hardyesque pair of loyal attendants, a greedy politician and his reckless son and a mechanic who specializes in stolen cars. As the Ferrari zooms through this chaotic world of street-thugs and mass-weddings, another saga unfolds – a grumpy old man and his secret wounds, and an epic rivalry that goes back thirty-eight years Development. Rajesh Mapuskar has worked as an Associate Director on films such as "3 Idiots" (2009) and "Lage Raho Munna Bhai" (2006); in fact the idea of the film came to him during the post-production work of "Lage Raho Munna Bhai", when for an advertising assignment he went out looking for expensive cars in Mumbai, he found them all except a Ferrari. Eventually he managed to track a Ferrari parked at Pali Hill. This gave him the idea, "What if I steal this car for a day? What will happen?", which developed into the idea of Sachin Tendulkar's Ferrari and the script was developed over the next seven and a half years along with Vidhu Vinod Chopra. Music. The background music as well as the soundtrack is composed by Pritam. The album contains seven original tracks. The lyrics are penned by five different lyricists. Swanand Kirkire, Amitabh Bhattacharya, Guru Thakur and duo of Satyanshu & Devanshu Singh. Madhu Soodha of Goarticles.com noted' "The soundtrack of "Ferrari Ki Sawaari" does not take you on a rollercoaster ride, but with five lyricists at his helm, Pritam has managed to dole out a decent album. It has an array of tracks, which can manage to generate a happy and positive response from listeners." Reception. Critical reception. The movie received good critical reviews for its storyline and performances. Taran Adarsh of "Bollywood Hangama" gave the movie a 3.5/5. Subhash K. Jha of IANS gave it 3 out 5 stars and said, "The dialogues in Ferrari Ki Sawaari lack the punch of Hirani's Munnabhai films but the heart is still in the right place. Honestly, the film is hard to dislike. It has moments of immense warmth and humour." Rajeev Masand of CNN IBN gave 2.5/5 stars and mentioned that "it would have been a good movie if was kept short." Taran Adarsh of Bollywood Hungama gave it 3.5 out 5 stars, saying that "This heartwarming, tender and sprightly film should not be missed!". Rediff gave the movie 2.5 stars out of 5. Rachit Gupta of Filmfare gave a rating of 4 stars out of 5. He said,"Ferrari Ki Sawaari is a well constructed film that switches between drama and comedy with ease. Hirani’s dialogue is pitch-perfect." Madhureeta Mukherjee of Times of India gave it 4 stars out of five, with Kunal Guha of Yahoo! Movies and Sonia Chopra of Sify giving 1.5 and 3 stars out of five respectively. Box office. India. "Ferrari Ki Sawaari" collected nett approx. on day one. The film showed growth on Saturday as it was around ; it picked up on Sunday as it collected around nett for a weekend total of around nett. "Ferrari Ki Sawaari"'s first week collection was around . Ferrari Ki Sawaari grossed nett approx in week two. Overseas. "Ferrari Ki Sawaari" collected around $650,000 in overseas which is decent for a non-star cast film but considering the near 250 screen release it is a low figure. The collections from major markets are as follows: UK - £80,000; North America (Canada & USA) - $240,000; UAE - $150,000; Australia - $32,000.
1247516	Adventures of Captain Marvel is a 1941 twelve-chapter film serial directed by John English and William Witney for Republic Pictures, adapted from the popular Captain Marvel comic book character then appearing in Fawcett Comics publications such as "Whiz Comics" and "Captain Marvel Adventures". It starred Tom Tyler in the title role of Captain Marvel and Frank Coghlan, Jr. as his alter ego, Billy Batson. This serial was the twenty-first of the sixty-six serials produced by Republic and their first comic book adaptation, not counting comic strips. The serial featured an adaptation of the Fawcett Comics superhero, placed within an original story. He fights a masked criminal mastermind called The Scorpion who is determined to gain control of a powerful weapon disguised as a scorpion figurine. Plot. During an archaeological expedition to Siam, the power of the Golden Scorpion allows Billy Batson meets the ancient wizard Shazam, who grants him the power to become Captain Marvel and protect those who may be in danger from the Scorpion's curse. The lenses from the Golden Scorpion are divided among five scientists of the Malcolm Archaeological Expedition. A black-hooded villain known as the Scorpion attempts to acquire all of the lenses and the Scorpion device. Several expedition members are killed in the Scorpion's quest despite Captain Marvel's continual efforts to thwart him. Deducing that the Scorpion always seems to know what goes on at all the meetings with the scientists, Billy later confides his suspicions to his friends, Betty Wallace and Whitey Murphy, that the Scorpion might be one of the archaeological team. The Scorpion later discovers the connection between Billy and Captain Marvel. After capturing him, the Scorpion interrogates Billy for the secret. Billy transforms into Captain Marvel and reveals the Scorpion to be one of the last surviving scientists, who is then killed by an angry Siamese native. Captain Marvel tosses the scorpion statue into a volcano's molten lava to prevent it from ever being used for evil. Once it is destroyed, Captain Marvel is instantly transformed back into Billy Batson as there is no longer any need for a protector for the scorpion. Production. "Adventures of Captain Marvel" was budgeted at $135,553 although the final negative cost was $145,588 (a $10,035, or 7.4%, overspend). It was filmed between December 23, 1940 and January 30, 1941 under the working title Captain Marvel. The serial's production number was 1098. The serial was an outgrowth of Republic's failed attempt at a chapterplay to feature National Periodical Publications (today DC Comics)'s Superman, the script for which had become the studio's "Mysterious Doctor Satan". The film company approached Fawcett Comics for their most popular character, and that publishing house did not refuse. Director William Witney was, however, skeptical about trying to film Captain Marvel after the problems with Superman. As a result, "Adventures of Captain Marvel" became the first superhero film adaptation of a comic book. National attempted legal action to prevent the filming, citing the previous attempt at a Superman serial, but was unsuccessful. Writing in his autobiography of the period, William Witney revealed that in his deposition he had claimed that both Superman and Captain Marvel were derivatives of Popeye. About a decade later, following a legal battle with National and a declining market, Fawcett ceased publication of all its comic series. In the 1970s, the Captain Marvel family of characters was licensed and revived (and ultimately purchased) by DC Comics. The opening military scenes are taken from a 1938 Republic Pictures film "Storm Over Bengal". Casting. Republic cast Frank Coghlan as Billy Batson due to his physical resemblance to the character. However, there was some criticism that Tom Tyler did not sufficiently resemble the "beefy, baby-faced Captain Marvel." At the time, Tyler was a weightlifting champion and the costume matched Captain Marvel's original appearance, even down to slenderness. The appearance of the comic version had changed by this time, however. Tyler, who was described as clumsy, knocked over props with his "lanky arms". Punches in fight scenes would sometimes connect. Due to his performance in "King of the Royal Mounted", Robert Strange as John Malcolm was the choice as the villain in this serial; however, in the end he was not actually the villain. Special effects. The flying effects were performed with a dummy. The dummy was slightly larger than life, at 7 feet tall, and made of paper mâché so that it weighed only 15 lbs. The uniform was made of thin silk and a cotton jersey. Four pulleys connected to each shoulder and calf, which were strung on two wires so the dummy moved along them by its own weight. The wires were attached to two objects across the view of the camera, and the dummy slid from one to the other, giving the appearance of flight. This system was originally intended for a Superman serial, a prototype of which was built but discarded. The flying pose used for the dummy, arms outstretched and back arched, was based on drawing by Mac Raboy. If Captain Marvel needed to be seen flying upwards, the cape was weighted down and the dummy slid backwards. The film of this was then reversed. Dave Sharpe was the human part of the effect. Dressed as Captain Marvel, he would leap from a high point with his body straight, as if able to fly, then roll to land at the last second. The combination of effects and stunts produced the overall illusion of a flying person. Sharpe also performed other stunts as Captain Marvel, such as back flipping and knocking down attacking natives in the first chapter. Some shots of Captain Marvel flying were filmed with Tyler against rear projected clouds. However, some of these scenes show the wires used to hold him up. According to Stedman, the flight scenes were "the most successful illusion of such aerobatics ever put upon the screen, in serial or feature." The technique had been developed in the earlier serial "Darkest Africa" (1936) and was later used again in the "Rocket Man" serials ("King of the Rocket Men", "Radar Men from the Moon", "Zombies of the Stratosphere" and "") released during 1949-1953. The much cheaper Columbia Pictures "Superman" serials which appeared in the late 1940s used animated cartoon sequences to represent various actions, most frequently Superman's flights (Columbia produced the cheapest serials of the period and producer Sam Katzman was notorious for cutting costs). Costume. One of the tunics later appeared as the costume of a member of the Kryptonian science counsel in the first episode of "The Adventures of Superman" television show, filmed in 1951. The lightning bolt on the tunic is partially concealed by means of an oversized collar around the actor's neck. After the usage in Episode 1 of "Superman", two Captain Marvel tunics were sported by actors in early episodes of the original U.S. version of the pioneering TV series "Space Patrol". Very soon into the series, however, the Marvel tunics were replaced by shirts custom made for the series. At The Science Fiction Museum and Hall of Fame in Seattle, Washington, one of the remaining Captain Marvel tunics has been on public display. Release. Theatrical. "Adventures of Captain Marvel"s official release date was March 28, 1941, although this is actually the date the sixth chapter was made available to film exchanges. The serial was re-released on April 15, 1953 under the title "Return of Captain Marvel", between the first runs of "Jungle Drums of Africa" and "Canadian Mounties vs. Atomic Invaders". Due to the 'nostalgia' craze in the spring of 1966 resulting from the hit Batman TV show, the serial was re-released as a 4-hour movie compiling all 12 chapters. Home media. Republic Pictures released the serial as a two-tape VHS set in 1995. The serial was released on DVD in 2003. Critical reception. Harmon and Glut claim that "Adventures of Captain Marvel" is "unquestionably one of the finest movie serials ever made, possible the best with the exception of the three Flash Gordon epics." Cline describes this as one of the most outstanding of all serials and Republic's "masterpiece." He writes that Tyler's "striking performance...remains in thousands of minds as the most memorable serial hero of all time - bar none." Influence. The characters of Betty Wallace, Whitey Murphy, and John Malcolm all appeared in the Fawcett comics in the 1940s starting with "Capt. Marvel And The Temple Of Itzalotahui"‏ ("Whiz Comics" #22, Oct. 3, 1941) featuring Murphy and Malcolm; Murphy made several appearances in the 1970s DC Comics incarnation of Captain Marvel. Fawcett also published a sequel to the film in 1941. Titled "The Return of the Scorpion", it was one of the four releases in its Dime Action Books series which imitated the format of the popular Big Little Books. The book is notable for reusing several characters from the movie and for being Otto Binder's first writing assignment at Fawcett; he went on to being a prolific scripter for the company. In 1994, comic book writer/artist Jerry Ordway wrote and painted a graphic novel, "The Power of Shazam!", and an ongoing comic book series spin-off which ran from 1995 to 1999. Ordway used the Republic serial as his initial inspiration in his handling of the Captain Marvel characters. Chapters. Source:
1044538	Psychomania (1973) is a British horror film and cult film starring Nicky Henson as a devil-worshipping gang leader and Robert Hardy as the detective in charge of bringing them in.
1264240	Kid Auto Races at Venice is a 1914 American film starring Charles Chaplin in which his "Little Tramp" character makes his first appearance in a film exhibited before the public. The first film to be produced that featured the character was actually "Mabel's Strange Predicament"; it was shot a few days before "Kid Auto Races" but released two days after it. Synopsis. Made by Keystone Studios and directed by Henry Lehrman, the movie portrays Chaplin as a spectator at a 'baby-cart race' in Venice, Los Angeles. The spectator keeps getting in the way of the camera and interferes with the race, causing great frustration to the public and participants. The film was shot during the Junior Vanderbilt Cup, an actual race with Chaplin and his co-stars improvising gags in front of real-life spectators. Unusually the camera breaks the fourth wall to show a second camera filming (as though it were the first), to better explain the joke. At this stage Chaplin only gets in the way of the visible camera on screen, not the actual filming camera. In so doing it takes on a spectator's viewpoint and becomes one of the first public films to show a film camera and cameraman in operation. Junior Vanderbilt Cup. By 1914, the Vanderbilt Cup had become an important automobile racing event in the United States, and the 1914 event was to be held in Santa Monica. The city decided to sponsor a junior version of the event, apparently with several classes of engines and with age limits for the drivers. Some classes had no engines and used a ramp to accelerate the cars in a manner similar to soap box derby races. Other classes used small engines. Chaplin's movie appears to take place below the ramp used for the engineless races. There is no evidence that Junior Vanderbuilt Cups were held either before or after the 1914 event. An actual silver cup was awarded. This cup resurfaced in 2012 and was auctioned on eBay.
584071	Angaadi Theru () is a 2010 Indian Tamil romantic drama film written and directed by Vasanthabalan, starring debutant Mahesh and Anjali in the lead roles. The title refers to the Ranganathan Street in Chennai where the story plays. The film features music jointly composed by Vijay Antony and G. V. Prakash Kumar. An Ayngaran International production, the film was launched on 11 February 2008 and released on 26 March 2010 to critical acclaim. The film was shortlisted for the Indian submissions for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film but lost to "Peepli Live". It released in Telugu as "Shopping Mall". Plot. Jyothi Lingam (Mahesh) is a bright student and son of a mason who leads a happy life in his village near Tirunelveli. One day tragedy strikes as his father the only earning member dies in an accident while crossing an unmanned railway gate, and young boy now has to look after his mother and two sisters. Due to circumstances, he is forced to abandon his studies, though he comes first in his school in the board exam. Through a canvassing agent, he and his friend Marimuthu, get jobs as sales boys in a textile showroom in Ranganathan Street in Chennai. Jyothi, along with hundreds of others, are employed at the Senthil Murugan Stores run by the big Annachi. In each floor at the textile showroom, there are around 50 to 60 sales boys and girls who work in pitiable conditions from early in the morning to late night, without any rest. He meets Kani (Anjali), a fiery independent girl. The difficult and harrowing times in the store bring them together as they face up to a cruel and lewd store supervisor Karungali (director A Venkatesh), who beats up the boys and molests the girls when they play around during duty hours. As Jyothi says there is no escape from the “Jail like” atmosphere in the shop where employees are treated more like slave labour in a concentration camp than without any human dignity. Angadi Theru is about how these two survive in a concentration camp like condition and what happens when fate perpetually smiles very cruelly at them. Sneha lights up the happenings in a small cameo as herself by doing a commercial advertisement for that Stores. This film is considered to be a milestone in Tamil cinema due its raw content. This movie is loosely based on the real happenings at the two Popular Stores in Ranganathan Street in Chennai. Reception. The film met with widespread critical acclaim. Behindwoods mentioned, "Angadi Theru is an eye opener to all those who are on the rosier side of life,it’s an overdose of emotions, but you don’t mind it: simply because the characters have handled the scenes so skilfully". Parvathi Srinivasan from Rediff described the film as a, "kind of cinema you keep hoping for and only rarely get," labeling it, "A must watch." Many reviewers appreciated Anjali's performance with Behindwoods commenting that, "The girl looks every bit her role with an impressive gamut of emotions running through her face." Chennaionline.com gave credit to the theme of the film by stating that, "Vasanthabalan must be applauded for courageously presenting us a film that looks into the darker side of the glittery world of massive show rooms. Awards. "Angaadi Theru" won the 2010 Best Film Award at the Chennai International Film Festival on 24 December 2010. It also won accolades in the following award ceremonies. 2010 Vikatan Awards Norway Tamil Film Festival Vijay Awards Filmfare Awards South Soundtrack. The soundtrack album was composed by G. V. Prakash Kumar, while Vijay Antony composed two songs and also scored the background music . Lyrics were penned by Na. Muthukumar. Shreya Ghoshal won Filmfare Award for Best Female Playback Singer – Tamil for the song 'Un Perai Sollum Podhe'. Tracklist
1059133	Hollywood Shuffle is a 1987 comedy film that satirizes the racial stereotypes of African Americans in film and television. The film tracks the attempts of Bobby Taylor to become a successful actor and the mental and external roadblocks he encounters, represented through a series of interspersed vignettes and fantasies. Produced, directed, and co-written by Robert Townsend, the film is semi-autobiographical, reflecting Townsend's experiences as a black actor when he was told he was not “black enough” for certain roles. Plot. Bobby Taylor (Robert Townsend) is a middle class black male aspiring to become an actor. He practices his lines in the bathroom, with his younger brother Stevie (Craigus R. Johnson) watching as he plays a stereotypical “jive” character for the audition for "Jivetime Jimmy's Revenge", a movie about street gangs. Bobby's grandmother (Helen Martin) overhears the “jive talk” and shows her disapproval. His mother (Starletta DuPois), is more supportive, telling Bobby that he is going to be late for the audition. Bobby assures his mother that if he lands the part, everything will change. As Bobby is about to leave the house, he finds his grandmother on the couch. Playing on television is a commercial for the sitcom "There's a Bat in My House", which poses the question “Can a black bat from Detroit find happiness with a white suburban family?” His grandmother wishes him luck, but still shows visible concern for the nature of the role. On his way to the audition, he stops by his uncle Ray's (David McKnight) barbershop. He then stops by his workplace at the Winky Dinky Dog hot dog stand where he finds his co-workers Tiny (Lou B. Washington) and Donald (Keenen Ivory Wayans), who berate him, as usual. He asks to see his boss, Mr. Jones (John Witherspoon). On his last stop before his audition, he goes to his girlfriend's (Anne-Marie Johnson) workplace at a salon where she gives him a scarf for good luck. Finally, he arrives at TinselTown Studios where he finds other aspiring black actors trying out for various roles in the film. There he meets another actor that comments on the degrading nature of roles offered to African Americans who only get to play slaves, butlers, or street hoods. He tells Bobby that only an "Uncle Tom" would take this role. The actor is clearly trying to stymie Bobby's chances, nevertheless it makes him think.
1068419	Harry Joseph Lennix III (born November 16, 1964) is an American actor. He is best known for his roles as Terrence "Dresser" Williams in the Robert Townsend film "The Five Heartbeats" and as Boyd Langton in the Joss Whedon television series "Dollhouse". Early life. Lennix, youngest of four siblings, was born in Chicago, Illinois, the son of Lillian C. (née Vines), a laundress, and Harry Lennix, Jr., a machinist. Lennix's father was a Creole from Louisiana. Lennix attended Quigley Preparatory Seminary South and Northwestern University, majoring in Acting and Direction. In his senior year at Northwestern, he was the coordinator of the African-American student organization, For Members Only. He taught music and civics for several years in the Chicago Public School system and is a frequent lecturer. Career. Lennix starred in the made-for-cable television film "Keep the Faith, Baby" as Rev. Adam Clayton Powell, Jr., the legendary Harlem Congressman from 1944 to 1972, debuting on Showtime Networks on February 17, 2002. Lennix has had supporting roles in films such as "The Matrix" series, "The Five Heartbeats", the Spike Lee film "Get on the Bus", "Stomp the Yard", "Ray", "Love & Basketball", ', and "State of Play". In television, he had a recurring role in ' as Agent Ron Wagner, as well as a voice-over role in the "Legion of Super Heroes" animated series. He starred in the ABC television series "Commander in Chief" and the movie "Titus" (based on Shakespeare's "Titus Andronicus") as Aaron the Moor. He had a recurring role in the sixth season of "24" as fictional Muslim civil rights activist Walid Al-Rezani. He appeared on the series "House M.D." as a paralyzed jazz trumpet player, and appeared in six episodes of "ER" as Dr. Greg Fischer. He also appeared in the episode "The Blame Game" of the first season of "Ally McBeal". He played the part of Boyd Langton in Joss Whedon's series "Dollhouse". and the President of the United States in the comedy sketch show "Little Britain USA".
583800	Seshu is a 2002 Indian Telugu film starring Dr. Rajasekhar in the lead role, directed by his wife Jeevitha Rajasekhar.
584094	Subramaniapuram is a 2008 Tamil film produced, written, and directed by M. Sasikumar. The low-budget film received critical acclaim for its original script, expert direction, screenplay, editing, accurate sets and costumes to resurrect Madurai from the 1980s. Sasikumar cast then relatively new actors Jai, Swathi, Ganja Karuppu and himself in pivotal roles. Shot in a remarkable 85 days, it became a huge box office grosser. Sasikumar is now considered one of the promising young directors in Tamil film industry.The film was latter dubbed into Telugu with the name "Ananthapuram 1980". It was remade in Kannada with the name Prem Adda which opened to generally positive reviews on December 7, 2012. Plot. The story takes place in the Subramaniapuram area of Madurai city. A convict is released from prison in 2008 and is stabbed outside the prison gates... The film then moves to 1980 where Azaghar (Jai), Paraman (M. Sasikumar), Kaasi (Ganja Karuppu), Dopa and Dumka, a polio-stricken physically challenged person, are part of a set of close friends, who are unemployed. They pass their time drinking liquor and fooling around on the streets opposite the house of an ex-councilor Somu. Kanugu (Samuthirakani) is his brother. Apart from them the family consists of Somu's wife, their three children including Thulasi (Swathi) and Thulasi's uncle. The five friends, particularly Paraman and Azhagu, often end up in jail due to frequent fighting. Cops get a call from someone complaining about the friends each time they do something wrong. Every time they are arrested, Kanugu and Somu bail them out immediately. In the meantime, Azhagu and Thulasi develop mutual feelings for each other. Paraman is against his friend developing feelings for a girl and Azhagu, not heeding to his friends thoughts, throw up quite a few funny scenes. There are signs of things to come when Somu is not selected in a local temple's committee for a function. Things take a sudden turn just before intermission when Somu loses his party's councilor post and is ridiculed by his wife for being jobless. This leads Kanugu to lock himself up in a lodge and drink all day. He makes sure the friends hear about him and come to visit. He requests them to murder the person who was chosen for councilor's post ahead of his brother. Azhagu, Paraman and Kaasi hatch a plan and execute the person almost perfectly. The first half ends here with them running away after the murder leaving a cycle behind. The second half begins with the cops finding out that Paraman and Azhagu have committed the murder with the help of the cycle they left behind. They surrender themselves before the court hoping that Kanugu will bail them out soon. But they come in for rude shock when they learn through Kaasi that Somu has been selected for the councilor's post and is avoiding their contact. They come to terms with reality and stay helpless in jail where they befriend a fellow inmate. He learns their situation and bails them out. The same friend who aided these guys expects a favor from them — kill his brother-in-law for murdering his sister. Accomplishing this task, these guys now look out for killing Kanugu who cheated them. In the meantime, Thulasi and Azaghu continue to meet up. This leads to Azhagan almost getting killed by Kanugu's men. The friends strike back killing those men later in the day. A few days later they end up hurting Thulasi's uncle in their bid to kill Kanugu. To save his life from the clutches of these buddies, Kanugu sets a trap for Azhagar using Thulasi as bait and kills him using his henchmen. Paraman takes revenge for his friend's death by decapitating Kanugu and laying his head at his friend's murder site. Paraman then calls to Kasi and reveals how he killed Kanugu, during which he sees Somu's henchmen rushing behind Kasi. Kasi betrays Paraman and leaves him at the mercy of the henchmen. The story shifts back to the present day where it's revealed the person who was stabbed outside the prison walls is Kasi. He lies in the hospital in critical condition and is being interrogated by a policeman. The doctor intervenes and asks him to leave, after which Dumka comes in and reveals that it is Dopa who stabbed him and then proceeds to remove his air supply and kills him after reminding him of his betrayal. Resurrecting the 1980s: The sets. Sasikumar started collecting old photos, banners and boards of shops to imitate the style of writing from that period and also searched the Internet for photographs of the 80s. He especially researched photographs of wedding processions along the streets for a clear picture of how the roads looked and the kind of vehicles in use. The team relied on this visual information to construct the sets for the movie. Music. Asked why he chose to work with James Vasanthan, a debutant music director when he had many other options, Sasikumar spoke of his apprehension to approach an established music director as he was a debut director himself. 'I was not sure whether they would listen to me and give me what I wanted' he said in an interview. Vasanthan had been Sasikumar's music teacher at St. Peter’s boarding school in Kodaikkanal. Sasikumar approached James with the project and the music became a remarkable success. Soundtrack. "Subramaniapuram" has five songs composed by James Vasanthan. This is the first time a Tamil movie featured a promotional song. (The song does not feature in the movie but has been released to media.) Box office. Produced on a budget of c.Rs.2.3 crore, the film was a surprise commercial success grossing c.Rs.9.2 crore at the box office. Its Telugu dubbing rights were sold for Rs. 2 crores.
1164967	Howard Weston "Ted" Bessell (March 20, 1935October 6, 1996) was an American television actor and director. Early career. Born in Flushing, New York, Bessell grew up in Manhasset on Long Island, New York. He was originally gearing up for a career as a classical musician. As a 12-year-old child prodigy, he performed a piano recital at Carnegie Hall. Bessell played lacrosse in high school with future football star and actor Jim Brown. However, after graduating from college in 1958, Bessell focused on acting. He studied with Sandford Meisner at the Neighborhood Playhouse, studied dance and dramatic movement with Martha Graham and Louis Horst, was a member of a professional acting class under Meisner, and worked with Wynn Handman in another professional acting group.
1057603	Where the Sidewalk Ends is a 1950 American film noir directed and produced by Otto Preminger. The screenplay for the film was written by Ben Hecht, and adapted by Robert E. Kent, Frank P. Rosenberg, and Victor Trivas. The screenplay and adaptations were based on the novel "Night Cry" by William L. Stuart. The drama features Dana Andrews, Gene Tierney and Gary Merrill. The film narrative concerns ruthless and cynical Mark Dixon (Dana Andrews), a metropolitan police detective, who despises all criminals because his father had been one. Considered a classic of the film noir genre, the brand of violence shown in the film, "lurking below urban society", is an important noir motif. Plot. New York City 16th Precinct Police Detective Dixon (Dana Andrews), who's in trouble with his superiors for his heavy-handed tactics, subjects murder suspect and gambler Ken Paine (Craig Stevens) to the third degree – he strikes the drunken Paine in self-defense and accidentally kills him. Paine, however, had a silver plate in his head, a fine war record, and newspaper friends. Dixon then dumps Paine's body in the river, and is later assigned to find his killer. Dixon tries to place the blame on an old gangster enemy, Tommy Scalise (Gary Merrill), yet, he inadvertently places the blame for the killing on cab driver Jiggs Taylor (Tom Tully). Having fallen in love with Jiggs' daughter and Paine's estranged wife, Morgan Taylor-Paine (Gene Tierney), Dixon tries to clear the cabbie without implicating himself, but ultimately he becomes trapped in a web created by himself. The 16th Precinct commander, Detective Lt. Thomas (Karl Malden), Dixon's boss, is convinced that Morgan's father is the killer. Dixon continues to find a way to stop Jiggs from being found guilty of murdering Paine, and also tries to redeem himself. In an attempt to move the evidence away from Morgan's father and blame Scalise, Dixon comes face to face with the gangster and his cronies. A shoot-out leaves Dixon wounded, but the police arrive to arrest Scalise and his mob. Jiggs is finally cleared of the charges. At the end Dixon reassesses his life and decides to confess. He's arrested and goes to jail. He's satisfied that Morgan will wait for him until his release. Background. This is the last film that Otto Preminger would make as a director-for-hire for Twentieth Century Fox in the 1940s. The series includes "Laura," which also stars Gene Tierney and Dana Andrews, "Whirlpool," and "Fallen Angel". Filming locations The film was entirely shot in New York: New York City and Washington Heights, Manhattan. Reception. Critical response. Most critics compare the film unfavorably to Preminger's earlier film "Laura" which used much of the same talent as this film. According to film writers, this film, a grittier "noir", does succeed in showing a darker side of police similar to the film noirs that follow it. "The New York Times" film critic, Bosley Crowther, while thinking the script was too far-fetched, liked the way the dialogue was written, and the acting as well. He wrote, "...the plausibility of the script by Ben Hecht, an old hand with station houses and sleazy underworldlings, is open to question on several counts. Not so, however, his pungent dialogue and unfolding of the plot, which Otto Preminger, who guided the same stars through "Laura" several seasons back, has taken to like a duck to water and kept clipping along crisply till the fadeout." The staff at "Variety" magazine praised the direction of the film. They wrote, "Otto Preminger, director, does an excellent job of pacing the story and of building sympathy for Andrews." Noir analysis. According to Boris Trbic, scriptwriter and media instructor, "Where the Sidewalk Ends" reflects a specific phase in the development of the film noir style. The large film production companies in the early 1950s backed away from the social-problem drama, and instead made "low-budget and low-risk thrillers" such as: "Panic in the Streets", "No Way Out", this film, and others. As such, they avoided the "wrath of conservative critics and social watchdogs."
1129438	Colin Egglesfield (born February 9, 1973) is an American actor. He is best known for his portrayal as Josh Madden in the long-running soap opera "All My Children", Evan on "The Client List", as well as Auggie Kirkpatrick on The CW's short-lived drama series "Melrose Place". Early life. Egglesfield was born in Farmington Hills, Michigan, the second child of Kathleen (née Dineen) and William Egglesfield, a physician. His mother is Irish. He has two siblings: an older sister, Kerry, and a younger brother, Sean. He was brought up in a Catholic household. Egglesfield spent his early childhood in the Metro Detroit area. At the age of ten, he and his family moved to Morris IL, a small community south of Chicago. Growing up, he was more studious than rambunctious, preferring to spend Friday nights alone building model airplanes. His dream was to follow his father's footsteps as a physician, but became interested in acting watching his older sister Kerry perform. Shy in his adolescent years, he credits his prep football coach with helping gain a positive self-esteem. Egglesfield graduated from Marian Catholic High School in Chicago Heights and went on to the University of Iowa's pre-med program. After he received his BS from Iowa he backpacked throughout Europe. To earn money for medical school, Egglesfield turned to modeling. He won a contest (he entered at the urging of a friend), and soon after, he left medicine behind for a modeling career. He is signed with Beatrice Model agency in Milan, Italy, and DNA Model Management in New York City. He modeled for Versace, Calvin Klein, and Armani, among others before he started acting. Career. After taking drama classes, Egglesfield found himself guest starring on television series such as "", "The $treet", "Gilmore Girls", "Charmed", and "Nip/Tuck". He also had a small role in the 2005 film "Must Love Dogs", in addition to many other minor film projects. On September 26, 2005, he made his debut on "All My Children", taking over the role of Josh Madden from his short-lived predecessor Scott Kinworthy. In 2005, Egglesfield was named one of "People" magazine's "Sexiest Men Alive". In 2006, he attended the "Cackalacky Film Festival" in Charlotte, N.C., where his film "Beautiful Dreamer" was awarded Best American Full Feature Film. Beginning in the fall of 2009, Egglesfield portrayed chef/surfer guy Auggie Kirkpatrick in CW's 2009 series "Melrose Place". However, due to a change in the direction of the show, Eggelesfield and his co-star Ashlee Simpson-Wentz were fired and his character was written out of the show during the thirteenth episode. In 2011, he starred in the film adaptation of "Something Borrowed" opposite Kate Hudson. As of May 2012, he appears on "The Client List" as a regular and on "Rizzoli & Isles" in a recurring role. He owns and runs his own New York City-based clothing company Shout Out Clothing!, which he principally uses as a vehicle to promote and support educational initiatives such as "Project Grad", and also "Stay in school" programs.
1033290	Dolly Wells (born 1972, in London), is an English comedy actress and daughter of the late comic actor John Wells. Parodying, she is best known alongside Kevin Bishop, playing over ten celebrity caricatures, in multi-series "Star Stories". The show was aired on Channel 4 and its début series was judged 'Britain's Best New TV Comedy', at the 2006 British Comedy Awards. "Star Stories" ran for four consecutive years. More mainstream, she is well known for having played Marmite's Fay Freely, leader of "The Love Party", their spoof political 2006 television commercial campaign. She has also appeared in "The IT Crowd", "Peep Show" and more recently co-starring in "Noel Fielding's Luxury Comedy".
584047	Piaa Bajpai is an Indian film actress and model, who appears in South Indian cinema. She is best known for her performances as Roshini in Venkat Prabhu's comedy "Goa" and Saro in K. V. Anand's political thriller "Ko". Piaa, with the motive of acting in films, earlier had been a model in commercials. Early life. Piaa Bajpai was born in Etawah but resettled in Delhi at 16 to attend a computer course while hoping to gain a break in films. Though her parents opposed her decision, she enrolled for a diploma in computer science, whilst undertaking small jobs such as working as a receptionist and tutoring in order to earn money to make a good portfolio. However after a year, the office job left her restless and she relocated to Mumbai on her own money. Piaa then began to work as a dubbing artiste for serials, but found the job depressing and moved onto modelling appearing in print-ads, commercials and music videos. Most notably, she went on to feature in adverts for Cadbury alongside veteran actor, Amitabh Bachchan and Sonata with cricketer, Mahendra Singh Dhoni. She was eventually signed on by noted film-maker Priyadarshan to appear in a commercial he directed and it became a platform for her to break into films. Career. After appearing in Priyadarshan's commercial, he offered her a chance to play a part in his Tamil film production, and Piaa accepted the offer after an audition. The comedy film, "Poi Solla Porom", was directed by A. L. Vijay and featured Karthik Kumar and Nassar in pivotal roles. Upon release the film won critical acclaim and favourable reviews, with Piaa's performance labelled as "bubbly and cheery". She went on to feature in Raju Sundaram's "Aegan" as a college student, with the film featuring her alongside Ajith Kumar, Nayantara and Navdeep. The film, a remake of 2004 Hindi film "Main Hoon Na", received average reviews whilst Piaa's portrayal of Amrita Rao's character from the original also garnered a mixed response with a critic citing "she hams it", whilst another cited "she was promising" in her role. In 2009, she appeared in a low-budget Telugu film, "Ninnu Kalisaka" and won positive acclaim for her portrayal of her character. On the final day of sets for "Aegan", Ajith Kumar introduced her to director Venkat Prabhu, who signed her for "Goa" sixth months later, to appear as the love interest of Jai in the film. During the making of the film in Langkawi, the crew cited that the hotel was haunted and Piaa came out with an account of an eerie experience in her hotel room. "Goa" became her big break and Piaa won critical acclaim for her portrayal of Goan girl Roshini with critics citing that she looked "promising" and "endearing", while the award-winning song "Idhu Varai" was shot featuring her character. With the help of director Vijay, she was selected to portray the lead role in Siddharth Chandrasekhar's comedy "Bale Pandiya" alongside Vishnu, becoming her first major release as a lead heroine. The film won mixed reviews, though Piaa's role was praised with a critic from Sify citing that "Piaa is improving with every film and looks cute". Piaa's next release was K. V. Anand's political thriller "Ko", in which she portrayed Saraswathi, a journalist, alongside Jeeva, Karthika Nair and Ajmal. Prior to release Piaa has revealed that the film will be a milestone in her career, citing that she is waiting for the release of the film adamantly. The film went on to win commercial and critical acclaim, with Piaa's performance winning particular praise. A critic cited that "Piaa is outstanding in a supporting role" and that "her natural flair in comedy brings the house down", whilst other reviewers labelled her as "effective" and that "she does the part well". She has recently signed on to appear in her first Malayalam language film, "Masters" opposite Prithviraj.
1415877	Christopher Kennedy Lawford (born March 29, 1955) is an American author, actor and activist and member of the prominent Kennedy family. Life and career. Lawford was born in Santa Monica, California, the eldest child and only son of actor Peter Lawford and Patricia "Pat" Kennedy. He is a nephew of John F. Kennedy and former cousin-in-law of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (appearing in two of his films, including "Terminator 3"). He holds a Bachelors of Arts from Tufts University, a J.D. from Boston College Law School, and a Masters Certificate in Clinical Psychology from Harvard University where he gained an academic appointment as a Lecturer in Psychiatry. Author. In September 2005, Harper Collins Publishers released Lawford's memoir "Symptoms of Withdrawal: A Memoir of Snapshots and Redemption" (William Morrow 2005, ISBN 0-06-073248-2), which immediately became a New York Times Bestseller. He hopes that his memoir illuminates the extraordinary circumstances of his life and brings to others a cohesive message of survival, hope and finding one’s integrity in a sea of ego and depravity. His next book, "Moments of Clarity: Voices from the Front Lines of Addiction and Recovery", released in 2009, is a moving series of essays by public figures, athletes and entertainers who have struggled with addiction to drugs and alcohol, and about the very moment they realized that their addiction had taken over their life, and that that was about to change, and that they would stop using drugs, including booze. Almost every person interviewed sought help from a 12 step fellowship such as AA, Narcotics Anonymous or another spiritually based means of support for recovery. In his own life, Lawford battled a drug and alcohol addiction for much of his early life, and has been in recovery for more than 24 years. Actor. Lawford spent over fifteen years in the film and television business as an actor, lawyer, executive, and producer. He began his career in Universal Studios’ Independent Film Acquisitions where he was responsible for the acquisition of "American Graffiti", one of the highest grossing films of the early 1970s. As an independent producer Lawford arranged financing for and produced films including "Kiss Me Guido" & "Drunks"; both films were selections in the Sundance Film Festival. Lawford's acting credits include "Eavesdrop", "Slipstream", "The World's Fastest Indian", "Terminator 3", "Blankman", "The Doors", "The Russia House", "Thirteen Days", and many others. His credits also include a three-year tenure on the soap opera "All My Children" and a role on "General Hospital". Activist. Lawford has worked extensively in politics, government and the non-profit sector holding executive staff positions with The Democratic National Committee, The Community Action for Legal Services Agency and in the Washington office of Senator Edward M. Kennedy. He has held staff positions on numerous national, state and local political campaigns, as well as with The Joseph P. Kennedy Jr. Foundation, Special Olympics and The Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University. He is presently a Public Advocacy Consultant for Caron Treatment Centers, and was recently appointed by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to serve on the California Department of Public Health Advisory Board. Awards and honors. Lawford supports Women in Recovery, Inc., a non-profit organization offering a live-in, 12-step program of rehabilitation for women in need, based in Venice, CA. This charity, which was founded by a longtime resident of Venice, Sister Ada Geraghty, annually honors those who've made a difference in helping women overcome substance abuse problems. Lawford was the 2006 honoree for Women in Recovery at their Gala; past honorees have included Jamie Lee Curtis, Angela Lansbury, and Anthony Hopkins. Insight on Castro. Lawford told Australian interviewers that he has been trying to make a film about the 1962 Cuban missile crisis from Cuba's perspective but that he has been stymied by the U.S. blockade. Lawford told the Australian newspaper that he sat next to Cuban leader Fidel Castro in Havana during a 2001 screening of "Thirteen Days", a film about the missile crisis. "It was incredible," he told the newspaper. "I went there and sat next to the guy my uncles were trying to kill. But President Castro believes if President Kennedy had lived, the embargo would have been lifted and they would have normalized relations." In a separate interview with the ABC, Lawford said Castro "got up at the end of the film and he said, 'You've made a great film, but you've ignored Cuba, now you have to make a film of what was happening here in Cuba during those thirteen days." Lawford said that he had returned to Cuba six times in an effort to do just that "but as you know we have an embargo against Cuba, which is one of the greatest foreign policy tragedies in the history of the United States." Art sale. In March 2010, Lawford sold at auction a 1965 Picasso painting, "Femme au Grand Chapeau. Buste." The painting was estimated to sell at Sotheby's for between $8 million to $12 million and ended up bringing $8.2 million, or $9.3 million with Sotheby's buyer's commission.
1034211	Thomas Patrick McKenna (7 September 1929 â 13 February 2011), known professionally as T.P. McKenna, was an Irish actor who worked on stage, in film and television in Ireland and the UK from the 1950s. Film and television. McKenna was born in Mullagh, County Cavan. During the 1960s and 1970s he appeared regularly in popular television dramas, including "The Avengers" (1964, 1965, 1968), "Danger Man" (1965), "The Saint" (1966, 1968), "Adam Adamant Lives!" (1967), "Jason King" (1972), "The Sweeney" (1975), "Blake's 7" (1978), "Minder" (1984) and in the "Doctor Who" serial "The Greatest Show in the Galaxy". He played Richmond in the Thames Television series "Callan" (1972) and made ten appearances in "Crown Court" (1974â1982), mainly as barrister Patrick Canty, while also appearing in the popular ATV anthology drama series "Love Story" (1965-1968). He also featured prominently in other television dramas including "The Duchess of Malfi" (1972), "The Changeling" (1974), "Holocaust" (1978), "The Manions of America" (1981), "To The Lighthouse" (1982), "Bleak House" (1985), "Strong Medicine" (1986), "Jack the Ripper" (1988), "Shoot to Kill" (1990), "Scarlet and Black" (1993) and the final episode of "Inspector Morse" (2000). He had prominent film roles in "Ulysses" (1967), Sam Peckinpah's film "Straw Dogs" (1971) where he appeared alongside Dustin Hoffman and "A Portrait of the Artist As A Young Man" (1977). Other film credits include The Charge of the Light Brigade (1967), Anne of the Thousand Days (1969), Perfect Friday (1970), Villain (1971), All Creatures Great and Small (1975), Mehmed My Hawk (1988), Pascali's Island (1988), The American (1998), Monarch (2000) and The Libertine (2004). He narrated the Emmy-winning documentary "Is There One Who Understands Me" (RTE, 1982). He also played chef 'Jean-Pierre O'Higgins' in Season 6, Episode 1, of Rumpole of the Bailey, entitled "Rumpole a la Carte", circa 1991. Theatre. On stage he appeared with leading theatre companies, including the Abbey Theatre, Dublin, the Royal Shakespeare Company and the Royal National Theatre Company. He was a member of the Abbey Theatre company from 1953 to 1962 performing in over seventy roles. In 1967 he was made an honorary life member of the company along with Cyril Cusack, Siobhan McKenna and Jack McGowran. He joined Stuart Burge's company at the Nottingham Playhouse in 1968 playing Trigorin in The Seagull and Sir Joseph Surface in Sheridan's School For Scandal, both directed by Jonathan Miller. In 1969 he created the role of Fitzpatrick in David Storey's 'The Contractor' directed by Lindsay Anderson at the Royal Court Theatre, London. The production later transferred to the Fortune Theatre and ran for over a year. In 1973 to took on the role of Andrew Wyke opposite his friend Donally Donnelly in the Irish premiere of Peter Shaffer's 'Sleuth'. The production played to acclaim in both Dublin and Cork and it broke the box office record for the Olympia Theatre. Later that year he joined the Royal Shakespeare Company and took over the role of Robert Hand in James Joyce's only play, 'Exiles' directed by Harold Pinter. In the same season he also appeared in a rare staging of Jean Genet's 'The Balcony' directed by Terry Hands. He returned to the RSC in 1976 for Shaw's 'The Devil's Disciple' directed by Jack Gold in a production to mark the American bicentennial celebrations as the revolutionary pastor Revd. Anderson.
1263952	Return to Sleepaway Camp (also known as Nightmare Vacation V and Sleepaway Camp V: The Return), is a 2008 American comedy-horror film and the fifth entry in the "Sleepaway Camp" series, serving as a reboot which ignores the events from the other sequels. It was was written and directed by Robert Hiltzik and released direct-to-video. Plot. Several boys are in their cabin lighting farts. After taking the lighter and attempting to light his own fart but falling short of the other boys' efforts, Alan (Michael Gibney) threatens Eddie (Miles Thompson), Mark (Tommy John Riccardo), Billy (Dino Roscigno) and Pee Pee (Paul Iacono), but is soon stopped by camp counselor, Randy (Brye Cooper), who is irritated with him. After a failed camp announcement by the owner in the dining hall, Alan gets into a violent confrontation with Randy after he complains about the food. Ronnie (Paul DeAngelo) allows Alan to go the kitchen to get something else to eat so as not to exascerbate the fight, but Alan ends up in trouble again, this time with cook Mickey (Lenny Venito), who throws eggs at him. Alan then throws a butcher knife at Mickey and the camp owner, Frank (Vincent Pastore), seeing what he did, argues with Alan after already being annoyed by his past misbehavior. Alan, suffering from Autism, runs away feeling rejected, with his stepbrother Michael (Michael Werner) chasing after him. After being threatened, Michael goes back to the camp, telling Alan that he does not care what he does any more. In the kitchen, Mickey is killed after being held above and dumped into the deep fryer by an unseen character while cooking french fries for dinner. His body is then dumped in the trash compactor. During the social, Alan is fooled by Terry "Weed" (Adam Wylie) and Stan (Chaz Brewer) into smoking dried cow manure, mistaking it for marijuana which makes him cough and falls on Stan's crotch, earning him the nickname "Blowjob", which sticks and later plays a significant role in the film. After the social, a high Weed is tied to a chair and gasoline is squirted down his throat. The killer then sticks a lit-up cigarette in his mouth and his insides explode, killing him. Ronnie starts to suspect that the murders that happened twenty five years ago are happening again. Frank, in an attempt to ignore bad publicity, states that the murders were accidental and the camp continues to go on with its normal activities. A week later, Alan is bullied by being shot during a paintball game by all the players. In order to steal Karen (Erin Broderick) away from Alan (who has arranged to meet up with her), Michael makes Alan look like a psychopath by skinning the frogs Alan sits with in the forest. Karen and her friend Marie (Samantha Hahn) run away. Alan is again bulled by T.C. (Christopher Shand) and Chooch (Lucas Blondhelm), who give him a wedgie in front of everyone at the waterfront. That night, Michael, T.C. and Marie force Karen to lure Alan to the back of the stage, where they take his clothes off, tie him up, blindfold him and embarrass him in front of everyone at the social. Ronnie suspects that counselor Petey (Kate Simses) is the killer for being everywhere when Alan is in trouble. Suddenly outside, T.C. and nine others start calling Alan "Blowjob", which causes him to become frustrated and run off into the night. After returning to his cabin, Frank is knocked unconscious with a hammer and wakes up with his head inserted in a birdcage. The killer opens up the birdcage, places two rats inside and locks it. The rats eat through his head and down into his intestines, killing him. Meanwhile, Randy and Linda (Jackie Tohn) go to the pump house to have sex. Whilst Randy is pissing, an unseen person ties him to a tree, using fishing line as a noose to wrap around his penis. Suddenly, Linda panics (upon returning from getting a sleeping bag and beer) after hearing Randy attempt to placate the killer (who he thinks to be Alan), and drives off in the jeep, but the fishing line is tied to the jeep and, while driving at 85 mph, tears Randy's penis off, gorily killing him. Linda continues to drive, but crashes after driving through a wrapped barbed wire line, which wraps around her face, killing her. At the camp, F.C. has been grounded for the rest of the summer for bullying Alan. After Spaz (Jake O'Conner) visits him again, a wooden spear comes through a hole in the floor while T.C. is looking into it and cuts him in the eye, gruesomely killing him. Meanwhile, Jenny (Jaime Radow) and Ronnie find Frank dead in his office. They begin rounding up everyone left in the camp, as Ronnie believes that Angela has returned and resumed her murders. Bella (Shahida McIntash) goes back to her cabin, where she finds that the bunk above her has been replaced with spikes. The killer, who is also in the cabin, jumps down from the rafters and lands on top of the top bunk, causing it to fall on Bella, piercing her with the spikes and killing her. Soon, T.C. and Bella are found dead and after the counselors leave, Ricky Thomas (Jonathan Tiersten) is called by Sheriff Jerry, while Karen, who discovered Bella with Marie and ran off in fright, believing Alan committed the murder and she will be his next victim and after finding Randy's and Linda's corpses, bumps into the killer and faints. Karen wakes up at the rec hall with a rope hanging from a basketball hoop tied around her neck. The killer flips a switch to raise the net, causing Karen to be lifted off the ground. Michael comes in before Karen is killed, causing the killer to run off, and lowers the net. After Karen tells him that she thinks Alan is the killer, Michael grabs a mallet and goes after Alan, who he beats with the mallet. Suddenly, the killer appears behind Michael as the screen fades to black. Ronnie, Ricky and Jenny find a badly-wounded, but still alive Alan on the ground. As Ronnie questions Alan who is responsible for his injuries, Sheriff Jerry walks into view of Ronnie and Ricky, explaining through his mechanical voice box that kids never learn and are always mean, and declaring, "I've been waiting a long time for this. A long time." Confirming Ronnie's suspicions, it is then revealed that Sheriff Jerry is Angela Baker (Felissa Rose). Nearby, Ricky, Jenny and Ronnie find a nearly-dead Michael skinned alive on the ground as Angela laughs maniacally. She suddenly stops laughing and looks at the audience with a vicious expression on her face. Michael dies as the scene cuts to the end credits. After the ending credits are over, a clip is shown, which takes place three weeks prior to the events of the film. It shows that Angela had escaped from the psychiatric clinic she had been locked up in for twenty years. After somehow acquiring a car, Angela apparently disables it by causing a brake fluid leak and flags down Sheriff Pete (Carlo Vogel), the real sheriff. She murders him by dropping the car on his head and, presumably, steals his clothes to become the new sheriff. Cast. Hiltzik's three daughters each played a small role in the film, and are also credited in the end credits. Samantha Hiltzik plays Carly, Emily Hiltzik plays Tracey, and Lindsay Hiltzik plays Toby, whose pigtails Alan pulls several times. Lindsay/Toby also has the greatest number of shots and lines out of Hiltzik's three daughters. Members of the metal band CKY also appear as counselors in small roles (lead singer/guitarist Deron Miller is married to Felissa Rose and is a self-professed fan of the original movie). Production. "Return to Sleepaway Camp" wrapped filming in 2003 and was scheduled to be released theatrically in 2004-2006 but due to unsatisfactory CGI effects and a lack of distribution deals, the film did not see release until November of 2008. The executive producer of the film, Tom van Dell, claimed that the most of the corrected CGI was completed as of December 2006, but the director, Robert Hiltzik confirmed that it needed more work to meet his expectations. By 2007, compositors and CGI personnel had been hired by Tom van Dell to correct the effects. Additionally, a small special F/X group was hired to reshoot work unapproved by Hiltzik. Such included the skinned body of the characrter Michael, additions to the death of teen camper TC, along with unfinished/pick-up shots. All works were finished by 2008 and the producers had secured distribution through Magnolia Pictures. The film was released direct-to-video in the United States on November 4, 2008 and was released internationally 2009.
1000413	Ankush is a 1986 Hindi movie written, directed, edited and co-produced by N. Chandra starring Nana Patekar. It is a story of four lower middle class unemployed young men in Mumbai (then Bombay) who feel disconnected with society and are wasting their life away when new neighbours, a young beautiful girl Nita (Nisha Singh) and her grandmother, change their perspective. They change their attitude and try and blend in with the normal, honest and hard-working society of 1980s India when Nita is raped at the hands of her employers. However the culprits are let off for the want of evidence and Nita takes extreme step of suicide. They then take revenge of each and every culprit in a very novel way. It also shows their distrust in the law of the land. The movie has a tragic end with all four getting capital punishment for doing what they thought was correct, specially so when law of land fails to book the criminals for their wrongdoings. Although a small budget film with then unknown actors film was a big hit in Mumbai (then Bombay) as it realistically depicted social conditions prevailing then in the aftermath of famous Mumbai (then Bombay) cotton textile mills strike which rendered thousands jobless. The film stars a very young Nana Patekar, and has an excellent and memorable Bhajan of Indian Cinema : 'Itni Shakti Humen de na daata' by Ghsnshyam Wasvani. Writer, Editor, Director and co-producer N.Chandra earned both popular as also critical acclaim for this film. He had earlier worked under Gulzar as an editor. Chandrashekhar Narvekar alias N Chandra scored a hat-trick at the box office with his first three films, Ankush (1986), Pratighaat (1987) and Tezaab (1988). Ankush has earned the status of a cult classic over time, and the ending scene which symbolizes their hanging in front of the India Gate has received much attention. The film is one of the very first realistic depictions of inner city adolescents growing up in an atmosphere of social and economic deprivation.
395982	Jang Hyuk (born Jung Yong-joon on December 20, 1976) is a South Korean actor. He is best known for his leading roles in "Windstruck", "The Slave Hunters", and "Deep Rooted Tree". Career. As a child, Jang Hyuk spent most of his life in his birthplace Busan, before making his drama debut in the SBS drama "Model" in 1997. Besides the TV drama "School" and a minor role in the little-seen film "Zzang", Jang appeared in the music video "To My Mother", the 1999 debut single of popular boyband g.o.d.. He also acted in several music videos from his rap album, released in 2000 under the name "TJ Project". His career first began to take off in 2001 when he was cast in the lead role of the special-effects extravaganza "Volcano High" together with actress Shin Min-ah. His acting in the eccentric role drew praise from fans and critics. In 2002 he continued to make a name for himself, starring in the sleeper hit "Jungle Juice", which made the top of the weekly box-office, and especially in the hugely popular TV drama "Successful Story of a Bright Girl" with actress Jang Na-ra. He also took a role in "Public Toilet", the HK-Korea co-production by acclaimed Hong Kong director Fruit Chan which won a Special Mention in the Upstream section of the 2002 Venice film festival. In 2003 Jang appeared with actress Lee Na-young in the comedy "Please Teach Me English", by director Kim Sung-soo. His next project was even more high-profile, opposite top star Jeon Ji-hyun in Kwak Jae-yong's "Windstruck". Although this film was generally not well received in Korea, it went on to beat "Shiri" and become one of the best-selling Korean films in Japan. In late 2004, together with fellow actors Song Seung-heon and Han Jae-suk, Jang was found to have illegally avoided his mandatory military service. Amid widespread public condemnation, Jang apologized to his fans, then began to serve his two-year term.
1033896	Dame Celia Elizabeth Johnson DBE (18 December 1908 – 25 April 1982) was an English actress. She began her stage acting career in 1928, and subsequently achieved success in West End and Broadway productions. She also appeared in several films, including the romantic drama "Brief Encounter" (1945), for which she received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actress. She was nominated for BAFTA Awards on five occasions, and won twice, for her work in the film "The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie" (1969), and for the television production "Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont", a BBC "Play for Today" broadcast in 1973.
1105179	Morwen B. Thistlethwaite is a knot theorist and professor of mathematics for the University of Tennessee in Knoxville. He has made important contributions to both knot theory and Rubik's Cube group theory. Biography. Morwen Thistlethwaite received his BA from the University of Cambridge in 1967, his MSc from the University of London in 1968, and his PhD from the University of Manchester in 1972 where his advisor was Michael Barratt. He studied piano with Tanya Polunin, James Gibb and Balint Vazsonyi, giving concerts in London before deciding to pursue a career in mathematics in 1975. He taught at the North London Polytechnic from 1975 to 1978 and the Polytechnic of the South Bank, London from 1978 to 1987. He served as a visiting professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara for a year before going to the University of Tennessee, where he currently is a professor. Thistlethwaite's son Oliver is also a mathematician. Work. Tait conjectures. Morwen Thistlethwaite helped prove the Tait conjectures, which are: Morwen Thistlethwaite, along with Louis Kauffman and K. Murasugi proved the first two Tait conjectures in 1987 and Thistlethwaite and William Menasco proved the Tait flyping conjecture in 1991. Thistlethwaite's algorithm. Thistlethwaite also came up with a well-known solution to the Rubik's Cube. The way the algorithm works is by restricting the positions of the cubes into groups of cube positions that can be solved using a certain set of moves. The groups are: The cube is solved by moving from group to group, using only moves in the current group, for example, a scrambled cube likely lies in group G0. A look up table of possible permutations is used that uses quarter turns of all faces to get the cube into group G1. Once in group G1, quarter turns of the up and down faces are disallowed in the sequences of the look-up tables, and the tables are used to get to group G2, and so on, until the cube is solved. Dowker notation. Thistlethwaite, along with Clifford Hugh Dowker, developed Dowker notation, a knot notation suitable for computer use and derived from notations of Tait and Gauss.
1063094	Training Day is a 2001 American crime drama film directed by Antoine Fuqua, written by David Ayer, and starring Denzel Washington and Ethan Hawke. The story follows two LAPD narcotics detectives over a 24-hour period in the gang neighborhoods of North West and South Central Los Angeles. The film was a box office success and earned mostly positive critical appraisal. Washington's performance, a departure from his usual roles, was particularly praised and earned him an Academy Award for Best Actor at the 74th Academy Awards. His co-star Ethan Hawke was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance as a rookie cop. Plot. The film follows a single day in the life of a Los Angeles Police Department officer, Jake Hoyt (Hawke), who is scheduled to be evaluated by Detective Wyatt "Alonzo" Becker (Washington), a highly decorated LAPD narcotics officer. In Alonzo's car, the pair of officers observes teenage Mara Salvatrucha gang members dealing drugs in a park. Alonzo confiscates the drugs and tells Jake to take a hit from the marijuana. Jake initially refuses, but Alonzo puts a gun to his head and says Jake's failure to use drugs could get him killed by a street dealer.
1163454	Keenan Wynn (July 27, 1916 – October 14, 1986) was an American character actor. His expressive face was his stock in trade, and though he rarely carried the lead role, he got prominent billing in most of his film and television parts. Early life and career. Wynn was born in New York City as Francis Xavier Aloysius James Jeremiah Keenan Wynn, the son of vaudeville comedian Ed Wynn and wife, the former Hilda Keenan. He took his stage name from his maternal grandfather, Frank Keenan, one of the first Broadway actors to star in Hollywood. His father was Jewish and his mother was of Irish Catholic background. Ed Wynn encouraged his son to become an actor, and the two appeared together in the original "Playhouse 90" television production of Rod Serling's "Requiem for a Heavyweight". The son was returning the favor: according to radio historian Elizabeth McLeod, it was Keenan who had helped his father overcome professional collapse and a harrowing divorce and nervous breakdown to return to work a decade earlier, and who now helped convince Serling and producer Martin Manulis that the elder Wynn should play the wistful trainer. He also appeared in a subsequent TV drama detailing the problems they had experienced while working on that show called "The Man in the Funny Suit". In it, the Wynns, Serling, and much of the cast and crew played themselves. Keenan also featured in another Rod Serling production, a "The Twilight Zone" episode entitled, "A World of His Own" (1960) as playwright Gregory West, who uniquely caused the series's creator Rod Serling to disappear. Film and television. Wynn appeared in hundreds of films and television shows between 1934 and 1986. His early post-war credits include "Annie Get Your Gun" (1950), "Royal Wedding" (1951), "Kiss Me, Kate" (1953), "Battle Circus" (1953), "The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit" (1956), "A Hole in the Head" (1959), "The Absent-Minded Professor" (1961), "Son of Flubber" (1963) and "Dr. Strangelove" (1964). He had an uncredited role in "Touch of Evil" (1958). In the 1959-1960 television season, Wynn co-starred with Bob Mathias in NBC's "The Troubleshooters", an adventure program about unusual events surrounding an international construction company. Wynn played the role of Kodiak, the "troubleshooter", for Mathias's Frank Dugan. He appeared in numerous television series, such as the ABC/Warner Brothers drama, "The Roaring 20s," "The Islanders", and the ABC western series, "The Travels of Jaimie McPheeters". Wynn took a dramatic turn as Yost in the crime drama "Point Blank" (1967) with Lee Marvin. He played Hezakiah in the 1965 comedy film, "The Great Race" (1965). He was the voice of the Winter Warlock in "Santa Claus Is Comin' to Town" (1970) and was in several Disney films, including "Snowball Express" (1972), "Herbie Rides Again" (1974) and "The Shaggy D.A." (1976). He appeared in Francis Coppola's musical "Finian's Rainbow" (1968), Sergio Leone's epic western "Once Upon a Time in the West" (also 1968), and Robert Altman's "Nashville" (1975). During this time his guest television roles included "Alias Smith and Jones" (1971-1972), "Emergency!" (1975), "Movin' On" (1975), and "The Bionic Woman" (1978).
1058282	Saw 3D (released on home media as Saw: The Final Chapter) is a 2010 3D horror film directed by Kevin Greutert, written by Patrick Melton and Marcus Dunstan, and starring Tobin Bell, Costas Mandylor, Betsy Russell, Sean Patrick Flanery, and Cary Elwes. It is the seventh and final installment of the "Saw" film series, and the only film in the series to be in 3D. The film focuses on a man who untruthfully claims to be a Jigsaw survivor and writes a book detailing his experience, becoming a local celebrity. He soon finds himself part of a real Jigsaw game where he must ultimately save his wife. Meanwhile, Jill Tuck explains to an internal affairs officer that rogue Detective Hoffman is the man responsible for the recent Jigsaw games; Tuck is put under police protected custody while officers search for Hoffman. An eighth installment was planned, but the decrease in the box office performance for "Saw VI" compared to previous installments led to "Saw 3D" being the final planned film in the series, and the plot concept for "Saw VIII" being incorporated into "Saw 3D". "Saw V" director David Hackl was to direct the film, but two weeks before filming Lionsgate announced that Greutert, who directed the sixth film, would direct. Principal photography took place in Toronto, Ontario, from February to April 2010 and was shot with the SI-3D digital camera system, as opposed to shooting with traditional cameras and later transferring to 3D in post-production. "Saw 3D" was originally scheduled to be released on October 22, 2010, but was pushed back a week to October 29, 2010, in the United States and Canada; it was released a day earlier in the United Kingdom and Australia. The film was initially rated NC-17 (no children 17 and under admitted) by the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) and had to be edited and re-submitted six times to finally receive an R rating while in Australia, the film received an R18+ rating despite all the previous installments having an MA15+ for their theatrical release. "Saw 3D" opened at number one making over $22.5 million. It received largely negative reviews from critics but was a box office success. Plot. In a flashback sequence following the first film, Dr. Lawrence Gordon (Cary Elwes) crawls from the bathroom to find help after sawing off his foot. Along the way, he reaches a steam pipe and uses it to cauterize his ankle stump. In the present, Ryan (Jon Cor) and Brad (Sebastian Pigott) awaken in a storefront window in a shopping area in front of a crowd of people, their wrists bound to a worktable. In front of each man is a buzz saw, and their mutual lover, Dina (Anne Lee Greene) is suspended above a third saw. Jigsaw's puppet tells them that they can either kill each other or allow Dina to die. After realizing her betrayal, they decide to save themselves and allow her to lower onto the saw, killing her. After witnessing Mark Hoffman's (Costas Mandylor) survival from the end of the sixth film, Jill Tuck (Betsy Russell) goes to Matt Gibson (Chad Donella), an internal affairs detective at Hoffman's precinct, and offers to incriminate Hoffman in exchange for immunity and protection. Meanwhile, Hoffman abducts four racist skinheads and places them in the Horsepower Trap that kills all of them. After a gathering of past Jigsaw survivors, including Lawrence Gordon (now using a foot brace and cane) and several others from previous films, takes place, Hoffman abducts the host, Bobby Dagen (Sean Patrick Flanery), a self-help guru who achieved fame and fortune by falsely claiming to have survived a Jigsaw trap. Hoffman sends videos to Gibson throughout the film, offering cryptic clues to his location and promising to stop the games if Jill is given to him. Bobby awakens in an abandoned insane asylum and is informed that his wife Joyce (Gina Holden) has also been abducted and will die if he does not save her within an hour. After escaping a cage hanging over a floor of spikes, Bobby makes his way through the asylum to find his wife. Along the way, he finds Nina (Naomi Snieckus), his publicist; Suzanne (Rebecca Marshall), his lawyer; and Cale (Dean Armstrong), his closest friend in separate traps. Despite his efforts to save them, all three are killed. Gibson eventually discovers the location of the asylum and sends a SWAT team, who are all killed by toxic gas after being sealed elsewhere in the asylum. Gibson locates Hoffman's command center, where he discovers that Hoffman has hacked the police security system, and is killed by an automatic gun turret along with his men. After removing his upper wisdom teeth to retrieve a combination to a locked door, Bobby reaches Joyce and is forced to drive two hooks through his pectoral muscles, the trap he claimed to survive, and hoist himself up by the chains to deactivate her trap. After Bobby fails when the hooks rip through his muscles, a brazen bull capsule closes around Joyce and incinerates her. Hoffman, who had been posing as one of the junkyard corpses, infiltrates police headquarters and kills everyone in his path leading to Jill. After a brief struggle, he finally knocks out Jill and restrains her to a chair then secures the original Reverse Bear-trap to her head, which kills her in a gruesome fashion. After he destroys his workshop and begins to leave town, Hoffman is attacked and captured by three Pighead-masked figures, led by Lawrence Gordon. Flashbacks reveal that John Kramer (Tobin Bell) found Lawrence by the steam pipe and nursed him to health, and Lawrence had helped John in secret ever since. Tasked to watch over Jill after John's death and to take action if anything happened to her, Lawrence brings Hoffman to the bathroom from the first film and shackles him by the ankle. He tosses the hacksaw he had sawed his own foot off with far from Hoffman's reach, and then seals the door to the bathroom, leaving a furious Hoffman to die. Production. Development. "Variety" reported in July 2009 that Lionsgate greenlit "Saw VII" and announced David Hackl would return to direct, his last film being "Saw V". Producers Mark Burg and Oren Koules, and writers Patrick Melton and Marcus Dunstan also returned. Brian Gedge replaced series' cinematographer David Armstrong. Pre-production began on September 14, 2009. According to Melton, there were plans to title the film "Saw: Endgame". Originally two sequels were planned after the sixth, but in December 2009 Melton stated in a podcast interview with the UK radio station Demon FM that "Saw VII" was the final installment and would address unanswered questions from previous "Saw" films, such as the fate of the first film's protagonist Dr. Lawrence Gordon and other Jigsaw survivors from previous films, while bringing a final resolution to the series. The storyline for a "Saw VIII" was combined into "Saw VII"; this decision was primarily due to "Saw VI" below average box office performance. On July 22, 2010 in an interview with "USA Today" the producers confirmed that "Saw VII" will officially end the film series. Burg told Reuters that, "In every "Saw" movie, we left questions open and in "Saw VII" we answer every question the audience has ever had". He added that, "even new viewers will be able to follow and get caught up to speed". In January 2010, Kevin Greutert, who made his directorial debut with the sixth film, was about to begin work on Paramount's "Paranormal Activity 2" when Twisted Pictures suddenly dismissed Hackl and forced Greutert on the project by exercising a "contractual clause" in his contract, much to Greutert's dismay. When Greutert arrived on set two weeks before filming began, he performed a "compressive re-write" of the script. Melton explained that, "He has a lot of ideas, but it’s a bit hard and extreme to implement all of these ideas because sets have been built, people have been cast, props have been bought or created, and with the "Saw" films they are so specific in set design because of the traps. It becomes very problematic and difficult to change things a whole bunch right in the middle of it". Casting. Casting began in mid-December 2009. On February 22, 2010, Cary Elwes was listed on the Toronto Film & Television's official list of personnel website for "Saw 3D" but on March 8 his name along with other cast members were removed from the list. The following month, Lionsgate confirmed his reprisal of the role of Lawrence Gordon, last seen in the first film. Dunstan and Melton said that Elwes filmed new scenes. The filmmakers wanted to bring Elwes back earlier, but Elwes wanted to wait until the last film. He described his character as having Stockholm syndrome. Chad Donella appeared in the film as Internal Affairs Detective Gibson, who was also Hoffman's former partner. Gabby West, who won the second season of "Scream Queens", plays Kara in the film. Chester Bennington, the lead vocalist of the alternative rock band Linkin Park, has a role in the film playing Evan, a white power skinhead. Bennington met with an acting coach to prepare for his role. He said, "It was actually a little more difficult than I expected because it took a lot for me to figure out how to portray this guy and what exactly his motives were going to be throughout. I thought maybe I was overthinking it, and I met with this really great acting coach who helped me walk through and make sense of the, 'Motivation' ". Devon Bostick was offered to reprise his role as Brent from "Saw VI", but turned it down due to scheduling conflicts. Filming in 3D. "Saw 3D" was shot entirely in RealD 3D using the SI-3D digital camera system; rather than filming on set traditionally and later transferring the footage to 3D. Before choosing 3D, Burg and others viewed a minute of the original "Saw" film rendered in 3D and were pleased, which led to them choosing 3D for the seventh film. The sets and traps were designed to take advantage of 3D. To continue the fast pace of the previous films, the SI-3D cameras' light weight allowed three-quarters of film to be shot handheld. "Saw 3D" was Greutert's first time directing a 3D film. He said in an interview with "Popular Mechanics" that composing a shot in 3D was tricky compared to 2D; he explained, "If you've got both cameras looking at a subject and there's a very bright sheen on the side of the person's arm that only one camera can see, there's a good chance that when you look at a composite of the two images that sheen will not register in 3D space. It looks like a mistake. These things aren't an issue at all in 2D but in 3D are obsessively problematic". Given the cost of filming in 3D, Greutert said the budget was $17 million, the most expensive of the series. Principal photography began on February 8, 2010 in Toronto, Ontario and wrapped on April 12, 2010. Filming took place mostly at Toronto's Cinespace Film Studios. When determining the style of 3D shooting they wanted to use, Burg felt that the audience would want several moments where objects move into the audience, comparing this to "My Bloody Valentine 3D". He acknowledged that this method would be used, but expressed an interest in shooting from the victim's perspective, similar to that of first-person shooter video games being rendered in 3D. Dunstan added that "It adds a whole new layer of discipline and criteria to creating these moments. We've had a very flat surface to try to get a reaction out of you. Now, we get to push out a bit and envelop the viewer, still maintaining the patterns that have worked and been successful, but also to raise it up a notch." Commenting on the change to filming in 3D, Bell stated it would not affect his performance or methods of acting, noting that it would be an "interesting experience". Mandylor called the 3D shoot "more tedious and longer". Flannery described the 3D aspect as being " shot in 3D so that you can, per se, see blood coming directly at you. It's in 3D for the texture and the depth, for the architecture, to get a sense that you're in the scene but there's no 'we want to see blood coming at the lens' it's nothing like that. But I think we made a good movie." Post-production services were provided by Deluxe. Traps. Filming of the trap scenes, which was done last, began in March. The film's opening trap scene was filmed at Metro Hall in Toronto, Ontario, just outside of Roy Thomson Hall, and included 400 extras. In the trap, the circular saw blades were actually real and functional, but safety precautions were taken for the actors. One actor that was in the trap, Jon Cor, told Demon FM that he had scars on his hands from the shackles, and said the other actors, Sebastian Pigott chipped his tooth and Anne Lee Greene lost the feeling in her feet and had to receive medical attention. Producer Oren Koules told horror news website ShockTilYouDrop.com that there are eleven traps in the film, the most ever in the franchise. There is one "trap" scene in the film that producers would not allow in previous "Saw" films that they described as "too violent", "too disgusting", and "just wrong". Melton later confirmed that was the "Garage Trap", which involved a car and sets off a "chain reaction" with other characters. Gabby West was part of the trap. She told VH1, "They molded my entire face, and basically my entire upper body after my belly button. They put layers and layers of different materials on you and you have two straws in your nose so you can breathe. It was so scary! They put so much of it on, you can't see and they put it in your ears so you can barely hear anything. That was part of the prep for the film, which was really cool, to have a dummy made of yourself. But scary." Over 25 gallons of fake blood was used in the film, which was two and half times more than "Saw II". Music. The film's score was composed by Charlie Clouser and released on iTunes through Evolution Music Partners on November 2, 2010. The "Saw 3D" soundtrack is "inspired by the film" and features music from rock bands including Dir En Grey, Boom Boom Satellites, Saliva, Krokus, Hinder, Karnivool, My Darkest Days and Chester Bennington's Dead By Sunrise. It was released through SonyMusic Independent Network (SIN) and Artists' Addiction Records on October 26, 2010. The song "Life Won't Wait" by Ozzy Osbourne was announced in the Production Notes, but was not actually played during the film's end credits. Marketing. On July 8, 2010, in some press materials for San Diego Comic-Con, the film was referred to as "Saw 3D: The Traps Come Alive", which led to the media assuming it was the final name. The following day, Burg and Koules said that "The Traps Come Alive" was simply a tagline that had been misinterpreted as part of the title. Koules said that if they included the seventh roman numeral followed by "3D" ("Saw VII 3D"), it would have been "cumbersome" and not made the impact they wanted. He explained, "It was such a process in 3D, so much hard work was put in. "Saw VII 3D" is too much. This is like a new movie. [...]" In the same interview, the producers addressed "Saw" presence at Comic-Con 2010 in San Diego. They said that the footage that was going to be used for the convention could not get approved for the audience; Koules explained, "It's going to be different than what we've done before, we're going to be at Comic-Con but we're not in Comic-Con"." The Comic-Con teaser trailer was released via IGN on July 22, 2010. The next day of the convention, the first eight minutes of the film were screened for the press and a few fans. The trailer shown in the United Kingdom during a break from "The Gadget Show" was banned after a 10 year-old child complained that it was "distressing" and "inappropriately scheduled". Clearcast had cleared the trailer for 19:00 GMT, but did not actually air until 20:29. In one scene of the trailer people in a cinema become trapped to the seats by metal restraints with a hand coming through the screen pulling a person in. The Advertising Standards Authority said it was "likely to cause distress to young children". In Massachusetts a branch of Showcase Cinemas showed "Saw 3D" instead of the cartoon "Megamind", which was being watched by a 7 year-old celebrating a birthday. It took several minutes before the cinema employees fixed the mistake. Release. "Saw 3D" was distributed theatrically by Lionsgate Entertainment in the United States and through Maple Pictures in Canada. The film was originally scheduled to be released on October 22, 2010, but in July 2010 the date was pushed back to October 29. It also had preview screenings on October 28, 2010 in 2,000 locations. Since the release of "Saw IV", each film has been released a day earlier in Australia and New Zealand; "Saw 3D" continued the tradition in Australia, though the New Zealand release was not released until March 3, 2011. The film was initially rated NC-17 (no children 17 and under admitted) by the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) and had to be edited and re-submitted six times to secure an R rating. In Australia, the Australian Classification Board gave a heavy R18+ (restricted to 18 and over) for "high impact violence, blood and gore", whereas all previous "Saw" films were rated MA15+. Censorship in Germany. Germany banned its showing as a whole because the Amtsgericht Tiergarten has noted that several scenes in the movie violate the violence act §131 StGB. Thereby the movie is banned in Germany. Private copies are still legal to own and personal use is not punishable; however any public show of the movie is a highly prohibited and punishable act. There is a censored "Keine Jugendfreigabe/No youth admitted" version, but it has all the violent scenes cut out. Retailing this copy is still legal, since "KJ" rated movies cannot be indexed/banned. Home media. Burg said in an interview with Bloomberg Television on October 25, 2010 that the DVD will only be released in the 2D version. Lionsgate Home Entertainment released "Saw 3D: The Final Chapter" on January 25, 2011 in three versions. The first is a standard DVD release consisting of the theatrical version of the film, a selection of bonus features and a second disc with a digital copy; a second edition is a 2D combo pack that includes an unrated Blu-ray, DVD and digital copy of the film. The last edition of the release is a 3D combo pack consisting of an unrated Blu-ray 3D, Blu-ray, DVD, and digital copy version of the film. According to the Nielsen VideoScan chart, the DVD and Blu-ray formats placed number three in its first week. Reception. Box office. "Saw 3D" had preview screenings on October 28, 2010 in 2,000 locations and made $1.7 million. It opened in wide release the following day in 2,808 locations playing on 3,500 screens, the second smallest release behind the first "Saw". The film earned $8.9 million its opening day taking the number one spot from "Paranormal Activity 2". It grossed $22.5 million its opening Halloween weekend, with 92% of tickets coming from more than 2,100 3D-equipped locations and 57% of the audience was under the age of 25. It had the fifth best opening weekend in the "Saw" series. After only four days of wide release "Saw 3D" had out-grossed "Saw VI"'s $27.7 million final domestic gross. On its second weekend the film dropped 66% in ticket sales and made $7.7 million, moving to the number five spot with "Megamind" taking its number one spot. "Saw 3D" was closed out of theaters on December 2, 2010, after 35 days of release in the United States and Canada. "Saw 3D" opened in 25 territories with $14.4 million (including preview screenings) placing first place in the United Kingdom (UK) with $5.8 million, beating "Saw III" $4.7 million UK opening. It opened in second place in Russia with $2.2 million; Australia and Japan grossed $909,000 and $864,800, respectively. "Saw 3D" grossed $12.8 million in the United Kingdom, Ireland and Malta; $10.9 million in Germany; $7 million in Italy; $5.3 million in Russia; and $2.4 million in Australia. The film has grossed $45.7 million in the United States and Cinema of Canada, with $90.4 million in other markets, for a worldwide total of $136.1 million. This makes "Saw 3D" the highest grossing film in the series in the foreign market. Also, it made more than double the amount of the previous installment "Saw VI" and is the most successful film in the franchise since "Saw IV". Critical response. As with the previous four "Saw" films, "Saw 3D" was not screened in advance for critics. The film received largely negative reviews from film critics. Review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes reports that 10% of 67 critics have given the film a positive review, with a rating average of 3.1 out of 10, making it the poorest reviewed film in the series. Metacritic, which assigns a weighted average score out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, gives the film a rating score of 24, based on 17 reviews. CinemaScore polls reported that the average grade moviegoers gave the film was a "B-minus" on an A+ to F scale. Luke Thompson of E! Online gave the film a "B". He called the film's gore "over-the-top" and "in your face" while admitting the film had an "unusual amount of self-parody". He said the central storyline of the films was beginning to feel "played out". Rob Nelson of "Variety" gave the film a negative review. He called the film "relentlessly repugnant" that would please fans, but offer no surprise. He went on to say, "Apart from these limb-pulling setpieces, tech credits appear fairly shoddy, as do any 3D effects that don't include flying viscera. The editing relies on lazy flashbacks, while the dialogue remains as horrific as the killings." Kim Newman of "Empire" gave the film two out of five stars, calling it a "a step down from last year’s much more pointed "Saw VI"". He criticized the repetition of the plot but thought bringing back Jigsaw survivors was a "nice idea". He closed his review with, "There are a scattering of infallibly cringe-making horrors, but on the whole "Saw 3D" could do with more depth". Eric Goldman of IGN Movies gave the film two out of five stars. He was unhappy with the little screen time Bell and Elwes had been given, saying that the time the film did spend with them, didn't have much impact. He said the traps were a step down from "Saw VI", but did point out his favorite and highlight of the film as the "garage trap". About the film's 3D effects, Goldman said "The 3D is used as you might expect it to be - which is to say, this is no James Cameron immersive experience. Instead, blades jut out of the screen, and there is some fun had with blood and guts literally shooting forward at several points". Frank Scheck of "The Hollywood Reporter" gave the film a mixed review. He said "Saw 3D" is "consistent both stylistically and thematically with previous editions", but said most of the film's traps lack the "Rube Goldberg-style cleverness that marked the series". Scheck went on to say that it was "unfortunate" the creators killed Bell's character so early in the series and called Mandylor's character (Hoffman) an "exceedingly bland stand-in". He called the visual impact of the 3D "negligible".
1044700	And Soon the Darkness is a 1970 British thriller film. Starring Pamela Franklin, Michele Dotrice and Sandor Elès, it tells the story of two young English women on a cycling holiday in France, who run into difficulties.
1053307	The World Unseen is a 2007 historical drama film written and directed by Shamim Sarif, adapted from her own novel. The film is set in 1950s Cape Town, South Africa during the beginning of apartheid. The film stars Lisa Ray and Sheetal Sheth as two Indian South African women who fall in love in a racist, sexist, and homophobic society.
581921	Raja Hindustani (translation: "Indian King") is a 1996 Hindi action romance film directed by Dharmesh Darshan. It tells the tale of a cab driver hailing from a small town, who falls in love with a rich girl. Aamir Khan and Karisma Kapoor play the lead roles. The film was one of the most commercially successful films of the 1990s. The film's music became popular and was successful especially in central and eastern states of India. The controversial kissing scene added to its publicity. Karisma Kapoor was hugely complimented for her looks and outstanding performance as Aarti, a rich beautiful sensitive young girl full of dreams and desires. She won the Filmfare Best Actress Award for this film and was then cast by director Yash Chopra for the role of Nisha in his movie "Dil To Pagal Hai". This film is inspired by Suraj Prakash's 1965 Hindi film "Jab Jab Phool Khile" starring Shashi Kapoor and Nanda. Plot. The title character, Raja Hindustani (Aamir Khan), is a taxi-driver / tourist guide. He lives by his own simple code and is prone to violence when that code is violated. Aarti Sehgal (Karishma Kapoor) is a wealthy debutante who is seeking to connect with her past. Standing in the way of their love are a disapproving father and a stepmother bent on obtaining total control of the family assets. Wealthy Mr Sehgal (Suresh Oberoi) lives with his daughter, Aarti, and her stepmother Shalini (Archana Puran Singh) in a palatial home. Aarti decides to go for a vacation to a small hill station named Palankhet to discover the memories of her dead mother. Upon arrival, she finds out she has no transportation from the airport to Palankhet (few location in Ranikhet also). As a result, she hires the services of the only available driver, Raja Hindustani. During her stay in Palankhet, Aarti and Raja fall in love. One day, to Aarti's surprise, her father arrives in Palankhet and intends to bring her home with him. Her father will accept the marriage on the condition that Raja come to Mumbai and learn to become a respectable member of society. Raja refuses and forces Aarti to make a de cision. Aarti chooses Raja, but begs for her father's blessings. Her father refuses to offer his blessings and leaves for Mumbai. After some time, Mr Sehgal forgives his daughter, and visits her in Palankhet. While there, he gifts his daughter and son-in-law with a new house. Raja refuses to live in the house, because he does not see the house as a gift, but rather as alms, since he is poor and Mr. Sehgal is rich. Shalini, her brother, Swaraj (Pramod Moutho), and her nephew Jai (Mohnish Behl) seek to exploit this conflict to gain total control of Mr. Sehgal's assets. Under the pretext of a birthday party, they bring Raja and Aarti to Mumbai and set in motion events that will change all their lives forever. As a result Aarti and Raja separate. Aarti was pregnant but due to her health problem the doctor forbid her to go to Palankhet and instead her stepmother had to go to Palankhet to inform Raja about his baby and to request him to come to Mumbai. However, instead Aarti's mother chooses to tell Raja that Aarti wants divorce but Raja refuses to give divorce and back in Mumbai even Aarti refuses to give Raja divorce. After sometime Raja comes to know that Aarti has a baby so he goes to Aarti's house and steals the baby. But Aarti cannot live without her baby so she comes to Raja's house begging for her baby where they all learn the truth that Aarti's stepmother is the culprit. When Raja returns home with the baby he sees Aarti and starts to run away but in the road there is a fighting between Aarti's step-uncle and Raja for the capture of the baby as Aarti 's step-uncle wanted to kill the baby but Aarti 's step-uncle loses at last; Aarti and Raja reunite. Soundtrack. The soundtrack was composed by Nadeem Shravan. Plannet Bollywood ranks the movie soundtracks at 56 in its all time top 100 Greatest Bollywood soundtracks.
1059178	Love with the Proper Stranger is a 1963 romantic comedy drama film made by Pakula-Mulligan Productions and Boardwalk Productions and released by Paramount Pictures. It was directed by Robert Mulligan and produced by Alan J. Pakula from a screenplay by Arnold Schulman. The film stars Natalie Wood, Steve McQueen, Edie Adams, Herschel Bernardi and Harvey Lembeck. The film also marked the screen debut of Tom Bosley. The film's title song, written by Elmer Bernstein and Johnny Mercer, was recorded by Jack Jones. Plot. The film tells the story of Angie Rossini (Natalie Wood), a salesclerk at Macy's department store who finds herself pregnant after a brief affair with musician Rocky Papasano (Steve McQueen). When she tracks him down he doesn't remember her. She does not expect him to marry her; all she wants is enough money to pay for an abortion. Meanwhile, Angie is being pressured by her older brothers, played by Herschel Bernardi and Harvey Lembeck, to marry the unappealing cook Anthony (Tom Bosley). Rocky scrapes up money for the crude backroom abortion. But when he and Angie meet the abortionist, who turns out not to be a doctor, Rocky refuses to let her go through with the dangerous procedure. The maturity he shows in doing this brings them closer. After meeting her brothers, Rocky decides to "take his medicine" by marrying her. Angie is insulted and refuses. Angie wants a love relationship, with "bells and banjos." As an act of independence Angie moves out of the family home. She begins dating Anthony, who offers to marry her. By acting aloof she attracts Rocky, whom she invites to dinner. At dinner he makes advances on her and is rejected. Angie says she doesn't want to make the last mistake. They quarrel and she throws him out. The next day, Rocky waits for her outside Macy's, ringing bells and playing a banjo, and wins her over. Accolades. The film was nominated for five Academy Awards for: The film was also nominated for two Golden Globes Awards for Steve McQueen and Natalie Wood in the Best Actor and Best Actress categories.
1067884	Jesus Camp is a 2006 American documentary film directed by Rachel Grady and Heidi Ewing about a charismatic Christian summer camp, where children spend their summers learning and practising their prophetic gifts and being taught that they can "take back America for Christ." According to the distributor, it "doesn't come with any prepackaged point of view" and tries to be "an honest and impartial depiction of one faction of the evangelical Christian community". "Jesus Camp" debuted at the 2006 Tribeca Film Festival, and was sold by A&E Indie Films to Magnolia Pictures. Nominated for Best Documentary Feature at the 79th Academy Awards, the film was met with controversy that led to the closure of the camp. Overview. "Jesus Camp" is about the "Kids On Fire School of Ministry", a charismatic Christian summer camp located just outside Devils Lake, North Dakota and run by Becky Fischer and her ministry, Kids in Ministry International. The film focuses on three children who attended the camp in the summer of 2005—Levi, Rachael, and Tory (Victoria). The film cuts between footage of the camp and a children's prayer conference held just prior to the camp at Christ Triumphant Church, a large church in Lee's Summit, Missouri, a suburb of Kansas City. All three children are already very devout Christians. Levi has preached several sermons at his father's church, Rock of Ages Church in St. Robert, Missouri. He is homeschooled, with his mother explaining that God did not give her a child just so he could be raised by someone else eight hours a day. He learns science from a book that attempts to reconcile young-earth creationism with scientific principles. He is also taught that global warming is a political speculation, that the speculation stems from temperatures being higher in the summer months, that America's temperature has only risen by 0.6 °F, and therefore, the rise is not important. Levi preaches a sermon at the camp in which he declares that his generation is key to bringing Jesus back. Rachael, who also attends Levi's church (her father was assistant pastor), is seen praying over a bowling ball during a game early in the film, and frequently passes Christian tracts (including some by Jack Chick) to strangers, telling them that Jesus loves them. She does not think highly of non-charismatic churches (or "dead churches", as she calls them), feeling they are not "churches that God likes to go to". Tory is a member of the children's praise dance team at Christ Triumphant Church. She frequently dances to Christian heavy metal music, and says she has to check herself to make sure she isn't "dancing for the flesh". At the camp, Fischer stresses the need for children to purify themselves in order to be part of the "army of God". She strongly believes that children need to be in the forefront of turning America toward conservative Christian values. She also feels that Christians need to focus on training kids since "the enemy" (Islam) is focused on training theirs. In one scene shot at Christ Triumphant Church, a woman brings a life-sized cutout of George W. Bush to the front of the church and has the children stretch their hands toward him in prayer for him. This is a derivative of laying on of hands, a common practice in charismatic Christian circles. In another, Lou Engle preaches a message urging children to join the fight to end abortion in America. Children are shown a series of plastic models of developing fetuses, and have their mouths covered with red tape with "Life" written across it. Engle is a founder of the Justice House of Prayer and a leader of Harvest International Ministries, a network of charismatic-oriented ministries with which both the church and Fischer's ministry are affiliated. He prays for Bush to have the strength to appoint "righteous judges" who will overturn "Roe v. Wade". By the end of the sermon, the children are chanting, "Righteous judges! Righteous judges!" There is also a scene at New Life Church in Colorado Springs, Colorado where Ted Haggard preaches a sermon against homosexuality. The scene was shot before the scandal following the revelation that Haggard had had sexual relations with men. Before the service, Levi mentioned how he admired Ted Haggard and was looking forward to meeting him. After the sermon, Levi informs Haggard that he has already preached sermons and wants to be a preacher when he grows up. Haggard advises him: “I say, use your cute kid thing until you’re thirty, and by then you’ll have good content”. The comment leaves Levi baffled and a bit disappointed. Afterward, Levi, Rachael, Tory, their families and several other children take part in a Justice House of Prayer rally held by Engle in front of the U.S. Supreme Court. Throughout the movie, there are cut scenes to a debate between Fischer and Mike Papantonio, an attorney and a radio talk-show host for Air America Radio's "Ring of Fire". Papantonio questions Fischer's motives for focusing her ministry efforts on children. Fischer explains that she does not believe that people are able to choose their belief system once they pass childhood, and that it is important that they be "indoctrinated" in evangelical Christian values from a young age. Fischer also explains that democracy is flawed and designed to destroy itself "because we have to give everyone equal freedom". DVD. The DVD, released in January 2007, includes several deleted scenes. In one of them, Levi's father and mother suggest that a future president may well have been at Kids on Fire. In another, a woman takes several of the kids on a "prayer walk" through Lee's Summit, and later takes them to a pro-life women's clinic. A Planned Parenthood clinic is located next door, and the woman has the kids pray over it. In an interview, the pro-life clinic's director says that she was very pleased to see children so passionate about ending abortion. The DVD also includes commentary by Grady and Ewing. They reveal that when they arrived in Kansas City, there was a great deal of excitement over the nomination of Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court. However, according to Grady and Ewing, Fischer and the others did not see their activism for socially conservative causes as political, but as a matter of faith. They also reveal that Fischer and the others did not understand why some of the scenes of them speaking in tongues and praying over objects were included in the film. Controversy. "Jesus Camp" was screened at Michael Moore's Traverse City Film Festival against the wishes of the distribution company, Magnolia Pictures. Magnolia had pulled "Jesus Camp" from the festival earlier in the summer after it purchased rights to the film, in a decision apparently inspired by Moore's association with the film festival, with Magnolia president Eamonn Bowles saying "I don't want the perception out in the public that this is an agenda-laden film." According to Ron Reno of Focus on the Family,
1130336	Vanessa Marcil ( ; born Sally Vanessa Ortiz; October 15, 1968) is an American actress. She is best known for her roles as Brenda Barrett on "General Hospital", Gina Kincaid on "Beverly Hills, 90210" and Sam Marquez on "Las Vegas". Early life. Marcil, the youngest of four children, was born in Indio, California, the daughter of Patricia Marcil, an herbalist, and Peter Ortiz, a contractor and self-made millionaire. Marcil's father is Mexican and her mother is an American of French, Italian, and Portuguese ancestry. Career. Marcil acted in a number of theatre productions before landing the role of Brenda Barrett on the soap opera "General Hospital" in 1992. She garnered three Daytime Emmy Award nominations (1997, 1998 and 2003) for her portrayal, winning in 2003 as Outstanding Supporting Actress. In February 1998, she was named Outstanding Lead Actress at the Soap Opera Digest Awards. In 1994, she was cast in the Prince music video, "The Most Beautiful Girl in the World", and made "People Magazine"'s 50 Most Beautiful list the next year. She made her feature film debut in the 1996 film "The Rock", in which she appeared opposite Nicolas Cage, Sean Connery and Ed Harris. After six years on "General Hospital", she left the show in 1998, to star in the made-for-television movie "To Love, Honor and Deceive", and had a recurring guest role on the police drama "High Incident" produced by Steven Spielberg. Marcil joined the cast of "Beverly Hills, 90210" in November 1998 as Gina Kincaid and remained with the show for one-and-a-half seasons. In 1999, she starred in two independent films: "Nice Guys Sleep Alone" with Sean O'Bryan and "This Space Between Us" with Jeremy Sisto. She returned to General Hospital from 2002 to 2003, as Brenda Barrett. In 2001, she was initially cast to join NYPD Blue's ninth season as a new series regular, Det. Carmine Olivera. However, after her first appearance in "Johnny Got His Gold", the show decided to re-do the role and replaced Marcil with Jacqueline Obradors as Det. Rita Ortiz. Marcil did make one more cameo appearance as Det. Olivera in the 11th season episode "Shear Stupidity". In 2001, Marcil was awarded the Sojourn Service Award and has supported Sojourn Services for Battered Women and their children by hosting charity events and making appearances on "Wheel of Fortune", playing for funds for the organization. Through her fundraising efforts, she hopes to increase awareness of domestic violence and inspire battered women to take control of their lives. Marcil starred in the NBC television series "Las Vegas" as Samantha Jane "Sam" Marquez. She has been featured in several Men's magazines, including "Stuff", "FHM", and "Maxim". She was named No. 19 on "Maxim"'s Hot 100 of 2005 list and was featured on the cover of the issue that included the list, as well as No. 92 in the 2006 FHM Hot 100 list. In fall of 2008, Marcil guest starred on "Lipstick Jungle", playing Shane's new talent manager. As of November 2008, she hosts and is the head judge of Lifetime's reality television show, "". On August 11, 2010, she returned to the role of Brenda Barrett on "General Hospital" in a full-time contract role. Marcil's return was much publicized due to the popularity of her character and 7-year absence from the show. After her one-year contract was up, she decided not to renew with the show. However, Marcil left the door open for a return in the future. On March 5, 2013, the announcement was made that Marcil would return to "General Hospital" for a short visit in honor of the show's 50th anniversary. She made her on-screen return as Brenda on April 2, 2013. Personal life. Marcil was married to actor Corey Feldman from 1989 to 1993, although she has at times denied this fact. For example, in the June 2005 issue of "Maxim", Marcil was quoted as saying, "I never married Corey. He's just a kid I did drugs with when I was a teenager." However, Nevada marriage records indicate that she in fact married Feldman on August 6, 1989 (under Marcil's birth name Sally Vanessa Ortiz). Both Marcil and Feldman have battled substance addiction. Marcil dated former "Beverly Hills, 90210" castmate Brian Austin Green from 1999 until early 2003. Marcil and Green have one son together, Kassius Lijah Marcil–Green, born March 30, 2002. Marcil married actor Carmine Giovinazzo on July 11, 2010 in a private ceremony in New York City. In June 2011 the couple announced they were expecting their first child together, but in December 2011, Giovinazzo announced via Twitter that Marcil had suffered a miscarriage, her second that year. It was announced on August 22, 2012 Marcil has filed for divorce from Giovinazzo in L.A. County Superior Court, citing "irreconcilable differences." The divorce was final in March 2013.
1165855	Al Ruscio (born June 2, 1924) is an American character actor who has appeared in numerous television series and film. He graduated from Salem High School (Salem, MA). Career. Born in Salem, Massachusetts, Ruscio has spent most of his acting career playing character roles. After graduating college he moved to New York City and trained for two years at The Neighborhood Playhouse School for the Theater. He played many roles in New York and in summer stock, including co-starring with Steve McQueen and Kim Stanley among others. His first work in live television came in New York City. He moved to Los Angeles in 1958. His first role there was Tony in "Al Capone" with Rod Steiger (1958). He then appeared in many television shows including "Gunsmoke" (1958), "77 Sunset Strip" (1959), "Bonanza" (1960–1961), and in "Peter Gunn" (1961). He has also acted in soap operas including "Port Charles", "Days of our Lives" and "Santa Barbara" as R. J. Bentson. Ruscio has made repeated guest appearances on "The Lawless Years", "The Untouchables", "The Rockford Files", "Lou Grant", "Barney Miller", "Hill Street Blues", and "7th Heaven". He has also had recurring roles on "Falcon Crest", "Scarecrow and Mrs. King", "Life Goes On", and "Manhattan, AZ". Although typically cast in guest spots, Ruscio has co-starred in three short-lived series: "Shannon" (1981–1982, starring Kevin Dobson), "Steambath" (1983), and "Joe's Life" (1993). In addition to television work, Ruscio has had roles in several films including "Any Which Way You Can" (1980) with Clint Eastwood, "Jagged Edge" (1985) starring Glenn Close and Jeff Bridges, "The Godfather Part III" (1990), "Guilty by Suspicion" (1991) with Robert De Niro, "Showgirls" (1995), and "The Phantom" (1996). In the 1960s Ruscio left Los Angeles to create the drama department at the newly formed Midwestern College in Denison, Iowa. After five years there he moved to Windsor, Canada where he was professor of acting at University of Windsor. From there he was invited to serve as Artistic Rirector of the Academy of Dramatic Art at Oakland University, where his wife also taught acting. They moved back to Los Angeles in 1975 where they resumed their acting and teaching careers. Personal life. Ruscio has four children with wife Kate Williamson: Elizabeth, Michael, Maria, and Nina Ruscio. Elizabeth, Michael, and Nina are also involved in show business.
1065958	The Death of Mr. Lazarescu () is a 2005 Romanian dark comedy film by director Cristi Puiu. In the film an old man (Ioan Fiscuteanu) is carried by an ambulance from hospital to hospital all night long, as doctors keep refusing to treat him and send him away. "The Death of Mr. Lazarescu" enjoyed immediate critical acclaim, both in film festivals, where it won numerous awards, and after wider release, receiving enthusiastic reviews. However, the film did poorly in international box office. The film is planned to be the first in a series by Puiu called "Six Stories from the Outskirts of Bucharest". Plot. Dante Remus Lăzărescu (Ioan Fiscuteanu), a cranky retired engineer, lives alone with his three cats in a Bucharest apartment. In the grip of extreme pain, Lăzărescu calls for an ambulance, but once it becomes clear that no ambulance is coming, he asks for his neighbors' help. Not having the medicine Lăzărescu wants, and not wanting to worsen his condition by giving him the wrong medication, the neighbors give him some pills for his nausea. In the hallway, talking with his neighbor, we discover that Lăzărescu is a heavy drinker. His neighbor then helps Lăzărescu back to his apartment and lays him down on his bed. After Lăzărescu vomits blood strings, the neighbors decide to call an ambulance. When the ambulance finally arrives, the nurse, Mioara (Luminiţa Gheorghiu) dispels the idea that Lăzărescu's ulcer surgery over a decade before is the culprit for this pain. While performing a patient history, we learn that Lăzărescu's drink of choice is a strong, homemade liquor called Mastropol. The nurse suspects he has colon cancer, and, after informing his sister who lives in a different city that the condition could be serious and she should visit Lăzărescu in the hospital, the nurse decides to get him to a hospital. His sister makes arrangements to come the following day; his wife had died eight years earlier, and his only child, a daughter, lives in Toronto. The film follows Lăzărescu's journey through the night, as he is carried from one hospital to the next. At the first three hospitals, the doctors, after much delay, reluctantly agree to examine Lăzărescu. Then, although finding that he is gravely ill and needs emergency surgery, keep refusing to hospitalize him and send him away. Meanwhile, his health deteriorates rapidly, his speech is reduced to babbling and he slowly loses consciousness. The reasons for neglecting him range from the fact that the hospitals are jammed with injured passengers from a bus accident to the doctors being only humans who are tired, bored, or simply do not feel like taking care of a smelly old drunkard. During the night, his only advocate is the paramedic, who stubbornly stays by him and tries to get him hospitalized and treated, while passively accepting verbal abuse from the doctors who look down on her. Finally, at the fourth hospital, the doctors accept Lăzărescu for an emergency operation to remove a blood clot in his brain, so that his incurable liver neoplasm can kill him, as one of the doctors in the film cynically comments. Production. According to Cristi Puiu, the initial impetus for the film came out of his public conflict with the "National Council of Cinematography" ("CNC"), a Romanian public institution which is the main provider of financing for filmmaking in Romania. As a reaction to the long fight with "CNC", in 2003 Puiu wrote in a few weeks the synopsis for a six film cycle he called "Six stories from the outskirts of Bucharest" (including "The Death of Mr. Lăzărescu"). He initially planned them as low-budget films, trying to prove that Romanian directors can make films without aid from the "CNC". The medical framework in which the story of "The Death of Mr. Lăzărescu" unfolds grew out of a two-year period (between 2001 and 2003) Cristi Puiu spent suffering of hypochondria. Although only suffering from stress and a common form of colitis, Puiu became convinced that he had a terminal disease. The resulting fear of dying made him obsessively collect information on diseases and medication, as well as giving him direct experience with the medical system. All this information then naturally formed the basis for setting his next movie in a medical background. Another inspiration for the subject of the film was the actual 1997 case of Constantin Nica, a 52 year old man who, after being sent away from several hospitals, was left in the street by the paramedics and died. After finishing the synopsis for the six films in "Six Stories from the Outskirts of Bucharest", Cristi Puiu showed them to Răzvan Rădulescu, a writer and screenwriter who also collaborated with Puiu on writing "Stuff and Dough" (2001) and Lucian Pintilie's "Niki and Flo" (2003). They started researching "The Death of Mr. Lăzărescu" by going to various doctors and hospitals, then completed the screenplay. Puiu and Rădulescu participated with the film in the 2004 Script Contest organised by the "CNC". However, the "CNC" refused financing for "The Death of Mr. Lăzărescu", ignoring Puiu's previous success (e.g., he had won the Golden Bear Award for his short film "Cigarettes and Coffee" the same year). Puiu made an appeal to Răzvan Theodorescu, the Minister of Culture at the time, who approved it immediately, overruling the "CNC" decision. The actual filming was accomplished over 39 nights, in November–December 2004. Because the film was finished late in the year, the crew worked very hard to make it in time for 2005 Cannes Film Festival. The film was completed on an overall budget of €350,000. To produce this film, Cristi Puiu started his own production company, "Mandragora", together with his wife and Alexandru Munteanu, the executive producer of "The Death of Mr. Lăzărescu". All marketing decisions were left to his partners in the production company, Puiu focusing on the artistic and technical issues. Romanian-American pop singer Margareta Paslaru had even consented the use of a couple of songs from her repertoire for both the respective opening and ending credits in the movie: ""Cum e oare"" (Telling It Like It Really Is) and ""Chemarea marii"" (The Waves of the Ocean). Reception. Film critics. After its 2006 US release, "The Death of Mr. Lazarescu" rose quickly to critical acclaim, receiving enthusiastic reviews. Rotten Tomatoes, which gathers reviews from a large number of professional film critics, gives the film a 93% 'fresh' rating. Roger Ebert and David Denby praised the film for its authenticity and the matter-of-fact approach which lets the story draw its audience deeply inside, while J. Hoberman called it "the great discovery of the last Cannes Film Festival and, in several ways, the most remarkable new movie to open in New York this spring". The Washington Post's Philip Kennicott called the film "a tour de force of cinéma vérité", Stephen Holden in the New York Times called it "a thorny masterpiece" and Philip French described it as "one of the most harrowing and wholly convincing movies I've seen for several years". Many critics, among which J. Hoberman and Jay Weissberg, also remarked the black comedy aspect of the film. Michael Phillips wrote in the Chicago Tribune that the film is "a black comedy, among the blackest", while Peter Bradshaw called it a "blacker-than-black, deader-than-deadpan comedy" and said that, given the subject, "it seems extraordinary to claim that this film is funny but it is".
1064206	Colleen Celeste Camp (born June 7, 1953) is an American actress and film producer, known for her performances in two installments of the "Police Academy" series and as Yvette the Maid in the 1985 black comedy "Clue". She was also the first actress to play Kristin Shepard in the primetime soap opera "Dallas" in 1979. Life and career. Camp was born in San Francisco, California. She had small early roles in films like "Funny Lady" with Barbra Streisand in 1975. She also appeared in the Bruce Lee movie "Game of Death" as his girlfriend, Ann (her scenes were shot with a lookalike as Bruce had died long before she became involved). Camp portrayed a Playmate in Francis Coppola's 1979 film "Apocalypse Now" (followed by an actual pictorial in the October 1979 Playboy), though most of her footage was cut from the initial theatrical release. She would later feature more heavily in Coppola's "Redux" cut. She has worked steadily in film comedies like Peter Bogdanovich's "They All Laughed", 1983's "Valley Girl" and the Michael J. Fox comedy "Greedy". She often is cast as a police officer. Camp has been nominated twice for the Worst Supporting Actress Golden Raspberry Award – first, in 1982, for "The Seduction", and then, in 1993, for "Sliver". In 1999, she had a small part as character Tracy Flick's overbearing mother in the film "Election", with Reese Witherspoon as Tracy. While continuing to act in shows like HBO's "Entourage", Camp is also now making a name for herself as a producer. She was married to John Goldwyn, a Paramount executive, from 1986 to 2001. They have one daughter, Emily. She appeared in the episode "Simple Explanation" of "House M.D." that first aired on April 6, 2009.
903811	Merritt Wever (born August 11, 1980) is an American actress best known for her Emmy-winning role Zoey Barkow in "Nurse Jackie". Early life. Wever was raised by her mother, and graduated from Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School and Sarah Lawrence College. She trained in acting in New York and has appeared in Brooke Berman's play, "Smashing" and in "Cavedweller" with Deidre O'Connell, both Off Broadway. Career. Wever has appeared in the feature films "Into the Wild", "Neal Cassady", "Michael Clayton", ', "Signs", "The Adventures of Sebastian Cole", "Bringing Rain", and "All I Wanna Do", among others. She has guest starred on the TV shows "Conviction", ' and "The Wire", among others. She also starred in Ed Zwick's ill-fated ABC pilot, "1/4life", with Rachel Blanchard, Austin Nichols, and Shiri Appleby. She had a recurring role on "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip" as Suzanne. Wever is arguably best known for her ongoing role as Zoey Barkow in the dark comedy series "Nurse Jackie", which premiered on Showtime in June 2009. Zoey—an irrepressibly bubbly student nurse—serves as a comic foil to Edie Falco's hard-bitten (and prescription drug-addicted) titular character. Wever was nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series for her role in Nurse Jackie in 2012 and 2013, winning the award in 2013 and delivering a memorable speech that consisted only of her stunned reaction: "Thanks so much. Thank you so much. I gotta go. Bye."
1163941	Matthew Steven "Matt" LeBlanc (born July 25, 1967) is an American actor, best known for his role as Joey Tribbiani on the NBC sitcom "Friends" and its spin-off "Joey". In 2011, LeBlanc began starring as a fictional version of himself in "Episodes", a BBC Two/Showtime television series created by "Friends" co-creator David Crane and Jeffrey Klarik. LeBlanc won a Golden Globe award for his work on "Episodes", after being nominated three times for his work as Joey Tribbiani on "Friends". Early life. LeBlanc was born in Newton, Massachusetts. His mother, Patricia, was an office manager, and his father, Paul LeBlanc, was a mechanic. His mother is of Italian descent and his father was of French-Canadian ancestry. Career. In 1988, he landed his first regular TV role on the drama "TV 101" which ran for one season. In 1990 he starred in Jon Bon Jovi's music video "Miracle," from "Young Guns II" sound track. In 1991 he starred in the music video for the Alanis Morissette single "Walk Away". He also appeared in the last seconds of the music video for Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers' "Into the Great Wide Open" in which he is seen playing the trumpet. In 1991, he went on to star in a spin-off of "Married... with Children" titled "Top of the Heap". The Fox series lasted seven episodes airing in April and May 1991. In 1994, he starred in Bob Seger's "Night Moves" music video. LeBlanc found success in the role of Joey Tribbiani on "Friends", and went on to play this character for twelve years — ten seasons of "Friends" and two seasons of "Joey". "Friends" was successful and LeBlanc, along with his co-stars, gained wide recognition among viewers. LeBlanc has appeared in the films "Ed" (1996), "Lost in Space" (1998), "Charlie's Angels" (2000), and "All the Queen's Men" (2001). In 2000, LeBlanc starred in Bon Jovi's music video "Say It Isn't So". Matt LeBlanc's production company, Fort Hill Productions, co-produced the made-for-TV movie, "The Prince" in 2006. In 2011, LeBlanc began appearing as a fictional version of himself in "Episodes", a BBC/Showtime television series about a British television series that is remade for an American audience. The series is written by "Friends" co-creator David Crane and his partner Jeffrey Klarik. LeBlanc won the 2012 Golden Globe for Best Actor in a TV Series Comedy for his performance. The second season of "Episodes" began airing on BBC Two on 11 May 2012. In February 2012, LeBlanc appeared in the second episode of the eighteenth series of "Top Gear", where he set the fastest time of 1:42.1 in the Kia Cee'd, narrowly beating previous holder Rowan Atkinson by 0.1 seconds. He also appeared in Series 19 Episode 4 to race the New Kia Cee'd, and beat the old car time. Personal life. In May 2003, LeBlanc married Melissa McKnight, a former model. McKnight and LeBlanc had been introduced in 1997 by her friend Kelly Phillips, wife of actor Lou Diamond Phillips, and LeBlanc proposed to her a year later. Their daughter Marina, born in 2004, began suffering seizures at age eight months, which affected her motor skills. By the time she was two years old, however, the condition, thought to be a form of dysplasia, had largely receded. In June 2005, LeBlanc admitted to "careless and irresponsible" behavior with a stripper during a motorcycle trip to Canada. LeBlanc and McKnight separated on January 1, 2006. By that time, LeBlanc was involved in a relationship with actress Andrea Anders. In March of that year, LeBlanc filed for divorce, citing irreconcilable differences. The divorce became final on October 6, 2006.
1179870	Donna Summer (née LaDonna Adrian Gaines; December 31, 1948May 17, 2012) was an American singer and songwriter who gained prominence during the disco era of the late 1970s. A five-time Grammy Award winner, Summer was the first artist to have three consecutive double albums reach number one on the United States "Billboard" album chart and charted four number-one singles in the United States within a 13-month period. Summer has sold over 130 million records worldwide. Born into a devoutly Christian middle class, African American family in Boston, Massachusetts, Summer first became involved with singing through church choir groups before joining a number of bands influenced by the Motown Sound. Influenced by the counterculture of the 1960s, she became the front singer of a psychedelic rock band named Crow and moved to New York City. Joining a touring version of the musical "Hair", she spent several years living, acting and singing in West Germany, where she met music producer Giorgio Moroder. She also married Helmut Sommer, an anglicized version of whose surname she adopted as her stage name. Returning to the United States, Summer co-wrote the song "Love to Love You Baby" with Pete Bellotte. Music producer, Giorgio Moroder, convinced her to sing it herself, and it was released in 1975 to mass commercial success, particularly on the disco scene. Over the following years Summer followed this success with a string of other hits, such as "I Feel Love","Last Dance", "MacArthur Park", "Hot Stuff", "Bad Girls", "Dim All the Lights", "No More Tears (Enough Is Enough)" and "On the Radio". Becoming known as the "Queen of Disco" she regularly appeared at the Studio 54 nightclub in New York City, while her music gained a global following within the gay and non-gay community. She struggled with depression, and subsequently she became a born-again Christian in 1980. Diagnosed with lung cancer, Summer died on May 17, 2012, at her home in Naples, Florida. She was posthumously described as the "undisputed queen of the Seventies disco boom" who reached the status of "one of the world's leading female singers." Moroder described Summer's work with him on the song "I Feel Love" as "really the start of electronic dance" music. In 2013, Summer was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. Early life. Summer was born on December 31, 1948, in Boston, Massachusetts, to Andrew and Mary Gaines, and was one of seven children. She was raised in the Boston neighborhood of Mission Hill. Her father was a butcher and her mother a schoolteacher. Summer's mother later recalled that from the time Donna could talk, she would often sing. "She literally loved to sing. She used to go through the house singing, singing. She sang for breakfast and for lunch and for supper." Summer's performance debut occurred at church when she was ten years old when she replaced a vocalist who failed to show up. Her priest invited Summer to perform, judging from her small frame and speaking voice that she would be an "amusing spectacle", but instead Summer's voice recalled a voice older than her years and frame. Summer herself recalled that as she sang, "I started crying, everybody else started crying. It was quite an amazing moment in my life and at some point after I heard my voice came out I felt like God was saying to me 'Donna, you're going to be very, very famous' and I knew from that day on that I would be famous." Summer later attended Boston's Jeremiah E. Burke High School where she performed in school musicals and was considered popular. She was also something of a troublemaker, skipping home to attend parties, circumventing her parents' strict curfew. In 1967, just weeks before graduation, Summer left for New York where she was a member of the blues rock band Crow. After they were passed by every record label, the band agreed to break up. Summer stayed in New York and auditioned for a role in the counterculture musical, "Hair". When Melba Moore was cast in the part, Summer agreed to take the role in the Munich production of the show. She moved to Munich, Germany after getting her parents' reluctant approval. Summer eventually became fluent in German, singing various songs in German. She participated in the musicals "Ich bin ich" (the German version of "The Me Nobody Knows"), "Godspell" and "Show Boat". Within three years she moved to Vienna, Austria and joined the Vienna Volksoper. She briefly toured with an ensemble vocal group called FamilyTree, the creation of producer Guenter "Yogi" Lauke. In 1968, Summer released (as Donna Gaines) on Polydor her first single, a German version of the title "Aquarius" from the musical "Hair," followed in 1971 by a second single, a cover of The Jaynetts' "Sally Go 'Round the Roses", from a one-off European deal with Decca Records. In 1972, she issued the single "If You Walkin' Alone" on Philips Records. She married Austrian actor Helmuth Sommer in 1973 and had a daughter, Mimi, the same year. Citing marital problems caused by her affair with German artist (and future live-in boyfriend), Peter Mühldorfer, she divorced Sommer. She kept his last name, but anglicized it to "Summer". She provided backing vocals on producer-keyboardist, Veit Marvos, on his 1972 Ariola Records release "Nice to See You", credited as "Gayn Pierre". Several subsequent singles included Summer performing with the group, but she often denied singing on any of the Marvos releases. The name "Gayn Pierre" also was used by Donna while performing in "Godspell" with Helmuth Sommer during 1972. Music career. 1974–79: Initial success. While singing background in a recording session at Munich's Musicland Studios for Three Dog Night, Summer met German-based producers, Giorgio Moroder and Pete Bellotte. The trio forged a working partnership and began collaborating on songs together starting in 1974. A demo tape of Summer's work with Moroder and Bellotte led to a deal with the European-distributed label Groovy Records. The label issued Summer's first album, "Lady of the Night". The album became a hit success in selected countries with two songs, "The Hostage" and "Lady of the Night", reaching the top of the charts in countries such as the Netherlands and Belgium. In mid-1975, while working on another album, Summer passed on an idea for a song that Moroder was working on for another artist in the then-nascent disco sound, writing part of the song and labeling it as "Love to Love You". Summer would later say that she had imagined how Marilyn Monroe would sing this song and demonstrated how she felt Monroe would've approached it. Prior to recording the song and to get into the mood, she requested Moroder to turn off the lights while they sat on a sofa with him inducing her moans and groans. Moroder liked what he heard after hearing its playback and felt Summer's song should be released. The song was then sent to Casablanca Records president Neil Bogart in hopes of getting an American release. Bogart informed Summer and Moroder he would release the song (now called "Love to Love You Baby") but requested that Moroder produce a longer version for discothèques. Moroder, Bellotte and Summer returned with a 17-minute version and Casablanca signed Summer and released the single in November 1975. The shorter version of the single was promoted to radio stations while clubs regularly played the 17-minute version (the longer version would also appear on the album). Casablanca became one of the first record labels to popularize the 12" single format. By early 1976, "Love to Love You Baby" had reached 2 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 while the parent album of the same name sold over a million copies. The song generated controversy due to Summer's moans and groans and some American and European radio stations, including the BBC, refused to play it. "Love to Love You Baby" found chart success in several European countries and made the Top 5 in the United Kingdom despite the BBC ban. Other upcoming singles included "Try Me, I Know We Can Make It", U.S. 80; "Could It Be Magic", U.S. 52; "Spring Affair", U.S. 58; and "Winter Melody", U.S. 43. The subsequent albums "Love Trilogy" and "Four Seasons of Love" both went gold in the U.S. In 1977, Summer released the concept album "I Remember Yesterday". This album, again co-produced by Moroder and Bellotte, included her second top ten single, "I Feel Love", which reached number six in the U.S. and number one in the UK. Another concept album, also released in 1977, was "Once Upon a Time", a double album which told of a modern-day Cinderella "rags to riches" story through the elements of orchestral disco and ballads. This album would also attain gold status. In 1978, Summer released her version of the Jimmy Webb ballad, "MacArthur Park", which became her first U.S. number one hit. The song was featured on Summer's first live album, "Live and More", which also became her first album to hit number one on the U.S. Billboard 200 chart and went platinum, selling over a million copies. Other studio tracks included the top ten hit "Heaven Knows", which featured the group Brooklyn Dreams accompanying her on background and Joe "Bean" Esposito singing alongside her on the verses. Summer would later be romantically involved with Brooklyn Dreams singer Bruce Sudano and the couple married two years after the song's release. Also in 1978, Summer acted in the film "Thank God It's Friday" playing a singer determined to perform at a hot disco club. The film met modest success, but a song from the film, titled "Last Dance", reached number three on the Hot 100 and resulted in Summer winning her first Grammy Award. Its writer, Paul Jabara, won both an Academy Award and a Golden Globe Award for the composition. In 1979, Summer performed at the world-televised Music for UNICEF Concert, joining contemporaries such as ABBA, Olivia Newton-John, the Bee Gees, Andy Gibb, Rod Stewart, John Denver, Earth, Wind & Fire, Rita Coolidge and Kris Kristofferson for a TV special that raised funds and awareness for the world's children. Artists donated royalties of certain songs, some in perpetuity, to benefit the cause. Summer began work on her next project with Moroder and Bellotte, "Bad Girls", an album that had been in production for nearly two years. Summer based the whole concept on prostitution (revisiting the theme for 1974's "Lady of the Night"), even dressing as a hooker herself on the cover art. The album became a huge success, spawning the number one hits "Hot Stuff" and the title track and the number two "Dim All the Lights". With "MacArthur Park", "Hot Stuff", "Bad Girls" and the Barbra Streisand duet "No More Tears (Enough is Enough)", Summer achieved four number one hits within a thirteen-month period. Those songs, along with "Heaven Knows", "Last Dance", "Dim All the Lights" and "On the Radio" (from her upcoming double-album), would give her eight U.S. Top 5 singles within a two-year period. "Hot Stuff" later won her a second Grammy in the Best Female Rock Vocal Performance, the first time the category was included. That year, Summer played eight sold-out nights at the Universal Amphitheater in Los Angeles. Summer released "", her first (international) greatest hits set, in 1979. The double album reached number one in the United States, becoming her third consecutive number one album. A new song from the compilation, "On the Radio", reached the U.S. top five, selling over a million copies in the United States alone. 1980–85: Continued success. After the release of the "On the Radio" hits album, Summer wanted to branch out into other musical styles in addition to disco, which led to tensions between her and Casablanca Records as Casablanca wanted her to continue to record in the disco format while Summer wanted to sing more rock and pop-based music. Sensing that they could no longer come to terms, Summer and the label parted ways in 1980 and she signed with Geffen Records, the new label started by David Geffen. Summer's first Geffen album, "The Wanderer", featured an eclectic mixture of sounds similar to "Bad Girls" but with little emphasis on Summer's past disco success, instead bringing elements of rock, rockabilly, new wave and gospel music. The album continued Summer's streak of gold albums with the title track peaking at 3 in the U.S., though its follow-up singles, "Cold Love" and "Who Do You Think You're Foolin'," were only modestly received. When Summer presented Geffen with her projected second album, "I'm a Rainbow", the label disapproved of its production, sensing Moroder's sound had grown stale (in spite of his present success with Blondie (Call Me), and immediate future success with Phil Oakey (Together in Electric Dreams) and Melissa Manchester (Thief of Hearts)), and advised Summer to change producers, leading to an argument between the artist and the label. Eventually, Moroder and Bellotte and Summer agreed to part ways with Geffen and hired top R&B and pop producer Quincy Jones to produce Summer's next album, the eponymously titled "Donna Summer." The album took over six months to record, which was unusual for Summer's recordings, and was released in 1982. Among its releases were the top ten hit "Love Is in Control (Finger on the Trigger)" and the more moderately received "State of Independence" ( 41 pop) and "The Woman in Me" ( 33 pop). Problems then arose between Summer and Geffen Records after they were notified by Polygram Records, Summer's former label (Casablanca was by then a wholly owned subsidiary), that she needed to deliver them one more album to fulfill her contract with them. Summer delivered the album "She Works Hard for the Money" and Polygram released it on its Mercury imprint in 1983. The title song became a major hit, reaching number three on the U.S. Hot 100, as well as 1 on Billboard's R&B chart. It also garnered another Grammy nomination. The album also featured the reggae-flavored UK Top 20 hit "Unconditional Love", which featured the British group Musical Youth, who were riding high from the success of their single "Pass the Dutchie". The third U.S. single, "Love Has A Mind of Its Own", reached the top forty of the Billboard R&B chart. The album itself was certified gold. In late 1984, with her obligation to Polygram complete, Summer returned on Geffen Records with her next release. Geffen, wanting to keep the momentum going, enlisted "She Works Hard for the Money"'s producer Michael Omartian to produce "Cats Without Claws". The album, however, was not as successful as "She Works Hard for the Money" and failed to attain gold status in the U.S., becoming her first album since her 1974 debut not to do so. It did include a moderate hit in The Drifters cover "There Goes My Baby", which peaked at 21. Jellybean Benitez remixed two of the album's songs, "Eyes" and "I'm Free," which were released as 12" singles for club play. On January 19, 1985, she sang at the nationally-televised 50th Presidential Inaugural Gala the day before the second inauguration of Ronald Reagan. She was introduced by Merv Griffin. Controversy over alleged anti-gay comments. In the mid-1980s, Summer was embroiled in controversy after she allegedly made anti-gay remarks regarding the then-relatively new disease, AIDS, which as a result had a significantly negative impact on her career. Summer, by this time a born-again Christian, was alleged to have said that AIDS was a punishment from God for the immoral lifestyles of homosexuals. Because of this alleged quote, thousands of her records were returned to her record company. Years later, Summer publicly denied that she had ever made any such comment, and in a letter to the AIDS campaign group ACT UP in 1989 said it was "a terrible misunderstanding. I was unknowingly protected by those around me from the bad press and hate letters... If I have caused you pain, forgive me." She apologized for the delay in not making a response earlier and closed her letter with Bible quotes (from Chapter 13 of 1 Corinthians). Also in 1989, Summer told "The Advocate" magazine that "a couple of the people I write with are gay, and they have been ever since I met them. What people want to do with their bodies is their personal preference." A couple of years later, she filed a lawsuit against "New York" magazine when it reprinted the rumours as fact just as she was about to release her album "Mistaken Identity" in 1991. According to a "Biography" television program dedicated to Summer in which she participated in 1995, the lawsuit was settled out of court, though neither side was able to divulge any details. 1987–89: Continued success in Europe. In 1987, Summer returned with the album "All Systems Go", which did not sell well and was her second consecutive album not to achieve gold status. It featured the single "Dinner with Gershwin," (written by Brenda Russell), which was only a minor U.S. hit, though it peaked at 13 in the UK. The album's title track, "All Systems Go", was released only in the UK, where it peaked at 54. For Summer's next album, Geffen Records hired the British hit production team of Stock Aitken Waterman (or "SAW"), who enjoyed incredible success writing and producing for such acts as Kylie Minogue, Dead or Alive, Bananarama and Rick Astley, among others. However, Geffen decided not to release the album, entitled "Another Place and Time", and Summer and Geffen Records parted ways in 1988. The album was released in Europe in March 1989 on Warner Bros. Records, which had been Summer's label in Europe since 1982. The single "This Time I Know It's for Real" had become a top ten hit in several countries in Europe, prompting the Warner Bros. subsidiary company Atlantic Records to sign Summer in the U.S. and pick up the album for a North American release soon after. The single peaked at 7 on the Hot 100 in the U.S. and became her 12th gold single there. It was also Summer's final Top 40 hit on the American pop charts, though she scored two more UK hits from the album, "I Don't Wanna Get Hurt" (UK 7) and "Love's About to Change My Heart" (UK 20). 1990–99: "Mistaken Identity", acting, and "Live & More Encore". In 1990, a Warner compilation, "The Best of Donna Summer", was released. The album went gold in the UK after the song "State of Independence" was re-released there to promote the album. The following year, Summer emerged with the album "Mistaken Identity", which included elements of R&B as well as new jack swing. While the album itself failed to become a success, the song "When Love Cries" continued her success on the R&B charts, reaching 18. In 1992, Summer embarked on a world tour to promote the album and later that year received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. In 1993, Polygram issued the two-disc set "The Donna Summer Anthology", which included 34 tracks of all of Summer's material with Casablanca and Mercury and songs from her tenures with Atlantic and Geffen. Summer signed with Mercury/Polygram that same year, and in 1994 issued the Christmas album "Christmas Spirit," which included renditions of classic Christmas songs such as "O Holy Night" and "Joy to the World" and Summer-penned songs. Another hits collection, "", was released, featuring eighteen songs that were single cuts of the songs differentiating from the "Anthology" set, where fuller length recordings were featured. In 1992, she reunited with Giorgio Moroder, recording the dance song "Carry On", which later won Summer the first Grammy given to anyone in its dance category. The 1995 dance tune "Melody of Love (Wanna Be Loved)" went number-one on the dance charts in the U.S. while becoming a top 30 hit in the UK, peaking at number 21. During this time, Summer was offered a guest role on the sitcom "Family Matters" as Steve Urkel's (Jaleel White) Aunt Oona. She made a second appearance in 1997. In 1998, Summer received a Grammy Award for Best Dance Recording, the first to do so, after a remixed version of her 1992 collaboration with Giorgio Moroder, "Carry On", was released in 1997. In 1999, Summer taped a live television special for VH1 titled "Donna Summer – Live and More Encore", producing the second highest ratings that year for the network after their annual "Divas" special. A CD of the event was released by Epic Records and featured two studio recordings, "I Will Go with You (Con te partirò)" and "Love Is the Healer", both of which reached number one on the U.S. dance charts. 2000–09: Later recordings and "Crayons". In 2000, Summer participated in VH1's third annual "Divas" special, dedicated to Diana Ross, though Summer sang mostly her own material for the show. In 2003, Summer issued her autobiography, "Ordinary Girl: The Journey," and released a best-of set titled "The Journey: The Very Best of Donna Summer". In 2004, Summer was inducted into the Dance Music Hall of Fame alongside the Bee Gees and Barry Gibb as an artist. Her classic song, "I Feel Love", was also inducted that night. In 2004 and 2005, Summer's success on the dance charts continued with the songs "You're So Beautiful" and "I Got Your Love". In a 2008 interview with "The Daily Telegraph", Summer claimed that one month before the September 11 attacks she had a premonition that they would occur. She was living in Manhattan at the time of the attacks. In the same interview she said for a period of time after the attacks she was so depressed she was unable to leave her bedroom and left her blinds closed. In 2008, Summer released her first studio album of fully original material in 17 years, entitled "Crayons". Released on the Sony BMG label Burgundy Records, it peaked at 17 on the United States Top 200 Album Chart, her highest placing on the chart since 1983. The songs "I'm a Fire", "Stamp Your Feet" and "Fame (The Game)" reached number one on the U.S. Billboard Dance Chart. The ballad "Sand on My Feet" was released to adult contemporary stations and reached number 30 on that chart. Summer said, "I wanted this album to have a lot of different directions on it. I did not want it to be any one baby. I just wanted it to be a sampler of flavors and influences from all over the world. There's a touch of this, a little smidgeon of that, a dash of something else, like when you're cooking." On the song "The Queen Is Back", Summer reveals her wry and witty self-awareness of her musical legacy and her public persona. "I'm making fun of myself," she admits. "There's irony. It's poking fun at the idea of being called a queen. That's a title that has followed me, followed me and followed me. We were sitting and writing and that title kept popping up in my mind and I'm thinking, 'Am I supposed to write this? Is this too arrogant to write?' But people call me 'the queen,' so I guess it's ok to refer to myself as what everybody else refers to me as. We started writing the song and thought it was kind of cute and funny." Summer wrote "The Queen Is Back" and "Mr. Music" with J.R. Rotem and Evan Bogart, the son of Casablanca Records founder Neil Bogart. On December 11, 2009, Summer performed at the Nobel Peace Prize Concert in Oslo, Norway in honor of American President Barack Obama. She was backed by the Norwegian Radio Orchestra. 2010–12: Final recordings. On July 29, 2010, Summer gave an interview with Allvoices.com wherein she was asked if she would consider doing an album of standards. She said, "I actually am, probably in September. I will begin work on a standards album. I will probably do an all-out dance album and a standards album. I'm going to do both and we will release them however we're going to release them. We are not sure which is going first." Summer's husband, Bruce Sudano, stated during his speech at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Induction on Summer's behalf that Donna never recorded the standards album as each time they went into the studio to record standards, she preferred to record new songs instead. In August 2010, she released the single "To Paris With Love", co-written with Bruce Roberts and produced by Peter Stengaard. The single (her last charted single) reached 1 on the U.S. Billboard Dance Chart in October 2010, Also that month Summer appeared in the PBS television special "Hitman Returns: David Foster and Friends". In it Summer performed with Seal on a medley of the songs "Un-Break My Heart / Crazy / On the Radio" before closing the show with "Last Dance". On September 15, 2010, Summer appeared as a guest celebrity singing alongside rising star Prince Poppycock on the television show "America's Got Talent". On October 16, 2010, she performed at a benefit concert at the Phoenix Symphony. On June 6, 2011, Summer was a guest judge on the show "Platinum Hit" in an episode entitled "Dance Floor Royalty". In July 2011, Summer was working at Paramount Recording Studios in Los Angeles with her nephew, the rapper and producer O'Mega Red. Together they worked on a track titled "Angel". On December 11, 2012, after three nominations, Summer posthumously was announced to be one of the 2013 inductees to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame., and was inducted on April 18, 2013, at Los Angeles' Nokia Theater. Personal life. Summer and her family moved from Sherman Oaks, California, to Nashville, Tennessee, in
520391	Ang Tanging Ina ("English: The Only Mother") is a 2003 Filipino comedy film, starring Ai-Ai de las Alas and Eugene Domingo. The movie was the highest grossing Filipino film until it was surpassed by Sukob in 2006. It currently ranks no. 6 after You Changed My Life (2009), Sukob (2006), its sequel Ang Tanging Ina Ninyong Lahat (2008–2009), Kasal, Kasali, Kasalo (2006–2007) and A Very Special Love (2008). Incidentally, all of these movies were produced or co-produced by Star Cinema. The film is followed by a television series of the same name and three sequels entitled "Ang Tanging Ina N'yong Lahat", "Ang Tanging Ina Mo (Last na 'To!)" and "Enteng Ng Ina Mo". Synopsis. With three dead husbands and twelve children to take care of, what is the modern day working mother supposed to do? Ina Montecillo (Ai-Ai de las Alas) is completely clueless on how to be an income provider and a homemaker at the same time given her dwindling finances of her household. As she desperately hides from her children her efforts to make all ends meet, her children grow resentful of her as she becomes a part of their own problems, but it seems that her best is never good enough. Funnily yet, Ina rallies her cause with all the courage she can muster to be the best mother she knows how. Plot. Ina Montecillo (Ai-Ai de las Alas) meets Tony (Edu Manzano), who she considers "the man of her dreams". They both had four children, but Tony dies shortly after outbalancing from a stool. After finding a replacement father for her children, she meets Alfredo (Tonton Gutierrez), and they had four other children. Alfredo dies after falling from an overpass, and Ina meets Kiko (Jestoni Alarcon), and they had other four children. On their wedding day, Kiko gets electrocuted and Ina decides to stop finding another man. One morning, Ina wakes up, finding her children Juan (Marvin Agustin), Tudis (Nikki Valdez), Tri (Carlo Aquino), Por (Heart Evangelista), Pip (Alwyn Uytingco), Six (Marc Acueza), Seven (Shaina Magdayao), Cate (Serena Dalrymple), Shammy (Jiro Manio), Ten-Ten (Yuuki Kadooka), Connie and Sweet either troubled, problematic, panicking, fighting, or confused. Later on, she finds out that her family was losing much money, and tried to pursue several jobs, from construction working to illegal DVD selling, just to make ends meet. Por reminds her mother of her début party. One morning, Juan pleads his mother to let him find a job. Ina agrees, but finds out Juan's chores at home were very confusing. Ina then finds a job from her ex-driver Bruno, who she finds out was gay. Bruno tells her of a stripping club where she will earn PHP 2,000 a night. Meanwhile, Juan meets his high school girlfriend Jenny (Kaye Abad) working at an amusement park, where he decides to apply. Tudis quits her job and tries to pursue her desired job, painting. Tri tries to impress his girlfriend Gretchen (Angelica Panganiban) and her (Pinky Amador & Mandy Ochoa) parents with his intelligence. Por tries to convince her crush Jeffrey (John Prats) to be her escort in her début. Pip, who was secretly gay, watches his crush doing his exercise routine. Six invites his mother to a mass treat. Seven was assigned to lead a program about ""Bakit Natatangi Ang Aking Ina" ("Why My Mother Is Very Special")" while Shammy tries to protect his reputation from his classmate, Nhel's brother, because he is not yet circumcised. Pip prevents them from fighting and when Nhel arrives, accidentally mentions Shammy being uncircumcised. This causes Shammy to hate Pip. Things go crazy as Ina causes much problems towards her kids. She prevents Juan from marrying Jenny. Tudis refuses to help her in job-seeking. She exposes herself being a stripper to Tri, Gretchen, & Gretchen's parents. This causes Tri and Gretchen to break-up. She unsuccessfully fulfills Por's million-peso début and also learns that Pip was gay. Then she ruins Six' "mass treat" after thinking it was a "trick or treat" event. Seven hasn't told her of the program yet because she doesn't want to be humiliated. Cate reveals that Ten-Ten is deaf and Shammy has high fever after having himself circumcised to an illegal doctor. Lastly, Ten-Ten is lost. She goes to the hospital where Shammy is confined while still in her stripping dress, which causes taxi driver Eddie (Dennis Padilla) to fall in love with her. During their family meeting, she expresses her feelings that she is not working several jobs because it's her obligation, but is because she loves her kids. Because of her complicated speech, Juan decides to run away with Jenny. Rowena (Eugene Domingo) comforts her problematic best friend while Ina is thinking of how to solve everything. After quitting her job, she takes a bus ride. She sees a suicide bomber in front her, causing everyone to panic. She saved many lives, but ends up injured from the bus explosion accident. Her family went to the hospital and mourned at who they thought was their mother, only to find out that she arrived in a wheelchair behind them a few short moments later. After her family goes to the hospital, she eventually fixes everything: she permits Juan, who came back, to date Jenny, but not marry her; she convinces Tudis to get her job back; she convinces Gretchen to get back with Tri; she accepts Pip being gay; Six forgives her; Seven finishes her program; she forgives Shammy from disobeying her; Shammy gets cured; she finds Ten-Ten at a local church (but was unsuccessful to cure his deafness); and Por experiences her début after all. After Eddie takes a picture of Ina's family, the fireworks in his back ignites, sending him to the sky. The film ends with the family astonished with Eddie, and Ina saying that she married Eddie, but they can't make a child anymore, because of the fireworks accident. In the end credits, the family is shown teaching Ten-Ten sign language, so he can communicate with the family. Cast. "Uncredited:" Sequel. In 2008, the Star Cinema brought the second installment of "Ang Tanging Ina" film series which still starred Ai-Ai de las Alas, Eugene Domingo, and several others. The film revolves around Ina (Ai-Ai de las Alas) who lately became the President of the Philippines and overturns the Philippines by ruling it into a whole new dimension of enjoyment which eventually causes her a lots of serious problem about the country and with her family as well. Ang Tanging Ina (TV Series). After the hit blockbuster movie also became the hit TV Sitcom (2003–05).
1061801	James Howard Woods (born April 18, 1947) is an American film, stage and television actor. After his first Golden Globe nomination for a breakthrough role in "The Onion Field" (1979), Woods starred in "Once Upon a Time in America", the Oliver Stone films "Salvador" and "Nixon", "Ghosts of Mississippi", and in legal series "Shark". He has won three Emmy Awards (for tele-movies "Promise" and "My Name Is Bill W.", and for the animated series of "Hercules"). He has been twice nominated for an Academy Award. His voice work has been heard in the animated series "The Simpsons", "Family Guy", Disney movie "Hercules" as Hades and the video game "". Early life. Woods was born in Vernal, Utah. His father, Gail Peyton Woods, was an army intelligence officer who died in 1960, after routine surgery. His mother, Martha A. (née Smith), operated a pre-school after her husband's death and later married Thomas E. Dixon. Woods grew up in Warwick, Rhode Island, where he attended Pilgrim High School. According to rumor, he scored a perfect 800 on the verbal section of the SAT and 779 on the math section of the SAT, yielding a total score of 1579. He was nominated for the United States Air Force Academy and received scholarships from Tufts University and Johns Hopkins University for both undergraduate and graduate studies, intending to go to medical school. Woods ultimately chose to pursue his undergraduate studies at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he majored in political science (though he originally planned on a career as an eye surgeon). While at MIT, Woods pledged to Theta Delta Chi Fraternity. He was also an active member of the student theatre group 'Dramashop' where he both acted in and directed a number of plays. In order to pursue a career in acting, he dropped out of MIT in 1969 before his graduation. Woods has said that he became an actor because of the father of actor Ben Affleck, Tim Affleck, who was a stage manager at the Theatre Company of Boston while Woods was a student there. Career. Woods did 36 plays before making his Broadway debut in 1970 at the Lyceum Theatre, in the first US production of Frank McMahon's "Borstal Boy", he got the part by pretending he was British and returned to Broadway the following year to portray David Darst in Daniel Berrigan's "The Trial of the Catonsville Nine". In 1971, he played Bob Rettie in the American premiere of Michael Weller's "Moonchildren" at the Arena Stage in Washington, D.C. The production moved to Broadway the following year and Woods won a Theatre World Award for his performance. He returned to Broadway in 1973 to portray Steven Cooper in the original production of Jean Kerr's "Finishing Touches". Since then, he has worked regularly as an actor for film and television. In 1975, he portrayed an arrogant high school drama teacher and debate team leader in the television sitcom "Welcome Back, Kotter". Woods is a prominent Hollywood character actor. He is known for his dark, intense characters. Early examples include his portrayals of a sadistic murderer in 1979's "The Onion Field", and of serial killer Carl Panzram in 1994's "". He appeared in an episode of "The Rockford Files", playing a son whose parents were murdered. He has been twice nominated for an Academy Award: first, for Best Actor, for playing a journalist chronicling events in El Salvador in early Oliver Stone film "Salvador" (1986), and again in 1996, for Best Supporting Actor, for his performance as real-life white supremacist Byron De La Beckwith in drama "Ghosts of Mississippi". One of his favorite film roles is Max, the domineering gangster, in Sergio Leone's epic "Once Upon a Time in America" (1984). In 1995, Woods took the role of pimp Lester Diamond in Martin Scorsese's "Casino". That same year, he portrayed H. R. Haldeman in "Nixon", the biopic of Richard M. Nixon, directed by Oliver Stone. One of his most prominent television roles to date saw him starring in CBS legal drama TV series "Shark", which ran for two seasons between 2006 and 2008. He played an infamous defense lawyer who, after growing disillusioned when his client commits a murder, becomes a successful prosecutor with the Los Angeles County District Attorney's office. He was briefly considered for the role of The Joker by director Tim Burton and screenwriter Sam Hamm for the 1989 film "Batman". Hamm recalls that he and Burton thought, "James Woods would be good and wouldn't need any makeup, which would save a couple of hours' work every morning." The role ended up going to Jack Nicholson. Quentin Tarantino wrote a part in "Reservoir Dogs" with Woods in mind, but Woods' agent rejected the script without showing it to the actor. When Woods learned of this some time later, he considered firing his agent. Woods was also considered for the part of Donald Kimball in "American Psycho", but he turned it down. The part was given to Willem Dafoe. In 2006, Woods starred in the political thriller "End Game" with Cuba Gooding, Jr. and makes a cameo of himself in the premiere episode of "Entourage"'s third season. In 2011, Woods appeared as Richard S. Fuld, Jr., Chairman and CEO of Lehman Brothers, in HBO's "Too Big to Fail", for which he gained an Emmy Award nomination for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Mini-series or Movie. Voiceover work. Woods has lent his voice talents to many animated television shows and feature films. He garnered critical praise for his voice work as Hades in 1997 Disney film "Hercules", he won for an Daytime Emmy Award after reprising the role in a follow-up television series. He also voiced Phillium Benedict, the twisted former headmaster who attempts to abolish summer vacation in the 2001 film, "". He also appeared as a fictional version of himself in the episode of "The Simpsons" entitled "Homer and Apu" and in five episodes of "Family Guy", which is set in Woods' native state of Rhode Island. Woods also lent his voice talents to "Family Guy" episode "Something, Something, Something, Dark Side" (a parody of "The Empire Strikes Back"). Other references in "Family Guy" include the local high school, James Woods High School, and a forest briefly mentioned in "The Fat Guy Strangler" named James Woods. In 2004, Woods played the character Jallak in the animated film "Ark". Personal life. During a press interview for "Kingdom Hearts II", Woods noted that he is an avid video game player. He is an active dealer of antiques in Rhode Island. Some of his favorite activities are playing golf and cooking. Poker. Woods plays on the World Poker Tour in the Hollywood Home games for the American Stroke Association charity. In 2006, he finished in 24th place out of 692 at the L.A. Poker Classic for $40,000. Woods has shared an endorsement for the online poker website Hollywood Poker which is run in conjunction with Ongame Network, and "co hosted" with poker enthusiast Vince Van Patten. He plays poker at Hollywood Poker and contributes content to the website. Lawsuits. In 1988, Woods sued Sean Young for $2 million, accusing her of stalking him after they appeared together in the movie "The Boost". Young later countered that he had overreacted after she had spurned his advances on set. The suit was settled out of court in 1989 when Woods paid Sean Young $250,000. On July 26, 2006, Woods' younger brother, Michael Jeffrey Woods, died from cardiac arrest at the age of 49. James Woods sued Kent Hospital in Warwick, Rhode Island, alleging negligence. The suit was settled in 2009. Activism. Politics. Woods was a vocal supporter of former U.S. President George W. Bush and the Iraq War, though he is still a registered Democrat. He is a supporter of former Mayor of New York Rudy Giuliani. Woods lobbied hard to play Giuliani in the biopic "", and considers the role one of the favorites of his career. In 2008, Woods appeared in David Zucker's comedy "An American Carol" (presented from a conservative-leaning perspective), along with active Republican actors Kelsey Grammer, Kevin Farley, and Leslie Nielsen. Woods's name was in an advertisement in the "Los Angeles Times" (August 17, 2006) that condemned Hamas and Hezbollah and supported Israel in the 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict. 9/11. In late August 2001, Woods was on a flight from Boston to Los Angeles. On the flight he noticed 4 men nearby him acting suspiciously. He said that they never drank anything, ordered food, service or talked to anybody. They were just whispering to each other as if they were planning something secret. James Woods reported his suspicions to police officers at the Airport and it reached the FBI but they did not worry or take it seriously. When the September 11 Attacks occurred about two weeks later, Woods believed that he had encountered 4 of the 19 terrorists/hijackers that were just on the flight to study it for the 9/11 disaster. Woods has been interviewed several times by FBI agents regarding this incident. Woods has confirmed that he looked at pictures of the hijackers and has identified two terrorists as being some of the men that he had seen on the flight.
1056734	Yellowbeard is a 1983 comedy film by Graham Chapman, along with Peter Cook, Bernard McKenna and David Sherlock. It was directed by Mel Damski, and was Marty Feldman's last film appearance.
1039645	Adrian Anthony Lester, OBE (born 14 August 1968) is an English actor, director, and writer. Early life, education and personal life. Lester was born in Birmingham, West Midlands, the son of Jamaican immigrants Monica, a medical secretary, and Reginald, a manager for a contract cleaning company. From the age of 9 Lester sang as a boy treble in the choir of St. Chad's Cathedral, Birmingham. At 14 he began acting with the Birmingham Youth Theatre. After leaving Archbishop Masterson RC School he attended Joseph Chamberlain VI Form College for one year before completing 3 years training at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London. Lester currently holds a 2nd Degree Black Belt in Moo Duk Kwan Tae Kwon Do. He is married to actress Lolita Chakrabarti. They live in South East London with their two daughters, Lila and Jasmine. Career. In 1993, he played Anthony Hope in the Royal National Theatre's production of "". Lester is known for playing a big-time con artist named Michael "Mickey Bricks" Stone in the BBC TV series "Hustle" between 2004 and 2012. The character was written out of the fourth series and replaced by Ashley Walters, although he returned from the fifth series onwards. In the United States, he played campaign manager Henry Burton in Mike Nichols's 1998 film "Primary Colors", based on the novel by Anonymous (Joe Klein). His character is believed to represent George Stephanopoulos. This part earned him a Chicago Film Critics Association award nomination for "Most Promising Actor". Lester appeared in Kenneth Branagh's "Love's Labour's Lost", an adaptation of the William Shakespeare play, set in the 1930s. The film itself was poorly received, but Lester received a British Independent Film Awards nomination for his performance. He has appeared on stage in the musical "Company", for which he won an Olivier Award, in the title role of "Hamlet" (Carlton TV Theatre Award) and as Rosalind in Cheek by Jowl's 1991 production of "As You Like It" for which he won a Time Out Award. In 2003, Lester played Henry V in the Shakespeare play of the same name at the Royal National Theatre. Also, in "The Day After Tomorrow", Lester had a minor role as Simon, one of the three researchers who drink a toast of "twelve-year-old Scotch" shortly before freezing to death. Lester also appeared as Ellis in the hit sitcom "Girlfriends" from 2002 to 2003, playing a film star who dated Tracee Ellis Ross's character, Joan. In late 2005, Lester had a major guest starring role in Channel 4's hard-hitting police drama "The Ghost Squad". Lester also filmed scenes for 2007's "Spider-Man 3", as a research scientist who is sought after by the Sandman (Thomas Haden Church) to find a cure for his ailing daughter. He was seen in one teaser trailer for the film; however, his scenes were cut from the final theatrical version. Also in 2007, Lester took part in "Empire's Children", a Channel 4 documentary exploring the journey taken by the "Windrush Generation" to the United Kingdom. Lester's grandfather, Kenneth Nathaniel Lester, was to be included in the documentary, but was unwell during filming in Jamaica and could not be interviewed. Kenneth Lester died soon after the documentary completed filming and never saw the programme aired. In 2008, Adrian Lester starred in the BBC drama "Bonekickers", a programme focusing on a team of archaeologists. 2009 saw him return as Mickey Bricks in "Hustle". He also played the character Myror in the British television drama "Merlin". He recorded, Alpha Force: Survival, an audio book written by Chris Ryan. In 2010, he played the part of Brick in Tennessee Williams' play "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" at the Novello Theatre in London. He also appeared in the documentary "When Romeo Met Juliet" together with his wife Lolita Chakrabarti as acting mentors to the pupils of two Coventry schools involved in a production of "Romeo and Juliet". In 2012 he appeared in Chakrabarti's play "Red Velvet" as Ira Aldridge. In April 2013, he appeared on the Cultural Exchange feature of Front Row on Radio Four (a feature of the programme where people had to choose a piece of art that meant a great deal to them). He chose Redemption Song by Bob Marley. Adrian Lester played the part of Othello in the Shakespeare play of the same name in 2013 alongside Rory Kinnear as Iago at the National Theatre. Lester was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2013 New Year Honours for services to drama.
582224	Zubeidaa (, ) is a 2001 Indian film directed by Shyam Benegal and written by Khalid Mohammed. It stars Karisma Kapoor, Rekha, Manoj Bajpai, Surekha Sikri, Rajit Kapoor, Lillete Dubey, Amrish Puri, Farida Jalal, and Shakti Kapoor. Renowned musician A.R.Rahman has scored the background music and soundtrack for the movie. "Zubeidaa" is the concluding chapter in a trilogy that began with "Mammo" (1994) and continued with "Sardari Begum" (1996). The film is based on the life of the ill-fated actress Zubeida Begum and the writer of this film Khalid Mohammed is her own son. The film garnered the National Film Award for Best Feature Film in Hindi and won Karishma Kapoor a Filmfare Award for Best Actress (Critics). Synopsis. "Zubeidaa" is the story of Riyaz's (Rajit Kapoor) search to understand his mother, who is not known to him, as he was brought up by his grandmother in the absence of his mother. His mother's name was Zubeidaa (Karisma Kapoor) and she was the only daughter of a filmmaker named Suleman Seth (Amrish Puri). Zubeidaa acts in films secretly, but when her father finds out he forbids her to carry on and quickly arranges her marriage to Mehboob Alam (Vinod Sharawat). Things seem happy for her when she gives birth to Riyaz. However, a disagreement arises between Suleman Seth and Mehboob's father, and Mehboob divorces Zubeidaa few days after she gives birth. Zubeidaa then meets Maharaja Vijayendra Singh of Fatehpur (Manoj Bajpai). Vijayendra is already married to Maharani Mandira Devi (Rekha) and is the father of two children. Nevertheless, he falls in love with Zubeidaa and they get married, but there is continuous turmoil in their relationship. Riyaz learns through Zubeidaa's journal that though she loved Vijayendra dearly, she was unable to follow the stifling customs of the palace. She was also uncomfortable because of her brother-in-law Uday Singh's sexual advances towards her, and his demands of her to have an extra-marital affair with him. Riyaz travels to Fatehpur and asks many people about his mother. However, all except Mandira, whom Zubeidaa called "Mandy Didi", either deny that his mother ever existed, or say that she was a horrible woman who seduced their king and caused his death in a plane crash. On reading the journal, Riyaz finds out that Vijayendra had become a politician, and was about to go to Delhi for an important meeting. Zubeidaa felt frustrated that whenever her husband needed help he looked to Mandira for support, and at the last minute she insisted that only she will accompany him for the meeting. Zubeidaa tries to control the small plane which is shown to crash thus killing Zubeidaa and Vijayendra. In the end, Riyaz and his grandmother watch a tape of his mother's film. The movie ends with a screen shot of Zubeidaa dancing happily with Riyaz and his grandmother shedding tears of happiness. Soundtrack. The soundtrack was released in 2000 and contained eight tracks. All of the tracks were composed by A. R. Rahman, with lyrics by Javed Akhtar. Lata Mangeshkar collaborated with the musician again for couple of tracks. Other singers, Alka Yagnik and Kavita Krishnamurthy walked away with all accolades for their renditions in their respective tracks.
1060304	Joe Don Baker (born February 12, 1936) is an American character actor and a life member of the Actors Studio, known for iconic roles as a Mafia hitman in "Charley Varrick", deputy sheriff Thomas Jefferson Geronimo III in "Final Justice", real-life Tennessee Sheriff Buford Pusser in "Walking Tall", brute-force-with-a-badge detective Mitchell in "Mitchell", James Bond villain Brad Whitaker in "The Living Daylights", CIA Agent Jack Wade in the James Bond films "GoldenEye" and "Tomorrow Never Dies", the brilliant and tough NYPD Chief of Detectives Earl Eischied in television police drama, "Eischied" and his BAFTA-nominated performance in "Edge of Darkness". Life and career. Baker was born in Groesbeck, Texas, the son of Edna (née McDonald) and Doyle Charles Baker. He attended the University of North Texas. In 1964 he appeared on stage in "Marathon '33" at the ANTA Theatre in New York City. His career had its roots in television, though he did appear in several movies, including part in the 1967 film "Cool Hand Luke". He appeared in many television series, graduating to featured guest roles in such series as "The Big Valley" (in which he played a Harvard-educated Native American with a penchant for fighting) and "Mod Squad" (where he appeared as an illiterate vending machine robber). He was the title character in the 1971 TV movie "Mongo's Back in Town", starring Telly Savalas.
1055903	Bicycle Thieves (), also known as The Bicycle Thief, is director Vittorio De Sica's 1948 story of a poor father searching post-World War II Rome for his stolen bicycle, without which he will lose the job which was to be the salvation of his young family. Adapted for the screen by Cesare Zavattini from a novel by Luigi Bartolini, and starring Lamberto Maggiorani as the desperate father and Enzo Staiola as his plucky young son, "Bicycle Thieves" is one of the masterpieces of Italian neorealism. It received an Academy Honorary Award in 1950 and, just four years after its release, was deemed the greatest film of all time by "Sight & Sound" magazine's poll of filmmakers and critics; fifty years later the same poll ranked it sixth among greatest-ever films. It is also one of the top ten among the British Film Institute's list of films you should see by the age of 14. Plot. In post-World War II Rome, Antonio Ricci (Lamberto Maggiorani) is desperate for work to support his wife Maria (Lianella Carell), his son Bruno (Enzo Staiola), and his baby. He is offered a position posting advertising bills but tells Maria that he cannot accept because the job requires his bicycle, which he has pawned. Maria resolutely strips the bed of her dowry bedsheetsprized possessions for a poor familyand takes them to the pawn office, where they are exchanged for Antonio's hocked bicycle. They cycle homeMaria on the handlebarsrejoicing in their good fortune. Along the way Maria insists to Antonio's derision on leaving money for a seer who had prophesied Antonio would find work. On his first day of work Antonio is atop a ladder when a young man (Vittorio Antonucci) snatches the bicycle. He gives chase but is thrown off the trail by the thief's confederates. The police take a report but warn that there is little they can do. Advised that stolen goods often surface at the Piazza Vittorio market, Antonio goes there with several friends and his small son Bruno. They locate a bike that might be Antonio's and summon an officer, but the serial number does not match. At the Porta Portese market Antonio and Bruno spot the thief with an old man. They pursue the thief but he eludes them. They demand the thief's identity from the old man, but he feigns ignorance. They follow him into a church, but he slips away from them. Bruno questions Antonio, whereupon Antonio hits his son. Antonio has Bruno wait by a bridge while Antonio searches for the old man. Suddenly there are cries that a boy is drowning. Antonio rushes toward the commotion and is relieved to see that the drowning boy is not Bruno. Antonio treats Bruno to lunch in a restaurant, where they momentarily forget their troubles, but on seeing a rich family enjoying a fine meal, Antonio is again seized by his calamity and tortures himself by reckoning his lost earnings. Desperate, Antonio consults the seer who tells him, "You'll find the bike soon, or not at all." Leaving the seer's house Antonio encounters the thief and pursues him into a what turns out to be a brothel, from which they are ejected. In the street, hostile neighbors gather as Antonio accuses the thief, who conveniently falls into a fit for which the crowd blames Antonio. In the commotion, Bruno fetches a policeman, who searches the thief's apartment without result. The policeman tells Antonio the case is weak since Antonio has no witnesses, and the neighbors are certain to provide the thief an alibi. Antonio and Bruno walk off in despair to jeers and threats from the crowd. They near Stadio Nazionale PNF. Inside a game is underway, while outside, rows of bicycles await their owners. Antonio sees an unattended bicycle near a doorway. He paces distractedly then sits with Bruno on the curb, his head in his hands. As he looks up a stream of bicycles rushes pastthe world seems full of other people's bicycles. He resumes pacing, anguished and agitated, and finally gives Bruno some money, telling him to take the streetcar and wait at Monte Sacro. Antonio circles the unattended bicycle, summons his courage, and jumps on it. The hue and cry is instantly raised, and Bruno, who has missed the streetcar, is stunned to see his father surrounded and pulled from the bike. The bicycle's owner slaps the hat from Antonio's head. As Antonio is being muscled toward the police station, the owner notices Bruno, who is carrying Antonio's hat. In a moment of compassion, the owner decides to let him go. Antonio and Bruno walk slowly off amid a buffeting crowd. Bruno hands his father the hat, crying as Antonio stares dazedly ahead, unreacting even as a truck brushes his shoulder. They look briefly at each other. Antonio fights back tears. Bruno takes his father's hand. The camera watches from behind as they disappear into the crowd. Production. "Bicycle Thieves" is the best-known work of Italian neorealism, the movement (begun by Roberto Rossellini's 1945 "Rome, Open City") which attempted to give cinema a new degree of realism. De Sica had just made the controversial film "Shoeshine" and was unable to get financial backing from any major studio for the film, so he raised the money himself from friends. Wanting to portray the poverty and unemployment of post-war Italy, he chose a novel by Luigi Bartolini to loosely base his script on, which he co-wrote with Cesare Zavattini and others. Following the precepts of neorealism, De Sica shot only on location (that is, no studio sets) and cast only untrained nonactors. (Lamberto Maggiorani, for example, was a factory worker.) That some actors' roles paralleled their lives off screen added realism to the film. De Sica cast Maggiorani when he had brought his young son to an audition for the film. He later cast the 8-year-old Enzo Staiola when he noticed the young boy watching the films production on a street while helping his father sell flowers. The film's final shot of Antonio and Bruno walking away from the camera into the distance is an homage to many Charlie Chaplin films, who was De Sica's favorite filmmaker. Translated title. The original Italian title literally translates into English as "Bicycle Thieves", "biciclette" and "ladri" being plural, but the film has usually been released in the United States as "The Bicycle Thief". According to critic Philip French of "The Observer" (UK), this alternative title is misleading, "because the desperate hero eventually becomes himself a bicycle thief". The film is released in the UK as the more accurate "Bicycle Thieves", and the recent Criterion Collection release in North America uses the plural title. When the film was re-released in the late 1990s Bob Graham, staff film critic for the "San Francisco Chronicle", was quoted as saying that he preferred the title "The Bicycle Thief", stating, "Purists have criticized the English title of the film as a poor translation of the Italian "ladri", which is plural. What blindness! "The Bicycle Thief" is one of those wonderful titles whose power does not sink in until the film is over". Critical reception. When "Bicycle Thieves" was released in Italy, it was viewed with hostility and as portraying Italians in a negative way. Italian critic Guido Aristarco praised it, but also complained that "sentimentality might at times take the place of artistic emotion." Fellow Italian neorealist film director Luchino Visconti criticized the film, saying that it was a mistake to use a professional actor to dub over Lamberto Maggiorani's dialogue. "Bicycle Thieves" has received acclaim from critics ever since its release, earning a 98% 'Fresh' rating on Rotten Tomatoes out of 49 reviews, getting an average 9 out of 10 rating. The picture is also in the Vatican's Best Films List for portraying humanistic values. Bosley Crowther, film critic for "The New York Times", lauded the film and its message in his review. He wrote, "Again the Italians have sent us a brilliant and devastating film in Vittorio De Sica's rueful drama of modern city life, "The Bicycle Thief." Widely and fervently heralded by those who had seen it abroad (where it already has won several prizes at various film festivals), this heart-tearing picture of frustration, which came to World Theater yesterday, bids fair to fulfill all the forecasts of its absolute triumph over here. For once more the talented De Sica, who gave us the shattering "Shoeshine", that desperately tragic demonstration of juvenile corruption in post-war Rome, has laid hold upon and sharply imaged in simple and realistic terms a majorindeed, a fundamental and universaldramatic theme. It is the isolation and loneliness of the little man in this complex social world that is ironically blessed with institutions to comfort and protect mankind". Pierre Leprohon wrote in "Cinéma D'Aujourd" that "what must not be ignored on the social level is that the character is shown not at the beginning of a crisis but at its outcome. One need only to look at his face, his uncertain gait, his hesitant or fearful attitudes to understand that Ricci is already a victim, a diminished man who has lost his confidence." Lotte Eisner called it the best Italian film since World War II and Robert Winnington called it "the most successful record of any foreign film in British cinema." When the film was re-released in the late 1990s Bob Graham, staff film critic for the "San Francisco Chronicle", gave the drama a positive review: "The roles are played by non-actors, Lamberto Maggiorani as the father and Enzo Staiola as the solemn boy, who sometimes appears to be a miniature man. They bring a grave dignity to De Sica's unblinking view of post-war Italy. The wheel of life turns and grinds people down; the man who was riding high in the morning is brought low by nightfall. It is impossible to imagine this story in any other form than De Sica's. The new black-and-white print has an extraordinary range of grey tones that get darker as life closes in". Influence. Wang Xiaoshuai's 2001 film "Beijing Bicycle" explores similar themes of poverty and alienation, set in late 20th-century Beijing. Such similarities, and the bicycle theft driving the plot, have led critics to see parallels in the films. The relationship between Bruno and Antonio displays the strong bond between a father and his son. "Bicycle Thieves" also influenced several Indian films. It was cited as an influence on several early Indian art films, including Bimal Roy's "Do Bigha Zamin" ("Two Acres of Land", 1953) and Satyajit Ray's "Pather Panchali" (1955). Polladhavan a Tamil movie is basically inspired by this movie. At least one critic cited it as an influence on Zeze Gamboa's Angolan film "O Heroi" ("The Hero", 2004), in which a war veteran's prosthetic leg is stolen. Filmmakers from the Iranian New Wave such as Dariush Mehrjui and Jafar Panahi have cited the film as an important influence on their work. The film influenced the 2013 American short film "The Alchemy of Thieves". The film was also parodied in the 1989 film "The Icicle Thief". The film was also on TCM's top 15 most influential films list. It was ranked #4 in "Empire" magazines "The 100 Best Films Of World Cinema" in 2010.
1162735	George Tobias (July 14, 1901 – February 27, 1980) was an American actor. Early life and career. Born to a Jewish family in New York, he began his acting career at the Pasadena Playhouse in Pasadena, California. He then spent several years in theater groups before moving on to Broadway and, eventually, Hollywood. In 1939, Tobias signed with Warner Brothers and was cast in supporting roles, many times along with James Cagney, in such movies as Cagney's "Yankee Doodle Dandy" (1942) as well as with Gary Cooper in "Sergeant York" (1941) and Irving Berlin, Ronald Reagan, and George Murphy in "This Is The Army" (1943). In 1959, Tobias appeared with Barry Nelson in a Western set in Canada and entitled "Hudson's Bay" that ran for 20 episodes. From 1959 to 1961, Tobias played Penrose in eight episodes of the ABC television series, "Adventures in Paradise" starring Gardner McKay. Later in the 1960s, he played the long-suffering neighbor, Abner Kravitz, on the ABC sitcom, "Bewitched". Tobias often appeared in an uncredited role as a courtroom spectator on CBS's "Perry Mason". He played Sidney Falconer in the 1964 "Perry Mason" episode, "The Case of the Antic Angel." George Tobias never married and retired from acting in 1977 after a guest role in the "Bewitched" sequel "Tabitha". Death. On February 27, 1980, Tobias died of bladder cancer at the age of 78 at Cedars Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, California. He is buried in Mount Carmel Cemetery, Glendale, Queens, New York City. Selected filmography. Stalig 17
1166277	Amy O'Neill (born July 8, 1971) is a performer and a former actress. After appearing in several sitcoms and starring as Molly Stark on "The Young and the Restless" in 1986, she was cast as Amy Szalinski in the 1989 Disney film, "Honey, I Shrunk the Kids", for which she was nominated for a Young Artist Award. She also appeared in the 1992 sequel, "Honey, I Blew Up the Kid" and as Lisa Barnes in "Where's Rodney?". Early life. O'Neill was born in Pacific Palisades, California, the daughter of Virginia, an art school director, and Thomas O'Neill, a Los Angeles construction company owner. She is the third of five children. Her older siblings include brother Casey and sister Katie. Her younger brothers include Hugh and Barry. Her father is the brother of Hugh O'Neill, Esq, former Deputy Chief Counsel to The Secretary of the Navy, John Lehman. Career. O'Neill began auditioning for parts at age ten with her older siblings. After school, the kids would drive out to Hollywood. O'Neill made her first appearance on television at age 13 in an episode of "Mama's Family" as a younger version of Betty White's character, Ellen Harper. She continued working on television shows such as "Matt Houston", "Night Court", "Highway to Heaven" and "The Twilight Zone". She also appeared on the American game show, "Body Language". After an appearance on "Family Ties", O'Neill won the role of the pregnant teenager Molly Stark on the daytime soap, "The Young and the Restless" for thirty episodes in 1986.
1060278	My Cousin Vinny is a 1992 American comedy film written by Dale Launer, directed by Jonathan Lynn, and starring Joe Pesci, Ralph Macchio, Marisa Tomei, Mitchell Whitfield, Lane Smith, Bruce McGill and Fred Gwynne. The film was Gwynne's final film appearance before his death on July 2, 1993. The film deals with two young New Yorkers traveling through rural Alabama who are put on trial for a murder they did not commit, and the comic attempts of a cousin, Vincent Gambini, a newly minted lawyer, to defend them. Much of the humor comes from the contrasting personalities of the brash Italian-American New Yorkers, Vinny and his fiancée Mona Lisa, and the more reserved Southern townspeople. Lawyers have praised the comedy's realistic depiction of courtroom procedure and trial strategy. Pesci and Tomei received critical praise for their performances, and Tomei won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. Plot. While driving through the fictional Beechum County, Alabama, NYU students and friends Billy Gambini (Ralph Macchio) and Stan Rothenstein (Mitchell Whitfield) accidentally neglect to pay for a can of tuna after stopping at a convenience store. After they leave the store, the clerk is shot and killed, and Billy and Stan, who match the descriptions of the murderers given by witnesses, are then pulled over and detained in connection with the murder. Due to circumstantial evidence and a series of miscommunications based on the boys’ assumption that they have merely been detained for shoplifting, Billy ends up being charged with murder, and Stan is charged as an accessory. The pair call Billy's mother, who tells her son that there is an attorney in the family, Billy's cousin, Vincent LaGuardia "Vinny" Gambini (Joe Pesci), who travels to Beechum County accompanied by his fiancée, Mona Lisa Vito (Marisa Tomei). Unfortunately, although he is willing to take the case, Vinny is a personal injury lawyer from Brooklyn, New York, newly admitted to the bar (after six attempts and six years) with no trial experience, who worked his way through law school as a mechanic. Although Vinny manages to fool the trial judge, Chamberlain Haller (Fred Gwynne), about being experienced enough to take the case, his ignorance of basic court procedures and abrasive, disrespectful attitude towards the judge gets him into trouble immediately. Much to his clients' consternation, Vinny does not cross-examine any of the witnesses in the probable cause hearing. As their claims go unquestioned, it appears that the district attorney, Jim Trotter III (Lane Smith) has an airtight case that will inevitably lead to a conviction at the trial. After Vinny's poor showing at the hearing, Stan decides to fire him and use the public defender, John Gibbons (Austin Pendleton), and nearly convinces Billy to do the same, but Vinny asks for one more chance to prove himself. The trial then opens with Vinny representing his cousin and the public defender representing Stan. Despite some further missteps, including wearing a gaudy secondhand tuxedo to court and sleeping through Trotter's opening statement, Vinny shows that he can make up for his ignorance and inexperience with an aggressive, perceptive questioning style. While the public defender is shown to have a debilitating stammer, Vinny quickly and comprehensively discredits the testimony of the first witness. Billy's faith is restored, and Stan develops newfound respect and confidence for Vinny, firing the public defender. Vinny's cross-examinations of the remaining eyewitnesses are similarly effective, but Trotter produces a surprise witness, George Wilbur, an FBI analyst who testifies that his chemical analysis of the tire marks left at the crime scene shows that they are identical to the tires on Billy's Buick Skylark. With only a brief recess to prepare his cross-examination and unable to come up with a particularly strong line of questions, Vinny becomes frustrated and lashes out at Lisa by taunting her about the usefulness of her wide-angle photographs of the tire tracks. She storms out, leaving Vinny alone. However, he soon realizes that that photo actually holds the key to the case: the flat and even tire marks going over the curb reveal that Billy's car could not have been used for the getaway, since Billy's Skylark does not have a Positraction rear differential, hence is unable to do such marks. Since he cannot testify to this himself, Vinny needs Lisa, who is also a former mechanic, to do so. After requesting research from the local sheriff (later revealed to be a records search for a stolen Pontiac Tempest) Vinny drags Lisa into court. During Vinny's questioning, Lisa comes to the same conclusion regarding the tire marks and testifies accordingly. Vinny recalls the FBI analyst, who is forced to corroborate Lisa's testimony. Next, Vinny calls the local sheriff, who has run the records request. The sheriff testifies that two men resembling Billy and Stan were arrested driving a stolen Pontiac Tempest, a car very similar in appearance and color to Billy's Skylark, and in possession of a gun of the same caliber used to kill the clerk. Trotter then respectfully moves to dismiss all the charges. Throughout the film, Vinny and Judge Haller play a game of cat-and-mouse over Vinny's qualifications. Haller first discovers that, despite Vinny's claims that he tried "quite a few" murder cases, there exist no records of anybody named Vincent Gambini trying any case in New York State. Vinny then claims that he had his name changed during a previous career as a stage actor and continued to use the name when he opened a law practice. Vinny, believing that he should give the judge the name of someone with the kind of resume he claimed to have, supplies the name of a prominent New York attorney, Jerry Gallo. Unfortunately, Lisa later tells Vinny that Gallo died the previous week, and when Haller learns this, Vinny claims that Haller misheard "Gallo" when Vinny actually said "Callo". Finally, Lisa clears Vinny's standing by calling his mentor, Judge Malloy from New York, who responds to Haller's request by claiming that Jerry Callo has a long and impressive trial history. The film concludes with Haller apologizing for doubting Vinny and praising his skills as a litigator. Trotter also congratulates Vinny and wishes him well. Vinny tells Haller "and you're one hell of a judge" and shakes hands with Trotter. Vinny and Lisa then drive off together, bickering about their future wedding plans. Filming. The courthouse scenes were filmed on a set based on the courthouse in the town square of Monticello, Georgia. Reception. The film received general critical acclaim, holding a score of 86% with 32 positive reviews out of 37 on Rotten Tomatoes. With a budget of $11 million, "My Cousin Vinny" was more successful than any had anticipated, grossing $52,929,168 domestically and $11,159,384 in the foreign markets, bringing its overall total to $64,088,552. Marisa Tomei won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress at the 65th Academy Awards in 1993. The film's screenwriter Dale Launer wrote a sequel; while Pesci was interested in filming it, Tomei was not. Director Jonathan Lynn has a law degree from Cambridge University, and lawyers have praised the accuracy of "My Cousin Vinny"s depiction of courtroom procedure and trial strategy, with one stating that "he movie is close to reality even in its details. Part of why the film has such staying power among lawyers is because, unlike, say, "A Few Good Men", everything that happens in the movie "could" happen—and often "does" happen—at trial". One legal textbook uses the film as an "extremely helpful introduction to the art of presenting expert witnesses at trial", and criminal defenders, law professors, and other lawyers use the film to demonstrate voir dire and cross examination. A professor described "My Cousin Vinny" as useful for discussing The professor added that, in addition, "Vinny is terrible at the things we do teach in law school, but very good at the things we don’t": United States Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia has cited "My Cousin Vinny" as an example of the principle that a client can choose his own lawyer. The authors of "Reel Justice: The Courtroom Goes to the Movies" (2006) gave the film its highest rating along with several films based on real trials, such as "Judgement at Nuremberg" and "Breaker Morant". In 2008 the "ABA Journal" ranked the film #3 on its list of the "25 Greatest Legal Movies", and in 2010 ranked Pesci's character as #12 on its list of "The 25 Greatest Fictional Lawyers (Who Are Not Atticus Finch)". Lynn, an opponent of capital punishment, believes that the film expresses an anti-death penalty message without "preaching to people", and demonstrates the unreliability of eyewitness testimony. Lawyers find the film appealing, according to the director, because "there aren't any bad guys", with the judge, prosecutor, and Vinny all seeking justice. Lynn stated that both he and Launer sought to accurately depict the legal process in "Vinny", favorably comparing it to "Trial and Error", for which he could not make what he believed were necessary changes. Album. Pesci later reprised the Vincent LaGuardia Gambini character for his album, "Vincent LaGuardia Gambini Sings Just for You", which contains the song "Yo, Cousin Vinny." The album cover portrays Pesci in a red suit similar to the usher suit he wore in the film.
837399	Bachelor Party Vegas is a comedy film that was released in 2006 starring Kal Penn, Jonathan Bennett, Charlie Spiller, Diora Baird and Donald Faison. In Australia it was released under the title 'Vegas Baby'. Plot. Z-Bob (Penn), Ash (Faison), Eli (Himelstein), Johnny (Spiller) are a group of four guys who take their soon-to-be married best friend Nathan (Bennett) on a memorable trip to Las Vegas. In order to properly bid farewell to their best friend's life as a single man, they must send him out in style with an extravagant bachelor party in Sin City.
1443488	Taking Five is a 2007 film about two high school girls who kidnap a pop rock band. It premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival on Saturday, April 28, 2007. The film was filmed at Juan Diego Catholic High School in Draper, Utah and at Hillcrest High School in Midvale, Utah. Synopsis. Devon Thompson (Alona Tal) and Gabby Davis (Daniella Monet) are the ultimate fans of the band "5 Leo Rise" (The Click Five). When energy drink Shift sponsors a free "5 Leo Rise" concert for the high school that collects the most bottle labels, Devon and Gabby deliver with a frenzy that only star-struck fans can. When the labels are destroyed in an accidental fire caused by Devon when she was holding a lit sparkler, dreams of the concert are dashed not only for Gabby and Devon, but also for their entire school. Desperate to see their idols on their home turf and not to be social outcasts for the remainder of high school, the two friends take matters of delivering the band into their own hands. They decide to kidnap the band with the help of Lincoln (Marcus T. Paulk) and Pete (Jake Koeppl). They manage to kidnap four members of "5 Leo Rise", Ritchie, K.K , Scooter, and Mason and they leave K.k behind because Pete's car is too small to fit them all. Scooter and mason agree to play at their school. Ritchie (Eric Dill) refuses to do it, so they decide to throw eggs at him and get Devon to dress up as the Velvet Raven (Ritchie’s favorite comic book babe) to convince Ritchie to play. He finally confesses that he lip syncs because he has stage fright. Gabby comes up with an idea to help him sing in front of a crowd by getting them to dress up in really funny costumes. He does not succeed because of Lincoln's actions and storms off to Devon’s basement. He starts playing the song on the guitar and sings as well, but he doesn’t know Devon is standing there. He plucks up the courage to sing in front of Devon and then kisses her when suddenly Lincoln and Gabby walk in to tell Devon that they are in big trouble and then Gabby storms off. Lincoln kidnaps Ritchie because he kissed Devon. Gabby decides to get her stuff and leave, but she gets even with Devon by kissing Mason. Devon makes Lincoln get Ritchie back and then they decide to play at the school. Gabby stands up to Kira (Kate Albrecht) and the whole school is impressed. The band and Devon turn up at the school and they play for them. Ritchie manages to sing in front of a crowd proudly. The girls are happy and don’t know what to do when the concert is all over. Devon's sister, Danielle (Christy Carlson Romano), runs off with Scooter and the rest of the band. Production crew. "Taking Five" is a Teek Films presentation and is produced by Kat Hantas and Chesley Seals and executive produced by Hagai Shaham (Mean Creak), Simon Franks, and Zygi Kamasa. Music. "Taking Five" features new songs from The Click Five and Christy Carlson Romano including: "Kidnap My Heart" by The Click Five, "No Such Thing" and "Friday Night" by Christy Carlson Romano.
1065125	"Nim's Island" is a 2008 Australian adventure-fantasy film directed by Jennifer Flackett and Mark Levin and starring Abigail Breslin, Jodie Foster, and Gerard Butler. The story is based on the book "Nim's Island" by Wendy Orr. A young girl, Nim, seeks help from the author of her favorite adventure series when her scientist father goes missing. Nim, though, lives on an island in the South Pacific. The author, Alexandra Rover, is agoraphobic and lives in San Francisco. While Rover attempts to overcome her agoraphobia in order to set out in search of her, Nim tries to overcome her fear of losing her father. In the meantime, a cruise ship company attempts to invade Nim's island with uncouth tourists. Plot. Nim (Abigail Breslin) is an 11-year-old girl, whose mother, Emily, has died. Her father, Jack Rusoe (Gerard Butler), a marine biologist, said she was swallowed by a blue whale after it was scared by a ship called the Buccaneer. Nim lives on an island in the South Pacific and has some local animals for company: Selkie the sea lion, Fred the lizard, Chica the sea turtle, and Galileo the pelican. Jack goes by boat on a scientific mission of two days to find "protozoa nim" (a new species of plankton); he wants to take his daughter along, but she convinces him that she needs to stay to oversee the imminent hatching of Chica's eggs and can manage on her own; they will be able to communicate by satellite phone. Nim, who is fond of Alex Rover adventure books written by Alexandra Rover (Jodie Foster), receives an email addressed to her father with an inquiry about his field of knowledge. The sender "Alex Rover" seems to be the explorer, but is actually Alexandra, a neurotic San Franciscan who constantly sees her character Alex Rover (also Gerard Butler). An email conversation follows, where Nim first acts as her father's assistant and goes to the island with the volcano. Jack suffers a shipwreck, which makes it impossible for Nim and Jack to communicate. Therefore he does not return as planned. Galileo brings Jack things he needs to fix his ship. Nim explains the situation to "Alex". Although Alexandra suffers from agoraphobia and therefore never leaves the house or even opens the door, she travels to the island to rescue Nim, but Nim, who expected "Alex", first refuses her. The island is visited by tourists. Nim believes them to be pirates. Without revealing herself she gets out of the crater just in time as plumes of clouds burst out. Down at the beach the tourists scramble to the boats. One of them, a boy, Edmund, sees and follows her. He is confused by her presence but believes she lives on the island. When he tells the others, they do not believe him. Nim starts to cry, when she thinks that her ever-winning father must be dead after four days. But Jack appears on a makeshift windsurf coming to the island. Jack and Alex begin to know each other, and the film ends with them playing soccer with a coconut. Critical reception. The film received mixed reviews from critics. The review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reports that 51% of critics gave the film positive reviews, based on 101 reviews. Metacritic reported the film had an average score of 55 out of 100, based on 23 reviews. Box office performance. In its opening weekend, "Nim's Island" grossed $13.3 million in 3,513 theaters in the United States and Canada, ranking #2 at the box office behind "21". The film had a domestic box office gross of $48,006,762 surpassing its $37 million budget, according to Box Office Mojo and a foreign gross of $52,069,700 and total of $100,076,342 worldwide. Home media release. "Nim's Island" was released on DVD on 5 August 2008. It opened at #1 at the DVD sales chart, selling 466,326 DVD units and earning $8,389,200 in revenue. As per the latest figures, 1,013,100 DVD units have been sold, acquiring revenue of $18,188,600. Soundtrack. The score to "Nim's Island" was composed by award-winning composer Patrick Doyle. He recorded his score with the Hollywood Studio Symphony at the Sony Scoring Stage during the week of 3 February 2008. This marked the first time in a decade that he recorded a score in Los Angeles. The song playing over the closing credits is "Beautiful Day" by U2. The film's soundtrack CD was released on 8 April 2008 from Varèse Sarabande. Sequel. A sequel, "Return to Nim's Island", will air on the Hallmark Channel on March 15 in the U.S. and will be released on DVD 19 March 2013, exclusively to Wal-Mart, and two days later on 21 March worldwide. Bindi Irwin will replace Abigail Breslin as Nim Rusoe, Toby Wallace will replace Maddison Joyce as Edmund, and Matthew Lillard will replace Gerard Butler as Jack Rusoe, Nim's father. "Return to Nim's Island" will be released theatrically in Australia on 4 April 2013.
518164	Alfred Habdank Skarbek Korzybski (; July 3, 1879 – March 1, 1950) was a Polish-American philosopher and scientist. He is remembered for developing the theory of general semantics. Korzybski's work argued that human knowledge of the world is limited both by the human nervous system and by the structure of language. Korzybski thought that people do not have access to direct knowledge of reality; rather they have access to perceptions and to a set of beliefs which human society has confused with direct knowledge of reality. Korzybski is remembered as the author of the dictum: "The map is not the territory". Early life and career. Korzybski was born in Warsaw, Poland which at that time was part of the Russian Empire. He was part of an aristocratic Polish family whose members had worked as mathematicians, scientists, and engineers for generations. He learned the Polish language at home and the Russian language in schools; and having a French governess and a German governess, he became fluent in these four languages as a child. Korzybski was educated at the Warsaw University of Technology in engineering. During the First World War Korzybski served as an intelligence officer in the Russian Army. After being wounded in a leg and suffering other injuries, he moved to North America in 1916 (first to Canada, then the United States) to coordinate the shipment of artillery to Russia. He also lectured to Polish-American audiences about the conflict, promoting the sale of war bonds. After the War, he decided to remain in the United States, becoming a naturalized citizen in 1940. He met Mira Edgerly, a painter of portraits on ivory, shortly after the Armistice, and married her in January, 1919. Their marriage lasted until his death. His first book, "Manhood of Humanity", was published in 1921. In the book, he proposed and explained in detail a new theory of humankind: mankind as a "time-binding" class of life (humans perform time binding by the transmission of knowledge and abstractions through time which are accreted in cultures). General semantics. Korzybski's work culminated in the initiation of a discipline that he named general semantics (GS). As Korzybski said, GS should not be confused with semantics, a different subject. The basic principles of general semantics, which include time-binding, are described in the publication "Science and Sanity", published in 1933. After the publication of "Science and Sanity" he traveled about teaching briefly in many schools and universities. In 1938 Korzybski founded the Institute of General Semantics in Chicago. The post-World War II housing shortage in Chicago cost him the Institute's building lease, so in 1946, he moved the Institute to Lakeville, Connecticut, USA, where he directed it until his death in 1950. Korzybski's work maintained that human beings are limited in what they know by (1) the structure of their nervous systems, and (2) the structure of their languages. Human beings cannot experience the world directly, but only through their "abstractions" (nonverbal impressions or "gleanings" derived from the nervous system, and verbal indicators expressed and derived from language). Sometimes our perceptions and our languages actually mislead us as to the "facts" with which we must deal. Our understanding of what is happening sometimes lacks "similarity of structure" with what is actually happening. He stressed training in awareness of abstracting, using techniques that he had derived from his study of mathematics and science. He called this awareness, this goal of his system, "consciousness of abstracting". His system included modifying the way we consider the world, e.g., with an attitude of "I don't know; let's see," to better discover or reflect its realities as revealed by modern science. One of these techniques involved becoming inwardly and outwardly quiet, an experience that he termed, "silence on the objective levels". "To be". Many devotees and critics of Korzybski reduced his rather complex system to a simple matter of what he said about the verb form "is" of the more general verb "to be." His system, however, is based primarily on such terminology as the different "orders of abstraction," and formulations such as "consciousness of abstracting." It is often said that Korzybski "opposed" the use of the verb "to be," which is a profound exaggeration (see "Criticisms" below). He thought that "certain uses" of the verb "to be", called the "is of identity" and the "is of predication", were faulty in structure, e.g., a statement such as, "Elizabeth is a fool" (said of a person named "Elizabeth" who has done something that we regard as foolish). In Korzybski's system, one's assessment of Elizabeth belongs to a higher order of abstraction than Elizabeth herself. Korzybski's remedy was to "deny" identity; in this example, to be aware continually that "Elizabeth" is "not" what we "call" her. We find Elizabeth not in the verbal domain, the world of words, but the nonverbal domain (the two, he said, amount to different orders of abstraction). This was expressed by Korzybski's most famous premise, "the map is not the territory". Note that this premise uses the phrase "is not", a form of "to be"; this and many other examples show that he did not intend to abandon "to be" as such. In fact, he said explicitly that there were no structural problems with the verb "to be" when used as an auxiliary verb or when used to state existence or location. It was even all right sometimes to use the faulty forms of the verb "to be," as long as one was aware of their structural limitations. This was developed into the language "E-Prime" by D. David Bourland, Jr. 15 years after his death (E-Prime a form of the English language in which the verb "to be" does not appear in any of its forms; for example, the sentence "the movie was good" could translate into E-Prime as "I liked the movie", thereby distinguishing opinion from fact). Anecdotes. One day, Korzybski was giving a lecture to a group of students, and he interrupted the lesson suddenly in order to retrieve a packet of biscuits, wrapped in white paper, from his briefcase. He muttered that he just had to eat something, and he asked the students on the seats in the front row if they would also like a biscuit. A few students took a biscuit. "Nice biscuit, don't you think," said Korzybski, while he took a second one. The students were chewing vigorously. Then he tore the white paper from the biscuits, in order to reveal the original packaging. On it was a big picture of a dog's head and the words "Dog Cookies." The students looked at the package, and were shocked. Two of them wanted to vomit, put their hands in front of their mouths, and ran out of the lecture hall to the toilet. "You see," Korzybski remarked, "I have just demonstrated that people don't just eat food, but also words, and that the taste of the former is often outdone by the taste of the latter." William Burroughs went to a Korzybski workshop in the Autumn of 1939. He was 25 years old, and paid $40. His fellow students—there were 38 in all—included young Samuel I. Hayakawa (later to become a Republican member of the U.S. Senate), Ralph Moriarty deBit (later to become the spiritual teacher Vitvan) and Wendell Johnson (founder of the Monster Study). Reception. Korzybzki was well received in numerous disciplinary realms, as evidenced by the positive reactions from leading persons in the sciences and humanities in the 1940s and 1950s. Some of the persons listed are, like Korzybski, polymaths and several categories apply to them. For example, Heinlein was the "dean of science fiction writers" because he was "the scientist" of science fiction. As reported in the Third Edition of "Science and Sanity", The U.S. Army in World War II used Korzybski's system to treat battle fatigue in Europe with the supervision of Dr. Douglas M. Kelley, who went on to become the psychiatrist in charge of the Nazi prisoners at Nuremberg. Some of the General Semantics tradition was continued by Samuel I. Hayakawa, who had a dispute with Korzybski. When asked because of what, Hayakawa is said to have replied: "Words."
674515	Barfuss (English: Barefoot) is a romantic comedy film by German actor and director Til Schweiger released in 2005. It tells the story of Nick (Til Schweiger), a hedonistic bachelor, who helps and eventually falls in love with Leila, an escaped mental patient portrayed by Johanna Wokalek. Til Schweiger also co-wrote the screenplay. Plot. The life of Nick Keller (Til Schweiger) can hardly be called well sorted. He stumbles from one temporary job to the next, and he has very serious problems with Heinrich, his rich and influential stepfather, as well as with his brother Viktor. Nick’s latest temporary job is as a cleaner in a psychiatric clinic, where he prevents the barefooted patient Leila (Johanna Wokalek) from committing suicide just as he is being fired from this latest employment.
1169512	Billy De Wolfe (February 18, 1907 - March 5, 1974) was an American character actor. He was active in films from the mid-1940s until his death in 1974. He was a good friend of Doris Day from the time of their meeting during the filming of "Tea for Two" (1950) until his death. He was never married. Life. Born William Andrew Jones in the Wollaston neighborhood of Quincy, Massachusetts, DeWolfe was the son of a Welsh-born bookbinder who encouraged him to become a Baptist minister. Instead, "Billy" developed an interest in the theatre. He found work as an usher before becoming a dancer with the Jimmy O'Connor Band. It was at this point that he changed his last name to De Wolfe, which was the last name of the manager of the Massachusetts theatre where he worked. He went on to tour Europe with a dance team, appearing in a London revue called "Revels in Rhythm" and "danced before royalty on nine continents." At some point during World War II, he served in the United States Navy. He signed with Paramount Pictures in 1943 and became a reliable comedian. His pencil-mustached and often pompous character contrasted humorously with the films' romantic leads. His best-known role of his Paramount tenure is probably the ham actor turned silent-movie villain in the 1947 fictionalized Pearl White biography "The Perils of Pauline". De Wolfe became known for his portrayal of fussy, petty men ("Never touch!," he would say imperiously whenever someone accosted him physically). A "New York Times" review of his 1948 film "Isn't It Romantic?" strongly criticized the way the other actors' material limited their performances, contrasting their performances with his: "But Mr. De Wolfe is nothing daunted. He rips up the place with great delight. The material is at his mercy. Likewise the scenery. And he chews it to bits." After his Paramount contract lapsed, DeWolfe returned to the stage. He appeared in the revue "John Murray Anderson's Almanac" in 1953 and 1954, and starred in the last edition of the "Ziegfeld Follies", in 1957. He appeared regularly in guest roles on television, including the first two episodes of NBC's "The Imogene Coca Show". He reappeared as Mr. Jarvis on CBS's "The Doris Day Show", and co-starred with Larry Storch in a short-lived TV sitcom, "The Queen and I". He often appeared on talk shows and in TV commercials, doing his "Mrs. Murgatroyd" drag routine. Wearing a hat and a shawl (but still sporting his mustache!), DeWolfe (as old maid "Phoebe Murgatroyd") would claim to be an expert on romance, and answered questions from the lovelorn. Generations of TV viewers know Billy DeWolfe only by his voice: his is the voice of the inept magician Professor Hinkle in the 1969 Christmas special "Frosty the Snowman". DeWolfe gave the role his usual fussy diction: "Mess-y, mess-y, mess-y! Bus-y, bus-y, bus-y!" In 1967-68 (one season, 26 episodes), he co-starred with Joby Baker and Ronnie Schell in the TV sitcom "Good Morning, World" as Roland Hutton, the fussy manager at a radio station where David Lewis and Larry Clarke (Baker and Schell) are co-hosts. In 1972, DeWolfe was scheduled to return to Broadway portraying Madame Lucy in the musical revival of "Irene" starring Debbie Reynolds, Monte Markham, Ruth Warrick, and Patsy Kelly. However, during the early stages of rehearsals, DeWolfe learned that he was ill with cancer and was replaced by George S. Irving. Later that year, he recorded a voice role for the New York cast album of "Free to Be... You and Me", starring Marlo Thomas, reprising the role in the animated ABC Television special filmed a year later. The TV show aired on March 11, 1974, six days after his death. De Wolfe died from lung cancer on March 5, 1974 at UCLA Medical Center in Los Angeles, California, where he had been hospitalized since February 26.
1162622	Elizabeth Anne "Lizzy" Caplan (born June 30, 1982) is an American actress. In film, she is best known for her roles as Janis Ian in "Mean Girls" (2004), Marlena Diamond in "Cloverfield" (2008), April in "Hot Tub Time Machine" (2010), and Gena in "Bachelorette" (2012). On television, her most notable roles include Avery Bishop in "Tru Calling" (2005), Marjee Sorelli in "Related" (2005–2006), Kat Warbler in "The Class" (2006–2007), Amy Burley in "True Blood" (2008) and Casey Klein in "Party Down" (2009–2010). Personal life. Caplan was born and raised in Los Angeles. She grew up in a Reform Jewish family. Her mother died when she was thirteen. Caplan attended Alexander Hamilton High School, and was a student at the school's Academy of Music. At first, she focused on playing the piano but later decided to pursue drama. She graduated in 2000. Caplan has been in a relationship with actor Matthew Perry since 2006. She is godmother to Birdie Leigh Silverstein, the daughter of actress Busy Philipps and screenwriter Marc Silverstein. Career. Caplan began her television acting career in 1999 playing the minor role of Sara, a girlfriend of Jason Segel's character, on the critically acclaimed series "Freaks and Geeks". Caplan had a series of guest appearances on numerous shows. She also appeared in Jason Mraz's music video "You and I Both". In 2001, she played Tina Greer in an episode of "Smallville", and reprised her role on the show in 2003. She appeared in two episodes of the ABC series "Once and Again" as Sarah, the ex-girlfriend of Mischa Barton's character, Katie Singer. She gained wider notice in the 2004 movie "Mean Girls". She played the alternative-styled Janis Ian, named for the singer-songwriter. In 2003, she starred in the television series "The Pitts", playing Faith Pitt. In the second season of "Tru Calling", she played Avery Bishop, a friend of Tru Davies. Caplan landed a starring role in 2005, playing Marjee Sorelli, the troubled sister in "Related", a one-hour comedy-drama on The WB. The show was canceled after one season. In 2006, Caplan played the starring role of Sara Weller in Wesley Strick's thriller, "Love is the Drug". She was named one of “10 Actors to Watch” that year by "Variety". After "Related" ended, Caplan was cast in the CBS sitcom "The Class", which premiered on September 18, 2006, and lasted one season. She played Kat Warbler, one of several elementary-school friends that reunite after 20 years. In 2008, Caplan appeared in the film "Cloverfield" playing Marlena Diamond, and was nominated for a Saturn award as Best Supporting Actress. She also appeared in the romantic comedy "My Best Friend's Girl" playing Ami, the roommate of Kate Hudson's character Alexis. She is the voice of Faith Pitt in the animated version of "The Pitts", released in 2009. In 2008, Caplan guest starred on the vampire-themed HBO show "True Blood" in a multiple-episode story arc as Amy Burley, the drug-addled girlfriend of Sookie Stackhouse's brother, Jason. Caplan also appeared in the critically acclaimed Starz ensemble comedy "Party Down", playing a struggling comedienne who is part of a catering crew. In 2010, she appeared in "127 Hours", a film directed by Danny Boyle. Based on a true story, Caplan played Sonja Ralston, the sister of hiker Aron Ralston, played by James Franco, who was forced to amputate his own arm after being trapped by a boulder. In early 2012, Caplan premiered two films at the Sundance Film Festival: "Save the Date" and "Bachelorette". Also in 2012, Caplan has appeared in several episodes of the Fox sitcom "New Girl" as Julia. In March 2012, she filmed a television pilot for Showtime's "Masters of Sex". Caplan and Michael Sheen played 1960s human sexuality pioneers Masters and Johnson. The pilot was directed by John Madden.
583859	Kana Kandaen is a 2005 Tamil film directed by K. V. Anand, and starring Srikanth, Prithviraj and Gopika. Plot. Friends since their childhood days, the couple begins to live in a small house owned by Sivaramakrishnan (Vivek) in Chennai. Meanwhile, Bhaskar (Srikanth), a research scholar in Chemistry, succeeds in coming out with a prototype of a desalination plant which he wants to give to the government and solve the water crisis in Chennai. He eventually gets discouraged by the government authorities and even the State Minister. He then decides to prove everyone wrong and plans to set up his own desalination plant based on the methods of his research. Along with Archana (Gopika), he runs from pillar to post for loan. In between, the couple falls in love and ties the knot. Enter Madan (Prithviraj Sukumaran in Tamil Debut), a college mate of Archana. Madan gets acquainted with their family. Coming to know of their troubles, the rich Madan volunteers to help them and even lends money. All troubles begin only now. Madan happens to be a 'business consultant' who lends money to companies, corporates and individuals at exorbitant rates of interest and uses his might to recover them. In Bhaskar's case, he begins to trouble them demanding his money back and threatens to take over the research works of Bhaskar with which he aspires to make a huge sum. The screen play is clear to move the story with good twists and good romance between the lead pair. The highlight of the movie is Prithviraj - cool acting as new kind of soft spoken villain in his debut - where his acting is praised in many reviews. The Vivek portion of the comedy is not so good, but makes sense of relief. The movie after several twists and turns ends on a happy note. Soundtrack. The music is composed by Vidyasagar and lyrics were written by Vairamuthu.
1072152	Plot. Kitano plays Murakawa, a Tokyo yakuza tiring of gangster life. Along with some henchmen, he is sent by his boss to Okinawa supposedly to mediate a dispute between their allies, the Nakamatsu clan, and the Anan clan. Murakawa openly suspects that the assignment is an attempt to have him removed and even beats up one of his colleagues, Takahashi, who he distrusts, but ends up going with his men. He finds that the dispute between the clans is insignificant and while wondering why he was sent to Okinawa at all, the group's temporary headquarters are bombed and they are then ambushed in a bar, and several of his men are killed. Fleeing to the seaside, the survivors take refuge in a remote beach house belonging to a brother of one of the Nakamatsu members and decide to wait for the trouble to blow over. Whilst spending time at the beach, the group engages in childish games and pranks and the group begins to enjoy themselves. However, the men's play inevitably has a violent undertone. When two of his men alternate shooting at a beer can on each other's head, Murakawa turns it into a game of Russian roulette. Putting the seemingly loaded gun to his head, he pulls the trigger on the last chamber. The chamber is revealed to be empty and Murakawa is unharmed. He later dreams of the Russian roulette game, although in his dream, the revolver is loaded and he is killed. When he wakes up, he walks down to the shore. He sees a car pull up, and a man drags a woman into the sand and proceeds to attempt to rape her. Murakawa stoically watches for a while and then walks past them toward the beach house. When the man realizes Murakawa has been there the whole time and shouts at him, Murakawa headbutts him. When the man gets up, he pulls out a knife and threatens Murakawa, who shoots him dead. The woman joins Murakawa and the gang at the beach house, and comes frequently to visit, spending time with Murakawa. Later, an assassin disguised as a fisherman appears. He kills several people, including the boss of the Nakamatsu clan, and one of Murakawa's men, in the middle of a Frisbee match. Learning that Takahashi is arriving in Okinawa, Murakawa and two of his surviving men visit his hotel. Unable to find him at first, they unexpectedly run into Takahashi and the assassin in the elevator, which results in a shootout, killing the assassin and Murakawa's men. Murakawa then learns from interrogating Takahashi that their boss had intended all along to partner with the Anan clan and had sent Murakawa to Okinawa in order to get killed and thus take over his turf. He also learns that the boss will be meeting with the Anan that night in a hotel. Takahashi is killed and Murakawa sets off with the only survivor of the group, a member of the Nakamatsu clan, who helps him by rigging the electricity in the hotel to go off at a certain time. Murakawa tells the woman that he may come back, and the woman promises to wait for him. Later that night while waiting for all the yakuza to arrive, the Nakamatsu member asks Murakawa to take him with him, but admits that he has had enough when Murakawa asks. When the electricity goes off, Murakawa goes into the hotel and kills all the yakuza with a Colt Commando. The next morning, while the woman continues to wait for him, Murakawa drives to a spot near the beach and commits suicide by shooting himself in the head. The scene then switches to the car and the horizon and slowly fades. Soundtrack. The CD soundtrack was released in 1999 by Milan Records, too. Fukasaku's influence. "Sonatine" was highly inspired by, and explicitly refers to, Kinji Fukasaku's 1971 "Sympathy for the Underdog", starring Koji Tsuruta. Plot, location and characters are similar in both movies, even the Okinawan theme song featured in Fukasaku's "Sympathy for the Underdog" appears in "Sonatine". Since Takeshi Kitano started directing on "Violent Cop" thanks to Kinji Fukasaku's withdrawal, some believe that "Sonatine" is an homage to Fukasaku, one of Kitano's masters along with Akira Kurosawa. It is also notable that "Sonatine" shares many thematic qualities with Kitano's 1997 later film, "Hana-bi", which is considered by many to be his masterpiece, since it earned him a Golden Lion award at the Venice Film Festival. Local and international reception. The film's theatrical release in Japan was a commercial failure as Kitano was only perceived as a popular owarai comedian, and the audience was not prepared, nor capable, to accept him as a credible gangster noir character. However with Kitano not yet famous abroad, the movie would later benefit of this different situation especially in the European market. "Sonatine" was showcased in a few small theaters in France where it received lukewarm acclaim from specialized professionals. It was also screened in the Un Certain Regard section at the 1993 Cannes Film Festival. French publisher and notorious movie-goer, Jean-Pierre Dionnet (Canal +/Studio Canal), reported in an interview, that someone convinced Alain Delon to watch "Sonatine" arguing that Kitano was a fan of "Le Samouraï". Delon was seriously taken aback, and talking about Kitano's acting, said "what's THAT? [...], this is not an actor [...], he only got three facial expressions and he almost doesn't talk on top of this". Most professionals around Dionnet had the same reject reaction, but the French publisher was both struck and puzzled by this new genre. He contacted the Japanese distributor in order to buy the license for the exploitation of "Sonatine", but his request was strongly rejected. Dionnet had to insist during several months to finally discover that the Shochiku didn't want to release Sonatine abroad, claiming the movie was "too Japanese" and would not be accepted, nor understood, by western audiences. Eventually Dionnet learned that the distributor didn't want to release the license because of its commercial failure in Japan. Dionnet had an agreement with the Shouchiku arguing that the French audience didn't know Kitano's career and would accept his violent character more easily. He bought "Sonatine" and three additional subtitled movies, "Violent Cop", "Boiling Point" and the latest, "Kids Return", all of which performed poorly in Japan ("A Scene at the Sea" and "Getting Any?" were not licensed). In 1995, "Sonatine" entered the 13th Festival du Film Policier de Cognac (Thriller Film Festival of Cognac) in France, where it was critically acclaimed, and lastly, "Sonatine", followed by the three other movies were broadcast on the French channel Canal+ few months later. Then a couple of years later on the Franco-German public channel Arte. A video release followed, including a DVD edition available in Dionnet's collection "Asian Classics". In 1997, "Hana-bi" was premiered in Italy, at the Venice Film Festival, where it earned Kitano the first prize, known as the Golden Lion award. The critical success of the movie, led a part of the Japanese audience to reconsider him as a true, important, filmmaker and earn the attention of North American publishers. As soon as 1995, Takeshi Kitano (credited as "Takeshi") played the role of a yakuza in American director Robert Longo's SF thriller, "Johnny Mnemonic". Although in North America "Sonatine" was released in theaters in April 1998 and, another Kinji Fukasaku enthusiast, Quentin Tarantino, released a subtitled video edition in 2000 as part of his "Rolling Thunder Pictures" collection. The same year, Kitano was convinced by his producer to go in the United States where he filmed his first (and last) movie outside Japan. "Brother" was shot in Los Angeles with an American crew and local actors including Omar Epps. In an interview, Kitano admitted he was not fully satisfied with the final result of "Brother" and that he regretted his "Hollywood" adventure which was supposed to bring him a broader audience with a higher exposure. Kitano confessed he had no intention of shooting outside Japan anymore.
1018366	Shannon Emery Lee (born April 19, 1969) is an American actress and business woman. She is the daughter of martial arts film star Bruce Lee and Linda Lee Cadwell, the granddaughter of Cantonese opera singer Lee Hoi-Chuen, and the younger sister of Brandon Lee. Personal life. Shannon Lee was born as the second child to Bruce Lee and Linda C. Emery and her family lived in Hong Kong from 1971 to 1973, after which her mother moved back to the United States following the death of her father. Together, they lived in Seattle, Washington (Linda's hometown) and Los Angeles. Shannon grew up in the affluent area of Rolling Hills, California. Graduating from The Chadwick School in 1987, Lee then attended Tulane University in New Orleans, where she studied voice and graduated in 1991. She moved back to Los Angeles in 1993 after her brother's death to pursue acting. She married lawyer Anthony Keasler in 1994, and bore their daughter, Wren, in 2003. She is also known for managing her father's official Facebook memorial page. Career. Lee made her acting debut playing a cameo in her father's biopic film "" in 1993. She went onto appear in the direct-to-video films "Cage II" (1994) and "High Voltage" (1997). In 1998 she made her first Hong Kong produced action film "And Now You're Dead" which was directed by Corey Yuen and co-starred Michael Wong and Anita Yuen. On television, she guest-starred in an episode of the television series "Martial Law" alongside Sammo Hung in 1998 and appeared in the science-fiction television film "Epoch", which first aired on the Sci Fi Channel in 2000. She was also the television host of the first season of "WMAC Masters". Lee is currently the president of the Bruce Lee Foundation. She also sang on the band Medicine's album "The Mechanical Forces of Love" in 2003. Shannon also sang a cover of "I'm in the Mood for Love" for the movie "China Strike Force" (2000), which starred Leehom Wang and Aaron Kwok. She is the executive producer of the 2008 television series "The Legend of Bruce Lee", based on her father's life. She also is executive producer of the 2009 documentary film called "How Bruce Lee Changed the World".
1789625	Invasion of the Pod People (released in some countries as Invasion: The Beginning) is a 2007 science-fiction film produced by The Asylum. Like several other films by The Asylum, "Invasion of the Pod People" is a mockbuster whose release coincided with the premiere of "The Invasion", although the plot of "Pod People" borrowed heavily from the 1956 film "Invasion of the Body Snatchers", of which "The Invasion" is a reworking. Plot. The film is about Melissa (Erica Roby), a young woman living in Los Angeles, who works for a large corporation. One night, there is a freak meteor shower. The next morning, Melissa goes about her day but as time passes, slowly becomes aware that those around her have changed since the meteorites fell. It's as if their minds are no longer their own. For example, Melissa's supervisor Samantha seduces her into a passionate lesbian encounter, even though Samantha had never shown any signs of being a lesbian. Melissa soon realizes that the townsfolk have been replaced by a race of aliens known as Pod People. The aliens grow in large seed pods and gradually take the form of a particular person, eventually taking over their bodies once the growth process is complete. The Pod People try to take control of Melissa, but she flees the town to warn humanity of the invasion in progress.
629825	Xavier Samuel (born 10 December 1983) is an Australian actor. He has appeared in leading roles in the feature films "September", "Further We Search", "Newcastle", "The Loved Ones" and "A Few Best Men", and played Riley Biers in "". Early life and education. Samuel was born in Hamilton, Victoria, the son of Maree and Clifford Samuel. He grew up in Adelaide, South Australia and graduated from Rostrevor College in 2001. Xavier has a younger brother, Benedict Samuel, who is a writer, producer and actor. He also has an older sister Bridget Samuel who is a stage manager. Despite completing his senior secondary years at Rostrevor College, Samuel undertook final year drama at Christian Brothers College under the tutelage of Amanda Portus. During the same year, he played the part of Tom Snout (the wall) in Rostrevor College's production of Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream" as well as playing the part of Belvile in CBC's production of Aphra Behn's "The Rover" ("The Banished Cavaliers"). Samuel attended Flinders University Drama Centre in 2005, where he studied under renowned acting teacher Professor Julie Holledge. He played Hamlet in the graduate production. Acting debut and international breakthrough. Samuel made his debut on an Australian TV show named "McLeod's Daughters" in 2003. He starred in the Australian horror movie "Road Train" as Marcus, and also acted in the Australian movie "Drowning" with "Elephant Princess" star Miles Szanto, directed by Craig Boreham. In 2009, he was cast as Brent in the Australian horror/thriller movie "The Loved Ones" in the lead role opposite Robin McLeavy. Although it received several award nominations, the film was a financial failure. In early 2010, Samuel was cast as Riley Biers in "". The film gave Samuel his first blockbuster film worldwide. Samuel received his first award nomination and win at the 2011 MTV Movie Awards. In an interview with "GQ Australia" in November 2010, Samuel described the process of his shock "Twilight" casting. "I sent off the audition tape from Sydney, which landed in a big pile on someone's desk. So then to actually hear something back was kind of unusual. I guess I was a bit of a gamble, but it's bizarre and wonderful." Samuel appeared in the 2011 film "Anonymous". He plays a lead role in "A Few Best Men" (2011/2012). He was cast in 3D feature "Bait", released in September 2012 and short film "Sanctuary", which was also released in 2012. Personal life. Samuel follows Australian rules football and is a supporter of the Adelaide Football Club in the Australian Football League.
1156292	Chase Me is a 2003 American direct-to-video animated short film based on the animated series "The New Batman Adventures". The film contained no dialogue and was released as a bonus feature on the DVD for "" in the U.S. on October 21, 2003. It was produced by Warner Bros. Animation. The film follows Batman as he chases Catwoman across Gotham City. The chase sequences are accompanied by a soundtrack mix of a quiet piano score, with then later a high upbeat jazz style score that plays up the chase and slowly dips into a slower/methodical jazz score as the film reaches its downbeat climax. Plot. The piece begins with the view of a large penthouse to which Bruce Wayne is gazing out the window. He's pulled to the dance floor by three lovely young ladies. Each has their turn before Alfred rescues Bruce, who dives into a nearby elevator. When he reaches his floor, he sees none other than Catwoman at the safe, stealing a bag of money. Catwoman pins Bruce to the wall while she finishes robbing the safe, and makes her escape. Bruce breaks free, and heads after her as Batman. He finds her on the rooftops, and the chase begins. She dives several dozens stories below into busy traffic, breaking her fall with a banner and swinging onto a tour bus. She poses for some pictures until Batman arrives, taking most of the publicity away from her. They jump on a milk truck tanker and Catwoman blows the tires out. The truck spins off, and Batman pursues after her, ignoring the truck dumping gallons of milk on a couple of stray cats, as well as onto Harvey Bullock. Then, they jump on a train, where, while going into a tunnel, Batman loses Catwoman, only to see her trail leading into a zoo. Expectedly, she had detoured through the Large Cats exhibit and leaves Batman. He escapes through the sunroof while Catwoman runs into an aviary to be chased out by a colony of bats. She is then cornered by Batman against the gates of the zoo. She notices he was scratched earlier, and leans to kiss him. Batman pushes her away, and she appears hurt. Batman then sweeps her into his arms and kisses her. The cops arrive, and Catwoman looks around, concerned. She pushes at Batman to leave. Batman then slowly smiles at her. He takes the bag of money and leaves. Catwoman smiles, thinking she's been let off the hook, only to find herself handcuffed to the fence. She falls to the ground, despondent, then looks up in quiet rage. A remorseful Bruce Wayne looks through the window at the party, again, watching the cop cars fly past. Then, a lady who bears a striking resemblance to Catwoman's alter ego Selina Kyle grabs his arm and pulls him back to the party.
1027459	American Hot Wax is a 1978 biopic film directed by Floyd Mutrux and written by John Kaye telling the story of Cleveland disc jockey Alan Freed, who was instrumental in introducing and popularizing rock 'n' roll in the 1950s. Freed is often credited with coining the term "Rock 'n' Roll." The film starred Tim McIntire as Freed, as well as Fran Drescher, Laraine Newman, Melanie Chartoff, and Jay Leno in supporting roles, Moosie Drier in a warmly reviewed performance as the head of a Buddy Holly fan club, and a walk-on part by a teen-aged Cameron Crowe. It also featured performances by Chuck Berry, Jerry Lee Lewis, Frankie Ford, Screamin' Jay Hawkins and the Brooklyn Dreams performed as "Professor La Plano and The Planotones". The film was never officially released on VHS or DVD, but the full film is currently viewable on Myspace. A&M Records released a 2-record soundtrack featuring the Brooklyn Paramount performances from the movie on Record 1 (in stereo) and original recordings used throughout the film on Record 2 (all in mono). The soundtrack reached #31 on the "Billboard" charts. Producer Art Linson discusses the movie's production and its failure at the box office in his book "What Just Happened? Bitter Hollywood Tales from the Front Line". Cast. Performers The Chesterfields The Delights Timmy & The Tulips The Planotones
1064803	Men of Honor (released in the UK, Ireland and Canada as Men of Honour) is a 2000 drama film, starring Robert De Niro and Cuba Gooding, Jr. The film was directed by George Tillman, Jr. It is inspired by the true story of Master Chief Petty Officer Carl Brashear, the first black-American master diver in the United States Navy. Plot. Carl Brashear (Gooding, Jr.) decides to leave his lifestyle in native Kentucky in 1948 and the life of a sharecropper by way of joining the United States Navy. As a crew member of the salvage ship USS "Hoist", where he is assigned to the galley, he is inspired by the bravery of one of the divers, Master Chief Petty Officer Leslie William "Billy" Sunday (De Niro). He is determined to overcome racism and become the first black American Navy diver, even proclaiming that he will become a master diver. He eventually is selected to attend Diving and Salvage School in Bayonne, New Jersey where he arrives as a boatswain's mate second class. He finds that Master Chief Sunday is the leading chief petty officer and head instructor, who is under orders from the school's eccentric, bigoted commanding officer to ensure that Brashear fails. Brashear struggles to overcome his educational shortcomings, a result of his leaving school in the 7th grade in order to help his family's failing farm. He receives educational assistance from his future wife, an aspiring doctor, who works part-time in the Harlem (New York City) Public Library. Brashear proves himself as a diver by rescuing a fellow student whose dive buddy abandoned him during a salvage evaluation that turns into a near disaster. Unfortunately, due to the prevailing racism of the commanding officer (Hal Holbrook), the student who fled in the face of danger is awarded a medal for Brashear's heroic actions. Likewise, during an underwater assembling task where each student had to assemble a flange underwater using a bag of tools, Brashear's bag is cut open. Brashear finishes the assembly and successfully completes the diving school, earning the quiet and suppressed admiration of Master Chief Sunday and his fellow divers. Master Chief Sunday is later demoted to senior chief by the commanding officer for standing up for Brashear and allowing him to pass. His career begins to wane as he continues to lose his composure around the officers that disrespect his accomplishments, until he is finally demoted to chief petty officer and relegated to menial duties.
1163092	Edie McClurg (born July 23, 1951) is an American character actress. She is known for her perky North Central dialect (or Upper Midwest accent), common to persons from Middle America. She has performed in nearly 90 movies and 55 TV episodes. Early life. McClurg was born in Kansas City, Missouri. She attended University of Missouri, and she earned a master's degree from Syracuse University. She worked as a newswriter and documentary producer for KCUR-FM, a National Public Radio affiliate. Career as performer. McClurg's onscreen debut was as Helen Shyres, one of Carrie's classmates and tormentors, in the 1976 Brian De Palma horror film "Carrie". She was a comedy regular on the "Tony Orlando and Dawn" variety show (1976–77), and then a cast member of two shows in 1977, the short-lived sitcom "The Kallikaks" and "The Richard Pryor Show". In 1980, she regularly performed on "The David Letterman Show" morning show as Mrs. Marv Mendenhall. She appeared in "Elvira, Mistress of the Dark" as Town Council President Chastity Pariah. Having been a member San Francisco's improv comedy, the Pitcshel Players, she moved to Los Angeles and joined the Groundlings troupe, she worked with fellow Groundling player, Paul Reubens, a.k.a. Pee-Wee Herman, on his first play "The Pee Wee Herman Show", in which she appeared in 1981 as "Hermit Hattie". She has performed in nearly 90 movies and 55 TV episodes, usually typecast as a middle-aged, somewhat stubborn and dimwitted Midwesterner. Director John Hughes enjoyed casting her; she appears in four of his feature films. McClurg is known for a number of roles, including Mrs. Burns in "A River Runs Through It;" Mr. Rooney's secretary Grace in "Ferris Bueller's Day Off"; Lucille Tarlek on "WKRP in Cincinnati"; Lynn in "She's Having a Baby"; perky PTA member (and ally of Stella Johnson) Willamae Jones in the television remake of "Harper Valley PTA"; motherly and very friendly next-door neighbor Mrs. Patty Poole on "The Hogan Family"; nosy next-door neighbor Bonnie Brindle on "Small Wonder"; the car-rental agent whom Steve Martin berates in "Planes, Trains and Automobiles", Mrs. Violet Bleakman on "Clifford the Big Red Dog"; and as Mrs. Beeker on the long-running family drama "7th Heaven". McClurg guest starred as Barri's mother in a January 2007 episode of "Campus Ladies". She performed as one of the wicked stepsisters in the "Faerie Tale Theatre" production "Cinderella". She appeared on several TV game shows, including "Match Game", "The $25,000 Pyramid", "Password Plus", and "Super Password". She contributed assorted voices for "The Jetsons", "The Snorks", "Life with Louie", "A Bug's Life", "Cars" and "Cars 2". She voiced Carlotta in "The Little Mermaid", Mary (a Nicelander in Fix-It Felix Jr.) in "Wreck-It Ralph", Miss Right (a female crow) in "The Secret of NIMH", the Dragon in the "Nightmare Ned" video game, Barsa in "Kiki's Delivery Service", Fran the squirrel on "Higglytown Heroes", Mrs. Claus in ', Grandma Taters in ', Violet Stimpleton in "Rocket Power", Bea's mother in "Fish Hooks", Winnie Pig in "", and Aunt Ruth in the 1990s cartoon series "Bobby's World". McClurg was also in an episode of the TV sitcom "The Golden Girls", playing a nurse from Shady Pines that Sophia hated to see again. She appeared in an episode of "Hannah Montana" as Cindy Merriweather. Continuing her love of performing improvisational comedy, she is a player with Spolin Players, and on April 9, 2007, she made an appearance on the NBC improv show "Thank God You're Here".
1093058	Nikolay Nikolayevich Bogolyubov (; 21 August 1909 – 13 February 1992), also transliterated as Bogoliubov, was a Soviet mathematician and theoretical physicist known for a significant contribution to quantum field theory, classical and quantum statistical mechanics, and to the theory of dynamical systems; a recipient of the Dirac Prize (1992). Biography. Early life (1909–1921). Nikolay Bogolyubov was born on 21 August 1909 in Nizhny Novgorod, Russian Empire to Russian Orthodox Church priest and seminary teacher of theology, psychology and philosophy Nikolay Mikhaylovich Bogolyubov, and Olga Nikolayevna Bogolyubova, a teacher of music. The Bogolyubovs relocated to the village of Velikaya Krucha in the Poltava Governorate (now in Poltava Oblast, Ukraine) in 1919, where the young Nikolay Bogolyubov began to study physics and mathematics. The family soon moved to Kiev in 1921, where they continued to live in poverty as the elder Nikolay Bogolyubov only found a position as a priest in 1923. He attended research seminars in Kiev University and soon started to work under the supervision of the well-known contemporary mathematician Nikolay Krylov. In 1924, at the age of 15, Nikolay Bogolyubov wrote his first published scientific paper "On the behavior of solutions of linear differential equations at infinity". In 1925 he entered Ph.D. program at the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR and obtained the degree of Kandidat Nauk ("Candidate of Sciences", equivalent to a Ph.D.) in 1928, at the age of 19, with the doctoral thesis titled "On direct methods of variational calculus". In 1930, at the age of 21, he obtained the degree of Doktor nauk ("Doctor of Sciences", equivalent to Habilitation), the highest degree in the Soviet Union, which requires the recipient to have made a significant independent contribution to his or her scientific field. This early period of Bogolyubov's work in science was concerned with such mathematical problems as direct methods of the calculus of variations, the theory of almost periodic functions, methods of approximate solution of differential equations, and dynamical systems. This earlier research had already earned him wide recognition. One of his essays was awarded the Bologna Academy of Sciences Prize in 1930, and the author was awarded the erudite degree of doctor of mathematics. This was the period when the great scientific rise of the young Nikolai Bogolyubov began, later producing new multiple scientific trends in modern mathematics, physics, and mechanics. Since 1931, Krylov and Bogolyubov worked together on the problems of nonlinear mechanics and nonlinear oscillations. They were the key figures in the "Kiev school of nonlinear oscillation research", where their cooperation resulted in the paper ""On the quasiperiodic solutions of the equations of nonlinear mechanics"" (1934) and the book "Introduction to Nonlinear Mechanics" (1937; translated to English in 1947) leading to a creation of a large field of non-linear mechanics. Distinctive features of the Kiev School approach included an emphasis on the computation of solutions (not just a proof of its existence), approximations of periodic solutions, use of the invariant manifolds in the phase space, and applications of a single unified approach to many different problems. From a control engineering point of view, the key achievement of the Kiev School was the development by Krylov and Bogolyubov of the describing function method for the analysis of nonlinear control problems. In the period 1928—1973, Nikolay Bogolyubov worked in the Institute for Theoretical Physics of the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR holding the position of the Director of the institute since 1965. He lectured at Kiev University in the period 1936—1959. In evacuation (1941–1943). After the German attack against the Soviet Union on 22 June 1941 (beginning of the Great Patriotic War), most institutes and universities from west part of Russia were evacuated into east regions far from the battle lines. Nikolay Bogolyubov moved to Ufa, where he became Head of the Departments of Mathematical Analysis at Ufa State Aviation Technical University and at Ufa Pedagogical Institute, remaining on these positions during the period of July 1941 – August 1943. Moscow (1943–?). In autumn 1943, Bogolyubov came from evacuation to Moscow and on 1 November 1943 he accepted a position in the Department of Theoretical Physics at the Moscow State University (MSU). At that time the Head of the Department was Anatoly Vlasov (for a short period in 1944 the Head of the Department was Vladimir Fock). Theoretical physicists working in the department in that period included Dmitry Ivanenko, Arsenij Sokolov, and other famous physicists. In the period 1943–1946, Bogolyubov's resesarch was essentially concerned with the theory of stochastic processes and asymptotic methods. In his work "?" a simple example of an anharmonic oscillator evolving under the force of the form as a superposition of incoherent sinusoidal oscillations with continuous spectrum was used to show that depending on a specific approximation time scale the evolution of the system can be either deterministic, or a stochastic process satisfying Fokker-Planck equation, or even a process which is neither deterministic nor stochastic. In other words, he showed that depending on the choice of the time scale for the corresponding approximations the same stochastic process can be regarded as both dynamical and Markovian, and in the general case as a non-Markov process. This work was the first to introduce the notion of time hierarchy in non-equilibrium statistical physics which then became the key concept in all further development of the statistical theory of irreversible processes. In 1945, Bogolyubov proved a fundamental theorem on the existence and basic properties of a one-parameter integral manifold for a system of non-linear differential equations. He investigated periodic and quasi-periodic solutions lying on a one-dimensional manifold, thus forming the foundation for a new method of non-linear mechanics, the "method of integral manifolds". In 1946, he published in JETP two works on equilibrium and non-equilibrium statistical mechanics which became the essence of his fundamental monograph "Problems of dynamical theory in statistical physics" (Moscow, 1946). On 26 January 1953, Nikolay Bogolyubov became the Head of the Department of Theoretical Physics at MSU, after Anatoly Vlasov decided to leave the position on January 2, 1953. Steklov Institute (1947–?). In 1947, Nikolay Bogolyubov organized and became the Head of the Department of Theoretical Physics at the Steklov Mathematical Institute. In 1969, the Department of Theoretical Physics was separated into the Departments of Mathematical Physics (Head Vasily Vladimirov), of Statistical Mechanics, and of Quantum Field Theory (Head Mikhail Polivanov). While working in the Steklov Institute, Nikolay Bogolyubov and his school contributed to science with many important works including works on renormalization theory, renormalization group, axiomatic S-matrix theory, and works on the theory of dispersion relations. In the late 1940s and 1950s, Bogoliubov worked on the theory of superfluidity and superconductivity, where he developed the method of BBGKY hierarchy for a derivation of kinetic equations, formulated microscopic theory of superfluidity, and made other essential contributions. Later he worked on quantum field theory, where introduced the Bogoliubov transformation, formulated and proved the Bogoliubov's edge-of-the-wedge theorem and Bogoliubov-Parasyuk theorem (with Ostap Parasyuk), and obtained other significant results. In the 1960s his attention turned to the quark model of hadrons; in 1965 he was among the first scientists to study the new quantum number color charge. In 1946, Nikolay Bogoliubow was elected as a Corresponding Member of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR. He was elected a full member (academician) of the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR and in full member of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR in 1953. Dubna (1956–1992). Since 1956, he worked in the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research (JINR), Dubna, Russia, where he was a founder (together with Dmitry Blokhintsev) and the first director of the Laboratory of Theoretical Physics. This laboratory, where Nikolay Bogolyubov worked for a long time, has traditionally been the home of the prominent Russian schools in quantum field theory, theoretical nuclear physics, statistical physics, and nonlinear mechanics. Nikolay Bogolyubov was Director of the JINR in the period 1966—1988. Family. His son Nikolay Boglyubov (jr) is a theoretical physicist working in the fields of mathematical physics and statistical mechanics. Students. Nikolay Bogoliubov was a scientific supervisor of Yurii Mitropolskiy, Dmitry Shirkov, Selim Krein, Iosif Gihman, Tofik Mamedov, Kirill Gurov, Mikhail Polivanov, Naftul Polsky, Galina Biryuk, Sergei Tyablikov, Dmitry Zubarev, Vladimir Kadyshevsky, and many other students. His method of teaching, based on creation of a warm atmosphere, politeness and kindness, is famous in Russia and is known as the "Bogoliubov approach". Awards. Nikolay Bogolyubov received various high USSR honors and international awards. Institutions, awards and locations have been named in Bogolyubov's memory: In 2009, the centenary of Nikolay Bogolyubov's birth was celebrated with two conferences in Russia and Ukraine: Research. Fundamental works of Nikolay Bogoliubov were devoted to asymptotic methods of nonlinear mechanics, quantum field theory, statistical field theory, variational calculus, approximation methods in mathematical analysis, equations of mathematical physics, theory of stability, theory of dynamical systems, and to many other areas. He built a new theory of scattering matrices, formulated the concept of microscopical causality, obtained important results in quantum electrodynamics, and investigated on the basis of the edge-of-the-wedge theorem the dispersion relations in elementary particle physics. He suggested a new synthesis of the Bohr theory of quasiperiodic functions and developed methods for asymptotic integration of nonlinear differential equations which describe oscillating processes. Publications. Books. Mathematics and Non-linear Mechanics: Statistical Mechanics: Quantum Field Theory:
1102614	Charles Hermite () (December 24, 1822 – January 14, 1901) was a French mathematician who did research on number theory, quadratic forms, invariant theory, orthogonal polynomials, elliptic functions, and algebra. Hermite polynomials, Hermite interpolation, Hermite normal form, Hermitian operators, and cubic Hermite splines are named in his honor. One of his students was Henri Poincaré. He was the first to prove that "e", the base of natural logarithms, is a transcendental number. His methods were later used by Ferdinand von Lindemann to prove that π is transcendental. In a letter to Thomas Stieltjes in 1893, Hermite famously remarked: "I turn with terror and horror from this lamentable scourge of continuous functions with no derivatives." Life. Hermite was born in Dieuze, Moselle on 24 December 1822, with a deformity in his right foot which would affect his gait for the rest of his life. He was the sixth of seven children of Ferdinand Hermite, and his wife Madeleine Lallemand. His father worked in his mother's family drapery business, and also pursued a career as an artist. The drapery business relocated to Nancy in 1828 and so did the family. He studied at the Collège de Nancy and then, in Paris, at the Collège Henri IV and at the Lycée Louis-le-Grand. Hermite wanted to study at the École Polytechnique and he took a year preparing for the examinations and was tutored by Catalan between 1841 and 1842. In 1842 Hermite entered the École Polytechnique, where he remained as a student for one year. Hermite was refused the right to continue his studies at the École Polytechnique because of his disability (École Polytechnique is to this day a military academy). He had to fight to regain his place which he won but with strict conditions imposed. Hermite found this unacceptable and decided to leave the École Polytechnique without graduating. As a boy he read some of the writings of Joseph Louis Lagrange on the solution of numerical equations, and of Carl Gauss on the theory of numbers. In 1842, his first original contribution to mathematics, in which he gave a simple proof of the proposition of Niels Abel concerning the impossibility of obtaining an algebraic solution for the equation of the fifth degree, was published in the "Nouvelles Annales de Mathématiques". A correspondence with Carl Jacobi, begun in 1843 and continued in 1844, led to the insertion, in the complete edition of Jacobi's works, of two articles by Hermite, one concerning the extension to Abelian functions of one of the theorems of Abel on elliptic functions, and the other concerning the transformation of elliptic functions. After spending five years working privately towards his degree, in which he befriended eminent mathematicians Joseph Bertrand, Carl Gustav Jacob Jacobi, and Joseph Liouville, he took and passed the examinations for the baccalauréat, which he was awarded in 1847. He married Joseph Bertrand's sister, Louise Bertrand in 1848. In 1848, Hermite returned to the École Polytechnique as "répétiteur and examinateur d'admission". In 1856 he contracted smallpox. Through the influence of Augustin-Louis Cauchy and of a nun who nursed him, he resumed the practice of his religion. On 14 July, of that year, he was elected to fill the vacancy created by the death of Jacques Binet in the Académie des Sciences. In 1869, he succeeded Jean-Marie Duhamel as professor of mathematics, both at the École Polytechnique, where he remained until 1876, and in the Faculty of Sciences of Paris, which was a post he occupied until his death. From 1862 to 1873 he was lecturer at the École Normale Supérieure. Upon his seventieth birthday, on the occasion of his jubilee which was celebrated at the Sorbonne under the auspices of an international committee, he was promoted grand officer of the Légion d'honneur. He died in Paris, 14 January 1901, aged 78. Contribution to mathematics. An inspiring teacher, Hermite strove to cultivate admiration for simple beauty and discourage rigorous minuteness. His correspondence with Thomas Stieltjes testifies to the great aid he gave those entering scientific life. His published courses of lectures have exercised a wide influence. His important original contributions to pure mathematics, published in the leading mathematical journals of the world, dealt chiefly with Abelian and elliptic functions and the theory of numbers. In 1858 he solved the equation of the fifth degree by elliptic functions; and in 1873 he proved "e", the base of the natural system of logarithms, to be transcendental. This last was used by Ferdinand von Lindemann to prove in 1882 the same for π. Publications. The following is a list of his works.: External links. "This article incorporates text from the public-domain Catholic Encyclopedia of 1913."
1557992	The Three Stooges Collection is a series of DVD collections of theatrical short subjects produced by Columbia Pictures starring American slapstick comedy team The Three Stooges. Each volume is a two-disc set, and covers a three-year interval, with the exception of "Volume Eight", which is a three-disc set and covers the last five years at Columbia. The series was first made available by Sony Pictures Home Entertainment in October 2007, and marked the first time the comedy team's shorts were released on DVD in chronological order. In addition, every film was remastered in high definition, another first for the comedy team's body of celluloid works. "Volume Seven: 1952–1954" was released on November 10, 2009, and includes a pair of 3-D glasses to view the two 3-D entries in the series, "Spooks!" and "Pardon My Backfire". On June 1, 2010, the final three-disc set was released, which included the final 16 shorts with Shemp and all 16 shorts with Joe Besser. In 2012, all eight volumes were reissued in a box set entitled "The Ultimate Collection", with the addition of a ninth, 3-disc volume entitled "Rare Treasures from the Columbia Picture Vault". The additional volume featuring the feature films "Rockin' in the Rockies" and "Have Rocket, Will Travel", several cartoons featuring the Stooges from the 1930s and 1940s. Also included were several Columbia shorts featuring Shemp Howard, Joe Besser and Joe DeRita as solo comedians prior to joining the Stooges; several of these solo films are remakes of Stooge films. "Volume One: 1934–1936". The film's original release date is listed next to the title. "Rare Treasures from the Columbia Pictures Vault". 3-DVD set of bonus material released with "Ultimate Collection" box set, focusing on solo films featuring Shemp Howard, Joe Besser and Joe DeRita. Also included were animated cartoons featuring the Stooges.
1066584	Good Luck Chuck is a 2007 romantic comedy film starring Dane Cook and Jessica Alba. In the film, women find their "one true love" after having sex with a dentist named Chuck (Cook). Chuck meets a girl named Cam (Alba) and tries to become her true love.
1066101	Shaft in Africa, released in 1973, is the third film in the blaxploitation trilogy of films that starred actor Richard Roundtree as John Shaft. John Guillermin directed and Stirling Silliphant did the screenplay. The cost went up to $2,142,000, but the gross fell to $1,458,000. MGM quickly sold the property to television, but the television series was cancelled after just seven episodes. Plot. At home in his New York City apartment, John Shaft is drugged with a tranquilizer dart, then kidnapped and persuaded by threats of physical force, the promise of money, and the lure of a pretty tutor to travel to Africa (much of the movie was filmed in Eritrea), assuming the identity of a native-speaking itinerant worker. His job is to help break a criminal ring that is smuggling immigrants into Europe then exploiting them. But the villains have heard that he is on his way. Shaft must pass a test before being hired for the job; the test involves him surviving in a small, overheated room without water, and a floor covered in deep sand, mimicking the supposed conditions of Africa. Shaft ingeniously covers himself with the sand, thereby avoiding heatstroke and winning the contract from his employer. Shaft must then embark upon a mission to infiltrate and destroy a human trafficking and slavery ring in West Africa and France. Reception. The movie had a lukewarm receptions from critics.
1227307	Robert Gene "Red" West (born 1936) is an American actor, film stuntman and songwriter. He was a close high school friend of rock and roll singer Elvis Presley. He is probably best known to American film audiences for his role as Red in "Road House", alongside Patrick Swayze. Early life. West was born in Memphis, Tennessee, the son of Lois and Newton Thomas West. An excellent athlete and former U.S. Marine, West played football for his high school and junior college teams and was a boxer in the Golden Gloves championships. West and Elvis. In the entourage. In 1955, West was the driver for Presley and band members Winfield Scott "Scotty" Moore, Bill Black, and later D. J. Fontana when they toured the U.S. South performing live concerts as the "Blue Moon Boys." In 1960, following Presley's discharge from the United States Army, Red West went to work for the singer as a bodyguard and became known as one of the media-dubbed Memphis Mafia. West wrote songs for Elvis Presley as well as teen idols Ricky Nelson, Pat Boone and Johnny Rivers. Dismissal and "". In 1976, Red West was involved in a series of heavy-handed incidents in Las Vegas with aggressive fans that got out of hand, drawing criticism by the media. More than that, West was becoming more vocal about Elvis' drug problem and how he needed rehab. As a result, West, his cousin Sonny, and a third bodyguard named David Hebler were fired by Elvis's father, Vernon Presley (who hated the members of his son's entourage for reasons that remained unclear). West continued his career in film and, in 1977, he collaborated with his cousin Sonny West, Dave Hebler, and professional writer Steve Dunleavy on a book about their time working for Elvis Presley titled "" (ISBN 0-345-27215-3). This was the first book that focused on Elvis's addiction to prescription drugs. The book came out a few weeks before Elvis died. Some fans have suggested that reading the book may have made Elvis more depressed and hastened his death. When Elvis died in August 1977, the book had sold more than 1 million copies. As a songwriter. Red West wrote several songs with Elvis Presley in 1961 and 1962. He received help from Elvis Presley in writing two songs in the early 1960s, which were collaborations: "You'll Be Gone" and "That's Someone You Never Forget." "You'll Be Gone" was also co-written with Charlie Hodge, and appeared on the "Girl Happy" soundtrack album and as a 45 single in 1965. The single reached number 35 on the Canadian singles chart in 1965. "That's Someone You Never Forget" was the final track on the 1962 album "Pot Luck" and was released as a 45 B side single in 1967 and was featured on the Artist of the Century compilation. Red also co-wrote "If You Think I Don't Need You" with Joey Cooper for the motion picture "Viva Las Vegas." He teamed up with Joey Cooper again on "I'm A Fool," which Ricky Nelson recorded. "I'm A Fool" later became a hit for Dino, Desi and Billy, the partnership of Dean-Paul "Dino" Martin, Desi Arnaz Jr., and William "Billy" Hinsche. He also co-wrote the tunes "Seeing Is Believing" and "Holly Leaves And Christmas Trees," both with Glenn Spreen, "Separate Ways" with Richard Mainegra, and "If You Talk In Your Sleep" with Johnny Christopher; Presley himself recorded the last of these in the early 1970s. The Christmas song "If Everyday Was Like Christmas" was written by West and recorded by Elvis in 1966. Red had put out his own recording of "If Every Day Was Like Christmas" in 1965 on the Brent label. It was not known to have charted as of late July of 2012. Career in film and television. When Presley was making films in the 1960s in Hollywood, Red West appeared in small roles in sixteen of the star's films. During this time, West became good friends with actor Nick Adams and his physical abilities got him hired on as a stuntman on Adams' television series, "The Rebel". From there, West went on to do more stunt work in film as well as developing a career as an actor in a number of motion pictures and on television. He was often on screen as a henchman in the television series "The Wild Wild West". He was also a stuntman on the series and developed a strong friendship with the star Robert Conrad Red had a tiny role as an ice cream man in the 1967 movie Clambake, starring Bill Bixby and Shelly Fabares. West played Master Sergeant Andy Micklin in the 1978 Robert Conrad series "Baa Baa Black Sheep". He also guest starred twice on the CBS hit "Magnum, P.I." (as different characters), as four different characters on NBC's hit "The A-Team", "Knight Rider" pilot episode "Knight of the Phoenix", and in "The Once and Future King (The Twilight Zone)" as the man who played an Elvis impersonator's boss at the Crown Electric company (and who was a real-life schoolmate and best friend of Elvis). In 1989 West appeared in the action film Road House with Patrick Swayze as Red Webster, the auto parts store owner. West continued to work in motion pictures as of early February 2013. His most recent role was in the 2013 film "Safe Haven." Personal life. In 1961, Red West married Patsy Boyd, one of Elvis Presley's secretaries. Their son John Boyd West is a Hollywood actor who appeared in the 2005 CBS miniseries "Elvis".
1099444	Karl Pearson FRS (27 March 1857 – 27 April 1936) (originally named Carl) was an influential English mathematician who has been credited with establishing the discipline of mathematical statistics. In 1911 he founded the world's first university statistics department at University College London. He was a proponent of eugenics, and a protégé and biographer of Sir Francis Galton. A sesquicentenary conference was held in London on 23 March 2007, to celebrate the 150th anniversary of his birth. Family. Carl Pearson, later known as Karl Pearson (1857–1936), was born to William Pearson and Fanny Smith, who had three children, Aurthur, Carl (Karl) and Amy. William Pearson also sired an illegitimate son, Frederick Mockett. Pearson's mother, Fanny Pearson née Smith, came from a family of master mariners who sailed their own ships from Hull; his father read law at Edinburgh and was a successful barrister and Queen's Counsel (QC). William Pearson's father's family came from the North Riding of Yorkshire. "Carl Pearson" inadvertently became "Karl Pearson" when he enrolled at the University of Heidelberg in 1879, which changed the spelling. He used both variants of his name until 1884 when he finally adopted Karl. Eventually he became universally known as "KP". He was also an accomplished historian and Germanist. He spent much of the 1880s in Berlin, Heidelberg, Vienna, Saig bei Lenzkirch, and Brixlegg. He wrote on Passion plays, religion, Goethe, Werther, as well as sex-related themes, and was a founder of the Men and Women's Club. In 1890 he married Maria Sharpe, who was related to the Kenrick, Reid, Rogers and Sharpe families, late 18th century and 19th century non-conformists largely associated with north London; they included: Karl and Maria Pearson had two daughters, Sigrid Loetitia Pearson and Helga Sharpe Pearson, and one son, Egon Sharpe Pearson. Egon Pearson became an eminent statistician himself, establishing the Neyman-Pearson lemma. He succeeded his father as head of the Applied Statistics Department at University College. He and his family lived at 7 Well Road in Hampstead, now marked with a blue plaque. Education and early work. Karl Pearson was educated privately at University College School, after which he went to King's College, Cambridge in 1876 to study mathematics, graduating in 1879 as Third Wrangler in the Mathematical Tripos. He then travelled to Germany to study physics at the University of Heidelberg under G H Quincke and metaphysics under Kuno Fischer. He next visited the University of Berlin, where he attended the lectures of the famous physiologist Emil du Bois-Reymond on Darwinism (Emil was a brother of Paul du Bois-Reymond, the mathematician). Other subjects which he studied in Berlin included Roman Law, taught by Bruns and Mommsen, medieval and 16th century German Literature, and Socialism. He was strongly influenced by the courses he attended at this time and he became sufficiently expert on German literature that he was offered a Germanics post at Kings College, Cambridge. On returning to England in 1880, Pearson first went to Cambridge: In his first book, "The New Werther", Pearson gives a clear indication of why he studied so many diverse subjects: Pearson then returned to London to study law so that he might, like his father, be called to the Bar. Quoting Pearson's own account: His next career move was to Inner Temple, where he read law until 1881 (although he never practised). After this, he returned to mathematics, deputizing for the mathematics professor at King's College London in 1881 and for the professor at University College London in 1883. In 1884, he was appointed to the Goldsmid Chair of Applied Mathematics and Mechanics at University College London. Pearson became the editor of "Common Sense of the Exact Sciences" (1885) when William Kingdon Clifford passed on. 1891 saw him also appointed to the professorship of Geometry at Gresham College; here he met Walter Frank Raphael Weldon, a zoologist who had some interesting problems requiring quantitative solutions. The collaboration, in biometry and evolutionary theory, was a fruitful one and lasted until Weldon died in 1906. Weldon introduced Pearson to Charles Darwin's cousin Francis Galton, who was interested in aspects of evolution such as heredity and eugenics. Pearson became Galton's protégé — his "statistical heir" as some have put it — at times to the verge of hero worship. After Galton's death in 1911, Pearson embarked on producing his definitive biography—a three-volume tome of narrative, letters, genealogies, commentaries, and photographs—published in 1914, 1924, and 1930, with much of Pearson's own financing paying for their print runs. The biography, done "to satisfy myself and without regard to traditional standards, to the needs of publishers or to the tastes of the reading public", triumphed Galton's life, work, and personal heredity. He predicted that Galton, rather than Charles Darwin, would be remembered as the most prodigious grandson of Erasmus Darwin. When Galton died, he left the residue of his estate to the University of London for a Chair in Eugenics. Pearson was the first holder of this chair—the "Galton Chair of Eugenics", later the "Galton Chair of Genetics"—in accordance with Galton's wishes. He formed the Department of Applied Statistics (with financial support from the Drapers' Company), into which he incorporated the Biometric and Galton laboratories. He remained with the department until his retirement in 1933, and continued to work until his death in 1936. Einstein and Pearson's work. When the 23 year-old Albert Einstein started a study group, the Olympia Academy, with his two younger friends, Maurice Solovine and Conrad Habicht, he suggested that the first book to be read was Pearson's "The Grammar of Science". This book covered several themes that were later to become part of the theories of Einstein and other scientists. Pearson asserted that the laws of nature are relative to the perceptive ability of the observer. Irreversibility of natural processes, he claimed, is a purely relative conception. An observer who travels at the exact velocity of light would see an eternal now, or an absence of motion. He speculated that an observer who traveled faster than light would see time reversal, similar to a cinema film being run backwards. Pearson also discussed antimatter, the fourth dimension, and wrinkles in time. Pearson's relativity was based on idealism, in the sense of ideas or pictures in a mind. "There are many signs," he wrote, "that a sound idealism is surely replacing, as a basis for natural philosophy, the crude materialism of the older physicists." (Preface to 2nd Ed., "The Grammar of Science") Further, he stated, "...science is in reality a classification and analysis of the contents of the mind..." "In truth, the field of science is much more consciousness than an external world." ("Ibid.", Ch. II, § 6) "Law in the scientific sense is thus essentially a product of the human mind and has no meaning apart from man." ("Ibid.", Ch. III, § 4) Politics and eugenics. A eugenicist who applied his social Darwinism to entire nations, Pearson saw "war" against "inferior races" as a logical implication of his scientific work on human measurement: "My view – and I think it may be called the scientific view of a nation," he wrote, "is that of an organized whole, kept up to a high pitch of internal efficiency by insuring that its numbers are substantially recruited from the better stocks, and kept up to a high pitch of external efficiency by contest, chiefly by way of war with inferior races." He reasoned that, if August Weismann's theory of germ plasm is correct, the nation is wasting money when it tries to improve people who come from poor stock. Weismann claimed that acquired characteristics could not be inherited. Therefore, training benefits only the trained generation. Their children will not exhibit the learned improvements and, in turn, will need to be improved. "No degenerate and feeble stock will ever be converted into healthy and sound stock by the accumulated effects of education, good laws, and sanitary surroundings. Such means may render the individual members of a stock passable if not strong members of society, but the same process will have to be gone through again and again with their offspring, and this in ever-widening circles, if the stock, owing to the conditions in which society has placed it, is able to increase its numbers." (Introduction, "The Grammar of Science"). "History shows me one way, and one way only, in which a high state of civilization has been produced, namely, the struggle of race with race, and the survival of the physically and mentally fitter race. If you want to know whether the lower races of man can evolve a higher type, I fear the only course is to leave them to fight it out among themselves, and even then the struggle for existence between individual and individual, between tribe and tribe, may not be supported by that physical selection due to a particular climate on which probably so much of the Aryan's success depended . . ." Pearson was known in his lifetime as a prominent "freethinker" and socialist. He gave lectures on such issues as "the woman's question" (this was the era of the suffragist movement in the UK) and upon Karl Marx. His commitment to socialism and its ideals led him to refuse the offer of being created an OBE (Officer of the Order of the British Empire) in 1920 and also to refuse a knighthood in 1935. In "The Myth of the Jewish Race" Raphael and Jennifer Patai cite Karl Pearson's 1925 opposition (in the first issue of the journal "Annals of Eugenics" which he founded) to Jewish immigration into Britain. Pearson alleged that these immigrants "will develop into a parasitic race"...taken on the average, and regarding both sexes, this alien Jewish population is somewhat inferior physically and mentally to the native population". Awards from professional bodies. Pearson achieved widespread recognition across a range of disciplines and his membership of, and awards from, various professional bodies reflects this: He was also elected an Honorary Fellow of King's College Cambridge, the Royal Society of Edinburgh, University College London and the Royal Society of Medicine, and a Member of the Actuaries' Club. Contributions to statistics. Pearson's work was all-embracing in the wide application and development of mathematical statistics, and encompassed the fields of biology, epidemiology, anthropometry, medicine and social history. In 1901, with Weldon and Galton, he founded the journal "Biometrika" whose object was the development of statistical theory. He edited this journal until his death. Among those who assisted Pearson in his research were a number of female mathematicians who included Beatrice Mabel Cave-Browne-Cave and Frances Cave-Browne-Cave. He also founded the journal "Annals of Eugenics" (now "Annals of Human Genetics") in 1925. He published the "Drapers' Company Research Memoirs" largely to provide a record of the output of the Department of Applied Statistics not published elsewhere. Pearson's thinking underpins many of the 'classical' statistical methods which are in common use today. Examples of his contributions are: References. Most of the biographical information above is taken from the Karl Pearson page at the Department of Statistical Sciences at University College London, which has been placed in the public domain. The main source for that page was "A list of the papers and correspondence of Karl Pearson (1857–1936)" held in the Manuscripts Room, University College London Library, compiled by M. Merrington, B. Blundell, S. Burrough, J. Golden and J. Hogarth and published by the Publications Office, University College London, 1983. Additional information from entry for Karl Pearson in the Sackler Digital Archive of the Royal Society
1060885	Written on the Wind is a 1956 American drama film directed by Douglas Sirk and starring Rock Hudson, Lauren Bacall, Robert Stack and Dorothy Malone. The screenplay by George Zuckerman was based on Robert Wilder's 1945 novel of the same name, a thinly disguised account of the real-life scandal involving torch singer Libby Holman and her husband, tobacco heir Zachary Smith Reynolds. Zuckerman shifted the locale from North Carolina to Texas, made the source of the family wealth oil rather than tobacco, and changed all the character names. Plot. Self-destructive, alcoholic nymphomaniac Marylee (Dorothy Malone) and her insecure, alcoholic playboy brother Kyle (Robert Stack) are the children of Texas oil baron Jasper Hadley (Robert Keith). Spoiled by their inherited wealth and crippled by their personal demons, neither is able to sustain a personal relationship. Problems ensue after Kyle's impulsive marriage to New York City executive secretary Lucy Moore (Lauren Bacall), who becomes a steadying influence to his life through the first few months after they meet. Kyle resumes drinking after being unsuccessful in fathering a baby. He turns against his childhood friend, Marylee's long-time infatuation, Mitch Wayne (Rock Hudson), a geologist for the oil company. Kyle's anger and depression grow after the death of his father, who admires Mitch but is disgusted with the behavior of his two heirs. Mitch is secretly in love with Lucy. He keeps these feelings private until Kyle, having been diagnosed with a low sperm count, physically assaults Lucy when she announces her pregnancy, wrongly assuming it to be the result of adultery with Mitch. Lucy's fall results in a miscarriage. Mitch vows to leave town with her as soon as she's well enough to travel. On his return, a drunken Kyle recovers a hidden pistol and intends to shoot Mitch. Marylee struggles with her brother for the weapon, but it accidentally fires, killing him. Repeatedly spurned by the man she claims to love, a spiteful Marylee threatens to implicate Mitch in Kyle's death. At the inquest, she first testifies that he killed her sibling. But she tearfully redeems herself at the last second by admitting the truth. Mitch and Lucy depart, leaving Marylee to mourn the death of her brother and run the company alone. Production notes. Dorothy Malone, a brunette previously best known as the brainy bespectacled bookstore clerk in a scene with Humphrey Bogart in "The Big Sleep" (1946), had more recently played small supporting roles in a long string of B movies. For this film she dyed her hair platinum blonde in order to shed her "nice girl" image in portraying the obsessive Marylee Hadley. Her Oscar-winning performance finally gave her cachet in the film industry. Sirk and cinematographer Russell Metty worked together six times prior to this film. He helped perfect the light and color effects associated with Sirk's greatest films. Lauren Bacall, whose film career was foundering, accepted the relatively non-flashy role of Lucy Moore at the behest of her husband Humphrey Bogart. At the same time she was shooting "Wind", she was preparing for a television adaptation of Noël Coward's "Blithe Spirit", co-starring Coward and Claudette Colbert. In 2005, she accepted the Frontier Award on behalf of the film from the Austin Film Society, which annually makes inductions into the Texas Film Hall of Fame recognizing actors, directors, screenwriters, filmmakers, and films from, influenced by, or inspired by the Lone Star State. Stack felt the primary reason he lost the Oscar to Anthony Quinn (whose winning performance in "Lust for Life" was less than ten minutes long) was that 20th Century Fox, who had loaned him to Universal International, organized block voting against him to prevent one of their contract players from winning an acting award while working at another studio. The title song, written by Sammy Cahn and Victor Young, was sung by The Four Aces during the opening credits. The film's score was composed by Frank Skinner. This was the sixth of eight films Douglas Sirk made with Rock Hudson, and the most successful. Sirk reunited key cast members Rock Hudon, Robert Stack and Dorothy Malone two years later in 1958 for "The Tarnished Angels", his black-and-white epic about early aviators based upon William Faulkner's novel "Pylon". This title was one of the very few "flat wide screen" (FWS) titles to be printed "direct to matrix" by Technicolor, a process which was usually reserved for Technicolor's "captive" processes, including Cinerama, Technirama, Techniscope, Todd-AO, VistaVision and a few other so-called "wide gauge" processes, and by which this specially-ordered 35mm printing process it was intended to maintain the highest possible print quality, as well as protecting the negative. Other notable examples of such FWS printing by Technicolor includes "Giant". Universal must have expected this title to be a blockbuster, as was "Giant", released just two months earlier, otherwise it would not have gone to the great expense of ordering "direct to matrix" Technicolor prints. In the case of this title, the Criterion DVD has the motor and changeover cues erased, with the exception of a few reels in which these cues are still intact. These cues are the "legacy" Technicolor "serrated" kind, generally abandoned after 1955, but without the highlighting usually found thereupon. By the date of this title, most Technicolor cues had been changed to smaller round cues, which accommodated the significantly higher magnification which was required for FWS projection. Critical reception. Roger Ebert of the "Chicago Sun-Times" calls it "a perverse and wickedly funny melodrama in which you can find the seeds of "Dallas", "Dynasty", and all the other prime-time soaps. Sirk is the one who established their tone, in which shocking behavior is treated with passionate solemnity, while parody burbles beneath . . . To appreciate a film like "Written on the Wind" probably takes more sophistication than to understand one of Ingmar Bergman's masterpieces, because Bergman's themes are visible and underlined, while with Sirk the style conceals the message. His interiors are wildly over the top, and his exteriors are phony - he wants you to notice the artifice, to see that he's not using realism but an exaggerated Hollywood studio style . . . Films like this are both above and below middle-brow taste. If you only see the surface, it's trashy soap opera. If you can see the style, the absurdity, the exaggeration and the satirical humor, it's subversive of all the 1950s dramas that handled such material solemnly. William Inge and Tennessee Williams were taken with great seriousness during the decade, but Sirk kids their Freudian hysteria." In his review in the "New York Times", Bosley Crowther said, "The trouble with this romantic picture . . . is that nothing really happens, the complications within the characters are never clear and the sloppy, self-pitying fellow at the center of the whole thing is a bore." "TV Guide" describes the film as "the ultimate in lush melodrama," "Douglas Sirk's finest directorial effort," and "one of the most notable critiques of the American family ever made."
1067295	Mi Vida Loca (also known as My Crazy Life) is a 1994 American drama film directed and written by Allison Anders. It centers around the plight of young Mexicanas & Chicanas (and their male counterparts) growing up in the Echo Park section of Los Angeles, who face the struggles of friendship, romantic entanglements and motherhood in a neighborhood ravaged by gang violence.
1162968	Andrea Kay "Missi" Pyle (born November 16, 1972) is an American actress and singer. She has appeared in several films, including the Academy Award winning film "The Artist", "Galaxy Quest", "", "Big Fish", "50 First Dates", "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory", and "Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay". She has also appeared in various television roles, on shows such as "Mad About You", "Friends", "Heroes", "Two and a Half Men", "Frasier", "My Name Is Earl", and "2 Broke Girls" . She is also half of Smith & Pyle, a desert country-rock band, with actress Shawnee Smith. Early life. Pyle, the daughter of Linda and Frank Pyle, was born in Houston, Texas, and raised in Memphis, Tennessee. She has two older sisters, Debbie and Julie, two older brothers, Sam and Paul, one younger half-brother, Gordon, and a half-sister, Meredith. Pyle attended the North Carolina School of the Arts in Winston-Salem, North Carolina and graduated in 1995. For her achievements, Pyle was honored by the Poplar Pike Playhouse at her alma mater Germantown High School in Germantown, Tennessee. Career. Pyle has guest starred on many television shows, including "Heroes", "Mad About You", "Boston Legal", "Frasier", "The Sarah Silverman Program", and "2 Broke Girls". She started her film career with a minor role in "As Good as It Gets", starring Helen Hunt and Jack Nicholson. After her breakout role in "Galaxy Quest", she had supporting roles in "Bringing Down the House" (for which she and Queen Latifah were nominated for an MTV Movie Award for Best Fight), "Josie and the Pussycats", "Home Alone 4", "Exposed", "Big Fish", "Along Came Polly", "Soul Plane", "Stormbreaker", and "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory". She was also the female lead in "BachelorMan". Barely recognizable, she appears in "". She also had a brief appearance in "50 First Dates".
589365	Ram Balram is a 1980 Hindi-language film directed by Vijay Anand. It starred Dharmendra as 'Ram' and Amitabh Bachchan as 'Balram'. The other cast included Zeenat Aman and Rekha. Ajit, Amjad Khan and Prem Chopra were the villains in the film. The film marked the third time, in which Bollywood eternal superstars (Amitabh Bachchan and Dharmendra) came together after their previous successful ventures in Chupke Chupke and Sholay. The movie had an awesome initial which opened to thunder responses all over India with cinema houses packed full. However, proccedings from the movie started to drop by the 4th week and it then went on to surface as the third highest grossing film of the year earning a "Hit" at boxoffice. It was termed disappointing since at that time, films of Dharmendra and Amitabh were expected to earn more, who were already the most popular stars at the time. However, some boxoffice analyst rate it as 'Superhit' when taking into consideration its net gross. Plot summary. Ram and Balram are 2 young boys who live with their loving parents. Their scheming uncle, Jagatpal, however kills the boy's father and mother. Jagatpal lies to the boys that their parents have been killed in an accident and promises to raise them himself. He enrols the younger brother Balram(Amitabh Bachan), in school and eventually sends him off to join the police force. The older becomes a mechanic. Jagatpal has a tight hold on the boys, even when Ram(Dharmendra) is an adult, he still gives all his wages to his uncle and is only allowed to keep a few rupees for pocket money. When Balram returns as a fully fledged police officer, Jagatpal finally reveals his plan. He is going to use Ram to target the biggest smugglers in India. Now that Balram is a police officer, he will protect his brother from getting arrested. Balram has reservations, but Jagatpal threatens to beat him just as he did when he was a boy. Balram is still unhappy with Jagatpal's plan so tells his superiors in the police force that his brother intends to infiltrate the smuggler's underworld so that Balram can arrest them. The plan goes well. Ram becomes one of the lieutenants of one of the biggest smugglers (Amjad Khan) and Balram's excellent arrest rate make him one of the force's most successful officers. Jagatpal becomes enormously wealthy from Ram's illicit gains. The brothers also find love. Balram with the daughter of a college professor (Rekha) and Ram with a girl who has moved to the area looking for her father (Zeenat Aman). Unbeknownst to Ram, the girl believes her father to be Jagatpal. She, along with her courtesan mother, attempt to extort money for Jagatpal but he refuses to believe he is the father. His suspicions are confirmed when he catches the mother paying off a former customer. The man is confronted by Jagatpal and confesses that the girl is not Jagatpal's daughter. Jagatpal's plan comes unstuck however when the boy's mother returns. She did not die after all. Ram recognises his mother but Balram cannot as he was too young when they were separated. Both boys weep when they are reunited, Ram for the mother he has missed all those years and Balram for the opportunity he now has to get to know his mother. She reveals Jagatpal's actions to the two brothers and they unite to take him down.
1062212	Elaine May (born April 21, 1932) is an American film director, screenwriter and actress. She achieved her greatest fame in the 1950s from her improvisational comedy routines in partnership with Mike Nichols. She is a two-time Academy Award-nominated screenwriter and also the mother of Oscar nominee Jeannie Berlin. Ms. May is a recipient of the National Medal of Arts for her unique contributions. Early years and personal life. May was born Elaine Iva Berlin in Philadelphia in 1932, the daughter of Jewish parents, theater director/actor Jack Berlin and Ida Berlin, an actress. As a child, Elaine performed with her father in his traveling Yiddish theater company, which he took around the country. Her stage debut on the road was at the age of three, and she eventually played the character of a generic little boy named Benny.
1064979	The Watcher in the Woods is a 1980 American-British mystery-horror film produced by Walt Disney Productions and distributed by Buena Vista Distribution. Based on the 1976 novel by Florence Engel Randall, it is a live action movie that, though predominantly a family oriented work like "Dragonslayer", also the first Disney film contains elements of the mystery, thriller, horror, and science fiction genres. "The Watcher in the Woods" suffered from various production problems and was pulled from theatres after its initial release in 1980. It was re-released in 1981 after being re-edited and a revised ending added. The story concerns a teenage girl and her little sister who become encompassed in a supernatural mystery regarding a missing girl in the woods surrounding their new home in the English countryside. It stars legendary actress Bette Davis alongside Lynn-Holly Johnson, Kyle Richards, Carroll Baker, and David McCallum. The movie was filmed at Pinewood Studios and the surrounding areas in Buckinghamshire, England. Plot. An Anglo-American family, Helen and Paul Curtis (Carroll Baker and David McCallum) and their daughters Jan (Lynn-Holly Johnson) and Ellie (Kyle Richards), move into a manor. Mrs. Aylwood (Bette Davis), the owner of the residence, notices that Jan bears a striking resemblance to her daughter, Karen, who disappeared inside a chapel near the village 30 years previously. Jan begins to see strange blue lights in the woods, triangles and glowing objects. Eventually, Ellie goes to buy a puppy she names "Nerak" (an anagram for Karen). After seeing the reflection of the name "Nerak" (Karen spelled backwards), Jan finds out about the mystery of Mrs. Aylwood's missing daughter. Several strange occurrences appear, beginning with Mrs. Aylwood saving Jan after she falls into a pond looking at a blue circle, and ending with Jan finding a man named John, who explains that Karen did disappear but has not died. He tells her that in a seance-like ceremony, Karen disappeared after lightning struck the tower and a bell fell on top of her. They find out that the disappearance of Karen is linked to a solar eclipse. Jan figures out she needs to repeat the sequence through the strange possession of Ellie. In the chapel, something possesses Ellie and explains the accidental switch that took place 30 years ago. Ellie explains that Karen was taken to another dimension, while an alien-like being, the Watcher, came to earth. The Watcher then appears independently as a pillar of light, fueled by the "circle of friendship". It engulfs Jan and lifts her into the air, but Jan's friend Mike Fleming (Benedict Taylor) intercedes and pulls her away before the Watcher disappears. At the same time, the eclipse ends and Karen, still the same age as when she disappeared, reappears – still blindfolded. She removes the blindfold as her mother enters the chapel. Production. Development. "The Watcher in the Woods" is based on Florence Engel Randall's 1976 novel "A Watcher in the Woods". Producer Tom Leetch pitched the project to Disney executive Ron Miller, stating that "This could be our "Exorcist"." Brian Clemens adapted the novel into a screenplay. However, Disney decided that Clemens' version was too dark and had Rosemary Anne Sisson revise it. This script was later revised again by Gerry Day in July 1979. During filming, Ron Miller would often intervene to tone down intense scenes, leading to tension between himself and Leetch. Miller recruited John Hough to direct the film after seeing his previous movie, "The Legend of Hell House" with Roddy McDowall. When the film was pulled from theatres, several new endings were penned by various writers at Disney to substitute for the original. In addition to the work of studio writers, a number of science fiction writers, including Robert Silverberg, Joe Haldeman, and the Niven/Pournelle team, all working separately, were brought in and paid for alternate endings, but apparently none of those were used. Harrison Ellenshaw, the visual effects designer, later stated that there were "roughly 152" possible endings. Ellenshaw wrote the version of the ending that eventually accompanied the re-release of the film. Casting. According to director John Hough during his audio commentary on the 2002 Anchor Bay DVD release, casting the role of the young Mrs. Aylwood was complicated, since the character is featured in two separate time periods; Bette Davis, who was already cast as Mrs. Aylwood, was considered for playing both the young and old versions of the character. According to Hough, Davis "desperately" wanted to play both parts; so much so, that the production crew had make-up and hair specialists flown in from Los Angeles in order to work on Davis in preparation for screen tests; the goal was to reverse her age appearance by thirty years. After the screen tests were completed and viewed by the crew, Hough was concerned about Davis playing the younger character, and felt that the make-up and hair work had "maybe knocked about twenty years off of her age, but not forty"; Davis was 72 years old at the time. Upon viewing the tests, Hough cued for the crew to leave the screening room, and said, "Bette, I don't think you've made it". After taking one long drag from her cigarette, Davis replied: "You're goddamn right". British actress Georgina Hale ended up taking the role of the younger Mrs. Aylwood; according to Hough, she took the part largely because of her admiration for Davis. In casting the leading part of Jan, Diane Lane had been the initial choice; however, due to complications, the part eventually went to Lynn-Holly Johnson, who had gained attention in the United States as a professional figure skater, as well as for her acting role as a blind ice skater in the 1978 film, "Ice Castles", for which she received a Golden Globe nomination. Carroll Baker, who was living in London at the time, was asked to play the part for Hough (who had long admired her work). She accepted the role. Eleven-year-old Kyle Richards – who played Ellie, the youngest sister in the film – had previously worked with Hough on "Escape to Witch Mountain" in an uncredited role as a younger version of her sister, Kim Richards. Shooting. The film was shot primarily at Pinewood Studios in Buckinghamshire, England, and the surrounding areas. The house used in the film was on location; it has since been deconstructed and turned into apartments. Hough used several locations that are also seen in Robert Wise's "The Haunting", most notably the grand mansion in which John Keller's character lives; this was the same house used for filming "The Haunting" (Ettington Park, Warwickshire). Alternate endings. The film had three different alternate endings, which are presented below. Each of these conclusions are featured on the film's 2002 Anchor Bay DVD release; the "other world" ending and the 1980 ending are included as supplemental material, while the final 1981 ending is the official ending of the movie. Original ending concept. An "other world" sequence was an integral part of the intended ending for the film; it was never completed. The original ending featured an appearance by the growling Watcher, a skeletal, insectoid alien, which picks Jan up in the chapel and disappears. At this point, the two were supposed to fly across an alien landscape to the Watcher's crippled spacecraft. Inside, Karen was trapped in a pyramidal prism. According to Sam Nicholson, the visual effects supervisor, "For some reason, the girl who disappeared imbalanced this alien's craft when she went through this portal. Which in turn caused this alien to crash." Jan reached out to Karen, and when the two embraced they were teleported back to the chapel. The girls then returned to the manor, where Mrs. Aylwood and her daughter were reunited. As they walked arm in arm, Jan explained everything to Ellie: the Watcher – who was switched with Karen by accident during the eclipse – needed Jan to free the girl. The visual effects for the "other world" scenes were not finished in time for the release because the film was rushed out to coincide with Bette Davis's 50th anniversary as a film actor in 1980 (Davis was first hired by Universal Studios in 1930). Rather than finish the existing effects shots, Disney opted to rewrite and re-shoot the ending, toning down the references to the occult, deeming them too dark. Initial theatrical ending (1980). The first theatrical ending, which was shown with the film's week-long screening in New York City, featured only part of the intended ending, leaving out all of the "other world" sequence and replacing it with Helen's interrogation of Tom, Mary, and John at the chapel, after Jan disappears during their re-enactment of the séance. It did, however, include the appearance of the alien creature as it picks up Jan and disappears into thin air. While Helen is questioning everyone in the chapel, Jan re-appears, and emerges from a beam of light, hand-in-hand with Karen. The girls return to the house, where Mrs. Aylwood and Karen are re-united in the front yard, and Jan discusses the watcher with Ellie. This ending forced the film to rely on Jan's brief, cryptic explanation to provide closure. This conclusion to "The Watcher in the Woods" was nearly unintelligible as a result, thus giving the film the reputation of not having an ending. It also omitted Mrs. Aylwood's condemnation of recreating the séance on the basis that it was witchcraft. After a week-long run of sneak previews in New York City was poorly received by critics (and audiences alike, who deemed the alien special effects as too unrealistic), the film was pulled from theatres; director John Hough described this cut of the film as being "laughed off the screen". After its removal from the cinema, work on a new ending began, this time without Hough. Final theatrical ending (1981). The 1981 theatrical release is the "official" version of the movie and can be found on any VHS, laserdisc, or DVD release of "The Watcher in the Woods". It is summarized above in the film's synopsis. In the official ending, the re-imagined Watcher (an ectoplasmic pillar of light) was less threatening and more supernatural. The nature of Karen and the Watcher's switch was clearly explained by Ellie in the chapel (whilst possessed by the Watcher). The new footage (including the forest scenes that replaced the original opening credits) was directed by Vincent McEveety, although he was not credited due to union rules which forbade a screen credit unless the director worked on the film for a certain number of hours. Home media. Though the film was released on VHS in the 1980s, it was not until 2002 that it was picked up for a DVD release by Anchor Bay Entertainment. There are a total of three separate DVD versions of the film released, each described below: Released by Anchor Bay Entertainment on DVD 2 April 2002. This was the film's first official DVD release, and was shrouded in controversy over distribution rights. When Anchor Bay Entertainment obtained the rights to release "The Watcher in the Woods" on DVD, it spearheaded an effort to find the original film elements and enlist director John Hough's help in re-editing the film. They planned to release two versions of the film: the 1981 theatrical version as well as John Hough's director's cut, which would feature the censored opening credits (in which the Watcher scares a girl and incinerates her doll) and a finished version of the "other world" ending. However, Anchor Bay encountered considerable resistance from Disney. In the end, they were forced to drop the original credits and release the "other world" footage as an abbreviated (14-minute long) and unfinished alternate ending. The other alternate ending (6 minutes long) is an approximation of the first theatrical ending. Both of these alternate endings were later included in Disney's own DVD release of the film in 2004. This version comes with a wealth of extras including an audio commentary by director John Hough, a detailed biography of Hough, two alternate endings, three theatrical trailers, and a TV commercial. The DVD also comes with a 20-page collectible booklet and card insert of the film's original poster art (seen on the DVD's front cover). The Anchor Bay DVD is now permanently out of print. Released by Buena Vista Home Entertainment on 29 March 2004 (primarily in the United Kingdom and Australia). There are no extra features on this release. Released by Walt Disney Video on 3 August 2004. This version has far less features than the Anchor Bay release, however, it is the only version currently available through retailers. This version only includes the two alternate endings and two theatrical trailers. It does not come with the audio commentary, biography, third trailer, TV commercial, booklet, or card insert.
900495	Caro diario () is an Italian language, semi-autobiographical film in the style of a documentary directed by Nanni Moretti in 1993. Moretti also played the central character. Plot. The film consists of three autobiographical chapters ("capitoli") of an open diary—that of film director and film producer Nanni Moretti. Capitolo I: In vespa (On my Vespa). The first episode follows the director/protagonist riding a Vespa through the neighbourhoods of a summery and half-deserted Rome. Shots of landscape, architecture, and beautiful monuments accompany his thoughts, which range from critiques of Hollywood cinema (specifically the contemporary movie ""), to critiques of banalization of the Italian cinema, to a chance meeting with Jennifer Beals, to sociology and urbanism. The episode ends at Ostia, close to the place where Pier Paolo Pasolini was killed. Capitolo II: Isole (Islands). The second episode cuts to Moretti escaping from the frenzy of city life on a journey through the Aeolian Islands. Travelling by ferry, his first stop is Lipari where he visits his friend Gerardo (Renato Carpentieri), a scholar studying James Joyce's "Ulysses" who had moved to the island eleven years earlier. He retires to study on the lost island where he can't even receive the television signal. But he is unable to find the tranquillity he desires, due to the number of tourists. So Nanni, accompanied by Gerardo, moves to Salina Island. The two are welcomed by a couple, friends of Gerardo, who seem incapable of managing the education of an extremely over-indulged child. (Indeed the entire island seems to be under the rule of children.) Gerardo lets himself be influenced by the boy, who spends hours in front of the television, and discovers soap opera. Gradually Gerardo becomes entirely dependent upon the genre. Nanni, now even more exasperated, decides to move, still accompanied by Gerardo, to the island of Stromboli, but even this choice proves unfortunate: the two now have to deal with a megalomaniac mayor who wants to involve them in the most odd projects. While visiting the volcano Gerardo becomes still more gripped by the "soap operas", to the point of asking American tourists what happens in the episodes of "The Bold and the Beautiful", which haven't been broadcast in Italy yet. Disgruntled by the latest failure Nanni decides to move on the island of Alicudi, the least civilized of all, lacking water and electricity. At last Nanni seems satisfied with the accommodation, but Gerardo is impelled to escape from the island as soon as he realizes he cannot follow his favourite soap opera there. Capitolo III: Medici (Doctors). The final episode narrates the difficult diagnosis of a disease that affected Moretti in real life and has the symptoms of persistent itching and disturbing insomnia. Nanni goes through a load of doctors and specialists who, between superficiality and false knowledge, suggest the most bizarre diagnoses. His desperation is such that he also tries alternate treatments, like Acupuncture. After having tried them all, another doctor suggests an X-ray after noticing his developing cough. This X-ray reveals a mass on the lung which after a biopsy he is diagnosed as suffering from a malignant, but treatable lymphatic system tumour. The illness symptoms, which Nanni found in a medical encyclopedia, are those he declared to the "deaf" doctors. The episode concludes with a bitter and sarcastic toast "alla salute!" (), accompanied by a glass of water. Awards. Moretti won the award for Best Director at the 1994 Cannes Film Festival. The film was nominated for the Grand Prix of the Belgian Syndicate of Cinema Critics.
1062734	Thomas Edward "Tom" Sizemore, Jr. (born November 29, 1961) is an American film and television actor and producer. He is known for his supporting roles in films such as "Saving Private Ryan", "Black Hawk Down", "Heat", "Strange Days", "Pearl Harbor", "True Romance", and "Natural Born Killers". Early life. Sizemore was born in Detroit, Michigan. His mother, Judith ( Schannault), was a member of the city of Detroit ombudsman staff, and his father, Thomas Edward Sizemore, Sr., now retired, was a lawyer and philosophy professor. Sizemore has stated that his maternal grandfather was of French and Native American ancestry. Contrary to misstatement and rumor, Tom's mother is not of African-American ancestry. He has three brothers, Charlie, Aaron and Paul, who is also an actor. Sizemore attended Michigan State University for one year, as well as Wayne State University. He earned a Master's degree in theatre from Temple University in 1986. He subsequently moved to New York City to pursue an acting career. Acting career. One of Sizemore's earliest film appearances occurred in Oliver Stone's "Born on the Fourth of July" in 1989, followed by roles in "Lock Up" (1989), "Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man" (1991), "Point Break", "True Romance" (1993), "Natural Born Killers" (1994), and "Strange Days" (1995). Sizemore also starred in the independent drama film "Love Is Like That" (1993) with actress and model Pamela Gidley. He had a supporting role in Kevin Costner's "Wyatt Earp" as Bat Masterson. A succession of well-received supporting parts followed, perhaps the most well known being his portrayal of Michael Cheritto as an armed robber in the heist film "Heat" (1995). His first major leading role was as Vincent D'Agosta in 1997's "The Relic". Sizemore had a recurring role on the television series "China Beach" (1988 to 1991) as an enlisted man named Vinnie who was in love with Dana Delany's character. Sizemore continued to play leading and character parts in many films, notably "Devil in a Blue Dress" (1995), "Saving Private Ryan" (1998), "Bringing Out the Dead" (1999), and "Witness Protection" (1999). In the early 2000s, he appeared in actions films such as "Pearl Harbor" (2001), starring Ben Affleck, and Ridley Scott's "Black Hawk Down" (2002). He had a voice part as in the video game "". In 2001, Sizemore starred in "Ticker", an action film directed by Albert Pyun, with Steven Seagal and Dennis Hopper. In 2002, Sizemore starred in the well-reviewed but short-lived television drama series "Robbery Homicide Division". It was cancelled mid-way through its first season. He also played an undercover cop in the film "Swindle" opposite Sherilyn Fenn. In 2004, he starred in "Paparazzi". In 2006, he starred in "The Genius Club", playing a terrorist who taunts seven geniuses into solving the world's problems in one night. Also that year, he had a leading role in action/thriller film "Splinter" with Edward James Olmos. In 2007, the television network VH1 aired a six episode reality TV series called "Shooting Sizemore", which depicted the life of the actor as he struggled to regain his career in the midst of a continuing battle with addiction. The series also covered an ongoing legal appeal on his conviction for an assault of former Hollywood madam Heidi Fleiss. In this year, the actor also starred in the Indie drama film "Oranges" with Tom Arnold and Jill Hennessy, which was directed by Syrian director and producer Joseph Merhi. Recently, Sizemore has worked in films that include "Red" and "American Son", both of which were screened at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival. In 2008, Sizemore starred in "The Last Lullaby", playing a killer, and appeared also in "The Flyboys" with Stephen Baldwin, action film "Stiletto" with Tom Berenger and Michael Biehn, drama film "Toxic" with Costas Mandylor, and is the star in the Canadian drama "A Broken Life" with Ving Rhames. In 2009, he appeared in the comedy film "Super Capers". In addition, Sizemore also appeared in five episodes of the TV series "Crash" with Dennis Hopper. In 2010, Sizemore starred in the indie horror film "C.L.A.S.S." which is written by Sheldon Robins, and co-starred with Kyra Sedgwick and Vincent D'Onofrio in drama/comedy film "Chlorine". He also starred alongside martial arts actor Mark Dacascos in the action movie "Shadows in Paradise". He also appeared in an episode of "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia". Sizemore also appeared alongside the Insane Clown Posse in the comedy film "Big Money Rustlas" and the drama "513" with Michael Madsen. Sizemore has roles in the upcoming films, the Age of Reason, "Suing the Devil" and "White Knight". Music. Sizemore fronted the Hollywood rock band Day 8. Formed in 2002, the band recorded a four-song EP produced and recorded by Bradley Dujmovic and former Snot/Soulfly guitarist Mike Doling. Originally called "The Bystanders", the group included guitarist and co-writer Rod Castro, Alan Muffterson, Tyrone Tomke and Michael Taylor. Personal life. While speaking in an interview about friend Mickey Rourke, Sizemore revealed he is Catholic: "He’s been a good friend. He’s a real good Catholic and I’m Catholic." Sizemore married actress Maeve Quinlan in 1996, but divorced in 1999 because she couldn't handle his drug problems. In 2010, Sizemore appeared as a patient/castmember on VH1's third season of "Celebrity Rehab". In July 2005, Sizemore became a father when Janelle McIntire gave birth to their sons, Jagger and Jayden Sizemore. Substance abuse and legal problems. Sizemore, who had battled drug addiction since he was 15, was convicted in 2003 of assault and battery against his girlfriend, the former "Hollywood Madam" Heidi Fleiss. Sizemore was then sentenced to 7 months in jail and four months in drug treatment for repeatedly failing drug tests while on probation on March 25, 2005. Sizemore was caught attempting to fake the urine test using a Whizzinator. Fleiss' restraining order against him had lapsed by the time they appeared together in the third season of "Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew" in 2010. On May 8, 2007, while still on probation for a previous drug conviction, Sizemore was arrested outside the Four Points Sheraton hotel in Bakersfield, California for possession of methamphetamines. Police found what appeared to be two bags under 1 gram in weight of methamphetamine and three glass pipes used for inhaling methamphetamines that were coated with drug residue inside his 2004 Ford Mustang. On June 25, Sizemore was sentenced to 16 months in prison. The sentence was reduced to nine months because Sizemore already served 213 days in county jail because he was unable to post bail. On March 27, 2009, Sizemore avoided jail-time in the same case for an alleged probation violation. On May 28, 2009, Sizemore was arrested in Los Angeles on an outstanding warrant for drug charges. Sizemore and a friend were questioned by police, and the outstanding $25,000 warrant for Sizemore from 2007 was discovered. Sizemore did not have any narcotics in his possession, but was arrested on the warrant; he was later released. Sizemore had been approached to appear in the first season of the reality television series "Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew", but declined. He met with Dr. Drew Pinsky about appearing in the second season, sitting in Pinsky's office for two hours, as Pinsky recounted, "sweating and completely high on drugs, talking a million miles an hour, acting like he was going to do it then deciding he didn’t want to." Sizemore ultimately decided to appear in the show's third season, but did not appear in the season premiere, forcing Pinsky's colleague Bob Forrest to seek him out. Because Heidi Fleiss was also in treatment on the show that season, both she and Sizemore had to consent to appear together. While the season premiered in January 2010, Sizemore's arrival at the clinic was chronicled in the third episode, and his reunion with Fleiss was amicable. Yet, by the season's end, it was Heidi who, at their graduation ceremony, lashed out against Sizemore, taunting him that "the thought of being with would turn women gay...it really would." After they received their coins, both Tom and Heidi agreed to Sober House treatment. During a guest appearance on the fourth season of "Celebrity Rehab", a healthy-looking Sizemore praised Dr. Drew and his program, stating he has been sober for fourteen months.
1163230	Maura Therese Tierney (born February 3, 1965) is an American film and television actress, who is best known for her roles as Lisa Miller on the sitcom "NewsRadio" and Abby Lockhart on the television medical drama "ER". Early life. Tierney, the eldest of three children, was born and raised in the Hyde Park neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts to an Irish Catholic family. Her mother, Pat (née James), is a real estate broker, and her late father, Joseph M. Tierney, was a prominent Boston politician who served on the Boston City Council for 15 years. She attended Notre Dame Academy in Hingham, Massachusetts, where her studies included drama and led to her appearance at the Boston Globe Drama Festival. After graduation, she attended New York University where she majored first in dance, and later in drama. Career. After appearing in several plays, she moved to Los Angeles, California, and in 1987 got her first break in a role in Disney's made-for-TV film "Student Exchange". Tierney's first starring role in a film was in a low-budget, independently-produced film called "Dead Women in Lingerie", shot in 24 days. The film never received a theatrical release, although it was released on DVD in 2005. Tierney continued winning small roles in film and television, though she did not receive regular national exposure until her leading role in the sitcom "NewsRadio" from 1995 to 1999. While she was a "NewsRadio" cast member, she also appeared in several successful films, including "Primal Fear", "Primary Colors", "Forces of Nature", and co-starred in "Liar Liar", opposite Jim Carrey. After "NewsRadio" was canceled, Tierney decided not to pursue a role in another sitcom: Tierney played Nurse Abigail "Abby" Lockhart on "ER", a character that began as a guest appearance as Julianna Margulies's character Carol Hathaway's OB nurse in November 1999, then expanded in February 2000 to a full-time regular part as an ER nurse (and later, after completion of medical school, a licensed ER doctor). Within a year, her work on "ER" had earned her an Emmy Award nomination, recognition she credits to a "juicy" story arc featuring Sally Field as Lockhart's mother Maggie Wyczenski, who suffers from bipolar disorder. She was initially reunited with her former "NewsRadio" co-star Khandi Alexander who at that time had a major recurring role on "ER".
1066578	Love Ranch is a 2010 drama film directed by Taylor Hackford and starring Helen Mirren and Joe Pesci (in his first lead film appearance since "Gone Fishin"'). Background. The film is based on the lives of Joe and Sally Conforte, a married couple who opened the first legal brothel in the United States, the Mustang Ranch in Storey County, Nevada. Violence results when their marriage is tested by infidelity. Filming began in January 2008. The film was released in limited U.S. theaters on June 30, 2010. Plot. Charlie Bontempo (sometimes called Charlie "Goodtimes") and his wife, Grace, run a legal brothel known as the Love Ranch on a large, remote property near Reno, Nevada. Grace's mother had been a madam, so Grace knew the business, but it was Charlie who persuaded her to open a brothel in a part of Nevada where doing so would not be violating the law. The business runs smoothly but is not without its headaches, such as unruly customers needing to be dealt with by a bouncer or prostitutes who get out of line. Grace is amazed, meanwhile, when Charlie procures the contract of a professional heavyweight boxer, Armando Bruza. Bruza is from Argentina and has had fights against the likes of Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier. Charlie is eager to have a fighter, but coaxes Grace into becoming Bruza's actual manager because Charlie has a felony conviction that prevents him from getting a license. Grace can hardly believe Bruza is willing to live and train at the brothel, where he moves into a trailer. She is surprised even more when Bruza begins to demonstrate a physical interest in her, since she is married and considerably older. She is offended at first, but the boxer's attentions and outgoing personality begin to win her over. Bruza begins to voice an interest in becoming Grace's business partner in running the brothel. Charlie begins to become aware of what's happening behind his back, leading to a disastrous outcome for all. Reception. As of December 25, 2011, the film has received mostly negative reviews, with review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes reporting that just 12% of critics gave the film positive reviews, based on 50 reviews with an average score of 3.8/10. The site's consensus of reviews was, "Despite its saucy setup, the return of Joe Pesci, and the always marvelous Helen Mirren, "Love Ranch" is disappointingly flaccid."
1059458	Stuart Townsend (born 15 December 1972) is an Irish actor and director. His most notable portrayals are of the characters Lestat de Lioncourt in the 2002 film adaptation of Anne Rice's "Queen of the Damned", and Dorian Gray in the 2003 film adaptation of Alan Moore's "The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen". Early life and career. Townsend was born in Howth, County Dublin, the son of Lorna Hogan, an Irish model, and Peter Townsend, an English professional golfer. He attended the Gaiety School of Acting in Dublin where he made his non-professional stage debut in the school's 1993 production of Colin Teevan's "Tear Up The Black Sail". His professional stage debut was in 1994's "True Lines", directed by John Crowley. "True Lines" was first performed in Kilkenny; it later moved to the Dublin Theatre Festival and on to the Bush Theatre in London. Townsend's early film roles were in Irish short films such as "Godsuit" and "Summertime". His first part in a feature length film was "Trojan Eddie", a 1996 Anglo-Irish co-production. In 1997 he landed a lead role in the British film "Shooting Fish". After his appearance as the seducer in the title role of "About Adam", he started to be noticed in the United States by critics and the public alike. In mid-2000, he briefly returned to the London stage in the Tennessee Williams play "Orpheus Descending", starring as Val Xavier, alongside Helen Mirren as Lady Torrance. He appeared in big budget films including "Queen of the Damned", as the vampire Lestat de Lioncourt; and "The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen" as Dorian Gray. Townsend was hired to play the part of Aragorn in "The Lord of the Rings" film trilogy, but was replaced by Viggo Mortensen the day before principal photography began. According to Townsend: In 2005, he starred alongside Gabrielle Union in "Night Stalker", the remake of the 1974 ABC TV series "". He played the part of Carl Kolchak, an investigative reporter looking into his wife's murder. "Night Stalker" was abruptly cancelled by ABC after six episodes due to bad viewing figures. He was cited as "too young" by many reviewers and fans of the original series comparing him to Darren McGavin in the original series. The same year, he played a guest starring role on NBC's "Will & Grace" as the pansexual pastry chef of Karen Walker who seduces her, Will Truman, and later Karen's maid Rosario. He also made an uncredited cameo in 2005's live-action "Æon Flux" film. Townsend starred alongside Ryan Reynolds in the 2007 comedy "Chaos Theory". He made his directorial debut with the 2007 film "Battle in Seattle" which is a portrayal of the WTO Ministerial Conference of 1999 World Trade Organisation which was undermined by anti-globalisation protesters. The film's cast included Charlize Theron, Ray Liotta and Woody Harrelson, but enjoyed only limited release and no blockbuster support. He was set to play Fandral in Kenneth Branagh's "Thor", but was replaced in January 2010, due to unspecified creative differences. Personal life. Townsend's father, Peter, was a golfer, who played in the 1969 and 1971 Ryder Cups. Townsend dated actress Charlize Theron after meeting her on the set of 2002's "Trapped". The couple lived together in Los Angeles and Ireland . They said they considered themselves married without an actual marriage. "We didn't have a ceremony," he added. "I don't need a certificate or the state or the church to say otherwise. So no there's no big official story on a wedding, but we are married. ... I consider her my wife and she considers me her husband." Theron split from the Irish actor when she came back from a holiday in Mexico in January 2010.
1044751	My Lover My Son is a 1970 US-American-British coproduction directed by John Newland. It tells the story of a mother played by Romy Schneider clinging to her maturing son. The film is based on Edward Grierson's novel "Reputation for a Song". Plot. Francesca Anderson leads an unhappy marriage with her husband Robert. Her real attention is dedicated to her son James, who reminds her of her late lover Macer. Francesca is the only one who knows that James is not Robert's, but Macer's son. So Francesca reacts jealously when James falls in love with a girl friend, Julie. James intervenes in an argument between his parents, and kills Robert. During James' trial, Francesca gives the crucial testimony in favour of her son, who is found not guilty. To Francesca's discomfort, James escapes his mother's clinging and decides to stay with Julie.
725309	Joseph Mascolo (born March 13, 1929) is an American musician and dramatic actor. During his long career, he has acted in numerous motion pictures and television series. He is best known for playing Stefano DiMera, a role he originated in 1982 on NBC's long running "Days of our Lives". Early life. Mascolo was born and raised in West Hartford, Connecticut. His parents were immigrants from Italy, Peter Mascolo (1901 – 2008) and Anna Mascolo (née DeTuccio) (1910 – 2010), who were really fortunate to have made it to their 80th wedding anniversary shortly before his father died. He attended the University of Miami and then the United States Military Academy. He was originally training in Classical Music. Career. Mascolo appeared in the 1978 film "Jaws 2" as a member of the city council who confronted Chief Brody (Roy Scheider) when the Chief brought forth the underwater photograph of what he believed was another shark. He also played a police detective in the Burt Reynolds feature "Sharky's Machine". Mascolo is best known in the recurring role of Stefano DiMera on "Days of our Lives" from 1982 to 1985, returning briefly in 1988, again from 1993 to 2001, and making appearances again since 2007. He has also played a wide range of roles on many different series including (but not limited to) a Stefano-like villain named Domino (Nicholas Van Buren) on "General Hospital", and Carlos Alvarez on "Santa Barbara". Before achieving his fame, he was seen in the earlier soap operas "Where the Heart Is" and "From These Roots". He also made primetime television appearances on "All in the Family," "Lou Grant" and "The Rockford Files".
1098939	Vladimir Naumovich Vapnik () is one of the main developers of Vapnik–Chervonenkis theory. He was born in the Soviet Union. He received his master's degree in mathematics at the Uzbek State University, Samarkand, Uzbek SSR in 1958 and Ph.D in statistics at the Institute of Control Sciences, Moscow in 1964. He worked at this institute from 1961 to 1990 and became Head of the Computer Science Research Department. At the end of 1990, he moved to the USA and joined the Adaptive Systems Research Department at AT&T Bell Labs in Holmdel, New Jersey. The group later became the Image Processing Research Department of AT&T Laboratories when AT&T spun off Lucent Technologies in 1996. Vapnik Left AT&T in 2002 and joined NEC Laboratories in Princeton, New Jersey, where he currently works in the Machine Learning group. He also holds a Professor of Computer Science and Statistics position at Royal Holloway, University of London since 1995, as well as a position as Professor of Computer Science at Columbia University, New York City since 2003. He was inducted into the U.S. National Academy of Engineering in 2006. He received the 2005 Gabor Award, the 2008 Paris Kanellakis Award, the 2010 Neural Networks Pioneer Award, the 2012 IEEE Frank Rosenblatt Award, and the 2012 Benjamin Franklin Medal in Computer and Cognitive Science from the Franklin Institute. While at AT&T, Vapnik and his colleagues developed the theory of the support vector machine. They demonstrated its performance on a number of problems of interest to the machine learning community, including handwriting recognition.
1060172	Radio Days is a 1987 comedy film directed by Woody Allen. The film looks back on an American family's life during the Golden Age of Radio using both music and memories to tell the story. Plot. Joe (Woody Allen), the narrator, explains how the radio influenced his childhood in the days before TV. The young Joe (Seth Green) lives in New York City in the late 1930s. The tale mixes Joe's experiences with his remembrances and anecdotes, inserting his memories of the urban legends of radio stars, and is told in constantly changing plot points and vignettes.
1064589	Shock Treatment is a 1981 American musical-black comedy film and a follow-up to the film "The Rocky Horror Picture Show". While not an outright sequel, the film does feature several characters from the film portrayed by different actors and several "Rocky Horror" actors portraying new characters. It was originally titled "The Brad and Janet Show", which included a similar plot and the same songs, but was rewritten to take place entirely in a studio when a strike made filming the outdoor scenes impossible. Plot. A narrator introduces the audience to TV executive Farley Flavors. As Flavors watches, his television studio - which now encompasses the entire town of Denton - is steadily filled with the former residents of Denton, who gleefully assume their new roles as studio audience members of a 24-hour live television broadcast (""Overture""). The sole holdout in the celebration is Brad Majors, who, despite the insistence of his wife Janet that things will be OK, is ambivalent about the town's transformation (""Denton, U.S.A.""). Brad and Janet are chosen as contestants on ""Marriage Maze"", a supposed game show whose only purpose seems to be committing people to "Dentonvale", Denton's resident insane asylum. Janet is given the opportunity to have Brad committed by the show's host, a supposedly blind Austrian named Bert Schnick, who promises her that the experience will improve their marriage (""Bitchin' in the Kitchen""). Upon arriving at Dentonvale, Brad and Janet are greeted by the staff: Nurse Ansalong, Rest Home Ricky, and Dentonvale's supervisors, the apparently incestuous siblings Dr. Cosmo and Nation McKinley. Despite Brad's objections, Cosmo has him drugged, bound, gagged, and placed in a padded cell known as the "Terminal Ward". Before Janet can sign the papers permitting the McKinleys to treat Brad, Ansalong tells her to wait a day, to give her time to make up her mind. Meanwhile, Janet's parents, Harry and Emily, are brought onto Marriage Maze and promised a prize if they offer a psychological assessment of Brad. Deciding that he's regressing into childhood, the Weisses are awarded a vacation home on another of DTV's programs. Janet goes to meet them there and laments Brad's lack of assertiveness (""In My Own Way""). Harry chastises Janet for marrying Brad, an orphan whose parents died in a car crash, rather than other boys from more stable home backgrounds ("Thank God I'm a Man"). Meanwhile, the McKinleys are informed that financing for their show has been taken over by Flavors' own personal company, a fast food enterprise which Farley hopes to use to finance a pop psychology movement, using a new TV program, ""Faith Factory"", as the platform and the McKinleys as his mouthpieces. The reluctant McKinleys are quickly taken in by a persuasive videotaped pitch, and on Farley's orders, they recruit Janet to be the face of Farley's "Sanity For Today" movement, as he believes she is the perfect example of the girl next door (""Farley's Song""). Janet moves into Dentonvale with the McKinleys and Bert Schnick, with the promise that her new life as an exciting model will make her desirable to Brad again (""Lullaby""). Meanwhile, Judge Wright and Betty Hapschatt, two DTV hosts sympathetic to Brad, look into the histories of Farley and the McKinleys, suspecting that there is a sinister motive behind ""Faith Factory"". Cosmo strokes Janet's ego and designs a sexy new outfit for her, transforming her into "Miss Mental Health" (""Little Black Dress""). DTV manufactures Janet into an overnight sensation, and the newfound fame goes to Janet's head (""Me of Me""). Janet, her parents, and Bert go to visit Brad at Dentonvale, where the Weisses question whether the McKinleys can really help him. The Dentonvale Staff assure everyone of their competency, "curing" Bert's blindness to demonstrate their abilities (""Shock Treatment""). Janet's ego becomes difficult for the McKinleys to control. To keep her manageable, they drug her, resulting in a dream sequence in which she patrols Denton looking for sex while Brad begs her for love (""Looking for Trade""). As the premiere of ""Faith Factory"" nears, Bert, the Dentonvale Staff, and the Weisses prepare for their new TV roles; meanwhile, Betty hacks into DTV's computer and learns that the McKinleys are in fact character actors and that ""Dentonvale"" isn't a real hospital (""Look What I Did to My Id""). "Faith Factory" goes on the air, opening with a live musical performance by Janet's groupies, a punk band called Oscar Drill and the Bits (""Breaking Out""). Using the performance as a cover, Wright and Betty break Brad out of Dentonvale, telling him that they've learned Farley is his biological brother, who was split from him during the adoption process and grew up poor; now Farley wants to destroy Brad's life out of jealousy, and is planning to seduce Janet on national TV as the last part of his plan. Brad, Wright, and Betty break through the wall of the ""Faith Factory"" set, and Brad confronts Farley about his plan (""Duel Duet""). Farley demands Brad be remanded to the hospital, but Janet, snapped out of her ego-trip, informs him that she never signed the consent forms. Angry, Farley has Brad, Janet, Wright, and Betty arrested, and hastily names DTV host Macy Struthers as the new "Miss Mental Health". Farley invites the studio audience to join in, to which they readily agree—they are all summarily handed straight jackets, which they happily don. Brad, Janet, Betty, and Wright escape the holding cell they were placed in for disturbing the live show, and the foursome resolve to leave Denton behind. With the help of Oscar Drill and the Bits, they hot-wire a car that was meant to be a prize on ""Faith Factory"" and drive away, as Farley and the Dentonvale staff celebrate having just committed the entire town of Denton to the terminal ward (""Anyhow Anyhow""/""Denton, U.S.A. (Reprise)""). Production. The film was shot entirely in a sound studio. The original intent had been to shoot the film in realistic locations in the USA, but a 1979 Screen Actors Guild strike froze the production funds. Director Jim Sharman suggested possibly doing the production as a London stage show and filming it in a theater, which gave Richard O'Brien the idea to rework the locations as a giant TV studio using a film studio in England, trimming the budget and reviving the project. Casting. Although several "Rocky Horror" cast members returned for this film, only Jeremy Newson reprised his role as Ralph Hapschatt (though it is possible Judge Wright is the Criminologist from "Rocky Horror"). Tim Curry was offered the roles of Brad and Farley, but declined because he didn't think his American accent would be convincing. Barry Bostwick was unable to reprise his role as Brad due to other filming commitments, and Susan Sarandon's asking price could not be met, due to budget constraints. Cliff De Young had been Sharman's original choice for Brad in "The Rocky Horror Picture Show", as Sharman had worked with De Young off-Broadway in the play ""Trials of Oz"" in 1972. De Young had been unavailable at the time, as he was appearing on the television show "Sunshine" in California. Cast now as Brad and Farley, De Young modeled his performance of Brad Majors after David Eisenhower, and modeled Farley Flavors after Jack Nicholson. "Shock Treatment"s original working title was "The Brad and Janet Show". Founder and long-time president of "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" fan club, Sal Piro, has a cameo appearance as the man using the payphone during the opening sequence. Allusions to "Rocky Horror". Some of the costumes and props from "Rocky Horror", such as Frank's throne (painted red and reupholstered for Faith Factory), Frank's leather jacket, and a portrait seen in the beginning of the "Time Warp" can be seen in "Shock Treatment". Reception. In spite of pre-release hype (including a promotional TV special called "The Rocky Horror Treatment"), the film was both a critical and commercial failure when it was released only as a midnight movie on Halloween 1981. It never received a full general theatrical first-run release. Due to its increased budget and box office failure, "Shock Treatment" an even bigger flop than "Rocky Horror"s original general release in 1975. The film currently holds a 40% "rotten" rating at Rotten Tomatoes based on five reviews. Over the years however the film has gained a small, but loyal cult-following. Home release. A special edition DVD was released in the United States on September 5, 2006, its first Region 1 DVD release. Included is a 1:85:1 anamorphic widescreen transfer, Dolby Digital 5.1, Dolby Surround 2.0, and Spanish Mono audio tracks, with Spanish, French and English subtitles. Bonus materials include an audio commentary with fan club presidents Mad Man Mike and Bill Brennan, a making-of featurette, a music retrospective featurette, and domestic and international trailers. Rumors from "Rocky Horror" fans have been communicating about a possibility of a Blu-ray release, but it has not yet been confirmed as of 2013. All DVD releases cut the original end credit version of the Denton "Overture" in half, and then prematurely fade out the single version of "Shock Treatment" when the credits are over. The original version features the complete "Overture" playing over the credits with "Shock Treatment" playing over a black screen as exit music. The edit shortens the film from 94 to 92 minutes.
1059274	Cinderella Liberty is a 1973 film drama which tells the story of a sailor who falls in love with a prostitute and becomes a surrogate father for her 11-year-old mixed race son. It stars James Caan, Marsha Mason and Kirk Calloway. It was directed by Mark Rydell. The cast also includes Eli Wallach, Burt Young, Allyn Ann McLerie, Dabney Coleman, Jon Korkes, and Allan Arbus. The title is derived from the plot point that the sailor's personnel file has been misplaced by the Navy, and thus he can't be assigned any duties. He is therefore allowed to go on leave each day from his naval base but must return by midnight. The movie was adapted by Daryl Ponicsan from his novel. Ponicsan previously authored another Navy-themed book that became a successful film, "The Last Detail". It was nominated for Academy Awards for Best Actress in a Leading Role (Marsha Mason), Best Music, Original Dramatic Score and Best Music, Song (John Williams and Paul Williams for "Nice to Be Around"). The movie was filmed in Seattle, Washington. Plot. Peacetime sailor John J. Baggs is unable to get paid or receive new orders because somehow the U.S. Navy has lost his file. He is able to come and go from the base until curfew. One night in a bar, he spots an attractive woman hustling guys at a pool table. He challenges her himself and develops an interest in the woman, Maggie, who turns out to be a prostitute living in a tenement with a young black son, Doug. Baggs begins spending time with Maggie at the apartment, where Doug is often left to fend for himself. His attempts at creating a normal life for her succeed for a while, but Maggie cannot change the way she is. Doug, suspicious and cynical at first, bonds with Baggs, who devotes his free time to the kid and even gets his teeth fixed. But both know that soon Baggs will be reassigned and gone for good. The Navy's mix-up continues to baffle Baggs until one day a veteran sailor named Forshay not only finds the file, but volunteers to change places with Baggs and ship out under a false name. Baggs and Doug may not have Maggie around any more, but they've got each other. Reception. Caan says the film was one of his favourites. This film received a nomination for a golden globe award for best motion picture.
327432	Rainn Dietrich Wilson (born January 20, 1966) is an American actor who is well known for his Emmy-nominated role as the egomaniacal Dwight Schrute on the American version of the television comedy "The Office". He has also directed three episodes of "The Office": the sixth season's "The Cover-Up", the seventh season's "Classy Christmas", and the eighth season's "Get the Girl". He also voiced the alien villain, Gallaxhar in the 2009 film "Monsters vs. Aliens". Early life. Wilson was born in Seattle, Washington, the son of Shay Cooper, a yoga teacher and actress, and Robert G. Wilson, a novel writer, artist, and business consultant who wrote the science fiction novel "Tentacles of Dawn" (Rainn showed the book and read from it on "Jimmy Kimmel Live!" March 22, 2011). Wilson has Norwegian ancestry. He attended Central Middle School and Shorecrest High School in Shoreline, Washington, where he played the clarinet and bassoon in the band. He transferred to and graduated from New Trier High School after his family moved to Winnetka, Illinois to serve at the Bahá'í National Center. Wilson has a theatre background from Tufts University and the University of Washington, and has taught acting classes. He holds an MFA from New York University's Graduate Acting Program at the Tisch School of the Arts and was a member of The Acting Company. While acting in theatrical productions in New York, he drove a moving van to make ends meet. Career. In addition to his starring role on "The Office", Wilson appeared as the eccentric Arthur Martin—the intern at Fisher & Diaz Funeral Home—on HBO's "Six Feet Under". He has also appeared in ", ", and "Entourage", in the last portraying a sleazy entertainment journalist based on Harry Knowles of Ain't It Cool News. Wilson guest-starred in an episode of "Monk" titled "Mr. Monk Goes to the Ballgame" and as a virologist in an episode of "NUMB3RS" titled "Vector." He appeared in the "Coyote Piper" episode of "Charmed" as an alchemist named Kierkan. Wilson has made a guest appearance in two episodes of the Cartoon Network's Adult Swim-bloc series "Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job". Wilson has also appeared on "Reno 911." On February 24, 2007, Wilson hosted "Saturday Night Live", becoming the second cast member from "The Office" to host (after Steve Carell). During the 2007 FIFA Women's World Cup, Wilson appeared in ads for the 2007 United States women's national soccer team as public relations manager "Jim Mike."
900270	Francesca Ciardi is an Italian film actress. She was one of four actors whom the Italian police believed had been murdered in the making of the 1980 horror film "Cannibal Holocaust". So realistic was the film that shortly after it was released its director Ruggero Deodato was arrested for murder. The actors had signed contracts to stay out of the media for a year in order to fuel rumours that the film was a snuff movie. The court was only convinced that they were alive when the contracts were cancelled and the actors appeared on a television show as proof.
583352	Tannishtha Chatterjee is an Indian actress. She is best known in the West for her performance in the British film "Brick Lane" (2007), the film adaptation of Monica Ali's best selling novel of the same name. She was nominated for the British Independent Film Awards as the best actress for "Brick Lane". Her other notables roles have been in Academy Award-winning German director Florian Gallenberger's film, "Shadows of Time", "Road, Movie" with Abhay Deol and "Bibar" for which she won Best Actress at the 2006 Osian Film Festival and the 2007 BFJA awards. Early life. Chatterjee was born in Pune, Maharashtra, to a Bengali Hindu family. Her father was a business executive and her mother was a political science professor. Her family traveled and lived out of the country for some time and then moved to Delhi. She majored in Chemistry at Delhi University and then went to the National School of Drama. Thereafter she worked in India and Europe with well-known theatre directors. Career. Chatterjee's first film "Swaraj" won a National Film Award. Chatterjee's performance in the German film, "Shadows of Time" earned her critical acclaim. It took her to international film festivals like Toronto and Berlin. Thereafter she worked on an Indo-French coproduction "Hava Aney Dey" (Let the Wind Blow) directed by Partho Sen-Gupta which premiered at the Berlin Film Festival and won the best film award at the Durban International Film Festival among others. Following these, Chatterjee acted in films like "Strings", "Kasturi" and "Bibar". The Bengali film "Bibar" won her critical acclaim and best actress awards. Her work in the British film "Brick Lane" directed by Sarah Gavron gave her international exposure and recognition. Chatterjee was nominated for the British independent film awards along with actresses like Judi Dench and Anne Hathaway. Chatterjee has finished filming Ravi Kumar's upcoming film, "" in which she is starring with Martin Sheen. She was the lead in "Road, Movie" with Abhay Deol. Chatterjee is often referred by the Indian media as the "Princess of Parallel Cinema". Chatterjee was referred by the Indian media as the chief flag bearer at the 62nd Cannes Film Festival. She won the best actress award at the Miaac New York Film Festival for her film "Bombay Summer". Referred to as one of the most international of Indian actors, she is the lead in Lucy Liu's film based on the book "Half the Sky". A trained Hindustani classical vocalist, she sang for movies like "Road", "Page 3", and her own films. She sang at the Royal Opera House in London with well-known British composer Jocelyn Pook. Chatterjee was in the jury of the 2010 Asia Pacific Screen Awards. Currently she finished shooting for T series film "I Love New Year" opposite Sunny Deol directed by Radhika Rao and Vinay Sapru. Tannishtha appeared in Joe Wright's film "Anna Karenina" (2012). Her film "Dekh Indian Circus" won the audiences choice award in Busan International Film Festival. She won the National Film Award for the same film amongst other awards. She is also featuring in a major role in "Gulab Gang" , a film starring Madhuri Dixit. Her film "Monsoon Shootout" is in official selection at the 66th Cannes film festival. Her Canadian film "Siddharth" is in official selection at the 70th Venice Film Festival and the 2013 Toronto International Film Festival. She is the only Indian actress whose films have been selected in three of the major international film festivals in the same year.
1055392	"Henry's Crime" is a 2011 romantic comedy film directed by Malcolm Venville and starring Keanu Reeves, James Caan, Vera Farmiga, and Danny Hoch. The film follows Henry (Reeves) who goes to jail for a robbery he did not commit. Once released, he plans on robbing the same bank with his former cellmate Max (Caan). The film opened in limited release on April 8 across the US. Plot. Working the night shift as a toll collector on a lonely stretch of highway in Buffalo, New York, Henry is a man seemingly without ambition, dreams or purpose; a man sleepwalking his way through life. His wife Debbie is not happy with the situation. One morning Eddie, a friend, drops by to ask Henry to play in a baseball game, as one of the others is ill, and Henry agrees to. As they drive to the game in Henry's car, Eddie asks Henry to stop at an ATM. But Eddie, and two acquaintances also in the car, instead rob the Buffalo Savings Bank, and Henry is arrested as an accomplice. Rather than give up the names of the real culprits, Henry takes the fall and goes to jail. There he is celled with the irrepressible Max, a con man who has grown far too comfortable with the familiarity and security of his ‘idyllic’ life behind bars, but one who also helps plant an idea in Henry’s mind which will change his life forever: for a man to find his purpose, he must first have a dream. Debbie decides to divorce him, and she marries, Joe, one of the acquaintances. Upon his release about a year later, Henry finds his purpose. Having done the time, he decides he may as well do the crime. Discovering a long forgotten bootlegger’s tunnel which runs from the very same bank to a theater across the alleyway, he convinces the reluctant Max to file for his long overdue parole — to help stage a robbery of the bank.
1164177	Sharon Marguerite Gless (born May 31, 1943) is an American character actress of stage, film and television, who is best known for her roles as Maggie Philbin on "Switch" (1975–1978), as Sgt. Christine Cagney in the police procedural drama series "Cagney & Lacey" (1982–1988), as Debbie Novotny in the Showtime cable television series "Queer as Folk" (2000–2005), and as Madeline Westen on "Burn Notice" (2007–2013). Gless has won two Emmy Awards and has received 10 Emmy nominations, has been nominated seven times for the Golden Globe (winning two in 1986 and 1991) and has received her own Star on the Walk of Fame in 1995. Early life and career. A fifth-generation Californian, Sharon Gless was born in Los Angeles, California, the daughter of Marjorie (McCarthy) and sportswear manufacturing executive Dennis J. Gless. Her maternal grandfather was Neil McCarthy, a prominent Los Angeles attorney for Howard Hughes who also had a large clientele of major film studio executives and actors. Wanting to become an actress, she sought her grandfather's advice and he told her, "It's a filthy business. You stay out of it." But a few years later, when she spoke to him again about acting, he encouraged her, and gave her money for acting class. She worked as a secretary for the advertising agencies Grey Advertising and Young & Rubicam, and then for the independent movie production companies Sassafras Films and General Film Corporation. After deciding to switch to acting, Gless took classes and in 1974 signed a 10-year contract with Universal Studios. Near the end of her contract, she was identified in the media as the last of the studio contract players — a salaried, Old Hollywood apprentice system which Universal was the last to employ. Career. Film and Television. At the beginning of her career, Gless appeared in numerous television series and TV movies, such as "Revenge of the Stepford Wives", "Faraday & Company" with Dan Dailey and James Naughton in 1973 and 1974, "Emergency!", and "The Rockford Files". She played small parts in "Marcus Welby, M.D." (1969–1976), until being offered the role of Kathleen Faverty, which she played from 1974 to 1976. This was in addition to a variety of guest-starring roles on television, including the part of the classy young secretary, Maggie Philbin, alongside Eddie Albert and Robert Wagner on the CBS private detective/con artist series "Switch" (1975–1978). Despite being a newcomer on the show, she got along very well with both Albert and Wagner, both on and off-screen. When the show was canceled after the third season, she thanked both Albert and Wagner for giving a jump start to her career. While under contract with Universal, she co-starred with John Schuck in the 1979 Steven Bochco television sitcom, "Turnabout" (based on the Thorne Smith 1931 novel about a husband and wife who temporarily switch bodies), which failed to be a ratings blockbuster. Beginning with the series' seventh episode/first full season, Gless replaced actress Meg Foster in the role of NYPD police detective Christine Cagney on "Cagney & Lacey." (The role had been originated, in the pilot installment, by Loretta Swit. Swit, like Foster, was chosen as Cagney because, though the character of Cagney had been created with Gless herself in mind, she was unavailable for the pilot or the first seven installments of the first season.) In 1991, she married the series' executive producer, Barney Rosenzweig, who speaks in his book "Cagney, Lacey, and Me" about wanting Sharon Gless from the beginning and Gless being unavailable due to her contract with Universal. Rosenzweig created the 1990–1992 CBS drama series "The Trials of Rosie O'Neill" for Gless and, uncredited, played the only partially seen psychiatrist to whom the attorney Fiona "Rosie" O'Neill confided at the beginning of each episode. Gless, who had garnered six Emmy nominations – including two wins and a Golden Globe win for her role as Cagney – earned two additional Emmy nominations and a second Golden Globe win for this subsequent series. In 1993 and 1995, Gless and her television partner, Tyne Daly, joined together to re-create their title roles in a quartet of critically acclaimed and popular "Cagney & Lacey" television movies. Gless and Tyne Daly jokingly called these "The Menopause Years." In 1998, Gless narrated the documentary "", which received an Academy Award nomination for Best Documentary Feature. Between 2000 and 2005, Gless appeared as Hal Sparks's mother, Debbie Novotny, in the acclaimed Showtime cable television series "Queer as Folk." In 2000, she was on an episode of "Touched by an Angel" entitled "The Perfect Game." On May 26, 2005, Gless was one of the mourners at Eddie Albert's funeral, along with ex-"Switch" co-stars Robert Wagner and Charlie Callas. In 2006, Gless starred in the BBC television series "The State Within". The following year she co-starred in the USA Network cable television series "Burn Notice", playing Michael Westen's (Jeffrey Donovan) mother, Madeline Westen. In addition, Gless was a guest star on several episodes of the FX Network cable television series "Nip/Tuck" as an unstable agent named Colleen Rose, a role that netted her an Emmy Award nomination. In 2009, Gless starred in her first leading role as a lesbian character in the independent film "Hannah Free" (Ripe Fruit Films), described as a film about a lifelong love affair between an independent spirit and the woman she calls home. The film is based on a screenplay by the Jeff Award-winning playwright Claudia Allen and directed by Wendy Jo Carlton. She plays Jane Juska in "A Round-Heeled Woman", a stage adaptation by Jane Prowse of Jane Juska's "A Round-Heeled Woman," which was slated to premiere on the London UK stage in the fall of 2011. The first production ran in San Francisco in early 2010. Sharon starred in a new production in Miami, December 2010 - February 2011, directed by Jane Prowse. A production took place in London, transferring in November 2011 from Riverside Studios to the Aldwych Theatre, where the run closed on 14 January 2012. Theater. Gless's most recent stage appearance was in "", Jane Prowse's stage adaptation of Jane Juska's book "A Round-Heeled Woman: my Late-life Adventures in Sex and Romance", the first production of which ran from January to February 2010, at Z Space at Artaud, San Francisco. There was a new production at GableStage in Miami, from December 30, 2010 to February 6, 2011. Gless made her stage debut in Lillian Hellman's "Watch on the Rhine" at Stage West in Springfield, Massachusetts. Gless has extensive stage experience including two appearances in London's West End, first in 1993 with Bill Paterson, when she created the role of Annie Wilkes in the stage version of Stephen King's "Misery" at the Criterion Theatre, and then in 1996, where she appeared opposite Tom Conti in Neil Simon's "Chapter Two", at the Gielgud Theatre. She starred at Chicago playhouse The Victory Gardens Theater in Claudia Allen's "Cahoots", as well as several stints, including an evening at Madison Square Garden with the National Company of Eve Ensler's "The Vagina Monologues". Gless appeared on "The Alan Titchmarsh Show" on October 17, 2011. Author. Sharon Gless announced, shyly, on the 2007 "Queer As Folk" Reunion Luncheon that she is writing a book – presumably an autobiography – about, among other things, her time on "QAF" and alluded to it not being published until after she is "gone".
1723004	Sintel (code-named Durian) is a short computer animated film by the Blender Institute, part of the Blender Foundation.
1056406	The Big Blue () is a 1988 English-language Cinéma du look film made by French director Luc Besson. The film stars Jean-Marc Barr, Rosanna Arquette, Jean Reno and depicts a fictionalized account of the sporting rivalry between two famed free divers. It is a cult-classic in the diving fraternity. Background. Luc Besson was initially unsure of whom to cast in the main role of Jacques Mayol. He initially offered the role to Christopher Lambert and Mickey Rourke and even considered himself for the role until someone suggested Jean-Marc Barr. Besson has a cameo appearance as one of the divers in the film. "The Big Blue" was the most financially successful French film of the 1980s, selling 9,193,873 tickets in France alone, and played in French theaters for a year. Synopsis. The film charts the competition and friendship of real-life champions Jacques Mayol (played by Barr) and Enzo Maiorca (renamed in the film to "Enzo Molinari", and played by Reno). However the divers were not close in age in real life (four years apart) and did not compete. The action is divided into two timelines – the nascent rivalry between the two divers as children, and (as adults) their final competition at the world free-diving championships at the Sicilian town of Taormina. Mayol's search for love, family, "wholeness" and the meaning of life and death is a strong undercurrent of the latter timeline. Plot. The movie begins with Jacques Mayol and Enzo Molinari as children in Greece (Santorini island) in the 1960´s. They challenge each other to collect a coin on the sea floor and Jacques loses. Later Jacques' father goes diving in a reef, his breathing apparatus and rope gets caught in the rocks and Enzo and Jacques can do nothing but watch in horror as he is killed. The movie continues in 1988 where Enzo (Jean Reno) rescues a diver from a shipwreck in Sicily. Later insurance broker Johana Baker (Rosanna Arquette) visits Peru for work purposes and meets Dr. Laurence (Paul Shenar). There she is introduced to Jacques (Jean-Marc Barr). She later returns to New York. Enzo then visits Jacques and asks him to enter the World Diving Championships in Taormina, Sicily. Learning about this, Johana convinces her boss to send her over there for work. She meets up with Jacques and the two fall in love. On the first dive attempt at the World Diving Championships, Jacques beats Enzo the current World Champion. Enzo offers Jacques and Johana a gift, a glass dolphin as well as a tape measure displaying the difference between Jacques' and Enzo’s world records. Johana goes back home to New York and gets fired after her boss finds out she lied about issues with the insurance claim in Taormina. Johana then decides to leave New York to be with Jacques. At the World Diving Championships Enzo beats Jacques' record. Other divers then attempt to break Enzo’s new record but all fail. Jacques then attempts his next dive and reaches 400ft (122m) breaking Enzo's world record. Angered by this, Enzo prepares to break Jacques' new world record. Dr. Laurence attempts to stop the dive stating that the pressure below 400ft is too great and will cut off oxygen in the body preventing the divers from reaching the surface again. Enzo attempts the dive anyway and is unable to make his way back to the surface. Jacques dives down to rescue him. Enzo tells Jacques that it is better down there, and urges Jacques to take him back down to 400ft. Jacques refuses as Enzo dies in his arms. Honoring his dying wish, Jacques takes Enzo's body back down to 400ft and drops him to the ocean floor. Jacques is then rescued from the water and taken back to the boat where the doctors revive him. Jacques is then placed in medical quarters and appears to be recovering from the diving accident. During this period Johana learns that she is pregnant with Jacques' child. Jacques then experiences a strange dream where the ceiling collapses and the room fills with water and then finds himself in the ocean surrounded by dolphins. Johana returns to check up on Jacques in the middle of the night, finding him awake in bed with bloody ears and a bloody nose. Johana attempts to help him. In a trance-like state Jacques runs off to the diving boat and gets suited up for one final dive. Johana begs Jacques not to go, but he says he has to. Johana then tells Jacques that she is pregnant. The two embrace and Johana breaks down crying. Jacques then descends to 400ft and floats there for a brief moment staring into the darkness. A dolphin then appears and Jacques swims away with it into the darkness as the movie ends. Original Ending. The original ending was intentionally left open for the audience’s interpretation, though considering the depth he's swam down to it suggests that he would be unlikely to make it back to the surface alive in normal circumstances. However, as the film suggests throughout, Jacques' body is not normal and following the incident upon waking in the hospital it can be construed that he feels he may now be more suited to an aquatic life and his death may not be a foregone conclusion. Alternate Ending (US version). In the US version the ending is extended with an additional scene. After swimming away with the dolphin, Jacques is brought back to the surface, only this time, in what seems to be an alternate reality. Reception. Upon release, the movie was met with positive reviews in Europe. The movie was heavily edited for a US release and fitted with a new ending and soundtrack. The movie received negative reviews in the States. Production. With its extensive underwater scenes and languid score (as with nearly all of Luc Besson's films the soundtrack was composed by Eric Serra), the film has been both praised as beautiful and serene, and in equal measure criticized as being too drawn out, overly reflective and introspective. While popular in Europe, the film was a commercial failure in North America due to the studio's recutting of the movie to include a simplified "happy" ending. In the American version, Serra's score was also replaced with a soundtrack composed by Bill Conti. This version was only available on VHS and Laserdisc in the United States (both with 4x3 pan and scan transfers) and is currently out of print. The director later released a longer Director's Cut on DVD, featuring the original ending and an extended version of the Éric Serra score. The film was dedicated to his daughter Juliette Besson who required surgery, having become ill whilst he was working on the film. Most film parts were shot in the island Amorgos of Greece. Home media. A Blu-ray version, containing both the extended and theatrical cuts of the movie, was released on September 14, 2009 in the UK, but this contains French-dubbed versions of both cuts, rather than the original English language. This was later corrected and the second release contained a LPCM 2.0 English soundtrack and a DTS 2.0 French dub. The French Blu-ray release contains only the Director's Cut of the film but with a French DTS-MA 5.1 soundtrack and is supplemented with Besson's "Atlantis" documentary on Blu-ray as well. Awards. "The Big Blue" was nominated for several César Awards and won César Award for Best Music Written for a Film (Eric Serra) and Best Sound in 1989. The film also won France's National Academy of Cinema's Academy Award in 1989.
743782	George Dzundza (born July 19, 1945) is a German-born American television and film actor. Early life and education. Dzundza ( ) was born in Rosenheim, Germany, to a Ukrainian father and Polish mother who were forced into factory labour by the Nazis. He spent the first few years of his life in displaced persons camps with his parents and one brother. Before immigrating to the United States in 1956, the family lived in Amsterdam for some years. Dzundza attended St. John's University, studying speech and theatre arts. He is a naturalized U.S. citizen. Career. Dzundza played Commander Daskal in "The Beast". His other major film roles include "The Deer Hunter", "White Hunter Black Heart", "Basic Instinct", "Crimson Tide", and "Dangerous Minds". He played the part of Max Greevey on "Law & Order" for one season before leaving the show. Dzundza had his own sitcom series "Open All Night", about the owner of a convenience store located in southern California. His other, lesser known acting roles include an appearance on "The Waltons" (1975), the Archie Bunker-like father in the short-lived Christina Applegate sitcom "Jesse", and the voice of supervillain Ventriloquist in ' and Perry White in ', as well as numerous minor roles within both shows. His Broadway theatre credits include Terrence McNally's "The Ritz". He portrayed American Nazi leader Frank Collin in the 1981 made-for-television movie "Skokie". In 2005, he played Anubis (aka "Jim") in the "Stargate SG-1" Season 8 episode "Threads". More recently, Dzundza portrayed George O'Malley's father on "Grey's Anatomy".
1068553	"National Lampoon's Senior Trip" is a 1995 teen film directed by Kelly Makin and is also Jeremy Renner's film debut. Plot. The film follows the story of a group of rude and obnoxious seniors from Fairmont High, an Ohio high school. The school day begins with a school assembly featuring a band called "High on Life" though the student body shows lack of response due to the choice of music playing in front of them. As the band continues to play onstage, Mark "Dags" D'Agastino (Jeremy Renner) and Reggie Barry (Rob Moore) decide to sabotage the assembly by having a track played and exposing the band lip syncing their music as it ends drastically but upbeat. After a typing class, the seniors cut school and throw a party at the home of Principal Moss (Matt Frewer). Moss eventually gets informed about the party from the school body president Steve Nisser (Sergio Di Zio). When he returns home, he gives the group detention, forcing them to write a letter to the President of the United States, explaining what is wrong with the education system. The next day while arriving at the school, Principal Moss along with the new typing class teacher (Valerie Mahaffey) notices that various newspaper station vans are there assuming that something has gone wrong within the building then finds out from Mrs. Winston that Senator Lerman (Lawrence Dane) is inside the building meeting the seniors much to his dismay. While inside, the senator makes the announcement over the seniors being invited by the President to Washington, who amazingly enjoyed their letter to discuss it. However, it is actually just a plot devised by the corrupt U.S. Senator to humiliate the President. Upon their journey, the class stops in a convenience store where Dags and Reggie lock Principal Moss in a flooded convenience store toilet so they can steal alcohol from the store. They are followed by Travis (Kevin McDonald), a crazed "Star Trek" fan and crossing guard, who hitches a ride with an Asian family. While on their way, Principal Moss falls into a "coma" after taking pills given to him by Red (Tommy Chong), the bus driver. At this point, the students go on a rampage celebrating over Moss passing out and throw another party, while Carla Morgan (Tara Strong), the school slut, puts makeup on the sleeping Principal Moss. The next morning, the bus is pursued by both Travis and the police. Red suddenly dies, apparently from a drug overdose, and the bus nearly plows into a lake. Dags manages to stop it in time, but Travis's ride is not so lucky. In the confusion, Travis escapes. Arriving at Washington, the group checks into a hotel then decide to take a class photo at a cemetery and goes wrong when Miosky (Eric Edwards) blows out Edgar Hoover's flame via fart lighting, catching Travis on fire in the process. That night back at the hotel, the seniors secretly lace a box of chocolates with tequila and give it to Miss Milford, subsequently leaving and going to a party at another hotel while Miss Milford seduces Principal Moss in a drunken stupor. In the process, Lisa Perkins (Fiona Loewi), discovers the plot to use the students to embarrass the President. The next morning, Senator Lerman unexpectedly wakes up Principal Moss and Miss Milford who much to their shock over both of them in the same room to prepare themselves and the seniors for their meeting with the President however when they open the room, they do not find them there but only a tied up Steve Nisser. Moss and Milford find the missing students the next morning as they are informed of Lerman's plot as Lerman baffles to the discovery. The senator subsequently kidnaps Miosky and take him to the White House with the others in hot pursuit. When they arrive at the White House, the senator insults the seniors, but Principal Moss unexpectedly stands up for them. The senator's plot is ultimately exposed, and the seniors go home. The film ends with a montage of the characters and where they ended up after the events of the film. Reception. Box office. The film opened to $2,184,901 from 1,397 theaters with the average to 1,563 per site. The United States had $3,686,337. It was 78% of the total gross of this movie. The overseas gross was $1,000,600. This brings the movie to $4,686,937. Critical response. "National Lampoon's Senior Trip" received overwhelmingly negative reviews, earning a 0% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes website. However, it currently holds a B grade at Yahoo! Movies.
588139	Anand Kumar (born 1 January 1973) is an Indian mathematician and a columnist for various national and international mathematical journals and magazines. He is best known for his Super 30 programme, which he started in Patna, Bihar in 2002, and which coaches economically backward students for IIT-JEE, the entrance examination for the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs). By 2013, 281 of the 330 had made it to IITs and Discovery Channel showcased his work in a documentary. Early life. Anand Kumar was born in Patna, Bihar. His father was a post office clerk in Bihar. His father could not afford private schooling for his children, and Anand attended a Hindi medium government school, where he developed his deep interest in Mathematics. During graduation, Kumar submitted papers on Number Theory, which were published in "Mathematical Spectrum" and "The Mathematical Gazette". Anand secured admission to Cambridge University, but could not attend because of his father's death and his financial condition, even after looking for sponsor in 1994-1995, both in Patna and Delhi. Kumar would work on Mathematics during day time and would sell "papads" in evenings with his mother, who had started a small business from home, to support her family. He also tutored students in maths to earn extra money. Since Patna University library did not have foreign journals, for his own study, he would travel every weekend on a six-hour train journey to Varanasi, where his younger brother, learning violin under N. Rajam, had a hostel room. Thus he would spend Saturday and Sunday at the Central Library, BHU and return to Patna on Monday morning. Teaching career and Super 30. In 1992, Kumar began teaching Mathematics. He rented a classroom for Rs 500 a month, and began his own institute, the Ramanujan School of Mathematics (RSM). Within the space of year, his class grew from two students to thirty-six, and after three years there were almost 500 students enrolled. Then in early 2000, when a poor student came to him seeking coaching for IIT-JEE, who couldn't afford the annual admission fee due to poverty, Kumar was motivated to start the Super 30 programme in 2002, for which he is now well-known. Every year in May, since 2002, the Ramanujan School of Mathematics holds a competitive test to select 30 students for the ‘Super 30’ scheme. Many students appear at the test, and eventually he takes thirty intelligent students from economically backward sections, tutors them, and provides study materials and lodging for a year. He prepares them for the Joint Entrance Examination for the Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT). His mother, Jayanti Devi, cooks for the students, and his brother Pranav Kumar takes care of the management. During 2003-2013, 281 students out of 330 have made it to the IITs. In 2010, all the students of Super 30 cleared IIT JEE entrance making it a three in a row for the institution. Anand Kumar has no financial support for Super 30 from any government as well as private agencies, and manages on the tuition fee he earns from the Ramanujam Institute. After the success of Super 30 and its growing popularity, he got many offers from the private – both national and international companies - as well as the government for financial help, but he always refused it. He wanted to sustain Super 30 through his own efforts. After three consecutive 30/30 results in 2008-2010, in 2011, 24 of the 30 students cleared IIT JEE.In 2012, 27 of the 30 students and in 2013, 28 out of 30 students cleared the prestigious IIT JEE examination. Anand Kumar does not accept donation for the programme. His team creates the fund by organizing evening classes in Patna. Recognition. In March 2009, Discovery Channel broadcast a one-hour-long programme on Super 30, and half a page has been devoted to Kumar in "The New York Times". Actress and ex-Miss Japan Norika Fujiwara visited Patna to make a documentary on Anand’s initiatives. Kumar has been featured in programmes by the BBC. He has spoken about his experiences at Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad. Kumar is in the Limca Book of Records (2009) for his contribution in helping poor students crack IIT-JEE by providing them free coaching. Time Magazine has selected mathematician Anand Kumar's school - Super 30 - in the list of Best of Asia 2010. Anand Kumar was awarded the S. Ramanujan Award for 2010 by the Institute for Research and Documentation in Social Sciences (IRDS) in July 2010.
1062121	Kyra Minturn Sedgwick (born August 19, 1965) is an American actress. She is best known for her starring role as Deputy Chief Brenda Leigh Johnson on the TNT crime drama "The Closer". Sedgwick's role in the series won her a Golden Globe Award in 2007 and an Emmy Award in 2010. The series ended on August 13, 2012, following the completion of its seventh season. Early life. Sedgwick was born in New York City, the daughter of Patricia (née Rosenwald), a speech teacher and educational/family therapist, and Henry Dwight Sedgwick V, a venture capitalist. Her father was Episcopalian and of English heritage, and her mother was Jewish. On her father's side, she is a descendant of Judge Theodore Sedgwick, Endicott Peabody (the founder of the Groton School), William Ellery (a signer of the Declaration of Independence), John Lathrop (American minister) (1740–1816), of Boston, Massachusetts and is the great-granddaughter of Henry Dwight Sedgwick III, and thus the corresponding niece to his brother Ellery Sedgwick, owner/editor (1908-1938) of The Atlantic Monthly. Sedgwick is also the first cousin once removed of actress Edie Sedgwick, a niece of the writer John Sedgwick, a sister of actor Robert Sedgwick, and half-sister of jazz guitarist Mike Stern. Sedgwick's parents separated when she was four and divorced when she was six; her mother subsequently re-married Ben Heller, an art dealer. Sedgwick graduated from Friends Seminary and attended Sarah Lawrence College. She transferred from Sarah Lawrence to the University of Southern California, graduating with a theater degree.
1065461	John Pankow (born February 18, 1957) is an American actor. He is a series regular on the Showtime/BBC series "Episodes", playing Merc Lapidus, the volatile head of a major U.S. television network. Biography. Early life. Pankow was born in St. Louis, Missouri, the son of Marion, a homemaker, and Wayne Pankow, who worked in magazine advertising sales. He is the younger brother of trombonist James Pankow, a founding member of the legendary rock group Chicago. He grew up in Park Ridge, Illinois, and attended Maine South High School and later, Northeastern Illinois University. Career. Pankow, a veteran actor of stage, film and television, appeared for seven seasons as Ira Buchman on the NBC sitcom "Mad About You". Pankow is a series regular on the Showtime/BBC series "Episodes" playing American television executive Merc Lapidus. Personal life. Pankow has been married to actress Kristine Sutherland (best known for playing Buffy's mother Joyce Summers on "Buffy the Vampire Slayer") since 1985 and together they have a daughter.
1151507	Emma Jean Bell (born December 17, 1986) is an American actress, best known for her roles in films "Frozen" (2010) and "Final Destination 5" (2011), and for playing Amy in the first season of "The Walking Dead" (2010). She is currently starring as Emma Brown on the TNT drama series "Dallas". Early life. Emma Jean Bell, who was born in Woodstown, New Jersey, grew up in the Stanton section of Readington Township, New Jersey and attended Hunterdon Central Regional High School in nearby Flemington. She moved to New York City at the age of 16. She attended a Performing Arts High School on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. Her mother was a producer for "60 Minutes" and her father, Rob Bell, owns Green Birdie Productions, a full-service video production company in Lambertville, New Jersey. Her father was also a reporter, videographer and writer-producer at WWOR-TV UPN 9 News. Career. Bell is well known for her roles as Parker O'Neill, one of the main characters in the 2010 film "Frozen", and as Molly Harper, the female lead in the 2011 thriller-horror film "Final Destination 5". She made her film debut in the 2007 sports drama film "Gracie" and appeared in "New York City Serenade", "", "Death in Love", "Elektra Luxx", and "Hatchet II", in which she reprised her "Frozen" role in an uncredited cameo. On television, Bell portrayed Amy, the younger sister of Andrea (Laurie Holden) in Season 1 of the AMC drama series "The Walking Dead". She also starred in the short-lived TV series "The Bedford Diaries" in 2006 and appeared on such other shows as "Supernatural", "Law & Order", ', "Third Watch", and '. She starred in two pilots NBC did not pick up, "Reconstruction" in 2011 and "Midnight Sun" in 2012. In September, 2012, it was announced that Bell had signed on as a series regular on the second season of TNT's drama series "Dallas". She plays Emma Brown, Ann Ewing (Brenda Strong)'s daughter.
582558	Isha Sharvani (born 29 September 1984 in Gujarat, India) is an Indian Contemporary dancer and actress. She is known for her stylistic Indian contemporary and aerial dance performances. She has also starred in some Bollywood films. Early life. Isha was born on 29 September 1984 in Gujarat,India. She has lived in Ahmedabad, from where she moved to different places like, Delhi, Orissa, Vrindavan and Bangalore, before settling down in Trivandrum. Isha's parents founded an arts school called Academy for Art Research, Training and Innovation (AARTI) in Trivandrum, Kerala where she lived for 13–14 years. At the age of thirteen, she began formal learning in dance from her mother Daksha Sheth at her dance school and learned Kalaripayattu, Kathak and Chhau dance as well as giving performances in twenty-two countries over last seven years. According to an interview with India Daily, Isha stated she "lived a different life poles apart from the film industry. For 11 years I have been training eight to 10 hours a day in a very disciplined atmosphere where there is no distinction between boys and girls. I was not supposed to cry over a clipped nail. Beyond stage even my wardrobe has mostly unisexual dresses, jeans and T-shirts" She is a trained Malkam dancer a part of folk dance. Career. Isha never gave acting in Bollywood too much priority, until she was spotted by Subhash Ghai who required someone with talented dancing skills to perform in his movie "Kisna" (2005). He offered her a main role in the film opposite Vivek Oberoi. The film did not do well but her dance performances were appreciated. She was also the dancer opposite Hritik Roshan in the Parle Hide & Seek commercial, performing a much appreciated dance duet with Hritik. Since then she has continued her dance performances on stage, as well as signing for several additional movies which were released in 2006 and 2007. She appeared as a female lead in the Hindi comedy Darwaza Bandh Rakho in 2006. She is currently the lead dancer in the Daksha Sheth Dance Company, and has performed in front of live audiences throughout the world, including Mumbai, London, Perth and Muscat.
899873	Valentina Cortese (born 1 January 1923) is an Italian actress. Cortese, born in Milan, made her screen debut in Italians films in 1940, leading to her first internationally acclaimed roles in Riccardo Freda's 1948 Italian film "Les Misérables" with Marcello Mastroianni, in which she played both Fantine and Cosette, and the 1949 British film "The Glass Mountain" (1949), which led to a number of roles in American movies of the period, but continued to make movies in Europe with such directors as Michelangelo Antonioni, Federico Fellini, and François Truffaut. She signed a contract with 20th Century Fox in 1948. She starred in 'Malaya' (1949), a Second World War movie about smuggling and guerilla warfare against the Japanese with Spencer Tracy and James Stewart, Jules Dassin's "Thieves' Highway" (1949) with Richard Conte and Lee J. Cobb, "The House on Telegraph Hill" (1951) directed by Robert Wise, and co-starring Richard Basehart and William Lundigan, and Joseph L. Mankiewicz's "The Barefoot Contessa" (1954), with Humphrey Bogart, Ava Gardner, Edmond O'Brien. In Europe she starred in Michelangelo Antonioni's "Le Amiche" (1955), Gérard Brach's "The Boat on the Grass" (1971), Terry Gilliam's British film "The Adventures of Baron Munchausen" (1988), and in Franco Zeffirelli projects such as the 1972 film "Brother Sun, Sister Moon", his 1977 miniseries "Jesus of Nazareth" and the 1993 film "Sparrow". Her final American film role was in "When Time Ran Out" (1980).
1067734	The Perfect Man is a 2005 romantic comedy film directed by Mark Rosman and written by Gina Wendkos. It stars Hilary Duff, Heather Locklear and Chris Noth. Filming of the movie began in May 2004. The film received mostly negative reviews from critics and did not live up to box office expectations, making little above $19,000,000 worldwide. Teenager Holly Hamilton (Hilary Duff) is tired of moving every time her single mom Jean (Heather Locklear) is through with her latest mistake of a man. To prevent her mother from making another bad decision, Holly has an idea: create a secret admirer who is the perfect man. But things spin out of control and Holly has to improvise. Plot. Single mother Jean (Heather Locklear) moves every time she gets her heart broken by another guy, much to the dismay of her teenage daughter, Holly (Hilary Duff). Holly devises a plan to invent a secret admirer for her mother, so she'll be happy and stop moving. Holly overhears her friend Amy's (Vanessa Lengies) uncle Ben (Chris Noth) ordering flowers for a woman, and decides to use his advice on women (which she acquires by telling him she needs help for a school project on romance). Following Ben's advice, she sends her mother orchids and other gifts and love notes, and is soon communicating with her mother as this fictitious admirer (who Holly names Ben) via the internet. As her mother becomes more interested, Holly has to find a photo of this admirer. She sends one of the real Ben, and then devises a reason why they can't meet in person, claiming he is working in China. While she is developing the online romance between her mother and fake Ben, and preventing her mother and the real Ben from meeting in person, she finds herself drawn to a cute, artistic boy in her class, Adam (Ben Feldman), but is unwilling to get close to anyone due to her history of being uprooted and having to say goodbye so often. As the charade continues, and as Holly spends more time with Ben while picking his brain for romance tips, she slowly begins to see qualities in Ben which make her believe he is her mother's 'perfect man.' Unfortunately there is no way her mother can ever meet the real Ben without Holly's plan being exposed. Holly asks help from Adam to disguise as Ben in the telephone and break up with Jean. But he fails, as he is revealed to be harboring feelings for Holly too, in effect telling Holly's mother the opposite of what is planned. Next day at school, Adam admits his feelings for Holly by kissing her. That night, Lenny (Mike O'Malley), a man who is infatuated with Jean, proposes to her and she replies with a 'maybe'. Holly, as an act of desperation, then disguised as Ben's secretary and arranges a meeting between Ben and her mom. Next day, when Holly mistakenly believes Ben is marrying someone else, she disrupts the wedding to tell Ben he should be with her mother - not noticing he is there because the bride was his dear friend and he was catering the wedding. An angry Ben follows her out and makes her tell him the full story. Holly then goes to the meeting place and admits the whole ruse to Jean, who seemed to take it badly. Days passed by and Holly and her mom maintained a cold relationship, and Holly got insulted by her interpretation of Adam's drawing of "Princess Holly." Holly begs Jean for them to move again. Her mother is humiliated and wants to stay, but Holly tells her to leave this once for "Holly". She says that she always has to move for her mom. Her mom can't argue with that so they start to pack. Adam, for what he thought was the last time, went to Holly's home and gave Holly's mom his drawing, commenting that the drawing has another side, which turns out to be Adam telling Holly that he'll always be there for her. Touched, Jean logs onto the internet with Holly's screen name and talks to Adam. Adam, thinking it's Holly, says that her mom is setting a bad example, getting up and leaving when things get bad. Jean is deeply moved by this and decides to stay, finding a new job and for once trying to rebuild her life without running away. She also apologizes to her daughter and told her to look at the other side of the drawing, making Holly happy. Meanwhile Ben is intrigued by what Holly told him about her mother, and with Holly's help, Jean and Ben finally meet and Jean finds her 'perfect man' at last. Holly also seems on the road to her perfect man, as now she has some stability in her life, she finally opens up and admits her feelings for Adam. In the end, Adam and Holly are going to their first school dance together. Production. Filming of the movie began in May 2004 and was based on screenwriter Heather Robinson's life in Tucson, Arizona. Carson Kressley missed two days of shooting on his reality makeover show, "Queer Eye", due to filming on "The Perfect Man" overrunning. "Queer Eye" explained his absence by claiming the fashion expert was busy shopping. On the weekends, Duff was busy recording songs for her upcoming, "self titled album". Reception. Rotten Tomatoes gave the film a rating of 5% based on 115 reviews. The critical consensus describes the film as "a lifeless, occasionally creepy movie that gives romantic comedies a bad name". Metacritic rated the film as having "generally unfavorable reviews" and gave the film a score of 27% based on a normalized average of 29 reviews. Box office. In its opening weekend, the film grossed $5,300,980 million in 2,087 theaters in the United States and Canada, ranking #8 at the box office, was the best debut for an Teen comedy film that week. By the end of its run, "The Perfect Man" grossed $16,535,005 domestically and $3,235,470 internationally, totaling $19,770,475 worldwide.
629258	"Annie's Coming Out (also known as A Test of Love") is a 1984 Australian drama film directed by Gil Brealey. It is based on the non-fiction book "Annie's Coming Out" by disability activists Rosemary Crossley and Anne McDonald. The book tells the story of McDonald's early life in a government institution for people with severe disabilities and her subsequent release. Plot. Annie O'Farrell (based on Anne McDonald) is a 13 year old girl with cerebral palsy who is unable to communicate and has been living in a government institution from an early age. Jessica Hathaway (based on Rosemary Crossley) is a therapist who learns to communicate with Annie using an alphabet board and comes to believe that although physically disabled, Annie is not intellectually impaired. When Annie turns 18, Jessica begins a legal fight to get her released. Production. Film rights to the book were bought by Film Australia and Gil Brealey was assigned to direct. It was originally intended that Ann McDonald play herself but she had grown too big by the time she left hospital so 9 year old Tina Arhondis was cast instead. Shooting started in September 1983 and went for four weeks, mostly at the Convent of the Good Shepherd in Melbourne. Reception. "Annie's Coming Out" won three 1984 Australian Film Institute Awards for Best Film, Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Lead Actress (Angela Punch McGregor). It was nominated for four other AFI awards. The film won the Prize of the Ecumenical Jury at the 1984 Montréal World Film Festival. The film was not a large commercial success but it screened in the US as "A Test of Love". Home Media. "Annie's Coming Out" was released on DVD by Umbrella Entertainment in October 2010. The DVD is compatible with all region codes and includes special features such as press clippings, photos, and audio commentary with Gil Brealey, Rosemary Crossley, Chris Borthwick and Anne McDonald.
1164271	Orville Willis "Will" Forte IV (born June 17, 1970) is an American comedic actor and writer best known for his roles as a cast member on "Saturday Night Live" (2002–2010), the title character of its spin-off film "MacGruber", and Paul L'Astnamé in "30 Rock". Personal life. Forte was born in Alameda County, California, the son of Patricia C. (née Stivers) and Orville Willis Forte III, who divorced when Will and his sister Michelle were children. He was raised in Lafayette, California and graduated from Acalanes High School, where he played varsity football, was a swimmer, served as class president and was voted best personality. He attended UCLA, where he was a member of the Lambda Chi Alpha fraternity and completed a degree in history. He planned to become a financial broker like his father, but worked at a brokerage house for just one year before deciding to pursue comedy professionally. When first entering comedy he worked as a math tutor (one of his students was actress Faye Dunaway’s son Liam) and at a music publishing house. Forte is a supporter of the camp Wampler's Kids and recorded a promotional piece at "SNL" with Will Ferrell. Forte was a childhood friend of founder Steven Wampler and previously the national spokesman for SciEyes, a non-profit organization created to support research, training and public education in stem cell biology and to further the field by recognizing and supporting its potential for creating new therapies for the treatment of blinding and debilitating eye diseases. Forte was one of the primary donors responsible for the establishment of a research fellowship for 3rd year medical students at Duke Medical Center. He serves on the Board of Directors of the National Policy and Advocacy Council on Homelessness. He is especially close with his family. His mother has visited every film set he's worked on and made an appearance on the Mother's Day episode of "SNL" in which he sang a song to her on "Weekend Update". Forte officiated his sister Michelle's wedding and filmed the birth of his niece and nephew. During a conversation with Scott Aukerman on the podcast, "Comedy Bang! Bang!", Forte discussed his parents divorce and the family's decision to have Christmas together after his father’s second divorce. During the same interview, Forte joked about his OCD tendencies with a story of listening to only one song in his office at "SNL" for an entire year because he wanted to challenge himself. During an interview with Larry King, Forte discussed his OCDs as a challenge he had to overcome but not ones he wished he did not have, as it is a part of his personality. Career. Forte was a member of The Groundlings and a comedic staff writer on the television series, his three television debut was on "Jenny", "Late Show with David Letterman", the short-lived comedies "Action" and "The Army Show". Forte wrote a pilot called "Dos Hermanos" about brothers John and Dean which introduced him to Tom Werner of Carsey-Werner. He was given a development deal to turn the pilot into a feature film script and put on staff at "3rd Rock from the Sun", and later "That '70s Show", as a writer. He was a consultant on the short-lived animated series "God, the Devil and Bob" and producer of "That '70s Show" during the 2001-2002 season. Forte provided the voice of Abe Lincoln and the show announcer on the critically acclaimed but short-lived animated series, "Clone High". He was a guest voice on the animated series "Drawn Together", "Aqua Unit Patrol Squad 1", "Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs" and its sequel, "Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2". Forte made an appearance on friend Demetri Martin's album, "These Are Jokes" and can be heard on the track "Personal Information Waltz". He guest starred on HBO's "Flight of the Conchords" as a "semi-professional" actor who poses as a record company executive. After his film debut "Around the World in 80 Days", he was in the Broken Lizard films "Beerfest" and "The Slammin' Salmon". Forte had struck a deal ten years earlier to write a feature based on characters from a pilot he'd written for Carsey-Werner. As an agreement to terminate his contract with Carsey-Werner and executive producer Tom Werner he agreed to develop a feature film about brothers. For "The Brothers Solomon", he stars with Will Arnett, (whose ex-wife and "SNL" castmate, Amy Poehler considered him an ideal for the role of John Solomon (named after his writing partner) Kristen Wiig, Chi McBride, Malin Akerman, and Lee Major. The film was directed by comic Bob Odenkirk on a 32 day schedule on a budget of $10 million. In 2008, Forte had a small role in the Tina Fey-Amy Poehler film "Baby Mama". He and frequent writing partner John Solomon wrote some segments for "Extreme Movie" along with fellow "SNL" castmember Andy Samberg and The Lonely Island. He appeared in the 2009 film "Brief Interviews with Hideous Men", directed by John Krasinski and adapted from the short story collection of the same title. Forte had a cameo "The Slammin' Salmon" by the comedy troupe Broken Lizard. He guest starred in an episode of the CBS comedy "How I Met Your Mother" as one of Barney's co-workers and potential new wingman. Forte is a recurring guest on the Adult Swim comedy program Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job!, also appearing in "Tim and Eric Nite Live!", Forte also appeared on "The Young Person's Guide to History", a television special on Adult Swim. From 1997 to 2007, Forte contributed as a consultant and writer of segments on the MTV Movie Awards and MTV Video Awards. Forte voiced Martin Serious in "" and played a radio host of the same name. He wrote the short story "Beware of Math Tutors Who Ride Motorcycles" for the book "Things I’ve Learned from Women Who’ve Dumped Me". In 2009, Forte became a regular voice cast member in the Fox comedy series, "Sit Down, Shut Up". He voices Vice Principal Stuart Proszakian, a former prison clown now working as Knob Haven High's vice-principal. He also voices Principal Wally, a recurring character on "The Cleveland Show". On April 19, 2010, as MacGruber, he co-guest hosted "WWE Raw" with Kristen Wiig and Ryan Phillippe to promote the film of the same name. Forte co-wrote and starred in the title role of MacGruber, based on his "SNL" character which was co-written by writing partner John Solomon and director Jorma Taccone. They filmed it during their 2009 hiatus from "SNL" with a 28 day filming schedule in New Mexico on a $10 million budget, Forte left "SNL" soon after its May 2010 theatrical release. Saturday Night Live. Forte did not audition for "Saturday Night Live" in 2001 and had the initial offer to write and produce "That '70s Show". He re-auditioned in 2002 and was hired as a featured player and writer. He was upgraded to full cast member the next season and the last cast member rehired after his third season (the show’s cast was considered bloated and there were major cuts made during the hiatus). Forte took over the role of then-president George W. Bush following the departure of Will Ferrell, a season with Chris Parnell in the role, and a brief half-season of Darrell Hammond playing the part. Forte featured as a number of recurring characters over the years, including his Groundlings character Tim Calhoun, The Falconer, MacGruber, Mr. Dillon in the Gilly sketches, Greg Stink, and as one of the characters in the Song Memories sketches. Forte was often featured as a guest at the "Weekend Update" desk. He had several recurring "Update" characters, such as Tim Calhoun; He often appeared in musical bits on "Weekend Update", such as one of The Kelly Brothers, Daryl Hall of Hall & Oates, and a member of reverse Bon Jovi band, Jon Bovi. Forte was one of the writers and stars of the first "SNL Digital Short" Lettuce. Many of his absurdist sketches were aired late in the show. Although he played them, Forte felt impersonations were not his strong suit (with the exception of musical impressions), one of the reasons Jason Sudeikis took over the role of George W. Bush. He extended his seven-year contract an additional year. On August 26, 2010, Forte left "SNL" after eight years on the show to focus on other projects and in 2012 after ten years. Forte stated in an interview his primary reason for leaving was to be close to family. Since leaving, Forte has stated he left on good terms with executive producer Lorne Michaels. On April 2, 2011 & May 12, 2012, he made a guest appearance on the show, reprising his role of Greg Stink. After "SNL". Forte reprised his role as Randy in the "How I Met Your Mother" and guest starred on "Parks and Recreation" as Kelly in the episode "Time Capsule". On November 10, 2010, Forte began making recurring appearances as a parodic version of TBS founder Ted Turner on the third episode of Conan O'Brien's new talk show, "Conan", which airs on TBS. Forte had voicework in animated shows such as HBO’s "The Life and Times of Tim", "American Dad!", "Allen Gregory", "The Cleveland Show", and "Gravity Falls". He recorded a guest appearance for the third season of "Bob's Burgers". Forte has appeared in 11 episodes of the sitcom "30 Rock". After playing a bit part in the episode "Black Tie", Forte returned to the show to portray main character Jenna Maroney's "GenderdysmorphicBigenitalianPansexual" partner, Paul L'Astnamé. Forte guest stars in the FX series "The League" the fall of 2011 and appeared in three episodes of "Up All Night" as a friend of Will Arnett’s character. He was a leading character in the raunchy comedy "A Good Old Fashioned Orgy" (costarring "SNL "castmate Jason Sudeikis). He had cameos in the 2012 films "Tim and Eric's Billion Dollar Movie", "Rock of Ages", "That's My Boy", and "The Watch". Forte appeared with Andy Samberg as male cheerleaders in "Grown Ups 2" (2013). In spring 2012, he was cast in the lead of the comedy pilot "Rebounding". Despite a high approval rating, the series was not picked up by Fox but was shopped to other networks and cable channels. Forte filmed Steph Green's drama "Run and Jump" at Ireland, in summer 2012. Forte stars in upcoming films, "Nebraska", with Bruce Dern, and as Marshall Taylor in "Life of Crime", the adaptation of Elmore Leonard's novel "The Switch", replacing Ty Burrell. In 2013, he filmed a role in the indie comedy "Trouble Dolls" and Peter Bogdanovich's "She's Funny That Way". Forte appears in the Mumford and Sons music video, Hopeless Wanderer.
582051	Vishwanath "Nana" Patekar (born 1 January 1951) is an award-winning Indian actor, writer and filmmaker. Biography. Born as Vishwanath Patekar in Murud-Janjira in Raigad District, Maharashtra, to Dinkar Patekar (a painter) and his wife Sanjanabai Patekar. He is an alumnus of the Sir J.J. Institute of Applied Art, Mumbai. Career. Late 1970's & 1980's. He acted in movies such as "Gaman" (1978), "Mohre" (1987) and "Salaam Bombay!" (1988) and was noticed by the mainstream Bollywood industry for his portrayal of the villain in the 1989 film, "Parinda", for which he won his first National Film Award for Best Supporting Actor. He was also awarded the Filmfare Best Supporting Actor Award for the role. He won the Filmfare Best Villain Award in 1992 for "Angaar". 1990's. He turned director with his movie ' co-starring Madhuri Dixit. He has an honorary Captain's rank from Indian Army. He underwent training for his role as an Army officer in ' and was thus awarded the rank. He joined the Territorial Army in the early 1990s. He also took up the sport of rifle shooting and qualified for the G.V. Mavlankar Shooting Championship. In 1994, he won the National Film Award for Best Actor for his performance in "Krantiveer" (1994). He also won the Filmfare Award and the Star Screen Awards in the best actor category. Nana portrayed the character of a ghost in the children's film Abhay (The Fearless) which won two awards at the 42nd National Film Festival held in 1994. 2000's. Patekar has played many types of roles. He has played the occasional villain but been a hero in most of his films. He played a truant, gambling son in "Krantiveer" (1994), a wife beater in "Agni Sakshi" (1996), a deaf father to Manisha Koirala in "" (1996) and a schizophrenic in "Wajood" (1998). In the movie "Ab Tak Chhappan" (2005) he plays a police officer who is a sharpshooter. He shared the screen space with the legendary superstar Amitabh Bachchan in Kohram where he played an undercover Indian Army intelligence officer chasing Bachchan's incognito. Patekar has also done comic roles in "Welcome" (2007) in which he plays a powerful crime lord in Dubai who once desired to be an actor in films. His other films as an actor include "Hu Tu Tu" and "Bluffmaster!". For his performance in "Apaharan", he received the Filmfare Best Villain Award as well as the Star Screen Award Best Villain. He has also acted in few Marathi movies and plays. He is known to donate generously to the poor. 2010's. Nana Patekar starred in the Marathi film "Deool", released on 4 November 2011. He is going to be in Sangeeth Sivan's next film, which is a remake of the Telugu film "Athadu" (2005) and as the character Anjaneya Prasad (CBI officer), which was originally played by Prakash Raj. Singing career. Patekar did some playback singing in the films "Yeshwant" (1997), "Wajood" (1998) and "Aanch" (2003). Movie Direction. He turned director with his movie co-starring Madhuri Dixit and Dimple Kapadia. Cartoon-Series.. Nana Patekar gave his voice for the famous cartoon series The Jungle Book telecasted on Door-Darshan on Sunday. The voice was given to Sher Khan the main villain of the Cartoon Series.
480016	Amber Nicole Benson (born January 8, 1977) is an American actress, writer, film director, and film producer. She is best known for her role as Tara Maclay on the TV series "Buffy the Vampire Slayer", but has also directed, produced and starred in her own films "Chance" (2002) and "Lovers, Liars & Lunatics" (2006). She also co-directed the film "Drones" with fellow "Buffy" cast member Adam Busch. Early life. Benson was born January 8, 1977 in Birmingham, Alabama, to Edward Benson, a psychiatrist, and Diane Benson. She has a younger sister, Danielle, who is an artist. She had a mixed Christian and Jewish upbringing (her father was Jewish and her mother was Christian). As a child, Benson studied music and dance, and performed in the Birmingham Children's Ballet, as well as in local theater. She attended high school (one of her classmates being Joey Fatone) in Orlando, Florida after her family moved there, in part to help Amber pursue acting opportunities, the most prominent of which was an unsold television series called "Kids' News", in which Amber was to have been one of two main anchors. The Bensons then relocated to Los Angeles, and Amber began to very quickly land roles in films and on television. Career. Benson was 14 when she made her feature-film debut in the Steven Soderbergh-directed movie "King of the Hill".
1062272	Being There is a 1979 American comedy-drama film directed by Hal Ashby. Adapted from the 1970 novella by Jerzy Kosinski, the screenplay was by Kosinski and the uncredited Robert C. Jones. The film stars Peter Sellers, Shirley MacLaine, Melvyn Douglas, Jack Warden, Richard A. Dysart, and Richard Basehart. Douglas won the Academy Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role and Sellers was nominated for Best Actor in a Leading Role. The screenplay won the 1981 British Academy of Film and Television Arts (Film) Best Screenplay Award and the 1980 Writers Guild of America Award (Screen) for Best Comedy Adapted from Another Medium. It was also nominated for the 1980 Golden Globe Award for Best Screenplay. "Being There" was the last Peter Sellers film to be released while he was alive. The making of the film is portrayed in "The Life and Death of Peter Sellers", a biographical film of Sellers' life. Plot. Chance (Peter Sellers) is a middle-aged man who lives in the townhouse of an old, wealthy man in Washington D.C. He seems simple-minded and has lived there his whole life, tending the garden. Other than gardening, his knowledge is derived entirely from what he sees on television. When his benefactor dies, Chance is forced to leave and discovers the outside world for the first time. Chance wanders aimlessly, wearing his former employer's expensive clothes. Chance passes by a TV shop and sees himself captured by a camera in the shop window. Entranced, he steps backward off the sidewalk and is struck by a chauffeured car owned by Ben Rand (Melvyn Douglas), an elderly business mogul. In the back seat of the car sits Rand's wife Eve (Shirley MacLaine). Eve brings Chance to their home to recover. Drinking alcohol for the first time in the car ride home, Chance coughs as he tells Eve his name. Eve mishears "Chance the Gardener" as "Chauncey Gardiner". Judging from Chance's appearance and manners, Rand assumes that Chance is an upper class, highly educated businessman. Chance's style and seemingly insightful ways embody the qualities Rand admires. Chance's simplistic utterances about gardens are interpreted as allegorical statements about business and the state of the economy. Rand is also a confidant and adviser of the U.S. President (Jack Warden), whom he introduces to "Chauncey". The president interprets Chance's remarks about how the garden changes with the seasons as economic and political advice. Chance, as Chauncey Gardiner, quickly rises to national public prominence. He becomes a media celebrity with an appearance on a television talk show and soon rises to the top of Washington society. He remains very mysterious, as the Secret Service men are able to learn almost nothing about his background. Public opinion polls start to reflect just how much his "simple brand of wisdom" resonates with the jaded American public. Rand, dying of aplastic anemia, encourages Eve to become close to Chance. At his funeral, while the president delivers a speech, members of the board of Rand's companies hold a whispered discussion over potential replacements for the President in the next term of office. As Rand's coffin is about to be interred in the family mausoleum, they unanimously agree on "Chauncey Gardiner". Oblivious to all this, Chance wanders through Rand's wintry estate. He straightens out a pine sapling and then walks off across the surface of a small lake. The audience now sees Chance physically walking on water (with connotations of the Roadrunner cartoon he watched on television earlier: he will not be forced to obey the world's laws until he realizes he is defying them). He pauses, dips his umbrella into the water under his feet as if testing its depth, turns, and then continues to walk on the water as the president quotes Rand: "Life is a state of mind." Closing credits are now superimposed over a television screen of static, but were originally shown over a series of out-takes of the scene wherein Chance is speaking to a doctor after Eve takes him to an emergency room after clipping him with her limousine. The scene is supposed to show Sellers (as Chance) relate a message from a street thug he encountered before the accident, which he does verbatim. The scene in the movie is ultimately shortened because, as shown in the out-takes, the cast and crew cannot help but contain themselves at Sellers' comedic rendition. Music. Incidental music is used very sparingly. What little original music is used was composed by Johnny Mandel, and primarily features two recurrent piano themes based on "Gnossiennes" No. 4 and No. 5 by Erik Satie. The other major piece of music used is the Eumir Deodato jazz/funk arrangement of the opening fanfare from "Also Sprach Zarathustra" by Richard Strauss, in the scene where Chance leaves the house and ventures out into the world for the first time. The film opens with Chance watching a televised performance of Franz Schubert's "Unfinished" Symphony No. 8. Reception. The film opened to positive reviews and helped revitalize Sellers' comic career after he landed many movie flops, except for the "Pink Panther" movies. Film critic Roger Ebert mentions the final scene in his 2005 book "The Great Movies II" (p. 52), stating that his film students once suggested that Chance may be walking on a submerged pier. Ebert writes, "The movie presents us with an image, and while you may discuss the meaning of the image, it is not permitted to devise explanations for it. Since Ashby does not show a pier, there is no pier — a movie is exactly what it shows us, and nothing more." Sellers won the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy for his performance in "Being There". He was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor as well at the 52nd Academy Awards, but he lost to Dustin Hoffman in "Kramer vs. Kramer". Hoffman, upon receiving the award, remarked that he refused to believe that he had beaten Sellers. Melvyn Douglas won his second Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, and Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role for his performance. The film is ranked number 26 on the AFI's 100 Years…100 Laughs list, a list released by the American Film Institute in 2000 of the top 100 funniest films in American cinema. A parody of the film, "Being Not All There", was published in "Mad" magazine. It was illustrated by Mort Drucker and written by Larry Siegel in regular issue #218, October 1980.
1236363	Alan Hugh Dale (born 6 May 1947) is a New Zealand actor. As a child, Dale developed a love of theatre and also became a rugby player. After retiring from the sport he took on a number of professions to support his family, before deciding to become a professional actor at the age of 27. With work limited in New Zealand, Dale moved to Australia, where he played Dr. John Forrest in "The Young Doctors" from 1979 to 1982. He later appeared as Jim Robinson in "Neighbours", a part he played for eight years. He left the series when he fell out with the producers over the pay he and the rest of the cast received. After leaving "Neighbours", Dale became typecast as Robinson in Australia and struggled to find work. His career was revitalised after he relocated to the United States in 2000. Since then he has had roles in many American series including prominent parts in "The O.C." (as Caleb Nichol) and "Ugly Betty" (as Bradford Meade), as well as recurring and guest roles in "Lost", "24", "NCIS", "ER", "The West Wing", "The X-Files", "Entourage" and "Once Upon a Time". Dale has also appeared in minor roles in films such as "Star Trek Nemesis", "Hollywood Homicide", "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" and "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo", as well as the London West End production of "Spamalot". Dale has been married to former Miss Australia Tracey Pearson since 1990 and has four children. Early life and work. Dale was born on 6 May 1947 in Dunedin, Otago, New Zealand. One of four children, Dale enjoyed his childhood, but his family was relatively poor. Although he was a gentle child, Dale was bullied so he learned to defend and stand up for himself. Growing up in New Zealand without television until the 1960s, Dale developed a love of theatre and amateur dramatics. His first performance was for a school concert, at the age of 13, doing an impression of comedian Shelley Berman. His parents became founding members of an amateur theatre in Auckland called "The Little Dolphin Theatre". Dale often operated the stage equipment used to produce weather effects, and whenever he was on stage he loved the applause. Although a skilled rugby player, Dale opted to move into drama instead because "the acting fraternity didn't like footballers and the footballers didn't like actors. [...] Acting gave me the same buzz and there was the chance of a longer career." He gave up rugby at the age of 21 because it was not considered a workable career at the time, and he had to support his family. Acting roles were limited in New Zealand so Dale worked in multiple jobs, including as a male model, a car salesman and a realtor. While working as a milkman he heard the disc jockey at his local radio station resign during a broadcast. Dale went over to the station and told the managers he could do a better job. They gave him a trial and then signed him up for the afternoon show, which led to him landing his first TV role, and at the age of 27 he decided to become a professional actor. Acting career. Early roles and "Neighbours". Dale's first professional acting job was playing an Indian in a production of "The Royal Hunt of the Sun" at the Grafton Theatre in Auckland. His first on-screen role came in the New Zealand television drama "Radio Waves", which although not successful, he described as "nine months of solid work and great fun." In the late 1970s, Dale moved to Australia at the age of 32, due to the limited acting work in New Zealand. He applied to the National Institute of Dramatic Art in Sydney, but was rejected because he "was a lot older than anybody else on the course." He was soon cast as Dr. John Forrest in the Australian soap opera "The Young Doctors", where he remained for three-and-a-half years. In 1985, Dale was cast in the continuing role of Jim Robinson in the Australian soap opera "Neighbours", earning him acclaim across the world, including the United Kingdom. He appeared on the show from the first episode and stayed for eight years before his character was killed off in 1993. He found working on "Neighbours" "exciting" and it enabled him to provide for his sons, but he noted: "You were a totally replaceable commodity; production company didn't put any value on any of the people appearing in the show." He expanded: "I didn't like it there, they were not nice people. When we decided that we hated each other, the company and me, one of the things the company did was to market everything they could out of us and pay us nothing." Dale and the company (Grundy Television) parted on "bad terms". After "Neighbours", Dale struggled to find work in Australia because he was typecast as Jim Robinson. His only regular sources of income were voice-overs, and publishing magazines about his former show which he "made quite a lot of money out of". He lost most of his profits investing in a failed children's magazine. In 1999, he was cast in the American TV film "First Daughter", which was filmed in Australia. After discovering he could perform a convincing American accent, Dale attended the film's premiere, finally moving with his family to the United States permanently in January 2000. Dale, his second wife Tracey, and their then two-year old son Nick moved into an "awful little flat" in Los Angeles and found an agent. Dale recalled telling his wife in Melbourne that "there's no way this is going to work. But if it does, it proves you can do anything." Wider success. At the age of 52, he began to revive his career and started taking acting classes, something he had not thought about after being cast in "Neighbours". He described his age, unknown status and willingness to work for a relatively low fee as being his main assets for getting work in America. His drama teacher, who he has remained with ever since, told him "that you might want to play great roles, but truth is you will get cast as a specific type. Just work out your type. The others in the class said I was a bit Anthony Hopkins and a bit Sean Connery and that went into my head. I thought if I go for roles those guys would go for I'm more likely to get them." The first role he was offered was a part in a series called "Sign of Life", a show about a rock band, which eventually fell through. Dale only received a couple of auditions during his first year in America, but his break came when he was cast as the South African Al Patterson in four episodes of "ER". Since then, Dale has been "busier than ever". He has appeared in many television series including guest appearances on "The West Wing", "Torchwood", "The Lone Gunmen", "Californication", and "The Practice". Many of these have been recurring roles, such as the part of Tom Morrow in "JAG" and its spin-off "NCIS", as well as appearing in three episodes, including the series finale, of "The X-Files", playing the "Toothpick Man". He played the recurring role of Vice President of the United States Jim Prescott for seven episodes of the second season of "24", a part which was originally supposed to be a single scene. Dale had recurring roles in the serial "Midnight Man" and the Australian series "Sea Patrol" in 2008. He also had recurring parts on "Undercovers", "Entourage" as John Ellis, the fictional owner of Warner Bros., and the British series "Moving Wallpaper" as a fictional version of himself. He has a recurring role as King George in the series "Once Upon a Time", and Emmett in "Hot in Cleveland". From 2003 to 2010, Dale appeared in his longest running American roles. He starred in the Fox TV series, "The O.C." playing Caleb Nichol, a wealthy tycoon. The producers saw that the character had further potential, and made his initially recurring role a regular character in the series. After 35 appearances, Caleb was killed off in the second season episode "The O.Sea" in 2005. Dale was disappointed that Caleb was written out and described it as a mistake by the production staff. In 2006, Dale was cast in the starring role of Bradford Meade, the owner of Meade Publications in the ABC show "Ugly Betty". Although he impressed the producers in his audition, he initially lost the role to a "bigger star". After said star began "causing trouble" and was fired, Dale was given the part. Bradford was killed off during the show's second season. Dale appeared in the second season finale of "Lost", "Live Together, Die Alone", as Charles Widmore, a businessman and leader of the Others. Dale's publicist was initially worried that Widmore (who was an integral part of the show's mystery) would become a starring role, meaning it would be hard for Dale to appear in both "Lost" and "Ugly Betty" at the same time. The part became a recurring role, with Dale appearing numerous times between seasons two (2006) and six (2010). He enjoyed the role but often found it difficult due to his character's unclear motivation. In March 2008, Dale replaced Peter Davison in the lead role of King Arthur in the London West End production of Monty Python's "Spamalot" at the Palace Theatre. He accepted the role because he was a fan of "Monty Python" and considered that "life's too short" for him to have turned down a West End part. Although he has seen all of the shows and the other films, Dale had never seen "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" (from which "Spamalot" is "lovingly ripped off") and had to buy a copy to prepare for the role. It was not his first experience in musical theatre because he appeared in a 1984 Australian production of "Applause", but Dale found the comic timing of the part to be the hardest task. "On stage, the battle is to find all of the humorous moments and not skip over them. [...] There's an art to Python humour and I'm aiming to try and get every single joke just right." He was succeeded in the role by Sanjeev Bhaskar on 23 June 2008. Dale has also made several film appearances. He appeared as the Romulan Praetor Hiren in "Star Trek Nemesis", a part he got after the actor originally cast fell ill, and had small parts in films such as "Hollywood Homicide", "After the Sunset", and the minor part of General Ross in "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull". Dale said his script for "Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" was printed on tin foil so it was impossible to replicate, in order to keep the film's plot a secret. He appeared in four films released in 2011: "A Little Bit of Heaven", "Priest", "Don't Be Afraid of the Dark", and "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo", having joined late in the film's production. Popularity and style. Despite his mainstream success since his move to America, Dale is still primarily known for his role as Jim Robinson in "Neighbours" in the United Kingdom and Australia. This was spoofed in a promotional ident for the UK's Channel 4 in 2007 which sees Dale taking part in a mock interview about the sudden upturn in his career, before being accosted by an Australian fan, who recognises him as Jim Robinson. Discussing this association after "Ugly Betty"'s 2007 Golden Globe win, Dale noted: "Every article I read I'm always, 'Ex-soap star Jim Robinson'. Maybe now people will just get to know me as actor Alan Dale." In 2007, Amazon.co.uk reported that they had sold more DVDs of films and television shows featuring Dale than any featuring other ex-"Neighbours" cast members. Dale's characters on most of the American television shows he has appeared on have shared similar character traits, which Dale describes as the "go-to powerful guy" role. Following his appearance as Senator Eaton in "The Killing" in 2011, reviewers commented on his tendency to play powerful, wealthy and mysterious characters in many shows. Maureen Ryan of "TV Squad" wrote that it was "lovely to see Alan Dale playing a typically Alan Dale-ian character. He's always so great at playing That Sketchy Wealthy Guy With a Hidden Agenda, which he has now played on, I believe, 87 different shows. And he always does it well." Coincidentally, Dale's characters in "Neighbours", "The O.C." and "Ugly Betty" have all been killed off by a fatal heart attack. Christopher Rosen of "The New York Observer" wrote in 2008 that "with his square jaw and seemingly no nonsense attitude, Mr. Dale is the go-to actor when casting directors need a conservative-looking authoritarian. When he comes onto the screen, audiences immediately take him seriously, since he radiates rich, smug and serious. He demands your respect." Rosen says that Dale is "not even...a particularly good actor" but is "fine enough" and "bring a no frills, no gimmicks style to his roles," and "manages to give a consistent performance in every show he appears on." Jayne Nelson, writing in magazine "SFX", named Dale the second most "serial" science-fiction guest star after Mark Sheppard. She wrote: "The thing is, soap-opera origins aside, Dale is always good. Which is why he keeps getting so much work...Dale never lets you down, always (well, usually) summoning up a pitch-perfect accent, too. There's something comforting about his presence on a show, as though the fact he's in it has leant it some weight." In a profile of his work on "cult shows", Ben Rawson-Jones of Digital Spy called Dale an "institution". Personal life. In 1968, Dale married his girlfriend, Claire, and the couple had two children, Simon and Matthew. Both of Dale's eldest sons are involved in the entertainment industry, Simon as a radio announcer at Kiss 100 and Matthew as a writer, film maker and actor. The marriage ended in divorce in 1979. At the time, Dale lived in Auckland but after the divorce he moved to Sydney with his sons. On 8 April 1990, he married Tracey Pearson, the 1986 Miss Australia, whom he met at the 1986 Australian Grand Prix, when she was 21 and he was 39. Dale described it as "the most appropriate relationship I've ever had." Dale also has two children from this marriage, Daniel and Nick, who "keep him young". He and his family now live in Manhattan Beach, Los Angeles, California and also own property in Australia. Dale sold his holiday home in New Zealand in 2011 for $1.25m. Both of Dale's parents died in 2007, and he regrets not spending enough time with them. Dale describes his life philosophy as being Winston Churchill's quote "Never, never, never give up", and counts Gene Hackman as his "big acting hero".
1163543	Allen Kelsey Grammer (born February 21, 1955) is an American actor, comedian, producer and director. Grammer is best known for his two-decade portrayal of psychiatrist Dr. Frasier Crane on the hit NBC sitcoms "Cheers" and "Frasier". He has won five Emmy Awards and three Golden Globes, and has also worked as a television producer, director, writer, and as a voice artist on "The Simpsons". Grammer has been married four times and has five children. Early life and family tragedies. Grammer was born on February 21, 1955 in Saint Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands, the son of Sally (née Cranmer; 1928-2008), a singer, and Frank Allen Grammer, Jr. (1929-1968), a musician and owner of a coffee shop and a bar & grill called Greer's Place. Grammer was two years old when his parents divorced. Grammer attended Pine Crest School, a private preparatory school in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and later spent two years at the Juilliard School. Grammer's personal life has been affected by several tragedies: in 1968, his father, whom he had seen only twice since his parents' divorce, was shot dead; in 1975, his younger sister, Karen was abducted, raped, and murdered by spree killer Freddie Glenn; in 1980, his twin half-brothers died in a scuba diving accident; and David Angell, close friend and producer of "Frasier", died in the 9/11 attacks. Career. Stage. After leaving Juilliard, he had a three-year internship with the Old Globe Theatre in San Diego in the late 1970s before a stint in 1980 at the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He made his Broadway debut in 1981 as "Lennox", in "Macbeth" taking the lead role when Philip Anglim withdrew after receiving negative reviews. Grammer then played Michael Cassio in a Broadway revival of "Othello", with James Earl Jones and Christopher Plummer. In 1983 he performed on the demo of the Stephen Sondheim–James Lapine production "Sunday in the Park with George", starring Mandy Patinkin. In 2000, Grammer again played "Macbeth" on Broadway. On April 18, 2010, Grammer made his Broadway musical debut playing the role of Georges in a revival of the Jerry Herman/Harvey Fierstein musical "La Cage aux Folles", for which he was nominated for a Tony Award for Best Performance by a Leading Actor in a Musical. Television. His television career began in the early 1980s when he portrayed Stephen Smith in the NBC miniseries "Kennedy". "Cheers" and "Frasier". Grammer came to broader public attention as Dr. Frasier Crane in the NBC sitcom "Cheers". Grammer's former Juilliard classmate and Broadway co-star Patinkin suggested Grammer to the New York casting director, and he got what was supposed to be a six-episode job, but ended up as a regular cast member. The character became the center of the spin-off "Frasier", one of the most successful spin-offs in TV history. In addition to starring, he also directed more than 30 episodes, especially during the second half of the series, and sang the closing theme "Tossed Salads and Scrambled Eggs." "Frasier" won and was nominated for many awards during its 11-year run. In 2001, he negotiated a US$700,000-per-episode salary for "Frasier". His 20-year run playing Dr. Frasier Crane ties a length set by James Arness in playing Marshal Matt Dillon on "Gunsmoke" from 1955 to 1975 and Richard Belzer in playing Det. John Munch on ' and ' since 1993. Post-"Frasier". In 2005, Grammer returned to television. He produced and appeared in an American adaptation of the British show "The Sketch Show", which aired on Fox. The main cast consisted of Malcolm Barrett, Kaitlin Olson, Mary Lynn Rajskub and Paul F. Tompkins, as well as Lee Mack from the British version of the show. Grammer appeared in only short opening and closing segments in each episode. Many of the sketches from the British version were recreated, such as the "California Dreamin'", "English Course", and "Sign Language" sketches. Only six episodes of the show were made, and it was canceled after only four of them had aired. In 2007, Grammer starred with Patricia Heaton in the American sitcom "Back to You". It was canceled by Fox after its first season. His next attempt, ABC's "Hank", fared even worse. It was canceled after only five episodes had aired. Grammer later commented, "Honestly, it just wasn't very funny." In 2011–2012, Grammer starred in the Starz drama series "Boss" as a fictional mayor of Chicago in the mold of Richard J. Daley which premiered in October 2011. It is his first dramatic TV series. At the 2012 Golden Globe Awards Kelsey Grammer won the award for Best Actor in a Television Series Drama for his role on "Boss". The show ran for 18 episodes over two seasons. It was announced on January 2013, Grammer and comedian Martin Lawrence are planning to do a sitcom together. The Lionsgate-produced show will be written and executive produced by Bob Boyett and Robert Horn, known for writing hit shows like, "Family Matters", "Living Single", "Full House", "Designing Women", and "Perfect Strangers". In May 2013, it was announced that Grammer would play a villain in the Paramount’s Transformers movies fourth installment "" starring Mark Wahlberg. Other appearances. In addition to being producer, he guest-starred as the Angel of Death on "Medium", and Captain Morgan Bateson in the "" episode "". Voice work. Grammer's smooth, deep, well-known voice and Mid-Atlantic accent make him popular for voiceover work. He has provided the voice of Sideshow Bob on "The Simpsons", winning an Emmy Award for his work in the episode "The Italian Bob", his fifth Emmy win. He has appeared in thirteen episodes since the show's inception in 1989, the most recent being "At Long Last Leave" that aired in February 2012, in which his character makes a cameo speaking appearance. Grammer supplied the voices for "Stinky Pete the Prospector" in 1999 Disney/Pixar film "Toy Story 2", Vladimir in the Fox animated movie "Anastasia", Rothbart in "Barbie of Swan Lake", Zozi the Bear in the subsequently produced sequel "Bartok the Magnificent", and the title character in the short-lived animated series "Gary the Rat". He provided the opening speech and piano in The Vandals' song "Phone Machine" from the album "Fear of a Punk Planet", and sang a rewritten version of the "grinch" on an episode of "Just Shoot Me!". He was the voice of the mad scientist, Dr. Frankenollie, in the Mickey Mouse short "Runaway Brain". He was also the narrator of "Mickey Mouse - Once Upon a Christmas". Grammer's voice has been featured in many commercials. One of the earliest was a 1998 commercial for Honey Nut Cheerios, where he played the voice of the wolf in Little Red Riding Hood. Since 2006, Grammer has provided the voice for television commercials advertising Hyundai. In 2008, Grammer reprised his role of Dr. Frasier Crane in a commercial for Dr Pepper. Production work. His production company, Grammnet Productions, produces the CW sitcoms "Girlfriends" and "The Game" (now on BET), the NBC drama "Medium", and many other projects. Other work. In 1996, he starred in the feature comedy "Down Periscope". Also, in the 1990s, he did several commercials for Snapper Mowers. Additionally his film work includes the role of Dr. Hank McCoy (also known as the Beast) in "", and he was the voice of Snowball in the live-action film adaptation of the George Orwell book "Animal Farm". Grammer co-starred in the movie "Swing Vote", playing the Republican incumbent. He played General George S. Patton in "An American Carol". In 2010, he starred in "The Kelsey Grammer Bill Zucker Comedy Hour". Personal life. Family. Grammer has been married four times and has five children and one grandchild . His first marriage, to dance instructor Doreen Alderman, lasted from 1982 to 1990, although they were separated for the last six years of that period. They have one daughter, Spencer Grammer (born October 9, 1983), an actress on the CBS Daytime soap opera "As the World Turns" and the ABC Family show "Greek". Through Spencer's marriage, Grammer has a grandson, Emmett Emmanual Hesketh (born October 10, 2011). After his divorce from Alderman, Grammer had a daughter, Kandace Greer Grammer ("Greer Grammer"; born February 15, 1992), with hair and makeup stylist Barrie Buckner. Greer is currently a cast member on MTV's hit show "Awkward.". His second marriage, to stripper Leigh-Anne Csuhany in September 1992, lasted one year. Grammer says that she was abusive and fired a gun at him, and that after talk of divorce, she attempted suicide, which resulted in the miscarriage of their child. In 1994, he met 28-year-old Tammy Baliszewski, also known as Tammy Alexander, at a bar in Manhattan Beach, California. In December 1994 the two of them appeared on the cover of "People" magazine, announcing their engagement and Grammer's substance abuse problems. They broke up in 1995. In August 1997, Grammer married Camille Donatacci, a former "Playboy" model. They met on a blind date in 1996. They have a daughter, Mason Olivia (born October 24, 2001), and a son, Jude Gordon (born August 28, 2004), both born to a surrogate mother. During their marriage, several of Grammer and Donatacci's homes were featured in magazines, including ones in: Malibu, California (February 2001, "InStyle"), Maui (May 2004, "InStyle"), Long Island, New York (April 2008, "InStyle"), Bachelor Gulch, Colorado ("Architectural Digest)", and Bel Air, Los Angeles ("Architectural Digest"). It was announced on July 1, 2010, that Donatacci had filed for divorce, citing irreconcilable differences. Grammer and Donatacci's divorce was finalized on February 10, 2011. On August 12, 2010, Grammer announced that he was going to be a father for the fifth time with his girlfriend Kayte Walsh, a British flight attendant who is 25 years his junior. However, in October, Grammer announced that Walsh had miscarried six weeks earlier. The couple announced their engagement in December 2010. At the beginning of February, Grammer and Walsh booked the ballroom at the Plaza Hotel for their wedding, at a cost of more than $100,000 for the reception, despite rumors of Grammer's divorce not being finalized. The couple wed there on February 25, 2011, two weeks after the finalization of his third divorce. In January 2012, Grammer announced that he and Walsh were expecting twins. On July 13, 2012, Walsh gave birth to the couple's first child together, a daughter named Faith Evangeline Elisa. Faith's expected twin, a boy, had died in utero. Sex tape lawsuit. In 1998, Grammer filed a lawsuit against Internet Entertainment Group, which Grammer claimed had stolen a videotape of him having sex with a woman from his home. IEG countersued Grammer, denying they were in possession of such a tape, and Grammer's suit was eventually dropped. IEG President Seth Warshavsky told the "New York Post", "We have been presented with another Kelsey Grammer tape. But we have no plans to air it. We are still evaluating it at this time." Grammer later told Maxim, "Whether or not you’re a celebrity—even if you’re just an old slob with a video camera—you don’t realize you shouldn’t do it. So you throw the tape in the back of a dark closet until your old girlfriend remembers it’s there because you’re famous now and she’s not. But if you’re not prepared to do the time, don’t do the crime." Substance abuse and legal issues. Grammer allegedly began drinking at age nine, though he denies this in his autobiography, and became a frequent abuser of alcohol. In 1988, Grammer was arrested for drunk driving and cocaine possession and sentenced to 30 days in jail. Grammer was arrested again for cocaine possession in August 1990 and was sentenced to three years' probation, fined $500, and required to perform 300 hours of community service. In January 1991, Grammer was given an additional two years' probation for violating his original probation through additional cocaine use. The cast and producers of both "Frasier" and "Cheers" held interventions to attempt to help him. Grammer's personal problems affected his work; costar Bebe Neuwirth and writer Ken Levine cited delays with rehearsals and filming due to his erratic behavior. Writer Dan O'Shannon recalled, however, that In 1995, Grammer was sued by ex-girlfriend Cerlette Lamme for defamation of character and invasion of privacy over content he included in his autobiography "So Far". In September 1996, he crashed his Dodge Viper while intoxicated, and subsequently checked into the Betty Ford Center (an alcohol rehabilitation clinic) for 30 days. In August 2008, Bradley Blakeman, a former aide to George W. Bush, filed a copyright lawsuit in federal court on Long Island over Grammer's movie "Swing Vote", claiming that parts of its plot and marketing had been stolen from him. The lawsuit claimed that Blakeman had given a copyrighted screenplay called "Go November" to Grammer in 2006, and that Grammer agreed to develop the project and star as a Republican president but instead ended up playing a similar role in "Swing Vote", which was released on August 1, 2008. Grammer's spokesman dismissed the claims as "frivolous" and a "waste of time". The lawsuit claims that Blakeman's copyrighted screenplay had the same basic plot as "Swing Vote". Health problems. On May 31, 2008, while paddleboarding with his wife, Camille, in Hawaii, Grammer experienced symptoms of a heart attack. After being hospitalized, it was confirmed that he had experienced a heart attack. He was released on June 4, 2008, and was listed as "resting comfortably" at his Hawaiian residence. Seven weeks after the attack, Grammer told "Entertainment Tonight" that, although at the time his spokesman described the attack as mild, it was in fact more severe, almost leading to his death, as his heart had stopped. Grammer thought Fox's decision to cancel his TV sitcom "Back to You" contributed to his health problems, stating that "It was a very stressful time for me, and a surprise that it was canceled. But you know, everything that doesn't kill us—which it almost did—makes us stronger!". On June 28, 2008, Grammer checked into an undisclosed Manhattan hospital after complaints of feeling faint. His publicist said that it may have been due to a reaction to medication. Politics. Grammer is a member of the Republican Party and has expressed an interest in someday running for United States Congress. He is also interested in running for Mayor of New York. Grammer was a guest at President George W. Bush's first inauguration. Grammer endorsed Rudy Giuliani in the 2008 presidential primary and later campaigned for John McCain in the general election. Grammer promotes RightNetwork, a conservative start-up American television network. He endorsed Michele Bachmann for the Republican nomination for president in 2012. Awards. He won a number of Emmys, Screen Actors Guild Award, and Golden Globes for his work on "Frasier". He was the first American actor ever to be nominated for multiple Emmy awards for portraying the same character on three different television shows ("Cheers", "Frasier", and "Wings"). Grammer has received at least 45 nominations for major awards and has won on 18 occasions. He has received 14 individual Emmy Award nominations for 4 different television shows (plus an additional 2 as part of the "Frasier" ensemble) and has won on 5 occasions. At the Golden Globes, he has received nine nominations and thrice been victorious. He has received two People's Choice Awards, and in 1999 his directorial skills were recognized with a nomination for a Directors Guild of America award for directing an episode of "Frasier". He received a Saturn Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor for his role in "". On May 22, 2001, he was presented with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for television. On April 20, 2009, Grammer was presented the inaugural Television Chairman's Award at the annual NAB Show in Las Vegas. In 2010, Grammer enjoyed his first Tony Award nomination for "La Cage Aux Folles" as Best Leading Actor in a Musical. The following table gives a selection of the awards he has won.
1375919	The Nutcracker Prince is a 1990 animated romantic fantasy film made by Lacewood Productions and released by Warner Bros. Pictures. The film was directed by Paul Schibli and based on the story "The Nutcracker and the Mouse King" by E.T.A. Hoffmann as well as influenced by its ballet adaptation "The Nutcracker".
673794	Kurt Gerron (11 May 1897 – 28 October 1944) was a German Jewish actor and film director. Life. Born Kurt Gerson into a well-off merchant family in Berlin, he studied medicine before being called up for military service in World War I. After being seriously wounded he was qualified as a military doctor in the German Army (despite having been only in his second year at university). After the war Gerron turned to a stage career, becoming a theatre actor under director Max Reinhardt in 1920. He appeared in secondary roles in several silent films and began directing film shorts in 1926. Gerron's popular cinema breakthrough came with "The Blue Angel" ("Der Blaue Engel", 1930) opposite Marlene Dietrich. Two years before, Gerron originated the role of "Tiger" Brown in the 1928 premiere production of "The Threepenny Opera" ("Die Dreigroschenoper") at the Berlin Theater am Schiffbauerdamm, in which he also performed "Mack the Knife". With the show's international success, Gerron's name and recorded voice became well known across Europe. After the 1933 seizure of power by the Nazis (known today as the "Machtergreifung"), Gerron left Nazi Germany with his wife and parents, traveling first to Paris and later to Amsterdam. He continued work there as an actor at the Stadsschouwburg and directed several movies. Several times he was offered employment in Hollywood through the agency of Peter Lorre and Josef von Sternberg, but refused to leave Europe. After the Wehrmacht occupied the Netherlands, Gerron was first interned in the transit camp at Westerbork before being sent to the Theresienstadt concentration camp. There he was forced by the SS to stage the cabaret review, "Karussell," in which he reprised Mack the Knife, as well as compositions by Martin Roman and other imprisoned musicians and artists. In 1944, Gerron was coerced into directing a propaganda film intended to be viewed in "neutral" nations (in Switzerland, Sweden, and Ireland, for example) showing how "humane" conditions were at Theresienstadt. Once filming was finished, Gerron and members of the Jazz pianist Martin Roman's Ghetto Swingers were deported on the camp's final train transport to Auschwitz. Gerron and his wife were gassed immediately upon arrival, along with the film's entire performing entourage (except for Roman and guitarist Coco Schumann).The next day, Reichsführer SS Heinrich Himmler ordered the closure of the gas chambers. All known complete prints of Gerron's final film, which was to have been called "Theresienstadt. Ein Dokumentarfilm aus dem jüdischen Siedlungsgebiet" ("Terezin: A Documentary Film of the Jewish Resettlement"), and which is also referred to as "Der Führer schenkt den Juden eine Stadt" ("The Führer Gives the Jews a City"), were destroyed in 1945. Twenty minutes of footage was discovered in Czechoslovakia in the mid-1960s, and today the film exists only in fragmentary form. Documentaries about Gerron. Gerron is the subject of three documentary films, "Prisoner of Paradise" (PBS), "Kurt Gerrons Karussell", and "Tracks to Terezín", which features Holocaust survivor Herbert Thomas Mandl talking about Kurt Gerron as the director of the film "Theresienstadt. Ein Dokumentarfilm aus dem jüdischen Siedlungsgebiet". The narrator in "Kurt Gerrons Karussell", which stars Ute Lemper, is Roy Kift, who has also written a play on Gerron's time in Theresienstadt entitled "Camp Comedy". The play is published in "The Theatre of the Holocaust", edited by Professor Robert Skloot and published by the University of Wisconsin Press. References. Fictional biography by Charles Lewinsky (Swiss, in German) "Gerron", 2011, French translation "Retour indésirable", Grasset, 2013.
1162117	Margaret Ann McCay (born November 3, 1927), known professionally as Peggy McCay, is an American actress whose career began in 1949, and includes soap operas, television, and feature films. She is best known for playing Caroline Brady, a role she originated and has played since 1983 on the long-running NBC drama, "Days of our Lives". Biography. The Manhattan-born McCay was the only child of Michael, a construction company owner who specialized in building schools, and his wife, Cathryn (or Catherine) McCay. She attended St. Walburga's Convent School and Barnard College, graduating from the latter in June 1949. After graduation, she joined impresaria Margo Jones's Texas-based theatre company and graduated to repertory, where she essayed numerous roles. She also studied with Lee Strasberg in New York, later helping to set up Strasberg's West Coast studio. One of her first off-Broadway roles was in a production of Chekhov's "Uncle Vanya", opposite Franchot Tone; they reprised their roles in the 1957 film version of the play. McCay accepted her first major role as the heroine Vanessa Dale on the soap opera "Love of Life", which premiered in 1951. After four years, she left in 1955 to pursue other options. In 1958 she appeared on "Perry Mason" as defendant Stephanie Falkner in "The Case of the Long-Legged Models". Soon after, she was cast in an episode of the CBS anthology series, "Appointment with Adventure". She appeared in four feature films in the late 1950s before landing a lead role in 1962 in the ABC television series "Room for One More" as Anna Perrott Rose, who had written a memoir about her family life as a foster mother.
1055061	Turistas – released as Paradise Lost in the UK and Ireland – is a 2006 American horror film produced and directed by John Stockwell, and starring Josh Duhamel, Melissa George, Olivia Wilde, Desmond Askew, Beau Garrett, Max Brown, Agles Steib and Miguel Lunardi. The plot focuses on a group of backpackers in Brazil who find themselves in the clutches of an underground organ harvesting ring. The film was released on December 1, 2006 in the United States. Plot. Three young American tourists, Alex (Josh Duhamel), his sister Bea (Olivia Wilde), and a friend Amy (Beau Garrett), backpacking in Brazil, decide to go by bus and visit portions of the country instead of flying directly to the Northeastern beaches they wish to visit. After a bus crash leaves all the passengers stranded, they are joined by two English men, Finn (Desmond Askew) and Liam (Max Brown) and an Australian woman, Pru (Melissa George), who is fluent in Portuguese. The group find a cabana bar and several other tourists and locals partying. After swimming and spending the day on the beach, they are served drugged drinks and pass out. The next morning, they awaken on the deserted beach, robbed of luggage, money, and documents. Looking for help in the nearby village, they encounter conflict with locals as they see some of their belongings worn or lying around. Offering help, Kiko (Agles Steib), a local who speaks some English, volunteers to take them to an isolated cabin in the forest, where they can wait for help. In a long walk through the wilderness, Kiko shows them a “secret place”, a cave beneath a waterfall, but, taking a bad dive into the river, Kiko hits the rocky bottom, and is rendered unconscious and begins bleeding profusely from a cut in his head. Proceeding to the cabin in the jungle, they find food, clothes, and prescription drugs in a number of different names and a drawer filled with other people’s passports. They manage to heal Kiko's wound and reluctantly decide to spend the night at the cabin. They are awakened in the middle of the night by a helicopter bringing Zamora (Miguel Lunardi), a physician, and a few associates and doctors, surrounded by armed henchmen. A woman who arrives first gives them advice to flee, but they are confused and try to fight them, but they are beaten into compliance. Zamora proceeds to a makeshift operating room where he removes organs from Amy, who is sedated, while he explains to Finn, who is tied up, that organ theft for transplant from Brazilians by rich gringos is part of a pattern of exploitation of Brazilian "resources", and that it is time to "give back". Victims' usable organs are being harvested and sent to the People’s Hospital in Rio de Janeiro and used for the benefit of the poor. After her liver and kidneys are removed, Amy dies on the operating table. Meanwhile, the rest of the group outside has managed to break free of cages they have been contained in, fighting and killing one of Zamora’s associates, with the aid of Kiko, who returned after being sent away by Zamora. While Bea and Pru flee into the jungle, Alex, Kiko and Liam attempt to raid the cabin. They successfully rescue Finn, who is partially unable to walk because he has been sedated, but while they are running away from the cabin, Finn is shot in the head. Alex realizes they have to resume their escape, but Liam decides to stay behind to fight back, only to be shot and taken away to be "salvaged".
587962	Asif Basra is an Indian film, television and theater actor. He is best known for his role in the American comedy film "Outsourced". Career. He performed in Anurag Kashyap's "Black Friday" and Rahul Dholakia's "Parzania", which received much critical appreciation. He also appeared in Michael O. Sajbeland's "One Night with the King" with veteran actors like Omar Sharif and Peter O'Toole./ . He also played a role of Tailor in Hindi movie "Lamhaa" and he also played a role in Bollywood's 2010 top grossing 2010 film "Once Upon a Time in Mumbaai" as Shoib's (Emraan Hashmi) Father. Theatrical performance. Basra is also known for his theatrical performances from playing five different characters in Feroz Khan's production of "Mahatma v/s Gandhi", a play is considered as one of the most successful in Indian theater. Other performances include a child with spina bifida in "Main Bhi Superman" and Horatio in "Hamlet". Love in Nepal (Hindi)
1059116	Out for Justice is a 1991 action film directed by John Flynn and starring Steven Seagal, in which a veteran police detective vows to kill the crazy, drug-addicted mafioso who murdered his partner. Realistic dialogue, intense action sequences, and the web of relationships of a man with connections on both side of law are portrayed. Plot. Gino Felino (Steven Seagal) is an NYPD detective from Brooklyn who has strong ties within his neighborhood.
1247574	Grant Withers (January 17, 1905 – March 27, 1959) was an American film actor. With early beginnings in the silent era, Withers moved into talkies establishing himself with a list of headlined features as a young and handsome male lead. As his career progressed, his importance diminished, but he did manage a 10-year contract at Republic Pictures.
583027	Bhavna is a 1984 Hindi film directed by Pravin Bhatt in directorial debut of the cinematographer. The film stars Shabana Azmi, Marc Zuber, Saeed Jaffrey, Rohini Hattangadi, Kanwaljit Singh, Satish Shah and Urmila Matondkar. The film's music is by Bappi Lahiri. Plot. Bhavna is a story of a less privileged women. A lady who was living all alone in the city met a man named Ajay Kapoor in a garden, sketching. They became friends and later on friendship turned into love. Eventually they got married, however, Kapoor's dad had not granted permission for this marriage. After bearing a financial crises, Ajay went to see his dad who was residing in another city. Ajay never came back to Bhavna. Bhavna went to that city and was astonished to see that Ajay married another women. Dejected Bhanva came back and started a new job. But this was not the end of the story.
1017615	"Snake in the Eagle's Shadow" () is a 1978 Hong Kong martial arts action film directed by Yuen Woo-ping in his directorial debut, starring Jackie Chan, Hwang Jang Lee and Yuen Woo-ping's real life father, Yuen Siu Tien. Right after this film, Yuen Woo-ping directed "Drunken Master", released in the same year, it also starred Jackie Chan, Hwang Jang Lee and Yuen Siu Tien, and followed a similar plot. Plot. Chien Fu (Jackie Chan), an orphan adopted by a kung fu school, is overworked as their janitor and abused by the kung fu teachers as a walking punching-bag. Chien befriends an old beggar (Yuen Siu Tien) by offering him a meal and a place to stay. Unknown to Chien, the old beggar is actually one of the last surviving masters of the Snake-style of kung fu. The old man is on the run from the Eagle Claw clan, which is viciously killing off all of the rival Snake-style kung fu masters. Seeing that Chien is being abused, the old man teaches Chien the footwork of snake style which enables one to avoid an opponent's attacks. The old man leaves the school to find a better hiding spot. After being abused once more, Chien later finds him and the old man agrees to give him more lessons, on the condition that he does not call him "sifu" ("master"), since they are friends. The real reason, however, is to keep Chien's connection with him secret from his pursuers. Chien practices the lessons and learns to avoid being hurt by the school's bumbling teachers. When the school is invaded by the Mantis school, to everyone's amazement Chien easily defeats their master using the snake style. Unfortunately, one of the passing wanderers who witnesses the fight is the high master of the Eagle Clan, who recognizes the style at once and decides to tail Chien. Chien meets the Eagle Claw clan master, who inquires about the old beggar. The Eagle Claw master lies, saying that he was a colleague of the old beggar and asks Chien to help him find the old man. As a show of 'proof', he easily fends off Chien's attacks. Chien realises that his Snake-style fighting is no match for the style practiced by the stranger, and thus creates a new style from watching his pet cat kill a cobra. Eventually, Chien unwittingly leads the Eagle Claw master to the old man. In the duel, Chien merges his "cat style" with snake style to finally defeat the Eagle Claw master and his minions. Chien announces that he will call his technique "Cat's Claw", but the Old man suggest that he give the technique the name "Snake in the Eagle's Shadow". Music. As well as original music by Chou Fu-liang, the film also features Jean Michel Jarre's "Oxygène (Part 2)" and Space's "Magic Fly". Like many Hong Kong movies of the era, it also includes samples from western movie scores, including A Fistful Of Dollars, You Only Live Twice (film), The Spy Who Loved Me (film), and even the Death Star explosion moment from . Film producer Serafim Karalexis got the rights to distribute the movie in America in the 80s, retitled "The Eagle's Shadow". It had a new score made due to copyright issues with the original score. Production. Prior to "Snake in the Eagle's Shadow", Chan had worked for director Lo Wei who wanted to make him into the new "Bruce Lee" in films like "New Fist of Fury". However, those films yielded relatively poor box office returns. When producer Ng See-yuen decided to make a comedy with Chan as the star, the concept did not initially meet with approval from the film distributors. However, Ng and Chan persevered and together with "Drunken Master", this film launched Jackie Chan into national stardom. The combination of comedy, martial arts, stunts and acrobatics had been done before, in Lau Kar-leung's 1975 film, "Spiritual Boxer". However, the release of "Snake in the Eagle's Shadow" heralded a new direction for Hong Kong action movies. Ng See-Yuen and Yuen Woo-ping checked over many actors for the part of the old, eccentric, wandering Kung Fu master, before Ng suggested casting Yuen's own father, Yuen Siu Tien. Yuen would continue to reprise the role of Beggar So several more times before his death in 1979. According to his book "", Chan lost a tooth after Hwang Jang Lee kicked him in the face during a fight scene. His arm was also accidentally slashed by a sword that was supposed to be blunt, but while he was screaming in pain, the camera kept rolling. Box office. "Snake in the Eagle's Shadow" took HK $2,708,748 at the Hong Kong box office. Imitators. In 1979, a film entitled "Snake in the Eagle's Shadow II" aka "Snaky Knight Fight Against Mantis" was released. It was directed by Chang Hsin-yi and starred Wang Tao. However, the film was not a true sequel, rather it was an attempt by the studio to capitalise on the success of the original film. Footage including a montage and a fight scene from "Snake in the Eagle's Shadow" were spliced into the film. Chan's image was also used on the cover of some versions.
1750056	, often called , is a Japanese idol, singer, songwriter, actor, voice actor and radio host. He is a member of Japanese boy band Arashi and is best known to movie audiences for his portrayal as Private Saigo in the 2006 Clint Eastwood war film "Letters from Iwo Jima". Ninomiya began his career in the entertainment industry when he joined the Japanese talent agency Johnny & Associates in 1996 at the age of . Prior to his debut as a singer with Arashi in 1999, Ninomiya started an acting career when he was cast as Chris for the stage play "Stand by Me", which was based on the film of the same name. Since then, he has went on to appear in numerous drama, movie and stage productions, making him known as the actor of Arashi. Described as an actor who can act with his mouth and eyes, Ninomiya has won a number of awards and nominations for his roles. Early life. Ninomiya was born in Katsushika, Tokyo as the youngest child of his family. His father and mother were both working as chefs when they met and his sister is two years older than he is. When Ninomiya was born, his grandfather immediately came home and named him the heir to the family's windshield factory since he was his grandfather's only grandson. However, when Ninomiya was twelve years old, his cousin sent in an application to Johnny & Associates without his knowledge. After attending and passing the auditions due to his mother's prodding, he joined the talent agency. Ninomiya graduated from high school in March 2002 at the age of . Music career. In 2004, Ninomiya penned and composed for his solo performance during Arashi's "Iza, Now!!" tour. Although Arashi's fifth studio album "One" was the first of their albums to feature solo songs of each member, Ninomiya did not provide lyrics or music for official release until the "Time" album almost two years later. In 2007, the group's eighteenth single "Love So Sweet" was released with the limited edition containing the bonus song , which was written by Arashi and composed by Ninomiya in 2006 for their variety show "G no Arashi". On July 11, 2007, the "Time" album was released with the limited edition containing solo song of each member. Ninomiya wrote the lyrics to his solo song, , and played the piano portion of the song throughout Arashi's summer tour. He later reprised the performance throughout Arashi's second Asia Tour in 2008. In 2008, Ninomiya composed, co-arranged and penned the lyrics for his solo "Gimmick Game". In 2010, Ninomiya also composed, co-arranged and penned the lyrics for his solo "1992*4##111". According to Ninomiya himself, the title is read as . Acting career. Stage. Ninomiya began his acting career in a 1997 stage play based on the American coming of age film "Stand by Me" with future bandmates Masaki Aiba and Jun Matsumoto. He did not return to do any major stage productions for nearly seven years after "Stand by Me", instead focusing on dramas. However, in 2004, Ninomiya appeared in his first lead role in the stage play directed by Yukio Ninagawa. From April 3, 2005 to May 4, 2005, he took up "Rebel Without a Cause", playing the James Dean character Jim Stark. From July 18, 2009 to August 11, 2009, Ninomiya appeared in his first stage play in four years. He starred as the psychopathic murderer Bruno in , which was based on the novel of the same name. Drama. In 1998, he made his television debut as a fifteen-year-old runaway in the TBS television movie . Just a few months before his debut with Arashi, he was given his first lead role in the drama with Subaru Shibutani acting as his stepbrother. His schedule became packed, causing him to lose 7 kg in a month as a result. From October 11, 1999 to October 29, 1999, because Arashi were the main supporters for the 8th World Cup of Volleyball Championships, all five members co-starred together for the first time in the volleyball-centered short drama . From 2003 to 2005, Ninomiya continued to appear in a wide range of dramas. He played a student who found himself to be one of the last four virgins left at school in the comedy series "Stand Up!!", a boyfriend of a girl who mysteriously shrunk into a size of merely sixteen centimeters tall in the romance series and a young man who accidentally killed his mother and developed an estranged relationship with his father as a result in the human drama series
581750	Randeep Hooda (; born 20 August 1976) is an Indian film actor who appears in Hindi-language films. Hooda began acting in school productions at a young age. After completing his studies in Melbourne, he returned to India and began modelling and acting in theatre. Hooda made his Bollywood debut with Mira Nair's "Monsoon Wedding" in 2001. However, after a good performance in the film he waited four years for a second project: Ram Gopal Varma's "D" (2005), which earned him critical acclaim. After "D" Hooda worked on a series of unsuccessful projects until he featured in Milan Luthria's "Once Upon A Time in Mumbaai" (2010), which proved to be a turning point in his career. He was subsequently noted for his performances in "Saheb, Biwi Aur Gangster" (2011) and "Jannat 2" (2012). In addition to acting in film and theatre, Hooda regularly participates professionally in equestrian sports such as polo and show jumping. He is a social activist. Early life and background. Hooda was born Randeep Singh Hooda on 20 August 1976, in Rohtak,a town in the northern Indian state of Haryana, to Dr. Ranbir Hooda (a surgeon) and Asha Hooda (a social worker). He also has an older sister, Dr. Anjali Hooda Sangwan, a US-Trained Obesity Medicine Specialist and a younger brother, Sandeep Hooda, a Software Engineer working in Singapore.
1030085	Nathalie... is a 2003 French drama film directed by Anne Fontaine, and starring Fanny Ardant, Emmanuelle Béart, and Gérard Depardieu. Plot. Catherine discovers that her husband Bernard is cheating on her. She decides to pay Parisian prostitute Nathalie to have an affair with her husband, and report back to her. Reception. "Nathalie..." received generally positive reviews, currently holding a 73% "fresh" rating on Rotten Tomatoes; the consensus states: "A seductive French import that portrays adult issues of jealousy and betrayal with strong lead performances and considerable French charm." On Metacritic, which uses an average of critics' reviews, the film holds a 69/100 rating, indicating "generally favorable reviews". Remake. Director Atom Egoyan remade the film in 2009, now entitled "Chloe". The new film stars Julianne Moore, Liam Neeson, and Amanda Seyfried. Egoyan said that "Chloe" is more erotically charged than "Nathalie..."
1063597	Dinner for Schmucks, a 2010 screwball comedy film, was directed by Jay Roach, written by David Guion and Michael Handelman, and stars Steve Carell and Paul Rudd, who had previously teamed up in "" and "The 40-Year-Old Virgin". The film was released theatrically on July 30, 2010. The film is the American adaptation of the 1998 French comedy "Le Dîner de Cons" (titled "The Dinner Game" for US release). Zach Galifianakis won the Comedy Award for "Best Comedy Actor – Film" for his role as Therman Murch in the film. The elaborate mouse dioramas and "mouseterpieces" were created by The Chiodo Brothers. Plot. Timothy "Tim" Conrad (Paul Rudd) is an ambitious financial executive who entices wealthy Swiss businessman Martin Mueller
1060899	Catherine Anne O'Hara (born March 4, 1954) is a Canadian-American actress, writer and comedian. She is well known for her comedy work on "SCTV" and her roles in the films "After Hours", "Beetlejuice", "Home Alone," and "The Nightmare Before Christmas", and also in the mockumentary films written and directed by Christopher Guest, including "Waiting for Guffman", "Best in Show", "A Mighty Wind", and "For Your Consideration". Early life. O'Hara was born in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Born into a large family of Irish descent, she was raised Roman Catholic. She attended Burnhamthorpe Collegiate Institute, where she first met Robin Duke, who went on to her own comedy career. Career. Catherine started her comedy career in 1974 as a cast member of The Second City in her native Toronto. She was an understudy for Gilda Radner until Radner left for "Saturday Night Live". Two years later, this theatre troupe created the sketch comedy show "SCTV", for which O'Hara became a regular performer. Her memorable characterizations on the show included Las Vegas scorcher Lola Heatherton, buzzer-happy game show contestant Margaret Meehan, raunchy nightclub comedian Dusty Towne, soap opera seductress Sue Ellen, and stage actress Sue Bopper Simpson.
1040327	Lesley Dunlop (born 10 March 1956 in Newcastle upon Tyne, Northumberland) is a British actress. Career. Daughter of the television writer Pat Dunlop, she began as a child actress in the 1970s featuring in a BBC version of the classic "A Little Princess" and as Lydia Holly in the ITV adaptation of "South Riding". Her transition to adult roles began by playing Lizzie Hexham in a BBC version of Charles Dickens' "Our Mutual Friend" in 1976 and featuring in the very first series of the long-running hospital drama "Angels". She was cast alongside Diana Rigg and Elizabeth Taylor in the 1977 film version of Stephen Sondheim's "A Little Night Music" and appeared in Roman Polanski's "Tess" in 1979. In 1980, she played Nora, the nurse who is at first terrified by "The Elephant Man" and then befriends John Hurt's character in David Lynch's 1980 Oscar nominated film. Throughout this time and indeed throughout her career, she has regularly appeared on British TV including "Murder Most English" in 1977, and two guest appearances in Doctor Who - in "Frontios" in 1984 and "The Happiness Patrol" in 1988. She also starred opposite "Oliver Tobias" in "Smuggler". In the 1990s she starred in the long-running BBC sitcom "May to December" as Zoe Callender alongside screen husband Anton Rodgers. In 1995, she starred in the two part Gurinder Chadha directed drama "Rich Deceiver" as Ellie Freeman, a Liverpudlian housewife who secretly wins the pools and uses the money to covertly help her husband's career. She also starred in the ITV series "Wokenwell" (1997) and appeared in a long-running series of TV commercials for Kleenex directed by Mike Leigh. In 2000, Lesley joined the cast of the ITV series "Where the Heart Is" playing Anna Kirkwall. Since 2008, she has played the role of Brenda Walker in the ITV soap opera "Emmerdale". In 2013 after her character on Emmerdale was diagnosed with a Brain tumour, Dunlop shaved her head especially for the part. Personal life. Lesley Dunlop has two daughters—Rosie and actress Daisy Dunlop—both with actor Christopher Guard.
588977	Ravi Kapoor, also known as Jeetendra (Born April 7, 1942) is an award winning Indian actor, television, films producer and chairman of the Balaji Telefilms, Balaji Motion Pictures and ALT Entertainment. Famous for his dancing, he was awarded Filmfare Lifetime Achievement Award in 2003 and Screen Lifetime Achievement Award in 2005. Early life. Jeetendra Kapoor was born on 7 April 1942 in Amritsar, Punjab to Amarnath and Krishna Kapoor whose business dealt with imitation jewellery. He attended St. Sebastian’s Goan High School in Girgaum, with his friend Rajesh Khanna and later on went to K.C. College. While supplying jewellery to V. Shantaram, he was cast as Sandhya's double in the 1959 movie "Navrang". Career. Jeetendra's active acting career spanned the 1960s to the 1990s. Jeetendra was frequently paired with Sridevi or Jaya Prada for remakes of South Indian films by Rama Rao Tatineni, K. Bapayya and K. Raghavendra Rao; these included "Sanjog", "Aulad", "Majaal", "Justice Chaudhry" (1982), "Mawaali" (1983), "Himmatwala" (1983), "Jaani Dushman" (1979) and "Tohfa" (1984). He also did many Telugu remakes in Hindi of Krishna's movies and had very close association with him. Besides these south Indian remakes, there was a subdued side of Jeetendra whenever he'd worked with the writer/lyricist Gulzar in films like Parichay, Kinara and Khushboo that had several beautifully penned songs like 'O Majhi Re', 'Musafir Hoon Yaaron' and 'Naam Gum Jaayega', composed by Rahul Dev Burman and sung by Kishore Kumar. Besides his frequent pairings with Sridevi and Jaya Prada during the 80's, Jeetendra's popular co-stars were Reena Roy, Neetu Singh, Hema Malini, Sulakshna Pandit, Bindiya Goswami, Moushumi Chatterjee, and Rekha. He appeared in the TV serial "Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi" in the role of an old man. He was one of the judges of "Jhalak Dikhhla Jaa (Indian Dance Series)", an Indian dance competition on Sony Entertainment Television. He was also a judge with Hema Malini of a competition called "Dancing Queen". Personal life. In her authorized biography, Hema Malini claimed that they almost got married, but she backed out. He married his childhood sweetheart, Shobha Kapoor, and has a daughter, Ekta Kapoor, who runs Balaji Telefilms and a son who is also an actor, Tusshar Kapoor. Jeetendra made a brief appearance in one of his daughter's produced films "Kucch To Hai" (2002) where he appeared alongside his son Tusshar.
1063656	An American Carol is a 2008 American comedy film directed by David Zucker and starring Kevin Farley. In some other countries the film is known as Big Fat Important Movie. Presented from a conservative-leaning perspective, the film is a parody of liberal filmmaker Michael Moore that "lampoons contemporary American culture, particularly Hollywood." It uses the framework of "A Christmas Carol" but moves the setting of the story from Christmas to Independence Day. The screenplay is written by Myrna Sokoloff and Zucker. The supporting cast includes Kelsey Grammer, Jon Voight, Dennis Hopper, Trace Adkins, Gary Coleman, Jillian Murray and Leslie Nielsen. The film was released on October 3, 2008. Plot. Left-wing activist and filmmaker Michael Malone (Kevin Farley), a parody of Michael Moore, campaigns to end the celebration of the Fourth of July holiday. Malone holds pronounced anti-American views and truculently argues that America's past and present are both offensive, and therefore should not be celebrated.
1091490	Sir James Hopwood Jeans OM FRS MA DSc ScD LLD (11 September 187716 September 1946) was an English physicist, astronomer and mathematician. Background. Born in Ormskirk, Lancashire, Jeans was educated at Merchant Taylors' School, Northwood, Wilson's Grammar School, Camberwell and Trinity College, Cambridge, he finished Second Wrangler in the university in the Mathematical Tripos of 1898. He was elected Fellow of Trinity College in October 1901, and taught at Cambridge, but went to Princeton University in 1904 as a professor of applied mathematics. He returned to Cambridge in 1910. He made important contributions in many areas of physics, including quantum theory, the theory of radiation and stellar evolution. His analysis of rotating bodies led him to conclude that Laplace's theory that the solar system formed from a single cloud of gas was incorrect, proposing instead that the planets condensed from material drawn out of the sun by a hypothetical catastrophic near-collision with a passing star. This theory is not accepted today. Jeans, along with Arthur Eddington, is a founder of British cosmology. In 1928 Jeans was the first to conjecture a steady state cosmology based on a hypothesized continuous creation of matter in the universe. This theory was ruled out when the 1965 discovery of the cosmic microwave background was widely interpreted as the tell-tale signature of the Big Bang. His scientific reputation is grounded in the monographs "The Dynamical Theory of Gases" (1904), "Theoretical Mechanics" (1906), and "Mathematical Theory of Electricity and Magnetism" (1908). After retiring in 1929, he wrote a number of books for the lay public, including "The Stars in Their Courses" (1931), "The Universe Around Us," "Through Space and Time" (1934), "The New Background of Science" (1933), and "The Mysterious Universe." These books made Jeans fairly well known as an expositor of the revolutionary scientific discoveries of his day, especially in relativity and physical cosmology. In 1939, the Journal of the British Astronomical Association reported that Jeans was going to stand as a candidate for parliament for the Cambridge University constituency. The election, expected to take place in 1939 or 1940 did not take place until 1945, and without his involvement. He also wrote the book "Physics and Philosophy" (1943) where he explores the different views on reality from two different perspectives: science and philosophy. On his religious views, Jeans was an agnostic. Jeans married twice, first to the American poet Charlotte Tiffany Mitchell in 1907, then the Austrian organist and harpsichordist Suzanne Hock (better known as Susi Jeans) in 1935. He died in Dorking, Surrey. At Merchant Taylors' School there is a James Jeans Academic Scholarship for the candidate in the entrance exams who displays outstanding results across the spectrum of subjects but notably in Mathematics and Sciences. Major accomplishments. One of Jeans' major discoveries, named Jeans length, is a critical radius of an interstellar cloud in space. It depends on the temperature, and density of the cloud, and the mass of the particles composing the cloud. A cloud that is smaller than its Jeans length will not have sufficient gravity to overcome the repulsive gas pressure forces and condense to form a star, whereas a cloud that is larger than its Jeans length will collapse. Jeans came up with another version of this equation, called Jeans mass or Jeans instability, that solves for the critical mass a cloud must attain before being able to collapse. Jeans also helped to discover the Rayleigh–Jeans law, which relates the energy density of blackbody radiation to the temperature of the emission source. Books. Available online from the Internet Archive: Other:
1034120	Warren Clarke (born 26 April 1947) is an English actor. Biography. Clarke was born in Oldham, Lancashire. His first television appearance was in the long running Granada soap opera "Coronation Street", initially as Kenny Pickup in 1966 and then as Gary Bailey in 1968. His first major film appearance was in Stanley Kubrick's controversial "A Clockwork Orange" (1971) where he played a 'droog' named 'Dim' opposite Malcolm McDowell. He appeared with McDowell again in the 1973 film "O Lucky Man!". He has appeared in a wide range of roles in TV and movie productions both in the UK and abroad. One of his most notable roles was playing a Russian dissident in Clint Eastwood's "Firefox" (1982). In 1991 he played Larry Patterson in "Gone to the Dogs", which was followed a year later by the series "Gone to Seed", in which Clarke again starred. In 1984 he played the uncharacteristic role of the overtly homosexual 'Sophie' Dixon in the landmark Granada series "The Jewel in the Crown". Also in 1984 he had a comedy role, playing Colonel von Horst in the satirical "Top Secret!". In 1988 he appeared as Colonel Krieger in the first series of LWT's "Wish Me Luck". In 1989 he played the Captain Lee in the film "Crusoe". The same year he played the role of Martin Fisher, the chairman of a football club, in "The Manageress". He starred in an episode of "Lovejoy" entitled "Bin Diving". In 1994 he played Bamber in the ITV comedy drama "Moving Story". His comedic talents can be seen in one off special "", and in the episode "Amy and Amiability" of the series "Blackadder the Third". Since 1996 he has appeared regularly as Detective Superintendent Andy Dalziel in the TV series "Dalziel and Pascoe". Between 2000 and 2003 Clarke played Brian Addis, a father who moved his family from the bustle of London to a Devon farm, in the BBC TV series "Down to Earth". In 2005, he appeared as Mr Boythorn in the BBC One dramatisation of "Bleak House". In 2008 he starred alongside Anthony Head in the BBC Drama "The Invisibles" and in 2009 appeared in the Channel 4 trilogy "Red Riding". In 2009, he appeared as Commander Peters in the ITV production of "Agatha Christie's Marple" "Why Didn't They Ask Evans?". In 2010, he starred in Series 3, Episode 2 of the BBC series "Inspector George Gently". The episode was entitled "Peace and Love". He also played Mr Bott in "Just William". More recently (2011), he played innkeeper Samuel Quested in "Midsomer Murders", in "The Night of the Stag" and as John Lacey in Call the Midwife. Personal life. Clarke is a keen golfer and has been a Manchester City supporter since he was 7 years old.
65133	Frank Plumpton Ramsey (22 February 1903 – 19 January 1930) was a precocious British mathematician, philosopher and economist who died at the age of 26. He was a close friend of Ludwig Wittgenstein and was instrumental in translating Wittgenstein's "Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus" into English, as well as persuading Wittgenstein to return to philosophy and Cambridge. Life. Ramsey was born on 22 February 1903 in Cambridge where his father Arthur Stanley Ramsey (1867–1954), also a mathematician, was President of Magdalene College. His mother was Mary Agnes Stanley (1875–1927). He was the eldest of two brothers and two sisters, and his brother Michael Ramsey, the only one of the four siblings who was to remain Christian, later became Archbishop of Canterbury. He entered Winchester College in 1915 and later returned to Cambridge to study mathematics at Trinity College. While studying mathematics at Trinity College, Ramsey became a student to John Maynard Keynes, and an active member in the Apostles, a Cambridge discussion group. In 1923, he received his bachelors degree in mathematics with high honors. Easy-going, simple and modest, Ramsey had many interests besides his scientific work. Even as a teenager Ramsey exhibited both a profound ability and, as attested by his brother, an extremely diverse range of interests: Ramsey suffered mildly from depression, and was intellectually interested in psychoanalysis. While writing his dissertation he went to Vienna to be psychoanalysed by Theodor Reik, a disciple of Freud. As one of the justifications for undertaking therapy, he asserted in a letter to his mother that unconscious impulses might even affect the work of a mathematician. Ramsey returned to England in 1924, and with John Maynard Keynes's support he became a fellow of King's College, Cambridge, being the second person ever to be elected without having previously studied at King's College. In September 1925 he married Lettice Baker, the wedding taking place in a Register Office since Ramsey was, as his wife described him, a ‘militant atheist’. (She subsequently ran a photography practice in Cambridge for many years ["Ramsey and Muspratt"].) The marriage produced two daughters. Despite his atheism, Ramsey was quite tolerant towards his brother when the latter decided to become a priest in the Church of England. In 1926 he became a university lecturer in mathematics and later a Director of Studies in Mathematics at King's College. Ramsey and Wittgenstein. When I. A. Richards and C. K. Ogden, both Fellows of Magdalene, first met Ramsey, he expressed his interest in learning German. According to Richards, he mastered the language "in almost hardly over a week", although other sources show he took before that one year of German in school. Ramsey was then able, at the age of 19, to make the first draft of the translation of the German text of Wittgenstein’s "Tractatus Logico Philosophicus". Ramsey was impressed by Wittgenstein’s work and after graduating as Senior Wrangler in the Mathematical Tripos of 1923 he made a journey to Austria to visit Wittgenstein, at that time teaching in a primary school in the small community of Puchberg am Schneeberg. For two weeks Ramsey discussed the difficulties he was facing in understanding the "Tractatus". Wittgenstein made some corrections to the English translation in Ramsey’s copy and some annotations and changes to the German text that subsequently appeared in the second edition in 1933. Ramsey and John Maynard Keynes cooperated to try to bring Ludwig Wittgenstein back to Cambridge (he had been a student there before World War I). Once Wittgenstein had returned to Cambridge, Ramsey became his nominal supervisor. Wittgenstein submitted the "Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus" as his doctoral thesis. G.E. Moore and Bertrand Russell acted as examiners. Later, the three of them arranged financial aid for Wittgenstein to help him continue his research work. In 1929 Ramsey and Wittgenstein regularly discussed issues in mathematics and philosophy with Piero Sraffa, an Italian economist who had been brought to Cambridge by Keynes after Sraffa had aroused Benito Mussolini’s ire by publishing an article critical of the Fascist regime in the "Manchester Guardian". The contributions of Ramsey to these conversations were acknowledged by both Sraffa and Wittgenstein in their later work. Early death. Suffering from chronic liver problems, Ramsey developed jaundice after an abdominal operation and died on 19 January 1930 at Guy's Hospital in London at the age of 26. He is buried in the Parish of the Ascension Burial Ground in Cambridge; his father (1867–1954) and mother (1875–1927) are buried in the same plot. Ramsey’s notes and manuscripts were acquired by Nicholas Rescher for the Archives of Scientific Philosophy and the University of Pittsburgh. This Ramsey collection contains only a few letters but a great many drafts of papers and book chapters, some still unpublished. The Decision Analysis Society annually awards the Frank P. Ramsey Medal to recognise substantial contributions to decision theory and its application to important classes of real decision problems. Work. Mathematical logic. One of the theorems proved by Ramsey in his 1928 paper "On a problem of formal logic" now bears his name (Ramsey's theorem). While this theorem is the work Ramsey is probably best remembered for, he only proved it in passing, as a minor lemma along the way to his true goal in the paper, solving a special case of the decision problem for first-order logic, namely the decidability of what is now called the Bernays–Schönfinkel–Ramsey class of first-order logic, as well as a characterization of the spectrum of sentences in this fragment of logic. Alonzo Church would go on to show that the general case of the decision problem for first-order logic is unsolvable (see Church's theorem). A great amount of later work in mathematics was fruitfully developed out of the ostensibly minor lemma, which turned out to be an important early result in combinatorics, supporting the idea that within some sufficiently large systems, however disordered, there must be some order. So fruitful, in fact, was Ramsey's theorem that today there is an entire branch of mathematics, known as Ramsey theory, which is dedicated to studying similar results. Philosophy. His philosophical works included "Universals" (1925), "Facts and propositions" (1927) (which proposed a redundancy theory of truth), "Universals of law and of fact" (1928), "Knowledge" (1929), "Theories" (1929), "On Truth" (1929), and "General propositions and causality" (1929). Wittgenstein mentions him in the introduction to his "Philosophical Investigations" as an influence. Economics. Keynes and Pigou encouraged Ramsey to work on economics as "From a very early age, about sixteen I think, his precocious mind was intensely interested in economic problems" (Keynes, 1933). Ramsey responded to Keynes's urging by writing three papers in economic theory all of which were of fundamental importance, though it was many years before they received their proper recognition by the community of economists. Ramsey’s three papers, described below in detail, were on subjective probability and utility (1926), optimal taxation (1927) and optimal one-sector economic growth (1928). The economist Paul Samuelson described them in 1970 as "three great legacies – legacies that were for the most part mere by-products of his major interest in the foundations of mathematics and knowledge." A mathematical theory of saving. This significant paper was published in The Economic Journal, and involved "a strategically beautiful application of the calculus of variations" (Paul Samuelson) in order to determine the optimal amount an economy should invest (save) rather than consume so as to maximize future utility, or in Ramsey’s words "how much of its income should a nation save?" (Ramsey, 1928). Keynes described the article as "one of the most remarkable contributions to mathematical economics ever made, both in respect of the intrinsic importance and difficulty of its subject, the power and elegance of the technical methods employed, and the clear purity of illumination with which the writer's mind is felt by the reader to play about its subject. The article is terribly difficult reading for an economist, but it is not difficult to appreciate how scientific and aesthetic qualities are combined in it together" (Keynes 1933). The Ramsey model is today acknowledged as the starting point for optimal accumulation theory although its importance was not recognized until many years after its first publication. The main contributions of the model were firstly the initial question Ramsey posed on how much savings should be and secondly the method of analysis, the intertemporal maximization (optimization) of collective or individual utility by applying techniques of dynamic optimization. Tjalling C. Koopmans and David Cass modified the Ramsey model incorporating the dynamic features of population growth at a steady rate and of Harrod-neutral technical progress again at a steady rate, giving birth to a model named the Ramsey–Cass–Koopmans model where the objective now is to maximize household’s utility function. A contribution to the theory of taxation. In this paper Ramsey's contribution to economic theory was the elegant concept of Ramsey pricing. This is applicable in situations where a (regulated) monopolist wants to maximize consumer surplus whilst at the same time ensuring that its costs are adequately covered. This is achieved by setting the price such that the markup over marginal cost is inversely proportional to the price elasticity of demand for that good. Like its predecessor this paper was published in The Economic Journal in 1927. Ramsey poses the question that is to be solved at the beginning of the article: "a given revenue is to be raised by proportionate taxes on some or all uses of income, the taxes on different uses being possibly at different rates; how much should these rates be adjusted in order that the decrement of utility may be a minimum?" (Ramsey 1927). The problem was suggested to him by the economist Arthur Pigou and the paper was Ramsey’s answer to the problem. Truth and probability. Keynes in his "A Treatise on Probability" (1921) argued against the subjective approach in epistemic probabilities. For Keynes, subjectivity of probabilities doesn’t matter as much, as for him there is an objective relationship between knowledge and probabilities, as knowledge is disembodied and not personal. Ramsey in his article disagrees with Keynes’s approach as for him there is a difference between the notions of probability in physics and in logic. For Ramsey probability is not related to a disembodied body of knowledge but is related to the knowledge that each individual possesses alone. Thus personal beliefs that are formulated by this individual knowledge govern probabilities leading to the notion of subjective probability. Consequently, subjective probabilities can be inferred by observing actions that reflect individuals' personal beliefs. Ramsey argued that the degree of probability that an individual attaches to a particular outcome can be measured by finding what odds the individual would accept when betting on that outcome. Ramsey suggested a way of deriving a consistent theory of choice under uncertainty that could isolate beliefs from preferences while still maintaining subjective probabilities. Despite the fact that Ramsey’s work on probabilities was of great importance again no one paid any attention to it until the publication of Theory of Games and Economic Behavior of John von Neumann and Oskar Morgenstern in 1944 (1947 2nd ed.)
1060815	Lucas York Black (born November 29, 1982) is an American film and television actor. He is known for his roles in the CBS television series "American Gothic" as well as roles in films such as "Sling Blade", "Jarhead", "Friday Night Lights", "", "Legion", "Get Low", "All the Pretty Horses", and "Seven Days in Utopia".
878403	Clifford Vivian Devon "Cliff" Curtis (born 27 July 1968) is a New Zealand actor whose screen roles include "Whale Rider", "Jubilee" and "Blow". His television work includes NBC series "Trauma", and "Body of Proof", and starring in ABC's "Missing". Curtis is co-owner of independent New Zealand production company Whenua Films. Ethnically Māori, his many character roles include having portrayed a range of ethnicities, including Latin American and Arab characters. Early life. Curtis, one of nine children, was born in Rotorua, in the North Island of New Zealand, and is the son of an amateur dancer. Curtis is of Māori descent and his tribal affiliations are Te Arawa and Ngati Hauiti. As a boy he studied mau rākau, a traditional Māori form of taiaha fighting with Māori elder Mita Mohi on Mokoia Island, which nurtured his abilities as a performer in kapa haka. Curtis later performed as a breakdancer and then competitively in rock 'n' roll dance competitions. Curtis also sometimes impersonates Tim Cahill and is an avid Everton supporter. He received his secondary education at Western Heights High School, Rotorua. New Zealand career. Curtis started acting in amateur productions of musicals "Fiddler on the Roof" and "Man of La Mancha" with the Kapiti Players and the Mantis Cooperative Theatre Company, before attending the New Zealand Drama School and Teatro Dimitri Scoula in Switzerland. He worked at a number of New Zealand theatre companies, including Downstage, Mercury Theatre, Bats Theatre, and Centre Point. His stage roles include "Happy End", "The Merry Wives of Windsor", "Othello", "The Cherry Orchard", "Porgy and Bess", "Weeds", "Macbeth", "Serious Money" and "The End of the Golden Weather". His first feature film role was a small part in Oscar-nominated Jane Campion film "The Piano". He went on to win attention in "Once Were Warriors", one of the most successful films released on New Zealand soil, and played a seducer in melodrama "Desperate Remedies". In 2000 Curtis starred as family man Billy Williams in "Jubilee", before playing father to the main character in international hit "Whale Rider". In 2004 with producer Ainsley Gardiner, Curtis formed independent film production company Whenua Films. The goals of the company are to support the growth of the New Zealand indigenous filmmaking scene, and support local short filmmakers. He and Gardiner were appointed to manage the development and production of films for the Short Films Fund for 2005-06 by the New Zealand Film Commission. They have produced several shorts under the new company banner, notably "Two Cars, One Night", which received an Academy Award nomination in 2005, and "Hawaiki" by director Mike Jonathan in 2006. Both short films circulated through many of the prestigious international film festivals like the Berlinale. At the 2006 Cannes Film Festival, Miramax Films bought US distribution rights to their first feature film, relationship comedy "Eagle vs Shark", directed by Taika Waititi. Waititi's follow-up feature "Boy", also from Whenua Films, went on to become the highest grossing New Zealand film released on its own soil. International career. Curtis has appeared in films such as "Three Kings", Johnny Depp drug drama "Blow", Martin Scorsese's "Bringing Out the Dead", "Sunshine" and "Live Free or Die Hard" in 2007, "Training Day", "Collateral Damage" and "Push" in 2009. In the NBC TV drama "Trauma", he played daredevil flight medic Reuben "Rabbit" Palchuck. In M. Night Shyamalan's "The Last Airbender", released in 2010, he played Fire Lord Ozai. Personal life. Curtis guards his personal life closely. He married in late 2009 in a lavish private ceremony at his home marae.
584466	Nenjinile is a 1999 Tamil action film directed and co-written by S. A. Chandrasekhar. The film features Vijay and Isha Koppikar in the lead roles, while Sonu Sood, Sriman and Manivannan play supporting roles. The film's music is composed by Deva, and the film opened in June 1999 to a negative response at the box office. Plot. The story starts with Karunakaran (Vijay) leaving his village to go to Mumbai looking for a job to help his sister's wedding. He lives with his sister and there he meets Nisha (Isha Koppikar), who loves him at first sight. He first rejects her but later he starts to love her too. He's unable to get a job, and through a friend, joins as a hit man for a gangster. This brings him a lot of money, in this way he can help his family. But when his own gang plan to kill Nisha after killing her parents, he tries to protect her, earning their wrath. Whether he can save Nisha or not forms the crux of the story Production. Vijay recommended Isha Koppikar for the lead female role to his father, who signed her on. Vijay revealed he was impressed with her acting despite her lack of understanding of Tamil. An item number was shot with actress Roja making a special appearance in the film. For another song in the film, lyricist Arivumathi was asked to write a song in praise of Vijay - unable to inspire himself to do so, the lyricist later wrote a song around the success of Rajinikanth, hoping it would also adapt to Vijay's rise. During the post-production stages, S. A. Chandrasekhar accused the son of veteran director K. Balachandar of trying to make pirate copies of the film. The allegations prompted Vijay to pull out of a film he had agreed to act in under Balachandar's production house. Release. The film opened to negative reviews, with the critic of Indolink.com claiming the film Chandrasekhar "screwed up the storyline part in a very major way" while mentioning that the only respite was the film's music. The film became a financial failure at the box office and triggered a run of continuous unsuccessful films for Vijay such as "Minsara Kanna' Soundtrack. The soundtrack of the film was composed by Deva, was well received by the audience. The lyrics were written by Vaali, Pazhani Bharathi, Ravi Shankar, Kalaikumar, Vijayan, A. C. Jairam.
1082332	Francisco Rabal (8 March 1926 – 29 August 2001), perhaps better known as Paco Rabal, was a Spanish actor born in Águilas, a small town in the province of Murcia, Spain. In 1936, after the Spanish Civil War broke out, Rabal and his family left Murcia and moved to Madrid. Young Francisco had to work as a street salesboy and in a chocolate factory. When he was 13 years old, he left school to work as an electrician at Estudios Chamartín. Rabal got some sporadic jobs as an extra. Dámaso Alonso and other people advised him to try his luck with a career in theater. During the following years, he got some roles in theater companies such as Lope de Vega or María Guerrero. It was there that he met actress Asunción Balaguer; they married and remained together for the rest of Rabal's life. Their daughter, Teresa Rabal, is also an actress. In 1947, Rabal got some regular jobs in theater. He used his full name, Francisco Rabal, as stage name. However, the people who knew him always called him Paco Rabal. (Paco is the familiar form for Francisco.) "Paco Rabal" became his unofficial stage name. During the 1940s, Rabal began acting in movies as an extra, but it was not until 1950 that he was first cast in speaking roles, and played romantic leads and rogues. He starred in three films directed by Luis Buñuel - "Nazarín" (1959), "Viridiana" (1961) and "Belle de jour" (1967). William Friedkin thought of Rabal for the French villain of his 1971 movie "The French Connection". However, he could not remember the name of "that Spanish actor". Mistakenly, his staff hired another Spanish actor, Fernando Rey. Friedkin discovered that Rabal did not speak English or French, so he decided to keep Rey. Rabal had previously worked with Rey in "Viridiana". Rabal did, however, work with Friedkin in the much less successful but Academy Award-nominated cult classic "Sorcerer" (1977), a remake of "The Wages of Fear" (1953). Throughout his career, Rabal worked in France, Italy and Mexico with directors such as Gillo Pontecorvo, Michelangelo Antonioni, Luchino Visconti, Valerio Zurlini, Jacques Rivette and Alberto Lattuada. It is widely considered that Rabal's best performances came after Francisco Franco's death in 1975. In the 1980s, Rabal starred in "Los santos inocentes", winning the Award as Best Actor in Cannes Film Festival, in "El Disputado Voto del Señor Cayo" and also in the TV series "Juncal". In 1989, he was a member of the jury at the 39th Berlin International Film Festival. In the 1999 he played the character of Francisco Goya in Carlos Saura "Goya en Burdeos", winning a Goya Award as Best Actor. Francisco Rabal is the only Spanish actor to have received an honoris causa doctoral degree from the University of Murcia. Rabal's final movie was Dagon, a film which was dedicated to him right before the credits. The dedication read "Dedicated to Francisco Rabal, a wonderful actor and even better human being." Rabal died in 2001 from compensatory dilating emphysema, while on an airplane travelling to Bordeaux, when he was coming back from receiving an Award at Montreal Film Festival.
590888	Mayabazar is a 1957 mythological Telugu film. The Telugu version was first released in Andhra Pradesh on 27 March 1957. The Tamil version, the following month in Tamil Nadu, with changes in cast and other details apt to Tamil audience. The Telugu version was later dubbed in Kannada. The story, dialogues, and song lyrics (in Telugu) were written by Pingali Nagendra Rao. The producer of both the versions, Bommireddy Nagi Reddy bagged the highest award for films in India, Dadasaheb Phalke Award in 1986. IBN Live listed it as the greatest Indian film of all time. The critically acclaimed "Mayabazar" is considered one of the enduring classics of Indian Cinema. The film was touted as a landmark achievement in Indian film's cinematography, art direction and visual effects with the technology available at the time. The music delivered by Saluri Rajeswara Rao (uncredited) and Ghantasala has been extremely popular. The film stars Gummadi Venkateswara Rao as Balarama, NTR as Krishna, ANR (Telugu version); Gemini Ganesan (Tamil Version) as Abhimanyu, S. V. Ranga Rao as Ghatotkacha, and Savitri as Sasirekha. A digitally remastered colour version was released in 2010. Plot. During the Pandavas' Aranyavasa (period of disguised exile), Arjuna sends his wife Subhadra and their son Abhimanyu to Dwaraka to stay at her maternal home with her brothers, Krishna (N.T.Rama Rao)and Balarama (Gummadi Venkateswara Rao). Sasirekha(Savitri), Balarama's daughter and Abhimanyu (Akkineni Nageswara Rao/Gemini Ganesan) are deep in love with each other from their childhood. Also at the time of Sasirekha's birth Balarama promises to marry her to Abhimanyu when they grow up. However, Balarama's wife Revathi(Chaya Devi) refuses to honour that commitment, as the Pandavas lose their kingdom and wealth in a gamble with Kauravas and are sent to exile. Balarama instead, on the face of Shakuni's(CSR Anjaneyulu/M. N. Nambiar) and the Kauravas' cunning persuasion, decides to marry Sasirekha to Lakshmana Kumara (Relangi Venkata Ramaiah/Thangavelu), who is the son of his favourite disciple, Duryodhana (Mukkamala). Krishna advises Subhadra and Abhimanyu to approach Ghatotkacha (S.V.Ranga Rao). Initially, Ghatotkacha assumes them to be intruders in his forest and attacks them, but later apologizes for his misunderstanding. When Subhadra narrates about what happened of her son and Sasirekha, Ghatotkacha decides to play some trickery in Dwaraka. He first, with the knowledge of Krishna and a servant girl, flies the sleeping Sasirekha along with her bed, from Dwaraka to his forest. Next, using his magical powers, he assumes the form of Sasirekha (Ghatotkacha becomes Maya Sasirekha) and goes back to Dwaraka and wrecks her marriage with Lakshmana Kumara. He also performs some practical jokes and comical acts while in disguise. Also, his retinues act as the marriage overseers and provide comic relief as well. To further break the marriage, Ghatotkacha's follower's (Ramana Reddy- Played a magician role) enter the Bridegroom's guest house (Vididi griha) and draws hilarious comedy to the audience with Balaiah and Allu Rama Lingaiah. They also create a magical market(Mayabazar) in Dwaraka to gift the Kauravas and their relatives who come to the marriage with valuable gifts. Meanwhile, back in the forest, the real Sasirekha is married to Abhimanyu. When all goes to plan, Ghatothkacha reveals his true identity and further unveils the true colours of Shakuni and Kauravas. At this point, Sasirekha's parents are convinced of her marriage and decide to bless the newlyweds back at the forest. Songs. Maya Bazaar's songs are considered legendary in Telugu cinema, and are also best remembered in Tamil as well. The titles of almost all the songs have been reused as movie names in later years. Background. The film is based on a folk tale called "Sasirekha Parinayam" popular in Andhra Pradesh, based on the Mahabharata but not present in it. In the initial days of the film project, it was decided to name the movie "Sasi Rekha Parinayam". However, at a later time it was finalized as "Mayabazaar". Colour Version. The film was digitally remastered to add colour and was released to the theaters on January 30, 2010. As many as 165 artists from Goldstone Technologies have worked to transform the film into the colour version. As per the company's head Jagan Mohan, they have used around 16.7 million colour shades for the transformation. Apart from adding colour, it was also converted to a full scope movie and the sound was also remastered to a DTS system from the previous mono track. Two songs, "Bhali Bhali Deva" and "Vinnava Yasodamma", have been removed due to poor quality of the negative film.
1532248	Johnny Mad Dog is a 2008 French/Liberian film directed by Jean-Stéphane Sauvaire, and starring Christopher Minie, Daisy Victoria Vandy, Dagbeh Tweh, Barry Chernoh, Mohammed Sesay and Joseph Duo. The film is based on the novel "Johnny Chien Méchant" (2002) by the Congolese author Emmanuel Dongala. Plot. "Johnny Mad Dog" follows a group of LURD child soldiers fighting in 2003, during the latter part of the Second Liberian Civil War. The actors are mostly aged 10 to 15. All were unknowns when cast; some were themselves child soldiers. The film follows their march towards the capital Monrovia, and follows them in a gritty realistic manner as they move though a series of towns and villages, where they terrify and often execute the populace. The soldiers are depicted as almost feral, committing acts of pillage and rape, with scant regard for even their own lives. They are heavily armed, and wear a variety of outlandish outfits – butterfly wings and a wedding dress – and have nicknames such as No Good Advice, Captain Dust to Dust, and Chicken Hair. Johnny Mad Dog leads the small group of younger militia. He is commanded by the older General Never Die, who feeds the boys cocaine and tells them "You don’t wanna die, don’t be born".
1055296	Dean Devlin (born August 27, 1962) is an American screenwriter, producer, television director and former actor. He is the founder of the production company Electric Entertainment. Personal life. Devlin was born in New York City, the son of actress Pilar Seurat and Don Devlin, a writer, actor, and producer. His father was Jewish and his mother was Filipino. He is married to actress Lisa Brenner. Career. Actor. Devlin appeared as an actor on numerous television shows throughout the 1980s. He also appeared in films including "My Bodyguard", "The Wild Life", "Real Genius" and "Martians Go Home". Due to his youthful appearance, Devlin often played teenage characters despite being in his 20s. Film. Devlin gradually began writing scripts. His first produced screenplay was for "Universal Soldier" which was a worldwide hit. He reached prominence as a writer/producer working alongside director Roland Emmerich with whom he teamed after appearing in Emmerich's film "Moon 44". Together they cowrote and produced "Stargate" which became the first movie to have a web site (run by Devlin himself). The team then produced "Independence Day" and "Godzilla". Their final collaboration was on the 2000 Mel Gibson film "The Patriot", where Devlin met his future wife. Devlin has also produced "Cellular", "Who Killed the Electric Car?", and "Flyboys". On October 12, 2009 Devlin's screenwriting partner Roland Emmerich confirmed that he and Devlin have written a script for a sequel to "Independence Day", and that they are in contract negotiations with Will Smith. They have stated they do not want to make the sequel if Smith cannot return. On June 24, 2011, Devlin confirmed that he and Emmerich have found an idea for the sequel and have written a treatment for it. Television. Devlin also produced "The Triangle" miniseries and currently produces "The Librarian" franchise and the drama series "Leverage", of which he has directed twelve episodes. ZeniMax Media. Devlin was an advisor to video game company ZeniMax Media from 1999 to 2004.
1278906	Roland "Ron" Edwin Larson (born October 31, 1941) is a professor of mathematics at Penn State Erie, The Behrend College, Pennsylvania. He is best known for being the author of a series of widely-used mathematics textbooks ranging from middle school through the second year of college. Early life. Ron Larson was born in Fort Lewis, Washington, the second of four children of Mederith John Larson and Harriet Eleanor Larson. Mederith Larson was an officer in the 321st Engineer Battalion of the United States Army. He served in active duty during World War II, where he was awarded a Bronze Star Medal and a Purple Heart, and the Korean War, where he was awarded an Oak Leaf Cluster and a Silver Star. Harriet Larson died in the fall of 2009. Larson spent his first two years of high school at Leilehua High School in Wahiawa, Hawaii. In 1957, when his family moved to Vancouver, Washington, Larson enrolled in Battle Ground High School, where he graduated in 1959. On October 29, 1960, at the age of 18, he married Deanna Sue Gilbert, also of Vancouver, Washington. Deanna Gilbert was the second child Herbert and Dorothy Gilbert. Ron and Deanna Larson have two children, Timothy Roland Larson and Jill Deanna Larson Im, and five living grandchildren. Their first grandchild, Timothy Roland Larson II, died at birth on summer solstice, June 21, 1983. Larson is the third generation of Norwegian and Swedish immigrants who left Scandinavia to homestead in Minnesota in the late 1800s. The surnames and immigration dates of his great-grandparents are Bangen (1866, Norway), Berg (1867, Norway), Larson (1868, Norway), and Watterburg (1879, Sweden). Education. From 1959 until 1962, Ron and Deanna Larson started and operated a small business, called Larson's Custom Quilting. In 1962, they sold the business and Ron began attending Clark College in Vancouver, Washington. In 1964, he obtained his associate's degree from Clark. Upon graduation from Clark College, Larson was awarded a scholarship from the Alcoa Foundation, which he used to attend Lewis & Clark College in Portland, Oregon. He graduated, with honors, from Lewis & Clark in 1966. During the four years from 1962 through 1966, Ron worked full-time, first at a restaurant and then at a grocery store, in Vancouver and Deanna worked full-time as a secretary at Roberts Motor Company in Portland, Oregon. From 1966 to 1970, Larson attended graduate school at the University of Colorado at Boulder. He received his master's degree in 1968 and his Ph.D. in mathematics in 1970. While at the University of Colorado, Larson was the recipient of an NDEA scholarship and an NSF fellowship. He also served as a teaching assistant. His Ph.D. dissertation "On the Lattice of Topologies" was written under Wolfgang J. Thron. Academic career. In 1970, Larson accepted a position of assistant professor at The Pennsylvania State University The Behrend College in Erie, Pennsylvania. At the time, Behrend College was a 2-year branch campus of the university. In 1971, the Board of Trustees of the University met with the Behrend Advisory Board to announce Behrend College would become the first location outside University Park with the authority to develop baccalaureate program and confer degrees locally. During his first several years at the college, Larson was instrumental in developing a mathematics major at the college. He served as a member of the University Faculty Senate and also as Behrend College's representative on the University Faculty Council. Larson was promoted to associate professor in 1976 and professor in 1983. Early in his career at Penn State, Larson started writing manuscripts for textbooks. He completed and submitted three manuscripts for calculus texts in 1973, 1974, and 1975 ... only to be rejected by several publishers. Finally, in 1976 he and his co-author, Robert P. Hostetler, obtained a contract from D. C. Heath and Company. The first edition of their calculus book was published in December, 1978. "Calculus" by Larson and Bruce Edwards is now in its ninth edition and is used worldwide. During the academic year of 1983–84, Larson served as the acting division head for the Division of Science at Penn State Erie.
1067572	Feast of Love is a 2007 American drama film directed by Robert Benton, starring Morgan Freeman, Greg Kinnear, Radha Mitchell, Billy Burke and Selma Blair. The film, based on the 2000 novel "The Feast of Love" by Charles Baxter, was first released on September 28, 2007, in the United States. Plot. The movie deals with love and its various incarnations, set within a community of friends in Portland, Oregon. Harry Stevenson (Morgan Freeman) narrates about how love can affect one's life. Bradley. Bradley (Greg Kinnear) runs a small cafe in Portland. He has been married to his wife Kathryn (Selma Blair) for some time. However, their marriage becomes strained. Soon enough Kathryn begins a lesbian relationship with a woman, Jenny (Stana Katic), she meets playing softball and leaves Bradley. The divorce affects Bradley greatly, but he soon finds love again in Diana (Radha Mitchell), a realtor who also has a past with a married man named David (Billy Burke). Though she ends her affair with David to marry Bradley, they ultimately declare they are in love with each other and Diana leaves Bradley, again devastating him. Now twice divorced Bradley suffers a mini-breakdown and stabs himself in the hand. As he is getting stitched up in the hospital he falls for his doctor, Margit (Erika Marozsán). In the film's conclusion the two are revealed to marry. Oscar and Chloe. Oscar (Toby Hemingway) is a young man working at Bradley's cafe who soon meets and falls in love with a girl named Chloe (Alexa Davalos). However, Oscar is revealed to be living with his alcoholically abusive father, Bat (Fred Ward). When Chloe visits a fortune-teller (Margo Martindale), she is told that Oscar will die. Chloe, though upset at first, straightens her resolve about her love for Oscar and their future together. Coming home, she urges Oscar that they get married immediately. At the wedding, Chloe reveals to Harry that she is pregnant, and plans to have another baby right after due to Harry's advice of having "two." In the film's conclusion everybody gathers for an afternoon in the park. While playing football Oscar collapses; despite an attempt to get him to a hospital, congested traffic interferes, and he dies of a heart defect. Then Bat attempts to avenge his son's death by harming Chloe but Harry scares him off, and then asks Chloe if he and his wife Esther (Jane Alexander) can 'adopt' her as their own. Diana and David. Diana is a successful realtor and has been carrying on an affair with the married David. Though she asks him numerous times to leave his wife, Karen, of 11 years he cannot bring himself to do it. Their relationship becomes even more volatile when Diana begins dating Bradley and falls in love with him. David persists he loves Diana, but unable to leave his wife, Diana marries Bradley and ends their affair. However, their love is later rekindled when Karen discovers her husband was cheating, leaving him. Free at last, David and Diana have an emotional confrontation in the park that ends with a kiss that Bradley sees, fueling their divorce and Bradley stabbing himself. In the film's conclusion Diana and David are shown as a public and functionally happy couple. Harry and Esther. Harry and his wife Esther have been married a long time. Harry is a patron at Bradley's cafe and often provides the younger generation with advice on love. However, it is revealed that Harry and Esther are masking their own grief after the death of their adult son, Aaron. Harry reveals the nature of his son's death to Chloe, whom he and Esther grow very close to. Harry has also been struggling with the decision of going back to work as a Professor at a university. In the film's conclusion after Oscar's death he and Esther offer to adopt a now widowed and pregnant Chloe, who tearfully accepts their offer. Production. While many of the movie's scenes are set at Portland State University, the nearby campuses of Western Seminary and Reed College were the actual locations of filming. Locations at Reed include the Blue Bridge, the front lawn and Eliot Circle. Scenes in the Jitters Cafe, owned by Kinnear's character, were filmed at the Fresh Pot at the corner of N Mississippi Avenue and Shaver streets in Portland. Critical reception. The film received mixed reviews from critics. The review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reported that 41% of critics gave the film positive reviews, based on 104 reviews. Metacritic reported the film had an average score of 51 out of 100, based on 28 reviews. Roger Ebert reviewed that this film contains the worst performance of Fred Ward, "no movie can be very good that contains Fred Ward's worst performance!" Box office performance. In its opening weekend, the film grossed US$1.7 million in 1,200 theaters in the United States and Canada, ranking #12 at the box office. It grossed a total of US$5.4 million worldwide – US$3.5 million in the United States and Canada and US$1.9 million in other territories.
582944	Khauff is a 2000 film directed by Sanjay Gupta and starring Sanjay Dutt and Manisha Koirala. This film is plagiarised version of "The Juror". Plot. Neha witnesses the Mafia slaying of a police officer and is forced to give a confession to the police, putting her whole life in danger. Meanwhile, Neha falls in love with Vicky aka babu and gets married. However, she realizes Vicky is not really who he is and is just a killer hired to prevent her from testifying against the culprits. Than begins her uncertain life. Music. Given by Anu Malik, Aadesh Srivastava and Sajid.
394290	Natural City (내츄럴 시티) is a 2003 South Korean science fiction film about a colony world that integrates robots, androids and cyborgs amongst the population. Plot. Two cops, R and Noma, hunt down renegade cyborgs. The cyborgs serve a number of duties, ranging from military commandos to "dolls", engineered for companionship. They have a limited 3 year lifespan, although black market technology has been developed to transfer a cyborg's artificial intelligence into the brain of a human host. This breakthrough compels R into finding Cyon, an orphaned prostitute, who may serve as the host for the mind of his doll Ria. He has fallen deeply in love with his doll and she has only a few days left to live. Eventually, R must make a decision between leaving the colony with Ria to spend her last days with him on a paradise-like planet or save his friends when a renegade combat cyborg takes over the police headquarters.
1264229	Chester Cooper Conklin (January 11, 1886 – October 11, 1971) was an American comedian and actor. He appeared in over 280 films, about half of them in the silent era. Early life. Conklin was one of three children who grew up in a violent household. When he was eight, his mother was found burned to death in the family garden. Although first judged a suicide, his father, a devoutly religious man who hoped his son would be a minister, was eventually charged with murder, but found not guilty at trial.
1080434	Zombie Night is a 2003 Canadian horror film. Synopsis. After World War 3, the dead have risen and are eating the living after the sun goes down. A group of survivors are held up in a building fighting off the undead. One night though, the zombies break through and the group is forced to evacuate. They find themselves running through the woods, trying at all costs to stay alive. Sequel. A sequel was produced, "". There was also a mock documentary, following the film makers as they attempt to make "Reel Zombies" in a time of real zombies.
626910	Douglas Peter "Doug" Savant (born June 21, 1964) is an American actor. He is best known for his roles as Matt Fielding on "Melrose Place" and Tom Scavo on the ABC dramedy series "Desperate Housewives". Career. Doug Savant first gained notice for playing a younger version of Mac McKenzie (played by Kojak alumnus Kevin Dobson) on the CBS night time soap opera "Knots Landing". He was paired with future "Desperate Housewives" co-star Nicollette Sheridan, who played a younger version of the Anne Matheson character portrayed by Michelle Phillips. In the 1980s, he appeared in such films as "Masquerade" starring Rob Lowe, "Teen Wolf" with Michael J. Fox, and "Trick or Treat" with Marc Price and Ozzy Osbourne. Additionally, he was the central character in an episode of "The Outer Limits" called "The Hunt." In the episode, he played an android that is being hunted for sport. From 1992 to 1997, Savant starred as Matt Fielding on "Melrose Place", a role that was notable for being one of the first mainstream openly gay characters on television. However, his role was censored greatly by the network - notably a kiss between Matt and guest star Ty Miller during the season two finale was edited out at the last minute by FOX. Savant left the series after five seasons and, a year later, his character was killed off-screen in a car crash. After this, Savant guest starred on series such as "Profiler", "Harsh Realm", "Firefly", "JAG", "NCIS", "Nip/Tuck", "NYPD Blue", "", and a four-episode arc on "24". He also appeared as Sgt. O'Neal in the film "Godzilla". In 2008, Savant starred in the television movie "What Color Is Love?" He played a lawyer named Peter Marcheson helping a girl, Nicole Alpern (Jennifer Finagan), win back her son in a custody battle. Savant played Tom Scavo on ABC's "Desperate Housewives" from 2004 to 2012. In the first season (2004–05), Tom was a recurring character, credited as a guest-star in the episodes where he appeared. Married to Lynette Scavo (Felicity Huffman), he was out of town regularly on business. Viewer response to Savant and his character led the producers to contract him as a series regular from season two onwards, and Tom and Lynette were portrayed as the most stable couple on the series. Personal life. In May 1998, he married his "Melrose Place" co-star Laura Leighton. They have two children together: Jack (born October 10, 2000) and Lucy (born June 9, 2005). Savant also has two children from a previous marriage, Arianna (born January 17, 1992) and Madeline (born July 20. 1993).
584017	K. S. Ravikumar (; born May 30, 1957) is an Indian film director and actor, primarily working in Tamil cinema. He has directed some of the most recognizable and well-known Tamil films and is one of the most popular filmmakers IN Kollywood. He has directed numerous films ranging from comedy and drama to action thrillers. His film "Dasavathaaram" (2008) went on to gross $16 million worldwide in the first four weeks and eventually became one of the highest-grossing Indian films of all time. Ravikumar began his career as an assistant to director Bharathi Raja and subsequently directed his first film "Puriyaadha Pudhir" (1990). One fact that adds to his popularity is that he makes a guest appearance in any film he directs.
687534	Logorama is a 16-minute French animated film written and directed by H5/François Alaux, Hervé de Crécy and Ludovic Houplain, and produced by Autour de Minuit. The film depicts events in a stylized Los Angeles, and is told entirely through the use of more than 2,500 contemporary and historical logos and mascots. The film won the Prix Kodak at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival and the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film at the 82nd Academy Awards.
1064068	Chelcie Claude Ross (born June 20, 1942) is an American character actor. He served in Vietnam as an officer in the United States Air Force, and earned an MFA from the Dallas Theater Center. Other media. In 2007, Ross appeared, along with Sean Astin and Charles S. Dutton, in an episode of "My Name Is Earl" that was an homage to the film "Rudy". He played an appliance store manager whose relationship to Earl mirrors that of his relationship to Rudy. In 2008, he played Beverly Weston in the National Theatre production of "". He also played a fictionalized Conrad Hilton in the award-winning series "Mad Men".
1102697	Garrett Birkhoff (January 19, 1911 – November 22, 1996) was an American mathematician. He is best known for his work in lattice theory. The mathematician George Birkhoff (1884–1944) was his father. Life. The son of the mathematician George David Birkhoff, Garrett began the Harvard University BA course in 1928 after less than seven years of prior formal education. Upon completing his Harvard BA in 1932, he went to Cambridge University in England to study mathematical physics but switched to studying abstract algebra under Philip Hall. While visiting the University of Munich, he met Carathéodory who pointed him towards two important texts, Van der Waerden on abstract algebra and Speiser on group theory. Birkhoff held no Ph.D., a qualification British higher education did not emphasize at that time, and did not even bother obtaining an M.A. Nevertheless, after being a member of Harvard's Society of Fellows, 1933–36, he spent the rest of his career teaching at Harvard. From these facts can be inferred the number and quality of Birkhoff's papers published by his 25th year. During the 1930s, Birkhoff, along with his Harvard colleagues Marshall Stone and Saunders Mac Lane, substantially advanced American teaching and research in abstract algebra. In 1941 he and Mac Lane published "A Survey of Modern Algebra", the second undergraduate textbook in English on the subject (Cyrus Colton MacDuffee's "An Introduction to Abstract Algebra" was published in 1940). Mac Lane and Birkhoff's "Algebra" (1967) is a more advanced text on abstract algebra. A number of papers he wrote in the 1930s, culminating in his monograph, "Lattice Theory" (1940; the third edition remains in print), turned lattice theory into a major branch of abstract algebra. His 1935 paper, "On the Structure of Abstract Algebras" founded a new branch of mathematics, universal algebra. Birkhoff's approach to this development of universal algebra and lattice theory acknowledged prior ideas of Charles Sanders Peirce, Ernst Schröder, and Alfred North Whitehead; in fact, Whitehead had written a 1898 monograph entitled "Universal Algebra". During and after World War II, Birkhoff's interests gravitated towards what he called "engineering" mathematics. During the war, he worked on radar aiming and ballistics, including the bazooka. In the development of weapons, mathematical questions arose, some of which had not yet been addressed by the literature on fluid dynamics. Birkhoff's research was presented in his texts on fluid dynamics, "Hydrodynamics" (1950) and "Jets, Wakes and Cavities" (1957). Birkhoff, a friend of John von Neumann, took a close interest in the rise of the electronic computer. Birkhoff supervised the Ph.D. thesis of David M. Young on the numerical solution of the partial differential equation of Poisson, in which Young proposed the successive over-relaxation (SOR) method. Birkhoff then worked with Richard S. Varga, a former student, who was employed at Bettis Atomic Power Laboratory of the Westinghouse Electronic Corporation in Pittsburgh and was helping to design nuclear reactors. Extending the results of Young, the Birkhoff-Varga collaboration led to many publications on positive operators and iterative methods for "p"-cylic matrices. Birkhoff's research and consulting work (notably for General Motors) developed computational methods besides numerical linear algebra, notably the representation of smooth curves via cubic splines. Birkhoff published more than 200 papers and supervised more than 50 Ph.D.s. He was a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
1015825	Casino Raiders is a 1989 Hong Kong action drama film written and directed by Jimmy Heung and Wong Jing and starring Andy Lau, Alan Tam, Idy Chan and Rosamund Kwan. It belonged to the early part of the 1989-1996 period, a period when films with gambling-themed were dominating the Hong Kong movie scene. The film was followed by two sequels "No Risk, No Gain" (1990) and "Casino Raiders II" (1991) which have new storylines. Synopsis. The movie focuses heavily on decisions made by the four main characters (asking what is absolutely paramount), which ultimately lead to the climax of the movie.
1035808	Margaret John (14 December 1926 – 2 February 2011) was a Welsh, BAFTA award-winning actress, best known for her role as Doris in "Gavin & Stacey". She has been described, by fellow actress Ruth Jones, as "an absolute national treasure". Early life. Born in Swansea, as a child she wanted to be a nurse or veterinarian, but she could not stand the sight of blood. She occasionally acted at school with her sister Mair. Spotted while acting in a chapel pagent competition, after an audition John trained at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art, graduating in 1950. Career. Margaret John's first public appearances were at Swansea's Grand Theatre, where she had small parts in weekly repertoire. Not being a fluent Welsh speaker, she found some productions in Welsh at times challenging. After appearances on radio and in the theatre, she made her television debut in 1956 in a Welsh language drama. Her television roles included appearances on episodes of "The First Lady", "The Troubleshooters", "Softly, Softly", "The Mike Yarwood Show", "Doomwatch", "Blake's 7", "Secret Army", "Lovejoy", "My Family", "High Hopes", "The District Nurse", "Casualty", and "Doctors". On Radio 4, she appeared on "Linda Smith's A Brief History of Timewasting" and played Mrs Stone, the school secretary, in the original ten series of "King Street Junior" from 1985 to 1998. In a career that spanned more than fifty years, she appeared in such television programmes including: "Coronation Street", "Dixon of Dock Green", "Z-Cars", "Doctor Who", "Little Britain", "Emmerdale", "Last of the Summer Wine", "Crossroads", "Gavin and Stacey and "The Mighty Boosh". In the early 1980s, she enjoyed a long run on ITV's daily soap opera Crossroads as doctors' receptionist Marian Owen. But between 2007 and 2010, she portrayed the suggestive neighbour Doris, cannabis-smoking, raunchy and much given to toyboys, in the BBC comedy series "Gavin & Stacey". At the 18th BAFTA Cymru Film, Television and Interactive Media Awards on 17 May 2009, at the Wales Millennium Centre in Cardiff Bay, in a ceremony hosted by Gethin Jones, John was presented with the Lifetime Achievement Award. In September 2009, John appeared in the graphic short film "Cow" by director Peter Watkins Hughes warning of the dangers of texting while driving. Also in 2009, John appeared in "The Vagina Monologues", before which her last theatre production was in the 1980s in "Medea" at London's Young Vic Theatre, opposite Eileen Atkins. John appeared on stage in "Calendar Girls" at the Wales Millennium Centre from 27 July to 7 August 2010 and at Venue Cymru, Llandudno from 9 to 14 August 2010, alongside fellow Welsh actress Ruth Madoc, playing Lady Cravenshire, the judge of the WI's cake competition. She also starred in the 2009 low-budget film "A Bit of Tom Jones?", a bawdy farce about the Welsh singer's penis. In March 2010 she appeared in the BBC One Wales programme "Margaret John - National Treasure", which featured clips from the last 50 years of television and special guest interviews with, amongst others, Ruth Jones, Eve Myles and Joanna Page. The programme was broadcast again, in tribute to John, on 5 February 2011. She also featured in a short BBC video in which she cooked Welsh cakes for St. David's Day. Her last appearance on screen was in the new HBO drama "Game of Thrones" on 8 May 2011. She also had still been busy working in the previous month. Personal life. Aged 48, she married Ben Thomas, a viola player who performed with both the London Symphony Orchestra and Frank Sinatra. He died aged 39, three years after they married, and she did not remarry. They had no children. Ben also did world tours with Gladys Knight and the Pips, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Sammy Davis Jnr. He was a Top of the Pops band member for several years and appears on many music albums as a session musician the 1970s, from the Moody Blues (he plays a solo on "Knights in White Satin)to Frank Zappa. He was in the front row of the band in the famous Morecombe & Wise sketch with Andre previn. An obsessive jigsaw fan, knitter, and solitaire player, she regularly worked for many charities, including: Sport Relief, Children in Need, Comic Relief, the PDSA and the George Thomas Hospice. She was also the face of the National Lottery AdvantAGE campaign, created to provide opportunities for older people. In her eighties she would happily drive to London and usually turned down any offer of a lift to the studios or locations. Death. Margaret John died in hospital in her home town of Swansea on 2 February 2011 after a short illness of Liver carcinoma. Just before her death, Swansea University awarded her an Honorary Fellowship for her exemplary and inspiring character in relation to old age, particularly as she continued acting until she became ill shortly before her death. The award was received by her close nephew, Chris Davies, at a ceremony in the Brangwyn Hall, Swansea
1065832	Pretty Maids All in a Row is an American mystery film that is part dark comedy, part murder mystery. It starred Rock Hudson alongside Angie Dickinson, and was released on April 28, 1971. Roger Vadim directed the film, which Gene Roddenberry produced, having dramatized a novel written by Francis Pollini into the screenplay from which Vadim worked. "Pretty Maids" was Vadim's first American film. The April 1971 issue of "Playboy" magazine published an article about the movie written by Vadim. This includes a nine-page pictorial of actresses Angie Dickinson, Gretchen Burrell, Aimee Eccles, Margaret Markov, "Playboy" bunny Joyce Williams, and others. Quentin Tarantino selected this film as one of his choices for "Sight & Sound" magazine's 2012 edition of Top 10 Greatest Films of All Time. Basic synopsis. The story is set in "Oceanfront High School," a fictitious American high school in the height of the sexual revolution. Young female students are being targeted by an unknown serial killer. Meanwhile, a male student called Ponce is experiencing sexual frustration, surrounded by a seemingly unending stream of beautiful and sexually provocative classmates. Michael "Tiger" McDrew (Hudson) is the high school's football coach and guidance counselor. But there is another aspect of Tiger's character: He is quite fond of sexual encounters with female students. Tiger tries to befriend Ponce and help him deal with his sexual needs by encouraging him to seek the affections of a sexy substitute teacher, Miss Betty Smith (Dickinson). Meanwhile, one young girl after another turns up dead. A police detective captain, Sam Surcher (Telly Savalas), investigates the case but never obtains enough courtroom-admissible evidence to make an arrest. Tiger is suspected, but never caught red-handed. Surcher suspects that Tiger has faked his own death when he notices that his supposed widow is hiding a ticket to Brazil. Primary cast. The "Pretty Maids:"
1073525	Countdown to Looking Glass is a Canadian made-for-television movie that premiered in the United States on HBO on 14 October 1984 and was also broadcast on CTV in Canada. The movie presents a fictional confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union over the Strait of Hormuz, the gateway to the Persian Gulf. The narrative of the film details the events that lead up to the initial exchange of nuclear weapons, which was triggered by a banking crisis, from the perspective of an on-going news broadcast. Synopsis. The film begins with a fictional broadcast from the network CVN's nightly program, starring Don Tobin (Watson), with reports from correspondents Michael Boyle (Glenn) and Dorian Waldorf (Shaver), which discusses a terrorist bombing of the American embassy in Saudi Arabia that killed the American ambassador. It then recaps the previous week, which began with a global banking crisis caused by several South American countries defaulting on their loans, and leading to turmoil in the Middle East. Before the unrest spread to Saudi Arabia, Soviet-backed militants led a coup in Oman when the Omani economy collapsed. Shortly after, a new report shows that the banking crisis may soon begin to ease. The following day, it is revealed that a large military operation was launched to keep the peace in Saudi Arabia, with many American soldiers, ships, and planes being sent at King Fahd's request. This move was heavily criticized both abroad and domestic. In response to this move, which the Soviet Union saw as provocative, the Soviet-backed puppet government in Oman imposes a $10,000 toll for every oil tanker who wished to pass through the Strait of Hormuz into the Persian Gulf. The Soviet government claimed it would remove the toll if the Americans withdrew their troops from Saudi Arabia. The captains of the tankers refuse to pay the toll, effectively creating an economic blockade in which no oil could be transported through the Persian Gulf.
583113	Virruddh... Family Comes First (English: "Opposites") is a Hindi film, released in 2005, directed by Mahesh Manjrekar. The film stars Amitabh Bachchan, Sharmila Tagore, Sanjay Dutt and John Abraham. "Viruddh" is one among relatively few Hindi films that is not a musical, instead the soundtrack is primarily used as background. Plot. The movie begins with Amar telling the story of his family and himself. Amar is the son of Vidyadhar and Sumitra Patwardhan, a middle class couple in India. Amar lives and works in London and he sends some of his salary to them. One day Amar returns home with Jenny Mayer, his girlfriend, and announces his intention to get married to her. Initially reluctant, his parents are pleased and happy for the two. One day, Amar goes out celebrating with his friends, whilst his parents and Jenny organise a surprise party for him. Outside a pub, Amar witnesses a murder and, while trying to apprehend the killer, he gets mortally wounded in the fight. Amar succumbs in the hospital. The assailant is identified as Harshwardhan Kadam, son of a minister Kadam. Soon, the police start covering the case up. Amar is implicated in false charges of drug peddling. Witnesses and close friends of Amar too give false statements. The torture doesn't end there, as police try to implicate Jenny as his accompolice. Vidyadhar decides that it is not good for Jenny to live there, especially since she is expecting Amar's child. Vidyadhar bails her out and implores her to return before she is locked up for good. Harshwardhan goes scot free meanwhile and Vidyadhar decides to seek justice on his own. Ali Asgar, a mechanic and an acquaintance of Patwardhan's, decides to help them. Soon, Ali succeeds in procuring a gun for Vidyadhar. Vidyadhar decides to confront Harshwardhan in his own office. Harshwardhan cockily lets him enter in and starts taunting him. Vidyadhar accuses him and Harshwardhan arrongantly confesses his crimes, telling Vidyadhar that he cannot prove a thing. Vidyadhar points the gun at him, upon which Harshwardhan calls his guards. Vidyadhar guns down Harshwardhan and the guards enter in moments later Harshwardhan's dead body collapses down. Harshwardhan's head guard lets Vidyadhar go, claiming that he won't be able to look at his family in the eye if he arrests Vidyadhar. A case stands up against Vidyadhar, where he reveals a pocket tape recorder on which the whole confession of Harshwardhan is recorded. Based on the proof, Amar is exonerated of all false charges levelled up against him. Vidyadhar is also set free. In an interview, Vidyadhar makes it clear that he doesn't intend to sue Kadam since his son has been killed and Vidyadhar knows the pain. In the end, it is shown that Vidyadhar is living a happy life with Sumitra, Jenny, and his grandchild. Amar now explains that his father has always been a hero for him since childhood and he is feeling a little jealous of his daughter who is being treated with same affection with which Vidyadhar treated Amar in his childhood. The movie ends with Amar disappearing in light claiming now he can rest in peace. Music. The song "Shree Ganeshay Dheemanhi" was selected from one of the Stavanas of Lord Ganesha from Marathi music maestro Ajay-Atul.
585825	Mala Aravindan is a Malayalam film actor. Biography. He was born in Kerala, India as the eldest son of Ayyappan, an Excise department employee and Ponnamma, a school teacher. Later, he relocated to Mala and started using the place name along with his name. Aravindan started his career as a Tabala artist. He joined stage plays and started playing Tabala as a background artist. Later, he moved into acting and started acting in professional stage plays of Kottayam National Theaters, Nadakashala, Sooryasoma, etc. He has won Kerala State Nadaka Academy's Best Actor award for his role in Sooryasoma's play "Nidhi". Aravindan started his film career with the 1968 movie "Sindhooram", directed by Balakrishnan. Since then he has acted in over 400 films and established his own style which became his trademark. During the initial stages of his career, the Mala-Pappu-Jagathy trio was a guaranteed crowd-puller among Malayalam film audiences. Family. The couple have two Children, Muthu and Kala. Muthu is married to Deepthi and is blessed with a son Vedavyasan . Kala is married to Surendran and is blessed with Devi and Appu.
586628	Lisa Rani Ray, (লিসা রে)(Bengali) born 4 April 1972, is a Canadian actress, model, host, philanthropist and social activist. Early life. Lisa Ray was born in Toronto to a Hindu Bengali Indian father and a Polish mother and grew up in the suburb of Etobicoke. She spent some time of her childhood at Shyambazar (Kolkata). She excelled academically, doing five years of high school in four, while attending three different high schools: Etobicoke Collegiate Institute, Richview Collegiate Institute, and Silverthorn Collegiate Institute. She spoke Polish to her maternal grandmother and watched movies of Federico Fellini and Satyajit Ray with her cinephile dad. Ray was spotted by an agent in a crowd during a family vacation in India when she was 16, when she began modelling. Career. 1987–2000. Lisa Ray came to public attention when she appeared in an advertisement for Bombay Dyeing wearing a high-cut black swimsuit, opposite Karan Kapoor. Subsequently, she returned to Canada to attend university to study journalism, but a car accident that injured her mother derailed those plans. Instead, she returned to India, where she appeared on the cover of Glad Rags wearing a red "Baywatch"-style swimsuit. The sensation that that caused led to more magazine covers, spokesperson deals, and a job as host of her own show-business program. A "Times of India" poll named her the "ninth most beautiful woman of the millennium," the only model in the top ten. She also anchored the TV show Star Biz on Star Movies, with actor/model Kelly Dorji. Ray made her cinematic debut in 1994 in the Tamil film Nethaji, opposite actor Sarath Kumar, in which she appeared in a brief role. Later, she acted in the Telugu film "Takkari Donga", opposite Mahesh Babu. In 1996, Ray appeared in the famous song "Afreen Afreen," by Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, and appeared in the song "Har Taraf Tera Jalwa," by Daler Mehndi, in 1998. Ray became the enduring brand ambassador for Rado Watches in India. 2001–2009. After turning down a number of roles, Ray made her Indian Film Industry debut in 2001 with the film "Kasoor," opposite Aftab Shivdasani, in which her voice was dubbed by Divya Dutta, because she could not speak Hindi. Interestingly, actress Divya Dutta also starred in the same film, but because she had already given her voice to Lisa Ray, Dutta's voice was dubbed by another artist—just to make her own character believable. Her work in that film caught the eye of Deepa Mehta, who cast Ray in the romantic Indian-Canadian romp "Bollywood/Hollywood," in 2002. Realizing that acting was something that she wanted to pursue more seriously, Ray moved to London to concentrate on a career in the performing arts. While there, Ray studied at the Central School of Speech and Drama, The London Centre for Theatre Studies, The Desmond Jones school of Physical Theatre, and BADA. She graduated from the Academy of Live and Recorded Arts (ALRA), in 2004, with a post-graduate degree in acting. While studying, Ray made a conscious effort to not accept any film offers until she had graduated. However, while still at ALRA, she received another call from Deepa Mehta, who made her an offer she simply could not refuse—the lead role of Kalyani in Mehta's highly controversial and much-anticipated feature "Water". In 2005, Ray worked again with Mehta, in the Oscar-nominated film "Water," in which she spoke her lines in Hindi, although her voice was dubbed in the final cut. Since then, Ray has worked in productions from Canada, Europe, and the United States. Past roles include a farm girl in "All Hat," a school teacher in "A Stone's Throw," a housewife in 1950s-apartheid South Africa in "The World Unseen," and an Arab lesbian in the humorously titled "I Can't Think Straight," directed by Shamim Sarif. "I think every film that I’ve done so far has been a turning point because I experimented with each one and grew professionally. The movies I chose, dealt with a lot of thought-provoking subjects." After graduation, Ray based herself out of Milan, Paris, and New York from 2004–2008, returning to Toronto when her beloved mother passed away in late 2008. In 2007, Ray completed filming for "Kill Kill Faster Faster", which is a contemporary film noir inspired by the critically acclaimed novel of the same name, by Joel Rose. She appeared in a few uninhibited sex scenes, "something unheard of for an artist from India." In 2009, Ray was named 'Trailblazer' at the Reelworld Film Festival and was featured as one of the '50 Most Beautiful People' of the country in the Canadian edition of Hello magazine, May 2009 issue. Ray guest-starred in the USA Network series "Psych", directed by Jay Chandrasekhar, which aired on 30 November 2009. She also appeared in a guest role of a reporter, Dominique Ball, in the recent Woody Harrelson movie "Defendor". Ray attended the Toronto International Film Festival in support of her work in "Cooking with Stella". At this event, Ray revealed that she had incurable cancer, and she shared the diagnosis of Multiple Myeloma with the media and the public. At the same time, Ray started an acclaimed blog, The Yellow Diaries, chronicling her cancer experience. "I believe it can be cured," Ray wrote on her blog. "That's the Dirty Realist in me... I'm getting better. My prognosis, given my 'junior' status and stage of disease, is very good. I'm aiming for full remission." Ray went on to help raise funds for the establishment of the first research chair for Multiple Myeloma at Princess Margaret Hospital in Toronto. Also, she took part in Plan Canada’s "Because I Am A Girl" campaign, a global movement that fights for the rights of girls around the world who face discrimination because of their gender and age. On Christmas in 2009, Ray received a stem cell transplant to treat her rare cancer. 2010–present. In April 2010, Ray announced that she was cancer-free, after a stem cell transplant. Ray gave a candid interview on her personal cancer trauma and surviving it, appearing on the cover of the 2010 anniversary issue of the Indian men's luxury magazine "The Man". Ray was seen in UniGlobe Entertainment's cancer docu-drama titled "1 a Minute", scheduled for release in 2010. The documentary was made by Namrata Singh Gujral and featured cancer survivors Olivia Newton-John, Diahann Carroll, Melissa Etheridge, Mumtaz, and Jaclyn Smith, as well as William Baldwin, Daniel Baldwin, and Priya Dutt, whose lives have been touched by cancer. The feature was narrated by Kelly McGillis. It also starred Bárbara Mori, Deepak Chopra, and Morgan Brittany. On 16 November 2010, TLC India announced that it would film a new 5-part series, "Oh My Gold" (OMG), with Lisa Ray. It premiered in 2011. The series "Oh My Gold" was set against the cultural-yet-contemporary backdrop of India. Uncovering the beauty of various cities, Ray played both a host and a travel guide. Ray has since become an outspoken advocate for stem cell technology, recording a PSA for the McEwan Centre for Regenerative Medicine. Also, she completed a national media tour in Canada for Multiple Myeloma called "Making Myeloma Matter", in early 2011, to raise public awareness. In 2011, Ray acted in the acclaimed stage play "Taj", opposite Kabir Bedi in Luminato. Also, Ray was at the Taj Mahal and the "Estee Lauder Breast Cancer event" to spread awareness about breast cancer. On 5 July 2010, Ray was honored to be a host of the informal lunch for Queen Elizabeth's visit to Toronto. Ray also hosted the 2011 International Indian Film Academy "IIFA Rocks" fashion and music event and was a presenter at the IIFA Awards and the 2011 Giller Prize. A strong advocate of stem cell research and a long-time yoga practitioner, Ray partnered with co-owners Paris and Annette, in 2011, to open Moksha Yoga Brampton. On 15 November 2011, Ray announced that she had been named to host season two of "Top Chef Canada", which is Food Network Canada's top-rated series. The show premiered in March 2012. Ray had one TV series "Endgame" and one film "Patch Town" released in 2011. Also, Ray guest-starred in the Canadian-television drama series "Murdoch Mysteries", which aired on 12 April 2011. On 18 May 2012, Craig Goodwill announced that Lisa Ray would star in his "Boy Toy", a fantasy drama that is based on Goodwill’s short film "Patch Town". "Boy Toy" begins shooting in Toronto in November 2012. In September 2012, Ray was named ambassador for the "Pantene Beautiful Lengths" campaign in Canada. "Pantene Beautiful Lengths" is a charity campaign that asks people to grow and donate their hair to make real-hair wigs for women battling cancer. Personal life. On 23 June 2009, Ray was diagnosed with multiple myeloma, a cancer of the white blood cells known as plasma cells, which produce antibodies. It is a rare disease. In April 2010, she announced that she was cancer-free, after a stem cell transplant. As multiple myeloma is an incurable disease, Ray is not completely cured of the disease In February 2012, Ray announced her engagement to management consultant Jason Dehni. On 20 October 2012, Ray and Dehni (then a banking executive and philanthropist) were married in the Napa Valley, in California. Filmography. Film & TV series. All are English language films unless otherwise noted.
1059691	Anthony Howard "Tony" Goldwyn (born May 20, 1960) is an American actor and director. He portrayed the villain Carl Bruner in "Ghost", Colonel Bagley in "The Last Samurai", and the voice of the title character of the Disney animated "Tarzan". He stars in the ABC drama "Scandal", as Fitzgerald Grant III, President of the United States. Early life. Goldwyn was born in Los Angeles, California, the son of actress Jennifer Howard and film producer Samuel Goldwyn, Jr. Goldwyn's paternal grandparents were mogul Samuel Goldwyn and actress Frances Howard, while his maternal grandparents were playwright Sidney Howard and actress Clare Eames. Goldwyn attended Hamilton College in Clinton, New York, Brandeis University in Waltham, Massachusetts (where he received his B.F.A), and the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art. Personal life. Goldwyn has been married to production designer Jane Michelle Musky since 1987. The couple has two daughters. Career. Goldwyn's best remembered role is most likely that of Carl Bruner, friend-turned-betrayer of Patrick Swayze's character Sam Wheat in "Ghost". He is also well known for his turn on the comedy series, "Designing Women" in which he played a young interior designer named Kendall Dobbs who was HIV positive, and asked the women of Sugarbakers to design his funeral. In the HBO miniseries "From the Earth to the Moon", Goldwyn played astronaut Neil Armstrong, commander of Apollo 11. He also voiced the title character from 1999 animated feature film, "Tarzan", produced by Walt Disney Feature Animation and reprised the role in the video games "Disney's Tarzan Untamed" and "Kingdom Hearts". He had a recurring role on the NBC-Universal drama "" as Frank Goren, brother of lead character Robert Goren, played by Vincent D'Onofrio. Acting and directing duties for the first season of "Dexter" for Showtime (Brother John Goldwyn is Executive Producer). As a stage actor, Goldwyn has appeared twice in Off-Broadway shows at Second Stage Theatre and on Broadway at Circle in the Square Theatre. At Second Stage he appeared in Theresa Rebeck's "Spike Heels" (1992) alongside Kevin Bacon and Julie White. Most recently, in the summer of 2006 at Second Stage Theatre he starred opposite Kate Burton in another Rebeck play, "The Water's Edge". Goldwyn played J.D. Sheldrake, the philandering business executive, in the Broadway musical "Promises, Promises" starring Sean Hayes and Kristin Chenoweth. The cast recording was released on June 23, 2010, with Goldwyn in three tracks. Goldwyn played Captain von Trapp (opposite Laura Osnes as Maria) in a concert performance of "The Sound of Music" at Carnegie Hall on April 25, 2012. The benefit included opera singer Stephanie Blythe as the Mother Abbess, Brooke Shields as Baroness Schraeder and Patrick Page as Max.
1125915	Joshua Aaron "Josh" Server (born April 11, 1979) is an American actor and comedian, best known for being the only "All That" cast member to remain through all six original seasons. Acting career. Server received a call from his agent for an audition for "All That". He stated that he went through a series of auditions to get on the show, which came to a total of 5-6 auditions for the directors/producers. And later, he became an original regular along with co-stars, "Angelique Bates, Lori Beth Denberg, Katrina Johnson, Kel Mitchell, Alisa Reyes, and Kenan Thompson". Server began on "All That" at age 14 to tape the pilot for the show. His characters include Detective Dan, Earboy, Jimmy Bond Agent 1/7, and Bernie Kibbitz. In 1997, he and a few cast members starred in the 1997 feature film "Good Burger" (based on the "All That" sketch of the same name). While he was on "All That", Server made guest appearances on other Nickelodeon shows. He appeared in a Season 3 episode of "The Secret World of Alex Mack" in 1996. Starting in 1997, he and other "All That" alumni were panelists on the Nickelodeon game show, "Figure It Out" where he appeared until 1998. In 1999, he then appeared in the Season 3 finale of "Kenan & Kel", and the pilot for "The Amanda Show", along with "All That" fellow alumnus, Kenan Thompson. After "All That". After he and the last cast members of the original "All That" had left, he moved on to host "Oh Yeah! Cartoons" for Season 3 in 2000-2001. Afterward, he made another guest appearance in a Season 3 episode of "100 Deeds for Eddie McDowd" in 2002. Server made a comeback in 2005, by returning to "All That" in the 10th Anniversary, reprising a few of his characters. In 2006, he made a guest appearance in a Season 3 episode of "Drake & Josh".
588680	Paan Singh Tomar (1932 – October 1, 1981) was an Indian soldier, athlete, and baghee (rebel). He served in the Indian Army, where his talent for running was discovered. He was a seven-time national steeplechase champion in the 1950s and 1960s, and represented India at the 1958 Asian Games. After a premature retirement from the army, he returned to his native village. He later gained notoriety as a Chambal Valley dacoit when he resorted to banditry after a land feud there. In 1981, he was killed by the Indian law enforcement authorities. Early life. Tomar was born in Bhind in Madhya Pradesh. His father was Havaldar Singh Tomar, and he had a brother named Harsh Singh Tomar. Sports. Paan Singh Tomar was not interested in steeplechase running at first, but discovered it in the military. He went on to be the national champion of steeplechasing for seven years. His national record of nine minutes and four seconds in the 3000 meter steeplechase event remained unbroken for 10 years. He was not allowed to fight in the 1962 and 1965 wars due to his career in sports, which ended in 1972. After retirement. After retiring, he returned to his village Bhind. There arose a land dispute between him and Babu Singh. Babu Singh was the head of a 250 member family, and, had seven licensed guns. To solve the dispute, a panchayat was held with the collector where Tomar was asked to give 3,000 to Babu Singh for his own land; Tomar obliged. However, his nephew retaliated as he was paying money for his own land. The collector promised to return in 15 days. In the meantime, Babu Singh came to Tomar's house and beat up his 95 year old mother. She asked Tomar to take revenge by morning if he was truly her son. Balwanta and Tomar went to the fields where they found Babu. Tomar shot Babu, who continued to run for about a kilometer before he fell down.He later gave an interview to a local newspaper in Gwalior which may have prompted the administration to start taking his case seriously, considering this an act of defiance. At that time, there was a price of 10,000 on his head. As per an interview he gave, he did not want to kill the eight gujjars whose family tip-off led to the killing of his elder brother Matadin, but he could not stop his nephew Balwanta, who was Matadin's son. During the entire interview, he was toying with the bullet. Death. On October 1, 1981 the Circle Inspector Mahendra Pratap Singh Chauhan and his team of sixty trapped and killed Tomar. Ten other members of his gang were also killed. The gunfight lasted over 12 hours. Chauhan had been tipped off about Tomar's arrival by one of the village elders. According to newspaper reports it was reported that Tomar was shot when he was alive and was asking for water: "Any rajput here who could please give me some water"; Hawaldar Tribhuwan Singh started walking towards Tomar with some water but the Circle inspector shouted at him: "Tribhuwan, dacoit has no caste". Legacy. A biographic film, "Paan Singh Tomar", was released in 2012 to much critical acclaim. It was written by Sanjay Chouhan and directed by Tigmanshu Dhulia. It starred Irrfan Khan as Paan Singh Tomar, and Mahie Gill as his wife. On 18 March 2013, Irrfan Khan was awarded the Best Actor Award for 'Paan Singh Tomar' by the National Film Awards. The award citation reads, "A unique delineation of transformation of an international sportsperson to a dacoit. A difficult role very convincingly played. A well-calibrated performance that was masked by remarkably subtle underplay."
1064831	Columbus Keith Short, Jr. (born September 19, 1982) is an American choreographer, actor, and singer. He choreographed Britney Spears's Onyx Hotel Tour and worked with Brian Friedman (of "So You Think You Can Dance" fame). He is best known for his roles in the films "Stomp the Yard", "Cadillac Records", "Armored", and "The Losers". He stars as a series regular in the ABC drama "Scandal", as Harrison Wright. Personal life. Short was born in Kansas City, Missouri to a family he has described as "musical". He has two brothers, John Rancipher and Chris Staples. Short relocated to Los Angeles when he was five years old and immediately began working in a youth theater. He attended Marcos De Niza High School in Tempe, Arizona, as well as El Segundo High School and the Orange County High School of the Arts, before leaving to join the Broadway tour of Stomp. Short was married to Brandi Short but split from her in 2003. They have one son together. He was married to dancer Tanee McCall in 2005. In September of 2013 she filed for divorce. They have one daughter, Ayala, together. Career. Short's acting debut came as a dancer in "You Got Served" and he later appeared in "Accepted", starring Justin Long. He then took lead roles in the direct-to-DVD movie "Save the Last Dance 2" alongside Izabella Miko and "Stomp the Yard". He has also appeared twice in the Disney Channel Original Series "That's So Raven" as Trey, a member of the fictional Boy band "Boyz n' Motion". Other TV appearances include "ER" and "Judging Amy".
582705	Judwaa ('Twin') is an Indian Bollywood action comedy film directed by David Dhawan, starring Salman Khan opposite Karisma Kapoor and Rambha. Released on 7 February, 1997, the film went on to do well at the box office. This movie has Salman Khan doing a double role as estranged twins. The movie has some shades of Jackie Chan's movie "Twin Dragons" and is a remake of the Telugu movie "Hello Brother". A sequel to the film, "Judwaa 2" was announced with lead double role played by Saif Ali Khan and film being directed by Sajid Khan. The film is planned to release in early 2013. Plot. Mrs. Malhotra (Reema Lagoo) is the mother of twins, who were separated at birth, and she only has one son. Mrs. Malhotra goes into shock and then uses a . She resides with her husband and son in the US. Quiet and mature Prem, (Salman Khan) one of the twins, and his dad (Dalip Tahil) return to India together with Mrs. Malhotra to get Prem married. Prem's future fiance is the outgoing and percocious Mala (Karishma Kapoor), who is the daughter of Mr. Sharma (Kader Khan). There Prem meets with his twin brother very outgoing and precocious Raja (also Salman Khan), who looks like him, but is exactly the opposite in nature. A series of comic scenes result as a result of the twins getting together. Prem loves quiet and mature Roopa (Rambha) and Raja loves Mala (Karishma Kapoor), and both the girls are confused by the change they perceive in their respective lovers. To make matters worse, Tiger Ratanlal (Mukesh Rishi) has sworn vengeance against the Malhotra family for what they did to his dad (Deepak Shirke). Box office. According to Box Office India, it had an excellent opening, grossed 26.5 crore and worldwide 63 crore this film declared a hit by Box Office India. Music. The soundtrack of the film contains 6 songs. The music is composed by Anu Malik, with lyrics authorred by Dev Kohli.
1059977	Aleksa Palladino (born September 21, 1980) is an American actress and singer, perhaps best known for her lead roles in "Manny & Lo", "The Adventures of Sebastian Cole", "Find Me Guilty", "Boardwalk Empire", "", and "Before the Devil Knows You're Dead". Life and career. Palladino was born in New York City, where she grew up and worked as an actress. Her debut role was as "Lo" in the critically acclaimed "Manny & Lo" opposite Scarlett Johansson, where she played a 16 year old character despite being 14 at the time. The next year she was given her first lead role in the short film "Number One Fan" with Glenn Fitzgerald, and soon appeared in "Wrestling with Alligators" with Joely Richardson, the well-received "The Adventures of Sebastian Cole" with Adrien Grenier, and "Second Skin" with Fitzgerald again.
1044218	The L-Shaped Room is a 1962 British drama film, directed by Bryan Forbes, which tells the story of a young French woman, unmarried and pregnant, who moves into a London boarding house, befriending a young man in the building. It stars Leslie Caron and Tom Bell. The movie was adapted by Bryan Forbes from the novel by Lynne Reid Banks. Leslie Caron's performance won her the Golden Globe Award and BAFTA Award for best actress, and also earned her a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actress.
602254	Sabrina Goes to Rome is a 1998 television film produced for ABC. The film is a part of the "Sabrina, the Teenage Witch" TV series franchise and is the second TV film made for the series following the 1996 "Sabrina the Teenage Witch" film, which was produced before the TV series went into production. The film features only two main characters from the TV series, the protagonist Sabrina Spellman (played by Melissa Joan Hart), and other main character Salem Saberhagen (voiced by Nick Bakay). The film introduces the character of Gwen (played by Tara Strong), a British witch, whom Sabrina meets in Rome. As the film is set in Rome, none of the scenes are set on the original set of the TV series. The film was directed by Tibor Takács, the director of the original "Sabrina the Teenage Witch" film. Takács also directed an episode of the TV series. Due to the success of "Sabrina Goes to Rome", ABC produced a sequel titled "Sabrina, Down Under". This film again only included Sabrina and Salem from the TV series. Tara Strong reprised her role of Gwen for the second film. The film is included in the season 7 DVD release of the "Sabrina, the Teenage Witch" TV series. Plot. If Sabrina cannot open a mysterious antique gold locket and release the power trapped within, her Aunt Sophia will be lost forever. "The secret to the locket lies in Rome", says her father. Sabrina heads for Italy and the Eternal City of Rome, for what was supposed to be "two cat-less weeks" to herself, is accompanied by stowaway, Salem in her backpack. Sabrina finds an unexpected roommate: Gwen, a British witch with a talking guinea pig named Stonehenge (nicknamed "Stony").At the inn she stays at, she learns that her Aunt Sophia was banished and trapped in the locket because she fell in love with a mortal who betrayed Sophia and revealed to a friend that she was a witch.Later while travelling the city, she meets Paul, the gorgeous American photographer who grabs her before she falls into the famous Trevi Fountain.Together, Sabrina and Gwen set out to solve the mystery of the locket. When Paul and his friend Travis witness Sabrina doing magic,(while turning a walking statue to stone that Gwen brought life by accident) they come up with an idea to sell the story. In the end Paul doesn't betray Sabrina, which sets Aunt Sophia free, as the locket says "Trust your heart". Books. As part of the "Sabrina, the Teenage Witch" book collection, a book titled "Sabrina, the Teenage Witch: Sabrina Goes to Rome" is available. The book is written by the film's screenwriter Daniel Berendsen. It is unnumbered, as is the second film's book adaptation. The other books in the series are numbered in reading order. As part of the "Sabrina, the Teenage Witch: Salem's Tails" book collection, a book titled "Salem's Tails: Salem Goes to Rome" is available. The book tells Salem's tale of his trip to Rome. This book is also unnumbered.
1059931	Date Night is a 2010 romantic comedy crime film directed by Shawn Levy and starring Steve Carell and Tina Fey. It was released in the United States on April 9, 2010. For a time it was marketed as "Crazy Night" in Europe but later the title was changed back to the original "Date Night". Plot. Phil and Claire Foster (Steve Carell and Tina Fey) are a married couple from New Jersey with two children and whose domestic life has become boring and routine. Phil is a tax lawyer while Claire is a realtor. They are motivated to reignite their romance after learning that their best friends, Brad and Haley (Mark Ruffalo and Kristen Wiig), are planning to divorce to escape the married-life routine and to have more excitement in their lives. To avoid the routine that had become their weekly "date night", Phil decides that he will take Claire to a trendy Manhattan restaurant called "Claw", but they cannot get a table. Phil steals a reservation from a no-show couple, the Tripplehorns, despite Claire's misgivings. While eating they are approached by two men, Collins (Common) and Armstrong (Jimmi Simpson), who question them about a flash drive they believe Phil and Claire stole from mobster Joe Miletto (Ray Liotta). Phil and Claire try to explain that they are not the Tripplehorns, but the men threaten them at gunpoint. Not seeing any other way out, Phil tells them the flash drive is in a boathouse in Central Park. At the boathouse, Claire pretends to search; while Collins and Armstrong's backs are turned, Phil hits them with an oar and escapes with Claire on a boat, Collins and Armstrong shooting at them. At a police station, Phil and Claire talk with Detective Arroyo (Taraji P. Henson), but discover Collins and Armstrong are also detectives, presumably on Miletto's payroll. Realizing they cannot trust the police, they decide to find the real Tripplehorns. They return to the restaurant and find the Tripplehorns' phone number. Claire remembers a former client, Holbrooke Grant (Mark Wahlberg), is a security expert and James Bond-like action hero. He seems to never wear shirts and is sleeping with a gorgeous Israeli woman (who is relieved she and Grant won't have to have sex with the old, uninspiring-looking Fosters). At his apartment, Grant traces the Tripplehorns' cell phone signal to an apartment owned by a Tom Felton. Collins and Armstrong arrive, but Phil and Claire escape in Grant's Audi R8. They arrive at Felton's apartment and break in. They question Felton, nicknamed "Taste" (James Franco), and his wife "Whippit" (Mila Kunis) about the flash drive and Joe Miletto. It turns out that Taste and Whippit did go to the restaurant but left as soon as they spotted Collins and Armstrong outside. Realizing they are still in danger, Taste gives the flash drive to Phil and flees with Whippit. When Phil and Claire get back in the Audi, Armstrong and Collins chase and shoot at them. Phil and Claire crash the Audi head-on into a Ford Crown Victoria taxicab, resulting in their Audi and the cab being attached at the bumpers. Both windshields are shot out, so Phil and the cab driver (J. B. Smoove) agree to drive off under the Audi's power to get away. Phil climbs into the cab to help control it (in reverse) while Claire drives the Audi, Collins and Armstrong still pursuing along with other NYPD vehicles. Phil checks the flash drive on the cab driver's Amazon Kindle and finds pictures of district attorney Frank Crenshaw (William Fichtner) with prostitutes (early in the film, a press conference shows Crenshaw highlighting his integrity platform). After evading Collins and Armstrong, they are eventually hit, and are separated by, an SUV. Phil realizes that the cab's brakes have failed so the cab driver (now passenger) jumps free and Phil rides the car into the river; Phil swims away and later says the flash drive stayed in the river. On a subway train, Phil learns that Felton had obtained the flash drive to blackmail Crenshaw on behalf of Miletto. They return to Grant's apartment, and Grant reluctantly agrees to help them again. Phil and Claire go to an illegal strip club that Crenshaw frequents, with Claire under the guise of a new prostitute and Phil as her pimp. After doing a pole dance for Crenshaw, they confront him and tell him they are the Tripplehorns. Collins and Armstrong come in and hold them at gunpoint, taking them up to the roof with Crenshaw. Miletto arrives with henchmen and it is revealed that Crenshaw has been paid by Miletto to keep him out of jail. When Phil mentions the photos, a fight escalates between the mobsters and Crenshaw, Collins and Armstrong. Phil asks Claire to count to three, her typical method of calming their children. When she does, a helicopter appears and Arroyo and the SWAT team come onto the roof to arrest Miletto, Crenshaw, and everyone else. It is revealed that Phil was wearing a wire courtesy of Grant, who had informed Arroyo of the situation. Afterwards, Phil and Claire have breakfast at a diner, where Phil says he would marry Claire and have their kids all over again. When they return home, they kiss passionately on the front lawn, first time they kiss in the whole movie. Production. Filming began in mid-April 2009. Soundtrack. Confirmed songs for the soundtrack are listed below: Reception. Critical response. The film received mixed to positive reviews. Review aggregate Rotten Tomatoes reports that 68% of critics have given the film a positive review, based on 188 reviews, with an average score of 6.2/10. Another review aggregator, Metacritic, assigned the film a weighted average score of 56 out of 100 based on 37 reviews from mainstream critics. Roger Ebert gave the film three and a half stars and two thumbs up saying "If you don't start out liking the Fosters and hoping they have a really nice date night, not much else is going to work." Jim Vejvoda of IGN gave the movie 3 out of 5 stars saying "Date Night suggests a lot of comedic possibilities (Wahlberg's character being just one of them, and the Fosters' escape from the police station being another example) but it never quite capitalizes on all of these set-ups. Despite these shortcomings, the film still manages to be a lot of fun". Box office. On its opening weekend, 20th Century Fox reported that "Date Night" grossed $27.1 million, about $200,000 more than Warner Bros. reported for "Clash of the Titans". In a recount, "Clash of the Titans" retained the #1 spot for a second-straight weekend with $26.6 million. "Date Night" debuted at #2 with $25.2 million, nearly $2 million less than Fox had reported a day earlier. The film has gone on to gross $98,711,404 in the United States and Canada and $53,557,629 in other countries totaling a worldwide gross of $152,269,033. Awards and nominations. The film won the Teen Choice Award for Movie Comedy and Fey won the Teen Choice Award for Movie Actress: Comedy. Home media. "Date Night" was released on DVD and Blu-ray on August 10, 2010. The DVD includes both theatrical (88 minutes) and extended (101 minutes) versions of the film, alternate scenes, two featurettes, public service announcements, and a gag reel. The Blu-ray contained a digital copy while Target had an exclusive combo pack that contained the Blu-ray, a DVD copy, and a digital copy. The Target exclusive also had a different cover.
1705444	Vincent Michael Martella (born October 15, 1992) is an American actor, voice actor and singer. He is best known for his role as Greg Wuliger on the UPN/CW sitcom "Everybody Hates Chris", and for the voice of Phineas Flynn in Disney Channel's original animated show "Phineas and Ferb". Also, he is the voice of Hope Estheim in the 2010 video game "Final Fantasy XIII" and its sequels "Final Fantasy XIII-2" & "". Career. Martella appeared in the feature film "Role Models" starring Seann William Scott and Paul Rudd. He has a lead role in the film "" along with Bill Engvall and Billy Ray Cyrus. He also played Scoop in the show "Ned's Declassified School Survival Guide" and Greg in the show "Everybody Hates Chris". He recorded his first album "Time Flies By", playing the piano and singing. The album was written and co-produced by Vincent and is available on iTunes. He lives in DeLand, Florida with his mother, father and three siblings. Martella became known in the voice acting world by playing the voice of Phineas in the Disney show "Phineas and Ferb". He also provided the English voice of Hope Estheim, a main character in the 2010 video game "Final Fantasy XIII", and reprised his role for "Final Fantasy XIII-2". He did the voice of the teenage Jason Todd / Robin for the animated film "", in which his younger brother, Alexander, provided the voice for the child version of Todd. Personal life. Martella was born in Rochester, New York, and is of Italian descent. During his childhood, he moved south to Florida. He graduated from DeLand High School in 2011 and is studying for an online degree in business through the University of Florida. Martella is the son of Donna and Michael Martella. His father owns Captain Tony's, a chain of pizzerias.
1062796	Keri Lynn Russell (born January 17, 1976) is an American actress and dancer. After appearing in a number of made-for-TV films and series during the mid-1990s, she came to fame for portraying the title role of Felicity Porter on the series "Felicity", which ran from 1998 to 2002, and for which she won a Golden Globe Award. Russell has since appeared in several films including "" (2006), "Waitress" (2007), "August Rush" (2007), "Extraordinary Measures" (2010), "Dark Skies" (2013), and currently stars in the FX television series "The Americans". Early life. Russell was born in Fountain Valley, California, the daughter of Stephanie (née Stephens), a homemaker, and David Russell, a Nissan Motors executive. She has an older brother, Todd, and a younger sister, Julie. The family lived in Coppell, Texas; Mesa, Arizona; and Highlands Ranch, Colorado, moving frequently because of the father's employment. Russell's dancing earned her a spot on the "Mickey Mouse Club." Career. 1991–2002. Russell first appeared on television at age 15 as a cast member of the "All-New Mickey Mouse Club" variety show on the Disney Channel. She was on the show from 1991 to 1994 (Seasons 4-6) and co-starred with future actor Ryan Gosling and future pop stars Christina Aguilera, Britney Spears, JC Chasez, Justin Timberlake, Tony Lucca. In 1992, she appeared in "Honey, I Blew Up the Kid" alongside Rick Moranis and in 1993, had a role on the sitcom "Boy Meets World" as Mr. Feeny's niece. Russell appeared on "Married with Children" in a 1995 episode ("Radio Free Trumaine", production 9.24). She subsequently starred in several film and television roles, including the 1996 made-for-television film "The Babysitter's Seduction." That year she also had a role on the short-lived soap opera series "Malibu Shores." In 1994, she appeared as the "other woman" in Bon Jovi's music video "Always" with Jack Noseworthy, Carla Gugino, and Jason Wiles. In 1997, she appeared in two episodes of "Roar" alongside Heath Ledger. From 1998 to 2002, Russell starred as the title character on the successful WB Network series "Felicity"; she won a Golden Globe for the role in 1999. Russell's long and curly hair was one of her character's defining characteristics. A drastic hairstyle change at the beginning of the show's second season was thought to cause a significant drop in the show's television ratings. During the show's run, Russell appeared in the films "Eight Days a Week", "The Curve", and "Mad About Mambo", all of which received only limited releases in North America. Her next role was in the film "We Were Soldiers" (2002), playing the wife of a United States serviceman during the Vietnam War. The film was released two months before the end of "Felicity"'s run. 2003–present. When "Felicity" ended, Russell moved to New York City and made her off-Broadway stage debut in 2004, appearing opposite Jeremy Piven, Andrew McCarthy, and Ashlie Atkinson in Neil LaBute's "Fat Pig". In 2005, she returned to television and film, beginning with an appearance in the Hallmark Hall of Fame television movie "The Magic of Ordinary Days", theatrical film "The Upside of Anger" (alongside Kevin Costner, Joan Allen and Evan Rachel Wood), and the television miniseries "Into the West". Directing "" in 2005, J. J. Abrams asked Russell to join the cast and she accepted. She was screen tested for the role of Lois Lane in "Superman Returns" but lost the role to Kate Bosworth.
503558	The Meerkats, also known as Meerkats: The Movie, is a feature-length 2008 British wildlife fiction film which anthropomorphises the daily struggles of a clan of meerkats in the Kalahari Desert. It was produced by BBC Films and The Weinstein Company, and filmed by the award-winning BBC Natural History Unit. It is the debut directorial feature of James Honeyborne, previously a producer of natural history programmes for television. The worldwide premiere was held at the Dinard Film Festival, France in October 2008, expanding to a wide release the following week. The film was released in 2009, on 7 August in the UK. A US date has not yet been announced. This was in memory of legendary actor Paul Newman, who died the year this movie was released. This marked to be his last film. Plot. The documentary follows the adventure of a young meerkat who is forced to leave his home by a group of meerkats who wanted more territory. Lost in the African savannah, he tries to reunite with his family, but encounters large, fierce, and deadly creatures. Production. "The Meerkats" was announced in November 2006 as BBC Films and The Weinstein Company agreed a co-financing deal for the film, with The Weinstein Company also handling international distribution. The year-long principal photography began on location in the Kalahari Desert, South Africa in the same month. It became the Natural History Unit's first feature-length wildlife fiction based on original material, and followed the successes of "Earth" (2007) and "Deep Blue" (2003) which were both companion pieces to BBC television series. The script was written by Alexander McCall Smith, author of many books set in Botswana. Paul Newman provides the narration, which was recorded at a studio near his home shortly before his death. "The Meerkats" is believed to be one of the last film credits of his long career. "", a second feature-length wildlife film on meerkats, was also released in 2008. It was produced by Animal Planet, Discovery Films and Oxford Scientific Films, the makers of "Meerkat Manor", but was not screened in theatres. BBC Films' Joe Oppenheimer, a producer of "The Meerkats", has stated that the two films are very different in character (the BBC and Discovery originally planned to collaborate, but couldn't agree on a common ground). James Honeyborne has described "The Meerkats" as "a stand-alone, blue-chip wildlife film from the ground up. It will be immersive. There will be a huge sense of place on a massive scale. You will really see real wild animals." Reception. Writing in "The Guardian" reviewer Philip French noted that the "... nature movie made in the Kalahari desert has some good footage but is more Disney-anthropomorphic than Attenborough-authentic."
1056281	Yves Montand (; 13 October 1921 – 9 November 1991) was an Italian-born French actor and singer. Early life. Montand was born Ivo Livi in Monsummano Terme, Italy to Giuseppina (née Simoni) and Giovanni Livi, a broommaker. Giuseppina was a devout Catholic, while his father held strong Communist beliefs. Montand's family left for France in 1923 on account of Italy's Fascist regime. He grew up in Marseille, where, as a young man, he worked in his sister's barber shop, and later on the docks. He began a career in show business as a music-hall singer. In 1944, he was discovered by Édith Piaf in Paris and she made him part of her act. Career. Montand went on to international recognition as a singer and actor, starring in numerous films. His recognizably crooner songs, especially those about Paris, became instant classics. He was one of the most famous performers at Bruno Coquatrix's famous Paris Olympia music hall, and toured with musicians including Didi Duprat.
1165397	Gerald Mohr (June 11, 1914 – November 9, 1968) was an American radio, film and television character actor who appeared in more than 500 radio plays, 73 films and over 100 television shows. Life and career. Mohr was born in New York City, the son of Henrietta (née Neustadt), a singer, and Sigmond Mohr. He was educated in Dwight Preparatory School in New York City, where he learned to speak fluent French and German and also learned to ride horses and play the piano. At Columbia University, where he was on a course to become a doctor, Mohr was struck with appendicitis and was recovering in a hospital when another patient, a radio broadcaster, realised Mohr's pleasant baritone voice would be ideal for radio. Mohr was hired by the radio station and became a junior reporter. In the mid-1930s, Orson Welles invited him to join his formative Mercury Theatre. During his time with Welles, Mohr gained theatrical experience on Broadway in "The Petrified Forest" and starred in "Jean Christophe".
1063397	The Snake Pit is a 1948 American drama film directed by Anatole Litvak and stars Olivia de Havilland, Mark Stevens, Leo Genn, Celeste Holm, Beulah Bondi, and Lee Patrick. Based on Mary Jane Ward's 1946 semi-autobiographical novel of the same name, the film tells the story of a woman who finds herself in an insane asylum and cannot remember how she got there. The novel was adapted for the screen by Millen Brand, Arthur Laurents (uncredited) and Frank Partos. Plot. Virginia Cunningham (Olivia de Havilland) is an apparently schizophrenic inmate at a mental institution called the Juniper Hill State Hospital. She hears voices and seems so out of touch with reality that she doesn’t recognize her husband Robert (Mark Stevens). Dr. “Kik” (Leo Genn) works with her, and flashbacks show how Virginia and Robert met a few years earlier in Chicago. He worked for a publisher who rejected her writing, and they bumped into each other again in the cafeteria. Occasionally she continued to drop by the cafeteria so they get to know each other. Despite their blossoming romance, Virginia eventually abruptly leaves town without explanation. Robert moves to New York and bumps into her again at the Philharmonic. After she provides a loose excuse for her absence and departure, they pick up where they left off, though she remains evasive and avoids his desire for marriage. Eventually, Virginia brings up the possibility of marriage. They marry on May 7, but Virginia acts erratically again. She can’t sleep and loses touch with reality, as she feels it is November and snaps when Robert corrects her. The rest of the film follows her therapy. Dr. Kik puts her through shock treatment and other forms of treatment including hypnotherapy. Dr. Kik wants to get to the “causes of her unconscious rejection.” The film includes many flashbacks, including her earlier failed engagement to Gordon (Leif Erickson) as well as childhood concerns. The film shows her progress and what happens to her along the way. The mental hospital is organized on a spectrum of "levels." The better a patient gets, the lower level she is able to achieve. Virginia moves to the lowest level (One), but there she encounters Nurse Davis (Helen Craig) who is the only cruel nurse in the hospital. Jealous of Dr. Kik's professional interest in Virginia, and in her eyes excessive concern, Nurse Davis is so severe with Virginia that she goads her into an outburst which results in her being expelled from first level in a straight jacket.
583042	Dil Ne Jise Apna Kahaa (Hindi: दिल ने जिसे अपना कहा, Urdu: دل نے جسے اپنا کہا, English: The One Who My Heart Longs For) is a 2004 Bollywood film directed by Atul Agnihotri. The film was Agnihotri's first film as a director. The film stars Salman Khan, Preity Zinta, Bhoomika Chawla, Delnaaz Paul, Riya Sen and Helen. It is a remake of an English Movie Return to Me (2000)Starring David Duchovny, Minnie Driver. Plot. "Dil Ne Jise Apna Kahaa" begins with Rishabh (Salman Khan) and Pari (Preity Zinta) who are deeply in love. He is a wealthy young man, working in an advertising agency while she is a hardworking, dedicated doctor. They marry and soon Pari is pregnant. Pari has a dream to create a hospital for children. Tragically, she is involved in an accident and dies in hospital. Pari's last wish was to donate her heart to her patient Dhani (Bhoomika Chawla). Rishabh is devastated and opposes the plan to donate the heart; he goes ahead with Pari's last request: the creation of a children's hospital.
1100386	Augustus De Morgan (27 June 1806 – 18 March 1871) was a British mathematician and logician. He formulated De Morgan's laws and introduced the term mathematical induction, making its idea rigorous. Biography. Childhood. Augustus De Morgan was born in Madurai, Madras Presidency, India in 1806. His father was Colonel Augustus De Morgan, who held various appointments in the service of the East India Company. His mother descended from James Dodson, who computed a table of anti-logarithms, that is, the numbers corresponding to exact logarithms. Augustus De Morgan became blind in one eye a month or two after he was born. The family moved to England when Augustus was seven months old. As his father and grandfather had both been born in India, De Morgan used to say that he was neither English, nor Scottish, nor Irish, but a Briton "unattached", using the technical term applied to an undergraduate of Oxford or Cambridge who is not a member of any one of the Colleges. When De Morgan was ten years old, his father died. Mrs. De Morgan resided at various places in the southwest of England, and her son received his elementary education at various schools of no great account. His mathematical talents went unnoticed until he was fourteen, when a family-friend discovered him making an elaborate drawing of a figure in Euclid with ruler and compasses. She explained the aim of Euclid to Augustus, and gave him an initiation into demonstration. He received his secondary education from Mr. Parsons, a fellow of Oriel College, Oxford, who appreciated classics better than mathematics. His mother was an active and ardent member of the Church of England, and desired that her son should become a clergyman; but by this time De Morgan had begun to show his non-conforming disposition. University education. In 1823, at the age of sixteen, he entered Trinity College, Cambridge, where he came under the influence of George Peacock and William Whewell, who became his lifelong friends; from the former he derived an interest in the renovation of algebra, and from the latter an interest in the renovation of logic—the two subjects of his future life work. His college tutor was John Philips Higman, FRS (1793--1855). At college he played the flute for recreation and was prominent in the musical clubs. His love of knowledge for its own sake interfered with training for the great mathematical race; as a consequence he came out fourth wrangler. This entitled him to the degree of Bachelor of Arts; but to take the higher degree of Master of Arts and thereby become eligible for a fellowship it was then necessary to pass a theological test. To the signing of any such test De Morgan felt a strong objection, although he had been brought up in the Church of England. In about 1875 theological tests for academic degrees were abolished in the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge. London University. As no career was open to him at his own university, he decided to go to the Bar, and took up residence in London; but he much preferred teaching mathematics to reading law. About this time the movement for founding London University (now University College London) took shape. The two ancient universities of Oxford and Cambridge were so guarded by theological tests that no Jew or Dissenter outside the Church of England could enter as a student, still less be appointed to any office. A body of liberal-minded men resolved to meet the difficulty by establishing in London a University on the principle of religious neutrality. De Morgan, then 22 years of age, was appointed professor of mathematics. His introductory lecture "On the study of mathematics" is a discourse upon mental education of permanent value, and has been recently reprinted in the United States. The London University was a new institution, and the relations of the Council of management, the Senate of professors and the body of students were not well defined. A dispute arose between the professor of anatomy and his students, and in consequence of the action taken by the Council, several professors resigned, headed by De Morgan. Another professor of mathematics was appointed, who then drowned a few years later. De Morgan had shown himself a prince of teachers: he was invited to return to his chair, which thereafter became the continuous centre of his labours for thirty years. The same body of reformers—headed by Lord Brougham, a Scotsman eminent both in science and politics who had instituted the London University—founded about the same time a Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge. Its object was to spread scientific and other knowledge by means of cheap and clearly written treatises by the best writers of the time. One of its most voluminous and effective writers was De Morgan. He wrote a great work on "The Differential and Integral Calculus" which was published by the Society; and he wrote one-sixth of the articles in the "Penny Cyclopedia", published by the Society, and issued in penny numbers. When De Morgan came to reside in London he found a congenial friend in William Frend, notwithstanding his mathematical heresy about negative quantities. Both were arithmeticians and actuaries, and their religious views were somewhat similar. Frend lived in what was then a suburb of London, in a country-house formerly occupied by Daniel Defoe and Isaac Watts. De Morgan with his flute was a welcome visitor. The London University of which De Morgan was a professor was a different institution from the University of London. The University of London was founded about ten years later by the Government for the purpose of granting degrees after examination, without any qualification as to residence. The London University was affiliated as a teaching college with the University of London, and its name was changed to University College. The University of London was not a success as an examining body; a teaching University was demanded. De Morgan was a highly successful teacher of mathematics. It was his plan to lecture for an hour, and at the close of each lecture to give out a number of problems and examples illustrative of the subject lectured on; his students were required to sit down to them and bring him the results, which he looked over and returned revised before the next lecture. In De Morgan's opinion, a thorough comprehension and mental assimilation of great principles far outweighed in importance any merely analytical dexterity in the application of half-understood principles to particular cases. During this period, he also promoted the work of the self-taught Indian mathematician Ramchundra, who has been called De Morgan's Ramanujam. He supervised the publication in London of Ramchundra's book on "Maxima and Minima" in 1859. In the introduction to this book, he acknowledged being aware of the Indian tradition of logic, although it is not known whether this had any influence on his own work. Family. In the autumn of 1837, he married Sophia Elizabeth, eldest daughter of William Frend and his wife, a granddaughter of Archdeacon Francis Blackburne. De Morgan had three sons and four daughters, including fairytale author Mary de Morgan. His eldest son was the potter William De Morgan. His second son George acquired great distinction in mathematics at University College and the University of London. He and another like-minded alumnus conceived the idea of founding a Mathematical Society in London, where mathematical papers would be not only received (as by the Royal Society) but actually read and discussed. The first meeting was held in University College; De Morgan was the first president, his son the first secretary. It was the beginning of the London Mathematical Society. Retirement and death. In 1866 the chair of mental philosophy in University College fell vacant. James Martineau, a Unitarian clergyman and professor of mental philosophy, was recommended formally by the Senate to the Council; but in the Council there were some who objected to a Unitarian clergyman, and others who objected to theistic philosophy. A layman of the school of Bain and Spencer was appointed. De Morgan considered that the old standard of religious neutrality had been hauled down, and forthwith resigned. He was now 60 years of age. His pupils secured him a pension of £500 p.a., but misfortunes followed. Two years later his son George — the "younger Bernoulli", as Augustus loved to hear him called, in allusion to the eminent father-and-son mathematicians of that name — died. This blow was followed by the death of a daughter. Five years after his resignation from University College De Morgan died of nervous prostration on 18 March 1871. Mathematical work. De Morgan was a brilliant and witty writer, whether as a controversialist or as a correspondent. In his time there flourished two Sir William Hamiltons who have often been conflated. One was Sir William Hamilton, 9th Baronet (that is, his title was inherited), a Scotsman, professor of logic and metaphysics at the University of Edinburgh; the other was a knight (that is, won the title), an Irishman, professor at astronomy in the University of Dublin. The baronet contributed to logic, especially the doctrine of the quantification of the predicate; the knight, whose full name was William Rowan Hamilton, contributed to mathematics, especially geometric algebra, and first described the Quaternions. De Morgan was interested in the work of both, and corresponded with both; but the correspondence with the Scotsman ended in a public controversy, whereas that with the Irishman was marked by friendship and terminated only by death. In one of his letters to Rowan, De Morgan says, The correspondence of De Morgan with Hamilton the mathematician extended over twenty-four years; it contains discussions not only of mathematical matters, but also of subjects of general interest. It is marked by geniality on the part of Hamilton and by wit on the part of De Morgan. The following is a specimen: Hamilton wrote, De Morgan replied, De Morgan was full of personal peculiarities. On the occasion of the installation of his friend, Lord Brougham, as Rector of the University of Edinburgh, the Senate offered to confer on him the honorary degree of LL. D.; he declined the honour as a misnomer. He once printed his name: Augustus De Morgan, "H - O - M - O - P - A - U - C - A - R - U - M - L - I - T - E - R - A - R - U - M" (Latin for "man of few letters"). He disliked the provinces outside London, and while his family enjoyed the seaside, and men of science were having a good time at a meeting of the British Association in the country he remained in the hot and dusty libraries of the metropolis. He said that he felt like Socrates, who declared that the farther he was from Athens the farther was he from happiness. He never sought to become a Fellow of the Royal Society, and he never attended a meeting of the Society; he said that he had no ideas or sympathies in common with the physical philosopher. His attitude was possibly due to his physical infirmity, which prevented him from being either an observer or an experimenter. He never voted at an election, and he never visited the House of Commons, or the Tower of London, or Westminster Abbey. Were the writings of De Morgan published in the form of collected works, they would form a small library, for example his writings for the Useful Knowledge Society. Mainly through the efforts of Peacock and Whewell, a Philosophical Society had been inaugurated at Cambridge; and to its Transactions De Morgan contributed four memoirs on the foundations of algebra, and an equal number on formal logic. The best presentation of his view of algebra is found in a volume, entitled "Trigonometry and Double Algebra", published in 1849; and his earlier view of formal logic is found in a volume published in 1847. His most distinctive work is styled a "Budget of Paradoxes"; it originally appeared as letters in the columns of the "Athenæum" journal; it was revised and extended by De Morgan in the last years of his life, and was published posthumously by his widow. George Peacock's theory of algebra was much improved by D. F. Gregory, a younger member of the Cambridge School, who laid stress not on the permanence of equivalent forms, but on the permanence of certain formal laws. This new theory of algebra as the science of symbols and of their laws of combination was carried to its logical issue by De Morgan; and his doctrine on the subject is still followed by English algebraists in general. Thus George Chrystal founds his "Textbook of Algebra" on De Morgan's theory; although an attentive reader may remark that he practically abandons it when he takes up the subject of infinite series. De Morgan's theory is stated in his volume on "Trigonometry and Double Algebra". In the chapter (of the book) headed "On symbolic algebra" he writes: De Morgan proceeds to give an inventory of the fundamental symbols of algebra, and also an inventory of the laws of algebra. The symbols are 0, 1, +, −, ×, ÷, ()(), and letters; these only, all others are derived. His inventory of the fundamental laws is expressed under fourteen heads, but some of them are merely definitions. The laws proper may be reduced to the following, which, as he admits, are not all independent of one another: The last two may be called the rules of reduction. De Morgan professes to give a complete inventory of the laws which the symbols of algebra must obey, for he says, "Any system of symbols which obeys these laws and no others, except they be formed by combination of these laws, and which uses the preceding symbols and no others, except they be new symbols invented in abbreviation of combinations of these symbols, is symbolic algebra." From his point of view, none of the above principles are rules; they are formal laws, that is, arbitrarily chosen relations to which the algebraic symbols must be subject. He does not mention the law, which had already been pointed out by Gregory, namely, formula_13 and to which was afterwards given the name of the "law of association". If the commutative law fails, the associative may hold good; but not "vice versa". It is an unfortunate thing for the symbolist or formalist that in universal arithmetic formula_14 is not equal to formula_15; for then the commutative law would have full scope. Why does he not give it full scope? Because the foundations of algebra are, after all, real not formal, material not symbolic. To the formalists the index operations are exceedingly refractory, in consequence of which some take no account of them, but relegate them to applied mathematics. To give an inventory of the laws which the symbols of algebra must obey is an impossible task, and reminds one not a little of the task of those philosophers who attempt to give an inventory of the "a priori" knowledge of the mind. Trigonometry and double algebra. De Morgan's work entitled "Trigonometry and Double Algebra" consists of two parts; the former of which is a treatise on trigonometry, and the latter a treatise on generalized algebra which he called "double algebra. The first stage in the development of algebra is "arithmetic", where numbers only appear and symbols of operations such as formula_1, formula_17, etc. The next stage is "universal arithmetic", where letters appear instead of numbers, so as to denote numbers universally, and the processes are conducted without knowing the values of the symbols. Let formula_18 and formula_19 denote any numbers; then such an expression as formula_20 may be impossible; so that in universal arithmetic there is always a proviso, "provided the operation is possible". The third stage is "single algebra", where the symbol may denote a quantity forwards or a quantity backwards, and is adequately represented by segments on a straight line passing through an origin. Negative quantities are then no longer impossible; they are represented by the backward segment. But an impossibility still remains in the latter part of such an expression as formula_21 which arises in the solution of the quadratic equation. The fourth stage is "double algebra". The algebraic symbol denotes in general a segment of a line in a given plane. It is a double symbol because it involves two specifications, namely, length, and direction; and formula_22 is interpreted as denoting a quadrant. The expression formula_21 then represents a line in the plane having an abscissa formula_18 and an ordinate formula_19. Argand and Warren carried double algebra so far - but they were unable to interpret on this theory such an expression as formula_26. De Morgan attempted it by "reducing" such an expression to the form formula_27, and he considered that he had shown that it could be always so reduced. The remarkable fact is that this double algebra satisfies all the fundamental laws above enumerated, and as every apparently impossible combination of symbols has been interpreted it looks like the complete form of algebra. In chapter 6 he introduced hyperbolic functions and discussed the connection of common and hyperbolic trigonometry. If the above theory is true, the next stage of development ought to be "triple" algebra and if formula_21 truly represents a line in a given plane, it ought to be possible to find a third term which added to the above would represent a line in space. Argand and some others guessed that it was formula_29 although this contradicts the truth established by Euler that formula_30. De Morgan and many others worked hard at the problem, but nothing came of it until the problem was taken up by Hamilton. We now see the reason clearly: The symbol of double algebra denotes not a length and a direction; but a multiplier and "an angle". In it the angles are confined to one plane. Hence the next stage will be a "quadruple algebra", when the axis of the plane is made variable. And this gives the answer to the first question; double algebra is nothing but analytical plane trigonometry, and this is why it has been found to be the natural analysis for alternating currents. But De Morgan never got this far. He died with the belief "that double algebra must remain as the full development of the conceptions of arithmetic, so far as those symbols are concerned which arithmetic immediately suggests". When the study of mathematics revived at the University of Cambridge, so did the study of logic. The moving spirit was Whewell, the Master of Trinity College, whose principal writings were a "History of the Inductive Sciences", and "Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences". Doubtless De Morgan was influenced in his logical investigations by Whewell; but other influential contemporaries were Sir William Rowan Hamilton of Edinburgh, and Professor Boole of Cork. De Morgan's work on "Formal Logic", published in 1847, is principally remarkable for his development of the numerically definite syllogism. The followers of Aristotle say that from two particular propositions such as " Some M's are A's ", and " Some M's are B's " nothing follows of necessity about the relation of the A's and B's. But they go further and say in order that any relation about the A's and B's may follow of necessity, the middle term must be taken universally in one of the premises. De Morgan pointed out that from "Most M's are A's and Most M's are B's" it follows of necessity that "some A's are B's" and he formulated the numerically definite syllogism which puts this principle in exact quantitative form. Suppose that the number of the M's is formula_31, of the M's that are A's is formula_18, and of the M's that are B's is formula_19; then there are at least formula_34 A's that are B's. Suppose that the number of souls on board a steamer was 1000, that 500 were in the saloon, and 700 were lost. It follows of necessity, that at least 700 + 500 - 1000, that is, 200, saloon passengers were lost. This single principle suffices to prove the validity of all the Aristotelian moods. It is therefore a fundamental principle in necessary reasoning. Here then De Morgan had made a great advance by introducing "quantification of the terms". At that time Sir William Rowan Hamilton was teaching in Edinburgh a doctrine of the quantification of the predicate, and a correspondence sprang up. However, De Morgan soon perceived that Hamilton's quantification was of a different character; that it meant for example, substituting the two forms "The whole of A is the whole of B", and "The whole of A is a part of B" for the Aristotelian form "All A's are B's". Hamilton thought that he had placed the keystone in the Aristotelian arch, as he phrased it. Although it must have been a curious arch which could stand 2000 years without a keystone. As a consequence he had no room for De Morgan's innovations. He accused De Morgan of plagiarism, and the controversy raged for years in the columns of the "Athenæum", and in the publications of the two writers. The memoirs on logic which De Morgan contributed to the Transactions of the Cambridge Philosophical Society subsequent to the publication of his book on "Formal Logic" are by far the most important contributions which he made to the science, especially his fourth memoir, in which he begins work in the broad field of the "logic of relatives". This is the true field for the logician of the twentieth century, in which work of the greatest importance is to be done towards improving language and facilitating thinking processes which occur all the time in practical life. Identity and difference are the two relations which have been considered by the logician; but there are many others equally deserving of study, such as equality, equivalence, consanguinity, affinity, etc. In the introduction to the "Budget of Paradoxes" De Morgan explains what he means by the word. How can the sound paradoxer be distinguished from the false paradoxer? De Morgan supplies the following test: The "Budget" consists of a review of a large collection of paradoxical books which De Morgan had accumulated in his own library, partly by purchase at bookstands, partly from books sent to him for review, partly from books sent to him by the authors. He gives the following classification: squarers of the circle, trisectors of the angle, duplicators of the cube, constructors of perpetual motion, subverters of gravitation, stagnators of the earth, builders of the universe. You will still find specimens of all these classes in the New World and in the new century. De Morgan gives his personal knowledge of paradoxers. A paradoxer to whom De Morgan paid the compliment which Achilles paid Hector — to drag him round the walls again and again — was James Smith, a successful merchant of Liverpool. He found formula_35. His mode of reasoning was a curious caricature of the "reductio ad absurdum" of Euclid. He said let formula_35, and then showed that on that supposition, every other value of formula_37 must be absurd. Consequently formula_38 is the true value. The following is a specimen of De Morgan's dragging round the walls of Troy: In the region of pure mathematics, De Morgan could detect easily the false from the true paradox; but he was not so proficient in the field of physics. His father-in-law was a paradoxer, and his wife a paradoxer; and in the opinion of the physical philosophers De Morgan himself scarcely escaped. His wife wrote a book describing the phenomena of spiritualism, table-rapping, table-turning, etc.; and De Morgan wrote a preface in which he said that he knew some of the asserted facts, believed others on testimony, but did not pretend to know "whether" they were caused by spirits, or had some unknown and unimagined origin. From this alternative he left out ordinary material causes. Faraday delivered a lecture on "Spiritualism", in which he laid it down that in the investigation we ought to set out with the idea of what is physically possible, or impossible; De Morgan did not believe this. Relations. De Morgan discovered relation algebra in his "Syllabus of a Proposed System of Logic" (1966: 208-46), first published in 1860. This algebra was extended by Charles Sanders Peirce (who admired De Morgan and met him shortly before his death), and re-exposited and further extended in vol. 3 of Ernst Schröder's "Vorlesungen über die Algebra der Logik". Relation algebra proved critical to the "Principia Mathematica" of Bertrand Russell and Alfred North Whitehead. In turn, this algebra became the subject of much further work, starting in 1940, by Alfred Tarski and his colleagues and students at the University of California. Spiritualism. De Morgan later in his life became interested in the phenomena of Spiritualism. In 1849 he had investigated clairvoyance and was impressed by the subject. He later carried out paranormal investigations in his own home with the medium Maria Hayden. The result of these investigations was later published by his wife Sophia. De Morgan believed that his career as a scientist might have been affected if he had revealed his interest in the study of spiritualism so he helped to publish the book anonymously. The book was published in 1863 titled "From Matter to Spirit: The Result of Ten Years Experience in Spirit Manifestations". According to (Oppenheim, 1988) De Morgan's wife Sophia was a convinced spiritualist but De Morgan shared a third way position on spiritualist phenomena which Oppenheim defined as a "wait-and-see position", he was neither a believer or a skeptic, instead his viewpoint was that the methodology of the physical sciences does not automatically exclude psychic phenomena and that such phenomena may be explainable in time by the possible existence of natural forces which as yet physicists had not identified. In the preface of "From Matter to Spirit" (1863) De Morgan stated: Thinking it very likely that the universe may contain a few agencies—say half a million—about which no man knows anything, I can not but suspect that a small proportion of these agencies—say five thousand—may be severally competent to the production of all the phenomena, or may be quite up to the task among them. The physical explanations which I have seen are easy, but miserably insufficient: the spiritualist hypothesis is sufficient, but ponderously difficult. Time and thought will decide, the second asking the first for more results of trial. John Beloff in "Parapsychology: A Concise History" (1997) wrote that De Morgan was the first notable scientist in Britain to take an interest in the study of spiritualism and his studies had influenced the decision of William Crookes to also study spiritualism. De Morgan was also an atheist and because of this had debarred him from a position at Oxford and Cambridge. Legacy. Beyond his great mathematical legacy, the headquarters of the London Mathematical Society is called "De Morgan House" and the student society of the Mathematics Department of University College London is called the August De Morgan Society. The crater De Morgan on the Moon is named after him.
585144	Bobby Darling (born Pankaj Sharma) is an Indian actress who has acted in Bollywood and regional Indian films. Darling, who was assigned male at birth, is a trans woman, and has had cosmetic surgery towards that end. She appeared in the Limca Book of Records for doing 18 roles as gay by the time she was at the age of 23 years old. Personal life. Darling was born in Delhi, India. She started getting experiencing homosexuality when she was in seventh grade, and often got into problems with her parents and relatives due to her homosexuality. She went to psychiatrists and sexologists due to her sexual identity. She was in a relationship with a guy when she was twelveth standard and lost focus on her studies due to investing in being full-time life partners. Her boyfriend was rich so the could afford to run away traveling to around 12 countries including Switzerland, Korea, Seoul, Taiwan, China, Russia among others. She returned on hearing about the demise of her mother which caused her stress. She was shocked to find out that her boyfriend was bisexual and subsequently deceived her bind in a normal wedlock. Acting career. She came to Mumbai and started going to producers' offices. Thanks to Subash Ghai, the ball started rolling in Bollywood on offering her first role in Taal. Then she did N Chandra's Style, and she was there in Na Tum Jano Na Hum where she danced in G-strings with Hrithik Roshan and Saif Ali Khan. Sohail Khan's home-production Maine Dil Tujhko Diya, Shah Rukh Khan's home-production Chalte Chalte were followed. Akbar Khan had signed her for a beautiful role in his film Taj Mahal and also Atul Agnihotri's next. After few days, she had completed her work on Vinod Chhabra's film Shaque... Mysteries. She did two films in the role of a normal guy - Imtiaz Punjabi directed Fun2shh and Aruna Raje directed Tum. In Tum, she played Netanya Singh's obsessive lover. In fact, she was quite enthu about playing a normal guy from here on. There's a film called Shadow that she just bagged where she had played a double role - a normal guy and a gay. Plus, she also starred Govind Menon's film starring Dharmendra. It was unbelievable when she got an entry into 'Limca Book of Records' for playing 18 roles as a gay at the age of just 23? And then, she was considered for the Guinness World Records. Television also gave her a numerous breaks. She did Balaji Telefilms' Kitne Cool Hain Hum, Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi and Kaahin Kissii Roz. Also did Dipti Bhatnagar Productions' Kabhi Aaye Na Judaai. Recently, she also appeared DJ Aqeel's music videos such as Are Deewano and Main Hoon Don with Jackie Shroff.
581764	Luke Kenny is an Indian ex-video jockey, critic, musician, director, producer and actor. Early life. Born in Calcutta on 14 June, Kenny moved to Bombay when he was a small child. His great-grandparents were Irish. They moved to Burma, where his grandfather was born. After World War II, his grandfather came to Delhi where he met his wife, Luke's grandmother, who was British. Luke's father was subsequently born in Delhi. The family then moved to Calcutta, where Luke's father met his wife, Luke's mother's parents were Italian. Luke's parents separated when he was young, and subsequently his grandparents and father moved to Bombay in the early 1970s. Luke's heritage is Irish-Italian-British by blood, yet Indian by birth and territory. Brought up by his grandparents and father, who were all musicians, his musical education began very young. As a child, living in a suburb of Bombay called Thane, he attended kindergarten and primary education at Bharat English High School. He later enrolled in St John The Baptist High School, where he finished his secondary education. After school, Kenny enrolled at Elphinstone College. but then he had to leave his college education in the midway due his earnestness of pursuing music and performing culture. Early career. Kenny started his career as a solo dancer in 1989. Spotted at one college dance competition, he joined Arshad Warsi's dance team as a chorus dancer and associate choreographer from 1990 to 1992. In 1991 he dropped out of college to play the role of Jesus Christ in a musical interpretation of The Passion of the Christ. He was also a vocalist with a rock band called Greek. From 1992 to 1994, he worked as a DJ. In 1995 he became India's first Indian male VJ on Channel V. In 1997, Kenny performed a small role in Kaizad Gustad's movie, "Bombay Boys", playing the leader of a rock band. In 1998, he became the head of music programming and artist relations for Channel V, a post he held until 2008. Later career. In early 2005 he returned to Channel V as the face of the show "Luke's After Hours", which featured a selection of music videos specially chosen by him. In later 2005, Kenny directed and produced his first feature film, "13th Floor", starring Purab Kohli and Sandhya Mridul. This was India's first digitally shot and released film. It was filmed over the course of six days. The film is 80 minutes in length and features two actors in an elevator. The film was released on 17 March 2006 by Kenny's own production company, Kenny Films Pvt Ltd. It played at Fame Cinemas and Fun Republic Theatres for a week. "13th Floor" was also selected for the following festivals: In 2006, Kenny directed 3 music videos: Kenny played the character of Rob, a keyboardist, in the Hindi film Rock On!!, directed by Abhishek Kapoor. He writes a weekly music column in the Hindustan Times supplement HT Cafe, which appears every Friday. It is called If I May Say So. He recently signed on as contributing editor for Rolling Stone India, writing a column called LukeBox, and a live music column called Gig-A-Bites. He is directing a trilogy based on origins of Zombies, of which first part is slated to release in monsoon 2012.
1165695	Eugene Hugh Beaumont (February 16, 1909 – May 14, 1982) was an American actor and television director. He was also licensed to preach by the Methodist church. Beaumont is best known for his portrayal of Ward Cleaver on the television series, "Leave It to Beaver" (1957–1963). Biography. Early years. Beaumont was born in Lawrence, Kansas. His parents were Ethel Adaline Whitney and Edward H. Beaumont, a traveling salesman whose profession kept the family on the move. After graduating from Baylor School, in Chattanooga, Tennessee, he attended the University of Chattanooga, where he played football. He later studied at the University of Southern California and graduated with a Master of Theology degree in 1946. He married Kathryn Adams in 1942, and the pair had three children.
582572	Apna Sapna Money Money (English: "Money Is Our Dream") is a Bollywood film released on 10 November 2006. The movie revolves around a group of characters that eat, drink, sleep, and worship money. Directed by Sangeeth Sivan, "Apna Sapna Money Money" is a tale of several characters who are in a mad race to be rich. They believe that money sets the world in motion but discover that the more one chases money, the harder it is to catch. The film, produced by Subhash Ghai, is a situational comedy starring a host of actors: Ritesh Deshmukh, Celina Jaitley, Koena Mitra, Jackie Shroff, Sunil Shetty, Shreyas Talpade, Bobby Darling, Riya Sen, Anupam Kher, Rajpal Yadav and Chunky Pandey. Plot. 6 Alvarez House in Bandra, Mumbai, is the residence of myopic, widowed, devout Hindu, Satyabol Shashtri (Anupam Kher), who lives there with his daughter, Shivani (Riya Sen). Shivani is in love with her Christian neighbor, Arjun Fernandes (Shreyas Talpade), who is a mechanic and lives with his wanna-be singer sister, Julie (Koena Mitra), and a younger ailing sister, Titli. Satyabol disapproves of Arjun and wants his daughter to get married to Sarju Maharaj Banaraswale's son. Other than Satyabol chasing Badshah, the pet dog of Arjun, and ending up in the woman's bathroom, the area is fairly peaceful.
582141	Yeh Dillagi is a 1994 Bollywood romantic film, produced by Yash Chopra and directed by Naresh Malhotra under the banner of Yash Raj Films. It is an adaptation of the Audrey Hepburn movie Sabrina. It stars Akshay Kumar, Kajol and Saif Ali Khan. Karisma Kapoor has a special appearance. Akshay Kumar was nominated as Best Actor and Kajol for Best Actress at the Filmfare Awards. Synopsis. Sapna (Kajol), the daughter of the Saigal family's driver, is a simple fun-loving girl, but she dreams about riches. Vijay (Akshay Kumar) and Vicky Saigal (Saif Ali Khan) are both heirs to Saigal Industries. However, Vijay spends all his time working and Vicky is a flirt. Vicky doesn't notice Sapna until she becomes a successful model. But Sapna's success hasn't changed her status. She is still the driver's daughter and Mrs. Shanti Devi may overlook her son's affairs with rich girls but not with a driver's daughter. As Vijay tries to help, he finds himself falling in love with Sapna, too. Before it's too late Sapna falls in love with him, too, and Vijay decides for them to get married. On Vicky's birthday, Vijay comes back with Sapna and sees his brother's changes. The man who used to be a flirt now doesn't drink liquor, smoke cigarettes, or flirt with girls. The only one he sees in his heart is Sapna, because of her statement before she left to Bombay. The boys soon talk about getting married: Both want to marry Sapna. Unfortunately, Vicky thinks his brother is talking about his own relationship with her. No matter what they say, their mother (Reema Lagoo) will not let them marry her because of her wealth status. One fine afternoon, Vicky goes out for lunch with Vijay and Sapna. In the middle of their journey, they have a flat tire, and Vijay tries to fix it. Instead, the jackbox breaks and Vicky offers to get it from a garage. Sapna finds out Vicky wants to marry her at that point and starts to cry, so Vijay tries to calm her down by giving her a hug. Just then, Vicky arrives and realises the truth. He returns home drunk. Their mother has had enough and tells Sapna's father to tell her to go back to Bombay or get fired. Before getting any more humiliated, Sapna tells her aunt that the only reason she came back was because Vijay forced her so he could ask his mother if they could get married and she storms off with her dad, to the train station. When Vicky threatens to commit suicide if she doesn't accept Sapna as her daughter-in-law, his mother accepts. Sapna returns and Vicky sacrifices his love for his brother. Vicky is seen driving and comes across a girl (Karisma Kapoor). He instantly falls for her and decides to make her his life companion. Music. The film soundtrack album contains 7 songs composed by Dilip Sen and Sameer Sen. Awards. Nominations
1073615	Heather Elizabeth Langenkamp (born July 17, 1964) is an American film and television actress. She is best known for her role as Nancy Thompson from the "A Nightmare on Elm Street" films. She served as executive producer and narrator to the documentary "". She also played Marie Lubbock on the sitcom "Just the Ten of Us" and has had numerous television guest appearances. Early life. Langenkamp was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Her mother, Mary Alice (née Myers), is an artist, and her father, Robert Dobie Langenkamp, is a petroleum attorney who served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Energy in both the Carter Administration (where he was largely responsible for realizing the Strategic Petroleum Reserve) and the Clinton Administration (where he was largely responsible for privatizing Naval Petroleum Reserve No. 1), and as Director of the National Energy & Environmental Law & Policy Institute of the University of Tulsa College of Law. She has German, English, and Scottish ancestry. Langenkamp attended Holland Hall School in Tulsa. She graduated from The National Cathedral School for Girls in Washington, D.C. "A Nightmare on Elm Street". While she was studying at Stanford University, Wes Craven cast her as teen heroine Nancy Thompson in "A Nightmare on Elm Street", the first film in the series as he wanted someone very 'non-Hollywood' to play Nancy. He believed that Langenkamp met this quality. For the part she beat out more than 200 actresses. The film, follows the story of a group of teenagers who are killed in their dreams one-by-one by a supernatural serial killer. The film was a slasher film. The film introduced the iconic villain Freddy Krueger, played by Robert Englund. Johnny Depp, in his feature film debut, played Nancy Thompson's boyfriend, Glen Lantz. Veteran film actor John Saxon played Nancy's father, police lieutenant Donald Thompson. The film was both a critical and commercial success, earning a total of $25 million at the American box office. In 1985, she received the Best Actress Award at the Avoriaz Film Festival for this role. She also became one of the original scream queens. She continued her role as Nancy in "" (1987), in which she co-starred alongside Patricia Arquette and Laurence Fishburne, and "Wes Craven's New Nightmare" (1994), in which she played herself, and through events in the narrative, she is compelled to reprise her role as Nancy Thompson. John Saxon and Robert Englund also returned with Langenkamp in "Dream Warriors" and "New Nightmare". Other film work. Langenkamp's first acting venture was in her late teens: a small part in Francis Ford Coppola's "The Outsiders" (1983), filmed to a large extent in her hometown of Tulsa. She then starred in "Nickel Mountain" (1984). In 1989, she had a cameo role as a victim in Wes Craven's "Shocker". She recently performed a leading role in the film, "The Butterfly Room", directed by Jonathan Zarantanello, now in post production. The film also stars Barbara Steele who plays her mother. Langenkamp and her husband, David Leroy Anderson, own and operate AFX Studio, a Special F/X Make-Up firm that is credited with the special make-up for such films as "Dawn of the Dead", "The Cabin in the Woods", "Cinderella Man", "Dogtown and Z-Boys", "Frost/Nixon", "Bruce Almighty", "Evan Almighty", "Dragonfly" and "Angels and Demons". She also starred in, executive produced, and narrated the 2010 documentary "Never Sleep Again: The Elm Street Legacy", which was directed by Daniel Farrands and Andrew Kasch. Langenkamp is directing a biographical documentary entitled "I Am Nancy". Television career. In between starring roles, she played Marie Lubbock on the television series "Just the Ten of Us", a spin-off of the popular situation comedy "Growing Pains" (on which Langenkamp guest-starred), from 1988 to 1990. That same year, she and her castmates were nominated for a Young Artist Award for "Best Young Actor/Actress Ensemble in a Television Comedy, Drama Series or Special". She has also made numerous other guest appearances on television. Personal life. Langenkamp is a businesswoman, who acts part-time. She and her husband own AFX Studio, a Special F/X Make-Up Studio in Los Angeles. Years ago, she created and ran The Malibu Gum Factory, now closed, which sold chewing gum packaged with trading cards depicting local surfers. Many elements of the plot for "Wes Craven's New Nightmare" are based on an incident in which Langenkamp was stalked by a fan.
578547	Dek hor (, also Dorm or "My School") is a 2006 Thai horror-drama film.
587922	Padamati Sandhya Ragam (Telugu: పడమటి సంధ్యారాగం) (English: Westside Evening) is a 1987 Telugu romance film, directed by Jandhyala. The cross over cinema, starred hollywood actor Thomas Jane, Indian actress Vijayashanti and drummer Sivamani in the leading roles. The soundtrack was written by S. P. Balasubrahmanyam, Sadashiva Brahmendra Yogi, Annamacharya, and Veturi Sundararama Murthy. The film garnered Filmfare Award for Best Film – Telugu. Plot. This film showcases the cultural differences of the east and the west. Adinarayana (Gummaluri Sastry) moves to the United States along with his wife and daughter (VijayaShanti) to join his younger brother Ramarao. Their neighbors are Chris (Thomas Jane) a Caucasian American, and Ronald an African American (Sivamani). Both fall in love with Adinarayana's daughter Sandhya, and when both of them propose to her the same day, she accepts Chris's proposal. Knowing that her dad is too traditional, eccentric, and orthodox to approve of their love, Sandhya elopes with Chris and they get married. Adinarayana doesn't have a choice than to silently witness the happenings, but when he has a granddaughter, he takes her back to India and settles there, intending to bring her up in a traditional Indian environment, and away from the foreign lure that snatched away his own daughter. As a grownup, Sandhya's daughter hates her dad Chris, assuming that he was at fault and was thus disapproved by her grandpa. Chris and Sandhya visit India when Adinarayana passes away, and that's when their daughter realizes her dads humility and love towards Sandhya and Adinarayana through a series of events and repents for all the ill feelings she bore all those years, thus accompanying them to the USA. Cast. Additional cast: Johnson, Godman, Elizabeth, Bindu, Jyothy, Baby Rohini, Vijay Kothari, Bhushan Rao, Rama Sastry, Seetha Sastry, Mrunalini, Joshua York.
1060970	Children of Men is a 2006 dystopian science fiction film co-written, co-edited and directed by Alfonso Cuarón and based loosely on P. D. James's 1992 novel "The Children of Men". In 2027, two decades of human infertility have left society on the brink of collapse. Illegal immigrants seek sanctuary in the United Kingdom, where the last functioning government imposes oppressive immigration laws on refugees. Clive Owen plays civil servant Theo Faron, who must help a pregnant West African refugee (Clare-Hope Ashitey) escape the chaos. "Children of Men" also stars Julianne Moore, Michael Caine, Pam Ferris, and Chiwetel Ejiofor. The film was released on 22 September 2006 in the UK. It was released on 25 December in the US, where critics noted the relationship between the Christmas opening and the film's themes of hope, redemption and faith. Regardless of the limited release and low earnings at the box office compared to its budget, "Children of Men" received wide critical acclaim and was recognised for its achievements in screenwriting, cinematography, art direction and innovative single-shot action sequences. It was nominated for three Academy Awards: Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Cinematography and Best Film Editing. It was nominated for three BAFTA Awards, winning Best Cinematography and Best Production Design, and for three Saturn Awards, winning Best Science Fiction Film. Plot. In 2027, after 18 years of global human infertility, civilization is on the brink of collapse as humanity faces the grim reality of extinction. The United Kingdom, one of the few stable nations with a functioning government, has been deluged by asylum seekers from around the world, fleeing the chaos and war which has taken hold in most countries. In response, Britain has become a militarized police state as British forces round up and detain immigrants. Kidnapped by a militant immigrants' rights group known as the Fishes, former activist turned cynical bureaucrat Theo Faron (Clive Owen) is brought to its leader, his estranged American wife Julian Taylor (Julianne Moore), from whom he separated after their son died from a flu pandemic in 2008. Julian offers Theo money to acquire transit papers for a young refugee named Kee (Clare-Hope Ashitey), which Theo obtains from his cousin Nigel (Danny Huston), a government minister. However, the bearer must be accompanied, so Theo agrees to escort Kee in exchange for a larger sum. Luke (Chiwetel Ejiofor), a Fishes member, drives them and former midwife Miriam (Pam Ferris) towards the coast to a boat. They are ambushed by an armed gang and Julian is fatally shot. Luke kills two police officers who stop their car and they escape to a safe house. Kee is the only known female to be pregnant, revealing her importance to Theo. Julian had told her to only trust Theo, intending to hand Kee to the "Human Project", a supposed scientific group in the Azores dedicated to curing infertility. However, Luke persuades Kee to stay. That night, Theo eavesdrops on a meeting of Luke and other members and discovers that Julian's death was orchestrated by the group so they could use the baby as a political tool to support the coming revolution. Theo wakes Kee and Miriam and they steal a car, escaping to the secluded hideaway of Theo's aging hippie friend Jasper Palmer (Michael Caine), a former editorial cartoonist who cares for his catatonic wife. A plan is formulated to board the Human Project ship "Tomorrow" which will arrive offshore from the Bexhill refugee camp and Jasper proposes getting Syd (Peter Mullan), a camp guard he knows, to smuggle them. The Fishes trail the group and Jasper stays behind to stall them, giving the government-issued suicide drug Quietus to his wife. Before escaping with Miriam and Kee, Theo is horrified to witness the Fishes murder Jasper, but is forced to move on. They eventually meet Syd, who transports them to Bexhill disguised as prisoners. When Kee begins having contractions on a bus, Miriam distracts a suspicious guard by feigning mania and is taken away. At the camp Theo and Kee meet gypsy woman Marichka (Oana Pellea), who provides a room where, that night, Kee gives birth to a girl. The next day, Syd informs Theo and Kee that a war between the British Army and the refugees, including the Fishes, has begun. After seeing the baby, Syd threatens to turn them in, but Marichka attacks him and the group escapes. Amidst the fighting however, the Fishes capture Kee and the baby. Theo tracks them to an apartment under heavy fire from the military and escorts her out. Awed by the baby, the combatants stop fighting temporarily, enabling them to escape. Marichka leads them to a boat in a sewer and Theo rows away. As they watch the bombing of Bexhill by the Royal Air Force from a distance, Theo reveals to Kee that he had been shot in the fighting. Kee tells Theo she will name her baby Dylan after Theo's son. Theo then slumps forward lifeless, as the "Tomorrow" approaches through the fog. Themes. Hope. "Children of Men" explores the themes of hope and faith in the face of overwhelming futility and despair. The film's source, the novel "The Children of Men" by P. D. James, describes what happens when society is unable to reproduce, using male infertility to explain this problem. In the novel, it is made clear that hope depends on future generations. James writes, "It was reasonable to struggle, to suffer, perhaps even to die, for a more just, a more compassionate society, but not in a world with no future where, all too soon, the very words 'justice,' 'compassion,' 'society,’ 'struggle,' 'evil,' would be unheard echoes on an empty air." The film switches the infertility from male to female, but never explains its cause: environmental destruction and divine punishment are considered. This unanswered question (and others in the film) have been attributed to Cuarón's dislike for expository film: "There's a kind of cinema I detest, which is a cinema that is about exposition and explanations ... It's become now what I call a medium for lazy readers ... Cinema is a hostage of narrative. And I'm very good at narrative as a hostage of cinema." Cuarón's disdain for back-story and exposition led him to use the concept of female infertility as a "metaphor for the fading sense of hope". The "almost mythical" Human Project is turned into a "metaphor for the possibility of the evolution of the human spirit, the evolution of human understanding." Without dictating how the audience should feel by the end of the film, Cuarón encourages viewers to come to their own conclusions about the sense of hope depicted in the final scenes: "We wanted the end to be a glimpse of a possibility of hope, for the audience to invest their own sense of hope into that ending. So if you're a hopeful person you'll see a lot of hope, and if you're a bleak person you'll see a complete hopelessness at the end." Contemporary references. "Children of Men" takes an unconventional approach to the modern action film, using a documentary, newsreel style. Film critics, Michael Rowin, Jason Guerrasio and Ethan Alter, observe the film's underlying touchstone of immigration. Alter notes that the film "makes a potent case against the anti-immigrant sentiment" popular in modern societies like the United Kingdom and the United States, with Guerrasio describing the film as "a complex meditation on the politics of today". For Alter and other critics, the structural support and impetus for the contemporary references rests upon the visual nature of the film's exposition, occurring in the form of imagery as opposed to conventional dialogue. Visually, the refugee camps in the film intentionally evoke Abu Ghraib prison, Guantanamo Bay detention camp, and The Maze. Other popular images appear, such as a sign over the refugee camp reading "Homeland Security". The similarity between the hellish, cinéma vérité stylized battle scenes of the film and current news and documentary coverage of the Iraq War, is noted by film critic Manohla Dargis, describing Cuarón's fictional landscapes as "war zones of extraordinary plausibility". In the film, refugees are "hunted down like cockroaches", rounded up and put into cages and camps, and even shot, leading film critics like Chris Smith and Claudia Puig to observe symbolic "overtones" and images of the Holocaust. This theme is reinforced in the scene where an elderly refugee woman speaking German is seen detained in a cage, and in the scene where British Homeland Security strips and beats illegal immigrants; a song by The Libertines, "Arbeit Macht Frei", plays in the background. "The visual allusions to the Nazi roundups are unnerving," writes Richard A. Blake. "It shows what people can become when the government orchestrates their fears for its own advantage." Cuarón explains how he uses this imagery to propagate the theme by cross-referencing fictional and futuristic events with real, contemporary, or historical incidents and beliefs: In the closing credits, the Sanskrit words "Shantih Shantih Shantih" appear as end titles. Writer and film critic Laura Eldred of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill observes that "Children of Men" is "full of tidbits that call out to the educated viewer". During a visit to his house by Theo and Kee, Jasper says "Shanti, shanti, shanti." Eldred notes that the "shanti" used in the film is also found at the end of an Upanishad and in the final line of T. S. Eliot's poem "The Waste Land", a work Eldred describes as "devoted to contemplating a world emptied of fertility: a world on its last, teetering legs". However, "shanti" is also a common beginning and ending to all Hindu prayers, and literally means "peace," referencing the invocation of divine intervention and rebirth through an end to violence. Religion. Like Virgil's "Aeneid", Dante's "Divine Comedy", and Chaucer's "Canterbury Tales", the crux of the journey in "Children of Men" lies in what is uncovered along the path rather than the terminus itself. Theo's heroic journey to the south coast mirrors his personal quest for "self-awareness", a journey that takes Theo from "despair to hope". According to Cuarón, the title of P. D. James' book ("The Children of Men") is a Catholic allegory derived from a passage of scripture in the Bible. (Psalm 90 (89):3 of the KJV: "Thou turnest man to destruction; and sayest, Return, ye children of men.") James refers to her story as a "Christian fable" while Cuarón describes it as "almost like a look at Christianity": "I didn't want to shy away from the spiritual archetypes," Cuarón told "Filmmaker Magazine". "But I wasn't interested in dealing with dogma." The film has been noted for its use of Christian symbolism; for example, British terrorists named "Fishes" protect the rights of refugees. Opening on Christmas Day in the United States, critics compared the characters of Theo and Kee with Joseph and Mary, calling the film a "modern-day Nativity story". Kee's pregnancy is revealed to Theo in a barn, alluding to the manger of the Nativity scene, when Theo asks Kee who the father of the baby is she jokingly states she is a virgin, and when other characters discover Kee and her baby, they respond with "Jesus Christ" or the sign of the cross. Also Gabriel Archangel (among others divinities) is invoked in the bus scene. To highlight these spiritual themes, Cuarón commissioned a 15-minute piece by British composer John Tavener, a member of the Eastern Orthodox Church whose work resonates with the themes of "motherhood, birth, rebirth, and redemption in the eyes of God." Calling his score a "musical and spiritual reaction to Alfonso's film", snippets of Tavener's "Fragments of a Prayer" contain lyrics in Latin, German and Sanskrit sung by a mezzo-soprano. Words like "mata" (mother), "pahi mam" (protect me), "avatara" (saviour), and "alleluia" appear throughout the film. Production. The adaptation of the P. D. James novel was originally written by Paul Chart, and later rewritten by Mark Fergus and Hawk Otsby. Developed by producers Marc Abraham, Eric Newman, Hilary Shor and Tony Smith, Beacon Pictures brought director Alfonso Cuarón on board in 2001. Cuarón and screenwriter Timothy J. Sexton began rewriting the script after the director completed "Y tu mamá también". Afraid he would "start second guessing things" Cuarón chose not to read P. D. James' novel, opting to have Sexton read the book while Cuarón himself read an abridged version. Cuarón did not immediately begin production, instead directing "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban". During this period, David Arata rewrote the screenplay and after some back and forth with the director, delivered the draft which secured Clive Owen and sent the film into pre-production. The director's work experience in the United Kingdom exposed him to the "social dynamics of the British psyche", giving him insight into the depiction of "British reality". Cuarón used the film "The Battle of Algiers" as a model for social reconstruction in preparation for production, presenting the film to Clive Owen as an example of his vision for "Children of Men". In order to create a philosophical and social framework for the film, the director read literature by Slavoj Žižek, as well as similar works. The film "Sunrise" was also influential. Location. "A Clockwork Orange" helped contribute to the futuristic, yet battered patina of 2027 London. "Children of Men" was the second film Cuarón made in London, with the director portraying the city as a character itself, shooting single, wide shots of the city. While Cuarón was preparing the film, the London bombings occurred, but the director never considered moving the production. "It would have been impossible to shoot anywhere but London, because of the very obvious way the locations were incorporated into the film," Cuarón told "Variety". "For example, the shot of Fleet Street looking towards St. Paul's would have been impossible to shoot anywhere else." Due to these circumstances, the opening terrorist attack scene on Fleet Street was shot a month and a half after the London bombing. Cuarón chose to shoot some scenes in East London, a location he considered "a place without glamour". The set locations were dressed to make them appear even more run-down; Cuarón says he told the crew "'Let's make it more Mexican'. In other words, we'd look at a location and then say: yes, but in Mexico there would be this and this. It was about making the place look run-down. It was about poverty." He also made use of London's most popular sites, shooting in locations like Trafalgar Square and Battersea Power Station. The power station scene (whose conversion into an art archive is a reference to the Tate Modern), has been compared to Antonioni's "Red Desert". Cuarón added a pig balloon to the scene as homage to Pink Floyd's "Animals". Other art works visible in this scene include Michelangelo's "David", Picasso's "Guernica", and Banksy's "British Cops Kissing". London visual effects companies Double Negative and Framestore worked directly with Cuarón from script to post production, developing effects and creating "environments and shots that wouldn't otherwise be possible". The Historic Dockyard in Chatham was used to film the scene in the empty activist safehouse. Style and design. "In most sci-fi epics, special effects substitute for story. Here they seamlessly advance it," observes Colin Covert of "Star Tribune". Billboards were designed to balance a contemporary and futuristic appearance as well as easily visualizing what else was occurring in the rest of the world at the time, and cars were made to resemble modern ones at first glance, although a closer look made them seem unfamiliar. Cuarón informed the art department that the film was the "anti-"Blade Runner"", rejecting technologically advanced proposals and downplaying the science fiction elements of the 2027 setting. The director focused on images reflecting the contemporary period, choosing to have innovative technology in the film's timeline discontinued by 2014. With the future in mind, Cuarón maintained a steady gaze on the present: "We didn't want to be distracted by the future. We didn't want to transport the audience into another reality." Single-shot sequences. "Children of Men" used several lengthy single-shot sequences in which extremely complex actions take place. The longest of these are a shot in which Kee gives birth (199 seconds); an ambush on a country road (247 seconds); and a scene in which Theo is captured by the Fishes, escapes, and runs down a street and through a building in the middle of a raging battle (454 seconds). These sequences were extremely difficult to film, although the effect of continuity is sometimes an illusion, aided by CGI effects. Cuarón had experimented with long takes in "Great Expectations", "Y tu mamá también" and "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban". His style is influenced by the Swiss film "Jonah Who Will Be 25 in the Year 2000", a favorite of Cuarón's. Cuarón reminisces: "I was studying cinema when I first saw ["Jonah"], and interested in the French New Wave. "Jonah" was so unflashy compared to those films. The camera keeps a certain distance and there are relatively few close-ups. It's elegant and flowing, constantly tracking, but very slowly and not calling attention to itself." Complicated long-takes were already popular among more accomplished film directors in Mexico, where the technique is known as "plano secuencia". The creation of the single-shot sequences was a challenging, time-consuming process that sparked concerns from the studio. It took fourteen days to prepare for the single shot in which Clive Owen's character searches a building under attack, and five hours for every time they wanted to reshoot it. In the middle of one shot, blood splattered onto the lens, and cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki convinced the director to leave it in. According to Owen, "Right in the thick of it are me and the camera operator because we're doing this very complicated, very specific dance which, when we come to shoot, we have to make feel completely random." Cuarón's initial idea for maintaining continuity during the roadside ambush scene was dismissed by production experts as an "impossible shot to do". Fresh from the visual effects-laden "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban", Cuarón suggested using computer-generated imagery to film the scene. Lubezki refused to allow it, reminding the director that they had intended to make a film akin to a "raw documentary". Instead, a special camera rig invented by Gary Thieltges of Doggicam Systems was employed, allowing Cuarón to develop the scene as one extended shot. A vehicle was modified to enable seats to tilt and lower actors out of the way of the camera, and the windshield was designed to tilt out of the way to allow camera movement in and out through the front windscreen. A crew of four, including the director of photography and camera operator, rode on the roof. However, the commonly reported statement that the action scenes are continuous shots is not entirely true. Visual effects supervisor Frazer Churchill explains that the effects team had to "combine several takes to create impossibly long shots", where their job was to "create the illusion of a continuous camera move." Once the team was able to create a "seamless blend", they would move on to the next shot. These techniques were important for three continuous shots: the coffee shop explosion in the opening shot, the car ambush, and the battlefield scene. The coffee shop scene was composed of "two different takes shot over two consecutive days"; the car ambush was shot in "six sections and at four different locations over one week and required five seamless digital transitions"; and the battlefield scene "was captured in five separate takes over two locations". Churchill and the Double Negative team created over 160 of these types of effects for the film. In an interview with "Variety", Cuarón acknowledged this nature of the "single-shot" action sequences: "Maybe I'm spilling a big secret, but sometimes it's more than what it looks like. The important thing is how you blend everything and how you keep the perception of a fluid choreography through all of these different pieces." Tim Webber of VFX house Framestore CFC was responsible for the three-and-a-half minute single take of Kee giving birth, helping to choreograph and create the CG effects of the childbirth. Cuarón had originally intended to use an animatronic baby as Kee's child with the exception of the childbirth scene. In the end, two takes were shot, with the second take concealing Clare-Hope Ashitey's legs, replacing them with prosthetic legs. Cuarón was pleased with the results of the effect, and returned to previous shots of the baby in animatronic form, replacing them with Framestore's computer-generated baby. Sound. Cuarón uses sound and music to bring the fictional world of social unrest and infertility to life. A creative yet restrained combination of rock, pop, electronic music, hip-hop and classical music replaces the typical film score. The mundane sounds of traffic, barking dogs, and advertisements follow the character of Theo through London, East Sussex and Kent, producing what "Los Angeles Times" writer Kevin Crust calls an "urban audio rumble". For Crust, the music comments indirectly on the barren world of "Children of Men": Deep Purple's version of "Hush" blaring from Jasper's car radio becomes a "sly lullaby for a world without babies" while King Crimson's "The Court of the Crimson King" make a similar allusion with their lyrics, "three lullabies in an ancient tongue". Amongst a genre-spanning selection of electronic music, a remix of Aphex Twin's "Omgyjya Switch 7", which includes the 'Male Thjis Loud Scream' audio sample by Thanvannispen, not present on the original (nor indeed on the official soundtrack) can be heard during the scene in Jasper's house, where Jasper's "Strawberry Cough" (a potent, strawberry-flavoured blend of marijuana) is being sampled. During a conversation between the two men, Radiohead's "Life in a Glasshouse" plays in the background. A number of dubstep tracks, most notably "Anti-War Dub" by Digital Mystikz, as well as tracks by Kode9 & The Space Ape and Pressure are also featured. For the Bexhill scenes during the film's second half, the director makes use of silence and cacophonous sound effects such as the firing of automatic weapons and loudspeakers directing the movement of "fugees" (illegal immigrants). Here, classical music by George Frideric Handel, Gustav Mahler, and Krzysztof Penderecki's "Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima" complements the chaos of the refugee camp. Throughout the film, John Tavener's "Fragments of a Prayer" is used as a spiritual motif to explain and interpret the story without the use of narrative. A few times during the film, a loud, ringing tone evocative of tinnitus is heard. This sound generally coincides with the death of a major character (Julian, Jasper) and is referred to by Julian herself, who describes the tones as the last time you'll ever hear that frequency. In this way, then, the loss of the tones is symbolic of the loss of the characters. Release. "Children of Men" had its world premiere at the 63rd Venice International Film Festival on 3 September 2006. On 22 September 2006, the film debuted at number 1 in the United Kingdom with $2.4 million in 368 screens. It debuted in a limited release of 16 theaters in the United States on 22 December 2006, expanding to more than 1,200 theaters on 5 January 2007. As of 6 February 2008, "Children of Men" had grossed $69,612,678 worldwide, with $35,552,383 of the revenue generated in the United States. Critical reception. The film received very positive reviews. According to the review tallying website Rotten Tomatoes, "Children of Men" received a 93% overall approval out of 208 reviews from critics, and on Metacritic, the film has a rating of 84 based on 36 reviews. Dana Stevens of "Slate" called it "the herald of another blessed event: the arrival of a great director by the name of Alfonso Cuarón." Stevens hailed the film's extended car chase and battle scenes as "two of the most virtuoso single-shot chase sequences I've ever seen." Manohla Dargis of "The New York Times" called the film a "superbly directed political thriller", raining accolades on the long chase scenes. "Easily one of the best films of the year" said Ethan Alter of "Film Journal International", with scenes that "dazzle you with their technical complexity and visual virtuosity." Jonathan Romney of "The Independent" praised the accuracy of Cuarón's portrait of the United Kingdom, but he criticized some of the film's futuristic scenes as "run-of-the-mill future fantasy." "Film Comment's" critics' poll of the best films of 2006 ranked the film number 19 while the 2006 readers' poll ranked it number two. On their list of the best movies of 2006, "The A.V. Club", the "San Francisco Chronicle", "Slate" and "The Washington Post" placed the film at number one. "Entertainment Weekly" ranked the film seventh on its end-of-the-decade, top ten list, saying, "Alfonso Cuarón's dystopian 2006 film reminded us that adrenaline-juicing action sequences can work best when the future looks just as grimy as today." Peter Travers of "Rolling Stone" ranked it number 2 on his list of best films of the decade, writing: According to Metacritic's analysis of the most often and notably noted films on the best-of-the-decade lists, "Children of Men" is considered the eleventh-greatest film of the 2000s. Top ten lists. The film appeared on many critics' top ten lists as one of the best films of 2006: In 2012, director Marc Webb included the film among his list of Top 10 Greatest Films when asked by "Sight & Sound" for his votes for the BFI The Top 50 Greatest Films of All Time. Awards. P. D. James, who was reported to be pleased with the film, and the screenwriters of "Children of Men" were awarded the 19th annual USC Scripter Award for the screen adaptation of the novel; Howard A. Rodman, chair of the USC School of Cinematic Arts Writing Division, described the book-to-screen adaptation as "writing and screen writing of the highest order", although Gerschatt, writing in Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, noted that the screenplay bore very little resemblance to the novel, in the gender of the baby, and the character who was pregnant (Julian, in the novel) and the death of Theo, who in fact, did not die in the novel. The film was also nominated in the category of Best Adapted Screenplay at the 79th Academy Awards. "Children of Men" also received Academy Award nominations for Best Cinematography (Emmanuel Lubezki) and Best Film Editing (Alfonso Cuarón and Alex Rodríguez). The British Academy of Film and Television Arts nominated "Children of Men" for Best Visual Effects and honored the film with awards for Best Cinematography and Best Production Design at the 60th British Academy Film Awards. Cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki won the feature film award for Best Cinematography at the 21st American Society of Cinematographers Awards. The Australian Cinematographers Society also awarded Lubezki the 2007 International Award for Cinematography for "Children of Men". The Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films bestowed the Saturn Award for Best Science Fiction Film on "Children of Men", and it received the nomination for Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form by the members of the World Science Fiction Convention. Home media. The HD-DVD and DVD were released in Europe on 15 January 2007 and in the United States on 27 March 2007. Extras include a half-hour documentary by director Alfonso Cuarón entitled "The Possibility of Hope". The documentary explores the intersection between the film's themes and reality with a critical analysis by eminent scholars: the Slovenian sociologist and philosopher Slavoj Žižek, anti-globalization activist Naomi Klein, environmentalist futurist James Lovelock, sociologist Saskia Sassen, human geographer Fabrizio Eva, cultural theorist Tzvetan Todorov, and philosopher and economist John N. Gray; "Under Attack" features a demonstration of the innovative techniques required for the car chase and battle scenes; Clive Owen and Julianne Moore discuss their characters in "Theo & Julian"; "Futuristic Design" opens the door on the production design and look of the film; "Visual Effects" shows how the digital baby was created. Deleted scenes are included. The film was released on Blu-ray Disc in the United States on 26 May 2009.
166620	Jake Weber (born 19 March 1964) is an English actor, known in film for his role as Michael in "Dawn of the Dead" and for his role as Drew in "Meet Joe Black". In television, he is known for his role as Joe DuBois, the husband of medium/psychic Allison DuBois, in the drama series "Medium". In 2001 and 2002, Weber was a series regular in HBO's "The Mind of the Married Man" and made guest appearances on "" and "NYPD Blue". Early years. Weber was born in London, the son of Susan Ann Caroline (née Coriat), a British socialite, and Thomas Evelyn "Tommy" Weber (originally Thomas Ejnar Arkner), a race car driver who also came from a wealthy family. His father was born in Denmark of Danish and English descent. His mother is of half Sephardic Jewish (from Morocco) and half British Isles ancestry. Through his English maternal grandmother, Weber is the great-grandson of politician Archibald Weigall and the great-great-grandson of business magnate Sir John Blundell Maple, 1st Baronet. Weber's mother, Susan, was diagnosed with depression and LSD-induced schizophrenia and died of a drug overdose when Jake was 8 years old and living at the Rolling Stones' Villa Nellcôte. His father, who sold various drugs and utilized both his sons in trafficking the drugs to various international destinations, struggled with drug addiction until his death in 2006. In an article in "The Times" of 20 May 2010, Weber recalled that when he was 8 years old, his "father used him as a drug mule to bring cocaine out for Mick and Bianca Jagger's wedding." He has one sibling, a brother, Charley. Weber attended Summerhill School, Leiston, Suffolk. Later he went to the United States to study at Middlebury College in Vermont, where he sang a cappella with the Dissipated Eight and majored in English literature and political science, graduating cum laude with a B.A. degree in 1986. He attended The Juilliard School's Drama Division as a member of "Group 19" (1986–1990), which also included Laura Linney and Jeanne Tripplehorn. Weber also studied at Russia's famed Moscow Art Theatre. At the 2010 Cannes film festival, as part of the Directors' Fortnight at the launching of the rock 'n roll documentary, "Stones in Exile", singer Mick Jagger spoke to the crowd about the months of drug-fueled recording sessions that produced the Stones' classic 1972 album "Exile on Main Street". Jagger joked about the rarely seen original footage that reveals eight-year-old Weber rolling marijuana joints for them. Weber has reportedly stated that his drug-dealing father brought him to Keith Richards’s rented French villa, Nellcôte, in the seaside town of Villefranche-sur-Mer near Nice, where the Stones were recording the album. Career. Weber's roles were often bit parts in A-list films, beginning with that of Kyra Sedgwick's unnamed boyfriend in the "Oliver Stone"-directed period saga "Born on the Fourth of July" (1989) and continuing with work for directors including Sidney Lumet ("A Stranger Among Us", 1992), Alan J. Pakula ("The Pelican Brief", 1993) and Martin Brest ("Meet Joe Black", 1998). Weber scored one of his premier leads as Dr. Matt Crower, a kindly physician who takes charge of a young boy and protects him from a possessed sheriff in actor-turned-producer Shaun Cassidy's short-lived, but well received, supernatural drama series "American Gothic" (1995) on CBS. That programme did not last long, and neither did the Mike Binder sitcom "The Mind of the Married Man" (2001), in which Weber signed on as one of the leads, Chicago newspaper employee Jake Berman. After his prominent role in the 2004 remake of horror film "Dawn of the Dead", Weber won the role of Joe Dubois on "Medium" playing the husband of a woman (Patricia Arquette) plagued by psychic visions who uses her ability to help solve crimes. He has performed on Broadway and off-Broadway. Personal life. Weber was married to his wife Diane from 1995 until their divorce in 2002. He and his girlfriend Elizabeth Carey have a son, Waylon.
1103031	Jean-Victor Poncelet (July 1, 1788 – December 22, 1867) was a French engineer and mathematician who served most notably as the commandant general of the École Polytechnique. He is considered a reviver of projective geometry, and his work "Traité des propriétés projectives des figures" is considered the first definitive paper on the subject since Gérard Desargues' work on it in the 17th century. He later wrote an introduction to it; "Applications d’analyse et de géométrie". As a mathematician, his most notable work was in projective geometry, in particular, his work on Feuerbach's theorem. He also made discoveries about projective harmonic conjugates; among these were the poles and polar lines associated with conic sections. These discoveries led to the principle of duality, and also aided in the development of complex numbers and projective geometry. As a military engineer, he served in Napoleon's campaign against the Russian Empire in 1812, in which he was captured and held prisoner until 1814. Later, he served as a professor of mechanics at the École d’Application in his home town of Metz, during which time he published "Introduction à la mécanique industrielle", a work he is famous for, and improved the design of turbines and water wheels. After this, he served as professor at the Faculté des Sciences at the University of Paris, and finally as the commandant general of his "alma mater", the École Polytechnique.He is honoured by having his name listed among notable French engineers and scientists displayed around the first stage of the Eiffel tower. Biography. Birth, education, and capture (1788–1814). Poncelet was born in Metz, France, on July 1, 1788, the illegitimate son of Claude Poncelet, a lawyer of the Parliament of Metz and wealthy landowner. At a young age, he was sent to live with the Olier family at Saint-Avold. He returned to Metz for his secondary education, at the Lycée. After this, he attended the École Polytechnique, a prestigious school in Paris, from 1808 to 1810, though he fell behind in his studies in his third year due to poor health. After graduation, he joined the Corps of Military Engineers. He attended the École d'Application in his hometown during this time, and achieved the rank of lieutenant in the French Army the same year he graduated. Poncelet took part in Napoleon's invasion of Russia in 1812. His biographer Didion writes that he was part of the group that did not follow Marshal Michel Ney at the Battle of Krasnoi, which was forced to capitulate to the Russians, though other sources say that he was left for dead. Upon capture, he was interrogated by General Mikhail Andreyevich Miloradovich, but he did not disclose any information. The Russians held Poncelet as a prisoner of war and confined him at Saratov. During his imprisonment, in the years 1812–1814, he wrote his most notable work, "Traité des propriétés projectives des figures", which outlined the foundations of projective geometry, as well as some new results. Poncelet, however, could not publish it until after his release in 1814. Release and later employment (1822–1848). In 1815, the year after his release, Poncelet was employed a military engineer at his hometown of Metz. In 1822, while at this position, he published "Traité des propriétés projectives des figures". This work was the first major to discuss projective geometry since Desargues', though Gaspard Monge had written a few minor works about it previously. It is considered the founding work of modern projective geometry. Joseph Diaz Gergonne wrote about this branch of geometry at approximately the same time, beginning in 1810. Poncelet published several papers about the subject in Gergonne's mathematical journal "Annales de Gergonne" (officially known as "Annales de mathématiques pures et appliquées").
1065835	Gas-s-s-s (also known as Gas! or It Became Necessary to Destroy the World in Order to Save It) is a 1971 motion picture produced and released by American International Pictures. It was producer Roger Corman's final film for AIP, after a long association. He was unhappy because AIP made several cuts to the film without his approval, including removing the final shot where God commented on the action - a shot which Corman regarded as one of the greatest he had made in his life.
1083073	Tatsu no ko Taro is a 1979 film adaptation of a famous Japanese folk tale, and the novel "Taro, the Dragon Boy" by Miyoko Matsutani. In 1966, Taro, the Son of Dragon with the original Japanese title of "Tatsu, no ko Taro", started as a puppet series on a Japanese television channel. In the late 1970s the anime TV series Taro the Dragon Boy (original story by Miyoko Matsutani) was shown on Indian national television. Due to this one serial, a generation of Indians was introduced to Japanese animation. Plot. In the distant past of Japan a lazy and selfish Taro loves to eat and sleep and wrestle with the animals. With no direction in his life, a Tengu appears that gives him a special potion. With this potion, he gains the strength of a hundred men - but he can only use it when he is helping others. After drinking the potion, Taro, day by day, begins to understand what it means to help other, first my fighting Akaoni (Red Oni) to save Aya, a young girl gifted with the flute, then by helping others in his village collect fire wood. One night his grandmother tells him of his mother's transformation into a dragon. Taro then begins his search for his mother. Before his search for his mother starts, Taro again confronts Akaoni after hearing from the animals that Aya was captured by Kurooni (Black Oni). After a brief fight, Akaoni agrees to help Taro save Aya from Kurooni. After besting Kunooni, Taro finds out he has also saved a village terrorized by Kurooni and Akaoni, the later bullied into the former's service. Taro then aids Akaoni by throwing him into the clouds to serve the thunder god. After the village celebrates Taro's deeds, he starts his search. He comes upon an old woman and is tricked into service in her rice patties. After a successful harvest year and learning the truth from a giant serpent living in the lake next to the old woman's rice farm, Taro takes the fruits of his labor and gives it to the old woman's former employees and others, leaving her with little.
1039611	Dame Janet Suzman, DBE (born 9 February 1939) is a South African/British actress and director. Early life. Janet Suzman was born in Johannesburg to a Jewish family, the daughter of Betty (née Sonnenberg) and Saul Suzman, a wealthy tobacco importer. Her grandfather, Max Sonnenberg, was a member of the South African parliament, and she is a niece of civil rights/anti-apartheid campaigner, Helen Suzman. Suzman was educated at the independent school Kingsmead College, Johannesburg, and at the University of the Witwatersrand where she studied English and French. She moved to London in 1959. Stage career. After training for the stage at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art, Suzman made her debut as Liz in "Billy Liar" at the Tower Theatre, Ipswich in 1962. She then became a member of the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1963 and started her career there as Joan of Arc in "The Wars of The Roses" (1962–64). The RSC gave her the opportunity to play many of the Shakespearean heroines, including Rosaline in "Love's Labour's Lost", Portia in "The Merchant of Venice", Ophelia in "Hamlet", Kate in "The Taming of the Shrew", Beatrice in "Much Ado About Nothing", Celia and Rosalind in "As You Like It", Lavinia in "Titus Andronicus" and her Cleopatra, magisterial, ardent and seductive, in 1973, about which critics raved, and which is said to be a definitive performance. Her Cleopatra was captured on film. Although her stage appearances tended to run naturally towards Shakespeare and the classics, including Ibsen"'s Hedda Gabler", Chekhov's "The Three Sisters", Marlowe, Racine, Gorky, Brecht, she has also appeared in plays by Genet, Pinter, Ronald Harwood, Nicholson, Albee and others. Films and TV. She appeared in many British television drama productions in the 1960s and early 1970s, including "Saint Joan" (1968), "The Three Sisters" (1970), "Macbeth" (1970), "Hedda Gabler" (1972), "Twelfth Night" (1973), as Lady Mountbatten in "Lord Mountbatten - The Last Viceroy" (1985) and Dennis Potter's "The Singing Detective" (1986). Her first film role was in "Nicholas and Alexandra" (1971), and she was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress, the BAFTA and the Golden Globe for her portrayal of the Empress Alexandra. This was followed by "A Day in the Death of Joe Egg" (1972) opposite Alan Bates. There is also a television version of her Cleopatra in Shakespeare's "Antony and Cleopatra" (1974) with Richard Johnson as Antony. She also appeared as "Frosine" in the BBC's "Theatre Night" 1988 production of "The Miser" opposite Nigel Hawthorne as "Harpagon" and Jim Broadbent as "Maitre Jacques". Another role was that of Frieda Lawrence in "Priest of Love" (1981). She has made few films since, the best-known being Don Siegel's "The Black Windmill" (1974), "Nijinsky" (1980), Peter Greenaway's "The Draughtsman's Contract" (1982), Federico Fellini's "E la Nave Va" ("And the Ship Sails On" 1983), "A Dry White Season" (1989) with Marlon Brando and "Nuns on the Run" (1990; a rare comedic role). Later years. Back in her native South Africa, she has directed "Othello", which was also televised, and Brecht's "The Good Woman of Setzuan" (renamed "The Good Woman of Sharpeville") both at the Market Theatre, Johannesburg. She has also recently toured her modern adaptation of Chekhov's "The Cherry Orchard" - a South African response entitled "The Free State". She wrote, starred in and directed this piece with the Birmingham Repertory Theatre. Other productions with Suzman as director include "A Dream of People" at the RSC, "The Cruel Grasp" at the Edinburgh Festival, Feydeau's "No Flies on Mr Hunter" (Chelsea Centre, 1992); "Death of a Salesman" (Theatr Clywd, 1993); and Pam Gems's "The Snow Palace" (Tour and Tricycle Theatre, 1998). Recent activities. In 2002 she returned to the RSC to perform in a new version of "The Hollow Crown" with Sir Donald Sinden, Ian Richardson and Sir Derek Jacobi. In 2005, she appeared in the West End in a revival of Brian Clark's 1978 play "Whose Life Is It Anyway?" starring Kim Cattrall. In 2006, she directed "Hamlet" and in 2007 she played Volumnia in "Coriolanus" in Stratford-upon-Avon for which she received excellent notices. In 2010 she appeared in "Dream of the Dog", a new South African play, at the Finborough Theatre, London, which subsequently transferred to the West End. Suzman authored "Acting With Shakespeare: Three Comedies", a book based on a series of acting master classes.
1709545	The Derby Stallion is a 2005 film starring Zac Efron. Plot. Patrick Mcardle is a fifteen-year-old who is forced to play baseball by his former baseball player dad. Patrick doesn't know what to do with his life. When he skips ball practice one day, he visits his friend Houston Jones, a former steeplechase champion. Houston dazzles Patrick by telling him stories of when he was Patrick's age and in love with a white rich girl named Julie, who taught him to ride.
1484407	Yannick Bisson (born May 16, 1969) is a Canadian film and television actor best known to international audiences as the star of "Murdoch Mysteries". Career. Born in Montreal, Quebec, Bisson moved to Toronto, Ontario, as a teenager and there he began acting lessons; he has been acting since the age of 13. His big break was in CBC's critically acclaimed 1984 movie of the week "Hockey Night" with Megan Follows and Rick Moranis. He starred in the Canadian television series "Learning the Ropes" from 1988 to 1989. In 1994, he gained national exposure in the syndicated action series, "High Tide" co-starring Rick Springfield. From 2000 to 2004, he had a recurring role as attorney Brian Tedrow on the Showtime drama "Soul Food". He has also starred as the F.B.I agent Jack Hudson, in the PAX TV series "" and in the short-lived CBC drama "Nothing Too Good for a Cowboy" with Sarah Chalke. He appeared on "Falcon Beach" in season two, as well as several Lifetime cable movies, such as "Crazy for Christmas" and "I do (but I don't)", and the Disney Channel movie "Genius". Bisson was a guest star in the hit Canadian series "Flashpoint" and starred in the television movie "Brothers by Choice", and "Keshan". He also has appeared in all of the "Roxy Hunter" movies to date as Jon. Bisson is featured in a series of commercials for CIBC. Bisson starred in the 2001 TV movie "Loves Music, Loves to Dance", based on the book by Mary Higgins Clark. He provided the voice of Ferdie in the children's animated series "Maxie's World". Bisson plays the lead in the CBC Television drama series "Murdoch Mysteries", and made his directorial debut with the show's fourth season episode "Buffalo Shuffle". Personal life. He is married to actress Chantal Craig and they have three daughters, Brianna, Dominique and Mikaela. Craig made an appearance on one of Bisson's television series, "". Brianna Bisson played the character Penny Renton in an episode of "Murdoch Mysteries", entitled "Love and Human Remains."
582681	Saajan is a 1991 Hindi film directed by Lawrence D'Souza and starring Salman Khan, Sanjay Dutt, and Madhuri Dixit. It was released on 30 August, 1991. It is partly inspired by the French play Cyrano de Bergerac. Synopsis. Aman (Sanjay Dutt) is an impoverished, lame orphan who is befriended by wealthy Akash Verma (Salman Khan) during his childhood. Akash's parents adopt Aman and give him their family name, so Akash and Aman grow up as brothers. While Akash is a womaniser, Aman takes to writing poems under the pen name Sagar. The poems get published, and Aman becomes very popular. One of his fans is a young woman by the name of Pooja Saxena (Madhuri Dixit), who corresponds with Sagar. Akash meets Pooja and falls head over heels in love with her. When Aman comes to know of this, he asks Akash to pose as Sagar, which he does, then Pooja and Akash fall in love with each other. A heartbroken Aman looks on, as he knows that although women may like his poetry, they will never come out openly and love him when they see his handicap. Akash discovers that Aman loves Pooja and that he is actually Sagar, through a string of events triggered by a Pankaj Udhas show. Akash confronts Aman with this and Aman admits that he loves Pooja. Pooja witnesses this encounter and becomes upset with both Akash and Aman. Akash convinces Pooja and she eventually ends up accepting Aman. Reception. The film was a super-hit at the box office and also emerged as the highest grossing Bollywood film of 1991. It has gone on to grow a strong cult following, particularly due to its cast and the music. After two decades the director has also planned to remake the film. Awards. Nominations: Sequel. Saajan 2 is announced by director Lawrence D'Souza. It will go to floors in 2014 and is expected to release in 2015.
1067158	The Way Back is a 2010 drama film about a group of prisoners who escape from a Siberian Gulag camp during World War II. The film is directed by Peter Weir from a screenplay also by Weir and Keith Clarke, inspired by "The Long Walk" (1955), a book by Sławomir Rawicz, a Polish POW in the Soviet Gulag. It stars Jim Sturgess as Janusz, Colin Farrell as Valka, Ed Harris as Mr. Smith, and Saoirse Ronan as Irena, with Alexandru Potocean as Tomasz, Sebastian Urzendowsky as Kazik, Gustaf Skarsgård as Voss, Dragoş Bucur as Zoran, and Mark Strong as Khabarov. It was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Makeup. Plot. During World War II, Janusz Wieszczek (Jim Sturgess), a young Polish officer held by Soviets as a POW, is interrogated by NKVD. When the Soviets cannot force him to admit he is a spy, they bring his wife and extort from her, a statement condemning Janusz. As a result, he is sentenced to 20 years in one of the Gulag forced labour camps deep in Siberia. At the camp, Janusz meets Mr. Smith (Ed Harris), an American engineer, Khabarov (Mark Strong), an actor, Valka (Colin Farrell), a hardened Russian criminal, Tomasz (Alexandru Potocean), a Polish artist, Voss (Gustaf Skarsgård), a Latvian priest, Kazik (Sebastian Urzendowsky), a Pole suffering from night blindness, and Zoran (Dragoş Bucur), a Yugoslavian accountant. Khabarov secretly tells Janusz that he is planning to escape south to Mongolia, passing Lake Baikal. Mr. Smith tells Janusz that it is just one of Khabarov's fantasies to keep his morale high, but Janusz decides to implement the plan. He escapes with Mr. Smith, Valka, Voss, Tomasz, Zoran, and Kazik during a severe snowstorm in order to cover their tracks. During the second night of their trek, Kazik freezes to death after losing his way to the hide-away while looking for wood, and is later buried by the group. After many days of travelling across the snows of Siberia, the group reach Lake Baikal. There they meet Irena (Saoirse Ronan), a young Polish girl, who tells them a story of her parents being murdered by Russian soldiers, and her escape from a collective farm near Warsaw. Mr. Smith realises that her story is a lie as Warsaw is ruled by the Germans, but agrees with the group to let her in. Shortly afterwards, she admits that her parents were communists but that the communist rulers "killed them anyways". When the group reach an unpatrolled border between Russia and Mongolia, Valka decides to stay, as he still sees Russia as his home, and Josef Stalin as a hero. The rest continue to Ulaanbaatar, but soon they see images of Stalin and a red star. Janusz realises that Mongolia is under communist control and tells the group that India is the closest refuge for them. As they continue south across the Gobi desert, lack of water, sandstorms, sunburn, blisters and sun-stroke weakens the group. Irena collapses several times and soon dies. A few days later, Tomasz collapses and dies. Mr. Smith is on the verge of death, but after being motivated by Janusz, Zoran and Voss, he decides to rejoin the group and the four find a stream of water and avoid dehydration. As they reach the Himalayas, all on the verge of death, they are rescued by a Tibetan monk who takes them to a Buddhist monastery, where they regain their strength. Mr. Smith decides to go to Lhasa, where one of his US Army contacts will help him get back to America. The remaining three continue to trek through the Himalayas and soon reach India. At the end of the film, the final three say their goodbyes as Zoran and Voss stay in India and Janusz keeps walking around the world until 1989, when Poland ousts the communists. The final scene of the movie shows Janusz, fifty years later, returning to his house, seen previously in several hallucinations, and reuniting with his wife. Production. Filming. Principal photography took place in Bulgaria, Morocco, and India. Background. The film is loosely based on "", a book by Sławomir Rawicz, depicting his alleged escape from a Siberian gulag and subsequent 4,000-mile walk to freedom in India. Very popular, it sold over 500,000 copies and is credited with inspiring many explorers. In 2006, the BBC unearthed records (including some written by Rawicz himself) that showed that, rather than having escaped from the Gulag, in fact in 1942, he had been released by the USSR. In May 2009, Witold Gliński, a Polish World War II veteran living in the United Kingdom, came forward to claim that Rawicz's story was true but was actually an account of what happened to him, not Rawicz. Glinski's claims also have been seriously questioned. In addition, in 1942, a group of Siberian Gulag escapees is said to have hiked into India. However this too is suspect. Though the director Peter Weir continues to claim that the so-called long walk happened, he himself now describes "The Way Back" as "essentially a fictional film".
1162732	Eugene "Gene" Lockhart (July 18, 1891 – March 31, 1957) was a Canadian character actor, singer, and playwright. He also wrote the lyrics to a number of popular songs. Early life. Born in London, Ontario, Lockhart made his professional debut at the age of six when he appeared with the Kilties Band of Canada. At the age of 15, he was appearing in sketches with actress Beatrice Lillie. Lockhart was educated in various Canadian schools and at the Brompton Oratory School in London, England. He also played football for the Toronto Argonauts. Career. Lockhart had a long stage career; he also wrote professionally and taught acting and stage technique at the Juilliard School of Music in New York City. He had also written theatrical sketches, radio shows, special stage material, song lyrics and articles for stage and radio magazines. He made his Broadway debut in 1916, in the musical " The Riviera Girl". He was a member of the travelling play "The Pierrot Players" (for which he wrote the book and lyrics). This play introduced the song, "The World Is Waiting for the Sunrise", for which Lockhart wrote the lyrics along with Canadian composer Ernest Seitz. (The song was subsequently made popular by Les Paul and Mary Ford in the 1950s.) He also wrote and directed the Broadway musical revue "Bunk of 1926". He also sang in "Die Fledermaus" for the San Francisco Opera Association.
581867	Tom Alter (born Jul 2 1950) is an Indian actor. As a thespian and television actor, he is best known for his work in Bollywood, but has also worked in the theatre. In 2008, he was awarded Padma Shri by the Indian government. Early life and education. A native of Mussoorie, Uttarakhand, India, Tom Alter is the son of American Christian missionaries of English and Scottish ancestry and has lived for years in Mumbai and the Himalayan hill station of Landour. His father was born in Sialkot, now in Pakistan. His elder sister Martha Chen has a PhD in South Asian Studies and his brother John is a poet and a teacher. As a child, he studied Hindi and, consequently, he has occasionally been referred to as the "Blue-eyed saheb with impeccable Hindi." He studied at the Film and Television Institute of India. His major inspiration to enter films was Rajesh Khanna. He confessed in an interview "I still dream of being Rajesh Khanna. For me, in the early 1970s, he was the only hero — romantic to the core, not larger than life, so Indian and real — he was my hero; the reason I came into films and he still is." He is married, with two children, a son, Jamie, and daughter, Afshaan. Career. Tom taught at St. Thomas school in Jagadhri (Haryana) for $50 a month before taking to films. He worked as a sports teacher at the school. He used to coach cricket in the school. His crisp columns on sport have enthralled readers of popular newspapers and journals to which he contributed for ten years. He loved his job and the small town of Jagadhri. In his own words, “There was something very warm about Jagadhri. I remained a teacher there until the day I watched Rajesh Khanna romance Sharmila in Aaradhna. That was the beginning of my addiction to cinema.” Alter is fluent in Hindi and knowledgeable of Indian culture. He has worked for noted filmmakers like Satyajit Ray in "Shatranj Ke Khilari" and is remembered for his role as a British officer in "Kranti". In "Sardar", the 1993 film biography of Indian leader Sardar Patel, which focused on the events surrounding the partition and independence of India, Tom portrayed Lord Mountbatten of Burma. He has also played Indian characters in Indian television series, such as the long-running "Junoon", in which he was the sadistic mob lord Keshav Kalsi. He also acted in Hollywood movie "One Night with the King" with Peter O'Toole. Alter has written such books as "The Longest Race", "Rerun at Rialto", "The Best in the world", and is also a sports journalist with a special interest in cricket, a game on which he has written extensively in publications such as "Sportsweek", "Outlook", "Cricket talk", "Sunday Observer" and "Debonair". He plays cricket for a film industry team MCC (Match Cut Club), which includes Naseeruddin Shah, Satish Shah, Vishal Bhardwaj, Aamir Khan, Nana Patekar, Bhupinder Singh and Amarinder Sangha. He also wrote on cricket in Indian publications. In 1996, he was invited by friend Siraj Syed to Singapore, to do cricket commentary in Hindi, for Indian viewers, on the sports TV channel, ESPN. In 1996 he appeared in the Assamese-language film "Adajya", and in 2007 acted in the theatrical reproduction of William Dalrymple's "City of Djinns" alongside Zohra Sehgal and Manish Joshi Bismil. He also appeared in a solo play "Maulana", based on Maulana Azad for which he has received much critical acclaim. He has also received praise for his role in the art film "Ocean of An Old Man", which has been screened at film festivals around the world. Alter's first cousin Stephen Alter, also born and raised in India, is a notable author and teacher. Both are graduates of Woodstock School, Mussoorie. Alter has also worked as the red robe guru in Mukesh Khanna's TV production "Shaktiman" (1998–2002). Tom has also acted in the role of a doctor in "Bheja Fry", a comedy movie starring Rajat Kapoor. In April 2011, he acted in a short film "Yours, Maria" directed by Chirag Vadgama playing the lead role of Matthew Chacha in the movie. Tom is also a seasoned theater actor. In 1977 he along with Naseeruddin Shah and Benjamin Gilani formed a theatre group called Motley Productions. Their first play was Samuel Beckett's play "Waiting for Godot", which was staged at Prithvi Theatre, Mumbai, on 29 July 1979. He has been performing at Prithvi Theatre ever since, his latest being an adaptation of Vaikom Muhammad Basheer's "My Grandad had an Elephant" which was performed on 7 June 2011. He has also worked with the New Delhi theatre group Pierrot's Troupe. Presently, he is performing in TV serials such as "Yahan ke Hum Sikandar" (as a generous school teacher), telecast on India's state-owned network, Doordarshan. Since April 2013, he is playing Sahir Ludhianvi in a stage production based on life and work of the famous Urdu poet and film-lyricist. Appearance in Indian TV serials. Tom appeared in many Indian TV serials and were praised by audience for his acting. In "Zabaan Sambhalke" he played the role of a British writer, Charles Spencers, who lives in India and wants to learn Hindi language. Filmography. 1976 Des Pardes 1976 Charas
1163353	Joe Flaherty (born June 21, 1941) is an American actor and comedian. He is best known for his work on the Canadian sketch comedy "SCTV" from 1976 to 1984 (on which he also served as a writer), and as Harold Weir on "Freaks and Geeks". Biography. Flaherty was born Joseph O'Flaherty in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, but moved to Chicago where he started his comedy career with the Second City Theater as Joe O'Flaherty. Along with several other Second City performers, he began appearing on the "National Lampoon Radio Hour" from 1973 to 1974. After seven years in Chicago, he moved to Toronto to help establish the Toronto Second City theatre troupe. During those years, he was one of the original writer/performers on "SCTV", where he spent eight years on the show, playing such characters as Big Jim McBob (of "Farm Film Report" fame), Count Floyd/Floyd Robertson, and station owner/manager Guy Caballero who goes around in a wheelchair simply for the respect therein.
715184	Emanuel Lasker, PhD (December 24, 1868 – January 11, 1941) was a German chess player, mathematician, and philosopher who was World Chess Champion for 27 years (from 1894 to 1921). In his prime Lasker was one of the most dominant champions, and he is still generally regarded as one of the strongest players ever. His contemporaries used to say that Lasker used a "psychological" approach to the game, and even that he sometimes deliberately played inferior moves to confuse opponents. Recent analysis, however, indicates that he was ahead of his time and used a more flexible approach than his contemporaries, which mystified many of them. Lasker knew contemporary analyses of openings well but disagreed with many of them. He published chess magazines and five chess books, but later players and commentators found it difficult to draw lessons from his methods. Lasker made contributions to the development of other games. He was a first-class contract bridge player and wrote about bridge and other games, including Go and his own invention, Lasca. His books about games presented a problem that is still considered notable in the mathematical analysis of card games. Lasker was also a research mathematician who was known for his contributions to commutative algebra, which included proving the primary decomposition of the ideals of polynomial rings. On the other hand, his philosophical works and a drama that he co-authored received little attention. Life and career. Early years 1868–94. Emanuel Lasker was born on December 24, 1868 at Berlinchen in Neumark (now Barlinek in Poland), the son of a Jewish cantor. At the age of eleven he was sent to Berlin to study mathematics, where he lived with his brother Berthold, eight years his senior, who taught him how to play chess. According to the website Chessmetrics, Berthold was among the world's top ten players in the early 1890s. To supplement their income Emanuel Lasker played chess and card games for small stakes, especially at the Café Kaiserhof. Lasker shot up through the chess rankings in 1889, when he won the Café Kaiserhof's annual Winter tournament 1888/89 and the "Hauptturnier A" ("second division" tournament) at the sixth DSB Congress (German Chess Federation's congress) held in Breslau. Winning the Hauptturnier earned Lasker the title of "master". The candidates were divided into two groups of ten. The top four in each group competed in a final. Lasker won his section, with 2½ points more than his nearest rival. However, scores were reset to 0 for the final. With two rounds to go, Lasker trailed the leader, Viennese amateur von Feierfeil, by 1½ points. Lasker won both of his final games, while von Feierfeil lost in the penultimate round (being mated in 121 moves after the position was reconstructed incorrectly following an adjournment) and drew in the last round. The two players were now tied. Lasker won a playoff and garnered the master title. This enabled him to play in master-level tournaments and thus launched his chess career. Lasker finished second in an international tournament at Amsterdam, ahead of some well-known masters, including Isidore Gunsberg (assessed as the second strongest player in the world at that time by Chessmetrics). In 1890 he finished third in Graz, then shared first prize with his brother Berthold in a tournament in Berlin. In spring 1892, he won two tournaments in London, the second and stronger of these without losing a game. At New York 1893, he won all thirteen games, one of the few times in chess history that a player has achieved a perfect score in a significant tournament. His record in matches was equally impressive: at Berlin in 1890 he drew a short play-off match against his brother Berthold; and won all his other matches from 1889 to 1893, mostly against top-class opponents: Curt von Bardeleben (1889; ranked 9th best player in the world by Chessmetrics at that time), Jacques Mieses (1889; ranked 11th), Henry Edward Bird (1890; then 60 years old; ranked 29th), Berthold Englisch (1890; ranked 18th), Joseph Henry Blackburne (1892, without losing a game; Blackburne was aged 51 then, but still 9th in the world), Jackson Showalter (1892–93; 22nd) and Celso Golmayo Zúpide (1893; 29th). Chessmetrics calculates that Emanuel Lasker became the world's strongest player in mid-1890, and that he was in the top ten from the very beginning of his recorded career in 1889. In 1892 Lasker founded the first of his chess magazines, "The London Chess Fortnightly", which was published from August 15, 1892 to July 30, 1893. In the second quarter of 1893 there was a gap of ten weeks between issues, allegedly because of problems with the printer. Shortly after its last issue Lasker traveled to the USA, where he spent the next two years. Lasker challenged Siegbert Tarrasch, who had won three consecutive strong international tournaments (Breslau 1889, Manchester 1890, and Dresden 1892), to a match. Tarrasch haughtily declined, stating that Lasker should first prove his mettle by attempting to win one or two major international events. Chess competition 1894–1918. Match against Steinitz. Rebuffed by Tarrasch, Lasker challenged the reigning World Champion Wilhelm Steinitz to a match for the title. Initially Lasker wanted to play for US $5,000 a side and a match was agreed at stakes of $3,000 a side, but Steinitz agreed to a series of reductions when Lasker found it difficult to raise the money. The final figure was $2,000, which was less than for some of Steinitz' earlier matches (the final combined stake of $4,000 would be worth over $495,000 at 2006 values). Although this was publicly praised as an act of sportsmanship on Steinitz' part, Steinitz may have desperately needed the money. The match was played in 1894, at venues in New York, Philadelphia, and Montreal. Steinitz had previously declared he would win without doubt, so it came as a shock when Lasker won the first game. Steinitz responded by winning the second, and maintained the balance through the sixth. However, Lasker won all the games from the seventh to the eleventh, and Steinitz asked for a week's rest. When the match resumed, Steinitz looked in better shape and won the 13th and 14th games. Lasker struck back in the 15th and 16th, and Steinitz did not compensate for his losses in the middle of the match. Hence Lasker won convincingly with ten wins, five losses and four draws. Lasker thus became the second formally recognized World Chess Champion, and confirmed his title by beating Steinitz even more convincingly in their re-match in 1896–97 (ten wins, five draws, and two losses). Tournament successes. Influential players and journalists belittled the 1894 match both before and after it took place. Lasker's difficulty in getting backing may have been caused by hostile pre-match comments from Gunsberg and Leopold Hoffer, who had long been a bitter enemy of Steinitz. One of the complaints was that Lasker had never played the other two members of the top four, Siegbert Tarrasch and Mikhail Chigorin – although Tarrasch had rejected a challenge from Lasker in 1892, publicly telling him to go and win an international tournament first. After the match some commentators, notably Tarrasch, said Lasker had won mainly because Steinitz was old (58 in 1894). Emanuel Lasker answered these criticisms by creating an even more impressive playing record. Before World War I broke out his most serious "setbacks" were third place at Hastings 1895 (where he may have been suffering from the after-effects of typhoid fever), a tie for second at Cambridge Springs 1904, and a tie for first at the Chigorin Memorial in St Petersburg 1909. He won first prizes at very strong tournaments in St Petersburg (1895–96, "Quadrangular"), Nuremberg (1896), London (1899), Paris (1900) and St Petersburg (1914), where he overcame a 1½-point deficit to finish ahead of the rising stars, Capablanca and Alexander Alekhine, who later became the next two World Champions. For decades chess writers have reported that Tsar Nicholas II of Russia conferred the title of "Grandmaster of Chess" upon each of the five finalists at St Petersburg 1914 (Lasker, Capablanca, Alekhine, Tarrasch and Marshall), but chess historian Edward Winter has questioned this, stating that the earliest known sources supporting this story were published in 1940 and 1942. Matches against Marshall and Tarrasch. Lasker's match record was as impressive between his 1896–97 re-match with Steinitz and 1914: he won all but one of his normal matches, and three of those were convincing defenses of his title. He first faced Marshall in the World Chess Championship 1907, when despite his aggressive style, Marshall could not win a single game, losing eight and drawing seven (final score: 11½−3½). He then played Tarrasch in the World Chess Championship 1908, first at Düsseldorf then at Munich. Tarrasch firmly believed the game of chess was governed by a precise set of principles. For him the strength of a chess move was in its logic, not in its efficiency. Because of his stubborn principles he considered Lasker as a coffeehouse player who won his games only thanks to dubious tricks, while Lasker mocked the arrogance of Tarrasch who, in his opinion, shone more in salons than at the chessboard. At the opening ceremony, Tarrasch refused to talk to Lasker, only saying: ""Mr. Lasker, I have only three words to say to you: check and mate!"" Lasker gave a brilliant answer on the chessboard, winning four of the first five games, and playing a type of chess Tarrasch could not understand. For example, in the second game after 19 moves arose a situation (see diagram at left) in which Lasker was a pawn down, with a bad bishop and doubled pawns. At this point it appeared Tarrasch was winning, but 20 moves later he was forced to resign. Lasker eventually won by 10½−5½ (eight wins, five draws, and three losses). Tarrasch claimed the wet weather was the cause of his defeat. Matches against Janowski. In 1909 Lasker drew a short match (two wins, two losses) against Dawid Janowski, an all-out attacking Polish expatriate. Several months later they played a longer match, and chess historians still debate whether this was for the World Chess Championship. Understanding Janowski's style, Lasker chose to defend solidly so that Janowski unleashed his attacks too soon and left himself vulnerable. Lasker easily won the match 8–2 (seven wins, two draws, one loss). This victory was convincing for everyone but Janowski, who asked for a revenge match. Lasker accepted and they played a World Chess Championship match in Paris in November–December 1910. Lasker crushed his opponent, winning 9½−1½ (eight wins, three draws, no losses). Janowski did not understand Lasker's moves, and after his first three losses he declared to Edward Lasker, "Your homonym plays so stupidly that I cannot even look at the chessboard when he thinks. I am afraid I will not do anything good in this match." Match against Schlechter. Between his two matches against Janowski, Lasker arranged another World Chess Championship in January–February 1910 against Carl Schlechter. Schlechter was a modest gentleman, who was generally unlikely to win the major chess tournaments by his peaceful inclination, his lack of aggressiveness and his willingness to accept most draw offers from his opponents (about 80% of his games finished by a draw). The conditions of the match against Lasker are still debated among chess historians, but it seems Schlechter accepted to play under very unfavourable conditions, notably that he would need to finish two points ahead of Lasker to be declared the winner of the match, and he would need to win a revenge match to be declared World Champion. The match was originally meant to consist of 30 games, but when it became obvious that there were insufficient funds (Lasker demanded a fee of 1,000 marks per game played), the number of games was reduced to ten, making the margin of two points all the more difficult. At the beginning, Lasker tried to attack but Schlechter had no difficulty defending, so that the first four games finished in draws. In the fifth game Lasker had a big advantage, but committed a blunder that cost him the game. Hence at the middle of the match Schlechter was one point ahead. The next four games were drawn, despite fierce play from both players. In the sixth Schlechter managed to draw a game being a pawn down. In the seventh Lasker nearly lost because of a beautiful exchange sacrifice from Schlechter. In the ninth only a blunder from Lasker allowed Schlechter to draw a lost ending. The score before the last game was thus 5–4 for Schlechter. In the tenth game Schlechter tried to win tactically and took a big advantage, but he missed a clear win at the 35th move, continued to take increasing risks and finished by losing. Hence the match was a draw and Lasker remained World Champion. Abandoned challenges. In 1911 Lasker received a challenge for a world title match against the rising star José Raúl Capablanca. Lasker was unwilling to play the traditional "first to win ten games" type of match in the semi-tropical conditions of Havana, especially as drawn games were becoming more frequent and the match might last for over six months. He therefore made a counter-proposal: if neither player had a lead of at least two games by the end of the match, it should be considered a draw; the match should be limited to the best of thirty games, counting draws; except that if either player won six games "and" led by at least two games before thirty games were completed, he should be declared the winner; the champion should decide the venue and stakes, and should have the exclusive right to publish the games; the challenger should deposit a forfeit of US $2,000 (equivalent to over $194,000 in 2006 values); the time limit should be twelve moves per hour; play should be limited to two sessions of 2½ hours each per day, five days a week. Capablanca objected to the time limit, the short playing times, the thirty-game limit, and especially the requirement that he must win by two games to claim the title, which he regarded as unfair. Lasker took offence at the terms in which Capablanca criticized the two-game lead condition and broke off negotiations, and until 1914 Lasker and Capablanca were not on speaking terms. However, at the 1914 St. Petersburg tournament, Capablanca proposed a set of rules for the conduct of World Championship matches, which were accepted by all the leading players, including Lasker. Late in 1912 Lasker entered into negotiations for a world title match with Akiba Rubinstein, whose tournament record for the previous few years had been on a par with Lasker's and a little ahead of Capablanca's. The two players agreed to play a match if Rubinstein could raise the funds, but Rubinstein had few rich friends to back him and the match was never played. The start of World War I put an end to hopes that Lasker would play either Rubinstein or Capablanca for the World Championship in the near future. Throughout World War I (1914–18) Lasker played in only two serious chess events. He convincingly won (5½−½) a non-title match against Tarrasch in 1916. In September–October 1918, shortly before the armistice, he won a quadrangular (four-player) tournament, half a point ahead of Rubinstein. Academic activities 1894–1918. Despite his superb playing results, chess was not Lasker's only interest. His parents recognized his intellectual talents, especially for mathematics, and sent the adolescent Emanuel to study in Berlin (where he found he also had a talent for chess). Lasker gained his abitur (high school graduation certificate) at Landsberg an der Warthe, now a Polish town named Gorzów Wielkopolski but then part of Prussia. He then studied mathematics and philosophy at the universities in Berlin, Göttingen and Heidelberg. In 1895 Lasker published two mathematical articles in "Nature". On the advice of David Hilbert he registered for doctoral studies at Erlangen during 1900–02. In 1901 he presented his doctoral thesis "Über Reihen auf der Convergenzgrenze" ("On Series at Convergence Boundaries") at Erlangen and in the same year it was published by the Royal Society. He was awarded a doctorate in mathematics in 1902. His most significant mathematical article, in 1905, published a theorem of which Emmy Noether developed a more generalized form, which is now regarded as of fundamental importance to modern algebra and algebraic geometry. Lasker held short-term positions as a mathematics lecturer at Tulane University in New Orleans (1893) and Victoria University in Manchester (1901; Victoria University was one of the "parents" of the current University of Manchester). However, he was unable to secure a longer-term position, and pursued his scholarly interests independently. In 1906 Lasker published a booklet titled "Kampf" ("Struggle"), in which he attempted to create a general theory of all competitive activities, including chess, business and war. He produced two other books which are generally categorized as philosophy, "Das Begreifen der Welt" ("Comprehending the World"; 1913) and "Die Philosophie des Unvollendbar" (sic; "The Philosophy of the Unattainable"; 1918). Other activities 1894–1918. In 1896–97 Lasker published his book "Common Sense in Chess", based on lectures he had given in London in 1895. In 1903, Lasker played in Ostend against Mikhail Chigorin, a six-game match that was sponsored by the wealthy lawyer and industrialist Isaac Rice in order to test the Rice Gambit. Lasker narrowly lost the match. Three years later Lasker became secretary of the Rice Gambit Association, founded by Rice in order to promote the Rice Gambit, and in 1907 Lasker quoted with approval Rice's views on the convergence of chess and military strategy. In November 1904, Lasker founded "Lasker's Chess Magazine", which ran until 1909. For a short time in 1906 Emanuel Lasker was interested in the strategy game Go, but soon returned to chess. He was introduced to the game by his namesake Edward Lasker, who wrote a successful book "Go and Go-Moku" in 1934. At the age of 42, in July 1911, Lasker married Martha Cohn (née Bamberger), a rich widow who was a year older than Lasker and already a grandmother. They lived in Berlin. Martha Cohn wrote popular stories under the pseudonym "L. Marco". During World War I, Lasker invested all of his savings in German war bonds. Since Germany lost the war, Lasker lost all his money. During the war, he wrote a book which claimed that civilization would be in danger if Germany lost the war. Match against Capablanca. In January 1920 Lasker and José Raúl Capablanca signed an agreement to play a World Championship match in 1921, noting that Capablanca was not free to play in 1920. Because of the delay, Lasker insisted on a final clause that allowed him to play anyone else for the championship in 1920, that nullified the contract with Capablanca if Lasker lost a title match in 1920, and that stipulated that if Lasker resigned the title Capablanca should become World Champion. Lasker had previously included in his agreement before World War I to play Akiba Rubinstein for the title a similar clause that if he resigned the title, it should become Rubinstein's. A report in the "American Chess Bulletin" (July–August 1920 issue) said that Lasker had resigned the world title in favor of Capablanca because the conditions of the match were unpopular in the chess world. The "American Chess Bulletin" speculated that the conditions were not sufficiently unpopular to warrant resignation of the title, and that Lasker's real concern was that there was not enough financial backing to justify his devoting nine months to the match. When Lasker resigned the title in favor of Capablanca he was unaware that enthusiasts in Havana had just raised $20,000 to fund the match provided it was played there. When Capablanca learned of Lasker's resignation he went to Holland, where Lasker was living at the time, to inform him that Havana would finance the match. In August 1920 Lasker agreed to play in Havana, but insisted that he was the challenger as Capablanca was now the champion. Capablanca signed an agreement that accepted this point, and soon afterwards published a letter confirming this. Lasker also stated that, if he beat Capablanca, he would resign the title so that younger masters could compete for it. The match was played in March–April 1921. After four draws, the fifth game saw Lasker blunder with Black in an equal ending. Capablanca's solid style allowed him to easily draw the next four games, without taking any risks. In the tenth game, Lasker as White played a position with an isolated queen pawn but failed to create the necessary activity and Capablanca reached a superior ending, which he duly won. The eleventh and fourteenth games were also won by Capablanca, and Lasker resigned the match. Reuben Fine and Harry Golombek attributed this to Lasker's being in mysteriously poor form. On the other hand Vladimir Kramnik thought that Lasker played quite well and the match was an "even and fascinating fight" until Lasker blundered in the last game, and explained that Capablanca was twenty years younger, a slightly stronger player, and had more recent competitive practice. 1921 to end of life. By this time Lasker was nearly 53 years old, and he never played another serious match; his only other match was a short exhibition against Frank James Marshall in 1940, which Lasker lost. After winning the New York 1924 chess tournament (1½ points ahead of Capablanca) and finishing second at Moscow in 1925 (1½ points behind Efim Bogoljubow, ½ point ahead of Capablanca), he effectively retired from serious chess. During the Moscow 1925 chess tournament, Emanuel Lasker received a telegram informing him that the drama written by himself and his brother Berthold, "Vom Menschen die Geschichte" ("History of Mankind"), had been accepted for performance at the Lessing theatre in Berlin. Emanuel Lasker was so distracted by this news that he lost badly to Carlos Torre the same day. The play, however, was not a success. In 1926 Lasker wrote "Lehrbuch des Schachspiels", which he re-wrote in English in 1927 as "Lasker's Manual of Chess". He also wrote books on other games of mental skill: "Encyclopedia of Games" (1929) and "Das verständige Kartenspiel" (means "Sensible Card Play"; 1929; English translation in the same year), both of which posed a problem in the mathematical analysis of card games; "Brettspiele der Völker" ("Board Games of the Nations"; 1931), which includes 30 pages about Go and a section about a game he had invented in 1911, Lasca. In 1930, Lasker was a special correspondent for Dutch and German newspapers reporting on the Culbertson-Buller bridge match during which he became a registered teacher of the Culbertson system. He became an expert bridge player, representing Germany at international events in the early 1930s, and wrote "Das Bridgespiel" ("The Game of Bridge") in 1931. In October 1928 Emanuel Lasker's brother Berthold died. In spring 1933 Adolf Hitler started a campaign of discrimination and intimidation against Jews, depriving them of their property and citizenship. Lasker and his wife Martha, who were both Jewish, were forced to leave Germany in the same year. After a short stay in England, in 1935 they were invited to live in the USSR by Nikolai Krylenko, the Commissar of Justice who was responsible for the Moscow show trials and, in his other capacity as Sports Minister, was an enthusiastic supporter of chess. In the USSR, Lasker renounced his German citizenship and received Soviet citizenship. He took permanent residence in Moscow, and was given a post at Moscow's Institute for Mathematics and a post of trainer of the USSR national team. Lasker returned to competitive chess to make some money, finishing fifth in Zürich 1934 and third in Moscow 1935 (undefeated, ½ point behind Mikhail Botvinnik and Salo Flohr; ahead of Capablanca, Rudolf Spielmann and several Soviet masters), sixth in Moscow 1936 and seventh equal in Nottingham 1936. His performance in Moscow 1935 at age 66 was hailed as "a biological miracle." Joseph Stalin's Great Purge started at about the same time the Laskers arrived in the USSR. In August 1937, Martha and Emanuel Lasker decided to leave the Soviet Union, and they moved, via the Netherlands, to the United States (first Chicago, next New York) in October 1937. In the following year Emanuel Lasker's patron, Krylenko, was purged. Lasker tried to support himself by giving chess and bridge lectures and exhibitions, as he was now too old for serious competition. In 1940 he published his last book, "The Community of the Future", in which he proposed solutions for serious political problems, including anti-Semitism and unemployment. He died of a kidney infection in New York on January 11, 1941, at the age of 72, as a charity patient at the Mount Sinai Hospital. He was buried in the Beth Olom Cemetery, Queens, New York. He was survived by his wife Martha and his sister, Mrs. Lotta Hirschberg. Assessment. Playing strength and style. Lasker was considered to have a "psychological" method of play in which he considered the subjective qualities of his opponent, in addition to the objective requirements of his position on the board. Richard Réti published a lengthy analysis of Lasker's play in which he concluded that Lasker deliberately played inferior moves that he knew would make his opponent uncomfortable. W. H. K. Pollock commented, "It is no easy matter to reply correctly to Lasker's bad moves." Lasker himself denied the claim that he deliberately played bad moves, and most modern writers agree. According to Grandmaster Andrew Soltis and International Master John L. Watson, the features that made his play mysterious to contemporaries now appear regularly in modern play: the g2-g4 "Spike" attack against the Dragon Sicilian; sacrifices to gain positional advantage; playing the "practical" move rather than trying to find the best move; counterattacking and complicating the game before a disadvantage became serious. Former World Champion Vladimir Kramnik said, "He realized that different types of advantage could be interchangeable: tactical edge could be converted into strategic advantage and vice versa", which mystified contemporaries who were just becoming used to the theories of Steinitz as codified by Siegbert Tarrasch. Max Euwe opined that the real reason behind Lasker's success was his "exceptional defensive technique" and that "almost all there is to say about defensive chess can be demonstrated by examples from the games of Steinitz and Lasker", with the former exemplifying passive defence and the latter an active defence. The famous win against José Raúl Capablanca at St. Petersburg in 1914, which Lasker needed in order to retain any chance of catching up with Capablanca, is sometimes offered as evidence of his "psychological" approach. Reuben Fine describes Lasker's choice of opening, the Exchange Variation of the Ruy Lopez, as "innocuous but psychologically potent." However, an analysis of Lasker's use of this variation throughout his career concludes that he had excellent results with it as White against top-class opponents, and sometimes used it in "must-win" situations. Luděk Pachman writes that Lasker's choice presented his opponent with a dilemma: with only a ½ point lead, Capablanca would have wanted to play safe; but the Exchange Variation's pawn structure gives White an endgame advantage, and Black must use his bishop pair aggressively in the middle game to nullify this. In Kramnik's opinion, Lasker's play in this game demonstrated deep positional understanding, rather than psychology. Fine reckoned Lasker paid little attention to the openings, but Capablanca thought Lasker knew the openings very well, but disagreed with a lot of contemporary opening analysis. In fact before the 1894 world title match Lasker studied the openings thoroughly, especially Steinitz' favorite lines. In Capablanca's opinion, no player surpassed Lasker in the ability to assess a position quickly and accurately, in terms of who had the better prospects of winning and what strategy each side should adopt. Capablanca also wrote that Lasker was so adaptable that he played in no definite style, and that he was both a tenacious defender and a very efficient finisher of his own attacks. In addition to his enormous chess skill Lasker was said to have an excellent competitive temperament: his rival Siegbert Tarrasch once said, "Lasker occasionally loses a game, but he never loses his head." Lasker enjoyed the need to adapt to varying styles and to the shifting fortunes of tournaments. Although very strong in matches, he was even stronger in tournaments. For over twenty years, he always finished ahead of the younger Capablanca: at St. Petersburg 1914, New York 1924, Moscow 1925, and Moscow 1935. Only in 1936 (15 years after their match), when Lasker was 67, did Capablanca finish ahead of him. In 1964, "Chessworld" magazine published an article in which future World Champion Bobby Fischer listed the ten greatest players in history. Fischer did not include Lasker in the list, deriding him as a "coffee-house player knew nothing about openings and didn't understand positional chess." In a poll of the world's leading players taken sometime after Fischer's list appeared, Tal, Korchnoi, and Robert Byrne all said that Lasker was the greatest player ever. Both Pal Benko and Byrne stated that Fischer later reconsidered and said that Lasker was a great player. Statistical ranking systems place Lasker high among the greatest players of all time. The book "Warriors of the Mind" places him sixth, behind Garry Kasparov, Anatoly Karpov, Fischer, Mikhail Botvinnik and Capablanca. In his 1978 book "The Rating of Chessplayers, Past and Present", Arpad Elo gave retrospective ratings to players based on their performance over the best five-year span of their career. He concluded that Lasker was the joint second strongest player of those surveyed (tied with Botvinnik and behind Capablanca). The most up-to-date system, Chessmetrics, is rather sensitive to the length of the periods being compared, and ranks Lasker between fifth and second strongest of all time for peak periods ranging in length from one to twenty years. Its author, the statistician Jeff Sonas, concluded that only Kasparov and Karpov surpassed Lasker's long-term dominance of the game. By Chessmetrics' reckoning, Lasker was the number 1 player in 292 different months—a total of over 24 years. His first No. 1 rank was in June 1890, and his last in December 1926—a span of 36½ years. Chessmetrics also considers him the strongest 67-year-old in history: in December 1935, at age 67 years and 0 months, his rating was 2691 (number 7 in the world), well above second-place Viktor Korchnoi's rating at that age (2660, number 39 in the world, in March 1998). Influence on chess. Lasker founded no school of players who played in a similar style. Max Euwe, World Champion 1935–37 and a prolific writer of chess manuals, who had a lifetime 0–3 score against Lasker, said, "It is not possible to learn much from him. One can only stand and wonder." However, Lasker's pragmatic, combative approach had a great influence on Soviet players like Mikhail Tal and Viktor Korchnoi. There are several "Lasker Variations" in the chess openings, including Lasker's Defense to the Queen's Gambit, Lasker's Defense to the Evans Gambit (which effectively ended the use of this gambit in tournament play until a revival in the 1990s), and the Lasker Variation in the McCutcheon Variation of the French Defense. One of Lasker's most famous games is Lasker–Bauer, Amsterdam 1889, in which he sacrificed both bishops in a maneuver later repeated in a number of games. Similar sacrifices had already been played by Cecil Valentine De Vere and John Owen, but these were not in major events and Lasker probably had not seen them. Lasker was shocked by the poverty in which Wilhelm Steinitz died and did not intend to die in similar circumstances. He became notorious for demanding high fees for playing matches and tournaments, and he argued that players should own the copyright in their games rather than let publishers get all the profits. These demands initially angered editors and other players, but helped to pave the way for the rise of full-time chess professionals who earn most of their living from playing, writing and teaching. Copyright in chess games had been contentious at least as far back as the mid-1840s, and Steinitz and Lasker vigorously asserted that players should own the copyright and wrote copyright clauses into their match contracts. However, Lasker's demands that challengers should raise large purses prevented or delayed some eagerly awaited World Championship matches—for example Frank James Marshall challenged him in 1904 to a match for the World Championship but could not raise the stakes demanded by Lasker until 1907. This problem continued throughout the reign of his successor Capablanca. Some of the controversial conditions that Lasker insisted on for championship matches led Capablanca to attempt twice (1914 and 1922) to publish rules for such matches, to which other top players readily agreed. Work in other fields. Lasker was also a mathematician. In his 1905 article on commutative algebra, Lasker introduced the theory of primary decomposition of ideals, which has influence in the theory of Noetherian rings. Rings having the "primary decomposition property" are called "Laskerian rings" in his honor. His attempt to create a general theory of all competitive activities were followed by more consistent efforts from von Neumann on game theory, and his later writings about card games presented a significant issue in the mathematical analysis of card games. However, his dramatic and philosophical works have never been highly regarded. Friends and relatives. Lasker was a good friend of Albert Einstein, who wrote the introduction to the posthumous biography "Emanuel Lasker, The Life of a Chess Master" from Dr. Jacques Hannak (1952). In this preface Einstein express his satisfaction at having met Lasker, writing: Poetess Else Lasker-Schüler was his sister-in-law. Edward Lasker, born in Kempen (Kępno), Greater Poland (then Prussia), the German-American chess master, engineer, and author, claimed that he was distantly related to Emanuel Lasker. They both played in the great New York 1924 chess tournament. In popular culture. Fiction. In Michael Chabon's alternate history mystery novel, "The Yiddish Policemen's Union", the murdered man, Mendel Shpilman (born during the 1960's), being a chess enthusiast, uses the name "Emanuel Lasker" as an alias. The reference is clearly understood by the protagonist, Detective Meyer Landsman, because he has also studied chess. Tournament results. The following table gives Lasker's placings and scores in tournaments. The first "Score" column gives the number of points on the total possible. In the second "Score" column, "+" indicates the number of won games, "−" the number of losses, and "=" the number of draws. Match results. Here are Lasker's results in matches. The first "Score" column gives the number of points on the total possible. In the second "Score" column, "+" indicates the number of won games, "−" the number of losses, and "=" the number of draws.
1016404	The Viral Factor is a 2012 Hong Kong-Chinese action film directed by Dante Lam and starring Jay Chou and Nicholas Tse. The supporting cast includes Lin Peng, Bai Bing, Andy On, Carl Ng, Liu Kai-chi and Elaine Jin and the action director is Chin Kar-lok. Production started in March 2011，and it was released in January 17, 2012. Plot. On a mission to protect a scientist who has stolen a copy of the smallpox virus in Jordan, Sean (Andy On) betrays his IDC (International Defense Commission) team in order to get the virus so he can mutate it into a biological weapon, develop a vaccine and sell it to a corrupt pharmaceutical company via an arms dealer. The failed mission leaves Jon Man (Jay Chou) injured and his girlfriend Ice (Bai Bing) dead. With two weeks to live, he decides to spend his remaining days with his mother (Elaine Jin) who tells him that he has a long lost brother, Man Yeung (Nicholas Tse) whom she left behind with his father, Man Tin (Liu Kai Chi). Jon decides to track Yeung down in Malaysia but upon arrival, he discovers that Yeung has become a wanted felon and is part of the plot orchestrated by Sean. Jon is drawn into the conflict, not only to protect his family but to ensure his brother does not go further down the road of unrighteousness and to take down Sean's operation for good. Production. With a HK$200 million budget, lead actors Jay Chou and Nicholas Tse had a combined insurance coverage of $150 million and 20 bodyguards to protect them. The budget also included RM70,000 for apartment rentals in Kuala Lumpur. The producers borrowed airplanes from the air force, tanks and other things to use during filming.Filming locations included Hong Kong, Xi'an, Middle East and Malaysia. Around 80% of the movie was filmed in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. In the movie, several scenes were shot in the compounds of International Medical University. One of the locations used in Malaysia was an abandoned construction site in Kuala Lumpur. Among them, the scene in a traffic jam was filmed at Jalan Raja Chulan, during long weekends and public holidays when fewer people would be in Kuala Lumpur.
1164295	Daryl Christopher Sabara (born June 14, 1992) is an American film and television actor. He is perhaps best known for playing Juni Cortez in the "Spy Kids" film series, as well as for a variety of television and film appearances, including "Generator Rex", "Wizards of Waverly Place, Father of the Pride", "The Polar Express", "Keeping Up with the Steins", "Halloween", and the reality show "America's Most Talented Kids", on which he was a judge. Early life. Sabara was born in Torrance, California, and was raised by his mother, Sandra "Sandy" Krebs, a Los Angeles social worker. He has a fraternal twin brother, Evan, who is also an actor. Sabara is of Russian Jewish and German descent. Sabara began performing with the regional ballet company, South Bay Ballet. Career. Sabara began acting during the mid-1990s, appearing on episodes of "Murphy Brown", "Life's Work", "Will and Grace", and "Friends" before being cast as Juni Cortez in the "Spy Kids" series of family films, which became popular among pre-teen audiences. Sabara provided the voice of Hunter, the male lion cub on the NBC animated sitcom "Father of the Pride". He has appeared in episodes of the television series "Weeds", "House", "Dr. Vegas", and was one of the judges on "America's Most Talented Kids". Sabara also voiced the main character, Hero Boy, in the 2004 animated version of "The Polar Express". He then played a Jewish young boy trying to have a nice Bar Mitzvah in "Keeping Up with the Steins" (formerly known as "Lucky 13"), which received a limited release on May 12, 2006. He also guest starred in the Criminal Minds episode, "P911" where he played as a sexually molested child. He also provides the voice for Rex in the new cartoon network series "Generator Rex". Sabara next appeared in the films "Her Best Move" and the interactive DVD "Choose Your Own Adventure", played Ben on "The Last Chance Detectives" radio dramas by "Adventures in Odyssey" & Focus on the Family, and also appeared as school bully Wesley Rhoades in Rob Zombie's "Halloween". He then played Irwin in the theater play "The Catskills Sonata", about a young Jewish busboy in the late 1950s. In 2003, Sabara made a guest appearance as the character Owen on an episode of "Friends", during which Matthew Perry's character Chandler accidentally reveals to Owen that he is adopted. He also gained a recurring role in the Disney Channel sitcom "Wizards of Waverly Place" as T.J. Taylor, a wizard who ignores the rules and uses magic the way he wants, often getting him into trouble. He was also in "The Boondocks" as the voice of Butch Magnus Milosevic in the episode Shinin'. He appeared in an episode of "The Batman" as Scorn, the sidekick of the villain Wrath. The role was opposite his brother, who played "Robin". He costarred in the 2009 film "April Showers", a movie written and directed by a survivor of the 1999 Columbine High School massacre. He played Kyle, a misanthropic teenager in "World's Greatest Dad", with Robin Williams, and Peter Cratchit in the 2009 film adaptation of "A Christmas Carol". He appeared in the comedy series "Easy To Assemble", where he played a character named George. In the 2010 he appeared in the movie "Machete", as well as the MTV movie "Worst. Prom. Ever." which premiered May 10. In 2012, he co-starred in "John Carter" as Edgar Rice Burroughs. He portrayed the recurring role of Tim Scottson in seven episodes (spanning from 2005-2012) of the Showtime TV series "Weeds".
583159	Kunal is an Indian film actor, director, and television personality who hosts the food show "The Foodie" on Times Now and comedy-spoof show The Week That Wasn't on CNN IBN with Cyrus Broacha. Early life. He studied at St. Mary's School, Mumbai. Career. Kunal started out by appearing in various TV commercials and appeared in supporting roles in many Hindi movies, including "Duplicate" (1998) by Mahesh Bhatt, "Paisa Vasool" (2004), and "Salaam Namaste" (2005) with Saif Ali Khan and Preity Zinta. He played the role of a journalist in the Hindi film "Ghajini" (2008) and was seen as Kunal in "Little Zizou" (2009), a story of the Parsi community. He is the host of the channel Times Now show titled "The Foodie", which features him travelling around the country sampling exotic foods. His weekly satire comedy show "The Week The Wasn't", with comedian Cyrus Broacha on CNN IBN completed three years and 150 episodes in 2009. He does a sketch show with Cyrus Broacha, "Cyrusitis", written and directed by Broacha. Vijaykar debuted as a screenwriter and director in 2009 with "Fruit and Nut", a comedy starring Dia Mirza, Cyrus Broacha, Boman Irani, and Mahesh Manjrekar. Since 2011, he also writes the fortnightly humour column, Funda Mental, in "The Week" magazine.
1030050	The Kid with a Bike () is a 2011 drama film written and directed by the Belgian brothers Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne, starring Thomas Doret and Cécile de France. Set in Seraing, it tells the story of a 12-year-old boy who turns to a woman for comfort after his father has abandoned him. The film was produced through companies in Belgium, France and Italy. While it does not deviate from the naturalistic style of the Dardenne brothers' earlier works, a brighter aesthetic than usual was employed, and the screenplay had a structure inspired by fairy tales. Unusually for a film by the directors, it also uses music. It premiered at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival and was co-winner of the festival's Grand Prix. Plot. The story begins with Cyril, a 12-year-old boy in foster care, searching for his father and lost bike. Cyril escapes the foster home to try to find his father at his old apartment. When the caretakers find him, Cyril flees to a doctor’s office nearby, where he grabs onto a woman in the waiting room. Trying to alleviate the situation, the caretakers take Cyril to the empty apartment, confirming that his father has really abandoned him. The next morning, the woman from the doctor's office, Samantha, shows up with Cyril’s bike. She says she bought it from someone in the projects, but Cyril thinks it was stolen from his dad. He likes Samantha though, and asks if she would take him in on weekends. Later, through an old personal ad, Cyril discovers that his father actually sold his bike. With Samantha, Cyril is able to finally track down his father. However, his father isn't happy to be found and tells his son never to come back. Cyril, heartbroken by his father's rejection, turns to Samantha for comfort. But despite Samantha's care, Cyril is soon taken under the wing of Wes, a local gang leader known as "The Dealer". At The Dealer’s prompting, Cyril robs a newsstand owner and his son with a baseball bat. The Dealer, fearing Cyril had been identified, forces him to keep quiet and keep the money. Cyril tries giving it to his father only to be chased away. Dejected, Cyril returns to Samantha and finally accepts her care for him. The robbery is settled through mediation, where Cyril apologizes personally to the owner, who accepts, but his son does not and, in a chance encounter, tries to get his revenge. In the ensuing chase, Cyril climbs a tree and falls when struck by a rock the son throws. While he lies unconscious, the owner and son discuss what lies to tell the police. While they're talking, Cyril comes to and walks away, having apparently decided to move on with his life. Production. Luc Dardenne said that he and his brother Jean-Pierre had for a long time had the idea of a film about "a woman who helps a boy emerge from the violence that holds him prisoner." Writing the screenplay took one year including a few breaks. In the earliest drafts, the character Samantha was a doctor and not a hairdresser. The script was structured with a fairytale in mind, where the boy would lose his illusions and Samantha would appear as a fairy-like figure. By not explaining much about the characters' past and psychology, the brothers aimed to avoid sentimentality. Throughout the writing process the brothers strove to maintain a strong clarity in the overall work and to avoid gloom, which is why the brothers, according to Jean-Pierre, decided to omit "any form of vulgarity in the teenagers' language, even though they're street criminals." The film is a co-production with 46% investment from its directors' Belgian company Les Films du Fleuve, 44% from its French Archipel 35, and 10% from Italy's Lucky Red. It received further funding from the CNC, Eurimages, Wallimage, Radio Télévision Belge de la Communauté Française, and the Belgian French Community. Cécile de France was offered the role of Samantha soon after the screenplay was finished, as the brothers believed she would be able to portray the kindness of the character with her body and face alone. For the casting of the boy, Cyril, the production team held around 100 auditions. Thomas Doret was the fifth applicant the brothers met, and according to Jean-Pierre, "it clicked right away." The team rehearsed for a month on the actual sets in full costume. The 55-day shoot commenced in Belgium in August and ended 15 October 2010. It was the first time the Dardenne brothers made a film in the summer. The film was made under the production title "Délivrez-moi!" which means "Set me free!" Unusually for a film by the Dardenne brothers, there is music in the film. According to Luc, they hesitated for a long time, but eventually decided that music would serve the film's structure: "In a fairytale there has to be a development, with emotions and new beginnings. It seemed to us that music, at certain points, could act like a calming caress for Cyril." Release. The film premiered in competition on 15 May at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival. Cineart distributed it in Belgium and Diaphana Films in France. The premiere in both countries took place on 18 May. In Belgium, the film was launched on 27 screens and entered the box-office chart as number six, with a weekend gross of 70,768 euro. In France, it was launched in 172 venues and had an attendance of 107,763 the opening week, which also resulted in a sixth place on the domestic chart. One week later the number of screens had been increased to 215, and the total attendance reached 209,725. In Italy, the film was released on 18 May through Lucky Red. Sundance Selects acquired the distribution rights for the United States. The film will be distributed in the United Kingdom through Artificial Eye. Box office. As of 14 June 2012, "The Kid with a Bike" has grossed $1,389,524 in North America, along with $3,786,899 in other countries, for a worldwide total of $5,176,423. Reception. The film received near universal acclaim. It scored a 96% "Certified Fresh" approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 109 reviews; the film review aggregate site described the critical consensus that the film "is a heart-wrenching, thematically and spiritually rich drama." Jonathan Romney wrote in "Screen Daily": "After the slightly sub-par "Lorna's Silence" (2008), the brothers are back on peerless form with this story of innocence betrayed and befriended, which must count as one of the best films about childhood since "Kes" – or for that matter "Bicycle Thieves", to which it surely nods." Romney further commented: "Shooting as usual with cinematographer Alain Marcoen, and in their familiar stamping ground of Seraing, the brothers this time bring a somewhat different, airier look to their locations, more suburban than in the past. Marcoen's camerawork, also, is rather more free-wheeling than the tightly constrained (and often imitated) tightness of "The Son"." At the 2011 London Film Festival it was among "Sight & Sound"s 30 recommendations; according to them, "The Dardenne brothers may be the most consistently high-achieving filmmakers of our time – the kings, if you like, of poetic neorealism. Like all their films, "Le Gamin au vélo" ("The Kid with a Bike") is near perfect." Upon its March 2012 UK release, Peter Bradshaw gave it (four stars out of 5) and said it "revive the memory of De Sica's 1948 classic "Bicycle Thieves""; it is a "heartfelt, boldly direct film composed in the social-realist key signature of C major, revisiting the film-makers' classic themes of parenthood, trust and love." On the negative side, one critic called the film "trite" and its thinking "lazy", while another reviewer called it "formulaic" and "superficial". Accolades. The film received the Grand Prix at the Cannes film Festival, which is the festival's second most prestigious award. The win was shared with the Turkish film "Once Upon a Time in Anatolia". The film received a nomination at the 69th Golden Globe Awards for Best Foreign Language Film and at the Satellite Awards 2011 in the same category. It was also nominated at the Independent Spirit Awards for Best International Film. The St. Louis Gateway Film Critics Association nominated the film for Best Foreign-Language Film, but it lost to "The Intouchables". Doret received the Magritte Award for Most Promising Actor. The film was named among the National Board of Review's Top 5 Foreign Language Films of 2012. It won the Best Foreign Language Film at the San Diego Film Critics Society Awards 2012.
1101223	Gian-Carlo Rota (April 27, 1932 – April 18, 1999, known as Juan Carlos Rota to Spanish-speakers) was an Italian-born American mathematician and philosopher. Life. Rota was born in Vigevano, Italy. Gian-Carlo's family left Italy when he was 13 years old, initially going to Switzerland. Rota attended the Colegio Americano de Quito in Ecuador, and earned degrees at Princeton University and Yale University. Much of his career was spent as a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he was and remains the only person ever to be appointed Professor of Applied Mathematics and Philosophy. Rota was also the Norbert Wiener Professor of Applied Mathematics. In addition to his professorships at MIT, Rota held four honorary degrees, from the University of Strasbourg, France (1984); the University of L'Aquila, Italy (1990); the University of Bologna, Italy (1996); and Brooklyn Polytechnical University (1997).
1043958	Murder Most Foul is the third of four Miss Marple films made by MGM. Loosely based on the novel "Mrs McGinty's Dead" by Agatha Christie, it stars Margaret Rutherford as Miss Jane Marple, Bud Tingwell as Inspector Craddock, and Stringer Davis (Rutherford's real-life husband) as Mr Stringer. The story is ostensibly based on the original Christie story, but notably changes the action and characters. Hercule Poirot is replaced by Miss Marple and most other characters are not in the original story. The film was released in 1964 and directed by George Pollock, with David Pursall credited with the adaptation. The music was by Ron Goodwin. The title is a quote from "Hamlet" (I.v.27-28), where the Ghost comments about his own death, "Murder most foul as in the best it is/But this most foul, strange and unnatural." Plot. Margaret McGinty, a barmaid and former actress, is found hanged, and her lodger, Harold Taylor, caught at the scene, seems plainly guilty. Everyone believes it to be an open-and-shut case ... except for Miss Marple. She is the lone holdout in the jury that tries him, leading to a mistrial.
1099223	Curve fitting is the process of constructing a curve, or mathematical function, that has the best fit to a series of data points, possibly subject to constraints. Curve fitting can involve either interpolation, where an exact fit to the data is required, or smoothing, in which a "smooth" function is constructed that approximately fits the data. A related topic is regression analysis, which focuses more on questions of statistical inference such as how much uncertainty is present in a curve that is fit to data observed with random errors. Fitted curves can be used as an aid for data visualization, to infer values of a function where no data are available, and to summarize the relationships among two or more variables. Extrapolation refers to the use of a fitted curve beyond the range of the observed data, and is subject to a degree of uncertainty since it may reflect the method used to construct the curve as much as it reflects the observed data. Different types of curve fitting. Fitting lines and polynomial curves to data points. Starting with a first degree polynomial equation: This is a line with slope "a". A line will connect any two points, so a first degree polynomial equation is an exact fit through any two points with distinct x coordinates. If the order of the equation is increased to a second degree polynomial, the following results: This will exactly fit a simple curve to three points. If the order of the equation is increased to a third degree polynomial, the following is obtained: This will exactly fit four points. A more general statement would be to say it will exactly fit four constraints. Each constraint can be a point, angle, or curvature (which is the reciprocal of the radius of an osculating circle). Angle and curvature constraints are most often added to the ends of a curve, and in such cases are called end conditions. Identical end conditions are frequently used to ensure a smooth transition between polynomial curves contained within a single spline. Higher-order constraints, such as "the change in the rate of curvature", could also be added. This, for example, would be useful in highway cloverleaf design to understand the rate of change of the forces applied to a car (see jerk), as it follows the cloverleaf, and to set reasonable speed limits, accordingly.
1475362	The Gravedancers is a 2006 American horror film. It was chosen as one of the 8 Films To Die For in 2006 and screened at that year's After Dark Horrorfest film festival. Plot. An unidentified young woman, alone in a room, is attacked by an invisible assailant, who hangs her in the stairway of her house. As she dies, she drops an ornate black envelope.
1073788	Jennifer Elise Cox (born November 29, 1969) is an American actress best known for her satirical portrayal of Jan Brady in "The Brady Bunch Movie". She attended California Institute of the Arts and earned a BFA in Acting. Film roles. Cox became widely known for her appearance as middle-child Jan Brady in the 1995 film "The Brady Bunch Movie" and its 1996 sequel "A Very Brady Sequel", a pastiche role she originated off Broadway in "The Real Live Brady Bunch". She has also appeared in the films "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas", "EdTV", "A Holiday Engagement", "Bewitched" "The Back-Up Plan", and the straight-to-video "Spooky Buddies". Her most recent film, "Out West", is in post production and co-stars Sean Astin. Television roles. Cox's television credits include "Clueless", "2 Broke Girls", "Hype", "Murphy Brown", "Moesha", "Sex and the City", "Will & Grace", "Six Feet Under", "Nip/Tuck", "", "In Plain Sight","Lovespring International", "Chelsea Lately", "Pushing Daisies", "Privileged" and as "Amy Anderson" in the TBS series "10 Items or Less". She also had a role in the second part of a two-part episode of "Pair Of Kings" as The Lady of the Cave. She is currently starring as Gina Spinks in the TV series "Web Therapy".
585506	Ore Kadal () is a 2007 Malayalam film written and directed by Shyamaprasad. The film examines the extra-marital relationship between an intellectual economist and a housewife. It stars Mammootty, Meera Jasmine, Narain and Ramya Krishnan. "Ore Kadal" was chosen as the inaugural film of the Indian Panorama section at the International Film Festival of India. Ouseppachan won the National Award for the Best Music Director for "Ore Kadal". Plot. The film is based on Sunil Gangopadhyay’s novel "Hirak Deepthi". Dr. S.R. Nathan (Mammootty) is a world-renowned professor of economics. A theorist to the core, he always harps on his pet topics of poverty and developmental issues that concern the developing world. He is a loner who hits the bottle. He is not a womanizer though; in his own terms, he loves their company. His close friend Bella (Ramya Krishnan) is more practical. She tries to identify herself with some of the stark realities of life. Deepthi (Meera Jasmine) is a housewife who stays in the same apartment complex with her husband (Narain) and son. Her husband is on the lookout for a job. On his persuasion, Deepthi approaches Nathan. Their chance encounter ends up in a complex relationship. But Nathan is unperturbed and quite unmindful of his ways. While Deepthi gets a feeling of guilt, Nathan just shoos it away. In fact, he is working on a book on middle-class attitudes and notions. Yet, when confronted with real questions, Nathan loses ground — a reference to the pseudo-intellectual image. Here, the director closely examines the disturbing relationship between two individuals. Deepthi is not able to pull herself away from Nathan. The undercurrents in the minds of Deepti and Nathan, their tormented souls as turbulent as the sea, are captured on frame dexterously by Alagappan, the cameraman. Though the film does not give any direct message, it does hint at what makes or breaks a relationship. Soundtrack. The soundtrack features five songs composed by Ouseppachan and lyrics penned by Gireesh Puthenchery. All songs and background music is composed in the Carnatic raga "Shubhapantuvarali". Syamaprasad told Ouseppachan that this movie's mood is serious. So he composed the music in that raga. The soundtrack earned Ouseppachan the National Film Award for Best Music Direction. Awards. National Film Awards Kerala State Awards 2007 Dubai Amma Awards 2007 IFFK 2007 Awards Asianet Film Award 2007 Film Critics Award 2007 Vanitha Film Award 2007 FOKANA Film Award 2007 Sify Award 2007 Amrita Film Awards 2007 Others
1044319	Peter Burton (4 April 1921 - 21 November 1989) was an English film and television actor born in Bromley, Kent. His biggest claim to fame is being the first actor to portray Major Boothroyd, better known as Q, in the first James Bond film, "Dr. No" (1962). Due to a scheduling conflict, Burton was not available to reprise the role for "From Russia with Love" (1963) and therefore was replaced by long time Q actor Desmond Llewelyn. Burton guest starred in a number of television shows including "The Avengers", "The Saint", "Return of the Saint", and "UFO".
1067616	Ernie Lively (born January 29, 1947, Baltimore, Maryland) is an American actor. Lively was born Ernest W. Brown but in 1979 he married a talent manager, Elaine Lively, and took her surname. They are the parents of Blake and Eric Lively, both actors. Ernie is stepfather to Elaine's children from her previous marriage: Lori, Robyn and Jason Lively. He may be best known for his roles in "Passenger 57", "Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants" and "Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2".
1105366	In science, engineering, and other quantitative disciplines, orders of approximation refer to formal or informal terms for how precise an approximation is, and to indicate progressively more refined approximations: in increasing order of precision, a zeroth-order approximation, a first-order approximation, a second-order approximation, and so forth. Formally, an "n"th-order approximation is one where the order of magnitude of the error is at most formula_1, or in terms of big O notation, the error is formula_2 In suitable circumstances, approximating a function by a Taylor polynomial of degree "n" yields an "n"th-order approximation, by Taylor's theorem: a first-order approximation is a linear approximation, and so forth. The term is also used more loosely, as detailed below. Usage in science and engineering. Zeroth-order. "Zeroth-order approximation" (also 0th order) is the term scientists use for a first educated guess at an answer. Many simplifying assumptions are made, and when a number is needed, an order-of-magnitude answer (or zero significant figures) is often given. For example, you might say "the town has a few thousand residents", when it has 3,914 people in actuality. This is also sometimes referred to as an order-of-magnitude approximation.
1064579	Robert Barton Englund (born June 6, 1947) is an American actor, voice-actor, singer, and director, best known for playing the fictional serial killer Freddy Krueger, in the "Nightmare on Elm Street" film series. He received a Saturn Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor for ' in 1987 and ' in 1988. Englund is a classically trained actor. Early life. Englund was born in Glendale, California on June 6, 1947, the son of Janis (née MacDonald) and John Kent Englund, an aeronautics engineer who helped develop the Lockheed U-2 airplane. He is of part Swedish ancestry, and can speak Swedish fairly well. Englund began studying acting at the age of twelve in a children's theater program at California State University, Northridge. While he was in high school, he attended the "Cranbrook Theatre School" (organized by the Cranbrook Educational Community) in Bloomfield Hills. He then attended California State University for three years before transferring to Michigan's Oakland University, where he trained at the Meadow Brook Theater, at the time a branch of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. Career. Wanting a feature film debut, Englund was briefly considered for the part of Han Solo in the 1977 film "" while visiting his close friend, Mark Hamill, who would later be cast in the film as Luke Skywalker, for which role Englund actually auditioned. Englund's first film wound up being "Eaten Alive." He then acted out Ranger in "Galaxy of Terror," produced by Roger Corman, which was released in 1981. Since then, Englund has made over 100 appearances on film and television. His early film roles usually typed him as a nerd or a redneck, and he first gained attention in the role of Willie, the lovably innocent alien in the 1983 miniseries "V," as well as the 1984 sequel "V: The Final Battle," and "V: The Series," in which he was a regular cast member. But after such typecasting, Englund acted out a role jarringly against type: the psychotic burn victim and child murderer Freddy Krueger in Wes Craven's 1984 hugely successful "A Nightmare on Elm Street." This role catapulted him to nationally syndicated fame, and Englund became the first new horror movie star since Sir Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing in the 1960s. His association with the genre led him to top-billed roles in "The Phantom of the Opera" (1989), "The Mangler" (1995), and "2001 Maniacs" (2005). Englund is one of only two actors to act out a horror character eight consecutive times, the other being Doug Bradley, who portrayed the Pinhead character eight times in the "Hellraiser" film series. Englund has said that he enjoys the role of Freddy as it gives him a break from always acting out the nice guy; indeed, many people who have worked with Englund attest to his congeniality. Makeup artists responsible for the Krueger makeup have commented that Englund was so friendly and talkative that it made the lengthy makeup application slightly more challenging. Englund's TV appearances include starring in the short-lived series "Nightmare Cafe" (1992), in which he played Blackie, the mysterious proprietor of the title cafe, and reprising his role of "Freddy Krueger" in the series "Freddy's Nightmares." His guest roles include the science fiction series "Babylon 5," one episode of the show "MacGyver" as Tim Wexler, "Masters of Horror," "MadTV," "Sliders," and "Knight Rider," where he appeared as a phantom haunting a film studio, and "" as well as a guest star spot on the hit TV show "Walker, Texas Ranger." His work in voice-over animation includes magician Felix Faust in "Justice League," The Riddler on "The Batman," The Vulture on "The Spectacular Spider-Man," and as Dormammu on "The Super Hero Squad Show." On the TV witch drama "Charmed" (Episode: "Size Matters"), he appeared as a demon who used the services of a lackey to lure people into a decrepit household (where he lived in the walls) and shrank them down to action figure size. He also appeared on an episode of "Married...With Children" as The Devil. He appeared most recently, in one episode of the 2010 season of the television spy send-up "Chuck," as a scientist who created a fear-inducing nerve toxin, a similar character to the Scarecrow, one of Batman's enemies in the DC Comics. Englund performed as host of the Horror Hall of Fame awards show three times from 1989-1991. Englund made his directorial debut with the 1988 horror film "976-EVIL," produced at a time when the "976" prefix was used for premium-rate telephone numbers. His second feature, "Killer Pad," was released direct-to-DVD in 2008. As of the beginning of July 2013, he was in pre-production to direct "The Vij," about a young priest who is led by an evil genie to commit murder, and who falls in love with an old witch who is not what she seems. His memoir, "Hollywood Monster: A Walk Down Elm Street with the Man of Your Dreams," which Alan Goldsher transcribed from his dictations, was published by Pocket Books on October 13, 2009. Recently he had starred in the web series "Fear Clinic," where he appeared in five episodes as Dr. Andover. Englund recently noted he would welcome a guest appearance in the ABC revival of "V" in an interview with Todd Sokolove from "Forces of Geek." But the series was canceled before he could make such a guest appearance. In January 2010, it was announced that Englund would return as Jackson Roth for the sequel to Dee Snider's "Strangeland," titled "Strangeland II: Disciple." However, as of December 2010, no specefic dates or plans had been made regarding the project. Englund made a guest appearance in the "The Death of the Queen Bee" episode of "Bones," appearing as a quirky janitor at protagonist Dr. Temperance Brennan’s old high school. His character, a friend of Brennan's, and situation were introduced as "very creepy... it's like Freddy creepy." Englund was a special guest at the 2010 Streamy Awards, and also appeared as a special guest of the CA Weekend of Horrors on 8 October 2010. Englund appeared on the Creation Entertainment Weekend of Horrors in May 2010. In May of 2010, he was signed for the American independent thriller "Inkubus." Englund appeared as himself in the new "" Zombies map, "Call of the Dead" as one of the playable characters, and acted out the part of a Halloween-themed serial killer in the 2010s revival of "Hawaii Five-0." He also took part in a Halloween "Come dine with me" for Channel 4 in 2012.
581683	Tell Me O Kkhuda is a Bollywood drama film directed by Mayur Puri and Hema Malini, starring Esha Deol, Arjan Bajwa, Sudhanshu Pandey, Vinod Khanna, Dharmendra, Rishi Kapoor, Farooq Sheikh, and Chandan Roy Sanyal in the lead roles; Salman Khan makes a special appearance. It released on October 27, 2011 to mixed reviews at the box office. The music is composed by Pritam.
1236182	Marcus Coloma (born October 18, 1978) is an American actor and musician of Hawaiian and Italian descent. Early life. Coloma was born in Middletown, California. Career. Coloma has appeared on television in "Point Pleasant" as Father Tomas and on the short-lived series "South Beach" as Matt Evans. Coloma has also guest starred on several television shows including the CW drama "One Tree Hill". Coloma's first feature film was "Material Girls", playing opposite sisters Hilary Duff and Haylie Duff.
629264	The Interview is a 1998 Australian thriller film from writer-director Craig Monahan, and is the first of two films directed by Monahan. Almost the entire film takes place in a police interrogation room, with some short flashback sequences, and the cast consists primarily of three key actors—Hugo Weaving, Tony Martin, and Aaron Jeffery. Plot synopsis. Eddie Rodney Fleming (Weaving) is a quiet, nervous man who recently lost his job and family. One morning, Eddie is seized from his apartment for unknown reasons by two men claiming to be cops. They take him to headquarters and question him about a stolen car. But as tempers rise and the truth is slowly unraveled, Eddie realizes there's more to this interview than meets the eye. Awards. The film was the 1998 AFI winner for Best Film, for Best Original Screenplay (Craig Monahan, Gordon Davie) and for Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role (Hugo Weaving). Alternate ending. An alternate ending of the film was featured on the DVD release. In this version, Eddie Rodney Fleming is seen hitchhiking along a desolate road. A car stops and Barry Walls (Caton) offers him a ride. Fleming accepts and they drive away, followed at a distance by Steele (Martin) on his motorcycle, no doubt intending to enforce some vigilante justice. Box Office. "The Interview" grossed $556,263 at the box office in Australia. Home Media. "The Interview" was released on DVD by Umbrella Entertainment in July 2011. The DVD is compatible with all region codes and includes special features such as audio commentary by Craig Monahan, deleted scenes, the alternate ending and cast and crew interviews.
775246	Molly Kathleen Dunsworth (born May 25, 1990), known professionally as Molly Dunsworth, is a Canadian actress. She is best known for her starring role in "Hobo with a Shotgun", where she plays "Abby" alongside Rutger Hauer. Early life. Dunsworth grew up in Nova Scotia, Canada, and is the youngest daughter of actor John Dunsworth. "Hobo with a Shotgun". "Hobo with a Shotgun" was Molly's first starring role in a feature film. Dunsworth co-stars in the film, alongside Rutger Hauer, in the role of Abby, a requisite "hooker with a heart of gold". "Hobo with a Shotgun" premiered at Sundance Film Festival on January 21, 2011 in the Park City at Midnight category and was released in theatres across Canada on March 25, 2011.
1072845	Background. In 1971, with theatrical audiences lost to television, Nikkatsu, Japan's oldest major film studio, had entered the soft-core pornography genre, previously dominated by independent pink film studios, in an effort to avoid bankruptcy. This move had proven highly successful for the studio for three years, but 1974 had been another difficult year for the studio. For years Nikkatsu had been trying to recruit the "Queen of Pink," Naomi Tani, into their "Roman Porno" series, but because Nikkatsu had been reluctant to enter the S&M genre, which was Tani's specialty, she had refused. When Nikkatsu finally consented to Tani's request to star her in a film based on Oniroku Dan's S&M novel "Flower and Snake", the film—"Flower and Snake" (1974), directed by Masaru Konuma—became one of the studio's first successes of the year. The studio followed this first successful venture into the S&M genre with "Wife to be Sacrificed", another starring role for Tani, again directed by Konuma. Because Oniroku Dan had objected to Konuma's handling of "Flower and Snake", he was not involved in the making of "Wife to be Sacrificed", though he later gave Nikkatsu exclusive rights to the filming of his novels. The resulting film is generally credited with firmly establishing the string of S&M films which helped sustain the company throughout the 1970s and 1980s. It became Nikkatsu's biggest hit of 1974, and remains one of their top five successes of all time. It also established Naomi Tani as the new Nikkatsu "Roman Porno" queen, and the first of their "SM Queens". Synopsis. Akiko (Naomi Tani) is startled to find her estranged husband, Kunisada (Nagatoshi Sakamoto), in a car watching a young, pre-pubescent girl urinate by the side of a road. When Akiko returns home, the girl, Miko, follows crying that "Uncle" has disappeared. Akiko turns the girl over to the police. Later, while she is giving ikebana lessons at home, the police return to ask Akiko for information about Kunisada. It is revealed that he had disappeared three years ago after being arrested for a sexual crime involving a high school girl.
586067	Manjil Virinja Pookkal (, ) is a 1980 Malayalam film produced by Navodaya Appachan and directed by Fazil, starring Shankar, Poornima Jayaram, and Mohanlal in the main roles. This film was one of the biggest hits of the year and was a major landmark in the career of director Fazil. The film produced one of the greatest Indian actor ever happened - Mohanlal. The songs were composed by Jerry Amaldev. "Manjil Virinja Pookkal" was Mohanlal's first release. His first film "Thiranottam" was never released in theaters. The film was shot mainly from Kodaikanal, Tamil Nadu. The first dialogue of Mohanlal, which begins as "I am Narendran" was shot from the Astoria Hotel, near Kodaikanal busstand.
1103122	Terence "Terry" Chi-Shen Tao FAA FRS () (born 17 July 1975, Adelaide), is an Australian mathematician working in harmonic analysis, partial differential equations, additive combinatorics, ergodic Ramsey theory, random matrix theory, and analytic number theory. He currently holds the James and Carol Collins chair in mathematics at the University of California, Los Angeles. He was one of the recipients of the 2006 Fields Medal. Personal life. Tao was a child prodigy, one of the subjects in the longitudinal research on exceptionally gifted children by education researcher Miraca Gross. His father told the press that at the age of two, during a family gathering, Tao attempted to teach a 5-year-old child arithmetic and English. According to Smithsonian Online Magazine, Tao could carry out basic arithmetic by the age of two. When asked by his father how he knew numbers and letters, he said he learned them from "Sesame Street". Aside from English, Tao speaks Cantonese, but cannot write Chinese. Tao exhibited extraordinary mathematical abilities from an early age, attending university level mathematics courses at the age of nine. He is one of only two children (besides Lenhard Ng) in the history of the Johns Hopkins' Study of Exceptional Talent program to have achieved a score of 700 or greater on the SAT math section while just 8 years old (he scored a 760). In 1986, 1987, and 1988, Tao was the youngest participant to date in the International Mathematical Olympiad, first competing at the age of ten, winning a bronze, silver, and gold medal respectively. He remains the youngest winner of each of the three medals in the olympiad's history winning the gold medal when he barely turned fourteen. At age 14, Tao attended the Research Science Institute. When he was 15 he published his first assistant paper. He received his bachelor's and master's degrees (at the age of 16) from Flinders University under Garth Gaudry. In 1992 he won a Fulbright Scholarship to undertake postgraduate study in the United States. From 1992 to 1996, Tao was a graduate student at Princeton University under the direction of Elias Stein, receiving his Ph.D. at the age of 20. He joined the faculty of the University of California, Los Angeles in 1996. When he was 24, he was promoted to full professor at UCLA and remains the youngest person ever appointed to that rank by the institution. Tao's father was born and grew up in Shanghai, and Tao's mother is Cantonese by ethnicity. His parents are first generation immigrants from Hong Kong to Australia. His father, Billy Tao () is a pediatrician, and his mother, Grace Tao, is a physics and mathematics graduate from the University of Hong Kong, formerly a secondary school teacher of mathematics in Hong Kong. Tao has two brothers living in Australia, both of whom represented Australia at the International Mathematical Olympiad. Tao, his wife Laura (an engineer at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory), their son and daughter live in Los Angeles, California. Research and awards. Tao has won numerous honors and awards. He received the Salem Prize in 2000, the Bôcher Memorial Prize in 2002, and the Clay Research Award in 2003, for his contributions to analysis including work on the Kakeya conjecture and wave maps. In 2005, he received the American Mathematical Society's Levi L. Conant Prize with Allen Knutson, and in 2006 he was awarded the SASTRA Ramanujan Prize. In 2004, Ben Green and Tao released a preprint proving what is now known as the Green–Tao theorem. This theorem states that there are arbitrarily long arithmetic progressions of prime numbers. "The New York Times" described it this way:
1065764	Mark Addy Johnson (born 14 January 1964) is an English actor, best known for his roles as Detective Constable Gary Boyle in the British sitcom "The Thin Blue Line", Dave in the film "The Full Monty", father Bill Miller in the US sitcom "Still Standing", King Robert Baratheon in the HBO medieval fantasy epic "Game of Thrones" and Hercules in the British fantasy drama series "Atlantis". Personal life. Addy was born in Tang Hall, York, and was educated in the city. In 1982–84 he attended the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. He lives with his wife Kelly and three children (Ruby, born 2000; Charlie, born 2003; and Oscar, born 2005) in Rufforth, close to Upper Poppleton village, near York. Addy's ancestors have lived in York at least since 1910 when his great-grandfather was living there. His father Ian has spent his working life as a glazier at York Minster. Television. Addy made his first TV appearance in 1988 in "A Very Peculiar Practice", followed by TV performances in shows such as "Heartbeat", "Band of Gold", "Married... with Children" (one episode), "Bruised Fruit", "Peak Practice", "The Thin Blue Line", "Too Much Sun", "Sunnyside Farm", "Trollied" and most recently "The Syndicate (TV series)" for the BBC. He played Bill Miller in "Still Standing" and played Detective Boyle in the second series of the British sitcom "The Thin Blue Line". He also appeared on ITV1's comedy drama series "Bonkers", and another ITV comedy drama, "Bike Squad", in early 2008 as Sergeant John Rook. Addy played the character Robert Baratheon in the HBO series "Game of Thrones". Since 2009 Addy has starred with Fay Ripley in a series of adverts for the relaunched Tesco Clubcard. Addy is currently playing the role of Hercules, one of the main characters in the new BBC One fantasy drama series Atlantis that started airing on the 28th September 2013 in the UK. Film. He had a leading role in the film "The Full Monty", and played the role of Fred Flintstone in the 2000 film "The Flintstones in Viva Rock Vegas". In that role, as well as in "Still Standing", he played the role of a blue-collar American (or, more accurately, an American-accented Pangean in the case of Fred Flintstone). He also played a supporting role as Mac McArthur in the 1998 film "Jack Frost", with Michael Keaton. In 2001, he played a butler of Chris Rock's character in the movie "Down to Earth" and also appeared in "A Knight's Tale" as Roland. Addy played the role of David Philby in "The Time Machine" and made a guest appearance as the Ship Captain in "Around the World in 80 Days" with Jackie Chan and Steve Coogan and made an appearance as Friar Tuck in Ridley Scott's 2010 film "Robin Hood". Theatre. Addy played Kevin Snell in the 2006 revival of "Donkeys' Years" at the Comedy Theatre in London, and in 2007–08 he has appeared at the National Theatre as Dogberry in "Much Ado About Nothing" and as Hjalmar Johansen in "Fram". In 2011, he played Vladimir, an NKVD officer, in "Collaborators" at the National Theatre, which also featured in the National Theatre Live programme, where live performances are broadcast to cinemas around the world.
1067504	The Killer Elite is a 1975 American action thriller film starring James Caan and Robert Duvall and directed by Sam Peckinpah. The screenplay was written by Marc Norman and Stirling Silliphant adapted from the Robert Syd Hopkins novel, "Monkey in the Middle". The novel was written under Hopkins' pseudonym of Robert Rostand. The film represents the last collaboration between Peckinpah and soundtrack composer Jerry Fielding. Plot. Mike Locken (James Caan) and George Hansen (Robert Duvall) are best friends and private contractors for a private intelligence agency, Communications Integrity or ComTeg, which handles covert assignments for the CIA. At the beginning of the film, Locken and Hansen are helping an East European defector, Vorodny (Helmut Dantine) escape. After delivering the defector to other ComTeg operatives, Locken and Hansen throw a wild party to relax. The next day, they go to a ComTeg safehouse to relieve other agents who have been guarding Vorodny, the defector they previously helped escape. Hansen, having been bought out by an unknown rival group, assassinates Vorodny, and then critically wounds Locken in the knee and elbow, telling Locken that he's, "just been retired." Told that he'll be a cripple for life and that his career is apparently at an end, Locken undergoes a long period of rehabilitation when he is subsequently approached with another assignment from his Com-Teg contact man, Cap Collis (Arthur Hill). It requires him to protect an Asian client, Yuen Chung. It also gives him the opportunity to seek revenge against Hansen, who is part of the team out to assassinate the client. Locken, having become well versed in the martial arts using his cane during his rehabilitation, recruits a couple of former ComTeg associates, Mac (Burt Young), a and a former friend of Locken's and Miller (Bo Hopkins), a weapons expert, to help him. However, the deal turns out to be an elaborate set-up, part of an internal power struggle between rival Com-Teg directors, the aforementioned Cap Collis and his superior, Lawrence Weybourne (Gig Young). In a subsequent assassination attempt on Chung, Hansen gets the drop on Locken, but is shot and killed by Miller. Locken rebukes Miller for killing Hansen. He later forgives him. A final showdown between the Asian rivals takes place aboard a naval vessel on the Reserve Fleet in Suisun Bay, California with Locken and Mac involved in the fray and confronting Collis one last time. Reception. Japanese film director Shinji Aoyama listed "The Killer Elite" as one of the Greatest Films of All Time in 2012. He said, "No other movie has taught me as much about human dignity as "The Killer Elite"." In 1977 James Caan said he only did the film because his advisers told him to work with Sam Peckinpah, and he rated it zero out of ten.
1166096	Don Novello (born January 1, 1943) is an American writer, film director, producer, actor, singer, and comedian. Novello is best known for his work on NBC's "Saturday Night Live", from 1977 until 1980, and again in 1985-86, often as the character Father Guido Sarducci. Novello has appeared as Sarducci in the video of Rodney Dangerfield's "Rappin' Rodney" and on many television shows since then, including "Married... with Children", "Blossom", "It's Garry Shandling's Show", "Unhappily Ever After", "Square Pegs" and "The Colbert Report". Early life. Novello was born in Ashtabula, Ohio. His father was a physician. He is of Italian and Irish descent. In 1961, he graduated from Lorain High School in Lorain, Ohio. He graduated from the University of Dayton. In 1965, he graduated from the Thunderbird School of Global Management in Glendale, Arizona. Career. In the late 1960s, Novello worked as an advertising copywriter for Leo Burnett in Chicago. Don Novello created the Father Guido Sarducci character in 1973 after finding a monsignor's outfit for $7.50 at a St. Vincent de Paul thrift shop. Adding sunglasses, a broom mustache, cigarette and a thick Italian accent, Sarducci became popular in a San Francisco nightclub. Sarducci appeared on San Francisco Channel 20's "Chicken Little Comedy Show", and comic David Steinberg was watching. Steinberg hired Novello as a writer for a TV show that never aired, but he also introduced Novello to Tommy and Dick Smothers, and they hired Novello, too. Novello performed on "The Smothers Brothers Show" in 1975, appearing as Sarducci. In the 1970s, Novello started to write letters to famous people under the pen name of Lazlo Toth (name taken from that of Laszlo Toth, a deranged man who vandalized Michelangelo's Pietà in Rome). The letters, designed to tweak the noses of politicians and corporations, were full of deliberate misstatements of fact and inside jokes. Many of these letters received serious responses; Novello sometimes continued the charade correspondence at length, with humorous results. The letters and responses were published in the books "The Lazlo Letters", "Citizen Lazlo!", and "From Bush to Bush: The Lazlo Toth Letters". "The Lazlo Letters", Novello's first book of stilted letters to celebrities, caught the attention of Lorne Michaels, producer of "Saturday Night Live". Novello was hired as a writer for the show's third season in 1977-1978 where he remained through the fifth season, and returned as a writer in the eleventh season. He also appeared numerous times on the show in the Father Guido Sarducci character. In 1980, under the name of Father Guido Sarducci, he sang lead vocals on the Warner Bros. Records release, "I Won't Be Twisting This Christmas"/"Parco MacArthur" (WBS49627). Novello co-wrote the first tune with M. Davich, and the second tune is an Italian language cover of "MacArthur Park", the Jimmy Webb song, in an arrangement similar to that recorded by Richard Harris. Novello made newspapers around the world when he visited the Vatican in 1981 wearing the Father Guido Sarducci costume and, while taking photographs for a magazine article in an area where photography was prohibited, was arrested by the Swiss Guards along with his photographer (Paul Solomon), and eventually charged with "impersonating a priest". The charges were later dropped, and Solomon managed to protect the film from confiscation. In his stage show in Las Vegas and Reno with the Smothers Brothers, Father Guido Sarducci would roll a wheel chair with a dummy in the robes of a cardinal. Sarducci would explain, he was the assistant of 108-year old, "Cardinal Dario Fungi." In the early 1980s, Novello produced "SCTV", a Toronto-based comedy show, which starred Martin Short, Joe Flaherty, John Candy, Eugene Levy, Dave Thomas, Rick Moranis, Andrea Martin, and Catherine O'Hara. In 1984 Novello wrote "The Blade", a high school yearbook parody in which the students are represented by sheep. Novello co-wrote the unfilmed script for "Noble Rot", with John Belushi. He also narrated Faerie Tale Theatre's third season episode "Pinocchio" with Paul Reubens as the titular puppet. In 1990, Novello portrayed "Dominic Abbandando" in the film, "". Abbandando appears with speaking lines in the first scene as public relations and media coordinator for Don Michael Corleone. Most notable is when he slaps down a news reporter with the challenge: "You think you know better than the Pope?" Novello appears in many other scenes as well shadowing George Hamilton and is included in the climactic scene on the steps of the Palermo Opera House. In 2001, he lent his voice to the character in the Disney animated film ', and subsequently in the direct to video sequel '. In 2003, he filed papers to enter the 2003 California recall election, but failed to collect enough valid signatures to qualify for the ballot. In 2005, after the death of Pope John Paul II, Novello, as Father Guido Sarducci, reprised his former "SNL" role as "Special Vatican Reporter" for Air America Radio host (and fellow "Saturday Night Live" alumnus) Al Franken. He continued this role until the election of Pope Benedict XVI. In 2006, he portrayed the role of Galileo on the podcast "The Radio Adventures of Dr. Floyd". He portrayed Pope Pius XII in the 2009 short film, "All in the Bunker". On June 23, 2010, he appeared on "The Colbert Report" portraying Father Guido Sarducci. On October 30, 2010, he gave the benediction at the Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear hosted by Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert. Personal life. Novello resides in San Anselmo, California. Brother to Joe Novello. His sister-in-law, Antonia Novello, was Surgeon General of the United States from 1990 to 1993. Albums. Appeared on the compilations "Holidays in Dementia" (1995) and "A Classic Rock Christmas" (2002). He made guest appearances on the Handsome Boy Modelling School albums "So... How's Your Girl?" (1999) and "White People" (2004). References. Notes
642910	Gerald Jay Sussman (February 8, 1947) is the Panasonic Professor of Electrical Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He received his S.B. and Ph.D. degrees in mathematics from MIT in 1968 and 1973 respectively. He has been involved in artificial intelligence research at MIT since 1964. His research has centered on understanding the problem-solving strategies used by scientists and engineers, with the goals of automating parts of the process and formalizing it to provide more effective methods of science and engineering education. Sussman has also worked in computer languages, in computer architecture and in VLSI design. Academic work. Sussman is a coauthor (with Hal Abelson and Julie Sussman) of the introductory computer science textbook "Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs". It was used at MIT for several decades, and has been translated into several languages. Sussman's contributions to artificial intelligence include problem solving by debugging almost-right plans, propagation of constraints applied to electrical circuit analysis and synthesis, dependency-based explanation and dependency-based backtracking, and various language structures for expressing problem-solving strategies. Sussman and his former student, Guy L. Steele Jr., invented the Scheme programming language in 1975. Sussman saw that artificial intelligence ideas can be applied to computer-aided design. Sussman developed, with his graduate students, sophisticated computer-aided design tools for VLSI. Steele made the first Scheme chips in 1978. These ideas and the AI-based CAD technology to support them were further developed in the Scheme chips of 1979 and 1981. The technique and experience developed were then used to design other special-purpose computers. Sussman was the principal designer of the Digital Orrery, a machine designed to do high-precision integrations for orbital mechanics experiments. The Orrery was designed and built by a few people in a few months, using AI-based simulation and compilation tools. Using the Digital Orrery, Sussman has worked with Jack Wisdom to discover numerical evidence for chaotic motions in the outer planets. The Digital Orrery is now retired at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC. Sussman was also the lead designer of the Supercomputer Toolkit, another multiprocessor computer optimized for evolving systems of ordinary differential equations. The Supercomputer Toolkit was used by Sussman and Wisdom to confirm and extend the discoveries made with the Digital Orrery to include the entire planetary system. Sussman has pioneered the use of computational descriptions to communicate methodological ideas in teaching subjects in Electrical Circuits and in Signals and Systems. Over the past decade Sussman and Wisdom have developed a subject that uses computational techniques to communicate a deeper understanding of advanced classical mechanics. In "Computer Science: Reflections on the Field, Reflections from the Field", he writes "...computational algorithms are used to express the methods used in the analysis of dynamical phenomena. Expressing the methods in a computer language forces them to be unambiguous and computationally effective. Students are expected to read the programs and to extend them and to write new ones. The task of formulating a method as a computer-executable program and debugging that program is a powerful exercise in the learning process. Also, once formalized procedurally, a mathematical idea becomes a tool that can be used directly to compute results." Sussman and Wisdom, with Meinhard Mayer, have produced a textbook, "Structure and Interpretation of Classical Mechanics", to capture these new ideas. Sussman and Abelson have also been an part of the Free Software Movement, including and serving on the Board of Directors of the Free Software Foundation, Awards and organizations. For his contributions to computer-science education, Sussman received the ACM's Karl Karlstrom Outstanding Educator Award in 1990, and the Amar G. Bose award for teaching in 1991. Sussman, Hal Abelson, and Richard Stallman are the only founding directors still active on the board of directors of the Free Software Foundation (FSF). Sussman is a fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), a member of the National Academy of Engineering (NAE), a fellow of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI), a fellow of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), a fellow of the New York Academy of Sciences (NYAS), and a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He is also a bonded locksmith, a life member of the American Watchmakers-Clockmakers Institute (AWI), a member of the Massachusetts Watchmakers-Clockmakers Association (MWCA), a member of the Amateur Telescope Makers of Boston (ATMOB), and a member of the American Radio Relay League (ARRL).
1462999	Blonde and Blonder is a 2008 Canadian comedy film starring Pamela Anderson, Denise Richards and Emmanuelle Vaugier. The film was directed by Dean Hamilton, and was released on January 18, 2008. The film's name is a reference to "Dumb and Dumber". Plot. Two dumb blondes, Dee Twiddle (Pamela Anderson) and Dawn St. Dom (Denise Richards), meet each other at their first lesson in flight school. Dee is a big-breasted professional dancer with a pet turtle, Virgil, who has a gas problem. Dawn is a former secretary who has tried to be a dancer. After meeting with each other in flight school, they take off in their plane without the instructor. When they notice that it's their first lesson, the blondes panic and crash into a golf course. The blondes survive the crash with no injuries. The blondes eventually become friends and they notice that they have been neighbors for nearly a year. Dee decides to help Dawn get a dancing gig at the Beaver Patch Lounge. Meanwhile, the Vancouver Italian Mafia decides to whack Lou Rimoli, a former mafia member and current informant, who is running the Beaver Patch Lounge. Rimoli is being protected by two agents. The Godfather of the mob sends two female assassins, Cat (Emmanuelle Vaugier) and Kit (Meghan Ory) to whack Rimoli. The assassins succeed. However, Rimoli is murdered right before Dee and Dawn's audition. The Mobsters, Leo (Kevin Farley) and Swan (John Farley) were supposed to monitor what was happening, after seeing Dee and Dawn run from the club, they mistake the blondes for being the infamous assassins Cat and Kit. Believing that Dee and Dawn are assassins, Leo and Swan offer them $250,000 to "take out" Hang Wong (Byron Mann), the head of the Triads in Niagara Falls, Ontario. Dee and Dawn agree, but they think that they have to take Wong on a date. Federal agents discover the plan to kill Wong and follow the blonde duo also thinking they are Cat and Kit. The Godfather sends Leo and Swan to follow the girls to make sure Wong gets whacked. Once the blonde duo arrive in Niagara Falls, they settle at a casino hotel and resort, which Mr. Wong owns. Cat and Kit also arrive there and find out that Dee and Dawn are pretending to be them and have been the hired assassins. They plan to get revenge because Dee and Dawn stole their reputation for whacking Rimoli and are pretending to be them to kill Wong. While Dawn is winning money at the casino, Dee meets Mr. Wong during his meeting with Leo and Swan. Dee tells Wong that Leo and Swan hired her to show him a good time. Federal agents spot Dee with Wong in the casino, and chase them. Wong decides to kidnap Dee and takes her to his yacht. Meanwhile, they are chased by the federal agents, Dawn (Richards), Cat and Kit. The federal agents and police take everyone into custody. Back at the casino, the police arrest Kit and Cat, and also Wong for kidnapping Dee. Dawn finally finds her dream guy and with the millions of dollars Dawn won at the casino, Dee and Dawn establish Dee and Dawn's Famous Turtle Sanctuary in the countryside where they only have one turtle but promise to have more soon. Reaction. Box office performance. Worldwide: $779,273
1036045	Chris O'Dowd (born 9 October 1979) is an Irish actor and comedian best known for his role as Roy Trenneman in the Channel 4 comedy "The IT Crowd". He has appeared in several films, including "Gulliver's Travels" and "Bridesmaids" and currently stars in the television "Family Tree". He also had a recurring role on the drama series "Girls", and is the voice of Dr. Cockroach in the television series version of "Monsters vs. Aliens". Early life. Chris O'Dowd was born and raised in Boyle, County Roscommon, Ireland. His mother, Denise, is a counsellor and psychotherapist, and his father, Seán O'Dowd, is a graphic designer. He represented Roscommon in Gaelic football at under-16, minor and under-21 level, the highlight being his performance as a goalkeeper in the 1997 Connacht Minor final against Mayo. This was highlighted by his guest appearance on the Sunday Game.
585778	Gandhinagar 2nd Street is a 1986 Malayalam film directed by Sathyan Anthikad, starring Mohanlal, Seema, Karthika, Srinivasan, Thilakan, Innocent, Sukumari, and KPAC Lalitha. Mammootty makes a cameo appearance. The film was later remade in Tamil as "Annanagar Mudhal Theru" starring Sathyaraj, Radha and Janagaraj, with Prabhu in a cameo appearance and in Telugu as "Gandhinagar Rendo Veedhi" with Rajendra Prasad, Jayasudha.
1070553	Home Alone 4 (also known as Home Alone: Taking Back the House) is a 2002 American made-for-television Christmas family comedy film directed by Rod Daniel, which first aired on ABC on November 3, 2002. It is the fourth installment in the "Home Alone" series. The film brings back several of the main characters from the first two films including Kevin McCallister, but with all the roles played by different actors. It is also the only film in the series to be filmed outside the United States (although set in Chicago, it was actually shot in South Africa). The plot revolves around Kevin (Mike Weinberg) trying to defend his future stepmother's house from Marv (French Stewart) and his wife Vera (Missi Pyle). Plot. At the McCallisters' house, Peter (Jason Beghe) is about to get divorced from Kate (Clare Carey) and announces that he's living with his new and rich girlfriend Natalie (Joanna Going) at her mansion. He tells his three children Buzz (Gideon Jacobs), Megan (Chelsea Russo), and Kevin (Mike Weinberg) that they are hosting the visit of a royal family and invites everyone to spend Christmas with him and Natalie. After initially refusing, Kevin takes his father up on his offer after being tormented by Buzz. Kevin enjoys his time at Natalie's mansion with his new bedroom, latest gadgets and his life. In the next morning, Natalie and Peter go out for a bit while Kevin stays at the mansion with Natalie's butler Mr. Prescott (Erick Avari) and maid Molly (Barbara Babcock). While Prescott makes Kevin a milkshake, he goes into the security room and gets caught by Prescott who gives Kevin another chance. With Natalie and Peter still away, Kevin notices his old nemesis Marv (French Stewart), a remaining member of the Wet Bandits and new sidekick and wife Vera (Missi Pyle) outside the house. Kevin tries to get Mr. Prescott to answer the intercom, but unfortunately it doesn't work. He then spies on them and drive them away by flooding the house, but Peter and Natalie arrive while Kevin is cleaning up and don`t believe Kevin's explanation especially since Prescott claims to have seen nothing. While driving, Marv tells Vera about his encounters with Kevin and states that they have someone on the inside to help them in their plot. Kevin then attempts to use the security camera footage to prove himself, but discovers that the camera had been turned off and is caught by Prescott (who Kevin now believes to be Marv and Vera's ally). Molly then appears and gets Kevin out of trouble. Peter and Natalie then realize they gave Kevin a hard time and decide to make him feel better, so the three of them decide to decorate the tree together. The next morning Peter and Kevin wake up and realize their tree was replaced because of Natalie. Kate, Buzz and Megan then decided to visit Kevin. Kate meets Natalie in person and Kevin shows the entire house to Buzz and Megan. At a party for the royal family while Peter and Natalie have gone to pick them up, Kevin notices Marv and Vera dressed up as caterers. Mr. Prescott warns Kevin about the night so he then tricks Mr. Prescott into going into the freezer room and he ends up locked in and frozen in ice. Kevin then spies on Marv and Vera in his bedroom and hears them planning about kidnapping the royals. Unfortunately for them, Kevin makes sure that their plan was a failure and has them fall out and break the window. The royal family are unable to attend the party because their flight was cancelled, so Peter and Natalie instead announce their engagement. Marv and Vera run back into the house and Kevin hits Marv with a frying pan, flips the table and get soup spilled on Marv and Vera. They then chase Kevin, causing him to accidentally ruin the party. Peter is angered at this event, still refusing to believe Kevin about the break-in for he believes that Kevin is trying to end his relationship with Natalie. Since no one believes him about the heist, Kevin decides to deal with matters himself and sets booby traps for Marv and Vera. The next morning, Peter and Natalie go get the royals and Kevin is left back at the house. Marv and Vera wake up and head to the house. Kevin tricks and locks Mr. Prescott in the basement, but then he discovers Marv and Vera's real ally is actually Molly who also turns out to be Marv's mother as well. Kevin gets locked in the basement with Mr. Prescott where he learns that he only erased the video because he hates his job and that during the times Natalie is away he takes secret breaks which if caught would lead Natalie to order him with more work hours. He erased the video to cover up his secret well-deserved breaks and not to help Marv and Vera. After apologizing to Mr. Prescott for misjudging him (and vice-versa), Kevin tries to call Buzz using Prescott's phone but he just jeers and hangs up on him. He then tries to call his mom but they get disconnected and when calling the house Kate is told by a lying Molly that Kevin is with Peter. When Kate calls Peter about Kevin, he denies this causing both Kate and Peter to become suspicious. During these calls, Kevin loses power on Prescott's phone and with help from Prescott manages to escape through the dumbwaiter. He then unleashes his traps on Marv and Vera. Molly hears the commotion and tries to stop Kevin resulting in Kevin trapping her in the elevator. At the airport, Peter's suspicions about the confusion about Kevin gets him worried about Kevin and leaves Natalie to get the royal prince as he goes back to Natalie's mansion to check on him. Back in the basement, Mr. Prescott then manages to escape through the dumbwaiter as well wanting to see if Kevin is alright. Just on the road, Kate, Buzz and Megan are on their way to save Kevin as well since Kate also was suspicious. Marv heads to the bedroom and ends up getting caught and stuck under the bookshelf. Kevin then plays a recording of Marv, making it sound like he's insulting Vera, which causes them argue. Marv then gets hit by Kevin's electric aircraft making him fall and rumble down the stairs. Marv and Vera are then tricked by Kevin with a secret wall switch, end up swinging from a chandelier, and they fall and are knocked unconscious. When smugly wishing them a merry Christmas, Molly had escaped from the elevator and grabs Kevin threatening him with a pan, but Mr. Prescott knocks her out with a serving tray. Then, he and Kevin call the police who then arrive at the same time the others arrive. As Peter, Kate, Buzz and Megan arrive, Kevin, with Buzz and Megan's help, chases Marv and Vera out of the house and checkmates them. Peter tries to apologize to Kevin, but Kevin vows never to forgive him. The royal family and Natalie arrive at the house and Natalie is confused when she sees Molly getting arrested for her crimes alongside Marv and Vera. An FBI agent reveals that Molly confessed inside to have masterminded the plot to abduct the royal family. Everyone has a good Christmas as Peter breaks up with Natalie, Mr. Prescott resigns, and it is a good Christmas for the McCallisters. Critical reception. Home Alone 4 was panned by reviews from critics and fans of the first two films. At Rotten Tomatoes, Home Alone 4 currently has no score on the tomatometer, but it does have a 40% audience rating. Criticisms were based on how Home Alone 4 doesn't seem to fit into the same chronological timeline as the first two movies and the film's inferior casting and writing. Several reviews also criticized the film for low-budget production values. The film currently holds a low rating of 2.1 out of 10 at IMDb. A planned TV series based on the movie was cancelled because of the poor reviews. Sequel. On March 15, 2012, ABC Family announced that "" was in production, and will premiere on that network during the 2012 Christmas season. The film stars Christian Martyn as 10-year-old main character Finn Baxter. The story centers on the family's relocation from California to Maine, where Finn becomes convinced that his new house is haunted. When his parents become stranded across town and is left home alone with his sister Alexis, Finn sets traps to catch his new home's ghosts, but instead prove troublesome for a group of thieves (played by Malcolm McDowell, Debi Mazar and Eddie Steeples). The film also stars Edward Asner, is produced by Fox Television Studios, and is directed by Peter Hewitt.
1244750	Pianomania is a 2009 German-Austrian documentary film by directors Lilian Franck and Robert Cibis. The film presents Stefan Knüpfer, a virtuoso piano tuner from the piano company Steinway & Sons, in his work with pianists such as Lang Lang, Alfred Brendel and Pierre-Laurent Aimard. Synopsis. The collaborative work between Pierre-Laurent Aimard and Stefan Knüpfer is at the center of the film. Bach's "The Art of Fugue" is to be recorded. Pierre-Laurent Aimard has decided in favor of concert grand piano Nr. 109 for the Bach recording. The film begins one year before the recording. Knüpfer wants to study instruments from the time of Bach for Aimard. He experiments with sound absorbers made from felt and with glass sound mirrors. But as fate will have it, the number 109 grand piano is sold to Australia a few months later; and that is not the last obstacle that gets in their way. Knüpfer and Aimard meet regularly, and when the tension is so thick it can be cut with a knife, Knüpfer saves the day with his sense of humor. The road toward the pianist’s longed for “bravo” is long. One afternoon, a rather sleepy artist in jeans and sneakers shows up. It is the Chinese star pianist Lang Lang, who will be giving a guest performance in the Viennese concert hall. Still suffering from jet lag, he has to choose an instrument to play. His overcrowded tour calendar leaves little time for individual settings. Instead, and almost shyly, he asks for a heavy bench that will hold up through his extroverted style of playing without sliding around. The piano superstar completes his performance in the large hall in a dark suit and wild hairstyle. The bench holds up, and he receives thunderous applause. The sketches of the comedy duo Igudesman & Joo always parody the elitist music world. Together with Knüpfer they come up with some of the craziest scenarios for the next show. One of Alfred Brendel's last concerts takes place at the Grafenegg Music Festival. Knüpfer prepares the piano for him while the star pianist gives his directions humorously. Technical aspects. Corresponding to the struggle of the protagonists to find the perfect sound, the sound recording of the film itself was made with great efforts. All the scenes were recorded in Dolby Surround quality and on up to 90 separate sound tracks.
1545086	Lawrence Julius Taylor (born February 4, 1959), nicknamed "L.T.", is a Hall of Fame former American football player. Taylor played his entire professional career as a linebacker for the New York Giants in the National Football League (NFL). He is considered to be one of the greatest players in the history of football, and has been ranked as the greatest defensive player in league history by former players, coaches, media members, and news outlets such as the NFL Network, and "Sporting News". After an All-American career at the University of North Carolina (UNC) (1978–1981), Taylor was drafted by the Giants as the second overall selection in the 1981 NFL Draft. Although controversy surrounded the selection due to Taylor's contract demands, the two sides quickly resolved the issue. Taylor won several defensive awards after his rookie season. Throughout the 1980s and early 1990s, Taylor was a disruptive force at outside linebacker, and is credited with changing the pass rushing schemes, offensive line play, and offensive formations used in the NFL. Taylor produced double-digit sacks each season from 1984 through 1990, including a career high of 20.5 in 1986. He also won a record three Defensive Player of the Year awards and was named the league's Most Valuable Player (MVP) for his performance during the 1986 season. He was named First-team All-Pro in each of his first nine seasons and was a key member of the Giants' defense, nicknamed "The Big Blue Wrecking Crew", that led New York to victories in Super Bowls XXI and XXV. During the 1980s Taylor, fellow linebackers Carl Banks, Gary Reasons, Brad Van Pelt, Brian Kelley, Pepper Johnson, and Hall of Famer Harry Carson gave the Giants linebacking corps a reputation as one of the best in the NFL. Taylor has lived a controversial lifestyle, during and after his playing career. He admitted to using drugs such as cocaine as early as his second year in the NFL, and was suspended several times by the league for failing drug tests. His drug abuse escalated after his retirement, and he was jailed three times for attempted drug possession. From 1998 to 2009, Taylor lived a sober, drug-free life. He worked as a color commentator on sporting events after his retirement, and pursued a career as an actor. His personal life came under public scrutiny in 2011 when he pleaded guilty to sexual misconduct involving a 16-year old girl. Early life. Lawrence Taylor was the second of three sons born to Clarence and Iris Taylor in Williamsburg, Virginia. His father worked as a dispatcher at the Newport News shipyards, while his mother was a schoolteacher. Referred to as Lonnie by his family, Taylor was a mischievous youth. His mother said that "was a challenging child. Where the other two boys would ask for permission to do stuff, Lonnie...would just do it, and when you found out about it, he would give you a big story." Taylor concentrated on baseball as a youth, in which he played the position of catcher, and only began playing football at the advanced age of fifteen. He did not play organized high school football until the following year (eleventh grade), and was not heavily recruited coming out of high school. After graduating from Lafayette High School in 1977, Taylor attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill where he was a team captain, and wore No. 98. Originally recruited as a defensive lineman, Taylor switched to linebacker before the 1979 season. He had 16 sacks in his final year there (1980), and set numerous defensive records. He was recognized as a consensus first-team All-American and the Atlantic Coast Conference Player of the Year in 1980. While there the coaching staff marveled at his intense, reckless style of play. "As a freshman playing on special teams, he'd jump a good six or seven feet in the air to block a punt, then land on the back of his neck," said North Carolina assistant coach Bobby Cale. "He was reckless, just reckless." UNC later retired Taylor's jersey, and subsequent players frequently played in his shadow.*Q & A with North Carolina DE Julius Peppers, "Pro Football Weekly", March 20, 2002, accessed February 17, 2007. NFL career. 1981 NFL Draft and training camp. In the 1981 NFL Draft, Taylor was drafted by the NFL's New York Giants as the 2nd pick overall. In a poll of NFL General Managers (GMs) taken before the draft 26 of the league's 28 GMs said if they had the first selection they would select Taylor. One of the two GMs who said they would not take Taylor was Bum Phillips, who had just been hired as coach and general manager by the New Orleans Saints. As fate would have it for Taylor, the Saints were also the team who had the first pick in the draft. Giants GM George Young predicted before the draft that he would be better than NFL legends such as Dick Butkus: "Taylor is the best college linebacker I've ever seen. Sure, I saw Dick Butkus play. There's no doubt in my mind about Taylor. He's bigger and stronger than Butkus was. On the blitz, he's devastating." Controversy arose before the draft when Taylor and his agent Michael Trope, known as Mike Trope during his NFL agent years, expressed a desire to sign a contract for $250,000 a season, an amount unheard of for a rookie in 1981. Several players on the Giants threatened to walk out if Taylor was paid that salary, as they refused to play for less than an unproven rookie.
482038	The Shooting Party is a 1985 British drama film directed by Alan Bridges and based on the book of the same name by Isabel Colegate. The film is set in 1913 and shows the way of life of English aristocrats, gathered for pheasant shooting and general self-indulgence. Their way of life is contrasted with the local rural poor, who serve as 'beaters', driving the game for the aristocrats to shoot. It was entered into the 14th Moscow International Film Festival. Analysis. There is a general feeling of the end of a way of life, as the characters go about their lives unaware of the coming war (World War I) and the changes it will bring. This is the last film appearance by James Mason, who plays Sir Randolph Nettleby, the local landowner who has something of the old values. Edward Fox as Lord Gilbert Hartlip represents the newer types who don't have the same solid beliefs: he gets into a competition over who is the best shot, despite his host's disapproval. Production. According to the DVD extras documentary, on the very first shot of the very first day of filming, all of the male lead actors, including Paul Scofield who was playing Sir Randolph Nettleby, were to come into shot on a horse-drawn shooting-break driven by the well-known film horse-master George Mossman. However as they turned the first corner, the break-plank that Mossman was standing on broke in two and Mossman was hurled forward and down falling between the sets of wheels, taking the reins with him. He was struck by a horse's hoof and concussed. The horses then shied and broke into a gallop. Rupert Frazer admitted that he was the first to jump off, landing safely, but bruised. Now out of control, the horses turned to the right when confronted by a stone wall causing the shooting-break to roll completely, catapulting the actors into a pile of scaffolding that had been stacked next to the wall. Robert Hardy stood up and realised to his amazement that he was unhurt. He looked across to see Edward Fox stand up, "turn completely green and collapse in a heap". He had broken 5 ribs and his shoulder-blade. He then noticed that Paul Schofield was lying very still on the ground "and I saw that his shin-bone was sticking out through his trousers". As the film takes place in October due to the partridge-shooting season, the filmmakers had to make a choice as to either delay filming for a year, or re-cast. Fortunately James Mason was just finishing filming "Doctor Fischer of Geneva" for the BBC and the schedule was changed to allow him to take over the part of Sir Randolph Nettleby six weeks later. Reception. The film was reviewed positively by the eminent critic Pauline Kael. "Bridges can be seen also in his 1982 film "The Return of the Soldier", has a special gift for these evocations of a world seen in a bell jar, and now, with Geoffrey Reeve as producer and Fred Tammes as cinematographer, he has refined his techniques. A late bloomer (he was born in 1927), Bridges goes beyond being pictorial and literary. He sharpens the novel's wry observations on the Edwardian era and at the same time infuses a sensuous sweetness into the material. On television, a novel like "The Shooting Party" would be a six-part series, full of longueurs. Here, after we've met the key members of the party, the film puts us among actions and conversations going on simultaneously. And as the events become more intense Bridges picks up the pace and tightens the film's emotional hold on us. Actresses such as Cheryl Campbell and Judi Bowker make a stronger impression in their brief screen time than they do in their much longer stints on TV. Cheryl Campbell is at one moment a pert-faced, nosy gossip, and at the next a tantalising sensualist being caressed by her own long, wavy blond hair. It's a quicksilver performance that recalls Joan Greenwood at her most seductive. And Judi Bowker as the guileless Lady Olivia, the wife of thick-headed Lord Lilburn (Robert Hardy), looks at the camera with a direct gaze that makes her seem infinitely beautiful. When the tall, slim young barrister Lionel Stephens (Rupert Frazer), declares his love for her, you think, Of course – how could he look into her clear eyes and not imagine depths of mystery?"
583879	Azhagiya Tamil Magan () is a 2007 Tamil romantic psychological thriller film directed by Bharathan, written by S. K. Jeeva and produced by Swargachitra Appachan. Joseph Vijay and Shriya Saran star in lead roles. Namitha, Santhanam play supporting roles. With cinematography by K. Balasubramaniam and editing by Anthony, the film's score and soundtrack is composed by A. R. Rahman. The film was released on 8 November 2007 and distributed worldwide by Pyramid Saimira. The film revolves around an excelling athlete who has the ability to predict future events. With his unique ability, he identifies several future events, including the attempted murder of his lover by a look-alike. Plot. Guru Moorthy (Joseph Vijay) is an athlete and business management student. Abhinaya (Shriya Saran) is the daughter of a business baron (Ashish Vidyarthi). They meet and fall in love. The movie goes on to show how the lovers manage to get the permission of their parents. In the meantime, a different dimension in the tale is revealed while the romantic drama is unfolding. Vijay visualizes some bizarre scenes in his mind. The scenes are disturbing; and worse, they become true in real life. A psychiatrist (Dr. Rudran) confirms that it is extrasensory perception (ESP) and says that the images visualized by Guru would actually happen sooner or later. Unfortunately, Guru visualizes another scene in which he stabs Abi in the stomach. Sensing that he poses a danger to his sweetheart, he runs away from her to Mumbai. In Mumbai he stumbles upon a person who looks like himself. This gives him a different interpretation of the horrible incident he has visualized. Before catching the man, Prasad (Vijay), Guru is involved an accident. In the meantime, the new man moves to Chennai. Stylish and carefree Prasad, the Guru look-alike, is a greedy person who does anything for money. He is a womaniser and enjoys life. He meets Dhanalakshmi (Namitha) during his train trip to Chennai, promises marriage and dumps her. Abhinaya mistakes him for Guru and brings him to her house. Sensing his opportunity, Prasad decides to pretend to be Guru and intends to marry the rich Abhi. The real Guru comes back and tells everyone the truth. But no one is ready to believe him, as he is outplayed by the wicked Prasad at each turn. Finally the truth prevails, but not before a tense battle between the two. During the battle, when Guru tries to kill Prasad, he accidentally stabs Abhi. Guru tries to take Abhi to the hospital but Prasad knocks him out and changes into Guru's clothes so he will look like Guru in front of Abhi. Abhi recovers at the hospital and thinks Prasad is Guru again. At the hospital she tells him how much she hates Prasad and how much she loves Guru. When Prasad hears this he feels guilty for what he did and tells her he is not Guru. Guru suddenly comes into the room, and Prasad leaves as a reformed man. As Prasad walks away from the hospital, Dhanalakshmi appears, saying she is pregnant with twins. Prasad and Dhanalakshmi join together. Reception. It received mixed to negative reviews. Behindwoods.com gave 2.5 out of 5 and said that "if you are a Vijay fan, you are bound to love it" and "if you are someone who appreciates quality film making, you will hate it.Rediff gave 2 out of 5 stating that the film was "logical" and that "a die-hard Vijay fan will be able to brave the movie, but for the others, this movie can be given a mass. Inspite of a good opening, it become an average grosser at box office Soundtrack. The soundtrack was composed by A. R. Rahman and was cited as "an excellent effort however critics also claimed that it was not of A. R. Rahman's standard of music. The track Pon Magal, the remix in the album was done by Krishna Chetan. All songs were a mega hits
400706	Aziz Ansari (born February 23, 1983) is an American actor and comedian. He stars as Tom Haverford on the NBC show "Parks and Recreation". Ansari began his career performing standup comedy in New York City during the summer of 2000 while attending New York University. In 2007, he created and starred in the critically acclaimed MTV sketch comedy show "Human Giant", which ran for two seasons. This led to acting roles in feature films, including "Funny People", "I Love You, Man", "Observe and Report", and "30 Minutes or Less". In addition to his acting work, Ansari has continued to work as a standup comedian. He released his debut CD/DVD, entitled "Intimate Moments for a Sensual Evening", in January 2010 on Comedy Central Records, and still tours nationally between acting commitments. In 2010 and 2011, he performed his Dangerously Delicious tour. This tour was self-released for download on his website in March 2012 and debuted on Comedy Central in May 2012. He completed his third major tour of new material, "Buried Alive", in the summer of 2013. Early life. Aziz Ansari was born in Columbia, South Carolina, to an Indian Tamil Muslim family from Tamil Nadu, India. His mother, Fatima, works in a medical office, and his father, Shoukath, is a gastroenterologist. Ansari grew up in Bennettsville, South Carolina, where he attended Marlboro Academy as well as the South Carolina Governor's School for Science and Mathematics. He graduated from New York University with a major in marketing. Ansari has described himself as being an atheist. Career. Early career. He frequently performed at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre, as well as weekly shows such as "Invite Them Up". In 2005, "Rolling Stone" included him in their annual "Hot List" as their choice for the "Hot Standup", and he won the Jury Award for "Best Standup" at HBO's 2006 U.S. Comedy Arts Festival in Aspen, Colorado. "Human Giant". Around the summer of 2005, Ansari began collaborating with fellow comedians Rob Huebel and Paul Scheer (both from the improv troupe Respecto Montalban), as well as director Jason Woliner to make short films. The first series created by the group was "Shutterbugs", which followed Huebel and Ansari as cutthroat child talent agents. This was followed up by the "Illusionators", which starred Ansari and Scheer as Criss Angel–style goth magicians. In mid-2006, MTV greenlit a sketch series from the group which debuted April 5, 2007. The critically acclaimed show completed two seasons. The group was offered a third season, but opted to pass in order to pursue other opportunities. "Parks and Recreation". In June 2008, Ansari was announced as the first cast hire for NBC's new comedy from producers of "The Office". The show, "Parks and Recreation", debuted in April 2009 with Ansari portraying government employee Tom Haverford. Ansari's performance has received notable praise from critics, including "Entertainment Weekly" naming him one of 2009's "Breakout TV Stars", "TV Guide" naming him a "Scene Stealer" and Yahoo! TV placing him in the number one spot on their list of "TV MVPS". MTV Movie Awards. On June 6, 2010, Ansari hosted the 2010 MTV Movie Awards. The show opened with a spoof of the film "Precious" with Ansari appearing as Aziz "Precious" Ansari. Ansari also created the short film Stunt Kidz which reunited him with his "Human Giant" castmates. A second short film was also made with actor Zach Galifianakis in which Ansari portrayed Taavon, Galfianakis' "swagger coach". He accepted Galifianakis' award for Best Comedic Performance in character as Taavon. Ansari also performed a musical tribute to the film "Avatar" in the style of singer R. Kelly. Other notable television work. In addition to his work on "Parks and Recreation", Ansari appeared on the HBO series "Flight of the Conchords" as a xenophobic fruit vendor who had difficulty telling the difference between Australians and New Zealanders. He had a recurring role in season eight of the ABC sitcom "Scrubs" as Ed, a new intern to the hospital. Ansari's character was written off the show to allow him to film "Parks and Recreation". In August 2011, Ansari made a cameo appearance in the music video for "Otis" by Jay-Z and Kanye West from their collaborated album, "Watch the Throne" (2011). Film career. Ansari has made appearances in several films, including "Get Him to the Greek", "I Love You, Man", "30 Minutes or Less", and "Observe and Report". In the summer of 2009, Ansari appeared in the Judd Apatow film "Funny People" with Adam Sandler and Seth Rogen. Apatow liked Ansari's character, "Randy", and commissioned him and "Human Giant" collaborator Jason Woliner to create online shorts centered around his character, to promote the film. These shorts proved successful and the character became the subject of one of the film ideas Ansari and Woliner are currently developing for Apatow Productions. Two other ideas in development are "Let's Do This", a road movie about two motivational speakers, and an untitled film about two disgraced astronauts who must return to space to clear their names. Ansari is also attached to star in another film with Danny McBride based on an idea from Ansari and "30 Rock" writer Matt Hubbard. "Parks and Recreation" writer Harris Wittels is currently scripting the project. In April 2010, it was announced that Ansari would star in the film "30 Minutes or Less". The film was directed by "Zombieland" director Ruben Fleischer and co-starred Jesse Eisenberg and Danny McBride. The film was released on August 12, 2011. Stand-up comedy. Even amongst various acting commitments, Ansari has continued performing and touring as a standup comedian. In 2006 and 2007, he toured with the Comedians of Comedy and Flight of the Conchords. In the fall of 2008 and early 2009, Ansari headlined his own comedy tour, the Glow in the Dark Tour. The material on this tour became the basis for a DVD/CD special for Comedy Central. The set, titled "Intimate Moments for a Sensual Evening", aired January 17, 2010, with a CD/LP/DVD release on January 19. In July 2010, Ansari began a new tour, Dangerously Delicious, which was in theaters across the US; stops included the Bonnaroo Music Festival and Carnegie Hall in New York City. The tour wrapped with a filming for a special at the Warner Theatre in Washington, DC in June 2011. This special was released on his website in March 2012 for download or stream. In March 2012, Ansari announced a new tour, Buried Alive, with dates for spring and summer 2012. Ansari's comedy style tends to focus on aspects of his personal life. "I like talking about things that are going on in my life, because that's always going to be different and original," he says. "No one else is gonna be talking about my personal experiences." Charity work. In 2012, Ansari played a talking goat in an animated video for Oxfam America to encourage donations. Following the Boston Marathon Bombing in 2013, Ansari performed a benefit for the victims at the Wilbur Theater in Boston, MA. All ticket proceeds benefited The One Fund & The Officer Richard Donohue Fund.
1059920	Chris Marquette (born October 3, 1984) is an American film and television actor. Personal life. Marquette was born Christopher George Rodríguez in Stuart, Florida, the son of Patricia Helen "Tisha" (née Marquette) and Jorge Luis "George" Rodriguez, a nuclear engineer. Marquette has two younger brothers, actors Eric Marquette and Sean Marquette. He supports charities such as the Sunshine Kids Foundation (to grant wishes of seriously ill, handicapped and abused children), Pediatric AIDS, and the Children's AIDS Fund. Career. In 1995 he made a brief appearance on "Saturday Night Live", season 21, episode 4. The 11-year-old Marquette played a trick-or-treater in the opening Halloween sketch. He forgot his line and whispered "damn" under his breath, before Norm Macdonald helped him out. In 2000, he appeared in the Disney Channel movie "Up, Up and Away". In 2004, he starred alongside actors Emile Hirsch and Elisha Cuthbert in the coming-of-age teen comedy "The Girl Next Door". The same year, he became a series regular on the CBS show "Joan of Arcadia" opposite Amber Tamblyn and Jason Ritter (whom Marquette co-starred with in the 2003 slasher film "Freddy vs. Jason") before "Joan of Arcadia"'s cancellation in early 2005. Marquette was also given a supporting role in "Just Friends" with Ryan Reynolds, Amy Smart, Anna Faris and Chris Klein. In 2006's "Alpha Dog", Marquette can be seen as Keith Stratten alongside Emile Hirsch, Justin Timberlake and Ben Foster. "The Invisible", a remake of a Swedish film, starring Marcia Gay Harden and Justin Chatwin, was released on April 27, 2007, in which Christopher plays the best friend of main character Nick Powell. He has also had supporting/minor roles in the films "61*" with Barry Pepper and Thomas Jane, and the Disney Channel original TV movie "Up, Up and Away!" with Robert Townsend.
590214	Abohomaan () is a 2010 Bengali-language film by Rituparno Ghosh, which explores the nuances of relationships through a married film director who falls in love with an actress, as young as his son. The film stars Deepankar De, Mamata Shankar, Ananya Chatterjee, Jisshu Sengupta, Riya Sen and is produced by Big Pictures. Rituparno Ghosh and Ananya Chatterjee won National Film Awards in 2010 as Best Director and Best Actress respectively. Earlier, Rituparno Ghosh had planned to make the film in Hindi as "Kya Haseen Sitam", with Naseeruddin Shah, Shabana Azmi and Vidya Balan, later decided to make it in Bengali, as "Abahoman". Plot. Aniket (Deepankar De) is one of the finest filmmakers of Bengal, Deepti (Mamata Shankar) is an actress, with whom he had fallen in love while casting in one of his films, who had sacrificed her career for love and marriage. Apratim (Jisshu Sengupta) is their only son. They had been a perfect family.
1044574	Ingrid Pitt (21 November 193723 November 2010) was an actress best known for her work in horror films of the 1960s and 1970s. Background. Pitt was born Ingoushka Petrov in Warsaw, Poland, to a German father of Russian descent and a Polish Jewish mother. During World War II, she and her family were imprisoned in a concentration camp. She survived; and, in Berlin in the 1950s, married an American soldier and moved to California. After her marriage failed, she returned to Europe; but, after a small role in a film, she headed to Hollywood where she worked as a waitress while trying to make a career in the movies. Her natural hair colour was brown, though she frequently lightened it to blonde. Acting career. In the early 1960s, Pitt was a member of the prestigious Berliner Ensemble, under the guidance of Bertolt Brecht's widow Helene Weigel. In 1965, she made her film debut in "Doctor Zhivago", playing a minor role. In 1968, she co-starred in the low-budget science fiction film "The Omegans" and, in the same year, played "Heidi" in "Where Eagles Dare" opposite Richard Burton and Clint Eastwood. She appeared as Queen Galleia with Jon Pertwee and Roger Delgado in 'The Time Monster', which was the fifth Serial of the ninth season of 'Doctor Who', broadcast in six weekly parts between 20 May - 24 June 1972.
1090993	Christiaan Huygens, FRS ( or ; ) () (14 April 1629 – 8 July 1695) was a prominent Dutch mathematician and natural philosopher. He is known particularly as an astronomer, physicist, probabilist and horologist. Huygens was a leading natural philosopher of his time. His work included early telescopic studies of the rings of Saturn and the discovery of its moon Titan, the invention of the pendulum clock and other investigations in timekeeping. He published major studies of mechanics and optics, and a pioneer work on games of chance. Early life. Christiaan Huygens was born in 14 April 1629 at The Hague, in a rich and influential Dutch family, the second son of Constantijn Huygens. Christiaan was named after his paternal grandfather. His mother was Suzanna van Baerle. She died in 1637, shortly after the birth of Huygens' sister. The couple had five children: Constantijn (1628), Christiaan (1629), Lodewijk (1631), Philips (1632) and Suzanna (1637). Constantijn Huygens was a diplomat and advisor to the House of Orange, and also a poet and musician. His friends included Galileo Galilei, Marin Mersenne and René Descartes. Huygens was educated at home until turning sixteen years old. He liked to play with miniatures of mills and other machines. His father gave him a liberal education: he studied languages and music, history and geography, mathematics, logic and rhetoric, but also dancing, fencing and horse riding. In 1644 Huygens had as his mathematical tutor Jan Jansz de Jonge Stampioen, who set the 15-year-old a demanding reading list on contemporary science. Descartes was impressed by his skills in geometry. Student years. His father sent Huygens to study law and mathematics at the University of Leiden, where he studied from May 1645 to March 1647. Frans van Schooten was an academic at Leiden from 1646, and also a private tutor to Huygens and his elder brother, replacing Stampioen on the advice of Descartes. Van Schooten brought his mathematical education up to date, in particular introducing him to the work of Fermat on differential geometry. After two years, from March 1647, Huygens continued his studies at the newly founded College of Orange, in Breda, where his father was a curator: the change occurred because of a duel between his brother Lodewijk and another student. Constantijn Huygens was closely involved in the new College, which lasted only to 1669; the rector was André Rivet. Christiaan Huygens lived at the home of the jurist Johann Henryk Dauber, and had mathematics classes with the English lecturer John Pell. He completed his studies in August 1649. He then had a stint as a diplomat on a mission with Henry, Duke of Nassau. It took him to Bentheim, then Flensburg. He took off for Denmark, visited Copenhagen and Helsingør, and hoped to cross the Øresund to visit Descartes in Stockholm. It was not to be. While his father had wished Christiaan to be a diplomat, it also was not to be. In political terms, the First Stadtholderless Period that began in 1650 meant that the House of Orange was not in power, removing Constantijn Huygens's influence. Further, the father realised that his son had no interest in such a career. Early correspondence. Huygens generally wrote in French or Latin. While still a college student at Leiden began a correspondence with the intelligencer Mersenne, who died quite soon afterwards in 1648. Mersenne wrote to Constantijn the father on his son's talent for mathematics, and flatteringly compared him to Archimedes (3 January 1647). The letters show the early interests of Huygens in mathematics. In October 1646 there is the suspension bridge, and the demonstration that a catenary is not a parabola. In 1647/8 they cover the claim of Grégoire de Saint-Vincent to squaring the circle; rectification of the ellipse; projectiles, and the vibrating string. Some of Mersenne's concerns at the time, such as the cycloid (he sent Evangelista Torricelli's treatise on the curve), the centre of oscillation, and the gravitational constant, were matters Huygens only took seriously towards the end of the 1650s. Mersenne had also written on musical theory. Huygens preferred meantone temperament; he innovated in 31 equal temperament, which was not itself a new idea but known to Francisco de Salinas, using logarithms to investigate it further and show its close relation to the meantone system. In 1654, Huygens returned to his father's house in The Hague, and was able to devote himself entirely to research. The family had another house, not far away at Hofwijck, and he spent time there during the summer. His scholarly life did not allow him to escape bouts of depression. Subsequently Huygens developed a broad range of correspondents, though picking up the threads after 1648 was hampered by the five-year "Fronde" in France. Visiting Paris in 1655, Huygens called on Ismael Boulliau to introduce himself. Then Boulliau took him to see Claude Mylon. The Parisian group of savants that had gathered around Mersenne held together into the 1650s, and Mylon, who had assumed the secretarial role, took some trouble from then on to keep Huygens in touch. Through Pierre de Carcavi Huygens corresponded in 1656 with Pierre de Fermat, whom he admired greatly, though this side of idolatry. The experience was bittersweet and even puzzling, since it became clear that Fermat had dropped out of the research mainstream, and his priority claims could probably not be made good in some cases. Besides, Huygens was looking by then to apply mathematics, while Fermat's concerns ran to purer topics. Scientific debut. Huygens was often slow to publish his results and discoveries. In the early days his mentor Frans van Schooten was cautious for the sake of his reputation. The first work Huygens put in print was "Theoremata de quadratura" (1651) in the field of quadrature. It included material discussed with Mersenne some years before, such as the fallacious nature of the squaring of the circle by Grégoire de Saint-Vincent. His preferred methods were those of Archimedes and Fermat. Quadrature was a live issue in the 1650s, and through Mylon, Huygens intervened in the discussion of the mathematics of Thomas Hobbes. Persisting in trying to explain the errors Hobbes had fallen into, he made an international reputation. Huygens studied spherical lenses from a theoretical point of view in 1652–3, obtaining results that remained unpublished until Isaac Barrow (1669). His aim was to understand telescopes. He began grinding his own lenses in 1655, collaborating with his brother Constantijn. He designed in 1662 what is now called the Huygenian eyepiece, with two lenses, as a telescope ocular. Lenses were also a common interest through which Huygens could meet socially in the 1660s with Baruch Spinoza, who ground them professionally. They had rather different outlooks on science, Spinoza being the more committed Cartesian, and some of their discussion survives in correspondence. He encountered the work of Antoni van Leeuwenhoek, another lens grinder, in the field of microscopy which interested his father. Huygens wrote the first treatise on probability theory, "De ratiociniis in ludo aleae" ("On Reasoning in Games of Chance", 1657). He had been told of recent work in the field by Fermat, Blaise Pascal and Girard Desargues two years earlier, in Paris. Frans van Schooten translated the original Dutch manuscript "Van Rekeningh in Spelen van Geluck" into Latin and published it in his "Exercitationum mathematicarum". It deals with games of chance, in particular the problem of points. Huygens took as intuitive his appeals to concepts of a "fair game" and equitable contract, and used them set up a theory of expected values. In 1662 Sir Robert Moray sent Huygens John Graunt's life table, and in time Huygens and his brother Lodewijk worked on life expectancy. On 3 May 1661, Huygens observed the planet Mercury transit over the Sun, using the telescope of instrument maker Richard Reeve in London, together with astronomer Thomas Streete and Reeve. Streete then debated the published record of the transit of Hevelius, a controversy mediated by Henry Oldenburg. Huygens passed to Hevelius a manuscript of Jeremiah Horrocks on the transit of Venus, 1639, which thereby was printed for the first time in 1662. In that year Huygens, who played the harpsichord, took an interest in music, and Simon Stevin's theories on it; he showed very little concern to publish his theories on consonance, some of which were lost for centuries. The Royal Society of London elected him in 1663. In France. The Montmor Academy was the form the old Mersenne circle took after the mid-1650s. Huygens took part in its debates, and supported its "dissident" faction who favoured experimental demonstration to curtail fruitless discussion, and opposed amateurish attitudes. During 1663 he made what was his third visit to Paris; the Montmor Academy closed down, and Huygens took the chance to advocate a more Baconian programme in science. In 1666 he moved to Paris and a position at Louis XIV's new French Academy of Sciences. In Paris Huygens had an important patron and correspondent in Jean-Baptiste Colbert. His relationship with the Academy was not always easy, however, and in 1670 Huygens, seriously ill, chose Francis Vernon to carry out a donation of his papers to the Royal Society in London, should he die. Then the Franco-Dutch War took place (1672−8). England's part in it (1672–4) is thought to have damaged his relationship with the Royal Society. Robert Hooke for the Royal Society lacked the urbanity to handle the situation, in 1673. Denis Papin was assistant to Huygens from 1671. One of their projects, which did not bear fruit directly, was the gunpowder engine. Papin moved to England in 1678, and continued to work in this area. Using the Paris Observatory (completed in 1672), Huygens made further astronomical observations. In 1678 he introduced Nicolaas Hartsoeker to French scientists such as Nicolas Malebranche and Giovanni Cassini. It was in Paris, also, that Huygens met the young diplomat Gottfried Leibniz, there in 1672 on a vain mission to meet Arnauld de Pomponne, the French Foreign Minister. At this time Leibniz was working on a calculating machine, and he moved on to London in early 1673 with diplomats from Mainz; but from March 1673 Leibniz was tutored in mathematics by Huygens. Huygens taught him analytical geometry; an extensive correspondence ensued, in which Huygens showed reluctance to accept the advantages of infinitesimal calculus. Later life. Huygens moved back to The Hague in 1681 after suffering serious depressive illness. In 1684, he published "Astroscopia Compendiaria" on his new tubeless aerial telescope. He attempted to return to France in 1685 but the revocation of the Edict of Nantes precluded this move. His father died in 1687, and he inherited Hofwijck, which he made his home the following year. On his third visit to England, in 1689, Huygens met Isaac Newton on 12 June. They spoke about Iceland spar, and subsequently corresponded about resisted motion. Huygens observed the acoustical phenomenon now known as flanging in 1693. He died in The Hague on 8 July 1695, and was buried in the Grote Kerk. Work in natural philosophy. Huygens has been called the leading European natural philosopher between Descartes and Newton. He adhered to the tenets of the mechanical philosophy of his time. In particular he sought explanations of the force of gravity that avoided action at a distance. In common with Robert Boyle and Jacques Rohault, Huygens adhered to what has been called, more explicitly, "experimentally-oriented corpuscular-mechanical" natural philosophy. In the analysis of the Scientific Revolution this appears as a mainstream position, at least from the founding of the Royal Society to the emergence of Newton, and was sometimes labelled "Baconian", while not being inductivist or identifying with the views of Francis Bacon in a simple-minded way. After his first visit to England in 1661, when he attended a meeting of the Gresham College group in April and learned directly about Boyle's air pump experiments, Huygens spent time in late 1661 and early 1662 replicating the work. It proved a long process, brought to the surface an experimental issue ("anomalous suspension") and the theoretical issue of "horror vacui", and ended in July 1663 as Huygens became a Fellow of the Royal Society. It has been said that Huygens finally accepted Boyle's view of the void, as against the Cartesian denial of it; and also (in "Leviathan and the Air Pump") that the replication of results trailed off messily. Newton's influence on John Locke was mediated by Huygens, who assured Locke that Newton's mathematics was sound, leading to Locke's acceptance of a "corpuscular-mechanical" physics. Laws of motion, impact and gravitation. The general approach of the mechanical philosophers was to postulate theories of the kind now called "contact action". Huygens adopted this method, but not without seeing its difficulties and failures. Leibniz, his student in Paris, abandoned the theory. Seeing the universe this way made the theory of collisions central to physics. The requirements of the mechanical philosophy, in the view of Huygens, were stringent. Matter in motion made up the universe, and only explanations in those terms could be truly intelligible. While he was influenced by the Cartesian approach, he was less doctrinaire. He studied elastic collisions in the 1650s but delayed publication for over a decade.
1246252	B. Monkey is a 1998 film directed by Michael Radford. Originally, Michael Caton-Jones was attached to direct the adaptation of the book by Andrew Davies, but left over creative differences. Plot. Alan (Jared Harris) is a schoolteacher in London who also moonlights as a jazz disc jockey for a hospital PA system. One night after work, he goes to a bar and sees Beatrice (Asia Argento), a beautiful woman who is arguing with two men. Alan is immediately captivated by Beatrice and begins to pursue her. What Alan doesn't know is that Beatrice is an infamous thief known to the police as "B. Monkey" (named for her ability to break into anything), and the men she was arguing with were Paul (Rupert Everett) and Bruno (Jonathan Rhys Meyers), a homosexual couple who are her partners in crime. When Alan becomes aware of Beatrice's secret, he tries to lead her into a safer and more honest way of life, even as she lures him into the thrilling existence he's been dreaming of. Critical reception. Film review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes gave the film a rating of 5.7/10 based on 17 reviews. Metacritic has the film listed as a 49 out of 100, indicating mixed reviews, based on 10 critics. Anita Gates of "The New York Times" had a mixed review of the film but thought highly of the actors:
1060442	Natasha Lyonne Braunstein (born April 4, 1979) is an American stage, film, and television actress, known for her role in the "American Pie" series, as well as the films "Everyone Says I Love You", "Slums of Beverly Hills", "But I'm a Cheerleader", and "". She currently plays a supporting role in "Orange Is the New Black", and is developing a sitcom for Fox. Early life. Lyonne was born in Manhattan, New York City, the daughter of Yvette and Aaron Braunstein, who worked as a boxing promoter and radio host. Her maternal grandparents were Holocaust survivors. Lyonne grew up in an Orthodox Jewish household. Her parents divorced; Natasha and her older brother Adam returned to the US with their mother. She attended Ramaz School, a private Jewish school. Career. As a young child she was signed by the Ford Modeling Agency, and at the age of six she was cast as Opal on "Pee-wee's Playhouse" which was quickly followed by film appearances in "Heartburn" written by Nora Ephron, directed by Mike Nichols; "A Man Called Sarge"; and "Dennis the Menace" with Walter Matthau and Christopher Lloyd. When she was 16, Woody Allen cast her as his and Goldie Hawn’s daughter in "Everyone Says I Love You" alongside Julia Roberts, Edward Norton, Natalie Portman which led to appearances in almost 30 films over the next 10 years, including starring roles in the independent films "Slums of Beverly Hills" and "But I'm a Cheerleader". Lyonne’s other films included "Detroit Rock City"; "Scary Movie 2"; "The Grey Zone" directed by Tim Blake Nelson; James Mangold's "Kate and Leopold"; "Party Monster"; "Die Mommy Die"; and "" as well TV appearances in show including NBC’s "Will and Grace". Lyonne is perhaps best known for her roles in the "American Pie" films as the wise-cracking Jessica.
1065064	Michael Anthony Angarano (born December 3, 1987) is an American actor. Career. In 2000, 12-year old Angarano acted in "". The following year, he landed his first major film role in "Little Secrets", opposite Evan Rachel Wood and David Gallagher. Michael then starred in a 2003 telefilm named "Maniac Magee" as Jeffery Lionel Magee, a 12-year-old boy who finds his way into Two Mills, Pennsylvania, a place divided by racial prejudice. It premiered on Nickelodeon. In 2004, he appeared in the movie version of the critically acclaimed novel "Speak", which costarred Kristen Stewart. Angarano was the lead role in "Sky High" and had a major role in "Lords of Dogtown", both of which were released in the summer of 2005. Other film roles include parts in "The Bondage", "Black Irish", "Man in the Chair", "Snow Angels", "The Final Season", "One Last Thing..." and "The Forbidden Kingdom". On television, Angarano had a recurring role as Elliott, the son of Jack McFarland, on the television series "Will & Grace". In 2007, Angarano appeared in four episodes of the hit "24" as Scott Wallace, a teenager taken hostage by a terrorist. In 2008, Angarano was featured in "Vanity Fair" as one of Hollywood's "New Wave" young stars. He filmed "Gentlemen Broncos", from "Napoleon Dynamite" director Jared Hess. The comedy film was released in October 2009. In 2010 he had the lead role in "Ceremony", and in 2011, Angarano starred in the horror-thriller film Red State as "Travis". Personal life. In an interview with "Vanity Fair", actress Kristen Stewart stated that she dated Angarano, her co-star from "Speak".
1169537	Dolores "Dody" Goodman (October 28, 1914 – June 22, 2008) was an American character actress known for her playing the mother of the title character (played by Louise Lasser) on "Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman". Her high-pitched voice could be heard announcing the show's title at the beginning of each episode. Personal life. Born Dolores Goodman in Columbus, Ohio, Goodman was notoriously secretive about her age, successfully shaving off 15 years (giving a birthyear of 1929) for many years before the discrepancy became publicly debunked. Career. Goodman gained a measure of newspaper column space for her dancing solos in such Broadway musicals as "High Button Shoes" (1947), and "Wonderful Town" (1953). In 1955, she stopped the show in Off Broadway's "Shoestring Revue" with the novelty song "Someone's Been Sending Me Flowers." She also headlined Off-Broadway in the Jerry Herman musical revue "Parade" in 1960 with Charles Nelson Reilly. She played the role of Dora in the 1962 revival of "Fiorello!". She returned to Broadway in 1974 to appear in "Lorelei" with Carol Channing. Adopting the guise of a fey airhead, Goodman was good for a few off-the-wall quotes whenever she submitted to an interview. She came to the attention of nighttime talkshow host Jack Paar who, after becoming enchanted with her ditzy persona and seemingly spontaneous malaprops, invited her to become a semi-regular on "The Tonight Show". As Goodman's fame grew, she became difficult to handle on the show, and Paar was not happy with her upstaging habits. Commenting on another guest one evening, Paar quipped "Give them enough rope." "And they'll skip!" ad-libbed Goodman brightly. Dropped summarily by Paar in 1958, Goodman spent the next decade showing up on other talk programs, game shows and summer stock as a "professional celebrity."
585984	Dhanya Nair (born 1985), better known by her stage name Navya Nair, is an Indian actress who works in Malayalam, Tamil, and Kannada films. She is well established in Malayalam. She is two time recipient of Kerala State Film Award for Best Actress and Kalaimamani award. Personal life. Navya Nair comes from Cheppad, a village in Alleppey District, and is the daughter of Raju and Veena. The film director K. Madhu is her uncle. She studied at Bethany Balikamadom High School, Nangiarkulangara till 10th and then MSM Higher Secondary School, where her mother was a teacher, and then obtained a BA in English and is an MBA graduate. She married Mumbai-based businessman, Santhosh Menon, on January 21, 2010 and they have a son Sai Krishna, born on November 22, 2010. Film career. She was still at school when offered her first film role, starring opposite Dileep in "Ishtam" in 2001. There followed roles in partnership with Dileep, in films such as "Mazhathullikkilukkam", "Kunjikoonan", "Kalyanaraman", "Pandippada", "Gramaphone" and "Pattanathil Sundaran". The most popular character of Navya is that of 'Balamani' in "Nandanam". She won the Kerala State Film Award for Best Actress in 2002 for the same. She has been paired with Mohanlal, Mammooty, Suresh Gopi, Jayaram, Dileep, Prithviraj Sukumaran, and Jayasurya.
1061467	Yul Brynner (, "Yuliy Borisovich Briner"; July 11, 1920 – October 10, 1985) was a Russian-born United States-based actor of stage and film. He was best known for his portrayal of the King of Siam in the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical "The King and I", for which he won two Tony Awards and an Academy Award for the film version; he played the role 4,625 times on stage. He is also remembered as Rameses II in the 1956 Cecil B. DeMille blockbuster "The Ten Commandments", General Bounine in the 1956 film "Anastasia" and Chris Adams in "The Magnificent Seven". Brynner was noted for his distinctive voice and for his shaved head, which he maintained as a personal trademark long after adopting it in 1951 for his role in "The King and I". Earlier, he was a model and television director, and later a photographer and the author of two books. Early life. Yul Brynner was born Yuliy Borisovich Briner in 1920. He exaggerated his background and early life for the press, claiming that he was born Taidje Khan of part-Mongol parentage, on the Russian island of Sakhalin. In reality, he was born at home in a four-story residence at 15 Aleutskaya Street, Vladivostok, in the Far Eastern Republic (present-day Primorsky Krai, Russia). He occasionally referred to himself as Julius Briner, Jules Bryner, or Youl Bryner. The 1989 biography by his son, Rock Brynner, clarified some of these issues. His father, Boris Yuliyevich Briner, was a mining engineer whose father, Jules Briner, was a Swiss citizen who moved to Vladivostok in the 1870s and established a successful import-export company. Brynner's paternal grandmother, Natalya Yosifovna Kurkutova, was a native of Irkutsk and was partly of Buryat ancestry. His mother, Marousia Dimitrievna (née Blagovidova), came from the intelligentsia and studied to be an actress and singer. He felt a strong personal connection to the Romani people; in 1977, Yul Brynner was named Honorary President of the International Romani Union, an office that he kept until his death. Boris Briner's work required extensive travel, and in 1923 he fell in love with an actress, Katya Kornukova, at the Moscow Art Theatre, and soon after abandoned his family. Yul's mother took him and his sister, Vera (born 1916), to Harbin, Manchuria (present day China), where they attended a school run by the YMCA. In 1932, fearing a war between China and Japan, she took them to Paris. Brynner played his guitar in Russian nightclubs in Paris, sometimes accompanying his sister, playing Russian and gypsy songs. He trained as a trapeze acrobat and worked in a French circus troupe for three years, but after sustaining a back injury, he turned to acting. In 1938, his mother was diagnosed with leukemia, and they briefly moved back to Harbin. In 1940, speaking very little English, Brynner and his mother emigrated to the US aboard the S.S. "President Cleveland", arriving in New York City on October 25, 1940, where his sister already lived. Vera, a singer, starred in "The Consul" on Broadway in 1950 and appeared at The Metropolitan Opera as Prince Orlofsky in "Die Fledermaus" and on television in the title role of "Carmen". She later taught voice in New York. Career. During World War II, Brynner worked as a French-speaking radio announcer and commentator for the US Office of War Information, broadcasting propaganda to occupied France. At the same time, he studied acting in Connecticut with the Russian teacher Michael Chekhov. Brynner’s first Broadway performance was a small part in Shakespeare's "Twelfth Night" in December 1941. Brynner found little acting work during the next few years, but among other acting stints, he co-starred in a 1946 production of "Lute Song" with Mary Martin. He also did some modeling work and was photographed nude by George Platt Lynes. Brynner married his first wife, actress Virginia Gilmore, in 1944, and soon after began working as a director at the new CBS television studios, directing "Studio One," among other shows. In 1949, he made his film debut in "Port of New York", his only film with his natural head of hair. The next year, at the urging of Martin, he auditioned for Rodgers and Hammerstein's new musical in New York. He recalled that, as he was finding success as a director on television, he was reluctant to go back on the stage. Once he read the script, however, he was fascinated by the character of the King and was eager to do the project. His best-known role remains that of King Mongkut of Siam in "The King and I", which he played 4,625 times on stage over the span of his career. He appeared in the original 1951 production and later touring productions as well as a 1977 Broadway revival, a London Production in 1979 and another Broadway revival in 1985. He won Tony Awards for both the first and the last of these Broadway productions. He also appeared in the 1956 film version, for which he won an Academy Award as Best Actor and in a short-lived TV version ("Anna and the King") on CBS in 1972. Brynner is one of only nine people who have won both a Tony Award and an Academy Award for the same role. His connection to the story and the role of King Mongkut is so deep that he was mentioned in the song "One Night in Bangkok" from the 1984 musical "Chess" whose second act is set in Bangkok. In 1951 Brynner shaved his head for his role in "The King and I". Following the huge success of the Broadway production and subsequent film, Brynner continued to shave his head for the rest of his life, though he would sometimes wear a wig for certain roles. Brynner's shaved head was unusual at the time, and his striking appearance helped to give him an iconic appeal. Some fans shaved off their hair to emulate him, and a shaved head was often referred to as the "Yul Brynner look". Brynner reprised his "Shall We Dance?" segment with Patricia Morison on the TV special "", broadcast March 28, 1954 on all four American TV networks of the time. Brynner made an immediate impact upon launching his mainstream film career in 1956 and quickly gained superstar status after appearing not only in "The King and I" that year but also in starring roles in "The Ten Commandments", and "Anastasia" with Ingrid Bergman. Brynner, at 5'8" was reportedly concerned about being overshadowed by co-star Charlton Heston's height and physical presence in "The Ten Commandments" and prepared his impressive physique seen in the film with an intensive weight-lifting program. He appeared in more than 40 other films over the next two decades, including the epic "Solomon and Sheba" (1959), "The Magnificent Seven" (1960), "Taras Bulba" (1962) and "Kings of the Sun" (1963). He co-starred with Marlon Brando in "Morituri" (1965), Katharine Hepburn in "The Madwoman of Chaillot" (1969) and Lee J. Cobb in a film version of "The Brothers Karamazov" (1958). He played the titular role of "The Ultimate Warrior" (1975) and starred with Barbara Bouchet in "Death Rage" (1976). Among his final feature film appearances were in Michael Crichton's "Westworld" (1973) and its sequel "Futureworld" (1976). Brynner also appeared in drag (as a torch singer) in an unbilled role in the Peter Sellers comedy "The Magic Christian" (1969). Photographer, author, and musician. In addition to his work as a director and performer, Brynner was an active photographer and wrote two books. His daughter Victoria put together "Yul Brynner: Photographer" (ISBN 0-8109-3144-3) a collection of his photographs of family, friends, and fellow actors, as well as those he took while serving as a UN special consultant on refugees. Brynner wrote "Bring Forth the Children: A Journey to the Forgotten People of Europe and the Middle East" (1960), with photographs by himself and Magnum photographer Inge Morath, and also "The Yul Brynner Cookbook: Food Fit for the King and You" (1983 ISBN 0-8128-2882-8). A student of music from childhood, Brynner was an accomplished guitarist. In his early period in Europe he often played and sang gypsy songs in Parisian nightclubs with Aliosha Dimitrievitch. He sang some of those same songs in the film "The Brothers Karamazov". In 1967 he and Dimitrievitch released a record album "The Gypsy and I: Yul Brynner Sings Gypsy Songs" (Vanguard VSD 79265). Personal life. Brynner married four times. The first three ended in divorce. He fathered three children and adopted two. He and his first wife, actress Virginia Gilmore (1944–1960), had one child, Rock Yul Brynner, born on December 23, 1946. His father nicknamed him "Rock" when he was six years old in honor of boxer Rocky Graziano. Rock is a historian, novelist, and university history lecturer at Marist College in Poughkeepsie, New York and Western Connecticut State University in Danbury, Connecticut. In 2006, Rock wrote a book about his father and his family history titled "Empire and Odyssey: The Brynners in Far East Russia and Beyond". Rock regularly returns to Vladivostok, the city of his father's birth, for the "Pacific Meridian" Film Festival. Yul Brynner had a long affair with Marlene Dietrich, who was 19 years his senior, during the first production of "The King and I". Brynner's daughter Lark Brynner was born out of wedlock in 1959 and raised by her mother, Frankie Tilden, who was 20 years old when Lark was born. Brynner supported her financially. His second wife, from 1960 to 1967, Doris Kleiner, was a Chilean model whom he married on the set during shooting of "The Magnificent Seven" in 1960. They had one child, Victoria Brynner (born November 1962), whose godmother was Audrey Hepburn. His third wife, Jacqueline Thion de la Chaume (1971–1981), a French socialite, was the widow of Philippe de Croisset (he was the son of French playwright Francis de Croisset and a publishing executive). Brynner and Jacqueline adopted two Vietnamese children: Mia (1974) and Melody (1975). The first house Brynner ever owned was the Manoir de Criqueboeuf, a sixteenth-century manor house that he and Jacqueline purchased. His 1980 announcement that he would continue in the role of the King for another long tour and Broadway run, together with his affairs with female fans and his neglect of his wife and children, purportedly broke up this marriage. At the age of 63, he married his fourth wife, Kathy Lee, a 24-year-old ballerina from a small town in Malaysia whom he had met in a production of "The King and I" in which she had a small dancing role. They remained married for the last 2 years (1983–1985) of Brynner's life. Citizenship. Brynner, a Swiss citizen, was naturalized as a US citizen, but in June 1965, he renounced his US citizenship at the US Embassy in Berne, Switzerland for tax reasons. He had lost his tax exemption as an American resident abroad by working too long in the US and would have been bankrupted by his tax and penalty debt. Illness and death. Brynner began smoking heavily at age 12 and, although his promotional photos often showed him with a cigarette in-hand, he quit the habit in 1971. In September 1983, Brynner found a lump on his vocal cords. In Los Angeles, only hours before his 4,000th performance in "The King and I", he received the test results. His throat was fine, but he had inoperable lung cancer. Brynner and the national tour of the musical were forced to take a few months off while he underwent radiation therapy, which hurt his throat and made it impossible for him to sing or speak easily. The tour then resumed. In January 1985, nine months before his death, the tour reached New York for a farewell Broadway run. Aware he was dying, Brynner gave an interview on "Good Morning America" discussing the dangers of smoking and expressing his desire to make an anti-smoking commercial. The Broadway production of "The King and I" ran from January 7 to June 30 of that year, with Mary Beth Peil as Anna. His last performance marked the 4,625th time he had played the role of the King. Meanwhile, Brynner and the American Cancer Society created a public service announcement using a clip from the "Good Morning America" interview. Brynner died of lung cancer on October 10, 1985 in New York City on the same day as his "Battle of Neretva" co-star Orson Welles. Only a few days after his death, the public service announcement was showing on all the major US television networks and was shown in many other countries. The PSA showed him expressing his desire to make an anti-smoking commercial after discovering how sick he was, and that his death was imminent. He then looked directly into the camera for 30 seconds and said, "Now that I’m gone, I tell you: Don’t smoke. Whatever you do, just don’t smoke. If I could take back that smoking, we wouldn't be talking about any cancer. I'm convinced of that." His remains are interred in France on the grounds of the Saint-Michel-de-Bois-Aubry Russian Orthodox monastery near Luzé between Tours and Poitiers. Honors and awards. On September 28, 2012, an eight-foot-tall statue was inaugurated at Yul Brynner Park, in front of the home where he was born at Aleutskaya St. No. 15 in Vladivostok, Russia. Created by local sculptor Alexei Bokiy, the monument was carved in granite from China. The grounds for the park were donated by the city of Vladivostok, which also paid additional costs. Vladivostok Mayor Igor Pushkariov, US Consul General Sylvia Curran, and Rock Brynner participated in the ceremony, along with hundreds of city residents. Brynner has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6162 Hollywood Blvd. Other. The cottage at his childhood country home, at Sidimi near Vladivostok, is now a family museum. In 1952, he received the Tony Award for Best Featured Actor in a Musical for his portrayal of The King in "The King and I (musical)". He won the 1956 Academy Award for Best Actor for his portrayal of the King of Siam in "The King and I" and made the "Top 10 Stars of the Year" list in both 1957 and 1958. In 1985, he received a Special Tony Award honoring his 4,525 performances in "The King and I". Filmography. Short subjects
1164549	Kendrick Kang-Joh "Ken" Jeong (born July 13, 1969) is an American comedian, actor, and physician. He is best known for his role as Leslie Chow in "The Hangover" trilogy and as Ben Chang on the NBC comedy series "Community". Early life. Jeong was born in Detroit, Michigan, the son of South Korean immigrants Young and Dong-Kuen Jeong, who was a professor at North Carolina A&T State University in Greensboro, North Carolina. Jeong was raised in Greensboro and attended Walter Hines Page High School, where he took part in the High IQ team, played violin in the orchestra, and was elected to student council. He graduated at 16 and his achievements earned him Greensboro's Youth of the Year award. Career. Medicine. Jeong completed his undergraduate studies at Duke University in 1990 and obtained his M.D. degree at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1995. He then completed his internal medicine residency at Ochsner Medical Center in New Orleans while developing his stand-up comedy. Jeong is licensed as a physician in the state of California. Show business. Jeong won the Big Easy Laff-Off, of which NBC president Brandon Tartikoff and The Improv founder Budd Friedman were judges, and they both urged Jeong to move to Los Angeles. Jeong began performing regularly at the Improv and Laugh Factory comedy clubs. Upon moving to Los Angeles, he initially practiced medicine for several years as a general practitioner at a Kaiser Permanente hospital in Woodland Hills. Jeong's background in theater and improv has led to several television appearances, including NBC's "The Office", HBO's "Entourage" and "Curb Your Enthusiasm". Jeong made his feature film debut as Dr. Kuni in Judd Apatow's "Knocked Up" which proved to be his breakout performance; from that point forward he was able to transition from medicine into a full-time career in the entertainment industry. Subsequently, he has appeared in "Pineapple Express"; "Role Models" as King Argotron; "All About Steve"; '; "Couples Retreat"; and as Mr. Chow in "The Hangover", "The Hangover Part II", and "The Hangover Part III". He co-starred in "Zookeeper" and ', released in summer 2011. He attacked (kayfabe) pro wrestler John Cena with a cane on the August 3, 2009 episode of "WWE Raw". Jeong is a series regular as Señor Ben Chang on NBC's sitcom "Community". He was nominated for two 2010 MTV Movie Awards, winning the award for "Best WTF Moment" as well as being nominated for MTV Movie Award for Best Villain for "The Hangover". He was also nominated for "Male Breakout Star" for "Community" at the 2010 Teen Choice Awards. In the fall of 2010, Adidas basketball began a wide-ranging marketing campaign in which Jeong stars as the character "Slim Chin" alongside NBA stars Dwight Howard and Derrick Rose. On May 22, 2011, Jeong hosted the "2011 Billboard Music Awards" in Las Vegas on ABC. On June 15, 2011, he was featured in a Hands Only CPR PSA campaign from the American Heart Association. He won a Streamy Award for "Best Guest Appearance" for "Burning Love". In 2013, he appeared in Michael Bay's "Pain & Gain" (2013), as Johnny Wu, a motivational speaker, and returned, in a significantly expanded role, as Mr. Chow in "The Hangover Part III". Jeong will star in and produce the film "The Chung Factor", which was purchased by Lionsgate on October 25, 2011. In an unusual, if informal, partnership, Jamie Foxx and Jeong have each agreed to star in movies written and produced by the other. Foxx has agreed to take a lead role in a new movie Jeong will produce called "After Prom". Jeong will star in "All-Star Weekend", a comedy Foxx is developing at his production company about two friends who find themselves fans of opposing NBA stars. Personal life. Jeong's wife, Tran Ho, is Vietnamese American and is also a physician. They have twin daughters, Alexa and Zooey, and live in Southern California.
1062797	Frederick Allan "Rick" Moranis (born April 18, 1953) is a retired Canadian-American actor and a two-time Grammy nominated musician. Moranis came to prominence around 1980 in the sketch comedy show "Second City Television" and later appeared in several Hollywood films, including "Strange Brew", "Ghostbusters", "Spaceballs", "Little Shop of Horrors", "Honey, I Shrunk the Kids" (and its sequels), "Little Giants", "Parenthood", "The Flintstones", and "My Blue Heaven". Moranis announced his retirement from acting in 1997 and hasn't appeared in a film since then although he has provided voice-over work for a few animated films.
1065206	Marc Lawrence (December 17, 1909 – November 28, 2005) was an American character actor who specialized in underworld types. He has also been credited as F. A. Foss, Marc Laurence and Marc C. Lawrence. Personal life. Lawrence was born as Max Goldsmith in New York City, the son of a Polish Jewish mother, Minerva Norma (née Sugarman), and a Russian Jewish father, Israel Simon Goldsmith. He participated in plays in school, then attended the City College of New York. He married Odessa-born novelist and screenwriter Fanya Foss, with whom he had two children; she died on December 12, 1995. Lawrence died of heart failure on November 28, 2005 at the age of 95. He was buried at Westwood Memorial Park in Westwood, California. His son, Michael Lawrence, is a writer and artist based on the Greek island of Hydra, whose book, "My Voyage In Art", details his meetings with various of his father's actor friends; while at UCLA he befriended the singer-songwriter James Douglas "Jim" Morrison. His daughter, actress Toni Lawrence, was once married to actor Billy Bob Thornton and starred in his film "Daddy's Girl". Career. In 1930, Lawrence befriended another young actor, John Garfield. The two appeared in a number of plays before Lawrence was given a film contract with Columbia Pictures. Lawrence appeared in films beginning in 1931. Garfield followed, starting his film career in 1938. Lawrence's pock-marked complexion, brooding appearance and New York street-guy accent made him a natural for heavies, and he played scores of gangsters and mob bosses over the next six decades. Later, Lawrence found himself under scrutiny for his political leanings. When called before the House Un-American Activities Committee, he admitted he had once been a member of the Communist Party. He was blacklisted and departed for Europe, where he continued to make films. Following the demise of the blacklist, he returned to America and resumed his position as a familiar and talented purveyor of gangland types. He played gangsters in two James Bond movies: 1971's "Diamonds Are Forever" opposite Sean Connery, and 1974's "The Man with the Golden Gun" opposite Roger Moore. He also portrayed a henchman opposite Laurence Olivier in "Marathon Man" (1976) and a stereotypical Miami mob boss alongside Jerry Reed and Dom DeLuise in the comedy "Hot Stuff" (1979). One of his last roles was as Mr. Zeemo in the ' episode "Badda-Bing Badda-Bang". Previously he played the elderly Gatherer Volnoth in the ' episode "The Vengeance Factor".
432526	Jamal Mixon is an American actor. He is best known for his role as Ernie Klump, Jr. in the film "The Nutty Professor". He is the younger brother of actor Jerod Mixon. Mixon's other acting credits include the television series "Malcolm & Eddie", "Moesha", "The Parkers", "Good News", "The Proud Family" and "George Lopez". He also appeared in the films "Def Jam's How to Be a Player" (1997), "Bulworth" (1998), ' (2000), "The Cookout" (2004), "Gridiron Gang" (2006), ' (2009), "" (2009). His latest film "White T" is slated for theatrical release in February 2013.
583907	Sameera Reddy (born 14 December 1983) is an Indian actress who primarily appears in Kollywood and Bollywood films.She has also appeared in a number of Telugu, Bengali, Malayalam and Kannada films.She went on to appear in commercially successful Tamil films like "Vaaranam Aayiram", "Vedi" and "Vettai" establishing herself as a contemporary leading actress of Tamil Cinema. Early life. Reddy was born on 14 December 1983 in Rajahmundry, Andhra Pradesh. Her father Chinta poli (C. P.) Reddy, a Telugu, is a businessman, while her mother Nakshatra, a Goud Saraswat Brahmin, referred to as Niki by her daughters and in the media, was a microbiologist and worked with an NGO. She has two siblings, Meghna Reddy, a former VJ and supermodel, and Sushma Reddy, a Bollywood actress and model, both elder to her. She did her schooling at Bombay Scottish School in Mahim, Mumbai and graduated from Sydenham College. Sameera described herself as a "Tomboy" and "the ugly duckling in the family", while citing: "I was plump, had glasses and my glam quotient was rather low till I was 19". She also claimed that she had always been "the calm one" and "most diplomatic" among the sisters and was pampered since she was the youngest in the family. Career. Reddy first appeared in ghazal singer Pankaj Udhas's "Aur Aahista" music video in 1996, when she was a graduate. She caught the attention of Bollywood and was cast in a pivotal role in the 2002 Hindi film "Maine Dil Tujhko Diya". In 2004, she appeared in "Musafir". Reddy appeared in the Tamil film "Vaaranam Aayiram" directed by Gautham Menon, opposite Surya Sivakumar, which was a blockbuster. Reddy's acting and modest portrayal of a confident and down-to-earth girl earned her rave reviews. Other Activities. Reddy was a judge for the Miss Sri Lanka Online contest in 2012. Personal life. Reddy is a big fan of American talk show queen Oprah Winfrey. She met Oprah during the former's visit to India at the welcome party hosted by Parmeshwar Godrej. As the television celebrity was reportedly impressed by Sameera's saree, she was presented a similar saree as a gift by the actress before she left India.
583300	Sadma (; ) is a 1983 Indian film directed by Balu Mahendra which stars Sridevi and Kamal Hassan with music composed by Ilayaraaja. The picture tells the story of Nehalata (Sridevi), a young woman who regresses to childhood after suffering a head injury in a car crash. Lost, she ends up trapped in a brothel before being rescued by Somu (Kamal Haasan), a lonely school teacher who falls in love with her. The film is a remake of the 1982 of Balu Mahendra's own Tamil Film "Moondram Pirai", starring Sridevi and Kamal Hassan. Sridevi's autistic child-woman performance brought her nominations in the Filmfare Best actress award category as well as State awards and National Awards. Kamal's performance in the film's climax won him the National Award in the Tamil original. The film was a huge success and achieved cult status and is regarded as an all time classic featuring Kamal Haasan and Sridevi's best performances. Plot. Nehalata (Sridevi) is a young, modern girl who meets with an accident that leaves her with the memory and intelligence of a seven year old. Circumstances lead her into prostitution, and in the brothel she meets Somu (Kamal Haasan). He realizes that she has been tricked into the trade. He rescues her and takes her to his home in Ooty and begins to take care of her. He knows Nehalata as Reshmi, which was the pseudonym given to her at the brothel. Reshmi reciprocates Somu's care as they spend several months together sharing an amazing and innocent relationship that treads the tender line between affection and love. The sub-plot of the film follows the wife of Somu's boss who is attracted to Somu, though Somu doesn't reciprocate her feelings. It depicts how the outside world succumbs to carnal desires which have no place in Somu and Reshmi's relationship. Somu takes Reshmi to the village's medical practitioner who cures her and brings her back to sanity as she regains her memory up to the point of her accident. When Somu comes to meet Reshmi later that day, she is unable to identify or remember him. Despite his efforts to make her understand that he was the one who had taken care of her for several months, she is indifferent to him and leaves Ooty for her hometown, thus abandoning Somu and the life and relationship that she once had with him. Soundtrack. All music was composed by Ilaiyaraaja, who retained most of his compositions from the original Tamil version. The film marked the composer's debut in Bollywood. Critical Reception. "Sadma" is included in iDiva's list of '10 Must Watch Movies That Weren't Blockbusters'. Sridevi's performance as a child-woman suffering from amnesia was called by Indian Express ""a milestone in her illustrious career"". Sridevi also featured in the Mid Day list of 'Challenging Roles played by Bollywood Actors' describing her act in the film as ""her best performance ever"". In 2012, Adil Hussain, Sridevi's co-star in "English Vinglish" revealed that he became a fan of the actress after watching her in "Sadma". The Sridevi-Kamal Hasan pair also appeared on the CNN-IBN list of 'Greatest Romantic Couples on Celluloid'.
48712	The Parole Officer is a 2001 British film, directed by John Duigan. It was the first feature film to star comedian Steve Coogan. The film follows a mismatched group of former criminals as they assist their probation officer in proving his innocence after a murder accusation. Plot. Simon Garden is a well-meaning but ineffectual probation officer. At the beginning of the film, he is facing a tribunal after his entire department in Blackpool submit complaints against him, Garden having only had three successes in his career. He is therefore transferred to Manchester. He has hypoglycemia and therefore regularly eats crisps.
584042	Pudhupettai () is a 2006 Indian Tamil gangster film written and directed by Selvaraghavan, starring his brother Dhanush in the lead, whilst Sneha and Sonia Agarwal enact the lead female character roles. The film, with music scored by Yuvan Shankar Raja and cinematography by Arvind Krishna, Selvaraghavan's usual crew members, released on 26 May 2006, receiving universal critical acclaim for the music and picturisation and ending up as a hit at the box office. The film was dubbed into Telugu and released as "Dhoolpeta". Plot. The story is set in the backdrop of the slums of Pudhupettai in Chennai, as the title suggests, where a high school kid kokki Kumar (Dhanush) sees his mom dead after he comes back from watching a movie. His father, the murderer is also planning to kill his son Kumar. Kumar sensing danger runs away from home. Homeless and with no food Kumar resorts to begging until he is falsely arrested while standing by and watching a commotion on the street. In jail he befriends handymen of a local goon who take Kumar with them and give him petty jobs to do. In a confrontation with goons of another gang Kumar kills the brother of his enemy gang's head Moorthi thus earning the respect of his gang and making enemies for himself both within his gang and outside. Krishnaveni (Sneha) is a prostitute who also works under Anbu. Kumar falls in love with Krishnaveni and challenge Anbu to release her. Anbu in return beats Krishnaveni and orders to kill Kumar. Kumar approaches Anbu and asks to pardon him but Anbu wonders if it would be possible cancel the order to kill Kumar. Kumar infuriated kills Anbu and approaches Thalaivar (Azhagam Perumal). Thalaivar says if he could survive until the next day morning from Anbu's goon, who is seeking revenge, he would be bestowed with Anbu's area for business. Kumar survives and Thalaivar keeps him in place of Anbu. Kumar grows even further in the underworld. He kills his father and his hench men. Murthy is stabbed by Kumar's men. Kumar joins Thalaivar's political party for immunity from police and arrests. He then meets Selvi (Sonia Agarwal) on the eve of her wedding and falls in love with her and marries her forcibly during her wedding ceremony. Selvi is the sister of his favorite henchman who now becomes his sworn enemy and joins the enemy gang. Slowly Kumar starts accumulating serious enemies and eventually everyone start targeting for Kumar's head. Does Kumar survive the wrath of his enemies? forms the rest of the story. Theme controversy. After the release of "Pattiyal" whose theme was the same as "Pudupettai" (dwelling on gangsters in Chennai), Selvaraghavan wanted to re-do many of the scenes to make them look fresh and new, hence the delay. The re-recording was done in Bangkok, with everyone involved working overtime. Music. Yuvan Shankar Raja and Selvaraghavan renewed their association with this film, who had earlier teamed up to give highly successful and critically acclaimed music in the film "Thulluvadho Ilamai" (2001), "Kaadhal Kondein" (2004) and "7G Rainbow Colony" (2005). The entire music, including soundtrack and film score, was composed in Thailand, where Yuvan Shankar Raja worked together with the "Chapraya Symphony Orchestra of Bangkok", which would feature for the first time in a Tamil film. Several Traditional Thai musical instruments, including Khim and Southuu were also used for the orchestration. The soundtrack was composed by Yuvan Shankar Raja and released on 15 December 2005. It features 10 tracks overall, out of which 6 tracks are songs and the remaining 4 Instrumental pieces, which belong to the film score. The lyrics were written by Na. Muthukumar, who had written the lyrics for Selvaraghavan's earlier film as well. However, this film remains to be the most recent collaboration of Muthukumar and Selvaraghavan as the latter had replaced Muthukumar with Vairamuthu for his future projects. Specially mentionable is the fact, that actor Kamal Haasan had sung one of the songs, although he didn't act in the film. The film's lead actor Dhanush had rendered a rap song as well. As an interesting aspect, every track carries a title to reflect the theme, the track belongs to. Yuvan Shankar Raja received rave reviews for both the songs and the film score, which is considered to belong to Yuvan Shankar Raja's best ever works. The songs, in particular, were hailed as "brilliant", "innovative", and even "a musical milestone". The music also gained immense popularity among the masses, especially among youth, topping the "Tamil Music Charts" for the following weeks. Technology. "Pudupettai" is the first Tamil film to be released in the "Super 35mm" format which allows for a larger image area packing in more details in the frame. It enhances viewing experience. Technologically the film has many other firsts to its credit. According to Director of Photography Arvind Krishna, the movie will be a very different experience. "It has some intensive matt-based color correction, and also altered color tones for different scenes and moods.' It is also the first film to be digitally projected by directly scanning the negative at 2K resolutions and converting them to digital projection format. Box office. "Pudhupettai" had taken the year's best ever opening, netting nearly Rs. 27.55 Lakhs from five Chennai screens in three days, Rs. 9.80 Lakhs only from Sathyam Cinemas. In its second week, it netted Rs. 21 Lakhs from five Chennai screens.
582813	Kabhi Na Kabhi is a 1998 Bollywood crime film co-written and directed by Priyadarshan. It stars Jackie Shroff, Anil Kapoor and Pooja Bhatt in pivotal roles. The film was produced by R. Mohan in the banner of a Malayalam film production company, Shogun Films. The movie had a delayed release on 27 November 1998. It was a failure in the box-office, even though A. R. Rahman's songs were fairly noticed. The film was also released in Tamil, and was titled "Monalisa". Plot. Kachra Seth runs an empire of collecting garbage, which is merely a front to cover-up for his other business - drug trafficking. He recruits a select group of people to carry out unpleasant tasks - such as beating someone up, or even killing someone. One of his recruits is Jaggu, who will do anything for a price. Jaggu loves Tina but is afraid to tell her. When Jaggu's mom is hospitalized, he comes to Kachra for monetary assistance, he is assigned to a task instead, and unable to complete the task he is apprehended by the police with the assistance of a librarian, and is subsequently found guilty and sent to prison. Jaggu's place is taken by Rajeshwar alias Raja, who is also attracted to Tina and even rescues her from one of Kachra's goons, Chabiley, and they both fall in love. When Jaggu returns from prison, he finds his mom has died, and his sister is missing, believed to have committed suicide. In anger, he concoctes a fool-proof plan to kill the librarian, and he does so. Jaggu does not know that the librarian is none other than Raja's dad, and Raja has sworn to hunt down his dad's killer, no matter what. Soundtrack. The score and soundtrack were composed A. R. Rahman with lyrics by Javed Akhtar. Rahman reused the song "Anjali Anjali" from 1994 Tamil film "Duet" as "Mi Gayee Mil Gayee" as per the director's request. This is the only song sung by Kumar Sanu for Rahman. The soundtrack received overwhelming critical reviews. Reviewer of "Screen India" said, "A. R. Rahman spins another fizzy, frothy score for this long overdue film. This is vintage Rahman - resolutely stub - born in style - yet, it make for much pleasent listening. The soundtrack also proved popular upon release. The official track listing:
1655832	Qin Jiushao (, ca. 1202–1261), courtesy name Daogu (道古), was a Chinese mathematician. Biography. Although Qin Jiushao was born in Ziyang, Sichuan, his family originated from Shandong province. He is regarded as one of the greatest mathematicians in Chinese history. This is especially remarkable due to the fact that Qin did not devote his life to mathematics. He was accomplished in many other fields and held a series of bureaucratic positions in several Chinese provinces.
584883	Kantri () is a 2008 film starring Jr. NTR, Hansika Motwani, Tanisha Mukherjee, and Prakash Raj. The film is directed by Meher Ramesh, who is a protégé of Puri Jagannadh. The movie is produced by Vyjayanthi Movies and C. Ashwini Dutt.
1169650	John Drew Barrymore (born John Blyth Barrymore; June 4, 1932 – November 29, 2004) was a member of the Barrymore family of actors, which included his father, John Barrymore, and his father's siblings, Lionel and Ethel. He was the father of four children, including John Blyth Barrymore and actress Drew Barrymore. His half-sister was Diana Barrymore from his father's second marriage. Early life. Barrymore was born in Los Angeles, California to John Barrymore and Dolores Costello. He was a late child for his father, who wanted a son, and was 50 years old at his birth while his mother was 28. His parents divorced when he was around three years old in 1935, and Barrymore said he had met his father only once. His father died in 1942 when Barrymore was nine years old. He also stated that he and his cousin, Dirk Drew Davenport, enlisted in the United States Navy during World War II. As both were tall for their age, the military did not discover until several weeks later that the boys were below the minimum enlistment age. Barrymore ran away when he was 17 years old and signed a film contract, but repeatedly abandoned leading roles and had no major film career. Career. In 1958, he changed his middle name to Drew, although he had previously been credited in past works as Blyth. This was followed by a brief resurgence in Italian movies, as he appeared in several leading roles. He also appeared several times in the TV series Gunsmoke. However, Barrymore's social behavior obstructed any professional progress. In the 1960s, he was occasionally incarcerated for drug use, public drunkenness, and spousal abuse. He notably guest-starred in other memorable episodes of classic TV Westerns "Rawhide" – "Incident of The Haunted Hills" – playing a half-Native half-White outcast and "Wagon Train" – "The Ruttledge Munroe Story" – playing a "too cheerful" character who spreads death wherever he goes and turns out to be a figure from Major Adams's (Ward Bond) military past. In 1966, Barrymore accepted a major guest role as Lazarus in the "" episode "The Alternative Factor". However, he failed to show up (and was ultimately replaced at the last minute by actor Robert Brown), resulting in a SAG suspension of six months. He did appear as Stacey Daggart in the 1966–67 NBC series "The Road West", starring Barry Sullivan. Death. Although he continued to appear occasionally on screen, he became more and more reclusive. Suffering from the same problems that had destroyed his father, John Drew became a derelict. Estranged from his family, including his children, his lifestyle continued to worsen and his physical and mental health deteriorated. In 2003, daughter Drew Barrymore moved him near her home despite their estrangement, paying his medical bills until his death from cancer. He has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for his contributions to television. Marriage and children. Barrymore married four times, and all four marriages ending in divorce. He married actress Cara Williams in 1952, they divorced in 1959. His fourth child, Drew Barrymore, became a successful film actress and producer.
1104349	In numerical analysis, von Neumann stability analysis (also known as Fourier stability analysis) is a procedure used to check the stability of finite difference schemes as applied to linear partial differential equations. The analysis is based on the Fourier decomposition of numerical error and was developed at Los Alamos National Laboratory after having been briefly described in a 1947 article by British researchers Crank and Nicolson. Later, the method was given a more rigorous treatment in an article co-authored by von Neumann. Numerical stability. The stability of numerical schemes is closely associated with numerical error. A finite difference scheme is stable if the errors made at one time step of the calculation do not cause the errors to increase as the computations are continued. A "neutrally stable scheme" is one in which errors remain constant as the computations are carried forward. If the errors decay and eventually damp out, the numerical scheme is said to be stable. If, on the contrary, the errors grow with time the numerical scheme is said to be unstable. The stability of numerical schemes can be investigated by performing von Neumann stability analysis. For time-dependent problems, stability guarantees that the numerical method produces a bounded solution whenever the solution of the exact differential equation is bounded. Stability, in general, can be difficult to investigate, especially when the equation under consideration is nonlinear. In certain cases, Von Neumann stability is necessary and sufficient for stability in the sense of Lax–Richtmyer (as used in the Lax equivalence theorem): The PDE and the finite difference scheme models are linear; the PDE is constant-coefficient with periodic boundary conditions and have only two independent variables; and the scheme uses no more than two time levels. Von Neumann stability is necessary in a much wider variety of cases. It is often used in place of a more detailed stability analysis to provide a good guess at the restrictions (if any) on the step sizes used in the scheme because of its relative simplicity. Illustration of the Method. The von Neumann method is based on the decomposition of the errors into Fourier series. To illustrate the procedure, consider the one-dimensional heat equation
1178680	Danielle Jane "Dannii" Minogue (born 20 October 1971) is an Australian singer/songwriter, talent show judge, actress, television and radio personality and fashion designer. She rose to prominence in the early 1980s for her roles in the Australian television talent show "Young Talent Time" with another known fellow Australian Tina Arena and the soap opera "Home and Away", before beginning her career as a pop singer in the early 1990s. Minogue achieved early success with hits such as "Love and Kisses", "This is It", "Jump to the Beat" and Baby Love, though by the release of her second album, her popularity as a singer had declined, leading her to make a name for herself with award-winning performances in musicals with "Grease" and also in "Notre Dame De Paris", as well as other acting credits in "The Vagina Monologues" and as Lady Macbeth. The late 1990s saw a brief return to music after Minogue reinvented herself as a dance artist with "All I Wanna Do", her first number one UK Club hit. In 2001, Minogue further returned to musical success with the release of her biggest worldwide hit to date, "Who Do You Love Now?", while her subsequent album, "Neon Nights", became the most successful of her career. In the UK, she has achieved 12 consecutive number one dance singles, becoming the best-performing artist on the UK Upfront Club Chart. Since 2007, Minogue has established herself as a successful talent show judge and television personality. She judged on "Australia's Got Talent" in Australia from 2007 until her departure in 2012, and until 2010, she also judged "The X Factor" in the UK, where she was the winning judge in both 2007 and 2010 with Leon Jackson and Matt Cardle, respectively. In 2010, Minogue launched her own fashion label "Project D" London with her best friend Tabitha Somerset Webb. On 9 November 2011, Dannii received an honorary doctorate degree in Media and Arts from Southampton Solent University for her 30-year varied career in the showbiz and media industry. In 2013, Minogue became a judge on the ninth series of "Britain & Ireland's Next Top Model", and on the fifth series of "The X Factor Australia".
1068799	Brokedown Palace is a 1999 American drama film directed by Jonathan Kaplan, and starring Claire Danes, Kate Beckinsale and Bill Pullman. It deals with two American friends imprisoned in Thailand for drug smuggling. Because it presents a critical view of the Thai legal system, most scenes were filmed in the Philippines; however, some panoramas and views were filmed in Bangkok. Its title is taken from a Grateful Dead song written by Jerry Garcia and Robert Hunter from their 1970 album "American Beauty". Plot. Lifelong best friends Alice Marano (Claire Danes) and Darlene Davis (Kate Beckinsale) take a trip to Thailand after graduating high school. In Thailand, they meet a captivating Australian man, who calls himself Nick Parks (Daniel Lapaine). Darlene is particularly smitten with Nick and convinces Alice to take Nick up on his offer to treat the two of them to what amounts to a day trip to Hong Kong. In the airport, the girls are seized by the police and shocked to discover that one of their bags contains heroin.
1130111	Alexa Carole Havins (born November 16, 1980) is an American actress. She first came to prominence in 2003, when she became the originating actor in the role of Babe Carey Chandler on the soap opera "All My Children". Her role as the flawed but good Babe Carey earned her a Daytime Emmy Award nomination in 2005 and recognition as being half of one of the show's most popular soap opera pairings. Havins has made guest appearances in a number of television shows, as well as a number of independent films. In 2011, she joined the main cast for "Torchwood's" fourth series, "", airing on BBC Worldwide and US premium television network Starz. Early life. Alexa Havins was born in Artesia, New Mexico on November 16, 1980. As a child and adolescent, she was raised in Chandler, Arizona, later attending Chandler High School. Coincidentally, her mother often called her Babe. Her childhood nickname was the "Ice Maiden" because she was "deathly shy".
1044207	Henry Wilfrid Brambell (22 March 1912 – 18 January 1985) was an Irish film and television actor best known for his role in the British television series "Steptoe and Son". He also performed alongside The Beatles in their film "A Hard Day's Night", playing Paul McCartney's fictional grandfather. Early life. Brambell was born in Dublin. His father worked at a Guinness Brewery and his mother was an opera singer. His first appearance was as a child, entertaining the wounded troops during the First World War. On leaving school he worked part-time as a reporter for "The Irish Times" and part-time as an actor at the Abbey Theatre before becoming a professional actor for the Gate Theatre. He also did repertory at Swansea, Bristol and Chesterfield. In World War II he joined the British military forces entertainment organisation ENSA. Acting career. His television career began during the 1950s, when he was cast in small roles in three Nigel Kneale/Rudolph Cartier productions for BBC Television: as a drunk in "The Quatermass Experiment" (1953), as both an old man in a pub and later a prisoner in "Nineteen Eighty-Four" (1954) and as a tramp in "Quatermass II" (1955). All of these roles earned him a reputation for playing old men, though he was only in his forties at the time. Brambell hardly ever stopped working in his 36-year career. Brambell also appeared as Bill Gaye in the 1962 Maurice Chevalier/Hayley Mills picture, "In Search of the Castaways". He was heard in the original soundtrack of "The Canterbury Tales", which was one of the quickest selling West End soundtrack albums of all time. He also released two 45-rpm singles, "Second Hand"/"Rag Time Ragabone Man", which played on his "Steptoe and Son" character, followed in 1971 by "Time Marches On", his tribute to The Beatles, with whom he had worked in 1964 (and met many times). It featured a Beatles-esque guitar riff with Brambell reciting words about the Beatles splitting up. The B-side was "The Decimal Song" which, at the time of Britain adopting decimal currency, was politically charged. In 1965, he appeared on Broadway in the show "Kelly" which closed after just one performance. He featured in many prominent theatre roles. In 1966 he played Ebenezer Scrooge in a musical version of "A Christmas Carol". This was adapted for radio the same year and appeared on Radio 2 on Christmas Eve. Brambell's booming baritone voice surprised many listeners: he played the role straight, true to the Dickens original, and not in the stereotype Albert Steptoe character. In 1971, he starred in the premiere of Eric Chappell's play "The Banana Box" in which he played Rooksby. This part was later renamed Rigsby for the TV adaptation called "Rising Damp" which starred Leonard Rossiter. "Steptoe and Son". It was this ability to play old men that led to his casting in his best remembered role, as Albert Steptoe, the irascible father in "Steptoe and Son" (his son Harold being played by Harry H. Corbett). This began as a pilot on the BBC's "Comedy Playhouse", and its success led to a full series being commissioned, running from 1962 to 1974 (including a five year break). A constant thread throughout the series was Albert being referred to by Harold as a "dirty old man", particularly, for example, when he was eating pickled onions whilst taking a bath, and retrieving dropped ones from the bathwater. There were also two feature film spin-offs, a stage show and an American re-make entitled "Sanford and Son", based on the original British scripts. The success of "Steptoe and Son" made Brambell a high profile figure on British television, and earned him the supporting role of Paul McCartney's grandfather in the Beatles' first film, "A Hard Day's Night" (1964). A running joke is made throughout the film of his character being "a very clean old man", in contrast to his being referred to as a "dirty old man" in "Steptoe and Son". In real life however, he was nothing like his "Steptoe" persona, being dapper and well-spoken. In 1965 Brambell told the BBC that he did not want to do another "Steptoe and Son" series, and in September of that year he went to New York to appear in the Broadway musical "Kelly" at the Broadhurst Theatre; however, it closed after just one performance. In 1971 he was due to play the role of Jeff Simmons, bass guitarist with The Mothers of Invention, in Frank Zappa's film "200 Motels" (a bizarre piece of casting, since the real Simmons was young, long-haired and American) but left the production after an argument with Zappa. Apart from his role as the older Steptoe, Brambell achieved recognition in many films. His performance in "The Terence Davies Trilogy" won him critical acclaim, far greater than any achieved for "Steptoe and Son", yet although appearing throughout the full 24-minute piece, Brambell did not speak a single word. Personal and later life. After the final season of "Steptoe and Son" was made in 1974, Brambell had some guest roles in films and on television, but both he and Corbett found themselves heavily typecast as their famous characters. In an attempt to take advantage of this situation, they undertook a tour of Australia in 1977 with a "Steptoe and Son" stage show. On one occasion, Brambell used bad language and was openly derogatory about New Zealand cathedrals in an interview. Despite this, Brambell did appear on the BBC's television news paying tribute to Corbett after the latter's death from a heart attack in 1982. The following year Brambell appeared in Terence Davies's film "Death and Transfiguration", playing a dying elderly man who finally comes to terms with his homosexuality. In 2002, Channel 4 broadcast a documentary film, entitled "When Steptoe Met Son", about the off-screen life of Brambell and his relationship with Harry H. Corbett. The film claimed that the two men detested each other and were barely on speaking terms after the Australia tour, caused in part by Brambell's alcoholism, which led to the two men leaving the country on separate aircraft. This claim is disputed by the writers of "Steptoe and Son", Ray Galton and Alan Simpson, who were unaware of any hatred or conflict. Harry H. Corbett's nephew from his second marriage also released a statement which claimed that the actors did not hate each other. "We can categorically say they did not fall out. They were together for nearly a year in Australia, went on several sightseeing trips together, and left the tour at the end on different planes because Harry was going on holiday with his family, not because he refused to get on the same plane. They continued to work together after the Australia tour on radio and adverts." Brambell was homosexual at a time when it was almost impossible for public figures to be openly gay, not least because male homosexual acts were illegal in the UK until 1967. In 1962 he was arrested in a toilet in Shepherd's Bush for persistently importuning and given a conditional discharge. Earlier in his life he had been married, from 1948 to 1955, to Mary "Molly" Josephine, but the relationship ended after she gave birth to the child of their lodger in 1953. In 2012 it was alleged that he had abused two boys aged 12 and 13 backstage at the Jersey Opera House in the 1970s. One of the children was from the Haut de la Garenne children's home. Brambell died of cancer in Westminster, London, aged 72. He was cremated on 25 January 1985 at Streatham Park Cemetery, where his ashes were scattered. Legacy. "The Curse of Steptoe", a BBC TV play about Brambell and his co-star Harry H. Corbett, was broadcast on 19 March 2008 on digital BBC channel BBC Four, featuring Phil Davis as Brambell. The first broadcast gained the channel its highest audience figures to date, based on overnight returns.
1161137	Ivan Sergei (; born May 7, 1971) is an American actor known for his work in television. Personal life. Sergei was born Ivan Sergei Gaudio in Hawthorne, New Jersey, and is of Dutch and Italian descent. Ivan attended Hawthorne High School, where he was a member of the graduating class of 1989, and was a quarterback on the Hawthorne Cubs football team. He married Tanya in 2003. The couple divorced in 2009. Career. Sergei first became well known when he starred in John Woo's 1996 film "Once a Thief", and then returned along with the rest of the cast for the 1997 television series, which only lasted one season. His next series was starring with Amanda Peet in "Jack & Jill" which ran from 1999 to 2001, and after this he joined the cast of the abruptly cancelled "" (2002). From 2003 to 2004, he starred on "Crossing Jordan", and then in 2004 was part of the cast of the cancelled NBC series "Hawaii". Sergei has also had roles in "If Someone Had Known" (1995), "Dangerous Minds" (1995), "Mother, May I Sleep with Danger?" (1996), "The Opposite of Sex" (1998), and "10.5" (2004). He has guest starred on "Touched by an Angel", "Cybill" and "Party of Five". In 2005 and 2006, he starred in "Charmed" as Henry Mitchell, the boyfriend and later husband of the character Paige Matthews. He also had a minor role in "The Break-Up" with Jennifer Aniston and Vince Vaughn. He co-starred with Jenny McCarthy in "Santa Baby". He guest-starred in the October 2008 "" episode "Raging Cannibal". Sergei has also played the lead character in the TV mini-series "Jack Hunter and the Lost Treasure of Ugarit" (2008). Among Sergei's recent roles are the Lifetime Nora Roberts' series movie "High Noon" where he portrayed Duncan (April 2009) and a guest role in episode 3 of Warehouse 13 with his Jack Hunter co-star Joanne Kelly.
1056514	Au revoir les enfants (, meaning "Goodbye, children") is an autobiographical 1987 film written, produced and directed by Louis Malle. The screenplay was published by Gallimard in the same year. The film won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival. Plot. During the winter of 1943-44, Julien Quentin, a student at a Carmelite boarding school in occupied France, is returning to school from vacation. He acts tough to the students at the school, but he is actually a pampered mother's boy who still wets his bed. Saddened to be returning to the tedium of boarding school, Julien's classes seem uneventful until Père Jean, the headmaster, introduces three new pupils. One of them, Jean Bonnet, is the same age as Julien. Like the other students, Julien at first despises Bonnet, a socially awkward boy with a talent for arithmetic and playing the piano. One night, Julien wakes up and discovers that Bonnet is wearing a kippah and is praying in Hebrew. After digging through his new friend's locker, Julien learns the truth. His new friend's name is not Bonnet, but Jean Kippelstein. Père Jean, a compassionate, sacrificing priest of the old school, had agreed to grant a secret asylum to hunted Jews. After a game of treasure hunt, however, Julien and Jean bond and a close friendship develops between them.
1071671	Plot. Yuji Nimura (Joe Odagiri) and Mamoru Arita (Tadanobu Asano) are two factory workers, who are constantly irritated by their boss, Fujiwara (Takashi Sasano). Mamoru entrusts his poisonous jellyfish, which he has been acclimating to fresh water, to Nimura.
520496	Maria Lourdes Egger dela Cruz-Casareo, better known by her screen name Angelika de la Cruz (born October 29, 1981), is a Filipina actress and singer. She started her career in 1995, and has since appeared in television shows and movies. Originally with ABS-CBN, she became a contract artist under GMA Network in 2007. Personal life. Angelika Dela Cruz was born to a Filipino father Ernie Dela Cruz and an Italian-Austrian mother Angelica Egger. She has also a younger sister, Mika Dela Cruz, who is also an actress, and two brothers, Erick and Edward, one of the lead singers for the boy band "Freshmen". She currently resides in Malabon, Metro Manila. Dela Cruz is also the owner of Starz Bar and restaurant. Her younger brother Edward died in a vehicular accident. In her early career, she dated fellow ABS CBN talent Jericho Rosales. She also dated the late actor Mico Sotto and action star Victor Neri, her leading man in Habang Kapiling Ka. Erik Santos and Ahron Villena were two actors who expressed their admiration to the actress but both never confirmed that they have dated the actress. TV host-actor Derek Ramsay and Keempee de Leon have confirmed to have been courted the actress at some point. October 12, 2008 in an episode of Showbiz Central, de la Cruz stated that she had married Orion Casareo in August 2008 and was expecting a child. Acting career. Early Success. Dela Cruz' acting debut came in when she landed a major supporting role in the movie "Nights Of Serafina" where she was able to work with then-sexy actress "Georgia Ortega". The film achieved critical success and gained her a Best New Actress of the year award at the "PMPC Star Awards for Movies". Network giant ABS-CBN soon noticed her potential and cast her in the top rated soap series "Mara Clara" with Judy Ann Santos and Gladys Reyes. After her stint in the long-running drama series, she was able to work again with "Judy Ann Santos" in the primetime drama series Esperanza which achieved high ratings and made her a household name. In the series, she was first paired to dancer turned actor "Spencer Reyes" however, their tandem was not accepted by the viewers so ABS CBN paired her to actor Jericho Rosales. Her team up with Rosales made its way to popularity when they both starred in "Magandang Hatinggabi" a movie produced by "Star Cinema" and the teen-oriented horror series "Oka Tokat". They appeared together in the "Star Drama Theater" anthology, "Maalaala Mo Kaya" and Flames. They also became regulars in "ASAP" and "Magandang Tanghali Bayan". Though active in television, Dela Cruz also made her way to the big through the youth-oriented films such as "Seventeen So Kaka", "Istokwa" and "Huwag Mo Nang Itanong". She achieved critical praises in her appearance in the horror film "Manananggal ng Maynila" and in "Esperanza: The Movie". Breakthrough. After working with ABS-CBN, dela Cruz tried her luck in ABS CBN's rival GMA Network. The network cast her in shows including primetime mini-series "Di Ba't Ikaw", noontime variety show "SOP" and action-fantasy series "Pintados". She was able to showcase her acting ability by playing the lead role in the mini-series "Liwanag Ng Hatinggabi" with award-winning actress Lorna Tolentino and in "Umulan Man O Umaraw". Her breakout role came when she became the lead star of the primetime television series Ikaw Lang Ang Mamahalin. The show became a huge success and she was crowned as the Soap Opera Princess of GMA. She also appeared in the teen-oriented show "Click" but due to her rising popularity, she was pulled out from the show. After the success of "Ikaw Lang Ang Mamahalin", she once again headlined another primetime drama called "Habang Kapiling Ka" opposite Victor Neri. Her outstanding performance in the series gave her a Best Actress nomination at the 2003 PMPC Star Awards for TV. Dela Cruz also took part and matured in movies. In 2000, she earned a Best Supporting Actress nomination for the movie "Deathrow", an official entry to the Metro Manila Film Festival. She also signed-up for the movie "Hari Ng Selda" where she was paired to action star Robin Padilla and the comedy film "S2pid Luv" with rapper Andrew E. Both were under Viva Films. After her contract with GMA expired in 2003, dela Cruz moved back to ABS-CBN and teamed-up with her on-and-off screen partner Jericho Rosales in the hit TV series "Sana'y Wala Nang Wakas" with Diether Ocampo and Kristine Hermosa. The series became one of the most watched shows in primetime and its popularity has reached abroad. Dela Cruz who played the optimistic, talented young lady who became romantically involved with the character played by Jericho Rosales was applauded by both viewers and critics. After the success of Sana'y Wala Nang Wakas, Dela Cruz was cast in another primetime television series called "Ikaw Ang Lahat Sa Akin" where she shared the screen with Star Magic's brightest talents such as Claudine Barretto, John Lloyd Cruz, Shaina Magdayao and Bea Alonzo. She also appeared as one of the main hosts of the showbiz-oriented show "Entertainment Konek" and Sunday variety show "ASAP". Villainous and present roles. Her career took a different direction in 2006 when she played an anti-heroine role to Sarah Geronimo in the hit drama series "Bituing Walang Ningning", a TV adaptation of a 1980s hit movie starring Cherie Gil and Sharon Cuneta. Her superb performance as Lavinia Arguelles won her a Best Actress nomination at the "2007 PMPC Star Awards for Television" and a Best Actress award in Gawad Amerika. She later appeared as Kristine Hermosa's ambitious twin sister in the afternoon drama "Prinsesa ng Banyera". In 2008, dela Cruz signed up with GMA Network and made a comeback in the primetime drama series Babangon Ako't Dudurugin Kita where she played the role of Via, the main antagonist in the story. The series gave her the opportunity to work again with her previous co-stars such as Marvin Agustin, Tonton Gutierrez and Dina Bonnevie. Later that year, she was given another antagonist role in the afternoon drama series Una Kang Naging Akin which became a consistent top rater in the ratings game. In October of the year, she was cast as the scheming ex-girlfriend of JC de Vera in the primetime series La Lola. After giving birth, dela Cruz returned to the screen by playing Iza Calzado's good-hearted sister in the afternoon drama series "Kaya Kong Abutin Ang Langit". She most recently appeared in the primetime series "Pilyang Kerubin", fantasy series "Dwarfina",the comedy series "Futbolilits". She made a guest appearance on the pilot episode of Kokak before being cast as one of the leads in the primetime drama series Biritera in which she received positive reviews. After playing a good character in Biritera, she went back to playing villanous roles in the afternoon drama series Kasalanan Bang Ibigin Ka? and in the primetime fantasy series Aso ni San Roque. Singing career. Despite an active career in showbiz, Angelika’s foremost passion lies is singing. In 1996, she released a 10-track self-titled album under BMG Records followed by a second album entitled My Only Wish three years later. Angelika’s soothing voice soon caught Imperial Records’ attention. The Japanese label then tapped the singer-actress to record a few songs, which eventually gained international fame and earned for her a budding name in Japan. To give way to her flourishing acting career, Angelika’s singing streak took a hiatus for years, until she later managed to sing once again in 2006 when she was included in the soundtrack of her television starrer Bituing Walang Ningning. She recorded two songs for the series: Miss Na Miss Kita and Dito Ba? featuring Sarah Geronimo. Lawsuit Against BMG Music. On March 17, 1995, de la Cruz (Lourdes Egger dela Cruz in real life) signed a contract with BMG under which she was required to record at least two albums over three years. But Dela Cruz only recorded one album during the period so BMG exercised on March 23, 1998 its option to extend the contract for two more years. She was required to record one album, which she was able to do. Despite the expiration of the option period, on May 8, 2000, BMG informed her she still had to record one album under the option period. On June 5, 2001, Dela Cruz sued and asked for damages, claiming that after recording one album BMG never gave her any proposal for a second one and that despite the lapse of the option period, the firm refused to release her on the ground that she still had to record one album. The RTC found merit in Dela Cruz’ petition, awarding her payment for damages, and the payment of royalties for the unfulfilled number of required songs under the agreement but BMG appealed the case and CA ruled in Dela Cruz’ favor. However, CA deleted the lower court’s award to Dela Cruz of P1.5 million in actual damages, P200,000 in moral damages, another P200,000 in exemplary damages, as well as P50,000 in attorney’s fees. The CA said there was no evidence to support the award of actual, moral and exemplary damages. And since both parties have legitimate claims to each other, CA said the award of attorney’s fees was not warranted.
581605	Mukta Barve is an Indian television, theatre and film actress. She is known for her role in the critically acclaimed Marathi film "Jogwa". Early life and education. Mukta was born on 17 May 1979 in Pune, Maharashtra. She performed in her first play "Ghar tighāncha hava" when she was in high school. She graduated from Pune University majoring in theatre, and joined the Dramatics program at Lalit Kala Kendra (Institute for Fine Arts), Pune. She then moved to Mumbai to focus completely on her acting career.As a student in Lalit Kala Kendra,She worked at various department like costume design,music etc. Career. Mukta started out by working in several TV serials such as "Abhāḷamāyā", "Shriyut Gangādhar Tipre", "Buwā Ale" and "Chitta chor". Also she played Lawyer in Zee Marathi's television show Lajja along with Girija Oak and Piyush Ranade. After starring in several plays such as "Hum To Tere Ashique Hai" and "Final Draft", Mukta won critical acclaim for her portrayal of a Kabaddi sport enthusiast in the theatre production "Kabaddi-Kabaddi", for which she won the 2007 Zee award for best actress in a commercial play. Her "Eka Lagnachi Dusri Goshta" drama sitcom is getting rave reviews, high TRP rating and is one of the most popular marathi TV series of 2012. Her performance in the series is both acclaimed by critics as well as viewers. Mukta made her film debut with the 2004 Marathi film "Chakwa", and followed it with several productions including "Thang", "Maati Maay", "Saavar Re" and Ashok Saraf's directorial debut "Ek Daav Dhobi Pachhad". In 2009, Mukta acted in the National Award winning film "Jogwa", dealing with religion in rural India. Mukta played "Suli", a "Jogtin", a happy and innocent girl who is forced into a lifetime of servitude to the local deity, who enters a relationship with "Tayappa", a forced eunuch portrayed by Upendra Limaye. To prepare for the role, Mukta studied the life of a "Jogtini" through photographs and by observing day-to-day rural behavior. Mukta also starred in the 2010 romantic film "Mumbai-Pune-Mumbai" in the role of a savvy Mumbai-based fashion designer, alongside Swapnil Joshi.
520888	Paano Na Kaya (lit: How Will It Be?) is a 2010 Filipino romance film starring Kim Chiu and Gerald Anderson and released by Star Cinema. The film also had international screenings in San Francisco, CA, Los Angeles, CA, San Diego, CA, Seattle, WA, Jersey City, NJ, Honolulu, HI, Chicago, IL, Las Vegas, NV, Guam and many other cities around the world. The film is now available in DVD and VCD worldwide via ABS-CBN International's Starry Starry Store. Reception. "Paano Na Kaya" is screened in cinemas nationwide. It was given a "B" rating by Cinema Evaluation Board (CEB) and rated GP (General Patronage) by the Movie and Television Review and Classification Board. The film had its premiere night on January 26, 2010 in SM Megamall in Manila. According to Star Cinema, the film opened with ₱12 Million gross. According to Star Cinema, the film's 3rd week gross is over 100 million plus nationwide.
1056158	The First Great Train Robbery – known in the U.S. as "The Great Train Robbery" – is a 1979 film directed by Michael Crichton, who also wrote the screenplay based on his novel "The Great Train Robbery". The film starred Sean Connery, Donald Sutherland, and Lesley-Anne Down. Plot. In 1854, Edward Pierce, on the outside a charismatic and well-established member of London's high society, but in secret an opportunistic and cynical master thief, makes plans to steal a shipment of gold being transported monthly from London to Folkestone to finance the Crimean War and replace it with lead bars to escape premature detection. But the bank has taken strict precautions, including locking the gold in two heavy Chubb safes, each of which has two locks, thus requiring a total of four keys to open. When a first test robbery (using a hired stooge to test the security measurements) goes awry, Pierce recruits his old acquaintance Robert Agar, a pickpocket and screwsman, as an accomplice. Pierce's mistress Miriam, a beautiful actress, and his cab driver Barlow also join in on the plot, and the guard to the safe car, Burgess, is also bribed into participation. To ensure the success of his plan, Pierce plans out the robbery in explicit detail, and even procures information on the security measures and locations of the keys. The executives of the bank who store the gold and arrange its transport, Mr. Henry Fowler and Mr. Edgar Trent, each possess a key; the other two are locked in a cabinet at the offices of the South Eastern Railway at the London Bridge train station. The keys are not to be stolen, but wax copies are to be made of them in order to hide the robbers' intentions. Pierce's first target is the key held by Edgar Trent. Through painstaking surveillance, Pierce learns that Trent is keen on ratting (a blood sport involving the betting on dogs killing rats) and succeeds in becoming acquainted with the man. While visiting the Trent mansion, Pierce begins to court Elizabeth, Trent's daughter, and manages to learn from her that the key is hidden in the house's basement wine cellar. Pierce and Agar successfully break into Mr. Trent's home at night and make a wax copy of the key. Henry Fowler proves an easier target, as he likes to visit certain establishments for rather illicit purposes. Establishing Miriam as a high-level prostitute, Pierce hatches a plan to get the wax copy for Fowler's key. A highly reluctant Miriam takes Fowler to a suite in which he has to undress himself, including his key which he always wears around his neck for safety. Just before Miriam is forced to have sex with him, Pierce initiates the sounds of a (fake) raid on the brothel, forcing Fowler to run for his life just after Agar manages to copy the key. What is now left are the two keys at the train station. Pierce and Agar first conduct a diversion using Agar's illegitimate son as a pickpocket, but the attempt fails. Therefore, Pierce decides to have the office burgled and the doors opened from within by the cat burglar Clean Willy, so that Agar can slip in at night and copy the keys while the station guard attends the restrooms. Since Clean Willy is currently incarcerated in Newgate Prison, Pierce, using an old alias called "John Simms", sends a message through Willy's former mistress and assists him in escaping from Newgate while the public is distracted by an execution. With Willy's help, the criminals succeed in making wax copies of the two keys at the railway station. With all four copies of the keys in Pierce's possession, Agar is able to perform a dry run of the theft to make sure that the copied keys work perfectly. Everything appears to be moving along smoothly until the gang finds itself seriously compromised: Clean Willy has turned informant to the police after an unlucky attempt at theft, and after informing them of his burglary in the station office (although he is unable to reveal full details to the plan behind it) and under the pretense of asking for more money, he nearly has Pierce lured into a trap. Pierce manages to have Willy murdered, although his plans are now greatly compromised by law enforcement agents who correctly fear that a major robbery of the gold train is at hand. The police increases security by having the door locked from the outside until the train arrives at its destination, and no passengers may travel inside the safe car. Undeterred, Pierce manages to smuggle Agar into the baggage van inside a coffin and plans to get to the safe car across the wagon roofs while the train is on its way, but he and Miriam (who is posing as Agar's mourning sister) encounter Fowler, who has decided to travel along in order to watch over the transport. After arranging for Miriam to travel with Fowler in the same compartment in order to divert his attention, Pierce climbs across the roof of the train during their journey and unlocks the door from the outside, thus allowing them to drop off the gold at the pre-arranged point. However, the soot from the engine's smoke stains Pierce's clothes, and so he is forced to borrow Agar's suit, which is much too small for him; the jacket splits across the back when he exits the train at Folkstone. The police quickly recognize him as a suspect and arrest him before he can rejoin his accomplices outside the station. Pierce is swiftly put on trial, where he is sentenced for heavy robbery. As he exits the courthouse, he receives the adoration of the poorer British masses, who consider him a folk hero for his daring act. In the midst of the hubbub, a disguised Miriam kisses him, thereby slipping him a key to his handcuffs; Agar is also present, disguised as the prison wagon driver. As Pierce is about to be shoved into the wagon, he fights free and escapes under the jubilation of the crowd and the chagrin of the officials. Production. Sean Connery performed most of his own stunts in the film, including the extended sequence on top of the moving train. The train was composed of an original locomotive from 1855 and coaches that were made for the movie from railroad flatcars. Connery was told that the train would travel at only 20 miles per hour during his time on top of the cars. However, the train crew used an inaccurate means of judging the train's speed. The train was actually doing speeds of 40 to 50 miles per hour. Connery wore soft rubber soled shoes and the roofs of the cars were covered with a sandy-gritty surface. Connery actually slipped and nearly fell off the train during one jump between two cars. Connery also had difficulty keeping his eyes free of smoke and cinders from the locomotive. Origins of the plot. The story is loosely based on the Great Gold Robbery of 1855, in which a cracksman called William Pierce (named Edward Pierce in Crichton's book and film) engineered the theft of a train-load of gold being shipped to the British Army during the Crimean War. The gold shipment of £12,000 (equal to £ today which in turn is USD $1,281,550 and 930,143 Euros) in gold coin and ingots from the London-to-Folkestone passenger train was stolen by Pierce and his accomplices, a clerk in the railway offices called Tester, and a skilled screwsman called Agar. The robbery was a year in the planning and involved making sets of duplicate keys from wax impressions for the locks on the safes, and bribing the train's guard, a man called Burgess. The plot was inspired by Kellow Chesney's 1970 book "The Victorian Underworld", which is a comprehensive examination of the more sordid aspects of Victorian society. In his screenplay Crichton used another real-life character from Chesney's book, a housebreaker called Williams (or Whitehead) who, sentenced to death in Newgate Prison, managed to escape by climbing the 15-meter (50-ft.) tall sheer granite walls, squeezing through the revolving iron spikes at the top, and climbing over the inward projecting sharp spikes above them before making his escape over the roofs. Crichton based his character "Clean Willy" Williams, played by dancer Wayne Sleep, on Williams. The only completely fictional character in the movie is the woman Miriam (Lesley-Anne Down), who is romantically involved with Pierce and who, along with Agar, is Pierce's "eyes and ears," looking out for any weaknesses that can be exploited in committing the title crime. Filming locations. Although set in London and Kent, most of the filming took place in Ireland. In particular, the final scenes were filmed in Parliament Square of Trinity College, Dublin and Kent railway station in Cork The scenes on the moving train were filmed on the Mullingar to Athlone railway line (now closed) around the Castletown Geoghan area. The train driver was John Byrne from Mullingar (now deceased). Music. The film's lavish, energetic soundtrack was written by Oscar-winning composer Jerry Goldsmith. The score marked his third collaboration with writer/director Michael Crichton following "Pursuit" (1972) and "Coma" (1978). The music for two pianos, played by the characters Elizabeth (Gabrielle Lloyd) and Emily Trent (Pamela Salem) is from the third movement of Mozart's Sonata for Two Pianos in D major, K. 448 "Molto Allegro". Reception. "The Great Train Robbery" has a critical rating of 78 percent on Rotten Tomatoes. The site's critics praised the film's comedic tone, action sequences, and Victorian details. "Variety" wrote that "Crichton's film drags in dialog bouts, but triumphs when action takes over." Roger Ebert of the "Chicago Sun-Times" singled out Connery, writing that the actor "is one of the best light comedians in the movies, and has been ever since those long-ago days when he was James Bond." And the "New York Times"' Vincent Canby praised director Crichton's "amplitude...in this visually dazzling period piece," and that "the climactic heist of the gold, with Mr. Connery climbing atop the moving railroad cars, ducking under bridges just before a possible decapitation, is marvelous action footage that manages to be very funny as it takes your breath away."
1014572	The Star Chamber is a 1983 American thriller film written by Roderick Taylor and directed by Peter Hyams. It stars Michael Douglas and Hal Holbrook. Its title is taken from the name of the notorious 17th-century English court. Plot. Judge Hardin (Douglas) is an idealistic Los Angeles jurist who gets frustrated when the technicalities of the law prevent the prosecution of two men who are accused of raping and killing a 10-year-old boy. They were driving slowly late at night and attracted the suspicion of two police officers, who wondered if the van's occupants might be burglars. After checking the license plate for violations, the policemen pulled them over for expired paperwork, claimed to have smelled marijuana, then saw a bloody shoe inside the van. However, the paperwork was actually submitted on time (it was merely processed late), meaning the police had no reason to pull over the van and Hardin has no choice (see fruit of the poisonous tree) but to throw out any subsequently discovered evidence, i.e. the bloody shoe. Hardin is even more distraught when the father of the boy attempts to shoot the criminals in court but misses and shoots a cop instead. Subsequently, the father commits suicide while in jail only after he informs Hardin that another boy has been discovered raped and murdered and tells him "This one is on you, your Honor. That boy would be alive if you hadn't let those men go." After hearing all this, Judge Hardin approaches his friend, Judge Caulfield (Hal Holbrook), who tells him of a modern-day Star Chamber: a group of judges who identify criminals who fell through the judicial system's cracks and then take actions against them outside the legal structure. Judge Hardin participates in one of these proceedings in which he presents the case of the two criminals. The Star Chamber declares them "guilty" and dispatches a hired assassin. Soon afterward, however, a police detective (Yaphet Kotto) comes to Judge Hardin with conclusive evidence that someone else raped and killed the boy. Realizing that he and the Star Chamber have just sentenced two men to die for a crime they didn't commit, Hardin implores the Star Chamber to recall the assassin, but is told by the other judges that the hit cannot be canceled. For the judges' own protection, their system includes a buffer between themselves and the assassin; they don't know who he is and he doesn't know who they are. They rationalize to Hardin that although an occasional mistake is inevitable and regrettable, what they are doing still serves society's greater good — especially, they argue, considering that the two targeted men are clearly criminals guilty of plenty of other crimes, even if not of the specific crime for which the group convicted them. Hardin makes it clear that he does not accept their reasoning. Caulfield warns him to back down because the group will do whatever they have to in order to protect themselves. Hardin refuses to heed this warning and says he will do whatever he can to stop the men from being killed. He then tracks down the men in an attempt to warn them. However, when he arrives, they do not trust him, as he has stumbled across their illegal drug operation. After they attack him, Hardin is saved by the hitman, disguised as a police officer, who kills the two men before they can kill Hardin. The hitman points his gun at Hardin, but at the last moment, the detective arrives and kills the hitman.
689344	Johnathan Rice (born May 27, 1983) is a Scottish-American singer-songwriter. His first album, "Trouble is Real", was released on Reprise Records on April 26, 2005. His follow up, "Further North", was released by Reprise on September 11, 2007. He has also worked as a producer on Jenny Lewis' "Acid Tongue" (2008) and as a session and live musician with Elvis Costello (2008's "Momofuku"). As of 2010, he performs with Lewis, as Jenny and Johnny. Early life. Rice was born in Alexandria, Virginia on May 27, 1983. He spent his childhood between there and his parents' native Glasgow, Scotland. He attended two high schools, Washington D.C.'s all-male Jesuit Gonzaga College High School and Glasgow's Turnbull High School in the suburb of Bishopbriggs. He also attended Fairfax Collegiate Middle School in Falls Church, Virginia. Career. Before graduating from high school in 2001, Rice befriended Chris Keup, a Virginian singer songwriter and self-styled A&R man. Keup produced Rice's first known recordings, the six song "Heart and Mind" EP, which was recorded in Charlottesville, V.A. with engineer Stewart Myers and then informally released on Keup's own Grantham Dispatch Records. Rice moved from Virginia to New York City at the age of eighteen with 1,000 copies of the "Heart and Mind" EP and the intention of launching his career as a singer/songwriter. He arrived in New York two days before the attacks on the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. Imagery of the attacks and their aftermath appear in the lyrics of several of the songs on "Trouble Is Real", including "City on Fire", "Put Me in Your Holy War", and "Salvation Day". Rice played small folk clubs in Manhattan and Brooklyn, most notably playing regular sets at the Living Room at its original location on Stanton St., and built a live following that lead to headlining performances at its revamped Ludlow St. location. Rice lived in an apartment in Mid-town Manhattan and worked different jobs to pay the rent, all the while writing the songs that would make up his debut album. Rice's EP caught the attention of A&R man Perry Watts-Russell, who had just left Capitol Records to begin working at Warner Bros. Records. He flew Rice out to Los Angeles, where he auditioned for Watts-Russell and label head Tom Whalley. Rice was subsequently offered a record deal with the company. After several attempts at making Trouble is Real, Rice enlisted Mike Mogis, the producer of Bright Eyes, Rilo Kiley, and The Faint. The album was recorded over five weeks in Lincoln, Nebraska. The two worked alongside string arranger Nate Walcott to create a rich, diverse sound for the album, with most songs leading into one another as a single work of music. The album was finally released on April 26, 2005.
1063691	Kerry Washington (born January 31, 1977) is an American actress, director and narrator. As of 2013, Washington is the lead actress in the ABC drama "Scandal", a Shonda Rhimes series in which Washington plays Olivia Pope, a former crisis management expert to the President. Her role earned her a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series nomination in 2013. Washington is known for her roles as Ray Charles's wife, Della Bea Robinson, in the film "Ray" (2004), as Idi Amin's wife Kay in "The Last King of Scotland" (2006), as Alicia Masters, love interest of Ben Grimm/The Thing in the live-action Fantastic Four films of 2005 and , and as Brünhilda von Schaft, Django's wife, in Quentin Tarantino's film "Django Unchained" (2012). Washington has also starred in the critically acclaimed independent films "Our Song" (2000), "The Dead Girl" (2006), and "Night Catches Us" (2010). Her other films include "Save the Last Dance" (2001), "Mr. & Mrs. Smith" (2005), "Little Man" (2006), and "For Colored Girls" (2010) Early life. Washington was born in The Bronx, New York City, the daughter of Valerie, a professor and educational consultant, and Earl Washington, a real estate broker. Her father's family is African American, from South Carolina and Brooklyn, and her mother's family are Jamaican American, from Manhattan; Washington has said that her mother is from a "mixed-race background but from Jamaica, so she is partly English and Scottish and native American, but also descended from African slaves in the Caribbean".
1058928	The Ox-Bow Incident is a 1943 American western film directed by William A. Wellman and starring Henry Fonda, Dana Andrews and Mary Beth Hughes, and featuring Anthony Quinn, William Eythe, Harry Morgan and Jane Darwell. It was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture.
612620	I Am a Sex Addict is a 2005 autobiographical comedy by American independent director and screenwriter Caveh Zahedi. Presented in semi-documentary style, the film chronicles Zahedi's own sex addiction and its impact on his life, relationships, and film making. His addiction was manifested by visiting prostitutes, and being open about this with his successive partners. The film premiered at the International Film Festival Rotterdam and was subsequently picked up for distribution by IFC Films. It aired on The Movie Channel and Showtime in 2007, and subsequently has been shown on the Sundance Channel in the United States.
1059245	Brno (; ; ; , "Brin") by population and area is the second largest city in the Czech Republic, the largest Moravian city, and the historical capital city of the Margraviate of Moravia. Brno is the administrative center of the South Moravian Region where it forms a separate district Brno-City District. The city lies at the confluence of the Svitava and Svratka rivers and has about 400,000 residents, its greater metropolitan area is regularly home to more than 800,000 people while its larger urban zone had population of about 730,000 in 2004. Brno is the capital of judicial authority of the Czech Republic – it is the seat of the Constitutional Court, the Supreme Court, the Supreme Administrative Court, and the Supreme Public Prosecutor's Office. Beside that, the city is a significant administrative centre. It is the seat of a number of state authorities like Ombudsman, Office for the Protection of Competition and the Czech Agriculture and Food Inspection Authority. Brno is also an important centre of higher education, with 33 faculties belonging to 13 institutes of higher learning and about 89,000 students. There is also a studio of Czech Television and the Czech Radio, in both cases by law. Brno Exhibition Centre ranks among the largest exhibition centres in Europe (23rd in the world). The huge complex opened in 1928 and established the tradition of large exhibitions and trade fairs held in Brno. Brno is also known for hosting motorbike and other races on the Masaryk Circuit, a tradition established in 1930 in which the Road Racing World Championship Grand Prix is one of the most prestigious races. Another notable cultural tradition is an international fireworks competition, Ignis Brunensis, that usually attracts one or two hundred thousand daily visitors. The most visited sights of the city include the castle and fortress Špilberk and the Cathedral of Saints Peter and Paul on Petrov hill, two formerly medieval buildings that form the characteristic cityscape and are often depicted as its traditional symbols. The other large preserved castle near the city is Veveří Castle by the Brno Dam Lake. This castle is the site of a number of legends, as are many other places of Brno. Another important monument of Brno is the functionalist Villa Tugendhat which has been included in the UNESCO list of World Heritage Sites. One of the natural sights nearby is the Moravian Karst. Etymology. The etymology of the name "Brno" is disputed. It perhaps comes from Old Czech "brnie" 'muddy, swampy.' Alternative explanations derive it from a Slavic verb "brniti" (to armor or to fortify) or a Celtic language spoken in the area before it was overrun by Germanic peoples and later Slavic peoples (this theory would make it cognate with other Celtic words for hill, such as the Welsh word "bryn"). Throughout its history, Brno's locals also used to refer to the town in other languages, including "Brünn" in German, ברין ("Brin") in Yiddish and "Bruna" in Latin. The Asteroid 2889 Brno was named after the city, as well as the Bren light machine gun (Brno + Enfield), one of the most famous weapons of World War II. History. The Brno basin has been inhabited since prehistoric era, however, the direct ancestor of Brno was a fortified settlement of the Great Moravia Empire known as "Staré Zámky" which was inhabited since the Neolithic Age to the early 11th century. In the early 11th century Brno was established as a castle of non-ruling Prince from the House of Přemyslid, and Brno became one of the centres of Moravia along with Olomouc and Znojmo. In the 11th century a chapel was founded on the Petrov hill, since then, the chapel has undergone many changes which after centuries resulted in the current Gothic Cathedral of St. Peter and Paul. The Spilberk Castle was founded in the 13th century, originally as the major royal castle in Moravia. In 1243 Brno received the large and small city privileges from the King, and thus it was recognized as a royal city. In 1324 Queen Elisabeth Richeza of Poland (cz: "Eliška Rejčka") founded the current Basilica of the Assumption of Our Lady where is now her final resting place. In the 14th century, Brno became one of the centres for the Moravian regional assemblies, whose meetings alternated between Brno and Olomouc. These assemblies made political, legal, and financial decisions. Brno and Olomouc were also the seats of the Land Court and the Land Tables, thus they were the two most important cities in Moravia. From the mid 14th century to the early 15th century the Spilberk Castle had served as the permanent seat of the Margraves of Moravia (Moravian rulers), one of them was elected the King of the Romans. In the 1641 Brno became the sole capital of Moravia. During the 17th century Spilberk Castle was rebuild into a huge baroque citadel. In 1777 the Brno Bishopric was established. In 1839 the first train arrived in Brno from Vienna, this event was the beginning of rail transport in today's Czech Republic. In the years 1859-1864 the city fortification was almost completely removed. In 1869 a horsecar service started to operate in Brno, it was the first tram service in today's Czech Republic. The capital of Moravia. In the mid 11th century, Moravia was divided into three separate territories; each one of them had its own ruler, coming from the Přemyslids dynasty, but independent of the other two, and subordinated only to the Bohemian ruler in Prague. Seats of these rulers and thus "capitals" of these territories were castles and towns of Brno, Olomouc, and Znojmo. In the late 12th century, Moravia began to reunify, forming the Margraviate of Moravia. Since then, until the mid of the 17th century, it was not clear which town should be the capital of Moravia. Political power was therefore "evenly" divided between Brno and Olomouc, but Znojmo also played an important role. The Moravian Diet (cz: "Moravský Zemský sněm"), the Moravian Land Tables (cz: "Moravské Zemské desky"), and the Moravian Land Court (cz: "Moravský Zemský soud") were all seated in both cities at once. However, Brno was the official seat of the Moravian Margraves (rulers of Moravia), and later its geographical position closer to Vienna also became important. Otherwise, until 1642 Olomouc was larger than Brno as the population number is concerned, and it was the seat of the only Roman Catholic diocese in Moravia. Since 1573, Olomouc was also the seat of the only Moravian university existing at that time (nowadays Palacký University of Olomouc). In 1641, in the midst of the Thirty Years' War, the Holy Roman Emperor and Margrave of Moravia Ferdinand III commanded permanent relocation of the diet, court, and the land tables from Olomouc to Brno, as Olomouc's Collegium Nordicum made it one of the primary targets of Swedish armies. In 1642 Olomouc surrendered to the Swedish army which then stayed there for 8 years. Meanwhile Brno, as the only Moravian city which managed to defend itself from the Swedes, served as the sole capital of the state (Margraviate of Moravia). After the end of the Thirty Years' War (1648), Brno retained its status as the sole capital. This was later confirmed by the Holy Roman Emperor Joseph II in 1782, and again in 1849 by the Moravian constitution. In 1948 the communist government of Czechoslovakia abolished Moravian autonomy, stripped Brno of its title, and transferred all political power in the country into one center which is Prague. At the present day, the Moravian Land Tables are stored in the Moravian Regional Archive, and ranks among the national cultural sights of the Czech Republic. The 20th century and Greater Brno. In 1919 two neighbouring towns, the town of "Královo Pole", and the town of "Husovice", and 21 other municipalities were annexed to Brno, creating Greater Brno (cz: "Velké Brno"). This was done to dilute the German majority by addition of the Slavic communities of the city's neighborhood. Greater Brno was almost 7 times larger with population of about 222 thousand - before that Brno had about 130 thousand inhabitants. In 1921 Brno became the capital city of the Land of Moravia (cz: "země Moravská"), before that Brno was the capital city of the Margraviate of Moravia. Seven years later, Brno became the capital of the Land of Moravia-Silesia (cz: "země Moravskoslezská"). In 1939 Brno was occupied by the army of Nazi Germany, and in 1945 it was liberated by the Red Army. When the First World War ended in 1918, the population of Brno included about 55,000 German speakers, including almost all inhabitants of Jewish origin. Most of Brno's Jewish population of about 12,000 was murdered by the Nazis during the German occupation of the Czech lands between 1939 and 1945. All Czech universities including those of Brno were closed by the Nazis in 1939, and the Faculty of Law was transformed into the headquarters of Gestapo and the university dormitory was used as a prison. About 35,000 Czechs and also some American and British prisoners of war were imprisoned and tortured there, leaving about 800 civilians executed or dead. One source states that executions were public and local Germans attended for a 3 Reichsmark fee. After the end of the Second World War in 1945, the surviving ethnic German residents were forcibly expelled, as was the case throughout Czechoslovakia. In the so-called “Brünn death march”, beginning on 31 May 1945, about 27,000 German inhabitants of Brno were marched overland to the Austrian border. According to postwar testimony collected by German sources, about 5,200 of them died during the march. However, later estimates by Czech sources put the death toll at about 1,700. The Czech sources say that most deaths were due to an epidemics of Shigellosis. At the beginning of the Communism Era in Czechoslovakia, in 1948, Brno ceased to serve as the capital city of Moravia. Since then Moravia has been divided into several administrative regions subordinate to Prague, and Brno is the seat of the Regional Authority of the South Moravian Region, originally called the Brno Region. In 1968 Brno was recognized as a statutory city. In 2009 Pope Benedict XVI came to Brno during his state visit to the Czech Republic. A Catholic mass was celebrated on the compound of the Brno Airport.
582793	Tinnu Anand (sometimes referred as Tinu Anand or Virender Raj Anand) is an Indian actor and director from Bollywood, who is most known as the director of Amitabh Bachchan's movies including, Kaalia (1981), Shahenshah (1988), Main Azaad Hoon (1989) and Major Saab (1998). He is the son of veteran writer Inder Raj Anand and uncle of director Siddharth Anand. Anand portrayed an important role in "Ghajini" in 2008. He did his schooling from Mayo College in India.In an exclusive interview to rediff.com, Tinu Anand told about his early days and also praised Amitabh Bachchan for his generosity . References. http://www.rediff.com/movies/slide-show/slide-show-1-interview-with-tinnu-anand/20130611.htm
1055744	Arie Verveen is an Irish actor whose recent feature films include appearances in "Fire with Fire", starring Josh Duhamel, Rosario Dawson and Bruce Willis, "Across the Hall" with Brittany Murphy, and the lead role in "Boiler Maker" with John Savage. Biography. Arie Verveen recently worked on the action feature (Fire With Fire) with Bruce Willis and Rosario Dawson and Kurt Sutter's FX biker show, (Sons Of Anarchy). Verveen has also worked with such Directors as, Terrence Malick ("The Thin Red Line"), Robert Rodriguez - Frank Miller ("Sin City"), Guy Ritchie ("Suspect"), Eli Roth ("Cabin Fever"), Sergei Bodrov ("Running Free") and Robert M. Young (Caught). He has received an Independent Spirit Award Nomination, a Golden Satellite Award and notable critical acclaim, for his work. Arie Verveen worked season 3 of Sons Of Anarchy. Verveen studied under acting coach David Bennett in London, where he made his stage debut in a production of "A Hatful Of Rain" by Michael V. Gazzo, which he co-produced and starred in. His appearance in "Caught" (1996) was his first lead role in a feature film, opposite Edward James Olmos and María Conchita Alonso, directed by Robert M. Young. This role garnered him a 1997 Special Achievement Satellite Award for Outstanding New Talent, an Independent Spirit Award nomination for Best Debut Performance, and critical acclaim for his work.
675389	When We Leave () is a 2010 German drama film, produced, written and directed by Austrian / German filmmaker Feo Aladag. The film received worldwide acclaim, and represented Aladag’s debut as a producer, writer and director.
1268087	Marie Prevost (November 8, 1898 – January 21, 1937) was a Canadian-born film actress. During her twenty-year career, she made 121 silent and talking pictures. Prevost began her career during the silent film era. She was discovered by Mack Sennett who signed her to contract and made her one of his "Bathing Beauties" in the late 1910s. Prevost appeared in dozens of Sennett's short comedy films before moving on to feature length films for Universal. In 1922, she signed with Warner Bros. where her career flourished as a leading lady. She was a favorite of director Ernst Lubitsch who cast her in three of his comedy films; "The Marriage Circle" (1924), "Three Women" (1924) and "Kiss Me Again" (1925). After being let go by Warner Bros. in early 1926, Prevost's career began to decline and she was relegated to secondary roles. She was also beset with personal problems, including the death of her mother in 1926 and the breakdown of her marriage to actor Kenneth Harlan in 1927, which fueled her depression. She began to abuse alcohol and binge eat causing her to gain weight thus making it difficult for her to secure acting jobs. By 1935, Prevost was only able to secure bit parts in films. She made her last onscreen appearance in 1936. After years of drinking, Prevost died of acute alcoholism at the age of 38 in January 1937. Prevost's estate was valued at $300 since she had squandered most of her earnings. Her death prompted the Hollywood community to create the Motion Picture & Television Country House and Hospital. Early life. Prevost was born Marie Bickford Dunn in Sarnia, Ontario, to Hughlina Marion (née Bickford) and Arthur "Teddy" Dunn. Her father worked as a railroad conductor. When she was a infant, Teddy Dunn was killed when gas seeped into the St. Clair Tunnel. Hughlina later married Frank Prevost and the family moved to Denver. In 1900, Hughlina gave birth to another daughter, Marjorie. Marie's stepfather, who worked as a miner and surveyor, frequently moved the family around the country following up on various get-rich-quick schemes. After living in Ogden, Utah, Reno, Nevada, and Fresno, California, the family finally settled in Los Angeles. Hughlina and Frank Prevost later divorced. Frank Prevost died in September 1933 and bequeathed Marie $1. While living in Los Angeles, Prevost attended Manual Arts High School. By 1915, Prevost landed a job as a secretary at a law firm which represented the Keystone Film Corporation. While running an office errand at the Keystone Studios, Prevost was asked to appear in a bit part for the film "His Father's Footsteps". Keystone's owner, Mack Sennett, was impressed by Prevost's performance and sent word that he wanted to see Prevost in his office. Prevost later recalled the day to "Motion Picture World" magazine: "I asked for Mr. Sennett and was ushered in right away. He looked very stern as I walked into his office. I was ready to cry. Suddenly, he smiled. 'I want your signature today. Sign right here.' I suddenly realized the paper he pushed in front of me was a contract. I was to be one of his Sennett Bathing Beauties. Best of all I was to be paid $15 a week. I signed without reading a word. Fifteen dollars was a lot of money."
1185252	Deborah Cox (born July 13, 1974) is a Canadian R&B singer-songwriter and actress. Her 1998 song "Nobody's Supposed to Be Here" held the record for longest-running number one single on "Billboard's" Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Singles & Tracks chart (14 weeks), a record held for nearly eight years. She has achieved eleven number-one hits on "Billboard's" Hot Dance Club Play chart. She is often cited as Canada's top R&B artist. Early life. Deborah Cox was born in Toronto to parents of Afro-Guyanese descent, grew up in Scarborough, Toronto and attended John XXIII Catholic Elementary School and Earl Haig Secondary School. She began singing on TV commercials at age 12, and entered various talent shows with the help of her mother. She performed in nightclubs as a teenager, and began to write music around the same time. Cox entered the music industry in the early 1990s, performing as a backup vocalist for Celine Dion for six months. After receiving many rejection letters from Canadian record labels that claimed their "quota" had been reached, Cox moved to Los Angeles in 1994 with producer and songwriting partner, Lascelles Stephens. Career. 1995–1997: "Deborah Cox". In 1995, label executive Clive Davis signed Cox to Arista Records, and she released her self-titled debut album the same year. After middling success, Cox released a non-album single for the soundtrack to the 1997 movie "Money Talks", titled "Things Just Ain't The Same". A dance mix of the song topped the U.S. dance charts and was included on her second album, 1998's "One Wish". 1998–2001: "One Wish". The first single from that album, "Nobody's Supposed to Be Here", spent fourteen weeks at #1 on the Hot R&B charts in the USA, as well as eight consecutive weeks at #2 on the Billboard Hot 100. The album went platinum, becoming Cox's biggest-selling album to date. Cox then recorded a new song, "Absolutely Not", for the soundtrack to "Dr. Dolittle 2". Remixes of the song repeated the success of "One Wishs singles on the dance charts, and the Chanel mix of "Absolutely Not" was included on her third album. After "One Wish", Cox appeared on the single "Same Script, Different Cast" by Whitney Houston from '. 2002–2005: "The Morning After" and acting career. Cox's third album "The Morning After" was released in November 2002 on J Records.
1163785	Celeste Holm (April 29, 1917 – July 15, 2012) was an American stage, film and television actress. Holm won an Academy Award for her performance in "Gentleman's Agreement" (1947), and was Oscar nominated for her roles in "Come to the Stable" (1949) and "All About Eve" (1950). She originated the role of Ado Annie in the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical "Oklahoma!" (1943). Early life. Born and raised in New York City, Holm was an only child. Her mother, Jean Parke, was an American portrait artist and author; her father, Theodor Holm, was a Norwegian businessman whose company provided marine adjustment services for Lloyd's of London. Because of her parents' occupations, she traveled often during her youth and attended various schools in Holland, France and the United States. She graduated from University High School for Girls in Chicago, where she performed in many school stage productions. She then studied drama at the University of Chicago before becoming a stage actress in the late 1930s. Career. Holm's first professional theatrical role was in a production of "Hamlet" starring Leslie Howard. She first appeared on Broadway in a small part in "Gloriana" (1938), a comedy which lasted for only five performances, but her first major part on Broadway was in William Saroyan's revival of "The Time of Your Life" (1940) as Mary L. with fellow newcomer Gene Kelly. The role that got her the most recognition from critics and audiences was as Ado Annie in the premiere production of Rodgers and Hammerstein's "Oklahoma!" in 1943. After she starred in the Broadway production of "Bloomer Girl", 20th Century Fox signed Holm to a movie contract in 1946. She made her film debut that same year in "Three Little Girls in Blue", making a startling entrance in a “Technicolor red” dress singing “Always a Lady,” a belting Ado Annie-type song, although the character was different—a lady. In 1947 she won an Oscar and Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actress in "Gentleman's Agreement". After another supporting role in "All About Eve", however, Holm realized she preferred live theater to movie work, and only accepted a few select film roles over the next decade. The most successful of these were the comedy "The Tender Trap" (1955) and the musical "High Society" (1956), both of which co-starred Frank Sinatra. She starred as a professor-turned-reporter in New York City in the CBS television series "Honestly, Celeste!" (fall 1954) and was thereafter a panelist on "Who Pays?" (1959). She also appeared several times on ABC's "The Pat Boone Chevy Showroom".
629294	The Home Song Stories is an Australian film released in 2007. Written and directed by acclaimed Tony Ayres of "Walking on Water" (2002), "The Home Song Stories" stars Joan Chen, Joel Lok, Qi Yu Wu, Irene Chen, Steven Vidler and Kerry Walker. The film was announced as the Australian entry for the Foreign Language Film category of the Oscars. It received a total of nine nominations at the 2007 Inside Film Awards, which were held on 16 November at Crowne Plaza Royal Pines Resort, Gold Coast. Plot. The film is an autobiographical account of Tony Ayres' life at age eight, however the names have been changed. The story is narrated by Darren Yap as an adult Tom typing the story on a computer and reflecting on the story "which defines them, which shapes who they are." His mother Rose Hong (Joan Chen) was a nightclub singer in Hong Kong in 1964, where she met Bill, an Australian sailor, and married him to seek a better life in Australia, taking her daughter May (Irene Chen) and son Tom (Joel Lok). An opening montage of scenes shows Rose making several unsuccessful attempts to establish herself with Chinese partners before moving in with Bill again. The story begins seven years after their initial migration to Australia, with the family returning to Bill's house in Melbourne. Bill's mother, Norma (Kerry Walker), who is disapproving of the family, has moved in. When Bill leaves on a tour of duty, Rose and Norma struggle for control over the house. Soon, Rose begins to have an affair with Joe (Qi Yu Wu), the son of the local Chinese restaurateur, who is in his twenties. He moves in with Rose, who tells Norma he is her aunt's son. Rose and her children are eventually kicked out when Norma finds Joe in Rose's room. Rose settles in with Joe after renting a place from a Chinese man. Their relationship begins to break down, and Rose attempts suicide, however May and Joe discover an affinity for each other which develops into a friendship. Rose, believing that May is trying to take Joe away from her, beats her and curses her. May, as a result, also attempts suicide and Rose also ends up in despair. However, the mother and daughter are reconciled in forgiveness as Rose tells May the story of the difficulties and traumatic experiences in her childhood, where she was forced into a marriage and lost her first two daughters. The relationship between Rose and Joe collapses, and the family once again returns to Bill's home, with Norma moving out. One afternoon when Tom is walking home with his classmate they encounter Rose in the front yard, and upon overhearing a conversation between two of his classmates bagging out Rose and her clothing, Tom blocks himself from his mother completely. Rose, in the meantime, has had her dream shattered, and is contemplating returning to Hong Kong when Tom abruptly tells her his apathy. The film culminates in the adult Tom narrating, "Of all the things I remember about my childhood, this is what I remember the most." The eight-year-old Tom wakes up early in the morning to see the light to the backyard shed on and enters to find that Rose has hanged herself. Although she does not die initially, Bill receives a phone call later on confirming her death. The epilogue to the film shows the adult Tom and his sister May with her family (who happen to be Ayres' real life family) returning to Bill's home. He narrates again, recalling how he never shed a tear for his mother, but instead, wrote the story fully to understand what has shaped him. The real Tom, Tony Ayres, and his sister stayed with Bill after their mother's death. May ends up marrying the teacher who became their guardian soon after Bill's death. Festivals. "The Home Song Stories" has been selected to screen at the following film festivals: Nominations. 2007 Inside Film Awards 2007 Australian Film Institute Awards 2007 Golden Horse Awards 2007 Asia Pacific Screen Awards Won. Brisbane International Film Festival Hawaii International Film Festival Torino International Film Festival 2007 Inside Film Awards 2007 Australian Film Institute Awards 2007 Golden Horse Awards 2007 New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards Box office. "The Home Song Stories" grossed $452,488 at the box office in Australia.
1070066	Dracula vs. Frankenstein is a 1971 United States horror film directed by Al Adamson. Plot. A mad scientist (played by J. Carrol Naish) descended from
63884	Mary Fairfax Somerville (26 December 1780 – 28 November 1872) was a Scottish science writer and polymath, at a time when women's participation in science was discouraged. She studied mathematics and astronomy, and was the second woman scientist to receive recognition in the United Kingdom after Caroline Herschel. Early life and work. She was the daughter of Irish Vice-Admiral Sir William George Fairfax (scion of a distinguished family of Fairfaxes), and was related to several prominent Scottish houses through her mother. She was born at the manse of Jedburgh, in the Borders, the house of her mother's sister, wife of Dr Thomas Somerville (1741–1830), author of "My Own Life and Times". Her childhood home was at Burntisland, Fife. Returning from sea, her father considered the 10-year-old Mary "a savage" and sent her for a year of tuition at Muselburgh, an expensive boarding school. She returned being able to read, and able to write, albeit poorly; she could perform simple arithmetic and knew a little French. Following this, she was informally taught elementary geography and astronomy, but found her education limited compared to what her brother might receive. To supplement this, therefore, she was taught Latin by her uncle, Dr Thomas Somerville, who described her as an eager student. Once, listening in to her brother receive tutoring in mathematics, she answered when he could not; impressed, his tutor allowed her to continue with lessons unofficially. She also studied art with Alexander Nasmyth in Edinburgh, who taught her about perspective – inspired, she managed to obtain a copy of Euclid's "Elements of Geometry", and began to teach herself from it. Meanwhile, she continued in the traditional roles of the daughter of a well-connected family, attending social events and maintaining a sweet and polite manner – she was nicknamed "the Rose of Jedburgh" among Edinburgh socialites. Around this time, however, following the death of her sister at age ten, her parents forbade Mary from further study, believing it had contributed to her sister's death. This did not deter her from studying on her own, although she had to continue in secret. In 1804 she married her distant cousin, the Russian Consul in London, Captain Samuel Greig, son of Admiral Samuel Greig. They had two children, one of whom, Woronzow Greig, became a barrister and scientist. They lived in London, and it was not a happy time for Somerville – although she could study more easily, her husband did not think much of women's capacity to pursue academic interests. She returned home to Scotland upon his death in 1807. Her inheritance from Greig gave her the freedom to pursue intellectual interests. In 1812 she married another cousin, Dr William Somerville (1771–1860), inspector of the Army Medical Board, who encouraged and greatly aided her in the study of the physical sciences. They had four children. During her marriage she made the acquaintance of the most eminent scientific men of the time, among whom her talents had attracted attention. Before she had acquired general fame, Laplace told her, "There have been only three women who have understood me. These are yourself, Mrs Somerville, Caroline Herschel and a Mrs Greig of whom I know nothing" (of course, Somerville was first "and third" of these three). Translation and writing. Having been requested by Lord Brougham to translate for the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge the "Mécanique Céleste" of Laplace, she greatly popularized its form, and its publication in 1831, under the title of "The Mechanism of the Heavens", at once made her famous. She stated "I translated Laplace's work from algebra into common language". Her other works are the "On the Connexion of the Physical Sciences" (1834), "Physical Geography" (1848), which was commonly used as a text book until the early 20th century, and "Molecular and Microscopic Science" (1869). In 1835, she and Caroline Herschel became the first women members of the Royal Astronomical Society. In 1838 she and her husband went to Italy, where she spent much of the rest of her life. In 1868, four years before her death at age 91, she signed
583246	Sardari Begum is a 1996 Hindi movie directed by Shyam Benegal. The film stars Kiron Kher, Amrish Puri, Rajit Kapur and Rajeshwari Sachdev. The film's lead actress Kiron Kher won the 1997 National Film Award - Special Jury Award. Rajeshwari Sachdev won the 1997 National Film Award for Best Supporting Actress. The music by Vanraj Bhatia also received wide acclaim. Arati Ankalikar-Tikekar, the play back singer of the film also received accolades in the category of 'Best Playback Singer'. This film focuses on the complex portrait of family relationships, generational and sexual politics as well as social mores in India.
1142460	Emery Molyneux ( ; died June 1598) was an English Elizabethan maker of globes, mathematical instruments and ordnance. His terrestrial and celestial globes, first published in 1592, were the first to be made in England and the first to be made by an Englishman. Molyneux was known as a mathematician and maker of mathematical instruments such as compasses and hourglasses. He became acquainted with many prominent men of the day, including the writer Richard Hakluyt and the mathematicians Robert Hues and Edward Wright. He also knew the explorers Thomas Cavendish, Francis Drake, Walter Raleigh and John Davis. Davis probably introduced Molyneux to his own patron, the London merchant William Sanderson, who largely financed the construction of the globes. When completed, the globes were presented to Elizabeth I. Larger globes were acquired by royalty, noblemen and academic institutions, while smaller ones were purchased as practical navigation aids for sailors and students. The globes were the first to be made in such a way that they were unaffected by the humidity at sea, and they came into general use on ships. Molyneux emigrated to Amsterdam with his wife in 1596 or 1597. He succeeded in interesting the States-General, the parliament of the United Provinces, in a cannon he had invented, but he died suddenly in June 1598, apparently in poverty. The globe-making industry in England died with him. Only six of his globes are believed still to be in existence. Three are in England, of which one pair consisting of a terrestrial and a celestial globe is owned by Middle Temple and displayed in its library, while a terrestrial globe is at Petworth House in Petworth, West Sussex. Globe-maker. Construction. Emery Molyneux is regarded as the maker of the first terrestrial and celestial globes in England and as the first English globe-maker. Little is known about the man himself. Petruccio Ubaldini, an Italian calligraphist, illuminator and ambassador who was acquainted with him, said he was "of obscure and humble family background". It seems likely that he was the "Emery Molynox" who was presented to the Worshipful Company of Stationers as the apprentice of one William Cooke in October 1557. By the 1580s he had a workshop in Lambeth, on the south bank of the Thames, and enjoyed a reputation as a mathematician and maker of mathematical instruments. Richard Polter, in his book "The Pathway to Perfect Sayling" (1605), mentioned that Molyneux had been a skilful maker of compasses and hourglasses. Through his trade, Molyneux was known to the explorers Thomas Cavendish, John Davis, Francis Drake and Walter Raleigh, the writer Richard Hakluyt, and the mathematicians Robert Hues and Edward Wright. The construction of globes by Molyneux appears to have been suggested by Davis to his patron William Sanderson, a London merchant who has been described as "one of the most munificent and patriotic of merchant-princes of London in the days of Elizabeth I". Sanderson readily agreed to bear the manufacturing costs, and financed initial production of the globes with a capital investment of £1,000 (almost £160,000 as of 2007). Terrestrial globes. In making his terrestrial globes, Molyneux examined ruttiers (instructions for directions at sea) and pilots (navigational handbooks). He is known to have given a ruttier for Brazil and the West Indies to Thomas Harriot in 1590. He also received advice and assistance from navigators and mathematicians. It is likely, for instance, that Sir Walter Raleigh advised him on a legend in Spanish about the Solomon Islands that appeared on the terrestrial globe. Raleigh came by the information from Pedro Sarmiento de Gamboa, a Galician explorer sent by King Philip II of Spain to fortify the Strait of Magellan after Francis Drake had passed through it. In 1584, the Spaniard was Raleigh's guest in London for a few weeks, after being captured by Raleigh on a journey to Europe. Molyneux accompanied Francis Drake on his 1577–1580 circumnavigation of the world; as Ubaldini reported, "e himself has been in those seas and on those coasts in the service of the same Drake". A legend in Latin on the terrestrial globe, explaining why Molyneux had left out the polar lands and corrected the distance across the Atlantic Ocean between The Lizard and Cape Race in Newfoundland, concluded: On the terrestrial globe, tracks of the voyages of Francis Drake and Thomas Cavendish around the world are marked by red and blue lines respectively. These lines were applied when the globe was first made. They are mentioned in a description of Molyneux's globes in "Blundeville His Exercises" (1594) by Thomas Blundeville, a country gentleman who was an enthusiastic student of astronomy and navigation. Thomas Cavendish appears to have helped Molyneux with his globes, and it is possible that Molyneux accompanied him on his 1587 voyage around the world, which returned to England on 9 September 1588. In 1889, Sir Clements Markham, an English explorer, author and geographer, pointed out that a Latin legend on the terrestrial globe, placed off the Patagonian coast, states: "Thomas Caundish "18 Dec. 1587 hæc terra" sub nostris oculis "primum obtulit sub latitud 47 cujus seu admodum salubris Incolæ maturi ex parte proceri sunt gigantes et vasti magnitudinis"". However, Helen Wallis, former Map Curator of the British Library, observed in 1951 that this was unlikely, because Molyneux incorrectly plotted Cavendish's course in Maritime Southeast Asia. She suggested, however, that another legend on the globe may indicate that he sailed on at least one if not all of John Davis's voyages. The mathematician and cartographer Edward Wright assisted Molyneux in plotting coastlines on the terrestrial globe and translated some of the legends into Latin. On 10 April 1591, the astrologer and physician Simon Forman visited Molyneux's workshop and taught him how to find longitude. It appears that after Molyneux had prepared the manuscript gores (the flat map segments attached to the globes), he had them printed by the celebrated Flemish engraver and cartographer Jodocus Hondius, who lived in London between 1584 and 1593 to escape religious difficulties in Flanders. This can be deduced from the phrase ""Iodocus Hon: / dius Flan. sc. / 1592"" that appears on the celestial globe along with Sanderson's coat of arms and a dedication to the Queen dated 1592. Molyneux's own name is recorded on the Middle Temple terrestrial globe in the phrase ""Emerius Mulleneux Angl.' / sumptibus Gulielmi— / Sandersoni Londinē: / sis descripsit"" ("Emery Molyneux of England, at the expense of William Sanderson of London, described this"). Celestial globes. Molyneux's celestial globe was virtually a copy of Gerardus Mercator's globe of 1551, which itself was based on a globe of 1537 by Gemma Frisius that Mercator had helped to construct. To the constellations featured on Mercator's globe, Molyneux added the Southern Cross and Southern Triangle, though somewhat to the west of their true positions. His source appears to have been Andrea Corsali's diagram of the Antarctic sky published in 1550. Molyneux's globes were the first to be constructed in such a way that they were unaffected by humidity at sea. They were made of flour-paste, an unusual material for the time. Simon Forman remarked that Molyneux's moulding or casting process was "the only way to caste whatsoever in perfecte forme ... and yt is the perfectest and trewest waie of all wayes ... and this was the wai that Mullenax did use to cast flowere [flour in the verie forme". Publication. In 1589, Richard Hakluyt announced the forthcoming publication of Molyneux's terrestrial globe at the end of the preface to "The Principall Navigations, Voiages and Discoveries of the English Nation". Referring to the map that was inserted into the volume—a reproduction of the ""Typus Orbis Terrarum"" engraved by Franciscus Hogenberg for Abraham Ortelius' "Theatrum Orbis Terrarum" (1570)—he wrote: Ubaldini reported Molyneux's progress in manufacturing the globes to the Duke of Milan. He was in attendance when Molyneux presented a pair of manuscript globes to Elizabeth I at Greenwich in July 1591. Ubaldini noted that "he gave her the globe to let her see at a glance how much of the world she could control by means of her naval forces". According to Wallis, the printed globes, which at in diameter were then the largest ever made, were published after some delay in late 1592 or early 1593. Sanderson arranged entertainments at his home in Newington Butts to mark the presentation of these globes to the Queen. His son William later reported the Queen's words on accepting the terrestrial globe: "The whole earth, a present for a Prince ..."; and on accepting the celestial globe, she said: "Thou hast presented me with the Heavens also: God guide me, to Govern my part of the one, that I may enjoy but a mansion place in this other." Elizabeth I saw globes and armillary spheres as symbols of her empire and spiritual mission on earth. The royal coat of arms was emblazoned across North America on the terrestrial globe. Several treatises were published to describe the Molyneux globes and provide guides on their use. Molyneux himself wrote a treatise, now lost, entitled "The Globes Celestial and Terrestrial Set Forth in Plano", which Sanderson published in 1592. In the same year, Thomas Hood, a London-based mathematics lecturer who had written a 1590 work on the use of celestial globes, published "The Vse of Both the Globes, Celestiall and Terrestriall". This was followed in 1594 by two works, one of which was Blundeville's book. The other, "Tractatus de Globis et Eorum Usu" ("Treatise on Globes and their Use"), was published by the mathematician Robert Hues. This work went into at least 13 printings and was translated from Latin into Dutch, English and French. In 1599, Edward Wright published "Certaine Errors in Navigation", which included commentary on the use of the terrestrial and celestial globes developed by Molyneux. According to Markham, "the appearance of the globes naturally created a great sensation, and much interest was taken in appliances which were equally useful to the student and to the practical navigator." The largest and most prestigious globes were priced at up to £20 each: these were purchased by royalty, noblemen and academic institutions. Among the purchasers were Thomas Bodley and the Warden of All Souls College, for their libraries in Oxford. William Sanderson presented the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge with a pair each. The public preacher Thomas Laughton made an inaugural gift of a Molyneux globe to the Shrewsbury School library. Smaller globes were also made, though no examples have survived. Sanderson is known to have presented one of these to Robert Cecil in 1595, together with Hues' "Latin booke that teacheth the use of my great globes". Intended as practical navigation aids, they cost as little as £2. The globes provided navigators and students with methods for finding the place of the sun, latitude, course, distance, amplitudes, azimuths, time and declination. They proved such a boon to navigation that they came into widespread use on ships. In the dedication of his 1595 book "The Seamans Secrets" to the Lord High Admiral, Charles Howard, the 1st Earl of Nottingham, navigator John Davis spoke of "the mechanical practices drawn from the Arts of Mathematick, which our Country doth yield men of principal excellency", and he noted "Mr Emery Mullenenx for the exquisite making of Globes bodies". Later life. In the 1590s, Molyneux sought Elizabeth I's patronage for the production of a cannon, which he described as his "new invention, of shot and artillery, to be used principally in naval warfare: protection of ports and harbours, a new shot to discharge a thousand musket shot; with wildfire not to be quenched". In March 1593, Molyneux was issued with a royal warrant. Two years later, the merchant Robert Parkes purchased coal, saltpetre, pitch, oils and waxes for him, possibly for the cannon. On 4 November 1596 the Privy Council urged the Lord Admiral "to speak to Molyneux, Bussy and the two Engelberts about their offensive engines" as part of measures to defend England's south coast. It appears the request was ignored. On 27 September 1594, the Queen granted Molyneux a gift of £200 and an annuity of £50. He chose to surrender the latter when, some time between March or April 1596 and 4 June 1597, he and his wife Anne emigrated to Amsterdam, Holland. Wallis has conjectured that he took with him the printing plates for the globes and sold them to Hondius, who had returned to Amsterdam in 1593. Why Molyneux left England for Holland is unclear. The "Oxford Dictionary of National Biography" suggests it was to be able to personally distribute his globes to European princes, since Amsterdam was then quickly establishing itself as the centre of globe- and map-making. However, this could not have been his intention if he had sold the globes' plates to Hondius. It is possible that he had decided to concentrate on manufacturing ordnance. On 26 January 1598, the States-General, the parliament of the United Provinces, showed interest in Molyneux's cannon and granted him a 12-year privilege on an invention. On 6 June he lodged a second application, but he died in Amsterdam almost immediately afterwards. His wife was granted administration of his estate in England later that month. It seems that Molyneux died in poverty, because Anne was granted a Dutch compassionate pension of 50 florins on 9 April 1599. Molyneux apparently had no surviving family, and the English globe-making industry died with him. No other globes appear to have been manufactured in England until the appearance in the 1670s of globes by Robert Morden and William Berry, and by Joseph Moxon. However, over 40 years after Molyneux's death, William Sanderson the younger wrote that his globes were "yet in being, great and small ones, Celestiall and Terrestriall, in both our Universities and severall Libraries (here, and beyond Seas)". Influence. Cartography. In the second volume of the greatly expanded version of his book "The Principal Navigations, Voiages, Traffiques and Discoueries of the English Nation" (1599), Hakluyt published what is known today as the Wright–Molyneux Map. Created by Edward Wright and based on Molyneux's terrestrial globe, it was the first map to use Wright's improvements on Mercator's projection. Having, it is believed, purchased the plates of Molyneux's globes, Jodocus Hondius was granted a ten-year privilege on 1 April 1597 to make and publish a terrestrial globe. In that year, he produced in Amsterdam a Dutch translation of Hues' "Tractatus de Globis". On 31 October 1598, despite a legal challenge by rival globe-maker Jacob van Langeren, Hondius obtained another privilege for ten years. He duly published globes in 1600 and 1601, and his sons Henricus and Jodocus published a pair in 1613. Hondius also published a world map in 1608 on the Mercator projection. Its reliance on the Molyneux globe is shown by a number of legends, names and outlines which must have been copied directly from it. In his globes of 1612, van Langeren incorporated the improvements made by Hondius the Elder to Molyneux's globe. It is believed that the Hondius globes also spurred Willem Blaeu to start constructing his large globes in 1616, which were published in 1622. Molyneux's globes therefore may have indirectly influenced the evolution of Dutch globe-making. Culture. The appearance of Molyneux's globes had a significant influence on the culture of his time. In Shakespeare's "The Comedy of Errors", written between 1592 and 1594, one of the protagonists, Dromio of Syracuse, compares a kitchen maid to a terrestrial globe: "No longer from head to foot than from hip to hip: she is spherical, like a globe; I could find out countries in her." The jest gained its point from the publication of the globes; Shakespeare may even have seen them himself. Elizabethan dramatist Thomas Dekker wrote in one of his plays published in "The Gull's Horn-book" (1609): It has been suggested that the Lord Chamberlain's Men, the playing company that Shakespeare worked for as an actor and playwright for most of his career, named their playing space the Globe Theatre, built in 1599, as a response to the growing enthusiasm for terrestrial and celestial globes stimulated by those of Molyneux. In "Twelfth Night" (1600–1601), Shakespeare alluded to the Wright–Molyneux Map when Maria says of Malvolio: "He does smile his face into more lynes, than is in the new Mappe, with the augmentation of the Indies." Globes today. Only six Molyneux globes are known to exist today, two terrestrial globes and four celestial globes. Three celestial globes are in Germany, one each in Zerbst, Nuremberg (at the Germanisches Nationalmuseum (German National Museum)) and Kassel (Hessisches Landesmuseum (Hesse Museum), Kassel). The Hessisches Landesmuseum once had a 1592 terrestrial globe, but it is believed to have been destroyed during World War II. Three globes remain in England: one pair, consisting of a terrestrial and a celestial globe, is owned by Middle Temple in London and displayed in its library, while a terrestrial globe is at Petworth House in Petworth, West Sussex. Petworth House globe. A terrestrial globe was discovered in Lord Leconfield's library at Petworth House in Petworth, West Sussex, in July 1949. According to the tradition of the Wyndham family, who are descended from Henry Percy, the 9th Earl of Northumberland, the globe belonged to Sir Walter Raleigh, who gave it to Northumberland when they were imprisoned together in the Tower of London. Northumberland, known as the "Wizard Earl" for his interest in scientific and alchemical experiments and his library, was suspected of being involved in the Gunpowder Plot of 1605 because his relative Thomas Percy was among the conspirators. James I imprisoned Raleigh in the Tower for his supposed involvement in the Main Plot. Although the theory is supported by circumstantial evidence, a number of entries in Northumberland's accounts relating to the mending of globes, one dating back to 1596, suggest that the Molyneux globe may have belonged to him from the beginning and was not Raleigh's. The globe, however, almost certainly spent many years in the Tower before its transfer to Petworth House, where Northumberland was confined upon his release in 1621. The Petworth House globe, now in the North Gallery, is the only Molyneux terrestrial globe preserved in its original 1592 state. One of Molyneux's "great globes", measuring in diameter, it was reported in 1952 to be in poor condition despite restoration by the British Museum the previous year. The northern hemisphere was darkened by dirt and badly rubbed in places, to the extent that it was hard to read. Parts of it, and large sections of the southern hemisphere, are missing altogether. The restoration work revealed that the globe is weighted with sand and made from layers of small pieces of paper overlaid with a coat of plaster about 1⁄8 inch (3 mm) thick. On top of this is another layer of paper over which the gores are pasted. The globe retains its wooden horizon circle and brass meridian ring, but its hour circle and index are missing. Further restoration took place between 1995 and 1997. The globe was exhibited at the Royal Geographical Society in 1951 and 1952. Middle Temple globes. A bill in the accounts of 11 April 1717 for "repairing the globes in the library" is the earliest reference to the Middle Temple's ownership of the Molyneux terrestrial and celestial globes. Markham's view was that Robert Ashley (1565–1641), a barrister of the Middle Temple who was also an ardent geographer, was likely to have left the globes to the Inn in his will, together with his books. Ashley's books formed the nucleus of the Inn's original library and included copies of the second edition of Hues' "Tractatus de Globis" and other works on cosmography. On the other hand, Wallis has said that Markham's view is not supported by any available evidence and the globes are not mentioned in the will. She believes that they were probably acquired by Middle Temple on their publication in 1603. The celestial globe is dated 1592, but the terrestrial globe bears the year 1603 and is the only example of its kind. Wallis has surmised that the globes were made by Hondius in Amsterdam in 1603 for a purchaser in England, perhaps the Middle Temple itself. The celestial globe was made from the original 1592 printing plates, while the terrestrial globe was produced using revised plates redated to 1603. The Middle Temple terrestrial globe differs from the Petworth House globe of 1592 by incorporating Raleigh's discoveries in Guiana and adding new place-names in Brazil, Peru and Africa, as well as an island marked "Corea" off the coast of China. The most extensive revision altered the Northeast Passage to take account of discoveries made on Willem Barentsz's third voyage to Novaya Zemlya in 1596. It appears that the revisions to the original plates of Molyneux's globe were completed by 1597, because no discoveries after that year are included. It is possible that Molyneux helped Hondius to update the plates in 1596 or 1597. For instance, if Hondius had obtained a copy of Raleigh's map of Guiana, Molyneux was the most likely source. Unlike the Petworth House globe, the Middle Temple globes are heavily varnished. The varnish could have been first applied as early as 1818 when the globes were repaired by J. and W. Newton; they were certainly varnished by Messrs. Holland Hannen & Cubitts, Ltd. during maintenance work in 1930. At the start of World War II, the globes were sent to Beaconsfield and stored with part of the Wallace Collection at Hall Barn in the care of Lady Burnham. They were brought back to London in 1945 and were at one stage kept in the King's Library on loan to the British Museum. The globes were installed in their present position in the Middle Temple Library when the current library building opened in 1958. In 2003, they were loaned to the National Maritime Museum for an exhibition commemorating the life of Elizabeth I. In 2004, Middle Temple proposed selling the Molyneux globes, valued at over £1 million, to create a scholarship fund for the education and training of needy would-be barristers. Its members eventually decided by a large majority against such a move. There was also a general feeling that the globes should be made more accessible to those wishing to see them. The Middle Temple's Molyneux globes are the subject of a book-length project, "The Molyneux Globes: Mathematical Practice and Theory", by Dr. Lesley B. Cormack, Professor and Chair of the Department of History and Classics of the Faculty of Arts, University of Alberta. The project examines the community of mathematicians, natural philosophers, instrument-makers, and gentlemen-virtuosi that developed around the creation of the Molyneux globes, particularly the histories of four men who wrote treatises about the globes and the larger mathematical community. Hessisches Landesmuseum globe. The Molyneux globes at the Hessisches Landesmuseum, Kassel, were inherited from the collection of William IV (William the Wise), the Landgrave of Hesse-Kassel (or Hesse-Cassel), a pioneer of astronomical research. William himself died in 1592, so it has been surmised that his son and successor, Maurice, purchased the globes for the collection. They were first mentioned in 1765 in the index of the Mathematische Kammer (Mathematics Chamber) of the Fürstliches Kunsthaus (Princely Art Gallery) in Kassel, during the reign of Landgrave Frederick III. Only a celestial globe survives today; it is believed that the terrestrial globe was destroyed during World War II.
1165388	Whitney Blake (born Nancy Ann Whitney; February 20, 1926 – September 28, 2002) was an American film and television actress, director and producer. She is known for her four seasons as the mother on the NBC early 1960s sitcom "Hazel", and as co-creator and writer of the CBS mid-70s to mid-80s sitcom "One Day at a Time". Early life. Blake was born in Eagle Rock, Los Angeles, California. She was the first child of Martha Mae Whitney (née Wilkerson) and Harry C. Whitney, a United States Secret Service agent who had guarded President Woodrow Wilson, his wife, and other political officials. Blake and her younger brother traveled around the country extensively, during which time she attended sixteen different schools. While attending Pasadena City College, she worked in small-theater groups in the Los Angeles area. In the summer she worked at her mother's ice cream stand in McMinnville, Oregon. Acting. After her appearance in an amateur Hollywood production of "The Women" caught the attention of talent scouts, she appeared on a number of television series, including the syndicated "Johnny Midnight", "Sheriff of Cochise", and twice on Rod Cameron's "State Trooper", and on the David Janssen crime drama, "Richard Diamond, Private Detective". Blake was cast in "My Gun Is Quick", the film version of a Mike Hammer novel. In 1957, Blake appeared in the first episode of CBS's "Perry Mason", "The Case of the Restless Redhead" in 1957 in the title role of Evelyn Bagby, the defendant. In 1958, she again appeared in the title role as defendant Diana Reynolds in the episode, "The Case of the Black-Eyed Blonde."
1160861	Dear Friend Hitler () released in India as Gandhi to Hitler Plot. The film is set during World War II and centres upon the letters written by Mohandas Gandhi (Avijit Dutt) to Adolf Hitler (Raghubir Yadav), and around the relationship of Hitler with his long-term lover Eva Braun (Neha Dhupia), whom he married in his final days in the Berlin bunker in which they died. The film depicts the difference between the ideologies of Gandhi and Hitler and claims the superiority of Gandhism over Nazism. Cast. The main cast of the film is: Anupam Kher had originally agreed to play the role of Hitler, but he later backed out after Jewish organisations in India condemned him for playing the part because of Hitler's massacre of millions of Jews. The filmmakers accused Kher of not returning the 4 lakhs he had been paid after signing the contract and consequently sued him for 2.5 crores. However, Kher perceived it as a way of filmmakers to promote their film before the release. Criticism and controversies. British newspaper, "The Guardian", declared the film to be profoundly misguided and to show a shocking ignorance of history. Noah Massil, president of the "Central Organization of Indian Jews in Israel" (COIJI) stated that "he would write to President Pratibha Patil and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to intervene in order to prevent bringing disrepute to Indian entertainment industry", but the filmmakers claimed that the film does not glorify Hitler, but rather juxtaposes him against Gandhi's ideology of peace. Critical reception. The film was met with negative reviews. Times of India gave the film 2 stars out of 5, calling it an "unnecessary play with history". DNAIndia.com gave the movie one star. NDTVMovies.com criticized the movie for using Indian actors to play all non-Indian characters, using India itself as a stand-in to Europe, and for its "strands". Koimoi.com gave the film 0.5/5; although it praised Yadav's performance as Hitler, it criticized the film's script, direction, technical values, soundtrack, and the performance from other actors. The film's theatrical poster also used a still from "Downfall", specifically the scene where Mohnke's group approaches the square, as pointed out by members of a Downfall fan community. So far the producers of the movie have not commented on this issue.
1062696	Penelope Ann Miller (born Penelope Andrea Miller; January 13, 1964), sometimes credited as Penelope Miller, is an American actress. She began her career on Broadway, and starred in several major Hollywood films, particularly in the early 1990s, and has continued to appear in supporting roles in both film and television. Early life. Miller was born in Los Angeles, California, the middle daughter of Beatrice (née Ammidown), a costume designer, publicist, and journalist, and Mark Miller, a television actor and producer. Her mother was Aristotle Onassis's god-daughter and an editor of "Harper's Bazaar". She has an older sister, Marisa Miller, who is also a film actress, and a younger sister, Savannah Miller, who is a social worker. Miller graduated from high school in Los Angeles, then moved to New York City to study theatre. Career. Her Broadway theatre break came in 1985 when she was cast in the lead (opposite Matthew Broderick) in the Neil Simon play "Biloxi Blues". (She would also star with Broderick in the 1988 film version of that play). Miller's film debut came in 1987 in "Adventures in Babysitting". She took a role in one episode ("Death and the Lady") of the television series "Miami Vice" (which aired on October 16, 1987), and accepted several other small roles in film and television work. She then returned to Broadway in a revival of "Our Town"; her portrayal of Emily garnered her a Tony award nomination. She then appeared as Pee-wee Herman's (Paul Reubens) fiancée, Winnie Johnston, in the 1988 release of "Big Top Pee-wee". In 1990, she played Paula in "Awakenings", starring Robert De Niro and Robin Williams. She also played in the 1990 movie "Downtown" with Anthony Edwards and Forest Whitaker. Again in 1990 she appeared alongside Arnold Schwarzenegger in "Kindergarten Cop". Miller plays a teacher, hiding with her son Dominic from her criminal drug-dealing husband Cullen Crisp (Richard Tyson). She subsequently appeared in a number of other theatrical movies, notably as Edna Purviance in "Chaplin" and with Tim Daly as Margaret "Maggie" Harwood in Peter Yates' film "Year Of The Comet", both in 1992, and the following year she appeared opposite Al Pacino in "Carlito's Way". Miller co-starred with Marlon Brando (as his daughter) in 1990's "The Freshman" and with Gregory Peck (as his lawyer and step-daughter) in 1991's "Other People's Money". She also appeared as Margo Lane in "The Shadow" with Alec Baldwin, as well as in the Gary Sinise-directed film "Miles from Home". She had the lead role in the big budget creature feature "The Relic" (1997) as Dr. Margo Green. In 1998, she portrayed Barbara Henry in "Ruby Bridges" a made-for-television movie that was made by the Disney company, about Ruby Bridges, the first black student to attend an all-white elementary school in New Orleans. In 2000, she played the scandalous teacher Mary Kay Letourneau in the TV version of a true story, "". In 2002, Penelope Ann Miller made the film "Dead in a Heartbeat" and starred in a two-part episode of A&E's series "A Nero Wolfe Mystery". Her 2005 film "Funny Money" was voted the top film of the Sarasota Film Festival. She appeared in the Fox series "Vanished" for six episodes, playing the ex-wife of a U.S. senator whose wife has mysteriously disappeared. Her 2007 comedy "Blonde Ambition" co-starring Jessica Simpson and Luke Wilson performed poorly at the box office. She also guest-starred as Fran on "Desperate Housewives". Miller appeared in the horror film "The Messengers", co-starring Dylan McDermott and Kristen Stewart. The film was produced in part by director Sam Raimi's production company, "Ghost House Pictures".
938076	Hannah Gayle Marks (born April 13, 1993) is an American television and film actress. Hannah Marks was born in Santa Monica, California, the daughter of Nova Ball, a former actress, and Robin Marks. Her maternal grandfather was entrepreneur and musician Ernie Ball and one of her maternal great-great-grandfathers was composer Ernest Ball. She appeared in the 2006 feature film "Accepted" as Lizzie Gaines as well as guest starred in many television programs such as "Ugly Betty" and "". She was featured in the cover story of the June 4, 2006 issue of "The New York Times Magazine" titled "Hollywood Elementary" with her friend Liana Liberato. Marks played Tammy in "The Runaways", a 2010 biographical film based on the 1970s all-girl rock band of the same name. Filmography. ! style="background:#B0C4DE;" | Year ! style="background:#B0C4DE;" | Film ! style="background:#B0C4DE;" | Role ! style="background:#B0C4DE;" | Notes
1064036	Keith Gordon (born February 3, 1961) is an American actor and film director. Life and career. Gordon was born in New York City, the son of Barbara, an actress, and Mark Gordon, an actor and stage director. He grew up in an atheist Jewish family and was inspired to become an actor at the age of twelve, after seeing James Earl Jones in a Broadway production of "Of Mice and Men". As an actor, Gordon's first feature film was in the 1978 sequel film "Jaws 2", as the class clown Doug, then his 1979 excellent turn as the young Joe Gideon (Roy Scheider) in "All That Jazz". His film credits include the 1980 erotic thriller "Dressed to Kill", the 1983 horror film "Christine" (in the role of Arnie Cunningham, the teen who buys Christine and falls under the car's influence), the 1985 cult film "The Legend of Billie Jean" as Lloyd Muldaur, the son of a District Attorney who aspires to be Attorney General, the 1986 Mark Romanek classic "Static" (for which he wrote the screenplay), and the 1986 comedy movie "Back to School", as Jason Melon. In these movies he is most known for playing a nerd. He was named number 1 in Cinematicals' Top 7 Most Convincing Nerds. His most recent onscreen film appearance was in 2001, in the movie "Delivering Milo". Gordon left acting for directing, making his debut in 1988 with the movie "The Chocolate War", about a student who rebels against the rigid hierarchies in his Catholic school. His other films include the 1992 anti-war film about a group of American soldiers in the Ardennes just before and during the Battle of the Bulge, "A Midnight Clear", as well as "Mother Night" (adapted from the novel by Kurt Vonnegut), "Waking the Dead", and the 2003 Robert Downey Jr. film "The Singing Detective". He also directed some of the mini-series "Wild Palms" and appeared in the 2006 Iraq War documentary "Whose War?". His directing credits for television include "", "Gideon's Crossing", "Dexter" and "House" Award nominations. Independent Spirit Awards Catalonian International Film Festival
1062477	The Social Network is a 2010 American drama film directed by David Fincher and written by Aaron Sorkin. Adapted from Ben Mezrich's 2009 book "The Accidental Billionaires", the film portrays the founding of social networking website Facebook and the resulting lawsuits. It stars Jesse Eisenberg as founder Mark Zuckerberg, along with Andrew Garfield as Eduardo Saverin and Justin Timberlake as Sean Parker, the other principals involved in the website's creation. Neither Zuckerberg nor any other Facebook staff were involved with the project, although Saverin was a consultant for Mezrich's book. The film was released in the United States by Columbia Pictures on October 1, 2010. The film received widespread acclaim, with critics praising it for its editing, acting, score, direction and screenplay. However, some people, including Zuckerberg himself, criticized the film for its many inaccuracies. "The Social Network" appeared on 78 critics' Top 10 lists for 2010; of those critics, 22 had the film in their number-one spot. "Rolling Stone"s Peter Travers said ""The Social Network" is the movie of the year. But Fincher and Sorkin triumph by taking it further. Lacing their scathing wit with an aching sadness, they define the dark irony of the past decade." It received eight Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture, Best Director (Fincher), and Best Actor (Eisenberg), and won three for Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Original Score, and Best Film Editing. At the 68th Golden Globe Awards, the film won Best Motion Picture – Drama, Best Director, Best Screenplay, and Best Original Score. Plot. In late 2003, 19-year old Harvard University student Mark Zuckerberg (Jesse Eisenberg) is dumped by his girlfriend Erica Albright (Rooney Mara). While drinking in his dorm room later that night, Mark insults Erica on his blog and creates an on-campus website called Facemash. This website allows users to rate the attractiveness of female students and uses pilfered photographs. Mark receives six months of academic probation after traffic to the site crashes parts of Harvard's network. Facemash's popularity brings Mark to the attention of Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss (both portrayed by Armie Hammer) and their business partner Divya Narendra (Max Minghella). The Winklevoss twins invite Mark to their final club, where Mark accepts a job as programmer for a proposed dating website they call Harvard Connection which will be exclusive to Harvard alumni. Mark approaches his friend Eduardo Saverin (Andrew Garfield) and tells him of his idea for what he calls "Thefacebook", an online social networking website exclusive to Harvard University students. Eduardo agrees to help Mark, and provides $1,000 to help start the site. They distribute the link to Eduardo's connections at the Phoenix S-K final club, and it becomes popular throughout the student body. When they learn of Thefacebook, the Winklevoss twins and Narendra believe Zuckerberg has stolen their idea while stalling on their website. Tyler and Divya want to sue Mark for intellectual property theft, but Cameron convinces them to settle the matter as "Gentlemen of Harvard". During a visiting lecture by Bill Gates (Steve Sires), fellow Harvard University student Christy Lee (Brenda Song) introduces herself and her friend Alice (Malese Jow) to Eduardo and Mark and asks the boys to "Facebook me". Christy's use of this phrase impresses both of them. Christy invites them to a bar, where Mark runs into Erica. Mark tries to apologize for the Facemash incident, but Erica coldly rebuffs him. As Thefacebook grows in popularity, Mark decides to expand the site to Yale University, Columbia University and Stanford University. Cameron refuses to sue them, and instead accuses Mark of violating the Harvard student Code of Conduct. The Winklevosses meet with Harvard President Larry Summers (Douglas Urbanski), who is dismissive towards the twins and sees no potential value in either a disciplinary action or in Thefacebook website itself. Through Christy, now Eduardo's girlfriend, Eduardo and Mark arrange a meeting with Napster co-founder Sean Parker (Justin Timberlake). Eduardo becomes skeptical, noting Sean's problematic personal and professional history. Sean presents a vision for Facebook very similar to that of Mark, which earns Mark's instant admiration. In a parting comment, Sean suggests they drop the "The" from Thefacebook. At Sean's suggestion, Mark moves the company to Palo Alto while Eduardo remains in New York seeking advertising support. Sean advises Mark to keep hold of his ownership of Facebook. After Sean promises to expand Facebook to two continents, Mark invites Sean to live at the house he is using as the company headquarters. While competing in the Henley Royal Regatta for Harvard, the Winklevoss twins discover Facebook has expanded to Oxford, Cambridge and LSE. Cameron relents and they decide to sue. When Eduardo visits from New York, he is angered to find Sean living in their house and making business decisions for Facebook. Eduardo argues with Mark, and Mark makes a demeaning remark regarding Eduardo's failed attempts to find advertisers. Eduardo freezes the company's bank account and returns to New York. Upon his return to New York, Christy angrily confronts Eduardo about his Facebook profile, which lists him as "single". She accuses him of cheating on her and sets fire to a scarf he gave to her as a gift. While Eduardo extinguishes the fire, Mark reveals on the phone that although he was upset that Eduardo almost jeopardized Facebook by freezing the bank account, they have secured $500,000 from angel investor Peter Thiel (Wallace Langham). Eduardo breaks up with Christy and returns to California. While visiting the new headquarters for a meeting, Eduardo discovers the deal he signed with Sean's investors has allowed them to dilute his share of the company from 34% to 0.03%, while maintaining the ownership percentage of all other parties. He confronts Mark and announces his intention to sue him. During a party celebrating Facebook's one millionth member, Sean and a number of underage Facebook interns are arrested for possession of cocaine. Sean tries deceiving Mark into believing that he had nothing to do with the incident and that Eduardo stashed the cocaine, but Mark does not believe him and tells him to "go home". The entire story is intercut with scenes from depositions taken in lawsuits against Mark and Facebook—one filed by the Winklevoss twins, the other by Eduardo. The Winklevoss twins claim that Zuckerberg stole their idea, while Saverin claims his shares of Facebook were unfairly diluted when the company was incorporated. At the end, Marylin Delpy (Rashida Jones), a junior lawyer for the defense, informs Mark they will be settling with Eduardo, since the sordid details of Facebook's founding and Mark's callous attitude will make him highly unsympathetic to a jury. After everyone leaves, Mark sends a friend request to Erica Albright on Facebook, and refreshes the page every few seconds waiting for a response. An epilogue reveals the following information: Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss received a settlement of $65 million, signed a non-disclosure agreement, and rowed in the 2008 Beijing Olympics, placing sixth; Eduardo Saverin received a settlement of an unknown amount and his name was restored to the Facebook masthead as a Co-founder of Facebook; the website has over 500 million members in 207 countries and is valued at 25 billion dollars; and Mark Zuckerberg is the world's youngest billionaire. Production. Screenplay. Screenwriter Aaron Sorkin said, "What attracted me to film project had nothing to do with Facebook. The invention itself is as modern as it gets, but the story is as old as storytelling; the themes of friendship, loyalty, jealousy, class and power. [...] I got a 14-page book proposal that Ben Mezrich had written for his publisher for a book he was going to call "The Accidental Billionaires". The publisher was simultaneously shopping it around for a film sale. That's how it wound up in my hands. I was reading it and somewhere on page three I said yes. It was the fastest I said yes to anything. But Ben hadn't written the book yet, and I assumed that Sony was going to want me to wait for Ben to write the book, and I would start a year from now. They wanted me to start right away. Ben and I were kind of doing our research at the same time, sort of along parallel lines." However, according to Sorkin, Mezrich did not send him material from his book as he wrote it: "Two or three times we'd get together. I'd go to Boston, or we'd meet in New York and kind of compare notes and share information, but I didn't see the book until he was done with it. By the time I saw the book, I was probably 80 percent done with the screenplay." Sorkin elaborated: Casting. Casting began in early August 2009, and open auditions were held in various states. Jesse Eisenberg was first announced to be attached to the project in September 2009. (Coincidentally, in an interview with Diane Sawyer on ABC's "World News with Diane Sawyer", Zuckerberg revealed that Eisenberg's cousin, Eric Fisher, was a Facebook product designer.) Several days later, Justin Timberlake and Andrew Garfield were confirmed to portray the roles of Sean Parker and Eduardo Saverin, respectively. In October 2009, Brenda Song, Rooney Mara, Armie Hammer, Shelby Young, and Josh Pence were cast. Max Minghella and Dakota Johnson were also confirmed to star in the film. In a 2009 interview with "The Baltimore Sun", Eisenberg said, "Even though I've gotten to be in some wonderful movies, this character seems so much more overtly insensitive in so many ways that seem more real to me in the best way. I don't often get cast as insensitive people, so it feels very comfortable: fresh and exciting, as if you never have to worry about the audience. Not that I worry about the audience anyway – it should be just the furthest thing from your mind. "The Social Network" is the biggest relief I've ever had in a movie". Filming. Principal photography began in October 2009 in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Scenes were filmed around the campuses of two Massachusetts prep schools, Phillips Academy and Milton Academy. Additional scenes were filmed on the campus of Wheelock College, which was set up to be Harvard's campus. (Harvard has turned down most requests for on-location filming ever since the filming of "Love Story" (1970), which caused significant physical damage to the campus.) Filming took place on the Keyser and Wyman quadrangles in the Homewood campus of Johns Hopkins University from November 2–4, which also doubled for Harvard in the film. The first scene in the film, where Zuckerberg is with his girlfriend, took 99 takes to finish. The film was shot on the Red One digital cinema camera at 4K resolution. The rowing scenes with the Winklevoss brothers were filmed at Community Rowing Inc. in Newton, Massachusetts and at the Henley Royal Regatta. Although a significant portion of the latter half of the film is set in Silicon Valley, the filmmakers opted to shoot those scenes in Los Angeles and Pasadena. Miniature faking process was used in a sequence showing a rowing event at the Henley Royal Regatta. Armie Hammer, who portrayed the Winklevoss twins, acted alongside body double Josh Pence while his scenes were filmed. His face was later digitally grafted onto Pence's face during post-production, while other scenes used split-screen photography. Pence himself appears in a cameo role. Pence was concerned about having no face time during the role, but after consideration thought of the role as a "no-brainer". Hammer states that director David Fincher "likes to push himself and likes to push technology" and is "one of the most technologically minded guys I've ever seen." This included sending the actors to "twin boot camp" for 10 months to learn everything about the Winklevosses. Rowing production. Community Rowing Inc. held a casting call and a tryout for 20 rowing extras; some were graduates from Harvard, Northeastern University, Boston University, George Washington University, and Trinity College, as well as local club rowers from Union Boat Club and Riverside Boat Club. None of the cast rowing extras for the Henley Royal Regatta racing scene appeared in the film; filming for the race was originally planned to take place in Los Angeles, but Fincher decided to film in New England during production. David Fincher hired Loyola Marymount coach Dawn Reagan to help train Josh Pence and Armie Hammer. While Hammer was new to the sport, Pence rowed previously at Dartmouth College. The extras in pairs for the Charles River scene were cast as follows: The indoor rowing scene was filmed at Boston University's indoor rowing tanks. All of BU's blue oars in the scene were repainted to Harvard's crimson color for filming. Dan Boyne was the official rowing consultant for the film both in the US and the UK. Soundtrack. On June 1, 2010, it was announced that Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross would score the film. The soundtrack was released September 28 in various formats under the Null Corporation label. Leading up to the release of the soundtrack, a free five-track EP was made available for download. The White Stripes' song "Ball and Biscuit" can be heard in the opening of the film and The Beatles' song "Baby, You're a Rich Man" concludes the film. Neither song appears on the soundtrack. Reznor and Ross won the award for Best Original Score at the 2011 Golden Globe Awards, as well as the 2011 Academy Award for Best Original Score. The film itself contains 18 songs, some of which are not found on the soundtrack. These include songs from The Beatles, Bob Marley, Super Furry Animals, 10cc, Gluecifer, Dead Kennedys, and The White Stripes. The background song used in the club scene (in California) is performed by Dennis de Laat, and is called "Sound of Violence (Main Mix)". It does not appear on the soundtrack. Release. Promotion. The first theatrical poster was released on June 18, 2010. The film's first teaser trailer was released on June 25, 2010. The second teaser was released on July 8. The full length theatrical trailer debuted on July 15, 2010, which plays an edited version of the song "Creep", originally by Radiohead, covered by the Belgian choir group Scala & Kolacny Brothers. The trailer was then shown in theaters, prior to the films "Inception", "Dinner for Schmucks", "Salt", "Easy A", "The Virginity Hit", and "The Other Guys". The theatrical trailer, put together by Mark Woollen & Associates, won the Grand Key Art award at the 2011 Key Art Awards, sponsored by The Hollywood Reporter, and was also featured on "The Film Informant"s Perfect 10 Trailers in 2010. Response by the principals. The script was leaked online in July 2009. In November 2009, executive producer Kevin Spacey said, ""The Social Network" is probably going to be a lot funnier than people might expect it to be." "The Cardinal Courier" stated that the film was about "greed, obsession, unpredictability and sex" and asked "although there are over 500 million Facebook users, does this mean Facebook can become a profitable blockbuster movie?" At the D8 conference hosted by D: All Things Digital on June 2, 2010, host Kara Swisher told Zuckerberg she knew he was not happy with "The Social Network" being based on him, to which he replied, "I just wished that nobody made a movie of me while I was still alive." Zuckerberg stated to Oprah Winfrey that the drama and partying of the film is mostly fiction, explaining "this is my life, so I know it's not so dramatic," and that he spent most of the past six years focusing, working hard, and coding Facebook. Speaking to an audience at Stanford University, Zuckerberg stated that the film portrayed his motivations for creating Facebook inaccurately; instead of an effort to "get girls", he says he created the site because he enjoys "building things". However, he added that the film accurately depicted his real-life wardrobe, saying, "It's interesting the stuff that they focused on getting right – like every single shirt and fleece they had in that movie is actually a shirt or fleece that I own." Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz called the film a "dramatization of history ... it is interesting to see my past rewritten in a way that emphasizes things that didn't matter, (like the Winklevosses, who I've still never even met and had no part in the work we did to create the site over the past 6 years) and leaves out things that really did (like the many other people in our lives at the time, who supported us in innumerable ways)". According to Moskovitz: Co-founder Eduardo Saverin said of the film, "[...] the movie was clearly intended to be entertainment and not a fact-based documentary." Sorkin has stated that, "I don't want my fidelity to be to the truth; I want it to be to storytelling. What is the big deal about accuracy purely for accuracy's sake, and can we not have the true be the enemy of the good?" Journalist Jeff Jarvis acknowledged the film was "well-crafted" but called it "the anti-social movie", objecting to Sorkin's decision to change various events and characters for dramatic effect, and dismissing it as "the story that those who resist the change society is undergoing want to see." Technology broadcaster Leo Laporte concurred, calling the film "anti-geek and misogynistic". Sorkin responded to these allegations by saying, "I was writing about a very angry and deeply misogynistic group of people". Andrew Clark of "The Guardian" wrote that "there's something insidious about this genre of scriptwriting," wondering if "a 26-year-old businessman really deserves to have his name dragged through the mud in a murky mixture of fact and imagination for the general entertainment of the movie-viewing public?" Clark added, "I'm not sure whether Mark Zuckerberg is a punk, a genius or both. But I won't be seeing "The Social Network" to find out." Several noteworthy tech journalists and bloggers voiced their opinions of how the film portrays its real-life characters. Mashable founder and CEO Pete Cashmore, blogging for CNN, said: "If the Facebook founder is concerned about being represented as anything but a genius with an industrious work ethic, he can breathe a sigh of relief." Jessi Hempel, a technology writer for "Fortune" who says she's known Zuckerberg "for a long time", wrote of the film: Harvard Law School professor Lawrence Lessig wrote in "The New Republic" that Sorkin's screenplay does not acknowledge the "real villain" of the story: In an onstage discussion with "The Huffington Post" co-founder Arianna Huffington, during Advertising Week 2010 in New York, Facebook's Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg said she had seen the film and it was "very Hollywood" and mainly "fiction". "In real life, he was just sitting around with his friends in front of his computer, ordering pizza," she declared. "Who wants to go see that for two hours?" Divya Narendra said that he was "initially surprised" to see himself portrayed by the non-Indian actor Max Minghella, but also admitted that the actor did a "good job in pushing the dialogue forward and creating a sense of urgency in what was a very frustrating period." Box office. During its opening weekend in the United States, the film debuted at No. 1, grossing $22.4 million in 2,771 theaters. The film retained the top spot in its second weekend, dropping only 31.2%, breaking "Inception"s 32.0% record as the smallest second weekend drop for any number-one film of 2010, while being the third-smallest overall behind "Secretariat"s 25.1% drop and "Tooth Fairy"s 28.6% drop. As of August 19, 2011, the film has grossed $96,962,694 in the United States and $127,957,621 elsewhere, for a worldwide total of $224,920,315. Home media. "The Social Network" was released on DVD and Blu-ray January 11, 2011. In its first week of release, DVD sales totaled $13,470,305 and it was the number one sold DVD of the week. The DVD includes an audio commentary with director David Fincher, and a second commentary with writer Aaron Sorkin and the cast. The Blu-ray and 2-Disc DVD releases include the commentaries, along with a feature length documentary, "How Did They Ever Make a Movie of Facebook?", featurettes, "Angus Wall, Kirk Baxter and Ren Klyce on Post", "Trent Reznor, Atticus Ross and David Fincher on the Score", "In the Hall of the Mountain King: Reznor's First Draft", "Swarmatron", "Jeff Cronenweth and David Fincher on the Visuals", and a Ruby Skye VIP Room: Multi-Angle Scene Breakdown feature. Reception. Critical response. "The Social Network" has received extremely positive reviews from film critics. Review aggregate Rotten Tomatoes reports that 96% of critics have given the film a positive review based on 283 reviews, with an average score of 9/10 and a critical consensus of: "Impeccably scripted, beautifully directed, and filled with fine performances, "The Social Network" is a riveting, ambitious example of modern filmmaking at its finest." The film also holds a score of 95 based on 42 reviews on Metacritic, indicating "universal acclaim" and making it one of the site's highest-rated movies of all time. Roger Ebert of the "Chicago Sun-Times", giving it four stars and naming it the best film of the year, wrote: "David Fincher's film has the rare quality of being not only as smart as its brilliant hero, but in the same way. It is cocksure, impatient, cold, exciting and instinctively perceptive." Peter Travers of "Rolling Stone", gave the film his first full four star rating of the year and said: ""The Social Network" is the movie of the year. But Fincher and Sorkin triumph by taking it further. Lacing their scathing wit with an aching sadness, they define the dark irony of the past decade." "The Harvard Crimson" review called it "flawless" and gave it five stars. Quentin Tarantino listed "The Social Network" as one of his favorite 20 movies of the year, second to "Toy Story 3". Some reviewers pointed out that the film plays loosely with the facts behind Facebook's founding. Joe Morgenstern in "The Wall Street Journal" praised the film as exhilarating but noted: "The biographical part takes liberties with its subject. Aaron Sorkin based his screenplay on a contentious book, Ben Mezrich's "The Accidental Billionaires", so everything that's seen isn't necessarily to be believed." The film won Best Picture from the National Society of Film Critics, the New York Film Critics Circle, the Los Angeles Film Critics Association, and the National Board of Review, making it only the third film in history (after "Schindler's List" and "L. A. Confidential") to sweep the "Big Four" critics. The film also won the "Hollywood Ensemble Award" from the Hollywood Awards. "The Social Network" appeared on 78 critics' top 10 lists for 2010, of those critics 22 had the film in their number one spot. Top ten lists. "The Social Network" appeared on over 70 critics' top ten lists of the best films of 2010. Over a dozen publications ranked the film first in their lists. Accolades. "The Social Network" won the Best Motion Picture – Drama Golden Globe at the 68th Golden Globe Awards on January 16, 2011. The film also won the awards for Best Director, Best Screenplay, and Best Original Score, making it the film with the most wins of the night. The film was nominated for seven British Academy Film Awards, including Best Film, Best Actor in a Leading Role (Jesse Eisenberg), Best Actor in a Supporting Role (Andrew Garfield), and Rising Star Award (Andrew Garfield) won three for Best Editing, Adapted Screenplay, and Best Direction on February 13, 2011. "The Social Network" received nominations for eight Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Cinematography, Best Director, Best Film Editing, Best Original Score, Best Sound, and Best Adapted Screenplay. It won three for Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Original Score, and Best Film Editing at the 83rd Academy Awards on February 27, 2011.
1060146	The Station Agent is a 2003 American comedy-drama film written and directed by Thomas McCarthy. McCarthy's script about a man who seeks solitude in an abandoned train station in the Newfoundland section of Rockaway Township, New Jersey won him the Independent Spirit Award for Best First Screenplay. Plot. Finbar McBride, a quiet, withdrawn, unmarried man with achondroplastic dwarfism, has a deep love of railroads. He works in a Hoboken model train hobby shop owned by his elderly and similarly taciturn friend Henry Styles. Because he feels ostracized by a public that tends to view him as peculiar due to his size, Fin keeps to himself. When Henry dies unexpectedly, Fin is told that the hobby shop is to be closed. However, he also learns that Henry's will left him a piece of rural property with an abandoned train depot on it. He moves in to the old building hoping for a life of solitude, but he quickly finds himself reluctantly becoming enmeshed in the lives of his neighbors. Joe Oramas, a Cuban American, is operating his father's roadside snack truck while the elder man recovers from an illness, and Olivia Harris is an artist trying to cope with the sudden death of her young son two years earlier and the ramifications it has had on her marriage to David, from whom she is separated. Cleo is a young African American girl who shares Fin's interest in trains and finally convinces him to lecture her class about them. Emily is the local librarian, a young woman dismayed to discover she is pregnant by her ne'er-do-well boyfriend. Joe, relentlessly upbeat and overly talkative, soon cracks through Fin's reserve. The two begin to take daily walks along the tracks, and when Olivia gives Fin a movie camera to film the passing trains, Joe pursues them in his truck while Fin photographs them. Joe and Fin sleep over at Olivia's house after watching this footage and the next morning a flustered, unannounced David is greeted by the two of them. The three forge a tentative friendship that is threatened when Olivia descends into a deep depression, disappearing from the town. Meanwhile, Emily seeks solace in Fin, who slowly is realizing interaction with other humans may not be as unpleasant as he thought. Fin tries to protect Emily from her boyfriend at a bar, but he pushes Fin aside, causing Fin to lapse back into his antisocial behavior. Emily later comes to apologize and spends the night with Fin. Cleo asks Fin if Olivia is coming back, to which he replies that he doesn't know. He decides to keep an eye on Olivia's house, but when he spots her fighting on the phone with David and he goes up on the porch, Olivia angrily tells him to leave. Fin spends the night drinking and, collapsing on the track, is passed over by a train, undamaged but for his pocket watch. As if feeling blessed by his gift of life (and symbolically upon his watch getting destroyed in the train mishap), Fin walks up to Olivia's home only to find she has attempted suicide. Olivia reveals that David is having another baby with a different woman. Fin takes care of Olivia's home while she recuperates in the hospital. Fin picks up the courage to talk to school kids about trains. The last scene has Olivia, Joe, and Fin sharing a meal at Olivia's house, closing the movie with their small talk and reconciliation. Production. According to screenwriter/director Thomas McCarthy's commentary on the DVD release of the film, it was shot on a shoestring budget in a limited amount of time. Locations used included Lake Hopatcong, Dover, Hibernia, Rockaway Township, Rockaway Borough, Hoboken, Newfoundland and Oak Ridge in New Jersey and Bucks County, Pennsylvania. The abandoned train station is located in Newfoundland on the active New York, Susquehanna and Western Railway. The film premiered at the Sundance Film Festival and was shown at the Toronto International Film Festival and the San Sebastián Film Festival before going into limited release in the US on October 3, 2003. Playing on three screens, it grossed $57,785 on its opening weekend. The film eventually earned $8,679,814, of which $5,739,376 was from the USA. Critical reception. The film received very positive responses from critics. Elvis Mitchell of the "New York Times" observed, "Tom McCarthy has such an appreciation for quiet that it occupies the same space as a character in this film, a delicate, thoughtful and often hilarious take on loneliness . . . it's the kind of appetizing movie you want to share with others."
1040005	Zoe Tapper (born 26 October 1981) is an English actress who first came to prominence playing Nell Gwynne in Richard Eyre's award-winning film "Stage Beauty" in 2004. She is known for portraying Anya Raczynski in "Survivors" and Mina Harker in "Demons". Background. Tapper was born in Bromley, South East London. She trained at the Academy Drama School and the Central School of Speech and Drama, from which she graduated in the spring of 2003, days before taking on her first film role. Tapper has one brother. She is married to actor Oliver Dimsdale. The couple have one daughter named Ava. Career. On stage Tapper has appeared in "Epitaph for George Dillon" in the West End, and "Othello" at Shakespeare's Globe. Following her film debut in "Stage Beauty", Tapper played Gwendolyn in "Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont" (2005), alongside Joan Plowright, and Diana Shaw in "These Foolish Things" (2006), alongside Anjelica Huston. Her television credits include Mary Collins in "A Harlot's Progress" for Channel 4, Jane in Oliver Parker's "The Private Life of Samuel Pepys", Gemma in the first series of the Sky One drama "Hex" and Jenny Maple in the BBC miniseries "20,000 Streets Under the Sky". She also played Hermia in "ShakespeaRe-Told": "A Midsummer Night's Dream", the 2005 BBC adaptation/modernisation of Shakespeare's play of the same name. In 2008 Tapper portrayed Sheila Steafel in the BBC television play "The Curse of Steptoe" and Anya Raczynski in the BBC remake of "Survivors", alongside Max Beesley, Paterson Joseph and Julie Graham. She also played Selina Dawes in the ITV adaptation of the novel "Affinity", opposite Anna Madeley as Margaret Prior. It premiered at the Miami Gay & Lesbian Film Festival, and in the UK on 28 December 2008 on ITV. In 2009 Tapper appeared in the ITV fantasy drama series "Demons" as blind vampire-turned-monster hunter Mina Harker. She played Effie Gray in the BBC Two period drama "Desperate Romantics". In 2010, she played Hannah in the BBC television pilot "Reunited". In 2013 she starred as Ellen Love in "Mr Selfridge".
963852	The Boys of St. Vincent is a 1992 film directed by John N. Smith for the National Film Board of Canada. It is a two-part docudrama based on real events that took place at the Mount Cashel Orphanage in St. John's, Newfoundland, one of a number of child sexual abuse scandals in the Roman Catholic Church. The first film, "The Boys of St. Vincent", covers the sexual and physical abuse of a number of orphans by Brothers headed by Brother Peter Lavin (Henry Czerny). The second film, "The Boys of St. Vincent: 15 Years Later", covers the trial of the Brothers. Along with Lavin, Kevin Reevey is the central figure. In the first film Reevey (Johnny Morina) is a 10-year-old abused child who tries to avoid Lavin’s attentions. In the second movie, Reevey (Sebastian Spence) is a young man haunted by his abuse who still has nightmares. Lavin covers up the goings-on at the orphanage for many years, especially his own role in the abuse. Kevin runs away and when he is returned by the police he tries to reject Lavin’s caresses. He is severely beaten with the buckle end of the brother’s belt. A short shower-room sequence was cut when the film was first shown in the United States. Stephen Lunney (Brian Dodd) is another abused boy. He has an older brother, Brian (Ashley Billard), at the orphanage who tries to protect him. In the second film, the brothers meet again for the first time in years. Brian (Timothy Webber), now happily married with two children, tries to help Stephen (David Hewlett) when he returns to give evidence at the trial. Stephen is destroyed by the defence advocate, who reveals that he abused seven-year-old boys at the orphanage when he was 16. Stephen then takes his own life with an overdose of drugs. His death finally prompts Reevey to give evidence against Lavin. Lavin remains in denial, even to his wife. His fate is left unanswered as is the question, posed by his wife at the end of the second film, as to whether he ever molested his own two young sons.
1063098	Jada Koren Pinkett Smith (; born September 18, 1971) is an American actress, singer-songwriter, and businesswoman. She began her career in 1990, when she made a guest appearance in the short-lived sitcom "True Colors". She starred in "A Different World", produced by Bill Cosby, and she featured opposite Eddie Murphy in "The Nutty Professor" (1996). She starred in dramatic films such as "Menace II Society" (1993) and "Set It Off" (1996). She has appeared in more than 20 films in a variety of genres, including "Scream 2", "Ali", "The Matrix Reloaded", "The Matrix Revolutions", "Madagascar", ' and '. Pinkett Smith launched her music career in 2002, when she helped create the metal band Wicked Wisdom, for which she is a singer and songwriter. Smith also created a production company, in addition to authoring a book, published in 2004. In 1997, she married rapper and actor Will Smith. They have two children, Jaden and Willow, and Pinkett Smith is stepmother to Willard "Trey" Smith III, Will's son from a previous marriage. The couple founded the Will and Jada Smith Family Foundation, a charity organization which focuses on inner-city youth and family support and has worked with non-profit organizations like YouthBuild and the Lupus Foundation of America. Family and early life. Born in Baltimore, Maryland, Jada Koren Pinkett was named after her mother's favorite soap-opera actress, Jada Rowland. Pinkett-Smith is of African-American, West Indian, Creole, and Portuguese-Jewish ancestry. Her parents are Adrienne Banfield-Jones, the head nurse of an inner-city clinic in Baltimore, and Robsol Pinkett Jr., who ran a construction company. Banfield-Jones became pregnant in high school; the couple married but divorced after several months. Banfield-Jones raised Pinkett with the help of her mother, Marion Martin Banfield, a social worker. Banfield noticed her granddaughter's passion for the performing arts and enrolled her in piano, tap dance, and ballet lessons. She has a younger half-brother, actor/writer Caleeb Pinkett. Pinkett Smith has remained close to her mother and said, "A mother and daughter's relationship is usually the most honest, and we are so close." She participated as the maid of honor in Banfield-Jones' 1998 wedding to telecommunications executive Paul Jones. Pinkett-Smith has shown great admiration for her grandmother, saying, "My grandmother was a doer who wanted to create a better community and add beauty to the world." Pinkett Smith attended the Baltimore School for the Arts, where she met and became lifelong friends with classmate Tupac Shakur. She majored in dance and theatre and graduated in 1989. She continued her education at the North Carolina School of the Arts, and became fully invested in pursuing her acting career. She ultimately moved to Los Angeles, California, where she quickly found success in show business. Acting career. Early work (1990–1995). Jada moved to Los Angeles and stayed with LaVern Whitt, former stuntwoman, now producer and longtime family friend, who got her started in the industry. In Los Angeles, Pinkett Smith inquired about the choreographer position for the television series "In Living Color", created by actor Keenan Ivory Wayans whom she met through LaVern but the job was already taken by Rosie Perez. LaVern helped her find an acting agent and got her started in the industry by introducing Jada to many of her celebrity friends including Keenan. She began her acting career in 1990, when she starred in an episode of "True Colors" (1990). Then she appeared in a television pilot for the supernatural drama "Moe's World" that never aired. She had guest roles in television shows such as "Doogie Howser, M.D." (1991) and "21 Jump Street" (1991). She earned a role on comedian Bill Cosby's NBC television sitcom "A Different World" in 1991, as college freshman Lena James.
331063	The Mudge Boy is a 2003 American drama film produced by Showtime. It was directed by Michael Burke and based on his 1998 short film "Fishbelly White", featured in the compilation "Boys Life 5". Plot. Shy, isolated, sexually confused farm boy Duncan Mudge's mother has recently died, leaving him under the supervision of his stern, depressed father Edgar. Duncan seems somehow to have transferred his love for the deceased mother to his favorite chicken, which he takes everywhere, even to bed. He has developed the odd habit of putting the chicken's head in his mouth—to calm the animal, he says. Duncan also likes to dress in his late mother's clothing, much to the distress of his bewildered father. The small, insular band of conformist teens that comprise adolescent social life in Duncan's world initially ostracize him, then allow him in to their circle only reluctantly, and largely for their own amusement. Duncan is beset with a profound sense of grief while trying to reconcile himself to a world in which he is a sexual alien. His crush on a local boy, Perry Foley, leads to a violent resolution where Duncan relinquishes that which he loves. Release. On January 17, 2003, "The Mudge Boy" premiered at the 2003 Sundance Film Festival and in 2003 and 2004 it made the rounds at several gay and lesbian and independent film festivals around the United States. The region 1 DVD was released on May 9, 2006. Critical reception. The film received generally positive reviews from critics; review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reports that 77% out of 26 professional critics gave the film a positive review. Roger Ebert from the "Chicago Sun-Times" called it "odd and intense, very well acted, and impossible to dismiss." Lisa Rose from the Newark Star-Ledger said about it that "It's not an easy film to watch, but it is a memorable one." Awards. "The Mudge Boy" was nominated for a GLAAD Media Award and the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival. It won a Grand Jury Award LA Outfest.
1103006	Abraham Robinson (born "Robinsohn"; October 6, 1918 – April 11, 1974) was a mathematician who is most widely known for development of non-standard analysis, a mathematically rigorous system whereby infinitesimal and infinite numbers were incorporated into mathematics. Biography. He was born to a Jewish family with strong Zionist beliefs, in Waldenburg, Germany, which is now Wałbrzych, in Poland. In 1933, he emigrated to British Mandate of Palestine, where he earned a first degree from the Hebrew University. Robinson was in France when the Nazis invaded during World War II, and escaped by train and on foot, being alternately questioned by French soldiers suspicious of his German passport and asked by them to share his map, which was more detailed than theirs. While in London, he joined the Free French Air Force and contributed to the war effort by teaching himself aerodynamics and becoming an expert on the airfoils used in the wings of fighter planes. After the war, Robinson worked in London, Toronto, and Jerusalem, but ended up at University of California, Los Angeles in 1962. Work in model theory. He become known for his approach of using the methods of mathematical logic to attack problems in analysis and abstract algebra. He "introduced many of the fundamental notions of model theory". Using these methods, he found a way of using formal logic to show that there are self-consistent nonstandard models of the real number system which include infinite and infinitesimal numbers. Others, such as Wilhelmus Luxemburg, showed that the same results could be achieved using ultrafilters, which made Robinson's work more accessible to mathematicians who lacked training in formal logic. Robinson's book "Non-standard Analysis" was published in 1966. Robinson was strongly interested in the history and philosophy of mathematics, and often remarked that he wanted to get inside the head of Leibniz, the first mathematician to attempt to articulate clearly the concept of infinitesimal numbers. While at UCLA his colleagues remember him as working hard to accommodate PhD students of all levels of ability by finding them projects of the appropriate difficulty. He was courted by Yale, and after some initial reluctance, he moved there in 1967. He died of pancreatic cancer in 1974.
586065	Ayal Kadhayezhuthukayanu (English: "He's Writing the Story") is a 1998 Malayalam romantic comedy Psychological thriller film directed by Kamal and written by Sreenivasan. It tracks the travails of a wasted pulp fiction writer Sagar Kottapuram (Mohanlal) and his friend Ramakrishnan (Sreenivasan), who are dragged into a lawsuit by a vengeful Tahsildar S. Priyadarshini (Nandini). Soundtrack. The most clitically acclaimed and popular songs of this film were written by Kaithapram Damodaran Namboothiri and composed by maestro Raveendran. The songs were on chart for weeks and the song "Etho Nidrathan" become highly popular and won Kerala State Film Award for Best Male Playback Singer.
1015998	The Warlords, previously known as The Blood Brothers, is a 2007 epic war film directed by Peter Chan and starring Jet Li, Andy Lau, Takeshi Kaneshiro and Xu Jinglei. The film was released on December 13, 2007 simultaneously in most of Asia, except Japan. The film is set in the 1860s, during the Taiping Rebellion in the late Qing Dynasty in China and centers on the sworn brotherhood of three men. Plot. The film is set in the 1860s, during the Taiping Rebellion in the late Qing Dynasty of China. The story is based on the assassination of Ma Xinyi in 1870.
591265	Premi ( "") is a Bengali movie that released in 2004. Directed by Rabi Kinagi, the movie featured Jeet, Jishu Sengupta and Chandana Sharma. This was Chandana Sharma's debut movie This movie is also the debut of music director Jeet Ganguly. Plot. This movie is a remake of Telugu blockbuster movie "Nee Sneham" (English: Your Friendship) (2002) Directed by Paruchuri Murali starring Uday Kiran, Aarti Agarwal, Jatin Grewal Rahul and Sumit are best friend and are footballers by profession. To save Rahul from an accident Sumit injuries his leg and becomes unable to play football. Rahul makes a promise to Sumit that he could fulfill Sumit’s dreams by becoming a great football player. One day Rahul meets Puja in a taxi and falls in love at first sight. Puja lives with her grandmother and grandfather. Meanwhile Puja also meets Sumit, whom she admires for his strength grit even being an invalid. Puja and her friends go to Goa and there they are joined by Rahul & his friends who had come there for a football match. Both Puja & Rahul becomes friend. But Puja is getting married to somebody else. Puja's marriage is cancelled as somebody accuses Puja as having an affair with Rahul. Puja’s grandfather cannot bear this shock & dies. This makes Puja misunderstand & hate Rahul. Rahul tries to help Puja secretly. Whenever she lands in any kind of trouble Rahul helps her and & even steals money from his father to help Puja. Rahul remains in the background & only contacts Puja via letters, where he address himself as a friend. Puja falls in love with this secret friend and is desperate to meet him. On the day of Holi Puja mistakes Sumit, as the secret friend & thrilled with joy she sends a marriage proposal to Sumit's home through her grandmother. Their marriage is finalised. Rahul is heartbroken to see his lady love marrying his best friend but he cannot say anything to Sumit as he is still is indebted to Sumit for saving his life. Puja is angry at seeing Rahul & tells him to stay away from her new life. Finally all misunderstandings are cleared and Rahul marries Puja. Critical reception. The two multiplexes feel the dashing combo of the two young Turks of Tollywood and their lady love has the pull to lure in the audiences. “Though it’s not the niche variety, Premi is a well-made, well-publicised urban romantic film which, we feel, will appeal to our audiences. Also because the Salt lake area consists of a large bulk of Bengali cine-goers. If this experiment succeeds, we may go for more such films,” revealed a spokesperson for INOX. Much on the same lines, a spokesperson for 89 Cinemas added: “Premi is targeted at the youth and we think it will click with our viewers. ” While an audio cassette of Premi comes free with every ticket sold (Rs 60 and Rs 80) at the Salt Lake multiplex, the Swabhumi multi-screen is offering a slashed rate of Rs 50. The film rolls out at 6.30 pm, INOX-City Centre, and at 1.15 pm, 89 Cinemas. For masala films with local stars, the emphasis is more on glossy look and feel (read: fresh locales, trendy costumes, stylish interiors). In Shree Venkatesh Films’ Premi, the outdoors were all Gangtok, leading lady Chandana got her costumes designed from Mumbai, the wardrobe for Jeet and Jishu Sengupta was picked up from Pantaloons, Westside and Forum. The trendy casuals that Koel Mallick sports in "Shudhu Tumi", at the Arunachal Pradesh shooting sites, are also from Pantaloons.
1059816	Skeet Ulrich (born Bryan Ray Trout; January 20, 1970) is an American actor best known for his roles as Jake Green in the CBS drama "Jericho", Billy Loomis in "Scream", Chris Hooker in "The Craft", and Billy Raedeen in "Nobody's Baby". He established a cult following for starring in the cult ABC drama "Miracles". Early life. Ulrich was born Bryan Ray Trout in Lynchburg, Virginia, and was raised in Concord, North Carolina, by his mother, Carolyn Elaine Wax (née Rudd), who owns the special-events marketing agency Sports Management Group. Ulrich's father is a restaurateur, and his first stepfather was D. K. Ulrich, a NASCAR driver and team owner. His mother has since remarried to Edward Lewis Wax. Ulrich's uncle (his mother's brother) is retired NASCAR Sprint Cup driver Ricky Rudd, and his maternal grandfather was Alvin Ray Rudd, Sr., the president of Al Rudd Auto Parts. The nickname "Skeet" originated from the nickname "Skeeter" he was given by his Little League coach because of his small stature. Along with his slight frame, he had poor health, including numerous bouts with pneumonia; he underwent open heart surgery at the age of 10. Ulrich graduated from Northwest Cabarrus High School. After enrolling at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington to study Marine Biology, he switched to New York University, where he was noticed by playwright David Mamet. Career. In his earliest screen appearances, he was an uncredited extra in films "Weekend at Bernie's" and "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles". After joining the Atlantic Theater Company as an apprentice, Ulrich performed with the group, which got him noticed yet again, this time by director Stacy Cochran. She cast him in a CBS School Break Special. With her help he also received his first notable role on screen in 1996 as the loutish boyfriend of Winona Ryder in "Boys". That same year he appeared in "The Craft" opposite Robin Tunney and Neve Campbell. He got his best known role that same year starring alongside Neve Campbell again in Wes Craven's hit slasher film "Scream".
1103350	Sir Andrew John Wiles, KBE, FRS (born 11 April 1953) is a British mathematician and a Royal Society Research Professor at Oxford University, specializing in number theory. He is most notable for proving Fermat's Last Theorem. Early life and education. Wiles is the son of Maurice Frank Wiles (1923–2005), the Regius Professor of Divinity at the University of Oxford and Patricia Wiles (née Mowll). His father worked as the Chaplain at Ridley Hall, Cambridge, for the years 1952–55. Wiles was born in Cambridge, England, in 1953, and he attended King's College School, Cambridge, and The Leys School, Cambridge. Wiles states that he came across Fermat's Last Theorem on his way home from school when he was 10 years old. He stopped by his local library where he found a book about the theorem. Fascinated by the existence of a theorem that was so easy to state that he, a ten-year old, could understand it, but nobody had proven it, he decided to be the first person to prove it. However, he soon realized that his knowledge was too small, so he abandoned his childhood dream, until it was brought back to his attention at the age of 33 by Ken Ribet's 1986 proof of the epsilon conjecture, which Gerhard Frey had previously linked to Fermat's famous equation. Mathematical career. Wiles earned his bachelor's degree in mathematics in 1974 after his study at Merton College, Oxford, and a Ph.D. in 1980, after his research at Clare College, Cambridge. After a stay at the Institute for Advanced Study in New Jersey in 1981, Wiles became a professor at Princeton University. In 1985–86, Wiles was a Guggenheim Fellow at the Institut des Hautes Études Scientifiques near Paris and at the École Normale Supérieure. From 1988 to 1990, Wiles was a Royal Society Research Professor at Oxford University, and then he returned to Princeton. He rejoined Oxford in 2011 as Royal Society Research Professor. Wiles's graduate research was guided by John Coates beginning in the summer of 1975. Together these colleagues worked on the arithmetic of elliptic curves with complex multiplication by the methods of Iwasawa theory. He further worked with Barry Mazur on the main conjecture of Iwasawa theory over the rational numbers, and soon afterward, he generalized this result to totally real fields. The proof of Fermat's Last Theorem. Starting in the summer of 1986, based on successive progress of the previous few years of Gerhard Frey, Jean-Pierre Serre and Ken Ribet, it became clear that Fermat's Last Theorem could be proven as a corollary of a limited form of the modularity theorem (unproven at the time and then known as the "Taniyama–Shimura-Weil conjecture"). The modularity theorem involved elliptic curves, which was also Wiles' own specialist area. The conjecture was seen by contemporary mathematicians as important, but extraordinarily difficult or perhaps inaccessible to proof. For example, Wiles' ex-supervisor John Coates states that it seemed "impossible to actually prove", and Ken Ribet considered himself "one of the vast majority of people who believed [it was completely inaccessible", adding that "Andrew Wiles was probably one of the few people on earth who had the audacity to dream that you can actually go and prove ."  Despite this, Wiles, who had a childhood fascination with Fermat's Last Theorem, decided to undertake the challenge of proving the conjecture at least to the extent needed for Frey's curve. He dedicated all of his research time to this problem for over 6 years in near-total secrecy, covering up his efforts by releasing prior work in small segments as separate papers and confiding only in his wife. In 1993, he presented his proof to the public for the first time at a conference in Cambridge. In August 1993 it was discovered that the proof contained a flaw in one area. Wiles tried and failed for over a year to repair his proof. According to Wiles, the crucial idea for circumventing, rather than closing this area, came to him on 19 September 1994 when he was on the verge of giving up. Together with his former student Richard Taylor, he published a second paper which circumvented the problem and thus completed the proof. Both papers were published in 1995 in a special volume of the "Annals of Mathematics". Recognition by the media. His proof of Fermat's Last Theorem has stood up to the scrutiny of the world's mathematical experts. Wiles was interviewed for an episode of the BBC documentary series "Horizon" that focused on Fermat's Last Theorem. This was renamed "The Proof", and it was made an episode of the Public Broadcasting Service's science television series "Nova". He has been a foreign member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences since 1996. He remains a citizen of the United Kingdom. Awards. Wiles has been awarded several major prizes in mathematics and science:
1072155	, released in the US as "Fireworks", is a 1997 Japanese film written, directed and edited by, and starring Japanese filmmaker Takeshi Kitano. The film's score was composed by renowned Japanese composer Joe Hisaishi. This was their fourth collaboration. is the Japanese word for "fireworks". The unexpected international success of "Hana-bi", coupled with "Sonatine's" critical acclaim, established Kitano as a foremost Japanese filmmaker of his time. Kitano's daughter and former singer Shoko Kitano also made a cameo, playing a nameless girl flying a kite in the film's closing scenes. Synopsis. Kitano plays Nishi, a violent and unpredictable police detective who quits the force after a terrible incident results in his partner, Horibe (Ren Osugi), needing to use a wheelchair. After his retirement he spends much of his time looking after his wife Miyuki (Kayoko Kishimoto), who has leukemia. The film moves at a deliberate pace and devotes much time to exploring their relationship. Nishi has also borrowed money from the Yakuza to pay for his wife's needs, and is having difficulty repaying them. Meanwhile, Horibe takes up painting and creates works of art that are surrealistic and beautiful. Production. Nishi's scenes are interspersed with Horibe's, who has taken up painting in order to compensate for his paralysis. Horibe, like Kitano, is a pointillist. In reality, these paintings were painted by Kitano himself, whilst in recovery from an infamous motorcycle accident in August 1994 that left half of his face paralysed. Soundtrack. The soundtrack CD was first released in 1998 and 1999 by Milan Records, then reissued by Polydor. "All compositions by Joe Hisaishi." Title. The film title is sometimes listed as ""Hana-bi"", ""hana-bi"" or ""Hanabi"" on the covers of international DVD releases and other references to the film in the West. However, the official international title is actually "HANA-BI", fully capitalized, and is used on all Japanese licensed products, including theatrical posters, video covers and OST covers.
578414	Beautiful Boxer () is a Thai biographical sports film by Singapore-based director Ekachai Uekrongtham. It tells the life story of Nong Thoom, a famous kathoey (trans woman), Muay Thai fighter, actress and model. She was portrayed by male kickboxer Asanee Suwan. Reception. The film has received very positive reviews, with Rotten Tomatoes the film received a 80% "Certified Fresh" approval rating from critics. There was controversy in Thailand about the full-frontal male nudity in this film. For Thailand, the nudity was cut.
1058549	The Adjustment Bureau is a 2011 American romantic action thriller film loosely based on the Philip K. Dick short story, "Adjustment Team". The film was written and directed by George Nolfi and stars Matt Damon and Emily Blunt. The cast also includes Anthony Mackie, John Slattery, Michael Kelly, and Terence Stamp. The score was composed by Thomas Newman, with two songs by Richard Ashcroft ("Future's Bright" for the opening sequence; "Are You Ready?" for the closing credits). Plot. In 2006, Brooklyn Congressman David Norris unsuccessfully runs for the United States Senate. While rehearsing his concession speech, David meets Elise Sellas. Inspired by her, David delivers an unusually candid speech that is well-received, making him a favorite for the 2010 Senate race. A month later, David prepares for a new job. At Madison Square Park, near David's home, Harry Mitchell receives an assignment from Richardson, his boss: ensure David spills coffee on his shirt by 7:05 AM so he misses his bus. Mitchell falls asleep and misses David, who encounters Elise on the bus and gets her phone number. David arrives at work to find his friend Charlie Traynor frozen in time and being examined by unfamiliar men in suits. David attempts to escape, but is incapacitated and taken to a warehouse. Richardson explains he and his men are from the Adjustment Bureau. They ensure people's lives proceed as determined by "the plan", a complex document Richardson attributes to "the Chairman". The Bureau confiscates and destroys the note that contains Elise's phone number, and David is warned that if he ever reveals the existence of the Bureau to anyone else, he will be "reset"—akin to being lobotomized—and that he is not meant to meet Elise again. For the next three years David rides the same bus hoping to see Elise. He finally encounters her and they reconnect; he learns that she dances for Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet. The Bureau tries to stop him from building their relationship by causing their schedules to separate them. David races across town, fighting the Bureau's abilities to "control his choices" to ensure he will meet Elise. During the chase the Bureau uses ordinary doorways to travel instantly to locations many blocks away. Senior official Thompson takes over David's adjustment and takes him to the warehouse, where David argues he has the right to choose his own path. Thompson says humanity received free will after the height of the Roman Empire, but then brought the Dark Ages upon itself. The Bureau took control again and created the Renaissance and the Enlightenment, but when free will returned in 1910 it resulted in the world wars and the Cold War, again forcing the Bureau to retake control and eliminate free will. Thompson implies that without Elise's influence David might become President of the United States and benefit the world, and warns that if he stays with her, he will ruin both of their futures. Thompson causes Elise to sprain her ankle at a performance to demonstrate his power, and David abandons her at the hospital to save them from the fate Thompson described. Eleven months later, Charlie tells David of Elise's imminent wedding as he campaigns again. Harry contacts David via secret meetings in the rain and near water, which prevents the Bureau from tracking them. Harry reveals that Thompson exaggerated the negative consequences of David and Elise's relationship, and teaches David how to use doors to teleport, and evade the Bureau's adjustments. Just before the wedding David reaches Elise, reveals the Bureau's existence to her, and shows her how he travels through doors. The Bureau pursues them across New York City. David decides to find the Chairman to end the chase; Elise wavers briefly, but accompanies David. They enter the Bureau's offices and evade its forces. David and Elise find themselves trapped and surrounded on the observation deck of the GE Building. They declare their love for each other and kiss before David can be reset. When they let go of each other, the Bureau members have gone. Thompson appears but is interrupted by Harry, who shows him a revised plan from the Chairman: one that is blank starting with the current moment. After commending them for showing such devotion to each other, Harry tells the couple they are free to leave. The film concludes with David and Elise walking through the streets, as Harry speculates that the Chairman's plan may be to prepare humanity so it can write its own plans. Cast. Jon Stewart, Dan Bazile, Chuck Scarborough, James Carville, Mary Matalin, Betty Liu, Jesse Jackson, Wolf Blitzer, and New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg all have cameos as themselves. Production. In early drafts, the character Norris was changed from a real estate salesman, as in the short story, to an up-and-coming politician. Media Rights Capital funded the film and then auctioned it to distributors, with Universal Studios putting in the winning bid for $62 million. "Variety" reported Damon's involvement on February 24, 2009, and Blunt's on July 14, 2009. The film was released on March 4, 2011. Nolfi worked with John Toll as his cinematographer. Shots were planned in advance with storyboards, but changed often during shooting to fit the conditions of the day. The visual plan for the film was to keep the camerawork smooth using a dolly or crane and have controlled formal shots when the Adjustment Bureau was in full control, with things becoming more loose and using hand-held cameras when the story becomes less controlled. The final scene on the "Top of the Rock" rooftop observation deck of the GE Building in Rockefeller Center was filmed four months after the rest of the film had completed shooting and has a different ending than the original. Religious themes. Some reviewers identified Abrahamic theological implications, such as an omnipotent and omniscient God, the concepts of free will and predestination, and elements from the descent to the underworld (a mytheme dating back at least to the story of Eurydice and Orpheus). Moreover, it has been said that the Chairman represents God, while his caseworkers are angels. The director of the film, George Nolfi, stated that the "intention of this film is to raise questions." Release. Theatrical. The film had its World premiere on February 14, 2011, at the Ziegfeld Theatre on 141 West 54th Street in New York City. Writer/director George Nolfi was in attendance along with the cast, including Matt Damon and Emily Blunt. Home media. "The Adjustment Bureau" was released on DVD and Blu-ray on June 21, 2011. The film was the top selling release for its opening week. Reception. Critical response. Critics generally gave the film positive reviews. Rotten Tomatoes gives the film a score of 72% based on 237 reviews, with an average rating of 6.6 out of 10. Roger Ebert of the "Chicago Sun-Times" gave the film three out of four stars, describing it as "a smart and good movie that could have been a great one, if it had been a little more daring. I suspect the filmmakers were reluctant to follow its implications too far.""The New York Times" called the film "a fast, sure film about finding and keeping love across time and space . . . has brightened the season with a witty mix of science-fiction metaphysics and old-fashioned romance." Box office. In its opening weekend in the United States (March 4–6, 2011), "The Adjustment Bureau" grossed $21,157,730, which was the second most of any film that weekend, behind "Rango". Its total worldwide gross is $127,869,379 .
583999	Kaakha Kaakha (English: "To Protect") is a 2003 Tamil crime thriller film written and directed by Gautham Menon. Starring Suriya, Jyothika and Jeevan, the film featured music composed by Harris Jayaraj and cinematography by R. D. Rajasekhar. The film released to positive review in August 2003 and went on to become the first blockbuster in Suriya's career, and was considered a comeback film for producer Kalaipuli S. Dhanu. Owing to the success, the film has been remade in several languages. Plot. A badly injured Anbuchelvan (played by Suriya) is lying on the bank of a stream, thinking about his wife Maya and how he needs to rescue her. The story moves quickly from this opening scene to a flashback of Anbuchelvan’s time as a young policeman. Anbuchelvan and his friends, Shrikanth, Arul and Illamaran, have been recruited for part of a special unit of police officers who are battling organized crime in Chennai. Violent and laconic, Anbuchelvan finds little patience for a personal life. The unit is ruthless in its confrontation with criminals, going as far as assassinating gang members; the unit is finally disbanded by senior authorities. Anbuchelvan is posted to traffic duties. One day a schoolteacher named Maya (played by Jyothika) rebuffs Anbuchelvan's routine questions regarding safety, not knowing that he is a police officer. He meets her again when she and her friend are questioned for driving without a license. However, Anbuchelvan lets them off with a warning. When one of Maya’s students has a problem with local kids, she asks Anbuchelvan for help. Anbuchelvan resolves this problem, a mutual respect grows between them and they begin seeing one another. When Maya gets into a road accident, Anbuchelvan helps her to recover and they fall in love. Shrikanth and his wife, Swathi, become good friends with Anbuchelvan and Maya. In response to rising levels of crime in the city, when the son of an influential movie producer is kidnapped and killed, the special unit is reassembled. The unit tracks down and kills the head of the gang that was responsible. The brother of the gang leader, Pandya (played by Jeevan), returns from Mumbai and takes over the gang, promising revenge over his brother’s death. Pandya and his gang members target the families of the men in the special unit, but the police close in and a badly injured Pandya barely escapes Anbuchelvan. Maya and Anbuchelvan get married and leave for Pondicherry. But the next day, Pandya and his thugs enter the cottage the honeymoon couple are staying in and torture Anbuchhelvan, leaving him for dead. They kidnap Maya. This brings the viewer back to the opening scene of the movie, in which Anbuchelvan is battling for life but thinking only about rescuing Maya. Shrikanth and Arul arrive at the cottage, discover Anbuchelvan and take him to the hospital. Shrikanth reveals that his wife Swathi was kidnapped earlier and confesses that it was he who gave away Anbuchelvan’s location to Pandya, for the safe return of Swathi. Shrikanth feels extreme remorse over what has happened. Whilst in the hospital, they receive a message from Pandya to meet him at a particular location. When they go there, they find a package containing the decapitated head of Swathi. Shrikanth is distraught at seeing his wife's head and in an agony of grief and guilt at being responsible, he commits suicide by shooting himself. Anbuchelvan tracks down Pandya before he can escape from Tamil Nadu and fights with the gang. Pandya stabs Maya to distract her husband and she dies in Anbuchelvan’s arms. An enraged Anbuchelvan tracks down Pandya and, in a final encounter, kills him. An epilogue shows that Anbuchelvan, after the death of Maya, continues his job as an IPS officer some weeks later. An alternative ending was shot and placed in the DVD version with a running commentary by Gautham Menon, in which Maya comes alive and he explains why this ending was not used in the version for cinema release. Production. The film was initially tiled as "Paathi" (Half), before the team opted to change the title to "Kaakha Kaakha". Menon revealed that he was inspired to make the film after reading of articles on how encounter specialists shoot gangsters and how their families get threatening calls in return, and initially approached Ajith Kumar and Vikram for the role without success. The lead actress Jyothika asked Menon to consider Suriya for the role, and he was subsequently selected after Menon saw his portrayal in "Nandha". He did a rehearsal of the script with the actors, a costume trial with Jyothika and then enrolled Suriya in a commando training school before beginning production, which he described as a "very planned shoot". Release. The film consequently opened to very positive reviews from critics on the way to becoming another success for Menon, with critics labeling it as a "career high film". Furthermore, the film was described as for "action lovers who believe in logical storylines and deft treatment" with Menon being praised for his linear narrative screenplay. Remakes. Gautham Menon subsequently remade the film in the Telugu language for producer Venkata Raju and went on to claim that the new version was better than the previous version and that his new lead actor Venkatesh was more convincing that Surya in the role. In July 2004, Menon also agreed terms to direct and produce another version of "Kaakha Kaakha" in Hindi with Sunny Deol in the lead role and revealed that the script was written five years ago with Deol in mind, but the film eventually failed to take off. Producer Vipul Shah approached him to direct the Hindi version of the film in 2010 as "Force" with John Abraham and Genelia D'Souza, and Menon initially agreed before pulling out again. The film was also made in Kannada in 2011 as "Dandam Dashagunam" with Chiranjeevi Sarja and Divya Spandana in the title roles. Menon and the original producer, Dhanu, also floated an idea of an English version with a Chechnyan backdrop, though talks with a potential collaboration with Ashok Amritraj collapsed. Awards and nominations. In addition to the following list of awards and nominations, prominent Indian film websites named "Kaakha Kaakha" one of the 10 best Tamil films of 2003, with Rediff, Sify and "Behindwoods" all doing so. The film was, before release, in "most awaited" lists from film websites. Soundtrack. The film's music was composed by Harris Jayaraj, who reunited with Menon after the successful soundtrack of "Minnale" (2001). All lyrics written by Thamarai
584310	Pennin Manathai Thottu (, ) is a South Indian Tamil film released in 2000. It contains the song "Kalluri Vaanil" danced by Prabhu Deva Sundaram. The film did well in the box office. Plot. Sunil (Prabhu Deva) is one of the leading heart surgeons in the country. He lives with Ganpat (Mouli) and is loved by everyone in the family. Sunitha (Jaya Seal) arrives at the house, along with a kid who has a heart problem. But she lashes out at Sunil when she learns that he is the doctor and meets him face to face. Turns out she has had a bitter past with him. They had been in love in college but he had deserted her at a crucial time. So she hates him for it and doesn't even want him to operate on the kid. Production. After the success of "Thulladha Manamum Thullum" Vijay and Ezhil immediately decided to follow up this film with another collaboration, Pennin Manathai Thottu, with either Isha Koppikar or Roja to be roped in as the lead actress. However soon after pre-production, Vijay was replaced by Prabhu Deva. Newcomer Jaya Seal who appeared in television advertisements was selected as heroine. Sarathkumar was selected to play a guest role while Madhan Bob was assigned to play a small negative role for first time. The shooting for the film was held at locations in Chennai, Hyderabad, and Bangalore. A song was shot on Prabhu Deva and his brother Raju Sundaram with a set resembling a market place was erected, and about 40 dancers participated in the dance with the duo. Soramimi spoof. The song "Kalluri Vaanil" danced by Prabhu Deva Sundaram became widely known on the internet in the form of a soramimi spoof and viral video, following its subtitling as "Benny Lava" by YouTube user Mike Sutton (Buffalax, now buffalax469).
1083981	__notoc__ Kevyn Major Howard is a Canadian actor best known for his role as "Rafterman" in Stanley Kubrick's "Full Metal Jacket" and as "The A-Team's" complex anti-hero, Marcus. Life and career. After acting in high school, Howard moved to Los Angeles and Hollywood in the late 1970s. His headshot was delivered to Paramount Pictures and, shortly thereafter, he was called in and booked for his first major film role, in "The Serial", with Martin Mull, Tuesday Weld, Sally Kellerman, Pamela Bellwood and Peter Bonerz. This was followed by the film "Scared Straight Another Story".
1163829	Jean Peters (October 15, 1926 – October 13, 2000) was an American actress, known as a star of 20th Century Fox in the late 1940s and early 1950s, and as the second (or possibly third) wife of Howard Hughes. Although possibly best remembered for her siren role in "Pickup on South Street" (1953), Peters was known for her resistance to being turned into a sex symbol. She preferred to play unglamorous, down-to-earth women. Early life. Born Elizabeth Jean Peters in 1926 in East Canton, Ohio, she was the daughter of Elizabeth and Gerald Peters, a laundry manager. Raised on a small farm in East Canton, Peters attended East Canton High School. She went to college at the University of Michigan and later Ohio State University, where she studied to become a teacher and majored in literature. While studying for a teaching degree at Ohio State, she entered the Miss Ohio State Pageant in the fall of 1945. From the twelve finalists, Peters won. Sponsored by the photographer Paul Robinson of the "House of Portraits", she was awarded the grand prize of a screen test with 20th Century-Fox.
1065833	The Panic in Needle Park is a 1971 American film directed by Jerry Schatzberg and starring Al Pacino in his second film appearance. The screenplay was written by Joan Didion and John Gregory Dunne, adapted from the book by James Mills. The film portrays life among a group of heroin addicts who hang out in "Needle Park" (the nickname of Sherman Square on New York City's Upper West Side near 72nd Street and Broadway). The film is a love story between Bobby (Pacino), a young addict and small-time hustler, and Helen (Kitty Winn), a restless woman who finds Bobby charismatic. She becomes an addict, and life goes downhill for them both as their addictions worsen, eventually leading to a series of betrayals. To set the atmosphere, no music was used in the film, much of which features "cinéma vérité"-style footage. It is believed to be the first mainstream film to feature actual drug injection. Didion and Dunne visited Jim Morrison, lead singer of The Doors, during the recording of the album "Waiting For The Sun" as he was considered for the role of Bobby, but went with Pacino instead. With the film's release in 1971, some European film boards/classifications gave it an 'X' rating (England and Germany for example) for its harsh and realistic view of drug use, distortion and violence. Many of these boards' decisions should overlap the film's qualities for some decades, as other works of important directors were put into this just at the same time: Hodges' "Get Carter", Peckinpah's "Straw Dogs", Kubrick's "Clockwork Orange" (all of '71) as well as John Boorman's "Deliverance" one year later. The beginning 1970s are therefore often cited to be the significant phase of the 'X' rated movies concerning works which were not necessarily appointed by genre affiliations. Awards. For her portrayal of Helen, Winn won the Best Actress Award at the 1971 Cannes Film Festival. The film and its director, Jerry Schatzberg, were also nominated for the Palme d'Or.
585771	No. 1 Snehatheeram Bangalore North is a 1995 Malayalam film written by Fazil, directed by Sathyan Anthikkad, and produced by Fazil, starring Mammootty and Priya Raman supported by Innocent, Thilakan, Oduvil Unnikrishnan and Sukumari. Synopsis. Sudhi and Anu were on vacation in Bangalore with their father Vijaya Bhaskar (Mammootty). They get bored and try to get out of the house. They get lost in the park and are saved by a rich lady named Maya (Priya Raman). However, they mistake her for their mother since they have never seen their mother. Vijaya asks Maya to act as his wife until the vacation ends, and she agrees on a condition that he should return with his wife. They both act as a couple, but, at the end of the vacation, a twist occurs when Vijaya reveals that he is the children's uncle. He also reveals that they are the children of his younger sister who died in an accident with her husband and asked him to care for them. Vijaya said that he would never reveal the truth to the children. Seeing Maya's love and care to the children, he asks her to marry him. However, Maya reveals that she is from a poor family and is staying at Bangalore at her friend's house. She could not leave her family. On the next day, Maya asks her mother's permission to marry Vijaya. When she arrives after getting permission, she finds that Vijaya has revealed the truth to the children, so she leaves. While going back to school in Ootty, Vijaya and the children see Maya waiting for them, and Maya asks Vijaya if she could drop them off at school. The children allow it on one condition: that she must marry their father and become their mother.
1227284	Elvis on Tour is a Golden Globe Award-winning American musical documentary motion picture released by MGM in 1972. It was the thirty-third and final motion picture to star Elvis Presley before his death in 1977. Background. A follow-up to the 1970 release "", another musical documentary, this film followed Presley as he embarked on a 15-city tour of the United States in April 1972. "Elvis on Tour" also contains vintage footage of Presley's famous 1956 appearances on "The Ed Sullivan Show" and pre-tour rehearsal footage. It also includes footage of enthusiastic fan reactions scattered throughout the film. Also included are portions of a forty-minute interview that Presley gave about his life and career before filming began. Presley's manager, Colonel Tom Parker, was unhappy with the inclusion of a scene which mocked Presley's acting career by showing screen kisses taken from a number of his previous films. According to the producers, it was a tongue-in-cheek dig at the repetitiveness of these films by changing the background "but the plot stays the same". Among those working on this film were Martin Scorsese, who supervised montage sequences, and David Draper a former Mr. Universe. The film was directed by Pierre Adidge and Robert Abel. Reaction. The concert film reached #13 on the "Variety" National Box Office Survey. In general, documentaries were very rarely box office successes. However, despite costing upwards of $1.6 million to produce, most of which was Presley's $1 million fee, the film recouped its production costs after just three days in theaters. As well as being a financial success, "Elvis on Tour" proved to also be a critical success by winning the 1972 Golden Globe Award for Best Documentary, making it the only Elvis film to win an award of any kind.
1100868	Jacob Alexander Lurie (born 7 December 1977) is an American mathematician, who is a professor at Harvard University. Life. In seventh grade, Lurie participated in Johns Hopkins University's Center for Talented Youth. While in high school, Lurie took part in the International Mathematical Olympiad, where he won a gold medal with a perfect score in 1994. He performed slightly worse in 1995, but still managed to win a silver medal. In 1996 he took first place in the Westinghouse Science Talent Search and was featured in a front-page story in "Washington Times". He graduated from the Science, Mathematics, and Computer Science Magnet Program at Montgomery Blair High School. Lurie earned his Bachelor's degree in mathematics from Harvard College in 2000 and was awarded in the same year the Morgan Prize for his undergraduate thesis on Lie algebras. He earned his Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology under supervision of Michael J. Hopkins, in 2004 with a thesis on derived algebraic geometry. In 2007, he became associate professor at MIT, and in 2009 he became professor at Harvard. Mathematical work. Lurie's research interests started with logic and the theory of surreal numbers, while he was still in school. He is especially known for his work, starting with his thesis, on infinity-categories and derived algebraic geometry. Derived algebraic geometry is a way of infusing homotopical methods into algebraic geometry both to get deeper insight into algebraic geometry (e.g. into intersection theory) and to use methods of algebraic geometry in stable homotopy theory. The latter is the topic of Lurie's work on elliptic cohomology. Infinity categories (in the form of Joyal's quasi-categories) are a convenient framework to do homotopy theory in abstract settings. They are the main topic of his book "Higher Topos Theory". Another part of Lurie's work, is his article on topological field theories, where he sketches a classification of extended field theories using the language of infinity-categories.
1067954	The Jungle Book 2 is a 2003 American-Australian animated musical film produced by DisneyToon Studios and released by Walt Disney Pictures and Buena Vista Distribution. The theatrical version of the film was released in France on February 5, 2003, and released in the United States on February 14, 2003. The film is a sequel to Walt Disney's 1967 film "The Jungle Book", and stars Haley Joel Osment as the voice of Mowgli and John Goodman as the voice of Baloo. The film was originally produced as a direct-to-video film, but was released theatrically first, similar to the "Peter Pan" sequel, "Return to Never Land". It is the third Disney sequel to have a theatrical release rather than going direct-to-video after "The Rescuers Down Under" in 1990 and "Return to Neverland" in 2002. The film is a continuation of "The Jungle Book" by Rudyard Kipling and is not based on "The Second Jungle Book". However, they do have several characters in common. When released, it was criticized mainly for the quality of its animation and the similarity of its plotline to the original film. Plot. Mowgli is living in the Man Village with the girl who lured him in, Shanti, his adopted brother Ranjan, and their parents. However, Mowgli longs to return to the fun of the jungle, and after nearly leading the other children of the village into the jungle, is punished by his adopted father for trying to lead them into danger. Meanwhile, in the jungle, Shere Khan has returned to Baloo and Bagheera's part of the jungle to exact revenge on Mowgli. Baloo sneaks into the Man Village and gets Mowgli to come with him to live in the jungle; however, unbeknownst to them, Shere Khan also infiltrated the village, only to be chased off by the village people. In the ensuing chaos of the tiger's attack, Shanti and Ranjan go into the jungle to retrieve Mowgli, believing that Baloo is a hostile animal and kidnapped the boy. Bagheera hears of Mowgli's departure from the village when the humans search the jungle for him, and immediately suspects Baloo. Mowgli instructs Baloo to scare off Shanti should she appear, and bemoans the boring life he had in the Man Village. Baloo and Mowgli journey to King Louie's old temple (King Louie is mentioned to have abandoned it), however when the animals of the jungle mock Shanti and other aspects of Mowgli's life in the Man Village, the boy leaves, offended. He runs into Shanti and Ranjan, but Baloo scares Shanti as Mowgli wanted him to. When the truth comes out that Mowgli ordered Baloo to scare her, Shanti and Ranjan run away and leave Mowgli.
1165861	Michael Constantine (born May 22, 1927) is an American actor of Greek descent. He is probably now best known for his portrayal of Kostas "Gus" Portokalos, the Windex bottle-toting Greek father of Toula Portokalos (Nia Vardalos), in the 2002 surprise hit film "My Big Fat Greek Wedding". Prior to that, he was well known for his extensive television work, especially as the long-suffering high school principal, Seymour Kaufman, on ABC's sitcom, "Room 222," for which he won an Emmy Award as Best Supporting Actor in 1970. He played a night court magistrate, Matthew J. Sirota, on the brief 1976 sitcom, "Sirota's Court". Life and career. Constantine was born Constantine Ioannides (Greek: Κωνσταντίνος Ιωαννίδης) in Reading, Pennsylvania, the son of Andromache Efstratiou (Ανδρομάχη Ευστρατίου) (née Fotiadou [Φωτιάδου]) and Theoharis Ioannides [Θεοχάρης Ιωαννίδης] (a steel worker), both immigrants from Greece.
1064927	Extreme Measures is a 1996 thriller film based on Michael Palmer's 1991 novel of the same name, dealing with the ethics of medical sacrifices. Plot. Dr. Guy Luthan (Hugh Grant) is a New York emergency room doctor who one night comes across a strange patient: a homeless man who has a wristband from a hospital he's not familiar with, mentioning a drug he's never heard of, and with strange symptoms, including a wildly fluctuating heart rate. When the man dies, Guy attempts to follow up and find out more about the patient - only to find that the body and all records have disappeared, and he's told by his superiors to drop the case. As he continues trying to find out what happened, Guy's personal and professional life get suddenly sidetracked. His home is ransacked and cocaine is planted near his bedside. The police arrest him and he is convicted and in the process he loses his job, the ability to ever practice medicine anywhere in the world and virtually all of his friends. In desperation, he manages to get the help of some homeless men who lead him to their underground home. His ER patient who died also had lived there. Through them he's led to an organization, led by neurosurgeon Dr. Lawrence Myrick (Gene Hackman), that performs spinal experiments on the homeless people, all of whom have died thus far, in an attempt to find a cure for paralysis. Dr. Myrick attempts to sway Guy to join his team telling him that these people are heroes and losing one to save millions is worth the sacrifice. Guy admits that while there is some truth in what Myrick says, he states they have not chosen to be heroes, which makes Myrick a murderer. Dr. Myrick is shot and accidentally killed by rogue FBI Agent Frank Hare (David Morse). Later, Mrs. Myrick hands the discs and documentation regarding the research to Guy telling him "my husband was trying to do a good thing, but in the wrong way". He opens the package, views the materials and proceeds towards the neurology building where he is now working. Reception. The film had a mixed reception from critics. It currently holds a 55% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Box office. Despite debuting in second place, the film was not a box office success.
629297	The Last Wave or Black rain (US title) is an Australian film from 1977, directed by Peter Weir. It is about a white lawyer in Sydney whose seemingly normal life is disrupted after he takes on a murder case and discovers that he shares a strange, mystical connection with the small group of local Australian Aborigines accused of the crime. Plot. The film opens with a montage of scenes of daily life in Australia in the 1970s: a rural school in the desert, the main street of an outback town, a traffic jam in the city, all being affected by unusually adverse weather conditions that suddenly appear. Only the local Aboriginals seem to recognize the cosmological significance of these weather phenomena. During one of these "freak rainstorms" in Sydney, an altercation occurs among a group of Aboriginals in a pub, which results in the mysterious death of one of them. At the coroner's inquest, the death is ruled a homicide; and four men are accused of murder. Through the Australian Legal Aid system, David Burton (Richard Chamberlain) is procured for their defence. The circumstances by which he was contacted and retained are unusual, in that his law practice is corporate taxation and not criminal defense. He nonetheless takes on the case, and his professional and personal lives begin to unwind. Plagued by bizarre dreams, Burton begins to sense an "otherworldly" connection to one of the accused (David Gulpilil). He also feels connected to the increasingly strange weather phenomena besetting the city. His dreams intensify along with his obsession with the murder case, which he comes to believe is an Aboriginal tribal killing by curse, in which the victim believed. Learning more about Aboriginal practices and the concept of Dreamtime as a parallel world of existence, Burton comes to believe the strange weather bodes of a coming apocalypse. The film climaxes in a confrontation between the lawyer and the tribe's shaman in a subterranean sacred site. Overcoming the shaman, Burton escapes to the surface to warn about the Last Wave. Seeing a huge wave looming high above Sydney, he collapses in despair in the last shot. Production. In an interview on the Criterion Collection DVD release, director Peter Weir explains that the film explores the question, "What if someone with a very pragmatic approach to life experienced a premonition?" Entered in the 6th Tehran International Film Festival in November 1977, the film won the Golden Ibex prize. Finance was provided by the Australian Film Commission ($120,000), the South Australian Film Corporation ($120,000), Janus Films (US$50,000) and United Artists ($350,000). US based writer Petru Popescu worked on the script. Weir considered two Australian actors to play the lead but eventually decided to go with Richard Chamberlain.Filming started 24 February 1977 and took place in Adelaide and Sydney. Box Office. "The Last Wave" was not as popular as "Picnic at Hanging Rock" but still grossed $1,258,000 at the box office in Australia, which is equivalent to $5,786,800 in 2009 dollars.
590281	Mondo Meyer Upakhyan ( , English language:"A Tale of a Naughty Girl", released in the French language as "Chroniques Indiennes") is a 2002 Indian Bengali film directed and written by Buddhadev Dasgupta and starring Rituparna Sengupta. The film won National Film Award for Best Feature Film in 2003. Plot. Based on a short story by Bengali writer Prafulla Roy, the central idea developed by director Dasgupta, tells the story of a girl, Lati (Samata Das), whose mother Rajani (Rituparna Sengupta) is a prostitute living and working in a brothel in rural India. Rajani plans to offer her daughter to an older man, a rich husband and protector to her daughter. Lati, however, wants to return to school and finish her studies. Unwilling to pay such a price for material success, she runs away to Calcutta. The discovery of this new world is described parallel to other stories of emancipation, such as that of three young prostitutes, of an aged couple going nowhere and man's landing on the moon. In a surrealistic approach typical of the director, a clumsy cat and an intelligent donkey are also present in the film. Ganesh (Tapas Paul) works full-time as a driver for wealthy Bengali-speaking, Natabar Paladhi (Ram Gopal Bajaj), who lives in a mansion with his wife, children and grandchildren, and runs 'Anjali Cinema' He has Ganesh use his vehicle as a private taxi cab. Amongst Ganesh's customers are a woman named Bakul (June Malia), who alights near a town of Gosaipara to take up prostitution with Jamunabai; an abandoned elderly couple who are in need of hospitalization — there is none in the vicinity, and they end up secretly riding with Ganesh all the time; while Natabar uses this vehicle to travel to Gosaipara to visit a prostitute named Rajani and negotiate with her so that he can have her 14-year-old daughter, Lati, as his mistress. Things get complicated when Lati rebels against her mother so she can return to school, and a prostitute is about to get killed by her vengeful husband. Promotion. Directors like Dasgupta (and others of his ilk like Adoor Gopalakrishnan or Mrinal Sen) make movies that are very specific to their own cultural milieu. A great master like the late Satyajit Ray was never comfortable when he stepped outside his native Bengal with his camera. So too Dasgupta. His latest work, Mondo Meyer Upakhyan (A Tale of a Naughty Girl), is set in his favourite Purulia, a backward region in West Bengal. Beyond these main travails of Lati, Dasgupta presents a gripping account of village life. On Dasgupta's canvas, one witnesses life in all its splendour. A Tale of a Naughty Girl is undoubtedly a piece of celluloid that elevates cinema to another realm. It is extremely positive, and probably comes from a deep sense of peace and tranquillity that Dasgupta must have achieved from his poetic inclination.
1063028	Bruce Lorne Campbell (born June 22, 1958) is an American film and television actor, director, writer, producer and author. As a cult film actor, Campbell is best known for his role as Ash Williams in Sam Raimi's hit "Evil Dead" series of films and he has starred in many low-budget cult films such as "Crimewave", "Maniac Cop", "Bubba Ho-tep", "Escape From L.A." and "". He would later spoof his B-movie career in "My Name Is Bruce", in which he starred and directed. He has since made voice appearances in animated films, including "Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs" and "Cars 2". In television, Campbell is known for his lead roles in both "The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr." and "Jack of all Trades", his portrayal of Autolycus (the King of Thieves) in ' and ', and notably for his role as Sam Axe on the USA Network series "Burn Notice". Personal life. Campbell was born in Royal Oak, Michigan, the son of Joanne Louise (née Pickens), a homemaker, and Charles Newton Campbell, an amateur actor and traveling billboard inspector. He has an older brother, Don, and an older half-brother, Michael Rendine. Campbell's first wife was Christine Deveau, whom he married in 1983. They had two children, Rebecca and Andy, before their divorce in 1989. Campbell currently lives in Jacksonville, Oregon, with his second wife, costume designer Ida Gearon, whom he met on the set of the movie "Mindwarp". Campbell is an ordained minister, and has married couples. Career. Early years. Bruce Campbell began acting as a teenager and soon began making short Super 8 movies with friends. After meeting Sam Raimi in Wylie E. Groves High School, the two became very good friends and started making movies together. Campbell would go on to attend Western Michigan University while he continued to work on his acting career. Campbell and Raimi collaborated on a 30-minute Super 8 version of the first "Evil Dead" film, titled "Within the Woods", which was initially used to attract investors. Major film roles. A few years later, Campbell and Raimi got together with family and friends and began work on "The Evil Dead". Campbell starred and worked behind the camera, receiving a "co-executive producer" credit. Raimi wrote, directed and edited, while fellow Michigander Rob Tapert was producer. Following an endorsement by horror writer Stephen King, the film slowly began to receive distribution. Four years following its original release, it became the number one movie in the UK. It then received distribution in the U.S., spawning two sequels: "Evil Dead II" and "Army of Darkness". Campbell's role as Ashley J. "Ash" Williams has since become iconic. The first two films in the series are considered horror classics and are credited with spawning the "horror comedy" genre. He was also drawn in the Marvel Zombie comics as his character, Ash Williams. He is featured in five comics, all in the series "Marvel Zombies vs. Army of Darkness". In the comics he fights alongside the Marvel heroes against the heroes and people who have turned into zombies (deadites) while in search of the Necronomicon (Book of the Dead). He has appeared in many of Raimi's films outside of the "Evil Dead" series, notably cameo roles in the "Spider-Man" film series. Bruce Campbell also joined the cast in Raimi's "Darkman" and "The Quick and the Dead", though having no actual screen time in the latter film's theatrical cut. Campbell often takes on quirky roles, such as Elvis Presley in the film "Bubba Ho-tep", and appears in B-Movies and starred in "My Name Is Bruce". Along with "Bubba Ho-tep", he also played a supporting role in "Sky High", He also was featured in the Jim Carrey drama "The Majestic". Campbell also had a key supporting role in the Coen Brothers film "The Hudsucker Proxy". Other roles for Campbell included the Michael Crichton adaptation "Congo", the film version of "McHale's Navy", and "Escape From L.A.", the sequel to John Carpenter's "Escape From New York". Campbell was also the star of the "Maniac Cop" B-movie series. Campbell had a starring voice role in the hit films 2009 animated adaptation of the children's book "Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs", and "Cars 2". In January 2010, he stated in an interview that his new film project is called "Bruce vs. Frankenstein". The film is directed and produced by his friend Mike Richardson. Campbell produced the remake of "The Evil Dead", along with Sam Raimi and Rob Tapert. Campbell made an appearance that may allude to his signature character, Ash. Television roles. Outside of film, Campbell has appeared in a number of television series. He starred in "The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr." a boisterous science fiction comedy western created by Jeffrey Boam and Carlton Cuse that ran for one season. He played a lawyer turned bounty hunter who was trying to hunt down John Bly, the man who killed his father. He starred in the television series "Jack of All Trades", set on a fictional island, occupied by the French in 1801. Campbell was also credited as co-executive producer, among others. The show was directed by Eric Gruendemann, and was produced by various people, including Sam Raimi. The show aired for two seasons, from 2000 to 2001. He had a recurring role as "Bill Church Jr." based upon the character of Moxie Mannheim's son (Bruno Mannheim) from the Superman comics on "". In 1996–1997, Campbell was a recurring guest star on the show "Ellen" as Ed Billik, who becomes Ellen's boss when she sells her bookstore in season four. He is also known for his supporting role as the recurring character Autolycus ("the King of Thieves") on both ' and ', which reunited him with producer Rob Tapert. Campbell played "Hercules"/"Xena" series producer Tapert in two episodes of "Hercules" set in the present. He directed a number of episodes of "Hercules" and "Xena", including the "Hercules" series finale. Campbell also landed the lead role of race car driver Hank Cooper in the Disney made-for-television remake of "The Love Bug". Campbell made a critically acclaimed dramatic guest role as a grief-stricken detective seeking revenge for his father's murder in a two-part episode of the fourth season of "". Campbell later played the part of a bigamous demon in "The X-Files" episode, "Terms of Endearment". He also starred as Agent Jackman in the episode "Witch Way Now?" of the WB series "Charmed", as well as playing a state police officer in an episode of the short-lived series "American Gothic" titled "Meet the Beetles". Campbell co-starred on the television series "Burn Notice", which aired from 2007 to 2013 on USA Network. He portrayed Sam Axe, a beer-chugging, womanizing former Navy SEAL now working as an unlicensed private investigator and occasional mercenary with his old friend Michael Westen, the show's main character. When working under cover, he frequently goes by the alias Chuck Finley. During Comic-Con 2010, it was revealed that Campbell would be the star of a "Burn Notice" made-for-television prequel focusing on Sam's Navy SEAL career, titled "". The movie was first aired on April 17, 2011. Voice acting. Campbell is featured as a voice actor in several video game titles. He provides the voice of Ash in the three games based on the "Evil Dead" film series: ', ' and '. He also provided voice talent in other titles such as ', "Spider-Man: The Movie", "Spider-Man 2", "Spider-Man 3" and "The Amazing Spider-Man". He provided the voice of main character Jake Logan in the PC title, ', the voice of main character Jake Burton in the PlayStation game "Broken Helix" and the voice of Magnanimous in "Megas XLR". Campbell voiced the pulp adventurer Lobster Johnson in ' and has done voice-over work for the Codemaster's game "Hei$t", a game which was announced on the 28 January 2010 to have been "terminated". He also provided the voice of The Mayor in the 2009 film "Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs", the voice of Rod "Torque" Redline in "Cars 2" and the voice of "Fugax" in the 2006 film The Ant bully. Despite the inclusion of his character "Ash Williams" in Telltale Games' "Poker Night 2", Campbell does not voice the character in game. Writing. In addition to acting and occasionally directing, Campbell has become a writer, starting with an autobiography, "If Chins Could Kill: Confessions of a B Movie Actor" published on August 24, 2002. The autobiography was a successful "New York Times" Best Seller. The paperback version of the book adds a chapter about the reaction of fans at book signings. "Whenever I do mainstream stuff, I think they're pseudo-interested, but they're still interested in seeing weirdo, offbeat stuff. And that's what I'm attracted to." "If Chins Could Kill..." was published in 2002 and follows Campbell's career to date as an actor in low-budget films and television, providing his insight into "Blue-Collar Hollywood". Campbell's next book "Make Love! The Bruce Campbell Way" published on May 26, 2005. The book's plot involves Bruce (depicted in a comical way) as the main character struggling to make it into the world of A-list movies. He later recorded an audio play adaptation of "Make Love" with fellow Michigan actors including longtime collaborator Ted Raimi. This radio drama styled interpretation of the novel was released through independent label Rykodisc and spans 6 discs with a 6 hour running time. In addition to his novels, Campbell also wrote a column for "X Ray Magazine" in 2001, an issue of the popular comic series "The Hire", comic book adaptations of his "Man With The Screaming Brain" and most recently he wrote the introduction to Josh Becker's "The Complete Guide To Low Budget Feature Film Making". Campbell maintained a blog on his official website, where he posts mainly about politics and the film industry.
1163430	Susan Dey (born December 10, 1952) is an American actress, known primarily for her roles in film and television. Her more prominent parts came as elder daughter, Laurie Partridge, on the 1970s sitcom "The Partridge Family", and as Grace Van Owen, a California assistant district attorney and judge on the dramatic series, "L.A. Law", a role she played from 1986 to 1992. Early life and education. Dey was born Susan Hallock Smith in Pekin, Illinois, the daughter of Gail (née Dey), a nurse who died of pneumonia when Dey was eight years old, and Robert Smith, a newspaper editor. She adopted her mother's maiden name as her professional name. She graduated from Fox Lane High School in Bedford, New York. Career. Dey was a model before starring as Laurie Partridge in the television series "The Partridge Family" from 1970–1974. She was 17 years old when she won the part and had no previous acting experience. In a 1977 made-for-television movie, "Mary Jane Harper Cried Last Night", Dey portrayed a disturbed young mother with serious psychological problems, who begins to take them out on her toddler daughter. Also in 1977, Dey starred opposite William Katt in a romance film, "First Love", directed by Joan Darling. The movie is based upon the story, "Sentimental Education", by Harold Brodkey. Dey co-starred with Albert Finney in a 1981 science-fiction film, "Looker", written and directed by Michael Crichton. She had a leading role in 1986's "Echo Park" as a struggling waitress/actress who takes a job as a stripper who delivers singing telegrams. Dey starred on the television series "L.A. Law" as Grace Van Owen and earned a Golden Globe Award as "Actress in a Leading Role – Drama Series" for the role in 1987. Dey was nominated four more times the following four years. She was also nominated for the Emmy Award for "Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series" for this role in 1987, 1988, and 1989. She hosted a 1992 episode of "Saturday Night Live". Later that year, she co-starred in the Diane English/CBS sitcom, "Love & War", with Jay Thomas. Although the show ran until 1995, Dey was replaced in 1993 by Annie Potts. In 1993, she produced and starred in the ABC Movie of the Week "Lies & Lullabies" (later released on DVD as "Sad Inheritance"), where she played a pregnant cocaine addict. Personal life. Dey was married to Lenny Hirshan from 1976–1981. They have one daughter, Sarah Hirshan (born 1978). Dey has been married to her second husband, television producer Bernard Sofronski, since 1988. She serves as a board member of the Rape Treatment Center at UCLA Medical Center and co-narrated a documentary on campus rape with her "L.A. Law" co-star, Corbin Bernsen.
1059690	Annabella Sciorra (, ; born March 29, 1960) is an American film, television, and stage actress. Sciorra received an Independent Spirit Award nomination for Best Female Lead for the 1989 film "True Love", and came to widespread attention in her co-lead role in Spike Lee's 1991 film "Jungle Fever". She starred in the 1992 thriller "The Hand That Rocks The Cradle", and received critical acclaim for her work in "Cop Land". She received an Emmy nomination for her role as Gloria Trillo in the HBO series "The Sopranos". Personal life. Sciorra was born Annabella Gloria Philomena Sciorra in Brooklyn, New York to a housewife mother and a veterinarian father. Both her parents are Italian American, her father emigrated from Carunchio, in Abruzzo region, in 1951. She studied dance as a child and began taking drama lessons as she grew older at Hagen-Berghoff Studio and the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, both in New York City. On November 5, 1981, she founded the Brass Ring Theater Company at the age of 21. She was married to actor Joe Petruzzi from December 31, 1989 until 1993 and was romantically linked with actor Bobby Cannavale from 2004 to 2007.
1066922	Ben Chaplin (born Benedict John Greenwood; 31 July 1969) is an English actor. Early life. Chaplin was born and raised in Windsor, Berkshire, the son of Cynthia (née Chaplin), a drama teacher, and Peter Greenwood, a civil engineer. He has two sisters, Sarah Greenwood and Rachel Greenwood, and one brother, Justin Greenwood. He took his stage name after his mother's maiden name. He attended the Princess Margaret Royal Free School. At the age of 17, he enrolled in the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. Career. After finishing his training, he moved to London and joined a repertory theatre company. Between work as a statistician for the London Transport Authority and clerical jobs, he began landing roles in BBC dramas and British films. James Ivory and Ismail Merchant cast him as a servant in "The Remains of the Day". Chaplin first came to public attention for his performance as Matthew Malone in the first series of the sitcom "Game On". After departing the series, he co-starred in several films including "The Truth About Cats and Dogs", Terrence Malick's "The Thin Red Line", "Murder By Numbers", "The Touch" with Michelle Yeoh, "Birthday Girl" and "Dorian Gray" (2009) as society artist Basil Hallward. Chaplin received an Olivier Award nomination for Best Supporting Performer in "The Glass Menagerie", and a Tony Award nomination for Best Featured Actor in "The Retreat from Moscow". Recent theatre appearances include "This Is How It Goes" at the Donmar Warehouse in 2005, "The Reporter" at the National Theatre in 2007 and "Farewell to the Theatre" at the Hampstead Theatre in 2012. He appeared in "Dates" on Channel 4 on 2013. Personal life. Chaplin was in a long-term relationship with Embeth Davidtz, but they have since broken up. He is now dating Rocio Oliver.
1034082	Melanie Jayne "Mel" Martin (born 1947) is an English actor. She has appeared in British television programmes and films including "The Pallisers", "Love for Lydia", "Bergerac", "Cover Her Face", "Lovejoy", "Inspector Morse", "Only Fools and Horses", "Cadfael", "When the Boat Comes In", "Midsomer Murders" and "A Touch of Frost". She starred as Fiona Samson, the double agent and wife of Bernard Samson (played by Ian Holm) in the television adaptation of Len Deighton's trilogy "Berlin Game", "Mexico Set" and "London Match" (broadcast as "Game, Set, and Match"). She portrayed Vivien Leigh opposite Anthony Higgins as Laurence Olivier in the TV biopic "Darlings of the Gods". Martin and her real-life husband actor John Duttine have appeared together on screen several times. In the Casualty episode Branded from February 1995, she played Mrs Jackson, whose transvestite ex-husband was played by Duttine. A young Lucy Davis played her daughter Sarah. In the "Heartbeat" episode entitled "Troubled Waters", telecast on 22 July 2007, Martin made a guest appearance alongside Duttine who was playing his regular role of Sergeant George Miller. She played Emily Merryweather, a widow who took a big shine to local garage owner Bernie Scripps played by Peter Benson. No scenes were shown of the married couple together. Personal life. She was married to Paul Ridley from 1980 to 1982. She is currently married to John Duttine, whom she met while filming the TV adaptation of Ruth Rendell's "Talking to Strange Men".
1038259	Barbara Jane Horrocks (born 18 January 1964) is an English stage, screen and television actress, voice artist, musician and singer. She played "Bubble" in the TV series "Absolutely Fabulous" and is known for her distinctive voice and strong Lancashire accent. Early life. Horrocks, the youngest of three children, was born in Rawtenstall, Lancashire, the daughter of Barbara (née Ashworth), a hospital worker, and John Horrocks, a sales representative. She attended Balladen County Primary School and later trained at Oldham College and subsequently at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art with Imogen Stubbs and Ralph Fiennes, and began her career with the Royal Shakespeare Company. She drew critical notice for her performance in the film "Life Is Sweet" (1991), followed by her award-winning performance in the West End play "The Rise and Fall of Little Voice" in which she sang all the songs. Horrocks became a name with the role of Bubble in "Absolutely Fabulous" (1992–2012). "The Rise and Fall of Little Voice". While working on "Road", a play directed by Jim Cartwright, Horrocks warmed up by doing singing impressions of Judy Garland, Shirley Bassey and Ethel Merman. Cartwright was so impressed with her mimicry he wrote "The Rise and Fall of Little Voice" for her. She was nominated for the Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actress for her performance in the 1992 West End production, directed by her boyfriend Sam Mendes. She reprised her role in the 1998 screen adaptation, "Little Voice", which earned nominations for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress - Motion Picture Musical or Comedy, the BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role, the Satellite Award for Best Actress - Motion Picture Musical or Comedy, the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role - Motion Picture, and the British Independent Film Award for Best Actress. In 2000, Horrocks made the CD "Further Adventures of Little Voice", again singing in the style of favourite divas. The recording includes duets with Ewan McGregor, Robbie Williams and Dean Martin. Horrocks collaborated once more with Robbie Williams the following year, for a cover of the Bobby Darin song "Things" on Williams's album "Swing When You're Winning". Career. Horrocks has appeared on stage in "Ask for the Moon" (Hampstead, 1986), "A Collier's Friday Night" (Greenwich, 1987), "Valued Friends" (Hampstead, 1989), and "The Debutante Ball" (Hampstead, 1989). She appeared in "Catherine Cookson's "The Fifteen Streets", alongside Sean Bean and Owen Teale in 1989, "Our Own Kind" (Bush, 1991), "Deadly Advice" (Fletcher, 1993), "Cabaret" (Donmar Warehouse, 1994), "Macbeth" (Greenwich Theatre, 1995) and "Absurd Person Singular" (Garrick Theatre, 2007). Her last West End appearance was in "Sweet Panic", the 2003 Stephen Poliakoff drama in which she portrayed a neurotic mother locked in a battle of wills with her disturbed son's psychologist. She starred in Richard Jones's critically acclaimed production of "The Good Soul of Szechuan" at the Young Vic in 2008, and was reunited with Jones in a new musical production of "Annie Get Your Gun", which opened at the Young Vic in October 2009. Horrocks's voiceovers have been used on "Chicken Run" (2000), ' (2001), "Corpse Bride" (2005), ' (2006) and "Tinker Bell" (2008) (in which she was Fairy Mary; she reprises the role in the "Tinker Bell" sequels), and on radio as Fenchurch in the audio adaptation of Douglas Adams' science fiction series "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" for BBC Radio 4. She has voiced Donner in all three Robbie the Reindeer films in aid of Comic Relief. Other television credits include "Absolutely Fabulous", "Victoria Wood" - "We'd Quite Like To Apologise", "Bad Girl", "Boon", "Heartland", "Hunting Venus", "La Nonna", "Leaving Home", "Never Mind the Horrocks", "Nightlife", "Wyrd Sisters", "Foxbusters", "Red Dwarf", "Some Kind of Life", "Suffer the Little Children", "The Storyteller", "The Garden", "Fifi & the Flowertots", "Little Princess" (the voice of the princess) and "Welcome to the Times". She was the subject of an episode of the genealogy documentary series "Who Do You Think You Are?" in 2006. That year she played the title role in "The Amazing Mrs Pritchard", a drama about a woman elected prime minister. For 10 years, Horrocks appeared with Prunella Scales in commercials for the UK supermarket chain Tesco. She narrated BBC2's television series "The Speaker" in April 2009. Also in 2009, Horrocks took the lead in the BBC TV production "Gracie!", a drama portraying the life of Gracie Fields during World War II and her relationship with the Italian-born director Monty Banks (played by Tom Hollander). Personal life. Horrocks lives with playwright Nick Vivian in Twickenham with their children, son Dylan and daughter Molly. Videoclip. New Order - 1963 (1994)
1044062	Honor Blackman (born 22 August 1925) is a British actress, known for the roles of Cathy Gale in "The Avengers" (1962–64) and Bond girl Pussy Galore in "Goldfinger" (1964). She is also famous for her role as the vengeful goddess Hera in the Ray Harryhausen, Charles H. Schneer, production of "Jason and the Argonauts". Life and career. Early life. Blackman was born in Plaistow, Newham, London. Her father Frederick was a statistician. She attended North Ealing Primary School and Ealing County Grammar School for Girls. She then trained as an actress at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, after her father on her fifteenth birthday thought that an appropriate birthday gift would be acting lessons. While attending the Guildhall School she also worked as a clerical assistant for the Home Office. Films. Blackman's film debut was a nonspeaking part in "Fame is the Spur" (1947). Other films include "Quartet" (1948) and "So Long at the Fair" (1950) with Dirk Bogarde, the RMS Titanic true story "A Night to Remember" (1958); the comedy "The Square Peg" (1958); "Life at the Top" (1965) with Laurence Harvey, "The Virgin and the Gypsy" (1970), and the Western films "Shalako" (1968) with Sean Connery and Brigitte Bardot and "Something Big" (1971) with Dean Martin. She played the role of Hera in "Jason and the Argonauts" (1963). She also did an overdub for an actress in the same film providing the voice for the character of Medea. More recently, she has had small roles in the films "Bridget Jones's Diary" (2001) and "Jack Brown and the Curse of the Crown" (also 2001). James Bond. Bond film producer Albert R. Broccoli admitted that Blackman had been cast on the back of her success in "The Avengers", despite the fact that the American audience had never even seen the programme. Broccoli said, "The Brits would love her because they knew her as Mrs. Gale, the Yanks would like her because she was so good, it was a perfect combination". Blackman was the first of two "Bond girls" older than the actor playing James Bond, and she was the oldest actress ever to play a Bond girl. Theatre. In 1981, she was in the London revival of "The Sound of Music" opposite Petula Clark, which opened to rave reviews with, at that time, the largest advance sale in British theatre history. She spent most of 1987 at the Fortune Theatre starring as the Mother Superior in the West End production of "Nunsense". From 2005 to 2006, she toured the country as Mrs Higgins in "My Fair Lady". Her show "Word Of Honor" premiered in October 2006. In April 2007, she took over the role of Fraulein Schneider from Olivier Award-winning actress Sheila Hancock, in "Cabaret" at the Lyric Theatre in London's West End. She left the show at the end of September 2007. Television. One of her earliest appearances on TV was in a recurring role as Nichole, secretary/assistant to Dan Dailey's character of Tim Collier in the 1959 series "The Four Just Men". In a 1965 episode of "The Avengers", titled "Too Many Christmas Trees", John Steed received his Christmas cards, one of which was from Cathy. "A card from Mrs Gale!", Steed exclaims in delight. Then, reading the inscription, he says in a puzzled voice, "Whatever can she be doing at Fort Knox...?". It was an inside joke, as Blackman was filming "Goldfinger" at the time. Blackman co-starred with Richard Basehart as a married pair of Shakespearean actors who commit a homicide in the "Columbo" episode "Dagger of the Mind" with Peter Falk. Blackman was the subject of "This Is Your Life" on two occasions, in December 1969 when she was surprised by Eamonn Andrews in a TV studio dressing room, and in February 1993, when she was caught out by Michael Aspel during a ‘mock’ television interview. In 1986, she had a role in "Terror of the Vervoids", a segment of the "Doctor Who" serial "The Trial of a Time Lord". From 1990 to 1996 she appeared as Laura West on "The Upper Hand". Blackman took a guest role on "Midsomer Murders" as ex-racing driver Isobel Hewitt in the episode "A Talent for Life". In September 2004, she briefly joined the "Coronation Street" cast in a storyline about wife swapping. In 2007, she participated in the BBC TV project "The Verdict", as one of 12 well-known figures forming a jury to hear a fictional rape case. The series was designed to explore the jury system. She was sworn in as a juror as "Honor Kaufmann". She guest starred in the BBC medical drama "Casualty" on 3 August 2013. Singing career. A song she recorded with Patrick Macnee during 1964, "Kinky Boots", was a surprise hit, peaking at No.5 in 1990 after it was played incessantly by BBC Radio 1 breakfast show presenter Simon Mayo. After her appearance in "Goldfinger", she recorded a full album of songs, entitled "Everything I've Got". In 1983, she appeared as Juno in a special TV production of Jacques Offenbach's Orpheus in the Underworld. On 6 July 2009, Blackman released a new single, "The Star Who Fell from Grace", composed by Jeff Chegwin and Adrian Munsey and compered a James Bond Prom as part of the "Welsh Proms" concert series. Other roles. Blackman appeared in the "Doctor Who" audio drama "The Children of Seth" where she portrayed the role of Anahita, released in December 2011. Personal life. She married twice: Bill Sankey from 1948–56, and the British actor Maurice Kaufmann from 1961–75, with whom she appeared in the slasher film "Fright" (1971). They adopted two children, Lottie (1967) and Barnaby (1968). Blackman has not remarried and has stated she prefers being single. She enjoys watching football. During the 1960s, Blackman practised judo at the famous Budokwai dojo for her roles as Cathy Gale in "The Avengers" and Pussy Galore in "Goldfinger". Politics. Honor Blackman is a member of the Liberal Democrats and previously the Liberal Party, campaigning for the party in the 1964 general election. She is a signed supporter of Republic, The Campaign for an Elected Head of State, the UK campaign to replace the monarchy with a republic. She declined a CBE honour in 2002. She publicly supported changing the British electoral system from first-past-the-post to alternative vote for electing Members of Parliament to the House of Commons in the Alternative Vote referendum in 2011.
588312	Thakara (1980) is a Malayalam film directed by Bharathan and written by Padmarajan. It stars Prathap Pothan, Surekha, Nedumudi Venu and K. G. Menon in pivotal roles. Plot. Thakara (Prathap Pothan) is an orphan. He is mentally immatured but clean hearted. He has a close relationship with Subhashini (Surekha), the dream girl of the village. Thakara was betrayed by the words of Chellappanashari (Nedumudi Venu) and indulges in a physical relationship with Subhashini. Subhashini's father Mathu Mooppan (K. G. Menon) finds out their relation and beats Thakara unconscious. Thakara, fully filled with revenge on Mooppan, runs away. Once he earns enough money to buy a knife, he returns and kills Mooppan. Subhashini refuses to go with Thakara, who proposes her after killing her father. With no way to escape, Thakara finds his end in front of a running train.
1162454	Julia Frances Langford (April 4, 1913 – July 11, 2005) was an American singer and entertainer who was popular during the Golden Age of Radio and also made film appearances over two decades. Birth. Born Julia Frances Langford in Lakeland, Florida, she was the daughter of Vasco Cleveland Langford and his wife, Anna Rhea Newbern. Discovery and radio. Frances grew up in the Mulberry, Florida area, a tiny community near Lakeland. She attended Lakeland High School. Langford originally trained as an opera singer. While a young girl she required a tonsillectomy that changed her soprano range to a contralto. As a result, she was forced to change her vocal style to a more contemporary big band, popular music style. At age 17, she was singing for local dances. Cigar manufacturer Eli Witt heard her sing at an American Legion party and hired her to sing on his local radio show. After a brief stint in the Broadway musical "Here Goes the Bride" in 1931, she moved to Hollywood appearing on the Louella Parsons' radio show "'Hollywood Hotel' while starting a movie career. While singing for radio during the early 1930s, she was heard by Rudy Vallee, who invited her to become a regular on his radio show. From 1935 until 1938 she was a regular performer on Dick Powell's radio show. From 1946 to 1951, she performed with Don Ameche as the insufferable wife, Blanche, on The Bickersons. Films. With her film debut in "Every Night at Eight" (1935) the diminutive five-foot-one-inch star introduced what became her signature song: "I'm in the Mood for Love." She then began appearing frequently in films such as "Broadway Melody of 1936" (1935) (in which she popularized "Broadway Rhythm" and "You Are My Lucky Star"), "Born to Dance" (1936) and "Yankee Doodle Dandy" (1942) with James Cagney, in which (portraying Nora Bayes) she performed the popular song "Over There" and also popularized "Dixie Jamboree" and "Radio Stars on Parade". In the Western "Deputy Marshal", she co-starred with her first husband, matinee idol Jon Hall. In several of these films, such as "Broadway Melody", she appeared as herself, as she did in 1953 in "The Glenn Miller Story" where she sang "Chattanooga Choo Choo" with the Modernaires and the movie orchestra. World War II. From 1941, Langford was a regular singer on Bob Hope's "Pepsodent Show" when he held his first military entertainment program at March Field in Riverside, California in 1941. The show was so positive, he continued broadcasting from training bases around the country and asked Langford to join him. During World War II, she joined Hope, Jerry Colonna, guitarist Tony Romano and other performers on U.S.O. tours through Europe, North Africa, and the South Pacific, entertaining thousands of G.I.'s throughout the world. During a USO tour in the Pacific theater she was invited to take a ride in a P-38 fighter plane. During the flight, a Japanese ship was spotted and the joy ride was postponed until the pilot finished strafing the ship. In his memoir, "Don't Shoot! It's Only Me!", Bob Hope recalled how Frances Langford got the biggest laugh he had ever heard. At a U.S.O. show in the South Pacific, Langford stood up on a stage to sing before a huge crowd of G.I.'s. When Langford sang the first line of her signature song, "I'm in the Mood for Love," a soldier in the audience stood up and shouted, "You've come to the right place, honey!" Also, during the war, Langford wrote the weekly "Purple Heart Diary" column for Hearst Newspapers, in which she described her visits to military hospitals to entertain wounded G.I.'s. She used the weekly column as a means of allowing the recovering troops to voice their complaints, and to ask for public support for making sure that the wounded troops received all the supplies and comforts they needed.
1056798	Imagine Me & You is a 2005 British-American comedy-romance film written and directed by Ol Parker. It centres on the relationship between Rachel (Piper Perabo) and Luce (Lena Headey), who meet on Rachel's wedding day. The movie takes its title from the first line of the song "Happy Together". Writer/director Ol Parker reveals on the DVD audio commentary that the movie was originally titled "Click", after the French term for love at first sight, but conflicts with the 2006 Adam Sandler film "Click" necessitated the name change. Plot. The film opens on Rachel (Piper Perabo) and Hector's (Matthew Goode) wedding day in North London, England. Rachel's bossy mother Tess (Celia Imrie) and dazed dad Ned (Anthony Head) are introduced. Luce, (Lena Headey) who manages a flower shop, is the wedding florist. She also makes fast friends with Rachel's younger sister Henrietta (nicknamed "H" because, according to Henrietta, her mother exclaimed "Jesus H. Christ!" upon discovering she was pregnant). However, as Rachel is walking up the aisle, her eyes meet Luce's and a connection is made. Some time later, Luce is invited to dinner with Rachel, Heck, and Coop (Darren Boyd), Heck's best friend and a perennial bachelor. Rachel suggests they fix up Luce with Coop, until Luce mentions that she's a lesbian. Heck takes this news in stride and Coop is undeterred in his attempts to seduce Luce.
1070469	Christina Pickles (born 17 February 1935) is an English actress, best known for her long-running role of Nurse Helen Rosenthal in the hospital drama "St. Elsewhere", for which she was nominated for four Emmys. Life and career. Christina Pickles was born in Yorkshire, England. She is the niece of radio presenter Wilfred Pickles and the sister of judge James Pickles. Her niece Carolyn Pickles is also an actress. She has appeared in such television shows as "Roseanne", "Matlock", "" and "Murder, She Wrote", as well as the soap operas "The Guiding Light" and "Another World", though it was her role in the NBC medical drama "St. Elsewhere" (1982–1988) with which she is most identified. She remained on "St. Elsewhere" for its entire six-year run, and was nominated for four Emmy awards for her work on the series. Pickles played the mother of Harmon Rabb in the television series "JAG". She also appeared as "Judy Geller", the mother of Ross and Monica Geller (David Schwimmer and Courteney Cox), in the U.S. sitcom "Friends", making appearances throughout the ten-year run of the series, and receiving an Emmy nomination for her role in 1995. She appeared opposite Elliott Gould who played her on-screen husband. Pickles has appeared in many films including "Masters of the Universe", "Rush It", "The Wedding Singer", "Sol Goode" and "George of the Jungle 2". She also appeared in 1994's ' as Tippy. She memorably played Caroline Montague in Baz Luhrmann's "Romeo and Juliet". She also voiced Elsie the "Elasmosaurus" in '. She also appeared on the show "How I Met Your Mother" as Lily Aldrin's grandmother in 2009 and 2011. On radio Pickles is a frequent guest on the public radio programme "Selected Shorts". She was romantically linked with actor Herb Edelman (who played her onscreen significant other on "St. Elsewhere"), from the mid-1980s until his death in 1996. Prior to this, she was married to producer/director Victor Lobl for 23 years, divorcing in 1985.
585160	Kachchi Sadak is a 2006 Bollywood film directed by Sanjay D Singh. The film stars Rahul Singh, Parmita Katkar, Madhoo, Mukesh Tiwari, Amrish Puri, Rahul Dev and Mithun Chakraborty in a Special appearance. Kachchi Sadak is a slew of masala movies released with rapid succession in the 1970s and 1980s. An ordinary story line of revenge and vengeance with loads of blasts and explosions.
637071	Teri Meherbaniyan is a 1985 Indian Hindi film by K.C. Bokadia. Jackie Shroff, Poonam Dhillon played the lead role. Plot. Ram (Jackie Shroff) is an honest young man, who accidentally hits a stray puppy with his motorbike. He takes it to the vet, then raises it as his own until it grows into an adult. One day, Ram and his dog Moti, comes to the village of the powerful and corrupt Thakur Vijay Singh (Amrish Puri). On the way his vehicle breaks down and he meets with beautiful Bijli (Poonam Dhillon), and both fall in love with each other subsequently. Thakur Vijay Singh's men, especially Munim Banwarilal (Asrani), and Sardari (Sadashiv Amrapurkar), have taken over the village and exploit the poor people. However, Ram soon becomes a voice for the villagers, helping them get their just rewards which Thakur denies them. Meanwhile, Thakur has his eyes on Bijli; he also has 2 slaves: a widow named Sharda Devi (Swapna), and Gopi (Raj Kiran), a man who is mute. Sardari and Munim clash with Ram, but retreat, beaten, to their boss. Ram helps Gopi and Sharda and assists them in their life, encouraging them to marry.
590836	Mana Desam or Manadesam (1949) is a Telugu social film directed by L. V. Prasad and produced by actress Krishnaveni. The title means "Our Country" in Telugu. The film is based on "Vipradas", a Bengali novel by Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay and runs in the backdrop of Indian freedom struggle. Plot. Madhu and Shoba are lovers. Madhu supports the Congress party but Shoba is opposed to congress views. They both are arrested in political violence during the freedom struggle. Madhu is tortured by the police and loses memory. The movie ends with his recovering from amnesia and reunion of the couple. Producer Krishnaveni herself played the role of Sobha and Narayana Rao played the role of Madhu.
177677	Heinz-Otto Peitgen (born April 30, 1945 in Bruch, Nümbrecht near Cologne) is a German mathematician and currently serves as President of Jacobs University. Peitgen is one of the most prominent researchers in the study of fractals. Life. Peitgen studied mathematics, physics and economics from 1965 until 1971 in Bonn, later working for six years at the Institute for Applied Mathematics at the University of Bonn under Christian Fenske, where he received his PhD in 1973. His doctoral dissertation was entitled “Asymptotische Fixpunktsätze und Stabilität” (English: “Asymptotic Fixed-point Theorems and Stability”). After receiving his habilitation in 1977, he first taught as a private docent in Bonn before being awarded a professorship in mathematics at the University of Bremen. There, he was deeply involved in the establishment and development of an Institute for Dynamical Systems, where in 1982 he set up a computer graphics laboratory for mathematical experiments. Since 1992, Peitgen has served as the founder and director of the Center for Complex Systems and Visualization (Centrum für Complexe Systeme und Visualisierung - CeVis) at the University of Bremen. His research work emphasizes dynamical systems, numerical analysis, image analysis and data analysis, as well as the use of computers in image-based medical diagnostics. From 1985 until 1991, Peitgen was a professor of mathematics at the University of California, Santa Cruz; since 1991 he has been a professor of mathematics at Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton. In 1995, he founded the Center for Medical Image Computing, MeVis Research GmbH, in Bremen, which became a Fraunhofer Society institute at the beginning of 2009 and is now called the Fraunhofer MEVIS - Institute for Medical Image Computing. Peitgen still manages the institute. In 1997, Peitgen and some of his colleagues founded a new company, MeVis Medical Solutions AG, MMS, which has been listed on the German stock market since 2007. MMS is one of the world’s leading independent producers of software products for image-based medicine, particularly digital radiology. With its software solutions, it provides medical practitioners with substantial added value in screening and diagnostics as well as therapy and intervention planning for cancer, particularly breast cancer, neurology and lung conditions. Peitgen is the Chairman of the Supervisory Board. Peitgen has been appointed to chairs at several German and American universities and has served as a visiting professor at universities in Belgium, Brazil, Canada, the USA, Mexico and Italy. He is the author of several award-winning books and films that have helped to publicize fractal geometry and chaos theory around the world and is co-editor of several professional journals with an international readership. The scientific disciplines in which he specializes include mathematics, computer science and medicine: dynamical systems, numerical analysis, fractal geometry, chaos theory, computer graphics, image processing, data analysis and IT support for image-based medical diagnostics and treatment. In 1992, Peitgen was elected as a member of the European Academy of Sciences and Arts and in 2008 as a member of the Goettingen Academy of Sciences. University Leadership. On January 1, 2013, Dr. Peitgen took over as President of Jacobs University (Former International University Bremen), Bremen, Germany. He is the successor to former President Joachim Treusch. Awards. 2005 Werner Körte Medaille in gold - presented by the German association for surgery (DGCH) for the development of a software visualization program, which is used by surgeons to understand possible complications and determine improved procedures for complicated liver-surgical interventions.
479867	Ethan Erickson (born August 5, 1973) is an American television and film actor and TV host. Career. Born Ethan Skip Erickson in Minneapolis, Minnesota, Erickson once played the recurring role in "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" as jock Percy West, that actress Alyson Hannigan's character Willow Rosenberg tutors. He appeared in both season 3 and season 4 as the same character. As a gymnast since age 8, Erickson reportedly won the part after impressing director/creator Joss Whedon with a backflip during his audition. Erickson also starred in "Jawbreaker" (1999) with Rose McGowan and Julie Benz, as well as "The In Crowd and played as A.J. 'J' Chamberlain on "Guiding Light". In 2006, he hosted a short-lived series on UPN called "Get This Party Started" with Kristin Cavallari of "" fame. That same year, he starred in "Fashion House" on MyNetworkTV as scheming senior designer and blackmailer John Cotter which aired in 2006 in the United States. Once known as the voice of Southwest Airlines, Erickson also does a variety of other voice-over work. In April 2008, he briefly stepped into the role of Dr. Patrick Drake on the ABC Daytime soap opera, "General Hospital", while actor Jason Thompson had to take a medical leave of absence. In the fall of that same year, his role on "" as firefighter/boyfriend (Brendon Walsh) to Detective Stella Bonasera, played by actress Melina Kanakaredes was upgraded to recurring.
583205	Kasoor (meaning 'Guilt/Fault') is a 2001 Bollywood suspense thriller film produced under Mukesh Bhatt's Vishesh Entertainment Ltd. and directed by Vikram Bhatt. It features Aftab Shivdasani in his second Bollywood appearance and Lisa Ray in her Bollywood debut. Ray's voice was dubbed by Divya Dutta. Aftab's voice was dubbed by Vikram Bhatt. The film also stars Apoorva Agnihotri, Irrfan Khan and Ashutosh Rana in supporting roles. It was released on 2 February 2001.
1064276	Rachel Miner (born July 29, 1980) is a Broadway, film, and television actress, born in New York City. Career. Television. Miner's television credits include Vickie in "" (1990), Michelle Bauer on "Guiding Light" (1989–1995), a guest starring role as Laurel in a "Sex and the City" episode, "Twenty-something Girls vs. Thirty-something Women" (1999) and Astrid in "NY-LON" (2004). She appears in the 2007 television series "Californication", as Dani California, a reference to a character appearing in several songs by the Red Hot Chili Peppers. In 2008, she appeared in "The Sacrifice", an episode of "Fear Itself". In 2009, she appeared in "Sympathy for the Devil", the fifth season premiere of "Supernatural", as Meg Masters demon and the same season's tenth episode, "Abandon All Hope". She reprised the role in season six's "Caged Heat", also the tenth episode of that season, and season seven's "The Born-Again Identity", with further appearances in "Reading is Fundamental" and the season finale "Survival of the Fittest." She reprised her role as Meg episode "Goodbye Stranger". Theater. Among her theater credits are Jennifer in Laura Cahill's "Naked Faith: The Way at Naked Angels in New York" (1994), Margot Frank (replacing original cast member Missy Yager) in "The Diary of Anne Frank" on Broadway (1997), Rivkele in Donald Margulies's adaptation of Sholem Asch's "God of Vengeance" at ACT Theatre in Seattle (2000), Sandy in Rebecca Gilman's "Blue Surge" at the Goodman Theatre in Chicago (2001) and at The Public Theater in New York (2002). Personal life. A third generation Miner in show business, she is the daughter of director and teacher Peter Miner and the granddaughter of director/producer Worthington Miner and actress Frances Fuller. In 1998 she married "Home Alone" actor Macaulay Culkin. The marriage ended in divorce four years later.
1033364	Andrew Pleavin (born 13 April 1968) is an English actor known for his appearances in the TV film "Attila", "Unstoppable", "Batman Begins", "Attack of the Gryphon", "Return to House on Haunted Hill" and his roles in the British police dramas "Messiah III: the Promise" and "The Bill". In February 2006, he was cast in "300" by Frank Miller, a film in which he plays a character called "Daxos." Andrew was born in England but spent his early years in Transvaal, South Africa. He returned to the UK and to the Wirral in Northern England, aged 12, and received a black belt status in martial arts at the age of 18 after six years of training in Liverpool and London. From 1993 to 1996, he trained at the London Drama Centre.
1063894	Breckin Erin Meyer (born May 7, 1974) is an American actor, comedian, writer, producer, and drummer. Early life. Meyer was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, the son of Dorothy Ann (née Vial), a travel agent and former microbiologist, and Christopher William Meyer, a management consultant. He has lived in California, Texas, West Virginia, and New Jersey. He has an older brother, Frank, and a younger brother, Adam. Meyer attended elementary school with Drew Barrymore (and was apparently her first kiss) and also attended Beverly Hills High School. Through his elementary school, he came into contact with Barrymore's agent, who signed Meyer. As a child, he was mostly seen in television advertisements. Career. Meyer played several roles as a druggie, starting with his debut in "" (1991), in which he was dispatched in a video game. His breakthrough screen role was in the teen hit "Clueless" (1995) as the skateboarding stoner. Meyer offered similar characterizations in "The Craft" and John Carpenter's "Escape from L.A." (both 1996). He played the best friend of an Olympic hopeful in the biopic "Prefontaine" (1997) and as a high-school student yearning to leave his hometown in "Dancer, Texas Pop. 81" (1998). In "54" (also 1998), a look at life in the famous '70s nightspot Studio 54, the actor was cast as a busboy married to the coat check girl (Salma Hayek) and pursued by a bartender (Ryan Phillippe). Meyer is close friends with Phillippe, with whom he and Seth Green share a production company. Meyer would subsequently appear in films including "Go" (1999) and "The Insider" (1999) before graduating to full-fledged leading roles in the DreamWorks hit "Road Trip" (2000), in which he again travels across country as a college student hoping desperately to retrieve a videotape of himself having sex with another girl, which was inadvertently mailed to his long-distance girlfriend. "Road Trip" marked the first indication that Meyer's well-developed slacker sidekick persona had matured and could be tweaked to make him a full-fledged star. He was reteamed with Amy Smart in yet another racing cross country film, this time as part of the multi-plot ensemble of "Rat Race" (2001), a sort-of homage to the all-star screwball chase films of the 1960s, such as "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World." Meyer put in a winning supporting turn as Meg Ryan's brother in the whimsical fantasy-comedy "Kate & Leopold" (2001). Meyer also took on the role of Jon, the hapless owner of the famed comic book cat in the film adaptation of "Garfield" (2004). He also starred in "Blue State" with Anna Paquin in which he plays a passionately liberal guy on the campaign trail for John Kerry in the 2004 elections. He drunkenly pledges to move to Canada if Bush wins the election, and on his journey meets a mysterious young woman, played by Paquin. Meyer costars with Matthew McConaughey in "Ghosts of Girlfriends Past" (2009). He also plays the rich antagonist in the music video "100 Little Curses" by Street Sweeper Social Club (2009). Meyer was nominated for an Emmy for his writing on "", and regularly does voice work on "Robot Chicken". He also supplies the voice for the adolescent Joseph Gribble on the animated series "King of the Hill". Meyer currently stars on the Adult Swim series "Titan Maximum". He's also a musician, playing drums in the punk band The Street Walkin' Cheetahs and with Tom Morello's The Nightwatchman, as well as Ben Harper, Cypress Hill, Slash and Perry Farrell at L.A.'s Hotel Café.
722612	Innocent Lies is a 1995 British-French thriller film directed by Patrick Dewolf and starring Stephen Dorff, Gabrielle Anwar, Adrian Dunbar and Joanna Lumley. It is a loose adaptation of the Agatha Christie novel "Towards Zero". Keira Knightley had an early role in the film, playing the younger version of Celia Graves, the character portrayed by Anwar. Its French title was Les Pêchés mortels. Synopsis. A British policeman travels to France in 1938, to investigate the death of one of his colleagues. He becomes interested by a family of wealthy Britons who live in luxury in a French coastal resort, and who were heavily involved with the dead man. He soon uncovers a number of dark secrets which the family has tried to conceal.
1179709	Paloma Faith (born Paloma Faith Blomfield; 21 July 1981) is an English singer-songwriter and actress, known for her unique, retro and eccentric style. In 2009, she released her debut album "Do You Want the Truth or Something Beautiful?", which was certified double Platinum in the United Kingdom. The album spawned five singles, of which the first two were UK Top 20 hits: "Stone Cold Sober", "New York", title track "Do You Want the Truth or Something Beautiful?", "Upside Down" and "Smoke & Mirrors". In 2011, Faith was nominated for "British Female Solo Artist" at the BRIT Awards. Faith made her feature film debut in the 2007 remake "St Trinian's", she has since appeared in two further feature films, "The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus" and "Dread".
1164585	Anne Hampton "Annie" Potts (born October 28, 1952) is an American film and television actress. She played parts in 1980s popular films such as "Ghostbusters" (1984), "Pretty in Pink" (1986), "Jumpin' Jack Flash" (1986), "Who's Harry Crumb?" (1989), and "Ghostbusters II" (1989). Potts is also a voice-actress. She played Bo Peep in "Toy Story" and "Toy Story 2". Potts also played Mary Jo Jackson Shively on CBS sitcom "Designing Women" (1986–1993), Dana Palladino on "Love & War" (1993-1995), for which she was nominated for Emmy Award, and Mary Elizabeth Sims in the Lifetime drama series "Any Day Now" (1998–2002), for which she was nominated for two Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Drama Series. In 2012, she starred as Gigi Stopper on the ABC comedy-drama series "GCB". Early life and education. Potts was born in Nashville, Tennessee, and grew up in Franklin, Kentucky, where she graduated from Franklin-Simpson High School. She is the daughter of Powell Grisette Potts and Dorothy Harris (Billingslea) Potts and has two older sisters, Mary Eleanor (Potts) Hovious, and Elizabeth Grissette ("Dollie") Potts. She received a Bachelor in Fine Arts degree (in theater arts) from Stephens College in Columbia, Missouri. At the age of 21, Potts was the victim of a car accident which left nearly every bone below her waist broken. Career. Potts made her debut on the big screen in 1978 in the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer comedy film "Corvette Summer", with Mark Hamill. She was nominated for a Golden Globe Award in 1979 for her role in the film. In 1982 she won Genie Awards for Best Performance by a Foreign Actress for role in the film "Heartaches", about a young woman, married to a stock car racer and carrying his friend's child. In 1980, she played Edith Bedelmeyer, a woman who shared an attic apartment with three other women (played by Georgia Engel, Lorna Patterson and Francine Tacker) on the short-lived comedy series, "Goodtime Girls".
1079726	Skandar Keynes (; born Alexander Amin Casper Keynes; 5 September 1991) is a British actor. He is best known for starring as Edmund Pevensie in the "Chronicles of Narnia" film series since 2005. He has appeared in all three installments, ', ' and most recently "", which was released on 10 December 2010. Early life. Keynes was born in London, the son of Zelfa Hourani and author Randal Keynes. He has an older sister, Soumaya Anne Keynes (born August 1989), who has appeared in various productions for BBC Radio 4. Ancestry. On his mother's side, Keynes is of Lebanese, Persian and Turkish descent. (The nickname Skandar is Pashto for the Greek name "Alexander", Pashto being an Afghan language like Persian, or is short for "Iskander," an Arabic variant.) Keynes is denied the right to Lebanese citizenship, as Lebanese women are not allowed to pass their nationality on to their children, thus he has no right to the nation's public services, or to legally receive his family inheritance in the country he considers his second home. His maternal grandparents were Furugh Afnan and Cecil Fadlo Hourani, who was an advisor to the late Tunisian president Habib Bourguiba, as well as an author; Cecil Hourani is also the brother of Albert Hourani, a major historian of the Middle East. Cecil's family were immigrants to Britain from Marjeyoun in southern Lebanon. On his father's side, Keynes is the grandson of physiologist Richard Keynes, the nephew of two Cambridge professors, the historian Simon Keynes, and the neuroscientist Roger Keynes, the cousin of Catholic writer and apologist Laura Keynes, and the great-great-nephew of economist John Maynard Keynes. His great-great-great-grandfather was naturalist Charles Darwin. Keynes' great-grandparents were Nobel Prize laureate Edgar Adrian, 1st Baron Adrian and Hester Adrian, Baroness Adrian. Career. Keynes auditioned for the role of Edmund Pevensie in "" at the same time as he auditioned for the role of Simon Brown in "Nanny McPhee", winning the former while losing the latter to Thomas Sangster. His voice changed, due to puberty, during the filming of "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe", so the director used his sister Soumaya to voice some of his lines in the movie. He reprised his role as Edmund in "", released 16 May 2008. Keynes told an interviewer, who praised him for becoming "an action hero," that he "felt so cheated because one of my very first action scenes was the very beginning of the battle when I run and I jump off a block and get on a horse as it's going by. On one take I missed the horse. I basically didn't manage to land on it but I managed to hold on and I was flung around and almost smacked into one of those stone columns. I slammed on the ground and bruised my heel so badly that I couldn't walk on it and it was throbbing constantly. I had to do the rest of the battle with a bruised heel. Sometimes if you watch my running it looks a bit odd; I wonder if other people notice it or if it's just me noticing! I had to do a lot of that sequence high on pain medication!" They also discussed his relationships with the other cast and crew members. He starred again as Edmund in "", the third installment of "The Chronicles of Narnia" film series. Filming began in July 2009, and finished in December of the same year. The film was released on 10 December 2010 in Britain and the US. In preparation for this film, Keynes studied to earn his Professional Association of Diving Instructors license for underwater scenes. Personal life. Keynes is an atheist. Keynes attended the Anna Scher Theatre School from 2000 to 2005, having attended Thornhill Primary School from 1996–2002. He attended the all-boys City of London School from 2005. There he wrote as a film critic for the review section of "The Citizen", the City of London School weekly school newspaper. He sat his GCSEs in May and June 2008 and started Sixth Form and his first year of his A-level studies the following September. He studied biology, chemistry, maths, further maths and history at A-level. In October 2010 he began his degree in Arabic and Middle Eastern History at Pembroke College, Cambridge. He is a fan of English football club Arsenal. He and his family have visited Marjeyoun since he was a child. "We've been coming every year to Lebanon and visiting Marjeyoun despite the political situation. I was here in 1996 during Operation Grapes of Wrath. I was four at the time and I had no concept that it was war," Keynes told a reporter. "I remember when the gravity of the situation dawned on me. It was during the 2006 July war, I was 14 then… but it didn't really shake my view of Lebanon as effectively a second home, a place where I come to and I have family." Keynes explains that he is cognizant of the political situation:
1162239	Robert Guy Torry (born January 5, 1969) is an American actor and comedian. Early life. Guy Torry was born in St. Louis, Missouri, but ended up being adopted by former major leaguer Frank Torre. Torre and his wife Anne decided to change the "e" in Guy's name to a "y," in order to set him apart from his father and his uncle, Joe Torre. He attended Southeast Missouri State University where fellow comedian and St. Louisan Cedric the Entertainer attended. While attending college, Torry developed his talent for comedy. After college, Guy eventually took his talents to Hollywood, where he took up comedy and acting. Career. Guy Torry began his acting career around the age of 23. He made minor appearances on shows such as "Martin". In 1997, he became a regular cast member of UPN's short-lived sitcom "Good News". He eventually started touring all around the world doing stand-up comedy, with numerous sold-out events and standing ovations. He appeared on "Def Jam Comedy", which was another successful comedy show that featured his brother Joe Torry as one of the hosts, as well as appearances on Comedy Central and "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno". Also, he created and hosted a very successful weekly comedy show called "Phat Tuesdays", at one of America's most famous comedy hubs "The Comedy Store." "Phat Tuesdays" formed in 1995 and lasted for 10 years. Guy Torry was also an original member of the "Kings of Comedy" in 1998, where he hosted for the first year. He could not continue the second year due to a starring role he landed on the UPN action-drama "The Strip". He also wrote for other television series such as "Martin" and "Moesha" among others. He started breaking into films in the mid-1990s and since then has had parts in many films, including "Don't Be a Menace to South Central While Drinking Your Juice in the Hood", "Life", and "Trippin'". His most notable role was as a convict named Lamont in "American History X", who helped turn a young Nazi-skinhead's life around while in prison. In 2003 Torry's brother founded a film production company called MO Films, and Guy is slated to be an actor, writer, and producer of various projects from the company. He also works on "The Tony Scott Morning Show" along with host Tony Scott and Tammy Holland. Charity work. His brother founded the Giving Back the Love Foundation in 1996 and ever since then Guy has been an avid supporter of the program. This foundation gives back to his hometown community (St. Louis) through youth and community programs. He also donated his time and sometimes money to other charity foundations of celebrity athletes such as: NFL Football players Terrell Owens, Marshall Faulk, Torrey and Terrence Holt, Ronald Curry, Andre Johnson, Ray Lewis, NBA Basketball players Shaquille O'Neal, Jimmy Jackson, Magic Johnson, Tarence Kinsey, Chris Weber, The NBA Entertainment League, and several other charities, including the Celebrity Cat Walk, Shoes For Africa,and the LA Union Rescue Mission for Thanksgiving and Christmas.
402409	Angela Kay "Angie" Everhart, born September 7, 1969, is an American actress, former model who has appeared in several Sports Illustrated swimsuit issues in the 1990s and posing nude for Playboy in 2000. Early life. Everhart was born in Akron, Ohio, the daughter of homemaker Ginnie and engineer Bob Everhart.
1164925	Robert Charles Benchley (September 15, 1889 – November 21, 1945) was an American humorist best known for his work as a newspaper columnist and film actor. From his beginnings at the "Harvard Lampoon" while attending Harvard University, through his many years writing essays and articles for "Vanity Fair" and "The New Yorker", and his acclaimed short films, Benchley's style of humor brought him respect and success during his life, from New York City and his peers at the Algonquin Round Table to contemporaries in the burgeoning film industry. Benchley is best remembered for his contributions to "The New Yorker", where his essays, whether topical or absurdist, influenced many modern humorists. He also made a name for himself in Hollywood, when his short film "How to Sleep" was a popular success and won Best Short Subject at the 1935 Academy Awards, and his many memorable appearances in films such as Alfred Hitchcock's "Foreign Correspondent" and a dramatic turn in "Nice Girl?". His legacy includes written work and numerous short film appearances. Biography. Although Benchley was known for misleading and fictional autobiographical statements about himself (at one point asserting that he wrote "A Tale of Two Cities" before being buried at Westminster Abbey), he actually was the great-grandchild of the founder of Benchley, Texas, Henry Wetherby Benchley, who was jailed for his help with the Underground Railroad. Robert Benchley was born on September 15, 1889 in Worcester, Massachusetts, to Charles and Maria Benchley.
1166402	Candace Helaine Cameron Bure (born April 6, 1976) is an American actress, producer, and author. She is best known as a child actor, playing D.J. Tanner on the television series "Full House" from ages 10 to 18. She is the sister of actor Kirk Cameron. Early life. Candace Cameron Bure was born in Panorama City, Los Angeles, California to Robert Cameron and Barbara Bausmith Cameron. She is one of four children. Career. Following in the footsteps of her older brother Kirk, Candace decided to pursue acting. She started in the entertainment business by appearing in a number of television commercials. Soon after, she guest starred roles on shows such as "St. Elsewhere", "Growing Pains", and "Who's the Boss?". (Among the roles for which she auditioned was the lead on "Small Wonder" which ultimately went to Tiffany Brissette.) In a 1985 episode of the sitcom "Punky Brewster", Cameron portrayed a girl named Jennifer who had been kidnapped by her father. In 1987, she had a role as the youngest sister of Eric Stoltz in the teen comedy "Some Kind of Wonderful". She began the most prominent role of her career in 1987 on the ensemble sitcom "Full House", as Donna Jo "D.J." Tanner, the oldest daughter. The long-running series ended in 1995, and she was a member of the cast during its entire run. While Cameron was on "Full House", she was also featured in made-for-TV movies. She starred as an abused teenager in "No One Would Tell" followed by "She Cried No" as a date raped teenager and "NightScream", a mystery. Cameron guest starred in the failed TV pilot "Real Mature" and in an episode of "Bill Nye The Science Guy" as "Candace the Science Gal". She also appeared in the Tom Hanks and Sally Field feature film "Punchline". Cameron has hosted the Nickelodeon Kids' Choice Awards in 1990 with Dave Coulier and David Faustino, and again in 1994 with Joey Lawrence and Marc Weiner, becoming the first person to host twice or more (followed by Whitney Houston, Rosie O'Donnell and Jack Black). After "Full House". After "Full House" ended in 1995, Cameron guest starred on such network hits as "Cybill" and "Boy Meets World". After the birth of her children, she took a self-imposed hiatus from television and film to devote her time to her family and children. In the 2000s, she appeared as an interview on the retrospective "I Love the '80s" and "I Love the '80s Strikes Back". She would later co-host "50 Cutest Child Stars: All Grown Up" on the E! network, along with Keshia Knight Pulliam of "The Cosby Show" fame. In 2006, she guest starred on the sitcom "That's So Raven". The following year, she co-starred with Randy Travis in "The Wager", and starred with Tom Arnold in the television movie "Moonlight and Mistletoe" for the Hallmark Channel in 2008. Cameron returned to a television series in 2009 and was cast in "Make It or Break It", a teenage gymnastics drama series on ABC Family, playing Summer Van Horne. The series ended in 2012. Book. Cameron-Bure has written a book, "Reshaping It All" (ISBN 1433669730), published in January 2011. It was a "New York Times" best seller. Personal life. Cameron Bure married Russian NHL hockey player Valeri Bure in 1996. They were first introduced at a charity hockey game by her "Full House" co-star Dave Coulier. Cameron Bure and her husband have three children: daughter Natasha (born 1998) and sons Lev (born 2000) and Maksim (born 2002). Candace became a Christian in her teen years; she credits her faith as the binding force in her marriage.
1062488	Jesse Adam Eisenberg (born October 5, 1983) is an American actor and playwright. He made his screen debut with the comedy-drama television series "Get Real", from 1999 to 2000. After his first leading role, in the film "Roger Dodger" (2002), he appeared in the movies "The Emperor's Club" (2002), "The Squid and the Whale" (2005), "The Living Wake" (2007) and "The Education of Charlie Banks" (2007). In 2007, Eisenberg was honored with the Vail Film Festival Rising Star Award for his role as Mills Joquin in "The Living Wake". In 2009, he starred in the comedy drama "Adventureland" and the horror comedy "Zombieland", for which he won critical acclaim. He then played Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg in "The Social Network" (2010), for which he received a Golden Globe and Academy Award nomination in the Best Actor category. He also starred in "Holy Rollers" (2010), which was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival. Since then, he has voiced the main character in the animated film "Rio" (2011), and starred in the comedy "30 Minutes or Less" (2011) and the caper film "Now You See Me" (2013). He will once again voice Blu in "Rio 2", which is scheduled for a 2014 release. Early life. Eisenberg was born in Queens, New York, and grew up in Queens and East Brunswick Township, New Jersey. His mother, Amy (née Fishman), worked as a clown at children's parties, and his father, Barry Eisenberg, worked at a hospital and later became a college professor. He has two siblings, Hallie Kate Eisenberg, a former child actress who was once famous as the "Pepsi girl" in a series of commercials, and Kerri. He was raised in a secular Jewish family that originated in Poland and Ukraine. He attended the East Brunswick Public Schools at Frost School, Hammarskjold Middle School, Churchill Junior High School; he spent his sophomore year at East Brunswick High School. Eisenberg struggled to fit in at school and began acting in plays at the age of 10. He stated, "When playing a role, I would feel more comfortable, as you're given a prescribed way of behaving." After graduating from high school, he studied anthropology at The New School in Greenwich Village, New York City. Originally, he had applied and was accepted to New York University, but declined enrollment in order to complete a film role. Career. Eisenberg's first professional role was in Arje Shaw's off-Broadway play, "The Gathering". Eisenberg made his Broadway debut as an understudy in a 1996 revival of "Summer and Smoke". He made his screen debut in the 1999 television series "Get Real", which was canceled in 2000. In 2001, Eisenberg appeared in a Dr. Pepper commercial in the UK. After appearing in the made-for-television film "Lightning: Fire from the Sky", he starred in the independent film "Roger Dodger" (for which he won an award at the San Diego film festival), and in "The Emperor's Club", both of which were released in 2002 to generally positive reviews. In 2005, Eisenberg appeared in "Cursed", a horror film directed by Wes Craven, and "The Squid and the Whale", a well-reviewed independent drama also starring Laura Linney and Jeff Daniels. In 2007, he starred opposite Richard Gere and Terrence Howard in "The Hunting Party", a comic thriller in which he plays a young journalist in Bosnia. In 2009, Eisenberg played the lead role in "Adventureland", a comedy directed by Greg Mottola and filmed in Kennywood Park near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Filming ended in October 2007, and the movie premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2009. In November 2007, Eisenberg was cast in the indie comic-drama "Holy Rollers". He played a young Hasidic Jew who gets lured into becoming an ecstasy dealer. Filming took place in New York in 2008. During the late 2000s, he also had roles in the independent films "Solitary Man", playing Cheston, and "Camp Hope", a horror film directed by George Van Buskirk. Eisenberg's breakthrough starring role was as the neurotic Columbus in "Zombieland". The horror comedy, which paired him with Woody Harrelson on a roadtrip through a post-zombie apocalypse America, was a surprise hit. In 2010, he starred alongside Andrew Garfield in the role of Facebook creator Mark Zuckerberg in the film "The Social Network", for which he earned the Best Actor Award from the National Board of Review of Motion Pictures, and nominations for Best Actor at the Golden Globes and Academy Awards. On November 22, 2010, Eisenberg was honored, along with Whoopi Goldberg, Joycelyn Engle and Harvey Krueger, at the Children at Heart Celebrity Dinner Gala and Fantasy Auction, to benefit The Children of Chernobyl. Steven Spielberg is Chair of the event each year. On January 29, 2011, Eisenberg hosted "Saturday Night Live" on NBC, with musical guest Nicki Minaj. During his opening monologue, Eisenberg was joined by Facebook creator Mark Zuckerberg. In 2011, he starred in the box-office animated hit "Rio", as the main character Blu, a Spix's Macaw who learns how to fly, starring alongside Anne Hathaway, his former co-star (and onscreen sibling) from "Get Real", George Lopez, Jake T. Austin, Tracy Morgan, Jemaine Clement, Leslie Mann, Rodrigo Santoro, will.i.am, and Jamie Foxx. He contributed his singing voice for one of the songs in the soundtrack, "Real in Rio". He also starred in "30 Minutes or Less", released August 2011. In October 2011, Eisenberg made his playwriting debut Off-Broadway in Rattlestick Playwrights Theater's production of "Asuncion," presented at Cherry Lane Theatre. Eisenberg also acted in the play that was directed by Kip Fagan. The play highlights two liberal-minded friends whose assumptions are challenged by their new Filipina roommate, played by Camille Mana. In 2012, he starred alongside Melissa Leo in "Why Stop Now", a drama about a drug addict mother and her piano prodigy son, and in the romantic comedy "To Rome with Love". Also in 2012, he filed a $3 million lawsuit claiming he was exploited by the producers of the direct-to-DVD movie, "Camp Hell". According to the lawsuit, in 2007 Eisenberg agreed to appear in "Camp Hell" as a favor to his friends. He was on set for only one day of filming, and logged only a few minutes of total screen time. Because he was only minimally involved in the movie, he was surprised to see that his face was prominently featured on the cover of the DVD, implying that he starred in the film. His lawsuit asserts various California law causes of action, including claims for unfair business practices and publicity rights. In 2013, Eisenberg reunited with Woody Harrelson for the magician crime thriller "Now You See Me". Eisenberg plans to write for stage and screen. He has joined the cast of Richard Ayoade's comedy, "The Double", set to shoot in spring or summer 2012. Deadline.com reported that he has signed up to reprise his role as Blu for "Rio 2", which is scheduled for a 2014 release. Personal life. Eisenberg is fond of cats and has been involved in fostering the animals. He is a vegetarian. He has been associated with Farm Sanctuary and has presented at several of their galas. He has also mentioned enjoying riding his bicycle in New York City. While filming "The Hunting Party" in Bosnia and Herzegovina in 2006, Eisenberg came up with an idea for a simple wordplay website where people could respond to a daily wordplay topic in an attempt to "one-up" each other in the cleverness of their response. He turned to his first cousin, Eric Fisher, who, incidentally, most recently was the Social Design evangelist at Facebook, to create the site, while the userbase is built solely off Facebook.
147705	Steven Howard "Steve" Antin (born April 19, 1958) is an American actor, stunt man, screenwriter, producer, and director. Early life. Antin was born in Queens, New York, the son of British Jewish immigrants. He is the brother of fellow actor Neil Antin, Pussycat Dolls founder Robin Antin, and celebrity hairstylist Jonathan Antin. Career. Antin is remembered as Troy, the bad-guy preppie jock in Steven Spielberg's "The Goonies" and as a co-lead in the film "The Last American Virgin". He also had a memorable performance as one of the rapists in the Academy Award-winning film "The Accused". He can also be remembered as Jessie in Rick Springfield's "Jessie's Girl" video at 0:46 and 3:10. His screenplay "Inside Monkey Zetterland" was turned into a film featuring many respected independent performers. In the late 1990s he made several appearances in gay-oriented films including "It's My Party", co-starring Eric Roberts and comedian Margaret Cho. Antin himself later came out publicly. Antin also enjoyed a successful career as a stunt performer in dozens of films. In recent years, Antin has turned to working as a successful screenwriter, writing such films as "Gloria" (1999) and "Chasing Papi". He also created, wrote and produced the television series "Young Americans" for The WB. In the late 2000s, Antin turned to directing. He has directed several music videos (such as Girlicious' "Like Me"), as well as newcoming artists, Destinee & Paris's "FairyTale" music video, and in 2006, the feature film "The Good Mother" starring Angie Harmon, produced by Billy Pollina. He is one of the executive producers and creators of The CW's 2007 reality series which seeks to find the next member for the hit pop group, the Pussycat Dolls. Antin, who is openly gay, was once the boyfriend of David Geffen. They were together for a little more than one year. Antin directed the film "Burlesque", released in 2010, and starring pop singer Christina Aguilera, Stanley Tucci, Cam Gigandet, and Academy Award-winner Cher.
1040047	Steven Webb (born 8 November 1984) is an English actor who has been performing in theatre, television and film from the age of eight. Webb was born in Wirral, near Liverpool in the UK. Career. After taking over the lead role in "Oliver!" at the London Palladium at age 10, Webb enrolled at Sylvia Young Theatre School. His most notable work includes appearing as Posner in the second casting of Alan Bennett’s "The History Boys". He also appeared in the BBC series "The Magician's House" which features actors such as Katie Stuart, Ian Richardson, Stephen Fry and Jennifer Saunders. He appeared as a child dancer alongside Michael Jackson during the 1996 Brit Awards; getting knocked off stage and cracking a rib when Jarvis Cocker came on. He has also appeared in the ITV drama series, "Bad Girls" (2001, 2006) in which he played David Saunders, son of inmate, Julie Saunders.
1061238	The Best Years of Our Lives is a 1946 American drama film directed by William Wyler and starring Myrna Loy, Fredric March, Dana Andrews, Teresa Wright, Virginia Mayo, and Harold Russell. The film is about three United States servicemen readjusting to civilian life after coming home from World War II. Samuel Goldwyn was inspired to produce a film about veterans after reading an August 7, 1944 article in "Time" about the difficulties experienced by men returning to civilian life. Goldwyn hired former war correspondent MacKinlay Kantor to write a screenplay. His work was first published as a novella, "Glory for Me", which Kantor wrote in blank verse. Robert Sherwood then adapted the novella as a screenplay. "The Best Years of Our Lives" won seven Academy Awards in 1946, including Best Picture, Best Director (William Wyler), Best Actor (Fredric March), Best Supporting Actor (Harold Russell), Best Film Editing (Daniel Mandell), Best Adapted Screenplay (Robert Sherwood), and Best Original Score (Hugo Friedhofer). In addition to its critical success, the film quickly became a great commercial success upon release. It became the highest-grossing film in both the United States and UK since the release of "Gone with the Wind". It remains the sixth most-attended film of all time in the UK, with over 20 million tickets sold. The film had one of the highest viewing figures of all time, with ticket sales exceeding $20.4 million. Plot. After World War II, Fred Derry (Dana Andrews), Homer Parrish (Harold Russell), and Al Stephenson (Fredric March) meet while flying home to Boone City (a fictional city patterned after Cincinnati, Ohio). Fred was a decorated Army Air Forces captain and bombardier in Europe. Homer lost both hands from burns suffered when his aircraft carrier was sunk, and now uses mechanical hook prostheses. Al served as an infantry platoon sergeant in the Pacific. All three have trouble adjusting to civilian life. Al has a comfortable home and a loving family: wife Milly (Myrna Loy), adult daughter Peggy (Teresa Wright), and college freshman son Rob. He returns to his old job as a bank loan officer. The bank president views his military experience as valuable in dealing with other returning servicemen. When Al approves a loan (without collateral) to a young Navy veteran, however, the president advises him against making a habit of it. Later, at a banquet held in his honor, a slightly inebriated Al expounds his belief that the bank (and America) must stand with the vets who risked everything to defend the country and give them every chance to rebuild their lives. Before the war, Fred had been an unskilled drugstore soda jerk. He wants something better, but the tight postwar job market forces him to return to his old job. Fred had met Marie (Virginia Mayo) while in flight training and married her shortly afterward, before shipping out less than a month later. She became a nightclub waitress while Fred was overseas. Marie makes it clear she does not enjoy being married to a lowly soda jerk. Homer was a football quarterback and became engaged to Wilma (Cathy O'Donnell) before joining the Navy. Both Homer and his parents now have trouble dealing with his disability. He does not want to burden Wilma with his handicap and so pushes her away, although she still wants to marry him. Peggy meets Fred while bringing her father home from a bar where the three men meet once again. They are attracted to each other. Peggy dislikes Marie, and informs her parents she intends to end Fred and Marie's marriage, but they tell her that their own marriage overcame similar problems. Concerned, Al demands that Fred stop seeing his daughter. Fred agrees, but the friendship between the two men is strained. At the drugstore, an obnoxious customer, who claims that the war was fought against the wrong enemies, gets into a fight with Homer. Fred intervenes and knocks the man into a glass counter, costing him his job. Later, Fred encourages Homer to put his misgivings behind him and marry Wilma, offering to be his best man. One evening, Wilma visits Homer and tells him that her parents want her to leave Boone City for an extended period to try to forget him. Homer bluntly demonstrates to her how hard life with him would be. When Wilma is undaunted, Homer reconsiders. On arriving home, Fred discovers his wife with another veteran (Steve Cochran). Marie tells him that she is getting a divorce. Fred decides to leave town, and gives his father his medals and citations. His father is unable to persuade Fred to stay. After Fred leaves, his father reads the citation for his Distinguished Flying Cross. At the airport, Fred books space on the first outbound aircraft, without regard for the destination. While waiting, he wanders into a vast aircraft boneyard. Inside the nose of a B-17, he relives the intense memories of combat. The boss of a work crew rouses him from his flashback. When the man says the aluminum from the aircraft is being salvaged to build housing, Fred persuades the boss to hire him. Homer and Wilma's wedding takes place in the Parrish home, with the now-divorced Fred as Homer's best man. Fred and Peggy watch each other from across the room. After the ceremony, he approaches and holds her, telling her that it will be a struggle before they become comfortable. She smiles, and they kiss and embrace. Cast. Casting brought together established stars as well as character actors and relative unknowns. Famed drummer Gene Krupa was seen in archival footage, while Tennessee Ernie Ford, later a famous television star, appeared as an uncredited "hillbilly singer" (in the first of his only three film appearances). At the time the film was shot, Ford was unknown as a singer. He worked in San Bernardino as a radio announcer-disc jockey. Blake Edwards, later notable as a film producer and director, appeared fleetingly as an uncredited "Corporal". Actress Judy Wyler was cast in her first role in her father's production. Production. Director William Wyler had flown combat missions over Europe in filming "" (1944) and worked hard to get accurate depictions of the combat veterans he had encountered. Wheeler changed the original casting that had featured a veteran suffering from posttraumatic stress disorder and sought out Harold Russell, a non-actor to take on the exacting role of Homer Parrish. For "The Best Years of Our Lives", he asked the principal actors to purchase their own clothes, in order to connect with daily life and produce an authentic feeling. Other Wyler touches included constructing life-size sets, which went against the standard larger sets that were more suited to camera positions. The impact for the audience was immediate, as each scene played out in a realistic, natural way. The movie began filming on April 15, 1946 at a variety of locations, including the Los Angeles County Arboretum and Botanic Garden, Ontario International Airport, Ontario, California, Raleigh Studios, Hollywood, and the Samuel Goldwyn/Warner Hollywood Studios. Many scenes were also filmed in Phoenixville, PA, most notably the banking scenes using the Farmers and Mechanics Bank located on Main Street and various other scenes showing Bridge Street and Main Street in Phoenixville, PA. "The Best Years of Our Lives" is notable for cinematographer Gregg Toland's use of deep focus photography, in which objects both close to and distant from the camera are in sharp focus. For the passage of Fred Derry's reliving a combat mission while sitting in the remains of a former bomber, Wyler used "zoom" effects to simulate an aircraft's taking off. The "Jackson High" football stadium seen early in the movie in aerial footage was Corcoran Stadium, the home of Xavier University's (Cincinnati) football team from 1929 to 1973. After the war, the combat aircraft featured in the film were being destroyed and disassembled for reuse as scrap material. The scene of Derry's walking among aircraft ruins was filmed at the Ontario Army Air Field in Ontario, California. The former training facility had been converted into a scrap yard, housing nearly 2,000 former combat aircraft in various states of disassembly and reclamation. Big-band jazz drummer Gene Krupa briefly appears in a montage of nightclub performers. Reception. Critical response. Upon its release, "The Best Years of Our Lives" received extremely positive reviews from critics. Shortly after its premiere at the Astor Theater, New York, Bosley Crowther, film critic for "The New York Times," hailed the film as a masterpiece. He wrote, David Thomson offers tempered praise: "I would concede that "Best Years" is decent and humane... acutely observed, despite being so meticulous a package. It would have taken uncommon genius and daring at that time to sneak a view of an untidy or unresolved America past Goldwyn or the public." The film has a 97% "Fresh" rating at Rotten Tomatoes, based on 37 reviews. Chicago Sun Times film critic Roger Ebert put the film on his "Great Movies" list in 2007, calling it "...modern, lean, and honest." "The Best Years of Our Lives" was a massive popular success, earning an estimated $11.5 million at the North American box office during its initial theatrical run. When box office prices are adjusted for inflation, it remains one of the top 100 grossing films in U.S. history. Among films released before 1950, only "Gone With the Wind", "The Bells of St. Mary's", and four Disney titles have done more total business, in part due to later re-releases. (Reliable box office figures for certain early films such as "Birth of a Nation" and Charlie Chaplin's comedies are unavailable.) Awards and honors. 1947 Academy Awards "The Best Years of Our Lives" received nine Academy Awards. Fredric March won his second Best Actor award (after winning in 1932 for "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde"). Despite his Oscar-nominated performance, Harold Russell was not a professional actor. As the Academy Board of Governors considered him a long shot to win, they gave him an honorary award "for bringing hope and courage to his fellow veterans through his appearance". When Russell won Best Supporting Actor, there was an enthusiastic response. He is the only actor to have received two Academy Awards for the same performance. He later sold his Best Supporting Actor award at auction for $60,500, to pay his wife's medical bills. Some posters say the film won nine Academy Awards, this is due to the honorary award won by Harold Russell, and the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award won by Samuel Goldwyn, in addition to the seven awards for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Screenplay, Best Supporting Actor, Best Editing, and Best Music Score. 1947 Golden Globe Awards 1947 Brussels World Film Festival 1948 BAFTA Awards Other wins In 1989, the National Film Registry selected it for preservation in the United States Library of Congress as being deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant." American Film Institute recognition
1040003	Paterson Joseph (born 22 June 1964) is a British actor best known for his role as Alan Johnson in Channel 4 sitcom "Peep Show". Career. Joseph was born in London and attended Cardinal Hinsley R.C High School in North West London. He first trained at the Studio '68 of Theatre Arts, London (South Kensington Library) from 1983 to 1985 with Robert Henderson, then at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art (LAMDA). He has played many roles in continuing British television programmes, both drama and comedy. These include Reuben in "William and Mary" alongside Martin Clunes; Mark Grace in "Casualty"; the Marquis de Carabas in "Neverwhere"; Alan Johnson in "Peep Show"; Lyndon Jones in "Green Wing" and Shorty in the first episode of "Jericho". He also appeared in the acclaimed drama "Sex Traffic", in the TV version of Kwame Kwei-Armah's acclaimed play "Elmina's Kitchen" and in the "Doctor Who" episodes "Bad Wolf" and "The Parting of the Ways" as Rodrick, a contestant on a futuristic Weakest Link who is eventually killed by the Daleks. He has also appeared in various supporting roles in "Dead Ringers". In 2006 he appeared in the television sketch show "That Mitchell and Webb Look" where he played Simon, a contestant on the game show "Numberwang". He appeared as Keaty in the Hollywood film "The Beach" alongside Leonardo DiCaprio and starred as Giroux alongside Charlize Theron and Peter Clarke in Paramount Pictures's "Æon Flux". Joseph played Space Marshall Clarke in two series of the BBC sci-fi sitcom "Hyperdrive", and was Benjamin Maddox in the BBC serial-drama "Jekyll". He also provided the voice of K.O. Joe in "Chop Socky Chooks". In 2008, he played Greg Preston in "Survivors", the BBC remake of the 1970s science fiction drama of the same name. He would reprise the role for the second series in 2010, after which the program was cancelled. Also in 2008, Joseph appeared as former hitman Patrick Finch in Series 1, Episode 5 of The Fixer. In 2009, he was the bookmakers' favourite to become "Doctor Who"'s eleventh Doctor, but the role was awarded to Matt Smith. Joseph provided the narration for the National Geographic series Mega Cities from 2005 to 2011, and "Wild Russia" in 2009. He played Tyler in the BBC Switch film "Rules of Love" in 2010. In 2011, he returned to "Doctor Who" where he appeared in the audio drama "Earth Aid" in which he played Victor Espinosa. Joseph's theatre credits include the title role in "Othello", as well as parts in "Henry IV", "King Lear", and "Hamlet" for a performance in New York City. In 2012 he played Brutus in a performance by the RSC of "Julius Caesar" set in Africa. In 2004 he undertook a project, filmed for Channel 4 in a documentary entitled "My Shakespeare", to direct a version of "Romeo & Juliet", using 20 young non-actors from the deprived Harlesden area of London. In 2006, he became a patron of "OffWestEnd.com", a listings site for theatre outside the mainstream. His more recent stage appearances include the leads in "The Royal Hunt of the Sun" and "The Emperor Jones" at the Olivier Theatre, London. Personal life. Joseph lives in France with his wife and one son. He was a chef before becoming an actor.
1294529	Shafrira Goldwasser (; born 1958) is a professor of electrical engineering and computer science at MIT, and a professor of mathematical sciences at the Weizmann Institute of Science, Israel. Biography. Born in New York City, Goldwasser obtained her B.S. (1979) in mathematics and science from Carnegie Mellon University, and M.S. (1981) and PhD (1983) in computer science from the University of California, Berkeley. She joined MIT in 1983, and in 1997 became the first holder of the RSA Professorship. She became a professor at the Weizmann Institute of Science, concurrent to her professorship at MIT, in 1993. She is a member of the Theory of Computation group at MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory. Goldwasser was a co-recipient of the 2012 Turing Award. Her husband Nir Shavit is also the recipient of 2004 Godel prize. Scientific career. Goldwasser's research areas include computational complexity theory, cryptography and computational number theory. She is the co-inventor of zero-knowledge proofs, which probabilistically and interactively demonstrate the validity of an assertion without conveying any additional knowledge, and are a key tool in the design of cryptographic protocols. Her work in complexity theory includes the classification of approximation problems, showing that some problems in NP remain hard even when only an approximate solution is needed. Awards. Goldwasser has twice won the Gödel Prize in theoretical computer science: first in 1993 (for ""The knowledge complexity of interactive proof systems""), and again in 2001 (for ""Interactive Proofs and the Hardness of Approximating Cliques""). Other awards include the ACM Grace Murray Hopper Award (1996) for outstanding young computer professional of the year and the RSA Award in Mathematics (1998) for outstanding mathematical contributions to cryptography. In 2001 she was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, in 2004 she was elected to the National Academy of Science, and in 2005 to the National Academy of Engineering. She was selected as an IACR Fellow in 2007. Goldwasser received the 2008-2009 Athena Lecturer Award of the Association for Computing Machinery's Committee on Women in Computing. She is the recipient of The Franklin Institute's 2010 Benjamin Franklin Medal in Computer and Cognitive Science. She received the IEEE Emanuel R. Piore Award in 2011, and was awarded the 2012 Turing Award along with Silvio Micali for their work in the field of cryptography.
589194	Gumnaam (translation: "Unknown" or "Anonymous") is a 1965 Indian suspense thriller film directed by Raja Nawathe, starring Manoj Kumar, Nanda, Pran, Helen and Mehmood. The film became a box office hit. The music for the film was composed by Shankar-Jaikishan. The story is an uncredited adaptation of Agatha Christie's novel "And Then There Were None". The film came to wider attention in the Western World when its opening song "Jaan Pehechan Ho" (a Hindi phrase roughly translated as "We should get to know each other") was in the opening credits of "Ghost World" and in the 2011 commercial "The Date" for Heineken. It is sung by Bollywood legend Mohammed Rafi, although he is not the man depicted onscreen. The main dancer is Laxmi Chhaya. The group "Ted Lyons and his Cubs" playing the song can also be seen in 1964 film Jaanwar playing "Dekho Ab To" (a cover version of I Want to Hold Your Hand by the Beatles) and Tasveer (starring Feroz Khan), Love Marriage (starring Dev Anand), Bedaag (starring Manoj Kumar), Shehnai and Mere Sanam (both starring Vishwajeet) also featuring dancer Oscar Unger. The psychedelic choreography was by Herman Benjamin who is also singing the song onscreen. Plot. After murdering a rich man named Sohanlal and covering it up as a car accident, a man named Khanna, who ordered the hit, is murdered as well, by someone he is shocked to see. It is revealed that Sohanlal's murder was actually a conspiracy of many people, also unknown. Before dying, Khanna has told the news of Sohanlal's death to his niece Asha. Some days later, seven people, including Asha, win a trip to an island in a chartered plane, courtesy a lucky draw in a gala. The others winners are one Barrister Rakesh, one Dharamdas, one Kishan, one Dr. Acharya, one Madhusudan Sharma and one Kitty Kelly. The seven people go to the island, with one Anand, who happens to be a crew member in the chartered plane. Suddenly, the plane develops a snag, causing it to cause an emergency landing. Along with Anand, all the winners leave the plane, along with their personal belongings. However, everyone is amazed when the plane suddenly starts and the pilot flies away, stranding them on the island. Unable to understand what is happening, everybody tries to scout the place unsuccessfully. Suddenly, a woman starts singing an ominous song. Partly trying to find the woman and partly trying to find the place where they were supposed to stay, they finally reach their destination, where they meet the butler. Later on the dinner table, Dharamdas spots a diary, which seems innocuous to him, but Anand's facial expressions grow serious on reading the diary's contents. Anand reads the diaries contents to all of them, which reveals that they are all connected to a crime and responsible for it. The writer of the diary says that he is going to kill all of them, one per day. The butler claims that he knows nothing about the singing lady. As everybody retires to their rooms, Anand spies on them, finding out that the doctor has brought a bottle of poison with him and that Dharamdas has a revolver. Kishan catches him in the act, but does nothing. Meanwhile, the butler too is acting suspicious, and his actions prove that there is at least one more person in the house. The very next day, Kishan spots a ship. He, Kitty and Dr Acharya try to signal the ship, but in vain. Meanwhile, Anand starts flirting with Asha. Rakesh and Kitty too take a shine for each other. Although everyone is suspicious of each other, Rakesh has Anand at number one on his list. That night, Kishan is murdered and his body is found by Anand and Asha. The killer has planted a note saying that Kishan was a killer who killed Sohanlal. It quickly becomes clear that the people know something about Sohanlal. Dharamdas seems to be the guilty party based on the deductions. He pleads innocence, upon which Mr. Sharma asks everybody to give him one day to prove his innocence. The very next night, Dharamdas is found dead by Anand and Asha. Anand believes that the villain is amongst them, while Rakesh believes that Dharamdas was poisoned and the doctor is the culprit, based on what he saw. It is clear that any one of the four remaining men could be the killer. Kitty is revealed to be Sohanlal's personal secretary while Rakesh is the lawyer who had created the will on Khanna's orders. It is also revealed that Kitty was the one who sent the papers to Rakesh as instructed by Khanna, although neither knew about each other. Asha has her own suspicions on Anand, who clams up when she asks information about him. While talking to her, Anand spots Rakesh hiding an axe. Soon, the doctor arrives screaming that Sharma has been killed. It is clear that Sharma has been axed to death. The killer has sent another letter, accusing Sharma to be the co-conspirator of Khanna in the murder. Anand accuses Rakesh of the murder, while Rakesh is now unsure about Anand's guilt. The doctor later catches butler engaging in a suspicious acitivity, indicating that he knows the butler's secret now. A scuffle between the duo follows. While Asha and Kitty are in the dining room, the doctor enters and falls down, indicating that he has been stabbed. Before dying, he manages to take Anand's name. Rakesh The now believes that Anand is the killer, which Anand denies. Asha, who begins to question her faith in Anand, ends up drinking with Kitty. Anand and Asha have a fight over this. The next day, Rakesh advises Asha to not to go alone anywhere. Asha reveals to him that she is searching for Kitty. Sensing something amiss, the duo go to find her. Kitty has gone to swim, but senses that she is not alone. She starts running, but the unseen killer corners her and hangs her by a tree. Rakesh and Asha arrive at the scene too late, but his suspicion is confirmed on seeing Anand's hat next to Kitty's hanged body. Rakesh starts chasing Anand, but loses the trail. In rage, he trturns back to the mansion, where he tries to rape Asha as a revenge. Asha somehow escapes his clutches and runs in the building, but runs into Rakesh again, just as he falls down, revealing two daggers in his chest. With this horrifying development, she loses her calm. At the very same moment, the lights in the mansion go out, indicating that the killer is here and she is the next target. As the killer, who can not be seen now due to darkness, approaches Asha, she faints. He lifts her and enters a secret room in the building, which leads downstairs. He brings her back to consciousness, upon which she starts screaming for Anand. Now, the criminal turns to her and is revealed to be Madhusudan Sharma. He reveals that Anand was growing suspicious of him, following which he had to take the doctor in his confidence. The doctor lied that he was dead and to tie the loose end, he killed the doctor before resuming his spree. Sharma also gets a shock of his life himself on seeing Anand in the secret room. Now, it is revealed that Anand is Inspector Anand, while Sharma is actually an escaped convict named Madanlal. Madanlal succeeds in overpowering both Anand and Asha, and ties them. He explains them the whole story: he, Khanna and Sohanlal were smugglers. Once, Madanlal got caught, while his partners convinced him to take all the blame on himself. However, after he went to jail, Sohanlal raped Madanlal's sister, who committed suicide. Madanlal's brother, who informed him about the treachery, was also killed by the duo. Khanna, who later grew greedy, had Sohanlal killed to usurp his money. Every person he killed till now was a party in the plan to murder Sohanlal. Anand knows more than Madanlal thinks: the "ghost" singing the song is actually the butler's mentally unstable sister, whom the butler had secretly brought here, Madanlal killed Khanna and then saw to it that everybody including Asha got the lucky tickets. Meanwhile, Madanlal plays a game of Russian Roulette with Anand and Asha, while the butler sneaks in and stealthily frees Anand. When it is clear that Asha will get the bullet, Anand suddenly attacks Madanlal. In a melee that occurs, Madanlal escapes from the mansion and runs towards the shore, with other on his pursuit. A plane comes, which he tries to stop. As he runs towards the plane, it is revealed that there were police in it, who promptly arrest him. Anand and Asha board the plane along with the now free butler and his sister. Soundtrack. Shahid Khan gave 9 stars stating, "“Gumnaam” is sometimes unfairly overlooked but I believe that it is one of Shankar-Jaikishan’s best albums".
1059557	Calendar Girls is a 2003 comedy film directed by Nigel Cole. Produced by Buena Vista International and Touchstone Pictures, it features a screenplay by Tim Firth and Juliette Towhidi based on a true story of a group of Yorkshire women who produced a nude calendar to raise money for Leukaemia Research under the auspices of the Women's Institutes in April 1999. Starring an ensemble cast headed by Helen Mirren and Julie Walters, with Linda Bassett, Annette Crosbie, Celia Imrie, Penelope Wilton, and Geraldine James playing key supporting roles, the film garnered generally positive reactions by film critics, and at a budget of $10 million it became a major success, eventually grossing $96,000,000 worldwide following its theatrical release in the United States. In addition, the picture was awarded by the British Comedy Award for Best Comedy Film, and spawned ALFS Award Empire Award, Satellite Award and Golden Globe nominations for Mirren and Walters respectively. In 2008 the film was adapted into a stage play. Plot. When Annie Clarke's husband John dies from leukaemia at an early age, her close friend Chris Harper, anxious to purchase a comfortable sofa for the visitors' lounge in the hospital where he was treated, hits upon the idea of printing a calendar featuring some of the members of the Knapely branch of the Women's Institute discreetly posing nude while engaged in everyday activities, such as baking and knitting, in order to raise funds. Her proposal initially is met with great scepticism, but she eventually convinces ten women to participate in the project with her. They enlist one of the hospital workers, an amateur photographer named Lawrence, to help them with the concept. The head of the local Women's Institute branch refuses to sanction the calendar, and Chris and Annie go to a national congress of the Women's Institute in London to plead their case. They are told the final decision rests with the local leader, who grudgingly agrees to the calendar's sale. The initial printing quickly sells out, and before long the tiny village is bombarded with members of the international media anxious to report the feel-good story. The women are invited to appear on "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno" in Los Angeles. While there, tensions arise between Chris and Annie. All the publicity surrounding the calendar has taken a toll on their personal lives, and they lash out at each other in angry frustration. Annie accuses Chris of ignoring her husband and son and the demands of the family business in favour of her newfound celebrity, while Chris believes Annie welcomes the Mother Teresa-like status to which she's been elevated that allows her to cater to the ill and bereaved who have bombarded her with fan mail. All is resolved eventually, and the women return home to resume life as it was before they removed their clothing. Cast. The film's fellow calendar girls include Georgie Glen, Angela Curran, Rosalind March, Lesley Staples, and Janet Howd as Kathy, May, Truday, Julia, and Jenny respectively. "Calendar Girls" also cast Graham Crowden as Jesse's husband Richard, Belinda Everett as Cora's daughter Maya, Marc Pickering as Jem Haper's friend Gaz, and Harriet Thorpe as WI president Brenda Mooney. Gillian Wright appears as Eddie Reynoldson's lover, while John Sharian plays an American commercial director named Danny. In addition actors and actresses Richard Braine, Ted Robbins, Arthur Kelly, Alison Pargeter, Angus Barnett, John Sparkes, Elizabeth Bennett, Christa Ackroyd, Matt Malloy, Patton Oswalt, and John Fortune appear in short roles. American television host Jay Leno appears as himself in the film during the ladies' visit to California; they also encounter the American heavy metal band Anthrax while relaxing by the pool. Anne Reid was offered a major role in "Calendar Girls", but choose to do Roger Michell's "The Mother" (2003) instead. Production. Six of the eleven women who were pictured in the original calendar sold the rights to their stories. They were Angela Baker, Tricia Stewart, Beryl Bamforth, Lynda Logan, Christine Clancy, and Ros Fawcett. In addition to the calendars, they also posed for a postcard known as "Baker's Half Dozen." Whereas the actual Calendar Girls were members of the Rylstone Women's Institute, much of the film was shot in and around the village of Kettlewell in North Yorkshire, some ten miles away. Additional locations include Buckden, Burnsall, Coniston, Ilkley, Settle, Linton, Malham, Skipton, Westminster and Ealing in London, and the beach in Santa Monica. The penultimate shot of Chris and Annie walking down a street was filmed in Turville. Interiors were filmed in the Shepperton Studios. The pictures in the film-version calendar were taken by professional stills photographer Jaap Buitendijk. The film's soundtrack includes "You Upset Me Baby" performed by B.B. King, "Sloop John B" by The Beach Boys, "The Way You Do the Things You Do" by The Temptations, and "Comin' Home Baby" by Roland Kirk and Quincy Jones. The film premiered at the Locarno Film Festival. It was later shown at Filmfest Hamburg, the Dinard Festival of British Cinema in France, the Warsaw Film Festival, the Tokyo International Film Festival, and the UK Film Festival in Hong Kong. Inspiration. The fundraising phenomenon of the Calendar Girls was inspired by the death of Angela Baker's husband John Richard Baker, an Assistant National Park Officer for the Yorkshire Dales National Park Authority, who died from non-Hodgkin's lymphoma at the age of 54 in 1998. During his illness Angela's friends began to raise money, initially with the aim of purchasing a sofa for the visitors' lounge in the hospital where John was treated. Nothing could have prepared them for the way their original calendar took off. To date they have raised over £3 million for Leukaemia & Lymphoma Research, the UK's leading blood cancer charity. The photos for the 2000 Alternative WI Calendar, as it was named, were taken by Terry Logan, a former professional photographer who was married to one of the models. It was released on April 12, 1999 and became a runaway success, selling out in the first week. 10,000 additional copies were printed, all of which were sold within three weeks. Nine months after its launch, the calendar had sold 88,000 copies. It then was adapted for an American version covering June 2000 - December 2001. The ladies were invited to appear with Jay Leno and Rosie O'Donnell on their respective talk shows. That year the calendar sold 202,000 copies. Proceeds from the 2000 calendar were used to fund lymphoma and leukaemia research in new laboratories at the University of Leeds. A plaque dedicated to John Baker reads, "The work in this laboratory is dedicated to the memory of John Baker in recognition of the exceptional fundraising achievements of 'The Calendar Girls' of the Rylstone & District Women's Institute." Since 2000, the Calendar Girls have produced calendars for 2004, 2005, 2007 and a recipe calendar for 2008 with their favourite Yorkshire recipes on the back of each month. Ten years on, the Calendar Girls launched a 2010 Calendar with a new set of full colour images and the aim of raising £2 million for Leukaemia & Lymphoma Research. The Calendar Girls are still strong supporters of Leukaemia Research and have a range of merchandise in aid of the charity including calendars, greetings cards a range of three jams made by Brackenhill Fine Foods York, and chocolates produced by Yorkshire chocolatier Whitaker's, twelve squares with the original calendar images on the wrappers. They are available online and in selected outlets. Of the project, Angela Baker has said, "We are constantly amazed at the response we had, and still get, to our Calendar. I cannot believe that we were able to raise so much money and I am delighted that it is being spent on such worthwhile research. I know that John would be tremendously honoured to know that we have achieved so much in his name." Reception. In his review in the "New York Times", Elvis Mitchell called "minty-cool" Helen Mirren and "deft" Julie Walters "a graceful pair of troupers" and "a sunny, amusing team" and described the film as "yet another professionally acted and staged wry-crisp comedy about British modesty ... that gets its laughs, but seems increasingly out of date ... When the biggest compliment you can pay a picture is that it is professional and not smug, there's a little something missing, like invention." Roger Ebert of the "Chicago Sun-Times" said, "It's the kind of sweet, good-humored comedy that used to star Margaret Rutherford, although Helen Mirren and Julie Walters, its daring top-liners, would have curled Dame Margaret's eyebrows ... That the movie works, and it does, is mostly because of the charm of Mirren and Walters, who show their characters having so much fun that it becomes infectious." In the "San Francisco Chronicle", Ruthe Stein said it is "A charming movie ... should appeal to fans of "The Full Monty" and "Waking Ned Devine" — and not just because they also featured nudity that made you smile instead of smirk. The films share a wonderfully British wry humor. They're not laugh-out-loud funny, but there's quite a bit to amuse you when thinking about the scenes later." Manohla Dargis of the "Los Angeles Times" said the film "is closer in texture and consistency to individually wrapped American cheese than good, tangy English Cheddar. But even humble plastic-wrapped cheese has its virtues and so does this film, which for its first hour hums along principally by virtue of many, many shots of the verdant Yorkshire Dales and the professional good graces of its cast. Chief among those graces are Helen Mirren and Julie Walters, two well-matched and criminally underused actresses who ... tend to make you regret the movie that could have been, even as they felicitously help pass the time ... Although they have little to do but grin and bare it, Mirren and Walters are delightful company." In "Entertainment Weekly", Lisa Schwarzbaum graded the film B+ and commented, " is the first export from the light-comedy-steamroller division of the British film industry that avoids, for the most part, the kind of queasy class condescension such hell-bent charmers have relied on since unemployed steel-mill workers shook their groove thangs in "The Full Monty". Once again, British people do things that British people are not expected to do; the ladies are related to the coal miner's son who pirouetted in "Billy Elliot" and the tweedy widow who harvested dynamite weed in "Saving Grace"." "Variety" critic Derek Elley said the film "delivers very likable, if sometimes dramatically wobbly, results ... Though the film is never dull, and playing by the cast is spirited, it's actually a surprisingly gentle movie, with no big "Full Monty"-like finale to send auds buzzing into the street. The humor has a typically British, offhanded flavor, and the essentially simple story plays more as a multi-character rondo on a single idea. For every laugh-out-loud moment, or eccentric touch, there are equal moments of reflection and pause ... Despite an uncertain start in establishing a consistent comic tone, pic builds into an engaging, light character comedy, played somewhere between the Ealing tradition and contempo regional comedy. The challenge from the halfway point is to turn these mild English stereotypes into more substantial characters an audience will empathize with; it's a challenge only half met by scripters Towhidi and Firth." In "The Guardian", Peter Bradshaw rated the film three out of a possible five stars and added, "This genial comedy, directed by Nigel Cole, with an excellent, tightly constructed script by Tim Firth and Juliette Towhidi, accentuates the positive. There's lots of wit and pluck and not much heartbreak," and Mark Kermode of "The Observer" said, "When the film succeeds, as it does magnificently in the first two-thirds, one can only marvel at the miracle of a world in which such plotlines could literally land on a producer's doorstep with the morning papers. When it fails, it is the film's acknowledgment of its own big-screen inevitability that is to blame. The result is half a great British screen comedy, twice as much as one usually expects from the genre nowadays ... Ultimately, however, this remains an immensely likeable and often impressive romp." The sit-com Jam & Jerusalem was loosely based on these characters and developed for BBC One by writers by Jennifer Saunders and Abigail Wilson; airing from 2006 to 2009. The series starts on the death of the main characters husband, at which point her best friend convinces her to join the Women's Guild. The show revolves around the main character, her daughter and how the Guild meets the small needs of any local citizen; differing mainly with the mother & daughter relationship and the weekly challenges put before the Guild rather than a single calendar event. It starred Sue Johnston, Jennifer Saunders, Pauline McLynn, Dawn French, Maggie Steed, David Mitchell, Sally Phillips, Joanna Lumley and Doreen Mantle. On BBC America it was aired as Clatterford. Stage adaptation. A stage play based on the film opened in 2008 as part of the Chichester Theatre Festival. It subsequently transferred to the West End.
1044043	Rita Tushingham (born 14 March 1942) is an English actress. Life and career. Born in Liverpool and raised in the Hunt's Cross area, Tushingham began her career working backstage at the Liverpool Playhouse. Her screen debut was in "A Taste of Honey" (1961). Other performances included "Girl with Green Eyes" (1963), "The Leather Boys" (1964),"The Knack …and How to Get It" (1965), "Doctor Zhivago" (1965), "The Trap" (1966), "Smashing Time" (1967), "The Bed Sitting Room" (1969) and "The 'Human' Factor" (1975). She also co-starred as Margaret Sheen in the TV movie "Green Eyes (1977), the touching story of a Vietnam vet who returns to Southeast Asia after the war to find his son.
1266336	Ben Lyon (February 6, 1901 – March 22, 1979) was an American film actor and a 20th Century Fox studio executive. Life. Born in Atlanta, Georgia, Lyon entered films in 1918 after a successful appearance on Broadway opposite Jeanne Eagels. He attracted attention in the highly successful film "Flaming Youth" (1923), and steadily developed into a leading man. He was most successfully paired with some of the leading actresses of the silent era including Pola Negri, Gloria Swanson, Colleen Moore, Barbara La Marr, Viola Dana, Anna Q. Nilsson, Mary Astor and Blanche Sweet. His greatest success as an actor came in 1930 with the film "Hell's Angels". The film was a major success and brought Jean Harlow to prominence, but Lyon's performance as an heroic World War I aviator was also highly regarded. For the next decade he was constantly in demand, but his popularity began to wane by the early 1940s. By the mid-1940s he was working for 20th Century Fox. In 1946 he met a young aspiring actress named Norma Jeane Dougherty. After his first meeting with her he stated that she was "Jean Harlow all over again". He organised a color screen test for the actress, renamed her, and finally signed her as Marilyn Monroe to her first studio contract. In 1930 he married the actress Bebe Daniels. Together they were a notable couple in show business society, and sometimes acted together. Ben Lyon and Bebe Daniels settled in London during the Second World War and featured with the comedian Vic Oliver in the radio series "Hi, Gang!", which ran from 1940 to 1949. "Hi Gang" was succeeded in 1950 by "Life with the Lyons", which also featured their real life son Richard and daughter Barbara, and had a run on BBC and independent television from 1954 until 1960. When Daniels's health declined during the 1960s following a series of strokes, Lyon cared for her until her death in 1971. He then married the actress Marian Nixon. Lyon and Nixon were vacationing together on the Queen Elizabeth 2 cruise ship near Honolulu, Hawaii, when Lyon suffered a heart attack and died. Nixon died in 1983. Lyon was one of the many notable figures of Hollywood's silent film era interviewed for the documentary series "Hollywood" which was broadcast in 1980. Ben Lyon has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for his contribution to motion pictures. He is interred in the Chapel Columbarium at Hollywood Forever Cemetery.
1067040	Paradise Alley is a 1978 film about three brothers in Hell's Kitchen, New York City in the 1940s who become involved in professional wrestling. It was written and directed by Sylvester Stallone, and was given the green light by Universal Pictures after Stallone's success with 1976's "Rocky". Stallone also stars as Cosmo, one of the brothers, and sings the film's title song. This was the first major film in which Armand Assante appeared. Anne Archer also starred. Joe Spinell, a co-star of "Rocky", played the wrestling MC.
1065144	Edward Matthew "Ed" Lauter II (pronounced "Law-ter"; born October 30, 1938) is an American actor who was a stand up comedian. His films include "The Last American Hero" (1973), "Executive Action" (1973), "The Midnight Man" (1974), "The Longest Yard" (1974), "Breakheart Pass" (1975), King Kong (1976), "Magic" (1978), "Death Hunt" (1981), "Cujo" (1983), "Lassiter" (1984), "Real Genius" (1985), "Girls Just Want to Have Fun" (1985), "Death Wish 3" (1985), "Youngblood" (1986), "Raw Deal" (1986), ' (1987), "Born on the Fourth of July" (1989), "The Rocketeer" (1991), "School Ties" (1992), "True Romance" (1993), "Under Wraps" (1997) "Not Another Teen Movie" (2001), "Purple Heart" (2005), "Camille" (2007), ' (2007) and "The Artist" (2011). He starred with Bruce Dern, Barbara Harris, Karen Black and William Devane in the final film of director Alfred Hitchcock, "Family Plot". Hitchcock was impressed by Lauter and asked him to play a major role in the romantic espionage thriller he planned as his next film; the director's failing health and eventual death in 1980 meant that "The Short Night" never went into production. Lauter's TV guest appearances include performances on "Psych", "The X-Files", "Kojak", "The A-Team", "Booker", "Charmed", ', ' (as Lt. Cmdr. Albert in the season 5 episode "The First Duty"), "The Equalizer" and "ER" (with a recurring role as Fire Captain Dannaker). Personal life. Lauter was born and raised in Long Beach, Long Island, New York. After graduating from high school, he studied English Literature in college and received a B.A. degree in 1961. He has been married four times, has four children, and is currently married to Mia.
1038257	William Francis "Bill" Nighy (pronounced ; born 12 December 1949) is an English actor. He worked in theatre and television before his first cinema role in 1981, and made his name in television with "The Men's Room" in 1991, in which he played the womaniser Prof. Mark Carleton, whose extramarital affairs kept him "vital". He became known around the world in 2003 for his critically acclaimed performance in "Love Actually". Other notable roles in cinema include his portrayal of Davy Jones in ' and ', as well as Viktor in the "Underworld" film series. He is also known for his roles in the films "Lawless Heart", "I Capture the Castle", the Three Flavours Cornetto trilogy (most prominently in "Shaun of the Dead"), "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy", "Notes on a Scandal", "Hot Fuzz", "Valkyrie", "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 1", "Rango" and "The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel". His performances were also acclaimed in the "State of Play" series and in the TV films "The Girl in the Café", "Gideon's Daughter" and "Page Eight", for which he earned Golden Globe nominations, winning one for "Gideon's Daughter". Early life and education. Nighy was born in Caterham, Surrey. His mother, Catherine Josephine Nighy (née Whittaker), was a psychiatric nurse who was born in Glasgow, and his father, Alfred Martin Nighy, managed a car garage after working in the family chimney sweeping business. Of part Irish descent, Nighy was brought up as a Roman Catholic, serving as an altar boy. He has two elder siblings, Martin and Anna. Nighy attended the John Fisher School, a Roman Catholic grammar school in Purley, where he was a member of the school theatre group. He left the school with two O-levels and then took a job with the "Croydon Advertiser" as a messenger boy. He went on to train at the Guildford School of Acting. Career. After two seasons at the Everyman Theatre, Liverpool, Nighy made his London stage debut at the National Theatre in an epic staging of Ken Campbell and Chris Langham's "Illuminatus!", which opened the new Cottesloe Theatre on 4 March 1977, and went on to appear in two David Hare premieres, also at the National. During the 1980s, he appeared in several television productions, among them "", alongside John Shea and Tony Randall. He has starred in many radio and television dramas, notably the BBC serial "The Men's Room" (1991). He claimed that the serial, an Ann Oakley novel adapted by Laura Lamson, was the job which launched his career. More recently he has featured in the thriller "State of Play" (2003) and costume drama "He Knew He Was Right" (2004). He played Samwise Gamgee in the 1981 BBC Radio dramatisation of "The Lord of the Rings" (where he was credited as William Nighy), and appeared in the 1980s BBC Radio versions of "Yes Minister" episodes. He starred alongside Stephen Moore and Lesley Sharp in the acclaimed short radio drama "Kerton's Story" first aired in 1996. He had a starring role in the 2002 return of "Auf Wiedersehen, Pet", portraying crooked politician Jeffrey Grainger. He has also made a guest appearance in the BBC Radio 4 series Baldi. Two of Nighy's most acclaimed stage performances were in National Theatre productions. Taking the role of Bernard Nightingale, an unscrupulous university don, in Tom Stoppard's "Arcadia" (1993), he engaged in witty exchanges with Felicity Kendal, playing the role of Hannah Jarvis, an author; and he played a consultant psychiatrist in Joe Penhall's "Blue/Orange" (2000), for which he won an Olivier Award nomination for Best Actor, and which transferred to the West End at the Duchess Theatre the following year. Nighy received some recognition by American audiences for his acclaimed portrayal of overaged rock star Ray Simms in the 1998 film "Still Crazy". In 1999 he gained further prominence in the UK with the starring role in "The Photographer", an episode of the award-winning BBC-TV mockumentary comedy series "People Like Us", playing Will Rushmore, a middle aged man who has abandoned his career and family in the deluded belief that he can achieve success as a commercial photographer. In 2003, Nighy played the role of the Vampire Elder Viktor in the American production "Underworld" and returned in the same role for the sequel ' in 2006 and again in the prequel ' in 2009. In February 2004, he was awarded the BAFTA Film Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role as shameless, washed-up rocker Billy Mack in "Love Actually" (a role foreshadowed by his "Still Crazy" character) and followed this up at the BAFTA Television Awards in April with the Best Actor award for "State of Play". He also appeared in the comedy "Shaun of the Dead". In early 2004, "The Sunday Times" reported that Nighy was on the shortlist for role of the Ninth Doctor in the 2005 revival of the BBC television series "Doctor Who". Christopher Eccleston ultimately filled the role. In 2005, he appeared as Slartibartfast in the film adaptation of "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy". He also appeared in the one-off BBC One comedy-drama "The Girl in the Café". In February 2006, he appeared in scriptwriter Stephen Poliakoff's one-off drama, "Gideon's Daughter". Nighy played the lead character, Gideon, a successful events organiser who begins to lose touch with the world around him. This performance won him a Golden Globe Award for in January 2007. Also in 2006, Nighy made his Broadway debut at the Music Box Theatre alongside Julianne Moore in "The Vertical Hour", directed by Sam Mendes. In 2006, Nighy featured in ', where he played the principal villain, Davy Jones, although his face was entirely obscured by computer-generated makeup and he voiced the character with a Scots accent. He reprised the role in the 2007 sequel, ', in which his real face was briefly revealed in one scene. He also provided the narration for the Animal Planet series Meerkat Manor. In 2006 he played the role of Richard Hart in "Notes on a Scandal", for which he was nominated for a London Film Critics Circle award. Nighy also appeared as General Friedrich Olbricht, one of the principal conspirators, in the 2008 film "Valkyrie". He had played an "SS" officer in the 1985 "". Nighy has starred in the film "Wild Target". In July 2009, he announced that he would play Rufus Scrimgeour in "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 1". Nighy had already worked with director David Yates twice, and with the majority of the "Harry Potter" cast in previous films. He has said of his role as Rufus Scrimgeour that it meant he was no longer the only English actor not to be in "Harry Potter". Nighy voiced Grandsanta in the 2011 CGI animated film "Arthur Christmas". In 2012, he starred in "The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel", "Wrath of the Titans", and the remake of "Total Recall". In 2013, he played a role in "Darkside", Tom Stoppard's radio drama based on Pink Floyd's album "The Dark Side of the Moon". Personal life. Nighy had a 27-year-relationship with English actress Diana Quick, with whom he has a daughter, actress Mary Nighy. The couple "amicably separated" in 2008. He is a supporter of Crystal Palace and is the Patron of the CPFRIS (Crystal Palace F.C. Fast Results & Information Service) Disabled Children's Club, and of the Ann Craft Trust. He is also one of the Honorary Patrons of the London children's charity Scene & Heard. He suffers from Dupuytren's contracture, a condition which causes the ring and little finger of each hand to be permanently bent inwards towards the palm. Nighy is also a patron for the Milton Rooms, a new arts centre in Malton, North Yorkshire, along with Imelda Staunton, Jools Holland and Kathy Burke. Nighy is known for his bespoke navy suits; he was listed as one of the fifty best-dressed over 50s by "The Guardian" in March 2013.
1164964	Rosemary DeCamp (November 14, 1910 – February 20, 2001) was an American radio, film and television actress. Life and career. DeCamp was the older of two children born to William Valentine and Margaret Elizabeth (née Hinman) DeCamp, both natives of Iowa. She was 14 years older than her brother Jerry (1924–1995). DeCamp first came to fame in November 1937, when she took the role of Judy Price, the secretary/nurse of Dr. Christian in the long-running radio series of the same name. She made her film debut in "Cheers for Miss Bishop" and appeared in many Warner Bros. films, including "Eyes in the Night", "Yankee Doodle Dandy" playing Nellie Cohan opposite James Cagney, "This Is The Army" playing the wife of George Murphy and the mother of Ronald Reagan, "Rhapsody in Blue" and "Nora Prentiss". She played the mother of the character played by Sabu Dastagir in "Jungle Book". In 1951 and 1953, respectively, she starred in the nostalgic musical films "On Moonlight Bay" and its sequel, "By The Light Of The Silvery Moon", as Alice Winfield, Doris Day's mother, opposite Leon Ames.
1162914	Early life. Takei was born in Boyle Heights, Los Angeles, California to Japanese American parents, Fumiko Emily (née Nakamura; born in Sacramento) and Takekuma Norman Takei (born in San Francisco), who worked in real estate. His father was an Anglophile, and named him "George" after George VI of the United Kingdom, whose coronation took place in 1937. In 1942, the Takei family was forced to live in the horse stables of Santa Anita Park before being sent to the Rohwer War Relocation Center for internment in Rohwer, Arkansas. The family was later transferred to the Tule Lake War Relocation Center in California. He and his family returned to Los Angeles at the end of World War II. He attended Mount Vernon Junior High School, where he served as student body president, and Los Angeles High School. He was a member of Boy Scout Troop 379 of the Koyasan Buddhist Temple. Upon graduation from high school, Takei enrolled in the University of California, Berkeley where he studied architecture. Later he attended the University of California, Los Angeles, where he received a Bachelor of Arts in theater in 1960 and a Master of Arts in theater in 1964. He attended the Shakespeare Institute at Stratford-upon-Avon in England, and Sophia University in Tokyo, Japan. In Hollywood, he studied acting at the Desilu Workshop. Early career. Takei began his career in Hollywood in the late 1950s, at a time when Asians were rarely cast in American television shows and movies. His first role was providing voiceover for several characters in the English dub of Japanese monster films such as "Godzilla Raids Again" and "Rodan", followed by an appearance in the Emmy award winning television series "Playhouse 90" and Perry Mason "The Case of the Blushing Pearls".
1156310	Robert Jason Costanzo (born October 20, 1942) is an American actor. He has an acting career spanning over thirty years and is often found playing surly New York types such as crooks, low level workers and policemen, and mixes both drama and comedy roles. Costanzo is also a prominent voice actor, and often serves as a voice double for fellow actor and friend Danny DeVito. Early life and career. Born in Brooklyn, New York, he is the son of actor Carmine Constanzo. His first role was in the 1975 movie "Dog Day Afternoon" playing a cop, although this was an uncredited part. This was followed by a role as a paint store customer in the 1977 film "Saturday Night Fever". Other movie roles include "Total Recall", "Die Hard 2", "Dick Tracy","City Slickers", and "Down and Derby". His television appearances are varied, with him appearing in "Boston Legal", "Hannah Montana", "Friends", "Days of our Lives", "The Golden Girls" and numerous other series. He also starred as Commissioner Stenchler in the Sega CD game "Sewer Shark". He is also a cartoon voice actor and has done voices on shows including "The Fairly Oddparents", "The Zeta Project", "House of Mouse", "Duckman", "Bonkers", and "Random! Cartoons", among others. He also did the voice of Detective Harvey Bullock on ', ', "The New Batman Adventures" and "Static Shock", as well as in the theatrical release "Mask of the Phantasm", and the video releases "", and "Mystery of the Batwoman", He also played a vocal role in the 2010 video game "Mafia II" as Joe Barbaro and Frederico "Fat Derek" Pappalardo. He played softball in Los Angeles with actors Bruno Kirby and Leo Rossi in the late 1970s.
1055246	Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome is a 1985 Australian post-apocalyptic film directed by George Miller and George Ogilvie, written by Miller and Terry Hayes and starring Mel Gibson and Tina Turner. It is the third installment in the action movie "Mad Max" series, its story taking place about eight years after that of the previous film (thirteen years after the original film). The original music score was composed by Maurice Jarre. A fourth movie in the Mad Max series, remained in development for over two decades, before ' was finally greenlit and commenced production in 2012. ' is slated for release in 2014. Plot. Max Rockatansky (Mel Gibson) rides a camel-drawn wagon across the Australian desert when he is attacked by Jedediah (Bruce Spence), a pilot flying a Transavia PL-12 Airtruk, who steals his belongings and vehicle. Max continues on foot and stumbles upon the only nearby human outpost in the wasteland — the seedy community of Bartertown, founded and run by the ruthless Aunty Entity (Tina Turner). In Bartertown, electricity, vehicles, and functioning technology depend on a crude methane refinery fueled by pig feces. The refinery is located in the Underworld area beneath Bartertown and is operated by the diminutive Master, who is carried around by his enormously strong bodyguard, Blaster. "Master Blaster" holds an uneasy truce with Aunty for control of Bartertown. Master, however, is beginning to exploit his position with energy "embargoes," challenging Aunty's leadership. She is furious with him but cannot challenge him publicly, as Master is the only one with the technical know-how to operate the refinery. The controlled chaos of Bartertown is maintained by a set of inflexible laws, including one that states that no contract can be broken for any reason. Upon entering Bartertown, Max meets the Collector, who recommends his talents to Aunty Entity. After being tested in a difficult audition, Aunty recognises Max as a resourceful fighter and strikes a deal with him to provoke a confrontation with Blaster in the Thunderdome, a gladiatorial arena where conflicts are resolved by a duel to the death. Max enters Underworld in order to get a look at Master Blaster; here he also befriends Pig Killer, a laborer convicted of slaughtering a pig to feed his family. While there, Max discovers that Blaster is exceptionally strong but extremely sensitive to high-pitched noises. Max finds his stolen vehicle in Master Blaster's possession and, in an effort to size up Blaster's fighting strengths, confronts them both, resulting in the necessary challenge to enter Thunderdome. The rules of Thunderdome, as chanted by onlookers crowding the arena, are simple: "Two men enter, one man leaves." After a difficult match with various weapons, Max defeats Blaster with the aid of a high-pitched whistle, but he refuses to kill him upon discovering that Blaster has a developmental disability and the functional mentality of a child. An enraged Aunty has Blaster executed and invokes the law against Max since he broke his agreement with her: "Bust a deal, face the Wheel." The Wheel is divided into sections marked with outcomes that range from acquittal to death; when spun for Max, it stops on "Gulag," meaning exile to the desert wasteland. He is placed on horseback and sent out of Bartertown, riding until the animal collapses and dies from exhaustion.
589729	Sawan Bhadon is a 1970 Bollywood film produced and directed by Mohan Segal. The film was the debut film for its lead pair Rekha and Navin Nischol. The other cast of note in the film are Jayshree T., Iftekhar and Ranjeet. The music is by Sonik Omi. This was also Ranjeet's debut film. A couple of the songs from the film having catchy tunes became popular. The film is remade in Tamil as 'Veetukku Oru Pillai' (A son for every home) starring Jaishankar. Plot. Vikram (Navin Nischol) is a man from a wealthy family living in Europe. He has a step-sister Dolly and step-mother Ms.Sulochana who are very cunning and greedy and cheat Vikram's money during his absence from India. Vikram decides to come back to India which disturbs the plans of Sulochana
1061962	Stanley Tucci (born January 11 or November 11, 1960; sources differ) is an American actor, writer, film producer and film director. He was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in "The Lovely Bones" (2009), and won an Emmy Award for his performance in "Winchell". He also was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Album for Children, for "The One And Only Shrek". Early life. Tucci was born in Peekskill, New York, and grew up in nearby Katonah, the son of Joan (née Tropiano), a secretary and writer, and Stanley Tucci, Sr., an art teacher at Horace Greeley High School in Chappaqua, New York. His parents, both of Italian descent, had roots in Calabria. He is the oldest of three children; his sister is actress Christine Tucci. Screenwriter Joseph Tropiano is a cousin. During the early 1970s, the family spent a year living in Florence, Italy. He attended John Jay High School, followed by SUNY Purchase, where he majored in acting and graduated in 1982. Career. Tucci earned his Actors' Equity card that same year when actress Colleen Dewhurst, the mother of Tucci's high-school friend, actor Campbell Scott, arranged for the two young men to have parts as soldiers in a Broadway play in which she was co-starring, "The Queen and the Rebels", premiering September 30, 1982. His film debut was in "Prizzi's Honor" (1985). He performed at the Yale Repertory Theater in 1991 in a Molière play. Tucci is known for his work in films such as "The Pelican Brief", "Beethoven", "Kiss of Death", "Road to Perdition" and "Big Night", and in the television series "Murder One" as the mysterious Richard Cross. "Big Night" (1996), which he starred in, co-wrote with his cousin Joseph Tropiano, and co-directed with Scott, premiered at the Sundance Film Festival. The film also featured his sister Christine and their mother, who wrote a cookbook for the film. It won him and Tropiano the Independent Spirit Award for Best First Screenplay. He has been nominated three times for Golden Globes, and won twice – for his title role in "Winchell" (1998), and for his supporting role as Adolph Eichmann in "Conspiracy" (2001), both for HBO films. He also received a Screen Actors Guild Award nomination for "Winchell". He was nominated for Broadway's Tony Award as Best Actor in a Play for his role as Johnny in the 2002 revival of Terrence McNally's "Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune". In 2004, Caedmon Audio released an audiobook of Tucci reading Kurt Vonnegut's 1973 novel "Breakfast of Champions". In July 2006, Tucci made an appearance on the USA Network TV series "Monk", in a performance that earned him a 2007 Emmy for Outstanding Guest Actor – Comedy Series. Tucci's TV series, the medical drama "3 lbs.", debuted on CBS in the 10:00 pm EDT time slot on November 14, 2006. It was canceled on November 30, 2006 due to low ratings. He can be heard as the voice over in the AT&T Wireless "Raising the Bar" marketing campaign. Tucci also played Nigel in the screen adaption of "The Devil Wears Prada" alongside Meryl Streep, Emily Blunt and Anne Hathaway. In 2007, Tucci had a recurring role in medical drama "ER". In 2009, Tucci again starred opposite Meryl Streep in "Julie & Julia" playing husband Paul Child to her Julia Child. That same year, Tucci portrayed George Harvey, a pedophile and serial killer of young girls, in "The Lovely Bones", Peter Jackson's adaptation of Alice Sebold's novel, for which he received high critical praise and Golden Globe and Academy Award nominations. To prepare for the role, he consulted with retired FBI profiler John Douglas. In 2010, Tucci directed a revival of the Ken Ludwig play "Lend Me a Tenor" on Broadway, starring Tony Shalhoub. Tucci played Dr. Abraham Erskine in "". On May 9, 2011, it was announced that Tucci would play Caesar Flickerman in "The Hunger Games" film (released in 2012). Tucci also played a lead role in "Margin Call" (2011), as a banker right before the financial crisis, appeared with Colin Firth in "Gambit" (2012), a remake of a 1966 film, played the lead human villain in "Jack the Giant Slayer" (2013), and had a supporting role as Dionysus (Mr. D) in ' (2013). He will reprise his role in ' (2013). In July 2010, it was announced that Tucci will direct an upcoming comedy entitled "Mommy & Me" starring Meryl Streep and Tina Fey as mother and daughter. He is also expected to star in David Yates' psychological drama film "Your Voice in My Head". Tucci was co-owner of the Finch Tavern restaurant in Croton Falls, New York. His cookbook, "The Tucci Cookbook", was released in autumn 2012. On September 24, 2013, "Variety" and "Entertainment Weekly" reported that Tucci will guest voice-star in the long-running adult animated series "American Dad!", the episode slated to air as part of the show's 10th season (2013–14). Personal life. Tucci's first wife was Kathryn Louise Spath-Tucci (1962–2009), also known as Kate Tucci, who died of breast cancer. She was a social worker and the former wife of actor and stage manager Alexander R. Scott, the elder son of actors Colleen Dewhurst and George C. Scott. She and Tucci married in 1995 and had three children: twins Isabel Concetta and Nicolo Robert (born in 2000) and Camilla (born in 2002). The couple also raised Spath-Tucci's two children from her previous marriage.
1017572	Encounters of the Spooky Kind () is a 1980 Hong Kong martial arts action comedy horror film written, choreographed, directed by and starring Sammo Hung. The film was produced by Hung's production company Bo Ho Film Company. It was released as "Spooky Encounters" in the US. It is sometimes listed as "Close Encounters of the Spooky Kind", more blatantly mimicking the title of the film "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" (1977). There is one other stand-alone sequel starring Hung and Lam Ching-ying Encounters of the Spooky Kind II (aka Close Encounters of the Spooky Kind 2) which has no relation to Encounters of the Spooky Kind. The Chinese name for the movie literally translates as ghost fights ghost. Plot. The film starts with Bold Cheung having a nightmare about ghosts. Bold Cheung is challenged to spend the night in an abandoned house where he must peel an apple in front of a mirror. If he breaks the skin then something bad will happen. Upholding his mantle as the boldest he accepts. However, that night whilst peeling the apple his friends trick him. Whilst scolding his friend for the prank a real ghost appears and snatches Cheung's friend away. The ghost reaches for Cheung but he cuts its hand off and then quickly shattering the mirror, causing the house to collapse. The next day Cheung overhears a story about a promiscuous wife from a sweet tofu seller (Who admits that something similar happen to him and his wife); he goes to his home to check on his wife and finds two peeping toms outside his door. He scolds them, causing his wife and employer, Master Tam, to hear. Tam escapes but leaves his shoe which Cheung finds and confronts his wife with. His wife pulls a tantrum and makes Cheung feel guilty. Master Tam is worried Cheung will find out about the affair so he hires a witch, Chin Hoi, to get rid of him. When Chin mentions this to his partner Priest Tsui, Tsui gets angry. Cheung is tricked into spending the night in a temple, but he encounters Tsui who tells him that he must sleep on the roof. Cheung does so. A coffin in the temple opens and a zombie begins looking for him but he is safe. Chin gives up when he cannot find Cheung (he is controlling the zombie) just as Cheung falls down. Chin and the zombie look for Cheung again. He hides under the coffin but is found, the two fight and Cheung kicks the zombie back into the coffin and seals the lid. Cheung is tricked into spending another night in the temple. Again he meets Tsui who tells him to collect fifty chicken eggs to throw into the coffin. If he runs out of eggs he must throw dog's blood over the zombie. However, the egg seller puts in ten duck eggs. That night Cheung throws in eggs when the coffin begins to open and it works. However when he throws a duck egg inside, the zombie escapes so Cheung throws the dog's blood onto it which sends Chin flying into Tam's roof severing his control of the zombie. Cheung goes back to town but an Inspector arrests him for murdering his wife even though it is a set-up. Cheung is thrown in prison but escapes by pretending to be sick, he beats up the guards and runs into a forest where he trips over a coffin exposing the corpse within. As Cheung sleeps it comes to life and begins chasing him. Whilst on the run from the corpse Cheung bumps into the Inspector and his men. The zombie collapses onto the Inspector giving Cheung time to escape. Cheung meets up with Tsui who wants to take Cheung as his disciple. As they stop to eat, the Inspector shows up and sends his men after Cheung. Chin is also there and manipulates Cheung's right arm to beat up the people around him and himself however Tsui stops him in a sword fight and Chin escapes. To help Cheung, Tsui uses his magic to manipulate the Inspector's men to fight the Inspector whilst he and Cheung escape. That night Chin sends a vampire after Tsui and Cheung but they defeat it. Tsui draws markings on Cheung's body to protect him from Chin's magic. They go to Tam's house to challenge Chin. Both sorcerers use magic to instill spirits into their disciples. Cheung is possessed by a monkey god. The two possessed apprentices fight with Cheung winning. Chin then possesses Master Tam with the spirit of the sword god but Cheung kills him. Then the two sorcerers unleash their magic on each other. Just as it looks like Chin will win Cheung cuts the legs off his altar which causes Chin to lose balance giving Tsui a chance to hit him with magical fire, Chin is set ablaze and falls off his altar to burn to death. However, Tsui is badly hurt by Chin's magic and he too falls off his altar dead. Cheung's wife steps forward in all the madness and tries to convince Cheung that Tam was about to rape her. However, Cheung is not deceived and he punches her over and over again, then throws her. Box office. "Encounters of the Spooky Kind" grossed $5,675,626.00 HKD at the Hong Kong box office. Encounters of the Spooky Kind ran in Hong Kong theaters from 24 December 1980 to 8 January 1981.
1060635	Toy Story 3 is a 2010 American 3D computer-animated Family comedy-drama film, and the third film in the "Toy Story" series. It was produced by Pixar Animation Studios and distributed by Walt Disney Pictures. Directed by Lee Unkrich, the film was released worldwide from June through October in Disney Digital 3-D, RealD, and IMAX 3D. "Toy Story 3" was also the first film to be released theatrically with Dolby Surround 7.1 sound. The screenplay was written by Michael Arndt, while Unkrich wrote the story along with John Lasseter and Andrew Stanton, respectively director and co-writer of the two first films. The plot focuses on the toys Woody, Buzz Lightyear, and their friends dealing with an uncertain future as their owner, Andy, prepares to leave for college. Actors Tom Hanks, Tim Allen, Joan Cusack, Don Rickles, Estelle Harris, John Ratzenberger, Wallace Shawn, Jeff Pidgeon, Jodi Benson, R. Lee Ermey, John Morris, and Laurie Metcalf reprised their voice-over roles from the previous films. Jim Varney, who played Slinky Dog in the first two films, and Joe Ranft, who portrayed Lenny and Wheezy, both died before production began on "Toy Story 3". The role of Slinky Dog was taken over by Blake Clark (a friend of Varney), while Ranft's characters and various others were written out of the story. New characters include performances by Ned Beatty, Timothy Dalton, Kristen Schaal, Bonnie Hunt, Whoopi Goldberg, Jeff Garlin, Richard Kind, and Michael Keaton. The feature broke "Shrek the Third"s record as the biggest opening day North American gross for an animated film unadjusted for inflation, and had a big opening weekend with an unadjusted gross of $110,307,189. It is also the highest-grossing opening weekend for a Pixar film, and was previously the highest-grossing opening weekend for a film to have opened in the month of June (surpassed by "Man of Steel"). This is the highest-grossing film of 2010, both in the United States and Canada, and worldwide. In early August, it became Pixar's highest-grossing film at the North American and worldwide box offices (surpassing "Finding Nemo"), and the highest-grossing animated film of all time worldwide (surpassing "Shrek 2"); later that month, "Toy Story 3" became the first ever animated film in history to make over $1 billion worldwide. It is currently the 11th-highest-grossing film of all time. "Toy Story 3" was nominated for five Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best Sound Editing. It was the third animated film (after "Beauty and the Beast" and "Up") to be nominated for Academy Award for Best Picture. It won the awards for Best Animated Feature and Best Original Song. Plot. Andy, now nearly 18 years old, is leaving for college and his toys have not been played with in years. Andy decides to take Woody with him to college and puts Buzz Lightyear and the rest of the toys in a trash bag for storage in the attic. Andy's mother mistakes the bag for garbage and puts it on the curb. The toys escape and, believing Andy intended to throw them away, decide to climb in a donation box bound for Sunnyside Daycare. Woody follows the other toys and tries to explain that they were thrown out by mistake, but they refuse to believe him. Andy's toys are welcomed by the many toys at Sunnyside and given a tour of the seemingly perfect play-setting by Lots-O'-Huggin' Bear (simply known as Lotso), Big Baby, and Ken, whom Barbie falls in love with. All of the toys love their new home, and Woody leaves alone in an attempt to return to Andy. Woody's escape attempt falls short and he is found by Bonnie, one of the Sunnyside children. She takes him home and plays with him along with her other toys, who are well-treated, happy, and readily welcome Woody. At the daycare, meanwhile, a group of toddlers play with Andy's toys very roughly. Buzz asks Lotso to move him and the others to the older children's room, only to be captured by Lotso's henchmen. Lotso, who controls Sunnyside with an iron fist, reveals that he sends new toys to distract Sunnyside's younger children to keep him and his henchmen safe, not caring whether the other toys get broken in the process. Seeing promise in Buzz, he resets him to his original space ranger persona, wiping his memories of Andy's toys. At the same time, Mrs Potato Head sees Andy searching for them through her missing eye left behind in Andy's room, which convinces the toys that Woody was right about Andy. Before they can leave, they are imprisoned by Lotso, his gang, and the reset Buzz. Woody learns from a toy clown named Chuckles that he, Lotso, and Big Baby once had a beloved owner named Daisy. When Daisy one day lost Lotso, Big Baby, and Chuckles, they eventually found their way back to Daisy's house, only to find that she replaced Lotso with an identical teddy bear, since then, Lotso no longer cares for children. When he found Sunnyside, he and Big Baby took it over and ran it like a prison,`while Chuckles was taken by Bonnie. The following morning, Woody returns to Sunnyside through Bonnie's backpack and apologizes to his friends. That night, the toys execute a daring escape plan, and in the process they accidentally reset Buzz into a delusional Spanish mode, in which his memory remains wiped but he becomes flamboyantly chivalrous. Despite this, Buzz allies himself with Woody and immediately falls in love with Jessie. The toys reach a dumpster, but are caught by Lotso and his gang. As a garbage truck approaches, Woody reveals what he learned about Lotso. Lotso reveals that he now believes that toys are meant to be thrown away; leading to an enraged Big Baby to throw Lotso into the dumpster. Seeking revenge, Lotso pulls Woody into the dumpster just as the truck collects the trash. Woody's friends fall into the back of the truck trying to rescue him and a falling television hits Buzz when he saves Jessie, restoring his memory and his normal self. The toys find themselves at the dump and eventually wind up on a conveyor belt leading to a giant incinerator. Woody and Buzz then help Lotso, whom they saved earlier, reach an emergency stop button, only to have Lotso abandon them. Believing the end is near, the toys join hands and accept their fate, but are soon rescued by the Aliens operating a large industrial claw. Lotso makes his way outside, but a passing garbage truck driver finds him, recognizing he had the same toy as a kid, straps him to the radiator grill of his truck. Meanwhile, Woody and his friends board another garbage truck driven by an adult Sid Phillips back to Andy's house. In Andy's room, Woody climbs back into the box with Andy's college supplies while the other toys ready themselves for the attic. Woody instead leaves a note for Andy on the toys' box. Andy, thinking the note is from his mother, takes them to Bonnie's house and introduces her to his old toys. Bonnie recognizes Woody who, to Andy's surprise, is lying at the bottom of the box. Though initially reluctant, Andy passes him on to Bonnie, and then spends some time playing with her and the toys before leaving. The film ends with Woody and his friends watching Andy's departure and beginning their new lives with Bonnie. During the credits, Woody and the other toys learn through notes passed on in Bonnie's backpack that Barbie, Ken, and Big Baby have improved the lives of the toys at Sunnyside. Voice cast. Several other characters (such as Bo Peep, RC, Etch and Wheezy) are only seen in flashbacks or briefly mentioned. The character of Slinky Dog appeared to be in limbo after the death of his original voice actor Jim Varney on February 10, 2000, three months after "Toy Story 2" was released. Varney was replaced by Blake Clark. After Clark was cast to play Slinky Dog, the producers later realized that Clark and Varney had coincidentally been close friends since they appeared in the 1989 film "Fast Food", making the transition a lot easier. Production. According to the terms of Pixar's revised deal with Disney, all characters created by Pixar for their films were owned by Disney. Furthermore, Disney retains the rights to make sequels to any Pixar film, though Pixar retained the right of first refusal to work on these sequels. But in 2004, when the contentious negotiations between the two companies made a split appear likely, Disney Chairman at the time Michael Eisner put in motion plans to produce "Toy Story 3" at a new Disney studio, Circle 7 Animation. Tim Allen, the voice of Buzz Lightyear, indicated a willingness to return even if Pixar was not on board. In January 2006, Disney bought Pixar in a deal that put Pixar chiefs Edwin Catmull and John Lasseter in charge of all Disney Animation. Shortly thereafter, Circle 7 Animation was shut down and its version of "Toy Story 3" was cancelled. The character designs went into the Disney archives. The following month, Disney CEO Robert Iger confirmed that Disney was in the process of transferring the production to Pixar. John Lasseter, Andrew Stanton, Pete Docter, and Lee Unkrich visited the house where they first pitched "Toy Story" and came up with the story for the film over a weekend. Stanton then wrote a treatment. On February 8, 2007, Catmull announced "Toy Story 2"s co-director, Lee Unkrich, as the sole director of the film instead of John Lasseter (who was busy directing "Cars 2"), and Michael Arndt as screenwriter. The release date was moved to 2010. Unkrich said that he felt pressure to avoid creating "the first dud" for Pixar, since as of 2010 all of Pixar's films had been critical and commercial successes. During the initial development stages of the film, Pixar revisited their work from the original "Toy Story" and found that although they could open the old computer files for the animated 3D models, error messages prevented them from editing the files. This necessitated recreating the models from scratch. To create the chaotic and complex junkyard scene near the film's end, more than a year and a half was invested on research and development to create the simulation systems required for the sequence. Instead of sending Tom Hanks, Tim Allen and John Ratzenberger scripts for their consideration in reprising their roles, a complete story reel of the film was shown to the actors in a theater. The reel was made up of moving storyboards with pre-recorded voices, sound effects, and music. At the conclusion of the preview, the actors signed on to the film. Dolby Laboratories announced that "Toy Story 3" would be the first film that will feature theatrical 7.1 surround sound. Thus, even the Blu-ray version will feature original 7.1 audio, unlike other movies which were remixed into 7.1 for Blu-ray. Release. Marketing. The film's first teaser trailer was released with "Up" in Disney Digital 3-D, on May 29, 2009. On October 2, 2009, "Toy Story" and "Toy Story 2" were re-released as a double feature in Disney Digital 3-D. The first full-length trailer was attached as an exclusive sneak peek and a first footage to the "Toy Story" double feature, on October 12, 2009. A second teaser was released on February 10, 2010, followed by a second full-length trailer on February 11 and appeared in 3D showings of "Alice in Wonderland" and "How to Train Your Dragon". On March 23, 2010, "Toy Story" was released on Blu-ray/DVD combo pack which included a small feature of "The Story of "Toy Story 3"." Also, "Toy Story 2" was released on that day in the same format which had a small feature on the "Characters of "Toy Story 3"." On May 11, 2010, both films had a DVD-"only" re-release which contained the features. Mattel, Thinkway Toys, and Lego are among those who produced toys to promote the film. Fisher Price, a Mattel Company, has released "Toy Story 3" with 21 3D images for viewing with the View-Master viewer. Disney Interactive Studios also produced a video game based on the film, "", which was released for Microsoft Windows, Xbox 360, Wii, PlayStation 3, Nintendo DS, and PSP on June 15, 2010. A PlayStation 2 version was released on October 30, 2010 as part of a PS2 Bundle and separately on November 2, 2010 (The same day "Toy Story 3" was released on DVD and Blu-ray). It was also the last Disney/Pixar game to be released on PlayStation 2. "Toy Story 3" was featured in Apple's iPhone OS 4 Event on April 8, 2010, with Steve Jobs demonstrating a "Toy Story 3" themed iAd written in HTML5. Pixar designed a commercial for the toy, Lots-O'-Huggin' Bear, and formatted it to look like it came from an old VCR recording. The recording was altered with distorted sound, noise along the bottom of the screen, and flickering video, all designed to make it look like a converted recording from around 1983. A Japanese version of the commercial was also released online, with the name Lots-O'-Huggin Bear being replaced by Little Hug-Hug Bear (Japanese:ハグハグベアちゃん/"Hagu Hagu Beya-Chan"). On "Dancing with the Stars" May 11, 2010, episode, the Gipsy Kings performed a Spanish-language version of the song "You've Got a Friend in Me." It also featured a paso doble dance which was choreographed by Cheryl Burke and Tony Dovolani. Both the song and dance are featured in the film. "Toy Story 3" was also promoted with airings of the first and second films on several channels in the upcoming weeks of the film's release, including Disney Channel, Disney XD, and ABC Family. Sneak peeks of "Toy Story 3" were also revealed, primarily on Disney Channel. Oscar campaign. Unlike most recent Oscar campaigns, "Toy Story 3"s "Not since..." campaign drew a lot of attention during the holiday period, emphasizing on the film's uniqueness and tremendous critical acclaim. Short film. The theatrical release of "Toy Story 3" included the short film "Day & Night", which focuses on what happens when an animated personification of Day meets his opposite, Night and the resulting growth for both. It was also included in the Blu-ray and DVD release of the film (See Home media for more). Home media. "Toy Story 3" was released in North America on November 2, 2010 in a standard DVD edition, two-disc Blu-ray and in a four-disc Blu-ray/DVD/Digital Copy combo pack. Behind the scenes are featured including a sneak peek teaser for the upcoming "Cars 2", the sequel to "Cars". A 10-disc "Toy Story" trilogy Blu-ray box set also arrived on store shelves on the same day. A 3D version of the Blu-ray was released in North America on November 1, 2011. On its first week of release (November 2–7, 2010) it sold 3,859,736 units (equal to $73,096,452) ranking No.1 for the week and immediately becoming the best-selling animated film of 2010 in terms of units sold (surpassing "How to Train Your Dragon"). As of July 18, 2012, it has sold 10,911,701 units ($185,924,247). It has become the best-selling DVD of 2010 in terms of units sold, but it lacks in terms of sales revenue and therefore ranks second behind "Avatar" on that list. It also sold about 4.0 million Blu-ray units, ranking as the fourth best-selling film of 2010. In the UK, it broke the record for the largest first day ever for animated feature both on DVD and Blu-ray in terms of sales revenue. Additionally, on its first day of release on iTunes it immediately became the most downloaded Disney film ever. Reception. Critical reception. "Toy Story 3" received widespread acclaim from critics. The film review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes reports that 99% of critics have given the film a positive review based on 264 reviews, with an average score of 8.8/10. The site's consensus is: "Deftly blending comedy, adventure, and honest emotion, "Toy Story 3" is a rare second sequel that really works." On the all-time "Best of Rotten Tomatoes" list, it ranks fourth behind both its predecessors, and was the best-reviewed film of 2010. Another review aggregator, Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 top reviews from mainstream critics, calculated a score of 92 based on 39 reviews. "TIME" named "Toy Story 3" the best movie of 2010, as did Quentin Tarantino. In 2011, "TIME" named it one of "The 25 All-TIME Best Animated Films." A. O. Scott of "The New York Times" stated, "This film—this whole three-part, 15-year epic—about the adventures of a bunch of silly plastic junk turns out also to be a long, melancholy meditation on loss, impermanence and that noble, stubborn, foolish thing called love." Owen Gleiberman from "Entertainment Weekly" gave the film an A, saying, "Even with the bar raised high, "Toy Story 3" enchanted and moved me so deeply I was flabbergasted that a digitally animated comedy about plastic playthings could have this effect." Gleiberman also wrote in the next issue that he, along with many other grown men, cried at the end of the film. Michael Rechtshaffen of "The Hollywood Reporter" also gave the film a positive review, saying, "Woody, Buzz and playmates make a thoroughly engaging, emotionally satisfying return." Mark Kermode of the BBC gave the film, and the series, a glowing review, calling it "the best movie trilogy of all time." In "USA Today", Claudia Puig gave the film a complete 4 star rating, writing, "This installment, the best of the three, is everything a movie should be: hilarious, touching, exciting and clever." Lou Lumenick of the "New York Post" wrote, ""Toy Story 3" (which is pointlessly being shown in 3-D at most locations) may not be a masterpiece, but it still had me in tears at the end." Michael Phillips of the "Chicago Tribune" gave the film 3 out of 4 stars, writing that, "Compared with the riches of all kinds in recent Pixar masterworks such as "Ratatouille", "WALL-E", and "Up", "Toy Story 3" looks and plays like an exceptionally slick and confident product, as opposed to a magical blend of commerce and popular art." "Orlando Sentinel" film critic Roger Moore, who gave the film 3½ out of 4 stars, wrote, "Dazzling, scary and sentimental, "Toy Story 3" is a dark and emotional conclusion to the film series that made Pixar famous." Box office. Worldwide. "Toy Story 3" earned $415,004,880 in North America, and $648,167,031 in other countries, totaling $1,063,171,911 worldwide, earning more revenue than the previous two films of the series combined. It is the eleventh highest-grossing film, the highest-grossing 2010 film, the highest-grossing animated film, the highest-grossing film in the "Toy Story" series, the third highest-grossing Disney film and the highest-grossing Pixar film. In terms of estimated attendance, though, it still ranks fourth on the list of modern animated films, behind "Shrek 2", "Finding Nemo" and "The Lion King". On its first weekend, "Toy Story 3" topped the worldwide box office with $145.3 million ($153.7 million with weekday previews), which stands as the third-largest opening weekend worldwide for an animated feature. On August 27, 2010, its 71st day of release, it surpassed the $1 billion mark, becoming the second Disney film in 2010 (after "Alice in Wonderland"), the third Disney film overall (the other being ""), and the only animated film to achieve this. North America. In North America, "Toy Story 3" is the twelfth highest-grossing film unadjusted for inflation. Adjusted for ticket price inflation though, it ranks ninetieth on the all-time chart. It is also the highest-grossing 2010 film, the highest-grossing Pixar film, the second-highest-grossing G-rated film, the third-highest-grossing animated film, and the fourth-highest-grossing film distributed by Disney. The film earned $41,148,961 on its opening day (Friday, June 18, 2010) from 4,028 theaters, including $4 million at midnight shows from about 1,500 theaters. It thus set an opening-day record for an animated film. During its opening weekend, the film topped the box office with $110,307,189, setting an opening-weekend record among Pixar films, among films released in June, (surpassed by "Man of Steel") and among G-rated films. The film also achieved the second-largest opening weekend for an animated film, and the fourth-largest opening weekend for a 2010 film. Its average of $27,385 per venue, is the second highest for a G-rated film and the second highest for an animated feature. Its opening-week gross (Friday-through-Thursday) of $167.6 million is the largest among animated films, the largest among 2010 films and the thirteenth largest of all time. It also achieved the largest ten-day gross among 2010 films. It topped the box office for two consecutive weekends and scored the tenth-largest second weekend with $59.3 million. Outside North America. It is the seventeenth highest-grossing film, the third highest-grossing animated film, the third highest-grossing film of 2010, the highest-grossing Pixar film, and the sixth highest-grossing Disney film. It topped the box office outside North America three times, on its first ($35.0 million), second, and sixth weekend (which was its largest). Its highest-grossing market after North America is Japan ($126.7 million), where it is the second highest-grossing U.S. animated feature (behind "Finding Nemo"), followed by the UK & Ireland and Malta (£73.8 million - $116.6 million), where it is the fourth highest-grossing film, and Mexico ($59.4 million), where it is the second highest-grossing film. It set opening weekend records for animated films in Ecuador, Colombia, Mexico, China, Argentina, Hong Kong, Spain and the UK. It is the highest-grossing animated film of all time in the UK, Ireland and Malta, in Mexico, in Hong Kong, and in Egypt. It is the highest-grossing 2010 film in Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Hong Kong, Mexico, Spain, the UK, & Ireland and Malta. Accolades. On January 25, 2011, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced that "Toy Story 3" was not only nominated for Best Animated Feature, but also for Best Picture. This makes "Toy Story 3" not only the first only animated sequel in history to be nominated for Best Picture, but also the third animated film to be nominated for Best Picture (following "Beauty and the Beast" and "Up"), with "Toy Story 3" becoming the second Pixar film to be nominated for both awards. "Toy Story 3" also became the first ever Pixar film - and the first animated feature film since "Shrek" - to be nominated for the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay, though six of Pixar's previous films were nominated for the Best Original Screenplay: "Toy Story", "Finding Nemo", "The Incredibles", "Ratatouille", "WALL-E", and "Up". In 2011, it was nominated for a Kids' Choice Award for Favorite Animated Movie, but lost to "Despicable Me". Music. The film score of "Toy Story 3" was composed and conducted by Randy Newman, his sixth for Pixar after "Toy Story", "A Bug's Life", "Toy Story 2", "Monsters, Inc.", and "Cars". Disney did not release the soundtrack album for "Toy Story 3" on Compact Disc (CD). It was only available, initially, as a music download in lossy formats such as MP3 and AAC. This was the second instance where Disney did not release the award-winning soundtrack of a Pixar film on CD. The first Pixar film not to have its soundtrack released on CD by Disney was "Up". In January 2012, Intrada released the "Toy Story 3" soundtrack on Compact Disc. In addition to the tracks included in the soundtrack album, the film also uses "Dream Weaver" by Gary Wright, "Le Freak" by Chic, and Randy Newman's original version of "You've Got a Friend in Me." Also, tracks "Cowboy!" and "Come to Papa" included material from Newman's rejected score to "Air Force One". The song "Losing You" from Newman's own album "Harps and Angels" was also used in the first trailer for the film. The Judas Priest song "Electric Eye" was used in the temp score for the opening scene of "Toy Story 3". The aliens are playing the tune in their sports car. But the song was ultimately replaced by another piece of music. Possible sequel. In June 2011, Tom Hanks, the voice of Woody in the films, was asked while promoting "Larry Crowne" whether or not there would be a sequel for his grandchildren to see. "I think there will be, yeah. I think they're working on it now," he said, referring to Pixar.
901658	Jeremy Bulloch (born 16 February 1945) is an English actor best known for the role of the bounty hunter Boba Fett in the original "Star Wars" trilogy, though he did not voice the character. He has appeared in numerous British television and film productions, including "Doctor Who" and "Robin of Sherwood". Biography. Bulloch was born in Market Harborough, Leicestershire, England. In a career spanning over half a century, he is most famous for his role in Boba Fett's costume in the "Star Wars" films ' and ' (the voice was provided by Jason Wingreen originally and in the updated versions Temuera Morrison). Additionally, he plays a minor role as an Imperial officer in "The Empire Strikes Back", his only non-masked appearance in the original "Star Wars" films. Bulloch returned as Boba Fett for the fan film mocumentary: "Return of the Ewok". He also has minor roles in three James Bond films, twice playing Smithers, an assistant to Q. In 1962, he starred alongside Cliff Richard in the musical film "Summer Holiday". Bulloch has also appeared in two "Doctor Who" stories, "The Space Museum" and "The Time Warrior". In recent years, due to the release of the new "Star Wars" films, he is frequently invited to science fiction conventions throughout the world, and was inducted as an Honorary Member of the 501st Legion costuming organization in May 2002. Later, in November 2009, he actually joined the 501st as a costume-wearing member making appearances with the group as Boba Fett. In 2004, Bulloch published a limited edition memoir, "Flying Solo", which is a humorous account of his personal and professional life, interspersed with tales from the convention circuit. In 2005, he once again made an appearance in a "Star Wars" film, this time playing Captain Colton in "". In 2005, he played the role of "Chairman Skellon" in a stage production of "The Trial of Davros". Recently, Bulloch played a small cameo role in "Star Wars" fan films "Order of the Sith: Vengeance" and its sequel "Downfall - Order of the Sith" - alongside David Prowse and Michael Sheard. These fan films were made in England in support of Save the Children. Bulloch has three sons, ten grandchildren, and lives in London with his wife, Maureen. His half-brother is Robert Watts, who was a producer on two original "Star Wars" films. Voice acting. In 2006, Bulloch provided the voice of "Sir Logan the Prowler" in the "Night Traveler" multimedia adventure series produced by Lunar Moth Entertainment.
1165678	Skip Homeier (born as George Vincent Homeier on October 5, 1930) is an American actor. Career. Homeier began acting as Skippy Homeier at the age of eleven, on the radio show "Portia Faces Life". From 1943 until 1944, he played the role of Emil in the Broadway play, "Tomorrow, the World". Cast as a child indoctrinated into Nazism, who is brought to the United States from Germany following the death of his parents, Homeier was praised for his performance. He played the troubled youngster in the 1944 film adaptation and received good reviews playing opposite Fredric March and Betty Field as his American uncle and aunt. Although Homeier worked frequently throughout his childhood and adolescence, playing wayward youths with no chance of redemption, he did not become a major star, but he did make a transition from child actor to adult, especially in a range of roles as delinquent youths, common in Hollywood films of the 1950s. In 1954, he guest-starred in an episode of the NBC legal drama "Justice", based on cases of the Legal Aid Society of New York. Thereafter, he was cast in an episode of Steve McQueen's "", a CBS western series. Homeier played a man sought for a crime who is innocent but distrusts the legal system to provide justice. Fleeing from McQueen in the role of bounty hunter Josh Randall, the Homeier character leaps to his death from a cliff. Homeier appeared as Kading in the episode "The Post" of the 1958 NBC western "Jefferson Drum", starring Jeff Richards. Homeier played the young gunfighter who badgered and shot down Gregory Peck in "The Gunfighter" (1950). He then appeared in the westerns, "The Burning Hills" and with Randolph Scott in Budd Boetticher's "The Tall T" (1957) and "Comanche Station" (1960). He played a villain in "Day of the Bad Man". He played strong character roles in war films, such as "Halls of Montezuma" (1950, "Beachhead") and Sam Fuller's "Fixed Bayonets" (1951). In 1954 he appeared on CBS Television's "Studio One" in "The Death and Life of Larry Benson", in which he portrayed a psychically damaged Korean War veteran. In 1959, he was cast as Ches Ryan in the episode "The Bandit" of the ABC/Warner Brothers western series, "Lawman", starring John Russell. In the story line, Ryan absconds with stolen money but comes upon a cabin with two persons burning with fever from a plague. When Marshal Troop arrives and is also stricken, Ryan stays behind to nurse all three victims back to health. Troop takes Ryan back to face justice but believes that the criminal has reformed. From 1960 to 1961, Homeier starred in the title role in "Dan Raven", a crime drama on NBC set on the famous Sunset Strip of West Hollywood, California, with a number of celebrities appearing in guest roles as themselves. He made two guest appearances on "Perry Mason", both times as the defendant. In 1961 he played Dr. Edley in "The Case of the Pathetic Patient," and in 1965 he played Police Sgt. Dave Wolfe in "The Case of the Silent Six." Homeier was cast in "The Ghost and Mr. Chicken" (1966) with Don Knotts. Homeier frequently appeared as a guest star, usually a villain, in all four of Irwin Allen's science-fiction series in the mid-to-late 1960s. He guest-starred in two episodes of the original "Star Trek" television series, "Patterns of Force", and "The Way to Eden". In the 1970–1971 season, Homeier, at forty, co-starred as Dr. Hugh Jacoby in the CBS series, "The Interns", based on a film of the same name. His costars were Broderick Crawford as the hospital administrator, Christopher Stone as Dr. Jim Hardin, and Mike Farrell as Dr. Sam Marsh.
1483375	Dirty Hands () is a play by Jean-Paul Sartre. It was first performed on 2 April 1948 at the Theatre Antoine in Paris, starring François Périer, Marie Olivier and André Luguet. The director was Pierre Valde. A political drama set in the fictional country of Illyria between 1943 and 1945, the story is about the assassination of a leading politician. The play is told mainly in flashback with the killer telling of how he carried out his mission. The killer's identity is established from the beginning, but the question is whether his motivations were political or personal. Thus the play's main theme is not on who did it but on why it was done. Plot. The action takes place in Illyria, a fictional East European country in the latter stages of World War II. (Illyria was an actual country of classical antiquity, whose territory included modern Albania and surroundings.) The country, an ally of Nazi Germany, is on the verge of being annexed to the Eastern Bloc. A young Communist, Hugo Barine, is told that Hoederer, a party leader, has proposed talks with the other non-Socialist groups, including the Fascist government and the Liberal and Nationalist-led resistance. The idea is to set up a joint resistance group opposing the Germans, and a post-war coalition government. Hugo feels that Hoederer's policy smacks of treachery. Louis, another party leader, has decided that Hoederer must die. He grudgingly agrees to let Hugo, who has more commitment than experience, do the job. Hugo and his wife Jessica move in with Hoederer, a man with a charming and trusting nature. Hugo is his secretary. Although he tries to convince Jessica that he is in earnest about the murder, she treats the whole thing as a game. Indeed, at first she sees the gun not as a murder weapon but as a metaphor for a phallus as Hugo perhaps suffers from erectile dysfunction and is unable to please her. Ten days pass and then the negotiations begin with the other parties. With Hoederer coming close to a deal with the members of the class that he loathes, Hugo is on the point of reaching for his gun when a bomb explodes. Nobody is killed but Hugo is furious. This attack shows that those who sent him do not trust him to do the job. He gets drunk and almost gives the game up to Hoederer's bodyguards. Jessica covers up for him by claiming to be pregnant. Olga Lorame, one of those who sent Hugo to commit the murder, discreetly visits him and Jessica. It was she who threw the bomb and warns Hugo to get on with killing Hoederer since the others are getting impatient. So far Jessica has taken the whole killing thing as a game, but the bomb convinces her that things are in earnest and that Hugo will kill Hoederer. She persuades the two of them to argue their points out in order to prevent any killing. Hoederer's plan is to enter government with the other parties but to leave them with the key ministerial posts. Once the war is over a number of unpopular but necessary policies will have to be implemented in order to rebalance the economy. This will cause problems for the right-wing government, allowing the left-wing, including the Communists, to take over more easily. At the moment the Communists do not have the necessary support to gain power and the expected arrival of the Soviet forces may only make things worse. Hoederer points out that people do not like occupying foreign armies, even liberating ones, and the feeling will be passed on to the government introduced by the invaders. Hugo insists that the party must remain pure. Power is the goal but Hoederer's expedient methods are not acceptable, especially as they involve collaborating with "class" enemies and lying and deceiving to their own forces. Once they are alone Jessica tries to convince Hugo that he was taken in by Hoederer's point of view, but he twists this around saying that it is all the more the reason to kill Hoederer since he could convince others. Over time, however, both Hugo and Jessica have succumbed to Hoederer's charm and manner. Although he may disagree with his policies, Hugo seems to think that Hoederer could help him cross from boy to manhood and sort out the internal conflicts within himself. Hoederer, who is now aware that Hugo is there to kill him on Louis' orders, is willing to help the young man sort out his problems. He is not, however, so keen on Jessica whose attraction to him seems more physical. When he kisses her as a way of getting it out of her system, Hugo catches them in the act and kills him. While in prison Hugo receives gifts from the outside which he guesses are from those who sent him to kill Hoederer. This keeps him going, but some of the gifts turn out to be poisoned chocolates. What's more, when he is released on parole, he finds himself stalked by the party's killers and takes refuge with Olga. Olga listens to Hugo's version of events. Hugo did not kill Hoederer out of jealousy for Jessica but because he thought that Hoederer was not sincere when he said that he wanted Hugo to stay with him in order to mentor him: "I killed him because I opened the door. That's all I know", "Jealous? Perhaps. But not for Jessica." Olga concludes that Hugo will be more useful alive than dead. However she also reveals that the policy that Hoederer proposed has been adopted after all. On Moscow's orders, the party has formed an alliance with the other groups. In fact Hugo realizes that the very setup that Hoederer was negotiating in his presence, and which he was supposed to prevent, has been carried out. The whole thing was over a matter of timing: Hoederer's initiative was too premature, so the party had to kill him. Later, after Hoederer's plan was adopted, the party rehabilitated his image and after the war he will be remembered as a great leader and hero. Hugo is incensed, especially since the party has lied and deceived its own members. The fact that they are at war and have probably saved a hundred thousand lives makes no difference. What matters now, he decides, is that Hoederer should die not for a woman like Jessica but for his policies: because he lied to the rank and file and jeopardized the soul of the party. Hugo decides all the party leaders—Hoederer, Louis, and Olga—are alike. This is why he has been targeted by hitmen sent by Louis. Hugo realizes that, despite Olga's statements to the contrary, if he remains alive and continues with the party his earlier assassination of Hoederer will mean nothing and bring dishonor. Thus, while Olga tries desperately to save him, it is Hugo himself who lets the killers in to finish the job. Characters. Hoederer, a former member of the Illyrian parliament and a leading figure in the Socialist Proletarian Party. He has a very trusting nature and even remains friendly with Hugo after he realises the young man is there to kill him. He offers to help Hugo sort out his internal conflicts. His plans are based on the political reality of the situation. Hugo Barine, a young 21-year-old bourgeois intellectual who joined the party's Communist faction under the name of Raskolnikov (from Dostoevsky's "Crime and Punishment"). His father is a leading businessman and, since he comes from a wealthy background, most members of the party dismiss him as an intellectual who does not even know what poverty is really like. Hugo is anxious to prove his worth to them, especially Louis and Olga, and killing Hoederer will be a way to achieve this. Jessica, Hugo's 19-year-old wife. She keeps out of politics, referring to herself as someone brought up to simply "put flowers in vases". At first, she treats the approaching murder as a game, which does not help Hugo's confidence, but then she tries desperately to prevent it. When Hugo is jailed she at first keeps in touch but then breaks off communication and stops using her married name. Louis, another leading figure in the Proletarian Party, but opposed to Hoederer's plan. Olga, a member of Louis' faction and one of the few friends Hugo has. Karsky, the leader of the Pentagon, a group that includes Liberals and Nationalists, fighting the Regent of Illyria and his pro-Fascist government. The Prince, the son of the Regent and his representative in the negotiations. Slick, Georges and Leon, Hoederer's bodyguards. Charles and Frantz, Communist assassins sent to kill Hugo after his release from prison. Ivan, a saboteur for the Communists. Historical context. World War II has a lot to do with this play and how it was written. Illyria (also the location of Shakespeare's "Twelfth Night") was presumably based upon Hungary. The 'Parti Proletarian' is the communist party to which most of the main characters in the story belong. They are fighting for "une société sans classes" ("a classless society"). The other two parties mentioned in this play are the Regent's Fascist government which supports Germany and the 'Pentagone' which is made up of the middle classes. Hungary at that time was ruled by a Regent, Miklós Horthy who appointed Prime Minister Gyula Gömbös in 1932. Gömbös wanted to co-operate with Nazi Germany, and, although this ended Hungary's depression, it made it economically dependent on Germany. The Hungarian government supported the policies and goals of Nazi Germany. In 1938, the new Prime Minister, Kálmán Darányi, decided to make his new policies very pro-Germany and pro-Italy, a bit like how Hoederer wanted to join with the other parties to try to evolve as a country and stay on everyone's good side to get his own party's point across. Legacy. "Les Mains sales" is based mainly on the theme of existentialism which Sartre espoused, but many have taken it as a straightforward political drama. Right-wingers welcomed it as anti-communist, and left-wingers attacked it for the same reason. When the film version was released in France in 1951 Communists threatened the cinemas showing it. In fact the play itself was not re-staged in France until 1976. It was not even staged in a socialist state until November 1968 when it was shown in Prague after the invasion of Czechoslovakia by fellow Warsaw Pact forces; appropriate given that differences in Communist doctrine is one of its themes. Underlying the critics' response to "Les Mains sales" is the extent to which it is a play too rooted in themes of politics and existentialism, and whether, in consequence, it becomes inaccessible for the average spectator. Non-French versions of the play have had titles including "Dirty Hands", "Red Gloves" and "Crime Passionnel". In 2000, the play was performed in Britain under the title of "The Novice" starring Jamie Glover as Hugo and Kenneth Cranham as Hoederer. The director was Richard Eyre who used it to raise conflicting differences in contemporary British political life, such as the Northern Ireland peace process or the Old and New factions of Britain's Labour Party government.
1100730	Rafael Bombelli (20 January 1526 (baptised) – 1572) was an Italian mathematician. Born in Bologna, he is the author of a treatise on algebra and is a central figure in the understanding of imaginary numbers. He was the one who finally managed to address the problem with imaginary numbers. In his 1572 book, L'Algebra, Bombelli solved equations using the method of del Ferro/Tartaglia. He introduced the rhetoric that preceded the representative symbols +i and -i and described how they both worked. The lunar crater Bombelli is named after him. Life. Rafael Bombelli was baptised on 20 January 1526 in Bologna, Papal States. He was born to Antonio Mazzoli, a wool merchant, and Diamante Scudieri, a tailor's daughter. The Mazzoli family was once quite powerful in Bologna. When Pope Julius II came to power, in 1506, he exiled the ruling family, the Bentivoglios. The Bentivoglio family attempted to retake Bologna in 1508, but failed. Rafael's grandfather participated in the coup attempt, and was captured and executed. Later, Antonio was able to return to Bologna, having changed his surname to Bombelli to escape the reputation of the Mazzoli family. Rafael was the oldest of six children. Rafael received no college education, but was instead taught by an engineer-architect by the name of Pier Francesco Clementi. Rafael Bombelli felt that none of the works on algebra by the leading mathematicians of his day provided a careful and thorough exposition of the subject. Instead of another convoluted treatise that only mathematicians could comprehend, Rafael decided to write a book on algebra that could be understood by anyone. His text would be self-contained and easily read by those without higher education. Rafael Bombelli died in 1572 in Rome, Italy. http://mata.gia.rwth-aachen.de/Vortraege/Sabrina_Mueller/Geschichte_der_Zahlen/Bilder/cardano.png Bombelli's Algebra. In the book that he wrote in 1572, entitled "L'Algebra", Bombelli gave a comprehensive account of the algebra known at the time. Bombelli wrote down the rules formulated by Brahmagupta regarding negative numbers. The following is an excerpt from the text:
585078	Andhrawala () is a 2004 Telugu film written and directed by Puri Jagannadh and has Jr NTR playing the main role. Rakshitha, Sayaji Shinde, and Rahul Dev play important roles. Music was composed by Chakri while cinematography was handled by Shyam K. Naidu. The film has been dubbed in Tamil as "Velaa" and in hindi as Barood:Man On Mission. Puri jagan's assistant Meher Ramesh remade this film in kannada as "Veera Kannadiga" with Puneeth Rajkumar. Plot. Shankar Pehalvan (Jr. NTR), is the leader of labor from Andhra in Mumbai. Shankar fights with the mafia don Bade Mia (Sayaji Shinde) and in the process Andhrawala also becomes a don. In the ensuing mafia feud, Bade Mia kills Shankar and his wife (Sanghavi). Basha (Benarjee) - a trusted lieutenant of Sankar - takes away the kid to rescue him from Bade Mia. When mafia goons follow him, Basha leaves the kid on a footpath besides a beggar and leaves. The boy, Munna (Jr. NTR), is raised in a slum area. While Basha is in search of Munna to safeguard him, Bade Mia is in search of him to avenge the death of his son in the hands of Shankar. Thanks to the similarities in appearance of father and son, Basha and Bade Mia recognize that Munna is son of Sankar. Munna gets to know his identity and the story of his father and his death from Basha. In the meanwhile, Bade Mia men descend to Hyderabad to kill Munna. Munna decides to take the battle to Bade Mia and goes to Mumbai to confront with Bade Mia face to face. The rest of the story is all about how Munna succeeds in killing his family's murderers.
1099156	Curtis Tracy McMullen (born 21 May 1958) is Professor of Mathematics at Harvard University. He was awarded the Fields Medal in 1998 for his work in complex dynamics, hyperbolic geometry and Teichmüller theory. McMullen graduated as valedictorian in 1980 from Williams College and obtained his Ph.D. in 1985 from Harvard University, supervised by Dennis Sullivan. He held post-doctoral positions at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute, and the Institute for Advanced Study, after which he was on the faculty at Princeton University (1987–1990) and the University of California, Berkeley (1990–1997), before joining Harvard in 1997. He received the Salem Prize in 1991 and was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 2007. In 2012 he became a fellow of the American Mathematical Society. Trivia. McMullen has given a proof that backgammon ends with probability one.
583897	Dumm Dumm Dumm is a 2001 Tamil drama film co-written and directed by Azhagam Perumal and produced by noted director Mani Ratnam under his home studio, Madras Talkies. It features Madhavan and Jyothika in the leading roles with Vivek, Manivannan and Murali portraying other pivotal roles. The film featured cinematography by Ramji, editing by Sreekar Prasad and music composed by Karthik Raja. The story revolves around an unhappy groom and bride forced into a wedding. The groom backs away because he is reluctant to give up his life of wine and women in the city while the bride is unwilling because she wants to pursue an Engineering degree. The two draw up a few plans to stop the wedding, but they fizzle out. Just when they begin to think that their getting together may not be too bad an idea after all, a real fight stops the wedding; how they reunite forms the crux of the plot. The film opened on April 13, 2001 to positive reviews from critics and performed well commercially. Plot. Adhi (Madhavan) is a fun-loving city man. Ganga (Jyothika) is a cheerful village belle who wants to do her degree in Engineering. Marriage between the two is fixed by the elders. They resent it and collude to find ways to stop the 'doom' as they see it. Later, they realise that they are interested in one another after all. But it is too late as enmity has arisen between their families. How they resolve the issue works up the rest of the story. Aditya and Ganga are two youngsters who have moved to Chennai from the same small village. Their parents meet and arrange for them to be married to each other. Aditya's life is young, urban and exciting — with girls, parties, bikes, songs, cars, discos, movies and, infrequently, studying. He is not very enthused about the idea of being married to a village belle. Ganga, who has just ranked second in the Class XII examinations and has been admitted to an engineering college, wants to continue her education and is equally uninterested in the idea of marriage. After a series of unsuccessful attempts to break off their engagement, Aditya and Ganga reconcile to their marriage. A misunderstanding on the day of their wedding turns into a fight between their families. The wedding is called off, and a feud has begun. Back in Chennai, Ganga stays with her lawyer uncle. Aditya and Ganga return to their respective lives but continue to bump into each other. Aditya mistakenly lands in Ganga's uncle's house, and Ganga's uncle thinks of Aditya as an intern. Aditya and Ganga find that they are attracted to each other. Love blossoms, and the pair now turn their efforts toward convincing their families to set aside their differences and allow the lovers to be joined in marriage. This is finally achieved but not without a series of intricate twists, turns and related hilarity. Production. A song sequence was shot at Thanjavur Periya Koil and became the final film to shoot there until "Kandaen" released in 2011. The film had a premiere on 13 April 2001 at Sathyam Cinemas in aid of the Ability Foundation, an organisation working for the welfare of the disabled. Release. Upon release, "Dumm Dumm Dumm" garnered predominantly positive feedback from critics. The critic from Rediff.com cited that the film "has what it takes to come up with a box office bonanza" and said that "the real star, though, is director Azhagam Perumal." Furthermore, the reviewer praised Madhavan and Jyothika, the lead pair, as "perfectly cast, and perform as per expectations," whilst labeling that Murali delivered a "measured performance." "The Hindu"'s verdict was that the film was "a neat entertainer that seems to lose focus on and off," whilst drawing particular praise for the performance of the leading actors. The film went on to become a commercially successful venture at the box office. Subsequently, the film was later dubbed and released in the Telugu language as "Dum Dum Dum". It subsequently was awarded with several Cinema Express Awards and was the most awarded film at the award function with Karthik Raja winning Best Tamil Music Director Award for his work. Soundtrack. The soundtrack features six songs composed by Karthik Raja.
1055704	Colm Feore (born August 22, 1958) is an American-Canadian stage, film and television actor. Early life. Feore was born in Boston, Massachusetts, to Irish parents who lived in Ireland for several years during his early life. The family subsequently moved to Windsor, Ontario, where Feore grew up. After graduating from Ridley College in St. Catharines, Ontario, he attended the National Theatre School of Canada in Montreal, Quebec and University of Windsor in Ontario. Career. Feore honed his acting skills as a member of the Acting Company of the Stratford Festival of Canada, North America’s largest classical repertory theatre. He spent 16 seasons at Stratford where he rose from bit parts to leading roles, including Romeo, Hamlet, Richard III, and Cyrano. He returned in 2006 to star in four productions, including "Don Juan" in both English and French and as Fagin in Oliver!. More recently, in 2009 he played the main role of Macbeth in the play "Macbeth", and the main role of Cyrano in "Cyrano de Bergerac" both performed at the Stratford Festival Theatre. In Canada, Feore’s most famous roles were as Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau in the critically acclaimed television mini-series "Trudeau", a role for which he won a Gemini Award for Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in a Dramatic Program or Mini-Series, as classical pianist Glenn Gould in the 1993 film "Thirty-Two Short Films About Glenn Gould", and as by-the-book anglophone detective Martin Ward in the box-office hit "Bon Cop, Bad Cop". He also played a crazed marketing executive imposter in the second season of the popular Canadian TV series, "Slings and Arrows," a role that continued for several episodes. The show has run in the United States on the Sundance Channel. Outside Canada, Feore has appeared in numerous film, theatre and television roles. He is perhaps most famous in the United States for his supporting roles in such Hollywood films as "Pearl Harbor", "The Sum of All Fears", "Paycheck", and "The Chronicles of Riddick". He was the crooked Los Angeles Police Chief James E. Davis in 2008's "Changeling". In 2011, he appeared as Laufey, King of the Frost Giants, in the live-action superhero film, "Thor". He also has appeared on Broadway as Cassius in the production of "Julius Caesar" starring Denzel Washington as Brutus. Off-Broadway, for the Public Theater, he was Claudius in a "Hamlet" production that starred Liev Schreiber. He portrayed the First Gentleman Henry Taylor on the seventh season of "24", appeared as Tad Whitney in "The West Wing" second-season episode titled "Galileo" and also played the billionaire suspect Jordan Hayes in the 2011 "" episode "Flight". Personal life. Feore, his second wife, choreographer Donna Feore, and three children, Jack, Tom and Anna, live in Stratford, Ontario. Jack is his son from his first marriage. As witnessed in the 2006 comedy-thriller "Bon Cop, Bad Cop", Feore is fluent in French. In October 2012, Feore was awarded an honorary doctorate degree by Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, Ontario, in recognition of his contributions to Canadian theater and film.
1059886	The Upside of Anger is a 2005 American romantic comedy-drama film written and directed by Mike Binder and set in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. It stars Joan Allen, Kevin Costner and Evan Rachel Wood. Plot. The opening scene presents Terry and her daughters, with Denny, attending a funeral. About three years earlier, a flashback reveals, Terry had told her daughters that she thought their father, Grey, had left the family to be with his former secretary in Sweden. After sharing the news with neighbor Denny, a retired baseball player turned radio talkshow host and fellow alcoholic, Terry progressively grows close to the man, with whom she eventually begins an intimate relationship. Keen to help where he can, Denny helps Andy, one of Terry's daughters, to become a production assistant at the radio station where he works, where she meets and starts a relationship with Shep, Denny's producer, a questionable character in his 40s. Meanwhile Popeye, who is attending a private high school, finds herself attracted to a classmate, whose attention she fails to grab even after clearly declaring her interest to him (the classmate purports to be gay). Emily's original wishes to attend a performing arts school to study dancing are superseded by her mother's request that she pursue university studies, which she starts at University of Michigan at Ann Arbor. Hadley, for her part, announces immediately following her graduation that she is engaged to her boyfriend of three years, and pregnant. When young Popeye asks Denny what his long-term intentions are concerning his relationship with her mother, Denny decides to broach the subject with Terry, only to be confronted by anger and accusations that he is trying to push her into a marriage for which she feels unready. Weary and tired of Terry's ever-shifting moods, Denny storms out of her house; the separation is only temporary, though, as the two reconcile a short while later.
900109	La Notte () is a 1961 Italian drama film directed by Michelangelo Antonioni and starring Marcello Mastroianni, Jeanne Moreau, and Monica Vitti. Filmed on location in Milan, the film is about a day in the life of an unfaithful married couple and their deteriorating relationship. In 1961 "La Notte" received the Golden Bear at the Berlin International Film Festival, as well as the David di Donatello Award for Best Director. "La Notte" is considered the central film of a trilogy beginning with "L'Avventura" (1960) and ending with "Eclipse" (1962). Plot. Giovanni Pontano (Marcello Mastroianni), a distinguished and successful writer, and his beautiful wife Lidia (Jeanne Moreau) visit their dying friend Tommaso Garani (Bernhard Wicki) in a hospital in Milan. Giovanni's new book, "La stagione" ("The Season"), has just been published and Tommaso praises his friend's work. They drink champagne together, but Tommaso is unable to hide his severe pain. Shaken by the sight of her dying friend, Lidia leaves, saying she'll visit again tomorrow. Giovanni stays behind a while longer. As he leaves his friend's room, a sick and uninhibited young woman attempts to seduce Giovanni before being interrupted by the nurses.
1058424	My Big Fat Independent Movie is a 2005 independent film produced and written by film journalist Chris Gore spoofing well-known independent films, such as "My Big Fat Greek Wedding", "Memento", "Swingers", "Pulp Fiction", "Magnolia", "Amelie", "Reservoir Dogs", "Pi", "The Good Girl", "Run Lola Run", "Clerks" and "El Mariachi". "My Big Fat Independent Movie" was eventually acquired by Anchor Bay Entertainment distribution and the film was released on DVD. Broadcast cable rights were picked up by CBS Corporation for Showtime, The Movie Channel and Sundance Channel. Synopsis. The film begins with a black man molesting a white man who has trouble remembering events for more than 15 minutes at a time. The film then cuts forward in time to two talkative hitmen, Sam (Neil Barton) and Harvey (Eric Hoffman), who mistakenly believe Johnny Vince (Darren Keefe), a hipper-than-thou swingin' hepcat and band trombone player, to be the third member of their gang, assembled by their evil crime boss to pull a "botched robbery" in Las Vegas. Along the way, they take a beautiful hostage – the lovely, desperate and lonely cashier Julianne (Paget Brewster). Little do they know that she will forever change their pathetic lives. During the journey, the foursome encounter a variety of characters inspired by famous independent films, including a bald genius, a forgetful thug, a jogging red-head, a bound and gagged girl, rabbis on a mission, lots of lesbians, Project Greenlight's Pete Jones, a crazed though well-dressed mechanic (Clint Howard), a horny answering machine (Jason Mewes), a naive mariachi, an obnoxious practical-joking love-struck French girl, and finally Pauly Shore as himself. Reception. "My Big Fat Independent Movie" earned only $4,655 in box office receipts during its domestic run with an estimated budget of $3,000,000. The film was poorly received by the consensus of critics who reviewed the film, receiving a 23% rotten rating over at Rotten Tomatoes. Internet debate soon erupted over the film's lowbrow treatment of independent film classics and caused backlash from die-hard independent film fans. Chris Parry, entertainment journalist and film critic for efilmcritic.com, found that the movie targeted films that were too well liked by its intended audience, and a larger (more mainstream) audience wouldn't recognize the referenced films. Before its limited domestic release, the film had been pre-screened on the festival circuit including Cinequest, South by Southwest, San Diego Film Festival, Sidewalk Moving Picture Festival, Newport Beach Film Festival, Worldfest Houston, and the Temecula Valley Film Festival, where it won best feature.
899871	La battaglia di Maratona (English version: "The Giant of Marathon") is a 1959 Italian sword and sandal film, loosely based on the Battle of Marathon. It was directed by Jacques Tourneur and Mario Bava (Bava had to step in to complete the film). It starred Steve Reeves as Pheidippides (Phillipides in the film). Plot. This classical peplum tells a fictitious story set in 490 BC, the time of the Medic Wars during which Persian armies sweep the Ancient world. Having brought home to Athens the Olympic victor's laurel crown, Philippides joins as commander of the Sacred Guard, which is expected to defend the city-state's liberty, a year after the expulsion of the tyrant Hippias. Athenian supporters of Hippias conspire, hoping to side Philippides by marriage to Theocrites' expensive servant Charis, and thus neutralize the guard. She fails to seduce him, as his heart is already taken by a young girl before the learns her name is Andromeda, daughter of Creuso. Everything personal is likely to be put on hold when the news breaks that the vast army of Darius, the Persian King of Kings, is marching on Greece, hoping that its internal division will make its conquest a walk-over. Theocrites instructs Miltiades to hold back the sacred guard to defend the temple of Pallas after a likely defeat, and proposes instead to negotiate terms with Darius, but is told an alliance with Sparta could save the Hellenic nation. Philippides makes the journey and survives a fiendish attempt on his life by conspirators; he returns with Sparta's engagement during the Persian attack in far greater numbers on Militiades valiant troops. Charis, left for dead after overhearing Darius's orders, reaches the camp to tell that the Persian fleet, now commanded by the traitor Theocrites, is heading for the Piraeus to take Athens. Miltiades sends Philippides ahead to hold out with the sacred guard until his hopefully victorious troops arrive, and after his perilous journey back they do a great job, proving that superior athletes can do better than traditional naval ramming tactics.
1061718	Gene Wilder (born Jerome Silberman; June 11, 1933) is a retired American stage and screen actor, character actor, comedian, director, screenwriter, author and activist. Wilder began his career on stage, and made his screen debut in the TV-series Armstrong Circle Theatre in 1962. Although his first film role was portraying a hostage in the 1967 motion picture "Bonnie and Clyde", Wilder's first major role was as Leopold Bloom in the 1968 film "The Producers" for which he was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. This was the first in a series of collaborations with writer/director Mel Brooks, including 1974's "Blazing Saddles" and "Young Frankenstein", the latter of which garnered the pair an Academy Award nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay. Wilder is known for his portrayal of Willy Wonka in "Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory" (1971) and for his four films with Richard Pryor: "Silver Streak" (1976), "Stir Crazy" (1980), "See No Evil, Hear No Evil" (1989), and "Another You" (1991). Wilder has directed and written several of his films, including "The Woman in Red" (1984). His third wife was actress Gilda Radner, with whom he starred in three films. Her death from ovarian cancer led to his active involvement in promoting cancer awareness and treatment, helping found the Gilda Radner Ovarian Cancer Detection Center in Los Angeles and co-founding Gilda's Club. Since his most recent contribution to acting in 2003, Wilder has turned his attention to writing. He has produced a memoir in 2005, "Kiss Me Like a Stranger: My Search for Love and Art"; a collection of stories, "What Is This Thing Called Love?" (2010); and the novels "My French Whore" (2007), "The Woman Who Wouldn't" (2008) and "Something to Remember You By" (2013). He continues to receive critical acclaim, and is regarded as one of the most appealing comedic actors of the second half of the 20th century. Early life and education. Born Jerome Silberman in Milwaukee, Wisconsin on June 11, 1933, Gene Wilder is the son of William J. and Jeanne (Baer) Silberman. He adopted "Gene Wilder" for his professional name at the age of 26, later explaining, "I had always liked Gene because of Thomas Wolfe's character Eugene Gant in "Look Homeward, Angel" and "Of Time and the River". And I was always a great admirer of Thornton Wilder." Wilder first became interested in acting at age 8, when his mother was diagnosed with rheumatic fever and the doctor told him to "try and make her laugh." When Jeanne Silberman felt that her son's potential was not being fully realized in Wisconsin, she sent him to Black-Foxe, a military institute in Hollywood, where he wrote that he was bullied and sexually assaulted, primarily because he was the only Jewish boy in the school. After an unsuccessful short stay at Black-Foxe, Wilder returned home and became increasingly involved with the local theatre community. At age fifteen, he performed for the first time in front of a paying audience, as Balthasar (Romeo's manservant) in a production of Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet". Gene Wilder graduated from Washington High School in Milwaukee in 1951. Acting career. Early starts: Old Vic and Army. Wilder studied Communication and Theatre Arts at the University of Iowa, where he was a member of the Alpha Epsilon Pi Fraternity. Following his 1955 graduation from Iowa, he was accepted at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School in Bristol, England. After six months of studying fencing, Wilder became the first freshman to win the All-School Fencing Championship. Desiring to study Stanislavski's system, he returned to the U.S., living with his sister and her family in Queens. Wilder enrolled at the HB Studio. Wilder was drafted into the Army on September 10, 1956. At the end of recruit training, he was assigned to the medical corps and sent to Fort Sam Houston for training. He was then given the opportunity to choose any post that was open, and wanting to stay near New York City to attend acting classes at the HB Studio, he chose to serve as paramedic in the Department of Psychiatry and Neurology at Valley Forge Army Hospital, in Phoenixville, Pennsylvania. In November 1957, his mother died from ovarian cancer. He was discharged from the army a year later and returned to New York. A scholarship to the HB Studio allowed him to become a full-time student. At first living on unemployment insurance and some savings, he later supported himself with odd jobs such as a limousine driver and fencing instructor. Wilder's first professional acting job was in Cambridge, England, where he played the Second Officer in Herbert Berghof's production of "Twelfth Night". He also served as a fencing choreographer. After three years of study with Berghof and Uta Hagen at the HB Studio, Charles Grodin told Wilder about Lee Strasberg's method acting. Grodin persuaded him to leave the Studio and begin studying with Strasberg in his private class. Several months later, Wilder was accepted into the Actors Studio. Feeling that "Jerry Silberman in "Macbeth"" did not have the right ring to it, he adopted a stage name. He chose "Wilder" because it reminded him of "Our Town" author Thornton Wilder, while "Gene" came from Thomas Wolfe's first novel, "Look Homeward, Angel". He also liked "Gene" because as a boy, he was impressed by a distant relative, a World War II bomber navigator who was "handsome and looked great in his leather flight jacket." He later said that he couldn't see Gene Wilder playing "Macbeth", either. After joining the Actors Studio, he slowly began to be noticed in the Off Broadway scene, thanks to performances in Sir Arnold Wesker's "Roots" and in Graham Greene's "The Complaisant Lover", for which Wilder received the Clarence Derwent Award for "Best Performance by an Actor in a Nonfeatured Role." Mel Brooks. In 1963, Wilder was cast in a leading role in "Mother Courage and Her Children", a production starring Anne Bancroft, who introduced Wilder to her boyfriend Mel Brooks. A few months later, Brooks mentioned that he was working on a screenplay called "Springtime for Hitler", for which he thought Wilder would be perfect in the role of Leo Bloom. Brooks elicited a promise from Wilder that he would check with him before making any long-term commitments. Months went by, and Wilder toured the country with different theatre productions, participated in a televised CBS presentation of "Death of a Salesman", and was cast for his first role in a film—a minor role in Arthur Penn's 1967 "Bonnie and Clyde". After three years of not hearing from Brooks, Wilder was called for a reading with Zero Mostel, who was to be the star of "Springtime for Hitler" and had approval of his co-star. Mostel approved, and Wilder was cast for his first leading role in a feature film, 1968's "The Producers". "The Producers" eventually became a cult comedy classic, with Mel Brooks winning an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay and Wilder being nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. Nevertheless, Mel Brooks' first directorial effort did not do well at the box office and was not well received by all critics; "New York Times" critic Renata Adler reviewed the film and described it as "black college humor." In 1969, Wilder relocated to Paris, accepting a leading role in Bud Yorkin's "Start the Revolution Without Me", a comedy that took place during the French Revolution. After shooting ended, Wilder returned to New York, where he read the script for "Quackser Fortune Has a Cousin in the Bronx" and immediately called Sidney Glazier, who produced "The Producers". Both men began searching for the perfect director for the film. Jean Renoir was the first candidate, but he would not be able to do the film for at least a year, so British-Indian director Waris Hussein was hired. "Willy Wonka", "Young Frankenstein", and Richard Pryor. In 1971, Mel Stuart offered Wilder the lead role in his film adaptation of Roald Dahl's "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory". Wilder was initially hesitant, but finally accepted the role under one condition:
585019	Kandireega is a Telugu-language romantic comedy film directed by Santosh Srinivas and produced by Bellamkonda Suresh under Sri Sai Ganesh Productions and released on 12 August 2011. The film features Ram and Hansika Motwani in the lead roles. The film's music was scored by S. Thaman. It was declared a super hit at the box office. This film was remade in Bengali as "Paglu 2" starring Dev and Koel Mallick directed by Sujit Mondal, and is currently being remade into Hindi as "Main Tera Hero", directed by David Dhawan, starring Varun Dhawan and Ileana D'Cruz. Plot. Sreenu (Ram) is the son of Vishwanatham (Chandra Mohan). He is a high school drop out in Anakapalle and wants to marry his uncle's (Dharmavarapu Subramanyam) daughter Bujji (Swati Reddy). She rejects him stating that he doesn’t have college education. Sreenu, who is clever and street-smart decides to go to Hyderabad for further education. While travelling in the train, he bashes up a bunch of rowdies teasing college girls. At the college in Hyderabad, he meets Shruthi (Hansika Motwani) and falls in love with her. The city gangster Bhavani (Sonu Sood) is in love with her and blackmails her to marry him. He beats anyone moving closely with Shruthi. Meanwhile, henchmen of Warangal Rajanna (Jaya Prakash Reddy), a dreaded chieftain, are looking for Sreenu in the city. Sreenu meets Bhavani and forces him to a challenge, whereby, he will make Shruthi love him. Sreenu rescues Shruthi from being kidnapped by the gang of Yadayya, a rival of Bhavani. When Sreenu wins Shruthi's heartand both of them decide to elope, she is kidnapped. It is then revealed that Rajanna kidnapped Shruthi to get hold of Sreenu because Rajanna's daughter Sandhya (Aksha Pardasany) is in love with Sreenu. She was the girl who was saved by Sreenu on the train. Sreenu lands at Rajanna's place and finds himself in a fix. Bhavani, too, arrives at Rajanna's place to take away Shruthi. A police intelligence officer (Raghu Babu), Rajanna's brother-in-law, comes to attend Sreenu and Sandhya's wedding. Sreenu and Bhavani start their one-upmanship games to win Shruthi. How Sreenu comes out of this quagmire to rescue Shruthi from the clutches of Rajanna and Bhavani and what happens to Sandhya are revealed in the climax interspersed with twists and turns. Production. This film was initially announced in October 2009 with Ravi Teja playing the lead role and with Krishna Vamsi as director, with the producer announcing the film as a partly fantasy venture. The film progressed in pre-production with Sameera Reddy, Tamannaah Bhatia and Sneha Ullal being considered to portray the heroine role, whilst the fantasy elements in the original script were removed. In April 2010, it was revealed that the producer and Ravi Teja had fallen out and he was replaced by Ram. Despite indications that Samantha Ruth Prabhu would portray the lead female role, filming began in October 2010 with Ram and Hansika Motwani, whilst actress Swati Reddy shot scenes the following month. Ram stated on his Twitter account that the film had three female lead roles, and suggested that Nisha Aggarwal was signed on. Another leading lady Shriya Saran has appeared in a song sequence for the film. During the first schedule, events on the set of the film became the reason for the Telugu film industry strikes of 2010 after Telugu film fighters attacked Tamil film technicians in Chennai on the sets of the film in December 2009. Enraged by this, producers called for a bandh the next day. However, film workers declared a strike immediately after that for an indefinite period. The crisis affected the whole film industry and no films were shot in Andhra Pradesh during late December and early January during negotiations. After filming had resumed, the original music director Chakri was replaced by S. Thaman in March 2011. As per news, within March 2012 a sequel is on cards with name "Kandireega 2" bringing the same team back. Soundtrack. Kandireega audio was launched at Taj Deccan in Hyderabad on 14 July 2011. Senior actor Venkatesh was the Chief guest at the audio launch. Dharmavarapu Subramaniam, hero Gopichand, producer Bellamkonda Suresh, director of the film Santosh Srinivas, senior director V V Vinayak, music composer S S Thaman, actress Aksha, Sravanti Ravikishore etc. all were present at the grand audio launch. Remakes. Reportedly the Hindi remake rights of the film are sold to Ekta Kapoor of Balaji Motion Pictures for 20 million which will be starring Varun Dhawan in lead, to be directed by his father David Dhawan. The film will apparently be called "Main Tera Hero".
1064481	The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean is a 1972 western film written by John Milius, directed by John Huston, and starring Paul Newman (at the height of his career, between "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" and "The Sting"). It was loosely based on the real-life, self-appointed frontier judge.
519787	Moments of Love is a Filipino romance film directed by Mark Reyes, and released in March as a summer offering by GMA Films. It is a classic romantic tale between two people from different timelines. The film stars Dingdong Dantes, Iza Calzado and Karylle. The movie also stars Paolo Contis, Dion Ignacio, Isabel Oli, Sandy Andolong, Ces Quesada, Ian veneracion, Jojo Alejar, Valerie Concepcion and Gloria Romero. Plot synopsis. Marco (Dingdong Dantes) and his assistant Marc (Marc Ilustrisimo) is a photographer on vacation in an old sleepy town called Pink Friday. While strolling around town a mysterious woman is hit by a van while trying to save his life. He visits the woman and is drawn to her granddaughter Lianne (Karylle). Marco and Lianne start to develop a relationship but recent events cause Marco to be withdrawn. He suddenly found himself haunted by a deep feeling of loneliness. His yearning leads to a telephone conversation with Divina (Iza Calzado), the daughter of a haciendero. They find place in each other, Divina lives in the past (1957) while Marco lives in the present (2006). In a sleepy town, time curved for two people to meet and part... Marco and Lianne continued their love for each other. Soundtrack. GMA Records released an original motion picture soundtrack prior to the film's playdate. Media release. The series was released onto DVD-format and VCD-format by GMA Records. The DVD/VCD was released in 2006.
1161928	Edward Mulhare (8 April 1923 – 24 May 1997) was an Irish actor whose career spanned four decades. Born at 22 Quaker Road, Cork City, County Cork, Ireland, and educated by the Christian Brothers, Mulhare intended to study medicine, but was sidetracked by a growing interest in acting. After acting in various Irish venues including the Gate Theatre in Dublin, he moved to London where he worked with Orson Welles and John Gielgud. His best-known stage role was as Professor Higgins in the original Broadway production of "My Fair Lady", having taken over the role from Rex Harrison in 1957. His first television appearance was in 1956 in a production of "The Adventures of Robin Hood". He was a guest panelist in 1958 on the CBS television game show, "What's My Line?". By 1965, he was back in Hollywood appearing in films and television shows. He earned a role in the films "Von Ryan's Express" in 1965, "Our Man Flint" in 1966, and "Caprice" in 1967. He guest starred in television programs, including the "Twelve O'Clock High" episode "Siren Voices" as Luftwaffe Colonel Kurt Halland. He also guest-starred in one episode of the original "Battlestar Galactica". He is better known for his starring roles in two television series, "The Ghost & Mrs. Muir" (again following Rex Harrison, who played the role in the original 1947 film), and "Knight Rider" (both the original 1980s television series and a 1991 TV film) as Devon Miles. In the mid 1980s, Mulhare hosted the television series "Secrets & Mysteries" (aka "Secrets of the Unknown"), a magazine show that examined historical mysteries and the paranormal. He starred in a number of films in his career including "Megaforce" and "Out to Sea". His final role was on "Baywatch Nights" alongside former "Knight Rider" co-star David Hasselhoff in 1997. Death. Edward Mulhare died in his Van Nuys home in Los Angeles of lung cancer in 1997. He never married. The "Team Knight Rider" episode "K.R.O.", broadcast 27 October 1997, is dedicated to Edward Mulhare's memory.
392654	The Baron of Arizona is a 1950 film by Samuel Fuller and starring Vincent Price. Ed Wood was a stunt double in the film. The film concerns a master forger's attempted use of false documents to lay claim to the territory of Arizona late in the 19th century, and is based on the case of James Reavis, whose scheme came close to success, but many of the details are fictionalized in the film. Plot. The notorious attempt by swindler James Reavis to claim the entire territory of Arizona as his own, prior to it being granted statehood, is recounted years later by John Griff, who works for the Department of the Interior. In 1872, Reavis went to great lengths to forge documents in Spain and create the illusion that he had a legal right to call all of Arizona his own. He began by seeking out Pepito Alvarez to inquire about Sofia, an infant abandoned by Reavis many years before. Reavis decides to take Sofia home with him, hire governess Lorna Morales to refine her, then marry her, using fabricated proof that states Sofia to be the rightful "baroness" of Arizona. A suspicious U.S. government, unable to disprove Reavis' claim, offers him $25 million for the rights to the land. He declines. The surveyor general, Miller, is sure Reavis has somehow doctored the documents. He brings in Griff, an expert on forgery. In the meantime, Reavis orders settlers and families off "his" land. A displaced rancher, Lansing, tosses a bomb into Reavis' office. It still does not discourage him, so Pepito finally threatens to reveal that Sofia's parents were not Spanish land barons at all, but native Indians. Reavis is revealed as a charlatan. He manages to talk his way out of a lynching, but ends up behind bars.
1060155	The Moon Is Blue is a 1953 American romantic comedy film produced and directed by Otto Preminger and starring William Holden, David Niven, and Maggie McNamara. Written by F. Hugh Herbert based on his 1951 play of the same title, the film is about a young woman who meets an architect on the observation deck of the Empire State Building and quickly turns his life upside down. Plot. A comedy of manners, the film centers on virtuous actress Patty O'Neill, who meets playboy architect Donald Gresham on the top of the Empire State Building and accepts his invitation to join him for drinks and dinner in his apartment. There she meets Donald's upstairs neighbors, his ex-fiancée Cynthia and her father, roguish David Slater. Both men are determined to bed the young woman, but they quickly discover Patty is more interested in engaging in spirited discussions about the pressing moral and sexual issues of the day than surrendering her virginity to either one of them. After resisting their amorous advances throughout the night, Patty leaves and returns to the Empire State Building, where Donald finds her and proposes marriage. Production. Otto Preminger had directed the 1951 Broadway production of F. Hugh Herbert's play with Barbara Bel Geddes, Donald Cook, and Barry Nelson in the lead roles. Its successful run of 924 performances prompted him to contract with United Artists to finance and distribute a screen adaptation over which he would have complete control. He deferred his producer's and director's salaries in exchange for 75% of the film's profits. Preminger cast David Niven over the objection of studio executives, who felt the actor's career was in a decline. The director cast him in a West Coast production of the play to prepare for the film. Last of the leads to be cast was Maggie McNamara, making her screen debut in a role she had played on stage in Chicago and briefly in New York.
1056320	Coco Chanel & Igor Stravinsky is a 2009 French film directed by Jan Kounen. It was chosen as the Closing Film of the 2009 Cannes Film Festival, and was shown on 24 May 2009.
1063501	Plot. Three unique women embark on a cross-country road trip: Jane (Whoopi Goldberg), a lesbian lounge singer in search of a new life after breaking up with her girlfriend and getting fired; Holly (Drew Barrymore), a pregnant girl who just wants to escape her brutal boyfriend; and Robin (Mary-Louise Parker), an uptight real estate agent who has her own secrets (namely being infected with HIV).
674246	Johanna Wokalek (born March 3, 1975) is a German stage and film actress. A student of Klaus Maria Brandauer, she received critical recognition and three newcomer awards for her performance in the play "Rose Bernd". Wokalek is best known for her award-winning appearances in the German films "Hierankl", "Barfuss", and "The Baader Meinhof Complex". She received the Bambi award for her portrayal of the Red Army Faction member Gudrun Ensslin in 2008. She played the
327434	Mindy Kaling (born Vera Mindy Chokalingam; June 24, 1979) is an American actress, comedian, writer, and producer who portrayed Kelly Kapoor on the NBC sitcom "The Office" and created and currently stars in the Fox sitcom "The Mindy Project". She is also a co-executive producer, director and writer of several of the show's episodes; she also wrote, executive produced and directed various episodes of "The Office". She was nominated five consecutive times for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Comedy Series as a producer of "The Office". In 2010, she received a nomination for Writing in a Comedy Series with Greg Daniels for the episode, "Niagara". Personal life. Kaling was born Vera Mindy Chokalingam on June 24, 1979 in Cambridge, Massachusetts, to a Tamil father and a Bengali mother, both from India. Her father, Avu, is an architect, and her mother, Swati Roysircar, was a gynecologist. She has been referred to as Mindy ever since her mother was pregnant with her when her parents were living in Nigeria. They were already planning to move to the United States and wanted a "cute American name" for their daughter, and liked the name Mindy from the TV show "Mork & Mindy". The name Vera is the name of the "incarnation of a Hindu goddess." Kaling graduated from Buckingham Browne & Nichols, a private school in Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1997. She attended High School with Boston sports talk radio show host Mike Salk. The following year, she entered Dartmouth College, where she was a member of the improvisational comedy troupe "The Dog Day Players" and the a cappella group "The Rockapellas", creator of the comic strip "Badly Drawn Girl" in "The Dartmouth" (the college's daily newspaper), and a writer for the "Dartmouth Jack-O-Lantern" (the college's humor magazine). Kaling graduated in 2001 with a BA in Playwriting. Career. In 2003, she portrayed Ben Affleck in a play called "Matt & Ben", which she also co-wrote with her best friend from college Brenda Withers. The play was named one of "Time" magazine's "Top Ten Theatrical Events of The Year." Kaling's TV appearances include a 2005 episode of "Curb Your Enthusiasm", playing Richard Lewis's assistant. Kaling is also featured on the CD "Comedy Death-Ray" and wrote for one episode of "Saturday Night Live" in April 2006. After her film debut in "The 40-Year-Old Virgin" with Steve Carell, Kaling also made an appearance in the film "Unaccompanied Minors" as a waitress. In 2007 she held a small part in "License to Wed" starring fellow "The Office" actors John Krasinski, Angela Kinsey, and Brian Baumgartner. Recently, Kaling was in "" as a Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum tour guide and voiced Taffyta Muttonfudge in Disney's animated comedy film, "Wreck-It Ralph". In 2011 she played the role of Shira, a doctor who is a roommate and colleague of the main character Emma (played by Natalie Portman) in "No Strings Attached". Kaling also made an appearance as Vanetha in the 2012 romantic comedy film "The Five-Year Engagement". Prior to acting, one of her "worst job" experiences was as a production assistant on the "Crossing Over With John Edward" psychic show. Kaling used to maintain a blog called “Things I’ve Bought That I Love", which reemerged on her website on September 29, 2011. She is the author of the comic memoir "Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (And Other Concerns)". The book is a collection of essays about her early life and career, intertwined with short observational essays about her friends, family, and relationships. In 2012, Kaling pitched a comedy to Fox called "The Mindy Project"; which was written by her. The initial pilot featured her as the lead actress, while she also contributed as a producer. Fox began airing the series Tuesdays at 9:30 Eastern Time starting 2012. "The Office". Kaling first joined "The Office" as a writer at age 24 as the only woman on a staff of eight, and then took on the role of character Kelly Kapoor. She has written at least 22 episodes, including "Niagara," for which she was co-nominated for an Emmy with Greg Daniels. Kaling also wrote and directed the webisodes "Subtle Sexuality" in 2009. In a 2007 interview with "The A.V. Club", Kaling stated that the Kelly character is "an exaggerated version of what I think the upper-level writers believe my personality is." After the "Diwali" episode, Kaling appeared with Daniels on NPR's "Fresh Air". Most recently, Kaling directed "The Office" webisodes "The 3rd Floor". She also directed the season 6 episode titled "Body Language," which marked her television directorial debut. Kaling's contract was set to expire at the end of Season 7. On September 15, 2011, she signed a new contract to stay with the show for Season 8 and was promoted to full Executive Producer status. Her NBC contract includes a development deal for a new show (eventually titled "The Mindy Project"), in which she appears as an actor and contributes as a writer. This show makes Kaling the first South Asian-American woman to be the headliner of her own network television show.
1166268	Bennett Joseph "Ben" Savage (born September 13, 1980) is an American film and TV actor and child star of late 1980s and 1990s. Savage is best known for his role as lead character Cory Matthews on the TV sitcoms "Boy Meets World" from 1993 until 2000. Early life. Savage was born in Chicago, Illinois, the son of Joane and Lewis Savage, who were an industrial real estate broker and consultant. His brother is actor/director Fred Savage, and his sister is actress/musician Kala Savage. His grandparents were Jewish and from Poland, Ukraine, Germany, and Latvia, and Savage was raised in Reform Judaism. Career. Savage made his film debut at the age of 9 in his brother Fred's hit "Little Monsters" (1989) and appeared in the feature films "Big Girls Don't Cry... They Get Even" (1992), as Sam, the brainy little brother, and as a 10-year-old in "Clifford" (1994), the latter starring Martin Short. Savage's stage debut was in "The Laughter Epidemic" at the Pasadena Playhouse. Savage established himself more prominently on TV. His first major speaking role on network television was playing the recurring role of Matthew, son of the Judd Hirsch character, on the comedy series "Dear John" (1988). Then he was one of a family of orphans who con Robert Mitchum into being their guardian in "A Family For Joe" (NBC, 1990). Savage is best known for his role as lead character Cory Matthews on the TV sitcom "Boy Meets World" from 1993 until 2000. Cory Matthews 1990s-model Dennis the Menace, was constantly at daggers drawn with authority figures — especially his sixth grade teacher, Mr. Feeny (William Daniels). At age 13, Savage once said: "I'd never talk to my teachers like Cory talks to Mr. Feeny. I mean, they're the ones who give you the grades." When "Boy Meets World (BMW)" premiered in the fall of 1993, advertising agencies predicted that the clever Cory Matthews character would succeed. Indeed, the sitcom became a staple of the ABC's "T.G.I.F." Friday schedule. Along with Rider Strong, he is one of only two actors to appear in all 158 episodes of "Boy Meets World" (1993). Savage's brother Fred appeared alongside him in one episode of "Boy Meets World", guest starring as a lecherous college professor pursuing Cory's girlfriend. In the following season, December 17, 1999, Fred directed his brother and the cast of "Boy Meets World" in the episode "Family Trees," as Shawn (Rider Strong) discovers that the woman who raised him is not his biological mother. Ben has also worked in several TV-movies, including "She Woke Up" (1992) with Lindsay Wagner, and "McDonald's Family Theatre Presents: Aliens for Breakfast" (1995), as a young teen whose breakfast cereal figure comes alive. Savage received critical recognition for his portrayal of "Coty Wyckoff", an angel-faced boy with the soul of a killer, in the ABC Event Series, "Wild Palms" (1993). In May 1998, Savage again received critical acclaim, this time for playing "Roddy Stern" in Tony Award-winner Israel Horovitz's rarely seen play "Unexpected Tenderness" at the Marilyn Monroe Theater. He received an Ovation Award for his performance. In 2002, Savage starred in the PG-13 film "Swimming Upstream" playing the best friend who was slightly immature but very supportive to his terminally ill friend. Savage took a break from acting in both film and television for three years, but he later made a guest appearance in "Still Standing" as Seth Cosella, the boss of Bill Miller, played by Mark Addy. That same year he starred as Ford Davis in the independent feature "Car Babes", which was shot on location in Los Gatos, California, and also guest starred as himself in an episode of the Disney Channel original series "Phil of the Future". In 2006, he starred in the critically acclaimed independent film "Palo Alto", which first premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival in 2007. In 2007, he starred in the ABC pilot from Sachs/Judah "Making it Legal" alongside Scott Wolf and Robert Wagner. In 2008, he starred as Mark Ratner in an episode of the NBC series "Chuck", as well as murder suspect 'Kirby Morris' in an episode of "Without a Trace". In 2011, he appeared in an episode of the Fox series "Bones". In November 2012, it was announced via his Twitter account that he had signed on to the "Boy Meets World" spin-off series, "Girl Meets World". Personal life. Savage interned for U.S. Senator Arlen Specter (R-PA at the time) in 2003 as a requirement for completing his studies at Stanford University, where he graduated in 2004 with a degree in Political Science and as a member of Sigma Chi Fraternity.
1059127	Georgia Rule is a 2007 American comedy-drama film directed by Garry Marshall and starring Jane Fonda, Lindsay Lohan, Felicity Huffman, Dermot Mulroney, Garrett Hedlund, and Cary Elwes. The original music score was composed by John Debney. The film received negative reviews from critics, however, several praised Fonda's and Lohan's performances. Plot. Rachel Wilcox (Lindsay Lohan) is an uncontrollable 17 year-old. With her latest car crash, Rachel has broken the final rule in her alcoholic mother, Lilly's (Felicity Huffman), San Francisco home. Lilly hauls her daughter to the one place to which she had sworn she would never return: her own mother's house in Idaho. Matriarch Georgia Randall (Jane Fonda) lives her life by a number of unbreakable rules - God comes first and hard work comes a very close second - and wants anyone who shares her home to do the same. She will make anyone who takes the Lord's name in vain wash out their mouth with a bar of soap. Now saddled with raising the young woman, it will require each patient breath she takes to understand Rachel's fury. Georgia arranges a job for Rachel as the office girl of Dr. Simon Ward (Dermot Mulroney), the local veterinarian, who also unofficially treats people. His two nephews, Sam (Dylan McLaughlin) and Ethan (Zachary Gordon), are often at Georgia's house. Simon does not show interest in Rachel or other women, so she thinks he is gay. However, Simon's sister, Paula (Laurie Metcalf), reveals that he is still mourning the death of his wife and son who were killed in a car crash. He refuses to have sex with Rachel even when she tries to seduce him, but feels some passion for Lilly, whom he has dated in the past. Rachel performs oral sex on Harlan Wilson (Garrett Hedlund), who, not yet being married, was still a virgin because of his LDS (Mormon) religion. Backed up by a reluctant Rachel, he confesses to his LDS girlfriend, who is shocked. A team of LDS girls starts spying on Harlan to make sure he does not "have sex" again. After a short chase using Harlan's truck, Rachel explains to them that what happened was over, and that they can go back to having their summer fun. They agree to do so, only if Rachel goes home. Rachel then threatens them by saying if they have anything to do with her and Harlan again, then she will find all of their boyfriends and "fuck them stupid." While trying to make a point to Simon about survival, Rachel bluntly says that her stepfather Arnold (Cary Elwes) had sex with her from the time she was 12 until she turned 14. Seeing the effect of her revelation, Rachel tries to convince him she lied. However, Simon has already told Georgia about the sexual relationship, and Georgia in turn tells Lilly, who at first thinks Rachel is lying. Lilly comes to believe her daughter, however, and begins to drink heavily and asks Arnold for a divorce. When Arnold arrives, Georgia tells him to leave and will not allow him in the house. Finally, she attempts to force him off the property by hitting him with a baseball bat; when he still refuses to leave, she forces him. Rachel sees that Lilly cannot accept the truth, and lies to her, saying she didn't do anything sexual with Arnold. At the motel where Arnold is staying, Rachel tells him that she has a video tape of him having sex with her when she was 14. Arnold seems worried, which further convinces the viewers of his guilt. Rachel demands $10 million (half his presumed net worth) if he does not keep Lilly happy. She admits to him that she lied to Lilly because she does not want her to be upset anymore. On the way back to San Francisco, Arnold tells Lilly that he is giving Rachel his new red Ferrari. Hearing this Lilly quickly recalls Rachael's earlier claim that he bought her a Ford Mustang to keep her silence and demands to be let out of the car. As Lilly jumps out of the car and starts walking back to town, Arnold angrily admits to having sex with Rachel; he claims to have been seduced, that Lilly's heavy drinking drove him to it, and finally saying that Rachel enjoyed it. After fending off an attack from an enraged Lilly, Arnold drives off, daring her to take him to court. In the end, Georgia, along with Simon, Rachel, and Harlan, catch up with Lilly in Harlan's pick-up truck, and a tearful Rachel makes up for her behavior. Harlan also mentions to Georgia that he is in love with Rachel and plans to marry her when he returns from his two-year mission. Production. Ostensibly set in Idaho, per the ending credits and DVD extras, the film was actually shot in Southern California, and much of the scenery was created with CGI. Reception. Georgia Rule was panned by critics. The film earned a "Rotten" rating on the website Rotten Tomatoes with a score of 17 percent. The film also had a low rating on Metacritic with a score of 25, which means "Generally Negative Reviews". "Georgia Rule" was rated the #2 worst movie of 2007 by AOL. The movie received "two thumbs down" from "Ebert and Roeper", with the guest critic calling it "Lindsay Lohan's "Gigli"" (many critics would compare Lohan's following star vehicle, "I Know Who Killed Me", to "Gigli") and "a sitcom about sexual abuse." Nominations. The film received nominations at the TCA. The film received 1 nomination for Choice Actress - Drama, for Lohan's performance. Felicity Huffman received a Prism Award nomination for Best Performance in a Feature Film. Home media. "Georgia Rule" was released on DVD on September 4, 2007.
1265999	Laura Hope Crews (December 12, 1879 – November 12, 1942) was a leading actress of the American stage in the first decades of the 20th century who is best remembered today for her later work as a character actress in motion pictures of the 1930s. Her best-known film role was Aunt Pittypat in "Gone with the Wind". Early life. She was the daughter of stage actress Angelena Lockwood and backstage carpenter John Thomas Crews. She had three older siblings. Crews started acting at age four. Her first stage appearance was at Woodward's Garden. She stopped acting to finish school and then returned to acting in 1898. Career. She appeared in plays written by A.A. Milne, who was particularly impressed by her work in his "Mr. Pim Passes By". The play was a big success and ran for 232 performances. Afterwards, she began to work in productions staged by the New York Theater Guild, which had just opened.
1543653	Alexander George "Alex" Karras (July 15, 1935 – October 10, 2012), nicknamed "The Mad Duck", was an American football player, professional wrestler, and actor. He played football with the Detroit Lions in the National Football League from 1958–1962 and 1964–1970. As an actor, Karras is noted for his role as Mongo in the 1974 comedy film "Blazing Saddles", and for starring in the ABC sitcom "Webster" (1983–89) alongside his wife Susan Clark, as the title character's adoptive father. College career. Karras was the son of Dr. George Karras, a Greek immigrant (from Chios) who graduated from the University of Chicago and got his medical degree in Canada. There, George Karras met and married a Canadian woman, Alex's mother, Emmeline (née Wilson). George Karras opened a medical practice in Gary, Indiana, but he died when Alex was thirteen years old. By that time, Alex Karras had learned to play football in a parking lot near his home, and he blossomed into a four-time Indiana all-state selection at Gary Emerson High School. His older brothers, Lou (a future member of the Redskins) and Ted (who later played with the Bears and Lions), had played at Purdue but later Ted transferred to Indiana. Because of this, Alex said, "Indiana had the inside track" on recruiting him, but shortly after he graduated from high school, several coaches from the University of Iowa took Karras to secluded Spencer, Iowa, to keep him away from rival recruiters. There they persuaded him to sign with the Hawkeyes.
584550	Thulladha Manamum Thullum ( ) is a 1999 Tamil romantic film directed by Ezhil. The film stars Vijay and Simran, while Manivannan, Dhamu and Vaiyapuri among others play supporting roles. The film, produced by R. B. Choudary, has it's score and soundtrack composed by S. A. Rajkumar and cinematography handled by R. Selva. The film went on to win critical and commercial acclaim at the box office.This movie inspired from Charlie Chaplin's City Lights. Plot. Kutty (Vijay) wants to become a singer while working as a local cable provider run by Mani (Manivannan). His songs are appreciated by a college student Rukmani (Simran) and each time when she wishes to meet him, circumstances project him as a transitive element. He also becomes the cause for Rukmani losing her eyesight and repents for it. He starts to love her and he regularly writes to his mother about the development of love he has for Rukmani. When his mother dies, she offers her eyes to Rukmani. To meet the cost of the eye transplant, kutty offers his kidney to a Pune-based richman. While returning home he inadvertently becomes an accomplice in creating explosives and he's arrested. Having regained her vision, Rukmani, who had studied for IAS, becomes a Collector and when Kutty tries to contact her, he is still the rowdy element in her mind. Finally the confusion is cleared and the lovers can be together. Production. The film saw director Ezhil, an erstwhile assistant to Robert-Rajashekhar, Panneer and Parthiban, make his debut as a film-maker under R. B. Choudary's production house. Prior to release, the role of Vijay's mother in the film was kept under wraps with the media speculating who would play the role. Eventually, no actress played the role although the character played a pivotal part in the film. Vijay took a pay cut for the film, accepting only 30 lakh rupees instead of 50 lakh rupees, as he had signed the film before the release of his blockbuster "Kadhalukku Mariyadhai". Release. The film went on to become a blockbuster, running for hundred days across dozens of theatres in Tamil Nadu, while it also enjoyed similar success in the neighbouring state of Kerala. Vijay and Ezhil immediately decided to follow up this film with another collaboration, "Pennin Manathai Thottu", with either Isha Koppikar or Roja to be roped in as the lead actress. However soon after pre-production, Vijay was replaced by Prabhu Deva and the film went on to release in 2000. The success of the film led to more offers for Simran, who with "Thulladha Manamum Thullum" and "Vaali", established herself among the leading actresses in Tamil films. Vijay and Simran were also paired together in several other films after the success of "Thulladha Manamum Thullum", with projects titled "Priyamanavale" and "Udhaya" launched weeks after this film's release. The film went on to win second prize at the Tamil Nadu State Film Awards for Best Film, while Simran won the Tamil Nadu State Film Award for Best Actress for her performance. A critic from the Deccan Herald mentioned that "the experience of seeing the film is simply thrilling", mentioning that the success comes from "the naivete, the simplicity, the absolute lack of sophistication, and from the delightful hero (Vijay)". The film was later remade in Telugu as "Nuvvu Vastavani" by Ezhil in 2000 starring "Akkineni Nagarjuna" and "Simran" and the film enjoyed similar levels of success. The film was remade in Kannada as "Oh Nanna Nalle" with V Ravichandran. The film was also adapted into a Bengali movie "Sathi" in 2002 starring Jeet and Priyanka Trivedi, and into an Oriya movie "I Love You" in 2005 starring Anubhav Mohanty and Namrata Thapa. It also partly inspired two Hindi language films - Rohit Nayyar's "Sun Zarra" in 2006 and Yash Raj Films' 2010 film "Lafangey Parindey".
1744317	The "Gantz" anime adaptation, directed by Ichiro Itano and animated by Gonzo, the series contains 26 episodes divided into two seasons. It was licensed in North America by ADV Films. The anime series is distributed in the United Kingdom by MVM Films, and in Australia and New Zealand by Madman Entertainment. Dark Horse Comics started releasing the manga in English in June 2008. A series of two live action movies based on the manga were produced and released in January–April 2011. Plot. A pair of high school students, Kei Kurono and Masaru Kato, are hit by a subway train in an attempt to save the life of a drunk homeless man who had fallen onto the tracks. Following their deaths, Kurono and Kato find themselves transported to the interior of an unfurnished Tokyo apartment. The pair soon realize others are present and find that they are not able to leave the apartment. At one end of the room there is a large black sphere known as "Gantz". After some time in the room, the Gantz sphere opens up, revealing a bald naked man with a breathing mask and wires attached to his head, with three racks protruding from it, that offer various items for them to use. These include the custom fitting black suits Gantz made for each of them, giving them super-human strength, speed, stamina and relative invincibility, a controller which acts as a radar and stealth unit, and three types of weapons. When the Gantz sphere opens, green text appears on its surface, informing those present that their "lives have ended and now belong to him". A picture and brief information is shown of some of the Gantz' targets; Gantz orders them to go and kill them. All but one target shown thus far have been aliens living on Earth, which take on a wide variety of forms. After a period of time which varies between missions, everyone except Gantz is transported to the location of the mission. Those sent cannot return from the mission until all enemies have been killed, or the time limit has run out. If they survive a successful mission, each individual is awarded points for the aliens they have killed. Once a participant has scored 100 points, a "100 point menu" will appear. The menu offers three options. The first option allows the participant to return to their normal life, not to be summoned by Gantz again. Their memories of Gantz and the missions will be erased. The second option grants the participant an extremely powerful weapon. The third and final option allows the participant to revive someone who has died during a mission from Gantz' memory. After a mission has been completed, and points have been tallied up, the participants are then allowed to leave, and live their lives as they see fit until Gantz summons them back again for the next mission. During the third mission that Kurono and Kato participate in, almost all of the participants are killed, including Kato, which leaves Kurono as the sole surviving member of the "Gantz team". As the series continues, Kurono participates with the objective to revive his deceased friends with the 100 points he can obtain throughout the missions.
898594	Trois is a 2000 erotic thriller that was directed by Rob Hardy and produced by William Packer. It stars Gary Dourdan, Kenya Moore and Gretchen Palmer. The film was given a limited theatrical release and was one of the highest grossing African-American films as well as one of the top fifty highest grossing independent films of 2000. The film was followed up with two sequels, "Pandora's Box" and "The Escort". Synopsis. Jermaine Davis (Dourdan) is a young corporate tycoon who is newly married and has recently moved to Atlanta, Georgia with his lovely and supportive wife Jasmine (Moore). While becoming settled into the new city and job, Jermaine becomes bored with his seemingly mundane lifestyle at home. He asks his wife to engage in a ménage à trois with another woman, in order to generate more excitement within their relationship and she reluctantly agrees. Once they've committed the act, Jermaine begins to feel the insecurities of bringing a stranger into his marriage. As a result, he attempts to sever all ties with the woman. Unfortunately, it proves more complicated to remove this person from their lives and he realizes that his curiosity has thrown him into battle with a dangerous lunatic and may cost him his marriage. Reception. The Toledo Blade gave "Trois" two stars, criticizing the movie as not being able to decide whether it wanted to be a "serious artistic endeavor" or a "cheap thrill" and suffering as a result. Sequels. Two further films were produced in the film series, "Pandora's Box" and "The Escort". Neither film was a direct sequel to the first film and "Pandora's Box" was not filmed with the intent of creating it as a part of the "Trois" film series. Critical reception for the second film in the series was poor.
1057819	Verne J. Troyer (born January 1, 1969) is an American actor and stunt performer. Troyer is notable for his height of , the result of cartilage–hair hypoplasia dwarfism, making him one of the shortest men in the world. He is best known for playing Mini-Me in the "Austin Powers" series of comedy films. Personal life. Troyer was born in Sturgis, Michigan, the son of Susan, a factory worker, and Reuben Troyer, a repair technician. He has two siblings, Davon and Deborah. He grew up in Centreville, Michigan and graduated from Centreville High School in 1987. Troyer reportedly married model Genevieve Gallen on February 22, 2004 but filed for an annulment the next day. Though the couple's engagement was widely reported, Troyer and his attorney deny that the two ever had any formal wedding plans, saying that Gallen had fabricated the story for her own financial gain.
1017526	Drunken Master is a 1978 Hong Kong martial arts action comedy film directed by Yuen Woo-ping, and starring Jackie Chan, Yuen Siu-tien, and Hwang Jang Lee. The film was a success at the Hong Kong box office, earning two and a half times the amount of Chan's previous film, "Snake in the Eagle's Shadow", which was also considered a successful film. It is an early example of the comedic kung fu style for which Jackie Chan became famous. The film popularised the Zui Quan (醉拳, "drunken fist") fighting movement. Background. The film's protagonist Wong Fei-hung was a Chinese martial artist, a traditional Chinese medicine practitioner and a revolutionary who lived towards the end of the Qing Dynasty. He became a Chinese folk hero and the subject of several Hong Kong television programmes and films. Beggar So, who plays a supporting role in the film, is also another character from Chinese folklore and one of the Ten Tigers of Canton. The Beggar So character is often cast as an associate of Wong Fei-hung or Wong's uncle. Plot. The plot centers on a young and mischievous Wong Fei-hung (sometimes dubbed as "Freddie Wong"). Wong runs into a series of troubles. Firstly, he teaches an overbearing assistant martial arts teacher a lesson. Next, he makes advances on a woman to impress his friends, and is soundly thrashed by her older female guardian as a result; his shame is compounded when these two are later revealed to be his visiting aunt and cousin, whom he had not met before. Lastly, he beats up a hooligan who is the son of an influential man in town. His father decides to punish him for his behavior by making him train harder in martial arts. Wong's father arranges for Beggar So to train his son in martial arts. Beggar So has a reputation for crippling his students during training so Wong flees from home in an attempt to escape his punishment. Penniless, he stops at a restaurant and tries to con a fellow patron into offering him a free meal. As he was about to leave after his meal, he discovers that the man is actually the owner of the restaurant. He fights with the owner's lackeys in an attempt to escape. An old drunkard nearby is drawn into the fight and helps him escape. The drunkard turns out to be Beggar So, the Drunken Master. (Beggar So is known in some versions of the film as Sam Seed, So Hi or Su Hua-chi) Beggar So forces Wong into his brutal and rigorous training programme. Wong flees again to avoid the torturous training and runs into the notorious killer Yan Ti San (known in some versions as Thunderfoot or Thunderleg) by accident. Yan is known for his "Devil's Kick", a swift and deadly kicking style which has never been defeated. Wong provokes and challenges him to a fight and is soundly defeated and humiliated. He makes his way back to Beggar So and decides to commit himself to the Drunken Master's training program. The training resumes and soon Wong learns Beggar So's secret style of martial arts, a form of Drunken Boxing called "The Eight Drunken Immortals", named after the eight xian that the fighting style references. Wong masters seven of the eight styles with the exception of Drunken Miss Ho's as he feels that her style of fighting is too feminine. Meanwhile, Yan Ti San is contracted by a business rival to kill Wong's father. Wong's father fights with Yan and is defeated and injured by him. Wong and Beggar So arrive on the scene on time and Wong continues the fight with Yan. Beggar So promises not to interfere in the fight. Wong employs the new skill he learnt and outmatches Yan's kicking style. Yan then resorts to his secret technique, the Devil's Shadowless Hand, which Wong is unable to defeat. Wong confesses that he did not master the last style so Beggar So tells him to combine the seven styles and create his own version of the last style. Wong follows the instruction and discovers his own unique style of Drunken Boxing, which he eventually uses to defeat Yan and become the new Drunken Master. Production. According to his book "I Am Jackie Chan: My Life in Action", Chan nearly lost an eye after his brow ridge was injured. Fight scenes and martial arts. A number of notable fights are featured in the film, almost all of them with strong elements of comedy - from the game of Keep Away with Wong Kei-ying's cocky, but incompetent, assistant kung fu instructor, to the novel "head-fu" fighting style used by one of his opponents. The film features the Hung Ga system of fighting, which was historically practiced by Wong Fei-hung and his father Wong Kei-ying, both of whom are major characters in the film. The animal styles of Snake, Crane, and Tiger performed in the film are derived wholly from the Hung Ga system and bear only a tangential relationship to the Fujian White Crane, Lama Pai (Tibetan White Crane), Black Tiger, and Snake systems of kung fu. Monkey style kung fu, popular in Southern Chinese martial arts performances, is also shown briefly. Numerous systems of kung fu include "Drunken Boxing" forms (e.g. Choi Lei Fut and Drunken Monkey), and the Taoist Eight Immortals are popular staples of Chinese culture and art. However, the "Eight Drunken Immortals" forms depicted in this film are likely the creation of director and choreographer Yuen Woo-ping and based on routines found in other systems. The primary villain in "Drunken Master" is played by Hwang Jang Lee, a Korean martial artist specialising in Taekwondo and known for his high-flying kicks, which are prominently displayed in the film. The systems of "Devil's Kick" and "Devil's Shadowless Hands" employed by Thunderleg are entirely fictitious. Box office. "Drunken Master" earned an impressive HK $6,763,793 at the Hong Kong box office. Imitators. As with many successful Hong Kong action films, several films were released in the wake of "Drunken Master" (and its sequel) that could be considered to trade on the fame of the original films. These had less in common with the original films than the spinoffs starring Yuen Siu Tien. They include: It should be noted that not all films that feature the Zui Quan "Drunken Fist" style (or variations on it) can be considered as imitators of the "Drunken Master" films. Films such as "Drunken Monkey" (2002) may feature a drunken style of kung fu, and in the case of "The Forbidden Kingdom" (2008), the same principal star, but they have a fundamentally different plot and sufficiently different title to separate them from "Drunken Master". Home media. PanMedia released a bootleg DVD that contains the complete Cantonese track.
1038186	Alexander Nathan "Alex" Etel (born 19 September 1994) is an English child actor. Early life. Etel was born in a hospital on the outskirts of Manchester, the son of Nicholette Etel and Jason Hartley. Etel is the middle child of his family, he has a younger brother, Daniel Etel and an older sister, Rebecca Etel. He went to Lum Head Primary School in Gatley. Career. Etel was born in Manchester. His film début was the starring role of Damian Cunningham in 2004's "Millions", a family film directed by Danny Boyle. He played the lead in his second film, Jay Russell's "". The film, based on a Dick King Smith story about a boy who adopts a monster sea creature, opened in North America on Christmas Day, 2007 and in other countries in early 2008. The film is set in Scotland during World War II, although all the scenes involving the creature itself were shot in New Zealand. Etel also played the bright-eyed ragamuffin Harry Gregson in the six-part TV adaptation of Elizabeth Gaskell's "Cranford" for the BBC and WGBH, which was transmitted on BBC 1 in the autumn of 2007 and co-starred Philip Glenister, Judi Dench, Eileen Atkins, Francesca Annis and Imelda Staunton. He reprised his role in the two-part second series entitled "Return to Cranford". In April Fool's day 2013 someone spread the rumour that he had been selected to play the role of Stuart "Fats" Wall in the BBC adaptation of the first novel for adults from J.K Rowling "The casual vacancy". He is currently scheduled to appear in one project: "Easter Rising" (renamed from "Easter Sixteen") set in Dublin during the Easter Rising of 1916.
1077988	David G. Arkin (December 24, 1941 – January 14, 1991) was an American actor best known for his numerous supporting appearances in the films of Robert Altman. These roles were part of Altman’s frequent ensemble and included Staff Sergeant Vollmer in "MASH" (where he also wrote and voiced the PA Announcements), Harry in "The Long Goodbye", Norman in "Nashville", The Mailman/The Police Officer in "Popeye". Arkin was known among his friends and colleagues for having introduced his friend Arnold Schwarzenegger (then Arnold Strong) to Robert Altman, at the time "The Long Goodbye" was being cast. This began Schwarzenegger’s career in film (a story re-told recently by Mitchell Zuckoff in his 2009 book "Robert Altman: An Oral Biography"). Before MASH he had brief appearances in "Valley of the Dolls", "All the President's Men", "Cannonball", and then had an “introducing” credit co-starring with Peter Sellers in "I Love You, Alice B. Toklas" (1968). His television credits include "Hawaii Five-O", "Whitney and the Robot", and a season-long appearance as the character Gabriel Kaye in the CBS television series "Storefront Lawyers", co-starring Robert Foxworth and Sheila Larken. He also appeared on "The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson" and on the "Joey Bishop" and the "Steve Allen" late night shows with the Hollywood Sunset Strip improvisational comedy troupe The Session (which included Richard Dreyfuss, Rob Reiner, Larry Bishop, Bobbie Shaw-Chance, Marj Dusay, and Phil Mishkin); he later performed with The Second City touring troupe.
1767821	Aakhari Decision is a Bollywood action film directed by Deepak Bandhu and starring Anant Jog, Nagesh Bhonsle, Mushtaq Khan, Navni Parihar, Amar Sidhu, and Sumona Chakravarti. It was filmed in India and the United States. Box office. The film was profitably released in phases all over India as well as in theaters across the United States. It was one of few films selected for screening out of thousands of entries for the Pravasi Film Festival in Delhi, India in Jan 2010.
1057735	The Big Steal is a 1949 American black-and-white film noir/comedy reteaming "Out of the Past" stars Robert Mitchum and Jane Greer. The film was directed by Don Siegel, based on the short story "The Road to Carmichael's" by Richard Wormser. Plot. U.S. Army Lieutenant Duke Halliday (Robert Mitchum) is robbed of a $300,000 payroll by Jim Fiske (Patric Knowles). When Halliday's superior, Captain Vincent Blake (William Bendix), suspects him of having taken part in the theft, Halliday has no choice but to pursue Fiske into Mexico. Along the way, he runs into Joan Graham (Jane Greer), who is after the $2000 she loaned to her boyfriend, Fiske. The two join forces, though they are not sure at first if they can trust each other. Fiske stays one step ahead of the couple, while they are in turn chased by Blake. When Halliday is knocked down trying to stop Fiske from getting away, he comes to the attention of Police Inspector General Ortega (Ramon Novarro). Ortega lets him go after Halliday claims to be Blake (using identification he took from the captain after a brawl), but keeps an eye on him. His suspicions are confirmed when the real Blake shows up at his office for help. Halliday and Graham track Fiske to an isolated house in the desert, where Fiske is meeting with Seton (John Qualen), a fence who offers Fiske $150,000 in untraceable bills in exchange for the payroll. The couple are captured by Seton's henchmen. When Blake shows up, Halliday is initially relieved to be rescued, until he learns that Blake is actually Fiske's partner in crime. Fiske wants to take Graham with him, but Blake makes it clear that he intends to dispose of both her and Halliday. Fiske reluctantly gives in. However, when he starts to leave, Blake shoots him in the back, explaining that his ex-partner, apparently still at large, can take the blame for the missing payroll. Halliday then points out to Seton that if Blake got rid of him too, he could give the stolen money back to the army "and" keep the $150,000 for himself. Taking no chances, Seton pulls a gun on Blake. When Graham creates a distraction, a fight breaks out, which Graham and Halliday win. Production. The movie was filmed in Los Angeles and on location in Tehuacán, Puebla, Mexico. Reception. Critical response. Channel 4 film reviews describes the movie as, "Sparkling dialogues, fast-paced chases and the occasional twist make this an at first somewhat confusing but ultimately hugely entertaining film." Hal Erickson writing for Allmovie calls the film "tautly directed by Don Siegel, who manages to pack plenty of twists and turns into the film's crowded 71 minutes."
1055001	Richard Edson (born January 1, 1954) is an American actor and musician. Biography. Edson was born in New Rochelle, New York. He has one brother, Steven, who resides in the Boston area, and two sisters: Andrea, who resides in Newton, Massachusetts and Jennifer, who resides in New York City. His father, Arnold, was one of the first Marine officers to land at Guadalcanal in August 1942. His mother, Marian, a retired school teacher, resides with his father in New Rochelle. Music career. From 1981 to 1982, he was Sonic Youth's original drummer and played drums for Konk at the same time. After the release of Sonic Youth's self-titled debut album, Edson left the band to play with Konk full-time. Edson also played horns with San Francisco band The Offs on the group's eponymous 1984 album. Acting career. Following his music career, Edson has worked as an actor, appearing in over 35 movies. His more notable roles include a disreputable parking garage attendant in "Ferris Bueller's Day Off" (1986), Man at newspaper stand in "Desperately Seeking Susan" (1985) Richie in "Howard the Duck" (1986), Eddie in Jim Jarmusch's cult film "Stranger Than Paradise" (1984), real-life gambler Billy Maharg in "Eight Men Out", and the title character in "Joey Breaker" (1993). He also appeared in "Platoon" (1986), "Good Morning, Vietnam" (1987), "Dirty Dancing" (1987), "Tougher Than Leather" (1988) "Let It Ride" (1989), and "Do the Right Thing" (1989). He starred in the 1993 movie "Super Mario Bros" as Spike, King Koopa's cousin. Edson played the lead role in three films directed by Raphael Nadjari: "The Shade" (1999), "I am Josh Polonski's Brother" (2001) and "Apartment #5c" (2002). In 2003, he appeared in the music video for Cave In's single, "Anchor". Edson played the central character of the video, a depressed man walking down the street with his feet encased in cement blocks. His television appearances include "The Adventures of Pete & Pete" and the third season finale of "". Edson appeared in a 2007 TV commercial for The Travelers Companies Inc., in which he portrays the human personification of risk. In total, Edson has appeared in about 85 movies/television shows.
629805	Alex O'Loughlin (born 24 August 1976) is an Australian actor who currently stars in CBS's "Hawaii Five-0" as Lieutenant Commander Steve McGarrett. He previously had starring roles in the films "Oyster Farmer" (2004) and "The Back-up Plan" (2010), as well as the 2008 TV series "Moonlight" and the 2009 TV series "Three Rivers". Early life. O'Loughlin was born as Alexander O'Lachlan in Canberra, Australia, of Irish and Scottish descent. He was educated at Macquarie Primary School ACT, where his younger sister Jennifer also studied. His year of birth has been given, variously, as 1974, 1975, and 1978. His father is a physics and astronomy teacher in Sydney and his mother is a nurse. O'Loughlin suffered from asthma, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD or ADD) and obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) when he was a boy. He wanted to become a jet fighter pilot but was told by his teacher that it was unlikely due to his asthma. This was a painful memory for him that recently evoked the response, "Always teach children to reach for the stars." He was a fan of heavy metal music and the Japanese TV series "Monkey". Playing dress up with items out of an old trunk was one of his favorite pastimes. School was a continuous struggle, caused by learning difficulties that were compounded by ADHD and OCD, and he left when he was 14, after which he held jobs in a wide range of fields. He enrolled at the National Institute of Dramatic Art (NIDA) in Sydney, Australia, in 1999. Despite a challenging first year, he graduated from NIDA in June 2002, after completing a 3-year, full-time Bachelor of Dramatic Art program. Career. O'Loughlin was already working in short film and fringe theater as a teenager in Sydney. One of the first acting jobs he recalls is being an extra in a commercial, playing a marine. After graduating from NIDA, he began his career in Australian television and film productions and some of his TV credits include roles in "BlackJack: Sweet Science", "Love Bytes" and "White Collar Blue". His film career started off in 2004 when he landed his first lead role in "Oyster Farmer". He later appeared in "Man-Thing", "Feed", and in the Australian mini-series "The Incredible Journey of Mary Bryant", for which he received a nomination as the Best Lead Actor in Television from the Australian Film Institute Awards in 2005 and as Most Outstanding Actor in a Drama Series from the Logie Awards in 2006. O'Loughlin joined the cast of "The Shield" in 2007 as Detective Kevin Hiatt, the newest member of the strike team. In 2005, he screen-tested for the movie role of James Bond. As he told one interviewer: "I met with Martin Campbell here in Los Angeles at his office on the Sony [Pictures lot and he asked me to fly to London and test and we tested at Pinewood . It was the biggest screen test I've ever done. It was very comprehensive. I had tuxedos and suits cut for it and hair cuts." He left "The Shield" after he won the lead role on the CBS series "Moonlight", where he played private investigator and vampire Mick St. John. The filming of "Moonlight" was interrupted by the Hollywood writers strike. There was speculation that the series would be dropped but fan pressure prevailed and the show was given four additional episodes to try to regain its audience share. Despite being the highest rated show in its Friday evening slot (consistently achieving over 7 million viewers), CBS did not commission a second season. After its cancellation, a fan-based charity campaign to win a second-season renewal for "Moonlight" by holding blood drives proved unsuccessful. In August 2008, it was announced that CBS had signed a talent development deal with O'Loughlin as the star of a TV series to be developed by writer Mark Gordon, but it never materialised. However, he was subsequently cast in the lead role of the CBS hospital drama "Three Rivers", developed by producer Carol Barbee, which aired Sunday evenings in the 2009–2010 season. In April 2009, he guest-starred in an episode of "Criminal Minds", most notably in the Season Four episode, "The Big Wheel" as an OCD-ridden serial killer, Vincent Rowlings who sends the BAU a videotape, asking them for help in stopping him from killing people. In December 2009 CBS pulled "Three Rivers" from its schedule. O'Loughlin starred alongside Jennifer Lopez in the 2010 romantic comedy film "The Back-up Plan". O'Loughlin was cast in the CBS remake of "Hawaii Five-0" portraying Lieutenant Commander (LCDR) Steve McGarrett, which premiered on 20 September 2010. The show was one of CBS's most successful new shows of the 2010–2011 season, and won "Favorite New TV Drama" at the 2010–11 People's Choice Awards. Subsequently, BuddyTV ranked him #2 on its "TV's 100 Sexiest Men of 2010" list and #9 in 2011. On 2 March 2012, CBS announced that O'Loughlin would miss shooting some episodes of "Hawaii Five-0" to seek drug treatment related to pain management medication prescribed after a shoulder injury. He was slated to miss at least one episode from the second season. Personal life. O'Loughlin's first child, son Saxon, was born to a girlfriend with whom he has since separated. He separated from his long-time girlfriend, Australian actress/singer Holly Valance in February 2009. O'Loughlin and his girlfriend model/surfer Malia Jones have a son, Lion.
1056424	Tell No One (Ne Le Dis À Personne) is a 2006 French thriller film directed by Guillaume Canet and based on the novel of the same name by Harlan Coben. Written by Canet and Philippe Lefebvre and starring François Cluzet, the film won four categories at the 2007 César Awards in France: Best Director (Guillaume Canet), Best Actor (François Cluzet), Best Editing and Best Music Written for a Film. Plot. Alexandre Beck is a doctor who has slowly been putting his life back together after his wife Margot was murdered by a serial killer. Eight years on, Alex is doing well, until he finds himself implicated in a double homicide, which has plenty of evidence pointing to him as the killer - though he knows nothing of the crimes. The same day, Alex receives an e-mail that appears to be from Margot, which includes a link to a surveillance video clip that features his late wife looking alive and well. The message warns Alex that they are both being watched. He struggles to stay one step ahead of the law, while a gang of henchmen intimidate Alex's friends into telling them whatever they might know about him - the henchmen eventually kill one of them, Charlotte. In the meantime, Alex's sister Anne persuades her well-off wife Hélène to hire a respected attorney, Élisabeth Feldman, to handle Alex's case. It is gradually revealed that Margot is apparently still alive. She attempts to arrange a meeting with Alex by sending him an email which he must read in an internet cafe to avoid being spied on. Before this meeting, a warrant is issued for Alex's arrest for the murder of Charlotte. He goes on the run whilst his friends and lawyers struggle to find out the truth about the murder, as well as Margot's reappearance. Alex, chased by policemen, is rescued by Bruno, a gangster from a rough part of the city who feels he owes Alex a favor. The mysterious henchmen reappear to prevent Alex's meeting with his late wife, but he is rescued once again by Bruno. Margot is seen almost escaping on a flight to Buenos Aires. Elizabeth, the lawyer, proves that Alex has an alibi for the murder of Charlotte, thanks to eyewitness accounts at the internet cafe.
585720	Vietnam Colony is a 1992 Indian Malayalam film, written and directed by Siddique-Lal. With Mohanlal, Innocent, Kanaka and K. P. A. C. Lalitha appearing in lead roles, the film achieved considerable success following its theatrical release. A Tamil remake of the film, starring Prabhu was released in 1994. Plot. G. Krishnamoorthy (Mohanlal), hailing from an orthodox Tamil Brahmin community, gets a job with Calcutta Constructions as a supervisor. Calcutta Company has been working to restructure their land by vacating an illegal colony lying adjacent to its premise. Popularly known as Vietnam Colony, it is inhabited mainly by day laborers. The company has been in efforts to demolish the colony for long time, but failed to do so. The colony is now under the rule a few hardcore criminals to whom the residents have to pay specific amount every week. Now, Krishnamoorthy is appointed by company to evacuate the colony, by dealing with these criminals. He is assisted by K.K Joseph (Innocent). Both arrives in the colony under the disguise of professional writers who are in plan to write a story on the life of the colony residents. Upon arrival, both enter the house of Pattalam Madhavi Amma (K. P. A. C. Lalitha) in search of a house, but she mistakes them to have come to see her daughter Unnimol(Kanaka) and calls Unni to bring tea and snacks. But after knowing about the goof happened, she lets them stay on the top floor of her house. Upon the advise of Erumely (Kuthiravattam Pappu), the broker, Madhavi Amma believes that with time, her daughter might fall in love with Krishnamoorthy and might get married to this educated Brahmin man. In the coming days, Krishnamoorthy befriends various members of the colony and tries to read out their idea about vacating the colony. But he realizes that it is not an easy task to evacuate the people and thinks about different plans to be operated. From Madhavi Amma, Krishnamoorthy comes to know that the entire colony was owned by Moosa Sait (Nedumudi Venu), a millionaire, who even gave up his mom for money. Suhra Bai (Philomina), his mother is now living a pathetic life inside the colony. Krishnamoorthy meets up with Paravoor Rauthar (Rajkumar), Irumbu John (Bheeman Raghu) and Kannappa Srank, the criminal leaders who are now controlling the colony. One night, Rauthar kicks Surabai in a fit of rage and she is killed. To get her final rituals done, Krishnamoorthy sets out in search of Moosa Sait, but is shocked to find Advocate Thomas (Devan), the legal adviser of his company in Sait's Bungalow. More shocked he was, when saw Moosa Sait, now living on streets like a beggar. Moosa Sait tells Krishnamoorthy that he was duped by Thomas, who by crook owned up his whole property including his house. Krishnamoorthy brings in Sait to the colony and make him do the last rites of his mother. In the meantime Unni, falls in lov with Krishnamoorthy. He slowly realizes the fact that the company is illegally trying to own up the land, while the justice is on the side of colony residents. He decides to support the people in their fight for justice. But Company join hands with the criminal leaders to finish off Krishnamoorthy. He is attacked by the criminal gang, but Krishnamoorthy succeeds in finishing them off and bringing justice to the people. Awards. Kerala State Film Award for Best Art Director - Mani Suchitra Production. Vietnam Colony was produced and distributed by Appachan for the banner of Swargachitra.
1101122	Laurent-Moïse Schwartz (5 March 1915 – 4 July 2002) was a French mathematician. He pioneered the theory of distributions, which gives a well-defined meaning to objects such as the Dirac delta function. He was awarded the Fields medal in 1950 for his work. For a long time he taught at the École polytechnique. Apart from his scientific work, he was a well-known outspoken intellectual. Biography. Family. Laurent Schwartz came from a Jewish family of Alsatian origin, with a strong scientific background: his father was a well-known surgeon, his uncle Robert Debré (who contributed to the creation of UNICEF) was a famous pediatrician, and his great-uncle-in-law, Jacques Hadamard, was a famous mathematician. During his training at Lycée Louis-le-Grand to enter the École Normale Supérieure, he fell in love with Marie-Hélène Lévy, daughter of the probabilist Paul Lévy who was then teaching at the École polytechnique. Later they would have two children, Marc-André and Claudine. Marie-Hélène was gifted in mathematics as well, as she contributed to the geometry of singular analytic spaces and taught at the University of Lille. Laurent's mother transmitted her interest in natural sciences, especially entomology. Laurent collected more than 20,000 Lepidoptera (now housed in the Muséum national d'histoire naturelle and other museums). He even discovered several new species, now named after him. Schwartz was a distant relative of oncologist Laurent Henri Schwartz. Education. According to his teachers, Schwartz was an exceptional student. He was particularly gifted in Latin, Greek and mathematics. One of his teachers told his parents: "Beware, some will say your son has a gift for languages, but he is only interested in the scientific and mathematical aspect of languages: he should become a mathematician." In 1934, he was admitted at the École Normale Supérieure, and in 1937 he obtained the agrégation (with rank 2). World War II. As a man of Trotskyist affinities and Jewish descent, life was difficult for Schwartz during World War II. He had to hide and change his identity to avoid being deported after Nazi Germany overran France. He worked for the University of Strasbourg (which had been relocated in Clermont-Ferrand because of the war) under the name of Laurent-Marie Sélimartin, while Marie-Hélène used the name Lengé instead of Lévy. Contrary to other mathematicians at Clermont-Ferrand such as Feldbau, the couple managed to escape the Nazis. Later career. Schwartz taught mainly at École Polytechnique, from 1958 to 1980. At the end of the war, he spent one year in Grenoble (1944), then in 1945 joined the University of Nancy on the advice of Jean Delsarte and Jean Dieudonné, where he spent seven years. He was both an influential researcher and teacher, with students such as Bernard Malgrange, Jacques-Louis Lions, François Bruhat and Alexander Grothendieck. He joined the science faculty of the University of Paris in 1952. In 1958 he became a teacher at the École polytechnique after having at first rejected this position. However, from 1961 to 1963 the École polytechnique refused him the right to teach, because of his having signed the Manifesto of the 121 about the Algerian war, a gesture not appreciated by Polytechnique's military administration. However, Schwartz had a lasting influence on mathematics at the École polytechnique, having reorganized both teaching and research there. In 1973 he was elected corresponding member of the French Academy of Sciences, and was promoted to full membership in 1975. Mathematical legacy. In 1950, Schwartz was awarded the Fields medal for his work on distributions. He was the first French mathematician to receive the Fields medal. Because of his sympathy for Trotskyism, Schwartz encountered serious problems trying to enter the United States to receive the medal; however, he was ultimately successful.
1164124	Delloreese Patricia Early, known professionally as Della Reese (born July 6, 1931), is an American actress, singer, game show panelist of the 1970s, one-time talk-show hostess and ordained minister. She started her career in the 1950s as a gospel, pop and jazz singer, scoring a hit with her 1959 single "Don't You Know?". In the late 1960s, she had hosted her own talk show, "Della," which ran for 197 episodes. Through four decades of acting, she is best known for playing Tess, the lead role on the 1994-2003 television show "Touched by an Angel". In more recent times, she became an ordained New Thought minister in the Understanding Principles for Better Living Church in Los Angeles, California. Early years. Reese was born Delloreese Patricia Early in the historic Black Bottom neighborhood of Detroit, Michigan, in 1931, to Nellie Mitchelle, a cook of African American and Cherokee Indian descent, and African American steelworker Richard Thaddeus Early Delloreese's mother also had several older children, before her birth, all of whom did not live with her, hence, she lived as an only child. At six years old, Reese began singing in church. From this experience, she became an avid gospel singer. On weekends in the 1940s, she and her mother would go to the movies independently to watch the likes of Joan Crawford, Bette Davis, and Lena Horne portray glamorous lives on screen. Afterwards, Reese would act out the scenes from the films. In 1944, she began her career directing the young people's choir, after she had nurtured acting plus her obvious musical talent. She was often chosen, on radio, as a regular singer. At the age of 13, she was hired to sing with Mahalia Jackson's gospel group. Delloreese entered Detroit's popular Cass Technical High School (where she attended the same year as Edna Rae Gillooly, later known as Ellen Burstyn). She also continued with her touring with Jackson. With higher grades, she was the first in her family to graduate from high school in 1947, at only 15. Afterwards, she formed her own gospel group, the Meditation Singers. However, due in part to the death of her mother, and her father's serious illness, Reese had to interrupt her schooling at Wayne State University to help support her family. Faithful to the memory of her mother, Deloreese also moved out of her father's house when she disapproved of him taking up with a new girlfriend. She then took on odd jobs, such as truck driver, dental receptionist, and even elevator operator, after 1949. Performing in clubs, Early soon decided to shorten her name from "Delloreese Early" to "Della Reese". Musical career. Reese was discovered by the gospel singer Mahalia Jackson, and her big break came when she won a contest, which gave her a week to sing at Detroit's well-known Flame Show Bar. Reese remained there for eight weeks. Although her roots were in gospel music, she now was being exposed to and influenced by such famous jazz artists as Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughan and Billie Holiday. In 1953, she signed a recording contract with Jubilee Records, for which she recorded six albums. Later that year, she also joined the Hawkins Orchestra. Her first recordings for Jubilee were songs such as "In the Still of the Night" (1937), "I've Got My Love to Keep Me Warm", and "Time After Time" (1947). Although the EP did not enter the charts, it sold 500,000 copies, and the songs were later included on the 1959 album "And That Reminds Me". In 1957, Reese released a single called "And That Reminds Me". After years of performing, she gained chart success with this song. It became a Top Twenty Pop hit and a million-seller record. That year, Reese was voted by "Billboard", "Cashbox", and various other magazines, as "The Most Promising Singer". In 1959, Reese moved to a RCA Records, and released her first RCA single, called "Don't You Know?", which was adapted from Puccini's music for "La Bohème", specifically, the aria "Musetta's Waltz." It became her biggest hit to date, reaching the #2 spot on the Pop charts, and topping the R&B charts, which were then called the "Hot R&B Sides", that year. Eventually, the song came to be widely considered the signature song of her early career. Reese received a Grammy nomination for her 1960 album, "Della", and then released a successful follow-up single called "Not One Minute More" (#16), and she remained on the "Billboard" Hot 100 chart with the songs "And Now" (#69), "Someday (You'll Want Me to Want You)" (#56) and "The Most Beautiful Words" (#67). In November 1960 Reese appeared in advertisements in "Ebony" magazine for the newly launched AMI Continental jukebox. Reese recorded regularly throughout the 1960s, releasing singles and several albums. Two of the most significant were "The Classic Della" (1962) and "Waltz with Me, Della" (1963), which broadened her fan base internationally. She recorded several jazz-focused albums, including "Della Reese Live" (1966), "On Strings of Blue" (1967), and "One of a Kind" (1978). She also performed in Las Vegas (Nevada) for nine years, and toured across the country. Reese continued to record albums in the following decades, receiving two more Grammy nominations in the gospel category for the album "Della Reese and Brilliance" (1991) and for the live recorded album, "My Soul Feels Better Right Now" (1999). Motown singer Martha Reeves sites Reese as a major influence, and says that she named her group The Vandellas after Van Dyke Street in Detroit, and Della Reese. Television and film career. In 1969, she began a transition into acting work which would eventually lead to her greatest fame. Her first attempt at television stardom was a talk show series, "Della", which was cancelled after 197 episodes (June 9, 1969–March 13, 1970). In 1970, Reese became the first black woman to guest host "The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson". She appeared in several TV movies and miniseries, was a regular on "Chico and the Man", and played the mother of B. A. Baracus in "The A-Team" episode "Lease with an Option to Die". In 1991, she starred opposite Redd Foxx in his final sitcom, "The Royal Family", but his death halted production of the series for several months. Reese also did voice-over for the late-1980s animated series "A Pup Named Scooby-Doo". In 1989, she starred alongside Eddie Murphy, Richard Pryor, and Arsenio Hall in the theatrical release movie "Harlem Nights", in which she performed a fight scene with Eddie Murphy. Reese appeared as a panelist on several episodes of the popular television game show "Match Game". Television guest appearances. Reese has had a wide variety of guest-starring roles, beginning with an episode of "The Mod Squad". This led to other roles such as: "", "Getting Together", "Police Woman", "Petrocelli", "Joe Forrester", "Police Story", "The Rookies", "McCloud", "Sanford and Son" with old friend Redd Foxx, "Vega$", "Insight", two episodes of "The Love Boat". She also had a recurring role on "It Takes Two" opposite Richard Crenna and Patty Duke, three episodes of "Crazy Like a Fox", four episodes of "Charlie & Co." opposite Flip Wilson, "227" with best friend Marla Gibbs, "MacGyver", "Night Court", "Dream On", "Designing Women", "Picket Fences", "That's So Raven" and "The Young and the Restless". She also had a recurring role as Tess, on "Promised Land" with Wendy Phillips and Gerald McRaney, among many others. "Touched by an Angel". After coping with the death of one of her best friends, Redd Foxx, in 1991, she was reluctant to play an older female lead in the inspirational television drama "Touched by an Angel", but went ahead and auditioned for the role of "Tess". She wanted to have a one-shot agreement between CBS and producer Martha Williamson, but ordered more episodes. Reese was widely seen as a key component of the show's success. Already starring on "Touched by an Angel" was the lesser-known Irish actress Roma Downey, who played the role of case worker Tess's angel/employee, Monica. In numerous interviews, there was an on- and off-screen chemistry between both Reese and Downey. The character of Tess was the angelic supervisor who sent the other angels out on missions to help people redeem their lives and show them God's love, while at the same time, she was sassy and had a no-nonsense attitude. The show often featured a climactic monologue delivered by the angel Monica in which she reveals herself as an angel to a human with the words: "I am an angel sent by God to tell you that he loves you." The character of Tess was portrayed by Reese as down to earth, experienced, and direct. Reese also sang the show's theme song, "Walk With You", and was featured prominently on the soundtrack album produced in conjunction with the show. During its first season in 1994, many critics were skeptical about the show, it being the second overtly religious prime-time fantasy series, after "Highway to Heaven". The show had a rocky start, and low rating, and it was cancelled 11 episodes into the first season. However, with the help of a massive letter-writing campaign, the show was resuscitated the following season and became a huge ratings winner for the next seven seasons. At the beginning of the fourth season in 1997, Reese threatened to leave the show because she was making less than her co-stars; CBS ended up raising her salary. "Touched by an Angel" was cancelled in 2003, but it continued re-running heavily in syndication and on "The Hallmark Channel". Roma Downey said of her on- and off-screen relationship with Reese: Downey later also said: In 1979, after taping a guest spot for "The Tonight Show," she suffered a near-fatal brain aneurysm, but made a full recovery after two operations by neurosurgeon Dr. Charles Drake at University Hospital in London, Ontario. In 1983, she married Franklin Thomas Lett, Jr., a concert producer and writer. In 2002, Reese announced on "Larry King Live" that she had been diagnosed with type-2 diabetes. She became a spokeswoman for the American Diabetes Association, traveling around the United States to raise awareness about this disorder. In 2005, Reese was honored by Oprah Winfrey at her Legends Ball ceremony, along with 25 other women of African-American descent. Reese was ordained as a minister in 2010, after serving as the senior minister and founder of the Understanding Principles for Better Living Church, an independent "Christian New Thought" congregation, which currently meets at First Lutheran Church (www.firsting.org) in Inglewood, California. In her ministerial work, she is known as the Rev. Dr. Della Reese Lett.
582097	Parinda (Hindi: परिंदा, ) is an award-winning 1989 Indian crime drama film directed and produced by Vidhu Vinod Chopra. It is considered by many to be the turning point in reality in Hindi cinema, as the theme of the film discusses the real life of Indian underworld gangsters and the general life of residents in the city of Mumbai. The film stars Jackie Shroff, Anil Kapoor, Nana Patekar and Madhuri Dixit in the lead roles. It won two National Film Awards and five Filmfare Awards, and was India's official entry for the 1990 Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.The movie was titled "Kabutarkhana" but later changed and release as "Parinda". Plot. The story revolves around two brothers, Kishen (Jackie Shroff) and Karan (Anil Kapoor), who have spent their childhood growing up alone on the streets of Mumbai. In order for Karan to have a better upbringing and education, Kishen joins Anna Seth (Nana Patekar). Anna owns an oil factory, but that's a mere prop to cover up his dealings within the underworld. Karan is unaware of the fact that his brother is working for a gang. Inspector Prakash (Anupam Kher), Karan's best friend, is aware of Anna's gang activities and wants to bring him to justice. Anna knows that Karan and Prakash are best friends, so he sets up the murder of Prakash when Prakash and Karan are supposed to meet after Karan's arrival from America. Karan witnesses the murder of his friend Prakash, who dies in his arms.
584476	Mariyadhai (Tamil: மரியாதை; English: "Respect") is an Indian Tamil film that stars Vijayakanth, who performs two roles, while Meena plays the lead heroine. Meera Jasmine plays another heroine character while Ambika also plays a significant role. Directed by Vikraman, who earlier directed hits like "Poove Unakkaga" (1996) and "Vanathai Pola" (2000), the film released in 2009. Plot. The story unfolds in a small village near Pollachi. Annamalai (senior Vijayakanth) leads a contended life with his wife Alamelu (Ambika), his daughter Sumathy (Ammu) and his son Pichai (junior Vijayakanth). A caring a loving father, he even allows his son to change his name from Pichai to Raja, when he is made fun of by his friends when he was very young. A respectable man in the village for his philanthropic activities, Annamalai gives enough liberties and freedom to his son Raja, who emerges out as an agriculture graduate. All troubles begin when Raja loses money by cultivating dates in the barren land owned by his father. Meanwhile an industrialist eyes the land for setting up chemical factory which is resisted by bother father and son. But Raja comes across Radha (Meena), a music teacher and he falls for her immediately. Raja’s wedding is arranged with Radha by elders of both the families. Couple of days before their wedding after Raja gives up his property to Radha only to bail her out of trouble little realizing that it was a practical joke hatched by Radha to take away his land. Their wedding gets stopped. Raja vows to get back the land. Enters Chandra (Meera Jasmine) in Raja’s life. She comes to know of his bad past and vows to change his heart and marry him. Eventually it’s how Raja comes up in his life and marry Chandra.
1163439	Maya Khabira Rudolph (born July 27, 1972) is an American actress and comedienne. The daughter of singer Minnie Riperton and music composer Richard Rudolph, she was raised in Santa Monica, California and graduated from UC Santa Cruz in 1995. Following her graduation, she was a background singer and keyboardist for rock band The Rentals until they disbanded, and became a member of improvisational comedy troupe The Groundlings. Rudolph rose to prominence on the NBC television show "Saturday Night Live", where she was a cast member from 2000 to 2007. She has also starred in a number of films such as "Idiocracy" (2006), "Away We Go" (2009), "Grown Ups" (2010), "Bridesmaids" (2011), and "Grown Ups 2" (2013). She starred as Ava Alexander in the NBC sitcom "Up All Night "from 2011 to 2013. Rudolph lives with film director Paul Thomas Anderson; the couple have four children together. Early life. Rudolph was born in Gainesville, Florida. She is the daughter of soul singer Minnie Riperton and composer/songwriter/producer Richard Rudolph. Her father is an Ashkenazi Jew, and her mother was African-American. Her paternal grandfather was Sidney Rudolph, a philanthropist who once owned all of the Wendy's and Rudy's restaurants in Dade County, FL. Her parents moved to Los Angeles when she and her brother Marc were very young, and they grew up primarily in the Westwood section. Rudolph was in the studio when her mother recorded "Lovin' You". Near the end of the track, Riperton can be heard singing "Maya, Maya, Maya" to Rudolph. Riperton incorporated this into her performance of the song on "The Midnight Special". Riperton died on July 12, 1979, at age 31, from breast cancer, just shy of Rudolph's seventh birthday. Rudolph's godmother was R&B singer Teena Marie. Education. In 1990, Rudolph graduated from Crossroads School in Santa Monica, California, where she became friendly with fellow student Gwyneth Paltrow, and continued her education at the University of California, Santa Cruz, where she graduated in 1995 with a B.A. in photography from Porter College. Career. "Saturday Night Live". In May 2000, Rudolph joined the cast of "Saturday Night Live" as a featured player for the final three episodes of the 1999–2000 season, after a stint as a member of The Groundlings improv troupe, where she met future "Saturday Night Live" cast member Will Forte. Rudolph's characters on the show have included "Attorney Glenda Goodwin" and "Megan" from the "Wake Up, Wakefield!" sketches. Rudolph has done a number of celebrity impressions on "Saturday Night Live" during her tenure, they include Amanda Byram, Ananda Lewis, Barbra Streisand, Bern Nadette Stanis (as Thelma Evans on "Good Times"), Beyoncé, Charo, Christina Aguilera, Condoleezza Rice, Darcel Wynne, Diana Ross, Donatella Versace, Donna Fargo, Emily Robison, Fredricka Whitfield, Free, Gayle King, Halle Berry, Ivanka Trump, Ja'net Du Bois (as Willona Woods on "Good Times"), Jennifer Lopez, Joyce "Fenderella" Irby, Justin Guarini, Kara Saun, LaToya Jackson, Lisa Kudrow, Lisa Ling, Lucy Liu, Lynda Lopez, Macy Gray, Mario Vasquez, Mary Roach, Maya Angelou, Melinda Doolittle, Melissa Stark, Michelle Obama, Mýa, Nelly Furtado, Omarosa Manigault-Stallworth, Oprah Winfrey, Paris Hilton, Patti LaBelle, Phylicia Rashad (as Clair Huxtable on "The Cosby Show"), Rocsi, Scott Joplin, Teresa Heinz, Terra Patrick, Tina Turner, Tyra Banks, Valerie Simpson, Vanessa Hudgens (as Gabriella Montez from "High School Musical 3"), Wanda Sykes and Whitney Houston. Rudolph's musical talents were frequently employed on "Saturday Night Live". She sang as Beyoncé Knowles in the "Prince Show" sketches, as the "Space Creature" in the "Gays in Space" sketches (except for the one on the Season 31 episode hosted by Peter Sarsgaard, because it aired around the time Rudolph was on maternity leave. (Friend Will Forte substituted for her during that episode.) Her ability to change her looks and her command of many accents also led to her playing an unusually wide range of ethnicities on the show, often with only a change of wigs. She has been white (Paris Hilton, Liza Minnelli, Barbra Streisand, Lisa Kudrow), Asian (Lucy Liu, Lisa Ling), black (Diana Ross, Tina Turner), and Latina (Charo). As "Nooni Schoener," Rudolph, along with Fred Armisen, created a couple from an unspecified Scandinavian country, who have unplaceable accents and bewilderingly foreign manners. Rudolph was also able to play male characters such as Scott Joplin, Justin Guarini, and Mario Vazquez. Her final show was on November 3, 2007, with host Brian Williams and musical guest Feist, the last episode before the writers' strike. She returned on October 25, 2008, in a featured guest appearance as Michelle Obama and sang a duet with Kenan Thompson about Amy Poehler's newborn. She then also appeared in the 2008 Christmas episode, where she reprised her role in the sketch Bronx Beat, with Amy Poehler. She also appeared in two sketches in the 2008–2009 season finale with Will Ferrell. She appeared in a Weekend Update Thursday sketch during the fall 2009–10 season as Oprah Winfrey speaking on behalf of Chicago's bid for the 2016 Olympics. She also appeared on the show in May 2010 to perform in skits including "The Manuel Ortiz Show" with Betty White. She returned to "Saturday Night Live" for the Season 36 premiere, hosted by Amy Poehler, performing the "Bronx Beat" sketch and that same season for episode 700, hosted by Tina Fey. On February 18, 2012 she returned to "Saturday Night Live" as a host for the first time and reprised her roles in sketches such as "Bronx Beat". Television and film. In addition to her work on "Saturday Night Live", Rudolph has appeared on other television shows, including the CBS medical drama series "City of Angels" and "Chicago Hope". She had small parts in "Chuck & Buck", "Gattaca", "As Good as It Gets", "Duplex" and "Duets"; she was also a music supervisor for "Duets". Her first prominent film role came in 2006 with "A Prairie Home Companion". Earlier, she had costarred with Luke Wilson in the 2005 Mike Judge sci-fi comedy "Idiocracy", although that film was shelved until September 2006 and then only given a limited release. She also guest starred as Rapunzel in the DreamWorks animated film "Shrek the Third". She guest starred as Julia in the "The Simpsons" episode "The Homer of Seville". Rudolph guest starred as character Athena Scooberman in NBC's "Kath & Kim", and starred in the film "Away We Go" with "The Office" star John Krasinski. In 2010, she appeared in "Grown Ups" starring Adam Sandler, where she played the wife of Chris Rock's character. In 2011 she appeared in "Bridesmaids", together with "Saturday Night Live" colleague Kristen Wiig. She costarred in NBC's latest sitcom, "Up All Night", with Christina Applegate and Will Arnett. After the cancellation of "Up All Night", it has been speculated that she will host her own variety show. Music. Prior to joining "Saturday Night Live", Rudolph was backing singer (1995-1999) and briefly a keyboardist in the band The Rentals, with whom she toured for a short time. She also appears in the music videos of the songs "Waiting" and "Please Let That Be You". She sang backing vocals for "Barcelona" and "My Head Is in the Sun," both from the album "Seven More Minutes." In 2004, she recorded a track with The Rentals frontman Matt Sharp, including a cover of Tegan and Sara's "Not Tonight." Rudolph also performed "Together In Pooping" and "Little Roundworm" with Triumph the Insult Comic Dog (Robert Smigel) on his album "Come Poop With Me". She is currently in a Prince (musician) cover band called Princess with her friend Gretchen Lieberum. Personal life. Rudolph has been in a relationship with director Paul Thomas Anderson since 2001. They live together in Los Angeles with their four children: daughters Pearl Minnie (born October 2005) and Lucille (born November 2009), son Jack (born July 2011), and a baby born in summer 2013.
1101119	Benjamin Peirce (; April 4, 1809 – October 6, 1880) was an American mathematician who taught at Harvard University for approximately 50 years. He made contributions to celestial mechanics, statistics, number theory, algebra, and the philosophy of mathematics. He was the son of Benjamin Peirce (1778–1831), later librarian of Harvard, and Lydia Ropes Nichols Peirce (1781–1868). After graduating from Harvard, he remained as a tutor (1829), and was subsequently appointed professor of mathematics in 1831. He added astronomy to his portfolio in 1842, and remained as Harvard professor until his death. In addition, he was instrumental in the development of Harvard's science curriculum, served as the college librarian, and was director of the U.S. Coast Survey from 1867 to 1874. Research. Benjamin Peirce is often regarded as the earliest American scientist whose research was recognized as world class. Mathematics. In number theory, he proved there is no odd perfect number with fewer than four prime factors. In algebra, he was notable for the study of associative algebras. He first introduced the terms idempotent and nilpotent in 1870 to describe elements of these algebras, and he also introduced the Peirce decomposition. Definition of mathematics. In the philosophy of mathematics, he became known for the statement that "Mathematics is the science that draws necessary conclusions". Peirce's definition of mathematics was credited by Charles Sanders Peirce as helping to initiate the consequentialist philosophy of pragmatism. Like George Boole, Peirce believed that mathematics could be used to study logic. These ideas were developed by Charles Sanders Peirce, who noted that logic also includes the study of faulty reasoning. In contrast, the later logicist program of Gottlob Frege and Bertrand Russell attempted to base mathematics on logic. Statistics. Peirce proposed what came to be known as Peirce's Criterion for the statistical treatment of outliers, that is, of apparently extreme observations. His ideas were developed by Charles Sanders Peirce. Peirce was an expert witness in the Howland will forgery trial, where he was assisted by his son Charles Sanders Peirce. Their analysis of the questioned signature showed that it resembled another particular handwriting example so closely that the chances of such a match were statistically extremely remote. Private life. He was devoutly religious, though he seldom published his theological thoughts. Peirce credited God as shaping nature in ways that account for the efficacy of pure mathematics in describing empirical phenomena. Peirce viewed "mathematics as study of God's work by God's creatures", according to an encyclopedia. He married Sarah Hunt Mills, the daughter of U.S. Senator Elijah Hunt Mills. Peirce and his wife had four sons and one daughter: Eponyms. The lunar crater Peirce is named for Peirce. Post-doctoral positions in Harvard University's mathematics department are named in his honors as Benjamin Peirce Fellows and Lecturers.
586410	Ente Sooryaputhrikku is a 1991 Malayalam film directed by Fazil and starring Amala, Suresh Gopi and Srividya. The film was simultaneously shot in Tamil as "Karpoora Mullai". Plot. Maya (Amala) was a spoiled child of a rich man. Along with her friends, she decides to make fun of a Dr. Srinivas (Suresh Gopi). The doctor in turn insults her saying that she is a fatherless child. Maya discovers that her father had adopted her when she was baby and her biological mother was K. S Vasundhara Devi (Srividya), famous singer. She tries her every bit to make her mom accept her. Finally her mother accepts Maya, but before she make this news to public, she is murdered by her administration employees for Vasundhara Devi's wealth. Maya kills her mother's killer's and she is sentenced to lifetime imprisonment. Srinivas marries her, while she undergoes sentence in Jail.
1058117	Mark Richard Hamill (born September 25, 1951) is an American actor, voice actor, producer, director, and writer. He is best known for his performance as Luke Skywalker in the original "Star Wars" trilogy, as well as his voice role as the Joker in ', its various spin-offs, and the video games ' and "". Hamill has also lent his voice to various other villains and anti-heroes in various other animated productions. Early life and education. Hamill was born in Oakland, California, and raised in Virginia. He is the son of Virginia Suzanne (née Johnson) and William Thomas Hamill, who was a captain in the U.S. Navy. He is one of seven children, including two brothers, Will and Patrick, and four sisters, Terry, Jan, Jeanie, and Kim. His mother was of half Swedish descent. When Mark was a child, his father's career meant moving on numerous occasions and subsequently, he attended different schools throughout his early life. In his elementary years, he went to Poe Middle School. At age eleven, he moved to the 5900 block of Castleton Drive in San Diego where he attended Hale Junior High School and then, during his freshman year at James Madison Senior High School, his family moved to Virginia. By junior year, his father was stationed in Japan where Mark attended Nile C. Kinnick High School in Yokosuka, and was a member of the drama club. After that he attended Annandale High School in Annandale, Virginia. He subsequently enrolled at Los Angeles City College and majored in drama. Early career. Hamill's early career included voicing the character Corey Anders on the Saturday morning cartoon "Jeannie" by Hanna-Barbera Productions. He also portrayed the oldest son, David, on the pilot episode of "Eight Is Enough", though the role was later performed by Grant Goodeve. He acted in TV series such as "The Texas Wheelers", "General Hospital", "The Partridge Family", and "One Day at a Time". One of his earliest films was the made-for-TV film "The City". "Star Wars". Robert Englund was auditioning for a part in "Apocalypse Now" when he walked across the hall where auditions were taking place for George Lucas' "". After watching the auditions for a while, he realized that his friend, aspiring actor Mark Hamill, would be perfect for the role of Luke Skywalker. He suggested to Hamill that he audition for the part; Hamill did, and won the role. Released in the summer of 1977, "Star Wars" was an enormous, unexpected success and made a huge impact on the film industry. Hamill also appeared in "Star Wars Holiday Special" (1978) and later starred in the successful "Star Wars" sequels ' (1980) and ' (1983). For each of the sequels, Hamill was honored with the Saturn Award for Best Actor given by the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy, & Horror Films.
590739	Bhatti Vikramarka (Telugu: భట్టి విక్రమార్క) is a 1960 Telugu film directed by Jampana Chandrasekhara Rao and produced by Polisetty Veera Venkata Satyanarayana Murthy. It is a commercial hit film ran for 100-days. The plot. The story is based on the historical characters of Bhatti and Vikramarka. It also shows some of the "Bethala Kathalu" (Stories of Vetala). Indra invites Vikramarka to Heaven and requests him to decide who is the best dancer between Rambha and Urvasi. Vikramarka gives two garlands to them to wear and dance. The garland worn by Urvasi stays fresh, whereas that one worn by Rambha withers. He judges Urvasi as the best dancer, as she is fearless about her performance and win. As a token of gratitude, Indra gifts him a Simhasanam with 32 Salabhanjikas. Prachandudu performs 99 yagnas and in search of 100th yagna to achieve some magical powers. Mantrikudu tells him to invite Vikramarka for the sacrifice. He agrees and reaches the Smasanavatika, where he told him to get Vetala, who is hanging from a tree. He cuts the rope and gets Vetala on his back. While returning, he narrates a tricky social problem and asks Vikramarka to answer. After successfully answering all the stories, Vetala instructs him about the ill intention of Prachanda. Prachanda on his return asks Vikramarka to perform Sashtang Pranam. The cautious Vikramarka tells him as a king he does not know how to do it and requests him show how to do it. He kills Prachanda while he is on Pranam and gets the magical powers. Features. There was Fire Accident on the sets of Narasu Studios, Guindy, Madras on March 13, 1959. The "Bhatti Vikramarka" shooting required a fire, and a fire was made by using petrol and straw. Mukkamala and Anjali Devi were on the sets. The bamboo setting was ablaze and the flames rose high fast. The fire spread to the adjacent sets too and caused a huge damage of a lakh and half rupees. It took them for more than 90 minutes for the fire brigades to bring the fire under control. This was the worst fire disaster in the history of Telugu cinema.
581208	Amudhey is a Tamil film released in 2005. It was directed by Ezhil. Starring Jai Akash, Madhumitha and Pranathi in lead roles. Plot. Dhinakar (Jai Akash) hailing from an ordinary middle-class family and Nancy, a software engineer and sole breadwinner for her family, are neighbors in love with each other. But their dreams of getting married are shatters when their self-centered parents decide on proposals of their own choice.
1102468	An approximation is anything that is similar but not exactly equal to something else. The term can be applied to various properites (e.g. value, quantity, image, description) that are nearly but not exactly correct; similar, but not exactly the same. Although approximation is most often applied to numbers, it is also frequently applied to such things as mathematical functions, shapes, and physical laws. In science, approximation can refer to using a simpler process or model when the correct model is difficult to use. An approximate model is used to make calculations easier. Approximations might also be used if incomplete information prevents use of exact representations.
584152	Perazhagan (; ) is a 2004 Indian Tamil film directed by Sasi Shanker, starring Suriya and Jyothika with both playing dual roles. The supporting cast includes Vivek, Manorama and Manobala. The film's score and soundtrack were composed by Yuvan Shankar Raja. The film, which is a remake of the 2002 Malayalam film "Kunjikoonan", which starred Dileep and Navya Nair in the lead, was released on 7 May 2004, receiving favorable reviews and turning out to be a highly successful venture. Plot. The story revolves around Chinna (Surya), a village youth who receives sympathy because he is a hunchback and is lauded for selfless service to others. He covers up his handicap with humor. Unmindful of his looks, Chinna goes around looking for a suitable bride with the help of his friend (Vivek). Brushing aside many an insult hurled at him, he carries on. In contrast is Karthik (Surya), a violent college student, who loves his classmate Priya (Jyothika). She meets Chinna, who assures her that he would get her married to the man of her dreams. However, she is killed in a fracas involving a gangster. Meanwhile, the hunchback Surya comes across an orphaned poor blind girl, Shenbagam (Jyothika). He wins over her heart by helping her out. Thanks to his efforts, she gains her vision (Priya's eyes are transplanted to her). This results in a tussle between Chinna and Karthik as to whom Shenbagam now belongs. However, fearing his looks, the hunchback, Chinna, decides to give way to the other. But fate has other things in store for him...As a result she pairs up with Chinna itself. Production. "Perazhagan" was 166th film of AVM Productions. It is a remake of Malayalam film "Kunjikoonan", Sasi Shankar who directed original version also directed the Tamil remake. A 25 days' shooting schedule took place at locations in Kerala, including Ernakulam, Thodupuzha, Kolappra and Kudaiyathur. Sets designed by Thottatharani, which depicted hunchback Chinna's house, the telephone booth he runs, a bus stand, tea stall, and a vegetable market — were other locations where shooting took place. For the role of the ugly cripple, Chinna, Surya's make-up by Bujji Babu, took about three hours to be perfected. The special make-up items were imported from the US. Soundtrack. The soundtrack, released on 15 April 2004, has six songs composed by Yuvan Shankar Raja with Pazhani Bharathi, Kabilan, Pa. Vijay, Thamarai and Snehan writing the lyrics of each one song. The song "Oru Azhagana" has the lead actor Suriya, singing for a soundtrack for the first time. Awards. Tamil Nadu State Film Awards
583316	Pavan Malhotra (born July 2, 1958 in Panipat, Haryana) is a Hindi film and television and serial actor. He has played lead roles in Buddhadeb Dasgupta’s National Film Award-winning "Bagh Bahadur" and Saeed Akhtar Mirza’s "Salim Langde Pe Mat Ro", both released in 1989. He is famous for his role as a cold-blooded mafia don Irfan Khan in the Telugu blockbuster "Aithe" (2003) and in his acclaimed role of Tiger Memon in "Black Friday" (2004). Having graduating in Arts from Delhi University, Pavan venture into Delhi theatre circuit, thereafter he moved to Mumbai; where he started with television industry as an assistant on the sets of TV series, "Yeh Jo Hai Zindagi" (1984), before he got a role in Saeed Akhtar Mirza’s TV series on Doordarshan, "Nukkad " (1986), which got him noticed. Meanwhile he had entered the film industry and made his debut with Pankaj Parashar's "Ab Ayega Mazaa" (1984). Over the years he had worked with acclaimed directors like Buddhadeb Dasgupta, Saeed Akhtar Mirza, Shyam Benegal, Deepa Mehta and Roland Joffé. In 2006, he was seen in Manish Goswami’s "Aisa Desh Hai Mera" on Sony television. He is seen on TV series "Alag Alag" and Partho Mitra's "Patang" on DD Metro. He recently starred in the major hit movies "Jab We Met" and "Bhaag Milkha Bhaag". He is currently acting in "Lagi Tujhse Lagan" as Malmal More on Colors TV.
1055269	The Great Raid is a 2005 war film about the Raid at Cabanatuan on the Philippine island of Luzon during World War II. It is directed by John Dahl and stars Benjamin Bratt, Joseph Fiennes, James Franco, Connie Nielsen, Motoki Kobayashi and Cesar Montano. The principal photography took place from July 4, to November 6, 2002, but its release was delayed several times from the original target of fall 2003. The film is adapted from two books, William Breuer's "The Great Raid on Cabanatuan" and Hampton Sides' "Ghost Soldiers". The film opened in theaters across the United States on August 12, 2005, three days before the 60th anniversary of V-J Day. The real-life efforts of Filipino guerrillas are also specifically highlighted, especially a stand at a bridge that delayed Japanese reinforcements. These units fought alongside Americans against Japanese occupiers during the war. Plot. In 1944, American forces were closing in on the Japanese-occupied Philippines. The Japanese held around 500 American prisoners who had survived the Bataan Death March in a notorious POW camp at Cabanatuan and subjected them to brutal treatment and summary execution. Many prisoners were also stricken with malaria. The film opens with the massacre of prisoners of war on Palawan by the Kempeitai, the Imperial Japanese military's secret police (though factually, it was committed by the Japanese Fourteenth Area Army). Meanwhile at Lingayen Gulf, the 6th Ranger Battalion under Lt. Col Mucci is ordered by Lt. Gen. Walter Krueger to liberate all of the POWs at Cabanatuan prison camp before they are killed by the Japanese. The film chronicles the efforts of the Rangers, Alamo Scouts from the 6th Army and Filipino guerrillas as they undertake the Raid at Cabanatuan. Throughout the film, the viewpoint switches between the POWs at Cabanatuan, the Rangers, the Filipino resistance and the Japanese. In particular, the film covers the resistance work undertaken by nurse Margaret Utinsky, who smuggled medicine into the POW camps. The Kempeitai arrested her and sent her to Fort Santiago prison. She was eventually released, but spent six weeks recovering from gangrene as a result of injuries sustained from beatings. Production notes. The Americans used a Northrop P-61 Black Widow night fighter to divert Japanese attention while the Rangers were crawling toward the camp (but the aircraft used in the movie was a Lockheed Hudson, because none of the four surviving P-61s were airworthy when the film was made). The movie was filmed in south-east Queensland, Australia utilising a huge, authentic recreation of a prisoner of war camp. In addition, numerous local Asian students were employed to play Japanese soldiers. The movie was shot in 2002 but it was pulled from release schedule on several occasions. It was finally released in August 2005, by Miramax Films, which coincided with the formal departure of co-founders Bob and Harvey Weinstein from the company. Reception. As of September 2012, the film had a score of 48 out of 100 on Metacritic based on 29 reviews, and on Rotten Tomatoes, the film had a score of 36% based on 119 reviews. The consensus on Rotten Tomatoes was that the film was too long with too many subplots, although the actual raid was exciting. However, it received more praise from "Chicago Sun-Times" critic Roger Ebert, who gave it three stars. Roger Ebert praised the film, saying, "Here is a war movie that understands how wars are actually fought." He continued, "film has been made with the confidence that the story itself is the point, not the flashy graphics. The raid is outlined for the troops (and for the audience), so that, knowing what the rescuers want to do, we understand how they're trying to do it. Like soldiers on a march, it puts one step in front of another, instead of flying apart into a blizzard of quick cuts and special effects. Like the jazzier but equally realistic "Black Hawk Down", it shows a situation that has moved beyond policy and strategy and amounts to soldiers in the field, hoping to hell they get home alive." He also said the film gave "full credit" to the Filipino guerrillas who assisted the Rangers. He concluded, "it is good to have a film that is not about entertainment for action fans, but about how wars are won with great difficulty, risk, and cost." Wesley Morris of "The Boston Globe" criticized a lack of character development and the pace of the film, saying, "On screen, at least, the raid to free the prisoners isn't all that great - just a bunch of explosions and combat maneuvers. Still, it's the one sequence in the film where everybody works with the same conviction. The audience, meanwhile, has to sit around with the prisoners, waiting for this to happen. It's a long wait." He concluded that the film "amounts to a noble failure." Stephen Hunter of "The Washington Post" praised the film as "a riveting, even inspirational account of an American feat of arms about which few know but about which many more should." He said the film was made more in the style of movies from the 1940s, with the hero being the unit involved in the action instead of individuals, a technique which is rarely used today and explains the "essentially starless" cast drawing mainly from television or film supporting roles. He praised its accuracy, saying, "The war stuff is first-rate all the way through. A great deal of effort has been made to achieve a level of anthropological correctness: The weapons are right, the uniforms are right, the equipment is right...The raid itself is a dynamo of action filmmaking, exactly like what the real thing must have been -- swift and brutal, with a lot of shooting and no prisoner-taking." Joel Selvin of the "San Francisco Chronicle" called the film "very boring"; a "story without irony, perspective or any leavening that would make it something other than an ordinary military-action caper. The story line is telegraphed from word one and the meticulous unfolding plot plods ahead inexorably without the slightest bit of suspense." Roger Moore of the "Orlando Sentinel" said, "characters are all real people, and much of this really happened. But director John Dahl (Joy Ride) and the screenwriters have conjured a dreary, old-fashioned 'last roundup' of war movie and prisoner-of-war movie cliches, small but forgivable sins. Less forgivable is how Dahl squanders tension for an hour and a half cutting between the suffering prisoners and resistance intrigues in Manila and the long march of the Rangers, and a fictionalized romance story that might have made a nice little movie by itself." James Plath of Movie Metropolis wrote, "In many ways, "The Great Raid" adheres to the genre right down to the character types and before-battle thoughts, but it's also a curious combination of modern war tale in the manner of "Saving Private Ryan" and the kind of patriotic films that were made in the waning years of the war and in the fifties. It has both a realistic sheen, and an element of idealistic flag-waving. "The Great Raid" isn't a perfect film, but it's an engaging one, and, at times, a powerful one." Scott Weinberg of DVD Talk gave it a positive review, and described the film as "truly an 'old-fashioned' war movie...based on, and adhering very closely to, actual events that occurred in early 1945[.] "The Great Raid" is not a hyper-kinetic flash-banger like "Pearl Harbor", nor it is a cerebral rumination like "The Thin Red Line"; it's just a well-hewn and efficient re-telling of true story that's worthy of remembrance." He opined that the film was delayed not because it was bad, but because its old-fashioned style is a "tough sell...in today's marketplace." Mike Clark of "USA Today" said, "Just about any golden age Hollywood hack could have made a zestier drama about one of the greatest rescue missions in U.S. military history," and criticized "Franco's droning voice-over" for spelling out "every sliver of historical context", and also said "a huge chunk of time is given to an uncompelling romance between a major...and a widowed nurse." "Entertainment Weekly" said it "lacks a center. It's an exhausted sprawl with multiple story foci, none of them terribly compelling," concluding, "Dahl does vividly re-create that least heralded burden of war: the boredom." Steven Rea of "The Philadelphia Inquirer" wrote, ""The Great Raid", which documents the largest rescue mission in U.S. military history (and ends with archival footage of many of the real soldiers portrayed in the film), lacks the visceral sweep of "Saving Private Ryan". But Spielberg's story, for all its gut-wrenching intensity, was a fiction. Dahl's movie, slower in pace and conscious of its own artifice, addresses the same issues of courage and sacrifice - and tells a true story. That's worth something. In fact, it's worth a lot." Box office. The movie was not a financial success, covering only 12% of its $80 million budget. "The Great Raid" was released on August 12, 2005 and opened at #10 at the box office, gathering $3,376,009 in the opening weekend. Its worldwide gross stands at $10,769,311.
1161380	Rita Rudner (born September 17, 1953) is an American comedian, writer and actress. Early life. Rudner was born in Miami, Florida, the daughter of Frances, a homemaker, and Abe Rudner, a lawyer. Her mother died when she was 13 (an experience she detailed in a 2012 episode of "Celebrity Ghost Stories"). After graduating from high school at 15, Rudner left Miami and headed to New York City to embark on a career as a dancer. She appeared in several Broadway shows, including the now-legendary original productions of "Follies" and "Mack & Mabel". Rudner did not turn to comedy until she was 25, after observing how few female comedians there were compared to the number of female dancers. She spent many hours researching her favorite comedians, including Woody Allen and Jack Benny. She enjoys Jewish humor, but reserves her Jewish jokes for Jewish audiences. Career. Rudner has appeared in several television shows both in the US and the UK (recording a six-part series on BBC2 in 1990 in the latter), and she appeared often on "The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson". She has recorded several award-winning comedy specials, most notably "Rita Rudner: Born to Be Mild" and "Rita Rudner: Married Without Children" for HBO and "Rita Rudner: Live From Las Vegas" for PBS in 2008 (now available on DVD). She also appeared on the "Tales from the Crypt" episode "Whirlpool". Rudner and her husband and producer, Martin Bergman, wrote the screenplay of the film "Peter's Friends", in which she also acted. Rudner also has a role as the character Bunny in her husband's 2011 film "Thanks", which had its world premiere at the 2011 Palm Springs Film Festival. Rudner is the author of the books "I Still Have It; I Just Can't Remember Where I Put It", "Naked Beneath My Clothes" and the novels "Tickled Pink" and "Turning The Tables". She has written several screenplays with her husband and a play called "Room 776" which premiered in Las Vegas in 2008. Since 2001, Rudner has performed almost exclusively in Las Vegas, selling over one million tickets. She moved to a larger theater at The Venetian in January 2011. She also created and hosted the syndicated improvisational comedy show "Ask Rita", which mimicked the format of a talk/advice show. For this she received a Gracie Allen Award from the American Women in Television and Radio. In May 2009 she performed for Senator Harry Reid and President Barack Obama at Caesars Palace alongside Bette Midler and Sheryl Crow; a video of some of this performance can be found on Rita's Facebook page or YouTube. On August 8, 2012, Rudner appeared as Melissa's mom on the sitcom "Melissa & Joey". Rudner and her husband adopted a daughter, Molly, in 2002. They have homes in Las Vegas and Southern California.
1170159	Rex Elvie Allen (December 31, 1920 â December 17, 1999) was an American film actor, singer and songwriter, known as the Arizona Cowboy, particularly known as the narrator in many Disney nature and Western film productions. For contributions to the recording industry, Allen was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Biography. Family and early life. Allen was born to Horace E. Allen and Luella Faye Clark on a ranch in Mud Springs Canyon, 40 miles from Willcox, Arizona. As a boy he played guitar and sang at local functions with his fiddle-playing father until high school graduation when he toured the Southwest as a rodeo rider. He got his start in show business on the East Coast as a vaudeville singer, then found work in Chicago as a performer on the WLS-AM program, "National Barn Dance." He left the show in 1949 and moved to Hollywood. In 1948 he signed with Mercury Records where he recorded a number of successful country music albums until 1952, when he switched to the Decca label where he continued to make records into the 1970s. He also recorded one album for Buena Vista (Disney, pictured) in the 1960s, although sources vary on the date of issue. When singing cowboys such as Roy Rogers and Gene Autry were very much in vogue in American film, in 1949 Republic Pictures in Hollywood gave him a screen test and put him under contract. Beginning in 1950, Allen starred as himself in 19 of Hollywood's Western movies. One of the top-ten box office draws of the day, whose character was soon depicted in comic books, on screen Allen personified the clean cut, God-fearing American hero of the wild West who wore a white Stetson hat, loved his faithful horse Koko, and had a loyal buddy who shared his adventures. Allen's comic relief sidekick in first few pictures was Buddy Ebsen and then character actor Slim Pickens. He gained the nickname, The Arizona Cowboy. "Don't Go Near The Indians". One of Allen's most successful singles was "Don't Go Near The Indians", which reached the top 5 of "Billboard" magazine's Hot Country Singles chart in November 1962. It features The Merry Melody Singers. The producer was Jerry Kennedy. The song is a tale of a young man who disobeys his father's advice stated in the title. When the father finds out that he had developed a relationship with a beautiful Indian maiden (named Nova Lee), he decides to reveal to his son what he had kept secret for so long: The man's biological son was killed by an Indian (as stated in the lyrics) during a clash between the white man and a tribe, and in retaliation, he kidnapped the boy as a young baby and raised him as his son. The other secret: His son cannot marry Nova Lee because she's the boy's biological sister. Later career. Allen wrote and recorded many songs, a number of which were featured in his own films. Late in coming to the industry, his film career was relatively short as the popularity of westerns faded by the mid 1950s. He has the distinction of making the last singing western in 1954. As other cowboy stars made the transition to television, Allen tried too, cast as Dr. Bill Baxter for a half-hour weekly series called "Frontier Doctor". In 1961 he was one of five rotating hosts for NBC-TV's "Five Star Jubilee". Allen was gifted with a rich, pleasant voice, ideally suited for narration and was able to find considerable work as a narrator in a variety of films, especially for Walt Disney Pictures wildlife films and television shows. The work earned him the nickname, "The Voice of the West." Most notably, perhaps, he narrated the original 1963 version of "The Incredible Journey". He also was the voice of the father on Disney's Carousel of Progress, first presented at the 1964 World's Fair and is now at Walt Disney World. A 1993 renovation replaced Allen with Jean Shepherd as the voice of the father, but Allen was given a cameo as the grandfather in the final scene. Allen provided the narration for the 1973 Hanna-Barbera animated film "Charlotte's Web". He was also the voice behind Purina Dog Chow commercials for many years. After moving to Sonoita, Arizona in the early 1990s, he was a viable voice talent almost until his death, recording hundreds of national advertising voice tracks at his favorite Tucson studio, Porter Sound. In his later years he also performed frequently with actor Pedro Gonzalez-Gonzalez.He wrote and sang the theme song for the early 1980s sitcom Best of the West. Death. Rex Allen died on December 17, two weeks before his 79th birthday in Tucson, Arizona, of a massive coronary, causing him to collapse in the driveway of his home. He suffered additional injuries when his caretaker accidentally ran over him in the driveway. Cremated, his ashes were scattered at Railroad Park in Willcox where most of his memorabilia are on display. A few months before his death, Allen gave an extensive interview on is days at WLS-AM to announcer and producer Jeff Davis for the "75th Anniversary History of WLS" radio program, broadcast after Allen died. That segment of the program was dedicated to his memory. Legacy. For his contribution to the motion picture industry, Allen was given a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6821 Hollywood Boulevard. In 1983, he was inducted into the Western Performers Hall of Fame at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. In 1989, his life story was told in the book Rex Allen: "My Life" Sunrise to SunsetâThe Arizona Cowboy written by Paula Simpson-Witt and Snuff Garrett. Allen was a cousin of the Gunsmoke cast member Glenn Strange, who played bartender Sam Noonan. His son, Rex Allen, Jr., is a successful singer.
1375994	Jesse Moss (born May 4, 1983) is a Canadian actor. Life and career. Moss was born in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. He is best known for his roles of Jason Wise in "Final Destination 3" and Quinn McKaye on "Whistler", for which Moss won a Leo Award for Best Lead Performance by a Male in a Dramatic Series in 2007. Moss starred in the "Dear Mr. Gacy", the film adaptation of "The Last Victim", the memoirs of Jason Moss (no relation), a college student who corresponded with notorious serial killer John Wayne Gacy (played by actor William Forsythe). He has also been involved as a voice actor in animation including "Reboot", "Billy the Cat", "Trollz", "Stories From My Childhood", the "Goodtimes Fairy Tales" films, "Double Dragon", "Captain Zed and the Zee Zone", "Troll Tales", "Pocket Dragon Adventures" and "Mummies Alive!". Moss has one brother, Rory Moss, and one sister, actress Tegan Moss.
915368	Revenge of the Electric Car is a 2011 feature documentary film by Chris Paine, who also directed "Who Killed the Electric Car?". The documentary, executive produced by Stefano Durdic, and produced by PG Morgan and Jessie Deeter, had its world premiere at the 2011 Tribeca Film Festival on Earth Day, April 22, 2011. The theatrical release to the public took place on October 21, 2011. Plot. "Revenge" follows four entrepreneurs from 2007 through the end of 2010 as they fight to bring the electric car back to the world market in the midst of a global recession. The protagonists are Bob Lutz from General Motors, Elon Musk from the American start-up Tesla Motors, Carlos Ghosn from Renault-Nissan, and Greg Abbott, an independent electric car converter from California. Danny DeVito is also interviewed, as an electric car enthusiast and owner of a Chevy Volt. Whereas the 2006 film "Who Killed the Electric Car?" ended with the destruction of nearly 5,000 electric cars from California's clean air program, notably the GM EV1, the new film features the birth of a new generation of electric cars including the Chevrolet Volt, the Nissan Leaf and the Tesla Roadster. Release and reception. The documentary premiered at the 2011 Tribeca Film Festival on Earth Day, April 22, 2011. The theatrical release took place on October 21, 2011 in Los Angeles and New York, followed by openings in major metropolitan areas. "Revenge of the Electric Car" received mixed reviews. ABC's review praised the film, commenting, "As much as you expect it to be a story about technology, it's really a tale about people. ... four entrepreneurs' stories are skillfully woven together, each presented in their own voice." "USA Today" wrote, ""Revenge" is a must-see movie for anyone interested in cars." "The Guardian" noted that the film "is more than just a snapshot of the gamesmanship behind the creation of mass-market vehicles. "Revenge" offers a look inside the minds of business leaders struggling through one of the most troubled periods of recent economic history. ... captures rich natural tension as it unfolds." The Philadelphia Inquirer's Steven Rea wrote, "As filmmaking goes, Paine's follow-up is a dud." J. R. Jones of the Chicago Reader commented, "Once a muckraker, Paine now acts mostly as a cheerleader, and his slick new movie trades heavily in the sort of flattering CEO profiles that grace the covers of business magazines." Publicity. The film makers released the trailer to the film on their site and YouTube when the film's Facebook page reached 10,000 fans on December 10, 2010. The DVD was released on January 24, 2012.
587683	Devadasu is a Tollywood film that released on 11 January 2006 and was directed and produced by YVS Chowdary. Debutants Ram and Ileana D'Cruz play the main leads while Sayaji Shinde plays the negative role. Indian actress Shriya Saran sizzles the audience with an item number.This film also won 2 Filmfare Awards South. This film was both Ram's and Ileana D'Cruz's debut film as artists. The movie Dubbed in Malayalam as "Devdas" also remade in Bengali as "Paglu" (2011). It was later dubbed in Hindi as "Sabse Bada Dilwala".
1064553	Home Alone 3 is a 1997 American family comedy film written and produced by John Hughes. It is the third film in the "Home Alone" series and the first not to feature actor Macaulay Culkin or director Chris Columbus. The film is directed by Raja Gosnell (in his directorial debut), who served as the editor of both original films and stars Alex D. Linz as Alex Pruitt, a resourceful boy who is left home alone and has to defend his home from robbers. The film was followed by a made-for-television sequel, "Home Alone 4: Taking Back the House", in 2002. Plot. Four internationally wanted criminals named Peter Beaupre (Olek Krupa), Alice Rivens (Rya Kihlstedt), Burton Jernigan (Lenny Von Dohlen), and Earl Unger (David Thornton) have stolen a US$10 million missile cloaking computer chip for a North Korean terrorist group. The thieves put it inside a toy remote control car to sneak it past security at San Francisco International Airport. However, a luggage mix-up occurs, causing the grumpy Mrs. Hess (Marian Seldes) to inadvertently take the thieves' bag with the remote control car in it while heading home to Chicago. The four thieves arrive in Chicago and systematically search every house in Mrs. Hess' suburban neighborhood to find the chip. Meanwhile, an eight-year-old boy named Alex Pruitt (Alex D. Linz) is given the remote control car by Mrs. Hess for shoveling snow, but soon becomes ill with the chickenpox and Alex must stay home. While at home, Alex is using his telescope in which he spots Beaupre in one the houses and the others on look out for the chip. Alex calls the Chicago Police Department, but Beaupre leaves by the time they come. After Alex reports the thieves once again, they still manage to get away, and the police do not believe him. Alex decides to take matters into his own hands, and mounts a camera on his remote control car and attempt to film some footage of the thieves, who are searching in every house to find the chip. Alex eventually films Beaupre, but the remote control car is discovered before it can get away and Beaupre takes the tape, leaving Alex without evidence. Wondering what the thieves want with a remote control car, Alex opens it and discovers the stolen chip and immediately calls Chicago's Air Force Recruitment Center and informs them about the chip while asking if they can forward the info about the chip to someone. The thieves concluded that Alex has been watching them and decide to pursue him. As a snowstorm hits Chicago, the thieves block off the road to the house, and Alice duct tapes Mrs. Hess to a porch chair in her garage and leaves the door open. By this point, Alex has armed his house with more violent booby traps and prepares to set them off with his pet rat, Doris, and the loudmouthed parrot of his brother, Stan. After several break-in attempts, the thieves begin to pursue Alex. Alex runs to the attic and goes into the dumbwaiter down to the basement, and runs outside and calls to Alice, Jernigan and Unger. The thieves sees Alex and notice a trampoline below them. Jernigan and Unger jump to pursue Alex, but the trampoline gives way and they fall into a frozen pool. Alice wriggles her way into the dumbwaiter chute, but falls down to the basement after Alex removed the bottom. Alex rescues Mrs. Hess and is cornered by Beaupre, but manages to scare him off with a fake gun. Meanwhile, the FBI goes to Alex's siblings' school after being tipped off by the Air Force Recruitment Center. Alex's family brings all the agents to their house, where the police arrest Alice, Jernigan, and Unger. However, Beaupre manages to escape and hides in the snow fort in the backyard. The parrot drives the remote control car into the snow fort and threatens to light fireworks which are lined around the inside. Beaupre offers a cracker, but the parrot demands two. Since he only has one, the parrot then lights the fireworks, and escapes. Beaupre's cover is literally blown, and the police arrest him. In the epilogue, Alex and his family celebrate with his father returning home. Mrs. Hess, who befriends Alex after he successfully rescues her, is there along with the FBI and the police while Alex's house is being repaired. In the final scene of the film while the thieves are having their mugshot photos taken, they were said to have caught by Alex's chickenpox. Production. "Home Alone 3" was pitched at the same time as "", and it was planned to produce both movies simultaneously; however, those plans fell through. The idea for a third "Home Alone" movie was revived in the mid-1990s; early drafts called for Macaulay Culkin to return as a teenage version of his character. However, Culkin had dropped out of acting. As a result, the idea was changed to make an entirely new film centering on a new cast of characters. It was filmed in New York City with the airport scenes in the beginning of the film being shot in two different concourses at O'Hare International Airport in Chicago. Reception. The film grossed $79,082,515 worldwide. Critical reception for "Home Alone 3" was generally negative upon release. It holds a 27% "rotten" rating at Rotten Tomatoes based on 21 reviews and was nominated for a Golden Raspberry Award for "Worst Remake or Sequel." Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times, gave the film a positive review (3 out of 4 stars) and says he found it to be "fresh, very funny, and better than the first two". Novelization. A novelization based on the screenplay was written by Todd Strasser and published by Scholastic in 1997 to coincide with the film. ISBN 0-590-95712-0 The novelization starts with the four crooks waiting outside the taxi depot and Alice is named as Alice Ribbons as opposed to Rivens (her last name is not used in the film credits and is only heard once in the film). Home media. "Home Alone 3" was released on VHS and Laserdisc in the late-1990s, and on DVD in 1999, with reissues of the same DVD occurring in December 2007. (2008 as part of "Home Alone" multi-packs). While the DVD presents the film in its original Widescreen format (1.85:1), it is presented in a non-anamorphic 4:3 matte.
1032339	Virgin Witch is a 1971 British horror exploitation film about a prospective model who ends up joining a coven of witches. The film was directed by Ray Austin, and stars Ann Michelle and Vicki Michelle. Plot. Betty (Vicki Michelle) and her sister Christine (Ann Michelle) are two young models who are lured by a lecherous lesbian to spend a weekend at a country house being photographed by a trendy photographer. In reality, Christine is being set up for a virgin sacrifice and induction into a witch's coven Production. The producer was “Ralph Solomons” whose previous producing credits include The Green Shoes, Its the only way to Go, and A Persian Fairy Tale. While Hazel Adair’s name appears on the credits (as co-writer of the song “You Go Your Way”), she did not admit to co- producing the film until 1975, when she featured in an episode of the BBC's "Man Alive" concerning sex films. The revelation that prompted "Cinema X" magazine (Vol 4. No. 4) to remark that her films “are far removed from Miss Adair’s more cozy world of "Crossroads", Hazel Adair’s other films include "Clinic Exclusive" (1971), "Can You Keep It Up For a Week?" (1974), "Keep it Up Downstairs" (1976), and the more mainstream "Game for Vultures" (1979). “Klaus Vogel”, who wrote the script and the film's tie-in novelisation, was in fact "Crossroads" producer Beryl Vertue. "Virgin Witch" was filmed in Surrey during 1970 and previewed in the December editions of "Mayfair" and "Continental Film Review" (in which the title was referred to as "The Virgin Witch"). However, the film is copyrighted as a 1971 production, and censorship problems would mean it was not widely seen until 1972. The country house location, Pirbright, Admiral's Walk would be later used in "Satan's Slave" (1976) and "Terror" (1978), which were both directed by Norman J. Warren. Censorship history. "Virgin Witch" was rejected by the British Censor in April 1971, but was passed with an X rating by the Greater London Council for a limited release in the capital. The British Censor eventually relented and passed a cut version for general release in January 1972. The film has been disowned by its sibling stars Ann and Vicki Michelle. Vicki's website makes no reference to the film, while Ann's refers to it as "not an experience Ann cares to remember". The 1990s video release(s) on the Redemption/Salvation labels are uncut, as are the current UK and US DVD releases. Glamour model Teresa May appeared on the cover of the 1993 UK video release of the film on the Redemption video label (she also modelled for the cover of their video release of Baron Blood and the never issued release of Don’t Deliver Us From Evil).
1057900	Jeremy Philip Northam (born 1 December 1961) is an English actor.
1075207	Population 436 is a 2006 mystery-horror film starring Jeremy Sisto, Fred Durst, Peter Outerbridge, and Charlotte Sullivan. Synopsis. Steve Kady (Jeremy Sisto), a US Census Bureau researcher is sent to the remote and seemingly idyllic village of Rockwell Falls to interview residents concerning the population. On the way to Rockwell Falls he is distracted by a woman falling off a horse and his vehicle hits a pothole and bursts two tires. He is eventually picked up by Bobby Caine (Fred Durst), the Sheriff's Deputy, who drives him into Rockwell Falls and helps him find a place to stay. During his stay, Kady notices a number of increasingly strange things about the town, people acting awkward, and strange. People make vague allusions to 'the fever', and several residents treat him as though he were not just a visitor, but has moved to Rockwell Falls permanently. His research reveals that the town's population has remained at exactly 436 for over 100 years. People who try to leave Rockwell Falls seem to meet with bizarre and deadly accidents, or just vanish, which the residents believe to be the work of God. Kady also begins to have eerie dreams about a truck, a cross and a doll. Kady becomes romantically involved with Courtney Lovett (Charlotte Sullivan), a local woman and the daughter of his host, much to the chagrin of Caine, who is also in love with her. He also befriends Amanda, a young girl whose father was killed trying to escape the town and who is being held at Dr Greaver's clinic, on the pretext of treating her for schizophrenia. Courtney and Amanda both express a desire to leave the town, but are afraid of the consequences of trying. After stumbling upon some books on Biblical numerology, Kady realizes that the townspeople attach a mystical importance to the number 436 and are willing to go to extreme lengths to keep the population at exactly that number, including executing surplus residents. Anyone who expresses a desire to leave is treated for the 'fever' by Dr. Greaver, the town doctor, with electroshock therapy or in extreme cases, frontal lobotomy. It gradually becomes apparent to Kady that the residents of Rockwell Falls have no intention of allowing him to leave. After witnessing the execution of a seemingly willing woman at a town feast, Kady becomes hysterical, and is taken to the clinic to be treated for the 'fever'. He escapes the clinic, and is sheltered by a sympathetic resident who reluctantly helps him plan his escape. After setting fire to the town garage as a diversion, Kady rescues Amanda from the clinic, but is forced to leave Courtney behind after discovering that she has been lobotomized by Dr. Greaver. As Kady and Amanda flee the town in a stolen tow-truck, a rainstorm is brewing and after a lightning strike, the cross from his dream appears in the truck hanging from the mirror. It is followed by the doll from his dream appearing on the dashboard with the next lightning strike. While he is distracted by these, the truck veers into the path of an oncoming semi-trailer truck, killing them both.
400846	Johnny Cool is a darkly violent 1963 crime film directed by William Asher based on the novel "The Kingdom of Johnny Cool" by John McPartland and starring Henry Silva and Elizabeth Montgomery. Produced in part by Peter Lawford, "Johnny Cool" features an interesting variety of notables as Johnny's associates and victims, including Telly Savalas, Mort Sahl, Joey Bishop, Jim Backus, and Sammy Davis, Jr., who also sings the theme song. Plot. Johnny Colini, an exiled American living in Rome, rescues Salvatore Giordano, a young Sicilian outlaw, from the police. After Giordano is groomed, polished, and renamed "Johnny Cool," Colini sends him on a mission of vengeance to the United States to assassinate the men who plotted his downfall and enforced exile. Johnny arrives in New York and quickly kills several of the underworld figures on Colini's list.
581781	Khelein Hum Jee Jaan Sey () is a Hindi period piece film directed by Ashutosh Gowariker, starring Abhishek Bachchan and Deepika Padukone in the lead roles. It is based on the book "Do And Die" by Manini Chatterjee, based on the Chittagong Uprising of 1930. The film was shot mostly in Goa along with portions in Mumbai. The first promo of the film was unveiled on 12 October 2010, on the film's official Facebook page. The film was released on 3 December 2010. The film depicts the journey of the Chittagong Uprising, from the rise to its aftermath. Plot. "Khelein Hum Jee Jaan Sey" is about a teacher Surya Sen a.k.a. Masterda (played by Abhishek Bachchan), who is a well-known revolutionary leader of the Indian Republican Army Chittagong, who had an instinctual flair for Swaraj and Independence. The film opens up with 16 teenagers playing football in an open field, when the army convoy steps up and orders them to evacuate the field for setting up a base there. When the children oppose their unauthorized evacuation, the soldiers threaten them and then leave, grinning and planning to meet Masterda Surya Sen. Surya Sen is a village school teacher and an activist for Indian freedom and has links with many other famous revolutionaries who adore him as their leader. The revolutionaries were Ganesh Ghosh (played by Samrat Mukerji), Lokenath Bal, Ambika Chakraborty, Nirmal Sen and Ananta Singh (played by Maninder Singh)]. Nirmal Sen (played by Sikander Kher) after being released from jail meets Masterda and asks him for next action. Masterda assures him of next action soon and Nirmal goes on to meet Pritilata Waddedar (played by Vishakha Singh), when she expresses her eagerness to join the Indian Republican Army along with his friend Kalpana Datta (played by Deepika Padukone). Together they meet Masterda who asks them to prove their skills by assigning them the task of collecting information about the Cantonment. Dressed as sweeping girls they both draw successful sketches of the Cantonment. Meanwhile, those teenagers express their will to join Surya Sen to drive the British out of the country. Surya Sen enlists them and trains them in martial arts, shooting and bomb-making. Masterda devises the plan to rock the British Empire by planning a raid on police lines Armoury, Cantonment, Telegraph office and Railway lines. Apart from Surya Sen, the group included Ganesh Ghosh, Lokenath Baul, Nirmal Sen, Ambika Chakraborty, Naresh Roy, Sasanka Datta, Ardhendu Dastidar, Harigopal Baul, Tarakeswar Dastidar, Ananta Singh, Jiban Ghoshal, Anand Gupta, Pritilata Waddedar, Kalpana Datta and the group of teenagers. The plan was put into action at 10 o'clock on 18 April 1930. As per plan, the armoury of the police was captured by a group of revolutionaries led by Ganesh Ghosh and another group of ten, led by Lokenath Baul took over the Auxiliary Force armoury. Unfortunately the guns were found but bullets were not there. So they had to burn the arms there only. The revolutionaries also succeeded in dislocating telephone and telegraph communications and disrupting the movement of the trains. After the successful raids, all the revolutionary groups gathered outside the police armoury where Surya Sen took a military salute, hoisted the National Flag and proclaimed a Provisional Revolutionary Government. The revolutionaries left Chittagong town before dawn and marched towards the Chittagong hill ranges, looking for a safe place, but the police by then with the support of British Army had them surrounded, but the British Army's first wave had been demolished by Masterda's Teenagers, this enraged the British and they bought machine guns and fired casualties in Masterda's side. Harigopal Baul (Tegra) was first to be shot dead along with twelve others and the group had to flee leaving Ambika Chakraborty wounded, the Britishers found the dead bodies and burnt them with Petroleum.
394374	My Boyfriend is Type B () is a South Korean romantic comedy film from the year 2005. The basic premise of the film comes from the Japanese blood type theory of personality, which claims that a person's blood type can determine their personality traits. The heroine is type A (conservative and introverted) while her love interest is type B (passionate and irresponsible). Plot. Lee Dong-Geon portrays title character Young-Bin, a handsome, macho, but totally obnoxious young man who begins the film by breaking off a relationship in a most ungentlemanly way: after waiting in a parked car so Young-Bin won't get a ticket, the girlfriend reads him the riot act upon his return, prompting Young-Bin to slip into the driver's seat, break up with her, and speed off, leaving his new ex-girlfriend stranded in the parking lot. From the get-go, Young-Bin is not exactly a class act. On the opposite side of the spectrum is the beautiful Han-Mi (Han Ji-Hye), a meek university student looking for true love, but never seeming to find it. As is typical in this kind of film, the two meet purely by chance: Han-Mi accidentally text messages Young-Bin before literally bumping into him. Han-Mi, feeling that their fortuitous meeting is a sign that they might be destined for one another, decides to pal around with Young-Bin and see if there's any chemistry between them. Taken by Han-Mi's sincerity and her willingness to pick up the check, Young-Bin jumps at the opportunity. But Han Mi's cousin, Chae Young (Shin Hee) isn't quite so enraptured with Young-Bin and tries to dissuade Han-Mi from pursuing him. The thing is, Chae Young is a professional dating consultant and a strong subscriber to blood type theory. According to her, any relationship between the mismatched duo would be doomed to failure because Young-Bin is a type-B male, which supposedly makes him arrogant, hardheaded, and generally a jerk, whereas Han-Mi is a type-A female, one who supposedly can't help being timid and obedient. But while Chae-Young predicts impending doom, the happy couple try to give love a shot, ignoring their supposed blood type incompatibility. But will they succeed?
1063395	Edward Kirk Herrmann (born July 21, 1943) is an American television and film actor. He is best known for his Emmy-nominated portrayals of Franklin D. Roosevelt on television, and to younger generations for his role as Richard Gilmore in "Gilmore Girls", as a ubiquitous narrator for historical programs on the History Channel and PBS productions such as NOVA, and as the spokesman for Dodge automobiles in the 1990s. Early life. Herrmann was born in Washington, D.C., the son of Jean Eleanor (née O'Connor) and John Anthony Herrmann. He has German ancestry on his father's side. Herrmann grew up in Grosse Pointe, Michigan, and graduated from Bucknell University in 1965, where he was a member of Phi Kappa Psi. He studied acting at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art on a Fulbright Fellowship. Career. Herrmann began his career in theatre. One of the first professional productions he appeared in was the U.S. premiere of Michael Weller's "Moonchildren" at the Arena Stage in Washington D.C. in November 1971. He moved with the show to New York City to make his Broadway debut the following year. Herrmann returned to Broadway in 1976 to portray Frank Gardner in the revival of "Mrs. Warren's Profession". For his performance he won a Tony Award for Best Performance by a Featured Actor in a Play. He is known for his portrayal of Franklin Delano Roosevelt in the made-for-TV movie, "Eleanor and Franklin" (1976) and the sequel, "" (1977) (both of which earned him Best Actor Emmy nominations), as well as in the first feature film adaptation of the Broadway musical "Annie" (1982). Herrmann portrayed Herman Munster in the Fox telefilm "Here Come The Munsters" which aired on Halloween 1995. Herrmann also earned an Emmy in 1999 for his guest appearances on "The Practice". He was nominated for a Tony Award for "Plenty" in 1983 and Emmys in 1986 and 1987 for his guest-starring role as Father Joseph McCabe on "St. Elsewhere". Herrmann also played Tobias Beecher's father on the HBOs series "Oz". From 2000 to 2007, he portrayed Richard Gilmore on The WB's "Gilmore Girls". Herrmann's film career began in the mid-1970s, playing supporting roles as Robert Redford's partner in "The Great Waldo Pepper", a law student in "The Paper Chase", the idle, piano-playing Klipspringer in "The Great Gatsby" and opposite Laurence Olivier in "The Betsy" (1978). Among Herrmann's better known roles are as the title character in "Harry's War" (1981), Goldie Hawn's rich husband in "Overboard", Reverend Michael Hill in Disney's "The North Avenue Irregulars", one of the characters in the film-within-a-film in Woody Allen's "The Purple Rose of Cairo", and as Max, the mild-mannered head vampire in the teen vampire film "The Lost Boys". Herrmann is also known for his voluminous voice work for The History Channel and various PBS specials, including hosting a revival of Frank Capra's Why We Fight, and made appearances and done voiceovers in Dodge commercials from 1992 until 2001. His voice work also includes dozens of audio books, for which he's won several Audie awards. He played Gutman in Blackstone Audio's Grammy-nominated dramatization of "The Maltese Falcon" and played Cauchon in Blackstone's audio version of Bernard Shaw's "Saint Joan". After his well-received portrayal of J. Alden Weir in "My Dearest Anna" at the Wilton Playshop in Wilton, Connecticut, he was a special guest of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and Orchestra at Temple Square in their Ring Christmas Bells holiday concert in Salt Lake City, Utah, December 11–14, 2008. Personal life and family. Hermann has been married twice and has three children. His first marriage to screenwriter Leigh Curran ended in divorce. He has been married to Star Hayner since 1992.[http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001346/bio] Edward's son Rory Herrmann is not the chef de cuisine at Bouchon Bistro in Beverly Hills, California. The restaurant is chef Thomas Keller's (of French Laundry and Per Se fame) latest venture under the successful Bouchon name. Herrmann is a well-known automotive enthusiast and restores classic automobiles. He is a regular master of ceremonies for the annual Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance and hosted the television show "Automobiles" on The History Channel. He has served in various capacities at the Amelia Island Concours d'Elegance. He has owned and restored several classics of his own including a 1932 Packard Light Eight 900 Coupe Roadster Convertible and a 1929 Auburn 8-90 Speedster.
582862	Waqt Hamara Hai is an Indian 1993 action comedy film directed by Bharat Rangachary and produced by Sajid Nadiadwala, starring Akshay Kumar, Sunil Shetty, Ayesha Jhulka, Mamta Kulkarni, Anupam Kher, Viju Khote, Aruna Irani, Gavin Packard and Rami Reddy. It was the first time Akshay Kumar and Sunil Shetty paired together. It was a high success at the box-office. Summary. Vikash Sabkuchwala (Akshay Kumar) and Ayesha (Ayesha Jhulka) are college lovers. Mamta (Mamta Kulkarni) is their colleague. Sunil Shetty too joins the same college. Akshay and Sunil becomes friends after their initial rift. Mamta is now the love of Sunil. One day a group of terrorists leave a bag containing "Crypton", a nuclear similar product in Akshay's car and flees, as the police were chasing them. Then terrorists come back in search of "Crypton", but unable to find it. So they kidnap Akshay and Ayesha and asks Sunil to deliver the product. Sunil finds out "Crypton" and he leaves along with Mamta to deliver the product. Will Sunil able to save Akshay? Will the terrorist group headed by Rami Reddy bump off the college friends ? All these questions are revealed in the climax. Reception. Waqt Hamara Hai was a success at the box-office and it stabilized Akshay's and Sunil's position in the industry as action heroes.
1054962	Final Destination 5 is a 2011 American supernatural horror film written by Eric Heisserer and directed by Steven Quale. It is the fifth installment of the "Final Destination" franchise. It stars Nicholas D'Agosto, Emma Bell, Miles Fisher, Arlen Escarpeta, and David Koechner. The film's world premiere was August 4, 2011 at the Fantasia Festival in Montréal, Canada. It was later on released in Real D 3D and digital IMAX 3D. Plot. Sam Lawton (Nicholas D'Agosto), is on his way to a company retreat with his friends. While their bus crosses the North Bay Bridge, Sam suffers a premonition that the bridge will partially collapse, killing everyone and himself. Panicked, he persuades his ex-girlfriend Molly Harper (Emma Bell), his friends Nathan Sears (Arlen Escarpeta) and Peter Friedkin (Miles Fisher), Peter's girlfriend Candice Hooper (Ellen Wroe), his boss Dennis Lapman (David Koechner), Candice's rival Olivia Castle (Jacqueline MacInnes Wood), and coworker Isaac Palmer (P.J. Byrne) to leave the bridge before it partially collapses. FBI agent Jim Block (Courtney B. Vance) doesn't believe that Sam was responsible for the bridge collapse, but promises to keep his eye on him. Following the memorial service, local coroner William Bludworth (Tony Todd) mysteriously warns the survivors that they cheated Death. Believing this to be just some nonsense, they ignore his warnings and move on.
1066028	"What Doesn't Kill You" is a 2008 American crime drama based on the true life story of the film's director Brian Goodman, detailing his own exploits involved with South Boston's Irish Mob. Starring Ethan Hawke and Mark Ruffalo, it premiered at the 2008 Toronto International Film Festival, and was released on a very small scale in December 2008 due to the collapse of its distributor Yari Film Group. Synopsis. Hawke and Ruffalo play childhood friends Paulie and Brian, who are forced to survive on the tough streets of South Boston through a life of petty thievery. They join a local gang of criminals, but Brian finds it hard to reconcile his work and friendship with Paulie and his relationship with his wife (Amanda Peet) and sons. Critical reception. The film received generally favorable reviews from critics. Based on the 10 critic reviews collected by Metacritic, it received an average score of 71 out of 100. Rotten Tomatoes generated a 66% favorable rating based on 32 reviews.
1062597	Bryce Dallas Howard (born March 2, 1981) is an American film actress, writer and director. The daughter of director Ron Howard, she made her acting debut in her father's film "Parenthood" (1989) and went on to have small roles in films and make stage appearances for the next several years. During this time she also attended New York University's Tisch School of the Arts, later getting a BFA and went to drama schools. After she came to the attention of M. Night Shyamalan, he cast her in what would be her breakout film, "The Village" (2004) and then in "Lady in the Water" (2006). Her performance in "As You Like It" (2006) earned her a Golden Globe Award nomination. Howard became more recognizable to audiences as Gwen Stacy in "Spider-Man 3" (2007) and as Victoria in "" (2010). Those two projects, as well as "Terminator Salvation" (2009), are among her most financially successful movies, but all three garnered mixed reviews from the press. Her most recent films are "The Help" (2011) and "50/50" (2011), both of which were critical and box office successes. Early life. Conceived in Dallas, Texasthe source of her middle nameHoward was born in Los Angeles, California, the daughter of writer Cheryl Alley and actor-director Ron Howard, on March 2, 1981. Her paternal grandparents are actors Rance Howard and the late Jean Speegle Howard; her uncle is actor Clint Howard; and her godfather is actor Henry Winkler, who co-starred on "Happy Days" with her father. Howard and her younger sisters, twins Jocelyn Carlyle Howard and Paige Carlyle Howard (born 1985), and their younger brother, Reed Cross Howard (born 1987), were named after the places they were conceived. All of the Howard children were raised away from the world of show business. Their parents did not allow them access to television and instead encouraged outdoor activities and hobbies. At the age of 7, however, she was allowed to be an extra in her father's movies. In an appearance on "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno", Howard mentioned that she and her siblings were babysat by family friend Tom Cruise on several occasions. She was raised in Westchester, New York and on a farm in Greenwich, Connecticut. Howard attended Stagedoor Manor, a performing arts camp in upstate New York, with actress Natalie Portman. After graduating from high school, she studied at New York University's (NYU) Tisch School of the Arts for three years, during which time she also attended the Stella Adler Conservatory, The Experimental Wing, and International Theatre Wing in Amsterdam. During her schooling, she took part in the concept recording of the Broadway-bound musical "A Tale of Two Cities". She graduated with her BFA in Drama in 2003. Howard is also an alumna of the Steppenwolf Theatre Company's School at Steppenwolf in Chicago, and of The Actors Center in New York City. During her time in New York, Howard was also a member of downtown theater company Theater Mitu, in residence at New York Theatre Workshop, who are known for their exploration of theatrical forms. When she had applied to drama schools she dropped her last name to avoid special treatment because of her father. She later had second thoughts because she felt her first and middle name combined made her sound like a porn star. Career. 1989–2006. After her film debut, "Parenthood", as an uncredited extra, Howard played an extra in her father's critically lauded "Apollo 13" (1995) and the 2000 holiday live action Universal Studios film "How the Grinch Stole Christmas". While on her father's film sets, she would often socialize with the crew rather than the actors. For the next several years, Howard appeared in New York plays. Among these were "House and Garden", a 2002 Alan Ayckbourn production held at the Manhattan Theatre Club, in which she portrayed a disdainful, flirtatious teen. While performing as Rosalind in the critically acclaimed 2003 William Shakespeare comedy production "As You Like It", Howard caught the eye of director M. Night Shyamalan. Howard was not familiar with the play and was cast just one day before it started. She then starred in the Alan Brown-directed 2004 drama "Book of Love", about a young woman having an affair with a lonely teenage boy, destroying her marriage. It was generally ignored by critics and movie goers alike. Her breakthrough role came in Shyamalan's fantasy thriller "The Village" (2004). When Kirsten Dunst could not commit to the schedule, Howard was cast without having to audition two weeks after Shyamalan first saw her onstage. Its story is about a "turn-of-the-20th-century" village whose residents live in fear of the creatures inhabiting the woods beyond it. She plays the female lead, the chief's blind daughter and love interest to Joaquin Phoenix's part. Her performance was applauded by critics and Howard was nominated for several awards, mostly in the category of "Best Breakthrough Performance". "The Village" did well commercially, but had a mixed reception. Following that, Howard was cast by Lars Von Trier to replace Nicole Kidman as Grace Mulligan in "Manderlay", the 2005 sequel to "Dogville" (2003). Set in a plantation, the director said that it is "quite clear" his movie can be seen as an allusion to the Iraq War. "Manderlay" was a box office bomb, making only $674,000 of its $14.2 million production budget. Howard reunited with Shyamalan for "Lady in the Water", in which she acts as Story, a type of water nymph called a narf. Howard wore minimal clothing for the part. The 2006 fantasy film release also stars Paul Giamatti as the co-lead. Shyamalan's project follows the story of Giamatti's character rescuing what he thinks is a young woman (Howard) from his pool. Once he discovers that she is actually a character from a bedtime story who is trying to get back home, he teams up with his tenants to protect her from creatures that try to keep her in their world. It underperformed at the box office, falling short of its $75 million budget, and got largely negative reviews from critics. When asked about what message she hoped viewers would get from the film, Howard said "I would say it's very simple - it's that if you have faith, all that is meant to be will happen." Next, she once again played Rosalind in Kenneth Branagh's 2006 film version of Shakespeare's "As You Like It". It played in theatres in Europe before going directly to cable in the United States, premiering on HBO. Howard was nominated for a Golden Globe Award at the 2008 ceremony. The project got soundly negative reviews from the British media, while American reviewers gave it more favorable notice. Writing in "USA Today", Robert Bianco observed: "As Rosalind, the show's leading lady, Bryce Dallas Howard is a bit uncontrolled, particularly compared with such more precise co-stars as Alfred Molina, David Oyelowo and Brian Blessed. But she's incredibly appealing, and that in itself sells the love story." That year, she wrote and directed a short film, "Orchids", as part of "Glamour" magazine's "Reel Moments" series funded by Cartier and FilmAid International. 2007–present. In 2007, Howard starred in her first blockbuster, "Spider-Man 3" as Peter Parker's classmate Gwen Stacy, a fan favorite. A challenge that came with playing Gwen was reminding fans of the good-intentioned character who was Peter's first love in the comics, yet came off as "the other woman" in the movie. Howard dyed her naturally red hair blonde for the role and performed many of her own stunts, unaware that she was several months pregnant. Grossing $890 million, it is her most profitable movie . "Terminator Salvation" was her next project. Cast in June 2008, she replaced Charlotte Gainsbourg as Kate Connor. Howard was already a fan of the series. It grossed a total of $370 million, but was not well received critically. Howard starred as the lead character in "The Loss of a Teardrop Diamond" in 2009. Based on a 1957 screenplay by Tennessee Williams, it did not play at many theaters. A big career point for Howard was playing the role of Victoria, a vampire seeking revenge, in the "Twilight" series' third installment "". She landed the part after Rachelle Lefevre was dropped due to a scheduling conflict and filming started in August 2009. Howard had already been a huge fan of the books and considered Victoria to be an "incredible character". Released on June 30, 2010 the film made nearly $700 million and although reviews were mixed, critics did take a liking to Howard in her role. In December 2009, Howard was cast in Clint Eastwood's "Hereafter" (2010), as a burgeoning love interest of Matt Damon's character. When Howard first read the script to "Hereafter", she was hooked on it, having been attracted to its central character (Damon)a reclusive man with the ability to speak to the deceased. "It's personal for me because a lot of my family members actually have that ability. It's kind of wild," Howard said. In early January 2011, Howard became the first celebrity ambassador for purse designer Kate Spade. Her first film of 2011 was "The Help", a movie adaption of Kathryn Stockett's 2009 best-selling novel of the same name. Howard then teamed up with her father to help produce Gus Van Sant's "Restless", a dark coming of age movie about a teenage boy and girl who are engrossed with death. She had a supporting role opposite Joseph Gordon-Levitt in the cancer dramedy "50/50", which was based on a true story. "It’s viewing that experience through a very truthful lens of humour", she stated of "50/50"'s take on its heavy subject matter. Both films had September releases. Also in 2011, she announced that she would be directing a film called "The Originals". She co-wrote the screenplay with her brother-in-law Dane Charbonneau and described it as "a "Breakfast Club" for my generation". This would mark her feature directorial debut. Howard has recently finished directorial duties for the short film "When You Find Me", a social film developed through a collaboration with Canon. The film was developed under the premise of gathering inspiration through images selected from a photography contest. 96,362 entries were accepted, while only eight final images were selected to be utilized for the production of the film.
719547	Jared Tristan Padalecki (born July 19, 1982) is an American actor. He grew up in Texas and came to fame in the early 2000s after appearing on the television series "Gilmore Girls" as well as in several Hollywood films, including "New York Minute" and "House of Wax". Padalecki plays Sam Winchester on the CW television series "Supernatural". Early life. Padalecki was born in San Antonio, Texas to Gerald and Sherri Padalecki. His father is of Polish descent, while his mother has German, Scottish, French, and English ancestry. He has an older brother, Jeff, and a younger sister, Megan. He started taking acting classes at the age of 12. Education. He attended James Madison High School in San Antonio and was named a candidate for the 2000 Presidential Scholars Program. In 1998, Padalecki and his partner Chris Cardenas won the National Forensic League national championship in Duo Interpretation. Padalecki won FOX's 1999 "Claim to Fame Contest"; he subsequently appeared at the Teen Choice Awards, where he met his current manager. After graduating from high school in 2000, he moved to Los Angeles, California to pursue an acting career, although he had originally planned to attend the University of Texas. Career. Padalecki's first role was a minor role in the 1999 film "A Little Inside". In 2000, he was cast as Dean Forester on the television series "Gilmore Girls", a role he played until 2005. Throughout the early 2000s, he also appeared in several made-for-television films, including "Silent Witness", "Close to Home", and the Disney Channel Original Movie "A Ring of Endless Light". Padalecki had an uncredited part as a high school bully in 2003's comedy "Cheaper by the Dozen", which he played after being asked by fellow actor and friend Tom Welling, who played the part of Charlie Baker, and the director of the movie, who wanted someone larger than Charlie to pick on him. Padalecki originally auditioned for Welling's role, but gave it up in order to film a pilot titled "Young MacGyver" which was never picked up. In 2004, he appeared in the Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen comedy "New York Minute" as Trey Lipton, a cute boy to whom the Olsens' characters are attracted. He also landed a short role in the thriller "Flight of the Phoenix" alongside Dennis Quaid and Hugh Laurie. In 2005, Padalecki starred opposite Elisha Cuthbert, Chad Michael Murray and Paris Hilton in the horror film "House of Wax" in which he plays Wade, one of five teens who are slashed and killed. In the same year, Padalecki appeared in yet another horror film, "Cry Wolf" in which he played Tom. The same year, Padalecki was cast as Sam Winchester on the CW series, "Supernatural". Sam and his brother Dean (Jensen Ackles) drive throughout the United States hunting paranormal predators, sometimes with their father (Jeffrey Dean Morgan). The eighth season began broadcast on October 3, 2012 on the CW. The show is filmed in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. Padalecki also served as the host of MTV's horror reality series, "Room 401" which was discontinued after only 8 episodes due to poor ratings. He had the lead role in 2008's "The Christmas Cottage", in which he played Thomas Kinkade. Padalecki also had the lead role in the horror remake "Friday the 13th" film alongside Danielle Panabaker, which opened on Friday, February 13, 2009. He plays Clay Miller, a character who heads out to the doomed Camp Crystal Lake in search of his sister who has gone missing. Personal life. Padalecki married his former "Supernatural" co-star Genevieve Cortese on February 27, 2010 in Sun Valley, Idaho. He and his wife are currently residing in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. On October 10, 2011, he announced they were expecting their first child. The couple's son, Thomas Colton Padalecki, was born on March 19, 2012. On July 21, 2013, via Jared's twitter, it was confirmed that the couple are expecting their second child.
1062911	The Lives of Others () is a 2006 German drama film, marking the feature film debut of filmmaker Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck, about the monitoring of East Berlin by agents of the Stasi, the GDR's secret police. It stars Ulrich Mühe as Stasi Captain Gerd Wiesler, Ulrich Tukur as his boss Anton Grubitz, Sebastian Koch as the playwright Georg Dreyman, and Martina Gedeck as Dreyman's lover, a prominent actress named Christa-Maria Sieland. The film was released in Germany on 23 March 2006. At the same time, the screenplay was published by Suhrkamp Verlag. "The Lives of Others" won the 2006 Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. The film had earlier won seven Deutscher Filmpreis awards—including those for best film, best director, best screenplay, best actor, and best supporting actor—after setting a new record with 11 nominations. It was nominated for Best Foreign Language Film at the 64th Golden Globe Awards. "The Lives of Others" cost US$2 million and grossed more than US$77 million worldwide . Plot. In 1984 East Germany, Stasi officer Hauptmann Gerd Wiesler is assigned to spy on playwright Georg Dreyman. Wiesler and his team bug the apartment, set up surveillance equipment in an attic and begin reporting Dreyman's activities. Dreyman had escaped state scrutiny due to his pro-Communist views and international recognition. Wiesler learns the real reason behind the surveillance: Minister of Culture Bruno Hempf covets Dreyman's girlfriend, actress Christa-Maria Sieland, and is trying to eliminate his rival. While Grubitz (Wiesler's boss) sees an opportunity for advancement, Wiesler (an idealist) is horrified. Through his surveillance, he knows Dreyman and Sieland are in love. Hempf uses Sieland's prescription-drug addiction to coerce her. After discovering Sieland's relationship with Hempf, Dreyman implores her not to meet him again. Sieland refuses, fleeing to a nearby bar where Wiesler (posing as a fan) reminds her of her talent; she returns home. Though a loyal communist and supporter of the regime, Dreyman becomes disillusioned with the treatment of his colleagues by the state. At his birthday party, his friend Albert Jerska (a blacklisted theatrical director) gives him sheet music for "Sonate vom Guten Menschen" ("Sonata For a Good Man"). Shortly afterwards, Jerska hangs himself; Wiesler is moved by the tragedy. Dreyman decides to publish an anonymous article on the East German suicide rate in "Der Spiegel". No suicide rates in the GDR have been published since 1977 (that year, East Germany was second in European suicides only to Hungary). Since all East German typewriters are registered, Dreyman uses a smuggled miniature typewriter which he hides. Before talking openly in his apartment, Dreyman and his friends test whether the flat is bugged by feigning an attempt to smuggle one of their blacklisted friends through the Berlin Wall. Wiesler does not alert the police, and the conspirators believe they are safe. Dreyman's article is published, enraging the authorities. From an agent at "Der Spiegel", the Stasi obtain a copy of the manuscript (typed on a red ribbon). Hempf, livid at being jilted by Sieland, orders Grubitz to destroy her. Sieland is arrested when she tries to buy drugs at her dentist's office, and blackmailed into revealing Dreyman's authorship of the article. When the Stasi search his apartment, however, they do not find the typewriter. Grubitz then orders Wiesler to interrogate Sieland again, warning that failure will cost them both. Sieland recognizes Wiesler as the man from the bar, and tells him where the typewriter is hidden. Grubitz and the Stasi return to Dreyman's apartment, but the typewriter is gone; Wiesler had already seized the evidence. When she sees Dreyman's face as he realizes she informed on him, a guilt-stricken Sieland runs into the street and throws herself in front of an oncoming truck. Wiesler, who had been putting the typewriter in the boot of his car, reaches the dying Sieland first, beginning to tell her about the typewriter before an inconsolable Dreyman cradles her in his arms. Grubitz offers a perfunctory claim of sympathy and informs Dreyman that the investigation is over. Upon reaching the Stasi headquarters, he tells Wiesler that his career is over, and that he will be demoted to Department M, a dead-end position usually kept for disgraced agents. As he leaves, Grubitz discards a newspaper announcing Mikhail Gorbachev as the new leader of the Soviet Union. In November 1989, Wiesler is steaming open letters in a dark, windowless office when a co-worker (also banished by Grubitz earlier in the film) tells him about the fall of the Berlin Wall; realizing what this means, Wiesler and his co-workers silently get up and leave their office. Two years later, Hempf and Dreyman have a chance encounter; Dreyman asks Hempf why he was never monitored, and Hempf tells him he was, in fact, under full surveillance. After uncovering surveillance equipment in his apartment, Dreyman goes to the Stasi Archives to read the files on his activities. He reads that Sieland was released just before the second search, and could not have removed the typewriter. After re-reading the files, he discovers that a lot of false information has been written about his activities, and finds a fingerprint in red ink on the final typewritten report. He realizes that the writer, Stasi agent HGW XX/7, had knowingly concealed his illicit practices, such as the authorship of the suicide article, and had been the one who had removed the typewriter before the search team arrived. Dreyman finds Wiesler delivering mail; he momentarily considers approaching him, but decides against it. On his rounds two years later, Wiesler passes a bookstore window display promoting Dreyman's new novel, "Sonate vom Guten Menschen". He goes inside, opens a copy of the book and discovers it is dedicated "To HGW XX/7, with gratitude". Wiesler buys the book; when the sales clerk asks if he wants it gift-wrapped he responds, "No, it's for me." Production. Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck's parents were both from East Germany (originally they were from further east; the von Donnersmarcks belonged to Silesian nobility but the region was transferred to Poland from Germany after World War II). He has said that, on visits there as a child before the Berlin Wall fell, he could sense the fear they had as subjects of the state. He said the idea for the film came to him when he was trying to come up with a scenario for a film class. He was listening to music and recalled Maxim Gorky's saying that Lenin's favorite piece of music was Beethoven's "Appassionata". Gorky recounted a discussion with Lenin: Donnersmarck told a "New York Times" reporter: "I suddenly had this image in my mind of a person sitting in a depressing room with earphones on his head and listening in to what he supposes is the enemy of the state and the enemy of his ideas, and what he is really hearing is beautiful music that touches him. I sat down and in a couple of hours had written the treatment." The screenplay was written during an extended visit to his uncle's monastery, Heiligenkreuz Abbey. Although the opening scene is set in Hohenschönhausen prison (which is now the site of a memorial dedicated to the victims of Stasi oppression), the film could not be shot there because Hubertus Knabe, the director of the memorial, refused to give Donnersmarck permission. Knabe objected to "making the Stasi man into a hero" and tried to persuade Donnersmarck to change the film. Donnersmarck cited "Schindler's List" as an example of such a plot development being possible. Knabe's answer: "But that is exactly the difference. There was a Schindler. There was no Wiesler." Reception. The film was received with widespread acclaim. Film aggregate site Rotten Tomatoes reports a 93% "Fresh" rating, based on 142 positive reviews out of 152. A review in "Daily Variety" by Derek Elley noted the "slightly stylized look" of the movie created by "playing up grays and dour greens, even when using actual locations like the Stasi's onetime HQ in Normannenstrasse." "Time" magazine's Richard Corliss named the film one of the Top 10 Movies of 2007, ranking it at #2. Corliss praised the film as a "poignant, unsettling thriller." Film critic Roger Ebert gave the film four stars, describing it as "a powerful but quiet film, constructed of hidden thoughts and secret desires." A. O. Scott, reviewing the film in "The New York Times", wrote that "Lives" is well-plotted, and added, "The suspense comes not only from the structure and pacing of the scenes, but also, more deeply, from the sense that even in an oppressive society, individuals are burdened with free will. You never know, from one moment to the next, what course any of the characters will choose." "Los Angeles Times" movie critic Kenneth Turan agreed that the dramatic tension of the film comes from being "meticulously plotted", and that "it places its key characters in high-stakes predicaments where what they are forced to wager is their talent, their very lives, even their souls." The movie "convincingly demonstrates that when done right, moral and political quandaries can be the most intensely dramatic dilemmas of all." American commentator John Podhoretz called the film "one of the greatest movies ever made, and certainly the best film of this decade." William F. Buckley, Jr. wrote in his syndicated column that after the film was over, "I turned to my companion and said, 'I think that is the best movie I ever saw.'" John J. Miller of "National Review Online" named it #1 in his list of 'The Best Conservative Movies' of the last 25 years. Several critics pointed to the film's subtle building up of details as one of its prime strengths. The film is built "on layers of emotional texture", wrote Stephanie Zacharek in "Salon" online magazine. Josh Rosenblatt, writing in the "Austin Chronicle" called the film "a triumph of muted grandeur." Lisa Schwarzbaum, writing in "Entertainment Weekly", pointed out that some of the subtlety in the film is due to the fact that "one of the movie's tensest moments take place with the most minimal of action" but that the director still "conveys everything he wants us to know about choice, fear, doubt, cowardice, and heroism." An article in "First Things" makes a philosophical argument in defense of Wiesler's transformation. The East German dissident songwriter Wolf Biermann was guardedly enthusiastic about the film, writing in a March 2006 article in "Die Welt": "The political tone is authentic, I was moved by the plot. But why? Perhaps I was just won over sentimentally, because of the seductive mass of details which look like they were lifted from my own past between the total ban of my work in 1965 and denaturalisation in 1976." Slavoj Žižek, reviewing the film for "In These Times", criticized the film's perceived softpedaling of the oppressiveness of the German Democratic Republic, as well as structure of the playwright's character, which he thought was not very likely under a hard communist regime. Anna Funder, the author of the book "Stasiland", in a review for "The Guardian" called "The Lives of Others" a "superb film" despite not being true to reality. She claims that it was not possible for a Stasi operative to have hidden information from superiors because Stasi employees themselves were watched and almost always operated in teams. Reception on Twitter. Several notables from various fields took to twitter to comment on The Lives of Others, among them a many actors: Fairuza Balk: “I just finished watching an excellent film. Just brilliant. This is what good acting is folks. "The Lives of Others". And "To anyone who is studying or wants to act, watch "the lives of others". Absolutely supreme acting. I'm in awe.” Colin Hanks: “I will never tire of the film The Lives of Others.” Nyambi Nyambi: “’The Lives of Others’ (2006). My favorite foreign film to date. Art is the undeniable source for change.” Susan Penhaligon: “Watched 'The Lives of Others' beautifully acted, quietly shocking German film. Seems like only yesterday the Berlin Wall came down.” Adam Garcia: “I believe it was “The Lives of Others”, a staggeringly emotional film with sublime acting.” Shane West: “Just finished watching ‘The Lives of Others’. Amazing film. Make sure to watch.” Cassidy Freeman: “just watched 'the lives of others' with my dad. Incredible. The movie and the company. So thankful right now, for so many things”, and Carice van Houten: “One of the very very best films of the past 10 years, The Lives of Others”. Film director Chris Weitz tweeted on 8 March 2011: "In a foreign language and I didn't see it, “The Lives of Others" should have won Best Picture in '07." Rush Limbaugh did a full segment on his show about the movie, stating:
1376220	"Disney's Leroy & Stitch (stylized as Leroy Lilo & Stitch") is an animated television film produced by Walt Disney Television Animation. It is a spin-off film of the 2002 animated feature film "Lilo & Stitch" and the conclusion to the television series "". The film debuted on the Disney Channel on June 23, 2006 and also aired on Toon Disney on June 26, 2006. It was released only on DVD in the United States on June 27, 2006, a few days after the TV series finale. It is the third "Lilo and Stitch" film sequel and the first direct-to-video film by Walt Disney Home Entertainment to never have a VHS release and be only on DVD. The DVD includes the bonus episode Link, Experiment 251, a virtual BRB Flight Simulator game, as well as a Photos Gallery and Games & Activities. The movie marks the last movie in the "Lilo & Stitch" franchise with any involvement from creators Chris Sanders and Dean DeBlois after they left Disney for DreamWorks Animation to write and direct "How to Train Your Dragon". Plot. With their mission to capture all 625 experiments and repurpose them on Earth completed, Lilo, Stitch, Jumba and Pleakley are honored as heroes by the Galactic Alliance. Jumba is given the confiscated key to his laboratory again, Pleakley is offered a post as chairman of Earth Studies at G.A.C.C. (Galactic Alliance Community College) and Stitch is made a Captain of the Galactic Armada and commander of his new commissioned ship BRB-9000 (BRB stands for "Big Red Battleship"). Lilo is made Galactic Federation Ambassador to Earth and sole guardian of Stitch's "cousins". Before they leave, Lilo gives Jumba her favourite Elvis record, Pleakley a paperweight (which is actually an Earth rock) and Stitch a necklace with a Ku Tiki (the Hawaiian god of strength). Meanwhile at prison, Gantu has decided that since he failed in capturing all of the experiments (except for 625), he will break Dr. Hämsterviel out of prison. He takes the two-man Space Shuttle, leaving 625 alone. Stitch is assigned to recapture Hämsterviel. The ship he is assigned to is the BRB-9000 (Big Red Battleship to Stitch).Pleakley is first overjoyed at his new position at G.A.C.C., until his assistant tells him that he is merely a supervisory professor—he will teach no classes. Jumba is also happy at first returning to many of his "Evil Genius" ways, but discovers that without anyone to show his accomplishments to, he is as unhappy as the others. Jumba's sadness is short-lived when Hämsterviel and Gantu burst in. Hämsterviel forces Jumba to create a new and more evil experiment to defeat the Galactic Alliance. The new creation has all of Stitch's powers and some others. Wishing to imitate Lilo in giving the experiments names, Hämsterviel names the creature Leroy. Stitch arrives, seeking to capture Hämsterviel. After a terrific fight, Stitch is defeated when Pleakley appears at an unfortunate moment, distracting Stitch long enough for Leroy to lock him in a glass capsule. Hämsterviel reveals he plans to clone an army of Leroys to take over the Galactic Alliance. Before leaving for Turo, Hämsterviel locks Jumba, Pleakley and Stitch in Pleakley's space vehicle, and sends the ship into a black hole. Back on Earth, Lilo makes the rounds to ensure that all of the "cousins" are still happy in their "one true place". After a confrontation with Mertle, Lilo decides to contact Stitch. Lilo realizes the only inter-galactic videophone on the planet available, (she attempts to call Cobra Bubbles and fails), is in Gantu's ship. There she finds 625, who is bitter about being left behind by Gantu and asks to use the videophone. However, 625 says it is broken. It occurs to Lilo that 625 doesn't have a name and, after several sandwich puns, settles on "Reuben". Reuben consents to help Lilo. Once the videophone is fixed, Lilo contacts the BRB-9000. Leroy makes a convincing impersonation of Stitch,using shape-shifting to disguise himself, but Lilo knows that Leroy is not Stitch because he does not have the tiki necklace. Hämsterviel decides on a new task for Leroy: go to Earth and capture all of the other experiments so he may destroy them. Lilo, sensing Stitch is in trouble, asks Reuben for help fixing Gantu's ship. After some reluctance, he agrees. As they leave, Leroy crashes on Earth in Mertle's backyard. As Jumba, Pleakley, and Stitch head towards the black hole, Stitch escapes and frees the others. However, the navigational computer is locked on course for the black hole. Jumba says that the black hole will teleport them to a volcanic planet where they will be instantly vaporized, but if they can disrupt the event horizon by throwing a small object into the black hole, it will send them somewhere else. Pleakley pulls out the rock that Lilo gave him and Stitch throws it at the black hole. There is a flash and the vehicle is sucked in. On Earth, Leroy obtains Lilo's scrapbook of "cousins" and quickly captures all of them (along with Mertle). Lilo and Reuben arrive at Turo, but they are too late. Hämsterviel has taken over using Leroy and orders Gantu to lock them up, then turn in his I.D. card and cape. Gantu captures Lilo and Reuben, but decides to release them because Hämsterviel fired him. After a close call with several Leroy clones, they are trapped. All looks lost until the G.A.C.C. van suddenly appears. With no time to explain, Lilo, Reuben and Gantu all climb in and head for Earth.Gantu manages to squeeze into the trunk compartment. On Earth, the original Leroy has herded all the experiments into a large stadium, where "Alohapalooza," is scheduled to take place.There is a large group scene of the entire group of experiments. The BRB-9000 appears and Hämsterviel prepares to obliterate all of the experiments, until a timely appearance by Lilo, Stitch and the others destroys the BRB's primary cannon. Hämsterviel reveals that he brought along his Leroy army as backup. Stitch rallies his "cousins" and the experiments begin to battle. Despite some initial victories by the Experiments,it soon becomes apparent that the Leroys are more than a match for the good guys. Jumba remembers that he programmed a secret shut-down command into Leroy. When the original Leroy was created, Jumba was playing a recording of Elvis Presley singing "Aloha 'Oe". If Leroy hears that song again, it will cause him to deactivate. Lilo, seeing the equipment set up for the concert, devises a plan. With Jumba controlling the sound, Pleakley on lights, and Gantu providing fireworks, Stitch appears on-stage in full Elvis attire. He begins to play "Aloha 'Oe" with Lilo and Reuben singing along and some of the other experiments on instruments and, sure enough, the Leroys have violent seizures and shut down. His plan foiled, Hämsterviel is recaptured. Back at Galactic Alliance HQ, the Grand Councilwoman calls Lilo and the others "heroes of the Alliance." Stitch, Jumba and Pleakley ask to be allowed to return to Earth with Lilo. The Grand Councilwoman accepts this, then asks Captain Gantu if he would like to be reinstated as a Captain of the Armada. Gantu agrees on the condition that Reuben be assigned as his Galley Officer. Back on Earth, Lilo sets up for one last picture. Mertle arrives with Gigi (during the battle, Mertle learned that Gigi could talk and was one of Jumba's experiments). Though Mertle still thinks Lilo is weird, she says that Gigi wants to be part of the "ohana." Lilo's last picture in the cousins album is of all of the experiments still on Earth, plus herself, Mertle, Jumba, Pleakley, Nani, and Nani's boyfriend David. Meanwhile, Dr. Hamsterviel, Leroy and his clones are thrown in jail. Before the ending credits, the clones of Leroy happily dance to the Elvis Presley song Jailhouse Rock, with an angry Dr. Hämsterviel tapping his feet. As the credits roll, a full list of Jumba's experiments 001 through 626, and the names they were given by Lilo, scrolls along the left side of the screen. Soundtrack. Some of the songs are Elvis Presley records, while other parts of the soundtrack seems to be inspired by Gustav Holst's "The Planets".
584292	Anu Hasan (born Anuradha Chandrahasan on 15 July 1970) is a Tamil actress and TV anchor. She made her film debut in the critically acclaimed "Indira" (1995) and has since appeared in many Tamil films, playing predominantly supporting roles. She hosted the celebrity talk show "Koffee with Anu" on the Tamil channel Vijay for three seasons. She is also an entrepreneur, model, musician and martial arts expert.
1042705	The Naked Edge is a 1961 thriller film starring Gary Cooper and Deborah Kerr. The movie was a British-American co-production distributed by United Artists, directed by Michael Anderson and produced by George Glass and Walter Seltzer with Marlon Brando Sr. as executive producer. The screenplay was by Joseph Stefano and Max Ehrlich, the music score by William Alwyn and the cinematography by Erwin Hillier and Tony White. The production design was by Carmen Dillon. The film was shot in London and at Elstree Studios, Borehamwood, Hertfordshire, and was Gary Cooper's last film. Plot. The film follows the aftermath of a theft and murder, especially the fears of Martha Radcliffe (Kerr), who, as she investigates the crime, increasingly suspects her husband George Radcliffe (Cooper), whose testimony in court convicted the main suspect, of being the real culprit. Only at the end of the film is another man revealed to be the killer. Businessman Jason Root is stabbed to death on a night when George and a clerk named Donald Heath are the only other employees working at the office. A mailbag full of money is stolen in the process. George, who is seen sweating nervously both during the trial and later in the film, insists that Heath must have been the murderer, and Heath is convicted. Several months later, the mailbag is found, and the Radcliffes receive a letter that was in the bag. The letter, which Martha reads, contains a blackmail threat from Jeremy Gray (Eric Portman) accusing George of the crime.
55682	William Whiston (9 December 1667 – 22 August 1752) was an English theologian, historian, and mathematician, a leading figure in the popularisation of the ideas of Isaac Newton. He is now probably best known for his translation of the "Antiquities of the Jews" and other works by Josephus, his "A New Theory of the Earth", and his Arianism.
1170089	Eva Maria LaRue (born December 27, 1966) is an American model and actress. She is known as Dr. Maria Santos from "All My Children", and for portraying "" detective Natalia Boa Vista of the Miami-Dade Police Department. Early life. LaRue was born in Long Beach, California to Marcie and Luis LaRuy. She has three siblings, sisters Nika and Lara and a brother, Luis Jr. She is of French, Puerto Rican, Dutch, and Scottish ancestries. She is a member of the Bahá'í Faith. LaRue began acting at the age of six and was later a teenage beauty queen. She won Danfranc Productions Miss California Empire 1984 title at the state pageant held in Irvine, California. In 1985, she graduated from Norco High School and soon after, she started modeling. She was signed by the Judith Fontaine Agency as a model eventually becoming a Frederick's of Hollywood model. Career. From 1993 to 1997 and again from 2002 to 2005, LaRue portrayed Dr. Maria Santos Grey on "All My Children". There, she was half of "All My Children" supercouple Edmund and Maria. She received a Daytime Emmy Award nomination in the category of "Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series" for "All My Children". She also received a nomination in 2004 in the category of "Outstanding Original Song" for composing the song "Dance Again with You," which was used as a backdrop to the lovemaking scene after the third marriage of the characters Edmund and Maria June 2003. In 2010, LaRue reprised her role as Maria temporarily on January 5 for "All My Children"'s 40th anniversary. LaRue also performed in television movies over the years, appearing as Annette Funicello in a biographical movie of the former Mouseketeer and also in the adaptation of Danielle Steel's "Remembrance" as Princess Serena. While on "All My Children", LaRue developed a notable friendship with Sarah Michelle Gellar, who portrayed the role of Kendall Hart on the soap opera. In 2005 LaRue portrayed Linda Lorenzo, George Lopez's "Long Lost" sister, on the TV sitcom "George Lopez". In the fall 2005, LaRue began the role of Natalia Boa Vista on "". It was revealed in the end of Season 4 that Eva's character, Natalia Boa Vista, was the mole in the lab reporting back to the FBI. Beginning with Season 5, LaRue became a full-time cast member. LaRue and her daughter recently starred in a music video for the song "Armed" by Bahá'í recording artist, Devon Gundry. In July 2011 and September 2011, LaRue reprised her role as Dr. Maria Santos Grey on "All My Children" as a guest star as the show wrapped up its network run on ABC. LaRue's appearance in September reunited her with her co-star and good friend Sarah Michelle Gellar. Personal life. LaRue's sister Nika was one of the women photographed by convicted serial killer William Richard Bradford for his collection. She was no. 3 (out of 54 women) on the poster released by the Los Angeles Police Department to find living victims. Bradford would photograph women he met in bars under the guise that he would assist their modeling careers. The incident was used in a "CSI: Miami" episode soon after the revelation. LaRue is a third cousin to Jane Fonda. LaRue revealed that when she was six months pregnant with her daughter Kaya, she was supposed to fly in one of the planes that hit the Twin Towers on 9/11, but she changed her flight the night before so she could sleep in. She gave birth to her daughter Kaya McKenna Callahan on December 6, 2001. From 1992 to 1994 she was married to actor John O'Hurley. She was also married to fellow All My Children actor, John Callahan, with whom she has one child.
584832	Sweety Shetty (born on 7 November 1981), better known by her stage name Anushka Shetty is an Indian film actress, who works in the Telugu and Tamil film industries. She made her acting debut in the 2005 Telugu film "Super" and rose to fame following her performance in "Vikramarkudu" (2006) which became her first commercial success. She made her debut in Tamil cinema with "Rendu" (2006). After starring in a series of high-budget productions alongside leading Telugu actors, she went on to become one of Telugu cinema's leading actresses in the successive years, while receiving high critical acclaim for her portrayal of the titular character in "Arundhati"(2009), and as Saroja in "Vedam"(2010), which fetched her two Filmfare, one Nandi and two CineMAA Awards. In 2010, Shetty also achieved success in Tamil cinema; with the action-masala flick "Singam" (2010), which became a box office hitwhile her performances in "Vaanam" (2011) and "Deiva Thirumagal" (2011) has won her critical praise. Her most recent film "Singam II" (2013), a sequel to "Singam" has become her biggest commercial success.
582843	Swarg (Hindi: स्वर्ग, Urdu: سورگ, translation: Heaven) is a 1990 Indian Bollywood film directed by David Dhawan, released on 18 May 1990. The film stars Rajesh Khanna, Govinda, Juhi Chawla and Madhavi in pivotal roles. Swarg is the last certified hit of Rajesh Khanna. Plot. Living in a luxurious mansion named Swarg, this is the story of Sahabji (Rajesh Khanna) a rich businessman and his wife (Madhavi) sister Jyoti (Juhi Chawla), two brothers (Raja Bundela, Dilip Dhawan), and a sister-in-law (Neena Gupta). Sahabji has a clash of wits with Dhanraj a dishonest man (Paresh Rawal), who successfully schemes with Sahabji's two brothers sets fire in Sahabji's factory, spreads the reason of shock circuit and takes over the luxurious mansion and vast business empire, leaving Sahabji virtually penniless, and devastated with the passing away of his wife. His brothers have now taken over the money, and his business. Very painfully krishna was scolded slapped and was asked by sahabji to leave the mansion because he was charged of stealing Jyoti's necklace by Sahabji's brothers and sister-in-law. He moves to Mumbai and meets a man (airport) and become friends, he works hard and becomes a superstar and returns to find his Sahabji and gives nice lesson to Dhanraj (sets fire in Dhanraj mills) and buys the mansion also teaches a nice lesson to Sahabji's cheater brothers by doing fraud in business with them (as they did not know that their partner was krishna because they never saw him). Music. The soundtrack of the film contains 5 songs. Lyrics by Sameer and music is conducted by the award-winning duo Anand-Milind.
775787	Reel Injun is a 2009 Canadian documentary film directed by Cree filmmaker Neil Diamond, Catherine Bainbridge, and Jeremiah Hayes that explores the portrayal of Native Americans in film. "Reel Injun" is illustrated with excerpts from classic and contemporary portrayals of Native people in Hollywood movies and interviews with filmmakers, actors and film historians, while director Diamond travels across the United States to visit iconic locations in motion picture as well as American Indian history. "Reel Injun" explores many stereotypes about Natives in film, from the Noble savage to the Drunken Indian. It profiles such figures as Iron Eyes Cody, who as an Italian American reinvented himself as a Native American on screen. The film also explores Hollywood's practice of using Italian Americans and American Jews to portray Indians in the movies and reveals how some Native American actors made jokes in their native tongue on screen when the director thought they were simply speaking gibberish. Conception. The film was inspired, in part, by Diamond's own experiences as a child in Waskaganish, Quebec, where he and other Native children would play cowboys and Indians after local screenings of Westerns in their remote community. Diamond remembers that although the children were in fact "Indians," they all wanted to be cowboys. When Diamond was older, he would be questioned by non-Native people about whether his people lived in teepees and rode horses, causing him to realize that their preconceptions about Native people were also derived from movies. Interviews. Interview subjects include Sacheen Littlefeather, Zacharias Kunuk, Clint Eastwood, Adam Beach, Jim Jarmusch, Robbie Robertson, Russell Means, Wes Studi, and scholars Angela Aleiss and Melinda Micco, and film critic Jesse Wente. Locations. The documentary is partly structured as a road movie, with Diamond visiting locations across the United States as well as the Canadian North. In the U.S., he is traveling by "rez car," a broken down automobile often used on Indian Reservations, as demonstrated in "Reel Injun" with a sequence from the film "Smoke Signals". Locations visited include the Black Hills of South Dakota and Wounded Knee, the Crow Agency in Montana as well as Monument Valley. Release. In Canada, the film had its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival in September 2009, followed by screenings at the ImagineNATIVE Film + Media Arts Festival. "Reel Injun" began a limited release at theaters in Toronto and Vancouver; it debuted on television on CBC News Network's "The Passionate Eye" series on March 28, 2010. Reel Injun had its local Montreal premiere at the International Festival of Films on Art, followed by a commercial run at the Cinema du Parc. In the United States, the film premiered at the SXSW festival in March 2009. It aired on November 2, 2010 on the PBS series "Independent Lens". It was screened at the Museum of Modern Art from June 14 to 20, 2010. Awards. "Reel Injun" received three awards at the 2010 Gemini Awards: the Canada Award for best multicultural program, Best Direction in a Documentary Program and Best Visual Research. It received a Peabody Award for best electronic media in March 2011. See also. Compare
589407	Des Pardes (; translation: Home and Foreign Land) is a 1978 Hindi film produced and directed by Dev Anand. This family drama stars Dev Anand and Tina Munim (debut film), with Ajit Khan, Pran, Amjad Khan, Shreeram Lagoo, Tom Alter, Bindu, Prem Chopra, A. K. Hangal, Sujit Kumar, Mehmood and Paintal in supporting cast. For the first time, Dev Anand chose comparatively new music director Rajesh Roshan for this film, who did full justice to his selection as most of the songs became quite popular. The film received Filmfare award for its sets and also received nomination for best music director. The message is about the trend with some people, at the time, to earn money from foreign land and innocent ones being trapped and tormented by the illicit operators. Plot. Samir Sahni is a farmer living with his mom, dad, wife, Rama, a young daughter, and his younger brother, Veer. Samir gets an offer to work in the U.K., and departs accordingly. He would like to settle there, and after doing so, would like his family to also join him. The years go by, and Samir keeps in touch with his family regularly. Then the Sahni family stop receiving any letters from him, and are anxious to know what has happened to him. Veer is asked to travel to U.K. to find out, and he does so. What he finds are tens of thousands of East Indians on fake passports, working for less than minimum wages, poor unhealthy conditions, fear of being deported, and paying half of their earnings to fellow East Indians who had got them here through the underground. Veer finds no sign of his brother, and sets out to investigate, only to find deceit, murder, and his very own life in danger.
1068889	The Beach is a 2000 adventure drama film directed by Danny Boyle and based on the 1996 novel of the same name by Alex Garland, which was adapted for the film by John Hodge. The film stars Leonardo DiCaprio and features Tilda Swinton, Robert Carlyle, Virginie Ledoyen, Guillaume Canet, and Paterson Joseph. It was filmed on the Thai island Koh Phi Phi. Plot. Richard (Leonardo DiCaprio), an American college student in Southeast Asia for the summer, goes to Thailand with the intention of experiencing something radically different from his familiar life. He meets Daffy (Robert Carlyle), a Scottish traveler who is crazy and rants on about a beach paradise on a secret island and the parasites of civilization. Daffy later commits suicide but leaves Richard a map to the island, convincing him that it exists. Richard meets a French couple, Françoise (Virginie Ledoyen) and her boyfriend, Étienne (Guillaume Canet), and persuades them to accompany him to the island, partly out of an infatuation with Françoise. They travel from Bangkok to the shores of Ko Samui in the Gulf of Thailand, where Richard befriends a pair of American surfers. They talk excitedly about the myth of the beach and how it has an almost unlimited supply of marijuana. Richard does not admit his knowledge, but copies his map and slides it under their door the next morning. To finally reach the island, Richard, Françoise and Étienne must swim across to it. When they first arrive on the island, they come across an enormous marijuana plantation guarded by local farmers armed with AK-47 assault rifles. They manage to evade detection. After jumping off a high cliff and landing in a lake below, they are seen by Keaty (Paterson Joseph), who takes them to the beach community. They are cautiously interrogated by the island's leader Sal (Tilda Swinton) regarding their knowledge of the island, but are accepted. The trio are introduced to everybody and over the next few days go on to become integrated into the community. One night while Richard and Françoise are walking down the beach, she tells him that she is falling in love with him. They swim out into the ocean to look at a swarm of bioluminescent plankton, where Françoise kisses Richard and has passionate sex with him on the beach. Despite their attempts to keep the romance a secret, the whole island finds out about it, including Étienne. Although devastated, Étienne says he will not stand in their way if Francoise is happier with Richard. At first the island and its community seem to live up to their idyllic reputation. Richard swims out into the ocean to catch fish with a harpoon and is attacked by a young mako shark, but he stabs it to death with a knife, which gains him much admiration. Events take a turn for the worse when Richard is chosen to accompany Sal to the mainland to acquire supplies, where Richard is inadvertently reunited with the American surfers who are preparing to go to the beach with two girls. Sal overhears their conversation about the copy of the map and confronts Richard, who admits his guilt. In exchange for Sal's silence and Richard's return to the island, Sal blackmails Richard into having sex with her that night. When they return to the island, everything returns to normal until the Swedish fishermen Sten (Magnus Lindgren) and Christo (Staffan Kihlbom) are attacked by a shark while fishing in the ocean. Sten dies almost immediately and Christo is severely injured. The only options for Christo are to go to the mainland to get medical help or stay on the island and take his chances. Christo chooses to stay, not wanting to go near the water after his encounter with the shark, but Sal refuses to allow a doctor to come to the island. Christo's condition worsens, consistently lowering the morale of the whole community, so they take him out into the middle of the jungle and leave him to die. However, Étienne, disgusted by the group's decision, vows to stay with Christo. Later, Sal observes the American surfers on the neighboring island and assigns Richard the task of watching them so he can obtain the map and destroy it. While he is waiting for the surfers to arrive, Françoise shows up, furious and heartbroken, saying that Sal has told everybody about her affair with Richard at Koh Phangan. Richard cannot cope with his task and retreats into the forest where he becomes temporarily insane, believing that he is communing with the long-dead Daffy, and by this point declaiming (in voice over narration) "the longer I'm away from the others, the less I miss them". He evades the other islanders and sets lethal traps in an attempt to keep them at bay, at times hallucinating that he is a character in a video game. Meanwhile, the surfers reach the island but are discovered and killed by the marijuana farmers before they can get to the beach. Richard witnesses their executions and retreats to the community to convince Étienne and Françoise to leave the island, believing that all their lives are now in danger. Étienne refuses, not wanting to leave the emaciated Christo, whose leg has become gangrenous. When the other two briefly leave the tent, Richard tearfully smothers Christo to death in a mercy killing to put him out of his misery. When he leaves the tent however, he is struck across the face by a farmer and knocked unconscious. He wakes up in a tent in pain, surrounded by the community and the farmers. The farmers approach Sal, with whom they had an agreement where the lead farmer (Abhijati 'Meuk' Jusakul) gives her a gun loaded with a single bullet and an ultimatum: shoot Richard dead and be allowed to stay, or leave the island forever. Sal approaches Richard and fires an empty chamber, throwing the crowd into chaos. The lead farmer smiles as the community instantly disintegrates. Sal collapses in a flood of tears, as the crowd, now in hysterics, flees "en masse" to get away from the island. Together, they swim back to the mainland and go their separate ways. The film ends with Richard stopping by an internet cafe to check his e-mail. He receives a message from Françoise entitled "beach life" which contains a photograph of the beach community and an animated handwritten inscription over the image: 'Parallel Universe. Love, Françoise x'. Differences from the novel. As well as minor differences, the major ones are that Richard is British and Sal is American in the novel. Richard's obsession with war and video games is explained a bit more in the novel. He never sleeps with Françoise despite having feelings for her, which he thinks are reciprocated, saying that he considers Étienne a good guy and would not want to do that to him. He also never sleeps with Sal, nor is it Sal who accompanies him to the mainland for supplies, but rather a character called Jed who does not appear in the film, who in the book is the person who leads Richard, Etienne and Françoise to the community, not Keaty. The ending is different, with Richard and a handful of others attempting to escape from the now crumbling community. In the epilogue, after their successful escape, they move into their respective lives. Richard loses touch with Étienne and Françoise yet finds it hard to be totally freed of the effects of his experiences in that "parallel universe". Production. Ewan McGregor was cast as the main character before leaving due to disputes with the director. It was speculated that Boyle was offered additional funding under the condition that DiCaprio be cast and his character made American. Real-life drama unfurled on set one day when the cast and crew were involved in a boating accident during production. It was reported that the incident involved both Boyle and DiCaprio. No one was injured. The beach seen in the film is not the same as in real life. There is a gap between mountains on the actual beach in Thailand. The special effects crew digitally added some of the surrounding mountains during the post-production phase. The actual beach was also transformed from its natural look. It is reported that crew members flattened the beach with a tractor, much to the locals' dismay. The Tsunami of 2004, however, has reshaped the beach to its natural look. Boyle has been cited saying that the look of the jungle scenes in the film was inspired by the Rare/Nintendo game "Banjo-Kazooie". The waterfall scene, where DiCaprio and others jump from a high cliff to the water below, was filmed in Khao Yai National Park in central Thailand, at the Haew Suwat Waterfall. The map in the film was illustrated by the author of the book that "The Beach" was based upon, Alex Garland. He received credit for this as the cartographer.
1057873	Troy Garity (born July 7, 1973) is an American film actor. He was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Miniseries or Television Film for his role as Barry Winchell in the 2003 television movie "Soldier's Girl", but may be best known for his role as Isaac Rosenberg in the "Barbershop" films. Early life and education. Troy Garity was born Troy O'Donovan Hayden in Los Angeles, California, to actress/activist Jane Fonda and activist/politician Tom Hayden. He grew up in Santa Monica. His parents named him for Viet Cong would-be assassin Nguyen Van Troi and Irish Fenian leader Jeremiah O'Donovan Rossa. His professional surname, Garity, is the family name of his paternal grandmother. He began acting as a child at Santa Barbara's Laurel Springs Camp for the Arts where he performed commedia dell'arte. He made an uncredited appearance in the film "On Golden Pond". He trained at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. He also became a member of the Academy Repertory Company, performing in a number of stage productions. Family. Along with his half-sister Vanessa Vadim and cousin Bridget Fonda, Garity is a member of the third generation of one of Hollywood's most famous acting families. His mother, Jane Fonda, and uncle Peter Fonda are the children of Henry Fonda and New York socialite Frances Ford Seymour. His father is of Irish descent and his mother's ancestry includes Dutch, French, German, Irish, and English. Career. Garity has appeared in numerous film productions. He played his father in the 2000 film "Steal This Movie" based on the life of Yippie founder Abbie Hoffman. His portrayal of Isaac Rosenberg in the 2002 film "Barbershop" proved to be his breakout role and he reprised it in "". He also starred as Harvey in the Danny Boyle/Alex Garland film "Sunshine" and won considerable acclaim for his performance as the tormented survivor of a tragic family accident in "Lake City". In 1998, Garity was named one of "People" magazine's "50 Most Beautiful People". Honors. In 2003, he played Barry Winchell in the film "Soldier's Girl" and earned a Golden Globe nomination for "Best Actor in a Mini-series or a Motion Picture Made for Television". Personal life. On August 27, 2007, Garity married actress Simone Bent at Columbia University's St. Paul's Chapel. Troy Garity is the founder of the Peace Process Network, an international gang violence prevention coalition, and he is the chairman of Homies Unidos, a gang violence prevention group in Los Angeles.
584918	Keerthi Reddy is an Indian actress who appears in Bollywood and Tollywood films. Early life. Reddy was born to interior designer and mother a dress designer. Her grandfather is Ganga Reddy, Ex Member of Parliament from Nizamabad in Andhra Pradesh. She was raised in Bangalore. She did her schooling in Jiddu Krishnamurthy's The Valley School near Madanapalle. She was trained in Bharatanatyam for eight years. She briefly attended St. Joseph Public School in Hyderabad. She also attended Ryerson University for higher education in Toronto, Canada and Baltimore, U.S. Career. Keerthi Reddy made her acting debut in the Telugu language film "Gunshot" directed by S. V. Krishna Reddy. After that, she made her Kollywood debut in "Devathai" in 1997. In 1998, Reddy starred in "Tholi Prema" opposite Pawan Kalyan. Reddy dropped out of two films in 1999, "Vaali" and "Sethu". In 2000, Reddy made her Bollywood debut in "Tera Jadoo Chal Gayaa" opposite Abhishek Bachchan. Her next film "Pyaar Ishq Aur Mohabbat" featured her as Isha Nair opposite the debutant Arjun Rampal. Her role was of a girl who was loved by three men Gaurav Saxena, Yash Sabarwal and Taj Bharadwaj. The latter two roles were portrayed by Suniel Shetty and Aftab Shivdasani. In 2002, Reddy had a supporting role in "Badhaai Ho Badhaai" opposite Anil Kapoor and Shilpa Shetty. After a career in Bollywood, she stopped acting in Hindi films. In 2002, Reddy acted in "Super Star", her only Kannada film. In 2004, Reddy acted in the Telugu film "Arjun", for which she received her only award, a Filmfare Best Supporting Actress Award in Telugu. Personal life. Keerthi married an actor Sumanth, Nagarjuna Akkineni's nephew and the grandson of ANR in 2004. They divorced in 2006. She later remarried and has a baby boy.
592419	Rain Rain Come Again is a Malayalam language film. It was released in 2004.The film is noted as it is the firstever Malayalam film centered on theme of satanism. Plot. The film begins with Dinesh, an orphan boy arrives in Allosyus college which maintains a longstanding rivalry with Agnes Women's College for some unknown reason. Agnes college tries to acquire NAAC accredition, but Dinesh along with allosyus college authorities spoil the plan. They also spoil the youth festival of their rivals. In retaliation, Agnes college under the leadership of Sree defame the name of Allosyus college by trapping them in a scandal. Meanwhile under the leadership of a professor, satanism slowly extends its clutches in the college. The satanists including professor and Franko, another student kills students one by one, including Sree's friend Daisy. Meanwhile Franko, who was Daisys' boyfriend befriends Sree, which causes a split between Dinesh and Sree. Dinesh also knew about franko and professors' plan from Marco polo, his classmate. Marco polo reveals his findings to inspector in charge of killings, who in fact was an ally of Satanists. Marco was brutally killed by professor and franko. Dinesh seeking revenge is now after Satanists to retrieve sree. Cast. Thomas as Dinesh
1163205	Kirk Thomas Cameron (born October 12, 1970) is an American actor best known for his role as Mike Seaver on the television situation comedy "Growing Pains" (1985–1992), as well as several other television and film appearances as a child actor. In the 1980s and 1990s, Cameron appeared in dozens of television shows and in the films "Like Father Like Son" and "Listen to Me". In the 2000s, he has portrayed Cameron "Buck" Williams in the "Left Behind" film series and Caleb Holt in the 2008 drama film, "Fireproof". Cameron is also an active evangelical Christian, currently partnering with Ray Comfort in the evangelical ministry The Way of the Master, and has co-founded The Firefly Foundation with his wife, actress Chelsea Noble. Early life. Cameron was born on October 12, 1970, in Panorama City, suburb of Los Angeles. His parents are Robert Cameron, a retired school teacher, and Barbara (Bausmith), a stay-at-home mother. He is the brother to Bridgette, Melissa, and Candace Cameron Bure, who is most notable for her role as D.J. Tanner on the popular television sitcom, "Full House". He went to school on the set of "Growing Pains", as opposed to public school. He graduated from high school at age 17 with high honors. Cameron and his wife, fellow "Growing Pains" star Chelsea Noble, were married on July 21, 1991. They now have six children, four of whom were adopted: Jack (born 1996), Isabella (born 1997), Anna (born 1998), and Luke (born 2000); and two biological: Olivia Rose (born July 18, 2001) and James Thomas (born April 13, 2003). Acting career. Cameron began acting at age nine, and his first job was in an advertisement for a breakfast cereal. His first starring role was at age 13, in the television series "Two Marriages". At this age, he appeared in several television shows and films. He became famous in 1985 after being cast as Mike Seaver in the ABC television sitcom "Growing Pains". In the series, Mike would eventually have a girlfriend in Kate MacDonald, played by Chelsea Noble, Cameron's future wife. Cameron subsequently became a teen heartthrob in the late 1980s, while appearing on the covers of several teen magazines, including "Tiger Beat", "Teen Beat", "16" and others. At the time, he was making $50,000 a week. He was also in a 60-second Pepsi commercial during Super Bowl XXIV. Cameron also guest starred in "Just One of the Guys" a 1988 episode of "Full House" in which he played the cousin of D.J. Tanner, who was played by Cameron's sister, Candace. Cameron went on to star in many films, including 1987's "Like Father Like Son" (a body-switch comedy with Dudley Moore), which was a box office success. His next theatrical film, 1989's "Listen to Me", performed poorly at the box office. When "Growing Pains" ended in 1992, Cameron went on to star in The WB sitcom "Kirk" which premiered in 1995 and ended two years later. In "Kirk", Cameron played Kirk Hartman, a 24-year-old who has to raise his siblings. Cameron and Noble also worked together on "Kirk". Cameron has since left mainstream film, though a decade after "Growing Pains" ended, he starred in a television reunion film, "The Growing Pains Movie", in 2000, and another one, ', in 2004. Cameron reunited with the cast of "Growing Pains" for a CNN "Larry King Live" interview which aired on February 7, 2006, in conjunction with the Warner Bros. release of the complete first season of "Growing Pains" on DVD. Aside from this, Cameron has often worked in Christian-themed productions, among them the post-Rapture films ', ', and ', in which he plays Cameron "Buck" Williams. Cameron's wife Noble also starred in the film series, playing Hattie Durham. Cameron has worked with Cloud Ten Pictures, a company which produces Christian-themed films, and has starred in several of their films, including "The Miracle of the Cards". He also appeared in the 2008 drama film, "Fireproof", which was produced by Sherwood Pictures. The film was created on a budget of $500,000, with Cameron as the lead actor, portraying Captain Caleb Holt. Though it was a low-budget film, the film grossed $33,415,129 and was a box office success. It was the highest grossing independent film of 2008. In 2012, Cameron was the narrator and host of the documentary film "". On its opening day, March 27, 2012, "Monumental" grossed $28,340. The film stayed in theaters until May 20, 2012, grossing a total of $177,729. In 2013, Cameron announced he would be the host of the film "Unstoppable" slated to premiere September 24, 2013. The film garnered widespread media attention for the claim by Cameron that Facebook banned the trailer he posted. Facebook has since taken down the block, claiming it was the result of "automated systems" that had made a "mistake." Conversion to Christianity. Cameron was an atheist in his early teens, but when he was 17, during the height of his career on "Growing Pains", he developed a belief in God, and became a born-again Christian. After converting to Christianity, he began to insist that storylines be edited to remove anything he thought too adult or inappropriate in "Growing Pains". After the series was cancelled, Cameron did not maintain contact with his former co-stars, and did not speak to Tracey Gold for eight years. Cameron has stated that this was not due to any animosity on his part toward any of his former cast-members, but an outgrowth of his desire to start a new life away from the entertainment industry, and the life he had been in for the previous seven years. Prior to the premiere of "The Growing Pains Movie" in 2000, for which the entire main cast reunited, Cameron described his regrets over how his relationship with his castmates changed after his religious conversion during production of the series, saying, "I definitely kind of made an about-face, going toward another aspect of my life," admits Cameron. "I shifted my focus from 100% on the show, to 100% on new life, and left 0% on the show--and even the friendships that were a part of that show. If I could go back, I think I could make decisions that were less inadvertently hurtful to the cast--like talking and explaining to them why I just wanted to have my family at my wedding." Evangelistic ministry. Cameron currently partners with fellow evangelist Ray Comfort, training Christians in evangelism. Together, they founded the ministry of "The Way of the Master", which is best known for the television show of the same name that Cameron co-hosts, and which won the National Religious Broadcasters’ Best Program Award for two consecutive years. It also formerly featured a radio show known as "The Way of the Master Radio" with talk show host Todd Friel. The radio show was later canceled, and replaced with "Wretched Radio", hosted by Friel. Cameron, along with his wife, founded "The Firefly Foundation", which runs "Camp Firefly", a summer camp that gives terminally ill children and their families a free week's vacation. Cameron and Comfort participated in a televised debate with atheists Brian Sapient and Kelly O'Conner of the Rational Response Squad, at Calvary Baptist Church, in Manhattan, on May 5, 2007. It was moderated by ABC's Martin Bashir and parts of it were aired on "Nightline". At issue was the existence of God, which Comfort stated he could prove scientifically, without relying on faith or the Bible. The audience was composed of both theists and atheists. Points of discussion included atheism and evolutionary theory. While Sapient contended during his arguments that Comfort violated the rules by talking about the Ten Commandments, Cameron later stated on the Way of the Master radio show that the rules of the debate did not say that the Bible could never be referenced, but rather that Comfort simply had to come up with one argument that didn't reference the Bible or faith. In November 2009, Cameron and others distributed free copies of an altered version of Charles Darwin's "On the Origin of Species" on college campuses in the United States. The book consisted of Darwin's text with chapters of the book removed, and with an added introduction by Ray Comfort reiterating common creationist assertions about Darwin and evolution. The book was criticized by scientists and Darwin biographers who criticized the omission of key chapters of the book, and who stated that its introduction contains misinformation about Darwin, and long-refuted creationist arguments about the science of evolution, such as the linking of Nazi racial theories to Darwinist ideas. Comfort later said that the four chapters were chosen at random to be omitted in order to make the book small enough to be affordable as a giveaway, with the absent chapters available for download, but that the missing chapters were included in the second edition, which had a smaller text size that made printing the entire book as a giveaway affordable. The second edition still lacks Darwin's preface and glossary of terms. The National Center for Science Education arranged a campaign to distribute an analysis of the Comfort introduction and a banana bookmark at colleges across the U.S. In March 2012, Cameron stated on "Piers Morgan Tonight" that "homosexuality is unnatural, detrimental and ultimately destructive to foundations of civilization". Cameron's comments received criticism from GLAAD, and provoked a backlash from gay rights activists and members of the entertainment industry, including Roseanne Barr, Kristin Chenoweth, Craig Ferguson, Jesse Tyler Ferguson, Debra Messing, Martha Plimpton, as well as "Growing Pains" co-stars Tracey Gold and Alan Thicke. Piers Morgan stated that Cameron was brave for expressing his opinion, "however antiquated his beliefs may be". Rosie O'Donnell invited him to discuss his comments on same-sex marriage on "The Rosie Show", but he declined and suggested a private dinner to discuss this topic personally. On April 11, 2012, Cameron was honored by Indiana Wesleyan University, and inducted into their Society of World Changers during a ceremony in which he spoke on IWU's campus.
1163661	George Peppard, Jr. (; October 1, 1928 – May 8, 1994) was an American film and television actor and producer. Peppard secured a major role when he starred alongside Audrey Hepburn in "Breakfast at Tiffany's" (1961), portrayed a character based on Howard Hughes in "The Carpetbaggers" (1964), and played the title role of the millionaire sleuth Thomas Banacek in the early-1970s television series "Banacek". He is probably best known for his role as Col. John "Hannibal" Smith, the cigar-chomping leader of a renegade commando squad, in the 1980s television show "The A-Team". Early life. George Peppard, Jr. was born in Detroit, Michigan, the son of building contractor George Peppard, Sr. and opera singer Vernelle Rohrer. He graduated from Dearborn High School in Dearborn, Michigan. Peppard enlisted in the United States Marine Corps at age 17 on July 8, 1946 and rose to rank of Corporal in the 10th Marines, leaving the Marines at the end of his enlistment in January 1948. From 1948 to 1949, he studied Civil Engineering at Purdue University where he was a member of the Purdue Playmakers theatre troupe and Beta Theta Pi fraternity. He then transferred to Carnegie Institute of Technology (now Carnegie Mellon University) in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where he earned his bachelor's degree in 1955. He also trained at the Pittsburgh Playhouse. Acting. Peppard made his stage debut in 1949 at the Pittsburgh Playhouse. After moving to New York City, Peppard enrolled in The Actors Studio, where he studied the Method with Lee Strasberg. His first work on Broadway led to his first television appearance, with a young Paul Newman, in "The United States Steel Hour" (1956), as the singing, guitar-playing baseball player Piney Woods in "Bang the Drum Slowly". Peppard's Broadway appearance in "The Pleasure of His Company" (1958) led to an MGM contract. Following a strong film debut in "The Strange One" (1957), he played the illegitimate son of Robert Mitchum's character in the popular melodrama "Home from the Hill" (1960). His good looks, elegant manner and superior acting skills landed Peppard his most famous film role as Paul Varjak in "Breakfast at Tiffany's" with Audrey Hepburn. This 1961 role boosted him briefly to a major film star. His leading roles in that film's wake included "How the West Was Won" in 1962 (his character spanned two sections of the episodic Cinerama extravaganza), "The Victors" in 1963, "The Carpetbaggers" in 1964, and "The Blue Max" in 1966. Peppard started choosing tough-guy roles in big, ambitious pictures where he was somewhat overshadowed by ensemble casts; for example, his role as German pilot Bruno Stachel, an obsessively competitive officer from humble beginnings who challenges the Prussian aristocracy during World War I in "The Blue Max" (1966). For this role, Peppard earned a private pilot's license and did much of his own stunt flying, although stunt pilot Derek Piggott was at the controls for the famous under-the-bridge scene. He was cast as the lead in "Sands of the Kalahari" (1965) but walked off the set after only a few days of filming. Owing to Peppard's alcoholism and notoriously difficult personality on the set, his career devolved into a string of B-movies through the late sixties and early seventies. As film critic David Shipman once wrote of this stage in his career: With his cool, blond baby-face looks and a touch of menace, of meanness, he had established a screen persona as strong as any of the time. He might have been the Alan Ladd or the Richard Widmark of the Sixties: but the Sixties didn't want a new Alan Ladd. Peppard began appearing in a series of action movies, predictably as a tough guy, but there were much tougher guys around - like Cagney, Bogart and Robinson, whose films had now become television staples. Peppard then had a notable success with the TV series "Banacek" (1972–74), (part of the "NBC Mystery Movie" series), and one of his most critically acclaimed, though rarely seen, performances in the TV movie "Guilty or Innocent: The Sam Sheppard Murder Case" (1975), as Sam Sheppard. Among the disappointing films was the 1970 Western "Cannon for Cordoba", in which Peppard played the steely Captain Rod Douglas, who has been put in charge of gathering a group of soldiers on a dangerous mission into Mexico, and 1967's "Rough Night in Jericho" in which he was billed over crooner Dean Martin and Jean Simmons, a reflection of his status at that point in his career. Peppard appeared in the short-lived (half a season) "Doctors' Hospital" (1975) and several other television films. He starred in the 1977 science-fiction film "Damnation Alley", which has gone on to attain a substantial cult following. Peppard's role in the film was reportedly turned down by Steve McQueen because of salary issues. With fewer interesting roles coming his way, he acted in, directed and produced the drama "Five Days from Home" in 1979. In a rare game show appearance, Peppard did a week of shows on "Password Plus" in 1979. Out of five shows, one was never broadcast on NBC (but aired much later on GSN) because of comments made by Peppard regarding personal dissatisfaction he felt related to his treatment by NBC standards & practices. In his later years he appeared in several stage productions, most notably a 1992 tour of "The Lion in Winter" in which he played Henry II to Susan Clark's Eleanor of Aquitaine. "Dynasty". In 1981, Peppard was offered, and accepted, the role of Blake Carrington in the TV series "Dynasty". During the filming of the pilot episode, which also featured Linda Evans and Bo Hopkins, Peppard repeatedly clashed with the show's producers, Richard and Esther Shapiro; among other things, he felt that his role was too similar to that of J. R. Ewing in the series "Dallas". Three weeks later, before filming was to begin on additional episodes, Peppard was fired and the part was offered to John Forsythe; the scenes with Peppard were re-shot and Forsythe became the permanent star of the show. "The A-Team". In 1982, George Peppard auditioned for and won the role of Colonel John "Hannibal" Smith in the TV action adventure series "The A-Team", acting alongside Mr. T, Dirk Benedict and Dwight Schultz. In the series, the A-Team was a team of renegade commandos on the run from the military for ""a crime they did not commit"" while serving in the Vietnam war. The A-Team members made their collective living as soldiers of fortune, but they helped only people who came to them with justified grievances. In the series, Peppard played John "Hannibal" Smith. He was the leader of the A-Team, distinguished by his cigar smoking, confident smirk, black leather gloves, disguises and distinctive catch phrase, ""I love it when a plan comes together."" The show ran five seasons on NBC from 1983–1987. It made Peppard known to a whole new generation and is arguably his most well-known role. The role was reportedly written with James Coburn in mind, but Coburn declined and thus the role went to Peppard. Peppard was reportedly annoyed by Mr. T upstaging him in his public image, and at one point in their relationship refused to speak directly to Mr. T. Instead, he sent messages through intermediaries and for this Peppard was occasionally portrayed by the press as not a team player. "Man Against the Mob". Peppard's last series was an intended occasional series of television movie features entitled "Man Against the Mob" set in the 1940s. In these TV detective films, Peppard played Los Angeles Police Detective Sgt. Frank Doakey. The second film "Man Against the Mob: The Chinatown Murders" was broadcast in December 1989. A third film in this series was planned, but Peppard died before it was filmed. Personal life. Peppard was married five times, and was the father of three children. Death. Peppard overcame a serious alcohol problem in 1978, and subsequently became heavily involved in helping other alcoholics. He had smoked three packs of cigarettes a day for most of his life until he quit after being diagnosed with lung cancer in 1992. His illness never forced his retirement from acting, and Peppard completed a pilot for a new series in 1994 (a "Matlock" spin-off) shortly before his death. Peppard died on May 8, 1994, in Los Angeles, California. Although he was still being treated for lung cancer, the direct cause of death was pneumonia. He is buried alongside his parents George Sr and Vernelle in Northview Cemetery, Dearborn, Michigan. Critical Appraisal. David Shipman published this appraisal of Peppard in 1972: George Peppard's screen presence has some agreeable anomalies. He is tough, assured and insolent - in a way that recalls late Dick Powell rather than early Bogart; but his bright blue eyes and blond hair, his boyish face suggest the all-American athlete, perhaps going to seed. The sophistication is surface deep: you can imagine him in Times Square on a Saturday night, sulky, defiant, out of his depth, not quite certain how he wants to spend the evening.
1017226	Reign of Assassins is a 2010 "wuxia" film directed by Su Chao-pin and co-directed by John Woo. The film is shot in China and set during the Ming Dynasty. The film stars Michelle Yeoh, who plays an assassin who tries to return to a normal life after being counseled by a monk. After saving her husband and herself from a gang, she attracts the attention of her former assassin gang. The film began production on October 30 and was shot in China and Taiwan. While shooting, John Woo was on set continually advising director Su Chao-pin, which led to Woo being credited as a co-director. "Reign of Assassins" had its premiere on September 3, 2010 at the 67th annual Venice Film Festival, where it met acclaim from critics. It premiered in China on September 28, 2010 and has been purchased by The Weinstein Company for North American release rights and by Lions Gate Pictures for United Kingdom release rights. Plot. The film begins with a narration of the legend of an Indian Buddhist monk and the widespread belief that his mummified remains has mystical powers. The Dark Stone gang, having found that half of the remains are in the prime minister Zhang's hands, sends assassins to kill him and his son Renfeng. Dark Stone's top assassin Drizzle steals the remains and flees. She encounters the monk Wisdom after dispatching a pursuing Renfeng at the top of a bridge. Wisdom is revealed to be an accomplished martial artist who demonstrates to Drizzle that her swordsmanship has four fatal flaws. Warning that she can be killed by a master, he attempts to persuade her to turn a new leaf and leave the life of an assassin. The three months of their association ends with him dying by her hands, a final demonstration intended to enlighten her. After Wisdom's death, Drizzle is burdened with sorrow and guilt and decides to leave her old way of life. She goes to a famous surgeon who changes her appearance and she assumes the identity of Zeng Jing, a common cloth merchant. She attracts the attention of the messenger Ah-sheng whom she eventually marries. The Dark Stone gang's leader, Wheel King, recruits and trains a new assassin, Turquoise, a merciless girl who murdered her fiance and in-laws on her wedding night. The Dark Stone, in the meantime, are still in pursuit of Drizzle and the mummified remains, and one of their top members (Fatty Chen) is mysteriously assassinated. Later, Zeng Jing and Ah-sheng are in the bank when robbers enter. As the gang draws their swords, Zeng Jing defeats them and saves both her and her husband's lives. This act reveals her whereabouts to Dark Stone. The Wheel King summons three assassins in his gang - Lei Bin, the Magician, and Turquoise - to hunt Drizzle down. They locate Drizzle despite her changed appearance. However, Drizzle (now as Zeng) state she just wants to live a normal life, and the Wheel King promises her freedom for Ah-sheng and herself in exchange for the half of the she took and help in collecting the other half. After the Dark Stone secure the remains, Drizzle hands over her half. The gang refuses to release her, and despite infighting that kills the Magician, she comes home wounded and collapses before Ah-sheng. Lei Bin and Turquoise follow her but are stopped by Ah-sheng, who surprises them by producing a pair of Cen-Ci swords. Lei Bin recognizes them as Renfeng's weapon. The two assassins are defeated and Ah-sheng takes Drizzle to the surgeon. The surgeon treats Drizzle's wounds and tells Renfeng everything is pre-destined. Flashbacks reveal that Ah-sheng's true identify is Renfeng, who did not die from Drizzle's sword because he has situs inversus. He has also changed his appearance so that he can avenge his father's death. Drizzle finds out the truth and asks Renfeng if he has ever loved her. An emotional Renfeng tells her that is impossible because of what she and Dark Stone have done to his family, but he cannot bring himself to kill her and tells her to leave. The Wheel King, having obtained the remains, attempts to use the power to restore his bodily "defect": he was castrated as a boy and uses the cover of being a low ranking eunuch to hide his criminal activities. Turquoise discovers this as she seduces him and mocks him in anger and disappointment. The Wheel King is infuriated and buries her alive under a bridge. He sees the firework signal released by Drizzle, who has decided to engage him in a final battle. The Wheel King comes to a graveyard and finds Renfeng dead. Drizzle then battles him and wounds him fatally, using what Wisdom had taught her. Renfeng revives the next morning, since he was just given a tortiose powder by Drizzle in order to appear lifeless so he could witness Drizzle avenge his family with her life. He approaches her body to touch her and finds her still alive. Renfeng is overcome with joy and carries her in his arms. Drizzle whispers to him "divorce me after we get home." Renfeng laughs and tells her they have a long life ahead. Production. Pre-production. The idea for making "Reign of Assassins" came about when producer Terence Chang was looking for an action film to star Michelle Yeoh. After several meetings with Su Chao-pin and developed a "wuxia" styled film. Yeoh had initial doubts about the role as she had doubted her martial arts skills which were not put to use since "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon". The rest of the film's cast includes actors from Taiwan, Korea, Hong Kong and Chi­na. John Woo stated that "It is a challenge for all. We selected various tal­ented actors for this film and the language seemed to be the main obstacle...But we solved that." Terence Chang and Su Chao-pin said that they wanted to take wuxia writer Gu Long's approach of "having many characters, and add mystery and suspense to the plot". The Chinese title of the film is "Jianyu Jianghu", which translates as "swords and rain, rivers and lakes". The term "jianghu" refers to an imaginary world that is a parallel martial arts universe. Half of the film's budget was funded by Galloping Horse Films who agreed to supporting the film after being impressed with Su's script. To complete the financing, Chang had two Taiwanese investors: the online gaming company Gamania Digital Entertainment and film and television production house Lumiere Motion Picture Company to help fund the film. Filming. Principal photography began on October 4, 2009 in Songjiang Town, Shanghai, China, and then moved to Hengdian World Studios. Part of the film was shot in Shanghai on October 30. The film was then set to be shot at the Shanghai Song Jiang Shen Qiang studio, then to move to the Hengdian World Studios outside the city, then over to Taiwan, where a quarter of the film was set to be made.
1178852	Marianne Evelyn Faithfull (born 29 December 1946) is a British singer, songwriter and actress whose career has spanned five decades. Her early work in pop and rock music in the 1960s was overshadowed by her struggle with drug abuse in the 1970s. During the first two-thirds of that decade, she produced only two little-noticed studio albums. After a long commercial absence, she returned late in 1979 with the highly acclaimed album, "Broken English". Faithfull's subsequent solo work, often critically acclaimed, has at times been overshadowed by her personal history. From 1966 to 1970, she had a highly publicised romantic relationship with Rolling Stones' lead singer Mick Jagger. She co-wrote "Sister Morphine", which is featured on the Rolling Stones' "Sticky Fingers" album. Early life. Faithfull was born in Hampstead, London. Her father, Major Robert Glynn Faithfull, was a British Army officer and professor of psychology. Her mother, Eva von Sacher-Masoch, Baroness Erisso, was originally from Vienna. The von Sacher-Masoch family had secretly opposed the Nazi regime in Vienna. Robert Faithfull's work as an Intelligence Officer for the British Army brought him into contact with the von Sacher-Masoch family where he met Eva. Faithfull's maternal grandfather had aristocratic roots, in the Habsburg Dynasty, and Faithfull's maternal grandmother was Jewish. Erisso was a ballerina for the Max Reinhardt Company during her early years, and danced in productions of works by the German theatrical duo Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill. Faithfull's maternal great great uncle was Leopold von Sacher-Masoch, the 19th century Austrian nobleman whose erotic novel, "Venus in Furs", spawned the word "masochism". In regard to her roots in nobility, Faithfull commented in March 2007 prior to beginning the European leg of her tour, "I'm even going to Budapest, which is nice because I'm half English and half Austro-Hungarian. I've inherited the title Baroness Sacher-Masoch—it comes from one of my great uncles who gave his name to masochism." The family originally lived in Ormskirk, Lancashire, while her father completed a doctorate at Liverpool University. She spent some of her early life at the commune formed by her father at Braziers Park, Oxfordshire. After her parents divorced when she was six years old, she moved with her mother to Milman Road in Reading, Berkshire. Her primary school was in Brixton, London. Living in rather reduced circumstances, Faithfull's girlhood was marred by bouts with tuberculosis and her charity boarder status at St Joseph's Convent School. While at St. Joseph's, she was also a member of the Progress Theatre's student group. Music career and personal life. 1960s. Faithfull began her singing career in 1964, landing her first gigs as a folk music performer in coffeehouses. She soon began taking part in London's exploding social scene. In early 1964 she attended a Rolling Stones launch party with John Dunbar and met Andrew Loog Oldham, who discovered her. Her first major release, "As Tears Go By", was written by Jagger, Richards and Oldham, and became a chart success. She then released a series of successful singles, including "This Little Bird", "Summer Nights" and "Come and Stay With Me". Faithfull married artist John Dunbar on 6 May 1965 in Cambridge with Peter Asher as the best man. The couple lived in a flat at 29 Lennox Gardens in Belgravia just off Knightsbridge, London SW1. On 10 November 1965 she gave birth to their son, Nicholas. She then "left her husband to live with Mick Jagger". In 1966 she took their son to stay with Brian Jones and Anita Pallenberg in London. During that time period, Faithfull started smoking marijuana and became best friends with Pallenberg. She also began a much publicised relationship with Mick Jagger that same year. The couple became notorious and largely part of the hip Swinging London scene. She was found wearing only a fur rug by police executing a drug search at Richards' house in West Wittering, Sussex. In an interview 27 years later with A.M. Homes for "Details", Faithfull discussed her wilder days and admitted that the drug bust fur rug incident had ravaged her personal life: "It destroyed me. To be a male drug addict and to act like that is always enhancing and glamorising. A woman in that situation becomes a slut and a bad mother". In 1968 Faithfull, by now addicted to cocaine, miscarried a daughter (whom she had named Corrina) while retreating to Jagger's country house in Ireland. Faithfull's involvement in Jagger's life would be reflected in some of the Rolling Stones' best known songs. "Sympathy for the Devil", featured on the album "Beggars Banquet" (1968), was in part inspired by "The Master and Margarita", by Mikhail Bulgakov, a book which Faithfull introduced him to. The song "You Can't Always Get What You Want" on the "Let It Bleed" album (1969) was supposedly written about Faithfull; the songs "Wild Horses" and "I Got the Blues" on the 1971 album "Sticky Fingers" were also allegedly influenced by Faithfull, and she co-wrote "Sister Morphine". (The writing credit for the song was the subject of a protracted legal battle; the resolution of the case has Faithfull listed as co-author of the song.) In her autobiography, Faithfull said Jagger and Richards released it in their own names so that her agent did not collect all the royalties and proceeds from the song, especially as she was homeless and battling with heroin addiction at the time. Faithfull appeared in "The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus" concert, giving a solo performance of "Something Better". According to Graham Nash his song Carrie Anne by the Hollies is about that time in her life as well. The Beatles's 1966 song "And Your Bird Can Sing" on the "Revolver" album may have been written about her. 1970s. Faithfull ended her relationship with Jagger in May 1970, and she lost custody of her son in that same year, which led to her attempting suicide. Faithfull's personal life went into decline, and her career went into a tailspin. She only made a few appearances, including a 1973 performance at NBC with David Bowie, singing Sonny Bono's song (recorded in 1965 by Sonny & Cher) "I Got You Babe". Faithfull lived on London's Soho streets for two years, suffering from heroin addiction and anorexia nervosa. Friends intervened and enrolled her in an NHS drug programme, from which she could get her daily fix on prescription from a chemist. She was one of the programme's most notorious failures, neither controlling nor stabilising her addiction as the NHS intended. In 1971, producer Mike Leander found her on the streets and made an attempt to revive her career, producing part of her album "Rich Kid Blues". The album would be shelved until 1985. Severe laryngitis, coupled with persistent cocaine abuse during this period, permanently altered Faithfull's voice, leaving it cracked and lower in pitch. While the new sound was praised as "whisky soaked" by some critics, journalist John Jones, of the "Sunday Times", wrote that she had "permanently vulgarised her voice". In 1975 she released the country-influenced record "Dreamin' My Dreams" (a.k.a. "Faithless"), which reached No.1 on the Irish Albums Chart. Faithfull moved into a squat without hot water or electricity in Chelsea with then-boyfriend Ben Brierly, of the punk band the Vibrators. She later shared flats in Chelsea and Regent's Park with Henrietta Moraes. Faithfull's career returned full force in 1979 (the same year she was arrested for marijuana possession in Norway) with the album "Broken English", one of her most critically hailed albums. The album was partially influenced by the punk explosion and her marriage to Brierly in the same year. In addition to the punk-pop sounds of the title track (which addressed terrorism in Europe, being dedicated to Ulrike Meinhof), the album also included "Why D'Ya Do It?", a punk-reggae song with aggressive lyrics adapted from a poem by Heathcote Williams. The musical structure of this song is complex; though on the surface hard rock, it is a tango in 4/4 time, with an opening electric guitar riff by Barry Reynolds in which beats 1 and 4 of each measure are accented on the up-beat, and beat 3 is accented on the down beat. Faithfull, in her autobiography, commented that her fluid yet rhythmic reading of Williams' lyric was "an early form of rap". "Broken English" also revealed a dramatic change to Faithfull's singing voice. The melodic vocals on her early records were replaced with a raucous, deep voice, affected by years of smoking, drinking and drug use. 1980s. Faithfull began living in New York after the release of the follow-up to "Broken English", "Dangerous Acquaintances", in 1981. Despite her comeback, she was still battling with addiction in the mid-1980s, at one point breaking her jaw tripping on a flight of stairs while under the influence. In another incident her heart stopped. A disastrous appearance on "Saturday Night Live" was blamed on too many rehearsals, but it was suspected that drugs had caused her vocal cords to seize up. "Rich Kid Blues" (1984) was another collection of her early work combined with new recordings, a double record showcasing both the pop and rock 'n' roll facets of her output to date. In 1985, Faithfull performed "Ballad of the Soldier's Wife" on Hal Willner's tribute album "". Faithfull's restrained readings lent themselves to the material, and this collaboration informed several subsequent works. In 1985, she was at the Hazelden Foundation Clinic in Minnesota for rehabilitation. She then received treatment at McLean Hospital in Belmont, Massachusetts. While living at a hotel in nearby Cambridge, Faithfull started an affair (while still married to Brierly) with a dual diagnosis (mentally ill and drug dependent) man, Howard Tose, who later committed suicide by jumping from a 14th floor window of the flat they shared. In 1987, Faithfull dedicated a ""thank you"" to Tose within the album package of "Strange Weather", on the back sleeve: "To Howard Tose with love and thanks". Faithfull's divorce from Brierly was also finalised that year. In 1995, she wrote and sang about Tose's death in "Flaming September" from the album "A Secret Life". In 1987, Faithfull again reinvented herself, this time as a jazz and blues singer, on "Strange Weather", also produced by Willner. The album became her most critically lauded album of the decade. Coming full circle, the renewed Faithfull cut another recording of "As Tears Go By" for "Strange Weather", this time in a tighter, more gravelly voice. The singer confessed to a lingering irritation with her first hit. "I always childishly thought that was where my problems started, with that damn song," she told Jay Cocks in "Time", but she came to terms with it as well as with her past. In a 1987 interview with Rory O'Connor of "Vogue", Faithfull declared, "forty is the age to sing it, not seventeen. The album of covers was produced by Hal Willner after the two had spent numerous weekends listening to hundreds of songs from the annals of 20th century music. They chose to record such diverse tracks as Bob Dylan's "I'll Keep It with Mine" and "Yesterdays", written by Broadway composers Jerome Kern and Otto Harbach. The work also includes tunes first made notable by such blues luminaries as Billie Holiday and Bessie Smith; Tom Waits wrote the title track. In 1988, Faithfull married writer and actor Giorgio Della Terza, but they divorced in 1991. 1990s. When Roger Waters assembled an all-star cast of musicians to perform the rock opera "The Wall" live in Berlin in July 1990, Faithfull played the part of Pink's overprotective mother. Her musical career rebounded for the third time during the early 1990s with the live album "Blazing Away," which featured Faithfull revisiting songs she had performed over the course of her career. "Blazing Away" was recorded at St. Ann's Cathedral in Brooklyn. The 13 selections include "Sister Morphine", a cover of Edith Piaf's "Les Prisons du Roy", and "Why D'Ya Do It?" from "Broken English". Alanna Nash of "Stereo Review" commended the musicians whom Faithfull had chosen to back her—longtime guitarist Reynolds was joined by former Band member Garth Hudson and pianist Dr. John. Nash was also impressed with the album's autobiographical tone, noting "Faithfull's gritty alto is a cracked and halting rasp, the voice of a woman who's been to hell and back on the excursion fare which, of course, she has." The reviewer extolled Faithfull as "one of the most challenging and artful of women artists," and "Rolling Stone" writer Fred Goodman asserted: ""Blazing Away" is a fine retrospective – proof that we can still expect great things from this greying, jaded contessa." "A Collection of Her Best Recordings" was released in 1994 by Island Records to coincide with the release of the Faithfull autobiography; the two products originally shared the same cover art. It contained Faithfull's updated version of "As Tears Go By" from "Strange Weather," several cuts from "Broken English" and "A Child's Adventure" and a song written by Patti Smith scheduled for inclusion on an Irish AIDS benefit album. This track, "Ghost Dance", suggested to Faithfull by a friend who later died of AIDS, was made with a trio of old acquaintances: Stones' drummer Charlie Watts and guitarist Ron Wood backed Faithfull's vocals on the song, while Richards coproduced it. The retrospective album also featured one live track, "Times Square", from "Blazing Away" as well as a new Faithfull original, "She", penned with composer and arranger Angelo Badalamenti to be released the following year on "A Secret Life", with additional songs co written with Badalamenti. Faithfull sang a duet and recited text on the San Francisco band Oxbow's 1996 album Serenade in Red. Faithfull also sang background vocals on Metallica's song "The Memory Remains" from their 1997 album "ReLoad" and appeared in the song's music video; the track reached No. 28 in the U.S. (No.3 on the U.S. Mainstream Rock chart) and No.13 in the UK. As her fascination with the music of Weimar-era Germany continued, Faithfull performed in "The Threepenny Opera" at the Gate Theatre, Dublin, playing Pirate Jenny. Her interpretation of the music led to a new album, "Twentieth Century Blues" (1996), which focused on the music of Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht, followed in 1998 by a recording of "The Seven Deadly Sins", with the Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Dennis Russell Davies. A hugely successful concert and cabaret tour accompanied by Paul Trueblood at the piano, culminated in the filming, at the Montreal Jazz Festival, of the DVD "Marianne Faithfull Sings Kurt Weill". In 1998 Faithfull released "A Perfect Stranger: The Island Anthology", a two-disc compilation that chronicled her years with Island Records. It featured tracks from her albums "Broken English", "Dangerous Acquaintances", "A Child's Adventure", "Strange Weather", "Blazing Away", and "A Secret Life", as well as several B sides and unreleased tracks. Faithfull's 1999 DVD "Dreaming My Dreams" contained material about her childhood and parents, with historical video footage going back to 1964 and interviews with the artist and several friends who have known her since childhood. The documentary included sections on her relationship with John Dunbar and Mick Jagger, and brief interviews with Keith Richards. It concluded with footage from a 30-minute live concert, originally broadcast on PBS for the series "Sessions at West 54th". That same year, she ranked 25th in "VH1's 100 Greatest Women in Rock and Roll". Roger Waters (Pink Floyd) wrote the song "Incarceration of a Flower Child" in 1968; it was never recorded by Pink Floyd. The lyrics seem to be about the downfall of Barrett, but Waters has never confirmed this. The song was eventually recorded by Marianne Faithfull on her 1999 album "Vagabond Ways". 2000s. Faithfull released several albums in the 2000s that received positive critical response, beginning with "Vagabond Ways" (1999), which was produced and recorded by Mark Howard. It included collaborations with Daniel Lanois, Emmylou Harris, Pink Floyd's Roger Waters, and writer (and friend) Frank McGuinness. Later that year she sang "Love Got Lost" on Joe Jackson's "Night and Day II". Her renaissance continued with "Kissin' Time", released in 2002. The album contained songs written with Blur, Beck, Billy Corgan, Jarvis Cocker, Dave Stewart, David Courts and the French pop singer Étienne Daho. On this record, she paid tribute to Nico (with "Song for Nico"), whose work she admired. The album also included an autobiographical song she co-wrote with Cocker, called "Sliding Through Life on Charm". In 2005, she released "Before the Poison". The album was primarily a collaboration with PJ Harvey and Nick Cave, though Damon Albarn and Jon Brion also contributed. "Before the Poison" received mixed reviews from both "Rolling Stone" and "Village Voice". In 2005 she recorded (and co-produced) "Lola R Forever", a cover of the Serge Gainsbourg song "Lola Rastaquouere" with Sly & Robbie for the tribute album "Monsieur Gainsbourg Revisited". In 2007, Faithfull collaborated with the British singer/songwriter, Patrick Wolf on the duet "Magpie" from his third album "The Magic Position" and wrote and recorded a new song for the French film "Truands" called "A Lean and Hungry Look" with Ulysse. In March 2007 she returned to the stage with a touring show entitled "Songs of Innocence and Experience". Supported by a trio, the performance had a semi-acoustic feel and toured European theatres throughout the spring and summer. The show featured many songs she had not performed live before including "Something Better", the song she sang on "The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus". The show also included the Harry Nilsson song "Don't Forget Me", "Marathon Kiss" from Vagabond Ways and a version of the traditional "Spike Driver Blues". Recent articles hint Faithfull is looking to retirement, in hopes money from "Songs of the Innocence and Experience" will enable her to live in comfort. The 60-year-old said: "I'm not prepared to be 70 and absolutely broke. I realised last year that I have no safety net at all and I'm going to have to get one. So I need to change my attitude to life, which means I have to put away 10 per cent every year of my old age. I want to be in a position where I don't have to work. I should have thought about this a long time ago but I didn't." However, she still lived in her flat in Paris (located in one of the most expensive streets of the capital) and had a house in County Waterford, Ireland. Recording of her studio album "Easy Come, Easy Go" commenced in New York City on 6 December 2007; the album is produced by Hal Willner who also produced her 1987 album "Strange Weather". A version of Morrissey's "Dear God Please Help Me" from his 2006 album, "Ringleader of the Tormentors" is one of the songs featured, and the album is available both as 10-song CD and 18-song CD-DVD combination. A collectible vinyl pressing is also available. The EU release on Naive was 10 November 2008. The US, UK and Australian release dates for Marianne's new album are ..US release: 17 March 2009 on Decca, UK release: 16 March 2009 on Dramatico, Australian release: 14 February 2009 on Shock records. On 31 March 2009, Faithfull performed "The Crane Wife 3" on "The Late Show". In late March, she began the Easy Come, Easy Go tour, which took her to France, Germany, Austria, New York City, Los Angeles and London. On 16 April 2009, while preparing to board a British Airways flight at London's Gatwick Airport bound for a concert appearance in Bologna, François Ravard, accompanying Faithfull, was detained and then later arrested. In a statement, British Airways said: "A male customer became aggressive and abusive at check-in when he was refused travel on a flight from Gatwick to Bologna. He appeared to be intoxicated on arrival at check-in. In such circumstances, an assessment is made as to whether the passenger is fit to travel. When he was refused travel, he became physically and verbally abusive. Police were called and he was arrested. Such behaviour will not be tolerated." Faithfull, however, had not been drinking and was allowed to board. The pair were flying to Italy on a leg of her world tour promoting "Easy Come, Easy Go". According to her spokesperson, "Marianne was at Gatwick Airport but was not involved in any way in the situation that occurred and she managed to travel on to Bologna as planned. Her gig tonight there will go ahead as planned, and Francois travelled from Britain to join her yesterday. Marianne hadn't been drinking at the time of the incident and she does not drink alcohol. She is enjoying life and loving it as she is sober and clean." In March 2009, Faithfull revealed on The Andrew Marr Show that, following the death of her cousin, she had inherited the title Baroness Von Sacher-Masoch, but chose not to use it. On 18 April 2009, Faithfull revealed separately in an interview, reported in the "Daily Mail", that although Ravard was still her manager, their 15-year relationship had ended some months before. Faithfull stated, "I'm all right but I have had a bit of an adventure – my relationship broke up. I felt very betrayed and lonely. I am much, much better now, but it is not good for your self-esteem." On 3 May 2009, she was featured on "CBS News Sunday Morning" and interviewed by Anthony Mason in the "Sunday Profile" segment. Both in-studio and on-the-street (New York City) interview segments with Faithfull and Mason were interspersed with extensive biographical and musical footage. In 2010, she was honoured with the Icon of the Year award from Q magazine. On 13 November 2009, Faithfull was interviewed by Jennifer Davies on World Radio Switzerland, where she described the challenges of being stereotyped as a "mother, or the pure wife". Because of this, she insisted, it has been hard to maintain a long career as a female artist, which, she said, gave her empathy for Amy Winehouse when they met recently. In the interview, Faithfull also said that she hoped to find love soon. 2010s. On 31 January 2011, Faithfull released her 18th studio album "Horses and High Heels" in mainland Europe with mixed reviews from the most important media. On 7 May 2011 she appeared on BBC Radio 2's "Graham Norton Show". She reunited with Metallica in December 2011 for their 30th anniversary celebration at the Fillmore where she performed "The Memory Remains". Faithfull has recently recorded a cover version of a Stevie Nicks track from the Fleetwood Mac album "Tusk" as part of a Fleetwood Mac tribute project. The track "Angel" will be released on 14 August 2012 as part of the tribute album "Just Tell Me That You Want Me". On 22 June 2013 she made a sell-out concert appearance at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, with jazz musician Bill Frisell playing guitar, as a part of Meltdown Festival curated by Yoko Ono. Marianne is currently recording an album of new material, but work has stalled due to a back injury in July 2013. Nominations and awards. In 1999, Faithfull ranked 25th on VH1's 100 Greatest Women of Rock and Roll. On 4 November 2007, the European Film Academy announced that Faithfull had received a nomination for Best Actress, for her role as Maggie in "Irina Palm". At the 20th annual European Film Awards ceremony held in Berlin, on 1 December 2007, Faithfull lost to Helen Mirren. On 5 March 2009, Faithfull received the World Arts Award for Lifetime Achievement at the 2009 Women's World Awards. "Marianne's contribution to the arts over a 45-year career including 18 studio albums as a singer, songwriter and interpreter, and numerous appearances on stage and screen is now being acknowledged with this special award." The award was presented in Vienna, with ceremonies televised in over 40 countries on 8 March 2009 as part of International Women's Day. On 23 March 2011 Faithfull was awarded the Commandeur of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, one of France's highest cultural honours. Health. Faithfull's touring and work schedule has been repeatedly interrupted by health problems. In late 2004 she called off the European leg of a world tour, promoting "Before The Poison" after collapsing on stage in Milan, and was hospitalised for exhaustion. The tour resumed later and included a US leg in 2005. In September 2006, she again called off a concert tour, this time after she was diagnosed with breast cancer. The following month, she underwent surgery in France and no further treatment was necessary owing to the tumour having been caught at a very early stage. Less than two months after she declared having beaten the disease, Faithfull made her public statement of full recovery. On 11 October 2007 Faithfull revealed she suffered from hepatitis C on the UK television programme "This Morning", and that she had first been diagnosed with the condition 12 years before. She discusses both the cancer and hepatitis diagnoses in further depth in her second memoir, "Memories, Dreams and Reflections." On 27 May 2008, Faithfull released the following blog posting on her MySpace page, with the headline "Tour Dates Cancelled" and credited to FR Management – the company operated by her boyfriend/manager François Ravard: "Due to general mental, physical and nervous exhaustion doctors have ordered Marianne Faithfull to immediately cease all work activities and rehabilitate. The treatment and recovery should last around six months." In August 2013, Faithfull was forced to cancel a string of concerts in the US and Lebanon following a back injury while on holiday in California. Acting career. In addition to her music career, Faithfull has had a career as an actress in theatre, television and film. Her first professional theatre appearance was in a 1967 stage adaptation of Chekhov's "Three Sisters", at the Royal Court Theatre, London, in which she played Irina, co-starring with Glenda Jackson and Avril Elgar. Before that she played herself in Jean-Luc Godard's film "Made in U.S.A." Faithfull has also appeared in the 1967 film "I'll Never Forget What's'isname" alongside Orson Welles (where she notably became the first person to say "fuck" in a mainstream studio picture), in the French television film "Anna", starring Anna Karina (in which Faithfull sang Serge Gainsbourg's "Hier ou Demain"), as a leather-clad motorcyclist in the 1968 French film "La Motocyclette" (English titles: "Girl on a Motorcycle" and "Naked Under Leather") opposite Alain Delon, and in Kenneth Anger's 1969 film "Lucifer Rising", in which she played Lilith. In 1969, Faithfull played Ophelia opposite Nicol Williamson's title character in "Hamlet", directed by Tony Richardson and featuring Anthony Hopkins as Claudius. The original producers of "The Rocky Horror Show" wanted her to play "Magenta/Usherette", but as Patricia Quinn (who got the part) stated in an interview ""She went to India with her guru"." Her stage work also included Edward Bond's "Early Morning" at the Royal Court Theatre, London, in which she played a lesbian Florence Nightingale, "The Collector" at St Martin's Theatre in the West End opposite Simon Williams, "Mad Dog" at Hampstead Theatre opposite Denholm Elliott, "A Patriot for Me" by "John Osborne", at the Palace Theatre, Watford and the role of Lizzie Curry in N. Richard Nash's "The Rainmaker", which toured the UK and in which Faithfull's co-star was Peter Gilmore. Other film roles in the 1970s included Sophy Kwykwer in Stephen Weeks's "Ghost Story" (AKA "Madhouse Mansion"), released on a newly mastered DVD in the UK in 2009, and Helen Rochefort in "Assault on Agathon". Her television acting in the late 1960s and early 1970s included "The Door of Opportunity" (1970) with Ian Ogilvy, adapted from W. Somerset Maugham's story, followed by August Strindberg's "The Stronger" (1971) with Britt Ekland, and "Terrible Jim Fitch" (1971) by James Leo Herlihy, which once more paired Faithfull with Nicol Williamson. In 1993, she played the role of Pirate Jenny in "The Threepenny Opera" at the Gate Theatre in Dublin. Later she performed Kurt Weill's "The Seven Deadly Sins" with the Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra, a CD of which was released in 1998. She has played both God and the Devil. She appeared as God in two guest appearances in the British sitcom "Absolutely Fabulous" opposite friend Jennifer Saunders, with another close friend, Anita Pallenberg, playing the Devil. In 2004 and 2005, she played the Devil in William Burroughs' and Tom Waits' musical, "The Black Rider", directed by Robert Wilson, which opened at London's Barbican Theatre, toured to San Francisco, but from which she was forced to withdraw prior to performances at the Sydney Festival, owing to exhaustion. In 2001 Faithfull appeared with Lucy Russell and Lambert Wilson in C.S. Leigh's "Far From China". She has also appeared in Patrice Chéreau's "Intimacy" (2001) and, in 2004, in Jose Hayot's "Nord-Plage". Faithfull appeared as Empress Maria Theresa in Sofia Coppola's 2006 biopic, "Marie Antoinette". She starred in the film "Irina Palm", released at the Berlinale film festival in 2007. Faithfull plays the central role of Maggie, a 60-year-old widow who becomes a sex worker to pay for medical treatment for her ill grandson. Faithfull lent her voice to the 2008 film "", although this was recorded several years earlier when the project was still titled "Alone in the Dark". She has appeared in the 2008 feature documentary by Nik Sheehan on Brion Gysin and the dreamachine, entitled FLicKeR. In 2008, Faithfull toured readings of Shakespeare's sonnets, drawing on the "Dark Lady" sequence. Her accompanist was the cellist Vincent Ségal. In 2011 and 2012 Faithfull had supporting roles in the films "Faces in the Crowd" and "Belle du Seigneur". Marianne recently starred in a production of Kurt Weill's "The Seven Deadly Sins" at Landestheater Linz, Austria. The production ran from October 2012 to January 2013.
1028639	Dustin Milligan (born July 28, 1985) is a Canadian actor, best known for his role as Ethan Ward on the teen drama television series "90210". Life and career. Milligan was born in Yellowknife, Northwest Territories, the son of Jean Wallace, a former Yellowknife city councillor, and Brian Milligan. He is known for playing the role of Ethan Ward in the The CW's "90210", a spin-off of the 1990s primetime drama "Beverly Hills, 90210". He was written out of the show at the end of the first season. His film credits include "Final Destination 3" (2006), "Slither" (2006), "The Butterfly Effect 2" (2006), "In the Land of Women" (with Kristen Stewart, Adam Brody and Meg Ryan), (2007), "Butterfly on a Wheel" (2007), "The Messengers" (2007) and "Extract" (2009). Milligan starred in the short-lived primetime suspense drama "Runaway", picked up by The CW for its inaugural season in September 2006, but canceled in October after only three of nine episodes completed had been aired. He starred in the Canadian network CTV's made-for-TV movie "Eight Days to Live" playing "O.C." star Kelly Rowan's missing son. Milligan has also played minor roles in the television series "The Days", "Andromeda", "The Dead Zone", "Alice, I Think", "Supernatural" and the CBC's "Da Vinci's City Hall". As part of promoting "In the Land of Women", Milligan posted a series of eight video diaries on YouTube with the ostensible aim of obtaining a date for the film's premiere. Personal life. Milligan dated his "90210" co-star Jessica Stroup for almost two years before breaking up in August 2010. Since filming "Final Destination 3", Milligan has been close friends with actress Amanda Crew, and has worked with her throughout the years in several other projects.
1064863	"Things to Do in Denver When You're Dead" is a 1995 American neo-noir crime film directed by Gary Fleder from a screenplay written by Scott Rosenberg. The film features an ensemble cast that includes Andy García, Christopher Lloyd, Treat Williams, Steve Buscemi, Christopher Walken, Fairuza Balk, and Gabrielle Anwar. The film's title comes from a Warren Zevon song of the same name, recorded on his 1991 album "Mr. Bad Example", which he allowed under the condition that the song be played during the end credits. The lead character's name, "Jimmy the Saint," comes from the Bruce Springsteen song "Lost in the Flood" from the album "Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J." It is referred to by critic Jonathan Rosenbaum as one of several of Pulp Fiction's clones. The film was screened in the Un Certain Regard section at the 1995 Cannes Film Festival. Plot. Jimmy "The Saint" Tosnia (Andy García) is a dapper ex-gangster living in Denver. Jimmy has left the criminal world, attempting to "go straight" with his business "Afterlife Advice", where dying people videotape messages for loved ones. However, his business isn't doing well and his former boss, the local crime lord known as "The Man With the Plan" (Christopher Walken) has bought up his debt in order to command a favor from him. The Man With the Plan was left a quadriplegic years ago from an attempt on his life. The only person he now cares about is his socially maladroit son, Bernard, who has recently suffered a heartbreaking separation from his girlfriend. Her current boyfriend will be arriving in Denver shortly and The Man With The Plan wants Jimmy to convince the man to break up with her so Bernard can have a shot at resuming their relationship. Jimmy recruits several of his friends, all down on their luck ex gangsters, to help with the scheme. These include Easy Wind (Bill Nunn), Pieces (Christopher Lloyd), Franchise (William Forsythe), and the rage prone "Critical Bill" (Treat Williams). The plan is to have Pieces and Critical Bill waylay the boyfriend while posing as police officers. They will then take him to a secluded spot where the gang will beat him until he agrees to break up with Bernard's ex. However, things go wrong when the boyfriend grows suspicious of the two men's identity and openly mocks them. An enraged Critical Bill stabs the man in the throat. The commotion wakes Bernard's ex, who had been sleeping in the back of her boyfriend's van and her appearance startles Pieces, who shoots her The Man With The Plan is furious at the outcome of their botched mission. He informs Jimmy that out of consideration for their past relationship he will allow him to live. However, the other members of the team have been sentenced to "buckwheats", which in the slang of the film means assassination in a particularly gruesome and painful manner (an example is given in which the person is shot up the anus). The group comes to terms with their own impending deaths as they are stalked by a mild-mannered, yet deadly hitman known as Mr. Shhh (Steve Buscemi). Pieces accepts his fate, to which Shhh provides a quick death. Easy Wind goes into hiding with a gang lord named Baby Sinister (Glenn Plummer), but is given up after Shhh infiltrates and kills most of Sinister's entourage. Franchise attempts to flee with his family but is killed. Shhh finally locates Critical Bill who is holed up in his apartment, but is ambushed by Bill and the two kill each other. In the wake of Mr. Shhh's death the contract falls to a trio of Mexican brothers, who attempt to track down Jimmy. In his last days, Jimmy says goodbye to a woman Dagney (Gabrielle Anwar), he had fallen in love with. Knowing that he will most likely be killed, he murders Bernard for all the misery he indirectly brought upon the group. He also has sex with Lucinda (Fairuza Balk), a prostitute with whom he has long been acquainted, in order to fulfill her wish of having a baby. As he narrates in an Afterlife Advice video that he leaves as a farewell message for his unborn child, Jimmy realized that the only way he could exact revenge on The Man With The Plan is through his son. The trio of killers catch up to Jimmy but he takes his death with grace. The final scene shows Jimmy and his friends in the afterlife, having "boat drinks".
1224153	Julie White (born June 4, 1961) is an American actress. She is known for her role in "Grace Under Fire" and for her role as Judy Witwicky in the "Transformers" film series. Personal life. White was born in the Balboa Naval Hospital in San Diego, California, the daughter of Sue Jane (née Terry), a therapist, and Edwin White, a dentist. White and her family moved to Austin, Texas, to take up ranching when she was three years old. She started acting in local plays and became a semi-professional at 16. While she was playing the lead role in the musical, "The Baker's Wife", the show's authors encouraged her to take her talent to New York City. After graduating from high school, she followed their advice, enrolling as a history major at Fordham University. Career. White has been a prolific stage actress, getting her start in regional theatre. Her theater credits include roles in "Absurd Person Singular", "Money and Friends", "Marvin's Room", "Largo Desolato" and "On the Verge". White made her off-Broadway debut as the lead in "Lucky Stiff". Her other off-Broadway credits include "The Stick Wife", "Early One Evening", "Just Say No", "Over Texas", and a starring role in "Spike Heels" with Kevin Bacon and Tony Goldwyn. White also appeared in a one-woman show, Theresa Rebeck's "Bad Dates", written especially for her.
1182518	Tiffany Evans (born August 4, 1992) is an American singer and occasional actress. Life and career. 2003–06. Tiffany Evans was born in New York City, in the Bronx, and is the seventh out of ten children born to Carol and Lonnie Evans. At one point she and her family had been living in their van for years. Evans got her first break on "Showtime at the Apollo" at the age of 9. In February 2003, in her "Star Search" appearance, Evans won the Grand Champion title in the junior singer division, becoming the only performer in "Star Search" history to receive perfect five scores on all of her appearances. In the competition, Evans competed against fellow singers Lisa Tucker and David Archuleta, who both later appeared on "American Idol". Evans has starred in an episode of "", playing actor Blair Underwood's daughter. That same year, she sang for executives at Columbia Records and was offered a recording contract deal at 10 years old. With her musical career already on the upswing, she landed a small role on CBS's "The District" and appeared in the 2005 film, "Diary of a Mad Black Woman". After signing with Columbia Records, her first single "Let Me Be Your Angel" was released in 2004 with a music video. Soon after, her EP featuring eight tracks (all covers) and a bonus DVD was released. The song was a minor R&B hit, peaking at #95 on the R&B chart. One additional single ("The Christmas Song") was digitally released, as well as her rendition of the "Star Spangled Banner." The album soon became scarce, as it was made available for a limited time at online retailers as well as the clothing store Limited Too!. She began work on a new album, with a couple of digital singles (2005's "Thinkin' About" and 2006's "Who I Am") released." 2007–09: Debut album "Tiffany Evans". She released her lead single "Promise Ring" featuring Grammy-winning R&B singer Ciara. The song failed to chart on the US "Billboard" Hot 100, although it charted at #66 on the US Billboard Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs. A second single "I'm Grown" featuring Bow Wow charted at #98 on the R&B chart. Her debut album "Tiffany Evans" was released April 22, 2008, via Columbia Records. She worked with Rodney Jerkins, Soulshock & Karlin and RedOne. The album failed to have success with it peaking at number 134 on the "Billboard" 200 though was well received by critics. Though having little success with the charts the album has sold 200,000 copies worldwide to date. The third single "Lay Back & Chill" was planned for release but instead she began work on her second album. She also participated in the book "saving our daughters" including Janet Jackson, Malinda Williams, Maya Angelou, and many others. Her chapter is named "my diary" and she talks about bullying and how she was bullied as a child. 2010–11: New album, parting from label, starts own company. Evans recently signed a management deal with Music World Entertainment. In September 2010, Evans released the lead single from her second studio album, "Perfect Imperfection", titled "I'll Be There"; the video was released on December 6 on her Myspace page. While appearing on the Mo'Nique show, Evans cites Janet Jackson as one of her biggest influences, and also stated that she and her family had relocated to and now call Atlanta, Georgia home. On March 29, 2011 Tiffany Evans announced her departure from Mathew Knowles as her manager as well as her departure from Music World Entertainment. Tiffany Evans then started her own label and media company, "Little Lady Entertainment," with herself as CEO and founder and her husband Lorenzo Henderson as president and co-founder. Evans is the only artist under the label at the moment. As of July 26, 2011 on her YouTube page, Evans announced during "Tiffany Tuesdays" that she will be releasing an EP soon, and she also released a snippet of a song from the upcoming EP titled "All I Need" produced by an up-and-coming producer named Shakari "TrakGirl" Boles. Written by Ira Hobbs who works closely with the producer. On October 1, 2011 Tiffany Evans released a buzz single entitled "Won't Find Me" to give fans a feel of the music that she is preparing to bring to the table while doing everything independently. The single was followed by a video as well. On September 21, 2010, Tiffany married "Little Lady Entertainment" president and co-founder Lorenzo Henderson. She was 18 and he was 24. 2012–present: New music, marriage & motherhood. On January 10, 2012, Evans released another buzz record for her fans entitled "U Got A Woman", which is a mixture of jazz, blues, and soul. The song was intended to show her fans that she has matured and is no longer a child. On June 8, 2012, Evans announced in an interview she did with Essence.com, that she had been married for one year and nine months and was expecting a child with her husband, Lorenzo Henderson. Evans and her husband welcomed a baby girl, Adalia Sarai Henderson, on September 25, 2012. Along with the news of her marriage and pregnancy, Evans also released her first single "If You Love Me", a powerful R&B ballad, from her new EP "143". The EP was released on February 12, 2013.
1036271	Alistair McGowan (born 24 November 1964) is an English impressionist, stand-up comic, actor, singer and writer best known to British audiences for "The Big Impression" (formerly "Alistair McGowan's Big Impression"), which was, for four years, one of BBC1's top-rating comedy programmes - winning numerous awards, including a BAFTA in 2003. He has also worked extensively in theatre and appeared in the West End in "Art", "Cabaret", "The Mikado" and "Little Shop of Horrors" (for which he received an "Laurence Olivier Award" nomination). As a television actor, he played the lead role in BBC1's "Mayo". He wrote the play "Timing" (nominated as Best New Comedy at the whatsonstage.com awards) and the book "A Matter of Life and Death" or "How to Wean Your Man off Football" with former comedy partner Ronni Ancona. He also provided voices for "Spitting Image". He made his dĂŠbut broadcast as a tennis commentator for BBC Sport at the 2011 Wimbledon Championships. Since 2 June 2012, McGowan has written and hosted ITV topical comedy sports show You Cannot Be Serious! Impressions include England manager Roy Hodgson, Eurovision duo Jedward and TV personality Louie Spence. Personal life and education. McGowan was born in Evesham, Worcestershire to Marion and George McGowan. Although aware his father was born in Calcutta, India, Alistair and his sister Kay were unaware of the fact that their father had a mixed Irish - Indian background until McGowan explored his ancestry on BBC One's "Who Do You Think You Are?" in the 26 October 2007 episode four years after his father's death. Alistair attended the Simon de Montfort Middle School in Evesham and took lead roles in school productions. He went on to attend Evesham High School. He graduated from the University of Leeds with a BA English degree in 1986. He then went to the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London, graduating in 1989. McGowan is a supporter of Leeds United, even claiming that he decided to study at Leeds partly because of its proximity to Elland Road, and his obsession with football forms the basis of his 2009 book "A Matter of Life and Death". On the 17 December 2012 edition of 'Countdown', Susie Dent revealed that McGowan neither owns nor drives a car. He is also a supporter of the Green Party. Career. McGowan found work as a stand-up comedian, and did some of the voices for the ITV television series "Spitting Image". His sporting impressions were showcased on the BBC 2 football magazine programme "Sick as a Parrot". He also appeared as the recycling man in the BBC show "Think about Science". Later he took over from Stephen Tompkinson playing Spock in the Tim Firth comedy drama, "Preston Front". In his early career, McGowan had minor roles in shows such as "Children's Ward", and in the pilot episode of "Jonathan Creek". He also starred in the first series of "Dead Ringers". McGowan also appeared in the Scottish football sketch show Only an Excuse? from 1996 to 1998. He also hosted and starred in a sporting impressions show on Radio 5 live called "The Game's Up" in the late 1990s. Since 2 June 2012, McGowan has hosted and written ITV comedy show You Cannot Be Serious! Impressions include England manager Roy Hodgson, Eurovision Duo Jedward and TV personality Louie Spence. The Big Impression. He is best known for his work with Jan Ravens and Ronni Ancona on "The Big Impression", formerly "Alistair McGowan's Big Impression". McGowan has a repertoire of well over one hundred impersonations many of which have been covered on Alistair McGowan's Big Impression. The most popular and regular include David Beckham, Sven-GĂśran Eriksson, Gary Lineker, Nicky Campbell, Richard Madeley, Tony Blair, Prince Charles, Robert Kilroy-Silk, Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen, Angus Deayton, Terry Wogan and the fictional characters Ross Geller (from "Friends") and Dot Cotton (from "EastEnders"). McGowan and Ronni Ancona are probably best known for their portrayal of Posh and Becks with McGowan exaggerating David Beckham's perceived lack of intelligence and Ancona exaggerating the role of "Posh Spice" (Victoria Beckham) with pouting lips. As the Beckhams' style of dress regularly changed - in particular David's changing haircuts - McGowan adapted his costumes and style accordingly. In later years he developed his portrayal of Beckham into a brainiac infuriated by Posh's lack of intelligence. Return to acting and radio work (2005). He made a return to dramatic acting in 2005, appearing in the BBC's adaptation of Charles Dickens's novel "Bleak House". In 2006 he starred in the detective series "Mayo". He also presented an episode of "Have I Got News For You" on 20 October 2006. He joined the Royal Shakespeare Company for the Christmas 2006 season playing Mr Page in "Merry Wives: the Musical" (a version of "The Merry Wives of Windsor") opposite Judi Dench, Simon Callow and Haydn Gwynne. Despite his acting commitments, he has still continued a successful career of celebrity impersonator on the BBC Radio and also did re-voicing of video footages of 'The Sports Review of the Year' and "Match of the Day" which has turned him into a sideline sporting celebrity. Two releases of 'Alistair McGowan's Football Backchat' were best sellers in both comedy and sports video charts. In 2007, McGowan starred as the dentist (and other, smaller characters) in the West End transfer of the Menier Chocolate Factory's revival of "Little Shop of Horrors", and filmed "My Life in Ruins", an American comedy film set in the ruins of ancient Greece. In 2008, McGowan made his directing debut at Guildhall School of Music and Drama with NoĂŤl Coward's classic comedy Semi-Monde. In January and February 2008, McGowan starred as the eponymous protagonist of "The Mikado" by Gilbert and Sullivan, in a revival by the Carl Rosa Opera Company. On 21 April 2008 he took over the role of Emcee in "Cabaret" at London's Lyric Theatre. In July of that year he appeared in a revival of "They're Playing Our Song" at the Menier Chocolate Factory. In March 2009, McGowan starred as the Duke in the stage version of Shakespeare's Measure for Measure. Alistair appeared as a host on one episode of the fifth series of "Live at the Apollo", which aired on 1 January 2010. McGowan appeared in "Skins" in February 2011. He played Nick's coach in the fifth episode of the new series. On 12 March 2011 he played the part of the Pirate King in Gilbert and Sullivan's "The Pirates of Penzance", at the Barbican Hall, London. and, later in the year, took over from Rupert Everett the part of Henry Higgins in "Pygmalion" at the Garrick Theatre, opposite Kara Tointon as Eliza Doolittle. In April 2011 he takes to the stage at the Djanogly Theatre, Lakeside Arts Centre at the University of Nottingham in David Mamet's controversial drama "Oleanna". In 2011 he co-starred in the CBBC series "Leonardo" as Piero di Cosimo de' Medici. On 9 June 2011 he was unveiled as the newest addition to the BBC Wimbledon commentary team. Environmental work. McGowan serves as an ambassador to WWF-UK, part of the global World Wide Fund for Nature, and campaigns on a number of environmental issues. In 2004 he launched 'the BIG recycle' national campaign urging public to reduce rubbish by recycling it. On 2 August 2006, he appeared on BBC Radio 2 on Steve Wright's show to appeal to listeners to be more energy aware. More recently, he appeared on the James Whale Show on Talksport on 20 June 2007 on this issue. McGowan is a patron of the urban tree-planting charity Trees for Cities. On 13 January 2009, it was announced that McGowan in partnership with three other Greenpeace activists, including actress Emma Thompson, had bought land near Sipson, a village under threat from the proposed third runway for Heathrow Airport. It is hoped that the area of ground, half the size of a football pitch, will prevent the government from carrying through its plan to expand Heathrow. The field, bought for an undisclosed sum from a local land owner, will be split into small squares and sold across the globe. When interviewed Mr McGowan said: "BAA were so confident of getting the Government's go ahead, but we have cunningly bought the land they need to build their runway." In 2009, he attended the Bromley Environmental Awards and was the celebrity guest at Bromley Civic Centre where the awards were presented to various schools in the borough. In June 2011, it was announced that McGowan had become a Patron of the Friends of Brandwood End Cemetery, where over 30 members of his extended family are interred.
1064791	Ronald Jason "Ron" Eldard (born February 20, 1965) is an American actor. Early life. Eldard, the second youngest of seven children (4 sisters and 2 brothers), was born in Long Island, New York. Eldard's mother died in a car accident when he was a child, and Eldard and his siblings were sent to live with various family members. He attended grade school in Utah while living with his aunt and uncle. At age 13, Ron moved to Ridgewood, Queens to live with his sister Lana and her husband.
774056	Cube Zero is a 2004 Canadian psychological thriller/horror film, written and directed by Ernie Barbarash. It is the third film in the "Cube" film series, but is a prequel to the first film. Even though the first two films take place almost entirely within the maze, "Cube Zero" takes place in both the interior and exterior of the cube, making significant use of outdoor scenes. This movie explains the origins of the Cube and the people who control it. Plot. The film starts with a man, Ryjkin, trying to escape from the Cube. He enters a cube, and is sprayed with liquid, but thinks it is only water. However, when he rubs the back of his hand, a piece of flesh falls off, and he realizes that his body is disintegrating, and that he was sprayed with a very strong base. He then melts on the floor, screaming. A man named Eric watching this in an observation room with his co-worker named Dodd, reveals that it is only a recording. Afterwards, Eric is shown to be sketching a portrait of Dodd (in the form of a superhero called Chessman), whilst playing chess with Dodd, who has a chess board in front of him, which Eric is not looking at, as he is on the other table, just drawing and naming his moves. Eric is vastly intelligent, so he can already calculate all of Dodd's moves. After Eric wins, he asks Dodd questions about their missing colleagues, but Dodd tells him not to ask too many questions or get involved with the occupants of the Cube, because it wouldn't make "those upstairs" happy. Both Eric and Dodd get an order from "upstairs", which asks them to record the dream of a subject, Cassandra Rains. In her dream, Eric sees that she was captured, while walking in a pleasant forest with her daughter named Anna. After waking, Cassandra meets the other occupants of the Cube. One of the males placed in the cube, Robert Haskell, has a tattoo on his forehead like the soldier who captured Cassandra. However, Haskell, like everyone else, has no recollection of his former life, nor how he got here, he only knows his name. According to what Eric and Dodd know, everyone in The Cube was facing a death sentence and was presented a choice: Go in the Cube with their memory completely erased or be put on a death sentence. Only if a person signs the consent form will he or she then be placed in The Cube. Eric discovers that there is no consent form in Cassandra's file and argues with Dodd that they should inform the people "upstairs" about this. Meanwhile, Eric and Dodd get "lunch" from "upstairs", from the elevator, which is actually a pill containing a flavour they have ordered. Just when he is about to make a call to the superiors, the phone rings. They are instructed to perform the "exit procedure" for a subject who has reached one of the exits of the Cube and is facing his final challenge. They see that it is one of their former colleagues, Owen. During the exit procedure, Owen is first asked (by Dodd over the speaker) if he remembers his name. Owen is then asked if he believes in God, and when he answers no, Eric is ordered to press the "no" button. After he does, Owen is immediately incinerated. Eric argues with Dodd over the fate of Owen, on which he says that he said "no", and that no one said yes. Eric realizes that the Cube is inhumane, and that those "upstairs" are planning to place people in The Cube without their consent and that they will just randomly place anyone inside The Cube. He decides to enter The Cube to help Cassandra escape it. He distracts Dodd and enters the elevator, which contain only three buttons, UP (from those upstairs), MIDDLE (which is actually a place between UP and DOWN, and is pointing to their office), and DOWN (one of the entries and exits of The Cube). He selects DOWN, and enters the room.
898963	Umberto D. () is a 1952 Italian neorealist film directed by Vittorio De Sica. Most of the actors were non-professional, including Carlo Battisti, who plays the title role of Umberto Domenico Ferrari, a poor old man in Rome desperately trying to keep his room. His landlady (Lina Gennari) is evicting him, and his only true friends, the housemaid (Maria-Pia Casilio) and his dog Flike (called 'Flag' in some subtitled versions of the film) are of no help. According to Robert Osborne of Turner Classic Movies, this was De Sica's favorite of all his films. The movie was included in "Time Magazine's All-Time 100 Movies" in 2005. Plot. Police disperse an organized street demonstration of elderly men demanding a raise in their meager pensions. One of the marchers is Umberto D. Ferrari, a retired government worker. He returns to his room and finds his landlady has rented it out for an hour to an amorous couple. She threatens to evict Ferrari at the end of the month if he cannot pay the overdue rent: fifteen thousand lire. Umberto sells a watch and some books, but only raises a third of the amount. The landlady refuses to accept partial payment.
587374	Karma Aur Holi is a Bollywood drama film written and directed by débutante Manish Gupta. Plot. The film revolves around an NRI couple, desperate to have a biological child. The couple host a party to celebrate Holi, with Indian and American guests. The plot deals with the events happening further. Box office and reviews. The movie was a box office and critical failure.
1163650	Ferrah Leni "Farrah" Fawcett (February 2, 1947 – June 25, 2009) was an American actress and artist. A multiple Golden Globe and Emmy Award nominee, Fawcett rose to international fame when she posed for her iconic red swimsuit poster and for starring as private investigator Jill Munroe in the first season of the television series "Charlie's Angels" (1976–77).
584580	Mambattiyan is a 2011 Tamil action film directed by Thiagarajan, starring his son Prashanth as the titular character. The film, also starring Meera Jasmine, Prakash Raj, Vadivelu and Mumaith Khan in other pivotal roles, is a remake of the 1983 Tamil blockbuster Malaiyoor Mambattiyaan that starred Thiagarajan himself and Saritha. The film released on December 16, 2011. Plot. A landlord (Kota Srinivasa Rao) rules a village in western Tamil Nadu. When he is opposed by Mambattiyan's father (Vijayakumar), the 'jameen' kills him. Coming to know of this, Mambattiyan (Prashanth) kills the influential person and those in support of him. A group of youngsters in the village join hands with Mambattiyan. They lead a life in a forest. By robbing the rich and distributing the wealth to the poor, Mambattiyan becomes the local Robin Hood. Meanwhile, police forces led by DIG Ranjith (Prakash Raj) go from pillar to post to nab Mambattiyan. This is the start of a cat and mouse game between the two. Also, Mambattiyan has romance in the form of Kannathal (Meera Jasmine) and Sornam (Mumaith Khan). When Sornam raises a green flag that means she needs him to come an officer in disguises realizes this and reports it to prakash raj. so one by one all of his gang members die. prasath tells bullet an informer of mambattiyan to tell kannathal that they can go to another country. at the end the bullet shoots him because whoever captures mambattiyan gets a rewards of money and land so meera jasmine hits him and he dies then meera dies too. at the end prakash raj is sad that the whole village is crying and he takes prasanth's chain. Soundtrack. The soundtrack was composed by Thaman Sai.
726288	"Michael Lucas' La Dolce Vita" is a gay pornographic remake of the Federico Fellini classic "La Dolce Vita", directed by Michael Lucas and Tony Dimarco and released by Lucas Entertainment in 2006. The film stars Michael Lucas, Jason Ridge, Chad Hunt, Cole Ryan, Pete Ross, Derrick Hanson, Ray Star, Brad Star, Jack Bond, Wilson Vasquez, Jonathan Vargas, Ben Andrews, and more. It features non-sexual cameos by Savanna Samson, Kevin Aviance, Amanda Lepore, Heather Fink and Johnny Hanson. Lucas contends that the film is the most expensive gay porn film ever made due to a budget of $250,000 and multiple celebrity cameos.
583110	Yun Hota To Kya Hota (, Urdu: , ) is a 2006 Hindi drama film. The film directed by Naseeruddin Shah stars Konkona Sen Sharma, Ayesha Takia, Jimmy Shergill, Paresh Rawal, Boman Irani, Saroj Khan and Irfan Khan. The film explores four stories which eventually become intertwined with 9/11. Synopsis. The story revolves around a group of people who were not connected to each other in any way other than by ill fate. These were people from different parts of India who had traveled to the US and now were boarding the ill-fated flights that crashed into the Twin Towers and Pentagon on 9/11. The story tells us about the horror of the hijack and some of the incidents that occurred on board during those horrific minutes. Some of the characters in the film die in the accident.
583253	Ek Vivaah... Aisa Bhi (Hindi: एक विवाह... ऐसा भी) is a 2009 Bollywood romantic drama film. The film is directed by Kaushik Ghatak and stars Sonu Sood and Isha Koppikar. "Ek Vivaah... Aisa Bhi" was released on 7 November 2008 across India. Plot. Though some people found the story-line unique, but in fact, this movie is remake of Rajshree Productions own film Tapasya made in 1976 starring Rakhee Gulzar and Parikshit Sahni. It was considered a spin-off of Rajashri earlier 2006 Blockbuster Vivah starring Shahid Kapoor and Amrita Rao as the leads. "Ek Vivaah... Aisa Bhi" is the story of Chandni (Isha Koppikar) who belongs to a middle-class family living in Bhopal and Prem (Sonu Sood) who is an unconventional ghazal singer and hails from an upper-middle-class family. Chandni and Prem meet to practice for a Ghazal competition and fall in love. Just on the day of their wedding Chandni's dad dies leaving her younger brother and younger sister dependent on Chandni herself. Initially Chandni decides to leave the house and her siblings under the care of her uncle- however when she realizes that her unscrupulous uncle and aunt want only the house and care two hoots about her siblings, she decides to bring them up herself. Prem promises to wait for her and keeps assisting her in all her troubles- while at the same time having become a prominent ghazal singer and a famous one.
1042863	Doctor in the House is a 1954 British comedy film, directed by Ralph Thomas and produced by Betty Box. The screenplay, by Nicholas Phipps, Richard Gordon and Ronald Wilkinson, is based on the novel by Gordon, and follows a group of students through medical school. It was the most popular box office film of 1954 in Great Britain. Its success spawned six sequels, and also a television series entitled "Doctor in the House". It made Dirk Bogarde one of the biggest British stars of the 1950s. Other well-known British actors featured in the film were Kenneth More, Donald Sinden and Donald Houston. James Robertson Justice appeared as the irascible chief surgeon Sir Lancelot Spratt, a role he would repeat in many of the sequels. Plot. The story follows the fortunes of Simon Sparrow (Dirk Bogarde), starting as a new medical student at the fictional St Swithin's Hospital in London. His five years of student life, involving drinking, dating women, and falling foul of the rigid hospital authorities, provide many humorous incidents. When he has to leave his first choice of lodgings to get away from his landlady's amorous daughter (Shirley Eaton), he ends up with three amiable but less-than-shining fellow students as flatmates: Towering over them all is the short-tempered, demanding chief surgeon, Sir Lancelot Spratt (played by James Robertson Justice in a manner quite unlike Gordon's original literary character), who strikes terror into everyone. Simon's friends cajole him into a series of disastrous dates, first with a placidly uninterested "Rigor Mortis" (Joan Sims), then with Isobel (Kay Kendall), a woman with very expensive tastes, and finally with Joy (Muriel Pavlow), a nurse at St Swithin's. After a rocky start, he finds he likes Joy a great deal. Meanwhile, Richard is given an ultimatum by his fiancĂŠe Stella (Suzanne Cloutier) â graduate or she will leave him. He buckles down. The climax of the film is a rugby match with a rival medical school during Simon's fifth and final year. After St Swithin's wins, the other side tries to steal the school mascot, a stuffed gorilla, resulting in a riot and car chase through the streets of London. Simon and his friends are almost expelled for their part in this by the humourless Dean of St Swithin's (Geoffrey Keen). When Simon helps Joy sneak into the nurses' residence after curfew, he accidentally falls through a skylight. This second incident gets him expelled, even though he is a short time away from completing his finals. Sir Lancelot, however, has fond memories of his own student days, particularly of the Dean's own youthful indiscretion (persuading a nurse to reenact Lady Godiva's ride). His discreet blackmail gets Simon reinstated. In the end, Richard fails (as does Tony), but Stella decides to enroll at St Swithin's herself so there will be at least one doctor in the family. Simon and Taffy graduate. Production. Betty Box picked up a copy of the book at Crewe during a long rail journey. She saw its possibility as a film, but Box and Ralph Thomas had a job convincing Rank executives that people would go to a film about doctors, and that Bogarde, who up to then had played spivs and World War Two heroes, had sex appeal and could play light comedy. They got a low budget, and were only allowed to use available Rank contract artists. St Swithin's hospital is represented by the front of University College London. Kenneth More had just made "Genevieve" (1953) when he signed to appear in the cast, but that "Genevieve" had not been released yet. Accordingly his fee was only ÂŁ3,500. Sequels. "Doctor in the House" was the most popular film at the British box office in 1954. Its success resulted in six sequels, three starring Bogarde, one with Michael Craig and Leslie Phillips, and the other two with Phillips, as well as a successful television series from London Weekend Television.
1475353	The Deaths of Ian Stone is a 2007 horror film directed by Dario Piana. It stars Mike Vogel, Christina Cole, Jaime Murray, and Michael Dixon. The story centers on an American man living in Britain, Ian Stone (Vogel), who is killed each day by mysterious beings. He then enters a new existence, unaware of his prior lives. When he begins to remember past existences, he is once again in danger of being killed, with each death more gruesome than the last. Plot. Ian Stone is an average man. He loves ice hockey but lives for his girlfriend, Jenny Walker. Late one night while driving home from a painful loss on the ice, Ian comes across a bewildering discovery, that looks like a dead body near the railroad tracks. Investigating the grisly discovery, Ian is attacked by the "corpse", forced onto the tracks and subsequently run over by an oncoming train. He wakes up in an office cubicle. He's still alive, but older and living with a beautiful woman named Medea. Jenny is part of this life, but she's not his girlfriend, just a co-worker, and one of a number of apparently familiar faces. Ian meets a strange old man who tells him he is in danger. The old man tells him that he is being hunted by the Harvesters, a group of mind-controlling characters who cannot be killed and feed off human fear. He explains that everyday, at different times and different places, the clocks stop and they come after him to kill him. The only problem is that Ian won't stay dead. He wakes in a new life, a new place, only for the cycle to repeat itself. Suddenly one of the Harvesters attacks the old man and Ian runs. They chase Ian mercilessly, all the way back to his apartment where Medea, who is clearly one of them, is waiting. Once again, Ian is killed. He wakes to find he's a junkie in a rundown apartment, with Jenny living a few doors down. He implores her to remember him, desperately reaching out and searching for someone to help him make sense of what's going on. When the Harvesters come again Jenny and Ian have no choice but to run. As they seek refuge on a subway train heading out of town, Jenny confesses to her memories of Ian's former lives. Later on, the old man meets Ian in the train again while Jenny sleeps. It is then that the old man reveals that he is one of the Harvesters, and hints at Ian's involvement with them. When they disembark they are again confronted by a group of Harvesters, each a mass of pulsating veins, pitch-black muscles and flesh. Some of the barely human faces are recognizable from Ian's previous lives, including Medea who reveals a shocking truth: Ian was one of these monsters until he rebelled against the colony and managed to kill one other Harvester, and Medea used to be his "mate". Medea tries to force Ian to feed again and return to the "fold", but Ian resists. Medea and the Harvesters attack once more, and she explains that his rebellion came after his first encounter with Jenny. So moved was he by the girl that he wished to live a mortal life with her. Before Medea can harm Jenny, however, a final change comes over Ian with the help of Gray, the old Harvester who had helped him before. Apparently Ian found a sustenance that was far superior to fear or pain, and so did the old man: love. Making this connection to a human being changes the specific nature of a Harvester, which allowed the old man (and now Ian) to kill the members of their kind. Gray had beseeched Ian to protect Jenny out of experience; having lost his love to the Harvesters, he could only feed on fear again and he spent what remained of his life slowly starving himself and trying to find love again. Gray implores Ian to feed from him and tap into those emotions of affection and kinship; Gray dies while restoring Ian. Ian regains his true power: his Harvester-self is finally born out of his human flesh, uniquely exuding goodness rather than malevolence. He now has the capacity to turn the tables on these creatures and to feed on their fear and to give life. He then rescues Jenny, who is being actively stalked by his former clan. Ian creates a new life for himself and her, in which Ian is a successful professional hockey player with Jenny at his side. Jenny has no recollection of their harrowing adventure, but Ian, having realized his abilities, will begin to take the fight to the Harvesters. DVD release. "The Deaths of Ian Stone" was released on DVD March 18, 2008 Soundtrack. The film score by Elia Cmiral was released on Perseverance Records June 20, 2008.
1056703	if... is a 1968 British drama film produced and directed by Lindsay Anderson satirising English public school life. Famous for its depiction of a savage insurrection at a fictitious boys boarding school, the X certificate film was made at the time of the May 1968 protests in France by a director strongly associated with the 1960s counterculture. The film stars Malcolm McDowell in his first screen role and his first appearance as Anderson's "everyman" character Mick Travis. Richard Warwick, Christine Noonan, David Wood, and Robert Swann also star. "if..." won the Palme d'Or at the 1969 Cannes Film Festival. In 2004, the magazine "Total Film" named it the sixteenth greatest British film of all time. The Criterion Collection released the DVD on 19 June 2007. Plot. The film is set in a British independent boys boarding school in the late 1960s (most of the scenes were filmed at Cheltenham College in Gloucestershire, with the remainder at Aldenham School in Hertfordshire). Mick Travis (Malcolm McDowell) is one of three non-conformist boys among the returning class. They are watched and persecuted by the "Whips", senior boys given authority as prefects over juniors. The prefects are entitled to the services of "Scum", who are first-year boys assigned to run errands, make tea and generally act as unpaid servants. This refers to the old tradition of "fagging" which still persisted in many British independent boys' schools.
1752968	"This article is about the film. For the song, see Cutting Class (song). For the crime, see truancy Cutting Class is a 1989 slasher film directed by Rospo Pallenberg and written by Steve Slavkin. The film was Brad Pitt's first major role. Plot. The plot revolves around the return of Brian Woods (Leitch), a "problem teen." He has just been released from a mental hospital; he was admitted after the suspicious death of his father, who crashed and died while driving a car with cut brakes. He falls in love with classmate Paula Carson (The Stepfather's Jill Schoelen), but the local basketball star Dwight Ingalls (Brad Pitt) is already Paula's boyfriend. Meanwhile, the lecherous school principal also seeks Paula's affections. Then horrible murders start happening with no one certain of the identity of the culprit. The main suspects are Dwight, whose control of his anger has never been perfect; Woods, who may not have been fully cured at the sanitarium; and the principal, who seems to stop at nothing in his attempts to bed Paula. The film opens with a paperboy delivering newspapers. A paper is delivered to Paula Carson's house. Paula is approached by her father, Bill, who is an attorney, who has planned a hunting trip. He warns Paula to do her homework, not to allow boys in the house, and most importantly not to cut class. Paula then puts the newspaper in the bin, showing its headline: "Boy who killed father released from Mental Asylum." Bill Carson drives to the swamps for his hunting trip. As he takes shots into the air, someone is hiding nearby and holding a set of bows and arrows. The person calls over to Bill Carson and fires an arrow into him. Bill cries out and then falls down to the ground. Meanwhile, Dwight Ingalls enters class late after avoiding two accidents on his ride to school. Dwight is questioned by his teacher, Mr. Conklin, and a girl sitting next to Dwight whispers the answers to him. Dwight tells her to shut up when she teases Dwight for not knowing what H2O is. Later, Colleen and Paula are taking out gym equipment. Paula walks past a set of bows and arrows and notices a leaf hanging off the arrow. Paula picks the leaf off and then eats it. Meanwhile, Brian is told to climb a rope by the P.E. coach, but Dwight caused him to fall. At a hot dog stand, Colleen, Paula, and Gary are waiting for Dwight. Brian approaches, and Colleen insults him before suggesting that Brian has a crush on Paula. Dwight then pulls up in his car and starts talking to Paula. He asks her to go to her house, as her father is away, which would give them the opportunity to be alone. Dwight then goes to buy Paula a hotdog, but he is beaten by Brian who hands her one and says, "You had that look." When Dwight returns, he tells Paula to get in the car and makes it clear to Brian that they are not friends anymore and to leave him and Paula alone. They all then drive off in Dwight's car. Brian and Paula nevertheless become friends, and she starts to trust him. Dwight warns her to stay away from him. A teacher is murdered in the copyroom, and the students notice that the killer made copies of the killing on the copy machine. The teacher's face is shown smashed into the copy machine glass along with a ring on the killer's finger. The ring belongs to Dwight. Soon they think that Dwight (Brad Pitt) is the killer instead of Brian. Brian tries to kill Paula, Dwight, and a math teacher in the school, and the janitor happens to be around at the time. Every classroom they run into, Brian starts talking to Paula and the math teacher through the PA in the principal's office. Paula still thinks that Dwight is the killer, and she is still running from him. Soon Brian goes into the classroom after hacking the math teacher to death. Dwight enters and gets Brian off of Paula, and they run out to the shop class and hide after Brian exclaims, "YOU'RE A YANKEE DOODLE DANDY TOO; YOU TWO MUST KILL OR DIE!" Brian knows they are in there, so he follows them while locking them in and turning on all the equipment. Brian corners Dwight and puts his head in a vice and points a drill towards his face. Paula ends up striking Brian in the head with a claw hammer, making him fall onto a moving circular saw, which goes right through his torso as Paula frees Dwight. They leave the school and are in Dwight's car when, all of a sudden, they see Paula's dad - he has been on a trip but in actuality he was the lawyer that put Brian in the sanitarium. Brian had kidnapped Paula's dad, and he had escaped and made it home. Paula points out that it is her dad. He is on the road, but Dwight cannot stop because Brian cut the brakes earlier. They swerve and miss hitting Paula's dad. All he says is, "Shouldn't you be in school? You're not cutting class, I hope!" The movie ends with the camera's freezing on Paula's face. Critical reception. The movie was received negatively by critics. Film Threat, while not particular positive towards the film, called it "good campy fun with some of the dumbest scenes you can grab from a slasher of this decade." It has an approval rating of 29% on review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, based on 7 reviews.
589353	Raampur Ka Lakshman is a 1972 Indian Hindi movie directed by Manmohan Desai. Synopsis. Kedarnath Bhargav, his wife, Laxmi, and two sons, Ram and Lakshman, are homeless. While traveling, their train derails, and the family is separated into three groups. Laxmi works as a maidservant in the house of Bombay's mayor and his daughter, Rekha. Ram is abducted by a career criminal. Kedarnath and Lakshman are together. Ratanlal Verma, a kind-hearted man with a son named Prakash, comes to Lakshman's rescue, is run over by a truck and crippled. Kedarnath and Lakshman relocate to Ratanlal's village, Raampur, and they live together as one family.
583402	Saat Rang Ke Sapne is a 1998 Hindi film directed by Priyadarshan. It is a remake of his own "Thenmavin Kombath", a blockbuster Malayalam movie starring Mohanlal and Shobana in 1994. The movie stars Arvind Swamy and Juhi Chawla. It was produced by Amitabh Bachchan. Plot. Forced into marriage with a mentally deranged man, Yashoda (Farida Jalal) gives birth to a child, only to have her husband kill himself and the child, leaving her devastated and alone. This leaves her brother, Bhanu (Anupam Kher) angry and bitter at this loss, and swears to avenge this humiliation. His vengeance is satisfied every year when he asks his employee and close friend, Mahipal (Arvind Swamy) to run a bullock-cart race, and defeat his sister's in-laws, and every year Mahipal wins. Bhanu, in his mid forties, has still not married, although he used to actively woo a village belle (Aruna Irani), who still has feelings for him. One day Bhanu and Mahipal give a ride in their bullock-cart to a couple, Baldev (Satish Shah), and his sister Jalima (Juhi Chawla), who are travelling and performing gypsies. During this ride, Bhanu hopelessly falls in love with Jalima, on one hand, and Mahipal wants to ditch the couple midway, as he does not like them. A series of hilarious and comical events highlight this eventful trip.
1062157	Susannah York (9 January 1939 – 15 January 2011) was an English film, stage and television actress. She was awarded a BAFTA as Best Supporting Actress for "They Shoot Horses, Don't They?" (1969) and was nominated for an Oscar and Golden Globe for the same film. She won best actress for "Images" at the 1972 Cannes Film Festival. In 1991 she was appointed an Officier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. Her appearances in various hit films of the 1960s formed the basis of her international reputation, and an obituary in "The Telegraph" characterised her as "the blue-eyed English rose with the china-white skin and cupid lips who epitomised the sensuality of the swinging Sixties". Early life. York was born Susannah Yolande Fletcher in Chelsea, London, in 1939, the younger daughter of Simon William Peel Vickers Fletcher (1910–2002), a merchant banker and steel magnate, and his first wife, the former Joan Nita Mary Bowring – they married in 1935 and divorced prior to 1943. Her maternal grandfather was Walter Andrew Bowring, CBE, a British diplomat who served as Administrator of Dominica (1933–1935); she was a great-great-granddaughter of political economist Sir John Bowring. York had an elder sister, as well as a half-brother, Eugene Xavier Charles William Peel Fletcher, from her father's second marriage to Pauline de Bearnez de Morton de La Chapelle. In early 1943, her mother married a Scottish businessman, Adam M. Hamilton, and moved, with her daughter, to Scotland. At the age of 11 York entered Marr College in Troon, Ayrshire. Later she became a boarder at Wispers School, a school housed in Wispers, a Norman Shaw-designed country house in the Sussex village of Stedham. At 13 she was removed – effectively expelled – from Wispers after owning up to a naked midnight swim in the school pool, and she transferred to East Haddon Hall in Northamptonshire.
1067233	Martian Child is a 2007 American comedy-drama film about a writer who adopts a strange young boy who believes himself to be from Mars. "Martian Child" was released on November 2, 2007. The film was directed by Menno Meyjes and produced by New Line Cinema. It stars John Cusack and Bobby Coleman. The MPAA rating system rated the film with a PG for thematic elements and mild language. Plot. David Gordon (John Cusack), a popular science fiction author, lost his wife Mary when they were trying to adopt a child. Two years later, David is finally matched with a young boy named Dennis (Bobby Coleman). Socially awkward, Dennis believes he is from Mars and only goes outdoors when under the cover of a large box to block out the sun's harmful rays. Although initially hesitant to adopt a boy by himself, David recognizes a part of him in Dennis and slowly coaxes him out of the box and into his home. With the help of David's friend Harlee (Amanda Peet) and sister Liz (played by Cusack's real life sister Joan), David and Dennis begin an arduous process of learning about each other, from Dennis's incessant photo-taking habits, his inclination to eat only Lucky Charms, and his perpetual stealing, to David's continuing love of his wife, his love of baseball and his own struggles to be accepted by others. As David teaches Dennis how to be an "Earthling," father and son earn each other's trust and eventually find someone who will love them unequivocally. Background and production. The film is based on David Gerrold's award-winning semi-autobiographical novelette "The Martian Child", which he later expanded to novel length. Gerrold had, in real life, adopted a son as an openly gay man. The novelette leaves the sexuality of the narrator undisclosed, however, the novel version identifies him as gay. In the film, the protagonist is straight and has a female love interest, a development which inspired criticism from members of the gay community. Reception. "Martian Child"'s box office performance was poor, grossing only a little more than US$9 million. Rental and DVD sales of the film were good, although not enough to match the amount of money used to produce the film. Critical reception was mixed to negative, with a 33% "Rotten" rating on Rotten Tomatoes. DVD release. "Martian Child" was released on DVD on February 12, 2008. It opened at #20 the DVD sales chart, selling 69,000 units for revenue of $1.3 million. As per the latest figures, 400,000 DVD units have been sold, acquiring revenue of $7,613,945. This does not include DVD rentals/Blu-ray sales.
1055712	Shawn Robert Ashmore (born October 7, 1979) is a Canadian film and television actor, perhaps best known for his role as Jake in the "Animorphs" television series and Iceman in the "X-Men" films. He is the twin brother of actor Aaron Ashmore. Early life. Ashmore was born in Richmond, British Columbia, the son of Linda, a homemaker, and Rick Ashmore, a manufacturing engineer. He was raised in St. Albert, Alberta and Brampton, Ontario, where he attended Turner Fenton Secondary School, and Earnscliffe Senior Public School. His twin brother, Aaron Ashmore, is also an actor. Aaron and Shawn have played twins in several movies, but have also pursued roles independently. Aaron is slightly taller than Shawn and, according to Aaron, Shawn often gets cast as the nice guy while Aaron himself is cast as the bully. Career. One of Ashmore's notable roles was as Iceman in "X-Men" and its sequels "X2" and "". Ashmore also reprised his role as Iceman in the animated series "The Super Hero Squad Show", as well as voicing the role for "". Ashmore starred as Cadet Major Brad Rigby in "Cadet Kelly", a Disney Channel original film which aired in 2002 and he also guest-starred as Eric Summers in two episodes of "Smallville", a series on which his brother was later cast in the role of Jimmy Olsen. Ashmore also had starring roles on "Animorphs" as Jake Berenson and "In a Heartbeat" as Tyler Connell. In December 2004, Ashmore was cast in the lead role in the SciFi Channel mini series "Legend of Earthsea", based on the novels by Ursula K. Le Guin. He played the role of Ged, a young wizard-in-training, who takes advice from a Magus (Danny Glover) and falls in love with Tenar (Kristin Kreuk), the protege of the High Priestess of the Tombs of Atuan (Isabella Rossellini). In 2005, Ashmore starred in a CTV TV movie about Terry Fox's historic run across Canada, which aired in September of that year. In 2008, he starred as one of the leads in the 2008 horror film "The Ruins". Ashmore was cast in Adam Green's 2010 dramatic thriller "Frozen" as Joe Lynch. Ashmore also starred in the apocalyptic siege warfare film "The Day" with Dominic Monaghan, Michael Eklund, Shannyn Sossamon, and Ashley Bell, as well as television drama series "The Following", starring Kevin Bacon and will return as Iceman for "". Personal life. On July 27, 2012, Ashmore married film executive Dana Renee Wasdin, whom he met while filming "Frozen".
1166310	John Joseph "Jack" Haley (August 10, 1898 – June 6, 1979) was an American stage, radio, and film actor best known for his portrayal of the Tin Man in the now-classic film "The Wizard of Oz". In the same film, he also played Hickory, one of the three farmhands that Dorothy, in her "dream", imagines as the Scarecrow, the Tin Man, and the Cowardly Lion. Early life. Haley was born in Boston to Irish Americans John Joseph Haley and his wife Ellen Curley. He was one of six children. The family left Boston soon after Jack's birth, settling first in Atlantic City, New Jersey, and finally in Terre Haute, Indiana. Career. Haley starred in vaudeville as a song-and-dance comedian. One of his closest friends was Fred Allen, who would frequently mention "Mr. Jacob Haley of Newton Highlands, Massachusetts" on the air. In the early 1930s, Haley starred in comedy shorts for Vitaphone in Brooklyn, New York. His wide-eyed, good-natured expression gained him supporting roles in musical feature films, including "Poor Little Rich Girl" with Shirley Temple, "Higher and Higher" with Frank Sinatra and the Irving Berlin musical "Alexander's Ragtime Band". Both "Poor Little Rich Girl" and "Alexander's Ragtime Band" were released by Twentieth Century-Fox. Haley was under contract to them and appeared in the Fox films "Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm" and "Pigskin Parade", marking his first appearance with Judy Garland. Haley returned to musical comedies in the 1940s. Most of his '40s work was for RKO Radio Pictures. He surrendered the job in 1947 when he refused to appear in a remake of RKO's old story property "Seven Keys to Baldpate"; Phillip Terry took the role. "The Tin Man" in "The Wizard of Oz". Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer hired Haley for "The Wizard of Oz" after another song-and-dance comic, Buddy Ebsen, who was originally set to play the Tin Man, suffered a nearly fatal reaction from inhaling the aluminium dust makeup. The makeup was switched to a paste, to avoid causing the same reaction for Haley. The makeup did cause an eye infection, which caused Haley to miss four days of filming, but treatment prevented permanent damage. Haley did not remember the makeup or the costume very kindly. Interviewed about the film years later by Tom Snyder, he said that many have commented that making the film must have been fun. Haley said, "Like hell it was; it was work!" Haley's natural voice (which he used for the "Hickory" character) was moderately gruff. For the Tin Woodman, he spoke more softly, which was the tone of voice he used reading stories to his children. "Oz" was one of only two films Haley made for MGM. The other was "Pick a Star", a 1937 Hal Roach production distributed by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Personal life. Haley was raised Roman Catholic. He was a member of the Good Shepherd Parish and the Catholic Motion Picture Guild in Beverly Hills, California. He married Florence McFadden, a native of Wilkes Barre, Pennsylvania on February 25, 1921, and they were married until his death. Flo Haley opened a successful beauty shop and had many film personalities among her customers.
901771	David Prowse, MBE (born 1 July 1935) is an English former bodybuilder, weightlifter and actor, most widely known for playing the role of Darth Vader (though James Earl Jones voiced the character). In Britain, he is also remembered as having played the Green Cross Code man. Prowse is a native of Bristol, where he attended Bristol Grammar School. Career. Darth Vader. Prowse is best known for playing the physical form of Darth Vader in the original "Star Wars" trilogy. James Earl Jones, however, provided the voice for the character. Prowse spoke the dialogue during the making of the films, and didn't actually know Vader was Luke's father until he saw ' in the cinema (which he considers to be his favourite of the trilogy). Although he was never going to be used as the voice of Darth Vader, Prowse claims he was originally told that he would be seen and heard at the end of ' when Vader's mask was removed. This did not end up happening, as actor Sebastian Shaw was brought in instead. Lucas claims he wanted a 'darker voice' (specifically a deep, reverberating voice) and never intended to use Prowse's voice, which had a West Country accent. In the 2004 documentary, "Empire of Dreams", actress Carrie Fisher, who played Princess Leia Organa in the original trilogy films, quipped that they nicknamed Prowse "Darth Farmer" because of his un-intimidating West Country accent. In the lightsaber battle scenes between Vader and Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill), Prowse, who was not a skilled swordsman, was doubled by the scene's fight-choreographer, the stuntman and fencing coach Bob Anderson (who also taught the sword fighters in "The Princess Bride" and "Lord of the Rings"). Prowse reprised his role of Darth Vader for the video games "Monopoly Star Wars" and "". Prowse continues to associate himself with his role in the "Star Wars" films and is involved in the convention circuit. Despite this, he has not been included in recent reunions of the original cast, such as those for the "Empire of Dreams" documentary and the 2005 "Vanity Fair" cover. He admitted, while being interviewed by Kevin Moore of "The Moore Show Prime Time", about his dislike for the prequel trilogy and felt that the new films were "out of context in terms of special effects in comparison to the original trilogy". In July 2007, Prowse joined many others from the "Star Wars" films for the first ever Star Wars Celebration event held outside the United States. It was run by Lucasfilm Ltd. and the Cards Inc. Group, at the ExCeL Exhibition Centre in London. The occasion was to mark the 30th anniversary of "Star Wars". Recently he played a small cameo role in Star Wars fanfilms "Order of the Sith: Vengeance" and its sequel "Downfall" – "Order of the Sith" – alongside Jeremy Bulloch and Michael Sheard. These fanfilms were made in Britain in support of the charity Save the Children. In 2008, he was one of the cast members featured on Justin Lee Collins's "Bring Back...Star Wars". In the film, Prowse commented that he had a dispute with George Lucas after he allegedly leaked reports of Darth Vader's death to the press. Subsequently the appearance of Darth Vader was to be played by Sebastian Shaw and not Prowse. Prowse claims his contract for "Return of the Jedi" included a share of profits on the film, and although it grossed $475 million on a $32 million budget, Prowse explained in an interview in 2009 that he has never received residuals for his performance. Due to "Hollywood accounting", the actual profits are sent as "distribution fees" to the studio, leaving nothing to distribute to others. In July 2010, Prowse was banned from attending official "Star Wars" fan conventions after "annoying" director George Lucas. Lucas has given Prowse no reason, other than stating that Prowse "burnt too many bridges" between Lucasfilm and himself. Other roles. Within the United Kingdom, Prowse is also well known as the Green Cross Code Man, a superhero invented to promote a British road safety campaign for children in 1975. As a result of his association with the campaign, which ran between 1971 and 1990, he received the MBE in 2000. He had a role as F. Alexander's bodyguard Julian in the 1971 film "A Clockwork Orange", in which he was noticed by the future Star Wars director George Lucas. He played a circus strongman in 1972's "Vampire Circus", a Minotaur in the 1972 "Doctor Who" serial "The Time Monster", and an android named Copper in "The Tomorrow People" in 1973. He also appeared in an episode of "", "The Beta Cloud" in 1976 right before he was cast as Darth Vader. Around that time, he also appeared as the Black Knight in the Terry Gilliam film "Jabberwocky" (1977). He had a small role as Hotblack Desiato's bodyguard in the 1981 BBC TV adaptation of "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy". He also appeared in the first series of "Ace of Wands" on LWT and as a bodyguard in "Callan". He played Charles, the duke's wrestler, in the BBC Television Shakespeare production of "As You Like It" in 1978. Prowse played Frankenstein's monster twice, in "The Horror of Frankenstein" and Frankenstein and the Monster from Hell. Prowse also made two uncredited appearances on "The Benny Hill Show". On Hill's first show for Thames Television in 1969, he played a briefs-clad muscleman in the "Ye Olde Wishing Well" quickie, and in 1984 he showed off his muscles in a sketch set to the song "Stupid Cupid." The earlier routine was also featured in the 1974 film "The Best of Benny Hill", in which he was credited. Amongst his many non-speaking roles, Prowse played a major speaking role in a late episode of "The Saint" broadcast in 1969. In May 2010, he played Frank Bryan in "The Kindness of Strangers", an independent British film produced by Queen Bee Films. The film screened at the 2010 Cannes Film Festival. Other activities. Prowse won the British heavyweight weightlifting championship in 1962 and the following two years. He represented England in the weightlifting event at the 1962 British Empire and Commonwealth Games in Perth, Western Australia. He helped train Christopher Reeve for the role of Superman in the 1978 film and its sequels after lobbying for the part himself. In a television interview, he related how his response to being told "we've found our Superman" was "Thank you very much." Only then was he told that Reeve had been chosen for the role and he was to only be a trainer. He also trained Cary Elwes for his role as Westley in "The Princess Bride". Prowse is now the official leader of the 501st Legion, a fan group dedicated to "Star Wars" costuming. In January 2009, Prowse teamed up with respected musician Jayce Lewis after the pair managing his band. Jayce Lewis signed a five-year deal with industry giant EMI Records. Later, Prowse and Lewis formed an association with Dave being his sole contact for PR – an alliance that has proven very successful. On 13 May 2009, Prowse publicly declared his support for the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) in the European Parliament election, 2009. Prowse said that "I've looked right and left and right again and the only party I can safely vote for is UKIP," and "And I have two messages for those considering how to vote. Firstly, stop, look and listen to what is being said. Only UKIP is actually telling us the truth about the European Union and why we need to leave it. Secondly, may June the fourth be with you." Personal life. In 1999, it was rumoured that thieves broke into Prowse's home and stole the lightsaber he used in the "Star Wars" trilogy and several of his other possessions. However, after a discussion with Prowse on 4 May 2007, he said that the "lightsaber" was actually a toy and not an original prop. He explained that the story printed about the break-in concentrated on the supposed "lightsaber" and not on the jewellery and other valuables taken. He further said that he was never given any of the props from the Star Wars films. Prowse has been married since 1963 and is the father of three children. He is a prominent supporter of Bristol Rugby Club. Health problems. Prowse has suffered from arthritis for much of his life. That has led to replacements of both hips and his ankle being fused, as well as several revisionary surgeries on his hip replacements. Prowse's arthritic symptoms first appeared at age 13, but seemingly disappeared when he took up competitive weightlifting. However, they reappeared in 1990. In 2001, Prowse's left arm became paralysed, followed by his right. He was diagnosed with septic arthritis caused by an infection he attributes to an allergy to some of the non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs he was prescribed, which nearly killed him. The amount of surgery he has had has also drastically reduced his height. In his younger days he stood 6 feet 5 inches (196 cm). Today, Prowse works with various arthritis organisations in Britain and is vice-president of the Physically Handicapped and Able-bodied Association. In March 2009, Prowse revealed that he is suffering from prostate cancer and has undergone radiation therapy since the beginning of 2009 at the Royal Marsden Hospital in south London. He discovered that he had the cancer following his participation in a charity event in aid of a prostate cancer charity, where a representative of the charity asked whether, as a man over 50, he had had a PSA test The conversation stayed in his mind, and on a future visit to a GP, he requested the blood test that eventually led to diagnosis. As of 2009 he is in remission.
1165352	George Peabody Macready, Jr. (August 29, 1899 – July 2, 1973), was an American stage, film, and television actor often cast in roles as polished villains. Background. Macready was born in Providence, Rhode Island, and graduated there from Classical High School (1917) and, in 1921, from Brown University, where he was a member of Delta Phi fraternity and won a letter as the football team manager. While in college, Macready was injured in an accident in a Model T Ford. He sustained a permanent scar on his right cheek, having been thrust through the windshield while traveling on an icy road when the vehicle skidded and hit a telephone pole. The injury, along with his high brow and perfect diction, gave Macready the Gothic look of an authoritarian or villainous character. Macready was stitched up by a veterinarian, but he caught scarlet fever during the ordeal. Macready first worked in a bank in Providence and was then briefly a newspaperman in New York City before he turned to stage acting. He claimed to have been descended from the 19th century Shakespearean actor William Charles Macready. He made his Broadway debut in 1926 in "The Scarlet Letter". Through 1958, he appeared in fifteen plays, both drama and comedy, including "The Barretts of Wimpole Street", based on the family of the English poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Acting career. Macready's penchant for acting was spurred in part by the director Richard Boleslawski. His Shakespearean stage credits include Benedick in "Much Ado About Nothing" (1927), Malcolm in "Macbeth" (1928), and Paris in "Romeo and Juliet" (1934). On film, he played Marallus in the 1953 film adaptation of Shakespeare's "Julius Caesar". He also played Prince Ernst in the original stage version of "Victoria Regina" (1936), starring Helen Hayes. His first film was "Commandos Strike at Dawn" in 1942, featuring Paul Muni. As Ballin Mundson in "Gilda" (1946), Macready is part of a deadly love triangle with the characters played by co-stars Rita Hayworth and Glenn Ford. He would again play opposite Ford several years later in the post-war adventure "The Green Glove" (1952). Stanley Kubrick's anti-war film, "Paths of Glory" (1957), provided his other great role, self-serving French World War I General Paul Mireau, who is brought down by Kirk Douglas's character, Colonel Dax. He had worked with Douglas previously in "Detective Story" (1951) and later he appeared with Douglas again in John Frankenheimer's "Seven Days in May" (1964). Macready also leaped into the Golden Age of Television. He made four guest appearances on Raymond Burr's "Perry Mason", including the role of murder victim Milo Girard in the 1958 episode, "The Case of the Purple Woman." He also appeared regularly in such series as Dick Powell's "Four Star Playhouse", Ronald W. Reagan's "General Electric Theater", "The Ford Television Theatre", "Alfred Hitchcock Presents", "Adventures in Paradise", and "The Islanders". He appeared in many western television series, including "Bat Masterson", "Bonanza", "The Dakotas", "Gunsmoke", "Have Gun - Will Travel", "The Rebel" (once in the role of Confederate General Robert E. Lee), "The Rifleman", "Lancer", "Riverboat", "The Rough Riders", Chill Wills's "Frontier Circus", Rory Calhoun's "The Texan", and Steve McQueen's "".
960681	Overnight is a 2003 documentary by Tony Montana and Mark Brian Smith. The film details the rise and fall of filmmaker and musician Troy Duffy, the writer-director of "The Boondock Saints", and was filmed at his request. Duffy is presented as a victim of his own ego, and as the film progresses and his fortunes fade Duffy becomes increasingly abusive to his friends, relatives and business partners. According to co-director Montana, "Troy seemed to revel in the attention of Hollywood's lights and our cameras. Only three times during the production did he ask not to be filmed. It was on those occasions that he threatened us." Plot. "Overnight" is the story of Troy Duffy, a Boston bartender and aspiring screenwriter who is also a musician in a band called "The Brood," along with his brother Taylor. At the beginning of the film, Troy is riding high: his script for "The Boondock Saints" has just been picked up by Miramax chief Harvey Weinstein for $300,000 and Duffy has been taken on by the William Morris Agency. Duffy, who had never made a movie or attended film school, will also direct the $15 million film. Moreover, his band will produce the soundtrack and get a recording contract from Maverick Records, and Weinstein will buy the bar Duffy works in and hire Duffy to run it. Duffy initially enjoys his new success, entertaining celebrities in his bar, dining at hotel restaurants, and moving into a production office where he holds teleconferences with producers. The movie deal, however, quickly turns sour, partially due to Duffy's own arrogant behavior. Believing himself to be the next power-player in Hollywood, Duffy insults actors who are in consideration for "Boondock" (including Ethan Hawke and Keanu Reeves, and Kenneth Branagh, whose name Duffy repeatedly mispronounces before simply calling him "cunt"). Duffy threatens to leave William Morris in favor of a rival agency, and generally alienates both Weinstein and his own production team through his abrasive behavior. Ultimately, Duffy receives word of rumors that Weinstein, one of the most powerful producers in Hollywood, has had him blacklisted; Miramax puts the film in turnaround, conference calls are refused, and soon Duffy is without any movie industry contract at all.
1664232	Aaron Richard Ashmore (born October 7, 1979) is a Canadian film and television actor, perhaps best known for his roles in American TV shows, as Jimmy Olsen in "Smallville" and as Steve Jinks in "Warehouse 13". He is the twin brother of actor Shawn Ashmore. Career. Aaron Ashmore is best known for playing Marc Hall in the 2004 Canadian TV movie "". Since then, he has appeared in the films "Safe", "A Separate Peace", and "A Bear Named Winnie". He has also had guest roles on television shows such as "The Eleventh Hour", "The West Wing", and "1-800-Missing". Ashmore played the recurring role of Troy Vandegraff on The WB television series "Veronica Mars", and is currently playing the role of Agent Steve Jinks on the Syfy show "Warehouse 13". He was cast as Jimmy Olsen, first love interest of Chloe Sullivan, for the sixth season of "Smallville" on the WB television network and continued to play him into its eighth season. Two years after leaving the show, Ashmore returns to play his character's younger brother on the series finale. Coincidentally, his friend Sam Huntington played Olsen in "Superman Returns" and the two have both appeared in "Veronica Mars". Ashmore's twin brother appeared on "Smallville" in earlier seasons. Besides his recurring role on "Smallville", Ashmore had roles in the 2007 films "Palo Alto", "Privileged", "The Stone Angel" and "The Christmas Cottage". Aaron starred the horror film "Fear Island", with Haylie Duff in Vancouver. MTV.ca announced on October 6, 2010, that he will have a role in Maple Pictures comedy film "Servitude", which stars Joe Dinicol, Lauren Collins, Linda Kash, and John Bregar. Servitude is to start filming in November. Personal life. Aaron and his twin brother Shawn were born in Richmond, British Columbia, and raised in Brampton, Ontario, where he attended Turner Fenton Secondary School, and Earnscliffe Senior Public School. They have a "GMA" tattoo on their wrists that stands for "Good Man Ashmore". Their grandfather had a similar tattoo.
1070224	Dick Crockett (February 27, 1915 – January 25, 1979), born Richard DeHart Crockett, was an American television and film actor, stunt performer, stunt coordinator, producer, and director. Crockett was born in Maywood, Illinois. The first film he worked on was "Room Service" in 1938. The following year he began acting and doing stunt work in "Bachelor Mother" and "The Hunchback of Notre Dame" respectively.
589135	Pradeep Kumar (born Pradeep Batabyal; 4 January 1925 - 27 October 2001) was an Indian actor in Bengali and Hindi films. Career. When Kumar was 17 years old, he decided to take up acting. His started his film career in Bengali films. His notable roles in Bengali films were in "Alaknanda"(1947) directed by renowned filmmaker Debaki Bose and in '"42" (1951).
944832	Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House (1948) is an American comedy film directed by H. C. Potter and starring Cary Grant and Myrna Loy. The film was written and produced by the team of Melvin Frank and Norman Panama, and was an adaptation of Eric Hodgins' popular 1946 novel, illustrated by William Steig.
1034639	Vivian Pickles (born 21 October 1931), is an English actress. She began her career as a child star after being chosen by Mary Field for a series of Saturday Morning children's films, including the lead roles in "Jean's Plan" (1944) and the serial "The Adventures of Peter Joe" (1945). At the age of 14, she starred as Alice in George More O'Ferrall's BBC film of "Alice in Wonderland" which was broadcast live from Alexandra Palace in London. During this period, she acted at the Q Theatre in "Vice Versa" with Charles Hawtrey and made her West End debut as Wee Willie Winkie in "Land of the Xmas Stocking" at the Duke of York's Theatre, with Richard Goolden. After being educated at Le Collège Feminin de Bouffément in Paris, she started her adult acting career in repertory and progressed to featured roles in West End revues. In 1952, she appeared with Roger Moore in "I Capture the Castle" at the Aldwych Theatre. The production won Roger Moore an MGM contract. When Moore left for Hollywood, Bill Travers assumed Moore's role. In 1959, she worked with her future husband, Gordon Gostelow in "Glimpse of the Sea" by Willis Hall at the Lyric Theatre, Hammersmith. In February 1961, she appeared with Henry Kendall in the first performance of "Pool's Paradise" at the Phoenix Theatre. Pickles' imperious performance in the world premiere of John Osborne's "Plays for England" at the Royal Court Theatre (on 19 July 1962) garnered considerable attention as well as praise by Osborne in his autobiography, "Looking Back". The following year, Pickles appeared with Peter O'Toole in London in Berthold Brecht's "Baal" at the Phoenix Theatre (in April 1963). Hired by Ken Russell for a supporting role for the BBC film, "Diary of a Nobody" (1964), she graduated to the lead role in Russell's film about Isadora Duncan ("Isadora Duncan, the Biggest Dancer in the World" (1966)). She received several awards for her performance in that film, including Best Actress at the Monte Carlo International Festival. In 1967, she appeared in Giles Cooper's BBC adaptation of Evelyn Waugh's "Sword of Honour" trilogy and also in "Pride and Prejudice". Her appearance in "Isadora Duncan, the Biggest Dancer in the World" helped Pickles win the role of Mrs. Chasen in Hal Ashby's cult classic "Harold and Maude", playing Harold's weary mother. It is the only American-based film she has made to date. In the booklet accompanying the soundtrack album of the film, Ashby was quoted as saying: "Vivian Pickles is one of the finest actresses in the world. I'd seen the thing that she did for Ken Russell - 'Isadora'". Another memorable performance on British television was as Mary, Queen of Scots, in "Elizabeth R" (1971). She was reunited onscreen with Glenda Jackson in John Schlesinger's film, "Sunday Bloody Sunday" (1971), in which she played the bohemian mother who employed Jackson as a babysitter. Other notable screen roles include "Play Dirty" (with Michael Caine); "Nicholas and Alexandra", as well as two films for Lindsay Anderson — "O Lucky Man!", in which she plays the good lady feeding the downtrodden in London, and the pivotal role of the Matron in "Britannia Hospital" (1982). She also played Lady Montdore in the Thames Television series "Love in a Cold Climate" in 1980. Her later television films include Alan Bennett's "The Insurance Man" (1986), with Daniel Day-Lewis and Jim Broadbent. On the stage, she worked again for Alan Bennett in the world premiere production of "Kafka's Dick" at the Royal Court Theatre. She can be seen in repeats of "Midsomer Murders", and does radio work. Personal life. She lives in London, and was married to New Zealand actor Gordon Gostelow for 43 years until his death in 2007. She has a son, Harry Gostelow (born 1964).
930360	John Reardon (born July 30, 1975 in Halifax, Nova Scotia) is a Canadian actor and former Canadian football player. Reardon currently plays Blake Laviolette on the CBC Television series "Arctic Air" and has a recurring role as Greg Cameron on the Showcase series "Continuum". Reardon studied Shakespeare at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) in London as well as improv comedy at The Second City in Los Angeles and Toronto. While at Mount Allison University, Reardon considered pursuing a career in medicine, but growing up, his dream was to become a professional athlete. He was a Canadian former all-star college football player for Mount Allison from 1993 to 1997. He started acting in 2001 and has appeared in several TV shows and movies, such as "Tru Calling" as Randall Thompson, "White Chicks" as Heath, "Scary Movie 4" as Jeremiah and "Merlin's Apprentice" as Jack. Starting in 2013, he has roles on both CBC's "Arctic Air" and Showcase's "Continuum".
899749	Silvana Mangano (; 21 April 1930 – 16 December 1989) was an Italian actress. Raised in poverty during World War II, Mangano trained as a dancer and worked as a model before winning a "Miss Rome" beauty pageant in 1946. This led to work in films; she achieved a notable success in "Bitter Rice" (1949) and continued working in films for almost four more decades. Early life. Born in Rome to an Italian father and an English mother (Ivy Webb from Croydon), Mangano lived in poverty caused by the Second World War. Trained for seven years as a dancer, she was supporting herself as a model. In 1946, at age 16, Mangano won the "Miss Rome" beauty pageant and through this, she obtained a role in a Mario Costa film. One year later, she became a contestant in the Miss Italia contest. Potential actress Lucia Bosé became "The Queen", among Mangano and several other future stars of Italian cinema such as Gina Lollobrigida, Eleonora Rossi Drago and Gianna Maria Canale. Film career. Mangano's earliest connection with filmmaking occurred through her romantic relationship with actor Marcello Mastroianni. This led her to a film contract, though it would take some time for Mangano to ascend to international stardom with her performance in "Bitter Rice" ("Riso Amaro", Giuseppe De Santis, 1949). Thereafter, she signed a contract with Lux Film, in 1949, and later married Dino De Laurentiis, on the verge of becoming a known producer. Though she never scaled the heights of her contemporaries Sophia Loren and Gina Lollobrigida, Mangano remained a favorite star between the 1950s and 1970s, appearing in "Anna" (Alberto Lattuada, 1951), "The Gold of Naples" ("L'oro di Napoli", Vittorio De Sica, 1954), "Mambo" (Robert Rossen, 1955), "Theorem" ("Teorema", Pier Paolo Pasolini, 1968), "Death in Venice" ("Morte a Venezia", Luchino Visconti, 1971), and "The Scientific Cardplayer" (1972). The Bosnian singer Silvana Armenulić took her stage name from Mangano. Personal life. Married to "Bitter Rice" producer Dino De Laurentiis from 1949, the couple had four children: Veronica, Raffaella, Francesca, and Federico. Veronica's daughter Giada De Laurentiis is host of "Everyday Italian" and "Giada at Home" on the Food Network. Raffaella coproduced with her father on Mangano's penultimate film, "Dune" (David Lynch, 1984). Federico died in an airplane crash in 1981 in Alaska. De Laurentiis and Mangano separated in 1983, and Mangano began divorce proceedings in 1988. Following surgery on 4 December 1989 that left her in a coma, Mangano died of lung cancer in Madrid, Spain, during the late night/early morning hours between 15 and 16 December 1989. Filmography. Although performed by Flo Sandon's, Silvana Mangano was credited on the label of the recording of "El Negro Zumbon", known as "Anna" in the U.S.A., which is from the soundtrack of the film "Anna" (1951) and was a hit song in 1953.
1044787	Stanley Augustus Holloway, OBE (1 October 1890 – 30 January 1982) was an English stage and film actor, comedian, singer, poet and monologist. He was famous for his comic and character roles on stage and screen, especially that of Alfred P. Doolittle in "My Fair Lady". He was also renowned for his comic monologues and songs, which he performed and recorded throughout most of his 70-year career. Born in London, Holloway pursued a career as a clerk in his teen years. He made early stage appearances before infantry service in the First World War, after which he had his first major theatre success starring in "Kissing Time" when the musical transferred to the West End from Broadway. In 1921, he joined a concert party, "The Co-Optimists", and his career began to flourish. At first he was chiefly employed as a singer, but his skills as an actor and reciter of comic monologues were soon recognised. Characters from his monologues such as Sam Small, invented by Holloway, and Albert Ramsbottom, created for him by Marriott Edgar, were absorbed into popular British culture, and Holloway developed a following for the recordings of his many monologues. By the 1930s, he was in demand to star in variety, pantomime and musical comedy, including several revues. Following the outbreak of the Second World War, Holloway made short propaganda films on behalf of the British Film Institute and Pathé News and took character parts in a series of war films including "Major Barbara", "The Way Ahead", "This Happy Breed" and "The Way to the Stars". After the war, he appeared in the film "Brief Encounter" and made a series of films for Ealing Studios, including "Passport to Pimlico", "The Lavender Hill Mob" and "The Titfield Thunderbolt". In 1956 he was cast as the irresponsible Alfred P. Doolittle in "My Fair Lady", a role that he played on Broadway, the West End and in the film version in 1964. The role brought him international fame, and his performances earned him nominations for a Tony Award for Best Featured Actor in a Musical and an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. In his later years, Holloway appeared in television series in the UK and the US, toured in revues, appeared in stage plays in Britain, Canada, Australia and the US, and continued to make films into his eighties. Holloway was married twice and had five children, including the actor Julian Holloway. Biography. Family background and early life. Holloway was born in Manor Park, Essex (now in the London Borough of Newham), the younger child and only son of George Augustus Holloway (1860–1919), a lawyer's clerk, and Florence May "née" Bell (1862–1913), a housekeeper and dressmaker. He was named after Henry Morton Stanley, the journalist and explorer famous for his exploration of Africa and for his search for David Livingstone. There were theatrical connections in the Holloway family going back to Charles Bernard (1830–1894), the brother of Holloway's maternal grandmother, an actor and theatre manager. Holloway's paternal grandfather, Augustus Holloway (1829–1884), an orphan, was brought up by sailmaker John Stone and his wife Mary, in Poole, Dorset. Augustus became a wealthy shopkeeper, running his own brush-making business. He married Amelia Catherine Knight in September 1856, and they had three children, Maria, Charles and George. In the early 1880s the family moved to Poplar, London. When Augustus died, George Holloway (Stanley's father) moved to nearby Manor Park and became a clerk for a city lawyer, Robert Bell. George married Bell's daughter Florence in 1884, and they had two children, Millie (1887–1949) and Stanley. George left Florence in 1905 and was never seen or heard from again by his family. During his early teenage years, Holloway attended the Worshipful School of Carpenters in nearby Stratford and joined a local choir, which he later called his "big moment". He left school at the age of 14 and worked as a junior clerk in a boot polish factory, where he earned ten shillings a week. He began performing part-time as "Master Stanley Holloway – The Wonderful Boy Soprano" from 1904, singing sentimental songs such as "The Lost Chord". A year later, he became a clerk at Billingsgate Fish Market, where he remained for two years before commencing training as an infantry soldier in the London Rifle Brigade in 1907. Career. Early career and First World War. Holloway's stage career began in 1910, when he travelled to Walton-on-the-Naze to audition for "The White Coons Show", a concert party variety show arranged and produced by Will S. Pepper, father of Harry S. Pepper, with whom Holloway later starred in "The Co-Optimists". This seaside show lasted six weeks. In 1913 Holloway was recruited by the comedian Leslie Henson to feature as a support in Henson's more prestigious concert party called "Nicely, Thanks". In later life, Holloway often spoke of his admiration for Henson, citing him as a great influence on his career. The two became firm friends and often consulted each other before taking jobs. In his 1967 autobiography, Holloway dedicated a whole chapter to Henson, whom he described as "the greatest friend, inspiration and mentor a performer could have had". Later in 1913, Holloway decided to train as an operatic baritone, and so he went to Italy to take singing lessons from Ferdinando Guarino in Milan. However, a yearning to start a career in light entertainment and a contract to re-appear in Bert Graham and Will Bentley's concert party at the West Cliff Theatre caused him to return home after six months. In the early months of 1914, Holloway made his first visit to the US and then went to Buenos Aires and Valparaíso with the concert party "The Grotesques". At the outbreak of the First World War in August 1914, he decided to return to the UK, but his departure was delayed for six weeks due to his contract with the troupe. At the age of 25, Holloway enlisted in the Connaught Rangers. In December 1915 he was commissioned as a subaltern because of his previous training as a private in the London Rifle Brigade. He was stationed in Cork and initially fought against Sinn Fein during the Easter Rising of 1916. Later that year, he was sent to France, where he fought in the trenches alongside Michael O'Leary, who later won the Victoria Cross for gallantry. Holloway and O'Leary stayed in touch after the war, becoming close friends. Holloway spent much of his time in the later part of the war organising shows to boost troop morale in France. One such revue, "Wear That Ribbon", was performed in honour of O'Leary's winning the VC. Holloway, along with Henson and his newly established "Star Attractions" concert party, entertained the British troops in Wimereux. The party included such performers as Jack Buchanan, Eric Blore, Binnie Hale and Phyllis Dare, as well as the performers who would later form "The Co-Optimists". Upon his return from France, Holloway joined a Yorkshire regiment in Hartlepool and immediately after the war ended he starred in "The Disorderly Room" with Leslie Henson, which Eric Blore had written while serving in the South Wales Borderers. It toured theatres on England's south coast, including Walton-on-the-Naze and Clacton-on-Sea. Inter-war years. On being demobilised on 1 May 1919, Holloway returned to London and resumed his singing and acting career, finding success in two West End musicals at the Winter Garden Theatre. Later that month, he created the role of Captain Wentworth in Guy Bolton and P. G. Wodehouse's "Kissing Time", followed in 1920 by the role of René in "A Night Out". Following its provincial success, "The Disorderly Room" was given a West End production at the Victoria Palace Theatre in late 1919, in which Holloway starred alongside Henson and Tom Walls. Holloway made his film debut in a 1921 silent comedy called "The Rotters". From June 1921, Holloway had considerable success in "The Co-Optimists", a concert party formed with performers whom he had met during the war in France, which "The Times" called "an all-star 'pierrot' entertainment in the West-end." It opened at the small Royalty Theatre and soon transferred to the much larger Palace Theatre, where the initial version of the show ran for over a year, giving more than 500 performances. The entertainment was completely rewritten at regular intervals to keep it fresh, and the final edition, beginning in November 1926, was the 13th version. "The Co-Optimists" closed in 1927 at His Majesty's Theatre after 1,568 performances over eight years. In 1929, a feature film version was made, with Holloway rejoining his former co-stars. In 1923 Holloway established himself as a BBC Radio performer. The early BBC broadcasts brought variety and classical artists together, and Holloway could be heard in the same programme as the cellist John Barbirolli or the Band of the Scots Guards. He developed his solo act throughout the 1920s while continuing his involvement with the musical theatre and "The Co-Optimists". In 1924 he made his first gramophone discs, recording for HMV two songs from "The Co-Optimists": "London Town" and "Memory Street". After "The Co-Optimists" disbanded in 1927, Holloway played at the London Hippodrome in Vincent Youmans's musical comedy "Hit the Deck" as Bill Smith, a performance judged by "The Times" to be "invested with many shrewd touches of humanity". In "The Manchester Guardian", Ivor Brown praised him for a singing style "which coaxes the ear rather than clubbing the head." Holloway began regularly performing monologues, both on stage and on record, in 1928, with his own creation, Sam Small, in "Sam, Sam, Pick oop thy Musket". Over the following years, he recorded more than 20 monologues based around the character, most of which he wrote himself. He created Sam Small after Henson had returned from a tour of northern England and told him a story about an insubordinate old soldier from the Battle of Waterloo. Holloway developed the character, naming him after a Cockney friend of Henson called Annie Small; the name Sam was chosen at random. Holloway adopted a northern accent for the character. "The Times" commented, "For absolute delight ... there is nothing to compare with Mr. Stanley Holloway's monologue, concerning a military contretemps on the eve of Waterloo ... perfect, even to the curled moustache and the Lancashire accent of the stubborn Guardsman hero." In 1929 Holloway played another leading role in musical comedy, Lieutenant Richard Manners in "Song of the Sea", and later that year he performed in the revue "Coo-ee", with Billy Bennett, Dorothy Dickson and Claude Hulbert. When "The Co-Optimists" re-formed in 1930, he rejoined that company, now at the Savoy Theatre, and at the same venue appeared in "Savoy Follies" in 1931, where he introduced to London audiences the monologue "The Lion and Albert". The monologue was written by Marriott Edgar, who based the story on a news item about a boy who was eaten by a lion in the zoo. In the monologue, Mr. and Mrs. Ramsbottom react in a measured way when their son Albert is swallowed. Neither Edgar nor Holloway was convinced that the piece would succeed, but needing material for an appearance at a Northern Rugby League dinner Holloway decided to perform it. It was well received, and Holloway introduced it into his stage act. Subsequently, Edgar wrote 16 monologues for him. In its obituary of Holloway, "The Times" wrote that Sam and Albert "became part of English folklore during the 1930s, and they remained so during the Second World War." These monologues employed the Holloway style that has been called "the understated look-on-the-bright-side world of the cockney working class ... Holloway's characters are like Albert, or obstinate, and hilariously clueless. He often told his stories in costume; sporting outrageous attire and bushy moustaches." Beginning in 1934, Holloway appeared in a series of British films, three of which featured his creation Sam Small. He started his association with the filmmakers Ealing Studios in 1934, appearing in the fifth Gracie Fields picture "Sing As We Go". His other films from the 1930s included "Squibs" (1935) and "The Vicar of Bray" (1937). In December 1934, Holloway made his first appearance in pantomime, playing Abanazar in "Aladdin". In his first season in the part, he was overshadowed by his co-star, Sir Henry Lytton, as the Emperor, but he quickly became established as a favourite in his role, playing it in successive years in Leeds, London, Edinburgh and Manchester. Second World War and post-war. On the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939 Holloway was 49, too old for active service. Instead, he made his contribution in short propaganda pieces for the British Film Institute and Pathé News. He narrated documentaries aimed at lifting morale in war-torn Britain, including "Albert's Savings" (1940), written by Marriott Edgar and featuring the character Albert Ramsbottom, and "Worker and Warfront No.8" (1943), with a script written by E. C. Bentley about a worker who neglects to have an injury examined and contracts blood poisoning. Both films were included on a 2007 Imperial War Museum DVD "Britain's Home Front at War: Words for Battle." On stage during the war years, Holloway appeared in revues, first "Up and Doing", with Henson, Binnie Hale and Cyril Ritchard in 1940 and 1941, and then "Fine and Dandy", with Henson, Dorothy Dickson, Douglas Byng and Graham Payn. In both shows, Holloway presented new monologues, and "The Times" thought a highlight of "Fine and Dandy" was a parody of the BBC radio programme "The Brains Trust", with Holloway "ponderously anecdotal" and Henson "gigglingly omniscient". In 1941 Holloway took a character part in Gabriel Pascal's film of Bernard Shaw's "Major Barbara", in which he played a policeman. He had leading parts in later films, including "The Way Ahead" (1944), "This Happy Breed" (1944) and "The Way to the Stars" (1945). After the war, he played Albert Godby in "Brief Encounter" and had a cameo role as the First Gravedigger in Laurence Olivier's 1948 film of "Hamlet". In 1951 Holloway played the same role on the stage to the Hamlet of Alec Guinness. For Pathé News, he delivered the commentary for documentaries in a series called "Time To Remember", where he narrated over old newsreels from significant dates in history from 1915 to 1942. Holloway also starred in a series of films for Ealing Studios, beginning with "Champagne Charlie" in 1944 alongside Tommy Trinder. After that he made "Nicholas Nickleby" (1947) and "Another Shore" (1948). He next appeared in three of the most famous Ealing Comedies, "Passport to Pimlico" (1949), "The Lavender Hill Mob" (1951) and "The Titfield Thunderbolt" (1953). His final film with the studio was "Meet Mr. Lucifer" (1953). In 1948 Holloway toured for six months in Australia around Melbourne and in New Zealand supported by the band leader Billy Mayerl. He made his Australian début at The Tivoli Theatre, Melbourne, and recorded television appearances to publicise the forthcoming release of "Passport to Pimlico". Holloway wrote the monologue "Albert Down Under" especially for the tour. 1950s and 1960s stage and screen. In 1954 Holloway joined the Old Vic theatre company to play Bottom in "A Midsummer Night's Dream", with Robert Helpmann as Oberon and Moira Shearer as Titania. After playing at the Edinburgh Festival, the Royal Shakespeare Company took the production to New York, where it played at the Metropolitan Opera House and then on tour of the US and Canada. The production was harshly reviewed by critics on both sides of the Atlantic, but Holloway made a strong impression. Holloway said of the experience: "Out of the blue I was asked by the Royal Shakespeare Company to tour America with them, playing Bottom ... From that American tour came the part of Alfred Doolittle in "My Fair Lady" and from then on, well, just let's say I was able to pick and choose my parts and that was very pleasant at my age." Holloway's film career continued simultaneously with his stage work; one example was the 1956 comedy "Jumping for Joy". American audiences became familiar with his earlier film roles when the films began to be broadcast on television in the 1950s. In 1956 Holloway created the role of Alfred P. Doolittle in the original Broadway production of "My Fair Lady". The librettist, Alan Jay Lerner, remembered in his memoirs that Holloway was his first choice for the role, even before it was written. Lerner's only concern was whether, after so long away from the musical stage, Holloway still had his resonant singing voice. Holloway reassured him over a lunch at Claridge's: Lerner recalled, "He put down his knife and fork, threw back his head and unleashed a strong baritone note that resounded through the dining room, drowned out the string quartet and sent a few dozen people off to the osteopath to have their necks untwisted." Holloway had a long association with the show, appearing in the original 1956 Broadway production at the Mark Hellinger Theatre, the 1958 London version at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, and the film version in 1964 which he undertook instead of the role of Admiral Bloom in "Mary Poppins" which he had been offered the same year. In "The Manchester Guardian", Alistair Cooke wrote, "Stanley Holloway distils into the body of Doolittle the taste and smell of every pub in England." Looking back in 2004, Holloway's biographer Eric Midwinter wrote, "With his cockney authenticity, his splendid baritone voice, and his wealth of comedy experience, he made a great success of this role, and, as he said, it put him 'bang on top of the heap, in demand' again at a time when, in his mid-sixties, his career was beginning to wane". His performances earned him a Tony Award nomination for Best Featured Actor in a Musical and an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor in a Supporting Role. Following his success on Broadway, Holloway played Pooh-Bah in a 1960 US television Bell Telephone Hour production of "The Mikado", produced by the veteran Gilbert and Sullivan performer Martyn Green. Holloway appeared with Groucho Marx and Helen Traubel of the Metropolitan Opera. His notable films around this time included 'Alive and Kicking' in 1959, co-starring Sybil Thorndike and Kathleen Harrison, and "No Love for Johnnie" in 1961 opposite Peter Finch. In 1962, Holloway took part in a studio recording of "Oliver!" with Alma Cogan and Violet Carson, in which he played Fagin. In 1962 Holloway played the role of an English butler called Higgins in a US television sitcom called "Our Man Higgins". It ran for only a season. His son Julian also appeared in the series. In 1964 he again appeared on stage in Philadelphia in "Cool Off!", a short-lived Faustian spoof. He returned to the US a few more times after that to take part in "The Dean Martin Show" three times and "The Red Skelton Show" twice. He also appeared in the 1965 war film "In Harm's Way", together with John Wayne and Kirk Douglas. Last years. Holloway appeared for the first time in a major British television series in the BBC's 1967 adaptation of P. G. Wodehouse's "Blandings Castle" stories, playing Beach, the butler, to Ralph Richardson's Lord Emsworth. His portrayal of Beach was received with critical reservation, but the series was a popular success. After "My Fair Lady", Holloway was able to get film roles in "Mrs. Brown You've Got A Lovely Daughter" (1968), which starred the 1960s British pop group Herman's Hermits, "The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes", "Flight of the Doves" and "Up the Front", all in the early 1970s. His final film was "Journey into Fear" (1976). In 1970, Holloway began an association with the Shaw Festival in Canada, playing Burgess in "Candida". He made what he considered his West End debut as a straight actor in "Siege" by David Ambrose at the Cambridge Theatre in 1972, co-starring with Alastair Sim and Michael Bryant. He returned to Shaw and Canada, playing the central character Walter/William in "You Never Can Tell" in 1973. His final film appearance was in 1975 in Daniel Mann's "Journey into Fear" with Zero Mostel, Joseph Wiseman and Shelley Winters. Holloway continued to perform until well into his eighties, touring Asia and Australia in 1977 together with Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. and David Langton in "The Pleasure of His Company", by Samuel A. Taylor and Cornelia Otis Skinner. He made his last appearance performing at the Royal Variety Performance at the London Palladium in 1980, aged 89. Holloway died of a stroke at the Nightingale Nursing Home in Littlehampton, West Sussex, on 30 January 1982, aged 91. He is buried, along with his wife Violet, at St. Mary the Virgin Church in East Preston, West Sussex. Personal life. Holloway was married twice, first to Alice "Queenie" Foran. They met in June 1913 in Clacton, while he was performing in a concert party and she was selling charity flags on behalf of the Royal National Lifeboat Institution. Queenie was orphaned at the age of 16, something that Holloway felt he and Queenie had in common, as his mother had died that year and his father had earlier abandoned the family. He married Queenie in November 1913. They had four children: Joan, born on Holloway's 24th birthday in 1914, Patricia (b. 1920), John (b. 1925) and Mary (b. 1928). Upon the death of her mother, Queenie inherited some property in Southampton Row and relied on the rents from the property for her income. During the First World War, while Holloway was away fighting in France, Queenie began to have financial trouble, as the tenants failed to pay their rent. Out of desperation, she approached several loan sharks, incurring a huge debt about which Holloway knew nothing. She also started to drink heavily as the pressures from the war and of supporting her daughter took their toll. On Holloway's return from the war, the debt was paid off and they moved to Hampstead, West London. By the late 1920s, Holloway found himself in financial difficulties with the British tax authorities and was briefly declared bankrupt. In the 1930s, Holloway and Queenie moved to Bayswater and remained there until Queenie's death in 1937 at the age of 45, from cirrhosis of the liver. Of the children from this first marriage, John worked as an engineer in an electrics company, and Mary worked for British Petroleum for many years. On 2 January 1939, Holloway married a 25-year-old actress and former chorus dancer named Violet Marion Lane (1913–1997) and they moved to Marylebone. Violet was born into a working-class family from Leeds. Her mother was Scottish, and her civil engineer father, Alfred Lane, was a Yorkshireman. The marriage lasted over 40 years until Holloway's death in 1982. Although he was a client of the Aza Agency in London, Violet effectively managed Holloway's career, and no project was taken on without her approval. In his autobiography, Holloway said of her, "I suppose I am committing lawful bigamy. Not only is she my wife, lover, mother, cook, chauffeuse, private secretary, house keeper, hostess, electrician, business manager, critic, handy woman, she is also my best friend." Together, they had one son, Julian, who also became an actor and is best known for appearing in the "Carry On films". Julian had a brief relationship with Patricia Neal's daughter Tessa Dahl which produced a daughter, the model and author Sophie Dahl. Julian was later briefly married to the actress Zena Walker. Holloway, Violet and Julian lived mainly in the tiny village of Penn, Buckinghamshire. Holloway also owned other properties including a flat in St. John's Wood in North West London, which he used when working in the capital, and a flat in Manhattan during the "My Fair Lady" Broadway years. The final years of his life were spent in Angmering, West Sussex, with Violet. Holloway had many friends in show business and forged close friendships with people such as Leslie Henson, Gracie Fields, Maurice Chevalier, Laurence Olivier and Arthur Askey, who said of him, "He was the nicest man I ever knew. He never had a wrong word to say about anyone. He was a great actor, a super mimic and a one-man walking comic show." While working in the US, Holloway numbered among his friends Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Burgess Meredith and Groucho Marx. Honours, memorials and books. Holloway was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 1960 New Year's Honours list for his services to entertainment. In 1978 he was honoured with a special award by the Variety Club of Great Britain. There is a memorial plaque dedicated to Holloway in St. Paul's, Covent Garden, London, which is known as "the actors' church". The plaque is next to a memorial to Gracie Fields. In 2009 English Heritage unveiled a Blue plaque at 25 Albany Road, Manor Park, Essex, the house in which Holloway was born in 1890. There is a building named after him at 2 Coolfin Road, Newham, London, called Stanley Holloway Court. Holloway entitled his 1967 autobiography "Wiv a Little Bit of Luck" after the song he performed in "My Fair Lady". The book was ghost-written by the writer and director Dick Richards and was published in 1967. He oversaw the publication of three volumes of the monologues by or associated with him: "Monologues" (1979); "The Stanley Holloway Monologues" (1980); and "More Monologues" (1981). Recordings. Holloway had a 54-year recording career, beginning in the age of acoustic recording, and ending in the era of the stereophonic LP. He mainly recorded songs from musicals and revues, and he recited many monologues on various subjects. Most prominent among his recordings (aside from his participation in recordings of "My Fair Lady") are those of three series of monologues that he made at intervals throughout his career. They featured Sam Small, Albert Ramsbottom, and historical events such as the Battle of Hastings, Magna Carta and the Battle of Trafalgar. In all, his discography runs to 130 recordings, spanning the period 1924 to 1978. A review in "The Gramophone" of one of his 1957 albums containing recordings of his old "concert party" songs commented, "what a fine voice he has and how well he can use it – diction, phrasing, range and the interpretative insight of the artist". Notes and references. Notes References
773951	Big Bad Mama is a 1974 American film produced by Roger Corman, starring Angie Dickinson, William Shatner, and Tom Skerritt. It was followed by a sequel, "Big Bad Mama II", in 1987. Plot. In 1932 Texas, Wilma McClatchie (Dickinson) takes over her late lover's bootlegging business, but it isn't lucrative. She meets up with a bank robber, Fred Diller (Skerritt), who invites her and her two daughters in on his next big heist. After meeting a refined-yet-dishonest gambler (Shatner), Wilma recruits him along with Fred and her girls to kidnap the daughter of a millionaire in the hopes of getting rich off the ransom. DVD release. On December 7, 2010 Shout! Factory released the title on DVD, packaged as a double feature with "Big Bad Mama II" as part of the Roger Corman Cult Classics collection.
1102714	Jacques Tits (; born 12 August 1930 in Uccle) is a Belgian and French mathematician who works on group theory and geometry and who introduced Tits buildings, the Tits alternative, and the Tits group. Career. Tits was born in Uccle to Léon Tits, a professor, and Lousia André. Jacques attended the Athénée of Uccle and the Free University of Brussels. His thesis advisor was Paul Libois, and Tits graduated with his doctorate in 1950 with the dissertation "Généralisation des groupes projectifs basés sur la notion de transitivité". His academic career includes professorships at the Free University of Brussels (now split into the Université Libre de Bruxelles and the Vrije Universiteit Brussel) (1962-1964), the University of Bonn (1964-1974) and the Collège de France in Paris, until becoming emeritus in 2000. He changed his citizenship to French in 1974 in order to teach at the Collège de France, which at that point required French citizenship. Because Belgian nationality law did not allow dual nationality at the time, he renounced his Belgian citizenship. He has been a member of the French Academy of Sciences since then. Tits was an "honorary" member of the Nicolas Bourbaki group; as such, he helped popularize Harold Scott MacDonald Coxeter's work, introducing terms such as Coxeter number, Coxeter group, and Coxeter graph. Honors. Tits received the Wolf Prize in Mathematics in 1993, the Cantor Medal from the Deutsche Mathematiker-Vereinigung (German Mathematical Society) in 1996, and the German distinction "Pour le Mérite". In 2008 he was awarded the Abel Prize, along with John Griggs Thompson, “for their profound achievements in algebra and in particular for shaping modern group theory.” He is a member of several Academies of Sciences. He is a member of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters. Contributions. He introduced the theory of "buildings" (sometimes known as "Tits buildings"), which are combinatorial structures on which groups act, particularly in algebraic group theory (including finite groups, and groups defined over the p-adic numbers). The related theory of (B, N) pairs is a basic tool in the theory of groups of Lie type. Of particular importance is his classification of all irreducible buildings of spherical type and rank at least three, which involved classifying all polar spaces of rank at least three. In the rank-2 case spherical building are generalized n-gons, and in joint work with Richard Weiss he classified these when they admit a suitable group of symmetries (the so-called Moufang polygons). In collaboration with François Bruhat he developed the theory of affine buildings, and later he classified all irreducible buildings of affine type and rank at least four. Another of his well known theorems is the "Tits alternative": if "G" is a finitely generated subgroup of a linear group, then either "G" has a solvable subgroup of finite index or it has a free subgroup of rank 2. The Tits group and the Tits–Koecher construction are named after him. He introduced the Kneser–Tits conjecture.
581856	Pooja Bhatt (; born 24 February 1972) is an Indian film actress, voice actress, model and film maker. She is the eldest child of Indian film director, Mahesh Bhatt. Early life. Pooja Bhatt was born to Mahesh Bhatt and Anglo-Indian Kiran Bhatt (aka Loraine Bright). She is the step daughter of Soni Razdan. She has a brother, Rahul Bhatt and half sisters Shaheen and Alia Bhatt. Her cousins are Mohit Suri and Emraan Hashmi. She acted in many films which were produced and directed by her father. In most of her films, she used her real name Pooja. Career. Bhatt made her acting debut at age 17, in 1989 with "Daddy", a TV film directed by her father Mahesh Bhatt. In the film she portrayed a soul-searching teenage girl in an estranged relationship with her alcoholic father, played by actor Anupam Kher. Her biggest solo hit and her big screen debut came with a musical hit, "Dil Hai Ke Manta Nahin" (1991), which was a remake of the Oscar-winning Hollywood classic "It Happened One Night". Pooja received the Filmfare Best Female Debut Award for the film. Her most well-known films in the 1990s included, "Sadak" opposite Sanjay Dutt (1991), "Junoon", "Dil Hai Ki Manta Nahin" opposite Aamir Khan (1991), "Sir" (1993), "Phir Teri Kahani Yaad Aayee" (1993), "Tadipaar" (1993), Ghuneghar (1994), "Naaraaz" (1994) opposite Mithun Chakraborty, "Hum Dono", "Angrakshak" opposite Sunny Deol (1995), "Chaahat" opposite Shahrukh Khan (1996), "Tamanna" (1997), super-hit and multi-starrer "Border" (1997) and "Zakhm" (1998). Pooja Bhatt has also acted in some popular hit regional Indian films. Her last film appearance was in "Everybody Says I'm Fine!" in 2001. She has since focused on producing and directing. She made her directorial debut with "Paap" in 2004, starring John Abraham and Udita Goswami. Since then, she has made four more directorial ventures: "Holiday" (2006), "Dhokha" (2007), "Kajraare" (2010) and "Jism 2". Filmography. Production designer. " (2003)
1065631	Donald Adeosun Faison (; born June 22, 1974) is an American actor, comedian, and voice actor best known for his role as Dr. Chris Turk in the ABC (formerly NBC) comedy-drama "Scrubs" (2001–2010) as a leading role, and as Murray in the film "Clueless" (1995) playing a minor role (reprised in the subsequent television series of the same name). He is a star of the TV Land situation comedy "The Exes". Faison has also co-starred in the films "Remember the Titans" (2000), "Uptown Girls" (2003), "Something New" (2006), "Next Day Air" (2009) and "Kick-Ass 2" (2013). Early life. Faison was born in Harlem, New York, the son of Shirley, a talent agent, and Donald Faison, a building manager. His parents were active with the National Black Theatre in Harlem. Career. Before his debut on "Scrubs" and "Clueless", Faison appeared in a 1991 commercial for Folgers Coffee at the age of 17, in which he played the younger brother of a soldier returning from war. The following year, he appeared along with Malik Yoba, in the ABC News special "", hosted by Peter Jennings. He then became famous for his role as "Murray Lawrence Duvall" in the film "Clueless", the 1995 movie, and its subsequent television series, which ran from 1996 to 1999. In 1995, he also appeared in "Waiting to Exhale" as "Tarik", the son of Loretta Devine's character, "Gloria." He was featured in" New Jersey Drive". He also starred in "Big Fat Liar" alongside Frankie Muniz, Paul Giamatti, and Amanda Bynes. He had a recurring role as, "Tracy," on "Felicity", appeared in "Remember the Titans", as the running-back turned corner-back Petey Jones, and provided voice work for various characters in the MTV animated series "Clone High". He had minor roles in the sitcoms "Sister Sister" and "Sabrina, the Teenage Witch" and in the film "Josie and the Pussycats". In 2005, Faison produced one episode of MTV's "Punk'd" involving his "Scrubs" co-star Zach Braff. He has also appeared in the music videos for Brandy's "Sittin' Up in My Room", Fall Out Boy's cover of Michael Jackson's "Beat It," and Gavin Degraw's "Chariot." On February 13, 2009, Faison participated in the NBA All-Star Weekend's Celebrity Game. Other celebrities participating include: NBA Hall of Famers Clyde Drexler and Dominique Wilkins, NFL wide-receiver Terrell Owens, actor Chris Tucker and four Harlem Globetrotters. In 2010, Faison starred alongside Scottie Thompson, Brittany Daniel, Eric Balfour, Laz Alonso and Crystal Reed in the Brothers Strause science fiction thriller "Skyline". Faison was in the 2010 CBS comedy pilot "The Odds". As of March 2011, Faison appeared in commercials for "The Sims Medieval". He is currently the host for the TBS comedy sketch show "Who Gets the Last Laugh" Personal life. Faison was married to Lisa Askey from 2001 to 2005. After six years of dating, Faison married his second wife, CaCee Cobb, on December 15, 2012. The wedding was held at the home of Faison's former "Scrubs" co-star and best friend Zach Braff, who also served as a groomsman. Serving as a bridesmaid was singer Jessica Simpson, for whom Cobb formerly worked as a personal assistant.
584060	Kanda Naal Mudhal (English: From the day I saw) is a 2005 Indian Tamil romantic comedy film written and directed by newcomer V. Priya, who had earlier assisted Mani Ratnam. Produced by Prakash Raj under the Duet Films banner, the film stars Prasanna, Laila and Karthik Kumar in the lead roles and Revathi Menon, and Lakshmi all play in other roles. The film's music was composed by Yuvan Shankar Raja. The film released on 20 November 2005 became a super hit in most areas raising business for the lead actors. Plot. The movie begins with two young kids who fight each other in a marriage hall. They meet after two decades, now Krishna (Prasanna) and Ramya (Laila) during a college cultural meet and again lock horns with each other. Fate brings them together in Chennai after a few years, again fighting with each other. Meanwhile, a series of events forces Krishna's close friend Aravindh (Karthik Kumar) to come to India from the USA to get married. His parents arrange his wedding with Ramya. Ramya, who decides to get married to help her younger sister's love, displays herself as a passive character who accepts whatever the life partner feel is right. On the contrary, she is bold, active, independent and assertive in nature. Knowing this, Krishna tries hard to let her true character come out. However, Aravindh stalls the wedding plans and returns to the USA as he finds Ramya as a person who does not think on her own and not independent. Mistaking Krishna for influencing Aravindh, Ramya locks horns with him. Meanwhile, Ramya's mother (Revathy) ends up in hospital and Krishna comes to the help of the family and eventually develops an affinity for Ramya which turns into romance. Enters Aravindh now with a decision to marry Ramya. The climax was expected after the closeness between Ramya and Krishna. In the end, at the airport when they both come to receive Aravindh they end up in each other's arms and Aravindh also approves of it. Soundtrack. The soundtrack was composed by Yuvan Shankar Raja and released on 16 August 2005 at Taj Connemara Hotel. It features 6 tracks with lyrics written by Thamarai. The Carnatic song Kanda Naal Mudhalai was remixed for the film. Singer Subhiksha Rangarajan was 15 when she recorded the song. Behindwoods wrote "Yuvan’ music has got to do something in this movie and it could be a big reason for the success of the movie. From, his side he has done an excellent job".
1064430	Father of the Bride Part II is a 1995 comedy film starring Steve Martin, Diane Keaton and Martin Short. The movie is a sequel to "Father of the Bride" and a loose remake of the 1951 film "Father's Little Dividend", the sequel to the original "Father of the Bride" movie released in 1950. Synopsis. George Banks must accept the reality of what his daughter's ascension from daughter to wife, and now, to mother means when placed into perspective against his own stage of life. As the comfortable family unit starts to unravel in his mind, a rapid progression into mid-life crisis is in his future. His journey to regain his youth acts as a catalyst for a kind of "rebirth" of his attitude on life when he and his wife, Nina, find how their lives are about to change as well after Nina unexpectedly becomes pregnant. George must now contend not only with his new status as a grandfather, but to also begin again as a new parent just as he was preparing for retirement and an empty nest for him and Nina. Reception. "Father of the Bride Part II" received a mixed critical response from fans and critics alike, and currently holds a 50% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Box Office. "Father of the Bride Part II" debuted at No.2
1057471	"The Devil's Double" is a 2011 allegedly biographical film directed by Lee Tamahori and starring Dominic Cooper in the dual role of Uday Hussein and Latif Yahia. It was released on January 22, 2011 at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival and was released in limited theaters on July 29, 2011 by Lionsgate and Herrick Entertainment. Latif Yahia's story behind the events depicted in the film has been questioned and there appears to be no proof that he had been Hussein's double or even that he had had any connection to Uday Hussein or the highest levels of Saddam Hussein's regime. Plot. In 1987, Latif Yahia (Dominic Cooper), an Iraqi soldier fighting in the Iran–Iraq War, is called to become a ""fedai"" ("body double" or political decoy) for Uday Hussein (also played by Cooper), the playboy son of Iraqi president Saddam Hussein (Philip Quast). Latif comes from an upper-class family and had attended school with Uday, where the other students would remark on their likeness. Latif initially refuses the position, but is imprisoned and tortured, ultimately relenting when his family is threatened. Latif undergoes minor cosmetic surgery to perfect his resemblance to Uday and practices emulating the young Hussein's mannerisms and wildly volatile persona. He is given access to all of the luxurious benefits of the Husseins' fortune, including massive palaces, expensive wardrobes and Uday's Ferrari and various other exotic cars. Latif tries to resist Uday's exorbitant merrymaking and erratic behavior, at one point fleeing a nightclub in another of Uday's Ferraris to attempt to see his family, who believe he has died in the war. However, he is apprehended by Uday's bodyguards and given a whipping by Uday. After an appearance at a conference with several Kuwaiti leaders, an attempt is made on Uday's (Latif's) life, apparently by a member of a rebel opposition group, possibly a Kurd. The real Uday, though, is more concerned with the Kuwaitis, who he believes have been slant drilling from Iraq's Rumaila oil field. The First Gulf War is launched with Uday proclaiming "The Age of the Sheikhs is over!" Uday's increasingly violent, sadistic tendencies are displayed when he kidnaps a 14-year-old school girl and forces her to escort him to a party. At the party, based on an actual 1988 celebration honoring Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak's wife Suzanne, Uday becomes enraged with his father's personal bodyguard Kamel Hana Gegeo (Mehmet Ferda). Uday believes Gegeo facilitated an affair between Saddam and Samira Shahbandar, which devastated his mother, Sajida Talfah, and he also expresses jealousy at the trust his father places in Kamel Hana. When Gegeo passes sarcastic comments about Uday's sexual advances towards his young victim, Uday butchers him with an electric carving knife in front of all of the guests. The next morning, Uday's bodyguards are seen dumping the naked, beaten body of the young girl. Latif, acting as Uday, is later sent to Basra to rally support among Republican Guard soldiers as Coalition forces have taken control of the war. At Basra, another attempt is made on Latif's life. To Uday's great concern, Latif nearly loses a pinky in the assault, which presumably would mean Uday would have to have his amputated to maintain their resemblance, but doctors are able to save Latif's finger. Later, Latif is confronted by the father of the young girl Uday killed. Uday eavesdrops on the conversation and is outraged by the man's pleas for "justice" and "compassion." Uday orders Latif to kill the man, but Latif refuses and instead slits his own wrists, to Uday's amusement. After Latif recovers, he confronts Uday at his birthday party. The confrontation escalates to a shootout and Latif escapes in Uday's Mercedes with Uday's lover, Sarrab (Ludivine Sagnier). The two escape to Valletta, but Sarrab, fearing for her daughter in Iraq, calls Uday begging for the chance to return without being harmed. A would-be assassin sent by Uday just misses shooting Latif almost as soon as they arrive on the island. Uday calls Latif and offers him one final chance to return to Iraq, threatening to kill his father if he refuses. Latif's father encourages him not to return and he is killed. However, Latif does return to Iraq, not to continue to serve as Uday's double, but rather to kill him, with the help of a man whose bride killed herself after being raped and beaten by Uday on her wedding day. In an adapted version of the attempt on Uday's life made by the 15th Shaaban in 1996, Latif and his partner ambush Uday while he is attempting to lure young girls into his Porsche. They wound him severely, including mangling his genitals with a direct shot. One of Uday's bodyguards catches up to Latif as he flees the scene. The guard, however, is one who Latif could have killed as he fled from Uday's birthday party before leaving the country but spared, and the guard extends him the same courtesy. The movie ends by stating that Latif has been a very difficult man to find after these events. Uday was permanently handicapped by the attack but survived until his killing by the U.S. forces in 2003. Production. The film was shot in Jordan and Malta. Critical reception. The film received mixed reviews. The movie has a 52% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, though much critical acclaim has been given to Dominic Cooper's dual role. IGN awarded it 3.5 out of 5 and said "certainly a fresh perspective on one of the Middle East's most brutal dictators". CinemaBlend.com also awarded it 3.5 out of five and said "and while the film feels deeply flawed, Cooper is worth the price of admission." "Rockstar Weekly" awarded the film a positive review, saying "Hats off to director Lee Tamahori (Die Another Day) for taking a controversial topic and turning it into a masterful film." However, the "Los Angeles Times" gave the film a negative review, saying "The story of Uday Hussein's body double is relentlessly violent and lurid". Roger Ebert awarded the film three out of four stars and said "All due praise to Dominic Cooper. It should have been more."
393791	My Dear Enemy (; lit. "One Fine Day") is a road movie starring Jeon Do-yeon and Ha Jung-woo as two ex-lovers who reacquaint themselves while driving around Seoul. The film takes place over one rather uneventful day, and subtle emotions and chemistry between the actors propel the narrative. This is the fourth film by South Korean director Lee Yoon-ki. Plot. Lee Yoon-ki's deadpan comedy trails a pair of former lovers – he's a charismatic romantic and she's a no-nonsense realist – who bump into each other one year down the road. Hee-soo isn't the type of person to say what's on her mind, but you can tell that something is wrong. When, at a horseracing stadium, she tracks down her ex-boyfriend Byung-woon, her voice is laced with fury. "I want my money," she says, skipping even the barest of greetings. Byung-woon, for his part, looks like a man trapped. Despite his nervous smiles and warm assurances (that seem slightly dodgy), you can guess from the outset that he doesn't have the three and a half million won ($3,000) that he borrowed from her a year earlier. "Don't worry," he tells her, "for sure I can get it for you by the end of the day." Not believing him, but not willing to let him out of her site until she gets paid, she accompanies him for the day as he visits various old friends and acquaintances (all women) and tries to sweet talk his way into a loan. As both day and debt are whittled down, the pair fall back into old patterns, rehash unsettled gripes, and slowly come to see each other in a new light. Cast. "My Dear Enemy" is an exercise in subtle comedy, anchored by the delightful chemistry of the pitch-perfect lead performers. Jeon Do-yeon, as the sensible, even-tempered Hee-soo counterbalances the hysterical mother of a murdered child she played in "Secret Sunshine", for which she was named best actress at Cannes in 2007. Ha Jung-woo, too, is winning as the compulsively charming, if unfailingly inept Byung-woon (a role also in stark opposition to his previous outing as the serial killer antagonist in Na Hong-jin's "The Chaser").
1164113	Anne Meara (born September 20, 1929) is an American actress and comedian. She and Jerry Stiller were a prominent 1960s comedy team, appearing as Stiller and Meara, and are the parents of actor and comedian Ben and actress Amy Stiller. Personal life. Meara was born in Brooklyn, New York, the daughter of Irish immigrant parents, Mary (née Dempsey) and Edward Joseph Meara, a lawyer. Meara was raised in Roman Catholicism, and converted to Reform Judaism six years after marrying Stiller. She has long stressed that she did not convert at Stiller's request, but because "Catholicism was dead to me." She took the conversion seriously and studied the faith in such depth that her Jewish-born husband quipped, "Being married to Anne has made me more Jewish."
739039	Patrick Renna (born March 3, 1979) is an American actor who began his career in the film "The Sandlot" playing Hamilton "Ham" Porter. Since then, he has appeared in over 25 feature films as well as numerous guest-starring and recurring roles in award-winning television series such as "Boston Legal" and "The X-Files" among others. Patrick Renna and his spouse, Jasmin are verified Scientologists. Jasmin's father, Patrick's father in law, Larry Trahant, is head of Narconon Southern California, a Scientology based drug rehabilitation program.
1043068	Mervyn Johns (18 February 18996 September 1992) was a Welsh film and television character actor. He was a mainstay of Ealing Studios. Among his dozens of film roles were Walter Craig in "Dead of Night" (1945), the Church Warden in "Went the Day Well?" and Bob Cratchit in "Scrooge" (1951). He also made many television appearances, in series such as "The Avengers", "Danger Man" and "Dixon of Dock Green".
501281	Max Casella (born June 6, 1967) is an American actor. He is known for his roles on the television series "The Sopranos", "Doogie Howser, M.D.", and as the voice of Daxter in the "Jak and Daxter" video game series. Life and career. Casella was born in Washington, D.C., son of David Deitch (a newspaper columnist) and Doris Casella (a social worker). He is of half Italian and half Jewish descent. He grew up in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he attended the same school as actors Traci Bingham and Matt Damon. Casella played Vincent Delpino in the television series "Doogie Howser, M.D." from 1989 to 1993 alongside Neil Patrick Harris. In 1992, Casella played Racetrack Higgins in the movie "Newsies". The movie was based upon true events in the 1899 newsboys strike against Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst. He appeared in "WindRunner: A Spirited Journey", starring Margot Kidder and Russell Means as Jim Thorpe's ghost. In 1997, Casella played Timon in the original Broadway production of "The Lion King"; a performance for which he was awarded a Theatre World Award and received a Drama Desk Award nomination. In 2000-2001 he returned to Broadway as Marcellus Washburn in the revival of "The Music Man". Casella portrayed Pvt. Dino Paparelli in "Sgt. Bilko". He joined the cast of the HBO series "The Sopranos" during its third season, playing the role of Benny Fazio. Casella portrayed Paul Marco in Tim Burton's biopic, "Ed Wood". He is also in the 1999 mob movie "Analyze This". In 2007, Casella plays Dick Howser in the ESPN mini-series "The Bronx is Burning". He also voiced in "" as a penguin named Tip who is searching for the chance to be a hero, in the CGI film "Dinosaur" as a lemur named Zini, and in "Cro", a 1993 cartoon that aired on ABC, as the title character. In 2008, Casella also appeared in the movie "Leatherheads" as Mack Steiner. He starred as one of the main characters in the 2009 film "Scaring the Fish" in which he played Dennis. He also has a role in the HBO series "Boardwalk Empire" as Leo D'Alessio. He is married and lives in New York City with his wife, Leona, and two daughters, Mia and Gioia.
1042590	Captain Horatio Hornblower R.N. (released in the U.S. without the 'R.N.') is a 1951 naval adventure film. It was directed by Raoul Walsh and stars Gregory Peck, Virginia Mayo, Robert Beatty and Terence Morgan. It was based upon three of C. S. Forester's Horatio Hornblower novels, "The Happy Return" ("Beat to Quarters" in the United States), "A Ship of the Line" and "Flying Colours". Forester is credited with the adaptation; as a result, the film is faithful to his novels and features an occasionally introspective tone unusual for an old-fashioned swashbuckler. Plot. In 1807, during the Napoleonic Wars, English Royal Navy Captain Horatio Hornblower (Gregory Peck) commands the 36-gun frigate HMS "Lydia" on a lengthy secret mission to Central America. He is to provide arms and support to a megalomaniac calling himself "El Supremo" or "The Almighty" (Alec Mango) in his rebellion against Spain, an ally of Britain's enemy France. As Hornblower observes to First Lieutenant Bush (Robert Beatty), "War breeds strange allies." Upon his arrival, Hornblower is told that a larger, much more powerful Spanish warship, the 60-gun "Natividad", has been sighted. When it anchors nearby, Hornblower and his crew board and capture it in a surprise nighttime attack. He then reluctantly hands the ship over to El Supremo to appease the madman, and they go their separate ways. Later, he encounters a small Spanish vessel and learns that Spain has switched sides, so the "Lydia" will have to attack the "Natividad" again. Two passengers transfer to the "Lydia" (over Hornblower's objections): Lady Barbara Wellesley (Virginia Mayo) and her maid, fleeing a yellow fever epidemic. As Lady Barbara is the (fictitious) sister of the Duke of Wellington (an anachronism, as the title was created in 1814 and he would have been Sir Arthur Wellesley at this time), Hornblower is in no position to refuse her request for passage to England. Using masterful tactics, Hornblower sinks the "Natividad", and when the ship's surgeon is killed in the battle, Lady Barbara insists on helping by nursing the wounded. When she later falls gravely ill, Hornblower nurses her back to health. On the voyage back to England, they fall in love. However, when she makes advances (although she is engaged), Hornblower informs her he is married. After arriving home, Hornblower learns that his wife has died in childbirth, leaving him an infant son. He is given command of the "Sutherland", a powerful ship of the line captured from the French, and is assigned to a squadron commanded by Rear Admiral Leighton (Denis O'Dea), Lady Barbara's new husband. The squadron's mission is to help enforce the British blockade against Napoleonic France. At a conference on Leighton's flagship, Hornblower learns that four French ships of the line have broken the blockade. Leighton assumes they will make for the Mediterranean, but Hornblower suggests that they mean to support Napoleon's campaign on the Iberian Peninsula. Leighton decides to cover both possibilities by detaching one ship to patrol the French coast. When he learns that Hornblower's "Sutherland" is best suited for this task, having the shallowest draught, he becomes suspicious that Hornblower is after glory and prize money. Leighton therefore expressly forbids Hornblower from taking any independent action if he sights the French.
960796	Good Burger is a 1997 American comedy film directed by Brian Robbins and starring Kenan Thompson and Kel Mitchell. The film evolved from the comedy sketch "Good Burger" featured on the Nickelodeon series "All That". The film was produced by Tollin/Robbins Productions and Nickelodeon Movies and released on July 25, 1997 by Paramount Pictures. Plot. On the first day of summer, dim-witted but charming Ed (Kel Mitchell) experiences a nightmare featuring talking burgers. Troubled by the nightmare, Ed shows up late to work at Good Burger. On the same morning, Dexter (Kenan Thompson), a high school student, steals his mother's car after she leaves for a business trip. Dexter accidentally crashes into his teacher, Mr. Wheat's (Sinbad) car. With no driver's license or insurance, Dexter is in danger of going to jail. Mr. Wheat agrees to allow Dexter to pay for a total of $2,500 in car damages instead of calling the police. Dexter must find a summer job to pay for the expenses. Dexter first finds employment at Mondo Burger, but after clashing with Mondo Burger's uptight manager, Kurt Bozwell (Jan Schweiterman), he is fired and finds employment at Good Burger. There, he meets and reluctantly befriends Ed (who helped him find a job position) and a slew of colorful employees. Little does Dexter know Ed inadvertently caused the car accident: Ed was rushing to make a delivery on roller blades, and skated in front of Dexter, causing him to swerve and hit Mr. Wheat's car. Dexter finds much success at Good Burger, but his success takes a turn for the worse. Across the street from Good Burger, the Mondo Burger where Dexter previously worked opens to the public. The popular Mondo Burger produces over-sized burgers, much bigger than the Good Burger burgers. Fortunately, with the invention of Ed's "secret sauce", Good Burger is saved. After Dexter realizes that Ed caused his car accident, Dexter takes part of Ed's credit to pay off the debt. Ed's sauce reigns success, causing Kurt to attempt to steal the sauce. First, he entices Ed with a higher hourly wage at Mondo Burger. Dedicated to Good Burger, Ed denies Kurt's request. Kurt then sends in the notorious, Roxanne (Carmen Electra) to seduce Ed and find the ingredients of the "secret sauce". With her attempts, Ed unintentionally injures her, leading to her quitting her job at Mondo Burger. Meanwhile, Dexter takes a shine to fellow employee Monique (Shar Jackson), and eventually she agrees to a double date with him along with Ed and Roxanne. The next day, however, she tells him off and breaks up with him after she discovers his attempts to cheat Ed out of most of his money from the sauce. Later on, Ed and Dexter encounter a dog on the street and attempt to feed him a Good Burger and a Mondo Burger. The dog eats the Good Burger, but refuses to even look at the Mondo Burger, apparently sensing something wrong with the meat. Suspicious, Ed and Dexter disguise themselves as old women and enter Mondo Burger. They discover that Mondo Burger chemically induces their burgers with "Triampathol", an illegal food additive. Kurt sees through Dexter and Ed's disguises and kidnaps them by sending them to the Demented Hills Mental Hospital to prevent the public from learning Mondo Burger's secret. After sending Ed and Dexter to Demented Hills, Kurt and his employees break into Good Burger after closing hours and poison Ed's "secret sauce" with shark poison. When Ed and Dexter's co-worker, Otis (Abe Vigoda), attempts to stop them, Kurt then takes him captive and sends him to Demented Hills as well. There, Otis tells the duo about Kurt's scheme to ruin the "secret sauce". They devise a plan to escape. Ed begins to dance and sing, encouraging the other patients to dance. After the entire mental hospital breaks out in dance, the trio escapes the mental hospital. They steal an ice cream van to leave the hospital, but are pursued by a mental hospital van; cleverly, Ed and Dexter throw ice cream treats at the van, causing them to crash. Upon arriving at Good Burger, Ed stops a lady from eating a Good Burger with the poison-laced sauce just in time. Then, Ed and Dexter break into Mondo Burger so they could expose the chemically-induced burgers to the police. While Dexter provides a distraction, Ed tries to take a can of Triampathol, but accidentally knocks one into the meat grinder. Ed then pours the rest of the substance into the grinder. On the roof of Mondo Burger, Kurt catches Ed and Dexter. Just before he attempts to rid the two, the Mondo Burger building begins to blow up caused by the Triampathol-overdosed burgers exploding. After the building destructs and the patrons flee, the police arrest Kurt for illegal substance use. With the destruction of Mondo Burger, Mr. Wheat's car is destroyed once again (much to Dexter's amusement as he hands him the first half of the money he owes him for the car damages). Dexter apologizes to Ed for taking advantage of the latter's salary from the sauce and both end up on friendly terms. Both boys then walk back to Good Burger, where the Good Burger employees praise the two, especially Ed, as Good Burger heroes. Filming. Most of the film's scenes were filmed along S Glendora Avenue in West Covina, California. The building known as "Good Burger" in the movie was filmed at a restaurant currently known as "Manny's El Loco" 437 Glendora Ave., West Covina, CA. Meanwhile, Mondo Burger was located across the street at the Samantha Courtyard shopping center, with extra details added to the facade for the film. Soundtrack. A soundtrack containing hip hop, R&B and rock music was released on July 15, 1997 by Capitol Records. It peaked at 101 on the Billboard 200 and 65 on the Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums. Release. Short film. The "Action League Now!" episode, "Rock-a-Big Baby" was released prior to the film's screening. It was rated PG "for some risque humor". Box office. The film grossed over 23 million at the box office, against a production budget of 9 million. Critical reception. Despite the popularity of "All That" and the "Kenan & Kel" series, "Good Burger" received unfavorable reviews from film critics. Rotten Tomatoes gives the film a score of 31% based on reviews from 26 critics. Most praise came to Kel Mitchell and Kenan Thompson's performances. Lisa Alspector of "Chicago Reader" gave the film a negative review, and wrote "The received notion that kids want their movies fast and furious is barely in evidence in this 1997 comedy, a laboriously slow suburban adventure in which a teenager's summer of leisure slips through his fingers when he has to get a job—an experience that proves almost life threatening because of the cutthroat competition between two burger joints". Andy Seiler of "USA Today" gave this film a score of 2/4, saying that ""Good Burger" is not very well done, but it does have energy". Leonard Klady of "Variety" enjoyed the film and wrote "The meat of the piece is definitely FDA cinematically approved, and perfect if you like this brand of entertainment with the works". Home media. Paramount released the film on VHS on February 17, 1998, on DVD on May 27, 2003 and on hi-def Blu-ray on June 21, 2009.
69026	George William Hart (born 1955) is a American geometer who expresses himself both artistically and academically. He is also a research professor in the department of computer science at the State University of New York in Stony Brook, New York. His artistic work includes sculpture, computer images, toys (e.g. Zome) and puzzles. His sculptures have been featured in articles in "The New York Times", "Science", "Tiede" (Finnish), "Ars et Mathesis" (Dutch), "Наука и жизнь" (Russian) and other publications around the world. His academic work includes the online publication Encyclopedia of Polyhedra, the text book "Multidimensional Analysis", and the instruction book "Zome Geometry". He has also published over sixty academic articles. Hart is a co-founder of North America's only Museum of Mathematics, MoMath, in New York City. As chief of content, he set the "Math is Cool!" tone of the museum and spent five years designing original exhibits and workshop activities for it.
1104550	Georgy Feodosevich Voronoy (; ; 28 April 1868 – 20 November 1908) was a Ukrainian and Russian mathematician. Among other things, he defined the Voronoi diagram. Voronoy was born in the village of Zhuravky, district of Pyriatin, in Poltava Governorate of the Russian Empire (now Varvynsky Raion, Chernihiv Oblast, Ukraine).
1039767	Phoebe Nicholls (born Sarah Phoebe Nicholls; on 7 April 1957) is an English film, television and stage actress. She is known for her roles as Cordelia Flyte in "Brideshead Revisited" and as the mother of John Merrick in "The Elephant Man". Personal life. Nicholls was born in London, England to actors Faith Kent (née Heaslip) and Anthony Nicholls. Her grandfather was English photographer Horace Nicholls. An undiagnosed dyslexic, she left school early. Upon leaving, she trained at the Central School of Speech and Drama. Nicholls married "Brideshead Revisited" director Charles Sturridge on 6 July 1985; they have three children. Their eldest son Tom Sturridge and daughter Matilda Sturridge are also actors. She is the grandmother of Tom's daughter Marlowe with actress Sienna Miller. Career. As a child actress in several films she was billed as Sarah Nicholls, appearing alongside her father, mother and sister Kate in her earliest performances. In her early 20s, she appeared in David Lynch's "The Elephant Man", Michael Palin's "The Missionary" and most famously as Cordelia Flyte in "Brideshead Revisited". Since then, she has worked almost exclusively in television and theatre. Debuting in Michael Lindsay-Hogg's original staging of "Whose Life Is It Anyway?" in 1978, she went on to perform in Robert Strura's revival of "Three Sisters" with Vanessa Redgrave, Stephen Daldry's acclaimed National Theatre version of J.B. Priestley's "An Inspector Calls" and in the Olivier Award-winning productions of "Pravda", with "The Elephant Man" co-star Sir Anthony Hopkins and Terry Johnson's "Hysteria". Her supporting performances in the 2008 West End revivals of Noël Coward's "The Vortex" and Harley Granville Barker's "Waste" earned her the 2009 Clarence Derwent Award from Equity. Most recently, she played the conniving art critic Rivera in the Royal National Theatre production of the Howard Barker drama, "Scenes from an Execution". She appeared in the 1995 television production of Jane Austen's "Persuasion". She has made guest appearances on several television mystery series, including "Kavanagh QC", "Prime Suspect", "Midsomer Murders", "Inspector Lewis", "The Ruth Rendell Mysteries" ("May and June", 1997), "Foyle's War", "Second Sight" starring Clive Owen, and the 2012 Christmas episode of "Downton Abbey" (as the rather disagreeable Marchioness of Flintshire). She has also appeared in several works directed by her husband, Charles Sturridge, including his 1995 television adaptation of "Gulliver's Travels", where she portrayed the Liliputian Empress, and the 1997 film "".
1165978	Alice Margaret Ghostley (August 14, 1926 – September 21, 2007) was an American actress. She was best known for her roles as nanny/aide de camp Esmeralda (1969–72) on "Bewitched", as Cousin Alice (1970–71) on "Mayberry R.F.D.", and as Bernice Clifton (1986–93) on "Designing Women", for which she received an Emmy Nomination for Best Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series in 1992. Ghostley was also a regular on the James Garner-Margot Kidder NBC western "Nichols" (1971–72) and the critically acclaimed variety series, "The Julie Andrews Hour" (1972–73). Early life. Ghostley was born in Eve, Vernon County, Missouri, where her father worked as a telegraph operator. She grew up in Henryetta, Oklahoma. After graduating from high school, she attended the University of Oklahoma but dropped out to pursue a career in theatre. Career. Stage. Ghostley first came to Broadway in Leonard Sillman's "New Faces of 1952" and in the film version released in 1954. She appeared in the 1960 revue "A Thurber Carnival" and in "The Beauty Part" (1962), playing several distinct roles in each. She also performed in several musical comedies, including "Shangri-La" (1956). In 1978 she succeeded Dorothy Loudon, who had created the role of Miss Hannigan in the original Broadway run of the musical "Annie". Television. A veteran of early television, Ghostley appeared as Joy, one of the ugly stepsisters in the 1957 musical television production of Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein's "Cinderella", which starred Julie Andrews in the title role. The other stepsister was played by actress Kaye Ballard. Twelve years later, Ghostley guest starred as a harried maternity nurse on Miss Ballard's comedy series, "The Mothers-in-Law". Ghostley guest starred on the NBC police comedy, "Car 54, Where Are You?," with Joe E. Ross and Fred Gwynne. She portrayed recurring characters on several situation comedies, beginning with Esmeralda, a shy witch who served as a maid and babysitter to the Stephens' household beginning in season six of "Bewitched". Ghostley's role of Esmeralda was created after the death in May 1968 of Marion Lorne, who portrayed Aunt Clara. (Coincidentally, Ghostley and Lorne shared a brief scene together in the 1967 film "The Graduate", a few months prior to Lorne's death and before Ghostley was cast in "Bewitched".) Ghostley's "Esmeralda" appeared in 15 episodes between 1969 and 1972. Ghostley had previously guest starred as a mortal character, "Naomi", during "Bewitched" 's second season. After two years on "Bewitched" as a semi-regular, she joined the cast of "Mayberry R.F.D.", playing Cousin Alice after Frances Bavier's character, Aunt Bee, was written off the series. She appeared in 14 episodes. In the spring of 1972, "Bewitched" was canceled by ABC after eight years. In September of that year, Ghostley was hired as a semi-regular for the ABC-TV variety series, "The Julie Andrews Hour". In addition to participating in songs and sketches, Andrews and Ghostley were featured in a recurring segment as roommates sharing a small apartment. "The Julie Andrews Hour" was canceled by ABC in the spring of 1973 after twenty-four episodes. Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, Ghostley appeared in episodes of situation comedies such as "Hogan's Heroes" (alternating with Kathleen Freeman playing Gertrude Linkmeyer, General Burkhalter's sister), "Good Times", "Maude", "One Day at a Time", "The Odd Couple" and "What's Happening!!". Between 1986 and 1993, Ghostley portrayed Bernice Clifton, the slightly off-kilter friend of Julia and Suzanne Sugarbaker's mother, Perky, on "Designing Women". She later played Irna Wallingsford in six episodes of "Evening Shade". She also had a recurring role of Ida Mae Brindle in the sitcom "Small Wonder", which ran from 1985 to 1989. Among many other guest roles, she appeared in a flashback episode as the crazed mother-in-law of Dorothy Zbornak (Bea Arthur) on "The Golden Girls". She made a one-time appearance as "Great-Grandma" in "Sabrina the Teenage Witch". Ghostley also made a few guest appearances on the daytime drama "Passions" in 2000, playing the ghost of Matilda Matthews. Film. Among her roles in motion pictures, Ghostley appeared in "To Kill a Mockingbird" (1962), playing Stephanie Crawford, the fussy neighborhood gossip. She also appeared in the film version of "Grease" as shop teacher Mrs. Murdock. In 1985, she had a supporting role in the Nancy Allen comedy "Not for Publication". Alice played Grandmama in the direct-to-video movie "Addams Family Reunion". Awards. Ghostley received a Tony nomination in the late 1960s for different roles she played in the Broadway comedy "The Beauty Part". She also received a Tony award for Best Featured Actress for her role in "The Sign in Sidney Brustein's Window". In 1992, Ghostley earned an Emmy nomination for her role in "Designing Women". Personal life. Ghostley was married to Felice Orlandi, an Italian-American actor, from 1953 until his death in 2003 Death. Alice Ghostley died at her home in Studio City, California on September 21, 2007 after a long battle from colon cancer and a series of strokes. On Thursday, August 20, 2009, Alice's ashes were taken to Oak Hill Cemetery in Siloam Springs, Arkansas to be buried with her sister, Gladys, who died on June 21, 2009. The Ghostley sisters were buried next to their parents.
1163773	Kim Hunter (November 12, 1922 – September 11, 2002) was an American film, theatre, and television actress. She won both an Academy Award and a Golden Globe Award, each as Best Supporting Actress, for her performance as Stella Kowalski in the 1951 film "A Streetcar Named Desire". Decades later she was nominated for a Daytime Emmy Award for her work on the long-running soap "The Edge of Night". Early life. Hunter was born Janet Cole in Detroit, Michigan, the daughter of Grace Lind, who was trained as a concert pianist, and Donald
1132626	Chained Heat (alternate title: Das Frauenlager in West Germany) is a 1983 exploitation film in the women-in-prison genre. It was co-written and directed by Paul Nicholas for Jensen Farley Pictures.
1237534	Razaaq Adoti (born 27 June 1973) is a British actor, producer and screenwriter. Early life. Adoti was born in Forest Gate, London of Nigerian descent (Nigerian British). He landed his first professional screen role on the British television show, "Press Gang", playing a police officer. After a season with the National Youth Music Theatre (NYMT) winning the Edinburgh Festival Fringe First Award with "Aesop, A New Opera" and playing the lead Nathan Detroit in "Guys and Dolls", Adoti was accepted into the Central School of Speech and Drama where he studied for three years earning his Degree in Acting. Career. Actor. Adoti was cast as Yamba in Steven Spielberg’s feature epic, "Amistad" alongside Anthony Hopkins, Morgan Freeman and Matthew McConaughey. After completing "Amistad", he returned to London where he worked on various television and film projects. This included. Paul Maguigan's "Gangster No. 1", and "Black Hawk Down" with director Ridley Scott, playing the antagonist Yousuf Dahir Mo'alim. Since then, Adoti has starred in numerous productions including Paul W. S. Anderson’s "", "Haven", "Doom" and "The Hard Corps". Adoti also starred as Dutch Maas in Bill Duke’s 2008 film, "Cover". Producer. Adoti, through his Area Boyz production company, has written a screenplay "Sons of the Soil" (formerly "Area Boyz") to be shot in England and Nigeria. He is also the host and co-producer on the new Fox Soccer Channel television show titled "Extra Time" set for a summer 2008 premiere.
1163535	Ed Wynn (November 9, 1886 – June 19, 1966) was a popular American comedian and actor noted for his "Perfect Fool" comedy character, his pioneering radio show of the 1930s, and his later career as a dramatic actor. Wynn began his career in vaudeville in 1903 and was a star of the Ziegfeld Follies starting in 1914. During "The Follies of 1915", W. C. Fields allegedly caught Wynn mugging for the audience under the table during his "Pool Room" routine and knocked him unconscious with his cue. Wynn wrote, directed, and produced many Broadway shows in the subsequent decades, and was known for his silly costumes and props as well as for the giggly, wavering voice he developed for the 1921 musical review, "The Perfect Fool". Early life. Ed Wynn was a Jewish-American comedian who was born Isaiah Edwin Leopold in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. His father, who manufactured and sold women's hats, was born in Bohemia-Czechoslovakia. His mother, of Romanian and Turkish ancestry, came from Istanbul, Turkey. Wynn attended Central High School in Philadelphia until age 15. He ran away from home in his teens, worked as a hat salesman and as a utility boy, and eventually adapted his middle name "Edwin" into his new stage name, "Ed Wynn", to save his family the embarrassment of having a lowly comedian as a relative. Radio. Although many gag writers later provided material for Wynn's performances in radio, television and movies, he was proud to boast that he had written every line he ever spoke during his early career as a stage performer. He hosted a popular radio show, "The Fire Chief" for most of the 1930s, heard in North America on Tuesday nights, sponsored by Texaco gasoline. Like many former vaudeville performers who turned to radio in the same decade, the stage-trained Wynn insisted on playing for a live studio audience, doing each program as an actual stage show, using visual bits to augment his written material, and in his case, wearing a colorful costume with a red fireman's helmet. He usually bounced his gags off announcer/straight man Graham McNamee; Wynn's customary opening, "Tonight, Graham, the show's gonna be different," became one of the most familiar tag-lines of its time; a sample joke: "Graham, my uncle just bought a new second-handed car... he calls it Baby! I don't know, it won't go anyplace without a rattle!" Wynn reprised his Fire Chief radio character in two movies, "Follow the Leader" (1930) and "The Chief" (1933). Near the height of his radio fame (1933) he founded his own short-lived radio network the Amalgamated Broadcasting System, which lasted only five weeks, nearly destroying the comedian. According to radio historian Elizabeth McLeod, the failed venture left Wynn deep in debt, divorced and finally, suffering a nervous breakdown. Wynn was offered the title role in MGM's 1939 screen adaptation of "The Wizard of Oz", but turned it down, as did his Ziegfeld contemporary W. C. Fields. The part went to Frank Morgan. Television. In the 1949-50 season, Ed Wynn hosted one of the first comedy-variety television shows, on CBS, and won an Emmy Award in 1949. Buster Keaton, Lucille Ball, and The Three Stooges all made guest appearances with Wynn. This was the first CBS variety television show to originate in Los Angeles, with programs filmed via kinescope for distribution in the Midwest and East. Wynn was also a rotating host of NBC's "Four Star Revue" from 1950 through 1952. After the end of Wynn's third television series, "The Ed Wynn Show" (a short-lived situation comedy on NBC's 1948-49 schedule), his son, actor Keenan Wynn, encouraged him to make a career change rather than retire. The comedian reluctantly began a career as a dramatic actor in television and movies. Father and son appeared in three productions, the first of which was the 1956 "Playhouse 90" broadcast of Rod Serling's play "Requiem for a Heavyweight". Ed was terrified of straight acting and kept goofing his lines in rehearsal. When the producers wanted to fire him, star Jack Palance said he would quit if they fired Ed. (However, unbeknownst to Wynn, supporting player Ned Glass was his secret understudy in case something "did" happen before air time.) On live broadcast night, Wynn surprised everyone with his pitch-perfect performance, and his quick ad libs to cover his mistakes. A dramatization of what happened during the production was later staged as an April 1960 "Westinghouse Desilu Playhouse" episode, "The Man In the Funny Suit", starring both senior and junior Wynns, with key figures involved in the original production also portraying themselves. Ed and his son also worked together in the Jose Ferrer film "The Great Man", with Ed again proving his unexpected skills in drama. "Requiem" established Wynn as serious dramatic actor who could easily hold his own with the best. His role in "The Diary of Anne Frank" (1959) won him an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor. Also in 1959, Wynn appeared on Serling's TV series "The Twilight Zone" in "One for the Angels". Serling, a longtime admirer, had written that episode especially for him, and Wynn later in 1963 starred in the episode "Ninety Years Without Slumbering". For the rest of his life, Ed skillfully moved between comic and dramatic roles. He appeared in feature films and anthology television, endearing himself to new generations of fans. Cartoons. Wynn had been caricatured in 1933 in the "Merrie Melodies" cartoon short "Shuffle Off to Buffalo", and as a pot of jam in the 1934 Betty Boop short "Betty in Blunderland". Films. He appeared as the Fairy Godfather in Jerry Lewis' "Cinderfella". His performance as Paul Beaseley in the 1958 film "The Great Man" earned him nominations for a "Best Supporting Actor" Golden Globe Award and a "Best Foreign Actor" BAFTA Award. The following year saw him receive his first (and only) nomination for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role as Mr. Dussell in "The Diary of Anne Frank" (1959). Six years later he would also appear in the epic motion picture masterpiece "The Greatest Story Ever Told". Work with Disney. Wynn provided the voice of the Mad Hatter in Walt Disney's film, "Alice in Wonderland", but many baby boomer children remember him most fondly for his brief appearances as The Toymaker alongside Mouseketeer Annette Funicello and Tommy Sands in Walt Disney's "Babes in Toyland" released in 1961.
1503611	Audra Ann McDonald (born July 3, 1970) is an American actress and singer. She has appeared on the stage in both musicals and dramas, such as "Ragtime", "A Raisin in the Sun", and "Porgy and Bess". She maintains an active concert and recording career, performing song cycles and operas as well as performing in concert throughout the U.S. She has won five Tony Awards, sharing the record for most Tonys won by an actor with Julie Harris and Angela Lansbury. She also starred in the ABC television drama "Private Practice" as Dr. Naomi Bennett. Early life. Born in Berlin, Germany and raised in Fresno, California, the elder of two daughters, she began to study acting at a young age to counteract her diagnosis as "hyperactive". McDonald graduated from the Roosevelt School of the Arts program within Theodore Roosevelt High School in Fresno. She got her start in acting with Dan Pessano and Good Company Players, beginning in their Junior Company. "I knew I wanted to be involved in theater when I had my first chance to perform with the Good Company Players Junior Company." "The people who have had the most impact on my life: Good Company director Dan Pessano and my mother." She studied classical voice as an undergraduate under Ellen Faull at the Juilliard School, graduating in 1993. Career. Theatre. McDonald became a three-time Tony Award winner by age 28 — for her performances in "Carousel", "Master Class", and "Ragtime", placing her alongside Shirley Booth, Gwen Verdon and Zero Mostel by accomplishing this feat within five years. She was nominated for another Tony Award for her performance in "Marie Christine" before she won her fourth in 2004 for her role in "A Raisin in the Sun", placing her in the company of other four-time winning actresses Gwen Verdon and Mary Martin. She reprised her "Raisin" role for a 2008 television adaptation, earning her a second Emmy Award nomination. On June 10, 2012, McDonald scored her fifth Tony Award win for her portrayal of Bess in Broadway's "The Gershwins' Porgy and Bess", thus tying Angela Lansbury and Julie Harris. McDonald appeared as Lizzie in the Roundabout Theatre Company's 2007 revival of "110 in the Shade", directed by Lonny Price at Studio 54, for which she shared the Drama Desk Award for Best Actress in a Musical with Donna Murphy. On April 29, 2007, while she was in previews for the show, her father was killed when an experimental aircraft he was flying crashed north of Sacramento, California. McDonald appeared in a revised version of "Porgy and Bess", at the Loeb Drama Center (in Cambridge, Massachusetts) from August through September 2011, and recreated the role on Broadway at the Richard Rodgers Theatre, which opened on January 12, 2012 and closed on September 23, 2012. For this role, McDonald won her fifth Tony Award and her first in a Leading Actress category. This American Repertory Theater production was "re-imagined by Suzan-Lori Parks and Diedre Murray as a musical for contemporary audiences." Recordings and concerts. McDonald has maintained ties to her classical training and repertoire. She frequently performs in concert throughout the U.S. and has performed with musical organizations such as the New York Philharmonic and the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. Carnegie Hall commissioned the song cycle "The Seven Deadly Sins: A Song Cycle" for McDonald, and she performed it at Carnegie's Zankel Hall on June 2, 2004. She sang two solo one-act operas at the Houston Grand Opera in March 2006- Francis Poulenc's "La Voix Humaine" and the world premiere of Michael John LaChiusa's "Send (who are you? I love you)". On February 10, 2007, McDonald starred with Patti LuPone in the Los Angeles Opera production of Kurt Weill's opera "Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny" directed by John Doyle. The recording of the Los Angeles Opera production of Kurt Weill's opera "Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny", featuring McDonald and Patti LuPone, won two Grammy Awards, for Best Opera Recording and Best Classical Album in February 2009. In September 2008, American composer Michael John LaChiusa was quoted in "Opera News Online", as working on an adaptation of Bizet's "Carmen" with McDonald in mind. McDonald has recorded four solo albums for Nonesuch Records. Her first, the 1998 "Way Back to Paradise", featured songs written by a new generation of musical theatre composers who had achieved varying degrees of prominence in the 1990s, particularly LaChiusa, Adam Guettel and Jason Robert Brown. Her next album, "How Glory Goes" (2000) combined both old and new works, and included composers Harold Arlen, Leonard Bernstein and Jerome Kern. Her next album "Happy Songs" (2002) was big band music from the 1920s through the 40s. Her fourth album, "Build a Bridge" (2006), features songs from jazz and pop. At the 2010 BCS National Championship Game on January 7, McDonald sang "America the Beautiful" for the sold-out stadium fans to celebrate the final game of the college football season. Television and film. McDonald has also made many television appearances, both musical and dramatic. In 2001, she received her first Emmy Award nomination for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Miniseries or TV Movie for the HBO film "Wit", starring Emma Thompson and directed by Mike Nichols. She also has appeared on ' (1999), ' (2000), "" (1999), the short-lived "Mister Sterling" (2003), "The Bedford Diaries" (2006), and "Kidnapped" (2006–2007), and in the 1999 television remake of "Annie" as Daddy Warbucks' secretary & soon-to-be wife, Miss Farrell. She sang with the New York Philharmonic in the annual New Year's Eve gala concert on December 31, 2006, featuring music from the movies; it was televised on "Live from Lincoln Center" by PBS. She also appeared on the December 11th 2012 episode of "The Colbert Report", singing Baby It's Cold Outside with host Stephen Colbert. McDonald appeared as Naomi Bennett in "Private Practice", a spinoff of "Grey's Anatomy". She replaced Merrin Dungey, who played the role in the series pilot. McDonald left "Private Practice" at the end of season four. Shonda Rhimes, the creator of Private Practice, tweeted that Audra will appear as Naomi Bennett one final time in the series finale this spring. In films, McDonald has appeared in "Best Thief in the World" (2004), "It Runs in the Family" (2003), "Cradle Will Rock" (1999), "The Object of My Affection" (1998), and "Seven Servants" by Daryush Shokof which was her film acting debut in (1996). McDonald will play Mother Abbess in the NBC production of "The Sound of Music Live!". Personal life. McDonald married bassist Peter Donovan in September 2000. They have one daughter, Zoe, named after McDonald's close friend Zoe Caldwell. McDonald and Donovan divorced in 2009. She married Will Swenson on October 6, 2012.
1182298	Nicholas Scott "Nick" Cannon (born October 8, 1980) is an American actor, comedian, rapper, and radio/television personality. On television, Cannon began as a teenager on "All That" before going on to host "The Nick Cannon Show", "Wild 'N Out", and "America's Got Talent". He acted in the films "Drumline", "Love Don't Cost a Thing", and "Roll Bounce". As a rapper, he released his debut self-titled album in 2003 with the hit single "Gigolo", a collaboration with singer R. Kelly. In 2006, Cannon recorded singles "Dime Piece" and "My Wife" for a planned album "Stages", which was never released. Cannon married American R&B/pop singer Mariah Carey on April 30, 2008. Early life. Cannon was born on October 8, 1980, in San Diego, California, the son of Beth (née Hackett), an accountant, and James Cannon, a motivational televangelist. Growing up, he divided his time between San Diego, where his mother lived, and Charlotte, North Carolina, where his father had worked. At age 11, Cannon received his first break doing stand-up comedy on his father's local cable access program.
1063463	The Chumscrubber is a 2005 comedy-drama film, directed by Arie Posin, starring an ensemble cast led by Jamie Bell. The plot, written by Posin and Zac Stanford, focuses on the chain of events that follow the suicide of a teenage drug dealer in an idealistic but superficial town. Some of the themes addressed in the film are the lack of communication between teenagers and their parents and the inauthenticity of suburbia. The titular Chumscrubber is a character in a fictional video game that represents the town and its inhabitants. Posin and Stanford had originally planned to shoot the film using their own funds, but they sent the script to producers Lawrence Bender and Bonnie Curtis who agreed to produce the film and help to raise the budget. Bell was cast in the lead role after an extensive auditioning process, and the film was shot in various California locations over 30 days in April 2004.
1018212	Plot. The film focuses on young Rin Sakurazawa, who, after having trained at the Shaolin Temple for 3000 days, returns to Japan to find her former dojo abandoned, and her former Shaolin master a cook at a local restaurant. Soon she is introduced to the fictional Seikan International University's Lacrosse Team. Meanwhile, the president of Seikan University, Yuichiro Oba, seems to be following a sinister objective. Reception. This film received lukewarm reviews.
1697898	Downhill Racer is a 1969 film and the first to be directed by Michael Ritchie. A film about ski racing, it stars Robert Redford and Gene Hackman. Plot. Dave Chappelet is a self-centered, ambitious ski racer from Idaho Springs, Colorado with an outside chance of making the U.S. Olympic team. He joins the team in mid-season in Europe, and immediately clashes with the team's head coach, Eugene Claire, as well as the more experienced teammates. The ego-driven Chappelet complains about his assigned race positions and shows little interest in team success or morale. After a couple of strong downhill performances that make him a rising contender, a ski equipment manufacturer begins to seek Chappelet's endorsement and his assistant Carole takes a romantic interest in him, which may or may not be sincere. Chappelet becomes the U.S. team's best hope after top downhiller Johnny Creech is injured in a pre-Olympic race. Claire doesn't like counting on Chappelet, but a great deal is at stake and Chappelet delivers the race of his life winning the gold medal at the Olympics. Production. The assistant coach of the U.S. Ski team is played by Dabney Coleman and Swedish actress Camilla Sparv plays the love interest. Karl Michael Vogler appears as her boss, a ski company owner. Locations. Lots of good World Cup ski racing action, leading to an exciting climax at the Winter Olympics. The winter scenes were filmed on location in the Alps, mostly in January 1969. Prominently featured are the Lauberhorn at Wengen, Switzerland, and the Hahnenkamm at Kitzbühel, Austria. Also included were Megève, France and St. Anton, Austria. The off-season scenes were filmed at various locations in Colorado; the track scene was filmed at a relatively new Potts Field, on the east campus of CU in Boulder. Inspiration. The suspected inspiration for the lead character in the film was a composite of Spider Sabich and Billy Kidd. Sabich, a young and attractive Californian, finished fifth in the slalom at the 1968 Olympics, at age 22. Kidd was a U.S. Ski Team veteran from Vermont who won the silver medal in the slalom at the 1964 Olympics at age 20. Those close to Sabich remember him as much more positive and easy-going than Redford's character, Dave Chappellet. While Kidd was more aloof than Sabich, he too was more light-hearted (and had a much better sense of humor) than Chappellet.
582383	Nagesh Kukunoor (born 30 March 1967) is an Indian filmmaker and screenwriter. He is known for movies such as "Hyderabad Blues" (1998), "Rockford" (1999), "3 Deewarein" (2003), "Iqbal" (2005) and "Dor" (2006). Early life. Nagesh Kukunoor Naidu was born to Kusuma Sudarshan and KS Naidu in Hyderabad. As a child he loved watching Telugu, Hindi, and English films in the theatres of his neighbourhood, Narayanguda. He then did his intermediate from Little Flower Junior College, Hyderabad and went ahead to do Chemical Engineering at Osmania University in Hyderabad, and graduated with a Bachelor's degree. He moved to Atlanta, Georgia in the United States in 1988, and completed his Master's degree in Chemical Engineering at Georgia Institute of Technology. He studied Acting & direction at the Warehouse Actor's Theater in Atlanta. Movie career. He invested the money he made from his engineering career in USA in producing the movie "Hyderabad Blues". It is based on a script that he wrote in Atlanta dealing with Indians returning home from the United States of America. He directed and acted in the movie. It was a budget of Rs. 1.7 million (roughly equivalent to US$40,000) and shot in 17 days. It was perceived by Sanjay Arora, an independent film maker, to be realistic and among one of the first movies to use Hyderabadi Urdu correctly. It became the most successful independent film in India. The film was featured at Peachtree International Film Festival in Atlanta and Rhode Island International Film Festival. Later movies. "3 Deewarein" which was based on Shawshank Redemption(2003) was premiered at the Kolkata Film Festival. In contrast to his earlier work, it had a budget of and featured established actors including Naseeruddin Shah, Juhi Chawla and Jackie Shroff. In 2006, Nagesh KuKunoor wrote and directed Dor, a drama film featuring Ayesha Takia, Gul Panag and Shreyas Talpade as the lead actors. Nagesh also acted in the film, playing the role of businessman Chopra. The film is about two women who come from different backgrounds and how fate brings them together. Meera (Ayesha Takia), a young woman who becomes a widow shortly after marriage, is trapped by tradition. Zeenat (Gul Panag), on the other hand, faces the daunting task of saving the life of her husband, who is on trial for murder. A bahuroopiya (Shreyas Talpade) helps her reach Meera, who holds the "string" to Zeenat's hope. The companionship that develops between Meera and Zeenat results in redemption for both. The film, which is a remake of the Malayalam film, Perumazhakkalam (2004), was well received by both, the critics and film buffs. His film "Iqbal", written by Vipul K Rawal featuring Shreyas Talpade and Naseeruddin Shah won a lot of critical acclaim for the simple yet heart rendering script and the acting by all actors. "8x10 Tasveer" (2009), features Akshay Kumar in the lead role and Ayesha Takia as the female lead it is a thriller with a touch of Hollywood style cinematography, but fared poorly at the box office. It is considered to be Nagesh's most self reflective work to date. "I like to cast characters who are close to me. And this one gets as close to me as possible. I was once an environmental consultant. Akshay plays the part of an environment protection officer," Kukunoor said in an April 2009 interview. His latest movie "Mod" did not do well at the box office.
1078897	A Swedish Love Story () is a 1970 Swedish romantic drama directed by Roy Andersson, starring Ann-Sofie Kylin and Rolf Sohlman as two teenagers falling in love. Inspired by the Czechoslovak New Wave, the film was Andersson's feature film debut and was successful in Sweden and abroad. It was entered into the 20th Berlin International Film Festival. The film was also selected as the Swedish entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 43rd Academy Awards, but was not accepted as a nominee. Production and reception. Roy Andersson had just graduated from film school, having made two promising short films and a 48 minutes examination film, when he was given the opportunity to make "A Swedish Love Story". The film was shot between 16 June and 26 August 1969. The "Time Out Film Guide 2009", says the film is "strangely touching and wonderfully strange"
584128	Thulluvadho Ilamai (; ) is a 2002 Indian Tamil film, directed by Kasthuri Raja, written by his son Selvaraghavan and introducing his second son Dhanush as an actor, who enacted the lead role character. Besides Dhanush, the film had also introduced other newcomers Abhinay, Sherin, Ramesh, Shilpa and Gangeshwari and features prominent film personalities as Vijayakumar, Ramesh Khanna, 'Pyramid' Nadarajan as well. While the soundtrack was composed by Yuvan Shankar Raja, Viji Manuel had composed the film score. The film released on 10 May 2002 and proved to be successful at the box office. The film depicts the story of six high-school classmates, three boys and three girls, coming from different strata of society, who have each their own problems in their respective families and escape from their homes, deciding to live together on their own with the help of an older friend of theirs. Plot. Mahesh (Dhanush) is the son of a poor fisherman (Thalaivasal Vijay), who grows up seeing his parents always having sex or fighting. Pooja (Sherin) is the daughter of an orthodox and very strict businessman (Pyramid Natarajan), who is always suspicious about her. Vishnu's (Abhinay) father neglects his mother and instead has his maid servant as his paramour. Anitha's (Shilpa) parents live abroad, concentrating merely on their work and business, having not time for their daughter and neglecting her. Harish (Ramesh) is regularly beaten up and mistreated by his sadistic father. These five people and another girl, Divya, (Gangeshwari) are high-school students and best friends. When they find out that one of them, Anitha, is addicted to drugs, they decide to run away from their homes along with Mani (Ramesh Khanna), a pavement bookseller and an older friend of theirs, in order to rehabilitate her, but also as a result of their discontent and feeling of alienation from their respective families. However, the runaways have to face and deal with many problems and break down several barriers, realizing that they are not yet ready and matured enough to cope with life in the outside world and recognizing the importance of education. They finally return to their school, where the school principal (Vijayakumar) lectures the parents of the students, blaming them for the students' escape attempt and misbehaviour. Soundtrack. The soundtrack was composed by Yuvan Shankar Raja, marking the first collaboration of the Yuvan Shankar Raja-Selvaraghavan duo, which would later go on to become one of the most successful and acclaimed combos in Tamil cinema, while Viji Manuel composed the film score. The soundtrack initially featured 7 songs overall, later a second CD was released which included 3 additional short tracks. The song "Theenda Theenda", based on the Carnatic rāga Reetigowla, had two versions, a female solo and a duet version. The lyrics were written by Pa. Vijay except for the song "Kann Munney", which has lyrics written by Selvaraghavan. The album, receiving positive reviews, described as youthful and refreshing, is considered a breakthrough album for composer Yuvan Shankar Raja, turning him into a leading composer in the Tamil film industry. Thanks to this album, he grew up in popularity, particularly among the younger generation, who could identify themselves with the songs. Remake. This film was later remade for Telugu audience, in 2003, as "Juniors" starring Allari Naresh and Sherin reprising her role.
674450	Stroszek is a 1977 film by German director Werner Herzog. It was written in four days specifically for Bruno S. and was shot in Berlin, two towns in Wisconsin, and in North Carolina. Most of the lead roles are played by non-actors. Plot. Bruno Stroszek (Bruno S.) is a Berlin street performer. Released from prison and warned to stop drinking, he immediately goes to a familiar bar where he comforts Eva (Eva Mattes), a prostitute down on her luck, and lets her stay with him at the apartment his landlord kept for him. They are then harried and beaten by Eva's former pimps, who insult Bruno, pull his accordion apart and humiliate him by making him kneel on his grand piano with bells balanced on his back. Faced with the prospect of further harassment, Bruno and Eva decide to leave Germany and accompany Bruno's eccentric elderly neighbour Scheitz (Clemens Scheitz), who was planning to move to Wisconsin to live with his American nephew Clayton. After sightseeing in New York City they buy a used car and arrive in a winter-bound, barren prairie near the fictional town of 'Railroad Flats'. There Bruno works as a mechanic with Clayton and his Native American helper, Eva as a waitress at a truck stop and Scheitz pursues his interest in animal magnetism. The pair buy a trailer which is sited on Clayton's land, but as bills mount, the bank threatens to repossess it. Eva falls back into prostitution to supplement her wages, but it is not enough to meet the payments. She tires of Bruno's drunken ramblings and deserts him by leaving with a couple of truck drivers bound for Vancouver. A man from the bank (Scott McKain) visits Bruno, who is now drinking steadily, and has him sign off on the repossession. The home is auctioned, and he and Scheitz, who is convinced that the world is conspiring against him, set off to confront the "conspiracy." Finding the bank closed, they hold up a barber shop beneath it, make off with 32 dollars and then go shopping in a small store across the street. The police arrive and arrest Scheitz for armed robbery without noticing Bruno. Holding a large frozen turkey from the store and the shotgun, Bruno returns to the garage where he works, loads the tow truck with beer, and drives along a highway into the mountains. Upon entering a small town, the truck breaking down, Bruno pulls over to a restaurant, where he tells his story to a German-speaking businessman. He then starts the truck, leaves it circling in the parking lot with a fire taking hold in the engine compartment and goes into a tourist trap across the street, where he starts a ski-lift and rides it with his frozen turkey. After Bruno disappears from view a single shot rings out. The police arrive at the scene to find the truck is now fully ablaze. The film ends with a sequence showing a chicken dancing, a chicken playing a piano and a rabbit riding a toy fire truck, in coin operated attractions that Bruno activated on his way to the ski-lift. Production. Parts of the movie were shot in Nekoosa and in a truck stop in Madison, Wisconsin. The concluding scenes were shot in Cherokee, North Carolina. Other parts of the film were shot in Plainfield, Wisconsin. There, Herzog had planned to meet documentary filmmaker Errol Morris to dig up serial killer Ed Gein's mother's grave, but Morris never showed. Reception. The film has a 100% "freshness" rating at Rotten Tomatoes. Roger Ebert called it "one of the oddest films ever made" when including it as one of his "Great Movies".
1016181	The Heavenly Kings (四大天王) is a 2006 Hong Kong film directed by Daniel Wu. Background. In 2005, Chinese media began to report that Daniel Wu had formed a boyband, Alive, with Terence Yin, Andrew Lin, and Conroy Chan. Wu and his band mates posted information, updates, personal thoughts (including slamming Hong Kong Disneyland, for which they were spokespersons), and the band's music, at their official website. In 2006, Wu made his writing and directorial debut with "The Heavenly Kings", which chronicles Alive's formation and exploits. After the film's release, however, it was revealed that "The Heavenly Kings" was actually a mockumentary of the Hong Kong pop music industry, and Alive was constructed purely as a vehicle to make the movie; the film's characters represented only 10-15% of their real-life counterparts and much of the footage blurred the line between fiction and reality. Wu admitted his own singing voice "sucked really bad," and the band had their voices digitally enhanced for its music, to prove that "it's easy to fake it." Reception. Despite some backlash from the media over being intentionally fed false information in the movie about illegal downloads of the band's music, Wu won the best new director award for the film at the 26th Hong Kong Film Awards, an achievement he called "a group effort." The film has also been nominated for Best Original Film Song at the same Awards ceremony: Composer: Davy Chan; Lyricist: Li Jin Yi and Singer: Alive.
1090259	Marcel Grossmann (, April 9, 1878 – September 7, 1936) was a mathematician of Jewish ancestry, and a friend and classmate of Albert Einstein. Grossmann was a member of an old Swiss family from Zurich. His father managed a textile factory. He became a Professor of Mathematics at the Federal Polytechnic Institute in Zurich, today the ETH Zurich, specializing in descriptive geometry. Career. In 1900 Grossmann graduated from "Zurich Polytechnikum" and became an assistant to the geometer W. Fiedler. He continued to do research on non-Euclidean geometry and taught in high schools for the next seven years. In 1902, he earned his doctorate from the University of Zurich with the thesis "On the Metrical Properties of Collinear Structures". In 1907, he was appointed full professor of descriptive geometry at the "Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule". It was Grossmann who emphasized the importance of a non-Euclidean geometry called Riemannian geometry (also elliptic geometry) to Einstein, which was a necessary step in the development of Einstein's general theory of relativity. Abraham Pais's book on Einstein suggests that Grossman mentored Einstein in tensor theory as well. Grossmann introduced Einstein to the absolute differential calculus, started by Christoffel and fully developed by Ricci-Curbastro and Levi-Civita. Grossmann facilitated Einstein's unique synthesis of mathematical and theoretical physics in what is still today considered the most elegant and powerful theory of gravity: the general theory of relativity. The collaboration of Einstein and Grossmann led to a ground-breaking paper: "Outline of a Generalized Theory of Relativity and of a Theory of Gravitation", which was published in 1913 and was one of the two fundamental papers which established Einstein's theory of gravity. As a professor of geometry, Grossmann organized summer courses for high school teachers. In 1910, he became one of the founders of the Swiss Mathematical Society. Grossmann died of multiple sclerosis in 1936. The community of relativists celebrates Grossmann's contributions to physics by organizing Marcel Grossman meetings every three years.
1062482	127 Hours is a 2010 biographical survival drama film directed, co-written and produced by Danny Boyle. The film stars James Franco as real-life canyoneer Aron Ralston, who became trapped by a boulder in an isolated slot canyon in Blue John Canyon, southeastern Utah, in April 2003. The film, based on Ralston's memoir "Between a Rock and a Hard Place", was written by Boyle and Simon Beaufoy, produced by Christian Colson and John Smithson and the music was scored by A. R. Rahman. Beaufoy, Colson and Rahman had all previously worked with Boyle on "Slumdog Millionaire". The film was received well by critics and audiences and it was nominated for six Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Actor for Franco. Plot. On Friday, April 25, 2003, Aron Ralston (James Franco) prepares for a day of canyoneering in Utah's Canyonlands National Park as he drives to the trailhead at night. The next morning he rides through the park on his mountain bike, aiming to cut 45 minutes off the guide book's estimate for the time needed to reach his destination. He is on foot, running along a bare rock formation when he sees two hikers, Kristi (Kate Mara) and Megan (Amber Tamblyn), apparently lost. Ralston convinces the pair that he is a trail guide and offers to show them a much more interesting route than the one they had been trying to find. He leads them through Robbers Roost area narrow canyons, including a blind jump into an underground pool, where the three film themselves repeating the plunge using Ralston's video camera. As they part company, Kristi and Megan invite Ralston to a party they're holding the next night, and he promises to attend. However, they doubt he will show up. Ralston continues into Blue John Canyon, through a narrow passage where boulders are suspended, wedged between the walls of rock. As he descends, one boulder is jarred loose, falling after Ralston to the bottom of the canyon and smashing his right arm against the canyon wall, trapping him. He initially yells for help, but the extreme isolation of his location means that nobody is within earshot. As he resigns himself to the fact that he is on his own, he begins recording a video diary on his camera and using the larger blade on his pocket multi-tool to attempt to chip away at the boulder. He also begins rationing his water and food. As he realizes his efforts to chip away at the boulder are futile, he begins to attempt to cut into his arm, but finds his knife too blunt to break his skin. He then stabs his arm, but realizes he will not be able to cut through the bone. He finds himself out of water and is forced to drink his own urine. His video logs become more and more desperate as he feels himself dying. He begins dreaming about relationships and past experiences, including a former lover (Clémence Poésy), family (Lizzy Caplan, Treat Williams, Kate Burton), and the two hikers he met before his accident. After reflecting upon his life, he comes to the realization that everything he has done has led him to this ordeal, and that he was destined to die alone in the canyon. After five days, Ralston sees a vision of a little boy, which he assumes is his unborn son, a blond boy of about 3 (Peter Joshua Hull), through a premonition. He discovers that by using his knowledge of torque and applying enough force to his forearm, he can break the radius and then the ulna bones. He gathers the will to do so and eventually severs his arm with the smaller, less dull knife on the multi-tool. He fashions a crude tourniquet out of the insulation for his CamelBak tube and uses a carabiner to tighten it. Aron frees himself on Thursday, May 1, 2003, at 11:34 A.M. Mountain Standard Time. He wraps the stump of his arm and takes a picture of the boulder that trapped him as he leaves it behind. He then makes his way out of the canyon, where he is forced to rappel down a 65-foot rockface and hike several miles before, exhausted and covered in blood, he finally runs into a family on a day hike. The family sends for help and Ralston is picked up by a Utah Highway Patrol helicopter, leaving his cap and one of his shoes behind. The film ends with shots of Ralston from his life after his ordeal — including several of Ralston's further adventures in climbing and mountaineering, which he continued following the accident — and of the real Aron Ralston with his wife, Jessica, whom he met three years later, and their son, Leo, born in 2010. A title card that appears before the closing credits says that Ralston now always leaves a note whenever he goes anywhere alone. In an alternate ending, Aron travels via the helicopter to a small hospital where he is treated for his injuries, and speaks with his mother for the first time since leaving to Utah. After leaving he visits his ex-girlfriend Rana, and they talk about the state of their relationship, and he realizes that his son he saw in the canyon will not be hers. The film ends with the same title cards as the original ending. Cast. Aron Ralston himself and his wife and son make a cameo appearance at the end of the film. Authenticity. The scenes early in the film of Ralston's encounter with the two hikers were altered to portray Ralston showing them a hidden pool, when in reality he just showed them some basic climbing moves. Despite these changes, with which he was initially uncomfortable, Ralston says the rest of the film is "so factually accurate it is as close to a documentary as you can get and still be a drama". Franco is never shown uttering even an "Ow"; Ralston wrote that this is accurate. Other changes from the book include omissions of descriptions of Aron's efforts after freeing himself: he had to decide where to seek the fastest medical attention; he took a photo of himself at the small brown pool from which he really did drink; had his first bowel movement of the week; abandoned a lot of the items which he had kept throughout his confinement; got lost in a side canyon; and met a family from Holland (not an American family), Eric, Monique, and Andy Meijer, who already knew that he was probably lost in the area, thanks to the searches of his parents and the authorities. Aron did send Monique and Andy to run ahead to get help. Aron walked seven miles before the helicopter came. Production. Danny Boyle had been wanting to make a film about Ralston's ordeal for four years. Boyle wrote a treatment for the film and Simon Beaufoy wrote the screenplay. Boyle describes "127 Hours" as "an action movie with a guy who can't move". He also expressed an interest for a more intimate film than his previous film, "Slumdog Millionaire" (2008): "I remember thinking, I must do a film where I follow an actor the way Darren Aronofsky did with "The Wrestler". So "127 Hours" is my version of that." Boyle and Fox Searchlight announced plans to create "127 Hours" in November 2009. "News of the World" reported in November that Cillian Murphy was Boyle's top choice to play Ralston. In January 2010, James Franco was cast as Ralston. Filming began in March 2010 in Utah. Boyle intended to shoot the first part of the film with no dialogue. By June 17, 2010, the film was in post-production. Boyle made the very unusual move of hiring two cinematographers to work first unit, Anthony Dod Mantle and Enrique Chediak, each shooting 50 percent of the film by trading off with each other. This allowed Boyle and Franco to work long days without wearing out the crew. Franco admitted that shooting the film was physically hard on him: "There was a lot of physical pain, and Danny knew that it was going to cause a lot of pain. And I asked him after we did the movie, 'How did you know how far you could push it?' ... I had plenty of scars... Not only am I feeling physical pain, but I'm getting exhausted. It became less of a façade I put on and more of an experience that I went through." The film had two official taglines: "There is no force more powerful than the will to live" and "Every Second Counts." The latter appears on the film poster, which is designed to resemble the vase-versus-faces optical illusion. On the poster, the viewer sees two inward-thrusting rocks or, more subtly, an hourglass. Release. "127 Hours" was screened at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 12, 2010, following its premiere at the 2010 Telluride Film Festival. The film was selected to close the 2010 London Film Festival on October 28, 2010. It was given a limited release in the United States on November 5, 2010. It was released in the United Kingdom on January 7, 2011, and in India on January 26, 2011. There were many published reports (not all confirmed) that the trailer and film made audience members ill. The "Huffington Post", in November 2010, wrote that it "has gotten audiences fainting, vomiting and worse in numbers unseen since "The Exorcist" - and the movie has not even hit theaters yet."
774706	Gordon Edward Pinsent, CC, FRSC (born July 12, 1930) is a well known Canadian television, theatre and film actor. He is best known for providing the voice of King Babar. He is also known for playing Hap Shaughnessy on "The Red Green Show""." Early life. Pinsent, the youngest of six children, was born in Grand Falls, Newfoundland. His mother, Florence "Flossie" (née Cooper), was originally from Clifton, Newfoundland, and his father, Stephen Arthur Pinsent, was a papermill worker and cobbler originally from Dildo, Newfoundland. His mother was "quiet spoken" and a religious Anglican; the family was descended from immigrants from Kent and Devon in England. He was a self-described "awkward child" who suffered from rickets. Pinsent began acting on stage in the 1940s at the age of 17. He soon took on roles in radio drama on the CBC, and later moved into television and film as well. In the early 1950s, he took a break from acting and joined the Canadian Army, serving for approximately four years as a Private in The Royal Canadian Regiment. Career. During the early years of his career he appeared in "Scarlett Hill" but was best known for co-starring in the CBC children's series "The Forest Rangers" in the early 1960s. He has since become a staple of Canadian television with roles including the series "Quentin Durgens, M.P.", "A Gift to Last" (which he created), "The Red Green Show", "Due South", "Wind at My Back" and "Power Play". The pilot episode of "A Gift to Last" was adapted for the stage by Walter Learning and Alden Nowlan and has become a perennial Canadian Christmas favourite in regional theatres across the country. Pinsent's movie roles have included "Lydia", "The Rowdyman", "Who Has Seen the Wind", "John and the Missus", "The Shipping News" and "Away from Her". He wrote the screenplays for "The Rowdyman" and "John and the Missus". Perhaps his best known early film role was that of the President of the United States in the 1970 science fiction cult classic "". He starred in a role called "Horse Latitudes" based upon Donald Crowhurst, now featured in "Deep Water". In 1979 he was made an officer of the Order of Canada and was promoted to Companion in 1998. In 2006, he was made a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. On March 6, 2007, it was announced that Pinsent would receive a star on Canada's Walk of Fame. On March 8, 2007, it was publicly announced in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, that Pinsent had accepted the appointment of Honorary Chairman of the "Building for the Future" fundraising campaign for The Royal Canadian Regiment Museum. During the 2008, 2010 and 2011 summer periods of CBC Radio One, Pinsent presented a radio documentary series called "The Late Show" featuring extended obituaries of notable Canadians whom the producers believed deserved attention. Most recently he had a guest starring role as Maurice Becker on the February 3, 2010 episode of Canadian television series "Republic of Doyle". He attained recent notoriety when a comedic segment of him reading dramatically from Justin Bieber's autobiography on "This Hour Has 22 Minutes" went viral on October 20, 2010. Personal life. Pinsent married actress Charmion King in 1962, and they were married until her death on January 6, 2007 from emphysema; their daughter, Leah Pinsent, is an actress. Pinsent also has two children from an earlier marriage. His autobiography, "By the Way", was published in 1992. He has also written a number of stage plays and television screenplays. In 1997 he won the Earl Grey Award. Awards. Pinsent is a Companion of The Order of Canada and a Fellow of The Royal Society of Canada. Pinsent received an LL.D from the University of Prince Edward Island in 1975, and Honorary doctorates from Queen's University, Memorial University of Newfoundland, Lakehead University (2008) and the University of Windsor (2012). Pinsent received a Governor General's Performing Arts Award in 2004. It was on July 12, 2005, in his hometown of Grand Falls-Windsor, and in honour of his 75th birthday, that the Arts & Culture Centre was renamed The Gordon Pinsent Centre for the Arts. On September 25, 2008 at a “Newfoundland and Labrador Inspired Evening” at The Windsor Arms Hotel in Toronto, the Company Theatre presented Mr. Pinsent with the inaugural Gordon Pinsent Award of Excellence. Pinsent received the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal in 2012.
899585	Rocco e i suoi fratelli () is a 1960 Italian film directed by Luchino Visconti. Set in Milan, it tells the story of an immigrant family from the South and its disintegration in the society of the industrial North. The title is a combination of Thomas Mann's "Joseph and his Brothers" and the name of Rocco Scotellaro, Italian poet who described the feelings of the peasants of southern Italy. The film stars Alain Delon, Renato Salvatori, Annie Girardot, and Claudia Cardinale, in one of her early roles before she became internationally known. The film's score was composed by Nino Rota. Plot. The drama is a study of a rural Italian family led north to Milan by the matriarch (Katina Paxinou). Presented in five distinct sections, the film weaves the story of Vincenzo, Simone, Rocco, Ciro and Luca as they struggle to adapt to life in a large, impersonal city. The plot revolves around the prostitute, Nadia (Annie Girardot), who is pursued and desired by both Simone and Rocco (Alain Delon). The pivotal scene in the film comes when Simone rapes Nadia in front of Rocco, who then gives her up to his brother out of a tragic, misplaced desire to do whatever it takes to keep his family whole. In typical fashion for a director known for helping build Italian neorealism, the film ends with no substantive resolution, but with clouds of doom hanging over the family. During shooting, the film was seized and Visconti asked to delete the scenes showing Nadia's rape and murder. Visconti was not vindicated until a court judgement of 1966. Reception. Critical response. The film critic for "The New York Times," Bosley Crowther, gave the film a positive review and appreciated the direction of the film and acting. He wrote, "A fine Italian film to stand alongside the American classic, "The Grapes of Wrath", opened last night ...It is Luchino Visconti's "Rocco and His Brothers" ("Rocco e i suoi fratelli"), and it comes here garlanded with laurels that are quite as appropriate in this context as they are richly deserved...Signor Visconti has clearly conceived his film and that is what his brilliant handling of events and characters makes one feel. There's a blending of strong emotionalism and realism to such an extent that the margins of each become fuzzy and indistinguishable...Alain Delon as the sweet and loyal Rocco...is touchingly pliant and expressive, but it is Renato Salvatori ...who fills the screen with the anguish of a tortured and stricken character. His raw and restless performance is overpowering and unforgettable...the French actress Annie Girardot is likewise striking as the piteous prostitute..." The staff at "Variety" magazine lauded the drama, and wrote, "With all its faults, this is one of the top achievements of the year in Italy...Scripting shows numerous hands at work, yet all is pulled together by Visconti's dynamic and generally tasteful direction. Occasionally, as in the near-final revelation to the family of Simone's crime, the action gets out of hand and comes close to melodrama. Yet the impact of the main story line, aided by the sensitive, expertly guided playing of Alain Delon as Rocco, Annie Girardot as the prostie, and Renato Salvatori as Simone, is great. Katina Paxinou at times is perfect, at others she is allowed to act too theatrically and off-key." When the film was released in DVD format, critic Glenn Erickson said, "A major pleasure of "Rocco and his Brothers" is simply seeing its portrait of life in working-class Milan in 1960. Beautifully directed in the housing projects and streets of the city, this is a prime example of a film which will accrue historical interest simply because it shows so much of how people lived and what places looked like (now) 40 years ago."
1268330	Miriam Cooper (November 7, 1891 – April 12, 1976) was a silent film actress who is best known for her work in early film including "The Birth of a Nation" and "Intolerance" for D. W. Griffith and "The Honor System" and "Evangeline" for her husband Raoul Walsh. She retired from acting in 1923 but was rediscovered by the film community in the 1960s, and toured colleges lecturing about silent films. Early life. Miriam Cooper was born to Julian Cooper and Margaret Stewart in Baltimore, Maryland on November 7, 1891. Her mother was from a devout Catholic family with a long history in Baltimore. Her paternal grandfather had helped discover Navassa Island and made his wealth from selling guano. Her father was attending Loyola University when he met her mother. Her parents had 5 children in 5 years (one died in infancy) including her sister Lenore and her brothers Nelson and Gordon.
1068807	Blonde Ambition is an American film released in December 2007 and inspired by the theme of the Academy Award-winning movie "Working Girl", starring singer/actress Jessica Simpson playing the part of a small town girl who moves to New York City and rises up into a career as a business woman. The film also stars Luke Wilson, Paul Vogt and actor/comedian Andy Dick. Before the movie started filming, the media reported that "Blonde Ambition" was a remake of the 1980s film "Working Girl". After Simpson learned about this rumor, she talked to Empire Online and stated, "I don't know where that came from", "it's a movie called "Blonde Ambition" co-starring Luke Wilson. It's definitely the theme of "Working Girl" - this small town girl that moves to New York City to rise up into this great career as a business woman pretty much. But it's definitely not a remake." Simpson also said that this film is more of a knockabout comedy than the Melanie Griffith starrer, which was a drama genre movie. The official trailer for the movie leaked to the Internet on early May 2007, a full version of a pre-release DVD was leaked on December 16, 2007. Box office. It was released into eight theatres in Texas, the home state for stars Simpson and Wilson, on December 22, 2007 before a DVD release date on January 22, 2008. "Blonde Ambition" averaged $48 per screen on December 22, 2007 for a total box office of $384 . This meant, based on an $8 ticket price, that only 6 people paid to see the movie at each of those eight theatres and only 48 people in total went to see the movie. Opening weekend, the film finished 54th at the North American box office with a three-day gross of $1,332 and a per-theatre-average of $165. In Ukraine, however, the film opened at #1 in its first weekend (February 16–17, 2008), earning $253,008. In Russia, "Blonde Ambition" opened up at #7 at box office and has grossed $399,854 to date, and in the Philippines it opened at #5 and has grossed $16,538 to date. "Blonde Ambition", despite being a box office disappointment, impressively grossed $2.7 million in the first five days of DVD release ranking #23 on the DVD sales chart. This is possibly due to Jessica Simpson's fanbase supporting her. Since the movie's DVD release date it has grossed $11.56 million in the United States. DVD release. The DVD was officially released in the US on January 22, 2008, and has also been released on iTunes. In the United Kingdom and Ireland the film was released direct to DVD in June 2010.
589381	Khilona () is a 1970 Indian film directed by Chander Vohra starring Sanjeev Kumar and Mumtaz in lead roles. Other actors in supporting roles are Shatrughan Sinha, Jeetendra, Durga Khote, Ramesh Deo and Jagdeep. The film received six nominations at the 18th Filmfare Awards in 1971 of which it won the Filmfare Best Movie Award and Filmfare Best Actress Award for Mumtaz. Other nominations were for Best Actor (Sanjeev Kumar), Best Comic (Jagdeep), Best Story (Gulshan Nanda), and Best Male Playback Singer (Mohd. Rafi).
1164195	Malcolm-Jamal Warner (born August 18, 1970) is an American television actor, television director, and musician. He is best known for his roles as Theo Huxtable on the long-running NBC sitcom "The Cosby Show". and as Malcolm McGee on the UPN sitcom "Malcolm & Eddie". He is currently starring as Dr. Alex Reed on the new BET sitcom "Reed Between the Lines". Early life. Malcolm-Jamal Warner was born in Jersey City, New Jersey and was raised by his divorced mother, Pamela Warner, who served as his manager. He was named after Malcolm X and Jazz pianist Ahmad Jamal. At the age of 9, Malcolm demonstrated an interest in show business which led to enrollment in acting schools. His active career as a child later led him to graduate high school from The Professional Children's School in New York City. Career. With appearances and roles on many television shows and films, he landed his most successful role as Theo Huxtable, the only son of Heathcliff Huxtable, who was played by Bill Cosby on the NBC sitcom, "The Cosby Show" from 1984 to 1992. Warner auditioned for the role on the very last day of the nationwide search and was chosen by Cosby himself.
1395803	Archie David Kao (, born December 14, 1969) is an American actor.
582273	Nauheed Cyrusi () is an Indian model, VJ and actress. The meaning of her name is "Venus" Early life. Nauheed was born on 19 October 1982 to a Parsee Zorastrian Family in Mumbai. She studied in J.B. Vacha School, and graduated from Jai Hind College and Basant Singh Institute of Science,
695646	Atif Aslam (; born in Wazirabad, Punjab, Pakistan as Muhammad Atif Aslam) is a Pakistani pop singer and film actor, and makes cameo appearances in Bollywood (Indian) films. His debut as an actor was in the 2011 film Pakistani movie "Bol". He has generated numerous chart-topping songs, and is known for his vocal belting technique. Atif is a recipient for the Tamgha-e-Imtiaz, one of Pakistan's highest civilian decorations. Early life. Atif was born into a Muslim family in Wazirabad, Punjab, Pakistan. He began his education in kindergarten at Kimberley Hall School, Larkana. In 1991 he then moved to Rawalpindi where he continued his studies in St. Paul's Cambridge School, Satellite Town, Rawalpindi. Atif returned to Lahore in 1995 where he continued his studies in Divisional Public School, Lahore. He continued onwards to his FSC in PAF Inter College Lahore. Atif eventually graduated with a Bachelor's degree. Debut. Even though Atif always admired Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan and Abida Parveen. his first love was for cricket and he dreamed of representing his nation as a cricketer. He was a fast bowler and his passion for the sport saw him being selected for the national Under 19 cricket team trials. At one stage Atif was training to represent his country in the U-19 World Cup. However destiny had other plans. Spurred on by his friends he began to sing in public during his days in college and recorded his first single "Aadat" with his pocket money. Within a matter of weeks "Aadat" went viral online and soon he became a household name on the basis of just that one song. On 17 July 2004 the first album titled "Jal Pari". by Atif Aslam was released. On the outset, the album stood on the success of “Aadat” but as the weeks progressed, everyone began to recognize that Atif was blessed with incredible talent and was not merely a one hit wonder. Several songs from his debut album such as “Bheegi Yaadein”, “Ehsaas”, “Mahi Ve”, “Ankhon Sey” along with the title track “Jalpari” went on to become major hits and charted across countries in the subcontinent. Atif Aslam with his dynamic presence and powerful voice presented his own unique sound. A true original artist, there was no reference point to his sound at the time. His ability to connect to the hearts of his listeners backed up with vocal capabilities and memorable melodies swiftly elevated him to stardom across Pakistan and won him millions of hearts across India. Many believe this album to be a youth anthem of Pakistan, encouraging the youth to pursue their dreams and represent their nation in a positive light. Blessed with prodigious raw talent and a passion for music, Atif's decision to pursue music as a career was certainly a brave one as he had no formal musical training nor did he come from a musical family. Despite his positive outlook, music and lyrics his massive success and popularity with the massess was hard for many to fathom. He faced his fair share of critical commentaries and judgements, however he used all these factors to his advantage and was courageous enough to continue singing in his own style without giving an ear to his detractors. In an industry where releasing independent albums were not the norm, the courage and passion he displayed in his first album became a solid foundation for his future success. Following the massive success of "Jal Pari", he released two more solo albums, "Doorie" & "Meri Kahani". Both albums were massive successes. According to Tips music his solo albums have sold more than 9 million units globally. Even as Atif continued to record solo albums he soon found huge appreciation and acceptance for his talent in India. Within a span of 3 years he went on to record over two dozen chartbusters for top Bollywood films and for his work on the movie Race, was nominated for the prestigious Filmfare Award. He continues to work on top productions and his growing popularity has seen filmmakers create special music videos to promote their films with his songs. Constantly developing as an artist, Atif soon evolved himself into an exiting concert performer. Following sold out concerts and electrifying performances throughout his country the demand to watch Atif Aslam perform live grew across the world with legions of loyal fans growing across nations. People were amazed to experience the dynamic vocal range Atif was able to deliver in a live performance. His energy on stage, with charming charisma and a natural ability to work the crowd swiftly made him the most sought after live performer in Pakistan and numerous countries across Asia. The artist started performing to sellout crowds on a regular basis. Fans came to recognize a true artist. The energy level never reduced but the crowd kept on increasing. Concerts & Tours. Displaying a love for the stage from an early age, his first performance was at a fancy dress show at his school where he performed as Imran Khan, the legendary former captain of Pakistan national cricket team. However, nearly two decades later, Atif had rocketed to international stardom as an artist and the demand to see him perform was immense. He began to tour internationally with collaborative performances in the USA and Canada with RDB and Annie Khalid. Atif then made his solo debut concert in New Jersey in Summer Beats 2008 (that also featured Kailash Kher, Richa Sharma & Amanat Ali) at Sovereign Bank Arena. After a sold out concert in New Jersey, Atif returned with his band and special guests to Queens Colden Center, New York to perform on July 2, 2010. Taking over the entire production Atif produced the entire event with special sound and light design to support his concert, giving the audience a memorable experience. Two years later Atif Aslam returned to the US. Collaborating with female vocalist Shreya Ghoshal their March, 2010 Tour originally had 10 shows announced in USA and Canada. However the response was terrific & inspired the organizers to conduct shows again in six more cities. The next monthl, Atif Aslam made his debut in South America with a performance at Anthony Nesty Sports Hall, Suriname in South America. The world touring continued with Atif Aslam performing with Sunidhi Chauhan for the first time at Hershey Centre, Mississauga followed by another show at Oracle Arena, San Francisco, Oakland in July 2011 during their USA & Canada tour. In September 2011 he performed in New York. Atif continued to tour the world with headline performances at Royal Albert Hall in London (alongside Jay Sean). He followed that with dates across major concert venues in the UK in 2010. On April 22, 2012 Atif Aslam created history by becoming the first man from his country to perform in London's O2 Arena a concert spectacular to promote love, peace & unity among India and Pakistan. Atif performed for four fours on The O2 Arena stage. This was then followed up by shows in Manchester & Glasgow. In 2012 he was invited for no less than 3 concerts at the World Trade Centre in Dubai. This was then followed up with his debut concert in Bangkok at the Centara Convention Centre on October 6, 2012. Atif Aslam then returned to performing in 10 Major cities of Pakistan during his Jazz Jazba Generation Tour where exclusive backstage footage of Atif Aslam behind the scenes during the tour, his interactions with his fans and intimate look at the man behind the star was filmed for the very first time. On November 2 he performed his first public concert in Malaysia. In December 2012, Atif was named among top performers of Dubai for 2012 alongside Pitbull, Enrique Iglesias, Il Divo, Gotye, Evanescence & Swedish House Mafia. A few weeks earlier, Atif Aslam became the first man from Asia, and the second artist after Bryan Adams, to be permitted to perform inside the Dashrath Rangasla - National Football Stadium in Kathmandu, Nepal. With 25,000 crowd his concert in Nepal was also a great success. Atif once again returned to Dubai for multiple concerts in 2013 at the world famous Atlantis resort Dubai. He also earlier shared stage with upcoming talent Shalmali Kholgade in Dubai. In April 2013, Atif performed for the first time at the LG Arena in Birmingham t following which he became the first artist from Asia to perform twice at London's O2 Arena. Also in concert at the O2 were Bollywood stars Shaan, Malaika Arora Khan & Bipasha Basu. Hollywood. Atif has three songs featured in the American independent film, Man Push Cart which has won several international awards and was praised by critics. He then sung 2 songs in Mira Nairs film "The Reluctant Fundamentalist". His two more songs ‘Doorie‘ and ‘Maula‘ from his second album Doorie have been picked up in 2010 for the soundtrack of the Hindi Version of a Mexican film La mujer de mi hermano directed by Ricardo de Montreuil. Acting career. Atif made his acting debut in the 2011 Pakistani movie "Bol" which was a huge success. He also made a special appearance in film songs such as Tere Bin, Pehli Nazar Mein and Tere Naal Love Ho Gaya's song's Piya O Re Piya, Tu Mohabbat Hai, Be-Intehan (Race 2) & Dil Na Jaane Kyun from "Jayanta Bhai Ki Luv Story" Television. Atif also appeared as a captain of Team Pakistan in a singing talent show called Sur Kshetra which was shot & broadcast from Dubai where Indian & Pakistani contestants were competing against each other. Filmography. Actor
1043093	The Lavender Hill Mob is a 1951 comedy film from Ealing Studios, written by T.E.B. Clarke, directed by Charles Crichton, starring Alec Guinness and Stanley Holloway and featuring Sid James and Alfie Bass. The title refers to Lavender Hill, a street in Battersea, a district of South London, in the postcode district SW11, near to Clapham Junction railway station. The original film was digitally restored and re-released to UK cinemas on 29 July 2011 to celebrate its 60th anniversary. Plot. Henry Holland (Alec Guinness) is dining with a fellow Englishman in a posh restaurant in Rio de Janeiro where he is well-known. He relates a story explaining his presence in Rio. It seems he was a seemingly unambitious London bank clerk in charge of gold bullion deliveries for over 20 years. He had a reputation for fussing over details and suspecting all cars he observed following the bullion van, but all in all appeared to be a man dedicated to his job and the gold's security. In fact, he had hatched the "perfect" plot to steal a load of bullion and retire. The one thing stopping him had been that selling the gold on the black market in Britain was too risky, and he was at a loss as to how to smuggle it abroad until... One evening a new lodger – artist Alfred Pendlebury (Stanley Holloway) – arrives at Holland's boarding house in Lavender Hill. Pendlebury owns a foundry that makes presents and souvenirs that are sold in many resorts, including foreign ones. Noticing how similar the foundry is to the place where the gold is made into ingots, Holland decides that the ideal way of smuggling the gold out of the country would be as Eiffel Tower paperweights sold in Paris, and puts this hypothetically to his new friend: "By Jove, Holland, it's a good job we're both honest men." "It is indeed, Pendlebury." When Holland suddenly finds that he is about to be transferred to another department at the bank, he and Pendlebury quickly move into action. They recruit two petty crooks, Lackery Wood (Sidney James) and Shorty Fisher (Alfie Bass), to help them carry out the robbery. The plan is simple but clever, and it succeeds: Wood and Fisher carry out the hijack of the bullion van and switch the gold to Pendlebury's works van. Holland, who is supposedly assaulted and almost drowned in the robbery, becomes the hero of the hour. The police find themselves running around in circles, unable to track down the "master criminal" who is in fact right under their noses giving them false statements and misleading clues. Meanwhile, Holland and his associates melt the gold in Pendlebury's foundry and export it to France disguised as miniature Eiffel Towers. The plan goes wrong when the woman running the souvenir kiosk in Paris misunderstands her instructions due to a language mixup; instead of holding back the specially-marked box of Eiffel Towers, she opens it and puts them out for sale. Pendlebury and Holland, who have adopted the names of "Al" and "Dutch", arrive to retrieve their disguised bullion only to find that six of the towers have been sold to a party of British schoolgirls. A wild chase back to the Channel ferry follows but all sorts of hold-ups, including problems with the customs men, prevent them from getting to the ship and the girls in time. If just one of those towers is found to be gold then the game is up. Pendlebury and Holland therefore track down the schoolgirls and, in exchange for a similar tower and ten shillings, recover most of the loot. One girl however refuses to return hers since she intends to give it to a friend who is a policeman. The girl delivers the souvenir to the officer, who is at an exhibition of police history and methods at Hendon Police College. Also attending is a police inspector who is investigating the robbery. As part of the case he checked up on Pendlebury's foundry and was told that many souvenirs bought in foreign places are actually made in Britain. A sudden thought occurs to him and he orders the souvenir to be tested. At that moment Pendlebury snatches it and he and Holland make their escape in a police car. A confused pursuit then takes place through London, with Holland using the radio in the police car to give false descriptions of the vehicle in which the crooks are riding. Eventually, though, an officer succeeds in stopping their car and arresting Pendlebury. Holland escapes to Rio de Janeiro with the six gold towers, worth "£25,000, enough to keep me for one year in the style to which I was, ah, unaccustomed." But now the money is mostly gone, he finished telling his visitor. As they leave the restaurant, Holland is seen to be handcuffed to his countryman. Production. Screenwriter Clarke is said to have come up with the idea of a clerk robbing his own bank while doing research for the film "Pool of London" (1951), a crime thriller surrounding a jewel theft. He consulted the Bank of England on the project and it set up a special committee to advise on how best the robbery could take place. Extensive location filming was made in both London and Paris. The scenes show a London still marked by bomb sites from the Second World War. In the car chase scene at the end of the film, an officer uses a police box to report seeing a police car being driven by a man in a top hat. In fact, the driver is wearing the uniform of the police as originally set up in 1829 by Sir Robert Peel, known as "Bobbies" or "Peelers." The scene where Holland and Pendlebury run down the Eiffel Tower steps and become increasingly dizzy and erratic, as does the camera work, presages James Stewart's condition in Alfred Hitchcock's "Vertigo", made seven years later. A film montage of sensational newspaper headlines marks the crime as taking place in April 1951. Awards and honours. The film won the Academy Award for Best Writing, Story and Screenplay. Guinness was nominated for the award of Best Actor in a Leading Role. The film also won the BAFTA Award for Best British Film.
583825	Englishkaran (Tamil: இங்கிலிஷ்காரன், meaning "English Man") is a 2005 Tamil film. It casts Sathyaraj in the lead role. "English Karan" with the tagline "Tamizh Vazhga" is a film from the hit combo from Sathyaraj and Shakthi Chidambaram whose earlier ventures "Ennama Kannu" and "Maha Nadigan" were hits. Like other Sathyaraj films, Englishkaaran also has humor, glamour, lots of puns and is based on a strong theme paced with whimsy humor. The film opened to positive reviews and was commercially successful at the box office. Plot. The film starts with Tamizharasu (Sathyaraj), a reformist entering a village with the intention to unite a couple and help a young girl Sandhya Madhumitha who aspires to be a singer. There, he faces the anger of Sandhya’s father (Kaadhal Dhandapani), who is a strong believer of older ideologies. But, Sandhya hates Tamizharasu and the reason for that is told in a flashback. The flashback starts with Maheshwari (Namitha), wife of Sathyaraj, aspiring to be a sports champion. Sathyaraj motivates and helps her. Due to some family problems, Maheswari commits suicide after making her husband promise to help her sister to become a popular singer. The rest of the film is how he fulfills the promise. Critical reception. The film received mainly positive reviews and was a commercial success grossing $1 million at the box office. Nowrunning commented that sparky script, great performances, directorial flare, and play's essential revelation made "Englishkaran" an admirable movie. The film got its humor from spoofing and parodying and offered wholesome entertainment value whatsoever. Indiaglitz commented that Sakthi Chidamabaram had tried to give a movie with a strong message with a convoluted mix of humour, romance and glamour. Further to this the audience felt that Sathyaraj had done a commendable job in this film. The comedy scene where Vadivelu tries to scare Sathyaraj by pretending to be a ghost and Satyaraj counteracted in the same fashion with a Chandramukhi–like dance imitating Jothika created riproaring comedy and appealed to all fun-loving persons. Vadivelu’s comedy was hilarious. Madhumitha's looks in the movie was commemorated to be glamorous. Walter Devaram in a cameo role was passable. Namitha in a brief role had done a good job.
1068303	D-Day the Sixth of June is a 1956 romantic war film made by 20th Century Fox. It was directed by Henry Koster and produced by Charles Brackett from a screenplay by Ivan Moffat and Harry Brown, based on the novel, "The Sixth of June" by Lionel Shapiro. The film stars Robert Taylor, Richard Todd, Dana Wynter, and Edmond O'Brien. Plot. A few hours before D-Day, Special Force Six embarks to destroy an especially well-defended German gun emplacement on the Normandy coast. As the ship steams towards it, the officers and men recall what circumstances brought them there, especially Wynter and Parker. Captain Brad Parker, an American paratrooper invalided out because of a broken leg suffered during a parachute jump is posted to the headquarters of the European Theatre of Operations in London. At the Red Cross club, he meets and, despite being married, falls in love with Valerie Russell a Women's Royal Army Corps subaltern. Valerie is the daughter of a crusty Brigadier who's been on sick leave since being wounded at Dunkirk. Valerie is also already in love with Captain John Wynter of the British Commandos, a friend of her father. Both officers are posted overseas, but later return. Parker has volunteered to join what becomes Special Force Six, to be led by his former commander, Lt. Colonel (now Colonel) Timmer. With only a few hours before the operation is due to embark, Timmer goes to pieces (partly as a result of his earlier bad experiences in the failed Dieppe landing) and is arrested whilst drunk and breaking security. Wynter, now a Colonel, who has recovered from being badly wounded, is brought in to command the operation.
1058095	The Incredible Melting Man is a 1977 American science fiction horror film about an astronaut whose body begins to melt after he is exposed to radiation during a space flight to Saturn, driving him to commit murders and consume human flesh to survive. Written and directed by William Sachs, the film starred Alex Rebar as Steve West, the antagonist of the title, alongside Burr DeBenning as a scientist trying to help him, and Myron Healey as a United States Air Force general seeking to capture him. The screenplay was originally intended as a parody of horror films, but comedic scenes were edited out during production and new horror scenes added. Sachs claims that the producers decided during shooting that a straight horror film would be more financially successful, and that the film suffered as a result. "The Incredible Melting Man" was produced by American International Pictures, which also handled the theatrical distribution. The film includes several homages to science fiction and horror films of the 1950s. Makeup artist Rick Baker provided the gory makeup effects for the film. He originally created four distinct stages of makeup design so the antagonist would appear to gradually melt, but the stages were ultimately cut from the final film. The film received largely negative reviews and has ranked among the Bottom 100 list of films on the Internet Movie Database, although even critical reviews complimented Baker's makeup effects. "The Incredible Melting Man" was featured in the comedy "It Came from Hollywood" (1982) and inspired the makeup effects for a scene in the science fiction-action film "RoboCop" (1987). It also featured in a seventh season episode of the comedy television series "Mystery Science Theater 3000." Plot. During a space flight to Saturn, three astronauts are exposed to a blast of radiation which kills two of them and seriously injures the third, Steve West (Alex Rebar]). He is next shown unconscious in a hospital back on Earth, with bandages covering his face; his physician, Dr. Loring (Lisle Wilson), cannot explain what is happening to West or how he survived the blast. After the doctor leaves, West awakens and is horrified to find the flesh on his face and hands melting away. Hysterical, he attacks and kills a nurse (Bonnie Inch), then escapes the hospital in a panic. Loring and Dr. Theodore "Ted" Nelson (Burr DeBenning), a scientist and friend of West, discover that the nurse's corpse is emitting feeble radiation, and realize West's body has become radioactive. Nelson believes West has gone insane, and concludes he must consume human flesh in order to slow the melting. Nelson calls General Michael Perry (Myron Healey), a United States Air Force officer familiar with West's accident, and the general agrees to help Nelson find him. West attacks and kills a fisherman in a wood, then encounters and frightens a little girl (Julie Drazen) there, but she escapes unharmed. Nelson tracks West by following his radiation trail with a geiger counter, but only finds his detached ear stuck to a tree branch, not West himself. Perry arrives by plane, and is picked up by Nelson; shortly thereafter, they visit the crime scene where the fisherman's body was found. Sheriff Neil Blake (Michael Alldredge) suspects that Nelson knows something, but Nelson tells the sheriff nothing because Perry earlier told him information about West is classified. Later that night, Nelson returns home to his pregnant wife Judy (Ann Sweeny), who tells him that her elderly mother Helen (Dorothy Love) and Helen's boyfriend Harold (Edwin Max) are coming over for dinner. On their way, however, Helen and Harold are attacked by West in their car, and he kills them both. When Blake finds the bodies, he calls Nelson, who comes out to identify them. After Blake angrily demands an explanation, Nelson reluctantly reveals West's condition. Nelson believes West is somehow getting stronger the more his body decomposes. Back at Nelson's house, West attacks and kills Perry, although Judy is not harmed. Nelson and Blake arrive just as West escapes. West then stumbles upon the home of a married couple (played by Jonathan Demme and Janus Blythe). West kills the man and attacks his wife, but she drives him away after chopping his arm off with a kitchen knife. Blake receives a call about the attack and takes Nelson with him to investigate. They follow West to a giant power plant, and then up several flights of outside stairways. Blake tries to shoot West with a shotgun, but the blasts do not stop West, who throws the sheriff over the railing into power lines, killing him. West hits Nelson and knocks him over the railing, leaving the doctor hanging on the side. Nelson appeals to West, reminding him that they were friends, and West decides to pull Nelson to safety. Two armed security guards then arrive and, in a panic, fatally shoot Nelson as he tries to protect West. An infuriated West kills the security guards and stumbles away. After collapsing against the side of a building, he slowly melts completely away. The next morning, a janitor finds his gory remains and casually mops them into a garbage can. The film ends with a radio news report about a fresh astronaut team being sent to Saturn, implying the possibility of a future accident. Production. Writing. "The Incredible Melting Man" was written and directed by filmmaker William Sachs. Some sources – including the film magazine "Cinefantastique" and the 1995 book "Cult Science Fiction Films" – describe the film as a remake of "First Man into Space" (1959), another film about an astronaut who becomes a monster after an accident in space. Science fiction film historian Gene Wright suggests that the film was heavily influenced by "The Quatermass Xperiment" (1955), a British horror film about an astronaut who begins mutating into an alien organism after a spaceflight. Sachs claims "The Incredible Melting Man" was originally written as a parody of horror films. According to Michael Adams, a film reviewer who interviewed Sachs, this is why the film mixes horror with comedic moments, such as when Steve West's detached ear gets stuck on a tree, and when a janitor sweeps West's melted body into a garbage can at the end of the film. Adams claims that this explains several comedic lines of dialogue otherwise inconsistent with the rest of the film, including one moment when homeless men notice the melting West and say to each other, "You think we've got trouble, look at that dude." Welch D. Everman, author of "Cult Science Fiction Films", points to several homages in the movie to science fiction and horror films of the 1950s. The title itself is a reference to the Jack Arnold film "The Incredible Shrinking Man" (1957), and the final scene when a radio report advertises another trip to Saturn, thus hinting that another accident could occur, was a common device in 1950s horror films. One difference, noted by Everman, is that in the 1950s films, government cover-ups and secret agendas were often ascribed to the good of the general public, whereas "The Incredible Melting Man", like many late 1970s films of its genre, suggests otherwise. "Variety" describes the script, in addition to its horror elements, as "a human story attempting to leave a moral message as to whether society or the horrible creature it is chasing is really the most destructive." The script never fully explains how West's spacecraft returned to Earth from Saturn when West himself was so seriously injured and the other two members of his crew were both killed. Casting. Alex Rebar starred as antagonist Steve West, one of only a handful of film appearances throughout his acting career. Burr DeBenning played Dr. Ted Nelson, and General Michael Perry was portrayed by Myron Healey, who was, Everman notes, often cast as a villain in 1950s science fiction films. Film director Jonathan Demme played the small role of Matt Winters, one of West's victims. Rainbeaux Smith, best known for her appearances in B movies and exploitation films, appeared in "The Incredible Melting Man" as a model who finds one of West's victims while trying to avoid a photographer seeking to take explicit photos of her. Filming. Producer Max Rosenberg, best known for his horror and supernatural films, provided the financing for "The Incredible Melting Man." Samuel W. Gelfman was the film's producer, and American International Pictures served as both the production company and the distributor. According to director William Sachs, the producers decided during shooting that a straight horror film would be more financially successful than a parody, so many of the comedic scenes were edited out and new horror scenes were shot and added to the film. Sachs said he felt the film was taken away from him, and that it suffered as a result because the producers tried to make it both a comedy and horror film, thus failing at both. Sachs said of the decision, "How can a serious horror movie end with the monster being shoveled into a garbage can?" Makeup artist Rick Baker provided the special makeup effects for "The Incredible Melting Man," which included the gradual melting of Steve West. Actor Alex Rebar wore facial appliances that simulated melting flesh, and his hands and feet were fitted with liquid substances that dropped off as he walked, creating the appearance that West's body was falling apart. During one scene, a murdered fisherman's decapitated head falls down a waterfall and smashes on the rocks below. To create the effect, Baker used a gelatin head with a wax skull and fake blood inside, which burst out upon impact. Baker created four distinct stages of make-up design for the protagonist, so Steve West would appear to gradually melt as time passed. However, after the film went through two separate stages of editing, these make-up stages were ultimately eliminated from the final cut, and the character looks generally the same throughout the film. Richard Meyers, author of "The World of Fantasy Films", said actor Alex Rebar was impatient and uncooperative with the extensive make-up sessions required for the effects, and thus did not wear all of the facial appliances Baker designed. This, Meyers said, may have been an additional factor in the lack of make-up effect stages in the final film. Initially, Sachs did not plan to show any scenes with Steve West before he sustained the radiation poisoning that caused his body to melt, although some such scenes were ultimately included. Harry Woolman worked on the special effects along with Baker, and Willy Curtis worked as the film's cinematographer. Some scenes included photography errors, including one in which light shines through a kitchen window from outside even though it is supposed to be nighttime. Michel Levesque provided art direction, and the musical score was composed by London Philharmonic Orchestra conductor Arlon Ober. Release. Distribution. The distribution of "The Incredible Melting Man" was handled by American International Pictures, with the involvement of film producer and distributor Irwin Yablans, who specialized primarily in B movies and low-budget horror films. A trailer released for the film attempted to build tension by not revealing the monster right away. Instead, it showed portions of the scene immediately before the nurse is murdered, in which she runs down a hallway screaming and then crashes through a glass window trying to escape from Steve West, who is only shown towards the end of the trailer. In some advertisements, the monster from the film was described as "the first NEW horror creature." As a promotional gimmick, candles were made and sold to advertise the film. One poster for the film included the statement: "Rick Baker, the new master of special effects, who brought you the magic of "The Exorcist" and gave you the wonder of "King Kong," now brings you his greatest creation, "The Incredible Melting Man."" Although Baker assisted with the effects in "The Exorcist" (1973), Dick Smith was the make-up artist who primarily worked on that film, not Baker. "The Exorcist" director William Friedkin was so angry about the poster that, upon seeing it on an associate's wall, he tore it down and ripped it to pieces. Baker, who did not know about the poster in advance, was horrified by the publicity campaign and publicly apologized for it, claiming: "Dick wanted some help so I first went out to do some work on the dummy whose head turns around 360 degrees. I really didn't do anything creative, I just did labor." Reception. "The Incredible Melting Man" received largely negative reviews, and has ranked among the Bottom 100 list of films on the Internet Movie Database. Tom Buckley of "The New York Times" described it as poorly written and directed, calling it one of many poor summer films released "to fill the need of drive-in operators for something cheap to put on the screen for the kids in the cars to ignore or laugh at." "The Globe and Mail" writer Robert Martin praised Rick Baker's make-up effects and said director William Sachs did an efficient job building tension. However, Martin strongly criticized the script and the acting, claiming "logic and character are jettisoned in favor of suspense and horror", and said the film's positive elements were not strong enough to outweigh the negatives. John Foyston of "The Oregonian" strongly condemned the film as gratuitously gory with thin, motiveless characters. He declared it worse than the horror film "" (1966), which is widely considered one of the worst films ever made. Rick Worland, a film professor at the Meadows School of the Arts who wrote a book about horror films, said there was "little to recommend" about "The Incredible Melting Man" besides Baker's make-up effects. Richard Meyers, a novelist who also wrote about science-fiction films, called the film muddled and dull: "Although the movie didn't have to be a sage examination of outer space diseases, it should at least have been exciting." Meyers complimented Baker's visual effects, but said his work was undermined by poor filming and actor Rebar's impatience with the make-up effects. A 1985 review in the book "The Motion Picture Guide" wrote, "The film tries to balance horror against morality but ends up shaky at best." The review described the special effects as "all right, but not nearly as gruesome as the film pretends they are." In a review written shortly after the film was released, "Variety" wrote the film "more often than not succeeds in telling a story and sustaining audience interest", and that the script included not only horrors, but also a human story with a moral message about society. However, the review also called the dialogue "trite", described some scenes as "technically incorrect", and said the film disappointed by lingering on the ordinary characters rather the monster protagonist. Gene Wright, who wrote a book about science fiction films, said the film "attempts to blend pathos with awesome horror, but can't resist going for the gut with a surfeit of gore." Blockbuster Inc.'s "Guide to Movies and Videos" gave the film two-and-a-half stars out of four, and described the it as "unexciting and contrived, though Rick Baker's gross-out makeup is undeniably effective." In "The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction Movies," Phil Hardy described it as a better-than-average but "spotty" film, and said director William Sachs injected a sense of "grisly humor" into it. However, Hardy said the protagonist character inspired more laughter than terror, and called the special effects "only routine". Some reviews were more positive. Welch D. Everman, author of "Cult Science Fiction Films", compared the relationship between West and Nelson to that of Victor Frankenstein and his monster in Mary Shelly's novel "Frankenstein" (1818). Everman wrote, "This is the kind of movie we've come to expect from AIP — cheaply made, nasty, and lots of fun." John W. Bowen of the "Belleville Intelligencer" said he enjoyed the "camp" style of the film, adding, "It's both inexplicable and sad this brain-damaged yet fiercely determined little drive-in bottom feeder never garnered more than a tiny cult following over the years." A 1978 critique in "The Review of the News" said, "Films like "The Incredible Melting Man" are not made to be good; they are made to be scary. For anyone looking to raise goosebumps on their flesh, this one is sufficient to give you your money's worth." Matt Maiellaro, co-creator of the Cartoon Network series "Aqua Teen Hunger Force," said the film inspired him to start making films himself, adding, "When I was eight, I watched "The Incredible Melting Man" and knew that horror movies were going to be big religion in my life." Z movie director Tim Ritter said he was partially inspired to enter show business by watching a trailer for "The Incredible Melting Man" at age nine. Ritter said, "I was too young to see the movie, but the trailer really got into my imagination." Home release. "The Incredible Melting Man" was released on VHS in 1986 by Vestron Video, and was rereleased in 1994 by Orion Pictures Library, although unlike other Orion VHS releases, it was not digitally remastered. In September 2000, "The Incredible Melting Man" was once again released on VHS as part of Midnite Movies, a line of B movies and exploitation films released to home video by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Although currently unavailable on DVD in region 1, it was released on region 2 by CMV Laservision on February 2, 2003. In addition to the home video and DVD releases, "The Incredible Melting Man" has been featured in several film festivals, including the 1987 Visions Film Festival at the Enmore Theatre in Sydney, Australia, the 2007 B-Fest in Chicago, the 2008 Horrorama Movie Festival in Englewood, Colorado, and the 2010 Groovy B-Movie Marathon in Durham, North Carolina. Scream Factory is planning a Blu-ray and DVD release for 2013. Cultural references. The film appears in "It Came from Hollywood," a 1982 comedy film featuring a compilation of clips from more than 100 B movies from the 1930s to the 1970s, which are shown between scripted segments performed by comedians. Rick Baker's effects from "The Incredible Melting Man" inspired the makeup effects for a scene in the science fiction-action film "RoboCop" (1987). During the scene, Emil Antonowsky (Paul McCrane) attempts to drive RoboCop off the road, but instead accidentally drives into a vat of toxic waste, causing the flesh to melt off his face and hands. These effects were conceived and designed by Rob Bottin, the special makeup effects artist who worked on "RoboCop." Bottin was inspired by Baker's work on "The Incredible Melting Man," and dubbed the "RoboCop" effects "the Melting Man" as an homage to the production. "The Incredible Melting Man" was featured a seventh season episode of "Mystery Science Theater 3000", a comedy television series in which the characters watch bad movies and make jokes at their expense. The film appeared in the fourth episode of the seventh season, which was broadcast on Comedy Central on February 24, 1996. Michael J. Nelson, the show's head writer who also plays a fictional character of the same name, spoke disparagingly about the film while describing it to the press: "The plot is – and I'm not kidding here – the plot is, a guy is melting. That's the plot."
1064144	Harry and the Hendersons is a 1987 American fantasy comedy film directed and produced by William Dear, and starring John Lithgow, Melinda Dillon, Lainie Kazan and Don Ameche. It is the story of a family's encounter with the cryptozoological creature Bigfoot. The film won an Academy Award for Best Makeup, and inspired a follow-up TV series of the same name. The film was originally released as Bigfoot and the Hendersons in the United Kingdom, though the TV series retained the American title. The DVD and all current showings of the movie in the UK now refer to the movie by its original title. Bruce Broughton composed the music throughout the entire film, and Joe Cocker performs "Love Lives On" (later released in 1989) during the end credits. The film earned mostly mixed reviews and was a modest success at the box office during its release, but has since gone on to earn a cult following amongst fans. Plot. George Henderson (John Lithgow) is returning home with his family from a camping trip when they hit something with the family station wagon. George investigates, and discovers to his horror and awe, that they had hit a sasquatch. Deciding to take the creature home, George does so, strapping it to the roof of the car. Meanwhile, a mysterious hunter has been tracking the creature and discovers the Hendersons' license plate, which fell off when they hit the creature. At home, curiosity gets the best of George, and he goes out to the garage to examine the creature. Much to his shock, the creature was not dead and has since disappeared. He hears noises from his kitchen and sees the creature, it has knocked over the fridge in its attempt to find food. After waking the whole house, the family realizes that the creature is friendly and kind. George has a change of heart, at first he wished to make money from the creature, but now decides to take him back to the wild. Naming the creature "Harry", George tries to lure him into the station wagon, but Harry realizes that the Hendersons mean him no harm and instead he disappears. Saddened, the family resume their normal lives, but as the sightings of Harry become more frequent and the media fervor heightens, George decides he needs to find Harry in order to keep him safe. George visits the "North American Museum of Anthropology" to speak with Dr. Wallace Wrightwood an expert on Bigfoot, but is disheartened when he realizes its ramshackle state. Giving his number to the clerk inside the Museum (Don Ameche), George resumes his search of Harry. The hunter from the woods is revealed to be Jacques LaFleur (David Suchet), once a legendary hunter, he became obsessed with Bigfoot and has hunted for one ever since becoming a laughing stock. LaFleur tracks down the Hendersons, and begins to get closer to finding Harry. After a local sighting, George goes into the city and searches for Harry. As the police, local crazies caught up in "Bigfoot Mania" and LaFleur get closer and closer to Harry, George finds him saves him while LaFleur is arrested after a car chase. George calls Dr. Wallace Wrightwood from the museum and asks to have dinner to speak about big foot. At the Henderson house, George is met by the same museum clerk who is revealed to be Dr. Wrightwood himself, having also become a laughing stock. Dr. Wrightwood tries to tell George and the rest of the family to give up on Bigfoot as it has destroyed his life and will do so to theirs. His faith is rejuvenated when he meets Harry, and instantly he agrees to take him to safety away from the city. By this time LaFleur has gotten out of jail and heads to the Henderson house. George and co escape the house with Dr. Wrightwood and his old truck. LaFleur gives chase when his truck is disabled, and eventually catches up with the Henderson family. Fleeing to the mountains of Washington state, George tries to make Harry leave, going so far to hit him. But LaFleur catches them and tries to hunt Harry. Through George's faith and Harry's kindness, LaFleur changes his mind and decides that Harry deserves to live peacefully. As the family says goodbye, George tells him to be safe, to which Harry replies, "Okay," (his first spoken words). As Harry leaves, several other Sasquatches appear and also disappear in the wilderness with him, much to the amazement of the Hendersons. LaFleur and Dr. Wrightwood are then left wondering if even the Loch Ness Monster exists as well. Reception. Box office. "Harry and the Hendersons" opened third behind "Beverly Hills Cop II" and "The Untouchables". It went on to gross $29.7 million at the North American domestic box office and $20.2 million internationally for a total of $49.9 million worldwide. Critical response. The response from critics was mixed. Rotten Tomatoes gives the film a score of 44% based on reviews from 18 critics. Home media. The film was released in January 2011 in DVD entitled "Harry and The Hendersons Special Edition".
1034460	Spike Milligan KBE (born Terence Alan Milligan; 16 April 1918 – 27 February 2002) was a comedian, writer, musician, poet, playwright, soldier and actor of English and Irish parentage. His early life was spent in British India, where he was born, but the majority of his working life was spent in the United Kingdom. He claimed his right to Irish citizenship (as a child of an Irish citizen) after the British government declared him stateless following changes resulting from the British Nationality Act 1981. He was the co-creator, main writer and a principal cast member of "The Goon Show", performing a range of roles including the popular Eccles, and Minnie Bannister characters. Milligan wrote and edited many books, including "Puckoon" and his seven-volume autobiographical account of his time serving during the Second World War, beginning with "". He is also noted as a popular writer of comical verse; much of his poetry was written for children, including "Silly Verse for Kids" (1959). After success with the ground-breaking British radio programme, "The Goon Show", Milligan translated this success to television with "Q5", a surreal sketch show which is credited as a major influence on the members of "Monty Python's Flying Circus". Early life. Milligan was born in Ahmednagar, British India, on 16 April 1918, the son of an Irish father, Captain Leo Alphonso Milligan, MSM, RA (1890–1969), who was serving in the British Indian Army. His mother, Florence Mary Winifred Kettleband (1893–1990), was English. He spent his childhood in Poona (India) and later in Rangoon, capital of the then British Burma. He was educated at the Convent of Jesus and Mary, Poona, and St Paul's Christian Brothers, de la Salle, Rangoon. He lived most of his life in the United Kingdom, and served in the British Army in the Royal Artillery during World War II. Second World War. During most of the late 1930s and early 1940s Milligan performed as an amateur jazz vocalist and trumpeter before, during and after being called up for military service in the fight against Nazi Germany, but even then he wrote and performed comedy sketches as part of concerts to entertain troops. After his call-up, but before being sent abroad, he and fellow musician Harry Edgington (nicknamed Edge-ying-Tong which gave birth to one of Milligan's most memorable musical creations, the Ying Tong Song) would compose surreal stories, filled with puns and skewed logic, as a way of staving off the boredom of life in barracks. One biographer describes his early dance band infiltration: "He managed to croon like Bing Crosby and win a competition: he also played drums, guitar and trumpet, in which he was entirely self taught". He also acquired a double bass, which he took lessons on and would strum in jazz sessions. Milligan had perfect pitch. During World War 2, he served as a signaller in the 56th Heavy Regiment Royal Artillery, D Battery, as Gunner Milligan, 954024. The unit was equipped with the obsolete, World-War-1 era BL 9.2-inch howitzer and based at Bexhill on the South Coast of England. Milligan describes training with these guns in part two of "Adolf Hitler: My Part in His Downfall", claiming that, during training, gun crews resorted to shouting 'bang' in unison as they had no shells to practise with. The unit was later re-equipped with the BL 7.2-inch howitzer and saw action as part of the First Army in the North African campaign, and then in the succeeding Italian campaign. Milligan was appointed Lance Bombardier and was about to be promoted to Bombardier when he was wounded in action in the Italian theatre at the Battle of Monte Cassino. Subsequently hospitalised for a mortar wound to the right leg and shell shock, he was demoted by an unsympathetic commanding officer (identified in his war diaries as Major Evan 'Jumbo' Jenkins) back to Gunner. It was Milligan's opinion that Major Jenkins did not like him because Milligan constantly kept the morale of his fellow soldiers up, whereas Major Jenkins's approach was to take an attitude towards the troops similar to that of Lord Kitchener. An incident also mentioned was when Major Jenkins had invited Gunners Milligan and Edgington to his bivouac to play some jazz with him, only to discover that the musicianship of the aforementioned gunners was far superior to his own ability to play the military tune 'Whistling Rufus'. After his hospitalisation, Milligan drifted through a number of rear-echelon military jobs in Italy, eventually becoming a full-time entertainer. He played the guitar with a jazz and comedy group called The Bill Hall Trio in concert parties for the troops. After being demobilised, Milligan remained in Italy playing with the Trio but returned to England soon after. While he was with the Central Pool of Artists (a group he described as composed "of bomb-happy squaddies") he began to write parodies of their mainstream plays, which displayed many of the key elements of what would later become "The Goon Show" (originally called Crazy People) with Peter Sellers, Harry Secombe and Michael Bentine.
1024424	Kay Thompson (November 9, 1909 – July 2, 1998) was an American author, composer, musician, actress and singer. She is best known nowadays as the creator of the "Eloise" children's books. Biography. Family. Catherine Louise Fink was born in St. Louis, Missouri, in 1909, the second of the four children of Leo George Fink, an Austrian-born pawnbroker and jeweler, and his wife, the former Hattie A. Tetrick. Her siblings were Blanche, Marian, and Leo. She married twice: Radio work. Thompson began her career in the 1930s as a singer and choral director for radio. Her first big break was as a regular singer on "The Bing Crosby-Woodbury Show" (CBS, 1933–34). This led to a regular spot on "The Fred Waring-Ford Dealers Show" (NBC, 1934–35) and then, with conductor Lennie Hayton, she co-founded "The Lucky Strike Hit Parade" (CBS, 1935) where she met (and later married) trombonist Jack Jenney. Kay Thompson and Her Rhythm Singers joined André Kostelanetz and His Orchestra for the hit series "The Chesterfield Radio Program" (CBS, 1936), followed by "It's Chesterfield Time" (CBS, 1937) for which Kay and her large choir were teamed with Hal Kemp and His Orchestra. For her motion picture debut, Kay and her choir performed two songs in the Republic Pictures musical "Manhattan Merry-Go-Round" (1937). In 1939, she reunited with André Kostelanetz for "Tune-Up Time" (CBS), a show that was produced by radio legend William Spier (who later married Kay in 1942). On an installment of "Tune-Up Time" in April 1939, 16-year-old Judy Garland was a guest. It was at this time that Kay first met and worked with Judy, developing a close personal friendship and professional association that lasted the rest of Garland's life.
1174973	Haylie Katherine Duff (born February 19, 1985) is an American actress, singer-songwriter and food blogger. She is the older sister of actress and singer-songwriter Hilary Duff. She is best known on her role as Sandy Jameson in the television series "7th Heaven", and as Annie Nelson in the made for television films "Love Takes Wing" and its sequel "Love Finds a Home". Early life. Duff was born in Houston, Harris County, Texas. She is two and a half years older than her sister, Hilary. Duff's mother, Susan Colleen (née Cobb) is a homemaker and film producer (co-executive producer of "A Cinderella Story" (2004) and producer of "The Perfect Man" (2005) and "Material Girls" (2006), as well as the manager of her sister Hilary). Her father, Robert Erhard 'Bob' Duff, is a partner and owner in a chain of convenience stores with father John B. Duff and who resides at the family home in Houston to maintain the family's business. She began her acting career as an offshoot of her early dance training. Growing up in Texas, Duff began ballet at an early age. By age ten, Duff landed a role in the Houston Metropolitan Dance Company’s production of "The Nutcracker". Career. Acting. Duff's early career started by making guest appearances on made for television films such as "Hope" and "True Women" and on TV series such as "The Amanda Show". In addition to guest-starring roles on "Chicago Hope", "Boston Public", and "Third Watch", Duff became a familiar face starting in late 2002 as Amy Saunders/Sanders on the children's television series, "Lizzie McGuire", which starred her sister Hilary.
1063150	Sarah Miles (born 31 December 1941) is an English theatre and film actor. Life and career. Sarah Miles was born in the small town of Ingatestone, Essex, in South East England; her brother is film director, producer and screenwriter Christopher Miles. Miles's parents were Clarice Vera Remnant and Frank Remnant. Through her maternal grandfather Francis Remnant, Miles claims to be the great-granddaughter of Prince Francis of Teck (1870–1910) and thus a second cousin once removed of Elizabeth II. Unable to speak until the age of 9 because of a stammer and dyslexia, she attended Roedean, and three other schools, but was expelled from all of them. Miles enrolled at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) at the age of 15. Shortly after finishing at RADA, Miles debuted as Shirley Taylor, a "husky wide-eyed nymphet" in "Term of Trial" (1962), which featured Laurence Olivier; she was nominated for the BAFTA Award for Best Newcomer. Soon afterwards, Miles had a role as "Vera from Manchester" in Joseph Losey's "The Servant" (1963), and "thrust sexual appetite into British films" according to David Thomson. She gained another BAFTA nomination, this time as Best Actress. She had a "peripheral" part in Michelangelo Antonioni's "Blowup" (1966). a director she thought (at his death in 2007) was "a rogue and a tyrant and a brilliant man". After acting in a several plays from 1966 to 1969, Miles was cast as Rosy in the leading title role of David Lean's "Ryan's Daughter" (1970). It was critically savaged, which discouraged Lean from making a film for some years, despite Miles' performance gaining her an an Oscar nomination and an Oscar win for John Mills, and the film making a substantial profit. In Terence Pettigrew's biography of Trevor Howard, Miles describes the filming of "Ryan's Daughter" in Ireland in 1969. She recalls, "My main memory is of sitting on a hilltop in a caravan at six in the morning in the rain. There was no other actor or member of the crew around me. I would sit there getting mad, waiting for either the rain to stop or someone to arrive. Film-acting is so horrifically belittling." On 11 February 1973, while filming "The Man Who Loved Cat Dancing", David Whiting, briefly one of her lovers, was found dead in her motel room. She was charged and acquitted of culpability in his death. Miles later commented: "It went on for six months. Murder? Suicide? Murder! Suicide! Murder! Suicide! And, gradually, the truth came out, which I'm not going to speak about, but it certainly wasn't me. I had actually saved the man from three suicide attempts so why would I want to murder him? I really can't imagine." Her performance as Anne Osborne in "The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea" (1976) was nominated for a Golden Globe. Interviewer Lynn Barber wrote of Miles' appearances in "Hope and Glory", "White Mischief" and her two earliest films that she "has that Vanessa Redgrave quality of seeming to have one skin fewer than normal people, so that the emotion comes over unmuffled and bare." Filming "White Mischief" on location in Kenya in 1987, Miles worked for the second and last time with Trevor Howard, who had a supporting role but was by then seriously ill with a drink problem. The company wanted to fire him, but Miles was determined that Howard's distinguished film career wouldn't end on a sour note. In an interview with Terence Pettigrew for his biography of Howard, she describes how she gave an ultimatum to the executives, threatening to quit the production if they got rid of him. The gamble worked. Howard was kept on. It was to be his last major film. He died the following January. She most recently appeared in "Well" at the Trafalgar Studios and the Apollo Theatre opposite Natalie Casey. Personal life and family. Miles was married twice to the British playwright Robert Bolt, 1967–1975 and 1988–1995. He wrote and directed the film "Lady Caroline Lamb", in which Miles played the eponymous heroine. After his stroke, the couple reunited and Miles cared for him. "I would be dead without her", Bolt said in 1987, "When she's away, my life takes a nosedive. When she returns, my life soars." The couple had a son Tom, who is now a watch dealer. Miles drinks a small cup of her own urine every day. Citing Gandhi, who was an adherent of this urine therapy, she has followed the tradition for more than thirty years, saying that it has kept her healthy and vigorous. Books. Sarah Miles has written the following books:
1789614	Andrew "Andy" Lauer (born June 19, 1965) is an Emmy-nominated American actor and filmmaker. Life and career. Lauer may be best known to America acting as "Charlie" on the hit NBC comedy series "Caroline in the City". Directed and Produced "Adventures of a Teenage Dragon Slayer" starring Lea Thompson and Wendie Malick. The film was released in theaters Spring 2011 and went on to stay on the video family charts for 9 months. Lauer’s next project "Gridiron Heroes" follows fallen high school football players and will be executive produced by Peter Berg and narrated by Jason Bateman. He also had triple duties directing/writing/producing the short film "The Tehuacan Project", about deaf children defying incredible obstacles in rural Mexico. Brad Pitt executive produced. Adrien Brody narrated the film with Esai Morales; Prior to that he received critical acclaim for his feature film "Intermedio", a supernatural thriller starring Edward Furlong and Amber Benson. He is currently involved as a producer, scriptwriter and director for a feature film "Little Cuba" which is going to be filmed in Sri Lanka and Miami.
923847	Jean Wallace (October 12, 1923 – February 14, 1990) was an American television and film actress. Biography. Born Jean Walasek in Chicago to John T. Walasek and Mary A. Walasek (née Sharkey), Wallace began her career as a model then got her first small movie role at the age of seventeen. She was married two times; once to her "Jigsaw" co-star Franchot Tone from 1941 to 1948 and once to actor Cornel Wilde (her co-star in "The Big Combo" and "Lancelot and Guinevere") from 1951 to 1981. She had two sons with Tone and one with Wilde. She attempted suicide in 1946 with sleeping pills, and in 1949 with a self-inflicted knife wound. Wallace died of a gastrointestinal hemorrhage on February 14, 1990. She is buried in Hollywood Forever Cemetery.
1056962	Looking for Comedy in the Muslim World is a 2005 film starring and directed by Albert Brooks. It was shown at the Dubai International Film Festival. Synopsis. Albert Brooks, a Jewish-American comedian, is asked by the United States government to travel to India and Pakistan to find out "what makes Muslims laugh." References are made to Brooks's earlier films, including "Finding Nemo", "Lost In America" and "Defending Your Life", along with his earlier stand-up comedy material. Upon reaching India, Brooks begins interviewing Indians and gathering material for the 500-page essay expected of him from the government. He is aided by two agents (who actually help very little) and an Indian woman named Maya (Sheetal Sheth), who was hired as his assistant. Brooks' interviews and a failed stand-up performance begin to attract the attention of the Indian government, who fear he is a spy of some sort. Unable to get a visa, Brooks illegally enters Pakistan for four hours to interview several fledgling Pakistani comedians, the Indian government becomes even more paranoid, increasing border control. This action causes alarm to Pakistan, who responds with security measures of their own. As tension between the countries grows, the American government orders Brooks to leave the country and return to America. It is later said that the tension between Pakistan and India is resolved after they learn that everything was Brooks's fault. It is also revealed that Maya sent what was written of the report to Washington, but it received no recognition. Reception. The film received mixed reviews from critics. According to Rotten Tomatoes, it received 42% positive reviews. It opened in limited release (in only 161 theatres).
1059001	Alexis Arquette (born Robert Arquette; July 28, 1969) is an American actress, musician, and cabaret performer. Early life. Arquette was born Robert Arquette in Los Angeles, California to Brenda Olivia "Mardi" (née Nowak), an actor, poet, theater operator, activist, acting teacher, and therapist, and Lewis Arquette, an actor and director. Her paternal grandfather was comedian Cliff Arquette. Her mother was Jewish, the daughter of a Holocaust refugee from Poland. Arquette's siblings are actors Rosanna, Patricia, Richmond, and David. In 1982, at the age of twelve, Arquette's first job was as "this little kid who's on a ride with all these women and whatnot" in the music video "She's a Beauty" by The Tubes. In 1986, Arquette debuted on the big screen in an uncredited role as Alexis, the androgynous friend and bandmate of the sexually ambivalent, angst-filled teenager Max Whiteman (Evan Richards) in the comedy film "Down and Out in Beverly Hills". Twenty years later, she transitioned from male to female, an experience that was documented in the film, "", which debuted at the 2007 Tribeca Film Festival. Career. At nineteen, Arquette landed her first featured film role, playing transvestite Georgette in "Last Exit to Brooklyn". The majority of her film work has been in low-budget or independent films. She appeared in "I Think I Do," "", "Sometimes They Come Back... Again", and "Killer Drag Queens on Dope", among 40 other independent pictures. Arquette has appeared in supporting roles in "Pulp Fiction" as well as mainstream films, including "Threesome", "Bride of Chucky" and an appearance as a Boy George fanatic in "The Wedding Singer," performing "Do You Really Want to Hurt Me?". In 2001, Arquette played the Roman emperor Caligula in two episodes of the cult television show "". That same year, Arquette guest starred in the "Friends" episode "The One with Chandler's Dad" and had a cameo appearance in "Son of the Beach". In September 2005, VH1 announced Arquette as one of the celebrity house-guests on the sixth season of its reality show "The Surreal Life". On January 31, 2007, Arquette was a featured celebrity client and guest judge on the premiere episode of Bravo's reality television show "Top Design". Arquette also made a cameo appearance in Robbie Williams' "She's Madonna" video.
1163051	Danica Mae McKellar (born January 3, 1975) is an American actress, film director, academic, book author and education advocate. She is best known for her role as Winnie Cooper in the television show "The Wonder Years", and later as the "New York Times" bestselling author of four popular non-fiction books: "Math Doesn't Suck", "Kiss My Math", "Hot X: Algebra Exposed" and "Girls Get Curves: Geometry Takes Shape", which encourage middle-school and high-school girls to have confidence and succeed in mathematics. Early life. Born in La Jolla, California, McKellar moved with her family to Los Angeles when she was eight. Her mother Mahalia is a homemaker; her father Christopher is a real estate developer. Her family is "a big mix of Western Europe": Her mother's ancestry is Portuguese (via the Azores and Madeira islands); her father's ancestry is Scottish, Irish, French, German and Dutch. McKellar and her sister Crystal McKellar both maintained professional acting careers as children, but with a strong emphasis on education as a priority. As a result, Crystal became a corporate lawyer, while Danica majored in mathematics. Danica and Crystal also have two half-brothers, Chris Junior and Connor McKellar. Acting career. "The Wonder Years" and early acting career. McKellar had a leading role in "The Wonder Years", an American television comedy-drama that ran for six seasons on ABC, from 1988 to 1993. She played Gwendolyn "Winnie" Cooper, the main love interest of Kevin Arnold (played by Fred Savage) on the show. Her first kiss was with Fred Savage in an episode of "The Wonder Years". She later said, "My first kiss was a pretty nerve-wracking experience! But we never kissed off screen, and pretty quickly our feelings turned into brother/sister, and stayed that way." Late-night talk show host Jimmy Fallon has said that the character of Winnie Cooper "is the coolest girl in any TV show ever." Later career. McKellar has admitted the transition from "child actor to adult actor was a little bumpy." Since leaving "The Wonder Years", McKellar has had several guest roles in television series (including one with former co-star Fred Savage on "Working"), and has written and directed two short films. She appeared in two Lifetime TV movies in the "Moment of Truth" series, playing Kristin Guthrie in 1994's ' and Annie Mills Carman in 1996's '. She briefly returned to regular television with a recurring role in the 2002–03 season of "The West Wing," portraying Elsie Snuffin, the stepsister and assistant of Deputy White House Communications Director Will Bailey. McKellar appeared in lingerie in the July 2005 edition of "Stuff" magazine after readers voted her the 1990s star they would most like to see in lingerie. McKellar explained that she agreed to the shoot in part to obtain "grittier roles". In June 2006, Lifetime Television announced that McKellar would star in a Lifetime movie and web-based series titled "Inspector Mom" about a mother who solves mysteries. On the August 1, 2007, edition of the "Don and Mike Show", a WJFK-FM radio program out of Washington, D.C., McKellar announced plans that the producers of "How I Met Your Mother" were planning to bring her back for a recurring role (she guest-starred on the show in late 2005 in "The Pineapple Incident" and again in early 2007 in "Third Wheel"). She also made an appearance on the show "The Big Bang Theory", in the episode "The Psychic Vortex". In 2008, she starred in "Heatstroke", a Sci-Fi Channel original movie about searching for alien life on Earth and in 2009 she was one of the stars commenting on the occurrences of the new millennium in VH1's "I Love the New Millennium "and was the math correspondent for "Brink", a program by the Science Channel about technology. McKellar has also found work as a voice actress. She is the voice of Miss Martian in "Young Justice". She has also provided the voices for two characters in three video games: Jubilee in "X-Men Legends" (2004), and Invisible Woman in ' (2006) and ' (2009). Mathematics. McKellar studied mathematics at UCLA, graduating "summa cum laude" in 1998.
1265355	Roland Young (11 November 1887 - 5 June 1953) was an English actor. Early life and career. Born in London, England, Young was educated at Sherborne School, Sherborne, Dorset and the University of London before being accepted into Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. He made his first stage appearance in London's West End in "Find the Woman" in 1908, and in 1912 he made his Broadway debut in "Hindle Wakes". He appeared in two comedies written for him by Clare Kummer, "Good Gracious Annabelle!" (1916) and "A Successful Calamity" (1917) before he served with the US Army during World War I. He returned to New York when the war ended, and married Kummer's daughter, Frances. For the next few years he alternated between New York and London. He made his film debut in the 1922 silent film "Sherlock Holmes", in which he played Watson opposite John Barrymore as Holmes.
1051908	La Chinoise is a 1967 French political film directed by Jean-Luc Godard about young revolutionaries in Paris. Plot summary. "La Chinoise" is a loose adaptation of Fyodor Dostoyevsky's 1872 novel, "The Possessed". In the novel, a group of five disaffected citizens, each representing a different ideological persuasion and personality type, conspire to overthrow the Russian imperial regime through a campaign of sustained revolutionary violence. The film, set in contemporary Paris and taking place in a small apartment, is structured as a series of personal and ideological dialogues dramatizing the interactions of five French university students — three young men and two young women — belonging to a radical Maoist group called the "Aden Arabie Cell" (named for the novel, "Aden, Arabie", by Paul Nizan).
1056878	Class Reunion is a 1982 comedy horror film produced by "National Lampoon" as the third film from the magazine. It was the second film released; although "National Lampoon Goes To The Movies" was filmed in 1981, it was delayed and not released until 1982. Synopsis. Lizzie Borden High's class of 1972 are getting ready to go through the motions at their ten year reunion, when a deranged alum Walter Baylor, who was driven insane by a horrible sadistic senior-year prank, escapes from the mental institution and decides to crash the party at his high school reunion. Guests start to disappear and are found dead, the other alumni, including the high class snooty yacht salesman Bob Spinnaker, class tease Bunny Packard, and the class zero Gary Nash, spring into action as they try to uncover the culprit and put an end to the nightmare that has become their class reunion. Release. The film was released theatrically in the United States by 20th Century Fox in October 1982. It proved to be a huge disappointment for the company following "National Lampoon's Animal House", grossing only $10,054,150 at the box office. In 1982, Dell Publishing released a "photo novel" version book, adapted from John Hughes' screenplay by Sandra Choron. The film was released on VHS and laserdisc by ABC Video in 1983. In August 1998, Anchor Bay Entertainment re-released the film on VHS. In 2000, Anchor Bay Entertainment released the film on DVD. The film was re-released on DVD by MGM in 2005. National Lampoon's Class Reunion grossed $10,054,150 in total for its career. Opening weekend for the movie it made $3,086,525. Soundtrack. The soundtrack for the 1982 movie National Lampoons Class Reunion consists of several musical scores as well as the classic '60s hits "Stop! in the Name of Love", including several songs from Chuck Berry as well as an on screen performance. The score was edited by Jim Harrison and Lada Productions. National Lampoon History. National Lampoon's class reunion was the second big screen movie that was released from the Original National Lampoon Company. The movie had a huge build up and viewers expected it to be another hit for the National Lampoon franchise, because it was following National Lampoon's Animal House the company's first big screen release in 1978. The original company consisted of the writers from the National Lampoon magazine and the some of the cast from the National Lampoon Radio Hour and the stage show National Lampoon's Lemmings. Reviews. National Lampoon's Class Reunion suffered negative reviews on release. According to T.V. Guide "this is a very unfunny film which was released after the successful National Lampoon's Animal House, and which died at the box office, focuses on the 10th reunion of a 1972 high-school graduating class. The plot combines both comedy and horror-slasher elements, a combination that doesn't work. A murderer is killing off class members, who are such dull, dreary creatures no one could blame him. Even Chuck Berry, who makes brief appearance singing a melody of his songs, cant save this one." Christopher Tookey states,"Very Inferior follow-up to Animal House, with remarkably tasteless basis for comedy. John Hughes can be blamed for the script, a feeble spoof of a slasher movie. Songs are used to extend running length, but even Chuck Berry seems under par."
655218	Vanessa Joy Lachey (née Minnillo; born November 9, 1980) is an American television personality, television host, fashion model, and actress. Minnillo was also named Miss Teen USA in 1998. She has been a New York-based correspondent for "Entertainment Tonight" and hosted "Total Request Live" on MTV. Biography. 1980–97: Early life. Minnillo was born in Angeles City, Pampanga, Philippines on November 9, 1980. Her father, Vincent Minnillo, is an American citizen of Italian and Irish descent, while her estranged mother, Helen Bercero, is Filipino. Minnillo has an adopted brother, Vincent Jr., who is two years older. Her father moved the family frequently because of his service in the Air Force. She lived in Washington, California, Nevada, Florida, Germany and Japan and attended eight different schools in nine years. Minnillo's parents separated in 1983 and were divorced in 1986. Minnillo's parents both remarried. She and her brother Vincent Jr. relocated to Turkey with their mother and new stepfather. By 1991, in the wake of Operation Desert Shield, they returned to their father's home, eventually settling in Hanahan, South Carolina, where Minnillo attended the Roman Catholic Bishop England High School and was a cheerleader. From then on, she lived with her father and stepmother, Donna. She also attended Our Lady of the Assumption Catholic School, in San Bernardino, California, for one year. 1998–2007. Minnillo was crowned Miss South Carolina Teen USA and went on to win the title Miss Teen USA in 1998, the first Miss Teen USA from South Carolina and also the first from South Carolina to be named the pageant's Miss Congeniality. She was a host on MTV's "Total Request Live" ("TRL") from 2003 until 2007 and became a New York City correspondent for "Entertainment Tonight" in 2005. Minnillo hosted Miss Teen USA (2004) and co-hosted Miss Universe (2007). After leaving MTV and "Entertainment Tonight", Minnillo was featured in print and web-based advertising for BONGO Jeans' Spring/Summer 2007 collection. She has been spokeswoman for Flirt! Cosmetics, a line she helped create which debuted in August 2007, in Kohl's department stores. In May 2006, "Maxim" magazine ranked Minnillo #15 in its annual Hot 100 issue. She has been featured on the covers of "Maxim" (October 2005, October 2006), "Shape" (March 2007), and "Lucky" (July 2007). 2007–present. Minnillo was a finalist in E!'s competition to replace Brooke Burke as host of "Wild On". She also hosted "True Beauty", a competition in which 10 contestants vie for $100,000 and inclusion in People Magazine's 100 Most Beautiful People issue. The series premiered on ABC on January 5, 2009, with a first season that ran through February 23, 2009. ABC renewed the series for a second season which ran from May 31, 2010 through July 19, 2010. Minnillo became a co-host of ABC's "Wipeout" beginning in winter 2011. Her first appearance was on December 8, 2011. She left the show in late 2012 to have a baby and was replaced by Jill Wagner. Minnillo has appeared in television series including "That's Life", "City Girls", "30 Rock", "The Bold and The Beautiful", "Psych", "Hawaii 5-0" and "Maybe It's Me". In 2008, she played Ashlee in the "How I Met Your Mother" episode "No Tomorrow". She starred in the 2008 comedy "Disaster Movie", a spoof of big-budget Hollywood disaster movies. Released on August 29, 2008, the film had moderate box office success, earning $34,624,652 worldwide. The film received extremely negative reviews, earning six Razzie Award nominations. As of January 2011, it stands at number sixteen on the IMDb Bottom 100. Minnillo signed on to appear in "Redefining Love", a 2009 romantic comedy, but she is not listed in the final cast. In November 2009, TVGuide.com announced that Minnillo would guest star alongside "Disaster Movie" co-star Kim Kardashian on CBS's "". "The ladies and Kim portray two women who've managed to concoct a very interesting scheme that ends in murder," confirmed executive producer Pam Veasey. Minnillo's former MTV colleague and close friend, La La Vasquez, as well as the band Train, also appeared in the episode. In 2011, she guest starred on "30 Rock" as Carmen Chao, Avery's coworker at NBC who is competing for the same promotion. Minnillo later guest starred on the new series of "Hawaii Five-0" with then fiancé Nick Lachey. Personal life. Beginning in 2003, Minnillo was in a relationship with Derek Jeter, which ended in 2005. She dated Nick Lachey in 2006 until their split in 2009. The couple reconciled several months later. On July 15, 2011, Minnillo and Lachey married on Sir Richard Branson's private Necker Island in the British Virgin Islands, with an intimate party of 35 close friends and family. On September 12, 2012, Minnillo gave birth to their first child, a son named Camden John Lachey.
581858	Meri Jung is a 1985 Hindi movie produced by N N Sippy and directed by Subhash Ghai. The film stars Anil Kapoor, Meenakshi Sheshadri, Nutan, Amrish Puri, Javed Jaffrey (in his debut film), A. K. Hangal, Iftekhar, Kushboo and Parikshat Sahni. The films music is by Laxmikant Pyarelal. Plot. The story begins with a happy lower-middle-class family — Arun Verma (Anil Kapoor) an 8-year-old boy, his sister Komal Verma (Khushboo) a 5-year-old girl, his mother (Nutan) and his father (Girish Karnad) — living a peaceful life. Arun's parents teach their children through the famous title song "Zingadi Har Kadam Ek Nayi Jung Hai, Jeet Jayenge Hum, Jeet Jayenge Hum Tu Agar Sang Hai" which means that life is full of problems at every step and still we will overcome all these if we are together. Arun's father is trapped in a murder case. A famous criminal lawyer G.D. Thakral (Amrish Puri) proves him guilty, and he is sentenced to be hanged by the court. Pleas by Arun's mother fail to convince Thakral to be truthful and spare her husband. Thakral asks her to give evidence for his innocence, to which she sadly quotes "Jiske paas koi sabut, koi gavanh nahi hote kya we begunah nahin hote" ("one who does not have any proof or witness of innocence, are they not innocent?"). Thakral was adamant to let her husband be hanged. He was hanged as per court's decision. His mother becomes mentally unstable from shock and is sent to a mental institution. Later Advocate Gupta (A.K. Hangal), the lawyer who defended Arun's father, finds out that Thakral had known all along that he was innocent, but only wanted him to be hanged. Arun finds out that Thakral abused the law. Arun's house and all his property is auctioned off by the court. Arun and his sister are not offered help. He grows up with the seeds of revenge in his heart. He becomes a successful defense lawyer and keenly follows every case of Thakral so that some day he can stand up in court against the unbeaten Thakral and beat him. One day Geeta Srivatsav (Meenakshi) comes to him and asks him to fight the case of her sister, Dr. Asha Mathur (Bina) who is accused of killing a patient on duty with her medicine, which she gave from her purse. Arun refuses saying that if she can produce even an iota of evidence of her sister being innocent he will fight for her. Geeta replies coincidentally the same sentence "Jiske paas koi sabut, koi gavanh nahi hote kya we begunah nahin hote." Arun is instantly reminded of his mother’s pleadings before Thakral. Geeta storms out of his office, but Arun is convinced to take the case. He meets Asha Mathur in police custody. He learns from her that on that fateful night she got a call from her ward assistant that her patient is in the ICU and needs her. She stops on the way (due to a traffic jam), and she impatiently moves out of car her to ask the reason. Meanwhile somebody replaces the medicine bottle with the look-alike bottle of poison from her purse. On arrival in the hospital, she gives the liquid from that bottle to stabilize the patient. This resulted in the patient's death. It is shown that Asha Mathur's husband, Dr. Dinesh Mathur (Parikshat Sahni), had gone to meet Thakral and had asked him to fight his wife's case. Thakral says no claiming he is very busy at the moment but later tells his assistant that there is no way that this case could be won. Arun meets Dinesh Mathur and informs him that he will fight the case. He asked him about the nature of poison and for how long a person can sustain the poison; he learns that poison if might result in death within 2 to 15 minutes depending on the body resistance. The case begins with the prosecution lawyer recounting the events of that fateful day and telling that the medicine given to the patient was actually poison. Arun defends the case says that the patient did not die of this medicine. To prove himself right he drinks the medicine in court and refutes the claim. The court declares Geeta's sister not guilty. Just after the judgement Dr. Mathur rushes Arun to hospital. It is revealed that the medicine contained poison, and Arun is saved in the nick of time. Geeta calls him on a beach to appreciate his efforts and kindness at the canteen. They fall in love. Thakral's son Vikram Thakral (Javed Jaffrey), a spoilt brat, not knowing anything about Arun, passes bad comments at the couple and teases Geeta, which irritates the couple. Soon things take an ugly turn. He beats Vikram and his friends. Dr. Mathur wants to appreciate and compensate Arun for the risky effort he took to save his wife. He calls him for a get-together in his mansion. Dr. Mathur gives Arun a blank cheque. Arun rejects the offers politely and says he did for his self-satisfaction. He then finds the same piano with the sticker of Bhagwat Geeta of Krishna which his father used to play and was auctioned. His memories are refreshed again and with the emotional request he tells Dr. Mathur that this piano is very significant to him and asks for it. Dr. Mathur very happily gives the piano and asks him the reason for accepting this small fees. He tells the Mathur family his tragic story. He says that his mother was never seen after his father’s death, and he assumes that she is dead. Vikram plans to trap Arun's sister Komal and learns she studies in the same college. He tries to impress her by his charms, dancing skills, and ways of flattering people. The plan works. Komal falls for him and he convinces her to run away with him (so that he can publicly defame Arun by leaving his sister). At the planned moment, when one of Vikram's ex-girlfriends shows up and tells Komal of Vikram's evil intentions. In the ensuing argument, Vikram murders his girlfriend which is witnessed by the Dr. Mathur's family. The Mathurs arrive at Arun's house to narrate the incident. Mrs. Mathur sees a photo of his mother hanging in the wall. She immediately recognizes the face with the patient she is handling for mental disorders. Arun and his sister request them to take to her. In the mental hospital they see their mother. Her memories had stopped on the day of the incident; she feels that their children are eight and five, staying with father. Arun brings her mother to his house and tries to make her come back to normal; she resumes her memory on hearing the song "Zingadi Har Kadam..." Arun had been waiting for this moment to take revenge on Thakral. He steps in as the prosecutor against Thakral who is defending his son. The case moves to and fro and, in the end, Arun has the upper hand. Thakral kidnaps Arun's mother and attempts to blackmail him. Arun goes to save his mother and is beaten up by Thakral's goons. Even though injured, Arun fights back. In an attempt to shoot Arun, Thakral shoots his friend's son and is jailed. He is unsuccessful in saving his son, who is given the death penalty. Thakral becomes a mentally unstable person. Arun and his family are happy again and sing the famous "Zingadi Har Kadam Ek Nayi Jung Hai" song. Reception. The movie was critically acclaimed, with special praise heaped upon Amrish Puri and Anil Kapoor. The movie established Kapoor as a mature actor with a lot of talent, shedding his newcomer image.
589280	Heera Panna () is a 1973 Hindi film. Written, produced and directed by Dev Anand for Navketan films, the film stars Dev Anand, Zeenat Aman, Raakhee, Rehman, Jeevan, A.K. Hangal, Paintal and Dheeraj Kumar. The film's music is composed by R. D. Burman. Plot. Heera (Dev Anand) has two passions in his life, namely his love for Reema (Raakhee), an air-hostess, and photography. When Reema passes away during an airplane accident, Heera is left with only passion in life - photography. During one of his photographic sessions with Raja Saab (Rehman), a priceless diamond is stolen by Panna (Zeenat Aman), and is hidden in Heera's car. When Heera comes to know about this theft and that he is in possession of stolen property, he decides to turn Panna in to the police but discovers that Panna is Reema's younger sister.
592223	Malashri (Kannada: ಮಾಲಾಶ್ರೀ) (sometimes credited as Malashree) is an Indian actress in the Kannada film industry, known for the dramatic lead roles. She made her debut in the all time Kannada Hit ""Nanjundi Kalyana"" in 1989. Her portrayal of a haughty, shrewish woman in the movie won her many accolades heralding her as the top actress of Kannada Cinema. Her next few movies were all author backed with her playing the pivotal role. All these went on to become super hits. Movies like "Gajapathi Garvabhanga", "Policana Hendathi", "Prathap", "Kitturina Huli" and "Tavarumane Udugore" made her a household name and Malashri went on to become the highest paid Kanndada actress ever. Malashri excelled in homely as well as tomboyish roles. She was the only Kannada heroine who could pull in the women audiences in tear jerkers ("Gruha Pravesa", "Mangalya", "Sindoora Tilaka", "Belli Kalungura", "Mana Mechida Sose") and with the same ease act in comedies like "Readymade Ganda", "Kanasina Rani", "Malashri Mamashri" and "Halli Rambhe Belli Bombe". She also gained immense popularity through action flicks like "SP Bhargavi", "Rowdy Mattu MLA", "Kollura Kaala", "Marana Mrudanga" (in which she acted opposite the late CM of Karnataka Ramakrishna Hegde). Career. Malashri first appeared in the song 'Olage Seridare Gundu', sung by Manjula Gururaj, in the movie Nanjundi Kalyana, which went on to become one of the most popular Kannada songs in decades. She was launched as a leading actress by the Rajkumar camp opposite Raghavendra Rajkumar, and went on to act in 2 other movies from Vajreshwari combines: "Gajapathi Garvabhanga" opposite Raghavendra Rajkumar again and "Mrutyunjaya" with Shivrajkumar. She took on the famous double role in "Rani Maharani" (immortalized earlier by Vanisri in "Ganga Manga"/"Rani Vani" and Sridevi in "Chaalbaaz"). With this film, she silenced her critics once and for all with a powerhouse performance. But it was not until her next film "Hrudaya Haadithu" that she openly won all praises from the masses, elite and critics alike. Her portrayal of a young girl inflicted with heart problem and her simple desires in life won her the Filmfare Best actress award in the year 1991. As she churned out hit after hit. Even director V. Ravichandran, who till then believed only in importing heroines from the film industries of other states, cashed in hugely on her popularity by casting her in "Ramachaari" (a remake of Tamil Hit "Chinna Thambi"). This enabled him to come out of the financial crisis he was facing due to the debacle of "Shanti Kranti" during that time. However, in the mid-90s, Malashri had a string of less successful films like "Prema Khaidi", "Snehada Kadalalli", "Megha Mandara", "Harishina Kumkuma", and "Solillada Saradara". She had a few comeback hits in the new millennium with "angry woman" roles in "Chamundi", "Durgi" and "Kannada Kiran Bedi". Personal life. Malashri shot to fame with "Nanjundi Kalyana" in 1989 but her personal life hit an all time low the same year when her mother died in a road accident. A few years down the line when she was at the pinnacle of her extremely successful career, ill fate revisted her life, when her close friend and co-star in several movies, Sunil, was killed in a tragic road accident. She was lucky to survive the accident. She had plans to get married to him. She is currently married to producer Ramu and has a daughter, Ananya and son. Her sister Subhashri was also an actress in south. Her Leading Men Co-stars. Shashi Kumar (Policana Hendathi, Kanasina Rani, Readymade Ganda, Kitturina Huli, Rani Maharani). Sunil (Tavarumane Udugore, Belli Kalungura, Mangalya, Nagaradalli Nayakaru, Malashri Mamashri, Sindoora Tilaka, Halli Krishna Delhi Radha, Marana Mrudanga, Snehada Kadallali). They were her most regular co-stars and they churned out endless hits together. Ambarish was next with hits like Rani Maharani, Hridaya Haadithu, Gandu Sidigundu and Rowdy MLA. Sridhar was another of her popular co-stars who acted in movies like Mangalya, Hatamari Hennu, Gruha lakshmi.., etc. Shivaraj Kumar (Mruthunjaya, Gadi-Bidi Aliya, Janena Hole). Raghavendra Rajkumar (Nanjundi Kalyana, Gajapathi Garvabhanga). Arjun Sarja acted in only one hit film "Prathap" with her and the rest being flops (Snehada Kadalalli, Shivanaga). V. Ravichandran acted with her in Ramachaari She also acted opposite other heroes like Devaraj (SP Bhargavi, Gruha Pravesha), Ramesh Arvind (Belli Modagalu), Raviraj (Raja Kempu Roja), Anant Nag (Prema Sangama).
1179584	Macy Gray (born Natalie Renée McIntyre; September 6, 1969) is an American R&B and soul singer-songwriter, musician, record producer, and actress, known for her distinctive raspy voice, and a singing style heavily influenced by Billie Holiday and Betty Davis. Gray has released six studio albums, and received five Grammy Award nominations, winning one. She has appeared in a number of films, including "Training Day", "Spider-Man", "Scary Movie 3", "Lackawanna Blues", "Idlewild" and "For Colored Girls". Gray is best known for her international hit single "I Try", taken from her multi-platinum debut album "On How Life Is". Early life and career. Macy Gray was born in Canton, Ohio, to Laura McIntyre, a math teacher, and Otis Jones. While attending the University of Southern California, she agreed to write songs for a friend, and a demo session was scheduled for the songs to be recorded by another singer. When the vocalist failed to turn up, Gray recorded them herself. She then met writer/producer Joe Solo while working as a cashier in Beverly Hills. Together, they wrote a large collection of songs and recorded them in Solo's studio. The demo tape landed Gray the opportunity to sing at jazz cafés in Los Angeles, California. Despite Gray's dislike of her own voice, Atlantic Records signed her. She began recording her debut record but was dropped from the label upon the departure of her A&R man Tom Carolan, who signed her to the label. In 1998, she landed a record deal with Epic Records. She was on one of the songs from The Black Eyed Peas' debut album, "Love Won't Wait". Music career. "On How Life Is" (1999–2001). Gray worked on her debut album in 1999 with producer Darryl Swann. Released in the summer of 1999, "On How Life Is" became a worldwide smash. Despite the first single "Do Something" stalling on the charts, the release of the second single "I Try" made the album a success for Gray. "I Try" (which was originally featured in "Love Jones" and the Jennifer Aniston-starring vehicle, romantic-comedy "Picture Perfect" in 1997) was one of the biggest singles of 1999, and subsequent singles "Still" and "Why Didn't You Call Me" ensured the album becoming triple platinum in the U.S., quadruple platinum in the UK, and triple platinum in Canada. In 2001, Gray won the Grammy Award for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance for "I Try", which was also nominated for "Song of the Year" and "Record of the Year". She then collaborated with Fatboy Slim, The Black Eyed Peas, and Slick Rick (on the song "The World Is Yours", from the "Rush Hour 2" soundtrack), as well as acting for the first time in the thriller "Training Day". In August 2001, Gray was booed off the field at the Pro Football Hall of Fame exhibition game after forgetting the lyrics to the American national anthem. "The Id" and "The Trouble with Being Myself" (2001–2005). Gray's "The Id" featured appearances by John Frusciante and Erykah Badu on the single "Sweet Baby" (which was co-written with longtime collaborator Joe Solo). The album peaked at number eleven on the "Billboard" 200. Despite its failure in the U.S., it reached number one on the UK Albums Chart and was certified gold by the BPI. The underperformance in the United States, compared to her debut album, may have been due to "The Id" being released just a week after the September 11, 2001 attacks.
1063961	Erika Jane Christensen (born August 19, 1982) is an American actress whose film appearances include "Traffic" (2000), "Swimfan" (2002), "The Perfect Score" (2004) and "How to Rob a Bank" (2007), among others. She also co-starred in the short-lived drama "Six Degrees" (September 2006 – March 2007) on ABC. She is currently co-starring in the 2010 television series "Parenthood" as Julia Braverman-Graham. Personal life. Christensen was born in Seattle, Washington, the daughter of Kathy, a construction manager, and Steven, an insurance worker/human-resources executive. She has an older half-brother, Nick, and two younger twin brothers, Dane (who appeared in the 2005 film "The Upside of Anger") and Brando. She has Swedish, Danish, Norwegian, Welsh, and Irish ancestry. Christensen was raised in Los Angeles, California and started out on television in commercials for McDonald's. Christensen is a member of the Church of Scientology. Her parents became Scientologists in their 20s and raised her to be a Scientologist as well as home-schooling her. Career. Christensen had several small roles in various television programs before starting her movie career in 1997. These include "The Geena Davis Show", "Frasier", "The Practice", "3rd Rock from the Sun", and "Touched by an Angel". She was named one of "People" magazine's "Breakthrough Stars of 2001". For her performance as a heroin addict in "Traffic" (2000) she received the awards for Female Breakthrough Performance at the MTV Movie Awards, Female Standout Performance at the Young Hollywood Awards, and Outstanding Performance by a Cast Ensemble at the Screen Actors Guild Awards. In 2005, she briefly went into music as she recorded a version of "Let's Fall in Love" with John Stevens for his debut album "Red". In 2006, she starred in the series "Six Degrees", which debuted on the ABC fall schedule in 2006 but low ratings caused its cancellation after one season. She made a cameo in the Joaquin Phoenix -directed video "Tired of Being Sorry" for Balthazar Getty's band Ringside. She is part of the cast of the film adaptation of "Veronika Decides to Die" (2009). Christensen is also a regular in the new NBC TV series "Parenthood", which debuted on March 2, 2010.
1060654	Andrew Clement "Andy" Serkis (born 20 April 1964) is an English film actor, director and author. Serkis is popularly known for his performance capture roles comprising animation and voice work for such computer-generated characters as: Gollum in "The Lord of the Rings" film trilogy (2001–2003) and the "Hobbit" prequels (2012–2014), King Kong in the eponymous 2005 film, Caesar in "Rise of the Planet of the Apes" (2011) and Captain Haddock in Steven Spielberg's "The Adventures of Tintin" (2011). Serkis also earned a Golden Globe Award nomination for his portrayal of serial killer Ian Brady in the British television film "Longford" (2006); and he was BAFTA Award nominated for his portrayal of New Wave and punk musician Ian Dury in the biopic "Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll" (2010). Serkis' film work in motion capture has been critically acclaimed, earning him recognition from many associations that do not usually recognize motion capture as real "acting". Serkis has received an Empire Award, a National Board of Review Award, two Saturn Awards and a Screen Actors Guild Award. Early life. Serkis, one of five children, was born and brought up in Ruislip Manor in West London. His mother, Lylie (née Weech), was English and taught disabled and invalid children. His father, Clement Serkis, was an Iraqi gynaecologist of Armenian ethnicity. His ancestors' original surname was Sarkisian. His father often worked away in the Middle East, while he was brought up in Britain, with regular holidays in the Middle East including to Tyre, Sidon, Damascus and Baghdad. Serkis was educated at St Benedict's School, Ealing, and then studied visual arts at Lancaster University. He chose theatre as a secondary subject so that he could design posters. Serkis was a member of the County College, and part of the student radio station Bailrigg FM. He joined the Nuffield Studio, getting involved in designing and producing plays. Having agreed to act in a couple of productions, towards the end of his first year Serkis played the lead role in Barrie Keeffe's play "Gotcha," as a rebellious teenager holding a teacher hostage. As a result, he changed his major subject to acting, constructing his Independent Studies Degree around acting and set design, studying Stanislavski and Brecht, and including minor modules in art and visual graphics. Career. In his third year at college, Serkis joined the backstage team at the local Duke's Playhouse to earn his Equity card. On graduation, although advised to take a one-year post-graduate acting course, he joined Dukes as an actor and, under director Jonathan Petherbridge who used workshops based upon the methods of Augusto Boal, spent 18 months acting in a broad range of productions from Brecht through Shakespeare to modern British playwrights. After 16 months, and having gained his Equity card, Serkis joined a series of touring companies, including productions of: "Bouncers" opposite Hull Truck; Florizel in "The Winter's Tale;" and the fool in "King Lear" with Max Stafford-Clark. In the early 1990s he settled in London, and took roles in "Dogboy," the Royal Court Theatre's production of "Mojo," Bill Sikes in "Oliver Twist," and Wilson Milam's 1997 production of "Hurlyburly" at the Queen's Theatre, Shaftesbury Avenue, opposite Rupert Graves and David Tennant. Like many British actors, Serkis made the move to television through the BBC, appearing in small roles such as Greville in "The Darling Buds of May". However, one of his first major starring roles was in the joint BBC/HBO production of "Einstein and Eddington." Serkis played Albert Einstein, following the development of his theory of relativity, while David Tennant played British scientist Sir Arthur Eddington. Serkis joined director Mike Leigh's ensemble for two film productions, and appeared in the 1999 romantic comedy "Loop" alongside Susannah York. Serkis' most critically acclaimed roles have been Sméagol/Gollum, in "The Lord of the Rings film trilogy" (2001–03), the title character in the 2005 version of "King Kong", in which he provided both the voice and movements for the CGI character as well as the ship's cook, and as 1970s new wave star Ian Dury in "Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll" (2010).
156392	Willebrord Snellius (born Willebrord Snel van Royen) (1580 – 30 October 1626, Leiden) was a Dutch astronomer and mathematician. In the west, especially the English speaking countries, his name has been attached to the law of refraction of light for several centuries, but it is now known that this law was first discovered by Ibn Sahl in 984. The same law was also investigated by Ptolemy and in the Middle Ages by Witelo, but due to lack of adequate mathematical instruments (trigonometric functions) their results were saved as tables, not functions. The lunar crater Snellius is named after Willebrord Snellius.
633333	Majel Barrett-Roddenberry (first name pronounced ; born Majel Leigh Hudec- February 23, 1932 – December 18, 2008) was an American actress and producer. She is best known for her role as Nurse Christine Chapel in the , Lwaxana Troi on " and ", and for being the voice of most onboard computer interfaces throughout the series. She was also the wife of "Star Trek" creator Gene Roddenberry. As the wife of Roddenberry and given her ongoing relationship with "Star Trek"—participating in some way in every series during her lifetime—she was sometimes referred to as "the First Lady of "Star Trek"". She and Gene Roddenberry were married in Japan on August 6, 1969, after the cancellation of the original "Star Trek" series. They had one son together, Eugene "Rod" Roddenberry, Jr., born in 1974. Biography. Hudec began taking acting classes as a child. She attended the University of Miami in Coral Gables, Florida, then had some stage roles and came to Hollywood. Her father, William Hudec, was a Cleveland police officer. He was killed in the line of duty in 1955 while Majel was touring with an off-Broadway road company. In the late 1950s and 1960s, she had bit parts in a few movies and small roles in TV series. She worked at the Desilu Studios on several TV shows, including "Bonanza", "The Untouchables", "The Lucy Show", and "The Lieutenant" (produced by Gene Roddenberry). She received training in comedy from Lucille Ball. In 1960, she played Gwen Rutherford on "Leave It to Beaver". She was also briefly seen in the film "Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?" in an ad parody at the beginning of the film. "Star Trek". In various roles, Barrett participated in every incarnation of the popular science fiction "Star Trek" franchise produced during her lifetime, including live-action and animated versions, television and cinema, and all of the time periods in which the various series have been set. She first appeared in 's initial pilot, "" (1964), as the USS "Enterprise"'s unnamed first officer, "Number One". Barrett was romantically involved with Roddenberry, whose marriage was on the verge of failing at the time, and the idea of having an otherwise unknown woman in a leading role just because she was the producer's girlfriend is said to have infuriated NBC network executives who insisted that Roddenberry give the role to a man. William Shatner corroborated this in "Star Trek Memories", and added that female viewers at test screenings hated the character as well. Shatner noted that women viewers felt she was "pushy" and "annoying" and also thought that "Number One shouldn't be trying so hard to fit in with the men." Barrett often joked that Roddenberry, given the choice between keeping Mr. Spock (whom the network also hated) or the woman character, "kept the Vulcan and married the woman, 'cause he didn't think Leonard would have it the other way around." Her role in subsequent episodes of ' was altered to that of Nurse Christine Chapel, a frequently recurring character, known for her unrequited affection for the dispassionate Spock. Her first appearance as Chapel in film dailies prompted NBC executive Jerry Stanley to yodel "Well, well--look who's back!". In an early scene in ', viewers are informed that she has now become Doctor Chapel, a role which she reprised briefly in '. Barrett provided several voices for ', including those of Nurse Chapel and a communications officer named M'Ress, an ailuroid officer who served alongside Uhura. She would return years later in ', cast as the outrageously self-assertive, iconoclastic Betazoid ambassador Lwaxana Troi, who appeared as a recurring character in the series. Her character often vexed the captain of the "Enterprise", Jean-Luc Picard, who spurned her amorous advances. Barrett later appeared as Ambassador Troi in several episodes of ', where in stark contrast, she developed a strong relationship with Constable Odo. She provided the regular voice of the onboard computers of Federation starships for ', ', ', ', and most of the "Star Trek" movies. She reprised her role as a shipboard computer's voice in two episodes of the prequel series "". She also lent her voice to various computer games and software related to the franchise. The iconic association of her voice to interactions with computers led to Google's Assistant project being initially codenamed "Google Majel". Barrett had also made a point of attending a major Star Trek convention each year in an effort to inspire fans and keep the franchise alive. Barrett is also one of six actors (the others being Jonathan Frakes, Kate Mulgrew, George Takei, Avery Brooks and Michael Dorn) to lend their voices to the CD-ROM "Star Trek: Captain's Chair", reprising her role as the voice of the ships' computers. On December 9, 2008, less than 10 days before her death, Roddenberry Productions announced that she would be providing the voice of the ship's computer once again, this time for the 2009 motion picture relaunch of "Star Trek". Sean Rossall, a Roddenberry family spokesman, stated that she had already completed the voiceover work, approximately December 4, 2008. The film is dedicated to her as well as Gene. Barrett and her husband, Gene Roddenberry, were honored in 2002 by the Space Foundation with the Douglas S. Morrow Public Outreach Award for their work creating awareness of and enthusiasm for space. Other roles. She appeared as Primus Dominic in Roddenberry's 1973 post-apocalyptic TV drama pilot, "Genesis II", as well as his 1977 TV drama pilot, "Spectre" as Lilith the housekeeper.
1058428	Cam Joslin Gigandet (; born August 16, 1982) is an American actor who has appeared in "The O.C.", "Twilight", "Never Back Down", "Burlesque", "Easy A", "The Roommate" and the films "Priest" and the sci-fi thriller "Pandorum". Early life. Gigandet was born in Tacoma, Washington, the son of Kim and Jay Gigandet, a co-owner of The Rock pizza franchise. After graduating from Auburn Senior High School in Auburn, Washington in 2001, he moved to California, where he attended Santa Monica College. Career. In 2003, Gigandet made his acting debut with a guest appearance in the crime television series "". In 2004 and 2005 Gigandet continued his television career with recurring roles in television shows such as "The Young and The Restless" and "Jack and Bobby". In 2006, Gigandet was cast as Kevin Volchok on the Fox teen drama television series "The O.C.", appearing in 15 episodes. Gigandet portrayed the role of Kevin, a bad boy and rebellious competitive surfer who develops a casual relationship with the rich socialite Marissa Cooper, portrayed by Mischa Barton. In August 2007, Gigandet was cast in the Summit Entertainment action drama film "Never Back Down". He portrayed the role of the villainous bad boy and fighting champion Ryan McCarthy who sets out to take down the film's protagonist. Gigandet and co-star Sean Faris shared an award for "Best Fight" at the 2008 MTV Movie Awards. In December 2007, Summit Entertainment cast Gigandet in the planned film adaptation of the best selling vampire book series "Twilight" by Stephenie Meyer. He signed on to portray the role of the film's "tracker" vampire James. Gigandet received his second "Best Fight" award win at the 2009 MTV Movie Awards with Robert Pattinson. In 2008, Gigandet won the award for "One to Watch" at the 10th Annual Young Hollywood Awards. In August 2008, Gigandet signed on to the Screen Gems supernatural horror film "The Unborn", portraying the role of the protagonist's love interest. Also in 2009, Gigandet starred as Corporal Gallo in the sci-fi thriller "Pandorum". In 2009, Gigandet was cast alongside Leighton Meester and Minka Kelly in the thriller film "The Roommate". In 2010, Gigandet portrayed Micah, a 22-year old Christian high school student, in "Easy A". That same year, Gigandet starred as the villainous prison guard Chase in the psychological straight-to-DVD thriller "The Experiment". In 2010, Gigandet was cast in the film "Burlesque". The film was written and directed by first-time director Steve Antin and starred Cher, Christina Aguilera and Stanley Tucci. In 2011, Gigandet portrayed Jonah in the psychological thriller "Trespass". Gigandet had a supporting role in the 2011 vampire thriller "Priest". Personal life. Gigandet and his fiancée Dominique Geisendorff welcomed their daughter, Everleigh Rae Gigandet, on April 14, 2009. In July 2012, the couple announced that they were expecting their second child. They welcomed their son Rekker Radley Gigandet on January 23, 2013. He is a black belt in Krav Maga.
1179588	Norah Jones (born Geetali Norah Jones Shankar; March 30, 1979) is an American singer-songwriter, pianist, and actress. She is the daughter of Indian sitar player Ravi Shankar and Sue Jones. She is also Anoushka Shankar's half-sister. In 2002, she launched her solo music career with the release of the commercially successful and critically acclaimed album "Come Away with Me", a fusion of country music and pop with elements of jazz which was certified diamond album, selling over 26 million copies. The record earned Jones five Grammy Awards, including the Album of the Year, Record of the Year, and Best New Artist. Her subsequent studio albums "Feels Like Home", released in 2004; "Not Too Late", released in 2007, the same year she made her film debut in "My Blueberry Nights"; and 2009's "The Fall" all gained Platinum status, selling over a million copies each and were generally well received by critics. Jones' fifth studio album, "Little Broken Hearts", was released on April 27, 2012. Jones has won nine Grammy Awards and was 60th on "Billboard" magazine's artists of the 2000–2009 decade chart. Throughout her career, Jones has won numerous awards and has sold more than 50 million albums worldwide. "Billboard" named her the top jazz artist of the 2000–2009 decade. Early life. Jones was born in 1979 in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, New York, to Indian sitar player Pandit Ravi Shankar and American concert producer Sue Jones. After her parents' separation in 1986, Jones spent her childhood with her mother in Grapevine, Texas. She attended Colleyville Middle School and Grapevine High School before transferring to Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing and Visual Arts in Dallas. While in high school, Jones sang in the school choir, participated in band and played the alto saxophone. At the age of sixteen, with her parents' consent, she officially changed her name to Norah Jones. Jones always had an affinity for the music of Bill Evans and Billie Holiday, among other "oldies". She once said, "My mom had this eight-album Billie Holiday set; I picked out one disc that I liked and played that over and over again." Jones began singing in church and also took piano and voice lessons as a child. She still attends church. She considers herself spiritual and appreciates the rituals of her church but does not consider herself deeply religious. She attended Interlochen Center for the Arts during the summers. While at high school, she won the "DownBeat" Student Music Awards for Best Jazz Vocalist (twice, in 1996 and 1997) and Best Original Composition (1996). Jones attended the University of North Texas (UNT), where she majored in jazz piano and sang with the UNT Jazz Singers. During this time, she had a chance meeting with future collaborator Jesse Harris. She gave a ride to a band playing at the university whose members happened to be friends of Harris. He was on a cross-country road-trip with friend and future Little Willies member, Richard Julian, and stopped to see the band play. After meeting Jones, Harris started sending her lead sheets of his songs. In 1999, she left for New York City. Less than a year later, she started a band with Harris, which made her famous. Musical career. 2001–2004: "First Sessions" and "Come Away with Me". Jones moved to New York City and signed to Blue Note Records, a label owned by EMI Group. The signing came as an indirect result of Jones performing background vocals for singer-songwriter Victoria Williams. Shell White, the wife of Williams' producer JC Hopkins, worked in Blue Note's royalties department and passed Jones's three-track demo on to the label's president Bruce Lundvall and its A&R Brian Bacchus. The demo featured two jazz standards and a song by Jesse Harris. Lundvall and Bacchus immediately agreed Jones had great potential and although initially unsure about what direction her music would follow, particularly since Blue Note was a jazz label, they nevertheless decided to sign Jones. Bacchus told HitQuarters: "We let her find her own direction... We knew that if she could develop her songwriting and we could find great songs, it would work." Jones was first teamed up with experienced producer and engineer Jay Newland. Bacchus thought that Newland's experience in jazz, blues, rock, country and folk would give him a "feeling for her sound." Together they cut around nine demo tracks, of which six formed her debut Blue Note release, the sampler "First Sessions", while the rest were set aside for her debut album. "First Sessions" was released in 2001. Jones was a lounge singer before becoming a recording artist. Prior to releasing her first album, she performed with Wax Poetic, Peter Malick and jazz guitarist Charlie Hunter. Released in February 2002, Jones's debut album, "Come Away with Me", was celebrated for its blending of mellow, acoustic pop with soul and jazz. Debuting at No. 139, it reached No. 1 on the U.S. "Billboard" 200. The single "Don't Know Why" hit No. 1 on the Top 40 Adult Recurrents in 2003 and No. 30 in the "Billboard" Hot 100 Singles Chart. In 2003, she won five Grammy Awards: Best New Artist, Album of the Year and Best Pop Vocal Album for the album and Record of the Year and Best Female Pop Vocal Performance for the single "Don't Know Why" at the 45th Grammy Awards. This matched the record for most Grammy wins by a female artist in a single night (tying with Lauryn Hill and Alicia Keys). That night, Jesse Harris won the Grammy Award for Song of the Year for composing "Don't Know Why", Arif Mardin won Producer of the Year, primarily for his work on "Come Away With Me", and the album also received the Grammy Award for Best Engineered Album, Non-Classical. The album received platinum certification by the Recording Industry Association of America on August 22, 2002, and went on to become a diamond album on February 15, 2005. It remains Blue Note's biggest-selling album. 2004–2006: "Feels Like Home" and collaboration with Ray Charles. Jones released her second album, "Feels Like Home", on February 9, 2004. It was influenced by country music. Within a week of its release, "Feels Like Home" had sold over a million copies. It sold 4 million copies in the United States and reached quadruple Platinum status, and sold more than 12 million copies worldwide. Jones toured globally, promoting the album with the Handsome Band, and backing singer Daru Oda. "Time" magazine included Jones on the Time 100, a list of the most influential people of 2004. The album debuted at No. 1 in at least 16 countries around the world. In 2005, at the 47th Grammy Awards, "Feels Like Home" was nominated for three Grammys. It won Best Female Pop Vocal Performance for "Sunrise", and had nominations for Best Pop Vocal Album and Best Country Collaboration with Vocals for her duet with Dolly Parton, "Creepin' In". She won two more Grammy Awards that year, for Record of the Year and Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals for her collaboration with Ray Charles, "Here We Go Again", the first track on Charles' last album, "Genius Loves Company". That album won the Album of the Year award. 2007–2008: "Not Too Late" and film debut. Jones released her third album, "Not Too Late", on January 30, 2007. The album was her first for which she wrote or co-wrote every song, and according to her, some of them are much darker than those on her previous albums. "Not Too Late" was mostly recorded at Jones's home studio and is her first album without producer Arif Mardin, who had died in the summer of 2006. Jones described the sessions as "fun, relaxed and easy" and without a deadline; Blue Note executives reportedly did not know she was recording an album. The song "My Dear Country" is political commentary; she wrote it before the United States Presidential election day in 2004. "Not Too Late" reached the No. 1 position in twenty countries. "Not Too Late" had the third-best first week of sales in 2007, behind Avril Lavigne's "The Best Damn Thing" and Linkin Park's "Minutes to Midnight". It reached No. 1 in the U.S., selling 405,000 copies. EMI announced that "Not Too Late" reached gold, platinum or multi-platinum in 21 countries as of February 2007. The album has sold 4 million copies worldwide. That same year she sang "American Anthem" for the Ken Burns documentary "The War". By 2007, Jones had sold over 36 million albums worldwide. Jones made her film debut in 2007 in the romance/drama film "My Blueberry Nights", directed by Wong Kar Wai, co-starring Jude Law, David Strathairn, Rachel Weisz and Natalie Portman. Jones as Elizabeth is a young woman who goes on a soul-searching journey across the USA to resolve her questions about love, and finds along the way a series of curious characters. The film premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in May 2007 and United States in April 2008. It went on to gross more than US$21,967,587 worldwide. 2009–2011: "The Fall" and "...Featuring ". Jones's fourth studio album, "The Fall", debuted at No. 3 in November 2009, selling 180,000 copies in its first week. It was Jones's first album to not reach No. 1 in the United States. The album received critical acclaim. As part of the promotional drive for the album, she performed on "Dancing with the Stars", "Late Show with David Letterman", "Good Morning America" and other television programs. "The Fall" featured a Saint Bernard named Ben on the cover. The album's lead single, "Chasing Pirates", peaked at No. 13 on Hot Adult Contemporary Tracks and No. 7 on Jazz Songs. "Billboard"'s 2000–2009 decade awards ranked her as the top jazz recording artist, at No. 60 best Artist. "Come Away With Me" was elected the No. 4 album and No. 1 jazz album. Jones earned a platinum certification by the RIAA for sales of 1 million copies of "The Fall". The album sold 1.5 million copies worldwide and was certified gold or platinum in 14 countries as of 2010. "Baby, It's Cold Outside", a duet with Willie Nelson, was nominated in the Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals category. Her fourth world tour began March 5, 2010. Jones released "...Featuring", a compilation album of collaborations she has done with well-known musicians, including the Foo Fighters, Willie Nelson, Dirty Dozen Brass Band, Outkast, Q-Tip, Talib Kweli, Belle and Sebastian, Ray Charles, Ryan Adams, Dolly Parton, Herbie Hancock, M. Ward, and others. Jones said, “It's so exciting and flattering and fun when I get asked to sing with somebody that I admire... It takes you a little bit out of your comfort zone when you're doing something with another artist. You don't know what to expect—it's kind of like being a little kid and having a playdate.” The 18-track Blue Note disc was released on November 16, 2010. Jones recorded a Christmas duet, "Home for the Holidays", with Cyndi Lauper. 2012–present: "Little Broken Hearts". After working with Danger Mouse and Daniele Luppi on some of the tracks of their album "Rome", Jones teamed up with Danger Mouse for her fifth studio album, "Little Broken Hearts", which was released on May 1, 2012. Jones played the album at SXSW 2012 in its entirety. "American Songwriter" has referred to "Little Broken Hearts" as the "most dramatic and rewarding departure she’s made in her career." On May 25, 2012, Norah Jones kicked off her fifth world tour in Paris. Her tour includes stops in Europe, North America, Asia, South America, and Australia. Norah Jones performed in London at the Roundhouse on Monday, September 10, 2012, as part of the iTunes Festival lineup. The concert was broadcast live over the internet. In September 2012, she was featured in a campaign called "30 Songs / 30 Days" to support "", a multi-platform media project inspired by Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn’s book. She toured three cities in India for the first time, since her father wanted her to do so.She also performed a headlining performance at Summer's Day, a brand new music festival produced by Only Much Louder. The tour kicked-off at Summer's Day in Mumbai on March 3 and included stops in New Delhi on March 5 and Bangalore on March 8th. Additional projects and collaborations. Jones and jazz guitarist Charlie Hunter covered the Roxy Music song "More Than This" for Hunter's 2001 album "Songs from the Analog Playground". Jones made a cameo appearance as herself in the 2002 movie "Two Weeks Notice", which starred Hugh Grant and Sandra Bullock. The film shows her briefly at the piano, singing for a charity benefit. Jones appears on the track "Ruler of My Heart" (a cover of an Irma Thomas song), on the 2002 Dirty Dozen Brass Band album "Medicated Magic". In the latter part of 2003, rumors emerged that veteran Indian filmmaker Dev Anand was planning to make the film "Song of Life", inspired by Jones's troubled relationship with her father, Ravi Shankar. Both Jones and Shankar were enraged by the rumors. Jones commented, " has no idea of our story, and he's not going to represent it in a truthful way, I'm sure. It's sad because it's personal stuff and nobody's business but ours." Norah Jones and the Peter Malick Group released an album, "New York City", in July 2003. Jones appeared on OutKast's "Speakerboxxx/The Love Below" album, on "Take Off Your Cool". This album won the Grammy Award for Album of the Year (Jones was not credited). Jones appeared in the 2004 special "Sesame Street Presents: The Street We Live On". Jones appeared in the concert and DVD "Return to Sin City – A Tribute to Gram Parsons". Norah performed the song "She" and then, together with Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones, sang "Love Hurts". Jones appeared on Ray Charles' final album, "Genius Loves Company", in 2004, on "Here We Go Again". Jones performed "Love Me Tender" for the soundtrack to "", a film released in 2004. Jones formed The Little Willies in 2003 alongside Richard Julian on vocals, Jim Campilongo on guitar, Lee Alexander on bass, and Dan Rieser on drums. The alt country band released its eponymous first album in 2006 and ""For the Good Times"" in 2012. Jones has done three Grammy-nominated duets with Willie Nelson: "Wurlitzer Prize (I Don't Want To Get Over You)" in 2003, "Dreams Come True" in 2005 and "Baby, It's Cold Outside" in 2009. In 2005, Jones appeared on the Foo Fighters' album "In Your Honor", performing piano and vocals on the song "Virginia Moon". The track was nominated for a Grammy for Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals, in 2006. Jones appeared on Ryan Adams' & The Cardinals' 2005 album, "Jacksonville City Nights", on the track "Dear John", which she co-wrote with Adams. Jones worked with Mike Patton in 2006 providing vocals on the track "Sucker" on the Peeping Tom project. The song attracted attention as it was the first time Jones used profanity in a recording. In 2007, Jones made her acting debut as the protagonist in a film directed by Wong Kar-wai. The film, "My Blueberry Nights", opened for the 2007 Cannes Film Festival as one of the 22 films in competition. She wrote and performed a song, "The Story", for the movie. In January 2007, Jones recorded a live session at Abbey Road Studios for "Live from Abbey Road". The episode, on which John Mayer and Richard Ashcroft also appeared, was aired on UK Channel 4 and on the Sundance Channel. She appeared twice on the PBS series "Austin City Limits", on November 2, 2002, and October 6, 2007. The latter appearance was the season opener. In a change of direction predating "The Fall", Jones (referring to herself as "Maddie" and virtually anonymous in a blond wig) sang and played guitar with rock band El Madmo. The band consists of Jones, Daru Oda and Richard Julian and released an eponymous album on May 20, 2007. Jones appears in Herbie Hancock's 2007 release "" singing the first track, "Court and Spark". This album won the Grammy Award for Album of the Year at the 50th Grammy Awards in 2008; Jones was credited as a featured artist, her ninth Grammy win. Jones colloborated with Wyclef Jean on the song "Any Other Day" for Jean's album . Jones appeared on the comedy track "Dreamgirl", on the 2009 debut album from The Lonely Island, "Incredibad" (featuring SNL performer Andy Samberg). In 2008, Jones made another appearance in hip hop with an appearance on a track named "Life Is Better", on the critically acclaimed album "The Renaissance" by rapper Q-tip. In 2009, Jones made a cameo appearance in the independent film "Wah Do Dem", co-starring Sean Bones and written by Ben Chace and Sam Fleischner. Jones was a judge for the 5th annual Independent Music Awards, supporting independent artists' careers. In 2010, Jones contributed "World of Trouble" to the Enough Project and Downtown Records' "Raise Hope for Congo" compilation. Proceeds from the compilation fund efforts to make the protection and empowerment of Congo’s women a priority, as well as inspire individuals around the world to raise their voice for peace in Congo. For the documentary "Wretchers and Jabbers", Jones contributed a song to the soundtrack, "A Change is Gonna Come". In 2011, Jones provided vocals to the songs "Season's Trees", "Black" and "Problem Queen" on the album "Rome" by Danger Mouse and Daniele Luppi. Jones collaborated with "Family Guy" celebrity Seth MacFarlane on his Grammy-nominated 2011 debut studio album "Music Is Better Than Words" on the song "Two Sleepy People". Jones also had a cameo appearance in MacFarlane's 2012 feature film "Ted". Additionally for the film, she collaborated with Seth MacFarlane on the song "Everybody Needs A Best Friend", recorded on the motion picture soundtrack album and nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Song. In 2011, Jones appeared on "Duets II" by Tony Bennett on the track "Speak Low". Jones sang "It Came Upon Midnight Clear", "Silent Night" and "Pooping Log (Caga Tió)" on the Holiday Special 2011 of "". Jones also played piano and vocals on numerous tracks on Ryan Adams' 2011 studio album "Ashes & Fire". Jones performs in a trio band, Fangbanger, with Sasha Dobson and Catherine Popper. Hank Williams project. Jones is one of the participants in the so-called "Hank Williams Project" overseen by Bob Dylan, and reportedly including contributions from Willie Nelson, Jack White, Lucinda Williams, and Alan Jackson. On March 31, 2008, Jones commemorated the 10th anniversary of The Living Room with a midnight performance at the intimate Manhattan music venue where the singer got her start. She played a new song entitled "How Many Times Have You Broken My Heart" and explained that it originated from newly-found Hank Williams lyrics she was asked to put to music. Jones also performed the song in late 2008 on Elvis Costello's talk/music television series, "" Tours. Throughout 2002 and 2003, Jones appeared on stages globally, on her first tour with the Handsome Band, travelling throughout Asia, America, Europe and Oceania, with numerous sold-out concerts and critical acclaim. Jones tour to promote her third album, "Not Too Late", began in Wallingford, Connecticut, on April 13, 2007, and featured a free concert in New York City on July 6, 2007. The European phase began on July 9, 2007, in Paris, concluding in Reykjavík, Iceland on September 2, 2007. Jones and band play typically several album hits, modified with guitar solos and additional percussion. Additionally, shows may also feature several covers of country, jazz, blues, or folk songs, ranging from the ubiquitous to the obscure. Artists covered have included, among others, Willie Nelson, Gram Parsons, Johnny Cash, John Prine, Randy Newman, Patsy Cline, Elvis Presley, Tom Waits, and Townes Van Zandt Jones worked with Reverb, a non-profit environmental organization, for her 2007 summer tour. She also performed at Bryant Park on July 6 as part of "Good Morning America"'s Summer Concert Series. Her 2012/2013 Little Broken Hearts Tour has stops, for the first time, in several South America nations and India. Personal life. Jones was in a long-term relationship with the bassist Lee Alexander from 2000 until their breakup in December 2007. The lyrics of her subsequent album, "The Fall", supposedly reflect elements of the relationship. After a period of estrangement from her father, Ravi Shankar, Jones traveled to New Delhi, India, to spend time with him, and wrote some of the material which made its way onto the album "The Fall".
584472	Sarathkumar Ramanathan (born 14 July 1954) is an Indian journalist, film actor, politician, body builder and the president of the South Indian Film Artistes' Association, popularly known as Supreme Star among his fans and well wishers. Sarath has acted in about 130 films over a period of more than a couple of decades. He started his career in Tamil cinema playing negative roles, and later played minor roles before establishing himself as a lead actor in the subsequent years earning him the title "Supreme Star" in Tamil cinema. He has won three Tamil Nadu State Film Awards and three Filmfare Awards South. In 2007 he began a new political party All India Samathuva Makkal Katchi (AISMK) in Tamil Nadu claiming to carry out the ideals of K. Kamaraj. He is the present Member of Legislative Assembly of Tenkasi constituencyTenkasi. He has been elected as President of the South Indian Film Artistes Association for the third consecutive term. Early life. He was born on July 14, 1954 to M. Ramanathan and Pushpa Leela in New Delhi and has a sister named Mallika Ramanathan. With a Bachelor of Science degree in Mathematics from The New College in Chennai, Sarathkumar Ramanathan started his career as a journalist before achieving stardom in the movie industry. Journalist. R. Sarathkumar started his career as a delivery boy with the Tamil daily "Dinakaran" at Bangalore. He rode a bicycle and delivered newspapers. That experience, as he recalls, spawned a deep-rooted desire in him to become a full-fledged journalist. Fulfilling that desire, he is now the editor of "Media Voice". One of the key value propositions that "Media Voice" brings to the table is Sarath’s personal interview each month with a news-maker discussing current issues. "Although I am a politician and actor now, the journalist in me is still alive. I love multitasking,” says Sarath. From such humble beginnings, he has learnt to live an inspired life, and is the strong leader that society needs. Acting career. 1986–1991. R. Sarathkumar made his acting debut, in 1986, in the Telugu film "Samajamlo Sthree" at the behest of a producer friend. In 1988, he acted as a police officer in the Tamil film "Kan Simittum Neram", directed by Kalaivanan Kannadasan, which he produced with his partner M. Santhanam, he co-starred with Karthik and Ambika. In 1990, he teamed up for the second time with Kalaivanan Kannadasan for the film "Mr. Karthik" which flopped at the box office. R. Sarathkumar was later spotted by Raju, the personal make-up man of actor Vijayakanth, and recommended him to the "Pulan Visaranai"'s team. Finally, R. Sarathkumar acted as a villain in "Pulan Visaranai" and the film turned out to be a blockbuster. He won the "Cinema Express Award for Best Villain" for his role and created him more film offers. Thereafter, he appeared more in villain roles ("Pudhu Padagan", "Velai Kidaichuduchu", "Raja Kaiya Vacha") than in supporting roles ("Salem Vishnu"). "Puriyaadha Pudhir" marked the first collaboration of Sarathkumar and K. S. Ravikumar. He also acted his first as hero in "Palaivana Paravaigal" under Sendhilnathan's direction, who gave at that time consecutive hits. The following year (1991), he acted in 12 Tamil films and 3 Telugu films, mostly in supporting roles but he continued to act few films as villain. That year, he also acted as hero in "Archana I. A. S", Senthilnathan's crime film "Kaaval Nilayam" and K. S. Ravikumar's rural drama film "Cheran Pandiyan", the latter two were commercially successful. 1992–93. In 1992, he has acted in 10 films as protagonist and 2 films as antagonist including the Telugu film "Agreement" directed by Manivannan and P. C. Sreeram's "Meera". His first big break came with the lead role in the action film "Suriyan", directed by Pavithran, the film won positive reviews and became highly successful at the box office. Subsequently, Sarathkumar was catapulted to fame and became selective in accepting new assignments. He then starred in the action film "Samundi", despite unfavourable reviews the film managed to run for more than 100 days mainly due to his sudden stardom.
1063031	Corpse Bride, often referred to as "Tim Burton's Corpse Bride", is a 2005 stop-motion-animated fantasy-horror film directed by Tim Burton and Mike Johnson. The plot is set in a fictional Victorian era village in Europe. Johnny Depp led an all-star cast as the voice of Victor, while Helena Bonham Carter voiced Emily, the title character. "Corpse Bride" is the third stop-motion feature film produced by Burton and the first directed by him (the previous two films, "The Nightmare Before Christmas" and "James and the Giant Peach", were directed by Henry Selick). This is also the first stop-motion feature from Burton that isn't distributed by Walt Disney Pictures. It was dedicated to Joe Ranft who died during production. The film was nominated in the 78th Academy Awards for Best Animated Feature, but was beaten by "", which also starred Helena Bonham Carter. It was shot with a battery of Canon EOS-1D Mark II digital SLRs, rather than the 35mm film cameras used for Burton's previous stop-motion film "The Nightmare Before Christmas". Plot. In an unnamed Victorian Era European village, Victor Van Dort (Johnny Depp), the son of nouveau riche fish merchants, and Victoria Everglot (Emily Watson), the neglected daughter of hateful aristocrats, are getting prepared for their arranged marriage, which will raise the social class of Victor's parents and restore the wealth of Victoria's penniless family. Both have concerns about marrying someone they do not know, but they fall instantly in love when they first meet. After the shy, clumsy Victor ruins the wedding rehearsal and is scolded by Pastor Galswells (Christopher Lee), he flees and practices his wedding vows in the nearby forest, placing the wedding ring on a nearby upturned tree root. The root turns out to be the finger of a dead girl clad in a tattered bridal gown, who rises from the grave claiming that she is now Victor's wife. Spirited away to the surprisingly festive Land of the Dead, the bewildered Victor learns the story of Emily (Helena Bonham Carter), his new "bride," murdered years ago on the night of her secret elopement. Emily, as a wedding gift, reunites Victor with his long-dead dog, Scraps. Meanwhile, Victoria's parents hear that Victor has been seen in another woman's arms, and become suspicious. Wanting to reunite with Victoria, Victor tricks Emily into taking him back to the Land of the Living by pretending he wants her to meet his parents. She agrees to this and takes him to see Elder Gutknecht (Michael Gough), the kindly ruler of the underworld, to send him and Emily temporarily to the Land of the Living. Once back home, Victor asks Emily to wait in the forest while he rushes off to see Victoria and confess his wish to marry her as soon as possible, to which she gladly returns his feelings. Just as they are about to share a kiss, Emily soon arrives and sees the two of them together and, feeling betrayed and hurt, drags Victor back to the Land of the Dead. Victoria tells her parents that Victor has been forcibly wed to a dead woman, but they believe she has lost her mind and lock her up in her bedroom. She escapes her room by window and rushes to Galswells to find a way helping Victor, but fails. With Victor gone, Victoria's parents decide to marry her off to a presumably wealthy newcomer in town named Lord Barkis Bittern (Richard E. Grant), who appeared at the wedding rehearsal, against her will. Emily is heartbroken by Victor's deception. Victor, however, apologizes for lying to her, and the two reconcile while playing the piano together. Shortly after, Victor's family coachman appears in the afterlife (having recently died) and informs Victor of Victoria's impending marriage to Lord Barkis. At the same time, Emily learns from Elder Gutknecht that because marriage vows are only binding until "death do you part" and death already parts them, her supposed marriage to Victor was never valid. In order for their marriage to become valid, Victor must repeat his vows in the Land of the Living and willingly drink poison - thus joining her in death. Overhearing this, and fretting about having lost his chance with Victoria, Victor agrees to die for Emily. All of the dead go "upstairs" to the Land of the Living to perform the wedding ceremony for Victor and Emily. Upon their arrival, the town erupts into a temporary panic until every living person recognizes each other's loved ones from the dead and they have a joyous reunion under the bizarre circumstances. After a quarrel with Lord Barkis - and realizing he was only after her supposed money - Victoria follows the procession of dead to the church. Emily notices Victoria and realizes that she is denying Victoria her chance at happiness the same way it was stolen from her. As Victor prepares to drink the cup of poison to kill himself, Emily stops him and reunites him with Victoria. Lord Barkis interrupts them, and Emily recognizes him as her former fiance - who is revealed to be the one who murdered her for her dowry. Lord Barkis tries to kidnap Victoria at sword point, but Victor stops him and the two men duel. Emily intercedes to save Victor and Lord Barkis mockingly proposes a toast to Emily, claiming she was "always the bridesmaid, never the bride". He unknowingly drinks the cup of poison. The dead (now able to intercede) drag the "new arrival" away for punishment. Victoria, now a widow, is once again able to marry Victor. Emily sets Victor free of his vow to marry her, giving the wedding ring back to Victor and her wedding bouquet to Victoria before exiting the church. As she steps into the moonlight, she transforms into hundreds of butterflies, presumably finding peace, as Victor and Victoria look on wrapped in each other's embrace. Origins. The film is based upon Jewish folklore with a similar plot. One version of the legend is included in the "Shivkhey HoAri", the biographical collection of mystical stories about a renowned kabbalist, Rabbi Yitzchak Luria Ashkenazi. There, someone jokingly put a ring on a finger sticking from the ground and pronounced the formal betrothal phrase, thus unwillingly becoming married to a woman from the underworld who subsequently came to claim him as a husband. The case was brought in front of the Arizal, who ruled that since the man did not willingly perform the betrothal he was not bound by the marriage, but to be sure that the woman should remain free to marry one of her kind, the man had to give her a formal divorce according to the Jewish law. Soundtrack. The soundtrack was written by Danny Elfman with the help of John August and released on September 20, 2005. It contains all of the music from the film including score music and four songs with lyrics sung by voice actors. Release. The film was a financial success, grossing $53,359,111 domestically and $117,195,061 worldwide. It was also met with almost universal acclaim from critics. Rotten Tomatoes reported 84% of their critics gave the film a positive review. The film also maintains a nearly identical 83/100 rating from Metacritic. Roger Ebert of the "Chicago Sun-Times" awarded the film three stars out of four, praising the voice acting and animation, stating that it is not a "macabre horror story as the title suggests", and calling the film a "sweet and visually lovely tale of love lost". "Corpse Bride" was released on DVD in the US on January 31, 2006. The film was also released in the discontinued HD DVD format, and then on Blu-ray Disc. These releases include featurettes on the shooting and production of the film, as well as the isolated score. The film was nominated for AFI's 10 Top 10 in the "Animation" genre.
1104092	Narendra Krishna Karmarkar (born 1957) is an Indian mathematician, who developed Karmarkar's algorithm. He is listed as an ISI highly cited researcher. Biography. Narendra Karmarkar was born in Gwalior to a Marathi-Hindu family. Karmarkar received his B.Tech in Electrical Engineering from IIT Bombay in 1978, M.S. from the California Institute of Technology and Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of California, Berkeley.
1064479	The Ballad of Cable Hogue is a 1970 Western film directed by Sam Peckinpah and starring Jason Robards, Stella Stevens and David Warner. Set in the Arizona desert during a period when the frontier was closing, the film follows three years in the life of a failed prospector. While unmistakably a Western, the movie is quite unconventional for the genre and for the director. It contains only a few brief scenes of violence and gunplay, relying more on a subtly crafted story that could better be characterized as comedic in nature. Plot. Cable Hogue (Jason Robards) is isolated in the desert, awaiting his partners, Taggart (L. Q. Jones) and Bowen (Strother Martin), who are scouting for water. The two plot to seize what little water remains to save themselves. Hogue, who hesitates to defend himself, is disarmed and abandoned to almost certain death. Confronted with sandstorms and other desert elements, Hogue bargains with God. Four days later, about to perish, he stumbles upon a muddy pit. He digs and discovers an abundant supply of water. After discovering that his well is the only source of water between two towns on a stagecoach route, he decides to live there and build a business. Hogue's first paying customer is the Rev. Joshua Duncan Sloane (David Warner), a wandering minister of a church of his own revelation. Joshua doubts the legitimacy of Hogue's claim to the spring, prompting Hogue to race into town to file at the land office. Hogue faces the mockery of everyone he tells about his discovery. That does not deter him from buying surrounding his spring. He immediately goes to the stage office to drum up business but is thrown out by the skeptical owner. He pitches his business plan to a bank president, who is dubious about the claim. Hogue impresses the banker with his attitude and he is staked to $100. Hogue, who hasn’t bathed since his desert wanderings, decides to treat himself to a night with Hildy (Stella Stevens), a prostitute in the town saloon. They quickly develop a jovial understanding but before they can consummate the transaction, Hogue remembers that he has still not set up his boundary markers and rushes out, much to Hildy's chagrin. She chases him out of the saloon in a sequence that wreaks havoc on the town. Back at the spring, Hogue and Joshua get to work, dubbing the claim Cable Springs. The two decide to go into town and are drunk by the time they arrive. Hogue makes up with Hildy and spends the night with her, leaving Joshua to pursue his passion: the seduction of emotionally vulnerable women. Hogue and Joshua continue to run the robust business, delighting in shocking the often genteel travelers with the realities of frontier life. In moments of solitude, Hogue and Joshua philosophize on the nature of love and the passing of their era. Joshua decides that he must return to town. Hildy arrives at Cable Springs having been "asked" to leave by the modernizing townfolk, who can no longer abide open prostitution in their midst. She tells Hogue that she will leave for San Francisco in the morning but winds up staying with him for three weeks. This time elapses during a tender, romantic montage. Then one day, Taggart and Bowen arrive on the stagecoach. Hogue lets them believe that he bears them no ill will. Hogue alludes to a huge stash of cash that he has hoarded, knowing that the two men will return to steal it. When they do, Hogue orders them to strip to their underwear to venture into the desert, just as he had been forced to do. Taggart, believing Hogue will once again hesitate to defend himself, reaches for his gun but Hogue shoots him dead. A motor car appears, driving right past Cable Springs with no need or interest in stopping for water. The drivers laugh at the archaic scene of western violence as they race past. "Drove right by," says Hogue in amazement. "Well, that's gonna be the next fella's worry." Hogue takes mercy on the grovelling Bowen. He even gives him Cable Springs, having decided to go to San Francisco to find Hildy. The stagecoach arrives and Hogue gets ready to pack up when suddenly another motorcar appears. This one does stop and Hildy emerges, opulently dressed. She has become prosperous and now on her way to New Orleans, has come to see if Hogue is ready to join her. He agrees but while he loads the motorcar he accidentally trips its brake. The car runs over Hogue as he pushes Bowen out of the way. Joshua, who arrives by motorcycle, gives a eulogy for Hogue as he dies. This segues into a funeral with the cast standing mournfully over Hogue's grave. They are grieving not only the death of the man but the era he represents. The stagecoach and motorcar drive off in opposite directions, with a coyote wandering into the abandoned Cable Springs. But the coyote has a collar - possibly symbolising the taming of the wilderness. Production. Defying, as he often would, audience expectations, director Sam Peckinpah immediately followed his violent, critically acclaimed 1969 film "The Wild Bunch" with this mostly non-violent Western. Utilizing many of the same cast (L.Q. Jones, Strother Martin) and crew members of "The Wild Bunch", Peckinpah shot on location in the desert of Nevada and Apacheland Movie Ranch located in Apache Junction, Arizona. The film was plagued by poor weather, Peckinpah's renewed alcohol consumption and his brusque firing of 36 crew members. When unable to shoot due to weather conditions, the entire cast and crew would go to a local bar, eventually running up a tab of $70,000. The chaotic filming would wrap 19 days over schedule and $3 million over budget, effectively terminating his tenure with Warner Bros.-Seven Arts. In retrospect, it was a damaging career move. The critical and enduring box office hits "Deliverance" (1972) and "Jeremiah Johnson" (1972) were both in development at the time, and Peckinpah was considered the first choice to direct both films. His alienation of Warner Brothers left him with a limited number of directing jobs. Peckinpah was forced to do a 180-degree turn from "The Ballad of Cable Hogue" and traveled to England to direct "Straw Dogs" (1971), one of his darkest and most psychologically disturbing films. Largely ignored upon its initial release, "The Ballad of Cable Hogue" has been rediscovered in recent years and is often held by critics as exemplary of the breadth of Peckinpah's talents. They claim that the film proves Peckinpah's ability to make unconventional and original work without resorting to explicit violence. Over the years, Peckinpah would cite the film as one of his favorites. All the town scenes were filmed on location at Apacheland Movie Ranch in Apache Junction, Arizona. The desert scenes at Cable Springs and elsewhere were filmed in Nevada at "Valley of Fire" State Park. Critics have called "The Ballad of Cable Hogue" a "Death of the West" film, depicting the transition from old to modern civilization. Other films of this category include "Once Upon a Time in the West" (1968), "Paint Your Wagon" (1969), "Monte Walsh" (1970), "The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean" (1972), "The Shootist" (1976), "Unforgiven" (1992) and Peckinpah's "Ride the High Country" (1962), "The Wild Bunch" (1969) and "Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid" (1973). Soundtrack. "The Ballad of Cable Hogue" has an original score by Jerry Goldsmith and songs by Richard Gillis. Each of the main characters has a theme: Hogue's "Tomorrow is the Song I Sing", Hildy's "Butterfly Morning", and Joshua's "Wait for Me, Sunrise." The soundtrack was eventually released in 2001, by Varèse Sarabande in a limited edition album of only 3000 copies. John Cale recorded a song "Cable Hogue" on his 1975 album "Helen of Troy". Calexico also recorded a song called "The Ballad of Cable Hogue", which appeared on their "Hot Rail" album. Reception. Box office. "The Ballad of Cable Hogue" had an operating budget of $3,716,946. The film earned $5,000,000 worldwide, with $3,500,000 in box office sales in the United States, and an additional $1,500,000 internationally.
1068841	Showdown in Little Tokyo is a 1991 action film. It features Brandon Lee in his first American film role, starring alongside Dolph Lundgren. Set in Los Angeles, California, two police officers attempt to take down a new and deadly Japanese drug gang. The tone of the movie follows the traditional buddy cop formula. Plot. Los Angeles (L.A.) cop Chris Kenner (Dolph Lundgren) is an American who was raised in Japan. He is given a new partner, Johnny Murata (Brandon Lee), an American of partial Japanese descent. Kenner does not appreciate American culture, while Johnny does not much like Japanese culture. One thing they both enjoy are the martial arts, of which they are both experts. The two are assigned to L.A.'s Little Tokyo, where they break up some criminal activity in a Japanese restaurant, and an arrest is made. While Kenner and Johnny are questioning the suspect, Kenner loses his temper and rips the suspect's shirt, and the tattoos that Kenner sees on the suspect remind Kenner of when he was 9 years old, a time when he witnessed his parents being killed by a member of the Yakuza. The tattoos are the trademark of the Iron Claw Yakuza clan. However, before Kenner or Murata can get any information out of the suspect, he kills himself in the interrogation room by breaking his own neck. On the other side of town, the leader of the Iron Claw, Yoshida (Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa), kills the owner of a popular downtown nightclub called the Bonsai Club by crushing the owner, Tanaka (Philip Tan), in a car compactor.
674710	Die Mörder sind unter uns, a German film known in English as Murderers Among Us in the United States or The Murderers Are Among Us in the United Kingdom) was one of the first post-World War II German films and the first "Trümmerfilm". It was produced in 1945 and 1946 in the Althoff-Atelier in Babelsberg and in Jofa-Ateliers in Johannisthal. It was written and directed by Wolfgang Staudte. Plot. Berlin in 1945 after Germany's defeat in the war. The former military surgeon Dr. Hans Mertens (Ernst Wilhelm Borchert) returns home from the battlefield to find his home destroyed. He suffers from the terrible memories of the war and becomes an alcoholic. A photographer and Nazi concentration camp survivor, Susanne Wallner (Hildegard Knef), finds him living in her apartment as she returns home and they become roommates and even friends. Eventually, Mertens meets his former captain Ferdinand Brückner (Arno Paulsen), who had been responsible for the shooting of a hundred civilians on Christmas Eve of 1942 in a Polish village on the Eastern Front. He is now a successful businessman, producing pots out of old "Stahlhelme", the German military steel helmet. On Christmas Eve, Mertens plans to kill him, but Wallner stops him at the last minute. They decide to have Brückner put on trial then, and the two start a new life together. Filming. The film was shot in the ruins of Berlin. Originally the film was supposed to be named "Der Mann den ich töten werde" ("The Man I will kill") and Mertens was supposed to succeed in killing Brückner, but the script and the title were changed because the Soviets were afraid that viewers could interpret that as a call for vigilante justice. "Murderers Among Us" debuted on October 15, 1946 in the Admiralspalast, which was at the time the home of the Berlin State Opera, in the Soviet sector. The television debut in the German Democratic Republic was on November 1, 1955 and in the Federal Republic on November 18, 1971. Reception. The picture sold 6,468,921 tickets. Most of the reviews were positive, although some criticized the fact that the characters appeared in modern and trendy clothes, which did not reflect the reality of the living conditions of Berliners in the immediate post-war period. In this film, Staudte was not only dealing with Germany's past, but also with his own, as he had been involved in the filming of the Nazi propaganda film "Jud Süß". See also. Cinema of Germany
586171	Varnapakittu () is a 1997 Malayalam film directed by I. V. Sasi. Mohanlal in lead role with Meena and Divya Unni, Jagadish, Madhu, Dileep, Rajan P. Dev, M. G. Soman are in major supporting roles . Synopsis. Sunny Palomattam (Mohanlal) is an established businessman in Singapore. He enjoys a flamboyant life with girlfriend Sandra Valookaran (Meena). His business rival, Mohammad Ali, was a partner who left after he was found embezzling company funds. Sunny discloses his past to Sandra: his family was a happy one, until Pappan (Rajan P. Dev) framed Sunny's father Ittichan (Madhu) in a fraud case. Shortly after, Ittichan died of a heart attack, and Sunny's engagement with fiancée Nancy (Divya Unni) is called off. Sunny flees to Mumbai, and then to Singapore with Kuruvilla's help. Later, Sunny learns that Sandra, who he plans to marry, is actually a call girl hired by Mohammad Ali, to spy on Sunny and foil his business plans. To fulfill his marriage commitment to his family, he and Sandra pretend they are still engaged when they go to visit Sunny's family in Kerala. In his hometown, he meets the old enemies who falsely accused his father of theft and thus ruined the family reputation. Sunny plans to take revenge on Pappan, Tonychan (Ganesh Kumar) and company, aided by Paily (Jagadish). In the meantime, he meets Nancy who is now married to Paulachan (Dileep), Tony Chan's younger brother. When Tony tries to sexually assault Nancy, Paulachan is humiliated and commits suicide. Mohammad Ali arrives with a gang from Singapore to reveal Sunny's "false marriage" ploy in an attempt to destroy him. Sunny pleads with Mohammad Ali to forget everything so that he can live a happy life and offers all his assets to Mohammad Ali, but Mohammad Ali has a change of heart and leaves Sunny and his family alone. In the end Sunny and Sandra appear with a happy happy. Box office. Varnapakittu was sleeper hit in the year 1997
146707	Carlos Bernard Papierski (born October 12, 1962) is an American actor, best known for his role as Tony Almeida in "24", which he played from 2001 to 2006, and then reprised again in 2009. He received a from American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco after attending Illinois State University. Early life and education. Bernard was born on October 12, 1962 in Evanston, Illinois and grew up in Chicago, Illinois, the youngest of three brothers. Of Polish and Spanish ancestry, his mother is originally from Madrid, Spain. Bernard graduated from New Trier High School, and showed signs of interest in acting while in his high school years. He then went to Illinois State University and shortly after received his fine arts degree in San Francisco in the American Conservatory Theatre. Bernard started out on stage but quickly progressed to television. Career. Bernard performed in A.C.T. stage productions: At the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles, he performed in "Scenes From an Execution", with Frank Langella. Bernard has made guest appearances on "Walker, Texas Ranger", "", "Babylon 5", and "Silk Stalkings" and appeared as a regular on the daytime soap opera, "The Young and the Restless". He has appeared in the feature films "Alien Raiders", "Vegas, City of Dreams", "The Killing Jar", and the short film "The Colonel's Last Flight". Personal life. Bernard speaks fluent Spanish, Russian, and German.
1475342	Fifty Pills (also known as 50 Pills) is the debut feature film of director Theo Avgerinos, which premiered at the 2006 Tribeca Film Festival. Plot. After being blamed for a party which he didn't throw or have any knowledge of, that resulted in many damages, young Darren (Lou Taylor Pucci) loses his scholarship. Being from a lower-middle-class family he will not have enough money to pay for college next semester without his scholarship. His roommate, Coleman (John Hensley), who actually threw the party, sympathizes with Darren and gives him a stash of fifty ecstasy pills. If he sells the pills he could make $1000 and would have enough money to stay in school. Darren sells to many weirdos, including a dominatrix who wants the pills so her "pets" can be numb when she has sex with them. When visiting his girlfriend, her roommate sets Darren up with a connection. The brother of this roommate is a seemingly retarded and overly-zealous white-collar employee named Ralphie (Eddie Kaye Thomas) is obsessed with "Diff'rent Strokes". He makes Darren watch four hours of the show, but Darren leaves. Upon leaving he is harassed by a drug dealer known as The Seoul Man (Ron Yuan), who almost kills him. Once again his luck turns sour when his girlfriend finds out that he is selling drugs and breaks it off with him. Coleman owes money to a drug dealer, so a group of three armed thugs are sent to extract the money for him at his dorm. Not having the money, he says he will call Darren and they can take whatever pills he has left as collateral. Darren comes back to the dorm, and gives the pills to the thugs, who leave. The next day, Darren feels defeated, but discovers that Coleman paid his tuition in full and is leaving the college. Reinvigorated, Darren begins dating Gracie and the movie ends with the two sitting on a bench with Darren taking a picture on his phone, saying that Gracie is about to make his parents very happy. Release and reception. "Fifty Pills" premiered at the 2006 Tribeca Film Festival on April 26, 2006.
1165304	Bing Russell (May 5, 1926 - April 8, 2003) was an American actor and baseball club owner. He was the father of Golden Globe-nominated actor Kurt Russell and grandfather of ex-major league baseball player Matt Franco. Personal life. Russell was born Neil Oliver Russell in Brattleboro, Vermont, the son of Ruth Stewart (née Vogel) and Warren Oliver Russell. He always wanted to become an actor and studied drama at Brattleboro Middletown High School. As a boy, he was dubbed an unofficial mascot of the New York Yankees, becoming good friends with the likes of Lefty Gomez and Joe DiMaggio. Also, Lou Gehrig, who was already weakened by illness, gave him the last bat he used to hit a home run before his retirement. Russell made his debut in the film "Cavalry Patrol", and had some uncredited roles in his early career. Career. Best known as Deputy Clem Foster on "Bonanza" (1959) and Robert in "The Magnificent Seven" (1960), he guest starred in episodes of many television series.
1170272	Dennis Clarke Fimple (November 11, 1940 – August 23, 2002) was an American character actor. Throughout his career, he made guest appearances in a variety of TV shows, including Here Come the Brides, Petticoat Junction, M*A*S*H, Simon & Simon, Sledge Hammer!, Knight Rider, Quantum Leap and ER. He also had small roles in feature films such as King Kong (1976), Goin' South (1978), The Wild Women of Chastity Gulch (1982) and Maverick (1994) and shared the lead in Creature From Black Lake (1976) and Smokey and the Good Time Outlaws (1978). His most popular role was that of the lovable but none-too-bright "Devil's Hole Gang" member, Kyle Murtry, on the ABC comedy/western series, Alias Smith and Jones, starring Pete Duel and Ben Murphy. Fimple appeared in seven episodes and remains a favorite of fans of the series. In 1993-1994, he appeared as Garral in seven episodes of the Beau Bridges/Lloyd Bridges comedy/western series Harts of the West on CBS. His last role was in the Rob Zombie horror film, House of 1000 Corpses as the foul-mouthed Grandpa Hugo. Fimple was born in Taft, California, the son of Dolly and Elmer Fimple. He died in Frazier Park, California in August 2002 and is survived by his son, actor Chris Fimple.
1163460	Wendell Reid Corey (March 20, 1914 – November 8, 1968) was an American actor and politician. Life and career. He was born in Dracut, Massachusetts, the son of Milton Rothwell Corey (October 24, 1879 – October 23, 1951) and Julia Etta McKenney (April 11, 1882 – June 16, 1947). His father was a Congregationalist clergyman. Wendell was educated in Springfield. Corey began his acting career on the stage, doing a number of productions in summer stock. While appearing with a Works Progress Administration theatre company in the late 1930s, he met his future wife, Alice Wiley. Corey and Wiley had one son and three daughters, Jonathan, Jennifer, Bonnie Alice, and Robin. His Broadway debut was in "Comes the Revelation" (1942). After appearing in a number of supporting roles, he scored his first hit as a cynical newspaperman in Elmer Rice's comedy "Dream Girl" (1945). While appearing in the play, Corey was seen by producer Hal Wallis, who persuaded him to sign a contract with Paramount and pursue a motion picture career in Hollywood. His movie debut came as a gangster in "Desert Fury" (1947) starring John Hodiak, Lizabeth Scott, and Mary Astor. Corey appeared in "Sorry, Wrong Number" (1948) starring Barbara Stanwyck and Burt Lancaster, and a year later as Janet Leigh's fiancé in the Robert Mitchum romantic comedy "Holiday Affair". He co-starred with Stanwyck twice more in 1950 in "The File on Thelma Jordon" and "The Furies", and also opposite Joan Crawford in "Harriet Craig", which was released the same year. Corey's memorable roles include that of police Lt. Thomas Doyle in Hitchcock's "Rear Window" (1954) starring James Stewart and Grace Kelly. He appeared in "The Big Knife" (1955) starring Jack Palance, Ida Lupino and Shelley Winters, "The Rainmaker" (1956) starring Burt Lancaster and Katharine Hepburn and "Loving You" (1957) starring Elvis Presley and Lizabeth Scott. He starred with Casey Walters in the television series "Harbor Command" (1957–1958), co-starred on "The Nanette Fabray Show" (1961), and had the lead role in the medical drama "The Eleventh Hour" (1962–1963). With Fabray, Corey played a widower who married Fabray's character. Bobby Diamond also starred in the short-lived series. In "The Eleventh Hour", Corey appeared as Dr. Theodore Bassett, co-starring with Jack Ging in the role of psychologist Paul Graham. In the second season of "The Eleventh Hour", however, Corey was replaced by Ralph Bellamy, who assumed the role of psychiatrist Richard Starke. Corey made guest appearances on a number of programs, including "", "Channing", "Alfred Hitchcock Presents", "The Untouchables", "Burke's Law", "The Road West", and "The Wild Wild West". He made a guest appearance during the final season of "Perry Mason" in 1966 as murder victim Jerome Klee in "The Case of the Unwelcome Well." Corey served as president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences from 1961 to 1963 and was a member of the board of directors of the Screen Actors Guild. A Republican campaigner in national politics since 1956, Corey was elected to the Santa Monica City Council in April 1965. The conservative politician ran for the California seat in the United States Congress in 1966, but lost the primary election. He was still a councilman at the time of his death. Death. He died at age fifty-four at the Motion Picture & Television Hospital in Woodland Hills, California, of cirrhosis of the liver as a result of alcoholism. He is interred in Washington Cemetery in Washington, Massachusetts. Wendell Corey has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for his work in TV at 6328 Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood.
586873	Sarita Joshi "nee" Bhosle (born 17 October 1941) is an Indian stage, television and film actress, and is a veteran actress of Gujarati theatre and Marathi theatre and also Marathi cinema. In 1988, she was awarded the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award for Acting in Gujarati by the Sangeet Natak Akademi, India's National Academy of Music, Dance & Drama. Early life. Sarita was born in a middle class Maharashtrian family in Pune, though she grew up in Vadodara. Her father Bhimrao Bhosle was a barrister. Her mother Kamlabai Rane was from Goa. She began acting on stage at the age of nine along with her sister, due financial problems that her family found itself in, though she started with traditional theatre, she soon started working with noted artists like Shanta Apte. Career. After working as child actor for six years Joshi got her first lead role at age 16. She went to act with Indian National Theatre, and its was here that she met her future husband Pravin Joshi. She made television debut in the 1980s, with TV series, "Titliyan" (Butterflies) directed by Nadira Babbar, followed by numerous series, including, "Hasratein". She is best known for portraying a tough yet fair matriarch in the household hit serial "Baa Bahoo Aur Baby", which stopped on 28 March 2009 for a temporary seasonal break but was renewed back recently on popular demand. In 2009 Joshi played in the serial "Kuchh Kook Hota Hai" as Rani on 9X. Joshi also portrayed Abhishek Bachchan's mother in "Guru" directed by filmmaker Mani Ratnam. She also played a central character in the 2008 movie "Dasvidaniya". Out of all the mediums she holds a special corner for theater and stage performances. She claims that the joy of performing on stage is any time better than anything else and that theater will always be her first love.
205720	Arnold Ephraim Ross (August 24, 1906 – September 25, 2002) was a mathematician and educator who founded the Ross Mathematics Program, a number theory summer program for gifted high school students at the Ohio State University that he ran for over forty years. He was born in Chicago, but spent his youth in Odesa, Ukraine, where he studied with Samuil Shatunovsky. Ross returned to Chicago and enrolled in University of Chicago graduate coursework under E. H. Moore despite his lack of formal academic training. He received his Ph.D. and married his wife, Bee, in 1931. Ross taught at several institutions including St. Louis University before becoming chair of University of Notre Dame's mathematics department in 1946. He started a teacher training program in math that evolved into the Ross Mathematics Program in 1957 with the addition of high school students. The program moved with him to Ohio State University when he became their department chair in 1963. The program is known as Ross's most significant work, for which he has received many awards. The program attendees have since continued on to prominent research positions across the sciences. Early life and career. In Moore's teaching style, he would propose a conjecture and task the students with proving it. Students could respond with counter-conjectures that they would defend. Ross found Moore's method exciting, and his pedagogy influenced Ross's own. Ross became Leonard Eugene Dickson's research assistant after graduating. Ross earned B.S. and M.S. degrees and finished his Ph.D. in number theory at the University of Chicago in 1931 with Dickson as his adviser. Ross's dissertation was, "On Representation of Integers by Indefinite Ternary Quadratic Forms". He did not pay tuition after his first quarter, which he credits to Dickson.
900364	Dr. Goldfoot and the Girl Bombs is a 1966 Italian spy-spoof film directed by Mario Bava and starring Vincent Price, Fabian, Francesco Mulé, Laura Antonelli and the Italian comedy team of Franco Franchi and Ciccio Ingrassia.
1046397	The Manxman is a 1929 British silent drama film directed by Alfred Hitchcock and starring Anny Ondra, Carl Brisson and Malcolm Keen. The film is based on a popular 1896 romantic novel "The Manxman" by Hall Caine, which had previously been made into a 1917 film. This was the last silent film Hitchcock directed before he made the transition to sound film with his next film "Blackmail". Production. "The Manxman" was filmed almost entirely in the small fishing village of Polperro in Cornwall. Other scenes were shot at British International Pictures' Elstree Studios. The director began work on the film just two weeks after the birth of his daughter, Patricia Hitchcock. After being thought in the public domain for decades, the film's rights were obtained by French media company Canal+ in 2005. A restored and remastered print of the film was released on DVD by Lionsgate Home Entertainment in 2007. Plot. The film tells the story of two childhood friends, a poor fisherman, Pete Quilliam (Carl Brisson), and a lawyer, Philip Christian (Malcolm Keen). Pete is in love with Kate (Anny Ondra), but when her father, Old Caesar (Randie Ayrton), refuses to consent to their marriage, Pete sets off for Africa to make his fortune, asking Philip to take care of Kate until he returns. In his absence, Kate and Philip fall in love. When news reaches them that Pete was killed, they begin planning their lives together, as Philip prepares to assume the position of Deemster, the island's chief magistrate. The news is false however, and Pete returns to the island a wealthy man. Old Caesar agrees to let Kate marry him, and neither she nor Philip have it in them to break Pete's heart. As the wedding party proceeds in an old mill, Old Caesar sternly warns the newlyweds to remember how serious the vows of marriage are. Kate is still in love with Philip. Shortly after a daughter is born, she decides to leave Pete, leaving him both the child and a note saying that she loves another man. However, Philip is about to become the Deemster and is unwilling to give up his career for her. Frustrated, she returns to Pete to take the baby, telling him that he is not the father, but he refuses to believe her or hand the child over. Distraught, Kate leaves and attempts to commit suicide by throwing herself off the quay, a crime on the Isle of Man. Kate is brought to trial on the first day that Philip serves as Deemster. He is reluctant to sentence her, and when Pete appears in the courtroom to plead for his wife, he agrees to hand her over to him. Kate refuses to go, and Old Caesar, who is watching, gets up and condemns Philip for being the "other man". Philip admits this and leaves the court. In the final scene, Philip and Kate prepare to leave the Isle of Man and come to Pete's house to pick up the baby. In a shot reminiscent of the theater, Kate picks up the child, while Philip and Pete stand at opposite ends of the room. She brings the child over to Pete to say one last goodbye, and he breaks down, having lost everything. Philip and Kate leave the cottage to the jeers of the villagers, who have been watching the scene.
1053037	Spymate is a 2006 Canadian film starring Chris Potter. It was released to Canadian theatres on February 24, 2006, and on DVD in North America on April 11, 2006. Plot. The movie opens as Minkey, a super-spy primate with uncanny abilities, rescues his partner Mike Muggins (Chris Potter) from Middle Eastern terrorists. Their secretary, Edith (Debra Jo Rupp) congratulates them as the two best spies in the business, but Mikes informs her that he is going to retire to be with his wife and daughter. The movie then flashes forward ten years. Mike's wife (never named in the movie) had died, and his daughter, Amelia (Emma Roberts), is a child prodigy, having invented a revolutionary oxygen iodide laser drill. Amelia is about to receive the prestigious National Scientific Achievement Award from the world's two leading scientists, Dr. Robert Farley (Richard Kind)and Dr. Claudette Amour (Musetta Vander). Mike encourages her, telling her how proud he is of her, and also reminds her that Minkey is in town, now the star of a circus show. Mike offers to take Amelia to Minkey's show, but Amelia laughs it off, remembering those "silly stories" he used to tell her about life as a spy.
1058751	Spencer Breslin (born May 18, 1992) is an American actor and musician. He is the older brother of actress Abigail Breslin and is best known for his roles in Disney's "The Kid", "The Santa Claus" film sequels, "You Wish!", "Zoom" and "The Cat in the Hat". Early life. Breslin was born in New York City, the son of Kim, a personal manager, and Michael Breslin, a telecommunications expert. Spencer has an older brother Ryan Breslin (born in 1985) and a younger sister, Abigail Breslin (born April 14, 1996) who is an actress. Acting career. Breslin was discovered in a New York City playground at the age of three, and proceeded to star in commercials for McDonald's and Life cereal. By age five, he was a series regular for the three episode-long first season of ABC's "Soul Man". He later moved on to guest star on several shows including "Law and Order" before appearing in the three-part miniseries, "Stephen King's Storm of the Century". After a small role as Little Boy in "Meet the Parents", Breslin made his big leap into film, starring alongside Bruce Willis in "Disney's The Kid". For this role, Breslin won a Young Artist Award and was nominated for a Saturn Award. He later played Curtis the Elf in "The Santa Clause 2", marking the first of four films in which he co-starred alongside actor Tim Allen. After appearing in TV movies such as "You Wish!", "Ozzie", and "Mom's on Strike", Breslin returned to the big screen starring alongside Dakota Fanning and Mike Meyers in the 2003 blockbuster "The Cat in the Hat". Breslin later played on-screen siblings with his real life younger sister Abigail Breslin in "Raising Helen", starring Kate Hudson. The two siblings would work together again in "Princess Diaries 2", in which Spencer played a prince and Abigail made a cameo as a girl at an orphanage. Abigail would also appear in the 2006 "The Santa Clause 3", in which Spencer reprised his role of Curtis the Elf, and Spencer would later appear alongside Abigail as Cousin Derek in the 2012 "Perfect Sisters". In 2004, Spencer Breslin was a regular on the short-lived sitcom "Center of the Universe" starring John Goodman. After appearing in the "Wonderfalls" episode "Lovesick Ass", Breslin returned to feature films for "Zoom", "The Shaggy Dog", and M. Night Shymalan's 'The Happening'. Breslin then went on to star as the titular character in 2007's "Harold", which failed to succeed in the box-office. More recently, Breslin has appeared in films such as the 2011 "Born to Race" and the 2012 "Stuck in Love". He has also been involved in the world of animation by lending his voice to the television cartoon "Teamo Supremo", "Return to Neverland", and "". In 2004, Breslin also was asked to read alongside Alyson Stoner, Dylan and Cole Sprouse, and Hailey Anne Nelson when Dr. Seuss won his Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Breslin has also begun to work in other aspects of filmmaking, serving as an executive producer on the animated "Really Bad Movie!", as well as writing and directing his own short film. Music. In the summer of 2007 he helped form alternative rock trio The Red Agenda with "Harold" co-star Evan Daves and musician Paul DeMasi. He finished recording his debut album "Labor Day" as of October 2009 and it was released August 2012. It was recorded by Ladybug Transistor's Gary Olson, and produced by James William Hindle. Breslin founded his own record label Acadian Recording Company and is currently working with the hard rock group Damus on their debut album. "Labor Day". "Labor Day" is actor and musician Spencer Breslin's debut album, released under his own label, Acadian Recording Co., in August 2012. Written and composed by sixteen year old Breslin, "Labor Day" was recorded by Gary Olson - known for his engineering work for acts as diverse as Cold Cave, Jens Lekman, and The Essex Green – over three, weeklong sessions in Brooklyn from 2008 to 2009. The album was produced by James William Hindle, whose own music has been featured in "The O.C.", "One Tree Hill", and other shows. Musicians featured include, among others, Kevin Barker (Joanna Newsom, Vetiver, and Antony and the Johnsons), Isobel Knowles (Architecture in Helsinki), Kyle Forester (Crystal Stilts), and Eric Farber (Ladybug Transistor). The record also features a spoken word cameo by actor Jesse Eisenberg ("The Social Network", "The Squid and the Whale").
530694	Donna Lynn Dixon (born July 20, 1957) is an American actress. Dixon was born in Alexandria, Virginia; her father, Earl Dixon, owned a nightclub on U.S. 1, called "Hillbilly Heaven." She is a 1975 graduate of Groveton High School and attended The George Washington University dropping out briefly after beginning, and never receiving a degree. She began her career as a model and was named Miss Virginia USA in 1976 and Miss Washington DC World in 1977. Dixon co-starred with Tom Hanks in the early 1980s television comedy series "Bosom Buddies;" however, her pageant-like performances continued to determine her typecast roles. Months after they worked together in the 1983 film "Doctor Detroit", Dixon and actor Dan Aykroyd married. They later starred together in the 1985 film "Spies Like Us" and the 1988 film "The Couch Trip". Dixon and Aykroyd have three daughters. She retired from acting in 1997. The song "I Still Love You", from the KISS album "Creatures of the Night", was written by Paul Stanley for Dixon upon her ending their relationship. In the very first episode of "The Simpsons", "Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire", Homer mentions Donna's name while recalling Santa's reindeers.
1068430	Keeping Mum is a 2005 British black comedy film starring Rowan Atkinson, Kristin Scott Thomas, Maggie Smith and Patrick Swayze. Plot. In the opening scene, as pregnant young Rosie Jones (Emilia Fox) rides on a train, her very large trunk starts leaking blood. When questioned by the police, she calmly reveals that the two dismembered bodies inside are of her unfaithful husband and his mistress. She is then sentenced by the judge (Roger Hammond) to a secure unit for the criminally insane for manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility. Forty-three years later, in the village of Little Wallop, Walter Goodfellow, the vicar (Rowan Atkinson) is very busy writing the perfect sermon for a convention, having no idea about the problems in his house, which include the unfulfilled emotional needs of his wife Gloria (Kristin Scott Thomas) who subsequently starts an affair with her golf instructor, Lance (Patrick Swayze); the sexual desires and growing maturity of his teenage daughter Holly (Tamsin Egerton) who constantly picks up new boyfriends; and son Petey (Toby Parkes) who is bullied by schoolmates. Then everything changes with the arrival of the new housekeeper Grace (Maggie Smith).
739142	Scott Hamilton Bairstow (born April 23, 1970) is a Canadian actor known for his roles as "Newt Call" on the "Lonesome Dove" series in Canada and as "Ned Grayson" on the American television drama series, "Party of Five". He was born in Steinbach, Manitoba, Canada to Douglas and Diane Bairstow, professional classical musicians. Career. Bairstow first appeared on television at the age of 10, in a show called "Let's Go". He moved to New York City when he was 17 and landed a part on the soap opera "All My Children" playing "Stuart Chandler" in flashback scenes to the character's youth. He had the lead role opposite Cybill Shepherd in the television movie "There Was a Little Boy" (1993) and has also appeared opposite such well-known actors as Kevin Costner in The Postman (1997) and Kris Kristofferson in "Two for Texas" (1998). In addition to his role on "Party of Five", and the "X-Files" episode: Miracle Man (1994), Bairstow has also starred as the lead character, Newt Call, in both Lonesome Dove: The Series and '"Lonesome Dove: The Outlaw Years", as well as the lead, Lt. Tom Hobbes, in Chris Carter's short-lived series, "Harsh Realm". In 2004, Bairstow guest-starred on the two-part series finale of Touched by an Angel, playing a handyman named Zach,and later in the episode, God. Personal life. Bairstow was married to Marty Rich from 1994 to 2000, and has two sons, Casey (1995) and Dalton (1998). In May 2003, Bairstow was charged in Everett, Washington with second degree child rape for allegedly sexually assaulting a 12-year-old girl, who is related to Bairstow's ex-wife, and later asking her to keep quiet about it. In December 2003, he pleaded guilty to a lesser charge—second degree assault. Bairstow entered an Alford plea, under which he maintained his innocence but conceded that he would likely be convicted by a jury if the case went to trial. He was sentenced to four months in jail, one year community supervision, and was required to undergo a sexual deviancy evaluation. He was also ordered to have no contact with the girl for 10 years and to pay for any counseling she requires.
1082832	My Life Without Me is a 2003 Spanish/Canadian drama film directed by Isabel Coixet and starring Sarah Polley, Mark Ruffalo, Scott Speedman, and Leonor Watling. Based on the book "Pretending the Bed Is a Raft" by Nanci Kincaid, it tells a story of a 23-year-old woman, with a husband and two daughters, who finds out she is going to die soon. The film was produced by Pedro Almodóvar's production company, El Deseo. Plot. Ann (Sarah Polley) is a hard-working 23-year-old mother with two small daughters, an unemployed husband (Scott Speedman), a mother (Deborah Harry) who sees her life as a failure, and a jailed father whom she has not seen in ten years. Her life changes dramatically when, during a medical checkup following a collapse, she is diagnosed with metastatic ovarian cancer and told she has only two months to live. Deciding not to tell anyone of her condition, using the cover of anemia, Ann makes a list of things to do before she dies. She decides to change her hair, record birthday messages for the girls for every year until they're 18, tries to setup her husband with another woman and have an affair to get to know what it's like to have sex with another man. She meets with a man named Lee, who ends up madly in love with her and is left heartbroken when Ann breaks up. He meets with her one last time and says that he will do anything to make her happy, taking care of her daughters and even finding her husband a job. She ends their relationship and never tells him that she is dying. At the end of the film Ann records a message to her husband telling him that she loves him and another one to Lee telling him the same. She then leaves all tapes she has recorded with her doctor asking him to deliver them after her death. Reception. My Life Without Me received generally positive reviews from film critics. As of December 2011, review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes has scored a 64% rating, with an average rating of 6.3 out of 10, based on 98 reviews.
583015	Aadmi Khilona Hai (English translation - Man Is Toy) is a 1993 Hindi language film directed by J. Om Prakash and starring Jeetendra, Reena Roy, Govinda, Meenakshi Sheshadri. Plot. Sharad and Punam are devastated when they learn that Punam can not be a mother. Ganga helps Punam to solve this problem. Unfortunately, when Sharad gets a job, they find that Ganga helped them for hidden reasons and it is time for payback.
1018153	Kung Fu Hustle is a 2004 Hong Kong action comedy film. It was directed, co-written and co-produced by Stephen Chow, who also stars in the lead role. The other producers were Chui Po-chu and Jeffrey Lau, and the screenplay was co-written with Huo Xin, Chan Man-keung, and Tsang Kan-cheung. Yuen Wah, Yuen Qiu, Danny Chan, and Bruce Leung co-starred in prominent roles. After the commercial success of "Shaolin Soccer", its production company, Star Overseas, began to develop "Kung Fu Hustle" with Columbia Pictures Film Production Asia in 2002. The film features a number of retired actors famous for 1970s Hong Kong action cinema, yet has been compared to contemporary and influential martial arts films such as "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" and "Hero." The cartoon style of the film, accompanied by traditional Chinese music, is often cited as its most striking feature. The film was released on 23 December 2004 in China and on 25 January 2005 in the United States. It received highly positive reviews, with Rotten Tomatoes giving it a 90% fresh rating and Metacritic 78 out of 100. The film was also a commercial success, grossing US$17 million in North America and US$84 million in other countries. "Kung Fu Hustle" was the highest-grossing film in the history of Hong Kong until it was surpassed by "You Are the Apple of My Eye" in 2011. The film was the all-time tenth highest-grossing foreign language film in the United States as well as the highest-grossing foreign language film in the country in 2005. "Kung Fu Hustle" won numerous awards, including six Hong Kong Film Awards and five Golden Horse Awards. Plot. In Shanghai during the 1930s, Brother Sum, the leader of the Deadly Axe Gang, exercises control over the city, openly killing anyone who gets in his way. One day, two troublemakers, Sing and Bone, come to Pig Sty Alley impersonating members of the Axe Gang to gain respect. Their plan fails, and Sing's antics attract the real gang to the scene. In the massive brawl that ensues, more than fifty gangsters are defeated by three tenants who are incognito martial arts masters. After the fight, Sing and Bone are apprehended by Brother Sum for publicly humiliating the Axe Gang. They escape and ask to join the gang. Sum is impressed by their escape, so he tells them that if they kill a person they will be accepted into the gang. Asked to explain his escape skills, Sing describes his childhood: he bought a Buddhist Palm manual from a beggar and trained himself to be a martial artist, but when he tried to defend a mute girl from bullies, he was beaten up and humiliated. The next day, the duo return to Pig Sty Alley and attempt to murder the Landlady, but their efforts fail. Sing is badly injured and hides in a traffic control pulpit, where his multiple injuries spontaneously heal, a surprise even to him. Meanwhile, Sum hires two mystical harp-players to assassinate the three martial artists at Pig Sty Alley. They succeed, but are defeated by the Landlady and Landlord, who are martial arts masters in self-imposed retirement. Sing mugs the ice cream vendor, only to realize she is the mute girl from his childhood and for rescuing her, offers him the lollipop from when they were children. He refuses and knocks it away, shattering it to pieces. Sing is picked up by the Axe Gang and in exchange for joining the gang, Sum orders him to break into a mental asylum to free a legendary fighter known as The Beast. The Beast confronts the Landlady and Landlord at the casino and they fight, with The Beast besting the two fighters. They manage to overpower him with a bell, through which the Landlady amplifies her lion's roar technique. He tricks them into dropping the bell and the three fight until they become locked together, unable to move. Sing rushes in to help them by hitting The Beast with a table leg. The blow only incenses The Beast, who breaks out and pummels Sing into the floor. Before he can deliver a final blow, the Landlord and Landlady grab him and flee. Sum angrily blames The Beast for letting them escape, and The Beast angrily kills Sum and takes over his men. At Pig Sty Alley, Sing undergoes a metamorphosis; The Beast's thrashing has awoken his true potential as The Chosen One. He quickly recovers from his wounds, and suggests that the Landlord and Landlady rest. He easily defeats the Axe Gang before confronting The Beast. The two exchange blows before The Beast uses his Toad technique to send Sing rocketing into the sky. As he falls back to earth, Sing delivers the Buddhist Palm to defeat the Beast. After a final failed attack on Sing, he then accepts his defeat. Some time later, Sing and Bone work in a lollipop store. When the mute ice cream vendor walks by, Sing goes out to meet her, and they turn back into children and quickly reconcile. The beggar who gave Sing the Buddhist Palm then tries to sell a young boy several martial arts books. The child stares, intrigued. Production. Development. "Kung Fu Hustle" is a co-production of the Beijing Film Studio and Hong Kong's Star Overseas. After the success of his 2001 film, "Shaolin Soccer", Chow was approached in 2002 by Columbia Pictures Film Production Asia, offering to collaborate with him on a project. Chow accepted the offer, and the project eventually became "Kung Fu Hustle". "Kung Fu Hustle" was produced with a budget of US$20 million. Chow was inspired to create the film by the martial arts films he watched as a child and by his childhood ambition to become a martial artist. A senior Hollywood executive said Chow was "forced to grind through four successive scripts" and "found it very laborious". Chow's first priority was to design the main location of the film, "Pig Sty Alley". Later in an interview Chow remarked that he had created the location from his childhood, basing the design on the crowded apartment complexes of Hong Kong were he had lived. The 1973 Shaw Brothers Studio film, "The House of 72 Tenants", was another inspiration for Pig Sty Alley. Designing the Alley began in January 2003 and took four months to complete. Many of the props and furniture in the apartments were antiques from all over China. Casting. "Kung Fu Hustle" features several prolific Hong Kong action cinema actors from the 1970s. Yuen Wah, a former student of the China Drama Academy Peking Opera School who appeared in over a hundred Hong Kong films and was a stunt double for Bruce Lee, played the Landlord of Pig Sty Alley. Wah considered starring in "Kung Fu Hustle" to be the peak of his career. In spite of the film's success, he worried that nowadays fewer people practice martial arts. Auditions for the role of the Landlady began in March 2003, Yuen Qiu who did not audition, was spotted, during her friend's screen test smoking a cigarette with a sarcastic expression on her face, which won her the part. Qiu, a student of Yu Jim-yuen, "sifu" of the China Drama Academy, had appeared in the 1974 James Bond film "The Man with the Golden Gun" at the age of 18. After a number of other small roles, she retired from films in the 1980s. "Kung Fu Hustle" was her first role in nineteen years. Qiu, in order to fulfill Chow's vision for the role, gained weight for the role by eating midnight snacks everyday. Bruce Leung, who played the Beast, was Stephen Chow's childhood martial arts hero. Leung Siu Lung was a famous action film director and actor in the 1970s and 1980s, known as the "Third Dragon" after Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan. After becoming unpopular in the Taiwanese film market in the late 1980s following a visit to China, he switched to a career in business. "Kung Fu Hustle" was his return to the film industry after a fifteen-year hiatus. He regarded Chow as a flexible director with high standards, and was particularly impressed by the first scene involving the Beast, which had to be reshot 28 times. In addition to famous martial artists, "Kung Fu Hustle" features legends of Chinese cinema. Two famous Chinese directors appear in the film: Zhang Yibai, who plays Inspector Chan at the beginning of the film, and Feng Xiaogang, who plays the boss of the Crocodile Gang. In casting Sing's love interest Fong, Chow stated that he wanted an innocent looking girl for the role. Television actress Eva Huang, in her film debut, was chosen from over 8,000 girls. When asked about his decision in casting her Chow said that he "just had a feeling about her" and said that he enjoyed working with new actors. She chose to have no dialogue in the film so that she could stand out only with her body gestures. Filming. Filming took place in Shanghai from June 2003 to November 2003. Two-thirds of the time was spent shooting the fighting sequences. The fighting scenes of "Kung Fu Hustle" were initially choreographed by Sammo Hung. Hung quit after two months due to illness, tough outdoor conditions, interest in another project and arguments with the production crew. Hung was replaced by Yuen Woo-ping, an action choreographer with experience ranging from Hong Kong action cinema of the 1960s to "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" and "The Matrix" in the early 21st century. Yuen promptly accepted the offer. Yuen drew on seemingly outdated wuxiafighting styles like the Deadly Melody and Buddhist Palm. He remarked that despite the comedic nature of the film, the shooting process was a serious matter due to the tight schedule. Most of the special effects in the film, created by Hong Kong computer graphics company Centro Digital Pictures Limited, which had previously worked on films such as "Shaolin Soccer" and "Kill Bill", included a combination of computer-generated imagery and wire work. Centro Digital performed extensive tests on CGI scenes before filming started, and treatment of the preliminary shots began immediately afterwards. The CGI crew edited out wire effects and applied special effects in high resolution. Legendary martial arts mentioned in wuxia novels were depicted and exaggerated through CGI, but actual people were used for the final fight between Chow's character and hundreds of axe-wielding gangsters. After a final calibration of colour, data of the processed scenes was sent to the US for the production of the final version. A group of six people followed the production crew throughout the shooting. Music. The majority of the film's original score was composed by Raymond Wong and performed by the Hong Kong Chinese Orchestra. The score imitates traditional Chinese music used in 1940s swordplay films. One of Wong's works, "Nothing Ventured, Nothing Gained", provides a stark contrast between the villainous Axe Gang and the peaceful neighbourhood of Pig Sty Alley, depicted by a Chinese folk song, "Fisherman's Song of the East China Sea". Along with Wong's compositions and various traditional Chinese songs, classical compositions are featured in the score, including excerpts from "Zigeunerweisen" by Pablo de Sarasate and "Sabre Dance" by Aram Khachaturian. The song, "Zhiyao Weini Huo Yitian" (只要為你活一天; "Only Want to Live One Day for You"), is sung in the background by Eva Huang at the end of the film. Written by Liu Chia-chang (劉家昌) in the 1970s, it tells of a girl's memories of a loved one, and her desire to live for him again. "Kung Fu Hustle" was nominated for Best Original Film Score at the 24th Hong Kong Film Awards. Asian and American versions of the soundtrack were released. The Asian version of the soundtrack was released on 17 December 2004 by Sony Music Entertainment and has 33 tracks. The American version of the soundtrack was released on 29 March 2005 by Varèse Sarabande and has 19 tracks but has 14 tracks missing from the Asian release. References to other works. "Kung Fu Hustle" makes references to a wide range of films, animated cartoons, wuxia novels and other sources. Sing and Bone resemble George Milton and Lennie Small from the 1992 film "Of Mice and Men". The housing arrangement of the Pig Sty Alley is similar to that of a 1973 Hong Kong film, "The House of 72 Tenants". There are two references to Chow's previous film, "Shaolin Soccer. "When Sing arrives at Pig Sty Alley, he plays skillfully with a soccer ball, then says, "You're still playing football?". The second reference is the scene in which a clerk beats Sing up on a bus. The clerk also appeared in "Shaolin Soccer" as the leader of an opposing team who used hidden weapons to beat up the Shaolin soccer team. When Sing challenges a boy in the Pig Sty Alley, Sing calls him "The Karate Kid", a reference to the 1984 film of the same name. During the altercation between Sing and the hairdresser, the hairdresser states, "Even if you kill me, there will be thousands more of me!". This is a reference to a famous quote made by Lu Hao-tung, a Chinese revolutionary in the late Qing Dynasty. The scene in which Sing is chased by the Landlady as he flees from the Alley is a homage to Wile E. Coyote and Road Runner, characters in the "Looney Tunes" cartoons, even including the pursuer's (the Landlady's) ill fate. In the scene in which Sing robs the ice cream vendor, a poster for the 1935 film "Top Hat" is in the background. As Sing arrives at the door to the Beast's cell in the mental asylum, he hallucinates a large wave of blood rushing from the cell door, similar to a scene in "The Shining". A major element of the plot is based on the wuxia film series "Palm of Ru Lai" (如來神掌), released in 1964. Sing studied the fighting style used in "Palm of Ru Lai" ("Buddhist Palm style"), from a young age and used it at the end of "Kung Fu Hustle". In reality, the Buddhist Palm fighting style does not leave palm-shaped craters and holes on impact. Instead, the user delivers powerful punches using his palm. The Beast's name in Chinese, "Huoyun Xieshen" (火雲邪神; Evil Deity of the Fiery Cloud), and the fight with the Landlady and her husband are also references to the "Palm of Ru Lai," in which a mortally wounded master strikes the patterns of his art's final techniques into a bell so that his apprentice can learn from it. "Kung Fu Hustle" also contains direct references to characters from Louis Cha's wuxia novels. For example, the landlord and landlady refer to themselves as Yang Guo and Xiaolongnü, the names of characters in Cha's "The Return of the Condor Heroes", when they met the Beast. References to gangster films are also present. The boss of the Axe Gang, Brother Sum (琛哥) is named after Hon Sam / Hon Sum (韓琛), the triad boss played by Eric Tsang in "Infernal Affairs". The Harpists imitate "The Blues Brothers", wearing similar hats and sunglasses at all times. When they are flattered by the Axe Gang advisor, one of them answers "Strictly speaking we're just musicians", similar to a line by Elwood Blues. When Donut dies, he says, "In great power lies great responsibility", a reference to "Spider-Man", said by Uncle Ben before his death. Afterwards, with his dying breath, Donut gets up, grabs the Landlord by the shirt and utters in English, "What are you prepared to do?", a nod to Sean Connery's character Jim Malone in Brian De Palma's 1987 film "The Untouchables." The dialogue that the Beast says while negotiating with the Axe Gang for killing the Landlady and Landlord – "...then young friend, I will make an offer you cannot refuse", is a reference of the dialogue from the movie 'The Godfather'. Also, the Landlady's comment to Brother Sum – "We brought a gift you cannot refuse" is an obvious parody of the same, to which Sum replies – "Ha! With the Beast on our side, we shall see for whom the bell tolls", a reference to the 1943 film. The final fight between Sing (who has been reborn into "the one", which pays homage to Bruce Lee by wearing his costume in "Enter the Dragon" and using his fighting style) and the hundreds of gangsters imitates the fight between Neo and hundreds of Agent Smiths in "The Matrix Reloaded". The scene in which the Beast prompts an axe member to punch him harder is reminiscent of a similar scene in "Raging Bull", with Robert De Niro's character prompting Joe Pesci's character. The last scene, in which the beggar tries to sell martial arts manuals, refers directly to the greatest skills in Louis Cha's "Condor Trilogy" ("Nine Yang Manual", "Yiyang Finger", and "Eighteen Dragon Subduing Palms"), "Thousand Hand Divine Fist", and "The Smiling, Proud Wanderer" ("Nine Swords of Dugu"). The scene in which the landlady confronts Brother Sum in the back of his car is a homage to Bruce Lee in "Way of the Dragon", where he cracks his knuckles and gives a quick upper nod to the mafia boss, telling him to back off. Releases. "Kung Fu Hustle" premiered at the 2004 Toronto International Film Festival. It was later released across East Asia including China, Hong Kong and Malaysia in December 2004. The film was first shown in the US at the Sundance Film Festival in January 2005, and then opened in a general release on 22 April 2005 after being shown in Los Angeles and New York for two weeks. The North American DVD release was on 8 August 2005. A Blu-ray version of the DVD was released on 12 December 2006 by Sony Pictures. A UMD version of the film was released for the PlayStation Portable. The United States DVD releases was censored and cut in a number of scenes that featured a lot of blood or human excrement, a later release saw these edits removed. In the United Kingdom the standard DVD was released 24 October 2005, the same day a special edition was released with collect item which included playing cards, keyring, sweat band and an inflatable axe. On 8 April 2007 Sony Pictures Home Entertainment release a Blu-ray version. The Portuguese title of the film is "Kungfusão", which sounds like Kung Fu and "Confusão" (confusion). In the same way as "Kungfusão", the Italian and Spanish titles were "Kung-fusion" and "Kung-fusión", puns of "confusion". In France, the film is known as "Crazy Kung Fu", and the Hungarian title is "A Pofonok Földje", meaning "The Land of Punches". In Korea a Limited Collector's Edition DVD was released which included a leather wallet, Stephen Chow's Palm Figure with his signature, a photo album and Special Kung Fu's Booklet with a Certificate of authenticity. Reception. The film was generally well received by critics, earning the score of 90% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes based on a total of 166 reviews. Hong Kong director and film critic Gabriel Wong praised the film for its black comedy, special effects and nostalgia, citing the return of many retired kung fu actors from the 1970s. Film critic Roger Ebert description of the film ("like Jackie Chan and Buster Keaton meet Quentin Tarantino and Bugs Bunny"), was printed on the promotion posters for Kung Fu Hustle in the US. Other critics described it as a comedic version of "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon". Positive reviews generally gave credit to the elements of mo lei tau comedy present in the film. A number of reviewers viewed it as a computer-enhanced Looney Tunes punch-up. In a 2010 "GQ" interview, actor Bill Murray called "Kung Fu Hustle" "the supreme achievement of the modern age in terms of comedy". Much of the criticism for the film was directed at its lack of character development and a coherent plot. "Las Vegas Weekly", for instance, criticised the film for not enough of a central protagonist and character depth. Criticisms were also directed at the film's cartoonish and childish humour. Richard Roeper gave it a negative review, saying he had "never been a fan of that over the top slapstick stuff". Box office. "Kung Fu Hustle" opened in Hong Kong on 23 December 2004, and earned HK$4,990,000 on its opening day. It stayed at the top of the box office for the rest of 2004 and for much of early 2005, eventually grossing HK$61.27 million. Its box office tally made it the highest-grossing film in Hong Kong history,> until it was beaten by "You Are the Apple of My Eye" in 2011. "Kung Fu Hustle" began a limited two-week theatrical run in New York City and Los Angeles on 8 April 2005 before being widely released across North America on 22 April. In its first week of limited release in seven cinemas, it grossed US$269,225 (US$38,461 per screen). When it was expanded to a wide release in 2,503 cinemas, the largest number of cinemas ever for a foreign language film, it made a modest US$6,749,572 (US$2,696 per screen), eventually grossing a total of US$17,108,591 in 129 days. In total, "Kung Fu Hustle" had a worldwide gross of US$101,104,669. While not a blockbuster, "Kung Fu Hustle" managed to become the highest-grossing foreign language film in North America in 2005 and went on to gain a cult following on DVD. Awards and nominations. The film was nominated for sixteen Hong Kong Film Awards, out of which winning: Best Picture, Best Action Choreography, Best Film Editing, Best Sound Effects, Best Supporting Actor and Best Visual Effects. Five more awards were later picked up at the Golden Horse Awards including an award for Best Director for Stephen Chow. In the United States "Kung Fu Hustle" was well received by various film critic associations winning awards for Best Foreign Language Film from Boston, Chicago, Las Vagas and Phoenix based critics. it was later nominated for six Satellite Awards and one MTV Movie Award for best fight scene. In the United Kingdom at 59th British Academy Film Awards the film was nominated for a BAFTA. In 2011, the Taipei Golden Horse Film Festival listed "Kung Fu Hustle" at number 48 in their list of "100 Greatest Chinese-Language Films". The majority of the voters originated from Taiwan, and included film scholars, festival programmers, film directors, actors and producers. Sequel. In 2005, Chow announced that there would be a sequel to "Kung Fu Hustle", although he had not settled on a female lead. "There will be a lot of new characters in the movie. We'll need a lot of new actors. It's possible that we'll look for people abroad besides casting locals". Production of "Kung Fu Hustle 2" was delayed while Chow filmed the science fiction adventure film "CJ7". As a result, "Kung Fu Hustle 2" is slated for a 2014 release. In January 2013 during an interview Chow admitted that plans for making "Kung Fu Hustle 2" have been put on hold. "I was indeed in the midst of making the movie, but it is currently put on hold in view of other incoming projects". Games. Online and mobile games. In 2004 a promotional flash games was released by Sony Pictures Entertainment on their Japanese website. The game were created by Japanese game developer "Point Zero" and plays as a point and click beat 'em up. A side scrolling game designed for mobile phones was later released in 2006 by developer "Tracebit". MMO. In 2007 Sony Online Entertainment announced that a massively multiplayer online 2D side-scrolling fighter game based on the film was under development for the Chinese market. Two years later a preview of the game was featured at E3 were it received mixed reviews from critics with many comparing it to similar MMO games such as "Guild Wars" and "Phantasy Star Online". A North American release for PC and PS3 was planned for late 2009 however as of July 2013 the game has not been released and is only available in Asia.
695715	Waheed Murad () (2 October 1938 – 23 November 1983) was a legendary Pakistani film actor, producer and script writer. Waheed is considered to be one of the most famous and influential actors of South Asia. Waheed Murad was born in Sialkot, Punjab, Pakistan Karachi, did graduation from S.M. Arts College Karachi, and then masters in English literature from University of Karachi. He is well known for his charming expressions, attractive personality, tender voice and unusual talent for acting in films. His romantic style of acting made him popular amongst the young cinema viewers of south asia. One of his blockbuster films is "Armaan", which was produced by him, made a pivotal impact on the sub-continental film industry such that the Pakistani film industry was considered as the rising sun and this film made him a superstar overnight. Once, in an interview in 1967, he said that Dilip Kumar, too, was not an immortal actor. Waheed was known as a cheque which could be cashed any where in the country and is the only actor of film industry to secure the highest number of platinum, diamond, golden and silver jubilees. In November 2010, 27 years after his death, Pakistani president Asif Zardari awarded him the Sitara-e-Imtiaz, the "star of excellence," an honour given for distinguished merit in the fields of literature, arts, sports, medicine, or science. Film career. Waheed Murad started his film career by joining his father's established 'Film Art' in 1961 as producer of the film "Insaan badalta hai". In his second film as producer "Jab se dakha hai tumhein" he cast Darpan with Zeba as heroine. Afterwards, Darpan most of the time started coming late at studio. Zeba suggested Waheed to cast himself as hero in his next film. Waheed was not ready to sign himself in his own movies. But when the same suggestion came from his old good friend Pervaiz Malik, he accepted it on the condition that if Zeba would be his co-star, Zeba accepted in return (according to Zeba). As a result he firstly appeared in a supporting role in 1962's "Aulad". The film was directed by his friend S.M. Yousuf. "Aulad" got much more acclaims from critics, and it also got the Nigar award in the best film's category for the year. "Heera aur pathar" was his first movie as a leading actor and considered to be his major breakthrough. He got the Nigar award in the best actor category for the same film. In 1966, he acted in "Armaan" under his production which was directed by Pervaiz Malik. "Armaan" broke all the box office records at that time and completed 75 weeks in theatres, gave him the status of superstar or perhaps the first superstar of Pakistani films. The film is a romantic and melodious love story. The songs like "Koko korina...", "Akele na jana...", "Betaab ho udhar tum..." and "Zindagi apni thi ab tak..." sung by legendary singer Ahmed Rushdi became extremely popular among the youth especially among the college girls. He received two Nigar awards for the categories best producer and best actor for the film "Armaan". During the same year, he starred in another superhit film "Jaag utha insaan" with co-star Zeba. This fact is on record that in Zeba's success, Waheed had a very important contribution as he cast her in his films and brought country wide fame for her. In 1967, he appeared as leading actor in masterpieces like "Devar bhabi", "Doraha", "Insaaniyat" and '"Maan baap". "Devar bhabi" is considered as one of his best movies and completed 50 weeks in the cinemas. The story of "Devar bhabi" is based on Indo-Pak's unjust social thoughts and norms. "Insaaniyat" is also considered as one of his best movies in which he played a role of a dedicated doctor. From 1964 to 1968, Waheed Murad and Pervaiz Malik made blockbusters like "Heera aur pathar", "Armaan", "Ehsaan", "Doraha" and "Jahan tum wahan hum". The successful combination of Waheed Murad, Pervaiz Malik, Masroor Anwar, Sohail Rana, Ahmed Rushdi and Zeba created a number of successful films. Waheed Murad brought Malik, Anwar and Rana under the umbrella of 'Film Arts'. But in late 1960s, dissension grew between Waheed Murad and other three team members of 'Film Art'. Pervaiz Malik was not happy with Waheed's taking away the credit for all the success of movies and giving little recognition to others. So the Film Arts broke up and Pervaiz Malik started creating his own projects with new actors. A total of seven films, including two films, i.e., "Usey dekha usey chaha" and "Dushman" released after a long gap of 6 years in 1974, were produced with the combination of Waheed and Pervaiz (but not under 'Film Art' Production). In 1969, Waheed produced, wrote and directed his own movie "Ishaara" but the movie flopped at box office. "Andaleeb" was released in 1969, which was directed by Fareed Ahmed. Other co-stars included Shabnam, Aliya, Talish and Mustafa Qureshi. Andaleeb proved to be one of the greatest films of the year. Moviegoers loved his acting esp. in the song "Kuch log rooth kar bhi..." sung by Ahmed Rushdi in which Waheed is trying to flirt Shabnam in his red sports car. Waheed Murad received Nigar award in the best actor category for that film. Critics are unanimous that singer Ahmed Rushdi had a significant role in the success of Waheed Murad, and that Rushdi's voice was tailor made for him. From 1970 to 1979, many of his films were superhit like "Naseeb apna apna" and "Anjuman" in 1970; "Neend hamare khuwab tumhare" and "Mastana mahi" (Waheed's first Punjabi film) in 1971; "Baharo phool barsao" in 1972; "Ishq mera naa" (Punjabi film) and "Shama" in 1974; "Jab jab phool khiley" in 1975; "Shabana" in 1976; "Saheli", "Parakh" and "Khuda aur muhabbat" in 1978; and "Awaz" and "Bahan bhai" in 1979. "Mastana mahi" was Waheed's first Punjabi film, which was also produced by him and directed by Iftikhar Khan. "Mastana mahi" was purely a romantic musical film. Waheed received Nigar award for the best actor for "Mastana mahi". During early 1970s, he had no or very little choice in selecting his co-stars. Zeba, after her marriage with Mohammad Ali, was not allowed to work as heroine with Waheed Murad. Soon Shabnam's husband Robin Ghosh forced her to not work with Waheed. Even Nisho was not allowed to work with him. These were major setbacks for Waheed's career. Most of the top producers offered Waheed secondary roles in their films due to a monopoly against him. In addition, Nadeem was giving him a stiff competition in 1970s. So Waheed had been cast by less popular directors and producers and had been given the role of 'stereotypical romantic hero'. Films like "Naag Mani" (1972), "Mastani Mehbooba" (1974), "Laila Majnu" (1974), "Izzat" (1975), "Dilruba" (1975), "Raaste ka pathar" (1976), "Mehboob mera mastana" (1976), and "Naag aur nagan" (1976) gave him major setbacks. By late 1970s and early 1980s, Waheed was being cast in supporting roles either with Nadeem or with Mohammad Ali in the films like "Parastish" (1977), "Aadmi" (1978), "Khuda aur mohabbat" (1978), "Awaz" (1978), "Behan Bhai" (1979), "Wadey ki zanjeer" (1979), "Raja ki aaye gi barat" (1979), "Zameer" (1980), "Badnaam" (1980), "Gun man" (1981), "Kiran aur kali" (1981), "Gherao" (1981), "Ahat" (1982) and "Maang meri bhar do" (1983). The films "Hero" (1985) and "Zalzala" (1987) were released after his death. Films "Muqaddar", "Aankhon ke taare", "Aas paas" and "Andaaz" were either incomplete films or not released by the producers. "Hero" was the last film of Waheed's life, directed by Iqbal Yousuf. The film was released after almost two years of Waheed's death in 1985. Another Waheed's delayed film "Zalzala" was released after 4 years of his death in 1987, which was also directed by Iqbal Yousuf. "Zalzala" did nothing at the box office, however, "Hero" completed its Silver Jubilee in Karachi. "Muqaddar", "Aankhon Kay Taray", "Aas Paas" and "Andaaz" were the films that were either left incomplete or remain unreleased till todate. Waheed Murad, in his 25-year career, paired with several actresses like Zeba, Shamim Ara, Rani, Naghma, Aaliya, Sangeeta, Kaveeta, Aasia, Shabnam, Deeba, Babra Sharif, Rukhsana, Bahar and Neelo. He acted in a total of 124 films (2 films were released after his death) of which 38 were black and white and 86 were in colour. Besides this he also appeared in 6 films as a guest star including his ever first and shortest appearance on silver screen in 1959's "Saathi". He acted in 115 Urdu films, 8 Punjabi films and 1 Pushto film, and earned 32 prestigious film awards including ones for best producer and for best actor. Film Art productions. Waheed Murad produced eleven films under his father's established 'Film Art'. He was the youngest film producer in the industry at that time. As producer, Waheed Murad was a successful producer. Most of his produced films were either Golden Jubilee or Silver Jubilee. During 1960s and early 1970s, he produced films like "Insaan badalta hai" (1961) (his first film as producer), "Armaan" (1966), "Ehsaan" (1967), "Naseeb apna apna" (1970) and "Mastana mahi" (Punjabi film of 1971). However, after "Mastana Mahi" he produced no film except "Hero" which was produced in 1980s and was released after his death. As director, he had directed as well as produced "Ishaara" (1969) with co-star Deeba. But the film failed to achieve the viewers' expectances. Popularity. Waheed Murad is considered as one of the pioneering Rock n' Roll stars of Pakistan. Due to his romantic and subtle style of acting, he became famously known as the 'Chocolate Hero' and 'Lady Killer'. His hair cut, dressing style and even his conversation style were very popular among the youth. One can say that he was becoming the cultural icon of the Pakistani Film Industry. Once he went to Saddar area of Karachi in his white car. Realizing that it was his car, a group of 30 college girls covered the vehicle with lipstick kisses. He enlivened the silver screen with his extraordinary talent in acting and picturisation esp. in romantic songs. Some of the songs that still turn many nostalgic are "Tumhain kaisay bata doon", "Kuch log rooth kar bhi", "Dil tumko dey diya", "Koko korina", "Jhoom aye dil wo dera jaan-e-bahar aye ga", "Beetay huway khuch din aisay hain tanhai jinhain duhrati hey", "Mujhe tum nazar say gira to rahay ho", "Yun kho gaiy teray pyar mein hum", "Socha tha piyar na karan gain", "Khamosh hein nazaray" and "Aye abre karam aaj itna baras". Voices. Waheed during his acting career, was mostly voiced by Ahmed Rushdi. He himself acknowledged that songs in Rushdi's voice made his work easier and that he was more comfortable in acting on his songs. Rushdi sang more than 200 duet and solo songs for him and played a significant role in his success. Other playback singers who provided voice for him were Mehdi Hassan, Masood Rana, Saleem Raza, Akhlaq Ahmed, Mujeeb Aalam, Asad Amanat Ali Khan, Bashir Ahmad, Ustad Amanat Ali Khan and A Nayyar. Personal life. Early life. Waheed Murad was born on 2 October 1938 in Sialkot. He was the only son of the famous Pakistani film distributor Mr. Nisar Murad and Mrs. Shireen Murad. Since childhood he was being given an exposure to famous actors who used to visit his father regularly and inspired him to pursue an acting career. In his childhood, he used to wear a guitar around his neck and was famous as a good dancer among his friends. In his school life he played parts in several plays, which made him more popular. His best friends were Iqbal Yousuf and Pervaiz Malik who joined the same profession Waheed joined and thus remained associated with him for the rest of his life. Waheed passed matriculation in 1954 from the Marie Colaco School, Karachi. Waheed's parents persuaded him to complete his education prior to embarking on a film career. He graduated in arts from S.M. Arts College, Karachi and then completed masters in English literature from the University of Karachi. A strong educational background placed Waheed Murad at an advantage compared to other film producers and actors of his time. Marriage. Waheed Murad had a sort of liking towards Salma, a daughter of Karachi based industrialist and a Memon Ibrahim Maker, when both were in grade nine in Karachi Grammar School. Their marriage took place on Thursday, 17 September 1964. The wedding ceremony was arranged at Nisar Murad's house at Tariq Road, Karachi. He addressed his wife as "Bibi" at home. They had two daughters (Aaliya and Sadia) and one son (Adil). Sadia died in infancy and both Waheed Murad and Salma became inconsolable. However, their two children, Aalia and Adil brought happiness and comfort to their lives. Days of struggle. By late 1970s, Waheed was being cast in supporting roles either with Nadeem or with Mohammad Ali, or being offered by 'B class' film directors. Most of the leading heroines like Zeba, Shabnam and Nisho were not allowed to play lead roles with Waheed by their husbands. The heart-throbing actor Waheed Murad could not take such an ignominious treatment meted out to him by industry, but kept silent and did not seek help from his friends. Pervaiz Malik, who was became an established director and producer by late seventies, wrote in a local newspaper: "Not even once during that time Waheed come to me seeking work in my films." Waheed was becoming depressed. His close friends revealed that he was becoming addicted to alcohol, oral tobacco and sleeping pills. Even his domestic life suffered and his wife Salma left for the United States. A combination of bad habits and stress caused ulceration in Waheed's stomach in 1981. He suffered from bleeding and had to undergo stomach removal to save his life. His many fans came to the hospital to donate blood to save the life of their favourite hero. Although, he recovered, he lost a significant amount of weight. Even then, Iqbal Akhtar and Iqbal Yousuf, who proved to be real friends in difficult times, cast Waheed Murad in their movies. Waheed appeared pathetic in "Dil ney phir yaad keya" and "Ghairao". Even his loyal admirers felt that it was all over for him. In 1983, Anwar Maqsood – a famous TV writer and anchor and a close friend, invited Waheed to his TV comedy show "Silver Jubilee". At only 90 pounds, Waheed appeared pencil-thin on the screen, but attempted to put up a brave front. However, the keen observers could see that Waheed would be unable to spellbind the public as he did in the past. Only during the singing of "Tumhe kaisey bata doun..." by Aalamgir in the "Silver Jubilee" show, Waheed's smiles reflected a shadow of his former self-probably in his mind he was still the young hero 20 years earlier. Babra Sharif, a top actress of the time, revealed that during filming of a scene of "Hero", Waheed lost his balance while walking briskly toward her and fell down. He took several minutes to catch his breath prior to standing up on his feet again. In July 1983, Waheed was driving his car too fast, one of his favourite hobbies, his car struck a big tree. Waheed had a narrow escape, but was left with a large scar on his face. A few days after the accident, Waheed asked his friend Pervaiz Malik for a role. Malik knowing that Waheed was not ready for an acting assignment said, "Veedu you get better and you will be the lead in my next film." With his still razor-sharp mind, he replied, "You give me the role and I will get better." He was going to Karachi to get the scar fixed in order to complete the last few scenes of "Hero" when he met the chief editor, Ilyas Rasheedi, of the film magazine 'Nigar' at the airport. Rasheedi wrote in his magazine: "By chance a famous film producer was also present in the waiting area and Waheed put him on the spot by asking if he had a role for him for Javed Sheikh's father in his movie. The producer had a difficult time dodging Waheed." During the flight Waheed was very bitter. He told Rasheedi that he was reduced to working in a Pushto film produced by Badar Muneer, who used to be his car driver and help him with his household work in the late sixties, and subsequently became a successful movie star. Last days and death. Waheed's son Aadil was in Karachi staying with his grand mother. A day before his face surgery, Waheed celebrated his birthday. He bought several gifts for Aadil and wished him a happy year. He returned late to spend the night at Anita Ayub's mother Mumtaz Ayub's home. When Waheed did not wake up until late, the door had to be forced open and Waheed was found lying on the floor, dead for several hours. A paan leaf with 'something' in it was found in his mouth. Nobody knows for sure if it was a heart attack or suicide. Waheed was buried near his father's grave in Gulberg Graveyard, Ali Zeb Road, Lahore. A few months before his death, Waheed Murad as well as other actors and singers had appeared on a show to pay Ahmed Rushdi a tribute; many of those same people appeared on the show six months later, reminiscing about Waheed. Legacy. The rise and fall of Waheed is quite similar to that of Elvis Presley and analogies have been drawn between these two icons. According to a film critic, Waheed Murad was like Elvis Presley who enjoyed early success, the status of being the most mesmerising personality of his country. He earned great fame and then faced a sudden fall and had an untimely death. Despite hardship later in Waheed's life and suffering such a tragic death, he is born again. His movies are repeatedly shown on film festivals, cinemas and TV and are well received. Ilyas Rashidi, the founder of Nigar Awards, wrote in his magazine: "Waheed Murad was a born hero." Rajesh Khanna, an Indian actor, said in his interview with Shama Delhi magazine: "After seeing a lot of movies of Waheed Murad, I admit he was a really great actor and I admire his matchless acting performance." Ghulam Mohiuddin, a Pakistani film actor, said: "Waheed Murad was not an individual but he was an era in his own right which ended when he was sidelined by those who took over the industry in the early 1980s, ... he was a great artiste, who recreated the image of a romantic hero. His acting was natural; he had a great deal of musical sense and was matchless when it came to picturising a song." Lehri, a Pakistani film comedian, said: "He was a great companion, an unforgettable friend and a humble man so rich in terms of money and fortunes." Sangeeta, a Pakistani film director and actress, said: "For me, it was a great time when I had been working with him." In the recent Hollywood film , actress Leilah Isaac’s character Sabeen remembers Waheed Murad. Frankie Muniz, reprising his role as Agent Cody Banks, discloses to his cosmopolitan band members that he is a secret agent. To this, a Nigerian boy claims to be Spider-Man while another girl calls herself Lara Croft. As the actors associate themselves with their favourite comic book characters, Sabeen says: "And I’m Waheed Murad." This entices all to ask "what?" to which she replies, "Famous Indian actor." "Waheed Murad was a superb actor and probably one of the best who ever graced Lollywood. His failure in movies was not owing to lack of talent. In fact, he was the most stylish and original actor in Pakistan. He improved the image of industry by shining through their mediocre scripts; they repaid him by contributing to his downfall. Bad luck, his own strong personality and rendezvous with several actresses also ruined him. He, however, still lives on in the hearts of millions of fans. As his daughter Aaliya said, "If Dad knew that he had such a following, he would not have died." Awards. "For a detailed list of awards, see List of awards and nominations received by Waheed Murad" Filmography. "For a detailed filmography, see Waheed Murad filmography". Discography. "For a list of his songs, see List of Waheed Murad songs".
136011	A Marine Story is a 2010 drama film written and directed by Ned Farr about the United States military's "Don't ask, don't tell" policy on gay, lesbian and bisexual people serving in the armed forces. Production. "A Marine Story" was filmed in Los Angeles, beginning May 30, 2009. Ned Farr, and his real-life wife Dreya Weber, first developed the story as original programming for the here! network; however the budget was cancelled for economic reasons, and the two continued with the project independently. The film premiered at the Frameline Film Festival on June 19, 2010. Plot. Major Alexandra Everett, a decorated Marine officer (Dreya Weber) unexpectedly returns home from the Iraq war and is quickly recruited to help Saffron (Paris P. Pickard), a troubled teen, prepare for boot camp. However, when the true reasons for the Alexandra's return become known, it threatens the future for both of them. Recognition. Critical response. Chuck Wilson and Ernest Hardy of "LA Weekly" praised the film, writing "or their first film since winning the 2006 Outfest Audience Award for The Gymnast, writer-director Ned Farr and his wife, actress Dreya Weber, have made a huge artistic leap forward", and he admired "the fascinating, subtle beauty of Weber's portrayal of a woman who's been holding herself within for so long that she can barely breathe." David Wiegand of "San Francisco Chronicle" wrote of the military policy of 'Don't ask, don't tell' being predominant at the Frameline festival in 2010, with ""Marine Story" being one of the winners, regardless of what happens with the official U.S. policy toward gays in the military." He shared that "his film does not go where you might think it will go because it's so credibly written, acted and directed." Dennis Harvey of "Variety" wrote "Despite the rather bleak setting and content, "A Marine Story" has tough-love humor and affection for its characters, who become very likable as things proceed. A violent blast of climactic meth-lab drama works well, as does a poignant, reserved coda. Through it all, Weber (the helmer's spouse and star of his prior feature, "The Gymnast") is first-rate, and other cast members are assured; ditto the modest but expert assembly." Gary M. Kramer of "Philadelphia Gay News" wrote "One surefire highlight at QFest this year is lesbian centerpiece selection "A Marine Story," written and directed by Ned Farr and starring Dreya Weber. (The pair collaborated on "The Gymnast" a few years back.) This excellent character study has Alexandra (Weber) returning home after an honorable discharge from the Marines. Caught in the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” crossfire, Alexandra is now re-evaluating her life. Her efforts, which include drinking too much and reflecting on her expulsion, also involve exploring a new relationship and training Saffron (Paris Pickard), a troubled girl, for the military. "A Marine Story" is consistently smart and engrossing, and Weber is again outstanding in the title role." Sophia Hoffman of "Velvet Park Media" wrote "There have always been films about soldiers returning from war. Prodigal sons returning to their hometowns as patriotic heroes, usually with darkness inside them, scars from their time in combat lurking beneath the surface. It is rare to encounter a film about female soldier returning from war and rarer still that she is returning not only from Iraq but also from an on-going battle with an archaic and close-minded policy. "A Marine’s Story" highlights not only the difficulties of a female soldier returning from war but that of a gay soldier, who despite her commitment to and love for her country, is discharged from service because of her sexual orientation."
1060185	"Big Momma's House" is a 2000 American crime comedy film directed by Raja Gosnell, written by Darryl Quarles and Don Rhymer, and starring Martin Lawrence as FBI agent Malcolm Turner. The majority of the film took place in Cartersville, Georgia, but the film was shot on location in California. The prime shooting spots were Los Angeles and Orange County. The film is also notable for being one of very few titles to be released on the EVD video format. Plot. The film begins in an illegal underground dog-fighting arena in Korea, where an FBI agent named John Maxwell (Paul Giamatti) has been identified. John is ordered to be killed by a Korean boss, but is eventually rescued by his undercover partner and master of disguise, Malcolm Turner (Martin Lawrence). Suddenly, a group of FBI agents storm around the arena. Meanwhile, a criminal named Lester Vesco (Terrence Howard), who was originally serving a life sentence in prison for murder and armed robbery, escapes from his cell by killing the doctor and stealing his car. The FBI assigns Malcolm and John to capture Lester by sending them to small-town Cartersville, Georgia to stake out the house of a fat, elderly African American woman named Hattie Mae Pierce (Ella Mitchell; whom her friends call "Big Momma"), the estranged Southern grandmother of Lester's ex-girlfriend, Sherry Pierce (Nia Long), who supposedly aided Lester in his original bank robbery by giving him the key to the vault. After Big Momma unexpectedly leaves town to help her ill friend within a couple of weeks, Malcolm and John sneak into her house to plant security cameras and tap the phones. Sherry later calls Big Momma's house and Malcolm disguise his voice as Big Momma in order to lure Sherry and possibly obtain a confession. The plan works, in which Malcolm and John work together on a Big Momma disguise costume before Sherry's arrival the next day. Sherry arrives at Big Momma's house with her 10-year-old son, Trent (Jascha Washington), the next day, but Malcolm's inexperience with cooking and strange behavior prompt Sherry to believe that Big Momma might have gone senile. Malcolm also has to deal with Big Momma's lecherous boyfriend, Ben Rawley (Carl Wright), act as midwife for Ritha (Tichina Arnold), who has gone into labor, and attend self-defense classes under Ritha's older brother and dim-witted security guard, Nolan (Anthony Anderson), whom Malcolm handily defeats and humiliates in front of all the other old women. After Malcolm almost damages the suit during the night, he attempt to sneak back to the safe house where he and John are staying to capture Lester, but Sherry captures him on the porch, and Malcolm poses as a "handyman" after just barely hiding the suit in a bush. Malcolm and John repair the suit, and when Malcolm leaves town with Sherry, John searches the safe house for any trace of the money Lester had stolen from the bank, but to no avail. Malcolm also bonds with Trent when he defends him against the two older guys who bullied Trent and kicked him off the court so they could play. Malcolm and Trent eventually beat the boys at basketball, amazing Nolan and Trent. Malcolm also begins to bond with Sherry and Trent by accompanying them on a fishing trip. After Malcolm return to the safe house with John that evening, Nolan bursts in and attempt to arrest Malcolm and John for dismembering Big Momma. Malcolm and John identify themselves and reluctantly recruit Nolan to help them out, promising Nolan that Malcolm and John will recommend him for a place in the FBI if he succeeds.
1165414	Dragnet is a radio, television and motion picture series, enacting the cases of a dedicated Los Angeles police detective, Sergeant Joe Friday, and his partners. The show takes its name from the police term "dragnet", meaning a system of coordinated measures for apprehending criminals or suspects. Introduction. "Dragnet" is perhaps the most famous and influential police procedural drama in media history. The series gave audience members a feel for the boredom and drudgery, as well as the danger and heroism, of police work. "Dragnet" earned praise for improving the public opinion of police officers. Actor and producer Jack Webb's aims in "Dragnet" were for realism and unpretentious acting. He achieved both goals, and "Dragnet" remains a key influence on subsequent police dramas in many media.
1099994	William "Vilim" Feller (July 7, 1906 – January 14, 1970), born Vilibald Srećko Feller, was a Croatian-American mathematician specializing in probability theory. Early life and education. Feller was born in Zagreb to Ida Oemichen-Perc, a Croatian-Austrian Catholic, and Eugen Viktor Feller, who was born to a Polish Jew named David Feller and an Austrian named Elsa Holzer. Eugen was a famous chemist and created "Elsa fluid" named after his mother. According to Gian-Carlo Rota, Feller's father's surname was a "Slavic tongue twister", which William changed at the age of twenty—but as can be seen, this claim was false. His christened name, Vilibald, was chosen by his Catholic mother for the saint day of his birthday. In his school documentation, the small municipality of Donja Stubica in Zagorje is mentioned. This is the birthplace of his father, who was an apothecary and owner of a company producing hygienic utensils and cosmetics. William finished his elementary and middle education in Zagreb, as well as two years of his math study. From 1925, he continued his study in Göttingen, Germany where he gained the doctoral degree in 1926 under the supervision of Richard Courant, with his work "Über algebraisch rektifizierbare transzendente Kurven". Work. Feller held a docent position at the University of Kiel beginning in 1928. Because he refused to sign a Nazi oath, he fled the Nazis and went to Copenhagen, Denmark in 1933. He also lectured in Sweden (Stockholm and Lund). As a refugee in Sweden, Feller reported being troubled by increasing fascism at the universities. He reported that the mathematician Torsten Carleman would offer his opinion that Jews and foreigners should be executed. Finally, in 1939 he arrived in the U.S. where he became a citizen in 1944 and was on the faculty at Brown and Cornell. In 1950 he became a professor at Princeton University. The works of Feller are contained in 104 papers and two books on a variety of topics such as mathematical analysis, theory of measurement, functional analysis, geometry, and differential equations in addition to his work in mathematical statistics and probability. Feller was one of the greatest probabilists of the twentieth century, who is remembered for his championing of probability theory as a branch of mathematical analysis in Sweden and the United States. In the middle of the 20th century, probability theory was popular in France and Russia, while mathematical statistics was more popular in the United Kingdom and the United States, according to the Swedish statistician, Harald Cramér. His two-volume textbook on probability theory and its applications was called "the most successful treatise on probability ever written" by Gian-Carlo Rota. By stimulating his colleagues and students in Sweden and then in the United States, Feller helped establish research groups studying the analytic theory of probability. In his research, Feller contributed to the study of the relationship between Markov chains and differential equations, where his theory of generators of one-parameter semigroups of stochastic processes gave rise to the theory of "Feller operators". Results. Numerous topics relating to probability are named after him, including Feller processes, Feller's explosion test, Feller–Brown movement, and the Lindeberg–Feller theorem. Feller made fundamental contributions to renewal theory, Tauberian theorems, random walks, diffusion processes, and the law of the iterated logarithm. Feller was among those early editors who launched the journal "Mathematical Reviews".
1165755	Verna Felton (July 20, 1890 – December 14, 1966) was an American character actress who was best known for providing many female voices in numerous Walt Disney Pictures animated films, as well as voicing Fred Flintstone's mother-in-law Pearl Slaghoople for Hanna-Barbera. Her film appearances during the 1940s included "If I Had My Way" (1940), "Girls of the Big House" (1945) and "The Fuller Brush Man" (1948).
1165015	Roy Thinnes (born April 6, 1938) is an American television and film actor best known for his portrayal of lonely hero David Vincent in the ABC 1967-68 television series "The Invaders". He also played Alfred Wentworth in the pilot episode of "Law & Order". He starred in the 1969 British science fiction film, "Journey to the Far Side of the Sun" (also known as "Doppelgänger"). Early life and career. Thinnes was born in Chicago, Illinois, and was educated at Los Angeles City College. His first primetime role was as Ben Quick in the short-lived 1965-66 television series "The Long Hot Summer", which ran on ABC. During its run he received around 1,500 letters a week from lovelorn women and appeared on the cover of "TV Guide" (April 9–15, 1966 issue) for his one and only time to date. The TV series "The Invaders" soon followed, with Thinnes playing David Vincent, who witnesses the arrival of
605635	The Cry Baby Killer is a 1958 cult film produced by Roger Corman. It was the feature film debut of Jack Nicholson. Until recently, the film was out of print and hard to find. In 2006, it was issued on DVD for the first time by Buena Vista Home Entertainment as part of their Roger Corman Classics series. Corman later claimed the film was the first movie he produced which did not make money, although he said it earned its costs back off television rights. He also says he was out of the country during pre production and much of the script was changed by the producer. Corman returned to Hollywood two days before filming began and tried to put the things back in the film but only managed to get some of them in.
900275	Cannibal Ferox, also known as Make Them Die Slowly, is a 1981 Italian exploitation film written and directed by Umberto Lenzi. Upon its release, the film's US distributor claimed it was "the most violent film ever made". "Cannibal Ferox" was also claimed to be "banned in 31 countries", some of which lifted their bans only recently. Plot. The film begins in New York City, with a man buying heroin from his dealer, Mike. The man finds two mobsters who are also looking for Mike because he owes them $100,000. They shoot him and leave him for dead. Meanwhile, in Paraguay, two siblings, Rudy and Gloria, along with their friend Pat, prepare for a journey into the rain forest. They want to ensure that Gloria's theory was right; cannibalism is a myth. The trio encounter Mike and his partner Joe. Joe is badly wounded; Mike explains the two were attacked by cannibals. During the night, Gloria goes missing and Rudy finds a native village while looking for her. Due to Joe's injuries, the troupe decides to stay in the nearly deserted native village. Mike seduces the naive Pat. In a cocaine-fueled rage, he encourages Pat to kill a native girl, but she is unable to do it, so Mike kills the girl himself. In his dying moments, Joe reveals that he and Mike were responsible for the cannibals' aggression. The two came to the region to exploit the natives for emeralds and cocaine, taking advantage of their trust in white men. One day, while high on cocaine, Mike brutally tortured and killed their native guide in full view of his tribe. The badly charred body that the troupe thought to be the Portuguese guide (who never existed) is actually this native. Mike kidnapped a native girl to lead them out of the jungle, but the two were followed and attacked. In light of Mike's murder of the girl, the natives finally snap and begin to hunt the troupe. Joe dies of his wounds, and his body is found and cannibalized by the natives in full view of Rudy and Gloria, who are hiding from the natives. Mike and Pat had abandoned the rest of the troupe, but they are all rounded up by the natives eventually. They are forced into a cage (that Mike originally used to lock up natives) and forced to watch Mike have his penis cut off and eaten. The wound is then cauterized to ensure he does not bleed to death. When the natives take the troupe to another village, Rudy manages to escape, hiding in a pool of water from the natives. However, he is caught in a booby trap in the jungle and the bleeding wound of his attracts the attention of piranhas, who force him out of the pool screaming. The natives shoot him with a poisoned dart, and he dies almost instantly. Pat, Gloria, and Mike are taken to a new village where their suffering continues. The women are put in a hole in the ground as Mike is placed in a separate cage. The native man who Pat saved from Mike at the beginning appears, and lowers a rope into the hole so the women can escape. However, at this point Mike digs out of his cage, chases the man away, and cuts the rope, preventing the women from escaping. He then flees into the jungle. He is almost spotted by a plane being flown by a search party looking for the missing troupe (one of which is Mike's girlfriend from New York), but shouting in an attempt to be noticed by the plane causes the natives to finally locate him. They drag him to a fallen tree and cut off his right hand with a machete before taking him back to the village. When the search party lands, they are told by the natives that the explorers were in a canoe, which capsized. They were then eaten by crocodiles. Pat is bound, stripped, and has hooks put through her breasts. She slowly bleeds to death as Gloria is forced to watch. Mike's head is placed in a crude apparatus, and the top of his head is cut off; the natives then proceed to eat his brains. Gloria is left for the night; during this time the same sympathetic native who Mike chased off earlier returns and frees her. He guides her through the jungle, but is eventually killed by one of his own people's booby traps. A desperate Gloria eventually meets up with a pair of trappers, who take her to safety. Instead of telling the true story, she backs up the natives' lie about the others being eaten by crocodiles. The film ends with a shocked and jaded Gloria part of society once again. She has published a book called "Cannibalism: End of a Myth" which completely covers up the story of what happened. This was most likely done because of her realization that the natives were only vicious because of the extensive cruelty they had endured under the white man they once revered. Release. "Cannibal Ferox" was released uncut on video in the United Kingdom circa 1982 by Replay, but the film's transgressive imagery and scenes of real animal torture and slaughter resulted in the film promptly being banned under the Obscene Publications Act, finding itself languishing for years on the video nasties list. The most complete version currently available on DVD in the UK is missing around six minutes of footage (chiefly of graphic violence and animal cruelty), which was pre-cut before being given to the BBFC for a rating. In the United States, "Cannibal Ferox" (aka "Make them Die Slowly") "original, uncensored director's cut" was released by Grindhouse Releasing in the late 1990s. Grindhouse Releasing is still the sole official licensed distributor of the film in North America. Critical reception. AllMovie called the film "revolting", but "nauseatingly effective", though noting that it is "primarily a showcase for the gory special-effects artistry of Gianetto de Rossi".
768483	Thomas Luke Macfarlane (born January 19, 1980), better known as Luke Macfarlane, is a Canadian actor and musician. Biography. Early life. Macfarlane was born in London, Ontario. His father, Thomas (deceased), was the Director of Student Health Services at the University of Western Ontario, and his mother, Penny, is a mental health nurse at a London hospital. Macfarlane attended London Central Secondary School with twin sister Ruth and older sister Rebecca. Acting career. Macfarlane went to school in Lester B. Pearson School for the Arts, then later studied drama at Juilliard in New York City, where he starred in the productions of "Romeo & Juliet", "Richard III", "The School of Night", "Blue Window", "The Grapes of Wrath", and "As You Like It" before graduating from the drama division in 2003. Macfarlane was one of the four leads in "Juvenilia" at the Playwrights Horizons Theater from November 14–December 21, 2003. He played the lead role in the American premiere of the play "Where Do We Live", staged at the Vineyard Theatre in May 2004. The production was cited by the 2005 GLAAD Media Awards for Outstanding New York Theatre: Broadway and Off-Broadway. He also appeared with Jill Clayburgh and Hamish Linklater in the off-Broadway production of "The Busy World is Hushed", again at Playwrights Horizons, in Summer 2006. He reprised his role of Thomas for the L.A. Premiere at the Skirball Cultural Center from February 7–11 of 2007. On television, Macfarlane is perhaps best known for his role as Scotty Wandell on ABC's "Brothers & Sisters", husband to Kevin Walker (played by Matthew Rhys), one of the "brothers" of the show. Macfarlane's previous roles include PV2 Frank "Dim" Dumphy on the 2005 FX series "Over There". He played opposite Cynthia Nixon in Robert Altman's miniseries "Tanner on Tanner" on the Sundance Channel. Macfarlane was the last cast member to be added to the Fox pilot "Supreme Courtships", playing the role of conservative Allen Moore, described as a trust-fund baby trying to prove he is more than just a legacy in the court. The pilot was not picked up by Fox for the 2007–08 season. In his latest travail for TV, Macfarlane was cast as the leading role in the upcoming two-part miniseries titled "Iron Road", which was filmed in China for five weeks and British Columbia for two weeks, from late April to mid June 2007. It played in a few theatres in Canada, and then as a two-part miniseries on the CBC. Macfarlane was part of the one-night celebrity performed staging of Howard Ashman's unproduced musical "Dreamstuff". The musical was re-imagined by Howard's partners Marsha Malamet and Dennis Green and performed one night only at Los Angeles' Hayworth Theatre as part of the Bruno Kirby celebrity reading series, directed by Ugly Betty's Michael Urie. Luke starred in the show alongside Eden Espinosa, Vicki Lewis, Fred Willard and David Blue. He currently plays the lead role of Jason Howell in the Canadian sitcom "Satisfaction". Music career. Macfarlane was the lead singer and a songwriter for the band Fellow Nameless, which began in his 8th grade along with some of his classmates at Lester B. Pearson School for the Arts under the name of Slipnaught, a name they randomly chose from a dictionary because they did not have a name for the band when it came time to perform on stage. Fellow Nameless came from Slipnaught mainly because the band members hated the original name, and so, Fellow Nameless was born at London Central Secondary School. Fellow Nameless has produced one underground album, which was a half-studio, half-live CD album, and they recorded an additional ten songs that never got put out including three songs that were recorded for a development deal with Maverick Records. They played a showcase for Danny Strick A&R of Maverick Records and in the end got passed over. The once thought of as defunct London, Ontario, based band, Fellow Nameless, later had two incarnations without Macfarlane as lead singer. The first incarnation came in the second quarter of 2004 with the creation of Van A Primer and a new singer, Matthew Pearn. Their current incarnation, as of March, 2006, has three of the remaining band members under the new band name of Cancel Winter. Personal life. Macfarlane came out as gay during an interview with "The Globe and Mail" on April 15, 2008.
1502420	Hermione Ferdinanda Gingold (pronounced with a hard "G", not as "Jingold"; 9 December 1897 – 24 May 1987) was an English actress known for her sharp-tongued, eccentric persona, an image enhanced by her sharp nose and chin, as well as her deepening voice, a result of vocal nodes which her mother reportedly encouraged her not to remove. She starred on stage, on radio, in films, on television and in recordings. She also appeared on the NBC interview programme "Here's Hollywood". Early life. Born in London, Gingold was the daughter of a high-standing Vienna-born Jewish financier James Gingold and Kate Walter or Walters - she married as Walter - an English-born housewife. Her paternal grandparents were the Turkish-born British subject, Moritz "Maurice" Gingold, a London stockbroker, and his Austrian-born wife, Hermine, after whom Hermione Gingold was named. On her father's side, she was descended from the celebrated Solomon Sulzer, a famous synagogue cantor and Jewish liturgical composer in Vienna. Her mother was from a "well-to-do Jewish family". Gingold was a childhood friend of Noël Coward until her mother warned her away from him. Career. Gingold first appeared on stage in 1908 in "Pinkie and the Fairies" by W. Graham Robertson with Ellen Terry, Mrs. Patrick Campbell, Frederick Volpe, Marie Lohr and Viola Tree. She performed in Shakespearean dramas such as "The Merchant of Venice" (Old Vic 1914) and "Troilus and Cressida" and in 1911 worked with Charles Hawtrey as an understudy in "Where the Rainbow Ends" in which a young Noël Coward appeared. In the 1930s, her quirky, ribald comedic sense became well known through musical revues. She married British publisher Michael Joseph in 1918, with whom she had two sons, Stephen and Leslie (1925). Leslie became an actor and photographer using the stagename Roy Dean. After the couple's divorce in 1926, she married writer and lyricist Eric Maschwitz, whom she divorced in 1945. Gingold was also known for her unruly hair. It was said she styled it by sticking her head out the window and letting the wind sculpt it. Gingold was introduced to U.S. servicemen during World War II through the London revue "Sweet and Low". After she moved to the United States in 1951, her first engagement was at the Brattle Theatre in Cambridge, Massachusetts in "It's About Time," a revue which incorporated some of her London material. In the early 1950s she had a regular spot on a weekly radio show Starlight Hour, in which she played what she later called the first of the Munsters Lady Drusilla Doom, with Alfred Marks as her husband Edmund. In December 1953, she opened in "John Murray Anderson's Almanac" which made her an instant Broadway success and for which she won the Donaldson Award in 1954. She won a Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in the 1958 film "Gigi" in which she played Madame Alvarez, Gigi's loving grandmother. She sang "I Remember it Well" with Maurice Chevalier. In Chevalier's biography by Michael Freedland she said "It was my first American film and I was very nervous." But Chevalier put her at ease. "I had to sing and I hadn't got a great voice, but with him I felt the greatest prima donna in the world." Gingold soon followed this with another hit film "Bell, Book and Candle" (also 1958). In October 1963, she opened in Arthur Kopit's "Oh Dad, Poor Dad, Mamma's Hung You in the Closet and I'm Feelin' So Sad", playing a monstrously possessive mother who is driving her son crazy. She also played this role in London (the role was played in the 1967 film by Rosalind Russell). Gingold played Mayor Shinn's (Paul Ford) snooty wife Eulalie Mackechnie Shinn in "The Music Man" (1962) (in which her son Roy Dean (Leslie Joseph) also had a small role), starring Robert Preston and Shirley Jones, and was part of the original 1973 Broadway cast of "A Little Night Music" in the role of the elderly Madame Armfeldt, a former courtesan, this time Swedish, which she reprised in London (1975) and in the unsuccessful film version of the musical (1977). In 1977, with conductor Karl Böhm, she won a Grammy Award for Best Album for Children for "Prokofiev: Peter and the Wolf and Saint-Saëns: Carnival of the Animals". She was a regular guest on television talk shows, especially Jack Paar's,and Merv Griffin's Show where audiences loved her stories. She revealed that she did not have an unlisted telephone number in the Manhattan Directory, in order to receive calls from serious fans and admirers. Towards the end of her life, New York area TV audiences saw her in a frequently aired ad for Coco Goya, a coconut drink made by Goya Foods. In the commercial, she was well dressed, reclining on a chaise longue and shaking two cans of the product like maracas. Death. She died from heart problems and pneumonia on 24 May 1987 at the age of 89.
1033754	Suzanna Hamilton (born 1960 in London) is an English actress. She is most famous for her performance as Julia in the modern film adaptation of George Orwell's classic novel, "Nineteen Eighty-Four". Career. Early career. Suzanna Hamilton was a protégée of filmmaker, Claude Whatham, who discovered her in a children's experimental theatre in North London in the early 1970s. She appeared in her first feature, "Swallows and Amazons", which was directed by Whatham and based on the popular children's book of the same name by Arthur Ransome. "Swallows and Amazons" was filmed in 1973 and released to the public the following year. Billed as Zanna Hamilton, the young actress was cast in the role of Susan Walker, one of four young siblings collectively known as "the Swallows", who go on a camping and sailing holiday in the Lake District during the summer of 1929. Whatham later directed the teenage Suzanna Hamilton as Princess Alexandra in the BBC miniseries, "Disraeli" (1978), which was later broadcast to North American audiences as a featured program on "Masterpiece Theatre" in 1980. It was during this time in the mid-1970s that Suzanna Hamilton received her acting training at the Anna Scher Theatre School in Islington and at the famous Central School of Speech and Drama in Swiss Cottage, Camden. For her first appearance in a big-budget film, Hamilton played Izz Huett, the lovesick dairymaid, in Roman Polanski's 1979 film "Tess" (based on Thomas Hardy's "Tess of the d'Urbervilles"), which starred Nastassja Kinski in the title role. She also appeared as one of the boarding school girls who organise a strike against the Ministry of Education in "The Wildcats of St. Trinian's" (1980). Her next significant role was in Richard Loncraine's 1982 film, "Brimstone & Treacle", based on Dennis Potter's play of the same name. In this film, Hamilton starred as Patricia Bates, the traumatised, catatonic daughter of a devoutly religious, middle aged Home Counties couple (Denholm Elliott and Joan Plowright) whose lives are changed by a demonic drifter and con man who calls himself Martin Taylor, played by Sting. The following year, Suzanna Hamilton was featured in BBC-TV's paranormal mystery, "A Pattern of Roses", with a young Helena Bonham Carter. "Nineteen Eighty-Four". Hamilton was cast as Julia opposite John Hurt as Winston Smith in Michael Radford's film of George Orwell's dystopian novel. She had been chosen for the role in 1983 after being referred by the casting agency of the Anna Scher Theatre School. She was one of the school's earliest alumni, and the theatre is acknowledged in the film's closing credits. Her performance garnered critical praise, particularly from Vincent Canby in "The New York Times". However, her work was largely overshadowed by the death of fellow cast member Richard Burton, who delivered his final screen performance in the role of O'Brien, as well as the much-publicised post-release controversy over the film's musical score. Television and film appearances. In 1985, Hamilton starred in British playwright David Hare's film "Wetherby", opposite Vanessa Redgrave. In this film, Hamilton's character, Karen Creasy, is the sullen former friend of a young man who committed suicide. Her next role was as the equestrienne Felicity in Sydney Pollack's Academy Award-winning "Out of Africa", based on the memoirs of the famed Danish writer Isak Dinesen, and starring Meryl Streep, Robert Redford and Klaus Maria Brandauer. In the 1986 German film, "Devil's Paradise", which was shot in Thailand and loosely based on Joseph Conrad's 1915 novel "Victory", Hamilton was cast as a saxophonist in an all-woman band touring seedy hotels and nightclubs in Southeast Asia. Her character, Julie, escapes a life of sexual slavery by fleeing with an eccentric German adventurer, played by Jürgen Prochnow, and the two of them take refuge on an island near Indonesia, which is already populated by a savage native warrior tribe. In 1988 she starred opposite the British classical and horror actor Jon Finch in another low-budget German film, a short called "The Voice", about six people who are held captive overnight on a floating discothèque. By the end of the decade, the majority of her screen roles were in obscure European films made in exotic locations as well as numerous British television dramas. In 1986, Hamilton starred in the well-received television drama "Johnny Bull", a film developed at the National Playwrights' Conference of the Eugene O'Neill Theatre Center and filmed in Tennessee. In this film, a period piece set in the mid-1940s just after VE Day, she was cast as Iris Kovacs, a lighthearted Cockney bride who travels to rural Pennsylvania to live with her new American G.I. husband (Peter MacNicol) and his working class Hungarian-immigrant coal-mining family; Colleen Dewhurst and Kathy Bates starred in supporting roles. That same year, Hamilton appeared as Emily Barkstone in "Hold the Dream", the second of the three BBC miniseries based on Barbara Taylor Bradford's popular "Emma Harte" novels about the fortunes of a retail empire and the machinations of the business élite across three generations. In 1987, she played the spirited but careless Anglo-French SOE spy, Matty Firman, in "Wish Me Luck" — an LWT miniseries, this one set in occupied France during World War II. She starred as the inscrutable femme fatale Anna Raven in the 1989 BBC miniseries of "Never Come Back", a noirish conspiracy thriller based on the celebrated 1941 novel by John Mair, which takes place on the eve of the London Blitz during the so-called "Phoney War" of 1939–40. Hamilton also acted in the 1990 British television film, "Small Zones", as a strong-willed Russian poetess whose subversive writings have led to her indefinite imprisonment in a Soviet holding cell. In 1991, she appeared as Amelia, one of the five daughters placed under house arrest by their domineering mother, in the BBC adaptation of Spanish poet Federico García Lorca's play "The House of Bernarda Alba"; Glenda Jackson starred in the title role. She also had a supporting role in a 1992 TV film of Barbara Cartland's Regency-period bodice-ripper, "Duel of Hearts". Her next commercial film role was in 1992's low-budget Gothic horror romance, "Tale of a Vampire", written and directed by a 27-year-old Anglo-Japanese film student, Shimako Sato. Hamilton made a dual appearance: first as Anne, a librarian in present-day London grieving the untimely death of her boyfriend; then as Anne's 19th century "doppelgänger", Virginia Clemm, the real-life wife of Edgar Allan Poe—who, in the film, also happens to be the long-lost mistress of a lonely, centuries-old vampire played by Julian Sands. In 1993, she had a recurring role as Dr. Karen Goodliffe on the British TV hospital drama series, "Casualty". In 1995, she appeared as John Hannah's love interest, Joanna Sparks, on the BBC-TV crime series, "McCallum". Her last feature film of note was 1997's "The Island on Bird Street", a Danish period drama made in the Dogme 95 style, about an 11-year-old Jewish boy who hides from the Nazis in occupied Poland during World War II before he is reunited with his father. In this film, Hamilton had a brief cameo as the mother of a girl whom the boy befriends. Most recently, she appeared as Vivienne in the 2005 short film, "Benjamin's Struggle", described as "a compelling story set in 1930s Nazi Germany, about a nine-year-old Jewish boy who attempts to steal the original manuscript of Adolf Hitler's "Mein Kampf", believing that it will topple the Third Reich and end the suffering of his family". In 2006, she appeared as Helen Gillespie in the ITV series, "Jane Hall". In 2007, she appeared as Dr. Hillary Slayton in the children's television series, "Dinosapien", which is filmed on location in southern Alberta, Canada. Theatre. Suzanna Hamilton is also an accomplished theatre and radio actress. She made her first West End appearance on the London stage in 1982 as part of the original cast production of Tom Stoppard's play, "The Real Thing". In 1993, she played the lead as a Welsh maid who gets in over her head in the Bush Theatre's production of Lucinda Coxon's "Waiting at the Water's Edge"; in 2002, she was cast as Creusa in a Gate Theatre production of Euripides' "Ion"; and in early 2005, she appeared as Dora, a woman incarcerated in a 1920s asylum in the Salisbury Playhouse's production of Charlotte Jones' chamber drama, "Airswimming". She also lent her voice to a 1991 audiobook recording of Julian Barnes' novel about a love triangle called "Talking It Over", playing the role of Gillian. Personal life. Suzanna Hamilton has since retired from acting in major films to bring up her son, Lowell, who was born 5 October 1993. However, she is still featured in television roles and continues to do theatre and voice work.
1041494	The Three Worlds of Gulliver is a 1960 Columbia Pictures fantasy film loosely based upon the 18th-century Irish novel "Gulliver's Travels" by Jonathan Swift. The film stars Kerwin Mathews as the titular character, June Thorburn as his fiancée Elizabeth, and child actor Sherry Alberoni as Glumdalclitch. Filmed in England and Spain, "Gulliver" was directed by Jack Sher and featured stop-motion animation and special visual effects by Ray Harryhausen. Cast includes Martin Benson as Flimnap, Lee Patterson as Reldresal, Jo Morrow as Gwendolyn, Marian Spencer as the Empress of Lilliput, Peter Bull as Lord Bermogg, and Alec Mango as the Minister of Lilliput. The film has been broadcast on American television and is available in both VHS and DVD formats. Plot and cast. The film begins in Wapping in 1699. Dr Lemuel Gulliver (Kerwin Mathews) is an impoverished surgeon who seeks riches and adventure as a ship's doctor on a voyage around the world. His fiancée Elizabeth (June Thorburn) strongly wishes him to stay ashore and settle down in a ramshackle cottage. The two quarrel with Gulliver further saddened when a soldier patient is off to another war with Spain, having only just returned from one with France. As Gulliver embarks on a vessel, he is soon surprised to discover Elizabeth has stowed away to be near him. A storm arises; Gulliver is swept overboard and washed to the shores of Lilliput, a land of tiny human beings who see Gulliver as a massive giant. The Lilliputians are apprehensive regarding Gulliver, namely by tying him down to the beach, but he eases their fears by performing acts of kindness. An old quarrel between Lilliput and neighboring Blefuscu is revived and Gulliver lends a hand in the proceedings by towing Blefuscu's war ships far out to sea. The Emperor of Lilliput (Basil Sydney) then views Gulliver as a potential threat to his power after he criticises the reasons for the war and arranges his execution. Gulliver escapes in a boat he has built. He finds his way to the isle of Brobdingnag, a land of giants. A kind peasant girl named Glumdalclitch (Sherry Alberoni) finds him on the shore and carries him to the castle of King Brob (Grégoire Aslan), due to a law saying all tiny people must be brought to the King, who has a collection of 'tiny' animals. There, Gulliver is delighted to find Elizabeth, who was washed ashore after a shipwreck. The King installs the two in a dollhouse and lets Glumdalclitch look after them. The King marries Gulliver and Elizabeth. After the wedding Gulliver and Elizabeth go outside to celebrate but are attacked by a giant squirrel (one of Harryhausen's stop-motion creations) which drags Gulliver into its burrow. However, Glumdalclitch is alerted by the noise and saves Gulliver by pulling him up on her hair. When Gulliver beats the King at Chess and cures the Queen (Mary Ellis) of a stomach-ache, Prime Minister Makovan (Charles Lloyd Pack) accuses Gulliver of witchcraft. Gulliver's attempts at telling them of science is taken as further 'proof'. The King orders Gulliver's execution and pits his pet baby dwarf alligator against him whom Gulliver whacks, stabs and slays. The King orders him burned but Glumdalclitch saves Gulliver and Elizabeth from the pursuing Brobdingnagians by placing them in her sewing basket and tossing the basket into a brook that flows to the sea. Gulliver and Elizabeth wake on a beach with the basket of Glumdalclitch in smaller size behind them. A passer-by of their own size and shape indicates they are only a short distance from their home in England. Elizabeth asks if it had all been a dream with Gulliver, now happy to settle down with Elizabeth replies that the bad qualities of the pettiness of Lilliput and ignorance of Brobdingnag are inside everyone. Elizabeth asks about Glumdalclitch with Gulliver giving her a knowing look saying that she hasn't been born yet... Reception. In the "New York Times" of December 17, 1960, Eugene Archer praised the film's technical achievement in stop-motion animation and enthusiastically recommended it for children but noted, "...adults will find it all too mechanical to really capture the imagination, and may resent the unclear ending that seems certain to provoke some youthful queries. They should be grateful for a children's film that treats a classic without condescension or burlesque." Ray Harryhausen did the squirrel and alligator sequences in the film. Ironically the oldest Harryhausen model still existing that was made for a movie is the squirrel from "Gulliver", obtained from a taxidermist by Ray. The original armatured model of the alligator used in the film was mysteriously lost.
582778	Yeh Raaste Hain Pyaar Ke (, Urdu: یہ راستے ہیں پیار کے, ) is a 2001 Bollywood romantic drama film. It is a love triangle starring Madhuri Dixit, Ajay Devgan and Preity Zinta. Synopsis. Two con artistes and car thieves, Vicky (Ajay Devgan) and Sakshi (Preity Zinta), are faced with death when they accidentally kill Bhanwarlal's (Deep Dhillon) brother. Bhanwarlal and his other brother both swear to avenge the death of their brother and mistakenly kill Rohit Verma (also Ajay Devgan), who is a look-alike of Vicky. The mistaken identity causes Sakshi to think that her Vicky is dead and she is devastated. Meanwhile unknown to Sakshi and Bhanwarlal, Vicky is still alive and reaches Manali where he is constantly confused for Rohit. On discovering Rohit's wealth Vicky relaizes he has hit the jackpot and decides to play along. Soon Rohit's dad, Pratap Verma (Vikram Gokhale) arrives home to find Vicky in his bed. Vicky tries to trick Pratap Verma, but he already knows that Rohit is dead. He convinces Vicky to pose as Rohit for the sake of his daughter-in-law, Neha (Madhuri Dixit) who is in denial/shock to the fact that her husband died on the same day that they got married. He agrees to do the job in return for payment. However, half way through the job he decides to grab the money and returns to Sakshi. They are about to forget all about Rohit and start a life of their own, when Vicky discovers that he is responsible for Rohit's death. Because Bhanwarlal meant to kill him not Rohit. He realizes the debt he owes to Rohit and decides to return, leaving Sakshi once again. Meanwhile Sakshi's uncle and aunt try to get her married off to Bhanwarlal's youngest brother, so she runs away to Manali to be with Vicky. Vicky at this point can't tell Neha the truth and so tells Sakshi that he can't be with her. Soon with the arrival of Bhanwarlal and Sakshi's aunt and uncle the truth unravels. Finally, Neha realizes that her husband is actually dead and she accepts the reality. Vicky and Sakshi get back together. It is implied that Neha may find happiness again and start a new life with her childhood buddy Sagar (Sunny Deol, in a cameo) who loved her from the beginning.
584397	Virumbugiren is a 2002 Tamil romantic film directed by Susi Ganeshan. The film featured Prashanth and Sneha in the lead roles, while Nassar, Livingston and Sriman played supporting roles. Deva composed the film's music while K. V. Anand handled the film's cinematography. The film released after much delay across Tamil Nadu in December 2002 and won critical acclaim. Plot. Shivan (Prashanth) an aspiring designer's hopes crash when he lands up with the responsibility of looking after his mother and younger brothers with his father's sudden death. Since his father dies while in service, Shivan is forced to take up his father's job as a fire service man. He meets Thavamani (Sneha), a beautiful rustic while on a posting in a village and they fall in love. But the girl's father (Nasser) and the whole village are against the lovers. How the lovers' fight against all odds and win form the rest of this love story. Production. The project, "Virumbugiren", was launched at Hotel Chola Sheraton, Chennai on 19 January 2000 with Susi Ganeshan, an erstwhile assistant of Mani Ratnam being introduced as a director. It was announced that the film would have cinematography by K. V. Anand, music by Deva, lyrics by Vairamuthu, art by Thota Tharani editing by Suresh Urs and special effects by Venki; and it would be produced by Vandana Bhatt and Mary Francis under the banner of V.M. Creations. The event was compered by Uma Padmanabhan, while attendees included Kamal Haasan, Mani Ratnam and Prabhu Deva. Actor Vivek refused a role in the film citing that the script was so good that there was no need for a separate comedy track, while Prashanth underwent special training for his role as a fire fighter. Sneha applied for a role in the film after seeing and advertisement for the auditions in a newspaper. The story of the film was taken from one of Susi Ganeshan's novels titled "Vakkappatta Bhoomi". Despite its launch in early 2000, the film went through production troubles and released nearly two years after the launch. A host of Prashanth starrers which were launched after "Virumbugiren" such as "Star", "Chocolate" and "Majunu" were subsequently released earlier. Sneha, for whom "Virumbugiren" was the first film she signed, was reported to be amongst the reasons for the delay after her popularity created problems in her call schedules. The producer of the film had to approach Vijayakanth, the president of the actor's association (Nadigar Sangam) and Sarath Kumar, also an office bearer, to intervene and resolve the dispute. Similarly Susi Ganesan also completed and released another film, "Five Star", in between the production delays. Release. The film won positive reviews upon release, with The Hindu describing it as a "welcome change". Sify.com praised the film labelling that "Prashanth is top class", "Sneha steals some of the scenes with a larkish spontaneity and vivacity", while that director Susi Ganesan who has written the story and screenplay has done a neat job." A critic from Nowrunning.com wrote that "Prashanth excels in his potrayal and Sneha's performance in her first official film is commendable", adding that "as the tough father, Nasser has come up with a strong performance". The film went on to gain success before release in 2001, by winning four Tamil Nadu State Film Awards including Best Film and Best Director for Susi Ganesan. Sneha also won the Best Actress award for her work in the film alongside "Aanandham" and "Punnagai Desam", while Easwari Rao scooped the Best Supporting Actress award. In 2004, Susi Ganesan came together with Prashanth again for a project titled "Sakkarai", though the film was shelved after a single schedule. Positive commentary about the lead pair also prompted Prashanth to sign Sneha to feature in his 2005 film "Aayudham". Soundtrack. The soundtrack of the film was composed by Deva and lyrics were written by Vairamuthu.
589993	Teen Devian (English: "Three Ladies") is a 1965 Bollywood film directed by Amarjeet starring Dev Anand. Filmed in black and white as well as colour, the movie tells the story of a poet who falls in love with three different women. The music was composed by S. D. Burman.
1055077	Leon Rippy (born October 30, 1949) is an American actor. Life and career. Rippy was born in Rock Hill, South Carolina. He developed a love for theatre while in high school and college. His acting career developed through appearances in regional theatrical productions. Rippy founded and operated two theatre companies, and at one time was regarded as an accomplished ballet dancer. Rippy has appeared in more than seventy plays. His non-acting occupations have included working with a circus and as a foreman of a cattle ranch. Leon is married to Carol and they have two children, a daughter Stacie and a son Amos. Rippy has worked with Roland Emmerich on seven movies including: "Moon 44" (1990), "Eye of the Storm" (1991), "Universal Soldier" (1992), "Stargate" (1994), "The Thirteenth Floor" (1999), "The Patriot" (2000), "Eight Legged Freaks" (2002) and also had a role in the 2004 film "The Alamo". Television appearances include a guest role on "" ("The Neutral Zone"), "Quantum Leap", "Walker, Texas Ranger", "Leverage", "Six Feet Under" and as Tom Nuttall on the HBO series "Deadwood". Rippy had a co-starring role in the TNT crime drama series, "Saving Grace". He has also appeared in "North and South" as Sanders, and in Alcatraz as Dr. Beauregard.
1037120	Brimstone and Treacle is a 1976 television play by Dennis Potter. Untransmitted until 1987, the play was made into a film (released in 1982) co-starring Sting. The play features a middle-aged middle-class couple living in a North London suburb whose life has been catastrophically affected by a hit-and-run accident which has left their beautiful undergraduate daughter totally dependent upon them, but their lives are dramatically changed by the arrival of a mysterious young stranger. Plot. For two years, Tom and Amy Bates have been struggling to cope with their altered lives, after their daughter Pattie (or Patricia) has been severely injured in a hit-and-run accident. Pattie, who is strapped down to the living-room sofa in adult diaper (apparently suffering from urinary and fecal incontinence), unable to wash or eat by herself or talk, merely uttering unintelligible sounds. Although poorly-educated and gullible, Amy Bates firmly believes that Pattie is able to understand what is being said in her presence, whereas Tom Bates has given up all hope of her recovery. In fact, judging from the sounds she makes, Pattie seems to realise what is going on around her, but Tom Bates is beyond noticing. One day on his way home from work he witnesses a handsome, well-dressed young man collapse in the street. Tom Bates is among the passersby who offer to help him. The young man, who gives his name as Martin Taylor, quickly recovers. A few hours later he turns up at the Bates', handing Tom Bates his wallet, which Martin pretends Tom lost in the general hubbub. Though the cash is gone, Bates' credit card is still there. Although Martin's true identity remains a mystery, Sting (who played Martin in the film production) has said that he believes him to be the Devil. From the moment he enters the house, he casts furtive and knowing glances at the audience (according to the stage directions) so they know at once that he is not what he pretends to be. He claims to have been Pattie's fiancé. He offers to be at Pattie's side despite the changed circumstances, and care for her for an unspecified period of time. Amy Bates in particular jumps at the suggestion; she has not had an hour off since Pattie's accident and is stranded in the house without the chance to go even to the hairdressers or do some window-shopping. Tom Bates is reluctant to accept Martin's help. He has always been very choosy about his daughter's friends, and as he cannot remember Pattie ever mentioning Martin's name, he does not want her to be left alone with what might well be a complete stranger. Eventually Martin wins him over by his excellent cooking and lip service to his bigotry; Tom has joined the National Front. At the first opportunity, Martin rapes the helpless Pattie (although in the film version, the rape comes late in the action, precipitating Pattie's return to consciousness shortly after he removes her diaper). When Amy Bates comes back from the hairdressers she recognises a change in her daughter's facial expression, but attributes it to Martin's presence. However, when Martin tries to rape the disabled girl again after Mr. and Mrs. Bates have gone to bed, Pattie starts screaming so loudly that he runs out of the house. When the Bateses come to see what has happened to their daughter, they find that she has fully recovered from her disabilities, and though still confused, asks her father what has been happening to her. She also recovers her memories of the events preceding her accident, which result from her discovery of her father's infidelity. Different versions. "Brimstone and Treacle" was originally written by Potter as a television play, commissioned, paid for and recorded in 1976 by the BBC, for their "Play for Today" slot. It was withdrawn shortly before its scheduled transmission, it was listed in the "Radio Times", because then Director of Television Programmes Alasdair Milne found it "nauseating" though "brilliantly made". Later, between 1982 and 1987, Milne was Director-General of the BBC, in which role he became a hate figure of the Thatcher government for, among other reasons, not being censorious enough. "Brimstone and Treacle" was finally shown in 1987, and is now available on DVD. The cast were Denholm Elliott (Mr. Bates), Michael Kitchen (Martin), Patricia Lawrence (Mrs. Bates) and Michelle Newell (Pattie); plus minor characters. Rewritten by Potter for the stage, the play premiered on 11 October 1977 at the Crucible Theatre, Sheffield. A film version directed by Richard Loncraine and starring Denholm Elliott (Bates), Joan Plowright (Mrs. Bates), Suzanna Hamilton (Pattie) and Sting (Martin) was released in 1982 and is also available on DVD. In the film, Mrs. Bates' first name is Norma instead of Amy. Potter on "Brimstone and Treacle". In 1978, Potter said:I had written "Brimstone and Treacle" in difficult personal circumstances. Years of acute psoriatic arthropathy—unpleasantly affecting skin and joints—had not only taken their toll in physical damage but had also, and perhaps inevitably, mediated my view of the world and the people in it. I recall writing (and the words now make me shudder) that the only meaningful sacrament left to human beings was for them to gather in the streets in order to be sick together, splashing vomit on the paving stones as the final and most eloquent plea to an apparently deaf, dumb and blind God. [...] I was engaged in an extremely severe struggle not so much against the dull grind of a painful and debilitating illness but with unresolved, almost unacknowledged, 'spiritual' questions.
730163	Countdown to Zero is a documentary film released in 2010 which argues that the likelihood of the use of nuclear weapons has increased since the end of the Cold War due to terrorism, nuclear proliferation, theft of nuclear materials and weapons, and other factors. The documentary film was set for a July 9, 2010 theatrical release in the United States but was changed to July 23. Production. The film features interviews with leading statesmen and experts, including Tony Blair, Jimmy Carter, Mikhail Gorbachev, Robert McNamara, Pervez Musharraf, and Valerie Plame Wilson. The film prologue was narrated by Gary Oldman. The musical score was composed by Peter Golub, and the rock band Pearl Jam contributed the song "The Fixer." It was developed, financed and executive produced by Participant Media together with World Security Institute. The idea for the film first occurred to the producers when the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to Al Gore after the success of his documentary about global warming, "An Inconvenient Truth". Diane Weyermann of Participant Media asked Walker if she was interested in directing a film about nuclear weapons, and Walker said yes. More than 84 people were interviewed for the film. Global Zero, an international organization promoting the elimination of nuclear weapons, provided production assistance for the film. The film's closing credits contain a phone number to which a text message may be sent to protest the maintenance of high levels of nuclear arsenals and lax security regarding nuclear weapons and materials. The film debuted at the Sundance Film Festival in 2010, where it screened at the Palais des Festivals out of competition. At that time, Magnolia Pictures secured the North American theatrical distribution rights. The film was screened privately for Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, and a portion of the film shown for the press at the National Press Club. The film was accepted at the Cannes Film Festival, where it screened out of competition. On July 19th, 2010, REACT to FILM screened the film at the SoHo House in Manhattan, NY and moderated a Q&A with director Lucy Walker, former CIA agent Valerie Plame and producer Lawrence Bender.
583676	Vandicholai Chinraasu is a 1994 Tamil film directed by Manoj Kumar. This remains the only Sathyaraj movie as hero where A. R. Rahman composed the music. It was released on Tamil New Year Day. The film received mixed reviews from the box office. Critical Reception. The film received mixed reviews from the critics and had a below average run at the box office. The soundtrack however was praised and fetched good reviews. The song - Barota became very popular in all the military hotels. Soundtrack. Telugu ("Bobili Paparayudu") The soundtrack was also released in Telugu as "Bobili Paparayudu". Lyrics were by Vennelekanti.
1061565	Gloria Grahame (November 28, 1923 – October 5, 1981) was an American stage, film and television actress. Grahame began her acting career in theatre, and in 1944 she made her first film for MGM. Despite a featured role in "It's a Wonderful Life" (1946), MGM did not believe she had the potential for major success, and sold her contract to RKO Studios. Often cast in film noir projects, Grahame received a nomination for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for "Crossfire" (1947), and she won this award for her work in "The Bad and the Beautiful" (1952). She achieved her highest profile with "Sudden Fear" (1952), "Human Desire" (1953), "The Big Heat" (1953), and "Oklahoma!" (1955), but her film career began to wane soon afterwards.
1061335	Goodfellas (stylized as GoodFellas) is a 1990 American crime film directed by Martin Scorsese. It is a film adaptation of the 1986 non-fiction book "Wiseguy" by Nicholas Pileggi, who co-wrote the screenplay with Scorsese. The film follows the rise and fall of Lucchese crime family associate Henry Hill and his friends over a period from 1955 to 1980. Scorsese initially named the film "Wise Guy", but postponed it, and later he and Pileggi changed the name to "Goodfellas". To prepare for their roles in the film, Robert De Niro, Joe Pesci, and Ray Liotta often spoke with Pileggi, who shared research material left over from writing the book. According to Pesci, improvisation and ad-libbing came out of rehearsals where Scorsese gave the actors freedom to do whatever they wanted. The director made transcripts of these sessions, took the lines he liked best, and put them into a revised script the cast worked from during principal photography. "Goodfellas" performed well at the box office, grossing $46.8 million domestically, well above its $25 million budget. It also received overwhelmingly positive reviews from critics. The film was nominated for six Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director, and won one for Pesci in the Best Actor in a Supporting Role category. Scorsese's film won five awards from the British Academy of Film and Television Arts, including Best Film, and Best Director. The film was named Best Film of the year by various film critics groups. "Goodfellas" is often considered one of the greatest films ever, both in the crime genre and in general, and was deemed "culturally significant" and selected for preservation in the National Film Registry by the United States Library of Congress. Scorsese followed this film up with two more films about organized crime: 1995's "Casino" and 2006's "The Departed". The film ranks twelfth in the list of films that most frequently use the word "fuck". Plot. Henry Hill (Liotta) admits, "As far back as I can remember, I always wanted to be a gangster," referring to his idolizing the Lucchese crime family gangsters in his blue-collar, predominantly Italian-American neighborhood in East New York, Brooklyn in 1955. Wanting to be part of something significant, Henry quits school and goes to work for them. His Irish-American father tries to stop Henry after learning of his truancy, but the gangsters threaten the local postal carrier with dire consequences should he deliver any more letters from the school to Henry's house. Henry is able to make a living for himself, and learns the two most important lessons in life: "Never rat on your friends, and always keep your mouth shut," the advice given to him after being acquitted of criminal charges early in his career. Henry is taken under the wing of the local mob capo, Paul "Paulie" Cicero (Sorvino) and his associates, Jimmy "The Gent" Conway (De Niro), who loves hijacking trucks, and Tommy DeVito (Pesci), an aggressive armed robber with a hair-trigger temper. In late 1967 they commit the Air France Robbery, marking Henry's debut into the big time. Enjoying the perks of their criminal life, they spend most of their nights at the Copacabana with countless women. Henry meets and later marries Karen (Bracco), a Jewish girl from the Five Towns. Karen is initially troubled by Henry's criminal activities, but is soon seduced by his glamorous lifestyle. When a neighbor assaults her for refusing his advances, Henry pistol-whips him in front of her. She feels aroused by the act, especially when Henry gives her the gun and tells her to hide it. On June 11, 1970, Tommy (with Jimmy's help) brutally beats to death Billy Batts (Vincent), a mobster with the Gambino crime family, for insulting him about being a shoeshine boy in his younger days. However, Batts was a made man, meaning that he could not be touched without the consent of his Gambino family bosses. Realizing that this was an offense that could get them all killed, Jimmy, Henry, and Tommy need to cover up the murder. They transport the body in the trunk of Henry's car and bury it upstate. Six months later Jimmy learns that the burial site will be developed, forcing them to exhume the decomposing corpse and move it. Henry begins to see a mistress named Janice Rossi (Mastrogiacomo), setting her up in an apartment. When Karen finds out, she goes to Janice's apartment building to confront her, but is not let in past the front door. She then confronts Henry, points a revolver at his face, and threatens to kill both of them, demanding to know if he loves Janice. Karen cannot bring herself to kill him and an enraged Henry threatens Karen with the gun and says he has bigger concerns, like being murdered on the streets. Henry goes to live in the apartment with Janice. Paulie soon directs him to return to Karen after completing a job for him; Henry and Jimmy are sent to collect from an indebted gambler in Florida, which they succeed at after beating him. However most of the crew are arrested after being turned in by the gambler's sister, a typist for the FBI. In prison, Henry sells drugs to support his family on the outside. Soon after he is released in 1978, the crew commits the Lufthansa heist at John F. Kennedy International Airport. Despite Paulie's warning to stop, Henry further establishes himself in the drug trade, convincing Tommy and Jimmy to join him. Jimmy has the other participants in the Lufthansa robbery killed after they ignore his command to not immediately buy expensive things with their share of the stolen money. Then Tommy is killed for the murder of Billy Batts, having been fooled into thinking that he is going to be made. By 1980, Henry is a nervous wreck from cocaine use and insomnia, as he tries to organize a drug deal with his associates in Pittsburgh. However, he is caught by narcotics agents and sent to jail. On his release, Karen tells him that she flushed $60,000 worth of cocaine down the toilet to prevent the FBI agents from finding it during their raid, leaving Henry and his family virtually penniless. Feeling Henry betrayed him by dealing drugs, Paulie gives Henry $3,200 and ends his association with him. Henry decides to enroll in the Witness Protection Program after realizing that Jimmy intends to have him killed. Forced out of his gangster life, he now has to face living in the real world: "I'm an average nobody. I get to live the rest of my life like a schnook." Titles explain that Henry was subsequently arrested on drug charges in Seattle, Washington but has been clean since 1987. He and Karen separated in 1989. Paul Cicero died in Fort Worth Federal Prison of respiratory illness in 1988 at 73. Jimmy, as of 1990, was serving a 20-year-to-life sentence in a New York State prison. Development. "Goodfellas" is based on New York crime reporter Nicholas Pileggi's book "Wiseguy". Martin Scorsese never intended to make another mob film until he read a review of the book which inspired him to read it while working on the set of "Color of Money" in 1986. He had always been fascinated by the Mob lifestyle and was drawn to Pileggi's book because it was the most honest portrayal of gangsters he had ever read. After he read Pileggi's book, the filmmaker knew what approach he wanted to take: "To begin "Goodfellas" like a gunshot and have it get faster from there, almost like a two-and-a-half-hour trailer. I think it's the only way you can really sense the exhilaration of the lifestyle, and to get a sense of why a lot of people are attracted to it." According to Pileggi, Scorsese cold-called the writer and told him, "I've been waiting for this book my entire life." To which Pileggi replied "I've been waiting for this phone call my entire life". Scorsese originally intended to direct the film before "The Last Temptation of Christ", but when funds materialized to make "Last Temptation", he decided to postpone "Wise Guy". He was drawn to the documentary aspects of Pileggi's book. "The book "Wise Guys" gives you a sense of the day-to-day life, the tedium - how they work, how they take over certain nightclubs, and for what reasons. It shows how it's done". He saw "Goodfellas" as the third film in an unplanned trilogy of films that examined the lives of Italian-Americans "from slightly different angles". He has often described the film as "a mob home movie" that is about money because "that's what they're really in business for". Screenplay. Scorsese and Pileggi collaborated on the screenplay and over the course of the 12 drafts it took to reach the ideal script, the reporter realized that "the visual styling had to be completely redone… So we decided to share credit". They decided which sections of the book they liked and put them together like building blocks. Scorsese persuaded Pileggi that they did not need to follow a traditional narrative structure. The director wanted to take the gangster film and deal with it episode by episode but start in the middle and move backwards and forwards. Scorsese would compact scenes and realized that if they were kept short, "the impact after about an hour and a half would be terrific". He wanted to do the voiceover like the opening of "Jules and Jim" and use "all the basic tricks of the New Wave from around 1961". The names of several real-life gangsters were altered for the film: Tommy "Two Gunn" DeSimone became the character Tommy DeVito; Paul Vario became Paulie Cicero and Jimmy "The Gent" Burke was portrayed as Jimmy Conway. Pileggi and Scorsese decided to change the title of their film to "Goodfellas" because "Wiseguys", the same name of Pileggi's book, had already been used for a 1986 comedy film by Brian De Palma and a TV series (1987-90). Casting. Once Robert De Niro agreed to play Conway, Scorsese was able to secure the money needed to make the film. The director cast Ray Liotta after De Niro saw him in Jonathan Demme's "Something Wild" and Scorsese was surprised by "his explosive energy" in that film. The actor had read Pileggi's book when it came out and was fascinated by it. A couple of years afterwards, his agent told him that Scorsese was going to direct a film version. In 1988, Liotta met the director over a period of a couple of months and auditioned for the film. The actor campaigned aggressively for a role in the film but the studio wanted a well-known actor. "I think they would've rather had Eddie Murphy than me", the actor remembers. To prepare for the role, De Niro consulted with Pileggi who had research material that had been discarded while writing the book. De Niro often called Hill several times a day to ask how Burke walked, held his cigarette, and so on. Driving to and from the set, Liotta listened to FBI audio cassette tapes of Hill, so he could practice speaking like his real-life counterpart. To research her role, Lorraine Bracco tried to get close to a mob wife but was unable to because they exist in a very tight-knit community. She decided not to meet the real Karen because she "thought it would be better if the creation came from me. I used her life with her parents as an emotional guideline for the role". Paul Sorvino had no problem finding the voice and walk of his character but found it challenging finding "that kernel of coldness and absolute hardness that is antithetical to my nature except when my family is threatened". Principal photography. Two weeks in advance of the filming, the real Henry Hill was paid $480,000. The film was shot on location in Queens, New York, New Jersey, and parts of Long Island during the spring and summer of 1989, with a budget of $25 million. Scorsese broke the film down into sequences and storyboarded everything because of the complicated style throughout. According to the filmmaker, he "wanted lots of movement and I wanted it to be throughout the whole picture, and I wanted the style to kind of break down by the end, so that by [Henry's] last day as a wiseguy, it's as if the whole picture would be out of control, give the impression he's just going to spin off the edge and fly out." He claims that the film's style comes from the first two or three minutes of "Jules and Jim": extensive narration, quick edits, freeze frames, and multiple locale switches. It was this reckless attitude towards convention that mirrored the attitude of many of the gangsters in the film. Scorsese remarked, "So if you do the movie, you say, 'I don't care if there's too much narration. Too many quick cuts? — That's too bad.' It's that kind of really punk attitude we're trying to show". He adopted a frenetic style in order to almost overwhelm the audience with images and information. He also put a lot of detail in every frame because the gangster life is so rich. The use of freeze frames was done because Scorsese wanted images that would stop "because a point was being reached" in Henry's life. Joe Pesci did not judge his character but found the scene where he kills Spider for talking back to his character hard to do because he had trouble justifying the action until he forced himself to feel the way Tommy did. Lorraine Bracco found the shoot to be an emotionally difficult one because it was such a male-dominated cast and realized that if she did not make her "work important, it would probably end up on the cutting room floor". When it came to the relationship between Henry and Karen, Bracco saw no difference between an abused wife and her character. According to Pesci, improvisation and ad-libbing came out of rehearsals where Scorsese let the actors do whatever they wanted. He made transcripts of these sessions, took the lines that the actors came up with that he liked best, and put them into a revised script that the cast worked from during principal photography. For example, the scene where Tommy tells a story and Henry is responding to him — the "what's so funny about me" scene — is based on an actual event that happened to Pesci. It was worked on in rehearsals where he and Liotta improvised and Scorsese recorded 4-5 takes, rewrote their dialogue and inserted it into the script. The cast did not meet Henry Hill during the film's shoot until a few weeks before it premiered. Liotta met him in an undisclosed city. Hill had seen the film and told the actor that he loved it. The long tracking shot through the Copacabana nightclub came about because of a practical problem: the filmmakers could not get permission to go in the short way and this forced them to go round the back. Scorsese decided to film the sequence in one unbroken shot in order to symbolize that Henry's entire life was ahead of him, commenting, "It's his seduction of her and it's also the lifestyle seducing him." This sequence was shot eight times. Henry's last day as a wiseguy was the hardest part of the film for Scorsese to shoot because he wanted to properly show Henry's state of anxiety, paranoia and racing thoughts caused by cocaine and amphetamines intoxication, which is difficult for an actor (who had never been under their influence) to accurately portray. Scorsese explains to movie critic Mark Cousins in an interview the reason for the Joe Pesci shooting at the screen shot at the end of the film, "well that's a reference right to the end of "The Great Train Robbery", that's the way that ends, that film, and basically the plot of this picture is very similar to "The Great Train Robbery." It hasn't changed, 90 years later, it's the same story, the gun shots will always be there, he's always going to look behind his back, he's gotta have eyes behind his back, because they're gonna get him someday." The director ended the film with Henry regretting that he is no longer a wiseguy and Scorsese said, "I think the audience should get angry at him and I would hope they do — and maybe with the system which allows this." Post-production. Scorsese wanted to depict the film's violence realistically, "cold, unfeeling and horrible. Almost incidental." However, he had to remove ten frames of blood in order to ensure an R rating from the MPAA. With a budget of $25 million, "Goodfellas" was Scorsese's most expensive film to date but still only a medium budget by Hollywood standards. It was also the first time he was obliged by Warner Bros. to preview the film. It was shown twice in California and a lot of audiences were "agitated" by Henry's last day as a wise guy sequence and Scorsese argued that that was the point of the scene. Scorsese and the film's editor, Thelma Schoonmaker, made this sequence faster with more jump cuts to convey Henry's drug-addled point of view. In the first test screening there were 40 walkouts in the first ten minutes. One of the favorite scenes for test audiences was the one where Tommy tells the story and Henry is responding to him—the "what's so funny about me" scene. Soundtrack. Scorsese chose the songs for the soundtrack using only those that commented on the scene or the characters "in an oblique way". The only rule he adhered to with the soundtrack was to only use music that could have been heard at that time. For example, if a scene took place in 1973, he could use any song that was current or older. According to Scorsese, a lot of non-dialogue scenes were shot to playback. For example, he had "Layla" playing on the set while shooting the scene where the dead bodies are discovered in the car, dumpster, and the meat-truck. Sometimes, the lyrics of songs were put between lines of dialogue to comment on the action. Some of the music Scorsese had written into the script while other songs he discovered during the editing phase. Release and reception. Distribution. "Goodfellas" had its world premiere at the 1990 Venice Film Festival where Scorsese received the Silver Lion award for Best Director. It was given a wide release in North America on September 21, 1990 in 1,070 theaters with an opening weekend gross of US$6.3 million. It went on to make $46.8 million domestically, well above its $25 million budget. Reviews. The film was released to critical acclaim and currently has a 97% rating at Rotten Tomatoes and a 89 metascore at Metacritic. In his review for the "Chicago Sun-Times", Roger Ebert wrote, "No finer film has ever been made about organized crime - not even "The Godfather"." In his review for the "Chicago Tribune", Gene Siskel wrote, "All of the performances are first-rate; Pesci stands out, though, with his seemingly unscripted manner. "GoodFellas" is easily one of the year's best films." In his review for "The New York Times", Vincent Canby wrote, "More than any earlier Scorsese film, "Goodfellas" is memorable for the ensemble nature of the performances… The movie has been beautifully cast from the leading roles to the bits. There is flash also in some of Mr. Scorsese's directorial choices, including freeze frames, fast cutting and the occasional long tracking shot. None of it is superfluous". "USA Today" gave the film four out of four stars and called it, "great cinema — and also a whopping good time". David Ansen, in his review for "Newsweek" magazine, wrote "Every crisp minute of this long, teeming movie vibrates with outlaw energy". Rex Reed said "Big, Rich, Powerful and Explosive. One of Scorsese's best films! "Goodfellas" is great entertainment." In his review for "Time", Richard Corliss wrote, "So it is Scorsese's triumph that "GoodFellas" offers the fastest, sharpest 2½-hr. ride in recent film history". Lists. The film is ranked #1 of the best of 1990 by Roger Ebert, Gene Siskel, and Peter Travers. It is 38th on James Berardinelli's Top 100 Films. Legacy. "Goodfellas" is #94 on the American Film Institute's "100 Years, 100 Movies" list and moved up to #92 on its AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movies (10th Anniversary Edition) from 2007. In June 2008, the AFI put "Goodfellas" at #2 on their AFI's 10 Top 10—the best ten films in ten "classic" American film genres—after polling over 1,500 people from the creative community. "Goodfellas" was acknowledged as the second best in the gangster film genre (after "The Godfather"). In 2000, the United States Library of Congress deemed the film "culturally significant" and selected it for preservation in the National Film Registry. Roger Ebert named "Goodfellas" the "best mob movie ever" and placed it among the best films of the 1990s. In December 2002, a UK film critics poll in "Sight and Sound" ranked the film #4 on their list of the 10 Best Films of the Last 25 Years. "Time" included "Goodfellas" in their list of Time's All-TIME 100 Movies. "Channel 4" placed "Goodfellas" at #10 in their 2002 poll "The 100 Greatest Films". "Empire" listed "Goodfellas" at #6 on their "500 Greatest Movies Of All Time". "Total Film" voted "Goodfellas" #1 as the greatest film of all time. "Premiere" listed Joe Pesci's Tommy DeVito as #96 on its list of "The 100 Greatest Movie Characters of All Time," calling him "perhaps the single most irredeemable character ever put on film." "Empire" ranked Tommy DeVito #59 in their "The 100 Greatest Movie Characters" poll. "Goodfellas" inspired director David Chase to make the HBO television series "The Sopranos". Chase said ""Goodfellas" is the Koran for me." He also told Peter Bogdanovich: ""Goodfellas" is a very important movie to me and "Goodfellas" really plowed that...I found that movie very funny and brutal and it felt very real. And yet that was the first mob movie that Scorsese ever dealt with a mob crew...as opposed to say "The Godfather"...which there's something operatic about it, classical, even the clothing and the cars. You know I mean I always think about "Goodfellas" when they go to their mother's house that night when they're eating, you know when she brings out her painting, that stuff is great. I mean "The Sopranos" learned a lot from that." Indeed, numerous actors from "Goodfellas", such as Tony Sirico, Michael Imperioli, Frank Pellegrino, Tony Lip, Frank Vincent and Lorraine Bracco, would later be cast in major roles on "The Sopranos". July 24, 2010 marked the twentieth anniversary of the film's release. This milestone was celebrated with Henry Hill's hosting a private screening for a select group of invitees at the Museum of the American Gangster, in New York City. In January 2012, it was announced that the AMC Network has put in development a television series version of the movie. Pileggi is on board to co-write the adaptation with television writer-producer Jorge Zamacona. The two will executive produce with the film’s producer Irwin Winkler and his son, David. American Film Institute Lists
1373108	Igor Jijikine (Russian: Игорь Жижикин; born October 8, 1965) is a Russian actor working in Los Angeles and Moscow.
1048894	The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes is a 1969 film starring Kurt Russell, Cesar Romero, Joe Flynn and William Schallert. It was produced by Walt Disney Productions and distributed by Buena Vista Distribution Company as part of "The Last Laughs of the 1960s". It was one of several films made by Disney using the setting of Medfield College, first used in the 1961 Disney film "The Absent-Minded Professor" and its sequel "Son of Flubber". "Now You See Him Now You Don't" and "The Strongest Man in the World", both sequels to "The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes", were also set at Medfield. Plot. Dexter Reilly (Kurt Russell) and his friends attend small, private Medfield College, which cannot afford to buy a computer. The students persuade wealthy businessman A. J. Arno (Cesar Romero) to donate an old computer to the college. Arno is the secret head of a large illegal gambling ring, which used the computer for its operations. While installing a replacement part during a thunderstorm, Reilly receives an electric shock and becomes a human computer. He now has superhuman mathematical talent, can read and remember the contents of an encyclopedia volume in a few minutes, and speak a language fluently after reading one textbook. His new abilities make Reilly a worldwide celebrity, and Medfield's best chance to win a televised quiz tournament with a $100,000 prize. Reilly single-handedly leads Medfield's team in victories against other colleges. During the tournament, a trigger word causes Reilly to unknowingly recite on television details of Arno's gambling ring. Arno's henchmen kidnap Reilly and plan to kill him, but his friends help him escape. During the escape Dexter suffers a concussion which, during the tournament final against rival Springfield State, gradually returns his mental abilities to normal; one of Reilly's friends, however, is able to answer the final question ("What is the geographic center of the contiguous United States?"). Medfield wins the $100,000 prize, and A. J. Arno is arrested. Reception. The movie gained a mixed reception. Legacy. TV movies. This film was remade as the TV movie "The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes" in 1995 starring Kirk Cameron as "Dexter "Riley"". Other Disney Channel movies carrying similar plot elements were the "Not Quite Human" film series, which aired in the late 1980s and early 1990s. The films were based on the series of novels with the same name.
1213257	Ill Manors (stylised as ill Manors) is a British crime drama film written, co-scored and directed by Ben Drew. The film revolves around the lives of eight main characters, played by Riz Ahmed, Ed Skrein, Keith Coggins, Lee Allen, Nick Sagar, Ryan De La Cruz, Anouska Mond and Natalie Press, and features six original songs by Plan B, which act as a narration for the film. "Ill Manors" is a multi-character story, set over the course of seven days, a scene where everyone is fighting for respect. The film focuses on eight core characters, and their circles of violence, as they struggle to survive on the streets. Each story weaves into one another, painting an ultra-realistic gritty picture of the world which is on the brink of self-destruction. Each story is also represented by a different rap song. Plot. Set in Forest Gate, London, the film begins with partners Ed (Ed Skrein) and Aaron (Riz Ahmed) drug-dealing. Undercover police chase the two to a closed gate – Aaron manages to climb over and Ed hands his phone over to take care of it. Before Ed can climb over, he is caught and sent to prison. Aaron takes the phone to Kirby (Keith Coggins), a well-known figure across the area who has recently come out of prison, who keeps Ed's phone at his house. The song "Drug Dealer" leads the flashback story of Kirby and Chris (Lee Allen), who was Kirby's protégé but is now independent. Ed is released from prison and meets up with Aaron, telling Ed that his phone has been taken but knows who has it. At the local park, various gangs of youths gather. A young teenage boy Jake (Ryan De La Cruz) meets his friend and borrows some money to purchase cannabis off Marcel (Nick Sagar), a youth drug-dealer who is the leader of a gang. Jake then proceeds to go up to the gang but Marcel asks Jake to beat up his friend, due to his appearance and unfamiliar status. Jake reluctantly beats him up – the gang go over and record the scene. Marcel watches from afar and invites the vulnerable Jake to join his gang. As they enjoy, their activities are recorded on a mobile phone such as partying and driving around. The gang enter an abandoned building where a man is tied up for not paying Marcel his drug money. The man is threatened and is released when his cousin delivers the money. "Playing with Fire" represents the story. Kirby encounters Jody (Eloise Smyth) and Chanel (Clara Castaneda) at a café and tells Chanel that he can introduce her to his friend Nigel, who is part of a modelling agency. The gullible Chanel doesn't realise it is a lie, and so takes his number. Jody doesn't believe Kirby but decides to support Chanel anyway. Ed and Aaron find Michelle (Anouska Mond), a prostitute who was sexually-abused as a child. She is accused of taking Ed's phone and attempts to find it. Michelle offers to go to fast-food shops where the employees pay £20 or less to have sex with her, while Ed keeps the money – represented by the song "Deepest Shame". As Jake has now passed the initiation in proving his loyalty, Marcel manipulates him into killing Kirby to get revenge for Kirby forcing him to strip earlier. In the house, Jody and Chanel have arrived – Kirby promises that Nigel shall be arriving shortly. Terry (Neil Large), a local resident who knows Kirby visits whilst the girls are there. Terry finds Ed's phone under Kirby's sofa and goes to return it, thinking Ed has his phone. Aaron feels sympathetic towards Michelle, as it is revealed that she never had the phone at all. However, when Terry turns up expecting his phone, Ed accuses of Michelle of taking Terry's phone and proceeds to beat her. Aaron is warned by Ed but he manages to take the money made from Michelle's prostitution and pays Terry to leave her alone. Aaron and Ed leave and watch from a distance as despite Aaron's kindness, Michelle continues with prostitution. Meanwhile, Marcel and Jake are in the car outside Kirby's terrace house. He is told to take the gun from the glovebox (after much refusal) and go inside and kill Kirby. He then enters the room (wearing a balaclava) and shoots Kirby in the head, whilst accidentally murdering Chanel in the process, leaving a shocked Jody crying over the body. Chanel happens to be Chris's half-sister. Terry then returns finds the two dead bodies (Jody has left) and decides to take the bag of drugs that Kirby got off Chris. Aaron is at the Earl of Essex pub and is interrogated by the lanlord about selling drugs in the pub; as this happens, Chris enters the public toilets. The song "Pity the Plight" explains how Jody leads Chris to Terry's garage to gain information on the killer of his sister. Chris enters Marcel's residence with a gun who immediately tells Chris it was Jake who killed Chanel. Marcel sets Jake up to save himself. Chris and Marcel pick up Jake who sneaks out and a stand-off occurs with the three by a canal where Chris tells Jake to stab Marcel, revealing that Marcel set him up. Jake loses his temper and stabs Marcel, subsequently killing him, while Chris shoots Jake. The scene where Chris enters the pub bathroom is repeated, showing Chris hiding the gun in a bathroom cubicle water-tank after he flees from the murder scene. The following morning, Chris goes to retrieve the gun but has already been taken. The next story is introduced – the protagonist being Katya (Nathalie Press), a European immigrant who was raped by Vladimir (Mem Ferda), the owner of a whore house. She gave birth to a baby girl and finds it difficult to survive. The song "The Runaway" shows how Katya escapes the Russian whore house by mixing vodka with heart pills and waits until the owner smokes a cigarette who passes out. She then escapes with her baby into London. There she performs prostitution and steals food to survive. Her and Michelle meet and Michelle takes her under her wing. Meanwhile, the Russian gangsters are looking for her and Katya goes to the train station and while Aaron is alone on the train, the doors open and Katya leaves her baby in the buggy on the train, as she can see that the gangsters are about to catch her. Aaron bangs on the window in an attempt to gain Katya's attention. After his failed attempts to return the pram to the mother, Aaron hides his gun and drugs instead the pram and the baby's nappy, and walks past the police without any problems, he then takes it upon himself to look after the baby, even though he is mocked by Ed. He then looks after the baby at his flat, talking with Jody about what to do. The Russian gangsters take her whilst Michelle is distracted, but she sees them just in time and jumps in a cab which follows them back to the whore house. As Vladimir is beating Katya, Michelle sneaks up behind him with a brick and hits him on the head with it. The two women run back into the cab, and although Vladimir attempts to chase them, they get away. Ed convinces Aaron to sell the baby to the owners of the Earl of Essex pub for £8000. Later, Katya and Michelle find Aaron who explains that he's given the baby away. Meanwhile, Ed is held at gunpoint by Chris who wants the gun back that Aaron has taken. Ed promises that he'll get it back within two hours. At the pub, the owners are reluctant to give away the baby and demand a full refund (not just Aaron's half of the money). The pub owner's wife learns that her husband slept with Michelle, and slaps her and the two begin to engage in a fight. Upstairs, Terry accidentally sets fire to the pub and falls unconscious. The baby is still upstairs crying. Katya goes after her child but falls due to the smoke. Aaron goes upstairs and saves Katya, but leaves the gun upstairs. Ed goes up for the gun and the baby as the pub falls apart around him. He drops the baby out of the window for Aaron to catch below in front of a shocked audience. Aaron successfully catches the baby, and Ed tries to escape the smoke-filled room as the fire brigade arrive. He climbs out of the window but slips and kills himself. Aaron returns the gun to Chris. He goes home and opens the letter from social services given to him at the start of the film. It's a letter from his mother, and he learns that he was abandoned for his own safety as a child. He then speaks with Jody about Ed's funeral, deciding to use Ed's £4000 from the baby money to go towards it. The members of Marcel's gang are shown next to some graffiti reading "RIP Marcel and little Jake". The boy Jake initially beat up is shown taking back his £20 off another boy. Chris and the other crack dealers are discovered and arrested by the police, intertwined with images of the Olympic Park, London. Jody beats up April, who tried to run off with the funeral money. The final scene shows Aaron being driven in a taxi. He glances in the rear-view mirror and Ben Drew himself is the driver. Production. Prior to writing the script for "Ill Manors", when Drew was 21 years old, he had originally tried to begin production on another script he had written called "Trigger", which was based on an incident where Drew's home was raided by armed police. However he was refused funding as he was an inexperienced director. To gain the necessary experience, Drew wrote and directed his own short film "Michelle" in 2008 which was financed by himself with £4000 from the remaining recording advance from his record label and an inheritance from his grandfather. The short film, which starred Anouska Mond, Ed Skrein and Adam Deacon, was released online and acted as a pilot for the feature film "Ill Manors", which Drew had completed the script for within four months of making "Michelle". Drew also directed the music video for "Pieces", his collaboration with Chase & Status, and also had roles in "Adulthood" (2008) and "Harry Brown" (2009). The script for "Ill Manors" was partly based on actual events and stories Drew heard when he was young, such as a woman prostituting herself in order to repay a drug dealer. The film had been in development for three years prior to filming, however Drew struggled to secure finance for his film. "Ill Manors" was greenlit for production in 2009 as part of the Film London Microwave scheme. For the film, Drew hired a mixture of both experienced and inexperienced actors, whilst several cast members already knew the director personally before they were cast in their roles. Riz Ahmed, who had previously recorded "Shifty" with Plan B, asked to play the lead role of Aaron after reading the script. Ed Skrein was a childhood friend of Drew who had appeared in "Michelle" and had previously collaborated with him on numerous recordings. Keith Coggins is Drew's godfather and Anouska Mond, who had also previously appeared in Drew's short film was invited to audition for her previous role as Michelle. The main casting process for the film took place during August 2010 with several cast members being young unknown actors from the East End of London, such as Ryan De La Cruz who was discovered when the crew visited Rokeby School in Canning Town, London. Principal photography began on 1 September 2010 at 3 Mills Studios, London and filming lasted for four weeks on location in London, England. Drew has named the 1996 film "Pusher" directed by Nicolas Winding Refn as a major influence on "Ill Manors", as well as directors Shane Meadows and Quentin Tarantino. During production of the film, it was reported that the cast and crew ran into trouble with youths in Forest Gate, London and production was interrupted whilst a laptop containing the film's dailies had to be recovered after being stolen by a drug addict. Drew claimed that he faced prejudice from some crew members whilst on set, however he also noted that "there was some people that really believed in my vision and gave me all the support I needed." Editing of the film began in December 2010, however post-production of the film was delayed due to Plan B performing on The Defamation of Strickland Banks Tour during 2010 and 2011. To raise funds for the completion of the film's post-production, the distribution rights to "Ill Manors" were sold to Revolver Entertainment in April 2011 and Plan B delayed the release date of his planned third studio album "The Ballad of Belmarsh" until after "Ill Manors" was released. Release. The trailer for "Ill Manors" was first aired on The Guardian's website on 3 May 2012, whilst the first film poster was first unveiled by "Empire" magazine's website on 8 May 2012. Digital Spy also unveiled two further promotional posters on 18 May and 7 June 2012. The première took place on 30 May 2012 at the Empire cinema in Leicester Square, London. This screening was also attended by several British recording artists such as Alesha Dixon, Alexandra Burke, Professor Green, Tinie Tempah, Wretch 32, Example and Ed Sheeran. The film was given a wide release to 191 cinemas in both Republic of Ireland and the United Kingdom by Revolver Entertainment on 6 June 2012. "Ill Manors" was released in the Netherlands on 30 August 2012 by Benelux Film Distributors and was also screened at the Toronto International Film Festival and the Festival do Rio in September 2012. "Ill Manors" was released on DVD on 8 October 2012, and contains footage that was not broadcast at cinemas. Reception. On its opening weekend, the film placed at number nine at the UK Box Office, with a gross figure of £256,288. Domestically, the film has earned a total gross of £453,570, after eight weeks at the box office. "Ill Manors" has received largely positive reviews from critics and fans alike, with a current 80% "fresh" rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on twenty-five different reviews. The film received acclaim from fans on Amazon.co.uk, who as of March 2013 have the given film an average review of 4.5 out of 5 stars, claiming that despite the film's gritty nature, the story that it tells is impossible to avoid.
584520	Prathap K. Pothan, popularly known by his first name , is an Indian actor, director, writer, producer who has acted in about 95 films. He has acted in Malayalam, Tamil, Telugu as well as Hindi films. His directional ventures were in Tamil, Telugu and Malayalam. Early life and background. Born into a well-to-do business family of Thiruvananthapuram. He went to the famous boarding school, Lawrence School, Lovedale, in Ooty at the age of five, where he took up painting. The youngest of five children, he grew up in a household where art, politics, entertainment and business co-existed, allowing him to experience a large cross-section of life from his ancestral home in Trivandrum in Kerala. His father Kolathinkal Pothan was a well known business man of Trivandrum who used to travel only in the latest Benz car in the 1950s and 60's. Most of the high rise buildings on the M G Road in Trivandrum was owned by the Kulathunkal family. His elder brother is Hari Pothan also a film producer was married to then famous actress Jayabharathi for a short while. His sons are Azad Hari and Ajay Hari owns the Tata Motors agency in TVM. The eldest brother Mohan Pothan used to live in their ancestral house in Koravankonam. He finished Schooling in 1968. His father died when he was 15.Pratap married Amala Satyanath Pothen in 1990, a senior corporate professional and they have one daughter Keya Pothen who is 22nd years old. College life. Pratap gained admission to Madras Christian College (MCC), Madras. Pratap remained friends with those he went to school and MCC with. His friends helped him act in plays at college and his interest turned to acting from painting. He left MCC with a B.A in economics in 1972. Pratap started to work as a copywriter in an ad agency in Mumbai. After a year, he joined Sistas ad agency. Later he worked for Hindustan Thomson. During the late sixties and early seventies, armed with a boarding school education from Ooty and awakened by an amazing bohemian experience gained 'chasing the wind' during his college days at MCC in Madras, the young Prathap went about shedding his shy schoolboy skin and embracing a culture of theatre and art. Film career. Pratap acted with "The Madras Players". The late director Bharathan enjoyed Pratap's performance in Shaw's play "Androcles and the Lion", and invited him to act in his Malayalam film "Aaravam".
583781	Em Magan is a 2006 Tamil drama film directed by Thirumurugan. Bharath, Gopika and Nassar played the lead roles, while Vadivelu and Saranya Ponvannan appeared in supporting roles. Upon release, the film met with critical reception and commercial success. It was remade in Kannada as "Puthra" with Diganth. Plot. Emtan (Nassar) runs a provision shop in a village. His son Krishna (Bharath), a student of poultry science, helps him in the shop. A strict father Emtan is always at his son's back. His strict ways of dealing his son leaves an uncomfortable scene in the house. Vadivelu (Krishna's uncle) is the only solace for him in the house. Krishna meets his childhood crush Janani (Gopika), daughter of his uncle (Shanmugarajan). Both their families are at loggerheads. A death in their family brings them together. Unfortunately Krishna and Janani are caught kissing which again leaves a split in the family. While Emtan drives his son out, Janani also walks away with him. Finally Krishna succeeds in making a wonderful career and reuniting his family. At the end all the family is reunited and the couple wait their first child. Soundtrack. The soundtrack was composed by Vidyasagar.
1253835	Martine Beswick (born 26 September 1941) is an English actress and model, best known for her roles in two James Bond films. Biography. Beswick was born on 26 September 1941 in Port Antonio, Jamaica to English parents. Beswick is best known for her two appearances in the James Bond film series. Although she auditioned for the first Bond film "Dr. No", she was cast in the second film "From Russia with Love" as the fiery gypsy girl, Zara. She engaged in the famous "catfight" scene with her rival Vida (played by former Miss Israel Aliza Gur). She was incorrectly billed as "Martin Beswick" in the title sequence. Beswick then appeared as the ill-fated Paula Caplan in "Thunderball". She had been away from the Caribbean so long that she was required to sunbathe constantly for two weeks before filming, in order to look like a local. Martine went on to appear in "One Million Years B.C." opposite Raquel Welch, with whom she also engaged in a catfight. She then appeared in various Hammer Studio low-budget films, most notably "Prehistoric Women" and the gender-bending "Dr. Jekyll and Sister Hyde". She played Adelita in the well-regarded Spaghetti Western "A Bullet for the General" in 1967 opposite Klaus Kinski and Gian Maria Volonté. She starred as the Queen of Evil in Oliver Stone's 1974 directorial debut "Seizure", aka "Queen of Evil". In the 1970s, Beswick moved to Hollywood and regularly appeared on both the big screen and small screen. She made numerous guest appearances in television series including "Sledge Hammer!", "Fantasy Island", "The Fall Guy", "Mannix", "The Six Million Dollar Man" and "Falcon Crest". In 1980, she played the lead role in the comedy film "The Happy Hooker Goes Hollywood". Beswick's career was active well into the 1990s. In recent years, she has mainly participated in film documentaries, providing commentary and relating her experiences on the many films she has appeared in. She owned a removals business in London, but is now semi-retired except for her guest appearances at international Bond conventions. In April 2013 she was one of 12 Bond Girl celebrity guests in an episode of the BBC's "Masterchef". Beginning with "Melvin and Howard" in 1980, she changed the spelling of her last name to "Beswicke," but reverted to her original name in the mid-'90s; her last credit with the longer spelling is "Wide Sargasso Sea" in 1993.
774705	Jacqueline "Jackie" Burroughs (2 February 1939 – 22 September 2010) was an English-born Canadian actress. Life and career. Born in Lancashire, England, Burroughs acted in live theatre at Ontario's Stratford Festival. Her film credits included "The Dead Zone" (1982), "The Grey Fox" (1982), and a voice-over stint in the legendary animated anthology "Heavy Metal" (1981), while her TV-series résumé includes the roles of Mrs. Amelia Evans in "Anne of Green Gables" (1985) and Hetty King in "Road to Avonlea" (1990). In 1987, Jackie Burroughs produced, directed, co-wrote, and starred in "A Winter Tan", a film based on the letters of Maryse Holder, published in 1979 as the book "Give Sorrow Words – Maryse Holder's Letters from Mexico". She won a Genie award for best performance by an actress in a leading role for the film. She won several Genies and Geminis during her career. Her first award was the 1969 Canadian Film Award for best actress, for starring in the non-feature short film "Duclima". Burroughs played the voice of The Spirit in 1985's "The Care Bears Movie". She also played teacher Nancy Galik in "The Undergrads" (1985) opposite Art Carney. She was perhaps best known to American audiences for her portrayal of the fictional character, Hetty King, in the CBC Television series "Road to Avonlea" from 1990 to 1996. The series was based on the works of Canadian author Lucy Maud Montgomery and produced by Sullivan Entertainment. She also played Mother Mucca in the television adaptations of Armistead Maupin's "More Tales of the City" and "Further Tales of the City". Burroughs again played a mother role in 2003's "Willard". She appeared in the 2006 film "The Sentinel". She also appeared in the "Smallville" season one episode "Hourglass" as the elderly prophetess Cassandra Carver. Personal life. Burroughs was married to Zalman Yanovsky, co-founder (with John Sebastian) of The Lovin' Spoonful; they separated in 1968. They had one daughter, Zoe (a restaurant owner and author in Kingston). Death. Burroughs died at her home in Toronto on 22 September 2010, aged 71, after suffering from stomach cancer.
584474	Uyirile Kalanthathu is a 2000 Tamil film directed by Jaya which stars Suriya, Raghuvaran and Jyothika in the lead roles, with Sivakumar and Radhika in supporting roles. The film opened in September 2000 to negative reviews from critics. Plot. Surya plays the role of a medical college student and Jyotika is his girlfriend. Surya's father's role (played by his father in real life, Sivakumar) whilst Raghuvaran plays his elder brother, who is the collector of the district. Surya is the youngest son of the family and this gives much heartburn to elder brother Raghuvaran. Their rivalry begins from childhood and can be illustrated by the scene where the elder brother pinches his baby brother just to see him cry. The jealousy grows into adulthood. His whole aim in life is to see that Surya's life is beset with problems, thanks to him. However, Surya and his parents are blissfully unaware of the jealousy that has possessed Raghuvaran. When he discovers the love between Surya and Jyotika he passes on the word to Jyotika's elder brother who is a known rowdy around the area. He does this thinking that the rowdy would manage to beat up Surya and perhaps separate both Surya and Jyotika. This plan backfires, when the rowdy is more than happy to get them both married because more than anything, he cares about his sister's happiness. Raghuvaran then pushes Surya over a cliff edge.
1485555	Taxi 4 (stylised as T4xi) is a 2007 French comedy film directed by Gérard Krawczyk and the fourth installment of the "Taxi" series. As with all the other films in the Gallic Taxi franchise, Samy Naceri plays taxi driver "Daniel Morales", this time in a Peugeot 407 unlike the 406 in the previous films. Frédéric Diefenthal is "Émilien Coutant-Kerbalec", whilst Jean-Christophe Bouvet reprises his role as "General Bertineau" yet again. The film also features French footballer Djibril Cissé. Synopsis. A Belgian criminal, wanted all over Europe for his crimes, is in the custody of the Police Department of Marseille to be watched for a few hours before transfer to a prison in Congo. Unfortunately Émilien (Frédéric Diefenthal) is tricked by the villain and convinced to let the prisoner go. After these events he's fired, but luckily for him, his friend Daniel (Samy Naceri) helps him one more time by telling him the location where the criminal is located, having been the taxi driver who drove him after he left the police station, not knowing he was a criminal. With Daniel's skills and his new Peugeot 407, Émillen seeks to capture the criminal to restore his job back. Box office. On the opening day, 450,000 people attended in France with 43,000 in Paris alone. T4xi's Canadian premiere was at the Just for Laughs Comedia Film Festival on 22 July 2007, a week before wide release.
1055691	Head in the Clouds is a 2004 drama film written and directed by John Duigan. The original screenplay focuses on the choices young lovers must make as they find themselves surrounded by increasing political unrest in late-1930s Europe. Plot. In a prologue, young Gilda Bessé (Charlize Theron), the daughter of a French aristocrat and an emotionally unstable American mother, reluctantly is told the life line on her palm doesn't extend past the age of 34 by a fortune teller. Fast forward to a rainy night in 1933, when she stumbles into the room of Guy Malyon, an Irishman who is a first-year student on scholarship at Cambridge University. She has had a lover's quarrel with one of the dons, and rather than turn her out into the storm, Guy gallantly allows her to spend the night. Later, they become lovers, but the two are separated when Gilda's mother dies and she opts to leave England. Several years later, Guy sees her as an extra in a Hollywood film, and shortly after he coincidentally receives a letter from her inviting him to visit her in Paris, where she's working as a photographer. He discovers she is living with the Spanish-born nursing student/model Mia and has a lover, whom she quickly discards when Guy moves in. The trio are enjoying their unusual living arrangement, but world events are beginning to affect their existence. It is the height of the Spanish Civil War, and idealistic Guy, a long-time supporter of the army of the Second Spanish Republic, is determined to do what he can to help them as Francisco Franco's fascists gain strength. Mia, too, is anxious to come to the aid of her native land. Gilda, however, has no interest in politics or anything else that might disrupt her life of luxury, and pleads with the two to ignore the conflict, but they feel compelled to act and depart for Spain. Guy becomes a soldier, while Mia tends to the wounded. They cross paths one night and, before sleeping with Guy, Mia confesses she was Gilda's lover. In the morning, her ambulance is destroyed by a land mine, and after laying her to rest, Guy returns to Paris, where he is ignored by Gilda, who feels his abandonment of her was a form of betrayal. Six years later, Guy is working as a spy with the underground in occupied Paris under the auspices of British intelligence. He learns Gilda has taken Nazi Major Franz Bietrich as a lover and visits her in their old apartment, where the two make love. The following morning she tells him their affair is over and the two never can see each other again. D-Day is approaching, and Guy throws himself into his work. One day he arrives at a café to meet a contact, but instead is approached by Gilda, who has overheard her German lover's plotting a trap and has come to help him escape in cleric's clothing she has concealed in the restaurant's washroom. That night, he and his associates destroy a rail station, but only Guy manages to elude the German soldiers. Guy returns to London, where he discovers Gilda joined the Resistance a few years earlier. With the occupation of Paris having come to an end, he realizes the locals, who long regarded Gilda as a Nazi sympathizer and traitor, will seek revenge. As he returns to Paris to find her, Guy is unaware Bietrich has been killed in Gilda's apartment and she has been taken captive by a mob intent on avenging the deaths of their loved ones. She is finally killed by a local youth to avenge the death of his sister. The movie ends with Guy reading the last letter written by Gilda. Production. The film was shot in London, Cambridge, Montreal, and Paris. The soundtrack included "Parlez-moi d'amour" by Jean Lenoir, "Blue Drag" by Josef Myrow, "Minor Swing" by Stéphane Grappelli and Django Reinhardt, "Big Jim Blues" by Harry Lawson and Mary Lou Williams, "La rumba d'amour" by Simon Rodriguez, "Vous qui passez sans me voir" by Charles Trenet and Jean Sablon, "My Girl's Pussy" by Harry Roy and performed by John Duigan and "La litanie à la vierge" by Francis Poulenc. The film featured John Jorgenson as Django Reinhardt, who was discovered by the film's music coordinator and consultant, Scottpatrick Sellitto. His reproduction of Django's playing was applauded throughout the world by many critics and the media. This led to the formation of The John Jorgenson Quintet. The score done by Terry Frewer and won best score in the 2005 Genie Awards. The film opened on ten screens in the United States and earned $46,133 its opening weekend. It grossed a total of $398,278 in the US and Canada and $3,112,327 in other markets for a total worldwide box office of $3,510,605. Critical reception. In his review in "The New York Times", Stephen Holden said, "The strength of Theron's go-for-broke performance only underlines the weaknesses of the film . . . plays like an entertaining compilation of Hollywood's favorite World War II clichés" and added, "Could it be that Hollywood's six decades of replaying the Good War has left us with nobility fatigue? At least "Head in the Clouds" is not the debacle of "Charlotte Gray" and other epic-manqués. But if World War II is to continue to mean anything anymore, it has to be reimagined as a real event, not a deluxe, romantically spiced-up newsreel." Roger Ebert of the "Chicago Sun-Times" said the film "is silly and the plot is preposterous, but it labors under no delusions otherwise. It wants to be a hard-panting melodrama, with spies and sex and love and death, and there are times when a movie like this is exactly what you feel like indulging." In the "San Francisco Chronicle", Walter Addiego called it "a glossy, stiff melodrama . . . a mixture of "Casablanca" and "Cabaret", or possibly Hemingway and Henry Miller, and finally, it doesn't work, in part because the erotic content seems self-conscious and force-fit. In fact, if not for the presence of Charlize Theron, it's hard to imagine this film would have attracted anywhere near the kind of attention it's gotten . . . she's not at all bad, but her role as a young American heiress and libertine feels recycled from scores of other movies." Peter Travers of "Rolling Stone" awarded it one out of a possible four stars and described it as "a World War II melodrama of epic silliness and supreme vapidity . . . This spark-free film has no place to go on cast's resumes except under the heading of "Cringing Embarrassment"."
583462	Mahek Chahal (real name Raspreet Kaur Chahal) is a Bollywood actress and a Norwegian model of Punjabi Jatt Sikh origin. Mahek made her Bollywood debut as the lead role in the movie "Nayee Padosan" (2003). Mahek also featured in an item number in the movie "Chameli" (2004). Mahek next performed in a Punjabi movie "Dil Apna Punjabi" (2006). Mahek next played supporting roles in films "Wanted" and "Main Aurr Mrs Khanna" (2009). Mahek next did an item number in the movie "Yamla Pagla Deewana". Mahek featured in the Norway reality television show "Fristet" on the channel TV3 Norway (2011). Recently Mahek launched clothing line MAHEK CHAHAL CLOTHING in Norway. Mahek was also in the reality television show "Bigg Boss 5" for 10 weeks inside the house, on day 85 Mahek re-entered the "Bigg Boss 5" house as the "Wild Card Entry Contest" she made it into the final and was the Runner-Up of "Bigg Boss 5" on the channel Colors (2012). Career. Reality Shows. Before going into "Bigg Boss" House, Season 5 Reality show, Mahek was also a part of Fristet "Tempted" a Norwegian Reality show. Even having won the eviction successfully, Mahek gave her chance to whom she felt was more deserving on the channel TV3 Norway. Modeling. Mahek started out by taking part and winning in 'Miss Movie International' which is a beauty pageant run in Europe. As a winner, she got a free ticket to Mumbai and then started modeling over there. She has done TV commercials for Mentor Shirts, Godrej Refrigerator, Fevicol, Bombay Dyeing, Bar-One Chocolate. She has also modeled in Punjabi pop singer's music videos Jazzy B and Sukshinder Shinda in the song "Chak De Boli" and "Jindey" which went on to become super-hit songs. Mahek has also modelled in Manmohan Waris's hit song "Dil Te Maar Gayi." Films. Mahek was first considered for a role in "Ajnabee"(remake of "Consenting Adults") but was not selected due to her linguistic shortcomings; the role subsequently went to Bipasha Basu who won all the Debut awards for that year. Chahal then joined Kishore Namit's acting school in Mumbai to work on her skills. She managed to get a Telugu film titled "Neetho", but her dialogues in the film were dubbed. In the following year, she made her Bollywood debut with the lead role in "Nayee Padosan" (2003). She has since then been featured in a number of music videos also with Jazzy B and Sukshinder Shinda in the songs "Chak De Boli" and "Jindey" which went on to become super-hit songs. In 2004, she did an item number in Kareena Kapoor starrer "Chameli" which became widely famous. Chahal next performed in a Punjabi film "Dil Apna Punjabi" which did decent business. She also played supporting roles in Salman Khan starrer films "Wanted" and "Main Aurr Mrs Khanna" (2009). Her song "Le Le Maza Le" in "Wanted" is her most famous song so far in her career. Chahal next did an item number titled "Chamki Mast Jawaani" in Sunny Deol and Bobby Deol starrer "Yamla Pagla Deewana" which became very popular (2011). Recently, Mahek featured in Punjabi film "Jatt Airways". Television. Mahek Chahal was a contestant in "Bigg Boss 5". Mahek was in the Bigg Boss house for 10 weeks. After her unexpected eviction there was a great disappointment among her fans.She became popular on social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter. In a viewer's poll for wildcard re-entry between Mahak Chahl, Shonali Nagrani and Laxmi Narayan, Mahek was the front runner for re-entry in the house and was voted by viewers. On day 85 Mehek re-entered the "Bigg Boss 5" house as the "Wild Card Entry Contest" as she had got the most votes by viewers (2012). She made it into the final and was the runner-up of "Bigg Boss 5". She lost to Juhi Parmar. World Tour. She also went on a world tour with Himesh Reshammiya and has performed at various locations, most importantly, the Wembley Arena and the Heineken Music Hall in Amsterdam etc. Personal life. On the Grand Finale of "Bigg Boss 5" her childhood friend and boyfriend of four years Danish Khan proposed to her in front of millions of people on Television.
592227	Shashikumar (Kannada:ಶಶಿಕುಮಾರ್) is an actor and politician from Karnataka, India. He is considered to be one of the 1990s' top actors in the Kannada film industry with a vast number of commercially successful movies. He is also known for his distinct dancing skills. In addition to Kannada movies, he has acted in Tamil, Telugu and Hindi movies. . His first released film was "Yuddha Kaanda" in 1989 which starred V. Ravichandran and Poonam Dhillon. Later he starred in some unsuccessful films like "Baa Nanna Preetisu", "Gandharva" and "Kollura Kaala". The 1990 film "Rani Maharani" made him a successful star. Further, he went on to become one of the most sought after stars. Shashikumar, along with fellow South Indian actress Malashri, have been known as all time greatest pairs in Kannada movies. Other actresses Sudha Rani, Tara and Shruti were also paired with him in many films. He has also acted in many Tamil and Telugu films. The prominent one is Rajinikanth starrer "Baasha". Accident and Soaring Career. At a time when Shashikumar was considered one of the few handsome heroes with able capabilities, he suffered an unfortunate automobile accident and had to undergo many surgeries which changed his personality. He no longer was considered for the leading roles with huge banners. This also pushed him to take the plunge into politics. After a long gap, he has made a comeback to cinema and has acted in supporting roles for multi- starrer films like "Yajamana", "Habba" and "Yaarige Saluthe Sambala". Political career. He has successfully contested and won the Member of Parliament elections for Chitradurga constituency.
1038360	Daphne Anne Angela Pleasence (born 1941), better known as Angela Pleasence is an English actress. She is the daughter of actor Donald Pleasence and Miriam Raymond. Born in Chapeltown, Sheffield, West Riding of Yorkshire, she trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. She is known for her performance as Catherine Howard in the 1970 BBC serial "The Six Wives of Henry VIII". Other television credits include: "The Barchester Chronicles", "Mansfield Park", "Silas Marner" and "Midsomer Murders". She is also noted for her roles in horror films of the 1970s, including "From Beyond the Grave", "Symptoms" and "The Godsend". She made a guest appearance in the parody series "Dr. Terrible's House of Horrible" satirising her earlier performances. She also appeared in "Stealing Heaven" (1988) and had a cameo appearance in "The Shakespeare Code" episode of "Doctor Who" as Elizabeth I. Two other roles are the Ghost of Christmas Past in the 1984 holiday television film "A Christmas Carol" and a cameo as a crowd member in Martin Scorsese's 2002 crime drama "Gangs of New York".
1055152	The Amateurs, originally called The Moguls, is a 2005 comedy film written and directed by Michael Traeger and starring Jeff Bridges. Its story revolves around six friends in a small town in the US who decide to make a full length amateur adult film. The film was released under the title "The Moguls" in the United Kingdom on April 28, 2006. The film was released under the title "The Amateurs" and opened in limited release in the United States on December 7, 2007. Plot. Six friends come together to try to find fame and fortune by making the world’s most innocent adult movie ever made. Although they have literally no idea what they’re doing, they keep at it and are determined to accomplish their goal...no matter what gets in the way. After the clueless crew ultimately "does" make a porno, they screen it for the first time at the local bar. The brother of a girl whose scene ultimately was not used sees her featured briefly while looking through the bar window; he angrily barges in takes the reel off the projector, covers it in whiskey and sets it aflame. It is revealed that this was the only print they had, all their work was now destroyed. However, the cinematographer had been taping the entire production process on mini DV tapes. He then edits these down into a completely innocent documentary about the trials and tribulations of making (and then losing) their porn film. The movie he cuts together from the DV tapes is the actual film "The Amateurs" itself. "The Amateurs" becomes a hit within the independent film community, which brings fame and fortune to the group.
581876	Ek Duuje Ke Liye () is a 1981 Hindi movie directed by K. Balachander, starring Kamal Haasan and Rati Agnihotri. It was a remake of the director's own Telugu movie "Maro Charitra", which had Kamal Haasan playing the lead role. The film was labelled a "blockbuster" at the box office in 1981, earning a total of in receipts. The film featured lyrics penned by Anand Bakshi and music by Laxmikant Pyarelal. It received critically acclaimed upon release, winning a National Film Award and 13 Filmfare nominations, eventually winning three. Plot. The movie is about the love between a Tamil man, Vasu (Kamal Haasan), and a North Indian woman, Sapna (Rati Agnihotri), who are neighbours in Goa. They come from totally different backgrounds and can hardly speak the other's language. Their parents despise each other and they have regular skirmishes. When Vasu and Sapna admit their love, there is chaos in their homes, and their parents reject the idea . As a ploy to separate the lovers, their parents impose a condition that Vasu and Sapna should stay away from each other for a year. After such a period, if they still want to get together, they can get married. During the year there should be no contact between them whatsoever. Vasu and Sapna reluctantly agree to the condition and decide to separate. Vasu moves to Hyderabad, and they both initially suffer a lot tolerating the separation. Vasu then meets Sandhya (Madhavi), a widow who teaches him Hindi. Meanwhile, Sapna's mother brings a family friend's son, Chakram (Rakesh Bedi), to Goa to distract Sapna from her devotion to Vasu, but she is not impressed. At a chance meeting in Mangalore, Chakram lies to Vasu that Sapna has agreed to marry him. Vasu gets upset and decides to marry Sandhya on the rebound. However, Sandhya comes to know of Vasu's real love and goes to Goa to know the exact situation and to clear the misunderstanding between the lovers. Vasu then returns to Goa and impresses Sapna's parents with his Hindi skills. When Vasu goes to meet Sapna he is attacked by a group of goons hired by Sandhya's brother (Raza Murad). Meanwhile, Sapna is raped by a familiar person (Sunil Thapa, who plays a librarian) at a temple and is left to die. The movie ends tragically when Vasu and Sapna commit suicide by jumping off a cliff. Cast. "Ek Duuje Ke Liye" marked the debut of two stars from South India in Hindi films: leading lady Rati Agnihotri and playback singer S. P. Balasubrahmanyam. Both received Filmfare nominations becoming top stars in Hindi films later. The only person who was missing in the Hindi remake who was in the original Telugu hit "Maro Charitra" (1979) was leading lady Sarita, as her role was now played by Rati Agnihotri. Director K. Balachander, Kamal Haasan, Madhavi, and S.P. Balasubrahmanyam all repeated their artistry in the Hindi hit. Soundtrack. The music was composed by Laxmikant-Pyarelal and the lyrics were written by Anand Bakshi. A portion of "Tere Mere Beech Mein" was later sampled in the hit 2004 Britney Spears song "Toxic" as part of its hook.
1063667	Live Free or Die Hard (released as Die Hard 4.0 outside North America), is a 2007 American action film, and the fourth installment in the "Die Hard" film series. The film was directed by Len Wiseman and stars Bruce Willis as John McClane. The film's name was adapted from New Hampshire's state motto, "Live Free or Die".
1063718	Dawn of the Dead (also known as Zombi internationally) is a 1978 horror film written and directed by George A. Romero. It was the second film made in Romero's "Living Dead" series, but contains no characters or settings from "Night of the Living Dead", and shows in a larger scale the zombie plague's apocalyptic effects on society. In the film, a plague of unknown origin has caused the reanimation of the dead, who prey on human flesh, which subsequently causes mass hysteria. The cast features David Emge, Ken Foree, Scott Reiniger and Gaylen Ross as survivors of the outbreak who barricade themselves inside a suburban shopping mall. "Dawn of the Dead" was shot over approximately four months, from late 1977 to early 1978, in the Pennsylvania cities of Pittsburgh and Monroeville. Its primary filming location was the Monroeville Mall. The film was made on a relatively modest budget estimated at $650,000, and was a significant box office success for its time, grossing an estimated $55 million worldwide. Since opening in theaters in 1978, and despite heavy gore content, reviews for the film have been nearly unanimously positive. In addition to four official sequels, the film has spawned numerous parodies and pop culture references. A remake of the movie premiered in the United States on March 19, 2004. It was labeled a "re-imagining" of the original film's concept. In 2008, "Dawn of the Dead" was chosen by "Empire" magazine as one of "The 500 Greatest Movies of All Time", along with "Night of the Living Dead". Plot. Building upon the scenario of "Night of the Living Dead", the United States is devastated by a phenomenon which reanimates recently deceased human beings as flesh-eating zombies, with the causes still unknown. (It is implied that the phenomenon was caused by cosmic radiation from a Venus space probe.) Despite efforts by the U.S. Government and local authorities to control the situation, society is beginning to collapse and the remaining survivors are given to chaos. Some rural communities and the military have been effective in fighting the zombies in open country, but cities are helpless and largely overrun.
1162699	Carole Cook (born January 14, 1924) is an American actress of musical theatre, film and television. Born as Mildred Frances Cook, she was a protégé of Lucille Ball, who gave the ingenue her stage name of "Carole", for Ball's friend Carole Lombard. Ball told Cook that "you have the same healthy disrespect for everything in general". Cook appeared regularly on two of her shows, "The Lucy Show" and "Here's Lucy". Ball was matron of honor at Cook's wedding in 1964 to actor Tom Troupe, to whom she remains married; the couple has no children. Cook starred in the animated Disney film "Home on the Range", voicing "Pearl Gesner". She appeared in such feature films as "The Incredible Mr. Limpet", "Sixteen Candles",
900277	Il paese del sesso selvaggio (1972), better known as The Man from the Deep River in North America or Deep River Savages in Europe, is an Italian exploitation film directed by Umberto Lenzi. It is perhaps best known for popularizing the cannibal genre of Italian exploitation cinema during the late 1970s and early 1980s. Lenzi was probably trying to imitate the content of notorious Mondo cinema, which had gained considerable Grindhouse popularity since Gualtiero Jacopetti and Paolo Cavara made "Mondo Cane" in 1962, even though this film is fictional. Like "Man from Deep River", Mondo films often focus on exotic customs and locations, graphic violence, and animal cruelty. The film was mainly inspired by "A Man Called Horse", which also featured a white man who is incorporated into a tribe that originally held him captive. The title "The Man from the Deep River" is even supposed to echo the title of "A Man Called Horse". Plot. The story focuses on a British photographer, John Bradley, who is sent into the Thai rain forest to take wildlife photographs. While on assignment, a tribe native to the area takes him captive. Bradley starts in Bangkok, taking photos and seeing the sights, until he arrives at a boxing match with a date. His date grows increasingly bored and disgruntled by Bradley's refusal to leave, until she finally walks out on him, which doesn't bother him in the slightest. An unidentified man sees her leave, and presumably upset over the disrespect shown towards the young woman, he follows Bradley to a bar where he confronts him with a knife. After a brief struggle, Bradley manages to turn the weapon against the man and kills him. Even though he killed in self defense, Bradley immediately flees the scene. The next day, John begins his trip deep into the rain forest. He rents a canoe and a guide to take him down a nearby river. Still fearing that he'll be captured by the authorities, he pays off the man to not mention their encounter. After rowing a ways and taking several wildlife photos, Bradley's guide, Tuan, mentions his concerns about traveling so far down river, which he reports as being dangerous. John agrees to head back after one more day of traveling. John falls asleep, and when he awakes, he finds Tuan dead with an arrow in his throat. Before he has any chance to escape, a native tribe captures him in a net and carries him to their village. The chief, Luhanà, is told that the group has captured a large fish-man. At the village, Bradley is hung in the net from a high pole, where a group of young children hit him with bamboo stalks. While hanging, Bradley witnesses the execution of two war criminals by his captive tribe. The tribe is at war with another, even more primitive tribe of cannibals, the Kuru. Two of the cannibals have their tongues cut off in the village center. Bradley reacts with disgust, labeling the tribe as murderers. Still in the net and hanging for hours, John notices that he has attracted the attention of Marayå, the beautiful and naked daughter of the chief who takes an immediate fascination with the stranger. She convinces her father that John is not a fish-man, just a man. Luhanà agrees to release Bradley as Marayå's slave. He is forced to stay locked in a shack for hours, where Taima, Marayå's governess, introduces herself. She is a missionary child and can speak English, and tells Bradley that soon he will be released, as Marayå will be married to Karen in ten days. Luhanà interrupts the two and unties Bradley because it is the day of the Feast of the Sun. During the feast, a helicopter flies overhead. Bradley tries to be rescued, but he is subdued by other warriors, who nearly kill him. Marayå intervenes, however, protecting her property. The helicopter gives John hope, and he plans escape, which Taima agrees to eventually help him with. A month passes, as Bradley grows even more tense. During one day of labor, a building accident kills a young man. Bradley watches the funeral ceremonies and is again shocked by the actions of the natives. During the ceremony, Taima tells Bradley that now is his time to escape. He does, but Karen and a group of warriors chase after him. They corner him at a waterfall, where Bradley kills Karen. Again a helicopter flies by, and again John goes unnoticed. After Karen's death, the tribe decides to incorporate Bradley as one of them. He faces various rituals and tortures until he is finally released and accepted as a warrior, and he uses his knowledge of modern technology and medicine to help the tribe, but, as a result, becomes an enemy of the tribe's witch doctor. During this time, he and Marayå begin to become fond of each other, until Marayå must choose a new fiancé. Of the tribe's warriors, Marayå chooses John, and the two are married. After the wedding, the two run into the wilderness where Bradley gets naked and has sex with Marayå. This ends up getting Marayå pregnant. During the conception, however, a black butterfly flew over the two lovers, a foreboding of ill fate. It is now six months after Bradley has been captured, and he has finally accepts his new life with Marayå. However, this is also when the cannibals decide to strike. Two teenagers, a boy and a girl, are ambushed outside of the village by the Kuru. The girl is killed and the boy mortally wounded, but he still is able to inform the others of the attack before he dies. John joins other warriors to eliminate the attack party, and they arrive to see the Kuru party consuming the young woman. The group attacks the cannibals, with John participating in activities he earlier condemned. When Bradley returns, however, he learns that Marayå has fallen ill from the pregnancy and has been stricken blind. John believes the only way to save her is to take her back to civilization for modern medicinal treatment. Taima helps the two escape, but she is caught in doing so has her hand cut off as punishment. Bradley and Marayå are captured and forced to return. Upon their return, Marayå goes into labor. Again Bradley rejects the witch doctor, sending him away from the ailing Marayå. At this time, the Kuru return to attack the village. They set fire to many huts before John and the other warriors are able to react. In the ensuing and graphic battle, John takes Marayå to safety until the cannibals are fought back and withdraw. As John tries to comfort Marayå's pain, he points out a black butterfly overhead. Marayå then reveals the significance of the butterfly: death. Marayå finally gives birth, and dies shortly after. John wanders aimlessly through the jungle upon his wife's death, only sadly recollecting memories of her. Again a helicopter flies overhead, and after a moment of contemplation, he takes cover with the rest of the tribe, deciding to stay with them, probably for life, to help them rebuild and live against the Kuru and the elements. Legacy. Though the "cannibal boom" of the 1970s and 1980s did not start until Ruggero Deodato released his film "Last Cannibal World" in 1977, "Man from Deep River" is seen as either the inspiration or the start of the cannibal genre, as the combination of the rain forest setting and onscreen cannibalism was not seen until its release (ironically, director Umberto Lenzi would admit that cannibalism was not intended to be the central theme). When released in America, it would prove successful on Time Square's 42nd Street under the title of "Sacrifice!", offering the opportunity for similar films to enjoy that same success (which was ultimately the case). Lenzi was even given the chance to direct "Last Cannibal World", but the producers chose Ruggero Deodato when they refused to match Lenzi's price. He would, however, make a follow up in 1980 with his film "Eaten Alive!" (which even featured the Grindhouse theaters of 42nd Street that had made "Man from Deep River" famous). Censorship. Other than being the first cannibal film, "Man from Deep River" is also notorious for several scenes of extreme violence and gore, which is standard for its genre. Though several scenes of torture and cruelty are present, its inclusion of several on screen slayings of animals tends to land the film in hot water with censors all over the world. Video Nasty. A large amount of the film's notoriety comes from its inclusion in the UK's list of video nasties, films that the Department of Public Prosecutions (DPP) deemed obscene. Though it was rejected for cinema release and certification by the BBFC in 1975, it was still able to make it to a video release under the title "Deep River Savages". When the DPP compiled the "video nasties" in 1983, "Deep River Savages" made its way onto the list. In 1984, the Video Recordings Act was instated by the British Government, and "Deep River Savages" was banned from the UK in its entirety (largely due to the real animal killings). In 2003, "Deep River Savages" was again brought before the BBFC; it was passed with a certificate of 18 after being cut by nearly four minutes to remove all animal cruelty present. Ironically, despite all the controversy surrounding the film's UK release, "Man from Deep River" was passed with a simple R rating by the MPAA.
1265746	Warner Oland (October 3, 1879 – August 6, 1938) was a Swedish American actor most remembered for his screen role as the detective Charlie Chan. Biography. He was born Johan Verner Ölund in the village of Nyby, Bjurholm Municipality, Västerbotten County, Sweden. He claimed that his vaguely Oriental appearance was due to possessing some Mongolian ancestry, though his known ancestry contains no indication that this was so. When he was thirteen, his family emigrated to the United States. Educated in Boston, Massachusetts, he spoke English and his native Swedish, and eventually translated some of the plays of August Strindberg. As a young man he pursued a career in theater, at first working on set design while developing his acting skills. Trained as a dramatic actor, in 1906, he was signed to tour the country with the troupe led by actress Alla Nazimova. The following year he met and married the playwright and portrait painter Edith Gardener Shearn. The brilliant woman made an ideal partner for Oland and she mastered the Swedish language, helping him with the translation of Strindberg's works that they jointly had published in book form in 1912.
1063092	Delroy George Lindo (born November 18, 1952) is an English actor, theatre director. Lindo has been nominated for the Tony and Screen Actors Guild awards and has won a Satellite Award. He is perhaps best known for his roles as West Indian Archie in Spike Lee's "Malcolm X", Catlett in "Get Shorty", Detective Castlebeck in "Gone in 60 Seconds" and Woody Carmichael in the Spike Lee film "Crooklyn". He is currently known for having starred as Alderman Ronin Gibbons in the "The Chicago Code". Early life. Lindo was born in Eltham, south-east London, the son of Jamaican immigrant parents, and was brought up in nearby Lewisham. His mother was a nurse and his father worked in various jobs. As a teenager, he and his mother moved to Toronto, Canada, and when he was sixteen, they moved to San Francisco, where Lindo would graduate from the American Conservatory Theater. Career. Lindo's movie debut came in 1976 with the British comedy "Find The Lady", followed by two other roles in films such as that of an Army Sergeant in "More American Graffiti" (1979). He then quit screen acting for 10 years to concentrate on theatre production. In 1982 he debuted on Broadway in ""Master Harold"...and the Boys" directed by the play's author Athol Fugard. By 1988 Lindo had earned a Tony nomination for his portrayal of Herald Loomis in "Joe Turner's Come and Gone". It was director Spike Lee who provided the boost Lindo's career needed, even though he had turned down a role in "Do the Right Thing" to act alongside Rutger Hauer and Joan Chen in the cult science fiction movie "Salute of the Jugger" (1990). Lee cast him as Woody Carmichael in the drama "Crooklyn" (1994). Other films in which he has starring roles are Barry Sonnenfeld's "Get Shorty", "Clockers", "Ransom" and "Soul of the Game" (1996) as the baseball player Satchel Paige. Many of the character actor's roles alternate between treacherous bad guys and trustworthy professionals. He continues to work in television and was most recently seen on the short-lived NBC drama "Kidnapped". He also guest-starred on "The Simpsons" in the episode "Brawl in the Family", playing a character named Gabriel that appears very similar to his character in "A Life Less Ordinary" (where Dan Hedaya played the angel Gabriel, and Lindo's boss). Homer believes Gabriel is an angel, which he repeatedly denies. Lindo also had a small role in the 1995 gorilla-action film Congo playing the corrupt Captain Wanta. Wanta, a brusque man with a "big mouth" fond of sesame cake, must be bribed with "more" money (USD 50,000) in exchange for the release of the main characters, their truck, the gorilla Amy and ten military escorts to the Congo-Zaire border. Though Lindo's performance has achieved internet meme status he was actually uncredited in the role. In the fall of 2008 Lindo revisited August Wilson's play "Joe Turner's Come and Gone", this time directing a production of the play at the Berkeley Repertory Theatre in Berkeley, California; once more in 2010, he played the role of elderly seer Bynum in David Lan's production at the Young Vic Theatre in London. Lindo's association with Berkeley Rep began in 2007 when he directed Tanya Barfield's play "The Blue Door".
1164963	Mary Ellen "Mala" Powers (December 20, 1931 – June 11, 2007) was an American film actress. She was born in San Francisco, California. In 1940, her family moved to Los Angeles. Her father was an executive with United Press. In the summer of her relocation, Powers attended the Max Reinhardt Junior Workshop where she enjoyed her first role in a play before a live audience. She continued with her drama lessons, and a year later she auditioned and won a part in the 1942 "Dead End Kids" film "Tough as They Come". Early life. At the age of 16 she began working in radio drama, before becoming a film actress in 1950. Her first roles were in "Outrage" and "Edge of Doom" in 1950. That same year, Stanley Kramer signed Powers to star opposite Jose Ferrer in what may be her most remembered role as Roxane in "Cyrano de Bergerac". She was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for her part in this movie.
1019257	Curse of the Fly is the second and final sequel to the 1958 version of "The Fly". It was released in 1965, and unlike the other films in the series was produced in England. The film was directed by Don Sharp and the screenplay was written by Harry Spalding.
1057994	Sophia Anna Bush (born July 8, 1982) is an American actress, director, and spokesperson. She starred in the CW television series "One Tree Hill", where she portrayed Brooke Davis from 2003 to 2012. Bush is additionally known for her film portrayals in "John Tucker Must Die" (2006), "The Hitcher" (2007), and "The Narrows" (2008). Early life. Bush was born in Pasadena, California. She is the only child of Maureen, a photography studio manager, and Charles William Bush, an advertising and celebrity photographer. Bush has Italian ancestry. She graduated from Westridge School for Girls in 2000 in Pasadena, California, where she was a member of the volleyball team. At Westridge, she was required to participate in the theatre arts program. Bush stated: "Part of my school's requirement was to do a play. I was really irritated because I wanted to play volleyball and I had to go and do this play. But there was a moment after the performance when I realized I had gone and been somebody else. I thought, 'If I could do this for the rest of my life, I am set.' It was like love at first sight." At the age of 17, Bush was named the Tournament of Roses Parade Queen. She attended the University of Southern California (USC) as a journalism major until her junior year, where she was a member and Social Chair of the Kappa Kappa Gamma sorority. In 2003, Bush was cast to play the role of Brooke Davis on "One Tree Hill". Subsequently, she stopped attending USC. Career. Bush made her first big screen appearance in the comedy feature film "Van Wilder". Following this, she made appearances in several television shows, such as "Nip/Tuck", "Sabrina, the Teenage Witch", and "Punk'd". She was cast as Kate Brewster in "", but was replaced by Claire Danes because the director thought she was too young for the role. In 2003, she landed the role of Brooke Davis in the CW television series "One Tree Hill". Her character, Brooke Davis, evolved from a trouble-making vixen to a fiercely loyal friend. After Bush gained mainstream fame, she became a spokesperson for high-profile brands. She posed on the cover of several mainstream magazines such as "Entertainment Weekly", "Lucky", "Maxim", "Glamour," "InStyle" and Zooey Magazine. She has had several endorsement deals, one of her latest being for Op's fall campaign OPen Campus. Bush and her "One Tree Hill" co-stars were endorsers for MasterCard, Kmart, Chevy Cobalt and Cingular wireless. She directed three episodes of the series including the penultimate episode of the ninth and final season. In July 2006, Bush starred in the 20th Century Fox feature film "John Tucker Must Die" alongside Jesse Metcalfe and Brittany Snow. The film was a commercial success grossing over 60 million worldwide. The same year, she also starred in Buena Vista Pictures' thriller film, "Stay Alive" alongside Frankie Muniz and Adam Goldberg. The film opened at number 3 in the U.S. box office. In 2008, Bush starred in François Velle's independent film "The Narrows" with Kevin Zegers, Eddie Cahill, and Vincent D'Onofrio. She played the beautiful, intelligent, and self-assured Kathy Popovich. The film is based on Tim McLoughlin's novel "Heart of the Old Country" and it premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in September 2008. Her most recently released role is in the 2011 film "Chalet Girl". In February 2012, it was reported Bush had joined the cast of CBS's comedy "Partners." The series was cancelled in November 2012. She starred in Passion Pit's "Carried Away" music video, which debuted on February 14, 2013. Personal life. Bush became engaged to her "One Tree Hill" co-star Chad Michael Murray in May 2004, and they married on April 16, 2005 in Santa Monica, California. They announced their separation in September 2005, after five months of marriage. In February 2006, Bush filed papers seeking an annulment on the grounds of fraud. Bush's petition was denied, and she and Murray were instead granted a divorce in December 2006. Bush later said, "It devastates me now that I have been reduced to a Hollywood statistic–another joke marriage. I never expected to be married more than once...because I knew what I was getting into and will always believe in love." On October 27, 2008, Murray confirmed a romance between Bush and fellow "One Tree Hill" star James Lafferty. "Sophia and I are both professional and mature enough to get through it ... and now it's just easy. We're just friends. And she's got James, and James and I are friends," he stated. On May 25, 2010, Bush confirmed she had been dating fellow "One Tree Hill" co-star Austin Nichols on and off for the past four years. It was also revealed that Nichols took a job on "One Tree Hill" to be with Bush. In February 2012, it was reported the couple had broken up. On January 8, 2011, Bush's nine-year-old second cousin, Christina-Taylor Green, was fatally shot in the assassination attempt on Rep. Gabrielle Giffords in Tucson, Arizona. Green was the youngest victim of the massacre, which claimed the lives of six and injured 14. Since January 2013, Bush has been dating Dan Fredinburg, a program manager for Google. Activism. Bush often uses Twitter, Facebook, and her blog to raise awareness of world events and/or fundraisers in which she takes part. Bush is a part of fundraisers such as F Cancer, Run For the Gulf, and Global Green Gulf Relief. Bush has been involved in political issues, supporting Barack Obama for president in the 2008 election. In February 2008, she made several appearances in Texas in support of the Obama campaign in the Texas Presidential primary election. She was joined in Dallas, Fort Worth, and Waco by fellow actor Adam Rodríguez. Touring mostly college campuses, they urged young voters to get involved politically. In April 2009, along with stars including Sarah Chalke, Jason Lewis, Alicia Silverstone, Jane Lynch and Lance Bass, Bush appeared in a video on Funny or Die called "A Gaythering Storm", which parodied a NOM video objecting to same-sex marriage.
742966	The Four-Faced Liar is a 2010 comedy-drama-romance film by director Jacob Chase. The title is a reference to a four-faced clock that displays four different times, all wrong, and to a bar with that name (also named after the clock) that features prominently as a location in the film. Plot. Greg has just moved in with his girlfriend Molly who lives in New York City. They meet Trip and his lesbian friend Bridget. Molly and Bridget bond as they discuss "Wuthering Heights" and relationships. Molly says she has everything in common with her boyfriend but Greg lacks passion; Bridget says she doesn't have a girlfriend because no one can hold her interest for long enough to bother. Trip annoys his girlfriend Chloe by blowing off a ballet performance to watch sports, but wins her back with a candlelit apology, her favorite dessert, and a self-deprecating dance. Greg drunkenly tries to force Molly into sex; she leaves him to stay with Bridget until he apologizes. At a New Year’s Eve party, Molly laments that she has never been thrown up against a wall and kissed. In the bathroom, Bridget does just that and the pair has breathless sex in the year’s final moments. Molly returns to Greg, but begins an affair with Bridget. Chloe catches Trip having sex with a random girl and leaves him. When Trip finds out about Molly and Bridget, he reports it to Greg, who forgives his girlfriend because “[she's] worth it”. Molly breaks off the relationship with Bridget and announces that she is marrying Greg. Later, at Molly's birthday party, Trip attempts to woo Chloe back, while Bridget presents her case to Molly with a simple, “I like you”. Greg throws Bridget up against a car in anger over her presence at the party, but when Chloe and Molly realize that both Greg and Bridget are missing, Trip pulls Greg off of Bridget. The film ends after Molly ends her engagement with Greg, and both Bridget and Molly lie in bed, staring at the ceiling. Bridget tells Molly, that she's totally keeping her interested and that she's trying to be the one Molly wants. Then she questions the look on Molly's face, to which Molly responds that the look indicates love. Bridget cries a little tear not able to say anything but oh, and both continue to stare at the ceiling, each speculating their next move. However, their facial expressions tell more than words ever will. Bridget's expression is one of entering unexplored territory (i.e., that of love). Molly's expression is one of self-doubting as she has fully committed to living a life very different to that she has ever experienced. Additional information. Winner of 2010 HBO Audience Award for Best First Feature Film (Outfest), Winner of 2010 Roger Walker-Dack award for Emerging Artist (Marja-Lewis Ryan), Official Selection: Slamdance Film Festival, Newport Beach International Film Festival, Ashland Independent Film Festival, Miami Gay and Lesbian Film Festival, Toronto Gay and Lesbian Film Festival, Provincetown Film festival, deadCenter Film Festival, Pink Apple Film Festival, New York LGBT Film Festival, Frameline, Tokyo LGBT Film Festival, Outfest, Philadelphia QFest, North Carolina LGBT Film Festival, and Atlanta Film Festival. MTV/Viacom/Logo owns the broadcast rights. Wolfe Media owns the North American DVD/VOD rights. Multivisionaire is the film's foreign sales agent. TLA owns the UK rights.
1166212	Gladys George (September 13, 1904 – December 8, 1954) was an American actress. Early life. She was born as Gladys Clare Evans on September 13, 1904 in Patten, Maine to English parents. Career. George went on the stage at the age of three and toured the United States, appearing with her parents. She starred on stage in the 1920s, although she had made several films in the early part of that decade.
1063931	Ron Leibman (born October 11, 1937) is an American actor. He is most commonly known internationally for his portrayal as 'Dr. Leonard Green' a recurring role on the hit comedy "Friends" where his character is the father of main cast member Rachel Green played by Jennifer Aniston. Career. Leibman was a member of the Compass Players in the late 1950s, and was admitted to the Actors Studio shortly thereafter. He has appeared in many films such as "Phar Lap"; "Where's Poppa?"; "The Hot Rock"; "Slaughterhouse-Five"; "The Super Cops"; "Up the Academy"; "Norma Rae"; "Romantic Comedy"; "Zorro, The Gay Blade"; "Garden State"; and "Rhinestone". He co-starred with second wife Jessica Walter in Neil Simon's play "Rumors". They also appeared together as husband and wife in the film "Dummy" and in the TV Series "Law & Order" in the episode, "House Counsel."
1075001	Bolinao 52 is a documentary by Vietnamese American director Duc Nguyen about the Vietnamese boat people ship that was originally stranded in the Pacific Ocean in 1988. During their 37 days at sea, the group encountered violent storms and engine failures. They fought their thirst and hunger and a US Navy ship reportedly refused to rescue them, forcing the boat people to starve despite resorting to cannibalism. Only 52 out of the 110 boat people survived the tragedy and were rescued by Filipino fishermen who brought them to the Philippine island of Bolinao. Release Date. "Bolinao 52" premiered on March 19, 2007, in San Francisco and on March 24, 2007, in San Jose at the San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival.
1068557	Sarah Christine Roemer (born August 28, 1984) is an American actress. She is best known for her roles in the films "The Grudge 2", "Disturbia", and "Fired Up!" and the television series "The Event". Life and career. Roemer was born in San Diego, California, and began a modeling career in 2000 after she was discovered while buying coffee at a local 7-Eleven while attending Horizon Jr/Sr High School. Roemer made her screen debut in 2006 portraying Lacey Kimble in the horror film "The Grudge 2". She portrays a high school student and young cheerleader. The film was released October 13, 2006. Despite a negative critical reception, the film managed to have box office success grossing $70,711,175 worldwide. She also had a small role in the independent film "" portraying Rachel. In 2007 she starred alongside Shia LaBeouf, Carrie-Anne Moss and David Morse in Paramount Pictures American thriller "Disturbia". She portrayed Ashley Carlson, a love interest and neighbor of LaBeouf's character. Filming took place from January 6, 2006 to April 28, 2006 with a budget of $20 million. The film was released on April 13, 2007 to a positive critical reception. The film debuted at #1 in its first week at the box office with $23 million, ultimately grossing $117,760,134. She also starred alongside Dakota Fanning, Kristen Stewart and Virginia Madsen in the Kate Hudson–directed short film "Cutlass". In 2008 Roemer starred alongside Travis Van Winkle and Ellen Hollman in "Asylum". The film had a budget of $11 million and was directed by David Ellis, who also directed "Final Destination 2". The film was released straight-to-DVD on July 15, 2008. In 2009, Roemer starred in the teen comedy film "Fired Up". The film was released on February 20 to mostly negative reviews, and failed to cover its $20 million budget. In 2009 Roemer portrayed Andy Wilson, the daughter of Richard Gere's character Parker Wilson in the American drama film "". The film is an American adaptation of the 1987 Japanese film "Hachikō Monogatari". The film enjoyed worldwide box office success, grossing $41,492,583 in foreign countries. Critical reception was positive. She also starred in the independent film "Falling Up" which was released to mixed reviews and was released straight-to-DVD in late 2009. Roemer appeared in the music video for "Come Back To Me" by "American Idol" contestant David Cook. In 2010 she starred in the independent drama/thriller "Locked In", portraying Emma Sawyer. The film which co-starred Eliza Dushku was released straight-to-DVD but was released around the festival circuit. She was also an associate producer. She also portrayed the role of the central character Madison Walker in the independent drama "Waking Madison" which was released straight-to-DVD on July 12, 2011. She also appeared as Kristen in the 2010 independent romantic comedy, "The Con Artist", with Donald Sutherland and Rebecca Romijn. Roemer starred in the NBC drama series "The Event". The show aired for one season, and was canceled on May 13, 2011.
675094	Friedrich Gustav Maximilian Schreck (6 September 1879 – 20 February 1936) was a German actor. He is most often remembered today for his lead role as Count Orlok in the film "Nosferatu" (1922). Early life. Max Schreck was born in Berlin-Friedenau, on 6 September 1879. Six years later his father bought a house in the independent rural community of Friedenau, then part of the district of Teltow. His father saw Schreck's ever-growing enthusiasm for theater and did not approve. His mother provided the boy with money, which he used to secretly take acting lessons. Only after the death of his father did he attend drama school. After graduating, he travelled across the country with Demetrius Schrutz for a short time. Engagements in Mulhouse, Meseritz, Speyer, Rudolstadt, Erfurt, Weissenfels, and the first extended stay at the Gera Theater. Greater engagement will follow, especially in Frankfurt am Main. From there he went to Berlin to Reinhardt and the Munich Chamber Games to Otto Falkenberg. From then on he began to work in films. Schreck received his training at the "" (the State Theatre of Berlin) which he completed in 1902. He made his stage début in Meseritz and Speyer, and then toured Germany for two years appearing at theatres in Zittau, Erfurt, Bremen, Lucerne, Gera, and Frankfurt am Main. Schreck then joined Max Reinhardt's company of performers in Berlin. Many of Reinhardt's troupe made a significant contribution to cinema. He was in the German military in World War I. Career and Death. For three years between 1919 and 1922, Schreck appeared at the Munich Kammerspiele, including a role in the expressionist production of Bertolt Brecht's début, "" ("Drums in the Night") (in which he played the "freakshow landlord" Glubb). During this time he also worked on his first film "Der Richter von Zalamea", adapted from a six act play, for Decla Bioscop. 1921, he was hired by Prana Film for its first and only production, "Nosferatu". The company declared itself bankrupt after the film was released to avoid paying copyright infringement costs to "Dracula" author Bram Stoker's widow, Florence Stoker. Schreck portrayed Count Orlok, a character analogous to Count Dracula. In 1923, while still in Munich, Schreck appeared in a 16-minute (one-reeler) slapstick, "surreal comedy" written by Bertolt Brecht with cabaret and stage actors Karl Valentin, Liesl Karlstadt, Erwin Faber, and Blandine Ebinger, entitled ' ("Mysteries of a Barbershop"), directed by Erich Engel. Also in 1923, Schreck appeared as a blind man in the film ' ("The Street"). Schreck's second collaboration with "Nosferatu" director F. W. Murnau was the 1924 comedy "" ("The Grand Duke's Finances"). Even Murnau did not hesitate to declare his contempt for the picture. In 1926, Schreck returned to the Kammerspiele in Munich and continued to act in films surviving the advent of sound until his death in 1936 of heart failure. On 19 February 1936, Schreck had just played The Grand Inquisitor in the play "", standing in for Will Dohm. That evening he felt unwell and the doctor sent him to the hospital where he died early the next morning of a heart attack. His obituary especially praised his role as The Miser in Molière's comedy play. He was buried on the fourteenth of March, 1936 at Wilmersdorfer Waldfriedhof in Berlin. Personal life. He was married to actress Fanny Normann, who appeared in a few films, often credited as Fanny Schreck. One of Schreck's contemporaries (Fritz Reiff) recalled that he was a loner with an unusual sense of humor and skill in playing grotesque characters. He also reported that he lived in "a remote and incorporeal world" and that he spent time walking through the forest. Cultural references. The person and performance of Max Schreck in "Nosferatu" has been fictionalized by actor Willem Dafoe in E. Elias Merhige's "Shadow of the Vampire". In a sort of secret history, "Shadow" posits that Schreck actually "was" a vampire. Scriptwriter Daniel Waters created the character Max Shreck for the Tim Burton film "Batman Returns" and compared him to the character Max Schreck played in "Nosferatu". "Variety" claimed the name was an in-joke. Shreck was a character created exclusively for the movie, absent from the comics, and serves as one of the main antagonists.
1054641	Gentlemen Broncos is a 2009 comedy film written by Jared and Jerusha Hess and directed by Jared Hess. The film stars Michael Angarano, Jemaine Clement, Jennifer Coolidge, and Sam Rockwell. Plot. Benjamin Purvis lives with his mother Judith, who designs tacky clothes and makes rock hard popcorn balls. Judith and Benjamin make ends meet by working at a women's retail clothing store. Benjamin spends his spare time writing science fiction stories, and he has recently completed a story called "Yeast Lords" that centers on a hero named Bronco, modeled after his long-dead father. At a two-day writing camp for aspiring fantasy and science fiction authors, Benjamin attends lectures by his idol Ronald Chevalier. Chevalier announces a contest for the writers, in which the winner's story will be published nationally. After encouragement from fellow camper Tabitha, Benjamin submits "Yeast Lords". Tabatha shows the story to her friend Lonnie Donaho who runs an ultra low-budget video production company. Lonnie gives Benjamin a post-dated check for $500 and begins adapting "Yeast Lords" into a film. Throughout the film, portions of "Yeast Lords" are enacted as Benjamin imagines it. Bronco is infinitely masculine, and he valiantly struggles with a villain over yeast production. As Chevalier reviews the stories from the campers, he gets a call from his publisher, rejecting his latest manuscript. Panicked, he picks up Benjamin's story, and it sparks his imagination. Chevalier changes Bronco into Brutus, an extremely effeminate transgendered hero, but otherwise leaves the story intact. His publisher loves it, and the novel is rushed into production. Benjamin is nauseated to see how badly Donaho has adapted his work, and he abruptly leaves the local premiere of the film with Tabatha. They go to a bookstore where he discovers Chevalier's plagiarism. He confronts Chevalier at a local book signing, assaulting him with some merchandise Chevalier had offered him in exchange for keeping his theft quiet. Judith comes to visit her son in jail to give him his birthday present. She hands him a box of manuscripts, all officially bound by the Writers Guild of America. She explains that she has been registering all his stories with them since he was seven years old, thinking they would make a nice keepsake for his children. "Yeast Lords" is one of the registered stories. The film ends with copies of Chevalier's novel being replaced on store shelves with Benjamin's. Over the closing credits, he sits and proudly watches a fashion show featuring his mother's designs. Production. In December 2007, "JoBlo.com" reported that Jared and Jerusha Hess had signed with Fox Searchlight Pictures to produce "Gentlemen Broncos", based on a spec script they had written. The deal called for Jared Hess to direct and Mike White, who co-wrote "Nacho Libre" with them, to produce. Filming began in March 2008 in Utah. Much of the film was shot in Tooele, UT. In early August 2008, work on an Internet viral marketing began, which had a video introducing the character of Ronald Chevalier. A second video was released in October 2008. A trailer was released on August 19, 2009. Some of the artwork in the opening credits is by fantasy and science fiction artist David Lee Anderson. Release. "Gentlemen Broncos" was intended to be released theatrically on October 30, 2009, but due to poor reviews the national release was pulled from theaters. Reception. The film received mostly negative reviews and holds a 18% rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 78 reviews by critics. Metacritic gave it a generally unfavorable 28 out of 100 based on 21 reviews. Roger Ebert gave the film 2 out of 4 stars, writing that while "Hess invents good characters" they quickly become lost in a disjointed and meandering story. Home media. "Gentlemen Broncos" was released on DVD and Blu-ray on March 2, 2010.
591508	Love Mein Ghum (; , earlier titled "Kitni Haseen Hai Zindagi") is a Lollywood Urdu film, directed and produced by Reema Khan. It stars Moammar Rana, Reema Khan, Nabeel Khan, and Araida in the leading roles. The first spell of the film was shot in the Azerbaijani city of Baku and second in Malaysia, making this Khan's second film abroad. "Love Mein Ghum" was released on August 31, 2011 and was a Super Hit at the box office. The film was nominated for Best Flim Of The Year 2010 Award on Pakistan Media Award in 2011. Cast. Special Appearance. These celebrities have special appearance in the song "Love Mein Ghum". Production. Casting. Earlier, Shaan was picked to play the lead role, however, he declined. Filming. The first spell of the film shooting started in September/October 2008 in Baku, Azerbaijan, while the second spell of the film was shot in July 2009 in Malaysia. Naseer khan was the 1st choice of this film [http://www.tvperiods.com] Post-production. The post-production was all done in India by Akiv Ali, who was also the editor of Hrithik Roshan's "Kites", which was released in 2010. Budget. Reema Khan, the director and producer of the film, claims that Love Mein Ghum is the most expensive film to be made in Lollywood, as she in an interview said, "I have not compromised on any aspect of the movie, from Music to clothes, and from sets to post production everything is done with open heart and no compromises were made, the best available gadgets were used for the movie production and post-production". Release. The film was released on August 31, 2011. Firstly, the film was to be released on Eid ul-Fitr 2010, but due to the external weak condition of country caused by the history's worst ever floods, the release date was extended. The movie trailer was released in May 2011, and the movie will be released on Eid ul-Fitr. Songs have been released and also available to download Online from iTunes. The title song accompanied by the video directed by Saqib Malik has also been released. The movie is distributed by Lux productions, and this is their first ever movie project. Reception and ratings. The film has been given an overall rating of 7.56/10 by "Galaxy Lollywood" and is graded as a B+ Grade film in its pre-release rating. Music of the film is above average and so is the cast, but it is the film's expected quality, that has scored the highest (8.5/10) as Reema claims that the film is going to be the most expensive one of Lollywood and so it is also assumed that quality will also be something praiseworthy. Box office. The film opened to about full occupancy at almost every cinema varying 90% - 100%. The film got a massive response from audience throughout the country. The film got a success in recovering its budget. It earned Rs 4 crore in just some days of its release. The box office reports declared it a "Super Hit". Music. Love Mein Ghum's original music is by M. Arshad, Najat Ali, Ravi Bal, Waqar Ali and Huntar and the lyrics are penned by Khawaja Parvaiz, Ahmad Aqeel Ruby and Marz. The singers includes Ali Zafar, who has sung the title song of the film and Abrar-ul-Haq with 'Sohniye - Heeriye', Kailash Kher and Shazia Manzoor for song 'Sohniye Yaadan' Composed and produced by Ravi Bal, Sunidhi Chauhan and Hunterz for "Aila Aila", Rahat Fateh Ali Khan and Shaan. Pappu Samrat is the choreographer.
655202	Laura Harring (born Laura Elena Herring Martínez; March 3, 1964) is a American actress and former Miss USA (1985). She is known for her role as Rita in "Mulholland Drive". Early life. She was born in Los Mochis, Sinaloa, Mexico. Her mother, María Elena Cairo, is a spiritual teacher, real estate investor, and secretary. Her father, Raymond Herring, was a developer and organic farmer of Austrian-German descent. The two divorced in 1971. Harring lived the first ten years of her life in Mexico, before her family relocated to San Antonio, Texas. Caught by stray fire from a driveby shooting at age 12, Harring suffered a head wound from a .45 bullet. At age 16, she convinced her family to let her study in Switzerland at Aiglon College. She eventually returned to America, settling down in El Paso, Texas and entered the world of beauty pageants. She won the title of Miss El Paso USA, and soon after, Miss Texas USA. Harring spent the next year traveling through Asia, exploring Europe and working as a social worker in India. In 1987, she married Count Carl-Eduard von Bismarck-Schönhausen, great-great-grandson of Otto von Bismarck. While she retains the title of Countess von Bismarck-Schönhausen, the couple divorced in 1989. Harring studied theatre at the London Academy of Performing Arts and is skilled in the Italian style of Commedia dell'arte, as well as Latin dances, including the Argentine tango. Career. Harring had two recurring television roles. During 1990-1991, she played Carla Greco on ABC's soap "General Hospital", and during 1997, she played Paula Stevens on NBC's soap "Sunset Beach". She is perhaps best known for her performance in David Lynch's cult film "Mulholland Drive" (2001), opposite Naomi Watts and Justin Theroux. Harring went on to work twice more with Lynch—as an anthropomorphic rabbit in "Rabbits" (2002) and in a cameo appearance in "Inland Empire" (2006). In 2003, she starred in "Mi Casa, Su Casa" together with Barbara Eden of "I Dream of Jeannie" fame. In 2004, she starred as John Travolta's spoiled wife in the movie adaptation of Marvel Comics's "The Punisher". In 2006, she joined the cast of the FX Networks crime drama, "The Shield". She starred in Mike Newell's adaptation of Gabriel García Marquez's "Love in the Time of Cholera" (2007). Later film projects include "Bitter Grapes" and "Kluge". Since 2010, Harring has starred in "Gossip Girl" as Evelyn Bass/Elizabeth Fisher.
1064879	Smokey and the Bandit II is a 1980 comedy film released on August 15, 1980 in the United States. It is the sequel to the 1977 film "Smokey and the Bandit". The film stars Burt Reynolds, Sally Field, Jerry Reed, Jackie Gleason, and Dom DeLuise. Like the first film, it was directed by Hal Needham. The film was originally released in the United Kingdom, New Zealand, Australia and several other, mainly Commonwealth countries as Smokey and the Bandit Ride Again. Early video releases and TV broadcasts also used this title, but in more recent years have reverted to the original U.S. title. It was followed by a sequel three years later, "Smokey and the Bandit Part 3", in which Reynolds appeared only in a brief cameo appearance, and Sally Field was absent completely. The plot centers on Bo "Bandit" Darville (Burt Reynolds), and Cledus "Snowman" Snow (Jerry Reed), transporting an elephant to the GOP National Convention with Sheriff Buford T. Justice, played by Jackie Gleason, in hot pursuit once again. Plot. Big Enos Burdett (Pat McCormick) is running for Governor of Texas against another candidate, John Coen (David Huddleston). After a figurative and literal "mudslinging" between the two, they are both confronted by the outgoing governor and given a thorough tongue- lashing. As Burdett is leaving the office he overhears the governor yelling at an assistant to take responsibility for transporting a crate of unknown content from Miami to the Republican Party convention in Dallas. Burdett then schemes to pick up the crate and deliver it to the convention. He enlists the help of Bandit (Burt Reynolds) and Cledus (Jerry Reed) to carry out the task. Cledus then attempts to convince the Bandit to "do it one last time." Unfortunately, in the time since their previous challenge, the Bandit has split from his love interest Carrie aka "Frog" (Sally Field) and become an alcoholic. The Bandit is said to be "the only man in the world to drink up a Trans Am". Cledus seeks the help of Frog to encourage the Bandit to sober up and regain his fitness, since Big Enos has raised the stakes of the game to $400,000, equal to $ today. Frog abandons her second attempt at wedding Buford T. Justice's (Jackie Gleason) son Junior (Mike Henry) to help. She is initially persuaded more by the money than her love for Bandit. She buys him a 1980 Turbo Trans Am named "Son of Trigger", powered by the Turbo 301, by trading in Junior's car. The middle sections of the film feature a race across the United States as the trio once again tries to outrun and outwit Justice and Junior. The team discovers that their cargo is in quarantine for three weeks, and they need to get it to Dallas in three days. When they break into the quarantine area to steal the crate, the mysterious cargo turns out to be an elephant (the mascot of the Republican Party) whom they name Charlotte after Snowman remarked that she reminded him of his Aunt Charlotte and smelled like her, too. When Cledus opens the crate containing the elephant, Charlotte races out, nearly trampling Frog. The Bandit saves the day by doing a backflip onto the elephant's back and riding the elephant out of the quarantine shed. Noticing a splinter was stuck in her foot, the Bandit removes it, and the elephant takes a shine to Bandit. On their way to Dallas, Cledus fears Charlotte is in poor health. They find an Italian gynaecologist (Dom DeLuise) in the back of an ambulance stopped at the same gas station as they are. When the gynecologist discovers it is an elephant he has to look at, he freaks out and nearly runs away. As the doctor refuses to help them, he sees his driver speeding away in the ambulance, leaving him stranded. After the Bandit and Cledus bribe him with large amounts of money, he gives in and agrees to ride in the truck with the elephant and examine her. Charlotte is later discovered to be pregnant. As they try to make Burdett's deadline, the doctor pleads with the Bandit for some time off the road so Charlotte can rest off of her feet. He reluctantly gives in twice, the first time wrapped up by Charlotte, the second time agrees on his own, Frog citing Bandit's desire to regain his lost fame of the past. She grows closer to him as she did in the past film. While at a restaurant, she sees him scribbling on a napkin a picture of Charlotte cradled by suspended netting in order to keep her off of her feet. She becomes furious and leaves. The Bandit follows and she says he does not care about the elephant and when he likes himself again would she then consider seeing him again. He later makes his drawing a reality, in a near drunken stupor. The doctor agrees the idea will work and agrees to press on. Unable to stop the Bandit and Cledus, Justice enlists the help of his two brothers, Reginald Van Justice (a Mountie loosely based on Gleason's earlier "Reginald Van Gleason" character) from Quebec, and Gaylord Justice, from another part of Texas (both played by Gleason). Justice lures the Bandit into a valley, with a line of Mounties (in red police cars) on one hill side, Texas Rangers, in white cars, on the other. Bandit orders Cledus to continue delivering Charlotte to Dallas. Cledus later returns, with a convoy of trucks to help destroy all of the police cars. Charlotte and the doctor watch the action from afar. After the mass destruction of police cars, only Buford, Gaylord, and Reginald come out relatively unscathed. Bandit and Cledus escape the valley by driving across a bridge of tractor trailers. As the Justices follow, a trailer pulls out resulting in their cars falling down and being destroyed. However, Buford's car is still operable, though folded up in the middle and missing its doors and roof. Justice and Junior are cut off by a farm tractor, and they drive off the road, hitting an embankment by a pond, throwing Junior into the pond. When asked what he was thinking about, Buford simply says, "Retiring." Eventually, Bandit informs Frog he likes himself again, and that he did not want to spend the rest of his life without her. When she asks about Burdett's bet, he informs her he blew it, and said they could still get there nonetheless (though late). He shows her Charlotte and her baby in circus-like chariots. Frog is overjoyed. Bandit asks Charlotte if it is fine to marry Frog, to which Charlotte responds loudly. They drive away with Charlotte and her baby in tow, with Buford pursuing them in a bus. Cast. Jackie Gleason played Sheriff Buford T. Justice, Gaylord Justice and Reginald Van Justice. For his roles as Sheriff Buford T. Justice and Reginald Van Justice he is credited as Mr. Jackie Gleason, but for his role as Gaylord he is credited as Ms. Jackie Gleason. Burt Reynolds and Dom DeLuise would star together again in "The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas", "The Cannonball Run", "Cannonball Run II", and (in voice only) Don Bluth's "All Dogs Go to Heaven". As he did in the first movie, Reynolds breaks the fourth wall after being reunited with Frog, by addressing the camera and saying, "She still loves me." Production notes. Many of the movie's scenes take place in northern Palm Beach County, especially at the Burt Reynolds' ranch in Jupiter, FL. Although the Bandit again sticks to a Pontiac Trans Am, this time a 1980 Turbo model with 5 color decals unlike 1981's single color decals, Snowman switches to a 1980 GMC General, silver with blue trim with the same mural on the trailer as on the original film. This 'new rig' suggests that the pair were successful in the "double or nothing" wager offered by the Burdettes at the end of the first film where they were persuaded to drive from Atlanta to Boston and back in 18 hours to buy clam chowder. A world-record automobile jump was captured on film during the "roundup sequence," when stuntman Buddy Joe Hooker jumped a 1974 Dodge Monaco over 150 feet. Hooker suffered compressed vertebra as a result of a hard landing. The roundup sequence in the desert shows many new Pontiac Le Mans sedans decorated as police cars being destroyed. The cars were originally ordered by a car rental agency in Phoenix, who refused delivery when they discovered the cars were not equipped with air conditioning. Pontiac took the cars back and eventually gave them to the producers to be used in the film. Custom costuming and clothing was again provided by Niver Western Wear of Fort Worth, Texas. Their work on this sequel was very similar to the custom work they provided for the first film, including custom ordered uniforms for Jackie Gleason's character Sheriff Buford T. Justice.
583513	Rakht (English: "Blood") is a 2004 Indian supernatural horror film directed and written by Mahesh Manjrekar. The film features Bipasha Basu in the lead playing a tarot card reader. It also stars Sanjay Dutt, Suniel Shetty, Dino Morea, Amrita Arora and Neha Dhupia in pivotal roles. Abhishek Bachchan appears in a special appearance.
1163312	Tina Louise (born February 11, 1934) is an American actress, singer and author. She is best known for her role as the beautiful movie star Ginger Grant on the situation comedy "Gilligan's Island" (1964–1967). Early life. Tina Blacker was born in New York City to a Jewish family. She was raised by her mother, Betty Horn Myers (1916–2011), a fashion model. Her father, Joseph Blacker, was a candy store owner in Brooklyn and later an accountant. The name "Louise" was supposedly added during her senior year in high school when she mentioned to her drama teacher that she was the only girl in the class without a middle name. He immediately picked the name "Louise" and it stuck. She attended Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. At age 17, Louise began studying acting, singing and dancing. During her early acting years, she was offered modeling jobs and appeared on the cover of several pinup magazines such as "Adam", "Sir!" and "Modern Man". Her later pictorials for "Playboy" (May 1958, April 1959) were arranged by Columbia Pictures studio in an effort to further promote the young actress. Her acting debut came in 1952 in the Bette Davis musical revue "Two's Company", followed by roles in other Broadway productions, such as "John Murray Anderson's Almanac", "The Fifth Season", and "Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?" She also appeared in such early live television dramas as "Studio One", "Producers' Showcase", and "Appointment with Adventure". In 1957, she and Julie Newmar appeared on Broadway in the hit musical "Li'l Abner". Her album "It's Time for Tina" was also released that year, with songs such as "Embraceable You" and "I'm in the Mood for Love". Hollywood and "Gilligan's Island". Louise made her Hollywood film debut in 1958 in "God's Little Acre". That same year, the National Art Council named her the "World's Most Beautiful Redhead." She became an in-demand leading lady for major stars like Robert Taylor, Richard Widmark and Robert Ryan, often playing somber roles quite unlike the glamorous pinup photographs and "Playboy" pictorials she had become famous for in the late 1950s. She turned down roles in "Li'l Abner" and "Operation Petticoat" taking roles on Broadway and in Italian cinema and Hollywood. Among her more notable Italian film credits was the historical epic "Garibaldi" (1960), directed by Roberto Rossellini, that concerned Garibaldi's efforts to unify the Italian states in 1860. When Louise returned to the United States, she began studying with Lee Strasberg and eventually became a member of the Actors Studio. She appeared in a 1962 episode of "The Real McCoys", the Walter Brennan sitcom, and in the 1964 beach party film "For Those Who Think Young", with Bob Denver, prior to the development of "Gilligan's Island". In 1964, she left the Broadway musical "Fade Out – Fade In" to portray movie star Ginger Grant on the situation comedy "Gilligan's Island", after the part was turned down by Jayne Mansfield. However, she was unhappy with the role and worried that it would typecast her. The role did make Louise a pop icon of the era, and in 2005 an episode of "TV Land Top Ten" ranked her as second only to Heather Locklear as the greatest of television's all-time sex symbols. After the series ended in 1967, Louise continued to work in film and made numerous guest appearances in various television series. She appeared in the Matt Helm spy spoof "The Wrecking Crew" (1969) with Dean Martin. Louise played a doomed suburban housewife in the original "The Stepford Wives" (1975), and both the film and her performance were well received. She attempted to shed her comedic image by assaying grittier roles, including a guest appearance as a pathetic heroin addict in a 1974 "Kojak" episode, as well as a co-starring role as an evil Southern prison guard in the 1976 ABC-TV Movie "Nightmare in Badham County". Her other television films of the period included "Look What's Happened to Rosemary's Baby" (1976), "" (1977), "Friendships, Secrets and Lies" (1979), and in the prime-time soap opera "Dallas", during the 1978–79 seasons, as J.R. Ewing's secretary, Julie Grey, a semi-regular character. Her character was finally killed off. Later on, she replaced Jo Ann Pflug as wealthy Taylor Chapin on the syndicated soap opera "Rituals" and had guest stints on the soaps "Santa Barbara" and "All My Children". The question "Ginger or Mary Ann?" is regarded to be a classic pop-psychological question when given to American men of a certain age as an insight into their characters, or at least their desires as regarding certain female stereotypes. Later work. She declined to participate in any of three reunion television films for "Gilligan's Island" and the role of Ginger was recast with Judith Baldwin and Constance Forslund. Although she did not appear in these television movies, she made brief walk-on appearances on a few talk shows and specials for "Gilligan's Island" reunions, including "Good Morning America" (1982), "The Late Show" (1988) and the 2004 TV Land award show with the other surviving cast members. In the 1990s, she was reunited with costars Bob Denver, Dawn Wells, and Russell Johnson in an episode of "Roseanne". She did not reunite with them for the television film "Surviving Gilligan's Island" (2001), co-produced by Wells. She was portrayed by Kristen Dalton in the television film. Her relations with series star Denver were rumored to be strained, but in 2005, she wrote a brief, affectionate memorial to him in the year-end "farewell" issue of "Entertainment Weekly". In 1985, Louise played the second and final Taylor Chapin on the syndicated soap opera "Rituals". Later film roles included a co-starring appearance in the Robert Altman comedy "O.C. and Stiggs" (1987) as well as the independently made satire "Johnny Suede" (1992) starring Brad Pitt. She appeared in "Married... with Children" as Miss Beck in episode "Kelly Bounces Back" (1990). From 1966 to 1974, Louise was married to radio and TV announcer/interviewer Les Crane, with whom she has one daughter, Caprice Crane (born 1970), who became an MTV producer and a novelist. Crane's first novel, "Stupid and Contagious", was published in 2006, and was warmly dedicated to her mother. Louise now resides in New York City. She is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and a lifetime member of the Actors Studio. As a literacy and academic advocate, she became a volunteer teacher at Learning Leaders, a non-profit organization dedicated to providing tutoring to New York City school children. It has been her passion to help young students gain not only literary skills, but also confidence, self-determination and proof of their own potential. She has written two books: "Sunday: A Memoir" (1997) and "When I Grow Up" (2007). The latter is a children's book that inspires children to believe they can become whatever they choose through creative and humorous comparisons of animal kingdom achievements. She published a second children's book titled "What Does a Bee Do?" "It's Time for Tina" LP. Louise made one record album which was released originally on Concert Hall, and later reissued on Urania Records (1958 and 1959 respectively). The album is sought after by collectors, released in 1957 as "It's Time for Tina" (Concert Hall 1521). With arrangements by Jim Timmens and Buddy Weed's Orchestra, 12 tracks include "Tonight Is the Night" and "I'm in the Mood for Love." Coleman Hawkins is featured on tenor sax. The album has been reissued on cd twice, most recently on the
1093595	Francesco Maria Grimaldi (2 April 1618 – 28 December 1663) was an Italian Jesuit priest, mathematician and physicist who taught at the Jesuit college in Bologna. He was born in Bologna to Paride Grimaldi and Anna Cattani.
143646	Leland Jones Orser (born August 6, 1960) is an American film and television actor. Orser is a character actor, whose career has included playing a number of deranged, psychotic, and degenerate characters. Orser has appeared in small roles in a wide variety of films and television shows, including Chief of Surgery Dr. Lucien Dubenko on the television show "ER". Career. Orser made his television debut in 1991 on the show "Gabriel's Fire". His next roles were bit parts and small roles on "The Golden Girls", "Cheers", "L.A. Law", "The X-Files", "NYPD Blue", ' and '. In 1999, he played the (rather demanding) main role of Dr. Arthur Zeller in "The Outer Limits" episode "Descent", a part seemingly tailored by writer Eric Saltzgaber for Orser's particular talents. Fans of "Married... with Children" know him in his recurring guest role as the cynical director of advertisements. He has had minor roles in many popular films. He appeared in 1995's "Se7en" as the man who was involuntarily recruited as the punisher for the lust sin. He was credited as "Crazed Man in Massage Parlour". He played Larry Purvis in 1997's "Alien Resurrection". He played the antagonist Richard Thompson in the 1999 Denzel Washington thriller "The Bone Collector". In 2001, he had a small part in the movie "Pearl Harbor" playing an injured man saved by Kate Beckinsale's character. In 2003 he appeared in the comic-turned-film "Daredevil". He also appeared in "Saving Private Ryan" as the traumatized pilot of a crashed glider. Orser also appeared in various parts in the "Star Trek" franchise, among them playing a Changeling posing as the Romulan Colonel Lovok in the ' episode "" and in the episode "" playing a bit part as a member of the Skrreean race. He also played a homicidal hologram in the ' episode "". And finally in the franchise's most recent series "", he played a low-life in the time-travel episode "Carpenter Street". From 2004 to 2009, he played Chief of Surgery Dr. Lucien Dubenko, a recurring character on the television show "ER". Personal life. Orser was born in San Francisco, California. From 1987 to 1989, Orser was married to actress Roma Downey; he is currently married to the actress Jeanne Tripplehorn and has one child with her.
582240	Dus Kahaniyaan ( "Das Kahāniyāṃ", "Ten Tales") is a 2007 anthology Indian film comprising ten short films telling ten different stories which are directed by a host of six directors. Some of the stories have twisted ending and bring supernatural elements and have similarities with other supernatural series like "Tales from the Crypt". The film was declared an above average grosser at the box office. Plot summary. "Matrimony" (Directed by Sanjay Gupta, inspired by Roald Dahl's short story "Mrs. Bixby and the Colonel's Coat") Synopsis: The bored wife of an MNC vice president (Arbaaz), Mandira, has an extramarital affair with an army officer. She meets him every Thursday on the pretext of visiting her aunt. At home she is a doting and dutiful wife. She describes her affair as not only for sex but also for love and consideration. As it turns out, her lover has to report to his post and gives her a beautiful diamond necklace. She loves it but is hesitant to take it. When the officer insists, she devises a plan. She goes to a jeweler and hands over the necklace with an arrangement that she be given a coupon, which under the pretext of a lucky draw and she'd be given her necklace. The next morning, her husband goes to collect the "prize". He calls her from his office and asks her to come over to see what she has got. She goes with great enthusiasm, but to her utter dismay finds a small diamond ring. She comes out of his cabin and tries to call the jeweler. Her cell phone does not get reception, so she turns to her husband's secretary and asks her to dial the number, only to spot the necklace on the secretary. The secretary mentions that it is from her "boyfriend". "High on the Highway" (Directed by Hansel Mehta) Synopsis: Two college graduates who are in love with each other have a habit of getting high and taking a walk along the highway. On the night after their graduation when they are walking down the road a bunch of goons try to kidnap Masumeh and succeed in spite of Jimmy putting up a fight. Masumeh gets helped by the cops but Jimmy feeling responsible, slashes his wrists and dies. Masumi cries by his bed. "Pooranmasi" (Directed by Meghna Gulzar) Synopsis: Amrita's daughter Minisha has just been engaged and her father is out on business once again leaving the ladies alone. Amrita has led a loveless life and on this particular day her daughter adorns her mother with a colourful dupatta and comments on how pretty she looks. Amrita realises that it is the night of full moon, and her lover promised her long ago that he would be waiting outside the door every full moon night. For once she decides to open it and let her desire take over her. After spending the night with him in the fields she returns home in the morning; many villagers notice the colourful dupatta on her head and mistake her for her daughter. When the villagers come to break the marriage describing the incident, Minisha learns that it was her mother who went to meet the man. She cannot recite what has happened, as it would defame her mother, but she in unable to bear the taunts of the villagers and thus she commits suicide by jumping into the well. Strangers in the Night (Directed by Sanjay Gupta) Synopsis: Mahesh and Neha have the habit of discussing past distractions in their relationship on their anniversaries. Mahesh forces Neha to tell about her experience and she does so with passion about the guy's whose hands she kissed and by whom she was so taken in a railway station's waiting room alone in the night and with whom she would have done anything. As we see Mahesh getting jealous, Neha unravels the twist in the story. She actually kisses his hand and hugs him to save a child, who was being attacked by religious riots. Zahir (Directed by Sanjay Gupta) Synopsis: Zahir (Manoj) moves into the same apartment as Diya Mirza and they become good friends. Manoj is in love with Diya and wants to take the relationship to another level but Diya shuns him. He is ashamed and heartbroken. One night while spending a night with his friends visiting a bar in the town, Manoj happens to meet and learns she is a dancer in a dance bar. Enraged, Manoj rapes her without hearing her protests when she comes back home from work. Next day he finds a note from her which she left before leaving, in which she reveals that she has AIDS. Lovedale (Directed by Jasmeet Dhodi) Synopsis: Neha meets a lady on the train on her way home where she was getting engaged. The lady gives her an earring and vanishes at the next station: Lovedale. Neha wanting to return the earring alights and follows the road to a house where Aftab is painting. They become acquainted. Aftab attends Neha's engagement and feels hurt. Neha is also unhappy and her father questions her doubt. Neha tells about Aftab and her father tells her his flashback about how he met a lady on the train to whom he had given one earring before the train left the station. Neha and her father compare the earrings and decide that her meeting Aftab was no coincidence and she breaks the engagement to join Aftab. However, the story unfolds with a vicious climax. Aftab notices the earrings that Neha was wearing and, on questioning, he is informed that it was the earring that was given to her by the lady in the train. Aftab shows her a picture of the lady: his mother who died 10 years ago! Sex on the Beach (Directed by Apoorva Lakhia) Synopsis: Dino picks up a book on the beach with the title "Life" and writes his name and date of birth as instructed and starts to read it. A seductress steps out of a jet ski and sits down next to him and she invites him over to her house for dinner. Dino goes over well prepared with wine and condoms only to see the girl also very eager... but when Dino falls into a short sleep after the girl tells him that she will return in a few minutes dressed in more provocative clothing which he would love taking off. He wakes up to see her dead with him throat slit open. When he leans down to examine her closely she opens her eyes and he understands that she was actually a soul whose wishes had been left unfulfilled. He flees, the ghost following him. Finally he drowns in the sea. Rice Plate (Directed by Rohit Roy) (based on the 1990 short film "The Lunch Date") Synopsis: Shabana plays a staunch Brahmin widow on her way to visit her grandchildren by train. In a hurry she forgets her wallet in her house and heads to the station. She misses her train and her next train is in two hours. She goes to a canteen and orders a plate of rice with the change she has and leaves her table to wash her hand. When she comes back she sees a Muslim man(Shah) eating it. Angry that he was stole her plate, Shabana forgets that he is a Muslim and starts eating out of the very same plate. Later she realizes it, and leaves the place, ashamed at herself. At the railway station she notices that she had left her luggage and handbag in the canteen and goes back. There she finds her belongings near a table and a rice plate on it. Then she realizes that the Muslim man never stole her rice plate, he was, in fact, eating out of his own one, and yet he did not yell at her when she snatched it from him and spoke rudely to him. Later in the station, she offers place to a Muslim family, which shows that she had changed her attitude. Gubbare (Directed by Sanjay Gupta) Synopsis: Anita and Rohit are newlyweds on a bus who start a small quarrel. Anita moves away from Rohit to sit adjacent to Nana who is carrying 11 smiley balloons with him. On questioning he tells her how he has to present his wife with the balloons every time he has angered her and how she bakes a cake if she angers him. He explains that life is too short to spend fighting. When getting down at the stop he forgets to take with him the sorry card that he had written for his wife. Anita follows him to give it to him and she notices him speaking to his wife's grave; it is revealed that his wife is dead. She realizes that he loved his wife, and still does, yet she will now never be with him. She returns to the bus and sits beside Rohit, and they do not quarrel. The essence of the story is that life is too short to be wasted away on silly fights. Rise & Fall (Directed by Sanjay Gupta; inspired by Ching Po-Wong's "Blood Brothers") Synopsis: The story begins with Sunil Shetty telling Sanjay Dutt that someone is going to kill him. Dutt says that if there could be anybody who could kill it would be Shetty. The story cuts to a flashback. It shows two young kids. One of them gets paid to kill a person. They both kill the person. The kids are Dutt and Shetty. As kids they rise and as adults they fall because of two children shooting them as in the flashback they are now the dons. Music. The film's soundtrack was released on 1 November 2007. Joginder Tuteja from "bollywoodhungama.com" gave the music 4 out of 5 stars.
1268090	Mae Murray (May 10, 1885 – March 23, 1965) was an American actress, dancer, film producer, and screenwriter. Murray rose to fame during the silent film era and was known as "The Girl with the Bee-Stung Lips" and "The Gardenia of the Screen". Early life. She was born Marie Adrienne Koenig in New York City, the oldest child of Joesph and Mary ("née" Miller) Koenig. Her maternal grandparents had emigrated from France while her paternal grandparents has emigrated from Germany. She had two brothers, William Robert (born November 1889) and Howard Joesph (born January 1884). The family eventually moved to an apartment in the Lower East Side. In May 1896, Joesph Koenig, Murray's father, died from acute gastritis due to his alcoholism. To support the family, Mary Koenig took a job as a housekeeper for Harry Payne Whitney. Career. Stage. She first began acting on the Broadway stage in 1906 with dancer Vernon Castle. In 1908, she joined the chorus line of the Ziegfeld Follies, moving up to headliner by 1915. Murray became a star of the club circuit in both the United States and Europe, performing with Clifton Webb, Rudolph Valentino, and John Gilbert as some of her many dance partners. Films. Murray made her motion picture debut in "To Have and to Hold" in 1916. She became a major star for Universal, starring with Rudolph Valentino in "The Delicious Little Devil" and "Big Little Person" in 1919. At the height of her popularity, Murray formed her own production company with her director, John M. Stahl. Critics were sometimes less than thrilled with her over-the-top costumes and exaggerated emoting, but her films were popular with movie-going audiences and financially successful. In 1925, Murray, Leonard, and Stahl produced films at Tiffany Pictures, with "Souls for Sables" (1925), starring Claire Windsor and Eugene O'Brien, as the first film made by Tiffany. For a brief period of time, Murray wrote a weekly column for newspaper scion William Randolph Hearst. At her career peak in the early 1920s, Murray, along with such other notable Hollywood personalities as Cecil B. DeMille, Douglas Fairbanks, William S. Hart, Jesse L. Lasky, Harold Lloyd, Hal Roach, Donald Crisp, Conrad Nagel and Irving Thalberg was a member of the board of trustees at the Motion Picture & Television Fund - A charitable organization that offers assistance and care to those in the motion picture and television industries without resources. Four decades later, Murray herself received aid from that organization. In the early 1920s, Murray was painted by the well known Hollywood portrait painter Theodore Lukits. This work titled "Symphony in Jade and Gold (The Actress Mae Murray)" (1922, Private Collection, Northern California) depicted Murray in the nude, gazing in a mirror. It was exhibited at the Pacific Asia Museum in 1999 and two other venues as part of the exhibition "Theodore Lukits, An American Orientalist". Decline. Murray's most famous role was perhaps the title role in the Erich von Stroheim directed film "The Merry Widow" (1925), opposite John Gilbert. When silent films gave way to talkies, Murray made an insecure debut in the new medium in "Peacock Alley" (1930), a remake of her earlier 1921 version "Peacock Alley". In 1931, she was cast with newcomer Irene Dunne, leading man Lowell Sherman, and with fellow silent screen star Norman Kerry in the talkie "Bachelor Apartment". The film was critically panned at the time of release and Murray made only one more film, "High Stakes" (1931) also with Sherman.
899436	Two Women (, roughly translated as "Woman from Ciociaria") is a 1960 Italian film directed by Vittorio De Sica. It tells the story of a woman trying to protect her young daughter from the horrors of war. The film stars Sophia Loren, Jean-Paul Belmondo, Eleonora Brown, Carlo Ninchi and Andrea Checchi. The film was adapted by De Sica and Cesare Zavattini from the novel of the same name written by Alberto Moravia. Synopsis. The story centers on Cesira (Loren), a widowed Roman shopkeeper, and Rosetta (Brown), her devoutly religious twelve-year-old daughter, during World War II. To escape the Allied bombing of Rome, Cesira and her daughter flee southern Lazio for her native Ciociaria, a rural, mountainous province of central Italy. After they arrive at Ciociaria, Cesira attracts the attention of a young local intellectual with communist sympathies named Michele (Jean-Paul Belmondo). Rosetta sees Michele as a father figure and develops a strong bond with him. However, Michele is eventually taken prisoner by a company of German soldiers, who hope to use him as a guide to the mountainous terrain.
583115	Love in Nepal is a 2004 Hindi romantic comedy and thriller film directed by Rajat Mukherjee which hit the screens on 6 March 2004. Unlike Sonu Nigam in the male lead, who is otherwise a well known Bollywood playback singer, the film has a virtually unknown star cast which includes Jharana Bajracharya from Nepal and Flora Saini in the female lead. This is Sonu Nigam's second film as the male lead. Plot. Abby (Sonu Nigam) is creative head of a private Ad Agency in Mumbai, which is on the growth curve when the owner of the ad agency decides to sell it to an American multinational with Maxi (Flora Saini) as the VP in charge of the merged entity. Abby and George, who is the account executive in the agency, do not want the merger as they feel they don't need another agency for their growth. When Maxi comes on board, she doesn't like Abby's lack of punctuality and now wants him to work with her as per her directives. This sets the ball rolling with multiple tiffs laced with situational comedy, between the new VP and Abby. Maxi decides to shoot campaign for a new and important customer in Pokhara where the tiff between her and Abby continues. As they are directing the shoot standing on a dingy on a fast moving river, the dingy cuts loose and both Abby and Maxi are swept away by the strong currents and somehow manage to swim ashore together and it is here they realize that they do like each other. An event takes place that suddenly morphs the movie from a lighthearted comedy into a thriller. One evening Tanya, an attractive woman, and a native of Pokhara, who was a fellow traveler on the flight from Mumbai lands up with Abby that angers Maxi and she refuses to speak normally to Abby the next day. Abby, also a bit hurt and angry, lands up spending the night with Tanya after a drinking bout only to wake up next day that she is lying murdered next to him. He runs away from the scene, quite certain that he will be blamed for killing her. As the local police start to chase the leads, Abby confides in Bunty, the local Guide, and Maxi, and both disbelieve him. He also starts to get calls from a stranger demanding something. With police in hot chase, it is now up to him to find out who really killed Tanya, what was the motive for her death, and who wanted him at the scene of the crime.
1166256	Dawn Lyn Nervik (born January 11, 1963) is an American actress best known for her role as Dodie Douglas during the last three seasons of the long-running CBS family comedy "My Three Sons" which ran from 1960–1972. Career. Born Dawn Lyn Nervik in Los Angeles, California, Lyn first appeared as an American Indian child in the 1967 B-grade western "Cry Blood, Apache" at age 4.
637953	William "Bill" Chen (born 1970 in Williamsburg, Virginia) is an American quantitative analyst, poker player, and software designer. Biography. Chen holds a Ph.D. in mathematics (1999) from the University of California, Berkeley. He was an undergraduate at Washington University in St. Louis triple-majoring in Physics, Math, and Computer Science, and was also a research intern in Washington University's Computer Science SURA Program where he co-wrote a technical report inventing an "Argument Game". He heads the Statistical Arbitrage department at Susquehanna International Group. Poker career. At the 2006 World Series of Poker Chen won two events, a $3,000 limit Texas Hold 'em event with a prize of $343,618, and a $2,500 no limit hold 'em short-handed event with a prize of $442,511. Prior to these events Chen's largest tournament win was for $41,600 at a no limit hold 'em event at the Bicycle Casino's "Legends of Poker" in 2000. Chen has been a longtime participant in the rec.gambling.poker newsgroup and its B.A.R.G.E offshoot. He is also a member of Team PokerStars. With Jerrod Ankenman, Chen coauthored "The Mathematics of Poker", an introduction to quantitative techniques and game theory as applied to poker.
1163791	Shelley Lee Long (born August 23, 1949) is an American actress best known for her role as Diane Chambers on the sitcom "Cheers", for which she won the Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress and two Golden Globe Awards. She has also starred in several motion pictures throughout her career like "Night Shift" (1982), her Golden Globe nominated role in "Irreconcilable Differences" (1984),"The Money Pit" (1986), "Outrageous Fortune" (1987), "Hello Again" (1987), "Troop Beverly Hills" (1989), "The Brady Bunch Movie" (1995), and "Dr. T & the Women" (2000). Most recently she has had a recurring role as DeDe Pritchett on the ABC comedy series "Modern Family". Early life. Shelley Long was born in Fort Wayne, Indiana on August 23, 1949. She is the daughter of Ivadine, a school teacher, and Leland Long, who worked in the rubber industry before becoming a teacher. She was active on her high school speech team, competing in the Indiana High School Forensic Association, and in 1967 she won the National Forensic League National Championship in Original Oratory. She delivered a speech on the need for sex education in high school entitled, "Sex Perversion Weed." After graduating from South Side High School in Fort Wayne, she studied drama at Northwestern University, but left before graduating to pursue a career in acting and modelling. Her first break as an actress occurred when she began doing commercials in the Chicago area for a furniture company called Homemakers. Career. Early roles. In Chicago, she joined The Second City comedy troupe. She appeared in several episodes of the popular sketch comedy show SCTV as well. In 1975, she began writing, producing, and co-hosting the television program "Sorting It Out". The local NBC broadcast went on to win three Regional Emmys for Best Entertainment Show. Long also appeared in the 1970s in V05 Shampoo print advertisements, Homemakers Furniture, and Camay Soap commercials. In 1978 she guest starred in an episode of The Love Boat. Her first notable role came in the 1979 television movie "The Cracker Factory", in which she portrayed a psychiatric inmate, opposite Natalie Wood. The same year she guest starred on "Family" and Trapper John M.D. In 1980 she appeared in her first feature film role in "A Small Circle of Friends" with Brad Davis and Karen Allen. The film about social unrest at Harvard University during the 1960s was a critical success. In 1981, she played the role of Tala in the Ringo Starr film "Caveman", starring opposite Dennis Quaid. She played Nurse Mendenhall in an episode of "M*A*S*H" ("Bottle Fatigue," 1980). In 1982, she starred as Belinda in Ron Howard's comedy "Night Shift" (co-starring Henry Winkler and Michael Keaton), about life working on the night shift at a city morgue, and starred with Tom Cruise in the 1983 comedy film "Losin' It". She was offered the role of Mary, the mother in the classic film "E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial", but she declined because she already signed on to star in "Night Shift". "Cheers". Although she had already been in feature films, Long became famous for her role in the long-running television sitcom "Cheers" as the character Diane Chambers, who mainly has an on-and-off relationship with Sam Malone. The show was slow to capture an audience but eventually became one of the most popular on the air. Amid much controversy, Long left "Cheers" after season five in 1987. In the "Cheers" biography documentary, costar Ted Danson admitted there was tension between them but "never at a personal level and always at a work level" due to their different modes of working. He also stated that Long was much more like her character than she would like to admit, but also said that her performances often "carried the show." Long said in later interviews that in her decision to leave, it did not occur to her that she was going to 'sabotage a show' and she felt confident that the rest of the cast could continue without her. In a 2003 interview on "The Graham Norton Show", Long said she left for a variety of reasons, the most important of which was her desire to spend more time with her newborn daughter. In a 2007 interview on Australian television, Long claimed Danson was "a delight to work with" and talked of her love for costar Nicholas Colasanto who was "one of my closest friends on set." She said she left the show because she "didn't want to keep doing the same episode over and over again and the same story ... I didn't want it to become old and stale." She went on to say that "working at "Cheers" was a dream come true ... it was one of the most satisfying experiences of my life. So, yes, I missed it, but I never regretted that decision." "Film". While simultaneously appearing on "Cheers", she continued starring in several motion pictures. In 1984, she was nominated for a Best Leading Actress Golden Globe for her performance in "Irreconcilable Differences". She then starred in a series of comedies, such as "The Money Pit" with Tom Hanks, "Outrageous Fortune" with Bette Midler and Peter Coyote and "Hello Again" with Corbin Bernsen. She was also offered lead roles in "Working Girl", "Jumpin' Jack Flash" and "My Stepmother is an Alien". Post-"Cheers" projects. Her first post-"Cheers" project was "Troop Beverly Hills", a comedy in which she plays a housewife who takes leadership of a "Wilderness Girl" troop for bonding with her daughter and to distract herself from divorce proceedings. In 1990, Long returned to television for the fact-based ABC miniseries "". She received critical praise for the role, which required her to portray nearly 20 different personalities. This introduced her to more dramatic roles in TV films, after which she starred in several more throughout the 90s. Major feature film roles followed such as the romantic comedy "Don't Tell Her It's Me" with Jami Gertz and Steve Guttenberg and "Frozen Assets", a comedy about a sperm bank, which reunited her with "Hello Again" co-star Corbin Bernsen. In 1992, she starred in "Fatal Memories: The Eileen Franklin Story", a fact-based television drama about a woman who remembers the childhood trauma of being raped by her father and his cronies, and witnessing him murder her childhood friend to prevent the child from "telling on him." The still controversial "recovered memories" basis for the prosecution resulted in the conviction and sentence of life imprisonment of George Franklin, Sr., a conviction that was later overturned. She also appeared in "A Message From Holly" co-starring with Lindsay Wagner, which she stars as a workaholic who finds out that her best friend has cancer with only 6 months to live, and then stays with her in her last months.
1063240	The Nightmare Before Christmas, often promoted as "Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas", is a 1993 American stop motion musical fantasy film directed by Henry Selick and produced/co-written by Tim Burton. It tells the story of Jack Skellington, a being from "Halloween Town" who opens a portal to "Christmas Town" and decides to celebrate the holiday. Danny Elfman wrote the film score and provided the singing voice of Jack, as well as other minor characters. The remaining principal voice cast includes Chris Sarandon, Catherine O'Hara, William Hickey, Ken Page and Glenn Shadix. "The Nightmare Before Christmas" originated in a poem written by Tim Burton in 1982, while he was working as a Disney animator. With the success of "Vincent" in the same year, Disney started to consider developing "The Nightmare Before Christmas" as either a short film or 30-minute television special. Over the years, Burton's thoughts regularly returned to the project, and in 1990, Burton and Disney made a development deal. Production started in July 1991 in San Francisco. Walt Disney Pictures decided to release the film under their Touchstone Pictures banner because they thought the film would be "too dark, and scary for kids."
774241	Who Loves the Sun is a 2006 Canadian film directed and written by Matt Bissonnette. Plot. Will Morrison (Lukas Haas) and Daniel Bloom (Adam Scott) were the best of friends. They grew up together, went to the same schools, liked the same records, loved the same girls. Daniel was Will’s best man at his wedding to Maggie Claire (Molly Parker). Then one day Will disappeared without a word. Five years later, he re-surfaces and sets off a tsunami of unforeseeable events. The film was shot in the Canadian Shield.
587521	Inidhu Inidhu is a 2010 Indian Tamil-language romantic film directed by cinematographer-turned-director K.V.Guhan, starring eight newcomers in lead roles. It is a remake of the successful, award-winning 2007 Telugu film "Happy Days", which is produced by Prakash Raj under his banner of Duet Movies and has musical score by Mickey J Meyer, the composer of the original score. The film was released on August 20, 2010. Much of the shooting was carried out at the Vellore campus of VIT University, India. Plot. Inidhu inidhu is a very romantic movie. I t is about a college life. It starts with two students giving confidents to one another. Then they become friends.They start meeting daily. Asusual seniors rag them and one of the seniors start liking the girl. But she does not. Then one day they had a group study. All the friends left but the two friendds were still there. The hero and the heroine.Then the hero developes love upon the heroine and she notices that and sends him of. At the door he proposes. Her family hears that. She is a bit nervous and convinces her family. She does not talk with Sid. Then somehoe they patch up. But again due to some fight they both again fight and at the farewell party they patch up. Soundtrack. Composer Mickey J. Meyer retained three songs from Happy Days for the remake:
1064583	Kane Warren Hodder (born April 8, 1955) is an American actor, stuntman and author. He is best known for his portrayal of Jason Voorhees in four films from the "Friday the 13th" film series ', ', "" and lastly "Jason X". He is also known for his role as Victor Crowley in "Hatchet", a role which he continued in "Hatchet II" and in "Hatchet III". He has also played Leatherface during the stunts of "". Life and career. Hodder was born in Auburn, California. He was the first actor to portray Jason Voorhees more than once, in a total of four movies. He has also portrayed horror icon Leatherface through the stunt work of the 1990 film '. He also appeared in an episode of "The Arsenio Hall Show" to promote ', in costume as Jason. When he reprised that role again in "", he also appeared as Freddy Krueger's gloved hand at the close of that film in anticipation for "Freddy vs. Jason". Although he offered to reprise his role as Jason Voorhees in the 2003 film "Freddy vs. Jason", director Ronny Yu replaced Hodder with 6'5½" Canadian stunt man Ken Kirzinger. The switch created controversy among fans of the series and has been credited to several rumors, including Kirzinger's location in Canada, and his height compared to Robert Englund, the actor who portrayed Freddy Krueger while Yu himself stated that it was New Line Cinema's idea to do so. Though Hodder still expresses resentment over not being chosen, he is still good friends with Ken Kirzinger and Robert Englund. Hodder starred in the slasher film "Hatchet" as the main character Victor Crowley, a physically deformed young boy who comes back from the dead to kill the people who invade the swamp in which he lives, a similar story in scope to that of Jason Voorhees. He portrays the character a second time in "Hatchet 2". He reprised this role in "Hatchet 3". Unmasked. Hodder co-wrote an autobiography with author Mike Aloisi. The book is about his life and experience in the film industry and was released on October 1, 2011.
587533	Priyamaina Neeku (English: To you, my dear) is a Telugu film which was released in the year 2001. The cast includes Tarun, Sivaji, Preetha Vijayakumar and "Sneha". This was simultaneously released in Tamil as "Kadhal Sugamanathu" with scenes of Pyramid Natrajan playing Tarun's father and Livingston playing the role of Ali. Plot. Ganesh (Tarun) is a carefree college youth whose life revolves around friends and doing good deeds for them and upsetting his father (Bharani/Pyramid Natrajan). One day he fumbles upon a Red diary in his father's auction shop. It is a diary left behind unknowingly by Sandhya (Sneha). The entire first half is narrated through the diary in this film. Sandhya is staying in the house opposite to that of Aishwarya (Jhansi), who is the sister of Ganesh. She falls in love with Ganesh after listening to his melodious guitar play. But Ganesh is unaware of her love and he never uses to interact with her. She is also a shy girl, who never let Ganesh know about her feelings. Sirisha (Preethi) is the younger sister of Sandhya, who is studying in a hostel. When she comes home for holidays, she gets jealous of Sandhya for loving Ganesh and she wanted to grab him from her. Sirishna assures Sandhya that she will liaison the love of Sandhya between Ganesh and Sandhya and plays a double game by playing tricks on Ganesh to attract him. Meantime, the father of Sandhya and Sirisha gets transferred to Vizag. Sandhya asks Sirisha to tell Sandhya's love to Ganesh. Sirishna proposes to Ganesh and gets rejected. Sandhya, who witnessed the entired episode secretly, feels cheated by the betrayal of her own sister. At the same time, Sandhya stays away from proposing to Ganesh for the fear of rejection. The family of Sandhya moves to Vizag. In the transfer process her diary gets misplaced. After knowing that Sandhya is her secret admirer, Ganesh recognizes the purity in her love and wants to meet her and propose his love to her. He jets off to Vizag along with his friend Chacha (Venu Madhav). There he finds a mutual friend Raghu (Sivaji) and stays in his house. Raghu is a rich bachelor, who is staying with their parents and is very good at heart. As Ganesh explores his secret mission of finding Sandhya, Raghu gets engaged to the unwilling Sandhya. Later on Raghu comes to know that Ganesh is there to search his silent admirer. Ganesh know that Raghu is marrying Sandhya. Being a good friend, he does not want to betray him. Sandhya has agreed to marriage since she does not want to make the things worse for her father and sister. But she still loves Ganesh. Sirisha wants to amend the mistake she has done. She searches for Ganesh to unite them. Things are still unsure and hazy as Sandhya and Ganesh are going to tie the knot in a few minutes. In the end sirisha tells everything and marries raghu while sandhya and Ganesh unite. Soundtrack. Artist(s): Chitra,
1067971	Our Man Flint is a 1966 American action film that parodies the James Bond genre. The film was directed by Daniel Mann, written by Hal Fimberg and Ben Starr, and starring James Coburn as master spy Derek Flint. The main premise of the film is that a trio of mad scientists attempt to blackmail the world with a weather-control machine. Plot. Spy extraordinaire Derek Flint (James Coburn) is an ex-agent of Z.O.W.I.E. (Zonal Organization for World Intelligence and Espionage) who is brought out of retirement to deal with the threat of "Galaxy", a world-wide terrorist organization led by a trio of mad scientists: Doctor Krupov (Rhys Williams), Doctor Wu (Peter Brocco), and Doctor Schneider (Benson Fong). Impatient that the world's governments will never improve, the scientists demand that all nations capitulate to Galaxy. To enforce their demands, they initiate earthquakes, volcanoes, storms and other natural disasters with their climate-control apparatus.
1042865	James Robertson Justice (born James Norval Harald Justice; 15 June 1907 â 2 July 1975) was a popular British character actor in British films of the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s. Biography. The son of an Aberdeen-born geologist who was named after his father, James Justice was born in Lee, a suburb of Lewisham in South London, in 1907. Educated at Marlborough College in Wiltshire, Justice studied science at University College, London, but left after a year and became a geology student at the University of Bonn, where he again left after just a year. He spoke many languages (possibly up to 20) including French, Greek, Danish, Russian, German, Italian, Dutch and Gaelic. After university. Justice returned to the UK in 1927, and became a journalist with Reuters in London, alongside Ian Fleming, the creator of James Bond. After a year he emigrated to Canada, where he worked as an insurance salesman, taught English at a boys' school, became a lumberjack and mined for gold. He came back to England penniless, working his passage on a Dutch freighter. On return to Britain he served as secretary of the British Ice Hockey Association in the early 1930s and managed the national team at the 1932 European Championships in Berlin to a seventh place finish. He combined his administrative duties in 1931â32 with a season as goaltender with the London Lions. Justice was entered in a Wolseley Hornet Special in the JCC Thousand Mile Race at Brooklands on 3 and 4 May 1932. The car was unplaced. The following year a "J. Justice (J.A.P. Special)" competed in the Brighton Speed Trials: "Justice's machine "Tallulah" noisily expired before the end of the course, and was pushed back to the start by way of the arcade under the terrace." The Brighton event was won by Whitney Straight and according to Denis Jenkinson: "Flitting round the periphery of the team was James Robertson-Justice." In February 1934 Straight took delivery of a new Maserati: "Jimmy Justice went off to Italy to collect the first car which was 8CM number 3011." "Motor Sport" reported in 1963: "We remember him at Lewes with a G.N. and in a Relay Race with a Wolseley Hornet." Justice left Britain again to become a policeman for the League of Nations in the Territory of the Saar Basin (a region of Germany occupied and governed by France and Germany under a League of Nations mandate originating in the Treaty of Versailles). After the Nazis came to power, he fought in the Spanish Civil War on the Republican side. It was here that he first grew his signature trademark bushy beard, which he retained throughout his career. On return to Britain, he joined the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve, but after sustaining an injury in 1943 (thought to be shrapnel from a German shell), he was pensioned off. Love of Scotland. He married nurse Dillys Hayden (1914â1984) in Chelsea in 1941, and she gave birth to his son James. On his return from the war he reinvented himself with stronger Scottish roots. Feeling strongly about his Scottish ancestry, he claimed to have been born in 1905 under a distillery on the Isle of Skye, Scotland. He unsuccessfully contested the North Angus and Mearns (UK Parliament constituency) for the Labour Party in the 1950 general election. Acting career. Justice took up acting after joining the Players' Club in London. The club, under the chairmanship of Leonard Sachs who was latterly chairman of BBC's television's "The Good Old Days," would stage Victorian music hall nights. Standing in for Sachs one night, he was recommended for the film "For Those In Peril" in the summer of 1944. As an actor, with his domineering personality, bulky physique, (he played rugby for Beckenham RFC First XV in the 1924/5 season alongside Johnnie Cradock who would become the partner of 1950's TV chef Fanny) and rich, booming voice, he was soon established as a major supporting player in British comedy films. His first leading role was as headmaster in the film "Vice Versa," written and directed by Peter Ustinov, who cast him partly because he'd been "a collaborator of my father's at Reuters." Justice was the demanding surgeon Sir Lancelot Spratt in the "Doctor" series of films of the 1950s and 1960s, beginning with "Doctor in the House" in 1954, playing a role for which he is possibly best remembered. In his films he was sometimes credited as "Seamus MĂ˛r na Feusag" (Scottish Gaelic, translation: Big James with the Beard), "James R. Justice", "James Robertson" or "James Robertson-Justice". On 31 August 1957, he helped launch the TV station Scottish Television, hosting the channel's first show, "This is Scotland". From 1957 to 1960, and again from 1963 to 1966, he was Rector of the University of Edinburgh. In the 1961 war film "The Guns of Navarone", Robertson-Justice had a co-starring role as well as narrating the story. He appeared in four films with "Navarone" co-star Gregory Peck, including "Captain Horatio Hornblower, RN", and most notably, "Moby Dick", in which Robertson-Justice played the one-armed sea captain also attacked by the white whale. In the film, Robertson-Justice's character tries to befriend Captain Ahab (played by Peck), but is amazed and repulsed by Ahab's obsessive pursuit of Moby Dick. Later life. After a series of affairs and the drowning of his son in 1949 at his watermill home in Whitchurch, Hampshire, Justice separated from his wife; she eventually divorced him in 1968. He met actress Irene von Meyendorff in 1960 on the set of "The Ambassadress" (original German title, "Die Botschafterin"), and they remained together, eventually marrying in 1975 three days before he died. Not long after completing "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang" in 1968, Justice suffered a severe stroke, which signalled the beginning of the end for his career. He suffered a further series of strokes, which left him unable to work, and he died penniless in 1975. His ashes were buried in a North Scotland moor near his former residence. A biography called "James Robertson Justice â What's The Bleeding Time?" (named after a joke in the first Doctor film) was published by Tomahawk Press on 3 March 2008. It was written by James Hogg, Robert Sellers and Howard Watson.
1099795	In numerical analysis, isotonic regression (IR) involves finding a weighted least-squares fit formula_1 to a vector formula_2 with weights vector formula_3 subject to a set of non-contradictory constraints of kind formula_4. Such constraints define partial order or total order and can be represented as a directed graph formula_5, where N is the set of variables involved, and E is the set of pairs (i, j) for each constraint formula_4. Thus, the IR problem corresponds to the following quadratic program (QP): In the case when formula_5 is a total order, a simple iterative algorithm for solving this QP is called the pool adjacent violators algorithm (PAVA). Best and Chakravarti (1990) have studied the problem as an active set identification problem, and have proposed a primal algorithm in O(n), the same complexity as the PAVA, which can be seen as a dual algorithm. IR has applications in statistical inference, for example, to fit of an isotonic curve to mean experimental results when an order is expected. A benefit of isotonic regression is that it does not assume any form for the target function, such as linearity assumed by linear regression. Another application is nonmetric multidimensional scaling, where a low-dimensional embedding for data points is sought such that order of distances between points in the embedding matches order of dissimilarity between points. Isotonic regression is used iteratively to fit ideal distances to preserve relative dissimilarity order. Isotonic regression is also sometimes referred to as "monotonic regression". Correctly speaking, "isotonic" is used when the direction of the trend is strictly increasing, while "monotonic" could imply a trend that is either strictly increasing or strictly decreasing. Isotonic Regression under the formula_10 for formula_11 is defined as follows: Simply ordered case. To illustrate the above, let formula_14, and formula_15, and formula_16. The isotonic estimator, formula_17, minimizes the weighted least squares-like condition: Where formula_19 is the unknown function we are estimating, and formula_20 is a known function. Software has been developed in the R statistical package for computing isotone (monotonic) regression.
590974	Ratha Kanneer () is a 1954 Tamil drama film directed by R. Krishnan and S. Panju. The screenplay was written by Tiruvarur K. Thangaraj, and the film features M. R. Radha in the lead role. The film was produced by Perumal Mudaliar of National Pictures. The story revolves around Mohanasundaram, a returned-from-abroad, westernized, rich man who shows arrogance and contempt towards anything part of Indian culture and anyone below his social standards. This film was the greatest hit in M. R. Radha's career. It was later remade as "Raktha Kanneeru" in 2003 in Kannada and in 2004 in the Telugu language having Upendra and Ramya Krishna in the lead roles, and Sadhu Kokila directing it. The remake was also a hit, like the original. Plot. The film starts with Balu (S. S. Rajendran) giving a speech and narrating the story before an audience gathered around a man's statue. Mohanasundaram (M. R. Radha) is a philanderer, chain-smoker and drunkard. He does not respect elders, or people below his social standards. He is ruthless and even beats his own mother (S. R. Janaki). Immediately after his return to India, he is married to Chandra (Sriranjani), a cultured, well-mannered, conservative Indian village girl. But he develops an affair with Kantha (M. N. Rajam), a prostitute. His best friend Balu tries to advise him and mend his ways but Mohan turns a deaf ear. Mohan even failed to attend his own mother's post-death formalities as he wanted to attend the birthday function of Kantha's mother. Mohan loses his mind over Kantha, even surrenders all his riches to her and also loses every loved one in his life. When he lost the last of his riches and close ones, he gets struck down by leprosy. His life then turns upside down. With no money left for the treatment of his disease, he is totally ignored and despised by Kantha and her associates. She even locks him up in a room and treats him like an untouchable. In a few days, Kantha throws him out of her house and Mohan loses his eyesight soon after. As a poor leper, he wanders the streets to beg for food. In this last stage of his life, he learns the value of life itself and how to respect others. He feels remorseful for the way he treated his wife, mother and everyone else around him. He meets Chandra, his wife, who now lives a scarce life. Both do not recognize each other, as he is blind and she gets to see only his disfigured, leprosy-stricken face. He also meets his old best friend, Balu. The trio finally recognize each other. Mohan also learns through Balu about Kantha's death in an air crash. Mohan marries Chandra to Balu, in the hope that the still-virgin Chandra can now only be loved and cared for by a better man than Mohan himself. He also speaks his parting words and requests a leper's statue to be risen in his likeness, as a threatening example to philanderers like himself.
1059596	The Rocky Horror Picture Show is a 1975 British musical comedy horror film and an adaptation of "The Rocky Horror Show", a musical stage play, book, music, and lyrics by Richard O'Brien. Directed by Jim Sharman from a screenplay by Sharman and O'Brien, the production is a humorous tribute to the science fiction and horror B movies of the late 1940s through early 1970s. It introduces Tim Curry and features Susan Sarandon and Barry Bostwick along with cast members from the original Kings Road production presented at the Royal Court Theatre, London, in 1973. Still in limited release nearly four decades after its premiere, it has the longest-running theatrical release in film history. It gained notoriety as a midnight movie in 1977 when audiences began participating with the film in theatres. The film has a large international cult following and is one of the most well-known and financially successful midnight movies of all time. In 2005, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". Plot. The film opens with a criminologist who narrates the tale of newly engaged couple Brad Majors and Janet Weiss (""Dammit Janet"") who find themselves lost and with a flat tire on a cold and rainy late evening. Seeking a telephone, the couple walk to a nearby castle (""There's a Light (Over at the Frankenstein Place)"") where they discover a group of strange and outlandish people who are holding an Annual Transylvanian Convention (""Time Warp""). They are soon swept into the world of Dr. Frank N. Furter, a self-proclaimed "Sweet Transvestite from Transsexual, Transylvania". The ensemble of convention attendees also includes servants Riff Raff, his sister Magenta, and a groupie named Columbia.
1099306	Bruno de Finetti (13 June 1906 – 20 July 1985) was an Italian probabilist, statistician and actuary, noted for the "operational subjective" conception of probability. The classic exposition of his distinctive theory is the 1937 "La prévision: ses lois logiques, ses sources subjectives," which discussed probability founded on the coherence of betting odds and the consequences of exchangeability. Life. De Finetti was born in Innsbruck, Austria and studied mathematics at Politecnico di Milano. He graduated in 1927 writing his thesis under the supervision of Giulio Vivanti. After graduation, he worked as an actuary and a statistician at National Institute of Statistics in Rome and, from 1931, the Trieste insurance company Assicurazioni Generali. He published extensively (17 papers in 1930 alone, according to Lindley) and acquired an international reputation in the small world of probability mathematicians. He taught mathematical analysis in Padua and then won a chair in Financial Mathematics at Trieste University (1939). In 1954 he moved to the University of Rome, first to another chair in Financial Mathematics and then, from 1961 to 1976, one in the Calculus of Probabilities. De Finetti developed his ideas on subjective probability in the 1920s independently of Frank P. Ramsey. Still, according to the preface of his Theory of Probability, he drew on ideas of Harold Jeffreys, I. J. Good and B.O. Koopman. He only became known in the Anglo-American statistical world in the 1950s when L. J. Savage, who had independently adopted subjectivism, drew him into it; another great champion was Dennis Lindley. De Finetti died in Rome. Work. De Finetti emphasized a predictive inference approach to statistics; he proposed a thought experiment along the following lines (described in greater detail at coherence (philosophical gambling strategy)): "You" must set the price of a promise to pay $1 if there was life on Mars 1 billion years ago, and $0 if there was not, and tomorrow the answer will be revealed. You know that "your opponent" will be able to choose either to buy such a promise from you at the price you have set, or require you to buy such a promise from your opponent, still at the same price. In other words: you set the odds, but your opponent decides which side of the bet will be yours. The price you set is the "operational subjective probability" that you assign to the proposition on which you are betting. This price has to obey the probability axioms if you are not to face certain loss, as you would if you set a price above $1 (or a negative price). By considering bets on more than one event de Finetti could justify additivity. Prices, or equivalently odds, that do not expose you to certain loss through a "Dutch book" are called "coherent". De Finetti is also noted for de Finetti's theorem on exchangeable sequences of random variables. De Finetti was not the first to study exchangeability but he brought the subject to greater visibility. He started publishing on exchangeability in the late 1920s but the 1937 article is his most famous treatment. In 1929, de Finetti introduced the concept of infinitely divisible probability distributions. He also introduced de Finetti diagrams for graphing genotype frequencies. The 1974 English translation of his book is credited with reviving interest in predictive inference in the Anglophone world, and bringing the idea of exchangeability to its attention. The de Finetti Award, presented annually by the European Association for Decision Making, is named after him. Bibliography. See Works on
586091	Vismayathumbathu (Malayalam : വിസ്മയത്തുമ്പത്ത്) is a 2004 Malayalam psychological thriller film directed by Fazil. It stars Mohanlal, Mukesh and Nayantara in lead roles. Mohanlal plays the role of a person who has the sixth sense power while Nayantara does the role of a wandering soul who get associated with Mohanlal. The film is loosely based on the novel "If Only It Were True" by Marc Levy. Another film with the same theme namely "Just Like Heaven" was released in the following year. A Bollywood film "I See You" (2006) also has a similar storyline. Boxoffice. The movie was a extra ordinary flop at boxoffice
743597	BURN-E is a short film created by Pixar in 2008. It is a parallel spin-off from the feature-length movie "WALL-E". Its protagonist, a repair robot named BURN-E, is a minor character from the first movie, and the film is intercut with scenes from "WALL-E", which takes place concurrently. "BURN-E" was produced at the same time as "WALL-E" and was directed by the feature film's lead animator, Angus MacLane. The short movie is included as bonus material to the DVD and Blu-ray releases of "WALL-E" and has since also been aired on TV. "BURN-E" features music composed and conducted by J.A.C. Redford, who was also orchestrator on the film "WALL-E". The BURN-E (stands for "Basic Utility Repair Nano Engineer") character is first seen briefly as a welder robot in "WALL-E" when WALL-E and EVE fly around the "Axiom" starliner, and enter through a door, locking him outside of the ship. BURN-E is seen banging his fists against the door, and ultimately realizing that he has been locked out. Plot. The story begins with WALL-E running his hand through the rings of Saturn while hanging on the side of EVE's ship, as shown in the original film. One of the rock particles that swirls away begins to increase in velocity as it moves up against the atmosphere of a Saturnian moon, becoming a meteorite that destroys a small lamp spire outside the starship "Axiom". A repair robot named BURN-E is dispatched by SUPPLY-R, a storage robot that dispenses spare lamps, to replace the broken lamp. Before he can secure the new lamp, EVE's ship enters the "Axiom"s docking bay. Still hanging on the side of the ship, WALL-E waves to and distracts BURN-E while the loose lamp floats off into space. BURN-E retrieves another spare from SUPPLY-R, who is reluctant to let it go, and begins welding it down around the same time WALL-E is launched in an escape pod set to self-destruct in the original film. The pod explodes and BURN-E turns in surprise, accidentally slicing off the lamp with his blowtorch. Annoyed, SUPPLY-R gives BURN-E the last spare lamp (dropping it by the latter's feet), which he finally manages to install successfully. By this point, WALL-E and EVE fly into the "Axiom" through the only available entrance near BURN-E, which closes and locks him out. Later, WALL-E and EVE are nearly jettisoned through a garbage airlock, which BURN-E tries to use to reenter the ship but is closed as soon as he reaches it. BURN-E gives up all hope and begins playing with his blowtorch when it dawns on him that he can use it to cut a hole into the ship, and he does so. BURN-E returns to SUPPLY-R to turn on the newly installed lamp. At this point, the "Axiom"s captain and autopilot AUTO get into a fight and the ship is tilted, throwing BURN-E outside again. The Captain disables AUTO and realigns the ship, but as BURN-E prepares to go back inside, the ship blasts into hyperspace and pins BURN-E to the side of the hull. The "Axiom" lands on Earth and BURN-E reenters to find the ship deserted. BURN-E spots SUPPLY-R through the window of an escape pod and waves to him, but accidentally launches it and crashes to the ground below near SUPPLY-R. BURN-E flings off the pod's hatch and finally turns on the lamp, which is then crushed and destroyed by the falling hatch. BURN-E collapses in despair. In a post-credits scene, SUPPLY-R tries to console him by patting him on the head and saying, "There, there," in a dull, monotone voice.
358703	"Le Roi et l'oiseau (The King and the Mocking Bird", literally "The King and the Bird") is a 1980 traditionally-animated feature film directed by Paul Grimault. Begun in 1948 as "The Shepherdess and the Chimney Sweep" (loosely based on the fairy tale of the same name by Hans Christian Andersen), the film was a collaboration between Grimault and popular French poet and screenwriter, Jacques Prévert. However the film suddenly stopped production and was released unfinished by its producer, without the approval of either Grimault or Prévert. Through the course of the 1960s and 1970's, Grimualt obtained the rights to the film and was able to complete a new version they originally intended and was finished over 30 years after it was started. The film is today regarded as a masterpiece of French animation and has been cited by the Japanese directors Hayao Miyazaki and Isao Takahata as an influence. , the completed version of the film has not been released in North America on home video, however the first English-friendly release is set to come oout on October 7, 2013 on DVD in the United Kingdom. Previously, the film has been often shared by animation fans online. A low-budget English-language release of the 1952 version, dubbed "The Curious Adventures of Mr. Wonderbird", is in the public domain and available for free online. In that version, Peter Ustinov narrates and voices the main role of the bird. Plot. The huge kingdom of Takicardia is ruled by a king under the unwieldy title of Charles V + III = VIII + VIII = XVI. He’s a heartless ruler, hated by his people as much as he hates them. The king is fond of hunting, but is unfortunately cross-eyed – not that anyone would dare acknowledge this in front of him, as the numerous statues and paintings that adorn the palace and the land show. Occasionally the king does hit his target though, notably the wife of the bird, known only as "l'Oiseau", the narrator of the story who takes pleasure in taunting the terrible king at every opportunity. In his secret apartment, the king dreams of the beautiful shepherdess whose painting he keeps on his wall, but the shepherdess is in love with the chimney sweep whose hated portrait is on the opposite wall. At night the paintings come to life and attempt to escape from the palace, but are pursued by a non-cross-eyed painting of the king that also has come to life, deposed the real king and has taken his place. He orders the capture of the shepherdess and the sweep, but the bird is there to help when called upon. They are pursued to the depths of the Lower City where the inhabitants have never seen the light of the sun and strange creatures including bat-police take up their chase. Connection with the fairy tale. Only the early scene in the secret apartment is based on "The Shepherdess and the Chimney Sweep," while the rest of the movie focuses much more on the king and the bird, hence the ultimate title. In Andersen's tale, the shepherdess and the chimney sweep are china figurines, rather than paintings, and a wooden (mahogany) satyr wishes to wed the shepherdess, supported by a Chinaman, rather than a king and a classical statue. In both tales, the Chinaman/statue breaks, and the duo escape up the chimney, and delight in celestial bodies, but in Andersen's tale the shepherdess is afraid of the wide world and the duo return; this is echoed in the movie where the statue predicts that they will return. Production. Originally titled "La Bergère et le Ramoneur" ("The Shepherdess and the Chimneysweep"), Grimault and Prévert began the film in 1948 (following their first collaboration, "Le Petit soldat" (The Little Soldier), also a Hans Christian Andersen adaptation), and it was highly anticipated, but in 1950 the film was taken out of their control, and subsequently the expense of the film caused the failure of the studio ("Les Gémeaux"). Grimault’s partner André Sarrut (the producer) then released the film unfinished in 1952, against Grimault and Prévert’s wishes, which caused a rift between partners, and they went their separate ways. In 1967, Grimault regained possession of the film, and spent the next decade trying to finance a new version under his supervision. By 1977 he had arranged financing, and thus the film was completed over the two-year period of 1977–79. In 1980 the finished film was finally released under a new title, "Le Roi et l'Oiseau" – to make clear the distinction from the earlier version – and shortly after the death of Prévert, to whom the film is dedicated. The completed film uses 42 of the 62 minutes of the 1952 footage, and, at 87 minutes, includes significant new animation, completely different music, and a very different, more symbolic ending. Some footage is cut, such as the bird taking over the role as announcer at the wedding and the original ending. The new footage includes both entirely new scenes, and changes to existing scenes. For example, in the completed film, the initial scenes of the king practicing target shooting and having his portrait painted are new, while the scene of the king shooting at the baby bird, which falls between these two, is from the 1952 footage. The differences between the old and new animation are visible at some points in a single scene, most noticeably in the lion pit, where the lions are drawn in two very different styles; the simpler, more abstract lions are the new animation. The production of the music is unusual in that Grimault left it entirely in the hands of Wojciech Kilar – Grimault gave no instruction as to what music he desired, nor was there any back-and-forth, but simply shared the movie with Kilar, who studied it carefully, then went to Poland, recorded it, and returned with the completed score, which was accepted unchanged. The music, while was made available on a soundtrack album, does not exist any official edited music sheet for this music. However Simon Bozonnet, an amateur musician and fan of the film, released a faithful transcription of the piano theme on his website. Cultural references. The movie is rife with cultural references. Most basically, the castle is similar to 19th century fairy-tale castles, the best known of which is Neuschwanstein Castle, while the best-known such model in France is the medieval town Carcassonne, which notably has a surrounding "ville basse" (lower city), as in the movie. The city, with its dark, industrial underbelly recalls "Metropolis" by Fritz Lang, and the enslaved work recalls "Modern Times" of Charlie Chaplin. The castle, presiding over a city, has been compared to a "Neo-Sacré-Cœur", this basilica being the highest point of Paris, presiding over the city from the top of Montmartre. The visual style is painterly, with strong perspective, recalling surrealist artists, most notably Giorgio de Chirico, but also Yves Tanguy, friend of Prévert's youth. See this article for a sampling of scenes. There are extensive allusions to Germany, particularly connections between the king and Adolf Hitler, most obviously in the king's appearance on leaving water (mustache and hair strongly resembling Hitler's) and in the cult of personality, but also in the king's statement that "work…is liberty", alluding to the infamous "Arbeit macht frei" (work makes free), written over the entrances to concentration camps, and also the iconic Stahlhelm (steel helmets) seen in places. The king's number alludes to Louis XVI of France, though visually the film recalls more the "Sun King" Louis XIV, and parts of the castle resemble Venice, with the canals, gondola, and bridge of sighs. The mustached, bowler-hatted police recall Thomson and Thompson (Dupont et Dupond) from "The Adventures of Tintin." The robot's behavior recalls King Kong, notably both in his chest-pounding and in his waving off the circling bird. He also rests in the figure of "The Thinker," by Auguste Rodin. Some potentially unfamiliar phrases and concepts used in the movie include lettres de cachet, gallows birds (gibier de potence), lèse majesté (Contempt of the Sovereign), and the Mayor of the Palace. The bird also mentions having seen "Les cloches de Corneville," having been to the Place d'Italie, and having attended the Neuilly festival (Neuilly-sur-Seine is the birthplace of both Prévert and Grimault). It also mentions "dernières cartouches" (Last Cartridges) which alludes to an episode in the Franco-Prussian War involving the Blue Division of the French marines, memorialized in a painting by that name by Alphonse-Marie-Adolphe de Neuville. Others see connection with Ubu Roi (King Ubu) of Alfred Jarry, Giovanni Battista Piranesi, and Magritte. Grimault details some of the specific inspirations: for example, the bird was inspired by Jean Mollet (secretary of Guillaume Apollinaire) and by actor Pierre Brasseur, playing the character of Robert Macaire (via the character Frédérick Lemaître) in "Les Enfants du Paradis." Connections with other works. In the context of the principal authors' other works, it is notable that this is not the only Andersen adaptation that this pair animated – Grimault and Prévert also adapted "The Steadfast Tin Soldier" as "Le Petit Soldat" ("The Little Soldier") (1947), which is included in "La table tournante" ("The turning table") on the deluxe edition of "Le Roi et l'oiseau." In the early 1970s, Prévert and Grimault also made two dark animations, one apocalyptic – "Le Chien mélomane" ("The Megalomaniac Dog") (1973), which features a dog wielding a violin that caused destruction at a distance and leaves the world a gray waste (as in the end of "Le Roi"); both are collected in "La table tournante." Grimault did not directly reuse characters between his animations, but similar characters recur – the twin police officers in "Voleur de paratonnerres" (The lightning rod thief) are recalled by Le Sir de Massouf in "La Flûte magique" (The Magic Flute), then reappears as the chief of police in "Le Roi et l'Oiseau." Similarly, Gô from "Passagers de "La Grande Ourse"" (Passengers of "The Big Bear") is recalled by Niglo in "Marchand de notes," then becomes the chimney sweep in "Le Roi et l'Oiseau." For Prévert's part, he had previously written a poem about the Neuilly festival, mentioned by the bird ("La Fête à Neuilly", in "Histoires," 1946), featuring lions, and a lion character features prominently in "Children of Paradise," as do other bombastic characters, recalling and in fact inspiring the bird. He also wrote of birds in "Pour faire le portrait d'un oiseau" (To make a portrait of a bird) in "Paroles" (1945), which, fittingly, given the long production of the movie, includes the lines "Parfois l'oiseau arrive vite / mais il peut aussi bien mettre de longues années / avant de se décider" (Often the bird arrives quickly / but he can also take many years / before he decides himself). Reception and influence. "Le Roi et l'oiseau" has been called one of the greatest animated films produced in France, and it is popularly considered one of the best animated feature films of all time. , it has an average vote of 7.7/10 on IMDb.com. The film had a profound influence on Hayao Miyazaki and Isao Takahata, who later founded Studio Ghibli. Miyazaki states, inter alia, that "We were formed by the films and filmmakers of the 1950s. At that time I started watching a lot of films. One filmmaker who really influenced me was the French animator Paul Grimault." and "It was through watching "Le Roi et l'Oiseau" by Paul Grimault that I understood how it was necessary to use space in a vertical manner." For his part, Takahata states "My admiration towards Paul Grimault and "Le Roi et l'Oiseau" has always been the same, probably because he achieved better than anyone else a union between literature and animation." The influence is also visible in "The Castle of Cagliostro," whose castle resembles the castle in "Le Roi et l'Oiseau." They discuss this at length in a documentary on the deluxe edition of the Japanese DVD, noting for example that they took frame-by-frame photographs of some sequences (such as the king elbowing the court painter aside) to be able to study how the animation was done. In July 2006, Studio Ghibli secured the Japanese distribution rights of the film and released a Japanese-dubbed version to theaters through their Ghibli Museum Library imprint under the name . Starting in just one cinema, it became a hit and spread out to many other theaters, eventually reaching over 20,000 people. Editions. "Le Roi et l'oiseau" has been released in various editions, in various languages. Beyond the fundamental distinction between editions based on the incomplete 1952 version and the 1980 version, the film has been dubbed in many languages including Japanese and Dutch. In English, the film has been released and talked about under many names. The official international English name is "The King and the Mockingbird". In the 1950s, the 1952 version was released in the States and given an English-dubbed soundtrack under the title of "The Curious Adventures of Mr. Wonderbird". Peter Ustinov narrates and provides the voice of the bird in this version. Since then, the "Mr. Wonderbird" version is now in the public domain and has been released as bargain video releases. "Mr. Bird to the Rescue" and "Adventures of Mr. Wonderful" were names given to this version among many of its releases. Now "Mr. Wonderbird" is available for free online on the Internet Archive. The 1980 version of the film will be released with English subtitles for the first time on home video in the United Kingdom on October 7, 2013. Previously, it wasn't for sale in the English-speaking world except by import of the French and Japanese editions. Although the film does not contain a lot of dialogue, fan-created English subtitles for the completed 1980 edition are available at this page at Open Subtitles. A French deluxe version DVD includes a collection of Grimualt's shorts and a 1988 documentary of Grimault and his work, "La table tournante," ("The turning table"), filmed by Jacques Demy, together with various shorts. In 2013, following the film's restoration and theatrical re-release in French cinemas, it is set to make its high-definition debut on blu-ray in France in both a standard edition and collector's boxset on October 15.
774805	Stephen McHattie (born Stephen McHattie Smith; February 3, 1947) is a Canadian actor. Life and career. McHattie was born in Antigonish, Nova Scotia. A graduate of the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, he has appeared in many films and television shows including ', ', "", and American Playhouse's "Life Under Water" (1989). His roles include "300", "A History of Violence", "The Fountain", "Secretary", "Shoot 'Em Up", "Life with Billy", "One Dead Indian", "Beverly Hills Cop III". In Canada, he appeared in "" as Canadian hero Major-General Sir Isaac Brock, and in "The Rocket" as legendary coach Dick Irvin. He also portrayed Jacques Pasquinel in the James A. Michener production of "Centennial". He portrayed an extraordinary USMC sniper (based on real life sniper Carlos Hathcock) in the "JAG" season one episode "High Ground". In 1976 McHattie played James Dean in the television movie "James Dean: Portrait of a Friend", a television adaptation of the biography written by James Dean's friend and writer Bill Bast. McHattie appeared in several episodes of "Seinfeld" (beginning with "The Wallet") where he played Dr. Reston, Elaine Benes' manipulative psychiatrist/boyfriend. He also appeared in two episodes of "The X-Files". From 1998 - 2000 McHattie had a recurring role in the Canadian-made TV series "Emily of New Moon", based upon the 1923 novel by Lucy Maud Montgomery. Since 2005, he has appeared as Captain/Commander Healy in all eight of the "Jesse Stone" series TV movies, which are based on the novels of Robert B. Parker. McHattie recently appeared in the pilot of "Sabbatical", voiced the villain The Shade in "Justice League", and portrayed Hollis Mason, the first Nite Owl, in the film adaptation of "Watchmen". In 2009, McHattie appeared in the Canadian IFC film "Pontypool" and in the Canadian thiller "Summer's Blood" as Gant Hoxey, alongside "Twilight" actress Ashley Greene, who portrays Summer. He co-starred with Felicia Day and Kavan Smith in the Gothic adaptation of Red Riding Hood, "Red: Werewolf Hunter". Personal life. He is married to actress Lisa Houle, with whom he has three children. He was previously married to actress Meg Foster.
578579	Pleasure Factory (快乐工厂 "Kuaile Gongchang") is a 2007 docudrama film set in Geylang, the red-light district of Singapore. Directed by Ekachai Uekrongtham, the film was selected for the Un Certain Regard competition at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival. The film is unusual in Southeast Asian cinema for its frank depiction of subjects traditionally hidden in Asian society, such as prostitution and same-sex relationships, and features explicit male nudity. Plot. A series of intertwining tales involve "pleasure seekers and pleasure providers" during the course of one night in Geylang, Singapore's red-light district. There are three distinct stories, united only by the presence of characters from all the stories in a streetside eatery: Production. Origins. According to the film's production notes, "Pleasure Factory" is the first feature film to be shot entirely on actual locations in Geylang, the red-light district of Singapore. "In the old days, the Geylang area used to be populated by processing factories for the coconut plantations," director Ekachai Uekrongtham said in notes prepared for the 2007 Cannes Film Festival. "These days, the machines are still running at full steam – producing pleasure for those seeking it, night after night. With "Pleasure Factory", I've tried to strip bare the shields that prevent characters in the film from experiencing true pleasure. I'd like the film to have a vivid sense of realism and honesty. I'd like it to confront a world that's at once seedy and beautiful, dark and bright, sad and humorous, cold and warm, naked and all wrapped up. If pleasure can be mass-produced, what would be left on the assembly line when the machines stop?" The film is the second feature film for director Ekachai, a Singapore-based theatre director who had previously directed the 2003 Thai biographical drama film, "Beautiful Boxer". It is a co-production of Singapore-based Spicy Apple Films, the Hong Kong-Netherlands company, Fortissimo Films and Singapore's InnoForm Media. Casting. The major known cast members are Taiwanese actress Yang Kuei-mei who had been in such films as Ang Lee's '"Eat Drink Man Woman" and Tsai Ming-liang's "Goodbye, Dragon Inn", and Ananda Everingham from the Thai horror hit, "Shutter". Other actors were newcomers, found through street casting in Geylang and around Singapore. Reception. The film was an "official selection" for the Un Certain Regard programme at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival. It was acclaimed by European critics who attended the premiere screening. Nana A. T. Rebhan of Germany's arts and culture Channel Arte described the film as a "convincing portrait of a never-before-seen red-light district" and said "what makes this movie so special are the moments when people in the 'factory' step out of their usual rhythms - not functioning the way they should, unsure of their own actions and emotions." Leonardo Lardieri of Italy's "Sentieri Selvaggi" called the film "a pleasurable surprise" and said it was able to "capture the fragility, the sense of abandonment and the pulsation of incessant desire - in a chain of beginnings and ends that continue to reincarnate itself night after night." The approach of the film was described by other critics as "characterized by a unique tenderness."
1105189	Felix E. Browder (; born July 31, 1927) is a United States mathematician. Felix Browder was born in Moscow. He was a child prodigy who entered MIT in 1944 and graduated in 1946 with his first degree in Mathematics. At MIT he achieved the rank of a Putnam Fellow in the William Lowell Putnam Mathematical Competition. In 1948 (at age 20), he received his doctorate from Princeton University. He is known for his research in nonlinear functional analysis, including the theory of semigroups, monotone operators, and fixed points of Cesàro sums of non-expansive operators. He is a professor of mathematics at Rutgers University. Browder was the recipient of the 1999 National Medal of Science. He also served as president of the American Mathematical Society from 1999 to 2000. Felix Browder is the father of Bill Browder, CEO of Hermitage Capital Management, and is the brother of two other research mathematicians, William Browder (an algebraic topologist) and Andrew Browder (a specialist in function algebras). Their father, Earl Browder, was the leader of the Communist Party USA until his expulsion after World War II.
1102023	Alexander Grothendieck (; ; born 28 March 1928) is a stateless mathematician born in Germany and raised in France, who is the central figure behind the creation of the modern theory of algebraic geometry. His research program vastly extended the scope of the field, incorporating major elements of commutative algebra, homological algebra, sheaf theory, and category theory into its foundations. This new perspective led to revolutionary advances across many areas of pure mathematics. Within algebraic geometry itself, his theory of schemes has become the universally accepted language for all further technical work. His generalization of the classical Riemann-Roch theorem launched the study of algebraic and topological K-theory. His construction of new cohomology theories has left deep consequences for algebraic number theory, algebraic topology, and representation theory. His creation of topos theory has had an impact on set theory and logic. One of his most celebrated achievements is the discovery of the first arithmetic Weil cohomology theory: the ℓ-adic étale cohomology. This key result opened the way for a proof of the Weil conjectures, ultimately completed by his student Pierre Deligne. To this day, ℓ-adic cohomology remains a fundamental tool for number theorists, with important applications to the Langlands program. Grothendieck’s way of thinking has influenced generations of mathematicians long after his departure from mathematics. His emphasis on the role of universal properties brought category theory into the mainstream as an important organizing principle. His notion of abelian category is now the basic object of study in homological algebra. His conjectural theory of motives has been a driving force behind modern developments in algebraic K-theory, motivic homotopy theory, and motivic integration. Driven by deep personal and political convictions, Grothendieck left the Institut des Hautes Études Scientifiques, where he had been appointed professor and accomplished his greatest work, after a dispute over military funding in 1970. His mathematical activity essentially ceased after this, and he devoted his energies to political causes. He formally retired in 1988 and within a few years moved to the Pyrenees, where he currently lives in isolation from human society. Life. Family and childhood. Alexander Grothendieck was born in Berlin to anarchist parents: a father from an originally Hassidic family, Alexander "Sascha" Schapiro aka Tanaroff, who had been imprisoned in Russia and moved to Germany in 1922, and a mother from a Protestant family in Hamburg, Johanna "Hanka" Grothendieck, who worked as a journalist; both of his parents had broken away from their early backgrounds in their teens. At the time of his birth Grothendieck's mother was married to the journalist Johannes Raddatz, and his birthname was initially recorded as "Alexander Raddatz". The marriage was dissolved in 1929 and Schapiro/Tanaroff acknowledged his paternity, but never married Hanka Grothendieck. Grothendieck lived with his parents until 1933 in Berlin. At the end of that year, Schapiro moved to Paris to evade the Nazis, and Hanka followed him the next year. They left Grothendieck in the care of Wilhelm Heydorn, a Lutheran Pastor and teacher in Hamburg where he went to school. During this time, his parents took part in the Spanish Civil War in supporting rather than fighting roles. Grothendieck could speak French, English and German. During WWII. In 1939 Grothendieck went to France and lived in various camps for displaced persons with his mother, first at the Camp de Rieucros, and subsequently lived for the remainder of the war in the village of Le Chambon-sur-Lignon, where he was sheltered and hidden in local boarding-houses or pensions. His father was arrested and sent via Drancy to the Auschwitz concentration camp where he died in 1942. While Grothendieck lived in Chambon, he attended the Collège Cévenol (now known as the Le Collège-Lycée Cévenol International), a unique secondary school founded in 1938 by local Protestant pacifists and anti-war activists. Many of the refugee children being hidden in Chambon attended Cévenol and it was at this school that Grothendieck apparently first became fascinated with mathematics. Studies and contact with research mathematics. After the war, the young Grothendieck studied mathematics in France, initially at the University of Montpellier where he did not initially perform well, flunking such classes as astronomy. Working on his own, he rediscovered the Lebesgue measure. After three years of increasingly independent studies there he went to continue his studies in Paris in 1948. Initially, Grothendieck attended Henri Cartan's Seminar at École Normale Supérieure, but lacked the necessary background to follow the high-powered seminar. On the advice of Cartan and Weil, he moved to the University of Nancy where he wrote his dissertation under Laurent Schwartz in functional analysis, from 1950 to 1953. At this time he was a leading expert in the theory of topological vector spaces. By 1957, he set this subject aside in order to work in algebraic geometry and homological algebra. The IHÉS years. Installed at the Institut des Hautes Études Scientifiques (IHÉS) in 1958, Grothendieck attracted attention by an intense and highly productive activity of seminars ("de facto" working groups drafting into foundational work some of the ablest French and other mathematicians of the younger generation). Grothendieck himself practically ceased publication of papers through the conventional, learned journal route. He was, however, able to play a dominant role in mathematics for around a decade, gathering a strong school. During this time he had officially as students Michel Demazure (who worked on SGA3, on group schemes), Luc Illusie (cotangent complex), Michel Raynaud, Jean-Louis Verdier (cofounder of the derived category theory) and Pierre Deligne. Collaborators on the SGA projects also included Mike Artin (étale cohomology) and Nick Katz (monodromy theory and Lefschetz pencils). Jean Giraud worked out torsor theory extensions of non-abelian cohomology. Many others were involved. The 'Golden Age'. Alexander Grothendieck's work during the `Golden Age' period at IHÉS established several unifying themes in algebraic geometry, number theory, topology, category theory and complex analysis. His first (pre-IHÉS) breakthrough in algebraic geometry was the Grothendieck–Hirzebruch–Riemann–Roch theorem, a far-reaching generalisation of the Hirzebruch–Riemann–Roch theorem proved algebraically; in this context he also introduced K-theory. Then, following the programme he outlined in his talk at the 1958 International Congress of Mathematicians, he introduced the theory of schemes, developing it in detail in his Éléments de géométrie algébrique (EGA) and providing the new more flexible and general foundations for algebraic geometry that has been adopted in the field since that time. He went on to introduce the étale cohomology theory of schemes, providing the key tools for proving the Weil conjectures, as well as crystalline cohomology and algebraic de Rham cohomology to complement it. Closely linked to these cohomology theories, he originated topos theory as a generalisation of topology (relevant also in categorical logic). He also provided an algebraic definition of fundamental groups of schemes and more generally the main structures of a categorical Galois theory. As a framework for his coherent duality theory he also introduced derived categories, which were further developed by Verdier. The results of work on these and other topics were published in the EGA and in less polished form in the notes of the Séminaire de géométrie algébrique (SGA) that he directed at IHES. Politics and retreat from scientific community. Grothendieck's political views were radical and pacifist. Thus, he strongly opposed both United States intervention in Vietnam and Soviet military expansionism. He gave lectures on category theory in the forests surrounding Hanoi while the city was being bombed, to protest against the Vietnam War ("The Life and Work of Alexander Grothendieck", "American Mathematical Monthly", vol. 113, no. 9, footnote 6). He retired from scientific life around 1970, after having discovered the partly military funding of IHÉS (see pp. xii and xiii of SGA1, Springer Lecture Notes 224). He returned to academia a few years later as a professor at the University of Montpellier, where he stayed until his retirement in 1988. His criticisms of the scientific community, and especially of several mathematics circles, are also contained in a letter, written in 1988, in which he states the reasons for his refusal of the Crafoord Prize. He declined the prize on ethical grounds in an open letter to the media. While the issue of military funding was perhaps the most obvious explanation for Grothendieck's departure from IHÉS, those who knew him say that the causes of the rupture ran deeper. Pierre Cartier, a "visiteur de longue durée" ("long-term guest") at the IHÉS, wrote a piece about Grothendieck for a special volume published on the occasion of the IHÉS's fortieth anniversary. The "Grothendieck Festschrift" was a three-volume collection of research papers to mark his sixtieth birthday (falling in 1988), and published in 1990. In it Cartier notes that, as the son of an antimilitary anarchist and one who grew up among the disenfranchised, Grothendieck always had a deep compassion for the poor and the downtrodden. As Cartier puts it, Grothendieck came to find Bures-sur-Yvette ""une cage dorée"" ("a golden cage"). While Grothendieck was at the IHÉS, opposition to the Vietnam War was heating up, and Cartier suggests that this also reinforced Grothendieck's distaste at having become a mandarin of the scientific world. In addition, after several years at the IHÉS Grothendieck seemed to cast about for new intellectual interests. By the late 1960s he had started to become interested in scientific areas outside of mathematics. David Ruelle, a physicist who joined the IHÉS faculty in 1964, said that Grothendieck came to talk to him a few times about physics. (In the 1970s Ruelle and the Dutch mathematician Floris Takens produced a new model for turbulence, and it was Ruelle who invented the concept of a strange attractor in a dynamical system.) Biology interested Grothendieck much more than physics, and he organized some seminars on biological topics. After leaving the IHÉS, Grothendieck became a temporary professor at Collège de France for two years. A permanent position became open at the end of his tenure, but the application Grothendieck submitted made it clear that he had no plans to continue his mathematical research. The position was given to Jacques Tits. He then went to Université de Montpellier, where he became increasingly estranged from the mathematical community. Around this time, he founded a group called "Survivre" ("To Survive"), which was dedicated to antimilitary and ecological issues. His mathematical career, for the most part, ended when he left the IHÉS. Manuscripts written in the 1980s. While not publishing mathematical research in conventional ways during the 1980s, he produced several influential manuscripts with limited distribution, with both mathematical and biographical content. "La Longue Marche à travers la théorie de Galois" "The Long March Through Galois Theory" is an approximately 1600-page handwritten manuscript produced by Grothendieck during the years 1980–1981, containing many of the ideas leading to the "Esquisse d'un programme" (see below, and also a more detailed entry), and in particular studying the Teichmüller theory. In 1983 he wrote an extended manuscript (about 600 pages) entitled "Pursuing Stacks", stimulated by correspondence with Ronald Brown, (see also R.Brown and Tim Porter at University of Bangor in Wales), and starting with a letter addressed to Daniel Quillen. This letter and successive parts were distributed from Bangor (see External Links below): in an informal manner, as a kind of diary, Grothendieck explained and developed his ideas on the relationship between algebraic homotopy theory and algebraic geometry and prospects for a noncommutative theory of stacks. The manuscript, which is being edited for publication by G. Maltsiniotis, later led to another of his monumental works, "Les Dérivateurs". Written in 1991, this latter opus of about 2000 pages further developed the homotopical ideas begun in "Pursuing Stacks". Much of this work anticipated the subsequent development of the motivic homotopy theory of Fabien Morel and V. Voevodsky in the mid-1990s. In 1984 he wrote a proposal to get a position through the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, which he held from 1984 to his retirement in 1988. The proposal, entitled "Esquisse d'un Programme" ("Program Sketch") describes new ideas for studying the moduli space of complex curves. Although Grothendieck himself never published his work in this area, the proposal became the inspiration for work by other mathematicians and the source of the theory of dessins d'enfants and of a new field emerging as anabelian geometry. "Esquisse d’un Programme" was published in the two-volume proceedings Geometric Galois Actions (Cambridge University Press, 1997). During this period he also released his work on Bertini type theorems contained in EGA 5, published by the Grothendieck Circle in 2004. The 1000-page autobiographical manuscript "Récoltes et semailles" (1986) is now available on the internet in the French original, and an English translation is underway (these parts of Récoltes et semailles have already been translated into Russian and published in Moscow). Some parts of "Récoltes et semailles" and the whole "La Clef des Songes" have been translated into Spanish and Russian. In the manuscript "La Clef des Songes" he explains how considering the source of dreams led him to conclude that God exists. His growing preoccupation with spiritual matters was also evident in a letter entitled "Lettre de la Bonne Nouvelle" that he sent to 250 friends in January 1990. In it, he described his encounters with a deity and announced that a "New Age" would commence on 14 October 1996. Retirement into reclusion. Grothendieck was co-awarded (but declined) the Crafoord Prize with Pierre Deligne in 1988. In 1991, Grothendieck moved to an address he did not provide to his previous contacts in the mathematical community. He is now said to live in southern France or Andorra and to be reclusive. In January 2010, Grothendieck wrote a letter to Luc Illusie. In this "Déclaration d'intention de non-publication", he states that essentially all materials that have been published in his absence have been done without his permission. He asks that none of his work should be reproduced in whole or in part, and even further that libraries containing such copies of his work remove them. Mathematical achievements. Grothendieck's early mathematical work was in functional analysis. Between 1949 and 1953 he worked on his doctoral thesis in this subject at Nancy, supervised by Jean Dieudonné and Laurent Schwartz. His key contributions include topological tensor products of topological vector spaces, the theory of nuclear spaces as foundational for Schwartz distributions, and the application of Lp spaces in studying linear maps between topological vector spaces. In a few years, he had turned himself into a leading authority on this area of functional analysis — to the extent that Dieudonné compares his impact in this field to that of Banach. It is, however, in algebraic geometry and related fields where Grothendieck did his most important and influential work. From about 1955 he started to work on sheaf theory and homological algebra, producing the influential "Tôhoku paper" ("Sur quelques points d'algèbre homologique", published in 1957) where he introduced Abelian categories and applied their theory to show that sheaf cohomology can be defined as certain derived functors in this context. Homological methods and sheaf theory had already been introduced in algebraic geometry by Jean-Pierre Serre and others, after sheaves had been defined by Jean Leray. Grothendieck took them to a higher level of abstraction and turned them into a key organising principle of his theory. He shifted attention from the study of individual varieties to the "relative point of view" (pairs of varieties related by a morphism), allowing a broad generalization of many classical theorems. The first major application was the relative version of Serre's theorem showing that the cohomology of a coherent sheaf on a complete variety is finite dimensional; Grothendieck's theorem shows that the higher direct images of coherent sheaves under a proper map are coherent; this reduces to Serre's theorem over a one-point space. In 1956, he applied the same thinking to the Riemann–Roch theorem, which had already recently been generalized to any dimension by Hirzebruch. The Grothendieck–Riemann–Roch theorem was announced by Grothendieck at the initial Mathematische Arbeitstagung in Bonn, in 1957. It appeared in print in a paper written by Armand Borel with Serre. This result was his first major achievement in algebraic geometry. He went on to plan and execute a major foundational programme for rebuilding the foundations of algebraic geometry, which were then in a state of flux and under discussion in Claude Chevalley's seminar; he outlined his programme in his talk at the 1958 International Congress of Mathematicians. His foundational work on algebraic geometry is at a higher level of abstraction than all prior versions. He adapted the use of non-closed generic points, which led to the theory of schemes. He also pioneered the systematic use of nilpotents. As 'functions' these can take only the value 0, but they carry infinitesimal information, in purely algebraic settings. His "theory of schemes" has become established as the best universal foundation for this major field, because of its great expressive power as well as technical depth. In that setting one can use birational geometry, techniques from number theory, Galois theory and commutative algebra, and close analogues of the methods of algebraic topology, all in an integrated way. He is also noted for his mastery of abstract approaches to mathematics and his perfectionism in matters of formulation and presentation. Relatively little of his work after 1960 was published by the conventional route of the learned journal, circulating initially in duplicated volumes of seminar notes; his influence was to a considerable extent personal. His influence spilled over into many other branches of mathematics, for example the contemporary theory of D-modules. (It also provoked adverse reactions, with many mathematicians seeking out more concrete areas and problems.) EGA and SGA. The bulk of Grothendieck's published work is collected in the monumental, and yet incomplete, "Éléments de géométrie algébrique" (EGA) and "Séminaire de géométrie algébrique" (SGA). The collection "Fondements de la Géometrie Algébrique" (FGA), which gathers together talks given in the Séminaire Bourbaki, also contains important material. Perhaps Grothendieck's deepest single accomplishment is the invention of the étale and l-adic cohomology theories, which explain an observation of André Weil's that there is a deep connection between the topological characteristics of a variety and its diophantine (number theoretic) properties. For example, the number of solutions of an equation over a finite field reflects the topological nature of its solutions over the complex numbers. Weil realized that to prove such a connection one needed a new cohomology theory, but neither he nor any other expert saw how to do this until such a theory was found by Grothendieck. This program culminated in the proofs of the Weil conjectures, the last of which was settled by Grothendieck's student Pierre Deligne in the early 1970s after Grothendieck had largely withdrawn from mathematics. Major mathematical topics (from "Récoltes et Semailles"). He wrote a retrospective assessment of his mathematical work (see the external link "La Vision" below). As his main mathematical achievements ("maître-thèmes"), he chose this collection of 12 topics (his chronological order): He wrote that the central theme of the topics above is that of topos theory, while the first and last were of the least importance to him. Here the term "yoga" denotes a kind of "meta-theory" that can be used heuristically; Michel Raynaud writes the other terms "Ariadne's thread" and "philosophy" as effective equivalents.
520898	Himala ("Miracle") is a Filipino film directed by National Artist Ishmael Bernal of the Philippines in 1982. The film's script was written by multi-award winner screenwriter Ricky Lee based on a true incident of a teenage girl in Cabra Island in the province of Occidental Mindoro between 1966 and 1967. "Himala" was filmed entirely in the province of Ilocos Norte in just three weeks with a budget of only ₱ 3 million. The film premiered at the 1982 Metro Manila Film Festival, and in 1983, became the first Filipino film to be included in the "Competition Section" of the prestigious Berlin International Film Festival. Since then, "Himala" has been exhibited in a number of film festivals around the world. On 11 November 2008, "Himala" won the Viewer's Choice Award for the Best Film of all Time from the Asia-Pacific Region in the 2008 CNN Asia Pacific Screen Awards beating out nine other outstanding movies.(voted by thousands of film fans around the world). The ten finalists were chosen by critics, industry insiders and actors—including Bollywood stars Amitabh Bachchan and Aishwarya Rai. Philippine superstar Nora Aunor is best known for her performance in the film as the visionary Elsa. Her portrayal is considered by most Filipino critics as the best of her career. On its 30th anniversary, "Himala" is the first of the 3000+ films restored by the ABS-CBN Film Archive and Central Digital Lab, Inc. The restored version premiered at the 69th Venice International Film Festival. Subject and impact. "Himala" is the story of Elsa, a barrio lass whose visions of the Virgin Mary change her life and cause a sensation hysteria in a poor, isolated northern village in the midst of drought. The film is centred on the issues of religious faith and faithlessness, morality, and truth. Elsa, in her speech on the hill, delivered the film's (and Aunor's) most famous line: ""Waláng himalà! Ang himalà ay nasa puso ng tao, nasa puso nating lahat! Tayo ang gumagawâ ng mga himalà! Tayo ang gumagawâ ng mga sumpâ at ng mga diyos...""
1015936	Hard Boiled () is a 1992 Hong Kong action film directed by John Woo. The film stars Chow Yun-fat as Inspector "Tequila" Yuen, Tony Leung Chiu-Wai as Tony, an undercover cop, and Anthony Wong as Johnny Wong, a leader of criminal triads. The film features Tequila, whose partner (Bowie Lam) is killed in a tea house gunfight with a small army of gangsters. One of the mob's high-ranking assassins is the undercover cop Tony, who must team up with Tequila for their common pursuit of taking down Wong's crime syndicate. The film leads up to a climax in a hospital, where the two must rescue innocent civilians and newborn babies from the maternity ward while fighting off dozens of mob hitmen. "Hard Boiled" was John Woo's last Hong Kong film before his transition to Hollywood. After making films that glamorized gangsters (and receiving criticism for doing so), Woo wanted to make a "Dirty Harry" styled film to glamorize the police. After the death of screenwriter Barry Wong, the film's screenplay underwent constant changes during filming. New characters such as Mad Dog and Mr. Woo were introduced, while the original plotline of a baby poisoning psychopath was cut. The film was released in Hong Kong in 1992 to generally positive audience reception, but it was not as commercially successful as Woo's previous action films, such as "A Better Tomorrow" and "The Killer". Reception from western critics was much more positive, with many critics proclaiming its action scenes to be some of the best ever filmed. In 2007, a video game sequel titled "Stranglehold" was released, which is in the process of being made into a film. Plot. In a tea house in Hong Kong, Officer "Tequila" Yuen (Chow Yun-Fat) and his partner Benny (Bowie Lam), attempt to arrest a group of gun smugglers while they are making a deal. After an ambush from another gang member, a fierce gun battle breaks out. The gangsters are defeated but with several police officers badly wounded, and Benny is killed. Tequila decides to get revenge on the gangster who ambushed them, which angers his boss, Officer Superintendent Pang (Philip Chan), who orders Tequila off the case. Elsewhere, Tony (Tony Leung) works for triad boss "Uncle" Hoi (Kwan Hoi-Shan). Tony had murdered a fellow member of Hoi's gang, who had been working for Johnny Wong's (Anthony Wong) syndicate. Wong is impressed by Tony's skill and attempts to recruit him. Tony reluctantly turns against Hoi when Wong conducts a raid on Hoi's arsenal at a warehouse. At the warehouse, Wong's men kill Hoi's workers and destroy his stock. When Hoi arrives, Wong demands Tony kill Hoi. After Tony kills Hoi and his gang members, smoke grenades explode and Tequila appears from the ceiling. Tony covers Wong's escape as Tequila battles and kills most of the gangsters. Tequila finds himself confronting Tony face to face in the smoke, with guns to each other's heads. Tequila tries to shoot Tony, but his revolver is out of ammo. Tony slowly lowers his gun and walks away. At the police station, Tequila learns that Tony is an undercover cop working for Pang. Tequila tracks Tony down to his sailboat to try to make sense of the situation but the two are ambushed by the remnants of Hoi's gang. Tequila and Tony manage to kill their attackers just before Wong arrives which allows Tony to keep his cover. Wong realizes that one of his gangsters named Foxy (Tung Wei), is an informant for the police. Foxy is beaten by Wong's henchman Mad Dog (Philip Kwok) and tells Tony to kill Foxy. Tony slips a cigarette lighter into Foxy's pocket where he shoots him, saving Foxy's life. Foxy finds Tequila at a jazz bar and informs him that Wong's armory is in the nearby Maple Group Hospital. As Tequila takes Foxy to the hospital, Wong finds out Foxy is alive and sends Tony to kill Foxy as well as sending Mad Dog separately to cover Tony. At the hospital, Tony confronts Tequila, demanding to know the whereabouts of Wong's arsenal. While Tony and Tequila are distracted, Foxy is killed by Mad Dog. Tony and Tequila discover a hidden passage in the hospital leading to Wong's arsenal. They are confronted by Mad Dog, who engages them. Wong arrives at the hospital and has all the patients, police officers and staff taken hostage. After fighting their way to the main lobby, Tony and Tequila liberate the kidnapped patients and police officers. Pang evacuates the lobby while police detective Teresa Chang (Teresa Mo) goes to the maternity ward to organize evacuating the babies. Tony and Tequila continue fighting gangsters until finding Mad Dog. While Tequila goes to assist Chang with the babies, Tony and Mad Dog find themselves in a standoff with a group of patients caught in the middle. Wong appears and begins shooting the patients. An enraged Mad Dog shoots Wong in the torso. Wong shoots and kills Mad Dog while Tony escapes. Tequila finds the last baby in the maternity unit, and carries it to safety while fighting off the last of the gangsters. Tony and Tequila meet up again and are confronted by Wong, who has programmed bombs to blow up the building. Tony pursues Wong as Tequila escapes the hospital with the last baby, the hospital exploding around him. Outside, Wong suddenly appears holding Tony at gunpoint. After watching Wong humiliate Tequila, Tony grabs Wong's gun. In a struggle, Tony shoots himself through the stomach giving Tequila enough time to shoot Wong dead. Later at the police station, Pang and Tequila burn Tony's police file. Tony sails away from Hong Kong in his boat. Production. Development. The film was originally developed in 1990. After creating films which focused on the lives of gangsters, director John Woo wanted to make a film that glorified the police instead. Woo admired Clint Eastwood's and Steve McQueen's characters from their films "Dirty Harry" and "Bullitt" respectively, and wanted to make his own Hong Kong-style "Dirty Harry" police detective film. While creating this character, Woo was inspired by a police officer who was a strong-willed and tough member of the police force, as well as being an avid drummer. This led to Woo having Tequila's character be a musician as well as a cop. Before production started, Woo told his actors that he was not going to make the film as stylish as his previous films, but to have it be more of an "edgy thriller". The role of Teresa Chang was originally made for actress Michelle Yeoh who had a long relationship with producer Terence Chang. After casting Teresa Mo, the character of Teresa Chang was greatly re-written.
583958	Vinnaithaandi Varuvaayaa () is a 2010 Tamil romantic drama film directed and written by Gautham Vasudev Menon, featuring Silambarasan Rajendar and Trisha Krishnan in the lead roles. The film, distributed by Udhayanidhi Stalin, features a successful soundtrack composed by A. R. Rahman, cinematography by Manoj Paramahamsa and editing by Anthony Gonsalves. The story was simultaneously shot and released by Gautham in Telugu as "Ye Maaya Chesave", starring Naga Chaitanya and Samantha Ruth Prabhu, however, with a different cast and climax. Launched by a wave of publicity posters with no details about the cast and crew, "Vinnaithaandi Varuvaayaa" began its initial run in February 2009. Shooting continued through 2009, with the film garnering significant media interest, through schedules in Malta and the United States. Before release, it became the first Tamil project to have a music soundtrack premiere outside of India, with a successful launch at the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) in London. "Vinnaithaandi Varuvaayaa" explores the complicated relationship between a Hindu Tamil assistant director, Karthik, and a Syrian Christian Malayali girl, Jessie Thekekuttu. Karthik falls in love with Jessie only to be met by her indifference and reluctance as they belong to different religions and her strict conservative family will never consent. Undeterred Karthik pursues her, going as far as her native town. She also falls in love with him. However, they have to face many problems and emotional conflicts. The film released on 26 February 2010, along with the Telugu version to advance bookings worldwide. Upon release, it achieved positive reviews, with several critics giving "modern classic" status, whilst also becoming a commercially successful venture. It was later remade in Hindi as "Ekk Deewana Tha" starring Prateik Babbar and Amy Jackson, which was not as successful. Plot. Karthik (Silambarasan) is a graduate Mechanical Engineering in Chennai who aspires to become a filmmaker. His friend introduces him to cinematographer Ganesh (Ganesh Janardhanan). With Ganesh's help Karthik becomes an assistant to director K. S. Ravikumar. Karthik's family, who are Tamil Hindu Veerakodi Vellalars (Vellalar), rent Jessie's (Trisha Krishnan) house. Jessie is from a conservative Malayali Nasrani Christian family from Alappuzha, Kerala, that lives upstairs. Karthik falls in love with Jessie the moment he meets her. Karthik tries to interact with Jessie, who is afraid of speaking to men around her strict father, and ends up angering her. Unable to hide his feelings any longer, Karthik confesses his love for her; she does not respond. A few days later, Karthik learns from his sister that Jessie has gone to Kerala to visit her grandmother. He and Ganesh end up in Kerala to look for her. After several days, he finds her and apologises. She introduces him to her family in Kerala as her "classmate". Jessie denies she has any feelings for him but agrees to be his friend. On the train journey back home, however, the two get close and share a kiss. Karthik is convinced Jessie loves him; the two meet several times and Jessie begins to admit that she also likes Karthik, but wants to refrain from any problems because she knows her father wouldn't give her hand in marriage to a Hindu. Consequently, due to various misunderstandings between Jessie's brother and Karthik, her parents learn of their supposed affair. They fix a match and schedule her wedding. The day arrives and midway through the ceremony, Jessie refuses to marry the groom, displeasing everyone in her family. Karthik, who had, without anyone's knowledge, come to Kerala to witness the wedding is ecstatic and secretly visits Jessie at her home. It is then that Jessie admits she has indeed fallen in love with him. Karthik and Jessie continue to love each other without the knowledge of their parents. At this point of time, Karthik goes to Goa on a 45-day shoot, where he gets rather busy. Meanwhile, the topic of Jessie's marriage comes up again at her home when the guy whom she refused to marry earlier pays them a visit. Panicking, Jessie calls Karthik and tells him that she wants to elope with him. Karthik, since he is travelling through less than ideal places, tells Jessie to stay in Chennai for now, and that soon he would be back and they can discuss. Jessie stops taking Karthik's calls and so he goes back one night to check on Jessie. He comes to know that Jessie has decided to break up, as the relationship is not peaceful due to her parents' disapproval. She says she has agreed to get married to a boy of their choice. When Karthik pleads her not to do it, she tells him that a time had come when she was willing to elope, but the moment was gone. She doesn't want Karthik to wait for her too long, as he has his dreams to fulfill. Karthik later comes to know that she is married and settled abroad. Two years later, Karthik meets Nandhini (Samantha Ruth Prabhu). She falls in love with him, but is rejected by Karthik by saying that he hasn't yet gotten over Jessie. He then comes up with a script for his first film, which happens to be his very own love story. He calls upon Naga Chaitanya Akkineni as the film's protagonist, Nandhini as the female lead and Ganesh as the film's cinematographer, and the film is eventually titled "Jessie". While shooting for the film in New York, he sees Jessie and she comes to speak with him. She admits that she is not married and is still in love with him, and he too says she is still in his heart. Karthik proposes yet again and they get married the same day. This is actually revealed to be the end scene in Karthik's movie – which Karthik and Jessie in real life are watching together in the theatre. After it gets over, it is revealed to the audience that Jessie had in fact seen Karthik in New York but had not come forward to meet him. She is married now and hence asks Karthik to fall in love again and move on. She tells Karthik that they cannot lead a life which is full of obstacles and they part, once and for all to lead different lives and different destinies. Production. Development. In late January 2009, speculation arose surrounding a potential collaboration between Silambarasan Rajendar, Gautham Menon and A. R. Rahman, but none confirmed the news. In a surprise move, in early February 2009 a poster appeared in Indian papers featuring Silambarasan, but with no names of crew members. This was a significant move as this was Gautham's first project after his split with Harris Jayaraj. Furthermore, the early poster suggested that the film was titled "Vinnaithaandi Varuvaayaa", in homage to the song "Vennilavae Vennilavae" from the 1997 film, "Minsaara Kanavu". Subsequently, each day leading up to Valentine's Day saw the launch of a new poster, still without details of the crew except the inclusion of Trisha Krishnan as the lead actress; posters released after the one tributing "Minsara Kanavu" were those of stills from "Dil Se..", "Alaipayuthey", "Kaakha Kaakha" and "Geethanjali". It eventually surfaced as a Gautham Menon film, with music by Rahman and cinematography by Manoj Paramahamsa. Gautham stated that the movie would be his return to the love genre after having directed action thriller post his debut venture, "Minnale". Nagarjuna Akkineni approached Gautham Menon to do a Telugu version simultaneously. He agreed and the scenes were shot at the same time. Menon cited that he was "a week away from starting the film with a newcomer" before his producer insisted they looked at Silambarasan, with Menon revealing that he was unimpressed with the actor's previous work. Filming. The shooting started on 14 February 2009 and was held in several locations as New York City, Malta, Kerala, Chennai, Trichy, Thanjavur and Rome. The songs were shot in Malta at sets and choreographed by Flexy Stu. Before release, the film was passed with a U/A (Parental Guidance) rating by the Indian Censor Board due to intimate scenes between Silambarasan and Trisha. Release. Critical reception. The film opened to positive reviews from critics. Oneindia.in said "The slow phase of the second half and frequent use of bad words (Chennai Tamil) are major minuses in Goutham's narration. But these are all not preventing one to enjoy the content of true and painful love of the film!" Sify said that it was "Very good" further citing "The film is a must watch for those who cares for cinema of sense and substance. It stresses the fact that Tamil cinema has to break the mould if it aims to grab eyeballs. Gautham Menon has crafted a movie that will stay in our hearts for a long, long time." Indiaglitz stated "If and only if, you have all the time in the world, and you like the slow romantic genre, you'll enjoy this one." Pavithra Srinivasan of Rediff.com called the film a "Must watch" further citing "The best part about VTV is that it revolves around people, rather than events. It's like putting a camera into the intimate, everyday life of two people and following them on their adventures. The characters go through a whirlwind of emotions, laugh and cry, and take you along with them." However, the reviewer points out certain drawbacks in the film citing "On the minus side, VTV suffers from the same defect as Vaaranam Aayiram: the second half lags in pace. The dialogues and confrontations are repetitive. There's a would-be love-track that seems unnecessary before the story takes off again." Malathi Rangarajan from "The Hindu" said "Twenty two-year old Karthik's true-to-life overtures, reactions and recklessness are just as you would expect from a director of Menon's calibre. It is his authentic depiction of Jessie's confusion that's all the more amazing – Menon's complete understanding of a woman's psyche bowls you over! So do the young lovers!" Aravindan D. I. of nowrunning.com gave the film three stars out of five and said "Gautam Vasudev Menon's "Vinnai Thaandi Varuvaaya" is a clean romantic story without any deviation or sub-plots." Chennai Online said, "Vinnaithaandi Varuvaayaa" (VTV) is an excellent effort on the part of Gautam Vasudev Menon in narrating a clean romantic story without any deviation from the plot" and further cited "As is Menon’s forte, the dialogues and the execution of scenes are top-notch. The joys of falling of love and the pangs of separation have been portrayed well. The way Simbu nurtures his love for Jesse and the positive but ambiguous reactions from Trisha to his overtures are very nice indeed." Box office. "Vinnai Thaandi Varuvaaya" took a grand opening, grossing around in its first three days in Chennai. The film grossed at the Chennai box office in the 12th weekend. It totally grossed and was officially declared a commercial success. Soundtrack. The soundtrack was composed by A. R. Rahman. "Vinnaithaandi Varuvaayaa" marked the beginning of a collabration between Rahman and Gautham Menon. The world premiere was held at BAFTA in London on 19 December 2009 and later it was relaunched in Chennai on 12 January 2010. The album consists of seven tracks released with positive responses and was appreciated. The audio received overwhelming pre-release response and was marked as No. 1 in Asia, in advance bookings. The album was ranked among the best musicals of 2011. Sequel. In 2011, Gautham Menon and Silambarasan confirmed the possibility of a sequel "Vinnaithaandi Varuven" to be made shortly after completion of a few projects, with an additional star cast of Amy Jackson and Santhanam.
1163158	Kathryn Grayson (February 9, 1922 – February 17, 2010) was an American actress and operatic soprano singer. From the age of twelve, Grayson trained as an opera singer. She was under contract to MGM by the early 1940s, soon establishing a career principally through her work in musicals. After several supporting roles, she was a lead performer in such films as "Thousands Cheer" (1943), "Anchors Aweigh" (1945) with Frank Sinatra and Gene Kelly, and "Show Boat" (1951) and "Kiss Me Kate" (1953) (both with Howard Keel). When film musical production declined, she worked in theatre, appearing in "Camelot" (1962–1964). Later in the decade she performed in several operas, including "La bohème", "Madama Butterfly", "Orpheus in the Underworld" and "La traviata". Early life. She was born Zelma Kathryn Elisabeth Hedrick in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, the daughter of Charles E. Hedrick and Lillian Grayson Hedrick (1897–1955). Charles was a building contractor-realtor. Lillian was of British descent and Charles was of German and Sicilian descent. The Hedrick family later moved to St. Louis, Missouri, where she was discovered singing on the empty stage of the St. Louis Municipal Opera House by a janitor, who introduced her to Frances Marshall of the Chicago Civic Opera, who gave the twelve-year-old girl voice lessons. Grayson's sister, Frances Raeburn (born Mildred Hedrick) was also an actress and singer, appearing alongside her in the film "Seven Sweethearts". She also had two brothers, Clarence "Bud" E. Hedrick, and Harold. Film career. 1940s. In 1940, an MGM talent scout saw Grayson performing at a music festival. Metro hoped to find a replacement for Deanna Durbin, who left the studio for Universal Pictures. For the next 18 months, Grayson went through voice lessons, drama coaching, diction, diets and exercise. Within a year, Grayson had her first screen test. However, the studio executives were not satisfied, and she went through a further six months of lessons until she made her first film appearance in 1941's "Andy Hardy's Private Secretary" as the character's secretary Kathryn Land. In the film, she takes part in three musical numbers. Two further films were planned for Grayson in 1941; "White House Girl", which was later made in 1948 with Durbin, and "Very Warm for May", from the Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein musical of the same name. Ann Sothern was also slated to appear, however, this fell through as well. The film eventually was made in 1944 as "Broadway Rhythm". She appeared in three films in 1942: "The Vanishing Virginian", "Rio Rita" and "Seven Sweethearts". In the first, Grayson plays the teenage daughter, Rebecca, of the eccentric Yancey family from Lynchburg, Virginia. Set in 1913, the film was based on Rebecca Yancey Williams's own family. Grayson co-starred in "Rio Rita" with Abbott and Costello. Grayson portrayed the title character, Rita Winslow. The film was originally meant to be an adaptation of the 1927 Broadway musical, however, only two songs were retained for the film, the title song, and "The Ranger Song," which was performed by Grayson. Co-starring Van Heflin, "Seven Sweethearts" cast Grayson as the youngest of seven daughters from Holland, Michigan, who is hired by reporter-photographer Helfin to serve as a model and secretary while he covers the town's tulip festival, and with whom he falls in love. In 1943, Grayson appeared in the film "Thousands Cheer", (originally titled "Private Miss Jones"), along with Gene Kelly, Mickey Rooney, Eleanor Powell, June Allyson and others. The film was intended as a morale booster for American troops and their families. Grayson starred as the singing daughter of an Army commander. It was announced in 1942 that Grayson would appear in "An American Symphony" with Judy Garland. Garland was replaced by June Allyson and the film was retitled "Two Sisters from Boston" and released in 1946. Grayson did not appear in any films for nearly two years (from 1943 to 1945), but instead worked at entertaining troops during the war and performing on radio programs. She returned to films in "Anchors Aweigh", a musical romantic-comedy set in Los Angeles and co-starring Kelly and Frank Sinatra. "Anchors Aweigh" was the fifth-highest grossing film of 1945, earning over $4.779 million. This was followed by "Two Sisters from Boston" and guest appearances in "Ziegfeld Follies" and "Till the Clouds Roll By". Grayson's performance in "Till the Clouds Roll By" included "Make Believe" in a capsule version of the musical "Show Boat", which would be remade five years later, with Grayson in the starring role. MGM re-paired Grayson and Sinatra for two movies in 1947 and 1948, "It Happened in Brooklyn" and "The Kissing Bandit". Both films performed poorly at the box office, and audiences thought the plots absurd. After the setbacks of "Brooklyn" and "Bandit", Grayson was partnered with tenor Mario Lanza in "That Midnight Kiss" in 1949. 1950s. In 1950, Grayson was once again partnered with Lanza, and portrayed an opera singer in "The Toast of New Orleans", and performed the Academy-Award-nominated song "Be My Love". While shooting the "Madama Butterfly" scene in the film, Lanza kept attempting to french kiss Grayson, which Grayson claimed was made even worse by the fact that Lanza would constantly eat garlic before shooting. Grayson went to costume designer Helen Rose and she sewed pieces of brass into Grayson's gloves. Any time Lanza attempted to french kiss her after that, she hit him with the brass-filled glove. For the premiere of the film, Grayson traveled to New Orleans, and was a guest at an auction selling the film's costumes. Grayson replaced June Allyson as the role of Ina Massine in 1951's "Grounds for Marriage". She portrayed an opera singer with laryngitis, alongside Van Johnson who played her doctor and love interest. This was also her first non-singing role at MGM. Grayson's musical performances do appear in the film, but in the form of recordings. Grayson was next cast as Magnolia Hawks in the 1951 remake of the 1927 Hammerstein and Kern musical, "Show Boat", alongside Howard Keel and Judy Garland, however, Garland dropped out of production, and the role went to Ava Gardner. "Show Boat" was the third-highest grossing film of 1951, earning over $5.533 million. Grayson teamed again with Keel in the 1952 Technicolor musical "Lovely to Look At", a remake of the 1935 Astaire and Rogers film "Roberta". She was released to the Warner Brothers studio in January 1953, with the stipulation that she return to MGM for one more film. She returned to co-star for a third time with Howard Keel in her most acclaimed role, as Lilli Vanessi/Katharina in "Kiss Me Kate", released in November 1953. The film was lavishly produced (the only musical to be filmed in 3-D), with songs by Cole Porter, choreography by Hermes Pan, and musical direction by André Previn. Grayson's double role allowed her to display many moods, from feisty to gentle to humorous. Warner Bros.. While on loan to Warner Bros., her first musical release was "The Desert Song", May 1953, alongside Gordon MacRae. She was asked to perform "La bohème" at the Central City Opera House in Central City, Colorado, but due to her filming obligations for "The Desert Song", she had to turn it down. Warner Bros. starred her in a second musical that year, "So This Is Love". Grayson appeared on television occasionally, having guest starred in the CBS anthology series, "General Electric Theater" in the episode, "Shadow on the Heart", with John Ericson, and on "Playhouse 90" in the title role of the "Lone Woman", with Raymond Burr and Scott Brady in the historical roles of the brothers Charles and William Bent, respectively. In the 1980s, Grayson guest starred in three episodes of CBS's "Murder, She Wrote" with Angela Lansbury. Stage career. Grayson appeared on stage in numerous productions including "Show Boat", "Rosalinda", "Kiss Me, Kate", "Naughty Marietta", and "The Merry Widow", for which she was nominated for Chicago's Sarah Siddons Award. In 1953, Grayson optioned the story "It's Greek to Me", written by Helen Deutsch, to be accompanied by a score from Cole Porter. The story was a mythical love story about Hercules and Hippolyte, and Grayson hoped to be reunited with Howard Keel and take the show on the road, however, the project fell apart. Her casting in "The Merry Widow" led to her replacing Julie Andrews in 1962 as Queen Guinevere in "Camelot". She then continued the role for over sixteen months in the national tour of the United States before leaving for health reasons. Grayson had a lifelong dream of being an opera star, and she appeared in a number of operas in the 1960s, such as "La bohème", "Madama Butterfly", "Orpheus in the Underworld" and "La traviata". Her dramatic and comedy stage roles included "Night Watch", "Noises Off", "Love Letters" and "Something's Afoot" as Dottie Otterling. Musical career. Having trained from the age of twelve as an opera singer, Grayson sang as a coloratura soprano, in the style of operatic arias. While appearing in her film roles, Grayson also performed on the radio. Grayson performed on concert tours throughout the 1950s. In May 1951, Grayson had to postpone a concert tour due to being unknowingly cast in "Lovely to Look At". "My concert bookings were all set. So when I read in New York that I was to do this film, I said 'How silly!', then boom! The next day I got my studio telegram asking me to return for the picture!" In 1952, Grayson was offered more than $10,000 to perform for a week at the Riviera night club in New Jersey before making "The Desert Song". After filming "The Desert Song", Grayson created a recording of the musical with Tony Martin. Grayson supervised the Voice and Choral Studies Program at Idaho State University. Personal life. Grayson married twice, first to actor John Shelton (born Edward S. Price) and then to the actor/singer Johnnie Johnston. John Shelton. Shelton and Grayson eloped to Las Vegas, Nevada, where they were married on July 11, 1941. The two had courted for 18 months, after meeting while making screen tests. In July 1942, Shelton moved out of their Brentwood home and into his own apartment. This came after a month of reconciliation after a judge dismissed their divorce suit. Grayson charged Shelton with mental cruelty. They divorced on June 17, 1946. Johnnie Johnston. Grayson wed Johnston on August 22, 1947 in Carmel, California. On October 7, 1948, Grayson's only child, daughter Patricia "Patty Cake" Kathryn Johnston was born. Grayson and Johnston separated on November 15, 1950. On October 3, 1951, Grayson was given a divorce from Johnston on the grounds of mental cruelty. Johnston's "This Time for Keeps" co-star, Esther Williams, claimed in her 1999 autobiography that while making the film, Johnston would read Grayson's intimate letters aloud to the girls in his fan club, including the "all-too-graphic details concerning what she liked about his love-making." Though she never married again, Grayson was frequently seen in the late 1950s with Robert Evans. According to her secretary, Grayson died in her sleep at her home in Los Angeles, California on February 17, 2010, aged 88. Stage Work. Murder she wrote,
584738	Raman Abdullah is a 1997 Tamil-language Indian feature film directed by Balu Mahendra, starring Sivakumar, Karan, Vignesh, Eshwari Rao, Rudra, Prithviraj, Charle, Amarasigamani and Delhi Ganesh. Plot. Raman Abdullah has Karan and Vignesh as friends, one Musilm and the other a Hindu, their misadventures to save their face from a strict Haji, played by Sivakumar. Soundtrack. The music was composed by Maestro Ilaiyaraaja. Remake. The film is the remake of the Malayalam film "Malappuram Haji Mahanaya Joji".
1082825	Black Bread (, ) is a 2010 Catalan-language Spanish drama film written and directed by Agustí Villaronga. The screenplay is based on the homonymous novel by Emili Teixidor, with elements of two other works by him, "Retrat d'un assassí d'ocells" and "Sic transit Gloria Swanson".
1060239	Anthony Marcus "Tony" Shalhoub (born October 9, 1953) is an American actor. His television work includes the roles of Antonio Scarpacci in "Wings" and sleuth Adrian Monk in the TV series "Monk". He has won three Emmy Awards and a Golden Globe for his work in "Monk". He has also had a successful career as a character actor, with roles in films like "Spy Kids", "Men in Black", "Men in Black II", "Thirteen Ghosts", "Galaxy Quest", "1408", "Barton Fink", "Big Night", "The Siege", "Cars", "Cars 2", and "The Man Who Wasn't There". Early life. Shalhoub was born and raised in Green Bay, Wisconsin. His father, Joe Shalhoub, a Maronite from Lebanon, immigrated to the United States as an orphan at the age of 10. He married Shalhoubâs mother, Helen, a second-generation Lebanese-American, and founded a family grocery chain, starting with a store in downtown Green Bay.
1060610	David Lawrence Schwimmer (born November 2, 1966) is an American actor, director and producer. He was born in New York City, and his family moved to Los Angeles when he was two. He began his acting career performing in school plays at Beverly Hills High School. In 1988, he graduated from Northwestern University with a Bachelor of Arts in theater and speech. After graduation, Schwimmer co-founded the Lookingglass Theatre Company. For much of the late 1980s, he lived in Los Angeles as a struggling, unemployed actor. He starred in the television movie "A Deadly Silence" in 1989 and appeared in a number of television roles, including on "L.A. Law", "The Wonder Years", "NYPD Blue", and "Monty", in the early 1990s. Schwimmer later gained worldwide recognition for playing Ross Geller in the sitcom "Friends". His first leading film role was in "The Pallbearer" (1996), which was followed by roles in "Kissing a Fool" (1998), "Six Days Seven Nights" (1998), "Apt Pupil", and "Picking Up the Pieces" (2000). He was then cast in the miniseries "Band of Brothers" (2001) as Herbert Sobel. After the series finale of "Friends" in 2004, Schwimmer was cast as the titular character in the 2005 drama "Duane Hopwood". Other film roles include Melman in the computer animated "Madagascar" films, the dark comedy "Big Nothing" (2006), and the thriller "Nothing But the Truth" (2008). Schwimmer made his London stage debut in the leading role in "Some Girl(s)" in 2005. In 2006, he made his Broadway debut in "The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial". Schwimmer made his feature film directorial debut with the 2007 comedy "Run Fatboy Run". The following year he made his Off-Broadway directorial debut in the 2008 production "Fault Lines". Early life. Schwimmer was born in Flushing, Queens, New York City, to attorneys Arthur and Arlene Colman-Schwimmer. Arlene was Elizabeth Taylor's attorney in her divorce from Larry Fortensky and Roseanne Barr's attorney in her divorce from Bill Pentland. He has an older sister named Ellie (born 1965). His family subsequently moved to Los Angeles, where Schwimmer had his first experiences of acting at the age of 10 when he was cast as the fairy godmother in a Jewish version of "Cinderella". In 1979, Schwimmer went to a Shakespeare workshop given by English actor Ian McKellen in Los Angeles. He recalls that he was riveted by the experience. Schwimmer then entered a contest in the Southern California Shakespeare Festival three years in a row, winning two first prizes. Following his mother's successful career as a divorce lawyer, the family moved to Beverly Hills, where Schwimmer attended Beverly Hills High School. Schwimmer admitted to being an outsider during his time at the school. Also a troublemaker and a bully, he did not fit in with the other kids. "When I was there I always felt: 'this is not me, I'm surrounded by people with a different value system. And I just wanted to get out of California.'" He was best at the subjects of science and math and thought he would become a doctor. Schwimmer enrolled in a drama class, where he appeared in stage productions. Encouraged by his school drama teacher to further his acting, he flew off to Chicago for an acting workshop. He noted that the experience was both "enlightening and exhilarating." In 1984, Schwimmer graduated from Beverly Hills High, and wanted to go straight into acting, but his parents insisted he go to college first so he would have something to fall back on, in case his acting career did not work out. Schwimmer moved to Chicago to attend Northwestern University, where he had attended a summer drama course when he was 16 years old. At the university, he enrolled as a theater major, joining Delta Tau Delta Fraternity and Arts Alliance. After graduating in 1988, with a Bachelor of Arts degree in theater and speech, Schwimmer co-founded the Lookingglass Theatre Company. Subsequently, he returned to Los Angeles to pursue an acting career. Career. Early work. After his supporting role debut in the ABC television movie "A Deadly Silence" (1989), Schwimmer followed this with roles on the legal drama "L.A. Law" in 1992, and the comedy-drama series "The Wonder Years". He made his feature film debut in "Flight of the Intruder" (1991), had a recurring role as a lawyer-turned-vigilante in "NYPD Blue" and appeared briefly in "ER" in 1993, before auditioning, unsuccessfully, for a series pilot called "Couples". He landed his first regular series role as the liberal son of a conservative talk show host (Henry Winkler) in the sitcom "Monty". Acting roles. In 1994, Schwimmer was cast as Ross Geller in NBC's situation comedy "Friends", a series that revolved around a group of friends who live together in Manhattan, New York City. He played a hopeless-romantic paleontologist who works at a museum and later becomes a professor at a university. Schwimmer notes when first approached about the role of Ross, he turned it down, but accepted the role afterwards. Executive producer Kevin S. Bright said that he had previously worked with Schwimmer, the character of Ross was written with him in mind, and he was the first actor cast. Schwimmer based Ross on Nicolas Cage's role of Charlie from the 1986 film Peggy Sue Got Married. The show debuted on September 22, 1994 and was watched by almost 22 million American viewers. "Friends" quickly developed a loyal audience, with the show and Schwimmer receiving strong reviews. The "Pittsburgh Post-Gazette" was complimentary of Schwimmer, calling him "terrific". "Variety"'s television reviewer, said: "All six of the principals, especially (Courteney) Cox and Schwimmer, appear resourceful and display sharp sitcom skills." For this performance, he earned an Emmy Award nomination in the category of Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series in 1995. Schwimmer starred in his first leading film role in the 1996 romantic comedy film "The Pallbearer", opposite Gwyneth Paltrow. In the film, Schwimmer plays a man asked to deliver the eulogy for a high school friend he cannot remember, and begins an affair with the friend's mother. Critics dismissed "The Pallbearer" as a poor imitation of the 1967 film "The Graduate". "Variety"'s film reviewer complimented the actor, writing that he had enjoyed his performance, stating that he displayed "a winning, if rather deadpan, personality along with good comic timing". It also concluded that Schwimmer had a "promising bigscreen future." Janet Maslin of "The New York Times" cited that his first film "relegates him to a drab role." When asked why he decided to accept the role, Schwimmer admitted the decision was to "make an effort to find roles that are as far away from the character of Ross as possible". He was offered a role to star alongside Tommy Lee Jones in the 1997 science-fiction comedy "Men in Black", but turned it down in favor of starring in "The Pallbearer", explaining, "This is an opportunity to grow rather than go for the quick cash." His next film roles in 1998 were "Kissing a Fool", "Six Days Seven Nights", and "Apt Pupil". In "Kissing a Fool", a romantic comedy, Schwimmer plays Max, a dapper, smart-mouthed ladies' man. Mick LaSalle of the "San Francisco Chronicle" wrote, "Fans of the sitcom "Friends" may be surprised by David Schwimmer in "Kissing a Fool". [...] Take it from someone who has never seen "Friends" and comes at Schwimmer with no preconceptions: He does just fine. As a TV sports reporter in "Kissing a Fool", he oozes the command and self-satisfaction of a young, successful man." The film was critically and financially unsuccessful. In "Six Days Seven Nights", he played the boyfriend of Anne Heche's character. In "Apt Pupil", adapted from a novella of the same name by Stephen King, he had a supporting role as a school guidance counselor. "I was scared of the part," Schwimmer said, "but I wanted to be part of the movie." At the time, he noted it was a "little frustrating" that people would typecast him due to his role on "Friends". He subsequently appeared opposite Woody Allen and Sharon Stone in Alfonso Arau's straight-to-cable comedy "Picking Up the Pieces" (2000). In 2001, Schwimmer played Captain Herbert M. Sobel in Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks' HBO World War II miniseries "Band of Brothers". The television miniseries is based on the book of the same title written by historian and biographer Stephen Ambrose. Although "Band of Brothers" was met with largely positive reception, Schwimmer's performance was criticized and the BBC News concluded, "Part of the problem ... may have been the ridiculous fact that "Friends" favourite David Schwimmer plays the hard and cruel Captain Herbert Sobel. The only thing believable about Schwimmer's acting is when he cowers in the face of true battle. His puppy dog eyes make him appear even more pitiful." Later that year he portrayed Yitzhak Zuckerman in the war drama "Uprising", based on the true events of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising in 1943. In March 2004, Schwimmer appeared as himself on HBO's comedy series "Curb Your Enthusiasm". During the lengthy run of "Friends", Schwimmer directed ten of the show's episodes. The show's tenth and final season ended on May 6, 2004. Later career. Following the end of "Friends", Schwimmer starred in the 2005 independent drama "Duane Hopwood", in which he plays the titular character. Hopwood is an alcoholic whose life is spiraling downward rapidly after a divorce and is looking to turn his life around. The movie received ambivalent reviews. Despite the reception, Schwimmer's performance was favored by critics; Roger Ebert of the "Chicago Sun-Times" reported that the role was Schwimmer's "career-transforming performance". "Duane Hopwood" was screened at a special presentation at the 2005 Sundance Film Festival. Furthermore in the same year he voiced Melman, a hypochondriac giraffe, in the computer animated film "Madagascar" (2005). "The Washington Post" noted that Schwimmer is particularly appealing as Melman. Despite the mixed response from critics, the film was a commercial success, earning $532 million worldwide, making it one of the biggest hits of 2005. Schwimmer starred on the London stage in May 2005, with Catherine Tate, Lesley Manville, Sara Powell, and Saffron Burrows, in Neil LaBute's "Some Girl(s)" at the Gielgud Theatre. In the production, he plays a teacher who is ready to settle down and marry, but decides to visit four ex-girlfriends first. For his performance, Schwimmer received critical reviews. "The Independent" wrote that Schwimmer "is not called upon to extend his range nearly as far as one might have expected in "Some Girl(s)". [...] Schwimmer remains bland, competent, and boyish—though not fatally boyish in the manner that appears to have turned these women on." However, Charles Spencer of "The Daily Telegraph" praised Schwimmer, reporting he "proves inspired casting. He takes to the stage with ... his endearing gaucheness seems designed to ensure our continued sympathy. Schwimmer mercilessly lays bare his character's opportunism, casual cruelties, and chronic self-deception." In 2006, he made his Broadway debut in Herman Wouk's two-act play "The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial". Schwimmer played the role of Lieutenant Barney Greenwald in the production, which was directed by Jerry Zaks. In an interview with "New York" magazine, he revealed that he had wanted to try Broadway, however said "a couple of things came up that just never quite felt right. Either because I liked the play but wasn’t hot on the director, or there was another star attached that I wasn't jazzed about working with." He further added that when showed a copy of Wouk's novel "...I was shocked at how good the writing was." His next film role was in the 2006 black comedy "Big Nothing", in which he played a bitter, unemployed scientist. Schwimmer made his directorial feature debut in the 2007 British comedy film "Run Fatboy Run". The film stars Simon Pegg as a man who signs up for a marathon (he is out of shape) to convince his former fiancée and five-year-old son that he has turned his life around. When asked why he decided to direct the film, Schwimmer said: "As a director, I was struck by the challenge that I thought the script presented, which was that it was kind of three films in one. You had some great, big physical comedy, and I thought funny dialogue and characters. And then there was some real emotion to it with the relationship between the father and the son and the romance aspect." "Run Fatboy Run" garnered mixed reception, with the "New York Daily News" rating it one-and-a-half out of five stars and writing, "Most disappointing is how Schwimmer—who spent 10 seasons on a sitcom filled with hyperverbal characters—manages to bumble 'Fatboy's' tender moments." "USA Today", however, was favorable towards Schwimmer, reporting he possesses filmmaking finesse "having wisely chosen strong comic material for his debut behind the camera". For his directorial work, he was nominated for a British Independent Film Award in the category of Best Debut Director. On November 8, 2007, Schwimmer made a guest appearance in the second season of the television series "30 Rock", where he played Greenzo, an NBC environmental mascot. The following year, he was part of an ensemble cast that included Kate Beckinsale, Matt Dillon, Alan Alda, Angela Bassett, and Noah Wyle in the thriller "Nothing But the Truth" (2008). The movie received generally favorable reviews. The success of "Madagascar" led Schwimmer to return to the role of Melman in the 2008 sequel, "". The film earned $603 million at the international box office. Schwimmer took part in directing in-studio segments for "Little Britain USA", an American spinoff of the British BBC television series "Little Britain". In regards to this, he commented that he had "a good time directing episodes" for the show. In October 2008, Schwimmer made his Off-Broadway directorial debut in "Fault Lines" at the Cherry Lane Theatre in New York. The production won a mixed review from the "Los Angeles Times", which wrote: "Based on "Fault Lines" ... we can't really tell whether Schwimmer has much talent as a director. We're surprised he didn't try something more challenging for his debut. If not much else, Schwimmer has encouraged his actors to intense their energy levels and comic timing at all costs." The "New York Post", however, noted that Schwimmer "knows a thing or two about freewheeling banter ... and for a good while the play crackles with terrific dialogue, expertly delivered." In February 2009, he returned to theater in a Chicago production of Thornton Wilder's three-act play "Our Town" as George Gibbs at the Lookingglass Theatre. "Schwimmer ... turns in a poignant, richly textured and demonstrably heartfelt performance as George Gibbs. I've seen a fair bit of Schwimmer's post-"Friends" stage work in London and New York, and I've never seen him better", commented the "Chicago Tribune". On August 2, 2009, Schwimmer played himself in the of the HBO television series, "Entourage". In the episode, Ari Gold's (Jeremy Piven) agency tries to steer his career back to television. Schwimmer directed his second feature, "Trust", starring Clive Owen and Catherine Keener. The film, a drama, is about a family whose teenage daughter becomes victim of an online sexual predator. "Trust" premiered at the 2010 Toronto International Film Festival. On January 1, 2011, Schwimmer guest-starred on the British comedy series "Come Fly With Me" starring Matt Lucas and David Walliams, whom he directed in "Little Britain USA". Personal life. In the early 2000s, Schwimmer dated Australian pop singer Natalie Imbruglia, Israeli actress Mili Avital, and American actress Rochelle Ovitt. At the time, he noted that while he was raised without bias and prejudice, his "parents would be thrilled (if I married a Jew). It makes things a lot easier, sharing a cultural and religious background". In 2007, Schwimmer and English part-time photographer Zoe Buckman began a relationship. In March 2010, Schwimmer announced their engagement and married Buckman in a small private ceremony that June. On May 8, 2011, the couple had a daughter, Cleo Buckman Schwimmer. In June 2006, Schwimmer won a $400,000 defamation lawsuit against Aaron Tonken, a former charity fundraiser. Tonken claimed Schwimmer had demanded Rolex watches in order to appear at his own charity event, a claim that Schwimmer had denied. Schwimmer is an active director of the Rape Treatment Center in Santa Monica, which specializes in helping victims of date rape and child rape. He has also campaigned for legislation to ban drugs such as Rohypnol and GHB. In November 2011, he gave the Scottish charity Children 1st permission to screen his film "Trust" to commemorate World Day for Prevention of Child Abuse and Violence against Children. In 2012 he rebutted two longstanding rumors: one that he appeared as a soldier on a train in "Biloxi Blues" (1988), saying, "No. I don't know why that's on IMDb, but I never was in that," and the other that he is related to dancer Lacey Schwimmer, saying, "No, not at all. Please set the record straight. I guess it's a natural assumption because we have the same last name, but no. I've never even met her."
674848	Peter van Eyck, born Götz von Eick (16 July 1911, Steinwehr, Pomerania, Germany (now Kamienny Jaz, Poland) – 15 July 1969, Männedorf near Zürich, Switzerland), was a German-American actor. Biography. After graduating from high school he studied music. In 1931 he left Germany, living in Paris, London, Tunis, Algiers and Cuba, before settling in New York. He earned a living playing the piano in a bar, and wrote and composed for revues and cabarets. He then worked for Irving Berlin as a stage manager and production assistant, and for Orson Welles Mercury Theatre company as an assistant director. Van Eyck went to Hollywood where he worked as a truck driver. He initially found radio work with the help of Billy Wilder, who later gave him small film roles. In 1943 he took US citizenship and was drafted into the army as a commissioned officer. At the end of the war he returned to Germany as a control officer for film and remained there until 1948 as director of the film section. In 1949 he appeared in his first German film "Hallo, Fräulein!" He gained international recognition with a leading role in the 1953 film "Le Salaire de la peur" ("The Wages of Fear") directed by Henri-Georges Clouzot. He went to appear in episodes of several US TV series including "The Adventures of Ellery Queen" and "Alfred Hitchcock Presents". In English-language films he was most often typecast as a Nazi or other unsympathetic type, while in Germany he was a popular leading man in a wider range of films, including several appearances in the Doctor Mabuse thriller series of the 1960s. Personal life. Van Eyck was married to the American actress Ruth Ford for a short time in the 1940s. With his second wife, Inge von Voris, he had two daughters, Kristina, also an actor, and Claudia. He died of sepsis in 1969 after he had left a relatively small injury untreated, aged 57.
1082271	The Last Circus (; "Sad Trumpet Ballad") is a 2010 Spanish film by director Álex de la Iglesia. It premiered at the 2010 Venice Film Festival. Plot. In 1937, Republican Militia led by General Líster force a circus troupe to fight on their side in the Spanish Civil War. The Funny Clown (Santiago Segura) slaughters dozens of Nationalist troops, armed only with a machete, before being shot and disarmed. While his fellow troupe members are executed, the Funny Clown is sentenced to work as a slave laborer, at the monument of the Valle de los Caídos. His son, Javier (Sasha Di Bendetto) tries to free him by setting off dynamite where he was working. But Colonel Salcedo (Sancho Gracia) tramples the Funny Clown to death with his horse. Javier knocks him down, gouging out his eye in the process. Salcedo vows to remember Javier for this insult. In 1973, Javier (Carlos Areces) joins a circus as its sad clown, as he has never been able to make children laugh. His counterpart as funny clown is Sergio (Antonio de la Torre Martin), an arrogant, crude, violent man who admits that were he not a clown, he would probably be a murderer. Javier begins to fall in love with Sergio's girlfriend, the trapeze artist Natalia (Carolina Bang). After Sergio becomes enraged when Javier refuses to laugh at his jokes at dinner one night, Sergio beats Natalia unconscious then storms out. Javier encourages Natalia to leave Sergio, but when Sergio returns she engages in rough anal sex against a window while Javier cowers below. She later tells Javier that she is sexually and emotionally attracted to Sergio's violent nature. Sergio admits that Javier is an excellent sad clown but grows suspicious about his attention to Natalia. In fact, Natalia has encouraged Javier to develop feelings for her, as she was impressed by his refusal to laugh when Sergio told him to. They begin to see one another behind Sergio's back. One night, at an amusement park, Natalia admits she has begun to love Javier as well and kisses him tenderly. Sergio suddenly appears and beats them both savagely; Javier's wounds land him in the hospital. Natalia tells Javier they must never see one another again for his sake. After having a dream in which Sergio foils his repeated attempts to rescue Natalia from various situations, Javier escapes from the hospital and returns to the circus. Despite the efforts of the other troupe members to stop him, Javier finds Sergio and Natalia having sex. Now insane, Javier beats Sergio mercilessly in the face with a trumpet, leaving him mauled and near death. As Javier escapes through the sewers, the circus troupe takes Sergio to the closest doctor – a veterinarian – for medical care. The doctor is able to save Sergio, but his face is horribly scarred. The circus is forced to close down. Natalia and several of the other troupe members become performers in a nightclub. Javier lives in the forest, naked and covered in filth. He survives on wild animals that fall into his cave. One day he is captured by hunters – including Salcedo, who recognizes him. Salcedo forces him to behave as a hunting dog but ultimately intends to kill him. At one point Javier viciously bites none other than Generalissimo Francisco Franco, one of Salcedo's guests. As a consequence he is locked in a room while Salcedo plans exactly how to kill him. Javier has a vision of Natalia, as the Virgin Mary, ordering him to become her Angel of Death. He scars his face with sodium hydroxide and a clothes iron to make it look permanently like that of a clown, then dons a clown's costume patterned after a bishop's vestments. He then kills Salcedo and escapes into the city. Afraid that Sergio intends to harm her, Natalia prepares to leave the nightclub. But Sergio and Javier both arrive at the same time, Javier armed with machine guns. Forced to choose between them, Natalia chooses Sergio, and they drive away together. Police try to arrest Javier, but some of the remaining troupe members help him escape. Repulsed by Sergio's mauled face and crude ways, Natalia leaves him again. Javier steals an ice cream truck and stalks her through the city. He uses the occasion of ETA's successful attempt on Admiral Carrero Blanco (Franco's heir apparent) to kidnap Natalia. He takes her to the Valle de los Caídos, hewn from rock, where the circus has kept its animals since going out of business. There he pleads with her to love him for his mind and body as much as she loved Sergio for his. At first she refuses but admits she no longer loves Sergio. Sergio, meanwhile, has learned of Javier's hideout. He informs the military police, which has been looking for Javier in connection with the terrorist bombing, and accompanies them on their attempt to arrest him. Sergio puts on his clown make up and chases Javier and Natalia through the Monumental Cross at the Valle de los Caídos where they climb to its highest point, several hundred feet off the ground. Natalia admits her love for Javier and suggests they escape by wrapping lengths of drapery around their waists and lowering themselves to the ground. Before this can be accomplished, Sergio arrives and fights with Javier. Distraught over the continued violence, Natalia leaps from the ledge; rather than getting to the ground safely, she is killed instantly when the drapery draws taut around her waist and snaps her spine. The military police place Sergio and Javier in custody. As they sit opposite one another, the Funny Clown laughs bitterly and the Sad Clown cries inconsolably. Reception. The film received positive reviews; it currently holds a score of 77% on Rotten Tomatoes with the consensus being that the film was "an uneven but winningly insane blend of hard violence, sex, black humor, and social satire." Cole Abaius wrote that "Over all, the film is incredible. In the oldest sense of that word, it is awe-inspiring and grotesque. Stunning and heartfelt. It is a love letter to a country, a time and a frowning clown singing mournfully about a weeping trumpet." Awards. At the 67th Venice International Film Festival the film was nominated for the Golden Lion and Álex de la Iglesia received the Silver Lion award for Best Director.
113210	Christopher Andrew "Chris" Conrad (born June 30, 1970) is an American actor. He should not be confused with fellow actor Christian Conrad (son of Robert Conrad of "Wild Wild West" fame). Early life. Conrad was born in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. The third out of four brothers (Tim, Steven and Mike), Conrad excelled early at sports and comedy. Acting career. During his sophomore year of college at FSU, he entered and won a Funniest Man On Campus competition, headed to Chicago and started acting. Chris crammed in a year of studies at the Piven Theatre Workshop. Following that, he signed with an agent and landed his first acting role in the television movie, Mario and the Mob.needed A move to L.A. followed where he landed leading roles in film and tv including "Airborne" with Seth Green and Jack Black, "The Next Karate Kid" with Hillary Swank, "Mortal Kombat II" as Johnny Cage and the series "Young Hercules" with Ryan Gosling. Conrad switched gears in 2000 and went back to Florida to finish college. He graduated from Florida Atlantic University with a B.A. in History, taught high school and coached football for a few years, then returned to L.A. in 2005 to further pursue his main passion...entertainment. He quickly jumped back on set - on television with "Bones" and "Criminal Minds". In 2008, he was seen in "Portal" and "The Promotion". In 2009, Conrad co-wrote (with writer/director brother Steven) and starred in the FX pilot "Connie Banks The Actor". In 2010 he executive produced the feature "Three Days In Havana" with actor/producer/director Gil Bellows. In 2013 Conrad completed the pilot comedy webisode "Douche Bros", the short "Hog's Tooth", and the feature "Attila" (from the team that created "Sharknado"). Brother Steven is a Writer/Director/Producer. Brother Tim is a teacher/coach and runs the premier football kicking/punting/snapping instructional camp in all of the USA: BIGfootKicking. Brother Mike is a teacher/coach and helps run BIGfoot. Chris Conrad's favorite band is the comedy rap-rock band Open Kimono. Chris Conrad's company website is: Connie B Productions Filmography. Wrestling Ernest Hemingway (1995) Young Hercules Legendary Journeys (1998) Young Hercules (200) Bones (2008) Scott's Dead (2009) Criminal Minds (2009) Life (2009) Three Days In Havana (2010) Altered Reality (2010) Hell On Earth (2010) Connie Banks The Actor (2011) Letters (2011) Hog's Tooth (2011) Attila (2013) Connie Banks The Actor (2011) Life (2009) Criminal Minds (2009) Bones (2008) Young Hercules (2000) External links. ConnieBProductions.com
1749540	First Squad ( "Fāsuto sukuwaddo", ) is a joint animation project of Japan's Studio 4°C and Russian authors with Molot Entertainment. It won the "Kommersant" newspaper's prize. Plot. Set during the opening days of World War II on the Eastern Front (autumn and winter of 1941/1942). Its main cast are a group of Soviet teenagers with extraordinary abilities; the teenagers have been drafted to form a special unit to fight the invading German army. They are opposed by a Schutzstaffel (SS) officer who is attempting to raise from the dead a supernatural army of crusaders from the 12th-century Order of the Sacred Cross (i.e. the Teutonic Knights) and enlist them in the Nazi cause. Most of the teenage crew die, except for the protagonist Nadia. She is taken to a secret Soviet lab that studies supernatural phenomena, especially contacts with the dead. Nadia's task is to dive into the world of the dead for reconnaissance. There, in the Gloomy Valley, she meets her dead friends and persuades them to continue fighting. Ligalize's video clip. On the eve of May 9, 2005, a video clip was released, based on the track "Наша с тобой победа" ("Our victory") by Russian rap artist Ligalize. The clip was directed by Daisuke Nakayama, produced by Michael Spritz and Alexey Klimov and depicted an epic fight between Soviet Pioneers and Nazi soldiers, with the German side in possession of mecha and various supernatural soldiers. Among the featured locations are the Palace of Soviets and Mayakovskaya metro station, Moscow. Motion picture. In 2007, it was announced that a motion picture titled "First Squad - The Moment Of Truth" was in the works. Film is produced by Studio 4°C and recently created for this purpose studio Molot Entertainment, distributed by Amedia. Directed by Studio 4°C director and animator Yoshiharu Ashino, cowritten and produced by Michael Spritz, Alexey Klimov, with Eiko Tanaka, featuring character development by Hirofumi Nakata, and music by Japanese musician DJ Krush. The film has been shown at Cannes Film Festival, Locarno Film Festival, Fantasporto and Fantasia film festival. On June 8, 2010, Anchor Bay Entertainment announced that they will distribute the film in the United States through Manga Entertainment and L.A. based XYZ Films.
1055252	Hugo Wallace Weaving (born 4 April 1960) is a British-Australian film and stage actor. He is best known for his roles as Agent Smith in "The Matrix" trilogy and Elrond in the "Lord of the Rings" film trilogy and "The Hobbit" film trilogy. He first rose to prominence for his performance as Martin in "Proof". Other notable works include "Tick" in "The Adventures of Priscilla", V in "V for Vendetta", Red Skull in "" and multiple roles in "Cloud Atlas". He has also provided the voice "Rex" in "Babe", "Noah" in "Happy Feet" and "Happy Feet Two" and Megatron in the "Transformers" film series as well as starring in numerous Australian character dramas. He has received many award nominations and wins during his career, including a Satellite Award, an MTV Movie Award and several Australian Film Institute Awards. Early life. Weaving was born at the University College Hospital in Ibadan, Nigeria Protectorate, to English parents Anne (née Lennard), a tour guide and former teacher, and Wallace Weaving, a seismologist. His maternal grandmother was Belgian. A year after his birth, his family returned to England, living in Bedford and Brighton before moving to Melbourne, Victoria and Sydney, New South Wales in Australia; Johannesburg in South Africa; and then returning to England again. While in England, he attended The Downs School, Wraxall, near Bristol, and Queen Elizabeth's Hospital. His family moved back to Australia in 1976, where he attended Knox Grammar School in Sydney. He graduated from Sydney's National Institute of Dramatic Art in 1981. Career. 1984–1998. Weaving's first major role was in the 1984 Australian television series "Bodyline", as the English cricket captain Douglas Jardine. Weaving appeared in the Australian miniseries "The Dirtwater Dynasty" in 1988 and as Geoffrey Chambers in the drama "Barlow and Chambers: A Long Way From Home". He starred opposite Nicole Kidman in the 1989 film "Bangkok Hilton". In 1991, Weaving received the Australian Film Institute's "Best Actor" award for his performance in the low-budget "Proof". He appeared as Sir John in the 1993 Yahoo Serious comedy "Reckless Kelly", a lampoon of Australian outlaw Ned Kelly. Weaving first received international attention in the hit "Priscilla, Queen of the Desert" in 1994, and provided the voice of Rex the sheepdog and farm leader in the 1995 family film, "Babe". In 1998, he received the "Best Actor" award from the Montreal Film Festival for his performance as a suspected serial killer in "The Interview". 1999–2010. Weaving earned further international attention with his performance as the enigmatic Agent Smith in the 1999 blockbuster hit "The Matrix". He later reprised that role in the film's 2003 sequels: "The Matrix Reloaded" and "The Matrix Revolutions". He was a voice actor in the cartoon film "The Magic Pudding". He garnered additional acclaim in the role of Elrond in Peter Jackson's three-film adaptation of "The Lord of the Rings", released between 2001 and 2003. Weaving was the main actor in Andrew Kotatko's award-winning film "Everything Goes" (2004). He starred as a heroin-addicted ex-rugby league player in the 2005 Australian indie film "Little Fish", opposite Cate Blanchett. Weaving played the title role as V in the 2006 film "V for Vendetta", in which he was reunited with the Wachowskis, creators of "The Matrix" trilogy, who wrote the adapted screenplay. Actor James Purefoy was originally signed to play the role, but he pulled out four weeks into filming. Weaving reshot most of James Purefoy's scenes as V (even though his face is never seen) apart from a couple of minor dialogue-free scenes early in the film. Stuntman David Leitch performed all of V's stunts. Weaving reprised his role as Elrond for the video game "". He regularly appears in productions by the Sydney Theatre Company (STC). In 2006, he worked with Cate Blanchett on a reprise of the STC production of "Hedda Gabler" in New York City. In a controversial move by director Michael Bay, Weaving was chosen as the Decepticon leader Megatron vocally in the 2007 live-action film "Transformers", rather than using the original version of the character's voice created by the voice actor, Frank Welker.
591933	Vinaya Prasad (also credited as Vinaya Prakash) is a popular film and television actress in South India who has primarily featured in Kannada and Malayalam films besides acting in a few Tamil and Telugu language films. She has won the State Best Actress Award for her performances in "Aathanka" (1993) and "Bannada Hejje" (2001). The senior actress in her career has shared screen space with Vishnuvardhan, Rajinikanth, Mohanlal, Ambareesh, Ananth Nag and Akkineni Nagarjuna, V. Ravichandran, Shivrajkumar, Mahesh Babu and others. Career. Vinaya Prasad hails from Udupi district of Karnataka state. Vinaya made her film debut with a small role in G V Iyer’s Madhwacharya in 1988. She worked in smaller character roles before playing the leading lady in "Ganeshana Maduve" opposite Ananth Nag. The film was a huge success and she went on to act in more than 60 films in not only Kannada but also Malayalam, Tamil and Telugu. Some of her notable Kannada films include, "Neenu Nakkare Haalu Sakkare", "Ganeshana Maduve", "Gauri Ganesha", "Mysore Jaana" and "Suryodaya". After a successful career as a lead actress, Vinaya switched over to character roles in South Indian films and remains a sought after actress in Kannada, Malayalam, Tamil and Telugu movies. Vinaya is also an effective compere and singer. Vinaya has compered several important events like Vasantha Habba in Nrityagram and the annual Dasara procession in Mysore. She starred in a few Malayalam films also before starring in the longest-running and most popular daily soap opera on Malayalam TV, "Sthree" which aired from late 1997 to mid 2000 on Asianet Television channel. The Kannada version of this serial was also made. The popularity of this soap made her a household name among Malayalis. In Tamil, Vinaya has acted as the heroine in the hit movie "Thaikulame Thaikulame" with Pandiarajan and Urvashi in the lead roles. She starred in a supporting role in the all-time blockbuster "Manichitrathazhu", which starred Mohanlal. In Telugu, Vinaya's movies include "Indra", Donga Dongadi and Andhrudu for which her performance won a lot of praise. In 2006, she returned to the Malayalam small screen to reprise her role as Indu in the sequel to the original Sthree, also named, "Sthree". Personal life. Vinaya is from the Udupi district in Karnataka and was brought up in Udupi. She is a Karhada Brahmin. She is married to Jyotiprakash who directs television serials. Vinaya was earlier married to V.R.K Prasad, an award winning director and editor of Kannada films who expired in 1995 at a young age. Vinaya has an elder sister Vijaya Satyanarayana and twin sisters Kshama Bhat and Kripa Bhat. Her brother Ravi Bhat is in the television industry as an actor. Vinaya currently resides in Bangalore with her husband Jyotiprakash and daughter Prathama Prasad. Jyotiprakash has a son named Jay who is also in to film direction and writing in Mumbai.
1062036	John Michael Turturro (born February 28, 1957) is an American actor, writer and director known for his roles in the films "Do the Right Thing" (1989), "Miller's Crossing" (1990), "Barton Fink" (1991), "Quiz Show" (1994), "The Big Lebowski" (1998), "O Brother, Where Art Thou?" (2000) and the "Transformers" film series. He has appeared in over sixty films, and has worked frequently with the Coen brothers, Adam Sandler and Spike Lee. Early life. Turturro was born in Brooklyn, New York, the son of Katherine, an amateur jazz singer who worked in a Navy yard during World War II, and Nicholas Turturro, a carpenter and construction worker who fought as a Navy sailor in D-Day. Turturro's mother was Sicilian (from Aragona near Agrigento) and his father immigrated from Giovinazzo, Bari, Italy at the age of six. Turturro was raised a Roman Catholic and moved to the Rosedale section of Queens, New York with his family when he was six. He majored in Theatre Arts at the State University of New York at New Paltz, and completed his MFA at the Yale School of Drama.
1087366	False precision (also called overprecision, fake precision, misplaced precision and spurious accuracy) occurs when numerical data are presented in a manner that implies better precision than is actually the case; since precision is a limit to accuracy, this often leads to overconfidence in the accuracy as well. In science and engineering, convention dictates that unless a margin of error is explicitly stated, the number of significant figures used in the presentation of data should be limited to what is warranted by the precision of those data. For example, if an instrument can be read to tenths of a unit of measurement, results of calculations using data obtained from that instrument can only be confidently stated to the tenths place, regardless of what the raw calculation returns or whether other data used in the calculation are more accurate. Even outside these disciplines, there is a tendency to assume that all the non-zero digits of a number are meaningful; thus, providing excessive figures may lead the viewer to expect better precision than actually exists.
582028	Mahima Chaudhry (born Ritu Chaudhry on 13 September 1973) is an Indian actress and a former model of Nepali origin who appears in Bollywood films. She made her acting debut in the 1997 film "Pardes", for which she won the Filmfare Award for Best Female Debut. Early life. Chaudhry was born Ritu Chaudhry in Dehra Dun, Uttarakhand. Her father is a Hindu Jat from Kakripur village in Baghpat, Western Uttar Pradesh. Her mother is also from Western Uttar Pradesh. She attended Darjeeling based famous convent school till class X and later moved to Loreto Convent for her plus two levels. She completed her ISC board in 1988. She also attended Loreto College in Darjeeling. She won a local beauty pageant in Darjeeling before moving to Delhi for college. Initially in the 1990s, she appeared in TV advertisements (Wall's ice cream ad when the brand entered India) also 1st Pepsi Ad with Aamir Khan and Ashwarya Rai, and was a VJ on music channels where she was noticed by Subhash Ghai. Ghai gave her a break in the movie "Pardes", which was released in 1997. Ghai also renamed her due to some superstition. He considered M to be lucky for her. Acting career. During her acting career, Chaudry has played a variety of roles, starting with a village girl in "Pardes" (1997). Her other variety of roles include: ' (1999), where she played a nasty prostitute; in "Pyaar Koi Khel Nahin" (1999) she played a widow forced to marry her brother-in-law; in "Dhadkan" (2000) she is a loving friend of a man who is madly in love with another woman; in "Deewane" she plays a singer in love with a thief; in "Kurukshetra" she plays the stubborn wife of a police officer; in "Lajja" she plays a young bride forced to fight dowry; in "Yeh Teraa Ghar Yeh Meraa Ghar" (2001) she plays a stubborn tenant who will not give up her home at any cost; in "Om Jai Jagadish" she is the loving homemaker; in "Dil Hai Tumhaara" she is the loving sister who would do anything for her sister's happiness; in "Dobara" she is the frustrated housewife; in "The Film" she is a desperate struggling screenwriter; in ' she's a paralytic dancer, in "Film Star" she is an uptight arrogant fading actress; in ' (2005) she is an actress who will do anything to get into a big movie; and in ' (2006) she plays a desperate housewife who has an affair with her stepdaughter's boyfriend. Next to doing a variety of films, she has also worked with numerous talented actresses, including Kajol, Shilpa Shetty, Urmila Matondkar, Manisha Koirala, Raveena Tandon, Rekha, Preity Zinta, Tabu, Padmini Kolhapure, and Hema Malini. When she was asked about this, she responded by saying that she enjoyed working with other actresses and she expressed her opinion to work with Juhi Chawla, her favorite actress. Most recently, Chaudhary has starred in a Knightsbridge Media Production film, "Pusher", directed by Assad Raja, also starring comedian Mani Liaqat. She is currently shooting a thriller, "MumBhai - The Gangsters", co-starring Om Puri and Sanjay Kapoor. Awards. Filmfare Awards Nomination Star Screen Awards Nomination Zee Cine Awards Won Nomination Bollywood Movie Awards Won Personal life. Chaudhary married Bobby Mukherjee, an architect, in 2006. The two married at hoteliers' conference that was being held in Las Vegas. However Bobby Mukherjee has neither confirmed nor denied the rumours leading to speculation about the legitimacy of the marriage. She talked about their meeting and wedding in an interview with "The Times of India", "I was making an appearance there and marriage wasn't part of the plan." She was there to enjoy herself and to be part of the event when love must have struck in the 24/7 city. Chaudhary went on to say: "At a function on 19 March amongst about 10,000 Indian hoteliers and their families where Mahima was performing, we got married and nobody had an inkling. I wore a red sari as if I was decked up for the function." They also had a formal ceremony on 23 March, which is not confirmed. She has a daughter named Aryana. Bobby also has living under his care sons from his previous marriage rumoured to be the bone of contention in the couple's troubled relationship.
1068516	Closing the Ring is a film directed by Richard Attenborough and starring Shirley MacLaine, Christopher Plummer, Mischa Barton, Stephen Amell, Neve Campbell, Pete Postlethwaite, and Brenda Fricker. The film was released in both Republic of Ireland and the United Kingdom on 28 December 2007. Plot. The film opens in 1991, with the funeral of a World War II veteran. The man's daughter Marie (Neve Campbell) delivers the eulogy to a church full of veterans who knew and loved her father, while her mother Ethel Ann (Shirley MacLaine) is sitting out on the church porch, smoking and nursing a hangover. When Ethel Ann begins acting strangely, only her friend Jack (Christopher Plummer) seems to understand why. It quickly emerges that there is a lot Marie does not know about her mother's past and the true story of her love life. The movie flips to a time when this mother was young, lively, and optimistic (young Ethel Ann played by Mischa Barton). She is in love with a young farmer, Teddy Gordon (played by Canadian newcomer Stephen Amell), who goes off to war with his best friends Jack (Gregory Smith) and Chuck (David Alpay), but not all of them make it back alive. The plot lines intertwine with the story of a young Ulsterman in Belfast, Jimmy, who finds a ring in the wreckage of a crashed B-17 and is determined to return it to the woman who once owned it. Inadvertently caught up in cross-border troubles, Jimmy flees Belfast, travelling to Michigan to give Ethel the ring. Ethel reveals a wall covered in souvenirs of Teddy, which Jack and Chuck boarded up for her in 1944. Marie is shocked and furious to learn that her mother loved not Chuck, but Teddy's memory. Ethel travels to Belfast with Jimmy. She holds the hand of a dying British soldier caught in a car-bomb attack. Quinlan (Pete Postlethwaite) tells Ethel that he was on the hill when Teddy died, and that Teddy's dying words freed Ethel from her promise to love him forever. Joining Ethel in Belfast, Jack admits that he has always loved her. They begin a romance. Production. "Closing the Ring" was filmed in Toronto and Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, and Belfast, County Antrim, Northern Ireland. The B-17 used in this movie was the Yankee Lady from the Yankee Air Museum, which was also used in the movie "Tora! Tora! Tora!". It was flown by Captain D. Eugene Wedekemper. Festival appearances. The film had its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival on 14 September 2007. The film received its UK premiere at the London Film Festival on 21 October 2007. Reception. The film attracted a mixed critical response. According to the Toronto International Film Festival it "exemplifies the balance between the epic and the intimate that has been the hallmark of Lord Richard Attenborough's venerable career...Attenborough traces multiple themes with ease and grace, giving his celebrated ensemble cast ample opportunity to shine". It concluded that the film is "a remarkable tale of love, loss and redemption that stands proudly among the films of one of the cinema's living legends. Deftly weaving together different eras and locales, Attenborough has produced another grand canvas about the emotional repercussions of a wartime promise." Derek Malcolm of the "Evening Standard" wrote that it "is well-acted throughout and it has a romantic appeal that is not to be sneered at.." Alan Morrison of "Empire" wrote "After recent disappointments Sir Dickie Attenborough is back on better, albeit old-fashioned, form." Philip French of "The Observer" wrote "Woodward's script is more than a little contrived, as well as over-emphatic. But Attenborough has infused it with warmth and mature insight, and older members of the audience are likely to find it extremely moving." Laura Bushell of BBCi Films called the film a "looping tale of love and loss in WWII which is so old fashioned in its aspirations, it's hard to see why new audiences would flock to see it." "Variety" called the film "decades-skipping schmaltz" and an "aggressively bittersweet yet oddly uninvolving drama."
520462	Samuel Lawrence Lopez Concepcion (born October 17, 1992 in Manila, Philippines) is a Filipino singer, dancer, actor and host. He emerged as the winner for the Big Division of "Little Big Star"`s Season 1 in April 2006. He currently has a contract under STAGES and ABS-CBN's Star Magic. Concepcion started on a total of 12 theater roles and had various plays even at a young age, including the role of Edmund Pevensie in the local stage adaptation of The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe and Mr. Noah’s Big Boat. He has been in the role of Peter Pan from 2002 until 2012. Aside from theater roles, he has acted in movies including "Way Back Home" and "Shake, Rattle & Roll 13". He acted in his first lead role on 2012 in the first Filipino musical-film entitled, "". He had his first role in television in ABS-CBN's "Mga Anghel na Walang Langit", and his major break as Boy Bawang in the fantasy series "Super Inggo". In 2007, Concepcion launched his self-titled album under Universal Records, which was certified Gold by the Philippine Association of the Record Industry. He also launched two other albums "Pop Class" (2010), and "Forever Young" (2011). The latter was his biggest hit, hitting the charts at Number 1 for seven weeks in a row. In 2008, Concepcion was chosen by Dreamworks to sing the theme song of the animated movie "Kung Fu Panda", entitled, "Kung Fu Fighting" which was included in the Asian soundtrack album. With this project, Concepcion is the first Filipino artist to have collaborated with Dreamworks. Concepcion has been an ambassador for many agencies and organizations. He was appointed by the Department of Education as 'Youth Role Model and Spokesperson' and National Book Development Board’s (NBDB) 'Get Caught Reading campaign' ambassador in 2007. In 2008, Concepcion was appointed by the Business Software Alliance as the Official Spokesperson of the Philippines for 'B4USurf', 'Youth Ambassador for Education and the Arts' in the 3rd District of Manila and World Vision's 'Ambassador for Children'. Concepcion was also given a representative role by the Department of Tourism to the Korea World Travel Fair (2006). He was also chosen by the Philippine government to sing in front of the President of the Philippines, Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and top world economic leaders during APEC's 'Business Advisory Council Gala' opening. He was awarded by the United Nations Youth Association of the Philippines the prestigious UNAP 'Outstanding Youth Leader' award given in Malacañang Palace in 2009. Early life. Concepcion was born on October 17, 1992 in Manila, Philippines to Raymund Concepcion and Gene Concepcion, both actors from the Metropolitan Theater. He is the third of four children and siblings to "Kuya" Red (24), "Diko" Kevin (23) and as "Sangko" Sam(19) to their younger sister, Gabby (13). After he was born, their parents eventually stopped in theater acting so they were not able to see them perform, however, it leads Concepcion to do theater roles as his parents did. Concepcion was home schooled under the International Studies. As early as two years old, Concepcion was already able to carry a tune and dance to simple songs. At five years old, he had his first public performance at a worship cantata which later landed him the role of the young Jose Rizal in a stage play entitled, "Sino Ka Ba, Jose Rizal?". During the play, he was discovered by David Cosico, a talent manager, who then encouraged Concepcion to sign up with S.T.A.G.E.S and enroll in "Trumpets Playshop" music theatre class to further hone his talents and potential. Concepcion already had various plays under his name, as early as nine years of age. This included the role of Edmund Pevensie in the local stage adaptation of "The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe", '"Peter Pan and the Time Machine" and "Mr. Noah’s Big Boat". Aside from theatre plays, Concepcion also appeared on television through a commercial featuring him and his real-life dad in "Maggi Sinigang sa Miso". He also appeared on various shows for children on ABS-CBN, such as Sineskwela and Hirayamanawari. Concepcion even had a regular hosting stint on ABC-5’s A.S.T.I.G. (All Set To Imitate God), a show about God made for children. Concepcion’s musical influences include Gary Valenciano, Michael Jackson, Justin Timberlake, Chris Brown, Billy Crawford and Christian Bautista. In fact, Concepcion was even invited to guest in two of Christian Bautista’s concerts namely, "Dunkin Donuts: Color Everywhere" on March 2005 and "Heartfelt" on November 2005. Career. 2005-2006:Little Big Star championship and career beginnings. Concepcion's major television exposure came through Little Big Star, a singing competition on ABS-CBN hosted by Sarah Geronimo, which searched for young singing talents. He was initially dubbed as the "Singing Crush ng Bayan" throughout the duration of show as he became the crowd’s favorite. In fact, he was awarded the "My Favorite Star Award" for having the most number of votes from viewers, garnering 52% of the total votes, the biggest vote that graces the competition. During the Grand Finals, Concepcion sang "I Can't Stand Still" from "Footloose", one of STAGES’ musical productions. He eventually won the whole competition with the title, "The Brightest Star" for the Big Division over major competitors, Gian Barbarona and Charice. With regard to projects, Concepcion took part in ABS-CBN's primetime shows, and first appeared on a drama series, Mga Anghel na Walang Langit, where he played a minor role. His first major role was in the fantasy series, Super Inggo as Boy Bawang. After winning the competition, Concepcion joined ASAP '06 where he became part of the group, Three-O, with Aldred Gatchalian and Aaron Agassi. The group was later disbanded when Agassi decided to leave. He was also given his first starring role when he was featured on Your Song with Empress Schuck as part of the networks' Christmas offering. The same Your Song episode was again shown in 2007. On June 2006, Concepcion, along with other "Trumpets Playshop" talents were tasked by the Philippines' Department of Tourism to represent the country for the "Korea World Travel Fair". Their team brought home the "Best Folk Performance Award". On the same month, Concepcion was also chosen by the Philippine government to sing in front of the President of the Philippines, Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and top world economic leaders during APEC's Business Advisory Council Gala Opening. On July of the same year, he won Nickelodeon's "Pinoy Wannabe Award" with 40% of the total votes, which made him the youngest and sole male recipient of the award. On September 2006, Concepcion posed as the magazine’s cover for the first time through "Candy" magazine. On that same issue, he was also announced as the "Top Candy Cutie" for 2006. He has held the title for three consecutive years already that no other local celebrity has held since. On October 2006, Sam had his first concert via a back-to-back birthday celebration with Christian Bautista. 2007-2009:"Self-titled album", contract with Star Magic, "awards" and solo concerts. After Super Inggo (2006), Concepcion’s next major television project was Walang Kapalit, a television series starring Claudine Barretto and Piolo Pascual. He portrayed the young Noel, who was latter portrayed by Pascual. Aside from acting, Concepcion also got to voice dub for the local anime network, Hero TV, as the voice of Koyuki, the protagonist of the Japanese musical anime, Beck. On June 2007, Concepcion went back to theater after his hiatus due to his major television career. He played Troy Bolton in the stage musical of Disney's "High School Musical" wherein he received positive reviews from the critics. On September 2007, Concepcion launched his first solo album, self-titled under Universal Records. His first single was "Even If",a revived song from the American boy band 2Be3. His second single is a Jackson 5 hit, "Happy". The last single from the album, "I'll Find Your Heart" becomes a success topping various charts of MYX Philippines. The album was later certified "Gold" by the Philippine Association of the Record Industry. On February 2008, Concepcion became part of ABS-CBN's Star Magic, with a co-management contract with STAGES. He was launched as Star Magic's newest talent on ASAP '08. On May 2008, Concepcion was chosen by Dreamworks to sing the theme song of the animated movie, Kung Fu Panda, entitled, "Kung Fu Fighting" which was included in the Asian soundtrack album. With this project, Concepcion is the first Filipino artist to have collaborated with Dreamworks. Concepcion won "Favorite New Artist" in the 3rd MYX Music Awards held on March 2008. This win made him the youngest winner for the said category as he garnered 61% of the total votes. On 2009, Concepcion then went on to win the "Top Teen Male Entertainer" award in the first Pure & Fresh Top Teens Awards. On August 2009, Concepcion was awarded by the United Nations Youth Association of the Philippines the prestigious "UNAP Outstanding Youth Leader" award for his positive achievements in the Entertainment category. The awards night was held on August 7, 2009 at the Malacañan Palace with President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo as its guest of honor. Aside from album release and theater roles, Concepcion returned to doing regular television shows on August 2008 through the remake of a Colombian series, I ♥ Betty La Fea which starred Bea Alonzo. He played the character of Andrew, Betty’s younger brother who wanted to become a celebrity for his family's sake. He was also included on a TV5 show, Lipgloss, where he played Kyle, the show’s main protagonist. But during the run of its second season, Concepcion left the show. He was then added to a group called "GiggerBoys" in ASAP together with Enchong Dee, Robi Domingo, the late AJ Perez, Arron Villaflor, Dino Imperial, and Chris Gutierrez. The group was then launched in acting wherein Concepcion played the character of Bobet, the optimist of the group, in in 2009. Soon after, Concepcion, together with 40 Star Magic artists, flew into the United States for the "Star Magic World Concert Tour" held in Ontario, Canada and San Francisco. Due to the abrupt passing of Michael Jackson, the artists prepared a tribute, in which Concepcion carried the role of the "King of Pop" with his trademark moves and singing. Concepcion staged his first major solo concert dubbed as "I'll Find Your Heart" held at the Music Museum on October 2008. The concert also celebrates his 16th birtdhay. On that same month, Concepcion was launched as the "Ambassador for Children" for World Vision. As its Ambassador, he encouraged Filipinos to help send the less-fortunate children to school. He also held various advocacies in Palawan, Cagayan de Oro and other provinces. Later in the year, Concepcion also held a free Christmas concert sponsored by Dunkin Donuts at the CCP open grounds. In May 2009, Concepcion held another major concert entitled, "I'll Find Your Heart: Part 2" held at the Crossroads77 Convenarium in Quezon City. The concert-for-cause helped raise funds for Aim Christian Learning Center. On September 2009 marked Concepcion's return to theater after his last musical back in 2007 restaged in 2009.Sam Plays the Narrator in N.O.A.H With its return, Concepcion still played the role of The Narrator/God for all show times. Concepcion was also chosen to portray the role of the young Noynoy Aquino on Maalaala Mo Kaya which depicted the untold love story of the country's historic icons, Ninoy Aquino and Cory Aquino. By October 2009, Concepcion was hailed Candy's "Top Celeb Cutie" for the fourth consecutive time. On November 2009, he was hailed by the Consumers League of the Philippines Foundation the "Dangal ng Pilipinas for Best Promising Male Young Singer Performer" award. 2010-2011: Pop Class, "Forever Young" and Peter Pan. Concepcion released his second solo album on January 2010 entitled, "Pop Class" under Universal Records. The concept of this album is different than his first album, as this features a mini-musical movie compilation album following the like of Glee and High School Musical. The album's carrier single is an original song entitled, "Missed You". The album was officially launched on ASAP XV on the 28th of February. Along with the launch is the awarding of Sam's self-titled debut album with a Gold Record Award. On 2010, Concepcion becomes the youngest model to ramp the yearly fashion show of Bench, "Bench Uncut 2010". Aside from modelling, Concepcion also starred on the first story of a Star Cinema movie, Cinco entitled BRASO (arm). He acted as a fraternity-hopeful along with Robi Domingo and the late, AJ Perez. On 2011, he acted in the teen oriented show Good Vibes, paired with Coleen Garcia, and in the Star Cinema family movie Way Back Home together with the Mara Clara stars Kathryn Bernardo and Julia Montes and Good Vibes co-star Enrique Gil. On February 19, Sam was the opening act for Taylor Swift's concert in Manila wherein he sang his hits Yeah2x, Kung Fu Fighting, Even If and Fireworks. It was reported that he was personally chosen by the international artist to open her concert in the country. Originally, he is supposed to be the opening act for the whole Asian leg of Swift's tour but wasn't able to push through. On June 17 of the same year, he was joined by Elmo Magalona as opening acts for Miley Cyrus concert in Manila. According to Nixon Sy of "Futuretainment", the two were chosen after they emerged as the top young performers of their respective mother networks - Concepcion for ABS-CBN and Magalona for GMA Network. He also became an endorser of "My|Phone" cellphone together with some Kapamilya and Kapuso stars like Elmo Magalona, Alden Richards, Julie Anne San Jose and other teen stars from GMA Network and ABS-CBN. Concepcion also showed his directing skills and directed Tippy and Morisette's Face Off concert. He also contributed his time and talents for free when he joined the "Pilipinas, Tara Na!" music video together with the other Filipino artists to boost domestic tourism of the country. On the same year, he became the cover model of Candy mini-magazine. He attended the first ever "Candy Magazine" press conference, wherein he also attended the "Candy Fair 2011" and performed his latest single Forever Young. During this time, he was dethroned as Hottest Candy Cutie by Enzo Pineda. Aside from the Candy Magazine, he was featured in Sense and Style and Total Girl Philippines magazines. On 2011, Concepcion became one of World Vision's "Yumbassadors" of a fast-food chain, Jollibee alongside 8 others including Bam Aquino, Sunshine Plata among others. According to Jollibee, the 9 Yumbassadors "...represent the best in every young Pinoy" and "...form a new breed of role models that the country can proudly present to the rest of the world." The company asked the public to take part in recognizing the vision of the youth and help build a nation that is filled with compassionate and civic-minded young citizens. Concepcion celebrated his 10th anniversary in show business by starring as the lead character of Peter Pan in the musical version which was staged by "Repertory Philippines" and S.T.A.G.E.S at the Meralco Theater. This production is also the first time that this version of Peter Pan, written by Stiles and Drewe and the late Willis Hall, will be staged in Asia. It relives Sir James Barrie's timeless tale of the boy who never grew up. He also released his third studio album entitled "Forever Young" under Universal Records with Forever Young serves as the single of the album. The single went on to the MYX Philippines Chart at Number 1 for 7 consecutive weeks. 2012-present: "I Do Bidoo Bidoo", international career and "Infinite". Concepcion was chosen by composer Soc Villanueva, to sing his composition entitled ""Kontrabida"". From around 3,000 entries submitted to the first Philippine Popular Music Festival, 14 songs emerged on top including Concepcion's. The song went on the 2nd runner up award losing to Karl Villuga's "Bawat Hakbang" and Toto Sorioso's "Tayo-tayo Lang" who went on 1st and second respectively. Composer Villanueva stated, ""I never doubted Sam’s talent. Even before he stepped onstage, I knew he would give justice to the song.” He further added, ""Sam’s confidence is just so high and talent is overflowing that I know that the battle is already half-won."" On 2012, Concepcion starred on his first ever movie in a lead role, the first ever Filipino musical-comedy film directed by Chris Martinez entitled, with his Peter Pan co-star, Tippy Dos Santos. The two were chosen to play the lead role because of their theatrical experience after their successful musical stage play Peter Pan. On an interview of PEP to Concepcion, he stated that the film is going to be his biggest break on his acting career. The film was a tribute to the APO Hiking Society, and also stars singers Ogie Alcasid, Zsa Zsa Padilla, Gary Valenciano and comedienne, Eugene Domingo. Concepcion was later nominated at the 10th Golden Screen Awards for Movies for "Best Performance by an Actor in a Lead Role-Musical or Comedy" in 2013. Concepcion stars on his supposed to be first festival film for 2012 Metro Manila Film Festival that will be held on December 25 of the same year, until it was shelved before shooting took place. However, it will still be released on 2013 as a separate movie. Concepcion and co-Star Magic artist Empress Schuck top bills the second story sub-titled "Mariang Alimango" of a two-story film, "Mga Kwento ni Lola Basyang" produced by the same director (Chris Martinez) and same film outfit that produces his first film, "I Do Bidoo Bidoo". On July 2012, Concepcion was invited in Indonesia to guest in a morning variety show, "Dahsyat Musik" on RCTI Channel. He performed his single "Forever Young" and his rendition of "Yeah 3x.". This is the first time that he got to perform for Indonesians, wherein he reached the top spot of the trending topics in Indonesia. After his performance, a talent manager in Indonesia immediately talked to Concepcion and his manager for a future career in the country. According to Concepcion on an interview, this will be his stepping stone to penetrate the Asian market. On the same month, he releases his single "Forever Young" in Indonesia under "THREE Heiz" artist management. The actor will soon be in Indonesian dramas, recordings and commercial endorsements. Following his guesting on the show, Concepcion won as "Most Awesome Guest" on Dahsyat Awards in Indonesia on 2013. Concepcion is set to release his second full-length album, Infinite on August 10, 2013 under Universal Records which was originally set for April release. The album celebrates his 10th anniversary in the music industry. He stated, ""It’s totally different from the way I used to sound. It’s a new sound and a new look for me as a recording artist. That’s one thing that my fans can look forward to."" He also added, ""It's going to be new music for me, something that you haven't heard me do."". He also revealed that part of 2013 will be dedicated to his international career. He released his first single "No Limitations" ahead of his album on May 24, 2013 through digital download which became no. 1 for five consecutive weeks. On June 25, it was announced that he will again take part on the Philippine Popular Music Festival to sing "Dati" with Tippy Dos Santos and Quest. The song was written by Thyro Alfaro and Yumi Lacsamana. Philanthropy. On the same month, Concepcion was appointed by the Philippine Department of Education as the "Youth Role Model and Spokesperson". Being its "Ambassador for Education", Concepcion was tasked onto a nationwide school tour, dubbed as, "SAMa-SAMa sa Eskwela", that aimed to encourage students across the country to prioritize their education while reaching for their aspirations. Former Education Secretary Jesli Lapus asked Concepcion to inspire young Filipinos to see how education can improve oneself. He stated, ""We need somebody like Sam to remind the youth that education can be enjoyable and can bring us close to our dreams.."". As a spokesperson, Concepcion spearhead campaigns and advocate co-curricular concerns through the "SAMa SAMa sa Eskwela" project and other activities. He managed to visit 50 schools and 100,000 students on its first month and had been to various points in the country like Pampanga, Bohol, Laguna, Cebu City, Cagayan De Oro City, and Davao City. Concepcion, on his talk highlights the importance of literacy, English proficiency, finding one's talent, and excelling in school. Having joined many government campaigns like "Go Negosyo," and "Anti-Smoking Campaign of the World Health Organization," Dep Ed National Director Joey Pelaez is amazed at Sam’s drawing power among the youth. He also becomes one of the National Book Development Board’s (NBDB) "Get Caught Reading campaign" ambassadors in 2007. Concepcion was then appointed by the Business Software Alliance as the "Official Spokesperson of the Philippines" for "B4USurf", an Asian-wide campaign that aimed to promote safe internet use. In addition, Concepcion is still the "Youth Ambassador for Education and the Arts" in the 3rd District of Manila during that time. For the campaign, he launched his "PaperClay Art Competition" at the Manila Ocean Park with a theme, "Ako Para sa Kalikasan". In 2008, Concepcion has found another interest, which is advocating the rights and welfare of every Filipino child as he is the latest appointee for World Vision’s Ambassador for Children. As World Vision ambassador, he becomes active in various World Vision activities. He embarked in visiting poor municipalities and provinces in the Philippines to encourage everyone to share their blessings, so poor Filipino families can experience the joy of Christmas through World Vision’s "Noche Buena Gift". On early 2009, he visited Palawan, particularly far-flung areas of the province to see the lives of the Filipino children. In the same year, Concepcion was also appointed as the Youth Ambassador for Education and the Arts in the 3rd District of Manila wherein he launched his "PaperClay Art Competition" at the Manila Ocean Park with a theme, ""Ako Para sa Kalikasan"". He believes that PaperClay art is a great tool in exercising the creativity of students and the youth. On May 2009, Concepcion held another major concert entitled, "I'll Find Your Heart: Part 2" held at the Crossroads77 Convenarium in Quezon City. This concert-for-cause helped raise funds for Aim Christian Learning Center. When the Philippines was hit by Typhoon Ondoy, Concepcion along with other celebrities helped in distributing relief goods to the isolated families in evacuation centers in Metro Manila. In Marikina, who was the mostly affected by the typhoon, Concepcion gathered all the children for interaction to encourage positivity among them especially those who are traumatized by the disaster. On December 2011, Concepcion and Star Magic artists, led by actor Piolo Pascual held a one-night concert dubbed as "A Night to Give Back" at Zirkoh Morato, wherein handicapped and disadvantaged children were the main beneficiaries. The proceeds of the concert were donated to Elsie Gaches, Reception and Study Center for Children, Sanctuary Center and Sagip Kapamilya. On the same month, Concepcion also attended a feeding program for undernourished children from Teresa Heights in Fairview, Quezon City. On December 29, 2011 Concepcion was joined by co-ambassador Tippy Dos Santos in the culminating activity of the "Child Friendly Space (CFS)" in the evacuation center situated in the village of Macasandig, Cagayan de Oro to give relief efforts to the victims of Typhoon Sendong. The two also visited some of the hardest-hit areas in Tibasak and Sitio Cala-Cala wherein they listened and bonded with the survivor families and children. "“The typhoon left thousands of children homeless and vulnerable,”" shares Sam. “In my own little way, I hope to comfort their weary hearts”, he added. On September 30, 2012, Concepcion alongside other ambassadors for World Vision Organization including Tippy Dos Santos, Gloc 9, Ogie Alcasid and Nikki Gil joined the campaign against world hunger taglined as "“Your Hunger can Feed a Child” " held at the SM North Edsa Skydome. This annual event, on its third year in the Philippines, is part of a worldwide movement that aims to raise awareness and funds to fight hunger, especially among children. Products and endorsements. Before hitting his break to his television career in 2004, Concepcion appeared through "Maggi Sinigang sa Miso" commercial which features his real-life father. Concepcion raps in the commercial with the line ""Parang may isang anghel sa aking labi/ Na nakalutang sa ulap / At nangingiliti / Kung ang alat at asim ng buhay ay tulad ng hain ni Inay / Suspetsa ko buong mundo’y / magiging mapayapa at masaya"", became viral to various children of different ages. In 2006, even before winning the title in Little Big Star, Concepcion was offered endorsements and projects already. His first endorsement came from Bench, a local clothing line in the Philippines. In the same year, he endorses an online game, Ragnarok which later become a trend to the Filipino youth and Stresstabs "Commute". On 2009, Concepcion becomes endorser for a local clothing brand Bench wherein in 2012 he became the youngest model to ramp the runway during the Bench Fashion Show of that year. On the same year, he was contracted by a food chain "Karate Kid" as its first and sole celebrity endorser. It then opened Concepcion's door to various endorsements such as Skechers and "TANG" "Fruit Teaz". On 2010, he joined his co-S.T.A.G.E.S actor Christian Bautista for "Blackwater Jr." cologne. On 2011, he became one of the endorsers of another famous food chain in the Philippines, Jollibee as part of his role as one of the company's "YUMbassadors". He promotes the slogan "I am Pinoy, I am Young, I Yum" promoting Filipino values, the youth spirit and the Jollibee Yum-burger. On 2012, Concepcion recorded a jingle together with Julie Anne San Jose which turned out to be a theme song for a cellphone brand, "My|Phone". He lead the ad together with various teen stars from three biggest networks in the Philippines, GMA Network, ABS-CBN and TV5. On the same year, Concepcion ramp for the second time at the year's Bench Fashion Show dubbed as "Bench Universe" held at the Mall of Asia Arena. On the same year, he and model-actor Ivan Dorschner endorses the ABE International Business College. After ending his contract with SMART, he was launched as the newest endorser of Sun Cellular alongside college basketball player Kiefer Ravena and young entrepreneur Marco Lobregat on August 30, 2012. During his contract signing held at Galleria Corporate Center in Quezon City, he officially assumed his role to represent the pioneer of "Call and Text Unlimited" of one of the leading telecommunications companies in the Philippines. He also recorded a song "Where I Belong" as theme song for the network's ads. Awards and nominations. Here is the incomplete list of awards and nominations and various recognitions received by Sam Concepcion.
1245720	The Last Lions is a 2011 African nature documentary film by National Geographic Society, videotaped and directed by Dereck and Beverly Joubert. The film premiered at the Palm Springs International Film Festival in January 2011 and was released in select theaters on February 18, 2011. The film follows in the tradition of other National Geographic big cat films, such as "India: Land of the Tiger" and "Eye of the Leopard". The film documentary focuses on a lioness named Ma di Tau ("Mother of Lions") as she battles to protect her cubs against the daunting onslaught of enemies to ensure their survival. The underlying message of the film is on the low population of large cats in the world and whether or not Ma di Tau and her cubs are among the last lions. The film is narrated by Jeremy Irons. He voiced Scar in Disney's 1994 animated film "The Lion King". Irons also narrated "Eye of the Leopard", a 2006 National Geographic film. Four years earlier, National Geographic released "Super Pride", which was narrated by Lance Lewman. Disneynature released "African Cats", a similar documentary film on April 22, 2011. Reception. Review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes reports that 87% of 38 professional critics have given the film a positive review, with a rating average of 7.3 out of 10.
1033292	Anthony Stewart Head (born 20 February 1954) is an English actor and musician. He rose to fame in the UK following his role in the Gold Blend couple television advertisements for Nescafé Gold Blend (Taster's Choice in the U.S.), and is known for his roles as Rupert Giles in "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" and as Uther Pendragon in "Merlin". Early life. Head was born in Camden Town, London. His father was Seafield Laurence Stewart Murray Head (1919–2009), a documentary filmmaker and a founder of Verity Films, and his mother was actress Helen Shingler. They had married in 1944 in Watford. His older brother is actor and singer Murray Head. Both brothers have played the part of Freddie Trumper in the musical "Chess" at the Prince Edward Theatre, London, with Murray a part of the original cast in 1986, whilst Anthony was in the final cast in 1989. Career. Head was educated at Sunbury Grammar School and London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art (LAMDA). His first role was in the musical "Godspell"; this led to roles in television on both BBC and ITV, one of his earliest being an appearance in the series "Enemy at the Door" (ITV, 1978–1980). In the early 1980s he sang with the band Red Box. In the late 1980s, he appeared in a storyline series of twelve coffee commercials with Sharon Maughan for Nescafé Gold Blend. (A version made for North America featured the American brand name Taster's Choice.) The soap opera nature of the commercials brought him wider recognition, along with a part in the Children's ITV comedy drama "Woof!" Head played Frank N. Furter in the 1990–91 West End revival of "The Rocky Horror Show" at London's Piccadilly Theatre, with Craig Ferguson as Brad Majors. In 1991 Head's rendition of "Sweet Transvestite" was released as a single by Chrysalis Records. Head played the role again in the summer of 1995 at London's Duke of York's Theatre, a 3 May 2006 tribute show at London's Royal Court Theatre, and a 14 October 2000 production at the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino, Las Vegas, Nevada. Success on the stage and a number of brief appearances on American television, such as in the short-lived "VR.5", led to accepting the role of Rupert Giles in "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" in 1997. For this role he lived full-time in the United States during the late 1990s and early 2000s, although his family continued to live in the UK. Head left the regular cast of "Buffy" during the show's sixth season and subsequently appeared several times as a guest star through the conclusion of the series. In many interviews at the time, Head said he left the show in order to spend more time with his family, having realised that he had spent most of the year outside Britain, which added up to more than half his youngest daughter's life. Early to mid-2000s. In 2002, he co-starred in the BBC Two television series "Manchild", a show centred around four friends approaching their fifties who try to recapture their fading youth and vitality while dealing with life as 'mature' men. He also appeared in guest roles in various other dramas, such as "Silent Witness", "", and "Spooks". He appeared in the 4th series of the British hit sitcom "My Family" in 2003 playing one of the main character's (Abi's) father in the episode "May the Best Man Win". He was featured as the Prime Minister in the popular BBC comedy sketch show "Little Britain" from 2003 to 2005, and guest starred in several episodes of the 2004 series of popular drama "Monarch of the Glen". Outside of television work, he has released an album of songs with musician George Sarah entitled "Music for Elevators". Early in his career he provided vocals for some of the tracks on the Chris de Burgh album "The Getaway" and the reading from "The Tempest" on "Don't Pay the Ferryman". In 2001, he appeared in a special webcast version of the popular British science fiction series "Doctor Who", a story called "Death Comes to Time", in which he played the Time Lord Valentine. He also guest starred in the "Excelis Trilogy", a series of "Doctor Who" audio adventures produced by Big Finish Productions, and in 2005 narrated the two-part documentary "Project: WHO?", detailing the television revival of the series, for BBC Radio 2 (and released to CD in 2006 by BBC Audio). In April 2006 he appeared as an alien school headmaster, Mr. Finch, in an episode of the second series entitled "School Reunion". Soon after, he recorded an abridged audio book of the "Doctor Who" novel "The Nightmare of Black Island" by Mike Tucker. He narrated the third and fourth series of "Doctor Who Confidential". He also voiced the character Baltazar, Scourge of the Universe (an evil space pirate searching for the Infinite), in the first ever animated "Doctor Who" special, "The Infinite Quest". Head had previously auditioned for the role of the Eighth Doctor for the 1996 television film, but lost out to Paul McGann. In early 2006, he appeared in an episode of "Hotel Babylon", a BBC One drama set in a hotel, in which he played a suicidal man who recovers and lands a music deal. The same year he filmed a pilot for a new show entitled "Him and Us", loosely based on the life of openly gay rock star Elton John, for American TV channel ABC, co-starring Kim Cattrall. In July he appeared as Captain Hook at the "Children's Party at the Palace", a live pantomime staged in the grounds of Buckingham Palace as part of Queen Elizabeth II's 80th birthday celebrations. In October 2006, he voiced Ponsonby, leader of MI6, in "Destroy All Humans! 2". Late 2000s. At Comic-Con International in 2007, Joss Whedon said talks were almost completed for a 90-minute "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" spin-off, "Ripper", as a BBC special, with both Head and the BBC on board. In 2007, he portrayed Stockard Channing's gay brother in the English film "Sparkle" and appeared as Mr Colubrine in the ITV1 comedy drama "Sold". Head also appeared as Sir Walter Elliot in "Persuasion". Head also narrated a BBC behind-the-scenes programme for the American television series "Heroes", "Heroes Unmasked". He has also been seen as Maurice Riley in the BBC Drama "The Invisibles" alongside Warren Clarke. After seeing Anthony Head in the Buffy musical episode, "Once More With Feeling", "Saw" director Darren Lynn Bousman cast him in his 21st century rock opera, "Repo! The Genetic Opera". Head plays the film's grim reaper, an organ repossession man doing the bidding of an out of control biotech company called GeneCo. "Anthony Head was my number one choice for Repo Man from the very beginning", said Bousman in an interview shortly before the film's release on 7 November 2008. The film also stars musical legend Sarah Brightman and paparazzi favourite Paris Hilton. Head has also performed for radio, taking two of the lead roles—arch-villain Mr Gently Benevolent, and his descendant, journalist Jeremy Sourquill—in the BBC Radio 4 comedy series, "Bleak Expectations" (five series, 2007–12). Head was part of the regular cast of the BBC drama series "Merlin", which derives its title from the mythical wizard of the same name. Head played King Uther Pendragon, the father of Prince Arthur. Head also provides voice-over work in the Nintendo Wii video game, "Flip's Twisted World", developed by Frozen North Productions. Personal life. Head lives near Bath, Somerset with his partner Sarah Fisher and has two daughters, Emily, born in December 1988, and Daisy, born in 1991, who are both actresses. On "Saturday Kitchen", in September 2010, Head declared he is a pescetarian, he later clarified that statement in tweet on the 23rd of October 2012; in reply to the question "I read on Wikipedia that you're a pescetarian. Is that true?" he replied, "Ovopescolactarian xxx" External links. Articles and interviews
1678765	Sex and Breakfast is a 2007 independent dark comedy film starring Macaulay Culkin, Eliza Dushku, Alexis Dziena and Kuno Becker. Shooting took place in September 2006. The film opened in Los Angeles November 30, 2007, and was released on DVD on January 22, 2008 by First Look Pictures. The film was directed by first-time director Miles Brandman. Plot. Young couples experiment with anonymous group sex as a way to revitalize their troubled relationships. Through the experience they are forced to rethink the rudiments of a successful relationship: sex, love, and communication.
373742	The Bad News Bears in Breaking Training is the 1977 sequel to the feature film "The Bad News Bears". This film picks up the Bears' career a year after their infamous second-place finish in the North Valley League. However, after winning this year, they are left reeling by the departure of Buttermaker as their coach and an injury to goat-turned-hero Timmy Lupus (Quinn Smith). Faced with a chance to play the Houston Toros for a shot at the Japanese champs, they devise a way to get to Houston to play at the famed Astrodome. In the process, Kelly Leak (Jackie Earle Haley) reunites with his estranged father (William Devane), who is ultimately recruited to coach them. It also stars Chris Barnes, who returns to his role as the foul-mouthed Tanner Boyle, and Jimmy Baio as pitcher Carmen Ronzonni. This film is remembered for the scene in which Coach Leak leads the Astrodome crowd in the chant "Let them play!" when the umpires attempt to call the game prematurely because of time constraints. The crowd at the 2002 Major League Baseball All-Star Game also used this chant when the announcement came that the game would end in a tie at the end of the inning if neither team scored. Filming locations. When the team arrives in downtown Houston, they book a room at the Concord Hotel. The building is actually the Lancaster Hotel, located off Texas Avenue across from Jones Hall. The scene where Kelly meets up with his father for the first time was filmed at Texas Pipe Bending company which is actually in business and located at 2500 Galveston Rd. Later in the movie, after Coach Leak reappears, the Bears stayed at the Houston Hilton rooms 324 and 325 among others. The actual hotel is located at 6633 Travis Street in Houston, but the filming location was the Pasadena Hilton in Pasadena, California. Coach Leak confronting Sy Orlansky about playing the Bears instead of the team from El Paso was filmed at Bayland Park. Cameos. Members of the 1976–1977 Houston Astros make a cameo appearance during the film's climactic scene. They include César Cedeño, Enos Cabell, Ken Forsch, Bob Watson and J.R. Richard.
1057901	David Paul Scofield CH CBE (21 January 1922 – 19 March 2008), better known as Paul Scofield, was an English actor of stage and screen. Noted for his distinctive voice and delivery, Scofield received an Academy Award and a BAFTA Award for his performance as Sir Thomas More in the 1966 film "A Man for All Seasons", a reprise of the role he played in the stage version at the West End and on Broadway for which he received a Tony Award. Early life. Scofield was born in Birmingham, Warwickshire, the son of Mary and Edward Harry Scofield. When Scofield was a few weeks old, his family moved to Hurstpierpoint, Sussex, where his father served as the headmaster at the Hurstpierpoint Church of England School. At the age of 12 he began attending the Varndean Secondary School in Brighton, where he took various roles in school plays. Scofield began his stage career in 1940 with a debut performance in "Desire Under the Elms" at the Westminster Theatre, and was soon being compared to Laurence Olivier. He played at the Old Rep in Birmingham. From there he went to the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre in Stratford, where he starred in Walter Nugent Monck's 1947 revival of "Pericles, Prince of Tyre". Career. Scofield was noteworthy for his striking presence and distinctive voice, and for the clarity and unmannered intensity of his delivery. His versatility at the height of his career is exemplified by his starring roles in theatrical productions as diverse as the musical "Expresso Bongo" (1958) and Peter Brook's celebrated production of "King Lear" (1962). In his memoir "Threads of Time", Peter Brook wrote about Scofield's versatility: "The door at the back of the set opened, and a small man entered. He was wearing a black suit, steel-rimmed glasses, and holding a suitcase. For a moment we wondered who this stranger was and why he was wandering onto our stage. Then we realized that it was Paul, transformed. His tall body had shrunk; he had become insignificant. The new character now possessed him entirely." In a career mainly devoted to the classical theatre, Scofield starred in many Shakespeare plays and played the title role in Ben Jonson's "Volpone" in Peter Hall's production for the Royal National Theatre (1977). Highlights of his career in modern theatre include the roles of Sir Thomas More in Robert Bolt's "A Man for All Seasons" (1960), Charles Dyer in Dyer's play "Staircase", staged by the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1966, the definitive Laurie in John Osborne's "A Hotel in Amsterdam" (1968) and Antonio Salieri in the original stage production of Peter Shaffer's "Amadeus" (1979). He was subsequently the voice of the Dragon in another play by Robert Bolt, a children's drama "The Thwarting of Baron Bolligrew." "Expresso Bongo", "Staircase" and "Amadeus" were filmed with other actors, but Scofield starred in the screen versions of "A Man for All Seasons" (1966) and "King Lear" (1971). Other major screen roles include the Art-obsessed Nazi Colonel Von Waldheim in "The Train" (1964), Strether in a 1977 TV adaptation of Henry James's novel "The Ambassadors", Tobias in "A Delicate Balance" (1973), Professor Moroi in the film of János Nyíri's "If Winter Comes" (1980), for BBC Television, Mark Van Doren in Robert Redford's film "Quiz Show" (1994), and Thomas Danforth in Nicholas Hytner's film adaptation (1996) of Arthur Miller's "The Crucible". According to the DVD extras documentary for the film "The Shooting Party" (1985), in the very first shot of the very first day of filming, all the male lead actors, including Paul Scofield who was playing Sir Randolph Nettleby, were to come into shot on a horse-drawn shooting brake driven by the well-known film horse-master George Mossman. However as they turned the first corner, the plank that Mossman was standing on broke in two and Mossman was hurled forward and down falling between the sets of wheels, taking the reins with him. He was struck by a horse's hoof and concussed. The horses then shied and broke into a gallop. Rupert Frazer admitted that he was the first to jump off, landing safely, but bruised. Now out of control, the horses turned to the right when confronted by a stone wall causing the shooting brake to roll completely, catapulting the actors into a pile of scaffolding that had been stacked next to the wall. Robert Hardy stood up and realised to his amazement that he was unhurt. He looked across to see Edward Fox stand up, "turn completely green and collapse in a heap". He had broken 5 ribs and his shoulder-blade. He then noticed that Paul Scofield was lying very still on the ground "and I saw that his shin-bone was sticking out through his trousers". As the film takes place in October during the partridge-shooting season, the filmmakers had to make a choice whether to delay filming for a year or re-cast. Fortunately James Mason had just finished filming "Doctor Fischer of Geneva" for the BBC and the schedule was changed to allow him to take over the part of Sir Randolph Nettleby six weeks later. Scofield was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 1956 New Year Honours. He won the Academy Award for Best Actor for "A Man for All Seasons" and was nominated as Best Supporting Actor for "Quiz Show". Theatrical accolades include a 1962 Tony Award for "A Man for All Seasons". In 1969, Scofield became the sixth performer to win the Triple Crown of Acting, winning an Emmy Award for Outstanding Single Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role for "Male of the Species". He was also one of only eight actors to win both the Tony and the Oscar for the same role on stage and film. He was appointed a Companion of Honour (CH) in the 2001 New Year Honours. In 2002 he was awarded the honorary degree of D. Litt by the University of Oxford. In 2004, a poll of actors of the Royal Shakespeare Company, including Ian McKellen, Donald Sinden, Janet Suzman, Ian Richardson, Antony Sher and Corin Redgrave, acclaimed his Lear as the greatest Shakespearean performance ever. Scofield appeared in many radio dramas for BBC Radio 4, including in later years plays by Peter Tinniswood: "On the Train to Chemnitz" (2001) and "Anton in Eastbourne" (2002). The latter was Tinniswood's last work and was written especially for Scofield, an admirer of Anton Chekhov. He was awarded the 2002 Sam Wanamaker Prize. Personal life. Scofield married actress Joy Parker in 1943. The couple had two children; Martin (born 1945) (a Senior Lecturer in English and American literature at the University of Kent) and Sarah (born 1951). He declined the honour of a knighthood on three occasions, but was appointed CBE in 1956 and became a Companion of Honour in 2001. Scofield died from leukemia on 19 March 2008 at the age of 86 at a hospital near his home in Sussex, England. His memorial service was held at Westminster Abbey on 19 March 2009. Discography. Paul Scofield led the cast in several dramas issued by Caedmon Records: Also:
1072042	A samurai epic with a loose historical basis, the film was produced by Toshiaki Nakazawa, who also produced the 2009 Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film "Departures". Jeremy Thomas, the film's executive producer, has a reputation for successfully bringing Asian titles into the international market, most notably Bernardo Bertolucci's nine-time Oscar winner "The Last Emperor", Nagisa Ôshima's "Merry Christmas, Mr Lawrence" and Takeshi Kitano's "Brother". The film is a remake of Eiichi Kudo’s 1963 black-and-white Japanese film of the same name, "Jûsan-nin no shikaku". The screenplay was written by Daisuke Tengan. The film stars Koji Yakusho, whose credits include" Memoirs of a Geisha" and "Shall We Dance", along with Takayuki Yamada, Sōsuke Takaoka, Hiroki Matsukata, and Kazuki Namioka. It was nominated for Best Film at the 34th Japan Academy Prize. It is the third film in which Yamada and Takaoka co-starred, the first two being "Crows Zero" and "Crows Zero 2", both directed by Miike. Plot. The film is set in 1840s Japan during the final decades of the Tokugawa shogunate. The sadistic younger stepbrother of the current Shogun, Lord Matsudaira Naritsugu of Akashi, rapes and kills at will. Sir Doi Toshitsura (Mikijiro Hira), the Shogun's Justice, realizes the situation will become more dangerous after Naritsugu ascends to a higher political position. After a wronged party publicly commits seppuku as a way of showing disdain for Lord Naritsugu, Sir Doi seeks out a trusted older samurai, Shinzaemon, who served under the former shogun. Sir Doi secretly hires him to assassinate Naritsugu. However Naritsugu's loyal retainers - led by Hanbei; an old contemporary of Shinzaemon - learn of the plot by spying on Doi's meetings. Shinzaemon gathers 11 more samurai, whom Sir Doi knows can be trusted including Shinzaemon's nephew, Shinroukuro. The 12 plan to ambush Naritsugu on his official journey from Edo back to his lands in Akashi. However just before they leave, Hanbei arrives and warns his old colleague that he will suffer grave consequences if he tries to kill Naritsugu. The group, with the legal authority and financial assistance of Sir Doi, buy the help of town Ochiai in order to create a trap. They also enlist the help of a minor lord whose daughter-in-law was raped and son murdered by Naritsugu. With troops, he blocks the official highway forcing Naritsugu to head for the town and the trap. During the assassins own journey to the town, they are attacked by ronin paid off by Hanbei to kill the plotters. The group decides to head through the mountains but end up getting lost. In the process they encounter a hunter named Kiga Koyata who becomes their guide and they adopt him as the thirteenth assassin. The town is converted into a elaborate maze of booby traps and camouflaged fortifications. However when Naritsugu and his retinue arrive there numbers have been swelled with additional troops. The 13 assassins were no longer facing 70 men-at-arms now there were 200. A lengthy battle follows with Naritsugu and his guards trapped inside the village and attacked on all sides by arrows, explosives, knives, and swords – with the exception of Koyata who fights with rocks in slings. Against this carnage, the deranged noble, Naritsugu, is excited by the violence claiming it's the most fun he has ever. He tells Hanbei that when he ascends to the Shogun's counsel he will bring back the wars of the Sengoku period. Slowly the assassins are killed but not before they inflict heavy casualties on the Akashi forces. Eventually Naritsugu and Hanbei are cornered by Shizaemon and Shinrokurō. After Shizaemon kills Hanbei, Naritsugu kicks his loyal retainers head away insulting the older samurai. Contemptuously Naritsugu announces that both the people and samurai have only one purpose and that is to serve their lords. But Shizaemon counters by telling Naritsugu that lords can't live without the support of the people, and that if a lord abuses his powers the people will always rise against them. Naritsugu and Shinzaemon both mortally wound each other. As the lord crawls away in mud crying and experiencing fear and pain for the first time, he thanks Shinzaemon for showing him excitement before Shinzaemon chops his head off.
587569	Ente Mohangal Poovaninju is a 1982 Malayalam film starring Shankar and Menaka along with Mohanlal in lead roles. The film was remade into Tamil as well, with Sivakumar doing the lead role. Plot. Shankar, a wealthy bachelor falls in love with Menaka, a middle class girl. Shankar's father oppose this relationship, as he wants his son to get married to Kalaranjini. Mohanlal played Vinu, Shankar's best friend. The film had a tragic ending. Soundtrack. The soundtrack was composed by Dakshinamoorthi. It also had 2 classical tracks picturized on Shankar.
522685	A political thriller is a thriller that is set against the backdrop of a political power struggle. They usually involve various extra-legal plots, designed to give political power to someone, while his opponents try to stop him. They can involve national or international political scenarios. Political corruption, terrorism, and warfare are common themes. Normally the political party in power has ulterior motives and often will wish for total Fascist control and will work alone or with a shadow cabinet. Political thrillers can be based on true facts such as the assassination of John F Kennedy or the Watergate Scandal. There is a strong
582063	Guzaarish (, ) is a 2010 Indian drama romance film directed by Sanjay Leela Bhansali, starring Hrithik Roshan and Aishwarya Rai in the lead roles. The film is produced by Sanjay Leela Bhansali and Ronnie Screwvala under the banner of SLB Films and UTV Motion Pictures.The first look of "Guzaarish" was released on 23 September 2010. The film was released on 19 November 2010. The film received critical acclaim and awards and nominations in all the leading award ceremonies of the country. Plot. The story is set in Goa. Ethan Mascarenhas (Hrithik Roshan) is a former magician who is paralyzed from neck down quadriplegic. He is currently a Radio Jockey. Sofia D'Souza (Aishwarya Rai) is his nurse, and has been so for the past twelve years. On the fourteenth anniversary of his accident, Ethan decides to file an appeal to the court for euthanasia (mercy killing) with the help of his best friend and lawyer Devyani Dutta (Shernaz Patel). Ethan's mother Isabel Mascarenhas (Nafisa Ali) also supports him in his petition, backing her son's demand. A young man named Omar Siddiqui (Aditya Roy Kapoor) enters Ethan's life to learn magic from him. Judge Rajhansmoni (Vijay Crishna) dismisses the case immediately when the case is presented in the court. Devyani asks Ethan to garner public support through a vote on the issue through his radio programme, which Ethan names "Project Ethanasia." . The issue comes into the limelight through news features in the television and other media. An appeal is once again submitted to the court. In between Ethan's mother passes away and Sofia is dragged away by her alcoholic husband, Neville D'Souza (Makarand Deshpande), against whom she had filed a divorce case. Finally the day of verdict comes and Ethan's plea is rejected by the court, citing the legal code of the country cannot be violated in any circumstance. A disheartened Ethan spends his time alone in his empty home when Sofia returns. She confesses to Ethan that she got the divorce and tells him that she will help with his mercy-killing, whatever the consequences be as Ethan means more to her. On hearing her words, Ethan realizes how much Sofia loves him. He proposes to her and Sofia agrees. Ethan throws a farewell party for their friends and guests, where Ethan speaks about everyone who has meant very dear to him and finally tells everyone about his and Sofia's love. Ethan says that he will be dying a happy man with no regrets and the heart full of Sofia's love and bids all goodbye. At these words, all the guests, come to his couch and hug him, and the shot closes on Ethan laughing heartily. Production. Development. After completing "Saawariya", Sanjay Leela Bhansali had decided to focus more on his SLB Film production house. "Chenab Gandhi" starring Amitabh Bachchan, Vidya Balan, and John Abraham was being talked about in the industry. Meanwhile, he was also focusing on his sister Bela Sehgal's directorial venture, earlier titled, "Hadippa". A few news reports suggested that Bhansali had confirmed his next project - a young love story called "Hamari Jaan Ho Tum", starring Udit Narayan's son Aditya Narayan and Mahesh Bhatt's daughter. He had denied the rumors stating he was not into any such project. Other reports stated he had begun working on a film called "Heera Mandi". Bhansali had got two male actors and one female actress flown in from Pakistan to train them in acting. But with the death of Begum Para, one of his actors in "Saawariya", who was also supposed to star in "Heera Mandi", the crew had ran into casting problems. So Bhansali started working on an untitled film starring Aishwarya Rai and Hrithik Roshan. Later Bhansali himself cleared the air in an interview that, though he had met a Pakistani actor called Imran Abbas Naqvi on the insistence of the writer of Heera Mandi, Moin Beg, at around the end of 2007, he had realised that the actor did not fit Bhansali's needs. But he did confirm that he would definitely make "Heera Mandi" much later and when it happened he would think of the casting. Bhansali first told media about his next directorial venture, when he gave an interview to the Indo-Asian News Service (IANS). In the interview he said that he had decided to call his film, "Guzaarish", which is set to be shot in Goa. Bhansali stated that "Guzaarish" is his tribute to the legendary singer Lata Mangeshkar; "I learnt direction from her voice. ‘Guzaarish’ is my tribute to Lata-ji’s artistry,” Bhansali told IANS. He added that the screenplay of the movie is also inspired by Lata’s passion for excellence. He said that Lata's songs and their lyrics had been used "...to fuel the intense love story. For instance, the song "Hai tere saath meri wafaa, main nahin to kya?" forms an important part of the film..."When queried on why he chose a topic which explored the life of a quadriplegic, the filmmaker said he likes taking up subjects that are closer to life and not very much talked about. He added that the movie makes one "...aware about the beauty of life and what we have and how we should cherish what we have.. I have learnt so much about living a good life, of becoming a better human being and of evolving as a person". Later in an interview Sanjay Leela Bhansali opened up and said that "I've lived the pain of facing the isolation of failure after Saawariya. it was the toughest time of my life. Suddenly everyone disappeared, and that included the people who had worked with me on Saawariya for two years. Because of the suffering I began to get seriously interested in the subject of mercy killing. I began to read up as much as possible on the subject. My research showed that mercy killing was prohibited by law in many countries including India . Almost a year of studying the super-sensitive subject, I concluded that every human being should have the right to die with dignity. The pain and suffering and the dignity with which I bore them prompted me to make a film on mercy killing." Casting. Bhansali was on the lookout for a mature couple for the portrayal of his lead roles in "Guzaarish". His admiration for his muse Aishwarya Rai was a very well known fact. After watching her films "Dhoom 2" and "Jodhaa Akbar", both of which had starred both herself and Hrithik Roshan, Bhansali decided that the pair exuded a dignity and elegance much needed for his film. He also told IANS that Hrithik and Aishwarya have been chosen to play the passionate lovers in 'Guzaarish' because to Bhansali, they epitomized the physical and spiritual beauty of Lata Mangeshkar's voice." When the stars had been signed on, Hrithik Roshan was filming for the film "Kites", while Aishwarya Rai was shooting in Kerala for the bilingual "Raavan"/"Raavanan". As a result, though Bhansali wanted to start the shooting of the movie by early 2009, the start got delayed since the lead actor suggested postponing the film until he wrapped up his home production "Kites"." He added that the project was "..definitely going into a different territory, in more ways than one,” hinting at a unique shooting location. Later, sources from the movie said that bulk dates of the two actors had been taken and for the following four months, the film would be shot in Mumbai and two other outdoor locations, which were not disclosed then. It was reported that Roshan would start shooting from July 2009.
1163326	Simon Maxwell Helberg (born December 9, 1980) is an American actor, voice actor and comedian best known for his role as Howard Wolowitz in the sitcom "The Big Bang Theory", currently in its seventh season, for which he won the Critics' Choice Television Award for Best Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series. He has appeared on the sketch comedy series "MADtv" and is also known for his role as Moist in the Joss Whedon-led web miniseries "Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog". Personal life. Simon Helberg was born on December 9, 1980 in Los Angeles, California to Jewish parents. He is the son of actor Sandy Helberg and casting director Harriet Helberg (née Birnbaum). Inspired by the film "The Karate Kid", Helberg trained extensively in karate during his childhood and earned a black belt at the age of 10. He was raised in Judaism, "Conservative to Reform but more Reform as time went on." He is tall. Helberg attended middle and high school at the Crossroads School in Santa Monica, California, with Jason Ritter, who later became his roommate at NYU. He attended New York University's Tisch School of the Arts, where he trained at the Atlantic Theater Company. Helberg is married to actress Jocelyn Towne; they dated for several years, before marrying in 2007. Jocelyn's uncle is screenwriter Robert Towne. Helberg and Towne purchased a US$3 million 4,179 square foot Hollywood estate from Brooke Mueller, Charlie Sheen's ex-wife. Helberg and Towne had their first child, a daughter Adeline, on May 8, 2012. Career. For many years, Helberg performed with comedian Derek Waters as the sketch comedy duo Derek & Simon. In 2007, the two starred together in "Derek & Simon: The Show", a web series they created with comedian Bob Odenkirk for the comedy web site Super Deluxe. They also made two short films "Derek & Simon: The Pity Card" (co-starring Zach Galifianakis and Bill Hader) and "Derek & Simon: A Bee and a Cigarette" (co-starring Casey Wilson and Emily Rutherfurd) and had a pilot deal with HBO in 2005. One of Helberg's earliest jobs in television was briefly joining the cast of "MADtv" for one season in 2002. Helberg appeared in the 2002 feature film "National Lampoon's Van Wilder" as one of the geeky students for whom Van Wilder was throwing a party. He had a minor role in the 2003 movie "Old School." In 2004, he was in two episodes of "Reno 911!": Student Driver in "Raineesha X" and Hooker Buying Son in "Not Without My Mustache." He had a small role in the sixth episode of "Quintuplets," Get a Job, as a man called Neil working behind the counter at a shoe shop where Paige and Patton were working. He also played a small role in the film "" as a Jewish record producer. In 2004 he appeared in the film "A Cinderella Story" starring Hilary Duff and Chad Michael Murray. Helberg played the minor role of Terry in George Clooney's 2005 film "Good Night, and Good Luck," where he had one line. In 2005 he had a bit part on "Arrested Development" as Jeff, an employee of the film studio where Maeby worked. From 2006 to 2007, he had a minor supporting role as Alex Dwyer in the drama "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip." In 2006, he appeared in a series of comical TV commercials for Richard Branson's UK financial services company "Virgin Money." He made a short appearance on "The Soup" on 2011. He also appeared as the character Moist in "Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog," and had a small role in the pilot of the Judd Apatow-produced sitcom "Undeclared." In the 2009 Coen brothers film "A Serious Man" he played junior Rabbi Scott Ginsler. He had a minor role in the Season 4 finale of "The Guild" as one of the Game Masters ("GM"). Beginning in 2007, Helberg has been playing Howard Wolowitz, a geeky, wannabe "Casanova" with an eccentric fashion sense, in the CBS comedy series "The Big Bang Theory".
1068353	An American Haunting is a 2005 horror film written and directed by Courtney Solomon. It stars Donald Sutherland, Sissy Spacek, Rachel Hurd-Wood, and James D'Arcy. The film was previewed at the "AFI Film Festival" on November 5, 2005 and was released in U.S. theaters on May 5, 2006. The film had an earlier release in the U.K. on April 14, 2006. The film was panned by critics and audiences and performed poorly at the box office. The film is based on the novel "The Bell Witch: An American Haunting", by Brent Monahan. The events in the novel are based on the legend of the Bell Witch. The film switches from the 19th century to the 21st, and features a side story about a recently divorced mother whose daughter is going through something like the same experience as Betsy Bell. Plot. In present times, a young girl is having a dream about being chased by something unseen through the forest and into her house. Her mother comes to wake her up and finds an old binder of letters from the 19th century, as well as an old doll. The letters are from a previous occupant of the house, warning the mother that if she is reading the letters, and noticing supernatural happenings, then the unthinkable has come to pass. The movie then switches to the early 19th century, to a village that used to stand around the house, and the story of the Bell Witch is told.
1062100	Stockard Channing (born Susan Antonia Williams Stockard; February 13, 1944) is a three-time Emmy and one-time Tony Award winning American stage, film and television actress. She is known for her portrayal of First Lady Abbey Bartlet in the NBC television series "The West Wing"; for playing Betty Rizzo in the film "Grease"; and for her role as Ouisa Kittredge in the play "Six Degrees of Separation" and its later film version. Early life and education. Channing was born in New York City, the daughter of Mary Alice (née English), who came from a large Brooklyn-based Irish Catholic family, and Lester Napier Stockard (died 1960), who was in the shipping business. She grew up on the Upper East Side. Channing is an alumna of The Madeira School, a Virginia boarding school for girls, after starting out at The Chapin School in New York City. She studied history and literature at Radcliffe College and graduated in 1965. Career. Early career. Channing started her acting career with the experimental Theatre Company of Boston and eventually performed in the group's Off-Broadway 1969 production of the Elaine May play "Adaptation/Next". She performed in a revival of "Arsenic and Old Lace (play)" directed by Theodore Mann as part of the Circle in the Square at Ford's Theatre program in 1970. In 1971, she made her Broadway debut in "Two Gentlemen of Verona — The Musical", working with playwright John Guare. She also appeared on Broadway in 1973 in a supporting role in "No Hard Feelings" at the Martin Beck Theatre Channing made her television debut on "Sesame Street" in the role of the The Number Painter's female victim. She landed her first lead role in the 1973 television movie "The Girl Most Likely to...", a black comedy written by Joan Rivers about an ugly duckling woman whose car accident leads to plastic surgery; newly beautiful, she vows murderous revenge on all who had scorned her. For the role, Channing went through considerable transformation, with the syndicated column "TV Scout" reporting months later, "It was a great make-up job — at least the part that made very pretty Stockard look so ugly. She had her cheeks puffed out with cotton and her nose was wadded, too, to make it thick and off-center. Very thick eyebrows were drawn on her face and she wore padded clothes to make her look fat. Making her look beautiful was easy." After a few small parts in feature films, Channing co-starred with Warren Beatty and Jack Nicholson in Mike Nichols' "The Fortune" (1975). On May 22, 1977, Stockard along with Ned Beatty starred in the pilot for the short-lived TV series "Lucan". Lucan, played by Kevin Brophy, was a 20-year-old who spent the first 10 years of his life running wild in the forest. After being raised by wolves, Lucan strikes out on his own in search of his identity. In 1978, at the age of 33, Channing took on the role of high school teenager Betty Rizzo in the hit musical "Grease". Her performance earned her the People's Choice Award for Favorite Motion Picture Supporting Actress. That year, she also played Peter Falk's secretary in the Neil Simon film "The Cheap Detective". 1980s. Channing starred in two short-lived sitcoms on CBS in 1979 and 1980: "Stockard Channing in Just Friends" and "The Stockard Channing Show". In both shows, she co-starred with actress Sydney Goldsmith, who played her best friend in both. Her Hollywood career faltered after these failures, so Channing returned to her theatre roots. She played the female lead in the Broadway show, "They're Playing Our Song" (1980–81). Channing then took the part of the mother (Sheila) in the 1981 Long Wharf Theater (New Haven) production of Peter Nichols' "A Day in the Death of Joe Egg". She reprised the role in the Roundabout Theater Company production, first Off-Broadway in January 1985 and then on Broadway in March 1985, and won the 1985 Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play. Channing continued her return to the stage by teaming up again with playwright John Guare. She received Tony Award nominations for her performances in his plays, "The House of Blue Leaves" (1986) and "Six Degrees of Separation" (1990), for which she also won an Obie. The Alan Ayckbourn play "Woman in Mind" received its American premiere Off-Broadway in February 1988 at the Manhattan Theatre Club. The production was directed by Lynne Meadow and the cast included Channing in the role of Susan, for which she won a Drama Desk Award for Best Actress. When once asked if Susan was Channing's most fully realized character, the actress replied: Well, you like to think that they’re all fully realized because what you’re doing is different from what anyone else is seeing. You do a character but how much of it is on film, or how much of it is seen by an audience, is really up to the director, the piece, or the audience. And so, I just do these people. And flesh them out. I think anything else is not my job. Channing also garnered recognition for her work in television during this time. She was nominated for an Emmy for the CBS miniseries "Echoes in the Darkness" (1987) and won a CableACE Award for the Harvey Fierstein-scripted "Tidy Endings" (HBO, 1988). Channing also appeared in 1989's "Staying Together". 1990s. Channing reprised her lead role as an Upper East Side matron in the film version of "Six Degrees of Separation". She was nominated for an Academy Award and a Golden Globe Award for her performance. She then made several films in quick succession: "To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar" as Carol Ann and "Smoke" (both 1995); a cameo appearance in "The First Wives Club", "Up Close and Personal" (as Marcia Mcgrath), and "Moll Flanders" (all 1996). For "Smoke" she was nominated for a Screen Actors Guild Award for Best Supporting Actress and for "Moll Flanders" she was nominated for the Satellite Award for Best Supporting Actress, Drama. Channing kept busy with film, television and stage roles throughout the late 1990s. She starred in the USA Network film "An Unexpected Family" in 1996 and in its sequel, "An Unexpected Life", in 1998. She was nominated for an Independent Spirit Award as Best Supporting Female for her performance as one-half of an infertile couple in "The Baby Dance" (also 1998). On stage, she performed at Lincoln Center in Tom Stoppard's "Hapgood" (1995) and in the 1997 revival of Lillian Hellman's "The Little Foxes". During this period, Channing voiced Barbara Gordon in the animated series, "Batman Beyond", and in one episode of "King of the Hill". Channing was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Actress three times in the 1990s: in 1991, for "Six Degrees of Separation"; in 1992, for "Four Baboons Adoring the Sun"; and in 1999, for "The Lion in Winter". "The West Wing". In 1999, Channing took on the role of First Lady Abbey Bartlet in the NBC television series "The West Wing". She was a recurring guest star for the show's first two seasons; she became a regular cast member in 2001. In the seventh and final season of "The West Wing" (2005–2006), Channing appeared in only four episodes (including the series finale) because she was co-starring (with Henry Winkler) in the CBS sitcom "Out of Practice" at the same time. "Out of Practice" was cancelled by CBS after one season. Beyond "The West Wing". Channing received several awards in 2002. She won the Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series for her work on "The West Wing". That same year, she also won the Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Miniseries or a Movie and the Screen Actors Guild Award for Best Actress in a Television Movie or Miniseries for her portrayal of Judy Shepard in "The Matthew Shepard Story", a docudrama about Matthew Shepard's life and murder. Channing received the 2002 London Film Critics Circle Award (ALFS) for Best Actress of the Year for her role in the film "The Business of Strangers". For "The Business of Strangers" she was also nominated for the American Film Institute Best Actress award. In 2003, she was awarded the Women in Film Lucy Award. In 2005, Channing won a Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Performer in a Children/Youth/Family Special for "Jack" (2004), a Showtime television movie about a young man struggling to understand why his father left the family for another man. Channing played Jack's mother. She was selected for the second narrator of the Animal Planet hit series "Meerkat Manor" in 2008, replacing Sean Astin, who did the first three seasons. In November 2008, she returned to Broadway as Vera Simpson in the musical "Pal Joey", and was nominated for the 2009 Tony Award for Best Leading Actress in a Musical. In 2005, Channing starred in "Out of Practice" with Henry Winkler, with the two receiving Emmy nominations for their roles. Channing played the role of Lydia Barnes, ex-wife of Stewart Barnes (Henry Winkler), and had two sons and a lesbian daughter (Christopher Gorham, Paula Marshall, Ty Burrel, Jennifer Tilly). The show aired for one season (22 episodes). She returned to the stage in June 2010, to Dublin's Gaiety Theatre to play Lady Bracknell in Rough Magic Theatre Company’s production of Oscar Wilde's "The Importance of Being Earnest". Channing appeared in the play "Other Desert Cities" Off-Broadway at Lincoln Center and then on Broadway, as of October 2011. Channing was nominated for the Drama Desk Award, Outstanding Actress in a Play and the Tony Award for Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a Play for "Other Desert Cities". Channing's latest film is "A Fonder Heart" (2011). Personal life. Channing has been married and divorced four times; she has no children. She married Walter Channing in 1963 and kept the amalgamated name "Stockard Channing" after they divorced in 1967. Her second husband was Paul Schmidt, a professor of Slavic languages (1970–76), and her third was writer-producer David Debin (1976–80). Her fourth husband was businessman David Rawle (1980–88). She has been in a relationship with cinematographer Daniel Gillham for more than 20 years; they met on the set of "A Time of Destiny". The couple reside in Maine when not working. In 2005, Channing pleaded no contest to driving under the influence and received 36 months' probation. Awards and nominations. In 2002, she was inducted into the American Theatre Hall of Fame.
1067180	The Weather Man is a 2005 American comedy-drama film, directed by Gore Verbinski. Written by Steve Conrad, it stars Nicolas Cage, Michael Caine and Hope Davis and tells the story of a weatherman in the midst of a mid-life crisis.
583468	Bas Ek Pal (English: "Just a moment") is a 2006 Bollywood film, directed by Onir. The movie stars Juhi Chawla, Urmila Matondkar, Jimmy Shergill, Sanjay Suri, Rehaan Engineer and Yashpal Sharma. The film's storyline is an adaptation of "Live Flesh", a film by Pedro Almodóvar. Plot. Nikhil Kapoor (Sanjay Suri) decides to come back from the USA to Mumbai. When he arrives, he decides to chill out at a nightclub. There he meets a woman and instantly falls for her; she, however, doesn't even introduce herself. After he asks her name, she goes away. The next day, Nikhil meets his old friend Rahul (Jimmy Shergill). The two play basketball, and hang out together. Whilst in the company of Rahul and Steve (Rehaan Engineer), another one of Nikhil's friend; the woman shows up again and she is revealed to be Anamika Joshi (Urmila Matondkar). She walks in with her friend Farhad, and when Nikhil tries to talk to Anamika, Farhad behins to think he is flirting or disturbing her, and a fight breaks out.
1163750	June Allyson (October 7, 1917 – July 8, 2006) was an American stage, film, and television actress.
1102381	Emil Artin (; March 3, 1898 â December 20, 1962) was an Austrian-American mathematician. Biography. Parents. Emil Artin was born in Vienna to parents Emma Maria, nĂŠe Laura (stage name Clarus), a soubrette on the operetta stages of Austria and Germany, and Emil Hadochadus Maria Artin, Austrian-born of Armenian descent. Several documents, including Emilâs birth certificate, list the fatherâs occupation as âopera singerâ though others list it as âart dealer.â It seems at least plausible that he and Emma had met as colleagues in the theater. They had been married in St. Stephen's Parish on July 24, 1895. Early education. Emil entered school in September 1904, presumably in Vienna. By then, his father was already suffering symptoms of advanced syphilis, among them increasing mental instability, and was eventually institutionalized at the recently established (and imperially sponsored) insane asylum at Mauer Ăhling, 125 kilometers west of Vienna. It is notable that neither wife nor child contracted this highly infectious disease. The senior Emil Artin died there July 20, 1906. Young Emil was eight. On July 15, 1907, Emilâs mother remarried; her second husband was Rudolf HĂźbner a prosperous manufacturer in the German-speaking city of Reichenberg, Bohemia (now Liberec, in the Czech Republic). Documentary evidence suggests that Emma had already been resident in Reichenberg the previous year, and in deference to her new husband, she had abandoned her vocal career. HĂźbner deemed a life in the theater unseemly in the wife of a man of his position. In September, 1907, Emil entered the Volksschule in Strobnitz, a small town in southern Czechoslovakia near the Austrian border. For that year, he lived away from home, boarding on a local farm. The following year, he returned to the home of his mother and stepfather, and entered the Realschule in Reichenberg, where he pursued his secondary education to June, 1916. In Reichenberg, Emil formed a lifelong friendship with a young neighbor, Arthur Baer, who became an astronomer, teaching for many years at Cambridge University. Astronomy was an interest the two boys shared already at this time. They each had telescopes. They also rigged a telegraph between their houses, over which once Baer excitedly reported to his friend an astronomical discovery he thought he had madeâperhaps a supernova, he thoughtâand told Emil where in the sky to look. Emil tapped back the terse reply âA-N-D-R-O-M-E-D-A N-E-B-E-L.â (Andromeda nebula) Emilâs academic performance in the first years at the Realschule was spotty. Up to the end of the 1911â1912 school year, for instance, his grade in mathematics was merely âgenĂźgend,â (satisfactory). Of his mathematical inclinations at this early period he later wrote, âMeine eigene Vorliebe zur Mathematik zeigte sich erst im sechzehnten Lebensjahr, wĂ¤hrend vorher von irgendeiner Anlage dazu Ăźberhaupt nicht die Rede sein konnte.â (âMy own predilection for mathematics manifested itself only in my sixteenth year; before that, one could certainly not speak of any particular aptitude for it.â) His grade in French for 1912 was actually ânicht genĂźgendâ (unsatisfactory). He did rather better work in physics and chemistry. But from 1910 to 1912, his grade for âComportmentâ was ânicht genĂźgend.â Emil spent the school year 1912â1913 away from home, in France, a period he spoke of later as one of the happiest of his life. He lived that year with the family of Edmond Fritz, in the vicinity of Paris, and attended a school there. When he returned from France to Reichenberg, his academic work markedly improved, and he began consistently receiving grades of âgutâ or âsehr gutâ (good or very good) in virtually all subjectsâincluding French and âComportment.â By the time he completed studies at the Realschule in June, 1916, he was awarded the Reifezeugnis (diplomaânot to be confused with the Abitur) that affirmed him âreif mit Auszeichnungâ (qualified with distinction) for graduation to a technical university. University education. Now that it was time to move on to university studies, Emil was no doubt content but to leave Reichenberg, for relations with his stepfather were clouded. According to him, HĂźbner reproached him âday and nightâ with being a financial burden, and even when Emil became a university lecturer and then a professor, HĂźbner deprecated his academic career as self-indulgent and belittled its paltry emolument. In October, 1916, Emil matriculated at the University of Vienna, having focused by now on mathematics. He studied there with Philipp FurtwĂ¤ngler, and also took courses in astrophysics and Latin. Studies at Vienna were interrupted when Emil was drafted in June, 1918 into the Austrian army (his Army photo ID is dated July 1, 1918). Assigned to the K.u. K. 44th Infantry Regiment, he was stationed northwest of Venice at Primolano, on the Italian front in the foothills of the Dolomites. To his great relief, Emil managed to avoid combat by volunteering for service as a translatorâhis ignorance of Italian notwithstanding. He did know French, of course, and some Latin, was generally a quick study, and was motivated by a highly rational fear in a theater of that war that had often proven a meat-grinder. In his scramble to learn at least some Italian, Emil had recourse to an encyclopedia, which he once consulted for help in dealing with the cockroaches that infested the Austrian barracks. At some length, the article described a variety of technical methods, concluding finally withâEmil laughingly recalled in later yearsââla caccia diretta" ("the direct hunt"). Indeed, âla caccia direttaâ was the straightforward method he and his fellow infantrymen adopted. Emil survived both war and vermin on the Italian front, and returned late in 1918 to the University of Vienna, where he remained through Easter of the following year. By June 1919, he had moved to Leipzig and matriculated at the University there as a "Class 2 Auditor" ("HĂśrer zweiter Ordnung"). Late the same year, Emil undertook the formality of standing for a qualifying examination by an academic board of the Oberrealschule in Leipzig, which he passed with the grade of âgutâ (good), receiving for the second time the Reifezeugnis (diploma attesting the equivalence of satisfactory completion of 6 years at a Realschule). How this Leipzig Reifezeugnis differed technically from the one he had been granted at Reichenberg is unclear from the document, but it apparently qualified him for regular matriculation as a student at the University, which normally required the Abitur. From 1919 to June 1921, Emil pursued mostly mathematical studies at Leipzig. His principal teacher and dissertation advisor was Gustav Herglotz. Additionally, Emil took courses in chemistry and various fields of physics, including mechanics, atomic theory, quantum theory, Maxwellian theory, radioactivity, and astrophysics. In June, 1921 he was awarded the Doctor of Philosophy degree, based on his âexcellentâ dissertation, âQuadratische KĂśrper im Gebiete der hĂśheren Kongruenzenâ ("On the Arithmetic of Quadratic Function Fields over Finite Fields"), and the oral examination whichâhis diploma affirmsâhe had passed three days earlier âwith extraordinary success.â In the fall of 1921, Emil moved to GĂśttingen, considered the "Mecca" of mathematics at the time, where he pursued one year of post-doctoral studies in mathematics and mathematical physics with Richard Courant and David Hilbert. While at GĂśttingen, he worked closely with Emmy Noether and Helmut Hasse. Aside from consistently good school grades in singing, the first documentary evidence of Emilâs deep and lifelong engagement with music comes from the year in GĂśttingen, where he was regularly invited to join in the chamber music sessions hosted by Richard Courant. He played all the keyboard instruments, and was an especially accomplished flautist, although it is not known exactly by what instruction he had achieved proficiency on these instruments. He became especially devoted to the music of J. S. Bach. Professorship at Hamburg. Courant arranged for Emil to receive a stipend for the summer of 1922 in GĂśttingen, which occasioned his declining a position offered him at the University of Kiel. The following October, however, he accepted an equivalent position at Hamburg, where in 1923, he completed the Habilitation thesis (required of aspirants to a professorship in Germany), and on July 24 advanced to the rank of Privatdozent. On April 1, 1925, Emil was promoted to Associate Professor (auĂerordentlicher Professor). In this year also, Emil applied for and was granted German citizenship. He was promoted to full Professor (ordentlicher Professor) on October 15, 1926. Early in the summer of 1925, Emil attended the Congress of the Wandervogel youth movement at Wilhelmshausen near Kassel with the intention of gathering a congenial group to undertake a trek through Iceland later that summer. Iceland (before the transforming presence of American and British forces stationed there during WWII) was still a primitive country in 1925, with a thinly scattered population and little transportation infrastructure. Emil succeeded in finding six young men to join him in this adventure. In the second half of August, 1925, the group set out by steamer from Hamburg, first to Norway, where they boarded a second steamer that took them to Iceland, stopping at several of the small east fjord ports before arriving at their destination, Husavik in the north of the island. Here the Wandervogel group disembarked, their initial goal, trekking down the LaxĂĄ River to Lake MĂ˝vatn. They made a circuit of the large, irregular lake, staying in farm houses, barns, and occasionally a tent as they went. When they slept in barns, it was often on piles of wet straw or hay. On those lucky occasions when they slept in beds, it could be nearly as damp on account of the rain trickling through the sod roofs. The tent leaked as well. Emil kept a meticulous journal of this trip, making daily entries in a neat, minuscule hand. He and several of the young men had brought cameras, so that the trek is documented also by nearly 200 small photographs. Emilâs journal attests to his overarching interest in the geology of this mid-Atlantic island, situated over the boundary of two tectonic plates whose shifting relation makes it geologically hyperactive. In keeping with the Wandervogel ethos, Emil and his companions carried music with them wherever they visited. The young men had packed guitars and violins, and Emil played the harmoniums common in the isolated farmsteads where they found lodging. The group regularly entertained their Icelandic hosts, not in full exchange for board and lodging, to be sure, but for goodwill certainly, and sometimes for a little extra on their plates, or a modestly discounted tariff. From Lake MĂ˝vatn, Emil and his companions headed west towards Akureyri, passing the large waterfall GoĂ°afoss on the way. From Akureyri, they trekked west down the Ăxnadalur (Ox Valley) intending to rent pack horses and cross the high and barren interior by foot to ReykjavĂ­k. By the time they reached the lower end of SkagafjĂśrĂ°ur, however, they were persuaded by a local farmer from whom they had hoped to rent the horses that a cross-country trek was by then impracticable; with the approach of winter, highland routes were already snow-bound and impassable. Instead of turning south, then, they turned north to SiglufjĂśrĂ°ur, where they boarded another steamer that took them around the western peninsula and down the coast to ReykjavĂ­k. From ReykjavĂ­k, they returned via Norway to Hamburg. By Emilâs calculation the distance they had covered on foot through Iceland totaled 450 kilometers. Early in 1926, the University of MĂźnster offered Emil a professorial position; however, Hamburg matched the offer financially, and (as noted above) promoted him to full professor, making him (along with his young colleague Helmut Hasse) one of the two youngest professors of mathematics in Germany. It was in this period that he acquired his lifelong nickname, âMa,â short for mathematics, which he came to prefer to his given name, and which virtually everyone who knew him well used. Although the nickname might seem to imply a narrow intellectual focus, quite the reverse was true of Emil. Even his teaching at the University of Hamburg went beyond the strict boundaries of mathematics to include mechanics and relativity theory. He kept up on a serious level with advances in astronomy, chemistry and biology (he owned and used a fine microscope), and the circle of his friends in Hamburg attests to the catholicity of his interests. It included the painter Heinrich Stegemann, and the author and organ-builder Hans Henny Jahn. Stegemann was a particularly close friend, and made portraits of Emil, Natascha and the two children born in Hamburg. Music continued to play a central role in his life; he acquired a Neupert double manual harpsichord, and a clavichord made by the Hamburg builder Walter Ebeloe, as well as a silver flute made in Hamburg by G. Urban. Chamber music gatherings became a regular event at the Artin apartment as they had been at the Courants in GĂśttingen. On August 15, 1929, Emil married Natalia Naumovna Jasny (Natascha), a young Russian ĂŠmigrĂŠ who had been a student in several of his classes. One of their shared interests was photography, and when Emil bought a Leica for their joint use (a Leica A, the first commercial model of this legendary camera), Natascha began chronicling the life of the family, as well as the city of Hamburg. For the next decade, she made a series of artful and expressive portraits of Emil that remain by far the best images of him taken at any age. Emil, in turn, took many fine and evocative portraits of Natascha. Lacking access to a professional darkroom, their films and prints had to be developed in a makeshift darkroom set up each time (and then dismantled again) in the small bathroom of whatever apartment they were occupying. The makeshift darkroom notwithstanding, the high artistic level of the resulting photographic prints is attested to by the exhibit of Nataschaâs photographs mounted in 2001 by the Museum fĂźr Kunst und Gewerbe Hamburg, and its accompanying catalogue, âHamburgâWie Ich Es Sah.â In 1930, Emil was offered a professorship at ETH (EidgenĂśssische Technische Hochschule) in ZĂźrich, to replace Hermann Weyl, who had moved to GĂśttingen. He chose to remain at Hamburg, however. Two years later, in 1932, for contributions leading to the advancement of mathematics, Emil was honoredâjointly with Emmy Noetherâwith the award of the Alfred Ackermann-Teubner Memorial Prize, which carried a grant of 500 marks. Nazi period. In January 1933âa tragically fateful month in German historyâNatascha gave birth to their first child, Karin. A year and a half later, in the summer of 1934, son Michael was born. The political climate at Hamburg was not so poisonous as that at GĂśttingen, where by 1935 the mathematics department had been purged of Jewish and dissident professors. Still, Emilâs situation became increasingly precarious, not only because Natascha was half Jewish, but also because Emil made no secret of his distaste for the Hitler regime. At one point Blaschke, by then a Nazi Party member, but nonetheless solicitous of the Artinsâ well-being, warned Emil discreetly to close his classroom door so his frankly anti-Nazi comments couldnât be heard by passersby in the hallway. Natascha recalled going down to the newsstand on the corner one day and being warned in hushed tones by the man from whom she and Emil bought their paper that a man had daily been watching their apartment from across the street. Once tipped off, she and Emil became very aware of the watcher (Natascha liked to refer to him as their âspyâ), and even rather enjoyed the idea of his being forced to follow them on the long walks they loved taking in the afternoons to a cafĂŠ far out in the countryside. Toying with their watcher on a fine autumn afternoon was one thing, but the atmosphere was in fact growing inexorably serious. Nataschaâs Jewish father and her sister, seeing the handwriting on the wall, had already left for the U.S. in the summer of 1933. As half-Jewish, Nataschaâs status was, if not ultimately quite hopeless, certainly not good. Hasse, like Blaschke a nationalistic supporter of the regime, had applied for Party membership, but was nonetheless no anti-Semite. Besides he was a long-time friend and colleague of Emilâs. He suggested that the two Artin childrenâonly one quarter Jewish, or in Nazi terminology, âMischlinge zweiten Gradesââmight, if a few strategic strings could be pulled, be officially âaryanized.â Hasse offered to exert his influence with the Ministry of Education (Kultur- und SchulbehĂśrde, Hochschulwesen), and Emilânot daring to leave any stone unturned, especially with respect to the safety of his childrenâwent along with this effort. He asked his father-in-law, by then resident in Washington D.C., to draft and have notarized an affidavit attesting to the Christian lineage of his late wife, Nataschaâs mother. Emil submitted this affidavit to the Ministry of Education, but to no avail. By this time, to be precise, on July 15, 1937, because of Nataschaâs status as âMischling ersten Grades,â Emil had lost his post at the Universityâtechnically, compelled into early retirementâon the grounds of paragraph 6 of the Act to Restore the Professional Civil Service (Gesetz zur Wiederherstellung des Berufsbeamtentums) of April 7, 1933. Ironically, he had applied only some months earlier, on February 8, 1937, for a leave of absence from the University in order to accept a position offered him at Stanford. On March 15, 1937, the response had come back denying his application for leave on the grounds that his services to the University were indispensable (âDa die TĂ¤tigkeit des Professors Dr. Artin an der UniversitĂ¤t Hamburg nicht entbehrt werden kann. . .â). By July, when he was summarily âretired,â (âin Ruhestand versetztâ) the position at Stanford had been filled. However, through the efforts of Richard Courant (by then in New York), and Solomon Lefschetz at Princeton, a position was found for him at Notre Dame University in South Bend, Indiana. Emigration to the U.S.. The family must have worked feverishly to prepare for emigration to the United States, for this entailed among other things packing their entire household for shipment. Since German law forbade emigrants taking more than a token sum of money out of the country, the Artins sank all the funds at their disposal into shipping their entire household, from beds, tables, chairs and double-manual harpsichord down to the last kitchen knife, cucumber slicer, and potato masher to their new home. This is why each of their residences in the United States bore such a striking resemblance to the rooms photographed so beautifully by Natascha in their Hamburg apartment (see Natascha A. Brunswick, âHamburg: Wie Ich Es Sah,â Dokumente der Photographie 6, Museum fĂźr Kunst und Gewerbe Hamburg, 2001, pp.Â 48â53) . On the morning they were to board the Hamburg-Amerika line ship in Bremerhaven, October 21, 1937, daughter Karin woke with a high temperature. Terrified that should this opportunity be missed, the window of escape from Nazi Germany might close forever, Emil and Natascha chose to risk somehow getting Karin past emigration and customs officials without their noticing her condition. They managed to conceal Karinâs feverish state, and without incident boarded the ship, as many left behind were tragically never able to do. When they landed a week later at Hoboken, New Jersey, Richard Courant and Nataschaâs father, the Russian agronomist Naum Jasny (then working for the U.S. Department of Agriculture) were on the dock to welcome the family to the United States. Bloomington years. It was early November, 1937 by the time they arrived in South Bend, where Emil joined the faculty at Notre Dame, and taught for the rest of that academic year. He was offered a permanent position the following year 170 miles to the south at Indiana University, in Bloomington. Shortly after the family resettled there, a second son, Thomas, was born on November 12, 1938. After moving to Bloomington, Emil quickly acquired a piano, and soon after that a Hammond Organ, a recently invented electronic instrument that simulated the sound of a pipe organ. He wanted this instrument in order primarily to play the works of J. S. Bach, and because the pedal set that came with the production model had a range of only two octaves (not quite wide enough for all the Bach pieces), he set about extending its range. Music was a constant presence in the Artin household. Karin played the cello, and then the piano as well, and Michael played the violin. As in Hamburg, the Artin living room was regularly the venue for amateur chamber music performances. The circle of the Artinsâ University friends reflected Emilâs wide cultural and intellectual interests. Notable among them were Alfred Kinsey and his wife of the Psychology Department, as well as prominent members of the Fine Arts, Art History, Anthropology, German Literature, and Music Departments. For several summer semesters, Emil accepted teaching positions at other universities, viz., Stanford in 1939 and 1940, The University of Michigan at Ann Arbor in 1941 and 1951, and The University of Colorado, in Boulder, in 1953. On each of these occasions, the family accompanied him. Emil insisted that only German be spoken in the house. Even Tom, born in the U.S., spoke German as his first language, acquiring English only from his siblings and his playmates in the neighborhood; for the first four or five years of his life, he spoke English with a pronounced German accent. Consistent with his program of maintaining the familyâs German cultural heritage, Emil gave high priority to regularly reading German literature aloud to the children. The text was frequently from Goethe's autobiographical "Dichtung und Wahrheit," or his poems, "ErlkĂśnig," for instance. Occasionally, he would read from an English text. Favorites were Mark Twain's "Tom Sawyer," Charles Dickensâs âA Christmas Carol,â and Oscar Wildeâs âThe Canterville Ghost.â For the Artin children, these readings replaced radio entertainment, which was strictly banned from the house. There was a radio, but (with the notable exception of Sunday morning broadcasts by E. Power Biggs from the organ at the Busch-Reisinger Museum in Cambridge, to which Emil and Natascha listened still lounging in bed) it was switched on only to hear news of the war. Similarly, the Artin household would never in years to come harbor a television set. Once the war had ended, the radio was retired to the rear of a dark closet. As German citizens, Emil and Natascha were technically classified as enemy aliens for the duration of the war. On April 12, 1945, with the end of the war in Europe only weeks away, they applied for naturalization as American citizens. American citizenship was granted them on February 7, 1946. On the orders of a Hamburg doctor whom he had consulted about a chronic cough, Emil had given up smoking years before. He had vowed not to smoke so long as Hitler remained in power. On May 8, 1945, at the news of Germanyâs surrender and the fall of the Third Reich, Natascha made the mistake of reminding him of this vow, and in lieu of a champagne toast, he indulged in what was intended to be the smoking of a single, celebratory cigarette. Unfortunately, the single cigarette led to a second, and another after that. Emil returned to heavy smoking for the rest of his life. Princeton years. If GĂśttingen had been the âMeccaâ of mathematics in the 1920s and early â30s, Princeton, following the decimation of German mathematics under the Nazis, had become the center of the mathematical world in the 1940s. In April, 1946, Emil was appointed Professor at Princeton, at a yearly salary of $8,000. The family moved there in the fall of 1946. Notable among his graduate students at Princeton are Serge Lang, John Tate, and Timothy OâMeara. Emil chose also to teach the honors section of Freshman calculus each year. He was renowned for the elegance of his teaching. Frei and Roquette write that Artinâs âmain medium of communication was teaching and conversation: in groups, seminars and in smaller circles. We have many statements of people near to him describing his unpretentious way of communicating with everybody, demanding quick grasp of the essentials but never tired of explaining the necessary. He was open to all kinds of suggestions, and distributed joyfully what he knew. He liked to teach, also to young students, and his excellent lectures, always well prepared but without written notes, were hailed for their clarity and beauty.â (Emil Artin and Helmut Hasse: Their Correspondence 1923â1934, Introduction.) Whenever he was asked whether mathematics was a science, Emil would reply unhesitatingly, âNo. An art.â His elegant elaboration of this idea is often cited, and worth repeating here: âWe all believe that mathematics is an art. The author of a book, the lecturer in a classroom tries to convey the structural beauty of mathematics to his readers, to his listeners. In this attempt, he must always fail. Mathematics is logical to be sure, each conclusion is drawn from previously derived statements. Yet the whole of it, the real piece of art, is not linear; worse than that, its perception should be instantaneous. We have all experienced on some rare occasion the feeling of elation in realizing that we have enabled our listeners to see at a glance the whole architecture and all its ramifications.â It has even been saidâonly half in jestâthat his lectures could be too perfect, lulling a hearer into believing he had understood and assimilated an idea or a proof which, on waking the following day might seem as remote and chimerical as ever. During the Princeton years, Emil built a reflecting telescope to plans he found in âSky and Telescopeâ magazine, to which he subscribed. He spent weeks in the basement attempting to grind the mirror to specifications, without success, and his continued failure to get it right led to increasing frustration. Then, in California to give a talk, he made a side trip to the Mt. Wilson Observatory, where he discussed his project with the astronomers. Whether it was their technical advice, or Nataschaâs intuitive suggestion that it might be too cold in the basement, and that he should try the procedure upstairs in the warmth of his study (which he did), he completed the grinding of the mirror in a matter of days. With this telescope, he surveyed the night skies over Princeton. In September 1955, Emil accepted an invitation to visit Japan. From his letters, it is clear he was treated like royalty by the Japanese mathematical community, and was charmed by the country. A confirmed atheist most of his life, he was nonetheless interested in learning about the diverse threads of Buddhism, and visiting its holy sites. In a letter home he describes his visit to the temples at Nara. âThen we were driven to a place nearby, Horiuji [Horyu-ji] where a very beautiful Buddhist temple is. We were received by the abbot, and a priest translated into English. We obtained the first sensible explanation about modern Buddhism. The difficulty of obtaining such an explanation is enormous. To begin with most Japanese do not know and do not understand our questions. All this is made more complicated by the fact that there are numerous sects and each one has another theory. Since you get your information only piece wise, you cannot put it together. This results in an absurd picture. I am talking of the present day, not of its original form.â His letter goes on to outline at length the general eschatological framework of Buddhist belief. Then he adds, âBy the way, a problem given by the Zens for meditation is the following: If you clap your hands, does the sound come from the left hand or from the right?â Return to Hamburg. The following year, Emil took a leave of absence to return to Germany for the first time since emigration, nearly twenty years earlier. He spent the fall semester at GĂśttingen, and the next at Hamburg. For the Christmas holidays, he travelled to his birthplace, Vienna, to visit his mother, a city he had not seen in decades. In a letter home he described the experience of his return in a single, oddly laconic sentence: âIt is kind of amusing to walk through Vienna again.â In 1957, an honorary doctorate was conferred on Emil by the University of Freiburg. That fall, he returned to Princeton for what would be his final academic year at that institution. He was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1957. Emilâs marriage to Natascha had by this time seriously frayed. Though nominally still husband and wife, resident in the same house, they were for all intents and purposes living separate lives. Emil was offered a professorship at Hamburg, and at the conclusion of Princeton's spring semester, 1958, he moved permanently to Germany. His decision to leave Princeton University and the United States was complicated, based on multiple factors, prominent among them Princeton's (then operative) mandatory retirement age of 65. Emil had no wish to retire from teaching and direct involvement with students. Hamburg's offer was open-ended. Emil and Natascha were divorced in 1959. In Hamburg, Emil had taken an apartment, but soon gave it over to his mother whom he had brought from Vienna to live near him in Hamburg. He in turn moved into the apartment of the mathematician Hel Braun in the same neighborhood; though they never married, their relationship was equivalent to marriage. On January 4, 1961, he was granted German citizenship. In June, 1962, on the occasion of the 300th anniversary of the death Blaise Pascal, the University of Clermont-Ferrand conferred an honorary doctorate on him. On December 20 of the same year, Emil Artin died at home in Hamburg, aged 64, of a heart attack. The University of Hamburg honored his memory on April 26, 2005 by naming one of its newly renovated lecture halls The Emil Artin Lecture Hall. Influence and work. Artin was one of the leading algebraists of the century, with an influence larger than might be guessed from the one volume of his "Collected Papers" edited by Serge Lang and John Tate. He worked in algebraic number theory, contributing largely to class field theory and a new construction of L-functions. He also contributed to the pure theories of rings, groups and fields. The influential treatment of abstract algebra by van der Waerden is said to derive in part from Artin's ideas, as well as those of Emmy Noether. Artin was also an important expositor of Galois theory, and of the group cohomology approach to class ring theory (with John Tate), to mention two theories where his formulations became standard. In 1957, Artin wrote a book on geometric algebra an insightful development of the classical groups in a Kleinian context. He also developed the theory of braids as a branch of algebraic topology. Conjectures. He left two conjectures, both known as Artin's conjecture. The first concerns Artin L-functions for a linear representation of a Galois group; and the second the frequency with which a given integer "a" is a primitive root modulo primes "p", when "a" is fixed and "p" varies. These are unproven; in 1967, Hooley published a conditional proof for the second conjecture, assuming certain cases of the Generalized Riemann hypothesis. Supervision of research. Artin advised over thirty doctoral students, including Bernard Dwork, Serge Lang, K. G. Ramanathan, John Tate, Hans Zassenhaus and Max Zorn. A more complete list of his students can be found at the Mathematics Genealogy Project website (see "External Links," below). Family. In 1932 he married Natascha Jasny, born in Russia to mixed parentage (her mother was Christian, her father, Jewish). Artin was not himself Jewish, but, on account of his wife's racial status in Nazi Germany, was dismissed from his university position in 1937. They had three children, one of whom is Michael Artin, an American algebraist currently at MIT.
1040339	Noah Cornelius Marmaduke Huntley (born 7 September 1974) is an English actor, known for his role as Will Curtis in "Holby City". Background. He was educated at Windlesham House School in Pulborough, Sussex, at Leighton Park School in Berkshire and at Our Lady of Sion convent in Worthing. His roles include the Burning Man from "Event Horizon". He also had a minor role in the 2002 feature film "28 Days Later". On TV, he played Luke McAllister from 1993 to 1995 in British TV soap opera "Emmerdale"; he also played Will Curtis in "Holby City" for the 2004-05 season, and Michael Dillon in football drama "Dream Team". While filming a fight scene with co-star Luke Mably, Huntley accidentally broke his nose. Huntley was born in Wiston, West Sussex, the son of Karen and Graham Huntley.
724796	Jessica Karen Szohr (pronounced "zorr"; born March 31, 1985) is an American actress. Szohr began her screen career starring on television shows such as "" and "What About Brian". She gained recognition in 2007 with her breakthrough role as Vanessa Abrams on The CW series "Gossip Girl". She most recently appeared in the 2010 horror film "Piranha 3D," the 2011 comedy "I Don't Know How She Does It "and the 2013 film "The Internship". Early life. Szohr is of Hungarian descent, one quarter English, and her maternal grandmother is African American. She was born in Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin, a place she describes as a "family-oriented small town". The oldest of five children, Szohr played soccer, served on the student council, and was part of the cheerleading squad while in school. She started a cleaning company with a friend, cleaning their teachers' houses. Szohr started modeling at age six. Her first national campaign was for Quaker Oats at age ten, and she also appeared in print ads for Kohl's department store. Subsequent modelling gigs followed, including prints for Crate & Barrel, Mountain Dew, Sears, Jockey and JanSport. Szohr graduated from Menomonee Falls High School a semester early and moved to Los Angeles with her mother at the age of 17 to pursue an acting career. She told "Seventeen" magazine that she "almost moved home like five times." Career. Szohr earned her laurels as a frequent presence on U.S. television during the 2000s.She made her debut as an actress in "My Wife and Kids" episode 25 from season 3, "Not So Hostile Takeover". Her first film was "Uncle Nino" (2003), as minor role The MC. She appeared in numerous guest teen television series such as "That's So Raven", "Drake & Josh", "What I Like About You" and "Joan of Arcadia". She also appeared in three episodes of "" as Samantha Barrish.
1100418	Dana Stewart Scott (born October 11, 1932) is the emeritus "Hillman University Professor of Computer Science, Philosophy, and Mathematical Logic" at Carnegie Mellon University; he is now retired and lives in Berkeley, California. His research career has spanned computer science, mathematics, and philosophy, and has been characterized by a marriage of a concern for elucidating fundamental concepts in the manner of informal rigor, with a cultivation of mathematically hard problems that bear on these concepts. His work on automata theory earned him the ACM Turing Award in 1976, while his collaborative work with Christopher Strachey in the 1970s laid the foundations of modern approaches to the semantics of programming languages. He has worked also on modal logic, topology, and category theory. He is the editor-in-chief of the new journal Logical Methods in Computer Science. Early career. He received his BA in Mathematics from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1954. He wrote his Ph.D. thesis on "Convergent Sequences of Complete Theories" under the supervision of Alonzo Church while at Princeton, and defended his thesis in 1958. Solomon Feferman (2005) writes of this period: After completing his Ph.D. studies, he moved to the University of Chicago, working as an instructor there until 1960. In 1959, he published a joint paper with Michael O. Rabin, a colleague from Princeton, entitled "Finite Automata and Their Decision Problem", which introduced the idea of nondeterministic machines to automata theory. This work led to the joint bestowal of the Turing Award on the two, for the introduction of this fundamental concept of computational complexity theory. University of California, Berkeley, 1960–1963. Scott took up a post as Assistant Professor of Mathematics, back at the University of California, Berkeley, and involved himself with classical issues in mathematical logic, especially set theory and Tarskian model theory. During this period he started supervising Ph.D. students, such as James Halpern ("Contributions to the Study of the Independence of the Axiom of Choice") and Edgar Lopez-Escobar ("Infinitely Long Formulas with Countable Quantifier Degrees"). Scott's work as research supervisor has been an important source of his intellectual influence. Modal and tense logic. Scott also began working on modal logic in this period, beginning a collaboration with John Lemmon, who moved to Claremont, California, in 1963. Scott was especially interested in Arthur Prior's approach to tense logic and the connection to the treatment of time in natural-language semantics, and began collaborating with Richard Montague (Copeland 2004), whom he had known from his days as an undergraduate at Berkeley. Later, Scott and Montague independently discovered an important generalisation of Kripke semantics for modal and tense logic, called Scott-Montague semantics (Scott 1970). John Lemmon and Scott began work on a modal-logic textbook that was interrupted by Lemmon's death in 1966. Scott circulated the incomplete monograph amongst colleagues, introducing a number of important techniques in the semantics of model theory, most importantly presenting a refinement of "canonical model" that became standard, and introducing the technique of constructing models through "filtrations", both of which are core concepts in modern Kripke semantics (Blackburn, de Rijke, and Venema, 2001). Scott eventually published the work as "An Introduction to Modal Logic" (Lemmon & Scott, 1977). Stanford, Amsterdam and Princeton, 1963–1972. Following an initial observation of Robert Solovay, Scott formulated the concept of Boolean-valued model, as Solovay and Petr Vopěnka did likewise at around the same time. In 1967 Scott published a paper, "A Proof of the Independence of the Continuum Hypothesis", in which he used Boolean-valued models to provide an alternate analysis of the independence of the continuum hypothesis to that provided by Paul Cohen. This work led to the award of the Leroy P. Steele Prize in 1972. Oxford University, 1972–1981. Scott took up a post as Professor of Mathematical Logic on the Philosophy faculty of Oxford University in 1972. Semantics of programming languages. This period saw Scott working closely with Christopher Strachey, and the two managed, despite intense administrative pressures, to oversee a great deal of fundamental work on providing a mathematical foundation for the semantics of programming languages, the work for which Scott is best known. Together, their work constitutes the Scott-Strachey approach to denotational semantics; it constitutes one of the most influential pieces of work in theoretical computer science and can perhaps be regarded as founding one of the major schools of computer science. One of Scott's largest contributions is his formulation of domain theory, allowing programs involving recursive functions and looping-control constructs to be given a denotational semantics. Additionally, he provided a foundation for the understanding of infinitary and continuous information through domain theory and his theory of information systems. Scott's work of this period led to the bestowal of: Carnegie Mellon University 1981–2003. At Carnegie Mellon University, Scott proposed the theory of equilogical spaces as a successor theory to domain theory; among its many advantages, the category of equilogical spaces is a cartesian closed category, whereas the category of domains is not. In 1994, he was inducted as a Fellow of the Association for Computing Machinery. In 2012 he became a fellow of the American Mathematical Society.
1104676	In any quantitative science, the terms relative change and relative difference are used to compare two quantities while taking into account the "sizes" of the things being compared. The comparison is expressed as a ratio and is a unitless number. By multiplying these ratios by 100 they can be expressed as percentages so the terms percentage change, percent(age) difference, or relative percentage difference are also commonly used. The distinction between "change" and "difference" depends on whether or not one of the quantities being compared is considered a "standard" or "reference" or "starting" value. When this occurs, the term "relative change" (with respect to the reference value) is used and otherwise the term "relative difference" is preferred. Relative difference is often used as a quantitative indicator of quality assurance and quality control for repeated measurements where the outcomes are expected to be the same. A special case of percent change (relative change expressed as a percentage) called percent error occurs in measuring situations where the reference value is the accepted or actual value (perhaps theoretically determined) and the value being compared to it is experimentally determined (by measurement). Definitions. Given two numerical quantities, "x" and "y", their "difference", Δ = "x" - "y", can be called their "actual difference". When "y" is a "reference value" (a theoretical/actual/correct/accepted/optimal/starting, etc. value; the value that "x" is being compared to) then Δ is called their "actual change". When there is no reference value, the sign of Δ has little meaning in the comparison of the two values since it doesn't matter which of the two values is written first, so one often works with |Δ| = |"x" - "y"|, the absolute difference instead of Δ, in these situations. Even when there is a reference value, if it doesn't matter whether the compared value is larger or smaller than the reference value, the absolute difference can be considered in place of the actual change. The absolute difference between two values is not always a good way to compare the numbers. For instance, the absolute difference of 1 between 6 and 5 is more significant than the same absolute difference between 100,000,001 and 100,000,000. We can adjust the comparison to take into account the "size" of the quantities involved, by defining, for positive values of "x""reference": The relative change is not defined if the reference value ("x""reference") is zero. For values greater than the reference value, the relative change should be a positive number and for values that are smaller, the relative change should be negative. The formula given above behaves in this way only if "x""reference" is positive, and reverses this behavior if "x""reference" is negative. For example, if we are calibrating a thermometer which reads -6° C when it should read -10° C, this formula for relative change (which would be called "relative error" in this application) gives ((-6) - (-10)) / (-10) = 4/-10 = -0.4, yet the reading is too high. To fix this problem we alter the definition of relative change so that it works correctly for all nonzero values of "x""reference": If the relationship of the value with respect to the reference value (that is, larger or smaller) does not matter in a particular application, the absolute difference may be used in place of the actual change in the above formula to produce a value for the relative change which is always non-negative. Defining relative difference is not as easy as defining relative change since there is no "correct" value to scale the absolute difference with. As a result, there are many options for how to define relative difference and which one is used depends on what the comparison is being used for. In general we can say that the absolute difference |Δ| is being scaled by some function of the values "x" and "y", say "f"("x","y"). As with relative change, the relative difference is undefined if "f"("x","y") is zero. Several common choices for the function "f"("x", "y") would be: Formulas. Measures of relative difference are unitless numbers expressed as a fraction. Corresponding values of percent difference would be obtained by multiplying these values by 100. One way to define the relative difference of two numbers is to take their absolute difference divided by the maximum absolute value of the two numbers. if at least one of the values does not equal zero. This approach is especially useful when comparing floating point values in programming languages for equality with a certain tolerance. Another application is in the computation of approximation errors when the relative error of a measurement is required. Another way to define the relative difference of two numbers is to take their absolute difference divided by some functional value of the two numbers, for example, the absolute value of their arithmetic mean: This approach is often used when the two numbers reflect a change in some single underlying entity. A problem with the above approach arises when the functional value is zero. In this example, if x and y have the same magnitude but opposite sign, then which causes division by 0. So it may be better to replace the denominator with the average of the absolute values of "x" and "y": Percent error. The percent error is a special case of the percentage form of relative change calculated from the absolute change between the experimental (measured) and theoretical (accepted) values, and dividing by the theoretical (accepted) value. The terms "Experimental" and "Theoretical" used in the equation above are commonly replaced with similar terms. Other terms used for "experimental" could be "measured," "calculated," or "actual" and another term used for "theoretical" could be "accepted." Experimental value is what has been derived by use of calculation and/or measurement and is having its accuracy tested against the theoretical value, a value that is accepted by the scientific community or a value that could be seen as a goal for a successful result. Although it is common practice to use the absolute value version of relative change when discussing percent error, in some situations, it can be beneficial to remove the absolute values to provide more information about the result. Thus, if an experimental value is less than the theoretical value, the percent error will be negative. This negative result provides additional information about the experimental result. For example, experimentally calculating the speed of light and coming up with a negative percent error says that the experimental value is a velocity that is less than the speed of light. This is a big difference from getting a positive percent error, which means the experimental value is a velocity that is greater than the speed of light (violating the theory of relativity) and is a newsworthy result. The percent error equation, when rewritten by removing the absolute values, becomes: It is important to note that the two values in the numerator do not commute. Therefore, it is vital to preserve the order as above: subtract the theoretical value from the experimental value and not vice versa. Percentage change. A percentage change is a way to express a change in a variable. It represents the relative change between the old value and the new one. For example, if a house today is worth $100,000 and the year after its worth goes up to $110,000, the percentage change of its worth can be expressed as It can then be said that the worth of the house went up by 10%. More generally, if "V"1 represents the old value and "V"2 the new one, When the variable in question is a percentage itself, it is better to talk about its change by using percentage points, to avoid confusion between relative difference and absolute difference. Example of percentages of percentages. If a bank were to raise the interest rate on a savings account from 3% to 4%, the statement that "the interest rate was increased by 1%" is ambiguous and should be avoided. The absolute change in this situation is 1 percentage point (4% - 3%), but the relative change in the interest rate is: So, one should say either that the interest rate was increased by 1 percentage point, or that the interest rate was increased by formula_13 In general, the term "percentage point(s)" indicates an absolute change or difference of percentages, while the percent sign or the word "percentage" refers to the relative change or difference. Other change units. Change in a quantity can also be expressed logarithmically using the unit of logarithmic change: the neper (Np). Normalization with a factor of 100, as done for percent, yields the derived unit (cNp) which aligns with the definition for percentage change for very small changes: But using cNp has two additional advantages. First, there is no need to keep track of which of the two quantities, V1 or V2, the change is expressed relative to, since, under the conditions of the approximation, the two quantities are nearly the same. Second, an "X" cNp change in a quantity following a "-X" cNp change returns that quantity to its original value. For example, if a quantity doubles, this corresponds to a 69cNp change (an increase). When it halves again, it is a -69cNp change (a decrease.) Examples. Comparisons. Car M costs $50,000 and car L costs $40,000. We wish to compare these costs. With respect to car L, the absolute difference is $10,000 = $50,000 - $40,000. That is, car M costs $10,000 more than car L. The relative difference is, and we say that car M costs 25% "more than" car L. It is also common to express the comparison as a ratio, which in this example is, and we say that car M costs 125% "of" the cost of car L. In this example the cost of car L was considered the reference value, but we could have made the choice the other way and considered the cost of car M as the reference value. The absolute difference is now -$10,000 = $40,000 - $50,000 since car L costs $10,000 less than car M. The relative difference, is also negative since car L costs 20% "less than" car M. The ratio form of the comparison, says that car L costs 80% "of" what car M costs. It is the use of the words "of" and "less/more than" that distinguish between ratios and relative differences.
1068169	Donald Clarence "Don" Simpson (October 29, 1943 – January 19, 1996) was an American film producer, screenwriter, and actor. Simpson, along with his producing partner Jerry Bruckheimer, produced such hit films as "Flashdance" (1983), "Beverly Hills Cop" (1984), "Top Gun" (1986), and "The Rock" (1996). Their films would go on to earn $3 billion. In 1985 and again in 1988, he and his producing partner, Jerry Bruckheimer, were named Producers of the Year by the National Association of Theatre Owners. Early life. Simpson was born in Seattle, Washington, grew up in Anchorage, Alaska. He attended West Anchorage High School, and went on to attend the University of Oregon. After graduation, he moved to San Francisco where he worked for a theatrical advertising agency and did public relations for the First International Erotic Film Festival.
1104800	Nicolaus II Bernoulli, a.k.a. Niklaus Bernoulli, Nikolaus Bernoulli, (February 6, 1695, Basel, Switzerland – July 31, 1726, St. Petersburg, Russia) was a Swiss mathematician as were his father Johann Bernoulli and one of his brothers, Daniel Bernoulli. He was one of the many prominent mathematicians in the Bernoulli family. Nicolaus worked mostly on curves, differential equations, and probability. He was a friend and contemporary of Leonhard Euler, who studied under Nicolaus' father. He also contributed to fluid dynamics. He was older brother of Daniel Bernoulli, to whom he also taught mathematics. Even in his youth he had learned several languages. From the age of 13, he studied mathematics and law at the University of Basel. In 1711 he received his Master's of Philosophy; in 1715 he received a Doctorate in Law. In 1716-17 he was a private tutor in Venice. From 1719 he had the Chair in Mathematics at the University of Padua, as the successor of Giovanni Poleni. He served as an assistant to his father, among other areas, in the correspondence over the priority dispute between Isaac Newton and Leibniz, and also in the priority dispute between his father and the English mathematician Brook Taylor. In 1720 he posed the problem of reciprocal orthogonal trajectories, which was intended as a challenge for the English Newtonians. From 1723 he was a law professor at the Berner Oberen Schule. In 1725 he together with his brother Daniel, with whom he was touring Italy and France at this time, was invited by Peter the Great to the newly founded St. Petersburg Academy. Eight months after his appointment he came down with a fever and died. His professorship was succeeded in 1727 by Leonhard Euler, whom the Bernoulli brothers had recommended. His early death cut short a promising career.
1067765	Maximillion Drake "Max" Thieriot (born October 14, 1988) is an American actor. During the 2000s, he appeared in several Hollywood films, including "My Soul to Take," "Catch That Kid," "The Pacifier," "Nancy Drew," "Jumper," "", "Chloe", and "House at the End of the Street". He appears on the television series "Bates Motel". Biography. Early life. Maximillion Drake Thieriot was born in Los Altos Hills, California, on October 14, 1988, the son of Bridgit (née Snyder) and George Cameron Thieriot. He has a sister Frances and a brother Aidan. Thieriot was raised in Occidental, California and divides his time between his home in northern California and Los Angeles. He graduated middle school in 2002 from Sonoma Country Day School in Santa Rosa, California, and graduated in 2006 from El Molino High School in Forestville, California. Thieriot's family once owned the San Francisco Chronicle; his great-great-grandfather, M. H. de Young, who was of Dutch Jewish descent, co-founded the paper, and his relatives, Charles and Richard Thieriot, were the editors and publishers of the paper. Thieriot's paternal grandparents, Ferdinand and Frances Thieriot, died in the sinking of the SS Andrea Doria in 1956. Career. Thieriot was signed to talent manager Don Gibble after taking his improvisation class. He modeled for GAP and appeared in two short films before being cast in his first feature film role, in 2004's "Catch That Kid" alongside Kristen Stewart and Corbin Bleu. He was subsequently cast in 2005's "The Pacifier", playing one of the family members protected by a Navy Seal played by Vin Diesel. Thieriot appeared in "The Astronaut Farmer", released on February 23, 2007, as well as in the feature film version of "Nancy Drew", released on June 15, 2007. In 2008, he played a younger version of Hayden Christensen's lead character in "Jumper" (co-starring with Rachel Bilson and, for the second time, with Kristen Stewart) and appeared in "".
581027	Neha Dubey is a psychoanalytic psychotherapist based in Mumbai, India. She has a private practice in Worli, Mumbai. Neha trained at the Regent's College School of Psychotherapy in London. She previously worked at Guy's Hospital and the Psychotherapy Center of LACAP (London Association of Counsellors and Psychotherapists) in London. Neha is the daughter of Indian actress Lillete Dubey and has acted in productions of her mother's Primetime Theatre Company. Neha has also appeared in the West End as Olivia in Stephen Beresford's production of Shakespeare's Twelfth Night. She has also acted in a number of independent films, including "Monsoon Wedding", "Bow Barracks Forever" and "Manasarover".
1151565	The U.S. vs. John Lennon is a 2006 documentary film about English musician John Lennon's transformation from a member of The Beatles to a rallying anti-war activist striving for world peace during the late 1960s and early 1970s. The film also details the attempts by the United States government under President Richard Nixon to silence him. The film had its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival and its North American premiere at the Toronto Film Festival. It was released in New York City and Los Angeles, California on 15 September 2006, and had a nationwide release on 29 September. A soundtrack composed of John Lennon tracks was released by Capitol Records and EMI on 26 September 2006. The film makes extensive use of archival footage of Lennon and Yoko Ono, and includes a famously hard-hitting interview conducted by anti-war reporter Gloria Emerson. The U.K. release was on December 8, 2006, 26 years to the day after the death of John Lennon. The DVD was released on February 13, 2007 in the United States. The film made its cable television debut in the U.S. on August 18, 2007 on VH1 Classic. Overview. The film explores the political activism that Lennon became strongly involved in with the Beatles, and after the band ended.
357820	The Dot and the Line: A Romance in Lower Mathematics (ISBN 1-58717-066-3) is a book written and illustrated by Norton Juster, first published by Random House in 1963. The story was inspired by "Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions", in which the protagonist visits a one-dimensional universe called Lineland, where women are dots and men are lines. In 1965, famed animator Chuck Jones and the MGM Animation/Visual Arts studio adapted "The Dot and the Line" into a 10-minute animated short film for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, narrated by Robert Morley. "The Dot and the Line" won the 1965 Academy Award for Animated Short Film. It was entered into the Short Film Palme d'Or competition at the 1966 Cannes Film Festival.
1162651	Sherry Lea Stringfield (born June 24, 1967) is an American actress. She is best known for playing the role of Dr. Susan Lewis on the medical television drama "ER", a role for which she received three Emmy Award nominations. Stringfield was a member of "ER's" original cast, but she quit the show during its third season, despite being contractually tied to appear in five. She returned to the role in 2001, but quit once again in 2005. She is also known for her regular roles on "NYPD Blue" and "Guiding Light". She has acted mainly on television, but she has also played various parts in films. Early life. The eldest of three children, Stringfield was born in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Her family briefly relocated to Albuquerque, New Mexico, before settling in Spring, Texas, a suburb of Houston, where Stringfield grew up. She developed a penchant for acting while attending Klein High School, where she starred in various musicals and plays including "Oklahoma", "Mother Courage", and "Fiddler on the Roof". At 18 she attended the Acting Conservatory of SUNY at Purchase — rooming with fellow actress and student Parker Posey. During that time, she appeared in numerous off-Broadway productions and learned to control and alter her Texan accent with the help of a college speech teacher. Stringfield graduated in 1989 with a Bachelor's degree in Fine Arts. Career. Early career. She got her first role on the CBS Daytime soap opera "Guiding Light", playing Christina "Blake" Thorpe from 1989 until 1992. After three years she left the show to spend a year traveling Europe, but soon returned to television on the ABC drama, "NYPD Blue". She played Manhattan Assistant District Attorney Laura Kelly, the ex-wife of officer John Kelly (David Caruso) during the first season (1993–94) of the series. Unsatisfied, she was released early from her contract. "ER". Stringfield became one of the original cast members of NBC's medical drama, "ER". Her personal success mirrored the show's success — she was nominated for an Emmy Award for lead actress during each of her first three seasons of the show. Stringfield was contractually tied to appear in five seasons of "ER"; however, a desire for a "normal life" and to escape "ER"'s grueling filming schedule prompted her to leave the drama early in its third season.
1102708	Oscar Zariski (born Oscher Zaritsky () April 24, 1899 – July 4, 1986) was an American mathematician and one of the most influential algebraic geometers of the 20th century. Education. Zariski was born Oscher (also transliterated as Ascher or Osher) Zaritsky to a Jewish family (his parents were Bezalel Zaritsky and Hanna Tennenbaum) and in 1918 studied at the University of Kiev. He left Kiev in 1920 to study in Rome where he became a disciple of the Italian school of algebraic geometry, studying with Guido Castelnuovo, Federigo Enriques and Francesco Severi. Zariski wrote a doctoral dissertation in 1924 on a topic in Galois theory. At the time of his dissertation publication, he changed his name for professional purposes to Oscar Zariski. Johns Hopkins University years. Zariski emigrated to the United States in 1927 supported by Solomon Lefschetz. He had a position at Johns Hopkins University where he became professor in 1937. During this period, he wrote "Algebraic Surfaces" as a summation of the work of the Italian school. The book was published in 1935 and reissued 36 years later, with detailed notes by Zariski's students that illustrated how the field of algebraic geometry had changed. It is still an important reference. It seems to have been this work that set the seal of Zariski's discontent with the approach of the Italians to birational geometry. The question of rigour he addressed by recourse to commutative algebra. The Zariski topology, as it was later known, is adequate for "biregular geometry", where varieties are mapped by polynomial functions. That theory is too limited for algebraic surfaces, and even for curves with singular points. A rational map is to a regular map as a rational function is to a polynomial: it may be indeterminate at some points. In geometric terms, one has to work with functions defined on some open, dense set of a given variety. The description of the behaviour on the complement may require infinitely near points to be introduced to account for limiting behaviour "along different directions". This introduces a need, in the surface case, to use also valuation theory to describe the phenomena such as blowing up (balloon-style, rather than explosively). Harvard University years. After spending a year 1946–1947 at the University of Illinois, Zariski became professor at Harvard University in 1947 where he remained until his retirement in 1969. In 1945, he fruitfully discussed foundational matters for algebraic geometry with André Weil. Weil's interest was in putting an abstract variety theory in place, to support the use of the Jacobian variety in his proof of the Riemann hypothesis for curves over finite fields, a direction rather oblique to Zariski's interests. The two sets of foundations weren't reconciled at that point. At Harvard, Zariski's students included Shreeram Abhyankar, Heisuke Hironaka, David Mumford, Michael Artin and Steven Kleiman — thus spanning the main areas of advance in singularity theory, moduli theory and cohomology in the next generation. Zariski himself worked on equisingularity theory. Some of his major results, "Zariski's main theorem" and the "Zariski theorem on holomorphic functions", were amongst the results generalized and included in the programme of Alexander Grothendieck that ultimately unified algebraic geometry. Zariski proposed the first example of a Zariski surface in 1958. Awards and recognition. Zariski was awarded the Steele Prize in 1981, and in the same year the Wolf Prize in Mathematics with Lars Ahlfors. He wrote also "Commutative Algebra" in two volumes, with Pierre Samuel. His papers have been published by MIT Press, in four volumes.
1058221	Dogville is a 2003 Danish drama film written and directed by Lars von Trier, and starring Nicole Kidman, Lauren Bacall, Chloë Sevigny, Paul Bettany, Stellan Skarsgård, Udo Kier, Ben Gazzara and James Caan. It is a parable that uses an extremely minimal, stage-like set to tell the story of Grace Mulligan (Kidman), a woman hiding from mobsters, who arrives in the small mountain town of Dogville, Colorado, and is provided refuge in return for physical labor. Because she has to win and retain the acceptance of every single one of the inhabitants of the town to be allowed to stay, any attempt by her to have her own way or to put a limit on her service risks driving her back out into the arms of the criminals. Although she has no power in herself, her stay there ultimately changes the lives of the local people and the town in many ways. The film is the first in von Trier's projected "USA – Land of Opportunities" trilogy, followed by "Manderlay" (2005) and to be completed with "". The film was in competition for the Palme d'Or at the 2003 Cannes Film Festival but Gus Van Sant's "Elephant" won the award. It was screened at various film festivals before receiving a limited release in the US on March 26, 2004. Plot structure. Prologue. Dogville is a very small American town by an abandoned silver mine in the Rocky Mountains with a road leading up to it and nowhere else to go but the mountains. The film begins with a prologue in which we meet a dozen or so of the fifteen citizens. They are portrayed as lovable, good people with small flaws which are easy to forgive. The town is seen from the point of view of Tom Edison Jr., an aspiring writer who procrastinates by trying to get his fellow citizens together for regular meetings on the subject of "moral rearmament." It is clear that Tom wants to succeed his aging father, a physician, as the moral and spiritual leader of the town. Chapter 1. It is Tom who first meets Grace Mulligan, who is on the run from gangsters who we are led to believe shot at her. Grace, a beautiful but modest woman, wants to keep running, but Tom assures her that the mountains ahead are too difficult to pass. As they talk, the gangsters approach the town, and Tom quickly hides Grace in the nearby mine. One of the gangsters asks Tom if he has seen the woman, which he denies, and so the gangster offers him a reward and hands him a card with a phone number to call in case Grace shows up. Tom decides to use Grace as an "illustration" in his next meeting—a way for the townspeople to prove that they are indeed committed to community values, can receive a gift, and are willing to help the stranger. They remain skeptical, so Tom proposes that Grace should be given a chance to prove that she is a good person. Grace is accepted for two weeks in which, as Tom explains to her after the meeting, she has to convince the townspeople to like her. Chapter 2. On Tom's suggestion, Grace offers to do chores for the citizens—talking to the lonely, blind Jack McCay, helping to run the small shop, looking after the children of Chuck and Vera, and so forth. After some initial reluctance, the people accept her help in doing those chores that "nobody really needs" but which nevertheless make life better, and so she becomes a part of the community. Chapter 3. In tacit agreement, she is expected to continue her chores, which she does gladly, and is even paid small wages in return. Grace begins to make friends, including Jack, who pretends that he is not blind. Grace tricks him into admitting that he is blind, earning his respect. After the two weeks are over, everyone votes that she should be allowed to stay. Chapter 4. Things go smoothly in Dogville until the police arrive to place a "Missing" poster with Grace's picture and name on it on the mission house, the mood darkens slightly. The townspeople are divided as to whether they should or should not cooperate with the police. Chapter 5. Still, things continue as usual until the 4th of July celebrations. After Tom awkwardly admits his love to Grace and the whole town expresses their agreement that it has become a better place thanks to her, the police arrive again to replace the "Missing" poster with a "Wanted" poster. Grace is now wanted for participation in a bank robbery. Everyone agrees that she must be innocent, since at the time the robbery took place, she was doing chores for the townspeople every day. Nevertheless, Tom argues that because of the increased risk to the town now that they are harboring someone who is wanted as a criminal, Grace should provide a quid pro quo and do more chores for the townspeople within the same time, for less pay. At this point, what was previously a voluntary arrangement takes on a slightly coercive nature as Grace is clearly uncomfortable with the idea. Still, being very amenable and wanting to please Tom, Grace agrees. Chapter 6. At this point the situation worsens, as with her additional workload, Grace inevitably makes mistakes, and the people she works for seem to be equally irritated by the new schedule – and take it out on Grace. The situation slowly escalates, with the male citizens making small sexual advances to Grace and the females becoming increasingly abusive. Even the children are perverse: Jason, the perhaps 10-year-old son of Chuck and Vera, asks Grace to spank him, until she finally complies after much provocation (von Trier has noted that this is the first point in the film where it is clear how completely Grace's lack of social status and choices makes her vulnerable to other people manipulating her). She is soon abused by adults as well. Chapter 7. After Tom proposes his idea to help her escape, Vera blames Grace for spanking her son Jason and for seducing her husband Chuck. She wants her punished and humiliated for her supposed acts; Grace invokes how she has taught her children about the philosophy of stoicism but Vera turns that claim against her as well. Grace knows she should escape, and bribes the freight truck driver Ben to smuggle her out of town in his apple truck. En route, she is sexually abused by Ben, after which the truck lumbers only to return Grace to Dogville. The town agrees that they must not let her escape again. The money paid to Ben to help Grace escape had been stolen by Tom from his father—but when Grace is blamed for the theft, Tom refuses to admit he did it because, as he explains, this is the only way he can still protect Grace without people getting suspicious. So Grace finally becomes a slave, although she has had this status looming over her for much of the film. She will be raped and abused for free by the people of the town. Chapter 8. This culminates in a late night general assembly in which Grace—following Tom's suggestion—relates calmly all that she has endured from everyone in town. Embarrassed and in complete denial, the townspeople finally decide to get rid of her. Tom goes to inform her of this, and in the process abuses her trust again. Realizing how locked the situation has become, Tom ends up personally calling the mobsters in order to have her rendered to them. The others agree to this line of action. Chapter 9 and ending. When the mobsters finally arrive, they are welcomed cordially by Tom and an impromptu committee of other townspeople. Grace is then freed, and we finally learn who she really is: the daughter of a powerful gang leader who ran away because she could not stand her father's dirty work. Her father motions her into his Cadillac and a brief discussion with him makes her full disenchantment with the town and its people surface. Tom speaks to Grace but doesn't express any real remorse about his own actions or those of the other townsfolk towards her. His suggestion that the two have learned a great deal about human nature from his betrayal of Grace (a clear instance of breaking the fourth wall) meets with no favour from her; she angrily returns to her father's car with the decision that Dogville must be wiped off the face of the Earth. Reverting to her status as her father's daughter, she formally orders that the whole town be eliminated. In particular, she gives the order to have Vera watch the murder of each of her children, with the ironic provision that they will be spared if she can hold back her tears. So the film ends in a crescendo of violence. The town is destroyed, all its citizens are murdered by the gangsters on direct order from Grace, with the exception of Tom, whom she executes personally with a revolver. After the massacre, the gangsters hear a barking sound from one of the houses. It is the dog Moses. One gangster tries to kill it, but Grace stops him because it is the only thing in the town that has not harmed her. Pilot. "Dogville: The Pilot" was shot during 2001 in the pre-production phase to test whether the concept of chalk lines and sparse scenery would work. The 15-minute pilot film starred Danish actors Sidse Babett Knudsen (as Grace) and Nikolaj Lie Kaas (as Tom). Eventually Lars von Trier was happy with the overall results. As a result, he and the producers decided to move forward with the production of the feature film. The test pilot was never shown in public of course, but is featured on the second disc of the "Dogville" (2003) DVD, released in November 2003. Staging. The story of "Dogville" is narrated by John Hurt in nine chapters and takes place on a stage with minimalist scenery. Some walls and furniture are placed on the stage, but the rest of the scenery exists merely as white painted outlines which have big labels on them; for example, the outlines of gooseberry bushes have the text "Gooseberry Bushes" written next to them. While this form of staging is common in black box theaters, it has rarely been attempted on film before — the Western musical "Red Garters" (1954) and "Vanya on 42nd Street" (1994) being notable exceptions. The bare staging serves to focus the audience's attention on the acting and storytelling, and also reminds them of the film's artificiality. As such it is heavily influenced by the theatre of Bertolt Brecht. (There are also similarities between the song "Seeräuberjenny" ("Pirate Jenny") in Brecht and Kurt Weill's "Die Dreigroschenoper" ("The Threepenny Opera") and the story of Dogville. Chico Buarque's version of this song, Geni e o Zepelim ["Geni and the Zeppelin"], deals with the more erotic aspects of abjection and bears striking similarity to von Trier's cinematic homage to the song.) The film does however employ carefully designed lighting to suggest natural effects such as the moving shadows of clouds, and sound effects are used to create the presence of non-existent set pieces (i.e. there are no doors, but the doors can always be heard when an actor "opens" or "closes" one). The film was shot on high-definition video using a Sony HDW-F900 camera in a studio in Trollhättan, Sweden. The story of "Dogville" is told in nine chapters and a prologue, with a one-sentence description of each chapter given in the film, in the vein of such chapter headings in many 19th century novels. These descriptions are given above. Interpretations. Ebert and Roeper criticized "Dogville" as having a strongly anti-American message, citing, for example, the closing credits sequence with images of poverty-stricken Americans (taken from Jacob Holdt's documentary book "American Pictures", 1984) accompanied by David Bowie's song "Young Americans". In 2009, American director Quentin Tarantino named the film as one of his personal top 20 pick among films made during the time of his active career as a director. He also said that had the film been written for the stage, von Trier would have won a Pulitzer prize. According to von Trier, the point of the film is that "evil can arise anywhere, as long as the situation is right." Reception. Critical. The film garnered acclaim from several publications and holds a "fresh" rating of 71% on the film review website Rotten Tomatoes. Commercial. The film grossed $1,535,286 in the US market and $15,145,550 from the rest of the world for a total gross of $16,680,836 worldwide. In the opening US weekend it did poorly, grossing only $88,855. The movie was released in only nine theaters, however, with an average of $9,872 per theater. In Denmark, the film grossed $1,231,984. The highest-grossing country was Italy, with $3,272,119. Top ten lists. Source:
1066863	The Beguiled is a 1971 drama film directed by Don Siegel, starring Clint Eastwood and Geraldine Page. The script was written by Albert Maltz and is based on the 1966 Southern Gothic novel written by Thomas P. Cullinan, originally titled "A Painted Devil". The film marks the third of five collaborations between Siegel and Eastwood, following "Coogan's Bluff" (1968) and "Two Mules for Sister Sara" (1970), and continuing with "Dirty Harry" (1971) and "Escape from Alcatraz" (1979). Plot. Close to the end of the American Civil War, injured Yankee soldier John McBurney is rescued from the verge of death by a twelve-year-old girl from an all-girl boarding school in Louisiana. At first the all-female staff and pupils are scared, but as John starts to recover, he charms them one by one and the sexually repressed atmosphere becomes filled with jealousy and deceit. A few of the girls go after him as well. After rejecting the headmistress for a younger girl, McBurney gets his comeuppance in the form of some painful Freudian symbolism — he falls down the stairs. Eventually his leg is amputated by the headmistress, so as to avoid gangrene. After going on a rampage that scares all of the women, he reforms and announces his intention to marry one of the teachers, but it is too late; he has alienated the youngest girl, the one who first found him, by killing her pet turtle after throwing it aside in a drunken rage. In response, she is coached to pick mushrooms that the headmistress and girls use to poison him. Production. Eastwood was given a copy of the 1966 novel by producer Jennings Lang, and was engrossed throughout the night in reading it. This was the first of several films where Eastwood has agreed to storylines where he is the center of female attention, including minors. Eastwood considered the film as "an opportunity to play true emotions and not totally operatic and not lighting cannons with cigars". Albert Maltz, who had worked on "Two Mules for Sister Sara" was brought in to draft the script, but disagreements in the end led to a revision of the script by Claude Traverse, who although uncredited, led to Maltz being credited under a pseudonym. Maltz had originally written a script with a happy ending, in which Eastwood's character and the girl live happily ever after. Both Eastwood and director Don Siegel felt that an ending more faithful to that of the book would be a stronger anti-war statement, however, and the ending was altered so that Eastwood's character would be killed. The film, according to Siegel, deals with the themes of sex, violence and vengeance and was based around, "the basic desire of women to castrate men". Jeanne Moreau was considered for the role of the domineering headmistress Martha Farnsworth, but in the end the role went to acclaimed Broadway actress Geraldine Page, and actresses Elizabeth Hartman, Jo Ann Harris, Darlene Carr, Mae Mercer, and Pamelyn Ferdin were cast in supporting roles.
212578	Bitter Feast is an American psychological horror film directed and written by Joe Maggio. It stars James LeGros as a chef pushed over the edge by food critic J.T. Franks' (Joshua Leonard) vicious review. The film also features actors Larry Fessenden, Megan Hilty and a cameo from real life master chef Mario Batali. Plot. Peter Grey is a successful New York chef, disgruntled by caustic reviews from the food critic J.T. Franks. After Franks' bad review, Grey is fired by his boss Gordon. He kidnaps Franks, takes him to a cabin in the woods, and forces him to cook his own 'perfect dinner'. Production. Directed by Joe Maggio. Starring James LeGros and Joshua Leonard. The film was shot in New York City and Woodstock. Larry Fessenden produced the film with his company Glass Eye Pix. Release. The film premiered as part of the LA Film Festival on June 18, 2010. An exact date for the theatrical release has not been determined. The DVD was released in October 26, 2010.
1164106	Dinah Beth Manoff (born January 25, 1956) is an American stage, film and television actress and television director best known for her roles as Elaine Lefkowitz on "Soap", Marty Maraschino in the film "Grease", Libby Tucker in both the stage and film adaptations of "I Ought to Be in Pictures", for which she won a Tony award, and Carol Weston on "Empty Nest". Manoff has also starred in numerous television movies and guest starred on various television programs in this timespan. Her film career cooled down during the 1990s but has come back in the 2000s (decade) with movies such as "The Amati Girls" and "Bart Got a Room" and a co-starring role on "State of Grace". Manoff is daughter to actress Lee Grant and screenwriter Arnold Manoff. Her career has spanned more than three decades. Since 1997, Manoff has been married to Arthur Mortell and currently resides in Bainbridge Island, Washington. She had previously resided in Los Angeles, California and New York City, New York. Early life. Manoff was born in New York City, New York. Her parents are actress, director, and writer, Lee Grant (née Lyova Rosenthal), and screenwriter Arnold Manoff. Her half-brother, Tom Manoff, is the Classical Music Critic for NPR's "All Things Considered" and a notable composer. After Grant divorced Arnold Manoff in 1961, she married Joseph Feury in 1962, who thus became Dinah Manoff's stepfather. She spent her childhood and teenage years in New York, and Malibu, California. She graduated from Santa Monica High School in 1973. In 1975, Manoff was accepted into the Actors Studio. Career. 1970s. Manoff's very first project was the independent film "Everybody Rides the Carousel", providing one of the voices. In 1976, Manoff made her first television appearance on the PBS production of "The Stronger". This was followed by a guest appearance on "Welcome Back, Kotter" in an episode entitled "Sadie Hawkins Day." She made a guest appearance on another show, Visions. In 1977 she made a cameo appearance in her first TV movie, "Raid on Entebbe". In 1978, Manoff got the role of Elaine Dallas (née Lefkowitz) on the ABC sitcom "Soap" and remained on the show until the end of the year. After that, Manoff took her first film role as Marty Maraschino, one of the Pink Ladies in the movie version of "Grease" (filmed in the summer of 1977). 1980s. In 1980, Manoff got the role of Libby Tucker in Neil Simon's Broadway play, "I Ought to Be in Pictures" and won the Tony Award for Best Performance by a Featured Actress in a Play as well as the Theatre World Award. She reprised that role for the film version in 1982, with Walter Matthau and Ann-Margret, one of the rare projects in her career in which she had a starring role.
1163823	Marilyn Maxwell (August 3, 1921 – March 20, 1972), born Marvel Marilyn Maxwell, was an American actress and entertainer. Noted for her blonde hair and sexually alluring persona, she appeared in several films and radio programs, and entertained the troops during World War II and the Korean War on USO tours with Bob Hope. Career. She started her professional entertaining career as a radio singer while still a teenager before signing with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in 1942 as a contract player. Among the programs in which she appeared was "The Abbott and Costello Show". The head of MGM, Louis B. Mayer, insisted she change the "Marvel" part of her real name. She dropped her first name and kept the middle. Some of her film roles included "Lost in a Harem" (1944), "Champion" (1949), "The Lemon Drop Kid" (1951), and "Rock-A-Bye Baby" (1958). The song "Silver Bells" made its debut in "The Lemon Drop Kid", sung by Maxwell and Hope. Maxwell appeared twice as a singer in the second season (1955–1956) of NBC's "The Jimmy Durante Show". On May 16, 1957, she guest starred on NBC's "The Ford Show, Starring Tennessee Ernie Ford".
1068689	Cool Runnings is a 1993 American family-sports film. It was directed by Jon Turteltaub and stars Leon, Doug E. Doug, Rawle D. Lewis, Malik Yoba and John Candy. It is loosely based on the true story of the Jamaica national bobsled team's debut in the bobsled competition of the 1988 Winter Olympics in Canada. The film received positive reviews, and the film's soundtrack also became popular, with the reggae single "I Can See Clearly Now" by Jimmy Cliff reaching the top 40 in nations such as Canada, France, and the U.K. Plot. Irving "Irv" Blitzer was an American bobsled two time Gold Medalist at the 1968 Winter Olympics who finished first in two events again during the 1972 Winter Olympics but was disqualified from the latter for cheating and retired in disgrace to Jamaica, where he leads an impoverished life as a bookie. Irving is approached by two Jamaican athletes: top 100m runner Derice Bannock, who failed to qualify for the 1988 Summer Olympics when another opponent tripped him at the trials, and Sanka Coffie, a champion push cart racer.
1104153	William Thomas Tutte OC FRS FRSC, known as Bill Tutte (; May 14, 1917 – May 2, 2002), was a British, later Canadian, codebreaker and mathematician. During World War II he made a brilliant and fundamental advance in Cryptanalysis of the Lorenz cipher, a major German cipher system. The intelligence obtained from these decrypts had a significant impact on the Allied victory in Europe. He also had a number of significant mathematical accomplishments, including foundation work in the fields of graph theory and matroid theory. Tutte’s research in the field of graph theory proved to be of remarkable importance. At a time when graph theory was still a primitive subject, Tutte commenced the study of matroids and developed them into a theory by expanding from the work that Hassler Whitney had first developed around the mid 1930s. Even though Tutte’s contributions to graph theory have been influential to modern graph theory and many of his theorems have been used to keep making advances in the field, most of his terminology was not in agreement with their conventional usage and thus his terminology is not used by graph theorists today. "Tutte advanced graph theory from a subject with one text (D. König’s) toward its present extremely active state" Early life and education. Tutte was born in Newmarket in Suffolk, the son of a gardener. At the age of 18, he studied chemistry and mathematics at Trinity College, Cambridge University. As a student he (along with three of his friends) became the first to solve the problem of squaring the square. Together the four created the pseudonym Blanche Descartes, under which Tutte published occasionally for years. World War II. Soon after the outbreak of World War II, Tutte's tutor, Patrick Duff, suggested him for war work at the Government Code and Cypher School at Bletchley Park (BP). He was interviewed and sent on a training course in London before going to Bletchley Park, where he joined the Research Section. At first he worked on the Hagelin cipher that was being used by the Italian Navy. This was a rotor cipher machine that was available commercially, so the mechanics of enciphering was known, and decrypting messages only required working out how the machine was set up.
584034	Sandakozhi () is a 2005 Indian Tamil action film written and directed by N. Linguswamy and produced by Vikram Krishna under the banner of GK Film Corporation. The film stars Vishal, Meera Jasmine, Rajkiran and Lal in lead roles, whilst Suman Setty, Raja, Shanmugarajan and Ganja Karuppu essay supporting roles. The film's score and soundtrack are composed by Yuvan Shankar Raja. The film released on 16 December 2005 to rave reviews and has become one of the huge hits in 2005, running for more than 200 days in theatres. Plot. The story is about Balu (Vishal), who on a visit to his friend’s town, takes on the local dada Kasi (Lal). Balu, an engineering student, also falls in love with his friend’s sister Hema (Meera Jasmine). Kasi, after being at the receiving end of Balu’s macho ways, is smarting under the rebuff. He thirsts for revenge. So when Balu goes back to his own city, Kasi also goes there to extract blood for blood. But Balu is from no ordinary family. His father Dorai (Raj Kiran) is himself a powerful leader in his domain. So taking out Balu is not such an easy task. But Kasi wants revenge at any cost. He befriends a local goon(Thalaivaasal' Vijay) who is made an outcast by Dorai and they together plan to extract revenge. Meanwhile Balu's friend and his family visits his city as they are on a pilgrimage they meet Balu at the temple and accept his apology.He proposes to Hema and their love is accepted by their parents. The goons plan to extract revenge during the annual temple festival as they reason that it will be crowded and that Dorai and his henchmen will not be able to defend themselves .They attack but the events do not turn out in their favor. Finally Balu fights with Kasi and triumphs in the end. Soundtrack. The soundtrack, composed by Yuvan Shankar Raja, teaming up for the first time with director N. Linguswamy, was released on 25 November 2005. It features 5 tracks, the lyrics of which were written by Pa. Vijay, Na. Muthukumar, Yuga Bharathi and Thamarai. Both the film score as well as the songs were appreciated and praised as outstanding with the song "Ennamo Nadakirathe" considered as the pick of the album.
1071696	Early life. Matsuda was born on 9 May 1983 in Tokyo to Yusaku Matsuda, a Japanese actor of partial Korean ancestry, and Miyuki Matsuda (née Kumagai), a Japanese actress. He has two younger siblings, a younger brother, Shota Matsuda, and a younger sister by his parents' marriage and one older half-sister by his father's first marriage. His father died from bladder cancer in 1989, when Ryuhei was 6 years old. He attended Horikoshi High School, a Japanese high school that caters to celebrity students, but did not graduate. Career. At the age of 15, Matsuda was offered the role of the desirable young samurai Kanō Sōzaburō in Nagisa Ōshima's 1999 film "Gohatto". The role helped boost him from an entirely unknown actor to a film star. Since appearing in "Gohatto", Matsuda has played a wide range of roles, from the high school student Kujo in the 2001 film "Blue Spring" to the rock star Ren Honjo in the 2005 film "Nana". Personal life. On 11 January 2009, Matsuda married , a Russian-Japanese model. Their first child, a baby girl, was born on 4 July 2009.
418430	Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont is a 2005 US-produced comedy-drama film based on the 1971 novel by Elizabeth Taylor. It was directed by Dan Ireland and produced by Lee Caplin, Carl Colpaert and Zachary Matz from a screenplay by Ruth Sacks. The film stars Joan Plowright and Rupert Friend, with Zoe Tapper, Anna Massey, Robert Lang, Marcia Warren, Georgina Hale, Millicent Martin, Michael Culkin and Anna Carteret. Plot. All but abandoned by her family in a London retirement hotel, Mrs Palfrey (Joan Plowright) strikes up a curious friendship with a young writer, Ludovic Meyer (Rupert Friend). Fate brings them together after she has an accident outside his basement flat. The two newly found friends discover they have a lot more in common with each other than they do with other people their own age. Ludovic inadvertently leads Mrs. Palfrey through her past; Mrs. Palfrey inadvertently leads Ludovic to his future where her life flashes before her eyes followed by a stroke resulting in the death of her illustrious life. Book. The 2005 film is based on the 1971 novel entitled "Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont" which was written by Elizabeth Taylor, the novelist. TV version. The novel was first dramatised as a TV play in 1971, as part of BBC's series "Play of Today", with Celia Johnson playing Mrs Palfrey.
1163901	Anne Lloyd Francis (September 16, 1930 – January 2, 2011) was an American actress. Francis was best known for her role in the science fiction film classic "Forbidden Planet" (1956) and for having starred in the television series "Honey West" (1965–1966) which was the first TV series with a female detective character's name in the title. She won a Golden Globe Award and was nominated for an Emmy Award for her role in the series. Background. Anne Lloyd Francis was born in Ossining, New York, on September 16, 1930, the only child of Philip and Edith Francis. Anne entered show business at a young age, working as a model at age five to help her family during the Great Depression; she made her Broadway debut at the age of eleven. She went on to appear in scores of television series and movies during her long career.
1062449	The Departed is a 2006 American crime thriller film directed by Martin Scorsese and written by William Monahan. It is a remake of the 2002 Hong Kong film "Infernal Affairs". The film stars Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon, Jack Nicholson, and Mark Wahlberg, with Martin Sheen, Ray Winstone, Vera Farmiga, Anthony Anderson, and Alec Baldwin in supporting roles. It won several awards, including four Oscars at the 79th Academy Awards: Best Picture, Best Director (Scorsese), Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Film Editing. Wahlberg was nominated for Best Supporting Actor. The film takes place in Boston. Irish Mob boss Francis "Frank" Costello plants Colin Sullivan as a mole within the Massachusetts State Police; the two characters are loosely based on famous gangster Whitey Bulger and corrupt FBI agent John Connolly, who grew up with Bulger. Simultaneously, the police assign undercover cop William "Billy" Costigan to infiltrate Costello's crew. When both sides realize the situation, each man attempts to discover the other's true identity before his own cover is blown. Plot. Colin Sullivan (Damon) is introduced to organized crime by Irish-American mobster Frank Costello (Nicholson) in the Irish neighborhood of South Boston. Costello trains him to become a mole inside the Massachusetts State Police. Sullivan is accepted into the Special Investigations Unit, which focuses on organized crime. Before he graduates from the police academy, Billy Costigan (DiCaprio) is asked by Captain Queenan (Sheen) and Staff Sergeant Dignam (Wahlberg) to go undercover, as his family ties to organized crime make him a perfect infiltrator. He drops out of the academy and does time in prison on a fake assault charge to increase his credibility. As both men infiltrate their respective organizations, Sullivan begins a romance with psychiatrist Madolyn Madden (Farmiga). Costigan sees her for his probation and develops a relationship with her, as well. After Costello escapes a sting operation, both moles become aware of each other's existence. Sullivan is told to find the "rat" and asks Costello for information to determine who is the informer within his crew. Costigan follows Costello into a cinema, where Costello gives Sullivan an envelope containing personal information on his crew members. Costigan then chases Sullivan through Chinatown. When it is over, neither man knows the other's identity. Sullivan has Queenan tailed to a meeting with Costigan, and Costello's men kill Queenan. When they exit, Costigan pretends he has come to join them. Later, Costello's henchman, Fitzgibbons (O'Hara), reveals that crew member Delahunt (Rolston) was an undercover cop. Dignam is forced to step down as a consequence. Using Queenan's phone, Sullivan reaches Costigan, who refuses to abort his mission. Sullivan learns of Costello's role as an informant for the Federal Bureau of Investigation from Queenan's diary, causing him to worry about his own identity being revealed. With Costigan's help, Costello is traced to a cocaine drop-off, where a gunfight erupts between his crew and police, resulting in most of the crew's being killed. Costello, confronted by Sullivan, admits he is an occasional FBI informant. Sullivan then shoots him multiple times. With Costello dead, Sullivan is applauded the next day by everyone on the force. In good faith, Costigan comes to him for restoration of his true identity and to be paid for his work, but notices the envelope from Costello on Sullivan's desk and flees, finally realizing Sullivan is the enemy. Knowing he has been found out, Sullivan erases all records of Costigan from the police computer system. Madolyn tells Sullivan she is pregnant, but does not reveal who the father is. Later, she discovers a package from Costigan containing a CD with recordings of Costello's conversations with Sullivan. Sullivan walks in as she is listening and tries unsuccessfully to assuage her suspicions. He contacts Costigan, who reveals that Costello recorded every conversation he had with Sullivan. Costello's attorney left Costigan in possession of the recordings and he intends to implicate Sullivan. They agree to meet at the building where Queenan died. On the roof, Costigan catches Sullivan off-guard and handcuffs him. As Costigan had secretly arranged, Officer Brown (Anderson) appears on the roof as well. Shocked, Brown draws his gun on Costigan, who attempts to justify his actions by exposing Sullivan as the rat. Costigan asks Brown why Dignam did not accompany him, but Brown does not answer. Costigan leads Sullivan to the elevator. When it reaches the ground floor, Costigan is shot in the head by Officer Barrigan (Dale), who then shoots Brown and reveals to Sullivan that Costello had more than one mole in the police. When Barrigan turns, Sullivan shoots him in the head. At police headquarters, Sullivan identifies Barrigan as the mole and has Costigan posthumously given the Medal of Merit. At Costigan's funeral, Sullivan and Madolyn stand at the grave. Sullivan attempts to talk to her, but she ignores him. When Sullivan returns to his apartment, he is ambushed by Dignam, who shoots and kills him as he is entering the apartment. Production. In early 2003, Warner Bros., producer Brad Grey, and actor/producer Brad Pitt obtained the rights to remake the 2002 Hong Kong film "Infernal Affairs", paying Media Asia $1.75 million. William Monahan was secured as screenwriter, and later Martin Scorsese, who admired Monahan's Boston-set, Irish-Catholic gangster script, came on board as director.
1163641	Orson Bean (born July 22, 1928) is an American film, television, and stage actor. He appeared frequently on televised game shows in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s, including being a long-time panelist on the television game show "To Tell the Truth". Early life. Bean was born Dallas Frederick Burrows in Burlington, Vermont, the son of Marian Ainsworth (née Pollard) and George Frederick Burrows. His father was a founding member of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), a fund-raiser for the Scottsboro Boys' defense, and a 20-year member of the campus police of Harvard College. Orson graduated from the Cambridge Rindge and Latin School. He is a first cousin twice removed of Calvin Coolidge, who was President of the United States at the time of Bean's birth. Orson Bean is a founding member of The Sons of the Desert, the international Laurel and Hardy Society. Acting career. In 1952, Bean made a guest appearance on NBC Radio's weekly hot-jazz series "The Chamber Music Society of Lower Basin Street". His vocal mannerisms were ideal for the mock-serious tone of the show, and he became the show's master of ceremonies ("Dr. Orson Bean") for its final season. Bean guested on "The Tonight Show" (with both Jack Paar and Johnny Carson), and appeared on game shows originating from New York. He was a regular panelist on "To Tell the Truth" in versions from the late 1950s through 1991. During this time, his father appeared as a subject of the panel and he had to disqualify himself from participating. Apparently no one knew his real name was Burrows. He appeared on "Super Password" and "Match Game", among other game shows. He hosted a pilot for a revamped version of "Concentration" in 1985 which was picked up later on in 1987 as "Classic Concentration" with Alex Trebek. He played the title character in the 1960 "Twilight Zone" episode "Mr. Bevis". In 1961, for the CBS anthology series "The DuPont Show with June Allyson", he starred as John Monroe in "The Secret Life of James Thurber", based on the works of the American humorist James Thurber.
1054926	16 Blocks is a 2006 American crime thriller film directed by Richard Donner. It stars Bruce Willis, Mos Def, and David Morse. The film unfolds in the real time narration method. Plot. Jack Mosley (Bruce Willis) is an alcoholic, burned-out N.Y.P.D. detective. Despite a late shift the night before, his lieutenant orders him to escort a witness, Eddie Bunker (Mos Def), from local custody to the courthouse 16 blocks away to testify on a police corruption case before a grand jury at 10 a.m. Bunker, a taxi driver, tries to be friendly with Mosley, telling him of his aspirations to move to Seattle to become a cake baker with his sister whom he has never met, but Mosley is uninterested, and stops at a liquor store. They are suddenly ambushed by a gunman, and Mosley drags Bunker to a local bar to take shelter and call for backup. Mosley's former partner, Frank Nugent (David Morse), and several other officers arrive. Nugent and his men have ulterior motives, telling Mosley that Bunker is not worth defending as his testimony will likely out several officers, including Nugent, who are involved in the corruption scheme, and they try to frame Bunker for firing at an officer before they kill him. Mosley intervenes, rescuing Bunker and fleeing. Mosley briefly stops at his sister Diane's (Jenna Stern) apartment to retrieve guns and ammo, and learns the police have already approached her about his activities today. He and Bunker take steps to further elude the police, and Mosley is wounded in the process. They become cornered in a run-down apartment building as Nugent and his men search floor by floor. Mosley calls the district attorney to arrange for help, but purposely gives the wrong apartment number, suspecting there is a mole involved. Mosley and Bunker are able to escape onto a passenger bus, and as the police follow them, Mosley is forced to treat the passengers as hostages. The bus crashes into a construction site and is soon surrounded by the ESU. Aware that Nugent will likely order the ESU to raid the bus, risking the safety of the passengers, Mosley allows the passengers to go free, using their cover to allow Bunker to sneak off the bus in the confusion. Mosley finds a tape recorder in the discarded possessions on the bus, and prepares a farewell message to Diane. To his surprise, Bunker returns to the bus; while Nugent is ready to fire on him, Nugent is made to stand down by a superior officer. Bunker has come to see Mosley as his friend and wants to be there for him to see this through. Bunker's tenacity convinces Mosley to get to the courthouse, and he manages to drive the bus into an alley, temporarily blocking the police from following them. He finds that Bunker has been wounded, and calls Diane, a Paramedic, to bring an ambulance around to help, despite knowing she will be followed. Diane cares for Mosley and Bunker's wounds, though Bunker still needs further treatment at a hospital. As Diane's ambulance drives away, the police stop her but discover the ambulance is empty; she had a second ambulance pick up Mosley and Bunker that would not be under similar surveillance. Mosley gets off a block from the courthouse and wishes Bunker luck with his bakery. Bunker promises to send him a cake on his birthday. Mosley enters the courthouse through the underground garage, encountering Nugent alone. Nugent reveals that should Bunker testify, not only will Nugent be convicted but so would Mosley as one of the corrupt cops. Mosley ignores this and continues to the courthouse, where the police and ESU are waiting for him, as well as the district attorney. One of Nugent's men (David Zayas) tries to shoot Mosley but he is killed by one of the ESU snipers. Mosley reveals that he will be testifying in Bunker's place, revealing that he had recorded the conversation with Nugent in the garage on the tape recorder and submits it as evidence. Two years later, Mosley is freed from prison from his reduced sentence, while Nugent and others wait out longer sentences. He celebrates his birthday with Diane and other friends, and is surprised to find that the cake had indeed come from Bunker, who has been successful in starting "Eddie & Jack's Good Sign Bakery" in Seattle. Cast. Casting. Willis originally wanted rapper Ludacris to play the part of Eddie Bunker. This is the second film in which David Morse plays the villain to Bruce Willis as the protagonist; the first was "Twelve Monkeys", in which Morse plays Dr. Peters. Box office. The film, released by Warner Bros., opened in the United States on March 3, 2006. In its opening weekend, the film grossed $12.7 million, which was the second-highest grossing film of the weekend. As of its May 15, 2006 closing date, the film grossed a total of $36.895 million in the U.S. box office. It made $65.6 million worldwide. According to Box Office Mojo, production costs were around $55 million. The film made $51.53 million on rentals, and remained on the DVD top 50 charts for 17 consecutive weeks. Reception. Based on 158 reviews collected by Rotten Tomatoes, the film received a 55% approval rating from critics, with an average score of 5.9/10. By comparison, Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating in the 0–100 range based on reviews from top mainstream critics, calculated an average score of 63, based on 34 reviews, which indicates "generally favorable reviews". Michael Atkinson of "The Village Voice" commented that "the clichés come thick on the ground" and called it "a small movie trying to seem epic, or a bloated monster trying to seem lean." Peter Travers of "Rolling Stone" magazine gave the film two-and-a-half out of four stars and called Willis and Mos Def "a terrific team," concluding that "Until Richard Wenk's script drives the characters into a brick wall of pukey sentiment, it's a wild ride." "Chicago Sun-Times" critic Roger Ebert gave it three out of four stars and commended Mos Def for his "character performance that's completely unexpected in an action movie," while calling the film "a chase picture conducted at a velocity that is just about right for a middle-age alcoholic."
1266070	Sir Charles Aubrey Smith CBE (21 July 186320 December 1948), known to film-goers as C. Aubrey Smith, was an English cricketer and actor. Early life. Smith was born in London, England, and educated at Charterhouse School and St John's College, Cambridge. He settled in South Africa to prospect for gold in 1888-89. While there he developed pneumonia and was wrongly pronounced dead by doctors. He married Isabella Wood in 1896. Cricket career. As a cricketer, Smith was primarily a right arm fast bowler, though he was also a useful right-hand lower-order batsman and a good slip fielder. His oddly curved bowling run-up, which started from deep mid-off, earned him the nickname "Round the Corner Smith." When he bowled round the wicket his approach was concealed from the batsman by the umpire until he emerged, leading W.G. Grace to comment "it is rather startling when he suddenly appears at the bowling crease." He played for Cambridge University 1882-85 and for Sussex at various times between 1882 and 1892. While in South Africa he captained the Johannesburg English XI. He captained England to victory in his only Test match, against South Africa at Port Elizabeth in 1888-89, taking five wickets for nineteen runs in the first innings.The English team who played were by no means representative of the best players of the time, and nobody at the time realized that the match would enter the cricket records as an official test match. In 1932, he founded the Hollywood Cricket Club and created a pitch with imported English grass. He attracted fellow expatriates such as David Niven, Laurence Olivier, Nigel Bruce (who served as captain), Leslie Howard and Boris Karloff to the club as well as local American players. Smith's stereotypical Englishness spawned several amusing anecdotes: while fielding at slip for the Hollywood Club, he dropped a difficult catch and ordered his English butler to fetch his spectacles; they were brought on to the field on a silver platter. The next ball looped gently to slip, to present the kind of catch that "a child would take at midnight with no moon." Smith dropped it and, snatching off his lenses, commented, "Damned fool brought my reading glasses." Decades after his cricket career had ended, when he had long been a famous face in films, Smith was spotted in the pavilion on a visit to Lord's. "That man over there seems familiar," remarked one member to another. "Yes," said the second, seemingly oblivious to his Hollywood fame, "Chap called Smith. Used to play for Sussex." Acting career. Smith began acting on the London stage in 1895. His first major role was in "The Prisoner of Zenda" the following year, playing the dual lead roles of king and look-alike. Forty-one years later, he appeared in the most acclaimed film version of the novel, this time as the wise old advisor. When Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. asked him whether it might damage his career as a romantic lead to play the villain Rupert of Hentzau, he answered "Young man, I have played every part in "The Prisoner of Zenda" except Lady Flavia, and I can assure you that nobody ever damaged his career by playing Rupert of Hentzau". He made his Broadway debut in a revival of George Bernard Shaw's "Pygmalion" in the starring role of Henry Higgins. Smith appeared in early films for the nascent British film industry, starring in "The Bump" in 1920 (written by A.A. Milne for the company Minerva Films, which was founded in 1920 by the actor Leslie Howard and his friend and story editor Adrian Brunel). Smith later went to Hollywood where he had a successful career as a character actor playing either officer or gentleman roles. He was also regarded as being the unofficial leader of the British film industry colony in Hollywood, which Sheridan Morley characterised as the Hollywood Raj, a select group of British actors who were seen to be colonising the capital of the film business in the 1930s. Other film stars considered to be "members" of this select group were David Niven (whom Smith treated like a son), Ronald Colman, Rex Harrison, Robert Coote, Basil Rathbone, Nigel Bruce (whose daughter's wedding he had attended as best man), Leslie Howard (whom Smith had known since working with him on early films in London) and Patric Knowles. Smith became infamous for expecting his fellow countrymen to report for regular duty at his Hollywood Cricket Club, and anyone who refused was known to "incur his displeasure". Fiercely patriotic, Smith became openly critical of the British actors of enlistment age who did not return to fight after the outbreak of World War II in 1939. Smith loved playing on his status as Hollywood's "Englishman in Residence". His bushy eyebrows, beady eyes, handlebar moustache and height of 6'4" made him one of the most recognisable faces in Hollywood. He starred alongside such screen legends as leading ladies Greta Garbo, Elizabeth Taylor, Vivien Leigh and actors Clark Gable, Laurence Olivier, Ronald Colman, Maurice Chevalier and Gary Cooper. His films include such classics as "The Prisoner of Zenda" (1937) mentioned above, "The Four Feathers" (1939), "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" (1941), and "And Then There Were None" (1945) in which he played General Mandrake. Commander McBragg in the TV cartoon "Tennessee Tuxedo and His Tales" is a parody of him. The cartoon character also appears in "The Simpsons" episode "The Seemingly Never-Ending Story". Smith died from pneumonia in Beverly Hills in 1948, aged 85. His body was cremated and nine months later, in accordance with his wishes, his ashes were returned to England and interred in his mother's grave at St Leonard's churchyard in Hove, Sussex. Honours and awards. Smith has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame In 1933, he was on the first board of the Screen Actors Guild. He was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 1938, and knighted by King George VI in 1944 for services to Anglo-American amity.
583974	Amala Paul is an Indian film actress, who works in the South Indian film industries. After appearing in supporting roles in the Malayalam film "Neelathamara" and a venture in Tamil, she received critical acclaim for the portrayal of a controversial character in the film, "Sindhu Samaveli". Despite the failure of that film, Amala became noted after playing the title role in "Mynaa", receiving critical acclaim for her work. Since then, she has been signed on for several notable projects and is considered a leading actress in Tamil films. She has appeared in a few Malayalam films as well. Career. Early career. Amala, after finishing her Plus Two education, took a year out before planning to pursue engineering.She later joined St Teresa's college, to pursue a BA Degree in Communicative English. At the time, her modelling portfolio was spotted by noted Malayalam director Lal Jose who offered her a supporting role in his remake, "Neelathamara" (2009). Despite emerging a success, the film failed to attract any further offers, as she had anticipated. She pursued roles in Tamil films and went on to sign the low-budget comedy film "Vikadakavi" which was delayed and ultimately became her sixth release, while also signing on to play the lead role in another small budget film "Veerasekaran" (2010). The film, which became her maiden Tamil release, was panned by critics and went completely unnoticed, while Amala's role was being labelled as 'minimal', and she later cited that she regretted doing the film and many of her scenes were edited out. Amala Paul then went on to work in Samy's controversial "Sindhu Samaveli" (2010), portraying the role of Sundari, who has an illicit relationship with her father-in-law. The director of the film had previously drawn criticism for his depictions of illicit romances as well as for assaulting his previous lead actress in a film, but Amala played down the issue citing that she had no problem with the director. She was approached after the major portions of her next release, "Mynaa" were ready and signed on before listening to the entirety of the story, claiming that she was shocked but not upset with the controversial scenes which she heard later. Upon release, the film met with contrasting reviews, whilst some critics refused to give the film a rating, declaring their disgust at the film's plot. Amala's performance won her critical acclaim. However her success was marred with extreme reactions from the public, with Amala claiming she received death threats from anonymous callers and was publicly scolded by women at a cinema hall in Chennai. (2010 - present). Amala's next release, the romantic drama film "Mynaa" (2010) by Prabhu Solomon, made her a recognised actress in the industry. The film had garnered much anticipation prior to release, with noted distributors Udhayanidhi Stalin and Kalpathi S. Aghoram purchasing the rights of the film after being impressed with it. Amala played the village belle Mynaa, attaining unanimous praise from critics for her portrayal; a critic labelled her work as "outstanding" and that she put in a "riveting performance", while other reviews claimed she had "immense talent" and scores in "every instance" in the title role. The film, which also saw her gain recognition from noted actors Kamal Haasan and Rajinikanth, subsequently became a large commercial success at the box-office. Amala Paul gained recognition from several award committees and notably secured the Vijay Award for Best Debut Actress, while also gaining nominations in the Best Actress category at the Filmfare Awards and the Vijay Awards. Following the success of "Mynaa", Amala became touted as the "new star of 2011" as she subsequently signed on to several prominent projects. Her first release of 2011 was in a supporting role in the Malayalam drama film, "Ithu Nammude Katha", a remake of the successful Tamil film "Naadodigal" and the second was meant to be her launch in Tamil films, the coming-to-age tale of five friends "Vikadakavi" with the film opening to limited screens. Both films opened to limited screens due to the moderate budget of the projects, with her performance in the latter being described as "full of potential". She went on to sign three big budget films with established production houses, with the drama "Deiva Thirumagal" directed by Vijay, featuring her opposite Vikram and alongside Anushka, becoming her next release. Her portrayal of school correspondent Shwetha Rajendran won critical acclaim with a reviewer citing that her "expressive eyes help her leave a mark in a small but important role" whilst another critic claimed she "acquits herself well". Her final release of 2011 was Ram Gopal Varma's "Bejawada" which marked her début in Telugu language films. The film saw her portray college girl, Geetanjali, and featured her opposite Naga Chaitanya, but the film opened to negative reviews and became a surprise box office failure. Amala Paul's first release of 2012 was in Linguswamy's multi-starring action entertainer, "Vettai", alongside Arya, Madhavan and Sameera Reddy. The film opened to critical and commercial acclaim with The New York Times claiming the film "entertains without breaking any new ground, though it can also surprise". Amala Paul won mixed feedback for her performance; while the critic from Sify mentioned she "is lovely to look at and her feisty performance proves that a star is born", Pavithra Srinivasan of Rediff cited she "struts, pouts and hams to the hilt". The actress had three films released on the Valentine's Day weekend of 2012, with Balaji Mohan's bilingual "Kadhalil Sodhappuvadhu Yeppadi" and "Love Failure" becoming critical and commercial successes. The film, made in Tamil and Telugu, featured her alongside Siddharth and portrayed as her college girl, Parvathi, showing her romantic skills. About the Tamil version, a reviewer from The Hindu wrote: "Amala Paul, after coming across as convincing in her last few movies, looks finally set as a leading lady", while another critic labelled that she "comes across as natural" and "it is a pleasure to see her in a role and costumes that suit her age as compared to her recent movies". Rediff.com called the Telugu version of the film "refreshing", highlighting that the lead pair's on-screen chemistry "sparkles". The romantic thriller "Muppozhudhum Un Karpanaigal" opposite Adharvaa, also released on the same day in which she played Charulatha, a modern girl based in Bangalore. The film won mixed reviews, though the lead pair's on-screen chemistry was praised by critics, while another reviewer noted that "Amala renders an effortless act". She played a notable role in renowned director Dr. Biju's "Aakashathinte Niram", which was her first art-house film. The film was screened at the competition section for the Golden Goblet Award in the 15th Shanghai International Film Festival. She paired with veteran Malayalam actor Mohanlal in the film "Run Babby Run" in which she played the role of a senior news channel editor. The film was a big commercial success and her performance as well as her chemistry with Mohanlal were highly appreciated. However, in 2013, Amala Paul tasted her first success at the Telugu Box office. Her first release in 2013 was V. V. Vinayak's directorial "Naayak", opposite Ram Charan Teja. The movie went on to be one of the biggest critical as well as commercial success of the year. Her next film was Puri Jagannadh's romantic comedy "Iddarammayilatho" opposite Allu Arjun. Upon release, Amala's performance was highly appreciated by the critics. "Sangeetha Devi Dundroo" of "The Hindu" commented "Amala Paul manages to pull off a character that traverses a thin line between being naïve and downright silly. We wish we saw more of her." Another reviewer, "Sasidhar AS" from The Times of India commented "Amala Paul's characterisation is a delight, and she plays Komali so effectively that you'll be left wondering who else could have done the role better than her. She was a perfect choice to play a traditional Telugu girl." Currently, She is working in A. L. Vijay's Political thriller "Thalaivaa" opposite Vijay, as Police Officer.ref> She is also starring in Samuthirakani's "Nimirndhu Nil" opposite Jayam Ravi, which is simultaneously being shot in Telugu as "Janda Pai Kapiraju", in which Nani is reprising the role of Jayam Ravi. Personal life. Amala was born on 26 October 1991 in Ernakulam, Kerala to Paul Varghese and Annice Paul. After completing her Plus Two examinations at govt girls HSS, Aluva she took a sabbatical to begin a career in films, but has since joined St. Teresa's College in Kochi, to pursue a BA degree in English and is a currently in her third year. Her father had been strictly against Amala pursuing an acting career, but was forced to accept her decision with her older brother, Abijith, strongly backing her ambition. She later claimed she had performing arts in her DNA, revealing that her mother was a singer and her dad was into theatre in college. Amala had changed her on-screen name to Anakha, on director Samy's insistence, who cited that another actress, Amala had already made her name popular. However, after the failure of "Sindhu Samaveli", she reverted to her birth name since she felt that the replacement had brought her bad luck. Amala says Anushka Shetty as her ‘role model’ and has added that she would love to follow suit in Anushka’s footsteps "I value her a lot as an actress and reasons to think her of a real-life ‘role model’ for me".
1055382	Run Lola Run (, literally "Lola Runs") is a 1998 German film, written and directed by Tom Tykwer and starring Franka Potente as Lola and Moritz Bleibtreu as Manni. The story follows a woman who needs to obtain 100,000 German marks (50,984 Euro) in 20 minutes to save her boyfriend's life. The film's three scenarios are reminiscent of the 1981 Krzysztof Kieślowski film "Blind Chance"; following Kieślowski's death, Tykwer directed his planned film "Heaven". Plot. Intro. The film begins with Lola (Franka Potente) receiving a phone call from her distraught boyfriend, Manni (Moritz Bleibtreu). Manni is a small-time criminal and, during an important job collecting 100,000 marks, he relied on Lola to take him and the money to his boss, Ronnie; since Lola's moped was stolen on her journey, Manni was forced to travel by train, only to accidentally leave the money on the train. Spotting a homeless man examining the money bag as the train departed, Manni pursued the train, only to find the man and the money gone. Calling from a phone booth, Manni explains he has 20 minutes to gather 100,000 marks before Ronnie arrives and kills him. Planning to rob a nearby supermarket, Manni is urged to wait by Lola, who promises to find the money. She decides to ask her father, "Papa" (Herbert Knaup), who is a bank manager. The main part of the film is divided in three "runs". Each run starts from the same situation but develops differently and has a different outcome. Each run contains various flash-forward sequences, showing how the lives of the people that Lola bumps into develop after the encounter. In each run, those people are affected in different ways. First run. Hanging up the phone, Lola starts running and passes a man with a dog; the dog growls at her, causing her to sprint faster. Lola runs through the streets of Berlin towards her father's bank. She collides with a woman pushing a baby carriage, who is shown to later steal a baby when hers is taken into custody. Continuing, Lola runs alongside a cyclist who offers to sell her his bike, which she refuses; a flash-forward shows him being robbed on his bike, but he later marries a nurse at the hospital where he recovers. Lola then causes a car crash, which involves her father's colleague, Mr. Meyer, and Manni's boss, Ronnie. As Lola arrives at the bank, Papa's mistress reveals she is pregnant, causing Papa to dismiss Lola's request for help; Papa reveals Lola isn't his biological daughter, and announces he is leaving his family to elope with his mistress.
1056842	The Life Before Her Eyes is a 2007 American thriller film directed by Vadim Perelman. The screenplay was adapted by Emil Stern from the Laura Kasischke novel of the same name. The film stars Uma Thurman and Evan Rachel Wood. It was released on April 18, 2008, and revolves around a survivor's guilt from a Columbine-like event that occurred 15 years previously, which causes her present-day idyllic life to fall apart. Plot. Imaginative, impetuous, and wild Diana McFee (Evan Rachel Wood) cannot wait for her adult life to begin. While awaiting the final days of high school in the lush springtime, Diana tests her limits with sex and drugs as her more conservative friend Maureen (Eva Amurri) watches with concern. Then the two teens are involved in a Columbine-like shooting incident at their school and are forced to make an impossible choice. The film mostly focuses on Diana’s adulthood (Uma Thurman). She leads an apparently normal life as an art history university professor. She has a daughter, Emma (Gabrielle Brennan), and she’s married to the professor who once gave a speech in her school about the power of visualization, how one can shape one’s own future in this way. We learn, however, that she feels guilty about something that doesn’t let her sleep. One day she gets a call from Emma’s school. The nuns who run the school complain about her behavior. Later, at an ice cream parlor, Diana asks Emma not to hide any more as she is always doing. “You hate me,” Emma replies to her mother's reproaches. They leave the parlor abruptly and as they’re about to get into the car, Diana sees her husband, the professor, with another woman. She hesitates about confronting him and instead remains in the middle of the street where she is hit by a pickup truck. On her way to the hospital she imagines that blood is escaping from her body. However in fact she hasn’t been hurt by the accident. What is happening is that she is remembering the complications she had following an abortion in her high school days. The day of the 15th anniversary of the shooting, a memorial is held at the school. Diana drives in front of the school several times until she finally decides to stop and bring in some flowers. As she enters the school she’s asked whether she’s one of the survivors. She smiles and walks inside, first leaving flowers on some desks and then moving on to the rest rooms where one of the shootings took place. At that moment she gets a call from Emma’s school; Emma is missing. Diana is told that a pink piece of clothing has been found in the woods. She drives there and walks through the woods, shouting out her daughter's name. Emma appears before Diana’s eyes for a moment but then vanishes almost as soon as she has appeared. Back to the rest rooms in the school where Diana left the flowers. This is the place where she and Maureen were forced to decide which of them should survive. Maureen had offered herself first, but the shooter, Michael Patrick (John Magaro), asks Diana why it shouldn't be her; she agrees and asks to be killed. She is then shot and dies. All that we’ve seen earlier in the film is what Diana had dreamed her adult life would be like. Emma is the girl she never had, the girl that she aborted. As the film ends Diana is asked once again if she is a survivor and she replies "No" with a smile, with a sense of relief that she did the right thing by dying and having her friend live her life. Reception. "The Life Before Her Eyes" received a generally negative response; as of August 2011, Rotten Tomatoes reported that 24% of critics had given the film positive reviews, based on 35 reviews – with the consensus being the film is "Despite earnest performances, "Life Before Her Eyes" is a confusing, painfully overwrought melodrama." Metacritic reported the film had an average score of 32 out of 100, based on 15 reviews. Box office. The film opened in limited release on April 18, 2008, in the United States and grossed $20,220 in eight theaters its opening weekend, averaging $2,527 per theater. As of Jun 27–29, 2008, it had a domestic total gross of $303,439, and a production budget of $13 million.
1057048	Peter Greene (born Peter Green; October 8, 1965) is an American character actor. Biography. Early life. A native of Montclair, New Jersey to an Irish Catholic family, Greene did not pursue a career in acting until his mid 20s. He initially landed several roles in cinema and television in the early 1990s. Film career. Greene's breakthrough came in 1994–1995 with roles in "Pulp Fiction"; "The Mask"; "Clean, Shaven"; and "The Usual Suspects". Greene is possibly best remembered for his role in "Pulp Fiction", as Zed who rapes Marsellus Wallace. "The Mask" saw him play the villainous Dorian Tyrell opposite Jim Carrey and Cameron Diaz. Greene's arguably most accomplished role was that of schizophrenic Peter Winter in "Clean, Shaven". "The Usual Suspects" saw him play the small but memorable character, Redfoot. Greene often plays villains such as in "Judgment Night", "", "Training Day" (as a corrupt narcotics officer) and martial arts/crime film "Fist of the Warrior" (opposite Ho-Sung Pak, Roger Guenveur Smith and Sherilyn Fenn).
582714	Bewafaa () is a 2005 Bollywood romantic drama musical film starring Anil Kapoor, Akshay Kumar, Kareena Kapoor, Sushmita Sen, Shamita Shetty, Manoj Bajpai and Kabir Bedi. The film is directed by Dharmesh Darshan who had earlier directed films like "Raja Hindustani" (1996) and "Dhadkan" (2000). "Bewafaa" tells the story of changing morals and values in a fast-changing world, with the tagline "When cultures meet." "Bewafaa" was produced by Boney Kapoor, with music composed by Nadeem-Shravan. It borrows a lot of elements from the 1963 film "Gumrah". Synopsis. Anjali (Kareena Kapoor) is the younger daughter of her Canadian mother (Nafisa Ali) and Indian father (Kabir Bedi), living in the city of Montreal, Quebec. She shares a healthy relationship with her parents but has a secret to hide. She reveals this secret only to her elder sister Aarti (Sushmita Sen). The secret is her love for a budding musician Raja (Akshay Kumar). Raja is not a rich man, but that does not deter Anjali from loving him. Aarti assures Anjali and Raja that she will convince her parents of their true love. But unfortunately fate has different plans for them. Aarti passes away on the birth of her twin babies. Circumstances force Anjali to marry Aarti's husband, Aditya Sahai (Anil Kapoor). With the much older and mature Aditya, Anjali migrates to New Delhi. Aditya is a business tycoon who hardly finds any time for his sister-in-law turned wife or his two lovable daughters. Anjali fulfills every role asked for her by society but cannot bridge the gap between herself and Aditya. She finds herself in a marriage that has no compatibility but only compromise. Her only source of solace are her two endearing girls. Amidst all this, one day Raja, who is now a famous fusion singer, walks back into her life. Suddenly Anjali is torn. She begins hanging out with Raja. When Aditya returns, he senses a change in her and decides to look into it. He seeks the help of his friends, a flamboyant couple — Dil and Pallavi Arora (Manoj Bajpai and Shamita Shetty). After revealing to Anjali that he did know about Raja and acknowledging that Anjali is not at fault, Aditya gives her the freedom to choose between Raja and himself. She chooses Aditya over Raja, not only because of her duty as a mother, but also because she realises that she loves Aditya. Raja leaves and Anjali embarks on a tour with her husband. Soundtrack. The soundtrack of the movie was composed by Nadeem Saifi and Shravan Rathod, with the lyrics authored by Sameer, using the voices of Ghulam Ali, Kumar Sanu, Abhijeet Bhattacharya, Udit Narayan, Sonu Niigam, Alka Yagnik, Lata Mangeshkar, Asha Bhosle, Sapna Mukherjee, Shantanu Mukherjee(aka Shaan). The song "Mera Dil" was recorded in voices of Udit Narayan, Sonu, Shaan although the respective have dissimilar lyrics and depict different emotions. Although the movie tanked at the box office, the songs were chartbusters. Trivia. After their older sisters Karisma Kapoor and Shilpa Shetty worked with each other in the movies "Rishtey" and "Jaanwar", Kareena Kapoor and Shamita Shetty worked together this time in "Bewafaa". Also, the plot is taken from the Telugu movie Abhinandana Response. The film had an average opening, and collected Rs.10 crores. Box Office India declared the film as an below average grosser. Reviews. The film got positive reviews, with the performances getting also good notices.
632707	Jessica Steen (born December 19, 1965) is a Canadian film and television actress, noted for her roles in "Captain Power and the Soldiers of the Future", "Homefront", "Earth 2", "Armageddon", "", "NCIS", and "Flashpoint". Personal life. Jessica Steen was born in Toronto, Ontario, the daughter of Joanna Noyes, an actress, and Jan Steen, a director and actor. She is of Dutch and Scottish ancestry.
584161	Machakaaran is a 2007 Indian Tamil film written and directed by Tamilvannan of "Kalvanin Kadhali" fame. The film stars Jeevan and Kamna Jethmalani in the lead, whilst Santhanam, G. M. Kumar, Shobraj and Vinod Rajan play major roles and Malavika appears in an item number. The film score and soundtrack were composed by Yuvan Shankar Raja. The film was released on 8 November 2007 during Diwali and is considered a box office bomb. However, the was dubbed into Telugu later and released as "Dheera" in 2009. Plot. Vicky (Jeevan) is the eldest son of a Railway officer, is a perpetual loser in whatever he does and is looked down by other family members. One day he meets Shivani (Kamna Jethmalani), daughter of a rich textile tycoon, who has brought all the luck to her father, with her Midas touch!
1017938	The Mighty Peking Man (猩猩王 THE MIGHTY PEKING MAN) (Mandarin: "Hsing Hsing Wang", Cantonese: "Sing Sing Wong" - literally "Orangutan King: THE MIGHTY PEKING MAN") is a 1977 film produced in Hong Kong by Shaw Brothers Studio to capitalize on the craze surrounding the 1976 remake of "King Kong". The film was originally released in the US in 1980 as "Goliathon". The film was directed by Ho Meng Hua and produced by Runme Shaw; the special effects were directed by Sadamasa Arikawa, with Koichi Kawakita as assistant FX director. It starred Danny Lee and Evelyne Kraft. Plot. A party from Hong Kong headed up by Johnny (Danny Lee) are exploring the Indian side of the Himalayan mountains and discover the eponymous Peking Man, a gigantic ape-like creature, along with a beautiful blond wild woman named Samantha (Evelyne Kraft) whose parents had been killed in a plane crash. Samantha was raised by Utam (the Peking Man) with nothing to wear but an animal-skin bikini. Like Tarzan, she has learned both to swing through the trees on vines and to communicate with and command the jungle animals, with the exception of a venomous snake who bites her on the inner thigh requiring the hero Johnny to suck out the poison while Samantha's leopard friend fights the snake. Shortly thereafter, they fall in love. Johnny and his partners bring Samantha and Utam to Hong Kong, where Utam goes on display to the incredulous public. While in Hong Kong, Samantha doesn't seem to prefer women's clothing and continues to wear her animal-skin bikini. Johnny, meanwhile, reconciles with the girlfriend whose romantic betrayal with his brother had been the impetus behind his sudden decision to explore the Himalayas. Samantha sees this and runs off nearly getting raped. Utam goes berserk and squashes the rapist. During Samantha's running, Utam ends up on a rampage. Utam then goes to the tallest building he can find (namely the Jardine House), and climbs it. Danny and Samantha catch up to Utam and plan to get him out of Hong Kong and back to their jungle. Utam is burned/shot to death by several helicopters in a scene greatly reminiscent of the ending of King Kong, and falls off. Samantha is killed in an explosion during the conflict and Johnny receives what appears to be a very minor gunshot wound to the lower leg. Re-release. On April 23, 1999, Quentin Tarantino re-released "The Mighty Peking Man" in North America through his Rolling Thunder Pictures distribution company with Miramax. Roger Ebert gave the film three stars out of a possible four in the "Chicago Sun-Times", and, incidentally, actually upgraded his rating for the thematically similar "Infra-Man":""Mighty Peking Man" is very funny, although a shade off the high mark of "Infra-Man", which was made a year earlier, and is my favorite Hong Kong monster film. Both were produced by the legendary Runme Shaw, who, having tasted greatness, obviously hoped to repeat. I find to my astonishment that I gave "Infra-Man" only two and a half stars when I reviewed it. That was 22 years ago, but a fellow will remember a lot of things you wouldn't think he'd remember. I'll bet a month hasn't gone by since that I haven't thought of that film. I am awarding "Mighty Peking Man" three stars, for general goofiness and a certain level of insane genius, but I cannot in good conscience rate it higher than "Infra-Man". So, in answer to those correspondents who ask if I have ever changed a rating on a movie: Yes, "Infra-Man" moves up to three stars. Audiences were less receptive to the film, however. In its opening weekend, it grossed just $4,873 in 13 theatres ($374 per screen), and ended its run with a meager $17,368. The film was on IFC cable television network's schedule at the end of 2008.
587667	Nuvva Naaku Nachav () is a Tollywood film which released on September 6, 2001. This film stars Venkatesh and Arti Agarwal in the lead roles. K. Vijaya Bhaskar directed this film. The film was remade in Tamil as "Vaseegara", starring Vijay and Sneha, and also in Kannada as "Gowramma", starring Upendra and Ramya. Plot. Venakteswarlu alias Venky (Venkatesh) comes to the house of Murthy (Prakash Raj) on recommendation of his father Sekhar (Chandra Mohan) who is a childhood friend of Murthy. Nandini alias Nandu (Arti Agarwal) is the daughter of Murthy. Venky enters that place when Nandu is about to get engaged to software professional from USA. He helps the family in getting the engagement done smoothly. Murthy helps Venky secure a handsome job. The relationship between Venky and Nandu starts with hatred and turns into friendship. Nandu expresses Venky that she is in love with him. Venky, who does not want to spoil the relationship of their parents, decides to run off from the house of Nandu. But Murthy gets Venky back from Railway Station, as he thought Venky did not like the job he was given. And it's the marriage time! Venky takes the onus of running the show of marriage. The demure Nandu is in shattered mood as her lover is acting like a broker to her marriage. Will Venky sacrifice his silent love Nandu to a stranger or marries Nandu with the help of their parents. DVD. KADS Entertainment released the DVD version of "Nuvvu Naaku Nachav".
1055327	Rocky II is a 1979 American film written and directed by and starring Sylvester Stallone, that is the sequel to "Rocky", a motion picture in which an unknown boxer had been given a chance to go fight the World Heavyweight Champion, and was the last installment of the "Rocky" franchise to be distributed solely by United Artists, following their merger with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in 1981. Stallone, Carl Weathers, Tony Burton, Burgess Meredith, Burt Young and Talia Shire reprised their original roles. The "Ring Magazine" heavyweight championship belt makes its first appearance in the series. Plot. In 1976, Apollo Creed (Carl Weathers) successfully defends his world heavyweight title courtesy of a split decision. Both fighters are taken to the same hospital due to the extent of their injuries from the match, where Apollo challenges Rocky (Sylvester Stallone) to a rematch in front of press. Rocky declines and declares his retirement, his decision supported by his girlfriend, Adrian (Talia Shire), and doctors, who reveal he will require surgery for a detached retina which could lead to permanent blindness. After Rocky is discharged from the hospital, he begins to enjoy the benefits of his life's changes resulting from the match: Rocky's new fame attracts him an agent who sees Rocky as a potential endorsement and sponsorship goldmine and his sudden wealth encourages him to propose to Adrian. She happily accepts and they marry in a small ceremony. Soon after, Rocky and Adrian happily learn that Adrian is pregnant with their first child. Meanwhile, fueled by hate mail he has started to receive, Apollo becomes obsessed with the idea that a rematch is the only way to prove that Rocky's performance was simply a fluke. Determined to rectify his boxing career's only blemish, Apollo ignores all pleas by his friends and family to move on to other potential opponents and demands his team do whatever necessary to goad Rocky out of retirement and into a rematch. Rocky at first seems unaffected by Apollo's smear campaign, but his inexperience with money causes him to run into financial problems. After largely unsuccessful attempts to find employment, Rocky visits Mickey Goldmill (Burgess Meredith), his trainer and manager, at his gym to talk about the possibility of returning to the ring. At first, Mickey refuses, worried about Rocky's health, but changes his mind after Apollo publicly insults Rocky on television. Adrian confronts Rocky about the danger of returning to fighting and reminds him of the risk to his eyesight. Rocky argues he knows nothing else so this is the only way he can provide. Adrian, angry at Rocky for breaking his promise, refuses to support him. Rocky and Mickey begin training, but it soon becomes apparent Rocky is not focused on the job at hand due to Adrian's disapproval. Adrian's brother, Paulie (Burt Young), confronts his sister about not supporting her husband, but she faints during the confrontation and is rushed to the hospital where she goes into labor. Despite being premature, the baby is healthy but Adrian falls into a coma. Rocky blames himself for what has happened and refuses to leave Adrian's bedside until she wakes up, and will not go to see his new baby until they can see it together. When Adrian comes out of her coma, she finds Rocky by her bedside and the couple are shown their new baby, a boy, which they name after Rocky. Adrian gives her blessing to the rematch which enables Rocky to refocus on his training and he quickly gets into shape for the fight. The night of the fight arrives and Apollo has made a public goal of beating Rocky in no more than two rounds to prove the first fight going the full 15 rounds was a fluke. Rocky is not able to mount much of an offensive effort through the first two rounds but manages to survive them disproving Apollo's theory that the first fight's result was a fluke. As before, the fight once again reaches the 15th round, by which point Apollo has built a lead on points that Rocky cannot possibly beat. However, Apollo's obsession with knocking Rocky out (against the advice of his corner men) leads him to trade blows with Rocky despite his lead. Rocky lands a devastating blow on Apollo that knocks the champ down, but an exhausted Rocky loses his balance and falls to the canvas as well. Rocky manages to stand up before the referee counts to ten, while Apollo is counted out. Rocky thus wins the fight by knockout and becomes the heavyweight champion of the world. In his post-fight announcement Rocky, who has won back the respect of his fans and his wife Adrian, humbly thanks Apollo. Production. An estimated 800 school children were used as extras in the scene in which Rocky runs through Philadelphia. Music. Just as in the previous installment, Bill Conti composed the film's music. A soundtrack album containing Conti's score was released on August 25, 1979 and charted on the "Billboard 200" for five consecutive weeks. Reaction. Critical response. "Rocky II" received mostly positive reviews from critics and is considered by many as one of the best films of 1979. It holds a 71% "Fresh" rating on the review aggregate website Rotten Tomatoes. The film won Best Picture at the American Movie Awards and won the People's Choice Award for Favorite Motion Picture. Box office. "Rocky II" was an enormous box office success, and finished in the top three highest-grossing films of 1979, in both the North American market and worldwide. The film grossed $6,390,537 during its opening weekend, $85,182,160 at the U.S. box office and $200,182,160 overall. Other media. Novelization. A novelization was published by Ballantine Books in 1979. Sylvester Stallone was credited as the author.
1061358	Working Girl is a 1988 romantic comedy film written by Kevin Wade and directed by Mike Nichols. It tells the inspiring story of a Staten Island-raised secretary, Tess McGill (Melanie Griffith), working in the mergers and acquisitions department of a Wall Street investment bank. When her boss, Katharine Parker (Sigourney Weaver), breaks her leg skiing, Tess uses Parker's absence and connections, including her errant beau Jack Trainer (Harrison Ford), to put forward her own idea for a merger deal. The film features a notable opening sequence following Manhattan-bound commuters on the Staten Island Ferry accompanied by Carly Simon's song "Let the River Run", for which she received the Academy Award for Best Song. The film was a box office hit, grossing a worldwide total of $103 million. Griffith was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress, while both Weaver and Joan Cusack were nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. The film itself was also nominated for Best Picture at the 61st Academy Awards. Plot. Tess McGill (Melanie Griffith) is a working-class stockbroker's secretary from Staten Island with a bachelor's degree in Business from evening classes. She dreams of an executive position. Tricked by her boss (Oliver Platt) into a date with his lascivious colleague (Kevin Spacey), she gets into trouble by publicly insulting him and is reassigned as secretary to a new financial executive, Katharine Parker (Sigourney Weaver). Seemingly supportive, Katharine encourages Tess to share ideas. Tess suggests that a client, Trask Industries, should invest in radio to gain a foothold in media. Katharine listens to the idea and says she'll pass it through some people. Later, she says the idea wasn't well received. But when Katharine breaks her leg skiing in Europe, she asks Tess to house-sit and Tess discovers she plans to pass off the idea as her own. At home, Tess finds her boyfriend (Alec Baldwin) in bed with another woman. Disillusioned, she returns to Katharine's apartment and begins her transformation. Tess sets up a meeting with executive Jack Trainer (Harrison Ford), using her boss's name as an entrée. She wants to see Trainer the evening before the meeting at a party which she will attend in a dress of Katharine's. Before the party her friend Cynthia (Joan Cusack) gives her a valium from Katharine's bathroom when Tess suffers a panic attack. At the party, Tess unknowingly meets Jack, who is fascinated by her. They have a couple of drinks and the combined effect of valium and alcohol lead to her waking next morning in Jack's bed. She leaves before he wakes and, entering the meeting, realizes Jack Trainer is the man she spent the night with. She feels the pitch goes badly. Back at her desk, she is mortified about the night before but Jack comes in and says they are happy with Tess's idea. Days later, Tess and Jack gatecrash Trask's (Philip Bosco) daughter’s (Barbara Garrick) wedding and pitch their plan. Trask is interested and a meeting is set up. Later Tess and Jack end up in bed together. Tess wants to explain her true situation but keeps quiet after learning Jack has been in a relationship with Katharine, which he says is all but over. Katharine comes home on the day of the meeting with Trask. Tess overhears Katharine asking Jack to confirm his love for her, but he avoids answering and hurries out. Tess also rushes off, leaving her diary, which Katharine reads. The meeting goes well until Katharine storms in, accusing Tess, a mere secretary, of stealing her idea. Tess protests but leaves, apologizing. Days later, Tess is clearing out her desk when someone bumps into her, spilling all her notes and supplies on the floor. While picking them up in front of the elevator, Jack, Katharine, and Trask arrive. Tess confronts Katharine and starts to tell her side of the story. Katharine tries to lead the group away, but Jack says he believes Tess. When Trask hears a convincing tidbit, he hops off the closing elevator with Katharine and onto an elevator with Jack and Tess. They then convince Trask that the move into radio was Tess's idea, showing him materials. Trask confronts Katharine, asking her how she came up with the idea. She stumbles and is fired. Trask offers Tess an "entry-level" job with his company.
1064509	The Jacket is a 2005 psychological thriller film directed by John Maybury that is partly based on the Jack London novel titled The Star Rover, however, in the UK the book was published as The Jacket. Massy Tadjedin wrote the screenplay based on a story by Tom Bleecker and Marc Rocco. The original music score is composed by Roger Eno and the cinematography is by Peter Deming. Plot. After miraculously recovering from a bullet wound to the head, Gulf War veteran Jack Starks (Adrien Brody) returns to Vermont in 1992, suffering from periods of amnesia. While walking, he sees a young girl, Jackie (Laura Marano), and her alcoholic mother (Kelly Lynch) in despair beside their broken-down truck. Starks and Jackie quickly form a certain affinity; she asks him to give her his dogtags and he does so. He gets the truck started for them and continues on his way. Shortly after, a man driving along the same highway gives Jack a ride and they get pulled over by a policeman. The scene changes: Starks is found lying on the deserted roadside near the dead policeman, with a slug from the policeman's gun in his body. The murder weapon is on the ground nearby. Although he testifies there was someone else at the scene, he is not believed because of his amnesia. Starks is found not guilty by reason of insanity and is incarcerated in a mental institution. Starks is placed in the care of Dr. Thomas Becker (Kris Kristofferson), a psychiatrist, and his staff. In December 1992 Starks is forced to undergo an unauthorized treatment designed by Becker: he is injected with experimental drugs, bound in a straitjacket and then placed inside a morgue drawer as a form of sensory deprivation. While in this condition, he is somehow able to travel 15 years into the future and stay there for a short time. He meets an older version of Jackie (Keira Knightley) at a roadside diner where she works. He suspects this happens because it is the only memory he can ever fully hold on to. Seeing him standing forlornly, she takes pity on him and offers him shelter, just for the night. While in her apartment, Starks comes across his own dogtags and confronts her. Jackie tells him that Jack Starks died on New Year's Day in 1993, and so he cannot possibly be who he says he is. She becomes upset and asks him to leave. Subsequently, Starks is transported back to the future on several occasions in the course of his treatment and, after earning Jackie's trust, they try to figure out how to make use of the time-travelling so as to remove Jack from the hospital and save his life.
1249853	The Burrowers is a 2008 horror/thriller film with a Western theme. The film is based on an original short film, "Blood Red Earth", from director J. T. Petty. Plot. When a family of Dakota Territory pioneers is violently abducted and a posse is assembled to venture into the badlands and rescue them, the frightening truth they discover in the hills leads them to believe man may not be the only hunter stalking the Old West. The year is 1879, and beyond the fringes of civilization a handful of courageous pioneers maintain settlements while exploring the unknown territories. One night, under the shimmering Western stars, a family from one of these settlements is brutally dragged into darkness by a group of unknown invaders. At first the kidnappers are thought to be hostile Native Americans, and a posse forms to bring the family back home safely. Venturing out into the unmapped territories is an Irish immigrant desperate to find his lost love, a naïve teen eager to prove his worth, a former slave seeking his fortune after gaining his freedom, and a hardened pair of battle-weary Indian fighters. But nature's wrath and the tomahawks of hostile tribes are not the only threats that this group will be forced to contend with, because as the bodies begin to multiply and the truth about the abductors gradually emerges, these rescuers will find out that there are forces in this world that cannot be described in human terms—and that seem to have motivations beyond our comprehension. A species, called "Burrowers" by the Natives, used to subsist on buffalo. When white settlers depleted the buffalo, the species began to survive on human meat - first hunting nearby Indians and later the settlers. One tribe in particular, the Ute, have experience in combating the hunter-species. The "Burrowers" first lace their victims by cutting them and drugging them with a toxin. The victim is then buried alive and eaten only after decomposition has begun. By the time the film's protagonists meet up with the Ute their numbers are severely depleted, but the Ute method of drugging someone already infected with "Burrower" toxin proves effective. When the "Burrowers" go to eat the twice drugged victim they themselves fall asleep and are vulnerable, especially to the rays of the sun, which are the only apparent thing that can kill them. However, the surviving member of the posse, the Irishman Coffey, is unable to discover exactly what the Ute used to drug the "Burrowers", as most of the remaining Ute are executed by the overzealous Cavalry. The film ends with the suggestion that the "Burrower" attacks will continue. In addition to the environmental message about changing ecosystems, the film assesses prevailing attitudes towards Blacks and Natives amongst the settlers in the West, with special focus on the brutality of the US cavalry. Release and reception. The film was not released in theaters although it played at the Fantastic Fest and the Toronto International Film Festival. "The Burrowers" has been available on DVD as of April 21, 2009.
581853	Kulbhushan Kharbanda is an Indian actor, who worked in Hindi and Punjabi films. He is better known for his role as antagonist Shakaal in "Shaan" (1980) inspired by the character of Blofeld from James Bond movies. Starting with Delhi-based theatre group "Yatrik" in the 1960s, he moved to films with Sai Paranjpye's "Jadu Ka Shankh" in 1974, he worked in several parallel cinema films, before working in mainstream Bollywood. He later appeared in Mahesh Bhatt's classic, "Arth" (1982), "Ek Chadar Maili Si" (1986), and in all three parts of Deepa Mehta's Elements trilogy, "Fire" (1996), "Earth" (1998), and "Water" (2005). Early life and education. Born in Hassanabdal, Attock District, (now in Pakistan), known for the historic Gurdwara Panja Sahib, his family migrated to India after partition, did his early schooling from Jodhpur, Dehradoon, Aligarh & Delhi. Later Kharbanda did his graduation from Kirorimal College, Delhi University. Career. After his studies he and a few of his college friends formed a theatre group called "Abhiyaan", and then joined Delhi-based "Yatrik", a bilingual theatre repertory founded by director Joy Michael in 1964, and became its first paid artiste, though after a few years Yatrik collapsed as the director was lecturing in US universities. That is when he moved to Kolkata and started working with "Padatik" theatre group with did Hindi theatre, under director Shyamanand Jalanin 1972. Here he worked for a while, before moving to films and Mumbai. He first got noticed in Shyam Benegal's "Nishaant" (1974), with whom he went on to work in several more films including, "Manthan" (1976) and "" (1977), "Junoon" (1978), and "Kalyug" (1980), soon he was a regular with Parallel cinema directors, like "Godhuli" (1977) with B. V. Karanth. Playing a bald villain, "Shakaal" in "Shaan" (1980) directed by Ramesh Sippy, saw his transition into Bollywood mainstream, Kharbanda went on to appear in "Ghayal" (1990), "Jo Jeeta Wohi Sikandar (1992)", "" (1997), "Border" (1997), "Yes Boss" (1997), "Refugee" (2000). Though he continued appearing in art films, like "Chakra" (1981) with Smita Patil and Naseeruddin Shah, "Arth" (1982) with Shabana Azmi, "Andhi Gali" (1984) first Hindi film of Buddhadeb Dasgupta, "Ek Chadar Maili Si" (1986) with Hema Malini, "Utsav (1984) by Girish Karnad, "Mandi" (1983), "Trikal" (1985) and "Susman" (1987) by Shyam Benegal, "Naseem" (1995) by Saeed Akhtar Mirza and "Monsoon Wedding" (2001) directed by Mira Nair. He portrayed Reema Lagoo's husband and Raj Babbar's brother in Shashi Kapoor's Filmwalas Production's, "Kalyug". He has also appeared in period pieces such as "Jodha Akbar" and "Lagaan". His most recent film are "Aloo Chaat"and "". He has acted in a number of Punjabi films. He had also portrayed the hero in the legendary film "Chan Pardesi" (1980) and also starred in the Punjabi comedy "Mahaul Theek Hai" (1999). He has acted in six of Deepa Mehta's movies and all her triologies: "Earth","Fire" and "Water". He also has done a German film . He has also acted in TV series, like "Shanno Ki Shaadi" and "Mahi Ve".
1759326	Five Minarets in New York (), released as Act of Vengeance in the U.S. and as The Terrorist in Australia, is a Turkish action film written and directed by Mahsun Kırmızıgül, which follows two Turkish police officers sent to New York City to bring back a terrorist suspect. The film, which went on nationwide general release across Turkey on November 5, 2010, was one of the highest-grossing Turkish films of 2010. The title comes from the popular Turkish folk song, "Five Minarets in Bitlis" (). Production. The film, which Director Mahsun Kırmızıgül wrote the story and the screenplay of for around 11 years before production commenced, was shot from April to June 2010 on location in New York City, USA and Istanbul, Turkey with an estimated budget of US$20 million. Cinematographer Jim Gucciardo shot the film in Anamorphic 35mm using an Arricam LT with Hawk Anamorphic V series lenses as the main “A” camera as well as a 1-Arri 435 for high speed sequences and a 1-Arri 235 for handheld and special Steadicam sequences. Iraqi American production designer, John El Manahi was brought on to bring authenticity to the visual style of the sets and the complex action sequences. Plot. The film follows two anti-terror officers from Istanbul, sent to New York to find and bring back a Turkish religious leader, codenamed Dajjal, who was arrested in the United States and who will be delivered to Turkish authorities by the FBI. The film focuses on Islamophobia in Turkey and the United States after September 11 attacks, seeking to answer the question of whether innocence or guilt even matters to one who lusts for vengeance. Marketing. US-based Turkish graphic artist Emrah Yücel designed the theatrical poster for the film, which features New York’s signature skyline in the background with minarets rising among skyscrapers. Headshots of the film’s leading cast were also added in a revised version. Teasers showing Kırmızıgül and Sandal running around the streets of New York City with footage of a speech by U.S. President Barack Obama, planes crashing into the World Trade Center and a group of Muslims praying in Central Park, managed to shock and raise anticipation in Turkish Audiences. The film was shown to distribution company officials at the American Film Market in Los Angeles, where, according international distributor Yarek Danielak, "We received more interest than we expected. We will invite Kırmızıgül to the U.S. for the film’s screening in the country. Everyone seeing the film is curious about its director." "Besides three American distributors, the film received great interest from many distributors throughout the world", and has also been sold to Japan, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. Release. Press screening. A special press screening in Istanbul and Ankara was scheduled for but was canceled allegedly at the instigation of director and star Mahsun Kırmızıgül because of the criticism of the Turkish Cinema Writers Association to his two previous films. General release. The film opened in 700 screens across Turkey on at number one in the Turkish box office chart with an opening weekend gross of US$4,882,738. Reception. Box office. The movie was at number one at the Turkish box office for four weeks and has made a total gross of US$19,762,166 in Turkey and US$20,948,284 worldwide. Reviews. "Today's Zaman" reviewer Emine Yıldırım describes Mahsun Kırmızıgül as, "a director of noble intentions", who, "really tries so hard to do right by his political convictions, which can be summed up as equality, peace against violence, rage over the innocent lives taken by Middle Eastern conflicts and an obstinate stand against Islamic fundamentalism." But, "It’s almost like you’re not watching a movie but listening to an oration during a campaign by a political figure", and, "his characters are not genuine characters but are cardboard avatars of the actor-director-screenwriter voicing his opinions in blatant dialogues that lack any kind of sophistication or notion of literary value." Yıldırım does however single out Haluk Bilginer for praise by stating that, "Despite the script, he still comes off clean as one of the most talented and charismatic Turkish actors of his generation. He is the sole reason that anyone should watch this movie", and, "his performance duly delivers what Kırmızıgül cannot achieve through his script: the notion of being pious without being oppressive, a peace-loving person motivated by compassion and openness." Of Kırmızıgül himself Yıldırım writes, "the man does have a peculiar screen charisma, and he knows really well that mass Turkish audiences love macho-fueled simplified revenge fantasies of oppressed groups and grandiose melodramas. Of course, at the end of the day, box office numbers will prove if this thesis is correct", and "I still have hopes that one day these underlying good intentions will lead to decent cinema."
1063445	Bad Lieutenant is a 1992 crime-drama film directed by Abel Ferrara and starring Harvey Keitel as the eponymous "bad lieutenant". The screenplay was written by actress-model Zoë Lund. She also played a small role in the film. Lund had been discovered by Ferrara and had starred in his earlier film, "Ms. 45". The film was screened in the Un Certain Regard section at the 1992 Cannes Film Festival. Plot. The film opens in the Bronx, where The Lieutenant (Harvey Keitel) drops his two sons off at Catholic school. After they leave the car, and before he drives to work, the Lieutenant takes a few small bumps of cocaine. His first case is a double murder. He wanders away from the scene to get some coffee, and across the street, he watches a petty thief rifling through the trunks of parked cars, which the Lieutenant ignores. In the next scene, the detective approaches a group of drug dealers, who run off as he approaches. The Lieutenant follows one dealer into an apartment building and up the stairs. The dealer waits for him in the hallway, and the Lieutenant gives him a bag of drugs from a crime scene. The Lieutenant quickly smokes some crack, and then sets aside a portion of the drugs for himself. The thief promises to give him the money he makes from selling the drugs in a few days. At an apartment, the Lieutenant gets drunk and engages in a threesome with two women. Meanwhile, a nun (Frankie Thorn) is raped in a church by two young hoodlums. In the hospital, the Lieutenant spies on her naked body as she is examined by the doctors, who explain that the two boys also raped her with objects like a crucifix. The Lieutenant listens to her statement, where she says she has no feelings of animosity towards her attackers. She sees the attack as an opportunity for God's grace to be bestowed on them.
1059084	Escape from the Planet of the Apes, directed by Don Taylor, is a 1971 science fiction film starring Roddy McDowall, Kim Hunter, Bradford Dillman and Ricardo MontalbĂĄn. It is the third of five films in the original "Planet of the Apes" series produced by Arthur P. Jacobs, the second being "Beneath the Planet of the Apes" (1970). Its plot centers around many social issues of the day including scientific experimentation on animals, nuclear war and government intrusion. The film was well received by critics, getting the best reviews of the four "Planet of the Apes" sequels. It was followed by "Conquest of the Planet of the Apes". Plot summary. The preceding film, "Beneath the Planet of the Apes", ends with the apes' future Earth and everything on it being destroyed by a nuclear weapon. "Escape from the Planet of the Apes" begins by establishing that three apesâCornelius, Zira, and Dr. Milo (played by Roddy McDowall, Kim Hunter, and Sal Mineo, respectively)âescaped the Earth's destruction by salvaging and repairing the astronaut Taylor's spaceship (which sank in the first movie) and piloting it through the shock wave of Earth's destruction, sending the ship through a time warp. The salvage, repair and launch all happen within the brief period of the final act of the previous film. The apes arrive on Earth in 1973, splashing down on the Pacific coast. They are transported to a secluded ward of the Los Angeles Zoo, under the observation of two scientists, Stephanie Branton (Natalie Trundy) and Lewis Dixon (Bradford Dillman). The three apes decided not to let them know that they can speak and they also decide not to tell them about Earth's destruction because of the Ape War. Later, the apes' power of speech is revealed when Zira's impatience gets the better of her during an experiment. Soon after this, Milo is killed by a gorilla who becomes agitated by an argument amongst the three chimpanzees. Meanwhile, a Presidential Commission has been formed to investigate the return of Taylor's spaceship and how the apes, which they already are aware are atypically intelligent, came to be aboard it. The apes are brought before the Presidential Commission, where they publicly reveal their ability to speak. The council asked them if they knew about Taylor, but Cornelius and Zira tell them that they know nothing about Taylor. They did reveal that they came from the future and escaped Earth when war broke out. Everyone welcomed them as guests. Cornelius and Zira secretly tell Stephanie and Lewis that they knew about Taylor, how humans are treated in the ape dominated future, about the Earth's eventual destruction. Stephanie and Lewis are shocked, but they handle it and tell Cornelius and Zira to keep this quiet until they find the right people to talk to. The apes become celebrities, being lavished with presents and media attention. They come to the attention of the President's Science Advisor Dr. Otto Hasslein (Eric Braeden), who discovers Zira is pregnant and fears for the future of the human race. Determined to force the issue, he gets her drunk on champagne (which he assures her is harmless, calling it "grape juice plus"). The resulting interrogation enables him to convince the Commission that Cornelius and Zira must be subjected to more rigorous questioning. Both are questioned using various means of interrogation; during this time, one of Hasslein's assistants refers to the apes as "monkeys", stirring Cornelius's anger. Hasslein defuses it, saying they simply want to know how apes rose in dominance over men. Cornelius reveals that the human race will eventually meet its downfall and be dominated by simians, which will later lead to Earth's destruction. Cornelius tells them that Earth was destroyed by a weapon that humans made because humans had a bad habit of killing each other. Zira tells them that the gorillas started the war and the orangutans supported the gorillas while the chimpanzees had nothing to do with it. However, there are still suspicions about how humans are treated by the future apes rather than the Earth's destruction. Suspicion had already been aroused by Zira letting slip, during the original hearing, that she had dissected humans in the course of her work. Hasslein orders Lewis to administer a truth serum to her, while Cornelius is taken to confinement quarters. Lewis assures Zira that the serum will have the same effect as the champagne Hasslein convinced her to drink earlier. As a result of the serum, Hasslein learns for himself that Zira examined and operated on humans in the future.
1060699	Nastassja Kinski (born 24 January 1961) is a German actress who has appeared in more than 60 films in Europe and the United States.
1463299	S. (Sundararaman) Ramanan (born 20 July 1937) is an Indian mathematician who works in the area of algebraic geometry, moduli spaces and Lie groups. He is one of India's leading mathematicians and internationally recognised as an outstanding expert in Algebraic Geometry, especially in the area of modulii problems. He has also done some very beautiful work in Differential Geometry: His joint paper with M.S. Narasimhan on Universal Connections has been very influential: It enabled (among other things) S.S. Chern and B. Simons to introduce what is known as the Chern-Simons invariant which has proved useful in Theoretical Physics. He completed his PhD at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, under the direction of M. S. Narasimhan, with whom he collaborated for decades. He later pursued a lengthy career at TIFR, with many international visits. He picked up the methods of modern differential geometry from the French mathematician Jean-Louis Koszul, and later successfully applied it for his research centred around algebraic geometry. He has also made important contributions to the topics of abelian varieties and also vector bundles. He was a senior colleague of M. S. Raghunathan and influenced him considerably. Vijay Kumar Patodi who proved part of the Atiyah-Singer index theorem, was found and encouraged by Ramanan, and Patodi's PhD was done under the combined direction of Narasimhan and Ramanan. He has a considerable number of students. Mathematicians influenced by Ramanan include N. Mohan Kumar, Shrawan Kumar, D. S. Nagaraj, Kapil H. Paranjape, Jaya Iyer, Annamalai Ramanathan and several others. He was very close to, and has closely collaborated with, many Western mathematicians of note, like the late Raoul Bott, who was at Harvard University. While in TIFR as distinguished professor, he was one of the important figures in the school of mathematics in India. He now continues his contributions via teaching at the Chennai Mathematical Institute, where he is adjunct professor. He is a great lecturer and expositor, and has written a graduate level book on Global Calculus. He is married to Anuradha Ramanan and has two daughters: Sumana Ramanan, who is a journalist and editor, now a senior editor at the Hindustan Times, Mumbai, and Kavita Ramanan, who is also a mathematician, now a professor at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, USA. The honours awarded to prof. Ramanan include the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize in 1979, the Third World Academy of Sciences Prize for Mathematics in 2001 and the Ramanujan Medal. He has been a visiting professor at many leading universities in the world. In 1978 he gave one of the prestigious 50-minute invited talks at the International Congress of Mathematicians in Helsinki, and has also been a speaker at many major international conferences. In 1999, he was extended the privilege of speaking on some aspects of the work of André Weil, one of the greatest mathematicians of 20th century, on the occasion of his being awarded the prestigious Inamouri Prize. He is an alumnus of the Vivekananda College in Chennai.
583975	Thottal Poo Malarum () is a 2007 Tamil romance film written and directed by P. Vasu, starring his son Sakthi Vasu and Gowri Munjal, two newcomers, in lead roles, whilst Rajkiran, Suganya, Nassar, Vadivelu and Santhanam essayed supporting roles. Music is composed by Yuvan Shankar Raja. The film was released on 3 August 2007, failing to attract the audience and ending up as a box office bomb. Plot. Ravi (Sakthi), is a happy-go—lucky-youngster, who falls in instant love with Anjali (Gauri Munjal), his college mate. Anjali's mother Periya Nayagie (Sukanya), a rich and an arrogant entrepreneur, tries to play spoilsport in their romance. She arranges for her daughter's wedding with son of a dreaded gangster Varadharaja Vandaiyar (Raj Kiran) in Mumbai. Sakthi sets on a mission to Mumbai. He hides his true identity and manages to gain an entry into Vandiyar's family. Having won the confidence of Vandaiyar's family, Sakthi sets himself on a mission to marry Anjali. Does he succeed in his attempt forms the rest. Soundtrack. For the music of the film, P. Vasu teamed up with composer Yuvan Shankar Raja for the first time. The soundtrack was released on 23 June 2007 by Rajinikanth and Kamal Haasan. It features 6 tracks, whilst 'Kavignar' Vaali had written the lyrics for all the songs, but for "Kadatharen Naan Unnai", which had lyrics written by Snehan. "Indiaglitz" described the album as "rocking" and a "delight for music-lovers". Particularly, the song "Arabu Naade" got immensely popular and became a chartbuster song. Reviews. TSV Hari of Rediff.com described the film as "very ordinary fare," adding that "Sakthi certainly deserved better." M Bharat Kumar of "News Today" called it a "mediocre offering" with "predictable sequences," noting that "the son seems to have delivered the goods well, while the father has failed as a director." However, "IndiaGlitz" described it as a "feel-good youthful entertainer" with an "intelligent screenplay and pacy narration" that is "sure to appease film-buffs."
775252	John Dunsworth (born April 12, 1946) is a Canadian actor known for playing the frequently drunk trailer park supervisor Jim Lahey on the hit TV show "Trailer Park Boys". He has also appeared in "", a CBC film about the 1917 Halifax Explosion. Dunsworth also has extensive experience in regional theatre. Biography. Early life. Dunsworth was born in Bridgewater, Nova Scotia to Frank and Frances Dunsworth. He was the second born of ten children, and the oldest son. His daughter, Sarah Dunsworth, appears on the show "Trailer Park Boys" with her father. Her character is also named Sarah. Acting career. Dunsworth studied acting at the University of Guelph, but dropped out in his fourth year. Despite that, he went on to act in numerous CBC radio dramas, and has had starring roles in many stage productions at the Neptune Theatre in Halifax. In 1970, Dunsworth leased an abandoned building on Halifax's waterfront, and converted it into a playhouse. Dubbing it the Pier One Theatre, it became the city's first and most successful alternative theatre production house. In 1987, Dunsworth founded Filmworks Casting where he worked as Halifax's most renowned casting director. Dunsworth met director Mike Clattenburg in the mid-1990s when he tried out for a bit part in Clattenburg's film short, "One Last Shot". Dunsworth's small role gradually transformed into a leading part that earned him a Best Performance award from the Atlantic Film Festival. From there, he further developed the character into what would eventually become Jim Lahey in "Trailer Park Boys". Dunsworth, John Paul Tremblay, and Robb Wells can be seen in the MGM 2002 movie Virginia's Run starring Gabriel Byrne and Joanne Whalley. Dunsworth plays a local cop while Tremblay and Wells play active and verbal townsmen similar to their Trailer Park Boys characters. Actors are credited as cop for John Dunsworth, J.P. for John Paul Tremblay (credits as J.P. Tremblay), and Rob Wells as Rob. The movie was filmed in Nova Scotia, Canada. Dunsworth stars in "Haven", the film adaption of the Stephen King novel The Colorado Kid. In 2010, Dunsworth reunited with many of his former "Trailer Park Boys" castmates in the new series "The Drunk and On Drugs Happy Fun Time Hour". Politics. In 1988, Dunsworth starred in a video documentary entitled, "John Dunsworth: The Candidate". The video is 22 minutes long, and was written and directed by Neal Livingston. The premise of the piece is to follow an underdog provincial candidate for the New Democratic Party, as he travels around Nova Scotia trying to win support for his campaign. Dunsworth's candidacy in this election was real, but by 1990, he left the political realm in favour of his growing acting career. Personal life. John Dunsworth grew up in Halifax, Nova Scotia and currently resides in Nova Scotia. Unlike Jim Lahey, the character that he plays on "Trailer Park Boys", Dunsworth rarely drinks alcohol. Dunsworth has admitted he had suffered from a gambling problem in the past. As a result of his recovery, he has been instrumental in trying to remove Video Lottery Terminals from bars in Nova Scotia. John is married and has 3 daughters and 1 son. Sarah, his eldest daughter, appeared eponymously in "Trailer Park Boys" and his daughter Molly starred in 2010's "Hobo with a Shotgun" alongside "Blade Runner"'s Rutger Hauer. John is an avid boating enthusiast and spends a lot of time on "The Emerald Princess" his personal yacht, and he spends a lot of time at granite quarries finding rocks to complete various sculptures and walkways. He built an enormous granite salt water pool outside his home entirely from hand picked granite and manually mixed concrete.
1431630	Joshua "Josh" Radnor (born July 29, 1974) is an American director, actor, producer, and writer, best known for portraying the main character Ted Mosby on the popular Emmy Award-winning CBS sitcom "How I Met Your Mother". He made his writing and directorial debut with the 2010 comedy-drama film "Happythankyoumoreplease", for which he won the Sundance Film Festival Audience Award and was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize. He has produced and starred in his second film, entitled "Liberal Arts", which premiered at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival in January 2012. Early life. Radnor was born in Columbus, Ohio, the son of Carol Radnor, a high school guidance counselor, and Alan Radnor, a medical malpractice lawyer. He has two sisters, Melanie Radnor and Joanna Radnor Vilensky. He grew up in Bexley, Ohio, a small city nested inside Columbus. He attended Orthodox Jewish day schools (including the Columbus Torah Academy) and was raised in Conservative Judaism. Radnor went to Bexley High School and later Kenyon College, where his school's theater department presented him with the Paul Newman Award, and he graduated with a B.A. in Drama. Radnor received his Master of Fine Arts degree in acting from New York University's Graduate Acting Program at the Tisch School of the Arts. Radnor participated in an Israel experience program in Tzfat with Livnot U'Lehibanot in 1997. Career. In 2001, Radnor was cast as the lead in The WB series "Off Centre". However, the role was re-cast with Eddie Kaye Thomas before the first episode aired. In 2002 he made his Broadway debut in the stage version of "The Graduate", succeeding Jason Biggs, opposite Kathleen Turner and Alicia Silverstone. Since 2005, Radnor has starred in "How I Met Your Mother", his biggest role to date. In July 2008, he starred opposite Jennifer Westfeldt in the premiere of the play "Finks", written by Joe Gilford and directed by Charlie Stratton for "New York Stage and Film". Radnor made his directorial debut with the film "happythankyoumoreplease", in which he was also the writer and star. His second film "Liberal Arts", starring himself and Elizabeth Olsen, premiered at the Sundance Film Festival on January 22, 2012.
582628	Mirch Masala ("Spices" in English) is a 1987 Hindi film directed by Ketan Mehta. Plot. The film opens with an arrogant "subedar" (Naseeruddin Shah) (local tax collector in colonial India) and his soldiers rampaging through a village. The subedar has an eye for women and soon spots Sonbai (Smita Patil) on the riverbank. Sonbai is an intelligent, beautiful and strong woman. Her confidence intrigues the "subedar". The film moves deeper into the village. The "subedar" holds ultimate authority over the village. Subservient to him is the "mukhi (Suresh Oberoi)" (village chieftain) and all the villagers. The villagers do their best to scratch out a living, of which the "subedar" invariably exacts a heavy tax. We learn also that the villagers are mostly illiterate and ignorant of the outside world. They are most stupefied by a gramophone the tyrant possesses. The only literate person in the village is the schoolmaster (Benjamin Gilani) who insists on educating the children, even girls (the "mukhi's" wife even enrolls her only daughter, only to be rebuked by the "mukhi", who, like all the others believes that girls should not be sent to school). The "mukhi's" younger brother (Mohan Gokhale) (who also loves a low-caste girl secretly) even asks the school-master the meaning of the word "swaraj", which shows that film is set in times of British Raj (later the exact date is revealed as written on the school blackboard - which is 20 September 1941 ). The "subedar" and his men routinely attack the village and raid the food, livestock and supplies. The "subedar" is a haughty and cruel man. He exploits his power in every possible way. The villagers are compelled to keep him satisfied; they regularly set up parties for him and his men, often at great expense to their meager means. They also arrange a steady supply of women for his pleasure. The "mukhi" means well but is generally weak and powerless before the "subedar". His principal goals are to negotiate concessions to the tax and to keep the "subedar" happy. The safety and security of the village are mostly dependent on the moods of the "subedar", and so he tacitly arranges to keep the "subedar" sated and out of his way. The "mukhi" also represents the prevailing male attitude in the village: women are mostly confined to their homes and have no education. The other character in village life is the school master. He is a Gandhian and a reformer, and hopes the village may someday be liberated from the shackles of the likes of the "subedar". Things take a turn when on one such occasion he boldly asks Sonbai to yield to his desires. Equally bold, she slaps him across his face. She flees immediately with the soldiers in hot pursuit. She takes refuge in a "masala karkhana" (spice factory where red chillies are ground into powder). Abu Mian (Om Puri), the wizened old guard Muslim gatekeeper of the factory admits Sonbai and slams the factory doors shut in the nick of time. The soldiers try to coax and cajole Abu Mian into opening the door. When this fails, they try to trick (he sees through the trick) and then threaten his life. Abu Mian stands his ground and refuses to open the door. The "subedar" tries to get the factory owner to reason with Abu Mian. This turns out to be fruitless. Abu Mian refuses to compromise on his job of providing security to the factory employees. The matter is escalated. The "mukhi" convenes the village panchayat. The villagers are quick to condemn Sonbai and decide that she must turn herself over to the "subedar". The schoolmaster opposes this view; once they give in for one woman, he says, there will be nothing to stop the "subedar" from demanding others, even perhaps the "mukhi'"s own wife. (He is immediately thrashed for this.) The panchayat is dissolved and the "mukhi" reports back to the "subedar". They will hand over Sonbai on the condition the "subedar" will not make further demands of this nature. The "subedar" laughs off this condition and has the schoolmaster thrashed soundly again. He asks the "mukhi" to reason with Sonbai; her obstinacy is liable to bring trouble to the entire village. The "mukhi" brings pressure on Sonbai but she stands firm. Within the factory, the women who once supported Sonbai now turn upon her. They fear that if she does not yield then the "subedar" may send his men to indiscriminately molest the womenfolk. Sonbai nearly relents, but is stopped by Abu Mian. She resolves to stand firm. Abu Mian chides the "mukhi" and the villagers: they may lord over their wives at home, but are not man enough to face the "subedar", leaving Abu Mian himself as the only man in the village who has the courage to back his convictions. The "subedar" orders his soldiers to charge the factory. They smash down the door. Abu Mian manages to shoot one of the soldiers, but he is shot dead immediately after. The "subedar" enters the factory and tries to grab Sonbai. The women of the factory mount a sudden and surprising defense. They attack the "subedar" with fistfuls of mirch masala (fresh ground red chilli powder). The film ends with the "subedar" on his knees, screaming in pain as the chilli burns his face and eyes. The last shot is Sonbai holding a sickle over the subdued subedar, whether she ends up killing him or injuring him is not shown in the movie.
1163600	Thomas Mark Harmon (born September 2, 1951) is an American actor. Since the mid-1970s, he has appeared in a variety of television, film and stage roles following a brief career as a collegiate football player with the UCLA Bruins. Since 2003, Harmon has starred as Leroy Jethro Gibbs in the hit CBS series "NCIS". Early life. Born in Burbank, California, Harmon was the youngest of three children. His parents were Heisman Trophy winner and broadcaster Tom Harmon and actress and artist, Elyse Knox (née Elsie Lillian Kornbrath). Harmon has two older sisters, actress and painter Kristin Nelson, the former wife of singer Ricky Nelson, and actress-model Kelly Harmon, who was once married to car magnate John DeLorean. His maternal grandparents were Austrian immigrants. Following high school graduation in 1970, Harmon spent his first two years of college at Pierce College in Los Angeles. After gaining his associate's degree, he transferred to the University of California, Los Angeles, and was the starting quarterback for the UCLA Bruins football team in 1972 and 1973. In his first game for UCLA in 1972, he engineered a stunning upset of the two-time defending national champion, Nebraska Cornhuskers. The Bruins were an 18-point underdog to the top-ranked Huskers, but won 20-17 with a late field goal under the lights in Los Angeles. As a senior, Harmon received the National Football Foundation Award for All-Round Excellence in 1973. In his two years as quarterback in coach Pepper Rodgers' wishbone offense, UCLA compiled a 17–5 record (). Harmon graduated from UCLA with a B.A. in Communication "cum laude" in 1974. Career. Even though he considered "advertising or law" as careers after college, Harmon became an actor and has spent much of his career portraying law enforcement and medical personnel. Other than athletics/sports appearances, one of his first national TV appearances was with his father Tom Harmon, in a commercial for Kellogg's Product 19 cereal, for which the latter was the longtime TV spokesman. As an actor, his first credit came courtesy of his sister Kristen's in-laws, Ozzie Nelson and Harriet Nelson, in an episode of "Ozzie's Girls." This was followed by guest-starring roles on episodes of "Adam-12", "Police Woman", and "Emergency!" in mid-1975 ("905-Wild" centered on two L.A. County Animal Control Officers and was a backdoor pilot episode for a series, but did not sell). Producer/creator Jack Webb, who was the packager of both series, later cast Harmon in "Sam", a short-lived 1977 series about an LAPD officer and his K-9 partner. Also in 1977, Harmon received an Emmy nomination for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Miniseries or a Movie for his performance as Robert Dunlap in the TV movie "". In 1978 he appeared in three episodes of the acclaimed mini-series, Centennial, as Captain John MacIntosh,an honorable Union cavalry officer. During the mid-1970s, Harmon made guest appearances on shows such as "Laverne & Shirley" and "The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries" and had supporting roles in the feature films "Comes a Horseman" (1978) and "Beyond the Poseidon Adventure" (1979). He then landed a co-starring role on the 1979 action series "240-Robert" as Deputy Dwayne Thibideaux. The series centered around the missions of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department Emergency Services Detail, but was also short-lived.
1067745	Open Range is a 2003 Western film directed and co-produced by Kevin Costner, starring Robert Duvall and Costner, with Annette Bening and Michael Gambon appearing in supporting roles. The film was the final on-screen appearance of Michael Jeter, who died before it was released, and the film was dedicated to Jeter's memory, and to that of Costner's parents, Bill and Sharon. The film was a box office success, and was critically favored. Plot. "Boss" Spearman (Duvall) is an open range cattleman, who, with hired hands Charley (Costner), Mose (Benrubi) and Button (Luna), is driving a herd cross country. Charley is a former soldier who fought in the Civil War and feels guilty over his past as a killer. Boss sends Mose to the nearby town of Harmonville for supplies. The town is controlled by a ruthless Irish immigrant land baron, Denton Baxter (Gambon), who hates open-rangers. Mose is badly beaten and jailed by the marshal, Poole (Russo). The only friendly inhabitant is Percy (Jeter), a livery stable owner. Boss and Charley become concerned when Mose does not return. They retrieve him from the jail but not before getting a warning from Baxter about free-grazing on his land. Mose's injuries are so severe that Boss and Charley take him to Doc Barlow (McDermott). There they meet Sue Barlow (Bening). Charley is attracted immediately, but assumes that Sue is the doctor's wife. After catching masked riders scouting their cattle, Boss and Charley sneak up on their campfire in the night, and disarm them. At the same time, another attack results in Mose's death. Button is badly injured and left for dead. Charley and Boss vow to avenge this injustice. They leave Button at the doctor's house and go into town, where they lock Poole in his own jail. Boss knocks him out with chloroform he has stolen from the doctor's office. The deputies are locked up as well. Charley learns that Sue is the doctor's sister, not his wife. He declares his feelings for her, and she gives him a locket for luck. Charley leaves a note with Percy, in which he states that if he should die, money from the sale of his saddle and gear are to be used to buy Sue a new tea set. Boss and Charley are pitted against Baxter and his men. Charley shoots Butler (Coates), the gunman who shot Button and killed Mose. An intense gun battle erupts in the street, with Boss, Charley and Percy outnumbered before the townspeople begin to openly fight against Baxter. After an intense firefight, Baxter's men are dead and Baxter ends up wounded and alone, trapped in the jailhouse. Boss rushes to the jail, mortally wounding Baxter. Sue's brother tends to the wounded townspeople and open-rangers. Charley speaks to Sue in private, telling her he must leave. She counters that she has a "big idea" about their future together and that she will wait for him to return. He does return, and proposes to Sue. Charley and Boss decide to give up the cattle business and settle down in Harmonville, taking over the saloon. Production. Inspiration. Kevin Costner grew up reading the western romance novels of Lauran Paine and "Open Range" is based on Paine's classic novel "The Open Range Men". Screenwriter Craig Storper wanted to make a movie about "the evolution of violence in the West." Storper continues: "These characters don't seek violence... But the notion that it's sometimes necessary... is the Western's most fundamental ideal." Casting. Cinematographer J. Michael Muro, was hand-picked by director Kevin Costner for his work on "Dances With Wolves". Robert Duvall is the only actor that Costner had in mind for the role of Boss Spearman. Costner said that if Duvall had turned down the part, he might not have made the movie at all. Duvall, who had grown up on ranches, accepted the role immediately and Costner gave him top billing. Duvall got bucked off a horse and broke six ribs while practicing his riding for this role. Filming. The movie was filmed on location on the Stoney Indian Reservation in Alberta, Canada. Clayton Lefthand of the Stoney Sioux First Nation worked as a film liaison. Filming took place from June 17, 2002 to September 8, 2002. Production spent over one million dollars to build a town from scratch since Costner didn't like any of the existing ones. This location was so far from civilization that they had to spend $40,000 to build a road to get there. Professional wranglers handled 225 head of cattle on the set. Releases. The film's US theatrical release was on August 11, 2003, and went on theatrical release in the UK on March 19, 2004. Reception. Box office. "Open Range" was a success at the box office, making about $14 million in its opening weekend in the U.S across 2,075 screens. On a budget of around $22 million the film made back a box office return of around $70 million worldwide. Critical Reception. The film received mostly positive reviews, receiving a 79% Fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Roger Ebert gave it 3.5 stars out of 4, calling it "an imperfect but deeply involving and beautifully made Western". Peter Bradshaw of "The Guardian" gave the film 4 stars out of 5, writing, "Duvall gives his best performance in ages" in a "tough, muscular, satisfying movie". In particular, the gun fighting scenes were intentionally filmed in giant wide shots and were praised for their intense realism by a number of critics and yet were the reason the film earned an R Rating. Kevin Carr of FilmThreat.com said on the gun action in "Open Range": "After "The Matrix" redefined action in the late 1990s, every crummy action sequence tries to repeat the power of 'bullet time' often with little success. The action in "Open Range" is filmed real time, grabbing the audience and showing them that when this kind of stuff happens in real life, it happens faster than you think it would." A review on Moviola stated that the film has "one of the most exciting final gunfights ever filmed". IGN, "USA Today", "Total Film" and "Guns & Ammo" all also say the shootout scene is one of the best of all time. Awards. The film won the 2004 Western Heritage Award, and was nominated for a Golden Satellite Award, an MTV Movie Award (Diego Luna), a Motion Picture Sound Editors Award as well as a Taurus Award for stunt artist Chad Camilleri. It was #48 in "TimeOut London"'s "The 50 greatest westerns" list.
1266046	Ruth Donnelly (May 17, 1896 – November 17, 1982) was an American stage and film actress. Her father was the mayor of Trenton, New Jersey. She began her stage career at the age of 17 in 1913, in "The Quaker Girl". Her Broadway debut brought her to the attention of George M. Cohan, who proceeded to cast her in numerous comic-relief roles in such musicals as "Going Up" (1917). Though she made her first film appearance in 1913, her Hollywood career began in earnest in 1931 and lasted until 1957. In her films she often played the wife of Guy Kibbee ("Footlight Parade", "Wonder Bar", "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington"). Among her roles was the part of Sister Michael in "The Bells of St. Mary's", starring Bing Crosby and Ingrid Bergman.
1102998	Rudolf Otto Sigismund Lipschitz (14 May 1832 – 7 October 1903) was a German mathematician and professor at the University of Bonn from 1864. Peter Gustav Lejeune Dirichlet was his teacher. He supervised the early work of Felix Klein. Lipschitz was Jewish. While Lipschitz gave his name to the Lipschitz continuity condition, he worked in a broad range of areas. These included number theory, algebras with involution, mathematical analysis, differential geometry and classical mechanics. He wrote: "Lehrbuch der Analysis" (two volumes, Bonn 1877, 1880); "Wissenschaft und Staat" (Bonn, 1874); "Untersuchungen über die Summen von Quadraten" (Bonn, 1886); "Bedeutung der theoretischen Mechanik" (Berlin, 1876). Rediscovery of Clifford algebra. Lipschitz discovered Clifford algebras in 1880, two years after William K. Clifford (1845–1879) and independently of him, and he was the first to use them in the study of orthogonal transformations. Up to 1950 people mentioned “Clifford-Lipschitz numbers” when they referred to this discovery of Lipschitz. Yet Lipschitz’s name suddenly disappeared from the publications involving Clifford algebras; for instance Claude Chevalley (1909–1984) gave the name “Clifford group” to an object that is never mentioned in Clifford’s works, but stems from Lipschitz’s. Pertti Lounesto (1945–2002) contributed greatly to recalling the importance of Lipschitz’s role.
1165719	Richard Denning (March 27, 1914 – October 11, 1998), was an American actor who starred in such films as "Creature from the Black Lagoon" (1954) and "An Affair to Remember" (1957) and on radio with Lucille Ball as her husband, George Cooper, in "My Favorite Husband" (1948–1951), the forerunner of television's "I Love Lucy", for which Denning was replaced by Ball's real-life husband, Desi Arnaz. Biography. Denning was born as Louis Albert Heindrich Denninger, Jr., in Poughkeepsie, New York. He became an actor, best known for his recurring role as the fictitious governor of Hawaii, Paul Jameson, in the CBS crime drama, "Hawaii Five-O" (1968–1980), starring Jack Lord. He also starred as the title character in the detective series "Michael Shayne" (1960–1961) and shared title billing with Barbara Britton in the detective series "Mr. and Mrs. North" (1952–1954). He was later cast as Dr. Greg Graham in the 1959 series, "The Flying Doctor".
725350	Victoria Lynn Rowell (born May 10, 1959) is an American actress and dancer. She is best known for her portrayal of Drucilla Winters on the CBS daytime drama "The Young and the Restless", and medical examiner/pathologist Dr. Amanda Bentley on the CBS drama "". From 1993 to 2000, she appeared on both series simultaneously. Biography. Early life. Rowell was born in Portland, Maine on May 10, 1959. Her biological mother, Dorothy Rowell, was of English descent and a "Mayflower" descendant, and her birth father, whose surname was Wilson, was of African-American descent. Rowell knew very little about her father. Dorothy, who suffered from schizophrenia, took a taxi to a hospital to give birth to Rowell, leaving a son and two small daughters unsupervised. When she was 16 days old, Rowell, along with her two sisters, Sheree and Lori, was surrendered to child services. While living in Maine with foster parents Agatha C. and Robert Armstead, Rowell, then eight, began ballet lessons. She became a member of Sigma Gamma Rho sorority, an African-American Greek-Lettered Sorority. After dancing with the American Ballet Theater II and the Juilliard School of Music Dance Extension program with Antony Tudor, Rowell accepted guest artist teaching posts in New England. Acting career. In the 1980s, Rowell became an in-demand runway and catalog model. She began to take acting lessons and earned featured roles on television shows such as "The Cosby Show". In 1990, she was cast as street urchin-turned-fashion model Drucilla Barber on the long-running soap opera "The Young and the Restless". Rowell became a fan favorite and was nominated for three Daytime Emmy awards in 1996, 1997 and 1998. She won 11 NAACP Image Awards for her portrayal of Drucilla. Rowell's first run as Drucilla was from 1990 to 1998. She briefly returned in 2000, then returned on a regular basis from 2002 until early 2007. Rowell also played Dr. Amanda Bentley on the CBS series "", opposite Dick Van Dyke, replacing Cynthia Gibb. For much of Rowell's stint on "Diagnosis: Murder", she was working on that show and on "The Young and the Restless" simultaneously. One episode of "Diagnosis Murder" centered around murder on the set of "The Young and the Restless"; Rowell was featured as both Amanda and Drucilla in that episode. During her time on "Diagnosis", Rowell enjoyed a wonderful on- and off-screen friendship with Van Dyke, learning every case and medical terms in almost every episode. She was on the show until the series ended in 2001. Rowell's departure from "Y&R" in April 2007 generated some media coverage and controversy. Rowell expressed her anger about routine backstage politics at the show, and in particular, how she perceived those events impacted her and prevented her from being nominated for a Daytime Emmy. Sony Pictures Television, which produces "Y&R", ordered then-Head Writer Lynn Marie Latham to kill off Drucilla Barber Winters. Rowell herself said a few months prior to her exit (and before it was revealed that her character would be killed) that she quit "Y&R" because she had asked to be allowed to write for the show and was turned down.
1059861	Gnomeo & Juliet is a British 2011 3D computer-animated family film based on William Shakespeare's play "Romeo and Juliet". The film was directed by Kelly Asbury, and the two main characters are voiced by James McAvoy and Emily Blunt. The film was released on , 2011. It also marks Jason Statham's first voice role outside of video games. While the film drew mixed reviews, a sequel is in works under the direction of John Wayne Stevenson. Plot. Mrs. Montague and Mr. Capulet (Julie Walters and Richard Wilson) are two elderly neighbors who despise each other. When they leave the garden, their garden gnomes come alive. The Montague garden is filled with blue-hat gnomes, and the Capulet garden has red-hat gnomes. Like their human gardeners, the gnomes also despise each other. The gnomes hold a back alley lawnmower race, with Gnomeo (James McAvoy) driving for the blues and Tybalt (Jason Statham) for the reds. Tybalt cheats to win the race, destroying Gnomeo's lawnmower. Gnomeo and his best friend, Benny (Matt Lucas), are disappointed to see Mrs. Montague ordering a new cheap lawnmower. That night, Gnomeo and Benny infiltrate the red garden in black disguise. Benny sprays Tybalt's well and accidentally triggers a security light. During the escape Gnomeo ends up in a nearby garden where he bumps into a disguised Juliet (Emily Blunt), the daughter of the red gnomes leader Lord Redbrick (Michael Caine). Juliet is attempting to retrieve a unique orchid, and the two romantically fight over it. They each discover the other's color before fleeing the garden. When they both go back to their own gardens, Juliet tells her frog friend Nanette (Ashley Jensen) about her newfound love. Nanette states that the relationship is romantically tragic. Gnomeo and Juliet have secret meetings in the nearby garden, where they meet a pink plastic flamingo named Featherstone (Jim Cummings) who encourages their love. Gnomeo's mother Lady Bluebury (Maggie Smith), is distraught after the reds infiltrate the garden and destroy the plant nurtured by Gnomeo's deceased father. The blues want Gnomeo to take revenge on the reds, and he realizes that he cannot refuse unless he tells his secret. Just as he is about to spray the prized tulips of the reds, Juliet sees him and he backs out of the attack. When he and Juliet meet up again, they briefly fight until Featherstone stops them, telling them he lost his girlfriend when the two people living in the house, where the garden is, broke up and never saw each other again. Benny sees them and runs into the alleyway, where Tybalt is waiting with his lawnmower, attempting to run Benny down and cutting off his hat. Gnomeo intervenes, and he and Tybalt fight on the red lawnmower until the lawnmower runs into the wall. Gnomeo jumps off last minute, but Tybalt crashes into the wall, destroying himself. The reds attempt to attack Gnomeo, thinking that Tybalt died because of him, but Juliet, to the surprise of her clan, defends Gnomeo, saying that she loves him. Gnomeo ends up on a road, and everyone believes he was run over by a truck. Lord Redbrick glues the heartbroken Juliet to her fountain because he does not want to lose her like he lost her mother. Gnomeo is still alive, eventually reaching a park where he climbs onto a statue of William Shakespeare (Patrick Stewart) and tells him his story. Shakespeare tells Gnomeo that his story is very similar to "Romeo and Juliet" and that it is likely Gnomeo's will have a sad ending as well. Benny gets onto Mrs. Montague's computer and changes her lawnmower order to a powerful Terrafirminator unit, intending to get revenge on the reds. However, the Terrafirminator goes out of control and destroys most of the two gardens while the gnomes wage a full scale war. Gnomeo makes it back to Juliet with the help of Featherstone. However, when he arrives, the Terrafirminator then frees itself, sending it flying. He tries to try to un-glue her, but he is unable to. She tells him to go, but he refuses. The two share a passionate kiss just as the lawnmower crashes into the fountain, self-destructing in the process. When everyone believes that both are dead, Lord Redbrick and Lady Bluebury decide to end the feud. Miraculously, Gnomeo and Juliet emerge from the ruins and the two clans celebrate. The film ends happily with the red and blue gnomes finally coming together to celebrate their newfound peace. Tybalt is revealed to still be alive having been glued back together, Featherstone is reunited with his girlfriend after Benny finds and orders her online, Gnomeo and Juliet are married on a purple lawnmower, which symbolizes the new union of both gnome clans. Cast. There is no counterpart for Mercutio, as stated by James McAvoy in an interview with NBC, ”Gnomeo in this is a little bit of amalgamation between Romeo and Mercutio. We don’t have that Mercutio character in this. We don’t have that leader of the pack, which Romeo isn’t but Gnomeo is a little bit." Production. "Gnomeo & Juliet" is directed by Kelly Asbury. The original screenplay, inspired by William Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet", was written by John R. Smith and Rob Sprackling. Asbury, Mark Burton, Kevin Cecil, Emily Cook, Kathy Greenberg, Andy Riley, and Steve Hamilton Shaw worked on the final screenplay. Prior to the casting of James McAvoy and Emily Blunt, the roles of Gnomeo and Juliet were to be voiced by Ewan McGregor and Kate Winslet, respectively.
584558	Captain Prabhakaran is a 1991 Tamil action film directed by R. K. Selvamani. It features Vijayakanth in the lead role. It also features Mansoor Ali Khan, Rupini, and Ramya Krishnan. Sarath Kumar appears in a small role. It was Vijayakanth's 100th film; he earned the nickname "Captain" after this movie. The character of the antagonist Veerabhadran (played by Mansoor Ali Khan) is loosely based on the forest brigand Veerappan.It is a blockbuster film in South India. Movie name was tribute to Prabhakaran, LTTE leader. Plot. Captain Prabhakaran (Vijaykanth) is an IFS officer sent to Sathyamangalam to nab terrorist Veerabhadran (Mansoor Ali Khan (actor)) who tortures the people of that place. Prabhakaran not only going to nab Veerabhadran but also to avenge the death of his friend Rajaraman IFS (Sarathkumar) who was a forest officer killed by Veerabhadran. Police commissioner, collector are corrupt and supporters of Veerabhadran. In the climax, Veerabhadran kidnaps Prabhakaran's wife and son. Prabhakaran comes in correct time saves his wife, son and nabs Veerabhadran. Ramya krishnan loved Sarathkumar and she dies by giving birth to a child. Veerabhadran is shot dead by corrupt inspector and collector. Prabhakaran kills both of them and he is dragged to court for killing police inspector and collector. Prabhakaran tells the truth that they were corrupt and the film ends with Prabhakaran being released from the court. This film was dubbed in Telugu as Captain Prabakar with packed houses. Soundtrack. Soundtrack has only two songs composed by Ilayaraaja. The song "Aattama Therottama" became a hit at that time. The lyrics by Gangai Amaran and Pirai Soodan.
1058473	Brennan Brown (born November 23, 1968) is an American film and television actor.
1244823	The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill is a 2003 documentary film directed, produced, and edited by Judy Irving. It chronicles the relationship between Mark Bittner, an unemployed musician who is living rent-free in a cabin in Telegraph Hill in San Francisco, California, and a flock of feral parrots that he feeds and interacts with -- cherry-headed conures, mainly, but also two blue-crowned conures, one of which is named Connor. Bittner also wrote a book by the same name on the subject.
1016469	Legend of the Wolf (), alternatively known as The New Big Boss in U.S. and U.K. DVD titles, is a 1997 Hong Kong action-martial arts film, directed, produced by Donnie Yen and starring Yen in the leading role. The film also featured the directorial debut of Yen. Plot. In legend, there is a powerful and undefeated warrior known as the Wolf. This fighter has retired from the martial arts world and very few people know his true identity, but they are many who wish to challenge him. A young man seeks the Wolf and manages to contact Wai, who leads him to the warrior. When the young man sees that the Wolf (real name Fung Man-hin) is an old man, far from what he expected, he makes some sarcastic remarks to ridicule the old man, prompting Wai to retell the story of the Wolf. The film flashbacks to a post-World War II period. The young Fung is wandering around a war-torn and ravaged farming village, faintly remembering that he is there to meet a woman at an abandoned temple. Fung encounters the young villager Wai, who leads him to his destination. The villagers are suspicious about Fung's background and follow him to the temple, where they see Fung engaging six members of a notorious gang in a fierce fight. Although Fung manages to defeat his opponents, he is severely injured and Wai brings him to a quiet spot for recovery. Just then, Fung remembers that the woman he is meeting is actually his lover, Yee. In the meantime, the gangsters attack the village and kill many innocent people. When Fung and Wai arrive on the scene, they see corpses everywhere and learn that Yee has been captured by the gang. Fung pursues the gangsters and meets the second leader of the gang, who calls him "Third brother". At that point, Fung suddenly remembers that he is actually part of the gang. Fung is unable to tolerate the gang's cruel acts towards innocent civilians and he fights with the gangsters, emerging victorious eventually. The film moves back to the present-day conversation between Fung (old man), Wai and the young man. The young man reveals that he is actually an upstart killer, and wishes to make his name by slaying the legendary Wolf. He draws his gun and attempts to kill the Wolf, but does not succeed and is defeated by the Wolf immediately.
1268110	Anna Quirentia Nilsson (March 30, 1888 – February 11, 1974) was a Swedish born American actress who achieved success in American silent movies. Background. Anna Q. Nilsson was born in Ystad, Skåne County, Sweden in 1888. Her middle name, "Quirentia " is derived from her date of birth, March 30 Saint Quirinius' Day. When she was 8 years old her father got a job at the local sugar factory in Hasslarp, a small community outside Helsingborg in Sweden where she spent most of her school years. She did very well in school, graduating with highest marks. Due to her good grades she was hired as sales clerk in Halmstad on the Swedish west coast, unusual for a young woman from a worker's family at the time. But she had set her mind on going to America. Career. In 1905, she emigrated to the United States through Ellis Island. In the new country, the Swedish teenager started working as a nursemaid and learned English quickly. Soon she started working as a model. Already in 1907, she was named "Most beautiful woman in America". Penrhyn Stanlaws (1877–1957), one of the most successful and sought after cover artists of his day, picked Anna Q. Nilsson to become one of his models. Nilsson's modeling led her to getting a role in Kalem's 1911 film "Molly Pitcher". Another beauty who began appearing in Kalem films at the same time was Alice Joyce. Films of special note for Anna were "Regeneration" (1915) "Seven Keys to Baldpate" (1917), "Soldiers of Fortune" (1919), "The Toll Gate" and "The Luck of the Irish" (both 1920), and "The Lotus Eater" (1921). She stayed at the Kalem studio for several years, ranked behind their top star Alice Joyce. In the 1920s she freelanced successfully for Paramount, First National and many other studios and reached a peak of popularity just before the advent of talkies, despite a serious horse-riding accident which kept her from filming for almost two years. In 1923, she portrayed "Cherry Malotte" in the second movie based upon Rex Beach's "The Spoilers", a role that would be played in later versions by Betty Compson (1930), Marlene Dietrich (1942), and Anne Baxter (1955). In 1921 she returned to Sweden to record "Värmlänningarna", her only Swedish movie. In 1926 she was named Hollywood's most popular woman. She welcomed royalty when the Swedish Crown Prince Gustav Adolf (later King Gustaf VI Adolf) and his wife Louise Mountbatten visited Hollywood. In 1928, she struck a record of fan mail, 30 000 letters a month, and that year Joseph P. Kennedy brought her to his newly formed film company RKO Radio Pictures. The following year, as she was horse riding, she fell off the horse, was thrown against a stone wall and broke her hip. After a year of hard training she was on her feet again. 'Talkies'. In 1928, Anna Nilsson made her last film of the silent era, "Blockade". With the introduction of sound films, Nilsson's career went into a sharp decline, although she continued to play small, often uncredited parts in films into the 1950s. Between 1930 and 1950, she participated in 39 sound films, in smaller roles. She played the role of the Swedish immigrant grandmother of Loretta Young in "The Farmer's Daughter" (1947). Her best known performance in a sound film is arguably her turn as "herself", referred to as one of Swanson's "waxworks" in "Sunset Boulevard" (1950), where she has one small line. Personal life. Anna was married to actor Guy Coombs (1916-16) and to Norwegian-American shoe merchant John Marshall Gunnerson (1923–25). Nilsson has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6150 Hollywood Boulevard for her contribution to motion pictures. She was the first Swedish-born actress to receive such an honor. She died in Sun City, California, on February 11, 1974, of heart failure.
1058920	"I've Loved You So Long" () is a 2008 French-language drama film written and directed by Philippe Claudel. It tells the story of a woman struggling to interact with her family and find her place in society after spending fifteen years in prison. Plot. When Juliette Fontaine, formerly a doctor, is released from prison, her younger sister Léa invites her to stay with her family – including her husband, his mute father, and their two adopted Vietnamese daughters – in their home in the university town of Nancy in Lorraine. Why Juliette was in prison is revealed slowly throughout the film: first, that she was in prison for 15 years, then that her crime was murder, then that the victim was her 6-year-old son Pierre, and finally the reason why she killed him. Léa, a college professor of literature, is considerably younger than Juliette. Because of the nature of Juliette's crime, their parents denied Juliette's existence and refused to allow Léa to visit her. In addition, Juliette had refused to speak throughout her trial. As a result, Léa knows nothing about the circumstances surrounding the crime and, when pressed for details, Juliette refuses to discuss what happened until the end of the film. While struggling to find employment, Juliette enjoys platonic companionship with two men, a probation officer who understands how prison can damage the human spirit, and Michel, one of Léa's colleagues, who is sympathetic to her ordeal of having been imprisoned.
583076	Deewane Huye Paagal (), is a 2005 Bollywood romance action comedy film directed by Vikram Bhatt, and produced by Firoz A. Nadiadwala. The film features Akshay Kumar, Shahid Kapoor, Rimi Sen, Sunil Shetty, Paresh Rawal along with many others. Aftab Shivdasani and Vivek Oberoi make guest appearances. The film was released on 25 November 2005. Despite receiving good response, it turned out to be a box office flop. However, it has been classed as an comic cult. Its plot was lifted from the 1998 American comedy film "There's Something About Mary". Plot. This is the story of Karan (Shahid Kapoor) and Tanya (Rimi Sen). Karan is in love with Tanya but is too shy to tell her. One day Tanya witnesses the murder of a scientist (Om Puri) by his evil twin brother, the underworld don Mehboob, and as a result is forced to flee the country to save her own life. The scientist had stored a secret code in a stuffed toy, now being sought by Mehboob, and he was able to hide the toy in Tanya's car before being killed. Unawares, Tanya leaves the toy at home before fleeing the country, and the toy is later picked up by Karan, who himself is not aware of Tanya's predicament. Three years later, still in love with Tanya, but depressed from her sudden and complete disappearance, Karan stumbles across old schoolmates of hers at a cafe, and discovers from them that she had been living in Dubai all this time. Karan coaxes his friend Murugan (Johnny Lever) to help him track down Tanya in Dubai. They enlist the aid of a local hustler and bounty hunter, Rocky (Akshay Kumar). Rocky travels to Dubai, where his friend Babloo (Vijay Raaz) has already tracked down Tanya, who has morphed into a famous singer/performer named Natasha. Rocky and Babloo stake Natasha's villa to make sure they are on the right track, but as soon as Rocky spots Natasha, its love at first sight. While he has Natasha under surveillance, Karan and Murugan arrive at the Dubai airport from India. Faced with a potential competitor to woo Natasha, Rocky attempts to eliminate Karan from the picture. Tanya, he informs Karan, is not the same girl he knew from three years ago, apparently she has been married twice since coming here and both her husbands died one by one and now she has three pairs of twins (six children) and is also dating an underworld don. Karan is heartbroken to hear all this, and decides to go back to Mumbai, and is about to board his flight, when at the last moment, he spots a picture of Tanya (as Natasha) on a club advertisement printed across an airport Taxi. He is overjoyed, and assumes that Rocky made a mistake, and ended up tracking down someone else named Tanya, not being aware that Rocky is in fact trying to deceive him. Things are about to get more complicated, not only has Rocky to contend with Karan, there are two other guys already in her life trying to catch Natasha in their web of deceit. Local plumber, Sanju Malvani (Sunil Shetty) has been currying favor with Natasha by pretending to be a paraplegic on crutches. Every time Natasha meets someone she likes, Sanju eliminates the competitor using a unique trick. He edits and prints out a fake newspaper featuring an article showing that person as a crook, and comes over to Natasha and shares "the news" with her while acting all shocked himself. Then there is Tanya's physically disabled live-in friend Tommy (Paresh Rawal), who also has a soft spot for her. Having heard of the death of Tanya's disabled brother a year ago, Tommy has since faked being run over in a car accident and now acts like he himself is disabled and mentally challenged, thus managing to stay close to Natasha by seamlessly filling in the void left behind by her deceased brother. The most hilarious sequence of the movie commences at this point, as Rocky begins his attempted seduction of Natasha. Having wired the villa, and thus overheard what Natasha craves in a man, Rocky shows up at the local shopping mall, pretending to be an architect. Natasha, who is shopping at the mall, is ambushed in the parking lot by a bunch of thugs (who it later transpires are simply mugs hired by Rocky himself). Rocky intervenes, and after seemingly beating the daylights out of the supposed thugs, introduces himself to Natasha, and proceeds to show-off himself as a charming professional with a heart of gold. Somewhat awed, Natasha offers Rocky an invitation for tea later in the evening, which he accepts. When Rocky arrives at her villa later in the evening, he is confronted by several obstacles, Natasha's sister Sweety (Supriya Pilgaonkar), the jealous Tommy and the family's pet dog. Rocky is easily able to charm Sweety, but has to drug the dog, who dies due to an overdose while the sisters are making Rocky a drink in the kitchen. Crisis is avoided when Rocky is able to revive the dog by electrocution using wiring from a lamp in the living room. The parties then quickly depart to the grand opening of Natasha's latest album at a social event, where Rocky now comes face to face with Sanju, who puts Rocky on the spot right away, as he himself is pretending to be an architect! With Natasha and company under surveillance, Rocky now intercepts Sanju trying to discredit him at Natasha's home. Later, when the shocked Natasha confronts Rocky about him being an alleged imposter, Rocky is able to fast-talk his way out of the situation and convince the gullible Natasha that he is indeed not an architect, but a Captain on a ship, something his mother does not approve of, thus the ruse. Tommy, however behaves in a somewhat jealous manner and puts Rocky in a confusing situation, involving him jumping on Rocky's back and then accusing the latter of having twisted and bitten his arm. This arouses Rocky's suspicions about his supposed "condition". The next day, using a food bill from a bar (which dropped out of Tommy's pocket during his supposed accusation of Rocky) that aroused his suspicions, Rocky and Babloo track down Tommy at a local disco where, unaware that he is being followed, Tommy shows up every week, for a little fun and dance away from his daily existence as a fake disabled victim. Rocky confronts Tommy while he is on the disco floor and threatens to expose him in front of Natasha. At the end, Rocky lets Tommy go, on the condition that the latter will no longer attempt to get in his way of seducing Natasha. The scene now shifts to the harbor, where Rocky, resplendently dressed as an immaculate ship's captain, has invited Natasha over for a cruise. While coddling her on the harbor front, Natasha spots Karan and Murugan sitting at the grounds. Unaware that Karan is in Dubai searching for her, she is overjoyed to see an old friend from her past. She introduces Karan to Rocky, not aware that they know each other quite well already! Murugan has to be held back by Karan, as he wants to knock Rocky's teeth out, having just realized that all this time Rocky was simply giving them the run-around in order to get his own hands on Natasha/Tanya. Karan seeing Rocky and Natasha/Tanya all smiles and happy, simply wants to leave them alone out of his love for Tanya. He just wants her to be happy, even if it is with Rocky and not himself, much to Murugan's frustration. While he tries to leave the scene, pretending that he and Murugan have a flight to catch, Natasha/Tanya convinces Karan to stay one more night in Dubai, and come over for dinner later in the day. In the next sequence of the movie, both Karan and Rocky are shown staging elaborate dance sequences at a club in order to impress Natsha/Tanya. Sanju shows up later at the party, and pulls Natasha aside to reveal his latest newspaper creation, showing Rocky as an international crook, murderer and serial killer wanted by many crime agencies the world over, whose M.O as Sanju explains is to trap and seduce innocent girls like Natasha and then destroy their lives. Rocky overhears the conversation and while Natasha is occupied elsewhere, chases Sanju outside in the club parking lot. Sanju, fearing for his life, drops the pretense of being crippled, throws his crutches on the ground, and runs for dear life. Later, Rocky, Sanju and Tommy are seen sitting in a bar nearby, exposing each other as fraudsters and having a drink together, cursing their luck at the emergence of Karan as the new love in Natasha'a life. Having bugged Natasha again, the trio now listen to Natasha's views about them and find out, in a hilarious manner, that all is not what it seems in terms of Natasha's feelings, since she views Sanju as a brother like figure, Tommy as something similar to her deceased brother, and Rocky as a fraud and murderer. They then go to Natasha's house, where she is having coffee with Karan. Rocky uses a gun to shoot some pills into the drawing room. One of them is consumed by the dog and the other by Sweety. A comical situation ensues as the dog bites Karan and in the ensuing confusion, he throws it out of the window. The next day, Karan goes to Natasha's house to propose to her and finds that she has been sent an anonymous letter, informing her that he indeed had hired Rocky to follow her. In a spate of anger, she sends him out of the house. Later, when he goes to Rocky's house to confront him about this, he finds Sanju and Tommy there as well. They both reveal themselves to be able to walk and perfectly normal respectively. Further, Sanju reveals that he had written the anonymous letter to Natasha and goes on to reveal his trick with the newspapers, disgusting Karan. Meanwhile, Mehboob and his family, including Sunny arrive at Natasha's house and interrogate her about the stuffed toy. Sunny then kidnaps her. Sweety informs Sanju about this and he along with Rocky, Karan and Tommy follow them after having gotten directions from Murugan, who happened to see them from a taxi. The chase takes them to the middle of a desert, where after some confusion, it is revealed that Khurana had stored the code of a vault in the stuffed toy. The vault had carried a secret solution, two drops of which could decrease a person's age by 25 years. The night Khurana had died, he had found that his brother wanted to use the formula for his own consumption and had tried to escape in Natasha's car as she had been passing by. He had slipped the toy into a package ( a birthday present she had been carrying for Karan, who had invited her to his supposed fake birthday party, thus explaining how he had come across the toy) that she had had with her at that time. Khurana used the toy in order to counteract his forgetfulness. Natasha had witnessed his death after sending him out of the car and then going back later just in time to witness Mehboob's son Baljeet kill Khurana. A gunfight ensues, involving bikes and quad bikes. After the confusion, Baljeet, wanting the solution all for himself, to sell to a Chinese buyer and make millions, kidnaps Natasha, in whose mind the code was, after Rocky made the toy speak it into her ear and destroyed it. Rocky and Sanju follow them on bikes and finally manage to catch up with them. After beating up all the men, they take Natasha to her house where a further argument ensues as to who should be more worthy of Natasha. The argument ends when Karan arrives with Raj Sinha (Aftab Shivdasani) and tells Natasha about Sanju's deceit (which the latter confesses) that had exposed Raj as a drug dealer and addict earlier. Raj and Natasha are reunited. Wishing them luck, Karan leaves in sadness after the others are left cursing. Natasha stops Karan as he is leaving and at first, stalls him by saying that he had forgotten his car keys. She then invites him to the wedding, to which he refuses. She says that it would seem strange if the bridegroom is not present at his own wedding. Karan realises what she means and she professes her love for him as well. The tearful union is once again being witnessed by a grumbling Rocky, Sanju and Tommy. Rocky impatiently tells them to stop cursing and asks them to admit to the fact that they were never worthy enough for her. He then turns to Babloo and suggests they try to find out where Karan and Tanya are going for their honeymoon and they eagerly put on a pair of earphones. The film ends as the camera pans to Tanya and Karan walking away towards the sunset, hand in hand. Music. Music of the film was composed by veteran Anu Malik. The film has around five-six songs. They are listed below. Reception. The film received favourable reviews upon release. However, it didn't manage to succeed at the box office. It grossed Rs.16 crores fully and was given the final verdict of flop.
1457416	Elijah Kelley (born August 1, 1986) is an American actor, singer, and dancer. Kelley appeared in the films "Take the Lead" (2006) and "28 Days" (2000), and co-starred in the musical film re-adaptation of "Hairspray" (2007), in which he portrayed the character Seaweed J. Stubbs. Life and career. Kelley was born and raised in LaGrange, Georgia, attending both Long Cane Middle School and Troup County High School, where he auditioned for and participated in the school's show choir for years.
1102024	Jean-Pierre Serre (; born 15 September 1926) is a highly influential French mathematician. He has made fundamental contributions to algebraic topology, algebraic geometry, and algebraic number theory. Biography. Early years. Born in Bages, Pyrénées-Orientales, France, to pharmacist parents, Serre was educated at the Lycée de Nîmes and then from 1945 to 1948 at the École Normale Supérieure in Paris. He was awarded his doctorate from the Sorbonne in 1951. From 1948 to 1954 he held positions at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique in Paris. In 1956 he was elected professor at the Collège de France, a position he held until his retirement in 1994. His wife, Professor Josiane Heulot-Serre, was a chemist ; she also was the director of the Ecole Normale Supérieure de Jeunes Filles. Their daughter is the historian and writer Claudine Monteil. His nephew is the french mathematician Denis Serre. Career. From a very young age he was an outstanding figure in the school of Henri Cartan, working on algebraic topology, several complex variables and then commutative algebra and algebraic geometry, where he introduced sheaf theory and homological algebra techniques. Serre's thesis concerned the Leray–Serre spectral sequence associated to a fibration. Together with Cartan, Serre established the technique of using Eilenberg–MacLane spaces for computing homotopy groups of spheres, which at that time was one of the major problems in topology. In his speech at the Fields Medal award ceremony in 1954, Hermann Weyl gave high praise to Serre, and also made the point that the award was for the first time awarded to an algebraist. Serre subsequently changed his research focus. However, Weyl's perception that the central place of classical analysis had been challenged by abstract algebra has subsequently been justified, as has his assessment of Serre's place in this change. Algebraic geometry. In the 1950s and 1960s, a fruitful collaboration between Serre and the two-years-younger Alexander Grothendieck led to important foundational work, much of it motivated by the Weil conjectures. Two major foundational papers by Serre were "Faisceaux Algébriques Cohérents" (FAC), on coherent cohomology, and "Géometrie Algébrique et Géométrie Analytique" (GAGA). Even at an early stage in his work Serre had perceived a need to construct more general and refined cohomology theories to tackle the Weil conjectures. The problem was that the cohomology of a coherent sheaf over a finite field couldn't capture as much topology as singular cohomology with integer coefficients. Amongst Serre's early candidate theories of 1954–55 was one based on Witt vector coefficients. Around 1958 Serre suggested that isotrivial principal bundles on algebraic varieties — those that become trivial after pullback by a finite étale map — are important. This acted as one important source of inspiration for Grothendieck to develop étale topology and the corresponding theory of étale cohomology. These tools, developed in full by Grothendieck and collaborators in Séminaire de géométrie algébrique (SGA) 4 and SGA 5, provided the tools for the eventual proof of the Weil conjectures by Pierre Deligne. Other work. From 1959 onward Serre's interests turned towards group theory, number theory, in particular Galois representations and modular forms. Amongst his most original contributions were: his "Conjecture II" (still open) on Galois cohomology; his use of group actions on Trees (with H. Bass); the Borel-Serre compactification; results on the number of points of curves over finite fields; Galois representations in ℓ-adic cohomology and the proof that these representations have often a "large" image; the concept of "p"-adic modular form; and the Serre conjecture (now a theorem) on mod-"p" representations that made Fermat's last theorem a connected part of mainstream arithmetic geometry. In his paper FAC, Serre asked whether a finitely generated projective module over a polynomial ring is free. This question led to a great deal of activity in commutative algebra, and was finally answered in the affirmative by Daniel Quillen and Andrei Suslin independently in 1976. This result is now known as the Quillen-Suslin theorem. Honors and awards. Serre, at twenty-seven in 1954, is the youngest ever to be awarded the Fields Medal. He went on to win the Balzan Prize in 1985, the Steele Prize in 1995, the Wolf Prize in Mathematics in 2000, and was the first recipient of the Abel Prize in 2003. He has been awarded other prizes, such as the Gold Medal of the French National Scientific Research Centre (Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, CNRS). He is a foreign member of several scientific Academies (France, US, Norway, Sweden, Russia, the Royal Society...) and has received about a dozen honorary degrees (Cambridge, Oxford, Harvard, ...). In 2012 he became a fellow of the American Mathematical Society. Serre has been awarded the highest honors in France as Grand'cross of the Legion of Honor (grand' croix dand l'Ordre de la Légion d'Honneur) and Grand cross of the Legion of Merit( grand'croix de l'Ordre National du Mérite).
584634	Muniyandi Vilangyial Moonramandu (; ) is a 2008 Tamil film directed by Thirumurugan. Bharath, Poorna and Ponvannan play the lead roles with Vadivelu. It was produced by Malaysian-based firm Lotus Five Star in association with Thiru Pictures. Plot. Muniyandi (Bharath), a third year college student and the darling son of Muthumani (Ponvannan) comes across as an average fun-loving guy. Matters become colourful when a demure young daughter, Madumitha (Poorna) of a local bigwig, Ramaiyya gives first preference to the members of his caste. Madumitha makes a coquettish play for all of Muniyandi's friends, but hits it off with him first. Following a heated skirmish in the caste-dominated college elections, the two fall in love. Or so you think. Also part of the mix is Sorimuthu Ayyanar (Vadivelu), who raises some laughs as the local witch-doctor, complete with bells and saffron cloth regalia. But everything goes topsy-turvy when, once Madumitha's marriage is arranged, she turns around and says that she was never in love with Muniyandi in the first place. Furious, the guy thrashes her with his slippers and sets fire to her father's coconut grove. It is little things like these that set this movie slightly apart from others in the same genre; the hero and heroines come across as genuine characters, angry, sad and sorrowful.
628145	The Man from Snowy River II is a 1988 Australian drama film, the sequel to "The Man from Snowy River". It was released in the United States as Return to Snowy River, and in the United Kingdom as The Untamed. Reprising their roles from the first film were Tom Burlinson (as "Jim Craig") and Sigrid Thornton (as "Jessica Harrison"), while Brian Dennehy appeared as "Harrison", instead of Kirk Douglas. Plot. Some years after his dangerous ride down the steep mountain to capture the Brumby herd and regain the Colt from old "Regret", Jim Craig (Tom Burlinson), now with a large herd of mountain-bred horses of his own, returns to his home vicinity to take up with his girl, Jessica Harrison (Sigrid Thornton). She is still smitten with him, but opposition from her father (Brian Dennehy) remains as resolute as ever. Further, she also has a rich would-be suitor endeavouring to court her, Alistair Patton (Nicholas Eadie), son of the banker from whom Harrison is seeking a large loan. Before he returns from Harrison's property to his home, Jim meets an army officer seeking quality horses for the remount service on a regular basis. As the young Patton realizes Jessica's affections remain for Jim, and that she doesn't "give a damn" about him (Patton), he jealously and maliciously recruits a gang to steal Jim's horses. Jim gives chase and in so doing again rides his horse down the steep mountainside. Patton shoots at him; the horse is killed and Jim is injured but manages to recover and resume the pursuit. As Jim had earlier let the wild stallion which led the brumbies loose into the wild again, in a twist of fate, the stallion shows itself from the wild at this crucial moment, and Jim finally trains this horse that has been the enigma of the entire district for decades. As he breaks him in and learns to ride him, they become friends, and together, they catch up to Patton and his gang. Jessica's father has also relented during this time, seen 'the light' and eventually joins with Jim and his 'rough-rider' friends to hunt down Patton and his gang. Jim Craig gets and wins his man-on-man duel with the chief 'villain', Allistair Patton, and Harrison gives his final approval for Jessica and Jim's alliance and the couple marry. Production. Geoff Burrowes, who produced the first movie, decided to direct as he felt he would clash with any other director because he felt so strongly about the material. A horse was put down during the making of the movie which led to a Victorian government inquiry, which ruled to horse was killed needlessly. Soundtrack. The name of the soundtrack for this film is the same as the American name for the film. Bruce Rowland, who composed the music for this film, also composed the music for the first film. Notes. This film has two alternative endings. Box Office. "The Man from Snowy River II" grossed $7,415,000 at the box office in Australia, which is equivalent to $13,940,200 in 2009 dollars.
396012	Unstoppable Marriage is a 2007 South Korean romantic comedy film. It stars veteran actors Kim Soo-mi and Im Chae-mu alongside popstar and television actress Eugene and Ha Seok-jin. The film is Eugene's big screen debut, and is also the directorial debut of Kim Seong-wook, who previously worked as assistant director on other films such as "Fun Movie" (2002), "My Teacher, Mr. Kim" (2003) and "Lovely Rivals" (2004). The film was released in South Korea on May 10, 2007, and had a total of 1,304,431 admissions. Synopsis. Sweet and easygoing Eun Ho grew up in a normal middle-class household with a strict and traditional father. Willful plastic surgeon Ki Baek was born into a wealthy family, and has the ego to match his income. Their two worlds collide quite literally when they meet through a paragliding accident. It's a classic case of opposites attract as they fight, falter, and fall in love, but their incompatible families are determined to break them forever. TV adaptation. "Unstoppable Marriage" was adapted into a TV series, in which Kim Soo-mi and Im Chae-mu reprised their roles in the film. Seo Do-young and Park Chae-kyung were cast in the roles of Ha Seok-jin and Eugene, respectively.
1163346	Lucie Désirée Arnaz (born July 17, 1951) is an American actress, singer, dancer, and producer. She is the daughter of actors Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz, and is the sister of actor Desi Arnaz, Jr. Early life. Lucie Arnaz was born and raised in Los Angeles, and attended the Roman Catholic Immaculate Heart High School. Career. Having had walk-on parts in her mother's television series "The Lucy Show", Arnaz made her first acting appearance in a continuing role in the series "Here's Lucy" from 1968 to 1974. She played Kim Carter, the daughter of the eponymous Lucy—who was played by Arnaz's real-life mother, Lucille Ball. Arnaz branched out into television roles independent of her family from the mid-1970s. In 1975, she played infamous murder victim Elizabeth Short in a production of "Who is the Black Dahlia?", while in 1978, she appeared in an episode of "Fantasy Island" as a woman desperately trying to save her marriage. She has continued to make appearances in a number of popular television series over the years, including "Murder, She Wrote", "Marcus Welby M.D.", "Sons and Daughters", and "Law & Order". Arnaz also briefly had a series of her own, "The Lucie Arnaz Show", in 1985. She has also had a lengthy career in musical theatre. In the summer of 1978, she played the title role in "Annie Get Your Gun" at the Jones Beach Theatre on Long Island. This was the first production at Jones Beach Theatre after the death of longtime producer Guy Lombardo. She made her Broadway debut in 1979 in the musical "They're Playing Our Song". Arnaz won the Theatre World Award and the Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Award for Best Actress in a Musical for her portrayal of Sonia Walsk in the show. In 1986, she won the Sarah Siddons Award for her tour with Tommy Tune in the international company of the musical "My One and Only". She has numerous other theater and musical credits both in the United States and abroad, including roles in "Seesaw", "Annie Get Your Gun", "Whose Life Is It Anyway?", "The Guardsman", "", "Sonia Flew", "The Witches of Eastwick", "Vanities", Neil Simon's "Lost in Yonkers", "Dirty Rotten Scoundrels", and Terence McNally's "Master Class". Arnaz has also made some feature film appearances, the most prominent of which was 1980s "The Jazz Singer", in which she co-starred with singer Neil Diamond and renowned actor Laurence Olivier. She earned a Best Supporting Actress Golden Globe nomination for her work in the film. She won an Emmy Award in 1993 for her documentary "". Activism. From about 2002 to 2007, Arnaz was the President of the Board of Directors of the Lucille Ball-Desi Arnaz Center in Jamestown, New York. She resigned over a dispute with the Executive Director over the future direction of the Center. In October 2008, Arnaz and long-time family friend, Hollywood columnist and Turner Classic Movies host Robert Osborne participated in a tribute to Arnaz's mother, Lucille Ball, at The Paley Center For Media in New York City. The program, Lucie and Lucy: Lucie Arnaz Shares Treasures From The Family Video Collection, included a discussion between Osborne and Arnaz about Ball, and also focused on Ball's last long-running series, "Here's Lucy" (which was celebrating its 40th anniversary) as well as several of Ball's television specials and guest appearances during 1970s, which Arnaz had recently donated to The Paley Center for Media. In the summer of 2010, Arnaz performed in (along with Raul Esparza and Valarie Pettiford) and directed "Babalu: A Celebration of the Music of Desi Arnaz and his Orchestra". There was a Miami, Florida performance in July 2010. On July 17, 2010, Heritage Auction Galleries planned to auction off some items that belonged to Lucille Ball. Arnaz has gone to court to block the auction of love letters from Ball to her second husband, Gary Morton, as well as photos and awards, which Arnaz claims are hers. Morton's third wife, Susan McAllister Morton, has sued Arnaz for the right to conduct the auction. A judge agreed with Arnaz, but charged too high a bond, so the auction went on but the auction house agreed to return lifetime achievement awards to Arnaz. She appeared live on stage in Jamestown NY at the Reg Lenna Palace Civic Center on Friday August 3, 2012 to promote the Lucille Ball Festival of New Comedy in which new comedians are invited to perform. She gave tribute to both her parents, and expressed a desire to further expand the Festival of New Comedy and expand the Jamestown NY Lucy Fest. She gave the history behind the Lucy-Desi Museum and Lucy-Desi Playhouse, and the 2011 one hundred year birthday bash for Lucille Ball (which was recorded in the Guinness Book of World records for the highest number of people dressed like Lucille Ball in one place at one time), and announced intent to start utilizing the recently renovated Jamestown train station to further the mission and vision of the Lucille Ball Festival of New Comedy. http://www.lucycomedyfest.com/ Lucie Arnaz praised and appeared on stage with the new executive director of The Lucille Ball Desi Arnaz Center and applauded her work and dedication to the Lucille Ball Festival of New Comedy. Comedians that performed at the 2012 Lucille Ball Festival of New Comedy include Billy Gardell, Paula Poundstone, and Tammy Pescatelli. Personal life. She has been twice married, to Phil Vandervort (July 17, 1971 – 1977) and Laurence Luckinbill (June 22, 1980 – present), who is the uncle of Lana and Andy Wachowski. She and actor-writer Luckinbill have three children together: Simon, Joseph and Katharine. Luckinbill has two sons from his previous marriage: Nicholas and Benjamin. She shares a birthday with her uncle, her mother's brother, Fred Ball.
324505	The White Buffalo is a 1977 western film starring Charles Bronson, Kim Novak, Jack Warden, Slim Pickens, and Will Sampson. The film is rated PG in the USA. The film is directed by J. Lee Thompson, who frequently teamed with Bronson. It was also the final film Bronson made for United Artists. Plot. Wild Bill Hickok is haunted by his dreams of a giant white buffalo. So much that he travels the West to find the beast. Along the way, Hickok meets Crazy Horse, who is also searching the plains for the giant white buffalo, who has killed Crazy Horse's daughter. Hickok and Crazy Horse team up to kill the elusive buffalo.
485264	John Maynard Smith, F.R.S. (6 January 1920 – 19 April 2004) was a British theoretical evolutionary biologist and geneticist. Originally an aeronautical engineer during the Second World War, he took a second degree in genetics under the well-known biologist J. B. S. Haldane. Maynard Smith was instrumental in the application of game theory to evolution and theorized on other problems such as the evolution of sex and signalling theory. Biography. Early years. John Maynard Smith was born in London, the son of the surgeon Sidney Maynard Smith, but following his father's death in 1928, the family moved to Exmoor, where he became interested in natural history. Quite unhappy with the lack of formal science education at Eton College, Maynard Smith took it upon himself to develop an interest in Darwinian evolutionary theory and mathematics, after having read the work of old Etonian J.B.S. Haldane, whose books were in the school's library despite the bad reputation Haldane had at Eton for his communism. On leaving school, Maynard Smith joined the Communist Party of Great Britain and started studying engineering at Trinity College Cambridge. When the Second World War broke out in 1939, he defied his party's line and volunteered for service. He was rejected, however, because of poor eyesight and was told to finish his engineering degree, which he did in 1941. He later quipped that "under the circumstances, my poor eyesight was a selective advantage—it stopped me getting shot". The year of his graduation, he married Sheila Matthew, and they later had two sons and one daughter (Tony, Carol, and Julian). Between 1942 and 1947, he applied his degree to military aircraft design. Second degree. Maynard Smith then took a change of career, entering University College London (UCL) to study fruit fly genetics under Haldane. After graduating he became a lecturer in Zoology at UCL between 1952 and 1965, where he directed the "Drosophila" lab and conducted research on population genetics. He published a popular Penguin book, "The Theory of Evolution", in 1958 (with subsequent editions in 1966, 1975, 1993). He became gradually less attracted to communism and became a less active member, finally leaving the Party in 1956 like many other intellectuals, after the Soviet Union brutally suppressed the Hungarian Revolution (Haldane had left the party in 1950 after becoming similarly disillusioned). University of Sussex. In 1962 he was one of the founding members of the University of Sussex and was a Dean between 1965–85. He subsequently became a professor emeritus. Prior to his death the building housing much of Life Sciences at Sussex was renamed the John Maynard Smith Building, in his honour. "Evolution and the Theory of Games". In 1973 Maynard Smith formalised a central concept in evolutionary game theory called the evolutionarily stable strategy (ESS), based on a verbal argument by George R. Price. This area of research culminated in his 1982 book "Evolution and the Theory of Games". The Hawk-Dove game is arguably his single most influential game theoretical model. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1977. In 1986 he was awarded the Darwin Medal. He also developed and recovered from colon cancer. Evolution of sex and other major transitions in evolution. Maynard Smith published a book entitled "The Evolution of Sex" which explored in mathematical terms, the notion of the "two-fold cost of sex". During the late 1980s he also became interested in the other major evolutionary transitions with the biochemist Eörs Szathmáry. Together they wrote an influential 1995 book "The Major Transitions in Evolution", a seminal work which continues to contribute to ongoing issues in evolutionary biology. A popular science version of the book, entitled "The Origins of Life: From the birth of life to the origin of language" was published in 1999. In 1991 he was awarded the Balzan Prize for Genetics and Evolution "For his powerful analysis of evolutionary theory and of the role of sexual reproduction as a critical factor in evolution and in the survival of species; for his mathematical models applying the theory of games to evolutionary problems" (motivation of the Balzan General Prize Committee). In 1995 he was awarded the Linnean Medal by The Linnean Society and in 1999 he was awarded the Crafoord Prize jointly with Ernst Mayr and George C. Williams. In 2001 he was awarded the Kyoto Prize. In his honour, the European Society for Evolutionary Biology has an award for extraordinary young evolutionary biology researchers named "The John Maynard Smith Prize". "Animal Signals". His final book, "Animal Signals", co-authored with David Harper was published in 2003 on signalling theory. Death. He died of mesothelioma, sitting in a high-backed chair, surrounded by books—at his home in Lewes, East Sussex, on 19 April 2004. He was survived by his wife Sheila and their children.
1375910	The Devil and Daniel Mouse is a 1978 animated Halloween television special, from Canada's Nelvana animation studio. It is based on the story of "The Devil and Daniel Webster". The Nelvana logo made its first appearance at the end of the film. Plot. The story is about two struggling mouse musicians, Daniel and Jan. When they are fired from their latest gig (their music is deemed too old-fashioned and not with the times), Daniel goes to pawn his guitar in order to buy groceries. Jan wanders off on her own and encounters a shifty reptilian character in a white suit who introduces himself as "B.L. Zebubb", a record producer.
1102722	Life and career. Shimura was a colleague and a friend of Yutaka Taniyama. They wrote a book (the first book treatment) on the complex multiplication of abelian varieties, an area which in collaboration they had opened up. Shimura then wrote a long series of major papers, extending the phenomena found in the theory of complex multiplication and modular forms to higher dimensions (amongst other results). This work (and other developments it provoked) provided some of the 'raw data' later incorporated into the Langlands program. It equally brought out the concept, in general, of "Shimura variety"; which is the higher-dimensional equivalent of modular curve. Even to define in general a Shimura variety is quite a formidable task: they bear, roughly speaking, the same relation to general Hodge structures as modular curves do to elliptic curves. Shimura himself has described his approach as 'phenomenological': his interest is in finding new types of interesting behaviour in the theory of automorphic forms. He also argues for a 'romantic' approach, something he finds lacking in the younger generation of mathematician. The central 'Shimura variety' concept has been tamed (by application of Lie group and algebraic group theory, and the extraction of the concept 'parametrises interesting family of Hodge structures' by reference to the algebraic geometry theory of 'motives', which is still largely conjectural). In that sense his work is now "mainstream-for-Princeton"; but this assimilation (through David Mumford, Pierre Deligne and others) hardly includes all of the content. He is known to a wider public through the important modularity theorem (previously known as the Taniyama-Shimura conjecture before being proven in the 1990s); Kenneth Ribet has shown that the famous Fermat's last theorem follows from a special case of this theorem. Shimura dryly commented that his first reaction on hearing of Wiles's proof of the semistable case of the theorem was 'I told you so'. Among many honors and awards, Shimura received the Cole Prize for number theory in 1976 and the Steele Prize for lifetime achievement in 1996, both from the American Mathematical Society. His "Collected Works" have been published, in five volumes. His hobbies are shogi problems of extreme length and collecting Imari porcelain. The Story of Imari: The Symbols and Mysteries of Antique Japanese Porcelain is a non-fiction work by Shimura published by Ten Speed Press in 2008.
584304	Moscowin Kavery ( ) is a 2010 Tamil romantic drama film written and directed by cinematographer Ravi Varman, making his directorial debut, besides handling the cinematography. The film, which has lyrics written by Vairamuthu and music scored by Thaman, stars Rahul Ravindran and Samantha in the lead roles with Harshvardhan, Santhanam and Seeman essaying supporting roles. Releasing on 27 August 2010, after nearly three years of production, the film was ultimately panned by critics. Soundtrack. Film score and the soundtrack are composed by Thaman. Despite being Thaman's first Tamil assignment as a composer, several of his later films had released prior to the release of "Moscowin Kavery".
1062010	Sissy Spacek (born Mary Elizabeth Spacek; December 25, 1949) is an Academy Award-winning American actress and singer. She came to international prominence for her roles as Holly Sargis in Terrence Malick's 1973 film "Badlands", and as Carrie White in Brian De Palma's 1976 horror film "Carrie" (based on the first novel by Stephen King) for which she earned her first Academy Award nomination. She won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her role as country star Loretta Lynn in the 1980 film "Coal Miner's Daughter". She also received Oscar nominations for her roles in "Missing" (1982), "The River" (1984), "Crimes of the Heart" (1986) and "In the Bedroom" (2001). Early life. Spacek was born on December 25, 1949, in Quitman, Texas. She is the daughter of Virginia Frances (née Spilman) and Edwin Arnold Spacek, Sr., a county agricultural agent. Spacek's father was of Czech (Moravian) and German ancestry; her paternal grandparents were Mary (Červenka) and Arnold A. Špaček (who served as Mayor of Granger, Texas in Williamson County). Her mother, of English and Irish descent, was from the Rio Grande Valley of Texas. Spacek was greatly affected by the death of her eighteen-year old brother, Robbie, in 1967, which she has called "the defining event of my whole life."
1043123	Peter Cecil Bull, DSC (21 March 1912 – 20 May 1984) was a British character actor. Biography. He was the fourth and youngest son of Hammersmith MP Sir William James Bull, 1st Bt.. Bull was educated at Winchester College. His first professional stage appearance was in "If I Were You" at the Shaftesbury Theatre in 1933. He was a friend of Alec Guinness, whom he first met at HMS Raleigh during training in World War Two, and later HMS King Alfred; he served as an officer in the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve, later commanding Landing Craft (Flak) 16 in the Mediterranean. Bull's performance as the Soviet Ambassador, Alexi de Sadesky, in "" (1964) is among the best-known of his several dozen film and TV appearances. He both narrated and had a small on-screen role in "Scrooge" (1951), and portrayed the German ship's captain in "The African Queen" (1951). Peter Bull was memorably cast as Thwackum, one of Blifil's two tutors, in the 1963 film Tom Jones. (The other tutor, Square, of contrasting build and character, was played by John Moffatt.) Bull was also the first actor to portray Pozzo in the English-language version of Samuel Beckett's 'Waiting For Godot' when it opened on 3 August 1955. In the 1970s he ran a small shop just off Notting Hill Gate, selling zodiac-related items. Bull wrote a book on the subject of teddy bears, "Bear With Me". He was also the author of a non-fiction book about his experiences during World War II as commander of a Tank Landing Craft (LCT), "To Sea in a Sieve". During his service, he achieved the rank of Lieutenant-Commander and was awarded the DSC Gazetted 11 December 1945.
1062573	The Goodbye Girl is a 1977 American romantic comedy-drama film. Directed by Herbert Ross, the film stars Richard Dreyfuss, Marsha Mason, Quinn Cummings, and Paul Benedict. The original screenplay by Neil Simon centers on an odd trio—a struggling actor who has sublet a Manhattan apartment from a friend, the current occupant (his friend's ex-girlfriend, who has just been abandoned) and her precocious young daughter. Richard Dreyfuss won a Best Actor Oscar for his performance as Elliot Garfield. At the time he became the youngest man to win an Oscar for Best Actor. Plot. Paula McFadden (Marsha Mason) learns she has been dumped by her married boyfriend Tony DeForrest and that he has subleased the Manhattan apartment she lives in with her ten-year-old daughter Lucy (Quinn Cummings). Elliot Garfield (Richard Dreyfuss), a neurotic but sweet aspiring actor from Chicago, shows up shortly thereafter in the middle of the night, expecting to live there, as he now rents the apartment. Though Paula is demanding, and makes clear from the start that she doesn't like Elliot, he allows her and Lucy to stay. Paula struggles to get back into shape to try to resume her career as a dancer. Meanwhile, Elliot has his own problems. He has landed the title role in an off-off-Broadway production of "Richard III", but the director, Mark (Paul Benedict), wants him to play the character as an exaggerated stereotype of a homosexual, in Mark's words, "the queen who wanted to be king." Reluctantly, Elliot agrees to play the role, despite full knowledge that it may mean the end of his career as an actor. Many theater critics from television stations and newspapers in New York City attend opening night, and they all savage the production, especially Elliot's performance. The play quickly closes, much to his relief. Despite their frequent clashes, Paula and Elliot fall in love and sleep together. Lucy, however, although she likes Elliot, sees the affair as a repeat of what happened with Tony. Elliot convinces Paula that he will not be like that and later picks up Lucy from school and takes her on a carriage ride, during which Lucy admits that she likes Elliot, and he admits that he likes her and Paula and will not do anything to hurt them. Soon after, Elliot is offered a fantastic opportunity for a role in a movie that he cannot turn down. The only catch is that the job is in Seattle and Elliot will be gone for four weeks. Paula is informed of this and is scared that Elliot is leaving her, never to return, like all the other men in her life. Elliot promises that he will come back. Later, Elliot calls Paula from the phone booth across the apartment, telling her that the flight was delayed, and invites Paula to come with him in a desperate attempt to make her believe him that he will return, at the last minute, Elliot invites Paula to go with him while he is filming the picture and suggests Lucy stay with a friend until they return. Paula declines but is happy because she knows that Elliot's invitation is evidence that he loves her and will come back. Before hanging up, Elliot asks Paula to have his prized guitar restrung, which he had deliberately left at the apartment, and she realizes this as further proof that he will indeed return and that he really does love her. Production. The film began as a screenplay called "Bogart Slept Here" (essentially the story of what happened to Dustin Hoffman after he became a star), that was to star Robert De Niro and Mason for Warner Bros. It would have been the film De Niro would have made immediately after "Taxi Driver". Mike Nichols was hired to direct. Simon recalled the original idea for the film: Filming began on "Bogart Slept Here" when it became apparent that De Niro wasn't right for the role. Simon recalled: "...it was clear that any of the humor I had written was going to get lost. It's not that De Niro is not funny, but his humor comes mostly from his nuances, a bemused expression on his face or the way he would look at a character, smile and then look up at the ceiling." Nichols insisted on recasting De Niro. Soon after, Nichols left the project. Dreyfuss was brought in to try out with Mason. At the end of the reading, Neil Simon decided that the chemistry was there, but the script needed work. He rewrote the screenplay in six weeks. The film's exteriors were shot in New York City and the interiors were shot on sets in Los Angeles. The head of Warner Bros. was less enthused about Simon's script, and considered selling the project to MGM, while others at the studio would have rather partnered with MGM on the film, so the latter option was chosen. The title song, "Goodbye Girl" was written and performed by David Gates in 1977, and was a #15 hit on the Billboard Hot 100 chart that same year. Reception. Roger Ebert gave the film a mixed, though mostly favorable, review. He was unimpressed with Mason's performance and the character as written, calling it "hardly ever sympathetic." However, he praised Dreyfuss and cited his "Richard III" scenes as "the funniest in a movie since Mel Brooks staged "Springtime for Hitler"." Ebert criticized the beginning as "awkward at times and never quite involving," but "enjoyed its conclusion so much that we almost forgot our earlier reservations." Vincent Canby of "The New York Times" found the film to be "exhausting without being much fun." and "relentlessly wisecracked." Musical and remake. "The Goodbye Girl" was subsequently developed into a 1993 Broadway musical of the same name starring Martin Short and Bernadette Peters. A 2004 TNT remake with Jeff Daniels and Patricia Heaton keeps the screenplay from the original version.
1685654	Santo vs. las Mujeres Vampiro (also known as Samson vs. the Vampire Women) is a 1962 horror film starring the wrestling superhero Santo. The film was featured on a 1995 episode of "Mystery Science Theater 3000". The film was also featured on the television show "Cinema Insomnia". Plot. Vampire women are awakened by their leader, The Evil One, in order to find him a bride. A local professor's daughter is kidnapped and he calls Santo to get her back. Reception. Influence. The film was featured in the season 6 finale of Mystery Science Theater 3000. It was Frank Conniff's final show before his departure, aside from a brief cameo in the season 10 episode Soultaker. Before his departure, he was a writer and actor for the show, playing TV's Frank, as well as the person in charge of selecting the movies to be mocked. It has been noted that the film was chosen due to Conniff's fondess for Mexican wrestler movies.
1268080	Rodolfo Alfonso Raffaello Pierre Filibert Guglielmi di Valentina d'Antonguolla, professionally known as Rudolph Valentino (May 6, 1895 – August 23, 1926), was an Italian actor who starred in several well-known silent films including "The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse", "The Sheik", "Blood and Sand", "The Eagle", and "The Son of the Sheik". An early pop icon, a sex symbol of the 1920s, he was known as the "Latin Lover" or simply as "Valentino". He had applied for American citizenship shortly before his death, which occurred at age 31, causing mass hysteria among his female fans and further propelling him into icon status. Early life. Childhood. Valentino was born Rodolfo Alfonso Raffaello Pierre Filibert Guglielmi di Valentina D'Antonguolla in Castellaneta, Puglia, Kingdom of Italy. His mother, Marie Berta Gabrielle (née Barbin; 1856–1919), was French, born in Lure in Lorraine. His father, Giovanni Antonio Giuseppe Fedele Guglielmi di Valentina D'Antonguolla, was Italian; he was a veterinarian who died of malaria when Valentino was 11. He had an older brother, Alberto (1892–1981), a younger sister, Maria, and an older sister, Beatrice, who had died in infancy. As a child, Valentino was reportedly spoiled and troublesome. His mother coddled him, while his father disapproved of his behavior. He did poorly in school and was eventually enrolled in agricultural school at Genoa, where he earned a degree. After living in Paris in 1912, he soon returned to Italy. Unable to secure employment, he departed for the United States in 1913. He was processed at Ellis Island at age 18 on December 23, 1913. New York. Arriving in New York City, Valentino soon ran out of money and spent time on the streets. He supported himself with odd jobs such as bussing tables in restaurants and gardening. Eventually, he found work as a taxi dancer at Maxim's. Among the other dancers at Maxim's were several displaced members of European nobility and there was a premium in demand for them. Valentino eventually befriended Chilean heiress Blanca de Saulles who was unhappily married to prominent businessman John de Saulles, with whom she had a son. Whether Blanca and Valentino actually had a romantic relationship is unknown, but when the de Saulles couple divorced, Valentino took the stand to support Blanca de Saulles' claims of infidelity on her husband's part. Following the divorce, John de Saulles reportedly used his political connections to have Valentino arrested, along with a Mrs. Thyme, a known madam, on some unspecified vice charges. The evidence was flimsy at best and after a few days in jail, Valentino's bail was lowered from $10,000 to $1,500. The trial and subsequent scandal was well publicized, following which Valentino could not find employment. Shortly after the trial, Blanca de Saulles fatally shot her ex-husband during a custody dispute over their son. Fearful of being called in as a witness in another sensational trial, Valentino left town, joining a traveling musical that led him to the West Coast. Film career. Early bit parts. In 1917, Rudolph Valentino joined an operetta company that traveled to Utah where it disbanded. He then joined an Al Jolson production of "Robinson Crusoe Jr.", travelling to Los Angeles. By fall, he was in San Francisco with a bit part in a theatrical production of "Nobody Home". While in town, Valentino met actor Norman Kerry, who convinced him to try a career in cinema, still in the silent film era. Valentino, with Kerry as a roommate, moved back to Los Angeles and took up residence at the Alexandria Hotel. He continued dancing, teaching dance and building up a following which included older female clientele who would let him borrow their luxury cars. At one point after the United States joined World War I, both Kerry and Valentino tried to get into the Canadian Air Force to fly and fight in France. With his dancing success, Valentino found a room of his own on Sunset Boulevard and began actively seeking screen roles. His first part was as an extra in the film "Alimony", moving on to small parts in several films. Despite his best efforts he was typically cast as a "heavy" (villain) or gangster. At the time, the major male star was Wallace Reid, with a fair complexion, light eyes, and an All American look, with Valentino the opposite, eventually supplanting Sessue Hayakawa as Hollywood's most popular "exotic" male lead. By 1919, he had carved out a career in bit parts. It was a bit part as a "cabaret parasite" in the drama "Eyes of Youth" that caught the attention of screenwriter June Mathis, who thought he would be perfect for her next movie. He also appeared as second lead in "The Delicious Little Devil" (1919) with star Mae Murray. Acting. Displeased with playing "heavies", Valentino briefly entertained the idea of returning to New York permanently. He returned for a visit in 1917, staying with friends in Greenwich Village, eventually settling in Bayside, Queens. It was here he met Paul Ivano, who would help his career greatly. While traveling to Palm Springs, Florida, to film "Stolen Moments", Valentino read the novel "The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse" by Vicente Blasco Ibáñez. Seeking out a trade paper, he discovered that Metro had bought the film rights to the story. In New York, he sought out Metro's Office, only to find June Mathis had been trying to find him. She cast him in the role of Julio Desnoyers. For director, Mathis had chosen Rex Ingram, with whom Valentino did not get along, leading Mathis to play the role of peacekeeper between the two. "The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse" was released in 1921, becoming a commercial and critical success. It was one of the first films to make $1,000,000 at the box office, as well as the sixth highest grossing silent film ever. Metro Pictures seemed unwilling to acknowledge it had made a star. Most likely due to Rex Ingram's lack of faith in him, the studio refused to give him a raise beyond the $350 a week he had made for "Four Horsemen". For his follow-up film, they forced him into a bit part in a B film called "Uncharted Seas". It was on this film that Valentino met his second wife, Natacha Rambova. Rambova, Mathis, Ivano, and Valentino began work on the Alla Nazimova film "Camille". Valentino was cast in the role of Armand, Nazimova's love interest. The film, mostly under the control of Rambova and Nazimova, was considered too avant garde by critics and the public. Valentino's final film for Metro was the Mathis-penned "The Conquering Power". The film received critical acclaim and did well at the box office. After the film's release, Valentino made a trip to New York where he met with several French producers. Yearning for Europe, better pay, and more respect, Valentino returned and promptly quit Metro. "The Sheik". After quitting Metro, Valentino took up with Famous Players-Lasky, a studio known for films that were more commercially focused. Mathis soon joined him, angering both Ivano and Rambova. Jesse Lasky intended to capitalize on the star power of Valentino, and cast him in a role that would solidify his reputation as the "Latin Lover". In "The Sheik", Valentino played the starring role as Sheik Ahmed Ben Hassan. The film was a major success and would go on to define not only his career but his image and legacy. Valentino tried to distance the character from a stereotypical portrayal of an Arab man. Asked if Lady Diana (his love interest) would have fallen for a 'savage' in real life Valentino replied, "People are not savages because they have dark skins. The Arabian civilization is one of the oldest in the world...the Arabs are dignified and keen-brained." Famous Players produced four more feature length films over the next 15 months. His leading role in "Moran of the Lady Letty" was of a typical Douglas Fairbanks nature, however to capitalize on Valentino's bankability, his character was given a Spanish name and ancestry. The film received mixed reviews but was still a hit with audiences. In November 1921, Valentino starred alongside Gloria Swanson in "Beyond the Rocks". The film contained lavish sets and extravagant costumes, though "Photoplay" magazine said the film was "a little unreal and hectic." Released in 1922, the film was a critical disappointment. Years after its release, "Beyond the Rocks" was thought to be lost, save for a one minute portion. In 2002, the film was discovered by the Netherlands Film Museum. The restored version was released on DVD in 2006. In 1922, Valentino began work on another Mathis-penned film, "Blood and Sand". Co-starring Lila Lee and Nita Naldi, Valentino played the lead, bullfighter Juan Gallardo. Initially believing the film would be shot in Spain, Valentino was upset to learn that the studio planned on shooting on a Hollywood back lot. He was further irritated by changes in production, including a director of whom he did not approve. After finishing the film, Valentino married Rambova, which led to a bigamy trial. The trial was a sensation and the pair was forced to have their marriage annulled and separated for a year. Despite the trial, the film was still a success, with critics calling it a masterpiece on par with "Broken Blossoms" and "Four Horsemen". "Blood and Sand" went on to become one of the top four grossing movies of 1922, breaking attendance records, and grossing $37,400 at the Rivoli Theatre alone. Valentino would consider this one of his best films. During his forced break from Rambova, the pair began working (separately) on the Mathis-penned "The Young Rajah". Only fragments of this film, recovered in 2005, still remain. The film did not live up to expectations and underperformed at the box office. Valentino felt he had underperformed in the film, being upset over his separation with Rambova. Missing Rambova, Valentino returned to New York after the release of "The Young Rajah". They were spotted and followed by reporters constantly. During this time Valentino began to contemplate not returning to Famous Players, although Jesse Lasky already had his next picture, "The Spanish Cavalier", in preparation. After speaking with Rambova and his lawyer Arthur Butler Graham, Valentino declared a 'One man Strike' against Famous Players. Strike against Famous Players. Valentino's reasons for striking were financially based. At the time of his lawsuit against the studio, Valentino was earning $1,250 per week, with an increase to $3,000 after three years. This was $7,000 per week less than what Mary Pickford made in 1916. He was also upset over the broken promise of filming "Blood and Sand" in Spain, and the failure to shoot the next proposed film in either Spain or at least New York. Valentino had hoped while filming in Europe he could see his family, whom he hadn’t seen in ten years. In September 1922, he refused to accept paychecks from Famous Players until the dispute was solved, although he owed them money he had spent to pay off Jean Acker. Angered, Famous Players in turn filed suit against him. Valentino did not back down, and Famous Players realized how much they stood to lose. In trouble after shelving Rosco "Fatty" Arbuckle pictures, the studio tried to settle by upping his salary from $1,250 to $7,000 a week. Variety, erroneously, announced the salary increase as a 'new contract' before news of the lawsuit was released. Valentino refused the offer. Valentino went on to claim that artistic control was more of an issue than the money. He wrote an open letter to Photoplay magazine, titled "Open Letter to the American Public", where he argued his case, although the average American had trouble sympathizing, as most made $2,000 a year. Famous Players made their own public statements deeming him more trouble than he was worth (the divorce, bigamy trials, debts) and that he was temperamental, almost diva-like. They claimed to have done all they could and that they had made him a real star. Other studios began courting him. Joseph Schenck was interested in casting his wife, Norma Talmadge, opposite Valentino in a version of "Romeo and Juliet". June Mathis had moved to Goldwyn Pictures where she was in charge of the "Ben-Hur" project, and interested in casting Valentino in the film. However, Famous Players exercised their option to extend his contract, preventing him from accepting any employment other than with the studio. By this point Valentino was around $80,000 in debt. Valentino filed an appeal, a portion of which was granted. Although he was still not allowed to work as an actor, he could accept other types of employment. Mineralava Dance Tour. In late 1922, Valentino met George Ullman, who would soon become Valentino's manager. Ullman previously had worked with Mineralava Beauty Clay Company, and convinced them that Valentino would be perfect as a spokesman with his legions of female fans. The tour was a tremendous success with Valentino and Rambova performing in 88 cities in the United States and Canada. In addition to the tour, Valentino also sponsored Mineralava beauty products and judged Mineralava sponsored beauty contests. One beauty contest was filmed by a young David O. Selznick titled "Rudolph Valentino and His 88 Beauties". Return to films. When Valentino returned to the United States, it was to an offer from Ritz-Carlton Pictures (working through Famous Players), which included $7,500 a week, creative control, and filming in New York. Rambova negotiated a two picture deal with Famous Players and four pictures for Ritz Carlton. He accepted, turning down an offer to film an Italian production of "Quo Vadis" in Italy. The first film under the new contract was "Monsieur Beaucaire", wherein Valentino played the lead, Duke of Chartres. The film did poorly and American audiences found it 'effeminate'. The failure of the film, under Rambova's control, is often seen as proof of her controlling nature and would later cause her to be barred from Valentino sets. Valentino made one final movie for Famous Players. In 1924 he starred in "A Sainted Devil", now one of his lost films. It had lavish costumes but apparently a weak story. It opened to strong sales but soon dropped off in attendance and ended up as another disappointment. With his contract fulfilled, Valentino was released from Famous Players but still obligated to Ritz-Carlton for four films. Valentino's next film was a pet project titled "The Hooded Falcon". The production was beset with problems from the start, beginning with the script written by June Mathis. The Valentinos were dissatisfied with Mathis' version and requested that it be rewritten. Mathis took it as a great insult and did not speak to Valentino for almost two years. While Rambova worked designing costumes and rewriting the script for "Falcon", Valentino was persuaded to film "Cobra" with Nita Naldi. Valentino agreed only on condition that it not be released until after "The Hooded Falcon" debuted. After filming "Cobra", the cast of "The Hooded Falcon" sailed for France to be fitted for costumes. After three months, they headed back to the United States, where Valentino's new beard, which he had grown for the film, caused a sensation. The crew and cast headed for Hollywood to begin preparations for the film, but much of the budget was taken up during pre-production. Due to the Valentinos' lavish spending on costumes and sets, Ritz-Carlton terminated the deal with the couple, effectively ending Valentino's contract with Ritz-Carlton. United Artists. During the filming of "Monsieur Beaucaire", both Charlie Chaplin and Douglas Fairbanks approached Valentino privately, due to his contract with Ritz Carlton, about joining with United Artists. Valentino's contract with United Artists provided $10,000 a week for only three pictures a year, plus a percentage of his films. The contract excluded Rambova from production of his films and the film set. Valentino's acceptance of the terms caused a major rift in his marriage to Rambova. George Ullman, who had negotiated the contract with United Artists, offered Rambova $30,000 to finance a film of her own. It became her one and only film, titled "What Price Beauty?" and starred Myrna Loy. Valentino chose his first UA project, "The Eagle". With the marriage under strain, Valentino began shooting and Rambova announced that she needed a "marital vacation". During the filming of "The Eagle", rumors of an affair with co-star Vilma Bánky were reported and ultimately denied by both Bánky and Valentino. The film opened to positive reviews, but a moderate box office. For the film's release, Valentino travelled to London, staying there and in France, spending money with abandon while his divorce took place. It would be some time before he made another film, "The Son of the Sheik", despite his hatred of the sheik image. The film began shooting in February 1926, with Valentino given his choice of director, and pairing him again with Vilma Banky. The film used the authentic costumes he bought abroad and allowed him to play a dual role. Valentino was ill during production, but needed the money to pay his many debts. The film opened on July 8, 1926 to great fanfare. During the premiere, Valentino was reconciled with Mathis; the two had not spoken in almost two years. Image. Dating back to the de Saulle trial in New York, during which his masculinity had been questioned in print, Valentino had been very sensitive about his public perception. Women loved him and thought him the epitome of romance. However, American men were less impressed, walking out of his movies in disgust. With the Fairbanks type being the epitome of manhood, Valentino was seen as a threat to the "All American" man. One man asked in a street interview what he thought of Valentino in 1922 replied, "Many men desire to be another Douglas Fairbanks. But Valentino? I wonder..." Women in the same interview found Valentino, "triumphantly seductive. Puts the love-making of the average husband or sweetheart into discard as tame, flat, and unimpassioned." Men may have wanted to act like Fairbanks, but they copied Valentino's look. A man with perfectly greased-back hair was called a "Vaselino". Some journalists were still calling his masculinity into question, going on at length about his pomaded hair, his dandyish clothing, his treatment of women, his views on women, and whether he was effeminate or not. Valentino hated these stories and was known to carry the clippings of the newspaper articles around with him and criticize them. In July 1926, the "Chicago Tribune" reported that a vending machine dispensing pink talcum powder had appeared in an upscale hotel washroom. An editorial that followed used the story to protest the feminization of American men, and blamed the talcum powder on Valentino and his films. The piece infuriated Valentino and he challenged the writer to a boxing match since dueling was illegal. Neither challenge was answered. Shortly afterward, Valentino met with journalist H.L. Mencken for advice on how best to deal with the incident. Mencken advised Valentino to "let the dreadful farce roll along to exhaustion", but Valentino insisted the editorial was "infamous." Mencken found Valentino to be likable and gentlemanly and wrote sympathetically of him in an article published in the "Baltimore Sun" a week after Valentino's death: After Valentino challenged the "Tribune"'s anonymous writer to a boxing match, the "New York Evening Journal" boxing writer, Frank O'Neill, volunteered to fight in his place. Valentino won the bout which took place on the roof of New York's Ambassador Hotel. Boxing heavyweight champion Jack Dempsey, who trained Valentino and other Hollywood notables of the era in boxing, said of him "He was the most virile and masculine of men. The women were like flies to a honeypot. He could never shake them off, anywhere he went. What a lovely, lucky guy." Valentino's sex symbol status and his untimely death was a biographical part in John Dos Passos' "The Big Money" in the U.S.A trilogy. His title was the Adagio Dancer. Other ventures. In 1923, Valentino published a book of poetry titled "Day Dreams", He would later serialize events in various magazines. With "Liberty" magazine, he wrote a series entitled, "How You Can Keep Fit" in 1923. "My Life Story" was serialized in "Photoplay" during his dance tour. The March issue was one of the best selling ever for the magazine. He followed that with "My Private Diary", serialized in "Movie Weekly" magazine. Most of the serials were later published as books after his death. Valentino was fascinated with every part of movie-making. During production on a Mae Murray film he spent time studying the director's plans. He craved authenticity and wished to shoot on location, finally forming his own production company, Rudolph Valentino Productions, in 1925. Valentino, George Ullman, and Beatrice Ullman were the incorporators. On May 14, 1923, while in New York City, Valentino made his only two vocal recordings for Brunswick Records; "Kashmiri Song" ("The Sheik") and "El Relicario" ("Blood and Sand"). The recordings were not released until after Valentino's death by the Celebrity Recording Company; Brunswick did not release them because Valentino's English/Spanish pronunciation was subpar. Valentino was one of the first in Hollywood to offer an award for artistic accomplishments in films. The Academy Awards would later follow suit. In 1925, he gave out his one and only medal, to John Barrymore, for his performance in "Beau Brummel". The award, named "The Rudolph Valentino Medal", required the agreement of Valentino, two judges and the votes of 75 critics. Everyone other than Valentino himself was eligible. Personal life. In 1919, just before the rise of his career, Valentino impulsively married actress Jean Acker. who was involved with actresses Grace Darmond and Alla Nazimova. Acker got involved with Valentino in part to remove herself from the lesbian love triangle, quickly regretted the marriage, and locked Valentino out of their room on their wedding night. The couple separated soon after, the marriage never consummated. The couple remained legally married until 1921, when Acker sued Valentino for divorce, citing desertion. The divorce was granted with Acker receiving alimony. She and Valentino eventually renewed their friendship. The two remained friends until his death. Valentino first met Winifred Shaughnessy, known by her stage name, Natacha Rambova, an American silent film costume and set designer, art director, and protégée of Nazimova, on the set of "Uncharted Seas" in 1921. The two worked together on the Nazimova production of "Camille", by which time they were romantically involved. They married on May 13, 1922, in Mexicali, Mexico, which resulted in Valentino's arrest for bigamy since he had not been divorced for a full year, as required by California law at the time. Days passed and his studio at the time, Famous Players-Lasky, refused to post bail. Eventually, a few friends were able to post the cash bail. Having to wait the year or face the possibility of being arrested again, Rambova and Valentino lived in separate apartments in New York City, each with their own roommates. On March 14, 1923, they legally remarried. Many of Valentino's friends disliked Rambova and found her controlling. During his relationship with her, he lost many friends and business associates, including June Mathis. Toward the end of their marriage, Rambova was banned from his sets by contract. Valentino and Rambova divorced in 1925. The end of the marriage was bitter, with Valentino bequeathing Rambova one dollar in his will. From the time he died until the 1960s, Valentino's sexuality was not generally questioned in print. At least four books, including "Hollywood Babylon", suggested that he may have been gay despite his marriage with Rambova. In fact, the marriages to Acker and Rambova, as well as the relationship with Pola Negri, only serve to add to the suspicion that Valentino was gay and that these were "lavender marriages", as all have documented lesbian relationships. Such books gave rise to claims that Valentino had a relationship with Ramón Novarro, despite Novarro stating they barely knew each other. "Hollywood Babylon" recounts a story that Valentino had given Novarro an art deco dildo as a gift, which was found stuffed in his throat at the time of his murder. No such gift existed. These books also gave rise to claims that he may have had relationships with both roommates Paul Ivano and Douglas Gerrad, as well as Norman Kerry, openly gay French actor Jacques Herbertot and André Daven. However, Ivano maintained that it was untrue and both he and Valentino were heterosexual. Biographers Emily Leider and Allan Ellenberger generally agree that he was most likely straight. Further supposed evidence that Valentino was gay are documents in the estate of the late author Samuel Steward indicating that Valentino was a sexual partner of his. However, evidence found in Steward's claim was subsequently found to be false, as Valentino was in New York on the date Steward claimed a sexual encounter occurred in Ohio. Shortly before his death, Valentino was dating actress Pola Negri. Upon his death, Negri made a scene at his funeral, claiming they had been engaged. Before his death, Valentino had not mentioned the engagement to others. Death and funeral. On August 15, 1926, Valentino collapsed at the Hotel Ambassador in New York City, New York. He was hospitalized at the New York Polyclinic Hospital and an examination showed him to be suffering from appendicitis and gastric ulcers, which required an immediate operation. Despite surgery, Valentino developed peritonitis. On August 18 his doctors gave an optimistic prognosis and told the media that unless his condition changed for the worse there was no need for updates. However, on August 21 he was stricken with a severe pleuritis relapse that developed rapidly in his left lung due to his weakened condition. The doctors realized that he was going to die, but, as was common at the time with terminal patients, decided to withhold the prognosis from the actor, who believed that his condition would pass. During the early hours of August 23, Valentino was briefly conscious and chatted with his doctors about his future. He fell back into a coma and died a few hours later, at the age of 31. An estimated 100,000 people lined the streets of New York City to pay their respects at his funeral, handled by the Frank Campbell Funeral Home. The event was a drama itself: Suicides of despondent fans were reported. Windows were smashed as fans tried to get in and an all-day riot erupted on August 24. Over 100 mounted officers and NYPD's Police Reserve were deployed to restore order. A phalanx of officers would line the streets for the remainder of the viewing. The drama inside would not be outdone. Polish actress Pola Negri, claiming to be Valentino's fiancée, collapsed in hysterics while standing over the coffin, and Campbell's hired four actors to impersonate a Fascist Blackshirt honor guard, which claimed to have been sent by Benito Mussolini. It was later revealed as a planned publicity stunt. Media reports that the body on display in the main salon was not Valentino but a decoy were continually denied by Campbell. Valentino's funeral Mass in New York was held at Saint Malachy's Roman Catholic Church, often called "The Actor's Chapel", as it is located on West 49th Street in the Broadway theater district, and has a long association with show business figures. After the body was taken by train across the country, a second funeral was held on the West Coast, at the Catholic Church of the Good Shepherd in Beverly Hills. Valentino had no final burial arrangements and his friend June Mathis offered her crypt for him in what she thought would be a temporary solution. However, she died the following year and Valentino was placed in the adjoining crypt. The two are still interred side by side in adjoining crypts at the Hollywood Memorial Park Cemetery (now the Hollywood Forever Cemetery) in Hollywood, California. Estate. Valentino left his estate to his brother, sister, and Rambova's aunt Teresa Werner, who was left the share originally bequeathed to Rambova. His Beverly Hills mansion, Falcon Lair, was later owned by heiress Doris Duke. Duke died there in 1993. The home was later sold and underwent major renovations. The main building of the estate was bulldozed in 2006 and the property then put back on the market. Legacy. After his death many of his films were reissued to help pay his estate expenses. Many were reissued well into the 1930s, long after the demise of silent film. Several books were written including one by Rambova. Several songs, including "There's a New Star in Heaven Tonight" and one by his first wife Jean Acker, entitled "We Will Meet at the End of the Trail", became best sellers. A photomontage print showed Valentino arriving in Heaven and being greeted by Enrico Caruso. Over the years, a "woman in black" carrying a red rose has come to mourn at Valentino's grave, usually on the anniversary of his death. Several myths surround the woman, though it seems the first woman in black was actually a publicity stunt cooked up by press agent Russel Birdwell in 1928. Several copycats have followed over the years. This myth of "woman in black" as also the source of inspiration to the song "Long Black Veil". Valentino's hometown of Castellaneta, Italy has created several services in his honor. A Museo Rodolfo Valentino was opened in his childhood home. A Fondazione Rodolfo Valentino was created to promote his life and his work. In 2009 a film school was also opened in his hometown, "Centro Studi Cine Club Rodolfo Valentino Castellaneta". At the centennial of his birth several events were held in his honor. From 1972 to 2006 an Italian acting award, "The Rudolph Valentino Award", was handed out every year. Several actors from all over the world received this award, including Leonardo DiCaprio and Elizabeth Taylor. In Italy in 2006, a one-off film festival was planned to celebrate the opening of the Museo Rodolfo Valentino. In May 2010, the American Society held The Rudolph Valentino Film Festival in Los Angeles, California. Valentino's syndrome, the type of medically emergent abdominal pain that caused his death, is named after him. Films about Valentino. The life of Rudolph Valentino has been filmed a number of times for television and the big screen. One of these biopics is Ken Russell's 1977 film, "Valentino", in which he is portrayed by Rudolf Nureyev. An earlier feature film about Valentino's life, also called "Valentino", was released in 1951, starring Anthony Dexter in the title role. In 1975 ABC produced the television movie "The Legend of Valentino", with Franco Nero as Valentino.
585500	Manjadikuru (, ) is a 2008 Malayalam film (theatrical release: 2012) written and directed by Anjali Menon. A shorter video version of the film was premiered at the 2008 International Film Festival of Kerala, and won the FIPRESCI Award for best Malayalam film and Hassankutty award for Best Debutant Indian director. In 2009, it swept the awards at "South Asian International Film Festival (SAIFF)" at New York, winning five Grand Jury Awards - Best Film, Best Director, Best Screenplay, Best Cinematographer and Best Emerging Talent.
1054498	Good Dick is a 2008 film directed by Marianna Palka. Plot. Jason Ritter plays a video store clerk who works persistently to draw out a reclusive woman, played by Marianna Palka who often comes to the video store where he works and rents soft-core porn. Eventually, despite his strong optimism, her dislike of sex and resulting defensiveness drives them apart. It is revealed toward the end of the film that her dislike of both sex and relationships was fueled by sexual abuse at the hands of her father. The film ends with a confrontation with her father, and ultimately Ritter's character reuniting with her.
1028845	Ellen Kathleen Pompeo (; born November 10, 1969) is an American actress, known for playing the lead role, Meredith Grey, in the ABC medical drama "Grey's Anatomy". In 2011, she was named the ninth highest paid television actress, earning $7 million. In 2012, she was named the eighth highest paid television actress, earning $9 million. She has extended her contract for two more years which would have her involved with the show until the 10th season. Early life. Pompeo was born in Everett, Massachusetts, the daughter of Kathleen B. (née O'Keefe) and Joseph E. Pompeo, a salesman. Her father was of Italian, English, and Irish descent, while her mother was of Irish ancestry. She was raised Roman Catholic. Her mother died of a painkiller overdose when Ellen was four, and her father remarried soon after. Her father died on September 1, 2012. She has five siblings: three sisters and two brothers. She was nicknamed "the pencil", and "Stracciatella" (an icecream flavor). Career. Pompeo began her career with minor roles on television shows such as "Strangers with Candy", "Friends" and "Law & Order" and others. Pompeo moved to Los Angeles in 2001. She participated in the movie "Mambo Café" with Thalía. A turning point came when she was selected by director Brad Silberling in 2002 for a role in his film "Moonlight Mile" playing Jake Gyllenhaal's sympathetic love interest. In 2002, Pompeo appeared in "Catch Me If You Can" and in 2003, "Old School". Television guest roles include two episodes of "Law & Order" and an episode of "Friends". She portrayed Jim Carrey's ex-girlfriend, Naomi, in the 2004 film "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind". Although her scenes were cut from the film, she felt grateful that director Michel Gondry chose her to appear in his film. Pompeo landed her first major role in 2005, on the ABC medical drama "Grey's Anatomy", which is now in its tenth season, as the title character, Meredith Grey, a surgical resident at a prestigious hospital. In 2011, she signed a new contract for "Grey's Anatomy" that increased her salary to US$200,000 per episode. On May 10, 2012, it was announced that she signed a contract for two more seasons. On October 13, 2007, Pompeo was honored by the National Italian American Foundation for her achievement in entertainment at a black-tie gala in Washington, D.C. On October 27, 2011, Deadline.com reported that Pompeo had launched her own production company called Calamity Jane which sold its first project to ABC, an untitled show about female agents on the Secretary of State's security detail. Pompeo will be the show's executive producer. Personal life. Pompeo married music producer Chris Ivery on November 9, 2007. New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg was the legal witness to the ceremony. She gave birth to her first child, a daughter named Stella Luna, on September 15, 2009.
1057141	Untraceable is a 2008 American thriller film starring Diane Lane, Colin Hanks, Billy Burke, and Joseph Cross. It was directed by Gregory Hoblit and distributed by Screen Gems.
1072278	Story. The film takes the form of a mockumentary that follows Masaru Daisato. Daisato is an otherwise normal Japanese citizen except for an inherited ability to grow to a height of approximately 30 meters in response to the application of high voltage electricity. As both his father and grandfather before him, Daisato has accepted the duty to protect Japan against various giant monsters while working for a sub-division of the defence ministry called the Ministry of Monster Prevention. Despite his great powers, he increasingly finds himself mocked by his fellow citizens while struggling under the burden of living up to a heroic lineage that increasingly overshadows his own mediocre accomplishments as a monster fighter. To further complicate matters, he is deeply estranged from his own wife and child. By the film’s end, his failures and doubts reach a hallucinogenic apotheosis. Themes. The movie targets many topics: Japanese pop culture, the monster-movie genre, capitalism's excesses and the contemporary entertainment industry, for example. Masaru has an agent who manages his PR and marketing. She scolds him for bungling a fight which causes poor ratings and leases advertising space on visible areas of his body (e.g., he is reminded to make sure that a corporate logo on his chest is visible during a fight, forcing him to release his opponent from a bear hug). Toward the end of the movie his agent is seen to have profited from his efforts and become wealthy while Masaru continues to live in a state of near poverty. The unnamed documentarian following Big Man interviews fight witnesses, who discuss the battles as if they were the latest episode of their favorite TV show. The movie is free of collateral damage such as civilian casualties or property damage other than being used as a device to allow them to take pointed jabs at Big Man's heroic reputation. The film's monsters, or daikaiju, are unusual in that they have distinctly human features and do not behave the way that traditional movie monsters are expected to. The female Stink Monster, for instance, challenges Big Man to battle but continues to shout insults at him while avoiding any actual physical contact. The climactic ending scenes are shot in the style of the original "Ultraman" series. U.S. release. Because of its success in the film festival circuit, it finally received an American DVD release by Magnolia Home Entertainment on July 28, 2009. Big Man Japan was once available for streaming on Netflix, but is not currently. Reception. The film has received a "Fresh" score of 78% on the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, who conclude "Hitoshi Matsumoto's indescribably odd mockumentary is undeniably inspired." Roger Ebert said the film was "very funny in an insidious way" and gave it three and a half stars out of four. American remake. "The Hollywood Reporter" revealed that there was a remake in the works, with Phil Hay and Matt Manfredi writing the script and Neil H. Moritz producing.
1442532	Wrath of Gods is a 2006 documentary film directed by Jon Gustafsson. It tells the story of the dramatic circumstances Canadian director Sturla Gunnarsson and his crew had to go through during the making of the film "Beowulf & Grendel". The main focus of the documentary is on director Sturla Gunnarsson, but other participants are Gerard Butler, Paul Stephens, Eric Jordan, Stellan Skarsgård, Peder Pedrero, Wendy Ord and Sarah Polley. The director of "Wrath of Gods", Jon Gustafsson, was hired to play one of Beowulf's warriors and he is credited in "Beowulf & Grendel" as Geat Warrior #2, Gerard Butler and Martin Delaney co-produced the film. The music was composed by Hilmar Örn Hilmarsson.
1063230	Joshua Ryan "Josh" Hutcherson (born October 12, 1992) is an American film and television actor. He began acting in the early 2000s, appearing in several minor film and television roles. He gained wider exposure with major roles in the 2005 films "Little Manhattan" and "Zathura", the 2006 comedy "RV", the 2007 family adventure film "Firehouse Dog", and the film adaptations of "Bridge to Terabithia", "Journey to the Center of the Earth" and "". On March 30, 2008, Hutcherson won a Young Artist Award for Best Leading Young Actor. Hutcherson was also featured on a Celebrity Teens edition of the hit show "MTV Cribs", and portrayed Peeta Mellark in the 2012 film "The Hunger Games". Early life. Hutcherson was born in Union, Kentucky. His mother, Michelle (née Fightmaster), is a former Delta Air Lines employee who now assists Josh, and his father, Chris Hutcherson, is an analyst for the EPA. He has a younger brother, Connor, as well as many pets, including two dogs, Diesel and Nixon (a boxer). He has English, as well as Scottish, German, and Irish, ancestry. Hutcherson has wanted to be an actor since he was four years old, but had only begun auditioning for roles in 2002, at the age of 9. He moved from Union to California due to limited acting opportunities. Career. Hutcherson's first acting role was in the 2002 pilot episode, "House Blend"; in the same year, he appeared in an episode of "ER". In 2003, he played the lead role in the comedy "Miracle Dogs" (released on Animal Planet); starred opposite Peter Falk and Timothy Daly in the made-for-television film, "Wilder Days"; and had a minor role in the well-reviewed independent film, "American Splendor". He performed for the motion-capture imagery in 2004's "The Polar Express". In 2005, Hutcherson appeared in several Hollywood films: he had a minor role in the Will Ferrell comedy "Kicking & Screaming", voiced Markl in the animated film "Howl's Moving Castle" (June), and played the lead roles in "Little Manhattan" (September) and "Zathura", which was released in November to positive reviews. The following year, Hutcherson appeared in the comedy "RV", playing the son of Robin Williams' character. Hutcherson subsequently played Jesse Aarons in the drama "Bridge to Terabithia", which was filmed in New Zealand and released on February 16, 2007, performing well critically and commercially. He had not read the novel that the film is based on before being cast in the role. Hutcherson's next role was in "Firehouse Dog" (released on April 4, 2007), in which he played Shane Fahey, a firefighter's son who befriends a dog. Hutcherson filmed "Firehouse Dog" before "Bridge to Terabithia", though the latter film was released first. He next appeared in the independent drama "Winged Creatures" and the science fiction adventure "Journey to the Center of the Earth", a new 3D version of the novel of the same name. Filming on "Journey", which was released on July 11, 2008, began in Montreal in June 2006 and ended in October of that year. Hutcherson also appeared in a film adaptation of the book "Cirque Du Freak". In 2010, he had a supporting role in the critically acclaimed movie "The Kids Are All Right", playing Laser. Hutcherson has said that he would like to appear in every type of film genre. On April 4, 2011, Lionsgate announced that Hutcherson had been cast as Peeta Mellark in the 2012 film, "The Hunger Games". He appeared in the 2012 "Red Dawn" remake. Personal life. Hutcherson dated his "" co-star Vanessa Hudgens but the two are now "good friends". Hutcherson has cited actor Jake Gyllenhaal as an inspiration. On August 11, 2007, Hutcherson served as the Grand Marshal at the Meijer Indy 300 at Kentucky Speedway. In September 2008, he traveled to Italy for the first time. He visited Rome and Milan, and participated in a local event for children interested in moviemaking. Hutcherson recorded a video for the "Straight But Not Narrow" campaign, designed to encourage young, straight men to come out in support of their gay peers. On April 21, 2012, Josh received the Vanguard Award from GLAAD, awarded to those in the entertainment industry who make a significant difference in promoting equal rights for LGBT people. Being from Northern Kentucky, Hutcherson has been a lifelong fan of both the University of Kentucky's Wildcats and nearby Cincinnati, Ohio's Major League Baseball team, the Reds. As a guest on Conan, Hutcherson talked about painting his face to show his support during Kentucky Wildcats basketball games and being a season ticket holder. On April 7, 2012, Hutcherson threw the ceremonial opening pitch before the Reds' game against the Miami Marlins at Great American Ball Park. In April 2012, Hutcherson adopted a pit bull named Driver from the Hands, Paws & Hearts rescue organization in Lancaster, California.
1058993	Street Kings is a 2008 action-crime film directed by David Ayer, starring Keanu Reeves, Forest Whitaker, Hugh Laurie, Chris Evans, Common and The Game. It was released in theaters on April 11, 2008. The initial screenplay drafts were written by James Ellroy in the late 1990s under the title "The Night Watchman". Plot. Tom Ludlow (Keanu Reeves) is a disillusioned LAPD Vice detective haunted by the death of his wife. Working undercover, he meets with Korean gangsters (whom he believes have kidnapped two Korean schoolgirls) in a parking lot, who are looking to buy a machine gun from him. After a vicious beatdown, the Koreans then proceed to steal Tom's car. Tom however planned on this and has the cops locate the vehicle via GPS. Upon arrival at their hideout, Tom storms in and kills the four inside, and then locates the missing children after covering up what really happened. While the other officers in his unit congratulate him, he is confronted by his former partner, Detective Terrence Washington (Terry Crews). Washington no longer approves of the corruption and deception and has gone straight, reporting the problems to Captain James Biggs (Hugh Laurie), of internal affairs, who starts an investigation against Ludlow.
1105281	Leonid Vitaliyevich Kantorovich () (19 January 19127 April 1986) was a Soviet mathematician and economist, known for his theory and development of techniques for the optimal allocation of resources. He was the winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics in 1975 and the only winner of this prize from the USSR. Biography. Kantorovich was born on 19 January 1912, to a Russian Jewish family. His father was a doctor practicing in Saint Petersburg. In 1926, at the age of fourteen, he began his studies at the Leningrad University. He graduated from the Faculty of Mathematics in 1930, and began his graduate studies. In 1934, at the age of 22 years, he became a full professor. Later, Kantorovich worked for the Soviet government. He was given the task of optimizing production in a plywood industry. He came up (1939) with the mathematical technique now known as linear programming, some years before it was reinvented and much advanced by George Dantzig. He authored several books including "The Mathematical Method of Production Planning and Organization" and "The Best Uses of Economic Resources". For his work, Kantorovich was awarded the Stalin Prize in 1949. After 1939, he became the professor of Military engineering-technical university. During the Siege of Leningrad, Kantorovich was the professor of VITU of Navy and in charge of safety on the Road of Life. He calculated the optimal distance between cars on ice, depending on thickness of ice and temperature of the air. In December 1941 and January 1942, Kantorovich personally walked between cars driving on the ice of Lake Ladoga, on the Road of Life, to ensure the cars did not sink. However, many cars with food for survivors of the siege were destroyed by the German air-bombings. For his feat and courage Kantorovich was awarded the Order of the Patriotic War, and was decorated with the medal "For Defense of Leningrad".
1062553	Thomas Haden Church (born June 17, 1960) is an American actor. After co-starring in the 1990s sitcom "Wings", Church became known for his film roles, including his Academy Award–nominated performance in "Sideways" and his role as the Sandman in "Spider-Man 3". He also made his directorial debut in "Rolling Kansas". Early life. Church was born Thomas Richard McMillen on June 17, 1960, in Woodland, California, to Maxine (Sanders) and Carlos "Carl" Richard McMillen, who served for eight years in the Marines and saw action in the Korean War; after 1962, Carlos worked as a surveyor for Yolo County. Church's mother divorced and moved to Texas. She remarried in 1969, to widower George A. Quesada, a veteran of an Army Air Forces reconnaissance unit which served in Guam in World War II. Church took his stepfather's surname, "Quesada". He was raised in Laredo, Texas, then in Harlingen. He left high school in 1977 to work the oil fields of Louisiana, but he returned to graduate Harlingen High School in 1979. He attended the University of North Texas while living in Dallas. Career. Church started in the entertainment business as a radio personality and doing voice-over work. He changed his name to "Thomas Haden Church", taking "Haden" and "Church" from his ancestry. A part in an independent film convinced him to move to California to pursue an acting career. He played the part of slow-witted aircraft mechanic Lowell Mather for six seasons (1990–1995) on the NBC sitcom "Wings". He worked in television for two more seasons with a lead role on "Ned and Stacey" opposite Debra Messing. He has had supporting roles in films such as "Tombstone", "George of the Jungle", and "The Specials". Church often plays villains or comic relief in films, most evident by turns in "" and "Over the Hedge". Church bought a Texas ranch in 1998. In late 2000 he took a break from films and spent time at his ranch. After having small roles in films such as "Monkeybone" and "3000 Miles to Graceland", he made his directorial debut with "Rolling Kansas" in 2003. He has also done voiceover work in commercials, such as for Merrill Lynch and Icehouse beer. In 2003, director Alexander Payne called him regarding the role of "Jack", the selfish best friend to Paul Giamatti's character, in "Sideways". During the audition, Church stripped naked to read the audition scene, later saying "To me it was painfully obvious... I was reading the scene where Jack comes in naked and there has to be in-born vulnerability in the scene." (He later found that he was the only actor to strip down for the audition). "Sideways" earned acclaim for Church, for which he won an IFP Independent Spirit Award and was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. He has since appeared in films such as "Idiocracy", done voice-over work on films such as "Over the Hedge" and starred in one of AMC's highest rated television productions, "Broken Trail", with Robert Duvall, in 2006, for which he won an Emmy. In 2007, he appeared as the villain Sandman in Sam Raimi's "Spider-Man 3" starring Tobey Maguire and Kirsten Dunst. In 2005, he was invited to join the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. On September 16, 2007, he won an Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Miniseries or Movie for his role of Tom Harte on AMC's "Broken Trail". In October 2008, Church appeared as "Joe Six-Pack" in a video on funnyordie.com, challenging Joe the Plumber by drinking more beer. Church stars also in the FEARnet webseries "Zombie Roadkill" alongside David Dorfman and under the direction from producer David Green. Personal life. Church lives on his ranch in Bandera County, Texas. Church and actress Mia Zottoli have a daughter, born in late 2004. He has never been married. Church's biological father died in 2008, and his stepfather in 2012.
1059576	Alan Ruck (born July 1, 1956) is an American film, stage and television actor, perhaps best known for his roles as Cameron Frye in "Ferris Bueller's Day Off" and Stuart Bondek on "Spin City". Early life. Ruck was born in Cleveland, Ohio. He attended Parma Senior High School located in Parma, Ohio, and graduated from the University of Illinois with a B.F.A. in drama in 1979. He recalled: Ruck made his Broadway debut in 1985 in Neil Simon's "Biloxi Blues" with Matthew Broderick. Early on, Ruck was a prominent stage actor at many theaters around the country, including Wisdom Bridge Theatre in Chicago. In his initial foray into film acting, Ruck appeared in "Class" and "Hard Knocks" as well as some television films. Career. Ruck is perhaps best known for his role as Cameron Frye, Ferris Bueller's hypochondriac best friend in John Hughes' "Ferris Bueller's Day Off" (Ruck was actually 29 when he portrayed the 17-year-old Cameron), and as Stuart Bondek, the lecherous, power-hungry member of the mayor's staff on the hit ABC sitcom "Spin City", which ran from 1996-2002. His first film role was in the 1983 drama film "Bad Boys" released on the 25th of March, where he played Carl Brennan, Sean Penn's friend in the film. The same year he played Roger Jackson in "Class". One of his other film roles was in the 1987 film "Three for the Road".
582500	Raat Gayi, Baat Gayi? () is a 2009 Bollywood film written and directed by Saurabh Shukla. The film features Rajat Kapoor, Vinay Pathak, Neha Dhupia, Iravati Harshe and Anu Menon in leading roles. Plot. "Raat Gayi, Baat Gayi?" is a film about three couples and a keen observation on modern day marriage. Rahul (Rajat Kapoor) wakes up with a bad hangover after a party the night before. There he had met a sexy young woman - Sophia (Neha Dhupia). They got drunk and there were sparks flying. But Rahul doesn't remember what happened after that. Did they go all the way? His wife, Mitali (Iravati Harshe), is in a particularly bad mood this morning, and Rahul suspects that she might know about his little escapade last night. Rahul starts chasing his night—trying to retrieve it—trying to find out what really happened. His friends Saxena (Dalip Tahil) and Amit (Vinay Pathak) are going through their own marital crises of sorts. Driven to his wit's end, he realizes he must seek Sophia out to restore his sanity Soundtrack. The music of the film is composed by Ankur Tewari. It consisted of 7 songs and 3 remixes. The music was released on T-Series. Lyrics were penned by Ankur Tewari. Reception. The movie opened to mixed to negative reviews from critics. Taran Adarsh of Bollywood Hungama rated the film with one and half stars out of five saying, "In a nutshell, RAAT GAYI, BAAT GAYI? offers a few laughs, not laughter unlimited!"
1042575	Murray Melvin (born 10 August 1932) is an English stage and film actor noted for his work with Joan Littlewood, Ken Russell and Stanley Kubrick. He is the author of two books: "The Art of Theatre Workshop" (2006) and "The Theatre Royal, A History of the Building" (2009). Early years. The son of Hugh Victor Melvin and Maisie Winifred Driscoll, Murray Melvin left his North London secondary school at the age of fourteen unable to master fractions but as Head Prefect, a qualification he says he gained by always having clean fingernails and well combed hair. He started work as an office boy for a firm of Holiday Agents off Oxford Street To help channel the energies of the young after the disturbing times of the war, his parents had helped to found a youth club in Hampstead, financed by the Co-operative Society of which they were long standing members. A drama section formed with Murray its most enthusiastic member. A short-lived job as an import and export clerk in a shipping office. He inadvertently exported quantities of goods to destinations that had not ordered them. followed by two unhappy years of National Service in the Royal Air Force (his father had served in the RAF during the Second World War). He was employed as clerk and secretary to the Director of the Royal Air Force Sports Board at the Air Ministry, then in Kingsway. Knowing nothing about sport, he considered his clean fingernails, well combed hair and his father's service had done the trick. At the Theatre Workshop. He attended evening classes at the nearby City Literary Institute and studied Drama, Mime and Classical Ballet. During an extended lunch-break from the Ministry, he applied to Joan Littlewood's Theatre Workshop company at the Theatre Royal Stratford East and auditioned on-stage singing and dancing for Joan Littlewood and Gerry Raffles. On being asked to create a character he knew from life he impersonated a rather rotund director of the Sports Board. Having ascertained that he had to return that afternoon to work for this character Joan Littlewood said to Gerry Raffles: "the poor little bugger, we must get him away from there". And they did. In October 1957 he became an assistant stage manager, theatre painter and general dogsbody to John Bury, the theatre designer, and he went on stage in his first professional role as the Queen's Messenger in the then in-rehearsal production of Macbeth. From the Scottish Court to a building site his next performance was as a bricky in 'You Won't Always Be On Top', soon followed by a peasant in 'And the Wind Blew', Bellie in Pirandello's 'Man Beast and Virtue', Calisto in De Roja's Celestina; Young Jodi Maynard in Paul Green's Unto Such Glory' (all 1957) and then came the last play of the 1957-58 season which was to be the start of an extraordinary year in the history of Theatre Workshop and Murray's career. He was cast as Geoffrey in Shelagh Delaney's play, "A Taste of Honey. After the summer break in 1958, he played the title role in the seminal production of Brendan Behan's "The Hostage". Both scripts had been transformed in rehearsals by Joan Littlewood's painstaking and inspired methods of getting to the truth of the text and building a lively poetic and dangerous theatrical event. Though both plays were to blow a refreshing wind through the British theatre, neither play transferred to the West End immediately, so Melvin stayed on to play Scrooge's Nephew in Joan Littlewood's adaptation of 'A Christmas Carol' (1958). In February 1959, A Taste of Honey opened at the Wyndham's Theatre and transferred to the Criterion some six months later. It was the hit of the season. Murray Melvin went on to play his role of Geoffrey in the film of A Taste of Honey, directed by Tony Richardson, for which he won the Prix de Cannes as best actor at the Festival in 1962. He was also nominated for the BAFTA "Most Promising Newcomer" award. In April 1960, William Soroyan, on a world tour, stopped off in London where he wrote and directed a play for the workshop in which he cast Murray as the leading character called ""Sam, the Highest Jumper of Them All"". Then the workshop paid their annual visit to the Sarah Bernhardt Theatre for the Paris World Theatre Season with Ben Johnson's 'Everyman in his Humour' in which he played Brainworm. Rehearsals then started for Stephen Lewis's "Sparrers Can't Sing" in which Murray Melvin played the role of Knocker Jugg. The following year he transferred to the role Georgie Brimsdown for the film adaptation of the play. The film, her first, was directed by Joan Littlewood. After a break of nearly two years the company came together to create the musical, "Oh, What a Lovely War!". After its initial run at Stratford it went to the Paris Festival and won it. The company returned to the Wyndham's Theatre where the play won the Evening Standard Best Musical Award. Between the end of its London run and the opening at the Broadhurst Theatre in New York, the company visited the Edinburgh Festival with Shakespeare's Henry IV parts 1 and 2, in which Murray Melvin metamorphosed as Gadshill, Shallow, Vernon and the Earl of March. The production of "Oh, What a Lovely War!" in New York in 1964 was his last for Joan Littlewood and the Theatre Workshop Company. The production attracted the interest of filmmakers, including Ken Russell and Lewis Gilbert. Murray Melvin became a member of what has often been called the Ken Russell Repertory Company, appearing in many of Russell’s most celebrated films, including "The Devils" and "The Boy Friend". Lewis Gilbert cast Murray in "H.M.S. Defiant" (1962), alongside Dirk Bogarde, and in "Alfie", where he played Michael Caine’s work friend, stealing petrol and taking photographs to sell to tourists. The Ken Russell connection. The first Ken Russell film Murray Melvin appeared in was "Diary of a Nobody", filmed at the Ealing Studios on a specially built ‘silent film’ set. Alongside Murray Melvin, who played the errant son, Lupin, were other actors from John Littlewood’s Theatre Workshop, including Bryan Pringle and Brian Murphy, who also became Russell regulars. Lupin’s girlfriend in the film is played by Vivian Pickles, whose performance at the Royal Court Theatre in John Osborne’s "Plays for England" had attracted national attention. Murray Melvin cameoed in the final scenes of Ken Russell’s film of Isadora Duncan (1966), which starred Vivian Pickles as the great American dancer. Murray Melvin most famous role is Father Mignon in Ken Russell’s "The Devils" (1971). Mignon is the catalyst to the true-life horrors documented in the film. His appointment to the covent of Loudon, whose leading members were expecting Father Grandier (played by Oliver Reed), causes the nun’s demonic condemnation of Grandier to spiral out of control. After the film, Melvin directed two operas by "The Devils" composer, Peter Maxwell-Davies. These were Miss Donnithorn’s "Magot" and "The Martydom of St. Magnus". Further work with Maxwell Davies followed. He was the Performer in a production of Maxwell-Davies’s Missa Super L’Homme Arme; and he played the Virgin in the very first first production of Maxwell-Davies’s Notre Dame des Fleur. In Russell’s "The Boy Friend" (1971), Murray Melvin and another Theatre Workshop regular, Brian Murphy, are among the company players trying to catch the eye of a Hollywood producer who watches their provincial performance of Sandy Wilson's "The Boy Friend". In the film, Melvin has a spectacular solo dance number in a caped French officer’s outfit. He cameoed as Hector Berlioz in Ken Russell’s "Lisztomania", as a test-run to a film about Berlioz which Russell was preparing. He appeared in Russell’s film about the poet, Samuel Coleridge, "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" (1978). Returning with the French theme, Murray Melvin played an enthusiastic French lawyer in "Prisoner of Honour" (1991), Ken Russell’s all-star film about the French Dreyfus Affair. Murray Melvin remained a lifelong friend of Ken Russell, and was often seen with Russell at festival screening of Russell’s films. At the Barbican screening of the director’s cut of The Devils, 1 May 2011, Murray Melvin and Ken Russell arrived together, with Melvin pushing Ken Russell’s wheelchair.
1265389	Glenda Farrell (June 30, 1904 – May 1, 1971) was an American film actress. Career. Farrell came to Hollywood towards the end of the silent era. Farrell began her career with a theatrical company at the age of 7. She played the role of Little Eva in "Uncle Tom's Cabin". She paused at times to continue her education but appeared with a number of theatrical companies and in several Broadway productions. She was in the cast of "Cobra" and "The Best People" with actress Charlotte Treadway, at the Morosco Theater in Los Angeles, California, in 1925. Farrell was first signed to a long-term contract by First National Pictures in July 1930. She was given the female lead in "Little Caesar" directed by Mervyn Leroy. Warner Brothers signed her to re-create on film the role she played in "Life Begins" on Broadway. Farrell worked on parts in twenty movies in her first year with the studio. She came to personify the wise-cracking, hard-boiled, and somewhat dizzy blonde of the early talkies, along with fellow Warner Brothers brassy blonde, Joan Blondell, with whom she would be frequently paired.
1165650	Frank Randolph Cady (September 8, 1915 – June 8, 2012) was an American actor best known for his recurring and popular role as storekeeper Sam Drucker in three American television series during the 1960s: "Petticoat Junction", "Green Acres", and "The Beverly Hillbillies". Early life. Cady was born in Susanville, California. While in high school he worked at a local newspaper, "The Lassen County Advocate". Cady's family later moved to Wilsonville, Oregon. Cady studied journalism and drama at Stanford University, where he was involved with the campus humor magazine, the "Stanford Chaparral". It was at Stanford where he first met Shirley, his future wife. Following college graduation Cady served an apprenticeship at the Westminster Theater in London, England, appearing in four plays. While in England he also made an early television appearance on the BBC in late 1938. Cady then returned to Stanford in 1939 for graduate studies and a position as teaching assistant. Unsatisfied with academic life, two years later he began a series of jobs as an announcer and news broadcaster at various California radio stations. His career was put on hold in 1943 when he joined the United States Army Air Corps, serving in England, France and Germany during World War II. Television and movie career. After being discharged from military service in 1946 Cady appeared in a series of plays in the Los Angeles area, which led to movie roles, beginning in 1947. In 1950, he had an uncredited speaking role in the classic film noir drama "D.O.A." (as Sam the bartender in Banning, California), and another uncredited role in "Father of the Bride" (1950), requesting mint juleps from Spencer Tracy during the engagement party. He also had a small part in the noir classic "The Asphalt Jungle" (also 1950) playing a witness who refused to identify a robbery suspect. He appeared in George Pal's film "When Worlds Collide" (1951) as the assistant to John Hoyt's character. (Cady would work with Pal again in 1964, playing the mayor of Abalone in "7 Faces of Dr. Lao.") Cady had a prominent role in Billy Wilder's film "Ace in the Hole" (aka, "The Big Carnival", also 1951). He had a small non-speaking role, seen mostly in long shot, in one of Alfred Hitchcock's most prestigious films, "Rear Window" (1954), portraying the husband of the woman who owns a dog, which is raised and lowered to their apartment window in a basket. Cady also played the husband of Eileen Heckart's character in "The Bad Seed" (1956). Cady would again play the husband of Heckart in the 1974 film western "Zandy's Bride". Cady appeared on the "Make Room For Daddy" episode that was the pilot for "The Andy Griffith Show" as the town drunk, preceding "Hal Smith" who eventually took over that role as Otis Campbell. Cady also appeared on some radio programs, including the "Gunsmoke" episode 140 "Outlaw Robin Hood" on January 8, 1955. In the 1950s, Cady played Doc Williams in "Ozzie and Harriet" (1954–55), along with numerous supporting parts in movies and also appeared in television commercials for (among other products) Shasta Grape Soda. In 1961 Cady made a guest appearance on "Perry Mason" as twin brothers Joe and Hiram Widlock in "The Case of the Pathetic Patient." Cady was prolific in television and was the only actor to play a recurring character on three television sitcoms at the same time, "The Beverly Hillbillies", "Green Acres", and "Petticoat Junction", from 1968 to 1969. He also was one of only three co-stars of "Petticoat Junction" who stayed with the series for its entire seven-year run, along with Edgar Buchanan and Linda Henning, appearing in 170 of the show's 222 episodes. His final acting role was in the television movie "Return to Green Acres" (1990). In a 1995 interview with the Portland "Oregonian" Cady spoke of his television career: "You get typecast. I'm remembered for those shows and not for some pretty good acting jobs I did other times. I suppose I ought to be grateful for that, because otherwise I wouldn't be remembered at all. I've got to be one of the luckiest guys in the world." In 2005, Cady attended Eddie Albert's funeral, along with "Green Acres" co-stars Sid Melton and Mary Grace Canfield. Personal life and death. Cady married his wife, Shirley, in 1940. They had lived in Wilsonville, Oregon, since 1991. Shirley Cady died on August 22, 2008, at age 91. The Cadys were the parents of two children — daughter, Catherine Turk; son, Steven; three grandchildren and three great-grandchildren. Frank Cady died at his home on June 8, 2012. He was interred at Meridian United Church of Christ Cemetery Wilsonville Oregon. No information on cause of death was provided.
1166155	Paul Rodriguez (born January 19, 1955) is a Mexican-born American stand-up comedian and actor. Early life. Rodriguez was born in Culiacán, Sinaloa, México to Mexican agriculture ranchers. His family migrated to East Los Angeles, California, where Rodriguez enlisted in the military, and was subsequently stationed in Iceland and Duluth, Minnesota, U.S. Rodriguez considered becoming a lawyer, but instead ventured into the field of comedy. Career. Television. He first appeared in "a.k.a. Pablo", a sitcom produced by the ABC, but the show was canceled after seven episodes. In 1988 Rodriguez replaced Bob Eubanks as host of "The Newlywed Game" and lasted one season before cancellation. During his tenure as host, the show began using the 1958 song "Book of Love", by The Monotones, as a theme song. He later hosted a nighttime television show called "El Show de Paul Rodriguez" that was broadcast on Univision in the early 1990s.
1164905	Jasmine Guy (born March 10, 1962) is an American actress, director, singer and dancer. She is best known for her starring role as Whitley Gilbert in the television sitcom "A Different World". Early life. Born in Boston, Massachusetts, to an African-American father and White American mother, Guy was raised in the affluent historic Collier Heights neighborhood of Atlanta, Georgia, where she attended the former Northside Performing Arts High School (now North Atlanta High School). Her mother is Jaye (Rudolph; born 1930), a former high-school teacher, and her father, the Reverend William Guy (born 1928), was pastor of the historic Friendship Baptist Church of Atlanta, which served as an early home to Spelman College, and was also a college instructor in philosophy and religion. At the age of seventeen, she moved to New York City to study dance at the Alvin Ailey American Dance Center. Acting career. Television roles. Guy began her television career with a non-speaking role, as a dancer, in ten episodes of the 1982 television series "Fame" under the direction of choreographer Debbie Allen. Following a move to California, she had a role in a 1991 episode of "The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air", playing Kayla, one of Will Smith's girlfriends. In 1992, Guy appeared in CBS's "Stompin' at the Savoy" with Vanessa Williams and, again, under the direction of Debbie Allen, and in 1993 played the mother of Halle Berry's character in the CBS TV mini-series "Alex Haley's Queen", based upon Haley's book "".
1060454	The Great Race is a 1965 American slapstick comedy film starring Jack Lemmon, Tony Curtis, and Natalie Wood, directed by Blake Edwards, written by Blake Edwards and Arthur A. Ross, and with music by Henry Mancini and cinematography by Russell Harlan. The supporting cast includes Peter Falk, Keenan Wynn, Arthur O'Connell and Vivian Vance. The movie cost US$12 million, making it the most expensive comedy film at the time. It is noted for one scene that was promoted as "the greatest pie fight ever". Plot. The Great Leslie (Tony Curtis) and Professor Fate (Jack Lemmon) are competing daredevils at the turn of the 20th century. Leslie is the classic hero – always dressed in white, handsome, ever-courteous, enormously talented and successful. Leslie's nemesis, Fate, is the traditional melodramatic villain – usually dressed in black, sporting a black moustache and top hat, glowering at most everyone, maniacal evil laugh, grandiose plans to thwart the hero, and dogged by failure. Leslie proposes an automobile race from New York to Paris, to prove the ability of a new car named after him. Fate builds his own race vehicle, the Hannibal Twin-8, complete with hidden devices of sabotage. Others enter cars in the race, including New York City's most prominent newspaper. Driving the newspaper's car is beautiful photojournalist Maggie DuBois (Natalie Wood), a vocal suffragette. The six-car race begins, but Fate's long-suffering sidekick Maximilian Meen (Peter Falk) has sabotaged three other cars (and his own, by mistake), leaving just three cars in the race. The surviving teams are Leslie with his loyal mechanic Hezekiah Sturdy (Keenan Wynn), Maggie DuBois driving a Stanley Steamer by herself, and Fate and Max. The newspaper's car breaks down and Maggie accepts a lift in the Leslie Special. Fate arrives first at a refueling point, the small Western frontier town of Boracho. A local outlaw named "Texas Jack" (Larry Storch) becomes jealous of the attraction to Leslie shown by showgirl Lily Olay (Dorothy Provine) and a saloon brawl ensues. Fate sneaks outside amidst the chaos, steals the fuel he needs, and destroys the rest. Leslie uses mules to pull his car to another refueling point, where Maggie tricks Hezekiah into boarding a train, telling Leslie the mechanic had quit. The two remaining cars reach the Bering Strait and park side-by-side in a blinding snowstorm. Keeping warm during the storm, Leslie and Maggie begin to see each other as more than competitors. Mishaps compel all four racers to warm themselves in Leslie's car. They awake on a small ice floe which drifts into their intended Russian port, where Hezekiah is waiting for Leslie, who in turn casts off Maggie for deceiving him. Maggie is snatched by Fate, who drives off in the lead. After driving across Asia, both cars enter a small kingdom whose alcoholic and foppish Crown Prince Hapnick (also played by Lemmon) is a double for Fate. Rebels under the leadership of Baron Rolfe von Stuppe (Ross Martin) and General Kuhster (George Macready) kidnap the Prince as well as Fate, Max, and Maggie. Max escapes and joins with Leslie to rescue the others. Fate goes unrescued, however, and is forced to masquerade as the Prince during the coronation, so that the rebels can gain control of the kingdom. Fate tries to escape, and von Stuppe and his henchmen are finally defeated, with the henchmen being overcome by Leslie and Max, and Von Stuppe, who runs away and dives into an awaiting boat, causing it to sink, following a fencing duel with Leslie. Fate escapes the coronation, but runs into a bakery falling into the huge cake, and causing a pie fight in the process. As the five leave the small kingdom with Maggie now back in Leslie's car, it becomes a straight road race to Paris. Nearing Paris, Leslie and Maggie have a spirited argument regarding the roles of men and women in relationships. Leslie stops his car just short of the finish line under the Eiffel Tower to prove that he loves Maggie more than he cares about winning the race. Fate drives past to claim the winner's mantle, but becomes indignant that Leslie let him win. Fate demands a rematch: a race back to New York. The film ends with the start of the return race, with newlyweds Leslie and Maggie now a team. Fate lets them start first, then attempts to destroy their car with a small cannon. The cannon backfires, knocking down the Eiffel Tower. Themes. Director Blake Edwards based the film on the 1908 New York to Paris Race, very loosely interpreted. On February 12, 1908, the "Greatest Auto Race" began with six entrants, starting in New York City and racing westward across three continents. The destination was Paris, making it the first around-the-world automobile race. Only the approximate race route and the general time period were borrowed by Edwards in his effort to make "the funniest comedy ever". Edwards, a studious admirer of silent film, dedicated the film to early film comedians Laurel and Hardy. "The Great Race" incorporated a great many silent era visual gags, along with slapstick, double entendres, parodies, and absurdities. The film includes such time-worn scenes as a barroom brawl, the tent of the desert sheik, a sword fight, and the laboratory of the mad scientist. The unintended consequences of Professor Fate's order, "Push the button, Max!", is a running gag, along with the spotless invulnerability of "The Great Leslie". Edwards poked fun at later films and literature as well. The saloon brawl scene was a parody of the western film genre, and a plot detour launched during the final third of the film was a direct parody of "The Prisoner of Zenda", wherein a traveler is a lookalike for the king and stands in for him. Production. Because of the success of Edwards' previous films "Breakfast at Tiffany's", "The Pink Panther" and "A Shot in the Dark", the film's budget started out at a generous $6 million. Mirisch Productions initially financed the film for United Artists, but the film's escalating costs led UA to drop the film but the project was picked up by Warners. Edwards wanted Robert Wagner to play the leading man, but studio executive Jack Warner insisted on Tony Curtis, possibly due to Wood having recently divorced from Wagner. Working with Warner, Curtis's new agent Irving "Swifty" Lazar negotiated US$125,000 for Curtis, more than Edwards and Lemmon who were to receive US$100,000 each. After Warner signed the Curtis contract, Lazar reasoned that Edwards and Lemmon should also make US$125,000 and Warner upped their compensation to match Curtis. Natalie Wood did not want to make "The Great Race", but Warner talked her into it. Wood was unhappy with her career and her personal life, having recently divorced from Robert Wagner in April 1962. Warner asked Curtis if he would give a percentage of his film royalties to Wood, as an enticement, but Curtis refused. He said, "I couldn't give her anything to make her "want" to do the movie." Instead of more money, Warner promised Wood that if she completed "The Great Race", she could star in Gavin Lambert's drama "Inside Daisy Clover", a role she greatly wished to have. Wood agreed, thinking that filming would be brief on Edwards' movie. Shooting began on June 15, 1964. Many of the sight gags for "The Great Race" were expensive to create, and the costs ballooned to US$12 million by the time the film was finished. Edwards, sometimes with Wood in tow, repeatedly visited Warner in his office to ask for more money. Warner approved nearly all of the requests. When it was released it was the most expensive comedy ever filmed. In November 1964, the actors were done with all the film except for dialog replacement. During the five months of filming, Wood's unhappiness was not visible to the cast and crew, and her characterization of Maggie DuBois was playful. Her sister Lana Wood thought that Wood looked the prettiest she ever had, but Lana sensed that the film "was physically taxing" for Wood. On Friday, November 27, the day after Thanksgiving, Wood wrapped up the last bit of dialog work, then went home and swallowed a bottle of prescription pills. Groggy from the drugs, she called her friend Mart Crowley who took her to the hospital for emergency treatment. Music for the film was by Henry Mancini and the costumes were designed by Edith Head. Production design, setting the period and augmenting the visual humor, was by Fernando Carrere who also designed "The Great Escape" and "The Pink Panther" for Blake Edwards. Custom cars. The hero's white car, named the "Leslie Special" was specially built by Warner Brothers to resemble a Thomas Flyer, the car that won the 1908 New York to Paris Race. According to the Petersen Automotive Museum, four "Leslie Specials" were built. One of the four appears painted green in the 1970 Warner Brothers film "The Ballad of Cable Hogue"—the grille can be seen bearing the words "Leslie Special". Another of the four is at the Tupelo Automobile Museum in Tupelo, Mississippi, listed as a 1963 Leslie Special Convertible. The villain's black car was named the "Hannibal Twin-8"; five were constructed. One of them is on display at the Petersen Automobile Museum, powered by a Volkswagen industrial engine. Another is at the Volo Auto Museum in Volo, Illinois. This model includes a prop "cannon" and a working smoke generator. The Volo museum describes the Hannibal Twin-8 as built by Warner Brothers at a cost of US$150,000, powered by a Corvair six-cylinder engine with three-speed manual transmission and six wheels. All four rear wheels are powered by a chain drive. Both vehicles were first on display at Movie World's "Cars of the Stars" museum in Buena Park, California, until the museum closed in the late 1970s. Pie fight. The Technicolor pie fight scene in the royal bakery was filmed over five days. The first pastry thrown was part of a large cake decorated for the king's coronation. Following this was the throwing of 4,000 pies, the most pies ever filmed in a pie fight. The scene lasts four minutes and twenty seconds and cost US$200,000 to shoot; US$18,000 just for the pastry. Colorful cream pies with fillings such as raspberry, strawberry, blueberry and lemon were used. For continuity between days of shooting, the actors were photographed at the end of each day and then made up the following morning to have the same colorful appearance, the same smears of pie crust and filling. Edwards told the cast that a pie fight by itself is not funny, so to make it funny they would build tension by having the hero, dressed all in white, fail to get hit with any pies. He said, "The audience will start yearning for him to get it". Finally, the hero was to take a pie in the face at "just the right moment". Shooting was halted while the actors took the weekend off. Over the weekend, the pie residue spoiled, all over the scenery. When the actors returned Monday morning, the pie filling smelled so bad that the building required a thorough cleaning and large fans to blow out the sour air. The missing pie residue was carefully recreated with more pies, and shooting resumed. At first, the actors had fun with the pie fight assignment, but eventually the process grew wearisome and dangerous. Wood choked briefly on pie filling which hit her open mouth. Lemmon reported that he got knocked out a few times; he said, "a pie hitting you in the face feels like a ton of cement". At the end of shooting, when Edwards called "cut!", he was barraged with several hundred pies that members of the cast had hidden, waiting for the moment. The pie fight scene paid homage to the early Mack Sennett practice of using a single thrown pie as comedic punctuation, but to a greater degree it was a celebration of classic movie pie fights such as Charlie Chaplin's "Behind the Screen" (1916), "The Battle of the Century" (1927) starring Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy, and The Three Stooges' "In the Sweet Pie and Pie" from 1941. In his script for "The Great Race" Edwards called for a ""Battle of the Century"-style pie fight". Though Edwards used 4,000 pies over five days, many of these were used as set dressing for continuity. Laurel and Hardy used 3,000 pies in only one day of shooting, so more are seen flying through the air. Leonard Maltin compared "The Great Race" pie fight to "The Battle of the Century" and determined that Laurel and Hardy's pacing was far superior; that the more modern film suffered from an "incomplete understanding of slapstick" while the 1927 pie fight remains "one of the great scenes in all of screen comedy." Reception. "The Great Race" was generally not well-received upon release and was considered a critical flop, making it the first notable failure for director Edwards. Most critics attacked its blatant and overdone slapstick humor and its lack of substance. It also suffered from comparisons with another race-themed "epic comedy" of 1965, "Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines". Film critic Richard Schickel wrote that, though the film "bumps along very pleasantly for the most part", Edwards failed at his attempt to recreate the slapstick atmosphere of a Laurel and Hardy comedy. Schickel felt that Wood was "hopelessly miscast", and that the energies of Lemmon and Curtis did not quite make the slapstick work. Maltin wrote that Wood "never looked better" and that the film's comedy sometimes worked but was otherwise forced: "a mixed bag". Soundtrack. Before the film was released, the soundtrack was re-recorded in Hollywood by RCA Victor Records for release on vinyl LP. Henry Mancini spent six weeks composing the score, and the recording involved some 80 musicians. Mancini collaborated with lyricist Johnny Mercer on several songs including "The Sweetheart Tree", a waltz released as a single. The song plays on along the film as the main theme without chorus (except in the entr' acte) and it was performed onscreen by Natalie Wood with the voice dubbed by Jackie Ward (uncredited). It was nominated for but did not win an Oscar for best song. The full track listing is: Awards. The film won an Oscar for Best Sound Effects as well as being nominated for Best Cinematography, Best Film Editing, Best Song, and Best Sound (George Groves). It was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Picture – Musical or Comedy and Best Actor – Musical or Comedy (Jack Lemmon). It currently has a 77% "fresh" rating on Rotten Tomatoes. At the 4th Moscow International Film Festival, the film won the Silver Prize. Legacy. The film was a major influence on "Wacky Races", a Hanna-Barbera cartoon series. The film's characterizations were themselves rather cartoonish. Furthermore, film editor and sound-effects man Treg Brown, who worked on many classic Warner Brothers cartoons, worked on this film, and many sound effects will be familiar to cartoon fans. Brown's sound design won the film an Oscar.
1063321	William Louis Petersen (born February 21, 1953) is an American actor and producer, best known for playing Dr. Gilbert "Gil" Grissom on the hit CBS series "", Richard Chance in the film "To Live and Die in L.A.", and Will Graham in the film "Manhunter". Early life. Petersen was born in Evanston, Illinois, the youngest of six children of Helen June (née Hoene; 1909–2006) and Arthur Edward Petersen, Sr. (1907–2004), who worked in the furniture business. He is of Danish and German descent. He has two brothers, Arthur, Jr. and Robert, plus three sisters: Anne, Mary Kay, and Elizabeth. He graduated from Bishop Kelly High School in Boise, Idaho, in 1972. He was accepted to Idaho State University on a football scholarship. While at Idaho State, Petersen took an acting course which changed the direction of his life. He left school along with his wife, Joanne, in 1974 and followed a drama professor to the Basque country where he studied as a Shakespearean actor. Petersen was interested in Basque culture and he studied the Basque language, "Euskara", and gave his daughter the Basque name "Maite Nerea" (meaning My Beloved); she was born in Arrasate - Mondragón 1975. Petersen returned to Idaho with the intent on being an actor. Not wanting to work a non-acting job in Idaho, he returned to the Chicago area, living with relatives. He became active in the theater and earned his Actors' Equity card. He performed with the Steppenwolf Theatre Company, of which he has been an ensemble member since 2008, and was a co-founder of the Remains Theater Ensemble which also included other prominent Chicago actors Gary Cole and Ted Levine. Career. In 1985, Petersen received his first break when he starred as a Secret Service Agent gone rogue to avenge his mentor in William Friedkin's 1985 action film "To Live and Die in L.A." The following year, Petersen starred in the first Hannibal Lecter film, Michael Mann's "Manhunter", playing FBI agent Will Graham. Because his role in "Manhunter" was so emotionally exhausting, he did everything he could to rid himself of Graham after finishing principal photography. He shaved off his beard, cut his hair and bleached it blond. He also claims to have done this because, while rehearsing for a play in Chicago, his dialogue was always coming out like Graham's; he dyed his hair so he could look in the mirror and see a different person. He declined a part in Oliver Stone's "Platoon", as it would have kept him in the Philippines, away from his family. Instead, he worked on the 1987 HBO made-for-TV movie "Long Gone" as a minor league baseball player and manager. Petersen was offered the role of Henry Hill in the movie "Goodfellas", but turned it down. In a 1990 ABC three-part miniseries, "The Kennedys of Massachusetts", Petersen played U.S. President John F. Kennedy's father, Ambassador Joseph P. Kennedy. The film won an Emmy, and a Golden Globe from eight and two nominations, respectively. Also in 1990, Petersen portrayed the infamous Patrick Floyd "Pat" Garrett in "Young Guns II". In 1993, Petersen appeared in another miniseries, "Return to Lonesome Dove", and in 1996's "Fear". Having already portrayed Joseph and John F. Kennedy Petersen played the role of Governor Jack Hathaway, an unscrupulous candidate for vice president following the death of the incumbent in "The Contender".
1073667	Street Thief is a 2006 documentary-style fictional film that follows the life of putative Chicago burglar Kaspar Karr (alternatively Kaspar Carr), played by Malik Bader. The movie was directed by Malik Bader. The movie was met with favorable reception at the Tribeca Film Festival. Although filmed as though it were a documentary, the movie and story line are fictional. Although no crimes were committed during the filming, all of the burglaries and tactics employed in the film are said to have been based on actual crimes. Plot. The movie follows the life of Chicago burglar Kaspar Karr. In the introduction, Kaspar cases and robs a Mexican Grocery Store. He counts up his score and a small interview follows where Kaspar introduces himself. He refuses to answer certain questions. His next mark is another grocery owned by Indians. He shows his expertise in social engineering, stalking, and intelligence gathering and discusses his careful, meticulous planning cycles. Soon afterwards, before the heist, he calls the camera crew to follow him case another joint. The director is introduced as he begins to interject with questions and worries about the new mark. The night after, Kasper and the crew break into the club. With no lay out or plan, Kaspar desperately ravages the owner's office until he finds a drawer full of money, at which point he begins to panic and tells the director to turn the camera off. Two months pass and Kaspar contacts the crew to shoot once more. The local Cinemark in a suburban neighborhood is the new mark. Kaspar and the crew succeed in constructing a new plan and date, and after much staking out, pull off the heist with no problems. The next day the crew pass by Kaspar's warehouse to find the police in the parking lot. The crew learns that Kaspar Karr's car was discovered with a heavy amount of blood in and around it. The film ends with speculation as to whether Kaspar was killed in retaliation by the owner of the club.
134713	Damodar Dharmananda Kosambi () (31 July 1907 – 29 June 1966) was an Indian mathematician, statistician, Marxist historian, and polymath who contributed to genetics by introducing "Kosambi's map function". He is well known for his work in numismatics and for compiling critical editions of ancient Sanskrit texts. His father, Dharmananda Damodar Kosambi, had studied ancient Indian texts with a particular emphasis on Buddhism and its literature in the Pali language. Damodar Kosambi emulated him by developing a keen interest in his country's ancient history. Kosambi was also a Marxist historian specialising in ancient India who employed the historical materialist approach in his work. He is described as "the patriarch of the Marxist school of Indian historiography". Kosambi was critical of the policies of then prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru, which, according to him, promoted capitalism in the guise of democratic socialism. He was an enthusiast of the Chinese revolution and its ideals, and, in addition, a leading activist in the World Peace Movement. In the opinion of the historian Irfan Habib, "D. D. Kosambi and R.S. Sharma, together with Daniel Thorner, brought peasants into the study of Indian history for the first time." Early life. After a few years of schooling in India, in 1918 D.D. Kosambi and his elder sister, Manik Kosambi, travelled to Cambridge, Massachusetts with his father; the latter was tasked by Professor Charles Rockwell Lanman of Harvard University to complete compiling a critical edition of Visuddhimagga, a book on Buddhist philosophy, which was originally started by Henry Clarke Warren. There he spent a year in the Grammar school and then was admitted to the Cambridge High and Latin School in 1920. He became a member of the Cambridge branch of American Boy Scouts. It was here in Cambridge that he befriended another prodigy of the time, Norbert Wiener, whose father Leo Wiener was the elder Kosambi's colleague at Harvard University. Kosambi excelled in his final school examination and was one of the few candidates who was exempt on the basis of merit from necessarily passing an entrance examination essential at the time to gain admission to Harvard University. He enrolled in Harvard in 1924, but eventually postponed his studies, and returned to India. He stayed with his father who was now working in the Gujarat University, and was in the close circles of Mahatma Gandhi. In January 1926, Kosambi returned to the US with his father, who once again studied at Harvard University for a year and half. Kosambi studied mathematics under George David Birkhoff, who wanted him to concentrate on mathematics, but the ambitious Kosambi instead took many diverse courses excelling in each of them. In 1929, Harvard awarded him the Bachelor of Arts degree with a . He was also granted membership to the esteemed Phi Beta Kappa Society, the oldest undergraduate honours organisation in the United States. He returned to India soon after. He was technical consultant to the Chinese government. Banaras and Aligarh. He obtained the post of professor at the Banaras Hindu University (BHU), teaching German alongside mathematics. He struggled to pursue his research on his own, and published his first research paper, "Precessions of an Elliptic Orbit" in the Indian Journal of Physics in 1930. In 1931, Kosambi married Nalini, daughter of a very wealthy and distinguished member of the Madgaonkar family. It was in this year that he was hired by mathematician André Weil, then Professor of Mathematics at Aligarh Muslim University, to the post of lecturership in mathematics at Aligarh. His other colleagues at Aligarh included Vijayraghavan. During his two years stay in Aligarh, he produced eight research papers in the general area of Differential Geometry and Path Spaces. His fluency in several European languages allowed him to publish some of his early papers in French, Italian and German journals in their respective languages. Fergusson College, Pune. In 1933, he joined the Deccan Education Society's Fergusson College in Pune, where he taught mathematics for the next 12 years. In 1935, his eldest daughter, Maya was born, while in 1939, the youngest, Meera, a well-known sociologist and feminist was born. In Pune, while teaching mathematics and conducting research in the field, he started his interdisciplinary pursuit. In 1944 he published a small article of 4 pages titled 'The Estimation of Map Distance from Recombination Values' in "Annals of Eugenics", in which he introduced what later came to be known as Kosambi's map function. One of the most important contributions of Kosambi to statistics is the widely known technique called proper orthogonal decomposition (POD). Although it was originally developed by Kosambi in 1943, it is now referred to as the Karhunen–Loève expansion. In the 1943 paper entitled 'Statistics in Function Space' presented in the "Journal of the Indian Mathematical Society", Kosambi presented the Proper Orthogonal Decomposition some years before Karhunen (1945) and Loeve (1948). This tool has found application to such diverse fields as image processing, signal processing, data compression, oceanography, chemical engineering and fluid mechanics. Unfortunately this most important contribution of his is barely acknowledged in most papers that utilise the POD method. In recent years though, it is heartening to note that some authors have indeed referred to it as the Kosambi-Karhunen-Loeve decomposition. It was his studies in numismatics that initiated him into the field of historical research. He made a thorough study of Sanskrit and ancient literature, and he started his classic work on the ancient poet Bhartṛhari. He published his critical editions of Bhartrihari's Shatakatrayee and Subhashitas during 1945–1948. It was during this period that he started his political activism, coming close to the radical streams in the ongoing Independence movement, especially the Communist Party of India. He became an outspoken Marxist and wrote some political articles. Tata Institute of Fundamental Research. In 1945, Homi J. Bhabha invited Kosambi to join the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR) as Professor of Mathematics, which he accepted. After independence, in 1948–49 he was sent to England and the US as a UNESCO Fellow to study the theoretical and technical aspects of the computer. During this time, he was a visiting professor of geometry at the University of Chicago. He spent some time at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey. In London, he started his long-lasting friendship with indologist and historian A.L. Basham. After his return to India, in the Cold War circumstances, he was increasingly drawn into the World Peace Movement and served as a Member of the World Peace Council. He became a tireless crusader for peace, campaigning against the nuclearisation of the world. Kosambi's solution to India's energy needs was in sharp conflict with the ambitions of the Indian ruling class. He proposed alternative energy sources, like solar power. His activism in the peace movement took him to Beijing, Helsinki and Moscow. However, during this period he relentlessly pursued his diverse research interests, too. Most importantly, he worked on his Marxist rewriting of ancient Indian history, which culminated in his book, "An Introduction to the Study of Indian History" (1956). He visited China many times during 1952–62 and was able to watch the Chinese revolution very closely, making him critical of the way modernisation and development were envisaged and pursued by the Indian ruling classes. All these contributed to straining his relationship with the Indian government and Bhabha, eventually leading to Kosambi's exit from the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research in 1962. Post-TIFR days. His exit from the TIFR gave Kosambi the opportunity to concentrate on his research in ancient Indian history culminating into his book, "The Culture and Civilisation of Ancient India", which was published in 1965 by Routledge, Kegan & Paul. The book was translated into German, French and Japanese and was widely acclaimed. He also utilised his time in archaeological studies, and contributed in the field of statistics and number theory. His article on numismatics was published in February 1965 in Scientific American. Due to the efforts of his friends and colleagues, in June 1964, Kosambi was appointed as a Scientist Emeritus of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) affiliated with the Maharashtra "Vidnyanvardhini" in Pune. He pursued many historical, scientific and archaeological projects (even writing stories for children). But most works he produced in this period could not be published during his lifetime. On 29 June 1966, he died in Pune. He was posthumously decorated with the "Hari Om Ashram Award" by the government of India's University Grant Commission in 1980. His friend A.L. Basham, a well-known indologist, wrote in his obituary: Kosambi's historiography. As a historian, Kosambi revolutionised Indian historiography with his Marxist approach, crucially diverting from the mainstream nationalist and imperialist schools. He understood history in terms of the dynamics of socio-economic formations rather than just a chronological narration of "episodes" or the feats of a few great men – kings, warriors or saints. In the very first paragraph of his classic work, "An Introduction to the Study of Indian History", he gives an insight into his methodology as a prelude to his life work on ancient Indian history: According to A. L. Basham, ""An Introduction to the Study of Indian History" is in many respects an epoch making work, containing brilliantly original ideas on almost every page; if it contains errors and misrepresentations, if now and then its author attempts to force his data into a rather doctrinaire pattern, this does not appreciably lessen the significance of this very exciting book, which has stimulated the thought of thousands of students throughout the world." Professor Sumit Sarkar says: ""Indian Historiography, starting with D.D. Kosambi in the 1950s, is acknowledged the world over – wherever South Asian history is taught or studied – as quite on a par with or even superior to all that is produced abroad. And that is why Irfan Habib or Romila Thapar or R.S. Sharma are figures respected even in the most diehard anti-Communist American universities. They cannot be ignored if you are studying South Asian history."" In his obituary to Kosambi published in the "Nature", J. D. Bernal had summed up Kosambi's talent as follows: "Kosambi introduced a new method into historical scholarship, essentially by application of modern mathematics. By statistical study of the weights of the coins, Kosambi was able to establish the amount of time that had elapsed while they were in circulation and so set them in order to give some idea of their respective ages." D. D. Kosambi's Mathematical and Scientific publications. In addition to the papers listed below, Kosambi wrote two books in mathematics, the manuscripts of which have not been traced. The first was a book on path geometry that was submitted to Marston Morse in the mid-1940s and the second was on prime numbers, submitted shortly before his death. Unfortunately neither book was published. The list of articles below is complete but does not include his essays on science and scientists, some of which have appeared in the collection Science, Society, and Peace (People's Publishing House, 1995). Four articles (between 1962 and 1965) are written under the pseudonym S. Ducray. External links. Homage to Prof. D.D. Kosambi: http://ddkosambi.hpage.com
583378	Life Partner is a 2009 Bollywood romantic comedy film. It stars Govinda, Fardeen Khan, Tusshar Kapoor, Genelia D'Souza and Prachi Desai in lead roles. The film is written and directed by Rumi Jaffery and produced by Abbas-Mustan under their banner, Burmawalla Bros. It released on 14 August 2009, and received positive reviews upon release, though it was an average grosser at the Indian Box Office Plot. Karan (Fardeen Khan) and Bhavesh (Tusshar Kapoor) are close friends living in Cape Town, South Africa. Karan is in a comfortable relationship with his beautiful yet childish and pampered girlfriend Sanjana (Genelia D'Souza), who changes her profession every six months, e.g. singing to painting. Her dad (Anupam Kher) always tries to keep her happy and supports her in whatever she does. Bhavesh wishes for an arranged marriage and keeps a diary of all the beautiful things he will do to his wife after marriage. His father (Darshan Jariwala) is a strict autocrat, patriarch and a tough follower of the Hindustani, especially Gujarati, principles in a foreign land. Jeet (Govinda) does not believe in marriage or love. He flirts with every woman he meets and encourages married women into divorcing their spouses so that his living as a divorce lawyer is uncompromised. Bhavesh's father treats Bhavesh as young and incapable of marriage, but on his wife's (Shoma Anand) wish, he travels with family and Karan and Sanjana to Gujarat to find Bhavesh a bride. In Gujarat, they stay at the palatial home of a friend of Bhavesh's father, Vijay Singh Jadeja (Vikram Gokhale). Bhavesh meets some girls, all of whom are unsuitable, and then ends up falling for Prachi (Prachi Desai), Vijay Singh's daughter, when she comments Bhavesh's ideals - not drinking, virginity - as good. He confesses his love for her and they get married. During the wedding rituals, Sanjana says "Yes" to Karan's long-asked question (will she marry him?) and they get married the same night. The movie then switches to present time, where both couples are at court. The judge declares the divorce between Karan and Sanjana and between Bhavesh and Prachi. Outside the court, where they wait for the final papers to arrive, the story again goes back to 6 months earlier, showing what led to the divorces after the weddings, when they come back to Cape Town. After marriage, Karan and Sanjana's family life deteriorates badly, with Karan wanting domestic stability and Sanjana being a horrible home maker. This is shown when she burns his apartment down while "trying" to switch off a washing machine. Bhavesh is happy with Prachi but Prachi is stifled at the old fashioned ideals and many rules of Bhavesh's father, who dislikes and sneers at her for doing so. She, without her father-in-law's knowledge, applies for a job - the very idea of which angers him. Bhavesh, taking sides with his father, slaps her at the same time Prachi's father arrives. While the latter tries to diffuse the tension, Bhavesh, bound by his father's old fashioned ideas, is unable to stand by his wife. These situations conclude in very unpleasant divorces, with Prachi divorcing Bhavesh on the spot and Sajana sending a notice of divorce to Karan after she leaves following an argument after the fire that burned down his apartment.
1181838	Eric Hilliard Nelson (May 8, 1940 – December 31, 1985), better known as Ricky Nelson or Rick Nelson, was an American actor, musician, and singer-songwriter who starred alongside his family in the long-running television series, "The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet" (1952–66), as well as co-starring alongside John Wayne and Dean Martin in Howard Hawks's western feature film, "Rio Bravo" (1959). He placed 53 songs on the Billboard Hot 100 between 1957 and 1973 including "Poor Little Fool" which holds the distinction of being the first #1 song on "Billboard" magazine's then-newly created Hot 100 chart. He recorded 19 additional Top 10 hits and was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on January 21, 1987. In 1996, he was ranked #49 on TV Guide's 50 Greatest TV Stars of All Time. Nelson began his entertainment career in 1949 playing himself in the radio sitcom series, "The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet". In 1952, he appeared in his first feature film, "Here Come the Nelsons". In 1957, he recorded his first single, debuted as a singer on the television version of the sitcom, and released the #1 album entitled "Ricky". In 1958, Nelson released his first #1 single, "Poor Little Fool", and in 1959 received a Golden Globe nomination for "Most Promising Male Newcomer" after starring in "Rio Bravo". A few films followed, and when the television series was cancelled in 1966, Nelson made occasional appearances as a guest star on various television programs. Nelson and Sharon Kristin Harmon were married on April 20, 1963, and divorced in December 1982. They had four children: Tracy Kristine, twin sons Gunnar Eric and Matthew Gray, and Sam Hilliard. On February 14, 1981, a son (Eric Crewe) was born to Nelson and Georgeann Crewe. A blood test in 1985 confirmed that Nelson was the child's father. Nelson was engaged to Helen Blair at the time of his death in an airplane crash on December 31, 1985. Early life. Ricky Nelson was born on May 8, 1940, at 1:25 p.m. at Holy Name Hospital in Teaneck, New Jersey. He was the second son of big band leader Ozzie Nelson, who was of half Swedish descent, and his wife, big band vocalist Harriet Hilliard Nelson (née Peggy Louise Snyder). Harriett remained in Englewood, New Jersey, with her newborn and her older son David while Ozzie toured the nation with the Nelson orchestra. The Nelsons bought a two-story colonial house in Tenafly, New Jersey, and, six months after the purchase, moved with son David to Hollywood, California, where Ozzie and Harriet were slated to appear in the 1941–42 season of Red Skelton's "The Raleigh Cigarette Hour;" Ricky remained in Tenafly in the care of his paternal grandmother. In November 1941, the Nelsons bought what would become their permanent home: a green and white, two-story, Cape Cod colonial home at 1822 Camino Palmero in Los Angeles. Ricky joined his parents and brother in Los Angeles in 1942. Ricky was a small and insecure child who suffered from severe asthma. At night, his sleep was eased with a vaporizer emitting tincture of evergreen. He was described by Red Skelton's producer John Guedel as "an odd little kid," likable, shy, introspective, mysterious, and inscrutable. When Skelton was drafted in 1944, Guedel crafted the radio sitcom "The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet" for Ricky's parents. The show debuted on Sunday, October 8, 1944, to favorable reviews. Ozzie eventually became head writer for the show and based episodes on the fraternal exploits and enmity of his sons. The Nelson boys were first played in the radio series by professional child actors until twelve-year-old Dave and eight-year-old Ricky joined the show on February 20, 1949, in the episode "Invitation to Dinner." In 1952, the Nelsons tested the waters for a television series with the theatrically released film "Here Come the Nelsons." The film was a hit, and Ozzie was convinced the family could make the transition from radio's airwaves to television's small screen. On October 3, 1952, "The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet" made its television debut and was broadcast in first run until September 3, 1966, to become one of the longest-running sitcoms in television history. Education. Nelson attended Gardner Street Public School, Bancroft Junior High, and, between 1954 and 1958, Hollywood High School, from which he graduated with a B average. He played football at Hollywood High and represented the school in interscholastic tennis matches. Twenty-five years later, Nelson told the "Los Angeles Weekly" he hated school because it "smelled of pencils" and he was forced to rise early in the morning to attend. At Hollywood High, Nelson was blackballed by the Elksters, a fraternity of a dozen conservative sports-loving teens who thought him too wild. Many of the Elksters were family friends and spent weekends at the Nelson home playing basketball or relaxing around the pool. In retaliation, he joined the Rooks, a greaser car club of sideburned high school teens clad in leather jackets and motorcycle boots. He tattooed his hands, wrist, and shoulder with India ink and a sewing needle, slicked his hair with oil, and accompanied the Rooks on nocturnal forays along Hollywood Boulevard. Nelson was jailed twice in connection with incidents perpetrated by the Rooks and escaped punishment after sucker-punching a police officer only through the intervention of his father. Nelson's parents were alarmed. Their son's juvenile delinquency did little to enhance the All-American image of "Ozzie and Harriet", and they quickly put an end to Ricky's involvement with the Rooks by banishing one of the most influential of the club's members from Ricky's life and their home. One of Ricky's seldom-publicized traits was his "fierce loyalty" to boyhood friends whom he regarded as trusted confidants. When young friend Bill Aken was in a crippling auto accident in New York City and confined to a hospital bed for months, Ricky would often phone Billy's mother, asking about his progress and writing short notes and letters to Billy to cheer him up. They became lifelong friends, and Aken recorded the only family-authorized tribute record ("Gentle Friend") for the fan club after Rick's death. Ozzie Nelson was a Rutgers alumnus and keen on college education, but eighteen-year-old Ricky was already in the 93 percent income-tax bracket and saw no reason to attend. At age thirteen, Ricky was making over $100,000 per annum, and at sixteen he had a personal fortune of $500,000. Nelson's wealth was astutely managed by his parents, who channeled his earnings into trust funds. Although his parents permitted him a $50 allowance at the age of eighteen, Rick was often strapped for cash and one evening collected and redeemed empty pop bottles to gain entrance to a movie theater for himself and a date. Accustomed to affluence, Nelson had a cavalier attitude about money and never managed his finances very well. Music career. Debut. Nelson played clarinet and drums in his tweens and early teens, learned the rudimentary guitar chords, and vocally imitated his favorite Sun Records rockabilly artists in the bathroom at home or in the showers at the Los Angeles Tennis Club. He was strongly influenced by the music of Carl Perkins and once said he tried to emulate the sound and the tone of the guitar break in Perkins's March 1956 Top Ten hit "Blue Suede Shoes." At age sixteen, he wanted to impress a friend who was an Elvis Presley fan and, although he had no record contract at the time, told her that he, too, was going to make a record. With his father's help, he secured a one-record deal with Verve Records, an important jazz label looking for a young and popular personality who could sing or be taught to sing. On March 26, 1957, he recorded the Fats Domino standard "I'm Walkin'" and "A Teenager's Romance" (released in late April 1957 as his first single), and "You're My One and Only Love." Before the single was released, he made his television rock-and-roll debut on April 10, 1957, lip-synching "I'm Walkin'" in the "Ozzie and Harriet" episode "Ricky, the Drummer". About the same time, he made an unpaid public appearance as a singer at a Hamilton High School lunch hour assembly in Los Angeles with the Four Preps and was greeted by hordes of screaming teens who had seen the television episode. "I'm Walkin'" reached #4 on "Billboard"'s Best Sellers in Stores chart, and its flip side, "A Teenager's Romance," hit #2. When the television series went on summer break in 1957, Nelson made his first road trip and played four state and county fairs in Ohio and Wisconsin with the Four Preps, who opened and closed for him. First album, band, and #1 single. In early summer 1957, Ozzie Nelson pulled his son from Verve after disputes about royalties and signed him to a lucrative five-year deal with Imperial Records that gave him approval over song selection, sleeve artwork, and other production details. Ricky's first Imperial single, "Be-Bop Baby," generated 750,000 advance orders, sold over one million copies, and reached #3 on the charts. Nelson's first album, "Ricky", was released in October 1957 and hit #1 before the end of the year. Following these successes, Nelson was given a more prominent role on the "Ozzie and Harriet" show and ended every two or three episodes with a musical number. Nelson grew increasingly dissatisfied performing with older jazz session musicians, who were openly contemptuous of rock and roll. After his Ohio and Minnesota tours in the summer of 1957, he decided to form his own band with members closer to his age. Eighteen-year-old electric guitarist James Burton was the first signed, living in the Nelson home for two years. Bassist James Kirkland, drummer Richie Frost, and pianist Gene Garf completed the band. Their first recording together was "Believe What You Say." Rick selected material from demo acetates submitted by songwriters. Ozzie Nelson forbade suggestive lyrics or titles, and his late-night arrival at recording sessions forced band members to hurriedly hide their beers and cigarettes. The Jordanaires, Elvis Presley's backup vocalists, worked for Nelson but at Presley's behest were not permitted credit on Nelson's albums. In 1958, Nelson recorded 17-year-old Sharon Sheeley's "Poor Little Fool" for his second album, "Ricky Nelson", released in June 1958. Radio airplay brought the tune notice, and Imperial suggested releasing a single, but Nelson opposed the idea, believing a single would diminish EP sales. When a single was released nonetheless, he exercised his contractual right to approve any artwork and vetoed a picture sleeve. On August 4, 1958, "Poor Little Fool" became the #1 single on "Billboard"'s newly instituted Hot 100 singles chart and sold over two million copies. Nelson so loathed the song that he refused to perform it on "Ozzie and Harriet". Sheeley claimed he ruined her song by slowing the tempo. More generally, Nelson stated During 1958 and 1959, Nelson placed twelve hits on the charts in comparison with Presley's eleven (it should be remembered that the latter was then serving in Germany with the U.S. Army). During the sitcom's run, Ozzie Nelson, either to keep his son's fans tuned in or as an affirmation of his reputed behind-the-scenes persona as a controlling personality, kept his son from appearing on other television shows that could have enhanced his public profile, "American Bandstand" and "The Ed Sullivan Show" in particular. In the summer of 1958, Nelson conducted his first full-scale tour, averaging $5,000 nightly. By 1960, the Ricky Nelson International Fan Club had 9,000 chapters around the world. Nelson was the first teen idol to utilize television to promote hit records. Ozzie Nelson even had the idea to edit footage together to create some of the first music videos. This creative editing can be seen in videos Ozzie produced for "Travelin' Man." Nelson finally did appear on the Sullivan show in 1967, but his career by that time was in limbo. He also appeared on other television shows (usually in acting roles). In 1973, he had an acting role in an episode of "The Streets of San Francisco" in which he played the part of a hippie flute-playing leader of a harem of young prostitutes. In 1979, he guest-hosted on "Saturday Night Live", spoofing his television sitcom image by appearing in a "Twilight Zone" sendup in which, always trying to go "home," he finds himself among the characters from other 1950s/early 1960s-era sitcoms, "Leave It to Beaver", "Father Knows Best", "Make Room for Daddy", and "I Love Lucy". Nelson knew and loved music and was a skilled performer even before he became a teen idol, largely because of his parents' musical background. Nelson worked with many musicians of repute, including James Burton, Joe Osborn, and Allen "Puddler" Harris, all natives of Louisiana, and Joe Maphis, The Jordanaires, Scotty Moore, and Johnny and Dorsey Burnette. From 1957 to 1962, Nelson had 30 Top-40 hits, more than any other artist except Presley (who had 53) and Pat Boone (38). Many of Nelson's early records were double hits with both the A and B sides hitting the "Billboard" charts. While Nelson preferred rockabilly and uptempo rock songs like "Believe What You Say" (Hot 100 #4), "I Got a Feeling" (#10), "My Bucket's Got a Hole in It" (#12), "Hello Mary Lou" (#9), "It's Late" (#9), "Stood Up" (#2), "Waitin' in School" (#18), "Be-Bop Baby" (#3), and "Just a Little Too Much" (#9), his smooth, calm voice made him a natural to sing ballads. He had major success with "Travelin' Man" (#1), "A Teenager's Romance" (#2), "Poor Little Fool" (#1), "Young World" (#5), "Lonesome Town" (#7), "Never Be Anyone Else But You" (#6), "Sweeter Than You" (#9), "It's Up to You" (#6), and "Teenage Idol" (#5), which clearly could have been about Nelson himself. Film actor. In addition to his recording career, Nelson appeared in movies, including the Howard Hawks western classic "Rio Bravo" with John Wayne, Dean Martin, and Walter Brennan (1959), plus "The Wackiest Ship In the Army" (1960) with Jack Lemmon and "Love and Kisses" (1965) with Jack Kelly. Name Change. On May 8, 1961 (his 21st birthday), he officially modified his recording name from "Ricky Nelson" to "Rick Nelson." His childhood nickname proved hard to shake, especially among the generation who had watched him grow up on "Ozzie and Harriet." Even in the 1980s, when Nelson realized his dream of meeting Carl Perkins, Perkins noted that he and "Ricky" were the last of the "rockabilly breed." In 1963, Nelson signed a 20-year contract with Decca Records. After some early successes with the label, most notably 1964's "For You" (#6), Nelson's chart career came to a dramatic halt in the wake of The British Invasion. In the mid 1960s, Nelson began to move towards country music, becoming a pioneer in the country-rock genre. He was one of the early influences of the so-called "California Sound" (which would include singers like Jackson Browne and Linda Ronstadt and bands like the Eagles). Yet Nelson himself did not reach the Top 40 again until 1970, when he recorded Bob Dylan's "She Belongs to Me" with the Stone Canyon Band, featuring steel guitarist Tom Brumley and Randy Meisner before the Eagles formed. "Garden Party". In 1972, Nelson reached the Top 40 one last time with "Garden Party", a song he wrote in disgust after a Madison Square Garden audience booed him, because, in his mind, he was playing new songs instead of just his old hits. When he performed the Rolling Stones', "Country Honk," he was booed off the stage. He watched the rest of the performance on a TV monitor backstage and quietly left the venue without taking a final bow for the finale. He wanted to record an album featuring original material, but the single was released before the album because Nelson had not completed the entire "Garden Party" album yet. "Garden Party" reached #6 on the "Billboard" Hot 100 and #1 on the "Billboard" Adult Contemporary chart and was certified as a gold single. The second single released from the album was "Palace Guard" which peaked at #65. Nelson was with MCA at the time, and his comeback was short-lived. Nelson's band soon resigned, and MCA wanted Nelson to have a producer on his next album. His band moved to Aspen and changed their name to "Canyon." Nelson soon put together a new Stone Canyon Band and began to tour for the "Garden Party" album. Nelson still played nightclubs and bars, but he soon advanced to higher-paying venues because of the success of "Garden Party". In 1974 MCA was at odds as to what to do with the former teen idol. Albums like "Windfall" failed to have an impact. Nelson became an attraction at theme parks like Knott's Berry Farm and Disneyland. He also started appearing in minor roles on television shows. Nelson tried to score another hit but did not have any luck with songs like "Rock and Roll Lady." With seven years to go on his contract, MCA dropped him from the label. Nelson studied karate, earning a brown belt before going on to learn Jeet Kune Do under Dan Inosanto. Inosanto described Nelson as a "good martial artist for those times." Personal life. In 1957, when Nelson was 17, he met and fell in love with Marianne Gaba, who played the role of Ricky's girlfriend in three episodes of "Ozzie and Harriet". Nelson and Gaba were too young to entertain a serious relationship, although according to Gaba "we used to neck "for hours"." The next year, Nelson fell in love with 15-year-old Lorrie Collins, a country singer appearing on a weekly telecast called "Town Hall Party". The two wrote Nelson's first composition, the song "My Gal," and she introduced him to Johnny Cash and Tex Ritter. Collins appeared in an "Ozzie and Harriet" episode as Ricky's girlfriend and sang "Just Because" with him in the musical finale. They went steady and discussed marriage, but their parents discouraged the idea. At the age of 45, Nelson said the only girl he ever really loved was involved with him for two years in the late 1950s. After she became pregnant and had a nearly fatal abortion, she married another man. Kris Harmon. At Christmas 1961, Nelson began dating Sharon Kristin "Kris" Harmon (born June 25, 1945), the daughter of football legend Tom Harmon and actress Elyse Knox (née Elsie Kornbrath) and the older sister of Kelly and Mark Harmon. The Nelsons and the Harmons had long been friends, and a union between their children held great appeal. Rick and Kris had much in common: quiet dispositions, Hollywood upbringings, and high-powered, domineering fathers. They married on April 20, 1963. Kris was pregnant, and Rick later described the union as a "shotgun wedding." Nelson, a nonpracticing Protestant, received instruction in Catholicism at the insistence of the bride's parents and signed a pledge to have any children of the union baptized in the Catholic faith. Kris Nelson joined the television show as a regular cast member in 1963. They had four children: actress Tracy Kristine Nelson, twin sons Gunnar Eric Nelson and Matthew Gray Nelson who formed the band Nelson, and Sam Hilliard Nelson. By 1975, following the birth of their last child, the marriage had deteriorated and a very public, controversial divorce involving both families was covered in the press for several years. In October 1977, Kris filed for divorce and asked for alimony, custody of their four children, and a portion of community property. The couple temporarily resolved their differences, but Kris retained her attorney to pursue a permanent break. Kris was contentious and jealous. Both spent enormous sums of money: Kris on parties, Rick on renting a private Lear jet. Nelson had a tremendous sexual appetite and a casual attitude toward sex, once estimating he had had sex with thousands of women. Kris wanted Rick to give up music, spend more time at home, and focus on acting, but the family enjoyed a recklessly expensive lifestyle, and Kris's extravagant spending left Rick no choice but to tour relentlessly. The impasse over Rick's career created unpleasantness at home. Kris became an alcoholic and left the children in the care of household help. After years of legal proceedings, they were divorced in December 1982. The divorce was financially devastating for Nelson, with attorneys and accountants taking over $1 million. Years of legal wrangling followed. Georgeann Crewe. On May 16, 1980, Nelson met Georgeann Crewe at the Playboy Resort in Great Gorge, New Jersey. Crewe later claimed she felt "an attachment, an immediate attraction" to Nelson. Crewe unsuccessfully attempted to contact Nelson several times to let him know that she was pregnant, and on February 14, 1981, she gave birth to Nelson's son, Eric Jude Crewe. In 1985, a blood test confirmed Nelson was the father, but Nelson was not interested in Crewe or their son. He declined to meet with them to the point that he avoided playing concerts in Atlantic City. Although Nelson agreed to provide $400 a month in child support, he did not provide for the child in his will. Helen Blair. In 1980, Nelson met Helen Blair, a part-time model and exotic animal trainer, in Las Vegas. Within months of their meeting, she became his road companion, and in 1982 she moved in with him. She was the only woman he dated after his divorce. Blair tried to make herself useful in Nelson's life by organizing his day and acting as a liaison for his fan club, but Nelson's mother, brother, business manager, and manager disapproved of her presence in his life. He contemplated marrying her but eventually declined. Blair died with Nelson in the airplane fire. Her name was never mentioned at Nelson's funeral. Blair's parents wanted their daughter buried next to Nelson at Forest Lawn Cemetery, but Harriet Nelson dismissed the idea. The Blairs refused to bury Helen's remains and filed a $2 million wrongful death suit against Nelson's estate. They received a small settlement. Nelson did not provide for Blair in his will. Drug use. Nelson used marijuana early in his musical career, and became a regular user. He buried his stash in his yard. He supported marijuana's legalization. He tried mescaline and was a regular cocaine user, carrying the drug in an empty ginseng capsule. During the Nelson divorce proceedings, he was accused by his wife's attorney of using cocaine, quaaludes, and other drugs, and of having "a severe drug problem" encouraged by his managers, his entourage, and his groupies. The attorney noted that Nelson's "personal manager" secured drugs for Nelson, that wild parties took place in his home whether he was present or not, and that his children, aware of his drug use, were in great physical danger from drugged persons entering and exiting the house at all hours. Following Nelson's divorce, while he was involved with Helen Blair, his drug use grew so dire that friends urged him to seek treatment for substance abuse. Traces of cocaine, marijuana, and the painkiller Darvon were found in Nelson's blood in tests conducted after his death. Death. Nelson dreaded flying but refused to travel by bus. In May 1985, he decided he needed a private plane and leased a luxurious, fourteen-seat, 1944 Douglas DC-3 for private use that once belonged to the DuPont family and later to Jerry Lee Lewis. The plane's history was plagued with mechanical issues. In one incident, the band was forced to push the plane off the runway after an engine blew, and in another incident, a malfunctioning magneto prevented Nelson from participating in the first Farm Aid concert in Champaign, Illinois. On 26 December 1985, Nelson and the band left for a three-stop tour of the Southern United States. Following shows in Orlando, Florida, and Guntersville, Alabama, Nelson and band members boarded the DC-3 in Guntersville and took off for a New Year's Eve extravaganza in Dallas, Texas. The plane crash-landed northeast of Dallas in De Kalb, Texas, less than two miles from a landing strip at approximately 5:14 p.m. CST on 31 December 1985, impacting trees as it came to earth. Seven of the nine occupants were killed: Nelson and his companion, Helen Blair; bass guitarist Patrick Woodward; drummer Rick Intveld; keyboardist Andy Chapin; guitarist Bobby Neal; and road manager/soundman Donald Clark Russell. Pilots Ken Ferguson and Brad Rank escaped via cockpit windows, though Ferguson was severely burned. Nelson's remains were misdirected in transit from Texas to California delaying the funeral for several days. On 6 January 1986, 250 mourners entered the Church of the Hills for funeral services while 700 fans gathered outside. Attendees included 'Colonel' Tom Parker, Connie Stevens, Angie Dickinson, and dozens of actors, writers, and musicians. Nelson was privately buried days later in the Forest Lawn, Hollywood Hills Cemetery in Los Angeles, California. Kris Nelson threatened to sue the Nelson clan for her former husband's life insurance money and tried to wrest control of his estate from David Nelson, its administrator. Her bid was rejected by a Los Angeles Superior Court Judge. Nelson bequeathed his entire estate to his children and did not provide for Eric Crewe or Kris Nelson. Only days after the funeral, rumors and newspaper reports suggested cocaine freebasing was one of several possible causes for the plane crash. Those allegations were refuted by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB). The reports vary as to whether or not the plane was on fire before it crashed. According to witnesses, the plane appeared to be on fire before it force-landed. Jim Burnett, then-Chairman of the NTSB, however, said that even though the plane was filled with smoke, the plane landed and came to a stop before it was swallowed by flames. The NTSB conducted a year-long investigation and finally stated that, while the definitive cause was still unknown, the crash was probably due to a gas-fueled heater that reportedly had caused in-flight problems. When questioned by the NTSB, Pilots Brad Rank and Ken Ferguson had different accounts of key events. According to co-pilot Ferguson, the cabin heater was acting up after the plane took off. Ferguson continued that Rank kept going back to the back of the plane to see if he could get the heater to function correctly and that Rank told Ferguson several times to turn the heater back on. "One of the times, I refused to turn it on," said Ferguson. He continued, "I was getting more nervous. I didn't think we should be messing with that heater en-route." After the plane crashed, Ferguson and Rank climbed out the windows, suffering from extensive burns. They shouted to the passenger cabin, but there was no response. Ferguson and Rank backed away from the plane, fearing explosion. Ferguson stated that Rank told him, "Don't tell anyone about the heater, don't tell anyone about the heater." Pilot Rank, however, told a different story: Rank said that he was checking on the passengers when he noticed smoke in the middle of the cabin, where Rick Nelson and Helen Blair were sitting. Even though he never mentioned a problematic heater, Rank stated that he went to the rear of the plane to check the heater, saw no smoke, and found the heater was cool to the touch. After activating an automatic fire extinguisher and opening the cabin's fresh air inlets, Rank said that he returned to the cockpit where Ferguson was already asking traffic controllers for directions to the nearest airfield. Rank was criticized by the NTSB for not following the in-flight fire checklist; opening the fresh air vents instead of leaving them closed, not instructing the passengers to use supplemental oxygen, and not attempting to fight the fire with the hand-held fire extinguisher that was in the cockpit. The board said that while these steps might not have prevented the crash, "they would have enhanced the potential for survival of the passengers." The words of the NTSB seem to echo that of firefighter, Lewis Glover, who was one of the first on the scene. Glover stated, "All the bodies are there at the front of the plane. Apparently, they were trying to escape the fire." An examination indicated that a fire had originated in the right side of the aft cabin area at or near the floor line. Some reports said the passengers were killed when the aircraft struck obstacles during the forced landing. The ignition and fuel sources of the fire could not be determined. According to another report, the pilot indicated that the crew tried to turn on the gasoline cabin heater repeatedly shortly before the fire occurred, but that it failed to respond. After the fire, the access panel to the heater compartment was found unlatched. The theory is supported by records that showed that DC-3s in general, and this aircraft in particular, had a history of problems with the cabin heaters.
582072	Soha Ali Khan (born Soha Ali Khan Pataudi on 4 October 1978) is a Bollywood actress best known for her role of Sonia in "Rang De Basanti" (2006) for which she won IIFA Awards for Best Supporting Actress and GIFA Awards for Best Supporting Actress. She is daughter of Mansoor Ali Khan and Sharmila Tagore, a Bengali Indian film actress and a member of Bengal's Tagore family. She is the sister of Saif Ali Khan. Early life. Soha was born into a Muslim family to Nawab of Pataudi. Both her father, Mansoor Ali Khan Pataudi, and paternal grandfather, Iftikhar Ali Khan Pataudi, are former captains of the Indian cricket team. Her mother, Sharmila Tagore and her older brother Saif Ali Khan are Bollywood actors while her older sister Saba Ali Khan is a jewellery designer. She is the youngest child for her parents. She attended The British School, New Delhi and read geography at Balliol College, Oxford and earned a Masters degree in International Relations from the London School of Economics and Political Science. She is in a committed relationship with actor Kunal Khemu, and both of them live together. Career. Before embarking upon her film career, Soha worked for the Ford Foundation and Citibank. She is involved in a range of activities outside the acting world, including serving on the Advisory Board for a new project of the public entrepreneur group, Res Publica. She has also recently modeled for the spring-summer collection of Globus, an Indian chain of boutiques. Soha made her acting debut with the Bollywood film "Dil Maange More" (2004), where she shared credits with Shahid Kapoor, Ayesha Takia and Tulip Joshi. She has since received critical acclaim for her performances in the Bengali film "Antar Mahal" (2005) and "Rang De Basanti" (2006). "Khoya Khoya Chand", earned her critical acclaim, although it was not successful at the box office. In 2009, she appeared in "99", which was a critical and commercial success and her performance was acclaimed. Her next release was "Tum Mile" opposite Emraan Hashmi. Although a box office failure, Soha received positive reviews for her performance. Her upcoming release include "Mumbai Cutting". Soha also hosted a show called "Godrej Khelo Jeeto Jiyo" on Star Plus. Controversy. In 2010, an alleged MMS of Soha was said to be shot without her knowledge using a concealed camera while she was in a beauty salon. However, it was later said to be a rumor intended to malign the actress. In 2012, Soha moved the Gujarat High Court against a company which did not pay her for modelling for its products.
588771	Zulmi is a Hindi film released one April 16, 1999. It stars Akshay Kumar and Twinkle Khanna as the lead protagonists. Plot. Balraj Dutt(Amrish Puri) is a bodyguard of Babaji(Dara Singh),who while dying takes promise from Balraj to take care and protect his grandson Nihal(Milind Gunaji). Years later Raj Malhotra(Akshay Kumar) and his sister are dining in a restaurant,after which they are attacked by unknown man.The man tries to rape Raj's sister, before she commits suicide. Raj heartbroken by this incident .he sees a similar incident and saves a girl from molesters.This all is being watched by Balraj,who is impressed by Raj.He thus hires Raj as a bodyguard for his daughter Komal(Twinkle Khanna).she initially dislikes Raj and tries every time to get Raj fired,but in vain,but slowly she starts liking him after he saves her life from an attack. But things get more complicated when he sees Nihal who is that unknown person who molested his sister.Now, Raj tries every possible thing he could try to kill Nihal and Balraj will go to any level to save Music. Music is composed By Dilip Sen & Sameer Sen, and lyrics are penned by Gulshan Bawra. Trivia. This is the first movie where Akshay get paired with his real-life wife Twinkle. The only other film where they were paired again was "International Khiladi".
585673	Nizhalkuthu (, , ) is a 2002 Indian film directed, written and co-produced by Adoor Gopalakrishnan. The film explores the recesses of the human consciousness. The film stars Oduvil Unnikrishnan, Narain, Murali, Sukumari, Reeja, Nedumudi Venu, Vijayaraghavan, Jagathi Sreekumar and Tara Kalyan. It premiered on 7 September 2002 at the Venice Film Festival in Italy. Overview. The title of the film "Nizhalkuthu" ("Shadow Kill") refers to a popular play "Nizhalkuthu Attakatha", adapted from the "Mahabharata", about the inherent unjustness of certain punishments. In the play, the Kauravas force a witch hunter to kill the Pandavas by stabbing their shadows. However, the witch hunter's wife finds this out and is enraged. To punish her husband by making him feel what, Kunti, the mother of Pandavas must feel, she kills their child in the same way.
1042987	John Gregson (15 March 1919 – 8 January 1975) was an English actor. Biography. He was born Harold Thomas Gregson, of Irish descent, and grew up in Wavertree, Liverpool, Lancashire, where he was educated at Greenbank Road Primary School and later at St. Francis Xavier's College. He left school at 16, working first for a telephone company, then for Liverpool Corporation, as the city council was then known, before the Second World War started. During this time, he became interested in amateur dramatics, joining first his local Catholic church theatre group at St. Anthony’s, Mossley Hill, and later the Liverpool Playgoers' Club. War service. When war broke out, Gregson was called up and joined the Royal Navy as a sailor on minesweepers. At one point, his minesweeper was torpedoed and he was rescued from the sea with a knee injury. After being demobbed in 1945, he joined the Playhouse in Liverpool for a year, before going on to Perth Theatre in Perth, Scotland. Here he met his future wife, actress Ida Reddish from Nottingham, who at the time was using the stage name Thea Kronberg and had recently arrived from the Birmingham Repertory Theatre. In 1947 they moved to London and married there. They eventually had three daughters and three sons. He was credited as 'John Gregson' in 40 films between 1948 and 1971 and on television from 1960 until his death. He was often cast as a police inspector or as a navy or army officer, or for his comedy roles in Ealing and other British films. One of his first appearances was in the film "Saraband for Dead Lovers", a tearjerking romance starring Joan Greenwood and Stewart Granger. Stardom. His most famous comedy role was in the film chosen for the Royal Film Performance in 1953, "Genevieve", also starring Kenneth More, Dinah Sheridan and Kay Kendall. More was described as his "rival" in British cinema at the time, although Gregson tended to appear in fewer comedy films and more dramas. He also appeared in the Ealing comedies "Whisky Galore!", "The Lavender Hill Mob", and "The Titfield Thunderbolt". His best known drama films include "The Battle of the River Plate", "Angels One Five" and "Above Us the Waves". He was featured in "The Treasure of Monte Cristo" and had a role in "Treasure Island". Gregson also worked on TV. In Ivor Brown's BBC TV play "William's Other Anne" he played William Shakespeare revisiting his first girlfriend Anne Whateley. TV work became increasingly important to him from the mid-'60s. He starred as Commander George Gideon in the series "Gideon's Way" (known as "Gideon C.I.D." in America). He also appeared in "The Saint" with Roger Moore, and a popular comedy adventure series with Shirley MacLaine, "Shirley's World". He took over from Kenneth More in long-running TV adverts for coffee on British television. He appeared in "It's The Geography That Counts", the last play at the St James's Theatre before its closure in 1957. John Gregson died before retirement and suddenly from a heart attack near Porlock Weir, Somerset, aged 55, whilst on holiday, walking on the path to Culbone Church. He left a widow, Thea Gregory, and six children. His final television role was in the Southern Television serial "Dangerous Knowledge", which was broadcast posthumously in 1976. His body was interred at Sunbury Cemetery, Sunbury-on-Thames, Surrey near his family home at Creek House, Chertsey Road, Shepperton. Filmography. Box office rankings. For several years British exhibitors listed Gregson as one of the most popular local stars at the box office.
1104662	Cahit Arf (11 October 1910 – 26 December 1997) was a Turkish mathematician. He is known for the Arf invariant of a quadratic form in characteristic 2 (applied in knot theory and surgery theory) in topology, the Hasse–Arf theorem in ramification theory, Arf semigroups, and Arf rings. Biography. Cahit Arf was born on 11 October 1910 in Selanik (Thessaloniki), which was then a part of the Ottoman Empire. His family migrated to Istanbul with the outbreak of the Balkan War in 1912. The family finally settled in İzmir where Cahit Arf received his primary education. Upon receiving a scholarship from the Turkish Ministry of Education he continued his education in Paris and graduated from École Normale Supérieure. Returning to Turkey, he taught mathematics at Galatasaray High School. In 1933 he joined the Mathematics Department of Istanbul University. In 1937 he went to Göttingen, where he received his PhD from the University of Göttingen and he worked with Helmut Hasse and Josue Cruz de Munoz. He returned to Istanbul University and worked there until his involvement with the foundation work of Scientific and Technological Research Council (TÜBİTAK) upon President Cemal Gursel's appointment in 1962. After serving as the founding director of the council in 1963, he joined the Mathematics Department of Robert College in Istanbul. Arf spent the period of 1964–1966 working at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey. He later visited University of California, Berkeley for one year. Upon his final return to Turkey, he joined the Mathematics Department of the Middle East Technical University and continued his studies there until his retirement in 1980. Arf received numerous awards for his contributions to mathematics, among them are: İnönü Award in 1948, Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TÜBİTAK) Science Award in 1974, and Commandeur des Palmes Academiques (France) in 1994. Arf was a member of the Mainz Academy and the Turkish Academy of Sciences. He was the president of the Turkish Mathematical Society from 1985 until 1989. Arf died on December 26, 1997 in Bebek, Istanbul, at the age of 87. His collected works were published, in 1988, by the Turkish Mathematical Society. Influence. Arf's influence on Turkish Mathematics was profound. Although he had very few formal students, many of the mathematicians of Turkey, at some time of their careers, had fruitful discussions on their field of interest with him and had received support and encouragement. He facilitated the now-celebrated visit of Robert Langlands to Turkey (now famous for the Langlands program, among many other things); during which Langlands worked out some arduous calculations on the epsilon factors of Artin L-functions. Arf's portrait is depicted on the reverse of the Turkish 10 lira banknote issued in 2009. Middle East Technical University Department of Mathematics organizes a special lecture session called the Cahit Arf lecture each year in memory of Arf. Cahit Arf Lectures. Previous Cahit Arf lectures held at Middle East Technical University include:
629791	Jacqueline Susan McKenzie (born 24 October 1967) is an Australian actress. Career. Born on Sydney's North Shore, McKenzie graduated in 1990 from the National Institute of Dramatic Art (NIDA). She made her film debut in the 1987 film "Wordplay" and on stage in "Child Dancing" for Griffin Theatre Company. She made a strong impression in "Romper Stomper" (1992), and over the next couple of years came to be regarded as one of Australia's most promising young actresses. She received Australian Film Institute Award nominations for her roles in "Stark", "This Won't Hurt a Bit" (both 1993), "The Battlers" and "Traps" (both 1994) before winning two awards in 1995 for "Best Actress in a Television Drama" for "Halifax f.p.": "Lies of the Mind", and Best Actress in a Leading Role for "Angel Baby". With this success she ventured to the United States and secured a Green Card, as a "Person of Extraordinary Ability". She subsequently had acting roles in films such as "Deep Blue Sea" (1999) and "Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood" (2002). In 2004, she began playing the lead female role Diana Skouris in the science fiction television series "The 4400", one of the year's biggest successes. The show ran for four seasons, ending in 2007. She also played a lead role in an episode of "Two Twisted" (2006), an Australian television program. McKenzie appeared on television again in 2006 playing Linda Landry in "Umney's Last Case", the third episode of "Nightmares and Dreamscapes" on TNT. She has recorded a collection of songs: "Shy Baby", "Boo Boo", "Find Me", "Summer", "Under The Elm" and "Ever". "Shy Baby" was used in the second season finale of "The 4400", and was included in the show's soundtrack released in April 2007. In 1996, a portrait of McKenzie by Garry Shead was a finalist in the Archibald PrizeGarry Shead: "Jacqueline McKenzie", oil on canvas and the Doug Moran National Portrait Prize.Image McKenzie became mother to a daughter in June 2009. From 7 February to 27 March 2011, she appeared in "In the Next Room (or The Vibrator Play)" by Sarah Ruhl at the Sydney Opera House with the Sydney Theatre Company.
585017	Jagadam is a 2007 Tollywood film in the direction of Sukumar ("Arya" fame). This film has Ram, Isha Sahani, Pradeep Rawat, and Prakash Raj in important roles. The film was produced by Aditya Babu. The film released on 16 March 2007.
1034413	Leonard Rossiter (21 October 1926 – 5 October 1984) was an English actor, best known for his roles as Rupert Rigsby, in the British comedy television series and film "Rising Damp" (1974–80), and Reginald Perrin, in "The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin" (1976–79). These roles followed a long and distinguished career in the theatre. Early life and stage work. Rossiter was born in Liverpool, the son of Elizabeth (née Howell) and John Rossiter. He lived over the barber shop which had been owned by his father. He was educated at Liverpool Collegiate Grammar School (1939–46) and it was his ambition to go to university to read modern languages and become a teacher. His father, a voluntary ambulanceman during the Second World War, was killed in an air raid in 1942. Rossiter had to support his mother, and so could not take up the place he had been offered at Liverpool University. He was a sergeant, initially in the Intelligence Corps, then in the Army Education Corps and spent much of his national service in Germany writing letters home for soldiers. After being demobbed he worked for six years as an insurance clerk in the claims and accident departments of Commercial Union Insurance Company. He joined the Wavertree Community Centre Drama Group and made his first appearance with the Adastra Players in Terence Rattigan's "Flare Path". The local critic said he "was particularly outstanding, his one fault being a tendency to speak too fast on one or two occasions". He gave up his insurance job to enrol in Preston repertory theatre and turned professional as an actor at the comparatively late age of 27. He made his professional stage debut in Joseph Colton's "The Gay Dog" in Preston on 6 September 1954, and later became assistant stage manager. He went on to Wolverhampton and Salisbury repertory companies. In his first 19 months in the business he played some 75 roles. He said later: "There was no time to discuss the finer points of interpretation. You studied the part, you did it and then you studied the next part. I developed a frightening capacity for learning lines. The plays became like Elastoplast, which you just stuck on and then tore off. It was the perfect preparation for rehearsing situation comedy on television at the rate of one episode a week." In 1957–58 he played in the musical "Free as Air" and then toured in Eugene O'Neill's "The Iceman Cometh". He joined the Bristol Old Vic and was there for two years from 1959 to 1961, a time he described as "the bedrock of his career", followed by much other stage work: as Bertolt Brecht's "Arturo Ui", "The Strange Case of Martin Richter", "Disabled", "The Heretic", "The Caretaker" and "Semi-Detached" (in New York). His performance in the premiere of Michael Blakemore's stage production of Brecht's "The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui" in 1969 met with critical acclaim: the part of the petty tyrant was perfectly suited to Rossiter. Film and television career. He broke into film roles with "Billy Liar" (1963) in which he plays the title character's boss. This brief role fixed him with audiences as an often flawed and inflexible authority figure – apparently similar to his real-life personality. He established himself as a respected actor in theatre and film, and began to make his presence felt on television, with an intermittent role as Detective Inspector Bamber in the police series "Z-Cars", as well as guest roles in series as diverse as "Steptoe and Son" ("The Lead Man Cometh", 1964; "The Desperate Hours", 1972) and "The Avengers" episode "Dressed to Kill" (1963). In 1968 he played Mr Sowerberry in the film version of Lionel Bart's musical "Oliver!" and he landed one of the few speaking supporting roles in Stanley Kubrick's "" as the Russian scientist Smyslov. He worked with Kubrick again in "Barry Lyndon" (1975) as Captain John Quin. In the same year as "2001", he appeared in Nigel Kneale's television play "The Year of the Sex Olympics", part of BBC 2's "Theatre 625", one of four appearances in the series. In "Rising Damp", on ITV, he played Rigsby, the lecherous landlord of a house converted into seedy bedsits, reprising the role from its successful stage version, entitled "The Banana Box". While on "Rising Damp", he also took the eponymous lead in "The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin", adapted by David Nobbs from his own "Reginald Perrin" comic novels and aired on the BBC. He was given a surprise tribute on "This Is Your Life" in 1975. In 1979 he appeared in the Galton and Simpson scripted short film "Le Pétomane". From 1979 and into the early 1980s he took roles in commercials, making an advert dressed as a traffic warden for Parker Pens, and notably starring with Joan Collins as her boorish companion in a series of successful and endearing Cinzano commercials. In these adverts the drink was always somehow spilt down Melissa (Joan Collins)'s cleavage. In the 2000 Channel 4 programme "The 100 Greatest TV Ads", Terry Lovelock, the director of several of these commercials, revealed that he found Rossiter difficult to work with, and that Rossiter used to refer jokingly to Collins as "The Prop". In the animated adaptation of "The Perishers" (1978) he provided the voice for Boot the dog. He reprised Rigsby for a film version of "Rising Damp" in 1980—so he had now played the role on stage, TV and film. His last TV role was as the supermarket manager in the eponymous "Tripper's Day" (1984), an ITV sitcom. He continued to make a steady stream of cinema appearances, including a role in Lindsay Anderson's dark parable "Britannia Hospital" (1982). He played the title role in the "BBC Television Shakespeare" production of "The Life and Death of King John" (1984). Rossiter's last film appearance was in "Water" (1985). Writing. He displayed his acid wit in two books: "The Devil's Bedside Book" (1980), a collection of cynical dictionary definitions in the style of Ambrose Bierce's "The Devil's Dictionary", and "The Lowest Form of Wit" (1981), a collection of biting bons mots, stinging retorts, and insults divided into six main sections, illustrated with cartoons by Honeysett and including a definitive guide and a history of sarcasm. Personal life. His first marriage was to the actress Josephine Tewson, with whom he had worked many times in repertory in the 1950s; the marriage ended in divorce in 1961. His second wife was actress Gillian Raine, with whom he had a daughter, Camilla, and to whom he was still married at the time of his death. Rossiter had met Raine when he played the lead role of Fred Midway in David Turner's play "Semi-Detached", in a production directed by Tony Richardson. The play opened on 8 June 1962 at the Belgrade Theatre in Coventry and ran for a week. During the play's second run at the Belgrade in September 1963, Leonard and Raine fell in love and moved in together, but they did not marry until 1972. After his death it was revealed that during the early 1980s he had had an affair with broadcaster Sue MacGregor. His wife had not been aware of the affair, describing their marriage as "up and down". She received a letter from MacGregor breaking the news that her memoirs, which were about to be published, would include an account of the affair. Death. Rossiter died from hypertrophic cardiomyopathy in 1984 while waiting to go onstage at the Lyric Theatre, London, where he was performing in Joe Orton's play, "Loot". His funeral took place at St. Mary's Church, The Boltons, London.
1016186	A Moment of Romance () is a 1990 Hong Kong romance film directed by Benny Chan, produced by Johnny To, and starring Andy Lau, Jacklyn Wu and Ng Man-tat. Ng was awarded Best Supporting Actor at the 10th Hong Kong Film Awards. Plot. Wah Dee (Andy Lau), a young triad gangster, is the getaway driver in a jewelry store robbery. When the raid goes wrong, he takes a young woman named Jo Jo (Jacklyn Wu) hostage. The head of Wah Dee's gang, Trumpet, demands that she be killed, but Wah Dee resists and saves her. Despite the fact that Wah Dee and Jo Jo come from different backgrounds, the two fall in love but still face many difficulties.
1044629	The Revenge of Frankenstein is a 1958 British horror film made by Hammer Film Productions. Directed by Terence Fisher, the film stars Peter Cushing, Francis Matthews, Michael Gwynn and Eunice Gayson. It was a sequel to "The Curse of Frankenstein", the studio's 1957 adaptation of Mary Shelley's novel "Frankenstein". Storyline. Prologue. Baron Victor Frankenstein, sentenced to death, escapes execution by the guillotine by having a priest beheaded and buried in his place with the aid of some of his followers... Plot. Years later, Frankenstein, now going by the alias of Dr. Stein, has become a successful physician in Carlsbruck, catering to the wealthy while also attending to the poor in a paupers' hospital. Dr. Hans Kleve, a junior member of the medical council, recognises him and blackmails him into allowing him to become his apprentice. Together with Karl, the hunchback who facilitated Frankenstein's escape, Frankenstein and Kleve continue with the Baron's experiment: transplanting a living brain into a new body—one that isn't a crude, cobbled-together monster. The deformed Karl is more than willing to volunteer his brain, thereby gaining a new, healthy body—particularly after meeting the new assistant at the hospital, the lovely Margaret. The transplant succeeds, but when the excited Dr. Kleve tells Karl that he will be a medical sensation, Karl panics and convinces Margaret to free him. Kleve notes that the chimpanzee that Frankenstein transplanted with the brain of an orangutan ate its mate and worries about Karl, but his concerns are brushed off by Frankenstein. Karl flees from the hospital and hides in Dr. Stein's laboratory, where he burns his preserved hunchback body. He is attacked by the drunken janitor, who takes him for a burglar, but manages to strangle the man. Frankenstein and Kleve discover Karl is missing and begin searching for him. The next morning, Margaret finds Karl in her aunt's stable. While she goes to fetch Dr. Kleve, Karl experiences difficulties with his arm and leg. When Kleve and Margaret arrive, he is gone. At night, he ambushes and strangles a local girl. The next night, he rushes into an evening reception. Having redeveloped his deformities, he pleads Frankenstein for help, using his real name, before collapsing. Frankenstein, disregarding Kleve's pleas that he should leave, appears before the medical council, where he denies being the infamous Baron Frankenstein. The unsatisfied councillors exhume Frankenstein's grave only to discover the priest's body, concluding that the real Frankenstein is still alive. At the same time, frightened and angry patients at the hospital brutally attack Frankenstein and leave him for dead. Kleve rescues his dying mentor and rushes him to the laboratory, where he extracts Frankenstein's brain from his body just before the police arrive. Kleve shows them Frankenstein's dead body, claiming that he tried in vain to save his life. Alone again and uneasy about his skills, Kleve begins transplanting the brain into another body—one that Frankenstein had been preparing earlier and which was made to resemble him... Epilogue. Some time later in London, Kleve assists Frankenstein—now calling himself Dr. Franck—in welcoming some patients... Production. The film was shot at Bray Studios, back-to-back with "Dracula" (1958), which likewise starred Cushing and was directed by Fisher. Both films used many of the same sets. Thus, for example, Dracula's crypt became Frankenstein's surgery, and the castle exterior became the outside of the Baron's laboratory. Conductor and composer Leonard Salzedo was hired to write the score, and most of the regular Hammer crew returned in other roles, including Jack Asher as cinematographer, Bernard Robinson on design and Phil Leakey on make-up. Novelization. Two novelisations of the film were published. The first one by Jimmy Sangster (using the penname Hurford Janes) was published by Panther Books in 1958; the second was by John Burke as part of his 1966 Pan book "The Hammer Horror Film Omnibus". A third novelisation, by Shaun Hutson is )scheduled for publication by Hammer Books in March 2013 (ISBN 9780099556237). Critical reception. Like its predecessor, "The Revenge of Frankenstein" has been well received by critics, and currently holds an 88% approval rating on movie review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes based on eight reviews.
1164568	Sheldon "Shelley" Berman (born February 3, 1925) is an American comedian, actor, writer, teacher, lecturer, philanthropist, and poet. Early life. Berman was born in Chicago, Illinois, the son of Irene (née Marks) and Nathan Berman. He is Jewish. Early career. Berman started as a straight actor, receiving his training at the Goodman Theatre in Chicago, honing his acting skills in stock companies in and around Chicago and New York. In the mid-1950s, he became a member of Chicago's Compass Players, which later evolved into The Second City. While performing improvised sketches with Compass, Berman began developing solo pieces, often employing an imaginary telephone to take the place of an on-stage partner. Accusation of plagiarism. In a 2012 podcast interview with Marc Maron, 87-year-old Berman accused comedian Bob Newhart of ripping off his improvisational telephone routine style, describing its genesis and saying it was a "very special technique that couldn't really be imitated. It could be stolen. And it was." He continued, "I was coming to work at night and a guy stopped his car, passed me by, and said 'Hey, Shelley! There's a guy stole your act!'" When asked by Maron if it was done maliciously, Berman replied, "Maliciously? He wouldn't do it maliciously. Nobody does that. But he did it to make a living. And he became a star." Berman later added, "I thought it was a rotten thing to do. I thought the agents who sold him - I thought they were just as guilty as everybody else. But, my God, to go into a town and do my show, and the critics saying that I borrowed some stuff from Newhart..." When asked in interviews about the telephone issue Newhart noted that: and And and On his website, comedy writer Mark Rothman discussed the history of comic "telephone" monologists: Nightclubs and live performances. In 1957, Berman landed his first job as a comedian at Mister Kelly's in Chicago, which led to other nightclub bookings, and a recording contract with Verve Records. His comedy albums would earn him three gold records and he'd win the first Grammy Award for a non-musical recording. He was the first standup comedian to play Carnegie Hall. Berman would go on to appear on numerous TV specials, and all of the major variety shows of the day. Television career. Berman's success as a comedian enabled him to continue with his first love - acting. He starred on Broadway in "A Family Affair" and continued to do stage work in productions of "The Odd Couple", "Damn Yankees", "Fiddler on the Roof", "I'm Not Rappaport", "La Cage aux Folles", and "Guys and Dolls", among many others. Comedic and dramatic acting roles on television began to come his way, including appearances on episodes of "The Twilight Zone" (both radio and TV versions), "Bewitched", "Peter Gunn", "The Mary Tyler Moore Show", "Adam-12"," Emergency!", "Brothers", "Night Court", "MacGyver", "L.A. Law", "Friends", "Walker, Texas Ranger", "The King of Queens", "Grey's Anatomy", "Boston Legal", "Hannah Montana", "", and "Hawaii Five-0" (in 2012). From 2002 to 2009, Berman appeared as Larry David's father on "Curb Your Enthusiasm", a role for which he received a 2008 Emmy Award nomination. Film career. Among Berman's film credits are "The Best Man" (with Henry Fonda), "Divorce American Style" (with Dick Van Dyke and Debbie Reynolds), "Every Home Should Have One" (with Marty Feldman), "The Last Producer" (with Burt Reynolds), "Meet the Fockers" (with Robert De Niro and Ben Stiller), "The Holiday" (with Cameron Diaz), and "You Don't Mess with the Zohan" (with Adam Sandler). Personal life. Berman has been married to Sarah Herman since April 19, 1947. The two met while they were studying acting at Chicago's Goodman Theatre. In the mid-1960s, Berman and wife Sarah adopted two children, son Joshua and daughter Rachel. The Bermans were planning Joshua's bar mitzvah when he was diagnosed with a brain tumor. Joshua died October 29, 1977, age 12. Berman has authored three books, two plays, several TV pilot scripts, and numerous poems. For over twenty years, Berman taught humor writing in the Master of Professional Writing program at University of Southern California, where he is now a Lecturer Emeritus. He continues to do film and television work, and make personal appearances across the country year-round. Berman and his wife are both enthusiastic supporters of the Motion Picture and Television Fund (located in Woodland Hills, California), a charitable organization that offers assistance and care to those in the motion picture and television industries with limited or no resources, and contribute their time and resources to the benefit of the facilities and the residents.
1054606	Ravenous is a 1999 horror film directed by Antonia Bird and starring Guy Pearce, Robert Carlyle, Jeffrey Jones and David Arquette. The film revolves around cannibalism in 1840s California and some elements bear similarities to the story of the Donner Party and that of Alferd Packer. Screenwriter Ted Griffin lists Packer's story, as recounted in a couple of paragraphs of Dashiell Hammett's "The Thin Man", as one of his inspirations for Carlyle's character. The film's darkly humorous and ironic take on its gruesome subject matter have led some to label it a black comedy. The film's unique score by Michael Nyman and Damon Albarn generated a significant amount of attention. The film's production did not get off to a good start. Original director Milcho Manchevski left the production two weeks after shooting started. He was replaced by Bird at the suggestion of Carlyle. Plot. During the Mexican-American War (1846 – 1848), Second Lieutenant Boyd fights in the United States Army (Boyd is a former officer in the Army of the Republic of Texas, that merged with the US Army in 1846 - he still wears the Texas Army rank insignia of second lieutenant: one five pointed star on each shoulder strap). But in battle his courage fails him, and, to avoid being killed, he plays dead—while his unit is massacred. He is transported along with the other dead (with his commanding officer's blood dripping into his mouth) back to the Mexican headquarters. However, in a moment of sudden bravery, he captures the Mexican command. For his heroism Boyd is promoted to Captain, but when his commanding officer learns of the cowardice by which his victory was achieved, he exiles Boyd to the remote Fort Spencer in the Sierra Nevada mountain range. After Boyd joins the seven other inhabitants of Fort Spencer, a stranger named Colqhoun arrives and describes his wagon train becoming lost in the Sierra Nevadas and being reduced to cannibalism to avoid starvation. The party's guide, a Colonel Ives, had promised the party a shorter route to the Pacific Ocean but instead led them on a more circuitous route, and was then the one to lead their turn to cannibalism. The soldiers stationed at the fort see it as their duty to investigate and search for survivors, and so assemble a rescue party. Before they leave they are warned by their Native American scout, George, of the Wendigo myth; a story that a man consuming the flesh of his enemies takes their strength but becomes a demon cursed by a hunger for human flesh. When they reach the cave where the party had taken refuge they realize that Colqhoun is Ives and has lured them into a trap. He had killed his five companions and sets about killing the soldiers from Fort Spencer one by one, including the commanding officer, Colonel Hart. Boyd manages to escape the massacre by jumping off a cliff, breaking his leg in the process. He hides in a pit along with the body of a fellow soldier and eventually he eats some of the man's flesh to stay alive. When he finally limps back into the fort he is delirious and severely traumatized; none of the remaining soldiers (who did not meet Colqhoun) believe his wild tale, and a second expedition finds no bodies or any trace of the man. A temporary commander is assigned to the fort and to Boyd's horror it turns out to be Colqhoun, now cleaned up and calling himself Colonel Ives. The others still refuse to believe that Ives is the killer, especially after he bears no sign of the wounds inflicted on him during the massacre.
578491	4 Romance ( or "Fan Waan Aai Joop") is a 2008 Thai romantic comedy, released in Thailand's cinema on December 25, 2008. This film was directed by four directors: Chukiat Sakveerakul, Prachya Pinkaew, Bandit Thongdee, and Rachain Limtrakul. Plot. Its a melodrama, comedy, action, time-shifting psychological mystery and a cartoon fantasy put together in one film. The film is divided into 4 shorts segments titled DREAM, SWEET, SHY, KISS "(Fan Waan Aai Joop)". The first segment is titled KISS (Joop). It is a story about a guy named 'Lothario' who steals kisses from his friend's girlfriends. Now that his eyes are set on Gaga, the girlfriend of his friend Beaver, Beaver confronted Lothario at the 'boxing gym' and there they had a boxing fight and Beaver ensures that the guy won't able to kiss his girlfriend. Beaver won and finally end up kissing Gaga. Next is SHY (Aai), Tong, a rich girl from the city has went to a remote tropical island looking for a spot to build her spa and resort. After some argument with the boatman she was left stranded in the island. There is waiting her tour guide, she was shock finding out that the tour guide is her ex-boyfriend, Durian who left her without any words. It has been revealed that Durian left Tong because he felt embarrassed and shy about his modest upbringing background to Tong Hi-class profile. At night they drink with Durian's friend and there Tong got drunk and expresses her feelings towards Durian. After that night, Tong has been fetched in the island by one of her staff and left Durian. Then Durian noticed that Tong has forgotten her sketch Pad and there he saw sketches of the two of them. The weather is not good. Durian borrow his friend's boat and follow Tong. He saw Tong and there they hug one another with tear drops fell from Tong's face. The third segment is SWEET (Waan), a story about a middle-aged couple, Shane & Waan. Shane is a hard-working architect, he is about to go a business trip which his wife, did not want him to attend. He told Shane he better not come back if he still go to the business trip, yet Shane still go, leaving Waan alone. Gradually it becomes clear that all is not well with Waan. When Shane returns home, he finds Waan is not the same anymore. The story shows stories from their teenage years that made Waan so upset. The last segment is DREAM (Fan). The story involves a little girl, Ton Kheaw, who is so obsessed with the boy-band August, that she becomes lost in a vivid dream world, where she takes part in a magical adventure with the band. August to lead by Pichy has made a deal with the Devil Black Cat. Like Robert Johnson at the Crossroads, they sold their souls. In human form, the Black Cat named "Mr. Bird". August wants out of the deal and the only key to survive is at Tong Khaew. The band members transform into cartoon animal beings, and Tong Khaew becomes a wide-eyed anime little girl. They'd tried to escape from the black Cat and beat it up. They went back to being a human. Cast. "Segment 1:" KISS (Joop) "Segment 2:" SHY (Aai) "Segment 3:" SWEET (Waan) "Segment 4:" DREAM (Fan) Release and reception. "4 Romance" was released in Thailand in December 2008. Its total gross was $1,424,592. DVD release. The standard DVD for "4 Romance" was released on February 28, 2009 and is available in widescreen, and a Thai Dolby Digital 5.1 and Dolby 2.0 Surround track. The film was also released in 4 VCD formats which includes the four segments of the film.
1040548	Adrian Dunbar (born 1 August 1958) is an actor from Northern Ireland, best known for his television and theatre work. Dunbar co-wrote and starred in the 1991 film, "Hear My Song", nominated for Best Original Screenplay at the BAFTA awards. Personal life. Dunbar was born and brought up in Enniskillen, County Fermanagh, Northern Ireland, the eldest of seven siblings. He was educated by the Presentation Brothers before attending the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London. He has a daughter and stepson from his 1986 marriage to the Australian actress Anna Nygh. He lives in Crouch End in North London. He is an avid supporter of Arsenal Football Club in London. Career. Dunbar has appeared in such notable films as "My Left Foot", "The Crying Game", and "The General". He has also had leading roles in the films "Triggermen", "Shooters", "How Harry Became A Tree" (with Colm Meaney), "Richard III", and "Widows' Peak". On television, he starred in the first episode of "Cracker", and has been in many British productions, including "Tough Love", "Inspector Morse", "Kidnapped", "Murphy's Law", "Murder in Mind", "Ashes to Ashes" and the 2005 re-staging of "The Quatermass Experiment". Dunbar's theatre credits include: "The Shaughraun" and "Exiles" at Dublin's Abbey Theatre; "Real Dreams" and "The Danton Affair" at the Royal Shakespeare Company; "King Lear", "Pope's Wedding", "Saved and Up To The Sun And Down To The Centre" at Royal Court Theatre, "Conversations on a homecoming" at the Lyric Theatre (Belfast); "A Trinity of Two" (as Oscar Wilde) at Dublin's Liberty Hall Theatre; "Boeing Boeing" (London, 2007). He directed a critically acclaimed production of "Philadelphia Here I Come!". In 2008 he starred in and co-directed "Brendan at the Chelsea" by Janet Behan, playing the Irish playwright Brendan Behan. The play was the first to be staged in the Naughton Studion in the new Lyric Theatre (Belfast) after it reopened in 2011 and is being revived for a tour to Theatre Row in New York in September 2013. He played the role of Aufidius in the BBC Radio production of "Coriolanus". He also made a guest appearance in the BBC Radio 4 series Baldi, and appeared onstage as Vermeer in an adaptation of "Girl with a Pearl Earring". In 2008, Dunbar played the role of Philip Conolly in the critically acclaimed award winning "The Last Confession of Alexander Pearce". Dunbar shot the film with fellow Irish actor Ciaran McMenamin in the remote rain-forests of north west Tasmania. Dunbar is planning to direct "Connolly", a movie about Irish labour union organizer James Connolly as seen through the eyes of his daughter, Nora. The production company is Rascal Films. He played the mysterious character Martin Summers in the second series of "Ashes to Ashes" but was killed off in the final episode of series two.
1142460	Emery Molyneux ( ; died June 1598) was an English Elizabethan maker of globes, mathematical instruments and ordnance. His terrestrial and celestial globes, first published in 1592, were the first to be made in England and the first to be made by an Englishman. Molyneux was known as a mathematician and maker of mathematical instruments such as compasses and hourglasses. He became acquainted with many prominent men of the day, including the writer Richard Hakluyt and the mathematicians Robert Hues and Edward Wright. He also knew the explorers Thomas Cavendish, Francis Drake, Walter Raleigh and John Davis. Davis probably introduced Molyneux to his own patron, the London merchant William Sanderson, who largely financed the construction of the globes. When completed, the globes were presented to Elizabeth I. Larger globes were acquired by royalty, noblemen and academic institutions, while smaller ones were purchased as practical navigation aids for sailors and students. The globes were the first to be made in such a way that they were unaffected by the humidity at sea, and they came into general use on ships. Molyneux emigrated to Amsterdam with his wife in 1596 or 1597. He succeeded in interesting the States-General, the parliament of the United Provinces, in a cannon he had invented, but he died suddenly in June 1598, apparently in poverty. The globe-making industry in England died with him. Only six of his globes are believed still to be in existence. Three are in England, of which one pair consisting of a terrestrial and a celestial globe is owned by Middle Temple and displayed in its library, while a terrestrial globe is at Petworth House in Petworth, West Sussex. Globe-maker. Construction. Emery Molyneux is regarded as the maker of the first terrestrial and celestial globes in England and as the first English globe-maker. Little is known about the man himself. Petruccio Ubaldini, an Italian calligraphist, illuminator and ambassador who was acquainted with him, said he was "of obscure and humble family background". It seems likely that he was the "Emery Molynox" who was presented to the Worshipful Company of Stationers as the apprentice of one William Cooke in October 1557. By the 1580s he had a workshop in Lambeth, on the south bank of the Thames, and enjoyed a reputation as a mathematician and maker of mathematical instruments. Richard Polter, in his book "The Pathway to Perfect Sayling" (1605), mentioned that Molyneux had been a skilful maker of compasses and hourglasses. Through his trade, Molyneux was known to the explorers Thomas Cavendish, John Davis, Francis Drake and Walter Raleigh, the writer Richard Hakluyt, and the mathematicians Robert Hues and Edward Wright. The construction of globes by Molyneux appears to have been suggested by Davis to his patron William Sanderson, a London merchant who has been described as "one of the most munificent and patriotic of merchant-princes of London in the days of Elizabeth I". Sanderson readily agreed to bear the manufacturing costs, and financed initial production of the globes with a capital investment of £1,000 (almost £160,000 as of 2007). Terrestrial globes. In making his terrestrial globes, Molyneux examined ruttiers (instructions for directions at sea) and pilots (navigational handbooks). He is known to have given a ruttier for Brazil and the West Indies to Thomas Harriot in 1590. He also received advice and assistance from navigators and mathematicians. It is likely, for instance, that Sir Walter Raleigh advised him on a legend in Spanish about the Solomon Islands that appeared on the terrestrial globe. Raleigh came by the information from Pedro Sarmiento de Gamboa, a Galician explorer sent by King Philip II of Spain to fortify the Strait of Magellan after Francis Drake had passed through it. In 1584, the Spaniard was Raleigh's guest in London for a few weeks, after being captured by Raleigh on a journey to Europe. Molyneux accompanied Francis Drake on his 1577–1580 circumnavigation of the world; as Ubaldini reported, "e himself has been in those seas and on those coasts in the service of the same Drake". A legend in Latin on the terrestrial globe, explaining why Molyneux had left out the polar lands and corrected the distance across the Atlantic Ocean between The Lizard and Cape Race in Newfoundland, concluded: On the terrestrial globe, tracks of the voyages of Francis Drake and Thomas Cavendish around the world are marked by red and blue lines respectively. These lines were applied when the globe was first made. They are mentioned in a description of Molyneux's globes in "Blundeville His Exercises" (1594) by Thomas Blundeville, a country gentleman who was an enthusiastic student of astronomy and navigation. Thomas Cavendish appears to have helped Molyneux with his globes, and it is possible that Molyneux accompanied him on his 1587 voyage around the world, which returned to England on 9 September 1588. In 1889, Sir Clements Markham, an English explorer, author and geographer, pointed out that a Latin legend on the terrestrial globe, placed off the Patagonian coast, states: "Thomas Caundish "18 Dec. 1587 hæc terra" sub nostris oculis "primum obtulit sub latitud 47 cujus seu admodum salubris Incolæ maturi ex parte proceri sunt gigantes et vasti magnitudinis"". However, Helen Wallis, former Map Curator of the British Library, observed in 1951 that this was unlikely, because Molyneux incorrectly plotted Cavendish's course in Maritime Southeast Asia. She suggested, however, that another legend on the globe may indicate that he sailed on at least one if not all of John Davis's voyages. The mathematician and cartographer Edward Wright assisted Molyneux in plotting coastlines on the terrestrial globe and translated some of the legends into Latin. On 10 April 1591, the astrologer and physician Simon Forman visited Molyneux's workshop and taught him how to find longitude. It appears that after Molyneux had prepared the manuscript gores (the flat map segments attached to the globes), he had them printed by the celebrated Flemish engraver and cartographer Jodocus Hondius, who lived in London between 1584 and 1593 to escape religious difficulties in Flanders. This can be deduced from the phrase ""Iodocus Hon: / dius Flan. sc. / 1592"" that appears on the celestial globe along with Sanderson's coat of arms and a dedication to the Queen dated 1592. Molyneux's own name is recorded on the Middle Temple terrestrial globe in the phrase ""Emerius Mulleneux Angl.' / sumptibus Gulielmi— / Sandersoni Londinē: / sis descripsit"" ("Emery Molyneux of England, at the expense of William Sanderson of London, described this"). Celestial globes. Molyneux's celestial globe was virtually a copy of Gerardus Mercator's globe of 1551, which itself was based on a globe of 1537 by Gemma Frisius that Mercator had helped to construct. To the constellations featured on Mercator's globe, Molyneux added the Southern Cross and Southern Triangle, though somewhat to the west of their true positions. His source appears to have been Andrea Corsali's diagram of the Antarctic sky published in 1550. Molyneux's globes were the first to be constructed in such a way that they were unaffected by humidity at sea. They were made of flour-paste, an unusual material for the time. Simon Forman remarked that Molyneux's moulding or casting process was "the only way to caste whatsoever in perfecte forme ... and yt is the perfectest and trewest waie of all wayes ... and this was the wai that Mullenax did use to cast flowere [flour in the verie forme". Publication. In 1589, Richard Hakluyt announced the forthcoming publication of Molyneux's terrestrial globe at the end of the preface to "The Principall Navigations, Voiages and Discoveries of the English Nation". Referring to the map that was inserted into the volume—a reproduction of the ""Typus Orbis Terrarum"" engraved by Franciscus Hogenberg for Abraham Ortelius' "Theatrum Orbis Terrarum" (1570)—he wrote: Ubaldini reported Molyneux's progress in manufacturing the globes to the Duke of Milan. He was in attendance when Molyneux presented a pair of manuscript globes to Elizabeth I at Greenwich in July 1591. Ubaldini noted that "he gave her the globe to let her see at a glance how much of the world she could control by means of her naval forces". According to Wallis, the printed globes, which at in diameter were then the largest ever made, were published after some delay in late 1592 or early 1593. Sanderson arranged entertainments at his home in Newington Butts to mark the presentation of these globes to the Queen. His son William later reported the Queen's words on accepting the terrestrial globe: "The whole earth, a present for a Prince ..."; and on accepting the celestial globe, she said: "Thou hast presented me with the Heavens also: God guide me, to Govern my part of the one, that I may enjoy but a mansion place in this other." Elizabeth I saw globes and armillary spheres as symbols of her empire and spiritual mission on earth. The royal coat of arms was emblazoned across North America on the terrestrial globe. Several treatises were published to describe the Molyneux globes and provide guides on their use. Molyneux himself wrote a treatise, now lost, entitled "The Globes Celestial and Terrestrial Set Forth in Plano", which Sanderson published in 1592. In the same year, Thomas Hood, a London-based mathematics lecturer who had written a 1590 work on the use of celestial globes, published "The Vse of Both the Globes, Celestiall and Terrestriall". This was followed in 1594 by two works, one of which was Blundeville's book. The other, "Tractatus de Globis et Eorum Usu" ("Treatise on Globes and their Use"), was published by the mathematician Robert Hues. This work went into at least 13 printings and was translated from Latin into Dutch, English and French. In 1599, Edward Wright published "Certaine Errors in Navigation", which included commentary on the use of the terrestrial and celestial globes developed by Molyneux. According to Markham, "the appearance of the globes naturally created a great sensation, and much interest was taken in appliances which were equally useful to the student and to the practical navigator." The largest and most prestigious globes were priced at up to £20 each: these were purchased by royalty, noblemen and academic institutions. Among the purchasers were Thomas Bodley and the Warden of All Souls College, for their libraries in Oxford. William Sanderson presented the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge with a pair each. The public preacher Thomas Laughton made an inaugural gift of a Molyneux globe to the Shrewsbury School library. Smaller globes were also made, though no examples have survived. Sanderson is known to have presented one of these to Robert Cecil in 1595, together with Hues' "Latin booke that teacheth the use of my great globes". Intended as practical navigation aids, they cost as little as £2. The globes provided navigators and students with methods for finding the place of the sun, latitude, course, distance, amplitudes, azimuths, time and declination. They proved such a boon to navigation that they came into widespread use on ships. In the dedication of his 1595 book "The Seamans Secrets" to the Lord High Admiral, Charles Howard, the 1st Earl of Nottingham, navigator John Davis spoke of "the mechanical practices drawn from the Arts of Mathematick, which our Country doth yield men of principal excellency", and he noted "Mr Emery Mullenenx for the exquisite making of Globes bodies". Later life. In the 1590s, Molyneux sought Elizabeth I's patronage for the production of a cannon, which he described as his "new invention, of shot and artillery, to be used principally in naval warfare: protection of ports and harbours, a new shot to discharge a thousand musket shot; with wildfire not to be quenched". In March 1593, Molyneux was issued with a royal warrant. Two years later, the merchant Robert Parkes purchased coal, saltpetre, pitch, oils and waxes for him, possibly for the cannon. On 4 November 1596 the Privy Council urged the Lord Admiral "to speak to Molyneux, Bussy and the two Engelberts about their offensive engines" as part of measures to defend England's south coast. It appears the request was ignored. On 27 September 1594, the Queen granted Molyneux a gift of £200 and an annuity of £50. He chose to surrender the latter when, some time between March or April 1596 and 4 June 1597, he and his wife Anne emigrated to Amsterdam, Holland. Wallis has conjectured that he took with him the printing plates for the globes and sold them to Hondius, who had returned to Amsterdam in 1593. Why Molyneux left England for Holland is unclear. The "Oxford Dictionary of National Biography" suggests it was to be able to personally distribute his globes to European princes, since Amsterdam was then quickly establishing itself as the centre of globe- and map-making. However, this could not have been his intention if he had sold the globes' plates to Hondius. It is possible that he had decided to concentrate on manufacturing ordnance. On 26 January 1598, the States-General, the parliament of the United Provinces, showed interest in Molyneux's cannon and granted him a 12-year privilege on an invention. On 6 June he lodged a second application, but he died in Amsterdam almost immediately afterwards. His wife was granted administration of his estate in England later that month. It seems that Molyneux died in poverty, because Anne was granted a Dutch compassionate pension of 50 florins on 9 April 1599. Molyneux apparently had no surviving family, and the English globe-making industry died with him. No other globes appear to have been manufactured in England until the appearance in the 1670s of globes by Robert Morden and William Berry, and by Joseph Moxon. However, over 40 years after Molyneux's death, William Sanderson the younger wrote that his globes were "yet in being, great and small ones, Celestiall and Terrestriall, in both our Universities and severall Libraries (here, and beyond Seas)". Influence. Cartography. In the second volume of the greatly expanded version of his book "The Principal Navigations, Voiages, Traffiques and Discoueries of the English Nation" (1599), Hakluyt published what is known today as the Wright–Molyneux Map. Created by Edward Wright and based on Molyneux's terrestrial globe, it was the first map to use Wright's improvements on Mercator's projection. Having, it is believed, purchased the plates of Molyneux's globes, Jodocus Hondius was granted a ten-year privilege on 1 April 1597 to make and publish a terrestrial globe. In that year, he produced in Amsterdam a Dutch translation of Hues' "Tractatus de Globis". On 31 October 1598, despite a legal challenge by rival globe-maker Jacob van Langeren, Hondius obtained another privilege for ten years. He duly published globes in 1600 and 1601, and his sons Henricus and Jodocus published a pair in 1613. Hondius also published a world map in 1608 on the Mercator projection. Its reliance on the Molyneux globe is shown by a number of legends, names and outlines which must have been copied directly from it. In his globes of 1612, van Langeren incorporated the improvements made by Hondius the Elder to Molyneux's globe. It is believed that the Hondius globes also spurred Willem Blaeu to start constructing his large globes in 1616, which were published in 1622. Molyneux's globes therefore may have indirectly influenced the evolution of Dutch globe-making. Culture. The appearance of Molyneux's globes had a significant influence on the culture of his time. In Shakespeare's "The Comedy of Errors", written between 1592 and 1594, one of the protagonists, Dromio of Syracuse, compares a kitchen maid to a terrestrial globe: "No longer from head to foot than from hip to hip: she is spherical, like a globe; I could find out countries in her." The jest gained its point from the publication of the globes; Shakespeare may even have seen them himself. Elizabethan dramatist Thomas Dekker wrote in one of his plays published in "The Gull's Horn-book" (1609): It has been suggested that the Lord Chamberlain's Men, the playing company that Shakespeare worked for as an actor and playwright for most of his career, named their playing space the Globe Theatre, built in 1599, as a response to the growing enthusiasm for terrestrial and celestial globes stimulated by those of Molyneux. In "Twelfth Night" (1600–1601), Shakespeare alluded to the Wright–Molyneux Map when Maria says of Malvolio: "He does smile his face into more lynes, than is in the new Mappe, with the augmentation of the Indies." Globes today. Only six Molyneux globes are known to exist today, two terrestrial globes and four celestial globes. Three celestial globes are in Germany, one each in Zerbst, Nuremberg (at the Germanisches Nationalmuseum (German National Museum)) and Kassel (Hessisches Landesmuseum (Hesse Museum), Kassel). The Hessisches Landesmuseum once had a 1592 terrestrial globe, but it is believed to have been destroyed during World War II. Three globes remain in England: one pair, consisting of a terrestrial and a celestial globe, is owned by Middle Temple in London and displayed in its library, while a terrestrial globe is at Petworth House in Petworth, West Sussex. Petworth House globe. A terrestrial globe was discovered in Lord Leconfield's library at Petworth House in Petworth, West Sussex, in July 1949. According to the tradition of the Wyndham family, who are descended from Henry Percy, the 9th Earl of Northumberland, the globe belonged to Sir Walter Raleigh, who gave it to Northumberland when they were imprisoned together in the Tower of London. Northumberland, known as the "Wizard Earl" for his interest in scientific and alchemical experiments and his library, was suspected of being involved in the Gunpowder Plot of 1605 because his relative Thomas Percy was among the conspirators. James I imprisoned Raleigh in the Tower for his supposed involvement in the Main Plot. Although the theory is supported by circumstantial evidence, a number of entries in Northumberland's accounts relating to the mending of globes, one dating back to 1596, suggest that the Molyneux globe may have belonged to him from the beginning and was not Raleigh's. The globe, however, almost certainly spent many years in the Tower before its transfer to Petworth House, where Northumberland was confined upon his release in 1621. The Petworth House globe, now in the North Gallery, is the only Molyneux terrestrial globe preserved in its original 1592 state. One of Molyneux's "great globes", measuring in diameter, it was reported in 1952 to be in poor condition despite restoration by the British Museum the previous year. The northern hemisphere was darkened by dirt and badly rubbed in places, to the extent that it was hard to read. Parts of it, and large sections of the southern hemisphere, are missing altogether. The restoration work revealed that the globe is weighted with sand and made from layers of small pieces of paper overlaid with a coat of plaster about 1⁄8 inch (3 mm) thick. On top of this is another layer of paper over which the gores are pasted. The globe retains its wooden horizon circle and brass meridian ring, but its hour circle and index are missing. Further restoration took place between 1995 and 1997. The globe was exhibited at the Royal Geographical Society in 1951 and 1952. Middle Temple globes. A bill in the accounts of 11 April 1717 for "repairing the globes in the library" is the earliest reference to the Middle Temple's ownership of the Molyneux terrestrial and celestial globes. Markham's view was that Robert Ashley (1565–1641), a barrister of the Middle Temple who was also an ardent geographer, was likely to have left the globes to the Inn in his will, together with his books. Ashley's books formed the nucleus of the Inn's original library and included copies of the second edition of Hues' "Tractatus de Globis" and other works on cosmography. On the other hand, Wallis has said that Markham's view is not supported by any available evidence and the globes are not mentioned in the will. She believes that they were probably acquired by Middle Temple on their publication in 1603. The celestial globe is dated 1592, but the terrestrial globe bears the year 1603 and is the only example of its kind. Wallis has surmised that the globes were made by Hondius in Amsterdam in 1603 for a purchaser in England, perhaps the Middle Temple itself. The celestial globe was made from the original 1592 printing plates, while the terrestrial globe was produced using revised plates redated to 1603. The Middle Temple terrestrial globe differs from the Petworth House globe of 1592 by incorporating Raleigh's discoveries in Guiana and adding new place-names in Brazil, Peru and Africa, as well as an island marked "Corea" off the coast of China. The most extensive revision altered the Northeast Passage to take account of discoveries made on Willem Barentsz's third voyage to Novaya Zemlya in 1596. It appears that the revisions to the original plates of Molyneux's globe were completed by 1597, because no discoveries after that year are included. It is possible that Molyneux helped Hondius to update the plates in 1596 or 1597. For instance, if Hondius had obtained a copy of Raleigh's map of Guiana, Molyneux was the most likely source. Unlike the Petworth House globe, the Middle Temple globes are heavily varnished. The varnish could have been first applied as early as 1818 when the globes were repaired by J. and W. Newton; they were certainly varnished by Messrs. Holland Hannen & Cubitts, Ltd. during maintenance work in 1930. At the start of World War II, the globes were sent to Beaconsfield and stored with part of the Wallace Collection at Hall Barn in the care of Lady Burnham. They were brought back to London in 1945 and were at one stage kept in the King's Library on loan to the British Museum. The globes were installed in their present position in the Middle Temple Library when the current library building opened in 1958. In 2003, they were loaned to the National Maritime Museum for an exhibition commemorating the life of Elizabeth I. In 2004, Middle Temple proposed selling the Molyneux globes, valued at over £1 million, to create a scholarship fund for the education and training of needy would-be barristers. Its members eventually decided by a large majority against such a move. There was also a general feeling that the globes should be made more accessible to those wishing to see them. The Middle Temple's Molyneux globes are the subject of a book-length project, "The Molyneux Globes: Mathematical Practice and Theory", by Dr. Lesley B. Cormack, Professor and Chair of the Department of History and Classics of the Faculty of Arts, University of Alberta. The project examines the community of mathematicians, natural philosophers, instrument-makers, and gentlemen-virtuosi that developed around the creation of the Molyneux globes, particularly the histories of four men who wrote treatises about the globes and the larger mathematical community. Hessisches Landesmuseum globe. The Molyneux globes at the Hessisches Landesmuseum, Kassel, were inherited from the collection of William IV (William the Wise), the Landgrave of Hesse-Kassel (or Hesse-Cassel), a pioneer of astronomical research. William himself died in 1592, so it has been surmised that his son and successor, Maurice, purchased the globes for the collection. They were first mentioned in 1765 in the index of the Mathematische Kammer (Mathematics Chamber) of the Fürstliches Kunsthaus (Princely Art Gallery) in Kassel, during the reign of Landgrave Frederick III. Only a celestial globe survives today; it is believed that the terrestrial globe was destroyed during World War II.
1015831	Luisa Isabella Nolasco da Silva (born 23 June 1988), better known as Isabella Leong, is a Hong Kong-based Macanese actress and former singer. Career. Leong's father was a descendant of a prominent Macanese family of Portuguese-English heritage, and her mother is Chinese. At age 12, Leong dropped out of school and signed a contract to Emperor Entertainment Group as a teenage model. She later began singing and released her debut album, "Isabella" when she was 16 years old. "Isabella" did not achieve the success hoped for and Leong subsequently debuted with acting. From 2005 to 2007, she made a string of films including "The Eye 10", "Bug Me Not!", "Isabella", "Diary", and "Spider Lilies". Leong won her first American film role in "", which was released in 2008. EEG contract dispute. Emperor Entertainment Group filed a lawsuit in the High Court on 3 April 2008 to seek damages from Leong for breaking a 10-year contract which Leong's mother signed for her when she was only 12 years old. Leong filed a writ against the company on 27 April. In November 2008, the legal battle between Leong and EEG ended in an out-of-court settlement, with the star "free to pursue her career". Personal life. In 2008, Leong met Hong Kong billionaire Richard Li, son of billionaire Li Ka-shing, when she was 19 and he was 41. The couple met on a movie set. The following year, Leong gave birth to their first son. For this, Leong was allowed to use Li's family mansions in San Francisco. They also provided her with an entourage of care-givers, including five bodyguards, four full-time nannies and a personal attendant. Channel News Asia noted some speculation about a large pre-nuptial agreement. A 100-day-old banquet was held for her son from July 9–11, 2009, for three consecutive days, with some of the city's celebrities like Stanley Ho and his second wife Lam Wan Ying, and Tsang Yam Pui and his wife spotted in attendance. In June 2010, Leong gave birth to Li's twin sons in San Francisco. In March 2011, Leong announced that she and Richard Li have ended their relationship, explaining that "life with children bored and she "missed [her old life". They both declared that the split is amicable and that they will both take care of their children. Awards. '"Fantasporto (2006) "'Golden Bauhinia Awards (2006) Nominations. '"Hong Kong Film Awards (2005) "'Hong Kong Film Awards (2007) '"Hong Kong Film Awards (2007) "'Golden Bauhinia Awards (2007)
583459	Ashwin Mushran ("Aśvina Muśrāna", born: May 19, 1972 in Mumbai) is an Indian voice over artist and thespian who currently resides in Mumbai, India. He has appeared in numerous movies and plays. He is also featured in the Quick Gun Murugan movie, as Dr. Django. He also lent his voice into dubbing several foreign media. He is the Official Hindi dub-over voice artist for Adam Sandler and Takeshi Kaneshiro. He is also an adept exponent of salsa and has contributed in a big way to its popularity in Mumbai. Career. Ashwin studied at the Doon School, Dehradun, and then graduated with a B.A (hons.) English Literature from Hindu College, University of Delhi. He then studied acting at the Drama Studio London. Ashwin started out with TV commercials which led to him becoming a cast member of the cult Indian TV show, The Great Indian Comedy Show. From there he moved on to acting in feature films and has acted in many critically acclaimed films such as Lage Raho Munna Bhai, Life in a Metro, and Fashion. Ashwin is heavily involved with theatre and is a voice over artiste as well. Dubbing career. He’s dubbed for more than 300 TV commercials and a number of movies in Hindi, English, and Chinese (both Mandarin and Cantonese); however, he said that he had no desire to dub for the leading men of Bollywood. He is the Official Hindi dub-over voice artist for American actor, Sunny Arora and Mandarin Chinese actor, Sudhir Arora.
586126	Thirakkatha (Malayalam: തിരക്കഥ, English: "Screenplay") is a 2008 Malayalam romantic drama film co-produced, written, and directed by Ranjith.
583957	Anniyan ("Stranger") is a 2005 Indian Tamil vigilante film directed by S. Shankar. The film stars Vikram, Sadha, Prakash Raj, and Vivek, while featuring background score and soundtrack composed by Harris Jayaraj. The film was released worldwide on 10 June 2005.Jyothika was the initial cast instead of Sadha. The film took over two years to complete. The film was dubbed into Hindi as "Aparichit: The Stranger", in Telugu as "Aparichithudu", and was also the first Tamil film to be dubbed into French. It was produced and distributed in India by Venu Ravichandran. Dialogues were written by Sujatha Rangarajan. Plot. Ambi aka Ramanujam Iyengar (Vikram) is an innocent and honest lawyer hailing from an orthodox Iyengar family. If he comes across anyone not obeying the law, he files cases against them. His regular habit to be perfect in rules and honesty leads him to develop a Multiple Personality Disorder in which a new personality in him grows as "Anniyan" (Vikram), a grim reaper-themed killer. Anniyan is violent and deranged, and Ambi has no clue that such a monster exists within him. Anniyan kills lawbreakers by methods used for torturing people in hell, as mentioned in the Garuda Purana. He then indicates the Sanskrit name for the punishment used at the place where he kills them. Some of these punishments are- DCP Prabhakar (Prakash Raj) and Chari (Vivek), a friend of Ambi, investigate the murders committed by Anniyan. Incidentally, Prabhakar is the younger brother of the contractor killed by Anniyan. Prabhakar decides to avenge his brother's death by pursuing Anniyan. Ambi is in love with his neighbour Nandhini (Sadha), a medical student, who also teaches music. Ambi proposes to her, but she rejects him due to his staunch following of rules. Distraught, Ambi attempts suicide, but is saved when a third personality comes to life within him. This persona, a suave fashion model named "Remo" (Vikram), woos Nandhini, who instantly falls for him. Later, Nandhini acquires land in Tambaram, but buys it at less than the original amount to avoid paying tax to the government. Ambi is saddened by Nandini's act, triggering Anniyan. Anniyan chases Nandini and tries to kill her, but then reverts to Ambi, who does not know where he is and what he is doing and falls unconscious. A terrified Nandini then takes Ambi to NIMHANS, where he is diagnosed with multiple personality disorder. At NIMHANS, Ambi reveals to the psychiatrist (Nassar) his dark past- when he was 14 years old, he witnessed the tragic death of his 8-year old sister Vidya, due to civic apathy. The psychiatrist concludes that the death of Vidya resulted in the development of this psychological disorder. He also triggers Anniyan and Remo and finds out that while Anniyan and Remo are fully aware that they are Ambi, Ambi has no clue about his multiple personalities. The psychiatrist then comes to the conclusion that while Remo can disappear if Nandhini accepts Ambi's love, Anniyan can only disappear if India is free from all its ills. Nandhini eventually accepts Ambi's love and Remo disappears. Later, Anniyan reveals himself at a gathering at Nehru Stadium. He addresses the problems faced by India and the punishments he has used to tackle them. He wins the outright support of the people due to his ideals and methods. Meanwhile, Prabhakar and Chari continue their investigation and find out that Anniyan is none other than Ambi. Ambi is arrested and is taken to the police control room, where he is brutally assaulted by Prabhakar in retaliation for killing his brother and is left to die. The near-death experience triggers Anniyan, who beats up Prabhakar and four other officers severely, leaving them badly injured. Prabhakar turns up in a wheelchair to Ambi's trial, where it is revealed to all that he suffers from multiple personality disorder. Ambi is sentenced to two years of psychological treatment in a mental hospital after which, if he is cured, he will be released. Two years later, Ambi is released and he marries Nandhini. By now, his puritan adherence to protocol has diminished. While travelling on a train during their honeymoon, Ambi notices a man (the person who was responsible for ambi's sisters death) drinking in front of women. He suffers a relapse on seeing this, transforms into Anniyan and kills the man by throwing him off the train. However, he hides the crime from Nandhini, proving that instead of eradicating Anniyan, he has become successful in blending the personalities of Ambi, Anniyan and Remo into one. Production. The launch of the film was held at AVM Studios in Vadapalani, Chennai on 4 March 2004 with the attendance of the cast and crew. At the event, Shankar revealed that the film would take six months to make and suggested that the film would be released during the Diwali season of 2004, which ultimately was missed by close to nine months. The first schedule took place in Amsterdam, Netherlands with the filming of a song – "Kumaari" – in the backdrop of a large flower garden in Vijfhuizen. The team initially hoped to film two songs in Netherlands, but were denied by authorities to shoot at a song at Keukenhof after a previous film crew had damaged the habitat. Shankar did not want Vikram to reveal his look for the film to the public and despite Vikram's success at the National Film Awards, he was prohibited from meeting the media. In October 2004, cinematographer Manikandan left the project citing date problems and was thus replaced by Ravi Varman. A ten-day shoot was held in Mumbai for a song featuring Hindi actress Yana Gupta, with producers initially hiding her identity to create suspense. Release. Produced on a budget of Rs 27 crores, the film was declared a commercial success, grossing Rs. 70 crores from both Tamil and dubbed Telugu version and becoming the year's second highest grossing Tamil film. It was funded by IDBI to the tune of Rs 8.5 crores and insured for Rs 29 crores to mitigate risk of failure. The producer was the sole distributor of the film. He recovered Rs 13 crores in advance from exhibitors as "Minimum Guarantee" before the completion of the project. By cutting off the middlemen thus, the profitability of the project was secured. The film released with 110 prints in Andhra Pradesh and in 35 cinema halls across Kerala. The film was simultaneously released in Tamil and dubbed into Telugu (as "Aparachithudu"). It was later dubbed into Hindi as "Aparachit - The Stranger" which made $500,000. The film collected Rs 30 crores in Tamil Nadu, Rs 15 crores in Andhra Pradesh and Rs 5.5 crores in Kerala and the rest from other parts of India and overseas. Soundtrack. The soundtrack's composed by Harris Jayaraj got very good critical and commercial response and received several awards including Tamil Nadu State Film Award for Best Music Director and Filmfare Best Music Director Award. Awards. Anniyan received 8 out of 15 awards at the 2006 Filmfare Awards South, the most ever by any Tamil film. 2006 Filmfare Awards South 2006 National Film Award 2006 Tamil Nadu State Film Awards Themes. The film features comedy portions by Vivek regarding the anagrams of the Sanskrit words that denote the punishments. Even the titles shown in the beginning of the film slide with quicker animation of their anagrams. Another example is, during the intermission of the film, the word "TENSIONRISM" morphs into the word "INTERMISSION". This film can be closely related to one of Shankar's previous features, "Indian". Both movies have similar names in pronunciation, and both movies involve the main character rooting out the corrupt elements of India, due to corruption causing the death of the main character's close family member. The main character also gains popularity amongst the public, and shows one of his murders on live TV. In "Indian", the ancient Varmam art was explored, while in this film, the texts from Garuda Puranam are emphasised for the punishments. Influences. Influences from S. Shankar's other popular films like "Gentleman" and "Kadhalan" have been noted. The plot also borrows elements from Sidney Sheldon's "Tell Me Your Dreams". The use of the time-slice method in the film, as with The Matrix films and earlier used by Shankar in his film Mudhalvan/Nayak shot by cinematographer V.Manikandan proved popular with the audience. Shankar used 17 cameras for a special action sequence and imported fighters as well as martial artists from all over the state were used in the multi-opponent fight scene. The special effects were provided by "Big Freeze", a department based in London. Art direction for the film was provided by Sabu Cyril. In this film, the hero suffers from multiple personality disorder which was inspired from the English movie Primal Fear.
1062453	Slumdog Millionaire is a 2008 British drama film directed by Danny Boyle, written by Simon Beaufoy, and co-directed in India by Loveleen Tandan. It is an adaptation of the novel "Q & A" (2005) by Indian author and diplomat Vikas Swarup. Set and filmed in India, the film tells the story of Jamal Malik, a young man from the Juhu slums of Mumbai who appears on the Indian version of "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?" ("Kaun Banega Crorepati" in the Hindi version) and exceeds people's expectations, thereby arousing the suspicions of cheating; Jamal recounts in flashback how he knows the answer to each question, each one linked to a key event in his life. After its world premiere at Telluride Film Festival and later screenings at the Toronto International Film Festival and the London Film Festival, "Slumdog Millionaire" had a nationwide grand release in the United Kingdom on 9 January 2009 and in the United States on 23 January 2009. It premiered in Mumbai on 22 January 2009. A sleeper hit, "Slumdog Millionaire" was widely acclaimed, being praised for its plot, soundtrack and directing. In addition, it was nominated for 10 Academy Awards in 2009, winning eight, the most for any film of 2008, including Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Adapted Screenplay. It also won seven BAFTA Awards (including Best Film), five Critics' Choice Awards, and four Golden Globes. Plot. In Mumbai in 2006, eighteen-year-old Jamal Malik (Dev Patel), a former street child (child Ayush Mahesh Khedekar, adolescent Tanay Chheda) from the Juhu slum, is a contestant on the Indian version of "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?", and is one question away from the grand prize. However, before the Rs. 20 million question, he is detained and interrogated by the police, who suspect him of cheating because of the impossibility of a simple "slumdog" with very little education knowing all the answers. Jamal recounts, through flashbacks, the incidents in his life which provided him with each answer. These flashbacks tell the story of Jamal, his brother Salim (adult Madhur Mittal, adolescent Ashutosh Lobo Gajiwala, child Azharuddin Mohammed Ismail), and Latika (adult Freida Pinto, adolescent Tanvi Ganesh Lonkar, child Rubina Ali). In each flashback Jamal has a point to remember one person, or song, or different things that lead to the right answer of one of the questions. The row of questions does not correspond chronologically to Jamal's life, so the story switches between different periods (childhood, adolescence) of Jamal. Some questions do not refer to points of his life (cricket champion), but by witness he comes to the right answer. Jamal's flashbacks begin with his managing, at age five, to obtain the autograph of Bollywood star Amitabh Bachchan, which his brother then sells, followed immediately by the death of his mother during the Bombay Riots. As they flee the riot, Salim and Jamal meet Latika, another child from their slum. Salim is reluctant to take her in, but Jamal suggests that she could be the third musketeer, a character from the Alexandre Dumas novel (which they had been studying—albeit not very diligently—in school), whose name they do not know. The three are found by Maman (Ankur Vikal), a gangster who tricks and then trains street children into becoming beggars. When Jamal, Salim, and Latika learn Maman is blinding children in order to make them more effective as singing beggars, they flee by jumping onto a departing train. Latika catches up and takes Salim's hand, but Salim purposely lets go, and she is recaptured by the gangsters. Over the next few years, Salim and Jamal make a living travelling on top of trains, selling goods, picking pockets, working as dish washers, and pretending to be tour guides at the Taj Mahal, where they steal people's shoes. At Jamal's insistence, they return to Mumbai to find Latika, discovering from one of the singing beggars that she has been raised by Maman to become a prostitute and that her virginity is expected to fetch a high price. The brothers rescue her, and Salim draws a gun and kills Maman. Salim then manages to get a job with Javed (Mahesh Manjrekar), Maman's rival crime lord. Arriving at their hotel room, Salim orders Jamal to leave him and Latika alone. When Jamal refuses, Salim draws a gun on him, and Jamal leaves after Latika persuades him to go away (presumably so he wouldn't get hurt by Salim). Years later, while working as a tea server at an Indian call centre, Jamal searches the centre's database for Salim and Latika. He fails in finding Latika but succeeds in finding Salim, who is now a high-ranking lieutenant in Javed's organisation, and they reunite. Salim is regretful for his past actions and only pleads for forgiveness when Jamal physically attacks him. Jamal then bluffs his way into Javed's residence and reunites with Latika. While Jamal professes his love for her, Latika asks him to forget about her. Jamal promises to wait for her every day at 5 o'clock at the VT station. Latika attempts to rendezvous with him, but she is recaptured by Javed's men, led by Salim. Jamal loses contact with Latika when Javed moves to another house, outside of Mumbai. Knowing that Latika watches it regularly, Jamal attempts to make contact with her again by becoming a contestant on the show "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?" He makes it to the final question, despite the hostile attitude of the show's host, Prem Kumar (Anil Kapoor), and becomes a wonder across India. Kumar feeds Jamal the incorrect response to the penultimate question and, when Jamal still gets it right, turns him into the police on suspicion of cheating. Back in the interrogation room, the police inspector (Irrfan Khan) calls Jamal's explanation "bizarrely plausible", but thinks he is not a liar and allows him to return to the show. At Javed's safehouse, Latika watches the news coverage of Jamal's miraculous run on the show. Salim, in an effort to make amends for his past behaviour, quietly gives Latika his mobile phone and car keys, and asks her to forgive him and to go to Jamal. Latika, though initially reluctant out of fear of Javed, agrees and escapes. Salim fills a bathtub with cash and sits in it, waiting for the death he knows will come when Javed discovers what he has done. Jamal's final question is, by coincidence, the name of the third musketeer in "The Three Musketeers", a fact he never learned. Jamal uses his Phone-A-Friend lifeline to call Salim's cell, as it is the only phone number he knows. Latika succeeds in answering the phone just in the nick of time, and, while she does not know the answer, tells Jamal that she is safe. Relieved, Jamal randomly picks Aramis, the right answer, and wins the grand prize. Simultaneously, Javed discovers that Salim has helped Latika escape after he hears Latika on the show. He and his men break down the bathroom door, and Salim kills Javed, before being gunned down himself at the hands of Javed's men. With his dying breath, Salim gasps, "God is great." Later that night, Jamal and Latika meet at the railway station and kiss. The movie ends with a dance scene on the platform to "Jai Ho". Production. Screenwriter Simon Beaufoy wrote "Slumdog Millionaire" based on the Boeke Prize-winning and Commonwealth Writers' Prize-nominated novel "Q & A" by Vikas Swarup. To hone the script, Beaufoy made three research trips to India and interviewed street children, finding himself impressed with their attitudes. The screenwriter said of his goal for the script: "I wanted to get (across) the sense of this huge amount of fun, laughter, chat, and sense of community that is in these slums. What you pick up on is this mass of energy." By the summer of 2006, British production companies Celador Films and Film4 Productions invited director Danny Boyle to read the script of "Slumdog Millionaire". Boyle hesitated, since he was not interested in making a film about "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?", which was produced by Celador. Then Boyle learned that the screenwriter was Beaufoy, who had written "The Full Monty" (1997), one of the director's favourite British films, and decided to revisit the script. Boyle was impressed by how Beaufoy wove the multiple storylines from Swarup's book into one narrative, and the director decided to commit to the project. The film was projected to cost US$15 million, so Celador sought a U.S. distributor to share costs. Fox Searchlight Pictures made an initial offer that was reportedly in the $2 million range, but Warner Independent Pictures made a $5 million offer to win rights to the picture. Gail Stevens came on board to oversee casting globally. Stevens had worked with Boyle throughout his career and was well known for discovering new talent. Meredith Tucker was appointed to cast out of the US. The film-makers then travelled to Mumbai in September 2007 with a partial crew and began hiring local cast and crew for production in Karjat. Originally appointed as one of the five casting directors in India, Loveleen Tandan has stated, "I suggested to Danny and Simon Beaufoy, the writer of "Slumdog", that it was important to do some of it in Hindi to bring the film alive [...] They asked me to pen the Hindi dialogues which I, of course, instantly agreed to do. And as we drew closer to the shoot date, Danny asked me to step in as the co-director." Boyle then decided to translate nearly a third of the film's English dialogue into Hindi. The director fibbed to Warner Independent's president that he wanted 10% of the dialogue in Hindi, and she approved of the change. Filming locations included shooting in Mumbai's megaslum and in shantytown parts of Juhu, so film-makers controlled the crowds by befriending onlookers. Filming began on 5 November 2007. In addition to Swarup's original novel "Q & A", the film was also inspired by Indian cinema. Tandan has referred to "Slumdog Millionaire" as a homage to Hindi commercial cinema, noting that "Simon Beaufoy studied Salim-Javed's kind of cinema minutely." Boyle has cited the influence of several Bollywood films set in Mumbai. "Satya" (1998) (screenplay co-written by Saurabh Shukla, who plays Constable Srinivas in "Slumdog Millionaire") and "Company" (2002) (based on the D-Company) both offered "slick, often mesmerising portrayals of the Mumbai underworld" and displayed realistic "brutality and urban violence." Boyle has also stated that the chase in one of the opening scenes of "Slumdog Millionaire" was based on a "12-minute police chase through the crowded Dharavi slum" in "Black Friday" (2004) (adapted from S. Hussein Zaidi's book of the same name about the 1993 Bombay bombings). "Deewaar" (1975), which Boyle described as being "absolutely key to Indian cinema", is a crime film based on the Bombay gangster Haji Mastan, portrayed by Bollywood star Amitabh Bachchan, whose autograph Jamal seeks at the beginning of "Slumdog Millionaire". Anil Kapoor noted that some scenes of the film "are like "Deewaar", the story of two brothers of whom one is completely after money while the younger one is honest and not interested in money." Boyle has cited other Indian films as influences in later interviews. The rags-to-riches, underdog theme was also a recurring theme in classic Bollywood movies from the 1950s through to the 1980s, when "India worked to lift itself from hunger and poverty." Other classic Bollywood tropes in the film include "the fantasy sequences" and the montage sequence where "the brothers jump off a train and suddenly they are seven years older". Bollywood star Shahrukh Khan, was initially offered the role of the show's host in the film. Khan was the natural choice, as not only was he Bollywood's reigning superstar, whose global recognition could be matched by no other, he was also the host of the 2007 series of "Kaun Banega Crorepati" (the Indian version of "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?") which aired before filming had begun on "Slumdog Millionaire". Khan worked extensively on the film and script as an uncredited advisor, however had to turn the role down due to the negative character of the host. As Khan was the real-life host of KBC, he did not want to give his audiences the impression that the real show was also fraud, by playing a fraud host in the movie. Khan later stated, after the release and success of Slumdog Millionaire, that he did not regret turning the role down as he had a very good reason for doing so.
1716278	Lloyd Stowell Shapley (born June 2, 1923) is a distinguished American mathematician and economist. He is a Professor Emeritus at University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), affiliated with departments of Mathematics and Economics. He has contributed to the fields of mathematical economics and especially game theory. Since the work of von Neumann and Morgenstern in 1940s, Shapley has been regarded by many experts as the very personification of game theory. With Alvin E. Roth, Shapley won the 2012 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences "for the theory of stable allocations and the practice of market design." Life and career. Lloyd Shapley was born on June 2, 1923, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, one of the sons of Martha (Betz) and the distinguished astronomer Harlow Shapley, both from Missouri. He attended Phillips Exeter Academy and was a student at Harvard when he was drafted in 1943. He served in the Army Air Corps in Chengdu, China and received the Bronze Star decoration for breaking the Soviet weather code. After the war, he returned to Harvard and graduated with an A.B. in mathematics in 1948. After working for one year at the RAND Corporation, he went to Princeton University where he received a Ph.D. in 1953. His thesis and post-doctoral work introduced the Shapley value and the core solution in game theory. After graduating, he remained at Princeton for a short time before going back to the RAND corporation from 1954 to 1981. Since 1981 he has been a professor at UCLA. He is still dashing about, doing Game Theory related activities, like RISK. Contribution. Along with the Shapley value, stochastic games, the Bondareva-Shapley theorem (which implies that convex games have non-empty cores), the Shapley–Shubik power index (for weighted- or block voting power), the Gale–Shapley algorithm (for the stable marriage problem), the concept of a potential game (with Dov Monderer), the Aumann–Shapley pricing, the Harsanyi–Shapley solution, the Snow-Shapley theorem for matrix games, and the Shapley–Folkman lemma & theorem bear his name. Besides, his early work with R.N.Snow and Samuel Karlin on matrix games was so complete that little has been added since. He has been instrumental in the development of utility theory, and it was he who laid much of the groundwork for the solution of the problem of the existence of Von Neumann-Morgenstern stable sets. His work with M.Maschler and B.Peleg on the kernel and the nucleolus, and his work with Robert Aumann on non-atomic games and on long-term competition have all had a tremendous impact in economic theory. In his 80s, Shapley continues publishing in the areas of specialization he created or advanced, such as multi-person utility (with Manel Baucells) and authority distribution (a generalization to the Shapley–Shubik power index and useful in ranking, planning and group decision-making). Trivia. In 1950, Shapley invented the board game So Long Sucker, along with Mel Hausner, John Forbes Nash, and Martin Shubik.
1101205	John Henry Constantine Whitehead FRS (11 November 1904–8 May 1960), known as Henry, was a British mathematician and was one of the founders of homotopy theory. He was born in Chennai (then known as Madras), in India, and died in Princeton, New Jersey, in 1960. Life. J. H. C. (Henry) Whitehead was the son of the Right Rev. Henry Whitehead, Bishop of Madras, who had studied mathematics at Oxford, and was the nephew of Alfred North Whitehead and Isobel Duncan. He was brought up in Oxford, went to Eton and read mathematics at Balliol College, Oxford, where he co-founded The Invariant Society, the student mathematics society. After a year working as a stockbroker (Buckmaster & Moore), he started a Ph.D. in 1929 at Princeton University. His thesis, titled "The representation of projective spaces", was written under the direction of Oswald Veblen in 1930. While in Princeton, he also worked with Solomon Lefschetz. He became a fellow of Balliol in 1933. In 1934 he married the concert pianist Barbara Smyth, great-great-granddaughter of Elizabeth Fry and a cousin of Peter Pears; they had two sons. During the Second World War he worked on operations research for submarine warfare. Later, he joined the codebreakers at Bletchley Park, and by 1945 was one of some fifteen mathematicians working in the "Newmanry", a section headed by Max Newman and responsible for breaking a German teleprinter cipher using machine methods. Those methods included the Colossus machines, early digital electronic computers. From 1947 to 1960 he was the Waynflete Professor of Pure Mathematics at Magdalen College, Oxford. He became president of the London Mathematical Society (LMS) in 1953, a post he held until 1955. The LMS established two prizes in memory of Whitehead. The first is the annually awarded, to multiple recipients, Whitehead Prize; the second a biennially awarded Senior Whitehead Prize. In the late 1950s, Whitehead approached Robert Maxwell, then chairman of Pergamon Press, to start a new journal, "Topology", but died before its first edition appeared in 1962. Work. His definition of CW complexes gave a setting for homotopy theory that became standard. He introduced the idea of simple homotopy theory, which was later much developed in connection with algebraic K-theory. The Whitehead product is an operation in homotopy theory. The Whitehead problem on abelian groups was solved (as an independence proof) by Saharon Shelah. His involvement with topology and the Poincaré conjecture led to the creation of the Whitehead manifold. The definition of crossed modules is due to him. Whitehead also made important contributions in differential topology, particularly on triangulations and their associated smooth structures.
1456047	La Antena (English: The Aerial) is a 2007 Argentine drama film, written and directed by acclaimed film director Esteban Sapir. The film features Alejandro Urdapilleta, Rafael Ferro, Florencia Raggi, and others. Plot. The movie begins with a pair of hands typing on a typewriter. The denizens of a nameless city "in the year XX" have lost their voices. People communicate by mouthing out words that are spelled mid-air. The only person who has kept the use of her voice is La Voz ("the voice"), a singer working for the sole TV channel broadcast in the city, run by Mr. TV, who desires La Voz. La Voz wears a hood over her head that hides away her face. She has a son called Tomás, an eyeless little kid who nonetheless also has a voice (although this is kept a secret). Tomás lives next door to Ana, whom he one day befriends after a letter addressed to his house is erroneously delivered to hers. Ana's parents are estranged - he works for Mr. TV as a TV repairman, she is a nurse at a hospital. When Ana loses a "balloon man" owned by the channel, her father and grandfather are fired from the studio. Soon enough, Ana's father stumbles upon evidence that La Voz has been kidnapped, and, together with Mr. TV's vengeful son, they set out to spy on Mr. TV. Ana's father pays his ex-wife to let them into the hospital, where Mr. TV and his henchman Dr. Y (a scientist whose lower head has been replaced with a TV screen showing a mouth) subject La Voz to a series of experiments of dubious nature. They plan to use La Voz's unique power to finally subdue the denizens of the city. However, Dr. Y theorizes that a second voice might counter the effect of La Voz's. Mr. TV's outraged son comes out of hiding, is overpowered, and then put away, by his father's henchmen, whereas Ana's father manages to escape with the aid of his wife. The reconciled couple manage to rescue Ana and Tomás from Mr. TV's henchmen (led by a masked, malformed man referred to as "the Rat Man") and meet with the grandfather. Since Mr. TV is going to broadcast La Voz's voice and thus subdue all citizens, they have to broadcast a second voice to counter the effect. The grandfather suggests using an old station, The Aerial, abandoned in the outskirts of the city, in the snowy mountains. Tomás, Ana and her parents don inflatable suits (equal to those donned by "balloon men") which send them floating up in the sky. Just as the grandfather finishes elevating them, the Rat Man and his henchmen arrive and shoot him. The family are then propelled away into the mountains. Meanwhile, Mr. TV and Dr. Y initiate the broadcast during a boxing match. The citizens become hypnotized and subsequently fall asleep. Words then start oozing out of their bodies - the machine that sucked out their voice now takes their words out of them. In The Aerial, the Rat Man and his henchmen storm into the station, stopping short Tomás's transmission. Ana's father and the Rat Man fight over a gun and stumble into a secret room in the station that reveals The Aerial's director, a young girl fitted inside a glass orb that oversees the production of the drugged food that keeps citizens under Mr. TV's control. The gun goes off and kills The Aerial's director, who turns into an old woman after dying, and Ana knocks down the Rat Man. Back at the lab, Tomás's transmission sends Dr. Y into a choking fit and is finished off by Mr. TV. The transmissions counter each other and the citizens wake up, now able to use their voice (albeit without being able to speak). In the end, the family comes out of The Aerial, trying their new voices. Deleted scenes. The DVD contains a number of deleted scenes that expand on the movie. Among these are featured a scene presenting the Rat Man looking at a family portrait of anthropomorphic mice, a scene leading to Ana's father and grandfather being fired (as well as a shorter episode where the grandfather laments the dismissal), a scene depicting La Voz stripping in front of Mr. TV (followed by her drugging and kidnapping), an altogether different introduction for Dr. Y (as well as a presentation of the transmission device) and both an alternate beginning and ending. The alternate beginning differs from the one in the final cut in that it explains the existence of "balloon men". The alternate ending does not contradict the final cut ending but rather expands on it: in the ending, after Mr. TV has finished Dr. Y off, La Voz frees herself from her bondage and realizes much to her rage that she now has a face but apparently cannot talk anymore. She then takes hold of a remote control and "deletes" Mr. TV. It also shows Mr. TV's son freeing himself from a chained television and proceeding to write on a typewriter (the shots matching those of two hands writing on a typewriter at the beginning of the film). Production. The movie's script consisted of a mere 60 pages and a story-board of over 3,000 shots that took 5 months to draw. Principal shooting took 11 weeks and the post-production took more than a year for completion. Exhibition. The film premièred at the Rotterdam Film Festival on January 24, 2007. It was the first time in 36 years that a film was chosen for both the official competition and opening of the Rotterdam Film Festival. It was released to cinemas in the United Kingdom on 16 May 2008 by Dogwoof Pictures, with a DVD-Video release following on 18 August 2008. Critical reception. Film critics liked the film, with one writing, "This was the most original film that I have seen since last year's "Pan's Labyrinth." What was even more amazing was that the budget was estimated at $1.5 million, quite a bit of money in Argentina, but not for Hollywood. It just proves that you do not need $60 million dollars to do a film, especially one of quality. On a critical note, some viewers will be overwhelmed by the fast pace of the screenplay. Plus, with so many metaphors, one might have difficulty keeping up with what is actually going on. The production crew, headed by Daniel Gimelberg, brings out Esteban Sepir's imagination in full throttle." Awards. Wins
585086	Souryam () is a 2008 Telugu film directed by cinematographer-turned-director J. Siva Kumar, who makes his directorial debut. It stars Gopichand and Anushka Shetty in the main lead. The film was dubbed and released in Malayalam as Souryam and in Hindi as Meri Shapath. The film has remade into Kannada as "Shourya" with Darshan and Madalasa Sharma, and into Tamil by Prabhu Deva as "Vedi" with Vishal Krishna and Sameera Reddy in the lead roles. and is to be remade in Hindi by Prabhu Deva with Salman Khan.
1062376	Shia Saide LaBeouf (; born June 11, 1986) is an American actor and director who became known among younger audiences as Louis Stevens in the Disney Channel series "Even Stevens." LaBeouf received a Young Artist Award nomination in 2001 and won a Daytime Emmy Award in 2003 for his role. He made his film debut in "Holes" (2003), based on the novel of the same name by Louis Sachar. In 2004, he made his directorial debut with the short film "Let's Love Hate" and later directed a short film titled "Maniac" (2011), starring American rappers Cage and Kid Cudi.
582571	Nafisa Ali (born 18 January 1957) is an actress and social activist from India. Early life. Nafisa Ali was born to photographer, Ahmed Ali, son of S. Wajid Ali and brother of Zaib-un-Nissa Hamidullah. She hails from Kolkata, West Bengal. Her mother's name is Philomena Torresan, who is now settled in Australia. She went to Sr. Cambridge from La Martiniere Calcutta. She has also studied Vedanta taught by Swami Chinmayananda, who started the center Chinmaya Mission of World Understanding. Her husband is the renowned Polo player and Arjuna awardee, retired Col R.S. Sodhi. After marriage she chose to be a wife and take care of her three children: daughters Armana, Pia and son Ajit. After a break of 18 years she returned to the film industry. Career. Nafisa Ali has accomplishments in several fields. She was the national swimming champion from 1972-1974. She won the Miss India title in 1976 and was runner-up at the Miss International contest in 1977. Ali was also a jockey at the Calcutta Gymkhana in 1979. Acting career. She has acted in several Bollywood films, the notable ones being "Junoon" (1979) with Shashi Kapoor and "Major Saab" with Amitabh Bachchan (1998), Bewafaa (2005) and Life In A... Metro with Dharmendra in 2007. Now she has also appeared recently in the film Yamla Pagla Deewana (2010). She has also acted in a Malayalam film called Big B (2007) with Mammootty. She is associated with "Action India," an organisation working to spread AIDS awareness. Political career. Nafisa Ali contested the 2004 Lok Sabha elections unsuccessfully from South Kolkata.
1059849	Georgine America Ferrera (born April 18, 1984) is an American actress. She is best known for her leading role as Betty Suarez on the ABC television series "Ugly Betty" (2006–2010). Her portrayal garnered critical acclaim, and she won the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Television Series Musical or Comedy, the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Comedy Series, and the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series.
1482404	Yaaruku Yaaro (Tamil:யாருக்கு யாரோ) is a low-budget film released in December 2007. The movie was produced by "Erode" Jayakumari under the banner of Universal Thavamani Cine Arts. The story, screenplay, dialogues, lyrics, music and direction were by Joe Stanley. The movie stars Sam Anderson, alongside newcomers Jothi and Varnika. Synopsis. The film is about an aspiring automobile engineer who owns a motor workshop. He plans to manufacture a family car which can be sold for 70000 Indian Rupees. How the two heroines help him in this quest forms the crux of the story.The catch phrase for the film is "Step Nee". Plot. The story opens as Deepa (Varnika), a medical college student, sings a song during the cultural festival. She is being surrounded by lush green fields and mountains but the college, or even the stage for that matter, is nowhere in sight. The next scene shifts to three robbers, ogling at Deepa. She is on her way to write her college examinations. But while wheeling her punctured scooter, the robbers snatch her chain and escape on a bike. In comes hero David (Sam Anderson) who does a chase after them. He returns empty-handed and recognizes Deepa from the college function earlier. He praises her amazing vocal skills and gives his gold crucifix chain as a gift. Deepa refuses, but David then gives a sermon about Hindu-Christian difference. Yet, she still does not accept it. David also gives his 'stepnee' (spare) tyre to Deepa. This incident is one of the most important scenes in the movie. The next day, David goes to Deepa's house. He overhears Deepa singing a devotional song and stands mesmerized by her voice. He asks Deepa to return his tyre. Deepa informs him that her scooter has been sent for service. David also impresses her mother with his gentlemanly manners. The scene then shifts to David's confrontation with the robbers who also happen to be the accomplices of his father's best friend (Venniradai Moorthy). David starts a sermon about the greatness of the crucifix and gives it to the robbers for cleansing their sins. The robbers have a dramatic change of heart and praise David as their savior. They also give back the chain they stole from Deepa during the beginning of the film. Deepa learns that David is an automobile engineer and visits his workshop, and sees "high-end models" specifically designed by David. David then returns Deepa's chain that he had got from the robbers. He also presents the crucifix along with her chain. David and Deepa then fall in love. Deepa's mother is concerned that her daughter might be tricked into love by David. Deepa consoles her and praises David's manners. Meanwhile, the robbers turn over a new leaf and begin to work in David's workshop. The mechanics then prod David to tell them about his affair with Deepa. David blushes. As luck would have it, Deepa's father is a car showroom owner. Deepa takes David to her father the next day. David then proposes his idea, but Deepa's father scoffs at it, leaving David heart-broken. David then requests for a car poster (which is of a Ferrari F50) that is posted on the office wall. Deepa's father tells him it is the new customer car that is to be sold in the (Hyundai?)showroom and refuses. David then leaves the office, dejected. Deepa gets at angry at her father for his treatment of David and rushes out to console him. The next scene shows David back in his workshop with his mechanics. They console him and make a plan to ask for loan from the moneylender (Venniradai Moorthy). Meanwhile, Deepa's father expresses his fear to his wife about Deepa falling in love with David. The next day, David goes to the moneylender's house along with his faithful mechanics to ask for loan. Moorthy also promises to help him out by agreeing to fund for two of his model cars. David and Deepa then meet at a beach and break into a song (Raasathi). The next day, Moorthy visits David's workshop but upon seeing the reality, changes his mind and refuses to lend money to David. David is heart-broken but Deepa visits him and consoles him. She presents the Ferrari poster to him and asks him to marry her. She also plans to use her 5 Lakh rupees (that happens to be her inheritance) to help David out. Soon, David's birthday comes up and Deepa plans a big surprise for him. But everyone is in for a huge surprise as Manju (Jothi), comes from Canada to visit David. She sees David cutting the cake alone and joins him. David is happy to see her and says, "My God, how beautiful you are!". We learn that Manju was David's sweetheart during their college days but had a fall-out because Manju went to Canada to pursue her career. She also says that she came back to India to take David with her to Canada. David then has a duet sequence with Manju for some unexplained reasons. Deepa suddenly enters the room and gets angry at David for flirting with another woman. She leaves the room fuming. David tries to stop her but she doesn't listen. Manju takes David out for lunch and learns about his life after college and his new love Deepa. She gets angry at him for not treating Deepa properly. But she also feels sorry for him and soon falls prey to his charms. The Raasathi song is shown again but this time with Manju instead of Deepa. Manju asks David to marry her and plans their migration to Canada. She then asks David to forget Deepa and give back her 5 Lakh rupees. David then asks for advice from his faithful sidekicks. He then visits Deepa surrounded by a stunning landscape and asks for her forgiveness. Deepa gets angry with his behavior and scorns at him. Wounded, David comes back to his sidekicks who advise him to jump for Manju instead. David then goes to Manju seeking refuge. Manju initially gets angry that David had not returned the check but then suddenly declares her love for him and starts yet another duet sequence. David and Manju stop their car in No-Man's Land and plan to go to the airport from there. Out of nowhere, Deepa suddenly appears there on her Scooty. This is the film's climax. Deepa accuses David that he used her just like the stepnee tyre that was shown in the beginning. David then explains that he never used her but always thought of her as his stepping stone to success (Vazhkaiyil Ovvoru Steppum Nee). Deepa refuses to be consoled and gives back the gold crucifix chain to David. She then leaves the place with sorrow. Manju gets angry with David again. She asks David to give the chain to whomever he likes. David then puts the chain around Manju's neck. Manju takes it as the holy 'mangalsutra', and says that she is now all his. David and Manju circle the car by which they came, three times. This scene symbolically indicates that the marriage of David and Manju has been made in heaven, marked by the circling of the holy fire thrice in actual marriages. The next scene shows a cargo airplane taking off, presumably with David and Manju inside it, for Canada. Reception. The film screened for three days. It got highly negative reviews from the audience who watched the movie in the theaters. The film released in only a few theaters and people who watched the movie without knowing about the film and sam cursed everyone including the theatre owners and distributors.'Yarukku Yaaro' went relatively unnoticed until leaked versions of the movie appeared on Youtube. After 2 to 3 years of its release its fans,viewers,followers increased gradually.
1659575	Synopsis. Gauche is a diligent but mediocre cellist who plays for a small town orchestra (The Venus Orchestra, Japanese:金星音楽団, Kinsei Ongaku Dan) and the local cinema in the early 20th century. He struggles during rehearsals and is often berated by his conductor during preparations for an upcoming performance of Beethoven's Sixth Symphony (the Pastoral Symphony). Over the course of four nights, Gauche is visited at his mill house home by talking animals as he is practicing. The first night, a tortoiseshell cat came to Gauche and, giving him a tomato, asked him to play Schumann's "Träumerei." Gauche was irritated, as the tomato was from his garden outside, so he berated the cat and instead played "Tiger Hunt in India." This startled the cat and made it leap up and down in astonishment. The cat ran away in fright. The second night as he was practicing, a cuckoo came to him asking to practice scales to Gauche's cello accompaniment. Gauche repeatedly played "cuckoo, cuckoo," accompanied by the bird. Eventually, he felt that the cuckoo's song was better than his cello. Gauche chased the bird away, causing it to fly into his window, hitting its head. The third night as he was practicing, a raccoon dog (Japanese: 狸, tanuki) came to him asking to practice the timpany to Gauche's cello accompaniment. As Gauche played "The Merry Master of a Coach Station," the tanuki hit the cello with a drum stick. The tanuki pointed out to Gauche that he played slowly despite trying to play speedily. The two left on good terms as the day broke. The fourth night as he was practicing, a mother mouse came in with her baby, asking him to heal her sick son. When Gauche told her that he wasn't a doctor, she replied that the sound of his music had already healed a number of animals. Gauche put the sick little mouse into a hole of his cello and played a rhapsody. When Gauche was finished, the little mouse was able to run around. The mother mouse cried, thanked Gauche, and left. The Sixth Symphony concert was a great success. In the dressing room, the conductor asked a surprised Gauche to play an encore. Upon hearing the applauding audience, Gauche thought he was being made a fool of and again played "Tiger Hunt in India." Afterward, everybody in the dressing room congratulated him. When he came back to his house, he opened the window where the cuckoo had hit its head and felt sorry for his actions. The ending scenes shows the animals and Gauche at peace, playing to the music of the Pastoral symphony. Adaptations. In 1982, the novel was adapted into animation by a Japanese animation studio, Oh! Production. It was directed and written for the screen by Isao Takahata, who would later found Studio Ghibli with Hayao Miyazaki. Kōichi Murata was the executive producer. Gauche's voice actor was Hideki Sasaki and the cat's voice actor was Fuyumi Shiraishi. The lead key animator, Shunji Saida, took cello lessons so that he could accurately capture finger movements. The 63 minute film took 6 years to complete and was highly acclaimed as one of the best film adaptations of Miyazawa's works.
373604	One Last Thing... is a 2006 comedy-drama film produced by HDNet Films and released by Magnolia Pictures. It was screened at the Toronto Film Festival on September 12, 2005 and had a limited release in the United States on May 5, 2006. It was directed by Alex Steyermark and written by Barry Stringfellow. Plot. Dylan (Michael Angarano), a high school student with an inoperable brain tumor, lives with his widowed mother Carol (Cynthia Nixon) in Marcus Hook, Pennsylvania. He is invited on television by a wish-granting organization and stuns viewers with his wish: he wants to spend a weekend alone with supermodel Nikki Sinclair (Sunny Mabrey). Living in New York City, Nikki is watching television and hears about Dylan's wish; she is convinced by her agent to see Dylan, as part of a publicity stunt to improve Nikki's image, but her visit is very brief. Dylan is disappointed and decides to raise money and travel to New York, trying to see Nikki again. Carol struggles with allowing her sick son (traveling with two friends) to be unsupervised in an unfamiliar city. Nikki has her own problems and is reluctant to even speak to Dylan. Striking out and growing sicker, Dylan and his friends take a cab back to Pennsylvania, and eventually to the hospital. Surprisingly, Nikki shows up and, at his request, takes Dylan to the beach. They spend the day together talking, fishing, and kissing, eventually falling asleep on a blanket. In the morning, Nikki discovers that Dylan has died. Nikki attends his funeral with friends and family. As he enters the afterlife, Dylan arrives on the beach to see his father, who died years before, fishing. He invites Dylan to join him. Dylan asks his father how he knows this is not a dream. His father replies, "You don't, and you never will". Costars. Gina Gershon, Johnny Messner, Wyclef Jean, Gideon Glick, Matt Bush and Richie Rich costar. Ethan Hawke appears uncredited as Dylan's father. DVD. The region 1 DVD was released on May 23, 2006.
526315	Thomas Aiden Turgoose (born 11 February 1992) is an English actor, arguably best known for his role as Shaun Field in the film "This Is England". Early life. Turgoose was born on 11 February 1992 and brought up in Grimsby, Lincolnshire. He attended Wintringham School. Career. In his first film role in 2006, aged 14, he played the lead character, Shaun, in "This Is England", written and directed by Shane Meadows. On television he played the character Dizzy, a young boy mentored by Adam Solomons (Luke Treadaway), in the 2006 BBC drama series "The Innocence Project". The programme was cancelled after eight episodes due to poor ratings and negative reviews. Turgoose's character was in six of the eight episodes. But, in 2008 he was again in a Shane Meadows film, "Somers Town", where he co-starred in a comedy role with young Polish actor Piotr Jagiello. Both young actors shared the "Best Actor in a Narrative Feature" award at New York's Tribeca Film Festival. He is in the current film "The Scouting Book For Boys", and appeared in "This Is England '86", a 4-part TV series for Channel 4 looking at characters from "This is England" three years on. A year later, he appeared in the three-part series "This is England 88", aired just before Christmas 2011, and is set to appear in a further series "This is England 90". He also featured in the TV advertising campaign for Coca-Cola running with the London 2012 Olympic torch.
1063609	Scary Movie 3 is a 2003 American science fiction horror comedy parody film, which parodies the horror, sci-fi, and mystery genres, directed by David Zucker. It is the third film of the "Scary Movie" franchise, as well as the first to have no involvement from the Wayans family. This is most evident as the characters of Shorty Meeks and Ray Wilkins, previously played by Shawn Wayans and Marlon Wayans, do not appear, nor are they referenced. The film's plot significantly parodies the films "The Ring", "Signs", "The Matrix", "The Matrix Reloaded" and "8 Mile". It is also the first film of two in the series to star Leslie Nielsen. "Scary Movie 3" opened to mixed reviews from critics, who praised its consistent humor and satire, but criticized many other aspects such as casting, synopsis and pacing. The film was a box-office success, grossing $220,673,217 worldwide. Plot. Katy (Jenny McCarthy) and Becka (Pamela Anderson) are talking about a cursed tape in which Katy refers to a sex tape, but Becka refers to a cursed tape ("The Ring"). After several paranormal events, they die when the television turns on. In a farm outside Washington, D.C., a widowed farmer and former reverend, Tom Logan (Charlie Sheen) and his clumsy brother George (Simon Rex) are walking through the farm fields when they discover a crop circle (Signs). Since the previous film, the gang have all gone their separate ways. In Washington, Cindy Campbell (Anna Faris), now an anchorwoman, announces the crop circles on the news. She picks up her paranormally endowed nephew Cody (Drew Mikuska) from school, where her best friend Brenda Meeks (Regina Hall)is his teacher. George Logan arrives to pick up his niece Sue, who is in the same class. George and Cindy are instantly smitten and he invites Cindy and Brenda to a rap-battle with his rapper friends Mahalik (Anthony Anderson) and CJ (Kevin Hart) (8 Mile). Later that evening, George competes and proves to be actually quite talented. But due to some unintentional racist blunders, he is thrown out. Following the battle, Brenda asks Cindy to keep her company, since she watched the cursed videotape herself. After playing several pranks on Cindy, she gets the rest of the popcorn in the lounge and goes to watch TV when it turns on by itself. Brenda starts getting angry at the TV and curses at it. When Brenda turns back around, the TV is on with a well on the screen. Tabitha (Marny Eng) climbs out of the well and the TV, Brenda gets into a fist fight with Tabitha in the living room while Cindy pays no attention to her. Tabitha ends up killing Brenda. George receives a phone call about the death, and Tom meets with Sayaman, who apologises for the accident involving himself and Tom's wife Annie (Denise Richards). During Brenda's wake, George and Mahalik wreak havoc on Brenda's corpse trying to bring her back to life. George ends up blowing up Brenda to which the attendees of Brenda's funeral start screaming due to the random pieces of Brenda landing in their hands. Cindy decides to watch the tape for herself and finds the tape to be a bit odd. After the tape finishes Cindy is cursed after receiving a phone call. She calls George, CJ and Mahalik for help. CJ offers that his Aunt Shaneequa might be able to help. Aunt Shaneequa (Queen Latifah), the Matrix Oracle, and her husband Orpheus (Eddie Griffin) agree to watch the tape. Shaneequa discovers the hidden image of a lighthouse, and gets into a fight with a lady on the tape. Shaneequa tells Cindy that she must find the lighthouse to solve the mystery. When Cindy returns home, she finds that Cody watched the tape, condemning him to certain death. After receiving several phone calls from Tabitha, Cindy and George start discussing the tape.
899055	The White Sheik () is a 1952 Italian romantic comedy film directed by Federico Fellini and starring Alberto Sordi, Leopoldo Trieste, Brunella Bovo, and Giulietta Masina. Written by Fellini, Tullio Pinelli, Ennio Flaiano, and Michelangelo Antonioni, the film is about a man who brings his new bride to Rome for their honeymoon, to gain an audience with the Pope, and to present his wife to his family. When the young woman sneaks away to find the hero of her romance novels, the man is forced to spend hour after painful hour making excuses to his eager family who want to meet his missing bride. "The White Sheik" was filmed on location in Fregene, Rome, Spoleto, and Vatican City. Plot. Two young newlyweds from a provincial town, Wanda (Brunella Bovo) and Ivan Cavalli (Leopoldo Trieste), arrive in Rome for their honeymoon. Wanda is obsessed with the "White Sheik" (Alberto Sordi), the hero of a soap opera photo strip and sneaks off to find him, leaving her conventional, petit bourgeois husband in hysterics as he tries to hide his wife's disappearance from his strait-laced relatives who are waiting to go with them to visit the Pope. The plotline was re-used by Woody Allen in his film To Rome with Love. Production. "The White Sheik" was Fellini's first solo effort as a director. He had previously co-directed "Variety Lights" in 1950 with Alberto Lattuada. Originally the treatment for "The White Sheik" was written by Michelangelo Antonioni. Carlo Ponti commissioned Fellini and Tullio Pinelli to develop the treatment. It was satirical in nature, targeting the trashy fotoromanzi comic strips that were extremely popular in Italy when the film was made. The male lead, Leopoldo Trieste, a playwright who did not consider himself an actor, reluctantly auditioned for Fellini. During the audition Fellini asked him to compose a sonnet that the lead character would have written to his wife. The poem which begins "She is graceful, sweet and teeny..." was included in the film. Appearing briefly as the prostitute Cabiria, Giulietta Masina would later return to this role in "Nights of Cabiria". Her short scene inspired Fellini to write the screenplay and also convinced producers that Giulietta was ready for the leading role. Reception. Italian film critic Giulio Cesare Castello, writing for "Cinema V", argued that Fellini's past as a successful gag writer made him a natural choice as the film's director: "Fellini was undoubtedly the best qualified and for two reasons: firstly, his experience as a gag writer and consequently his familiarity with the secrets and intrigues of the world he was about to bring to the screen; secondly, his gift for sarcastic comment and delight in satirizing tradition... The result is unusual and stimulating but derives more from the failure to establish a basic mood or tone rather than from any direct intention. Fellini should find this tone in future works if he is to avoid the discontinuity we found here."
1263780	Silvia Colloca is an Italian actress and cookbook author. Her first book Silvia's Cucina will be published by Penguin in September 2013. Colloca was born in Milan to Loredana and Mario Colloca. Her first major film role was in "Van Helsing", in which she played Verona, one of Dracula's brides. In September 2004, she married the Australian actor who played Dracula in that film, Richard Roxburgh. They have two sons Raphael Jack Domenico Roxburgh was born on 10 February 2007 and Miro Roxburgh who was born in September/October 2010. Colloca is an opera-trained mezzo soprano and worked as a musical theatre performer in Italy before becoming a film actress.
582932	Nehlle Pe Dehlla (earlier titled as "Jimmy and Johny") is a 2007 Bollywood comedy film directed by Ajay Chandok, and starring Saif Ali Khan, Sanjay Dutt, Bipasha Basu and Kim Sharma. The film was filmed in 2002, even though it premiered on 2 March 2007. It also has influences of other contemporary movies such as "Winners and Sinners", "Weekend At Bernie's" and "Weekend at Bernie's II". Synopsis. Johny (Sanjay Dutt) and Jimmy (Saif Ali Khan) are small time crooks who dream of becoming rich. The duo meet in jail where they constantly end up for their misdeeds. A hotel manager, Ballu (Shakti Kapoor) embezzles his company's 30 crores. Johny and Jimmy come to know about it and plan to blackmail him. They join the hotel as waiters and are waiting for the perfect opportunity. But a terrible mobster trio (Mukesh Rishi, Aashif Sheikh and Shiva) kill Ballu. When Johny and Jimmy find Ballu dead, they take his body and present him as alive. They keep doing it until they find the real culprit. Johnny meets Ballu's niece, Puja (Bipasha Basu) and Jimmy meets her friend (Kim Sharma). They all fall in love, and once they all find the real culprit, corpse and a map to direct the money, they all go up on a chase together to find the money, with the three mobsters after them also handing for the money. They all get there, only to find the mobsters have already arrived there and took all the money. They reach the mobster's hideouts, and take all the money. The three then come to meet Jimmy and Johny, and since they do not give them the money, the three kidnap Puja. Jimmy and Johny go to rescue her, by giving the money to the mobsters. They get there, have a brawl, and eventually, the police enters. The three mobsters get arrested, Johny and Puja get married, as well as Jimmy and Puja's friend, and live a happy and clean life with all her uncle's money.
1102722	Life and career. Shimura was a colleague and a friend of Yutaka Taniyama. They wrote a book (the first book treatment) on the complex multiplication of abelian varieties, an area which in collaboration they had opened up. Shimura then wrote a long series of major papers, extending the phenomena found in the theory of complex multiplication and modular forms to higher dimensions (amongst other results). This work (and other developments it provoked) provided some of the 'raw data' later incorporated into the Langlands program. It equally brought out the concept, in general, of "Shimura variety"; which is the higher-dimensional equivalent of modular curve. Even to define in general a Shimura variety is quite a formidable task: they bear, roughly speaking, the same relation to general Hodge structures as modular curves do to elliptic curves. Shimura himself has described his approach as 'phenomenological': his interest is in finding new types of interesting behaviour in the theory of automorphic forms. He also argues for a 'romantic' approach, something he finds lacking in the younger generation of mathematician. The central 'Shimura variety' concept has been tamed (by application of Lie group and algebraic group theory, and the extraction of the concept 'parametrises interesting family of Hodge structures' by reference to the algebraic geometry theory of 'motives', which is still largely conjectural). In that sense his work is now "mainstream-for-Princeton"; but this assimilation (through David Mumford, Pierre Deligne and others) hardly includes all of the content. He is known to a wider public through the important modularity theorem (previously known as the Taniyama-Shimura conjecture before being proven in the 1990s); Kenneth Ribet has shown that the famous Fermat's last theorem follows from a special case of this theorem. Shimura dryly commented that his first reaction on hearing of Wiles's proof of the semistable case of the theorem was 'I told you so'. Among many honors and awards, Shimura received the Cole Prize for number theory in 1976 and the Steele Prize for lifetime achievement in 1996, both from the American Mathematical Society. His "Collected Works" have been published, in five volumes. His hobbies are shogi problems of extreme length and collecting Imari porcelain. The Story of Imari: The Symbols and Mysteries of Antique Japanese Porcelain is a non-fiction work by Shimura published by Ten Speed Press in 2008.
1058594	Monica Bellucci (, born 30 September 1964) is an Italian actress and fashion model. Early life. Bellucci was born in Città di Castello, Umbria, Italy as the only child of Brunella Briganti and Pasquale Bellucci, and she grew up in San Giustino. Career. Modeling. Monica Bellucci began modelling at age 13 by posing for a local photo enthusiast. In 1988, Bellucci moved to one of Europe's fashion centres, Milan, where she signed with Elite Model Management. By 1989, she was becoming prominent as a fashion model in Paris and across the Atlantic, in New York City. She posed for Dolce & Gabbana and French "Elle", among others. In that year, Bellucci made the transition to acting and began taking acting classes. The February 2001 Esquire's feature on Desire featured Bellucci on the cover and in an article on the five senses. In 2003, she was featured in "Maxim". "Men's Health" also named her one of the "100 Hottest Women of All-Time", ranking her at No. 21. AskMen named her the number one most desirable woman in 2002. Bellucci's modelling career is managed by Elite+ in New York City. She is considered an Italian sex symbol. From 2006 to 2010 she was the face of a range of Dior products. Bellucci is signed to D'management group in Milan and also to Storm Model Management in London. In 2004, while pregnant with her daughter Deva, Bellucci posed nude for the Italian "Vanity Fair" Magazine in protest against Italian laws, that prevent the use of donor sperm. She posed pregnant and semi-nude again for the magazine's April 2010 issue. In 2012 she became the new face of Dolce & Gabbana. Acting. Bellucci's film career began in the early 1990s. She played some minor roles in "La Riffa" (1991) and "Bram Stoker's Dracula" (1992). In 1996 she was nominated for a César Award for best supporting actress for her portrayal of Lisa in "The Apartment" and strengthened her position as an actress. She became known and popular with worldwide audiences, following her roles in "Malèna" (2000), "Brotherhood of the Wolf", ""Under Suspicion"", and "Irréversible" (2002). She has since played in many films from Europe and Hollywood like "Tears of the Sun" (2003), "The Matrix Reloaded" (2003), "The Passion of the Christ" (2004), "The Brothers Grimm" (2005), "Le Deuxième souffle" (2007), "Don't Look Back" (2009), and "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" (2010). She was supposed to be seen portraying Indian politician Sonia Gandhi in the biopic "Sonia", originally planned for release in 2007, but it has been shelved. Bellucci dubbed her own voice for the French and Italian releases of the film "Shoot 'Em Up" (2007). She also voiced Kaileena in the video game "", and the French voice of Cappy for the French version of the 2005 animated film "Robots". Empire magazine selected her as twenty-first on their list of "The Sexiest 25 Characters in Cinema - The Women" for her role of "Persephone" in the Matrix series. Personal life. Bellucci met French actor Vincent Cassel on the set of their 1996 film "The Apartment". They married in 1999, and have two daughters, Deva (born 2004) and Léonie (born 2010). Bellucci and Cassel announced their separation in August 2013. In the documentary movie "The Big Question", about the film "The Passion of the Christ", she stated: "I am an agnostic, even though I respect and am interested in all religions. If there's something I believe in, it's a mysterious energy; the one that fills the oceans during tides, the one that unites nature and beings." In September 2012 at a Toronto International Film Festival press conference for the Iranian movie "Rhino Season", Bellucci stated that she can speak four languages: Italian, French, English and (some) Persian.
1061283	The Deer Hunter is a 1978 American war drama film co-written and directed by Michael Cimino about a trio of Russian American steelworkers and their service in the Vietnam War. The film stars Robert De Niro, Christopher Walken, John Savage, John Cazale, Meryl Streep, and George Dzundza. The story takes place in Clairton, a small working class town on the Monongahela River south of Pittsburgh and then in Vietnam, somewhere in the woodland and in Saigon, during the Vietnam War. The film was based in part on an unproduced screenplay called "The Man Who Came to Play" by Louis Garfinkle and Quinn K. Redeker about Las Vegas and Russian Roulette. Producer Michael Deeley, who bought the script, hired writer/director Michael Cimino who, with Deric Washburn, rewrote the script, taking the Russian Roulette element and placing it in the Vietnam War. The film went over-budget and over-schedule and ended up costing $15 million. The scenes of Russian roulette were highly controversial on release.
774501	C.R.A.Z.Y. is a 2005 French-language Canadian film from Quebec. The film was directed and co-written (with François Boulay) by Jean-Marc Vallée. It tells the story of Zac, a young gay man dealing with homophobia while growing up with four brothers and a conservative father in 1960s and 1970s Quebec. Plot. Zac was born on Christmas 1960. At his request, his mother, Laurianne, bought him a baby carriage at age 6, but his father, Gervais, made her return it, telling her it would "turn him into a fairy." Zac brags about Gervais to his classmates, adding "For a few precious years, I was his favorite." He describes his three older brothers as “morons” and Raymond as his “sworn enemy”. When the family's fifth son, Yvan, is born, Laurianne lets Zac push Yvan's stroller around the block. On Christmas 1967, Gervais comes home to find Zac wearing his mother's clothes and jewelry and talking to baby Yvan as his mother. Gervais finds his favorite Patsy Cline record, an imported collector's edition featuring the song “Crazy”, smashed into pieces; Zac confesses it was an accident. Gervais confides in his wife that Zac has "changed" and "dresses like a girl”. Laurianne says he is “gentle”. Overhearing them, Zac prays not to be "soft". Laurianne takes him to see "the Tupperware lady," who convinces Laurianne of Zac’s gift for healing people. In 1975 Zac, his cousin Brigitte, and her boyfriend Paul smoke a joint together, and a "shotgun" sparks Zac’s sexual attraction to Paul. Later, Michelle, Zac's friend, tries to kiss him, but Zac urges her to stop before she ruins their friendship. Disappointed to learn Brigitte has a new Italian boyfriend, still haunted by the memory of Paul, and hoping to cure his asthma, Zac deliberately runs a red light on his motorcycle. He is struck by a car and hospitalized. Zac later learns Brigitte is back with Paul. Toto, one of Zac's classmates, makes a sexual advance toward Zac and begins to follow him. Zac begins a sexual relationship with Michelle, but one day while the two are in the park, he notices Toto watching and later beats up Toto at school. Zac's relationship with Michelle causes his father to ease off. However, Gervais sees Zac and Toto stepping out of his car as Zac adjusts his crotch. Gervais angrily confronts him, saying what he did was wrong. Gervais tells Laurianne that homosexuality is learned and unnatural and determines to strip Zac of it through therapy. Zac tells the therapist that he and Toto masturbated together in the car but did not touch each other. The therapist says that Zac intentionally, albeit subconsciously, did it so his father would catch him and accept Zac's homosexuality. At Christmas dinner in 1980, Zac and Michelle's relationship has become closer and more physical. Christian announces his engagement. Raymond moves back in with his parents, constantly borrowing money, not returning it, and lying to his parents about staying clean. Outside Christian's wedding reception, Zac and Paul are viewed by a passer-by who mistakenly believes they are kissing and informs another guest. Gervais overhears, and confronts Zac, and Zac confesses that he and Paul were giving each other shotguns. Gervais does not believe him. Zac yells, “Yeah, something happened, but not with him! You know with who. Nothing happened earlier, but I would've fucking loved it if something had!" A sobbing, eavesdropping Michelle runs out of hiding. Zac flies to Jerusalem. Disgusted with himself after a gay sexual escapade, he walks into the desert and collapses in exhaustion. At the same time in Quebec, his mother awakens, splashing water on her face while Zac lies in the desert. A Bedouin, who has found Zac, is dripping water on Zac's face and takes Zac into his care. Zac returns home to find Raymond has been hospitalized after a heroin overdose. Zac makes amends with Michelle. Raymond dies. After the funeral, "Crazy" plays as the brothers say goodbye to their parents, each seeming surprised to receive a hug from Gervais, Zac’s especially emotional. Gervais admits partial blame for Raymond and Zac's troubles but also admits an inability to accept Zac's homosexuality. At the end of the movie, Zac narrates, "I don't know if it was Raymond's passing, or if time heals all wounds, but my father had become my father once more. Although, it took him 10 years to allow me into his home with a lover, and we've never mentioned our differences since nor Patsy Cline.” Themes. Zachary Beaulieu (Marc-André Grondin) grows up in Québec of the 1960s and 1970s. The second youngest son of a father with "more than normal-level male hormones" and raised among four brothers, Zac struggles to define his own identity and deal with the conflict between his emerging sexuality and his intense desire to please his strict, temperamental father. Music. Period music is an important element of the film, and a considerable portion of the film's budget was spent acquiring rights for songs by Patsy Cline, Pink Floyd, Rolling Stones as well as David Bowie's "Space Oddity" and many others. The Charles Aznavour song "Emmenez-moi" is repeated over and over in the film, often sung by the father. He also sings another Aznavour song - "Hier Encore", as part of Zac's 20th birthday celebrations. The title derives from the first letter in the names of the five brothers: Christian, Raymond, Antoine, Zachary and Yvan, and also refers to their father's abiding love of Patsy Cline's song "Crazy", which itself is used as a recurring motif in the film. Reception. "C.R.A.Z.Y." was very well received by critics with a 100% rating (17 reviews) on Rotten Tomatoes.
1100410	Ernst Friedrich Ferdinand Zermelo (; 1871–1953) was a German logician and mathematician, whose work has major implications for the foundations of mathematics. He is known for his role in developing Zermelo–Fraenkel axiomatic set theory and his proof of the well-ordering theorem. Life. He graduated from Berlin's "Luisenstädtisches Gymnasium" in 1889. He then studied mathematics, physics and philosophy at the universities of Berlin, Halle and Freiburg. He finished his doctorate in 1894 at the University of Berlin, awarded for a dissertation on the calculus of variations ("Untersuchungen zur Variationsrechnung"). Zermelo remained at the University of Berlin, where he was appointed assistant to Planck, under whose guidance he began to study hydrodynamics. In 1897, Zermelo went to Göttingen, at that time the leading centre for mathematical research in the world, where he completed his habilitation thesis in 1899. In 1910, Zermelo left Göttingen upon being appointed to the chair of mathematics at Zurich University, which he resigned in 1916. He was appointed to an honorary chair at Freiburg im Breisgau in 1926, which he resigned in 1935 because he disapproved of Hitler's regime. At the end of World War II and at his request, Zermelo was reinstated to his honorary position in Freiburg. Research in set theory. In 1900, in the Paris conference of the International Congress of Mathematicians, David Hilbert challenged the mathematical community with his famous Hilbert's problems, a list of 23 unsolved fundamental questions which mathematicians should attack during the coming century. The first of these, a problem of set theory, was the continuum hypothesis introduced by Cantor in 1878, and in the course of its statement Hilbert mentioned also the need to prove the well-ordering theorem. Zermelo began to work on the problems of set theory under Hilbert's influence and in 1902 published his first work concerning the addition of transfinite cardinals. By that time he had also discovered the so-called Russell paradox. In 1904, he succeeded in taking the first step suggested by Hilbert towards the continuum hypothesis when he proved the well-ordering theorem ("every set can be well ordered"). This result brought fame to Zermelo, who was appointed Professor in Göttingen, in 1905. His proof of the well-ordering theorem, based on the powerset axiom and the axiom of choice, was not accepted by all mathematicians, mostly because the axiom of choice was a paradigm of non-constructive mathematics. In 1908, Zermelo succeeded in producing an improved proof making use of Dedekind's notion of the "chain" of a set, which became more widely-accepted; this was mainly because that same year he also offered an axiomatization of set theory. Zermelo began to axiomatize set theory in 1905; in 1908, he published his results despite his failure to prove the consistency of his axiomatic system. See the article on Zermelo set theory for an outline of this paper, together with the original axioms, with the original numbering. In 1922, Adolf Fraenkel and Thoralf Skolem independently improved Zermelo's axiom system. The resulting 10 axiom system, now called Zermelo-Fraenkel axioms (ZF), is now the most commonly used system for axiomatic set theory. Zermelo's navigation problem. Proposed in 1931, the Zermelo's navigation problem is a classic optimal control problem. The problems deals with a boat navigating on a body of water, originating from a point O to a destination point D. The boat is capable of a certain maximum speed, and we want to derive the best possible control to reach D in the least possible time. Without considering external forces such as current and wind, the optimal control is to follow a straight line segment from O to D. With consideration of current and wind, the shortest path from O to D is in fact, not the optimal solution. Bibliography. Primary literature in English translation:
1033711	Talulah Jane Riley-Milburn (born 26 September 1985) is an English actress whose films include "Pride and Prejudice", "St Trinian's", "The Boat That Rocked" and "". Riley was featured on the March 2010 cover of "Esquire". Acting career. Television. Riley's television credits include episodes of "Poirot" (2003), "Marple" (2006), and "Doctor Who" (2008's "Silence in the Library" and "Forest of the Dead"). She also played the role of Lila, a young, lovestruck writer, in the short-lived E4 series, "Nearly Famous" (2007). Theatre. Riley made her stage debut with Kevin Spacey in "The Philadelphia Story" at the Old Vic in 2005. Her performance in a 2006 revival of Tennessee Williams' "Summer and Smoke" was described as "delightful". Film. In 2010, Riley appeared as a blonde, actually a disguise, in "Inception", with Leonardo DiCaprio, written and directed by Christopher Nolan. Also in 2010, "The Summer House" was released, which starred Riley in the lead role with Robert Pattinson supporting. By the end of the first day of release, it was the number one film on iTunes worldwide and dominated that position for several days. According to their official website, she was recently (2011) cast in the film Quentin Lee's White Frog. Personal life. Talulah Riley-Milburn was born in Hertfordshire, the only child of Una Riley, founder of a security systems company and a PR company, and Doug Milburn, formerly head of the National Crime Squad. Her father now works as a screen writer and has written episodes of "Silent Witness", "Prime Suspect" and "The Bill." She attended Cheltenham Ladies College, Berkhamsted Collegiate School and Haberdashers' Aske's School for Girls. While acting in London, Riley studied mathematics, physics and economics at the Open University. In 2010 Riley married billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk, CEO of SpaceX and Tesla Motors at Dornoch Cathedral in Scotland. In January 2012, it was reported that the couple was seeking a divorce. She settled for $4.2 million out of Elon Musk's reported $2 billion net worth at the time.
1063340	Ira Dean Jagger (November 7, 1903 – February 5, 1991) was a film actor who received an Academy Award for his role in Henry King's "Twelve O'Clock High" (1949). Career. Born in Columbus Grove, Ohio, Jagger made his film debut in "The Woman from Hell" (1929) with Mary Astor. He became a successful character actor, without becoming a major star, and appeared in almost 100 films in a career that lasted until shortly before his death. Jagger made his breakthrough to major roles in film with his portrayal of Brigham Young in "Brigham Young" (1940). According to George D. Pyper, a technical consultant on the film who had personally known Brigham Young, said that Jagger not only resembled Young, he also spoke like him and had many of his mannerisms. Thirty-two years later, he became a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.
584258	Yuvan Yuvathi is a 2011 Indian Tamil romantic film, written and directed by Kumaravelan that stars Bharath and Rima Kallingal. The film released on 26 August 2011, receiving mixed to negative reviews. The film was dubbed in Telugu under the title "Dear". Plot. Kathirvel Murugan (Bharath) is a software engineer in Chennai. He shares his room with friend Sakkarai (Santhanam). Kathir hails from Usilampatti but wants to project him as city-bred and his ambition is to settle in USA. Kathir's father Sevaka Pandian (Sampathraj) is against his son's attitude. An influential local chieftain, he is against inter-caste marriage and love. Kathir meets Nisha (Rima Kaleengal), who too wants to go abroad. The later loses her passport and Kathir helps her find it. Slowly Kathir falls for her. Meanwhile, Sevaka Pandian arranges for his son's wedding with a High Court judge's daughter, Thangameena (Anuja Iyer). In the meantime, Kathir and Nisha get their visa and get ready to leave together for USA. The former thinks that he has escaped from his marriage and when he wants to propose to Nisha, he gets a rude shock. She informs him that she is going to USA for her marriage. In the meantime Kathir's father comes to know about their relationship and kidnaps her. Afterwards Kathir also comes to know about it and saves Nisha but Nisha's marriage gets stopped. Again after 10 months they both meet in the same country again Kathir's doesn't want to see her but his mind changes and tries to make Nisha love Kathir. At last they both fall in love with each other. Now, they return to their hometown for their marriage. Initially Kathir's father doesn't allow. Later Kathir convinces them and they both marry each other making it a very happy ending. Critical reception. Rohit Ramachandran of nowrunning.com gave it 1/5 stars stating that "Yuvan Yuvathi feels like being stuffed with stale food. You're likely to regurgitate". Malathi Rangarajan from thehindu.com stated, "A predictable yet enjoyable finish to a love story that sparkles with the energy of youth!". Soundtrack. The soundtrack, composed by Vijay Antony, released on 1 July 2011. The album features 7 tracks with lyrics by Annamalai, Kalai Kumar and Priyan.
1064107	Napoleon Dynamite is a 2004 comedy-drama film co-written and directed by Jared Hess and Jerusha Hess, starring Jon Heder as the title character. Heder was paid just $1,000 to play Napoleon Dynamite, and only after the film's success re-negotiated and received a cut of its profits. The film was Jared Hess's first full-length feature and is partially adapted from his earlier short film, "Peluca". "Napoleon Dynamite" was acquired at the Sundance Film Festival by Fox Searchlight Pictures and Paramount Pictures, in association with MTV Films. It was filmed in and near Franklin County, Idaho in the summer of 2003. It debuted at the Sundance Film Festival in January 2004. In June 2004, it was given a limited release. Its wide release followed in August. The film's total worldwide gross revenue was $46,140,956. The film has since received critical acclaim and a cult following. Plot. Napoleon Dynamite is a high school student from Preston, Idaho who lives with his grandmother, his older brother Kip, and their pet llama, Tina. Kip, 32, is currently unemployed and boasts of spending hours in Internet chat rooms with "babes" and training to be a cage fighter; their grandmother leads a secret life involving mysterious boyfriends and quad-biking in the desert. Napoleon daydreams his way through school, doodling ligers and fantasy creatures, while reluctantly dealing with the assorted bullies who frequently torment him. Napoleon frequently makes up fantastic stories about himself and assumes a sullen and aloof attitude. Napoleon's grandmother breaks her coccyx in a quad-bike accident and asks their Uncle Rico to look after them while she recovers. Rico, a middle-aged former athlete who lives in a campervan, uses the opportunity to team up with Kip in a get-rich-quick scheme to sell numerous items door-to-door. Kip wants money to visit his Internet girlfriend LaFawnduh, while Rico believes riches will help him get over his failed dreams of NFL stardom and the loss of his girlfriend. Napoleon becomes friends with two students at his school: Deb, a shy girl who runs various small businesses to raise money for college; and Pedro, a transfer student from Ciudad Juárez. A friendship soon develops between the three outcasts. Inspired by a poster at the school dance, Pedro decides to run for class president, pitting him against Summer Wheatley, a popular yet snobby girl at the school. Rico and Kip's scheme causes friction with Napoleon when Rico begins spreading embarrassing rumors about Napoleon in order to generate sympathy in his customers. Tensions finally come to a head after Rico tries to sell Deb a breast-enhancement product, claiming it was Napoleon's suggestion, which causes her to break off their friendship. Rico is ultimately beaten up by the town's martial arts instructor after the instructor mistakenly believes that Rico is making advances on his wife. Kip, meanwhile, raises the money to pay for LaFawnduh to visit him from Detroit. She gives Kip a makeover, outfitting him in hip hop regalia, and the two leave together to return to Michigan. On the day of the class president elections, Pedro gives an unimpressive speech before the student body. As the two were unaware that Pedro needed to have a skit prepared, Napoleon gives the sound engineer a tape he received from LaFawnduh, and performs an elaborate dance routine to "Canned Heat" by Jamiroquai. The routine receives a standing ovation from everyone except for Summer and her boyfriend. The film concludes with Pedro becoming the class president, Rico reuniting with his estranged girlfriend, Grandma returning from the hospital, and Napoleon and Deb making up and playing tetherball. In a post-credits scene, Kip and LaFawnduh are married in an outdoor ceremony in Preston. Napoleon, absent for the vows, arrives riding a horse, claiming that it is a "wild honeymoon stallion" that he has tamed himself. After Deb photographs Napoleon on the horse, Kip and LaFawnduh ride into the sunset. Background. Setting. Preston is a real town in Southeastern Idaho, located near the Utah border. Since the release of "Napoleon Dynamite", it has become a tourist attraction of sorts, with the high school being a main feature. Preston held a Napoleon Dynamite Festival every summer from 2004 through 2008 to celebrate the filming of "Napoleon Dynamite" in Preston and nearby towns. "Napoleon Dynamite" was shot entirely in the town of Preston, Idaho. In April 2005, the Idaho Legislature approved a resolution commending the filmmakers for producing "Napoleon Dynamite", specifically enumerating the benefits the movie has brought to Idaho, as well as for showcasing various aspects of Idaho's culture and economy. Opening sequence. The film was originally made without opening titles; audiences at test screenings were confused about when the film was set. Eight months after the film was completed, the title sequence was filmed in the cinematographer's basement. Aaron Ruell, who played Kip, suggested the idea of the title sequence. The sequence shows a pair of hands placing and removing several objects on a table. Objects like plates of food had the credits written in condiments, while other objects like a Lemonheads box or a tube of ChapStick had the credits printed on them. Origin of the name "Napoleon Dynamite". Upon the film's release, it was noted that the name "Napoleon Dynamite" had originally been used by musician Elvis Costello, most visibly on his 1986 album "Blood & Chocolate", although he had used the pseudonym on a single B-side as early as 1982. Filmmaker Jared Hess claims that he was not aware of Costello's use of the name until two days before the end of shooting, when he was informed by a teenage extra. He later said, "Had I known that name was used by anybody else prior to shooting the whole film, it definitely would have been changed ... I listen to hip-hop, dude. It's a pretty embarrassing coincidence." Hess claims that "Napoleon Dynamite" was the name of a man he met around 2000 on the streets of Cicero, Illinois, while doing missionary work for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Costello believes that Hess got the name from him, whether directly or indirectly. Costello said, "The guy just denies completely that I made the name up... but I invented it. Maybe somebody told him the name and he truly feels that he came about it by chance. But it's two words that you're never going to hear together." Costello has taken no legal action against the film. Reception. The film received generally positive reviews from critics; Rotten Tomatoes gives the film a 71% "fresh" approval rating based on 163 reviews with an average score of 6.3 out of 10. "Rolling Stone" magazine complimented the film, saying "Hess and his terrific cast — Heder is geek perfection — make their own kind of deadpan hilarity. You'll laugh till it hurts. Sweet." The "Christian Science Monitor" called the film "a refreshing new take on the overused teen-comedy genre" and said that the film "may not make you laugh out loud - it's too sly and subtle for that - but it will have you smiling every minute, and often grinning widely at its weirded-out charm." Michael Atkinson of "The Village Voice" condemned the film as "a movie, that despite all indications to the contrary, is one that absolutely no one likes." In a mixed review, "The New York Times" praised Heder's performance and the "film's most interesting quality, which is its stubborn, confident, altogether weird individuality," while criticizing the film's resolution that comes "too easily." Prominent film critic Roger Ebert gave the film one-and-a-half stars, noting that he felt that "the movie makes no attempt to make likable" and that it contained "a kind of studied stupidity that sometimes passes as humor". At the time, "Entertainment Weekly" gave the film a C-. "Entertainment Weekly" later ranked Napoleon #88 on its 2010 list of The 100 Greatest Characters of the Last 20 Years, saying "A high school misfit found a sweet spot, tapping into our inner dork." The film was on several year-end lists. "Rolling Stone"'s placed it at number 22 of the 25 Top DVDs of 2004. The term "The Napoleon Dynamite Problem" has been used to describe the phenomenon where "quirky" films such as "Napoleon Dynamite", "Lost in Translation", and "I Heart Huckabees" prove difficult for researchers to create algorithms that are able to predict whether or not a particular viewer will like the film based on their ratings of previously viewed films. Despite some mixed reviews and a very limited initial release, "Napoleon Dynamite" was a commercial success. It was filmed on an estimated budget of a mere $400,000, and less than a year after its release, it had grossed $44,940,956. It also spawned a slew of merchandise, from refrigerator magnets to T-shirts to Halloween costumes. Probably the biggest boost was obtained from the "Vote for Pedro" t-shirts that coincided with the popularity of pitcher Pedro Martinez in 2004. Animated series. In April 2010, Fox announced that an animated series was in development. It was also revealed that the entire original cast will return to reprise their roles. This includes Jon Heder as Napoleon, Efren Ramirez as Pedro, Aaron Ruell as Kip, and Jon Gries as Uncle Rico. The series debuted on Sunday, January 15, 2012. Director Jared Hess, his co-screenwriter wife Jerusha, and Mike Scully are the producers of the show, in association with 20th Century Fox Television. On May 14, 2012, It was announced that Fox had canceled the series. Lawsuit. On August 30, 2011, Napoleon Pictures filed a lawsuit against Fox Searchlight for $10 million for underreporting royalties and taking improper revenue deductions. In its term sheet, Fox agreed to pay 31.66 percent of net profits on home video. The lawsuit says that a 2008 audit revealed that Fox was only paying net royalties on home videos at a 9.66 percent rate, and there were underreported royalties and improper deductions. Napoleon Pictures also alleges that Fox has breached the agreement in multiple other respects, including underreporting pay television license fees, failing to report electronic sell-through revenue, charging residuals on home video sales, as well as overcharging residuals on home video sales, deducting a number of costs and charges Fox has no right to deduct and/or for which there is no supporting documentation. In May 2012, Fox tried to defeat the lawsuit on summary judgment, but it was rejected and the trial officially began on June 19, 2012. On November 28, 2012, a 74 page decision sided with Fox on 9 of the 11 issues. Napoleon Pictures will be entitled $150,000 based on accounting irregularities.
723884	Kaitlin Ann Riley (born July 17, 1986) is an American actress. Riley is best known for her role in "From Justin to Kelly" and the 2003 crime-drama film "Monster". Personal life. Riley is one of seven children. Riley's younger sister, Bailee Madison, is also an actress. She has two sisters and four brothers. In 2010, Riley began dating actor Jordi Vilasuso. On May 14, 2012, Riley and Vilasuso announced their engagement. On May 21, 2012, Riley's sister, Bailee Madison, announced on "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno" that Riley was pregnant with the couple's first child. Riley and Vilasuso were married on August 25, 2012 in Islamorada, Florida. The couple's first daughter, Riley Grace Vilasuso, was born on November 26, 2012.
581786	Socha Na Tha (, meaning "It was never imagined") is a Hindi language film, released on 4 March 2005. It debuts Abhay Deol and stars Ayesha Takia & Apoorva Jha. It marks the directorial debut of Imtiaz Ali. Abhay Deol's uncle Dharmendra produced it. Summary. Viren (Abhay Deol) and Aditi (Ayesha Takia) are introduced by their families, but Viren refuses to marry because he wants to marry his girlfriend of three years, Karen (Apoorva Jha). Viren's refusal creates tension between the families, as Aditi's aunt feels insulted. However Viren and Aditi meet by coincidence, bond quickly and Viren invites Aditi to accompany him to Goa – he wants her to find out if his girlfriend Karen loves him or not. In Goa, the two of them grow closer and Karen notices this. Viren realises he has fallen in love with Aditi – however preparations for his own wedding with Karen are already realised; things get more complicated as he fought very hard to get engaged to Karen because she's a Christian and Viren a Hindu. Despite this, he wants to marry Aditi who has fallen in love with him, too. However, Aditi rejects him out of respect for her aunt and uncle who have engaged her to Mahesh, Aditi's on-and-off boyfriend. After several conversations, Viren finally forgets Aditi, tells the truth to Karen and gets on with his life, feeling miserable. On the day of Aditi's engagement, Karen meets her and asks her why is she not marrying Viren, now that Viren and Karen have broken up. Karen also tells her that Viren is miserable. Her cousin overhears this conversation and convinces Aditi to elope with Viren, which she does. They apologise to their families and are accepted. Cast. Apoorva Jha's voice was dubbed by Aldina Zobia, one the movie's assistant directors. Music. Songs in order of appearance in the movie.
1064468	Grace Zabriskie (born May 17, 1941) is an American actress. She has appeared in many popular American films, but she is best known for her work in television. She is perhaps best known for her roles in the television series "Twin Peaks", "Seinfeld" and "Big Love". Early life. Zabriskie was born in New Orleans, Louisiana. Zabriskie has said that her family was visited by Tennessee Williams, Gore Vidal and Truman Capote during her childhood. Career. After making her major film debut in 1979's "Norma Rae", Zabriskie went on to appear in dozens of other works, including the 1981 Roger Corman horror film "Galaxy of Terror", 1981 miniseries adaptation of John Steinbeck's "East of Eden", as the nanny in 1980's "The Private Eyes", as Debra Winger's mother in "An Officer and a Gentleman"; as Paul Le Mat's mother in 1984's "The Burning Bed" starring Farrah Fawcett; in 1989's "Drugstore Cowboy"; as the ill-fated orphanage owner Grace Poole in "Child's Play 2"; the 1991 film adaptation "Fried Green Tomatoes"; and in Philip Ridley's 1995 film "The Passion of Darkly Noon". However, Zabriskie is perhaps most familiar for her television work. After appearing in a recurring role on the soap opera "Santa Barbara", she played a major role on the David Lynch series "Twin Peaks" and its spin-off film, "" as Sarah Palmer, the eerily psychic mother of the doomed Laura Palmer. Zabriskie also appeared in Lynch's "Wild at Heart"—notably as the twin sister of a character played by Isabella Rossellini, an actress eleven years her junior. She was also chosen by David Lynch to appear as a sinister Polish neighbour in "Inland Empire" in 2006. Zabriskie may best be remembered as Mrs. Ross, a recurring character on the sitcom "Seinfeld". She played the mother of another doomed daughter, Susan Ross—George Costanza's fiancee—who died after licking cheap envelope adhesive when mailing out her wedding invitations. Zabriskie's character's husband on the series, who also had a recurring role, was played by her former "Twin Peaks" co-star, Warren Frost. She also made a brief but memorable appearance in the episode ""S'ain't Valentine's"" on the CBS sitcom "The King of Queens", as the emotionally disturbed and alcoholic mother of Spence Olchin (played by Patton Oswalt). While the character Veronica Olchin would reappear throughout the series, Zabriskie would not portray her again, having been replaced by Anne Meara. She has at times worked in radio, collaborating with radio dramatist/monologist Joe Frank several times. In one episode of Frank's show, "Home, with Grace Zabriskie", she talks at length about her childhood in New Orleans, with a focus on her father. Zabriskie recently appeared in the American remake "The Grudge", in which she played a senile elderly woman sensitive to the paranormal occurrences in her home. She also stars as Lois Henrickson in "Big Love", an HBO drama series that seriously explores the issue of polygamy. Zabriskie also appeared in several episodes of Aaron Spelling's series "Charmed" as The Crone.
1036035	Julian Alistair Rhind-Tutt (born 20 July 1968) is an English actor. He is best known for his starring role as Dr "Mac" Macartney in the comedy television series "Green Wing", the second series of which finished on Channel 4 in May 2006. He has also appeared in various other television shows and films. Early life. Rhind-Tutt was born in West Drayton, London, the youngest of five. There was a ten year gap between him and his two brothers and two sisters. He attended the John Lyon School in Harrow, Middlesex. While there he acted in school productions, eventually taking the lead in a school production of "Hamlet" that played at the Edinburgh Festival fringe in the mid 1980s. After reading English and Theatre Studies at the University of Warwick, he attended the Central School of Speech and Drama in London where he won the 1992 Carleton Hobbs Award from BBC Radio Drama. The name Rhind-Tutt came about in 1866 when Jane Rhind married Thomas Tutt. Career. Rhind-Tutt landed his first big acting break playing the Duke of York in "The Madness of King George" (1994). This was followed by a succession of smaller television and film roles. He then landed a major role in William Boyd's First World War drama "The Trench" (1999) alongside Paul Nicholls and Daniel Craig. He became better known following his starring role in "Green Wing" and he has had a major role in cult American show "Keen Eddie" as Inspector Monty Pippin. He also appeared as a duellist in the video for Roots Manuva's single "Too Cold". He has appeared in over 50 radio productions. In 2008, he appeared narrating a short film for the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
1015973	Ashes of Time ( "Dōng xié xi dú") is a 1994 Hong Kong film written and directed by Wong Kar-wai, and loosely based on four characters from Jin Yong's novel "The Legend of the Condor Heroes". Wong completely eschews any plot adaptation from Cha's novel, using only the names to create his own vision of an arguably unrelated film. During the film's long-delayed production, Wong produced a parody of the same novel with the same cast titled "The Eagle Shooting Heroes". Although it received limited box office success, the parallels "Ashes of Time" draws between modern ideas of dystopia imposed on a "wuxia" film has led many critics to cite it as one of Wong Kar-wai's most underappreciated works. In 2008, Wong re-edited and re-released the film under the title "Ashes of Time Redux" that, despite the digital restoration, presents a shorter cut. The redux version is at the moment the only good-quality edition available on the market (theatres and home video). Plot. In this film, set in ancient times in China, Leslie Cheung plays an agent, Ouyang Feng, hiring famous bounty-hunters. His character is portrayed as a fallen swordsman driven by greed and heartless to both friend and foe. He was perpetually being spiteful of love as his own love history was not nearly so beautiful. His bounty-hunters came and went as was narrated by Ouyang Feng himself as based on the Tung Shu predictions. In essence, he was a loner with little love, but the bounty hunters that worked for Ouyang Feng, like Blind Swordsman and another of his best fighters, Hong Qigong, discovered the intangible secret of true love while Ouyang retained his attitude towards his fighters and the precious lessons that they have taught. However, the thread that runs through the entire narrative has clearly the spirit of refusal in the sense that one should reject another before he gets to be rejected in the future. To illustrate, nearly every character in this story has resorted to being selfish and malignant in order to prevent being rejected by others, be it in love or in comradeship as their individual hardships have moulded their attitude turning them into heartless and cold individuals in order to survive in the uncompromising desert where the story is set. It has many moral implications but is less evident since the main character is Ouyang himself and most of the narration would unquestionably be centred on him. Soundtrack. The music was composed by Frankie Chan and Roel A. García, and produced by Rock Records in Hong Kong and Taiwan. It was released in 1994. Reception. Critical. When the film opened in Hong Kong it received mixed reviews. Critics found it so elliptical that it was almost impossible to make out any semblance of a plot, something very rare in a wuxia film. In "The New York Times", Lawrence Van Gelder also gave "Ashes of Time" a mixed review: Note that this review contains a number of errors as regards the plot of the movie. Box office. "Ashes of Time" grossed HK$9,023,583 during its Hong Kong run.
1073487	Kim Director (born November 13, 1977) is an American actress best known for her roles as Kim Diamond in "" and Stevie in "Inside Man". Career. Director's first film role was in 1998's "He Got Game", directed by Spike Lee. This was followed by "Summer of Sam" in 1999 and "Bamboozled" in 2000, both films also directed by Lee. Kim's breakout performance came in the film "" as the hard-core Goth girl, Kim Diamond. Kim went on to act in the independent films "Unforeseen", "Tony 'n' Tina's Wedding", "Charlie's Party", "Live Free or Die", "Life is Short" and "A Crime" with Harvey Keitel. Kim reunited with Spike Lee for the film "She Hate Me" in 2004. Kim is best known for playing Stevie the bank robber in Spike Lee's biggest film, "Inside Man". Kim Director has also appeared in guest roles on television shows "Sex and the City", "Law & Order", ', ', "Shark", "Life", "Cold Case", "Unforgettable", Orange is the New Black and had a recurring role as the Cavewoman on the series "Cavemen". Kim Director is a trained stage actress, as well. Kim appeared in the Stephen Sondheim and George Furth musical "Company" at The Kennedy Center. She also appeared in the play "Guinea Pig Solo" by Brett C. Leonard at The Public Theater with LAByrinth Theater Company (Philip Seymour Hoffman and John Ortiz, artistic directors). She also worked at The Rattlestick Playwrights Theater in New York in the play "The Wood" written by Dan Klores and directed by David Bar Katz. External links.
1163663	Debbie Reynolds (born April 1, 1932) is an American actress, singer, and dancer. Initially signed at age sixteen by Warner Bros., Reynolds' career got off to a slow start. When her contract was not renewed, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) gave her a small but significant part in the film "Three Little Words" (1950) starring Fred Astaire and Red Skelton, then signed her to a seven-year contract. In her next film, "Two Weeks with Love" (1950), she had a hit with the song "Aba Daba Honeymoon". However, it was her first leading role, in "Singin' in the Rain" (1952) with Gene Kelly and Donald O'Connor, that set her on the path to fame. By the mid-1950s, she was a major star. Other notable successes include "Tammy and the Bachelor" (1957), in which her rendering of the song "Tammy" reached number one on the music charts; a major role opposite Gregory Peck in the Cinerama episodic ensemble Western "How the West Was Won" (1962); and "The Unsinkable Molly Brown" (1964), a biographical film about the famously boisterous "Titanic" shipwreck survivor, for which she received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actress. She continues to perform successfully on stage, television and film to the present day. Reynolds's first marriage, to popular singer Eddie Fisher, produced a son, author/host producer Todd Fisher, and a daughter, actress/author Carrie Fisher, but ended in divorce in 1959 when Fisher fell in love with Reynolds's former (and later) friend Elizabeth Taylor. Reynolds's second and third marriages also ended in divorce, each time ruining her financially. She is a noted collector of film memorabilia, beginning with the landmark 1970 MGM auction. In June 2011, unable to find a suitable home for her large collection, she began auctioning it off. Early life. Reynolds was born Mary Frances Reynolds in El Paso, Texas, the second child of Maxine N. ("née" Harmon; 1913–1999) and Raymond Francis Reynolds (1903–1986), who was a carpenter for the Southern Pacific Railroad. She has Scotch-Irish and English ancestry. Reynolds was a Campfire Girl and a troop leader (a scholarship in her name is offered to high-school age Girl Scouts). Her family moved to Burbank, California, in 1939, and she was raised in a strict Nazarene faith. At age sixteen, while a student at Burbank's John Burroughs High School, Reynolds won the Miss Burbank beauty contest, a contract with Warner Bros., and acquired a new first name. Career. Reynolds regularly appeared in movie musicals during the 1950s and had several hit records during the period. Her song "Aba Daba Honeymoon" (featured in the film "Two Weeks with Love" as a duet with Carleton Carpenter) was a top-three hit in 1951. Her most high-profile film role was in "Singin' in the Rain" (1952) as Kathy Selden. In "Bundle of Joy" (1956) she appeared with her then-husband, Eddie Fisher. Her recording of the song "Tammy" (from her film "Tammy and the Bachelor" (1957)) earned her a gold record, and was the best-selling single by a female vocalist in 1957. It was number one for five weeks on the "Billboard" pop charts. In the movie (the first of the "Tammy" film series), she co-starred with Leslie Nielsen. In 1959, Reynolds recorded her first album for Dot Records, simply called "Debbie", which included her own selection of twelve standards including "S'posin'", "Moonglow", "Mean To Me", and "Time After Time". Bing Crosby paid tribute to Reynolds in the sleeve notes accompanying the album thus: Someone recently said, and with reasonable accuracy I would think, that good singers make good actors. Evidence in support of this belief is available in the recent performances of Sinatra and Martin, for instance, but I would like to put forth also the proposition that the reverse is quite true: good actors make good singers. Assuming they can carry a tune. We all know that Debbie is better than a good actress—she's VERY good, and we all know she can sing with a lilt and a listenable quality that's genuinely pleasant and agreeable. Witness "Tammy". It was small surprise to me then that when I listened to this beautiful album she has etched for Dot, I found myself captivated and enchanted. Quite obviously Debbie had spent a great deal of time selecting the songs to be included, because she's made them her own, and invested them with a sincerity that's inescapable—of contrasting moods to be sure, but the moods are there, and to me, mighty effective. And that, mes amis, is artistry. Reynolds also scored two other top-25 "Billboard" hits with "A Very Special Love" (1958) and "Am I That Easy to Forget" (1960) — a pop-music version of a country-music hit made famous by both songwriters Carl Belew (in 1959), Skeeter Davis (in 1960), and several years later by singer Engelbert Humperdinck. She has released several albums of both her vintage performances and her later recordings. During these years, she also headlined in major Las Vegas showrooms. Her starring role in "The Unsinkable Molly Brown" (1964) led to a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actress. She then portrayed Jeanine Deckers in "The Singing Nun" (1966). In what Reynolds has called the "stupidest mistake of my entire career", she made headlines in 1970 after instigating a fight with the NBC television network over cigarette advertising on her eponymous television series; NBC cancelled the show. Reynolds made her Broadway debut in 1973 in a revival of "Irene", a musical first produced 60 years before. For that production, she received a Tony nomination. She toured with Harve Presnell in "Annie Get Your Gun", then wrapped up the Broadway run of "Woman of the Year" in 1983. In the late 1980s, Reynolds repeated her role as Molly Brown in the stage version of "The Unsinkable Molly Brown", first opposite Presnell (repeating his original Broadway and movie role) and later with Ron Raines. Reynolds continues to make appearances in film and television. She played Helen Chappel Hackett's mother, Deedee Chappel, on an episode of "Wings" titled, "If It's Not One Thing, It's Your Mother", which originally aired on November 22, 1994. From 1999 to its 2006 series finale, she played Grace Adler's theatrical mother, Bobbi Adler, on the NBC sitcom "Will & Grace", which earned her an Emmy Award nomination for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy Series in 2000. She also plays a recurring role in the Disney Channel Original Movie "Halloweentown" film series as Aggie Cromwell. Reynolds made a guest appearance as a presenter at the 69th Academy Awards in 1997. Reynolds appeared in her West End show "Debbie Reynolds: Alive and Fabulous". In June 2010 she replaced Ivana Trump answering reader queries for the weekly paper "Globe. Reynolds' new tell-all autobiography, "Unsinkable" – a play-on-words of her 1964 film "The Unsinkable Molly Brown" – was published by William Morrow and Company on April 2, 2013. Awards and nominations. Reynolds won the National Board of Review Award for Best Supporting Actress for her role in "The Catered Affair" (1956). She has received various nominations for awards including: an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress for "The Unsinkable Molly Brown" (1964), a Golden Globe Award nomination for Best Actress – Television Series Musical or Comedy for "The Debbie Reynolds Show" (1970), a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actress – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy for "Mother" (1996) and an Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy Series, for her role of Bobbi Adler in the sitcom "Will & Grace" (2000). In 1996 and 1997, she received the Lifetime Achievement Award in Comedy, in the American Comedy Awards. Her foot and hand prints are preserved at the Grauman's Chinese Theatre in Hollywood, California. She also has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6654 Hollywood Boulevard for live performance and a Golden Palm Star on the Palm Springs, California, Walk of Stars dedicated to her. In November 2006, Reynolds received the "Lifetime Achievement Award" from Chapman University (Orange, California). On May 17, 2007, she was awarded an honorary degree of Doctor of Humane Letters from the University of Nevada, Reno, (Reno, Nevada) where she had contributed for many years to the film-studies program. Reynolds last CD was a Christmas Record with the late Donald O'Connor entitled "Chrissy the Christmas Mouse". It received rave reviews and was arranged by Angelo DiPippo and produced by Dr. Fillardi. Film memorabilia. Reynolds has amassed a large collection of movie memorabilia, beginning with the landmark 1970 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer auction, and displayed them, first in a museum at her Las Vegas hotel and casino during the 1990s and later in a museum close to the Kodak Theater in Los Angeles. On several occasions, she has auctioned off items from the collection. The museum was to relocate to be the centerpiece of the Belle Island Village tourist attraction in the resort city of Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, but the developer went bankrupt. The museum itself filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in June 2009. Todd Fisher, Reynolds' son, announced that his mother was "heartbroken" to have to auction off her collection. It was valued at $10.79 million in the bankruptcy filing. "The Vancouver Sun" reported that Profiles in History has been given the responsibility of conducting a series of auctions beginning in June and continuing into December 2011. Among the "more than 3500 costumes, 20,000 photographs, and thousands of movie posters, costume sketches, and props" to be sold are Charlie Chaplin's bowler hat and Marilyn Monroe's white "subway dress", whose skirt is lifted up by the breeze from a passing subway train in the film "The Seven Year Itch" (1955). On June 18, 2011, the subway dress was sold for $4.6 million, far in excess of pre-auction estimates of $1–2 million. Another Monroe dress, which she wore in "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes", fetched $1.2 million, four times the upper pre-sale expectation. Personal life. Health problems. Reynolds was hospitalized in October 2012 at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles because she had an adverse reaction to medication she was taking. She cancelled appearances and concert engagements for the next three months. Marriages. Reynolds has been married three times. Her first marriage was to singer Eddie Fisher in 1955. They are the parents of Carrie and
1101660	Arthur Cayley F.R.S. (; 16 August 1821 – 26 January 1895) was a British mathematician. He helped found the modern British school of pure mathematics. As a child, Cayley enjoyed solving complex maths problems for amusement. He entered Trinity College, Cambridge, where he excelled in Greek, French, German, and Italian, as well as mathematics. He worked as a lawyer for 14 years. He postulated the Cayley–Hamilton theorem—that every square matrix is a root of its own characteristic polynomial, and verified it for matrices of order 2 and 3. He was the first to define the concept of a group in the modern way—as a set with a binary operation satisfying certain laws. Formerly, when mathematicians spoke of "groups", they had meant permutation groups. See also Cayley's theorem. Early years. Arthur Cayley was born in Richmond, London, England, on 16 August 1821. His father, Henry Cayley, was a distant cousin of Sir George Cayley the aeronautics engineer innovator, and descended from an ancient Yorkshire family. He settled in Saint Petersburg, Russia, as a merchant. His mother was Maria Antonia Doughty, daughter of William Doughty. According to some writers she was Russian, but her father's name indicates an English origin. His brother was the linguist Charles Bagot Cayley. Arthur spent his first eight years in Saint Petersburg. In 1829 his parents were settled permanently at Blackheath, near London. Arthur was sent to a private school. He early showed great liking for, and aptitude in, numerical calculation. At age 14 he was sent to King's College School. The school's master observed indications of mathematical genius and advised the father to educate his son not for his own business, as he had intended, but to enter the University of Cambridge. Education. At the unusually early age of 17 Cayley began residence at Trinity College, Cambridge. The cause of the Analytical Society had now triumphed, and the "Cambridge Mathematical Journal" had been instituted by Gregory and Robert Leslie Ellis. To this journal, at the age of twenty, Cayley contributed three papers, on subjects which had been suggested by reading the "Mécanique analytique" of Lagrange and some of the works of Laplace. Cayley's tutor at Cambridge was George Peacock and his private coach was William Hopkins. He finished his undergraduate course by winning the place of Senior Wrangler, and the first Smith's prize. His next step was to take the M.A. degree, and win a Fellowship by competitive examination. He continued to reside at Cambridge University for four years; during which time he took some pupils, but his main work was the preparation of 28 memoirs to the " Mathematical Journal". As a lawyer. Because of the limited tenure of his fellowship it was necessary to choose a profession; like De Morgan, Cayley chose law, and at age 25 entered at Lincoln's Inn, London. He made a specialty of conveyancing. It was while he was a pupil at the bar examination that he went to Dublin to hear Hamilton's lectures on quaternions. His friend Sylvester, his senior by five years at Cambridge, was then an actuary, resident in London; they used to walk together round the courts of Lincoln's Inn, discussing the theory of invariants and covariants. During this period of his life, extending over fourteen years, Cayley produced between two and three hundred papers. As professor. At Cambridge University the ancient professorship of pure mathematics is denominated by the Lucasian, and is the chair which had been occupied by Isaac Newton. Around 1860, certain funds bequeathed by Lady Sadleir to the University, having become useless for their original purpose, were employed to establish another professorship of pure mathematics, called the Sadleirian. The duties of the new professor were defined to be ""to explain and teach the principles of pure mathematics and to apply himself to the advancement of that science."" To this chair Cayley was elected when 42 years old. He gave up a lucrative practice for a modest salary; but he never regretted the exchange, for the chair at Cambridge enabled him to end the divided allegiance between law and mathematics, and to devote his energies to the pursuit which he liked best. He at once married and settled down in Cambridge. More fortunate than Hamilton in his choice, his home life was one of great happiness. His friend and fellow investigator, Sylvester, once remarked that Cayley had been much more fortunate than himself; that they both lived as bachelors in London, but that Cayley had married and settled down to a quiet and peaceful life at Cambridge; whereas he had never married, and had been fighting the world all his days. At first the teaching duty of the Sadleirian professorship was limited to a course of lectures extending over one of the terms of the academic year; but when the University was reformed about 1886, and part of the college funds applied to the better endowment of the University professors, the lectures were extended over two terms. For many years the attendance was small, and came almost entirely from those who had finished their career of preparation for competitive examinations; after the reform the attendance numbered about fifteen. The subject lectured on was generally that of the memoir on which the professor was for the time engaged. The other duty of the chair — the advancement of mathematical science — was discharged in a handsome manner by the long series of memoirs which he published, ranging over every department of pure mathematics. But it was also discharged in a much less obtrusive way; he became the standing referee on the merits of mathematical papers to many societies both at home and abroad. In 1876 he published a "Treatise on Elliptic Functions", which was his only book. He took great interest in the movement for the University education of women. At Cambridge the women's colleges are Girton and Newnham. In the early days of Girton College he gave direct help in teaching, and for some years he was chairman of the council of Newnham College, in the progress of which he took the keenest interest to the last. In 1872 he was made an honorary fellow of Trinity College, and three years later an ordinary fellow, which meant stipend as well as honour. About this time his friends subscribed for a presentation portrait. Maxwell wrote an address to the committee of subscribers who had charge of the Cayley portrait fund. The verses refer to the subjects investigated in several of Cayley's most elaborate memoirs; such as, Chapters on the Analytical Geometry of formula_1 dimensions; On the theory of Determinants; Memoir on the theory of Matrices; Memoirs on skew surfaces, otherwise Scrolls; On the delineation of a Cubic Scroll, etc. In 1881 he received from the Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, where Sylvester was then professor of mathematics, an invitation to deliver a course of lectures. He accepted the invitation, and lectured at Baltimore during the first five months of 1882 on the subject of the "Abelian and Theta Functions". BMA. In 1883 Cayley was President of the British Association for the Advancement of Science. The meeting was held at Southport, in the north of England. As the President's address is one of the great popular events of the meeting, and brings out an audience of general culture, it is usually made as little technical as possible. took for his subject the Progress of Pure Mathematics. He is buried in the Mill Road cemetery, Cambridge. The "Collected Papers". In 1889 the Cambridge University Press requested him to prepare his mathematical papers for publication in a collected form—a request which he appreciated very much. They are printed in magnificent quarto volumes, of which seven appeared under his own editorship. While editing these volumes, he was suffering from a painful internal malady, to which he succumbed on 26 January 1895, in the 74th year of his age. When the funeral took place, a great assemblage met in Trinity Chapel, comprising members of the University, official representatives of Russia and America, and many of the most illustrious philosophers of Britain. The remainder of his papers were edited by Andrew Forsyth, his successor in the Sadleirian Chair. The Collected Mathematical papers number thirteen quarto volumes, and contain 967 papers. Cayley retained to the last his fondness for novel-reading and for travelling. He also took special pleasure in paintings and architecture, and he practiced water-color painting, which he found useful sometimes in making mathematical diagrams.
1163361	Wendie Malick (born December 13, 1950) is an American actress and former fashion model, known for her roles as Judith Tupper Stone on the HBO series "Dream On" (1990–1996), Nina Van Horn on the NBC sitcom "Just Shoot Me!" (1997–2003) and Ronee Lawrence on the NBC sitcom "Frasier" (2003–2004). Malick plays Victoria Chase on the TV Land sitcom "Hot in Cleveland". Early life. Malick was born Wendy Malick in Buffalo, New York, the daughter of Gigi, a former model, and Ken Malick, who worked in sales. Her paternal grandfather was a Coptic Christian from Egypt; her other ancestry is French, German, and English. She graduated from Williamsville South High School. In 1972, after graduating from Ohio Wesleyan University in Delaware, Ohio, Malick began fashion modelling for the Wilhelmina modeling agency. She left to work for Republican Congressman Jack Kemp. She soon left Washington, D.C., to pursue a career in stage and screen. She began working as an actress in 1982 in the film "A Little Sex". Career. In 1982, Malick auditioned unsuccessfully for the role of Diane Chambers in the NBC sitcom "Cheers" She later was cast in ABC medical drama "Trauma Center".
581937	Baazigar (English: "Gambler") is a 1993 Bollywood crime thriller film directed by Abbas-Mustan, it is a contemporary thriller about a young man who stops at nothing to get what he wants.The story of Bazzigar was own from Saraswatichandra novel. This was Shahrukh Khan's breakthrough role as the sole lead and Shilpa Shetty's debut film. "Baazigar" was also the first film where Shahrukh Khan played the role of a villain. Baazigar was also the first film which earned Shahrukh Khan his first filmfare award for best actor. The film is a remake of 1991 Hollywood film A Kiss Before Dying. Plot. When reputed businessman Vishwanath Sharma discovers that his manager Madan Chopra is embezzling money right under his nose, Sharma has him thrown in jail. After Chopra completes his jail term, he re-approaches Sharma and asks for forgiveness. Vishwanath rebukes him, but his wife Shobha takes pity on Chopra's daughters and pleads to her husband. Chopra is reappointed in the company. However, Chopra has come back to exact revenge on his former boss. Slowly, but surely, Chopra regains the confidence of Sharma. One day, when Sharma has to go for a business tour, he hands over the power of attorney to Chopra. Chopra, who has been waiting for such chance, usurps Sharma's company and becomes its de facto owner. Sharma learns of this treachery, by which time his family is ejected out of their home. More tragedy strikes the Sharma household when his newborn daughter dies of fever and Sharma himself dies while trying to buy medicines for her. Devastated by the turn of events, Shobha goes insane, while her son Ajay decides to avenge the wrongdoings by making Chopra pay in the same coin.
633799	Reece Daniel Thompson (born 22 November 1988) is a Canadian actor. Thompson started his acting career by voice acting in several animated television series and minor roles on television shows before transitioning to films. His first major role came in the 2007 film "Rocket Science". Thompson appeared in 2009's "Assassination of a High School President" with Mischa Barton and Bruce Willis, and in "Afterwards". Also in 2012, he appeared as Craig in "The Perks Of Being A Wallflower". Early life. Thompson grew up in a small town near Vancouver. His mother ran a film society that brought independent movies to town. Thompson had always expressed an interest in becoming an actor to his parents; and at a young age, Thompson, along with the rest of his family, began taking background roles in productions in Vancouver. After the sixth grade, Thompson decided that he didn't want to continue going to school and convinced his mother to homeschool him. Soon after Thompson began attending an acting school. Thompson signed with an agent he was introduced to through the school and began attending auditions. Career. Thompson began his acting career with voice acting roles on animated television series and made small appearances in a few television series. He provided voices on "Infinite Ryvius", "MegaMan NT Warrior", "InuYasha" and "Master Keaton". Thompson appeared in episodes of "Jeremiah", "Tru Calling" and the mini-series "Living With the Dead". His first major live-action television role came in 2002 when he played the character James Barns on Canadian children's television series "I Love Mummy". Thompson made his first film appearance with a small role in the 2003 film "Dreamcatcher". In 2004, Thompson played the character of Jinto in three episodes of the science fiction television series "Stargate Atlantis". Thompson also had small film roles in 2004's "" and 2005's "The Sandlot 2". In 2005, Thompson provided the voice for the character Simon Star in the animated television series "Trollz". That same year, Thompson got a recurring role in the Canadian children's television series "Zixx" as Dwayne, one of the new main characters introduced in the show's second season. In 2008, Thompson reprised the role in the third season of the series. In 2006, Thompson made a guest appearance on an episode of "Smallville" and had a recurring role in the short-lived ABC Family series "Three Moons Over Milford". Thompson landed his first major film role as Hal Hefner, the protagonist in 2007's "Rocket Science", a coming of age film about a stuttering boy who joins the high school debate team. Directed by Jeffrey Blitz, the film was well-received, earning a Grand Jury Prize nomination at the Sundance Film Festival. Thompson's next film, "Assassination of a High School President", sees him starring alongside Mischa Barton and Bruce Willis. The film was released straight to DVD on 6 October 2009. Thompson is also featured in "Afterwards", a French-Canadian film production starring Romain Duris, Evangeline Lilly and John Malkovich. It is set to be released in Europe in December 2008. In 2010, Thompson played a small-town stoner in "Daydream Nation", starring opposite Kat Dennings. Also in 2010, Thompson played the sensitive Marshall in "Ceremony", alongside Uma Thurman and Michael Angarano. He was also featured into the film "Bloodworth" paired by popular actress Hilary Duff, released in May 2011. In 2012, Thompson appeared in the film "The Perks of Being a Wallflower", based on the popular novel of the same name, and starring Logan Lerman and Emma Watson. Personal life. He currently lives part-time in Vancouver, Canada. The other half of his time is spent living in Los Angeles, US. He is a co-founder of the online comedy group "Jitterbug Productions".
1036034	Sarah Alexander (née Smith; born 3 January 1971) is an English actress, known for her roles in British comedy series such as "Armstrong and Miller", "Smack the Pony", "Coupling", "The Worst Week of My Life" and "Green Wing". Biography. Early life. Alexander was born in Hammersmith, London, England. Her father, Frank Smith, was a television producer and director on factual programmes such as "Panorama". She attended Godolphin and Latymer School in Hammersmith. At 19, she left home after her A-levels and travelled to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival to get a start in acting. Her parents wanted her to continue to university. Alexander turned down a place at Manchester University to take up her first professional acting job. Career. In 1993, she played Muriel in an episode of the BBC comedy-drama "Lovejoy". In 1994, she played Nicky, Damien's risk-addicted weather reporter girlfriend in "Drop the Dead Donkey". In 1996, she played Beatrice in the British première of Octavio Paz's only play, "Rappaccini's Daughter", at the Gate Theatre Studio. She has appeared in other theatre productions, including The Vagina Monologues, Hand In Hand, The Secretary Bird, Northanger Abbey and as Lady Macbeth in Macbeth. In the mid-1990s she met Ben Miller when they filmed an advertisement for disposable cameras together, and through him Alexander Armstrong. Miller and Armstrong became friends and collaborators, and Alexander went on to appear on their Channel 4 sketch show "Armstrong and Miller" (1997–2001), usually in the regular 'Nude Practice' segment. Alexander moved into comedy acting, in which she has specialised ever since. Other sketch-shows included "Smith and Jones" (1997–98) and "Smack the Pony" (1999–2003), also writing for the latter. In the British science-fiction comedy series "Red Dwarf", she played a French queen in "Stoke Me a Clipper". She also appeared in "Midsomer Murders" "The Garden of Death", as Fliss Inkpen-Thomas, who was hit over the head with a shovel. In 2000, she appeared in the comedy "The Strangerers", as well as becoming co-host of the current-affairs satire "The 11 O'Clock Show", alongside Jon Holmes. She made her debut as Susan Walker in the BBC sitcom "Coupling", which ran for four series from 2000 to 2004. Other British TV roles have been Mel in "The Worst Week of My Life", again alongside Ben Miller, and Dr Angela Hunter in the hospital comedy "Green Wing", created by "Smack The Pony" creator Victoria Pile. Alexander appeared in the USA as Alice Fletcher in the NBC's short-lived remake of the British comedy series "Teachers", before roles in the films "I Could Never Be Your Woman" and "Stardust" (both released in 2007). Her previous film credits include "Seaview Knights" (1994) and "Going Off Big Time", (2000). Alexander also starred in the 2008 BBC dramedy "Mutual Friends", again alongside Armstrong, and played Layla Barton in the BBC drama, "All The Small Things", which debuted in 2009. She starred in the 2012 BBC series, Me and Mrs Jones. In 2013 she stars in the BBC series "Jonathan Creek" as Polly Creek, wife of Jonathan Creek in the episode "The Clue of the Savant's Thumb". Other work. Alexander contributes to the BBC charity telethon "Comic Relief", appearing in 2001 as a judge based on Nicki Chapman in a parody of "Popstars", in 2003 as Liza Goddard in a spoof of "Blankety Blank" and in 2005 in a celebrity version of "University Challenge" hosted by Angus Deayton. Personal life. Alexander is married to writer and actor Peter Serafinowicz, with whom she has two children, a son and a daughter. She has appeared in both series of "Look Around You" which Serafinowicz co-created and stars in, as well as his internet E! News spoof, O!News.
1502382	Betty Lynn Buckley (born July 3, 1947) is an American theater, film and television actress and singer. She is a Tony Award Winner, a 2012 inductee into the Theater Hall of Fame and a twice Grammy Award nominee. Early life. Betty Lynn Buckley was born in Big Spring, Texas and raised in Fort Worth, the daughter of Betty Bob (née Diltz), a dancer and journalist, and Ernest Lynn Buckley, a retired lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Air Force and former dean of engineering at South Dakota State University. She is the oldest of their four children. She has three brothers—Norman Buckley is a film editor and TV director, and two brothers, Patrick and Michael. While a student at Texas Christian University (TCU), she was a member of Zeta Tau Alpha and crowned "Miss Fort Worth" in 1966 and was runner-up in the Miss Texas competition. Buckley was then invited to perform at the Miss America pageant in Atlantic City, and it was there that she was spotted by a talent scout. After returning to TCU to earn her college degree, she toured Asia to visit soldiers wounded in the Vietnam War. After this, she worked for a time as a reporter for the Fort Worth newspaper, but went to New York City in 1969, where she landed the role of Martha Jefferson in "1776" her first day in town. Career. Stage and screen career. Buckley made her Broadway debut in 1969 in the musical "1776"; she has been called "The Voice of Broadway" by "New York" magazine. Her rendition of "Memory" in Andrew Lloyd Webber's "Cats" established her reputation. She is perhaps best known for the 1977–81 TV dramedy "Eight is Enough". She joined the show in its second season when the original star, Diana Hyland, died after the first four episodes of season one. Hyland's character (Joan Bradford) died, and Buckley was cast as the widower's new romantic interest, Sandra Sue Abbott (nicknamed Abby), who became stepmother of the eight children to which the series' title refers. Buckley also appeared in the original movie version of "Carrie" in 1976. She played Miss Collins, Carrie's gym teacher; in 1987, she appeared as Margaret White in the musical adaptation of the film. In 1977, she recorded an uncredited solo on the song "Walking in Space", in the movie "Hair". She played the role of a country singer in Bruce Beresford's film "Tender Mercies" (1982), in which she sang the song "Over You". She also appeared in the Woody Allen film "Another Woman" (1988) and in Roman Polanski's "Frantic" (1988). In 2001–03, she played a role in seasons 4–6 of the HBO series "Oz". She also has guest-starred in a number of television series, including "Without a Trace", "", and "Monk". She guest-starred in a Christmas special of the TV series "Remember WENN", in which she sang "You Make It Christmas".
1152497	Otis Burt "Sonny" Shroyer, Jr. (born August 28, 1935) is an American actor who has appeared in various television and movie roles. He is best known for his role as Deputy Sheriff Enos Strate in the television series "The Dukes of Hazzard". He also starred in a spin-off called "Enos" based on his "Dukes of Hazzard" character. Shroyer is married and has two sons, Chris and Mark. Shroyer was born in the town of Valdosta, Georgia. He attended Florida State University on a football scholarship, but his career was cut short by an injury. He finished his degree at the University of Georgia.
582857	Afsana Pyaar Ka is a 1991 Bollywood film starring Aamir Khan and Neelam Kothari. The music of the film became successful, especially the song "Tip Tip Baarish". However the film's receipts at the box office was disaster with its name not even appearing in boxofficeindian.com. Plot. Animosity has existed between the families of Raj and Nikita's respective fathers. But their children have grown up without any knowledge of this animosity. They meet in college, and after a few misunderstandings both fall in love with each other. They plan to marry, and accordingly inform their respective families of their plans. Both the families view this alliance with anger, and refuse to bless the young couple. Raj and Nikita have one choice - marry the person their respective families have selected for them, or elope.
1593578	Woodward Maurice Ritter (January 12, 1905 – January 2, 1974), better known as Tex Ritter, was an American country music singer and movie actor popular from the mid-1930s into the 1960s, and the patriarch of the Ritter family in acting (son John and grandson Jason). He is a member of the Country Music Hall of Fame. Early life. Ritter was born in Murvaul, Texas, the son of Martha Elizabeth (née Matthews) and German American James Everett Ritter. He grew up on his family's farm in Panola County and attended grade school in Carthage. He attended South Park High School in Beaumont, Texas. After graduating with honors, he entered the University of Texas at Austin; he studied pre-law and majored in government, political science, and economics. Career. Radio and Broadway. An early pioneer of country music, Ritter soon became interested in show business. In 1928, he sang on KPRC-AM in Houston, a 30-minute program of mostly cowboy songs. That same year, he moved to New York City and landed a job in the men's chorus of the Broadway show, "The New Moon" (1928). He appeared as cowboy Cord Elam in the Broadway production "Green Grow the Lilacs" (1931), the basis for the musical "Oklahoma!". He also played the part of Sagebrush Charlie in "The Round Up" (1932) and "Mother Lode" (1934). In 1932, he starred in New York City's first broadcast Western, "The Lone Star Rangers" on WOR-AM, where he sang and told tales of the Old West. Ritter wrote and starred in "Cowboy Tom's Roundup" on WINS-AM in 1933, a daily children's cowboy program aired over two other East Coast stations for three years. He also performed on the radio show "WHN Barndance" and sang on NBC Radio shows; and appeared in several radio dramas, including CBS's "Bobby Benson's Adventures". Ritter was also cast in guest-starring role on the syndicated television series, "Death Valley Days", and the ABC western series, "The Rebel", starring Nick Adams as a wandering former Confederate. Ritter began recording for American Record Company (Columbia Records) in 1933. His first release was "Goodbye Ole Paint". He also recorded "Rye Whiskey" for the label. In 1935, he signed with Decca Records, where he recorded his first original recordings, "Sam Hall" and "Get Along Little Dogie". He recorded 29 songs for Decca, the last in 1939 in Los Angeles as part of Tex Ritter and His Texans. Movies. In 1936, Ritter moved to Los Angeles. His motion picture debut was in "Song Of The Gringo" (1936) for Grand National Pictures. He starred in twelve B-movie Westerns for Grand National, including "Headin' For The Rio Grande" (1936), and "Trouble In Texas" (1937) co-starring Rita Hayworth (then known as Rita Cansino). After starring in "Utah Trail" (1938), Ritter left financially troubled Grand National. Between 1938 and 1945, he starred in around forty "singing cowboy" movies. He made four movies with actress Dorothy Fay at Monogram Pictures: "Song of the Buckaroo" (1938), "Sundown on the Prairie" (1939), "Rollin' Westward" (1939) and "Rainbow Over the Range" (1940). Ritter then moved to Universal Pictures and teamed with Johnny Mack Brown for films such as "The Lone Star Trail" (1943), "Raiders of San Joaquin (1943)", "Cheyenne Roundup" (1943) and "The Old Chisholm Trail" (1942). He was also the star of the films "Arizona Trail" (1943), "Marshal of Gunsmoke" (1944) and "Oklahoma Raiders" (1944).
808419	James Harris "Jim" Simons (born 1938) is an American hedge fund manager, mathematician, and philanthropist. In 1982, Simons founded Renaissance Technologies, a private hedge fund investment company based in New York with over $15 billion under management. Simons retired at the end of 2009, as CEO, of what is one of the world's most successful hedge fund companies. Simons' net worth is estimated to be $10.6 billion. Simons lives with his wife in Manhattan and Long Island, and is the father of five children; two of his children died young under tragic circumstances—a drowning and an auto accident. Simons shuns the limelight and rarely gives interviews, citing Benjamin the Donkey in "Animal Farm" for explanation: "God gave me a tail to keep off the flies. But I'd rather have had no tail and no flies." On October 10, 2009, Simons announced he would retire on January 1, 2010 but remain at Renaissance as nonexecutive chairman. Early life and career. James Harris Simons was born to a Jewish family, the only child of Marcia (née Kantor) and Matthew Simons, and raised in Brookline, Massachusetts. His father owned a shoe factory. He received a Bachelor of Science in mathematics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1958 at the age of 23. Between 1964 and 1968, he was on the research staff of the Communications Research Division of the Institute for Defense Analyses (IDA). Simons taught mathematics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University. In 1968, he was appointed chairman of the math department at Stony Brook University. Simons was asked by IBM in 1973 to attack the block cipher Lucifer, an early but direct precursor to the Data Encryption Standard (DES). In 1976, Simons won the American Mathematical Society's Oswald Veblen Prize in Geometry, for work that involved a recasting of the subject of area minimizing multi-dimensional surfaces and characteristic forms. This resulted in his proof of the Bernstein conjecture up to real dimension 8, and an improvement of a certain "regularity" result of Wendell Fleming on a generalized Plateau's problem. Simons' research involved the discovery and application of certain geometric measurements, and resulted in the Chern-Simons form (also known as Chern–Simons invariants, or Chern–Simons theory). In 1974, his theory was published in "Characteristic Forms and Geometric Invariants", co-authored with the differential geometer Shiing-Shen Chern. The theory is used in theoretical physics, particularly string theory. In 1978, he left academia to venture into the business world. He started his own hedge fund management firm that traded in commodities and financial instruments on a discretionary basis. Business career. For more than two decades, Simons' Renaissance Technologies' hedge funds, which trade in markets around the world, have employed mathematical models to analyze and execute trades, many automated. Renaissance uses computer-based models to predict price changes in easily-traded financial instruments. These models are based on analyzing as much data as can be gathered, then looking for non-random movements to make predictions. Renaissance employs many specialists with non-financial backgrounds, including mathematicians, physicists and statisticians. The firm's latest fund is the Renaissance Institutional Equities Fund (RIEF). RIEF has historically trailed the firm's better-known Medallion fund, a separate fund that only contains the personal money of the firm's executives. In 2006 Simons was named Financial Engineer of the Year by the International Association of Financial Engineers. In 2007 he was estimated to have personally earned $2.8 billion, $1.7 billion in 2006, $1.5 billion in 2005, (the largest compensation among hedge fund managers that year) and $670 million in 2004. Philanthropy. The wealth that Simons has amassed funds his many philanthropic pursuits. Known as the "Quant King,” Simons is a benefactor for the mathematical sciences, supporting research projects, chairs, and conferences in the United States and abroad. Simons and his second wife, Marilyn Hawrys Simons, co-founded the Paul Simons Foundation, a charitable organization that supports projects related to education and health, in addition to scientific research. Marilyn serves as the foundation's President, while Jim serves as its Secretary and Treasurer. In memory of his son Paul, whom he had with his first wife, Barbara Simons, he established Avalon Park, a nature preserve in Stony Brook. In 1996, 34-year-old Paul was killed by a car while riding a bicycle near the Simons home. Another son, Nick Simons, drowned at age 24 while on a trip to Bali in Indonesia in 2003. Nick had worked in Nepal and the Simons have become large donors to Nepalese healthcare through the Nick Simons Institute. Jim Simons also founded Math for America, a non-profit organization with the mission to significantly improve math education in public schools. In early 2006, he led a group of directors of Renaissance Technologies Corporation and of Brookhaven Science Associates in donating $13 million to fund a budget shortfall of the Brookhaven National Laboratory that would have shut down the operations of the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider for 2006. Also in 2006 Simons donated $25 million to Stony Brook University through the Stony Brook Foundation. The gift is intended to benefit the Mathematics and Physics departments at the university. On February 27, 2008, then Gov. Eliot Spitzer announced a $60 million donation by the Simons Foundation to found the Simons Center for Geometry and Physics at Stony Brook, the largest gift to a public university in New York state history. In December 2008 it was reported that the Stony Brook University Foundation, of which Simons is chair emeritus, lost $5.4 million in Bernard Madoff’s Ponzi scheme. On December 14, 2011, James and Marilyn Simons donated an additional $150 million to Stony Brook University. The donation was accepted on behalf of the university by Gov. Andrew Cuomo at a ceremony held on the Stony Brook campus. In return, the state pledged an addition $35 million to the university, and passed legislation giving major SUNY campuses considerably more autonomy and managerial flexibility. These funds have been designated for the construction of a new medical research center, for the endowment of 35 professorial chairs, and for a large number of student scholarships at both the graduate and undergraduate level. On May 1, 2012, UC Berkeley announced that the Paul Simons Foundation donated $60 million in order to establish the Simons Institute for the Theory of Computing at UC Berkeley. Autism research. The family's charitable foundation has committed $38 million to find the causes related to autism in recent years, and plans to spend another $100 million in what is becoming the largest private investment in the field of autism research. Simons personally exerts significant control over where and how his money is spent: Simons has provided DNA from his family for study, and has given assistance in helping solve research problems. When MIT asked for brain research funding, he stipulated that the project focus on autism and include scientists of his choosing. On June 11, 2003, the Simons Foundation hosted its first "Panel on Autism Research" in New York City, a day-long event highlighting research into the causes of autism, the accurate genomic mapping of autism, and in the study of the biochemical mechanisms that occur in autistic people. Attendees included David Amaral, Eric Courchesne, Nathaniel Heintz, Tom Insel, Catherine Lord, Fred Volkmar, and Paul Greengard. The Simons Foundation recently gave $10 million to two researchers at the Yale University Child Study Center to study genetic influences on autism. Boardroom appointments. Simons serves as trustee of Brookhaven National Laboratory, the Institute for Advanced Study, Rockefeller University, and the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute in Berkeley. He is also a member of the Board of the MIT Corporation. Investors. In about 2009, Simons was questioned by investors. Simons and Madoff. Further information about Simons's dealings with Madoff is available. Wealth. Simons earned an estimated $2.5 billion in 2008, and with an estimated net worth of $10.6 billion, he is ranked by "Forbes" as the 74th-richest person in the world and the 27th-richest person in America. He was named by the Financial Times in 2006 as "the world's smartest billionaire". In 2011 he was included in the 50 Most Influential ranking of Bloomberg Markets Magazine. Awards and nominations. Double Helix Medal
584089	Mynaa (; 'Myna"; Telugu: "Prema Khaidhi') is a 2010 Indian Tamil romantic drama film directed and written by Prabu Solomon. Jointly distributed by Udhayanidhi Stalin and Kalpathi S. Aghoram, it stars Vidharth and Amala Paul in the lead roles. Featuring an acclaimed soundtrack by D. Imman, the film, which garnered much anticipation prior to release, released on 5 November 2010, coinciding with the Diwali festival, receiving critical acclaim and going on to win the Best Film Award at the 58th Filmfare Awards South. Actor Thambi Ramaiah went on to win the National Film Award for Best Supporting Actor in 2011. The film was dubbed in Telugu as "Prema Khaidhi".it was remade into kannada as Shyloo in 2011. The film is being remade in Hindi cinema by Prabhu Solomon, produced by Fox Star Studios Plot. The film starts with an imprisoned Suruli (Vidharth) recalling his love for Mynaa (Amala Paul) since childhood that becomes more intense as they grow. Though Mynaa's mother assures Suruli of getting them married, she changes her mind and arranges for Mynaa to marry a man working in Dubai. Infuriated, Suruli threatens to kill her. He is arrested by the police and given a 15-day prison sentence. Mynaa's mother arranges the marriage a day before his release and Suruli escapes from prison. As the police officer Bhaskar (Sethu) and a constable Ramaiah (Thambi Ramaiah) handcuff Suruli, Mynaa too goes along with him as they decide to get married after he is released from prison. On their way, they encounter adventures that include an elephant chasing them and losing their way thereby reaching Kerala. From there, their journey continues, with Bhaskar becoming infuriated with Suruli as he is not able to celebrate his 'Thala' Deepavali with his family, busy running behind Suruli. A parallel story reveals Bhaskar's annoyed wife Sudha and her brothers troubling Bhaskar to come to their hometown to celebrate Diwali. However, Bhaskar soon develops a soft corner for Suruli as he saves him from a freak bus accident. The four go back together to their hometown. Bhaskar assures to get them married after Suruli is released and Ramaiah asks Mynaa to stay in his house for shelter. However, Bhaskar instead asks Ramaiah to let Mynaa stay in his house, where his furious wife, still waiting for him, falsely accuses him of having an affair with Mynaa and storms out of the house. Sudha's brothers arrive at Sudha's house and kill Mynaa, who they find responsible for the trouble, and throw her body on a railway track. Upon witnessing this Suruli jumps in front of another train. This incident results in a major reaction by Bhaskar, who kills his wife and her brothers and goes to jail. Soundtrack. The film score and soundtrack for "Mynaa" was composed by D. Imman. The album consists of 5 tracks, featuring lyrics penned by Yugabharathi and Eknaath. The songs, especially the title track, had become very popular, while the album was widely considered Imman's finest work yet.
586522	Shahrukh Bola "Khoobsurat Hai Tu" (; Shahrukh said "You are Beautiful") is a 2010 Hindi film directed by Makrand Deshpande and produced by Amarjeet Singh Bhasin under the Music Factory banner. It stars Preetika Chawla and Afzaal Khan in the lead roles, with Kay Kay Menon and Nagesh Bhonsle in supporting roles and Shahrukh Khan in a cameo as himself. It was released on November 19, 2010. Plot. Laali (Preetika Chawla) is one of the biggest fans of Shahrukh Khan in the city. She believes that one day she will meet him in person and be his heroine, although for now she sells flowers by the road to make money for her family, brother (Menon), and boyfriend (Afzaal). One day, while selling flowers, she stops near a car when she hears a voice asking for some flowers. She goes over and finds Shahrukh in the front seat. She nearly faints, but Shahrukh grabs her and says ""Khoobsurat Hai Tu"" ("You are Beautiful"). Nobody believes her, and her efforts to prove that she met him form the rest of the story. Production. The film was shot in Mumbai, India. It marks the debut of Afzaal Khan and Preetika Chawla. Director Makrand Deshpande said he didn't want his film to go low, so he asked Shahrukh Khan to make an appearance in it. His 20-minute appearance includes two songs, with one bonus song sung by himself, and he appears in two of the posters. The film was released in theaters with "Guzaarish". It is said to be the last film in which Khan would be making a guest appearance, after his previous film, "Dulha Mil Gaya", in which he had a 60-minute role, failed at the box office. Reception. Critical response. "Shahrukh Bola "Khubsurat Hai Tu"" attracted good reviews from various critics. Bollywood portal FilmiTadka gave it 1 out of 5 stars, saying, "The movie is a garbled half baked plot where many scenes appear either unnecessary or incomplete" and "overall Shahrukh Bola Khubsurat Hai Tu is not Khubsurat at all". Anupama Chopra of NDTV gave it 2 out of 5 stars. Nikhat Kazmi of "The Times of India" rated the film 3/5.
1067259	None But the Brave, also known as in Japan, is a 1965 war film starring Frank Sinatra, Clint Walker, Tatsuya Mihashi, Tommy Sands and Brad Dexter. This is the only film directed by Frank Sinatra, and the first Japanese-American co-production, produced by Sinatra for Warner Bros. and Kikumaru Okuda for Toho Studios. Plot. Narrated in English by a Japanese officer named Kuroki (in the form of a journal he is writing for his wife), a platoon of Japanese soldiers is stranded on an island in the Pacific with no means of communicating with the outside world. Lieutenant Kuroki (Tatsuya Mihashi) keeps his men firmly in hand and is supervising the building of a boat for their escape. An American C-47/R4D transport plane is shot down by a Japanese Zero, which in turn is shot down by an American F4U Corsair, on the same island with a platoon of U.S. marines led by Captain Dennis Bourke (Clint Walker), Sergeant Bleeker (Brad Dexter) and 2nd Lieutenant Blair (Tommy Sands). Confidante to Bourke is the chief pharmacist mate (Frank Sinatra). As both sides learn of each other's existence on the island, tension mounts resulting in a battle for the Japanese boat. The vessel is destroyed and a Japanese soldier is seriously injured. Calling a truce, Koruki trades the Americans access to water in exchange for a visit from their doctor to treat the wounded soldier, whose leg has to be amputated.
1030616	Where Do We Go Now? (, ) is a 2011 film by Lebanese director Nadine Labaki. The film premiered during the 2011 Cannes Film Festival as part of Un Certain Regard . The film was selected to represent Lebanon for the 84th Academy Awards, but it did not make the final shortlist. The film won the Cadillac People's Choice Award at the 2011 Toronto International Film Festival. Plot. "Where Do We Go Now?" tells the story of a remote, isolated unnamed Lebanese village inhabited by both Muslims and Christians. The village is surrounded by land mines and only reachable by a small bridge. As civil strife engulfed the country, the women in the village learn of this fact and try, by various means and to varying success, to keep their men in the dark, sabotaging the village radio, then destroying the village TV. The story begins with a boy named Roukoz, whose job – along with his cousin, Nassim – is to venture outside the village and bring back much-needed merchandise such as soap, utensils, newspapers, lightbulbs. Roukoz lives with Nassim's family, and it is made clear that Nassim has lost his father. Roukoz tries to fix the church speakers, and falls off his ladder, crashing into the cross and snapping it in half. Other characters include the village mayor and his wife Yvonne (Christians), the cafe-owner Amal (played by Nadine Labaki), Rabih (the village painter and Amal's love interest) and his sister, Issam (Nassim's brother) and his wife Aida, and the village priest and the village imam.
1063997	Adam Michael Shankman (born November 27, 1964) is an American film director, producer, dancer, actor, and choreographer. He has been a judge on the television program "So You Think You Can Dance" since Season 3. He began his professional career in musical theater, and was a dancer in music videos for Paula Abdul and Janet Jackson. Shankman has choreographed numerous films as well as one of the Spice Girls' tours. He has directed several feature-length films, including "A Walk to Remember", "Bringing Down the House", and the 2007 remake of "Hairspray". Early life. Shankman was born in Los Angeles, California, to an upper middle class family. He has said that he had a "traditional Jewish upbringing" in Brentwood. He attended The Juilliard School, but dropped out to dance in musical theater. Career. Shankman was a dancer in Janet Jackson's “Amazing” video, as well as in a MC Skat Kat video with Paula Abdul. Shankman broke into professional choreography in a 1989 music video for rapper MC Shan with director Julien Temple. When the hired choreographer fell through, Shankman lied and said that he had done choreography for Janet Jackson and Paula Abdul. He was hired on the spot without his story being verified. Shankman began choreographing movies that included actors such as Marlon Brando, Sarah Jessica Parker, Antonio Banderas, and the cast of "Boogie Nights". He is Brendan Fraser's exclusive choreographer. In 1996, Shankman was represented by the newly formed Sauce Entertainment, a production company for music videos and commercial production. In 1998, he was a choreographer for the program "Win Ben Stein's Money". Shankman's first directing gig was for a short film called "Cosmo's Tale", which appeared at the Sundance Film Festival. He then helped his sister, Jennifer Gibgot, on a script, which led to a meeting with the studio producing "The Wedding Planner". He was hired for the job ten minutes into the meeting. In May 2003, Shankman filed a $5 million lawsuit against Jennifer Lopez, asserting that he came up with the idea for her adaptation of the opera "Carmen". Prior to directing "Hairspray", Shankman was known in Hollywood primarily as a script doctor. His trademarks in his films often features a singing/dancing sequence and a character getting sent to do community service. "I've done so many things I'm not super-proud of," he admitted in an interview with the "Los Angeles Times". Having finally received a plum directing role in "Hairspray", he added, "Now that I'm finally really proud of something, if say this one isn't good either, it will be kind of...taxing." In August 2008, "Box office Mojo" reported that "Hairspray" had become the fourth-largest grossing American movie musical within the previous 30 years. Shankman, in affiliation with ABC, worked on a TV pilot called "Harmony" about a musical town. In 2008, in the wake of former small-town mayor Sarah Palin's emergence on the national political stage, Shankman was announced as director for the proposed TV series "Cadillac Ranch" about the female mayor of a small town. He directed the 2012 film adaptation of the Broadway musical "Rock of Ages" for New Line Cinema. With Bill Mechanic, Shankman was one of the two producers of the 82nd Academy Awards, which took place March 7, 2010. Shankman has also directed and choreographed multiple episodes of Fox's "Glee". "So You Think You Can Dance". Shankman has been a judge and choreographer on the FOX reality show "So You Think You Can Dance" since the third season. He used the term "lyrical hip-hop" to describe the dance style associated with the choreography duo of Tabitha and Napoleon D'umo. The term is popularly credited to him as reported in the May/June 2009 issue of "Dance Spirit" magazine. On September 16, 2009, it was announced that Adam will be a permanent judge on "So You Think You Can Dance". Personal life. Shankman is openly gay. He officiated the wedding of actors Freddie Prinze, Jr. and Sarah Michelle Gellar, a good friend of his with whom he worked while choreographing "Buffy the Vampire Slayer". He got the "Buffy" job based on Sarah's recommendation to the show's creator, Joss Whedon.
1166089	Janet V. "Jan" Hooks (born April 23, 1957) is an American actress and comedian best known for her work on NBC's "Saturday Night Live" ("SNL"), where she was a repertory player from 1986 to 1991 and continued making cameo appearances until 1994. Her subsequent work has included a regular role on the final two seasons of "Designing Women," and a number of roles in film and television. Life and career. Hooks was born in Decatur, Georgia, east of Atlanta. She began her career as a member of the Los Angeles-based comedy troupe The Groundlings and in an Atlanta nightclub act called The Wits End Players. In 1978–1979, Hooks appeared in "Tush" on Ted Turner's television station WTCG, which eventually became TBS. She gained notice in the early 1980s on the HBO comedy series "Not Necessarily the News". Hooks also had guest comedienne appearances on "Comedy Break with Mack and Jamie" in the mid-'80s. Hooks was considered for "SNL" in 1985 but was passed over by the show's producers in favor of Joan Cusack. After "SNL"'s 1985-1986 season was deemed a ratings disaster and put on the chopping block for cancellation, returning producer Lorne Michaels offered Hooks a contract in 1986. Together with new recruits Dana Carvey, Phil Hartman, and others, Hooks helped put the show back in the national spotlight. Her characters included Candy Sweeney of "The Sweeney Sisters." She also performed notable impressions of Bette Davis, Ann-Margret, Betty Ford, Nancy Reagan, Sinéad O'Connor, Jodie Foster, Tammy Faye Bakker, Kathie Lee Gifford, Kitty Dukakis, Diane Sawyer, and Hillary Clinton.
1104550	Georgy Feodosevich Voronoy (; ; 28 April 1868 – 20 November 1908) was a Ukrainian and Russian mathematician. Among other things, he defined the Voronoi diagram. Voronoy was born in the village of Zhuravky, district of Pyriatin, in Poltava Governorate of the Russian Empire (now Varvynsky Raion, Chernihiv Oblast, Ukraine).
1063976	Lucinda Jenney (born April 23, 1954) is an American actress. Career. Jenney began her acting career in 1984 with "Hearts and Diamonds". Several roles followed throughout the eighties, appearing in the 1986 comedy "The Whoopee Boys", the award-winning "Peggy Sue Got Married", with Kathleen Turner and Nicolas Cage. She appeared as 'Iris' in the Oscar-winning film "Rain Man", starring Dustin Hoffman and Tom Cruise. In 1991, Jenney played waitress, 'Lena' in Ridley Scott's "Thelma & Louise", the following year she appeared in "American Heart", a film which earned her an Independent Spirit Award for Best Supporting Female. Jenney played the role of 'Anne Loomis' in the Joe Dante comedy "Matinee", with John Goodman and Cathy Moriarty. During the nineties, she appeared in much smaller roles including "Mr. Jones", with Richard Gere, "Leaving Las Vegas", with Nicolas Cage and Elisabeth Shue and "Grace of My Heart". In 1997, she had a supporting role in the Tom Holland's horror film "Thinner", which was based in the book by Stephen King. She also starred in "G.I. Jane", with Demi Moore, "Mad City", with Dustin Hoffman and John Travolta, "Desert Blue", with Kate Hudson and Christina Ricci, "Practical Magic", with Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman and "The Deep End of the Ocean", which starred Michelle Pfeiffer and was based on the book by Jacquelyn Mitchard. In 2000, Jenney portrayed the role of 'Helen O'Donnell' in "Thirteen Days", she appeared in romantic drama "Crazy/Beautiful", with Kirsten Dunst and the "The Mothman Prophecies", starring Richard Gere. Jenney's has appeared in other roles in "S.W.A.T.", "American Violet" and "Rogue River". In 2009, she made a cameo appearance in "The Hangover". Jenney has had successful career in television. Several of her television credits include guest roles in "Miami Vice", "The Practice", "Judging Amy", "The West Wing", "24", "Law & Order", its spin-offs ' and ', "Crossing Jordan", "Six Feet Under", "House", "", "ER" and "Monk", and portrayed Admiral Adama's wife, Carolanne on "Battlestar Galactica", in the episode "A Day In The Life". Jenney has appeared in many television films throughout her career. Her first was "Out of the Darkness", with Martin Sheen. Many of her roles include "Shoot First: A Cop's Vengeance", "The Habitation of Dragons", "A Stranger in Town", "First Time Felon", the Emmy Award-winning "If These Walls Could Talk 2", and "The Pennsylvania Miners' Story".
658388	Joseph Raphson was an English mathematician known best for the Newton–Raphson method. Little is known about his life, and even his exact years of birth and death are unknown, although the mathematical historian Florian Cajori provided the approximate dates 1648–1715. Raphson attended Jesus College at Cambridge, graduating with an M.A. in 1692. He was made a Fellow of the Royal Society on 30 November 1689, after being proposed for membership by Edmund Halley. Raphson's most notable work is "Analysis Aequationum Universalis", which was published in 1690. It contains a method, now known as the Newton–Raphson method, for approximating the roots of an equation. Isaac Newton had developed a very similar formula in his "Method of Fluxions", written in 1671, but this work would not be published until 1736, nearly 50 years after Raphson's "Analysis". However, Raphson's version of the method is simpler than Newton's, and is therefore generally considered superior. For this reason, it is Raphson's version of the method, rather than Newton's, that is to be found in textbooks today. Raphson was a staunch supporter of Newton's claim, and not that of Gottfried Leibniz, to be the sole . In addition, Raphson translated Newton's "Arithmetica Universalis" into English. Raphson coined the word "pantheism", in his work "De Spatio Reali", published in 1697, where it may have been found by John Toland, who called Raphson's work "ingenious". In "De Spatio Reali", Raphson begins by making a distinction between atheistic "panhylists" (from the Greek "pan" 'all' and "hyle" 'wood, matter'), who believe everything derives from matter, and pantheists who believe in “a certain universal substance, material as well as intelligent, that fashions all things that exist out of its own essence”. Raphson further believed the universe to be immeasurable in respect to a human's capacity of understanding, and that humans will never be able to comprehend it.
1178494	Sir Cliff Richard (born Harry Rodger Webb, 14 October 1940) is a British pop singer, musician, performer, actor and philanthropist. He is the third-top-selling singles artist in the United Kingdom's history, with total sales of over 21 million units in the UK and has reportedly sold an estimated 250 million records worldwide. With his backing group the Shadows, Richard, originally positioned as a rebellious rock and roll singer in the style of Little Richard and Elvis Presley, dominated the British popular music scene in the pre-Beatles period of the late 1950s and early 1960s. His 1958 hit single "Move It" is often described as Britain's first authentic rock and roll song, and John Lennon once claimed that "before Cliff and the Shadows, there had been nothing worth listening to in British music." Increased focus on his Christian faith and subsequent softening of his music later led to a more middle of the road pop image, sometimes venturing into contemporary Christian music. Over a career spanning more than 50 years, Richard has become a fixture of the British entertainment world, amassing many gold and platinum discs and awards, including three Brit Awards and two Ivor Novello Awards. He has had more than 130 singles, albums and EPs make the UK Top 20, more than any other artist and holds the record (with Elvis Presley) as the only act to make the UK singles charts in all of its first six decades (1950s–2000s). He has achieved 14 UK No. 1 singles (or 18, depending on the counting methodology) and is the only singer to have had a No. 1 single in the UK in 5 consecutive decades: the 1950s through to the 1990s. In 2008, he celebrated his 50th anniversary in music by releasing a greatest hits album, featuring new track "Thank You for a Lifetime", which reached number 3 in the UK singles chart. His latest album, "Soulicious", was released in October 2011. The album was supported by a short UK arena tour and gave Richard his 41st top ten UK hit album. Richard has never achieved the same impact in the United States despite eight US Top 40 singles, including the million-selling "Devil Woman" and "We Don't Talk Anymore", the latter becoming the first to reach the "Billboard" Hot 100's top 40 in the 1980s by a singer who had been in the top 40 in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. In Canada, Richard achieved moderate success in the 1980s with several albums reaching platinum status. He has remained a popular music, film, and television personality in Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Northern Europe and Asia, and he retains a following in other countries. Biography. 1940–58: Childhood and adolescence. Harry Rodger Webb was born in India at King George's Hospital, Victoria Street, in Lucknow, which was then part of British India (or the British Raj). His parents were Rodger Oscar Webb, a manager for a catering contractor that serviced the Indian Railways, and his wife Dorothy Marie Dazely. The Webb family lived in a modest home with other Anglo-Indians at Maqbara, near the main shopping centre of Hazratganj. The Anglo-Indians living at Maqbara were often employed as musicians; a band played at the Royal Cafe Restaurant, Lucknow, and another at the Mohmmad Bagh club, which was the officers' club serving the garrison at Lucknow. Dorothy's mother served as the dormitory matron at the La Martiniere Girls' School. Anglo-Indians did not enjoy any great social status in India and were looked down upon by the British. Richard has three sisters. In around 1945, his family moved to Howrah, near Calcutta, where he started his schooling in St. Thomas' Church School, Howrah. In 1948, following Indian independence the family embarked on a three-week sea voyage to Tilbury, Essex, England aboard the . The Webbs moved from comparative wealth in India, where they had servants and lived in a company-supplied flat at Howrah near Calcutta, to a semi-detached house in Carshalton, Surrey (which was also the location of the school he attended, Stanley Park Juniors). In 1949 his father obtained employment in the credit control office of Thorn Electrical Industries and the family moved in with other relatives in Waltham Cross, Hertfordshire, where he attended Kings Road Junior Mixed Infants School until a three-bedroom council house in Cheshunt was allocated to them in 1950. Harry Webb then attended Cheshunt Secondary Modern School from 1952 to 1957. (The school was later renamed Riversmead School before being rebuilt and renamed Bishopslea School). As a member of the top stream, he stayed on beyond the minimum leaving age to take GCE Ordinary Level examinations and gained a pass in English literature. He then started work as a filing clerk for a company called Atlas Lamps. A development of retirement flats, Cliff Richard Court, has been named after him in Cheshunt. Harry Webb became interested in skiffle. His father bought him a guitar at 16 and he formed the Quintones vocal group in 1957, before singing in the Dick Teague Skiffle Group. 1958–63: Success and stardom. Harry Webb became lead singer of a rock and roll group, the Drifters (not to be confused with the US group of the same name). 1950s entrepreneur Harry Greatorex wanted the up-and-coming Rock 'n' Roll singer to change from his real name of Harry Webb. The name "Cliff" was adopted as it sounded like cliff face, which suggested "Rock." It was "Move It" writer Ian Samwell who suggested that the former Harry Webb be surnamed Richard as a tribute to Webb's musical hero Little Richard. Before their first large-scale appearance, at the Regal Ballroom in Ripley, Derbyshire in 1958, they adopted the name "Cliff Richard and the Drifters". The four members were Harry Webb (now going under the stage name "Cliff Richard"), Ian "Sammy" Samwell on guitar, Terry Smart on drums and Norman Mitham on guitar. None of the other three played with the later and better known Shadows, although Samwell wrote songs for Richard's later career. For his debut session, Norrie Paramor provided Richard with "Schoolboy Crush", a cover of an American record by Bobby Helms. Richard was permitted to record one of his own songs for the B-side; this was "Move It", written by the Drifters' Samwell on a number 715 Green Line bus on the way to Richard's house for a rehearsal. For the "Move It" session, Paramor used the session guitarist Ernie Shears on lead guitar and Frank Clark on bass. There are various stories about why the A-side was replaced by the intended B-side. One is that Norrie Paramor's young daughter raved about the B-side; another was that influential TV producer Jack Good, who used the act for his TV show "Oh Boy!", wanted the only song on his show to be "Move It". Richard was quoted as saying – The single went to No. 2 on the UK Singles Chart. John Lennon credited "Move It" as being the first British rock record. In the early days, Richard was marketed as the British equivalent to Elvis Presley. Like previous British rockers such as Tommy Steele and Marty Wilde, Richard adopted Presley-like dress and hairstyle. In performance he struck a pose of rock attitude, rarely smiling or looking at the audience or camera. His late 1958 and early 1959 follow-up singles, "High Class Baby" and "Livin' Lovin' Doll", were followed by "Mean Streak", which carried a rocker's sense of speed and passion, and Lionel Bart's "Living Doll". It was on "Living Doll" that the Drifters began to back Richard on record. It was his fifth record, and became his first No. 1 single. By that time the group's line-up had changed with the arrival of Jet Harris, Tony Meehan, Hank Marvin and Bruce Welch. The group was obliged to change its name to "The Shadows" after legal complications with the American group the Drifters as "Living Doll" entered the American top 40, licensed by ABC-Paramount. "Living Doll" was used in Richard's debut film "Serious Charge", but as a country standard, rather than a rock and roll standard. The Shadows were not a typical backing group. They became contractually separate from Richard, and the group received no royalties for records backing Richard. In 1959, the Shadows (then still the Drifters) landed an EMI recording contract of their own, for independent recordings. That year, they released three singles, two of which featured double-sided vocals and one of which had instrumental A and B sides. They thereafter had several major hits, including five UK No. 1s. The band also continued to appear and record with Richard and wrote many of his hits. On more than one occasion, a Shadows' instrumental replaced a Richard song at the top of the British charts. Richard's fifth single "Living Doll" triggered a softer, more relaxed, sound. Subsequent hits, the No. 1s "Travellin' Light" and "I Love You" and also "A Voice in the Wilderness" lifted from his film "Expresso Bongo" and "Theme for a Dream" cemented Richard's status as a mainstream pop entertainer along with contemporaries such as Adam Faith and Billy Fury. Throughout the early 1960s, his hits were consistently in the top five. In 1961, EMI records organised Richard's 21st birthday party at its London headquarters in Manchester Square led by his producer Norrie Paramor. Photographs of the celebrations were incorporated into Richard's next album "21 Today" in which Tony Meehan joined in despite, then, having very recently left the Shadows to be replaced by Brian Bennett. Typically, the Shadows closed the first half of the show with a 30-minute set of their own, then backed Richard on his show-closing 45-minute stint as exemplified by the retrospective CD album release of "Live at the ABC Kingston 1962". Tony Meehan and Jet Harris left the group in 1961 and 1962 respectively and later had their own chart successes for Decca. The Shadows added bass players Brian Locking (1962–63) and then John Rostill (1963–68) and took on Brian Bennett permanently on drums. In the early days, particularly on EP and album releases, Richard sometimes recorded without the Shadows to cater to other styles with the Norrie Paramor Orchestra with Tony Meehan and then Brian Bennett as a session drummer. Even after the Beatles' rise he continued to achieve hits, although more often with an orchestra rather than the Shadows: a revival of "It's All in the Game" and "Constantly", a revived single of a well-known Italian hit. A session under the direction of Billy Sherrill in Nashville, Tennessee yielded two more top two hits: "The Minute You're Gone" and "Wind Me Up" in 1965. Richard, and in particular the Shadows, never achieved star status in the United States. In 1960 they toured the United States and were well-received, but lacklustre support and distribution from a revolving door of American record labels proved an obstacle to long-term success there despite several chart records by Richard including the aforementioned "It's All in the Game" on Epic, via a renewed linking of the worldwide Columbia labels after Philips ended its distribution deal with CBS. To the Shadows' chagrin, Apache reached No. 1 in the US via a cover version by Danish guitarist Jorgen Ingmann which was almost unchanged from their worldwide hit. Richard and the band appeared on "The Ed Sullivan Show", which was crucial for the Beatles, but these performances did not help them gain sustained success in North America. Richard and the Shadows appeared in six feature films including a debut in the 1959 film "Serious Charge" but most notably in "The Young Ones", "Summer Holiday", "Wonderful Life" and "Finders Keepers". These films created their own genre known as the "Cliff Richard musical" and led to Richard being named the No. 1 cinema box office attraction in Britain for both 1962 and 1963 beating that of even James Bond. The title song of "The Young Ones" became his biggest-selling single in the United Kingdom, selling over one million copies in the UK. The irreverent 1980s TV sitcom "The Young Ones" took its name from Richard's 1962 film. In 1966, Richard and the Shadows appeared as marionettes in the Gerry Anderson film "Thunderbirds Are GO". In mid-1963 Cliff and the Shadows appeared for a season in Blackpool, where Richard had his portrait modelled by Victor Heyfron, M.A.. 1964–75: Changing circumstances. As with the other existing rock acts in Britain, Richard's career was affected by the sudden advent of the Beatles and the Mersey sound in 1963 and 1964. He continued to have hits in the charts throughout the 1960s, albeit not at the level that he had enjoyed before. Nor did doors open to him in the US market; he was not considered part of the British Invasion, and despite four Hot 100 hits (including the top 25 "It's All in the Game") between August 1963 and August 1964, the American public had little awareness of him. Richard's 1965 UK No. 12 hit "On My Word" ended a run of 23 consecutive top ten UK hits between "A Voice in the Wilderness" in 1960 to "The Minute You're Gone" in 1965, which, to date, is still a record number of consecutive top ten UK hits for a male artist. Richard continued having international hits, including 1967's "The Day I Met Marie", which reached No. 10 in the UK Singles Chart and No. 5 in the Australian charts. Although baptised as an Anglican, Richard did not appear to practise the faith in his early years. In 1964, he became an active Christian and his faith has become an important aspect of his life. Standing up publicly as a Christian affected his career in several ways. Initially, he believed that he should quit rock 'n roll, feeling he could no longer be the rocker who had been called a "crude exhibitionist" and "too sexy for TV". Richard intended at first to "reform his ways" and become a teacher, but Christian friends advised him not to abandon his career just because he had become an active Christian. Soon after, Richard re-emerged, performing with Christian groups and recording some Christian material. He still recorded secular songs with the Shadows, but devoted a lot of his time to Christian work, including appearances with the Billy Graham crusades. As time progressed, Richard balanced his faith and work, enabling him to remain one of the most popular singers in Britain as well as one of its best-known Christians. Richard acted in the 1967 film "Two a Penny", released by Billy Graham's World Wide Pictures, in which he played Jamie Hopkins, a young man who gets involved in drug dealing while questioning his life after his girlfriend changes her attitude. He released the live album "Cliff in Japan" in 1967. In 1968, he sang the UK's entry in the Eurovision Song Contest: "Congratulations" by Bill Martin and Phil Coulter; it lost by just one point to Spain's "La La La". According to John Kennedy O'Connor's "The Eurovision Song Contest—The Official History", this was the closest result yet in the contest and Richard locked himself in the toilet to avoid the nerves of the voting. In May 2008 a Reuters news report claimed that voting in the competition had been fixed by the Spanish dictator leader, Francisco Franco, to ensure that the Spanish entry won, allowing them to host the contest the following year (1969). In particular, it is claimed that Spanish TVE television executives offered to buy programmes in exchange for votes. The story was widely covered and featured on UK Channel 4 News as a main story, with Jon Snow interviewing author and historian John Kennedy O'Connor about the matter. Eurovision later ended voting by national juries in a bid to eradicate such alleged scams. Nevertheless, "Congratulations" was a huge hit throughout Europe and Australia and yet another No. 1 in April 1968. After the Shadows split in 1968, Richard continued to record. During the 1970s, Richard took part in several television shows and fronted his own show "It's Cliff Richard" from 1970–1976. It starred Olivia Newton-John, Hank Marvin and Una Stubbs, and included "A Song for Europe". He began 1970 by appearing live on the BBC's review of the sixties music scene, "Pop Go The Sixties", which was broadcast across Britain and Europe on 31 December 1969. He performed "Bachelor Boy" with the Shadows and "Congratulations" solo. In 1972, he made a short BBC television comedy film called "The Case" with appearances from comedians and his first ever duets with a woman, Olivia Newton-John. He went on to release a double live album "Cliff Live in Japan 1972" featuring Newton-John. His final acting role on the silver screen was in 1973 when he starred in the film "Take Me High". In 1973, he sang the British Eurovision entry "Power to All Our Friends"; the song finished third, close behind Luxembourg's "Tu Te Reconnaîtras" and Spain's "Eres Tú". This time, Richard took Valium to overcome his nerves and his manager was almost unable to wake him for the performance. Richard also hosted the BBC's qualifying heat for the Eurovision Song Contest, "A Song for Europe", in 1970, 1971 and 1972 as part of his BBCTV variety series. He presented the Eurovision Song Contest Previews for the BBC in 1971 and 1972. In 1975, he released the single "Honky Tonk Angel" produced by Hank Marvin and John Farrar, oblivious to its connotations or hidden meanings. As soon as Richard was notified that a "honky-tonk angel" was southern US slang for a prostitute, Richard ordered EMI to withdraw it. He refused to promote it despite making a video for it. EMI agreed to his demand despite positive sales. About 1,000 copies are known to exist on vinyl. 1976–94: Comeback. In 1976, the decision was made to repackage Richard as a "rock" artist. That year Bruce Welch relaunched Cliff's career and produced the landmark album "I'm Nearly Famous", which included the successful but controversial guitar-driven track "Devil Woman" (Richard's first true hit in the US) and the ballad "Miss You Nights". Richard's fans were excited about this revival of a performer who had been a part of British rock from its early days. Many music names such as Jimmy Page, Eric Clapton and Elton John were seen sporting "I'm Nearly Famous" badges, pleased that their boyhood idol was getting back into the heavier rock in which he had begun his career. Notwithstanding this, Richard continued to release albums with contemporary Christian music content in parallel with his rock and pop albums, for example: "Small Corners" from 1978 contained the single "Yes He Lives". On 31 December 1976, he performed his latest single "Hey, Mr. Dream Maker" on BBC1's "A Jubilee of Music", celebrating British pop music for Queen Elizabeth II's impending Silver Jubilee. In 1979, Richard teamed up once again with producer Bruce Welch for the pop hit single "We Don't Talk Anymore", written by Alan Tarney, which hit No. 1 in the UK and No. 7 in the US. Bryan Ferry added hummed backing vocals to the song. The record made Richard the first act to reach the Hot 100's top 40 in the 1980s who had also been there in each of the three previous decades. The song was quickly added onto the end of his latest album "Rock 'n' Roll Juvenile". It was his first time at the top of the UK singles chart in over ten years and the song would become his biggest-selling single worldwide, selling almost five million copies throughout the world. The accompanying music video was the sixth to appear on American cable channel MTV when it debuted on 1 August 1981. At long last he had some extended success in the United States following "Devil Woman". The follow-up "Dreamin'" peaked at No. 10. His 1980 duet "Suddenly" with Olivia Newton-John, from the film "Xanadu", peaked at No. 20. In the UK, "Dreamin'" peaked at No. 8 and "Carrie" reached No. 4. In a retrospective review of the single, Allmusic journalist Dave Thompson praised "Carrie" as being "an enthrallingly atmospheric number. One of the most electrifying of all Cliff Richard's recordings." In 1980, Richard changed his name by deed poll from Harry Webb to Cliff Richard and received the O.B.E. from the Queen for services to music and charity. The singles chart saw his most consistent period of top twenty hits since the mid-1960s, with "A Little in Love", "Dreamin'", and "Suddenly" on the Hot 100 at the same time at the end of 1980. Richard continued with a string of top ten albums, including "I'm No Hero", "Wired for Sound", "Now You See Me, Now You Don't", and, marking his 25th year in show business, "Silver". In 1986, Richard reached No. 1 by teaming up with The Young Ones to re-record his smash hit "Living Doll" for the charity Comic Relief. Along with the song, the recording contained comedy dialogue between Richard and the Young Ones. That same year Richard opened in the West End as a rock musician called upon to defend Earth in a trial set in the Andromeda Galaxy in the multi-media Dave Clark musical "Time". Two Richard singles, "She's So Beautiful", which reached No. 17 in the UK and "Born To Rock 'n Roll", were released respectively in 1985 and 1986 from the concept album recorded for "Time". In August 1986, Richard was involved in a five-car crash in torrential rain on the M4 motorway in West London. Richard's car was a write-off as another car swerved and braked hard. Richard hurt his back in the accident, but was not seriously injured in the crash. Police called for a cab from the accident scene so that he was able to perform that night in the "Time" musical. Richard said: "I'm lucky to be here" after the show. He said that his seatbelt prevented him from flying through the windscreen. In October 1986, "All I Ask of You", a duet that Richard recorded with Sarah Brightman from the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical version of The Phantom of the Opera reached No. 3 in the UK singles chart. 1987 saw Richard record his "Always Guaranteed" album, which became his best selling album of all new material. It contained the two top-10 hit singles "My Pretty One" and "Some People". Richard concluded his thirtieth year in music by achieving a UK Christmas No. 1 single in 1988 with "Mistletoe and Wine", while simultaneously holding the No. 1 positions on the album and video charts with the compilation "" summing up his biggest hits from 1979–1988. "Mistletoe and Wine" was Richard's 99th UK single and spent four weeks at the top of the chart. It was the best-selling UK single of 1988, shifting 750,000 copies. In 1989, Richard received the Brits highest award: "The Outstanding Contribution award". In June 1989, he filled London's Wembley Stadium for two nights with a spectacular titled "The Event" in front of a combined audience of 144,000 people. Richard's 1989 UK No. 2 hit single "The Best of Me" received positive reviews from critics and established him as the first British artist to release 100 singles. "The Best of Me" was included in the top ten album "Stronger", together with the UK No. 3 "Just Don't Have The Heart" (written and produced by Mike Stock, Matt Aitken and Pete Waterman) and the 1990 UK No. 11 hit "From a Distance". Later in 1990, Richard scored his second UK Christmas No. 1 single with "Saviour's Day", a song written by Chris Eaton, which became Richard's 13th UK No. 1 single and his 100th top 40 hit. The video for "Saviour's Day" featured Richard singing on top of the limestone arch landmark of Durdle Door in Dorset. Richard unsuccessfully bid for the Christmas No. 1 spot again with "We Should Be Together" and "Healing Love" in 1991 and 1993 respectively – the latter being taken from his No. 1 studio album "Cliff Richard – The Album". The next few years saw Richard concentrate on bringing the musical "Heathcliff" to the stage. Back in the UK during the next years and throughout the 1980s, Richard remained one of the best-known music artists in the country. In the space of a few years he worked with Elton John, Mark Knopfler, Julian Lennon, Freddie Mercury, Stevie Wonder, Phil Everly, Janet Jackson, Sheila Walsh and Van Morrison. Richard also reunited with Olivia Newton-John. Meanwhile, the Shadows later re-formed (and again split). They recorded on their own, but also reunited with Richard in 1978, 1984, 1989–90, 2004, and 2009 for some concerts. 1995–2007: Knighthood. On 17 June 1995 Richard was appointed a Knight Bachelor (and invested on 25 October 1995) and became the first rock star to be so honoured (Bob Geldof had received his honorary knighthood nine years earlier). In 1996, he led the Wimbledon Centre Court crowd in singing during a rain delay when asked by Wimbledon officials to entertain the crowd. In 1998, Richard demonstrated that radio stations were refusing to play his music by releasing his latest single "Can't Keep This Feeling In" on a white label under the pseudonym of Blacknight. The single was featured on playlists until the true artist was revealed. In 1999, controversy again arose regarding radio stations refusing to play his releases when EMI, Richard's label since 1958, refused to release his song, "The Millennium Prayer", having judged that the song did not have commercial potential. Richard took it to an independent label, Papillon, which released the charity recording (in aid of Children's Promise). The single went on to top the UK chart for three weeks, becoming his fourteenth No.1 and the third-highest-selling single of his career. Richard's next album, in 2001, was a covers project, "Wanted," followed by another top ten album, "Cliff at Christmas". The holiday album contained both new and older recordings, including the single "Santa's List", which reached No. 5 in 2003. For his seven-day long 60th birthday party Richard in conjunction with OK magazine hired a cruise boat to Monte Carlo and sailed with his top 80 (out of a possible 500) specially invited guests, mostly from British showbiz, to France. Among the guests were Olivia Newton-John, Shirley Bassey, Sue Barker, Gloria Hunniford, Tim Rice, Mike Read, Bobby Davro (a Cliff Richard impersonator), Richard's three sisters, etc. Richard went to Nashville, Tennessee for his next album project in 2004, employing a writers' conclave to give him the pick of all new songs for the album "Something's Goin' On". It was another top ten album, and produced three top fifteen singles: "Something's Goin' On", "I Cannot Give You My Love", with Barry Gibb of the Bee Gees, and "What Car". On 14 June 2004, Richard joined the Shadows on-stage at the London Palladium. The Shadows had decided to re-form for another tour of the UK. It was not to be their last tour together though, as they would re-form once again for a final tour five years later in 2009. "Two's Company", an album of duets released in 2006, was another top 10 success for Richard and included newly recorded material with Brian May, Dionne Warwick, Anne Murray, Barry Gibb and Daniel O'Donnell, plus some previously recorded duets with artists such as Phil Everly, Elton John and Olivia Newton-John. "Two's Company" was released to coincide with the UK leg of his latest world tour, "Here and Now", which included lesser known songs such as "My Kinda Life", "How Did She Get Here", "Hey Mr. Dream Maker", "For Life", "A Matter of Moments", "When The Girl in Your Arms", "Every Face Tells A Story", "Peace in Our Time" and the Christmas single "21st Century Christmas", which debuted at No. 2 on the UK singles chart. Another compilation album, "Love... The Album" was released on 12 November 2007. Like "Two's Company" before it, this album includes both previously released material and newly recorded songs, namely "Waiting for a Girl Like You", "When You Say Nothing at All", "All Out of Love", "If You're Not the One" and "When I Need You" (the last was released as a single, reaching No. 38; the album peaked at No. 13). 2008–present: 50th anniversary and The Shadows reunion. 2008, Richard's 50th year in the music business saw the release of the eight-CD box set "And They Said It Wouldn't Last (My 50 Years in Music)". In September, a single celebrating his 50 years in pop music, titled "Thank You for a Lifetime" was released. On 14 September 2008 it reached No. 3 on the UK music charts. On 2 November 2008, British newspaper "the Mail on Sunday" gave away a free promotional CD entitled "50th Anniversary" containing 12 tracks picked by Richard himself. On 11 November 2008, Richard's official website announced that Cliff and the Shadows would reunite to celebrate their 50th anniversary in the music business. A month later they performed at the Royal Variety Performance. In 2009, Cliff and the Shadows brought their partnership to an end with the "Golden Anniversary concert tour of the UK". A new album by Richard and the Shadows was released in September 2009. Titled "Reunited", It was their first studio project in forty years. The 28 tracks recorded comprise 25 re-recordings of their earlier work, with three "new" tracks, originally from that era (and earlier), the single "Singing the Blues", along with Eddie Cochran's "C'mon Everybody" and the Frankie Ford hit "Sea Cruise". The album charted at No. 6 in the UK charts in its opening week and peaked at No. 4. The reunion tour continued into Europe in 2010. In June 2009, it was reported by Sound Kitchen Studios in Nashville that Richard was to return there shortly to record a new album of original recordings of jazz songs. He was to record fourteen tracks in a week. Richard performed "Congratulations" at the 70th birthday celebrations of Queen Margrethe II in Denmark on 13 April 2010. On 14 October 2010, Richard celebrated his 70th birthday and to mark the occasion, he performed a series of six concerts at the Royal Albert Hall, London. To accompany the concerts, a new album of cover versions of swing standards, "Bold as Brass", was released on 11 October. After a week of promotion, Richard flew out to rehearse for the German Night of the Proms concerts in Belgium at the end of October. He made a surprise appearance at the Antwerp concert of the Night of the Proms on Thursday, 28 October 2010 and sang "We Don't Talk Anymore" to a great reaction from the surprised 20,000 fans at Sportpaleis Antwerp. In all, he toured 12 German cities in November and December 2010, during the Night of the Proms concerts, as the headline act. The total of 18 concerts were attended by over 300,000 fans. Richard performed a selection of hits and tracks from the "Bold As Brass" album. In Munich, Richard added his hand prints to the Munich Olympic Walk of Stars during a break when the concerts were held there. With the DVD release of "Bold as Brass" in November 2010, he achieved his third consecutive No. 1 music DVD in three years. It has so far achieved a total of eight weeks in the top 10 on the UK chart selling nearly 60,000 copies. 2011 saw Richard recording once again in the US for his "Soulicious" album, containing duets with American soul legends including Percy Sledge, Ashford and Simpson, Roberta Flack, Freda Payne, Peabo Bryson, Brenda Holloway and Candi Staton. The album is produced by Lamont Dozier with David Gest as executive producer. Released in October 2011, the album was supported by a short UK arena tour and gave Richard his 41st top ten UK hit album. He was among the performers at the Diamond Jubilee concert held outside Buckingham Palace on 4 June 2012. Richard will release the 100th album of his career, "The Fabulous Rock 'n' Roll Songbook", in November 2013. He has released 47 studio albums, 35 compilations, 11 live albums and 7 film soundtracks. Lack of commercial support. Richard has openly complained about the lack of commercial support he receives from radio stations and record labels. He spoke about this on "The Alan Titchmarsh Show" on ITV in December 2007, pointing out that while new bands needed airplay for promotion and sales, long-established artists like him also relied upon airplay for the same ends. He also noted that 1980s radio stations did play his records and that this went some way to help sales and maintain his media presence. In the BBC Radio 2 documentary "Cliff – Take Another Look", he pointed out that many documentaries charting the history of British music (e.g. "I'm in a Rock 'n' Roll Band!") fail to mention him (or the Shadows). In 2011, digital station Absolute Radio '60s, dedicated to playing popular music from the 1960s, announced they would not be playing any of Richard's records because they claimed they did not fit "the cool sound... we're trying to create". DJ Pete Mitchell claimed "Timeless acts of the decade that remain relevant today are the Beatles, the Stones, the Doors and the Who, not Sir Cliff." Richard responded to this by saying: "They're lying to themselves, and more importantly they're lying to the public." In 2009, Richard said: "I've always maintained I'm the most radical rock 'n' roll singer Britain has ever seen. I was the only one who didn't spit or swear or sleep around. I didn't do drugs. I didn't get drunk. I didn't indulge in soulless sex. And I've always felt comfortable with the decisions I've taken." Richard has spoken of his irritation that "stars who debauch themselves, get addicted to drugs then kick them, get all the praise". In 2011, Sam Leith, a journalist from "The Guardian", wrote of Richard's lack of commercial support among radio stations: "His uncompromising Christianity, his clean-living ways, and his connoisseurship of the fruits of his Portuguese winery have made him an object of incomprehension, even ridicule, for the uncultured, alcopop-drinking younger generation." Personal life. Richard's father, Rodger Webb, died in 1961. His mother, Dorothy, died in October 2007, aged 87, after a decade with Alzheimer's disease. In a 2006 interview with the "Daily Mail", he spoke about the difficulties he and his sisters had in dealing with their mother's condition. Richard is a lifelong bachelor. In a letter written in October 1961 to "his first serious girlfriend", Australian dancer Delia Wicks, made public in April 2010 after her death from cancer, Richard writes, "Being a pop singer I have to give up one priceless thing – the right to any lasting relationship with any special girl." The couple had been dating for 18 months. In the letter he goes on to say, "I couldn't give up my career, besides the fact that my mother and sisters, since my father's death, rely on me completely. ... I have showbiz in my blood now and I would be lost without it." Richard has said that he once considered marriage in the 1960s to the dancer Jackie Irving and later in the 1980s to the former tennis player Sue Barker. Richard described Irving as "utterly beautiful" and says for a time they were "inseparable". Irving later married the singer Adam Faith. In 2008, Richard said of his relationship with Sue Barker: "I seriously contemplated asking her to marry me, but in the end I realised that I didn't love her quite enough to commit the rest of my life to her." In an interview in February 1983, Richard spoke of the possibility of marriage with Barker. He said: "I'm seeing Sue, the only girl I want to see at the moment and if marriage comes on the horizon, I shall relish it." Later in the year, in September 1983, Richard said he had no immediate plans to marry Barker. He said: "It's not vital to get married and it's not vital to be a father. But I would like to settle down and have a family one day." In 1986, after Richard's romance with Barker had ended and she began dating tennis player Stephen Shaw, Richard said he was still a friend of Barker. He said: "We have a mutual respect for each other and that means a lot to me." In 1988, Richard said of his former romance with Barker: "We were closer than just friends. She's the only person with whom I've had that sort of relationship." He said that one of the things which made up his mind not to marry her was when she got upset because he hadn't told her who he was seeing that day. Richard said: "I suddenly realised that in a marriage you don't live for yourself." When later asked why he has never married, Richard said: "I've had a few false alarms. I've been in love, but marriage is a big commitment and being an artist consumes a great deal of time." He said that in the early 1970s he was in love with the singer and actress Olivia Newton-John. Richard said: "At the time when I and many of us were in love with Olivia she was engaged to someone else. I'm afraid I lost the chance." Although he has never married, Richard has rarely lived alone. For many years he shared his main home with his charity and promotion schedules manager, Bill Latham, and Latham's mother. In 1982, Richard described them as his "second family". Richard first met Bill Latham, a former religious studies teacher, in 1965. Richard and Latham later shared a mansion home in Surrey with Latham's two successive girlfriends. Latham remained Richard's manager and spokesman after moving out of the home to get married. After working with Richard for over 40 years, Latham retired at the end of 2010. Richard often declines discussion about close relationships and when asked about suggestions that he may be homosexual has stated categorically that he is not. When the suggestions were first put to him in the late 1970s, Richard responded by saying: "It's untrue. People are very unfair with their criticism and their judgements. I've had girlfriends. But people seem to think that if a bloke doesn't sleep around he must be gay. Marriage is a very special thing to me. I'm certainly not going to do it just to make other people feel satisfied." Later in 1996, Richard said: "I'm aware of the rumours, but I am not gay." More recently he has said: "What business is it of anyone else's what any of us are as individuals? I don't think my fans would care either way." In an interview with David Frost in 2002, Richard said that his many good friends have prevented him from ever feeling lonely and he has always got someone he can talk to. In the interview on "BBC Breakfast with Frost", Richard also said that when his friend, the British television presenter Jill Dando, was murdered in 1999 he "was angry with God at that particular moment". In 2008, Richard spoke of his friendship with John McElynn, a former Catholic priest. McElynn, who is Richard's property manager, "lives in" and looks after the properties whilst Richard is away. Richard said that McElynn shares his passion for tennis and described him as "a great guy". Richard said: "John and I have over time struck up a close friendship. He has also become a companion, which is great because I don't like living alone, even now." Bill Latham said of Richard's friendship with John McElynn: "They are good friends and no more than that. John acts as a property manager, and travels a lot with Cliff in that capacity. It is a social arrangement and he plays no part in his music or commercial interests." In 1971, Richard was a leading supporter of the Nationwide Festival of Light, a movement formed by British Christians who were concerned about the development of the permissive society. Richard joined notable names including Malcolm Muggeridge, Mary Whitehouse and Dora Bryan to demonstrate in London for "love and family life" and against what the organisers called "pornography and moral pollution". Richard was one of approximately 30,000 people gathering at London's Trafalgar Square to protest against the Swedish sex education film "Kärlekens Språk", which was showing at a nearby cinema. In 2006, Richard received a Portuguese knighthood in which he was appointed Commander of the Order of Prince Henry (ComIH), this in recognition of his 40 years of personal and business involvement in that country. Richard finished No. 56 in the 2002 100 Greatest Britons list, sponsored by the BBC and voted for by the public. In 2008, Richard called on the Church of England to affirm people's commitment in same-sex marriage. In his autobiography he said that his views on certain issues are less judgemental than when he was younger and states that "many of my friends are gay – let's face it, homosexuality has been legal for more than thirty years. For me, the commitment is what counts – and I'll leave the judging to God." The official party celebrating his 70th birthday was held on 23 October 2010, with guests including Cilla Black, Elaine Paige and Daniel O'Donnell. In 2010, Richard confirmed that he is no longer a resident of the United Kingdom and had been granted citizenship by Barbados. Philanthropy. Since March 1966, Richard has followed the practice of giving away at least a tenth of his income to charity. Richard has stated that two biblical principles have guided him in how to use his money. He said: "Firstly, it was the love of money (not money itself) that was the root of all evil. Secondly, to be good and responsible stewards of what was entrusted to us."
1016207	Fly Me to Polaris () is a 1999 Hong Kong film directed by Jingle Ma and starring Cecilia Cheung and Richie Ren. Plot. The plots focuses on the character Onion (Ren) who became blind and mute during his childhood. Onion works at a hospital and gets to know the nurse Autumn (Cheung). Onion asks Autumn out on a date and when she says yes, he is so happy that he trips over a rock and is run over by a car. The death of Onion made Autumn realize that she was really deeply in love with him. Because he was the 6 billionth to die in heaven, Onion is granted a wish. He wishes to return to Earth for 5 days, since that is the longest he is allowed to go back. Unfortunately the rules stipulate that he cannot tell anyone who he really is and that, at the same time, he will be not be recognized as Onion himself by his former friends. Upon returning to Earth, Onion tries to talk to Autumn, who is upset over his death. He tries to tell her who he really is but can't without breaking the rules, and finds her being wooed by a doctor. He wastes a few days trying to tell her but finally gives up and makes the most of the time he has with her. At the end of the week, she realizes that he is Onion. But by that time, there are only few minutes left until the meteor showers, flying him back to Polaris.
1055291	Samuel John "Sam" Bottoms (October 17, 1955 – December 16, 2008) was an American actor and producer. Personal life. Bottoms was born in Santa Barbara, California, the third son of James "Bud" Bottoms (a sculptor and art teacher) and Betty (Chapman), both of whom survive him. He was the brother of actors Timothy Bottoms (born 1951), Joseph Bottoms (born 1954) and Ben Bottoms (born 1960). He died of glioblastoma multiforme, a type of brain tumor, on December 16, 2008. Career. When Bottoms was 16 years old, he was on the set of "The Last Picture Show", in which his older brother Timothy starred, when the director Peter Bogdanovich decided to give him a screen test. Sam ended up playing the character of Billy in the movie, who has no spoken lines, but contributes a pivotal role in the drama. Five years later, Bottoms appeared with Clint Eastwood in "The Outlaw Josey Wales".
629224	Bruce Spence (born 17 September 1945) is a New Zealand actor, having spent most of his career performing in Australia. Bruce attended Henderson High School in West Auckland. 1965 Career. Spence is most known for his roles as the Gyro Captain in "Mad Max 2" and as Jedediah the pilot in "Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome", and as "Zedd" (Zeddicus Zu'l Zorander) in "Legend of the Seeker". He also performed the voice of Chum in "Finding Nemo", the Mouth of Sauron in ', the Trainman in "The Matrix Revolutions", and Tion Medon in ' – the only actor to appear in all three final films of three major trilogies. At six-feet-seven inches-tall (2.01 m), Spence is one of the tallest actors to have played a leading role. He acted as the palaeontologist (Huxley) alongside fellow actor Felix Nobis, in the Australian performance of BBC's "Walking with Dinosaurs: The Live Experience". In his role, Spence narrates the activities of life-sized mechanical dinosaurs operated by teams of puppeteers and drivers. In 2008, Spence joined the television series "Legend of the Seeker", based on the Sword of Truth series by Terry Goodkind, in the role of Zeddicus Zu'l Zorander, co-starring with Craig Horner and Bridget Regan. The show ran for two seasons.
774628	The cinema of Canada or Canadian cinema refers to the filmmaking industry in Canada. Canada is home to several film studios centres, primarily located in its three largest metropolitan centres: Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver. Industries and communities tend to be regional and niche in nature. Approximately 1,000 Anglophone-Canadian and 600 Francophone-Canadian feature-length films have been produced, or partially produced, by the Canadian film industry since 1911. Notable filmmakers from English Canada include David Cronenberg, Guy Maddin, Atom Egoyan, Allan King, and Michael Snow. Notable filmmakers from French Canada include Claude Jutra, Gilles Carle, Denys Arcand, Jean Beaudin, Robert Lepage, Denis Villeneuve and Michel Brault. The cinema of English-speaking Canada is heavily intertwined with the cinema of the neighboring United States: though there is a distinctly Canadian cinematic tradition, there are also Canadian films that have no obvious Canadian identity (examples include "Porky's" and "Meatballs"), Canadian-American co-productions filmed in Canada (including "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" and the "Saw" series); American films filmed in Canada (including the "Night at the Museum" and "Final Destination" films, among hundreds of others); and American films with Canadian directors and/or actors. Canadian directors who are best known for their American-produced films include Norman Jewison, Jason Reitman, Paul Haggis and James Cameron. Cameron, in particular, wrote and directed the highest and second-highest grossing films ever, "Avatar" and "Titanic", respectively. Canadian actors who achieved success in Hollywood films include Mary Pickford, Norma Shearer, Donald Sutherland, Jim Carrey and Ryan Gosling, among hundreds of others. History. The first films that were shot in Canada were made at Niagara Falls; Lumière, Edison, and Biograph all shot there in 1897. James Freer is recognized as the first Canadian filmmaker. A farmer from Manitoba, his documentaries were shown as early as 1897 and were toured across England in an effort to promote immigration to Manitoba. The first fiction film, "Hiawatha, the Messiah of the Ojibway", was made in 1903 by Joe Rosenthal and the first Canadian feature film, "Evangeline", was produced by the Canadian Bioscope Company in 1913 and shot in Nova Scotia. In 1917, the province of Ontario established the Ontario Motion Picture Bureau, "to carry out educational work for farmers, school children, factory workers, and other classes." The Canadian Government Motion Picture Bureau followed in 1918. In 1938, the Government of Canada invited John Grierson, a British film critic and film-maker, to study the state of the government's film production and this led to the National Film Act of 1939 and the establishment of the National Film Board of Canada, an agency of the Canadian government. In part, it was founded to create propaganda in support of the Second World War, and the National Film Act of 1950 gave it the mandate "to interpret Canada to Canadians and to other nations." In the late 1950s, Québécois filmmakers at the NFB and the NFB "Candid Eye" series of films pioneered the documentary processes that became known as "direct cinema" or "cinema vérité". Federal government measures as early as 1954, and through the 1960s and 1970s, aimed to foster the development of a feature film industry in Canada; in 1968 the Canadian Film Development Corporation was established (later to become Telefilm Canada) and an effort to stimulate domestic production through tax shelters peaked in the late 1970s (see "Meatballs" below). Contemporary production and distribution. As in all cinema, the line between broadcast and cinema continues to be blurred in Canada as the means of production and distribution converge. A typical Canadian film production is made with money from a complex array of government funding and incentives, government mandated funds from broadcasters, broadcasters themselves, and film distributors. International co-productions are increasingly important for Canadian producers. Smaller films are often funded by arts councils (at all levels of government) and film collectives. The National Film Board of Canada is internationally renowned for its animation and documentary production. More recently it has been criticized for its increasingly commercial orientation; only one third of its budget is now spent on the production of new films.
1377126	Calum Worthy (born January 28, 1991) is a Canadian actor best known for his role as Dez on the Disney Channel show "Austin & Ally". He is a six time nominee and two time "Leading Young Actor" winner of the Young Artist Award for his performances in National Lampoon's Thanksgiving Family Reunion (2003) and Stormworld (2009). He also won the "Leading Actor" award at the Leo Awards (2010) for his performance in Stormworld (2009).
1184236	Nicole Prescovia Elikolani Valiente Scherzinger ( ; born June 29, 1978) is an American singer, songwriter and television personality. After beginning her career as a member of both Days of the New and Eden's Crush, she achieved widespread recognition as the lead vocalist of pop group The Pussycat Dolls, one of the world's best-selling girl groups of all time, before commencing her career as a solo recording artist in 2007. Following the disbandment of The Pussycat Dolls in 2010, Scherzinger's personal struggles sent her career into hiatus. Scherzinger returned to prominence as she took artistic control over her debut solo album, "Killer Love" (2011) and its singles "Right There" and "Don't Hold Your Breath" performed well on international charts. In addition to her solo work, Scherzinger has collaborated with numerous other artists, including being featured on the worldwide hits "Come to Me" (with Diddy) and "Jai Ho! (You Are My Destiny)" (with A.R. Rahman). She has also served as a judge on "The X Factor" in the United Kingdom since 2012, and for the first season in the United States in 2011. As the primary voice on record for The Pussycat Dolls, both in the studio and onstage, Scherzinger has sold 50 million records worldwide and a further 16 million as a solo artist. Scherzinger's work with the group has earned her numerous awards and accolades. In 2009, "Billboard" ranked The Pussycat Dolls, as one of the top ten most successful musical acts of the 2000s. In 2011, "Rolling Stone" recognized her instant success as one of the best dancing musicians, ranking her ninth in the world, while VH1's included her as one of the "100 Greatest Women in Music" in 2012, and was ranked eighth "Sexiest Artist of All Time" in 2013. Biography. 1978–2003: Early life and career beginnings. Scherzinger was born Nicole Prescovia Elikolani Valiente in Honolulu, Hawaii, into a staunchly Roman Catholic family. Her father, Alfonso Valiente, is of Filipino descent, and her mother, Rosemary Elikolani, is of half-Hawaiian and half-Ukrainian and/or Russian descent. Her mother was eighteen at the time of Scherzinger's birth and lived in an inner city neighborhood. Scherzinger's parents separated when she was still a baby. When she was six years old, her maternal family moved to Louisville, Kentucky, with her sister, Keala, and her German American stepfather, Gary Scherzinger. She took her stepfather's surname after he adopted her. She first attended Bowen Elementary, and later attended Meyzeek Middle School as an adolescent. Scherzinger states that, growing up, her family did not have a lot of money, and she thanks her mother for all the support she gave her to become what she is today. Scherzinger began performing in Louisville, attending the Youth Performing Arts School at duPont Manual High School, and performing with Actors Theatre of Louisville. As a teenager, Scherzinger was the first runner-up at the 1996 Kentucky State Fair's Coca-Cola Talent Classic contest. In college, Scherzinger majored in musical theatre at Wright State University, where she had a role in "Chicago" and in "Show Boat". She then put her studies in art on hold in 1999 to sing backing vocals for the rock band, Days of the New. Band leader Travis Meeks claims that after touring for the album, the two grew apart creatively and that despite being an "amazing entertainer," she "didn’t seem to understand music very well." In 2001, Scherzinger went on to audition on The WB's television show, "Popstars" in which she auditioned with Whitney Houston's version of "I Will Always Love You". Scherzinger later won the show as part of Eden's Crush, in which she was one of the lead vocalists for the group. The group released the single, "Get Over Yourself", which charted within the top 10 on the "Billboard" Hot 100. They later went on to tour with 'N Sync and Jessica Simpson. will.i.am approached Scherzinger to become a member of The Black Eyed Peas, but her boyfriend at the time, Nick Hexum forced her to decline as he controlled her entire career to try to make her a solo artist. The position was eventually given to Fergie. In late 2001, the band's record company, London-Sire Records, went bankrupt, and the group split. Scherzinger subsequently made a few promotional solo appearances under the stage name of Nicole Kea, including covering "Breakfast in Bed" for the soundtrack to "50 First Dates" in 2003. Scherzinger also worked with Yoshiki of Japanese rock band X Japan on his Violet UK project. She sang the English version of "I'll Be Your Love" live with the Tokyo Symphonic Orchestra. The track also appeared on the 2003 Various Artists album "Exposition of Global Harmony". 2003–10: The Pussycat Dolls. In May 2003, Scherzinger joined The Pussycat Dolls, a burlesque troupe, as a lead singer, when they were re-cast as recording artists. She had first seen them performing on the "Late Show with David Letterman" in November 2002, where Carmen Electra sang "Big Spender" from the Bob Fosse musical "Sweet Charity". Scherzinger's first recordings with the band was in two soundtracks in 2004, for the films "Shark Tale" and "Shall We Dance?". The newly formed recording group's first single was "Sway" from "Shall We Dance?", with a music video inspired by the movie. In September 2005, the band released "PCD", an album combined with several dance-pop songs interlacing their burlesque style, while the second half of the album contain tributes and covers. The album peaked at number one in New Zealand, the top-five in Canada, the Netherlands and the United States, and top-ten in United Kingdom, Austria, Germany, Switzerland and Ireland. "PCD" has sold three million copies in the US. Worldwide, "PCD" has sold ten million copies. The album received several certifications in multiple countries and became a best selling album from a girl group. Their first single, "Don't Cha" was a global commercial success, reaching number one in multiple countries. Worldwide, the song has sold more than 7 million copies, making it one of the best selling singles of all time. The band went onto release five more successful singles from the album — "Stickwitu", "Beep", "Buttons", "I Don't Need a Man" and "Wait a Minute". "Stickwitu" was later nominated for a Grammy for Best Pop Performance By a Duo or Group. The group was selected to perform for the introduction for ABC's coverage of the NBA. They also toured with The Black Eyed Peas on their Honda Civic Tour and Christina Aguilera's "Back to Basics Tour". In 2008, the band returned with a comeback single, "When I Grow Up" which became another hit single, charting in the top 10 in numerous countries. A second single "Whatcha Think About That" was released with Missy Elliott in European countries before the album and had moderate success internationally. The group's second album "Doll Domination" was released on September 19, 2008 and debuted at number four on the "Billboard" 200, with 80,000 copies sold in its first week of release. Worldwide, "Doll Domination" sold five million copies. Three more successful singles were released from the album — "I Hate This Part", "Jai Ho! (You Are My Destiny)" and "Hush Hush" One less successful single was also released, which was a collaboration with Snoop Dogg — "Bottle Pop". The band began their second world tour, Doll Domination Tour in early 2009. Both Lady Gaga and Ne-Yo supported the Pussycat Dolls on the UK leg. and were opening acts for the tour. In mid-2009, Scherzinger and the band joined Britney Spears' on her The Circus Starring Britney Spears tour as an opening act for the first leg in North America. In April 2009, Scherzinger confirmed to "Billboard" that the album would be re-released to give more people a chance to get their music. Scherzinger left the group in 2010. Scherzinger later admitted that she cried when she saw the first outfit she would have to wear as a member of the band. As of 2012, group has sold 50 million records worldwide. 2006–09: Solo releases and "The Sing-Off". With the success of the group's debut album, it brought Scherzinger into the media spotlight, which resulted in a series of duets and guest vocals with many male vocalists. Following the hiatus of the group, Scherzinger began working on a solo album. She sang co-lead vocals with Avant on his single "Lie About Us" in 2006. Scherzinger then collaborated with Diddy on "Come to Me" which became Scherzinger's first solo top-ten hit on "Billboard" Hot 100. Scherzinger's first recording during her solo career, "Whatever U Like" featuring T.I. was released as the album's lead single. The song failed to make a chart appearance on the "Billboard" Hot 100 and promotional plans were scrapped. Following the poor commercial success of the song, "Baby Love" was released and managed to reach the top twenty in most international countries. As a result of a majority of the singles charting poorly in the US, Scherzinger decided not to release any further singles from the album and at Scherzinger's request, "Her Name Is Nicole" was shelved. Two promotional singles were released from the album — "Supervillain" and "Puakenikeni" respectively and also both failed to chart.
1064143	James LeGros (born April 27, 1962) is an American actor. Personal life. LeGros was born in Minneapolis to a teacher mother and real estate broker father and was raised in Redlands, California. He attended the Professional Conservatory at South Coast Repertory in Costa Mesa, California as well as the University of California, Irvine. LeGros is the son-in-law of actor Robert Loggia. Career. James LeGros appeared as Rick in Gus Van Sants 1989 "Drugstore Cowboy". One of his best known roles was in "Living in Oblivion" (directed by Tom DiCillo, also starring Steve Buscemi and Catherine Keener). LeGros played Chad Palomino, a male acting diva with endless 'a-list' star demands for a 'b-movie' director and crew. LeGros appeared on Showtime's "Sleeper Cell" (as Special Agent Ray Fuller) and on "Law & Order". He was also a cast member on the television show "Ally McBeal" and guest starred on "Roseanne", "Punky Brewster", "The Outer Limits" (new series) and "Friends". He portrayed Dr. Dan Harris on the NBC series "Mercy". LeGros portrayed Peter Gray in the upcoming Dark Sky thriller "Bitter Feast". He also guest starred on "ER", which may have something to do with the fact that he had acted before with Maura Tierney, who plays Nurse Abigail "Abby" Lockhart on the show. The two were in "Scotland, PA" together, a low-profile film which was a modern approach to Shakespeare's classic tale of "Macbeth", full of 70s nostalgia.
578409	Ghost of Mae Nak () is a 2005 Thai horror film thriller about a protecting ghost directed and written by British director Mark Duffield. The film stars Pataratida Pacharawirapong, Siwat Chotchaicharin and Porntip Papanai as the ghost. Synopsis. Set in modern Bangkok, the life of groom Mak is disturbed, by successive nightmares with a ghost woman, Mae Nak, an ancient Thai legend. He meets his beloved fiancée Nak to acquire an antique brooch and an old abandoned house in Phra Khanong through an unscrupulous real estate agent Angel and they decide to buy the property. After their wedding, two small-time thieves break into the house and steal their gifts and other objects. Mak happens to see the criminals on the streets of Bangkok selling his goods. He chases the burglars and they run their van over Mak, who falls into a deep coma. The ghost Mae Nak protects the young couple against Angel and the burglars, but in return she holds the soul of Mak.
1034068	Carry On Columbus (1992) is the 31st and final (to date) film in the series of "Carry On" films to be made; it was a belated entry to the series, following 1978's "Carry On Emmannuelle". It was produced to coincide with the 500th anniversary of Christopher Columbus' discovery of the Americas (two other more serious films on the subject, ' and ' came out the same year). Plotline. Christopher Columbus (Jim Dale) believes he can find an alternative route to the far East and persuades the King (Leslie Phillips) and Queen of Spain (June Whitfield) to finance his expedition. But the Sultan of Turkey (Rik Mayall), who makes a great deal of money through taxing the merchants who have to pass through his country on the current route, sends his best spy, Fatima (Sara Crowe), to wreck the trip... Casting. The only main series regulars present are Jim Dale (in his eleventh Carry On), Peter Gilmore (also in his eleventh), Bernard Cribbins (in his third), Leslie Phillips (in his fourth), Jon Pertwee (in his fourth) and June Whitfield (also in her fourth). The only actor to bridge the gap between "Carry On Columbus" and the previous entry was Jack Douglas, making his eighth appearance in the series. Original "Carry On" performer Frankie Howerd was signed up to appear, but he died shortly before he was due to film his role. His part as the King of Spain was offered to original series regular Bernard Bresslaw, who turned it down. Leslie Phillips eventually took on the role, playing opposite June Whitfield as the Queen, a role turned down by both Joan Sims and Barbara Windsor. The producers managed to persuade a number of alternative comedians such as Peter Richardson, Alexei Sayle, Rik Mayall, Julian Clary and Nigel Planer, all of whom except Clary are from The Comic Strip, to appear in the film. This was the last film that Gerald Thomas directed, as he died on 9 November 1993. Filming and locations. Interiors: Exteriors: Reception. The film was panned by many critics but it took more money at the UK box office than the two other Columbus films released in 1992, ' and ', although all three films flopped.
915087	Winning is a 1969 American motion picture starring Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward. A number of racecar drivers and people associated with racing appear in the film, including Bobby Unser, Tony Hulman, Bobby Grim, Dan Gurney, Roger McCluskey, and Bruce Walkup. Plot summary. The film centers on professional racecar driver Frank Capua and his wife Elora (Newman and Woodward, who were married in real life). Frank spends too much time in the garage, pushing Elora into the arms of Newman's main rival on the track, Luther Erding (Robert Wagner). Production. During preparation for this film, Newman was trained for the motorsport by drivers, Bob Sharp and Lake Underwood, at a race track high performance driving schoolâwhich sparked Newman's enthusiasm for the sport and led to his participation as a competitor in sports car racing during the remainder of his life. He would eventually launch the much successful Newman/Haas Racing with his long time racing competitor and friend Carl Haas winning more that 100 races and 8 Drier's Championships in IndyCar Series.
1103041	Stefan Banach (; March 30, 1892 – August 31, 1945) was a Polish mathematician. He is generally considered to have been one of the 20th century's most important and influential mathematicians. Banach was one of the founders of modern functional analysis and one of the original members of the Lwów School of Mathematics. His major work was the 1932 book, "Théorie des opérations linéaires" (Theory of Linear Operations), the first monograph on the general theory of functional analysis. Born in Kraków, Banach enrolled in "Henryk Sienkiewicz Gymnasium" and worked on mathematics problems with his friend Witold Wiłkosz. After graduating in 1910, Banach and Wiłkosz moved to Lwów. However, Banach returned to Kraków during World War I and during this time, he met and befriended Hugo Steinhaus. After Banach solved mathematical problems which Steinhaus considered difficult, he and Steinhaus published their first joint work. Along with several other mathematicians, Banach formed a society for mathematicians in 1919. In 1920, Banach was given an assistantship in Jagiellonian University after Poland regained independence. He soon became a professor at Lwów Polytechnic and a member of the Polish Academy of Learning during this period. Later Banach organized the "Lwów School of Mathematics". He began writing "Théorie des opérations linéaires" around 1929. On the outbreak of World War II, Lwòw was taken over by the Soviet Union. As a corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, he promised to learn Ukrainian. In 1941, when Germany took over the city, Banach, his colleagues, and his sons worked as lice feeders at the Typhus Research Institute. When the Soviets recaptured Lwów, Banach reestablished the University. However, because the Soviets were removing Poles from annexed formerly Polish territories, Banach prepared to return to Krakòw. He died in August 1945 after being diagnosed with lung cancer seven months earlier. Some of the notable mathematical concepts named after Banach include Banach spaces, Banach algebras, the Banach–Tarski paradox, the Hahn–Banach theorem, the Banach–Steinhaus theorem, the Banach-Mazur game, the Banach–Alaoglu theorem and the Banach fixed-point theorem. Life. Early life. Stefan Banach was born on 30 March 1892 at St. Lazarus General Hospital in Kraków, then part of Austro-Hungarian Empire. Banach's parents were Stefan Greczek and Katarzyna Banach, both natives of the Podhale region. Greczek was a soldier in the Austro-Hungarian Army stationed in Kraków. Little is known about Banach's mother. Unusually, Stefan's surname was that of his mother instead of his father, though he received his father's given name, Stefan. Since Stefan Greczek was a private and was prevented by military regulations from marrying, and the mother was too poor to support the child, the couple decided that he should be reared by family and friends. Stefan spent the first few years of his life with his grandmother, but when she took ill Greczek arranged for his son to be raised by Franciszka Płowa and her niece Maria Puchalska in Kraków. Young Stefan would regard Franciszka as his foster mother and Maria as his older sister. In his early years Banach was tutored by Juliusz Mien, a French intellectual and friend of the Płowa family, who had emigrated to Poland and supported himself with photography and translations of Polish literature into French. Mien taught Banach French and most likely encouraged him in his early mathematical pursuits. In 1902 Banach, aged 10, enrolled in Kraków's "Henryk Sienkiewicz Gymnasium" (also known as the "Goetz Gymnasium"). While the school specialized in the humanities, Banach and his best friend Witold Wiłkosz (also a future mathematician) spent most of their time working on mathematics problems during breaks and after school. Later in life Banach would credit Dr. Kamil Kraft, the mathematics and physics teacher at the gymnasium with kindling his interests in mathematics. While generally Banach was a diligent student he did on occasion receive low grades (he failed Greek during his first semester at the gymnasium) and would later speak critically of the school's math teachers. After obtaining his "matura" (high school degree) at age 18 in 1910 Banach, together with Wiłkosz, moved to Lwów with the intention of studying at the Lwów Polytechnic. He initially chose engineering as his field of study since at the time he was convinced that there was nothing new to discover in mathematics. At some point he also attended Jagiellonian University in Kraków on a part-time basis. As Banach had to earn money to support his studies it was not until 1914 that he finally, at age 22, passed his high school graduation exams. When World War I broke out, Banach was excused from military service due to his left-handedness and poor vision. When the Russian Army opened its offensive toward Lwów, Banach left for Kraków, where he spent rest of the war. He made his living as a tutor at the local gymnasiums, worked in a bookstore and as a foreman of road building crew. He may have attended lectures at the Jagiellonian University at that time, including those of the famous Polish mathematician Stanisław Zaremba (mathematician), but little is known of that period of his life. Discovery by Steinhaus. In 1916, in Kraków's "Planty" gardens, Banach encountered Professor Hugo Steinhaus, one of the renowned mathematicians of the time. According to Steinhaus, while he was strolling through the gardens he was surprised to over hear the term ""Lebesgue measure"" (Lebesgue integration was at the time still a fairly new idea in mathematics) and walked over to investigate. As a result he met Banach, as well as Otto Nikodym and Wilkosz. Steinhaus became fascinated with the self-taught young mathematician. The encounter resulted in a long-lasting collaboration and friendship. In fact, soon after the encounter Steinhaus invited Banach to solve some problems he had been working on but which had proven difficult. Banach solved them within a week and the two soon published their first joint work ("On the Mean Convergence of Fourier Series"). Steinhaus, Banach and Nikodym, along with several other Kraków mathematicians (Władysław Ślebodziński, Leon Chwistek, Jan Kroć, and Włodzimierz Stożek) also established a mathematical society, which eventually became the Polish Mathematical Society. The society was officially founded on April 2, 1919. It was also through Steinhaus that Banach met his future wife, Łucja Braus. Interbellum. Steinhaus introduced Banach to academic circles and substantially accelerated his career. After Poland regained independence, in 1920 Banach was given an assistantship at Kraków's Jagiellonian University. Steinhaus' backing also allowed him to receive a doctorate without actually graduating from a university. The doctoral thesis, accepted by King John II Casimir University of Lwów in 1920 and published in 1922, included the basic ideas of functional analysis, which was soon to become an entirely new branch of mathematics. The thesis was widely discussed in academic circles and allowed him in 1922 to become a professor at the Lwów Polytechnic. Initially an assistant to Professor Antoni Łomnicki, in 1927 Banach received his own chair. In 1924 he was also accepted as a member of the Polish Academy of Learning. At the same time, from 1922, Banach also headed the second Chair of Mathematics at University of Lwów. Young and talented, Banach gathered around him a large group of mathematicians. The group, meeting in the Scottish Café, soon gave birth to the "Lwów School of Mathematics". In 1929 the group began publishing its own journal, "Studia Mathematica", devoted primarily to Banach's field of study — functional analysis. Around that time, Banach also began working on his best-known work, the first monograph on the general theory of linear-metric space. First published in Polish in 1931, the following year it was also translated into French and gained wider recognition in European academic circles. The book was also the first in a long series of mathematics monographs edited by Banach and his circle. World War II. Following the invasion of Poland by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, Lwów came under the control of the Soviet Union for almost two years. Banach, from 1939 a corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, and on good terms with Soviet mathematicians, had to promise to learn Ukrainian to be allowed to keep his chair and continue his academic activities. Following the German takeover of Lwów in 1941 during Operation Barbarossa, all universities were closed and Banach, along with many colleagues and his son, was employed as lice feeder at Professor Rudolf Weigl's Typhus Research Institute. Employment in Weigl's Institute provided many unemployed university professors and their associates protection from random arrest and deportation to Nazi concentration camps. After the Red Army recaptured Lviv in the Lvov–Sandomierz Offensive of 1944, Banach returned to the University and helped re-establish it after the war years. However, because the Soviets were removing Poles from annexed formerly Polish territories, Banach began preparing to leave the city and settle in Kraków, Poland, where he had been promised a chair at the Jagiellonian University. He was also considered a candidate for Minister of Education of Poland. In January 1945, however, he was diagnosed with lung cancer and was allowed to stay in Lwów. He died on August 31, 1945, aged 53. His funeral at the Lychakiv Cemetery was attended by hundreds of people. Contributions. Banach's dissertation, completed in 1920 and published in 1922, formally axiomatized the concept of a complete normed vector space and laid the foundations for the area of functional analysis. In this work Banach called such spaces ""class E-spaces"", but in his 1932 book, "Théorie des opérations linéaires", he changed terminology and referred to them as ""spaces of type B"", which most likely contributed to the subsequent eponymous naming of these spaces after him. The theory of what came to be known as Banach spaces had antecedents in the work of the Hungarian mathematician Frigyes Riesz (published in 1916) and contemporaneous contributions from Hans Hahn and Norbert Wiener. For a brief period in fact, complete normed linear spaces where referred to as "Banach-Wiener" spaces in mathematical literature, based on terminology introduced by Wiener himself. However, because Wiener's work on the topic was limited, the established name became just "Banach spaces". Likewise, Banach's fixed point theorem, based on earlier methods developed by Charles Émile Picard, was included in his dissertation, and was later extended by his students (for example in the Banach–Schauder theorem) and other mathematicians (in particular Brouwer and Poincaré and Birkhoff). The theorem did not require linearity of the space, and applied to any Cauchy space (complete metric space). The Hahn–Banach theorem, is one of fundamental theorems of functional analysis. Quotes. Stanislaw Ulam, another mathematician of the Lwów School of Mathematics, in his autobiography, quotes Banach as saying: Hugo Steinhaus said of Banach:
795542	Emmanuelle Vaugier (born June 23, 1976) is a Canadian film actress, singer, model, and television actress who has had recurring roles as on "", Mia on "Two and a Half Men", Dr. Helen Bryce on "Smallville", FBI Special Agent Emma Barnes on "Human Target", and as The Morrigan on "Lost Girl". In feature films, Vaugier has appeared alongside Michael Caine and Robert Duvall in "Secondhand Lions". She appeared as Addison Corday in "Saw II" and "Saw IV", and had a supporting role in the Josh Hartnett film "40 Days and 40 Nights". Early life. Vaugier was born in Vancouver, British Columbia and grew up in a French-speaking French Roman Catholic household. She is fluent in French. She divides her time between Los Angeles and Vancouver. She attended Crofton House School, an all-girls private school, for 10 years until she transferred to Magee Secondary School, which offers a flexible academic program for professional and pre-professional student athletes, artists and musicians (SPARTS), for the last two years of high school. Career. Television. Vaugier played the role of young, upstart model Maria Alcobar in a 1996 episode of '. In 2004, she played Lindsey Kellogg on the short-lived Fox Television series "North Shore". She has also had guest-star spots on "Veronica Mars", "Supernatural", "The Outer Limits", "Higher Ground", "Andromeda", and "Charmed". She also appeared in the Emmy Award nominated miniseries ' where she portrayed Mike Love’s wife, Suzanne. Vaugier also completed a starring role in "MOW Veiled Truth" for the Lifetime Network. She is also known for her role during the first two seasons of "One Tree Hill", as Nicki, Jake's (Bryan Greenberg) ex-girlfriend and mother to their child, Jenny.
1092569	Theodor Franz Eduard Kaluza (9 November 1885, Wilhelmsthal, today part of Opole – 19 January 1954, Göttingen) was a German mathematician and physicist known for the Kaluza-Klein theory involving field equations in five-dimensional space. His idea that fundamental forces can be unified by introducing additional dimensions re-emerged much later in string theory. Life. Kaluza was born to a Roman Catholic family from the town of Ratibor in the German Empire's Prussian Province of Silesia. Kaluza himself was born in Wilhelmsthal (a village that was incorporated into Oppeln (present-day Opole) in 1899). He spent his youth in Königsberg, where his father, Max Kaluza, was a professor of the English language. He entered the University of Königsberg to study mathematics and gained his doctorate with a thesis on Tschirnhaus transformations. Kaluza was primarily a mathematician but began studying relativity. In April 1919 Kaluza noticed that when he solved Albert Einstein's equations for general relativity using five dimensions, then Maxwellian equations for electromagnetism emerged spontaneously. Kaluza wrote to Einstein who, in turn, encouraged him to publish. Kaluza's theory was published in 1921 in a paper, "Zum Unitätsproblem der Physik" with Einstein's support in "Sitzungsberichte Preußische Akademie der Wissenschaften" 966-972 (1921).
146336	The Shout is a 1978 British horror film directed by Jerzy Skolimowski, based on a short story by Robert Graves that was adapted for the screen by Michael Austin. The film was the first to be produced by Jeremy Thomas under his Recorded Picture Company banner. Plot. "The Shout" stars Alan Bates as a mysterious travelling man who invades the lives of a young couple, played by Susannah York and John Hurt. Hurt is a composer, who experiments with sound effects and various electronic sources in his secluded Devon studio. The couple provides hospitality to Bates, but his intentions are gradually revealed as more and more sinister. He claims he has learned from an Aboriginal shaman how to produce a "terror shout" that can kill anyone who hears it unprotected. Production. The North Devon coastline, specifically Saunton Sands and Braunton Burrows, was used for the bulk of the location shooting. The church of St Peter in Westleigh Bideford used in church scenes Producer Jeremy Thomas later remembered his experience making the film: The film's soundtrack is by Michael Rutherford and Tony Banks of the rock band Genesis. The central theme "From the Undertow" features on Banks' album "A Curious Feeling". Accolades. The film was nominated for the Palme d'Or (Golden Palm) at the 1978 Cannes Film Festival and received the Grand Prize of the Jury, in a tie with "Bye Bye Monkey".
866435	Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel (22 July 1784 – 17 March 1846) was a German mathematician, astronomer, and systematizer of the Bessel functions (which were discovered by Daniel Bernoulli). He was a contemporary of Carl Gauss, also a mathematician and physicist. The asteroid 1552 Bessel was named in his honour. Life and work. Bessel was born in Minden, administrative center of Minden-Ravensberg, as son of a civil servant. At the age of 14 Bessel was apprenticed to the import-export concern Kulenkamp. The business's reliance on cargo ships led him to turn his mathematical skills to problems in navigation. This in turn led to an interest in astronomy as a way of determining longitude. Bessel came to the attention of a major figure of German astronomy at the time, Heinrich Wilhelm Olbers, by producing a refinement on the orbital calculations for Halley's Comet in 1804. Within two years Bessel had left Kulenkamp and become an assistant at Lilienthal Observatory near Bremen. There he worked on James Bradley's stellar observations to produce precise positions for some 3,222 stars. This work attracted considerable attention, and in January 1810, at the age of 25, Bessel was appointed director of the new founded Königsberg Observatory by King Frederick William III of Prussia. There he published tables of atmospheric refraction based on Bradley's observations, which won him the Lalande Prize from the French Academy of Sciences in 1811. Bessel was able to pin down the position of over 50,000 stars during his time at Königsberg. With this work under his belt, Bessel was able to achieve the feat for which he is best remembered today: he is credited with being the first to use parallax in calculating the distance to a star. Astronomers had believed for some time that parallax would provide the first accurate measurement of interstellar distances—in fact, in the 1830s there was a fierce competition between astronomers to be the first to measure a stellar parallax accurately. In 1838 Bessel won the race, announcing that 61 Cygni had a parallax of 0.314 arcseconds; which, given the diameter of the Earth's orbit, indicated that the star is 10.3 ly away. Given the current measurement of 11.4 ly, Bessel's figure had an error of 9.6%. He narrowly beat Friedrich Georg Wilhelm Struve and Thomas Henderson, who measured the parallaxes of Vega and Alpha Centauri in the same year. As well as helping determine the parallax of 61 Cygni, Bessel's precise measurements allowed him to notice deviations in the motions of Sirius and Procyon, which he deduced must be caused by the gravitational attraction of unseen companions. His announcement of Sirius's "dark companion" in 1844 was the first correct claim of a previously unobserved companion by positional measurement, and eventually led to the discovery of Sirius B. Despite lacking a university education, Bessel was a major figure in astronomy during his lifetime. He was elected a fellow of the Royal Society, a foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in 1823, and the largest crater in the Moon's Mare Serenitatis is named Bessel after him. Bessel's work in 1840 contributed in some degree to the discovery of Neptune. In 1832, he was elected a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Bessel won the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society in 1829 and 1841. In the second decade of the 19th century while studying the dynamics of 'many-body' gravitational systems, Bessel developed what are now known as Bessel functions. Critical for the solution of certain differential equations, these functions are used throughout both classical and quantum physics. Even in the absence of any work in astronomy, Bessel's role in developing the functions which now bear his name would have, by itself, placed him among the most significant and influential mathematicians of the 19th century. Bessel is responsible for the correction to the formula for the sample variance estimator named in his honour. This is the use of the factor "n-1" in the denominator of the formula, rather than just "n". This occurs when the "sample mean" rather than the "population mean" is used to centre the data and since the sample mean is a linear combination of the data the residual to the sample mean overcounts the number of degrees of freedom by the number of constraint equations — in this case one. He died in the spring of 1846 in Königsberg from retroperitoneal fibrosis. This was several months short of the discovery of Neptune in the fall of that year, by his colleagues at Berlin Observatory.
708027	Bad Biology is a dark horror comedy film directed and produced by Frank Henenlotter and rapper R.A. the Rugged Man. Plot. Driven by biological excess, a young man and woman search for sexual fulfillment, unaware of each other's existence. Unfortunately, they eventually meet, and the bonding of these two very unusual human beings ends in an over-the-top sexual experience. Jennifer (Charlee Danielson) has seven known clitorises (not including others inside her), began menstruating at age five, and gives birth to a mutant baby two hours after each act of sexual intercourse. No man has been able to satisfy her, and she discards all of her offspring, denying their very existence. Batz (Anthony Sneed), has a vagina-addicted penis with a mind of its own, that is growing out of control. Development. Henenlotter and Rugged Man wrote the script together. Henenlotter acted as director and Rugged Man the producer. Gabe Bartalos created the special effects, He has done effects on four other films with Henenlotter. The original musical score was done by Josh Glazer (J. Glaze) with accompaniments by Grammy winner Prince Paul and Vinnie Paz of Jedi Mind Tricks helped finance it. The film stars actress Charlee Danielson and also has cameos by J-Zone, Wu-Tang Clan affiliate Remedy, Penthouse Pet Krista Ayne, Reef the Lost Cauze, Staff Sergeant , film director James Glickenhaus, and Playboy model Jelena Jensen. Release. Bad Biology premiered at the 2008 Philadelphia Film Festival where Henenlotter received the Phantasmagoria award. While the movie was already released on DVD in the UK, it was released on DVD by Media Blasters in 2010. On 13 February 2010 Rare Flix sold the first copies of the DVD.
1103645	Charles Louis Fefferman (born April 18, 1949) is an American mathematician at Princeton University. His primary field of research is mathematical analysis. Biography. A child prodigy, Fefferman entered college by the age of eleven and had written his first scientific paper by the age of 15 in German. After receiving his bachelor's degrees in physics and mathematics at the age of 17 from the University of Maryland and a PhD in mathematics at 20 from Princeton University under Elias Stein, Fefferman received full professorship at the University of Chicago at the age of 22. This made him the youngest full professor ever appointed in the United States. At 24, he returned to Princeton to assume a full professorship there — a position he still holds. He won the Alan T. Waterman Award in 1976 (the first mathematician to get the award) and the Fields medal in 1978 for his work in mathematical analysis. He was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1979. He was appointed the Herbert Jones Professor at Princeton in 1984.
521938	RPG Metanoia is a 2010 Filipino 3D computer-animated adventure film produced by Ambient Media, Thaumatrope Animation and Star Cinema. It is the first full length Philippine animated film presented in 3D. It was an official entry at the 2010 Metro Manila Film Festival. It won the title for 3rd Best Picture, Best Sound Recording and Best Original Theme Song, as well as the Quezon City's Special Citation given for being a Gender Sensitive Movie. The stereoscopy of the film was made by Roadrunner Network, Inc. Production. Luis Suárez stated that the idea for the film came from his time with his nephew during summer (March-May). He asked his nephew what he wanted to do and he said he wanted to play online RPG games, so they went to a café and Luis spent the whole day with his nephew inside it. He then wanted to make a story for him for his nephew to see what he is missing in life. "RPG" took 5 years to make. Thaumatrope Animation began work in 2006. In 2008, a teaser trailer for the movie (then titled "theRPGmovie") was shown at Level Up's Ragnarok Online event at the World Trade Center. In August 2009, Ambientmedia officially partnered with ABS-CBN. In June 2010, it was announced to be an official entry for the 36th Metro Manila Film Festival. In August 2010, "RPG Metanoia's" official website was launched. The Cinema Evaluation Board gave the movie a Grade A. MTRCB gave the film a rated GP (General Patronage). Cast. The film features an ensembled cast. Reaction. Critical reception. Julius Edward B. Penascosa = of "The Philippine Star" stated that the movie stands out for its originality; for defying the typical storytelling formula used in other Metro Manila Film Festival entries; for not relying on "star power" (drawing power of renown actors/actresses); for capturing elements of Philippine society and culture; and for having endearing characters. Cited weaknesses however include its dubbing (reminiscent of anime shown on Philippine television), which was delivered mostly in exaggerated fashion. Philbert Ortiz Dy of ClickTheCity.com declared the film worthy of comparison to CGI animated features released by Pixar Animation, the studio behind such animated films as "Toy Story 3", "Up", "WALL-E", and "Cars", stating: "Regular readers are probably aware of how highly I regard Pixar and their work, and so it should taken as high praise when I say that I would proudly hold "RPG Metanoia" up against even the best of Pixar. The film is simply extraordinary." Score. "RPG Metanoia the Album" is the official soundtrack album of the film published by Star Records. The original film score was composed by Ria Osorio and Gerard Salonga, with the Filharmonika Orchestra performing their composition. The album features Apo Hiking Society, Jett Pangan and other well-known Filipino musicians. The theme song of the film "Kaya Mo" was sung by Protein Shake featuring Ney of the band 6Cyclemind and Kean Cipriano of Callalily; the song is the album's single. An accompanying music video was made for the single. Accolades. The 2010 Metro Manila Film Festival Awards. "RPG Metanoia" garnered four awards at the 2010 Metro Manila Film Festival.
1066883	J. Edgar is a 2011 American biographical drama film directed, co-produced, and scored by Clint Eastwood. Written by Dustin Lance Black, the film focuses on the career of FBI director J. Edgar Hoover from the Palmer Raids onwards, including an examination of his private life as an alleged closeted homosexual. The film stars Leonardo DiCaprio as the title character, Armie Hammer, Naomi Watts, Josh Lucas, Judi Dench and Ed Westwick. "J. Edgar" opened the AFI Fest 2011 in Los Angeles on November 3, 2011, and had its limited release on November 9, followed by wide release on November 11. Plot. The film opens with J. Edgar Hoover in his office during his later years. He asks that a writer, known as Agent Smith, be let in, so that he may tell the story of the origin of the FBI for the sake of the public. Hoover explains that the story begins in 1919, when A. Mitchell Palmer was Attorney General and Hoover's boss at the Justice Department. Palmer suffers an assassination attempt, but is unharmed when the bomb explodes earlier than intended. Hoover recalls that the police handling of the crime scene was primitive, and that it was that night that he recognized the importance of criminal science. Later, Hoover visits his mother, Anna Marie, and tells her that Palmer has put him in charge of a new anti-radical division, and that he has already begun compiling a list of suspected radicals. He leaves to meet Helen Gandy, who has just started as a secretary at the Justice Department. Hoover takes Gandy to the Library of Congress, and shows her the card catalog system he devised. He muses about how easy it would be to solve crimes if every citizen were as easily identifiable as the books in the library. When Hoover attempts to kiss her, she recoils. Hoover gets down on his knees and asks her to marry him, citing her organization and education, but his request is once again denied. However, Gandy agrees to become his personal secretary. Despite his close monitoring of suspected foreign radicals, Hoover finds that the Department of Labor refuses to deport anyone without clear evidence of a crime; however, Anthony Caminetti, the commissioner general of immigration dislikes the prominent anarchist Emma Goldman. Hoover arranges to discredit her marriage and make her eligible for deportation, setting a precedent of deportation for radical conspiracy. After several Justice Department raids of suspected radical groups, many leading to deportation, Palmer loses his job as Attorney General. Under a subsequent Attorney General, Harlan F. Stone, Hoover is made director of the Justice Department's Bureau of Investigation. He is introduced to Clyde Tolson, a recently graduated lawyer, and takes his business card. Later, while reviewing job applications with Helen Gandy, Hoover asks if Tolson had applied. Gandy says he had, and Hoover interviews and hires Tolson. The Bureau pursues a string of gangster and bank robbery crimes across the Midwest, including the high profile John Dillinger, with general success. When the Lindbergh kidnapping captures national attention, President Hoover asks the Bureau to investigate. Hoover employs several novel techniques, including the monitoring of registration numbers on ransom bills, and expert analysis of the kidnapper's handwriting. The birth of the FBI Crime Lab is seen as a product of Hoover's determination to analyze the homemade wooden ladder left at the crime scene. When the monitored bills begin showing up in New York City, the investigators find a filling station attendant who wrote down the license plate number of the man who gave him the bill. This leads to the arrest, and eventual conviction, of Bruno Hauptmann for the kidnapping and murder of the Lindbergh child. After going to a Shirley Temple film with Hoover's mother, Hoover and Tolson decide to go out to a club. When Ginger Rogers asks Hoover if he ever wishes he had someone to keep him warm at night, he responds that he has dedicated his life to the bureau. Ginger's mother asks Hoover to dance and he becomes agitated, saying that he and Tolson must leave, as they have a lot of work to do in the morning. When he gets home he shares his dislike of dancing with girls with his mother, and she tells him she would rather have a dead son than a "daffodil" for a son. She then insists on teaching him to dance, and they dance in her bedroom. Soon after, Hoover and Tolson go on a vacation to the horse races. That evening, Hoover tells Tolson that he cares deeply for him, and Tolson returns the feeling by stating that he loves Hoover. However, Hoover claims to be considering marriage to a young woman twenty years his junior, Dorothy Lamour, he has been seeing in New York City, provoking outrage from Tolson. Tolson accuses Hoover making a fool out of him and then begins throwing insults at Hoover, and consequently they begin throwing punches at each other and cause grave damage to the hotel room in the process; they eventually end up fighting on the floor. The fight ends when Tolson gets an upper hand over Hoover, and suddenly kisses him. Hoover demands that it must never happen again; Tolson says that it won't, and attempts to leave. Hoover apologizes and begs him to stay, but Tolson only says that if Hoover ever mentioned another woman again, their friendship would be over. He then leaves, with Hoover professing love for him moments after. Years later, Hoover feels his strength begin to decline. He requires daily visits by a doctor, and Tolson suffers a stroke which leaves him in a severely weakened state. Convincing himself that he overheard Martin Luther King Jr. engage in extramarital sex, Hoover attempts to "racistly" blackmail King Jr. into declining his Nobel Peace Prize by writing a letter threatening to expose his sexual life. The attempt proves ineffective, and King, Jr. accepts the prize. Hoover eventually begins to consider his mortality and tells Helen Gandy to destroy his secret files if he were to die to prevent Richard Nixon from possessing them. When Tolson appeals to Hoover to retire when Hoover comes to visit him, Hoover refuses, claiming that Nixon is going to destroy the bureau he has created. Tolson then accuses Hoover exaggerating his involvement in many of the bureau's actions and giving inaccurate details about some of events he encountered during his time with bureau as well revealing that "he" didn't kill Dillenger,arrest Hauptmann that Agent Sisk did Hoover wasn't even at the scene,Lindbergh didn't shake his or Tolson's hand and insulted him. Thus making Hoover reget hiring him. Returning home one evening after work, Hoover, obviously weakened, goes upstairs. Shortly after, Tolson is called by Hoover's housekeeper and he goes upstairs to find Hoover dead next to his bed. Griefstricken, he gently kisses Hoover's forehead and covers his body with a sheet before walking out. The news of Hoover's death reaches Nixon, and while he does a eulogy on television for him, several members of Nixon's staff enter Hoover's office and proceed to rifle through the cabinets and drawers in search of Hoover's rumored "personal and confidential" files, but find them all to be empty. In the last scene, Helen Gandy is seen destroying stacks of files, assumed to be from Hoover's personal archive and Richard Nixon makes a memorial speech. Cast. Charlize Theron, who was originally rumored to be playing Helen Gandy, dropped out of the project to do "Snow White & the Huntsman" and Eastwood considered Amy Adams before finally selecting Naomi Watts as Theron's replacement. Release. Critical response. Reviews have been mostly mixed, with many critics praising DiCaprio's performance but feeling that, overall, the film lacks coherence. As of May 19, review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reports that 44% of 211 critics have given the film a positive review with a rating average of 5.8 out of 10. The website's consensus is that, "Leonardo DiCaprio gives a predictably powerhouse performance, but "J. Edgar" stumbles in all other departments: cheesy makeup, poor lighting, confusing narrative, and humdrum storytelling." Metacritic, which assigns a weighted average score out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, gives the film a score of 59 based on 42 reviews. Roger Ebert wrote that the film is "fascinating", "masterful", and praised DiCaprio's performance as a "fully-realized, subtle and persuasive performance, hinting at more than Hoover ever revealed, perhaps even to himself", awarding the film three and a half stars (out of four). Todd McCarthy of "The Hollywood Reporter" gave the film a positive review, writing, "This surprising collaboration between director Clint Eastwood and "Milk" screenwriter Dustin Lance Black tackles its trickiest challenges with plausibility and good sense, while serving up a simmeringly caustic view of its controversial subject's behavior, public and private." David Denby in The New Yorker magazine also liked the film, calling it a "nuanced account" and calling "Eastwood's touch light and sure, his judgment sound, the moments of pathos held just long enough." J. Hoberman of "The Village Voice" wrote that "Although hardly flawless, Eastwood's biopic is his richest, most ambitious movie since the "Letters From Iwo Jima"-"Flags of Our Fathers"."
403263	Blue Movie (1969), a.k.a. Fuck, is a film by Andy Warhol starring Viva and Louis Waldon. Warhol describes the film, "in October '68 I shot a movie of Viva having sex with Louis Waldon. I called it just "Fuck"." While it is true that the movie does involve sexual intercourse, this is framed by dialog about the Vietnam War and various mundane tasks. While initially shown at The Factory, it was not shown to a wider audience at the Warhol Garrick Theatre until 1969. On July 31, the staff of the theater was arrested, and the film confiscated. The manager was eventually fined $250.
1033807	Ashley Jensen (born 11 August 1969 in Annan, Scotland) is a Scottish actress. She was nominated for an Emmy for her role on the television series "Extras", on which she appeared from 2005–2007. She was also a cast member of the ABC show "Ugly Betty" and the CBS sitcom "Accidentally on Purpose". Career. Jensen trained at Queen Margaret University, Edinburgh and was a member of the National Youth Theatre. Her first big television role was as eccentric secretary Rosie McConnichy in the final series of BBC comedy "May to December", as a replacement for the character of secretary Hilary. In 1994 she played Heather in "Roughnecks", a BBC television series based around the workers on a North Sea Oil platform. In 1996 she played Clare Donnelly, the daughter of Glasgow criminal Jo-Jo Donnelly (played by Billy Connolly) in the BBC drama "Down Among the Big Boys". She then appeared as Fiona Morris in "EastEnders". Jensen also had a small role in a "Dangerfield" episode called "Contact," in which she played the mother of a young girl with meningitis. Jensen starred alongside Ricky Gervais in the BBC Two/HBO television programme "Extras" as the socially inept Maggie Jacobs. For her work on the first series, she received best television comedy actress and newcomer awards at the 2005 British Comedy Awards. In 2006, Jensen received two British Comedy Awards and a BAFTA nomination for her role in "Extras." Her role in the 2007 Christmas Special earned her an Emmy Award nomination. In January 2006 she starred in the short-lived drama series "Eleventh Hour" on ITV, alongside Patrick Stewart. Stewart had also appeared in an episode of "Extras". Later that year she played Steve Coogan's agent in "A Cock and Bull Story". In 2007, she provided the narration for the film "Taking Liberties", directed by Chris Atkins. In September 2006, Jensen's first major role on American television came when she took the role of regular character Christina McKinney on the ABC series "Ugly Betty". Her character was originally an American, but when she met with the show's producers they liked Jensen's accent and changed the nationality of the character, keeping McKinney British. Production of "Ugly Betty" moved to New York from Los Angeles in mid-2008, causing a conflict for Jensen, who became a recurring member of the cast. In January 2009, Jensen starred in "No Holds Bard", a BBC Scotland one-off special comedy shown on Burns Night as part of a line-up of special programming to mark the 250th Birthday of Robert Burns. She is the narrator of Channel 4's "Embarrassing Illnesses" and "Embarrassing Bodies". She also narrates Bank of Scotland's current advertisement campaign and Persil detergent adverts for both television and radio. From September 2009 to May 2010, she co-starred with Jenna Elfman in the sitcom "Accidentally on Purpose" as Olivia. Jensen starred in the BBC comedy "Nativity" as Jennifer Lore, a Hollywood producer's secretary and the love interest of Paul Maddens played by Martin Freeman. "Nativity" was released in cinemas on 27 November 2009. On 21 December 2010, she starred in the one-off/pilot BBC comedy drama "Accidental Farmer", playing a London executive who buys a derelict farm with her philandering boyfriend's credit card. In 2011, she voiced Nanette the frog in the animated production "Gnomeo and Juliet." She starred in the ITV drama "The Reckoning" in April of that year. On 6 October 2012, she appeared as a guest on the BBC cookery programme Saturday Kitchen hosted by James Martin. Personal life. Ashley Jensen was born to Margaret and Ivar Jensen and brought up single-handedly by her mother, a special-needs teacher living in Annan, Scotland. After six years together, Jensen married actor Terence Beesley in a ceremony in the woods of Big Sur, California on 29 January 2007. They met in 1999 while working on a stage production of "King Lear". The couple live with their dog Barney near Bath, Somerset, having moved from Los Angeles, California, USA and have a flat in Holland Park, West London. The couple also own property in Umbria, Italy. The couple had their first child together, a boy called Francis Jonathan Beesley, on 20 October 2009. In December 2008, Jensen and Beesley were granted a restraining order against Jeff Lewis from Bravo TV's "Flipping Out". Jensen and Beesley lived next door to a Los Feliz house Lewis was renovating and conflict arose after a deck that Lewis had constructed on the home crossed the property line onto the Jensen-Beesley property. Jensen and Beesley sued, seeking $100,000 for an easement. Lewis reacted negatively and Jensen/Beesley filed a restraining order. In mid-April 2009 the two parties settled for a $30,000 easement and an agreement that the deck would not have to be demolished.
626815	Alien Siege is a 2005 Sci-Fi Channel Original Movie about an alien race that comes to Earth seeking a cure to a deadly virus, for which the antidote is human blood. Plot. An alien species called the Kulku demand that eight million human beings be handed over to them to produce a cure for the virus that is killing them. In return, the Kuklu promise not to wipe out the planet and take what they want. While other countries empty their prisons to try to meet their quotas, the United States holds a lottery. One of the 8 million humans selected is Dr. Stephen Chase's daughter, Heather. Dr. Chase tries to interfere with the Kulku's plan by joining the human resistance and killing as many of the Kulku as possible. The resistance has some success using a weapon he designs, but Heather is captured and taken to the Kulku mothership in orbit where they discover that just a little bit of her blood (rather than the entirety of it as with other human beings) is enough to cure one Kulku. Jal, the Kulku ambassador, prepares to send her to Kulku. He plans to destroy the Earth with the Kulku's "Raeg" weapon, which will allow her to travel to the Kulku homeworld alive. Meanwhile, after the Kulku start just harvesting humans, Army forces under General Skylar, formerly an enemy to the resistance despite being sympathetic, join forces with the resistance to stop the Kulku. Using an observatory's telescope as a modified version of Chase's weapon, the resistance prepares to use the weapon to destroy the Raeg and save the Earth, but a traitor reveals their plans to Kor, a Kulku sympathetic to humanity's plight, but unwilling to sacrifice his own race. Kor lands a strike team at the observatory to stop the resistance and Chase uses the opportunity to board Kor's ship and force him to fly him to the Kulku mothership to rescue Heather. There, they discover that Jal has slaughtered the other Kulku and plans to return to the Kulku homeworld a hero with Heather. Jal mortally wounds Kor and battles Chase after he frees Heather. Thanks to a distraction by Heather, Chase gains the upper hand and kills Jal, but they are confronted by a dying Kor who tries to detonate the Raeg in order to save his own species. At the observatory all but two of the Kulku and one of the resistance, Blair are killed. The weapon is finally ready to be fired, but the two remaining Kulku nearly kill Blair before General Skylar and his men show up and finish them off, allowing Blair to fire the weapon and destroy the Raeg at the last moment. Kor's wound finally catches up to him and he collapses and Heather finish him off in revenge for what the Kulku did to the people of Earth. Chase manages to fly a Kulku shuttle back to the observatory where the two reunite with Blair and General Skylar. A newsbroadcast at the end reveals that nearly eight million people died as a result of the Kulku invasion and the world is now left to recover while the Kulku presumably die out of the virus on their homeworld. Reception. A DVD Verdict review says, "Alien Siege isn't horrible and plays with some interesting ideas but my interest wavered throughout. It's one of the better SciFi originals, but that's not saying much." A Geeks of Doom review says, "Shamelessly ripping off "V: The Final Battle" and "Independence Day", and that is just for starters, Robert Stadd’s made-for-television movie is a thoroughly enjoyable slice of sci-fi pie that knows exactly the demographic it is aiming for (if you perked up a little with the V name-drop, congratulations, you are the target) and hits the bull’s eye pretty much dead center." A DVD Pub review says, "So there’s some good ideas being volleyed around in "ALIEN SIEGE", but after a while the movie just does the typical save-my-daughter-and-save-the-world thing."
581922	Veer-Zaara is a 2004 Indian romantic drama film directed by Yash Chopra under the Yash Raj Films banner. The film stars Shah Rukh Khan, Preity Zinta and Rani Mukerji in the leading roles, with Manoj Bajpai, Kirron Kher, Divya Dutta and Anupam Kher in supporting roles. Veteran actors Amitabh Bachchan and Hema Malini make special appearances in the film. The film's story and dialogues were written by Aditya Chopra. Set against the backdrop of conflict between India and Pakistan, this star-crossed romance follows the unfortunate love story of an Indian Air Force pilot, Squadron Leader Veer Pratap Singh, and a Pakistani woman hailing from a rich political family of Lahore, Zaara Haayat Khan, who are separated for 22 years. Saamiya Siddiqui, a Pakistani lawyer, finds Veer in prison, and upon listening to his story, tries to get him freed. Highly anticipated pre-release, the film eventually became the top-grossing Bollywood film of the year at both the Indian and the international box office, earning over worldwide, in addition to being showcased at numerous prominent film festivals around the world. The music of the film, based on old compositions by the late Madan Mohan with lyrics by Javed Akhtar, was also successful. Upon its theatrical release, "Veer-Zaara" received mostly positive reviews from critics. The film won several awards in major Indian film award ceremonies, including the Most Popular Film award at the National Film Awards and the Filmfare Award for Best Film, among others. The film marked Chopra's return as a director after seven years post "Dil To Pagal Hai", which also starred Shahrukh Khan. Plot. Most of the story is revealed as a flashback from the prison cell of Veer Pratap Singh. The narrative begins by showing Zaara Haayat Khan (Preity Zinta), an independent, carefree, and sprightly young Pakistani girl travelling to India. She is on her way to India with the ashes of her Sikh governess "Bebe" (a Punjabi word to denote mother or grandmother, but here used for Zaara's old governess). Before dying, "Bebe" (Zohra Sehgal) begs Zaara to fulfill her final wish - to take her ashes to India, to the holy Sikh city of Kiratpur, and scatter them in the Sutlej river, among her ancestors. Zaara decides to carry out Bebe's dying wish. Upon reaching India, Zaara's bus meets with an accident causing it to overturn. An Indian Air Force pilot, Squadron Leader Veer Pratap Singh (Shah Rukh Khan) comes to her rescue and with his help, Zaara completes Bebe's final rites. Veer convinces Zaara to return with him to his village to spend one day together. Zaara agrees and Veer takes her on a tour of India's Punjab. They visit Veer's home village on the day of the Lodi festival and meet Veer's uncle Choudhary Sumer Singh (Amitabh Bachchan) and aunt Saraswati Kaur (Hema Malini). With his uncle telling Veer that, in a dream he has seen Zaara becoming Veer's wife, Veer realises he is falling in love with Zaara. Taking her to catch her train to Lahore, Veer is just waiting for the right time to tell Zaara about his feelings, but before he can do that they are met by Zaara's fiance, who has come looking for her, Raza (Manoj Bajpai). Just before she boards the train, Veer confesses his love to Zaara. He gets no sense of Zaara's feelings, but as she is leaving he discovers he still has one of her silver anklets. She nods for him to keep it; both believe that this is the end of the road for their relationship and that they will probably never meet again. On reaching Pakistan, Zaara realises that she is having deep feelings of love for Veer, but that it is her duty to keep her family's honour and marry her fiancé, a wedding that will further her father's political career. She initially tells her mother of an Indian man who is ready to give his life for her and for whom she has fallen for. Soon Zaara starts to see Veer everywhere and finally tells Shabbo (Divya Dutta), her maid and friend, that she has fallen in love with him. Shabbo calls Veer and tells him how miserable Zaara is without him. She asks him to come and take Zaara away. Veer who had told Zaara that he would give up his life for her, quits the Indian Air Force and goes to Pakistan to bring her back with him to India. Zaara's mother, Mariam Hayaat Khan (Kirron Kher), however, begs him to leave Zaara as Zaara's father, Jahangir Hayaat Khan (Boman Irani) is a high-profile politician whose reputation, and health, will be ruined if news gets out that his daughter is in love with an Indian. Veer respects this request and decides to leave for India but Raza, who is outraged by the shame Zaara has brought upon him, frames Veer and has him wrongly imprisoned on charges of being an Indian spy. The story moves forward by 22 years and Veer now meets Saamiya Siddiqui (Rani Mukerji), who is an idealistic Pakistani lawyer, whose mission in life is to pave the path for women's empowerment in Pakistan. The Pakistani government has decided to review the cases of some Indians, but stacking the deck against Siddiqui winning her first case, she has been given the case of prisoner 786 (Veer). Many view it as an impossible task as the man has been languishing in prison and has not spoken to anyone for the last 22 years. Also, the prosecution is led by Zakir Ahmed (Anupam Kher), her ex-boss who has never lost a case.
626578	Rise of the Footsoldier is a 2007 British crime film released on 7 September 2007. It is the third film from BAFTA nominated director Julian Gilbey. It is a gangster film based on the true story of the Rettendon murders and the autobiography of Carlton Leach, a former football hooligan of the infamous Inter City Firm (ICF) who became a powerful figure of the English underworld. Cast. Carlton's Crew. and
1060059	The Sugarland Express is a 1974 American neo-noir drama film co-written and directed by Steven Spielberg in his feature film directorial debut. It stars Goldie Hawn, Ben Johnson, William Atherton, and Michael Sacks. It is about a husband and wife trying to outrun the law and was based on a true story. The event partially took place, the story is partially set, and the movie was partially filmed in Sugar Land, Texas. Other scenes for the film were filmed in San Antonio, Lone Oak Community, Floresville, Pleasanton, Converse and Del Rio, Texas. Plot. In May 1969, Lou Jean Poplin assists her husband Clovis Michael Poplin to escape from the Beauford H. Jester Prison Farm in Texas because she fears their son will be placed in the care of foster parents. During their getaway, they overpower and kidnap Texas Department of Public Safety Patrolman Maxwell Slide, holding him hostage in a slow-moving caravan, along with reporters in news vans and helicopters. The Poplins and their captive travel through Beaumont, Dayton, Houston, Cleveland, Conroe and finally Wheelock, Texas. The Poplins bring Slide to the home of the foster parents, where they encounter numerous officers. An FBI agent and county sheriff shoot and kill Clovis and arrest Lou Jean. Patrolman Slide is found unharmed. Lou Jean spends fifteen months of a five-year prison term in a women's correctional facility. Production. Film characters Lou Jean Poplin and Clovis Michael Poplin are based on the lives of Ila Fae Holiday and Robert Dent, respectively. The character Patrolman Slide is based on Trooper J. Kenneth Crone. Steven Spielberg persuaded co-producers Richard Zanuck and David Brown to let him make his big-screen directorial debut with this true story. A year later, Spielberg's next project for Zanuck and Brown was 1975's blockbuster hit "Jaws". Cast. The actual kidnapped patrolman, J. Kenneth Crone, played a small role in the film as a deputy sheriff. Reception. "The Sugarland Express" holds a 92% rating on Rotten Tomatoes with an average score of 7.2 out of 10 from 25 reviews. Awards. The film won the award for Best Screenplay at the 1974 Cannes Film Festival.
1103112	Bartel Leendert van der Waerden (; February 2, 1903 – January 12, 1996) was a Dutch mathematician and historian of mathematics. Biography. Education and early career. Van der Waerden learned advanced mathematics at the University of Amsterdam and the University of Göttingen, from 1919 until 1926. He was much influenced by Emmy Noether at Göttingen. Amsterdam awarded him a Ph.D. for a thesis on algebraic geometry, supervised by Hendrick de Vries. Göttingen awarded him the habilitation in 1928. In his 27th year, van der Waerden published his Moderne Algebra, an influential two-volume treatise on abstract algebra, still cited, and perhaps the first treatise to treat the subject as a comprehensive whole. This work systematized an ample body of research by Emmy Noether, David Hilbert, Richard Dedekind, and Emil Artin. In the following year, 1931, he was appointed professor at the University of Leipzig. Nazi Germany. During the rise of the Third Reich and through World War II, van der Waerden remained at Leipzig, and passed up opportunities to leave Nazi Germany for Princeton and Utrecht. However, he was critical of the Nazis and refused to give up his Dutch nationality, both of which led to difficulties for him. Postwar career. Following the war, van der Waerden was repatriated to the Netherlands rather than returning to Leipzig (then under Russian control), but struggled to find a position in the Dutch academic system, in part because his time in Germany made his politics suspect and in part due to Brouwer's opposition to Hilbert's school of mathematics. After a year visiting Johns Hopkins University and two years as a part-time professor, in 1950 van der Waerden filled the chair in mathematics at the University of Amsterdam. In 1951 he moved to the University of Zurich, where he spent the rest of his career, supervising more than 40 Ph.D. students. Contributions. Van der Waerden is mainly remembered for his work on abstract algebra. He also wrote on algebraic geometry, topology, number theory, geometry, combinatorics, analysis, probability and statistics, and quantum mechanics (he and Heisenberg had been colleagues at Leipzig). In his later years, he turned to the history of mathematics and science. His historical writings include "Ontwakende wetenschap" (1950), which was translated into English as "Science Awakening" (1954), "Geometry and Algebra in Ancient Civilizations" (1983), and "A History of Algebra" (1985).
1184040	Christine Flores (born September 26, 1981), better known by her stage name Christina Milian (), is an American actress and singer-songwriter. At the age of 19, Milian signed a contract with Def Jam. In 2001, Christina Milian released her self-titled debut album, which featured the singles "AM to PM" and "When You Look at Me"; "AM to PM" charted with in the Top 40 of the US "Billboard" Hot 100 and both peaked in the top three on the UK Singles Chart. In 2004, Milian released her second studio album "It's About Time", which provided her first major US hit. "Dip It Low", which reached number 5 on the US "Billboard" chart, "Whatever U Want" was released as the album's second single, both singles charted within the Top 10 of the UK chart.
357193	The Karate Guard is a 2005 Tom and Jerry cartoon short directed by Joseph Barbera and Spike Brandt. It was the last Tom and Jerry cartoon to be written, co-directed and co-produced by the characters' co-creator Joseph Barbera before his death in 2006. This is also, to date, the last theatrical cartoon to feature or star Tom and Jerry. It also premiered on Kids' WB! on . This was the series finale of Tom and Jerry. Tom and Jerry was cancelled in 2005 with over 162 episodes. Plot. The cartoon starts at the outside of the house and then goes to Tom, who was taking a nap but was woken up by Jerry. Tom peeks through the mouse hole to see what the noise was and sees Jerry smacking a punching bag that mimics Tom. After Jerry finishes with the punching bag, his spiritual mentor appears and asks him if he's ready to take on Tom; Jerry agrees. After Jerry walks out of his home he sees Tom at the end of a hallway and becomes afraid of him, until Tom starts to mock Jerry, and laughs at the thought of Jerry defeating him. Jerry then decides to go and fight Tom until Tom pulls out a flyswatter and hits Jerry with it multiple times, then he slingshots Jerry with the flyswatter back into his home where he runs into one of his walls. Jerry's spiritual mentor appears again and gives Jerry a gong to ring that summons a "Karate Guard" named Momo-sumo (played by Spike) to aid him whenever he needs help. The short deals with Tom's attempts to catch Jerry. He does not know about Spike at first. As soon as Jerry rings the gong, Spike sticks out his arm as Tom yelps and spins. He is then tied to a lawnmower and is launched into a garbage can. Tom moans in pain from hitting the garbage truck wall. The garbage truck door then closes on Tom. In the next scene, Jerry is eating cheese and Tom tries again. He grabs Jerry. Jerry struggles to free his hands. Spike comes and chops his backside. Tom yelps quickly and puts Jerry back, and falls to the ground. Then Tom puts pillow-like earmuffs on Spike. Tom dings to show Jerry that his guard can't hear his gong. Tom dings the gong close to Spike's ear. He wakes and shoots Tom into the air. Tom yells in fear and claws the roof he landed on. it doesn't work and he is teetering on the gutter's edge. Tom does a quick salute and falls. Then Tom takes a giant leap and land on the roof. Tom, who was shaking in fear heaves a sigh of relief. Jerry does everything he can to anger Tom, including making funny faces, showing him his underwear, etc. It works and the chase is off again. They chase into a toy store where Jerry hides in an airplane. Jerry turns it on and scalps Tom's head and then shaves Tom's body. As soon as Tom's fur comes back the chase stars again. He gets an airplane and is shredding Jerry's. Jerry gongs for Spike and Tom hits Spike's chest, causing him (Tom) to disintegrate. Spike sweeps him up and throws him in a trash can. A panicked Tom calls an exterminator, Butch, along with three more cats to remove Spike from the household. They do nothing more than fire paint-balls at Spike, who is thrown by the force into the swimming pool; Tom then breaks out laughing. However, Spike then grabs Tom and squashes him into a bowling ball which he uses to, literally, strike the cats out of the garden. In the final scene, Jerry and Spike are watching Kids' WB TV (which is showing the battered exterminator cats with Butch opening his mouth and catching all his fallen teeth) and eating popcorn, leading to Spike eating the whole popcorn and making Jerry ring the gong, but instead of a man, there is Tom, who arrives to bring more popcorn to Jerry and Spike and to kiss Spike's feet, and Jerry dives into the popcorn and munches it happily, then finally the credits say "In memory of Joseph Barbera". Production. This is the series finale and pilot episode of Tom and Jerry Tales.
591315	Dr. Kotnis ki Amar Kahani (; ) is a 1946 Indian film made in Hindi as well as English and directed by V. Shantaram. The English version was titled The Journey of Dr. Kotnis. Both versions starred V. Shantaram in the title role of Dr. Kotnis. The film is based on the life of Dwarkanath Kotnis, an Indian doctor who worked in China during the Japanese invasion in World War II. Overview. The film was based on the story 'And One Did Not Come Back', by Khwaja Ahmad Abbas, which is itself based on the heroic life of Dr. Dwarkanath Kotnis, played by V. Shantaram in the film.
1057561	The Mask of Dimitrios is a 1944 American film noir directed by Jean Negulesco and written by Frank Gruber, based on the 1939 novel of the same name written by Eric Ambler (in America the novel was titled "A Coffin for Dimitrios"). Ambler is known as a major influence on writers and an inventor of the modern thriller genre. The drama features Sydney Greenstreet, Zachary Scott (as Dimitrios Makropoulos), Faye Emerson and Peter Lorre. This was the first film for Scott after signing a contract with Warner Bros. Pictures. Plot. Dutch mystery writer Cornelius Leyden (Peter Lorre) is visiting Istanbul. A fan of his, Colonel Haki (Kurt Katch) of the Turkish police (who appears in several Ambler books), believes he would be interested in the history of one Dimitrios Makropoulos (Zachary Scott), whose body was just washed up on the beach. Leyden is so fascinated by what Haki tells of the dead arch-criminal that he becomes determined to learn more. He seeks out Dimitrios's associates all over Europe, none of whom has a kind word for the deceased. They reveal more of the man's sordid life. His ex-lover, Irana Preveza (Faye Emerson), tells of his failed assassination attempt. Afterwards, he borrowed money from her and never returned.
1044618	The Quatermass Xperiment (US title: The Creeping Unknown) is a 1955 British science fiction horror film. Made by Hammer Film Productions, it is based on the 1953 BBC Television serial "The Quatermass Experiment" written by Nigel Kneale. Produced by Anthony Hinds and directed by Val Guest, it stars Brian Donlevy as the eponymous Professor Bernard Quatermass. Jack Warner, Richard Wordsworth and Margia Dean appear in supporting roles. The plot concerns three astronauts launched into space in a rocket designed by Quatermass. The spacecraft returns to Earth with only one occupant, Victor Carroon (Wordsworth). Something has infected Carroon during the flight and he begins mutating into an alien organism which, if it spores, will engulf and destroy humanity. When Carroon escapes from Quatermass's custody, the professor and his associates, including Inspector Lomax (Warner) of Scotland Yard, have just a few hours to track the creature down and prevent a catastrophe. The screenplay, written by Richard Landau and Val Guest, presents a heavily compressed version of the events of the original television serial. The most significant plot change occurs at the climax of the film. In the television version, Quatermass appeals to the last vestiges of the creature's humanity and convinces it to commit suicide to save the world. In the film, Quatermass kills the creature by electrocution. Nigel Kneale was critical of the changes made for the film adaptation and of the casting of Brian Donlevy, whose brusque interpretation of Quatermass was not to his liking. To make the film's plot convincing to audiences, Guest employed a high degree of realism, directing the film in a style akin to a newsreel. The film was shot on location in London, Windsor and Bray and at Hammer's Bray Studios. Carroon's transformation was effected by makeup artist Phil Leakey, who worked in conjunction with cinematographer Walter J. Harvey to accentuate Wordsworth's naturally gaunt features to give him an alien appearance. Special effects, including a model of the fully mutated creature seen at the climax, were provided by Les Bowie. The music was composed by James Bernard, the first of many scores he wrote for Hammer. Hammer marketed the film in the United Kingdom by dropping the "E" from "Experiment" in the title to emphasise the adults-only 'X' Certificate given to the film by the British Board of Film Censors. Upon general release, the film formed one half of the highest grossing double bill release of 1955 in the UK. It was the first Hammer production to attract the attention of a major distributor in the United States, in this case United Artists, who distributed the film under the title "The Creeping Unknown". Its success led to Hammer producing an increasing number of horror films, including two sequels "Quatermass 2" (1957) and "Quatermass and the Pit" (1967), making them synonymous with the genre. "The Quatermass Xperiment" is regarded as the first of these "Hammer Horrors". Plot. The British Rocket Group, headed by Professor Bernard Quatermass, launches its first rocket into space. Shortly after its launch, all contact with the rocket and the three occupants – Carroon, Reichenheim and Green – is lost. The rocket returns to Earth, crashing in an English field. Quatermass and his assistant Briscoe arrive at the scene, along with the emergency services. Opening the rocket's hatch, they find only Carroon; there is no sign of the other two crewmembers. Carroon appears to be in shock, only able to mouth the words "Help me". He is taken to hospital while Quatermass and Briscoe investigate what happened to the rocket and its crew. It becomes evident that Carroon has been changed by something he encountered while in space. He can absorb any living thing he comes in contact with. When he absorbs a cactus in his hospital room, his right arm begins mutating. Not knowing this, Carroon's wife, Judith, hires a private investigator to break her husband out of the hospital. The escape is successful but Carroon kills and absorbs the private investigator in the process. It does not take long for Judith to discover what her husband has become and Carroon soon flees from his horrified wife. Inspector Lomax of Scotland Yard, initiates a manhunt to find the missing astronaut. Hiding out at the London docks, Carroon encounters a little girl but through sheer willpower leaves her unharmed. Instead, he heads for a zoo where he absorbs many of the animals. By now, Carroon has become completely mutated. Quatermass and Briscoe track the creature to Westminster Abbey. From his examination of tissue samples taken from Carroon, Quatermass concludes that an alien creature has taken over Carroon and will eventually release spores, endangering the entire planet. With the assistance of a television crew working at the Abbey, Quatermass succeeds in killing the creature by electrocution. As he leaves the Abbey, Quatermass ignores all those who pass him and ask what's happened, save for his assistant Marsh who then asks him what to do next. Quatermass replies that he'll start all over again. He leaves Marsh and walks away into the London night. Production. Development. "The Quatermass Experiment" was a six-part serial broadcast by BBC Television in 1953. Written by Nigel Kneale, it was an enormous success with critics and audiences alike, later described by film historian Robert Simpson as "event television, emptying the streets and pubs". Among its viewers was Hammer Films producer Anthony Hinds, who was immediately keen to buy the rights for a film version. Incorporated in 1934, Hammer had developed a niche for itself making second features, many of which were adaptations of successful BBC Radio productions. Hammer contacted the BBC on 24 August 1953, two days after the transmission of the final episode, to enquire about the film rights. Nigel Kneale also saw the potential for a film adaptation and, at his urging, the BBC touted the scripts around a number of producers, including the Boulting Brothers and Frank Launder and Sidney Gilliat. Kneale met with Sidney Gilliat to discuss the scripts but Gilliat was reluctant to buy the rights as he felt any film adaptation would inevitably receive an ‘X’ Certificate from the British Board of Film Censors (BBFC), restricting admission to persons over the age of sixteen. Hammer were not so reticent, deciding from the outset that they would deliberately pursue an ‘X’ Certificate. Hammer's offer met some resistance within the BBC, with one executive expressing reservations that "The Quatermass Experiment" was not suitable material for the company, but the rights were nevertheless sold for an advance of £500. Nigel Kneale was a BBC employee at the time, which meant that his scripts were owned entirely by the BBC and he received no extra payment for the sale of the film rights. This became a matter of some resentment between Kneale and the BBC and, when his contract came up for renewal, he demanded and secured control over any future film rights for his work. Despite this, Kneale remained bitter over the affair until the BBC made an "ex-gratia" payment of £3,000 to him in 1967, in recognition of his creation of Quatermass. The film was co-produced by Robert L. Lippert, an American movie producer and distributor. Hammer had entered into an arrangement with Lippert in 1951 under which Lippert provided finance and supplied American stars for Hammer's films and distributed them in the United States. In return, Hammer's distribution arm, Exclusive Films, distributed Lippert's films in the United Kingdom. Lippert's company was, in fact, a front for 20th Century Fox, whose president, Spyros Skouras, was a close friend of Lippert's. Quota laws in the UK meant that US films had to have a British supporting feature, so it was in the American studios' interests to fund these features to recover a greater proportion of the box office receipts. Writing. The first draft of the screenplay was written by Richard Landau, an American who had worked on six previous Hammer productions, including "Spaceways" (1953), one of the company's first forays into science fiction. Landau made significant changes in condensing the action to less than half the length of the original teleplay. For instance, the opening thirty minutes of the television version are covered in just two minutes in the film. In the process, Landau played up the horror elements of Kneale's original teleplay. Aware that the film would be co-funded by American backers, Landau added a transatlantic dimension to the script: Quatermass's "British Rocket Group" became the "British-American Rocket Group" and the character of his assistant, Briscoe, was rewritten as a US Air Force flight surgeon. Quatermass himself was demoted to a doctor and written much more as an action hero than the thoughtful scientist created by Nigel Kneale. Some characters from the television version, such as the journalist James Fullalove, are omitted altogether. Judith Carroon's role in the film version is reduced to little more than that of the stricken astronaut's anxious wife whereas in the television version she is also a prominent member of Quatermass's Rocket Group. A subplot involving an extramarital affair between her and Briscoe is also left out of the film version. Kneale was particularly aggravated by the dropping of the notion from his original teleplay that Carroon has absorbed not only the bodies but also the memories and the personalities of his two fellow astronauts. This change leads to the most significant difference between the two versions: in the television version, Quatermass makes an appeal to the last vestiges that remain of the three astronauts absorbed by the creature and convinces it to commit suicide before it can spore whereas in the film version Quatermass kills the creature by electrocution. Director Val Guest defended this change believing it was "filmically a better end to the story". He also felt it unlikely that Brian Donlevy's gruff interpretation of Quatermass would lend itself to talking the creature into submission. Having fallen foul of the censors with some of their earlier films, Hammer had an informal agreement to submit scripts in advance of shooting to the BBFC for comment. When the draft script for "The Quatermass Xperiment" was submitted, Board Secretary Arthur Watkins replied, "I must warn you at this stage that, while we accept this story in principle for the ‘X’ category, we could not certificate, even in that category, a film treatment in which the horrific element was so exaggerated as to be nauseating and revolting to adult audiences”. The BBFC were particularly concerned with the violence in the scenes where Carroon escapes from hospital and with how graphic the depiction of Caroon's transformation into the alien creature would be. The script was refined further by director Val Guest, who cut 30 pages from Landau's script. One of Guest's key contributions to the script was to tailor the dialogue to suit the brusque style of star Brian Donlevy. With an American actor cast as Quatermass, Guest reverted Briscoe to a British character and reinstated Quatermass's title of professor. Guest also adapted some sections of the script in response to the concerns of the BBFC. Further stylistic changes were sought by the BBC who retained a script approval option after the sale of the rights and asked Nigel Kneale to work on their suggested changes, much to his indignation. Kneale was tasked with rewriting any scenes featuring BBC announcers to match the BBC's news reporting style. Casting. Irish American actor Brian Donlevy was brought in by Robert L. Lippert to play the title role of Quatermass to provide an interest for American audiences. Donlevy, in his own words, specialised in "he-men roles – rough, tough and realistic". Nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for "Beau Geste" (1939), he was also known for his appearances in "The Great McGinty" (1940) and "The Glass Key" (1942). At the time he appeared as Quatermass his career was in decline, however. Donlevy's no-nonsense portrayal of Quatermass is very different to that of Reginald Tate in the television version and was not to Nigel Kneale's liking, who said, "I may have picked Quatermass's surname out of a phone book, but his first name was carefully chosen: Bernard, after Bernard Lovell, the creator of Jodrell Bank. Pioneer, ultimate questing man. Donlevy played him as a mechanic, a creature with a completely closed mind”. Responding to Kneale's criticisms, Val Guest said, "Nigel Kneale was expecting to find Quatermass like he was on television, a sensitive British scientist, not some American stomping around, but to me Donlevy gave it absolute reality". By this stage in his career, Donlevy was suffering from alcoholism; it was some weeks into the shoot before Guest became aware that the flask of coffee he always carried on set was laced with brandy. Guest found, however, that "Brian was all right, no problem at all once you kept him sober". He reprised the role of Quatermass in "Quatermass 2" (1957) but was replaced by Andrew Keir in the third film, "Quatermass and the Pit" (1967). Inspector Lomax was played by Jack Warner, who appeared by arrangement with the J. Arthur Rank Organisation, with whom he was contracted. At the time he was best known as the star of "Here Come the Huggetts" (1948) and its sequels. Shortly after finishing "The Quatermass Xperiment", he made his first appearance on television in the role he is most associated with, as the title character in "Dixon of Dock Green" (1955–76). Warner plays Lomax in a lighthearted fashion and there is a running joke in the film involving Lomax's futile attempts to find the time to have a shave with his electric razor. Richard Wordsworth was cast by Val Guest as the hapless Victor Carroon because "he had the right sort of face for the part". He was best known at the time for his work in the theatre. His performance in "The Quatermass Xperiment" is frequently compared with that of Boris Karloff in "Frankenstein" (1931). Guest, aware of the risk of an actor going over the top with the part, directed Wordsworth to "hold back just a mite of what you're feeling". Summing up Wordsworth's performance, film critic Bill Warren said, "All Carroon's anguish and torment are conveyed in one of the best mime performances in horror and science fiction films... A sequence in which he is riding in a car with his wife is uncanny: only the alien is visible for a long moment". Wordsworth went on to appear in three more Hammer films: "The Camp on Blood Island" (1958), "The Revenge of Frankenstein" (1958) and "The Curse of the Werewolf" (1961). He remained known predominantly as a stage actor, among other things devising and starring in a one-person show dedicated to his great-great grandfather, the poet William Wordsworth. Another American star provided by Robert L. Lippert was Margia Dean, who played Judith Carroon. A former beauty queen, Dean was allegedly cast on account of her association with the 20th Century Fox president, Spyros Skouras. According to executive producer Michael Carreras, "Skouras had a girlfriend who was an actress and he wanted her in pictures, but he didn't want her in pictures in America, because of the tittle-tattle or whatever, so he set it up though his friend Bob Lippert". Val Guest recalled of her, "She was a sweet girl, but she couldn't act". Her American accent was considered out of place in the film and so her lines were dubbed in post production. Among the other actors that appear in the film are Thora Hird, Gordon Jackson, David King-Wood, Harold Lang, Lionel Jeffries and Sam Kydd, many of whom appeared regularly in films directed by Val Guest. "The Quatermass Xperiment" was also an early role for Jane Asher who appears as the little girl encountered by Carroon when he is on the run. Filming. Val Guest was hired to direct the film. He began his career co-writing comedies such as "Oh, Mr Porter!" (1937) and "Ask a Policeman" (1939) before moving into directing with "Miss London Ltd." (1943). His first directing job for Hammer was on "Life with the Lyons" (1954) and he went on to direct their first two colour features: "The Men of Sherwood Forest" (1954) and "Break in the Circle" (1954). Guest had little interest in science fiction and was unenthusiastic about directing the film; he reluctantly took copies of Nigel Kneale's television scripts with him on holiday in Tangiers and only began reading them after being teased for his "ethereal" attitude by his wife, Yolande Donlan. Impressed by what he read and pleased to be offered the opportunity to break away from directing comedy films, he took the job. In his approach to directing the film, Guest sought to make "a slightly wild story more believable" by creating a "science fact" film, shot "as though shooting a special programme for the BBC or something". Influenced by Elia Kazan's "Panic in the Streets" (1950), Guest employed a cinéma vérité style, making extensive use of hand-held camera, even on set, an unusual technique for the time which horrified several of the technicians employed on the film. To inject pace and add further realism into the story, Guest directed his actors to deliver their lines rapid-fire and to overlap the dialogue. A meticulous planner, he created storyboards for every shot and mounted them on a blackboard so as to brief the crew for each day's scenes. As a consequence, some members of the crew found Guest's approach to be too mechanical. Principal photography began on 12 October 1954 with a night shoot at Chessington Zoo and continued from 18 October 1954 into December. The budget was £42,000, low even by the standards of Hammer at the time. Special effects technician Les Bowie recalled, "We did "Quatermass" on a budget so low it wasn't a real budget. I did it for wages not as a proper effects man who gets allocated a certain budget for a movie". The shots of the emergency services rushing to the rocket crash site at the beginning of the movie were filmed in the village of Bray, Berkshire, where Hammer's studios were located. The scenes with the crashed rocket were shot in a corn field at Water Oakley, near Bray. It was originally intended to make the crash site look more spectacular by setting fire to the field but bad weather put paid to this idea. Guest used a wide-angle lens for these shots to convey a feeling of vastness to the scene. Carroon's encounter with the little girl was filmed at the East India Docks in London. A second unit, under cameraman Len Harris, conducted additional location shooting around London for the montage scenes of the police search for Carroon. For the shot of the lights of London going out when the electricity is diverted to Westminster Abbey, an agreement was made with one of the engineers at Battersea Power Station to turn off the lights illuminating the outside of the station; however the engineer misunderstood and briefly cut all the power along the River Thames. Most of the remaining location shooting was done in the Windsor area. The rest of the film was shot at Hammer's Bray Studios, with the New Stage there housing the sets for the hospital and the interior of Westminster Abbey. Michael Carreras had written to the Abbey seeking permission to film there but was refused. The rooms of Down Place, the former country house Bray Studios were built around, were used for other scenes such as Inspector Lomax's office. Art director James Elder Wills, in his final film for Hammer, made great use of the existing architecture of Down Place to enhance the effectiveness of his sets. Makeup and special effects. The work of makeup artist Phil Leakey in transforming Richard Wordsworth's Carroon into the mutating creature was a key contribution to the effectiveness of the film. Val Guest, Anthony Hinds and Leakey all agreed that the makeup should make Carroon appear pitiful rather than ugly. Leakey placed a light above the actor in the makeup chair and then worked on accentuating the shadows cast by his eyebrows, nose, chin and cheekbones. The makeup was a liquid rubber solution mixed with glycerine to give the impression of sweat. Leakey's job was made easier by Wordsworth's natural high cheekbones and hollow temples and he also worked closely with cinematographer Walter J. Harvey to ensure the lighting in each shot emphasised Wordsworth's features. Leakey also created Carroon's mutating arm. The hand was created from a cast of the hand of an arthritis victim, enlarged and exaggerated by Leakey. The rest of the arm was built up using latex and rubber and, inside, had a series of plastic tubes through which fluid was pumped to give the effect of the arm swelling. A large sponge-rubber prosthetic was used for a brief scene in the zoo showing Carroon's mutation had advanced further. The shrivelled corpses of Carroon's victims, glimpsed from time to time in the film, were also made by Leakey. Les Bowie provided the special effects: he had made his name perfecting an improved technique for matte painting, called the delineating matte, and formed a company with Vic Margutti that specialised in matte effects. Bowie provided a number of matte paintings to enhance the scale of certain key shots in the film, including the crashed rocket, the Westminster Abbey set and the shot of Quatermass walking away from the Abbey at the climax of the movie. Partly because of the concerns raised by the BBFC and partly on account of the low budget, Val Guest kept the creature largely off-screen for much of the film, feeling that audiences' imaginations would fill in the blanks more effectively than he and the special effects team could deliver on-screen. For the climactic scenes at Westminster Abbey, however, Bowie created a monster from tripe and rubber and photographed it against a model of the Abbey. Sparks and fireworks were used for the shots of the creature being electrocuted. Michael Carreras felt something was missing when he viewed the first cut of this scene: he said, "There was this great glob of something hanging about on the scaffolding. And they had put in the best music they could and put the best effects on it, but it meant nothing as far as I was concerned… absolutely nothing at all". An eye was added to the model of the monster and a human scream added to the soundtrack to give the creature some semblance of humanity in its final moments. Models were also used for the rocket blasting off in the final shot of the film. Music. John Hotchkis was originally hired to compose the music but, when he fell ill, Anthony Hinds asked conductor John Hollingsworth to recommend a replacement. Hollingsworth suggested James Bernard, with whom he had worked on a number of BBC radio productions. Bernard sent Hinds a tape of the score of one of these productions, an adaptation of "The Duchess of Malfi", and was duly hired. Bernard watched the film a number of times, stopping after each reel to make notes and discuss where the music would be needed. Val Guest was not involved in any of the music sessions; Anthony Hinds supervised Bernard and made the final decisions as to where the music should be. Bernard composed the music at his piano and then worked out the orchestration, which was performed by the Royal Opera House Orchestra. Hollingsworth restricted the arrangement of the score to just the string and percussion sections: Bernard recalled, "I had not written for film before and had only used strings for the BBC scores, so I think that John thought it would be better to see how I got on with these two sections before letting me loose with a full orchestra". The score runs to 20 minutes and uses a rising and falling three-note semitone throughout. Bernard's biographer, David Huckvale, argues that Bernard's use of atonal strings to create a sense of menace predates Bernard Herrmann's score for "Psycho" (1960), which is usually cited as the first film to employ the technique. Remarking on the effectiveness of the score, the film critic John Brosnan said, "Of prime importance, is the contribution of the soundtrack, in this case supplied by James Bernard who never wrote a more unnerving, jangly score". Bernard went on to become Hammer's most prolific composer, scoring 23 Hammer films between 1955 and 1974. Several cues from "The Quatermass Xperiment" were released on CD in 1999 by GDI Records on a compilation titled "The Quatermass Film Music Collection". Reception. Cinema release. As expected, "The Quatermass Xperiment" received an ‘X’ Certificate from the BBFC, restricting admission to persons over the age of sixteen. It was only the twelfth film to receive the certificate since its introduction in 1951. Whereas most other studios were nervous of this new certificate, Hammer, who had noticed the success of the similarly ‘X’-rated "Les Diaboliques" (1954), chose to exploit it by dropping the "E" from "Experiment" in the title of the film. "X is not an unknown quantity" was the tagline Exclusive Films used to sell the picture to cinema managers, urging them to "Xploit the Xcitement" of the film. On subsequent re-releases, the film reverted to the title "The Quatermass Experiment". "The Quatermass Xperiment" premièred on 26 August 1955 at the London Pavilion on Piccadilly Circus. The supporting feature was "The Eric Winstone Band Show". It performed extremely well during its West End run, taking £3,500 a week at the box office. Timed to coincide with the broadcast of the television sequel, "Quatermass II", the film went on general release in the United Kingdom on 20 November 1955 in a double bill with the French film "Rififi". This became the most successful double bill release of 1955 in the UK. In some parts of the UK, the Watch Committees of local councils demanded certain scenes, mainly close-up shots of Carroon's victims, be removed before allowing the film to be exhibited in their jurisdictions. In the United States, Robert L. Lippert attempted to interest Columbia Pictures in distributing the film but they felt it would be competition for their own production, "It Came From Beneath The Sea", which was on release at the time. Because Quatermass was unknown in the US, Lippert had renamed the film "Shock!". Unable to secure a sale, he retitled it again, this time to "The Creeping Unknown". United Artists eventually acquired the distribution rights in March 1956 for a fee of $125,000. "The Creeping Unknown" was packaged in a double bill with a Gothic horror movie called "The Black Sleep", starring Basil Rathbone, Lon Chaney, Jr. and Bela Lugosi. Four minutes, mainly of expository material, were cut from the runtime of the film. It opened in US theatres in June 1956 and was so successful that United Artists offered to part-fund a sequel. According to a report in "Variety", published on 6 November 1956, a nine-year old boy died of a ruptured artery at a cinema in Oak Park, Illinois during a showing of this double bill. The "Guinness Book of Records" subsequently recorded the incident as the only known case of an audience member dying of fright while watching a horror film. Critical response. "The Times" newspaper gave the film a generally favourable assessment: its critic wrote, "Mr. Val Guest, the director, certainly knows his business when it comes to providing the more horrid brand of thrills... The first part of this particular film is well up to standard. Mr. Brian Donlevy, as the American scientist responsible for the experiment, is a little brusque in his treatment of British institutions but he is clearly a man who knows what he is doing. Mr. Jack Warner, representing Scotland Yard, is indeed a comfort to have at hand when Things are on the rampage." Positive reviews also came from Peter Burnup in the "News of the World", who found that "with the added benefit of bluff, boisterous Brian Donlevy… all earnest addicts of science fiction will undoubtedly love every minute of it" while the reviewer in "The Manchester Guardian" praised "a narrative style that quite neatly combines the horrific and the factual" and "Today's Cinema" called it "one of the best essays in science fiction to date" Film historian Bruce G. Hallenbeck notes a degree of national pride in some of the positive reviews. For instance, Paul Dehn in the "News Chronicle" said, "This is the best and nastiest horror film I have seen since the War. How jolly that it is also British!". Similarly, William Whitebait in the "New Statesman", who found the film to be "better than either "War of the Worlds" or "Them!"", also called for "a couple of cheers for the reassurance that British films can still, once in a while, come quick". On a less positive note, Frank Jackson of "Reynolds News" quipped, "That TV pseudo-science shocker "The Quatermass Xperiment" has been filmed and quitermess they've made of it too", before slating the film as "82 minutes of sick-making twaddle". The horror content of the film was mentioned in several reviews: Patrick Gibbs of the "Daily Telegraph" said the film "gives the impression that it originated in the strip of some horror comic. It remains very horrid and not quite coherent" while the reviewer in the "Daily Mirror" found the film to be "a real chiller thriller but not for the kids" and Dilys Powell of "The Sunday Times" found the film "exciting but distinctly nauseating". Another unimpressed critic was François Truffaut, who wrote in "Cahiers du cinéma", "This one is very, very bad, far from the small pleasure we get, for example, from the innocent science fiction films signed by the American Jack Arnold... The subject could have been turned into a good film, not lacking in spice; with a bit of imagination... None of this is in this sadly English film”. Upon its release in the United States "Variety" praised the film as an "extravagant piece of science fiction. Despite its obvious horror angles, production is crammed with incident and suspense". According to Hallenbeck, many US critics found Brian Donlevy's gruff Quatermass a breath of fresh air from the earnest hero scientists of American science fiction films, such as Gene Barry's character in "War of the Worlds". Among the critics and film historians who have reviewed "The Quatermass Xperiment" in the years since it release have been John Baxter who said, in "Science Fiction in the Cinema" (1970), "In its time, "The Quatermass Experiment" was a pioneering sf film... Brian Donlevy was stiff but convincing... Much of the film is saved, however, by Richard Wordsworth... one of the finest such performances since Karloff's triumphs of the Thirties.” This view was echoed by John Brosnan in "The Primal Screen" (1991): "One of the best of all alien possession movies", he wrote, "Not since Boris Karloff as Frankenstein's monster has an actor managed to create such a memorable, and sympathetic, monster out of mime alone". Bill Warren in "Keep Watching The Skies!" (1982) found that "the buildup is slightly too long and too careful" but also said, "It's an intelligent, taut and well-directed thriller; it showcases Nigel Kneale's ideas well; it's scary and exciting. It was made by people who cared about what they were doing, who were making entertainment for adults. It is still one of the best alien invasion films". Steve Chibnall, writing for the British Film Institute's Screenonline, describes "The Quatermass Xperiment" as "one of the high points of British SF/horror cinema." The horror fiction writer Stephen King praised the film as one of his favourite horror movies from between 1950 and 1980 in his non-fiction book "Danse Macabre" (1991). The film director John Carpenter, who later collaborated with Nigel Kneale on the film "" (1982), has claimed that "The Quatermass Xperiment" "had an enormous, enormous impact on me – and it continues to be one of my all-time favourite science-fiction movies." Legacy. The success of "The Quatermass Xperiment" came at an opportune time for Hammer. By 1955 the deal with Robert L. Lippert had expired and the company produced just one feature film that year, "Women Without Men". Many of the independent cinemas that provided the market for Hammer's films in the UK were struggling in the face of competition from television and faced closure. "The Quatermass Xperiment" gave Hammer a much needed box office hit and was also the first film to bring the company to the attention of a major film distributor, in this case United Artists. From this point on, Hammer was increasingly able to deal directly with the major distributors and no longer needed intermediaries like Lippert. This ultimately spelt the end for Exclusive Films, Hammer's own distribution company, which was wound down in the late 1950s. Hammer quickly sought to capitalise on its good fortune with a sequel. Staff member Jimmy Sangster pitched a story about a monster emerging from the Earth's core. However, when the company asked Nigel Kneale for permission to use the character of Quatermass, he refused, not wanting to lose control of his creation. Nevertheless, the film went ahead, as "X the Unknown" (1956), again capitalising on the 'X' Certificate in its title and featuring a newly created scientist character, very much in the Quatermass mould, played by Dean Jagger. Quatermass did eventually return to cinema screens in "Quatermass 2" (1957) and "Quatermass and the Pit" (1967), both of which had screenplays written by Nigel Kneale and based on serials originally written by him and presented by BBC Television. Rival British film companies also tried to cash in with science fiction films of their own, including "Satellite in the Sky", "The Gamma People" and "Fire Maidens from Outer Space" (all 1956). "The Quatermass Xperiment" was Hammer's first film to be adapted from a television drama. Market research carried out by the company showed that it was the horror aspect of the film, rather than the science fiction, that most appealed to audiences. Three of the four films Hammer made in 1956 were horror films: "X the Unknown", "Quatermass 2" and "The Curse of Frankenstein". The enormous success of the latter of these cemented Hammer's reputation for horror and the company became synonymous with the genre. Michael Carreras later said, "The film that must take all the credit for the whole Hammer series of horror films was really "The Quatermass Xperiment"". Home media. "The Quatermass Xperiment" was released on region 2 DVD by DD Video in 2003: it contained a number of extra features including a commentary by director Val Guest and Hammer historian Marcus Hearn as well as an interview with Val Guest an original trailer and a booklet written by Marcus Hearn and Jonathan Rigby. A region 1 made-on-demand DVD-R, sourced from a high-definition master, was released by MGM in 2011. In other media. The film was adapted into a 16-page comic strip published in two parts in the March–April 1977 and June 1977 issues of the magazine "The House of Hammer" (volume 1, issue #'s 8 and 9, published by General Book Distribution). It was drawn by Brian Lewis from a script by Les Lilley and Ben Aldrich. The cover of issue 9 featured a painting by Lewis of Professor Quatermass.
1091354	Hugh Everett III (November 11, 1930 – July 19, 1982) was an American physicist who first proposed the many-worlds interpretation (MWI) of quantum physics, which he termed his "relative state" formulation.
586447	Ali Fazal (born 15 October 1986) is an Indian actor who appears in Bollywood movies and on stage. Career. He studied and grown-up in Lucknow. His early career was marked by appearances in television commercials including: Pizza Hut, Union Bank of India, LG, Slice and Micromax Mobile.
582178	Ajab Prem Ki Ghazab Kahani (; ) is a 2009 romantic comedy film. It stars Ranbir Kapoor and Katrina Kaif in lead roles. Salman Khan and director Rajkumar Santoshi appear in cameo roles.
1164674	Morgan Brittany (born Suzanne Cupito, December 5, 1951) is an American film and television actress. She is perhaps best known for her role in the 1980s prime time soap opera "Dallas", as Katherine Wentworth, the scheming younger half-sister of Pamela Ewing and Cliff Barnes. Career as Suzanne Cupito. Suzanne Cupito began her career as a child in a 1957 television special called "90" The show starring Franchot Tone was called "The Shape of the River". She then appeared in an episode of "Sea Hunt" with Lloyd Bridges. She followed that up with her first of three Twilight Zone episodes. "Twilight Zone" entitled "Nightmare as a Child", as the little girl at the end of the episode. (She later played Sissy Johnson in the fourth season episode, "Valley of the Shadow", and Susan in the fifth season episode, "Caesar and Me"), and in the 1962 film, "Gypsy", as Baby June. She appears uncredited in the birthday party scene and the scene at the school house in the 1963 film "The Birds". In 1964, she portrayed a mute girl in an episode of "Daniel Boone" ("Fluellen Family"). She had a part in the CBS anthology series "The Lloyd Bridges Show". In 1964, she also appeared as a blind girl called Minerva in a two-part episode of "The Outer Limits" entitled "The Inheritors" with actor Robert Duvall. In 1966, she played Kellie in the "Branded" episode, "Kellie". She was the title character Melinda in a 1967 episode of "My Three Sons" entitled "Melinda", whom Chip (Stanley Livingston) dates only to please his father Steve (Fred MacMurray), and in the same year, played Mary Alice Carter in a 1967 episode of "The Andy Griffith Show", whom Opie Taylor (Ron Howard) asks out for his first date. She portrayed Louise Beardsley in the 1968 Lucille Ball film, "Yours, Mine and Ours". She also appeared with Lon Cheney Jr. and Marilyn Maxwell in the western feature film, "Stage to Thunder Rock". All in all, Morgan, (as Suzanne) appeared in dozens of classic television shows and films. Career as Morgan Brittany. After her career as a child actress, Suzanne changed her name to Morgan Brittany to cast off the image of her childhood career. 18-year-old Morgan Brittany appeared with Gene Kelly in his Las Vegas show, "Gene Kelly's Wonderful World of Girls"as a dancer. Brittany then moved to New York City where she modeled for The Ford Modeling Agency. She appeared in many TV commercials and print ads (including a three-year stint as "The Ultra Brite Toothpaste Girl"), and was spokesmodel for brands such as L'Oreal, Ford, Levi's and Camay. In 1974, she was hired by the Japanese cosmetics company Kanebo to be the "face" of their product "Ireine", and so moved to Tokyo for two years and 1/2 years. In 1976, she returned to the U.S and restarted her acting career.(http://morganbrittanyactress.wordpress.com/) In 1976, Brittany portrayed Vivien Leigh in the biopic "Gable and Lombard," the first of three occasions on which she would do so. That was followed by "movies of the week" and episodic television series, such as "The Initiation of Sarah" with Kay Lenzand Winters. "The Amazing Howard Hughes" with Tommy Lee Jones, and "LBJ: The Early Years" with Randy Quaid. She also starred in a feature/pilot "Stunt Seven" with Christopher Lloyd, Patrick MacNee and Elke Sommer. In November 1980, Brittany appeared in an episode of "The Dukes of Hazzard" titled "The Hazzardville Horror" as heiress to a haunted house. During the shooting, she met her future husband, stuntman Jack Gill, for the first time. She turned down an offer to be a character in the television series "Battlestar Galactica" in order to take a small role with Tony Curtis in the career changing "Moviola-The Scarlett O'Hara War" produced by icon David Wolper. She appeared as Vivien Leigh in the climax of the made-for-TV movie, "The Scarlett O'Hara War"( http://www.flickr.com/photos/scarlettonline/3533701569/)in 1980, which marked the second of her three portrayals of Leigh. (Both portrayals were possible because Brittany bore a remarkable physical resemblance to Leigh.) This caught the attention of the producers of "Dallas," who were searching for an actress to play the sister of Pamela Ewing, Katherine Wentworth. Brittany debuted on "Dallas" in the 1981-1982 season.(http://dallasdivasderby.com/blog/2012/08/creating-katherine-wentworth/) Her starring role as the sister of Pamela Ewing and Cliff Barnes continued for several seasons. In 1985, she returned for a cameo in that season's finale where she killed Bobby Ewing by running him over with a car. In a 1987 episode, after it was revealed that the previous season had been a dream, Brittany made a final brief return to the show, in which Katherine visited Pam in the hospital after a car accident. After her disappearance with Pam, Morgan went on to do other television shows and films. In 1984, Brittany starred in her own short-lived ABC drama series, "Glitter," as Kate Simpson, a reporter for an entertainment magazine. She had a long and successful association with producer Aaron Spelling. Her first show with him was "Burkes Law" in 1964. Later, as an adult she appeared regularly on "The Love Boat", "Hotel" and "Fantasy Island". She also starred in one of his ABC movies, "The Wild Women of Chastity Gulch" with Collins. Brittany and Bruce Jenner hosted the sports show "Star Games." She then hosted over 100 episodes of the magazine show "Photoplay," produced by Jack Haley, Jr. She has guest starred on other prime time series, including "Married... with Children" (as Marilyn Beamis in the 1989 episode "Life's a Beach"), "The Love Boat" (seven times), "Murder, She Wrote" and "Melrose Place." She appeared with Bob Hope on two of his NBC television specials. During the 1990s, Brittany created a line of Victorian porcelain dolls for the Home Shopping Club. The "Morgan Brittany Collectable Doll" collection was successful and sold millions of dollars worth of dolls for a few years on the network.She has also successfully marketed Gale Hayman Cosmetics{2000) and Herbalife products. Morgan starred in the cult classic, "Sundown-The Vampire in Retreat" with an all-star cast including David Carradine, John Ireland and Bruce Campbell. In 2002, Brittany had film roles in "The Biggest Fan" and "Mothers and Daughters," and made a guest appearance on the television series "Son of the Beach," playing Kimberlee's mother. She was in the 2007 film, "Americanizing Shelley" and the 2010 docudrama, "1 a Minute". The documentary, produced by Namrata Singh Gujral, featured cancer survivors Olivia Newton-John, Diahann Carroll, Melissa Etheridge, Mumtaz and Jaclyn Smith. Beginning in 2009 she became an outspoken Conservative voice in Hollywood and was a frequent guest on the Fox News show, "Hannity," as a member of "The Great American Panel." Singing is one of Brittany's lesser-known talents, which she got to showcase when she acted out the title role in the 30th anniversary tour of "Mame" in 1997. She followed that with tours of "The Sound of Music" (as Maria) and "Crazy For You." She also has appeared in "Natalie Wood-The 'E' True Hollywood Story". Morgan is now a contributing columnist for Townhall Finance(http://finance.townhall.com/columnists/morganbrittany/) and the political blog Politichicks.tv.( http://politichicks.tv/author/morgan-brittany/) She is an outspoken Conservative and appears on national radio programs and news outlets like CNBC's Kudlow Report. She travels the country fundraising for candidates and bringing awareness to the plights of past and returning veterans of foreign wars.(http://clevelandfoxers.wordpress.com/2012/01/03/morgan-brittany-speaks-out-for-hollywood-conservatives/) Personal life. Brittany is the mother of actress Katie Gill (http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0318694/) and musician/stuntman Cody Gill. She has been married to Jack Gill for 32 years. During the 1980s, Brittany was a national ambassador for the March of Dimes. She traveled the United States raising funds and bringing awareness to the prevention of birth defects. She participated in the Congressional "Walk" in Washington, D.C., with such members of the House of Representatives as its then Speaker, Representative Thomas Phillip "Tip" O'Neill Jr., a Massachusetts Democrat. Her involvement with the March of Dimes lasted two decades. She was honored to have been invited to the White House with a Hollywood constituency two times. First in 1986 with Ronald Reagan and then again with Bill Clinton. As of the middle of November of 2012, Brittany was living on a ranch in Southern California. She spends half of her time in Atlanta, GA and the other half in Los Angeles. Her name: Morgan Brittany is a registered trademark.
586798	Pyaar Jhukta Nahin (Love Does not Bow Down) is a 1985 Hindi-language Indian feature film directed by Vijay Sadanah, starring Mithun Chakraborty, Padmini Kolhapure, Danny Denzongpa, Asrani and Bindu. Laxmikant-Pyarelal were nominated for Filmfare Award for Best Music Director. Synopsis. Preeti (Padmini Kolhapure) is a rich girl who falls in love with a middle class photographer Ajay (Mithun Chakraborty). Her parents initially disagree for the marriage but the daughter manages to make them ready for the marriage. Preeti's father Bhanu (Danny Dengzongpa) makes Ajay a top class photographer and his salary gets an increment. Later Ajay discovers that Bhanu has made his promotion and this has hurt his self-respect. Preeti and Ajay separate. Although Preeti and Ajay both still love each other, Bhanu makes them have a divorce due to misunderstandings caused by him - Bhanu makes Ajay believe Preeti wants a divorce and vice versa. Preeti is then found to be pregnant with Ajay's child. Bhanu doesn't tell this to Ajay, and instead takes Preeti to the mountains (Shimla) for the delivery so that nobody finds that she gave birth to a baby. There in hospital, Bhanu meets Ajay and tells him about the baby. Bhanu agrees to give the baby to Ajay on the basis that Ajay never approach Preeti again, as she wants a new life with a new man. Ajay agrees, but Bhanu later changes his mind and gives the baby to an orphanage. However, Ajay follows him there and takes his own baby from the orphanage. The story moves forward for some years and Preeti doesn't believe that her baby is dead, slowly losing her mental stability as a result. She carries a doll child in her arms, believing it to be her own son. Her parents get increasingly worried as a result. However, Preeti shows some improvement when she sees a photograph which she clicked in Shimla when she was with Ajay. The parents take her back to Shimla as a result. Ajay lives in Shimla and has brought up his child on his own. In a chance occurring, the child meets Preeti and there is a connection between the two - with the help of Ajay, he later identifies her as his mother. He returns to her and brings her to Ajay and they solve their misunderstandings. The two expose the misunderstandings in their minds caused by Bhanu. They are able to reconcile and express their love for one another and live happily thereafter with their child. Trivia. Pyaar Jhukta Nahin was remade in Kannada as "Nee Bareda Kadambari" with Kannada actor Vishnuvardhan and Bhavya in the lead. The movie had songs by Vijayanand. It was also remade by in Tamil with Rajnikant as "Naan Adimai Illai" co-starring Sridevi. It was the last film starring them in Tamil together, actually this movie is copy of Pakistani movie Aina.
1102254	Johann Carl Friedrich Gauss (; , ; ) (30 April 177723 February 1855) was a German mathematician and physical scientist who contributed significantly to many fields, including number theory, algebra, statistics, analysis, differential geometry, geodesy, geophysics, electrostatics, astronomy, and optics. Sometimes referred to as the "Princeps mathematicorum" (Latin, "the Prince of Mathematicians" or "the foremost of mathematicians") and "greatest mathematician since antiquity", Gauss had a remarkable influence in many fields of mathematics and science and is ranked as one of history's most influential mathematicians. Early years (1777–1798). Carl Friedrich Gauss was born on 30 April 1777 in Brunswick (Braunschweig), in the Duchy of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel (now part of Lower Saxony, Germany), as the son of poor working-class parents. Indeed, his mother was illiterate and never recorded the date of his birth, remembering only that he had been born on a Wednesday, eight days before the Feast of the Ascension, which itself occurs 40 days after Easter. Gauss would later solve this puzzle about his birthdate in the context of finding the date of Easter, deriving methods to compute the date in both past and future years. He was christened and confirmed in a church near the school he attended as a child. Gauss was a child prodigy. There are many anecdotes about his precocity while a toddler, and he made his first ground-breaking mathematical discoveries while still a teenager. He completed "Disquisitiones Arithmeticae", his magnum opus, in 1798 at the age of 21, though it was not published until 1801. This work was fundamental in consolidating number theory as a discipline and has shaped the field to the present day. Gauss's intellectual abilities attracted the attention of the Duke of Brunswick, who sent him to the Collegium Carolinum (now Braunschweig University of Technology), which he attended from 1792 to 1795, and to the University of Göttingen from 1795 to 1798. While at university, Gauss independently rediscovered several important theorems; his breakthrough occurred in 1796 when he showed that any regular polygon with a number of sides which is a Fermat prime (and, consequently, those polygons with any number of sides which is the product of distinct Fermat primes and a power of 2) can be constructed by compass and straightedge. This was a major discovery in an important field of mathematics; construction problems had occupied mathematicians since the days of the Ancient Greeks, and the discovery ultimately led Gauss to choose mathematics instead of philology as a career. Gauss was so pleased by this result that he requested that a regular heptadecagon be inscribed on his tombstone. The stonemason declined, stating that the difficult construction would essentially look like a circle. The year 1796 was most productive for both Gauss and number theory. He discovered a construction of the heptadecagon on 30 March. He further advanced modular arithmetic, greatly simplifying manipulations in number theory. On 8 April he became the first to prove the quadratic reciprocity law. This remarkably general law allows mathematicians to determine the solvability of any quadratic equation in modular arithmetic. The prime number theorem, conjectured on 31 May, gives a good understanding of how the prime numbers are distributed among the integers. Gauss also discovered that every positive integer is representable as a sum of at most three triangular numbers on 10 July and then jotted down in his diary the famous note: "ΕΥΡΗΚΑ! num = Δ + Δ + Δ". On October 1 he published a result on the number of solutions of polynomials with coefficients in finite fields, which 150 years later led to the Weil conjectures. Middle years (1799–1830). In his 1799 doctorate in absentia, "A new proof of the theorem that every integral rational algebraic function of one variable can be resolved into real factors of the first or second degree", Gauss proved the fundamental theorem of algebra which states that every non-constant single-variable polynomial with complex coefficients has at least one complex root. Mathematicians including Jean le Rond d'Alembert had produced false proofs before him, and Gauss's dissertation contains a critique of d'Alembert's work. Ironically, by today's standard, Gauss's own attempt is not acceptable, owing to implicit use of the Jordan curve theorem. However, he subsequently produced three other proofs, the last one in 1849 being generally rigorous. His attempts clarified the concept of complex numbers considerably along the way. Gauss also made important contributions to number theory with his 1801 book "Disquisitiones Arithmeticae" (Latin, Arithmetical Investigations), which, among things, introduced the symbol ≡ for congruence and used it in a clean presentation of modular arithmetic, contained the first two proofs of the law of quadratic reciprocity, developed the theories of binary and ternary quadratic forms, stated the class number problem for them, and showed that a regular heptadecagon (17-sided polygon) can be constructed with straightedge and compass. In that same year, Italian astronomer Giuseppe Piazzi discovered the dwarf planet Ceres. Piazzi could only track Ceres for somewhat more than a month, following it for three degrees across the night sky. Then it disappeared temporarily behind the glare of the Sun. Several months later, when Ceres should have reappeared, Piazzi could not locate it: the mathematical tools of the time were not able to extrapolate a position from such a scant amount of data—three degrees represent less than 1% of the total orbit. Gauss, who was 23 at the time, heard about the problem and tackled it. After three months of intense work, he predicted a position for Ceres in December 1801—just about a year after its first sighting—and this turned out to be accurate within a half-degree when it was rediscovered by Franz Xaver von Zach on 31 December at Gotha, and one day later by Heinrich Olbers in Bremen. Gauss's method involved determining a conic section in space, given one focus (the Sun) and the conic's intersection with three given lines (lines of sight from the Earth, which is itself moving on an ellipse, to the planet) and given the time it takes the planet to traverse the arcs determined by these lines (from which the lengths of the arcs can be calculated by Kepler's Second Law). This problem leads to an equation of the eighth degree, of which one solution, the Earth's orbit, is known. The solution sought is then separated from the remaining six based on physical conditions. In this work Gauss used comprehensive approximation methods which he created for that purpose. One such method was the fast Fourier transform. While this method is traditionally attributed to a 1965 paper by J. W. Cooley and J. W. Tukey, Gauss developed it as a trigonometric interpolation method. His paper, "Theoria Interpolationis Methodo Nova Tractata", was only published posthumously in Volume 3 of his collected works. This paper predates the first presentation by Joseph Fourier on the subject in 1807. Zach noted that "without the intelligent work and calculations of Doctor Gauss we might not have found Ceres again". Though Gauss had up to that point been financially supported by his stipend from the Duke, he doubted the security of this arrangement, and also did not believe pure mathematics to be important enough to deserve support. Thus he sought a position in astronomy, and in 1807 was appointed Professor of Astronomy and Director of the astronomical observatory in Göttingen, a post he held for the remainder of his life. The discovery of Ceres led Gauss to his work on a theory of the motion of planetoids disturbed by large planets, eventually published in 1809 as "Theoria motus corporum coelestium in sectionibus conicis solem ambientum" (Theory of motion of the celestial bodies moving in conic sections around the Sun). In the process, he so streamlined the cumbersome mathematics of 18th century orbital prediction that his work remains a cornerstone of astronomical computation. It introduced the Gaussian gravitational constant, and contained an influential treatment of the method of least squares, a procedure used in all sciences to this day to minimize the impact of measurement error. Gauss proved the method under the assumption of normally distributed errors (see Gauss–Markov theorem; see also Gaussian). The method had been described earlier by Adrien-Marie Legendre in 1805, but Gauss claimed that he had been using it since 1795. In 1818 Gauss, putting his calculation skills to practical use, carried out a geodesic survey of the Kingdom of Hanover, linking up with previous Danish surveys. To aid the survey, Gauss invented the heliotrope, an instrument that uses a mirror to reflect sunlight over great distances, to measure positions. Gauss also claimed to have discovered the possibility of non-Euclidean geometries but never published it. This discovery was a major paradigm shift in mathematics, as it freed mathematicians from the mistaken belief that Euclid's axioms were the only way to make geometry consistent and non-contradictory. Research on these geometries led to, among other things, Einstein's theory of general relativity, which describes the universe as non-Euclidean. His friend Farkas Wolfgang Bolyai with whom Gauss had sworn "brotherhood and the banner of truth" as a student, had tried in vain for many years to prove the parallel postulate from Euclid's other axioms of geometry. Bolyai's son, János Bolyai, discovered non-Euclidean geometry in 1829; his work was published in 1832. After seeing it, Gauss wrote to Farkas Bolyai: ""To praise it would amount to praising myself. For the entire content of the work ... coincides almost exactly with my own meditations which have occupied my mind for the past thirty or thirty-five years."" This unproved statement put a strain on his relationship with János Bolyai (who thought that Gauss was "stealing" his idea), but it is now generally taken at face value. Letters from Gauss years before 1829 reveal him obscurely discussing the problem of parallel lines. Waldo Dunnington, a biographer of Gauss, argues in "Gauss, Titan of Science" that Gauss was in fact in full possession of non-Euclidean geometry long before it was published by János Bolyai, but that he refused to publish any of it because of his fear of controversy. The geodetic survey of Hanover, which required Gauss to spend summers traveling on horseback for a decade, fueled Gauss's interest in differential geometry, a field of mathematics dealing with curves and surfaces. Among other things he came up with the notion of Gaussian curvature. This led in 1828 to an important theorem, the Theorema Egregium ("remarkable theorem"), establishing an important property of the notion of curvature. Informally, the theorem says that the curvature of a surface can be determined entirely by measuring angles and distances on the surface. That is, curvature does not depend on how the surface might be embedded in 3-dimensional space or 2-dimensional space. In 1821, he was made a foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. Later years and death (1831–1855). In 1831 Gauss developed a fruitful collaboration with the physics professor Wilhelm Weber, leading to new knowledge in magnetism (including finding a representation for the unit of magnetism in terms of mass, length and time) and the discovery of Kirchhoff's circuit laws in electricity. It was during this time that he formulated his namesake law. They constructed the first electromechanical telegraph in 1833, which connected the observatory with the institute for physics in Göttingen. Gauss ordered a magnetic observatory to be built in the garden of the observatory, and with Weber founded the "Magnetischer Verein" ("magnetic club" in German), which supported measurements of Earth's magnetic field in many regions of the world. He developed a method of measuring the horizontal intensity of the magnetic field which was in use well into the second half of the 20th century, and worked out the mathematical theory for separating the inner and outer (magnetospheric) sources of Earth's magnetic field. In 1840, Gauss published his influential "Dioptrische Untersuchungen", in which he gave the first systematic analysis on the formation of images under a paraxial approximation (Gaussian optics). Among his results, Gauss showed that under a paraxial approximation an optical system can be characterized by its cardinal points and he derived the Gaussian lens formula. In 1854, Gauss notably selected the topic for Bernhard Riemann's now famous Habilitationvortrag, "Über die Hypothesen, welche der Geometrie zu Grunde liegen". On the way home from Riemann's lecture, Weber reported that Gauss was full of praise and excitement. Gauss died in Göttingen, in the Kingdom of Hanover (now part of Lower Saxony, Germany) in 1855 and is interred in the Albanifriedhof cemetery there. Two individuals gave eulogies at his funeral: Gauss's son-in-law Heinrich Ewald and Wolfgang Sartorius von Waltershausen, who was Gauss's close friend and biographer. His brain was preserved and was studied by Rudolf Wagner who found its mass to be 1,492 grams (slightly above average) and the cerebral area equal to 219,588 square millimeters (340.362 square inches). Highly developed convolutions were also found, which in the early 20th century was suggested as the explanation of his genius. Religion. Bühler writes that, according to correspondence with Rudolf Wagner, Gauss did not appear to believe in a personal God. He was said to be a deist. He further asserts that although Gauss firmly believed in the immortality of the soul and in some sort of life after death, it was not in a fashion that could be interpreted as Christian since Gauss explained to Wagner that he didn't believe in the Bible. According to Dunnington, Gauss's religion was based upon the search for truth. He believed in "the immortality of the spiritual individuality, in a personal permanence after death, in a last order of things, in an eternal, righteous, omniscient and omnipotent God". Gauss also upheld religious tolerance, believing it wrong to disturb others who were at peace with their own beliefs. Family. Gauss's personal life was overshadowed by the early death of his first wife, Johanna Osthoff, in 1809, soon followed by the death of one child, Louis. Gauss plunged into a depression from which he never fully recovered. He married again, to Johanna's best friend named Friederica Wilhelmine Waldeck but commonly known as Minna. When his second wife died in 1831 after a long illness, one of his daughters, Therese, took over the household and cared for Gauss until the end of his life. His mother lived in his house from 1817 until her death in 1839. Gauss had six children. With Johanna (1780–1809), his children were Joseph (1806–1873), Wilhelmina (1808–1846) and Louis (1809–1810). Of all of Gauss's children, Wilhelmina was said to have come closest to his talent, but she died young. With Minna Waldeck he also had three children: Eugene (1811–1896), Wilhelm (1813–1879) and Therese (1816–1864). Eugene shared a good measure of Gauss' talent in languages and computation. Therese kept house for Gauss until his death, after which she married. Gauss eventually had conflicts with his sons. He did not want any of his sons to enter mathematics or science for "fear of lowering the family name". Gauss wanted Eugene to become a lawyer, but Eugene wanted to study languages. They had an argument over a party Eugene held, which Gauss refused to pay for. The son left in anger and, in about 1832, emigrated to the United States, where he was quite successful. Wilhelm also settled in Missouri, starting as a farmer and later becoming wealthy in the shoe business in St. Louis. It took many years for Eugene's success to counteract his reputation among Gauss's friends and colleagues. See also on 3 September 1912. Personality. Carl Gauss was an ardent perfectionist and a hard worker. He was never a prolific writer, refusing to publish work which he did not consider complete and above criticism. This was in keeping with his personal motto "pauca sed matura" ("few, but ripe"). His personal diaries indicate that he had made several important mathematical discoveries years or decades before his contemporaries published them. Mathematical historian Eric Temple Bell estimated that, had Gauss published all of his discoveries in a timely manner, he would have advanced mathematics by fifty years. Though he did take in a few students, Gauss was known to dislike teaching. It is said that he attended only a single scientific conference, which was in Berlin in 1828. However, several of his students became influential mathematicians, among them Richard Dedekind, Bernhard Riemann, and Friedrich Bessel. Before she died, Sophie Germain was recommended by Gauss to receive her honorary degree. Gauss usually declined to present the intuition behind his often very elegant proofs—he preferred them to appear "out of thin air" and erased all traces of how he discovered them. This is justified, if unsatisfactorily, by Gauss in his "Disquisitiones Arithmeticae", where he states that all analysis (i.e., the paths one travelled to reach the solution of a problem) must be suppressed for sake of brevity. Gauss supported the monarchy and opposed Napoleon, whom he saw as an outgrowth of revolution. Anecdotes. There are several stories of his early genius. According to one, his gifts became very apparent at the age of three when he corrected, mentally and without fault in his calculations, an error his father had made on paper while calculating finances. Another famous story has it that in primary school after the young Gauss misbehaved, his teacher, J.G. Büttner, gave him a task : add a list of integers in arithmetic progression; as the story is most often told, these were the numbers from 1 to 100. The young Gauss reputedly produced the correct answer within seconds, to the astonishment of his teacher and his assistant Martin Bartels. Gauss's presumed method was to realize that pairwise addition of terms from opposite ends of the list yielded identical intermediate sums: 1 + 100 = 101, 2 + 99 = 101, 3 + 98 = 101, and so on, for a total sum of 50 × 101 = 5050. However, the details of the story are at best uncertain (see for discussion of the original Wolfgang Sartorius von Waltershausen source and the changes in other versions); some authors, such as Joseph Rotman in his book "A first course in Abstract Algebra", question whether it ever happened. According to Isaac Asimov, Gauss was once interrupted in the middle of a problem and told that his wife was dying. He is purported to have said, "Tell her to wait a moment till I'm done." This anecdote is briefly discussed in G. Waldo Dunnington's "Gauss, Titan of Science" where it is suggested that it is an apocryphal story. He referred to mathematics as "the queen of sciences" and supposedly once espoused a belief in the necessity of immediately understanding Euler's identity as a benchmark pursuant to becoming a first-class mathematician. Commemorations. From 1989 through 2001, Gauss's portrait, a normal distribution curve and some prominent Göttingen buildings were featured on the German ten-mark banknote. The reverse featured the approach for Hanover. Germany has also issued three postage stamps honoring Gauss. One (no. 725) appeared in 1955 on the hundredth anniversary of his death; two others, nos. 1246 and 1811, in 1977, the 200th anniversary of his birth. Daniel Kehlmann's 2005 novel "Die Vermessung der Welt", translated into English as "Measuring the World" (2006), explores Gauss's life and work through a lens of historical fiction, contrasting them with those of the German explorer Alexander von Humboldt. A film version directed by Detlev Buck was released in 2012. In 2007 a bust of Gauss was placed in the Walhalla temple. Things named in honor of Gauss include: In 1929 the Polish mathematician Marian Rejewski, who would solve the German Enigma cipher machine in December 1932, began studying actuarial statistics at Göttingen. At the request of his Poznań University professor, Zdzisław Krygowski, on arriving at Göttingen Rejewski laid flowers on Gauss's grave.
1058784	Octavia Lenora Spencer (born May 25, 1970) is an American actress. She is best known for her role as Minny, the outspoken maid in the 2011 film "The Help", for which she won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, among other accolades including the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress, BAFTA for Best Supporting Actress, and Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Supporting Role. Early life and education. Born in Montgomery, Alabama, she is the sixth of seven children. Her mother worked as a maid. Spencer graduated from Jefferson Davis High School in 1988, spent two years at Auburn Montgomery studying drama (1988–89), and received a bachelor's degree in Liberal Arts from Auburn University. Career. At 16, she worked as an intern on the set of "The Long Walk Home", a film starring Whoopi Goldberg. Spencer made her film debut as a nurse in Joel Schumacher's "A Time to Kill" based on the book by John Grisham. She was originally hired to work on casting, but asked Schumacher if she could audition for a small part. Other film credits include: "Never Been Kissed", "Big Momma's House", "Bad Santa", "Spider-Man", "Coach Carter", "Win a Date with Tad Hamilton!" and "Pretty Ugly People". She has made a number of guest appearances on television series including "Raising the Bar", "", "The Big Bang Theory", "Wizards of Waverly Place", "Grounded for Life", "ER", "Titus", "Becker" and "Dharma & Greg". She is best known for her starring roles as Serenity Johnson on Comedy Central's "Halfway Home", and Constance Grady, the amorous INS caseworker on "Ugly Betty". In 2003, she made her stage debut in Los Angeles, in Del Shores' play, "The Trials and Tribulations of a Trailer Trash Housewife", starring opposite veteran actress Beth Grant. It was her first and only play, as she told Back Stage Magazine that she suffers from "stage fright." Later that year, she starred opposite Allison Janney in Tate Taylor's critically lauded short feature, "Chicken Party". In 2008, Spencer's brief appearance in "Seven Pounds" as Kate, Rosario Dawson's home care nurse, garnered her high praise and media attention. In April 2009, Entertainment Weekly listed Spencer in its list of 25 Funniest Actresses in Hollywood. In August 2009, Spencer appeared in Rob Zombie's "Halloween II". She also had a role in the American remake of the Danish classic "Love at First Hiccup" opposite Scout Taylor-Compton. Spencer starred in the hit web series-turned feature film "Herpes Boy" alongside Beth Grant, Ahna O'Reilly, and Byron Lane; and, can be heard as the voice of "Minny" on the audio version of "The Help", the "New York Times Best Seller" by Kathryn Stockett. Later that year, Spencer's short film "The Captain" was honored by the CICFF as a finalist for the coveted REEL Poetry Award. In August 2010, Spencer joined Viola Davis, Emma Stone and Bryce Dallas Howard in DreamWorks' production of "The Help", in which she played the feisty and unflappable domestic Minny Jackson. The film was directed by Tate Taylor, and produced by Brunson Green, Chris Columbus, Michael Barnathan, and Mark Radcliffe. Her role garnered her critical acclaim, and started talk of various awards nominations. She won the 2012 Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress – Motion Picture for her work in "The Help". On February 12, 2012, she won a BAFTA for Best Supporting Actress for her Performance in "The Help", and on February 26 she won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for the same performance; making it her first Oscar nomination and first win. Spencer was so thrilled to win that she could hardly speak at the ceremony and was given a standing ovation and was moved to tears during her acceptance speech. In June 2012, Spencer was invited to join the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. In 2013, she appeared alongside Michael B. Jordan in "Fruitvale Station", a film chronicling the last day of Oscar Grant, who was killed at a Bay Area Rapid Transit station in 2009.
1060246	Joshua David "Josh" Duhamel ( ; born November 14, 1972) is an American actor and former fashion model. He first achieved acting role as Leo du Pres on ABC's "All My Children" and later as the chief of security, Danny McCoy, on NBC's "Las Vegas". He then began appearing in films, playing one of the main protagonists in the first three films of the "Transformers" film series. He has also starred in romance films including "Life as We Know It", "New Year's Eve", and "Safe Haven". Early life. Duhamel was born in Minot, North Dakota. His mother, Bonnie L. Kemper, is a physical education teacher, and his father, Larry Duhamel, is an advertising salesman. He is of French-Canadian, Irish, English, German, and Norwegian ancestry. Duhamel was raised Catholic. His parents divorced during his youth. Although he remains close to both, he grew up with his mother and his three younger sisters, Ashlee, Mckenzee, and Kassidy. Duhamel attended Minot State University and played as the back-up quarterback for the university's football team. He planned to attend dental school, but dropped out one-and-a-half credits shy of his undergraduate degree. Career. Duhamel has stated, "After college, I followed an ex-girlfriend to northern California, did a bunch of odd jobs." Duhamel had won the title of Male Model of the Year in an International Modeling and Talent Association (IMTA) competition in 1997 (the runner-up was actor Ashton Kutcher). Duhamel began his acting career as an extra in the music videos for Donna Summer's song, "I Will Go With You (Con te partirò)" in 1999 and Christina Aguilera's song, "Genie in A Bottle" also in 1999. Josh trained with Scott Sedita Acting Studios. Later that year, he won the role of Leo du Pres on the ABC soap opera "All My Children". His work on the show, especially his character's pairing with Greenlee Smythe (portrayed by actor Rebecca Budig), garnered critical acclaim. In 2000, he posed fully nude for Greg Gorman's "As I See It" photography book. In 2003, he earned a Daytime Emmy Award nomination for the Special Fan Award for America's Favorite Couple in 2002, shared with Budig, and a Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor for his portrayal of Leo du Pres. Duhamel left "All My Children" in 2002 to pursue other acting opportunities. In 2003, Duhamel landed a prime time role on the NBC show "Las Vegas", playing the head of security as Danny McCoy for the Montecito Casino. He succeeded James Caan as head of the casino after Caan departed the series at the end of the fourth season. The series ended in 2008. Duhamel made his big-screen acting debut in 2004's "Win a Date with Tad Hamilton!" and continued on to star in the thriller "Turistas" (2006). After watching an episode of "Las Vegas" in which Duhamel's character had just returned from the war in Iraq, Steven Spielberg handpicked him for the role of Captain William Lennox in 2007's summer blockbuster film "Transformers" (a film for which Spielberg was the executive producer). Duhamel reprised the role for the sequel, ', released in June 2009, and again in ', released in June 2011. Duhamel was the official pace car driver for the 2009 Indianapolis 500 driving the 2010 Chevrolet Camaro Pace Car. In 2010, he played the lead role in the film "When in Rome" as Nick Beamon. On March 23, 2013, Duhamel hosted the 2013 Kids' Choice Awards, which was broadcast live from Los Angeles, California. He and his co-star from "Safe Haven", Julianne Hough, performed a "Safe Haven"-themed showcase appearance via video on "The Price is Right" with Drew Carey. Personal life. Duhamel met and began dating singer Stacy Ann "Fergie" Ferguson in September 2004, after Ferguson appeared on Duhamel's show "Las Vegas" with her band The Black Eyed Peas. The couple wed on January 10, 2009, in a Roman Catholic ceremony at the Church Estate Vineyards in Malibu, California. They have one son, Axl Jack Duhamel, born on August 29, 2013. The family resides in Brentwood, California. Both Duhamel and Fergie are Catholic and attend church. In 2005, he became the co-owner of 10 North Main, a restaurant in Minot, North Dakota, which features dishes such as lobster and pheasant.
591565	Waar (Strike) is an upcoming English-language Pakistani action film directed by Bilal Lashari. Written and produced by Hassan Waqas Rana, the film is reported to star Shaan Shahid, Meesha Shafi, Ali Azmat, Shamoon Abbasi and Ayesha Khan, among others. Plot. The film is based on events surrounding the war on terror in Pakistan. Filming. Locations for the filming were reported in 2011 to include Lahore, Islamabad and the Swat Valley, with some scenes shot in Istanbul and Rome. MindWorks Media is the studio. The film will be distributed by Warner Bros. Budget. The budget was reported in 2011 to be PKR: 170 million ( 2 million).
1067658	Happy Accidents is a 2000 American film starring Marisa Tomei and Vincent D'Onofrio. The movie revolves around Ruby Weaver, a New York woman with a string of failed relationships, and Sam Deed, a man who claims to be from the year 2470. The film was shot almost entirely in Brooklyn, New York. Plot. Ruby Weaver (Marisa Tomei) is weary of her long history of failed relationships with men when she meets Sam Deed (Vincent D'Onofrio) in a park. But after the two fall in love, Ruby becomes suspicious of Sam's past, his obsession with a "Chrystie Delancey", and "causal effect." Under pressure from her, he finally explains that he is really from the year 2470 and is what he calls a "back traveler." Ruby initially ignores this story, considering it yet another case of male nerdy weirdness, but after Sam's persistence, apparent conviction, and growing agitation, she begins to wonder. Finally she takes him to see her therapist Meg Ford (Holland Taylor). Ruby becomes worried as to Sam's sanity when he reveals that everything he has done was a deliberate attempt to change her life. In the end, both Deed AND Ford turn out to be time travelers and the fatal accident that would have killed Ruby is avoided. Reception. "Happy Accidents" was first shown at the Sundance Film Festival on January 25, 2000 and received much praise from the audiences. The film later opened in limited release on August 24, 2001 to 2 screens in New York City, New York earning $14,840 on its opening weekend, and (the weekend before 9/11) reaching a widest release of 49 screens and grossing a total of $688,523 domestically in the United States. The film received half-page ads in The Los Angeles Times, and The Washington Post, indicating the wide critical praise it had received in critics circles. In his review of the film Roger Ebert describes "Happy Accidents" as being "essentially silliness crossed with science fiction", giving the film a rating of 3 out of 4 stars. Ebert's co-host on "Ebert & Roeper", Richard Roeper, enjoyed the film even more and ranked it #8 on his top ten films of the year list. The film received a coveted Two Thumbs Up from the duo. On Rotten Tomatoes "Happy Accidents" has a freshness of 72%.
520740	Summary. Till My Heartaches End is a 2010 Filipino romantic drama film starring Kim Chiu and Gerald Anderson. It is produced and released by Star Cinema. Plot. Paolo “Powie” Barredo (Gerald Anderson) is out to prove to the world that he can succeed in life independently, and is not just a son born out of wedlock. Despite a rough upbringing, he climbs the ladder of success. As things start falling into place and he is thrilled to achieve his goal, he puts other life matters on hold. Agnes Garcia (Kim Chiu) always longed for the time when her family will finally be completed again. At the age 6, her parents left the country to work abroad – her mother was a medical technician in America, while her father worked as an engineer in Riyadh. Despite the distance, Agnes treasured the hope that she would reunite with her parents once again when she passes the nursing exam and applies to work in the States. They find each other at a café and couldn't take their eyes off each other. They found solace and comfort in each other’s company. But their life paths moved them in opposite directions.
582697	Kiran Kumar is a Mumbai-based Indian actor. He has worked on many Hindi, Rajasthani and Gujarati films. He has depicted the hero in most of the Gujarati movies. He is the son of veteran Bollywood actor Jeevan. Personal life. Kiran Dar, under the stage name Kiran Kumar, is a descendant of a Kashmiri Pandit royal family. He is the son of actor Jeevan and is married to a former Gujarati actress Sushma Verma. They have two children. Their son Shaurya worked with David Dhawan, Abbas Mustan, Indra Kumar and Imtiaz Ali as an Assistant Director. He is set be launched as an actor. His daughter, Srishti, runs a jewellery and clothing label called "Sush & Shish" with her mother and works in fashion at IMG Reliance. Kiran is a Kashmiri by birth and has ties with the Royal Family by virtue of being the grandson of the Vazir-e-Vazarat of Gilgit. He is a believer of Sai baba and has a production house named after the saint – Sainama Visions. Recently he has been honoured with the life membership of the International Film And Television Club of the Asian Academy of Film & Television. He was one of the first actors to make the jump from the big screen to T.V way back in 1992 with Sunil Mehta's Ghutan.
1463300	M. S. (Madabusi Santanam) Raghunathan is an Indian mathematician. He is currently Head of the National Centre for Mathematics, Indian Institute of Technology, Mumbai. Formerly Professor of eminence at TIFR in Homi Bhabha Chair. Raghunathan received his Ph.D. in Mathematics from (TIFR), University of Mumbai; his advisor was M. S. Narasimhan. Raghunathan is a Fellow of the Royal Society, of the Third World Academy of Sciences, and of the American Mathematical Society. Early life and education. Madabusi Santanam Raghunathan was born on August 11, 1941 at Anantapur, Andhra Pradesh, his maternal grandparents' place. The family lived in Chennai. His father Santanam continued the family's timber business and expanded it through exports to Europe and Japan. He had earlier joined the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, after a B.Sc. in Physics, but had to leave his studies mid-way to take care of the family business. Raghunathan fondly recalls that his father had a feeling for science and used to talk about it, making it very interesting to the children. Raghunathan's mother came from a family with an academic tradition. Her father was an esteemed Professor of English, who had contributed articles to the Cornhill Magazine. He also wrote, and published on his own, a book on William Makepeace Thackerey, which was later found to have been reprinted in the United States, without his knowledge, indeed in violation of the copyright he held. Raghunathan had his schooling in Chennai, in P.S. High School, Mylapore and the Madras Christian College High School. He passed his SSLC (Secondary School Leaving Certificate) examination in 1955. There is a rather interesting story about it: after the Sanskrit paper he absent-mindedly left the examination hall along with his answer paper, and was intercepted on his way home by a fellow student, following commotion at the examination hall on account of the missing answer paper. He narrowly escaped having to reappear for the entire examination, thanks to the headmaster vouching for his integrity. The University of Madras had the curious restriction of not admitting anyone under the age of 14 years and six months, though after attaining that age it was possible to be admitted even in higher classes. Raghunathan therefore pursued his Intermediate at the St. Joseph's College, Bangalore during 1955-57. He then returned to Chennai and joined B.A.(Hons.) in mathematics, in Vivekananda College, which had a very good reputation. Research. After initial training during 1960-62, he worked on a research problem suggested by Prof. M.S. Narasimhan, on "Deformations of linear connections and Riemannian metrics", and solved it by the summer of 1963. He wrote his Ph.D. thesis under the guidance of Professor Narasimhan and was awarded the degree by the University of Bombay in 1966. After completing his Ph.D., Raghunathan spent a year at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, U.S., a well-known international centre for post-doctoral research. As is to be expected, through the years he has visited several renowned centres in the U.S., Europe and Japan, on invitation, for durations ranging from a few weeks to a year, and has spoken at several international conferences. Discrete subgroups of Lie groups have been the central objects of his researches. He has made contributions to rigidity and arithmeticity problems. Administration. Raghunathan has also played an important role in the promotion of mathematics through various scientific bodies, in both advisory and administrative capacities. He organised the Ramanujan centenary celebrations in Chennai in 1987, with an international conference attended by the foremost number theorists. His most important and comprehensive contribution in this sphere has been his role in the National Board for Higher Mathematics (NBHM). Raghunathan was a member of the Board since it was formed in 1983 and became its Chairman in 1987. He continues to serve in that capacity. The Board has undertaken a variety of activities through the years: apart from providing financial support to mathematics libraries around the country and grants for research projects, organising conferences, travel to both national and international events and so on, the Board has taken a pro-active role in tapping mathematical talent through various activities, such as Olympiad activity, Mathematics Training and Talent Search, Scholarships/Fellowships at the M.Sc., Ph.D. and post- doctoral levels, and the rather innovative Nurture Programme conceived by Raghunathan to support learning of mathematics by students even while pursuing other career options Publication. Raghunathan's book Discrete Subgroups of Lie Groups, published by Springer Verlag, Germany, in 1972 is now a classic in the area. It is unique in its coverage of various results which in recent decades have been put to considerable use, and as such it is much appreciated and widely referred to. I have often heard the laments of researchers in the field about it now being out of print. The book has been translated into the Russian and published with a foreword by G.A. Margulis, who is a celebrity in the field.
1058280	Saw II is a 2005 Canadian-American horror film directed by Darren Lynn Bousman and co-written by Bousman and the first film's co-writer Leigh Whannell. It is a sequel to 2004's "Saw" and the second installment in the seven-part "Saw" film series. It stars Donnie Wahlberg, Franky G, Glenn Plummer, Beverley Mitchell, Dina Meyer, Emmanuelle Vaugier, Erik Knudsen, Shawnee Smith and Tobin Bell. Smith, Bell and Meyer are the only actors to reprise their roles from the first film. The film features Jigsaw being apprehended by the police, but trapping the arresting officer in one of his own games while showing another "game" of eight people — including the officer's son — in progress on TV monitors at another location. It also explores some of Jigsaw's backstory, providing a partial explanation of his reason for becoming Jigsaw. After the financial success of "Saw", a sequel was immediately green-lit. Leigh Whannell and James Wan were busy preparing for their next film and were unable to write or direct. Bousman wrote a script called ""The Desperate"" before "Saw" was released and was looking for a producer but many studios rejected it. Hoffman received the script and showed it to his partners Mark Burg and Oren Koules. It was decided that, with some changes, it could be made into "Saw II". Whannell became available to provide re-writes of the script. The film was given a larger budget and was shot from May to June 2005 in Toronto. "Saw II" was released on October 28, 2005 and, despite negative reviews from critics, was a financial success, with opening takings of $31.9 million and grossing $88 million in the United States and Canada. It has remained the highest grossing "Saw" film in those countries. Bell was nominated for "Best Villain" at the 2006 MTV Movie Awards for his role as Jigsaw in the film. "Saw II" was released to DVD on and topped charts its first week, selling more than 3 million units. At the time, it was the fastest-selling theatrical DVD in Lionsgate's history. Plot. Police informant Michael Marks awakens to find two halves of a spike-filled mask locked around his neck. A videotape informs him he has one minute to extract the key from behind his right eye with a scalpel. He is unable to bring himself to do it, and is killed when the mask closes around his head.
1060805	Talia Shire (; born April 25, 1946) is an American actress most known for her roles as Connie Corleone in "The Godfather" films and Adrian Balboa (née Pennino) in the "Rocky" series. Personal life. Shire was born Talia Rose Coppola in Lake Success, New York, the daughter of Italia (née Pennino) and arranger/composer Carmine Coppola. Talia is the sister of director and producer Francis Ford Coppola and academic August Coppola, the aunt of actor Nicolas Cage and director Sofia Coppola, and the niece of composer and conductor Anton Coppola. She was married to composer David Shire, with whom she had a son, Matthew Orlando Shire. She has two other sons, actors/musicians Robert Schwartzman and Jason Schwartzman, from her second marriage to the late producer Jack Schwartzman. Career. Shire first became famous for her role of Connie Corleone in "The Godfather" and its sequels. She was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in "". Later, she portrayed Adrian Pennino Balboa, the girlfriend (and later wife) of Rocky Balboa in the "Rocky" movies. She also starred in such films as "I ♥ Huckabees", "Kiss the Bride" and 2007's "Homo Erectus".
1068257	Welcome Home Roscoe Jenkins is a 2008 American comedy film written and directed by Malcolm D. Lee and distributed by Universal Pictures. The film features an ensemble cast featuring: Martin Lawrence, Michael Clarke Duncan, Mike Epps, Mo'Nique, Cedric the Entertainer, Louis CK and James Earl Jones. Plot. Dr. R.J. (Roscoe) Stevens (Martin Lawrence) is a talk show sensation who has shirked his simple Southern past and the awkward boy he used to be to dispense "You can do it" advice to millions of adoring fans. With reality TV series "Survivor" winner Bianca Kittles (Joy Bryant) on his arm and loads of cash in his pocket (enough to buy his parents a 50" Hi-Def flat panel TV), there’s nothing he feels he hasn’t achieved. When his parents request that he come home for their 50th wedding anniversary, R.J. packs up his 10-year-old son Jamaal (Damani Roberts) and his fiancée Bianca and heads back to his sleepy Southern hometown. Ready to impress his down home kin with how much he’s changed, RJ will prove he’s not the walking disaster they used to pick on. When they arrive in Georgia, he is first greeted by his cousin Reggie (who asks him for $300 to buy some ice for the family barbecue). Roscoe heads to his family's home, greeted by his parents, Roscoe Sr. (James Earl Jones) and Mama Jenkins (Margaret Avery); his brother Otis (Michael Clarke Duncan), the sheriff; his wife Ruthie (Liz Mikel) and their overgrown kids Junior and Callie. Next up is Roscoe's sister, Betty (Mo'Nique), who is very loud and rowdy. Roscoe's cousin, Clyde (Cedric the Entertainer), visits the family as well, and the two remain competitive as they did years before. Traveling with Clyde is Lucinda (Nicole Ari Parker), Roscoe's love interest from his past. While staying with his family, Roscoe endures a lot of self-humiliation (such as getting sprayed by a skunk while sleeping) as it becomes apparent that he is still holding a grudge against his father for the way he treated him when he was younger - showing preference to Clyde to the point that he would not even truly discipline him - while his father resents Roscoe for changing his name and distancing himself from his family. It also becomes apparent that Bianca does not fit in well with Roscoe's family while Roscoe and Lucinda become closer.
1245672	On the Bowery is a 1956 American docufiction film directed by Lionel Rogosin. It was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature. After the Second World War Lionel Rogosin made a vow to fight fascism and racism wherever he found it. In 1954 he left the family business (Beaunit Mills-American Rayon Corp.) in order to make films in accordance with his ideals. As he needed experience, he looked around for a subject and was struck by the men on the Bowery and decided that this would make a strong film. Thus "On the Bowery" was to be Rogosin's provocative film school that would prepare him for the filming of his anti-apartheid film: "Come Back, Africa" (1960). In 2008, "On the Bowery" was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". Filming. Greatly influenced by Robert Flaherty and Italian neorealism tradition, Rogosin submerged himself on the Bowery for many months before filming. He got to know the street and the men intimately, befriending a Bowery man: Gorman Hendricks. Together they wandered through the Bowery for several months until Rogosin started filming himself with a hidden camera. Not satisfied with the result he then hired a commercial crew but decided that these attempts were not satisfactory. At this time he was living in New York City’s Greenwich Village and he frequently went to the White Horse Tavern where he met writer Mark Sufrin and cinematographer Dick Bagley (recently part of the crew of Sydney Myers "The Quiet One"). They got along right away and agreed to work with Rogosin. Shooting began with no script or story in July 1955. The first rushes were not working well, so that Rogosin, Sufrin and Bagley worked out a simple script based on the lives of the Bowery men. In July 1955 Rogosin and his crew started filming. At this time the Third Ave El had ceased running on May 12 but demolition of that section had not yet started so the dark shadows the El cast on the Bowery were still present, adding to the dingy atmosphere. With these Bowery men, Rogosin quickly developed his own method of creating dialogue and improvisation. The filming continued through October 1955 in a grueling schedule of long days and late nights. When the film was finished the first edit with editor Helen Levitt did not meet Rogosin’s approval and he solicited the help of Carl Lerner. Lerner was instrumental in pulling the film together according to Rogosin’s vision, and he acted as a mentill presentor and editor as Rogosin learned this aspect of his craft. Plot. The film chronicles three desperate days in a then impoverished lower Manhattan neighborhood, New York's skid row: the Bowery. It is the story of Ray (Ray Salyer), a railroad worker, who drifts on to the Bowery to have a drunken spree after a long bout of laying tracks and then falls in with a band of drunks who help him spend his money. Ray, the "new guy on the Bowery," whose biceps still fill out his sleeves, looks preoccupied as he enters the "Confidence Bar & Grill". Surrounded by various alcoholics in advanced states of decay, he buys them rounds of drinks, then blacks out on his first night, and wakes up to discover that his suitcase has been stolen. The thief (Gorman Hendricks) becomes the closest thing he has to a friend...and just like that, Ray embarks on a trip to hell, becoming part of the Bowery. In a series of Beckettian portraits, the protagonists, congregations of winos, listless listeners, blubber through numerous bar scenes, games of dominos around a flophouse stove, and a sermon at the Bowery Mission. Will Ray find his way out of this uncaring urban jungle? Reception. In September 1956, Rogosin became the first American director to win the Best Documentary award at the Venice Film Festival with "On The Bowery". Attacked by Bosley Crowther in the "New York Times" and shunned by the American Ambassador to Italy Clare Boothe Luce at the Venice Festival, Rogosin found support with the Flaherty family and many favorable reviews. In 1957, "On the Bowery" opened at the 55th Street Playhouse in New York, and was nominated for an Academy Award. Despite this success, distribution was extremely difficult. With "On The Bowery", Rogosin became one of the founding fathers in the development of Independent cinema in America, along with Sydney Myers and Morris Engel. "On the Bowery" would become an influence to many future independent filmmakers worldwide. “..a film made from the inside...In the bars and on the sidewalks, the camera leans sympathetically across table or grating towards these men and women who have passed the point of no return, and have reached a hideous sort of happiness achieved at best by gin and whiskey, and at worst by a shared squeeze from a can of metal polish. We are with these people and we hear what they say. And Rogosin insists that we must love them; he seems to say, with Dostoyevsky, “the sense of their own degradation is as essential to those reckless unbridled natures as the sense of their own generosity.” —Basil Wright, "Sight and Sound" “...brilliantly revealing photography by Richard Bagley matched to the patient, thoughtful construction and organization of director-producer Lionel Rogosin and writer Mark Sufrin...what stays in your mind permanently, striking you like a hammer when you first see it, is the face of the Bowery...the caked filth, the stubble beard, the clothes of eternity, the physical weakness and the shambling walk, and the unmistakable brand of liquor...” —Arthur Winston, "New York Post" “...an extraordinary, agonizing document...filled with an overwhelming sense of veracity and an unvoiced compassion for the men who have surrendered their dignity for a drink” —Arthur Knight, "Saturday Review" “This film, without the pity that secretly insults, without the disgust that indirectly compliments, studies its subjects with honest human interest, tries to see what they see in their lives, tries to find what they find in the bottom of the bottle.” —"Time" Home media. Milestone Films released "On the Bowery" on DVD and Blu-ray in 2012.
1060992	Emile Davenport Hirsch (born March 13, 1985) is an American television and film actor. He began performing in the late 1990s, appearing in several television films and series, and became known as a film actor after roles in "Lords of Dogtown", "The Emperor's Club", "The Girl Next Door", "Alpha Dog", and the Sean Penn-directed film "Into the Wild". In 2008, Hirsch starred in "Speed Racer" and "Milk". His most recent films include "Taking Woodstock", "The Darkest Hour", Oliver Stone's "Savages", and David Gordon Green's "Prince Avalanche", which premiered at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival and co-stars Paul Rudd. He participated in "Summit on the Summit", an expedition to the top of Mount Kilimanjaro to raise awareness of the need for clean water in the world. Early life. Emile Hirsch was born in Topanga, California. His mother, Margaret Esther (née Davenport), is a visual artist and teacher who designed pop-up books, and his father, David M. Hirsch, is an entrepreneur, manager, and producer. He has an older sister, Jenny. Hirsch is of part Jewish descent. He was raised in Los Angeles, California, and Santa Fe, New Mexico, where he lived with his mother for several years after his parents divorced. His sister introduced him to acting when they were enrolled at the Will Geer Theatricum, a summer drama camp in Topanga. He attended Topanga Canyon Elementary School, Paul Revere Middle School and the Academy of Music at Alexander Hamilton High School in Los Angeles. Career. Hirsch began acting at the age of eight in Woodstock, Illinois, appearing in minor roles on television shows and made-for-television films, including ""; "Sabrina, the Teenage Witch" and "NYPD Blue". Following his appearance on "NYPD Blue", casting directors began singling him out as a serious young actor, leading to a two-episode guest-starring role on "ER". He made his feature film debut with Jodie Foster's 2002 drama, "The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys", where he starred opposite Kieran Culkin in the story of two Catholic school boys. His next feature film role was in the prep school drama, "The Emperor's Club", with Kevin Kline, which was released later in 2002. Hirsch's reviews were favorable, and both films received generally positive reviews, but performed only moderately at the box office. Hirsch was subsequently cast opposite Elisha Cuthbert in the 2004 teen comedy, "The Girl Next Door", and as a result gained excellent mainstream reviews and wider recognition among teenage audiences. "The Mudge Boy", an independent film in which he had starred before making "The Girl Next Door", was given a limited release in the summer of 2004. Hirsch next appeared with Jeff Daniels and Sigourney Weaver in "Imaginary Heroes", a drama about a dysfunctional family, which received a limited release in February 2005. Later, in 2005, Hirsch starred with Heath Ledger in "Lords of Dogtown", a cult favorite by director Catherine Hardwicke; the film, about a number of well-known skaters of the 1970s and their role in the birth of a higher-profile skateboard culture, was released on June 3, 2005. Hirsch played Jay Adams (who some say was the original “Z-Boy”), and was praised by critics for his performance. He subsequently appeared in "Alpha Dog", a dark drama starring Justin Timberlake, Anton Yelchin, Bruce Willis, and Sharon Stone in which Hirsch played a character based on real-life drug dealer Jesse James Hollywood; the film was shot in 2004 and released on January 12, 2007. Hirsch consulted with Hollywood's real life father before playing the role, and has said that he felt "pretty afraid in my bones most of the time" while filming because of the film's raw characters and dialogue. Hirsch next played adventurer Christopher McCandless in Sean Penn's critically acclaimed adventure-drama "Into the Wild", released on September 21, 2007. He lost 40 pounds for the role and was noted in reviews as a potential Academy Award nominee for the film, also receiving a Screen Actors Guild nomination for best actor. Hirsch had the lead role in "Speed Racer", which was released on May 9, 2008. Hirsch plays gay rights activist Cleve Jones in Gus Van Sant's 2008 Harvey Milk bio-pic "Milk" starring Sean Penn in the title role. He starred in "Taking Woodstock", based on a screenplay of Elliot Tiber's memoir "Taking Woodstock", adapted by James Schamus. The film was directed by Academy Award Winning Director Ang Lee. His co-stars are Demetri Martin, Liev Schreiber, Imelda Staunton, Eugene Levy and Henry Goodman. "Taking Woodstock" was shot in upstate New York and was released in August 2009. In April 2010, director Chris Gorak cast him in his science fiction film, "The Darkest Hour", and released in December 2011. In April 2011, he was cast in Oliver Stone's "Savages", which was released in July 2012. In 2012, he starred with Penélope Cruz in "Venuto al mondo", a film by Italian director Sergio Castellitto. His most recent film, Prince Avalanche, co-starring Paul Rudd, screened at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival where it was acquired by Magnolia Pictures. In Fall 2013, he will star in the two-part television miniseries event, "Bonnie and Clyde", to be simultaneously broadcast on A&E, History, and Lifetime. Personal life and press. Hirsch resides in Venice, California, and enjoys writing poetry and screenplays, along with skateboarding. He has won five awards, including the Critics’ Choice Award for breakthrough performance and best actor for his role in "Into the Wild", as well as 11 other nominations. He has appeared on many magazine covers, including "Nylon Guys", "Teen Vogue", Movieline, "Another Man", and "L’Uomo Vogue (Italy)".
1058684	Lilo & Stitch is a 2002 American animated science fiction comedy-drama film produced by Walt Disney Feature Animation and released by Walt Disney Pictures on June 21, 2002. The 42nd animated feature of Walt Disney Feature Animation, it was written and directed by Chris Sanders and Dean DeBlois, and features the voices of Sanders, Daveigh Chase, Tia Carrere, David Ogden Stiers, Kevin McDonald, Ving Rhames, Jason Scott Lee, and Kevin Michael Richardson. "Lilo & Stitch" was the second of three Disney animated features produced primarily at the Florida animation studio studio located at Walt Disney World's Disney-MGM Studios in Orlando, Florida. The film received overwhelmingly positive reviews and was nominated for the 2002 Academy Award for Best Animated Feature, which ultimately went to Hayao Miyazaki's film, "Spirited Away", which was also released by Disney. The 2002 film eventually started a franchise: a direct-to-video sequel, "Stitch! The Movie", was released on August 26, 2003. This was followed by a television series, ', which ran from September 20, 2003 to July 29, 2006. A second direct-to-video sequel, ', was released on August 30, 2005. A third and final direct-to-video sequel, "Leroy & Stitch", was released on June 27, 2006 as the conclusion to the TV series. Unlike "Lilo & Stitch", its sequel features and series were produced by Walt Disney Television Animation. Plot. Dr. Jumba Jookiba is put on trial by the Galactic Federation for "illegal genetic experimentation"—the evidence of this is Experiment 626: an aggressive creature that is nearly indestructible and learns quickly. Jumba is imprisoned while Experiment 626 is to be exiled on a desert asteroid. During transport on Captain Gantu's ship, 626 manages to break out of his cell and cut off the ship's power grid. 626 hijacks a police cruiser unit upon his escape, but finds himself outnumbered and outgunned. Surrounded, 626 activates the hyperdrive and breaks through their defense, setting coordinates at random, landing him on the planet Earth. The Grand Councilwoman orders Jumba to work with Agent Pleakley to recover 626 discreetly. 626 survives his escape attempt to Earth, landing on the Hawaiian island of Kauai (Okina), but is knocked unconscious by a passing truck, and is taken to an animal shelter because he is believed by the truck drivers to be a breed of dog. After the recent death of their parents in a car accident, Nani Pelekai is looking after her younger, more rambunctious sister, Lilo. They are visited by Cobra Bubbles, a social worker, who is concerned that Nani can not take adequate care of Lilo. He considers putting Lilo into foster care, but Nani does not approve, as Lilo and she are the only remaining members of her family; Lilo does not help as she does not understand what may happen. After hearing Lilo in her room pray to be given a friend (Lilo has no "real" friends because every girl in her class makes fun of her), Nani agrees to allow Lilo to adopt a dog. At the shelter, Lilo immediately takes a keen interest in Experiment 626, despite serious misgivings that Nani and the shelter worker have about him being a dog. Lilo names 626 "Stitch" and shows him around Hawaii; Stitch quickly discovers escape is impossible due to the island being surrounded by water (his body is too dense for swimming) and that there are no large cities, which Jumba had previously said he would seek out to cause chaos, and suffers a nervous breakdown. As Nani attempts to find a good job, after being fired because of Lilo and Stitch, she is forced to bring them with her. Lilo uses the time to try to curb Stitch's aggressiveness by encouraging him to behave like Elvis Presley, whom she calls a "model citizen" as well as reading the book "The Ugly Duckling" to him. Stitch's antics, although at times foiling Jumba and Pleakley's attempts to capture him, also ruin Nani's chances of getting a job. David, a friend of Nani's, sees her at the beach, where she was trying to get a job as a lifeguard. David suggests they go surfing to improve her mood. While Nani, Lilo and a panicking Stitch ride on a huge wave, Jumba makes one more effort to capture Stitch from underwater; as a result, it appears as if Stitch attempted to drown Lilo. Although everyone gets safely to shore, Cobra saw the whole thing and tells Nani he will come by in the morning to take Lilo away from her and leaves feeling sorry for her. After Stitch sees how much trouble he has caused, he leaves, taking the ugly duckling book with him in hopes of finding his "family". The next morning, as Nani waits for Cobra to arrive, David tells Nani of a job offer that she must respond to. Nani tells Lilo to stay at home while she goes to secure the job. Stitch, hiding in the nearby woods, encounters Jumba, who reveals that Stitch can never have a family or "belong" because he was just built to destroy. Stitch races to Lilo's house, followed by Jumba firing at Stitch with his gun. The two fight, with Lilo immediately phoning Cobra for help. The house is ultimately destroyed by the end of the fight, with Nani and Cobra arriving shortly after. As Nani and Cobra argue over Lilo's well-being, Lilo slips away to hide in the forest and finds Stitch, who reveals his true alien identity form to her. While she says how he ruined everything, they are both captured by Captain Gantu, who had been sent to capture Stitch after Jumba and Pleakley failed to do so, and he makes to leave Earth. Nani is shocked to see Gantu putting Lilo and Stitch in a container pod and taking off in the ship. Stitch escapes from the container before the ship takes off, leaving Lilo behind. Nani then realizes that Stitch isn't what she thought he was, and demands he "had better" speak, just as Lilo always said he did.
585468	Nishan K. P. Nanaiah, known mononymously as Nishan, is an Indian actor from Karnataka who works mainly in Malayalam cinema. He debuted in 2009 through the Hindi film "Cycle kick" but unfortunately the film was not released. He got a career break in Shyamaprasad's Malayalam film "Ritu" in the same year. He became a notable actor through Sibi Malayil's "Apoorvaragam" which was released in 2010. Biography. Nishan was born in Coorg, Karnataka. He was brought up in Kolkata, West Bengal. He was a university tennis player. He got a diploma in acting from the Pune Film Institute (FTII). After graduating, he moved to Mumbai to try his luck in Bollywood. He worked with Subhash Ghai in a film entitled "Cycle Kick", which was delayed for some time and later released in 2011. As an actor, he believes to expand his horizons and so moved to South India, where he got a chance in the Telugu film "Manorama" (2009). His character in the film was noted, however he returned to Mumbai and resumed his auditions for roles in Bollywood. He got a call from Shyamaprasad during those days, for playing the lead role in "Ritu" (2009). About the selection, the actor said, "Shyamaprasad had seen my stills from a model coordinator in Chennai. But I was not sure if I could do the film because Malayalam is a tough language. Shyamaprasad, however, told me that he was confident that I could do the role". After "Ritu", he got another notable role in Sibi Malayil's "Apoorvaragam". In February, Ee Adutha Kaalathu released in which he played the role of Rustam. This film received positive response from both critics and audiences, and is considered a pathbreaker for its bold and realistic narration and the innovative style of weaving story threads together. His next project "Note Out" is a comedy film by debutant director Kutty Naduvil. "Lavendar", his upcoming project, is slated for a release on 21 September.
820618	Harley Cross (born 1978) is an American film and television actor. He appeared in the 1980s horror films "The Believers" and "The Fly II"; he was also featured in the 1989 film "Cohen and Tate". His most recent role was in the 2004 film "Kinsey" and in 2000, "Shriek If You Know What I Did Last Friday the Thirteenth". He is also the co-founder of Hint Mint, a candy company. Personal life. Cross was born in New York City, New York. He is the older brother of actress Flora Cross and actor Eli Marienthal.
582303	Life in a... Metro is a 2007 Hindi film directed by Anurag Basu, set in Mumbai, and starring Dharmendra, Nafisa Ali, Shilpa Shetty, Shiney Ahuja, Kay Kay Menon, Kangna Ranaut, Sharman Joshi, Konkona Sen Sharma and Irrfan Khan in pivotal roles. The music is composed by Pritam with lyrics by Sayeed Quadri. The film was released on 11 May 2007. The film narrates the individual lives of nine people living in Mumbai, and deals with topics like extramarital affairs, sanctity of marriage, and love. The film was critically acclaimed for its story and screenplay. The film's general plot and a number of characters are based on two classic films, The Apartment and Brief Encounter. Synopsis. Rahul (Sharman Joshi) is a young man with dreams, working as a call center executive in a BPO in Mumbai. He silently loves Neha (Kangna Ranaut), a smart young woman who has made it up the ranks in a very short time, due to her relationship with her boss, Ranjeet (Kay Kay Menon).
1062448	Brokeback Mountain is a 2005 epic romantic drama film directed by Ang Lee. It is a film adaptation of the 1997 short story of the same name by Annie Proulx with the screenplay written by Diana Ossana and Larry McMurtry. The film stars Heath Ledger, Jake Gyllenhaal, Anne Hathaway and Michelle Williams, and depicts the complex romantic and sexual relationship between two men in the American West from 1963 to 1981. "Brokeback Mountain" won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival and was honored with Best Picture and Best Director accolades from the British Academy of Film and Television Arts, Golden Globe Awards, Producers Guild of America, Critics Choice Awards, and Independent Spirit Awards among many other organizations and festivals. "Brokeback Mountain" was nominated for eight Academy Awards, the most nominations at the 78th Academy Awards, where it won three: Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best Original Score. The film was widely considered to be a front runner for the Academy Award for Best Picture, but lost to "Crash". "Brokeback Mountain" ranks 12th among the highest-grossing romance films of all time. Plot. In 1963, Ennis Del Mar (Heath Ledger) and Jack Twist (Jake Gyllenhaal) are hired by Joe Aguirre (Randy Quaid) to herd his sheep through the summer in Wyoming. After a night of heavy drinking, Jack makes a sexual pass at Ennis, who is initially apprehensive but eventually falls to Jack's advances. Though he informs Jack that it was a one-time incident, they develop a sexual and emotional relationship. Shortly after learning their summer together is being cut short, they briefly fight and each is bloodied. After Jack and Ennis part ways, Ennis marries his longtime fiancée Alma Beers (Michelle Williams) and fathers two daughters. Jack returns the next summer, but Aguirre, who witnessed Jack and Ennis on the mountain, does not re-hire him. Jack moves to Texas, where he meets, marries, and has a son with rodeo rider Lureen Newsome (Anne Hathaway). After four years, Jack visits Ennis. Upon meeting, the two kiss passionately, which Alma accidentally witnesses. Jack broaches the subject of creating a life together on a small ranch, but Ennis, haunted by a childhood memory of the torture and murder of a man suspected of homosexual behavior, refuses. He is also unwilling to abandon his family. Ennis and Jack continue to meet for infrequent fishing trips. The marriages of both men deteriorate. Alma and Ennis eventually divorce in 1975. Ennis sees his family regularly until Alma finally confronts him about her knowledge of the true nature of his relationship with Jack which incites a violent argument and causes Ennis to abandon his connections with Alma. Lureen abandons her rodeo days and becomes a businesswoman with her father and expects Jack to work in sales. Hearing about Ennis' divorce, Jack drives to Wyoming hoping they can live together, but Ennis refuses to move away from his children. Jack finds solace with male prostitutes in Mexico. Ennis meets and has a brief romantic relationship with a waitress, Cassie Cartwright (Linda Cardellini). Jack and Lureen meet and befriend another couple, Randall and Lashawn Malone, and it is implied that Jack and Randall begin an affair behind their wives' backs. At the end of a fishing trip, Ennis attempts to push back their next meeting. An argument erupts over Jack's frustration at him and Ennis meeting infrequently, and Ennis blames Jack for being the cause of his own conflicted actions. Jack attempts to hold him and there is a brief struggle, but they end up locked in an embrace. A flashback of Ennis saying goodbye to Jack during their summer on Brokeback Mountain fades back to Jack watching Ennis drive away. Some time later, a postcard Ennis sends to Jack is returned stamped "Deceased". In a telephone conversation, Lureen tells Ennis that Jack died when a tire he was changing exploded. While listening, Ennis imagines Jack being bludgeoned to death by a gang. Jack's actual fate is left "deliberately ambiguous". Lureen tells Ennis that Jack wanted to have his ashes scattered on Brokeback Mountain, but she does not know where it is. Ennis travels to meet with Jack's mother and father (Roberta Maxwell and Peter McRobbie), where he offers to take Jack's ashes, but the father refuses, preferring to have them interred in a family plot. In Jack's childhood bedroom, Ennis finds the bloodstained shirt he thought he lost on Brokeback Mountain, realizing that Jack kept it hanging with the bloodstained shirt Jack himself wore during that fight. Ennis holds them up to his face, breathing in their scent and silently weeping. Jack's mother allows him to keep the shirts. Later, 19-year-old Alma Jr. (Kate Mara) arrives at her father's trailer with the news that she is engaged. She asks Ennis for his blessing and invites him to the wedding. Ennis asks her if her fiancé really loves her, and she answers that he does. After Alma's departure, Ennis goes to his closet. Hanging on a nail on the door are the shirts with a postcard of Brokeback Mountain tacked above. Now Jack's shirt is tucked inside of Ennis's. Ennis fastens the top button of Jack's shirt, and with tears in his eyes mutters, "Jack, I swear..." while straightening the postcard before closing the door and walking away. Production. Before Lee, Gus Van Sant attempted to turn Proulx's story into a film starring Joaquin Phoenix and Matt Damon. Damon told the director, "Gus, I did a gay movie ("The Talented Mr. Ripley"), then a cowboy movie ("All the Pretty Horses"). I can't follow it up with a gay-cowboy movie!" While the film is set in Wyoming, it was filmed almost entirely in the Canadian Rockies in southern Alberta. The fictional "Brokeback Mountain" in the film, so named because the mountain has the same swayback curve as a brokeback horse or mule, which is swaybacked or sagging in the spine, is actually a composite of Mount Lougheed south of the town of Canmore to Fortress and Moose Mountain in Kananaskis Country. The campsites were filmed at Goat Creek, Upper Kananaskis Lake, Elbow Falls and Canyon Creek, also in Alberta. Other scenes were also filmed in Cowley, Fort Macleod, and Calgary. The film was shot during the summer of 2004. Mark Wahlberg declined the starring role, saying he turned down the opportunity because he was "a little creeped out" by the homosexual themes and sex scene. Commercial success. "Brokeback Mountain" cost about US$14 million to produce, excluding its reported advertising budget of $5 million. According to interviews with the filmmakers, Focus Features was able to recoup its production costs early on by selling overseas rights to the film. The film saw limited release in the United States on December 9, 2005 (in New York City, Los Angeles, and San Francisco), taking $547,425 in five theaters its first weekend. Over the Christmas weekend, it posted the highest per-theater gross of any film and was considered a box office success not only in urban centers such as New York City and Los Angeles, but also in suburban theaters near Portland, Houston, Chicago, Dallas, Denver, and Atlanta. On January 6, 2006, the film expanded into 483 theaters, and on January 13, 2006, Focus Features, the film's distributor, opened "Brokeback" in nearly 700 North American cinemas as part of its ongoing expansion strategy for the film. On January 20, the film opened in 1,194 theaters in North America; it opened in 1,652 theaters on January 27 and in 2,089 theaters on February 3, its widest release. "Brokeback Mountain"'s theatrical run lasted for 133 days and grossed $83,043,761 in North America and $95,000,000 abroad, adding up to a worldwide gross of more than $178 million. It is the top-grossing release of Focus Features, ranks fifth among the highest-grossing westerns (since 1979) and eighth among the highest-grossing romantic dramas (1980 – present). The film was released in London on December 30, 2005, in only one cinema, and was widely released in the rest of the United Kingdom on January 6, 2006. On January 11, "Time Out London" magazine reported that "Brokeback" was the number one film in the city, a position it held for three weeks. The film was released in France on January 18, 2006, in 155 cinemas (expanding into 258 cinemas in the second week and into 290 in the third week). In its first week of release, "Brokeback Mountain" was in third place at the French box office, with 277,000 people viewing the film, or an average of 1,787 people by cinema per week, the highest such figure for any film in France that week. One month later, it reached more than one million viewers (more than 1,250,000 on March 18), with still 168 cinemas (in the 10th week). Released in Italy on January 20, the film grossed more than 890,000 euros in only three days, and was the fourth highest-grossing film in the country in its first week of release. "Brokeback Mountain" was released in Australia on January 26, 2006, where it landed in fourth place at the box office and earned an average per-screen gross three times higher than its nearest competitor during its first weekend despite being released in only 48 cinemas nationwide. Most of the Australian critics praised the film. "Brokeback" was released in many other countries during the first three months of 2006. During its first week of release, "Brokeback" was in first place in Hong Kong's box office, with more than US$473,868 ($22,565 per cinema). "Brokeback Mountain" was the highest-grossing film in the U.S. from January 17 through January 19, 2006, perhaps due primarily to its wins at the Golden Globes on January 16. Indeed, the film was one of the top five highest-grossing films in the U.S. every day from January 17 until January 28, including over the weekend (when more people go to the films and big-budget films usually crowd out independent films from the top-grossing list) of January 20–22. On January 28, the film fell out of the top five and into sixth place at the box office during that weekend before entering the top five again on January 30 and remaining there until February 10. The film was released on January 20, 2006, in Taiwan, where director Ang Lee was born. It ran until April 20. The pair of shirts from the film sold on eBay on February 20, 2006, for US$101,100.51. The buyer, film historian and collector Tom Gregory, called the shirts "the ruby slippers of our time," and intends never to separate them. The proceeds will benefit California children's charity Variety, which has long been associated with the film industry. The shirts (still entwined and on the original hanger) are currently on loan to the Autry National Center, where they are on display in the Autry's Imagination Gallery. On December 11, 2010, in association with Focus Features, the Autry screened "Brokeback Mountain" to commemorate the film's fifth anniversary, followed by a staged reading based on the book "Beyond Brokeback," written by Members of the Ultimate Brokeback Forum and adapted for the stage by author and producer Gregory Hinton. This program was presented as part of the Out West at the Autry series. Conceived by Hinton, consulting producer for the series, Out West at the Autry was inspired not only by the installation of the iconic Brokeback shirts but also by the permanent inclusion of the International Gay Rodeo Association's (IGRA) archives into the Autry Library (both facilitated by Hinton). The Autry National Center is the first major American museum to recognize the contributions of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) community to the American West. Reception. Professional film critics have heaped praise on "Brokeback Mountain". The film won four Golden Globe Awards, including Best Motion Picture – Drama, and was nominated for seven, leading all other films in the 2005 awards. It won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival, as well as the title Best Picture from the Boston Society of Film Critics, the Dallas-Fort Worth Film Critics Association, the Florida Film Critics Circle, the Las Vegas Film Critics Society, the Los Angeles Film Critics Association, the New York Film Critics Circle, the San Francisco Film Critics Circle, the Southeastern Film Critics Association, the Utah Film Critics Society, and the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTAs). "Brokeback Mountain" received an 87% "Fresh" rating on Rotten Tomatoes, compiled from 223 reviews, with the consensus that "a beautifully epic Western, "Brokeback Mountain"'s gay love story is imbued with heartbreaking universality, helped by the moving performances of Ledger and Gyllenhaal." It also received an 87 out of 100 score on Metacritic based on 41 reviews, indicating "Universal acclaim." The film was given a "two thumbs up" rating by Roger Ebert and Richard Roeper, the former giving a four-star review in the "Chicago Sun-Times". The film received positive reviews from "Christianity Today". Conservative radio host Michael Medved gave the film three and a half stars, stating that while the film's "agenda" is blatant, it is an artistic work. The film's significance has been attributed to its portrayal of a same-sex relationship without any reference to the history of the gay civil rights movement. This emphasizes the tragic love story aspect, which leads many commentators to effectively compare Ennis and Jack's drama to classic and modern romances like "Romeo and Juliet" or "Titanic", often using the term star-crossed lovers. This link to classic romances is no coincidence; the poster for the film was inspired by that of James Cameron's "Titanic", after Ang Lee's collaborator James Schamus looked at the posters of "the 50 most romantic movies ever made". There was also disagreement among reviewers, critics, and even the cast and crew as to whether the film's two protagonists were actually homosexual, bisexual, heterosexual, or under no sexual label at all. Most often the film was referred to in the media as the "gay cowboy movie," but a number of reviewers wrote that Jack and Ennis were bisexual. Sex researcher Fritz Klein also asserted his opinion that the film was "a nice film with two main characters who were bisexual", and further analyzed that Jack is more "toward the gay side of bisexuality" and Ennis is "a bit more toward the straight side of being bisexual". In an article in "American Sexuality Magazine", bisexuality-focused sex educator Amy Andre critiqued the media's avoidance of the use of the term "bisexual" in association with "Brokeback Mountain": Gyllenhaal himself took the opinion that Ennis and Jack were heterosexual men who "develop this love, this bond," also saying in a "Details" interview: "I approached the story believing that these are actually two straight guys who fall in love." Still others stated that they felt the characters' sexuality to be simply ambiguous. Clarence Patton and Christopher Murray said in New York's "Gay City News" that Ennis and Jack's experiences were metaphors for "many men who do not identify as gay or even queer, but who nevertheless have sex with other men". A reviewer at Filmcritic.com wrote, "We later see Jack eagerly engage Lureen sexually, with no explanation as to whether he is bisexual, so in need of physical intimacy that anyone, regardless of gender, will do, or merely very adept at faking it." Ledger was quoted as stating in "TIME": "I don't think Ennis could be labeled as gay. Without Jack Twist, I don't know that he ever would have come out... I think the whole point was that it was two souls that fell in love with each other." Conversely, others stated that the characters were undoubtedly gay, including GLBT non-fiction author Eric Marcus, who dismissed "talk of Ennis and Jack being anything but gay as box office-influenced political correctness intended to steer straight audiences to the film". Roger Ebert also agrees that both characters are gay, although in doubt of it: "Jack is able to accept a little more willingly that he is inescapably gay," and the film's producer James Schamus said, "I suppose movies can be Rorschach tests for all of us, but damn if these characters aren't gay to me." Annie Proulx herself opined "how different readers take the story is a reflection of their own personal values, attitudes, hang-ups." When Ledger and Gyllenhaal were asked about any fear of being cast in such controversial roles, Ledger responded that he was not afraid of the role, but rather he was concerned that he would not be mature enough as an actor to do the story justice. Gyllenhaal has stated that he is extremely proud of the film and his role, regardless of what the reactions would be. He regards rumors of him being bisexual as flattering, stating, "I'm open to whatever people want to call me. I've never really been attracted to men sexually, but I don't think I would be afraid of it if it happened." Both have stated that the sex scenes in the beginning were difficult to do. Lee found the first scene difficult to film and has stated he has great respect for the two main actors for their "courage". Ledger's performance was described by Luke Davies as a difficult and empowering portrayal given the environment of the film, stating: "In "Brokeback Mountain" the vulnerability, the potential for danger, is so great – a world so masculine it might destroy you for any aberration – that [Ledger's] real brilliance was to bring to the screen a character, Ennis Del Mar, so fundamentally shut down that he is like a bible of unrequited desires, stifled yearnings, lost potential." On January 3, 2006, Universal, the studio of which Focus Features is the specialty division, announced that "Brokeback Mountain" was the most honored film of 2005. The independent website criticstop10.com backed that assertion, reporting that "Brokeback Mountain" was the most frequently selected film on reviewers' year-end Top Ten lists of 2005. "Entertainment Weekly" put it on its end-of-the-decade, "best-of" list, saying, "Everyone called it 'The Gay Cowboy Movie.' Until they saw it. In the end, Ang Lee's 2005 love story wasn't gay or straight, just human." On March 9, 2006, a press release was sent to more than 400 media outlets announcing that nearly $26,000 had been raised for an ad to be posted in the "Daily Variety" on March 10, 2006. This $26,000 had been raised by just over 600 fans through an online donations site, affiliated with a non-studio-sponsored online forum which is devoted to the film and the book. The story was quickly picked up by several outlets including Yahoo!, "The Advocate", and "The New York Times". The ad served as a simple show of fan support despite its losing the Best Picture Oscar. International reception. The title of "Brokeback Mountain" has been translated into several other languages. Often the foreign title is literally "The Secret(s) of Brokeback Mountain" (how the French, Italian, Portuguese and Polish titles translate). In Canadian French, the title was translated to "Souvenirs de Brokeback Mountain" ("Memories of Brokeback Mountain"). In Hungarian, the title was "Túl a barátságon" ("Beyond friendship"). The Region 1 DVD has English, Spanish (Latin American), French (Canadian), and on some DVDs, German audio tracks. The film also met with mixed reactions in other nations, including China and Middle Eastern countries: Controversies. Utah theater cancellation. On January 6, 2006, Utah Jazz owner Larry H. Miller pulled the film from his Jordan Commons entertainment complex in Sandy, Utah, a suburb of Salt Lake City. The decision was made at the last minute after entering into a contract to show the film and heavily advertising for it. He reneged on his obligations approximately two hours before the first scheduled showing upon learning that the plot concerned a same-sex romance. Miller stated that the film got away from "traditional families", something which he believes is "dangerous". Focus Features threatened to sue him and announced it would no longer do business with him. In a statement the company added, "You can't do business with people who break their word." Political pundits. Several political pundits, including commentators Bill O'Reilly, John Gibson, and Cal Thomas, accused Hollywood of pushing an agenda with the film. On December 23, 2005, the Fox network reported that "Brokeback Mountain" was facing ""Brokeback" Burnout", citing as evidence a fall in revenues from Sunday, December 18, 2005, to Monday, as well as subsequent falls during the week, despite the fact that nearly all films see smaller business during the week compared to weekends. "Brokeback Mountain" subsequently became the butt of jokes on Gibson's Fox News Radio program for months after the film's release. After Heath Ledger died from an accidental drug overdose in January 2008, Gibson was widely criticized for mocking the deceased actor hours after the news broke. At one point during the broadcast, Gibson played Jake Gyllenhaal's line "I wish I knew how to quit you", before telling his listeners, "Well, I guess he found out how to quit "you"." Gibson defended himself by saying there was "no point in passing up a good joke", but later apologized. Gene Shalit and "The Today Show". The film critic for the U.S. morning show "The Today Show", Gene Shalit, called Gyllenhaal's character, Jack Twist, a "sexual predator" who "tracks Ennis down and coaxes him into sporadic trysts." This triggered complaints, particularly from gay media watchdog group GLAAD, which argued that Shalit's characterization of the character would be akin to calling Leonardo DiCaprio's character in "Titanic" a sexual predator for his romantic pursuit of the character played by Kate Winslet. Shalit later apologized. In a letter to GLAAD, Shalit's son Peter wrote, "He may have had an unpopular opinion of a movie that is important to the gay community, but he defamed no one, and he is not a homophobe." He went on to say that GLAAD had defamed his father by "falsely accusing him of a repellent form of bigotry". U.S. social conservatives. Several conservative Christian groups, such as Concerned Women for America and Focus on the Family, lambasted the film heavily even prior to its release. Following wins by "Brokeback Mountain", "Capote", and "Transamerica" at the 2006 Golden Globes, Janice Crouse, a Concerned Women for America member, cited these films as examples of how "the media elites are proving that their pet projects are more important than profit" and suggested that they were not popular enough to merit so much critical acclaim. Conservative radio personality Rush Limbaugh has referred to the film as "Bareback Mountain" and "Humpback Mountain". Don Imus, another controversial radio personality, had labeled the film "Fudgepack Mountain". Criticism of marketing. Some commentators have voiced concerns about the coverage of the film's homosexual theme in the mass media both in advertising and in public events, such as press conferences and award ceremonies. Several journalists, including "New York Daily News" writer Wayman Wong, Dave Cullen and Daniel Mendelsohn, have complained that the film's director, lead actors, and publicity team all avoided using the word "gay" to describe the story and pointed out that while the film trailer does not show the two male leads kissing each other, it nevertheless includes a clip from a heterosexual love scene. Quaid lawsuit. On March 23, 2006, actor Randy Quaid, who played Joe Aguirre (Ennis and Jack's boss), filed a lawsuit against Focus Features (LLC), Del Mar Productions (LLC), James Schamus, David Linde, and Does 1–10 alleging that they intentionally and negligently misrepresented "Brokeback Mountain" as "a low-budget, art house film with no prospect of making any money" in order to secure Quaid's professional acting services at below-market rates. The film had grossed more than $160 million as of the date of his lawsuit, which sought $10 million plus punitive damages. On May 5, Quaid dropped his lawsuit. Quaid's publicist said he decided to drop the lawsuit after Focus Features agreed to pay him a bonus. Focus Features denies making such a settlement. Allegations of animal cruelty. The American Humane Association raised concerns that animals were treated improperly during filming, alleging that sheep were handled roughly and that an elk appeared to have been "shot on cue", suggesting further that the animal was anesthetized for this purpose, violating standard guidelines for animal handling in the film industry. Post-Academy Awards reaction. Some critics accused the Academy of homophobia for failing to award the Oscar for Best Picture to "Brokeback Mountain" and instead giving it to a rival nominee, "Crash". Michael Jensen noted that prior to the Oscar ceremony, "Brokeback Mountain" became "the most honored movie in cinematic history", winning more Best Picture and Director awards than previous Oscar winners "Schindler's List" and "Titanic" combined, and pointing out that prior to "Brokeback", no film that had won the Writer's Guild, Director's Guild, and Producer's Guild awards failed to win the Academy Award for Best Picture, and that only four times in the previous twenty-five years had the Best Picture winner not also been the film with the most nominations. He also noted that only once before had a film not even nominated for the Golden Globe's Best Picture ("Crash") gone on to win the Academy Award. Some critics, notably Roger Ebert, defended the decision to award "Crash" Best Picture, arguing the better film won that year. Ebert questioned why many critics weren't mentioning the other nominees and why they were bashing "Crash" only because it won over their preferred film. Film location. Like the story on which it was based, the film was set in Wyoming. Some residents of that state who objected to the film's "homosexual content" criticised the setting. While the film was shot largely in the Alberta Rockies, the Wyoming tourism board stated that the film "captured the spirit of Wyoming's Big Horn Mountains". Fan fiction. Proulx, author of the original short story, says "I wish I'd never written it" because of the existence of "Brokeback Mountain" fan fiction: The authors, mostly men who claim to "understand men better than I do", often send her their works: Accolades. "Brokeback Mountain" won 71 awards and had an additional 52 nominations. The winners include three Academy Awards for Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best Score as well as four Golden Globe awards for Best Motion Picture-Drama, Best Director, Best Song, and Best Screenplay and four BAFTA Awards for Best Film, Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Supporting Actor (Jake Gyllenhaal). The film also received four Screen Actors Guild nominations for Best Actor, Best Supporting Actor, Best Supporting Actress and Best Ensemble, more than any other film released in 2005. The film is one of several highly acclaimed LGBT-related films of 2005 to be nominated for critical awards; others include "Breakfast on Pluto", "Capote", "Rent", and "Transamerica". Some of the most significant awards and nominations for "Brokeback Mountain" are listed below: Home media. This film is the first to be released the same day as both a DVD and a download available via the Internet. It was released in the United States on April 4, 2006. The film moved more than 1.4 million copies on its first day of release and was the second biggest seller of the week behind Disney's "". Though the ranking fluctuated daily, by late March and early April 2006, "Brokeback Mountain" had been the top-selling DVD on Amazon.com several days running. The Region 2 (Europe) DVD was released on April 24, 2006, though at first only in the UK. Other release dates are much later: France on July 19, 2006, and Poland in September, a considerable time after the theater release in both countries. The Region 4 (Australia/New Zealand/South America) DVD was released on July 19, 2006. "Brokeback Mountain" was re-released in a collector's edition on January 23, 2007. On that same day, "Brokeback Mountain" was also released as a Combo Format HD DVD/DVD. "Brokeback Mountain" was released on Blu-ray Disc on September 30, 2007, but only in the UK. "Brokeback Mountain" was released on Blu-ray Disc in the United States on March 10, 2009.
1163591	John Richard Basehart (August 31, 1914September 17, 1984) was an American actor. He starred in the 1960s television science fiction drama "Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea", in the role of Admiral Harriman Nelson. Career. One of his most notable film roles was the acrobat known as "the Fool" in the acclaimed Italian film "La Strada" (1954), directed by Federico Fellini. He also appeared as the killer in the film noir classic "He Walked by Night" (1948), as a psychotic member of the Hatfield clan in "Roseanna McCoy" (1949), as Ishmael in "Moby Dick" (1956), and in the drama "Decision Before Dawn" (1951). He was married to Italian Academy Award-nominated actress Valentina Cortese, with whom he had one son, the actor Jackie Basehart, before their divorce in 1960. Cortese and Basehart also costarred in Robert Wise's "The House on Telegraph Hill" (1951). On Christmas Day 1958, Basehart appeared in the episode "Medal for Valor" on CBS's "Dick Powell's Zane Grey Theater". Basehart played David Manning, whose wife is in need of medical treatment. To finance her treatment, Manning agrees to serve as Adam Stewart's substitute in the Union army during the American Civil War and returns three years later with an affidavit certifying that he qualifies for free land available to veterans. Adam's father Rufus, a Union land agent, reneges on the promise because his son is running for the United States House of Representatives. Oddly, Rufus is shot to death in a confrontation, and Adam, who did not know Manning had substituted in the war for him, provides the affidavit to Manning instead. The outcome of the election is not disclosed, but the story considers the political liability of the situation. From 1964 to 1968, Basehart played the lead role, Admiral Harriman Nelson, on Irwin Allen's first foray into science-fiction television, "Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea". Although Basehart started his career as a film actor, he became best known for his role on "Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea". It would be only eight days after the death of Basehart, that Walter Pidgeon, who played the role of Adm. Harriman Nelson in the movie "Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea" would pass away. Basehart was noted for his deep, distinctive voice and narrated a wide range of television and movie projects. In 1980, Basehart narrated the mini-series written by Peter Arnett called "" that covered Vietnam and its battles from the Japanese surrender on September 2, 1945 to the final American embassy evacuation on April 30, 1975. He appeared in the pilot episode of the television series "Knight Rider" as billionaire Wilton Knight. He is the narrator at the beginning of the show's credits.
1163679	Farley Earle Granger (July 1, 1925 – March 27, 2011) was an American actor, best known for his two collaborations with Alfred Hitchcock, "Rope" in 1948 and "Strangers on a Train" in 1951. Granger was first noticed in a small stage production in Hollywood by a Goldwyn casting director, and given a significant role in "The North Star", a controversial film praising the Soviet Union at the height of the war, but later condemned for its political bias. Another war-film "The Purple Heart" followed, before Granger's naval service in Honolulu, in a unit that arranged troop entertainment in the Pacific. Here he made useful contacts, including Bob Hope, Betty Grable and Rita Hayworth. It was also where he discovered his bisexuality, which he said he never felt any need to conceal. In 1948, Hitchcock cast him in "Rope", a fictionalized account of the Leopold and Loeb murder case, which earned mixed reviews, but much critical praise for Granger. Hitchcock then cast him again in "Strangers on a Train" as a tennis-star drawn into a double murder plot by a scheming psychopath played by Robert Walker. Granger described this as his happiest film-making experience, though he was deeply affected by his friend Walker's accidental drug-death soon afterwards. Both these two Hitchcock films carried a sub-theme of homosexuality, expressed with extreme delicacy in view of possible reactions by audiences and censors alike. Granger continued to appear on stage, film and television well into his seventies. His work ranged from classical drama on Broadway to several Italian-language films and major documentaries about Hollywood, but he tended to find fault with his directors and scriptwriters and he remains defined by the two Hitchcock classics. Early life. Granger was born in San Jose, California, the son of Eva (née Hopkins) and Farley Earle Granger.
65137	Friedrich Ludwig Gottlob Frege (; 8 November 1848 â 26 July 1925) was a German mathematician, logician and philosopher. He is considered to be one of the founders of modern logic and made major contributions to the foundations of mathematics. He is generally considered to be the father of analytic philosophy, for his writings on the philosophy of language and mathematics. While he was mainly ignored by the intellectual world when he published his writings, Giuseppe Peano (1858â1932) and Bertrand Russell (1872â1970) introduced his work to later generations of logicians and philosophers. Life. Childhood (1848â69). Frege was born in 1848 in Wismar, in the state of Mecklenburg-Schwerin (the modern German federal state Mecklenburg-Vorpommern). His father Carl (Karl) Alexander Frege (3 August 1809 â 30 November 1866) was the co-founder and headmaster of a girls' high school until his death. After Carl's death, the school was led by Frege's mother Auguste Wilhelmine Sophie Frege (nĂŠe Bialloblotzky of Polish descent, 12 January 1815 â 14 October 1898). In childhood, Frege encountered philosophies that would guide his future scientific career. For example, his father wrote a textbook on the German language for children aged 9â13, entitled "HĂźlfsbuch zum Unterrichte in der deutschen Sprache fĂźr Kinder von 9 bis 13 Jahren" (2nd ed., Wismar 1850; 3rd ed., Wismar and Ludwigslust: Hinstorff, 1862), the first section of which dealt with the structure and logic of language. Frege studied at a "gymnasium" in Wismar and graduated in 1869. His teacher Gustav Adolf Leo Sachse (5 November 1843 â 1 September 1909), who was a poet, played the most important role in determining Frege's future scientific career, encouraging him to continue his studies at the University of Jena. Studies at University: Jena and GĂśttingen (1869â74). Frege matriculated at the University of Jena in the spring of 1869 as a citizen of the North German Confederation. In the four semesters of his studies he attended approximately twenty courses of lectures, most of them on mathematics and physics. His most important teacher was Ernst Karl Abbe (1840â1905) (physicist, mathematician, and inventor). Abbe gave lectures on theory of gravity, galvanism and electrodynamics, complex analysis theory of functions of a complex variable, applications of physics, selected divisions of mechanics, and mechanics of solids. Abbe was more than a teacher to Frege: he was a trusted friend, and, as director of the optical manufacturer Carl Zeiss AG, he was in a position to advance Frege's career. After Frege's graduation, they came into closer correspondence. His other notable university teachers were Christian Philipp Karl Snell (1806â86; subjects: use of infinitesimal analysis in geometry, analytical geometry of planes, analytical mechanics, optics, physical foundations of mechanics); Hermann Karl Julius Traugott Schaeffer (1824â1900; analytical geometry, applied physics, algebraic analysis, on the telegraph and other electronic machines); and the philosopher Kuno Fischer (1824â1907; Kantian and critical philosophy). Starting in 1871, Frege continued his studies in GĂśttingen, the leading university in mathematics in German-speaking territories, where he attended the lectures of Rudolf Friedrich Alfred Clebsch (1833â72; analytical geometry), Ernst Christian Julius Schering (1824â97; function theory), Wilhelm Eduard Weber (1804â91); physical studies, applied physics, Eduard Riecke (1845â1915; theory of electricity, and Hermann Lotze (1817â81; philosophy of religion). Many of the philosophical doctrines of the mature Frege have parallels in Lotze; it has been the subject of scholarly debate whether or not there was a direct influence on Frege's views arising from his attending Lotze's lectures. In 1873, Frege attained his doctorate under Ernst Christian Julius Schering, with a dissertation under the title of ""Ăber eine geometrische Darstellung der imaginĂ¤ren Gebilde in der Ebene"" ("On a Geometrical Representation of Imaginary Forms in a Plane"), in which he aimed to solve such fundamental problems in geometry as the mathematical interpretation of projective geometry's infinitely distant (imaginary) points. Frege married Margarete Katharina Sophia Anna Lieseberg (15 February 1856 â 25 June 1904) on 14 March 1887. Work as a logician. Though his education and early work were mathematical, especially geometrical, Frege's thought soon turned to logic. His marked a turning point in the history of logic. The "Begriffsschrift" broke new ground, including a rigorous treatment of the ideas of functions and variables. Frege wanted to show that mathematics grows out of logic, but in so doing, he devised techniques that took him far beyond the Aristotelian syllogistic and Stoic propositional logic that had come down to him in the logical tradition. It is frequently noted that Aristotle's logic is unable to represent even the most elementary inferences in Euclid's geometry, but Frege's "conceptual notation" can represent inferences involving indefinitely complex mathematical statements. The analysis of logical concepts and the machinery of formalization that is essential to "Principia Mathematica" (3 vols., 1910â13) (by Bertrand Russell, 1872â1970, and Alfred North Whitehead, 1861â1947), to Russell's theory of descriptions, to Kurt GĂśdel's (1906â78) incompleteness theorems, and to Alfred Tarski's (1901â83) theory of truth, is ultimately due to Frege. One of Frege's stated purposes was to isolate genuinely logical principles of inference, so that in the proper representation of mathematical proof, one would at no point appeal to "intuition". If there was an intuitive element, it was to be isolated and represented separately as an axiom: from there on, the proof was to be purely logical and without gaps. Having exhibited this possibility, Frege's larger purpose was to defend the view that arithmetic is a branch of logic, a view known as logicism: unlike geometry, arithmetic was to be shown to have no basis in "intuition", and no need for non-logical axioms. Already in the 1879 "Begriffsschrift" important preliminary theorems, for example a generalized form of law of trichotomy, were derived within what Frege understood to be pure logic. This idea was formulated in non-symbolic terms in his . Later, in his (vol. 1, 1893; vol. 2, 1903) (vol. 2 of which was published at his own expense), Frege attempted to derive, by use of his symbolism, all of the laws of arithmetic from axioms he asserted as logical. Most of these axioms were carried over from his "Begriffsschrift", though not without some significant changes. The one truly new principle was one he called the Basic Law V: the "value-range" of the function "f"("x") is the same as the "value-range" of the function "g"("x") if and only if â"x"["f"("x") = "g"("x")]. The crucial case of the law may be formulated in modern notation as follows. Let {"x"|"Fx"} denote the extension of the predicate "Fx", i.e., the set of all Fs, and similarly for "Gx". Then Basic Law V says that the predicates "Fx" and "Gx" have the same extension iff âx["Fx" â "Gx"]. The set of Fs is the same as the set of Gs just in case every F is a G and every G is an F. (The case is special because what is here being called the extension of a predicate, or a set, is only one type of "value-range" of a function.) In a famous episode, Bertrand Russell wrote to Frege, just as Vol. 2 of the "Grundgesetze" was about to go to press in 1903, showing that Russell's paradox could be derived from Frege's Basic Law V. It is easy to define the relation of "membership" of a set or extension in Frege's system; Russell then drew attention to "the set of things "x" that are such that "x" is not a member of "x"". The system of the "Grundgesetze" entails that the set thus characterised "both" is "and" is not a member of itself, and is thus inconsistent. Frege wrote a hasty, last-minute Appendix to Vol. 2, deriving the contradiction and proposing to eliminate it by modifying Basic Law V. Frege opened the Appendix with the exceptionally honest comment: "Hardly anything more unfortunate can befall a scientific writer than to have one of the foundations of his edifice shaken after the work is finished. This was the position I was placed in by a letter of Mr. Bertrand Russell, just when the printing of this volume was nearing its completion." (This letter and Frege's reply are translated in Jean van Heijenoort 1967.) Frege's proposed remedy was subsequently shown to imply that there is but one object in the universe of discourse, and hence is worthless (indeed, this would make for a contradiction in Frege's system if he had axiomatized the idea, fundamental to his discussion, that the True and the False are distinct objects; see, for example, Dummett 1973), but recent work has shown that much of the program of the "Grundgesetze" might be salvaged in other ways: Frege's work in logic had little international attention until 1903 when Russell wrote an appendix to "The Principles of Mathematics" stating his differences with Frege. The diagrammatic notation that Frege used had no antecedents (and has had no imitators since). Moreover, until Russell and Whitehead's "Principia Mathematica" (3 vols.) appeared in 1910â13, the dominant approach to mathematical logic was still that of George Boole (1815â64) and his intellectual descendants, especially Ernst SchrĂśder (1841â1902). Frege's logical ideas nevertheless spread through the writings of his student Rudolf Carnap (1891â1970) and other admirers, particularly Bertrand Russell and Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889â1951). Philosopher. Frege is one of the founders of analytic philosophy, mainly because of his contributions to the philosophy of language, including the As a philosopher of mathematics, Frege attacked the psychologistic appeal to mental explanations of the content of judgment of the meaning of sentences. His original purpose was very far from answering general questions about meaning; instead, he devised his logic to explore the foundations of arithmetic, undertaking to answer questions such as "What is a number?" or "What objects do number-words ("one", "two", etc.) refer to?" But in pursuing these matters, he eventually found himself analysing and explaining what meaning is, and thus came to several conclusions that proved highly consequential for the subsequent course of analytic philosophy and the philosophy of language. It should be kept in mind that Frege was employed as a mathematician, not a philosopher, and he published his philosophical papers in scholarly journals that often were hard to access outside of the German-speaking world. He never published a philosophical monograph other than "The Foundations of Arithmetic", much of which was mathematical in content, and the first collections of his writings appeared only after World War II. A volume of English translations of Frege's philosophical essays first appeared in 1952, edited by students of Wittgenstein, Peter Geach (born 1916) and Max Black (1909â88), with the bibliographic assistance of Wittgenstein (see Geach, ed. 1975, Introduction). Despite the generous praise of Russell and Wittgenstein, Frege was little known as a philosopher during his lifetime. His ideas spread chiefly through those he influenced, such as Russell, Wittgenstein, and Carnap, and through work on logic and semantics by Polish logicians. Sense and reference. The distinction between "Sinn" ("sense") and "Bedeutung" (usually translated "reference", but also as "meaning" or "denotation") was an innovation of Frege in his 1892 paper "Ăber Sinn und Bedeutung" ("On Sense and Reference"). According to Frege, sense and reference are two different aspects of the significance of an expression. Frege applied "Bedeutung" in the first instance to proper names, where it means the bearer of the name, the object in question, but then also to other expressions, including complete sentences, which "bedeuten" the two "truth values", the true and the false; by contrast, the sense or "Sinn" associated with a complete sentence is the thought it expresses. The sense of an expression is said to be the "mode of presentation" of the item referred to. The distinction can be illustrated thus: In their ordinary uses, the name "Charles Philip Arthur George Mountbatten-Windsor", which for logical purposes is an unanalyzable whole, and the functional expression "the Prince of Wales", which contains the significant parts "the prince of Îž" and "Wales", have the same "reference", namely, the person best known as Prince Charles. But the "sense" of the word "Wales" is a part of the sense of the latter expression, but no part of the sense of the "full name" of Prince Charles. These distinctions were disputed by Bertrand Russell, especially in his paper "On Denoting"; the controversy has continued into the present, fueled especially by Saul Kripke's famous lectures "Naming and Necessity". Imagine the road signs outside a city. They all point to ("bedeuten") the same object (the city), although the "mode of presentation" or sense ("Sinn") of each sign (its direction or distance) is different. Similarly "the Prince of Wales" and "Charles Philip Arthur George Mountbatten-Windsor" both denote ("bedeuten") the same object, though each uses a different "mode of presentation" (sense or "Sinn"). 1924 diary. Frege's published philosophical writings were of a very technical nature and divorced from practical issues, so much so that Frege scholar Dummett expresses his "shock to discover, while reading Frege's diary, that his hero was an outspoken anti-Semite (1973)." He was always a conservative, but after World War I he became more of a radical. His late political "diary shows Frege to have been a man of extreme right-wing political opinions, bitterly opposed to the parliamentary system, democrats, liberals, Catholics, the French and, above all, Jews, who he thought ought to be deprived of political rights and, preferably, expelled from Germany". Frege confided "that he had once thought of himself as a liberal and was an admirer of Bismarck, but his heroes now were General Ludendorff and Adolf Hitler. This was after the two had tried to topple the elected democratic government in a coup in November 1923. In his diary Frege also used all his analytic skills to devise plans for expelling the Jews from Germany and for suppressing the Social Democrats." Frege disliked universal suffrage and was against any form of socialism, which he simply called Marxism. His antisemitism still allowed for exceptions, and he had friendly relations with Jews in real life: among his students was Gershom Scholem who much valued his teacher; and he encouraged Ludwig Wittgenstein to leave for England. The 1924 diary has been published. Personality. Frege was described by his students as a highly introverted person, seldom entering into dialogue, mostly facing the blackboard while lecturing though being witty and sometimes bitterly sarcastic. Important works. Logic, foundation of arithmetic. "Begriffsschrift", "eine der arithmetischen nachgebildete Formelsprache des reinen Denkens" (1879). Halle a. S. "Die Grundlagen der Arithmetik:" "eine logisch-mathematische Untersuchung Ăźber den Begriff der Zahl" (1884). Breslau. "Grundgesetze der Arithmetik", Band I (1893); Band II (1903). Jena: Verlag Hermann Pohle. Philosophical studies. "Function and Concept" (1891) "On Sense and Reference" (1892) "Concept and Object" (1892) "What is a Function?" (1904) "Logical Investigations" (1918â1923). Frege intended that the following three papers be published together in a book titled "Logische Untersuchungen" ("Logical Investigations"). Though the German book never appeared, the papers were published together in "Logische Untersuchungen", ed. G. Patzig, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1966, and English translations appeared together in "Logical Investigations", ed. Peter Geach, Blackwell, 1975. References. Secondary. "Philosophy": "Logic and mathematics":
585133	Naina is a Hindi horror film released in India in 2005. It stars Urmila Matondkar. It is an uncredited remake of the Hong Kong film "The Eye", meaning the original writers received no compensation as opposed to that provided by the American remake "The Eye".
645742	Hypot is a mathematical function defined to calculate the length of the hypotenuse of a right-angle triangle. It was designed to avoid errors arising due to limited-precision calculations performed on computers. Motivation and usage. Calculation of the length of the hypotenuse of a triangle is possible to do using the square root function but hypot("x", "y") avoids possible problems with very large or very small numbers. The magnitude of the hypotenuse from (0, 0) to ("x", "y") can be calculated using: However the squares of very large or small values of "x" and "y" may exceed the range of machine precision when calculated on a computer, leading to an inaccurate result (see underflow, overflow). The hypot function was designed to calculate the result without causing this problem. The hypot function may typically be used together with the atan2 function to convert from Cartesian to polar coordinates: This operation is also known as Pythagorean addition. Implementation. The difficulty with the naive implementation is that "x"2 or "y"2 may over- or underflow, unless the intermediate result is computed with extended precision. A common implementation technique is to exchange the values, if necessary, so that |"x"| > |"y"|, and then use the equivalent form: The computation of "y"/"x" cannot overflow, and underflows compute the correct result. The square root is computed over a value between 1 and 2. Finally, the multiplication by |"x"| cannot underflow, and overflows only when the result is too large to represent. Pseudocode: Programming language support. The function is present in several programming languages: Some C90 and C++ libraries have provided a hypot function.
1045779	Jessie Matthews, OBE (11 March 1907 – 19 August 1981) was an English actress, dancer and singer of the 1920s and 1930s, whose career continued into the post-war period. Early life. Jessie Margaret Matthews was born in a flat behind a butcher’s shop at 94 Berwick Street, Soho, London, in relative poverty, the seventh of sixteen children (of whom eleven survived) of a fruit-and-vegetable seller. She took dancing lessons as a child in a room above the local public house at 22 Berwick Street. She debuted on stage on 29 December 1919, aged 12, in "Bluebell in Fairyland", by Seymour Hicks, music by Walter Slaughter and lyrics by Charles Taylor, at the Metropolitan Music Hall, Edgware Road, London, as a child dancer; she made her film debut in 1923 in the silent film "The Beloved Vagabond". Career. Matthews was in the chorus in "Charlot's Review of 1924" in London. She went with the show to New York, where she was also understudy to the star, Gertrude Lawrence. The show moved to Toronto, and when Lawrence fell ill she took over the role and was given great reviews. Matthews was acclaimed in the United Kingdom as a dancer and as the first performer of numerous popular songs of the 1920s and 1930s, including "A Room with a View" by Noël Coward and "Let's Do It, Let's Fall in Love" by Cole Porter. After a string of hit stage musicals and films in the mid-1930s, Matthews developed a following in the USA, where she was dubbed "The Dancing Divinity". Her British studio was reluctant to let go of its biggest name, which resulted in offers for her to work in Hollywood being repeatedly rejected. Matthews' fame reached its initial height with her lead role in Charles B. Cochran's 1930 stage production of "Ever Green", premiered at the Alhambra Theatre Glasgow, a musical by Rodgers and Hart that was partly inspired by the life of music hall star Marie Lloyd, and her daughter's tribute act resurrection of her mother's acclaimed Edwardian stage show as "Marie Lloyd Junior". At its time "Ever Green", which included the first major revolving stage in Britain, was the most expensive musical ever mounted on a British stage. The 1934 cinematic adaptation featured the newly composed song "Over My Shoulder" which was to go on to become Matthews' personal theme song, later giving its title to her autobiography and to a 21st-century musical stage show of her life. Her distinctive warbling voice and round cheeks made her a familiar and much-loved personality to British theatre and film audiences at the beginning of World War II, but her popularity waned in the 1940s after several years' absence from the screen followed by an unsatisfactory thriller, "Candles at Nine". Post-war audiences associated her with a world of hectic pre-war luxury that was now seen as obsolete in austerity-era Britain. After a few false starts as a straight actress she played Tom Thumb's mother in the 1958 children's film, and during the 1960s found new fame when she took over the leading role of Mary Dale in the BBC's long-running daily radio soap, "The Dales", formerly "Mrs Dale's Diary". Live theatre and variety shows remained the mainstay of Matthews' work through the 1950s and 1960s, with successful tours of Australia and South Africa interspersed with periods of less glamorous but welcome work in British provincial theatre and pantomimes. She became a stalwart nostalgia feature of TV variety shows such as "The Night Of A Thousand Stars" and "The Good Old Days". Jessie Matthews was awarded an OBE in 1970 and continued to make cabaret and occasional film and television appearances through the decade including one-off guest roles in the popular BBC series "Angels" and an episode of the ITV mystery anthology "Tales of the Unexpected". She memorably played Wallis Simpson's "Aunt Bessie" Merriman in the 1978 Thames TV series "Edward and Mrs Simpson". She took her one-woman stage show to Los Angeles in 1979 and won the United States Drama Logue Award for the year's best performance in concert. Personal life. In 1926 she married the first of her three husbands, actor Henry Lytton, Jr., the son of singer and actress Louie Henri and Sir Henry Lytton the doyen of the Savoy Theatre. They divorced in 1929.
1070781	"Cold Fish" premiered at the 67th Venice International Film Festival on September 7, 2010 and received the best screenplay award in the Fantastic Features section at Fantastic Fest 2010. Production. Following "Alien vs Ninja" and "Mutant Girls Squad", "Cold Fish" is the third film to be released by Nikkatsu's Sushi Typhoon, their gore-themed series. Director and writer Sion Sono was influenced by Japanese crime cases while developing "Cold Fish", specifically about an actual killing spree committed by a dog kennel owner in the 1980s (the story of the film involves a family of three that becomes entangled in a string of ongoing murders perpetrated by a tropical fish salesman in Shizuoka Prefecture). Sono also wanted to "depict a sense of total hopelessness" which he felt is "lacking in Japanese films." Release. "Cold Fish" premiered at the 67th Venice International Film Festival on September 7, 2010. It was also shown at film festivals in Pusan and at the Toronto International Film Festival where it received its North American premiere. "Cold Fish" won the best screenplay award in the Fantastic Features section at Fantastic Fest 2010. It was released in Japan on January 29, 2011. Reception. Film Business Asia gave "Cold Fish" a 8 out of 10 rating praising the actor Denden who without his "tour-de-force performance..."Cold Fish" may never have worked." The review went on to state that "Though there's considerable gore on display, it's largely cartoonish. "Cold Fish" is not so much a blood-and-guts horror movie, more a danse macabre about social breakdown." In the United Kingdom, "Total Film" gave the film a three out of five rating, suggesting that plot twists and black comedy offered welcome reprieve from the "largely hysterical acting and rivers of viscera." "The Guardian" found the film to be "fairly ordinary" in comparison to Sono's other works and felt that the film was too long. "Radio Times" gave the film three out of five stars praising the acting from Denden, Fukikoshi and Kurosawa and Shinya Kimura's photography and Takashi Matsuzuka's production design which made up for "some overindulgent directorial moments".
204574	A Summer Story is a 1988 British drama film directed by Piers Haggard, with the script written by Penelope Mortimer, based on short story "The Apple Tree" by John Galsworthy and starring James Wilby, Imogen Stubbs and Susannah York. In 1922, a man recalls the love affair he enjoyed with a woman before the First World War. The film is based on the John Galsworthy story "The Apple Tree".
587859	Gaayam () is a 1993 Telugu movie directed by Ram Gopal Varma, which established Jagapathi Babu as a star. The film's lyrics were written by Sirivennela and its music was composed by Sri. It starred Jagapathi Babu, Revathi, Urmila and Kota Srinivasa Rao. with Vijayawada mafia of the time as a backdrop. The movie was declared a hit at the box office. This film is inspired by American film "The Godfather" Plot. Durga (Jagapathi Babu) is in love with Anitha (Revathy); he is all set to marry her and settle down in life. But things change when his brother Mohanakrishna (Charan Raj) is killed by Gurunarayana (Kota Srinivas Rao), the local MLA, and Durga wants to settle the score with the mafia.
1057588	Lady in the Lake is a 1947 American film noir that marked the directorial debut of Robert Montgomery, who also stars in the film. The picture also features Audrey Totter, Lloyd Nolan, Tom Tully, Leon Ames and Jayne Meadows. The murder mystery was an adaptation of the 1944 Raymond Chandler novel "The Lady in the Lake".
585305	Moondru Mudichu () is a 1976 Tamil film that was directed by K. Balachander. The movie stars Kamal Hassan, Rajnikanth and Sridevi in major roles. The movie revolves around three people, a college going girl (Sridevi) and two men who fall in love with her (Hassan and Rajnikanth). The film was based on 1974 Telugu film "O Seeta Katha" directed by K. Viswanath starring Roja Ramani and Chandramohan. Plot. Prasath (Rajnikanth) and Balaji (Kamal Hassan) are room-mates in a city. Balaji falls in love with Selvi (Sridevi) who lives in the same apartment complex. Prasath, who has his eyes on Selvi, pretends to back Balaji's love while secretly hoping to create a divide between them. Selvi realizes Prasath's evil intentions when she finds out that he has seduced an innocent girl living in the same apartment complex. However, she is unable to convince Balaji, who hero-worships Prasath. Things come to a head when Balaji and Selvi go for a picnic by the lake and Balaji decides to invite Prasath along. As the three of them head to the middle of the lake on a boat, Balaji topples over by mistake. Prasath refuses to jump in and save Balaji, on the pretext that he does not know swimming. A devastated Selvi returns home to another shock — her sister (Y. Vijaya), who plays small roles in movies, has been in a fire accident which has left her face permanently scarred. Overnight, Selvi's life undergoes a drastic change. Prasath becomes kind towards Selvi and she comes to his house and lives as a maid. Prasath lives with his father (Calcutta Viswanathan) and his younger siblings. His father wants Selvi to marry Prasath. In an attempt to salvage her life, Selvi decides to marry Prasath's father in the absence of Prasath. After her marriage to Prasath's father, she decides to use her 'mother' status to exact revenge on Prasath and gives him a shock when he returns. The movie ends with lines in Tamil, roughly translating to: "When it is time for a seed to sprout, if the conscience cannot emphathise; and only after the incident, is the conscience present! When conscience grapples with oneself for selfish ends; in the evildoer's eyes, his madness will be his conscience!" Soundtrack. The music for the film is scored by M. S. Viswanathan
582652	Woh Lamhe...() is a 2006 film starring Shiney Ahuja and Kangna Ranaut and directed by Mohit Suri. The film is supposedly based on Parveen Babi's life, her battle with schizophrenia and her relationship with Mahesh Bhatt to whom she was a lover as well as a mentor in his struggling days. Bhatt said that it is his tribute to the actress and time he spent with her, hence the name "Woh Lamhe" ("Those Moments"). Parveen Babi's character is played by Kangna Ranaut who is named Sana Azim in the film to avoid direct reference to the actress. "Woh Lamhe" was critically acclaimed for its screenplay, direction, and a noteworthy performance by Kangna. The film was an average commercial success, recovering most of its cost from DVD and satellite television circuit. Synopsis. In the glitzy entertainment capital of Mumbai as dusk descends, actress Sana Azim (Kangana Ranaut) slits her wrists in a hotel room, in an attempt to kill herself. When this news reaches film-maker Aditya Garewal (Shiney Ahuja), he is devastated. Aditya has been searching for Sana, who was intensely involved with him and who had mysteriously disappeared from his life without any explanation, three years ago, only to surface now in what could be the last moments of her life. As Aditya waits outside the ICU, praying to be reunited with her, he is hurled back into the perfumed days and champagne nights of his memory, when Sana played the role of a lover and mentor to a struggling Aditya. Everything was perfect, except for an enemy which lurked in the shadows, waiting to destroy their love. When Aditya realizes that the only way he can save Sana from total devastation is to take her away from Bollywood and the vested interests that threaten to destroy her completely, he runs away with Sana putting his career on the line. Those moments lived in the sanctuary of their love are like an oasis in the desert. Until one day, suddenly, she disappears, leaving him with unanswered questions. Aditya tries his best to save Sana from her mental illness but fails. Music. The Music of Woh Lamhe is composed by Pritam & Roop Kumar Rathod. Lyrics are by Neelesh Mishra & Sayeed Quadri. The Songs Kya Mujhe Pyar Hai & Bin Tere became hits while others were also successful. Songs are as follows :-
582855	Thanedaar is a 1990 Hindi action film directed by Raj N. Sippy and starring Sanjay Dutt, Madhuri Dixit, Jeetendra, Jaya Pradha and Kiran Kumar. The film is perhaps most remembered for the hit song "Tamma Tamma Loge" and its quirky dancing moves. It was the first pairing of Dutt and Dixit who went on to star in 7 films together including big box office successes "Saajan" (1991) and "Khalnayak" (1993). Despite the film not being highly remembered, a sequel titled "Thanedaar Returns" is under production. Reception. Thanedaar was well received by a number of critics. The film scored well at the box office grossing 8 crore nett and was declared a hit. It was also the sixth highest grossing film of the year 1990. Soundtrack. Tamma Tamma Loge. The song became an instant chartbuster due to its quirky dance moves and lyrics. It is well known that Dutt had great difficulty performing the dance moves especially the famous scene with the chairs, and though he spent almost a month training, still could not complete them with ease. It is however less known that a body double Javed Jaffrey, performed the chair sequence instead. In an interview, choreographer Saroj Khan talked about the shooting the song, which took 48 takes to get okayed. The tune was copied from Mory Kanté's song "Tama". There were also plans to remix the song by director duo Abbas Mustan for their film "Players" but later these plans were scrapped due to there not being enough time before the release of the film. Sequel. The sequel to Thanedaar will be the Hindi remake of Tamil film "Saamy" (2003). It is currently in production, shooting will begin at the end of August and is likely to be released in mid 2013. At one point the film was planned for a Diwali 2012 release but plans for the sequel have almost been scrapped due to their being some legal issues, to the which extent forced Dutt to pay back his signing amount. The sequel currently titled "Thanedar Returns", will be directed by KS Ravikumar and will star Dutt along with new additions to the cast including Prachi Desai who will play his love interest, Om Puri and Prakash Raj as the villain.
582729	Raju Chacha is an Indian Bollywood film directed by Anil Devgan, released on 20 December 2000. The film stars Ajay Devgan, Kajol, Rishi Kapoor and Sanjay Dutt in lead roles. Raju Chacha was Devgan's first attempt as a producer. The film was panned by most critics and flopped badly at the box office. Plot. Siddhant Rai (Rishi Kapoor) is a wealthy architect, living a comfortable lifestyle with his three children Rohit, Rahul and Rani. Also living with them is their butler B.B.C (Tiku Talsania). Because they have no mother, Siddhant has arranged for many governess or teachers to take care of them: however, the children always drive any of these governesses/teachers away. Siddhant soon decides to send his children to boarding school but changes his mind when B.B.C reminds him that when Siddhant threw his younger brother out of the house, he never came back again. Siddhant however, arranges for another governess.
1041953	Cathleen Nesbitt, CBE (24 November 18882 August 1982) was a British actress of stage, film and television. Biography. Born in Cheshire, England as Kathleen Mary Nesbitt in 1888 of Welsh and Irish descent, she was educated in Lisieux, France, and at the Queen's University of Belfast and the Sorbonne. Her younger brother, Thomas Nesbitt, Jr., acted in one film in 1925, before his death in South Africa in 1927 from an apparent heart attack. She made her debut in London in the stage revival of Arthur Wing Pinero's "The Cabinet Minister" (1910). She acted in countless plays after that. In 1911, she joined the Irish Players, went to the United States and debuted on Broadway in "The Well of the Saints". She also was in the cast of John Millington Synge's "The Playboy of the Western World" with the Irish Players when the whole cast was pelted with fruits and vegetables by the offended Irish American Catholic audience. She became the love of English poet Rupert Brooke in 1912, who wrote love sonnets to her. They were engaged to be married when he died during World War I.
1082933	"Fermat's Room" () is a 2007 Spanish thriller film directed by Luis Piedrahita and Rodrigo Sopeña. Three mathematicians and one inventor are invited to a house under the premise of solving a great enigma, and told to use pseudonyms based on famous historical mathematicians. At the house, they are trapped in a room. They must solve puzzles given by the host, who calls himself "Fermat", in order to escape the slowly closing walls of the room. Plot. One of the film characters whose name isn't revealed through the film (known as Galois) is waiting for the day of his demonstration of Goldbach's conjecture. While he was explaining it to some friends he is called to go to his room. When he arrives he finds a mess. A mysterious character has sabotaged his demonstration. Four months later, another mathematician (known as Hilbert) tells his friend, a physician, that he tried to commit suicide. Also, he reveals him that he has received a letter in which he is invited to a reunion in which the best mathematicians of the country will attend, for solving an enigma. For it, Hilbert must find in what order the numbers in the letter are: 5-4-2-9-8-6-7-3-1. Ten days later, another mathematician (known as Pascal) goes to a library for solving the puzzle (the same Hilbert received). After many hours of trying to solving it, he gives up and tore up the letter. The librarian permits him to stay later, on the condition that the books he uses must be returned in alphabetical order. "Alphabetical" results to be the clue for solving the puzzle; the numbers were in alphabetical order. Upon completion of the puzzle, a second letter is received with instructions to show up at a given time and place, alone, without a cell phone, to work on the greatest enigma. All the recipients receive pseudonyms, Galois, Hilbert, and Pascal. We are then introduced to a fourth character, known as Oliva. When they are all at the meeting place, at a river, a car on the other side flashes its lights, and they use a row boat named Pythagoras to reach it.
1036280	Stephen John "Steve" Coogan (born 14 October 1965) is an English actor, comedian, impressionist, writer and producer. He began his career in the 1980s, working as a voice artist on the satirical puppet show "Spitting Image". In the early 1990s, he began creating original comic characters; this led him to win the Perrier Award at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. In 1999, he co-founded the production company Baby Cow Productions. While working with Armando Iannucci on "The Day Today" and "On the Hour", Coogan created his most developed and popular character, Alan Partridge, a socially awkward and politically incorrect regional media personality. He featured in several television series, which earned Coogan three BAFTA nominations and two wins for Best Comedy Performance. A feature-length film, "", was released in 2013, and opened at number one at the British box office. Coogan grew in prominence within the film industry in 2002, after starring in "The Parole Officer" and "24 Hour Party People". He portrayed Phileas Fogg in the 2004 remake "Around the World in 80 Days", and has co-starred in "The Other Guys", "Tropic Thunder", "In the Loop", "Hamlet 2", "Our Idiot Brother", "Ruby Sparks" and "Night at the Museum", as well as collaborating with Rob Brydon in "The Trip" and "Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story". He was also a principal voice actor in the computer animated comedy film "Despicable Me 2". Coogan has also branched out into more dramatic roles, with "What Maisie Knew", and portrayed Paul Raymond in the biopic "The Look of Love". He co-wrote, produced and stars the upcoming film adaptation "Philomena", alongside Judi Dench, and has been cast in the lead role for the ABC television pilot Doubt, created by David Shore.
800238	Sket is a 2011 British urban retribution thriller film, set in the inner estates of East London. Released in October 2011, the film comes from the makers of "Shank" and "Anuvahood". Starring Lily Loveless, Aimee Kelly, Adelayo Adedayo, Emma Hartley-Miller, Slaine Kelly, Varada Sethu and Ashley Walters as the lead stars, the film is the feature-length directorial debut of writer Nirpal Bhogal. "Sket" was filmed on location in London. The estate where Kayla and her sister live is the Rowley Way Estate near West Hampstead, whilst the girl gang are shown living at the Whittington Estate on Dartmouth Park Hill, with one scene filmed in nearby Chester Road. Both estates are in the borough of Camden. The film premiered at the BFI London Film Festival as part of the "Film on the Square", and was released in cinemas Nationwide on October 28, 2011. The DVD and Blu-ray were released on March 5, 2012. Plot. Sisters Kayla (Aimee Kelly) and Tanya (Kate Foster-Barnes) move from Newcastle to commence a new life near their estranged father after their mother has died. Kayla is reluctant to reconcile with him. Meanwhile, drug dealer/gang-boss Trey (Ashley Walters) has instructed his female companion Shaks (Riann Steele) to murder a crackhead who has fallen behind on the payments for her drugs.
584720	Linda Arsenio (born June 20, 1978) is an American actress and model from Texas. She has predominantly appeared in Indian films in various languages. She is probably best known for her performance as Jessica Beckham in the 2006 Hindi film "Kabul Express". Early life. Arsenio was born on Galveston Island, Texas, USA, the daughter of a Salvadoran mother and a Yugoslavian father. She has two sisters and one brother, who reside in Texas. She studied at the Actors’ Conservatory in Dallas for 2 years, graduating with a Degree in Acting from there and continued her studies in acting in New York. Having already experience with theatre and musicals, she went on to do professional theatre in Texas and later in New York, which then led her to working in feature films. Career. She made her acting debut in an English independent film, called "The Process of Creative Deception", before stepping into the Indian film industry. She has acted in Tamil and Telugu movies. The Tamil movies are "Sachein" and "Thotti Jaya" in which she has item numbers, and she also plays a cameo in "Kana Kandaen". The Telugu movie she has acted in is "Bhadra", she has a forthcoming movie called "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star". Her first Bollywood movie is "Kabul Express". This movie was entirely shot in Afghanistan. She currently resides in Mumbai where she continues to be active in Bollywood after the success of "Kabul Express". She also appeared in the Bollywood movies "Mumbai Salsa", and "Aloo Chaat" with Aftab Shivdasani. In early 2007, she had acted in two cross-cultural Tamil telefilms, titled "My Dear Father" ("En Iniya Thanthai") and "Self Defence" ("Aththu Meera Aasai"), both directed by 'Atlanta' Ganesh. In 2009, she acted in the Malayalam film "Pazhassi Raja" alongside popular South Indian actors Mammootty and Sarath Kumar. However, she received much criticism for her role in the film (as Malabar District Sub-Collector's young wife Dora Baber).
585329	Manayangath Subramanian Viswanathan, also known as M.S.V.), is a Music Director from South India. He is considered to be one of the versatile and significant composers in Kollywood,he is popularly known as "Mellisai Mannar" (Tamil for "the King of Light Music"). He has composed for a total of 950 films composing songs in Tamil, Hindi, Malayalam, Kannada, and Telugu languages. His major works over the past five decades have been in Tamil, Malayalam and Telugu films. He has also acted and sung in a few Tamil films. J Jayalalithaa conferred the "Thirai Isai Chakravarthy" title on him in August 2012 and presented with 60 gold coins and a new car to him. Viswanathan Ramamoorthy duo composed music for 90 Tamil films from the film Panam in 1952 till Ayirathil Oruvan in 1965. Thereafter M.S.Viswanathan on his own composed music close to 850 films from 1965 till 2013 including 65 Telugu films 78 Malayalam films, 5 in Hindi, 15 Kannada films and 50 Malayasia films. He reigned supreme in Tamil films from 1965 to 1978. He sang under his own composition over 500 songs and in addition sang 200 songs composed by other music directors. Ramamoorthy composed for only 19 films on his own after the break up in 1965 till 1986. Early life. Viswanathan was born on 24 June 1928 to Manayangath Subramanian and Narayanikutty (or Naanikutty) in Elappully village in Palakkad, Kerala, India. He lost his father when he was four. He was saved by his grandfather when his mother decided to kill him and herself as an escape from abject poverty and lack of support. According to him,he even sold refreshments in a cinema for a living in his childhood and learned music from Neelakanda Bhagavathar in the period 1933–1939 resulting in his first stage performance in Trivandrum when he was only 13 years old. Career. T. K. Ramamoorthy was born into a famous musical family in Trichy and was a talented violinist since young.His father, Krishnaswamy Iyer and grandfather, Malaikottai Govindasamy Iyer were well known violinists in Trichy. Ramamoorthy gave several stage performances along with his father since his childhood days. C. R. Subburaman noted the young Ramamoorthy's talent and hired him as a violinist for HMV when he was only fourteen years old. He later worked in Saraswathi Stores where AVM Studo's boss, Avichi Meiyappa Chettiar,was a partner – which lead him to play violin for AVM's music composer, R. Sudarsanam, in some films. During these days, he also became friendly with P.S.Diwakar, the famous pianist cum music composer in the Malayala films and was staying with P.S.Diwakar while seeking opportunities. By this time, C. R. Subburaman, was a rising star in the South Indian film music world and Ramamoorthy rejoined him as one of his violinists in his musical troupe. There, he met T. G. Lingappa, another famed violinist. M.S Viswanathan joined this troupe later as a harmonium player in 1950. Viswanathan had always wanted to be an actor and singer, but was not successful.He had done a few small roles in stage dramas in 1940's. The famous music composer in the 50s, T. R. Papa, who was a violinist for the doyen of the Tamil film music, S. V. Venkatraman when he met the young struggling Viswanathan, took a liking to him and arranged a job for him as an errand boy for S. V. Venkatraman's musical troupe. In that company of all musicians, Viswanathan realised that he had the inclination and the potential for composing music. He thereafter joined S. M. Subbaiah Naidu and at times assisted him. He then joined C. R. Subburaman as a Harmonium player where he met both T.K.Ramamoorthy and T. G. Lingappa, the two leading violinists at that time. T. G. Lingappa also became a renowned music composer on his own in the 1950s. MSV was known as a master of playing 3 instruments -harmonium, keyboard and paino by the age of 13 whereas Ramamoorthy was known as master in playing violin by his age of 14. Viswanathan–Ramamoorthy. In 1952, C. R. Subburaman died unexpectedly, Ramamoorthy and Viswanathan joined together and completed the background music for the films Subburaman was working on.N. S. Krishnan knew them both fairly intimately and also their respective talents by then because of his close relationship with C.R.Subburaman with whom he combined in several films he had interests in. Ramamoorthy, despite being an excellent musician with an orthodox carnatic musical background, was a modest, shy, and a reserved person whereas M. S. Viswanathan was naturally talented, charming, forward and dynamic although he lacked the similar background in Carnatic music. Ramamoorthy wss older than Viswanathan by seven years, but placing of their names as "Viswanathan-Ramamoorthy" was agreed upon by both parties on the advice of Krishnan, who thereafter got the duo their first chance to score "Panam" a 1953 film produced by "A.L.Seenivasan" and directed by Krishnan himself. The Duo composed for 90 films during the 50s and 60s. Initially it was B.S.Ranga, T.R.Ramanna and A.Bhimsingh who backed them in films like Neethipathi,Tennali Raman,Gulebahavali and Pathipakthi in the 50s. They also had noteworthy films like Pasavalai,Porter Kanthan, Pudhayal,Sorgavasal,Mannathi Mannan , Pahappirivinai in the 50s. It was with Bhimsingh's film 'Pava Mannippu' in 1961, the Duo really hit the top with phenomenal success. Then directors like C.V.Shridhar, K.Shankar, Madhavan, A.C.Trilogchander, K.Balachander and Mukta V Srinivasan tied up with the Duo with chances also coming from the big studios like Gemini, AVM, Vijaya , etc. The duo parted in 1965 and since then they had composed for films individually. Although M.S. Viswanathan enjoyed a successful solo career, with just over 600 films from 1965–2013, Ramamoorthy composed for only 19 films from 1966–1986. He was awarded an honorary doctorate, along with M.S. Viswanathan, by the Sathyabama Deemed University in September 2006. J.Jayalalithaa being the Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu, conferred the Thirai Isai Chakravarthy (Emperorss of the Cine Music) title in August 2012 and presented with 60 gold coins and a new car to him. M.S.Viswanthan as separate music director (1965–present). A legendary perfectionist, he established a prolific career composing film music in the Tamil film industry. M.S.Viswanathan's achievements range from introducing fresher melodies with changing trends, style and orchestration approaches to incorporating various genres of what is now called world music into Indian cinema music. Humming, Chorus, Viscilling were all incorporated swiftly in the songs composed by M.S.V without usage of advanced technology way back in 1950's to 1970's. MSV continued to upgrade his music with new trends like western music and disco from the early 1970s till 1990's and blended them with Indian classical tunes. Viswanathan during the late 70s and 80s chose mainly the young, up and coming singers, S. P. Balasubrahmanyam, and Vani Jayaram giving career's of these singers the much needed boost. From early 1980's directors like S.P.Muthuraman, Major Sundarrajan, Bhagyaraj, R. Krishnamurthy, Yoganand, C.V. Rajendran, P.Madhavan, K.S. Prakash Rao, K.S. Gopalakrishnan, I.V. Sasi, Vietnam Veetu Sundaram, Taraka Rama Rao Nandamuril frequently worked with Vishwanathan and later from 1980's new directors like Visu, S.A.Chandrashekar collaborated with Viswanathan regularly. During the 70s and 80s he chose mainly the young, up and coming singers, S. P. Balasubramaniam and Vani Jayaram giving their career the much needed boost whilst still continuing with P.Susheela, L.R.Eshwari and T.M. Soundararajan.Although S.P.Balasubramaniyam shot to fame with the song "Ayiram Nilave Vaa" from "Adamai Penn", a K. V. Mahadevan composition in 1969 at the insistence of M. G. Ramachandran ,it is claimed that it was Viswanathan who booked him first for a Tamil film, namely "Shanthi Nilayam" with the song "Iyarkai Ennum" also in 1969. S.P.Balasubramaniyam regards Viswanathan as one of his patrons and Gurus in the Tamil films. Viswanathan introduced Jayachandran, the famous Malayalam singer to the Tamil films in Manippayal and used him for many more films in the 70's. K. Y. Jesudas was given a big break in the film "Kathalikka Neramillai" in 1964 by the Duo. Then Ramamoorthy used him for the hit song "Vasantha Kalam Varumo" in the film "Marakka Mudiyuma" in 1965.But Viswanathan started working with him again only in 1973 after a long gap at the insistence of M. G. Ramachandran in the film 'Ulagam Sutrum Valiban'. Yesudas then continued to be his voice in many films like in Nalai Namathe, Urmaikural, Sirithu Vazha Vendum etc., in Viswanathan's music . Then Viswanathan used Yesudas for the up-and-coming actors like Sivakumar, Kamalahasan, Vijaykumar and others.
627155	Nicollette Sheridan (born 21 November 1963) is an English television and film actress, best known for playing Edie Britt on the ABC dramedy series "Desperate Housewives" (2004–2009) and as Paige Matheson of the CBS primetime soap opera "Knots Landing" (1986–1993). In film, she is known for her roles in "The Sure Thing" (1985), "Noises Off" (1992), "Spy Hard" (1996) and "Beverly Hills Ninja" (1997). Early life. Sheridan was born in 1963 in Worthing, Sussex, England, the daughter of actress Sally Sheridan (née Adams). She attended school at Millfield in Somerset. In 1969 her mother began an affair with Greek-American actor Telly Savalas while working with him on the James Bond film "On Her Majesty's Secret Service". After completion of shooting, Savalas moved the entire family to the United States. Her mother gave birth to a son, Nicholas Savalas, on 24 February 1973. Telly Savalas and Sally Sheridan separated in 1977, and the family split their time between the United States and England. Career. Nicollette Sheridan made her debut in the short-lived US primetime soap opera "Paper Dolls" in 1984, but her breakthrough came in 1986 when she joined the cast of the CBS primetime soap "Knots Landing" as "Paige Matheson". She started out in a recurring role but was a series regular by the 1988-89 season. For her performance in the role, she won the 1990 "Soap Opera Digest" Award for "Outstanding Lead Actress: Prime Time" and the 1991 Soap Opera Digest Award for "Outstanding Heroine: Prime Time". The same year, she was named one of "People Magazine"'s "50 Most Beautiful People". In 1990, she was cast as Lucky Santangelo in the television adaptation of Jackie Collins' "Lucky Chances". She also appeared in several made-for-TV films, and after "Knots Landing" ended in 1993, she appeared in the theatrical films "Spy Hard" and "Beverly Hills Ninja". In 1998, she auditioned for the role of Grace Adler on "Will & Grace". Sheridan lost the role to Debra Messing, though she would later guest-star in an episode of the show. In 2004, Sheridan's role as Edie Britt in ABC's "Desperate Housewives" brought her renewed media attention. On 15 November 2004, Sheridan (in character as Britt) appeared with NFL wide receiver Terrell Owens in an introductory skit to that evening's "Monday Night Football" episode. Some observers condemned the skit as sexually suggestive (see video), and ABC later apologized for airing it. On 14 March 2005, the Federal Communications Commission ruled that the skit did not violate decency standards, because it contained no outright nudity or foul language. Sheridan was nominated for a 2005 Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress and was ranked #48 on "Maxim"'s 2006 Hot 100 List. In February 2009, during the show's fifth season, Sheridan announced her departure from "Desperate Housewives". Her exit episode aired in April 2009 when Edie Britt was killed off in the series. In 2010, Sheridan was set to star in an CBS comedy pilot as a mother who battles with her British ex-husband to get her teenaged daughter to stardom, but the series was not picked up for the autumn season by CBS. In September 2010, Sheridan made a Hallmark Channel film, "Honeymoon for One", in Ireland, playing Eve Parker. The film premiered on 13 August 2011 on the Hallmark Channel. Personal life. Relationships. From 1979 to 1985, Sheridan dated singer and actor Leif Garrett. Two decades later, Garrett credited Sheridan for helping him at the start of his career, and said of her "She's a special person in my life." Sheridan was married to actor Harry Hamlin from 1991 to 1993. The pair had starred together in the 1990 TV movie "Deceptions". She began seeing Swedish personal trainer Nicklas Söderblom in 2004 and became engaged to him on New Year's Eve 2004; the pair called off the engagement in October 2005. After her 2005 break-up with Söderblom, Sheridan returned to ex-boyfriend Michael Bolton, whom she had originally dated for five years starting in 1992. Sheridan and Bolton announced their engagement in March 2006. In 2006, Sheridan and Bolton sang a duet, "The Second Time Around", for the album "Bolton Swings Sinatra". In March 2008, Sheridan posed naked for a London Fog charity ad which also featured Bolton. Sheridan and Bolton broke off their engagement in August 2008. Lawsuit. On 5 April 2010, Sheridan filed a $20 million lawsuit against "Desperate Housewives" creator and producer Marc Cherry and ABC, alleging that she was assaulted by Cherry on the set of the show and was then fired when she reported the alleged abuse to the network. In her lawsuit, Sheridan claimed wrongful termination, assault and battery, gender violence, discrimination based on sex, sexual orientation and age, and intentional infliction of emotional distress. She also claimed that Cherry was abusive to other cast members and writers. ABC responded in a statement saying that while they were unaware of this particular complaint, they had investigated similar claims made by Sheridan and reportedly found them to be without merit. The stars of "Desperate Housewives", (Teri Hatcher, Felicity Huffman, Marcia Cross and Eva Longoria), pledged their support to help Marc Cherry in his battle against assault allegations made by Sheridan. At the end of 2010, she removed abuse claims from the suit. On 3 May 2011, the judge granted permission for the case to continue to trial, but threw out Sheridan's claims of harassment. The judge also limited damages the actress may recoup if she wins at trial to just one year's pay rather than pay for the remainder of the show's run (which would have been three years after her character was killed off). The judge also forbade Sheridan and her attorney from trying to claim that Cherry was rude to other castmembers on the show, and also urged both parties to settle the case out of court due to the costs likely to be incurred. However, the parties failed to settle. The case finally went to court on 27 February 2012. Sheridan's lawyer reiterated their claim that she was fired from the show after Cherry struck her across her head and she complained to ABC executives about the incident. Cherry claims that the alleged striking was in fact a tap to the head with his fingers, done in rehearsals when he was demonstrating to Sheridan how she should play a physical gag in a scene. He also stated that the decision to kill off her character was already approved in May 2008 (several months before the alleged hitting incident in September 2008) due, in part, to the need to reduce the show's budget. He also cited Sheridan's unprofessional on-set behavior (such as habitual lateness, not learning her lines, and feuding with her co-stars), and the fact that her character had simply "run its course" as other reasons for the decision. Sheridan was the first to take the stand, and was instructed to "calm down" by the judge after an angry outburst towards Cherry's lawyer on 2 March 2012. Cherry also took the stand, as did "Desperate Housewives" actor James Denton as well as various show producers, writers and ABC executives. On 13 March 2012, the judge dismissed the battery charge against Marc Cherry due to lack of evidence, and Cherry was no longer a defendant in the lawsuit which then focused solely on Sheridan's alleged wrongful termination by ABC. Closing arguments were heard in the case on 14 March 2012 and the jury began their deliberations. By 19 March 2012, the twelve members of the jury had failed to reach a verdict and a mistrial was declared. A retrial was scheduled for September, but on 16 August 2012, the Los Angeles Court of Appeal determined that Sheridan had not been wrongfully fired and dismissed the retrial. In reaching its decision, the appellate court rejected various arguments by Sheridan, including her attempt to convince the appellate court that ABC’s decision not to renew her option for another season during Season 5 was analogous to at-will employment situation in violation of public policy. The appellate court reasoned that unlike an at-will employee whose contract could remain in force indefinitely, Sheridan’s contract was for a set term that had expired. ABC did not terminate Sheridan, but rather simply chose not to rehire her for another fixed-term contract. However, the court declared that Sheridan should be allowed to file an amended lawsuit alleging that ABC retaliated against her for complaining about unsafe working conditions. A further appeal made by Sheridan to the California Supreme Court was rejected on 16 November 2012 though a new trial based solely on Sheridan's claim that ABC retaliated against her for complaining about working conditions is set for 2 December 2013. Unlike the other main characters who had been killed off on "Desperate Housewives", Sheridan did not make an appearance in the show's final episode which aired in May 2012.
1063292	Jennifer Beals (born December 19, 1963) is an American actress and a former teen model. She played the role of Alexandra "Alex" Owens in the 1983 film "Flashdance", and appeared as Bette Porter on the Showtime drama series "The L Word". She earned an NAACP Image Award and a Golden Globe Award nomination for the former. She has appeared in more than 50 films. Early life. Beals was born on the South Side of Chicago, the daughter of Jeanne (née Anderson), an elementary school teacher, and Alfred Beals, who owned grocery stores. She is multiracial; her father was African American, and her mother is Irish American. She has two brothers, Bobby and Gregory. Her father died when Beals was nine years old, and her mother married Edward Cohen in 1981. Beals has said her biracial heritage had some effect on her, as she "always lived sort of on the outside", with an idea "of being the other in society". She got her first job at age 13 at an ice cream store, using her height at the time (she is now nearly ), to convince her boss she was 16. Beals was inspired to become an actress by two events: doing a high school production of "Fiddler on the Roof" and seeing "Balm in Gilead" with Joan Allen while volunteer-ushering at the Steppenwolf Theatre. Beals graduated from the progressive Francis W. Parker School. She also was chosen to attend the elite Goodman Theatre Young People's Drama Workshop. Beals attended Yale University, receiving a B.A. in American literature in 1987; she deferred a term so she could film "Flashdance". While at Yale, Beals was a resident of Morse College. Career. Film. Beals had a minor role in the 1980 film "My Bodyguard", then came to fame with her starring part in "Flashdance". The third-highest grossing U.S. film of 1983, "Flashdance" is the story of 18-year-old Alex, a welder by day and exotic dancer by night, whose dream is to be accepted someday at an illustrious school of dance. Beals was cast for this key role while still a student at Yale. She was nominated for a Golden Globe and the film received an Academy Award for Best Song. Many of Beals' elaborate dance moves were actually performed by stunt double Marine Jahan. After she filmed "Flashdance", Beals resumed her studies, making only one film during that time: playing the titular character "The Bride" with singer-actor Sting, a gothic horror film loosely based on the 1935 classic "Bride of Frankenstein", shot during her summer break. She also appeared in the "Cinderella" episode of "Faerie Tale Theatre". Beals was asked by Joel Schumacher to do "St. Elmo's Fire" but turned it down, preferring to stay at Yale. Starring opposite Nicolas Cage, the actress portrays a lusty and thirsty vampire in 1989's "Vampire's Kiss". In 1995, Beals and Denzel Washington co-starred in "Devil in a Blue Dress", a period film based on a Walter Mosley novel featuring L.A. private detective, Easy Rawlins. Beals plays a biracial woman passing for white. That same year she appeared with Tim Roth in two segments of the four-story anthology "Four Rooms", one of which was directed by her then-husband, Alexandre Rockwell. Rockwell had previously directed her in the 1992 independent film "In the Soup", which was a Grand Prize winner at the Sundance Film Festival. In 2003, she played one of the sequestered jury members in the film adaptation of "Runaway Jury". She had a leading role in 2006's "The Grudge 2", sequel to the hit horror film of two years earlier. In 2010, Beals reunited with Denzel Washington in the post-Apocalyptic action drama, "The Book of Eli", where she played a blind woman who is the mother of Mila Kunis' character and a servant of Gary Oldman's. Television. In 1992, she appeared in "2000 Malibu Road" as attorney Perry Quinn. It was her first ongoing television series; she said she had been leery as she previously had not "found a character I wanted to live with for several years". In 2004, Beals made a brief cameo in the final episode of "Frasier". In 2007, she appeared in the small TV drama "My Name Is Sarah", in which she plays Sarah Winston, a sober woman who joins Alcoholics Anonymous to conduct research for her book but finds herself falling in love with a recovering alcoholic and - as a result - having to deal with her original deception in joining the group.
1030193	House of Tolerance (, also known as "House of Pleasures"), is 2011 French drama film directed by Bertrand Bonello, starring Céline Sallette, Hafsia Herzi, Jasmine Trinca, Adèle Haenel, Alice Barnole, Iliana Zabeth and Noémie Lvovsky. The film premiered In Competition at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival. Synopsis. The story is set in a luxurious Parisian brothel (a "maison close", like "Le Chabanais") in the dawning of the 20th century and follows the closeted life of a group of prostitutes: their rivalries, their hopes, their fears, their pleasures, and their pains. Production. The genesis of the project was a merge of two film ideas Bertrand Bonello had been thinking of. About ten years earlier he had tried to make a film about modern brothels, but the project had been cancelled. After finishing "On War" from 2008, Bonello decided that he wanted his next film to be about dynamics within a group of females, and his partner suggested a film about prostitutes in a historical setting. The director then became interested in the aspect of a brothel as a closed world from the viewpoint of the prostitutes. The idea of a scar in the form of a smile came from the film "The Man Who Laughs", an adaptation of Victor Hugo's novel with the same name. Bonello says he dreamed about the film two nights in a row while he was writing "House of Tolerance", and decided to include a female character with such a scar. The film was a co-production between Les Films du Lendemain and the director's company My New Picture, in collaboration with Arte France Cinéma. The production received 540,000 euro from the CNC and 416,000 euro from the Île-de-France region, as well as pre-sales investment from Canal+ and CinéCinéma. The total budget was 3.8 million euro. Casting took almost nine months. Bonello wanted a mixed ensemble of both professionals and amateurs who above all worked well together as a group. Filming started in Saint-Rémy-lès-Chevreuse on 31 May 2010 and lasted eight weeks. The film was recorded on one continuous set, which allowed the camera to move between each room without cuts. Bonello chose to focus the camera on the girls and almost never their clients. He explained: "it reinforces the impression that the prostitute is above the client. I told the actresses: 'Be careful, I want twelve intelligent girls.' It was really important for me: they're not being fooled, they are strong women." Release. The film had its premiere at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival where it played In Competition on 16 May 2011. It was the fourth time a film by Bonello was screened at the festival, and the second time in the main competition, after "Tiresia" from 2003. Haut et Court distributed the film in France, where it was released on 21 September 2011.
585002	Jhummandi Naadam is a 2010 Telugu film produced by Lakshmi Manchu and directed by veteran K. Raghavendra Rao. The film stars Manoj Manchu and Taapsee Pannu in the lead roles and Mohan Babu in a supporting role. The film has music scored by M.M. Keeravani. The film was released on July 1, 2010. Plot. Balu (Manoj Manchu) has only one mission in his life - to become a great playback singer like SP Balasubramanyam. He challenges a landlord in his village and comes to Hyderabad to become a singer. Captain Rao (Mohan Babu) stays in the opposite house. He is an old-fashioned man who hates the lifestyle of new generation. Sravya (Tapsee) is an NRI girl who stays in her father’s friend Captain Rao’s house. She is in India to do documentary on traditional Telugu music. Balu acts as a local guide to her and in the process, they fall in love. Captain Rao doesn’t like them falling in love with each other. The rest of the story is all about Captain Rao’s restrictions and how the lovers emerge unscathed. Soundtrack. The soundtrack of the film was released worldwide on 28 May 2010 . It had music scored by composer M. M. Keeravani. S.P.Balasubramanyam sang 5 songs after a long time. References. http://www.idlebrain.com/audio/areviews/vedam-jhummandinaadam.html http://popcorn.oneindia.in/title/7449/jhummandi-naadam.html http://www.idlebrain.com/movie/archive/mr-jhummandinaadam.html http://www.idlebrain.com/celeb/interview/lakshmimanchu1.html http://www.telugufilms.org/wiki/index.php?title=Jhummandi_Naadam_Telugu_Film_Review
1065196	Javier Manuel "Jay" Hernandez, Jr. (born February 20, 1978) is an American actor. Early life and career. Hernandez was born in Montebello, California, the son of Isis (née Maldonado), a secretary and accountant, and Javier Hernandez, Sr., a mechanic. He has a younger sister, Amelia, and two older brothers, Michael and Gabriel. Hernandez is a fourth-generation Mexican American. He attended Don Bosco Technical Institute in Rosemead, California, but transferred to Schurr High School in Montebello his senior year. While riding an elevator in a high rise in Los Angeles, Hernandez was approached by talent manager Howard Tyner who suggested Hernandez had what it took to have a successful career in Hollywood. He enrolled Hernandez into acting school and sent his pictures to casting agents. From 1998 to 2000 he played Antonio Lopez on the NBC series Hang Time. Hernandez subsequently hit success with his role opposite Kirsten Dunst in "Crazy/Beautiful". He has since appeared in several major Hollywood films, including playing the lead roles in "" and the 2005 horror film "Hostel" and "World Trade Center". Hernandez appeared in the action/crime film "Takers", which was released in August 2010. Personal Life. Since 2006, Hernandez has been married to his former Hang Time co-star Daniella Deutscher.
1015787	A Chinese Tall Story () is a 2005 Hong Kong fantasy adventure film written and directed by Jeffrey Lau. The story is loosely based on the classical novel "Journey to the West". Synopsis. It is a twisted story about the monk Tripitaka and his three disciples who are journeying west to acquire Buddhist scriptures. While stopping in Shache City (present day Yarkand), they come under attack by minions of the evil Tree Demon. The demons capture his three disciples. Tripitaka is then captured by the king of reptiles and placed under the care of the ugly and shunned Meiyan, who falls in love with the monk. Luckily for Tripitaka, an alien princess rescues him, and Meiyan decides to team up with the princess in order to rescue the disciples. Plot. Tang monk Tripitaka (Nicholas Tse) and his three disciples Monkey King Sun WuKong (Bolin Chen), Pig Monk Zhu WuNeng (Kenny Kwan), and Sand Monk Sha WuJing (Steven Cheung) arrive triumphantly to a hero’s welcome in Shache city. Little do they know that ahead of them lays Tripitaka’s most arduous challenge before he achieves deification…and it is a test that he and only he alone can overcome. During their stay in the city, the three disciples are captured by evil Tree Spirits. Tripitaka borrows the Golden Pole and tries to find a way to save them. He meets a young lizard imp Meiyan (Charlene Choi) who is more than a visual match for Quasimodo: matted bushy hair, and teeth of any dentist’s nightmare. Meiyan falls in love with Tripitaka at first sight and devotes herself to trailing him. She even sets a love trap to ensnare him. Tripitaka unwittingly falls into the trap and in the process breaks the Heavenly Code. The region is one full of monsters, strange beings and creatures of unknown origins and among them are the beautiful Princess XiaoShan (Fan Bing-bing) and her army. On a passing journey to Earth her path crosses Tripitaka’s and she vows her aid. Tripitaka decides to leave with the Princess. Meiyan is heartbroken. She picks a fight with Princess XiaoShan and, although she loses, she finally discovers her own identity as a galactic warrior. She eventually helps the princess in defeating the enemy and rescues Tripitaka and his disciples. After the battle, Meiyan surrenders to the Temple of Heaven for judgment. Torn between passion and righteousness, Tripitaka rebels against the heaves to rescue the gallows-bound Meiyan. A benevolent Buddha is moved and pardons the two on condition that they embark on a journey to the West to accomplish the Eight-One Tasks to redeem themselves and save the world. Soundtrack. "All compositions by Joe Hisaishi."
1475344	Edwin Martel Basil Hodge (born January 26, 1985) is an American actor. Hodge is the older brother of actor Aldis Hodge. Life and career. Hodge was born on January 26, 1985, in Jacksonville, North Carolina, to Aldis Hodge and Yolette Evangeline Richardson, but he was raised in New York. Hodge's mother is from the state of Florida and his father is Dominican. He recently guest starred on an episode of the TNT series "Leverage" which stars his younger brother. He guest starred on an episode of "One Tree Hill".
1055554	The Long Good Friday is a British gangster film starring Bob Hoskins and Helen Mirren. It was completed in 1979 but, because of release delays, it is generally credited as a 1980 film. It was voted at number 21 in the British Film Institute's list of the top 100 British films of the 20th century, and provided Bob Hoskins with his breakthrough film role. Plot. The film's protagonist is Harold Shand (Bob Hoskins), an old-fashioned 1960s-style London gangster who in the late 1970s is aspiring to become a legitimate businessman, albeit with the financial support of the American Mafia, with a plan to redevelop the then-disused London Docklands as a venue for a future Olympic Games. The storyline weaves together events and concerns of the late 1970s, including low-level political and police corruption, Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) gun-running, displacement of traditional British industry by property development, Britain's membership of the EEC (later the European Union) and the free market economy (the latter was strongly in the ascendant at the time the film was made, in the first year of the Thatcher government). Harold is the undisputed ruling kingpin of the London underworld, when his world is suddenly torn apart by a series of murders and exploding bombs from an unseen foe. Trying to uncover his attackers' identity forms much of the film's subsequent plotline. His ruthless and violent pursuit of leads only points out the small-time tawdriness of the organisation he hopes to legitimise. Harold discovers that his closest aide accidentally became involved with the Provisional IRA in a side-job gone wrong in which several IRA men were killed, and that the IRA holds Harold responsible for those deaths. He acts on the information with the same brutality that first took him to the pinnacle of the London underworld. Thinking he's taken care of the problem now, he meets up with the American Mafia representatives, led by Charlie (Eddie Constantine). However, they have already decided to leave England because of all the recent chaos.
1056533	La Belle Noiseuse is a 1991 film directed by Jacques Rivette and starring Michel Piccoli, Jane Birkin, and Emmanuelle Béart. Its title means "The Beautiful Troublemaker".
1017376	A Chinese Torture Chamber Story is a 1994 Hong Kong erotic (Category III) comedy film produced by Wong Jing and directed by Bosco Lam. The literal translation of the Chinese title means "Ten Tortures of the Manchu Qing Dynasty". Plot. Little Cabbage is sold as a servant to work for the physician Yeung Nai-mou. Yeung is open towards the topic of sex, which is usually considered taboo in the conservative Chinese society at that time. He invents a type of condom to help people avoid contracting sexually transmitted diseases, but his idea was not accepted and he was scorned at. The lecherous Lau Hoi-sing, son of a local judge, has an adulterous affair with Yeung's wife, but they are discovered by Little Cabbage. Yeung's wife forces Little Cabbage to marry Gok Siu-dai to cover up the secret. However, Lau has been eyeing Little Cabbage for some time and he rapes her, but is discovered by Gok. Yeung's wife is afraid of being implicated, so she instigates Lau to murder Gok and frame Yeung and Little Cabbage for the deed. The pair are put on trial and subjected to tortures to force them to confess to the "crime".
1502721	Rex Smith (born September 19, 1955, Jacksonville, Florida) is an American actor and singer. Smith debuted in the Broadway play "Grease" in 1978. He is noted for his role as Jesse Mach in the 1985 television series "Street Hawk", as well as being a singer and stage actor. During the late 1970s, Smith was popular as a teen idol. Because of his good looks, he was featured regularly in "16 Magazine" and "Tiger Beat". He also had a gold Top 10 single, "You Take My Breath Away" in 1979. Career. Music. Around 1976, Smith was in a band called "Rex". The music was hard rock and consisted of the following members: The demo disc included the following songs: In 1979, he had a hit single from the television movie "Sooner or Later", entitled "You Take My Breath Away", which reached No. 10 on the Billboard Hot 100. It is on the platinum-selling album "Sooner or Later", which is also named for the movie. The music for this song was written by Stephen J. Lawrence and the lyrics were written by Bruce Hart. For many years, it was a staple on the play lists of FM radio stations with a soft rock or "lite" format. In 1981, Smith hit the top 40 again with a remake of "Everlasting Love", in a duet with singer Rachel Sweet. Peaking at No. 32, the song is Smith's last charting hit to date. The song also became Smith's only hit on the UK Singles Chart, peaking at No. 35.
588476	Sreekanth is a veteran Indian actor who has performed in Tamil films since the 1960s. He made his acting debut in the 1965 Tamil film "Vennira Aadai" directed by Sridhar. A close associate of actor Venniradai Moorthy, Srikanth was employed in the American Consulate before entering films. He often portrays supporting characters to actors like Sivaji Ganesan, Muthuraman, Jaishankar and in the later period he appeared as villain opposite actors like Rajinikanth and Kamal Haasan. Rajini's first film as hero, Bairavi had Srikanth playing the main villain role. He played the lead role in the 1974 Tamil film "Dikkatra Parvathi" which won the National Film Award for Best Feature Film in Tamil in 1975. Selected filmography. Sreekanth has acted in over 200 films in Tamil. php?p=141298
744390	Jason David Frank (born September 4, 1973) is an American actor, martial artist and professional mixed martial artist notable for his portrayal of Tommy Oliver in "Power Rangers". Early life. Frank was born in Covina, California, a city in the county of Los Angeles. He attended Bonita High School. He became interested in Martial Arts when he was young; and at the age of 4, he trained at the Red Dragon Karate School. At 12, he started teaching other children, and when he turned 18, he and a friend decided to buy the school. He then wanted to do martial arts in film, so he pursued acting. Career. "Power Rangers". Frank originally auditioned for "Mighty Morphin Power Rangers" in the pilot as the Red Ranger. He later tried-out again in 1993 when he was 19. He was cast in the role of Tommy Oliver, the Green Ranger. His character later became the White Ranger. Frank was supposed to be the lead character Adam Steele in "VR Troopers" (originally called "Cybertron") and shot a pilot episode before being called back to "Power Rangers". According to both Frank and Brad Hawkins, Hawkins was to replace Frank originally as the White Ranger on Power Rangers. However, due to Frank's popularity with "Ranger" fans, he was brought back as the White Ranger again. Hawkins would take over on "VR Troopers". The character, Adam Steele was renamed Ryan Steele.
1165508	Vito G. Scotti (January 26, 1918 – June 5, 1996) was a character actor, who played many roles, primarily from the late 1930s to the mid-1990s on Broadway, films and later television. He was known as a man of a thousand faces, for his ability to assume so many divergent roles in more than 200 screen roles, in a career, spanning 50 years. He was known for his resourceful portrayals of various ethnic types. Born of Italian heritage, he was seen playing everything from a Mexican bandit, to a Russian doctor, to a Japanese sailor. Biography. Career. Vito Giusto Scozzari was born in 1918 in San Francisco, California. His family spent the 1920s in Naples, Italy, where Scotti developed his gift for farce, modeled after the Commedia dell'arte, a symbolic style of the Italian theatre. In 1925, after the Scotti family returned to the United States, his mother became a diva in New York City theatre circles. Scotti worked the night club circuit as a stand-up magician and pantomime. He made his debut on Broadway in "Pinoccio", where he played a small role. Scotti had transcended to movies and television by the late 1940s. He made his film debut, playing an uncredited role as a Mexican youth in "Illegal Entry" (1949), with Howard Duff and George Brent. By 1953, Scotti replaced J. Carrol Naish as Luigi Basco, an Italian Immigrant who ran a Chicago antique store, on the television version of the radio show "Life with Luigi". Five years later, he portrayed another ethnic character, Rama from India (among other characters) in the live-action segment "Gunga Ram" on the Andy Devine children's show, "Andy's Gang". In the mid-1950s, Scotti played the antagonist against Froggy the Gremlin on "Andy's Gang". He was cast as French Duclos in the 1959 episode "Deadly Tintype" of the NBC western series, "The Californians". In 1963, Scotti was cast as the Italian farmer Vincenzo Perugia in the episode "The Tenth Mona Lisa" of the CBS anthology series, "General Electric True", hosted by Jack Webb. In the episode, Perugia in 1911 steals the "Mona Lisa" from the Louvre Museum in Paris but is apprehended by a French detective when he attempts to unload the painting on an art dealer. He also appeared in television series, such as "How to Marry a Millionaire" (as Jules in the 1958 episode "Loco and the Gambler"), "The Rifleman", "Rescue 8" (1959), "State Trooper" (1959), "The Texan" (1959), "Johnny Staccato" (1960), "The Twilight Zone" (Mr. Bevis), (1960), "" (1962), "Stoney Burke" (1963), "The Wide Country" (1963), "Dr. Kildare" (1963), "Going My Way" (1963) "Breaking Point" (1963), "The Dick Van Dyke Show" (1963), "The Addams Family" (1964–1965), "Gunsmoke" (1965–1970), "The Man from U.N.C.L.E." (1965 and 1967), "The Wild Wild West", "Columbo: Negative Reaction" (1974), "The Monkees", "The Flying Nun", "Get Smart", "Hogan's Heroes", as one of The Penguin's henchmen in two episodes of "Batman", and two episodes of "The Bionic Woman" (1976). He also played Geppetto in "Geppetto's Workshop" in the 80s. Scotti was cast as a Mexican bandit in two one-hour episodes of "Zorro" entitled "El Bandido" and "Adios El Cuchillo" alongside Gilbert Roland. He played the mad scientist Dr. Boris Balinkoff (twice) and a Japanese sailor in different episodes of "Gilligan's Island", and an Italian restaurant owner in episode 35 of season one of "Bewitched". The actor appeared in hundreds of film and television roles, including the train engineer in "Von Ryan's Express", Nazorine in "The Godfather" (1972), as Vittorio in "Chu Chu and the Philly Flash" (1981), and most notably as the scene-stealing cook in "How Sweet It Is!" (1968). In the pivotal scene, Scotti grabs a flustered Debbie Reynolds and plants a kiss on her midriff. Scotti had a minor role as an Italian Train Driver in "Von Ryan's Express" (1965). He portrayed Colonel Enrico Ferrucci in "The Secret War of Harry Frigg" (1968). And later appeared in the Academy Award-winning comedy "Cactus Flower" (1969), as Señor Arturo Sánchez, who unsuccessfully tries to seduce Ingrid Bergman's character. He voiced the Italian Cat in the Walt Disney animated film "The Aristocats", and appeared with Lindsay Wagner on her television special, "Another Side of Me" (1977). His last screen performance was as the manager at Vesuvios in 1995 in the comedy, "Get Shorty". Death. Scotti died of lung cancer at the Motion Picture and Television Country House and Hospital in Woodland Hills, California on June 5, 1996. He was interred at Hollywood Forever Cemetery, along with his first wife Irene, in the Abbey of the Psalms Mausoleum, Sanctuary of Light, G-4, crypt 1253. Vito Scotti was survived by his daughter Carmen Scozzari (who today works for the LAUSD as a special education assistant in the West San Fernando Valley), his son Ricardo, a brother Jerry, and his widow, Beverly. Personal life. In addition to his accomplishments as an actor, he was highly regarded as a chef. Vito loved cooking, especially the recipes of his beloved mother and grandmother. Two generations of Hollywood's top names always left his dinner parties raving about the food and wine. He was married for many years to Irene A. Scozzari until her death at age 54, on April 15, 1979. Scotti then married a woman named Beverly, and they were married until his death. Scotti was a dedicated fundraiser for the 'Carmen Fund', set up by the Joaquin Miller High School Parents Guild, to assist the school's special-needs students in obtaining medical treatment. The fund was named after the Scottis' daughter, one of the first patients to undergo pioneering spinal implant surgery.
480106	Marcus Paul "Marc" Blucas (born January 11, 1972) is an American actor, known for playing Riley Finn in "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" and Matthew Donnally on "Necessary Roughness". Early life. Blucas was born in Butler, Pennsylvania. His mother, Mary Catherine (née Gordon), is an educator, and his father, Walter Joseph Blucas, is a school superintendent. They are divorced. After moving to Girard, Pennsylvania (a town near Erie), he became the star player on the Girard High School basketball team. He also played basketball at Wake Forest University, graduating in 1994 after one season playing on the same court as Tim Duncan. He was also a member of the Sigma Phi Epsilon fraternity. After Blucas failed to make it into the NBA, he moved to England, where he played professional basketball for a year with British Basketball League's Manchester Giants. He later decided to become a lawyer, but changed his mind and went into acting instead. Career. Blucas's first television role was in the television movie "Inflammable", made in 1995. From there, he found roles in both television and film. He starred as the Basketball Hero in Gary Ross's "Pleasantville" (1998). However, he finally landed his first major role in 1999, as Agent Riley Finn in "Buffy the Vampire Slayer". Initially, Blucas was certain that he had blown his audition and had left apologizing for having wasted creator Joss Whedon's time. Whedon asked him to audition again, and he received the part two weeks later. He played Buffy's love interest until 2000. His character in "Summer Catch" was based on real life Cape League baseball player Michael Macone. After his departure from the series, he went on to star in such film as "We Were Soldiers" (2002) alongside Mel Gibson and Chris Klein and "First Daughter" (2004) with Katie Holmes. In 2007 Blucas began to land leading roles in films such as "Thr3e" and "The Killing Floor". In February 2010, Blucas joined the cast of the ABC television drama pilot "True Blue". Blucas was part of the regular cast of the USA Network show "Necessary Roughness" for the first two seasons, playing Matthew Donnelly. The series premiered on June 29, 2011. Personal life. On July 25, 2009, Blucas married journalist Ryan Haddon, daughter of Dayle Haddon and is stepfather to her children from her first marriage to actor Christian Slater.
1377458	Alyson Rae Stoner (born August 11, 1993) is an American actress, dancer and singer. Stoner is known for her roles as Max in "The Suite Life of Zack & Cody", Sarah Baker in "Cheaper by the Dozen" and "Cheaper by the Dozen 2", Camille Cage in "Step Up" and "Step Up 3", Caitlyn Gellar in "Camp Rock" and "". She has been a background dancer for several artists, such as Missy Elliott, Eminem, Outkast and Will Smith. She is also known as Sally from "Mike's Super Short Show" that ran from 2002–2007, and the voice of Isabella Garcia-Shapiro in "Phineas and Ferb". Early life. Stoner was born in Toledo, Ohio, the daughter of LuAnne Hodges (née Adams), who is of Italian descent, a former executive secretary at Owens-Illinois, and Charlie Stoner, who is of Irish descent. While growing up in Toledo, Stoner attended Maumee Valley Country Day School and studied ballet, tap dance, and jazz dance at the O'Connell's Dance Studio. She also modeled and trained at the Margaret O'Brien Modeling Studio. She won Best Model of the Year at the International Modeling and Talent Association (IMTA) Convention in New York City with Ms. O'Brien's studio in 2000, and she won many awards in acting and dance. Dancing. After choreography training in Los Angeles, Stoner appeared as a background dancer in several music videos, notably Missy Elliott's "Work It", "Gossip Folks", "I'm Really Hot", Eminem's "Just Lose It", and "No Tengo Dinero" by the Kumbia Kings. She has also been a back-up dancer for OutKast at the 2004 Kids' Choice Awards and for Will Smith at the 2005 show. She also recently appeared in Debby Ryan's "We Got the Beat" for Disney Channel's Radio Rebel music video. Stoner danced with a dancing group called the JammXKids between 2003 and 2006. She quit the group in early 2006 due to scheduling conflicts, but continues to work with the individual kids in different jobs. She was also one of the dancers in the special features for the "Shark Tale" DVD. Stoner teaches hip hop currently at the Millennium Dance Complex, and is credited as the youngest person to teach a master class there. Television and films. In 2002, Stoner became the co-host of the Disney Channel "Mike's Super Short Show" along with Michael Alan Johnson, an infomercial segment regarding forthcoming Disney releases. In 2003 and 2005, she appeared as Sarah, one of the twelve Baker children, in the successful comedies "Cheaper by the Dozen" and "Cheaper by the Dozen 2". She has also appeared in several television shows aimed at the preteen market, including "The Suite Life of Zack & Cody", "That's So Raven" and "Drake & Josh". In 2006, she had a small film role in "Step Up" as Camille, Channing Tatum's younger sister. She currently provides the voice of Isabella Garcia-Shapiro and Jenny (until Season 4) in the Disney Channel animated series "Phineas and Ferb" and personally came up with Isabella's catchphrase "Whatcha doin'?". In 2008, she starred in the Disney Channel Original movie "Camp Rock" as Caitlyn Gellar, an aspiring music producer. Her reception in "Camp Rock" was particularly strong, with various media outlets suggesting it was about time she played a main character role, having backed up for other big names such as Will Smith and Eminem. Stoner starred as Alice McKinley in the movie "Alice Upside Down", based loosely on the Alice series, particularly "The Agony of Alice" by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor. This was her second starring role and, according to an interview that appears on the direct-to-DVD release, she states that this was the first time she has had to appear in every scene in a movie. In 2008, Alyson appeared as a junior celebrity spokesperson in a series of television commercials for the Zaxby's fastfood chain. In 2010, Stoner appeared in the third "Step Up" film "Step-Up 3-D" opposite Adam Sevani where she reprised the role. Stoner uploaded a video onto her official YouTube page of her final dance rehearsal which introduced other cast members. In 2010, Stoner guest-starred in the TV series "House" as a skater. In 2013, Stoner recently announced on her website that she would be voicing the character Opal for "The Legend of Korra". Music. In 2008, she sang two songs ("Lost and Found" and "Free Spirit") from the soundtrack of the movie "Alice Upside Down," in which she plays the lead role. She has also recorded a cover version of the song "Dancing in the Moonlight" for the 2009 Disney DVD/Blu-ray movie, "Space Buddies". Stoner is working with record producers, songwriters and a vocal coach in order to focus on transitioning her style of voice, from "kiddie-pop" into a more soulful pop vibe with a little alternative edge, so she can start working on her first studio album. On April 4, 2010, Stoner posted a video to her YouTube Channel announcing the release of her debut single, "Flying Forward" on April 20, 2010. Stoner released her debut EP called "Beat the System", in which all the songs are written by Stoner. Track listing: Publishing. Stoner is the "dance editor" for "KEWL Magazine". She also recently hosted a global fan summit on Amazon.com with "Hannah Montana" star Miley Cyrus. Stoner appeared in the Disney Channel Original Movie "Camp Rock", along with the Jonas Brothers and Demi Lovato. She stars in a webseries called "Ghost Town" shown on Dailymotion's newly launched DM Kids site. In February 2009, Stoner released the "Alyson Stoner Project" described as "a dance video hybrid - melding many styles of entertainment into one package". It was directed by Kevin Schmidt, her co-star from "Cheaper by the Dozen". In the summer of 2008, she appeared in the Disney Channel Games as a member of the Blue Lightning Team along with Kiely Williams, Demi Lovato, Roshon Fegan, her "Camp Rock" castmates, Shin Koyamada, Cole Sprouse and several overseas Disney Channel actors. Stoner has also appeared in "Wii Fit" related videos on the Nintendo Channel on the Wii video game console demonstrating how to do balance exercises. She also replaced Hayden Panettiere as the voice of Kairi in "" and Xion in "Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days".
149366	51 Birch Street is a 2005 documentary film about the universal themes of love, marriage, fidelity, and the mystery of a suburban family, directed by Doug Block.
581728	Bride and Prejudice is a 2004 romantic musical film directed by Gurinder Chadha. The screenplay by Chadha and Paul Mayeda Berges is a Bollywood-style adaptation of "Pride and Prejudice" by Jane Austen. It was filmed primarily in English, with some Hindi and Punjabi dialogue. The film released in the United States on 11 February 2005 and was well received by film critics. Plot. The plot of the movie is based on Austen's novel "Pride and Prejudice". Some character names remain the same, while others are changed slightly, using localised names with similar pronunciation (such as Lalita for Elizabeth). Set in Amritsar, the story follows Lalita Bakshi, a young woman living with her doting father and helping him run the family farming enterprise; her mother, who is determined to marry off her daughters to respectable and wealthy men; and her three sisters, Jaya, Maya, and Lakhi. At a friend's wedding, Lalita meets Will Darcy, a handsome and wealthy American working in the family hotel business, who has arrived in Amritsar with his long-time friend, the barrister Balraj, and Balraj's sister Kiran. Events in the movie roughly parallel those in the novel, punctuated by "Bollywood" style song and dance numbers: Darcy resists his attraction to Lalita, who considers him conceited, arrogant, and intolerant toward India and Indian culture. At various parties and gatherings, Mrs Bakshi's mindless chatter, Maya's kitschy dancing, and Lakhi's uninhibited flirting astonish Darcy and his friends, and mortify Jaya and Lalita. Balraj and Jaya fall quickly in love, but misunderstandings and interference by others drag out their courtship. Lalita meets and is attracted to "Johnny Wickham," Darcy's former friend, and he validates her low opinion of Darcy. Mr Kholi, a rich, crass, clumsy, and ostentatious Americanized relative, proposes to Lalita; after she turns him down, her best friend Chandra agrees to marry him, much to Lalita's confusion and consternation. When the youngest sister Lakhi tries to run off with Wickham, Darcy and Lalita find the couple and separate them before he can ruin her life, as he almost did to Will's young sister Georgie. Ultimately, back in India for Jaya and Balraj's wedding, Darcy surprises and wins over Lalita by joining in the traditional drumming, showing that he is learning to appreciate Indian culture. The film ends with the double wedding of Jaya to Balraj and Lalita to Darcy, with the two couples riding on elephants down the streets of Amritsar. Cast. Names in parentheses are the characters in the original Austen novel. Production. The film received funding from the UK Film Council with the stipulation that a majority of filming had to take place in the UK. Locations used include Halton House, Stoke Park Club, Turville, and Cobstone Windmill in Buckinghamshire, and Southall, Somerset House, Little Venice, the London Eye, and the National Film Theatre in London. Other locations used for the film include the Golden Temple of Amritsar, the beaches of Goa, the Grand Canyon, the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles, and Santa Monica Beach. Ashanti sings "Take Me to Love" and "Touch My Body" in the film. According to director Gurinder Chadha in "making-of" extras on the DVD release, Ashanti's appearance in the film is an homage to the tradition of a celebrity making a cameo appearance to sing an "item number, a song that has no direct involvement in the plot in Bollywood films. Critical reception. The film opened to generally mixed to positive reviews. Review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes gives the film a score of 79% based on reviews from 33 critics, with a rating average of 6.6 out of 10. Stella Papamichael at the BBC noted that "Swapping corsets for saris, and polite pianoforte for the bhangra beat, director Gurinder Chadha reinvigorates Jane Austen's Pride And Prejudice with fun and flamboyance". Box office. The film grossed $24,716,440, against a production budget of $7 million budget.
583164	Tum Se Achcha Kaun Hai is a 2002 Bollywood romantic film directed by Deepak Anand starring Rati Agnihotri, Nakul Kapoor and Aarti Chhabria. It premiered on 26 April 2002 in Mumbai. Plot. Working as a guide and bus driver in Jaisalmer, Burale (Nakul Kapoor) had always dreamed of being a famous singer. When he meets beautiful tourist Naina Dixit (Aarti Chhabria), he impresses her with his singing. She encourages him to come to Bombay to try his luck there and leaves her address with him. Shortly thereafter, Arjun bids farewell to his brother, his Bhabhi, and nephew and goes to Bombay. Upon arrival he meets Naina's friend, Monto (Raghuvir Yadav), who takes him to several places to try his luck. No one bothers to listen to him, leave alone hear him sing.
1162572	William Lundigan (June 12, 1914 – December 20, 1975) was an American film actor. His films include "Dodge City" (1939), "The Fighting 69th" (1940), "The Sea Hawk" (1940), "Santa Fe Trail" (1940), "Dishonored Lady" (1947), "Pinky" (1949), "Love Nest" (1951) with Marilyn Monroe, "The House on Telegraph Hill" (1951), "I'd Climb the Highest Mountain" (1951) and "Inferno" (1953). Biography. Lundigan was the oldest of four sons. His father owned a shoe store in the same building as a local radio station. Becoming fascinated by radio, he was playing child roles on radio and producing radio plays at sixteen.
1063880	Kill Bill: Volume 2 is a 2004 thriller film written and directed by Quentin Tarantino. It is the second of two volumes that were released several months apart. "Kill Bill" was originally scheduled for a single theatrical release, but with a running time of over four hours, it was separated into two films. "Kill Bill Volume 1" was released in late 2003, and "Kill Bill: Volume 2" was released in early 2004. The story follows a character initially identified as "The Bride", a former member of an assassination team who seeks revenge on her ex-colleagues who massacred members of her wedding party and tried to kill her. Her actual name is revealed in Volume 2. The film is often noted for its homages to genres such as Hong Kong martial arts films, Japanese chanbara films, Italian spaghetti westerns, girls with guns, and rape and revenge. Plot. The film opens with the same scene from the first film, of Bill (David Carradine) shooting the Bride (Uma Thurman). The Bride herself then appears behind the wheel of a car, briefly recounting the events of the previous film and stating she is currently on her way to kill Bill. In a flashback, the Bride — visibly pregnant — and her groom, Tommy Plympton, (Chris Nelson) rehearse their wedding. Bill, her former lover and leader of the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad, arrives unexpectedly and wishes her well. It is revealed that the Bride had retired from assassination and left Bill in order to give a better life to her unborn daughter. Moments later, the other assassination squad members arrive and attack the wedding rehearsal on Bill's orders. In the present, Bill warns his brother Budd (Michael Madsen), a former Deadly Viper and now a bouncer, that he will be targeted next. The Bride arrives at his trailer and bursts through the door, expecting to ambush him, but Budd is expecting her, shooting her in the chest with a double-barreled shotgun blast of rock salt, then sedating her. Budd calls Elle Driver (Daryl Hannah), another former Deadly Viper, offering to sell her the Bride's Hanzō sword for a million dollars cash. He then seals the Bride inside a coffin and buries her alive. A flashback shows Bill and the Bride camping one night, when Bill tells her a story of legendary martial arts master Pai Mei (Gordon Liu) and his Five Point Palm Exploding Heart Technique, a death blow Pai Mei has so far refused to teach any of his students. Bill then takes the Bride to Pai Mei's temple to be trained by him. Though Pai Mei initially ridicules her for being a Caucasian American woman (three things that, according to Bill, Pai Mei utterly despises), she eventually gains his respect and learns a number of techniques, including the art of punching through thick planks of wood from inches away. She uses this skill to break out of the coffin and claws her way to the surface. Elle arrives at Budd's trailer for their transaction but has hidden a lethal black mamba with her money, out of envy that Budd earned the credit for killing the Bride. After the black mamba kills Budd, she then calls Bill and tells him that the Bride has killed Budd by putting the black mamba in his trailer, and that Elle has killed the Bride; it is at this point that the Bride's name, Beatrix Kiddo, is finally revealed. As she exits the trailer, she is ambushed by Beatrix, who had arrived there soon after Elle. In the middle of an all-out battle in the trailer, Elle taunts Beatrix with the news that Elle, who also trained with Pai Mei, had poisoned him in revenge for his snatching out her eye when she called him a "miserable old fool." Beatrix then plucks out Elle's remaining eye and leaves her screaming and thrashing about in the trailer with the black mamba. Beatrix subsequently travels to Mexico to interrogate an elderly gentleman, Esteban Vihaio, about Bill's whereabouts. Esteban, who is the proprietor of a brothel, was purportedly a father figure to a younger Bill. Regardless, Esteban willingly divulges Bill's location, stating that Bill "would want to." After finding Bill deep in the Mexican countryside, Beatrix is shocked to find her now-four-year-old daughter B.B. (Perla Haney-Jardine) alive and well. She spends the evening with Bill and B.B. After B.B. has gone to bed, Bill shoots Beatrix with a dart containing a truth serum and interrogates her. A flashback recalls Beatrix's discovery of her pregnancy while on an assassination mission, and her resulting decision to call off her assignment and leave the Deadly Vipers. While on an assassination assignment to kill Lisa Wong, Kiddo discovers she is pregnant with Bill's baby. Immediately after, she is confronted by Karen Kim, an assassin sent by Lisa Wong to kill her. However, Karen narrowly misses her shot. During the resulting stand-off, Kiddo convinces Karen to pick up the positive pregnancy strip from the floor. The two mutually agree to abort their missions and go home. Beatrix explains in the present that she ran away without telling Bill in order to protect their unborn daughter from him and his life. Though Bill understands, he remains unapologetic for what he did, explaining that he's "a murdering bastard," and that "there are consequences for breaking the heart of a murdering bastard." They fight, but although Beatrix loses her weapon, she disables Bill with Pai Mei's Five Point Palm Exploding Heart Technique, which he had secretly taught her. Bill makes his peace with her and dies. Beatrix departs with B.B.; later they are seen watching cartoons in a hotel together after Beatrix gives thanks. Music. As with Tarantino's previous films, "Kill Bill" features an eclectic soundtrack comprising many musical genres. On the two soundtracks, music ranges from country music to selections from the Spaghetti Western film scores of Ennio Morricone. Bernard Herrmann's theme from the film "Twisted Nerve" is whistled by the menacing Elle Driver in the hospital scene. A brief, 15-second excerpt from the opening of the "Ironside" theme music by Quincy Jones is used as the Bride's revenge motif, which flares up with a red-tinged flashback whenever she's in the company of her next target. Instrumental tracks from Japanese guitarist Tomoyasu Hotei figure prominently, and after the success of "Kill Bill" they were frequently used in American TV commercials and at sporting events. As the Bride enters "The House of Blue Leaves", go-go group The 5,6,7,8's perform "I Walk Like Jayne Mansfield", "I'm Blue" and "Woo Hoo." The connection to "Lady Snowblood" is further established by the use of "The Flower of Carnage," the closing theme from that film. The end credits are driven by the rock and roll version of "Malagueña Salerosa", a traditional Mexican song, performed by "Chingon", Robert Rodriguez's band. Theatrical release. "Kill Bill: Volume 2" was released in theaters on , 2004. It was originally scheduled to be released on , 2004, but was rescheduled. "Variety" posited that the delay was to coincide its theatrical release with "Volume 1"s release on DVD. In the United States and Canada, "Volume 2" was released in and grossed on its opening weekend, ranking first at the box office and beating fellow opener "The Punisher". "Volume 2"s opening weekend gross was higher than "Volume 1"s, and the equivalent success confirmed the studio's financial decision to split the film into two theatrical releases. "Volume 2" attracted more female theatergoers than "Volume 1", with 60% of the audience being male and 56% of the audience being men between the ages of 18 to 29 years old. "Volume 2"s opening weekend was the largest to date for Miramax Films aside from releases under its arm Dimension Films. The opening weekend was also the largest to date in the month of April for a film restricted in the United States to theatergoers 17 years old and up, besting "Life"s 1999 record. "Volume 2"s opening weekend was strengthened by the reception of "Volume 1" in the previous year among audiences and critics, abundant publicity related to the splitting into two volumes, and the DVD release of "Volume 1" in the week before "Volume 2"s theatrical release. Outside of the United States and Canada, "Volume 2" was released in 20 territories over the weekend of , 2004. It grossed an estimated and ranked first at the international box office, ending an eight-week streak held by "The Passion of the Christ". "Volume 2" grossed a total of in the United States and Canada and in other territories for a worldwide total of . Critical reception. "Kill Bill: Vol. 2" received positive reviews from film critics, with many praising its direction and saying Tarantino had matured as a filmmaker. For "Volume 2", review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes gives the film a score of 85% based on reviews from 227 critics and reports a rating average of 7.7 out of 10. It reported the consensus, "Talkier and less action-packed than "Vol. 1, Kill Bill Vol. 2", nevertheless, delivers the goods for those expecting a satisfying conclusion to this two-parter." At Metacritic, which assigns a weighted average score out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the film received an average score of 83 based on 42 reviews. Roger Ebert celebrated the films, saying "Put the two parts together, and Tarantino has made a masterful saga that celebrates the martial arts genre while kidding it, loving it, and transcending it... This is all one film, and now that we see it whole, it's greater than its two parts." In 2009, he placed the film on his twenty best films of the decade list. Cultural historian Maud Lavin argues that Beatrix Kiddo's embodiment of murderous revenge taps into viewers' personal fantasies of committing violence. For audiences, particularly women viewers, this overly aggressive female character provides a complex site for identification with one's own aggression. Accolades. Uma Thurman received a Golden Globe Best Actress in a Motion Picture - Drama nomination in 2005 for her role. David Carradine also received a Best Supporting Actor nomination in the same year. "Kill Bill: Vol. 2" was placed in "Empire" Magazine's list of the "500 Greatest Films of All Time" at number 423 and the Bride was also ranked number 66 in "Empire" magazine's "100 Greatest Movie Characters". Home release. In the United States, "Volume 2" was released on DVD and VHS on August 10, 2004. In a December 2005 interview, Tarantino addressed the lack of a special edition DVD for "Kill Bill" by stating "I've been holding off because I've been working on it for so long that I just wanted a year off from "Kill Bill" and then I'll do the big supplementary DVD package." The United States does not have a DVD boxed set of "Kill Bill", though box sets of the two separate volumes are available in other countries, such as France, Japan and the United Kingdom. Upon the DVD release of "Volume 2" in the US, however, Best Buy did offer an exclusive box set slipcase to house the two individual releases together. Both "Volume 1" and "Volume 2", were released in High Definition on Blu-ray on September 9, 2008 in the United States. "The Whole Bloody Affair". Tarantino announced at the 2008 Provincetown International Film Festival that a single film version of part 1 and 2 called "Kill Bill: The Whole Bloody Affair" with an extended animation sequence was to be released in May 2009. Screenings of the complete film began on March 27, 2011 at the New Beverly Cinema. This was verified to be the original print that premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in 2003, before the decision was made to split the film into two parts due to the roughly four-hour length. Possible sequel. Tarantino told "Entertainment Weekly" in April 2004, that he is planning a sequel: According to Bloody-Disgusting.com, details emerged around 2007 about two possible sequels, "Kill Bill Volumes 3 and 4". According to the article, "Bennett Walsh said at the Shanghai International Film Festival, the third film involves the revenge of two killers whose arms and eye were hacked by Uma Thurman in the first stories". The article adds that the "fourth installment of the popular kung fu action films concerns a cycle of reprisals and daughters who avenge their mother's deaths". Quentin Tarantino said at the 2006 Comic Con that, after the completion of "Grindhouse", he wants to make two anime "Kill Bill" films. One will be an origin story about Bill and his mentors, and the other will be an origin starring The Bride. The latter is most likely to be a prequel, but could also follow the rumored (sequel) plot reported in "Entertainment Weekly" in April 2004. At the Morelia International Film Festival on October 1, 2009, while being interviewed on an Italian TV show after being asked about the success of the two "Kill Bill" films, Tarantino addressed the hostess by claiming "You haven't asked me about the third one" then asking the woman to ask the question would he be making a third "Kill Bill" film, which he replied "Yes", and claiming "The Bride will fight again!" On October 3, 2009, he further predicted that "Kill Bill 3" would be his ninth film, and would be released in 2014. He said he intends to make another unrelated film before that date as his eighth film. He confirmed that he wanted ten years to pass between the Bride's last conflict, to give her and her daughter a period of peace. In December 2012 however, Tarantino confirmed that Kill Bill, Vol. 3 now looks unlikely, and that he wishes to focus on other unrelated projects.
1099736	Jerzy Neyman ForMemRS (April 16, 1894 – August 5, 1981), born Jerzy Spława-Neyman, was a Polish mathematician and statistician who spent most of his professional career at the University of California, Berkeley. Neyman was the first to introduce the modern concept of a confidence interval into statistical hypothesis testing. Life and career. He was born into a Polish family in Bendery, Bessarabia in Imperial Russia, the fourth of four children of Czesław Spława-Neyman and Kazimiera Lutosławska. His family was Roman Catholic and Neyman served as an altar boy during his early childhood. Later, Neyman would become an agnostic. Neyman's family descended from a long line of Polish nobles and military heroes. He graduated from the Kamianets-Podilskyi gubernial gymnasium for boys in 1909 under the name "Yuri Cheslavovich Neyman". He began studies at Kharkov University in 1912, where he was taught by Russian probabilist Sergei Natanovich Bernstein. After he read 'Lessons on the integration and the research of the primitive functions' by Henri Lebesgue, he was fascinated with measure and integration. In 1921 he returned to Poland in a program of repatriation of POWs after the Polish-Soviet War. He earned his Doctor of Philosophy degree at University of Warsaw in 1924 for a dissertation titled "On the Applications of the Theory of Probability to Agricultural Experiments". He was examined by Wacław Sierpiński and Stefan Mazurkiewicz, among others. He spent a couple of years in London and Paris on a fellowship to study statistics with Karl Pearson and Émile Borel. After his return to Poland he established the Biometric Laboratory at the Nencki Institute of Experimental Biology in Warsaw. He published many books dealing with experiments and statistics, and devised the way which the FDA tests medicines today. Neyman proposed and studied randomized experiments in 1923. Furthermore, his paper "On the Two Different Aspects of the Representative Method: The Method of Stratified Sampling and the Method of Purposive Selection", given at the Royal Statistical Society on 19 June 1934, was the groundbreaking event leading to modern scientific sampling. He introduced the confidence interval in his paper in 1937. Another noted contribution is the Neyman-Pearson lemma, the basis of hypothesis testing. In 1938 he moved to Berkeley, where he worked for the rest of his life. Thirty-nine students received their Ph.D's under his advisorship. In 1966 he was awarded the Guy Medal of the Royal Statistical Society and three years later the (American) Medal of Science. He died in Oakland, California. External links. Statistics of Images of Galaxies with Particular Reference to Clustering Jerzy Neyman, Elizabeth L. Scott, and C. D. Shane Source: Proc. Third Berkeley Symp. on Math. Statist. and Prob., Vol. 3 (Univ. of Calif. Press, 1956), 75-111.
1044099	Carry On Cleo is a British film comedy which was released in 1964. It is the tenth in the series of "Carry On" films to be made, and the website ICONS.a portrait of England describes "Carry On Cleo" as "perhaps the best" of the series. Regulars Sid James, Kenneth Williams, Kenneth Connor, Charles Hawtrey and Jim Dale are present and Connor made his last appearance until his return in "Carry On Up the Jungle" six years later. Joan Sims returned to the series for the first time since "Carry On Regardless" three years earlier. Sims would now appear in every "Carry On" up to "Carry On Emmannuelle" in 1978, making her the most prolific actress in the series. The title role is played by Amanda Barrie in her second and last Carry On. Along with "Carry On Sergeant" and "Carry On Screaming!", its original posters were reproduced by the Royal Mail on stamps to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Carry on series in June 2008. Plot. The film opens during Caesar's invasions of Britain, with Mark Antony (Sid James) struggling to lead his armies through miserable weather. At a nearby village, cavemen Horsa (Jim Dale) and Hengist Pod (Kenneth Connor) attempt to alert Boadicea of the invasion, but are captured by the Romans. Once in Rome, Horsa is sold by the slave-trading firm Marcus et Spencius, and Hengist is destined to be thrown to the lions when none agree to buy him. Horsa and Hengist escape and take refuge in the Temple of Vesta. Whilst hiding there, Julius Caesar (Kenneth Williams) arrives to consult the Vestal virgins. An attempt is made on his life by his bodyguard, Bilius (David Davenport). In the melee, Horsa kills Bilius and escapes, leaving Hengist to take the credit for saving Caesar's life and to be made Caesar's new bodyguard. When a power-struggle emerges in Egypt, Mark Antony is sent to force Cleopatra (Amanda Barrie) to abdicate in favour of Ptolemy. However, Mark Antony becomes besotted with her, and instead kills Ptolemy off-screen to win her favour. Cleopatra convinces Mark Antony to kill Caesar and become ruler of Rome himself so that they may rule a powerful Roman-Egyptian alliance together. After seducing one another, Mark Antony agrees, and plots to kill Caesar. Caesar and Hengist travel to Egypt on a galley, along with Agrippa (Francis de Wolff), whom Mark Antony has convinced to kill Caesar. However, Horsa has been re-captured and is now a slave on Caesar's galley. After killing the galley-master (Peter Gilmore), Horsa and the galley slaves kill Agrippa and his fellow assassins and swim to Egypt. Hengist, who had been sent out to fight Agrippa and was unaware of Horsa's presence on board, again takes the credit. Once at Cleopatra's palace, an Egyptian soothsayer (Jon Pertwee) warns Caesar of the plot to kill him, but Mark Anthony convinces Caesar from fleeing. Instead, Caesar convinces Hengist to change places with him, since Cleopatra and Caesar have never met. On meeting, Cleopatra lures Hengist, who accidentally exposes both Cleopatra and Mark Anthony as would-be assassins. He and Caesar then ally with Horsa, and after defeating Cleopatra's bodyguard Sosages (Tom Clegg) in combat, Hengist and the party flee Egypt. Caesar is returned to Rome, only to be assassinated on the Ides of March. Horsa and Hengist return to Britain, and Mark Antony is left in Egypt to live "one long Saturday night" with Cleopatra. Background notes. Kenneth Williams' line as Caesar ("Infamy! Infamy! They've all got it in for me!") when in fear of his life before the conspirators and their drawn swords, is frequently voted among the funniest lines in British comedy. It has also been voted the all-time funniest one-liner in a film. However, it was not an original Carry on joke at all: scriptwriter Talbot Rothwell requested the use of the gag from its creators, Frank Muir and Denis Norden, who had written it for BBC radio comedy show "Take It From Here". In one scene at Caesar's palace, when Mark Antony demands Hengist to describe his "fight" with the conspirators, he accidentally chops the arms off a statue of the goddess, Venus, apparently creating the Venus de Milo in doing so. At one point, in a vision of the future, we see Caesar stabbed with a dagger, and he says "Is this a dagger I see before me?" This is a quote from Shakespeare, but is actually spoken by Macbeth. The costumes and sets used in the film were originally intended for "Cleopatra" (1963) before that production moved to Rome and rebuilt new sets there. "Carry On Cleo" was filmed between 13 and 28 July 1964. Filming and locations. Interiors: Reception. The film was one of the 12 most popular movies at the British box office in 1965.
1059390	Gabriella Mary "Gaby" Hoffmann (born January 8, 1982) is an American actress. Early life. Hoffmann was born in New York City. Her mother, Viva (aka Janet Susan Mary Hoffmann), is an actress and writer and appeared in many of Andy Warhol's movies during the 1960s. Her father is Anthony Herrera, a soap actor best known for his role as James Stenbeck from "As The World Turns". Hoffmann also has a half-sister, Alexandra (Alex) Auder, the daughter of director Michel Auder, who is 10 years older. Gaby was raised by her mother. Her father did not have a significant presence in her life. Her birth is documented in Brigid Berlin's "The Andy Warhol Diaries". An entry dated January 10, 1982, two days after Hoffman was born, says that a friend of Warhol’s telephoned Warhol and told him that they were going to the Chelsea Hotel to see Viva and her new baby. Life at the Chelsea Hotel. Until 1993, Hoffmann had lived in Manhattan's fabled, now landmarked, Hotel Chelsea, which Hoffmann later said she enjoyed. According to Hoffmann, she and her best friend Talya Shomron would roller-skate in the hallways, spy on the drug dealer across the hall, and persuade the bellman to go to the neighborhood deli at night and get them ice cream. Hoffman and her mother left the Chelsea Hotel in July 1993 after a dispute of long standing with the management, but the hotel ended up featuring prominently in Hoffmann’s future. The idea for the 1994 sitcom "Someone Like Me" originated after Gail Berman (now president of Viacom's Paramount Pictures), the show's producer, read a "New York Times" article about the Hotel which referred to a children's book which Viva and friend Jane Lancellotti wrote entitled "Gaby at the Chelsea" (a take on Kay Thompson’s 1950’s classic Eloise books). After leaving the Chelsea, Hoffmann and her mother (and their two Eskimo dogs) moved to a two-bedroom rented house in Woodland Hills, Los Angeles, California which ended up being badly damaged in the January 17, 1994 Northridge earthquake. While regrouping their living situation, Gaby and her mother temporarily lived at The Oceana Suites Hotel in Santa Monica, not too distant from Malibu. Career. Early acting career. Hoffmann began her acting career at the age of four to help pay the family bills by acting in commercials. However, she tired of the tough schedules and temporarily retired. Nevertheless, upon hearing that Macaulay Culkin was making a lot of money from his movies her "competitive spirit got the best of her," as she later put it, and she re-entered the profession. In 1989, she starred in her first movie, "Field of Dreams," with Kevin Costner. She followed this up with 1989’s "Uncle Buck" with John Candy (as well as Macaulay Culkin) and then went on to star in "This Is My Life" (1992), "Sleepless in Seattle" (1993) with Tom Hanks and "The Man Without a Face" with Mel Gibson. According to Hoffmann, it was the praise she received for her performance in "This is My Life" which encouraged her to pursue a full-time acting career in Hollywood as it gave her the confidence she needed to handle major roles. "Someone Like Me" (1994). In 1994, Hoffmann was given the starring role in her own sitcom "Someone Like Me" (on NBC) about a young girl, Gaby, and her dysfunctional family. Although generally well received, the show only lasted six episodes. Publicity work for the show included personal appearances by Hoffmann on late night talk shows like "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno" and "Late Show with David Letterman". "Freaky Friday" (1995). After "Someone Like Me", Hoffmann won the lead role in the TV film "Freaky Friday", a remake of the 1976 film of the same name starring Jodie Foster and Barbara Harris. Hoffmann received very good reviews for her performance. "Whose Daughter is She" (1995). In 1995, Hoffmann played Andrea Eagerton in the CBS TV film "Whose Daughter Is She?" "Now and Then" (1995). In the same year as "Freaky Friday", Hoffman starred in the coming-of-age comedy, "Now and Then", with her older counterpart played by Demi Moore. She played as Young Samantha. Later acting career and college: 1996–2003. Between 1996–2000, Hoffmann landed roles in several films including "Everyone Says I Love You" (1996), "Volcano" (1997), "Snapped" (1998), "The Hairy Bird" (1998), "200 Cigarettes" (1999), "Coming Soon" (1999), "Black & White" (1999), "You Can Count on Me" (2000), and "Perfume" (2001). In 1999, Hoffmann followed her half-sister's example and entered New York's Bard College to pursue a degree in literature. Starting in 2001, she put her acting career on hold to complete her studies. She graduated in 2003, and then spent much of her 20s drifting. She interned with a chef in Italy, and then trained to be a doula after helping deliver her sister Alex's children. For a time, Hoffmann and a boyfriend lived in an old trailer in the Catskills. Theatre work in New York: 2003–2007. Between 2003 and 2007, Hoffmann largely concentrated on a theatre career in New York. Roles included "24 Hour Plays" (as Denise at the American Airlines Theatre), "The Sugar Syndrome" (Williamstown Theatre Festival - July/August 2005), and "Third" (Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater/Lincoln Center Theater - September - December 2005). In late 2005, she starred in an episode of "". She also appeared in the Broadway play "Suburbia", alongside Kieran Culkin and Jessica Capshaw at the Second Stage Theatre on 43rd Street in New York City, which ran from September to October 2006. Hoffmann then returned to the "24 Hours Plays" where she acted alongside Jennifer Aniston. Return to film work: 2007–present. Since 2007, Hoffmann has made a gradual return to film acting. In 2007, she starred in the film "Severed Ways: The Norse Discovery of America". In 2008, she appeared in "Guest of Cindy Sherman", a documentary on art-scene commentator Paul Hasegawa-Overacker's relationship with enigmatic photographer Cindy Sherman. Later in 2008, Hoffmann appeared in the documentary "Chelsea on the Rocks", which is a tribute to the Chelsea Hotel where she grew up. Directed by Abel Ferrara, the documentary highlights the many personalities and artistic voices that have emerged from the legendary residence. In 2009, Hoffman had a supporting role in Todd Solondz's "Life During Wartime", and the thriller "13" with Mickey Rourke (released in 2010). In 2013, she completed work on the lead role of a Web series entitled "Lyle", created by Stewart Thorndike and Jill Soloway. It was shot in NYC. She subsequently acquired an apartment in Brooklyn's Fort Greene section.
1044571	"The Blood on Satan's Claw" (also released as "Satan's Skin") is a 1970 British horror film made by Tigon British Film Productions and directed by Piers Haggard. The film was written by Robert Wynne-Simmons, with additions by Piers Haggard, and stars Patrick Wymark, Linda Hayden and Barry Andrews. It is set in 17th century England, and tells the story of a village taken over by demonic possession.
1067511	"Who's Harry Crumb?" (1989) is a comedy-mystery film featuring John Candy as the title character. Paul Flaherty directed the film, which co-stars Annie Potts, Jeffrey Jones and Shawnee Smith. An uncredited cameo appearance is made by James Belushi. The story revolves around the often incompetent, sometimes genius, private investigator Harry Crumb in his search for a kidnapping victim. Plot. While visiting a health studio in Beverly Hills, fashion model Jennifer Downing, the daughter of millionaire P.J. Downing, is kidnapped. Her father turns to a family friend, Eliot Draisen, who is president of the detective agency Crumb & Crumb, to investigate the case. Eliot is reluctant to supply P.J. with one of his capable detectives, because, as it turns out, Eliot himself is the organizer of the kidnapping. But to give the appearance of taking the investigation seriously, Eliot offers P.J. the services of Harry Crumb (Candy), the last descendant of the agency's founders. Eliot talks up Harry's detecting skills to persuade P.J. that he's the right man for the job, but he secretly knows that Harry is incompetent and counts on this fact to allow him to slip right through the detective's fingers. Crumb returns to Los Angeles (by bus) from an assignment in the firm's Tulsa branch office (which he messed up, as usual). He immediately begins his investigation, assisted by Jennifer's younger sister, Nikki, who is considerably smarter than he is. Crumb's tendency to mix fact with fantasy, however, does not prevent him from noticing that Nikki's stepmother, Helen Downing, is having an affair with her tennis coach Vince Barnes, and after several incidents and observations, Crumb comes to the conclusion that she is behind the kidnapping. Helen is also the object of affection of Eliot Draisen, but all she is interested in is money; to this end, she tries to get rid of her husband on several occasions and even does her best – along with Barnes – to get the ransom for herself. Despite several close calls, Draisen manages to outwit Crumb and the police. He escapes to the airport, from where he intends to depart to Buenos Aires. But he makes the mistake of informing Helen of his plans; she and Barnes take the money and leave him, tied up and gagged, in a utility room at the airport. Crumb and Nikki manage to trail the kidnapper to the airport, where the detective corners Helen and Barnes just as their plane prepares to take off. After Jennifer is freed, Crumb and the police find Draisen in the side room. Fed up with Crumb's dumb luck – and owing to a slight misunderstanding – Draisen confesses and is sent to prison. With the Downings' gratitude boosting his confidence, Crumb takes over as the new president of his family's business, where a new case immediately piques his personal attention.
1066648	The Mother of Tears (, literally "The Third Mother") is a 2007 Italian-American supernatural horror film written and directed by Dario Argento. The film stars Asia Argento, Daria Nicolodi, Moran Atias, Udo Kier, and Coralina Cataldi-Tassoni. The film has also been billed in English speaking media as "Mater Lachrymarum", "The Third Mother" (English translation of the film's original Italian title), and "Mother of Tears: The Third Mother". Written by Argento, Jace Anderson, Walter Fasano, Adam Gierasch, and Simona Simonetti, the film is the concluding installment of Argento's supernatural horror trilogy "The Three Mothers", which began with "Suspiria" in 1977. The film depicts the confrontation with the final "Mother" witch, known as Mater Lachrymarum. Plot. The film begins with members of the Catholic Church digging up the body of a 19th-century church official, whose casket has a box-shaped urn chained to it. Inside the box they discover artifacts belonging to Mater Lachrymarum (Moran Atias), the last surviving member of the Three Mothers; an ancient trio of powerful black witches. In particular, the box contains a magic cloak that, when worn by Mater Lachrymarum, increases her powers significantly. The urn is shipped to the Museum of Ancient Art in Rome where Sarah Mandy (Asia Argento), an American studying art restoration, works. Sarah is dating the curator Michael Pierce, a single father who is away from the museum that night. With help from the assistant curator, Sarah opens the box and finds the cloak, a dagger, and three statues representing the three witches. Sending Sarah to her office to retrieve tools to help her translate the text on the artifacts, the curator is promptly attacked by the demonic agents of Mater Lachrymarum. Sarah arrives too late to save her boss (who is being disembowelled by the monsters) and starts to flee the museum. Unfortunately, she is pursued by Mater Lachrymarum's familiar (a baboon) and is only able to escape when a disembodied voice magically throws open a series of locked doors keeping her trapped inside the museum. Sarah tells the police what happened as she spends the night with Michael and his son. Michael visits the Cardinal who sent him the urn only to find out that, shortly after mailing the urn to him, he had a severe stroke and is now in a coma. An assistant of the priest gives Michael a piece of paper, which the Cardinal was writing on before collapsing. On it is scrawled the name "Mater Lachrymarum". As he leaves the hospital, a pair of witches observe Michael leaving the building. Back in Rome, chaos descends as a wave of mass suicides, murder, and violence engulfs the city. Sarah continues her own research only to be summoned by Michael to his apartment. The witches have kidnapped his young son and won't return the boy to him unless he stops his investigation. Sarah begs him to call the police (who are tailing Sarah, ever since the murder at the museum) but Michael refuses to and instead opts to visit a local priest who is a trained exorcist. This goes badly for Michael; the two witches see him and he is soon captured and murdered, along with his son, whose body is cannibalized by the rapidly-expanding coven. However, before he is killed, Michael calls Sarah and begs for her to come and help him. As she makes her way through a crowded train station, Sarah is spotted by a gang of witches who, like so many other witches, have arrived in Rome in order to pledge their loyalty to Mater Lachrymarum. Pursued by the witches and the police, the disembodied voice from before instructs Sarah on how to magically make herself invisible. She uses this to avoid the police detective, though she is forced to kill a witch who catches and corners her on the train. At the priest's home, Sarah meets Marta, a fellow white witch and friend of Sarah's deceased mother. Realizing that Sarah's mother is the voice guiding her, Marta reveals details to Sarah about her parents. Her mother was a powerful white witch who dared to challenge and severely wound Mater Suspiriorum, the eldest and wisest of the Three Mothers. In response to this, Suspiriorum caused the fatal car crash that killed Sarah's parents. Though Mater Suspiriorum and her sister Mater Tenebrarum are now dead, their sibling Mater Lachrymarum has emerged from the shadows to bring about the second age of magic, with the fall of Rome as her coming out party. They talk to the priest, only for him to be killed before he can give the two a copy of a book that would explain Mater Lachrymarum's backstory to them by a patient of his. Escaping back to the city, Sarah goes to her own home but finds Mater Lachrymarum's goons waiting for her. She heads to Marta's house, but once again Mater Lachrymarum's minions strike and Marta and her lesbian lover are murdered. Fleeing, Sarah spots Michael, who takes her back to his apartment. Unfortunately, Sarah soon realizes that Michael is dead and that Mater Lachrymarum is animating his body in an attempt to kill her. As she burns her lover's still-animate body, the ghost of her mother intervenes one final time to grab Michael and banish him (and possibly herself) to Hell. Sarah locates a powerful alchemist, who Marta mentioned as her only hope to learn how to fight Mater Lachrymarum. After being briefly paralyzed by the alchemist (so that he could perform a test on her to see if she was a white witch or an evil witch), the alchemist gives Sarah the only help he has in locating Mater Lachrymarum's dwelling. Sarah is given a copy of "The Three Mothers" to read, and from this (and from following a group of witches) Sarah finds Mater Lachrymarum's lair; a now run-down and disrepaired mansion. At this point, she is joined by one of the police detectives hunting her and the two go into the catacombs to find Mater Lachrymarum. However, the two become separated, and the detective is tortured alongside the alchemist and his assistant, who dies after his arm is chopped off by one of Mater Lachrymarum's minions. Sarah is caught and brought before Mater Lachrymarum, who offers Sarah up to her cannibal followers but makes the mistake of removing her cloak. Sarah, having healed the detective's wounds, grabs the cloak and tosses it into a nearby fire. This causes the mansion to collapse as a pillar falls and impales Mater Lachrymarum. With the Mother's followers crushed as the caves collapse, Sarah and the detective laugh in horror and shock as they reach the surface, as they realize that the threat of the Three Mothers has been defeated once and for all. Production. Pre-production. "The Three Mothers" trilogy. "The Third Mother" is the final film in Argento's trilogy known as "The Three Mothers". The trilogy is loosely based on characters from "Levana and Our Ladies of Sorrow", a section of Thomas de Quincey's "Suspiria de Profundis". The prose poem outlines the existence of three women that are the personification of sorrow: Mater Lachrymarum, Mater Suspiriorum, and Mater Tenebrarum. Argento and Daria Nicolodi recast de Quincey's Three Sorrows as three malevolent witches who rule the world with tears, sighs, and shadows. When released in 1977 the first film, "Suspiria" introduced the major stylistic elements of the series, including the bold use of primary colors and elaborate setpieces for each murder. The sequel, "Inferno", developed the overarching plot continuities concerning the three central witches when released in 1980. Nicolodi script (1980s). As early as 1984 Daria Nicolodi asserted in an interview with "Fangoria" – alongside Argento – that they had "finished the script for the third but there are a few things we are still working on to perfect the project, a couple of special effects and locations, that sort of thing." Although Nicolodi mentioned her version of the script again in an interview for Alan Jones' book, "Profondo Argento: The Man, the Myths and the Magic", it was not used in whole or part for "The Third Mother". Argento script (2003/4). On 29 November 2003, at the Trieste Science Plus Fiction Festival in Northern Italy, Argento revealed that he hoped to start filming "The Third Mother" in August 2004 and was currently working on the script. Thematically it concerned "mysticism, alchemy, terrorism and Gnosticism [...]. So many people were tortured because the Church said Gnosticism was heresy, and that will be the starting point for the story. [...] It has been over 20 years since I left the Three Mothers behind [...] and it has felt surprisingly good to go back and explore the whole story from a retrospective point of view." The film was to be set in Rome and begin with Mater Lachrymarum in the Middle Ages. Argento originally hoped to cast a Russian model in the role of Mater Lachrymarum. (He later chose Israeli actress Moran Atias.) Argento also said that a Hollywood studio might finance the film. Anderson and Gierasch script (2005/6). In late 2005 Argento travelled to the North of Europe to begin conceptual work on "The Third Mother". Soon after, it was announced that Jace Anderson and Adam Gierasch had been asked by Argento to help him write the film's script. "When we got there [Rome,] Dario had already done his own pass on the treatment, and we spent three weeks holed up in an apartment, meeting with Dario, visiting the catacombs, and getting the first draft done." Around this time, "Fangoria" reported that the film would be entitled "Mater Lachrymarum". The script for "The Third Mother" was still being refined in February 2006, with Anderson and Gierasch having composed a first draft which Argento then revised. This early script began immediately after "Inferno", with a witch who survived the destruction of Mater Tenebrarum's home watching a detective (Ennio Fantastichini) investigating a series of murders at a University. Other tentative cast members were Chiara Caselli as a psychiatrist, Max von Sydow as a mysterious university professor, and Giordano Petri as a young investigator who takes the case when Fantastichini's character is killed. At this point, shooting was set to begin in late spring of the same year and was to be released between November 2006 and January 2007. However, in early 2006 rumors circulated that Argento had dismissed Anderson and Gierasch after being displeased with their script. French horror magazine "L'Écran Fantastique" reported that Argento alone would receive a screenwriting credit. On the tenth of March it was announced that shooting "The Third Mother" would be delayed until September. In mid-April it was announced that Argento would return to Italy in June to immediately begin filming "The Third Mother", which would be "a big budget feature, produced by Medusa along with a major American company ." In May 2006 the title "Mother of Tears" surfaced as a possible name for the film. According to journalist Alan Jones, this title "was never in the running as far as Dario was concerned. That was the title the originally contacted American sales agent Myriad wanted for international distribution." In the same month, rumors from the Cannes Film Festival linked actress Sienna Miller to the film's lead female role. Also at Cannes, Medusa's CEO Giampaolo Letta was quoted by Anderson and Gierasch as saying "This is going to be vintage Argento. Pretty strong stuff." In July it was revealed that "The Third Mother" had been delayed yet again until "next November or later" and that Argento's daughter, Asia, had been cast in the film. Filming. In mid October 2006, Gierasch revealed that "The Third Mother" would finally begin filming later in the month. Primary filming occurred in Rome, although some parts were filmed in Turin and at the studios of Cinecittà at Terni. Post-production. The editing of "The Third Mother" was more or less finished by March 2007. Dubbing the soundtrack into the Italian and English language versions of the film was finished on 5 April 2007. The film's digital effects were created by Lee Wilson and Sergio Stivaletti. According to the director of photography, Frederic Fasano, the film will begin with a subdued cool color palette that will segue to red as the film progresses. The Italian distributor of "The Third Mother", Medusa Film, believed the film was too violent and want it to be edited. Medusa's main objection is to "the depiction of perverse sex in the witch gathering satanic scenes and one cannibal killing of a major character." Argento was asked to re-edit the film to make it more mainstream. It was confirmed on 28 May 2007 that the film would receive a rating of 14 in Italy, necessitating the removal of "all hardcore gore" which would later "be re-instated for the dvd release." Promotion. Promotion of "The Third Mother" before Cannes 2007 was limited. Several behind-the-scenes photographs surfaced, the first official one at "Fangoria" on 27 November 2006. A short, eighteen-second preview of "The Third Mother" was released on 18 December 2006 at Cinecitta.com. Several black and white photographs of the filming were published on 19 January 2007 in the book "Dario Argento et le cinéma" by Bernard Joisten. In May 2007, just before the event at Cannes, a promotional poster for "The Third Mother" was featured on the cover of "Variety" magazine's digital edition. "The Third Mother" premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival on 6 September 2007, just moments before midnight and Argento's 67th birthday (on the 7th). The film debuted in Italy on 24 October 2007 at the Rome Film Festival. Its Italian wide release occurred on 31 October 2007, Halloween. In the United States, Myriad Pictures released the film uncut in select cities in June 2008. Cannes 2007. The Cannes Film Festival requested that "The Third Mother" be ready in time for consideration as a 2007 competition contender. However, the film was not screened in its entirety at the festival. On 17 May 2007 at 9:30 am Myriad premiered 20 minutes of footage from the film, consisting of eight lengthy scenes, to a packed audience. The preview was preceded by a credit roll and disclaimer that warned of graphic violence. The eight scenes included: the complete beginning to the point where Asia opens the Mother of Tears urn, the arrival of several demons, Daria Nicolodi's "powder puff" scene, a lesbian death scene, Udo Kier's major scene, Asia running through the streets of Rome, Adam James' major scene, and the entrance of Mater Lachrymarum. According to reporter Alan Jones the audiences' reaction was mixed: the acting quality varied and the script contained too much exposition, but the cinematography was beautiful. Post-Cannes. The day after the Cannes screening, on 18 May at 3:45 pm, co-scripter Jace Anderson and actress Coralina Cataldi-Tassoni were on "The Third Mother" discussion panel at Fangoria's Weekend of Horrors convention on the West Coast. On 27 May, a second promotional poster – featuring an eye weeping tears of blood – surfaced on the internet bearing only the title "Mother of Tears". In early June, a teaser trailer for "The Third Mother" was attached to "Grindhouse" in Italy. Camera-recorded copies of the trailer surfaced soon afterward on the internet. The Cannes promo reel was also screened during Fangoria's Weekend of Horrors East Coast convention in Secaucus, New Jersey on 1 July at 12:15 pm Cataldi-Tassoni introduced the footage. Pirated stills and audio from the preview surfaced the same day on the forum of the Dario Argento fansite DarkDreams.org. In late August, an American trailer for the film was screened at the "Rue Morgue" Festival of Fear. US release. The film had its US premiere at the San Francisco International Film Festival on 25 April 2008. This was followed by a limited theatrical run in June courtesy of Myriad Pictures and a DVD release by The Weinstein Company via Dimension Extreme DVDs on 23 September 2008. Response. Critical reaction. Critical response was mixed, although many reviewers felt the film, despite its flaws, was entertaining. The concluding film of The Three Mothers trilogy provided some reviewers with an opportunity to reflect on Argento's career as a whole, and parallels were often drawn between "The Mother of Tears" and Argento's films from the 1970s and 1980s. "Variety"s Dennis Harvey wrote "This hectic pileup of supernatural nonsense is a treasure trove of seemingly unintentional hilarity...this "Mother" is a cheesy, breathless future camp classic." Stephanie Zacharek of Salon.com opined that ""Mother of Tears" is depraved, bloody and unrepentantly exploitive, and the plot makes virtually no sense—it's the sort of movie nobody, save Argento himself, is crazy enough to make these days. It's also so full of life that it dwarfs contemporary horror pictures of the "Saw" and "Hostel" variety." Jim Ridley in "The Village Voice" felt the film was further evidence of the declining quality of a once great director's abilities, stating that "for people who revere the horror maestro's vital work—roughly the period between his debut, 1970's proto–De Palma giallo "The Bird with the Crystal Plumage", and his 1990 segment of the anthology film "Two Evil Eyes" — it's painful to watch the Hieronymus Bosch of '70s horror sink this low...If you believe someone of Dario Argento's proven talent would make a movie so deliberately sucky, feel free to join in." Maitland McDonagh hated the film, describing it as "sadly lacking in the baroque atmosphere and visual aesthetic that elevated Argento above the horror hacks—it's flatly lit, indifferently staged, coarsely violent and brutally straightforward. The English-language dubbing is the final indignity: even the voices are ugly." Writing in "The New York Times", Nathan Lee described the film as "...silly, awkward, vulgar, outlandish, hysterical, inventive, revolting, flamboyant, titillating, ridiculous, mischievous, uproarious, cheap, priceless, tasteless and sublime...may be the most entertaining film of [Argento's career...It's true that "The Mother of Tears", strictly as visual storytelling, suffers by comparison with the first and second Mother movies, or one of Mr. Argento's better baroque thrillers, like "The Bird with the Crystal Plumage". But it does something as well as, if not better than, anything in his oeuvre: it goes all the way." Scooter McCrae of "Fangoria" was extremely enthusiastic about the film, and said that ""Mother of Tears" is a great movie, and well worth the wait. Does it have flaws? Oh yeah, but so do "Tenebrae", "Phenomena", "Suspiria" and "Inferno", and they're now all part of the accepted canon of classic Argento cinema." "Cinefantastique"s Steve Biodrowski also felt the film was worthy of praise, noting that "the experience of watching "Mother of Tears" is like a delirious descent into primordial chaos, where the powers of darkness hold sway...As a long-awaited coda to Argento's "Three Mothers" trilogy, may not be exactly what was expected, but it is perfectly satisfying resolution..." Argento has noted that he is dismissive of critical reaction, saying that "the critics don't understand very well. But critics are not important – absolutely not important. Because now audiences don't believe anymore in critics. Many years ago critics wrote long articles about films. Now in seven lines they are finished: 'The story is this. The actor is this. The color is good.'" Box office performance. In Italy, "La Terza madre" generated $827,000 in two days at 273 theaters. By the end of its opening week in 303 theaters it had amassed $1,917,934 and took the 4th spot at the Italian box office. To date it has taken 2,077,000 Euros ($3,114,070). During its first week of limited theatrical release in the United States, "The Mother of Tears" grossed $19,418 at seven theaters, for a per theater gross of $2,774, taking 55th place on "Variety"'s weekly box office chart. Soundtrack. Claudio Simonetti composed the soundtrack for "The Third Mother", which was completed in early April 2007 after four months of work. He chose a classical style with Gothic influences present in many of the choruses. Simonetti described the score as "very different" from his previous work due to the subject matter of the film. The music was influenced by his own work for Argento's "Masters of Horror" episodes ("Jenifer" and "Pelts") as well as composers such as Carl Orff, Jerry Goldsmith, and Bernard Herrmann (among others). The score also incorporates electronic music and influences from Simonetti's earlier work on Argento films, such as "Suspiria" and "Phenomena". The piece at the end of Simonetti's "Mater Lachrimarum" is called "Dulcis in Fondo" and was performed by his heavy metal band, Daemonia. Cradle of Filth frontman Dani Filth recorded a song with Simonetti, "Mater Lacrimarum", for the soundtrack of the film. The soundtrack was recorded in the Acquario Studio of Castelnuovo in Porto-Roma. The symphonic orchestra parts were performed by the Orchestra D.I.M.I. The choral parts were performed by the Nova Lyrica chorus in February 2007. Both were recorded in Lead Studios in Rome with the help of sound-man Giuseppe Ranieri. Filmmakers finished dubbing the soundtrack into the film on 5 April 2007. At the preview during the Cannes Film Festival, journalist Alan Jones described Simonetti's score as an "unqualified success". The soundtrack was released around the same time as the film's Italian wide release (31 October 2007) by Edel Music.
209091	Bambi Meets Godzilla (1969) is a cartoon created entirely by Marv Newland. Less than two minutes long, the film is a classic of animation—#38 in the book The 50 Greatest Cartoons (1994). Newland was originally planning to do a live-action film; but, when he lost an essential magic hour shot, he drew this film in his room. Plot. The opening credits scroll over an animated image of the character Bambi serenely grazing while the "Call to the Dairy Cows" from Rossini's opera "William Tell" (1829) plays in the background. After the credits, Bambi looks up to see Godzilla's foot coming down, crushing him (set to the final chord of The Beatles' "A Day in the Life" played at half-speed). After a moment, the closing credits scroll over the image of Godzilla's foot. At the very end, Godzilla's claws twitch once. The bulk of the movie's running time is consumed in the opening credits, all of which name Marv Newland, including crediting Newland's parents for creating Marv. The closing credits give grateful acknowledgement to the city of Tokyo "for their help in obtaining Godzilla for this film". Screenings and distribution. This cartoon prefaced "The Return of Godzilla" on some VHS releases. Two sequels were later made without Newland's involvement: "Son of Bambi Meets Godzilla" and "Bambi's Revenge", giving Godzilla a hot foot.
1059214	Amanda Laura Bynes (born April 3, 1986) is an American actress. Bynes rose to prominence in the late 1990s and early 2000s on the Nickelodeon series "All That" and "The Amanda Show". From 2002 to 2006, she starred on the sitcom "What I Like About You" on The WB. Bynes has also starred in several films, including "What a Girl Wants" (2003), "She's the Man" (2006), "Hairspray" (2007), "Sydney White" (2007) and "Easy A" (2010). Early life. Bynes was born on April 3, 1986 and raised in Thousand Oaks, California (part of the Greater Los Angeles Area), the youngest of three children of Lynn (née Organ), a dental assistant and office manager, and Rick Bynes, a dentist. Bynes' ancestors immigrated from Ireland, Poland, Russia, and Romania, and her maternal grandparents are from Toronto, Ontario. Her father is Catholic and her mother is Jewish. In 2007, regarding her religious beliefs, Bynes stated: "As far as religion, I was raised both. I learned about both Judaism and Catholicism. My parents said it was up to me to decide faith to adhere to when I grew up. I'm sort of a spiritual person anyway. I haven't decided yet on a religion. I don't know yet exactly what I believe." Bynes is interested in illustration and fashion design. Bynes has previously had her own fashion line sold nationwide and moved from Los Angeles to New York in order to facilitate her fashion career. Acting career. In 1993, Bynes attended a comedy camp, and began professionally acting at the age of seven, appearing in a television advertisement for Buncha Crunch candies. During her childhood, she also appeared on stage in versions of "Annie", "The Secret Garden", "The Music Man", and "The Sound of Music". Bynes became a regular cast member of Nickelodeon's "Figure It Out" and "All That". She was a regular cast member on "All That" for seasons three through six. She also starred in her own sketch comedy show, "The Amanda Show" (1999–2002). Bynes made her film debut in 2002's modest box office success, "Big Fat Liar". Her first leading role was in 2003's "What a Girl Wants", co-starring with Colin Firth, Oliver James, and Kelly Preston. From 2002 to 2006, Bynes starred alongside Jennie Garth in The WB Television Network's sitcom "What I Like About You". Bynes had voice parts in 2003's ' and 2005's CGI animated comedy, "Robots". She appeared in "Arliss" as Crystal Dupree. Bynes appeared on the cover of "Vanity Fairs July 2003 edition with nine of Hollywood's other young female stars. Bynes was named one of "Teen People"s "25 Hottest Stars Under 25" in 2006. Later that year, she starred in "She's the Man", a comedy based on William Shakespeare's "Twelfth Night." Bynes appeared in another romantic comedy, "Love Wrecked", which was shot before "She's the Man" but released after it, showing in cinemas outside of the United States in 2005 and 2006 and debuting in the U.S. on the ABC Family network on January 21, 2007. She also portrayed Penny Pingleton in "Hairspray". Bynes next starred in another comedy, "Sydney White", released on September 21, 2007. Later that year, Bynes signed a five-year deal with Steve & Barry's to create her own fashion line, "Dear", consisting of apparel and accessories. The clothing line launched in stores August 16, 2007. The line was cut short when Steve & Barry's filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2008 and went out of business completely in January 2009. In 2008, Bynes appeared in the Lifetime Television movie "Living Proof" as the student assistant of Harry Connick, Jr.'s character. Bynes was also originally set to star as Ryden Malby in the 2009 comedy "Post Grad", but was replaced by Alexis Bledel. In June 2009, Bynes inked a two picture deal with Screen Gems. The first of the two movies was the 2010 teen comedy "Easy A", starring Emma Stone and Lisa Kudrow, and the second was to have been a starring role. Bynes also planned to reprise her role as Penny Pingleton in the sequel to "Hairspray". However, "Hairspray 2" was canceled. Bynes was also originally set to star in the comedy "Hall Pass" but dropped out and was replaced by Alexandra Daddario. Bynes appeared in lingerie on the cover of the February 2010 issue of "Maxim" magazine, highlighting her photo spread inside. She stated, "I think every shot ... was sexy" and that the new look is "who I am." That June, Bynes stated that she planned to retire from acting, announcing on her Twitter page, "I don't love acting anymore, so I've stopped doing it." A month later, Bynes had an apparent change of heart and "unretired". At the 2011 MTV Movie Awards, Bynes told "People Magazine" that she's merely taking "time off." In September 2012, Bynes said that she has once again retired from acting and would instead focus on launching her career as a fashion designer and rapper. Legal issues. In March 2012, Bynes was stopped and ticketed by police for talking on a cell phone while driving. A month later, she was arrested and charged with driving under the influence after side-swiping a police car in West Hollywood. On September 4, 2012, Bynes was charged for two alleged hit and run incidents, one occurring in April and the other in August. The hit and run charges were dismissed in December 2012 following a financial settlement between Bynes and the victims. Bynes' driver's license was suspended on September 6, 2012, by the California Department of Motor Vehicles. On September 16, Bynes was cited for driving with a suspended license, and her car was impounded. In May 2013, Bynes pleaded no contest to the charge, and was sentenced to three years probation. the charge for driving under the influence was still pending. On May 23, 2013, Bynes was arrested at her home in Manhattan for criminal possession of marijuana, attempted tampering with evidence, and reckless endangerment. According to a prosecutor at Bynes' arraignment, police observed Bynes throwing a bong from the window of her 36th-floor apartment. Bynes claimed that the alleged bong was actually a vase. Following her arrest, Bynes underwent a psychiatric evaluation at a hospital before she was processed at the police station. On May 25, Bynes said on Twitter that she had been sexually harassed by the arresting officer: " slapped my vagina. Sexual harassment. Big deal." The police department has denied the accusation. On July 24, 2013, Bynes was hospitalized under a 5150 mental health evaluation hold after allegedly starting a small fire in the driveway of a stranger's house in Thousand Oaks, California. Bynes fled the scene and was apprehended by authorities shortly thereafter. Bynes' parents filed for conservatorship of their daughter shortly after her hospitalization began. On August 9, Bynes' mother was granted a temporary conservatorship over Bynes' affairs, including her medical care, as well as control over her finances, after the judge agreed that Bynes had a "lack of capacity to give informed consent to medical care." Awards and nominations. Bynes won Blimp awards at the Nickelodeon Kids' Choice Awards four years in a row, from 2000 to 2003 for Favorite Television Actress in 2000 for "All That", Favorite Television Actress in 2001 to 2003 for "The Amanda Show" as well as the following year (A Record Tied with Selena Gomez). In 2003 she also received the award for Favorite Movie Actress for "Big Fat Liar" and won another award in 2004 for Favorite Movie Actress for "What a Girl Wants". Bynes was also a part of the "Hairspray" ensemble win at the 2008 Critics' Choice Awards.
1068542	Country Strong (originally titled "Love Don’t Let Me Down") is a 2010 drama film starring Gwyneth Paltrow, Tim McGraw, Garrett Hedlund, and Leighton Meester. The film, about an emotionally unstable country music star who attempts to resurrect her career, was directed and written by American filmmaker Shana Feste. It premiered in Nashville, Tennessee on November 8, 2010, and had a wide release in the United States on January 7, 2011. This is the second film in which McGraw and Hedlund have worked together, the first being "Friday Night Lights" in 2004. Plot. The film begins with Beau (Hedlund), singing with Kelly (Paltrow), a recovering alcoholic going through rehab. Beau is clearly smitten by her, and it is later revealed that the two have been having an affair, even though Kelly is married to James (McGraw). Kelly is checked out of rehab a month early by James, who wants her to go on a three-city tour to restore her image. She agrees on the condition that Beau becomes her opening act, but James has already made plans to see Chiles Stanton (Meester), a beauty queen with potential to become a rising singer, perform that night in hopes that she will be Kelly's opener instead. On the night of Chiles' performance, it is revealed that Beau has been acquainted with her before and doesn't want her on the tour, dismissing her as a "Country Barbie". Chiles' performance nearly falls apart as she gets stage fright and can't sing; however, Beau steps in and begins to sing "Friends in Low Places". The two sing the song together, and it gives Chiles the courage to continue on her own. James is impressed by Beau's performance, and offers the opening act to both Beau and Chiles. He suggests to Beau that he and Chiles could make quite the duo, but Beau disagrees. Nevertheless, Beau agrees to go on the tour because he cares so much about Kelly. The first show is a disaster: before going on, Kelly receives an anonymous package containing a bloody baby doll with a note reading "Baby Killer," referring to the baby Kelly miscarried when she fell off the stage in Dallas during her last concert before she went into rehab. At that concert, she was five months pregnant and was found to have a blood alcohol level of 0.19 when she was in the hospital for the injuries related to the fall. Kelly falls apart, starts drinking, and almost refuses to go on. However, she is coerced into going on stage by James. She begins to sing "Country Strong" but breaks down on stage. She attempts to try another song, "A Fighter", but breaks down again and is led off stage by her husband, ending the show. They tell the media at a press conference that they had to cancel the show due to food poisoning and head off to the next show. Beau ends his relationship with Kelly, and begins to spend more time with Chiles, whose fame has been increasing as the tour progresses. Both Chiles and Beau form a bond and Beau lets go of his earlier hostilities towards her. She even finishes the chorus to his song "Give in to Me".
1061426	Eleanor Jean Parker (born June 26, 1922) is an American actress. Her versatility led to her being dubbed "Woman of a Thousand Faces", the title of her biography by Doug McClelland. Early life. Eleanor Jean Parker was born in Cedarville, Ohio. At an early age, her family moved to East Cleveland, Ohio, and she attended public schools. She is a graduate of Shaw High School. After high school, at the age of 18, she was signed by Warner Brothers in 1941. She would have made her debut that year in the film "They Died with Their Boots On", but her scenes were cut. Her actual film debut was as nurse Ryan in "Soldiers in White" in 1942. Career. By 1946, Parker had starred in "Between Two Worlds", "Hollywood Canteen", "Pride of the Marines", "Never Say Goodbye", and played Mildred in the remake of "Of Human Bondage". She broke the champagne bottle on the nose of the "California Zephyr" train, to mark its inaugural journey from San Francisco on March 19, 1949. In 1950, she received the first of three nominations for the Academy Award for Best Actress for "Caged", in which she played a prison inmate. For this role, she won the 1950 Volpi Cup for Best Actress at the Venice Film Festival. She was also nominated for the Oscar in 1951 for her performance as Kirk Douglas's wife in "Detective Story" and again in 1955 for her portrayal of opera singer Marjorie Lawrence in the Oscar-winning biopic "Interrupted Melody". She followed "Detective Story" by playing a fiery actress in love with Stewart Granger's swashbuckling nobleman in "Scaramouche". Parker then starred with Charlton Heston as a 1900s mail-order bride in George Pal's "The Naked Jungle". That same year, Parker appeared in Otto Preminger's film adaptation of the National Book Award-winner "The Man with the Golden Arm", playing Zosh, the supposedly invalid wife of heroin-addicted, would-be jazz drummer Frankie Machine (Frank Sinatra). In 1956, she was billed above the title with Clark Gable for the Raoul Walsh-directed Western comedy "The King and Four Queens". A year later, she starred in another W. Somerset Maugham novel, a remake of "The Painted Veil" in the role originated by Greta Garbo, released as "The Seventh Sin". She also appeared in "Home from the Hill", "A Hole in the Head" with Frank Sinatra, and "Return to Peyton Place". She was also an adept comedienne. In 1951's "Millionaire for Christy", opposite Fred MacMurray, she played a secretary sent to notify a man that he has inherited $2 million. Parker's most famous screen role is probably that of Baroness Elsa Schraeder, the second female lead in the 1965 Oscar-winning global success "The Sound Of Music". In 1966, she played an alcoholic widow in "Warning Shot", a love-starved talent scout in the all-star but unsuccessful "The Oscar" and a rich, alcoholic, estranged wife in "An American Dream". From then on, her big screen roles were fewer, and television would occupy more of her energies. In 1963, Parker appeared in the NBC medical drama about psychiatry "The Eleventh Hour" in the episode "Why Am I Grown So Cold?" for which she was nominated for an Emmy Award as Outstanding Single Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role. In 1964, she appeared in the episode "A Land More Cruel" on the ABC drama about psychiatry, "Breaking Point". In 1968, she portrayed a sultry spy in "How to Steal the World"—a film originally shown as a two-part episode on NBC's "The Man from U.N.C.L.E.". In 1969-70, Parker starred in the television series "Bracken's World", for which she was nominated for a 1970 Golden Globe Award as Best TV Actress - Drama. She also appeared in the "Ghost Story" episode "Half a Death" (1973), a suspense-thriller about a wealthy matron reconciling the lives of her two daughters. Parker has also starred in a number of theatrical productions, including the Lauren Bacall role in musical "Applause". In 1976, she played Maxine in the Ahmanson Theater revival of "The Night of the Iguana", but quit the Circle in the Square Theatre revival of "Pal Joey" during previews. She wrote the preface to the book "How Your Mind Can Keep You Well", a meditation technique developed by Roy Masters. She has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6340 Hollywood Boulevard. Personal life. Parker has been married four times.
584518	Nandita Morarji, better known as Nagma, (born 25 December 1974) is an Indian Actress. She is better known for her roles in Telugu and Tamil movies like "Killer", "Gharana Mogudu", "Kadhalan", "Baashha" and many others. Born of a Muslim mother and a Hindu father, and on Christmas, she began her acting career in Bollywood and acted in a few of the biggest Bollywood movies but shifted down south before returning to Mumbai and continuing films in other languages. Nagma has acted in a broad range of India's languages: Hindi, Telugu, Tamil, Malayalam, Kannada, Bengali, Bhojpuri, Punjabi, and now Marathi. Personal life. Nagma's biological father was Arvind Pratapsinh Morarji whose forefathers hailed from a royal background from Jaisalmer, later migrating to Gujarat, Porbandar, then Mumbai. Her great grandfather Gokuldas Morarji was a reputed businessman in the shipping, textile, agricultural and pharmaceutical industries. They were renowned for their philanthropy, charity, and generosity and founded many prominent educational institutions, hospitals, and Dharamshalas (religious resthouses), which still exist in places such as Pune. Her mother hailed from the Konkan region of Maharashtra. She belonged to the Kazi freedom fighter family and her original name was Shama Kazi, but she is now known as Seema. She who married Morarji in 1969 at the CCI Club in Mumbai, but separated from him in 1973. According to Nagma's passport, the name given to her at birth was Nandita Arvind Morarji, which has now been updated to Nagma Arvind Morarji. In her father's obituary printed by the family, she is referred to by her original name, Nandita. After divorcing Morarji in August 1973, Nagma's mother married, in March 1975, Chander Sadanah, a film producer, with whom she had three children: 2 daughters, Radhika (settled in the USA) and Jyothika (an actress). Through her biological father, who had re-married earlier, Nagma has two half-brothers, Dhanraj and Yuvraj. Nagma remained close to her biological father until his death on 31 December 2005. She explained to a Mumbai reporter that "I am proud of the fact that I belong to a respectable family. My mother was legally married to my father, the late Shri Arvind Morarji, at a public function at the CCI Club, Mumbai." It was Nagma's mother who encouraged her to become an actress and is said to have been her "constant companion on the film sets" for several years. Inspired by her entrepreneurial background, Nagma forayed into the clothing business by opening a boutique in Mumbai in Bandra West on Hill Road called Nagma's, which was inaugurated in September 2000 by Akshay Kumar. Although the boutique was highly successful and an instant hit, she had to shut it down in 2003 as she had to be by the side of her ailing father while simultaneously honoring her bhojpuri and other language film commitments apart from her spiritual quest, then teaching Art of Living. Acting career. Nagma's debut film "" was Hindi cinema's seventh highest grossing film in 1990. With Karisma Kapoor, she was also one of the female leads in 1994's "Suhaag" with Ajay Devgan and Akshay Kumar. Following these films, she moved south to star in Telugu and Tamil movies at the behest of her friend Divya Bharti. Explaining her shift, she cited what she was more conscious of the quality of work, in terms of meaty roles and her flair to travel throughout India understanding different cultures and her drive and passion to get acclamation from all over India. She stated "Language was never a barrier. I love adventure, culture and have great respect for the Indian tradition". A girl with a Muslim name and a Hindu father and born on Christmas a perfect example of national integration, did what was best for her then. She became a major star in the south and remained so. Although she started off with a bang in Bollywood (Hindi cinema) with topmost banners, actors and directors. The main reason for her shift could have been that her personal family life was getting affected by the yellow journalism and stories. Her Telugu films include 1992's "Gharana Mogudu" with Chiranjeevi, "Allari Alludu" with Nagarjuna Akkineni and "Major Chandrakanth" with NTR and Mohan Babu. Her Tamil films include "Baasha" with Rajnikanth and 1994's "Kadhalan" with Prabhu Deva. In 1996, she became known for acting in a food play scene in the Tamil film "Love Birds" which involves the male protagonist breaking an egg and cooking it on her navel which was similar to a scene from "Hot Shots" involving Valeria Golino. After moving back to Mumbai, she told an interviewer in 2001, "The pressure of being the number one actress in Tamil cinema was getting to me. I was unhappy with the kind of films I was doing. I couldn't do the kind of work I wanted to because I had to go by the dictates of what the audience expected of a much-in-demand actress. I was stagnating so I decided to take a break." While based in Mumbai, she continued to work in some Telugu and Tamil movies, such as "Allari Ramudu" and "Citizen", as well as taking leading roles in some Malayalam films. Nagma was "a prominent campaigner for the Congress party...on the election trail for the party in Bihar and Jharkhand." Nagma has acted in Bhojpuri movies, including films with the "Big Boss" participant Ravi Kishan, with whom she was linked romantically. In 2006's "Ganga", she starred in the title role opposite Amitabh Bachchan and Hema Malini. When asked why she shifted to Bhojpuri films, she said "I wanted to do films in different languages. I have already done movies in 10 languages. My first Bhojpuri film 'Panditji Bataayina Biyaah Kab Hoii' was a huge hit. After that the offers poured in and they were too good to be ignored." When interviewed by "The Hindu" in Delhi in April 2007, she indicated that another important reason for her decision to focus on Bhojpuri films was to help with her political campaigning. In 2006, she made her Punjabi film debut, starring alongside Raj Babbar in "Ek Jind Ek Jaan". Discussing her career in a "Mid-Day" interview in September 2006, Nagma said "I have learnt nine languages, so I want to do films in all languages. On the Hindi film front, I am in the process of signing a very big period thriller. I am getting to do a variety of roles with content, so I am satisfied." While noting her commitment to complete several Bhojpuri films she was involved with, in March 2007, she expressed her intention to next focus on returning to Hindi films after wrapping up her projects. In her 2007 "Hindustan Times" interview, in which she discusses her future plans for cinema and politics, Nagma responded to a question about her reputation for controversy by saying "You need guts to deal with controversies. Of course, whether it’s for negative or positive reasons, I’ve always been in the news." Politics. A vocal supporter of India's Congress Party, She had only formally become a member of the Congress Party in Delhi, reportedly citing its "commitment towards secularism and welfare of the poor and weaker sections" as her reason for joining. In a 2006 interview, she made a direct link between her family history and her political activism: "My mom is Muslim and my dad is Hindu. We were brought up to respect all religions. Communal riots pained me. I wanted to do something. So I joined politics.". She had to turn down an offer to run for India's Lok Sabha in 2003 due to her many film commitments. "If I wanted to become a member of Parliament I would need to give 100 per cent to my constituency — which I could not at that point of time." In an interview with the "Hindustan Times" in 2007, she said "politics will continue"
357079	Helen Kane (August 4, 1903, – September 26, 1966) was an American popular singer; her signature song was "I Wanna Be Loved By You." Kane's voice and appearance were a likely source for Fleischer Studios animator Grim Natwick when creating Betty Boop, although It-girl Clara Bow is another possible influence. Early life. Born as Helen Clare Schroeder, Kane attended St. Anselm's Parochial School in the Bronx. She was the youngest of three children. Her father, Louis Schroeder, the son of a German immigrant, was employed intermittently; her Irish immigrant mother, Ellen (née Dixon) Schroeder, worked in a laundry. Kane's mother reluctantly paid $3 for her daughter's costume as a queen in Kane's first theatrical role at school. By the time she was 15 years, Kane was onstage professionally, touring the Orpheum Circuit with the Marx Brothers in "On the Balcony". She spent the early 1920s trouping in vaudeville as a singer and kickline dancer with a theater engagement called the 'All Jazz Revue.' She played the New York Palace for the first time in 1921. Her Broadway days started there as well with the "Stars of the Future" (1922–24, and a brief revival in early 1927). She also sang onstage with an early singing trio, the Hamilton Sisters and Fordyce, later known as The Three X Sisters. Kane's roommate in the early 1920s was Jessie Fordyce. The singing trio act might have become the Hamilton Sisters and Schroeder, however Pearl Hamilton chose Fordyce to tour as a trio act "just to see what happens" at the end of the theatrical season. Music. Kane's career break came in 1927, when she appeared in a musical called A Night in Spain. It ran from May 3, 1927 through Nov 12, 1927 for a total of 174 performances, at the 44th Street Theatre in NYC. Subsequently, Paul Ash, a band conductor, put her name forward for a performance at New York's Paramount Theater. Kane's first performance at the Paramount Theater in Times Square proved to be her career's launching point. She was singing "That's My Weakness Now," when she interpolated the scat lyrics “boop-boop-a-doop.” This resonated with the flapper culture, and four days later, Helen Kane’s name went up in lights. Oscar Hammerstein’s 1928 show "Good Boy," was where she first introduced the hit "I Wanna Be Loved by You." Then it was back to the Palace, as a headliner for $5,000 a week. She rejoined her friends from vaudeville, The one hundred X Sisters (formerly The Hamilton Sisters and Fordyce) for one night. In a 1935 live stage performance, she harmonized with their unique banter to a novelty tune, "The Preacher and the Bear." Kane had excellent diction, intonation and timing, learned during her apprenticeship in vaudeville. Her songs have a strong word focus, and capitalize on her coquettish voice. She blended several fashionable styles of the late 1920s. These included scat singing, a kind of vocal improvisation, and also blending singing and speech. Sprechgesang ("speech-song") was fashionable at this time in Germany's Weimar Republic in both nightclubs and in serious music. Kane recorded 22 songs between 1928 and 1930. After 1930 and up to 1951, she recorded four sides for Columbia in addition to the "Three Little Words" soundtrack single recording of "I Wanna Be Loved by You." She also recorded four songs that comprise a 1954 MGM 45Ep entitled, "The Boop Boop a Doop Girl." Cult following. As she took on the status of a singing sensation, there were Helen Kane dolls and Helen Kane look-alike contests, appearances on radio and in nightclubs. This cult following reached its peak late in 1928 and early in 1929. Kane's height (was only 5'2") and slightly plump figure attracted attention and fans. Her round face with big brown eyes was topped by black, curly hair; her voice was a baby squeak with a distinct Bronx dialect. Films. In mid-1929, Paramount Pictures signed Kane to make a series of musicals at a salary as much as $8,000 a week (equivalent to over $160,000 in 2009). Her films were: It should be noted that although Helen was not the "star" of most of her pictures (with "Dangerous Nan McGrew" being the one exception) she was so popular that in the case of "Sweetie," her name appeared over the title on the marquee when the movie premiered at the New York Paramount (although Nancy Carroll was the true star). Helen provided all the fun and she and Jack Oakie taught the college kids, "The Prep Step," a big hit along with "He's So Unusual." Another hit from this picture was Nancy Carroll's, "My Sweeter Than Sweet." In the opening credits of "Pointed Heels", Helen's name is equal with William Powell on the same line in large letters just below the title with Fay Wray and the rest in smaller letters underneath. She had equal billing with Buddy Rogers in "Heads Up!" and it is their faces which appeared in all the ads. And in "Dangerous Nan McGrew", Helen received top billing in the film's credits. Fleischer v. Kane. In 1930, Fleischer Studios animator Grim Natwick introduced a caricature of Helen Kane, with droopy dog ears and a squeaky singing voice, in the Talkartoons cartoon "Dizzy Dishes." "Betty Boop," as the character was later dubbed, soon became popular and the star of her own cartoons. In 1932, Betty Boop was changed into a human, the long dog ears becoming hoop earrings. In May 1932, Kane filed a $250,000 suit against Paramount and Max Fleischer, charging unfair competition and wrongful appropriation in the Betty Boop cartoons. The trial opened that year with Helen Kane and Betty Boop films being viewed only by the judge. No jury was called. Bonnie Poe, Kate Wright, Margie Hines, and most notably Mae Questel were all summoned to testify. The case dragged on for more than two years before the judge ruled against Kane, claiming her testimony did not prove that her singing style was unique and not an imitation itself; a little-known African American singer known as "Baby Esther" had been cited by the defense as "booping" in song, though it was not demonstrated that Kane copied it from her. Later years. With the hardships of the Great Depression biting, the flamboyant world of the flapper was over, and Kane's style began to date rapidly. After 1931 she lost the favour of the moviemakers, who chose other singers for their films. She appeared in a stage production called "Shady Lady" in 1933, and made appearances at various nightclubs and theatres during the 1930s. In 1950 she dubbed Debbie Reynolds, who performed "I Wanna Be Loved By You" in the MGM musical biopic of songwriters Bert Kalmar and Harry Ruby, "Three Little Words." She did not appear in the film's credits. She appeared on several TV shows in the 1950s and 1960s, principally "Toast of the Town," later known as "The Ed Sullivan Show." Kane's final public appearance was on the Sullivan Show on St. Patrick's Day 1965. In addition, she was given overdue tribute in the early 1950s on "This is Your Life" with Ralph Edwards. It brought a tearful reunion with Helen's old friend, actress Fifi D'Orsay, and a lifelong fan who once sent her money when she was down on her luck. Renewed interest in Helen brought her a one-record contract with MGM Records and appearances on "I've Got a Secret" and "You Asked for It." She sang on all of these TV shows. Personal life. In November 1924, Helen Schroeder married department store buyer Joseph Kane and took his last name professionally. The marriage was over by 1925, ended in 1928, and Helen went to Mexico to get a final divorce in December 1932. In February 1933 she married an actor, Max Hoffman, Jr. After six months he deserted her and Helen filed for divorce. The divorce was finalized in May 1935. In 1939 she married Dan Healy, with whom she had worked in "Good Boy" in 1928. They opened a restaurant in New York City, "Healy's Grill." She remained married to Healy for the rest of her life. The marriage was childless. Helen Kane battled breast cancer for more than a decade. She had surgery in 1956 and eventually received two hundred radiation treatments as an outpatient at Memorial Hospital. She died on September 26, 1966 at age 63, in her apartment in Jackson Heights, Queens (New York City). Her husband of 27 years was at her bedside. Her remains were buried in the Long Island National Cemetery. Discography. The release dates of recordings 1 to 22 are derived from the cover notes of the CD "Helen Kane - Great Original Performances - 1928 to 1930" (RPCD 323)[http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00000AWB2] In 1954, MGM records issued the last Helen Kane recordings as a 45-rpm Ep X1164 called "The Boop-Boop-A-Doop Girl!", orchestra directed by Leroy Holmes, and the songs are "When My Sugar Walks Down the Street", "When I Get You Alone Tonight, Do Something" (from "Nothing But the Truth") and "That's My Weakness Now".
584109	Aegan () is a 2008 Tamil action-comedy film directed and co-written by Raju Sundaram and produced by Ayngaran International based on the 2004 Shahrukh Khan starrer "Main Hoon Na". It stars Ajith Kumar, Nayantara, Suman, Jayaram, Navdeep and Piaa Bajpai. The film opened to Indian audiences on 25 October 2008, coinciding with the Diwali season. The film, upon release received mixed reviews and was a failure at the box office. Plot. "Aegan"'s story is based around Shiva (Ajith Kumar), a CBI officer, and his efforts to foil the terrorist John Chinnappa (Suman). Major Shiva is simultaneously attempting to mend relations with his father's estranged first wife and his half-brother Narain (Navdeep). Complications ensue. Major John Chinnappa is a scientist who had created tablets by operating on human guinea pigs. His ploys have always been controversial but inconclusive due to the lack of witnesses. However, an ex-gang member, General Ram Prasad (Devan), became a police approver and is on the verge of revealing Chinnappa's ploys to the police. However, he is on the run to avoid charges. The case falls to Lieutenant Karthikeyan (Nassar), Major Shiva's father, who had ordered his decommission, who assigns his son to go and help solve the mission. Karthik tells Shiva to attend college in Tamil Nadu — St. John’s College, Ooty — to protect Ram Prasad's daughter, Pooja (Piaa Bajpai), from meeting with her father. Shiva pleads that he has never seen a civilian college before and doesn't know much about the current generation. The General points out that, by a strange coincidence, Pooja attends school in the same town where Ram Prasad is hiding. Shiva can protect Pooja and look for Ram Prasad at the same time. Shiva goes undercover as a student returning to college after many years away taking care of the family business. He is much older than the other students, who at first make fun of him because of his lack of new-generation styles. He also has to deal with the many goofy teachers as well the idiotic forgetful principal of the college, Albert (Jayaram). He finds Narain, who is later revealed to be Shiva's brother. Pooja is Narain's best friend and he is secretly jealous that other girls can get his attention but she can't. Shiva saves Pooja from John Chinnapa's men, who kidnap her while Narain and others think it's a prank. He later becomes a sensation among the students and teachers. He befriends Narain and Pooja and falls in love with the chemistry teacher, Mallika (Nayantara), after being attracted by her beauty and in a bid to convince other students that he is one of them. During his regular jogging sessions Shiva spots Ram Prasad and chases him till he escapes with the help of an helmet-clad bike rider who is later revealed to be Narain. Pooja comes to know that Narain has been helping her father and feels cheated by him. Narain tries to apologize to Pooja many times, but she refuses to talk to him. Irked by this, Narain drinks and explains his actions when John's men come again to kidnap Pooja. They beat up Narain, but Shiva comes to their rescue. Narain and Pooja patch up after the fight sequences. Shiva takes Narain to his home where he learns that Narain is his brother and meets his mother. The flashback sequences describe Shiva's childhood (he is an orphan) and explain why his mother and father live separately. The next day when Pooja introduces Ram Prasad to Shiva, Shiva arrests him — much to the disappointment of Pooja and Narain. Then everyone in the college including Mallika learns that Shiva is a policeman. Shiva then drives Ram Prasad straight to John Chinnapa's hiding place, avoiding the traps that he had set. A fight ensues between Shiva and John Chinnappa's men in which John is finally killed. In the final scenes Mallika is shown with Shiva's parents and brother while he has gone to Afghanistan as part of another mission. Production. Development. In September 2007, early indications suggested that Ayngaran International were set to make a film starring Ajith Kumar directed by Venkat Prabhu, however the chance went to first-time director Raju Sundaram, in a project titled "Akbar". Despite denying the title, Ajith confirmed the project and stating that he had put on weight and grew a beard for his participation in the project. Following the success of "Billa", Ajith Kumar waited till the birth of his first child, in January 2008, before commencing his shoot for the film. The 40-member unit consisting of Ajith, director Raju Sundaram,cinematographer Arjun jena (Cinematographer), action choreographer Stun Shiva and a few stunt men from Chennai flew to Hong Kong on 14 January 2008 and began their first schedule for a 10-day stint. The portions in Hong Kong were shot showing Ajith's introduction stunt scene set against the skyscrapers, Hong Kong airport, and the sea with the help of Chinese action choreographers. The crew shot schedules in Theni and Ooty and other locations in South India during the filming. The film finished its talkie portion in early September 2008, and the songs were canned in India as well as parts of Switzerland. The film, initially described as a "musical action comedy,". The film previously referred to as "Akbar", "Ramakrishnan" and "Anthony Gonsalves" was christened as "Aegan", a name of Lord Shiva. Casting. Following the announcement of the project, tentatively titled as "Akbar", Shriya Saran was rumoured to be the heroine, following her successful role in "". However due to differences, Saran was ousted from the project due to her limited callsheets, as she had to fly to and from America where she was then shooting for her Hollywood film, "The Other End of the Line". However other indications claimed that Saran was ousted from the project due to her involvement in "Indiralohathil Na Azhagappan", in which she appeared in an item number, which Ajith Kumar was unhappy with due to previous feuds with the lead, Vadivelu of that film. Reports indicated that Parvati Melton had replaced Saran but later denied it signaling that she was not approached. Suhani Kalita was announced as the second heroine of the project but was later removed for unknown reasons. Several Bollywood heroines including Deepika Padukone, Bipasha Basu, Katrina Kaif, Ayesha Takia, Ileana D'Cruz, Tanushree Dutta and Sneha Ullal were linked to the role, as well as reports that Shriya Saran would reprise the role after making up with Ajith. The role eventually was given to Katrina Kaif, who was set to make her debut in Tamil films with "Aegan", however she later opted out due to callsheet clashes. It was announced that Nayantara would play the role of the heroine in the film, following her role opposite Ajith in "Billa". In February 2008, it was confirmed that Navdeep would play a role in the film as well as Suman, who will appear in a villainous role. Malayalam actor, Jayaram will also play a role in the film, which will be co-produced by actor, Arun Pandian. Nassar and Suhasini were selected to play the roles of the parents of Ajith,(the childhood role played by master yash lodha) whilst Raju Sundaram's elder brother, Prabhu Deva was given a chance to make a cameo appearance in the film as a dancer but politely refused. Supporting actors Livingston, Sathyan and Sriman also play roles in "Aegan", as does model Piaa Bajpai, who appears as the ladylove to Navdeep. Yuvan Shankar Raja was signed on as the music composer whilst Arjun Jena was the cinematographer for the project and Milan, who did the art direction for "Billa", renews his association with Ajith in the film. Release. Aegan opened to mixed reviews. Sify.com claimed that "the trouble with the film is that it looks like an amateurish attempt by debutant director Raju Sundaram" dismissing the climax as "a colossal embarrassment", but adding that "no film is perfect". Soundtrack. The soundtrack of "Aegan" was composed by Yuvan Shankar Raja as was the film score. It was noticeably, the third time Yuvan Shankar was scoring music for an Ajith Kumar film, after "Dheena" (2001) and "Billa" (2007), the songs of which had been very popular and went on to become chartbusters. The soundtrack released on October 9, 2008 at a private ceremony at the HelloFM Studios by composer Yuvan Shankar Raja himself as the lead cast and the director were away shooting the video for the song in Switzerland. The album features 6 tracks overall, including one of the songs ("Hey Salaa") repeated at the end. Lyrics were provided by Pa. Vijay and Snehan. However, since their names were not credited in the album, it is unknown, which of the songs were penned by which lyricist.
1132638	Sadomania – Hölle der Lust is a 1981 German-Spanish women in prison film directed by Jesús Franco, starring Ajita Wilson. It was also released as "Hellhole Women", "Prisoners of the Flesh" or "Sadomania: The Hell of Passion". Plot. A couple of newlyweds, Olga and Michael, are traveling along the desert and accidentally trespass on the property of Magda Urtado (Ajita Wilson), who is the director of a boot camp of sorts, where the women are treated as slaves and are half naked at all times. Magda keeps Olga in captivity while Michael is free to go, but later on in the film he plans an escape for Olga. She goes to work with the other girls out in the hot desert, and the rest of the film is a series of subplots, including in which a few of the workers are sent out to be hookers, one where a worker participates in a deadly game of cat and mouse, and one where the impotent Governor (Antonio Mayans, billed as Robert Foster) buys a couple of the workers to help him perform. There is also a scene where the Governor is finally able to have sex with his wife, but only while watching one of the females being raped by a dog. Director Jess Franco also stars in the movie as an obviously gay man.
1064104	Anthony T. "Tony" Todd (born December 4, 1954) is an American actor and film producer, known for his height of 6'5", (1.96 m) and deep voice. He is well known for playing the Candyman in the horror movie franchise of the same name, for playing William Bludworth in "Final Destination", for voicing the Fallen in ', for voicing Dreadwing in ', for playing Reverend Zombie in "Hatchet" and its sequel "Hatchet II", and for guest-starring roles on numerous television shows, including ', ' and "Star Trek Voyager", as Kurn, the adult Jake Sisko, as Alpha Hirogen, and as Rodek. Early life. Todd was born in Washington, D.C. He grew up in Hartford, Connecticut, and attended local schools. He was in the Boy Scouts of America, a member of Troop 450, which met in the Mt. Calvary Church in Hartford's North End. He is also an alumnus of the Artists Collective, Inc. Tony attended the University of Connecticut and then went on to study theater at the Tony Award Winning Eugene O'Neill National Theatre Institute. and Trinity Rep Conservatory. Career. Film. He has appeared in more than 100 screen and television films, and has played opposite many major stars in Hollywood. His movie credits include: "Platoon" (1986), "Beg" (film 2010), "Night of the Living Dead" (1990), "Candyman" (1992), "The Crow" (1994), "The Rock" (1996), "Wishmaster" (1997), the "Final Destination" series (2000–2011), and "Minotaur" (2006). Todd was the voice of The Fallen in "". Todd is also in the Rel Dowdell film "Changing the Game". Todd was a special guest of the Weekend of Horror Creation Entertainment on May 23, 2010. and the Screamfest LA. Tony starred in "Hatchet 2", which was released in a limited number of theaters on October 1, 2010. As "Final Destination 5" returned to the series' roots, Todd returned as William Bludworth. Broadway. Todd has acted on and off Broadway and his intense love for live theater continues. Television. He is gaining particular renown for his appearances in popular science fiction/fantasy series His other television appearances include a recurring role on "Boston Public" and guest appearances on "Law & Order", ', ', "Xena Warrior Princess" as Cecrops, "The X-Files", "Smallville", "Angel", "24", "Charmed", "Stargate SG-1", "Andromeda", "Criminal Minds", and in "Chuck".
1062470	Sofia Carmina Coppola ( ; born May 14, 1971) is an American screenwriter, director, producer and actress. In 2003, she received the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay for "Lost in Translation", and became the third woman (and first American woman) to be nominated for an Academy Award for Best Director. In 2010, with "Somewhere", she became the first American woman (and fourth American filmmaker) to win the Golden Lion, the top prize at the Venice Film Festival. Early life. Coppola was born in New York City, New York, the youngest child and only daughter of set decorator/artist Eleanor Coppola (née Neil) and director Francis Ford Coppola ("The Godfather", "Apocalypse Now"). She is also granddaughter of the composer Carmine Coppola, sister of Roman Coppola and Gian-Carlo Coppola, niece of her father's siblings August Coppola and Talia Shire, and a cousin of Nicolas Cage, Jason Schwartzman, and Robert Carmine. When Coppola was fourteen-years-old, her brother Gian-Carlo was killed in a boating accident. She attended high school at St. Helena High School and graduated with the class of 1989. She later went to Mills College and the California Institute of the Arts, and interned with Chanel when she was fifteen-years-old. After dropping out of college, Coppola started a clothing line called "Milkfed" that is now sold exclusively in Japan. Career. Early career. Coppola's acting career, marked by frequent criticisms related to nepotism, began while she was an infant, as she made background appearances in seven of her father's films. The best known of these early roles is her appearance in "The Godfather" as the baby boy in the baptism scene. Coppola returned to her father's trilogy in both the second and third "Godfather" films, playing Michael Corleone's daughter in the latter after the original actress Winona Ryder discontinued her involvement with the film. Coppola responded to a question about her role in "The Godfather Part III" in a 2013 interview: Let's see. Did I not wanna do it? Um. I was game. I was trying different things. It sounded better than college. I didn't really think about the public aspect of it. That took me by surprise. The whole reaction. People felt very attached to the Godfather films. I grew up with them being no big deal. I mean, I understand they're great films but … I dunno. I'm not surprised. It makes sense that people would have an opinion about it but I got a lot of attention I wasn't expecting. I was going to art school anyway so I was able to get back to what I was doing. It was before the internet so magazines would come out but then the next month they were gone. There wasn't even as much paparazzi around then. Coppola also acted in her father's films "The Outsiders (1983)", in a scene where Matt Dillon, Tommy Howell, and Ralph Macchio are eating at a Dairy Queen, "Rumble Fish" (1983), "The Cotton Club" (1984), and as Kathleen Turner's sister Nancy Kelcher in "Peggy Sue Got Married" (1986). "Frankenweenie" (1984) was the first film that she performed in that was not associated with her father; however, it often goes unnoted due to her stage name "Domino", which she adopted at the time because she thought it was glamorous. The 1989 short film, entitled "Life Without Zoe", was released as part of a tripartite anthology film "New York Stories", and was co-written by a teenage Coppola with her father, who also directed the film. After she was critically panned for her performance in "The Godfather Part III", for which she was named "Worst Supporting Actress" and "Worst New Star" at the 1990 Golden Raspberry Awards, Coppola ended her acting career; although, she appeared in the 1992 independent film "Inside Monkey Zetterland", as well as in the backgrounds of films by her friends and family; for example, she appeared as Saché in George Lucas' "" in 1999. She has since been quoted as saying that she was not hurt by the criticism from her role in "The Godfather Part III", because she never especially wanted an acting career. Coppola also appears in several music videos from the 1990s: The Black Crowes' "Sometimes Salvation"; Madonna's "Deeper and Deeper"; the Chemical Brothers' "Elektrobank", which was directed by her future husband Spike Jonze; and Phoenix's "Funky Squaredance". Filmmaking. Coppola's first short-film was "Lick the Star" (1998). It played many times on the Independent Film Channel. She made her feature-film directing debut with "The Virgin Suicides" (1999). It premiered in North America at the 2000 Sundance Film Festival and was released later that year. Her second feature was "Lost in Translation" (2003). Coppola won the Academy Award for her original screenplay and three Golden Globe Awards including Best Picture. After Lina Wertmüller and Jane Campion, Coppola became the third female director to be nominated for an Academy Award for Directing. Her win for best original screenplay in 2003 made her a third-generation Oscar winner. In 2004, Coppola was invited to join the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Her third film was the biopic "Marie Antoinette", adapted from the biography by British historian Antonia Fraser. Kirsten Dunst plays the title character, who marries King Louis XVI, played by Jason Schwartzman, Coppola's cousin. It debuted at the 2006 Cannes Film Festival where, despite boos in the audience, it received a standing ovation. Critics were divided. Her fourth film was "Somewhere" (2010). The movie was filmed at Chateau Marmont. The plot focuses on a "bad boy" actor portrayed by Stephen Dorff who is forced to reevaluate his life when his daughter, played by Elle Fanning, arrives unexpectedly. In November 2010, Coppola was interviewed by Joel Coen, who professed his admiration of Coppola's work, at the DGA screening of "Somewhere" in New York City. Coppola's next film is "The Bling Ring". It is based on actual events centered around the Bling Ring, a group of California teenagers who burgled the homes of several celebrities over 2008 and 2009, stealing around $3 million in cash and belongings. Emma Watson, Taissa Farmiga, Leslie Mann, Katie Chang and Israel Broussard are starring in the film. The film opened the Un Certain Regard section of the 2013 Cannes Film Festival. Television. In the mid-1990s, she and best friend Zoe Cassavetes helmed the short-lived series "Hi Octane" on Comedy Central which spotlit performers in underground music. The show was cancelled after four episodes. In December 2008, Coppola's first commercial premiered during an episode of "Gossip Girl". The advertisement which she directed for the Christian Dior fragrance "Miss Dior Chérie" which was shot in France with model Maryna Linchuk was very well received and continues to be popular on YouTube. Modeling. At the beginning of the 1990s, she was often featured in girl-oriented magazines like "Seventeen" and "YM". In 1998, she cofounded the clothing line "Milk Fed" in Japan with friend Stephanie Hayman in cooperation with Sonic Youth's Kim Gordon. In 2002, fashion designer Marc Jacobs hand-picked the actress/director to be the face of his house's fragrance. The campaign involved photographs of her shot by photographer Juergen Teller in his signature grainy style. In the July 2013 issue of Elle Magazine, photographs shot by Coppola of Paris Hilton at her Beverly Hills mansion (which makes a cameo in "The Bling Ring") were featured. Awards. Coppola was nominated for three Academy Awards for her 2003 film "Lost in Translation", in the categories of Best Picture, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay. She would go on to win for Best Original Screenplay, but lost the other two nominations to Peter Jackson's "". Her nomination for Best Director made her the first American woman in history to be nominated in that category, and the third overall, after Lina Wertmüller and Jane Campion. In 2010, Kathryn Bigelow became the fourth woman to be nominated, and the first to win the award. Coppola, however, remains the youngest woman to be nominated in the Best Director category. Her win for Best Original Screenplay resulted in her family becoming the second three-generation Oscar winning family, her grandfather Carmine Coppola and her father Francis Ford Coppola having previously won Oscars. The first family to achieve this feat was the Huston family: Walter, John, and Anjelica. For her work on "Lost in Translation", Coppola also won a Best Screenplay Golden Globe and received a BAFTA nomination. On September 11, 2010, "Somewhere" won the Golden Lion, the top prize at the 67th Venice Film Festival. Personal life. In 1999 Coppola married director Spike Jonze, whom she had first met in 1992, and they divorced in 2003. It is widely believed that a minor character in "Lost In Translation" is based on Jonze, as Coppola stated after the film's release, "There are elements of Spike there, elements of experiences." In an official statement, Coppola's publicist explained that the divorce decision was reached "with sadness." Coppola lives in Paris, France with her second husband Thomas Mars (lead singer of the French band Phoenix), and has described her love for the city and her favorite places there: "The Palais-Royal, the Tuileries Garden, the Musée d'Orsay. You can tell I love the city, right? It's a filmmaker's dream there; the colors are beautiful!" On November 28, 2006, Coppola gave birth to her first child, a daughter named Romy, who is named in honor of her brother Roman. Coppola first met Mars while producing the soundtrack to "The Virgin Suicides". They have since collaborated on "Lost in Translation", "Marie Antoinette", and "Somewhere". A second daughter named Cosima was born to Coppola and Mars in New York City, U.S. in May 2010. Coppola and Mars were married on August 27, 2011 at her family's villa ex "Palazzo Margherita" in Bernalda, Italy.
581742	Johnny Gaddaar (), (meaning "Johnny the Traitor" in English) is a 2007 Indian "neo-noir" thriller film written and directed by Sriram Raghavan; produced under the banner Adlabs. It stars Neil Mukesh, in his film debut, alongside Dharmendra, Zakir Hussain, Rimi Sen, Vinay Pathak, Govind Namdeo, Dayanand Shetty and Ashwini Khalsekar. The film received critical acclaim., went on to be 'sleeper hit' of the year and was later remade in Telugu and Malayalam in 2012. Plot. The film starts out on a rainy night with a conversation between 4 cops in a van, patrolling the streets. A car narrowly misses colliding into them on the road, brakes and then continues on towards a house with iron gates. A man in a jacket gets out from the car, opens the garage door and is shot from behind multiple times. The entire movie is then shown as a flashback, building up to the present shooting, a tool used numerous times in the film when the story goes back and forth between the flashback and flashbacks within the flashback. The story is about a gang of five that run a gambling club and conduct other underhand deals. The five members are Vikram (Neil Nitin Mukesh), Seshadri (Dharmendra), Shardul (Zakir Hussain), Prakash (Vinay Pathak) and Shiva (Dayanand Shetty). When one of Seshadri's police contacts from Bangalore, Kalyan (Govind Namdeo) promises him "French furniture" (code word for drugs) worth Rs. 5 crores for Rs. 2.5 crores, Seshadri calls for all 5 members to contribute Rs. 50 Lakh each to set the deal in motion. Based on Shardul's promise of being able to sell the furniture for more than Rs. 5 crore, each member anticipates a profit of a further Rs. 50 lakh each, at least. Shiva is to take the money to Bangalore by train. Vikram plans to take all the money by making Shiva unconscious using Chloroform poison. In the pretext of going to Goa for business work, he goes about his plot, driving to Pune where he uses the name Johnny G. But plans go wrong and Vikram has to kill Shiva who has just seen his face before going unconscious. Now Sheshadri, Kalyan, Prakash, Shardul, in turn and individually, find out Vikram's crime and are killed by him. Finally, Vikram is killed by Prakash's wife who mistakes him for Shardul, who she believed was Prakash's killer. Tribute and reference. In the opening credits the movie is dedicated to legendary Indian Cinema director Vijay Anand and writer James Hadley Chase. The film is a tribute to Vijay Anand's influence on the Hindi noir/thriller genre. It pays tribute to him in a scene in which Anand's movie "Johny Mera Naam" is being watched by a character. At the lobby of a hotel room, the receptionist is seen watching Vijay Anand's movie "Johnny Mera Naam", starring Dev Anand. It is from the scene of that movie that this one gets its title. When the female lead is introduced she is reading R.K. Narayan's The Guide, which was later made into a movie directed by Vijay Anand, starring Dev Anand. While the story is not based on any of James Hadley Chase's novels, it does follow a similar plot line. There are numerous references to James Hadley Chase within the film, the lead character himself is seen holding a copy of one of Chase's books. Director Sriram Raghavan has presented the same genre in his previous venture Ek Hasina Thi also. The film also makes multiple references to Amitabh Bachchan classic "Parwaana" and also shows scenes of a major plot sequence of the movie. There are multiple tributes to the actor Dharmendra himself. While dying, Dharmendra plays the song " Mera Gora Rang Le Le" - his character's favourite song sung by the character's wife in the movie, which is from his movie Bandini in which played in the movie. They are from Yakeen, Aadmi Aur Insaan and Naya Zamana. There are a couple of references to Hollywood movies too, for example when Shiva is introduced in the movie, he's watching Stanley Kubrick's last film, "Eyes Wide Shut". And Dharmendra's line "It's not the age. It's the mileage" echoes a line from the Indiana Jones movie "Raiders of the Lost Ark". Apart from the note-counting scene obviously inspired from "Scarface", there is a reference to "Titanic" as well as "Citizen Kane" in the scene where the female lead is assembling a huge jigsaw puzzle. The color Red is used predominantly in the movie, as a homage to Sin City. Raghavan himself had confessed wanting to shoot the whole film in Black and White. But the main game, is Raghavan's main inspiration of the plot was not Vijay Anand's film "Johny Mera Naam", but instead is adapted from Stanley Kubrick's film noir classic The Killing (film). Raghavan employs a rope-a-dope by implying that his movie as a tribute to Vijay Anand and also adding in James Hadley Chase as distraction, while in fact the similarities in the plot elements like the ex-conman character, the cheating wife and no-one escape climax are not coincidental. The only stark difference is that Kubrick's Johnny isn't the gaddar (the traitor). Soundtrack. The film has fifteen songs and two remixes composed by Shankar Ehsaan Loy (soundtrack) and Daniel B George (score), with lyrics by Jaideep Sahni. The album was met with high critical acclaim upon its release. The soundtrack was co produced by composers Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy and Adlabs, which is first of its kind in the history of Bollywood. The album was released on 13 September 2007 at IMAX, Wadala, Mumbai. Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy, Dharmendra, Neil Nitin Mukesh and Sriram Raghavan were present at the launch among others. Director Sriram Raghavan approached S-E-L to score a single for the film. As they were discussing, Ehsaan came up with a riff which Sriram felt fits the theme of the movie, which then turned out to be the title song "Johnny Gaddaar". Then they decided to go for another song, which was to be picturized in a club setting. Sriram wanted it to have an early 70's feel, along the lines of the famous R.D. Burman song, "Duniya Main". Hence they jammed and came up with the second track, the rich and vibrant "Dhoka". Sriram had seen rapper Hard Kaur on TV and was impressed with her. So he asked her and the trio to jam together, and they came up with the final song of the album, "Move Your Body". The album includes Tamil and Telugu versions of the tracks "Johnny Gaddaar" and "Move Your Body". Reception. The album was met with high praise from critics upon release. Raja Sen of Rediff, who awarded the soundtrack four and a half stars was ecstatic about the soundtrack, ""Johnny Gaddaar is a delightfully harebrained work showing off extreme musical maturity. This is the soundtrack that breaks all the rules, the three buddies reveling in the recklessness director Sriram Raghavan gives them. This is what Modesty Blaise would dance to, an album of lunatic retro genius."". Joginder Tuteja of Bollywood Hungama gave the album a three-and-a-half stars, stating, ""In 'Johnny Gaddaar', don't even expect the kind of soundtrack that you hear in a conventional Bollywood film. Instead expect to get on a rhythmic ride which would hardly give you a breather throughout 11 tracks. The music of 'Johnny Gaddaar' isn't anything that you have heard before in a mainstream Hindi film before. And this is where it's strength lies!"". Atta Khan of Planet Bollywood in his 9 star review, praised the soundtrack ""Every once in a while a soundtrack comes along that leaves you in awe at it’s sheer audacity and pizzazz. Not to mention style, inspiration, variety, innovation and all round brilliance! In this reviewer’s opinion, Johnny Gaddaar is such a soundtrack. The whole package here including the instrumentals is an integral USP of the movie giving it a (dark but hip) character that many soundtracks only dream of achieving. Yet at the same time it is a great stand alone audio product too. It’s unconventional approach challenges every listener to expand their listening horizon and it’s an offer everyone should wholeheartedly accept."" The soundtrack featured in the "Top 10 music Albums of the year" list by "Rediff", which said "Shankar, Ehsaan and Loy get it right again with twisted, unorthodox productions like Johnny Gaddaar". It also got featured in the "Top 15 albums of the year" list of "Planetbollywood", who remarked that ""SEL have succeed in re-defining themselves and maintaining the edge over their counterparts."" Awards and nominations. Filmfare Awards. Winner Star Screen Awards. Nominated Stardust Awards. Nominated IIFA Awards. Winner Zee Cine Awards. Winner Apsara Film & Television Producers Guild Awards. Winner
1062085	Geoffrey Roy Rush (born 6 July 1951) is an Australian actor and film producer. He is one of the few people who have won the "Triple Crown of Acting": an Academy Award, a Tony Award and an Emmy Award. He has won one Academy Award for acting (from four nominations), three British Academy Film Awards (from five nominations), two Golden Globe Awards and four Screen Actors Guild Awards. He is the foundation President of the Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts and was named the 2012 Australian of the Year. Early life. Rush was born in Toowoomba, Queensland, to Merle, a department store sales assistant, and Roy Baden Rush, an accountant for the Royal Australian Air Force. He has English and German ancestry. His parents divorced when he was five, and his mother subsequently took him to live with her parents in suburban Brisbane. Before he began his acting career, Rush attended Everton Park State High School. He also has an arts degree from the University of Queensland. While at university, he was talent-spotted by Queensland Theatre Company (QTC) in Brisbane. Rush began his career with QTC in 1971, appearing in 17 productions. In 1975, Rush went to Paris for two years and studied mime, movement and theatre at the L'École Internationale de Théâtre Jacques Lecoq, before returning to resume his stage career with QTC. In 1979, he shared an apartment with actor Mel Gibson for four months while they co-starred in a stage production of "Waiting for Godot". Stage career. Rush made his theatre debut in the QTC's production of "Wrong Side of the Moon". He worked with the QTC for four years, appearing in roles ranging across classical plays & pantomime, from "Juno and the Paycock" to "Hamlet on Ice". Following these, Rush left for Paris where he studied further. Rush's acting credits include Shakespeare's plays, "The Winter's Tale" (with the State Theatre Company of South Australia in 1987 at The Playhouse in Adelaide), and "Troilus and Cressida" (at the Old Museum Building in 1989). He also appeared in an on-going production of Oscar Wilde's "The Importance of Being Earnest" as John Worthing (Ernest) (in which his wife, Jane Menelaus, appeared as Gwendolen). In September 1998, Rush played the title role in the Beaumarchais play "The Marriage of Figaro" for the QTC. This was the opening production of the Optus Playhouse, at the Queensland Performing Arts Centre at South Bank in Brisbane. A pun on Geoffrey Rush's name (and the circumstances), was used in the opening prologue of the play with the comment that the "Optus Playhouse was opening with a Rush". Rush has appeared on stage for the Brisbane Arts Theatre and in many other theatre venues. He has also worked as a theatre director. In 2007, he starred as King Berenger in a production of Eugène Ionesco's "Exit the King" at the Malthouse Theatre in Melbourne and Company B in Sydney, directed by Neil Armfield. For this performance, he received a Helpmann Award nomination for best male actor in a play. Rush made his Broadway debut in a restaging of "Exit the King" under Malthouse Theatre's touring moniker Malthouse Melbourne. This restaging featured a new American cast including Susan Sarandon. The show opened on 26 March 2009 at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre. Rush won the Outer Critics Circle Award, Theatre World Award, Drama Desk Award, the Distinguished Performance Award from the Drama League Award and the 2009 Tony Award for Best Performance by a Leading Actor in a Play. In 2010, Rush played Man in Chair in The Drowsy Chaperone on its Australian tour. In 2011, Rush played the lead in a theatrical adaptation of Nikolai Gogol's short atory "The Diary of a Madman" at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. Rush won for this role Helpmann Award and was nominated for the Drama Desk Award. From November 2011, Rush played the role of Lady Bracknell in the Melbourne Theatre Company production of "The Importance of Being Earnest". Other actors from the 1988 production include Jane Menelaus, this time as Miss Prism, and Bob Hornery, who had played Canon Chasuble, as the two butlers. Film career. Rush made his film debut in the Australian film "Hoodwink" in 1981. His next film was Gillian Armstrong's "Starstruck", the following year. In the coming years he appeared in small roles on television dramas, including a role as a dentist in a 1993 episode of the British television series "Lovejoy". He made his breakthrough performance in 1996 with "Shine", for which he won the Academy Award for Best Actor. In 1998, he appeared in three major films: "Les Misérables", "Elizabeth", and "Shakespeare in Love". In 1999, Rush took the lead role as Steven Price in the horror film "House on Haunted Hill". In 2000, he received his third Academy Award nomination, for "Quills", in which he played the Marquis de Sade. Rush's career continued at a fast pace, with nine films released from 2001 to 2003. He starred in the film ', as Captain Hector Barbossa, also appearing in its sequels, ', ' and '. Rush reprised his character's voice for the enhancements at the "Pirates of the Caribbean" attractions at Disneyland and the "Magic Kingdom" theme parks, which involved an Audio-Animatronic with Rush's likeness being installed (including one at Tokyo Disneyland). He also voiced Nigel the pelican in "Finding Nemo". Rush played actor Peter Sellers in the television film "The Life and Death of Peter Sellers". For this performance, he won an "Emmy Award" for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Miniseries or a Movie, a SAG Award for Best Performance by an Actor in a Television Movie or Miniseries, and a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in a Miniseries or Motion Picture made for Television. In 2005, he starred in Steven Spielberg's "Munich" as Ephraim, a Mossad agent. In 2006, Rush hosted the Australian Film Institute Awards for the Nine Network. He was the Master of Ceremonies again at the 2007 AFI Awards. In 2010, Rush played speech therapist Lionel Logue in "The King's Speech", a part that earned him a BAFTA and nominations for the Academy Awards and Golden Globe Awards for Best Supporting Actor. Rush returned as Captain Hector Barbossa in "", starring Johnny Depp. Rush is also preparing for a film version of "The Drowsy Chaperone", an award-winning stage musical. In addition, he voiced the alien Tomar-Re in the film adaptation of the "Green Lantern" comic book series. In the beginning of 2009, Rush appeared in a series of special edition postage stamps featuring some of Australia's internationally recognised actors. He, Cate Blanchett, Russell Crowe, and Nicole Kidman each appear twice in the series. Rush's image is taken from "Shine". In 2011, Rush made a cameo in a commercial, "The Potato Peeler", for the Melbourne International Film Festival (MIFF), playing a Polish peasant. He spoke his lines in Polish for the part. In August 2011 he was appointed the foundation President of the newly formed Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts. In 2013 Geoffrey Rush is starring alongside Jim Sturgess in "The Best Offer". Personal life. Since 1988, Rush has been married to actress Jane Menelaus, with whom he has a daughter, Angelica (born 1992), and a son, James (born 1995). Geoffrey Rush lives in Camberwell, Victoria.
1489450	Stealing Heaven is a 1988 film, a costume drama based on the French 12th century medieval romance (a true story) of Peter Abelard and Héloïse and on a historical novel by Marion Meade. The director was Clive Donner. Plot. Abelard is a famous teacher of philosophy at the cathedral school of Notre Dame, and a champion of reason, at a time when academics are required to observe chastity. He falls in love with one of his students, Héloïse d'Argenteuil, a sixteen-year old gentlewoman raised in a convent, who has both intellectual curiosity and a rebellious view of the low status of women in 12th century Europe. When the relationship is suspected, Heloise's uncle Fulbert, who had other plans for her marriage, works with the bishop of Paris to put a stop to it. Nevertheless, Abelard and Heloise have a child together and later are secretly married. Abelard faces a struggle with himself for acting against the will of God and yet loves Heloise too much to be able to stop himself. Heloise's uncle takes a terrible revenge on Abelard for ruining Heloise's chance of a rich husband.
1712164	Angel Tompkins (born December 20, 1942) is an American actress and Golden Globe nominee, who appeared in several films and television shows. Career. Angel Tompkins was a model in the Chicago area before being discovered by Woody Allen who sent her to Universal. She was signed and became part of the last Universal Contract Players. She started her television and film acting career in the late 1960s. She made her major film debut as the seductive blonde who came between husband and wife, Elliott Gould and Brenda Vaccaro, in the comedy "I Love My Wife" (1970) and was nominated for a Golden Globe. She appeared in "Prime Cut" (1972) with co-stars Gene Hackman and Lee Marvin and newcomer Sissy Spacek as a co-star. She also appeared with Anthony Quinn in "The Don Is Dead" (1973), with former child star, Jay North in "The Teacher" (1974), and with Charles Bronson in "Murphy's Law" (1986). Tompkins was featured in the pictorial "Angel" in the February 1972 edition of Playboy Magazine; subsequently the magazine used her in three more editions, all presumably related to that film promotion. On television Tompkins appeared in the pilot for "Search" (1972), also referenced as "Probe", and appeared in many guest spots in shows, such as "The Wild Wild West" (1965), "Mannix" (1967), Dragnet (1969), "Bonanza" (1970), "Police Woman" (1970), "Knight Rider" (1982) and "Simon & Simon" (1981). In 1988 Tompkins appeared with Ann-Margret in the film "A Tiger's Tale", and made her last film appearances in 1989 in "Relentless" (1989) and "Crack House" (1989). She also works in the commercial voice-over field. In 1991 Tompkins was elected the national recording secretary of the Screen Actors Guild (SAG). She ran unsuccessfully for president of the guild in 1995. In 1996, she received the most votes for the SAG Hollywood Board of Directors. She ran for president again in 1999, changing her name to Angeltompkins so that her name would appear first on the ballot, and came in third. In 2000, she proposed that members of SAG's partner union, American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (AFTRA), vote to decertify the union and recertify as part of SAG. She came in fourth in the 2001 SAG election, her fifth attempt. Personal life. She is married to television and film writer/comedy rewriter, Ted Lang. They have two children. Their homes are in Los Angeles and San Francisco, California.
1070645	Laurie Bird (September 26, 1953 – June 15, 1979) was an American actress and photographer. Life and career. Bird's mother died when she was three. Her father, an electrical engineer, was a former sailor in the United States Navy, and worked long hours. Although she had two brothers, she more or less raised herself. Described by Hollywood columnist Dick Kleiner as "look like an innocent Hayley Mills", Bird appeared in just three films: "Two-Lane Blacktop" (1971), "Cockfighter" (1974), and a small role in "Annie Hall" (1977). Bird was the still photographer on "Cockfighter", and shot the cover photo for Art Garfunkel's 1977 album "Watermark". She was romantically involved with her "Blacktop" and "Cockfighter" director Monte Hellman, and later with Garfunkel for several years.
1061109	Frederick George Peter Ingle Finch (28 September 1916 – 14 January 1977) was a British-born Australian actor. He is best remembered for his role as "crazed" television anchorman Howard Beale in the film "Network", which earned him a posthumous Academy Award for Best Actor, his fifth Best Actor award from the British Academy of Film and Television Arts, and a Best Actor award from the Golden Globes. He was the first of two people to win a posthumous Academy Award in an acting category; the other was also Australian — Heath Ledger. Early life. Family. Finch was born as Frederick George Peter Ingle Finch in London to Alicia Gladys Fisher. At the time, Alicia was married to George Finch. George Finch was born in New South Wales, Australia, but was educated in Paris and Zurich. He was a research chemist when he moved to England in 1912 and later served during the first World War with the Royal Army Depot and the Royal Field Artillery. In 1915, at Portsmouth, in Hampshire, George married Alicia Fisher, the daughter of a Kent barrister. However, George Finch was not Peter Finch's biological father. He learned only in his mid-40s that his biological father was Wentworth Edward Dallas "Jock" Campbell, an Indian Army officer, whose adultery with Finch's mother was the cause of George and Alice's divorce, when Peter was two years old. Alicia Finch married "Jock" Campbell in 1922. Early childhood. George gained custody of Peter and he was taken from his mother and raised by his paternal "grandmother" Laura Finch (formerly Black) in Vaucresson, France. In 1925 Laura took Finch with her to Adyar, a Theosophical community near Madras, India for a number of months, and the young boy lived for a time in a Buddhist monastery. Undoubtedly as a result of his childhood contact with Buddhism Finch always claimed to be a Buddhist. He is reported to have said: "I think a man dying on a cross is a ghastly symbol for a religion. And I think a man sitting under a bo tree and becoming enlightened is a beautiful one." In 1926 he was sent to Australia to live with his great-uncle Edward Herbert Finch at Greenwich Point in Sydney. He attended the local public school until 1929, then North Sydney Intermediate High School for three years. Early career. After graduating, Finch went to work as a copy boy for the Sydney "Sun" and began writing. However he was more interested in acting, and in late 1933 appeared in a play, "Caprice", at the Repertory Theatre. He started appearing in stage shows for Doris Fitton, worked as a sideshow spruiker at the Sydney Royal Easter Show, in vaudeville with Joe Cody and as a foil to American comedian Bert le Blanc. At age 19 Finch toured Australia with George Sorlie's travelling troupe. This, along with continuous stage work, led to the attention of Australian Broadcasting Commission radio drama producer Lawrence H. Cecil, who was to act as his coach and mentor throughout 1939 and 1940. He was "Chris" in the Children's Session and the first Muddle-Headed Wombat. He later starred with Neva Carr Glyn in an enormously popular series by Max Afford as husband-and-wife detectives "Jeffery and Elizabeth Blackburn" as well as other ABC radio plays. First films. Finch's first screen performance was in a 1935 short film, "The Magic Shoes", an adaptation of the fairy tale "Cinderella". He made his feature film debut in 1938 with a supporting role in "Dad and Dave Come to Town" for director Ken G. Hall, who went on to cast Finch in a larger role supporting Cecil Kellaway in "Mr. Chedworth Steps Out" (1939). War service. Finch enlisted in the Australian army on 2 June 1941. He served in the Middle East and was an anti-aircraft gunner during the Bombing of Darwin. During his war service he was allowed to continue to act in radio, theatre and film, notably "The Rats of Tobruk" (1944). He produced and performed Army Concert Party work, and in 1945 toured bases and hospitals with two Terence Rattigan plays he directed, "French Without Tears" and "While the Sun Shines". Finch was discharged from the army on 31 October 1945 at the rank of sergeant. Mercury Theatre and Laurence Olivier. After the war, Finch continued to work heavily in radio and established himself as Australia's leading actor in that medium, winning Macquarie Awards for best actor in 1946 and 1947. He also worked as a compere, producer and writer. In 1946, Finch co-founded the Mercury Theatre Company, which put on a number of productions in Sydney over the next few years, as well as running a theatre school. A 1948 performance of "The Imaginary Invalid" on the factory floor of O'Brien's Glass Factory in Sydney brought him to the attention of Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh, then touring Australia with the Old Vic Company. Olivier encouraged Finch to move to London, and he left Australia in 1948. English career. When Finch arrived in England, Olivier became his mentor and put him under long-term contract. His first big break was being cast in James Bridie's play "Daphne Laureola" at the Old Vic supporting Edith Evans. He also received acclaim for his first role in a British film, "Train of Events" (1949), playing a murderous actor. His performance as a Pole in "Daphne Laureola" led to his casting as a Polish soldier in "The Miniver Story", the sequel to the wartime morale boosting movie "Mrs. Miniver"; unlike its predecessor, it was poorly received critically. The same year he also appeared in the more successful "The Wooden Horse" playing an Australian prisoner of war. During this time, Finch's closeness to the Olivier family led to an affair with Olivier's beautiful but increasingly unstable wife, Vivien Leigh, which began in 1948, and continued on and off for several years, ultimately falling apart due to her deteriorating mental condition. In 1951 Finch played Iago onstage opposite Orson Welles in "Othello". Despite his stage experience, Finch, like his mentor Olivier, suffered from stage fright, and as the 50s progressed he worked increasingly in film. His roles increased in size and prestige, including being cast as the villain Flambeau in "Father Brown" (1954) and as the lead in the Hollywood film "Elephant Walk" (1954). Film stardom. Towards the end of 1954 Finch's contract with Laurence Olivier was about to expire and he instead signed a seven-year contract with the Rank Organisation worth £87,500 to make one movie a year for them. "We are going to build Peter into a major British star," said Earl St. John, Rank's head of production, at the time. Finch's first roles for Rank under the new arrangement were undistinguished: "Passage Home", "Make Me an Offer", "Josephine and Men", and "Simon and Laura". However in 1956 he appeared in two major hits, "A Town Like Alice" (1956) and "The Battle of the River Plate" (1956), which saw exhibitors vote him the seventh most popular British star at the box office; the following year his ranking went up to third, being the fifth most popular regardless of nationality. He returned to Australia to make two films, "Robbery Under Arms" (1957) and "The Shiralee" (1957). The success of "The Nun's Story" (1959) saw Finch become an international star, although he never worked in Hollywood for an extended period of time, preferring to base himself in London. He was originally chosen to play Julius Caesar in "Cleopatra" (1963) and filmed scenes in London, but when the film was postponed he withdrew; the role instead went to Rex Harrison. However, Finch had an enormously successful career throughout the 1960s and 1970s, winning BAFTA Awards for his performances in "The Trials of Oscar Wilde" (1960) (in the title role), "No Love for Johnnie" (1961) and "Sunday Bloody Sunday" (1971). His performance in the latter also earned him an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor in a Leading Role. Other notable films included "The Pumpkin Eater" (1964) and "Far from the Madding Crowd" (1967). A profile on Finch in Screenonline claimed "it is arguable that no other actor ever chalked up such a rewarding CV in British films." Posthumous Oscar. At the time of Finch's death, he was doing a promotional tour for the 1976 film "Network" in which he played the television anchorman Howard Beale who develops messianic pretensions. He was nominated for a Best Actor Oscar for that role, posthumously winning the award, which was accepted by his widow, Eletha Finch. Although James Dean, Spencer Tracy, and Massimo Troisi were also posthumously nominated for a Best Actor Oscar, Peter Finch was the first actor to have won the award posthumously, as well as the first Australian actor to win a Best Actor award. He was the only posthumous winner of an Oscar in an acting category until Heath Ledger won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor in 2009 (there were many earlier posthumous Oscar winners in non-acting categories; Ledger was also an Australian). Finch also won five Best Actor awards from the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA), including one for "Network". Shortly before he died he told a journalist: We all say we're going to quit occasionally... I'd like to have been more adventurous in my career. But it's a fascinating and not ignoble profession. No one lives more lives than the actor. Movie making is like geometry and I hated math. But this kind of jigsaw I relish. When I played Lord Nelson I worked the poop deck in his uniform. I got extraordinary shivers. Sometimes I felt like I was staring at my own coffin. I touched that character. There lies the madness. You can't fake it. Personal life. Finch married three times; first to Russian ballerina Tamara Rechemcinc (who performed under her mother's family name of Tchinarova), secondly to South African actress Yolande Eileen Turnbull ("Turner"), who was known as Yolande Finch during their marriage; both marriages ended in divorce. After his divorce from Yolande Finch, he married Mavis "Eletha" Barrett, who was known as Eletha Finch. He also had relationships with actresses Kay Kendall, Vivien Leigh and Mai Zetterling, as well as singer Dame Shirley Bassey. In 1941 he was engaged to Sheila Smart. He had four children from his three marriages: Samantha, Charles Peter and Diana with Yolande Turner, and Anita with Tamara Tchinarova. After suffering a heart attack in the lobby of the Beverly Hills Hotel, Finch died on 14 January 1977, at the age of 60; he is interred in the Hollywood Forever Cemetery. Biographies. In 1954, the Australian journalist and author George Johnston wrote a well-researched series of biographical articles on Finch, his life, and his work, which appeared in "The Sun-Herald" (Sydney), on four consecutive Sundays, which were certainly the first detailed account of Finch's life ever published. Finch later provided the inspiration for the character Archie Calverton in Johnston's novel, "Clean Straw for Nothing". In 1980, American author Elaine Dundy published a biography of Finch titled "Finch, Bloody Finch: A Biography of Peter Finch". That year, his second wife, Yolande Finch, also published a posthumous account of their life together, "Finchy: My Life with Peter Finch". Another biography had previously been published by his friend and colleague Trader Faulkner, in 1979. According to Brian McFarlane, in "The Encyclopedia of British Film", hosted by British Film Institute's "Screenonline", Finch "did not emerge unscathed from a life of well-publicised hell-raising, and several biographies chronicle the affairs and the booze, but a serious appraisal of a great actor remains to be written."
582005	Esha Deol (Born 2 November 1981) is an Indian film actress who appears in Bollywood films. She made her acting debut in "Koi Mere Dil Se Poochhe" (2002). Deol was praised by film critics and her performance in the movie earned her numerous awards and nominations including the Filmfare Award for Best Female Debut. Deol earned critical acclaim for her performances and has mainly found success in multi-starrer movies. Deol's breakthrough role was in the critically acclaimed Tamil film "Aayutha Ezhuthu" (2004) and its Hindi remake "Yuva" (2004). Deol's first commercial success was the multi-starrer action film "Dhoom" (2004) featuring her in a supporting role. It was followed by numerous multi-starrer movies including "Dus" (2005) and "No Entry" (2005) that were commercial successes at the box office and earned Deol critical acclaim. The majority of Deol's films earned critical acclaim for her performances in films including "Ankahee" (2006), "Darling" (2007) until she took a hiatus from acting. Deol made her comeback to acting with a lead role in "Tell Me O Kkhuda" (2011). Early life. She was born to famous Bollywood actors Hema Malini and Dharmendra. She has a younger sister Ahana Deol and many older half-siblings (2 brothers namely Bobby Deol and Sunny Deol and 2 sisters namely Vijeeta and Ajeeta) through her father's first marriage to Prakash Kaur. Deol attended Mithibai College in Mumbai where she planned to be become a fashion designer. Deol trained in the Odissi dancing style under Mumbai guru Rabindra Atibuddhi. She was trained by and performs classical Bharatanatyam dance with her mother. Career. 2002–03: Debut. Deol decided to join the acting line of her parents and became a second-generation actress. She started her acting career in a lead role with Vinay Shukla's "Koi Mere Dil Se Poochhe" (2002) opposite Aftab Shivdasani, with Sanjay Kapoor, Jaya Bachchan and Anupam Kher playing supporting roles. Deol received mixed reactions from critics upon her performance. Savera R Someshwar of Rediff wrote "Esha, as a person, exudes a confidence that almost borders on arrogance. She's athletic and seems perfectly capable of looking after herself in any situation. Esha, on screen, is required to convey three emotions: Love, sorrow and fear. Especially fear. No wonder she flounders. She is just unable to look terrorised. Even her alleged romance with costar Aftab has not helped her shed her stern demeanour in her romantic scenes." Rakesh Budhu of Planet Bollywood wrote "She isn’t horrible, but given the hype, the demands and of course, comparisons, she surely isn’t up to the mark. Koi Mere Dil Se Poochhe is just plain old mediocre in such a way that you end up noticing the flaws in Esha’s performance more. Her facial expressions need work, her attitude is beautiful but she seems too stern when it is not required. Of course, she is nowhere close to being a washout and if you are her fan you can appreciate the other aspects of her performances without completely losing faith in her future projects." Despite mixed reactions and box office failure, Deol won numerous awards for her performance including the prestigious Filmfare Award for Best Female Debut at the 48th Filmfare Awards. Deol's second film was Arjun Sablok's love triangle "Na Tum Jaano Na Hum" opposite Saif Ali Khan and Hrithik Roshan. The film flopped at the box office but Deol gave a show stealing performance and earned critical acclaim. Taran Adarsh of IndiaFm praised her acting and wrote "it is Esha Deol who surprises you with a mature performance. Although her looks are inconsistent, the youngster takes on the role with utmost sincerity and comes out with a natural performance. She has been better presented when compared to her debut film." Bhavna Giani of Rediff praised Deol's acting and dancing and compared it to Deol's mother Hema Malini. Giani wrote "As far as performances go, Esha is quite good, emoting clearly with her eyes. She makes the transition from bubbly schoolgirl to young woman waiting for her love easily. Her grace fills the screen. Dancing seems to come as naturally to her as it does to Hritik. A carbon copy of her mother Hema Malini, one cannot help but feel one is watching the Dream Girl all over again." Deol's third and final release of the year was Sanjay Chhel's "Kyaa Dil Ne Kahaa" opposite Tusshar Kapoor. It was Deol's third consecutive flop but she earned critical acclaim and Taran Adarsh observed that it was her better performance as compared to her previous two films. Deol's first two movies of 2003: "Kucch To Hai" and "Chura Liyaa Hai Tumne" were box office failures. However, she earned critical praises. For "Kucch To Hai", Deol earned mixed reviews from Taran Adarsh, who wrote "Esha Deol shows improvement in terms of performance as well as her overall appearance." Taran Adarsh considered Deol to be "alright" in "Chura Liyaa Hai Tumne". Ronjita Kulkarni praised her performance in "Chura Liyaa Hai Tumne", writing ""Chura Liya"... was supposed to give Esha a makeover and re-launch her. Strangely, her role is similar to her debut, "Koi Mere Dil Se Pooche". While the former had her terrified of her husband, "Chura Liya"... sees her terrified of three gangsters. The film gives her ample scope for histrionics, but she does not utilise it. Her dialogue delivery is good, but her performance is hyper." Deol was one of the heroines of J.P. Dutta's multi starrer war epic "LOC Kargil" and was paired with Abhishek Bachchan. Though Deol and all the other heroines could not get much scope, she earned critical acclaim for her performance. The film became the sixth highest-grossing movie of the year. 2004–05: Breakthrough. In 2004, Deol made her debut in Tamil cinema by playing a French teacher in Mani Ratnam's political film "Aayutha Ezhuthu". She was paired with Suriya. She earned critical acclaim for her performance. Sify.com defined her as "surprisingly fresh and sparkling". In order to prepare for her role, Deol learned nuances of the language with Mani Ratnam's assistant R. Kannan. After completing "Aayutha Ezhuthu", Deol started filming the Hindi version of the movie titled "Yuva". In "Yuva", Deol repeated the same role and was paired opposite Ajay Devgn. Prem Panicker of Rediff wrote "Esha Deol is the surprise package among the troika. While hers is the least developed character, she still manages to show flashes of her inherited acting genes." Taran Adarsh wrote "Esha Deol justifies her part, but her role doesn't demand histrionics either." Both movies were released on the same date but could not attain success. "Yuva" had a below average opening and flopped at the box office. Deol finally got her breakthrough with Yash Raj Films' action film "Dhoom" opposite Abhishek Bachchan, John Abraham, Uday Chopra and Rimi Sen. It was Deol's first action role and she was paired opposite Chopra. The film had a decent opening and became a hit at the box office, becoming the fourth-highest grossing movie at the box office. Deol did not get much scope in the film but her performance earned her a nomination for the IIFA Award for Best Supporting Actress at the 6th IIFA Awards. Critics considered Deol and Rimi Sen's performances to be nothing more than beauties and their purpose was defined as providing sex appeal. Surjyakiran Das of Planet Bollywood wrote "It’s most fitting to mention actresses Esha Deol and Rimi Sen while discussing the music and choreography; they seem to turn up in the film only when the heroes feel like crooning a tune and shaking a leg with a loved one. Both actresses do convincing enough work in their roles, but their real purpose is to provide sex appeal." Rajesh Karkera wrote "Esha Deol and Rimii Sen only need to look beautiful in their limited presence in this sweat 'n' leather flick." After the success of "Dhoom", Deol starred in Krishna Vamsi's war film "Insan" opposite Akshay Kumar, Ajay Devgn, Tusshar Kapoor and Lara Dutta. It was Deol's first release of 2005. The film was a failure at the box office. Her next release was "Main Aisa Hi Hoon". The film was a remake of the critically acclaimed Hollywood movie "I Am Sam" (2001). Deol played a supporting role and earned praise by Patcy N. Subhash K. Jha of "IANS" also praised Deol, writing "Esha Deol as the fey unstable nomadic and maladjusted Maya is a mix of Zeenat Aman in "Hare Rama Hare Krishna" and Anooradha Patel in "Ijaazat". Playing this zonked-out character Esha Deol comes into her own as an actress. Her far-way looks of pain anger neglect and insecurity remain with you long after the film. Yup she too has matured along with Hindi cinema." 2006–08: Critical acclaim. Deol's portrayal of a notorious and vengeful ghost in Ram Gopal Verma's "Darling" (2007) was reviewed positively. Taran Adarsh from "indiaFM" noted that, "Esha Deol is excellent in a role that’s nothing short of a challenge. It would’ve boomeranged had it been entrusted to any inferior actor, but Esha is in terrific form here. This should be the turning point in her career." She is set to star in her mother's next directorial venture with Rekha and Abhishek Bachchan and also a film in which she is cast with her mother which is another attempt by Hema Malini in relauching her daughter career after Tell Me Oh Khuda. 2011–present: Comeback. Deol's next film was "Tell Me O Kkhuda". She portrayed the lead role in the film opposite Rishi Kapoor. She will also appear in Shivam Nair's "Ghost Ghost Na Raha" with Rahul Bose and Ayaz Khan. Personal life. Esha Deol was born in Mumbai, Maharashtra, India on 2 November 1981. She was given the full name of Esha Dharmendra Deol. The name 'Esha' comes from the Upanishads and is derived from the Sanskrit language meaning "the divine beloved". She is the elder daughter of Bollywood actors Dharmendra and Hema Malini. She has a younger sister named Ahana. She is the half-sister of actors Sunny Deol and Bobby Deol and first cousin of actor Abhay Deol. She is part Punjabi and part Tamil and speaks Tamil with her mother and sister. During her school days, she was passionate about football and played as a midfielder. She was the captain of her school football team, represented her college in handball at the state level and was also selected for the Indian national woman's football team. Esha Deol got engaged to her boyfriend Bharat Takhtani, a businessman on 12 February 2012 and married on 29 June 2012.
775742	Up the Yangtze is a 2007 documentary film directed by Chinese-Canadian director Yung Chang. The film focuses on people affected by the building of the Three Gorges Dam across the Yangtze river in Hubei, China. The theme of the film is the transition towards consumer capitalism from a farming, peasant-based economy as China develops its rural areas. The film is a co-production between the National Film Board of Canada and Montreal's EyeSteelFilm with the participation of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, National Geographic Channel, P.O.V., SODEC, and Telefilm. The film is being distributed in the USA by Zeitgeist Films. The United Kingdom distributor is Dogwoof Pictures. Plot summary. The setting of the film is a riverboat cruise ship floating up the Yangtze river. Two young people are the focus of the film as they work aboard the ship. One is a sixteen-year old girl from a particularly poor family living on the banks of the Yangtze near Fengdu, named "Cindy" Yu Shui. She is followed as she leaves her family to work on one of the cruise ships serving wealthy western tourists at the same time as her family is being forced from their home due to the flooding that accompanied the building of the dam. The film shows her acclimatization to the consumer economy of tourism as well as modern technology of the cruise ships, juxtaposed with her family and other older citizens who are displaced from a rural lifestyle to cities where they must pay for the vegetables they used to grow on their own.
1039844	Lisa Harrow (born 25 August 1943) is an actress, noted for her roles in British theatre, films and television. Early life. Harrow was born in Auckland and attended Auckland University. She graduated from RADA in 1968, and joined the BBC Radio's Repertory Company. Theatre. Her stage career started at the Royal Shakespeare Company; roles there included Olivia in John Barton's production of "Twelfth Night" opposite Judi Dench, and Portia in "The Merchant of Venice" opposite Patrick Stewart. Other leading roles in the UK theatre include Juliet opposite John Hurt's Romeo at the Belgrade Theatre in Coventry, and Ann Whitfield in "Man and Superman" opposite Peter O'Toole at the Theatre Royal, Haymarket. Harrow has performed on stage all over America. She took over the central role of Vivian Bearing in the Pulitzer Prize winning play "Wit" in its long-running off-Broadway production in New York. She was named 2001 Performer of the Year in Pittsburgh for Medea. Other roles include: Raynevskya in "The Cherry Orchard" at Yale Rep and the Chautauqua Theatre Company, where she also played Kate Keller in "All My Sons." She played Creusa in the Washington Shakespeare Theatre Company's 3/10/2009–4/12/2009 production of Euripides's Ion. Television and film. She is known for playing Nancy Astor, the first woman elected to the Parliament of Great Britain, in the 1982 BBC drama of the same name; it aired in the PBS series "Masterpiece Theatre" in the United States.
1712266	They Call Me Trinity () also known as My Name Is Trinity, is a 1970 Italian spaghetti western film starring Terence Hill and Bud Spencer.
1117508	Taaalismaan is an upcoming Hindi romantic fantasy adventure film, directed by Ram Madhwani, produced by Vidhu Vinod Chopra and written by Vidhu Vinod Chopra, Ram Madhvani and Swanand Kirkire. Starring Amitabh Bachchan in the leading role. It is based on the epic novel "Chandrakanta" written by Devaki Nandan Khatri in 1892. As of May 2012, the movie has been shelved owing to finance issues.
584125	Abhiyum Naanum () is a 2008 Tamil feature film produced by Prakash Raj and directed by Radha Mohan. The movie featured Prakash Raj in the central character with Trisha Krishnan in the lead role as his daughter while Aishwarya and Ganesh Venkatraman play supporting roles. Vidyasagar scored the music for the film, while the film was launched in October 2007 and released on 19 December 2008. The film was released in Telugu as "Aakasamantha" with a few reshot scenes in 2009 and was remade into Kannada as "Naanu Nanna Kanasu" in 2010. This film opened to critical acclaim and won several awards, including the ITFA Best Movie Award. It is said to have been inspired by the Hollywood film "Father of the Bride". As of 2010, a Hindi remake was reported to have been planned. Plot. During a walk to the park Raghuraman (Prakash Raj) meets Sudhakar (Prithviraj Sukumaran) and tells him about daughter Abhi (Trisha Krishnan). Raghuraman is the loving husband of Anu (Aishwarya Sivachandran) and the worrisome as well as caring father of his only daughter Abhi. Together they live a calm and content life in Ooty. Also living with them is "Ravi Shastri" (Elango Kumaravel) who was earlier a beggar and was adopted by Abhi. Raghuraman and Abhi become best friends. Over the years as Abhi grows up, Raghuraman has the joy of being a part of her life. When Abhi gets accepted in a prestigious college in New Delhi, Raghuraman is shocked. Although the thought of being separated from his daughter for two whole years is heartbreaking, Raghuraman wearily accepts. After returning from college, Abhi tells her parents that she has fallen in love with a young man in Delhi. Anu is perfectly all right with the idea, but Raghuraman is angry and scared. He shouts at Abi and does not talk to her properly. Anu later informs Raghuraman that their future son-in-law will be arriving by flight and staying with them for a while. As soon as Raghuraman meets his future son-in-law, Joginder Singh (Ganesh Venkatraman), he is taken aback because Joginder is a Sikh. After many conflicts with Abhi and Anu, Raghuraman finally realizes that Joginder is self-sacrificing and quite talented, more so when on one occasion the Prime Minister calls him for advice. Abhi and Joginder get married and leave for Delhi. Anu and Abhi get teary-eyed, but Raghuraman stays calm. This is very surprising, because he was the one that had cried on his daughter's first day to school. Raghuraman tells Sudhakar that he still stays in touch with his daughter and often gets to see her. Sudhakar understands how Raghuraman feels, because he has a baby daughter himself. The movie ends with a phone call from Abhi. Soundtrack. The songs and background music have been composed by Vidyasagar. Reception. "Abhiyum Naanum" received positive to mixed reviews from critics. Pavithra Srinivasan of "Rediff" said, "For fathers who love their daughters, this is your pick. Definitely worth a watch." and rated the film 3 out of 5. "IndiaGlitz" said, "Though the story unfolds in a slow pace towards the climax and there are few scenes which reminds one of watching a soap show, Abhiyum Nanum stands out for it is a quality entertainer which can be watched by the whole family". Malathi Rangarajan of "The Hindu" said, "Watch it for its natural treatment". "Sify" said, "Frankly speaking, the Prakash Raj- Radha Mohan combo's Abhiyum Naanum is nowhere in the league of their previous oeuvre Mozhi. With a touching title like that, one would have thought the director would have a more solid script, but somehow it fails to strike a chord like their earlier film." but added that "If you are still looking for a different kind of cinematic experience, then, it’s worth a look." "Behindwoods" rated the film 2 out of 5, saying "Abhiyum Naanum – sparkles in bits and pieces" and that it was "likely to suffer commercially". Awards. "Abhiyum Naanum" won the following awards:
1058082	I Shot Andy Warhol is a 1996 independent film about the life of Valerie Solanas and her relationship with Andy Warhol. The movie marked the debut of Canadian director Mary Harron. The film stars Lili Taylor as Valerie, Jared Harris as Andy Warhol and Martha Plimpton as Valerie's friend Stevie. Stephen Dorff plays Warhol superstar Candy Darling. John Cale of the Velvet Underground wrote the film's score despite protests from former band member Lou Reed. Yo La Tengo plays an anonymous band that is somewhat reminiscent of the group. The film was screened in the "Un Certain Regard" section at the 1996 Cannes Film Festival. Plot. The film opens with a flashforward to moments after the shooting. This is quickly followed by a scene with Valerie Solanas (Lili Taylor) in custody for the shooting of Andy Warhol (Jared Harris). The film then takes us back to a time when Valerie is living in New York and prostituting herself for a living. A series of further flashbacks point to her difficult childhood, and success in studying psychology at college. Here, Valerie discovers that she is a lesbian, that she can write and that she has a distinctive view of the world. This leads her to New York City and its downtown underworld. Through her friend Stevie (Martha Plimpton), she meets Candy Darling (Stephen Dorff), who in turn introduces her to Andy Warhol. Meanwhile, Valerie also meets Maurice Girodias (Lothaire Bluteau), the publisher of Olympia Press. While Valerie wants Warhol to produce her play, "Up Your Ass", Girodias wants her to write a pornographic novel for him. Once she signs a contract with Girodias, she comes to suspect his offer is not a generous one and may not be in her interests. She comes to regret signing this contract. At this point, her increasing derangement leads her to believe that Warhol and Girodias are controlling her. The film concludes, where it began, with Solanas' attempted murder of Warhol. The film then steps ten years into the future, where Warhol gets frightened when he sees Valerie by a near car staring angrily at him while he and some friends are entering a nightclub, and finds that she suddenly disappears once a bus passes the car. Background. Initially intended as a BBC documentary, the film was directed by Mary Harron who also co-wrote the screenplay with Daniel Minahan.
1042816	Sylvia May Laura Syms OBE (born 6 January 1934) is an English actress, best known for her roles in the films "Woman in a Dressing Gown" (1957), "Ice Cold in Alex" (1958), "No Trees in the Street" (1959), "Victim" (1961) and "The Tamarind Seed" (1974). She remains active in films, television and theatre. Personal life. Syms was born in Woolwich, London, England, the daughter of Daisy ("née" Hale) and Edwin Syms, a trade unionist and civil servant. She was educated at The Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London, on whose council she later served. Her daughter Beatie Edney is also an actress, and she is the aunt of musicians Nick and Alex Webb. Career. In her second film, "My Teenage Daughter" (1954), she played Anna Neagle's troubled daughter. In 1958, she appeared in the film "Ice Cold in Alex" (alongside John Mills, Anthony Quayle and Harry Andrews); that same year she appeared in the English Civil War film, "The Moonraker". In 1962, she played Tony Hancock's wife in "The Punch and Judy Man". The film also featured her nephew, Nick Webb. Other comedies followed, such as "The Big Job" (1965) with Hancock's former co-star Sid James, but it was for drama that she won acclaim, including "The Tamarind Seed" (1974) with Julie Andrews and Omar Sharif, for which she was nominated for a British Film Academy award. "My Good Woman" in 1972 was a husband-and-wife television comedy series which ran until 1974 with Leslie Crowther. At the same time, she was one of two team captains on the BBC's weekly "Movie Quiz", hosted by Robin Ray. In 1975, she was the head of the jury at the 25th Berlin International Film Festival. In 1989, Syms appeared in the "Doctor Who" story "Ghost Light". Shortly after the end of British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher period of office in 1990, Syms portrayed her in "" (1991), a Granada television film for ITV, which dramatises the events surrounding her removal from power. She later recreated the role on the stage. From 2000–03, she played Marion Riley in the ITV comedy-drama series "At Home with the Braithwaites" and in 2002, she featured in the serial "The Jury" and contributed "Sonnet 142" to the compilation album "When Love Speaks". For Stephen Frears' "The Queen" (2006), she was cast in the role of Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother with Dame Helen Mirren who, as her daughter, won an Oscar for her performance. She also appeared in "The Poseidon Adventure" (2005), an American TV movie with a negligible connection to the 1972 feature film. She has also taken up producing and directing. In 2009, she appeared in the film "Is Anybody There?" alongside Michael Caine and Anne-Marie Duff and in the ITV1 drama series "Collision". In 2010, she guest-starred as a patient in BBC1's drama series "Casualty", having played a different character in an episode from 2007. Syms had also appeared as another character in "Casualty"'s sister series "Holby City" in 2003. Since 2007, Syms has had a recurring role in BBC1's "EastEnders", playing dressmaker Olive Woodhouse. Her most recent appearance in the role was on 20 July 2010. In 2010, Syms took part in the BBC's "The Young Ones", a series in which six celebrities in their seventies and eighties attempted to overcome some of the problems of ageing by harking back to the 1970s.
1071692	Plot. Tomoya Kishida (Hayato Ichihara) is working as a staffer in a television studio when he hears about the death of his close friend, Aoi Sato (Juri Ueno). This sparks his recollection of the events in life they shared from meeting at a record store, shooting a short film as part of their university film club, to saying their last goodbyes. Though in love with each other, neither had the courage to confess their feelings before it was too late.
1165633	Bert Freed (November 3, 1919 — August 2, 1994) was a prolific American character actor, voice over actor, and the first actor to portray "Detective Columbo" on television. Life and career. Born and raised in The Bronx, New York, Freed began acting while attending Penn State University, and made his Broadway debut in 1942. Following World War II Army service in the European Theatre, he appeared in the Broadway musical "The Day Before Spring" in 1945 and dozens of television shows between 1947 and 1985. His film debut occurred, oddly enough, in a musical "Carnegie Hall" (1947). A prominent role was as the villainous Ryker in the television series "Shane", in which Freed added a unique touch of realism by beginning the show clean-shaven and growing a beard from one week to the next, never shaving again through the season.
1059603	The Express (also known as The Express: The Ernie Davis Story) is a 2008 American sports film produced by John Davis and directed by Gary Fleder. The storyline was conceived from a screenplay written by Charles Leavitt from a book titled "Ernie Davis: The Elmira Express", authored by Robert C. Gallagher. The film is based on the life of Syracuse University football player Ernie Davis, the first African American to win the Heisman Trophy, portrayed by actor Rob Brown. "The Express" explores civil topics, such as racism, discrimination and athletics.
1104499	Sathamangalam Ranga Iyengar Srinivasa Varadhan FRS (born 2 January 1940) is an Indian American mathematician who is known for his fundamental contributions to probability theory and in particular for creating a unified theory of large deviations. He is also the Jury Chair for the Infosys Prize 2013 for the discipline of Mathematical Sciences. Early life and education. Srinivasa Varadhan, known also as Raghu to friends, was born in Chennai (previously Madras) in 1940. Varadhan received his undergraduate degree in 1959 from Presidency College, Madras, and then moved to the Indian Statistical Institute in Kolkata. He was one of the "famous four" (the others were R. Ranga Rao, K. R. Parthasarathy, and Veeravalli S. Varadarajan ) in ISI during 1956-1963. He received his doctorate from ISI in 1963 under C. R. Rao, who arranged for Andrey Kolmogorov to be present at Varadhan's thesis defense. Since 1963, he has worked at the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences at New York University, where he was at first a postdoctoral fellow (1963–66), strongly recommended by Monroe D. Donsker. Here he met Daniel Stroock, who became a close colleague and co-author. In an article in the "Notices of the American Mathematical Society", Stroock recalls these early years: “Varadhan, whom everyone calls Raghu, came to these shores from his native India in the fall of 1963. He arrived by plane at Idlewild Airport and proceeded to Manhattan by bus. His destination was that famous institution with the modest name, The Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences, where he had been given a postdoctoral fellowship. Varadhan was assigned to one of the many windowless offices in the Courant building, which used to be a hat factory. Yet despite the somewhat humble surroundings, from these offices flowed a remarkably large fraction of the postwar mathematics of which America is justly proud.” Varadhan is currently a professor at the Courant Institute. He is known for his work with Daniel W. Stroock on diffusion processes, and for his work on large deviations with Monroe D. Donsker. Varadhan is married to Vasundra Varadhan who is also an academic (in media studies in the Gallatin School of Individualized Study). They have two sons, one of whom died in the September 11 attacks in 2001. His other son, Ashok, is a trader in New York City. Awards and honours. 's awards and honours include the National Medal of Science (2010) from President Barack Obama, "the highest honor bestowed by the United States government on scientists, engineers and inventors". He received also the Birkhoff Prize (1994), the Margaret and Herman Sokol Award of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, New York University (1995), and the Leroy P. Steele Prize for Seminal Contribution to Research (1996) from the American Mathematical Society, awarded for his work with Daniel W. Stroock on diffusion processes. He was awarded the Abel Prize in 2007 for his work on large deviations with Monroe D. Donsker. In 2008, the Government of India awarded him the Padma Bhushan. He also has two honorary degrees from Université Pierre et Marie Curie in Paris (2003) and from Indian Statistical Institute in Kolkata, India (2004). Varadhan is a member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences (1995), and the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters (2009). He was elected to Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1988), the Third World Academy of Sciences (1988), the Institute of Mathematical Statistics (1991), the Royal Society (1998), the Indian Academy of Sciences (2004), the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (2009), and the American Mathematical Society (2012).
1057947	The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit, by Sloan Wilson, is a 1955 novel about the American search for purpose in a world dominated by business. Tom and Betsy Rath share a struggle to find contentment in their hectic and material culture while several other characters fight essentially the same battle, but struggle in it for different reasons. In the end, it is a story of taking responsibility for one's own life. The book was largely autobiographical, drawing on Wilson's experiences as assistant director of the U.S. National Citizen Commission for Public Schools. The novel was made into a movie in 1956, starring Gregory Peck and Jennifer Jones as Tom and Betsy Rath, with Fredric March, Lee J. Cobb, Keenan Wynn and Marisa Pavan in supporting roles. (March plays Tom Rath's boss, a character based on Roy Larsen, Wilson's boss at Time, Inc.) It was entered at the 1956 Cannes Film Festival. Both movie and book became hugely popular. The novel continues to appear in the references of sociologists to America's discontented businessman. Columnist Bob Greene wrote, "The title of Sloan Wilson's best-selling novel became part of the American vernacular—the book was a ground-breaking fictional look at conformity in the executive suite, and it was a piece of writing that helped the nation's business community start to examine the effects of its perceived stodginess and sameness."
1056877	Beginners is a 2010 American romantic comedy-drama film written and directed by Mike Mills. It tells the story of Oliver, a man reflecting on the life and death of his father, Hal, while trying to forge a new romantic relationship with a woman, Anna, dealing with father issues of her own. "Beginners" premiered at the 2010 Toronto International Film Festival, where the "Los Angeles Times" heralded it as a "heady, heartfelt film" with a cast who has "a strong sense of responsibility to their real-world counterparts". Plummer received numerous accolades, including the 2011 Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, for his performance. Plot. The film is structured as a series of interconnected flashbacks. Following the death of his father Hal, Oliver reflects on their relationship following the death of Oliver's mother, Georgia. Shortly after her death, Hal came out to his son and began exploring life as an openly gay man. He becomes active in the gay community, finds love and becomes more honest with himself and with his son. As a result, Oliver and Hal become closer during this time. Shortly after Hal's death, Oliver meets Anna, a French actress, at a party. Inspired by his father's attitude towards the end of his life and their relationship, Oliver decides to pursue a romance with her. Production. The film is based on the true-life coming out of Mills' father at the age of 75, five years before his death. With cinematography by Kasper Tuxen, "Beginners" was filmed with the Red One digital camera. The 'Siedem Razy Kobieta' poster on the wall in Oliver's dining room is from the Polish language version of the 1967 Shirley MacLaine film "Woman Times Seven". Reception. The film has received positive reviews upon release. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, "Beginners" received an average score of 81, based on 36 reviews, which indicates "universal acclaim reviews". Roger Ebert of the "Chicago Sun-Times" gave the film three-and-a-half stars out of four, saying, "It's a hopeful fable with deep optimism and a cheerful style that kids itself." Allrovi (All Media Guide) called it "a life-affirming drama" and gave the film four-and-a-half stars out of five. Accolades. "Beginners" won the 2011 Gotham Award for Best Feature, shared with "The Tree of Life". Christopher Plummer won a Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor in a Motion Picture 2012, and the Denver Film Critics Society Award, the Los Angeles Film Critics Association Award, the National Board of Review Award and the Online Film Critics Award, all for Best Supporting Actor.
1062017	Robert William "Bob" Hoskins, Jr. (born 26 October 1942) is a retired English actor known for playing Cockneys and gangsters. He has appeared in films such as "The Long Good Friday" (1980), "Mona Lisa" (1986), "Who Framed Roger Rabbit" (1988), "Hook" (1991), and "Neverland" (2011). Hoskins was the recipient of the prestigious Prix d'interprétation masculine as well as winning the BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role and Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Drama for his role in "Mona Lisa" and an International Emmy Award for best actor for his appearance on BBC One drama "The Street" in 2009. Early life. Hoskins was born in Bury St Edmunds, West Suffolk, the son of Elsie Lillian (née Hopkins), a cook and nursery school teacher, and Robert William Hoskins, Sr., a bookkeeper and lorry driver. One of Hoskins' grandmothers was a Romani of the British Romanis. From the age of two weeks old, he was brought up in Finsbury Park, London. Hoskins left school at the age of 15 with a single O-Level and worked as a porter, lorry driver and window cleaner. He worked on a three-year accountancy course but dropped out. Career. Hoskins' acting career began in 1969 at the Unity Theatre. One evening, he was waiting in the Unity Theatre bar for his friend, the actor Roger Frost, to finish an audition. Whilst drinking at the bar, he was given a script and told "You're next." He got the part, with Frost ending up his understudy. Frost recalled that "Bob was a natural. He just got up on stage and was brilliant." His first major television role was in "On the Move" (1976), an educational series intended to tackle adult illiteracy, in which he played Alf, a removal man who had problems reading and writing. In the same year, he came to wider attention in the original BBC version of Dennis Potter's drama "Pennies from Heaven" as sheet music salesman Arthur Parker. Later, he played Iago in Jonathan Miller's BBC Television Shakespeare production of "Othello". Hoskins' performances in British films such as "The Long Good Friday" (1980) and "Mona Lisa" (1986) won him the wider approval of the critics and, in the case of the latter, a Cannes Award, Best Actor Golden Globe and BAFTA Awards and an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor. He also delivered comic turns in Terry Gilliam's "Brazil" (1985) and "Super Mario Bros." (1993). Hoskins was not initially aware that "Super Mario Bros." was based on the popular video game of the same name. His son had asked him what film he was working on, and recognising it, showed Hoskins the video game on the Nintendo video game console. In a 2007 interview with "The Guardian", Hoskins spoke of his regret at appearing in "Super Mario Bros.". He revealed that despite being praised for his performance on the film, he was extremely unhappy with the film and was greatly angered by his experiences making it, referring to it as the "worst thing I ever did". During the late 1980s and early 1990s he appeared in advertising for the recently privatised companies of British Gas and British Telecom (now BT Group). Hoskins had a small role as a rock band's manager in the Pink Floyd film "The Wall". He was slated to be a last-minute replacement in the film "The Untouchables" if star Robert De Niro had not decided to play Al Capone. When De Niro took the part, director Brian De Palma mailed Hoskins a cheque for £20,000 with a ""Thank You"" note, which prompted Hoskins to call up De Palma and ask him if there were any more movies he didn't want him to be in. Hoskins appeared in "Who Framed Roger Rabbit" (1988), for which he received a second Golden Globe nomination. Some of Hoskins' other notable appearances include playing opposite Cher in "Mermaids" (1990), boatswain Smee to Captain Hook in "Hook" (1991), and as the same character in "Neverland" (2011), and Uncle Bart, the psychopathic and violent "owner" of Jet Li in "Unleashed" aka "Danny The Dog". He has also performed in several television productions for the BBC, including Dennis Potter's "Pennies From Heaven", "Flickers", "David Copperfield" as Wilkins Micawber (1999), and "The Wind in the Willows" (2006). He played Nikita Khrushchev as a political commissar in the film "Enemy at the Gates" (2001). He received a Golden Globe nomination for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in "Mrs Henderson Presents", a film he also produced with Norma Heyman. Hoskins has also directed two films, both of which he starred in; "The Raggedy Rawney" (1988) and "Rainbow" (1996). In 2009, Hoskins made a return to British television in Jimmy McGovern's drama serial "The Street", where he played a publican who stands up to a local gangster. For this role he received his first Emmy when he won Best Actor at the 2010 International Emmys. On 8 August 2012, Hoskins announced his retirement from acting after being diagnosed with Parkinson's disease in 2011. Personal life. Hoskins' father was a communist and brought up Hoskins as an atheist, but Hoskins now describes himself as an agnostic. In 1967, aged 25, Hoskins spent a short period of time volunteering in kibbutz Zikim in Israel. In an interview, when asked what he owed his parents, he said, "Confidence. My mum used to say to me, 'If somebody doesn't like you, fuck 'em, they've got bad taste.'" When asked which living person he most despised, Hoskins named Tony Blair and claimed that "he's done even more damage than Thatcher". He made light of his similarities with film actor Danny DeVito, who he joked would play him in a film about his life. Hoskins announced his retirement from acting on 8 August 2012, due to his ongoing battle with Parkinson's disease.
584366	Arasatchi is a Tamil language film released in 2004. The film was directed by then debutante, N Maharajan. The film starred Arjun, Lara Dutta and Raghuvaran in the lead roles. Vivek as the comedian, Lakshmi and Manivannan all play in other roles. The film's music was composed by Harris Jayaraj. The film released in November 2004 became a super hit in most areas raising business for the lead actors.It was dubbed into Telugu as "Judgement" and in Hindi as "Ghatak The Destroyer". Plot. Anandraj a lawyer who argues for rapists and murderers is killed by a cricket ball hit by Arjun. Arjun is a GM of a five star hotel owned by S V Shekar. Shekar’s daughter is Lara Dutta who is introduced with a sexy song. She comes from abroad to join her dad’s hotel but only as a traineee under the macho GM. Within no time Lara is in love with Arjun. It’s now time for duets . Lara’s friend Karan is a campaigner of public cause. His efforts lead to a brothel raid and a minister getting arrested. The minister’s goons bump off Karan and Arjun is an eyewitness. Arjun refuses to testify and Lara walks out on him. Charanraj pleads for the killer and lets him off. Arjun bumps off Charanraj. Nazar a military officer is a witness to the murder. Nazar even postpones his heart operation till the killer is nabbed. Arjun now tells his story of why he is on a hunt of the lawyers who plead for the bad guys. Nazar gives up his mission. Next Devan takes a brief for a rapist and he too is killed. Next is the turn of Raghuvaran who comes from Delhi. The surprise element is that Raghuvaran is the brother in law of Arjun. Raghuvaran’s wife is the long lost sister of Arjun. Now the brother- sister sentiment comes into play. Finally the story ends with Raghuvaran being shot dead by Arjun in the court premises. The police open fire and bystanders form a human wall and get shot at. Arjun tells TV crew about how his mission has spread to the masses. Production. After the success of "Vallarasu" Maharajan was supposed to direct Vijaykanth in another project but later got dropped and Maharajan went on to remake Vallarasu in Hindi as "Indian" with Sunny Deol. Meanwhile, Maharajan announced his next project "Arasatchi" with Arjun playing the lead role. Miss Universe 2000 Lara Dutta made her acting debut in Tamil with this film. The film boasts of 14 villains played by Raghuvaran, Karan, Anandraj, Nasser, Nambiar, Ponnambalam, Delhi Ganesh, Mansur Alikhan, Devan, Rajan P Dev and Manivannan among others. Uma, Abitha, Vindhya and P Vasu play crucial roles in the film. The filming was held at Le Royal Meridian Hotel, Chennai and the songs were picturised at locations in London, New Zealand and Canada. The movie was completed in 2003 but got delayed due to financial problems and finally released in 2004, in between production delays Maharajan finished "Anjaneya" with Ajith. Release. Before release, poster featuring tagline "When Justice Fails" created controversy which caused a lawyer to file a case citing that the film would portray lawyers in bad light. After one week, case was finally won. Soundtrack. The soundtrack and background score was composed by Harris Jayaraj. lyrics written by Na. Muthukumar, Thamarai, Viveka & Snehan.
323469	The Sensation of Sight is a feature film produced by independent film company Either/Or Films. Shot in 2005 and completed in 2006, it was written and directed by Aaron Wiederspahn and stars David Strathairn, Ian Somerhalder, Daniel Gillies, Jane Adams, Ann Cusack, Elisabeth Waterston, Joseph Mazzello, and Scott Wilson.
1058159	Gregory Andrew "Greg" Germann (born February 26, 1958) is an American actor. He played the roles of Richard Fish in the television series "Ally McBeal", businessman Mattson from "Child's Play 2" and the vet Laurence from "Quarantine". He has also appeared in the Nickelodeon musical film "Spectacular!", "Friends with Money" and the Disney film "Bolt". Life and career. Germann was born in Houston, and raised on the Lookout Mountain outside of Golden, Colorado. His mother, Marlene Marian (née Faulkner), was a homemaker, and his father, Edward A. Germann, was a playwright and professor. Germann became a theater major at the University of Northern Colorado. He began acting in New York theatre including "Assassins", "The Person I Once Was" (opposite Holly Hunter) and "War Games". He has had roles in numerous movies and television shows, including the American sitcom "Ned and Stacey". In 2006, he guest-starred on the ABC series, "Desperate Housewives". Germann directed a few "Ally McBeal" episodes, including "Fear of Flirting" (season 5, episode 4). He appeared on ABC's "In Case of Emergency" as Sherman Yablonsky until it was canceled after one season and also in the pilot episode of "Eureka" as the director of operations, Warren King. He did not reprise the role, and his character's disappearance was explained in the official comic book as having been reassigned to Alaska. Germann now lives in Barcelona with 12 year old son Asa. He enjoys fishing and traveling in his free time off from acting. Germann has appeared in "NCIS" since the Season 10 episode, "Shiva", playing NCIS Assistant Director Jerome Craig. Later, in the episode, "Canary", he briefly took over the agency while the Director at the time was on temporary leave following a family tragedy. Germann has appeared in "" in the Season 14 episode, "Undercover Blue", playing
1059558	Richard Roundtree (born July 9, 1942) is an American actor and former fashion model. He is best known for his portrayal of private detective John Shaft in the 1971 film "Shaft" and in its two sequels, "Shaft's Big Score" (1972) and "Shaft in Africa" (1973). Personal life. Born in New Rochelle, New York, Richard Roundtree graduated from New Rochelle High School in 1961 and starred on New Rochelle High's undefeated and nationally ranked football team in 1960. He attended Southern Illinois University Carbondale. Roundtree was diagnosed with the rare form of male breast cancer in 1993 and underwent a double mastectomy and chemotherapy. Career. Roundtree was a leading man in early 1970s blaxploitation films, his best-known role being Detective John Shaft in the hugely popular action movie "Shaft". Roundtree also appeared opposite Laurence Olivier and Ben Gazzara in "Inchon" (1981). On television he played the slave Sam Bennett in the 1977 television series "Roots" and Dr. Daniel Reubens on "Generations" from 1989-1991. Prior to becoming an actor, he was a football player and a model. Although Roundtree worked through the 1990s, many of his more recent films were not well-received, but he was able to find success in stage plays. Since 1990, however, he reemerged as a cultural icon. On September 19, 1991, Roundtree appeared on an episode of "Beverly Hills, 90210" with Vivica A. Fox. The episode was "Ashes to Ashes". Roundtree was playing Robinson Ashe Jr. Roundtree appeared in David Fincher's critically acclaimed 1995 movie "Seven", the 2000 "Shaft" again as the John Shaft with Samuel L. Jackson playing the titular character, the original Shaft's namesake nephew. Roundtree guest-starred in several episodes of the first season of "Desperate Housewives" as an amoral private detective. He also appeared in 1997's "George of the Jungle", as well as playing a high-school vice principal in the 2005 movie "Brick". His voice was also utilized as the title character in the hit PlayStation game "Akuji the Heartless", where Akuji must battle his way out of the depths of hell at the bidding of the Baron. In 1997, Roundtree had a leading role in the short-lived FOX ensemble drama "413 Hope St." He portrayed Booker T. Washington in the 1999 television movie "". Then in 1999 and 2000, he costarred with Dick Van Patten, Richard Anderson, Deborah Winters, and Hugh O'Brian in the Warren Chaney miniseries, "Y2K - World in Crisis". He has appeared in the television series "The Closer" as Colonel D.B. Walter U.S.M.C. (retired) father of a sniper and in "Heroes" as Simone's terminally ill father, Charles Deveaux. Next, he appeared as Eddie's father-in-law in episodes of "Lincoln Heights". Most recently, Roundtree has a supporting role in the 2008 "Speed Racer" film as a racer-turned-commentator who is an icon and hero to Speed. He also appeared in the two-parter in Season 1 of the Second Generation of "Knight Rider" as the father of FBI Agent Carrie Ravai.
1034463	Richard Gilbert "Dick" Emery (19 February 1915 – 2 January 1983) was an English comedian and actor. Beginning on radio in the 1950s, an eponymous television series ran from 1963 to 1981.
1267987	Tod Browning (born Charles Albert Browning, Jr.; July 12, 1880 – October 6, 1962) was an American motion picture actor, director and screenwriter. Browning's career spanned the silent and talkie eras. Best known as the director of "Dracula" (1931), the cult classic "Freaks" (1932), and classic silent film collaborations with Lon Chaney, Browning directed many movies in a wide range of genres. Early life. He was born Charles Albert Browning, Jr., in Louisville, Kentucky, the second son of Charles Albert and Lydia Browning, and the nephew of baseball star Pete Browning. As a young boy, he put on amateur plays in his backyard. He was fascinated by the circus and carnival life, and at the age of 16 he ran away from his well-to-do family to become a performer. Changing his name to "Tod", he traveled extensively with sideshows, carnivals, and circuses. His jobs included working as a talker (barker, as the term is also known, is not correct) for the Wild Man of Borneo, performing a live burial act in which he was billed as "The Living Corpse", and performing as a clown with the Ringling Brothers Circus. He would draw on this experience as inspiration for some of his film work. He performed in vaudeville as an actor, magician and dancer. He appeared in the "Mutt and Jeff" and "The Lizard and the Coon" acts, and in a blackface act titled "The Wheel of Mirth" alongside comedian Charles Murray. Beginnings of a film career. Later, while Browning was working as director of a variety theater in New York, he met D. W. Griffith also from Louisville. He began acting along with Murray on single-reel nickelodeon comedies for Griffith and the Biograph Company. In 1913 Griffith split from Biograph and moved to California. Browning followed and continued to act in Griffith's films, now for Reliance-Majestic Studios, including a stint as an extra in the epic "Intolerance". Around that time he began directing, eventually directing 11 short films for Reliance-Majestic. Between 1913 and 1919, Browning would appear as an actor in approximately fifty motion pictures. In June 1915, he crashed his car at full speed into a moving train. His passengers were film actors Elmer Booth and George Siegmann. Booth was killed instantly, while Seigmann and Browning suffered serious injuries, including in Browning's case a shattered right leg and the loss of his front teeth. During his convalescence, Browning wrote scripts, and did not return to active film work until 1917. Booth's sister, Margaret Booth later a famous MGM editor, never forgave Browning for the loss of her brother. Silent feature films. Browning's feature film debut was "Jim Bludso" (1917), about a riverboat captain who sacrifices himself to save his passengers from a fire. It was well received. Browning moved back to New York in 1917. He directed two films for Metro Studios, "Peggy, the Will O' the Wisp" and "The Jury of Fate". Both starred Mabel Taliaferro, the latter in a dual role achieved with double exposure techniques that were groundbreaking for the time. He moved back to California in 1918 and produced two more films for Metro, "The Eyes of Mystery" and "Revenge". In the spring of 1918 he left Metro and joined Bluebird Productions, a subsidiary of Universal Pictures, where he met Irving Thalberg. Thalberg paired Browning with Lon Chaney for the first time for the film "The Wicked Darling" (1919), a melodrama in which Chaney played a thief who forces a poor girl from the slums into a life of crime and possibly prostitution. Browning and Chaney would ultimately make ten films together over the next decade. The death of his father sent Browning into a depression that led to alcoholism. He was laid off by Universal and his wife left him. However, he recovered, reconciled with his wife, and got a one-picture contract with Goldwyn Pictures. The film he produced for Goldwyn, "The Day of Faith", was a moderate success, putting his career back on track. Thalberg reunited Browning with Lon Chaney for "The Unholy Three" (1925), the story of three circus performers who concoct a scheme to con and steal jewels from rich people using disguises. Browning's circus experience shows in his sympathetic portrayal of the antiheroes. The film was a resounding success, so much so that it was later remade in 1930 as Lon Chaney's first (and only) talkie shortly before his death later that same year. Browning and Chaney embarked on a series of popular collaborations, including "The Blackbird" and "The Road to Mandalay". "The Unknown" (1927), featuring Chaney as an armless knife thrower and Joan Crawford as his scantily clad carnival girl obsession, was originally titled "Alonzo the Armless" and could be considered a precursor to "Freaks" in that it concerns a love triangle involving a circus freak, a beauty, and a strongman. "London After Midnight" (1927) was Browning's first foray into the vampire genre and is a highly sought-after lost film which starred Chaney, Conrad Nagel, and Marceline Day. The last known print of "London After Midnight" was destroyed in an MGM studio fire in 1967. In 2002, a photographic reconstruction of "London After Midnight" was produced by Rick Schmidlin for Turner Classic Movies. Browning and Chaney's final collaboration was "Where East is East" (1929), of which only incomplete prints have survived. Browning's first talkie was "The Thirteenth Chair" (1929), which was also released as a silent and featured Bela Lugosi, who had a leading part as the uncanny inspector, Delzante, solving the mystery with the aid of the spirit medium. This film was directed shortly after Browning's vacation trip to Germany (arriving in the Port of New York, November 12, 1929). Talkies. After Chaney's death in 1930, Browning was hired by his old employer Universal Pictures to direct "Dracula" (1931). Although Browning wanted to hire an unknown European actor for the title role and have him be mostly offscreen as a sinister presence, budget constraints and studio interference necessitated the casting of Bela Lugosi and a more straightforward approach. Although the film is now considered a classic, at the time Universal was unhappy with it and preferred the Spanish-language version filmed on the same sets at night. After directing the boxing melodrama "Iron Man" (1931), Browning began work on "Freaks" (1932). Based on the short story "Spurs" by Clarence Aaron "Tod" Robbins, the screenwriter of "The Unholy Three", the film concerns a love triangle between a wealthy dwarf, a gold-digging aerialist, and a strongman; a murder plot; and the vengeance dealt out by the dwarf and his fellow circus freaks. The film was highly controversial, even after heavy editing to remove many disturbing scenes, and was a commercial failure and banned in the United Kingdom for thirty years. His career derailed, Browning found himself unable to get his requested projects greenlighted. After directing the drama "Fast Workers" (1933) starring John Gilbert, who was also not in good standing with the studio, he was allowed to direct a remake of "London After Midnight", originally titled "Vampires of Prague" but later retitled "Mark of the Vampire" (1935). In the remake, the roles played by Lon Chaney in the original were split between Lionel Barrymore and Béla Lugosi (spoofing his Dracula image). After that, Browning directed "The Devil-Doll" (1936), originally titled "The Witch of Timbuctoo", from his own script. The picture starred Lionel Barrymore as an escapee from an island prison who avenges himself on the people who imprisoned him using living "dolls" who are actually people shrunk to doll-size and magically placed under Barrymore's hypnotic control. Browning's final film was the murder mystery "Miracles for Sale" (1939).
1063575	"Airport '77" is a 1977 disaster film and second sequel in the "Airport" franchise. The film stars a number of veteran actors, including Jack Lemmon, James Stewart, Joseph Cotten, Christopher Lee and Olivia de Havilland. Like its predecessors, "Airport '77" was a box office hit earning $30 million, making the film the 19th highest-grossing picture of 1977. It was nominated for two Academy Awards and was directed by Jerry Jameson. Plot. A privately owned luxury Boeing 747-100, Stevens' Flight 23 (call sign two-three Sierra) complete with piano bar, office, and bedroom, is used to fly invited guests to an estate in Palm Beach, Florida owned by wealthy philanthropist Philip Stevens (James Stewart). Valuable artwork from Stevens's private collection is also on board the jetliner, to be eventually displayed in his new museum. Such a collection motivates a group of thieves led by co-pilot Bob Chambers (Robert Foxworth) to hijack the aircraft in the hopes of landing it on an abandoned airfield on St. George Island. Once Captain Don Gallagher (Jack Lemmon) leaves the cockpit and is knocked unconscious, the hijackers' plans go into motion. A sleeping gas is released into the cabin and the passengers lose consciousness. Knocking out the flight engineer, Chambers puts the plan in motion, and Stevens' Flight 23 "disappears" into the Bermuda Triangle. Descending to virtual wave-top altitude, Flight 23 heads into a fog bank, reducing visibility to less than a mile. Minutes later, a large offshore drilling platform emerges from the haze, Flight 23 heading straight for it at close to 600 knots. Chambers pulls back on the yoke in a banking left turn but the engine number 4 clips the derrick, causing the engine to catch fire. Chambers immediately hits the fire extinguishing button and flames are momentarily extinguished. However, because the aircraft is at such a low altitude, the sudden loss of airspeed threatens to stall the airplane. As the engine reignites, Chambers is forced to use another fire-suppression bottle. But by this time, the aircraft stall alarm goes off and the aircraft's tail hits the water. All the passengers wake up, and most start to scream and panic. Chambers is able to pull up, but soon the plane's right wing hits the water again, and the plane lifts into the air for another moment, then hitting the water again. Because of the impact being so hard, the plane becomes grounded in the ocean. Eventually, the plane begins to slip beneath the waves. The ocean bottom is fortunately above the crush-depth of the fuselage. Many of the passengers are injured, some seriously. Two of the would-be thieves are killed in the initial crash. Banker (Monte Markham) is in the hold securing the art for the transfer when a cargo container causes a breach of the outer skin, crushing and drowning him. The second fatality is Wilson (Michael Pataki), who is killed when he is slammed into the flight panel on impact. Since the aircraft was off course, search and rescue efforts are focused in the wrong area. Involved in these efforts are Phillip Stevens and Joe Patroni (George Kennedy, who appears in all "Airport" movies). The only way to signal rescue efforts to the proper region is to get a signal buoy to the surface in a small dinghy. Captain Gallagher and diver Martin Wallace (Christopher Lee) enter the main cargo in the attempt, but an unexpected triggering of the hatch crushes Wallace. Gallagher, out of oxygen provided by the reserve mask, makes it to the surface, and activates the beacon after he climbs into the dinghy. Getting a fix on the new signal, an S-3 Viking overflies the crash site, confirming the location of Flight 23. The navy then dispatches a sub-recovery ship, the USS Cayuga (LST-1186) along with the destroyer USS Agerholm (DD-826) and a flotilla of other vessels. The aircraft is ringed with balloons and once inflated, the aircraft rises from the bottom of the seafloor. Just before the plane breaks surface, one of the balloons breaks loose, prompting the Navy captain to reduce the air pressure of the remaining balloons, thus keeping the plane just beneath the waves. At that moment, one of the doors in the cargo hold bursts open, causing the plane to flood. The cascade of sea water sweeps through the passengers; First Officer Chambers is killed when he is pinned under a sofa. The deluge also sweeps away Wallace's widow (Lee Grant), who drowns just as the Navy captain orders more air pressure into the balloons, finally raising the plane successfully. Once on the surface, the passengers are evacuated. With the survivors on their way to waiting ships, Captain Gallagher and Stevens' assistant, Eve (Brenda Vaccaro) are the last to evacuate from the aircraft as it slips under the waves for the last time. Awards. The film was nominated for two Academy Awards: Alternate Version. As was common with Universal Pictures films at the time like "Earthquake" and "Two-Minute Warning", a television version of the film was prepared with a great deal of new footage, in order to air "Airport '77" as two separate two-hour installments (with commercials). Unlike those films, which had new material shot with new actors adding unrelated subplots, "Airport '77" added an hour of material shot during production with the film's stars. Numerous scenes were added and extended, and flashbacks were shot for most of the characters to show their lives back home, which they contemplated as the plane rested at the bottom of the ocean. The extended version aired on television many times, but has never been released on commercial video/DVD.
1065778	Peter Mullan (born 2 November 1959) is a Scottish actor and filmmaker who is best known for his roles in "Trainspotting", "My Name Is Joe" and the "Harry Potter" film series. Early life. Mullan was born in Peterhead, Scotland, the son of Patricia (a nurse) and Charles Mullan (a lab technician at Glasgow University). The second youngest of eight children, Mullan was brought up in a working class Roman Catholic family. They later moved to Mosspark. An alcoholic and sufferer from lung cancer, Mullan's father became increasingly tyrannical and abusive. For a brief period, Mullan was a member of a street gang while at secondary school, and worked as a bouncer in a number of south-side pubs. His father died on the day Mullan began studying economic history and drama at the University of Glasgow. Career. Mullan began acting at university and continued stage acting after graduation. He had roles in films such as "Shallow Grave", "Trainspotting", "Braveheart" and "Riff-Raff". His first full-length film, "Orphans", won an award at the Venice Film Festival. In 2002, he returned to directing and screenwriting with the controversial film "The Magdalene Sisters", based on life in an Irish Magdalene asylum. Mullan won a Golden Lion award at the Venice Film Festival. Mullan's role as a recovering alcoholic in "My Name Is Joe" won him the Best Actor Award at the 1998 Cannes Film Festival. He appeared in the lead role in 2001's "Session 9". In 2004, he starred in "On a Clear Day" and "Criminal". He also played Michel Scot in the BBC series "Shoebox Zoo". In 2006, he had a small role in "Children of Men". In 2007, he played a prominent role in the Channel 4 adaptation of "Boy A", and starred as James Connolly in the movie "Connolly". He co-starred in the "Red Riding Trilogy" and in two seasons of the ITV crime drama "The Fixer". Mullan appeared in the last two "Harry Potter" films as Yaxley, and starred in Paddy Considine's "Tyrannosaur". His latest film as director, "Neds", was released in October 2010. He also appeared in the Steven Spielberg 2011 film "War Horse". In December 2012, he starred in Channel 4's four-part drama series "The Fear". Personal life. Mullan is a life long supporter of Celtic Football Club. A Marxist, he was a leading figure in the left-wing theatre movement which blossomed in Scotland during the Conservative Thatcher government, including stints in the and Wildcat Theatre companies. A passionate critic of Tony Blair's New Labour government, he told "The Guardian" "the TUC and the Labour Party sold us working class out big style, unashamedly so". Mullan took part in a 2005 occupation of the Glasgow offices of the UK Immigration Service, protesting the UKIS's "dawn raid" tactics when deporting failed asylum seekers. In January 2009, Mullan joined other actors in protesting the BBC's refusal to screen a Disasters Emergency Committee appeal for Gaza. They told BBC director general Mark Thompson: "Like millions of others, we are absolutely appalled at the decision to refuse to broadcast the appeal. We will never work for the BBC again unless this disgraceful decision is reversed. We will urge others from our profession and beyond to do likewise."
695551	Radhanath Sikdar (; 1813 – 17 May 1870) was an Indian mathematician who, among many other things, calculated the height of Peak XV in the Himalaya and showed it to be the tallest mountain above sea level. Peak XV was later named Mount Everest. Early life. Radhanath was born as youngest child of Tituram, a resident of Jorasanko in Calcutta. Radhanath Sikdar was educated at "Phiringi" Kamal Bose's School and Hindu School in Calcutta, India. Alone among the great Derozians he took to science as his life's mainstay. He worked for the Surveyor General of India, a division of the British Raj in India. He joined the Great Trigonometric Survey in 1831. Great Trigonometric Survey. When in 1831 George Everest was searching for a brilliant young mathematician with particular proficiency in spherical trigonometry, the Hindu College maths teacher Dr. John Tytler superlatively recommended his pupil Radhanath, then only 19. Radhanath joined the Great Trigonometric Survey in 1831 December as a "computor" at a salary of thirty rupees per month. Soon he was sent to Sironj near Dehra Dun where he excelled in geodetic surveying. Apart from mastering the usual geodetic processes, he invented quite a few of his own. Everest was extremely impressed by his performance, so much so that when Sikdar wanted to leave GTS and be a Deputy Collector, Everest intervened, proclaiming that no government officer can change over to another department without the approval of his boss. Everest retired in 1843 and Col. Waugh became the Director. After 20 years in the North, Sikdar was transferred to Calcutta in 1851 as the Chief Computor. Here apart from his duties of the GTS, he also served as the Superintendent of the Meteorological department. Here he introduced quite a few innovations that were to remain standard procedure for many decades to come.The most notable was the formula for conversion of barometric readings taken at different temperatures to 32 degrees Fahrenheit. At the order of Col. Waugh he started measuring the snow capped mountains near Darjeeling. Compiling data about Peak XV from six different observations, he eventually came to the conclusion the Peak XV was the tallest in the world. He gave a full report to Waugh who was cautious enough not to announce this discovery before checking with other data. When after some years, he was convinced, only then did he publicly announce the same. The norm, strictly followed by Everest himself, was that while naming a peak, the local name should be preferred. But in this case, Waugh made an exception. He paid a tribute to his ex-boss by proposing that the peak be named after Everest. Everest agreed, and Sikdar was conveniently forgotten. Other. It appears that while Everest and Waugh both extolled him for his exceptional mathematical abilities, his relations with the colonial administration were far from cordial. Two specific instances are on record. In 1851 a voluminous Survey Manual (Eds. Capt. H. L. Thullier and Capt. F. Smyth) was published by the Survey Department. The preface to the Manual clearly and specifically mentioned that the more technical and mathematical chapters of the Manual were written by Babu Radhanath Sikdar. The Manual proved to be immensely useful to surveyors. However, the third edition, published in 1875 (i.e., after Sikdar's death) did not contain that preface, so that Sikdar's memorable contribution was de-recognized. The incident was condemned by a section of British surveyors. The paper Friend of India in 1876 called it 'robbery of the dead'.
1017201	Re-cycle (Cantonese: 鬼域 Gwai wik) is a 2006 horror film directed by the Pang Brothers and starring Angelica Lee. The film was the closing film in the Un Certain Regard program at the 2006 Cannes Film Festival. It was also a reunion for Pangs and the actress Lee, who starred in the Pang's 2002 hit, "The Eye". It is a Hong Kong/Thai co-production. Plot. Ting-yin, a young novelist, is struggling to come up with a followup to her best-selling trilogy of romance novels. She has not even started on the book yet and her agent has already announced that the next title, "The Recycle", will deal with the supernatural. After drafting her first chapter, she stops and deletes the file from her computer. She then starts seeing strange, unexplainable things and finds that she is experiencing the supernatural events that she described in her novel-to-be. Controversy. Ting-yin finds herself in a parallel universe where abandoned things end up, including aborted fetuses, which combined with the portrayal of the main character's personal demons regarding her own aborted child leads some critics to believe the film carries a pro-life message. "That just happens to be one of the topics in the movie. We are not out to say if abortion is right or wrong", Oxide Pang said in one interview.
1163320	Dana Welles Delany (born March 13, 1956) is an American film, stage, and television actress, producer, presenter, and health activist. Delany has been active in show business since the late 1970s. Following small roles early in her career, Delany garnered her first leading role in 1987 in the short-lived NBC sitcom "Sweet Surrender" and achieved wider fame in 1988–1991 as Colleen McMurphy on the ABC television show "China Beach", for which she won two Emmy Awards. She received further recognition for her performances in the films "Light Sleeper" (1992), "Tombstone" (1993), "Exit to Eden" (1994), "" (1995), "Fly Away Home" (1996), "True Women" (1997) and "Wide Awake" (1998). Since the mid-1990s, Delany has served on the board of the Scleroderma Research Foundation. In 2000s she returned to television with a string of short-lived television series beginning with "Pasadena" (2001), "Presidio Med" (2002–2003), and "Kidnapped" (2006–2007). From 2007 to 2010 Delany played Katherine Mayfair on the ABC series "Desperate Housewives". From 2011 to 2013 she played the lead role of Megan Hunt on the ABC drama series "Body of Proof". Delany is also a voice-actress. She played Lois Lane in the DC animated universe, as well as in "The Batman" animated series. In an interview, she said she loves to play "complicated characters". Early life. Delany was born in New York City to parents of Irish descent and was raised Catholic. She has remarked that, even as a child, she always wanted to go into acting. "The reason a person first gets into acting is because you want attention from your parents as a child," she told a reporter. In her childhood, she went with her family to many Broadway shows, and was fascinated by films. After growing up in Stamford, Connecticut, she attended Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts for her senior year, and was a member of the school's first co-educational class that included jazz composer Bill Cunliffe, software executive Peter Currie, artist Julian Hatton, poet Karl Kirchwey, writer Nate Lee, editor Sara Nelson, restaurateur Priscilla Martel and sculptor Gar Waterman. "Andover was the best time of my life," she recalled. She played the lead role of Nellie Forbush in the school's spring musical production of "South Pacific" playing opposite Peter Kapetan as Emile. She commented: "It was just a little awkward to be Nellie at first because she hesitates to marry Emile since he had once lived with a Polynesian woman -- I don't agree with her reasoning so that made things a bit hard at the beginning." She appeared in a student video directed by classmate Jonathan Meath in a film class taught by Steve Marx. She graduated in 1974 with the academic honor of "cum laude" which was awarded to 80 out of 378 graduating seniors. She majored in theater at Wesleyan University, worked in summer stock productions during vacations, and graduated in 1978. Later, in an interview, she reported that she sometimes had eating issues during this time of her life. She said: "I binged... I starved ... I was one step from anorexia –a piece of toast and an apple would be all I would eat in a day." Career. 1980s: Stage, television, "China Beach". After college, she found acting work in New York City in daytime soap operas. She starred in the Broadway show "A Life" and won critical acclaim in 1983 in Nicholas Kazan's off-Broadway "Blood Moon", where the "New York Times" cited her "skillful verisimilitude" handling a difficult part requiring two roles "and she does them both with authority." Delany moved to Hollywood and during the next few years found work guest starring in TV shows like "Moonlighting" and "Magnum, P.I.". Dana Delany's first audition for the lead role of nurse Colleen McMurphy was unsuccessful. "They thought I wasn't pretty enough", she said in an interview, but heeding advice from director Paul Schrader, who had directed her in the film "Patty Hearst", she "cut her long tresses into a bob" and re-auditioned with this new haircut, successfully, after the producers lost their first choice. She won the lead role on the critically acclaimed "China Beach", which appeared weekly from 1988 to 1991 and brought intense media attention to the actress. This role not only garnered two Emmy Awards, but two other Emmy nominations and two Golden Globe nominations. After several seasons the show suffered from mediocre ratings and was discontinued in 1991. 1990s: Movies, television, voice. In 1991, Dana Delany was chosen by "People" magazine as one of the "50 most beautiful people in the world." In the years following "China Beach", Delany worked steadily in television, movies and theater. In addition, she established herself as a significant voice talent. Delany won leading roles in a string of feature films such as the TV movie "A Promise to Keep", "Light Sleeper", "Housesitter" and "Fly Away Home" as well as appearing in the TV mini-series "Wild Palms". She also took on controversial roles, such as Mistress Lisa in "Exit to Eden", where one film critic commented "The script was awful -- Dana looked great." Delany commented in a 2008 interview about the audience reaction: "I had already got pilloried for playing the "Exit to Eden" dominatrix after "China Beach" because audiences had a certain image of me as Colleen and didn’t want to see it change." The provocatively titled "Live Nude Girls" included frank discussion by women of their sexual fantasies at a bachelorette party using a low-budget improvisational comedy format with strong chemistry between the actors. Reviews were mixed: "Los Angeles Times" critic Richard Natale liked the film but wrote older male film executives believed it to be "uncommercial"; another critic agreed it was "genuine girl talk" but "didn't have a lot of substance" and viewers "don't get to know the characters in the film". She also starred as Margaret Sanger in the TV movie "" (1995), about a controversial nurse who crusaded for women's reproductive rights in the early 1900s. In 1995, Delany appeared in the Broadway show "Translations" and in May 1997, Delany returned to her alma mater Phillips Academy to work with theater students as an artist-in-residence. She appeared in TV movies such as "True Women" (1997) and "Resurrection" (1999). In 1998, Delany reportedly turned down the role of Carrie Bradshaw in the hit TV show "Sex and the City". She commented in a subsequent interview: "The show’s creator Darren Star asked me to play Carrie ... Darren got the idea of televising Candace Bushnell’s "Sex and the City" from seeing me and Kim (Kim Cattrall) in "Live Nude Girls"." Delany declined the role partly after remembering the negative audience reaction she received with a similar film, "Exit to Eden", a few years back. "Sex and the City" became a successful series, and the role of "Carrie" made Sarah Jessica Parker world-famous. Delany played a gun-toting mother in an episode of the TV series "Family Law" (1999) for which she earned an Emmy nomination, but the series was not rerun due to sponsorship withdrawal. Work as Lois Lane. Dana Delany has performed substantial voice work periodically. She portrayed Andrea Beaumont in the 1993 animated feature film ' based on the popular TV show '. Delany's voice performance in the film impressed filmmakers and led to her being cast as Lois Lane in '. She was also mentioned by name in the theme song of "Animaniacs", another Warner Bros. production. She reprised her role as Lois Lane for the character's guest appearances in "Justice League", "Justice League Unlimited", and "The Batman". She returned to the DC Universe in an episode of ' as Vilsi, an alternate universe variation of Lois Lane. She will also reprise her role in the upcoming animated movie, "". 2000s: Television, movies, stage, "Desperate Housewives". Delany continued to find work in a variety of projects, doing pilots, TV series, made-for-TV movies, and feature films. She appeared in the NBC drama "Good Guys/Bad Guys" (2000), which "Newsweek" termed a "Sopranos knock-off". She appeared in the short-lived "Pasadena" (2001), a critically acclaimed Fox production which was "underpromoted and endlessly pre-empted" and described as a "twisted rich-family saga" with a "great cast". Delany commented in an interview: "You can see "Pasadena" as a black comedy or see it as really tragic. A lot of soaps on television now don't have that layer of tragedy to them." She was an actor and co-executive producer of the film "Final Jeopardy" (2001). New York Daily News TV critic David Bianculli gave a positive review to both her performance as an actor -- "Delany, as always, does pensive and independent better than most actresses"—and as a producer. She played a doctor in the TV series "Presidio Med" (2002), described as a "conventional but pleasant drama populated by characters dedicated to medicine who also have messy personal lives." She appeared in TV movies such as "A Time to Remember" (2003), and "Baby for Sale" (2004). She appeared in feature films by indie film producers, such as "The Outfitters" (1999), "Mother Ghost" (2002), and "Spin" (2003). Returning to theater, she played an artsy and incompetent woman who questions the "imposed conventions of society" after discovering her husband's affair in the Pulitzer-prize winning "Dinner With Friends" (2000, New York City, Los Angeles, Boston); her performance earned positive reviews generally. She played Beatrice in Shakespeare's "Much Ado About Nothing" (2003, San Diego); one critic described the "verbal sparring" between Delany and actor Billy Campbell as a "joy". From 2004 to 2006, Delany played many guest roles on TV shows, such as "", "Boston Legal", "Kojak", "Related", "The L Word", and "Battlestar Galactica". She also starred in the short-lived TV series "Kidnapped" (2006). One critic wrote "Delany is alternately furious and despondent as Ellie, and she and Hutton (Timothy Hutton) can do more without words than other actors can do with pages of dialogue. They’re absolutely convincing as rich, complicated Manhattanites and as parents who come face to face with the scary reality that they can’t always protect their kids." Delany appeared as herself in the TV documentary "Vietnam Nurses with Dana Delany" which explored their lives and treatment after returning to the United States. Delany has become "something of a heroine to the nurses who served in Vietnam", according to "Los Angeles Times" writer Susan King, who noted that the actress worked on a nationwide nurse recruitment program in 1990 called the McMurphy project. In 2007, Delany appeared in the films "A Beautiful Life", "Camp Hope", and "Multiple Sarcasms". Delany initially declined the offer to play one of the four "Desperate Housewives" principal characters, Bree Van De Kamp, saying it was too similar to her role on "Pasadena". The show became a popular prime-time soap opera with substantial ratings. But in 2007 she was again offered a role by producer Marc Cherry, this time as a supporting housewife, and she joined the cast of the well-established series for the 2007–08 season. Reaction to the addition of Delany was positive; one critic wrote "...casting Dana Delany as Katherine Mayfair in Season 4 is one of the smartest things Cherry has ever done ... Not many actors can deftly deliver both comedy and drama, but Delany makes it look easy." She commented about playing housewife Katherine Mayfair: "The hardest thing for me was figuring out the tone of the piece because it's such a specific tone - so it was more of an acting challenge than anything else." She commented in 2008: “I hope that she (Katherine Mayfair) doesn’t lose her snarkiness, because that’s always fun to play.” On May 13, 2008, it was announced that Delany would reprise her role on "Desperate Housewives" for season five, having been promoted to the sixth lead. 2010s: Television series and movies. In March 2010, Delany appeared as FBI agent Jordan Shaw in a two-part story on the TV series "Castle", which stars Nathan Fillion, who played her character's second husband on "Desperate Housewives". Delany left "Desperate Housewives" to star in the new ABC series "Body of Proof" originally slated to begin airing in late 2010. Delany also voiced a character "Margaret Rosenblatt" in the film "Firebreather" in 2010. In 2011 in "Body of Proof", Delany plays a brilliant neurosurgeon turned medical examiner after a car accident causes her to lose dexterity in her hands. Delany in real life had an experience similar to her character of Dr. Megan Hunt. Two weeks before filming the pilot episode, Delany's car was hit by a bus in Santa Monica; two fingers of her hand were broken and her car was totaled. Delany describes her character in "Body of Proof" as being "complicated, smart, and definitely complex." In April 2011 Delany came 9th in "People" magazine's annual 100 Most Beautiful list. In May 2011 Delany was the host of the fourth annual "Television Academy Honors". Delany appeared in the crime drama "Freelancers" with director Jessy Terrero. The film also stars Robert De Niro, Forest Whitaker, and 50 Cent. It was released to DVD on August 21, 2012, and had a limited release in theatres in September. Personal and public life. Since the mid-1990s, Delany has served on the board of the Scleroderma Research Foundation, and with her friend Sharon Monsky, she helped campaign for support in finding a cure for scleroderma. Working with director Bob Saget, she starred in the TV movie "For Hope" (1996), based on Saget's sister Gay, who had died as a result of the disease. She appeared as a contestant on "Celebrity Jeopardy" in 2001, 2006 and 2009 to raise money for scleroderma research. Scleroderma "robs these women of not only their own lives in many cases, but robs their families which include countless children," she explained in 2002. Delany is a board member of the arts advocacy organization Creative Coalition. She appeared in June 2009 in an onstage meeting in New York alongside White House social secretary Desiree Rogers to discuss ways to promote American cinematic creativity. In August 2009 Delany was named co-president of the Creative Coalition, joining Tim Daly in the leadership of the organization. Delany explained her support for the arts in an interview: "I just think it's so important for children and the future of the country and people's general happiness. I'm one of those people who, whenever I feel cut off spiritually or emotionally, I go to a museum or a play or a movie, and I'm just transported." She participated as a celebrity guest in fundraising events which support the rights of same-sex couples to marry. In addition, she has supported Planned Parenthood. She attended the organization's 90th birthday celebration in New York City in 2006. Delany said: "It's hard to imagine where we'd be in this country had Margaret Sanger not founded that first clinic here in New York, 90 years ago." She attended events sponsored by the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation. Delany commented about her personal life in an interview in 2006: "I turned 50 and I'm ready to get married... I don't know who he is yet but I'm ready... He has to be smart, funny and kind." She added a year later: "Marriage has never been a big deal for me... But I think I’m ready now... I got to have all the fun in the world, to experience a lot of people and figure out what I really like." Delany (in 1988) said she doesn't find being a celebrity to be that appealing: "I'm not a 'personality'. I am never recognized, which I take as a compliment. I have a love-hate thing with publicity." Delany, in 2003, tried having an injection of botox in her forehead, but the needle hit a nerve and created a hematoma which affected the muscle in her right eye, causing it to droop slightly. In 2010, she vowed she will never have plastic surgery. She told Prevention in 2010 that she prefers eating healthily, including vegetables, tofu, fish, gluten-free pasta, and bread. Since she plays a mortician in her new ABC drama "Body of Proof", she refuses to eat turkey sausage because of a perceived similarity with intestines seen on the set. In April 2011 Delany came 9th in "People" magazine's annual 100 Most Beautiful list. Awards and nominations. General source for awards: Additional sources—Family Law: Prism: Screen Actors Guild: Lone Star Film & Television: TV Land:
1190845	Our Family Wedding is a romantic comedy film starring Forest Whitaker, America Ferrera, Carlos Mencia, Lance Gross, Shannyn Sossamon, Charlie Murphy and Regina King. It received its wide release on March 12, 2010. Plot. Marcus Boyd (Lance Gross), a young African-American, has recently graduated from Columbia Medical School and is headed to Laos for a year to work with Doctors Without Borders. Unbeknownst to their respective parents, Marcus and his fiance Lucia Ramirez (America Ferrera), who is Mexican-American, have been living together and would like to get married before they both head off to Laos together. Meanwhile, in Los Angeles, Marcus' father Brad (Forest Whittaker) is coming out of a meeting when he sees his car being towed by Miguel (Carlos Mencia), who happens to be Lucia's father. Brad tries unsuccessfully to halt the tow by holding on to the door of his car. Both Miguel and Brad hurl various racially-based insults at one another. Brad and Miguel meet later that evening and discover that they will soon be in-laws. Both Marcus' and Lucia's family try to out do one another to make the wedding more African-American or Mexican-American, with comedic results. Lucia has also not told her parents that she recently dropped out of Columbia Law School to volunteer teach at a charter school catering to recent immigrants. This leads Miguel to believe that she will be supporting Marcus as he volunteers as a doctor without pay. When Miguel tells Marcus that he disapproves of him living off his daughter, Lucia says nothing. Marcus feels abandoned and ultimately calls off the wedding. Lucia's sister Isabel (Anjelah Johnson), who disapproved of her sister getting married, makes Lucia and the rest of the family realize that Marcus makes Lucia happy and that race should not matter. Lucia goes to Marcus, they reconcile, and they end up having a wedding that embraces both African and Mexican customs. During the end credits, Several pictures of the two families are shown depicting family events. Such as Isabel's engagement to Harry (Harry Shum Jr.), who is Asian-American. Release. Box office. "Our Family Wedding" opened at number six, grossing a little over $7.6 million. At the end of its theatrical run, the movie has collected $20,712,308 worldwide. Critical reception. The film has received generally negative reviews from critics. It currently holds a score of 39% "generally unfavorable" at the review aggregator site Metacritic, and a "Rotten" score of 13% at Rotten Tomatoes. Rotten Tomatoes consensus is ""Our Family Wedding" is a mirthless, contrived affair that does little with its promising premise and talented cast." Roger Ebert of the "Chicago Sun-Times" gave the film two stars out of four, describing it as "a pleasant but inconsequential comedy, awkward for the actors, and contrived from beginning to end." He praised the performances of Ferrera and Gross. Lisa Schwarzbaum of "Entertainment Weekly" gave the film a C-.
659752	Amaury Nolasco Garrido (born December 24, 1970) is a Puerto Rican actor, best known for the role of Fernando Sucre on the Fox television series "Prison Break", and for his role in "Transformers". He starred in the short-lived ABC television series "Work It" which premiered on January 3, 2012.
1068292	A Guy Thing is a 2003 American comedy film directed by Chris Koch and starring Jason Lee, Julia Stiles and Selma Blair. Synopsis. Karen (Blair) and Paul (Lee) are about to get married. During his bachelor party, Paul has a chat with one of the dancers at the party, Becky (Stiles) and they find that they have an affinity for each other. Paul wakes up the next morning and is terrified to see Becky in the bed next to him. Assuming they slept together, Paul rushes Becky out of his apartment and hopes never to see her again. He tries to cover up the connection for the few days before the wedding. Unfortunately, Becky unexpectedly shows up around town and turns out to be Karen's cousin. Even worse, Becky's ex-boyfriend cop Ray had Becky followed and photographed. Becky and Paul meet again to steal those pictures from Ray's apartment. Further problems arise with family and friends consistently showing up at the wrong times. Crabs, dirty underwear in the toilet tank, a horny best friend, and a best man/brother who is in love with the bride all provide for a week of wedding preparation hijinks. Through the snowballing of all his implausible lies and half truths, he receives corroboration and support from an unexpected corner: what seems to be a coordinated network of other men, including friends, complete strangers and to Paul's astonishment, Karen's own father; all who give the same explanation: "It's a guy thing". Box office. The film debuted at #7 in the U.S. box office, taking USD 6,988,749 in its opening weekend, before falling to #11 the following week.
64932	Hilary Whitehall Putnam (born July 31, 1926) is an American philosopher, mathematician and computer scientist who has been a central figure in analytic philosophy since the 1960s, especially in philosophy of mind, philosophy of language, philosophy of mathematics, and philosophy of science. He is known for his willingness to apply an equal degree of scrutiny to his own philosophical positions as to those of others, subjecting each position to rigorous analysis until he exposes its flaws. As a result, he has acquired a reputation for frequently changing his own position. Putnam is currently Cogan University Professor Emeritus at Harvard University. In philosophy of mind, Putnam is known for his argument against the type-identity of mental and physical states based on his hypothesis of the multiple realizability of the mental, and for the concept of functionalism, an influential theory regarding the mind-body problem. In philosophy of language, along with Saul Kripke and others, he developed the causal theory of reference, and formulated an original theory of meaning, inventing the notion of semantic externalism based on a famous thought experiment called Twin Earth. In philosophy of mathematics, he and his mentor W. V. Quine developed the "Quine-Putnam indispensability thesis," an argument for the reality of mathematical entities, later espousing the view that mathematics is not purely logical, but "quasi-empirical". In the field of epistemology, he is known for his critique of the well known "brain in a vat" thought experiment. This thought experiment appears to provide a powerful argument for epistemological skepticism, but Putnam challenges its coherence. In metaphysics, he originally espoused a position called metaphysical realism, but eventually became one of its most outspoken critics, first adopting a view he called "internal realism", which he later abandoned in favor of a pragmatist-inspired direct realism. Putnam's "direct realism" aims to return the study of metaphysics to the way people actually experience the world, rejecting the idea of mental representations, sense data, and other intermediaries between mind and world. In his later work, Putnam has become increasingly interested in American pragmatism, Jewish philosophy, and ethics, thus engaging with a wider array of philosophical traditions. He has also displayed an interest in metaphilosophy, seeking to "renew philosophy" from what he identifies as narrow and inflated concerns. Outside philosophy, Putnam has contributed to mathematics and computer science. Together with Martin Davis he developed the Davis–Putnam algorithm for the Boolean satisfiability problem and he helped demonstrate the unsolvability of Hilbert's tenth problem. He has been at times a politically controversial figure, especially for his involvement with the Progressive Labor Party in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Personal life. Putnam was born in Chicago, Illinois in 1926. His father, Samuel Putnam, was a scholar of Romance languages, columnist and translator who wrote for the "Daily Worker", a publication of the American Communist Party from 1936 to 1946 (when he became disillusioned with communism). As a result of his father's commitment to communism, Putnam had a secular upbringing, although his mother, Riva, was Jewish. The family lived in France until 1934, when they returned to the United States, settling in Philadelphia. Putnam attended Central High School; there he met Noam Chomsky, who was a year behind him. The two have been friends—and often intellectual opponents—ever since. Putnam studied mathematics and philosophy at the University of Pennsylvania, receiving his BA (undergraduate degree) and becoming a member of the Philomathean Society, one of the oldest collegiate literary societies in the U.S. He went on to do graduate work in philosophy at Harvard University, and later at UCLA's Philosophy Department, where he received his Ph.D. in 1951 for a dissertation entitled "The Meaning of the Concept of Probability in Application to Finite Sequences". Putnam's teacher Hans Reichenbach (his dissertation supervisor) was a leading figure in logical positivism, the dominant school of philosophy of the day; one of Putnam's most consistent positions has been his rejection of logical positivism as self-defeating. After briefly teaching at Northwestern, Princeton, and MIT, he moved to Harvard in 1965 with his wife, Ruth Anna Jacobs, who took a teaching position in philosophy at Wellesley College. Hilary and Ruth Anna were married in 1962. Ruth Anna Jacobs, descendant of a family with a long scholarly tradition in Gotha (her ancestor was the German classical scholar Christian Friedrich Wilhelm Jacobs), was born in Berlin, Germany, in 1927 to anti-Nazi political-activist parents and, like Putnam himself, she was raised an atheist (her mother was Jewish and her father had been from a Christian background). The Putnams, rebelling against the anti-Semitism that they had experienced during their youth, decided to establish a traditional Jewish home for their children. Since they had no experience with the rituals of Judaism, they sought out invitations to other Jews' homes for Seder. They had "no idea how to do it ", in the words of Ruth Anna. They therefore began to study Jewish ritual and Hebrew, and became more Jewishly interested, identified, and active. In 1994, Hilary Putnam celebrated a belated Bar Mitzvah service. His wife had a Bat Mitzvah service four years later. Hilary was a popular teacher at Harvard. In keeping with the family tradition, he was politically active. In the 1960s and early 1970s, he was an active supporter of civil rights causes and an opponent of American military intervention in Vietnam. In 1963, he organized one of the first faculty and student committees at MIT against the war. Putnam was disturbed when he learned from reading the reports of David Halberstam that the U.S. was "defending" South Vietnamese peasants from the Vietcong by poisoning their rice crops. After moving to Harvard in 1965, he organized campus protests and began teaching courses on Marxism. Hilary became an official faculty advisor to the Students for a Democratic Society and, in 1968, became a member of the Progressive Labor Party (PLP). He was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1965. After 1968, his political activities were centered on the PLP. The Harvard administration considered these activities disruptive and attempted to censure Putnam, but two other faculty members criticized the procedures. Putnam permanently severed his ties with the PLP in 1972. In 1997, at a meeting of former draft resistance activists at Arlington Street Church in Boston, Putnam described his involvement with the PLP as a mistake. He said that he had been impressed at first with PLP's commitment to alliance-building, and its willingness to attempt to organize from within the armed forces. In 1976, he was elected President of the American Philosophical Association. The following year, he was selected as Walter Beverly Pearson Professor of Mathematical Logic, in recognition of his contributions to philosophy of logic and mathematics. While breaking with his radical past, Putnam has never abandoned his belief that academics have a particular social and ethical responsibility toward society. He has continued to be forthright and progressive in his political views, as expressed in the articles "How Not to Solve Ethical Problems" (1983) and "Education for Democracy" (1993). Putnam is a Corresponding Fellow of the British Academy. He retired from teaching in June 2000, but, as of 2009, he still gives a seminar almost yearly at Tel Aviv University. He is the Cogan University Professor Emeritus at Harvard University. He is also a founding patron of the small liberal arts college Ralston College. His corpus includes five volumes of collected works, seven books, and more than 200 articles. Putnam's renewed interest in Judaism has inspired him to publish several recent books and essays on the topic. With his wife, he has co-authored several books and essays on the late-19th-century American pragmatist movement. Philosophy of mind. Multiple realizability. Putnam's best-known work concerns philosophy of mind. His most noted original contributions to that field came in several key papers published in the late 1960s that set out the hypothesis of multiple realizability. In these papers, Putnam argues that, contrary to the famous claim of the type-identity theory, it is not necessarily true that "Pain is identical to C-fibre firing." Pain, according to Putnam's papers, may correspond to utterly different physical states of the nervous system in different organisms, and yet they all experience the same mental state of "being in pain". Putnam cited examples from the animal kingdom to illustrate his thesis. He asked whether it was likely that the brain structures of diverse types of animals realize pain, or other mental states, the same way. If they do not share the same brain structures, they cannot share the same mental states and properties. The answer to this puzzle had to be that mental states were realized by different physical states in different species. Putnam then took his argument a step further, asking about such things as the nervous systems of alien beings, artificially intelligent robots and other silicon-based life forms. These hypothetical entities, he contended, should not be considered incapable of experiencing pain just because they lack the same neurochemistry as humans. Putnam concluded that type-identity theorists had been making an "ambitious" and "highly implausible" conjecture which could be disproven with one example of multiple realizability. This argument is sometimes referred to as the "likelihood argument". Putnam formulated a complementary argument based on what he called "functional isomorphism". He defined the concept in these terms: "Two systems are functionally isomorphic if 'there is a correspondence between the states of one and the states of the other that preserves functional relations'." In the case of computers, two machines are functionally isomorphic if and only if the sequential relations among states in the first are exactly mirrored by the sequential relations among states in the other. Therefore, a computer made out of silicon chips and a computer made out of cogs and wheels can be functionally isomorphic but constitutionally diverse. Functional isomorphism implies multiple realizability. This argument is sometimes referred to as an ""a priori" argument". Jerry Fodor, Putnam, and others noted that, along with being an effective argument against type-identity theories, multiple realizability implies that any low-level explanation of higher-level mental phenomena is insufficiently abstract and general. Functionalism, which identifies mental kinds with functional kinds that are characterized exclusively in terms of causes and effects, abstracts from the level of microphysics, and therefore seemed to be a better explanation of the relation between mind and body. In fact, there are many functional kinds, such as mousetraps, software and bookshelves, which are multiply realized at the physical level. Machine state functionalism. The first formulation of such a functionalist theory was put forth by Putnam himself. This formulation, which is now called "machine-state functionalism", was inspired by analogies noted by Putnam and others between the mind and theoretical "Turing machines" capable of computing any given algorithm. In non-technical terms, a Turing machine can be visualized as an infinitely long tape divided into squares (the memory) with a box-shaped scanning device that sits over and scans one square of the memory at a time. Each square is either blank ("B") or has a "1" written on it. These are the inputs to the machine. The possible outputs are: A simple example of a Turing machine which writes out the sequence '111' after scanning three blank squares and then stopping is specified by the following machine table: This table states that if the machine is in state one and scans a blank square ("B"), it will print a "1" and remain in state one. If it is in state one and reads a "1", it will move one square to the right and also go into state two. If it is in state two and reads a "B", it will print a "1" and stay in state two. If it's in state two and reads a "1", it will move one square to the right and go into state three. Finally, if it is in state three and reads a "B", it prints a "1" and remains in state three. The point, for functionalism, is the nature of the "states" of the Turing machine. Each state can be defined in terms of its relations to the other states and to the inputs and outputs. State one, for example, is simply the state in which the machine, if it reads a "B", writes a "1" and stays in that state, and in which, if it reads a "1", it moves one square to the right and goes into a different state. This is the functional definition of state one; it is its causal role in the overall system. The details of how it accomplishes what it accomplishes and of its material constitution are completely irrelevant. According to machine-state functionalism, the nature of a mental state is just like the nature of the automaton states described above. Just as "state one" simply is the state in which, given an input "B", such-and-such happens, so being in pain is the state which disposes one to cry "ouch", become distracted, wonder what the cause is, and so forth. Rejection of functionalism. In the late 1980s, Putnam abandoned his adherence to functionalism and other computational theories of mind. His change of mind was primarily due to the difficulties that computational theories have in explaining certain intuitions with respect to the externalism of mental content. This is illustrated by Putnam's own Twin Earth thought experiment (see "Philosophy of language"). He also developed a separate argument against functionalism in 1988, based on Fodor's generalized version of multiple realizability. Asserting that functionalism is really a watered-down identity theory in which mental kinds are identified with functional kinds, Putnam argued that mental kinds may be multiply realizable over functional kinds. The argument for functionalism is that the same mental state could be implemented by the different states of a universal Turing machine. Despite Putnam's rejection of functionalism, it has continued to flourish and has been developed into numerous versions by thinkers as diverse as David Marr, Daniel Dennett, Jerry Fodor, and David Lewis. Functionalism helped lay the foundations for modern cognitive science and is the dominant theory of mind in philosophy today. Philosophy of language. Semantic externalism. One of Putnam's contributions to philosophy of language is his claim that "meaning just ain't in the head". He illustrated this using his "Twin Earth" thought experiment to argue that environmental factors play a substantial role in determining meaning. Twin Earth shows this, according to Putnam, since on Twin Earth everything is identical to Earth, except that its lakes, rivers and oceans are filled with XYZ whereas those of earth are filled with H2O. Consequently, when an earthling, Fredrick, uses the Earth-English word "water", it has a different meaning from the Twin Earth-English word "water" when used by his physically identical twin, Frodrick, on Twin Earth. Since Fredrick and Frodrick are physically indistinguishable when they utter their respective words, and since their words have different meanings, meaning cannot be determined solely by what is in their heads. This led Putnam to adopt a version of semantic externalism with regard to meaning and mental content. The late philosopher of mind and language Donald Davidson, despite his many differences of opinion with Putnam, wrote that semantic externalism constituted an "anti-subjectivist revolution" in philosophers' way of seeing the world. Since the time of Descartes, philosophers had been concerned with proving knowledge from the basis of subjective experience. Thanks to Putnam, Tyler Burge and others, Davidson said, philosophy could now take the objective realm for granted and start questioning the alleged "truths" of subjective experience. Theory of meaning. Putnam, along with Saul Kripke, Keith Donnellan, and others, contributed to what is known as the causal theory of reference. In particular, Putnam maintained in "The Meaning of "Meaning"" that the objects referred to by natural kind terms—such as tiger, water, and tree—are the principal elements of the meaning of such terms. There is a linguistic division of labor, analogous to Adam Smith's economic division of labor, according to which such terms have their references fixed by the "experts" in the particular field of science to which the terms belong. So, for example, the reference of the term "lion" is fixed by the community of zoologists, the reference of the term "elm tree" is fixed by the community of botanists, and the reference of the term "table salt" is fixed as "NaCl" by chemists. These referents are considered rigid designators in the Kripkean sense and are disseminated outward to the linguistic community. Putnam specifies a finite sequence of elements (a vector) for the description of the meaning of every term in the language. Such a vector consists of four components: Such a "meaning-vector" provides a description of the reference and use of an expression within a particular linguistic community. It provides the conditions for its correct usage and makes it possible to judge whether a single speaker attributes the appropriate meaning to that expression or whether its use has changed enough to cause a difference in its meaning. According to Putnam, it is legitimate to speak of a change in the meaning of an expression only if the reference of the term, and not its stereotype, has changed. However, since there is no possible algorithm that can determine which aspect—the stereotype or the reference—has changed in a particular case, it is necessary to consider the usage of other expressions of the language. Since there is no limit to the number of such expressions which must be considered, Putnam embraced a form of semantic holism. Philosophy of mathematics. Putnam made a significant contribution to philosophy of mathematics in the Quine–Putnam "indispensability argument" for mathematical realism. This argument is considered by Stephen Yablo to be one of the most challenging arguments in favor of the acceptance of the existence of abstract mathematical entities, such as numbers and sets. The form of the argument is as follows. The justification for the first premise is the most controversial. Both Putnam and Quine invoke naturalism to justify the exclusion of all non-scientific entities, and hence to defend the "only" part of "all and only". The assertion that "all" entities postulated in scientific theories, including numbers, should be accepted as real is justified by confirmation holism. Since theories are not confirmed in a piecemeal fashion, but as a whole, there is no justification for excluding any of the entities referred to in well-confirmed theories. This puts the nominalist who wishes to exclude the existence of sets and non-Euclidean geometry, but to include the existence of quarks and other undetectable entities of physics, for example, in a difficult position. Putnam holds the view that mathematics, like physics and other empirical sciences, uses both strict logical proofs and "quasi-empirical" methods. For example, Fermat's last theorem states that for no integer formula_1 are there positive integer values of "x", "y", and "z" such that formula_2. Before this was proven for all formula_1 in 1995 by Andrew Wiles, it had been proven for many values of "n". These proofs inspired further research in the area, and formed a quasi-empirical consensus for the theorem. Even though such knowledge is more conjectural than a strictly proven theorem, it was still used in developing other mathematical ideas. Mathematics and computer science. Putnam has contributed to scientific fields not directly related to his work in philosophy. As a mathematician, Putnam contributed to the resolution of Hilbert's tenth problem in mathematics. Yuri Matiyasevich had formulated a theorem involving the use of Fibonacci numbers in 1970, which was designed to answer the question of whether there is a general algorithm that can decide whether a given system of Diophantine equations (polynomials with integer coefficients) has a solution among the integers. Putnam, working with Martin Davis and Julia Robinson, demonstrated that Matiyasevich's theorem was sufficient to prove that no such general algorithm can exist. It was therefore shown that David Hilbert's famous tenth problem has no solution. In computability theory, Putnam investigated the structure of the ramified analytical hierarchy, its connection with the constructible hierarchy and its Turing degrees. He showed that there exist many levels of the constructible hierarchy which do not add any subsets of the integers and later, with his student George Boolos, that the first such "non-index" is the ordinal formula_4 of ramified analysis (this is the smallest formula_5 such that formula_6 is a model of full second-order comprehension), and also, together with a separate paper with Richard Boyd (another of Putnam's students) and Gustav Hensel, how the Davis–Mostowski–Kleene hyperarithmetical hierarchy of arithmetical degrees can be naturally extended up to formula_4. In computer science, Putnam is known for the Davis-Putnam algorithm for the Boolean satisfiability problem (SAT), developed with Martin Davis in 1960. The algorithm finds if there is a set of true or false values that satisfies a given Boolean expression so that the entire expression becomes true. In 1962, they further refined the algorithm with the help of George Logemann and Donald W. Loveland. It became known as the DPLL algorithm. This algorithm is efficient and still forms the basis of most complete SAT solvers. Epistemology. In the field of epistemology, Putnam is known for his "brain in a vat" thought experiment (a modernized version of Descartes' evil demon hypothesis). The argument is that one cannot coherently state that one is a disembodied "brain in a vat" placed there by some "mad scientist". This follows from the causal theory of reference. Words always refer to the kinds of things they were coined to refer to, thus the kinds of things their user, or the user's ancestors, experienced. So, if some person, Mary, were a "brain in a vat", whose every experience is received through wiring and other gadgetry created by the "mad scientist", then Mary's idea of a "brain" would not refer to a "real" brain, since she and her linguistic community have never seen such a thing. Rather, she saw something that looked like a brain, but was actually an image fed to her through the wiring. Similarly, her idea of a "vat" would not refer to a "real" vat. So, if, as a "brain in a vat", she were to say "I'm a brain in a vat", she would actually be saying "I'm a brain-image in a vat-image", which is incoherent. On the other hand, if she is not a "brain in a vat", then saying that she is still incoherent, but now because she actually means the opposite. This is a form of epistemological externalism: knowledge or justification depends on factors outside the mind and is not solely determined internally. Putnam has clarified that his real target in this argument was never skepticism, but metaphysical realism. Since realism of this kind assumes the existence of a gap between how man conceives the world and the way the world really is, skeptical scenarios such as this one (or Descartes' Evil demon) present a formidable challenge. Putnam, by arguing that such a scenario is impossible, attempts to show that this notion of a gap between man's concept of the world and the way it is, is in itself absurd. Man cannot have a "God's eye" view of reality. He is limited to his conceptual schemes. Metaphysical realism is therefore false, according to Putnam. Metaphilosophy and ontology. In the late 1970s and the 1980s, stimulated by results from mathematical logic and by some ideas of Quine, Putnam abandoned his long-standing defence of metaphysical realism—the view that the categories and structures of the external world are both causally and ontologically independent of the conceptualizations of the human mind. He adopted a rather different view, which he called "internal realism". Putnam renounced internal realism in his reply to Simon Blackburn in the volume "Reading Putnam". The reasons he gave up his "antirealism" are stated in the first three of his replies in "The Philosophy of Hilary Putnam", an issue of the journal "Philosophical Topics", where he gives a history of his use(s) of the term "internal realism", and, at more length, in his "The Threefold Cord: Mind, Body and World" (1999). Internal realism was the view that, although the world may be "causally" independent of the human mind, the structure of the world—its division into kinds, individuals and categories—is a function of the human mind, and hence the world is not "ontologically" independent. The general idea is influenced by Kant's idea of the dependence of our knowledge of the world on the categories of thought. The problem with metaphysical realism, according to Putnam, was that it fails to explain the possibility of reference and truth. According to the metaphysical realist, our concepts and categories refer because they match up in some mysterious manner with the pre-structured categories, kinds and individuals that are inherent in the external world. But how is it possible that the world "carves up" into certain structures and categories, the mind carves up the world into its own categories and structures, and the two "carvings" perfectly coincide? The answer must be that the world does not come pre-structured but that structure must be imposed on it by the human mind and its conceptual schemes. In "Reason, Truth, and History", Putnam identified truth with what he termed "idealized rational acceptability." The theory, which owes something to C.S. Peirce, is that a belief is true if it would be accepted by anyone under ideal epistemic conditions. Nelson Goodman had formulated a similar notion in "Fact, Fiction and Forecast" in 1956. In that work, Goodman went as far as to suggest that there is "no one world, but many worlds, each created by the human mind." Putnam rejected this form of social constructivism, but retained the idea that there can be many correct descriptions of reality. No one of these descriptions can be scientifically proven to be the "one, true" description of the world. This does not imply relativism, for Putnam, because not all descriptions are equally correct and the ones that are correct are not determined subjectively. Under the influence of C.S. Peirce and William James, Putnam also became convinced that there is no fact–value dichotomy; that is, ethical and aesthetic judgments often have a factual basis, while scientific judgments have an ethical element. Neopragmatism and Wittgenstein. At the end of the 1980s, Putnam became increasingly disillusioned with what he perceived as the "scientism" and the rejection of history that characterize modern analytic philosophy. He rejected internal realism because it assumed a "cognitive interface" model of the relation between the mind and the world. Under the increasing influence of James and the pragmatists, he adopted a direct realist view of this relation. For a time, under the influence of Ludwig Wittgenstein, he adopted a pluralist view of philosophy itself and came to view most philosophical problems as nothing more than conceptual or linguistic confusions created by philosophers by using ordinary language out of its original context. Many of Putnam's most recent works have addressed the concerns of ordinary people, particularly their concerns about social problems. For example, he has written about the nature of democracy, social justice and religion. He has discussed the ideas of the continental philosopher, Jürgen Habermas, and has written articles influenced by "continental" ideas. Criticism. Putnam himself may be his own most formidable philosophical adversary. His frequent changes of mind have led him to attack his previous positions. However, many significant criticisms of his views have come from other philosophers and scientists. For example, multiple realizability has been criticized on the grounds that, if it were true, research and experimentation in the neurosciences would be impossible. According to Bechtel and Mundale, to be able to conduct such research in the neurosciences, universal consistencies must either exist or be assumed to exist in brain structures. It is the similarity (or homology) of brain structures that allows us to generalize across species. If multiple realizability were an empirical fact, results from experiments conducted on one species of animal (or one organism) would not be meaningful when generalized to explain the behavior of another species (or organism of the same species). Other criticisms of MR have been proposed by Jaegwon Kim, David Lewis, Robert Richardson and Patricia Churchland. One of the main arguments against functionalism was formulated by Putnam himself: the Twin Earth thought experiment. However, there have been other criticisms. The Chinese room argument by John Searle (1980) is a direct attack on the claim that thought can be represented as a set of functions. The thought experiment is designed to show that it is possible to mimic intelligent action, without any interpretation or understanding, through the use of a purely functional system. In short, Searle describes a situation in which a person who speaks only English is locked in a room with Chinese symbols in baskets and a rule book in English for moving the symbols around. The person is instructed, by people outside the room, to follow the rule book for sending certain symbols out of the room when given certain symbols. Further, suppose that the people outside the room are Chinese speakers and are communicating with the person inside via the Chinese symbols. According to Searle, it would be absurd to claim that the English speaker inside "knows" Chinese based on these syntactic processes alone. This thought experiment attempts to show that systems that operate merely on syntactic processes cannot realize any semantics (meaning) or intentionality (aboutness). Thus, Searle attacks the idea that thought can be equated with the following of a set of syntactic rules. Thus, functionalism is an inadequate theory of the mind. Several other arguments against functionalism have been advanced by Ned Block. Putnam has consistently adhered to the idea of semantic holism, in spite of the many changes in his other positions. The problems with this position have been described by Michael Dummett, Jerry Fodor, Ernest Lepore, and others. In the first place, they suggest that, if semantic holism is true, it is impossible to understand how a speaker of a language can learn the meaning of an expression, for any expression of the language. Given the limits of our cognitive abilities, we will never be able to master the whole of the English (or any other) language, even based on the (false) assumption that languages are static and immutable entities. Thus, if one must understand all of a natural language to understand a single word or expression, language learning is simply impossible. Semantic holism also fails to explain how two speakers can mean the same thing when using the same linguistic expression, and therefore how any communication at all is possible between them. Given a sentence "P", since Fred and Mary have each mastered different parts of the English language and "P" is related differently to the sentences in each part, the result is that "P" means one thing for Fred and something else for Mary. Moreover, if a sentence "P" derives its meaning from its relations with all of the sentences of a language, as soon as the vocabulary of an individual changes by the addition or elimination of a sentence, the totality of relations changes, and therefore also the meaning of "P". As this is a common phenomenon, the result is that "P" has two different meanings in two different moments in the life of the same person. Consequently, if I accept the truth of a sentence and then reject it later on, the meaning of that which I rejected and that which I accepted are completely different and therefore I cannot change my opinions with regard to the same sentences. The brain in a vat argument has also been subject to criticism. Crispin Wright argues that Putnam's formulation of the brain-in-a-vat scenario is too narrow to refute global skepticism. The possibility that one is a recently disembodied brain in a vat is not undermined by semantic externalism. If a person has lived her entire life outside the vat—speaking the English language and interacting normally with the outside world—prior to her "envatment" by a mad scientist, when she wakes up inside the vat, her words and thoughts (e.g., "tree" and "grass") will still refer to the objects or events in the external world that they referred to before her envatment. In another scenario, a brain in a vat may be hooked up to a supercomputer that randomly generates perceptual experiences. In this case, one's words and thoughts would not refer to anything, and would therefore be devoid of content. Semantics would no longer exist and the argument would be meaningless. In philosophy of mathematics, Stephen Yablo has argued that the Quine–Putnam indispensability thesis does not demonstrate that mathematical entities are truly indispensable. The argumentation is sophisticated, but the upshot is that one can achieve the same logical results by simply replacing all occurrences of the expression "so-and-so exists" (e.g., numbers exist) by occurrences of the expression "so-and-so is assumed (or hypothesized) to exist". For example, one can take the argument for indispensability described above and replace all references to existent entities with references to entities assumed to exist as follows. Finally, Putnam's internal realism has been accused by Curtis Brown of being a disguised form of subjective idealism. If this is the case, it is subject to the traditional arguments against that position. In particular, it falls into the trap of solipsism. That is, if existence depends on experience, as subjective idealism maintains, and if one's consciousness were to stop existing, then the rest of the universe would stop existing as well.
1059241	The Parallax View is a 1974 American dramatic thriller film directed and produced by Alan J. Pakula, and starring Warren Beatty, Hume Cronyn, William Daniels and Paula Prentiss. The film was adapted by David Giler, Lorenzo Semple Jr and an uncredited Robert Towne from the 1970 novel by Loren Singer. The story concerns a reporter's dangerous investigation into an obscure organization, the Parallax Corporation, whose primary, but not ostensible, enterprise is political assassination. "The Parallax View" is the second installment of Pakula's Political Paranoia trilogy, along with "Klute" (1971) and "All the President's Men" (1976). In addition to being the only film in the trilogy to not be distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures, "The Parallax View" is also the only film in the trilogy to not win, or be nominated for, an Academy Award. Plot. TV newswoman Lee Carter (Paula Prentiss) is one of many witnesses to the public assassination of presidential candidate Senator Charles Carroll (Bill Joyce) atop the Seattle Space Needle. A waiter armed with a revolver is chased but falls to his death. Meanwhile, a second waiter, also armed, leaves the crime scene unnoticed. A Congressional special committee determines that the assassination was the work of a lone gunman. Three years later, Carter visits her former boyfriend and colleague, newspaper reporter Joe Frady (Warren Beatty). Lee tells Frady that she feels there is more to the assassination than was reported at the time. Six of the witnesses to Carroll's assassination have since died, and she fears she will be next. Frady does not take her seriously. Not long afterwards, Carter is found dead and her death is judged by the police to be either a voluntary or accidental drug overdose. Investigating Carter's leads, Frady goes to the small town of Salmontail whose sheriff, L.D. Wicker (Kelly Thordsen), attempts to trap him below a dam while the floodgates are opening. Frady narrowly escapes but the sheriff drowns. Frady finds information about the Parallax Corporation in the sheriff's apartment and learns that its real business is recruiting political assassins. While interviewing Austin Tucker (William Daniels), Carroll's former aide, aboard Tucker's boat, a bomb explodes. Frady survives but is believed dead, and he decides to apply to Parallax under an assumed identity. Jack Younger (Walter McGinn), a Parallax official, assures Frady that he is the kind of man they are interested in. Frady is accepted for training in Los Angeles, where he watches a slide show that conflates positive images with negative actions. Frady recognizes a Parallax man from a photo that Austin Tucker showed him: the man was a waiter in the Space Needle restaurant the day Senator Carroll was murdered. He follows the man and watches him retrieve a bag from the trunk of a car, then drive to an airport and check it as baggage on a plane. Frady boards the plane himself. He notices a Senator aboard, but not the Parallax man. Frady writes a warning on a napkin and slips it into the drink service cart. The warning is found and the plane returns to Los Angeles. Everybody is evacuated moments before a bomb explodes on the plane. Frady's generally skeptical editor Bill Rintels (Hume Cronyn) listens to a secretly recorded tape of a conversation Frady had with Jack Younger. A disguised Parallax operative delivers coffee and food to Rintels' office. Rintels is poisoned and the tape disappears.
1162652	Laura Elizabeth Innes (born August 16, 1957) is an American actress and television director, best known for her role as Dr. Kerry Weaver on "ER", and most recently, as Sophia on the NBC thriller "The Event". Career. Innes was introduced to professional theater by her father, who frequently took the family to the Stratford Festival of Canada in Stratford, Ontario. Following his advice to "do what you love", she attended Northwestern University where she was a member of the Alpha Chi Omega sorority and earned a degree in theater. Her first stage credits were in Chicago at the renowned Goodman Theatre and Wisdom Bridge Theatre, where she played Stella in "A Streetcar Named Desire". John Malkovich played Mitch in this production. Other major stage credits include "Two Shakespearean Actors" with Eric Stoltz at Lincoln Center, "Our Town" at the Seattle Repertory Theatre, and "Three Sisters" at the La Jolla Playhouse in San Diego. In 1986, Innes played the young daughter of Jerry Stiller and Anne Meara in the short-lived television sitcom "The Stiller and Meara Show", but the series was canceled within a few weeks. In 1989, Innes played the character of Miss Andrews in the second season of the Nickelodeon TV show "Hey Dude" episode 7, "Teacher's Pest." She also made an appearance in the same series in episode 57 called "Baby" as the clueless Mrs. Fleeman. In the 1990s, Innes guest-starred on television series such as "Party of Five", "My So-Called Life", and "Brooklyn Bridge" and appeared in the Emmy-winning cable movie "And the Band Played On" before being cast in her first major TV role as Thomas Haden Church's promiscuous ex-wife Bunny on the NBC comedy series "Wings" from 1991–1993. In the fall of 1995, she joined the hit NBC medical drama "ER" in its second season, where she was cast as the skilled but mostly abrasive Dr. Kerry Weaver with a physical disability. Her recurring role led her to become a series regular at the start of the third season. In 2001, her character came out of the closet. She received two Emmy Award nominations for her portrayal, as well as three Screen Actors Guild Awards as part of the “ER” ensemble, and has received five nominations for Best Supporting Actress from Viewers For Quality Television. Innes also directed several episodes of the series, as well as episodes of "Brothers & Sisters", "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip", "House", "The West Wing", one of which earned her an Emmy nomination for directing. In January 2007, Innes left "ER" after twelve seasons, becoming the longest serving cast member in the show's history (Noah Wyle, however, appeared in slightly more episodes). In 2008–2009, Innes returned to "ER" during its 15th and final season for two episodes including the series finale. In film, Innes has co-starred in the blockbuster film "Deep Impact" and, with former "ER" castmate Noah Wyle, in "Can't Stop Dancing". On May 7, 2010, NBC announced that Innes would be appearing in the new action drama "The Event" as Sophia, "the leader of a mysterious group of detainees", alongside Lisa Vidal, who played Kerry Weaver's wife in "ER". In 2012 she was Police Captain Tricia Harper in the short-lived NBC series "Awake". Personal life. Innes was born and raised in Pontiac, Michigan, the youngest daughter of six children to Laurette and Robert Innes, a tool and die company executive. Her first fiance was murdered in the early eighties. A few years after the murder, she married actor David Brisbin and, in 1990, gave birth to their son, Cal. They have since adopted another child, Mia, from China. Innes is close friends with Megan Mullally and with former "ER" co-star Maura Tierney. She is known as an advocate for the disabled community, utilizing her role as a director to help employ disabled people. She is a supporter of the Performers with Disabilities Committee, which is associated with the Screen Actors Guild.
1166426	Preston Foster (August 24, 1900 – July 14, 1970) was an American stage and film actor, and singer. Foster entered films in 1929 after appearing as a Broadway stage actor. He was appearing in Broadway plays as late as October 1931 when he acted in a play titled "Two Seconds" starring Edward J. Pawley. Some of his notable films include: "Doctor X" (1932), "I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang" (1932), "Annie Oakley" (1935), "The Last Days of Pompeii" (also 1935), "The Informer" (1935) (as the head of the organization), and "My Friend Flicka" (1943).
581575	Rannvijay Singh Sangha (born March 16, 1983) is an Indian television host and presenter. Best known for hosting the adventure reality TV show, MTV Roadies, he is also known for his contribution to the field of acting and writing. He is based in Mumbai, India. Early life. Rannvijay was born on March 16, 1983 in Jalandhar, Punjab, India to Jatt Sikh parents. His father is an officer with the Indian Army, making Rannvijay’s six generation male ancestors to be directly related to the Indian Army. He changed nine schools, as his father's transfers of service in the army required the family to keep on moving to different places within India, even as he did a major part of his schooling from a boarding school. Television. Although he was all set to join the Indian Army after passing the exams and clearing the medical test, he just happened to participate in an adventure reality TV show on MTV India, MTV Roadies Season 1 in 2003 and emerged as a finalist. He said in an interview with Zee News, “Frankly speaking, I never wanted to come under the spotlight. I took up Roadies because I wanted to win the bike Karizma, which, according to me, is the best bike. So, destiny took its turn and I became what I am today.” Thereafter, MTV offered him to host the same show. He has been associated with MTV and the show Roadies since then. He elaborated, “If not the entertainment industry, I would have definitely joined the Army - like everybody else in my family. We have all served the nation. And I was on my way to joining the Army when Roadies happened.” MTV India roped him in to host some other shows like MTV Stuntmania, MTV Splitsvilla Season 1, MTV The Fast and The Gorgeous and MTV Teen Diva. He also made a brief appearance in MTV Splitsvilla Season 2. Rannvijay last hosted of the tenth season of the MTV Roadies show, MTV Roadies X : Battle for Glory that was aired from January to May 2013. About experience of the show, he said, "The travel itself turned out to be an exhilarating experience. My memorable moment will always remain the bike journey across Arunachal Pradesh with Raghu." Films. Rannvijay said in an interview with Glamsham.com, "When I forayed into television, I was very sure that I would somehow now do films." Although he has acted in several films, hardly any of his movies proved to be a major hit at the box office. He made his Bollywood debut with the film Toss: A Flip of Destiny that was released in August 2009 and also featured Aarti Chhabria and Ashmit Patel. The same year, his next movie, London Dreams was released in October, which was a big budget production and also starred some of the biggest Bollywood actors like Salman Khan, Ajay Devgan and Asin. He was subsequently seen in the film Direct Dil Se, which was released in January 2010. His next major work was for Vipul Shah's November 2010 film, Action Replayy that featured top Indian actors like Akshay Kumar and Aishwarya Rai. In an interview with Zee News, he expressed, "Dancing with Aishwarya in the film has been one of the best experiences that I will always cherish. It will be the most memorable." In April 2011, Rannvijay made his debut in the Punjabi film industry with the political thriller Dharti, where he worked with actors like Jimmy Shergill and Prem Chopra. The same year in September, his next Hindi film Mod was released, where he played the male lead opposite Ayesha Takia. Continuing his work for Punjabi movies, he next starred in Eros Entertainment & Jimmy Shergill Productions' Taur mittran Di, which hit the big screens in May 2012 and also featured Amrinder Gill. He was again roped in by Eros Entertainment & Jimmy Sheirgill Productions for a guest appearance in the January 2013 Punjabi film Saadi Love Story. TV Commercials. Rannvijay worked for Reliance Communications for a series of television commercials with leading Bollywood actress, Anushka Sharma. All these advertisements, directed by Shoojit Sircar, were a part of Reliance's "Mera vs Tera" (Mine vs Yours) Campaign, where Rannvijay plays the "Tera" (Yours) network, competing with Anushka's "Mera" (Mine) network that's Reliance. Rannvijay said about the campaign, "While we are shooting it, we're all having a lot of fun. It's very today. It also portrays little bickering that is common in every relationship." He also commented, "I'm shooting with Anushka for the first time. I found out that she's also an army officer's daughter. We're having a great time shooting." The first advertisement was released in April 2012 for Reliance unlimited talk time offer which was shot in a car where Ranvijay and Anushka are seen complaining about each other on their phones. The two were next seen in Reliance's instant call connection commercial. The advertisement was shot in a house and the theme was about sending birthday greetings to Ranvijay's mother. The subsequent advertisement was about making call at zero balance, where Rannvijay wants to call his boss but Anushka uses that call to modify her order for chocolate brownies. Next appeared the advertisement focusing on the mobile service provider's coverage in elevators. The next advertisement, released for Reliance Netconnect in June 2012 with theme of faster download speeds was shot in a coffee shop. In the ensuing commercial, Rannvijay talks to Anushka about the customer base, sipping juice at a bar. Shot a restaurant, his next commercial focuses on bill of Internet usage. In the succeeding advertisement, Rannvijay is seen probing Anuskha about the presence of Reliance Netconnect service is different cities. Next month, Reliance released a commercial for Reliance 3G Tab V9A, where Rannvijay tries to distress Anushka. Rannvijay's next commercial, released in September 2012, described about a Reliance's postpaid plan. Other works. In May 2011, Rannvijay was hired by Pond's for the launch of Pond's White Beauty Blemish Prevention UV Cream where he hosted a paintball competition as a part of the company's "Fun in the sun" campaign at New Delhi. Supporting the "Save the girl child" cause, he played a cricket match in Jaipur with celebrities like Nagesh Kukunoor, Rajiv Laxman, Nikhil Chinappa, Vikas Bhalla and Siddharth Bhardwaj among others in August 2011. In June 2012, he unveiled MTV Roadies Footgear by Mochi at Mochi - The Shoe Shoppe in Vadodara. He partnered with Great Rocksport Pvt Ltd. in 2012 to start his first major business venture - Rocksport Challenge. This new venture introduces India to lifestyle adventure running that brings them closer to nature. The Rocksport Challenge was announced on 5 September 2012, to coincide with Teachers Day. In March 2013, Rannvijay was delegated by Lenovo for the launch of new range of smartphones including Lenovo P770. Personal life and Relationships. Rannvijay is passionate about motorcycles and described his infatuation to The Times of India in an interview in June 2010, "Years back, I took part in Roadies just to lay my hands on the bike that was the winning prize. I have five bikes to myself, some of which are so big that you can't ride them around." In June 2012, he had bumped up the number of his motorcycles to eight. He detailed, "When you enjoy something it's not a chore. Like if I am traveling for a shoot then I send my stuff in a car and ride (on motorcycle) to the location." Since he is associated with an adventure reality TV show, he actually performs the tasks that the contestants are put through - be it skating on ice rinks or dodging horses. Although he looks authoritative on his reality TV shows, he conflicted, "Some times the participants get scared as we strongly argue to find out if they are fooling us but they also respect me when I do all the stunts to teach them." About his personal nature, he explained, "I don't get angry at all. I am very patient. I am pretty chilled out and keep cracking jokes with people. I love to laugh." He loves to be social and has got a wide network of friends throughout the country and also got affectionate cousins and an extended family who live in London and Canada. He also loves to collect shoes and said, "You will be surprised to hear that I have about 150 pairs of shoes." He likes to dress up casually in denims and T-shirts. About relationships he opened up in an interview with Double Spring Media in May 2012, "I have been dating ever since I was 15. And dating was never an issue for me. But right now I am single after a very long time. Being single makes me feel liberated and independent and I am loving it." His most notable relationship was with Indian Australian TV presenter, actress and singer, Anusha Dandekar. However, in late 2009, they both claimed that they are not a couple anymore, though they still continue to be friends. Describing about the type of girls that interests him, he said, "An adventurous woman is always much more attractive to me. I mean she might not be a pro at games but someone who wants to just enjoy a sport reflects that a girl wants to live life king size. One always wants to be in such company." He is a supporter of live-in relationships and said, "Practically speaking, it is one of the best ways to find out if you are compatible with the other person or not. And it is even more important for a couple who are planning to get married. When you are dating, you often meet them for a couple of hours but it is only when you are staying with the person you truly get to know them."
1061748	Mia Farrow (born Maria de Lourdes Villiers Farrow; February 9, 1945) is an American actress, humanitarian, and former fashion model. Farrow first gained wide acclaim for her role as Allison MacKenzie in the television soap opera "Peyton Place" and gained further recognition for her subsequent short-lived marriage to Frank Sinatra. An early film role, as Rosemary in Roman Polanski's "Rosemary's Baby" (1968), saw her nominated for a BAFTA and a Golden Globe for Best Actress. She went on to appear in films such as "John and Mary" (1969), "Follow Me!" (1972), "The Great Gatsby" (1974) and "Death on the Nile" (1978). Farrow dated actor-director Woody Allen from 1980 to 1992 and appeared in twelve of his thirteen films over that period, most notably "Zelig" (1983), "Broadway Danny Rose" (1984), "The Purple Rose of Cairo" (1985), "Hannah and Her Sisters" (1986), "Radio Days" (1987), "Crimes and Misdemeanors" (1989), "Alice" (1990) and "Husbands and Wives" (1992). Her more recent film roles include "Widows' Peak" (1994), "The Omen" (2006), "Be Kind Rewind" (2008), "Dark Horse" (2011) and Luc Besson's Arthur series (2006–2010). Farrow has appeared in more than 50 films and won numerous awards, including a Golden Globe award, received seven additional Golden Globe nominations, three BAFTA nominations and a best actress award at the San Sebastian International Film Festival. Farrow is also known for her extensive humanitarian work as a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador. She is involved in humanitarian activities in Darfur, Chad, and the Central African Republic. In 2008, "Time" magazine named her one of the most influential people in the world. Early life. Farrow was born in Los Angeles, California, the daughter of Australian film director John Farrow and Irish actress Maureen O'Sullivan. She was raised Roman Catholic and "had 13 years of convent education with nuns". Her sisters are Prudence and the actresses Stephanie and Tisa. She had three brothers: Michael Damien (1939–1958), Patrick Joseph (1942–2009) and John Charles (born 1946). Aged two, she made her film debut in a short documentary "Unusual Occupations: Film Tot Holiday" (1947).
583453	Chitchor (also transliterated as Chit Chor) is a 1976 Hindi romantic musical film. The film's title means "Heart Stealer" in Hindi. The film is a Rajshri Productions film produced by Tarachand Barjatya. It is based on a Bengali story, "Chittachakor" by Subodh Ghosh. Plot. Pitamber Chaudhri, headmaster of a school in Madhupur, India, has a daughter named Geeta (Zarina Wahab). Geeta is a typical village belle, naive, and childish, and always in the company of a little boy who is her neighbour. Pitamber's older daughter, Meera, who lives in Mumbai, informs Pitamber of the arrival of a young engineer who could be a possible match for Geeta. Pitamber is asked to welcome him and treat him well. Without further question, Pitamber and family do just that when the visitor arrives by train. Vinod (Amol Palekar), the newcomer, takes an instant liking to the family and to Geeta in particular, even teaching her to sing. The family begins to talk about the possibility of Vinod and Geeta marrying, and life is good until another letter from Meera arrives. Pitamber is shocked to read that the engineer whom Meera was sending to meet the family has not yet arrived, but will be coming soon. Vinod is only an overseer who happened to come early, as his boss was delayed and could not make it as planned.
1318645	Drena De Niro (born September 3, 1967) is an American actress and film producer. De Niro was born in New York City, New York. She is the daughter of actress Diahnne Abbott, and adopted daughter of Robert De Niro, whose last name she took upon her mother's marriage to him in 1976. She was named after river Drina in Serbia. Drena DeNiro enjoyed a bohemian upbringing that saw her divide her time between New York City, Los Angeles, and Italy. This transient lifestyle is said to have been a driving factor in her embrace of the arts. Post schooling, Drena began her career in the entertainment industry working as a model. Further driven by her interest in fashion and music she became a DJ and Fashion Consultant. This led her to work as a musical supervisor for Giorgio Armani, serving as the creative force behind the coordination of musical backdrops for high fashion's most exclusive runway shows. Her transition to the field of acting began after landing a role in Allison Anders’s "Grace of My Heart". Since her premiere role, Drena has worked with and trained under the legendary talent
400834	I Am Comic is a 2010 documentary about the stand-up comedy world directed by Jordan Brady. Overview. Directed by former stand-up comic Jordan Brady and starring and narrated by ex-comedian turned comedy writer Ritch Shydner, the film explores the world of stand-up comedy and features interviews with some of the top comedians working today. The film had its world premiere at the 2010 Slamdance Film Festival and is distributed by Monterey Media and IFC Films. Festivals. "I Am Comic" has been screened at the following film festivals:
711558	Lucky 13 is a 2005 romantic comedy film directed by Chris Hall and starring Brad Hunt, Harland Williams, Lauren Graham, Sasha Alexander, Debra Jo Rupp, John Doe, Kaley Cuoco and Taryn Manning. Jenna Fischer (Pam Beesly in "The Office") plays a minor role in one scene. Plot. This film is about Zach Baker (Hunt) and his quest to go back through his past experiences with women so he will have the perfect date with his lifelong friend, Abbey (Graham). Abbey would be the thirteenth women he has gone out with and he hopes she will be "Lucky 13". The story revolves around Zach asking each woman what he did wrong in their relationship, so as to not make the same mistakes with Abbey. A recurring gag involves Zach throwing objects, representing his past affairs, into a lake. During the course of the film, Zach makes changes to his appearance and demeanor, trying to emulate the advice he gets from his past girl friends—most of which is contradictory. After much soul-searching, Zach decides to ask Abbey to marry him—a proposal that she turns down in order to move to New York City and pursue her dream of being an artist. In the end, Zach comes to realize that his life in the Mid-West is not so bad and he gains a new appreciation for his family and friends.
144161	Marcia Lynne "Marcheline" Bertrand (May 9, 1950 – January 27, 2007) was an American actress and producer. She also co-founded the All Tribes Foundation, to culturally and economically benefit Native Americans, and the Give Love Give Life organization, to raise public awareness of women's cancers. Bertrand was the former wife of actor Jon Voight and the mother of actress Angelina Jolie and actor James Haven. She died of ovarian cancer at the age of 56. Early life. Born at St. Francis Hospital in Blue Island, Illinois, Bertrand was brought up in the nearby small town of Riverdale. Her parents were Lois June (née Gouwens; 1928–1973) and Rolland F. Bertrand (1923–1985). She had two younger siblings: a sister, Debbie, and a brother, Raleigh. Bertrand's father was of French Canadian descent, while Bertrand's mother was of Dutch and German ancestry. She also claimed to be of Iroquois ancestry, although her former husband, Jon Voight, once said that Bertrand was "not seriously Iroquois." her only known Native ancestor was a Huron woman born in 1649 (Hurons are an Iroquian nation based in Quebec). According to her daughter, Angelina Jolie, Bertrand was often wrongly identified as a French actress, with Jolie saying, "My mom is as far from French Parisian as you can get. She grew up in a bowling alley that my grandparents owned." In 1965, Bertrand's family moved from the Chicago area to Beverly Hills, California, where she attended Beverly Hills High School from sophomore year through graduation. Film career. During her early years as an actress, Bertrand studied with Lee Strasberg. In 1971, she played Connie in the episode "Love, Peace, Brotherhood and Murder" on the fourth season of the television show "Ironside". In 1982, she appeared in a minor role in "Lookin' to Get Out", a film co-written by and starring her former husband, Jon Voight. The following year, Bertrand played her final film role in the comedy "The Man Who Loved Women", a remake of the French film of the same name. Bertrand then turned her attention toward producing. In 1983, she founded Woods Road Productions with her then-partner Bill Day. In 2005, Bertrand was the executive producer of the documentary "Trudell", which chronicles the life and work of Santee Sioux musician and activist John Trudell. "Trudell" was an official selection at the Sundance Film Festival and the Tribeca Film Festival, and won the Special Jury Prize for Best Documentary at the Seattle International Film Festival. Humanitarian work. Bertrand and her partner John Trudell founded the All Tribes Foundation, to support the cultural and economic survival of Native people. By 2007, the foundation had issued over $800,000 in grants to reservation-based programs that strengthen tribal ways of life and safeguard a future for Native communities. On International Women's Day in 2003, Bertrand and Trudell produced a benefit concert for Afghan women refugees in conjunction with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. Bertrand, who was diagnosed with ovarian cancer in 1999, also founded the Give Love Give Life organization with Trudell; their objective was to raise public consciousness about ovarian and other gynecological cancers through the use of music. The first Give Love Give Life concert was held in February 2004 at The Roxy in West Hollywood. Bertrand and Trudell worked to organize strategic support in the music and film community for Johanna's Law, legislation to fund national outreach and education about the signs and symptoms of gynecological cancers, which was signed into law on January 12, 2007. To benefit the Women's Cancer Research Institute at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, a second Give Love Give Life concert was held at the Gibson Amphitheater in Los Angeles in February 2007, a month after Bertrand died from cancer. Personal life. Bertrand married actor Jon Voight on December 12, 1971. Following a miscarriage in 1972, they had two children, James Haven (born May 11, 1973) and Angelina Jolie (born June 4, 1975). Both their children are actors; Jolie credits her mother rather than her famous father with getting her involved in acting. Bertrand and Voight separated in 1976 as a result of Voight's adultery. She filed for divorce in 1978, which was finalized in 1980. Following her legal separation from Voight, Bertrand began a relationship with documentary-filmmaker Bill Day. They lived together for eleven years, but never married. During her later life, she was in a relationship with musician and activist John Trudell. At the time of her death, Bertrand had three grandchildren by her daughter, Maddox (born August 5, 2001), Zahara (born January 8, 2005), and Shiloh (born May 27, 2006). She chose the name Pax (born November 29, 2003) for her fourth grandchild, who was adopted by her daughter in March 2007; however, she didn't live to see him or Knox and Vivienne, who were born on July 12, 2008, a year after her death. Her granddaughter Vivienne received the middle name Marcheline in honor of Bertrand. Death. Toward the end of her life, Bertrand preferred to keep a low profile and did not grant interviews. She died at the age of 56 on January 27, 2007 at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center after an almost eight-year battle with ovarian cancer. Her children were with her at the time of her death. Bertrand's daughter, Angelina Jolie, stated that her mother's side of the family tended not to be long-lived, saying, "There is no longevity on my mother's side of the family. My grandmother also died young so my mother always thought it could happen to her." Jolie was referring to her maternal grandmother, who died at the age of 45. Bertrand had battled breast cancer as well as ovarian cancer, and her mother Lois had also been diagnosed with ovarian cancer.
1034612	Linda Thorson (born Linda Robinson on 18 June 1947 in Toronto, Ontario) is a Canadian actress, best known for playing Tara King in "The Avengers" (1968–69). For her role in "The Avengers", Thorson received a special BAFTA at the 2000 BAFTA TV Awards along with the other three actresses from the series, Honor Blackman, Joanna Lumley and Diana Rigg. Personal life. Born Linda Robinson in Toronto, Ontario, Canada she moved to the UK in 1965 to study acting. She graduated from the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art on 1 July 1967. Her professional name is based upon her first married name, Mrs Barry Bergthorson. She was married to the American news anchorman and producer Bill Boggs with whom she has a son; they divorced. She was married to production designer Gavin Mitchell in November 2005, but divorced in 2011. Thorson is also bidialectal, speaking in a Canadian/American accent when she is in North America, and a British accent when she is in the United Kingdom. Acting roles. Thorson is best known for her role as Tara King (succeeding Diana Rigg as Emma Peel) in the last season of the British TV adventure series, "The Avengers", with the original star Patrick Macnee. She was reunited with Macnee in a commercial for Laurent-Perrier champagne in the mid 1970s which led to the series reappearing as "The New Avengers", although Thorson did not reprise her role. Since then, she appeared in character roles in many TV series and films, including "Thriller", "Return of the Saint", "The Greek Tycoon" (1978), "Blind Justice" (1986), "Sweet Liberty" (1986), and "Marblehead Manor" (1987). She appeared from 1989 to 1992 in the daytime drama "One Life to Live" as Julia Wheaton Medina. She also appeared in "", playing a Cardassian starship captain in the 6th season episode " (1993). From 1998-2000, she played Isabel in the Canadian series "Emily of New Moon". Thorson has performed in over fifty dramatic and musical stage productions, including five appearances on Broadway. She appeared in the theatre in 1971, starring alongside Michael Crawford and Anthony Valentine in the London West End hit show "No Sex Please, We're British" and later appeared in "A Midsummer Night's Dream" as Titania at the Open Air Theatre, Regents Park, London. In 2002, she portrayed a Supreme Court Justice in the movie "Half Past Dead" with Steven Seagal and Ja Rule. Throughout 2006-07, Thorson played the villainous Rosemary King in the ITV series, "Emmerdale", and most recently played Hester Salomon in a UK tour of "Equus". In the summer of 2008, she appeared at the Open Air Theatre, Regent's Park in the Lerner & Loewe musical, "Gigi".
1044290	Peter McEnery (born 21 February 1940) is an English stage and film actor. Peter Robert McEnery was born in Walsall to Charles and Ada Mary (née Brinson) McEnery. His younger brother is actor John McEnery. Peter McEnery was noted for having given Hayley Mills her first "grown-up" screen kiss in the 1964 film "The Moon-Spinners". As an actor for the Royal Shakespeare Company, he played the title role in Ron Daniel's 1979 production of "Pericles, Prince of Tyre" at The Other Place and played several roles in the 1982 epic production of "Nicholas Nickleby" for the same company. In 1981 he played Oberon in the BBC Television Shakespeare production of "A Midsummer Night's Dream". He played Edwin Clayhanger in the television dramatisation of the novels by Arnold Bennett with support from Janet Suzman, Harry Andrews and Clive Swift.
1475352	Jascha Akili Washington (born June 21, 1989) is an American television and film actor. Life and career. Washington was born in California and debuted on television in 1997 on the episode "A Reverend Runs Through It" of the series "Brooklyn South". He first appeared on film a year later as Will Smith's son Eric in "Enemy of the State" (1998). His notable film and television roles include an episode of "The Suite Life of Zack & Cody" as character Drew, Trent Pierce in "Big Momma's House" and its sequel in a cameo role, Dr. Gideon's son Eli on "Gideon's Crossing" and Jerome in "" (2006). He guest-starred on "The Bernie Mac Show" episode "It's a Wonderful Wife" along with the series "House M.D." in the episode "Family" in 2007. Washington presented his last project The Final at After Dark Horrorfest 2010. Washington did not appear in "" as Trent, the role he played in the first two films.
1165240	John Bromfield (né Farron Bromfield) (June 11, 1922 – September 19, 2005) was an American film and television actor.
1628614	Kaitlin Janette Doubleday (born July 19, 1984) is an American actress. She is best known for her roles in the films "Waiting...", "Catch Me If You Can" and "Accepted". Life and career. Doubleday was born and raised in Los Angeles, the daughter of Frank Doubleday and Christina Hart. She grew up in a show business family: her parents are former professional actors, and her younger sister, Portia, is also an actress. Her mother now works in the entertainment industry as a writer, and also produces plays.
1740739	Nolan Ramsey North (born October 31, 1970) is an American actor and voice actor born in New Haven, Connecticut. He has been described as "the nearest thing the games industry has to a bona fide leading man." He is most well known for his voice work as Nathan Drake from the "Uncharted" series; Desmond Miles from the "Assassin's Creed" video game series; The Penguin in ' and '; Deadpool in "Hulk Vs", ', '/"Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3", "Deadpool", "Marvel Heroes", and "Lego Marvel Super Heroes"; Cyrille Le Paradox and El Jefe from '; Dr Edward Richtofen in the Zombies mode in the "Call of Duty" games ', ' and '; Corrupt Cores and Defective Turrets in "Portal 2"; Superboy and Superman in "Young Justice"; Cpt. Martin Walker in ""; and David in "The Last of Us". Life and career. North was born in New Haven, Connecticut. He majored in journalism at the University of North Carolina with a baseball scholarship. He worked as a reporter for almost a year in New Jersey before moving to New York City to pursue stand-up comedy and acting. North eventually relocated to Hollywood and was cast in the "General Hospital" spin-off series, "Port Charles", playing Dr. Chris Ramsey during the show's run from 1997 to 2003. He married fellow "Port Charles" actress Jill Murray in 1999 and has two children. During Port Charles' run, he worked on a few video games as a voice actor and began to focus on voice acting following Port Charles' cancelation. One of his most notable roles came in 2007 when he voiced and motion capped the character Nathan Drake for the video game '. Since then, he has continued to portray the character Drake in ' (released in 2009) and "" (released in 2011). In an interview with "The Guardian", North reflects on his time as Drake as requiring "a lot of imagination. Motion capture is basically theatre in Spandex; there's minimal props, and you need a willingness to make an ass of yourself." North as Drake has been twice nominated at the Spike Video Game Awards in the "Best Performance by a Human Male" category. North had a role in "Star Trek Into Darkness", the sequel to 2009's acclaimed live-action movie "Star Trek". Director J. J. Abrams cited North's performance as Drake for the casting, he and his son being fans of the "Uncharted" series. Other notable video game voice work includes roles as the Prince in "Prince of Persia", The Penguin in ', Shun in ', Vossler in "Final Fantasy XII", Desmond Miles in the "Assassin's Creed" series, Eradan in ', Doctor Edward Richtofen in ' and ', Brawl in ', Ghost Rider in ', Shadow Demon, Lycanthrope, Lone Druid, Brewmaster, Gyrocopter, Ogre Magi, Meepo, Troll Warlord and the Keeper of the Light in Dota 2, and Deadpool in "Hulk Vs." and "Marvel vs Capcom 3" and recently as Captain Martin Walker in '. He also voiced the personality spheres and defective turrets in "Portal 2" and voiced Merasmus and the Bombinomicon in "Team Fortress 2". North is well known in his animation roles such as Cyclops in "Wolverine and the X-Men", Snow Job in "", Raphael in "TMNT", and both Superman and Superboy in "Young Justice". Filmography. Leading roles are bolded.
1071616	Plot. The plot begins when Takiya Genji (Shun Oguri), the son of a Yakuza boss named Takiya Hideo, enters Suzuran All-Boys High School as a transferred senior with the goal of conquering it. During the freshman orientation lecture, Yakuza arrive at the school seeking third-year senior Tamao Serizawa to avenge an injury. To show his worth, Genji fights and defeats the Yakuza, who mistake him for Tamao. One of the Yakuza, Ken Katagiri is impressed by Genji's skills. Meanwhile, Tamao greets his best friend Tokio Tatsukawa, who is discharged from a hospital, claiming that he is in good health. Tamao quietly dismisses Tokio claim and takes his bike to ensure he won't get harmed, slightly insulted that Tokio would lie to him. Tamao drives back to the school to witness Genji brutally finish off the last of the yakuza thugs. The two briefly take in the looming threat of each other's presence before Tamao is arrested for not having a driver's license for a bike. After the intro, Genji meets Ruka in a nightclub, where she sings as an R&B singer. Genji declares his ambition of conquering Suzuran to his father, who failed in the task. They agree that if Genji conquers Suzuran, he may inherit his father's. The next day, Genji meets Serizawa and Tokio, who was a childhood friend of Genji's. Tokio manages to halt a potential fight in between the two and tells Genji to take down Rindaman before approaching Serizawa. Rindaman, who is giant-sized and a legendary figure in the school, ignores Genji, who instead finds Ken Katagiri. Ken attacks Genji for getting his gang arrested but Genji takes him down in one punch. Ken surrenders and takes Genji to a quiet bar to chat about Suzuran. Ken tells Genji that he was in Suzuran as well, and came close to ruling it, but failed and ended up being a dropout. He proposes teaching Genji about leadership and influencing others to join his army, in order to correct Genji's lack of strategy in his ambition. Genji follows Ken's advice that he writes in a small notebook and manages to easily conquer Chuta Tamura's class, admitting him into his army. The Mikami Brothers of Class B join Serizawa's army, who then approach Class C's leader, Takashi Makise, who maintains a neutral position, claiming that even if Serizawa beats him in a fight, his men will never follow an enemy leader. Genji decides to acquire Makise by exploiting his weakness for sex. Ken arranges a group date, but due to Makise's obvious awkwardness around women, the date flops miserably. Makise joins Genji anyway, based solely on the friendship formed on the day. Meanwhile, a gang known as the Freshmen Trio, have managed to take control of their grade level. They are soon provoked by Izaki, a notorious and calculating senior. Izaki proposes joining Genji, but ambushes him instead, to test his strength. Genji fights valiantly, and Izaki is impressed, despite thoroughly defeating Genji . He joins forces with Genji, forming the Genji's Perfect Seiha Army. Serizawa is alarmed by the rapid rise of Genji, but chooses not to take action. A member of his army, Tokaji takes covert action against the perceived threat by ambushing Izaki and hanging him from a rope, bloodied. This provokes Genji, unused to caring for his fellow men and claims that, "This really hurts." Makise stops him from making a rash attack on Serizawa, their army still too small to hold a major fight. Later, Serizawa and Tokio meet Genji in a pub, but Tokio suffers a seizure and is rushed to a hospital, where he learns that he has a large cerebral aneurysm, and that the surgery required has a 30% success rate. Tokio chooses to go ahead with the operation, confident of his survival. Angered by the provocations, Genji attacks Serizawa's classes even as Makise tries to stop him. Chuta is also ambushed by Tokaji, and as Genji tries to leave to attack Serizawa, Makise finally decides to leave the GPS Army, stating that he cannot follow a leader without control. Ken tries to encourage Genji, and learns that Genji 's father is Hideo Takiya, a former associate and head of the Yakuza family feuding with Ken's. Tokaji covertly tries to arranges a deal with Hideto Bandou, a second year and leader of a biker gang, The Front of Armament, to kidnap Ruka to further provoke Genji and throw him off his focus. Meanwhile, Genji challenges Makise to a fight, with a condition that if Genji wins, Makise joins him again. Makise forgives Genji with their familiar, "Take all," gesture the two shared on the night they became friends. Genji holds back his tears of gratitude and playfully flips off Makise, the bond sealed again. Ken's boss, Joji Yazaki asks Ken to kill Genji, disregarding the fact that killing the heir to a Yakuza family would entail an all-out war. Izaki returns from the hospital and is given an awkward but warm welcome back by the Genji and his gang. Ken's order to kill Genji bears too much on his conscience and he informs Genji's father Takiya Hideo of Yazaki's plan to kill his son. Ken decides that he will not do as he was asked, and suffer Yakuza punishment for disobedience - death. Ruka calls Genji, telling him that she is abducted and that her abductors wore jackets with skulls on the backs. Realizing that they are the Armoured Front, the GPS Army gathers and makes their advancement to the Narai Warehouse, The Front's headquarters. A fight ensues, and Bandou is impressed by Genji 's strength. He calls an end to fight to ask why Genji has chosen to oppose The Armoured Front. After Genji states that Ruka was abducted by men wearing jackets bearing skulls Bandou reveals that he has sealed the skulls until his group gains control of The Armoured Front and that none of his men bear the skulls on their backs. Further respecting Genji for his willingness to lose his ears in place of Makise as payment for the unprovoked attack, Bandou stops the knife hand and tells Genji that Tokaji might be behind the whole farce and where he can find him. Finding Ruka there, Ayman is finally bent for war against Serizawa. Serizawa, who was not aware of Tokaji's actions, punishes him and agrees to Genji 's proposal for an all-out battle on the school grounds. They decide to fight at 5 PM, at the same time when Tokio will enter operation, the idea being that Serizawa will fight alongside Tokio. The two share a cold stare down and leave. The next day, the two armies meet across the rain soaked school ground, Serizawa' army having 100 strong, GPS, 70. The two armies shout their battle cries and charge at each other. As the battle enters full swing, the Freshmen Trio comment on the battle's balance. The battle goes in Serizawa's favour, even though the GPS army fights strongly. Bandou's section of The Armoured Front joins the battle midway on the GPS' side, evening the odds. Towards the end, only Serizawa and Genji remain standing, and fight. Meanwhile, Ken's boss takes him to a dock to be executed for his disobedience. He gives Ken his coat, stating that Ken had always wanted to wear it (aspired to becoming a Yakuza leader). He then shoots Ken, who cries out to Genji before sinking. The battle drags into the evening as Genji and Serizawa continue to pound on each other, both badly damaged and exhausted. Genji gains the upper hand and wins the fight against Serizawa, who receives a call informing him that Tokio's operation was a success. Ken wakes up in the sea suddenly and swims up to the surface, realising that the coat he wore was bulletproof. Having defeated Serizawa, Genji finally meets Rindaman, stating that he has to be defeated if Genji is to be titled the king of Suzuran. Rindaman replies that Suzuran can never be conquered, as there is always someone left to defeat. The film ends as Genji attacks Rindaman. Gangs of Suzuran versi 2. 1. Genji Perfect Seiha 2. Team Serizawa 3. The Armament Front (Second Year, Biker Gang) 4. Ebizuka Junior High Trio (First Year) 5. Rindaman Bold text
1278906	Roland "Ron" Edwin Larson (born October 31, 1941) is a professor of mathematics at Penn State Erie, The Behrend College, Pennsylvania. He is best known for being the author of a series of widely-used mathematics textbooks ranging from middle school through the second year of college. Early life. Ron Larson was born in Fort Lewis, Washington, the second of four children of Mederith John Larson and Harriet Eleanor Larson. Mederith Larson was an officer in the 321st Engineer Battalion of the United States Army. He served in active duty during World War II, where he was awarded a Bronze Star Medal and a Purple Heart, and the Korean War, where he was awarded an Oak Leaf Cluster and a Silver Star. Harriet Larson died in the fall of 2009. Larson spent his first two years of high school at Leilehua High School in Wahiawa, Hawaii. In 1957, when his family moved to Vancouver, Washington, Larson enrolled in Battle Ground High School, where he graduated in 1959. On October 29, 1960, at the age of 18, he married Deanna Sue Gilbert, also of Vancouver, Washington. Deanna Gilbert was the second child Herbert and Dorothy Gilbert. Ron and Deanna Larson have two children, Timothy Roland Larson and Jill Deanna Larson Im, and five living grandchildren. Their first grandchild, Timothy Roland Larson II, died at birth on summer solstice, June 21, 1983. Larson is the third generation of Norwegian and Swedish immigrants who left Scandinavia to homestead in Minnesota in the late 1800s. The surnames and immigration dates of his great-grandparents are Bangen (1866, Norway), Berg (1867, Norway), Larson (1868, Norway), and Watterburg (1879, Sweden). Education. From 1959 until 1962, Ron and Deanna Larson started and operated a small business, called Larson's Custom Quilting. In 1962, they sold the business and Ron began attending Clark College in Vancouver, Washington. In 1964, he obtained his associate's degree from Clark. Upon graduation from Clark College, Larson was awarded a scholarship from the Alcoa Foundation, which he used to attend Lewis & Clark College in Portland, Oregon. He graduated, with honors, from Lewis & Clark in 1966. During the four years from 1962 through 1966, Ron worked full-time, first at a restaurant and then at a grocery store, in Vancouver and Deanna worked full-time as a secretary at Roberts Motor Company in Portland, Oregon. From 1966 to 1970, Larson attended graduate school at the University of Colorado at Boulder. He received his master's degree in 1968 and his Ph.D. in mathematics in 1970. While at the University of Colorado, Larson was the recipient of an NDEA scholarship and an NSF fellowship. He also served as a teaching assistant. His Ph.D. dissertation "On the Lattice of Topologies" was written under Wolfgang J. Thron. Academic career. In 1970, Larson accepted a position of assistant professor at The Pennsylvania State University The Behrend College in Erie, Pennsylvania. At the time, Behrend College was a 2-year branch campus of the university. In 1971, the Board of Trustees of the University met with the Behrend Advisory Board to announce Behrend College would become the first location outside University Park with the authority to develop baccalaureate program and confer degrees locally. During his first several years at the college, Larson was instrumental in developing a mathematics major at the college. He served as a member of the University Faculty Senate and also as Behrend College's representative on the University Faculty Council. Larson was promoted to associate professor in 1976 and professor in 1983. Early in his career at Penn State, Larson started writing manuscripts for textbooks. He completed and submitted three manuscripts for calculus texts in 1973, 1974, and 1975 ... only to be rejected by several publishers. Finally, in 1976 he and his co-author, Robert P. Hostetler, obtained a contract from D. C. Heath and Company. The first edition of their calculus book was published in December, 1978. "Calculus" by Larson and Bruce Edwards is now in its ninth edition and is used worldwide. During the academic year of 1983–84, Larson served as the acting division head for the Division of Science at Penn State Erie.
1085732	The Minion (also known as Fallen Knight in Canada), is a 1998 American and Canadian action supernatural horror film directed by Jean-Marc Piché and starring Dolph Lundgren. Synopsis. The film's plot revolves around the coming of the Apocalypse, heralded by the imminent liberation of the Antichrist from the depths of Hell through a certain gateway at the close of one full millennium. This gate can only be opened by a special key, which has been kept guarded by the order of the Templars (who in this version existed since the last days of Jesus). The key in turn is sought out by the servant of the Antichrist, simply known as the Minion, a demonic spirit that transfers itself into the next available host body when his previous one is killed off. His first attempt to gain the key at the close of the year 999 is foiled; the sole surviving Templar of the company charged with hiding the key eventually takes off with a ship to the west, to what was at that time known as the "end of the world", to keep it from the Minion's grasp. A thousand years later, near Christmas of 1999, two city engineer workers accidentally find a hidden Templar burial chamber beneath New York City. A Mohawk archeologist, Karen Goodleaf, is tasked with the examination of the chamber and its contents, but then the Minion attacks. Before he can claim the key, however, he is hindered by a man in priest garb, who kills the Minion's host body with a blow from a spiked gauntlet to a certain part of the neck and then takes the key for himself. Startled and confused, Karen chases after the man, who gradually introduces himself as "Lukas". Lukas Sadorov is a Templar and a former Speznas who deserted the Soviet army following a massacre on civilians in Afghanistan, sent by the head of his order to recover the key. After a lot of insistence, Karen tags along with Lukas and eventually gains his trust, and after having seen the Minion in action, she decides to aid him in his quest by proposing to hide the key in a nuclear waste depository built on the grounds of her childhood reservation home, whose resident radioactivity would theoretically prevent the Minion's host bodies from claiming the key. She enlists the help of her grandfather, Michael Bear, a Mohawk shaman who works as a foreman at the depository plant, in order to gain access to the facility. However, the Minion repeatedly takes over people who unwittingly come into contact with his previous, if disabled host bodies, enabling him to continue his relentless pursuit. He finally takes possession of Karen's former archeology tutor, Professor Schulman, who is providing assistance to the NYPD during the investigation of the apparent serial murder case, and tricks the police into opening a manhunt on Lukas. After killing Karen's grandfather and donning his radiation suit as a disguise, he tricks Lukas into giving him the key and escapes with it to Jerusalem, the location of the Templar's sanctuary and the gate to Hell hidden within its crypts. The Minion arrives at the Templars' headquarters just before Lukas and Karen do, taking the Templars by surprise and killing most of them. Bernhard, one of the Templar Knights, manages to kill the Minion, but in his eagerness to prove himself better than Lukas, he accidentally allows the Minion to take possession of him and thus insert the key into the gate. Lukas and Karen arrive shortly after, and while Karen tries to remove the key from the lock, Lukas battles the possessed Bernhard and kills him. Together, he and Karen, although tempted by the Antichrist himself, manage to prevent the gate's unlocking just before the final seal on the door is burst. With the Templars decimated, Lukas decides to rebuild the order, and Karen spontaneously declares to join him in his efforts, marking the dawn of a new generation of Templars to guard the gate and the key.
743586	Exploring the Reef (2003) is a humorous short documentary film included on the second disc of the "Finding Nemo" DVD. It features Jean-Michel Cousteau in a documentary film he is trying to make about coral reefs, but Marlin, Dory, and Nemo keep interrupting him. Plot. Jean-Michel is narrating about the ocean. As he starts talking about coral reefs, Dory starts bothering him by entering the frame. The scene then cuts to an anemone that Nemo and Marlin come out of and Jean-Michel sighs for not being able to do his documentary. The scene cuts to real Cuttlefishes, which Dory tries to speak to. When Jean-Michel tells Dory to stop it, the scene cuts to a live Spanish dancer. This makes Marlin think of dancing, and soon all three animated fish are dancing to some music. This infuriates Jean-Michel so much that he yells "Stop!" and proceeds to make a quick rant about the water cycle, concluding that "Everyone, everywhere, affects the ocean!". Dory expresses amazement, and at first Jean-Michel is satisfied, but when it is revealed that she was listening to the Echo inside a Conch shell, Jean-Michel loses his temper and starts ranting in French. For a few seconds, a cartoon still image of Cousteau appears while Musak-style music plays, on a title card which reads "Please Stand By." When Jean-Michel comes back, he has calmed down. He talks with the three fish about coral that have suffered from coral bleaching, while the whitened coral appears on screen. The next topic is coral reproduction. Dory frantically swims to each new egg to say "Happy Birthday", Marlin paternally covers Nemo's eyes, and Jean-Michel talks about how there are so many eggs that even the hungriest fish cannot possibly eat all of them. He concludes by talking about how we must all work to preserve the beauty of the coral reef. Suddenly, Nemo and the other two fish interrupt him, inadvertently summarizing the message of the entire film during their arguing. Jean-Michel gets mad again, and the camera cuts to him aboard his boat at night. Humiliated that he has been out-staged by fish, Jean-Michel mutters that "this would have never happened to Papa." He then bids the viewer farewell. Before the credits, Nemo tells the viewer about Jean-Michel Cousteau's website: oceanfutures.org.
1072345	Frankenstein Conquers the World, (released in Japan as ) is a 1965 Kaiju film. A Japanese/American co-production, produced by Toho from Japan and Henry G. Saperstein's company UPA from America. Directed by Ishirō Honda and featuring special effects by Eiji Tsuburaya, the film starred Hollywood actor Nick Adams, alongside Japanese actors Tadao Takashima and Kumi Mizuno. This was the first of two Toho/UPA co-produced films featuring giant-sized Frankenstein monsters. A sequel called "War of the Gargantuas" was produced the following year. The film was released theatrically in the United States in the Summer of 1966 by American International Pictures. Plot. The prologue is set in Nazi Germany during the final days of World War II. A Kriegsmarine Officer, flanked by three Commandos, barges into the laboratory of a Dr. Riesendorf with orders to seize the immortal heart of the Frankenstein Monster, on which Riesendorf is busy experimenting. The heart is summarily transported by U-Boat to be passed off to their Japanese allies via the Atlantic. In the Indian Ocean, off the Maldives, the U-Boat meets up with a Japanese Imperial Navy submarine to make the exchange. They are sighted by an Allied Forces scout plane and bombed, but not before the Kriegsmarine pass the heart (contained in a locked chest) to the Japanese, who take it back to Hiroshima for further experimentation. But just as the experiments are about to begin, Hiroshima is bombed by the Allied Forces, and the heart and the experiments vanish in the atomic fireball. Fifteen years later, in 1960, a feral boy runs rampant in the streets of Hiroshima, catching and devouring small animals such as dogs and rabbits. This comes to the attention of American scientist Dr. James Bowen and his assistants Sueko Togami and Ken'ichiro Kawaji. A year later (1961), they investigate and find the boy hiding in a cave on a beach, where a mob of outraged villagers has almost caught him. While the strange boy catches media attention and is taken care of by the scientists, another astounding event evades the public's eye. Once the boy is taken to the hospital, it is discovered that he is caucasian and his body is building a strong resistance to radiation rather than getting sick from it. The Former Imperial Navy Officer Kawai, who brought the heart of Frankenstein's Monster to Japan in WWII, is now working in an oil factory in Akita Prefecture, when a sudden earthquake shakes the very foundations of the refinery and an offshore drilling tower collapses. As the ground splits open, Kawai, for a moment, glimpses a monstrous, inhuman visage peering through the fissure, and an unearthly glow, before it is obscured by collapsing wreckage. Meanwhile, Dr. Bowen and the scientists find that the strange boy is growing in size due to intake of protein. Afraid of his strength, the scientists lock and chain the boy in a jail cell and Sueko, who really cares for him, feeds him some protein food to sustain him. Meanwhile, Dr. Bowen is visited by Kawai, who tells him that the boy could have grown from the heart of the Frankenstein Monster, as the boy was seen in Hiroshima more than once before. At Bowen's advice, Dr. Kawaji confers with the aging Dr. Riesendorf in Frankfurt. Riesendorf tells Kawaji of the story of the Frankenstein Monster and its noted virtual immortality, due to the intake of protein. Riesendorf recommends cutting off the monster's arm or leg, speculating that a new one will grow back. When relating this to his fellow scientists upon his return to Japan, Sueko strongly objects to this method, fearing that nothing may grow back. Even when Bowen suggests that they wait a little longer to think it over, Kawaji tenaciously attempts to sever one of the now-gigantic monster's limbs. He is interrupted by a TV crew, whom Kawaji allows to film the monster, though they enrage it with the shining bright studio lights aimed at its face. The monster, hereafter known as "Frankenstein", breaks loose and goes on the run from the Japanese police. There is a tender encounter between the monster and Sueko on the balcony of her apartment before he has to run away. While Frankenstein is on the run, he travels to many places, from Okayama (where he eats more animals) to Mount Ibuki, where his primitive childlike activities (throwing trees at birds and trying to trap a wild boar) end in disaster. Unbeknownst to Bowen and the scientists, Baragon, the monster Kawai saw earlier, goes on a rampage. Tunneling under the earth, he pops out and ravages villages, eating people and animals and leaving destruction in his wake. People believe this is Frankenstein's doing, and the misunderstood monster narrowly escapes being hunted down by the military. Before Bowen and his assistants have no choice but to dismiss Frankenstein, Kawai returns to tell them that Frankenstein may not be responsible for the disasters: it could be the monster (Baragon) he saw in Akita. He tries to convince the authorities, but to no avail. Kawaji still wishes the scientists luck in finding Frankenstein. Bowen, Sueko, and Kawaji then form a search party and venture into the forest in which they believe Frankenstein is hiding. But Kawaji, to the shock of Bowen and Sueko, then proceeds to attempt to kill him, believing that Frankenstein could be dangerous by his very nature, and not even Sueko could possibly tame him. He intends to blind him with chemical grenades and capture him to recover his heart and brain. Kawaji presses on to find Frankenstein, and instead finds Baragon. Kawaji and Bowen try in vain to stop the monster with the grenades, and when it is about to eat Sueko, Frankenstein comes to the rescue. The cataclysmic battle between the two giant monsters then begins. After the fight, the area where the fight took place starts to tremble, and then both monsters are sucked into the earth. Alternate ending. In the 1960s many stills appeared in the influential genre magazine Famous Monsters of Filmland that showed Frankenstein battling a Giant Octopus (Oodako), that had previously been seen in the film "King Kong vs Godzilla". This scene never appeared in any print of the film including the original Japanese version. When this film was in production, trade magazines at the time listed this film's title as "Frankenstein vs. The Giant Devilfish" which led to even more confusion about this mysterious sequence. It wasn't until years later that the story was made available to genre fans via exposure to Japanese publications and an interview with Ishiro Honda the films director. The scene was shot specifically for the American version of the film but was ultimately never used. As Honda explained apologetically: "The movie was made in co-production with an American company, Benedict Pictures Corporation. The bosses were so astonished by the octopus scenes from "King Kong vs. Godzilla", they begged to include it into the screenplay, even in spite of logic. So we shot some scenes with the Giant Octopus but, in the end, they were left out of the picture." The American co-producers were expecting a marine-based battle and ultimately felt the scene wouldn't work and would never use it. When Benedict Pictures would co-produce the film's sequel "War of the Gargantuas" with Toho the following year, an octopus sequence would be shot again (a marine-based battle between the Oodako and Gaira) that would remain intact in both versions of the film. In the Japanese video edition of "Frankenstein Conquers the World", that discarded scene was tagged on as an “alternate ending.” In addition to this scene, American International Pictures (the films U.S Distributor) requested several scenes of a more violent Frankenstein. Unlike the unused ending, these scenes were used in the American version. Production. Toho had always been interested in the Frankenstein character, as years earlier producer Tomoyuki Tanaka had originally commissioned a film called "Frankenstein vs. the Human Vapor" (フランケンシュタイン対ガス人間 - Furankenshutain tai Gasu Ningen), with a draft written by Kimura. This also follows up with "The Human Vapor" (1960), as Mizuno finds the Frankenstein Monster's body, and revives him, so that he can help him use the Frankenstein formula to revive his beloved girlfriend Fujichiyo (who died at the end of said film). This was also supposed to be Toho's co-feature with the Japanese release of "My Fair Lady". In 1962, Toho purchased a script from an independent producer from America named John Beck called "King Kong vs Prometheus". Beck had stolen the story treatment (which was originally called "King Kong vs Frankenstein") from Willis O'Brien and had George Worthing Yates flesh it out into a screenplay. Toho wanted to have King Kong fight their own monster Godzilla instead of the Frankenstein giant in the original story and, after working out a deal with Beck as well as RKO, the copyright holder of King Kong at the time, produced King Kong vs Godzilla. Influenced by the concept of the giant Frankenstein monster from the "King Kong vs. Frankenstein"/"King Kong vs. Prometheus" story, Toho planned on making "Frankenstein vs. Godzilla" as a follow up to "King Kong vs. Godzilla". Written in 1963 and planned for a 1964 release, the story dealt with the heart of the original Frankenstein monster becoming irradiated and growing into a Frankenstein-monster giant. Afraid the giant would start eating people, Godzilla would be freed from an icy prison by the JSDF and goaded into a fight with the monster in hopes of killing him. Even though "King Kong vs. Godzilla" had already been made with Godzilla escaping from an iceberg that he was trapped in at the end of Godzilla Raids Again, script writer Kaoru Mabuchi (a.k.a. Takeshi Kimura) thought with Godzilla disappearing into the ocean at the end of that film, that the idea of Godzilla becoming frozen in the North Sea into another icy prison could still work. The story would end with Godzilla disappearing into a raging river flow, while the Frankenstein giant disappears into magma. Toho thought the story would not make any sense because the JSDF are trying to get Godzilla (who was still a villain at this point) to kill Frankenstein because they are afraid Frankenstein will start eating humans. So the idea was dropped and Mothra was brought in as Godzilla next opponent for the film "Godzilla vs. Mothra" (1964).
1058596	Agostino "Dino" De Laurentiis (8 August 1919 – 10 November 2010) was an Italian film producer best known for producing science fiction, fantasy, and horror films. Early life. He was born at Torre Annunziata in the province of Naples, and grew up selling spaghetti produced by his father. His studies at the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia in Rome were interrupted by the outbreak of the Second World War. Career. Following his first movie, "L'ultimo Combattimento", (1940) he produced nearly 150 films during the next seven decades. In 1946 his company, the Dino de Laurentiis Cinematografica, moved into production. In the early years, De Laurentiis produced neorealist films such as "Bitter Rice" (1946) and the Fellini classics "La Strada" (1954) and "Nights of Cabiria" (1956), often in collaboration with producer Carlo Ponti. In the 1960s, Dino De Laurentiis built his own studio facilities, although these financially collapsed during the 1970s. During this period, though, De Laurentiis produced such films as "Barabbas" (1961) a Christian religious epic, "Kiss the Girls and Make Them Die", an imitation James Bond film; "Navajo Joe" (1966), a spaghetti western; "Anzio" (1968), a World War II film; "Barbarella" (1968) and "" (1968), both successful comic book adaptations; and "The Valachi Papers" made to coincide with the popularity of "The Godfather". In 1976, De Laurentiis relocated to the USA where he set up studios, eventually creating his own studio De Laurentiis Entertainment Group (DEG) based in Wilmington, North Carolina; the building of the studio quickly made Wilmington a busy center of film and television production. During this period De Laurentiis made a number of successful and acclaimed films, including "The Scientific Cardplayer" (1972), "Serpico" (1973), "Death Wish" (1974), "Mandingo" (1975), "Three Days of the Condor" (1975), "The Shootist" (1976), "Drum" (1976), Ingmar Bergman's "The Serpent's Egg" (1977), "Ragtime" (1981), "Conan the Barbarian" (1982) and "Blue Velvet" (1986). It is for his more infamous productions that De Laurentiis's name has become known — the legendary "King Kong" (1976) remake, which was a commercial hit, "Lipstick", the killer whale film "Orca" (1977); "The White Buffalo" (1977); the disaster movie "Hurricane" (1979); the remake of "Flash Gordon" (1980); "Halloween II" (the 1981 sequel to John Carpenter's 1978 classic horror film); David Lynch's "Dune" (1984); and "King Kong Lives" (1986). De Laurentiis also made several adaptations of Stephen King's works during this time, including "The Dead Zone" (1983), "Cat's Eye" (1985), "Silver Bullet" (1985) and "Maximum Overdrive" (1986); "Army of Darkness" (1992) was produced jointly by De Laurentiis, Robert Tapert and the movie's star Bruce Campbell. They distributed the animated Transformers movie. De Laurentiis also produced the first Hannibal Lecter film, "Manhunter" (1986). He passed on adapting Thomas Harris' sequel, "The Silence of the Lambs", but produced the two follow-ups, "Hannibal" (2001) and "Red Dragon" (2002), a remake of "Manhunter". He also produced "Hannibal Rising" (2007), which tells the story of how Hannibal becomes a serial killer. In his later choice of stories he displayed a strong preference for adaptations of successful books, especially sweeping classics like "Barabbas" (1961), "" (1966), or "Dune" (1984). In the 1980s he owned and operated DDL Foodshow, a specialty retailer with two gourmet Italian markets in New York City and Los Angeles. In 2001 he received the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. De Laurentiis died on 10 November 2010 at his residence in Beverly Hills. He received the "America Award" of the Italy-USA Foundation in 2012 (in memory) Family. His brief first marriage in Italy was annulled. In 1949, De Laurentiis married actress Silvana Mangano, with whom he had four children: Veronica; Raffaella, who is also a film producer; Federico, another producer who died in a plane crash in 1981 (Dino's movie "Dune" is dedicated to him); and Francesca. They divorced in 1988 prior to her death in 1989. In 1990 he married movie producer Martha Schumacher, with whom he had two daughters, Carolyna and Dina. One of his grandchildren is Giada De Laurentiis, host of "Everyday Italian", "Behind the Bash", "Giada at Home" and "Giada's Weekend Getaways" on Food Network. His nephew is Aurelio De Laurentiis, also a film producer and the chairman of SSC Napoli football club.
588388	Puli Varudhu(English:Tiger is coming) is a Tamil film starring Githan Ramesh and Mallika Kapoor in the lead roles, directed by G. V. Kumar. Plot. Ramesh (Jithan Ramesh) son of Manivannan and Saranya. Manivannan is the leading Ad-Film maker. Karupa(Karunaas) and other friends stay in Ramesh's house as paying guests. Ramesh's parents treat them as their own. Manivannan and Saranya desperately want their son to fall in love and get married. Ramesh prefers arranged marriage. A mutual friend of Ramesh and Karunaas is getting a fixed marriage. Along with Karunaas, Ramesh goes to their friend's village to attend the marriage. On the way there he dreams he meets a beautiful girl, but also that his friend would die in an accident. He wakes up with a shout. Both Ramesh and Karunaas attend their friend's wedding anyway. Ramesh meets Gayathri(Mallika Kappoor) a beautiful girl, and falls in love. She is none other than his dream girl. Karunaas informs the love of Ramesh and Gayathri to Ramesh's parents. Upon returning home, Ramesh's parents accept his love and affection for Gayathri. They plan to meet her along with her parents in order to finalize their engagement and fix the date for marriage. During travel, Ramesh dreams again of his engagement to Gayathri. This time, before the marriage, his father passes away due to a heart attack and Gayathri attempts to commit suicide. Again this time he wakes up from the dream with a shout. Ramesh's parents ask him about the sudden scream. He refuses to tell. Karunaas then asks him about it and Ramesh tells his dream. In the morning they wake up in the village and things go as planned, but some of his dreams become reality. Gayathri speaks to him and they visit some of the places she took him in his dream. After the engagement Ramesh, his friends and his family return home. Ramesh fears that more of his dreams might come true and panics. He begins to avoid everyone and everything, including Gayathri. He even goes to the extent of cancelling the wedding. Does Ramesh overcome his fearsome dreams? Do the lovers marry?
583038	Jaane Hoga Kya is a 2006 Bollywood Sci-fi Thriller directed by Glen Barretto & Ankush Mohla. The film stars Aftab Shivdasani and Bipasha Basu as the lead protagonists. Rahul Dev, Paresh Rawal, Tinnu Anand and Preeti Jhangiani all play supporting roles. The film was released on 1 September 2006 in India. It features Aftab in a double role, as a scientist who aims to clone human life. Synopsis. Siddharth Sardesai (Aftab Shivdasani), a young scientist from Indian Medical Research center who wants to create another human being, not in a mother's womb but in a science lab. If he is successful it could be a boon for humanity else it could be a doom for mankind. Siddharth has been experimenting with cloning for the past two years and has been unsuccessful. But today he is confident of succeeding. He needs permission from the Indian Medical Research Center and his Guru Dr. Krishnan (Paresh Rawal). There are few people who don't approve of his experiment. Amongst them is Inspector Rathod. So Siddharth is shattered when Dr. Krishnan informs him that the permission to go ahead is not granted. Siddharth is shattered and his love, Aditi (Bipasha Basu) comforts him. She also suggests him that she would speak to her father Mr. Chopra (Tinnu Anand) who is a big industrialist and could finance him for his project to help him go ahead with his dream of creating a human clone. After much thought and hesitation Siddharth agrees to take Aditi's help. He builds his own lab in an old burnt mill and starts with his experiment. He first clones a mouse. Time is running out as Inspector Rathod (Rahul Dev) closes on to Siddharth's heels and ultimately Siddharth has to take a plunge and he begins to clone himself. He succeeds but his clone goes missing and all hell breaks loose when suddenly Siddharth is put behind bars for assaulting a girl at a Night Club. Siddharth realizes that it is his clone that is doing all this. But he is helpless, as no one believes him that he has cloned himself, not even Dr. Krishnan. The clone has other ideas. He wants to take over Siddharth's life and starts playing games. He flirts with Dr. Krishnan's daughter Suchitra (Preeti Jhangiani) and even impregnates her. For Siddharth's project report, the clone kills Dr. Krishnan and the blame comes on Siddharth. Inspector Rathod gets furious and promises Siddharth that he will not let him go out alive from jail. Siddharth is in a major dilemma to prove his innocence of the crime that his clone has committed. But was Siddharth justified to go ahead and press the button to create the first human clone. Siddharth has to fight his own battle all-alone with his own creation, and the law is not on his side.
45544	Rasika Mathur (born September 4, 1976) is an American actress/comedian best known for her recurring role on "Wild 'N Out". Early life. Mathur grew up in Houston, Texas and attended Albright Middle School in Alief, Texas and Elsik High School. She discovered her comedic side in seventh grade, after a teacher asked her to feed her dog while she was away: "That teacher soon said to me, 'Take my acting class' and I did, and it was amazing. I got to free up my inner weirdo. Once we got to draw masks, and everyone loved the lion I drew. Something was always in me, roaring quietly, ready to be unleashed. (Ha, that was a cool metaphor.) Soon, out poured all the funny voices, silly characters, and hilarious wit that had built up inside me." At the University of Texas at Austin she studied creative advertising with a minor in Japanese and was active in the Student Association. Comedy career. After college she moved to Chicago and worked as a copywriter at a large advertising firm, while at night she studied improvisation at The Second City Training Center: "I day-jobbed and had an improv affair with Second City by night. Still have the hickeys to prove it." She also performed with Stir Friday Night!, a Chicago-based Asian American sketch comedy troupe.
591820	Engal Aasan is a 2009 Tamil-language film directed by film director, Kalaimani starring Vijayakanth in the lead role, whilst Vikranth plays a supporting role. It began its first schedule on 12 March 2008 and released in July 2009. The film, upon release could not release the big theatres and became a colossal flop upon release. Plot. The film features Captain Vijayakanth in the role of a bank officer named Mahendran who is transferred to the branch of Village Nilakottai to sort out the perplexing situation of bank fraud carried on by a big shot Marthandan (Debutant Ramki). Over there, he happens to find out that Marthandan has borrowed loan of worth Rs.250 million in the name of villagers. Mahendran and his colleagues (played by Sriman and Ilavarasu) approach Marthandan to return the money that he had illegally borrowed. When refused, he assures of arresting Marthandan and the very next day, Mahendran and his colleagues are pushed down in shock for the entire bank is burnt down and they are dismissed. Now, Mahendran together with his mates tries to reveal the true color of Marthandan and prove of their innocence.
1054420	Next Day Air is a 2009 American action comedy film that was released by Summit Entertainment on May 8, 2009. The film starring Donald Faison and Mike Epps was produced on an estimated budget of $3 million. Two criminals accidentally accept a package of cocaine which they must sell before the real owner finds it missing. Plot. Leo works for Next Day Air (NDA), a package delivery company, but is going to get fired for any more mistakes. While delivering a package addressed to Jesus in apartment 302, Leo accidentally delivers it to apartment 303. Before Leo can leave Jesus asks if Leo has the package and gets worried when he is empty handed. Guch and Brody, two inept criminals, open the package and find ten bricks of cocaine hidden in a clay pot. Brody remembers that his cousin, Shavoo, has cut cocaine before. Shavoo and his partner, Buddy, come to Guch's apartment and settle on $15,000 a brick.
585112	Saloni Aswani (born on 1 June 1977 as Vandana Aswani) is an Indian film actress and model. After finishing her education, Saloni ventured into modeling, appearing in various television advertisements. She went on to pursue a career in acting, debuting in the Hindi film "Dil Pardesi Ho Gayaa" (2003), following which she starred in several South Indian films, failing to achieve notable commercial success. She gained notice through her performances in S. S. Rajamouli's "Maryada Ramanna" (2010), leading to roles in further high-profile Telugu productions. Early life. Saloni was born in Ulhasnagar, Maharashtra into a Sindhi-speaking family as vandana. Her father was an assistant commissioner of narcotics. The family moved to CGS quarters at Wadala, Mumbai, when she was around 5 years old. After completing school, she enrolled at the Shreemati Nathibai Damodar Thackersey Women's University (SNDT) near New Marine Lines/Churchgate, Mumbai, and graduated in Psychology. She was always interested in acting and was supported by her mother, while her father wanted her to "do a respectable job". Without her father's knowledge, she created a portfolio and sent it to modeling agencies. She appeared in several television advertisements like Vaseline, Lifebuoy, Parachute Oil, Moove, Chic Shampoo, Three Roses tea and Meera soaps. Throughout her academic career, she had always participated in dramas, especially mimicking Sridevi. She also participated with a theater group Kala Sansad and took acting lessons in Ashok Kumar's Academy of Dramatic Arts, run by his daughter, Preeti Ganguly. Career. She made her acting debut in the 2003 Hindi film "Dil Pardesi Ho Gaya", directed by Sawaan Kumar Tak, who rechristened her as Saloni. She then got to appear in her first Telugu film "Dhana 51" (2005) and followed it up with "Oka Oorillo", both of them ending up as commercial failures. In 2006 she starred in 5 films, performing lead roles in "Chukkallo Chandrudu" and "Kokila" in Telugu and "Rehguzar" and "Saawan... The Love Season" in Hindi, the latter featuring her as Salman Khan's romantic interest, while doing a special appearance in the song "Nachindey Chesey" for the film "Boss, I Love You". She debuted in the Tamil film industry with a starring role in "Madurai Veeran" (2007), and in the Kannada cinema the following year, playing one of the five lead actresses in "Budhivanta", both being her only releases in 2007 and 2008, respectively; the latter went on to become a blockbuster.
743984	Eric Bogosian (born April 24, 1953) is an American actor, playwright, monologist, and novelist of Armenian descent. Personal life. Bogosian, an Armenian-American, was born in Woburn, Massachusetts, the son of Edwina, a hairdresser and instructor, and Henry Bogosian, an accountant. After graduating from Oberlin College, Bogosian moved to New York City to pursue a career in theatre. Bogosian has been married since 1980 to theater director Jo Bonney, with whom he has two sons Harris Bogosian and Travis Bogosian. Career. Eric Bogosian is an author and actor known for his plays "Talk Radio" and "subUrbia" as well as numerous one-man shows. In recent years he has starred on Broadway in Donald Margulies' "Time Stands Still", published three novels, and was featured on "" as Captain Danny Ross. Solos. Between 1980 and 2000, six major solos written and performed by Eric Bogosian were produced Off-Broadway, garnering him three Obie Awards as well as the Drama Desk award. His first two solos, "Men Inside" and "funHouse" were presented at the New York Shakespeare Festival. His third, "Drinking in America", was produced by American Place Theater. "Sex, Drugs, Rock & Roll", "Pounding Nails in the Floor with My Forehead" and "Wake Up and Smell the Coffee" were all produced commercially Off-Broadway by Frederick Zollo. In addition to Bogosian’s touring the United States and Europe, the solos have been produced featuring other actors in Argentina, Brazil, Italy and Poland. Plays. Eric Bogosian is the author of six produced plays, including "Talk Radio" at the New York Shakespeare Festival, which was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize and subsequently adapted to film by Oliver Stone, garnering Bogosian the prestigious Berlin Film Festival Silver Bear. In 2007 a Broadway revival of "Talk Radio" directed by Robert Falls starred Liev Schreiber. "subUrbia", directed by Robert Falls and produced by Lincoln Center Theater, was adapted to film by Richard Linklater. Other titles include "Griller" (Goodman Theater); "Humpty Dumpty" (The McCarter); "Red Angel" (Williamstown Theater Festival) and "1+1" (New York Stage and Film). Bogosian’s one person drama, "Notes from Underground" has had several productions, most recently starring Jonathan Ames at Performance Space 122. Stage. In addition to his many appearances in his solo work and starring in his play, "Talk Radio", Bogosian has also starred in Stephen Adly Guirgis’ "The Last Days of Judas Iscariot" directed by Philip Seymour Hoffman (LAByrinth) and Donald Margulies' "Time Stands Still" directed by Daniel Sullivan (Manhattan Theater Club/Broadway). Film. Bogosian’s plays "Talk Radio" and "subUrbia" were adapted to film as was his solo, "Sex, Drugs, Rock & Roll". He has starred in several films including "Talk Radio", "Under Siege II" and "Wonderland". In addition he has been featured in films by such directors as Woody Allen, Robert Altman, Taylor Hackford, Atom Egoyan and Agnieszka Holland. Television. In television, Bogosian is best known for his starring role as Captain Danny Ross in the series "". In addition, he has appeared as a guest star on dramas and in 1994 created with Steven Spielberg the series "High Incident" for ABC television. He portrayed Barney Greenwald, defence attorney, in the TV film "The Caine Mutiny Court Martial. Books. Bogosian is the author of three novels published by Simon & Schuster: "Mall", "Wasted Beauty", and "Perforated Heart". All of his dramatic work is in print, published by Theater Communication Group. He is currently researching a history of the Armenian assassination squad, "Nemesis". Dance. Bogosian founded the dance series at The Kitchen. During his charter tenure there, he produced the first concerts in New York City by Bill T. Jones and Arnie Zane, Karole Armitage and Molissa Fenley as well as dozens of other choreographers. In 2006 Bogosian acted as producer on the New York City Ballet’s documentary, "Bringing Back Balanchine". Awards. In addition to the awards mentioned above, Bogosian is a Guggenheim fellow and the recipient of two fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts.
1060472	Mia Wasikowska ( ; born 14 October 1989) is an Australian actress. After starting her career in Australian television and film, she first became known to a wider audience following her critically acclaimed work on the HBO television series "In Treatment". She gained worldwide prominence in 2010 after starring as Alice in Tim Burton's $1 billion-grossing "Alice in Wonderland" and appearing in "The Kids Are All Right", for which she received the Hollywood Awards' Breakthrough Actress Award. In 2011, Wasikowska portrayed the title character in Cary Fukunaga's adaptation of "Jane Eyre," and starred in Gus Van Sant's "Restless" and Rodrigo Garcia's "Albert Nobbs". She starred in John Hillcoat's "Lawless" (2012) and in Park Chan-wook's "Stoker" (2013). Early life. Wasikowska was born and raised in Canberra, Australia, and is the middle child of three, with an older sister, Jess, and a younger brother, Kai. Her mother, Marzena Wasikowska, is a Polish-born photographer, while her father, John Reid, is an Australian photographer and collagist. In 1998, when she was eight years old, Wasikowska and her family moved to Szczecin, Poland, for a year, after her mother received a grant to produce a collection of work based on her own experience of having immigrated to Australia in 1974, at the age of eleven. Wasikowska and her siblings took part in the production as subjects; she explained to Johanna Schneller of the "Toronto Globe and Mail" in July 2010, "We never had to smile or perform. We weren't always conscious of being photographed. We'd just do our thing, and she'd take pictures of us." Wasikowska began training as a ballerina at the age of nine, with hopes of going professional. She began dancing "en pointe" at thirteen, and was training 35 hours a week in addition to attending school full-time, her daily routine consisting of leaving school in the early afternoon and dancing until nine o'clock at night. A spur on her heel hampered her dancing. Her passion for ballet also waned due to the increasing pressure to achieve physical perfection and her growing dissatisfaction with the industry in general, and she quit at fourteen. However, she credits ballet with improving her ability to handle her nerves in auditions. At the same time, she had been exposed to European and Australian cinema at an early age, particularly Krzysztof Kieślowski's "Three Colors" trilogy and Gillian Armstrong's "My Brilliant Career". Although she was shy and averse to performing during her school years, she became inspired to break into acting after watching Holly Hunter in "The Piano" and Gena Rowlands in "A Woman Under the Influence", in addition to the opportunity of exploring imperfections in film. Despite having no prior acting experience, Wasikowska looked up twelve Australian talent agencies on Google and contacted them all, receiving only one response; she successfully arranged a meeting following persistent callbacks. Career. Early work. Wasikowska landed her first acting role in 2004, with a two-episode stint on the Australian soap "All Saints". She had just turned fifteen when she was cast in her Australian film debut, 2006's "Suburban Mayhem," for which she received a nomination for a Young Actor's AFI Award. That same year, she also appeared in her first short film, "Lens Love Story," in which she had no dialogue. In 2007, Wasikowska appeared in the crocodile horror film "Rogue," alongside Radha Mitchell and Sam Worthington. She observed quietly on the set – fellow actor Stephen Curry noted, "We didn't hear a peep out of her for three weeks, which earned her the nickname of 'Rowdy'."  She beat out nearly 200 other actresses for a part in the drama "September," being cast on the spot by director Peter Carstairs following her audition. She then starred in Spencer Susser's acclaimed short film "I Love Sarah Jane," which premiered at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival. 2008–2009. At the age of seventeen, Wasikowska received her first break in the United States when she was cast as Sophie, a suicidal gymnast, in HBO's acclaimed weekly drama "In Treatment," after she auditioned for the role by videotape. The part required her to leave school in Canberra and move to Los Angeles for three months, while enrolling in correspondence courses. She earned critical acclaim for her performance as the troubled teenager treated by psychotherapist Paul Weston (Gabriel Byrne), which included praise for her excellent American accent. Wasikowska revealed in an October 2008 interview with "Variety" that she was something of a mimic as a child and that the large influx of American films and TV shows made it easier for Australians to pick up the accent. The exposure from the show led to Wasikowska picking up her first American film appearances. She played the role of Chaya, the young wife of Asael Bielski (Jamie Bell), in "Defiance." Director Edward Zwick cast her without having seen her in "In Treatment," explaining to the Australian edition of "Vogue", "Her inner life is so vivid that it comes across even when she's being still." Her next part was that of aviation pioneer Elinor Smith in Mira Nair's 2009 biopic "Amelia". In June 2008, due to her work on "In Treatment," she was a recipient of an Australians in Film Breakthrough Award. Wasikowska played the supporting role of Pamela Choat in the 2009 Southern Gothic independent film "That Evening Sun", opposite Hal Holbrook. Director Scott Teems, seeking a young actress who bore a resemblance to Sissy Spacek, initially balked at the casting director's first suggestion of Wasikowska for the part, as he was adamant at casting all native Southerners for the sake of authenticity. However, after auditions with other actresses were unsuccessful, Teems relented and summoned Wasikowska for auditioning. She had only two hours to prepare, which she spent watching clips of "Coal Miner's Daughter" online in order to quickly learn a Southern accent, and impressed Teems enough that she gained the distinction of being the only non-American actor cast in the film. She was nominated for a 2009 Independent Spirit Award for Best Supporting Female, which she lost to Mo'Nique (""), though the film received a South by Southwest award for Best Ensemble Cast. 2010–2011. In July 2008, after a lengthy search, Wasikowska was cast as the eponymous heroine in Tim Burton's retelling of "Alice in Wonderland", alongside Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter and Anne Hathaway. She sent a videotaped audition to casting directors in London, and her first live reading in Los Angeles occurred on the same day as her "Evening Sun" audition. After three more auditions in London – which saw her flying back and forth from Australia to England in just as many weeks – she was awarded the role. Burton cited Wasikowska's "old-soul quality" as a catalyst in casting her: "Because you’re witnessing this whole thing through her eyes, it needed somebody who can subtly portray that." Wasikowska portrayed a nineteen-year-old Alice returning to Wonderland for the first time since her youth after escaping an unwanted marriage proposal. Her affinity for the character played a part in her desire for the role, as she had read the Lewis Carroll books as a child and was a fan of Jan Švankmajer's 1988 stop-motion film "Alice". She also saw Burton's version of the classic story as a chance to explore a deeper characterization of Alice, to whom she felt young women her age could relate, for which she drew on personal experiences. "Alice has a certain discomfort within herself, within society and among her peers; I [...] have definitely felt similarly about all of those things, so I could really understand her not fitting in. Alice also an observer who is thinking a lot, and that's similar to how I am." For Lisa Cholodenko's indie comedy "The Kids Are All Right", Wasikowska was cast as Joni, the bookish daughter of a lesbian couple (Annette Bening and Julianne Moore) who was conceived via artificial insemination. At her younger brother's (Josh Hutcherson) request, she seeks out their biological father (Mark Ruffalo). During shooting, she successfully campaigned to have Joni wear pajamas in several home scenes, as a nod to what the actress herself regularly did while home in Australia. She explained to "Orlando Sentinel" film critic Roger Moore, "[Joni's] very comfortable in her place, with who she is. So I pushed to have her, whenever she was at home, in her pajamas. That’s comfortable! And that’s something I do." On 25 October, Wasikowska was honored with the Hollywood Awards' Breakthrough Actress Award, which was presented to her by Bryce Dallas Howard, and she won the Australian Film Institute International Award for Best Actress on 12 December for her performance in "Alice in Wonderland." She was recognized by "Forbes" as one of the highest-grossing actors of 2010 with $1.03 billion, tied for second position with Johnny Depp and behind leader Leonardo DiCaprio, whose films grossed $1.1 billion for the year. From March to May 2010, Wasikowska filmed Cary Fukunaga's adaptation of "Jane Eyre", in which she starred as the title character opposite Michael Fassbender as Mr. Rochester. She began reading the novel after completion of "Alice in Wonderland", during which she asked her agent if a script existed. Two months later, she received a script and was asked to meet with Fukunaga. However, since Fukunaga was unfamiliar with her prior work at the time and was therefore undecided about casting her, he later sought the opinion of director Gus Van Sant, with whom Wasikowska had previously filmed the 2011 release "Restless." He said to "BlackBook" magazine in February 2011, "Gus wrote back: 'Cast her.'" Her work on the film resulted in a scheduling conflict that forced her to withdraw from the lead in Julia Leigh's 2011 Australian independent film "Sleeping Beauty", and she was replaced by Emily Browning. Meryl Streep in her 2012 Golden Globe acceptance speech, announced: "How about Mia Wasikowska in "Jane Eyre"?" Wasikowska turned down a part in Robert Redford's 2011 film "The Conspirator" in order to play the female lead in "Restless," which she filmed from November to December 2009. The portrayal of her character, a terminally ill sixteen-year-old, required her to crop her long hair. Though she was one of many names shortlisted for consideration in casting the role of Lisbeth Salander in David Fincher's 2011 adaptation of "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo", she declined to audition for the part due to the time commitment involved with the production. From December 2010 to February 2011, Wasikowska filmed Rodrigo Garcia's "Albert Nobbs", for which she was a last-minute replacement for Amanda Seyfried.
589938	Goopy Gyne Bagha Byne (Bengali: গুপী গাইন বাঘা বাইন "Gupi Gain Bagha Bain") is a 1969 Indian Bengali fantasy adventure comedy film directed by Satyajit Ray and based on a story by his grandfather Upendra Kishore Roychowdhury. It is sometimes released in the English-speaking world as The Adventures Of Goopy And Bagha. It is one of Satyajit Ray's few films with an abundance of musical numbers. According to Ray, the film was made as a request from his son who had encouraged him to make a film specifically for a younger audience. Adapting the story "Goopy Bagha," which was written by his grandfather Upendra Kishore Roychowdhury, Ray wrote the screenplay and also composed the songs and music for the film. Working with source material already familiar to audiences, especially in Bengal, "Goopy Gyne Bagha Byne" has become one of Ray's most well-known and successful films in India, but remains one of his least-seen or known films elsewhere in the world. The film was followed by a couple of sequels. "Hirak Rajar Deshe" was released after eleven years and "Goopy Bagha Phire Elo" was released after twenty two years. All of them followed the commercial success of the first film. Story. The story revolves around Gopinath Gyne (alias Goopy, played by Tapen Chatterjee), the son of a poor grocer Kanu Kyne from a village called Amloki. Goopy wants to become a singer but has a hoarse voice. Persuaded by village elders to sing for the king, he does so and is driven out of Amloki on a donkey for waking the king with his terrible singing. Exiled into a forest, he meets Bagha (Rabi Ghosh), another exile from nearby Hortuki sent to the forest - in Bagha's case, due to playing a drum badly. They start singing and drumming, initially to scare off a roaming tiger, and in the process they attract a group of ghosts who are fascinated by their music. The king of ghosts grants them three boons: They travel to Shundi, where a benevolent king appoints them court musicians. However the king of Halla (the long lost brother of the king of Shundi) is planning to attack Shundi, after being poisoned with magic potion that makes him evil, given to the king of Halla by his self-centered prime minister. Goopy and Bagha travel to Halla in an attempt at preventing the attack, but are captured instead. Since they have now lost their slippers, they can't escape by magic, but manage to do so instead by strategy. They arrive singing and drumming when the soldiers are about to launch their attack, capturing the king of Halla, who is returned to Shundi. The two brothers are reunited and Goopy and Bagha marry the daughters of the two kings.
1016451	Feel 100% (Chinese: 百分百感覺) is a popular Hong Kong comic book series written by Lau Wan Kit (劉雲傑) and Yau Ching Yuen (游清源). Its popularity has resulted in various adaptations on film and television. To this date there are 4 movies and 1 TV series. Given the popularity of Gen-X/romantic comedies and the familiarity of the title, there will likely be more films in the future. As this comic book is for a Cantonese audience, the dialogue appears as Written Cantonese instead of Mandarin. As such other dialect Chinese speakers will have trouble with Cantonese specific words utilized while Cantonese speakers with limited literacy will find it easier to understand. The main characters are two male best friends, Jerry and Hui Lok (許樂), and their female friend, Cherie. The story revolves around their relationships with others, including Jenny and Kei Kei (琪琪), and each other. On 26 August 2008, Feel 100% won the Second International Manga Awards. The comic is currently licensed in Hong Kong, Malaysia, Taiwan, Thailand, Korea, Indonesia, Italy, Mainland China and the United Kingdom Feel 100% on film and television. The movies are characterized as being loosely based on the comics. As each film's story line is different, certain characters, including the main ones, may or may not appear in each film. Each film and series stands independent from the others. The movies have appeared in the following order: Feel 100% (1996) This film launched the careers of several of its participants, notably director Joe Ma and actress Sammi Cheng. Both have become associated with Gen-X romantic comedies. Other actors appearing include Ekin Cheng and Gigi Leung. Feel 100% ... Once More (1996) This film's only common thread with the series is the title as even the characters have different names. However, the director and all the lead actors from the previous movie remained for this one. And it remained true to the spirit of Feel 100%, which is a Gen-X coming of age story. Feel 100% II (2001) Of note is the absence of main character Cherie from this incarnation. Many of the actors in this film went on to appear in the following version, the TV series. They include Daniel Chan (陳曉東), Niki Chow (周麗淇), Miriam Yeung, Joey Yung, and Eason Chan. Feel 100% TV Series (2002) This version is the most developed due to the lengthier nature of TV series. (It ran as 20 episodes of about 48 minutes each, split into 2 seasons of 11 and 9 episodes, respectively.) This was a popular version as it contained many of the newest Hong Kong stars. Also it makes many references to Hong Kong pop culture icons. In fact, one could say that a viewer who can recognize all of the actors and references that appear in this series must have a good grasp of the Hong Kong entertainment industry. Feel 100% 2003 (2003) This incarnation is considered by some as the weakest. It is the first Feel 100% project without director Joe Ma attached to it. Starring Shawn Yue, Cyrus Wong and the Cookies, this film has been criticized as being hijacked by the Cookies. Indeed all 9 of them show up in a variety of roles for this film.
1058740	The Wild is a 2006 American computer animated family film, directed by Steve "Spaz" Williams, produced by Clint Goldman and assistant produced by Jim Burton. It was a C.O.R.E. Feature Animation production distributed by Walt Disney Pictures on April 14, 2006, in the United States. Plot. In New York Zoo, Samson the Lion tells his son Ryan stories of his adventures in the wild. Ryan attempts to imitate his father's roar, but all he can manage is a squeaky growl.That night, when the zoo closes, all the animals are free to roam. Samson heads off to join a game of "Turtle Curling", while Ryan goes with his friends Eze the Hippo and Duke the Kangaroo to stalk the gazelles like his father. Meanwhile, Benny the Squirrel tries to get Bridget the Giraffe to go out with him, but she is not interested. Along with Benny, Bridget, a koala named Nigel, and an anaconda named Larry, Samson competes in the Turtle Curling Game against a team of penguins. Meanwhile, Ryan's friends sneak into the gazelle exhibit. Ryan tries unsuccessfully to stop Eze and Duke with growls. This wakes the gazelles into a stampede, which ruins his father's game. An angry Samson scolds Ryan for spending all day sulking. Ryan retorts by saying he sulks because he would feel much better being a loser if his father wasn't "Samson the Wild". However, Ryan accidentally gets shipped into the "Green Boxes", which legend tells will take him to the wild. With the help of a pigeon, Samson and Benny go after him, sneaking into a garbage disposal truck with Nigel, Bridget, and Larry coming as well, accidentally throwing Benny off the truck. After passing through Times Square and nearly being crushed in the garbage disposal, the group encounters a pack of rabid stray dogs. Samson leads them through the sewer. There, they take directions to the docks from two street wise alligator brothers, Stan and Carmine. The next morning, the four friends steal a tugboat during a hectic escape from several bulk carriers entering and departing New York harbour. With a little help from Larry, they drive the boat and reunite with Benny, who has enlisted a flock of Canada geese to help lead the crew in the right direction of Ryan's ship. Days later, Nigel goes mad with the heat and thirst, and under the impression they have hit an iceberg, jumps overboard. The boat has run aground in Africa. The group quickly discovers that all the animals in the area are being evacuated by the carriers, as a nearby volcano erupts. They witness Ryan escaping, but he runs into the jungle. Samson attempts to find him, but it is quickly revealed that he has in fact never been in the wild before. The rest of the group head back to the ship, but Samson decides to keep trying to find his son. While walking Samson starts seeing plants and rocks changing colors. Nigel is captured by a group of wildebeests who dwell in the volcano, and their leader Kazar, pronounces him king, based on an 'omen' he received when he was young: about to be devoured by lions, a toy koala fell from the sky (actually from a plane) and scared the lions away, saving his life. Kazar wants to change the food chain; he would rather see "prey become predators" and vice versa. For this, he needs to eat a lion. Bridget and Larry are also captured and held prisoner. Ryan is sheltering in a branch of an old tree, but he is attacked by a gang of vultures led by Scraw and Scab acting under orders from Kazar. The branch breaks and traps his paw. Ryan attempts another failed roar. Samson hears Ryan's cries and runs to save him, scaring off the birds. The two reunite, but are interrupted by a pack of wildebeests. Ryan is shocked when Samson tells him to run. The two retreat to a tree where Samson reveals the truth. He was born in the circus and like Ryan, couldn't roar. Samson's father was bitterly disappointed and allowed his son to be sent to the zoo, where Samson lied to avoid the shame. The wildebeests discover them and, in the scuffle, send the tree over the cliff, with Samson still hanging on. Ryan is taken to the volcano. Benny finds Samson, and together they use a chameleon camouflage cover to slip into Kazar's lair. Nigel tries his best to stall the wildebeests from cooking his friends, and eventually Samson appears to fight Kazar and protect them, but Kazar overwhelms him. Ryan, seeing Samson in danger, climbs onto a catapulting device and launches himself. Ryan finally finds his roar while in mid-air. Ryan lands on Kazar's back, but is quickly thrown off. Samson attacks Kazar and manages to defeat him. Ryan tells Samson that he is happy to have him for a dad. The other wildebeests are touched by this and refuse to serve Kazar any further. Samson gains the courage he has needed, and roars powerfully enough to push back a charging Kazar. After Kazar is caught in the volcano's eruption, the other wildebeests accompany Samson and the others back to the New York Zoo. Release, reception, and merchandise. "The Wild" opened in 2,854 theaters. According to Box Office Mojo, the film earned 9.5 million dollars in its first weekend at the box office, ranking #4. Its promotion was small, with only the following promoters: Kraft, McDonald's, Amazon (selling the products and mini promotions on its site), Buena Vista Games, Buena Vista Records, and Buena Vista Book Publishing Worldwide. As of November 5, 2006, the movie grossed a total of $37,384,046 in the United States box office and $102,338,515 worldwide. Its production budget, in contrast, was $80 million. "The Wild" was ranked #1 of the top DVD sales twice in Entertainment Weekly. (The first time for October 6–12, 2006, the second time for October 13–19, 2006). "The Wild" received mostly negative reviews. It had harsh reviews even before the trailer premiered. Rotten Tomatoes reports that 19% of critics gave the film a positive review with an average score of 4.5/10, based on 111 reviews. The consensus says, "With a rehashed plot and unimpressive animation, there's nothing wild about The Wild." "Madagascar" similarities. "The Wild"'s similarities with "Madagascar" were criticized of being too close of a plot line to Madagascar, by many critics. Similarities include its setting in New York's Central Park Zoo, similar animals as characters, and the primary plot of introducing zoo animals to the wild. The name of the film and the tag line, "Start spreading the newspaper", a play on the opening line from the "Theme from New York, New York", were both used as integral plot points in "Madagascar". Despite this, a few critics defended The Wild as the superior movie. Critic Mike Sage wrote "don't be mistaking this for a Madagascar rip-off, when it was that sloppy DreamWorks turd that only managed to make it to theatres first because of corporate espionage". Without addressing which film was the original concept, Tim Cogshell of "Boxoffice Magazine" simply wrote "for the adult who may very well have to experience this film, and who may have experienced "Madagascar," "The Wild" is better. The animation is better, the jokes intended for your children are better, the jokes intended for you and not you children are much better, the songs are better, and it's more fun."
1017791	The 36th Chamber of Shaolin (少林三十六房, "Shào Lín sān shí liù fáng"), also known as "The Master Killer" and "Shaolin Master Killer," is a 1978 Shaw Brothers kung fu film directed by Liu Chia-liang and starring Gordon Liu. The film follows a highly fictionalized version of San Te, a legendary Shaolin martial arts disciple who trained under the general Chi Shan, portrayed by the director's adopted brother Gordon Liu. "36th Chamber of Shaolin" is widely considered to be one of the greatest kung fu films and a turning point in its director's and star's careers. It was followed by "Return to the 36th Chamber", which was more comedic in presentation and featured Gordon Liu as the new main character with another actor in the smaller role of San Te, and "Disciples of the 36th Chamber". Plot. A young student named San Te is drawn by his activist teacher into the local rebellion against the Manchu government. The government officials suppress the uprising and liquidate the school, killing friends and family members as well. San Te then decides to seek vengeance. Wounded in an attack by Manchu henchmen, he flees to the Shaolin temple and seeks training in kung fu. Initially the Buddhist monks reject him, since he is an outsider, but the chief abbot takes mercy on the young man and lets him stay. One year later, he begins his martial arts training in the temple's 35 chambers and advances more rapidly than any previous student. Along the way, he is depicted as inventing the three section staff. However, as San Te nears the end of his education, the temple officially exiles him in a surreptitious way to allow him to aid the people against the oppressors. He returns to the outside world, namely to his hometown, and assists the people by teaching them martial arts. Before the political revolution he is inspiring to complete, he is forced into conflict with the Manchu governor. Finally, he triumphs and returns to the Shaolin temple, where he establishes the 36th chamber, a special martial arts class for laypeople to learn kung fu. Cast. The trailer (included as an extra on the DVD) credits the cast as follows: Distribution. The film was originally released on dvd on February 8, 2000 by Crash Cinema Media under the title Shaolin Master Killer. It was later released on dvd by the Weinstein Company's Asian label, Dragon Dynasty on June 19, 2007 as The 36th Chamber of Shaolin. This DVD features commentary by the RZA and film critic Andy Klein, and an interview with Gordon Liu. It has also been released on Blu-ray as of March 2, 2010 from Vivendi Visual Entertainment. The film was released on VHS as early as 1993. Reception. "36th Chamber of Shaolin" is widely considered to be one of the greatest kung fu films ever made and a highly influential entry in the genre. The Wu-Tang Clan named their debut album Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers) after this film.
1059201	Theresa Russell (born March 20, 1957 in San Diego, California) is an American actress. Biography. Russell was born Theresa Paup in San Diego, California, the daughter of Carole Platt (née Mall) and Jerry Russell Paup. She attended Burbank High School, but did not graduate. She married English film director Nicolas Roeg (born 1928), in 1982. The couple had two sons, Statten (born 1983) and Maximillian (born 1985); Roeg and Russell divorced. Pete Townshend of The Who says that Russell was the inspiration for his song, "Athena", which was first called "Theresa". She lives in California. Career. Russell began modeling at the age of 12 and made her film debut in 1976, at age 19, in "The Last Tycoon", starring Robert De Niro. Russell's next notable appearance was in "Straight Time" (1978). "Bad Timing" (1980) was the first of six acclaimed indie films starring Russell directed by her future husband Nicolas Roeg, whom she married in 1982. Other Roeg/Russell collaborations include "Insignificance", "Eureka", "Track 29", "Cold Heaven", and "Aria". She has also been widely praised for her roles in "The Razor's Edge" (1984), "Black Widow" (1987), "Impulse" (1990), and "The Believer" (2001), as well as the HBO mini-series "Empire Falls" in 2005 with Ed Harris. Russell appeared in 2007's "Spider-Man 3" as the wife of Flint Marko (Thomas Haden Church).
588704	Mann Vasanai is a 1983 Indian Tamil language film starring Revathi, Vinu Chakravarthy, Kantimathi, Pandiyan and Y. Vijaya. It is remade as "Mangammagari Manavadu" in 1984 directed by Kodi Ramakrishna in Telugu language. It is also highly successful. Plot. Movie produced by Chithra Ramu under the banner of Seethalakshmi Art films with a huge success. Love, village feud and circumstances lead a young man to abandon his village and lover and head to the armed forces. Upon his return, his lover realizes that things are never going to be the same again. Soundtrack. Lyrics for the songs are M.G.vallabhan, Panju arunachalam, Vairamuthu.
1244978	The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara is a 2003 American documentary film about the life and times of former U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara as well as illustrating his observations of the nature of modern warfare. The film was directed by Errol Morris and the original score is by Philip Glass. The title is related to the military phrase ""Fog of War"", describing the difficulty of making decisions in the midst of conflict. The film won the 2003 Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature and the Independent Spirit Award for Best Documentary Feature. It was non-competitively screened at the Cannes Film Festival. Concept. Using archival footage, United States Cabinet conversation recordings, and an interview of the then eighty-five-year-old Robert McNamara, "The Fog of War" depicts his life, from his birth during the First World War remembering the time American troops returned from Europe, to working as a World War II Whiz Kid military officer, to being the Ford Motor Company's president, to serving as Secretary of Defense for presidents Kennedy and Johnson (including his involvement in the Cuban Missile Crisis and the Vietnam War). In a 2004 appearance at U.C. Berkeley, Errol Morris said his inspiration for the documentary derived from McNamara's book (with James G. Blight), "" (2001). Morris interviewed McNamara for some twenty hours; the two-hour documentary comprises eleven lessons from "In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam" (1995). He posits, discourses upon, and propounds the lessons in the interview that is "The Fog of War". Moreover, at the U.C. Berkeley event, McNamara disagreed with Morris's interpretations in "The Fog of War", yet, on completion, McNamara supplemented the original eleven lessons with an additional ten lessons; they are in "The Fog of War" DVD. When asked to apply the eleven lessons from "In Retrospect" to the U.S. invasion of Iraq, McNamara refused, arguing that ex-secretaries of defense must not comment upon the incumbent defense secretary's policies. He suggested other people could apply the eleven lessons to the war in Iraq, but that he would not, noting that the lessons are about war in general, not a specific war. Plot. The overall plot of the film focuses on the interviews of former Secretary of defense, Robert McNamara, who was interviewed for about 20 hours by the director of the documentary, Errol Morris, through a special device called the "Interrotron" which allows the interviewee to look directly in the camera. Use of this device is believed to bring more life to the abstract idea of the interview. In the interviews, McNamara talks about aspects of international security and how and by what means it can be influenced by circumstances. The documentary explores recent events in American history and also focuses on McNamara's life and how he rose from a humble American family to be a politician who achieved enormous power and influence. McNamara worked with presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson and with general Curtis LeMay, and had direct access to many governmental documents. His opinions, personal experiences and lessons learned while serving as a Secretary of Defense can provide the audience with an enlightening philosophy and outlook on American politics. The documentary covers important events such as World War II, Vietnam War, Cuban Missile Crisis, and many others that McNamara himself witnessed. McNamara is believed to be the "architect" of the Vietnam war; a war that cost an enormous number of lives against a foe whose resolve he seriously underestimated. McNamara's interview, along with archival footage, offers a close look at international security and the international relations of the US, and an insight into why certain conflicts occur and the lessons that can be learned from these conflicts. Commentary. McNamara: LeMay was focused on only one thing: target destruction. Most Air Force Generals can tell you how many planes they had, how many tons of bombs they dropped, or whatever the hell it was. But, he was the only person that I knew in the senior command of the Air Force who focused solely on the loss of his crews per unit of target destruction. I was on the island of Guam in his command in March 1945 ...in that single night, we burned to death 100,000 Japanese civilians in Tokyo: men, women, and children. Well, I was part of a mechanism that in a sense recommended it. I analyzed bombing operations, and how to make them more efficient. i.e. Not more efficient in the sense of killing more, but more efficient in weakening the adversary. I remember reading that General Sherman in the Civil War ...the mayor of Atlanta pleaded with him to save the city. And Sherman essentially said to the mayor just before he torched it and burned it down: "War is cruel. War is cruelty." That was the way LeMay felt. McNamara: It's almost impossible for our people today to put themselves back into that period. In my 7 years as Secretary, we came within a hair's breadth of war with the Soviet Union on three different occasions. 24 hours a day, 365 days a year for 7 years as Secretary of Defense, I lived the Cold War ...Hell, it was a hot war! McNamara: I was serving at the request of the President [Johnson], who had been elected by the American people. And it was my responsibility to try to help him to carry out the office as he believed was in the interest of our people. We have certain ideals, certain responsibilities. What is morally appropriate in a wartime environment? How much evil must we do in order to do good? Recognize that at times you will have to engage in evil, but minimize it. People did not understand at that time there were recommendations and pressures that would carry the risk of war with China and carry the risk of nuclear war. And he was determined to prevent it. I'm arguing that he had a reason in his mind for doing what he did. EM: How was your thinking changing during this [Vietnam War] period?
1507841	Omar Benson Miller (born October 7, 1978) is an American actor. Early life. Miller was raised in Long Beach and Anaheim, California, and graduated from San Jose State University. Career. He has played minor roles in various television shows and movies, including "Sex, Love & Secrets", ', "Get Rich Or Die Tryin, "8 Mile", "The Express", "Transformers" and "Take the Lead Miller was a "" regular. Starting October 5, 2009, Miller appeared on the crime drama as Walter Simmons, a Louisiana native and art theft specialist as a member of the team led by Horatio (David Caruso).
1162505	J. E. Freeman (born 2 February 1946) is an American actor, often cast in tough guy roles. His first movie appearance was in the early 1980s actioner "An Eye for an Eye" in which he plays a tow truck driver who minces words with Chuck Norris. Freeman is especially known for his menacing characters roles: the evil gangster Marcello Santos in David Lynch's "Wild at Heart", the terrifying Eddie Dane, ferocious gay hitman from "Miller's Crossing", and the infamous scientist Wren in "Alien Resurrection". Other notable apparitions in : "Ruthless People", "Patriot Games", "Copycat" and "Go". Freeman is openly gay. In 2009, he published a letter to the editor on sfgate.com, detailing his reminiscences of the 1969 Stonewall riots. He writes poetry and has a tumblr blog (Freedapoet) dedicated to his poetry. Freeman trained as an actor with Jean Shelton at Shelton Studios in the San Francisco area in the 1970s. He was nominated for best actor for playing Teach in the west coast premiere of David Mamet's American Buffalo, which also featured George Eckel and Charles Bouvier. After directing Look Back in Anger in 1979, Freeman moved to Los Angeles to pursue his film career. Freeman is now retired from acting.
1054869	The Mighty Ducks is a 1992 American sports comedy film directed by Stephen Herek (who would go on to work on another major Disney property, "101 Dalmatians") and starring Emilio Estevez. It was produced by Avnet–Kerner Productions and distributed by Walt Disney Pictures. It is the first film in "The Mighty Ducks" trilogy. In the UK and Australia, the film was retitled "Champions". Subsequently, UK home releases are now titled "The Mighty Ducks Are the Champions", reflecting both titles, as well as to possibly avoid confusion with (retitled as just "The Mighty Ducks"). Plot. Gordon Bombay (Emilio Estevez) is a successful Minneapolis defense attorney, whose truculent courtroom antics have earned him no respect among his peers. After being arrested for drunken driving, Bombay is sentenced to community service by coaching the local "District 5" PeeWee hockey team. Bombay has a history with the sport, although his memories are far from pleasant: he blew a penalty shot, costing his team the title and disappointing his hyper-competitive coach, Jack Reilly (Lane Smith). When Bombay meets the team, he realizes the kids have no practice facility, equipment or ability to go with it. The team's first game with Bombay at the helm is against Bombay's old team: the Hawks, the team from the snooty suburb of Edina. Reilly is still head coach and remains bitter about Gordon's shortcoming in that fateful game. District 5 gets pummeled and after Bombay berates the team for not listening to him the players challenge his authority. Meanwhile, Bombay discovers his old mentor and family friend Hans (Joss Ackland) who owns a nearby sporting goods store was in attendance. While visiting him, Bombay recalls that he quit playing hockey after losing his father four months before the championship game. Hans encourages him to rekindle his childhood passion. Bombay approaches his boss, Gerald Ducksworth (Josef Sommer) to sponsor the team, which Ducksworth reluctantly agrees. The result is a complete makeover for the team, both in look (as they can now buy professional equipment) and in skill (as Bombay has more time to teach the kids hockey fundamentals). Now playing as the "Ducks", they fight to a tie in the next game and recruit three new players: figure-skating siblings Tommy (Danny Tamberelli) and Tammy Duncan (Jane Plank) and slap shot specialist and enforcer Fulton Reed (Elden Henson). The potential of Ducks player Charlie Conway (Joshua Jackson) catches Bombay's eye and he takes him under his wing. Bombay learns that due to redistricting the star player for the Hawks, Adam Banks (Vincent Larusso), should actually be playing for the Ducks. He then threatens Reilly into transferring Banks to the Ducks. After hearing an out of context quote about them, the Ducks players lose faith in Bombay and revert to their old habits. Ducksworth makes a deal with Reilly about the Hawks keeping Banks, however Bombay refuses since it would be against fair-play, which Ducksworth berated him about when he started his community service. Left with either the choice of letting his team down or get fired from his job, Bombay takes the latter. Bombay manages to win back the Ducks' trust after they win a crucial match and Adam Banks proves to be a valuable asset. Because of his well-to-do background, Adam is given the nickname, "Cake Eater" by his teammates. The name is, at first, seen as derisive, but then becomes a term of endearment. The Ducks manage to make it to the championship against the Hawks. Despite the Hawks' heavy attacks taking Banks out of the game, the Ducks manage to tie the game late and Charlie is fouled by a Hawks player as time expires. In exactly the same situation as when Bombay was a child, Charlie prepares for a penalty shot to win the championship. In stark contrast to former coach Reilly's attitude (Reilly told Bombay that if he missed, he was letting everyone down), Bombay tells Charlie that he will believe in him no matter what happens. Inspired, Charlie jukes out the goalie with a "Triple-deke", (taught to him by Bombay), to defeat the Hawks for the state Pee Wee Championship. The Ducks and family race out onto the ice in jubilation, where Bombay thanks Hans for his belief in him and Hans tells Bombay he is proud of him. Later, Bombay boards a bus headed to a minor-league tryout. Although he seems daunted at the prospect of going up against younger players, he receives the same words of encouragement and advice from the Ducks he had given them, promising he will return next season to defend their title. Reception. The film grossed $50,752,337 domestically in the U.S, becoming a surprising success with audiences, which in turn inspired two sequels and an animated TV series (the later taking on a science fiction angle with actual anthropomorphic ducks). While both sequels box-office totals didn't match the first movie, they were still financially successful. Critically, The Mighty Ducks was less successful, currently holding a 12% 'rotten' rating on Rotten Tomatoes (the lowest of the series on the website). By contrast, it has a 64% positive audience rating on the site. Roger Ebert said the film was 'sweet and innocent, and that at a certain level it might appeal to younger kids. I doubt if its ambitions reach much beyond that', and gave it a 2 star rating. Rita Kempley of The Washington Post described the film as 'Steven Brill, who has a small role in the film, constructed the screenplay much as one would put together some of those particleboard bookcases from Ikea.'
588190	Azharuddin Mohammed Ismail (Marathi: अझहरुद्दीन मोहाम्मद इस्मैल) (born 1998) is an Indian child actor, who played the youngest version of Salim Malik in the Oscar-winning film "Slumdog Millionaire" (2008), for which he won a Screen Actors Guild Award. Following the film's success, he has been cast in the Bollywood film "Kal Kisne Dekha" (2009). Biography. Like his on-screen character, Azaruddin comes from one of the slums of Mumbai, living in the Garib Nagar slum near Bandra station. According to "The Daily Telegraph", "his family's illegal hut was demolished by the local authorities and he now sleeps under a sheet of plastic tarpaulin with shortly afterwards in September 2009. Career. His casting in "Slumdog Millionaire" proved controversial with the producers admitting they debated whether to use real slum kids in the film fearing it would distort their lives too much. Director Danny Boyle justified the casting saying: "These people have so much prejudice against them, why should we be prejudiced against them as well?" Critics have claimed Azharuddin and his co-star Rubina Ali, had been underpaid for their part in the film, something disputed by the film's producer saying the actors had been paid the equivalent of a monthly salary payment for the production company's senior staff in Britain. A trust fund has been set up for the children which will be released to them when they turn eighteen, provided they continue in education until this time. Both Azharuddin and Rubina attended the 81st Academy Awards on 22 February 2009, along with all of the other actors that played Salim, Jamal and Latika. Azharuddin was accompanied by his mother Shameem Ismail, while Rubina was accompanied by her uncle. This was his first journey outside of Mumbai. Following the success of "Slumdog Millionaire" at the 2009 Academy Awards the Maharashtra Housing Area Development Authority have recommended the children be rehoused, with an official saying the children had "brought laurels to the country" and deserved to be rewarded. On 25 February 2009, the Maharashtra Housing and Development Authority announced that Azharuddin as well as Rubina would be given "free houses" so that they would no longer have to live in the Mumbai slum of Garib Nagar. In March 2009, Azharuddun was part of the cast in the Bollywood film "Kal Kisne Dekha" (2009), alongside his "Slumdog Millionaire" co-star Rubina Ali. The film was directed by Vivek Sharma and features the Bollywood stars Shah Rukh Khan, Rishi Kapoor and Juhi Chawla in cameo roles. Controversies. According to the UK newspaper, "The Daily Telegraph", Azharuddin Ismail was paid £1,700 during filming for a month's work on the film. A Fox Searchlight spokesman responded that for their one-month work on the film, he was paid three times the amount of an average annual salary for an adult living in their neighborhood. On 26 January 2009, Danny Boyle (director) and Christian Colson (producer) released a written statement saying that they had "paid painstaking and considered attention to how Azhar and Rubina's involvement in the film could be of lasting benefit to them over and above the payment they received for their work". Boyle and Colson have stated that they have "set up trust funds for Rubina and Azharuddin and paid for their education," although the exact amount of the trust funds is not known. This has also been met with criticism as there is question as to how children growing up in the slums have any expectation of being able to attend higher education, making the trust fund potentially useless. Boyle has explained that, "We don't want to reveal exact figures about what's in the trust fund, what's in the bank account for them for when they leave school because it will make them vulnerable and a target really but it is substantial, and they will hopefully gain benefit from the film long after the film has disappeared and long after the media who are chasing them at the moment sadly have lost interest in the film and that's been our approach throughout and I think it's the right approach." According to "The Economic Times", Azharuddin will have £17,500 pounds put into a trust fund which he will get, plus interest, when he is 18. His father has been quoted as saying "My son has taken on the world and won. I am so proud of him but I want more money. They promised me a new house but it hasn't happened. I'm still in the slum. I want the money now, it is of no use later. Mr Boyle should take care of my son." Following his return home from the Oscars, there was more controversy surrounding Azharuddin after his father, Ismail Mohammed, reportedly slapped him for refusing to be interviewed by a foreign journalist because he was tired. According to their neighbour, Yakub Abdul Sheikh, when "Azharuddin refused to oblige, he slapped him, but later was full of remorse". Slum home demolished. In May 2009, it was reported that local authorities had demolished his family's makeshift shelter, and that police had forced him out of it after hitting him with a bamboo stick. Authorities stated that "he and other families were squatting on land that was owned by the government". After the demolition, he described himself and his family as "homeless, we have nowhere to go". However, Azharuddin and his family moved into a new home in the Santa Cruz area of Mumbai, purchased by a trust set up by the film's producers. Awards and honours. Won Nominated
1016300	Mark Cheng Ho-nam (born 6 October 1964) is a Hong Kong actor. He is known for his role as "Lam Wing" in the 1996 film "Tai Chi Boxer". Film career. Cheng started his career in 1983. Cinema City attempted to make Cheng a leading man in the mid-1980s. These lead roles never made him a star. By the 1990s, he was often cast in Category III films and low budget girls with guns films. Cheng also practised martial arts and performed stunts in some of the films he acted in. Personal life. In the 1980s, Cheng dated Hong Kong actress Ann Bridgewater. In 1991, Cheng was married to Japanese actress Yukari Oshima but they divorced four years later. Cheng had since settled down in Malaysia since 1999 with his Malaysian wife Ailyn Pow whom he met during a shoot, they have a daughter named Jada.
1437140	The Legend of Lucy Keyes is a 2006 Suspense Mystery film directed and written by John Stimpson, and starring Julie Delpy, Justin Theroux and Brooke Adams. Summary. After losing their youngest daughter Anna ( Madeline O'Brian), Guy Cooley (Justin Theroux) moves to an old farm in Princeton with his wife Jeanne Cooley (Julie Delpy) and their two daughters, Molly and Lucy to build eight windmills to generate clean power to the city. He was hired by a local named Samantha Porter (Brooke Adams), who, with her relative Jonas Dodd (Mark Boone Junior), owns the lands in the woods where the facility will be built. The Cooley family experiences a cold reception in town, and while voting for the approval of the project, an old woman named Gretchen Caswell (Jamie Donnelly) votes against the construction (along with several other people) and mentions the historic importance of the spot and the name of Martha. Jeanne researches and discovers that two hundred and fifty years ago, a girl called Lucy Keyes got lost in the woods and in spite of the efforts of her mother Martha Keyes and the locals, she was never found. When the ghost of Martha comes to the fields around their property calling for Lucy, Jeanne realizes that the legend is true and that there are many hidden secrets in that location.
900665	"I'm Not Scared" () is a 2003 film directed by Gabriele Salvatores. Francesa Marciano and Niccolò Ammaniti wrote the script based on Niccolò Ammaniti's successful 2001 Italian novel "Io non ho paura". The story is during Italy's anni di piombo, a time riddled with terrorism and kidnapping in the 1970s. Plot. The film takes place in 1978 in a fictional town called Acqua Traverse in Southern Italy during the hottest summer of the century. A nine-year-old boy named Michele Amitrano (Giuseppe Cristiano) and a group of his friends set out across scorched wheat fields in a race. Michele's sister tags along but falls, breaking her glasses, and calls out to Michele, who runs back to her. Michele quickly appeases her worries over the glasses, and they continue running. Of the group, they are the last ones to arrive at the deserted farmhouse, and Michele, therefore, must pay up. However, the leader of the group, Skull, chooses the only girl in the group besides Michele's sister to pay up instead. He instructs her to expose herself to the boys, and she looks to the others for help, but they refuse to meet her gaze. She reluctantly and hesitantly begins to oblige, when Michele pipes up that he was the one to arrive last and that he should be the one to pay.
947239	John Thomas Salley (born May 16, 1964) is a retired American professional basketball player, actor and talk show host. He was the first player in NBA history to play on three different championship-winning franchises. After being drafted in the first round out of Georgia Tech in 1986, the 6'11" (2.11 m) Salley played both power forward and center for the Detroit Pistons, Miami Heat, Toronto Raptors, Chicago Bulls, Panathinaikos BC and Los Angeles Lakers. He was a long-time host of the former Fox Sports Net show "The Best Damn Sports Show Period". Early life. Salley was born in Brooklyn, New York. Salley played high school ball at Canarsie High School in Brooklyn. He is a 1988 graduate of Georgia Tech's College of Management. He holds Georgia Tech's blocked shot record, and has had his jersey number 22 retired—a very rare honor in college basketball. Basketball career. Detroit Pistons. Salley was drafted by the Detroit Pistons in the first round of the 1986 NBA Draft out of Georgia Tech. After joining the Pistons, he became close friends with Adrian Dantley, who taught him proper nutrition, how to exercise, and how to conduct himself off the court. Salley, for his part, called Dantley "The Teacher." Salley would become good friends with comedian Eddie Murphy and made several appearances at comedy clubs in the off-season. In 1989 and 1990, he played on two Pistons championship teams. He is among the Pistons' all-time leaders in blocked shots. Heat, Raptors and Chicago Bulls. He was traded to the Miami Heat in 1992 and, a few years after that, was left unprotected by Miami in the 1995 expansion draft. Following a short stint with the inaugural Toronto Raptors team where he received little playing time, he negotiated a buyout of his contract in order to sign with the Chicago Bulls, where he helped Michael Jordan, Scottie Pippen, Toni Kukoč and former Pistons teammate Dennis Rodman (as well as former teammate James Edwards) lead the Bulls to a record-breaking 72-win season, after which Salley retired. However, in 1996, he came out of retirement to join the Greek team Panathinaikos BC for a few games. Lakers. In 1999, he joined a Lakers team led by Shaquille O'Neal and Kobe Bryant. He saw little action for the Lakers en route to their first of three consecutive NBA championships from 2000–2002. In 2000 he retired again following the first Lakers championship season after proudly proclaiming that he had won "four championship rings, with three different teams, in three different decades and two different millenniums." Post-basketball career. John Salley had a role in "Bad Boys" and "Bad Boys II", as a thick-glassed computer hacking nerd who gets out of jail because he helps crack files for the Miami Police Department. In 1996, Salley appeared as a veteran basketball player alongside Whoopi Goldberg in the film "Eddie", about a fan who takes over as coach of the New York Knicks. In the fall of 1998, Salley hosted the game show "I Can't Believe You Said That", which aired on the Fox Family Channel. During that time, he also guest-starred as a panelist on "Hollywood Squares". In 2001 he made an appearance in the Luther Vandross music video, "Take You Out". In 2003, Salley appeared in the Showtime TV film "Coast to Coast" alongside actress Selma Blair. In 2004 he was part of the panel of celebrity judges in the TBS Superstation show "He's a Lady". In 2005 he appeared in the television series "Noah's Arc" as Victor.
1070496	Ned Bellamy (born May 7, 1957) is an American actor. Bellamy was born in Dayton, Ohio. After graduating UCLA, he founded the Los Angeles based theater company The Actors' Gang with fellow actor Tim Robbins. He was featured on a role on an episode of "Seinfeld" entitled "The Fatigues". His brother, Mark Bellamy, was the United States Ambassador to Kenya from 2003 until 2006.
1484806	Shawn Roberts (born April 2, 1984) is a Canadian actor. He is best known for his roles in zombie films such as "Land of the Dead", "Diary of the Dead", and the "Resident Evil" franchise. Early life. Roberts was born in Stratford, Ontario. Career. Roberts started acting when he played the wolf in a school play of "Little Red Riding Hood", which was seen by award-winning screenwriter Robert Forsythe. Forsythe, a friend of Roberts' father, helped him get a role in "Emily of New Moon". Roberts went on to play Dean Walton in the Canadian television series ', and has also appeared in George A. Romero's "Diary of the Dead" and "Land of the Dead". In 2010, he appeared in ', where he played villain Albert Wesker. He reprised the role of Wesker in 2012 in "". Filmography. Television. ! Year
582523	Hazaaron Khwaishein Aisi a 2003 Indian film made by director Sudhir Mishra in 2003, but released in 2005. Set against the backdrop of the Indian Emergency, the movie tells the story of three youngsters in the 70s, when India was undergoing massive social and political changes. The movie's title is taken from the couplet of Urdu poet Mirza Ghalib. It went to 12 film festivals in 6 months including Turkey, Estonia, River to River (Florence), Berlin, Edinburgh, Washington, Goa, Bite The Mango (Bradford), Commonwealth (Manchester), India (Los Angeles), Dallas, and Pacific Rim (California). Plot. The film opens in Delhi University in Hindu College with the story of three students, Kay Kay Menon (as Siddharth Tyabji), Chitrangada Singh (as Geeta Rao) and Shiney Ahuja (as Vikram Malhotra). It follows their lives over the next five years in a story of politics, love, and ambition. Shiney Ahuja's role has him as a pining lover one moment and a political fixer and a wheeler-dealer the next. The movie deals with the aspirations of three protagonists - Siddharth, Vikram and Geeta. Siddharth is a driven revolutionary who dreams of bringing a revolution in the state of Bihar that will end the caste-based discrimination there; bring social justice, and, change the society for the better. Vikram is the son of a Gandhian politician who has grown up in less comfort than Siddharth and Geeta but wants to climb the social ladder no matter what the cost. Geeta is portrayed as a London returned, South Indian girl in love with the firebrand Siddharth. She has led a very sheltered life thus far, and is yet to explore the terrain of the Indian socio-political landscape. While she finds Siddharth's Naxalite rhetoric attractive, she is not sure if she can whole-heartedly subscribe to it. And every time they come to point of choice, Siddharth chooses his ideology over his love for her thus breaking her heart time and again. Vikram is a middle-class boy who dreams of making it big, whatever the cost. He is particularly afflicted by his father's Gandhian ideas, but irritated and frustrated at the same time, seeing his father's way of life as ineffective in bringing about a change. The movie begins with the three protagonists leaving college and heading towards their respective goals. Siddharth leaves for Bihar to bring about a revolution; Geeta leaves for Oxford to get a degree, and Vikram sets up an office in Delhi. A few years later, Vikram is a fixer in the power corridors of government, Geeta is married to a promising IAS Officer Arun Mehta (played by Ram Kapoor) who, as Geeta says "has it all", and Siddharth is still trying to foment a revolution. But all is not as it seems. Below the mask of happiness, each is quite unhappy. Vikram has 'made it', but he still cannot get Geeta, the love of his life. Geeta is married, but she still meets Siddharth on the sly, cheating on her husband.
1042765	Anton Diffring (20 October 1918 – 20 May 1989) was a German character actor known for his portrayal of German officers and aristocrats in many film and TV appearances. Biography. Diffring (born Anton de Vient or Alfred Pollack) was born in Koblenz. He studied acting in Berlin and Vienna but there is some conjecture about when he left Germany prior to World War II. The audio commentary for the "Doctor Who" series "Silver Nemesis" mentions he left Germany in 1936, as he was not enamored of fascism and further that he was a homosexual. Other accounts point to him leaving Germany in 1939 and heading for Canada where he was interned in 1940. Though he made two fleeting, unaccredited appearances in films in 1940, it was not until 1950, after a move to Britain, that his acting career began to take off. With numerous British war films being produced in the 1950s, Diffring's blonde hair, blue eyes and the chiseled features saw him feature often as villainous German officers - such as in "Albert R.N. " (1953) and "The Colditz Story" (1955). Some of his more notable roles as German characters were in "The Heroes of Telemark" (1965), "The Blue Max" (1966), "Where Eagles Dare" (1968), "Operation Daybreak" (1975) (as SS officer Reinhard Heydrich) and the match commentator in "Escape to Victory" (1981). In 1983 he played Hitler's foreign minister Joachim von Ribbentrop in the American mini-series "The Winds of War". He also starred in a number of horror films, such as "The Man Who Could Cheat Death" (1959) and "Circus of Horrors" (1960). He also worked in quite a number of international films, such as "Fahrenheit 451" (1966) directed by François Truffaut.
1273981	Gary Stretch (born 4 November 1965) is an English former boxer, male model and actor. Early life. Gary Stretch was brought up in the Haresfinch area of St. Helens, Lancashire, where he was born, the son of a plumber. He attended the town's Cowley High School. Boxing. A left-handed fighter, Stretch boxed most of his career as a light-middleweight, rising to become British champion in that division. Stretch's biggest fight came in 1991 when he challenged Chris Eubank for the WBO world middleweight championship in London, in a fight billed as "Beauty V the Best". Stretch suffered a cut behind the ear in the first round and was shaken by an uppercut in the third. Eubank was down twice in the fight, in the second and third rounds, but on both occasions was judged to have slipped by the referee. In the sixth round Stretch had a point deducted for pushing Eubank onto the canvas; Stretch was then shaken by a right hand from Eubank who subsequently knocked Stretch down twice. The fight was stopped in Eubank's favour after the second knock down. All three judges had Eubank ahead on the scorecard at the time of the knockout. Stretch fought only once more after his bout with Eubank before retiring with a career record of 23 wins to 2 losses. Modelling. During his time as a boxer, Stretch also worked as a model. His clients included Calvin Klein and Versace. Acting. In 2004 Stretch was cast as psychopathic gangster "Sonny" in Shane Meadows' gritty cult thriller "Dead Man's Shoes" (2004), for which Stretch received a BIFA nomination alongside fellow English actor Paddy Considine. He went on to appear in the Oliver Stone film "Alexander" (2004). Stretch also starred in the UK film "Freebird" in 2008, directed by Jon Ivay. Appearing alongside Phil Daniels and Geoff Bell, the film followed three bikers across a drug fuelled ride in the Welsh countryside. Personal life. From 1998 to 2001 Stretch was married to actress Roselyn Sánchez.
589261	Dil Apna Aur Preet Parai is a 1960 Hindi movie produced by S. A. Bagar and directed by Kishore Sahu. The film stars Raaj Kumar, Meena Kumari, Nadira, Tun Tun, Helen and Om Prakash. The films music is by Shankar Jaikishan. One of the most famous songs in the film is "Ajeeb Dastan Hai Yeh" sung by Lata Mangeshkar. Plot. Sushil Verma (Raaj Kumar) is a surgeon in the Shimla Hospital. He lives on the hospital grounds in a doctor's house with his ageing mother and younger sister Munni (Kumari Naaz). Sushil's father died and his father's close friend paid for his medical school fees, thus creating a debt that Sushil's mother feels needs to be fulfilled. Karuna (Meena Kumari) is a nurse who comes to the Shimla hospital and first encounters Dr. Verma during an emergency surgery. Both are clearly besotted with each other, but keep their feelings restrained.
1044367	Johnny Sekka (21 July 1934 – 14 September 2006) was a British film and television actor. Early life and move to Europe. Born Lamine Sekka in Dakar, Senegal, the youngest of five siblings, his Gambian father died shortly after his birth. When he was still young, his Senegalese mother sent him to live with an aunt in Georgetown (now Janjanbureh) in the Gambia, but he ran away to live on the streets in the capital, then known as Bathurst (now Banjul). In the Second World War, he worked as an interpreter at an American air base in Dakar. He then worked on the docks. When he was 20, he stowed away on a ship to Marseilles, and lived for three years in Paris.
1463295	Komaravolu S. Chandrasekharan (born 21 November 1920) is a professor emeritus at Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule Zürich. and a founding faculty member of School of Mathematics, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR). He is known for his work in number theory and summability and was given numerous awards including Padma Shri, Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Award, Ramanujan Medal, and Honorary fellow of TIFR. Mr.Chandrasekharan was born in 1920 to a School head master Mr.Komaravolu Rajaiah and Padmakshamma. Chandrasekharan completed his high school from Bapatla village in Guntur from Andhra Pradesh. He completed his M.A. in mathematics from the Presidency College, Chennai and a Ph.D. from the Department of Mathematics, University of Madras in 1942, under the supervision of K. Ananda Rau.
1790433	Matthew Robert "Matt" Smith (born 28 October 1982) is an English actor. He is best known for his role as the eleventh incarnation of the Doctor in the British television series "Doctor Who", for which he received a BAFTA Award nomination in 2011. He initially aspired to be a professional footballer, but spondylosis forced him out of the sport. After joining the National Youth Theatre and studying Drama and Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia, Smith became an actor in 2003, performing in plays like "Murder in the Cathedral", "Fresh Kills", "The History Boys" and "On the Shore of the Wide World" in London theatres. Extending his repertoire into West End theatre, he has since performed in the stage adaptation of "Swimming with Sharks" with Christian Slater, followed a year later by a critically acclaimed performance as Henry in "That Face". Before his role in "Doctor Who", Smith's first television role came in 2006 as Jim Taylor in the BBC adaptations of Philip Pullman's "The Ruby in the Smoke" and "The Shadow in the North" while his first major role in television came as Danny in the 2007 BBC series "Party Animals". Smith, who was announced as the eleventh incarnation of the Doctor in January 2009, is the youngest person to play the character in the British television series. On 1 June 2013, it was announced that Matt Smith would leave the series and the eleventh Doctor would regenerate in the 2013 Christmas special. Early life and education. Smith was born and brought up in Northampton, Northamptonshire. He attended Northampton School for Boys. He had planned to be a professional football player, having played for the youth teams of Northampton Town, Nottingham Forest, and Leicester City. After a serious back injury ruined this career, his drama teacher introduced him to acting by signing him up as the tenth juror in an adaptation of "Twelve Angry Men" without his consent. Although he took part in the play, he refused to attend a drama festival for which his teacher had also signed him up, as he saw himself as a football player and did not view acting as socially acceptable. His drama teacher persisted, and eventually persuaded him to join the National Youth Theatre in London. After leaving school, Smith studied drama and creative writing at the University of East Anglia, graduating in 2005. His first theatre roles as part of the National Youth Theatre were Thomas Becket in "Murder in the Cathedral" and Basoon in "The Master and Margarita". His role in the latter earned him an agent and his first professional jobs, "Fresh Kills" and "On the Shore of the Wide World". His new professional roles led him to seek an agreement with his university so that he could graduate without attending lectures in his final year. Career. Television. Smith's first major television role came in the television series "Party Animals", a BBC television drama series about fictional parliamentary advisors and researchers in Westminster. In "Party Animals", Smith portrays Danny Foster, a parliamentary researcher to Jo Porter (Raquel Cassidy), a Labour politician and junior Home Office minister. At 26 years old, Danny is described as an intelligent but timid "politics geek" who should have moved on from researching at his age. Within the series' narrative, he attempts to balance his affections for Kirsty MacKenzie (Andrea Riseborough), his intern, while trying to prevent Porter's imminent decline. In an interview in 2007, Smith discussed his character's motivations. He summarised Danny as having a romantic outlook of the political world while being cynical elsewhere. The character was drawn into politics by his father and his own political drive. He defended his character's age by characterising him as being loyal to Porter, instead of being incompetent. He talked about his character's emotional and intellectual maturity: emotionally, he lacks confidence around women—most notably seen with his unrequited love towards Kirsty—but Smith portrays Danny as a caring and sensitive but "wry, sarcastic, witty" romantic; and intellectually, Danny is portrayed as attentive and possessing a strong work ethic. Doctor Who. Smith was revealed as the Eleventh Doctor in the British science-fiction television series "Doctor Who" in January 2009 to replace David Tennant, who announced his departure in October 2008. Smith was a relatively unknown actor compared to the actors then speculated about possibly taking on the role, who included Paterson Joseph, David Morrissey, Sean Pertwee, James Nesbitt, Russell Tovey, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Robert Carlyle and Billie Piper. Smith was first named as a possible successor less than a day before he was announced as the Eleventh Doctor, on 3 January 2009 edition of "BBC Breakfast" among the names speculated about. His obscurity prompted the news headline "Doctor Who?", a riff on the show's title. Smith was one of the earliest actors to audition for the role, performing on the first day. The production team, consisting of the incoming producer, Steven Moffat, and BBC Wales Head of Drama and executive producer, Piers Wenger, immediately singled him out based on his performance. Smith additionally auditioned for the role of John Watson in the Moffat-created "Sherlock", undergoing auditions at the same time; he was unsuccessful, as Moffat believed his eccentric acting style was closer to Holmes, whose role had already been given to Benedict Cumberbatch. At 26 years old, Smith was three years younger than Peter Davison was at the time of his casting as the Doctor in 1981, and younger than any other actor suggested for the role. After three weeks of auditions, Moffat and Wenger agreed that it had "always been Matt" and approached him to accept the role. The BBC were cautious about casting him because they felt that a 26-year-old could not play the Doctor adequately; Wenger shared the same sentiment but thought Smith had proven his acting quality in "Party Animals", which Wenger thought highlighted Smith's "mercurial qualities". Some fans of the show believed that Smith was inexperienced and too young for the role, while others supported him by citing his demonstrated acting ability. For his performance in his first series he was nominated in the Outstanding Drama Performance Category of the National Television Awards. Smith has said of his character: "The Doctor is excited and fascinated by the tiniest of things. By everything. By every single thing. That's what's wonderful about him as a character. It's why children like him, I think. Because he doesn't dismiss anything. He's not cynical. He's open to every single facet of the universe." In June 2010, Smith appeared on stage with Orbital, and performed with them a version of the "Doctor Who" theme, at the Glastonbury Festival. Smith hosted the "Doctor Who" Prom at the Royal Albert Hall on 24–25 July 2010. On the morning of 26 May 2012, Smith carried the Olympic torch in Cardiff, an activity which was noted by "Doctor Who" fans for its resemblance to a 2006 episode of the show in which the Doctor carried the torch. On 1 June 2013, the BBC announced that Smith would be leaving "Doctor Who" at the end of the 2013 Christmas special. Film. Smith appeared in a deleted scene of the 2007 film "In Bruges", playing a younger version of Ralph Fiennes' character. He starred in the 2009 short film "Together" and the 2010 film "Womb". In February 2013, it was reported that Smith had signed up to appear in Ryan Gosling's directorial debut "How to Catch a Monster". Theatre. During Smith's tenure in "On the Shore of the Wide World", the play transferred to the Royal National Theatre in London. After finishing the play, he took on the role of Lockwood, a pupil in the Alan Bennett play "The History Boys". After "The History Boys", he would act in the teen play "Burn/Chatroom/Citizenship" and "Swimming with Sharks"; the latter being his West End début, with Christian Slater. His first television role was as Jim Taylor in the BBC adaptations of the "Sally Lockhart" quartet books "The Ruby in the Smoke" and "The Shadow in the North", opposite Billie Piper in the lead role; he acted with Piper a third time in an episode of "Secret Diary of a Call Girl". In 2007, Smith appeared as Henry in the critically acclaimed Polly Stenham play "That Face" at the Royal Court Theatre Upstairs in Chelsea with Lindsay Duncan as Henry's alcoholic mother, Martha, and Felicity Jones—later Hannah Murray—as Henry's drug-addicted sister, Mia. The play transferred to the Duke of York's Theatre in the West End in 2008 and became Smith's second role there. "That Face" focuses primarily upon alcohol and drug addiction in an upper-middle-class family after the paternal figure in the family leaves. As Henry, Smith portrayed an aspiring artist who left school to take care of his mother. To prepare for the role, the cast interviewed alcoholics and their families. Smith discussed his character's relationship with his mother in an interview with the "Evening Standard": The entire cast of the play was nominated for the 2008 Laurence Olivier Award for Outstanding Achievement in an Affiliate Theatre, and Smith won the Evening Standard's award for "best newcomer" for his role. Upon its transfer to the West End, the play was critically acclaimed, with Smith's performance as Henry highlighted as one of the positive aspects of the play by critics for the "Evening Standard", "Daily Express", "The Guardian" and "The Times". Personal life. Smith dated Daisy Lowe, but they split up in late 2011 because of work commitments. His sister, Laura Jayne, was one of the dancers featured in the music video for the 2004 Eric Prydz song "Call on Me". Smith is an atheist and an avid Blackburn Rovers supporter. He has cited his favourite band, Radiohead, as an inspiration.
1066332	Ellie Parker is a 2005 American comedy film, written and directed by Scott Coffey. The title character, played by Naomi Watts, is a young woman struggling as an actress in Los Angeles. The movie centers on a quote from the prologue to Shakespeare's "Henry V": O for a Muse of fire, that would ascend The brightest heaven of invention, A kingdom for a stage, princes to act And monarchs to behold the swelling scene! "Ellie Parker" began as a short that was screened at the 2001 Sundance Film Festival. Using a handheld digital camera, writer-director Scott Coffey expanded it into a feature-length film over the next four years. It was released in 2005. Plot. "Ellie Parker" is a semi-autobiographical story of an Australian actress struggling to make it in Hollywood. Ellie is young enough to still go to auditions back and forth across L.A., changing wardrobes and slapping on makeup en route, but just old enough that the future feels "more like a threat than a promise". She lives with her vacuous musician boyfriend (Mark Pellegrino), who leaves her just about as dissatisfied as any other part of her life, and has a loose definition of the word "fidelity". Helping make sense of their surreal and humiliating Hollywood existence is her best friend Sam (Rebecca Rigg), another out-of-work actress trying her hand at design, who attends acting classes with Ellie to stay sharp. When Ellie gets into a fender bender with a guy who claims he's a cinematographer (Scott Coffey), her perspective on her work and the dating world starts to change. Chevy Chase also makes an appearance in this series of Hollywood vignettes, playing Ellie's agent. Origins. Watts, Coffey, and Pellegrino all worked together on David Lynch's "Mulholland Drive", where Watts had her breakout performance, and Ellie Parker grew out of the friendship forged between Watts and director/screenwriter Coffey. It was shot on digital video over the course of five years, having begun its life as a series of shorts featuring Watts' character.
582132	Abhay Singh Deol (born 15 March 1976) is an Indian film actor and producer who is known for appearing in the Hindi language films of Bollywood. His family has a long history in the Hindi film industry, and he is the nephew of Dharmendra, and the cousin of Esha Deol, Sunny Deol and Bobby Deol. Over the years, he has been recognised for his performances, and has established himself as a leading contemporary actor of Hindi cinema. Although he wanted to pursue a career in films from a young age, he decided to complete his education before doing so. He made his debut in the 2005 Imtiaz Ali film "Socha Na Tha". The film opened to positive reviews and he received critical acclaim for his performance, with many critics branding him as promising. He followed it with roles in "Ahista Ahista" and "Honeymoon Travels Pvt. Ltd.", where his performances received mostly praise. He received widespread accalaim for his performance in the 2007 thriller film "Manorama Six Feet Under" and as the main character Lucky in the 2008 film "Oye Lucky! Lucky Oye!".
1064741	Gemma Christina Arterton (born 2 February 1986) is an English actress. She is best known for her roles in "St Trinian's" (2007), "Quantum of Solace" (2008), "Clash of the Titans" (2010), "Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time" (2010) and "" (2013). Arterton has upcoming roles in the crime thriller film "Runner, Runner" with Ben Affleck and Justin Timberlake and "Byzantium" with Saoirse Ronan. Early life. Arterton was born in Gravesend and North Kent Hospital, Gravesend, Kent, the daughter of Sally-Anne Heap, a cleaner, and Barry Arterton, a welder. Arterton was born with polydactyly, and at her birth a doctor tied off the boneless sixth digits to remove them. She attended Gravesend Grammar School for Girls, in Kent, and made her stage debut there in an amateur production of Alan Ayckbourn's "The Boy Who Fell Into a Book"; it was entered into a competition at a local festival, where she won the best actress prize. At the age of 16, Arterton left school to attend the Miskin Theatre School in Dartford. She then received a full government grant to study at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, although, she said in 2008, she "got up to my eyes in debt with a student loan". She graduated from RADA in 2008. Career. Arterton won her first professional role in Stephen Poliakoff's "Capturing Mary," while she was still at drama school. Similarly, she made her stage debut as Rosaline in Shakespeare's "Love's Labour's Lost" at the Globe Theatre, London in July 2007 before graduating later that year. She made her film debut in "St Trinian's" (2007) as Head Girl Kelly. In 2008, she appeared in the James Bond film, "Quantum of Solace". Chosen from around 1,500 candidates, Arterton plays Bond Girl Strawberry Fields, in what is described as a "nice-sized role". On her character, Arterton describes Strawberry Fields as "the thinking man's crumpet". In 2008, she played the eponymous protagonist in the BBC adaptation of Thomas Hardy's "Tess of the D'Urbervilles". Also in 2008, she played the role of Elizabeth Bennet in the ITV serial "Lost in Austen". Her most controversial role was in the 2009 film "The Disappearance of Alice Creed" in which Arterton's character is kidnapped and abused in several graphic nude scenes. She is the face of Avon's Bond Girl 007 fragrance, which launched in October 2008. Having already started in a series of advertisements for Avon, Arterton in May 2008 requested a role opposite model Kate Moss for Rimmel, but was blocked on contractual terms under her Avon contract. In 2010, she made her West End debut in the UK premiere of "The Little Dog Laughed". She was originally attached to star in a new adaptation of "Wuthering Heights" as Catherine Earnshaw, however, she later left the project. She is set to star in "Burden of Desire". Arterton was seen in the 2010 films "Clash of the Titans" and "", and played the lead in "Tamara Drewe". In 2011, Arterton was nominated twice by the British Academy of Film and Television Arts for her performances in "Tamara Drewe" and "The Disappearance of Alice Creed". In November 2012 she was selected as a member of the main competition jury at the 2012 International Film Festival of Marrakech. Arterton starred in the action horror film "" as Gretel opposite actor Jeremy Renner who played Hansel. The 3-D film was set 15 years after Hansel and Gretel killed the witch who kidnapped them. It was released on January 25, 2013. Personal life. On 5 June 2010, Arterton married Stefano Catelli, a fashion consultant, at a private ceremony in Zuheros, Andalucia, Spain. By early 2013, Arterton had separated from her husband.
1166005	Brett Somers (July 11, 1924 – September 15, 2007) was a Canadian-American actress, singer, and comedienne who was born in Canada and raised in Maine. She was best known as a panelist on the 1970s game show, "Match Game" and for her recurring role as Blanche Madison opposite her real life husband Jack Klugman on "The Odd Couple". Personal life. Born Audrey Johnston in Saint John, New Brunswick, Somers grew up near Portland, Maine. She ran away from home at age 17 and moved to New York City to pursue a career in acting. There she settled in Greenwich Village. She changed her first name to "Brett" after the lead female character in Ernest Hemingway's "The Sun Also Rises", and the surname "Somers" was her mother's maiden name. She became a U.S. citizen late in life. After moving to New York City, Somers married and had a daughter, Leslie, before divorcing her first husband. In 1953, she married actor Jack Klugman; they had two sons: Adam and David. The couple separated in 1974, but never divorced. Career. Early career. A life member of The Actors Studio from 1952 on, Somers began her career in theater, and made many of her initial television appearances in dramatic programs such as "The Philco Television Playhouse", "Kraft Television Theatre", "Playhouse 90", and "Robert Montgomery Presents". Her Broadway debut, in the play "Maybe Tuesday", was a flop; the show closed after five performances. "The Country Girl" with her husband, Jack Klugman. She also amassed a number of film credits, including "A Rage to Live", "Getting There", "Bone", "Bus Riley's Back in Town", and "The Great American Beauty Pageant". Television credits. Somers made many appearances on episodic primetime television, including "Love, American Style", "The Defenders", "Have Gun Will Travel", "Ben Casey", "CHiPs", "The Love Boat", "Barney Miller", "The Mary Tyler Moore Show", and "The Fugitive".
583295	Sanjay Narvekar (Marathi: संजय नार्वेकर) (b. 1962, dist. Sindhudurg) is an Indian actor from the state of Maharashtra. He has worked in Marathi and Hindi stage plays and movies. He has played lead roles in many a Marathi movie and supporting roles in Hindi films. His portrayal of Sanjay Dutt's sidekick 'Dedh Phutiya' (lit. "One and a half-footer", referring to the short stature of his character) in the popular Hindi film was appreciated by critics and audiences alike. His on-screen portrayal of a simple underdog, son of the soil guy next door remains his most characteristic and endearing feature in most of his films as well as his real life. Together with Siddharth Jadhav, he has teamed up in many a hit Marathi movie forming one of the most successful ang hilarious pairs in contemporary Marathi cinema. Narvekar, born in a Marathi/Konkani speaking Daivajna family, now lives in Powai. Bombay with his wife and his son Aryan S. Narvekar, who recently made his debut with the Marathi film Bokya Satbande. He is known for his cynical and loud comments in films. Marathi Plays. Following are some of the Marathi plays in which Sanjay Narvekar has played a role
520352	Sarah Geronimo is a Filipino recording artist, songwriter, producer and actress. Born and raised in Sampaloc, Manila she rose to fame after winning the "Star for a Night" singing competition in 2003. Her debut album, "", reached quintuple platinum status and made her, at age 16, the youngest multi-platinum recording artist. Following the success of her debut album, she had her first major-solo concert at the Smart-Araneta Coliseum at the age of 17, making her the youngest solo performer to have filled the Big Dome. In 2012, she was the first Filipino to win the Mnet Asian Music Awards as Best Asian Artist. The year after, she snagged three nominations at the World Music Awards. In 2013, her movie "It Takes a Man and a Woman" broke box office records and became the highest grossing Filipino film of all time. Life and career. Childhood and early beginnings. Sarah Geronimo was born on July 25, 1988 in Santa Cruz, Manila, Philippines, to Delfin Geronimo, a retired Philippine Long Distance Telephone Company (PLDT) employee, and Divina Geronimo, who ran a beauty parlor from the family home. She studied at Dominican School Manila. Geronimo’s first performance was in a mall show when she was two years old. At the age of four, she made her first appearance on national television and was a member of the children's television show "Pen-Pen de Sarapen" for two years. At age six, she performed at a short concert at Isetann Cinerama on Recto Avenue in Manila. She sang for Pope John Paul II during his visit to the Philippines in 1995, when she was six. At the age of eight, her father enrolled Geronimo at the Center for Pop Music Philippines, where she received her first formal music and voice lessons. Geronimo performed in hotel lounges, on campuses, in shopping malls, and on a few TV shows. Around this time, she was part of the cast of the ABS-CBN children's show "Ang TV". At the age of nine, she joined the cast of the TV show "NEXT". She also played an extra in Star Cinema’s "Sarah, Ang Munting Prinsesa". 2002–2003: Star for a Night. In 2002, Geronimo competed in the "Star for a Night" competition, hosted by one of Sarah's ultimate idol, Asia's Songbird & The Philippines' Best-Selling Artist of All Time, Regine Velasquez. At the age of fourteen, Geronimo won the competition, which included a ₱1 million cash prize and a managerial contract to Vicente Del Rosario, owner of Viva Artists Agency. She was given the title of "Pop Star Princess". Her mother said, "Her cash prize in "Star for a Night" was a big help, This school year, we don't need to borrow money from other people because of my children's tuition fees." Geronimo became the featured artist in MTV's Rising Star in September 2002, and she released her first album "", in late 2002. Her first concerts, in conjunction with her first album, were staged in October 2003. Geronimo's first movie role was in "Filipinas", released in late 2003. According to the "Philippine Star", Geronimo's co-star in the film, Maricel Soriano, "predict a bright future" for her and stated, "That girl will go far. She’s only 14, right? For someone like Sarah, for the first time she appears and acts in a film, she's good. Maybe some people have high expectation on her but for me she's good." 2004–2007: Career expansion. The Manila Bulletin states that 2004 was the year that Geronimo's career "boomed". Geronimo signed a contract with the ABS-CBN network, which aired her first television series, "Sarah the Teen Princess". Later that year, she became a regular host and performer on the variety show "ASAP". She sang the Philippine National Anthem at the pre-inaugural ceremonies of president Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo on June 30, 2004. In November 2004, Geronimo released her second album, "Sweet Sixteen", with "How Could You Say You Love Me" as its first single. After a week of its release, the album was certified gold and quickly achieved triple platinum status when it sold more than 90,000 copies nationwide. Geronimo performed in the "Night of the Champions" concert at the Araneta Coliseum ("the Dome") with other singing competition winners Rachelle Ann Go and Erik Santos, followed by a tour in the U.S. In 2005, Geronimo recorded the theme song of the Star Cinema movie, "Can This Be Love". She joined the fourth-season cast of the teen-oriented television program "SCQ Reload: Kilig Ako" and appeared in the fantasy movie "Lastikman", produced by VIVA Films. She hosted three talent competitions: "Search For Star in a Million", "Little Big Star" and "Little Big Superstar". On September 30, 2005, Geronimo performed a solo concert, "The Other Side". The "Manila Bulletin" reported that, "The Dome became one huge oven." Viva Records released a live DVD album of her concert at Araneta Coliseum titled "The Other Side: Live Album". In the summer of 2005, a repeat of "Night of the Champions" toured the U.S. for two months. In 2006, Geronimo starred in ABS-CBN's primetime soap opera, "Bituing Walang Ningning", a remake of the 1985 movie. She played the role of an aspiring singer named Dorina Pineda, originally played by Sharon Cuneta in the movie, and released a soundtrack of the series. In the summer of 2006, Geronimo's third studio album, "Becoming", was released in the international market. Produced by Christian De Walden, the album went platinum a month after its release. De Walden said that Geronimo was "definitely the biggest talent I have come across...the last ten years." He was particularly astounded by Geronimo's ability to not only learn a song quickly but to give it her own distinctive style. The album yielded three singles: "I Still Believe In Loving You", "Carry My Love" and "Iingatan Ko Ang Pag-ibig Mo." One critic said, "The album isn't completely successful. It's nevertheless heartening to hear Sarah spreading her musical wings by trying new types of songs that wouldn't have been considered in the lineup of her showy first albums." Geronimo continued to perform in concerts throughout the world, in places like Taiwan, Canada, the U.S., and Dubai. Philstar News reported that Geronimo was the first Filipino to perform at the Harris Theater in Chicago. On November 18, 2006, Manny Pacquiao chose Geronimo to sing Lupang Hinirang, the Philippine national anthem, before his match against Mexico's Erik Morales at the Thomas and Mack Center in Las Vegas. Geronimo's second major solo concert In Motion, took place on July 14, 2007, at the Araneta Coliseum. Unlike her first solo concert at the Dome, this concert went off with no technical glitches. She spent the rest of 2007 performing concerts in the Philippines and the U.S. and recording her fourth studio album, "Taking Flight", which sold more than 60,000 units and achieved double platinum status. In the latter half of 2007, Geronimo appeared in her third television series for ABS-CBN, "Pangarap Na Bituin". 2008–2010: The Next One and Record Breaker. In early 2008, Geronimo reunited with Erik Santos, Rachelle Ann Go, and Christian Bautista in a Valentine's Day concert at the Araneta Coliseum, entitled "OL4LUV". Before Geronimo released her fifth studio album, she released "I'll Be There" as the fourth single from "Taking Flight". On July 30, 2008, Geronimo starred with Filipino actor John Lloyd Cruz in "A Very Special Love" which was produced by Star Cinema and VIVA films and grossed almost ₱180 million. The movie opened with ₱ 14 million pesos and Isah V. Red of "The Manila Standard Today" quoted
673703	The Blue Angel () is a 1930 film directed by Josef von Sternberg and starring Emil Jannings, Marlene Dietrich and Kurt Gerron. Written by Carl Zuckmayer, Karl Vollmöller and Robert Liebmann – with uncredited contributions by von Sternberg. It is based on Heinrich Mann's novel "Professor Unrat" ("Professor Garbage", 1905), and set in Weimar Germany. "The Blue Angel" presents the tragic transformation of a man from a respectable professor to a cabaret clown, and his descent into madness. The film is considered to be the first major German sound film, and brought Dietrich international fame. In addition, it introduced her signature song, Friedrich Hollaender and Robert Liebmann's "Falling in Love Again (Can't Help It)". The film was shot simultaneously in German- and English-language versions, although the latter version was thought lost for many years. Plot. Immanuel Rath (Emil Jannings) is an esteemed educator at the local "Gymnasium" – a college preparatory high school – in Weimar Germany. After he punishes several of his students for circulating photographs of the beautiful Lola-Lola (Marlene Dietrich), the headliner for the local cabaret, "The Blue Angel". Hoping to catch the boys at the club, Rath goes there later that evening and meets Lola herself. Consumed with desire for Lola, Rath returns to the night club the following evening, to return a pair of panties that were smuggled into his coat by one of his students, and stays the night with her. The next morning, reeling from his night of passion, Rath arrives late to school to find his classroom in chaos and the principal furious with his behavior. Rath subsequently resigns from his position at the academy to marry Lola, but their happiness is short-lived, as they soon fritter away the teacher's meager savings and Rath is forced to take a position as a clown in Lola's cabaret troupe to pay the bills. His growing insecurities about Lola's profession as a "shared woman" eventually consume him with lust and jealousy. The troupe returns to his hometown and The Blue Angel, where he is ridiculed and berated by the patrons, the very people he himself used to deride. As Rath performs his last act, he witnesses his wife embrace and kiss the strongman Mazeppa, her new love interest, and is enraged to the point of insanity. He attempts to strangle Lola, but is beaten down by the other members of the troupe and locked in a straitjacket. Later that night, Rath is freed, and makes his way towards his old classroom. Rejected, humiliated, and destitute, he dies in remorse, clenching the desk at which he once taught. Production. Von Sternberg called the story "the downfall of an enamored man", and calls Rath "...a figure of self-satisfied dignity brought low." Some critics saw the film as an allegory for pre-war Germany, but von Sternberg was very clear that he did not intend to make a political stand: "The year was 1929, Germany was undivided, although the real Germany, its schools and other places pictured in the film were not German and reality failed to interest me". Emil Jannings had asked Sternberg to direct him in his first sound picture, although Sternberg and Jannings had clashed on the set of their previous collaboration "The Last Command" (1928), and von Sternberg had vowed never to work with the actor again. The following year, however, he and Jannings reconciled and, at the invitation of Erich Pommer, head of UFA, they began to collaborate on a film about Rasputin. Sternberg was less than intrigued by this prospect, however, and as an alternative he suggested the idea of an adaptation of the Heinrich Mann story "Professor Unrat", a 1905 satire about the hypocrisy of the German middle-class. Sternberg restructured the story to fit his tastes; simplifying moral themes and emphasizing the anguish of the teacher. As a result the second half of the book was not used at all, and the film's ending is entirely new. Because the German and English versions of the film were shot simultaneously, the actors were required to do every scene twice. This was not unusual in the early sound film era, given the technical difficulty of dubbing, and the studio's desire to be able to sell the film in multiple international markets. "The Blue Angel" is best known for introducing Marlene Dietrich to worldwide attention, although other performers were initially considered for the role, including Trude Hesterberg (a friend of Heinrich Mann), Brigitte Helm and Lucie Mannheim. Kathe Haack had already been signed to play the part before von Sternberg met Dietrich and transferred the part to her. Dietrich's portrayal of an uninhibited woman not only established her stardom, but also established a modern embodiment of a vixen. Lola-Lola's lusty songs, written by Friedrich Hollaender (music) and Robert Liebmann (lyrics), slither their way into Rath's heart, entrapping him and sealing his fate. The story's melancholic simplicity adds to the beauty of von Sternberg's most remembered work, in both Germany and America. Dietrich's radiant sensuality might be blamed for the censorship the film faced in Pasadena, California. C.V. Cowan, censor for Pasadena, found many scenes offensive and chose to cut them, though Jason Joy, the nation's censor, did not. Reaction to the censor's seal for the re-cut film was not good, and the theater removed the censorship statement. During filming, although he was still the nominal star of the film, Jannings could see the growing closeness between von Sternberg and Dietrich, and the care the director took in presenting her, and the actor became jealous, threatening to strangle the actress and misbehaving on the set. "The Blue Angel" was to be his last great cinematic moment; it was also one of UFA's last great films, as many of the studio's major talents left Germany for Hollywood, including von Sternberg and Dietrich, who were met on the dock in New York City by von Sternberg's wife, who served legal papers on Dietrich for "alienation of affection". Von Sternberg and his wife divorced shortly after.
1210848	"The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle" (1980) is a mockumentary film directed by Julien Temple and produced by Don Boyd and Jeremy Thomas about the British punk rock band Sex Pistols. Plot. Guitarist Steve Jones plays a shady private detective who - through a series of set piece acts - uncovers the truth about the band. Drummer Paul Cook and bass guitarist Sid Vicious play smaller roles, and the band's manager, Malcolm McLaren, is featured as "The Embezzler", the man who manipulates the Sex Pistols. Fugitive train robber Ronnie Biggs, performer Edward Tudor-Pole, sex film star Mary Millington, and actresses Irene Handl and Liz Fraser also make appearances. The movie tells a stylised fictional account of the formation, rise and subsequent breakup of the band, from the point of view of their then-manager Malcolm McLaren. In the film, McLaren claims to create the Sex Pistols and manipulate them to the top of the music business, using them as puppets to both further his own agenda (in his own words - "chaos"), and to claim the financial rewards from the various record labels the band were signed to during their brief history - EMI, A&M, Virgin, and Warner Bros. Records. Background. The footage was filmed in early - mid 1978, between singer John Lydon's departure from the band and their subsequent split. The movie was finally released nearly two years later. Lydon (who was listed in the credits as "The Collaborator") and early bass guitarist Glen Matlock only appear in archive footage — Lydon having refused to have anything to do with the production. The 2000 documentary "The Filth and the Fury", also directed by Julien Temple, retells the story of the Sex Pistols from the perspective of the band, thus serving as a response to and rebuttal of McLaren's insistence that he was the driving creative force of the band. The film is also remembered for being shown at the wake of Joy Division frontman Ian Curtis.
1164962	Ann Morgan Guilbert (born October 16, 1928), sometimes credited as Ann Guilbert, is an American actress, who played the neighbor Millie Helper in 61 episodes of the early 1960s’ sitcom "The Dick Van Dyke Show", and later Yetta Rosenberg, Fran Fine’s doddering grandmother, in 56 episodes of the 1990s’ sitcom "The Nanny". She began her career as a featured performer and singer in the "Billy Barnes Revues" of the 1950s and 1960s. After "The Dick Van Dyke Show", she made guest appearances in many other television shows, including "The Andy Griffith Show"; "That Girl"; the premiere episode of "Adam 12"; "Emergency!"; "Love, American Style"; "Picket Fences"; "Seinfeld"; "Curb Your Enthusiasm"; and "". Guilbert has also appeared in the films "A Guide for the Married Man", "Viva Max!", "Grumpier Old Men", and "Please Give", for which she received the CFA for Best Supporting Actress. In December 2004, she appeared in the reunion of "The Nanny" titled "" with Fran Drescher, Lauren Lane, Rachel Chagall and other "The Nanny" cast members. She is the mother of actress Hallie Todd.
1046442	Jill Esmond (26 January 1908 – 28 July 1990) was an English actress and first wife of Laurence Olivier. Early life. Esmond was born Jill Esmond Moore in London, the daughter of stage actors Henry V. Esmond and Eva Moore. While her parents toured with theatre companies, Esmond spent her childhood in boarding schools until she decided at the age of 14 to become an actress. She made her stage debut playing Wendy to Gladys Cooper's Peter Pan, but her success was short-lived. When her father died suddenly in 1922, Esmond returned to school and at the time considered abandoning her ambition to act. After reassessing her future and coming to terms with her father's death, she studied with the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London, and returned to the West End stage in 1924. In 1925, she starred with her mother in a play "Mary, Mary Quite Contrary", and after a few more successful roles, won critical praise for her part as a young suicide in "Outward Bound". Marriage and career. In 1928 she appeared in the production of "Bird in the Hand", where she met fellow cast member Laurence Olivier for the first time. In his autobiography Olivier later wrote that he was smitten with Esmond, and that her cool indifference to him did nothing but further his ardour. When "Bird in the Hand" was being staged on Broadway, Esmond was chosen to join the American production – but Olivier was not. Determined to be near Esmond, he travelled to New York where he found work as an actor. Esmond won rave reviews for her performance. Olivier continued to follow Esmond, and after proposing to her several times, she agreed and the couple were married on 25 July 1930; they had one son, Tarquin Olivier (born 21 August 1936). Returning to the United Kingdom, she made her film debut with a starring role in an early Alfred Hitchcock film "The Skin Game" (1931), and over the next few years appeared in several British and (pre-Code) Hollywood films, including "Thirteen Women" (1932). She also appeared in two Broadway productions with Olivier, "Private Lives" in 1931 with Noël Coward and Gertrude Lawrence, and "The Green Bay Tree" in 1933. Her career continued to ascend while Olivier's own career languished, but when his career began to show promise after a couple of years, she began to refuse roles. She had been promised a role by David O. Selznick in "A Bill of Divorcement" (1932) but at only half-salary. Meanwhile, Olivier discovered that Katharine Hepburn had been proposed a much greater salary, and convinced Esmond to turn down the role. Later years. She starred in the Broadway production of Emlyn Williams' play "The Morning Star" in 1942, a production noted for the acting debut of Gregory Peck. Her acting appearances grew more sporadic with the passage of time, and she made her final film appearance in 1955, around the time she made her two appearances as Eleanor of Aquitaine in the TV series "The Adventures of Robin Hood". Personal life. Esmond withstood the publicity of Olivier's affair with Vivien Leigh and did not seek a divorce. Pressed by Olivier, who was anxious to marry Leigh, she eventually agreed and they were divorced on 29 January 1940. She returned briefly to acting and appeared in such popular films as "Journey for Margaret", "The Pied Piper" and "Random Harvest" (all 1942) and "The White Cliffs of Dover" (1944). It is suggested that in her later years, Esmond discussed the bitterness she felt towards Olivier and her feeling that she had sacrificed her career so that he could further his own, only to find herself cruelly discarded. However, Esmond kept in touch with Olivier, and in a letter to their son Tarquin, said "It's funny after all that time how I can still love him so much." She attended his memorial service in October 1989 at Westminster Abbey, frail and in a wheelchair. Death. She was 82 years old when she died on 28 July 1990 in Wandsworth, London.
1073921	Nancy Paine Stoll (born August 25, 1947) better known by the stage name Mink Stole, is an American actress from Baltimore, Maryland. She began her career working for director John Waters, and has appeared in all of his feature films to date (a distinction shared only with Mary Vivian Pearce). Because of her work with Waters, she is considered one of the Dreamlanders, Waters' ensemble of regular cast and crew members. Biography. She is best known for her work in the films of close friend John Waters. Her film career began as a party guest in Waters' film "Roman Candles" circa 1966. Since then, she has appeared in most of John Waters' movies up to and including 2004's "A Dirty Shame" except for the early short films "Hag in a Black Leather Jacket", "Eat Your Makeup", and "The Diane Linkletter Story". She has also appeared in a number of films and television shows, and wrote a column for the "Baltimore City Paper" titled "Think Mink" until mid-April 2006. She is also the lead singer of Mink Stole and Her Wonderful Band, of which musicians Kristian Hoffman, George Baby Woods, and Brian Grillo have been members. The Baltimore incarnation of Mink Stole and Her Wonderful Band (2009- ) includes Scott Wallace Brown (piano, organ), Walker Teret (upright bass, guitar), Skizz Cyzyk (drums), and John Irvine (trumpet). In April 2009, Mink connected with cult director Steve Balderson for "Stuck!" - an homage to film noir women in prison dramas. Co-starring Karen Black, Pleasant Gehman, Susan Traylor, and The Go-Go's Jane Wiedlin, "Stuck!" was filmed in Macon, Georgia. Mink plays Esther, a religious inmate sentenced to death. She co-stars with Natasha Lyonne in Joshua Grannell's comedy horror film "All About Evil". Mink received a Lifetime Achievement Award at the 2010 Boston Underground Film Festival in Cambridge following the East Coast Premiere of "Stuck!" on March 27, 2010. In 2011 Mink successfully completed a Kickstarter fundraising project to finance her first CD, tentatively titled "Do Re MiNK".
587489	Swagatam is a 2008 Telugu film produced by Mr. Adityaram in the banner of Adityaram Movies. Shot in New York, Rajahmundry and Hampi, it features a romantic triangle. Directed by Dasarath, the film casts Jagapati Babu as the male romantic lead playing opposite Anushka Shetty and Bhumika Chawla. Several weeks after the big-budget film's release, "The Times of India" declared the movie a box office "let down". Plot. Shailu (Anushka Shettyl) is a harried, ill-tempered businesswoman living in the United States, trying to care for her mother and young nephew and manage her bills. KK (Jagapati Babu), who with his young daughter opens a shop across the street from hers, helps her find a new perspective on her life. Shailu falls in love with KK, but when she declares her feelings for him learns that he already has a wife, Vidya (Bhumika Chawla). In flashback, the film relates the romance of KK and Vidya. In the past, KK was himself an abrasive businessman when he sought a mate at Jalaja Rao Marriage Bureau. Instead, he winds up courting and marrying Vidya, an employee. KK's dilemma is simplified by the fact that one of the women in his life is dying from chronic leukemia. Similarities with "Kal Ho Na Ho". The film has got quite some similarities with the Hindi Movie, "Kal Ho Na Ho". starring Shah Rukh Khan & Preity Zinta. A hard working, depressed girl settled in New York, supporting her mother and a child independently. A business that's not doing well. Hero coming to her rescue. A life devouring disease, etc.; There are some scenes which are exactly the same too. Reception. Critically, the film met lukewarm reception. In its generally positive review, IndiaGlitz described the film as a "sincere effort" that "may or may not appeal to everyone as it becomes a bit trite as it progresses". While noting that "we cannot say it is something that we haven’t watched before", the reviewers also commented that the film "starts off in a novel way as far as a Telugu film is concerned". Addressing the high expectations of the big budget film, they conclude, "To be fair to Dasarath, he does not disappoint. In the sense that it is what one would typically go to watch in a Jagapati Babu movie". AndhraCafe praised the performances specifically of Bumika, "at her very best", and found the chemistry between Babu and Bumika "a treat to watch". While they also felt the director exhibited moments of brilliance in the second half of the film, they panned the climax and particularly the opening, stating that "first half of a film couldn’t be more boring than this". They concluded that "[on a whole the film is below average fare with the weak first half, dragged climax and poor music". In its review, Rediff notes that "Swagatam" takes the "safe, oft-trodden path" but praises the acting, describing specifically the first half of the film as "laced with entertainment". They predict that the film "will go down well with those liking mushy stuff".
588565	The Stoneman Murders is a 2009 Indian film based on the real life Stoneman serial killings that made headlines in the early 1980s in Bombay. The hapless victims of the mystery killer, who was never caught, were footpath dwellers in Bombay. They were stoned to death in their sleep. The movie weaves fiction around reality in an attempt to provide answers to the questions around the case. "The Stoneman Murders" was director Manish Gupta's first full-length feature film. Plot. The serial killer dubbed 'Stoneman' by the media has just claimed his fifth victim and the case is still of little interest to the Bombay police. But to suspended sub-inspector Sanjay Shelar (Kay Kay Menon), this killer poses an opportunity. Sanjay hopes to track the killer down and, thus, possibly find an entry back into the police force. With the secret aid of his patronizing superior AIG Satam (Vikram Gokhale), Sanjay takes up the arduous process of tracking the murderer. The official police investigator of the case Kedar Phadke (Arbaaz Khan) clashes incessantly with Sanjay they, separately, delve deeper into the case. Sanjay is determined to find the stoneman. He takes the help of his informer. His wife Manali (Rukhsar) is upset with him and thinks that he is having an affair. One night someone throws a stone into Sanjay's house through a window. Manali thinks it to be the mischief of boys of the locality; Sanjay feels it is the stoneman. Another night the stoneman tries to kill a beggar sleeping on the roadside but is saved by Kedar and some patrolling policemen. Sanjay and his car is spotted by Kedar. Sanjay finds that his investigation house has been visited by the stoneman as sees vermilion spread everywhere. Sanjay contemplates a possible danger to his wife asks her to leave for her village. He rushes to the station to get her rail ticket where he encounters. Before he can catch him Kedar shoots him thinking him to be the killer. Sanjay escapes and the incident brings him closer to his wife. He suspects the killer to be a policeman who is a tribal performing an impotency ritual and asks the informer to tell this to Satam. Kamle (Virendra Saxena) turns out to be the killer and attacks Sanjay, but both are saved by the police. Kamble is arrested and the matter is closed. In the end it is shown that the man with a voice similar to Satam is performing a ritual and asks a person to give him nine offerings of humans and this time to kill people in Calcutta. Production. The research that went into the scripting of "The Stoneman Murders" involved an intensive search for newspaper articles dating to 1983 (when the killings took place). The director Manish Gupta and his team combed the Asiatic Library, the Government Archival Library at Elphinstone College, the "Times of India" archives and the archival departments of "Indian Express", "Maharashtra Times", "Navbharat Times" and other newspapers. Before this, the preliminary research done by the director was over the internet where a few articles about the Stoneman had been posted. The dates obtained from the internet were later used to carry out the more detailed research in the libraries and newspaper archives. Before the shooting of the film, the director and his team visited nearly all the known murder sites, like the area surrounding Tilak Hospital in Sion, the Gandhi Market near King's Circle, the area outside Matunga police station, Rafi Ahmed Kidwai Road in Wadala and one small street in Lalbaug. The visits to these sites were made late at night to enable the creative team to absorb a feel of the area and the eerie late-night ambience, which was later recreated in the film in terms of location selection, photography and the general styling of the film. The production team had to re-create the look of 1980s Bombay despite the fact that cars, shops and advertisements had changed. The pavements where the murders took place were made of black tar unlike the multi-coloured jigsaw shaped tiles of today. This restricted the shooting in myriad manners. For the wide shots of pavements, the unit often had to cover half a kilometre of pavement with black tarpaulin sheets to achieve the look of a tar footpath. The unit often waited until late night before rolling the camera since they needed all modern vehicles off the roads. Often some vehicles remained parked on the road and had to be covered by black tarpaulins. Likewise, the neon hoardings and contemporary advertisements were hidden by 1980s style advertisements and film posters that were sourced out painstakingly by the art director from obscure raddi shops.
925850	The Wild Blue Yonder is a science fiction film by the German director Werner Herzog, released in 2005. It was presented at the 62nd Venice Film Festival, where it was awarded the FIPRESCI Prize. It went on to screen in competition at the Mar del Plata Film Festival and the Sitges Film Festival, it won "Carnet Jove - Special Mention" at the latter. Most of the film consists of recontextualized documentary footage which is overlaid with fictional (sometimes fantastical) narration. This technique was used in Herzog's earlier film "Lessons of Darkness". The film is about an extraterrestrial (played by Brad Dourif) who came to Earth several decades ago from a water planet (The Wild Blue Yonder), after it experienced an ice age. His narration reveals that his race has tried through the years to form a community on our planet, without any success. The alien also tells the story of a space mission he found out about through his job with the CIA. In the late 90s debris from the Roswell UFO crash was unearthed and examined. Scientists incorrectly believed that they had contracted an infectious alien disease from the debris. An exploratory mission was launched to Blue Yonder (represented with archival footage from STS-34 and Henry Kaiser's diving expedition in Antarctica) to explore the possibility that a new, uninfected human colony might be established there. After deciding Blue Yonder was suitable for human habitation, the astronauts returned to Earth 800 years later, only to discover that the planet had been abandoned in their absence.. It is named after the first line from The U.S. Air Force. Trivia. The scenes in space are courtesy of NASA. According to the DVD extras, the interview with the alien is filmed in Niland, CA and nearby Slab City, CA.
1101124	Paolo Ruffini (September 22, 1765 – May 10, 1822) was an Italian mathematician and philosopher. By 1788 he had earned university degrees in philosophy, medicine/surgery, and mathematics. Among his work was an incomplete proof (Abel–Ruffini theorem) that quintic (and higher-order) equations cannot be solved by radicals (1799), and Ruffini's rule which is a quick method for polynomial division. Ruffini also made contributions to group theory in addition to probability and quadrature of the circle. He practiced as both a professor of mathematics (University of Modena) and a doctor including scientific work on typhus. Group Theory. Ruffini’s 1799 work marked a major development for group theory. Ruffini developed Joseph Louis Lagrange's work on permutation theory, following 29 years after Lagrange’s "Réflexions sur la théorie algébrique des equations" (1770–1771) which was largely ignored until Ruffini who established strong connections between permutations and the solvability of algebraic equations. Ruffini was the first to controversially assert the unsolvability by radicals of algebraic equations higher than quartics. This angered many members of the community such as Malfatti (1731–1807). Work in this area was later carried on by those such as Gauss and Galois who succeeded in such a proof. Publications. (English definitions) 1799: "Teoria Generale delle Equazioni, in cui si dimostra impossibile la soluzione algebraica delle equazioni generali di grado superiore al quarto" (General Theory of equations, which proves impossible algebraica the solution of the general equations of degree higher than the fourth) 1802: "Riflessioni intorno alla rettificazione ed alla quadratura del circulo" (Reflections on the rectification and the squaring of the circle) 1802: "Della soluzione delle equazioni algebraiche determinate particolari di grado superiore al quarto" (The solution of certain algebraic equations of degree higher than the fourth special) 1804: "Sopra la determinazione delle radici nelle equazioni numeriche di qualunque grado" (Above the determination of the roots in the numerical equations of any degree) 1806: "Della immortalità dell’anima" (The immortality of the soul) 1807: "Algebra elementare" (Elementary algebra) 1820: "Memoria sul tifo contagioso" (Memory is the contagious typhus) 1821: "Riflessioni critiche sopra il saggio filosofico intorno alle probabilità del signor conte Laplace" (Critical reflections on the philosophical essay about the likelihood of Count Laplace)
432579	Victoria Hart, commonly known as Vi Hart, is a self-described "Recreational Mathemusician" who is most known for her mathematical videos on YouTube. Hart has collaborated with MIT computer science professor Erik Demaine. She is currently employed by Khan Academy. Background. Early life and influence. Vi is the daughter of mathematical sculptor George W. Hart and Carol Hart. Vi credits her largest influence to a trip she took with her father when she was 13. She attended a computational geometry conference with him, and claims she was hooked on math from that point on. In an interview, she stated that "It was so different from school, where you are surrounded by this drudgery and no one is excited about it. Any gathering of passionate people is fun, really no matter what they’re doing." In an interview taken when she was attending college, she stated that "My love of geometry and mathematics is definitely my father’s influence. Ever since I tagged along with him to my first conference, I enjoyed myself so much that I look for opportunities to go to fun conferences ever since." College and career searching. Hart attended college at Stony Brook University. After finishing her music degree as a senior, she created a musical piece which she called the "Harry Potter Septet". The piece is in seven movements, one for each book, and was originally composed for violin, viola, cello, bass, piano, and two voices. Hart spent roughly 14 months creating the piece, which is around 1.5 hours long. Shortly after graduating from Stony Brook, Hart found difficulty in finding a full-time profession. As a senior, when asked about her future plans, she stated that "I’ve considered film scoring. Musical theater. Maybe I will go to graduate school. …I haven’t quite decided yet. I do want to compose. Where I want to go with that I’m not sure. Because it’s difficult to just compose and magically receive money for it." Hart continued down this road for a few years. YouTube. For a while, Hart was not able to find a suitable career for herself. One day, she was looking over some "mathematical doodles" that she had made during college (she notes that she made many of them while bored in her various classes in college) and decided that she should make something out of it. At first she considered simply writing out instructions and posting them on her blog, but she decided to take a different turn, and instead made her very first "Doodling in Math Class" video. With a first-person point of view and a fast-paced narration by Hart herself, the video series grew very popular, garnering millions of views in a short amount of time. Since then, Vi has continued her YouTube channel, and has received overwhelming support for it. Hart claims she made as much as $300 in one week from YouTube's partnership program. A short time into her YouTube career, Hart decided to come up with a satirical name for her "unique" profession of displaying mathematics through the mind of a creative and musically talented mathematician. She decided to call herself a "Full-Time Recreational Mathemusician." When asked about her reasoning behind such a name, she explained "I call myself that because, sometimes, when you're not sure how to describe yourself in a title that describes what you do, you have to make one up." On January 23, 2012, Hart created a secondary YouTube channel, which she named "VihartVihart." This channel contains supplements to her main channel videos, as well as personal videos. On July 6, 2012, Hart created a behind the scenes video in collaboration with Ethan Bresnick that shows how she makes her videos. On October 1, 2012 she uploaded "Hexaflexagons", the first in a series of four videos celebrating the subject and exploring the mathematics, aesthetics, and history of hexaflexagons. The video has been viewed over five million times. Popularity. Since the creation of her YouTube channel, Hart has received national recognition. As of August 2013, Hart has over 41 million video views on her primary YouTube channel, as well as over 500,000 subscribers. Currently, her most viewed video is "Hexaflexagons," with over 5 million views. Hart has over 34,000 fans on her Facebook page, while on Twitter she has over 28,000 followers. She has been featured in several online news articles by publications such as "The New York Times" and "The Washington Post". In August 2011, Hart gave a lecture at International Science Day. Khan Academy. On January 3, 2012, Hart announced that she had recently started working at Khan Academy. She credits the establishment with paying her to "sit in a cubicle all day and make random doodles." Hart is now featured in various videos on Khan Academy's YouTube account, but continues producing videos for her own channel.
635941	"Saga of a Star World" (or "Battlestar Galactica") is the pilot for the American science fiction television series of "Battlestar Galactica" which was produced in 1978 by Glen A. Larson. A re-edit of the episode was released theatrically as Battlestar Galactica in Canada, Australia and some countries in Europe and Latin America before the television series aired in the U.S., in order to help recoup its high production costs. Later, in May 1979, the feature-film edit was also released in the U.S. (see below) Synopsis. "Battlestar Galactica" is set in a distant star system, in an age described as "the seventh millennium of time." Twelve colonies of humans, living on different worlds, have been fighting a 1,000 year war against the robotic race of Cylons, who seek to exterminate all of humanity. The Cylons have unexpectedly sued for peace, through the diplomatic agency of a human, Count Baltar. The human leaders, called the Council of the Twelve (with one representative from each colony), and the commanders of their military fleet are all too pleased by the Cylon offer of peace, which ends so many years of warfare. The powerful "Battlestars" are assembled for armistice talks with Humanity's age-old robotic enemy. But it's all a deception – Baltar has betrayed humanity for personal gain, and the Cylons have no intention of making peace. Only Commander Adama, of the battlestar "Galactica", suspects that the Cylons are planning a trap, and orders a recon patrol, consisting of his two best pilots: his eldest son, Apollo, and Lt. Starbuck. Adama's younger son, Zac, convinces Starbuck to let him go in his place. The patrol discovers a vast Cylon armada waiting in ambush behind a moon named Cimtar, but the Cylons jam their communications. Cylon fighters pursue the two Vipers, and Zac's fighter is hit. This forces Apollo to leave him behind, so that the fleet can be warned. Zac's Viper is destroyed by the Cylons just before he reaches the fleet. Baltar manipulates President Adar into prohibiting the launch of fighters as the Cylons close in on the fleet. Frustrated, Adama orders the "Galactica's" Viper squadrons be placed on full alert, with their fighters ready to launch. As the Cylons attack, the "Galactica" is able to launch its fighters first, while the other battlestars are caught off-guard. The "Atlantia", with President Adar aboard, is destroyed, as are apparently the other battlestars; "Galactica" alone survives the Cylon assault. Apollo informs Adama that the Cylons were accompanied by refueling tankers, and Adama realizes that this would allow the fighters to operate far from their base ships (known as "basestars"), which must be operating somewhere else. He orders the "Galactica" to withdraw and protect the planet Caprica, Adama's homeworld, but they are too late, as the Cylon fleet has launched simultaneous massive assaults on all the Colonies at the very same time the attack on the battlestars has commenced. With the Colonies in ruins, Adama collects as many survivors as possible, and orders every intact civilian ship to take survivors and follow the "Galactica". They hope that the "Galactica" can protect this ragtag fleet long enough to find the legendary thirteenth human colony. It is called Earth, but the location of this lost colony is known only to the last lord of Kobol, the planet which was the original home of Man, but which was abandoned thousands of years earlier, when the Thirteen Tribes migrated to the stars. Helping Adama in the quest for Earth are his son, Captain Apollo, commander of the "Galactica's" strike wing; Lieutenant Starbuck, the "Galactica's" best fighter pilot and Apollo's best friend; Lieutenant Boomer; and Colonel Tigh, Adama's second-in-command. The Cylon Imperious Leader, determined that no human at all shall survive, orders Baltar's execution after his usefulness is over, but (as retro-actively revealed in the TV series version of the film) he is spared at the last moment in order to help the Cylons hunt down the human fleet. After initially escaping the Cylons across a massive starfield called the Nova of Madagon (referred to as such due to its extremely dangerous, hot environment, and Cylon mines), the "Galactica" and the fugitive fleet find brief respite on the resort planet of Carillon, where they hope to find food and fuel for their journey. As much of the fleet's food supplies were contaminated by pluton bombs during the Cylon attack, the fleet is in desperate straits, and must find a food source soon or face starvation. It quickly becomes apparent that there is more to Carillon than meets the eye. The fact that Carillon has more than enough food and fuel for the fleet's needs makes Adama wary. It is also apparently the largest tylium (fighter fuel) mining facility in that part of the galaxy, as well as a popular gamblers' den, but nobody has ever heard of the place. Adama discovers that Baltar was responsible for performing the initial Carillon survey, and reported that tylium was too minimal for mining, and he immediately smells a Cylon trap. But in the meantime, Sire Uri, Adama's self-serving nemesis on the new Council of the Twelve, uses the opportunity the planet presents for the morale of the fugitives to make his move against Adama, whose strict but selflessly benign intentions hinder his own ambitions. The Council of the Twelve, led by Uri to believe the Cylons have been left far behind, propose that the humans pause to celebrate their escape and dismantle their military and weapons to prove to the Cylons that humans are no longer a threat to them. The Council arranges a banquet on Carillon, and orders all fighter pilots to attend. Adama suspects that this might be a golden opportunity for the Cylons to launch an attack on their fleet, and orders Colonel Tigh to surreptitiously hold back their fighter pilots from attending the party while he is to outfit noncombat personnel with fighter uniforms. Down on Carillon, Apollo and Starbuck gradually discover that something is amiss when they see strangers walking around clad in the uniforms of their squadron, and after some investigation they discover the truth behind the planet's prosperity. The natives of Carillon, the insectoid Ovions, have set up the gambling resort to lure humans to them to serve as living food for their hatching larvae in their underground chambers. They are also secretly in league with the Cylons and mine the tylium solely for their purposes in exchange for their freedom, and they are cooperating in the Cylons' efforts to eradicate the human fugitives. During a subsequent fight with Cylon soldiers, the laser fire from both parties sets the tylium mines on fire, threatening to destroy the planet once the fire rages fully out of control. Adama's ruse works, and the Cylons, believing that all of the pilots are at the banquet, launch a fighter attack against the "Galactica" in orbit, but Adama is ready to spring his trap. Once the Cylon fighter contingent is fully engaged with the "Galactica", Adama recalls all his Vipers from the surface of Carillon, taking the enemy by surprise. During the fight, Apollo realizes the Cylon fighters couldn't have come so far without a basestar, and he and Starbuck disengage from the battle and find a Cylon basestar hidden on the far side of Carillon. In defiance of Commander Adama's recall order, they decide to attempt to destroy it, in order to enable the refugee fleet to elude pursuit, and use fake radio chatter to fool the basestar into thinking it's under attack by multiple Viper squadrons. The basestar descends into Carillon's atmosphere to avoid detection, and is destroyed when the planet finally erupts in a massive tylium explosion. Despite their victory, however, the humans realize their enemies will still be pursuing them, and they set out to Earth, their last hope for survival. Different versions. There have been various versions of the pilot broadcast or released theatrically. Although produced for television, originally as part of a planned series of telemovies and eventually as a television series, Universal Studios decided to release the film in cinemas in order to recoup some of the high production costs with producers believing the series "could be a fine shot at a corner of the "Star Wars" market." In July 1978, two months before its U.S. television debut, the film was released in Canada, Australia, and some countries in Europe and Latin America. The release was a success following an aggressive marketing campaign from Universal and influenced the decision to release the "Buck Rogers in the 25th Century" pilot in cinemas a year later. Later episodes of the regular "Battlestar Galactica" series were also re-edited and released in cinemas internationally.
1163845	Louis Nye (May 1, 1913 – October 9, 2005) was an American comedy actor. Early years. He was born Louis Neistat in Hartford, Connecticut, the son of Joseph Neistat (May 18, 1881 – September 1967) and Jennie Sherman (born 1890). His sister was Rose Neistat (born 1917). Although Louis, who pronounced his given name Louie, claimed to have been born in 1922, he was listed as age six on the 1920 Hartford County, Connecticut, Federal Census. Louis's parents were both Yiddish speaking Jews born in Russia. They emigrated to the United States in 1906, and became naturalized citizens in 1911. Joseph Neistat ran a small grocery store. Louis attended Weaver High School, but did not excel as a student. "My marks were so low," he said, "that they wouldn't let me in the drama club. So, I went down to WTIC Radio, auditioned and got on a show." Radio and television. Later he went to New York and worked in radio, including various roles on soap operas. He later recalled, "I still think of myself as an actor. In the radio days, I was busy playing rotten Nazis, rich uncles and emotional juveniles -- the whole span -- and the only time I tried to be funny was at parties." He served in the Army during World War II, where he generated laughs by mimicking other soldiers and was given the job of running the recreation hall. After his discharge, Nye returned to New York, began working in live television and appeared in several plays on Broadway. He made numerous appearances on "The Jack Benny Program" and "The Jimmy Durante Show". He also appeared on "The Pat Boone Chevy Showroom". He found fame with Steve Allen. As a regular on "The Steve Allen Show", he took part in the weekly "Man on the Street" sketches, performing with Allen, Don Knotts, Dayton Allen, Tom Poston and Bill Dana. Nye was a popular sketch comedian who primarily played urbane, wealthy bon vivant types. His characterization of the delightfully pretentious country-club braggart Gordon Hathaway, his catchphrase, "Hi, ho, Steverino," and Allen's inability to resist bursting into hysterical laughter at Nye's ad-libs during gags, made Nye one of the favorite performers on Allen's show. When production was moved to Los Angeles, Nye went along and became a character actor in Hollywood. Nye was cast as a guest star in such series as "Make Room for Daddy", "Guestward, Ho!", "Burke's Law", "The Munsters", "Love, American Style", "Laverne & Shirley", "Starsky and Hutch", "Police Woman", "Fantasy Island", "St. Elsewhere", and "The Cosby Show". Nye played dentist Delbert Gray on several episodes of "The Ann Sothern Show" from 1960 to 1961, the romantic interest of Olive Smith, played by Ann Tyrrell (1909–1983). Nye also played Sonny Drysdale, the spoiled rich stepson of the banker, Milburn Drysdale, on CBS's "The Beverly Hillbillies" during the 1962 season. He did six episodes, and received more mail than from anything else he had ever done on TV, but the character was dropped. It was rumored that someone in the CBS network, or a sponsor, thought Sonny was too "sissified." Nye revived the character briefly during the 1966 season, however. Nye was a member of the cast of the situation comedy "Needles and Pins", playing Harry Karp. The show, which starred Norman Fell, ran for 14 episodes in the autumn of 1973. Nye also recorded a few comedy LPs, doing a variety of characterizations. Unfortunately, he never had the opportunity to reach his potential in movies. Many of his character roles were little more than cameos. Nevertheless, he performed with stars as Lucille Ball, Bob Hope, Jack Lemmon, Dean Martin, Walter Matthau, Robert Mitchum, Jack Webb and Joanne Woodward, among others. Nye also appeared on the lecture circuit, in concerts and in night clubs, and did voice work in animation, such as "Inspector Gadget" with Don Adams. Last years. Nye never retired. He completed a 24-city tour of the country for Columbia Artists, ending the tour with a two-week stint at the Sahara in Las Vegas. At the age of 92, he continued to work, appearing in his recurring role of Jeff Greene's father on HBO's "Curb Your Enthusiasm" from 2000 to 2005. Nye lived in Pacific Palisades with his wife, pianist-songwriter Anita Leonard, who wrote the standard, "A Sunday Kind of Love." Married since the late 1940s, they had a son, artist Peter Nye. Louis Nye died of lung cancer. He is interred at Hillside Memorial Park Cemetery in Culver City, California.
1163931	Veronica A. Cartwright (born 20 April 1949) is an English-born American actress who has worked mainly in American film and television. As a child actress she appeared in supporting roles in "The Children's Hour" and "The Birds". She is perhaps best known for her roles in the science fiction films "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" (1978) and "Alien" (1979), for which she won a Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actress. Early years. Cartwright was born in Bristol, Gloucestershire, and grew up in Toronto and Los Angeles. Her career as a child actress began in 1958 with a role in "In Love and War". Among her early appearances was a semi-regular part in the television series "Leave It to Beaver" (as Beaver's classmate Violet Rutherford) and an episode of "The Twilight Zone" "I Sing the Body Electric" (1962). She guest starred twice in 1963 in NBC's medical drama about psychiatry, "The Eleventh Hour", in the episodes "The Silence of Good Men" and "My Name is Judith, I'm Lost, You See." Cartwright appeared in the films "The Children's Hour" (1961) and Alfred Hitchcock's "The Birds" (1963), which were both highly successful. She was cast as daughter Jemima Boone in the first two seasons of NBC's "Daniel Boone" from 1964 until 1966, with co-stars Fess Parker, Patricia Blair, Darby Hinton, Ed Ames, and Dallas McKennon. She was the youngest actress to win an Emmy for "Tell Me Not in Mournful Numbers". Mid-1960s to present day. Cartwright's career slowed down during the late 1960s. She continued to work and achieved two of her biggest successes with "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" (1978) and "Alien" (1979), the latter performance winning her a Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actress. She was originally cast as "Alien"'s heroine Ellen Ripley, but director Ridley Scott switched her role with Sigourney Weaver's just prior to shooting the film. Other film roles include: "Spencer's Mountain" with Henry Fonda and Kym Karath (1963), "Inserts" (1976), "Goin' South" (1978), "The Right Stuff" (1983), "Flight of the Navigator" (1986), "The Witches of Eastwick" (1987), "Money Talks" (1997), "Scary Movie 2" (2001), "Kinsey" (2004) and "Straight-Jacket" (2004). A frequent performer in television, she has played guest roles in such series as "The Mod Squad", "Miami Vice", "Baywatch", "L.A. Law", "ER", "The X-Files", "Chicago Hope", "Will & Grace", "Touched by an Angel", "Judging Amy", "Six Feet Under", "The Closer", and "". Cartwright has received three Emmy Award nominations, one for her work in "ER" in 1997, and two for her work on "The X-Files" in 1998 and 1999. Veronica Cartwright also starred as Mrs. Olive Osmond in the made for TV film "Inside the Osmonds".
1236267	Ariel Geltman Graynor, better known as Ari Graynor (born April 27, 1983), is an American actress, known for her roles in TV series such as "The Sopranos" and "Fringe", in stage productions such as "Brooklyn Boy" and "The Little Dog Laughed", and in films such as "Whip It" and "For a Good Time, Call...". Early life. Graynor was born in Boston, Massachusetts, the daughter of Joani Geltman, a parenting expert, and Greg Graynor, a contractor. Her mother is from a Jewish family and her father is of Polish Catholic background; Graynor was raised Jewish. She attended Buckingham Browne & Nichols, a private school in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and Trinity College, in Hartford, Connecticut. Career. Graynor first came to prominence as Caitlin Rucker on HBO's "The Sopranos". Her film credits include "An American Crime" (2007), which premiered in January 2007 at the Sundance Film Festival. She also appeared early in the second season of UPN's "Veronica Mars" as the daughter of a bus driver. She made her Broadway debut as 'Alison' in 2005's "Brooklyn Boy" after appearing in the world premiere at South Coast Repertory. She also appeared in "The Little Dog Laughed". Graynor shaved her head for her role as Elvina, a pop star, in "", and was a recurring guest star on the Fox series "Fringe", playing Agent Olivia Dunham's younger sister, Rachel.
1054307	McQ is a 1974 crime drama film directed by John Sturges, starring John Wayne. The film made extensive use of actual Seattle locations. The beach scenes were filmed on the Pacific coast at Moclips.
586570	Nandana Sen (born Nandana Dev Sen in Kolkata) is an international actor, writer, and child-rights activist. Early life. Sen was born in Kolkata, West Bengal to a Bengali Hindu family. She is the daughter of Nobel Laureate and Bharat Ratna economist Amartya Sen and Padma Shri winner Nabanita Dev Sen, one of the most prominent authors in the contemporary Bengali literature. Nandana Sen's first piece of writing was published when she was a child in the magazine "Sandesh", selected by Satyajit Ray. She spent her growing years in various cities across Europe, India and America. Education. Nandana Sen studied literature at Harvard University, where she was awarded the Detur Prize in her first year for topping her class, and thereafter every year she also won both the John Harvard Scholarship and the Elizabeth Cary Agassiz Award for Academic Achievement of the Highest Distinction. As a Junior, she was elected early into the academic honor society Phi Beta Kappa. Subsequently, Sen studied Film Producing at the Peter Stark Producing Program at the USC Film School. She wrote and directed various short films, including her thesis film “Arranged Marriage” which was shown at multiple film festivals. As an actor, Nandana trained at the Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute, New York, as well as the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, London. Professional life. Along with acting in theatre and films internationally, Nandana also promotes the cause of child protection. Nandana is Smile Ambassador for the global children’s NGO Operation Smile, UNICEF India's National Celebrity for Child Protection and against Gender Based Violence, and Cause Ambassador for RAHI (India's first organization to break the silence about child sexual abuse). She collaborates with the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) as a Child Rights Expert and Juror for Public Hearings. Whenever possible, Nandana Sen has combined her commitment to child rights with her acting work. Nandana has been actively fighting to stop the crisis of child trafficking in India, both with organizations such as the NCPCR and the Terre des hommes foundation as well as addressing this topic in cinema. Sen experienced her first taste of cinema while still a student when director Goutam Ghose tapped her to play the lead in his dark and disturbing psychodrama The Doll (Gudia) as one of the targets of a middle-age man's sexual obsession. Her first vehicle in Bollywood was the Rani Mukherjee and Amitabh Bachchan starrer Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s Black (2005) in which she essayed the role of Rani’s 17-year-old younger sister. Sen gave a highly proclaimed performance in the lead role and the film was applauded by both audience and critics. Time Magazine (Europe) selected the film as one of the 10 Best Movies of the Year 2005 from across the globe. After teaming up on a succession of projects with Indian directors including Ram Gopal Varma and Ketan Mehta, Sen signed for one of the principal roles in the jarring, terrorist-themed American drama "The War Within" (2005) and, in the process, both made a name for herself and began to cultivate a reputation for being drawn to offbeat, challenging, and demanding roles, often with a social or political theme. In the anti-war film Tango Charlie, Sen played the female lead opposite Ajay Devgan (also starring Sanjay Dutt and Bobby Deol) and with Anil Kapoor in "My Wife's Murder. " Both of these movies did well with critics and audiences. Nandana followed this by signing lead roles opposite Salman Khan in the bilingual Hollywood-Bollywood film Marigold, and Vivek Oberoi in Prince, at the same time playing the protagonist in unconventional but acclaimed films such as Strangers and The Forest. The British television series "Sharpe" increased her notability. The episode ‘Sharpe’s Peril’ featured Sen in a pivotal role. In 2007, Sen signed on to portray a young rebellious woman fleeing from law authorities in director Shamim Sarif's lesbian-themed period drama "The World Unseen". In 2010, Nandana starred in the Bengali super-hit Autograph, for which she was awarded the TeleCine Award for Best Actress and the Reliance BIG Bangla Rising Star Award. Sen, whose professional choices have included a tenure as a literary editor at Houghton Mifflin Company, is also a screenwriter, and a published writer in multiple genres, including poetry, narrative non-fiction, and Op Eds. Her first original screenplay to be made into a film was Forever, funded by Telefilm Canada. She was commissioned by Divani Films to adapt R.K. Narayan’s novel "Waiting For the Mahatma" into a film script, and by Big Bang Company to write an original script focusing on a father-daughter relationship. Sen frequently contributes articles to newspapers and journals, and has also translated a book of poems by her mother Nabaneeta Dev Sen, titled "Make Up Your Mind" (iUniverse, 2013). Represented by Ed Victor Literary Agency, Nandana is writing a children’s book in verse, called "Kiss This Kangaroo!" Personal life. Nandana Sen was in a nine year relationship with producer Madhu Mantena. As of June 2013, she is married to John Makinson, CEO of Penguin Publishing.
589919	Parash Pathar ( "Porosh Pathor"; English: "The Philosopher's Stone"; French: "La Pierre Philosophale"; released 17 January 1958) was Satyajit Ray's first film apart from the Apu Trilogy. It was also his first comedy and first magical realist film. Adapted from a short story of the same name by Parasuram (Rajsekhar Bose), the film offered an early glimpse of Ray's sense of humor, centered on a middle-class clerk who accidentally discovers a stone that can turn other objects into gold. Plot. Paresh Chandra Dutt (Tulsi Chakrabarti), a middle-class bank clerk in Kolkata, attends a charity match on a rainy day rather reluctantly. At Curzon Park (modern-day Surendranath Park), where the match is apparently to be held, he finds a small, round stone. Thinking it is a marble, he gives it to his nephew. The child discovers that it turns metal into gold (i.e. it is the Philosopher's stone).
1270720	Mary Philips (January 23, 1901April 22, 1975) was an American stage and film actress. Biography. Born in New London, Connecticut, she was the only child of Charles and Anna (née Hurley) Philips of New Haven, where she was educated at St. Mary's Academy, New Haven. In 1920 she made her stage debut as a chorus girl. She then went on to have a very successful stage career appearing in such shows as "The Postman Always Rings Twice" (1936) and "Chicken Every Sunday" (1944). She had a long working relationship with the New York theatre and as her own personal scrapbook shows, worked closely with such greats as George M. Cohan. In 1924 she appeared in the Broadway play "Nerves" with Humphrey Bogart and Kenneth MacKenna, both lifelong friends and future husbands.
1063406	Elke Sommer (born 5 November 1940), born Elke Schletz, is a German actress, entertainer, and artist. Career. Sommer was born in Berlin to a Lutheran minister and his wife, Renata ("nee" Topp). After World War II, the family was evacuated to Erlangen, a small university town in Southern Germany, where, despite their lack of money, she attended the prestigious Gymnasium (high school) in Erlangen. However her father's death when she was 14 precluded further formal education, and she moved to England to be an au pair, to perfect her English and earn a living. She was spotted by film director Vittorio De Sica while on holiday in Italy, and started appearing in films there in the late 1950s. She quickly became a noted sex symbol and moved to Hollywood in the early 1960s. She also became one of the most popular pin-up girls of the time, and posed for several pictorials in "Playboy" magazine (September 1964 and December 1967). She became one of the top movie actresses of the 1960s and made 99 movie and television appearances between 1959 and 2005, including "A Shot in the Dark" (1964) with Peter Sellers as Inspector Clouseau, "The Art of Love" (1965) with James Garner and Dick Van Dyke, "The Oscar" (1966) with Stephen Boyd, "Boy, Did I Get a Wrong Number!" (1966) with Bob Hope, the Bulldog Drummond extravaganza "Deadlier Than the Male" (1966), and "The Wrecking Crew" (1969) with Dean Martin; Sommer was the leading lady in each of these films. In 1964, she won the Golden Globe Awards as Most Promising Newcomer Actress for "The Prize", a film she co-starred with Paul Newman and Edward G. Robinson. In 1972, she starred in two Italian horror movies directed by Mario Bava, which have both become cult classics: "Baron Blood" and "Lisa and the Devil". The latter film was never theatrically distributed in its original form; it was later re-edited (with 1975 footage inserted) to make a different movie called "House of Exorcism". Sommer went back to Italy to star in the additional scenes that were inserted into the movie by its producer, against the wishes of the director. In 1975, Peter Rogers cast her in "Carry On Behind" as the Russian Professor Vrooshka. She became the "Carry On"'s highest paid performer, at £30,000 (an honour shared with Phil Silvers for "Follow That Camel"). Sommer also performed successfully as a singer, making several albums. Later career. Since the 1990s, she has concentrated more on painting than on acting. As an actress, she worked in half a dozen countries learning the languages (she speaks seven languages) and storing up images which she later expresses on canvas. Her artwork shows a strong influence from Marc Chagall. Sommer had a long-running feud with Zsa Zsa Gabor that began in 1984 when both appeared on "Circus of the Stars" and escalated into a multi-million dollar libel suit by 1993. In 2001, a Golden Palm Star on the Palm Springs, California, Walk of Stars was dedicated to her. She now lives in Los Angeles, California. Personal life. She married Joe Hyams (June 6, 1923 – November 8, 2008) in 1964, who was 17 years older, in Las Vegas in front of a Justice of the Peace. Elke Sommer suffered her first miscarriage while working on the set of "The Money Trap", in which she played alongside Glenn Ford and Rita Hayworth. The second miscarriage followed exactly one year later during the filming of "Boy, Did I Get A Wrong Number", where she starred with Bob Hope under the direction of George Marshall. In 1973, Elke Sommer and Joe Hyams tried again to start a family. While working on the set of "Die Reise nach Wien" she suffered her third miscarriage, and her marriage was on the rocks. Her mother, Renata Schletz, accompanied her to movie sets as well as on theater tours even after Elke Sommer’s marriage to Joe Hyams had failed and a new man came into her life: Tom Bohla. Bohla moved in with Sommer, who had separated from her husband, but was still sharing the house with him and had no intention to file for divorce.
581880	Ram Lakhan is a Bollywood movie released in 1989. It was produced and directed by Subhash Ghai and had an ensemble cast, including Anil Kapoor, Jackie Shroff, Madhuri Dixit, Dimple Kapadia and Raakhee. Plot. Sharda Raakhee is happily married in an rich aristocratic household to Thakur Pratap Singh (Dalip Tahil) and is the mother to 2 young boys. Thakur Pratap Singh's father shows mercy to his nephews Bhishamber (Amrish Puri) and Bhanu (Paresh Rawal)after they serve jail time for siphoning the family wealth and stealing within the household and whiling away their time - drinking and gambling. Sr. Thakur is tricked into signing a will that deprives his son, wife (Raakhi) and 2 children from the ancestral wealth and the right to even live in the manor's premises. Sr. Thakur is then killed off in a car bomb and when Thakur Pratap Singh refuses to bow down to cruel Bhishamber Nath after finding out their masterplan and after his wife is humiliated publicly by then, he is severely beaten up, stabbed brutally by the, and left on a nearby railway track to be cut to pieces by the next passing train, leaving behind his widowed wife who, Sharda, and two young sons, Ram and Lakhan. Sharda who witnesses the whole scene vows to avenge the death of her husband, and hopes she will achieve this by visiting the temple everyday - praying for justice. She talks about the day when her sons grow up and ultimately destroy their father's assailants, and it is then and then only will she disperse her husband's ashes. The evil duo Bhishamber (Amrish Puri) and Bhanu (Paresh Rawal) exploit and enjoy the family's riches. Those sons grow into the upstanding police officer Ram (Jackie Shroff) and the easily tempted dreamer, smart talker and street procession dancer Lakhan (Anil Kapoor). If the family is to be avenged, Ram will have to lead his brother away from the path of corruption he's strayed onto to make quick money and protect him from the influence of Bhanu and Bhishamber. Years later, Ram is now the Police Inspector and is a major obstacle in Bhishamber's illegal activities while Lakhan is the fun-loving, wanna be quick millionaire, precocious young man, still living in his brother's shadow and mother's love for him. Ram also has an affair with the Commissioner's daughter (Dimple Kapadia) and is constantly teased by his younger brother for not coming out in the open with it. When Lakhan finds out that there is a big reward for the capture and arrest of notorious gangster Kesariya Vilayti, he single-handedly captures him and claims the reward. Thinking police work is quite simple and easy, he applies for the job, completes his training and also becomes a police inspector like his brother. He also seeks to use this to woo his childhood sweetheart (Madhuri Dixit) and deal with her stingy, eccentric but easily fooled and well-meaning father (Anupam Kher). Satisfied that her sons have chosen the right path, Sharda goes on a religious pilgrimage to pray for their unity. When she returns she finds that nothing is the same anymore, Ram and Lakhan have quarreled and no longer speak with each other based on their ideological differences and because Lakhan uses his power to help smugglers and make extra bucks in an attempt at raising his clout so he can exact revenge against the evil Bhishamber and Bhanu. Ram continues to live in a their older family home, while Lakhan has moved in to a spacious bungalow, supposedly bought through bribes and black deals. While Ram continues to create obstacles for Bhishamber, Lakhan has now joined Bhishamber's gang and is on their pay-roll.
1163833	Rose Marie (born August 15, 1923) is an American actress. As a child performer she had a successful singing career as Baby Rose Marie. She was married to trumpeter Bobby Guy from 1946 until his death in 1964. A veteran of vaudeville, Rose Marie's career includes film, records, theater, night clubs, and television. Her most famous role was television comedy writer Sally Rogers on the CBS situation comedy "The Dick Van Dyke Show". She later portrayed Myrna Gibbons on CBS's "The Doris Day Show" and was also a frequent panelist on the game show "Hollywood Squares". Early years. Rose Marie Mazetta was born in New York City, New York, to Italian-American Frank Mazetta and Polish-American Stella Gluszcak. At the age of three, she started performing under the name "Baby Rose Marie". At five, she became a radio star on NBC and made a series of films. Rose Marie was a nightclub and lounge performer in her teenage years before becoming a radio comedian. She was billed then as "The Darling of the Airwaves." According to her autobiography, "Hold the Roses," she was assisted in her career by many members of organized crime, including Al Capone and Bugsy Siegel. She performed at the opening night of the Flamingo Hotel, which was built by Siegel. At her height of fame as a child singer (late 1929–1934), she had her own radio show, made numerous records, and was featured in a number of Paramount films and shorts. In 1929, the five- or six-year-old singer made a Vitaphone sound short titled "Baby Rose Marie the Child Wonder", now restored and available in the Warner Bros. DVD set of "The Jazz Singer". For her first recording session, in 1932, she was accompanied by Fletcher Henderson's Orchestra. She continued to appear in films through the mid-1930s, making shorts and a feature, "International House" (1933) with W. C. Fields, for Paramount. Recordings. Between 1930 and 1938, she made 17 recordings; three of which were unissued. Her first issued record, recorded on March 10, 1932, featured accompaniment by Fletcher Henderson's band, one of the premier black jazz orchestras. According to "Hendersonia" the bio-discography by Walter C. Allen, Henderson was in the Victor studios recording the four songs they were intending to produce that day and were asked to accompany Baby Rose Marie, reading from a stock arrangement. Television. In the 1960–1961 season, Rose Marie co-starred with Shirley Bonne, Elaine Stritch, Jack Weston, Raymond Bailey, and Stubby Kaye in the CBS sitcom "My Sister Eileen". She played Bertha, a friend of the Sherwood sisters, Ruth, a magazine writer, played by Stritch, and Eileen, an aspiring actress, Bonne's role. After five seasons (1961-1966) of "The Dick Van Dyke Show"', Rose Marie co-starred in two seasons (1969-1971) of CBS's "The Doris Day Show" as Doris Martin's friend and co-worker, Myrna Gibbons. She also appeared in two episodes of the NBC series "The Monkees" in the mid-1960s. She later had a semi-regular seat in the upper center square on the original version of "Hollywood Squares", alongside her friend and longtime "Dick Van Dyke" co-star, Morey Amsterdam. She also appeared on both the 1986 and 1998 syndicated revivals. In the early 1990s, she had a recurring role as Frank Fontana's mother on the CBS sitcom "Murphy Brown". She also appeared as Roy Biggins's domineering mother, Eleanor "Bluto" Biggins, in an episode of the TV series "Wings". Rose Marie and Morey Amsterdam guest-starred together in a February 1996 episode of the NBC sitcom "Caroline in the City", shortly before Amsterdam's death in October of that same year. She appeared with the surviving "Dick Van Dyke Show" cast members in a 2004 reunion special. Rose Marie was especially close to actor Richard Deacon from that show, and offered him the suits left behind when her husband died in 1964, as the two men were of similar height and build. Theater. From 1977 to 1981, Rose Marie co-starred with Rosemary Clooney, Helen O'Connell and Margaret Whiting in the musical revue "4 Girls 4", which toured the U.S. and appeared on television several times. She was the celebrity guest host of a comedy play, "Grandmas Rock!" written by Gordon Durich, and originally broadcast on radio in 2010 on KVTA and KKZZ, and rebroadcast on KVTA and KKZZ again in September 2012 in honor of National Grandparents Day. A CD of the show was also produced, featuring audio clips from "The Dick Van Dyke Show". In 2011, she continues to occasionally perform. References. Notes
1102699	John Griggs Thompson (born October 13, 1932) is a mathematician at the University of Florida noted for his work in the field of finite groups. He was awarded the Fields Medal in 1970, the Wolf Prize in 1992 and the 2008 Abel Prize. Biography. He received his B.A. from Yale University in 1955 and his doctorate from the University of Chicago in 1959 under the supervision of Saunders Mac Lane. After spending some time on the Mathematics faculty at the University of Chicago, he moved in 1970 to the Rouse Ball Professorship in Mathematics at the University of Cambridge, England, and later moved to the Mathematics Department of the University of Florida as a Graduate Research Professor. He is currently a Professor Emeritus of Pure Mathematics at the University of Cambridge, and professor of mathematics at the University of Florida. He received the Abel Prize 2008 together with Jacques Tits. Work. Thompson's doctoral thesis introduced powerful and innovative techniques, and included the solution of a problem in finite group theory which had stood for around sixty years, the nilpotency of Frobenius kernels. At the time, this achievement was noted in "The New York Times" (though his university affiliation was stated incorrectly there). Thompson became a key figure in the progress toward the classification of finite simple groups. In 1963, he and Walter Feit proved that all nonabelian finite simple groups are of even order (the "Odd Order Paper", filling a whole issue of the "Pacific Journal of Mathematics"). This work was recognised by the award of the 1965 Cole Prize in Algebra of the American Mathematical Society. His monumental N-group papers classified all finite simple groups for which the normalizer of every non-identity solvable subgroup is solvable. This included, as a by-product, the classification of all minimal finite simple groups (those for which every proper subgroup is solvable). This work had great influence on later developments in the classification of finite simple groups, and was quoted in the citation by Richard Brauer for the award of Thompson's Fields Medal in 1970 (Proceedings of the International Congress of Mathematicians, Nice, France, 1970). The Thompson group "Th" is one of the 26 sporadic finite simple groups. Thompson also made major contributions to the inverse Galois problem. He found a criterion for a finite group to be a Galois group, that in particular implies that the monster simple group is a Galois group. Further recognition. In 1971, Thompson was elected to the United States National Academy of Sciences. In 1982, he was awarded the Senior Berwick Prize of the London Mathematical Society, and in 1988, he received the honorary degree of Doctor of Science from the University of Oxford. Thompson was awarded the United States National Medal of Science in 2000. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society (United Kingdom), and a recipient of its Sylvester Medal. He is a member of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters.
1101223	Gian-Carlo Rota (April 27, 1932 – April 18, 1999, known as Juan Carlos Rota to Spanish-speakers) was an Italian-born American mathematician and philosopher. Life. Rota was born in Vigevano, Italy. Gian-Carlo's family left Italy when he was 13 years old, initially going to Switzerland. Rota attended the Colegio Americano de Quito in Ecuador, and earned degrees at Princeton University and Yale University. Much of his career was spent as a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he was and remains the only person ever to be appointed Professor of Applied Mathematics and Philosophy. Rota was also the Norbert Wiener Professor of Applied Mathematics. In addition to his professorships at MIT, Rota held four honorary degrees, from the University of Strasbourg, France (1984); the University of L'Aquila, Italy (1990); the University of Bologna, Italy (1996); and Brooklyn Polytechnical University (1997).
1039566	Imogen Stubbs, Lady Nunn (born 20 February 1961) is an English actress and playwright. Early life. Imogen Stubbs was born in Rothbury, Northumberland, lived briefly in Portsmouth, Hampshire, where her father was a naval officer, and then moved with her parents to London, where they lived on an elderly river barge on the Thames. She was educated at two independent schools: St Paul's Girls' School and Westminster School, where Stubbs was one of the "token girls" in the sixth form, and Exeter College, Oxford, gaining a First Class degree. Her acting career started with Irina in a student production of "Three Sisters" at the Oxford Playhouse and her first professional success, while still at RADA, was as Sally Bowles in "Cabaret" at the Wolsey Theatre, Ipswich. She graduated from RADA in the same class as Jane Horrocks and Iain Glen, and has since become an Associate Member of RADA. She achieved success on stage with the Royal Shakespeare Company, notably as Desdemona in "Othello", which was directed by Trevor Nunn. Additional stage work includes "Saint Joan" the Strand Theatre and "Heartbreak House" at the Haymarket and in Jessica Lange's London production of "A Streetcar Named Desire" in 1997. Personal life. In 1994 she married Sir Trevor Nunn, thus giving her the courtesy title of "Lady Nunn". They have two children: a son, Jesse, and a daughter, Ellie. It was announced in April 2011 that she and Nunn were to separate. Writer. In July 2004 Stubbs's play "We Happy Few", directed by her husband and starring Juliet Stevenson and Marcia Warren, opened at the Gielgud Theatre, London, after a try-out in Malvern. In September 2008 "Reader's Digest" announced that she had joined the magazine as a contributing editor and writer of adventure stories.
582562	Sanjna Kapoor (born 1967) is an Indian theatre personality and former Indian film actress, who has been running the Prithvi Theatre in Mumbai from 1993 till 2012 February. Biography. Sanjna Kapoor is the daughter of Shashi Kapoor, himself a well-known face in Bollywood, and Jennifer Kendal the sister of British acctress Felicity Kendal. In her childhood, she attended the prestigious Bombay International School in Mumbai. She had a love for acting and frequented the Prithvi Theatre in Juhu.
583721	Enakku 20 Unakku 18 (; ) is a 2003 Tamil romantic film written and directed by Jyothi Krishna. The film stars Tarun, Shriya Saran and Trisha Krishnan in the lead roles, while Vivek and Manivannan play other pivotal roles. The film was also simultaneously shot and released in Telugu with a slightly different cast as "Nee Manasu Naaku Telusu". The film's score and soundtrack are composed by A. R. Rahman. Plot. Sridhar (Tarun) is a final year degree student and gets selected in the campus selections for studies abroad. He goes to Mumbai for an interview and in his return finds Preeti (Trisha) and loses his heart to her. Sridhar comes to know that Preeti was about to join in degree and Preeti learns that he was a final year degree student. Sridhar is an ardent cricket fan, so is Preeti, while Sridhar is also a good football player. The principal of the college appoints a coach called Reshma (Shreya), who is also a student, for the football team led by Sridhar. Sridhar tries his best to trace Preeti by visiting several women's colleges, while Preeti also watches for Sridhar at the men's college. Accidentally, Preeti helps Sridhar's mother, when she had a heart attack. In order to find Preeti at any cost, Sridhar goes to the LB Stadium, where a cricket match is in progress and gets injuries in a bomb blast in the stadium. Just before the blast, both Preeti and Sridhar find each other but could not meet due to the blast. Later Preeti's parents convince her to agree for a marriage and tell her to forget about the boy she was searching. At the same time, Sridhar's mother also tells him to concentrate on studies and go abroad to complete his studies. At this juncture, Sridhar comes to know that Preeti was staying just behind his house, when her parents come to his house to inform that she is getting married. Sridhar's gang participates in an inter-college football match and wins the cup. Before his return, Sridhar's mother suffers yet another heart attack and Preeti's father admits her in the hospital. Then they come to know that Sridhar's brother-in-law was behind bars for no fault of his and Preeti helps him to come out of the case. Meanwhile, Sridhar's mother passes away. Later Sridhar's brother-in-law gets another job and the family leaves for Bangalore. Sridhar feels lonely so, he decides to go abroad. After three years, Sridhar returns from abroad to find Preeti in the same compartment. To his surprise, Preeti is still unmarried and they unite. Production. Trisha Krishnan had signed the film before any of her other films had released. For one song, 260 shots were taken and picturised at 90 locations in Chennai and Hyderabad. Release. The film opened to mixed reviews, with a critic from The Hindu citing that "certain scenes have appreciable depth while some are downright superficial and predictable" and that it was "absorbing in parts, spontaneous in spurts, natural at times and clichéd now and then". However another critic labelled the film as "strictly for youth" and a "perfect choice". Soundtrack. The soundtrack features 6 songs composed by A. R. Rahman.
1048893	The Cat from Outer Space is a 1978 comic science fiction film, starring Ronnie Schell, Ken Berry, Sandy Duncan, Harry Morgan, Roddy McDowall and McLean Stevenson. Produced by Walt Disney Productions, it was shot at the studio's Golden Oak Ranch and Santa Clarita, California.
1162026	Danielle Christine Fishel (born May 5, 1981) is an American actress and television personality best known for her role as Topanga Lawrence on the 1990s TV sitcom "Boy Meets World". She is set to reprise the role for the upcoming 2014 spinoff "Girl Meets World". She is also known for being the host of Style Network's "The Dish". Fishel also appears in "National Lampoon's Dorm Daze" and its sequel, and was a spokesperson for NutriSystem. She is also a resident reporter on "PopSugar", and their spin-off YouTube channel, PopSugar Girls Guide. Early life. Fishel was born in Mesa, Arizona, the daughter of Jennifer, a personal manager, and Rick Fishel, a medical equipment sales executive. She is half Maltese. The family relocated to Yorba Linda, California when she was three weeks old. She has one younger brother, Christopher. She graduated from Calabasas High School in 1999. Career. In 1991, the then-10-year-old Fishel was discovered in a community theater where she performed in two productions, "The Wizard of Oz" and "Peter Pan". She quickly moved on to do voice-overs and commercials, including several as a Barbie Girl for Mattel. Soon after, she appeared on two episodes of the hit show "Full House", guest starring as a character named Jennifer. She also had a small role on "Harry and the Hendersons", playing Jessica. Fishel's mother became her full-time manager. In 1993, at the age of 12, Fishel began her well-known role as Topanga Lawrence on ABC's pilot series "Boy Meets World". Originally written as a small part, Topanga became a recurring role. After a successful first year, Fishel became a show regular. Fishel's character was a sparky, intelligent girl who was mature beyond her years; she replaced the nerdy Stuart Minkus as the brains of the class. The long-running show ended in 2000 after seven years. Fishel was on the cover of "Seventeen" in December 1998. She took home a 1998 Young Star for Best Performance by a Young Actress in a Comedy TV Series. In June 1999, she was one of "The 21 Hottest Stars Under 21" as presented by "Teen People". Fishel was on the cover of GQ's hottest stars to watch in GQ's 1997 October issue. (GQ 1997 10) She appeared in the music video for "Until You Loved Me" by Canadian music group The Moffatts. Since "Boy Meets World" ended, Fishel has appeared in several films, including "National Lampoon's Dorm Daze". In 2006, she appeared in three made-for-DVD releases: "National Lampoon's Dorm Daze 2: College at Sea" (appearing again as "Marla" from the first film), the action film "Gamebox 1.0" (playing a dual role), and "The Chosen One", an independent animated film in which she provides the voice of the lead female character. In 2006, Fishel appeared as a guest on "The Tyra Banks Show" where she discussed her dramatic weight loss with the use of the Nutrisystems Diet. Following her appearance on the show, Fishel became a spokesperson for NutriSystem. She also became a special correspondent for "The Tyra Banks Show", starting in early February 2007. By 2010 she had gained some of the weight back, and told "People" magazine she could not maintain her NutriSystem weight. In 2003, Fishel co-hosted "Say What? Karaoke" on MTV for one season. From August 2008 to March 2011 Fishel hosted "The Dish" for the Style Network, which satirized pop culture in a format similar to sister network E! Entertainment Television's "The Soup". Fishel was also on Fuse TV as host of "The Fuse 20", and was a guest star on the round table on an episode of "Chelsea Lately". Beginning in 2012, Fishel became the host of MSN TV's "Last Night on TV". In 2013, Fishel starred in the controversial drama, "Boiling Pot", which is based on true events of racism that occurred on college campuses across the country during the 2008 Presidential election. The film, written and directed by the Ashmawey brothers under "AshmaweyFilms", also stars Academy Award-winner Louis Gossett Jr., Keith David, M. Emmet Walsh, and John Heard. Fishel plays an average college girl, naive regarding racism and unaware of its existence. She struggles to find acceptance from her parents for her non-white fiance and quickly gets tangled in racist events happening on campus. "Boiling Pot" is set to release in 2014. Personal life. It has been reported that Fishel dated her "Boy Meets World" co-star Ben Savage. However, in a 2013 interview with "Maxim", Fishel revealed that this was only a rumor that she accidentally started during an appearance on "The Tyra Banks Show"—in fact, she and Savage only went on one dinner date as teenagers, and "by the time the dinner was over we realized mutually that we were more like family than lovers." She dated former 'N Sync member Lance Bass from 1999 to 2000, and he was her date to her high school prom. In 2007, Fishel was arrested in Los Angeles County on a drunk driving warrant. Fishel attended California State University, Fullerton from 2008 to 2012, and graduated with her bachelor's degree on December 19, 2012, at the age of 31. During her university studies, she became a math tutor, leading her to meet Tim Belusko. After over three years of dating, she became engaged to Belusko in May 2012. Filmography. Film Television
996488	Tony Plana (born April 19, 1952) is a Cuban-American actor and director. He is well known for playing Betty Suarez's father, Ignacio Suarez, on the ABC show "Ugly Betty." Personal life. Plana was born in Havana. His family moved to Miami in 1960. He is a graduate of Loyola Marymount University and was trained in acting at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London, United Kingdom. He has been married to actress Ada Maris since 1988 and they have two children. Career. While he is known to a broad audience for his roles in feature films and television, Plana is also known for his skills in acting and directing for the stage. He has created and directed a number of productions of the works of Shakespeare for minority audiences and he has been active in both the Los Angeles and New York City theater communities, including leading appearances on Broadway and at New York City's Public Theater. He originated the role of Rudy in the L.A. production of the Luis Valdez play "Zoot Suit", going on to play Rudy in the film version as well. Plana has acted, directed and written for television in series, mini-series, and specials such as "Hill Street Blues", "," "Resurrection Boulevard," "Commander in Chief," "," "The West Wing," "24", "Cagney & Lacey" and many others. Plana has acted in films such as "An Officer and a Gentleman", "Three Amigos!," "Goal!," "Lone Star," and others. He is known to PC gamers as the voice of Manny Calavera in the Lucasarts adventure game "Grim Fandango." In 2011, Plana guest starred in "Desperate Housewives" as Gabrielle Solis's abusive stepfather, Alejandro Perez. He also directed "Witch's Lament", a recent "Desperate Housewives" episode in "Desperate Housewives (Season 8)". In 2011, he appeared in "Body of Proof", in the episode "Helping Hand". Plana teaches acting at California State University, Dominguez Hills and Rio Hondo College. Politics. Plana is currently volunteering as a spokesperson for Comprehensive Immigration Reform. He was the Keynote speaker for the 2012 LULAC conference in Coronado Springs Convention Center In Lake Buena Vista, Florida. Awards. Won Nominations
589279	Buddha Mil Gaya is a 1971 Hindi film. Produced by L.B. Thakur, the film is directed by Hrishikesh Mukherjee. The film stars Om Prakash, Navin Nischol, Archana, Sonia Sahni, Deven Verma, Aruna Irani, Asit Sen, Lalita Pawar and Shetty for the first time in a very different positive role. The music is by R.D. Burman and the lyrics by Majrooh Sultanpuri. Plot. Unemployed slackers Bhola (Deven Verma) and Ajay (Navin Nischol) come across a newspaper advertisement about a missing elderly gentleman (Om Prakash), whose estate is worth millions. They find him in the Hanging Garden Park in Bombay and decide to make him their paternal uncle. They take him to live with them in a rented apartment, which they cannot afford. This elderly man, Girdharilal Om Prakash, takes an unusual interest in Ajay's girlfriend, Deepa (Archana).
1059582	Estelle Margaret Parsons (born November 20, 1927) is an American theatre, film and television actress and occasional theatrical director.
1042774	Mai Elisabeth Zetterling (; 24 May 1925 – 17 March 1994) was a Swedish actress and film director. Early life. Zetterling was born in Västerås, Västmanland, Sweden to a working class family. She started her career as an actress at the age of seventeen at Dramaten, the Swedish national theater, appearing in war-era films. Career. Zetterling appeared in film and television productions spanning six decades from the 1940s to the 1990s. Her breakthrough came in the 1944 film "Torment" written by Ingmar Bergman, in which she played a controversial role as a tormented shopgirl. Shortly afterwards she moved to England and gained instant success there with her title role in Basil Dearden's "Frieda" (1947) playing opposite David Farrar. After a brief return to Sweden in which she worked with Bergman again in his film "Music in Darkness" (1948), she returned to England and starred in a number of English films, playing against such leading men as Tyrone Power, Dirk Bogarde, Richard Widmark, Laurence Harvey, Peter Sellers, Herbert Lom, Richard Attenborough, Keenan Wynn, Stanley Baker, and Dennis Price. Some of her notable films as an actress include "Quartet" (1948), a film based on some of W. Somerset Maugham's short stories, "The Romantic Age" (1949) directed by Edmond T. Gréville, "Only Two Can Play" (1962) co-starring Peter Sellers and directed by Sidney Gilliat, and "The Witches" (1990), an adaptation of Roald Dahl's book directed by Nicolas Roeg. Having gained a reputation as a sex symbol in dramas and thrillers, she was equally effective in comedies, and also was very active in British television in the '50s and '60s. She began directing in the early 1960s, starting with political documentaries and a short film called "The War Game" (1962), which was nominated for a BAFTA award, and won a Silver Lion at Venice. Her first feature film "Älskande par" (1964, "Loving Couples"), based on the novels of Agnes von Krusenstjerna, was banned at the Cannes Film Festival for its sexual explicitness and nudity. Kenneth Tynan of "The Observer" later called it "one of the most ambitious debuts since "Citizen Kane"." It was not the only film she made that would stir up controversy for its frank sexuality. When critics reviewing her debut feature said that "Mai Zetterling directs like a man," she began to explore feminist themes more explicitly in her work. "The Girls", which had an all-star Swedish cast including Bibi Andersson and Harriet Andersson, discussed women's liberation (or lack thereof) in a society controlled by men, as the protagonists compare their lives to characters in the play "Lysistrata", and find that things have not progressed very much for women since ancient times. Personal life. In her autobiography, "All Those Tomorrows," published in 1985, Zetterling details love affairs with actor Herbert Lom and later Tyrone Power, with whom she lived from 1956 until early 1958. She was married to Norwegian actor Tutte Lemkow from 1944 to 1953. Lemkow and Zetterling have a daughter, Etienne and a son, Louis, who is professor of environmental sociology at the Autonomous University of Barcelona. From 1958 to 1976 she was married to British author David Hughes, who collaborated with her on her first films as director. She died in London, from cancer on 17 March 1994, at the age of 68, a year after her final role on television. Recently released documents at the National Archives in London show that she, a member of the Hollywood Left, was watched by British security agents as a suspected Communist. However, the UK never had a system along the lines of the American Hollywood Blacklist. Filmography. A partial filmography as director: Actress
589589	Do Anjaane () is a 1976 Hindi drama-thriller film, Produced by Tito, it is directed by Dulal Guha. The film stars Amitabh Bachchan, Rekha, Prem Chopra, Pradeep Kumar, Utpal Dutt, Lalita Pawar and a young pre-stardom Mithun Chakraborty. The music is by Kalyanji Anandji. The film became a hit at the box office. Synopsis. A man (Amitabh Bachchan) is found wounded on railway tracks and when he awakens he has no memory of who he is and doesn't remember anything about his life. Six years later he is living with a wealthy couple and is now named Naresh Dutt.
1163585	Michael Thomas "Tom" Green (born July 30, 1971) is a Canadian actor, rapper, writer, comedian, talk show host and media personality. Best known for his shock humour brand of comedy, Green found mainstream prominence via his MTV television show "The Tom Green Show". Green was also in the public eye for his short-lived marriage to actress Drew Barrymore, and for his roles in such films as "Freddy Got Fingered", "Road Trip", "Stealing Harvard" and "Charlie's Angels". Green is also a testicular cancer survivor. In June 2003, Green served as a guest-host on "Late Show with David Letterman" which led to him hosting his own late-night talk show on MTV entitled "The New Tom Green Show". From 2006–2011, he hosted his internet talk show "Tom Green's House Tonight" from his living room and, as of January 2010, has started performing stand-up comedy. Early life. Green was born in Pembroke, Ontario, Canada, the son of Mary Jane, a communications consultant, and Richard Green, a computer systems analyst and retired army captain. He grew up on a Canadian Army base near Pembroke, Ontario and later lived in Gloucester, Ontario (now part of the City of Ottawa) where he attended Henry Munro Middle School, Colonel By Secondary School and Cairine Wilson Secondary School. Green studied television broadcasting at Algonquin College and graduated in 1994. Early work (1986–1999). Stand-up comedy. At age 15, Green started performing stand-up comedy at local clubs, most notably at Yuk Yuk's comedy club, and went on to do this for two and a half years until he canceled a booking to go to New York for his rap group. Radio. While attending Algonquin College as a member of the Sigma Pi Fraternity, Green hosted an overnight call-in show on the University of Ottawa's campus radio station, CHUO. The 1990 show, originally a rap music show entitled "The Rap Show", was followed by an electronic music show hosted by Glenn Humplik. Through the proximity of their shows, Tom and Glenn met and became friends, based on a common love of zany antics. Tom's radio show soon shifted formats to a call-in show (upon the discovery of how to operate the studio's call-in lines) and the two joined forces to host "The Midnight Caller Show" (which lasted from 1993 to 1996). The basic format of The Midnight Caller was to have listeners call-in with Tom and Glenn making fun of them (or "razzing" them) and soon after hanging-up on them. The show's novelty and originality made it an underground hit in the Ottawa area. Rapper. In the early 1990s, Green had a short-lived career as a rapper in a group called Organized Rhyme under the alias "MC Bones". His fellow MCs include "Pin the Chameleon". The single "Check The O.R." was nominated for a Juno Award in 1993 for Best Rap Recording and won the MuchVibe Best Rap Video award in 1992.
1103969	Gaspard Monge, Comte de Péluse (9 May 1746 – 28 July 1818) was a French mathematician, the inventor of descriptive geometry (the mathematical basis of technical drawing), and the father of differential geometry. During the French Revolution he served as the Minister of the Marine, and was involved in the reform of the French educational system, helping to found the École Polytechnique. Early life. Monge was born at Beaune, Côte-d'Or, the son of a merchant. He was educated at the college of the Oratorians at Beaune. In 1762 he went to the Collège de la Trinité at Lyon, where, one year after he had begun studying, he was made a teacher of physics at the age of just seventeen. After finishing his education in 1764 he returned to Beaune, where he made a large-scale plan of the town, inventing the methods of observation and constructing the necessary instruments; the plan was presented to the town, and is still preserved in their library. An officer of engineers who saw it wrote to the commandant of the École Royale du Génie at Mézières, recommending Monge to him and he was given a job as a draftsman. Career. Those studying at the school were drawn from the aristocracy, so he was not allowed admission to the institution itself. His manual skill was highly regarded, but his mathematical skills were not made use of. Nevertheless he worked on the development of his ideas in his spare time. At this time came to contact with Charles Bossut, the professor of mathematics at the École Royale. "I was a thousand times tempted," he said long afterwards, "to tear up my drawings in disgust at the esteem in which they were held, as if I had been good for nothing better." After a year at the École Royale Monge was asked to produce a plan for a fortification in such a way as to optimise its defensive arrangement. There was an established method for doing this which involved lengthy calculations but Monge devised a way of solving the problems by using drawings. At first his solution was not accepted, since it had not taken the time judged to be necessary, but upon examination the value of the work was recognized, and Monge's exceptional abilities were recognized. After Bossut left the École Royale du Génie Monge took his place in January 1769, and in 1770 he was also appointed instructor in experimental physics. In 1777, Monge married Cathérine Huart, who owned a forge. This caused Monge to develop an interest in metallurgy. In 1780 he became a member of the Académie; his friendship with C.L. Berthollet began at this time. In 1783, after leaving Mézières, he was, on the death of É. Bézout, appointed examiner of naval candidates. Although pressed by the minister to prepare a complete course of mathematics, he declined to do so, on the grounds that this would deprive Mme Bézout of her only income, that from the sale of the textbooks written by her late husband. In 1786 he wrote and published his "Traité élémentaire de la statique". 1789 and after. Unsurprisingly the French Revolution completely changed the course of Monge's career. He was a strong supporter of the Revolution, and in 1792, on the creation by the Legislative Assembly of an executive council, Monge accepted the office of Minister of the Marine, and held this office from 10 August 1792 to 10 April 1793, when he resigned. When the Committee of Public Safety made an appeal to the academics to assist in the defence of the republic, he applied himself wholly to these operations, and distinguished himself by his energy, writing the "Description de l'art de fabriquer les canons" and "Avis aux ouvriers en fer sur la fabrication de l'acier". He took a very active part in the measures for the establishment of the Ecole Normale (which existed only during the first four months of the year 1795), and of the school for public works, afterwards the École Polytechnique, and was at each of them professor for descriptive geometry. "Géométrie descriptive. Leçons données aux écoles normales" was published in 1799 from transcriptions of his letures given in 1795. He later published "Application de l'analyse à la géométrie", which enlarged on the lectures. From May 1796 to October 1797 Monge was in Italy with C.L. Berthollet and some artists to select the paintings and sculptures being levied from the Italians. While there he became friendly with Napoleon Bonaparte. Upon his return to France, he as appointed as the Director of the École Polytechnique, but early in 1798 he was sent to Italy on a mission that ended in the establishment, of the short-lived Roman Republic. From there Monge joined Napoleon's expedition to Egypt, taking part with Berthollet and in the scientific work of the Institut d'Égypte and Egyptian Institute of Sciences and Arts. They accompanied Bonaparte to Syria, and returned with him in 1798 to France. Monge was appointed president of the Egyptian commission, and he resumed his connection with the École Polytechnique. His later mathematical papers are published (1794 — 1816) in the Journal and the Correspondence of the École Polytechnique. On the formation of the Sénat conservateur he was appointed a member of that body, with an ample provision and the title of count of Pelusium (Comte de Péluse), and he became the Senate conservateur's president during 1806–7. Then on the fall of Napoleon he had all of his honours taken away, and he even excluded from the list of members of the reconstituted Institute. On his religious views, Monge was an atheist. Monge died at Paris on July 28, 1818, and his remains were interred in a mausoleum in the Le Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris. His remains was later transferred to the Panthéon in Paris. A statue portraying him was erected in Beaune in 1849. Monge's name is one of the 72 names inscribed on the base of the Eiffel Tower. Since the 4 november 1992 the "Marine Nationale" operate the MRIS "FS Monge", named after him.
1319051	Life Is Hot in Cracktown is a 2009 crime drama film based on Buddy Giovinazzo's eponymous 1993 collection of short stories. Giovinazzo directed and wrote the film. Plot. The film intertwines several unsettling stories of people in a Manhattan neighborhood ravaged by crack cocaine. Romeo, a 14-year-old criminal, leads his gang into robbing and torturing a very sick pensioner, and then steps up to doing a murder-for-hire at the behest of a local drug dealer, unaware of the enormous risks. Manny and Concetta, a young couple, are desperately trying to rise out of poverty and care for their sick baby. Manny works two jobs - the front desk of a drug-riddled flop house by day and the cash register of a frequently-robbed bodega at night. It hardly matters that he is working so hard because the baby's non-stop crying will not allow him to sleep. Another young couple, Marybeth and Benny, are both drug addicts, and Marybeth is actually a pre-op transexual named Mickey. Marybeth makes a bit of money as a street prostitute, and Benny is into very low-paying burglaries. Their principal source of drugs is a well-off transexual named Ridley, who is looking to follow in Marybeth's footsteps. Young Willy and younger Susie are the much-neglected children of an addict named Mommy, who makes them sleep on the floor of their one room apartment. Mommy's current boyfriend, a hot-tempered addict named Chaz, makes the children beg on the street for his drug money. Willy's one bright spot is neighbor child Melody, whose mother pimps her out every night. When Chaz and Mommy leave the children behind while they embark on a drug-fueled quest to get more drug money from a relative of Chaz, and Melody is picked up by the police. Willy, meanwhile, is sent on a wild goose chase by Betty, an aging prostitute who enjoys tormenting her neighbors. The movie dramatizes (and slightly sanitizes) about half the stories in the 1993 book of the same name.
394304	Love Phobia () is a 2006 South Korean film directed by Kang Ji-eun and starring Kang Hye-jung and Jo Seung-woo. Plot. One sunny day, a young boy named Jo Kang meets a curious young girl dressed in a bright yellow raincoat. She tells everyone in school that she is an alien and whomever she touches or gets touched will be harmed. Everyone in that school gets afraid of her except Jo Kang. Jo Kang befriends the girl, Ari, and falls instantly in love with her. Ari starts telling stories to Jo and he believes everything she says. He did everything for her. One rainy day Jo and Ari stays together in the yellow raincoat and instantly he gets affected by Measles. Soon afterward, she disappears. Ten years later, Ari contacts Jo Kang, now in high school, and asks to meet again. Although they have not seen each other in a decade, they have a wonderful time together, and their love begins anew. Ari tells that there are hot springs in her temple and the mountain is a volcano. Ari and Jo have a good time between them. Ari continues telling stories to Jo. She says her English got better by getting trained from an English ghost that visits her when she is naked, Jo believes her. She also tells him that she wil marry a banker so that she will rob the bank to get money and leave the planet. Jo brings Ari her favourite dish from his home travelling the whole night and presenting to her as a surprise next morning. She kisses her and Jo gets affected by Flu. But then, Ari disappears once more, leaving Jo Kang devastated. Jo Kang waited a very long time for Ari and One day Ari appears in front of him and tells him to come with her. Since he was busy he tied a shoelace in her leg along with the chair. Later that evening they have a good time in Jo's home and Ari explains to Jo's father that people from NASA kidnapped her since the magnetic force in her body attracts the UFO's. Then Jo plans for the next day but Ari tells him that she is leaving for the states. While leaving Ari tells Jo not to cross the line design which Ari asks him usually from her childhood. Jo's friend gets stuck in an accident and gets admitted to the hospital. When Jo visits him his friend see Ari. With Pain and confusion Jo visits to Ari's Uncle (The Priest) with a fuel can and pours over himself seeking explanation. He discovers that Ari is suffering from AIDS that has been accidentally transmitted in the hospital during her child hood accident where her father dies. He then visits the Photo Exhibition conducted by Ari. Ari looks him next to her portrait and tells him that "You two look beautiful!" and Jo explains that She is Ari type. Then he Piggy bags Ari to a lawn where she explains that lawn design is sign left by an UFO. Later that night Ari fells sick and is admitted back in the hospital. Jo stands outside the Hospital wetting himself in the rain. The Priest (Ari's Uncle) asks him to come inside. Jo tells him that Ari would love seeing him standing behind the floor line. Jo designs a sign said to be left by an UFO in a grass field in order to fulfill Ari's destiny to leave the planet (which he believed). Then He brings Ari to the lawn illegally from the hospital. Ari passing her last moments of her life feels pity and love on Jo that he believed everything she said. At last the signs of Flying saucer arrival is shown as a mark of resemblance of Ari passing away. In the final scene Jo explains us the Aroma of love left by Ari and still believes that she lives in another planet waiting that he will meet her one day.
1103421	Gerd Faltings (born 28 July 1954) is a German mathematician known for his work in arithmetic algebraic geometry. Life. Faltings was born in Gelsenkirchen. From 1972 to 1978, he studied mathematics and physics at the University of Münster. In 1978 he received his PhD in mathematics and in 1981 he got the "venia legendi" (Habilitation) in mathematics, both from the University of Münster. During this time he was an assistant professor at the University of Münster. From 1982 to 1984, he was professor at the University of Wuppertal. After that he was professor at Princeton University from 1985 to 1994. He was awarded the Fields Medal in 1986 for proving the Mordell conjecture, which states that any non-singular projective curve of genus "g" > 1 defined over a number field "K" contains only finitely many "K"-rational points. Since 1994 he has been a director of the Max Planck Institute for Mathematics in Bonn. In 1996, he received the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, which is the highest honour awarded in German research.
1184030	Sean John Combs (born November 4, 1969), also known by his stage names Puff Daddy, Diddy, and P. Diddy, is an American rapper, record producer, actor, and entrepreneur. Combs was born in Harlem and grew up in Mount Vernon, New York. He worked as a talent director at Uptown Records before founding Bad Boy Records in 1993. He signed The Notorious B.I.G. and profited from the success of the artists he signed. He released his debut album "No Way Out" in 1997, which has been certified seven times platinum and was followed by successful albums such as "Forever" (1999), "The Saga Continues..." (2001) and "Press Play" (2006). In 2009 Combs formed the musical group Diddy – Dirty Money and released the critically well-reviewed and commercially successful album "Last Train to Paris" (2009). Combs has won three Grammy Awards and two MTV Video Music Awards, and is the producer of MTV's "Making the Band". His non-music business ventures include the clothing lines Sean John and "Sean by Sean Combs" – for which he earned a Council of Fashion Designers of America award – a movie production company, and two restaurants. In 2012 "Forbes" estimated Combs' net worth at $550 million, making him the richest figure in hip hop. 1969–1988: Early life. Sean Combs was born in a public housing project in Harlem, New York City, and brought up in Mount Vernon, New York. His mother Janice was a model and teacher's assistant, and his father, Melvin Combs, was an associate of convicted New York drug dealer Frank Lucas; at age 33 he was shot to death while sitting in his car in Central Park West. Combs was still a child. Combs graduated from the Roman Catholic Mount Saint Michael Academy in 1987. He played football for the academy, and his team won a division title in 1986. Combs said that he was given the nickname "Puff" as a child because he would "huff and puff" when he was angry, and "Daddy" is another version of "player". Career. 1989–1996: Beginnings. After dropping out of Howard University in 1989, where he had majored in business, Combs became an intern at New York's Uptown Records. While talent director at Uptown, he helped develop Jodeci and Mary J. Blige. In his college days Combs had a reputation for throwing parties, some of which attracted up to a thousand participants. In 1991, Combs promoted an AIDS fundraiser with Heavy D held at the City College of New York (CCNY) gymnasium, following a charity basketball game. The event was oversold, and a stampede occurred in which nine people died. In 1993, after being fired from Uptown, Combs established Bad Boy Records as a joint venture with Arista Records, taking then-newcomer The Notorious B.I.G. with him. Both The Notorious B.I.G. and Craig Mack quickly released hit singles, followed by successful LPs, particularly The Notorious B.I.G.'s "Ready to Die". Combs signed more acts to Bad Boy, including Carl Thomas, Faith Evans, 112, Total, and Father MC. The Hitmen, his in-house production team, worked with Jodeci, Mary J. Blige, Usher, Lil' Kim, TLC, Mariah Carey, Boyz II Men, SWV, Aretha Franklin, and others. Mase and D-Block (then known as "The L.O.X.") joined Bad Boy just as a widely-publicized rivalry with the West Coast's Death Row Records was beginning. Combs and The Notorious B.I.G. were criticized and parodied by Tupac Shakur and Suge Knight in songs and interviews during the mid-1990s. During 1994–1995, Combs produced several songs for TLC's "CrazySexyCool", which finished the decade as number 25 on Billboard's list of top pop albums of the decade. 1997–1998: "Puff Daddy" and "No Way Out". In 1997, under the name "Puff Daddy", Combs recorded his first commercial vocal work as a rapper. His debut single, "Can't Nobody Hold Me Down", spent 28 weeks on the "Billboard" Hot 100 chart, peaking at number one. His debut album, "No Way Out", was released on July 1, 1997, through Bad Boy Records. Originally titled "Hell up in Harlem", the album underwent several changes after The Notorious B.I.G. was killed on March 9, 1997. Several of the label's artists made guest appearances on the album. "No Way Out" was a significant success, particularly in the United States, where it reached number one on the "Billboard" 200 in its first week of release, selling 561,000 copies. The album produced five singles: "I'll Be Missing You", a tribute to The Notorious B.I.G., was the first rap song to debut at number one on the "Billboard" Hot 100; it remained at the top of the chart for eleven consecutive weeks and topped several other charts worldwide. Four other singles; "Can't Nobody Hold Me Down", "It's All About the Benjamins", "Been Around the World", and "Victory", were also released. Combs collaborated with Jimmy Page on the song "Come with Me" for the 1998 film "Godzilla". The album earned Combs five nominations at the 40th Grammy Awards in 1998, winning the Grammy Award for Best Rap Album. On September 7, 2000, the album was certified septuple platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America for sales of over 7 million copies. In 1997, Combs was sued for landlord neglect by Inge Bongo. Combs denied the charges. By the late 1990s, he was being criticized for watering down and overly commercializing hip hop, and for using too many guest appearances, samples, and interpolations of past hits in his new songs. 1999–2000: Club New York and "Forever". In April 1999 Combs was charged with assault as a result of an incident with Steve Stoute of Interscope Records. Stoute was the manager for Nas, with whom Combs had filmed a video earlier that year for the song "Hate Me Now". Combs was concerned that the video, which featured a shot of Nas and Combs being crucified, was blasphemous. He asked for the video to be pulled, but after it aired on MTV on April 15, Combs visited Stoute's offices and injured Stoute. Combs was charged with second-degree assault and criminal mischief, and was sentenced to attend an anger management class. On December 27, 1999, Combs and his then-girlfriend Jennifer Lopez were at Club New York in Manhattan when gunfire broke out. After a police investigation, Combs and fellow rapper Shyne were arrested for weapons violations and other charges. Combs was charged with four weapons-related charges and bribing his driver, Wardel Fenderson, to claim ownership of his gun. With a gag order in place, the highly-publicized trial began. Combs' attorneys were Johnnie L. Cochran Jr. and Benjamin Brafman. Combs was found not guilty on all charges; Shyne was convicted on five of his eight charges and sentenced to ten years in prison. Combs and Lopez broke up shortly after. A lawsuit filed by Fenderson, who said he suffered emotional damage after the shooting, was settled in February 2004. Lawyers for both sides, having agreed to keep the settlement terms secret, said that the matter was "resolved to the satisfaction of all parties". "Forever", Combs' debut solo studio album, was released by Bad Boy Records on August 24, 1999, in North America, and in the UK on the following day. It reached number two on the "Billboard" 200 and number one on the Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart, where it remained for one week before being knocked off by Mary J. Blige's fourth album, "Mary". The album received positive to mixed reviews from music critics and spawned three singles that have charted on the "Billboard" charts. It peaked at number four on the Canadian Albums Chart, Combs' highest-charting album in that country. 2001–2004: "P. Diddy" and "The Saga Continues". Combs changed his stage name from "Puff Daddy" to "P. Diddy" in 2001. The gospel album, "Thank You", which had been completed just before the beginning of the weapons trial, was released that March. He appeared as a drug dealer in the film "Made" and starred with Halle Berry and Billy Bob Thornton in "Monster's Ball" (both in 2001). He was arrested for driving on a suspended license in Florida. Combs began working with a series of unusual (for him) artists. For a short period of time, he was the manager of Kelis; they have a collaboration titled "Let's Get Ill". He was an opening act for 'N Sync on their Spring 2002 Celebrity Tour, and he signed California-based pop girl group Dream to his record label. Combs was a producer of the soundtrack album for the film "Training Day" (2001). In June 2001 Combs ended Bad Boy Entertainment's joint venture with Arista Records, gaining full control of Bad Boy, its catalogue, and its roster of artists. "The Saga Continues...", released on July 10 in North America, was the last studio album released by the joint venture. The album reached number two on the Billboard 200 and the Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums charts, and was eventually certified as Platinum. It is the only studio album under the P. Diddy name, and the first album by Sean Combs not to feature any guest appearances by Jay-Z or Lil Kim. Combs was executive producer of the reality TV show "Making the Band", which appeared on MTV from 2002 to 2009. The show involved interviewing candidates and creating musical acts that would then enter the music business. Acts that got their start this way include Da Band, Danity Kane, Day26, and Donnie Klang. In 2003 Combs ran in the New York City Marathon, raising $2 million for the educational system of the city of New York. On March 10, 2004 he appeared on "The Oprah Winfrey Show" to discuss the marathon, which he finished in four hours and eighteen minutes. In 2004 Combs headed the campaign "Vote or Die" for the 2004 presidential election. On February 1, 2004, Combs (as P. Diddy) performed at the Super Bowl XXXVIII halftime show. 2005–2009: "Diddy" and "Press Play". On August 16, 2005, Combs announced on "Today" that he was altering his stage name yet again; he would be calling himself "Diddy". Combs said that fans didn't know how to address him, which led to confusion. In November 2005, London-based musical artist and DJ Richard Dearlove, who had been performing under the name "Diddy" since 1992 – nine years before Combs started using even "P. Diddy" – sought an injunction in the High Court of Justice in London. He accepted an out-of-court settlement of £10,000 in damages and more than £100,000 in costs. Combs can no longer use the name Diddy in the UK, where he is still known as P. Diddy. An assault charge against Combs filed by Michigan television host Rogelio Mills was resolved in Comb's favor in 2005. Combs starred in the 2005 film "". He played Walter Lee Younger in the 2004 Broadway revival of "A Raisin in the Sun" and the television adaptation that aired in February 2008. In 2005 Combs sold half of his record company to the Warner Music Group. He hosted the 2005 MTV Video Music Awards and was named one of the 100 Most Influential People of 2005 by "Time" magazine. He was mentioned in the country song "Play Something Country" by Brooks & Dunn: the lyricist says he "didn't come to hear P. Diddy", which is rhymed with "something thumpin' from the city." In 2006, when Combs refused to release musician Mase from his contractual obligations to allow him to join the group G-Unit, 50 Cent recorded a dis song, "Hip-Hop". The lyrics imply that Combs knew the identity of The Notorious B.I.G.'s murderer. The two later resolved the feud. Combs released his first album in four years, "Press Play", on October 17, 2006, on the Bad Boy Records label. The album, featuring guest appearances by many popular artists, debuted at number one on the U.S. "Billboard" 200 chart with sales of over 173,009. Its singles "Come to Me" and "Last Night" both reached the top ten of the "Billboard" Hot 100. The album became available to preview on MTV's "The Leak" on October 10, 2006, a week before being sold in stores. "Press Play" received mixed to positive reviews from critics, and was certified Gold on the RIAA ratings. On September 18, 2007, Combs teamed up with 50 Cent and Jay-Z for the "Forbes I Get Money Billion Dollar Remix". In March 2008 the "Los Angeles Times" claimed that The Notorious B.I.G. and Combs orchestrated the , substantiating the claim with supposed FBI documents; the newspaper later retracted the story, acknowledging that the documents had been fabricated. Dexter Isaac, an associate of record management executive Jimmy Henchman, confessed in 2012 that he shot Tupac on Henchman's orders. In June 2008 Combs' representative denied rumors of another name change. Combs ventured into reality television in August 2008 with the premiere of his VH1 series "I Want to Work for Diddy". After the season finale of "Making The Band 4", Combs said he would be heading back into the studio to record his next album. In an interview with "The Daily Mail", he said, "I had Christina Aguilera on my last album, but its all about Leona Lewis on my next." He appeared—credited under his real name—in two episodes of Season 7 of "": "Presumed Guilty" and "Sink or Swim", in the role of lawyer Derek Powell. 2010–present: Dirty Money and acting. Combs created a rap supergroup in 2010 known as The Dream Team. The group consists of Combs, Rick Ross, DJ Khaled, Fat Joe, Busta Rhymes, Red Café, and Fabolous. Combs made an appearance at comedian Chris Gethard's live show in January 2010 at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre in New York City. In June 2010 Combs played a role (credited as Sean Combs) in the comedy film "Get Him to the Greek", as Sergio Roma, a record company executive. An "Entourage" series representative announced that Combs would guest star on an episode during the 2010 season. "Last Train to Paris" was released by Combs' group Diddy – Dirty Money on December 13, 2010. The release was preceded by four singles "Angels", "Hello Good Morning", "Loving You No More", and "Coming Home", which experienced mixed success on the "Billboard" Hot 100. "Coming Home" was the most successful of the songs, peaking at number twelve on the U.S. Hot 100, number four in the UK, and number seven in Canada. On March 10, 2011 Diddy – Dirty Money performed "Coming Home" live on "American Idol". On April 18, 2011, Combs appeared in season one of "Hawaii Five-0", guest starring as an undercover NYPD detective. In February 2012 he announced the launch of Revolt, a new music-oriented cable television channel which is expected to be in operation by the end of the year on several cable TV networks. The new company also has a film production branch. In November 2012 Combs appeared in an episode of the eighth season of the American sitcom "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia". Business ventures. "Fortune" magazine listed Combs at number twelve on their top 40 of entrepreneurs under 40 in 2002. "Forbes" Magazine estimates that for the year ending May 2012, Combs earned $45 million, ranking him fifteenth among musicians. In 2012 his estimated net worth was $550 million, making him the richest person in the hip hop entertainment business. Sean John. In 1998, Combs started a clothing line, "Sean John". It was nominated for the Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA) award for Menswear Designer of the Year in 2000, and won in 2004. The clothing line became the subject of controversy in 2003 when the National Labor Committee revealed that factories producing the clothing in Honduras were violating Honduran labor laws. Among the accusations were that workers were subjected to body searches and involuntary pregnancy tests. Bathrooms were locked and access tightly controlled. Employees were forced to work overtime and were paid sweatshop wages. Charles Kernaghan of the National Labor Committee told "The New York Times" that "Sean Puff Daddy obviously has a lot of clout, he can literally do a lot overnight to help these workers." Combs responded with an extensive investigation, telling reporters "I'm as pro-worker as they get". On February 14, 2004, Kernaghan announced that improvements had been implemented at the factory, including adding air conditioning and water purification systems, firing the most abusive supervisors, and allowing the formation of a labor union. In late 2006, the department store Macy's removed Sean John jackets from their shelves when they discovered that the clothing was made using dog fur (from a species called raccoon dog). Combs had not known the jackets were made with dog fur, but as soon as he was alerted, he had production stopped. In November 2008, Combs added a men's perfume called "I Am King" to the Sean John brand. The fragrance, dedicated to Barack Obama, Muhammad Ali, and Martin Luther King, featured model Bar Refaeli in its advertisements. Other ventures. In addition to his clothing line, Combs owned two restaurants called Justin's, named after his son. The original New York location closed in September 2007; the Atlanta location closed in June 2012. He is the designer of the Dallas Mavericks alternate jersey. In October 2007 Combs agreed to help develop the Ciroc vodka brand for a 50 per cent share of the profits. Combs acquired the Enyce clothing line from Liz Claiborne for $20 million on October 21, 2008. In February 2010 Combs announced to Wolf Blitzer on CNN that he plans to open a business school in New York. He announced that he wants the school to be "known for building leaders." Personal life. Family. Combs is the father of five children, and is the informal stepfather of Quincy (born 1991), son of his on-again, off-again girlfriend Kimberly Porter with 1980s New Jack Swing romantic singer/producer Al B Sure. Quincy was featured on "My Super Sweet 16". Combs' first child is Justin (born 1993), from a relationship with his high-school sweetheart, designer Misa Hylton-Brim. In January 2010 Combs presented Justin with a $360,000 Maybach car, complete with chauffeur, as a sixteenth birthday present. Justin was also featured on "My Super Sweet 16". He is now attending UCLA on a scholarship, and will be playing football while there. Kim Porter is the mother of Christian (born 1998) and twin daughters D'Lila and Jessie (born 2006). Combs and Porter ended their relationship in July 2007. In October 2007, Combs took legal responsibility for Chance, his daughter with Sarah Chapman (born 2006). Combs owns a home in Alpine, New Jersey, which he purchased for a reported $7 million. His winter home in Miami Beach was purchased for $14.5 million in November 2003. Charity work and honors. Combs founded Daddy's House Social Programs, an organization to help inner city youth, in 1995. Programs include tutoring, life skills classes, and an annual summer camp. Along with Jay-Z, he pledged $1 million to help support victims of Hurricane Katrina in 2005, and donated clothing from his Sean John line to victims. He has donated computers and books to New York schools. Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley named October 13, 2006, as "Diddy Day" in honor of Combs' charity work. He was given some cufflinks bearing the city seal. In 2008 Combs was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Wardrobe style. Combs describes his wardrobe style as "swagger, timeless, diverse". On September 2, 2007, Combs held his ninth annual "White Party", at which guests are limited to an all-white dress code. The White Party, which has also been held in St. Tropez, was held in his home in East Hampton, Long Island. Combs stated, "This party is up there with the top three that I've thrown. It's a party that has legendary status. It's hard to throw a party that lives up to its legend." Discography. Studio albums References. Citations Sources
1056856	Hank Worden (born Norton Earl Worden July 23, 1901 – December 6, 1992) was an American cowboy-turned-character-actor who appeared in many Westerns including "The Lone Ranger". Biography. He was raised on a cattle ranch near Glendive, Montana. He was educated at Stanford University and the University of Nevada as an engineer. He enlisted in the U.S. Army hoping to become an Army pilot, but washed out of flight school. An expert horseman, he toured the country in rodeos as a saddle bronc rider. During one ride, his horse landed atop him and broke his neck, but aside from a temporarily sore neck, Worden didn't know of the break until x-rayed twenty years later. While appearing in a rodeo at Madison Square Garden in New York, he and fellow cowboy Tex Ritter were chosen to appear in the Broadway play "Green Grow the Lilacs", the play from which the musical "Oklahoma!" was later derived. Following the run of the play, he drove a cab in New York, then worked on dude ranches as a wrangler and as a guide on the Bright Angel trail of the Grand Canyon.
1034287	Peter Vaughan (born 4 April 1923) is an English character actor, known for many supporting roles in a variety of British film and television productions. He has worked extensively on the stage, becoming known for roles such as police inspectors, Soviet agents and similar parts. He is best known for his role as Grouty in the sitcom "Porridge" and also had a recurring role alongside Robert Lindsay in "Citizen Smith", written by John Sullivan. He also had major parts as Tom Franklin in "Chancer" (1990-1991) which ran for 20 episodes and as Maester Aemon in HBO's Game of Thrones.
1066118	The Driver is a 1978 crime film written and directed by Walter Hill, starring Ryan O'Neal, Bruce Dern, and Isabelle Adjani. Based upon similarities in plot elements, it is heavily influenced by Jean-Pierre Melville's film "Le Samouraï". The film is also notable for its impressive car chases, its no-frills style of filmmaking, and its rarely speaking, unnamed titular character. Plot. The Driver (Ryan O'Neal) - real name unknown - has made a career out of stealing cars to use as getaway vehicles in big-time robberies all over Los Angeles. Hot on the Driver's trail is the Detective (Bruce Dern), a conceited and otherwise-nameless cop who has his own name for the Driver: "Cowboy." Since the Driver has never been caught, the Detective goes to ever-increasing lengths to bring him down. Ultimately, the Detective sets up a bank job in order to bait and trap the Driver. Even when said plan threatens to wreck the Detective's own career, he remains steadfast in his obsession to bust the Driver. Reception. Saying it's "probably advisable for "film noir" aficionados only", film critic Duncan Shepherd of the "San Diego Reader" praised the film highly (awarding it the highest 5-star rating). "The whole show, in fact, is something like a coded message passed from the moviemaker to the devotees of the genre, in full view of, but beyond the full understanding of, the rest of the audience", according to Shepherd. The film grossed a total of 1,102,183 admissions in France. The movie was a commercial disappointment in America but did well overseas. In popular culture. Both Quentin Tarantino's "Pulp Fiction" (1994) and "" (2004) refer to this film: a shot and setup of Vincent Vega skidding out into the road with an overdosed Mia Wallace in the passenger seat in "Pulp Fiction" is copied from the opening chase of "The Driver;" and Beatrix Kiddo being described as "the cowgirl ain't never been caught" in "Kill Bill: Vol 2" is copied from Ryan O'Neal's character description in "The Driver" as "the cowboy who could not be caught". According to Wensley Clarkson's book, "Tarantino - The Man, the Myths and His Movies," Tarantino lists "The Driver" as one of the "coolest movies of all time." See also. "Drive," 2011 film
1066164	Freddy vs. Jason is a 2003 American slasher film directed by Ronny Yu. The film is a crossover between the "A Nightmare on Elm Street" and "Friday the 13th" franchises. It is the eighth and eleventh entries in their respective series, pitting Freddy Krueger and Jason Voorhees against each other. The film is also the final one in each franchise, excluding the 2009 and 2010 remakes. In the film, Freddy (Robert Englund) has grown incapable of haunting people's dreams, as the citizens of fictional Springwood, Ohio have mostly forgotten about Freddy with the passage of time. In order to regain his power, Freddy resurrects Jason (Ken Kirzinger) and manipulates him into traveling to Springwood to cause panic and fear, leading to rumors that Freddy has returned. However, while Jason succeeds in causing enough fear for Freddy to haunt the town again, Jason angers Freddy by killing Krueger's potential victims. This ultimately sends the two monsters into a violent conflict. This film marked Robert Englund's final appearance to date as Freddy Krueger, having portrayed him in all seven previous "Nightmare" films and the 1980s TV series, as well as the first movie since ' not to feature Kane Hodder as Jason Voorhees. This is also Ken Kirzinger's second and final appearance as Jason; having doubled for Hodder in the film "Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan". This film introduces Grammy-winning R&B singer Kelly Rowland, and is possibly a continuation of the end of ', though how both killers meet is relatively different in this motion picture. Plot. Freddy is trapped in Hell, due to the fact that the citizens of Springwood have mostly forgotten him over time, leaving him powerless to return to their nightmares. Hoping to inspire the citizens of Springwood to fear him again, he manipulates Jason Voorhees, under the guise of his mother, that the children on Elm Street have been very bad, and sends him to begin killing them, hoping that the fear inspired by the mass murder will bring his powers back. Meanwhile, Lori Campbell who lives at 1428 Elm Street with her widowed father, is visited by her friends Kia, Gibb, Trey and Blake, who are planning to spend the night at her house. Trey is killed by Jason by stabbing him in the back while Gibb is in the shower. The gruesomeness of the murder and the fact that it happened in bed has police speculate that it was Freddy who had killed him. Lori overhears his name, and while at the police station she has a nightmare where she is scared by Freddy. Later, Blake has a nightmare where Freddy tries to attack him, but he escapes unharmed as Freddy is not powerful enough yet to kill him. He wakes to discover his father beheaded beside him before Jason appears and kills him as well. The next day, the murders are blamed on Blake who they state committed suicide afterward. At Westin Hills Psychiatric Hospital, Lori's ex-boyfriend Will Rollins and his friend Mark are patients, being fed Hypnocil to suppress their dreams as being the last of the people who have had contact with Freddy. Will suspects he was sent there after seeing Lori's father murdering his wife. After seeing a news report of the murders, Mark concocts a plan that allows the two of them to escape. They return to Springwood and Mark abruptly tells Lori and the others about Freddy, then later realizes the city's plan of erasing Freddy by making the population forget about him and that he may have seriously ruined their plan. That night, Lori and the others attend a rave located at a cornfield. Gibb, after drinking too much while grieving over Trey's death, sees him and follows him to an abandoned silo which turns out to be a trap by Freddy. As he is about to kill her, Jason, who had invaded the rave and was killing left and right, kills her in the real world. Robbed of his victim, Freddy realizes that Jason will not stop killing. Linderman, a classmate who has a crush on Kia, and stoner Freeburg escape the rave unharmed along with Lori. Lori approaches her father about her mother's death and traps him in a lie. After she leaves the house, she and Will go to Mark's house only to discover to their horror that he is being attacked by Freddy who burns and then slashes Mark's face with his bladed glove. Meanwhile, Deputy Stubbs suspects a copycat Jason murderer, but his suspicions fall on deaf ears. He then approaches Lori and her friends; Linderman realizes that Jason was real. With two killers hunting them, there seems to be nothing they can do until they learn about the Hypnocil at Westin Hills. They go to the hospital to obtain a supply of Hypnocil, but Freddy possesses Freeburg to dispose the drugs via pouring them down a sink. After Jason electrocutes Stubbs, he is tranqulized by the Freddy-possessed Freeburg, who he promptly cuts in half before succumbing to the drugs. They take Jason to Crystal Lake to give him the home field advantage and should he defeats Freddy there; he'll already be back at his home and thus, will not come after the teens. In the dream world, however, Freddy fights with the indestructible Jason due to the latter's capability of slaughtering nonstop and by this point, the latter realizes that he was deceived. Freddy then discovers Jason's fear of water (despite the fact that water never seemed to frighten him in previous films) and uses it to pull him into the nightmare of his drowning. Lori enters the dream world to keep him from dying and manages to stall Freddy long enough for Jason to awaken and attack the group. Enraged by this, Freddy attacks Lori, revealing that he was the one who killed her mother, not her father. In the real world, Jason stalks the others through Crystal Lake and the cabin they are hiding in is set on fire. Linderman is mortally wounded in the process and Lori's hand is dragged through some flames which causes her to wake up as she is wrestling with Krueger, whom she drags out with her. Jason seems to have an advantage with his incredible strength and Freddy's own fear of the blazes in the cabin, but Freddy keeps ahead of him with his speed and agility. Linderman sends Kia to help the others and dies, while Kia taunts Freddy to keep him from attacking Lori and Will, but she is blindsided by Jason and killed as a result. Unwilling to leave until she sees Freddy die, Lori and Will watch the combat between the two horror titans.
1060900	Eugene Levy, CM (born December 17, 1946) is a Canadian actor, comedian, and writer. He is known for his work in Canadian television series, American movies, and television movies. He is the only actor to have appeared in all eight of the "American Pie" films, as Jim Levenstein's dad Noah. Like his Levenstein character, Levy often plays nerdy, unconventional figures, with his humor often deriving from his excessive explanations with matters and the way in which he deals with sticky situations. Levy was appointed to the Order of Canada on June 30, 2011. Early life. Levy was born to a Jewish family in Hamilton, Ontario. His mother was a homemaker and his father was a foreman at an automobile plant. He went to Westdale Secondary School, and attended McMaster University. He was vice-president of the McMaster Film Board, a student film group, where he met moviemaker Ivan Reitman. Career. An alumnus of both The Second City, Toronto and the sketch comedy series "Second City Television", Levy often plays unusual supporting characters with nerdish streaks. Perhaps his best known role on "SCTV" was as the dimwitted Earl Camembert, a news anchor for the "SCTV News" and a parody of real-life Canadian newsman Earl Cameron. Celebrities impersonated by Levy on SCTV include: Perry Como, Ricardo Montalban, Alex Trebek, Sean Connery, Howard Cosell, Henry Kissinger, Menachem Begin, Bud Abbott, Milton Berle, John Charles Daly, Gene Shalit, Jack Carter, Muammar al-Gaddafi, Tony Dow, James Caan, Lorne Greene, Rex Reed, Ralph Young (of Sandler and Young), F. Lee Bailey, Ernest Borgnine, former Ontario chief coroner Dr. Morton Schulman, Norman Mailer, Neil Sedaka, and Howard McNear as “Floyd the Barber”. Original Levy characterizations on SCTV were comic Bobby Bittman, scandal sheet entrepreneur Dr. Rawl Withers, “report on business” naïf Brian Johns, 3-D horror auteur Woody Tobias Jr., cheerful Leutonian accordionist Stan Schmenge, lecherous dream interpreter Raoul Wilson, hammer-voiced sports broadcaster Lou Jaffe, diminutive union patriarch Sid Dithers ("San Francisckie! Did you drove or did you flew?"), fey current-events commentator Joel Weiss, buttoned-down panel show moderator Dougal Currie, smarmy "Just for Fun" emcee Stan Kanter, energetic used car salesman Al Peck, guileless security guard Gus Gustofferson, Phil the Garment King (also of Phil's Nails), and the inept teen dance show host Rockin’ Mel Slirrup. Though he has been the “above the title” star in only two films, 1986's "Armed and Dangerous" and 2005's "The Man", he has featured prominently in many films. He is the co-writer and frequent cast member of Christopher Guest’s mockumentary features, particularly "A Mighty Wind", where his sympathetic performance as brain-damaged folksinger Mitch Cohen won kudos; his accolades included a Satellite Award for Best Supporting Actor - Musical or Comedy and the prestigious New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Supporting Actor. In the 1980s and 1990s, he appeared in "Splash", "National Lampoon’s Vacation", "Club Paradise", "Stay Tuned", "Multiplicity", and other comedies. Levy was the creator of "Maniac Mansion", a television sitcom based on the LucasArts video game of the same name. He was also seriously considered for the role of Toby Ziegler on "The West Wing", a role that went to actor Richard Schiff. "American Pie" series. Levy's career received a tremendous boost in 1999, when he was cast as the clueless but loving dad in the blockbuster "American Pie". Reprising the role in three film sequels and starring in four straight-to-video sequels made him something of a cult hero. Levy has been quoted as saying the "American Pie" series was a particular turning point in his career, affording him "a new perspective on his career at the time". Since working on the first two "American Pie" movies, Levy has worked with Steve Martin and Queen Latifah in "Bringing Down the House", and most recently appeared with Martin in "Cheaper by the Dozen 2". Levy again appeared as his famous character, Noah Levenstein, in the fourth theatrical movie in the "American Pie" film series, "American Reunion". He is the only actor to appear in all eight "American Pie" films. Recognition. Levy, along with Christopher Guest and Michael McKean, was awarded the 2003 Grammy Award for Best Song Written for a Motion Picture, Television, or Other Visual Media for the title song from "A Mighty Wind". Levy appeared in the corner of a poster hanging outside the movie theatre in Springfield in the "See Homer Run" episode of "The Simpsons". (The poster was advertising for "Rockstar Princess" and featured a girl with an electric guitar, with Levy in the corner wearing a royal crown. A liner note under him read “Eugene Levy as the King”). In March 2006, it was announced that he would receive a star on Canada’s Walk of Fame. In 2002, the entire cast of "SCTV" was given a group star, and although Levy is not mentioned on the actual star, he was still inducted as a part of the group. This makes him one of only four two-time honourees, alongside fellow "SCTV" alumni John Candy, Martin Short, and Catherine O'Hara. Levy is one of only a handful of people who have won at least five Canadian Comedy Awards, including two for Best Writing ("Best In Show" in 2001 and "A Mighty Wind" in 2004) and three for Best Male Performer ("Best in Show", "American Pie 2" in 2002, and "A Mighty Wind"). On May 3, 2008, the Governor General of Canada presented Levy with the Governor General’s Performing Arts Awards (GGPAA), a lifetime achievement award considered Canada's "most prestigious artistic honour". In 2010, Levy was awarded the ACTRA Award by the union representing Canada's actors. In 2011, he was made a Member of the Order of Canada "for his contributions as a comic actor and writer, and for his dedication to charitable causes." On May 22, 2012, Levy delivered a commencement address at Dalhousie University, in Halifax, NS, and was awarded the degree Doctor of Laws (honoris causa). On June 11, 2012, he was presented with the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal by the Lieutenant Governor of Ontario. Personal life. Levy is married to TV writer Deborah Divine, and has two children. His son, Dan Levy, is a former host of "Canada’s MTV Live" and MTV's "The After Show". His daughter, Sarah Levy, is currently studying theater. Levy is an advocate for autism treatment, and was a close friend of fellow Canadian "Second City"/"SCTV" alumnus John Candy, who died of a heart attack in 1994. He claims to have an obsession with food.
587680	Bhale Dongalu () is a 2008 Telugu film, starring Tarun and Ileana D'Cruz in the lead roles and Jagapati Babu in a prominent role. The film is directed by K. Vijaya Bhaskar and produced by Sakhamuri Panduranga Rao and Bellamkonda Suresh and music composed by K. M. Radha Krishnan. It is a re-make of Bollywood film "Bunty aur Babli" starring Abhishek Bachchan and Rani Mukerji. The film’s audio was released in March first week and the film was released towards the end of March.A tamil version name is Thirudi Thirudan. Plot. The story begins when Ramu, having ditched yet another job interview, coming home to his angry father. His father berates him, and in the process, Ramu reveals that he does not want an "Udyogam", rather, he want to do "vyapaaram" (he wants to do business rather than have a job). After his father vehemently rejects the idea, he runs away from home at night. On the other hand, Jyothi wants to be a model, and make her big debut in a beauty pageant in the city. She tells this to her mother and father, but her grandmother, the head of the house says a strong no, and she has already fixed for a potential suitor to Jyothi to come to the house the next day. Jyothi refuses, but her grandmother ignores her, and her parents are helpless. In order to make her dream come true, she runs away at night, and boards a train, the same one Ramu happens to be on. On the train, a stranger offers them biscuits, which Ramu accepts. He awakes to find his luggage gone. While complaining to an officer, he meets Jyothi, whose luggage was also stolen. The officer promises to help them, and takes whatever money they have with him as a service fee. They later realize that the man was a dupe, and that they now have absolutely no money. They part to separate ways. Ramu attempts to pawn his ring, but is paid less than what he paid for it. Jyothi goes to the beauty contest, but is sent away because she doesn't have an admission ticket. A contest official sees her and makes an offer to her, be in the pageant in exchange for a night with her. Startled by the cheapness of the industry, she insults the official and leaves. As night falls she finds herself back at the train station, where she meets Ramu again, and together, they begin their lives of crime. Reception. Although this movie was a remake of "Bunty Aur Babli" (which in turn in inspired by the Hollywood flick "Bonnie and Clyde"), it ran above average in the box office. It has mixed reviews.
1103233	Felix Hausdorff (November 8, 1868 – January 26, 1942) was a German mathematician who is considered to be one of the founders of modern topology and who contributed significantly to set theory, descriptive set theory, measure theory, function theory, and functional analysis. Life. Hausdorff studied at the University of Leipzig, obtaining his Ph.D. in 1891. He taught mathematics in Leipzig until 1910, when he became professor of mathematics at the University of Bonn. He was professor at the University of Greifswald from 1913 to 1921. He then returned to Bonn. When the Nazis came to power, Hausdorff, who was Jewish, felt that as a respected university professor he would be spared from persecution. However, his abstract mathematics was denounced as "Jewish", useless, and "un-German" and he lost his position in 1935. Though he could no longer publish in Germany, Hausdorff continued to be an active research mathematician, publishing in the Polish journal "Fundamenta Mathematicae". After Kristallnacht in 1938 as persecution of Jews escalated, Hausdorff became more and more isolated. He wrote to George Pólya requesting a research fellowship in the United States, but these efforts came to nothing. Finally, in 1942 when he could no longer avoid being sent to a concentration camp, Hausdorff committed suicide together with his wife, Charlotte Goldschmidt Hausdorff, and sister-in-law, Edith Goldschmidt Pappenheim, on 26 January. They are buried in Bonn, Germany. Work. Hausdorff was the first to state a generalization of Cantor's Continuum Hypothesis; his Aleph Hypothesis, which appears in his 1908 article Grundzüge einer Theorie der geordneten Mengen, and which is equivalent to what is now called the Generalized Continuum Hypothesis. In 1909, while studying partially ordered sets of real sequences, he stated what is now known as the Hausdorff Maximal Principle; he was the first to apply a maximal principle in algebra. In his 1914 classic text, Grundzüge der Mengenlehre, he defined and studied partially ordered sets abstractly; using the Axiom of Choice, he proved that every partially ordered set has a maximal linearly ordered subset. In this same book, he axiomatized the topological concept of neighborhood and introduced the topological spaces that are now called Hausdorff spaces. In 1914 using the Axiom of Choice, he gave a "paradoxical" decomposition of the 2-sphere as the disjoint union of four sets A, B, C, and Q, where Q is countable and the sets A, B, C, and B ∪ C are mutually congruent. This later inspired the Banach–Tarski paradoxical decomposition of the ball in 3-space. Hausdorff also published philosophical and literary works under the pseudonym "Paul Mongré". "Paul Mongre" published a number of books and articles on the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, as well as a number of reviews of contemporary literature and drama. Mongre-Hausdorff also published a satirical play which performed in a dozen German cities. In the course of attempts to refute Nietzsche's doctrine of "the eternal return of the same," Hausdorff was led to Cantor's set theory, which set Hausdorff on the road to his set-theoretical discoveries. Hausdorff's Nietzschean philosophical writings appear in volume VII of his collected works. A project to publish Hausdorff's works and biography, along with a description of his mathematical contributions, in nine volumes, is underway, edited by E. Brieskorn, F. Hirzebruch, W. Purkert, R. Remmert, E. Scholz.
1224705	Catherine E. Coulson is an American stage and screen actress who worked behind the scenes on various studio features, magazine shows and independent films as well as acting in theater and film since the age of 15. She is best known for her role as the Log Lady in the David Lynch TV series "Twin Peaks". Coulson met Lynch in the 1970s and performed various behind the scenes functions during the four year filming of his low budget classic "Eraserhead" (1977). She also appeared in Lynch's short film "The Amputee" (1974), in which she played a woman with no legs. During the filming of "Eraserhead", Lynch told Coulson that he had an image in his head of her holding a large log. Fifteen years later, he created such a role for her in "Twin Peaks", on which she guest starred for 12 episodes through seasons 1 and 2. Coulson went on to reprise her role in the film prequel, "", and in "Dual Spires" (2010), an episode of "Psych". Coulson was married to actor Jack Nance (who played Henry Spencer in "Eraserhead", and Pete Martell in the "Twin Peaks" saga) in 1968, but they divorced in 1976.
1059549	Lacey Nicole Chabert (born September 30, 1982) is an American actress and voice actress. She first gained prominence as a child actress on television for her role as Claudia Salinger in the television drama "Party of Five" (1994-2000). She has also provided the voice of Eliza Thornberry in "The Wild Thornberrys" TV show (1998-2004) and two feature films, and Meg Griffin during the first production season of the animated sitcom "Family Guy". In film she has appeared in "Lost in Space" (1998), "Not Another Teen Movie" (2001), "Daddy Day Care" (2003), and as Gretchen Wieners in the movie "Mean Girls" (2004). Early life. Chabert was born in Purvis, Mississippi, the daughter of Julie (née Johnson) and Tony Chabert. Her father, a French-speaker from Louisiana, is of mostly Cajun descent; he worked as a maintenance operations representative for an oil company. She has a younger brother, and two older sisters. She was "World's Baby Petite" in the "World's Our Little Miss Scholarship Competition" of 1985. In 1992 and 1993 she played Young Cosette in the Broadway production of "Les Misérables". Career. Chabert's first major role was as Claudia Salinger in "Party of Five". Chabert made her debut to the big screen in the late 1990s starring as Penny Robinson in the fantasy-space thriller "Lost in Space" (1998). Since then, she has been the voice of Eliza Thornberry in the animated series "The Wild Thornberrys", and has voiced Eliza in two movies, "The Wild Thornberrys Movie" (2002) and "Rugrats Go Wild" (2003). She then had a supporting role in the parody film Not Another Teen Movie playing Amanda Becker, a parody of Jennifer Love Hewitt's character Amanda Beckett from Can't Hardly Wait. She provided the voice for Aleu in "" (2002) and she provided the voice of Meg Griffin for the first production season of the animated sitcom "Family Guy" (1999), after which Mila Kunis took over the role after Chabert became busy with school work and her duties on "Party of Five".
969049	The Great Northfield Minnesota Raid is a 1972 Technicolor Western film about the James-Younger Gang distributed by Universal Pictures. It was directed by Philip Kaufman in a cinéma vérité style and starred Cliff Robertson as Cole Younger, Robert Duvall as Jesse James, Luke Askew as Jim Younger, R. G. Armstrong as Clell Miller, John Pearce as Frank James, and Matt Clark as Bob Younger. The film purports to recreate the James-Younger Gang's most infamous escapade, the September 7, 1876, robbery of "the biggest bank west of the Mississippi" in Northfield, Minnesota. Plot. In the mid-1870s, outlaws Jesse James, Cole Younger and their brothers are granted amnesty by the Missouri legislature, sympathetic to the troubles created for all citizens by the Civil War. The bankers victimized by the James and Younger gangs are vehemently opposed to this action and hire a Pinkerton agent to follow the outlaws' every move. Younger has put aside plans to rob a bank in Northfield, Minnesota, said to be the largest west of the Mississippi River. The job appeals, however, to Jesse and Frank James, who have no intention of changing the way they make a living. Cole is ambushed by the Pinkerton's agent men, who use a prostitute as bait. And when the bankers succeed in overturning the amnesty by bribing the politicians, Cole travels by train to Minnesota to check out the bank. Once there, Cole discovers that townspeople are unwilling to risk placing their money in the bank due to concerns over its safety from thieves. Jesse, Frank, and their men arrive on horseback and, together with Cole, persuade the locals that a gold shipment is on its way, being delivered to the bank because it is supposed to be the safest possible place for it. Once the citizens begin banking their money, the robbery commences. Many things go wrong though, including one outlaw being locked inside a vault. Younger and his men flee to a nearby farm, but a posse tracks and apprehends them. The James brothers get away. But, when Jesse mentions to Frank his intention to permit Bob Ford to join the gang back in Missouri, his fate is sealed.
1163875	Victoria Leigh Blum (born October 15, 1955), professonally known by the stage name Tanya Roberts, is an American actress known for her role as Julie Rogers on the fifth and final season of "Charlie's Angels" (1980–1981) and as Midge Pinciotti on "That '70s Show" (1998–2001). Early life. Blum was born in Bronx, of Irish and Jewish descent. Her father was a fountain pen salesman. Her parents divorced when she was a teenager. She lived with her mother in Toronto for several years, where she started formulating a photo portfolio and laying plans for a career. At age 15, she left high school and lived for a while hitch-hiking across the United States. She eventually returned to New York City and became a fashion and cover model. After meeting psychology student Barry Roberts (while waiting in line for a movie), she proposed to him in a subway station and they were soon married. While Barry pursued a career as a screenwriter, she began to study at the Actors Studio with Lee Strasberg and Uta Hagen under the name Tanya Roberts. Acting career. 1970s. Her career began as a model in TV ads for Ultra Brite, Clairol and Cool Ray sunglasses. She played serious roles in the Off-Broadway productions, "Picnic" and "Antigone". She also supported herself as an Arthur Murray dance instructor. Her film debut was the 1975 thriller, "Forced Entry". This was followed by the 1976 comedy "The Yum-Yum Girls". In 1977, as her husband was securing his own screenwriting career, the couple moved to Hollywood. The following year, Roberts participated in the drama, "Fingers". Roles in the 1979 cult-movie, "Tourist Trap", "Racket" and "California Dreaming" followed. Roberts was featured in several television pilots that were not picked up: "Zuma Beach" (a 1978 comedy); "Pleasure Cove" (1979); and "Waikiki" (1980). 1980s. "Charlie's Angels". Roberts was chosen in the summer of 1980 from some two-thousand candidates to replace Shelley Hack in the of the detective television series, "Charlie's Angels" on ABC. Roberts played the sultry Julie Rogers, a streetwise fighter who used her fists more than her gun. Producers hoped Roberts' sizzling presence would revitalize the show's declining ratings and regenerate media interest in the series. Before the season's premiere, Roberts was featured on the cover of "People Magazine" with a headline asking if Roberts would be able to save the declining series from cancellation.
1102359	Adrien-Marie Legendre () (18 September 1752 – 10 January 1833) was a French mathematician. Legendre made numerous contributions to mathematics. Well-known and important concepts such as the Legendre polynomials and Legendre transformation are named after him. Life. Adrien-Marie Legendre was born in Paris (or possibly, in Toulouse, depending on sources) on 18 September 1752 to a wealthy family. He was given an excellent education at the Collège Mazarin in Paris, defending his thesis in physics and mathematics in 1770. From 1775 to 1780 he taught at the École Militaire in Paris, and from 1795 at the École Normale, and was associated with the Bureau des longitudes. In 1782, he won the prize offered by the Berlin Academy for his treatise on projectiles in resistant media, which brought him to the attention of Lagrange.
1166411	Ashley Fuller Olsen (born June 13, 1986) is an American actress, fashion designer, producer, author, and businesswoman. She co-founded luxury fashion brands "The Row", "Elizabeth and James", and the more affordable lines "Olsenboye" and "StyleMint" with her fraternal twin sister Mary-Kate Olsen. Birth and family. Ashley and Mary-Kate were born in Sherman Oaks, California to David Olsen and Jarnette "Jarnie" Jones. The twins have Norwegian ancestry. Ashley is two minutes older than Mary-Kate. They have an older brother, Trent Olsen, a little sister, Elizabeth Olsen who is also an actress, and younger half siblings Taylor and Jake from their father's second marriage. Mary-Kate and Ashley's parents divorced in 1995. Career. Olsen began her career at the age of nine months old, when she and Mary-Kate were hired to share the role of Michelle Tanner on the popular television series "Full House" in 1987. Following the end of "Full House", Olsen released a string of successful straight-to-video movies and became a popular figure in the preteen market during the late '90s and early 2000s. She became a household name, with her likeness seen in clothes, books, fragrances, magazines, movies, and posters, among others. There were fashion dolls of her made by Mattel from 2000-2005. She starred in the video series "The Adventures of Mary-Kate & Ashley", the ABC show "Two of a Kind", and ABC Family's "So Little Time". She and her sister were jointly ranked number three on the VH1 program "100 Greatest Child Stars". In 2004, Ashley appeared alongside Mary-Kate in the theatrical light-hearted romantic comedy, New York Minute, also starring Eugene Levy. "New York Minute" was Ashley's final acting project because she didn't feel connected to acting anymore. In 2007 when Mary-Kate and Ashley were 21 they said that if they got involved in movies together again it would be as producers. When asked about acting again in 2009 Ashley said, "Never say never." In 2009 Ashley contemplated returning to acting. She changed her mind and in 2012 the sisters decided to quit acting permanently and focus on fashion. Dualstar. In 2004, both Ashley and Mary-Kate became co-presidents of their company Dualstar (created in 1993 following the success of "Full House"), the brand currently selling in over 3,000 stores in America and 5,300 stores worldwide. Their success has been marked on Forbes "The Celebrity 100" list since 2002, and in 2007 Forbes ranked the twins as the eleventh-richest women in entertainment, with an estimated combined net worth of $300 million. Fashion. Following a high volume of public interest in their fashion choices, both work in collaboration on a string of fashion lines available to the public. They started a clothing line in Wal-Mart stores across America for girls ages 4â14 as well as a beauty line called ""Mary-Kate and Ashley: Real fashion for real girls"". In 2004 they made news by signing a pledge to allow all the workers that sew their line of clothing in Bangladesh full maternity leave. The National Labor Committee, which organized the pledge, later praised the twins for their commitment to worker rights. In 2006, in an attempt to gain credibility in the fashion industry after their association with Wal-Mart tarnished their reputations, they were tapped as the faces of the upscale fashion line Badgley Mischka. As adults, Ashley and Mary-Kate have devoted much of their attention to the world of fashion. They head a couture fashion label, "The Row," as well as the "Elizabeth and James", "Olsenboye", and "StyleMint" retail collections. Ashley's sometimes controversial fashion choices have often found her on both the best and worst dressed fashion lists, particularly for her decision to wear fur. Mary-Kate and Ashley designed an Olsenboye Change Purse in 2011 and donated the money to "Pennies From Heaven". In 2011 Mary-Kate and Ashley teamed up with TOMS Shoes to design footwear for kids without shoes in more than 20 countries worldwide. Mary-Kate and Ashley are now the creative directors for Superga (brand). Mary-Kate and Ashley will release an Elizabeth and James perfume in Spring 2013. The girls won the top prize at the 2012 CFDA Fashion Awards. StyleMint is now available in the UK. In October 2012 Mary-Kate and Ashley won the WSJ Magazine Innovator of The Year Award. Book. In 2008, Mary-Kate and Ashley wrote "Influence", a book featuring interviews with fashion designers that have inspired the girls' fashion lines. Personal life. In 2004 Ashley graduated from Campbell Hall School. She attended New York University for a period of time with her sister, Mary Kate. In 2009, Olsen filed a $40 million lawsuit against tabloid magazine "National Enquirer" for depicting her as being involved in a drug scandal.
627084	Mehcad Jason McKinley Brooks (born October 25, 1980) is an American actor and former fashion model. He is best known for his roles as Matthew Applewhite in the second season of ABC's hit series "Desperate Housewives" (2005–2006), Jerome in "The Game" and his current role as TK in the USA series "Necessary Roughness". Early life. Brooks was born and raised in Austin, Texas, where he attended L.C. Anderson High School. After graduating from high school in 1999, he attended the University of Southern California's School of Cinema-Television. Brooks mentioned on a September 2010 episode of The Wendy Williams Show that he turned down basketball scholarships and offers from Ivy League schools in favor of going to USC. He then left to pursue an acting career. Career. Brooks' early work includes being a Calvin Klein underwear model. From 2005 to 2006, Brooks played the role of Matthew Applewhite on the ABC TV drama "Desperate Housewives". He appeared in "Glory Road", portraying Harry Flournoy, an athlete at Texas Western University. He acted in the 2007 film "In the Valley of Elah". He guest starred opposite Tia Mowry as her boyfriend, Jerome, on the TV series "The Game" in 2008. In 2009 he appeared on FOX's TV series "Dollhouse". Brooks played Benedict "Eggs" Talley in the second season of HBO's "True Blood". Beginning January 2010, he appeared as attorney Malcolm Bennet in the now-canceled ABC series "The Deep End". He plays the "new boyfriend" in a recent State Farm Insurance television commercial alongside former "The Game" co-star Gabrielle Dennis.
583259	Murali Sharma is an Indian film actor and former Television artist, known for his works in Bollywood, Marathi, Tamil and Telugu cinema, and has enacted the roles of a baddie or cop in many of his films. Early life. Murali Sharma was born in Guntur, to a Telugu family. He is married to actress Ashwini Kalsekar and lives in Mumbai. While doing films, he has also appeared in soap opera's such as "Guns and Roses", "Siddanth" and Arun Frank’s "Zindagi Teri Meri Kahani" on STAR One. In March 2013 he was seen in a few episodes of a crime show called Hum Ne Li Hai- Shapath, which airs on Life OK every Saturday and Sunday at 9pm. He played the character of tour guide Rangeela Ratan Sisodia.
1041452	The Story of Robin Hood and His Merrie Men is a 1952 live action Disney version of the Robin Hood legend made in Technicolor and filmed in Buckinghamshire, England. It was written by Lawrence Edward Watkin and directed by Ken Annakin. This is the second of Disney's complete live-action films, after "Treasure Island" (1950). Production. Production began in April 1951 at Denham Film Studios in London. This was the second movie Disney made in Great Britain, the first being "Treasure Island" (1950). These and several other Disney films were made using British funds frozen during World War II. "The Story of Robin Hood and His Merrie Men" was filmed in 3-strip Technicolor. Release. The world premiere was in London on March 13, 1952; the New York opening was on June 26, 1952. In a wake of this a promotional film entitled "The Riddle of Robin Hood" was produced. The film was one of the most popular in Britain in 1952. Home releases. A Laserdisc was released in 1992, a VHS tape was released in 1994 (the Walt Disney's Studio Film Collection) and a limited Disney Movie Club DVD was released in July 2006. All releases are 1.33:1 fullscreen in monaural (as shot). A Disneyland Records LP of four songs from the soundtrack with narration by Dallas McKennon was released in 1963.
1105371	Yum-Tong Siu (; born May 6, 1943 in Guangzhou, China) is the William Elwood Byerly Professor of Mathematics at Harvard University. Dr. Siu has been a prominent figure in the mathematics of several complex variables for a quarter-century. He has mastered techniques at the interfaces between complex variables, differential geometry, and algebraic geometry. For example, he applied estimates of the complex Neumann problem and the theory of multiplier ideal sheaves to algebraic geometry, to resolve various conjectures. (cf. MSRI Publications, Vol. 37: Several Complex Variables) Siu's education included a BA in mathematics from the University of Hong Kong, M.A. from the University of Minnesota and Ph.D. from Princeton University, in the period 1963–1966. He started his academic career as Assistant Professor in Purdue and Notre Dame Universities, but rose fast in the ranks and became full Professor at Yale and then Stanford Universities. In 1982 he joined Harvard as Professor, and in 1992 became the William Elwood Byerly Professor. In addition he was former Chairman of the Harvard Math Department He lives in the Greater Boston area. He has received numerous recognitions including invited addresses at three International Congresses of Mathematicians (Helsinki, 1978; Warsaw, 1983; Beijing, 2002); Bergman Prize of the American Mathematical Society *http://www.ams.org/profession/prizes-awards/ams-supported/bergman-prize; honorary doctorates at the University of Hong Kong, University of Bochum, Germany, and University of Macau. He is a Corresponding Member of the Goettingen Academy of Sciences (elected 1993), a Foreign member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (elected 2004), a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences(elected 1998), the U.S. National Academy of Sciences (elected 2002), and Academia Sinica, Taiwan (elected 2004). Currently he is a member of the Scientific Advisory Board of the Clay Institute of Mathematics, Cambridge, Massachusetts (since 2003); Advisory Committee for the Shaw Prize In Mathematical Sciences (since 2010); Advisory Committee for the Millennium Prize Problems under the sponsorship of the Clay Mathematics Institute. He is also a member of Scientific Advisory Board for the Institute for Mathematics Sciences, National University of Singapore (since 2009) and of the Institute of Advanced Studies, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (since 2006). In 2006, Siu published a proof of the finite generation of the pluricanonical ring.
1062105	Roy Richard Scheider (November 10, 1932 – February 10, 2008) was an American actor and amateur boxer. He was best known for his leading role as Police Chief Martin C. Brody in the first two "Jaws" movies, choreographer and film director Joe Gideon in "All That Jazz", Detective Buddy "Cloudy" Russo in "The French Connection", and Captain Nathan Bridger in the science fiction television series "seaQuest DSV". Scheider's final performance was posthumously released in the 2011 thriller "Iron Cross". Described by AllMovie as "one of the most unique and distinguished of all Hollywood actors", Scheider was nominated for two Academy Awards, a Golden Globe Award and a BAFTA Award. Early life. Scheider was born in Orange, New Jersey, the son of Anna Scheider (née Crosson) and auto mechanic Roy Bernhard Scheider. Scheider's mother was of Irish Catholic background and his father was German American and Protestant. As a child, Scheider was an athlete, participating in organized baseball and boxing competitions, for which he was classed as a welterweight, weighing in at 140 lbs. Scheider competed in the Golden Gloves. He attended Columbia High School in Maplewood, New Jersey, and was inducted into the school's hall of fame in 1985. He traded his boxing gloves for the stage, studying drama at both Rutgers University and Franklin and Marshall College, where he was a member of Phi Kappa Psi fraternity. After three years in the United States Air Force, he appeared with the New York Shakespeare Festival, and won an Obie Award in 1968. On television, Scheider played running roles on two CBS soap operas, "Love of Life" and "The Secret Storm", and also played character roles in episodes of "Coronet Blue" and "N.Y.P.D.". Amateur boxing. Between 1947 and 1953and, in one match in 1958Scheider boxed as an amateur based in his hometown in New Jersey. In his first bout, at the 1947 Golden Gloves, he suffered a broken nose and lost by technical knockout in two rounds to Myron Greenberg. He went on, however, to post a 14-1 (10 knockouts) record, reversing the defeat to Greenberg in the process. Film career. Scheider's first film role was in the 1963 horror film "The Curse of the Living Corpse". (He was billed as "Roy R. Scheider"). In 1971, he appeared in two highly popular movies, "Klute" and "The French Connection"; the latter, in which he played a fictionalized version of New York City detective Sonny Grosso, gained him an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor. His first starring role came in 1973 in "The Seven-Ups", a quasi-follow-up to "The French Connection", in which Scheider's character is once again based on Grosso. Two years later, he portrayed Chief Martin Brody in the Hollywood blockbuster "Jaws" which also starred Robert Shaw and Richard Dreyfuss. Scheider's famous movie line, "You're gonna need a bigger boat", ad-libbed by Scheider, was voted 35th on the American Film Institute's list of best movie quotes. In 1976, he appeared as secret agent Doc Levy in "Marathon Man", with Dustin Hoffman and Laurence Olivier. Scheider reunited with "French Connection" director William Friedkin in "Sorcerer", a remake of the 1953 French film "Le Salaire de la peur (The Wages of Fear)". He was originally cast in "The Deer Hunter", the second movie of a three-movie deal with Universal Studios. However, despite being under contract, Scheider dropped out two weeks before the start of filming. Universal offered him the option of reprising his role as Martin Brody for a "Jaws" sequel, and would consider his contractual obligations fulfilled if he accepted. Scheider accepted, and "Jaws 2" was released in 1978. In 1979, he received his second Academy Award nomination, this time as Best Actor in "All That Jazz", in which he played a fictionalized version of the film's director and co-writer Bob Fosse. In 1983, he starred in "Blue Thunder", a John Badham film about a fictitious technologically advanced prototype attack helicopter which provided security over the city of Los Angeles during the 1984 Summer Olympic Games. This was followed by a role as Dr. Heywood Floyd in Peter Hyams' "2010", a 1984 sequel to Stanley Kubrick's 1968 science fiction classic "", in which William Sylvester originated the role of Floyd. One of his later parts was that of Dr. Benway in the long-in-production 1991 film adaptation of William S. Burroughs' novel "Naked Lunch". In 1990 he co-starred with Sean Connery in "The Russia House" as the smart-talking CIA liaison with MI6. Scheider played a mob boss in the Gary Oldman crime film "Romeo Is Bleeding" (1994) and a chief executive of a corrupt insurance company cross-examined by Matt Damon in 1997's "John Grisham's The Rainmaker", directed by Francis Ford Coppola. Among his later films, he appeared as the crusty father of hero Frank Castle in "The Punisher" (2004), and in 2007, starred in "The Poet" and "If I Didn't Care". When Scheider died in February 2008, he had two movies upcoming: "Dark Honeymoon", which had been completed, and the thriller "Iron Cross". In "Iron Cross", Scheider plays the leading role of Joseph, a holocaust survivor with a propensity for justice, which was inspired by director Joshua Newton’s late father Bruno Newton. "Iron Cross" was ultimately released in 2011. Other work. Scheider was lead star in the Steven Spielberg-produced television series "SeaQuest DSV" as Captain Nathan Bridger. During the second season, Scheider voiced disdain for the direction in which the series was heading. His comments were highly publicized, and the media criticized him for panning his own show. NBC made additional casting and writing changes in the third season, and Scheider decided to leave the show. His contract, however, required that he make several guest appearances that season. He also repeatedly guest-starred on the NBC television series "Third Watch" as fictional character Fyodor Chevchenko. Scheider hosted an episode of "Saturday Night Live" in the tenth (1984–1985) season and appeared on the "Family Guy" episode "Bill and Peter's Bogus Journey", voicing himself as the host of a toilet-training video; portions of which were censored on FOX and syndicated broadcast. Scheider provided voiceover on the "Family Guy" episode "Three Kings" (which was recorded in September 2007 but aired in May 2009, a year and three months after his death in February 2008) which also featured his "Jaws" co-star Richard Dreyfuss. Scheider guest-starred in the "" episode "" as serial killer Mark Ford Brady, who is identified at the episode's end as being the biological father of series star Vincent D'Onofrio's, character, Detective Goren. Scheider narrated and was associate producer of the 2006 "Jaws" documentary "The Shark is Still Working". In 2007, Scheider received one of two annually-presented Lifetime Achievement Awards at the SunDeis Film Festival in Waltham, Massachusetts. Personal life. Scheider's first marriage was to Cynthia Bebout on November 8, 1962. The couple had one daughter, Maximillia, before divorcing in 1986. On February 11, 1989, he married actress Brenda King, with whom he had a son, Christian Scheider, and adopted a daughter, Molly. They remained married until his death. Death. In 2004, Scheider was found to have multiple myeloma, and he received a bone marrow transplant to treat the cancer in June 2005. He died on February 10, 2008, in Little Rock, Arkansas, at the University of Arkansas Medical Sciences Hospital.
1079819	Alfred Russel Wallace (8 January 1823 – 7 November 1913) was a British naturalist, explorer, geographer, anthropologist and biologist. He is best known for independently conceiving the theory of evolution through natural selection; his paper on the subject was jointly published with some of Charles Darwin's writings in 1858. This prompted Darwin to publish his own ideas in "On the Origin of Species". Wallace did extensive fieldwork, first in the Amazon River basin and then in the Malay Archipelago, where he identified the Wallace Line that divides the Indonesian archipelago into two distinct parts: a western portion in which the animals are largely of Asian origin, and an eastern portion where the fauna reflect Australasia.
1065716	Short Circuit is a 1986 American science fiction comedy film directed by John Badham, and written by S. S. Wilson and Brent Maddock. The film's plot centers upon a cutting edge military robot which is struck by lightning and gains sentience. Taking the name "Johnny Five", the robot escapes confinement and ventures out to explore its new life. "Short Cirtcuit" stars Ally Sheedy, Steve Guttenberg, Fisher Stevens, Austin Pendleton, and G. W. Bailey, with Tim Blaney as the voice of Johnny Five. A sequel, "Short Circuit 2", was released in 1988. Plot. Number 5 is part of a series of prototype U.S. military robots built for use in the Cold War by Nova Laboratories. The series' inventors, Newton Graham Crosby and Ben Jabituya, are more interested in peaceful applications including music and social aid. After a demonstration of the robots' capabilities, Number 5 is hit by a lightning-induced power surge. Several incidents allow the robot to accidentally escape the facility, barely able to communicate and uncertain of its directive. A chance encounter with animal-lover Stephanie Speck (who mistakes Number 5 for an extraterrestrial visitor) grants Number 5 access to books, television and other stimuli, allowing him to learn at a rapid pace to satisfy his demand for 'input'. Number 5 develops a whimsical and curious personality. When Stephanie realises Number 5 is in fact a military weapon, she contacts Nova who send out a team to recover him. Meanwhile, Number 5 accidentally crushes a grasshopper he gains an understanding of mortality and that if Nova disassembles him he will cease to exist. Frightened, Number 5 steals Stephanie's van and flees, but the pair are eventually cornered by Nova, and Newton and Ben. Stephanie attempts to convince them of his sentience, but Number 5 is eventually disabled and sent back to Nova. From this follow several adventurous escapes from the soldiers led by Nova's security chief Captain Skroeder (G. W. Bailey). Having humiliated Frank and the four remaining prototypes, Stephanie and the robot convince Newton of the robot's sapience; but are cornered by Nova's security and the Army, who destroy a duplicate robot (built by Number 5 himself) in mistake for their quarry. With the project that spawned the robots ruined, Nova's President Dr. Howard Marner fires Skroeder for disobeying orders to capture Number 5 intact. In tears, Stephanie leaves with Newton, who decides to emigrate to his family's estate in Montana. Having revealed himself to them, Number 5 (renaming himself "Johnny Five" after the song "Who's Johnny") accompanies Stephanie and Newton. Production. This film was conceived after the producers distributed an educational video about a robot to various colleges. Studying other films with a prominent robot cast in them (like the "Star Wars" series) for inspiration, they decided to question human reactions to a 'living' robot, on the premise that none would initially believe its sentience. According to the commentary in the DVD, Number 5 was the most expensive part of the movie, requiring several different versions to be made for different sequences. Almost everything else in the movie was relatively inexpensive, allowing them to allocate as much money as they needed for the robot character. Number 5 was designed by Syd Mead, the "visual futurist" famous for his work on "Blade Runner" and "Tron". Mead's design was greatly influenced by the sketches of Eric Allard, the Robotics Supervisor credited for "realizing" the robots. John Badham named Eric "the most valuable player" on the film. Most of the arm movements of Number 5 were controlled by a "telemetry suit", carried on the puppeteer's upper torso. Each joint in the suit had a separate sensor, allowing the puppeteer's arm and hand movements to be transferred directly to the machine. He was also voiced in real-time by his puppeteer, the director believing that it provided for a more realistic interaction between the robot and the other actors than putting in his voice in post-production, although a few of his lines were re-dubbed later.
1066114	Across 110th Street is a 1972 American crime drama film starring Anthony Quinn, Yaphet Kotto, and Anthony Franciosa, and directed by Barry Shear. Commonly associated with the blaxploitation genre at the time, it has received considerable critical praise from writer Greil Marcus and others for surpassing the limitations of that genre. Plot. This film is set in Harlem, of which 110th Street is an informal boundary line. By-the-book African-American Lieutenant William Pope (Kotto) has to work with crude, racist but streetwise Italian-American Captain Frank Mattelli (Quinn) in the NYPD's 27th precinct. They are looking for three black men who slaughtered seven men—three black gangsters and two Italian gangsters, as well as two patrol officers—in the robbery of $300,000 from a Mafia-owned Harlem policy bank. Mafia lieutenant Nick D'Salvio (Franciosa) and his two henchmen are also after the hoods.
1224480	Morris Carnovsky (September 5, 1897 – September 1, 1992) was an American stage and film actor born in St. Louis, Missouri. He worked briefly in the Yiddish theatre before attending Washington University in St. Louis. Opting for a mainstream acting career, he appeared in dozens of Broadway shows. Broadway career and the Group Theatre. In 1922, Carnovsky began his long career on Broadway with his New York stage debut as Reb Aaron in "The God of Vengeance". Two years later, Carnovsky joined the Theatre Guild acting company and appeared in the title role of "Uncle Vanya" (by Anton Chekhov). This was followed by roles in "Saint Joan" (by George Bernard Shaw), "The Brothers Karamazov", "The Doctor's Dilemma" (also by Shaw) and the role of Kublai Khan in Eugene O'Neill's "Marco Millions". In 1931, he helped found the Group Theatre, which specialized in dramas with socially relevant and politically tinged messages. Many of the Group's members were inspired by the Moscow Art theatre and several members, including Carnovsky, also joined the American Communist Party. Among the notable Group Theatre directors were Harold Clurman, Lee Strasberg, Elia Kazan and Cheryl Crawford. It included such actors as Franchot Tone, John Garfield, Ruth Nelson, Art Smith, Luther Adler, Sanford Meisner, Paula Strasberg and Carnovsky's wife, Phoebe Brand. Carnovsky summered at Pine Brook Country Club in Nichols, Connecticut, with the Group Theatre. Carnovsky appeared in almost every major Group Theatre production, often playing parts that had been written specifically for him by his good friend, the actor and playwright Clifford Odets. Among Carnovsky's major triumphs at the Group Theatre were the Odets' plays "Awake and Sing", "Golden Boy", "Paradise Lost" and "Rocket to the Moon". He also appeared in the anti-war musical "Johnny Johnson", Sidney Kingsley's "Men in White", the Elia Kazan directed "Thunder Rock", "My Sister Eileen", and "Cafe Crown". Writing about the Group's production of "Awake and Sing", the "New York Times" critic Brooks Atkinson said, "...Morris Carnovsky as the lonely old sage struggling with ideas he cannot resolve or use, gives a performance worth a mayor's reception on the steps of City Hall. Probably Mr. Carnovsky and Mr. Adler would have become remarkable actors in any case. But the discipline of the Group Theatre has given them a mastery of acting they could never have achieved by themselves. The Group Theatre makes good!" Film career. In 1937 Carnovsky (along with several other actors from the Group) went to Hollywood where they hoped that by appearing in movies, they could raise the money needed to bolster the often shaky finances of the Group. Carnovsky's movie debut came in the Academy Award-winning best picture of 1937, William Dieterle's "The Life of Emile Zola" starring Paul Muni. It was followed by a supporting role in Anatole Litvak's "Tovarich", before Carnovsky returned to New York and a newly re-configured formation of the Group Theatre. After the collapse of the Group Theatre in 1940, Carnovsky returned to Hollywood where he appeared in several films and continued his stage work by joining the Actors' Lab. In 1943, he played a retired Norwegian school teacher, Sixtus Andresen, in the Warner Bros. anti-Nazi film, "Edge of Darkness", which starred Errol Flynn and was directed by Lewis Milestone. Carnovsky portrayed George Gershwin's father in "Rhapsody in Blue" in 1945, and in "Dead Reckoning" (1947), he starred as the villainous nightclub owner Martinelli with Humphrey Bogart. In 1950, he portrayed LeBret in "Cyrano de Bergerac" starring José Ferrer. Later that year, he played Dr. Raymond Hartley in the mystery "The Second Woman" and the kindly judge who sentences a young boy who likes to play with firearms in Joseph H. Lewis's "Gun Crazy". This was to be Carnovsky's last Hollywood film for 12 years, after which he was blacklisted. Hollywood blacklist. Carnovsky was at one time a member of the American Communist Party. He, along with his wife, Phoebe Brand, was one of eight Group Theatre members named by his former comrade Elia Kazan (himself a Communist Party member) before the House Un-American Activities Committee. Actor Sterling Hayden also testified before the committee that he had attended Communist Party meetings that were sometimes held at Carnovsky's house in Hollywood. When Carnovsky was called before the HUAC he refused to "name names", and this effectively ended his career in Hollywood, so he returned to the New York stage.
1449181	Splitting Heirs is a 1993 British film starring Eric Idle, Rick Moranis, Barbara Hershey, Catherine Zeta-Jones, John Cleese and Sadie Frost. The film was directed by Robert Young, and features music by Michael Kamen. It was entered in the 1993 Cannes Film Festival.
1065650	Gran Torino is a 2008 American drama film directed by, produced by, and starring Clint Eastwood. It also stars Bee Vang and Ahney Her. The film marked Eastwood's return to a lead acting role after four years (his previous leading role was in "Million Dollar Baby"). The film features a large Hmong American cast, as well as one of Eastwood's younger sons, Scott Eastwood. Eastwood's oldest son, Kyle Eastwood, provided the score. "Gran Torino" opened to theaters in a limited release in North America on December 12, 2008, and later to a worldwide release on January 9, 2009. Set in Detroit, Michigan, it is the first mainstream U.S. film to feature Hmong Americans. Many Lao Hmong war refugees resettled in the U.S. following the communist takeover of Laos in 1975. The story follows Walt Kowalski, a recently widowed Korean War veteran alienated from his family and angry at the world. Walt's young neighbor, Thao Vang Lor, is pressured by his cousin into stealing Walt's prized 1972 Ford for his initiation into a gang. Walt thwarts the theft and subsequently develops a relationship with the boy and his family. "Gran Torino" was a critical and commercial success, grossing nearly $270 million worldwide (making it Eastwood's most successful film ever). Within the Hmong community in the United States, the film received both praise and criticism. Plot. Walt Kowalski (Clint Eastwood) is a cantankerous, retired Polish American assembly line worker and Korean War veteran, who has recently been widowed after 50 years of marriage. His Highland Park, Michigan neighborhood in the Detroit area, formerly populated by working-class white families, is now dominated by poor Asian immigrants, and gang violence is commonplace. Adding to the isolation he feels is the emotional detachment of his family. He rejects a suggestion from one of his sons to move to a retirement community (sensing they want his home and possessions), and lives alone with his dog, Daisy. Walt suffers from coughing fits, occasionally coughing up blood, but conceals this from his family. Catholic priest Father Janovich (Christopher Carley) tries to comfort him, but Walt disdains the young, inexperienced man. The Hmong Vang Lor family reside next door to Walt. Initially, he wants nothing to do with his new neighbors, particularly after he catches Thao (Bee Vang), a member of that family, attempting to steal his Ford as a coerced initiation into a Hmong gang run by Thao's cousin, "Spider". The gang is infuriated by Thao's failure and they attack him, but Walt confronts them with an M1 Garand rifle and chases them off, earning the respect of the Hmong community. As penance, Thao's mother makes him work for Walt, who has him do odd jobs around the neighborhood, and the two form a grudging mutual respect. Thao's sister Sue (Ahney Her) introduces Walt to Hmong culture and helps him bond with the Hmong community. Walt helps Thao get a job and gives him dating advice. Spider's gang continues to pressure Thao, assaulting him on his way home from work. After he sees Thao's injuries, Walt visits the gang's house, where he attacks a gang member as a warning. In retaliation, the gang performs a drive-by shooting on the Vang Lor home, injuring Thao, and kidnapping and raping Sue. There are no witnesses and the members of the community, including the victims, refuse to talk about the crimes; preventing police from doing anything about Spider's gang. The next day, Thao seeks Walt's help to exact revenge, who tells him to return later in the afternoon. In the meantime, Walt makes personal preparations: he buys a suit, gets a haircut, and makes a confession to Father Janovich. When Thao returns, Walt takes him to the basement and gives him his Silver Star; Walt then locks Thao in his basement and tells him that he has been haunted by the memory of killing an enemy soldier who was trying to surrender, something he had not confessed to Janovich. He insists that Thao must never be haunted by killing another man, especially with his life ahead of him.
658518	Lala Cassandra Sloatman (born October 12, 1970) is an American model, actress and costumer. Her uncle was musician Frank Zappa; her cousins are Ahmet, Diva, Moon and Dweezil Zappa. She is frequently billed by her first name only, and sometimes as Lala Zappa. Early life. Born in Winter Park, Florida, Sloatman's first name is the Hawaiian form of Laura. Her father is second-generation Marine John Sloatman III, whose sister Gail is musician Frank Zappa's widow. Sloatman ultimately moved to Santa Barbara, California, and after that to Los Angeles. She has numerous half-siblings on both sides of her family. Career. In the 1980s, Sloatman appeared in the films "Watchers" (1988) and "Dream a Little Dream" (1989), alongside her then-boyfriend Corey Haim. Haim personally suggested her for the lead in a third movie, "Prayer of the Rollerboys" (1991), but she lost out to Patricia Arquette. Sloatman's additional movie work includes "Bunny Bunny Bunny" (a short film which co-starred her cousin Moon and Kyle Richards), "Pump Up the Volume" (1990), "" (1993, as Lauren Holly's college roommate), "Buy One, Get One Free*" (1996), "Manfast" (2003), "Net Games" (2003, as a sexy serial killer) and Sofia Coppola's "Somewhere" (2010). Personal life. Sloatman was married to Black Crowes lead singer Chris Robinson from 1996 to 1998, and she dated author Nic Sheff
1036225	Jennifer Jane Saunders (born 6 July 1958) is an English comedian, screenwriter, singer and actress. She has won three BAFTAs (including the Bafta Fellowship), an International Emmy Award, a British Comedy Award, a Rose d'Or Light Entertainment Festival Award, two Writers' Guild of Great Britain Awards, and a People's Choice Award. She first found widespread attention in the 1980s when she became a member of The Comic Strip after graduating from the Central School of Speech and Drama. With her comedy partner Dawn French, she wrote and starred in their eponymous sketch show, "French & Saunders", for which she and French received a BAFTA fellowship in 2009. She received worldwide acclaim through the early to mid-1990s with her sitcom "Absolutely Fabulous" writing and playing the lead role of Edina Monsoon. She has guest starred in the American sitcoms "Roseanne" and "Friends", and won the American People's Choice Award for voicing the wicked Fairy Godmother in DreamWorks' animated "Shrek 2". Background. Saunders was born in Sleaford, Lincolnshire on 6 July 1958. Her French mother was a biology teacher, and her father served as a pilot in the Royal Air Force (RAF), reached the rank of Air Marshal and later worked for British Aerospace. Because her father was in the armed forces, Saunders moved to different schools many times. She was educated from the age of five to 18 in boarding schools and then at St Paul's Girls' School, an independent school in west London. After school, she worked for a year in Italy as an au pair. She later received a place at the Central School of Speech and Drama in London on a drama teachers' course in 1977, where she met her future comedy partner, Dawn French. Both came from RAF backgrounds. They had grown up on the same base, even having had the same best friend, without ever meeting. The comic duo originally did not get on well, and as far as Saunders was concerned, French was a "cocky little upstart". The distrust was mutual: French considered Saunders snooty and uptight. French actually wanted to become a drama teacher, whereas Saunders loathed the idea and had not fully understood what the course was about; thus, she disliked French for being enthusiastic and confident about the course. Saunders was shocked to find that she was actually taking courses to become a teacher, as her mother had filled out the application form. Her mother, however, was saddened when Saunders chose not to apply for an Oxbridge university education. After the initial friction, while at college Saunders and French shared a flat together. French has remarked on Saunders's messy habits when sharing the house, stating, "When we lived together in Chalk Farm she had a room at the top of the house. We got broken into and the police said, 'Well, it is quite bad, but the worst is that room at the top.' And, of course, nobody had been in there." The two performed together after graduation, working the festival, cabaret and stand-up circuits. They formed a double-act called The Menopause Sisters. Saunders described the act, which involved wearing tampons in their ears, as "cringeworthy." The manager of the club where they performed recalled, "They didn't seem to give a damn. There was no star quality about them at all." Career. Early career. Saunders and French would eventually come to public attention as members of the informal comedy collective The Comic Strip, part of the alternative comedy scene in the early 1980s. They answered a 1980 advert in "The Stage" newspaper looking for female comedians to perform at The Comic Strip, which until that point, only had male performers. When they walked into the audition they were immediately told "You're booked. When can you start?". Both Saunders and French became continuing members of the Comic Strip, which included Peter Richardson, Rik Mayall and Robbie Coltrane, as well as Saunders' future husband Adrian Edmondson. The group performed at the Boulevard Theatre, above Soho's Raymond Revuebar, and gained a cult following, with visiting audience members including Dustin Hoffman, Jack Nicholson and Robin Williams, who once joined in the performance. By the time French & Saunders became members of The Comic Strip, French was already working as a drama teacher, whilst Saunders was on the dole and spending a lot of her time sleeping in bed after the dole office closed for the day.
1165124	Don Collier (born October 17, 1928) is an actor particularly known for his role in television westerns during the 1960s. He played U.S. Marshal Will Foreman in the 1960-1962 NBC series "Outlaws", with Barton MacLane (1902–1969), Jock Gaynor (1929–1998), and Bruce Yarnell (1935–1973). He appeared as a deputy marshal to MacLane in the first season of "Outlaws" and was promoted to full marshal in the second season, with Yarnell as the new deputy. MacLane left the series after the first season. Collier was born in Santa Monica, California. His only sibling, a sister, died when she was thirteen. After graduation from high school, Collier joined the United States Navy at the end of World War II. Upon his return to California, Collier obtained a part in the 1948 film "Massacre River". The recipient of a football scholarship, he entered Hardin-Simmons University, a Baptist-affiliated institution in Abilene in Taylor County in West Texas. He transferred to Mormon-affiliated Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah, where he also played football. Collier has made more than seventy film and television appearances. He starred with John Wayne, Robert Mitchum, Anthony Quinn, Dean Martin, Tom Selleck, James Arness, and Elvis Presley. After "Massacre River", he acquired roles in "Fort Apache" (1948) and "Davy Crockett, Indian Scout" (1950).
1055088	All Over the Guy is a 2001 gay-themed romantic comedy film written by Dan Bucatinsky and directed by Julie Davis. Plot. "All Over the Guy" is about Eli (Dan Bucatinsky) and Tom (Richard Ruccolo). The film is told mostly in flashback, with Eli recounting his side to Esther (Doris Roberts), an HIV clinic worker as he waits for test results and Tom to a guy he meets at an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting. Tom is the adult child of emotionally distant alcoholic WASP parents who never quite accepted his sexual orientation. Eli's parents are both Jewish psychiatrists who raised him to be emotionally open but ended up making him neurotic. Tom and Eli are set up on a blind date by their best friends, Jackie (Sasha Alexander) and Brett (Adam Goldberg), who think they would be a perfect match. They're both looking for 'The One', but don't recognize it when they find it. On the date, a boring evening is broken up only by an amusing diatribe by Tom against the movie "In & Out". A few days later they run into each other at a flea market and hit it off, winding up back at Eli's place where Tom spends the night. The next morning Tom says that it was a mistake. Jackie and Brett decide to try again to set them up, and the two men start to develop a relationship. Tom's fear of becoming emotionally close coupled with Eli's own insecurities makes it difficult for them to maintain, but Jackie and Brett get engaged which forces Tom and Eli together. They disguise their unease behind petty arguments over meaningless details of grammar and pronunciation but are finally able to push past the pettiness and make love. Eli tells Tom he loves him and Tom, terrified, lashes out at him the next day and drives him away. The flashbacks end here on the day of Brett and Jackie's wedding. Esther tries to teach Eli to be more understanding of Tom's emotional needs. The AA member tries to sexually assault Tom, and when he tells Jackie she upbraids him for throwing Eli away for daring to fall for him. At the reception, Eli and Tom come to realize that they have to overcome their families' dysfunction and their own fears. Critical reception. The film received mixed reviews from critics. Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reports that 43% out of 47 professional critics gave the film a positive review, with an average rating of 4.9/10.
1067222	Peaceful Warrior is a 2006 drama film directed by Victor Salva and written by Kevin Bernhardt based on the novel "Way of the Peaceful Warrior" by Dan Millman. Set at U.C. Berkeley, the film stars Scott Mechlowicz as a troubled but talented gymnast who meets a spiritual guide. Plot. At the beginning of the plot, Dan Millman is a university student as well as a locally famous gymnast who dreams of winning a National Championship competition. He suffers from restlessness, and on one occasion Dan attempts to compensate for the restlessness by running along streets before sunrise. At a car-service station, he encounters an old man who seems to know more about Dan's problem than Dan himself knows, whom Dan later nicknames "Socrates." Dan is unsettled by Socrates' knowledge; by the fact that Socrates had appeared in a nightmare as a faceless janitor, clad in mismatched shoes (by which he is identified in waking life), who sweeps up the pieces of Dan's shattered leg; and by the old man's extraordinary speed, agility, and co-ordination. As a result of his exposure to the last, Dan seeks to learn the secret behind it. Socrates, prodded by the impatient and defiant Dan, gives the boy a series of tasks and lessons. The central concept of "Soc"'s philosophy is this: that one must live entirely in the present moment. Other ideas include the related notion that at no time is "nothing going on" and the idea that an appropriate time exists for fighting and another for abstaining from violence. These lessons are conveyed through practical lessons, long contemplation, and one spectacular mystical experience. Dan gradually learns to appreciate every moment; to view the journey toward a goal as more meaningful and significant than the attainment; to pay attention to that which he is doing – thus increasing his gymnastic prowess; and (to a slightly lesser extent) control himself. Throughout the lesson, Dan learns virtually nothing about his mentor, other than the philosophy, Socrates' belief that service is the most noble action possible (hence his choice to work as a car serviceman), and the presence of another protégé. This protégé, a woman of Dan's own age named Joy, has learned and integrated Socrates' philosophy into her life, to the extent that she seems as wise as Socrates himself. Dan attempts to ask her for information regarding Socrates, but receives little. Joy treats Dan indulgently, though she evidently respects him. One day, Dan drives recklessly, and his motorcycle collides with a car that ran a red light, causing his right femur bone to shatter. He is rushed to a hospital, where a metal bar is placed in his leg to maintain its integrity. As a result, his gymnastic coach believes that Dan cannot compete in the National competition. Dan, hurt by this lack of faith, recovers from the injury and resumes his training under Socrates' tutelage. Eventually, he is restored to full health and strength, while his co-ordination improves and his mind is set entirely on the present moment. He competes in the U.S. Trials for the Olympics and achieves a victory. Slightly before the competition, Dan diverts the bus he is riding to Socrates' station, only to find that Socrates has vanished without a trace. At the arena, he attempts to teach his teammate Tommy what he has learned, but fails due to Tommy's emotional insecurity and lack of comprehension. Dan then is called upon for his turn to perform on the Still Rings. While he does his routine, Dan performs flawlessly just like Pommel Horse tryouts. Moments before he completes his routine, Socrates is in his thoughts asking him three questions: "Where are you, Dan?" "Here." "What time is it?" "Now." "What are You?" "This Moment." Dan then performs his triple consecutive flips, the Commentators frantically speaking, and the judges staring at him in amazement. He then dismounts, while the rings swing outwards, eventually touching each other. The screen goes black, leaving his last moment unknown. The postscript states that Dan and his Berkeley Gymnastics Team won their first National title. It is implied at the end, in a postscript appearing on screen, that Dan of the film and Dan the author of the book on which the film is based are one and the same. It is also stated that the latter Dan lives with his wife Joy. Reception. "Peaceful Warrior" received mixed to negative reviews, currently holding a 25% "rotten" rating from Rotten Tomatoes; the consensus states: "Based on a best-selling memoir, "Peaceful Warrior" loses something in the transition from page to screen. It hits the viewer over the head with philosophical jargon, and ultimately fails to live up to its source material." On Metacritic, the film has a 40/100 rating, indicating "mixed or average reviews." Roger Ebert of "The Chicago Sun-Times" gave the film 2½ stars out of 4.
584396	Ennavale is a 2000 Tamil romantic film directed by J. Suresh which features Madhavan and Sneha in the lead roles. The film also featured Manivannan, Thalaivasal Vijay and Charle in pivotal roles, while music was composed by S. A. Rajkumar. The film released on December 22, 2000 to poor reviews from film critics. Plot. Madhavan and his three friends, Charlie, Vyapuri and Venu, have a music troupe that sing at weddings. They are tenants of Manivannan whose daughter Sneha shares a good rapport with the youth, helping them in their time of need. Her encouragement puts a new zeal in Madhavan, who soon gains recognition as a singer. Not that this brings any change in the life style of the group, for the director still shows them as strugglers. Madhavan finally proposes to Sneha who rejects him, as she has her past to reckon with. She is a divorcee, her husband having abandoned her soon after marriage for his girlfriend. When friend and neighbour Ashwini puts some sense into Sneha, she decides to make amends. Incidentally, Ashwini had been hovering in the background doing almost nothing until she gets this scene to justify her presence in the film. But misunderstandings pile up between the lovers - the situations are all forced here - till the director leads the story to a desired happy ending. Production. The director, J. Suresh, initially approached Mani Ratnam to produce the film, but although he refused, he introduced Suresh to Madhavan. The film was initially titled as "Sugham", whilst actress Sneha made her debut with the film after calling off schedules for her film, "Virumbugiren". Noted Telugu language comedian Venu Madhav also made his debut in Tamil films with the project. The film was shot across locations in locations in Chennai, Ooty, Hyderabad and Gopichettipalayam and all scenes were shot within 18 days. Release. The film opened to predominantly negative reviews, with most critics agreeing that Madhavan had taken a wrong career move after the success of "Alaipayuthey". The Hindu critic revealed that the "reeks of melodrama bogs down even a natural performer like Madhavan". In regard to performances it claimed that "for Madhavan, it is merely a prosaic exercise in melodrama" while the "new heroine Sneha could have shown more emotions and reactions in certain scene". Another reviewer drew particular criticism for the role of Thalaivasal Vijay, claiming it was "arguably the smallest and most pathetic role in his career".
1161285	Mabel Ida Albertson (July 24, 1901 – September 28, 1982) was an American actress. Life and career. Albertson was born in Haverhill, Massachusetts, the daughter of Russian-born Jewish immigrants Flora Craft and Leopold Albertson. Her brother was actor Jack Albertson. Albertson's mother, a stock actress, supported the family by working in a shoe factory. Albertson was best known as Phyllis Stephens, Darrin's neurotic, interfering mother on the television sitcom "Bewitched", who invariably ended her stays at the Stephens' home by saying to her husband, "Frank, take me home. I've got another sick headache." A memorable early film role was as a proper banker's wife who is repulsed by the bucolic title characters in "Ma and Pa Kettle at Waikiki" (1955). Albertson appeared in at least one episode of the courtroom drama series, "Perry Mason": as Carrie Wilson in the season 6, 1962 episode entitled "The Case of the Hateful Hero". She also played Donald Hollinger's mother on "That Girl", Howard Sprague's mother on "The Andy Griffith Show," Miss Ramsey on "Hazel", Dick Van Dyke's mother on "The New Dick Van Dyke Show," and Mrs. Van Hoskins, a wealthy woman whose jewels are stolen, in the screwball comedy, "What's Up, Doc?" (1972).
582772	Daraar is a 1996 Hindi thriller film directed by Abbas-Mustan starring Juhi Chawla, Rishi Kapoor and Arbaaz Khan in his film debut. Khan received the Filmfare Best Villain Award for his portrayal as a possessive husband. Synopsis. Vikram (Arbaaz Khan) is an overreactive husband. He can't control his anger and rage and he continuously beats his new wife, Priya (Juhi Chawla). One day Vikram and Priya go to celebrate her birthday on a boat. But the boat gets stuck in a storm and Priya escapes during the mayhem. Vikram thinks that she drowned. Instead, she runs away to Shimla.
1102394	Ferdinand Gotthold Max Eisenstein (16 April 1823 – 11 October 1852) was a German mathematician. He specialized in number theory and analysis, and proved several results that eluded even Gauss. Like Galois and Abel before him, Eisenstein died before the age of 30. He was born and died in Berlin, Prussia. Early life. He was born into Jewish family, and his parents were Johan Konstantin Eisenstein and Helene Pollack. Before Gotthold, their first child, was born, they had converted from Judaism to become Protestants. From an early age, he demonstrated talent in mathematics and music. As a young child he learned to play piano, and he continued to play and compose for piano throughout his life. He suffered various health problems throughout his life, including meningitis as an infant, a disease which took the lives of all five of his brothers and sisters. In 1837, at the age of 14, he enrolled at Friedrich Wilhelm Gymnasium, and soon thereafter at Friedrich Werder Gymnasium in Berlin. His teachers recognized his talents in mathematics, but by 15 years of age he had already learned all the material taught at the school. He then began to study differential calculus from the works of Leonhard Euler and Joseph-Louis Lagrange. At 17, still a student, Eisenstein began to attend classes given by Peter Gustav Lejeune Dirichlet and others at the University of Berlin. In 1842, before taking his final exams, he traveled with his mother to England, to search for his father. In 1843 he met William Rowan Hamilton in Dublin, who gave him a copy of his book on Niels Henrik Abel's proof of the impossibility of solving fifth degree polynomials, a work which would stimulate Eisenstein's interest in mathematical research. Five remarkable years. In 1843 Eisenstein returned to Berlin, where he passed his graduation exams and enrolled in the University the following autumn. In January 1844 he had already presented his first work to the Berlin Academy, on cubic forms in two variables. The same year he met for the first time with Alexander von Humboldt, who would later become Eisenstein's patron. Humboldt managed to find grants from the King, the government of Prussia, and the Berlin academy to compensate for Eisenstein's extreme poverty. The monies, always late and grudgingly given, were earned in full measure by Eisenstein: in 1844 alone he published over 23 papers and two problems in Crelle's Journal, including two proofs of the law of quadratic reciprocity, and the analogous laws of cubic reciprocity and quartic reciprocity. In June 1844 Eisenstein visited Carl Friedrich Gauss in Göttingen. In 1845, Kummer saw to it that he received an honorary doctorate at the University of Breslau. Jacobi also encouraged the distinction, but later relations between Jacobi and Eisenstein were always rocky, due primarily to a disagreement over the order of discoveries made in 1846. In 1847 Eisenstein habilitated at the University of Berlin, and he began to teach there. Bernhard Riemann attended his classes on elliptic functions. Imprisonment and death. In 1848 Eisenstein was imprisoned briefly by the Prussian army for his revolutionary activities in Berlin. Eisenstein always had republican sympathies, and while he did not actively participate in the revolution of 1848, he was arrested on 19 March of that year. Although he was released just one day later, the harsh treatment he suffered damaged his already delicate health. But his association with the Republican cause led to his official stipends being revoked, despite Humboldt's tenaciously coming to his defense. Despite his health, Eisenstein continued writing paper after paper on quadratic partitions of prime numbers and the reciprocity laws. In 1851, at the instigation of Gauss, he was elected to the Academy of Göttingen; one year later, this time at the recommendation of Dirichlet, he was also elected to the Academy of Berlin. He died of tuberculosis at the age of 29. Humboldt, then 83, accompanied his remains to the cemetery. He had recently obtained, too late, as it turned out, the funding necessary to send Eisenstein on holiday to Sicily. Purported Gauss quote. E. T. Bell in his 1937 book Men of Mathematics (page 237) claims that Gauss said "There have been but three epoch-making mathematicians, Archimedes, Newton, and Eisenstein", and this has been widely quoted in writings about Eisenstein. This is not a quote by Gauss, but is (a translation of) the end of a sentence from the biography of Eisenstein by , one of Gauss's last students and a historian of mathematics, who was summarizing his recollection of a remark made by Gauss about Eisenstein in a conversation many years earlier. Although it is doubtful that Gauss really put Eisenstein in the same league as Newton, his writings show that Gauss thought very highly of Eisenstein. For example, a letter from Gauss to Humboldt dated 1846 April 14 says that Eisenstein's talent is one that nature bestows only a few times a century ("welche die Natur in jedem Jahrhundert nur wenigen erteilt").
1018361	Mr. Majestyk is a 1974 American action film directed by Richard Fleischer and starring Charles Bronson. The film is from an original screenplay written by Elmore Leonard (who wrote the novelization based on the movie). (The title character's last name was taken by Leonard from a character in his 1969 crime novel The Big Bounce.) Plot. Vince Majestyk (Charles Bronson) is a former U. S. Army Ranger instructor and Vietnam War veteran who now owns a remote watermelon farm in rural Colorado. He needs to harvest his crop in order to keep the farm financially solvent. A small-time hoodlum, Bobby Kopas (Paul Koslo), attempts to coerce Majestyk into a protection racket of using unskilled drunks to harvest his watermelon crop. Majestyk runs Kopas off (with his own shotgun) and instead hires skilled Mexican migrant workers, including Nancy Chavez (Linda Cristal), a crops picker union leader, with whom Majestyk begins a relationship. Kopas brings assault charges against him, however, causing Majestyk to be arrested and taken to the local jail. There he meets Frank Renda (Al Lettieri), a notorious mob hit man being transferred to a higher-security prison. Renda's men try to break him out of police custody during a prisoner movement in a bus. In the escape attempt, Majestyk drives off in the bus with Renda still in handcuffs. Majestyk plans on trading Renda back to the police so that he can finish his harvest. Renda offers his captor $25,000 for his freedom but Majestyk just wants to get back to his melons. With the help of his lawyer girlfriend Wiley (Lee Purcell), Renda escapes from Majestyk. He meets up with his right-hand man Lundy and plans his revenge on Majestyk. The violent Renda is advised to fly to Mexico to elude a police dragnet looking for him, but he is blinded by his desire for revenge. He tells his men to find the "melon picker" so that he can have the satisfaction of killing him personally. Rather than being afraid, Majestyk turns the tables. He sets a trap at Renda's cabin hideout. Renda betrays his own men, leading to Lundy's death and to Kopas being captured, prior to a final showdown between Majestyk and Renda.
1503715	Debra Monk (born February 27, 1949) is an American actress, singer, and writer. Monk was born in Middletown, Ohio. She was voted "best personality" by the graduating class at Wheaton High School in Silver Spring, Maryland. She graduated from Frostburg State University in 1973. In 1975, Monk received a Master of Fine Arts degree from Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas.
1043770	Alan Fernand Badel (; 11 September 1923 – 19 March 1982) was a distinguished English stage actor who also appeared frequently in the cinema, radio and television and was noted for his richly textured voice which was once described as "the sound of tears". Early life. Badel was born in Rusholme, Manchester, Lancashire and was educated at Burnage High School, Burnage (Manchester) and fought with the French Resistance during the Second World War. Career. In his early career, he played leading parts, including Romeo and Hamlet, with the Old Vic and Stratford companies.
1039600	Fiona Mary Shaw, CBE (née Wilson, born 10 July 1958) is an Irish actress and theatre director. Although to international audiences she is primarily known for her role as Petunia Dursley in the "Harry Potter" films or her role portraying Marnie Stonebrook in the HBO series "True Blood", she is an accomplished classical actress. Shaw was awarded an honorary CBE in 2001. Early life. Shaw was born in County Cork, Ireland to a mixed-religious couple, and was raised Roman Catholic. Her father was an optic surgeon and her mother was a physicist. She attended secondary school at Scoil Mhuire in Cork City. She received her degree in University College Cork. She trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) in London and was part of 'new wave’ of actors to emerge from the Academy. She received much acclaim as Julia in the National Theatre production of Richard Sheridan's "The Rivals" (1983). Career. Her notable theatrical roles include Young Woman in "Machinal", Celia in "As You Like It" (1984), Madame de Volanges in "Les Liaisons Dangereuses" (1985), Katherine in "The Taming of the Shrew" (1987), Winnie in "Happy Days" (2007), and the title roles in "Electra" (1988), "The Good Person of Sechuan" (1989), "Hedda Gabler" (1991), "The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie" (1998) and "Medea" (2000). She performed T. S. Eliot's poem "The Waste Land" as a one-person show at the Liberty Theatre in New York to great acclaim in 1996, winning the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding One-Person Show for her performance. Shaw notably played the male lead in "Richard II", directed by Deborah Warner in 1995. Shaw has collaborated with Warner on a number of occasions, on both stage and screen. Shaw has also worked in film and television, including "My Left Foot", "Jane Eyre", "Persuasion", "Gormenghast", and five of the "Harry Potter" films in which she played Harry Potter's insufferable aunt Petunia Dursley. Shaw had a brief but key role in Brian DePalma's "The Black Dahlia". In 2008, she directed her first opera, "Riders to the Sea" by Vaughan Williams at the ENO and in 2010 her second Elegy for Young Lovers by Hans Werner Henze. In 2009, Shaw collaborated with Deborah Warner again, taking the lead role in Tony Kushner's translation of Bertolt Brecht's "Mother Courage and Her Children". In a 2002 article for "The Daily Telegraph", Rupert Christiansen described their professional relationship as "surely one of the most richly creative partnerships in theatrical history." Other collaborations between the two women include productions of Brecht's "The Good Woman of Szechuan" and Ibsen's "Hedda Gabler", the latter was adapted for television. Shaw appeared in "The Waste Land" at Wilton's Music Hall in January 2010 and in a National Theatre revival of "London Assurance" in March 2010. In November 2010, Shaw starred in Ibsen's "John Gabriel Borkman" at the Abbey Theatre, Dublin alongside Alan Rickman and Lindsay Duncan. Shaw appeared in season four of American TV Show "True Blood". Shaw’s character, Marnie Stonebrook, has been described as an underachieving palm reader who is spiritually possessed by an actual witch. Her character leads a coven of necromancer witches who threaten the status quo in Bon Temps, erasing most of Eric Northman's memories and leaving him almost helpless when he tries to kill her and break up their coven. For this role, Fiona used a soft Southern accent. In 2012, Shaw appeared in the National Theatre revival of "Scenes from an Execution" by Howard Barker.
1034530	Bernard Cribbins, OBE (born 29 December 1928) is an English character actor, voice-over artist and musical comedian with a career spanning over half a century. He came to prominence in films of the 1960s, and has been in work consistently since his professional debut in the mid-1950s. Cribbins is particularly well known to British audiences as the narrator in "The Wombles", a BBC children's television programme that ran for 40 episodes between 1973 and 1975. He also recorded several successful novelty records in the early 1960s and was a regular and prolific performer on the BBC's "Jackanory" from 1966 to 1991. Cribbins is well known for his role as Wilfred Mott, a companion of the Tenth Doctor in "Doctor Who". Early life. Born in Derker, Oldham, Lancashire, Cribbins served an apprenticeship at the Oldham Repertory Theatre, taking a break during his years of study to undertake national service with the Parachute Regiment in his late teens. Early stage and record career. Cribbins made his first West End theatre appearance in 1956 at the Arts Theatre, playing the two Dromios in "A Comedy of Errors", and co-starred in the first West End productions of "Not Now Darling", "There Goes the Bride" and "Run for Your Wife". He also starred in the revue "And Another Thing", and recorded a single of a song from the show titled "Folksong". In 1962 he recorded two comic songs, "The Hole in the Ground" (in which an annoyed workman eventually buries a harasser) and "Right Said Fred" (in which three workmen struggle to move a heavy grand piano or similar). Both were produced by George Martin for Parlophone, with music by Ted Dicks and lyrics by Myles Rudge. "Hole in the Ground" reached the top ten in the UK Singles Chart (all chart positions are given below). Films. Cribbins appeared in films from the early 1950s, mainly comedies. His credits include "Two Way Stretch" (1960) and "The Wrong Arm of the Law" (1963) with Peter Sellers, "Crooks in Cloisters" (1964) and three "Carry On" films – "Carry On Jack" (1963), "Carry On Spying" (1964) and "Carry On Columbus" (1992). Other appearances include the second "Doctor Who" film "" (1966), "The Railway Children" (1970, as Mr Albert Perks, the station porter) and the Alfred Hitchcock thriller "Frenzy" (1972, as Felix Forsythe). Later films include "Dangerous Davies – The Last Detective" (1981) and "Blackball" (2003). Narration and voice work. Cribbins was the narrator of the British animated children's TV series "The Wombles" from 1973 to 1975 and also narrated a BBC radio adaptation of "The Wind in the Willows". He was the celebrity storyteller in more episodes of "Jackanory" than any other personality, with a total of 114 appearances between 1966 and 1991. He also narrated the audio tape of the Antonia Barber book "The Mousehole Cat". In the 1960s, he provided the voice of the character Tufty in RoSPA road safety films. He also provided the voice of Buzby, a talking cartoon bird that served as the mascot for the then Post Office, He also appeared reduced to OO gauge scale in adverts for Hornby model trains. Television. Other TV appearances include "The Avengers" (1968), "Fawlty Towers" (1975, as the spoon salesman Mr Hutchinson who is mistaken by the character Basil Fawlty for a hotel inspector), "Worzel Gummidge" (1980), "Shillingbury Tales" (1980) and its spin-off "Cuffy" (1983). Besides voicing "The Wombles", Bernard Cribbins was a well-known regular on BBC children's television in the 1970s as host of performance panel game "Star Turn" and "Star Turn Challenge". These programmes concluded with Cribbins narrating a detective story as recurring character "Ivor Notion", with a script usually by Johnny Ball. Among his later TV appearances are "Dalziel and Pascoe" (1999), "Last of the Summer Wine" (2003), "Coronation Street" (2003, as Wally Bannister) and "Down to Earth" (2005). In 2013, Cribbins starred as Jack in the series "Old Jack's Boat", set in Staithes, and broadcast on the CBeebies channel at the start of the year. This featured Helen Lederer, Janine Duvitski and former Doctor Who companion Freema Agyeman in supporting roles. Although Freema Agyeman and Bernard Cribbins both played companions and supporting characters during David Tennant's tenure in Doctor Who (appearing in six episodes together), Old Jack's Boat marks the first time the two actors have appeared together on screen. Later stage career. Cribbins' later theatre credits include the roles of Nathan Detroit in "Guys and Dolls" at the National Theatre, Moonface Martin in "Anything Goes" with Elaine Paige at the Prince Edward Theatre, Dolittle in "My Fair Lady" at the Houston Opera House, Texas, and Watty Watkins in George Gershwin's "Lady, Be Good" at the Regent's Park Open Air Theatre and on tour. He has also appeared in numerous pantomimes. "Doctor Who". Cribbins returned to the world of "Doctor Who" in 2006 when a photograph of him at a wedding appeared on the BBC's tie-in website for the episode "Tooth and Claw". In January 2007 he had a guest role as glam rock promoter Arnold Korns in "Horror of Glam Rock", a "Doctor Who" radio play for BBC Radio 7. That December he appeared as Wilfred Mott in the Christmas television special, "Voyage of the Damned"; he then appeared in a recurring capacity as the same character for the 2008 series, as the grandfather of companion Donna Noble. He became a Tenth Doctor companion himself in "The End of Time", the two-part 2009–10 Christmas and New Year special. Cribbins's role as Mott makes him unique, as he is the only actor to have been featured alongside the Doctor's enemies, the Daleks, in both the TV and cinema versions of "Doctor Who". Honours. In 2009 Cribbins was honoured for his work in children's television with a Special Award at the British Academy Children's Awards which was presented by former co-star Catherine Tate, who portrayed his character's granddaughter in "Doctor Who". Cribbins was made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2011 Birthday Honours for services to drama.
1056699	The V.I.P.s, also known as Hotel International, is a 1963 British drama film. It was directed by Anthony Asquith, produced by Anatole de Grunwald and distributed by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. The film was written by Terence Rattigan, with a music score by Miklós Rózsa. It has an all-star cast including Richard Burton, Elizabeth Taylor, Louis Jourdan, Elsa Martinelli, Maggie Smith, Rod Taylor, Orson Welles and Margaret Rutherford, who won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress as well as the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress – Motion Picture. Plot. The film is set within Terminal 2 of London Heathrow Airport during a fog. As flights are delayed, the VIPs (very important people) of the title play out the drama of their lives in a number of slightly interconnected stories. The delays have caused serious hardship for most of the characters and have plunged some of them into a deep personal or financial crisis. The central story concerns famed actress Frances Andros trying to leave her husband, millionaire Paul Andros, and fly away with her lover Marc Champselle. Because of the fog, Andros has the opportunity to come to the airport to convince his wife not to leave him. Film producer Max Buda needs to leave London, taking his newest protégée Gloria Gritti with him, by midnight if he is to avoid paying a hefty tax bill. The Duchess of Brighton, meanwhile, is on her way to Florida to take a job which will pay her enough money to save her historic home. Les Mangrum, an Australian businessman, must get to New York City to prevent his business from being sold. His dutiful secretary, Miss Mead, is secretly in love with him. It being a matter of great urgency, she decides to approach Andros and ask him to advance the money which will save Mangrum's company. Background and production. According to Rattigan, this is based on the true story of actress Vivien Leigh's attempt to leave her husband and actor Laurence Olivier and fly off with her lover, the actor Peter Finch, only to be delayed by a fog at Heathrow. Asquith chose Sophia Loren for Andros's role, remembering the box-office success of the romantic comedy film" The Millionairess" (1960) he did with Loren in the main role. However, Taylor, scared by the appeal Loren had on Burton, persuaded Asquith to hire herself; "Let Sophia stay in Rome", she told him. Stringer Davis, Rutherford's husband appears in a tiny role as Mr. Stringer, a sympathetic hotel waiter in a scene with her. Raymond Austin, a stuntman and a friend of Burton's, appears in the film as Andros's driver. Television personality David Frost portrays a reporter interviewing the VIPs at the airport. This was the first time Australian actor Rod Taylor had ever played an Australian character on film. Terence Rattigan allowed him to Australian-ise some of the dialogue. Reaction. Critical reaction to the film was generally poor. It nevertheless did extremely well at the box office, helped by the enormous publicity attached to Burton's and Taylor's previous release, the dramatic epic film "Cleopatra" (1963). The movie grossed $15,000,000 domestically, earning $7.5 million in US theatrical rentals on a budget of $4 million. It was one of the 12 most popular movies in Britain in 1963 and the 10th highest grossing in the United States. The team of Asquith, De Grunwald and Rattigan later produced another portmanteau film, the dramatic composite film "The Yellow Rolls-Royce" (1964).
583257	Ab Ke Baras is a Bollywood film released in the year 2002. It had launched the career of the two newcomers, Amrita Rao and Arya Babbar. Synopsis. U.S. based Anjali Thapar (Amrita Rao) has repeated dreams of a parallel life in India, the temple of Devi Maa Durga, & some sword-wielding men on horseback. She and her mother consult a "pandit", and he advises them to go to India to clear this matter up, as this pertains to her past life. Mr. Thapar will only let Anjali go there after she marries the man of his choice; so Anjali decides to run away. Her father alerts a ruthless CBI Officer Sikander Baksh (Danny Denzongpa), who is soon on her case. Anjali meets with car-thieves, Karan and his uncle (Arya Babbar and Shakti Kapoor respectively), and then begins her journey into a past life, as Nandini, the lover of freedom fighter Abhay (also Arya Babbar), and his subsequent death at the hands of British-aided traitor Tejeshwar Singhal (Ashutosh Rana). Anjali does not know that Tejeshwar is still alive, is a powerful minister in the Indian Government, and has decided that he will make history repeat itself by separating the two lovers again - this time with the help of the government machinery.
1070374	Lawrence Gene "Larry" David (born July 2, 1947) is an American actor, writer, comedian, and television producer. He is best known as the head writer and executive producer of the television series "Seinfeld", from 1989 to 1998, and as its co-creator, with Jerry Seinfeld. David has subsequently gained further recognition for the HBO series "Curb Your Enthusiasm," also created by David, in which he stars as a semi-fictionalized version of himself.
586535	Chain Kulii Ki Main Kulii (Hindi: चेन कुली की मेन कुली) is a 2007 Hindi film directed by Kittu Saluja. It stars Zain Khan and Rahul Bose as the lead protagonists. The film's title is taken from lines spoken by Amitabh Bachchan's character in the 1982 film "Satte Pe Satta". The film is based on the Hollywood movie "Like Mike" in which a thirteen year old boy finds sneakers once belonging to NBA legend Michael Jordan. The film features music by Salim-Sulaiman and lyrics by Irfan Siddiqui. Cricketer Kapil Dev also makes a cameo appearance in the film.
1055625	Ali G Indahouse is a 2002 British comedy film directed by Mark Mylod and starring the fictional character Ali G, who is written and performed by comedian Sacha Baron Cohen. Ali G was originally developed for the Channel 4 series "The 11 O'Clock Show" and "Da Ali G Show". The film was released on DVD in Region 2 in the United Kingdom on 11 November 2002, and in Region 1 in United States and Canada on 2 November 2004. It is the first of three films based on Baron Cohen's characters from "Da Ali G Show", and is followed by "Borat" and "Brüno". Plot. Ali G (Sacha Baron Cohen) is the leader of Da West Staines Massiv, a fictional gang composed of a group of wannabe gangsters from Staines (a suburban town in north Surrey, to the west of London); their chief rivals are Da East Staines Massiv. Ali and Da West Staines Massiv are heartbroken to learn that their beloved local leisure centre (where they like to chill out and also where Ali teaches his "Keep it Real" classes) will be demolished by the local council. Ali and his friends decide to protest this injustice. After he goes on a hunger strike and is spotted chained to some railings by the nefarious Chancellor of the Exchequer/Deputy Prime Minister David Carlton (Charles Dance), he is drawn into a world of seedy political intrigue, as the Deputy Prime Minister tries to use Ali as a tool to destroy the Prime Minister's credibility. Ali is put forward as a candidate to be the next MP for Staines in a crucial by-election and manages to alienate most who cross his path, including feminists and the elderly. During a debate with his rival candidate, Ali tries to insult his rival by claiming that he "sucked off a horse". Unknown to Ali and the public, it turns out that the rival did indeed do such a thing, and trying to explain it away, he claims when he was out hunting with a friend he slipped, and his mouth landed on a horse's penis, which due to the mating season was erect. Ali then wins. Although originally seeming out of his depth as a Member of Parliament, Ali's bizarre behaviour and solutions seem to actually work. He visits a Customs checkpoint in Dover, as a delegate compiling a report (though all he does is consume, steal confiscated pornography and drugs and invite his friends to use them with him). Through ideas such as making more "relatable" education and selectively ensuring the immigration of attractive (or "fit") women into the UK, Ali becomes incredibly popular, meeting the Prime Minister's intentions and bringing his percentage lead in the polls up twenty two percent. With this the Prime Minister offers to save Ali's leisure centre. First though, Ali accompanies the Prime Minister to a United Nations peace conference to avert war between the French-speaking African nations of Chad and Burkina Faso. The United States and Russia back opposite countries and both threaten nuclear attacks. It gets to the point where World War III is almost declared when Ali sneaks into the catering area and puts an entire bag of marijuana, which he had stolen from Customs earlier, into the delegates' tea and orders that they be served it right away. He throws the empty bag into a nearby rubbish bin. A side-effect is that the two opposing presidents become allies (in fact they begin to kiss lovingly). The Prime Minister says that Ali has saved the world. However, Carlton's secretary Kate Hedges figures out what Ali has done and retrieves the empty marijuana bag (which has "Ali's stash. DO NOT NICK" written on the back), which she mails to the press. Upon his return to the UK, Ali is forced to leave parliament. Before the Leisure Centre can be saved, a video emerges of Ali and his girlfriend having sex in the Prime Minister's bedroom at Chequers. As Ali was wearing items of the Prime Minister's clothing at the time, the media believe the video details the Prime Minister with a prostitute, forcing his resignation. This results in Deputy Prime Minister David Carlton being made Prime Minister. Carlton, who despises Ali, orders the destruction of the aforementioned leisure centre. He has also bought all available real estate in Staines in the knowledge that the town is to be destroyed to make way for a new terminal for Heathrow Airport, which will make him super wealthy. After turning down an offer to have sex with Kate Hedges, in exchange for "keeping his mouth shut" about the videotape, Ali and the West Staines Massiv must race against time to find the master copy of the CCTV tape proving the former Prime Minister's innocence, extending the olive branch to all the gangs all over Staines and neighbouring Berkshire (even to the East Staines Massiv) to help them break into the vaults and retrieve the said tape. They do this successfully and manage to reinstate the original Prime Minister, save the Leisure Centre, and all live happily ever after when Ali is posted as the British ambassador to Jamaica. Staines is saved from destruction, with the reinstated Prime Minister declaring that Slough is to be destroyed instead. This film features one of Baron Cohen's other character, Borat Sagdiyev, in a meeting with Ali G, where a double was used for different shots. Reception. The film received mixed reviews and opened to some notably negative reviews from critics; however, it did over the years receive some positive mentions following the success of "Borat" and "Brüno". While some hailed it as a successful low culture comedy, it inspired little of the strong fan enthusiasm associated with "Da Ali G Show" and with Baron Cohen's subsequent film, "Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan".It currently holds a 56% 'Rotten' rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Soundtrack. On 18 March 2002, a soundtrack album for the film was released. Featuring music used in the film, it also featured linking material by Ali G, as if the album was a pirate radio broadcast on Ali's "Drive By FM." It was an enhanced CD, featuring the music video for "Me Julie." Locations. The opening 'gangland' dream sequence was filmed in Los Angeles, with all other scenes photographed in London and Staines.
585126	Morning Raga is an Indian film with most of the dialogue in English, released in 2004. It was directed by Mahesh Dattani and starred Bollywood actresses Shabana Azmi and Perizaad Zorabian, and Telugu actor Prakash Kovelamudi. The film is unusual for its understated acting and extensive use of English, albeit with a generous smattering of Godavari Telugu. "Prasad Devineni" and Shobhu Yarlagadda of Arka Media Works were Line producers for the movie. The film focuses on three main characters - all Telugu - whose lives have each been ruined by past tragedies and how they are united by circumstance. These three are all connected by a love of music, and through this the film explores elements of classical Indian Carnatic music, the raga, and contemporary Indian music. Plot. The story is set deep in the Andhra Pradesh countryside, in the West Godavari. Swarnalata (Shabana Azmi) is a classically trained Carnatic singer who lost her daughter and best friend, Vaishnavi in a bus accident. The story reopens after a period of 20 years, when Vaishnavi's son, Abhinay Prakash Kovelamudi, plans to leave his business of composing jingles with a desire to start a music troupe to compose an everlasting music just like the Charminar, and with these plans returns to his home in his village. His plan irks his father Nasser who wants him to look after the ancestral lands in the village. On the day of Death Anniversary of Vaishnavi, Abhinay spots Swarnalatha, and hears her song "Pibare Ramarasam" in the temple. When Swarnalatha leaves the temple, Abhinay stops her, saying, "you knew my mother" and follows her. The duo reach the bridge when a car comes and hits Abhinay, and the car was being driven by Pinky Perizad Zorabian. Swarnalatha screams and reaches her home, with the 20 years old guilt in her mind that her one step on the bridge caused the accident. Here, the Car gets some glitch and Pinky is compelled to stay for the night in the village. Next morning both Abhinay and Pinky set for Hyderabad to seek the perfect artists for the proposed troop, and they get a guitarist and a drummer Balaji Shaleen Sharma. All land up at Pinky's boutique whose environment irritates Abhinay but somehow Pinky consoles him and the practices start, with a few opportunities coming up their way, but their rock-band does not receive the respect as Abhinay had expected. After a few days Abhinay receives the violin his mother used to play when she was alive. He returns to the village to return the violin to Swarnalatha, saying that both her voice and the sound of the violin are complementary to each other and one cannot exist without one another, and invites her to sing with their troop, for which she refuses saying that she won't come to the village and returns the violin. Swarnalatha's husband asks him to bring his troop to the house on Ganesh Chaturthi day. The troop arrives on the said date and Swarnalatha starts singing "Mahaganapathi Manasa Smarami", but stops in between and sings the sophisticated sargam of the song, for which no compatible music could be played. That evening Abhinay again compels Swarnalatha to sing in the city, but she again refuses, and Abhinay ends the communication with the note that She owes him a lot as he is her best friend's son, after all. Next morning Abhinay's father expresses his dislike in his son's musical career in front of Swarnalatha, and at the same time Swarnalatha agrees to sing for Abhinay in the city. She starts from her house with her husband. On the way their car breaks down and they are forced to take the bus, which crosses the bridge. Swarnalatha starts screaming, stops the bus and starts running and falls ill. Both return to home and her husband reports that she cannot come for singing. Next day Swarnalatha personally calls pinky and asks her to learn Carnatic Music. Pinky learns carnatic music from Swarnalatha. After a few days Abhinay plans a concert, though for Pinky to sing but always urges Swarnalatha to come for singing, but she continues to express her reluctance because she considers the bridge as a punishment for her ambitions. One day, while driving, Pinky gets irked at the repetitive reluctance of Swarnalatha, and speeds up the car and crosses the bridge, and Swarna starts screaming , "Stop the car! We all are going to die". Finally Pinky stops the car and reveals that her father was drunk and was responsible for the accident. The film ends with the concert in which Swarnalatha appears and sings "Thaaye Yashoda" on repeated urging from Pinky, and the concert becomes a 10-week hit. A side plot involving Pinky and her city slicker mother (Lillete Dubey) and the villager Appa Rao with his buffalo Annapoorna add comedy into an otherwise serious and thoughtful film. The film was photographed by Rajiv Menon and edited by A. Sreekar Prasad. Music was composed by Mani Sharma. Production. Shabana Azmi trained intensively in Carnatic music before she was allowed to sing during the film. The house used for her character's home is a historic zamindar country mansion and estate near the West Godavari village of Kulla. Reception. The film received mixed reviews, although the actors generally earned praise for their portrayals. One film critic wrote that, "Morning Raga is one of the most innovative and fresh films to come out of India in recent years". Others criticized it for having a mangled storyline that was as contrived as the rock-layered carnatic soundtrack.
589592	Dharmatama is a 1975 Hindi movie and the first Bollywood film to be shot in Afghanistan. It was produced and directed by Feroz Khan. The movie is the first attempt in India to localise "The Godfather". The title character was based on matka (form of Indian gambling) king Ratan Khatri. It is said that Khan sat down with Khatri to learn more about him and understand the nuances of matka. The cast includes Feroz Khan, Hema Malini, Rekha, Premnath, Imtiaz Khan, Danny Denzongpa, Farida Jalal, Ranjeet, Helen, Madan Puri, Jeevan, Iftekhar and Dara Singh. The music is by Kalyanji Anandji. This film took Feroz Khan to new heights in his career as this was a blockbuster movie. The same year, "Sholay" and "Deewar" were released. The film is also its scenes featuring Buzkashi a Central Asian sport on horses, including aerial shots, which in turn won film's cinematographer, Kamal Bose, Filmfare Award for Best Cinematographer. Synopsis. Wealthy, powerful and influential Seth Dharamdas (Prem Nath) leads a financially secure life in a palatial bungalow. He is known to come help people who are beyond any hope of assistance, and this leads to him being known as "Dharmatma". But Seth Dharamdas does have a number of skeletons in his closet and a parallel life as a gangster and a matka king. The only person whom he dislikes and fears is his own son Ranbir (Feroz Khan). After a heated argument over Dharmatma's matka business, Ranbir leaves home for Afghanistan, where he stays with his uncle and manages his business. One day in a forest while riding a horse, he finds a nomadic man named Jankura (Danny Denzongpa) and a woman named Reshma (Hema Malini) fighting. He defends beautiful Reshma and falls for her. Reshma too falls for him. Meanwhile in India, his sister Mona (Farida Jalal) is all set to marry Kundan, son of their father's old friend. She writes to Ranbir to attend her wedding and give them his blessings. Ranbir accepts her invitation and arrives at the venue. The marriage commences and Mona departs after the ceremony. While in the car, she gifts her husband a steel ring with "I Love You" inscribed on it. Ranbir leaves for Afghanistan. He proposes to Reshma, which she accepts. Her foster-father also reluctantly agrees to their marriage. A fortune-teller there predicts that Reshma will bring death to Ranbir which has Reshma worried. Meanwhile in India, a business-rival by the name of 'Anokhelal' proposes a narcotics deal to Dharmatma, which he refuses. His son-in-law tries to force him to accept the scheme but is unsuccessful. Dharmatma recognises the nature of his son-in-law and apologises for his mistake of letting her daughter marry him. He misses Ranbir and orders his assistant Vikram Singh (Iftekhar) to bring Ranbir back from Afghanistan. Vikram Singh agrees but on the way he is kidnapped by Anokhelal's sons Natwar and Rishi, and his brother Biradar. In Afghanistan, Ranbir and Reshma prepare for their marriage. On the day of the wedding, they leave for the temple. While in the temple, Natwar and Rishi plant a bomb in their jeep which will explode once the car is started. After praying, Reshma starts the jeep and it explodes, killing Reshma leaving Ranbir heart-broken. Natwar and Rishi attack a matka centre of Dharmatma, injuring him and Kundan. They order a nurse to help Kundan in killing Dharmatma. In Afghanistan, Ranbir gets the news of attack on his father and returns to India. Kundan kills Dharmatma assisted by the nurse but loses his ring given to him by his wife. Ranbir arrives and finds that his father is dead. He promises to his father that he will find out his murderer and punish him. Some days later, Ranbir with Sonia, a childhood friend who secretly loves him, goes out for a drive where he is attacked by goons sent by Anokhelal. The doctor who operated on his father gives him the ring which he found in Dharmatma's hand and tells him that his father died from suffocation. Ranbir suspects an hospital employee to be a part of the conspiracy and asks the doctor about the nurse on duty that night. He visits her house only to find her killed by Natwar and Rishi. He tries the ring on her hand but it doesn't fit. Kundan arrives and lies to him that Vikram Singh and asks Ranbir to kill Vikram Singh. Meanwhile, at Anokhelal's place, they raise a toast for dead Dharmatma. Ranbir arrives there. Kundan, Natwar and Rishi hide upstairs and position a sniper to kill Ranbir. Downstairs, Ranbir accepts the drug deal which his father declined and provides them with 50 lakhs but on a condition that they will give him Vikram Singh, dead or alive, to which Anokhelal agrees. Anokhelal signals Natwar to stop Kundan from firing at Ranbir, which makes Kundan very angry. He returns home, drunk with a prostitute which makes Mona furious. Drunk Kundan gets angry and beats Mona. Ranbir comes to know about this and gets furious. He arrives at their place and beats Kundan but Mona stops him pleading him not to make her a widow. Kidnapped Vikram Singh is killed by Anokhelal. Then they take his dead body in a coffin and meet Ranbir in a church burying ground. Ranbir tries the ring on Vikram Singh but it doesn't fit. Then Anokhelal laughs at him and confessing that he got his father killed. His hidden goons try to kill Ranbir but cops present already saved him, killing Anokhelal and his brother Biradar but Ranbir is injured during that. He thanks cops for saving his life and departs. At his place, while bandaging his wounds, Sonia asks him to leave this place and travel to a safer place to which he disagrees. After which Mona arrives, tying rakhi to Ranbir's wrist. She sees the steel ring in Ranbir's hands and saying that she given one to Kundan but he has lost it. Ranbir realises that Kundan is the main culprit in the death of his father. He wants to kill him but is in a fix because he does not to make his sister a widow. Mona and Kundan return home where they find Natwar and Rishi already present. Kundan signals Mona to go upstairs. Natwar and Rishi blackmail Kundan that they will expose that he was the main culprit behind his father-in-law's death. They demand him to find a path for Ranbir's death. Mona hears this conversation and informs about this to Ranbir. Kundan sees her doing all this. Ranbir and Shakti Singh (Dara Singh), a top henchman of his father, arrive at their place and find Mona dead. A mourning Ranbir receives a call from Kundan asking Ranbir to meet him at his hideout in Madh Island. Meanwhile he plans to kill him and Shakti Singh. Ranbir accepts and arrives there only to find a bunch of goons with machine guns there to kill him and Shakti Singh. Kundan lands in helicopter a hilly place with a small cottage where Natwar and Rishi are present. They ask him about their safehouse to which he says that a ship in the sea waiting for their arrival and then he asks them about the narcotics. They reply that it is in cottage. He asks its worth to which they reply that it is full 50 lacs. Then he kills them and takes the carton of drugs from cottage back to the helicopter where he finds Ranbir. He is astonished to see him alive and confesses him about the plan according to which he killed his father. Then he is forced to commit suicide by Ranbir by jumping of from the hill. After that, Ranbir closes all Matka rackets across the world which was led by his father and hands over all the black money earned by his father to the police. He leaves with his mother and Sonia, now his wife, to Afghanistan to continue his old work there. Soundtrack. Kalyanji Anandji had composed all the songs of "Dharmatma". This was their second collaboration with Feroz Khan after Apradh. Indeevar penned the lyrics. The music of the film had a fusion of Afghani Music and Western Music. The songs of the film became superhits.
584579	Paravai Muniyamma (born 1943) is a Tamil folk singer and actress who prominently plays supporting roles. Appearing in many Tamil films, she has also sung playback in films as well as having her own cook show on Kalaignar TV. Muniyamma's career started off with a role in "Dhool", which garnered her a cult status. Since then she has appeared in over fifty films, usually playing grandmother roles. The lady has completed 2,000 stage performances on folk songs, which also includes shows in London, Singapore and Malaysia. Filmography. 1. "Dhool" 2. "Kadhal Sadugudu"
1657617	The Cross and the Switchblade is a book written in 1962 by pastor David Wilkerson with John and Elizabeth Sherrill. It tells the true story of Wilkerson's first five years in New York City, where he ministered to disillusioned youth, encouraging them to turn away from the drugs and gang violence they were involved with. The book became a best seller, with more than 16 million copies distributed in over 30 languages. In 1970, a film adaptation was released, starring Pat Boone as David Wilkerson and Erik Estrada (in his screen debut) as Nicky Cruz, the teen gang member whose life was transformed by Wilkerson's ministry. The film has been viewed by an estimated 50 million people in over 30 languages in 150 countries, according to World Film Crusade. In 1972, the book was adapted into a comic book published by Fawcett Comics under their Spire Christian Comics label. In 1968, Cruz wrote the book "Run Baby Run" with Jamie Buckingham, telling the story of his life including coming to New York and being in the gang, and subsequently meeting Wilkerson and thereafter becoming an Evangelical Christian.
393994	The Divine Weapon () is a 2008 South Korean film. Plot. During the reign of King Sejong the Great, Joseon Korea faces increasing hostility from Ming China. Ming China, without restraint, mounts unrelenting demands against the Korean crown, further entrenching distrust and aversion to subservience. Ming China has especially been provoked by a leaked news that Korea had under way an arms development program that would undermine theirs. Mounting pressure by threat of invasion and sending down Emperor's commands requesting young Korean girls to be sent to China, to reduce Korea's manpower and debilitate its military capacity, the grip around the throat becomes ever tighter. It seems Joseon's fate is dependent on completing an unfinished project - that of making Singijeon or the Divine Weapon a reality. In the final battle, severely outnumbered Korean forces (less than 100 men) successfully defeat the thousands of Ming Chinese in armed combat with spears, bombs, and several finished Singijeon via several hwachas. Thousands of Ming Chinese footsoldiers are killed as the arrows in the Singijeon are launched. More are killed with the gunpowder packed inside the arrows(Standard Singeijeons). Those in the Ming Chinese army who remained are finished off with the large model Singijeons (대신기전,Grand Singijeon), except one of the nobles who prefers peace over warfare. Release. "The Divine Weapon" was released in South Korea on 4 September 2008, topping the box office on its opening weekend with 630,257 admissions. It led the box office for a further two weeks, and as of 9 November had accumulated a total of 3,749,611 admissions As of 16 November, the film had grossed a total of $19,991,573. making it the seventh most popular domestic film that year. Reception. The film has been criticized by Chinese audiences for alleged historical inaccuracies. Awards and Nominations. 2008 Blue Dragon Film Awards 2009 Grand Bell Awards 2008 Korean Film Awards
958930	Colin Maclaurin (February 1698 – 14 June 1746) was a Scottish mathematician who made important contributions to geometry and algebra. The Maclaurin series, a special case of the Taylor series, is named after him. Owing to changes in orthography since that time (his name was originally rendered as "e.g." "M'Laurine"), his surname is alternatively written MacLaurin. In Gaelic the name is "Cailean MacLabhruinn", which is literally 'Colin, the son of Laurence.' Early life. Maclaurin was born in Kilmodan, Argyll. His father, Reverend and Minister of Glendaruel John Maclaurin, died when Maclaurin was in infancy, and his mother died before he reached nine years of age. He was then educated under the care of his uncle, the Reverend Daniel Maclaurin, minister of Kilfinan. Academic career. At eleven, Maclaurin entered the University of Glasgow. He graduated MA three years later by defending a thesis on "the Power of Gravity," and remained at Glasgow to study divinity until he was 19, when he was elected professor of mathematics in a ten-day competition at the Marischal College in the University of Aberdeen. He would hold the record as the world's youngest professor until March 2008, when the record was officially given to Alia Sabur. In the vacations of 1719 and 1721, Maclaurin went to London, where he became acquainted with Sir Isaac Newton, Dr. Hoadley, Dr. Samuel Clarke, Martin Folkes, and other eminent philosophers. He was admitted a member of the Royal Society. In 1722, having provided a substitute for his class at Aberdeen, he traveled on the Continent as tutor to George Hume, the son of Alexander Hume, 2nd Earl of Marchmont. During their time in Lorraine, he wrote his essay on the "Percussion of Bodies", which would gain the prize of the Royal Academy of Sciences in 1724. Upon the death of his pupil at Montpellier, Maclaurin returned to Aberdeen. In 1725 Maclaurin was appointed deputy to the mathematical professor at Edinburgh, James Gregory (brother of David Gregory and nephew of the esteemed James Gregory), upon the recommendation of Isaac Newton. On 3 November of that year Maclaurin would succeed Gregory, and be credited with raising the character of that university as a school of science. Newton was so impressed with Maclaurin that he had offered to pay his salary himself. Contributions to mathematics. Maclaurin used Taylor series to characterize maxima, minima, and points of inflection for infinitely differentiable functions in his "Treatise of Fluxions". Maclaurin attributed the series to Taylor, though the series was known before to Newton and Gregory, and in special cases to Madhava of Sangamagrama in fourteenth century India. Nevertheless, Maclaurin received credit for his use of the series, and the Taylor series expanded around 0 is sometimes known as the "Maclaurin series" . Maclaurin also made significant contributions to the gravitation attraction of ellipsoids, a subject that furthermore attracted the attention of d'Alembert, A.-C. Clairaut, Euler, Laplace, Legendre, Poisson and Gauss. Maclaurin showed that an oblate spheroid was a possible equilibrium in Newton's theory of gravity. The subject continues to be of scientific interest, and Nobel Laureate Subramanyan Chandrasekhar dedicated a chapter of his book "Ellipsoidal Figures of Equilibrium" to Maclaurin spheroids.
1059184	James Fox (born William Fox, 19 May 1939) is an English actor. Early life. Fox was born in London, England to theatrical agent Robin Fox and actress Angela Worthington. He is the brother of actor Edward Fox and film producer Robert Fox. Actress Emilia Fox is his niece and the actor Laurence Fox is his son. His grandfather was playwright Frederick Lonsdale. Like his brother, Fox served with the Coldstream Guards. Like several members of the Fox family, including his brothers and his son, James was educated at Harrow School. Acting career. James Fox first appeared on film in "The Miniver Story" in 1950. His other early film appearances were made under the name William Fox. During the 1960s he gained popularity and appeared to be heading for stardom. In 1964, he won a BAFTA Award for Most Promising Newcomer for his role in "The Servant" (1963). His roles in films such as "Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines" (1965), "King Rat" (1965), "The Chase" (1966), "Thoroughly Modern Millie" (1967), "Isadora" (1968), and "Performance" (1970) (alongside Mick Jagger), as well as his relationship with actress Sarah Miles, had made him a media personality. Spiritual life and break from acting. After finishing work on "Performance", and following his father's death, Fox suspended his acting career. The strain of filming, his father's death and smoking the hallucinogen DMT led to a nervous breakdown. On his break from acting, Fox has commented that "eople think "Performance" blew my mind... my mind was blown long before that." He has also said that: ""Performance" gave me doubts about my way of life. Before that I had been completely involved in the more bawdy side of the film business. But after that everything changed." In a 2008 interview, he said: "It was just part of my journey...I think my journey was to spend a while away from acting. And I never lost contact with it - watching movies, reading about it ... so I didn't feel I missed it." He became an evangelical Christian, working with The Navigators and devoting himself to the ministry. During this time, the only film in which Fox appeared was "No Longer Alone" (1978), the story of a suicidal woman saved by Christianity. Return to acting. After an absence of almost ten years from mainstream cinema, Fox gradually returned to the screen, appearing in Stephen Poliakoff's "Runners" (1983), "A Passage to India" (1984), and playing Anthony Blunt in the acclaimed BBC play by Alan Bennett, "A Question of Attribution" (1992). He also portrayed the character of Colonel Ferguson in "Farewell to the King". More recently, he has appeared in the 2001 adaption of "The Lost World" as Prof. Leo Summerlee, "Agatha Christie's Poirot - Death on the Nile" (2004) as Colonel Race and "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" (2005) playing Mr. Salt, Veruca Salt's father. He appeared in the "Doctor Who" audio drama "Shada", and in 2007, he guest-starred in the British television crime series "Waking the Dead". He also appeared opposite his son Laurence Fox in "Allegory of Love", an episode in the third season of "Lewis". He was part of the cast of "Sherlock Holmes", as Sir Thomas, leading member of a freemason-like secret society. In 2010, he filmed "Cleanskin", a terrorist thriller directed by Hadi Hajaig, and in 2011 he played King George V in Madonna's film "W.E."
519940	Maxene Sofia Maria Arroyo Magalona (born November 23, 1986 in Manila, Philippines) is a Filipina actress who is currently under GMA 7 channel. She is known for her portrayal as Vivian Salvador in the GMA's soap "My Lover, My Wife" and Donna Vallejo on "Daddy Di Do Du". Personal life. Maxene was born in Sta. Elena, Philippines. Her father is the late Filipino rapper Francis Magalona and her grandparents are the late actors Pancho Magalona and Tita Duran. Pia Arroyo-Magalona is her mother and her sister is Saab who also joined showbiz in 2007, and recently her younger brother Elmo Magalona also joined showbiz this year in Party Pilipinas, Pilyang Kerubin and also in Kaya ng Powers. She graduated from the Ateneo de Manila University on March 2010 with a Social Sciences bachelor's degree, although she didn't attend the graduation ceremonies due to personal reasons. Career. Her first show as a child was the ABS-CBN kiddie show "Ang TV" followed by "5 & Up". Then in 2001, she made her appearance in "Daddy Di Do Du" in which she worked with Vic Sotto. In 2004, the role of Alwina in "Mulawin" was originally given to her, but she had to turn down the offer as she was about to start college at the time. It was later given to Angel Locsin. To date, her biggest break on television is when she was chosen to be one of Richard Gutierrez's leading ladies in "Kamandag". After Kamandag, Maxene played Jessa, originally played by Sharon Cuneta, in "Sine Novela: Una Kang Naging Akin" opposite Wendell Ramos and Angelika dela Cruz. In 2009, Magalona joined the cast of "", opposite Marvin Agustin and Geoff Eigenmann. Maxene also starred on Sine Novela: Kung Aagawin Mo Man Ang Lahat Sa Akin with JC Tiuseco, Glaiza de Castro and Patrick Garcia. In 2010, she joined with the cast of "Sine Novela Presents: Trudis Liit", with her co-stars Pauline Luna, Mike Tan, Gina Alajar, & new child actress Jillian Ward. Then on February 2011, she starred on GMA 7 afternoon drama show, "My Lover, My Wife". In 2013, Magalona joined the GMA's up-coming television pilot "Mga Basang Sisiw" playing Vicky Montalban, the main antagonist of the series.
1058156	Brittany Anne Snow (born March 9, 1986) is an American television and film actress and singer. She began her career as Susan "Daisy" Lemay on the CBS series "Guiding Light" (1998–2002) for which she won a Young Artist Award for Best Young Actress and was nominated for two other Young Artist Awards and a Soap Opera Digest Award. She then played the protagonist Meg Pryor on the NBC series "American Dreams" (2002–2005) for which she was nominated for a Young Artist Award and three Teen Choice Awards.
585623	Mullavalliyum Thenmavum is a 2003 Malayalam film starring Kunchacko Boban and Chaya Singh. Synopsis. Shelly (Kunchako Boban) and his girlfriend, Rajasree (Chaya Singh) are in love, but Rajasree's mother is against their romance, since Shelly is a Christian and an orphan. They elope with the help of Shelly's uncle Dr. Alex (Lalu Alex). Rajasree decides that they will not begin a physical relationship until her mother approves the marriage. She said she is giving her mother one year to change her mind. Initially her mother is against the marriage, but as the year ends, she relents. On that day, Shelly falls from the sculpture which he was making and is paralysed. He asks Rajasree to leave him and have a good life, but she refuses. Dr. Alex brings an artist named Andre (Indrajith) to finish Shelly's sculpture. Andre is soon joined by his girlfriend Eva (Geethu Mohandas). Rajasree does not like them because of their strange behaviour. One day Andre tries to rape Rajasree in front of the paralysed Shelly. Shelly cries in agony, and finally he stands up and fights Andre. Shelly then recovers fully. He learns that Dr. Alex suggested that Andre provoke him, hoping to trigger the change. Songs. The songs were penned by Gireesh Puthenchery and were composed by Ouseppachan.
1100545	Alan Mathison Turing, OBE, FRS ( ; 23 June 1912 – 7 June 1954), was an English mathematician, logician, cryptanalyst, and computer scientist. He was highly influential in the development of computer science, giving a formalisation of the concepts of "algorithm" and "computation" with the Turing machine, which can be considered a model of a general purpose computer. Turing is widely considered to be the father of computer science and artificial intelligence. During World War II, Turing worked for the Government Code and Cypher School (GC&CS) at Bletchley Park, Britain's codebreaking centre. For a time he was head of Hut 8, the section responsible for German naval cryptanalysis. He devised a number of techniques for breaking German ciphers, including the method of the bombe, an electromechanical machine that could find settings for the Enigma machine. After the war, he worked at the National Physical Laboratory, where he designed the ACE, one of the first designs for a stored-program computer. In 1948 Turing joined Max Newman's Computing Laboratory at Manchester University, where he assisted in the development of the Manchester computers and became interested in mathematical biology. He wrote a paper on the chemical basis of morphogenesis, and predicted oscillating chemical reactions such as the Belousov–Zhabotinsky reaction, which were first observed in the 1960s. Turing's homosexuality resulted in a criminal prosecution in 1952, when homosexual acts were still illegal in the United Kingdom. He accepted treatment with female hormones (chemical castration) as an alternative to prison. Turing died in 1954, just over two weeks before his 42nd birthday, from cyanide poisoning. An inquest determined that his death was suicide; his mother and some others believed his death was accidental. On 10 September 2009, following an Internet campaign, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown made an official public apology on behalf of the British government for "the appalling way he was treated." In May 2012, a private member's bill was put before the House of Lords to grant Turing a statutory pardon. In July 2013 it gained government support. Early life and career. Turing was born in London while his father was on leave from his position with the Indian Civil Service (ICS) at Chhatrapur, Odisha, in British India. Turing's father, Julius Mathison Turing (1873–1947), was the son of a clergyman from a Scottish family of merchants which had been based in the Netherlands and included a baronet. Julius's wife, Alan's mother, was Ethel Sara (née Stoney; 1881–1976), daughter of Edward Waller Stoney, chief engineer of the Madras Railways. The Stoneys were a Protestant Anglo-Irish gentry family from both County Tipperary and County Longford, while Ethel herself had spent much of her childhood in County Clare. Julius' work with the ICS brought the family to British India, where his grandfather had been a general in the Bengal Army. However, both Julius and Ethel wanted their children to be brought up in England, so they moved to Maida Vale, London, where Turing was born on 23 June 1912, as recorded by a blue plaque on the outside of the house of his birth, later the Colonnade Hotel. He had an elder brother, John (the father of Sir John Dermot Turing, 12th Baronet of the Turing baronets). His father's civil service commission was still active, and during Turing's childhood years his parents travelled between Hastings in England and India, leaving their two sons to stay with a retired Army couple. Very early in life, Turing showed signs of the genius he was later to display prominently. His parents purchased a house in Guildford in 1927, and Turing lived there during school holidays. The location is also marked with a blue plaque. His parents enrolled him at St Michael's, a day school at 20 Charles Road, St Leonards-on-Sea, at the age of six. The headmistress recognised his talent early on, as did many of his subsequent educators. In 1926, at the age of 13, he went on to Sherborne School, a well known independent school in the market town of Sherborne in Dorset. The first day of term coincided with the 1926 General Strike in Britain, but so determined was he to attend that he rode his bicycle unaccompanied more than from Southampton to Sherborne, stopping overnight at an inn. Turing's natural inclination toward mathematics and science did not earn him respect from some of the teachers at Sherborne, whose definition of education placed more emphasis on the classics. His headmaster wrote to his parents: "I hope he will not fall between two stools. If he is to stay at public school, he must aim at becoming "educated". If he is to be solely a "Scientific Specialist", he is wasting his time at a public school". Despite this, Turing continued to show remarkable ability in the studies he loved, solving advanced problems in 1927 without having studied even elementary calculus. In 1928, aged 16, Turing encountered Albert Einstein's work; not only did he grasp it, but he extrapolated Einstein's questioning of Newton's laws of motion from a text in which this was never made explicit. At Sherborne, Turing formed an important friendship with fellow pupil Christopher Morcom, which provided inspiration in Turing's future endeavours. However, the friendship was cut short by Morcom's death in February 1930 from complications of bovine tuberculosis contracted after drinking infected cow's milk some years previously. This event shattered Turing's religious faith. He became an atheist and adopted the conviction that all phenomena, including the workings of the human brain, must be materialistic, but he still believed in the survival of the spirit after death. University and work on computability. After Sherborne, Turing studied as an undergraduate from 1931 to 1934 at King's College, Cambridge, from where he gained first-class honours in mathematics. In 1935, at the young age of 22, he was elected a fellow at King's on the strength of a dissertation in which he proved the central limit theorem, despite the fact that he had failed to find out that it had already been proved in 1922 by Jarl Waldemar Lindeberg. In 1928, German mathematician David Hilbert had called attention to the "Entscheidungsproblem" (decision problem). In his momentous paper "On Computable Numbers, with an Application to the "Entscheidungsproblem"" (submitted on 28 May 1936 and delivered 12 November), Turing reformulated Kurt Gödel's 1931 results on the limits of proof and computation, replacing Gödel's universal arithmetic-based formal language with the formal and simple hypothetical devices that became known as Turing machines. He proved that some such machine would be capable of performing any conceivable mathematical computation if it were representable as an algorithm. He went on to prove that there was no solution to the "Entscheidungsproblem" by first showing that the halting problem for Turing machines is undecidable: in general, it is not possible to decide algorithmically whether a given Turing machine will ever halt. Although Turing's proof was published shortly after Alonzo Church's equivalent proof using his lambda calculus, Turing had been unaware of Church's work. Turing's approach is considerably more accessible and intuitive than Church's. It was also novel in its notion of a 'Universal Machine' (now known as a Universal Turing machine), with the idea that such a machine could perform the tasks of any other machine, or in other words, it is provably capable of computing anything that is computable. In effect, it is programmable. Von Neumann acknowledged that the central concept of the modern computer was due to this paper. Turing machines are to this day a central object of study in theory of computation. From September 1936 to July 1938, he spent most of his time studying under Church at Princeton University. In addition to his purely mathematical work, he studied cryptology and also built three of four stages of an electro-mechanical binary multiplier. In June 1938, he obtained his PhD from Princeton; his dissertation, "Systems of Logic Based on Ordinals", introduced the concept of ordinal logic and the notion of relative computing, where Turing machines are augmented with so-called oracles, allowing a study of problems that cannot be solved by a Turing machine. When Turing returned to Cambridge, he attended lectures given by Ludwig Wittgenstein about the foundations of mathematics. The two argued and disagreed, with Turing defending formalism and Wittgenstein propounding his view that mathematics does not discover any absolute truths but rather invents them. He also started to work part-time with the Government Code and Cypher School (GCCS). Cryptanalysis. During the Second World War, Turing was a leading participant in the breaking of German ciphers at Bletchley Park. The historian and wartime codebreaker Asa Briggs has said:
588179	Vamsam (; ) is a 2010 Indian Tamil-language action film, starring debutante Arulnidhi and Sunaina in lead roles. The film is produced by Arulnidhi's father and M. Karunanidhi's youngest son, M. K. Thamizharasu, and features Jayaprakash, Ganja Karuppu, Kishore, Anupama Kumar among others in supporting roles. The film released on 13 August 2010 to positive reviews and became a profitable venture at the box-office.
1068673	Voces Inocentes (English title: "Innocent Voices") is a 2004 Mexican film directed by Luis Mandoki. The plot is set during the Salvadoran Civil War, and is based on writer Óscar Torres's childhood. The film serves as a general commentary on the military use of children. The movie also shows injustice against innocent people who are forced to fight in the war. It follows the story of the narrator, a boy named Chava. Plot. Chava's father left El Salvador when the war started, for the United States. His family lives in a town that is currently heavily fought over between the Salvadoran army and the Guerrillas. His mother makes a living for the family by sewing, and Chava sells the clothes in shops. When he's not in school, Chava helps out by announcing stations for a bus driver.
1176356	Aaron Charles Carter (born December 7, 1987) is an American singer. He came to fame as a pop and hip hop singer in the late 1990s, establishing himself as a star among pre-teen and teenage audiences during the early-first decade of the 21st century. Life and career. Carter was born at the Tampa General Hospital in Tampa, Florida, where his parents, Jane Elizabeth (née Spaulding) and Robert Gene Carter, ran the Garden Villa Retirement Home. The family was originally from upstate New York, where his brother Nick, of the boy band Backstreet Boys, was born. Aside from his older brother Nick, he also has three sisters: twin sister Angel (a model), B.J. and Leslie (1986–2012). Carter is named after his maternal grandfather, Douglas "Charles" Spaulding, and paternal grandfather, Aaron Charles Carter. Carter attended the Frank D. Miles Elementary School and the Ruskin School in Florida. On February 21, 2008, Carter was arrested in Kimble County, Texas, when he was pulled over for speeding, and authorities found less than two ounces of marijuana in his car. Music beginnings and self-titled debut album. Carter began his performing career at the age of seven, as the lead singer of a local band, Dead End. He left the band after two years because they were leaning towards alternative music and he wanted to do pop. He made his first solo appearance, singing a cover of The Jets' "Crush on You", when opening for the Backstreet Boys in Berlin in March 1997. The performance was followed by a record contract, and in the fall of 1997, he released his first single, "Crush on You". His first full-length album was released on December 1, 1997. The eponymous debut album achieved gold status in Norway, Spain, Denmark, Canada, and Germany, and was released in the United States on June 16, 1998. 2000–2001: "Aaron's Party (Come Get It)", acting debut, and "Oh Aaron". His next album, "Aaron's Party (Come Get It)" was released in the United States on September 26, 2000 under the Jive label. The album sold more than 1.5 million copies in the United States. The album included the hit singles, "I Want Candy", "Aaron's Party (Come Get It)", "That's How I Beat Shaq" and "Bounce", which the songs received airplay on Disney and Nickelodeon. He also made several guest appearances on Nickelodeon and opened up several concerts for Britney Spears and the Backstreet Boys. In December of that year, the album went platinum and he began dating teen actress Hilary Duff. In March 2001, he made his acting debut by guest starring on an episode of the Disney Channel series "Lizzie McGuire". That same month, he and fellow teen star Samantha Mumba performed a concert in MGM studios live on Disney Channel titled "Aaron Carter and Samantha Mumba in Concert". Aaron's part of the concert was released to DVD that same month as . In April 2001, he made his Broadway debut, playing JoJo the Who in "Seussical the Musical" by Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty. At the age of 13, Carter recorded the album "Oh Aaron", which was released on August 7, 2001 and featured his first duet recording with his brother, Nick, and a duet with the new group at the time, No Secrets. Play Along Toys also created an Aaron Carter action figure in conjunction with the album's release. Oh Aaron also went platinum that same year and a live concert at Baton Rouge, Louisiana, was released to DVD as . 2002–2006: "Another Earthquake" and "Saturday Night". Carter's next album, "Another Earthquake", was released on September 3, 2002, during the "Rock, Rap, and Retro" tour. The album featured the patriotic-themed "America A.O." and the ballad "Do You Remember". That album also went platinum that same year. He had guest starred on three episodes of All That and contributed to the PBS Show Liberty's Kids by singing the theme song, "Through My Own Eyes." During that time, Carter's parents filed a lawsuit against his former manager, Lou Pearlman (now in federal prison for major fraud), in 2002 alleging failure to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars in royalties on Carter's 1998 album, which was released through Pearlman's label and production company, Trans Continental. On March 13, 2003, Pearlman was declared in contempt of court for ignoring a court order to produce documents relating to royalty payments. He had also dated Lindsay Lohan along with his girlfriend Hilary Duff at the same time (leading to a feud between the two), but he broke up with Lohan in April 2003, and resumed dating Duff. Later, that same year, he reportedly cheated on her and Duff ended their on-and-off relationship after two years.
565710	Cannibal Girls is a low budget 1973 Canadian Comedy horror film directed by Ivan Reitman and stars Eugene Levy, Andrea Martin, and Ronald Ulrich. Synopsis. It is about three young women being led by a Reverend who preaches cannibalism. The story gives off an urban legend feel, and was made as a spoof of traditional horror films. This cult movie is known for the 'warning bell' gimmick, which rang in theatres to warn the more squeamish members of the audience for impending gory scenes. Plot. A couple are relaxing in a snowy forest near a small fictional town called Farnhamville. Suddenly, an axe wielding female assailant kills the boyfriend, rips the girlfriend's shirt open, and puts a dab of blood between her female victim's breasts. Then, we see the protagonists, Clifford Sturges (Eugene Levy), and Gloria Wellaby (Andrea Martin) are having trouble with their location. Their car manages to last until they reach the small and secluded town called Farnhamville, where it breaks down. At the same time, they come across another traveller who is looking for his missing sister (the female victim in the beginning sequence). Stranded, Clifford and Gloria check into a small motel owned by an old lady named Mrs. Wainwright. While inside, the old lady treats the couple to an urban legend, the 'Cannibal Girls'. It is about three beautiful but psychotic women named Anthea, Clarissa, and Leona, who lured men with their seductive charm to their home only to feast on them while alive. And by eating their victims and drinking their blood, the girls maintained their youthfulness and immortality. They have a freakish little servant called 'Bunker'. Clarissa kills the first victim in a secluded room, with both of them naked. She stabs him in the gut with a pair of scissors. For the second victim, Leona does not exactly kill him, but she slowly stalks him with a knife, providing a diversion for Anthea to hack the man with an axe. The third victim wakes up the next day, wondering where all the other guys have gone. Later on, he makes love to Anthea. When he wakes up, he finds himself tied to a bed, surrounded by all three girls. At first they lick his belly, then they eat him alive right on the spot. Later, Mrs. Wainwright takes Clifford and Gloria to a small bed and breakfast house where the Cannibal Girls supposedly lived years before. There, they maintain some company in the host only known as the Reverend Alex St. John. The couple does not realize it, but their dinner is being served by the three Cannibal Girls themselves. The Reverend is the force behind the women's activities and possesses a charismatic hold on the entire town as well. Clifford and Gloria try to leave for the night, but a thunderstorm and a warning of an escaped lunatic from the Reverend prompts the couple to stay overnight. While Clifford and Gloria try to fall asleep, the traveller who was looking for his sister gets murdered by the local police as a special request from the Reverend himself. The town residents hold a gathering dedicated to the Reverend Alex St. John. Anthea, Clarissa, and Leona are fully naked standing around a small table offering their blood in a chalice to the Reverend, while chanting: "Within me and without me I honor the blood which gives me life."
1042013	Things to Come (1936) is a British science fiction film produced by Alexander Korda and directed by William Cameron Menzies. The film stars Raymond Massey, Ralph Richardson, Cedric Hardwicke, Pearl Argyle and Margaretta Scott. The cultural historian Christopher Frayling calls "Things to Come" "a landmark in cinematic design." The dialogue and plot were devised by H. G. Wells as "a new story" meant to "display" the "social and political forces and possibilities" that he had outlined in 1933 in "The Shape of Things to Come", a work he considered less a novel than a "discussion" in fictional form that presented itself as the notes of a 22nd-century diplomat. The film was also influenced by previous works, including his 1897 story "A Story of the Days to Come" and his 1931 work on society and economics, "The Work, Wealth and Happiness of Mankind"; speculating on the future had been a stock-in-trade for Wells ever since "The Time Machine" (1895). Plot. "Things to Come" sets out a future history from 1940 to 2036. (In the screenplay, or "treatment" that Wells published in 1935, before the film was released, the story ends in the year "A.D. 2054.".) It is set in the fictional British city of 'Everytown'. Successful businessman John Cabal (Raymond Massey) cannot enjoy Christmas Day, 1940, with the ominous news of possible war. His guest Harding (Maurice Braddell) shares his worries, but over-optimistic friend Passworthy (Edward Chapman) believes it will not come to pass, or even if it does, it will do good by accelerating technological progress. A bombing raid on the city that night results in general mobilisation and global war. Some time later, Cabal, now piloting a biplane, shoots down a one-man enemy bomber. He lands and pulls the badly injured enemy (John Clements) from the wreckage. As they dwell on the madness of war, they have to put on their gas masks, as poison gas drifts in their direction. When a little girl runs towards them, the wounded man insists she take his mask, saying he is done for anyway. Cabal takes the girl to his aeroplane, pausing to leave the doomed man a revolver. The man dwells on the irony that he may have gassed the child's family and yet he has saved her. He then shoots himself. The war continues for decades, long enough for the survivors to have forgotten why they are fighting in the first place. Humanity enters a new Dark Age. The world is in ruins and there is little technology left apart from the firearms used to wage war. In 1966, a plague called the "wandering sickness" is spread by the unnamed enemy using its last few remaining aircraft. Dr. Harding and his daughter Mary struggle to find a cure, but with little equipment, it is hopeless. By 1970, a local warlord called the "Chief" or the "Boss" (Ralph Richardson) has risen to power in the south of England and eradicated the sickness by shooting the infected. He dreams of conquering the "hill people" to obtain coal and shale to render into oil so his biplanes can fly again. On May Day 1970, a futuristic aeroplane lands outside the town. The sole pilot, John Cabal, emerges and proclaims that the last surviving band of "engineers and mechanics" have formed a civilisation called "Wings Over the World". They are based in Basra, Iraq, and have renounced war and outlawed independent nations. The Boss takes the pilot prisoner and forces him to work for Gordon, a mechanic working on repairing the few remaining aeroplanes. Together, they manage to fix a plane. When Gordon takes it up for a test flight, he flees to alert Cabal's friends. Wings Over the World attacks Everytown with gigantic aeroplanes and drops sleeping gas bombs on the town. The Boss orders his biplanes to attack but they are shot down. The people of Everytown awaken shortly thereafter, to find it occupied by the Airmen and the Boss dead. A montage follows, showing decades of technological progress, beginning with Cabal explaining plans for global consolidation by Wings Over the World. By 2036 (or 2054 in the book), mankind lives in modern underground cities, including the new 'Everytown.' However, all is not well. The sculptor Theotocopulos (Cedric Hardwicke) incites the populace to demand a "rest" from the rush of progress, symbolised by the first manned flight around the Moon. The modern-day Luddites are opposed by Oswald Cabal (Massey again), the head of the governing council and grandson of John Cabal. Oswald Cabal's daughter Catherine (Pearl Argyle) and her boyfriend Horrie Passworthy insist on flying the spaceship. When a mob rushes to destroy the space gun used to propel the spacecraft, Cabal launches the ship ahead of schedule. At the conclusion of the film, Oswald Cabal delivers a speech about Progress and humanity's quest for knowledge. "CABAL: '. . . for MAN no rest and no ending. He must go on—conquest beyond conquest. This little planet and its winds and ways, and all the laws of mind and matter that restrain him. Then the planets about him, and at last out across immensity to the stars. And when he has conquered all the deeps of space and all the mysteries of time—still he will be beginning. . . . If we’re no more than animals—we must snatch at our little scraps of happiness and live and suffer and pass, mattering no more—than all the other animals do—or have done. (He points out at the stars.) It is that—or this? All the universe—or nothingness. . . . Which shall it be?" Production. Wells is assumed to have had a degree of control over the project that was unprecedented for a screenwriter, and personally supervised nearly every aspect of the film. Posters and the main title bill the film as "H. G. Wells' THINGS TO COME", with "an Alexander Korda production" appearing in smaller type. In fact, Wells ultimately had no control over the finished product, with the result that many scenes, although shot, were either truncated or not included in the finished film. The rough-cut reputedly ran to 130 minutes; the version submitted to the British Board of Film Censors was 117m 13s; it was released as 108m 40s (later cut to 98m 06s) in the UK, and 96m 24s in the United States (see below for later versions). Wells's script—or "film treatment"—and selected production notes were published in book form in 1935, and was reprinted in 1940 and 1975. An academic edition annotated by Leon Stover was published in 2007. The script contains many scenes that were either never filmed, or no longer exist, although the extant footage also includes scenes not in the published script (e.g. the Boss's victory banquet after the capture of the colliery). Wells originally wanted the music to be recorded in advance, and have the film constructed around the music, but this was considered too radical and so the score, by Arthur Bliss, was fitted to the film afterwards in a more conventional way. A concert suite drawn from the film has remained popular; as of 2003, there are about half-a-dozen recordings of it in print. After filming had already begun, the Hungarian abstract artist László Moholy-Nagy was commissioned to produce some of the effects sequences for re-building of Everytown. Moholy-Nagy's approach was partly to treat it as an abstract light show but only some 90 seconds of material was used, e.g. a protective-suited figure behind corrugated glass. In the autumn of 1975 a researcher found a further four sequences, which had been discarded. The city of 'Everytown' in the film is based on London: a facsimile of St Paul's Cathedral can be seen in the background. Historical parallels. The film, written throughout 1934, is notable for predicting World War II, being only 16 months off by having it start on Christmas 1940, rather than 1 September 1939. Its graphic depiction of strategic bombing in the scenes in which Everytown is flattened by air attack and society collapses into barbarism, echo pre-war concerns about the threat of "the bomber will always get through". Wells was an air power prophet of sorts, having described aerial warfare in "Anticipations" (1901) and "The War in the Air" (1908). The use of gas bombs is very much part of the film, from the poison gas used early in the war to the sleeping gas used by the airmen of Wings Over the World. In real life, in the build-up to the Second World War, there was much concern that the Germans would use poison gas, which was used by France, Germany and Great Britain during the Great War. Civilians were required to carry gas masks and were trained in their use. When war did break out, however, the Germans did not use gas for military purposes. Wings Over the World is based in Basra, in southern Iraq, from where it begins a new civilisation. Southern Iraq was also the home of one of the world's first known civilisations, Sumer, which began about 6,000 B.C. and invented the wheel, among a host of other things. The single world government having engineers, scientists and inventors as the rulers mimics the ideology of the concept of technocracy, where those of the greatest skill and intellect in various vocations would be the leaders. Reception. The film was voted the ninth best British movie of 1936. Duration history and surviving versions. The rough-cut of the film was 130 minutes in length, while the version submitted for classification by the British Board of Film Censors (BBFC) was 117m 13s. By the time of the 21 February 1936 UK premiere and initial release, this had been reduced to 108m 41s, while the American print premiered on 18 April 1936 was further cut to 96m 31s. By late 1936, a 98m 07s print was in circulation in the UK, and a 76m 07s print was resubmitted for classification by the BBFC and was passed – after further cuts – at 72m 13s for reissue in 1943. The 96m 31s American print was cut down to 93m 19s by the removal of three sections of footage for a reissue by British Lion Films in 1948, and then to 92m 44s subsequently by the removal of one more segment. A continuity script exists for a version of approximately 106m 04s, which contains all the material in the 96m 31s and 92m 44s versions, plus a number of other sequences. It is not known if a version of this duration was actually in circulation at any time. For many years, the principal surviving version of the film was the 92m 44s print. From at least the late-1970s until 2007, this was the only version "officially" available from the rights holders in the UK, and has been widely available via home video and television screenings, both in the UK and elsewhere (in countries using PAL or SECAM video systems, it runs to 89m exactly). In the United States, although the 92m 44s version is most prevalent, a version is also in circulation that includes the four pieces of footage that were in the 96m 31s print, but not the 92m 44s version, although due to cuts elsewhere, it actually runs shorter than the latter. A cut version of the 92m 44s print was digitally restored and colorised by Legend Films, under the supervision of Ray Harryhausen (who had no connection with the making of the film whatsoever), and released on DVD in the United States in early 2007. In May 2007, Network DVD in the UK released a digitally restored copy of the 96m 31s version, which to date is the longest version available on DVD anywhere in the world. The two-disc set also contains a "Virtual Extended Version" with most of the missing and unfilmed parts represented by production photographs and script extracts. In 2011 Network released an updated and expanded version of this edition on Blu-Ray in HD. The Criterion Collection released a new version of the 96m 31s print on DVD and Blu-Ray in North America on 18 June 2013. This includes the unused Moholy-Nagy footage as an extra. Copyright status. Although the film lapsed into the public domain in the United States in 1964, copyright remained in force in the UK, the European Union, and elsewhere. In the UK, copyright for films as "dramatic works" subsists for seventy years after the end of the year of release, or the death of either the director, the writer (or author of original story), or the composer of original music, whichever is the latest. As the composer, Arthur Bliss, did not die until 1975, copyright will not expire until after 31 December 2045. The current copyright holder is ITV Global Entertainment Ltd., while the longest surviving original nitrate print is held by the BFI National Archive, a copy of the 96m 31s print donated by London Films to the newly-formed National Film Archive in March 1936. The film came back into copyright in the United States in 1996 under the Uruguay Round Agreements Act (URAA), which, among other measures, amended US copyright law to reinstate copyright on films of non-US origin if they were still in copyright in their country of origin. The URAA was subsequently challenged in "Golan v. Gonzales", initially unsuccessfully, later with partial success, but was ultimately defeated in "Golan v. Holder".
724811	Margaret Colin (born May 26, 1958) is an American actress. She is known for her role as Margo Montgomery Hughes on "As the World Turns" and for playing Eleanor Waldorf-Rose on "Gossip Girl". Early life. Margaret Colin was born in Brooklyn, New York and raised on Long Island. She is of Irish descent and was raised in a Roman Catholic family; her father was a New York City police officer. She graduated from Baldwin Senior High School in 1976. Career. After graduating from Hofstra University, Colin began her acting career in the soap opera "The Edge of Night", playing an heiress and former terrorist. In seven months on that show, her character survived seven murder attempts and ended up marrying her stepbrother. She followed that role with a longer stint on "As the World Turns", originating the role of Margo Montgomery, a character that endured nearly 30 years. She has appeared on a number of prime time television shows, starting with "Foley Square", "Leg Work", and several early episodes of "Chicago Hope". She played Lisa Wiseman on the 1999 series "Now and Again", with Eric Close and Dennis Haysbert. More recently, she has appeared on the "Law & Order" spinoffs. In 2003, she appeared in an episode of Law & order: Special victims (Season 4 Episode 16) "Tortured". Colin played a mother/bakery owner and later was arrested for murder From 2007 to 2013, Colin played Eleanor Waldorf, mother of Blair Waldorf, on the television show "Gossip Girl". In the pilot episode, Eleanor was played by "OLTL" actress Florencia Lozano. Colin has also been in a number of movies, the most well-known of which are probably "Something Wild" (1986), "Three Men and a Baby" (1987), "Independence Day" (1996), "Unfaithful" (2002), and "First Daughter" (2004). She also appeared in the play "Jackie: An American Life", in which she played Jacqueline Kennedy. During her 2003 performance of the English play "A Day in the Death of Joe Egg" on Broadway, Colin smoked her way through the second half of the show and dedicated the performance to Mayor Michael Bloomberg in defiance of the state's smoking ban. After the play finished its run, she gave up smoking. Personal life. Colin met actor Justin Deas when he played her love interest, Tom Hughes, on "As the World Turns". They were married in January 1988. The couple have two sons, Sam and Joe, and Colin is stepmother of her husband's daughter from his first marriage. The family moved to Upper Montclair, New Jersey in the late 1990s. She is a pro-life activist and is the honorary co-chair of Feminists for Life, an organization opposed to abortion.
1176111	Jennifer Diane "Jenny" Lewis (born January 8, 1976) is an American singer-songwriter musician and actress. She was the primary vocalist of the indie rock band Rilo Kiley, and has released two solo albums. She currently performs as part of the duo Jenny & Johnny with boyfriend Johnathan Rice. She was born in Las Vegas, Nevada. Personal life. Lewis was born in Las Vegas, Nevada. Her mother, Linda, was a professional singer, and her father, Eddie, was a member of the Harmonica Gang. Lewis is Jewish. Acting career. Lewis made her professional debut in a Jell-O commercial. She was featured in the short-lived 1986 Lucille Ball sitcom "Life With Lucy", where she was cast as one of Lucy's grandchildren. She also had small roles on TV shows, such as "The New Twilight Zone", "Baywatch", "The Golden Girls", "Growing Pains", "Just the Ten of Us", "Roseanne", "Mr. Belvedere", and "Brooklyn Bridge". Lewis appeared in over a dozen teen-themed movies, such as "Troop Beverly Hills", and in 1989 starred in "The Wizard". She was featured in the 1996 made-for-TV movie "Talk to Me" with Yasmine Bleeth, as well as the films "Foxfire", "Big Girls Don't Cry... They Get Even", and "Pleasantville". She played the part of Evangeline "Eva" Saint Claire in the 1987 film version of Harriet Beecher Stowe's novel "Uncle Tom's Cabin". She played Beverly D'Angelo's daughter in the 1996 made-for-TV film, "Sweet Temptation". She continued acting until 1998, although the last released film – "Don's Plum", filmed 1995–6 – was not released until 2001. Music. Rilo Kiley. In 1998, Lewis and friends Pierre De Reeder, Dave Rock and then-boyfriend Blake Sennett formed the band Rilo Kiley. (Rock was eventually replaced by Jason Boesel.) In an interview with NPR's "All Songs Considered", Lewis remarked that she wanted to name the group Love's Way (after her parents' lounge act in Las Vegas), but Sennett "didn't go for it." Beginning with a country sound, Rilo Kiley gravitated toward a downbeat indie rock sound, gaining the attention of Warner Bros., who signed the band for the release (via its own imprint, Brute/Beaute Records) of their 2004 album "More Adventurous," which gained the band some success. Critics such as Pitchfork attributed this to the "wise" decision to emphasize Lewis's voice and presence more so than in previous albums. The song "Portions for Foxes" was a hit. Rilo Kiley's 2007 album "Under the Blacklight" was released directly by Warner Bros. It was announced on July 14, 2011 that Rilo Kiley had officially split up. Solo career. In 2004, Conor Oberst invited Lewis to record a solo record for record label Team Love. Described by Lewis as "a kind of soul record", "Rabbit Fur Coat" (released January 24, 2006) features contributions from Oberst, M. Ward, and Maroon 5 guitarist James Valentine. Ben Gibbard of Death Cab for Cutie guests on a cover of The Traveling Wilburys' "Handle With Care." The Watson Twins provide accompaniment on the album, billed as Jenny Lewis with the Watson Twins. Lewis toured with the Watson Twins in support of the album three times in 2006 and appeared with her band on the "Late Show with David Letterman", "The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson", "Late Night with Conan O'Brien" and "Later with Jools Holland". They also appeared on a Washington, D.C.-based children's music program called "Pancake Mountain", performing the song "Fernando". The album received positive reviews, with "Entertainment Weekly" writing, "Consider Lewis the Emmylou Harris of the Silverlake set" and "Rolling Stone" commenting that "her girlishly seductive vocals are more versatile than ever". The Onion AV Club, "Spin", and NPR music critic Meredith Ochs named it among the best albums of the year. In 2008, Lewis released a second solo album, this time without the Watson Twins, titled "Acid Tongue". Jenny and Johnny. In 2010, Lewis released the song "Scissor Runner" with her boyfriend Johnathan Rice under the moniker Jenny and Johnny. The song was made available for free download from the duo's official website, and is taken from their first studio album "I'm Having Fun Now". Other musical projects. In 2002, Lewis was asked to contribute vocals for The Postal Service. Lewis performed in the video for the hit "We Will Become Silhouettes", and toured with the band in 2003 and 2013. In 2004, Lewis contributed vocals to several tracks on the Cursive album "The Ugly Organ". In 2005, Lewis contributed to the UNICEF benefit song "Do They Know It's Hallowe'en?", along with Sennett and Jimmy Tamborello. In 2006, Lewis made a cameo in Episode 25, Season 1 of Bob Dylan's "Theme Time Radio Hour", and six of her songs (three with the Watson Twins and three with Rilo Kiley) were featured in various episodes of the show. In 2007, Lewis contributed vocals to various songs on Johnathan Rice's album "Further North", and she appeared in the music video for "We're All Stuck Out In The Desert (And We're Gonna Die)". She provided vocals for a track on Dntel's "Dumb Luck" LP. In 2008, Lewis contributed backing vocals to several songs on the Elvis Costello and the Imposters album "Momofuku". In 2008, Lewis voiced the role of the Assistant Director for Walt Disney Pictures "Bolt" and provided the song "Barking at the Moon."
1064102	The Matador is a 2005 American dark comedy film written and directed by Richard Shepard and starring Pierce Brosnan and Greg Kinnear. As of February 12, 2006, the film grossed a total of $10.5 million in the American box office. The film was released on DVD on July 4, 2006 and on HD DVD on December 18, 2006. Plot. An encounter in the bar of the Mexico City branch of the Camino Real Hotels, between tired businessman Danny Wright (Greg Kinnear), hoping to land a life-saving contract in Mexico, and jaded, falling-apart-at-the-seams assassin Julian Noble (Pierce Brosnan), leads both men into an awkward friendship. Julian is confronting the immorality of his profession and experiencing a mid-life crisis that causes him to freeze on a job; Danny is fearing that a vitally-important deal will fall through and cost him his job. After an uncomfortable-at-times conversation, Danny leaves the bar. Julian apologizes and invites him to see a bullfight. During the spectacle, Julian reveals the kind of work he truly does, and when Danny is skeptical, takes Danny through the steps of murdering a portly spectator in the arena bathroom. Danny is shocked at how easily Julian can get within inches of the man, even though Julian ends the "tutorial" without going through with the murder.
1063856	Liam Pádraic Aiken (born January 7, 1990) is an American actor who has starred in a number of films, such as "Stepmom" and "Good Boy!." He starred as Klaus Baudelaire in "Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events", based on the series of books. His newest movie is called "How to Be A Man". Early life. Liam Aiken was born in New York City, the only child of Bill Aiken, an MTV producer, and an Irish-born mother, Moya Aiken. His father died of cancer in October 1992 at age 34, when Liam was 2 1/2 years old. Shortly after the death of his father, Liam Aiken was urged by his mother to start acting so he could fund his college education. He attended Dwight Englewood School and graduating 2008. He then went on to major in film at NYU. He made his professional acting debut in a Ford Motor Company Windstar commercial. Aiken made his stage debut in the Broadway play "A Doll's House" at the age of seven and his film debut playing Parker Posey's son in "Henry Fool" in the same year. Career. Aiken's first major film role was playing Susan Sarandon's young son in "Stepmom" in 1998, which also starred Julia Roberts and Jena Malone. He appeared as Tom Hanks' younger son in the 2002 film "Road to Perdition". He starred in the 2003 family film "Good Boy!" about dogs from space, playing the lead Owen Baker. He turned down the role of Cole Sear in "The Sixth Sense" (1999) because his mother felt he was too young for the death-fixated role; the role went instead to Haley Joel Osment. Aiken was also considered for the role of Harry Potter as he had previously worked with director Chris Columbus on "Stepmom". However, as he is not British, Daniel Radcliffe took the part. In 2004 Aiken went on to play the intelligent 12-year-old orphan Klaus Baudelaire in "Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events". In March 2009, Aiken was cast as Johnnie Pappas in Michael Winterbottom's remake of "The Killer Inside Me", starring Casey Affleck, Jessica Alba and Kate Hudson. In September 2011 he starred in the American TV show "A Gifted Man" on CBS. In 2012, he read the audiobook version of "Who Could That Be At This Hour?", the first installment of "All the Wrong Questions", a prequel series to "A Series of Unfortunate Events". In the fall of 2008, Aiken entered New York University as an undergraduate studying film and television.
1165164	Scott Gregory Marlowe (June 24, 1932 – January 6, 2001) was a versatile American actor of film, television, and stage, who was born and died in Los Angeles, California. Early film career. Marlowe first appeared on film in the 1954 production of "Attila", directed by Pietro Francisci. Two years later, he starred as John Goodwin in an episode of CBS's anthology series "General Electric Theater" hosted by future U.S. President Ronald W. Reagan. Marlowe often took film roles of dysfunctional juveniles in a series of films made during the 1950s, including "The Scarlet Hour" (1956) as the young rebel Vincent, "The Restless Breed" (1957), a murder mystery set on the western Great Plains and directed by Allan Dwan, and "Riot in a Juvenile Prison" (1959), as Eddie Bassett. Marlowe matured in Hollywood when films turned toward more realistic dramas with new stars like Marlon Brando, James Dean, and Jeff Chandler. "Those early movies made me somewhat of a teen icon," Marlowe recalled. Western series. In 1956, Marlowe appeared as Knox Cutler in the western film "The Young Guns". In 1958, he began appearing in a number of television westerns, with his guest role of Jess "Little Elk" Carswell on NBC's "Wagon Train" with Ward Bond. In 1959, he portrayed the outlaw John Wesley Hardin, who reportedly killed forty-four men in the Old West, in the episode "The Turning Point" of ABC's "Bronco" starring Ty Hardin, a Warner Brothers Production. In 1960, he appeared as "The Kid from Nowhere" in CBS's one-season "Hotel de Paree" starring Earl Holliman and Jeanette Nolan. That same year, he starred as Mickey Free in the episode "Apache Blood" of Clint Walker's ABC series, "Cheyenne". He starred in 1960 as Clancy Jones in the episode "The Show-Off" in NBC's "Law of the Plainsman" starring Michael Ansara. He appeared on CBS's "Dick Powell's Zane Grey Theater" Marlowe guest starred three times in significant segments of Richard Boone's CBS western, "Have Gun - Will Travel". In the 1961 episode "The Duke of Texas", Marlowe played an arrogant young Austrian nobleman named Franz, who seeks to succeed his proclaimed cousin, Maximilian, the murdered emperor of Mexico. Boone's character Paladin learns that Franz is an unknowing dupe of his advisor, Ludwig, (played by Eduard Franz) who has entered into a gun-running scheme with a Mexican bandit. The episode is remembered for a fencing match involving the character played by Albert Cavens, renowned handler of swords. In a 1958 "Have Gun" appearance, Marlowe portrayed Roy Carter, a young man scheduled to be hanged though Paladin has found evidence of Carter's innocence. In a 1959 appearance on "Have Gun", Marlowe plays the Indian Charley Red Dog, who holds a correspondence school diploma and seeks to be the marshal of the fictitious town of Santa Maria, New Mexico. In the course of the script, Red Dog is befriended by Paladin. Marlowe appeared four times between 1963 and 1966 on James Arness's CBS western "Gunsmoke". In 1964, Marlowe appeared as Lee Hewitt in the episode "The Roper" on NBC's most successful western, "Bonanza". In 1970, he guest starred as Billy Kells in the episode "The Experiment" on CBS's "Lancer" series starring Andrew Duggan, James Stacy, and Wayne Maunder. Drama and adventure series. In the 1960s, Marlowe continued to appear in drama and adventure series, often as a young man in trouble with the law or unwilling to adjust to societal mores. He appeared in the role of Les in the episode "Die Laughing" on ABC's "Straightaway", a program about automobile racing starring Brian Kelly and John Ashley. Jack Klugman played Marlowe's father in the episode. Marlowe appeared twice in 1961 on ABC's "" crime drama in episodes "A Man's Castle" (as Tito) and "Mr. Meglomania" (as Phil Manzak). Also in 1961 Marlowe starred as Armand Fontaine a serial killer on the episode "Effigy in Snow" of CBS's "Route 66". He guest starred as Eliot Gray in the 1961 episode "The Throwback" of CBS's "Alfred Hitchcock Presents". He appeared on "Thriller" starring Boris Karloff, "Dr. Kildare" with Richard Chamberlain, and "The Detectives" starring Robert Taylor, all on NBC. In 1962, he appeared on CBS's detective series "Checkmate" with Anthony George, Doug McClure, and Sebastian Cabot. Other appearances in 1962 were on NBC's newspaper drama "Saints and Sinners" with Nick Adams and on ABC's "Stoney Burke", a drama about a rodeo performer, in which Marlowe played the character Soames Hewitt in the episode "Point of Honor". In 1962, Marlowe appeared in NBC's psychiatric drama, "The Eleventh Hour", with Wendell Corey and Jack Ging, in the role of Stanley Filmore in the episode "Where Have You Been, Lord Randall, My Son?" His 1963 appearances were also on three ABC medical series: "The Nurses", "Ben Casey", and "Breaking Point", the latter a psychiatric drama starring Paul Richards, in which Marlowe appeared as Jason Landros in the episode "Solo for B-Flat Clarinet". He appeared twice on ABC's science fiction series "The Outer Limits" in the 1963-1964 season. Between 1966 and 1973, Marlowe appeared ten times on ABC's crime drama "The F.B.I." starring Efrem Zimbalist, Jr. During this time, he also appeared on ABC's "" with Arthur Hill and Lee Majors, NBC's "Ironside" with Raymond Burr, and CBS's "Cannon" with William Conrad, "Mannix" with Mike Connors, and "Hawaii Five-O" with Jack Lord, with whom he had worked a decade earlier on "Stoney Burke". He appeared six times as Nick Koslo on the 1976-1977 series "Executive Suite" and twice on CBS's "Barnaby Jones" with Buddy Ebsen in episodes "Friends Till Death" as Vincent Talbot and "Fatal Overture" as Peter Kirkland. He also guest starred on James Garner's "The Rockford Files". His television work continued into the 1980s on ABC's "Matt Houston" and "T. J. Hooker" and on the longstanding NBC soap opera "Days of Our Lives". In 1982, he appeared on NBC's "Fame" television series. He portrayed Keeve Falor in the fifth season episode "" on "". Later career. During the 1990s, Marlowe appeared as Al Brackman twice on NBC"s "Matlock" legal drama with Andy Griffith, on ABC's "Father Dowling Mysteries" with Tom Bosley, and on CBS's "Jake and the Fatman", again with William Conrad. His most enduring work in the decade was in 1994 on sixty-five appearances as Michael Burke on the night-time soap opera "Valley of the Dolls", based on the Jacqueline Susann novel also titled "Valley of the Dolls". In 1995, Marlowe appeared as Avery Nugent in the episode "School for Murder" on Angela Lansbury's Sunday night mystery drama "Murder, She Wrote". His last active role was as Ambassador Silver in the 1999 action film "Counter Measures".
629523	The Wog Boy is a 2000 Australian motion picture comedy starring Nick Giannopoulos, Vince Colosimo, Lucy Bell, Abi Tucker, John Barresi, Stephen Curry, Hung Le, Geraldine Turner, Tony Nikolakopoulos and Derryn Hinch. Plot. Steve (Nick Giannopoulos) is a second-generation Greek Australian. Steve is unemployed, but manages to get by, helping out here and there. His pride and joy is his VF Valiant Pacer. Whilst helping out a compensation-oriented neighbour, Steve has a minor car accident involving the Minister for Employment, vampily played by Geraldine Turner. The net result of this encounter is twofold; Steve gets to meet Celia (Lucy Bell) whom he is instantly attracted to but who initially hates him, and Steve gets outed on national television by Derryn Hinch as the worst dole-bludger in Australia. Steve manages to turn this around to his advantage, and becomes famous as The Wog Boy, spearheading a campaign to improve the employment status of the country. In the interim, he makes variable progress with Celia. Car. Steve (Nick Giannopoulos) is seen driving a dark blue 1969 VF Valiant hardtop during the movie, which was allegedly given to him by his father. During the film, it is said that the car's original engine was a 245-cubic-inch (4.0 L) 6-cylinder hemi, which was later replaced with an 8-cylinder engine. The Australian Chrysler Valiant range of cars were often and sometimes still referred to as "Wog Chariots" or "The Greek Mercedes." Soundtrack. A soundtrack was released, composed by Cezary Skubiszewski. It featured the single Breakin' There's No Stoppin' Us by Ilanda which was used to promote the film. The track "Get Tzatziki With It" was also in the film's promotional campaign, and is played in the actual movie itself. It was written by John Von Ahlen, Jaime Jimenez and Nick Giannopoulos and recorded at Subterrane Recording Studio. Sequel. A sequel, "", began production in October 2009 with Nick Giannopoulos and Vince Colosimo returning in the cast. The sequel was released in Australia on 20 May 2010. Box Office. "The Wog Boy" grossed $11,449,799 at the box office in Australia.
1056460	Betty Blue is a 1986 French film. Its original French title is 37°2 le matin, which means "37.2°C in the Morning". (37.2°C [99°F] is the normal morning temperature of a pregnant woman.) The film was directed by Jean-Jacques Beineix and stars Béatrice Dalle and Jean-Hugues Anglade. It is based on the 1985 novel of the same name by Philippe Djian. The film had 3,632,326 admissions and was the eighth highest grossing film of the year in France. The film received both a BAFTA and Oscar nomination for Best Foreign Language Film in 1986, as well as winning a César Award for Best Poster. In 1992 it was awarded the Golden Space Needle of the Seattle International Film Festival. In 2005 a director's cut was issued, with about an hour of extra footage. Plot summary. Betty (Dalle) and Zorg (Anglade) are passionate lovers who live in a shack on the beach. He works as a handyman who does odd jobs to pay the bills. As the film begins, they have only been dating for a week and are in a very passionate stage of their relationship, portrayed in a graphic sex scene. Zorg narrates the story of their relationship via voiceover. He describes Betty as “like a flower with translucent antennae and a mauve plastic heart”. She yearns for a better life and quit her last job as a waitress because she was being sexually harassed by her boss. Zorg's boss asks him to paint the 500 shacks that populate the beach—a fact that he keeps from Betty who thinks they only have to do one. She takes on the project with enthusiasm that quickly turns to anger once she learns the actual number. In response, Betty covers the boss’s car with pink paint. During a nasty fight, Betty accidentally discovers a series of notebooks that contain a novel Zorg wrote years ago. Upon reading his novel, she realizes his true worth as an intelligent writer and tries to convince Zorg of it too. She is appalled at the menial work Zorg is subjected to and the nonchalant attitude he has toward his situation. Zorg, tries to write again, but cannot become inspired. The boss demands that Betty leave after Zorg is late again to work because of his relationship with Betty. Enraged by this, she trashes their shack again. Unbeknownst to Zorg while he is painting, Betty packs their things. When he is finished and comes back to his shack, Betty burns it and coerces Zorg to hitchhike with her to live with her best friend in the city.
630215	Genevieve O'Reilly (born 1977) is an Irish actress who has worked in both the United Kingdom and Australia. Background. O'Reilly was born in Dublin and raised in Adelaide. She is the eldest of four siblings. At the age of twenty O'Reilly moved to Sydney to attend the National Institute of Dramatic Art, graduating in 2000. In 2005 she moved to the UK with her husband, and currently lives in London. Career. O'Reilly was cast as the understudy in director Gale Edwards' production of "The White Devil" a week after graduating from drama school. She went on to appear in Edwards' Sydney Theatre Company production of "The Way of the World". Other theatre credits include "The Weir" by Conor McPherson, at the Gate Theatre, Dublin, and "Richard II" at the Old Vic. Recent parts at the Royal National Theatre have been in new play, Mike Bartlett's 13 and as Helena, wife to Andrew Scott's emperor Julian in the 2011 production of Ibsen's epic Emperor and Galilean. O'Reilly is due to perform in George Bernard Shaw's The Doctor's Dilemma from July 2012. O'Reilly has appeared in several productions filmed in Australia, including both "The Matrix" sequels. She also played the young Mon Mothma in "", and starred as Leanne Curtis in the medical drama "All Saints". Since moving to the UK, O'Reilly has starred in the political mini-series "The State Within", played Princess Diana in the 2007 television docudrama "", and taken the lead role in "The Time of Your Life". She played CIA liaison officer Sarah Caulfield in the eighth series of BBC drama "Spooks". O'Reilly also played the character of Michelle Beadley in the remake of "The Day of the Triffids" that aired on BBC One in December 2009. In 2011 she starred in the BBC comedy Episodes playing Jamie Lapidus, the blind wife of a TV executive, Merc Lapidus. She reprised the role in the second series broadcast in 2012. O'Reilly's film credits include "Right Here Right Now" (2004), "The Young Victoria" (2009) and the 2004 science fiction film "Avatar", playing the lead role of Dash MacKenzie. In June 2013, O'Reilly appeared in the pilot episode of the international crime drama "Crossing Lines" cast as Detective and Interrogation Specialist Sienna Pride; attached to the ICC team from Britain's Scotland Yard. In the final minutes of this pilot episode, her character was stabbed and killed with a knife used by an American State Department employee, Gerald Wilhoit (Eddie Jemison) whom enjoyed Diplomatic Immunity, while the ICC team was chasing him, (and searching for their abducted police colleague) in the Tiergarten Park in Berlin, Germany.
1064074	"Wayne's World 2" is a 1993 comedy film starring Mike Myers and Dana Carvey as hosts of a public-access television cable TV show in Aurora, Illinois. The film was adapted from a sketch on NBC's "Saturday Night Live" and is the sequel to "Wayne's World". Plot. Wayne and Garth now do their acclaimed Friday-night TV show in an abandoned doll factory in Aurora. At the end of the broadcast, Wayne, Garth, and his friends, head into the Mirthmobile, and off to an Aerosmith concert. After the band's performance, Wayne and Garth head backstage (thanks to backstage passes), and praise Aerosmith like they did to Alice Cooper in the previous film. That night, Wayne has a dream in which he meets Jim Morrison (Michael A. Nickles) and a "weird naked Indian" (Larry Sellers), in which Morrison tells Wayne that his destiny is to organize and put on a big concert. Wayne then asks when Garth's football phone going to arrive, Morrison said it was sent to the wrong house and will arrive in the morning along with a swimsuit magazine and Stanley Cup video. The next morning, Garth shows up with the phone, magazine and video, which convinces Wayne to put on the show. Wayne and Garth dub the concert "Waynestock" and get to work, by, firstly, at Morrison's request, to hire his former roadie, Del Preston (Ralph Brown), who, surprisingly had the same dream as Wayne. Preston suggest that Waynestock take place at the park, and so Wayne and Garth drive there in the rain and are attacked by a dinosaur after noticing a cup of water vibrating (as a parody of "Jurassic Park"). They then find that their early attempts to sign bands and sell tickets fall flat, and Wayne wonders if the whole thing was a good idea. Meanwhile Wayne's girlfriend Cassandra has a new producer, Bobby Cahn (Christopher Walken), who slowly tries to pull her away from Wayne (blocking calls to her in the process) and Illinois. After Wayne admits that he was spying on her, Cassandra breaks off the relationship and hastily gets engaged to Bobby on the rebound. Garth meets a beautiful woman, Honey Hornée (Kim Basinger), at the laundromat, and she quickly ropes him in with her charms. Eventually, it is revealed that Honey is manipulating Garth into killing her ex-husband, and Garth quickly bails on the relationship. Back in Aurora, tickets for Waynestock are finally selling, but no bands have shown up. Wrestling with what to do, Wayne departs the festival grounds so he can find Cassandra, leaving Garth to keep the rowdy crowd in check. In a parody to "The Graduate", Wayne travels to a church and breaks up Cassandra's wedding before escaping the ceremony with her. Meanwhile, Garth has stage fright during the concert. Upon returning to Waynestock, the bands still have not shown up. As in the first film, three endings occur. Waynestock. Waynestock is held in Adlai Stevenson Memorial Park, in Aurora, Illinois. The acts that Wayne books include Crucial Taunt (Tia Carrere and band), Aerosmith, Rip Taylor, Pearl Jam, and Van Halen. Aerosmith performs "Shut Up and Dance" at the concert. Additionally, the Gin Blossoms and Nash Kato (of Urge Overkill) can be seen being escorted out of a limousine-length Mirthmobile by the weird naked Indian as the closing credits begin. Reception. The film received mixed to positive reviews. Rotten Tomatoes gives the film a score of 60% based on 42 reviews.
1063179	Richard Dale Jenkins (born May 4, 1947) is an American stage, film, and television actor. He began his career in the theatre and made his film debut in 1974. He has played supporting roles in films almost every year since 1985 and had lead roles in "The Cabin in the Woods" and "The Visitor", for which he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor. He played the deceased patriarch Nathaniel Fisher on the HBO drama series "Six Feet Under". Early life. Jenkins was born and raised in DeKalb, Illinois. His mother, Mary Elizabeth (née Wheeler), was a housewife, and his father, Dale Stevens Jenkins, was a dentist. He attended DeKalb High School. Before he was an actor, Jenkins drove a linen truck (his boss was actor John C. Reilly's father). Jenkins earned a degree in drama from Illinois Wesleyan University before relocating to Rhode Island. At Illinois Wesleyan Jenkins became a member of Phi Gamma Delta. Career. Theatre. Jenkins worked as an actor with the Trinity Repertory Company in Providence, Rhode Island, while breaking into film with a bit part in "Feasting with Panthers" (1974), a television movie. He continued as a celebrated member of Trinity's resident acting company and served as its artistic director from 1990 to 1994. Film. Since his film debut in the television movie "Feasting with Panthers" (1974), Jenkins has been working steadily in film. His earlier film credits include "Hannah and Her Sisters" (1986), "The Witches of Eastwick" (1987), "How to Make an American Quilt "(1995), and "Snow Falling On Cedars" (1999). He has worked with the director siblings the Farrelly brothers in "There's Something About Mary" (1998), "Outside Providence" (1999), "Me, Myself, & Irene" (2000), "Say It Isn't So" (2001), "Hall Pass" (2011) and the 2012 "Three Stooges" remake. He has also appeared in three Coen Brothers movies: "The Man Who Wasn't There" (2001), "Intolerable Cruelty" (2003), and "Burn After Reading" (2008). He is in "North Country" (2005), has three memorable scenes as FBI Director James (Robert) Grace in "The Kingdom (film)" (2007), and is in "Step Brothers" (2008). Although primarily known for supporting parts, Jenkins had a lead role in "The Visitor" (2008) for which he was nominated for the Independent Spirit Award and an Academy Award for Best Actor. Jenkins won the International Press Academy's Satellite Award for Best Actor - Motion Picture Drama. Jenkins costarred in "Dear John", as the father of John Tyree (Channing Tatum), and in Joss Whedon/Drew Goddard's horror film "The Cabin in the Woods" (2012). Television. Jenkins is perhaps best known for playing Nathaniel Fisher in the HBO drama series "Six Feet Under". His character is the deceased patriarch of the Fisher family, and regularly appears to his family as a ghost or in dreams. He played the role for the show's entire run. He and his castmates received a Screen Actors Guild Award nomination for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series in 2002. Jenkins also portrayed a DEA agent in one episode of Miami Vice and a mob boss in a later episode. Personal life. Jenkins and his wife Sharon R. Friedrick were married on August 23, 1969, and have two children: son Andrew Richard and daughter Sarah Pamela. He resides in Cumberland, Rhode Island.
1163382	Tim Matheson (born Timothy Lewis Matthieson; December 31, 1947) is an American actor, director and producer. He is perhaps best known for his portrayal of the smooth-talking Eric "Otter" Stratton in the 1978 comedy "National Lampoon's Animal House" and the bitter Vice President John Hoynes in the NBC drama, "The West Wing", and has had a variety of other well-known roles, including providing the voice of the lead character in the cartoon TV program "Jonny Quest". Career. At the age of 13, Matheson appeared as Roddy Miller in Robert Young's CBS nostalgia comedy series "Window on Main Street" during the 1961-1962 television season. In 1964, he provided the voice of the lead character in the cartoon program " Jonny Quest". He was also the voice of Jace in the original animated series of "Space Ghost". In addition, he played the role of the oldest son, Mike Beardsley, in the film "Yours, Mine and Ours", which also starred Lucille Ball and Henry Fonda. In 1969, he joined the cast of NBC's "The Virginian" western series in the eighth season, as Jim Horn. He had a guest role in the 14th episode of the second season of "Night Gallery", in the story "Logoda’s Heads". In the final season of the television western "Bonanza" in 1972-1973, Matheson played Griff King, a parolee who tries to reform his life as a worker at the Ponderosa Ranch under Ben Cartwright's watch. He portrayed a young motorcycle cop, Phil Sweet, in the 1973 film "Magnum Force". Matheson also appeared earlier in the ABC television comedy series "My Three Sons" and "Leave It to Beaver". In 1975, he guest starred in CBS's short-lived family drama, "Three for the Road". In the fall of 1976, Matheson appeared with Kurt Russell in the 15-episode NBC series "The Quest", the story of two young men in the American West seeking the whereabouts of their sister, a captive of the Cheyenne. In 1978, he co-starred in "National Lampoon's Animal House" opposite John Belushi; the following year, he appeared opposite Belushi again in Steven Spielberg's "1941". Matheson starred in the 1984 comedy movie "Up the Creek" and the comedy "Fletch". Matheson also appeared in the 1983 "To Be or Not to Be" starring Mel Brooks and Anne Bancroft. Matheson and Catherine Hicks played Rick and Amanda Tucker, who operate a detective agency in Laurel Canyon in CBS' "Tucker's Witch", which aired during the 1982-1983 season. In 1989, he starred in the short-lived sitcom "Nikki and Alexander" produced by Reinhold Weege. Matheson, along with business partner Dan Grodnik, bought "National Lampoon" in 1989 when the magazine was facing financial decline. They were unable to reverse the magazine fortunes, however, and sold it in 1991. He went on to act in over 100 film and television projects. Matheson had a recurring role as Vice President John Hoynes on "The West Wing". His work on "The West Wing" earned Matheson two Primetime Emmy award nominations for Best Guest Star in a Drama Series. In addition to playing Sheriff Matthew Donner in the short-lived "Wolf Lake", he has directed episodes of "Third Watch", "Ed", "The Twilight Zone", "Cold Case", "Without a Trace", "The West Wing", "Psych", "The Good Guys", "Shark", "White Collar", "Criminal Minds", "Suits", and "Burn Notice" (on which he also performed in a recurring role). In 1996, Matheson took on the role of a con man who claims to be Carol Brady's thought-to-be-dead husband in "A Very Brady Sequel". Matheson appeared in the movie "Van Wilder" in 2002, playing the father of the title character, who was inspired by his own character in "Animal House"; Matheson's character even makes a veiled reference to the fun times he had had at Dartmouth, where the fraternity upon which "Animal House" is based is rumored to have "had a strong tradition of existence." He appeared in the auto-racing film "Redline". He also appeared in a Volkswagen commercial in 2008. In 2009, Matheson directed the pilot episode of "Covert Affairs", premiered on USA Network in 2010. Matheson has also directed the pilot episodes of "The Good Guys" (2010) for the Fox Network, "Criminal Behavior" (2010) for Lifetime, and "Wild Card" (2011) for USA Network. He currently plays Dr. Brick Breeland on "Hart of Dixie". Personal life. Matheson was born in Glendale, California, a suburb of Los Angeles. In 2010, he was divorced from Megan Murphy Matheson after a 25-year marriage and three children. He was previously married to actress Jennifer Leak, whom he met on the set of "Yours, Mine, and Ours".
1163065	Lee Allen Tergesen (born July 8, 1965) is an American actor. He is best known for his roles as Tobias Beecher in HBO's prison drama "Oz" and as Evan Wright in "Generation Kill." Early life. Tergesen was born in Ivoryton, Connecticut and graduated from Valley Regional High School in nearby Deep River. He moved to New York at the age of 18 to try to become an actor. He graduated from the American Musical and Dramatic Academy's two year program in Manhattan, where, from 1986 to 1989, he worked at the Empire Diner. "I wasn't a great waiter. I was funny, but I gave a lot of attitude", he told "Rosie Magazine" in March 2002. He added: "The place is like a vortex for me". In 1989, the diner was where he met Tom Fontana (Writer and Director of "Oz"), who lived around the corner from the diner.
1063417	10 (styled as "10") is a 1979 romantic comedy film directed by Blake Edwards and starring Dudley Moore, Julie Andrews, Robert Webber, Dee Wallace, and Bo Derek, in her first major film appearance. Considered a trend-setting film at the time, and one of the year's biggest box office hits, the film made superstars of Moore and Derek. It follows a man who in middle age finds a young woman who he thinks is the ideal woman for him, leading to both a comic chase and an encounter in Mexico. The film would be the first of several sex comedies Blake Edwards would make: he addressed in this film subjects like sexual promiscuity, machismo, feminism, and aging. These themes went into Edwards' later comedies.
1059801	The Good German is a 2006 film adaptation of the novel by Joseph Kanon. It was directed by Steven Soderbergh, and stars George Clooney, Cate Blanchett, and Tobey Maguire. Set in Berlin following the Allied victory over the Nazis, it begins as a murder mystery, but weaves in elements involving the American postwar employment of Nazi rocket scientists in Operation Paperclip. The film was shot in black-and-white and is designed to imitate the appearance of film noir from the 1940s, although it also includes material – such as sex scenes and swearing – that would have been prohibited by the Production Code. Its poster is a homage to the poster for the classic film "Casablanca" (also a Warner Bros. film), as is the closing scene at an airport. The DVD release presents the film in the 1.33:1 aspect ratio which declined in use from about 1953, though the theatrical release used the slightly more modern but still unusual 1.66:1 ratio. Title and theme. The film's title alludes to the notion of "a good German", one who ostensibly was not to blame for allowing Hitler to persecute the Jews and others, and who did not see the Holocaust as it occurred before his eyes. In addition, the title is an allusion to the phrase common among soldiers of the Allied Powers during the invasion of Europe after D-Day, that "The only good German is a dead German" - and the consequences of this death are seed for all that follows in the story of the film. Thematically, the film centers on guilt, and whether it is possible to survive the atrocities while being unaware of and not complicit in them. Plot. Jacob "Jake" Geismar (George Clooney), an American war correspondent for "The New Republic", returns to Berlin during the Potsdam negotiations between the Allied powers after World War II was over in Europe (May 1945) but before hostilities ended in Asia (August 1945). Jacob witnesses his murdered driver, a black-marketeering American soldier named Tully (Tobey Maguire), being fished from a river eddy, suspiciously adjacent to the Potsdam conference grounds. The corpse is discovered to be in possession of 50,000 German reichsmarks — which are later revealed to have been printed by the U.S occupying forces. Geismar becomes entwined in both the mystery of his murdered driver and the clandestine search by both Soviet and American forces for the missing German Emil Brandt (the title character, played by Christian Oliver). He becomes more involved in both mysteries as his investigation intersects with his search for Lena Brandt (Cate Blanchett), a Jew — and Emil's wife — with whom Geismar had been in a relationship prior to the war. Lena has survived the Holocaust by doing "what she had to" to stay alive — early in the film this is assumed to be prostitution, but Lena, in reality, holds a darker secret of complicity and guilt. In the film, Emil Brandt is a former SS officer who had been the secretary of Franz Bettmann, Chief Production Engineer of the V-2 rocket at concentration camp Mittelbau-Dora/Mittelwerk. (Bettmann is only a minor character in the film; he appears to be based on the real Arthur Rudolph.) The Soviets, the Americans, and the British all try to get hold of Emil Brandt, for different reasons. The Americans have already detained Bettmann in a safehouse and intend to transport him to the U.S. as part of their Operation Overcast/Paperclip to have him work on their own rocket program (cf. Wernher von Braun). In the film, they are fully aware of Bettmann's role at Camp Dora and know about the slave labor used in the V-2 program, but want to cover up his involvement (because they could not lawfully employ a known war criminal), which includes eliminating Emil Brandt, whose testimony or written notes would prevent their whitewashing of Bettmann. Geismar, in his attempts to get his former lover, Lena, out of Berlin, gets more and more involved in the search for Emil Brandt. At one point, Lena gives Emil's notes on Camp Dora to Geismar. When Lena and Geismar try to hand Emil Brandt over to the American prosecutor charged with handling war crimes cases, they are intercepted by the American authorities who want to protect Bettmann, and Brandt is murdered. But Geismar still has Brandt's notebooks, which he now trades in to the war crimes investigators of the U.S. Army (who have turned out to be in league with the other American authorities - the ones who want to keep that evidence confidential to whitewash Bettmann) in exchange for a (a denazification document) and a visa for Lena, such that she can leave Germany. Through a minor character of a Jewish owner of a pawn shop who survived the Holocaust with his legs amputated, the film refers to the Nazi human experimentation, in particular to bone transplantation experiments as they were done at the Ravensbrück concentration camp. The plot of the film differs significantly from that of the book, though the murder mystery and the themes of guilt and survival are the same. Production. The film imitates the appearance of films from Classical Hollywood studio-era. Most of the scenes were shot on soundstages and on Universal Studios' backlot, and were then edited with archival Russian footage and archived film from Corbis. Although the finished film is in black and white, it was shot in color because this allowed the use of faster film than available black-and-white film stocks, and afforded the ability to use 'green screen' techniques. The color was then reduced in post-production through the use of a digital intermediate to a grainier black and white, in order to blend with the carefully restored archival material. Unlike modern films that are shot with significant "coverage" and mostly with close-ups or two shots, "The Good German" was shot with 1940s era wide angle lenses, such as a 32 mm, with deep focus, "strongly accented camera angles" and entire scenes staged. Director Steven Soderbergh says: that kind of staging is a lost art, which is too bad. The reason they no longer work that way is because it means making choices, real choices, and sticking to them. (...) That's not what people do now. They want all the options they can get in the editing room. The set lighting was entirely incandescent and the audio was recorded on a boom mike instead of the more modern body mikes or ADR. These decisions, combined with the limited coverage, allowed the rough cut to be produced in two days after wrapping up filming. Critical reception. On Rotten Tomatoes, 33% of critics gave the film positive reviews, based on 147 reviews. On Metacritic, the film had an average score of 49 out of 100, based on 34 reviews. The film received generally mixed reviews, with many critics complaining that it was too reliant on style and did not concentrate on the building of characters. The film is highly derivative, and while it echoes scenes and themes from period films such as The Third Man and Casablanca, some critics feel that "The Good German" is unable to capture the tension or atmosphere of either. Peter Travers of "Rolling Stone" greatly appreciated the film, Box office. The film made $76,817 in its opening weekend in only five US theaters. Worldwide gross was $5,914,908, of which only $1,308,696 was in the US, making it a box office disappointment relative to its $32 million budget. Awards. The movie received minor praise, earning a single Academy Award nomination.
1246282	Horror Express, also known as Pánico en el Transiberiano/Panic on the Trans-Siberian Express, is a 1972 Spanish/British horror film directed by Eugenio Martín and starring Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing, Alberto de Mendoza and Telly Savalas. It was produced by Bernard Gordon and written by Arnaud d'Usseau and Julian Zimet (credited as Julian Halevy). Storyline. Prologue. The story opens with Saxon narrating; ""The following report to the Royal Geological Society by the undersigned Alexander Saxton is a true and faithful account of the events that befell the society's expedition in Manchuria. As the leader of the expedition, I must accept the responsibility for its ending in disaster. But I will leave, to the judgement of the honorable members, the decision as to where the blame for the catastrophe lies..."" Plot. In 1906, Professor Alexander Saxton (Christopher Lee), a renowned British anthropologist, is returning to Europe by the Trans-Siberian Express from China to Moscow. With him is a crate containing the frozen remains of a primitive humanoid creature that he discovered in a cave in Manchuria. He hopes it is a missing link in human evolution. Doctor Wells (Peter Cushing), Saxton's friendly rival and Royal Society colleague, is also on-board but travelling separately. Before the train departs Shanghai, a thief is found dead on the platform. His eyes are completely white and without irises or pupils, and a bystander initially mistakes him for a blind man. A monk named Father Pujardov (Alberto de Mendoza), the spiritual advisor to a Polish Count and Countess who are also waiting to board the train, proclaims the contents of the crate to be evil. Saxton furiously dismisses this as superstition. Saxton's eagerness to keep his scientific find secret arouses the suspicion of Wells, who bribes a porter to investigate the crate. The porter is killed by the ape-like creature within, which then escapes the crate by picking the lock. The creature finds more victims as it roams the moving train, each victim being found with the same opaque, white eyes. An autopsy suggests that the brains of the victims are being drained of memories and knowledge. When the creature is gunned down by police Inspector Mirov, the threat seems to have been vanquished. Saxton and Wells discover that images are retained in a liquid found inside the eyeball of the corpse, which reveal a prehistoric Earth and a view of the planet seen from space. They deduce that the real threat is somehow a formless extra-terrestrial that inhabited the body of the creature and now resides within the Inspector. Father Pujardov, sensing the greater presence inside the Inspector and believing it to be that of Satan, renounces his faith to pledge allegiance to the mysterious entity.
725362	Eileen Davidson (born June 15, 1959) is an American film and soap opera actress. She is known for her roles as Ashley Abbott on "The Young and the Restless" and "The Bold and the Beautiful" and Kristen DiMera on "Days of our Lives". Personal life. Davidson was born in Artesia, California, daughter of Charlotte, a homemaker, and Richard Davidson, an airplane parts manufacturer. Davidson has been married three times: first to actor Christopher Mayer from 1985–1986. Her second husband was former "General Hospital", "Port Charles", and "As the World Turns" actor Jon Lindstrom, to whom she was married from 1997 to 2000. Christopher Mayer and Jon Lindstrom were both stars of TV-series Santa Barbara, a show where Davidson also spent two years. None of them appeared on the show at the same time,though. She is currently married to actor Vince Van Patten. They have 1 child together: Jesse (born in 2003). They met when he briefly appeared as her "boyfriend" on a cruise on "The Young and the Restless". Davidson is related to several well-known actors through her marriage to Vince. Vince's father is actor Dick Van Patten ("Eight is Enough"). Dick's sister is actress Joyce Van Patten. Joyce was married to actor Martin Balsam. Joyce and Martin's daughter is actress Talia Balsam ("Mad Men"). Talia's first husband was actor George Clooney and she is now married to John Slattery ("Mad Men," "Sex and the City," "Desperate Housewives"). Career. Davidson started her career as a model in Mexico City and California, eventually adding commercials and print work in Europe. Her agent had recommended that she take acting classes to get work in commercials, but she took to acting so well that she was sent out to auditions for acting roles. She originated the role of Ashley Abbott on "The Young and the Restless" in March 1982, beating out more than 100 candidates. The character of Ashley became a front-burner character, and Davidson became an integral part of the show. She quit the show in December 1988 and the producers took her recommendation of hiring a look-alike actress named Brenda Epperson Doumani, whom Davidson had discovered waiting tables at a charity function. Davidson then appeared in primetime television, but her show, "Broken Badges" (1990–1991), was canceled. She returned to daytime when she assumed the role of Kelly Capwell on "Santa Barbara" from May 1991 until the soap's cancellation in January 1993. She next appeared as Kristen Blake on "Days of our Lives" beginning in May 1993. As originally conceived, Kristen was a heroine, who had an Achilles' heel in that the show's supervillain, Stefano, had raised her after the death of her parents. James E. Reilly, who assumed head writing reins in 1993, began to make Kristen more of a villainess. Reilly eventually developed an outrageous second role for Davidson, having her play Susan Banks, a Kristen look-alike. Reilly eventually penned three more roles for Davidson (Sister Mary Moira, Thomas, and Penelope). Her character, Kristen, intended to keep her other character, Susan, prisoner on an island, but Susan ultimately prevailed and Kristen remained on the island until she returned to Salem in 2013. All other related characters were last seen in May 1998. Davidson's five roles earned her a Daytime Emmy nomination for Outstanding Lead Actress in 1998. After a year-long vacation, she returned to her role on "The Young and the Restless" in March 1999. After a successful return as Ashley Abbott, which included Davidson's second Daytime Emmy nomination for Outstanding Lead Actress, Davidson was fired from the show. In December 2006, Davidson told "TV Guide" that she was fired from "The Young and the Restless" due to lack of storyline. Her last airdate as Ashley was January 11, 2007. According to co-star Melody Thomas Scott, the firing was protested behind the scenes of "The Young and the Restless" and was seen as unfair. Scott said: "That was so heartbreaking. We're still upset about that. That was a blow. Terrible. Eileen Davidson was such a part of the core of the show and such a brilliant actress; beautiful and always prepared. It was crazy. I'm not the only one who feels that way." In a surprise move a few months later, Davidson signed a three-year contract with "The Young and the Restless"'s sister soap "The Bold and the Beautiful" to once again play her "The Young and the Restless" character Ashley Abbott at the request of "The Bold and the Beautiful" executive producer Bradley Bell. She first aired on March 9, 2007. Ken Corday called Davidson about a week before she was fired from "The Young and the Restless" to get permission to use a picture of her on "Days of our Lives". The picture, which featured Davidson as Susan, was shown in December 2006. After she was fired from "The Young and the Restless" but before being cast in "The Bold and the Beautiful", her niece Devon Martt, a fashion designer, approached her about designing clothes together. Davidson liked the idea and formed a clothing company called Femmeology. Davidson co-wrote her first novel with author Robert J. Randisi, a mystery set in the soap opera world titled "Death in Daytime", released in October 2008. She followed it up with three sequels: "Dial Emmy for Murder" (2009), "Diva Las Vegas" (2010), and "Swinging in the Rain" (2011). In July 2008, Eileen was downgraded to recurring status at "The Bold and the Beautiful". She returned to "The Young and the Restless" full-time as Ashley on September 26, 2008. In 2012, Nelson Branco announced that Sony Pictures Entertainment wanted Davidson on both "The Young and the Restless" and "Days of our Lives", but that "Y&R" would not share the actress, leading Sony to terminate her contract with them. Thus, it was announced that Davidson would reprise her role as Kristen Blake DiMera on "Days of our Lives". Davidson made a brief appearance on "The Young and the Restless" in February 2013 for the soap's 40th anniversary. In July 2013, it was announced that Davidson is leaving "Days of our Lives" after a year as Kristen. Her last episode will take place sometime in November.
1789648	Halloween Night is a 2006 American horror film produced by The Asylum. Despite sharing a similar title with the 1978 film "Halloween", "Halloween Night" is itself an original film as opposed to a mockbuster film, for which The Asylum are infamous. Plot. The film follows Chris Vale (Scot Nery), a young man who was wrongly convicted of murdering his family in 1982, and admitted into an insane asylum based largely on the fact that Chris had been found at home with the bodies by the police. After 10 years of life in the asylum, in which he has been bullied by inmates and staff alike for the incident, Chris has now quite literally turned insane and, to prove his innocence, he escapes from the asylum on October 31 to his home, which is now occupied by a new family who are holding a Halloween party. As the night draws on, Chris attempts to search the house for any clues that will testify his innocence, but in an effort to conceal himself from the partygoers and the authorities who are searching for him, begins his own killing spree that leads to a massacre far worse than the original.
64810	Alfred North Whitehead, OM FRS (15 February 1861 – 30 December 1947) was an English mathematician and philosopher. He has been called the “greatest speculative mind of this century.” He wrote on algebra, logic, foundations of mathematics, religion, philosophy of science, physics, metaphysics, and education; all of which were integrated into his comprehensive worldview known today as process philosophy. Whitehead's philosophy challenges over 2000 years of popular philosophical assumptions. Namely, he rejects those philosophies that value static notions of being over dynamic notions of becoming, that emphasize independence over relatedness, and "things" over events in process. Process philosophy argues that “there is urgency in coming to see the world as a web of interrelated processes of which are integral parts, so that all of our choices and actions have consequences for the world around us.” For this reason, one of the most promising applications of Whitehead's thought in recent years has been in the area of ecological civilization and environmental ethics. Life. Alfred North Whitehead was born in Ramsgate, Kent, England in 1861. Although his grandfather, Thomas Whitehead, was known for having founded Chatham House Academy, a fairly successful school for boys, Alfred North was educated at Sherborne School, Dorset, then considered one of the best public schools in the country. His childhood was described as over-protected, but when at school he excelled in sports and mathematics and was head prefect of his class. In 1880, Whitehead graduated from Trinity College, Cambridge, where he was fourth wrangler and earned his BA in 1884. Elected a fellow of Trinity in 1884, Whitehead would teach and write mathematics at the college until 1910, spending the 1890s writing his "Treatise on Universal Algebra" (1898), and the 1900s collaborating with his former pupil, Bertrand Russell, on the first edition of "Principia Mathematica". In 1890, Alfred North married Evelyn Wade, an Irish woman raised in France; they had a daughter and two sons. One son died in action while serving in the Royal Flying Corps during World War I. In 1910, due to a Cambridge byelaw limiting the term of a Senior Lecturer to 25 years, Whitehead was forced to retire. The period between 1910 and 1926 was spent mostly at University College London and Imperial College London, where he taught and wrote on physics, the philosophy of science, and the theory and practice of education. He was a Fellow of the Royal Society since 1903 and was elected to the British Academy in 1931. Whitehead developed a keen interest in physics. His fellowship dissertation examined James Clerk Maxwell's views on electricity and magnetism. His outlook on mathematics and physics was more philosophical than purely scientific; he was more concerned about their scope and nature than about particular tenets and theories. Toward the end of his time in England, Whitehead turned his attention toward philosophy. He was president of the Aristotelian Society from 1922 to 1923. Already by 1924, Whitehead's work in philosophy became highly regarded, which inspired Henry Osborn Taylor to invite the 63 year old Whitehead to join the faculty at Harvard University, as a professor of philosophy. In 1924, he accepted an invitation to join the faculty at Harvard University, where he continued his work in philosophy. During this time, he produced his most important philosophical contributions. In his first year at Harvard, Whitehead wrote "Science and the Modern World". It was immediately hailed as an alternative to the Cartesian dualism that plagued popular science. A few years later, he published his seminal work "Process and Reality", which has been compared (both in importance and difficulty) to Kant's Critique of Pure Reason. Whitehead supervised the doctoral dissertations of many prestigious philosophers, including Bertrand Russell and Willard Van Orman Quine, thus influencing logic and virtually all of analytic philosophy. As a mathematician and logician, he is known best for his collaboration with former student Bertrand Russell on the epochal "Principia Mathematica". Whitehead had opinions about a vast range of human endeavors. These opinions pepper the many essays and speeches he gave on various topics between 1915 and his death (1917, 1925a, 1927, 1929a, 1929b, 1933, 1938). His Harvard lectures (1924–37) are studded with quotations from his favorite poets, Wordsworth and Shelley. Most Sunday afternoons when they were in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the Whiteheads hosted an open house to which all Harvard students were welcome, and during which talk flowed freely. Some of the "obiter dicta" Whitehead spoke on these occasions were recorded by Lucien Price, a Boston journalist, who published them in 1954. That book also includes a remarkable picture of Whitehead as the aged sage holding court. It was at one of these open houses that the young Harvard student B.F. Skinner credits a discussion with Whitehead as providing the inspiration for his work "Verbal Behavior" in which language is analyzed from a behaviorist perspective. Another student influenced by Whitehead was Charles Malik, the drafter of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights's preamble, and later president of the UN General Assembly. Malik wrote his PhD dissertation about Whitehead, in which Malik compared Whitehead's Metaphysics of Time to that of Martin Heidegger. The Whiteheads spent the rest of their lives in the United States. Alfred North retired (again) from teaching in 1937. He remained in Cambridge, MA until his death in 1947. The two volume biography of Whitehead by Victor Lowe and Lowe and Schneewind (1990); is the most definite presentation of the Life and Thought of Whitehead. Lowe studied under Whitehead at Harvard. However, a comprehensive appraisal of Whitehead's work is difficult because Whitehead left no "Nachlass"; his family carried out his instructions that all of his papers be destroyed after his death. Currently, there is also no critical edition of Whitehead's writings, though the Whitehead Research Project of the Center for Process Studies is currently working on one such edition. Thought and works. A.N. Whitehead is one of the most important philosophers of the 20th century. Victor Lowe calls Whitehead the “most powerful systematic thinker philosophy had seen since Hegel.” Gertrude Stein, in "The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas, "refers to Whitehead as one of the three geniuses Toklas has met in her lifetime (the other two being Gertrude Stein and Pablo Picasso). As mentioned above, Whitehead wrote on a wide variety of topics. His more prominent work was in the area of: mathematics and logic, philosophy of science, education, religion, and metaphysics. Mathematics and logic. As a mathematician, Whitehead's ""A Treatise on Universal Algebra" (1898) gained election to the Royal Society, while his work on the "Principia Mathematica" (1910-13) with Bertrand Russell (his former student) is widely regarded as the first truly groundbreaking work in modern symbolic logic.” In "Principia Mathematica" Whitehead and Russell attempted to “describe a set of axioms and inference rules in symbolic logic from which all mathematical truths could in principle be proven. As such, this ambitious project is of great importance in the history of mathematics and philosophy, being one of the foremost products of the belief that such an undertaking may have been achievable.” Philosophy of science. "The Concept of Nature" is a development of Whitehead's Tarner Lectures given in 1919. It is one of his “most important contributions to natural philosophy. His first concern is with the fundamental problems of substance, space, and time; and the most interesting part of his discussion is, perhaps, his criticism of Einstein's method of interpreting results, and the alternative development of his own well-known theory of the four-dimensional 'Space-Time manifold.'” "An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Natural Knowledge" begins “with a discussion of the traditions of science, including the foundations of dynamical physics, scientific relativity and congruence... to a penetrating analysis of the data of science, and explores such topics as the nature of events and objects. Subsequent chapters offer extensive and illuminating treatment of the method of extensive abstraction: durations, moments and time-systems, finite abstractive elements, points and straight lines, normality and congruence, and motion. The final five chapters deal with the theory of objects: location, material objects, causal components, figures and rhythms.” "Science and the Modern World", originally published in 1925, redefines the concept of modern science...Taking readers through the history of modern science, Whitehead shows how cultural history has affected science over the ages in relation to such major intellectual themes as romanticism, relativity, quantum theory, religion, and movements for social progress.” In "Science and the Modern World", Whitehead argues “that the way out of the difficulties posed by relativity and quantum mechanics lay in the acceptance of a “philosophy of organism”; and he also indicated that such a philosophy, unlike the traditional scientific point of view, would be able to heal the divided conscience of mankind and reconcile scientific thought with our religious and esthetic intuitions.” Education. The most complete outline of Whitehead's thought on education can be found in his book, "The Aims of Education". He describes the main idea of that book as follows: “The students are alive, and the purpose of education is to stimulate and guide their self-development. It follows as a corollary from this premiss, that the teachers also should be alive with living thoughts. The whole book is a protest against dead knowledge, that is to say, against inert ideas.” Whitehead's Presidential address in 1916 to the Mathematical Association of England, "The Aims of Education" (not to be confused with his book of the same name published in 1929), pointedly criticized the formalist approach of modern British education with seemingly little regard for the foundations of culture and the self-education of the whole person. He writes, "Culture is activity of thought, and receptiveness to beauty and humane feeling. Scraps of information have nothing to do with it." Here are some of A.N. Whitehead more famous quotes on the topic of education: Religion. Whitehead's most comprehensive work in the area of religion is his book: "Religion in the Making. "The aim of "Religion in the Making" “was to give a concise analysis of the various factors in human nature which go to form a religion, to exhibit the inevitable transformation of religion with the transformation of knowledge, and more especially to direct attention to the foundation of religion on our apprehension of those permanent elements by reason of which there is a stable order in the world, permanent elements apart from which there could be no changing world.” In other words, for Whitehead, religion is a matter of "individuality in community.” Like all things, religion should be seen as relational, dynamic, and in process. Additionally, with his description of religion as “world-loyalty,” Whitehead's thought played a significant role in the formation of environmental ethics in the late 1960s. Metaphysics. While Whitehead wrote on a great many subjects, none were more influential, challenging, or original than his work on cosmology and metaphysics. Whiteheadian metaphysics became the foundation for a school of philosophy known as process philosophy. In 1927, Whitehead was asked to give the Gifford Lectures at the University of Edinburgh. These lectures were published in 1929 as "Process and Reality", typically referred to as Whitehead's "magnum opus". As the most developed, detailed, and rigorous summary of his metaphysical scheme, it is difficult to overstate the significance of Whitehead's "Process and Reality". According to Axtin Clark, it surpasses “Aristotle’s "Metaphysics" and Kant’s "Critique of Pure Reason" for intrinsic importance, though naturally not as yet for historical standing or influence.” "Process and Reality" is known for its refutation of classical views on substance, being, and reality. For Whitehead, reality is a process of occasions and events. This perspective encourages a shift away from static notions of being, to more dynamic notions of becoming. For Whitehead, reality is not to be understood in terms of material things, but a process of events - interdependent and deeply related. Put another way, “The interwoven, relational character of our world and our lives is glaringly obvious to thoughtful people today...Equally glaring is the fact that these relationships are dynamic processes...Some things change very slowly, but all things change. Or, to put it better, the world is not finally made of 'things' at all, if a 'thing' is something that exists over time without changing. The world is composed of events and processes. Peter Simons describes Whitehead's metaphysics as follows: While "Process and Reality" is certainly Whitehead's most comprehensive account of his metaphysics, the main tenets were later summarized in his more accessible work, "Adventures of Ideas" (1933). In addition to his metaphysics, "Adventure of Ideas" also includes Whitehead's thoughts on conceptions of beauty, truth, art, adventure, and peace. Whitehead believed that "there are no whole truths; all truths are half-truths. It is trying to treat them as whole truths that plays the devil." Furthermore, he contends that, “in the real world it is more important that a proposition be interesting than that it be true. The importance of truth is that it adds to interest.” Influence and legacy. Process philosophy. As the central figure of the movement known as “process philosophy,” Whitehead's legacy has quickly expanded internationally. According to an article published by Tang Yijie (Professor of Philosophy and Director of Cultural Research at Pecking University, China) process philosophy – reframed by David Ray Griffin as “Constructive Postmodernism” – is one of two intellectual trends competing for dominance in China (the other being Nationalism). Proponents of process philosophy include such influential thinkers as John B. Cobb Jr., Charles Hartshorne, David Ray Griffin, Nicholas Rescher, Marjorie Suchocki, Thomas Jay Oord, Catherine Keller, Daniel Day Williams, and Joseph A. Bracken. Whitehead's ideas have also been taken up by French philosophers Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Gilles Deleuze. In poetry, the work and thought of American Charles Olson was strongly influenced by Whitehead's concepts. Olson referred to Whitehead variously as "the cosmologist" and as the "constant companion of my poem." According to C. Robert Mesle, “Process-relational thought has enormous potential for integrating and unifying the richly different perspective of people in the world today.” As such, Whitehead's philosophy has been the inspiration for work in a variety of fields, including ecological relations and the scholarship of John B. Cobb, Jr. The breadth of significance and application of Whitehead's thought is evidenced by the SUNY Press 32 book series on Constructive Postmodern Thought. Or, see "Handbook of Whiteheadian Process Thought" Vol 1-2, edited by Michel Weber and Will Desmond, for examples of the universal applicability of Whiteheadian thought. Whitehead's philosophical influence can certainly “be felt in all three of the main areas in which he worked (i.e., logic and the foundations of mathematics, the philosophy of science, and metaphysics)” though his influence expands through all of the major philosophical schools including pragmatism, analytical, continental, and postmodern thought, on topics ranging from “ontology, phenomenology, personalism, philosophical anthropology, ethics, political theory, economics,” to education, religion, theology, psychology, ecology, biology, physics, and beyond. Whitehead's work is intentionally transdisciplinary. As Whitehead himself states, “Philosophy frees itself from the taint of ineffectiveness by its close relations with religion and with science, natural and sociological.” Process theology. Though Whitehead was more of a philosopher than a theologian, he is not without significant influence in the realm of religion. He famously described religion as “the last refuge of human savagery,” “solitariness,” and “world-loyality.” Perhaps the most prominent developments out of Whitehead's philosophy occurred in Process Theology - influenced by the Whiteheadian metaphysics, and further developed by others. Whitehead's Philosophy of Organism (the original name for his process metaphysic) gave rise to process theology, due to the work of Charles Hartshorne, John B. Cobb, Jr., David Ray Griffin, and others. Since then, adherents of many faith traditions have identified with the process perspective, including Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, and Chinese thinkers. Process theology emerged toward the end of the 20th century as an important movement in contemporary theology. It is widely known for its direct challenge to the classical theistic notions of a static immutable and impassible God – derived from Platonic perfect-being metaphysics. “Process theologians, such as John B. Cobb Jr., Marjorie Suchocki, and David Ray Griffin, argue that even God is best understood in terms of relatedness and process rather than as an unchanging, static Being unaffected by the world." Unlike classical theism, which describes the omnipotence of God in terms of coercive and unilateral power; process theology conceives of divine power as both cooperative and persuasive. As such, “The God of process theology tends to be far more personal and much more of a co-participant in the creative process of the universe than that which one often finds in orthodox religions.” From process theism arises a unique response to the logical problem of evil (theodicy). The problem of evil is roughly this: 1) If God is all powerful then God would have the power to prevent evil and innocent suffering; 2) If God is all loving then God would desire to prevent evil and innocent suffering; 3)Suffering and evil is a reality. Process notions of divine power, arising out of a Whiteheadian metaphysic, are used to emphasize the relational character of God, which in the case of theodicy means that because God is not endowed with coercive power, God is no more culpable for evil than we are. Science. In recent years, Whiteheadian thought has become a stimulating voice in scientific research. Timothy E. Eastman and Hank Keeton's book, "Physics and Whitehead" (2009) and Michael Epperson's, "Quantum Mechanics and the Philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead" (2012) are recent examples of Whiteheadian approaches to Physics, whereas Brian G. Henning, Adam Scarfe, and Dorion Sagan's, "Beyond Mechanism" (2013) and Rupert Sheldrake's, "Science Set Free" (2012) are recent examples of Whiteheadian approaches to Biology. In physics particularly, Whitehead's thought has been influential, articulating a rival doctrine to Einstein's general relativity. Whitehead's theory of gravitation continues to be controversial. Even Tanaka, who suggests that the gravitational constant disagrees with experimental findings, admits that his work does not actually refute Whitehead's formulation. Constructive postmodern education. Today, Whitehead is widely known for his influence in educational theory. This has led to the formation of new modes of learning and new models of teaching. In China, in particular, constructive postmodern forms of education have been implemented with great success. This work is in part the product of cooperation between Chinese government organizations and the Institute for the Postmodern Development of China. Other examples of Whitehead's influence on contemporary education theory include: "Modes of Learning: Whitehead's Metaphysics and the Stages of Education", by George Allan; and "The Adventure of Education: Process Philosophers on Learning, Teaching, and Research", by Adam Scarfe. Ecology, economy, and sustainability. One of the most promising applications of Whitehead's thought in recent years has been in the area of ecological civilization, sustainability, and environmental ethics. “Because Whitehead's holistic metaphysics of value lends itself so readily to an ecological point of view, many see his work as a promising alternative to the traditional mechanistic world view, providing a detailed metaphysical picture of a world constituted by a web of interdependent relations.” This work has been pioneered by John B. Cobb, Jr., whose book "Is It Too Late? A Theology of Ecology" (1971) was the first single-authored book in environmental ethics. Cobb also co-authored a book with economist Herman Daly entitled "For the Common Good: Redirecting the Economy toward Community, the Environment, and a Sustainable Future" (1989), which applied Whitehead's thought to economics, and received the Grawemeyer Award for Ideas Improving World Order. Cobb followed this with a second book, "Sustaining the Common Good: A Christian Perspective on the Global Economy" (1994), which aimed to challenge “economists' zealous faith in the great god of growth.” Further reading. '"For the most comprehensive list of resources related to Whitehead, see the thematic bibliography of the Center for Process Studies.
587138	Apara Mehta (born 13 August 1960) is an Indian television and Bollywood actress known for her supporting roles like "Savita Mansukh Virani" in iconic show "Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi". Early life. Apara Mehta was born on 13 August 1960 to Ushakant Mehta and Mandakini Mehta in Bhavnagar (Saurashtra), Gujarat. She is the only child of her parents. Apara learnt Classical Music from Ghulam Mustafa Khan and also learnt Kathak at a young age. Personal life. In 1980 she married Indian television and film personality Darshan Jariwala with whom she has one daughter. The two have separated now. Excerpts about their personal life were shown in the reality show "Maa Exchange", which aired on Sony Entertainment Television. Theatrical career. Mehta has work on stage since 1981. She has acted in over 150 plays in various roles. She has found a constant career in plays.
1055008	Alexa Davalos (born May 28, 1982) is an American actress. Her breakthrough role came as Gwen Raiden on the fourth season of the TV series "Angel" (2002–2003) and she has gone on to appear in several Hollywood films, including "The Chronicles of Riddick" (2004), "Feast of Love" (2007), "The Mist" (2007), "Defiance" (2008) and "Clash of the Titans" (2010). She has also appeared on the TV series "Reunion" (2005–2006) and has a lead role in Frank Darabont's upcoming TV series "Mob City". Early life. Davalos, an only child, was born Alexa Davalos Dunas in France, to American parents, actress Elyssa Davalos and photographer Jeff Dunas. Her maternal grandfather is actor Richard Davalos. She is Jewish on her father's side; her paternal ancestors emigrated from Vilnius in Lithuania. Davalos spent most of her childhood in France and Italy, before settling in New York. She has stated "I tend to curse in French more often than I do in English." She struck out on her own at seventeen and headed to New York City. She supported herself by modeling for photographers like Peter Lindbergh. "I had a mission," she recalls. "I wanted to be out in the world, doing my own thing. Working in a theater, I discovered that I really wanted to act." Her passion soon grew towards acting, and she attended the Off Broadway Flea Theater in New York. Career. In 2002, Davalos co-starred with Charlie Hofheimer in the short film "The Ghost of F. Scott Fitzgerald", which screened at the 2002 Toronto Film Festival. In September 2003, she was seen opposite Antonio Banderas in the HBO film "And Starring Pancho Villa as Himself". Davalos made her feature film debut in 2004 starring in "The Chronicles of Riddick" as Kyra.
581606	Upendra Limaye (born 8 March 1974) is an Indian film actor, who won the National Film Award for his role in the Marathi film "Jogwa". Filmography. Films by Upendra Limaye Awards. Best Actor Natya Gaurav Award Year : 1996 Play Jallai Tuzi Preet Best Actor Kalnirnaya Award Year : 1996 Play Jallai Tuzi Preet Best Actor Maharashtra Times Award Year : 2005 Film Page 3 Best Actor Hamlog Award Year : 2005 Film Page3 Best Actor Rashtriya Ratna Award Year : 2006 Film Page 3 Best Actor Kalarang Award Year : 2009 Film Sarkar Raj / Urus Best Actor National Film Award Year : 2009 Film Jogwa Best Actor Shivaji Ganeshan Award Year : 2009 Film Jogwa Best Actor V. Shantaram Award Year : 2009 Film Jogwa Best Actor Baburao Painter Award Year : 2009 Film Jogwa Best Actor Sanskriti Kaladarpan Award Year : 2009 Film Jogwa Best Actor Maharashtra Times Award Year : 2009 Film Jogwa For Outstanding Contribution to his Profession Maharashtra Ratna Puraskar Year : 2010 For Outstanding Contribution to his Profession Ninad Puraskar Year : 2010
1062426	Linda Denise Blair (born January 22, 1959) is an American actress. Blair is best known for her role as the possessed child, Regan, in the film "The Exorcist" (1973), for which she was nominated for an Academy Award and two Golden Globes, winning one. She reprised her role in "" (1977). Biography. Known background and early career. Blair was born in St. Louis, Missouri, and was raised in Westport, Connecticut. She began her career as a six-year-old child model and started acting with a regular role on the short-lived "Hidden Faces" (1968-69) daytime soap. Her first theatrical film appearance was in "The Way We Live Now" (1970). Blair was selected from a field of 600 applicants for her most notable role as Regan in "The Exorcist" (1973). The role earned her a Golden Globe and People's Choice Award for Best Supporting Actress as well as an Academy Award nomination. She reprised her role in the sequel, "" (1977), garnering a Saturn Award nomination for Best Actress of 1978. Between these two films, she appeared in the television films "Born Innocent" (1974), "Airport 1975" (1974), "Sarah T. - Portrait of a Teenage Alcoholic" (1975) and "Sweet Hostage" (1975) opposite Martin Sheen. Legal problems. Towards the end of the 1970s, Blair encountered trouble with law enforcement authorities as she was charged with drug possession and conspiracy to sell drugs. She pleaded guilty to a reduced charge of conspiracy to possess cocaine, in exchange for three years' probation and a $5,000 fine. Blair was also required to make at least 12 major public appearances to tell young people about the dangers of drug abuse. Though she pursued roles in subsequent films, Blair found it hard to restart her screen career and landed low-grade films in the 1980s and later. As she herself said in an interview, her career "went down faster than the "Titanic."" A new direction. Blair's career took a new turn in the 1980s, as she starred in a number of successful low-budget horror and exploitation films, including "Hell Night" (1981), "Chained Heat" (1983) and "Savage Streets" (1984). Blair later worked in numerous films, mostly comedies, including the "Exorcist" send-up "Repossessed" in 1990, and a cameo role in "Scream" (1996). In 1997, she appeared in a Broadway revival of "Grease." She was cast as a regular in the BBC television show, "L.A. 7" (2000). She hosted Fox Family's "Scariest Places on Earth" (2000-6). Other interests. Blair also become an animal rights activist and humanitarian, working with PETA, Feed The Children, Variety, the Children's Charity, and other organizations. Blair also devotes time to a non-profit organization she organized, the Linda Blair WorldHeart Foundation, which works to rescue abused, neglected and mistreated animals. She commenced to follow a vegan diet, and was a co-author of the book "Going Vegan!" Honors. In 2008, she appeared at the 18th annual Malaga Fantasy and Horror Film Festival to accept a lifetime achievement award for her work in the horror genre. She appeared in the 2009 documentary "Confessions of a Teenage Vigilante," discussing her role as Brenda in "Savage Streets" (1984). The documentary was included as a bonus feature on the 2009 DVD release of the film. In 2010 she appeared as herself on the cable series "Pit Boss" and "Jury Duty." She appeared in the 2011 Rick Springfield documentary "Affair of the Heart," and was a panelist in a 2011 episode of "The Joy Behar Show". Called upon with honors, Blair appeared at a pre-taped 84th Academy Awards ceremony honoring make-up artist Dick Smith. Smith had created the iconic make-up for Blair in "The Exorcist."
242825	Peter Dobson (born July 19, 1964) is an American actor who has starred in the films "Sing", "The Frighteners", "Drowning Mona", "The Poseidon Adventure", and the film adaptation of "Last Exit to Brooklyn". He also had a cameo role in "Forrest Gump" as Elvis Presley. he has Starred in numerous television shows including Robert Zemeckis's CBS comedy "Johnny Bago" and the critically acclaimed USA newtwork "Cover Me: Based on the True Life of an FBI Family" He is currently in development for his directorial debut for the feature ""
1068255	Death in Love is a psychosexual-thriller about a love affair between a Jewish woman and a doctor overseeing human experimentation at a Nazi German concentration camp, and the impact this has on her sons' lives in the 1990s. The film debuted in 2008. It was written and directed by Boaz Yakin. The film received a limited theatrical release in the United States on 17 July 2009. It was released on DVD in the United States on January 10, 2010. Plot. In 1940s Nazi Germany, a young Jewish woman in a Nazi concentration camp saves her own life by seducing the young doctor who performs medical experiments on prisoners. Decades later in the year 1993, that same woman (Jacqueline Bisset) is living in New York City and married with two grown sons.
143641	Michael Anthony Beach (born October 30, 1963) is an American actor. Early life. Beach was born in Roxbury, Massachusetts, of Cape Verdean descent. He attended the prestigious Noble & Greenough School in Dedham, Massachusetts on scholarship from ABC (A Better Chance). He was introduced to acting when he was sidelined by a lacrosse injury during high school by a classmate. After high school he went on to graduate from New York City's Juilliard School, and performed in many off-Broadway and regional theater plays before starring in Los Angeles theater productions of "Ascension Day" and "Much Ado About Nothing", and eventually breaking into film and television. Career. Beach is perhaps best known for portraying FDNY paramedic Monte 'Doc' Parker on the NBC drama "Third Watch", and for his recurring role as Al Boulet, the ex-husband of physician assistant Jeanie Boulet on the NBC medical drama "ER". More recently, he has been known for his recurring role as Colonel Ellis in "Stargate Atlantis". A father of four, Beach resides in Los Angeles with his wife, actress Elisha Wilson-Beach.
1042944	The Way Ahead is a British Second World War drama released in 1944. It stars David Niven and Stanley Holloway and follows a group of civilians who are conscripted into the British Army to fight in North Africa. In the U.S., an edited version was released as The Immortal Battalion. The film was written by Eric Ambler and Peter Ustinov and directed by Carol Reed. The three had originally produced the 1943 training film "The New Lot", which was produced for the Army Kinematograph Service. "The Way Ahead" was an expanded remake of their earlier film, this time intended for a commercial audience. The two films featured some of the same actors, including John Laurie, Raymond Huntley and Peter Ustinov. Plot. In the days after the Dunkirk evacuation in Second World War, Lieutenant Jim Perry (David Niven), a veteran of the British Expeditionary Force, is posted to the (fictional) Duke of Glendon's Light Infantry, known as the 'dogs', to train replacements to fill its depleted ranks. A patient, mild-mannered officer, he does his strenuous best to turn the bunch of grumbling ex-civilians into soldiers, earning himself their intense dislike. The conscripts also believe that their sergeant is treating them with special severity; in fact, he is pleased with the way they are developing and has his eye on some of them as potential NCOs. Eventually however, the men come to respect their officer.
1789606	King of the Ants is a 2003 film from director Stuart Gordon. It is based on a novel by writer Charlie Higson, who also wrote the screenplay for the film. The film played at various festivals, but was not released wide theatrically due to its grim nature and content.
1018172	14 Blades is a 2010 "wuxia" film directed by Daniel Lee, starring Donnie Yen, Zhao Wei, Wu Chun, Kate Tsui and Qi Yuwu. The film was released on 4 February 2010 in China and on 11 February 2010 in Hong Kong. It received mixed reviews with critics focusing on their praise on actor Donnie Yen and Zhao Wei. Plot. During the late Ming Dynasty, the imperial court is plagued by corruption as eunuchs usurp state power and the reigning emperor is incompetent. The Jinyiwei are the government's secret police, trained in clandestine combat since childhood, they are in charge of conducting missions to ensure peace and stability within the empire. They have the authority to prosecute anyone deemed as an enemy of the state and they devote their lives and lethal prowess to serving the emperor only. When the organisation was first founded, the Jinyiwei took orders directly from the emperor, but now they are under the control of the eunuchs. The eunuch chief Jia Jingzhong is plotting with an exiled noble, Prince Qing, to rebel against the emperor and seize power. Jia Jingzhong orders Qinglong, a Jinyiwei commander, to kill the Imperial Councillor Zhao Shenyan and take Zhao's safebox, which supposedly contains a list of names of traitors. However, Qinglong discovers later that he had been used, as the safebox contains the Imperial Seal, a symbol of the emperor's authority, and Jia Jingzhong wants to use it to legitimise Prince Qing's actions when the rebellion begins. Qinglong is betrayed by his fellow Jinyiwei and becomes a fugitive when Jia Jingzhong denounces him as a traitor and issues an order for his arrest. Qinglong escapes and joins the Justice Escort Agency, where he strikes up a romantic relationship with Qiao Hua, the daughter of the agency's leader. Qinglong is determined to fulfil his loyalty to the emperor and he continues to search for evidence of Prince Qing's plot while undermining Prince Qing's plans concurrently. He is joined by the Heaven Eagles Gang, a group of bandits led by the Judge of the Sands. Standing in Qinglong's way are Jia Jingzhong's lackeys and his former Jinyiwei fellows, as well as Prince Qing's adoptive daughter Tuotuo, a highly-skilled female warrior. Production. "14 Blades" was scheduled to start filming on 14 May 2009, in Ningxia, China. Donnie Yen stated that he took his role of a villain in the film as he "wanted to tackle the role of a villain who discovers his humanity." Release. "14 Blades" premiered in China and Singapore on 4 February 2010 and in Hong Kong on 11 February. The film premiered at seventh place in the Hong Kong box office, grossing HK$317,975 in its first week. It grossed a total of HK$984,711 at the Hong Kong box office. The film was successful in Singapore where it was first in the box office on its second week, grossing a total of HK$1,126,692 on its theatrical run. The film grossed a worldwide total of HK$3,676,875. Reception. "14 Blades" was nominated for Best Action Choreography and Best Sound Design at the 29th Hong Kong Film Awards. "The China Post" praised Donnie Yen's acting ability and stated that the film was generally entertaining but criticised the action scenes, saying "you never actually clearly see even one of the 14 blades. Unlike a really decent martial arts film, in which the battle scenes are well choreographed and you see the majority of the action, this film's fight scenes were only dynamic." Many reviewers also criticised the film's heavy use of technology, also indicating Kate Tsui's shedding clothes technique. "Film Business Asia" gave the film a six out of ten, stating that "14 Blades" has a "script that becomes increasingly incoherent and restless editing that grows more and more distracting" and that the action scenes were "largely dependant on wire-fu and CG...when Yen is allowed to show his skills properly..."14 Blades" starts to look like the film it could have been." "Variety" called "14 Blades" an "above-average martial-arts actioner that reinforces Donnie Yen's "Man with No Name" ambience.", "Despite the circumstances, Qiao Hua falls in love with her captor, a development made believable by Zhao's warm and affecting perf. "" Yen's Eastwood-like poise is used to good effect here, and the romantic tension keeps the narrative effectively taut between the battle sequences." "The Hollywood Reporter" wrote that the film "would have ended a mediocre film if not for the inventively designed and utilized weaponry (especially the titular 14 blades with different functions)" and had mixed reaction to the acting in the film, calling Donnie Yen's "stiff and steely demeanor actually works to his role's favor. The love interest with Qiao Hua is lame, especially with Zhao sleepwalking through another typecast role as playful, tomboyish heroine."
1058491	The Day of the Dolphin is a 1973 American science-fiction thriller film directed by Mike Nichols and starring George C. Scott. Loosely based on the 1967 novel, "Un animal doué de raison" ("A Sentient Animal"), by French writer Robert Merle, the screenplay was written by Buck Henry. Plot. A brilliant and driven scientist, Jake Terrell, and his young and beautiful wife, Maggie, train dolphins to communicate with humans. This is done by teaching the dolphins to speak English in dolphin-like voices. Two of his dolphins, Alpha ("Fa") and Beta ("Bea"), are stolen by officials of the shadowy Franklin Foundation headed by Harold DeMilo (Fritz Weaver), the supportive backer of the Terrells' research. After the dolphins are kidnapped, an investigation by an undercover government agent for hire, Curtis Mahoney (Paul Sorvino), reveals that the Institute is planning to further train the dolphins to carry out a political assassination by having them place a limpet mine on the hull of the yacht of the President of the United States. Production. The novel was published in the US in 1969 and was retitled "The Day of the Dolphin". The film version was originally going to be directed by Roman Polanski for United Artists in 1969, with Polanski writing the script. However, while Polanski was in London, England, looking for filming locations in August 1969, his pregnant wife, the actress Sharon Tate, was murdered in their Beverly Hills home by disciples of Charles Manson. Polanski returned to the United States and abandoned the project. The following year it was announced Franklin Schaffner would make the movie for the Mirisch Corporation. These plans were frustrated and Joseph Levine ended up buying the project off United Artists for Mike Nichols. Production. The film was mostly shot in the Bahamas. Production was extremely difficult with Nichols later describing it as the toughest shoot he had done to date. Reception. The film received mixed reviews when released in 1973. Pauline Kael, the film critic for "The New Yorker", suggested that if the best subject that Nichols and Henry could think of was talking dolphins, then they should quit making movies altogether. The film was not successful commercially, though it was nominated for two Academy Awards, for Best Original Score (Georges Delerue) and Best Sound (Richard Portman and Larry Jost). Levine also claimed the movie had guaranteed pre-sales of $8,450,000 million to cover costs, including a sale to NBC who had expressed interest into turning the story into a TV series. Alpha the dolphin was named best animal actor in the 24th Patsy Awards. Differences from the novel and other sources of inspiration. Merle's novel, a satire of the Cold War, is supposedly the basis for this film, but the film's plot was substantially different from that of the novel. The movie is instead inspired in part from the scientist John C. Lilly's life. A physician, biophysicist, neuroscientist, and inventor, Lilly specialized in the study of consciousness. In 1959, he founded the Communications Research Institute at St. Thomas in the Virgin Islands and served as its director until 1968. There he worked with dolphins exploring dolphin intelligence and human-dolphin communication. See also "Bottlenose dolphin communication" and "John Lilly and cetacean communication".
588176	Oosaravelli () is a 2011 Telugu action film directed by Surender Reddy. It stars N. T. Rama Rao Jr. and Tamannaah Bhatia in the lead roles and Shaam, Prakash Raj, Payal Ghosh, Murali Sharma, Jaya Prakash Reddy and Rahman in supporting roles. The score and soundtrack for the film is composed by Devi Sri Prasad. The film released across 1,800 screens worldwide. Despite its mixed reviews from critics, the film did average business at the box office. It broke previous tollywood records of highest opening day gross by grossing a whopping amount of . This film is inspired from Chinese film "Vengeance" (2009). The film is remade into Bengali in 2013 as "Rocky", directed by Sujit Mondal, and starring Mahaakshay Chakraborty and Pooja Bose.This movie dubbed in Hindi as MAR MITENGE. Plot. Tony (N. T. Rama Rao Jr) does anything for money. When Tony went to Kashmir he met a young girl named Niharika (Tamannaah) while being kidnapped by terrorists. He falls in love with her and then rescues her. But Tony found out that Niharika was already engaged to Rakesh. Rakesh is a goon (and the minister's son) but Niharika doesn't know that. When Niharika found out that he was a goon, she dumped him. And she also came to know that she is in love with Tony. Later on Tony kills Rakesh and captures his son DSP Jr.(Sai). Later on when Tony, Niharika, and Chitra (Payal Ghosh) go to the temple, Chitra sees Tony killing someone. And then there is a flashback about how he and Niharika met before but she lost her memory. That happened because Niharika's brother was an undercover cop and when goons found out they killed the whole family. The only one who survived was Niharika but she had a bullet in her head. The doctors said that she would lose her memory soon. So, she tells Tony to kill the people who killed her family because she had seen Tony beating up a bunch of people. In the end tony kills all the goons who killed Niharika's family. Production. The production of the film began on 3 March 2011 at Gandipet. The film was shot in Hyderabad, Switzerland, Bangkok, Pattaya, Italy and France. The film's audio was released through Aditya music on 15 September at Shilpakala Vedika in Hyderabad. Release. The film released in 1800 screens worldwide on 6 October 2011. The Nizam area of Andhra Pradesh saw 200 theatres including 76 theatres in Hyderabad screening the film, while in the overseas territory, the release in the USA was 91 theatres. Critical reception. "Times Of India", which gave a two star, said "screenplay falls short, especially in the second half of the film. NTR steals the show in the first half. In most scenes, he underplays his emotions and manages to evoke some laughs. But towards the end of the movie, his act gets inconsistent and he doesn't emote too well either. Tamannah and Payal Ghosh do justice to their roles. "CNN-IBN" gave a negative review commenting ""Oosaravelli" fails to live up to the expectations, and one can blame a weak script for this debacle. The movie is a disappointment for ardent NTR fans but for average viewers it is nothing more than a predictable hotchpotch film". "Rediff" gave a two and half stars explaining ""Oosaravelli" is a routine revenge drama. There is some humour woven in, there are some interesting twists and turns and some flashback episodes. Even so, the director does not seem to have a proper grip on the story. Post-interval the momentum slackens. NTR is different in terms of his styling and acting. On the whole, it seems like watching a new, more restrained NTR. Tamannaah turns in a good performance. "Oneindia.in" gave the film an average verdict, saying ""Oosaravelli" promises big but falls very short of expectations. The film is an average entertainer and the one big positive thing in "Oosaravelli" is that the director has tried something new and different. Tamanna also gets a good role that has scope for action. She does complete justice to her role. NTR brings in positive energy. The twists are good". B.V.S. Prakash of "Deccan Chronicle" wrote "A street-smart goon, played by NTR, goes on a killing free terminating ruthless people in an effort to fulfil a promise he made to a hapless girl played by Tammanah. Instead of making a regular vigilante movie, director Surender Reddy blends romance with humour to lessen the gory part of this entertainer, but once the “secret” behind the killings is revealed, the film loses its sheen". "NDTV" stated "With "Oosaravelli", director Surender Reddy has tried something new and different. If you are NTR fan, then it is a must-watch otherwise the film is an average entertainer". Soundtrack. The soundtrack of the film was released worldwide on 15 September 2011. K. Raghavendra Rao graced the audio function and released the CD's as well as the 2 GB microchip sim card. While the first CD was received by M. M. Keeravani, the first microchip sim card was received by S. S. Rajamouli. Other prominent guests in the function were D. Suresh Babu, Boyapati Srinu, Kodali Nani, Nallamalapu Bujji, Vallabhaneni Vamsi, B.V.S.N. Prasad, Dil Raju, Vamsi Paidipally, Surender Reddy, Jr NTR, Tamanna, Ganesh, K L Narayana, Devi Sri Prasad, Sirish, Lakshman, G.V, Gunnam Gangaraju, Ramajogayya Sastry, Anantha Sreeram, B Bapineedu, Gautham Raju, K S Rama Rao, K Atchi Reddy, Suresh Reddy, Koratala Siva, Rasool Yellora, Vakkantham Vamsi and others. The music was composed by Devi Sri Prasad. The audio launch program was aired live on MAA TV and was held at Shilpakala Vedika on the same day. Reception. 123telugu.com gave a review stating "‘"Oosaravelli"’ is not a typical NTR album. NTR said that he is trying out something new with ‘"Oosaravelli"’ and it reflects in the audio album. There are some nice melodies and youthful tracks but there are some mass, commercial numbers as well.The audio tries to play to the strengths of NTR and Surender Reddy. There is ample scope for stylish picturization and room has been left for NTR to showcase his dancing. ‘Niharika Niharika’, ‘Nenante Naaku’,'Dandiya India’ & ‘Love Ante Caring’ are my picks. A pretty decent album overall but definitely not DSP’s best work. Success will depend on choreography and picturization." Ragalahari.com gave a review stating "Overall vision of the songs is good but this album may disappoint the movie lovers a little since they have already listened to better songs in NTR-Devisri combination in the past. However, Devisri has the ability to instantly capture the listeners’ attention through these catchy songs ‘Oosaravelli’, ‘Dandiya India’, ‘Niharika’, ‘Love ante Caring’ and ‘Yelango Yelango’." milliblog stated the album as a "Thoroughly enjoyable soundtrack by Devi!" Bharatstudent.com gave a review stating "The album has some solid numbers and two or three tracks have the appetite for getting into the chartbuster list. However, this is not an album which will catch you in the first listening. One has to go through the album two to three times to get into its groove. As expected, the focus is more on the beats and the energy levels than the melody. So, the songs would be fit for a season and forgotten later. Overall, this can be bought for those selected numbers." DVD, Blu Ray Release and Satellite Rights. Gemini TV bagged the satellite rights for a sum of 55.0 million. The DVD was Released by Bhavani Videos on 14 January 2012 with a Purchase price of $7.99 in NTSC Video Format and Dolby Digital 5.1 Audio Format. The Blu-ray was Released on 1 February 2012 with a Purchase price of $14.99 in NTSC Video Format and DTS HD Master, 5.1 Surround Sound.
1165964	Heather Urich (("née" Menzies) born December 3, 1949 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada), is an American actress who moved to California via Florida at the age of 11. Career. Menzies enrolled at the Falcon Studio’s University of the Arts, in Hollywood. Her first professional role at the age of 13 was on "My Three Sons". Directly after that, she auditioned for and won the role of Louisa Von Trapp in "The Sound of Music." Menzies again worked with Julie Andrews in the film "Hawaii" and, at 16, traveled across the country to star in the Broadway play "We Have Always Lived In The Castle" with Shirley Knight. The production opened at the National Theatre in Washington, D.C., and showed for a lengthy run at the Ethel Barrymore Theater in New York City. Menzies guest-starred in several television series during the 1970s and 1980s and did several television pilots and movies for television, including "Tail Gunner Joe" with Peter Boyle and "" with Stephen McHattie, Michael Brandon and Amy Irving. She starred in the popular cult favorite "SSSSSSS" with Strother Martin and Dirk Benedict, in the series "Logan's Run" with Gregory Harrison, and in the film "Piranha" with Bradford Dillman. Menzies met her second husband, Robert Urich, while acting with him in a "Libby’s Corned Beef Hash" commercial. She guest-starred with Urich in "S.W.A.T.", "Vega$" and "Spenser For Hire", as well as many other television shows and a theatrical film, "Endangered Species". The couple also co-starred in theatrical productions, including "The Hasty Heart", a production at the Burt Reynolds Playhouse, in Jupiter, Florida. The play achieved substantial acclaim, including a run at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, in Washington, D.C., with President and Mrs. Ronald Reagan in attendance. Menzies and Urich were married 27 years, until his death in 2002 from synovial sarcoma, a type of cancer. Menzies also appeared in the nude pictorial "Tender Trapp" in the August 1973 issue of "Playboy". Menzies is an ovarian cancer survivor and lives in Canada with her adopted daughter Allison (11), and has two adult children, Ryan and Emily. She also has two grandchildren, Michelle (born 2004) and Lana (born 2005). She works with the Urich Fund for Sarcoma Research at the University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center.
583891	Azhagai Irukkirai Bayamai Irukkirathu (also known as "AIBI"; ; ) is a 2006 Indian Tamil romantic comedy film written and directed by cinematographer-turned-director S.D. Vijay Milton. It starring Bharath and Mallika Kapoor (making her Kollywood debut) in lead and Arun Vijay, Deepu, Renuka and M. S. Baskar in vital supporting roles. The film's score and soundtrack are composed by Yuvan Shankar Raja. The film — inspired by the 1997 Hollywood film "Addicted to Love", starring Matthew Broderick and Meg Ryan — was released on 14 April 2006, coinciding with Tamil New Year and is considered a box office bomb. Upon release, the film was dubbed into Telugu and released as "Maha Andamga Vunnavani Bhayam". The story tells a love relationship between two playful youngsters and their sacrifices. Plot. Manu (Bharath) loves Jo (Mallika Kapoor) and he becomes her friend, hoping to help her win her love for Prem (Arun Vijay), whom Jo secretly loves. Then they both try to break Prem’s love with Nandini and succeed. Manu realizes Jo’s deep love for Prem and tries to unite them. Manu succeeds in making Prem fall in love with Jo. Finally Jo and Prem get married.
585889	Oru CBI Diary Kurippu (English: "A CBI Journal Entry") is a 1988 Malayalam mystery film directed by K. Madhu, written by S. N. Swamy, and starring Mammootty, Suresh Gopi, Jagathy Sreekumar, Mukesh, and Sukumaran. This film is the first in the series of the CBI investigative thrillers featuring Mammootty as CBI officer Sethurama Iyer. It was produced by M. Mani under the banner Sunitha Productions. Sequels to the film are "Jagratha" (1989), "Sethurama Iyer CBI" (2004), and "Nerariyan CBI" (2005). A fifth sequel "Veendum CBI" in the franchise has been announced and is now in the pre-production stage. The plot-line of the film, "Oru CBI Diary Kurippu", was crafted around a real life incidence, the "Polakkulam Case" in which a hotel employee was murdered and dropped from the terrace to make it look like a suicide. The case was investigated by the CBI and it was in this case that a humanoid dummy experiment was first done in the state of Kerala to prove a murder case. The lead character, Sethurama Iyer is said to have been inspired by a police officer named Radha Vinod Raju, Jammu and Kashmir cadre IPS Officer who in 2009 was appointed as the first chief of India's National Investigation Agency.
633780	Morena Baccarin (; born June 2, 1979) is a Brazilian American film and television actress who has played roles in several American science fiction television series: as Inara Serra in the series "Firefly" and the follow-up film "Serenity"; as Adria in the series "Stargate SG-1" and the follow-up film ""; and as Anna in the 2009 version of the series "V". She currently co-stars as Jessica Brody in the Showtime series "Homeland", for which she received an Emmy nomination for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series in 2013.
520246	Bagong Buwan, also known as New Moon, is a 2001 Filipino film directed by Marilou Diaz-Abaya starring Filipino actors Cesar Montano, Amy Austria, Jericho Rosales, Caridad Sanchez, Carlo Aquino, Noni Buencamino, Jiro Manio, Ronnie Lazaro, Jhong Hilario, and Jodi Santamaria. This movie is about the Muslim rebellion in Mindanao, Philippines and its effect on civilians. It is a look at the war in Mindanao between the Philippine government (during President Joseph Estrada's short stint) and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), primarily through the eyes of the Bangsamoro (or Moros as they are more popularly known). The film is set to be restored by ABS-CBN Film Archive. Plot. Ahmad (Cesar Montano) belongs to the Bangsamoro people. While many of his kind are bent on fighting, thinking that Mindanao is only for the Muslims, Ahmad prefers to live a simple and peaceful life. He works as a doctor in Manila while his wife, Fatima (Amy Austria), and his only son, Ibrahim, stay in Mindanao with his mother, Farida (Caridad Sanchez). Ahmad is shocked and devastated when Fatima breaks the confounding news. Ibrahim was killed by a stray bullet when vigilantes indiscriminately fire at their village. Ahmad goes back to where he came from --- Mindanao. Ibrahim’s death did not cause Ahmad to stop striving to live a peaceful life, much to the consternation of his brother, Musa (Noni Buencamino). His brother takes an exactly opposite stand. Musa believes in waging a war against all the "Kaafir" (unbelievers) who may impede the Moro’s goal of independence. He even trains his young son, Rashid (Carlo Aquino) to a Muslim warrior’s life. Ahmad wishes to bring his family to Manila in order to escape the conflict in Mindanao but convinces no one, even his mother. Farida is apparently used to a life of constantly running away from crossfire. His wife, Fatima, wishes to stay where the memory of his son remains. Ahmad is now challenged to continue his life’s vocation as a healer in his war-torn homeland. One day, the MILF headed by Musa, together with Rashid, bombed a police station near a public marketplace. Francis (Jiro Manio), a young Catholic boy, is separated from his parents during the confusion and follows Rashid. Rashid grudgingly takes Francis with him and introduces him to his co-villagers. Francis goes wherever Ahmad and his people go. Francis and Rashid, at their very young age, are the personification of the rival Christian and Muslim who find themselves prejudiced against each other because of ignorance. Ahmad’s group flees the war by evacuating their village and looking from one place or another for a safe haven in the hope of avoiding crossfire and finding a safe place to live in. Ahmad, in his new role as the leader, discovers the pain and suffering that innocent people have gone, and still, go through just because they find themselves in the middle of a war… a war which they did not instigate. Ahmad learns more about his own people. He learns about how the government takes them for granted. He learns about how the Moro, as a people, strive to fight for their rights and liberty. Ahmad also learns that in his veins still runs the blood of a Muslim and offers the ultimate sacrifice. In the end, one realizes that nobody really wins in a war. A just peace is better than a just war.
395793	Kim Ki-bum (Hangul: 김기범, Hanja: 金起範), sometimes mononymously credited as Kibum (born August 21, 1987) is a South Korean actor and singer. After going through two years of artist training under the leadership S.M. Entertainment, Kim made his television debut in the Korean television drama, "April Kiss", in 2004.
1169604	Milburn Stone (July 5, 1904 – June 12, 1980) was an American film and television actor, a nephew of Broadway comedian Fred Stone and the son of a shopkeeper, best known for his role as "Doc" (Dr. Galen Adams) on the CBS western series "Gunsmoke". He also played a doctor, CDR Blake, in the 1943 film Gung Ho!. Hugh Milburn Stone was born in Burrton in Harvey County in central Kansas, the son of Herbert and Laura (née Belfield) Stone. He began his screen career in the 1930s, having been featured in Monogram Pictures' series of "Tailspin Tommy" adventures. In 1940, he appeared with Marjorie Reynolds, Tristram Coffin, and I. Stanford Jolley in the comedy espionage film "Chasing Trouble". Also in 1940 Stone co-starred with Roy Rogers in the movie Colorado wherein he played Rogers brother-gone-wrong acting under the alias Donald Mason, a southern sympathizer. He also played the liberal minded warden in Monogram Pictures', "Prison Mutiny", in 1943. Stone was signed by Universal Pictures in 1943 and became a familiar face in its features and serials. One of his film roles was a radio columnist in the Gloria Jean-Kirby Grant musical "I'll Remember April". He made such an impression in this film that Universal gave him a starring role (and a similar characterization) in the 1945 serial "The Master Key". If you look closely, in the early part of Gone With the Wind, you will see both Stone and George Reeves,(Superman), on the porch at O'Hara's Tara. One of CBS Radio's hit series, the western "Gunsmoke", was adapted for television in 1955 and recast with experienced screen actors. Howard McNear, radio's "Doc Adams," was replaced by Milburn Stone, who gave the role a harder edge consistent with his screen portrayals. He stayed with "Gunsmoke" through its entire run and was often shown sparring in a friendly manner with costars Dennis Weaver and Ken Curtis, who played, respectively, Chester Goode and deputy Festus Haggen. His other co-stars were James Arness, Amanda Blake, Burt Reynolds, Glenn Strange, Buck Taylor and Roger Ewing. In March 1971, Milburn Stone had heart bypass surgery at UAB Hospital, in Birmingham, Alabama. Afterward, he had to be revived two times after his heart stopped. A painting of the Doc Adams character was commissioned from Gary Hawk, a painter from Stone's home state of Kansas. When then-President Ronald Reagan, a friend of Milburn Stone, heard about the painting, Gary Hawk was invited to the Oval Office to present the artwork to the President. Stone lived to see Reagan emerge as the likely Republican nominee for President in 1980 but not to witness Reagan's election. For his contribution to the television industry, Milburn Stone has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6801 Hollywood Blvd. He died of a heart attack in La Jolla, California. In 1981, he was inducted posthumously into the Western Performers Hall of Fame at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. After his death he left a legacy for the Performing Arts, in Cecil County, MD, by way of the Milburn Stone Theatre in North East, MD.
1059810	Amy Marie Madigan (born September 11, 1950) is an American actress who is known for her role as Annie Kinsella in the 1989 film "Field of Dreams" and Iris Crowe in the HBO television series "Carnivale". She was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in the film "Twice in a Lifetime". Career. Madigan was nominated for an Oscar for the 1985 film "Twice in a Lifetime". From 2003 to 2005, she starred in the HBO series "Carnivàle" as Iris Crowe, the sister of sinister preacher Brother Justin Crowe (Clancy Brown). Madigan also played keyboard, percussion, and vocals behind Steve Goodman on tour throughout the late 1970s. Later she briefly recorded with Danny Sheridan's Eli Radish Band replacing former Pure Prairie League vocalist Starr Smith. She was (with singers Fred Bliffert and Jesse Roe) one-third of the group Jelly whose only album, "A True Story", was released by Asylum in 1977. At the 71st Academy Awards, Madigan was one of several performers who refused to applaud Elia Kazan, due to his controversial activities during his career. Madigan appeared in four episodes of Season 3 of "Fringe" as Olivia's mother. Personal. Madigan has been married to actor Ed Harris since November 21, 1983. The couple have one child together: a daughter, Lily, born on May 3, 1993. Amy's father was legendary Chicago journalist John Madigan.
774333	Saint Ralph is a 2004 Canadian drama film written and directed by Michael McGowan. Its central character is a teenage boy who trains for the 1954 Boston Marathon in the hope a victory will be the miracle his mother needs to awaken from a coma. The film premiered at the 2004 Toronto International Film Festival and was given a theatrical release in 2005.
1063826	Night Falls on Manhattan is a 1997 American crime drama film directed by Sidney Lumet, set and filmed on location in New York City. Its screenplay is by Lumet, based on a novel by Robert Daley entitled "Tainted Evidence". The film centers on a newly elected district attorney played by Andy García, who is eager to stamp out corruption within the New York City Police Department. Ian Holm, James Gandolfini, Lena Olin, Ron Leibman and Richard Dreyfuss star in principal supporting roles.
1039821	Fenella Woolgar (born in London on 4 August 1969) is a British actress.
582186	Yuva (, , "Youth"), originally titled "Howrah Bridge" is an Indian political drama film directed by Mani Ratnam and released in 2004. This film was a Simultaneous remake of a Tamil film (""Aaytha Ezhuthu""), Telugu film (""Yuva""), the prime objective of the movie was to motivate educated Indian youths to enter politics. The film tells the stories of three young men from completely different strata of society and one fateful incident on Kolkata's Howrah Bridge which changes their lives forever. The narrative of the story is partially in hyperlink format.The film is set in the city of Chennai in the Tamil version. The Tamil version was regarded more popular among film critics. Yuva was declared 'average grosser' at the Indian box-office. Plot. Lallan Singh (Abhishek Bachchan) is a goon, originally from Bihar but settled in Kolkata, West Bengal because his brother Gopal Singh (Sonu Sood) has left him alone and he had no option of earning back home. He loves, marries, and abuses his wife, Shashi Biswas (Rani Mukerji). Michael Mukherjee (Ajay Devgan) is an influential student leader who wants politicians like Prosenjit Bhattacharya (Om Puri) to keep away from college elections. Michael is in love with his neighbour Radhika (Esha Deol) who lives with her uncle and aunt. And then there is Arjun (Vivek Oberoi), carefree and spoiled son of an IAS officer. He wants to relocate to the U.S. for a better future. He falls in love with Mira (Kareena Kapoor), whom he just met. After talking to Michael, Arjun changes his mind and wants to be a politician. Prosenjit is worried when he hears news of students standing in the election. He uses every possible way to get them out of Politics. Firstly he provides scholarship of a prestigious foreign university to Michael. When Micheal refuses the bribe, he orders his goon Gopal Singh to take control. Gopal beats some students but faces very strong retaliation from Michael and his fellow students. After that Lallan Singh takes charge and kills Gopal. He kidnaps Arjun and other candidates. However, they manage to escape with the help of Lallan Singh's ally. Lallan follows Arjun and beats him up. While running, Arjun manages to call Michael for help. He comes to rescue Arjun at Howrah Bridge. Then Lallan is handed to the police. Michael wins the four seats he and his fellow students have contested for. Shashi leaves for her hometown while Lallan remains in prison. Michael, Arjun and two friends enter Vidhansabha. Soundtrack. The soundtrack features six songs by A. R. Rahman, with lyrics by Mehboob. The rap and lyrics for the song "Dol Dol" were by Blaaze. Reception. Critical reception. Abhishek Bachchan was praised by the critics for hints of a rustic 'angry young man' type performance in the film. Box office. Yuva grossed at Indian box office.Yuva did well in multiplexes. But it has not done well in single screen theatres. Compared to other parts of the country, it has fared better in Mumbai. The Mumbai distributor will recover the cost of the film, but his sub-territory distributors in places like Surat and Gujarat lost money.In places like Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, even the south India, distributors lostaround 50 lakh (Rs 5 million) to 1 crore ( 10 million). Overseas, too, the film has done average business. It was sold to distributors at price of a 20 crore-film. Despite a good opening, the box office response to Yuva was mixed, with several distributors losing money. It is another matter that the producers, Ratnam's Madras Talkies, had more than recovered their investments in this 20-crore three-language project.
1103041	Stefan Banach (; March 30, 1892 – August 31, 1945) was a Polish mathematician. He is generally considered to have been one of the 20th century's most important and influential mathematicians. Banach was one of the founders of modern functional analysis and one of the original members of the Lwów School of Mathematics. His major work was the 1932 book, "Théorie des opérations linéaires" (Theory of Linear Operations), the first monograph on the general theory of functional analysis. Born in Kraków, Banach enrolled in "Henryk Sienkiewicz Gymnasium" and worked on mathematics problems with his friend Witold Wiłkosz. After graduating in 1910, Banach and Wiłkosz moved to Lwów. However, Banach returned to Kraków during World War I and during this time, he met and befriended Hugo Steinhaus. After Banach solved mathematical problems which Steinhaus considered difficult, he and Steinhaus published their first joint work. Along with several other mathematicians, Banach formed a society for mathematicians in 1919. In 1920, Banach was given an assistantship in Jagiellonian University after Poland regained independence. He soon became a professor at Lwów Polytechnic and a member of the Polish Academy of Learning during this period. Later Banach organized the "Lwów School of Mathematics". He began writing "Théorie des opérations linéaires" around 1929. On the outbreak of World War II, Lwòw was taken over by the Soviet Union. As a corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, he promised to learn Ukrainian. In 1941, when Germany took over the city, Banach, his colleagues, and his sons worked as lice feeders at the Typhus Research Institute. When the Soviets recaptured Lwów, Banach reestablished the University. However, because the Soviets were removing Poles from annexed formerly Polish territories, Banach prepared to return to Krakòw. He died in August 1945 after being diagnosed with lung cancer seven months earlier. Some of the notable mathematical concepts named after Banach include Banach spaces, Banach algebras, the Banach–Tarski paradox, the Hahn–Banach theorem, the Banach–Steinhaus theorem, the Banach-Mazur game, the Banach–Alaoglu theorem and the Banach fixed-point theorem. Life. Early life. Stefan Banach was born on 30 March 1892 at St. Lazarus General Hospital in Kraków, then part of Austro-Hungarian Empire. Banach's parents were Stefan Greczek and Katarzyna Banach, both natives of the Podhale region. Greczek was a soldier in the Austro-Hungarian Army stationed in Kraków. Little is known about Banach's mother. Unusually, Stefan's surname was that of his mother instead of his father, though he received his father's given name, Stefan. Since Stefan Greczek was a private and was prevented by military regulations from marrying, and the mother was too poor to support the child, the couple decided that he should be reared by family and friends. Stefan spent the first few years of his life with his grandmother, but when she took ill Greczek arranged for his son to be raised by Franciszka Płowa and her niece Maria Puchalska in Kraków. Young Stefan would regard Franciszka as his foster mother and Maria as his older sister. In his early years Banach was tutored by Juliusz Mien, a French intellectual and friend of the Płowa family, who had emigrated to Poland and supported himself with photography and translations of Polish literature into French. Mien taught Banach French and most likely encouraged him in his early mathematical pursuits. In 1902 Banach, aged 10, enrolled in Kraków's "Henryk Sienkiewicz Gymnasium" (also known as the "Goetz Gymnasium"). While the school specialized in the humanities, Banach and his best friend Witold Wiłkosz (also a future mathematician) spent most of their time working on mathematics problems during breaks and after school. Later in life Banach would credit Dr. Kamil Kraft, the mathematics and physics teacher at the gymnasium with kindling his interests in mathematics. While generally Banach was a diligent student he did on occasion receive low grades (he failed Greek during his first semester at the gymnasium) and would later speak critically of the school's math teachers. After obtaining his "matura" (high school degree) at age 18 in 1910 Banach, together with Wiłkosz, moved to Lwów with the intention of studying at the Lwów Polytechnic. He initially chose engineering as his field of study since at the time he was convinced that there was nothing new to discover in mathematics. At some point he also attended Jagiellonian University in Kraków on a part-time basis. As Banach had to earn money to support his studies it was not until 1914 that he finally, at age 22, passed his high school graduation exams. When World War I broke out, Banach was excused from military service due to his left-handedness and poor vision. When the Russian Army opened its offensive toward Lwów, Banach left for Kraków, where he spent rest of the war. He made his living as a tutor at the local gymnasiums, worked in a bookstore and as a foreman of road building crew. He may have attended lectures at the Jagiellonian University at that time, including those of the famous Polish mathematician Stanisław Zaremba (mathematician), but little is known of that period of his life. Discovery by Steinhaus. In 1916, in Kraków's "Planty" gardens, Banach encountered Professor Hugo Steinhaus, one of the renowned mathematicians of the time. According to Steinhaus, while he was strolling through the gardens he was surprised to over hear the term ""Lebesgue measure"" (Lebesgue integration was at the time still a fairly new idea in mathematics) and walked over to investigate. As a result he met Banach, as well as Otto Nikodym and Wilkosz. Steinhaus became fascinated with the self-taught young mathematician. The encounter resulted in a long-lasting collaboration and friendship. In fact, soon after the encounter Steinhaus invited Banach to solve some problems he had been working on but which had proven difficult. Banach solved them within a week and the two soon published their first joint work ("On the Mean Convergence of Fourier Series"). Steinhaus, Banach and Nikodym, along with several other Kraków mathematicians (Władysław Ślebodziński, Leon Chwistek, Jan Kroć, and Włodzimierz Stożek) also established a mathematical society, which eventually became the Polish Mathematical Society. The society was officially founded on April 2, 1919. It was also through Steinhaus that Banach met his future wife, Łucja Braus. Interbellum. Steinhaus introduced Banach to academic circles and substantially accelerated his career. After Poland regained independence, in 1920 Banach was given an assistantship at Kraków's Jagiellonian University. Steinhaus' backing also allowed him to receive a doctorate without actually graduating from a university. The doctoral thesis, accepted by King John II Casimir University of Lwów in 1920 and published in 1922, included the basic ideas of functional analysis, which was soon to become an entirely new branch of mathematics. The thesis was widely discussed in academic circles and allowed him in 1922 to become a professor at the Lwów Polytechnic. Initially an assistant to Professor Antoni Łomnicki, in 1927 Banach received his own chair. In 1924 he was also accepted as a member of the Polish Academy of Learning. At the same time, from 1922, Banach also headed the second Chair of Mathematics at University of Lwów. Young and talented, Banach gathered around him a large group of mathematicians. The group, meeting in the Scottish Café, soon gave birth to the "Lwów School of Mathematics". In 1929 the group began publishing its own journal, "Studia Mathematica", devoted primarily to Banach's field of study — functional analysis. Around that time, Banach also began working on his best-known work, the first monograph on the general theory of linear-metric space. First published in Polish in 1931, the following year it was also translated into French and gained wider recognition in European academic circles. The book was also the first in a long series of mathematics monographs edited by Banach and his circle. World War II. Following the invasion of Poland by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, Lwów came under the control of the Soviet Union for almost two years. Banach, from 1939 a corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, and on good terms with Soviet mathematicians, had to promise to learn Ukrainian to be allowed to keep his chair and continue his academic activities. Following the German takeover of Lwów in 1941 during Operation Barbarossa, all universities were closed and Banach, along with many colleagues and his son, was employed as lice feeder at Professor Rudolf Weigl's Typhus Research Institute. Employment in Weigl's Institute provided many unemployed university professors and their associates protection from random arrest and deportation to Nazi concentration camps. After the Red Army recaptured Lviv in the Lvov–Sandomierz Offensive of 1944, Banach returned to the University and helped re-establish it after the war years. However, because the Soviets were removing Poles from annexed formerly Polish territories, Banach began preparing to leave the city and settle in Kraków, Poland, where he had been promised a chair at the Jagiellonian University. He was also considered a candidate for Minister of Education of Poland. In January 1945, however, he was diagnosed with lung cancer and was allowed to stay in Lwów. He died on August 31, 1945, aged 53. His funeral at the Lychakiv Cemetery was attended by hundreds of people. Contributions. Banach's dissertation, completed in 1920 and published in 1922, formally axiomatized the concept of a complete normed vector space and laid the foundations for the area of functional analysis. In this work Banach called such spaces ""class E-spaces"", but in his 1932 book, "Théorie des opérations linéaires", he changed terminology and referred to them as ""spaces of type B"", which most likely contributed to the subsequent eponymous naming of these spaces after him. The theory of what came to be known as Banach spaces had antecedents in the work of the Hungarian mathematician Frigyes Riesz (published in 1916) and contemporaneous contributions from Hans Hahn and Norbert Wiener. For a brief period in fact, complete normed linear spaces where referred to as "Banach-Wiener" spaces in mathematical literature, based on terminology introduced by Wiener himself. However, because Wiener's work on the topic was limited, the established name became just "Banach spaces". Likewise, Banach's fixed point theorem, based on earlier methods developed by Charles Émile Picard, was included in his dissertation, and was later extended by his students (for example in the Banach–Schauder theorem) and other mathematicians (in particular Brouwer and Poincaré and Birkhoff). The theorem did not require linearity of the space, and applied to any Cauchy space (complete metric space). The Hahn–Banach theorem, is one of fundamental theorems of functional analysis. Quotes. Stanislaw Ulam, another mathematician of the Lwów School of Mathematics, in his autobiography, quotes Banach as saying: Hugo Steinhaus said of Banach:
743921	Donald Yearnsley "Trey" Wilson III (January 21, 1948 – January 16, 1989) was an American character actor known for playing rural, authoritarian type characters, most notably in comedies such as "Raising Arizona" and "Bull Durham". Career. During his career, Wilson appeared in numerous stage productions and 30 films or television shows, including guest roles on "" and "The Equalizer". On stage, he appeared in "The Front Page" at Lincoln Center and on Broadway, he appeared with Sandy Duncan in "Peter Pan". He also appeared in Pat Benatar's music video "Love Is a Battlefield" as the father who throws her out of the house. His most memorable roles were in two films, "Raising Arizona", as unpainted furniture store owner Nathan Arizona, and "Bull Durham", as Joe Riggins, manager of the Durham Bulls minor league baseball team. The end credits of "The Silence of the Lambs" dedicate the film to him. Personal life and death. Wilson was born in Houston, Texas to Donald Yearnsley Wilson and Irene Louise Wilson. He attended Bellaire High School in Bellaire, Texas. He majored in english and theatre at the University of Houston. It was there that he met Judy Blye, a well-known New York soap opera casting agent, and they were married on August 25, 1975. Wilson died from a cerebral hemorrhage in New York City on January 16, 1989. He had been cast in the Coen brothers' film "Miller's Crossing" at the time of his death and was replaced by Albert Finney. Wilson's last film was "Great Balls of Fire!", the biopic of Jerry Lee Lewis, where he played legendary American record producer Sam Phillips. Wilson was a cousin of former Texas Republican State Senator Kim Brimer.
53880	Brian Christopher O'Halloran (born December 20, 1969) is an American actor best known for his roles in Kevin Smith's View Askewniverse films, notably as Dante Hicks in Smith's debut film "Clerks" and its 2006 sequel, "Clerks II". Aside from this, he has made small appearances in most of Smith's films, either as his "Clerks" character Dante Hicks or one of Dante's cousins. Early life. O'Halloran was born in Manhattan, New York City, and lived in Old Bridge Township, New Jersey since the age of 13. A first-generation American, both his parents emigrated from Ireland. His father died when O'Halloran was 15 years old. Career. O'Halloran is the lead actor in "Vulgar" (2000), an obscure movie about a small town clown who is traumatized after he is attacked during one of his performances. He has worked on theatre productions since high school. He has said on the subject of doing theatre:
1091780	Galileo Galilei (; 15 February 1564 – 8 January 1642), often known mononymously as Galileo, was an Italian physicist, mathematician, astronomer, and philosopher who played a major role in the Scientific Revolution. His achievements include improvements to the telescope and consequent astronomical observations and support for Copernicanism. Galileo has been called the "father of modern observational astronomy", the "father of modern physics", the "father of science", and "the Father of Modern Science". His contributions to observational astronomy include the telescopic confirmation of the phases of Venus, the discovery of the four largest satellites of Jupiter (named the Galilean moons in his honour), and the observation and analysis of sunspots. Galileo also worked in applied science and technology, inventing an improved military compass and other instruments. Galileo's championing of heliocentrism was controversial within his lifetime, when most subscribed to either geocentrism or the Tychonic system. He met with opposition from astronomers, who doubted heliocentrism due to the absence of an observed stellar parallax. The matter was investigated by the Roman Inquisition in 1615, and they concluded that it could be supported as only a possibility, not an established fact. Galileo later defended his views in "Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems", which appeared to attack Pope Urban VIII and thus alienated him and the Jesuits, who had both supported Galileo up until this point. He was tried by the Inquisition, found "vehemently suspect of heresy", forced to recant, and spent the rest of his life under house arrest. It was while Galileo was under house arrest that he wrote one of his finest works, "Two New Sciences", in which he summarised the work he had done some forty years earlier, on the two sciences now called kinematics and strength of materials. Early life. Galileo was born in Pisa (then part of the Duchy of Florence), Italy, the first of six children of Vincenzo Galilei, a famous lutenist, composer, and music theorist; and Giulia Ammannati. Galileo became an accomplished lutenist himself and would have learned early from his father a healthy scepticism for established authority, the value of well-measured or quantified experimentation, an appreciation for a periodic or musical measure of time or rhythm, as well as the illuminative progeny to expect from a marriage of mathematics and experiment. Three of Galileo's five siblings survived infancy, and the youngest Michelangelo (or Michelagnolo) also became a noted lutenist and composer, although he contributed to financial burdens during Galileo's young adulthood. Michelangelo was incapable of contributing his fair share for their father's promised dowries to their brothers-in-law, who would later attempt to seek legal remedies for payments due. Michelangelo would also occasionally have to borrow funds from Galileo for support of his musical endeavours and excursions. These financial burdens may have contributed to Galileo's early fire to develop inventions that would bring him additional income. Galileo was named after an ancestor, Galileo Bonaiuti, a physician, university teacher and politician who lived in Florence from 1370 to 1450; at that time in the late 14th century, the family's surname shifted from Bonaiuti (or Buonaiuti) to Galilei. Galileo Bonaiuti was buried in the same church, the Basilica of Santa Croce in Florence, where about 200 years later his more famous descendant Galileo Galilei was buried too. When Galileo Galilei was 8, his family moved to Florence, but he was left with Jacopo Borghini for two years. He then was educated in the Camaldolese Monastery at Vallombrosa, 35 km southeast of Florence. Although a genuinely pious Roman Catholic, Galileo fathered three children out of wedlock with Marina Gamba. They had two daughters, Virginia in 1600 and Livia in 1601, and one son, Vincenzo, in 1606. Because of their illegitimate birth, their father considered the girls unmarriageable, if not posing problems of prohibitively expensive support or dowries, which would have been similar to Galileo's previous extensive financial problems with two of his sisters. Their only worthy alternative was the religious life. Both girls were accepted by the convent of San Matteo in Arcetri and remained there for the rest of their lives. Virginia took the name Maria Celeste upon entering the convent. She died on 2 April 1634, and is buried with Galileo at the Basilica of Santa Croce, Florence. Livia took the name Sister Arcangela and was ill for most of her life. Vincenzo was later legitimised as the legal heir of Galileo, and married Sestilia Bocchineri. Career as a scientist. Although he seriously considered the priesthood as a young man, at his father's urging he instead enrolled at the University of Pisa for a medical degree. In 1581, when he was studying medicine, he noticed a swinging chandelier, which air currents shifted about to swing in larger and smaller arcs. It seemed, by comparison with his heartbeat, that the chandelier took the same amount of time to swing back and forth, no matter how far it was swinging. When he returned home, he set up two pendulums of equal length and swung one with a large sweep and the other with a small sweep and found that they kept time together. It was not until Christiaan Huygens almost one hundred years later, however, that the tautochrone nature of a swinging pendulum was used to create an accurate timepiece. To this point, he had deliberately been kept away from mathematics (since a physician earned so much more than a mathematician), but upon accidentally attending a lecture on geometry, he talked his reluctant father into letting him study mathematics and natural philosophy instead. He created a thermoscope (forerunner of the thermometer) and in 1586 published a small book on the design of a hydrostatic balance he had invented (which first brought him to the attention of the scholarly world). Galileo also studied "disegno", a term encompassing fine art, and in 1588 attained an instructor position in the Accademia delle Arti del Disegno in Florence, teaching perspective and chiaroscuro. Being inspired by the artistic tradition of the city and the works of the Renaissance artists, Galileo acquired an aesthetic mentality. While a young teacher at the Accademia, he began a lifelong friendship with the Florentine painter Cigoli, who included Galileo's lunar observations in one of his paintings. In 1589, he was appointed to the chair of mathematics in Pisa. In 1591, his father died and he was entrusted with the care of his younger brother Michelagnolo. In 1592, he moved to the University of Padua, teaching geometry, mechanics, and astronomy until 1610. During this period, Galileo made significant discoveries in both pure fundamental science (for example, kinematics of motion and astronomy) as well as practical applied science (for example, strength of materials and improvement of the telescope). His multiple interests included the study of astrology, which at the time was a discipline tied to the studies of mathematics and astronomy. Galileo, Kepler and theories of tides. Cardinal Bellarmine had written in 1615 that the Copernican system could not be defended without "a true physical demonstration that the sun does not circle the earth but the earth circles the sun". Galileo considered his theory of the tides to provide the required physical proof of the motion of the earth. This theory was so important to him that he originally intended to entitle his "Dialogue on the Two Chief World Systems" the "Dialogue on the Ebb and Flow of the Sea". The reference to tides was removed by order of the Inquisition. For Galileo, the tides were caused by the sloshing back and forth of water in the seas as a point on the Earth's surface sped up and slowed down because of the Earth's rotation on its axis and revolution around the Sun. He circulated his first account of the tides in 1616, addressed to Cardinal Orsini. His theory gave the first insight into the importance of the shapes of ocean basins in the size and timing of tides; he correctly accounted, for instance, for the negligible tides halfway along the Adriatic Sea compared to those at the ends. As a general account of the cause of tides, however, his theory was a failure. If this theory were correct, there would be only one high tide per day. Galileo and his contemporaries were aware of this inadequacy because there are two daily high tides at Venice instead of one, about twelve hours apart. Galileo dismissed this anomaly as the result of several secondary causes, including the shape of the sea, its depth, and other factors. Against the assertion that Galileo was deceptive in making these arguments, Albert Einstein expressed the opinion that Galileo developed his "fascinating arguments" and accepted them uncritically out of a desire for physical proof of the motion of the Earth. Galileo dismissed the idea, held by his contemporary Johannes Kepler, that the moon caused the tides, which the latter had acquired from the astrological tradition enunciated in Ptolemy's Tetrabiblos. He also refused to accept Kepler's elliptical orbits of the planets, considering the circle the "perfect" shape for planetary orbits. Controversy over comets and "The Assayer". In 1619, Galileo became embroiled in a controversy with Father Orazio Grassi, professor of mathematics at the Jesuit Collegio Romano. It began as a dispute over the nature of comets, but by the time Galileo had published "The Assayer" ("Il Saggiatore") in 1623, his last salvo in the dispute, it had become a much wider argument over the very nature of science itself. Because "The Assayer" contains such a wealth of Galileo's ideas on how science should be practised, it has been referred to as his scientific manifesto. Early in 1619, Father Grassi had anonymously published a pamphlet, "An Astronomical Disputation on the Three Comets of the Year 1618", which discussed the nature of a comet that had appeared late in November of the previous year. Grassi concluded that the comet was a fiery body which had moved along a segment of a great circle at a constant distance from the earth, and since it moved in the sky more slowly than the moon, it must be farther away than the moon. Grassi's arguments and conclusions were criticised in a subsequent article, "Discourse on the Comets", published under the name of one of Galileo's disciples, a Florentine lawyer named Mario Guiducci, although it had been largely written by Galileo himself. Galileo and Guiducci offered no definitive theory of their own on the nature of comets, although they did present some tentative conjectures that are now known to be mistaken. In its opening passage, Galileo and Guiducci's "Discourse" gratuitously insulted the Jesuit Christopher Scheiner, and various uncomplimentary remarks about the professors of the Collegio Romano were scattered throughout the work. The Jesuits were offended, and Grassi soon replied with a polemical tract of his own, "The Astronomical and Philosophical Balance", under the pseudonym Lothario Sarsio Sigensano, purporting to be one of his own pupils. "The Assayer" was Galileo's devastating reply to the "Astronomical Balance". It has been widely regarded as a masterpiece of polemical literature, in which "Sarsi's" arguments are subjected to withering scorn. It was greeted with wide acclaim, and particularly pleased the new pope, Urban VIII, to whom it had been dedicated. Galileo's dispute with Grassi permanently alienated many of the Jesuits who had previously been sympathetic to his ideas, and Galileo and his friends were convinced that these Jesuits were responsible for bringing about his later condemnation. The evidence for this is at best equivocal, however. Controversy over heliocentrism. Biblical references Psalm , , and 1 Chronicles include text stating that "the world is firmly established, it cannot be moved." In the same manner, says, "the Lord set the earth on its foundations; it can never be moved." Further, Ecclesiastes states that "And the sun rises and sets and returns to its place." Galileo defended heliocentrism, and claimed it was not contrary to those Scripture passages. He took Augustine's position on Scripture: not to take every passage literally, particularly when the scripture in question is a book of poetry and songs, not a book of instructions or history. He believed that the writers of the Scripture merely wrote from the perspective of the terrestrial world, from that vantage point that the sun does rise and set. Another way to put this is that the writers would have been writing from a phenomenological point of view, or style. So Galileo claimed that science did not contradict Scripture, as Scripture was discussing a different kind of "movement" of the earth, and not rotations. By 1616 the attacks on the ideas of Copernicus had reached a head, and Galileo went to Rome to try to persuade Catholic Church authorities not to ban Copernicus' ideas. In the end, a decree of the Congregation of the Index was issued, declaring that the ideas that the Sun stood still and that the Earth moved were "false" and "altogether contrary to Holy Scripture", and suspending Copernicus's "De Revolutionibus" until it could be corrected. Acting on instructions from the Pope before the decree was issued, Cardinal Bellarmine informed Galileo that it was forthcoming, that the ideas it condemned could not be "defended or held", and ordered him to abandon them. Galileo promised to obey. Bellarmine's instruction did not prohibit Galileo from discussing heliocentrism as a mathematical fiction but was dangerously ambiguous as to whether he could treat it as a physical possibility. For the next several years, Galileo stayed well away from the controversy. He revived his project of writing a book on the subject, encouraged by the election of Cardinal Maffeo Barberini as Pope Urban VIII in 1623. Barberini was a friend and admirer of Galileo, and had opposed the condemnation of Galileo in 1616. The book, "Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems", was published in 1632, with formal authorization from the Inquisition and papal permission. Dava Sobel explains that during this time, Urban had begun to fall more and more under the influence of court intrigue and problems of state. His friendship with Galileo began to take second place to his feelings of persecution and fear for his own life. At this low point in Urban's life, the problem of Galileo was presented to the pope by court insiders and enemies of Galileo. Coming on top of the recent claim by the then Spanish cardinal that Urban was soft on defending the church, he reacted out of anger and fear. This situation did not bode well for Galileo's defence of his book. Earlier, Pope Urban VIII had personally asked Galileo to give arguments for and against heliocentrism in the book, and to be careful not to advocate heliocentrism. He made another request, that his own views on the matter be included in Galileo's book. Only the latter of those requests was fulfilled by Galileo. Whether unknowingly or deliberately, Simplicio, the defender of the Aristotelian Geocentric view in "Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems", was often caught in his own errors and sometimes came across as a fool. Indeed, although Galileo states in the preface of his book that the character is named after a famous Aristotelian philosopher (Simplicius in Latin, Simplicio in Italian), the name "Simplicio" in Italian also has the connotation of "simpleton". This portrayal of Simplicio made "Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems" appear as an advocacy book: an attack on Aristotelian geocentrism and defence of the Copernican theory. Unfortunately for his relationship with the Pope, Galileo put the words of Urban VIII into the mouth of Simplicio. Most historians agree Galileo did not act out of malice and felt blindsided by the reaction to his book. However, the Pope did not take the suspected public ridicule lightly, nor the Copernican advocacy. Galileo had alienated one of his biggest and most powerful supporters, the Pope, and was called to Rome to defend his writings. In September 1632, Galileo was ordered to come to Rome to stand trial. He finally arrived in February 1633 and was brought before inquisitor Vincenzo Maculani to be charged. Throughout his trial Galileo steadfastly maintained that since 1616 he had faithfully kept his promise not to hold any of the condemned opinions, and initially he denied even defending them. However, he was eventually persuaded to admit that, contrary to his true intention, a reader of his "Dialogue" could well have obtained the impression that it was intended to be a defence of Copernicanism. In view of Galileo's rather implausible denial that he had ever held Copernican ideas after 1616 or ever intended to defend them in the "Dialogue", his final interrogation, in July 1633, concluded with his being threatened with torture if he did not tell the truth, but he maintained his denial despite the threat. The sentence of the Inquisition was delivered on June 22. It was in three essential parts: According to popular legend, after recanting his theory that the Earth moved around the Sun, Galileo allegedly muttered the rebellious phrase "And yet it moves", but there is no evidence that he actually said this or anything similar. The first account of the legend dates to a century after his death. After a period with the friendly Ascanio Piccolomini (the Archbishop of Siena), Galileo was allowed to return to his villa at Arcetri near Florence in 1634, where he spent the remainder of his life under house arrest. Galileo was ordered to read the seven penitential psalms once a week for the next three years. However his daughter Maria Celeste relieved him of the burden after securing ecclesiastical permission to take it upon herself. It was while Galileo was under house arrest that he dedicated his time to one of his finest works, "Two New Sciences". Here he summarised work he had done some forty years earlier, on the two sciences now called kinematics and strength of materials. This book has received high praise from Albert Einstein. As a result of this work, Galileo is often called the "father of modern physics". He went completely blind in 1638 and was suffering from a painful hernia and insomnia, so he was permitted to travel to Florence for medical advice. Death. Galileo continued to receive visitors until 1642, when, after suffering fever and heart palpitations, he died on 8 January 1642, aged 77. The Grand Duke of Tuscany, Ferdinando II, wished to bury him in the main body of the Basilica of Santa Croce, next to the tombs of his father and other ancestors, and to erect a marble mausoleum in his honour. These plans were scrapped, however, after Pope Urban VIII and his nephew, Cardinal Francesco Barberini, protested, because Galileo was condemned by the Catholic Church for "vehement suspicion of heresy". He was instead buried in a small room next to the novices' chapel at the end of a corridor from the southern transept of the basilica to the sacristy. He was reburied in the main body of the basilica in 1737 after a monument had been erected there in his honour; during this move, three fingers and a tooth were removed from his remains. One of these fingers, the middle finger from Galileo's right hand, is currently on exhibition at the Museo Galileo in Florence, Italy. Scientific methods. Galileo made original contributions to the science of motion through an innovative combination of experiment and mathematics. More typical of science at the time were the qualitative studies of William Gilbert, on magnetism and electricity. Galileo's father, Vincenzo Galilei, a lutenist and music theorist, had performed experiments establishing perhaps the oldest known non-linear relation in physics: for a stretched string, the pitch varies as the square root of the tension. These observations lay within the framework of the Pythagorean tradition of music, well-known to instrument makers, which included the fact that subdividing a string by a whole number produces a harmonious scale. Thus, a limited amount of mathematics had long related music and physical science, and young Galileo could see his own father's observations expand on that tradition. Galileo was one of the first modern thinkers to clearly state that the laws of nature are mathematical. In "The Assayer" he wrote "Philosophy is written in this grand book, the universe ... It is written in the language of mathematics, and its characters are triangles, circles, and other geometric figures;..." His mathematical analyses are a further development of a tradition employed by late scholastic natural philosophers, which Galileo learned when he studied philosophy. He displayed a peculiar ability to ignore established authorities, most notably Aristotelianism. In broader terms, his work marked another step towards the eventual separation of science from both philosophy and religion; a major development in human thought. He was often willing to change his views in accordance with observation. In order to perform his experiments, Galileo had to set up standards of length and time, so that measurements made on different days and in different laboratories could be compared in a reproducible fashion. This provided a reliable foundation on which to confirm mathematical laws using inductive reasoning. Galileo showed a remarkably modern appreciation for the proper relationship between mathematics, theoretical physics, and experimental physics. He understood the parabola, both in terms of conic sections and in terms of the ordinate (y) varying as the square of the abscissa (x). Galilei further asserted that the parabola was the theoretically ideal trajectory of a uniformly accelerated projectile in the absence of friction and other disturbances. He conceded that there are limits to the validity of this theory, noting on theoretical grounds that a projectile trajectory of a size comparable to that of the Earth could not possibly be a parabola, but he nevertheless maintained that for distances up to the range of the artillery of his day, the deviation of a projectile's trajectory from a parabola would be only very slight. Astronomy. [[File:Bertini fresco of Galileo Galilei and Doge of Venice.jpg|thumb|right| Based only on uncertain descriptions of the first practical telescope which Hans Lippershey tried to patent in the Netherlands in 1608, Galileo, in the following year, made a telescope with about 3x magnification. He later made improved versions with up to about 30x magnification. With a Galilean telescope, the observer could see magnified, upright images on the earth—it was what is commonly known as a terrestrial telescope or a spyglass. He could also use it to observe the sky; for a time he was one of those who could construct telescopes good enough for that purpose. On 25 August 1609, he demonstrated one of his early telescopes, with a magnification of about 8 or 9, to Venetian lawmakers. His telescopes were also a profitable sideline for Galileo, who sold them to merchants who found them useful both at sea and as items of trade. He published his initial telescopic astronomical observations in March 1610 in a brief treatise entitled "Sidereus Nuncius" ("Starry Messenger"). Kepler's Supernova. According to Walusinsky, Galileo's fame as an astronomer dates to his observation and discussion of Kepler's supernova in 1604. Since this new star displayed no detectable diurnal parallax, Galileo concluded that it was a distant star, and therefore disproved the Aristotelian belief in the immutability of the heavens. His public advocacy of this view met with strong opposition. Jupiter. On 7 January 1610, Galileo observed with his telescope what he described at the time as "three fixed stars, totally invisible by their smallness", all close to Jupiter, and lying on a straight line through it. Observations on subsequent nights showed that the positions of these "stars" relative to Jupiter were changing in a way that would have been inexplicable if they had really been fixed stars. On 10 January, Galileo noted that one of them had disappeared, an observation which he attributed to its being hidden behind Jupiter. Within a few days, he concluded that they were orbiting Jupiter: He had discovered three of Jupiter's four largest satellites (moons). He discovered the fourth on 13 January. Galileo named the group of four the "Medicean stars", in honour of his future patron, Cosimo II de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany, and Cosimo's three brothers. Later astronomers, however, renamed them "Galilean satellites" in honour of their discoverer. These satellites are now called Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto. His observations of the satellites of Jupiter caused a revolution in astronomy that reverberates to this day: a planet with smaller planets orbiting it did not conform to the principles of Aristotelian Cosmology, which held that all heavenly bodies should circle the Earth, and many astronomers and philosophers initially refused to believe that Galileo could have discovered such a thing. His observations were confirmed by the observatory of Christopher Clavius and he received a hero's welcome when he visited Rome in 1611. Galileo continued to observe the satellites over the next eighteen months, and by mid-1611, he had obtained remarkably accurate estimates for their periods—a feat which Kepler had believed impossible. Venus, Saturn, and Neptune. From September 1610, Galileo observed that Venus exhibited a full set of phases similar to that of the Moon. The heliocentric model of the solar system developed by Nicolaus Copernicus predicted that all phases would be visible since the orbit of Venus around the Sun would cause its illuminated hemisphere to face the Earth when it was on the opposite side of the Sun and to face away from the Earth when it was on the Earth-side of the Sun. On the other hand, in Ptolemy's geocentric model it was impossible for any of the planets' orbits to intersect the spherical shell carrying the Sun. Traditionally the orbit of Venus was placed entirely on the near side of the Sun, where it could exhibit only crescent and new phases. It was, however, also possible to place it entirely on the far side of the Sun, where it could exhibit only gibbous and full phases. After Galileo's telescopic observations of the crescent, gibbous and full phases of Venus, therefore, this Ptolemaic model became untenable. Thus in the early 17th century as a result of his discovery the great majority of astronomers converted to one of the various geo-heliocentric planetary models, such as the Tychonic, Capellan and Extended Capellan models, each either with or without a daily rotating Earth. These all had the virtue of explaining the phases of Venus without the vice of the 'refutation' of full heliocentrism's prediction of stellar parallax. Galileo's discovery of the phases of Venus was thus arguably his most empirically practically influential contribution to the two-stage transition from full geocentrism to full heliocentrism via geo-heliocentrism. Galileo observed the planet Saturn, and at first mistook its rings for planets, thinking it was a three-bodied system. When he observed the planet later, Saturn's rings were directly oriented at Earth, causing him to think that two of the bodies had disappeared. The rings reappeared when he observed the planet in 1616, further confusing him. Galileo also observed the planet Neptune in 1612. It appears in his notebooks as one of many unremarkable dim stars. He did not realise that it was a planet, but he did note its motion relative to the stars before losing track of it. Sunspots. Galileo was one of the first Europeans to observe sunspots, although Kepler had unwittingly observed one in 1607, but mistook it for a transit of Mercury. He also reinterpreted a sunspot observation from the time of Charlemagne, which formerly had been attributed (impossibly) to a transit of Mercury. The very existence of sunspots showed another difficulty with the unchanging perfection of the heavens as posited in orthodox Aristotelian celestial physics. And the annual variations in sunspots' motions, discovered by Francesco Sizzi and others in 1612–1613, provided a powerful argument against both the Ptolemaic system and the geoheliocentric system of Tycho Brahe. A dispute over priority in the discovery of sunspots, and in their interpretation, led Galileo to a long and bitter feud with the Jesuit Christoph Scheiner; in fact, there is little doubt that both of them were beaten by David Fabricius and his son Johannes. Scheiner quickly adopted Kepler's 1615 proposal of the modern telescope design, which gave larger magnification at the cost of inverted images; Galileo apparently never changed to Kepler's design. Moon. Prior to Galileo's construction of his version of a telescope, Thomas Harriot, an English mathematician and explorer, had already used what he dubbed a "perspective tube" to observe the moon. Reporting his observations, Harriot noted only "strange spottednesse" in the waning of the crescent, but was ignorant to the cause. Galileo, due in part to his artistic training and the knowledge of chiaroscuro, had understood the patterns of light and shadow were in fact topological markers. While not being the only one to observe the moon through a telescope, Galileo was the first to deduce the cause of the uneven waning as light occlusion from lunar mountains and craters. In his study he also made topological charts, estimating the heights of the mountains. The moon was not what was long thought to have been a translucent and perfect sphere, as Aristotle claimed, and hardly the first "planet", an "eternal pearl to magnificently ascend into the heavenly empyrian", as put forth by Dante. Milky Way and stars. Galileo observed the Milky Way, previously believed to be nebulous, and found it to be a multitude of stars packed so densely that they appeared from Earth to be clouds. He located many other stars too distant to be visible with the naked eye. He observed the double star Mizar in Ursa Major in 1617. In the "Starry Messenger", Galileo reported that stars appeared as mere blazes of light, essentially unaltered in appearance by the telescope, and contrasted them to planets, which the telescope revealed to be discs. But shortly thereafter, in his letters on sunspots, he reported that the telescope revealed the shapes of both stars and planets to be "quite round". From that point forward, he continued to report that telescopes showed the roundness of stars, and that stars seen through the telescope measured a few seconds of arc in diameter. He also devised a method for measuring the apparent size of a star without a telescope. As described in his "Dialogue Concerning the two Chief World Systems", his method was to hang a thin rope in his line of sight to the star and measure the maximum distance from which it would wholly obscure the star. From his measurements of this distance and of the width of the rope, he could calculate the angle subtended by the star at his viewing point. In his "Dialogue", he reported that he had found the apparent diameter of a star of first magnitude to be no more than 5 arcseconds, and that of one of sixth magnitude to be about 5/6 arcseconds. Like most astronomers of his day, Galileo did not recognise that the apparent sizes of stars that he measured were spurious, caused by diffraction and atmospheric distortion (see seeing disk or Airy disk), and did not represent the true sizes of stars. However, Galileo's values were much smaller than previous estimates of the apparent sizes of the brightest stars, such as those made by Tycho Brahe (see Magnitude) and enabled Galileo to counter anti-Copernican arguments such as those made by Tycho that these stars would have to be absurdly large for their annual parallaxes to be undetectable. Other astronomers such as Simon Marius, Giovanni Battista Riccioli, and Martinus Hortensius made similar measurements of stars, and Marius and Riccioli concluded the smaller sizes were not small enough to answer Tycho's argument. Technology. Galileo made a number of contributions to what is now known as technology, as distinct from pure physics. This is not the same distinction as made by Aristotle, who would have considered all Galileo's physics as "techne" or useful knowledge, as opposed to "episteme", or philosophical investigation into the causes of things. Between 1595 and 1598, Galileo devised and improved a "Geometric and Military Compass" suitable for use by gunners and surveyors. This expanded on earlier instruments designed by Niccolò Tartaglia and Guidobaldo del Monte. For gunners, it offered, in addition to a new and safer way of elevating cannons accurately, a way of quickly computing the charge of gunpowder for cannonballs of different sizes and materials. As a geometric instrument, it enabled the construction of any regular polygon, computation of the area of any polygon or circular sector, and a variety of other calculations. Under Galileo's direction, instrument maker Marc'Antonio Mazzoleni produced more than 100 of these compasses, which Galileo sold (along with an instruction manual he wrote) for 50 lire and offered a course of instruction in the use of the compasses for 120 lire. In about 1593, Galileo constructed a thermometer, using the expansion and contraction of air in a bulb to move water in an attached tube. In 1609, Galileo was, along with Englishman Thomas Harriot and others, among the first to use a refracting telescope as an instrument to observe stars, planets or moons. The name "telescope" was coined for Galileo's instrument by a Greek mathematician, Giovanni Demisiani, at a banquet held in 1611 by Prince Federico Cesi to make Galileo a member of his Accademia dei Lincei. The name was derived from the Greek "tele" = 'far' and "skopein" = 'to look or see'. In 1610, he used a telescope at close range to magnify the parts of insects. By 1624 Galileo had used a compound microscope. He gave one of these instruments to Cardinal Zollern in May of that year for presentation to the Duke of Bavaria, and in September he sent another to Prince Cesi. The Linceans played a role again in naming the "microscope" a year later when fellow academy member Giovanni Faber coined the word for Galileo's invention from the Greek words "μικρόν" ("micron") meaning "small", and "σκοπεῖν" ("skopein") meaning "to look at". The word was meant to be analogous with "telescope". Illustrations of insects made using one of Galileo's microscopes, and published in 1625, appear to have been the first clear documentation of the use of a compound microscope. In 1612, having determined the orbital periods of Jupiter's satellites, Galileo proposed that with sufficiently accurate knowledge of their orbits, one could use their positions as a universal clock, and this would make possible the determination of longitude. He worked on this problem from time to time during the remainder of his life; but the practical problems were severe. The method was first successfully applied by Giovanni Domenico Cassini in 1681 and was later used extensively for large land surveys; this method, for example, was used to survey France, and later by Zebulon Pike of the midwestern United States in 1806. For sea navigation, where delicate telescopic observations were more difficult, the longitude problem eventually required development of a practical portable marine chronometer, such as that of John Harrison. In his last year, when totally blind, he designed an escapement mechanism for a pendulum clock (called Galileo's escapement), a vectorial model of which may be seen here. The first fully operational pendulum clock was made by Christiaan Huygens in the 1650s. Physics. Galileo's theoretical and experimental work on the motions of bodies, along with the largely independent work of Kepler and René Descartes, was a precursor of the classical mechanics developed by Sir Isaac Newton. Galileo conducted several experiments with pendulums. It is popularly believed (thanks to the biography by Vincenzo Viviani) that these began by watching the swings of the bronze chandelier in the cathedral of Pisa, using his pulse as a timer. Later experiments are described in his "Two New Sciences". Galileo claimed that a simple pendulum is isochronous, i.e. that its swings always take the same amount of time, independently of the amplitude. In fact, this is only approximately true, as was discovered by Christian Huygens. Galileo also found that the square of the period varies directly with the length of the pendulum. Galileo's son, Vincenzo, sketched a clock based on his father's theories in 1642. The clock was never built and, because of the large swings required by its verge escapement, would have been a poor timekeeper. (See Technology above.) Galileo is lesser known for, yet still credited with, being one of the first to understand sound frequency. By scraping a chisel at different speeds, he linked the pitch of the sound produced to the spacing of the chisel's skips, a measure of frequency. In 1638, Galileo described an experimental method to measure the speed of light by arranging that two observers, each having lanterns equipped with shutters, observe each other's lanterns at some distance. The first observer opens the shutter of his lamp, and, the second, upon seeing the light, immediately opens the shutter of his own lantern. The time between the first observer's opening his shutter and seeing the light from the second observer's lamp indicates the time it takes light to travel back and forth between the two observers. Galileo reported that when he tried this at a distance of less than a mile, he was unable to determine whether or not the light appeared instantaneously. Sometime between Galileo's death and 1667, the members of the Florentine "Accademia del Cimento" repeated the experiment over a distance of about a mile and obtained a similarly inconclusive result. Galileo put forward the basic principle of relativity, that the laws of physics are the same in any system that is moving at a constant speed in a straight line, regardless of its particular speed or direction. Hence, there is no absolute motion or absolute rest. This principle provided the basic framework for Newton's laws of motion and is central to Einstein's special theory of relativity. Falling bodies. A biography by Galileo's pupil Vincenzo Viviani stated that Galileo had dropped balls of the same material, but different masses, from the Leaning Tower of Pisa to demonstrate that their time of descent was independent of their mass. This was contrary to what Aristotle had taught: that heavy objects fall faster than lighter ones, in direct proportion to weight. While this story has been retold in popular accounts, there is no account by Galileo himself of such an experiment, and it is generally accepted by historians that it was at most a thought experiment which did not actually take place. An exception is Drake, who argues that the experiment did take place, more or less as Viviani described it. The experiment described was actually performed by Simon Stevin (commonly known as Stevinus), although the building used was actually the church tower in Delft in 1586. In his 1638 "Discorsi", Galileo's character Salviati, widely regarded as Galileo's spokesman, held that all unequal weights would fall with the same finite speed in a vacuum. But this had previously been proposed by Lucretius and Simon Stevin. Cristiano Banti's Salviati also held it could be experimentally demonstrated by the comparison of pendulum motions in air with bobs of lead and of cork which had different weight but which were otherwise similar. Galileo proposed that a falling body would fall with a uniform acceleration, as long as the resistance of the medium through which it was falling remained negligible, or in the limiting case of its falling through a vacuum. He also derived the correct kinematical law for the distance travelled during a uniform acceleration starting from rest—namely, that it is proportional to the square of the elapsed time ( "d" ∝ "t" 2 ). Prior to Galileo, Nicole Oresme, in the 14th century, had derived the times-squared law for uniformly accelerated change, and Domingo de Soto had suggested in the 16th century that bodies falling through a homogeneous medium would be uniformly accelerated. Galileo expressed the time-squared law using geometrical constructions and mathematically precise words, adhering to the standards of the day. (It remained for others to re-express the law in algebraic terms). He also concluded that objects "retain their velocity" unless a force—often friction—acts upon them, refuting the generally accepted Aristotelian hypothesis that objects "naturally" slow down and stop unless a force acts upon them (philosophical ideas relating to inertia had been proposed by John Philoponus centuries earlier, as had Jean Buridan, and according to Joseph Needham, Mo Tzu had proposed it centuries before either of them, but this was the first time that it had been mathematically expressed, verified experimentally, and introduced the idea of frictional force, the key breakthrough in validating inertia). Galileo's Principle of Inertia stated: "A body moving on a level surface will continue in the same direction at constant speed unless disturbed." This principle was incorporated into Newton's laws of motion (first law). Mathematics. While Galileo's application of mathematics to experimental physics was innovative, his mathematical methods were the standard ones of the day. The analysis and proofs relied heavily on the Eudoxian theory of proportion, as set forth in the fifth book of Euclid's Elements. This theory had become available only a century before, thanks to accurate translations by Tartaglia and others; but by the end of Galileo's life, it was being superseded by the algebraic methods of Descartes. Galileo produced some mathematics: Galileo's paradox, which shows that there are as many perfect squares as there are whole numbers, even though most numbers are not perfect squares. His writings. Galileo's early works describing scientific instruments include the 1586 tract entitled "The Little Balance" ("La Billancetta") describing an accurate balance to weigh objects in air or water and the 1606 printed manual "Le Operazioni del Compasso Geometrico et Militare" on the operation of a geometrical and military compass. His early works in dynamics, the science of motion and mechanics were his 1590 Pisan "De Motu" (On Motion) and his "circa" 1600 Paduan "Le Meccaniche" (Mechanics). The former was based on Aristotelian–Archimedean fluid dynamics and held that the speed of gravitational fall in a fluid medium was proportional to the excess of a body's specific weight over that of the medium, whereby in a vacuum, bodies would fall with speeds in proportion to their specific weights. It also subscribed to the Hipparchan-Philoponan impetus dynamics in which impetus is self-dissipating and free-fall in a vacuum would have an essential terminal speed according to specific weight after an initial period of acceleration. Galileo's 1610 "The Starry Messenger" ("Sidereus Nuncius") was the first scientific treatise to be published based on observations made through a telescope. It reported his discoveries of: Galileo published a description of sunspots in 1613 entitled "Letters on Sunspots" suggesting the Sun and heavens are corruptible. The "Letters on Sunspots" also reported his 1610 telescopic observations of the full set of phases of Venus, and his discovery of the puzzling "appendages" of Saturn and their even more puzzling subsequent disappearance. In 1615 Galileo prepared a manuscript known as the "Letter to the Grand Duchess Christina" which was not published in printed form until 1636. This letter was a revised version of the "Letter to Castelli", which was denounced by the Inquisition as an incursion upon theology by advocating Copernicanism both as physically true and as consistent with Scripture. In 1616, after the order by the inquisition for Galileo not to hold or defend the Copernican position, Galileo wrote the "Discourse on the tides" ("Discorso sul flusso e il reflusso del mare") based on the Copernican earth, in the form of a private letter to Cardinal Orsini. In 1619, Mario Guiducci, a pupil of Galileo's, published a lecture written largely by Galileo under the title "Discourse on the Comets" ("Discorso Delle Comete"), arguing against the Jesuit interpretation of comets. In 1623, Galileo published "The Assayer—Il Saggiatore", which attacked theories based on Aristotle's authority and promoted experimentation and the mathematical formulation of scientific ideas. The book was highly successful and even found support among the higher echelons of the Christian church. Following the success of The Assayer, Galileo published the "Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems" (Dialogo sopra i due massimi sistemi del mondo) in 1632. Despite taking care to adhere to the Inquisition's 1616 instructions, the claims in the book favouring Copernican theory and a non Geocentric model of the solar system led to Galileo being tried and banned on publication. Despite the publication ban, Galileo published his "Discourses and Mathematical Demonstrations Relating to Two New Sciences" ("Discorsi e Dimostrazioni Matematiche, intorno a due nuove scienze") in 1638 in Holland, outside the jurisdiction of the Inquisition. Summary of Galileo's published written works. Galileo's main written works are as follows: Legacy. Church reassessments of Galileo in later centuries. The Inquisition's ban on reprinting Galileo's works was lifted in 1718 when permission was granted to publish an edition of his works (excluding the condemned "Dialogue") in Florence. In 1741 Pope Benedict XIV authorised the publication of an edition of Galileo's complete scientific works which included a mildly censored version of the "Dialogue". In 1758 the general prohibition against works advocating heliocentrism was removed from the Index of prohibited books, although the specific ban on uncensored versions of the "Dialogue" and Copernicus's "De Revolutionibus" remained. All traces of official opposition to heliocentrism by the church disappeared in 1835 when these works were finally dropped from the Index. In 1939 Pope Pius XII, in his first speech to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, within a few months of his election to the papacy, described Galileo as being among the ""most audacious heroes of research... not afraid of the stumbling blocks and the risks on the way, nor fearful of the funereal monuments"." His close advisor of 40 years, Professor Robert Leiber wrote: "Pius XII was very careful not to close any doors (to science) prematurely. He was energetic on this point and regretted that in the case of Galileo." On 15 February 1990, in a speech delivered at the Sapienza University of Rome, Cardinal Ratzinger (later to become Pope Benedict XVI) cited some current views on the Galileo affair as forming what he called "a symptomatic case that permits us to see how deep the self-doubt of the modern age, of science and technology goes today". Some of the views he cited were those of the philosopher Paul Feyerabend, whom he quoted as saying "The Church at the time of Galileo kept much more closely to reason than did Galileo himself, and she took into consideration the ethical and social consequences of Galileo's teaching too. Her verdict against Galileo was rational and just and the revision of this verdict can be justified only on the grounds of what is politically opportune." The Cardinal did not clearly indicate whether he agreed or disagreed with Feyerabend's assertions. He did, however, say "It would be foolish to construct an impulsive apologetic on the basis of such views." On 31 October 1992, Pope John Paul II expressed regret for how the Galileo affair was handled, and issued a declaration acknowledging the errors committed by the Catholic Church tribunal that judged the scientific positions of Galileo Galilei, as the result of a study conducted by the Pontifical Council for Culture. In March 2008 the head of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, Nicola Cabibbo, announced a plan to honour Galileo by erecting a statue of him inside the Vatican walls. In December of the same year, during events to mark the 400th anniversary of Galileo's earliest telescopic observations, Pope Benedict XVI praised his contributions to astronomy. A month later, however, the head of the Pontifical Council for Culture, Gianfranco Ravasi, revealed that the plan to erect a statue of Galileo in the grounds of the Vatican had been suspended. Impact on modern science. According to Stephen Hawking, Galileo probably bears more of the responsibility for the birth of modern science than anybody else, and Albert Einstein called him the father of modern science. Galileo's astronomical discoveries and investigations into the Copernican theory have led to a lasting legacy which includes the categorisation of the four large moons of Jupiter discovered by Galileo (Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto) as the Galilean moons. Other scientific endeavours and principles are named after Galileo including the Galileo spacecraft, the first spacecraft to enter orbit around Jupiter, the proposed Galileo global satellite navigation system, the transformation between inertial systems in classical mechanics denoted Galilean transformation and the Gal (unit), sometimes known as the "Galileo" which is a non-SI unit of acceleration. Partly because 2009 was the fourth centenary of Galileo's first recorded astronomical observations with the telescope, the United Nations scheduled it to be the International Year of Astronomy. A global scheme was laid out by the International Astronomical Union (IAU), also endorsed by UNESCO—the UN body responsible for Educational, Scientific and Cultural matters. The International Year of Astronomy 2009 was intended to be a global celebration of astronomy and its contributions to society and culture, stimulating worldwide interest not only in astronomy but science in general, with a particular slant towards young people. Asteroid 697 Galilea is named in his honour. In artistic and popular media. Galileo is mentioned several times in the "opera" section of the Queen song, "Bohemian Rhapsody". He features prominently in the song "Galileo" performed by the Indigo Girls and Amy Grant's "Galileo" on her "Heart in Motion" album. Twentieth-century plays have been written on Galileo's life, including "Life of Galileo" (1943) by the German playwright Bertolt Brecht, with a film adaptation (1975) of it, and "Lamp At Midnight" (1947) by Barrie Stavis, as well as the 2008 play "Galileo Galilei". Kim Stanley Robinson wrote a science fiction novel entitled "Galileo's Dream" (2009), in which Galileo is brought into the future to help resolve a crisis of scientific philosophy; the story moves back and forth between Galileo's own time and a hypothetical distant future, and contains a great deal of biographical information. Galileo Galilei was recently selected as a main motif for a high value collectors' coin: the €25 International Year of Astronomy commemorative coin, minted in 2009. This coin also commemorates the 400th anniversary of the invention of Galileo's telescope. The obverse shows a portion of his portrait and his telescope. The background shows one of his first drawings of the surface of the moon. In the silver ring other telescopes are depicted: the Isaac Newton Telescope, the observatory in Kremsmünster Abbey, a modern telescope, a radio telescope and a space telescope. In 2009, the Galileoscope was also released. This is a mass-produced, low-cost educational telescope with relatively high quality.
1044203	Harry H. Corbett, OBE (28 February 192521 March 1982) was an English actor. Corbett was best known for his starring role in the popular and long-running BBC Television sitcom "Steptoe and Son" in the 1960s and 1970s. Corbett was regarded as one of Britain's first Method actors and early in his career he was dubbed "the English Marlon Brando" by some sections of the British press. Early life. Corbett was born in Rangoon, Burma, where his father, George, was serving as a company quartermaster sergeant in the South Staffordshire Regiment of the British Army, stationed at a cantonment as part of the Colonial defence forces. Corbett was sent to England after his mother Mary died of dysentery when he was 18 months old. He was then brought up by his aunt, Annie Williams, in Earl Street, Ardwick, Manchester and later on a new council estate in Wythenshawe. He attended Ross Place and Benchill Primary Schools; although he passed the scholarship exam for entry to Chorlton Grammar School, he was not able to take up his place there and instead attended Sharston Secondary School. Corbett enlisted in the Royal Marines during the Second World War, and served in the Home Fleet on the heavy cruiser HMS "Devonshire". After VJ-Day in 1945 he was posted to the Far East, where he was involved in quelling unrest in New Guinea and reportedly killed two Japanese soldiers there whilst engaged in hand to hand fighting. He was then posted to Tonga, but deserted and remained in Australia before handing himself in to the Military Police. His military service left him with a damaged bladder following an infection and a red mark on his eye caused by a thorn which was not treated until late in his life. On returning to civilian life, Corbett trained as a radiographer before taking up acting as a career, initially in repertory. In the early 1950s, he added the initial "H" to avoid confusion with the television entertainer Harry Corbett, known for his act with the glove-puppet Sooty. He joked that "H" stood for "hennyfink" – a Cockney pronunciation of "anything". In 1956 he appeared on stage in "The Family Reunion" at the Phoenix Theatre in London. From 1958 he began to appear regularly in films, coming to public attention as a serious, intense performer in contrast to his later reputation in sitcom. He appeared in television dramas such as "The Adventures of Robin Hood" (as four different characters in different episodes between 1957 and 1960) and "Police Surgeon" (1960). He also worked and studied Stanislavski's system at Joan Littlewood's Theatre Workshop at the Theatre Royal in Stratford, London. "Steptoe and Son". A chance meeting with scriptwriters Galton and Simpson, who had been successful with "Hancock's Half Hour", changed Corbett's life. In 1962, Corbett appeared in "The Offer", an episode of the BBC's anthology series of one-off comedy plays, "Comedy Playhouse", written by Galton and Simpson. He played Harold Steptoe, a rag-and-bone man living with his irascible widower father Albert (Wilfrid Brambell), in a junkyard with only their horse for company. Corbett was at the time working at the Bristol Old Vic where he appeared as Macbeth shortly before abandoning the stage for fame and fortune on TV. The programme was a success and a full series followed, continuing, with breaks, until 1974, when the Christmas special became the final episode. Although the popularity of "Steptoe and Son" made Corbett a star, it ended his serious acting as he became irreversibly associated with Steptoe in the public eye. Before the series began Corbett had played Shakespeare's Richard II to great acclaim; however, when he played Hamlet in 1970 he felt both critics and audiences alike were not taking him seriously, because they could only see him as Harold Steptoe. Corbett found himself only receiving offers for bawdy comedies or loose parodies of his alter-ego Harold. Production of the sitcom was stressful as Brambell was an alcoholic often ill-prepared for rehearsals, forgetting his lines or movements. A tour of a "Steptoe and Son" stage show in Australia in 1977 proved a disaster due to Brambell's drinking. During the tour the pair appeared in character in an advert for Ajax Soap powder. After the "Steptoe and Son" series officially finished, Corbett played the character again on radio (in a newly written sketch in 1978) as well as in a television commercial for Kenco coffee. The two men re-united in January 1981 for one final performance as "Steptoe and Son" in a further commercial for Kenco." The Curse of Steptoe", a BBC TV play about Corbett and Brambell, was broadcast on 19 March 2008 on the British digital channel BBC Four, featuring Jason Isaacs as Corbett. The first broadcast gained the channel its highest audience figures to that date, based on overnight returns. Other work. "Steptoe and Son" led Corbett to comedy films: as James Ryder in "Ladies Who Do" (1963); with Ronnie Barker in "The Bargee" (1964), written by Galton and Simpson; "Carry On Screaming!" (1966); the "Lust" segment of "The Magnificent Seven Deadly Sins" (1971), and Terry Gilliam's "Jabberwocky" (1977). There were two "Steptoe and Son" films: "Steptoe and Son" (1972) and "Steptoe and Son Ride Again" (1973). He also had the leading role in two other television series, "Mr. Aitch" (written especially for him, 1967) and "Grundy" (1980). He had a supporting role in the David Essex film "Silver Dream Racer" in 1980 and also appeared in the controversial film "Hardcore" in 1977. Corbett also released a number of 45 rpm records, most of which were novelty songs based upon the rag-and-bone character, including "Harry You Love Her" and "Junk Shop". In 1973 he also recorded an album titled "Only Authorised Employees To Break Bottles" which was a "showcase of accents", with songs from Corbett in a range of accents including Liverpudlian, Brummie and Mancunian. Including the album, he released over 30 songs. Labour Party connections and honour. Corbett was a Labour Party campaigner, appeared in a party political broadcast, and was a guest of Prime Minister Harold Wilson. Harold Steptoe had been Labour Party secretary for Shepherd's Bush West in the sixth series episode, "Tea for Two". In 1969 Corbett appeared as Harold Steptoe in a Labour Party Political Broadcast, where Bob Mellish had to defend Harold Steptoe's accusation that all parties are the same. This was not in any way affiliated with Galton and Simpson who wrote Steptoe. As Prime Minister, Wilson wished to have Corbett appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE), but the middle initial "H" was lost in the process and the award went to the Sooty puppeteer, Harry Corbett, instead. Both were eventually included in the same New Year's Honours list on 1 January 1976. Later life. A heavy smoker all his adult life, Corbett had his first heart attack in 1979. He appeared in pantomime at the Churchill Theatre, Bromley, within two days of leaving hospital. He was then badly hurt in a car accident. He appeared shortly afterwards in the BBC detective series "Shoestring", his facial injuries obvious. Other work included a Thames Television/ITV comedy series "Grundy" and the film "Silver Dream Racer" with David Essex, both in 1980. In "Grundy" Corbett plays an old man discovering the permissive society after a lifetime of clean living. The series was a flop and was soon cancelled. Corbett's final role was an episode of the Anglia Television/ITV series "Tales of the Unexpected", "The Moles". It featured a man who planned to tunnel into a bank, only to have forgotten that the following day was Bank Holiday Monday and there would be no money in the vaults. Filmed shortly before his death, it was transmitted two months afterwards, in May 1982. Personal life. Corbett married twice, first to the actress Sheila Steafel, and then to Maureen Blott, who bore him two children, one of whom, Susannah Corbett, is an actress best known for the role of Ellie Pascoe in the BBC's television adaptations of Reginald Hill's "Dalziel and Pascoe" detective novels. She has also written a biography of her father, "Harry H. Corbett: The Front Legs of the Cow" which was published in March 2012. Death. Harry H. Corbett died of a heart attack in March 1982 in Hastings, East Sussex. He was 57. He is buried in the churchyard at Penhurst, East Sussex. He is commemorated in the name of the Corbett Theatre at the East 15 Acting School at Loughton, which was founded by Margaret Bury and Jean Newlove, two members of Theatre Workshop, where Corbett worked.
813711	Ramon Luis "Ray" Estevez (born August 7, 1963), sometimes billed as Ramon Sheen, is an American actor and director who runs Estevez Sheen Productions. Early life. Ramon Estevez is the second of four children born to actor Martin Sheen. His siblings are actors Emilio Estevez, Charlie Sheen and Renée Estevez. His father is of Spanish and Irish descent. Career. Acting career. Estevez's movies include "The Dead Zone" (1983), "That Was Then... This Is Now" (1985) and "Cadence" (1990). In "Cadence", he played a sycophantic "spineless corporal" to the stockade's commanding officer. Estevez was disguised in "Cadence" as a funny guard who wore glasses and "his hat most of the time" to prevent being recognized as Charlie Sheen's brother. In 1992, Estevez appeared in "The Last P.O.W.? The Bobby Garwood Story". He appeared in Diamond Rio's 1996 video, "It's All in Your Head", and has written songs for Diamond Rio. Estevez's plays include a 1982 Burt Reynolds Dinner Theatre performance in "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest". Directing and producing career. Estevez is involved in production development of Warner Bros.-affiliated company, Estevez Sheen Productions, a combination of both their real and stage names. The production company is located in Los Angeles, California. In 2010, Estevez approached Michael Ritchie about staging a play, "The Subject Was Roses", at the Mark Taper Forum on the behalf of the production company Estevez runs for Martin Sheen called Estevez Sheen Productions. Martin Sheen created the play's Timmy on Broadway in 1964 and wanted to revisit it as Timmy's dad, John. In collaboration with Ritchie and Sheen, Estevez arranged for Brian Geraghty to play a role with Neil Pepe as the director. The play opened on February 21, 2010, with Estevez in attendance. A 2011 Estevez Sheen Productions project was "The Way" with James Nesbitt written and directed by Emilio Estevez and starring Martin Sheen Since 2012, Estevez is co-producing "Anger Management (TV series)" with his brother Charlie Sheen, on FX.
583442	Vijayendra Ghatge is an actor in the Hindi film industry and on Indian TV. He is known for his role of Lala Vrishbhaan in a TV serial "Buniyaad" that originally aired on DD National in 1986. Among other serials and several films, he is also known for his roles in "Chitchor" (1976), "Prem Rog" (1982) and most recently "Devdas" (2002).
584778	Poove Unakkaga () is a 1996 Tamil romantic film starring Vijay in the lead role. It was the first blockbuster in Vijay's career and a major breakthrough. The film was remade in Telugu as "Subhakankshalu" (1997), in Kannada as "Ee Hrudaya Ninagagi" (1997) and in Hindi as "Badhaai Ho Badhaai" (2002). Plot. Nagesh and Nambiar have been best friends since college and so have their children, Jaiganesh and Vasudevan. Jaiganesh's family members are Christians while Malaysia Vasudevan's are Hindu. Jaiganesh's son is Lawrence and Malaysia Vasudevan's daughter is Nandhini Anju Aravind. Robert, Jaiganesh's brother, and Janaki, Malaysia Vasudevan's sister, fall in love with each other. Against their families' wishes, they elope. Ever since then, the two families hate each other. 25 years later, Nandhini and Lawrence fall in love with each other, but are afraid of their families' opposition. Raja (Vijay)comes to the village and announces that he is the son of Robert and Jananaki. He wants to reconcile the feuding families. With his friend Gopi (Charle), Raja stays in the house of the loud & frightful Velingiri. He gradually endears himself to both families. Later, both his grandmothers suggest marriage. To avoid the situation, Gopi suggests that Raja tell them that he is married. Raja decides that this is the only way, thus lying that he is married to a Hindu-Christian like himself, Nirmala Mary (Nimmi).
629268	Beneath Hill 60 is a 2010 Australian war film directed by Jeremy Sims and written by David Roach. Set during World War I, the film tells the story of the 1st Australian Tunnelling Company’s effort to mine beneath a German bunker and detonate an explosive charge to aid the advance of British troops. The screenplay is based on an account of the ordeal written by Captain Oliver Woodward, who is portrayed by Brendan Cowell in the film. "Beneath Hill 60" was released in Australia on 15 April 2010. In July 2009 it was reported that there were plans to have the film showcased at the 2010 Cannes Film Festival. Plot. As seen in flashbacks that occur throughout the film, Oliver Hardwood is an Australian miner supplying copper for the war effort. He falls in love with Marjorie Waddell, a young woman ten years his junior. However, he is under constant pressure to enlist, especially from Waddall's father. He has the opportunity to do so when the British Army forms the 1st Australian Tunnelling Company to supplement the Royal Engineers; Hardwoofd is commissioned to lead the unit. On the Western Front, Hardwood meets Frank Tiffin, a young Australian soldier who is suffering from shell shock; it is later revealed that Tiffin, being underaged, was initially relegated to being a stretcher bearer, where he saw firsthand the horrors of war. Hardwood reassigns Tom Dwyer and Norman Morris to relieve Tiffin. Two German tunnelers break through into the tunnel. Morris and Dwyer dispatch both of them, but Dwyer is killed when a German explosive goes off, burying the tunnel on top of them; Morris is rescued by the other sappers. Later, Woodward is tasked to destroy the Red House, a fortified German position raining enfilade fire down upon the frontmost section of the British trenches. Although Hardwood initially proposed tunneling beneath the Red House, his commanding officer, Colonel Wilson Rutledge, insisted that it be done by dawn. Along with Sgt. Bill Fraser and Morris, Hardwood crosses No Man's Land. They manage to reach the Red House and plant explosives underneath it. However, as they make their way back to British lines, they discover that their fuse is too short, so Morris runs ahead to retrieve the exploder. While they wait, they discover mortally wounded Lt. Robert Clayton, who had been ordered to cut a gap in the wire for them. Morris arrives with the exploder and they destroy the Red House. The next day, after a game of rugby league, Hardwood receives word that they are to be moved up the lines to the Belgium front. Upon arrival, Tiffin, Youngston, and Bacon are separated from the rest of the battalion and pinned down by German machine gun fire. Bacon, being the fastest runner, volunteers to distract the Germans while the others make a run for British lines. Although Tiffin and Youngston make it, Bacon is killed mere inches from safety. The unit continues on to Hill 60. During an inspection, it is revealed that the Canadian Engineers have been tunneling deep below the Messine Ridge for months, planting a million pounds of ammonium nitrate in the form of 21 massive mines. Hardwood is tasked with maintaining the tunnels as the British military buildup begins; they hope to fill the ridge with as many German troops as possible. To this end, he constructs a massive shaft to keep the water table from inundating the explosives. He also digs multiple diversion tunnels to throw the Germans off. Sneddon is buried in one such tunnel when he is ordered into it by Rutledge, despite reporting that the Germans would likely be setting off explosives soon. The Germans eventually catch on to their plan and dig toward the main tunnel. An attack tunnel is dug in response, and the Australians successfully destroy the exploratory shaft with minutes to spare. However, the charge that was used weakens the clay and a portion of the tunnel collapses, trapping Tiffin. His compatriots race to stall the detonation of the mines, but the schedule could not be delayed on account of one man. Hardwood sets off the mines to begin the Battle of Messines. Hardwood returns to Australia and the surviving members of the unit gather for his wedding with Marjorie. Despite getting through the ceremony, Hardwood is shown to suffer from PTSD due to his war experiences. Production. Ross J. Thomas, a mining engineer and historian, met with producer Bill Leimbach and quickly convinced him that the story of Captain Oliver Woodward and the 1st Australian Tunnelling Company was "a story crying out to be told". Thomas knew descendants of Captain Oliver Woodward living in Melbourne, who agreed to have Woodward's diaries adapted into a screenplay. Leimbach recruited David Roach to write the film. Extensive research went into developing the characters and their environment, with Canberra's Australian War Memorial Archives providing research material. The majority of the war scenes were written to take place inside the tunnels so a tense environment could be achieved while facilitating the film's tight budget. While searching for a director, Leimbach viewed Jeremy Sims's 2006 film "Last Train to Freo". Impressed with the intensity of the film's claustrophobic action, Leimbach approached Sims, who agreed to direct "Beneath Hill 60" after reading an early treatment. Actor Hugo Weaving showed interest in participating in the film and was offered the role of Oliver Woodward, but ultimately declined due to his claustrophobia. The role went to Brendan Cowell in a decision driven by the actor's experience and numerous accolades. Working titles for the film included "The Silence" and "The Silence Beneath". Leimbach explained that the film was titled "Beneath Hill 60" to maximise recognition for the international audience and felt that it was a more suitable title for a war film. Principal photography for "Beneath Hill 60" began in late July 2009 and lasted around 40 days. The film was shot in Townsville, Queensland and its surrounding areas. Locations were used to represent both Australia and the Western Front in Belgium, while the tunnels were constructed as sets indoors; digging actual tunnels to film in would have proved "logistically impossible" and posed a high level of risk to the cast and crew. Actor Hugh Jackman gave the production team part of a set from a World War I scene in "", which Jackman had starred in and produced. The local Brothers Rugby Union club provided the players for the rugby game and the following thigh slapping singing scene. Release. Despite initial plans to have the film released on Anzac Day (25 April), the film was released on 15 April 2010. Reception. "Beneath Hill 60" received generally positive reviews. Review aggregate Rotten Tomatoes reports that 83% of critics have given the film a positive reviews based on 12 reviews, with an average score of 7/10.
586477	Shaadi Ka Laddoo is a 2004 Bollywood comedy film directed by Raj Kaushal. The film premiered on 23 April 2004. Plot. India-based artist Shomu (Sanjay Suri) and his wife Geetu (Divya Dutta) are happily married with two children. Shomu decides to travel to Britain for business purposes, as well as to meet his childhood friend Ravi Kapoor (Aashish Chaudhary). Once in Britain, Shomu finds himself getting close to single women and realizes that he is ready for an extramarital affair. Ravi, to the contrary, believes that Shomu is the luckiest man on earth, as he is in love with his wife and their marriage is rock steady. Distrusting her husband, Meenu asks a British-based friend to check on him. The friend reports back that Shomu lasts long in bed. Geetu decides to go to Britain as well and catch Shomu red-handed. In the meantime, Ravi meets a waitress named Menaka Choudhary (Samita Bangargi) and decides to propose marriage to her, apprehensive that she, too, will turn him down. The stage is all set for sparks to fly.
1068620	Boxcar Bertha is a 1972 American directed by Martin Scorsese. It is a loose adaptation of "Sister of the Road", a work of the fiction, written by Ben L. Reitman. One of producer Roger Corman's famous exploitation films, the film was made with a modest $600,000 budget. Plot. The story of Bertha Thompson (played by Barbara Hershey) and "Big" Bill Shelly (played by David Carradine), two train robbers and lovers who are caught up in the plight of railroad workers in the American South. When Bertha is implicated in the murder of a wealthy gambler, the pair become fugitives from justice.
584334	Vellitherai () is a 2008 Tamil drama film directed by debutant Viji, previously a dialogue writer. It is a remake of 2005 Malayalam Film "Udayananu Tharam" starring Mohanlal, Sreenivasan, Meena, Mukesh with some changes.The film stars Prithviraj, as an assistant director hoping to make it big and Gopika, his love interest in the lead roles. Prakash Raj, the producer of the movie, also plays a prominent role in the movie. Shooting had taken place in India, Indonesia, and Australia. The film's score and soundtrack, are composed by G. V. Prakash Kumar, with many songs altered from the original. It is a remake of Rosshan Andrrews's Malayalam film, "Udayananu Tharam". Popular stars like Jayam Ravi and Trisha Krishnan play cameos as themselves in the film. Plot. When Saravanan goes to Hyderabad, Kanniah copies Saravanan's script and pitches it a producer, under the condition that he has to play the hero in the film. Impressed by the script, the producer agrees to the condition. The movie turns Kanniah, now rechristened Dilipkanth, into a star. Saravanan does not give up and creates another story. However, he finds out that he can't make his film unless Dilipkanth plays the hero.Because of this they lead into minor problems which annoy Saravanan and their team. Shooting starts with Dilipkanth as hero but is halted midway owing to various tantrums thrown by the new opportunistic hero. Determined to finish the movie, Saravanan seeks the help of his crew and friends in the cinema industry. Unknown to Dilipkanth, Saravanan and crew manipulate him into situations that match the storyline of the movie they are shooting for and capture Dilipkanth's live reactions. They manage to fool Dilipkanth and finish shooting the climax of the film even as the self claimed new star makes an ass of himself. A few days later, he is invited to watch the premiere of the movie and is shocked to see the recent events of his life unfold on the silver screen. He soon realizes the effort put in by Saravanan and crew and feels humbled. He genuinely acknowledges the talent of the director and leaves the place, apologising to Saravanan for his pathetic behaivour and agreeing that Saravanan is better than him in a very mannered way. Soundtrack. The soundtrack consisted of 5 songs composed by G. V. Prakash.
1060865	Timothy David Olyphant (born May 20, 1968) is an American actor. He is mostly known for his television work as Sheriff Seth Bullock in "Deadwood", Deputy U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens in "Justified", and Wes Krulik in "Damages". He has also starred in films such as "Scream 2", "Gone in 60 Seconds", "Go", "", "Dreamcatcher", "Live Free or Die Hard/Die Hard 4.0", "The Girl Next Door", "A Perfect Getaway", "The Crazies", "Hitman", "I Am Number Four", and "Rango". Early life. Olyphant was born in Honolulu, Hawaii to John Vernon Bevan and Katherine Olyphant. His father was a college teacher who worked for a winery. He is a descendent of Cornelius Vanderbilt. Olyphant was raised in Modesto, California, and began competitive swimming at the age of 6. At high school, Olyphant started training seriously under swim coach Darrell Lohrke, who came to Modesto via Arden Hills Swimming and Tennis Club. Olyphant became a nationally ranked swimmer. He was a finalist at the USA Swimming Short Course National Championships in 1986 in the 200 Individual Medley. He graduated from Modesto's Fred C. Beyer High School that year. Olyphant continued swimming competitively at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, where he studied fine art. He took a beginning acting class as an elective at UC Irvine in order to fulfill the final credits he needed to graduate from USC. Olyphant then decided to move to New York City to study acting rather than pursue a master's degree in fine arts. He took acting classes with William Esper at William Esper Studio for two years, and then started looking for acting work. Career. Olyphant made his professional off-Broadway debut in 1995 in the Playwrights Horizons' production of "The Monogamist" in the role of Tim Hapgood. He received the Theatre World Award for Outstanding Debut Performance for his performance. He subsequently appeared in the one-man play "The SantaLand Diaries" in 1996, which was written by David Sedaris and adapted and directed by Joe Mantello, and in the play "Plunge". Olyphant returned to Los Angeles and found work in television. In 1995 he landed his first TV role in a pilot for a remake of the series "77 Sunset Strip", produced by Clint Eastwood. He was cast in the pilot of "Mr. & Mrs. Smith" (1996), a short-lived CBS spy series, as Scooby, Mr. Smith's (Scott Bakula's) assistant. Olyphant appeared in 3 episodes of the acclaimed police drama "High Incident" and in the 1997 Hallmark Channel TV film "Ellen Foster". A role in the HBO movie "When Trumpets Fade" was next in 1998, which was a dramatization of the 1944 Battle of Hürtgen Forest. This was followed by a guest starring role in the "Sex and the City" episode "Valley of the Twenty Something Guys" as one of Carrie Bradshaw's boyfriends. Olyphant made his feature film debut with a small part in "The First Wives Club" (1996). He appeared briefly in "A Life Less Ordinary" (1997), which starred Ewan McGregor, but gained notice appearing in the horror film "Scream 2" (1997), as a cynical film student, Mickey. He portrayed the drug dealer Todd Gaines in the comedy-drama "Go" (1999), directed by Doug Liman, which also starred Katie Holmes, Scott Wolf and Sarah Polley, and featured a script by first time screenwriter John August. His next film roles were in "Advice from a Caterpillar" (1999), "No Vacancy" (1999), "" (2000) and "Gone in 60 Seconds" (2000). He had roles in "Rock Star" (2001) and "Dreamcatcher" (2003). In 2004 he played a porn film producer in "The Girl Next Door" alongside Emile Hirsch and Elisha Cuthbert. Olyphant played the lead role of Sheriff Seth Bullock in HBO's "Deadwood" for three seasons from 2004 until 2006. Olyphant considered it to be one of his first lead roles as a "complicated" and "complex" character. In January 2007, Olyphant appeared in the comedy "Catch and Release", playing the love interest of Jennifer Garner. Olyphant was cast in the role over several other known actors, including Matthew Fox. Olyphant had studied acting with Garner when he first moved to New York. He next appeared in "Live Free or Die Hard" as cyber-terrorist villain Thomas Gabriel, and in "Hitman" as the title character. Olyphant shaved his head for his role in "Hitman". His 2008 roles included "Stop-Loss", about the Iraq War in which he played a Lieutenant Colonel, "Meet Bill", a comedy co-starring Aaron Eckhart and Jessica Alba, and a voice-acting role in "Turok (2008)" as Cowboy. Olyphant served as the daily on-air, unpaid sports commentator for Joe Escalante's morning show on the LA radio station Indie 103.1, until the channel's demise in January 2009. In June 2008, he joined the cast of FX's show "Damages", starring Glenn Close. He was also cast at the same time in the Christina Applegate sitcom "Samantha Who?" but his part was recast with Billy Zane. In 2009, he starred with Steve Zahn and Milla Jovovich in the thriller "A Perfect Getaway" as an Iraq war veteran and possible serial killer of honeymooners on the Hawaii islands. In 2010, he was featured in the lead role of the town sheriff in the remake of the film "The Crazies". In the spring of 2010, Olyphant landed the lead role of Raylan Givens in the FX series "Justified". His character is a 21st-century U.S. Marshal who is banished back to his home state of Kentucky for questionable actions in Miami. Givens wears a Stetson hat and behaves like an Old West sheriff. The show is based on a character created by Elmore Leonard in the novels "Pronto" and "Riding the Rap", and the short story "Fire in the Hole," which served as the basis for the pilot. The same year Olyphant played a paper salesman in two episodes of the seventh season of the NBC comedy "The Office". He returned to the role for Steve Carell's penultimate episode, but his scenes were cut. However, they can be seen on the Season 7 DVD. Olyphant's most recent film role was in the 2011 animated feature "Rango" as the voice of Spirit of the West. His next project will be the S. Craig Zahler directed "Bone Tomahawk" co-starring Richard Jenkins, Kurt Russell, Peter Sarsgaard, Jennifer Carpenter Personal life. Olyphant lives in Westwood, Los Angeles with his wife and their three children. His first child, daughter Grace Katherine was born in 1999 followed by son Henry and daughter Vivian. The couple were married in July 1991.
589653	Rehman (23 June 1921–1984) was an Indian film actor whose career spanned from late 1940s through to late 1970s. He was an integral part of the Guru Dutt team, and most known for his roles in films, like "Pyaasa" (1957), "Chaudhvin Ka Chand" (1960), "Sahib Bibi Aur Ghulam" (1962) and "Waqt" (1965). Early life and education. Rehman was an actor in Hindi and Indian films. He was born on 23 June 1921 at Lahore. He graduated from Robertson College Jabalpur. Amongst his nephews, are prominent Pakistani film and TV actor Faisal Rehman and Fasih-ur-Rehman, Indian classical dancer and sons of his younger brother Massud-ur-Rehman famous cinematographer in Pakistan. Film career. After college (1942) he joined the Royal Indian Air Force and trained at Poona as a pilot. Air Force didn't appeal to him and soon left for a career in films at Bombay. He is best known for his suave sophisticated roles, which suited his personality. His movie career started with a job as third assistant director to Vishram Bedekar at the studios in Pune. Vishram needed an Afghan who could tie a Pushtun turban on one of his characters. Rehman could do that being a Pushtun by race, and that brought him to the screen for some lead roles. Initially he played lead roles, as time passed and his hair turned grey, he accepted character roles and made his mark in some hit films; "Chaudhvin Ka Chand" and "Sahib Bibi Aur Ghulam" (where he played a debauched zamindar, Chhote Sarkar), "Waqt" were some of his memorable roles, the first two with Guru Dutt.' famous actor, producer, director. He was a regular in Guru Dutt films ( Pyaasa). They were old friends from the days they were trying to break into films. Rehman also did key roles in 'Baharon Ki Manzil', 'Gomti ke Kinare', 'Dushman', 'Holi Ayi Re'. Rehman received four Filmfare nominations as Best Supporting Actor for: Yahudi (1958), Chaudhvin Ka Chand (1960), Sahib Bibi Aur Ghulam (1962), Dil Ne Phir Yaad Kiya (1966). Death. In 1977, he suffered three heart attacks after which he got throat cancer and died after a prolonged and painful illness in 1984. Rehman is the elder brother of Masood-ur-Rehman, cinematographer, Pakistan Film Industry. Masood is father of Pakistan TV and film star Faisal Rehman(Arman)., and celebrated Indian classical dancer Fasih-ur-Rehman. Selected filmography. Yeh Raaste hain Pyar Ke (19xx)
741889	Ringing Bell was produced by Sanrio and originally shown as a double feature alongside the US/Sanrio co-production "The Mouse and his Child". It is Sanrio's first anime film to have a dark plot, only two other films produced by the company, "The Ideon: A Contact" and "The Ideon: Be Invoked" also follow suit. Synopsis. A baby lamb named Chirin is devastated when his mother is killed by a wolf who raids the farm in the night. Seeking revenge, he must become like the very thing he wishes to destroy, and he must venture far beyond the safety his home and childhood into the wilderness to seek the fearsome Wolf King. "Ringing Bell" starts off as a children's film but quickly merges into a darkly toned story of the laws of nature and revenge. It has also been viewed in the past as a cautionary tale about venturing away from home, nonconformity and revenge. Plot. The movie opens with a baby lamb named Chirin living an idyllic life on a farm with many other sheep. Chirin is very adventurous and tends to get lost, so he wears a bell around his neck so that his mother can always find him. His mother warns Chirin that he must never venture beyond the fence surrounding the farm, because a huge black wolf lives in the mountains and loves to eat sheep. Chirin is too young and naive to take the advice to heart, until one night the wolf enters the barn and is prepared to kill Chirin, but at the last moment the lamb's mother throws herself in the way and is killed instead. The wolf leaves, and Chirin is horrified to see his mother's body. Unable to understand why his mother was killed, he becomes very angry and swears that he will go into the mountains and kill the wolf. He leaves alone, and when he finally comes upon the wolf he challenges him to fight. The wolf simply ignores him and walks away, and Chirin follows. This continues for some time, and Chirin realizes that the only way he can fight the wolf is by becoming strong like him. After much begging, the wolf relents and tells Chirin he will train him, knowing that Chirin intends to kill him one day. Chirin's training lasts well into his adulthood, and by this time he has become a vicious killer, and views the wolf as his father. Together they travel the mountains, killing indiscriminately. One night the wolf takes Chirin to the farm where the lamb was born. Chirin claims not to remember it, saying that his home is on the plains with the wolf. The wolf watches while the ram graphically fights the farm dogs, then watches Chirin enter the barn, where the terrified sheep have gathered, while the wolf waits outside. Chirin spots a very young lamb that strongly resembles himself, cowering in the middle of the barn, and as he approaches, the lamb's mother throws herself in the way. Struck by this similarity to his past, Chirin is startled and confused, and leaves the barn without killing the sheep. When the wolf demands to know why, Chirin tells him that he can't bring himself to do it. The wolf walks towards the barn to do the job himself, and Chirin begs him to spare the sheep. When the wolf will not listen, Chirin becomes furious and charges at him. After a brief fight, Chirin impales the wolf on his horns. The wolf expresses his gratitude and pride for Chirin, and dies. Chirin is saddened, but turns to the sheep in the barn, who quickly shut the door. When Chirin tries to tell them that he grew up on the farm, none of the sheep believe him, saying that such a terrifying animal could not be one of them. Chirin gives up and returns to the mountains alone. As Chirin stands by a pool of water near the wolf's den, he hallucinates the wolf's reflection in the water next to his own. Overjoyed, he turns to see the wolf, but realizes he is alone. Chirin stands alone in the mountains, yelling for the wolf, as the snow begins to fall, and as the movie draws to a close the narrator tells us that no one ever saw Chirin again. Reception. "Ringing Bell" has received positive reviews from critics. In Japan, it has been regarded as one of the most revolutionary anime of the 1970s, along with Galaxy Express 999 and Heidi- Girl of the Alps. Though it is not as well known outside of Japan, Western critics such as Justin Sevakis of "Anime News Network" praised the dark storyline and artwork, and noted that it delivered a "sort of quick punch-to-the-face of the innocent." Sevakis also commented that "there is almost nothing uplifting about "Ringing Bell" and yet it maintains its sense of adorable while simultaneously destroying our concepts of the beauty of nature." One of the most negative comments about the film came from Kimiko Anime Network who stated that the film should not be viewed by young children and could cause emotional trauma.
1164128	Robert Guillaume (born Robert Peter Williams; November 30, 1927) is an American stage and television actor, known for his role as Benson on the TV-series "Soap" and the spin-off "Benson", voicing the mandrill Rafiki in "The Lion King" and as Isaac Jaffe on "Sports Night". In a career that has spanned more than 50 years he has worked extensively on stage (including a Tony Award nomination), television (including winning two Emmy Awards), and film. Early life. Guillaume studied at Saint Louis University and Washington University and served in the United States Army before pursuing an acting career. Career. Stage. On leaving the university, Guillaume joined the Karamu Players in Cleveland and performed in musical comedies and opera. He toured the world in 1959 as a cast member of the Broadway musical "Free and Easy". He made his Broadway debut in "Kwamina" in 1961. Other stage appearances included "Golden Boy", "Tambourines to Glory", "Guys and Dolls", for which he received a Tony Award nomination, "Jacques Brel is Alive and Well and Living in Paris", the Los Angeles production of "The Phantom of the Opera" (succeeding Michael Crawford in the lead role), and "Purlie!". Added roles were in Katherine Dunham's "Bambouche" and in "Fly The Blackbird". In 1964 he portrayed Sportin' Life in a revival of "Porgy and Bess" at New York's City Center. Guillaume has been a member of the Robert de Cormier Singers, performing in concerts and on television. He has soloed on "The Tonight Show". He recorded a LP record, Columbia CS9033, titled "Just Arrived" as a member of The Pilgrims, a folk trio, with Angeline Butler and Millard Williams. Television. Guillaume made several guest appearances on sitcoms, including "Good Times", "The Jeffersons", "Sanford and Son", "" and in the 1990s sitcoms "The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air" and "A Different World". His series-regular debut began on the ABC series "Soap", playing Benson, a butler, from 1977 to 1979. Guillaume continued the role in a spinoff series, "Benson", from 1979 until 1986. Guillaume also played Dr. Franklin in Season 6 episode #8 titled "Chain Letter" in the series "All in the Family". He also appeared as marriage counselor Edward Sawyer on "The Robert Guillaume Show" (1989), Detective Bob Ballard on "Pacific Station" (1991), and television executive Isaac Jaffe on Aaron Sorkin's short-lived but critically acclaimed "Sports Night" (1998–2000). Guillaume suffered a mild stroke on January 14, 1999, while filming an episode of the latter series. He recovered and his character was later also depicted as having had a stroke. He also made a guest appearance on "8 Simple Rules for Dating My Teenage Daughter". Film. His voice has also been used for characters in television series "Captain Planet and the Planeteers", "Fish Police", and ' and for the voice of Rafiki in the movie "The Lion King" and its sequels and spin-offs. He voiced Mr. Thicknose in '. He also supplied the voice for Eli Vance in the 2004 video game "Half-Life 2" and its subsequent sequels. He is featured in the 2009 movie "The Secrets of Jonathan Sperry". Honors and awards. Guillaume won an Outstanding Supporting Actor - Comedy Series primetime Emmy Award in 1979 for the series "Soap" and an Outstanding Lead Comedy Actor primetime Emmy Award in 1985 for "Benson". In 1995, Guillaume received a Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Album for Children for "The Lion King" read-along book, which he narrates in the voice of Rafiki. Guillaume has a star on the St. Louis Walk of Fame.
588415	Yeh Dooriyan is a 2011 Bollywood romantic drama film directed by Deepshikha, starring Deepshikha, Kaishav Arora, Inder Kumar, Kunicka Lal, Ayub Khan in the lead roles. Plot. Simmi (Deepshikha), 35, is independent and beautiful, she runs a dance academy for a living. she is divorced and left with 2 children to look after, the only problem is the societal pressures that ask her to remarry. She is clear that only if a man accepts her children, will she marry. Reception. Critical reception. Yeh Dooriyan was thumbed down by all top critics. Komal Nahta of Koimoi gave it half out of five stars and wrote in his review - "On the whole, Yeh Dooriyan is a poor fare which will meet with a disastrous fate at the box-office windows". Nikita Kapoor of FilmiTadka rated it with 1 out of 5 stars and said - "Yeh Dooriyan has nothing new or unique, out of the various departments that Deepshikha has tried to handle though this film, acting is the only part she has got right. We at FilmiTadka give Yeh Dooriyan 1 out of 5 stars". Nikhat Kazmi of Times of India gave it 2 out of 5 stars and wrote - "Deepshikha, on her part, does put in a restrained act as the suffering heroine, but can't say the same for the male acts. The men in the film are either hysterical (husband) or plastic (boyfriend) and the girlie gang (Delnaaz and Chitrashi) are borderline bimbettes".
1058027	Anne Revere (June 25, 1903 – December 18, 1990) was an American stage, film, and television actress. Early life. Born in New York City, Revere was a direct descendant of American Revolution hero Paul Revere. Her father, Clinton, was a stockbroker, and she was raised on the Upper West Side and in Westfield, New Jersey. In 1926, she graduated from Wellesley College, then enrolled at the American Laboratory School to study acting with Maria Ouspenskaya and Richard Boleslavsky. Career. Revere made her Broadway debut in 1931 in "The Great Barrington". Three years later, she went to Hollywood to reprise her stage role in the film adaptation of "Double Door". She returned to Broadway to create the role of Martha Dobie in the original 1934 production of "The Children's Hour", and in later years she appeared on the New York stage in "As You Like It", "The Three Sisters", and "Toys in the Attic (play)", for which she won the 1960 Tony Award for Best Performance by a Featured Actress in a Play. Revere worked steadily as a character actress in films, appearing in nearly three dozen between 1934 and 1951. She frequently was cast in the role of a matriarch and played mother to Elizabeth Taylor, Jennifer Jones, Gregory Peck, John Garfield, and Montgomery Clift, among others. She was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress three times and won for her performance in "National Velvet". Additional screen credits included "The Song of Bernadette", "Gentleman's Agreement", "The Keys of the Kingdom", "Body and Soul", and "A Place in the Sun". In 1951, Revere resigned from the board of the Screen Actors Guild after she pleaded the Fifth Amendment and refused to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee. She would not appear again on film for the next twenty years, finally returning to the screen in "Tell Me That You Love Me, Junie Moon". She began appearing on television in 1960, notably in soap operas such as "The Edge of Night", "Search for Tomorrow", and "Ryan's Hope". Revere and her husband, theatre director Samuel Rosen, moved to New York and opened an acting school, and she continued to work in summer stock and regional theater productions and on television. Illness and death. Revere died of pneumonia in her Locust Valley, New York home at the age of 87.
582788	Dil Kya Kare is a 1999 Hindi drama film, directed by Prakash Jha and produced by Veeru Devgan and Veena Devgan. The film was acclaimed critically. Plot. Anand Kishore (Ajay Devgn), an architect, his wife, Kavita (Mahima Chaudhary), and their only child, an adopted daughter, Neha (Akshita Indalie Garud-Jaïnos), live a happy and serene life in Delhi, India. Their happy and lovely life together is turned upside down when Kavita finds out that Neha is being stalked by a woman named Nandita Rai (Kajol), who comes to see her at school everyday. Though Neha insists that Nandita is a sweet "aunty", Kavita is frantic and confronts Nandita. She is then told that Nandita is the biological mother of Neha. Kavita and Anand had adopted Neha after Kavita was involved in a car crash while pregnant, resulting in infertility. Nandita requests to spend some time with her daughter; seeing that Neha favours Nandita, Kavita lets her stay in their home. However, deeply buried secrets threaten to surface when Nandita and Anand come face-to-face. With a shock, it is revealed that Anand is actually the biological father of Neha—she is Anand and Nandita's child. They have a short-lived history: Anand and Nandita were traveling by train when thugs took over and tried to kill Nandita. Anand saved Nandita and the two instantly fell in love, despite not even knowing each others' names, and made love together that night. The next morning, Anand awoke to find Nandita gone. While Anand moved on with his life, Nandita became pregnant with his child, unbeknownst to him, and was forced to give up her child, Neha, for adoption, due to her unaccepting father. Anand and Nandita hide their past from Kavita at first, though Anand tries many times to meet with Nandita alone and talk to her, anxious to know her after sharing that fateful night together. Soon after however, Kavita finds out the truth and is disgusted with Nandita. Heartbroken, Nandita promises she will leave forever but since she has no one in her life, she requests to take Neha along, since she is her daughter. Kavita becomes frantic, as she refuses to give up Neha. Anand reluctantly supports Kavita after realizing how desperate she is to keep Neha. When Nandita realizes that Anand and Kavita love Neha, she decides to leave her daughter in their care and go away forever. Anand is shocked at this and runs to the train station alone without Kavita. He makes it just in time. He sees Nandita on the moving train, peering at him with tear-filled eyes and watches her leave with a heavy feeling in his heart. Box office. Dil Kya Kare grossed $285,000 in USA and £204,547 in UK. The film had a weak heart in the United States, suffered a financial haemorrhage in the second weekend, grossing $ 54,000 on screens, crashing to 51st position on the box-office chart from 27th. But it fared far better in the United Kingdom. It has remained at No 14 there on 22 screens for two weeks.
1166293	William Lucking (born June 17, 1941) is an American film, television, and stage actor perhaps best known for his role as Piney Winston in the drama series "Sons of Anarchy". Career. Film and television. Lucking's imposing figure and rough-hewn features lent themselves well to roles as tough bikers ("Hell's Belles", "Wild Rovers", "Sons of Anarchy"), craggy cowboys ("The Magnificent Seven Ride!", "The Return of a Man Called Horse"), and determined military and police officers ("", "K-PAX"). His film work also includes appearances in "The Mountain Men", "10", "Stripes", "Ladykillers", "The River Wild", "The Limey", "Erin Brockovich", "Red Dragon", "The Rundown", and "Contraband". On television he has had starring or featured roles in "Outlaws" as Harland Pike and "The A-Team" as Colonel Lynch. He has been a mainstay on episodic TV for three decades, appearing in such classics as ', "The Partridge Family", "Bonanza", "Kung Fu", "Gunsmoke", "The Rockford Files", "The Waltons", "The Incredible Hulk", "M*A*S*H", "Knight Rider", "Magnum, P.I.", "Hunter", "The Greatest American Hero" and "Murder, She Wrote". He has also appeared in such shows as "NYPD Blue", ', "JAG", "Walker, Texas Ranger", "The X Files", "ER", "The Pretender", "Profiler", "The West Wing", "Tales of the Gold Monkey" and "In the Heat of the Night". He was most recently seen as Piney in "Sons of Anarchy". Theater. Lucking graduated from UCLA and the Pasadena Playhouse with degrees in literature and theater. In 1986, with fellow actor and Michigan native Dana Elcar, he co-founded the Santa Paula Theater Center. As co-instructor of the company's free acting workshop he was admired for his minimalist approach; a counterpoint to Elcar's methodical style. He served alongside Elcar as artistic director for five seasons. He was Producer of projects including Edward Albee's "The Zoo Story", Harold Pinter's "The Hothouse", George Bernard Shaw's "Major Barbara", Tennessee Williams' "Camino Real", and Robert Penn Warren's "All the King's Men". Lucking's most recent stage roles include Blue in the CTG/Ahmanson production of "Conversations with My Father" at the Doolittle Theater in Los Angeles and Dr. Sloper in the Ensemble Theater Company of Santa Barbara's production of "The Heiress".
630891	Isabel Lucas (born 29 January 1985) is an Australian actress. She is best known for her roles in "Home and Away" (2003–2006), "" (2009), "Daybreakers" (2009), "The Pacific" (2010), "Immortals" (2011), and "Red Dawn" (2012). In 2014, she will appear alongside Nick Jonas in the thriller film "Careful What You Wish For". Early life. Lucas was born in Melbourne, Australia, the daughter of Beatrice, a special needs teacher, and Andrew, a pilot. Her father is Australian and her mother is Swiss, and she speaks German and French in addition to her native English. As a child, Lucas lived in Cairns, Queensland. She also lived in Switzerland and Kakadu, in the Northern Territory. Lucas went to St. Monica's College in Cairns. Career. Lucas was involved in drama during her school years and attended courses at Victorian College of Arts and Queensland University of Technology. But Lucas had never pursued commercial roles until Sharron Meissner, a Sydney talent agent, discovered Lucas while she was vacationing in Port Douglas. She auditioned for the role of Kit Hunter in "Home and Away"; although the producer of the show, Julie McGauran, felt that role was not right for Isabel, she was sufficiently impressed to have a new character, Tasha Andrews, created for her. Lucas won a Logie Award (for new popular talent) for her performance on the series.
674346	Hanna Schygulla (born 25 December 1943) is a German actress and chanson singer. Long associated with the theater and film director Rainer Werner Fassbinder, for whom Schygulla first worked in 1965, she is generally considered the most prominent German actress of the New German Cinema. Life and career. Schygulla was born in Königshütte, Upper Silesia, to German parents Antonie (née Mzyk) and Joseph Schygulla. Her father, a timber merchant by profession, was then drafted as an infantryman in the German Army and was captured by American forces in Italy, subsequently being held as a prisoner of war until 1948. In 1945, Schygulla, and her mother, arrived as refugees in Munich following the expulsion of the majority German population of Königshütte by Communist Poland. Much later, in the 1960s, Schygulla studied Romance languages and German studies, while taking acting lessons in Munich during her spare time. Acting eventually became her focus, and she became particularly known for her film work with Rainer Werner Fassbinder. During the making of "Effi Briest" (1974), an adaptation of a German novel by Theodor Fontane, Fassbinder and Schygulla fell out over divergent interpretations of the character. Also a problem for Schygulla was low pay, and she led a revolt against Fassbinder on this issue during the making of "Effi Briest", shot in September 1972 some time before its commercial release. Fassbinder's response was typically blunt: "I can't stand the sight of your face any more. You bust my balls". After this, they did not work together for several years until "The Marriage of Maria Braun" in 1978. The film was entered into the 29th Berlin International Film Festival, where Schygulla won the Silver Bear for Best Actress for her performance. In 1987, she was a member of the jury at the 15th Moscow International Film Festival. Schygulla has acted in French, Italian, and American films. In the 1990s she also became known and well regarded as a "chanson" singer. In Juliane Lorenz's documentary film "Life, Love and Celluloid" (1998), on Fassbinder and related topics, Schygulla performs several songs.
674620	Berlin 36 is a 2009 German film telling the fate of Jewish athlete Gretel Bergmann in the 1936 Summer Olympics. She was replaced by the Nazi regime by an athlete later discovered to be a man. The film, based on a true story, was released in Germany on September 10, 2009. Reporters at "Der Spiegel" challenged the historical basis for many of the events in the film, pointing to arrest records and medical examinations indicating German authorities did not learn Dora Ratjen was male until 1938. Plot. The athlete Gretel Bergmann wins the high jump championships in the United Kingdom. For the Nazi racial laws prevented her continuing her training in Germany, being a Jew, her father had sent her to England, where she could live more safely and continue her sporting career. At the Berlin Olympics in 1936, the Americans and the IOC (International Olympic Committee) demand that Jewish athletes are not to be excluded from the event, especially the high jumper Gretel Bergmann of international fame, thus putting the Nazi Olympic Committee in great difficulty. A victory by a Jewish athlete would seriously humiliate the Nazi party. When her family in Germany is threatened, Gretel returns to Germany. She is included in the German Olympic high jump team, seemingly with the same rights as the other athletes in the training camp. Hans Waldmann, the coach of the team, is enthusiastic about the skills and discipline of Gretel and adopts a policy of impartiality based solely on sportsmanship. However, Waldmann is dismissed by Nazi party officials and replaced as coach by Sigfrid Kulmbach, loyal to the party. Kulmbach attempts, instead, by every means to discourage the young athlete and undermine her self-esteem. Her roommate and sole competitor in talent is Marie Ketteler. Marie, however, is really a man, by whom the Nazis want to attain the gold medal in high jump. Between Marie and Gretel, despite numerous threats from outside, a friendship forms. Despite being the most promising athlete in high jump training, Gretel is suddenly excluded from competition under false pretences, only a few days before the Games. She is replaced by Marie, the second best athlete. Marie, however, behaves in strange ways: she never takes a bath with her companions, shaves her legs several times a day and has a deep voice. Gretel, therefore, discovers her true identity. Meanwhile, Marie discovers that Gretel was excluded from the race under false pretenses. So Marie decides to deliberately lose the final and decisive leap. The dislodged bar spells the shattering of hope of victory in the German officials, who are dumbstruck. Marie gains only the fourth place. Marie and Gretel, the latter observing the contest as a spectator, exchange a secret happy smile, for their common opposition led to the defeat of the cruel Nazi ambitions and ideals. Premiere. Berlin 36 premiered on August 22, 2009 in the German capital, Berlin. The film received a critics generally positive. The film has been called "interesting" by the German magazine "Der Spiegel" and placed in the category "play" with the German weekly "Die Zeit". On January 2010, the film was presented in the "Palm Springs International Film Festival". On the same date, the film was presented in the "Atlanta Jewish Film Festival" and the "New York Jewish Film Festival", a film festival that engages with Jewish history. During the presentation of the movie in the "Atlanta Jewish Film Festival", the consular officer Lutz Görgens compared the theme of the movie to Jeremy Schaap's book "Triumph", which tells the story of the American athlete Jesse Owens, who won the gold medal in the 1936 Olympic Games, despite the strong discrimination he suffered. Görgens said that "the book and the movie teaches us about the bad politics of sport. They remind us of the preciousness of political freedom, the excellence of athletic futility, and the true value of friendship". In fact, unlike the film, Gretel Bergmann, as a young woman did not know her partner was really a man, but she learned it only in 1966, reading an article in "Time". Bergmann told the magazine "Der Spiegel", at the age of 95 years, "I never suspected anything. We all wondered why she never got naked in the shower. Being so shy at seventeen, it seemed absurd, but we thought, well, it is bizarre and weird".
158378	Hard Contract is a 1969 film written and directed by S. Lee Pogostin and starring James Coburn and Lee Remick. It premiered on April 30, 1969. Plot synopsis. CIA assassin John Cunningham, a cold-blooded killer with nerves of steel and no conscience, kills a man on election day, votes in the local election and spends the rest of the afternoon with Ellen, a prostitute. The next day, Cunningham goes to see James Ramsey, his mobilizer, a CIA man whose cover is a job as a college physics professor. Ramsey offers one final, lucrative job, or "hard contract" as he calls it, that can allow Cunningham to retire from the business for good. This consists of three hits, two in Spain and Belgium, with the last victim to be revealed after the first two are dispatched. On his way to Spain to make the first hit, Cunningham meets two women who will change his life: American tourist and jet setter Sheila Metcalfe, and her naive but good-hearted friend, socialite Adrianne. He does kill the first two victims, but later, as remorse slowly takes hold over him, Cunningham can't bring himself to knock off his third target, former top CIA hit-man Michael Carson. A more vicious and effective hit-man in his day than Cunningham is now, Carson has become so passive, he wouldn't even defend himself. Ramsey flies to Spain to persuade Cunningham to complete the job, but falls in love with Adrianne and is converted to a pacifist himself. In the end, Cunningham and Sheila are seen romping in the grass while Ramsey and Adrianne ride off in the back of a donkey cart, everyone wanting only to live in peace. Subsequent release. "Hard Contract" was first broadcast on television by ABC in 1974. It was released on VHS by 20th Century Fox in 1982 in the UK and by Fox Video in 1996 in the United States.
591368	Tahkhana is a 1986 Bollywood horror film directed by Shyam Ramsay and Tulsi Ramsay. It is a tale about two sisters separated at birth and the search for a hidden treasure which is guarded in a dungeon by a bloodthirsty monster. The movie had music composed by Ajit Singh and songs sung by Amit Kumar, Anuradha Paudwal and Sushma Shreshtha. It starred Hemant Birje, Arati Gupta and Kamran Rizvi in the lead roles, supported by Narendranath, Punit Issar Imtiaz Khan, Sheetal, Priti Sapru, Trilok Kapoor, Amarnath Chatterji, Huma Khan, Rajindernath, Shamsuddin and others. Plot. A dying Thakur Surjeet Singh bequeaths the entire estate to his son, Raghuvir, disowning the other, Dhurjan, the family's black sheep, who also indulges in black magic. The latter swears to use magical powers to usurp the estate, and even arranges the abduction of Raghuvir's daughters, Sapna and Aarti. Mangal and his men manage to apprehend Dhurjan, imprison him in a dungeon, and rescue Aarti. However, they are unable to locate Sapna, and Raghuvir is killed. Before dying, he informs Mangal that Sapna has one of two pieces of a locket around her neck, while the other is on Aarti's, and when joined together will reveal the location of a treasure buried in a dungeon. 20 years later, Aarti and her boyfriend, Vijay, along with several others, will attempt to unearth this treasure - not realizing that they not only face betrayal from one of their own, but will also release and fall prey to an ageless and indestructible entity.
584444	Nammavar நம்மவர் is a 1994 Tamil language film K. S. Sethumadhavan and starring Kamal Haasan and Gouthami in lead roles. Kamal Hassan plays a revolutionary history lecturer of a college. The movie is about how he tries to reform the downtrodden college by his initiatives and its consequences. The background score and music was composed by Mahesh. The film is inspired from Hollywood films "To Sir, With Love", Class of 1984" and "Dead Poet's Society". Plot. Dr.Selvam (Kamal Haasan) is the new Vice-principal cum History professor
1551572	Mad About Mambo is a 2000 British/Irish co-production, filmed in Dublin but set in Belfast, written and directed by John Forte. It stars William Ash, Keri Russell and Brian Cox. Plot summary. A boy obsessed with football finds his life changing dramatically once he adds a little Samba. Danny (Ash) plays on the football team at the all-boys Catholic school he attends in Belfast. Danny's three best friends, who also play on the team, all have different ambitions for their lives. Mickey (Maclean Stewart) wants to be a fashion designer so he can get rich and date supermodels. Gary (Russell Smith) wants to become a magician so he can get rich and meet beautiful women (and presumably saw them in half). And Spike (Joe Rea) likes to beat people up, so he wants to become a mercenary and do it for a living. But Danny dreams of making football his life. The players Danny most admires are South Americans, such as Pele and Carlos Riga, who he feels have a special rhythm and flexibility. Wanting to add some of these qualities to his own game, Danny has an idea: he'll take Samba lessons, in the hope that dancing like a South American will help him play like a South American. To the surprise of himself and his friends, Danny turns out to be a pretty good Latin dancer and finds himself smitten with a student in his dance class, Lucy (Russell). However, Lucy happens to have a boyfriend, who is a fierce competitor on one of Danny's rival teams.
582229	Kunal Khemu (25 May 1983) is an Indian film actor who appears in Bollywood films. He made his acting debut as a child artist in the 90s and made his comeback as an adult in 2005 with "Kalyug". He is best known for his pivotal roles in the films "Traffic Signal" (2007), "Golmaal 3" (2010) and "Go Goa Gone" (2013). Early life. Khemu was born to actors Ravi and Jyoti Khemu in Srinagar, Jammu and Kashmir. He attended Niranjanlal Dalmia High School in Mira Road, Mumbai and pursued higher education at Amity University. He is in a committed relationship with Soha Ali Khan, sister of Bollywood actor Saif Ali Khan, and both of them live together. His grandfather, Moti Lal Kemmu (original spellings of last name), is a well-known Kashmiri playwright and a recipient of several awards by the Government of Jammu and Kashmir, Rashtra Bhasa Prachar Samiti, Sahitya Akademi award in 1982 for his contribution to Kashmiri literature as a playwright, and Padamshree. Career. He made his debut as a child actor appearing in the Doordarshan TV series "Gul Gulshan Gulfaam" (1987), directed by Ved Rahi. He made his film debut with Mahesh Bhatt's movie "Sir" (1993), starring Naseeruddin Shah and Pooja Bhatt. He went on to star as a child artist in many movies such as "Raja Hindustani", "Zakhm", "Bhai" and "Hum Hain Rahi Pyar Ke". As an adult, he made his comeback as the male lead in the 2005 film, "Kalyug", which was directed by Mohit Suri. "Kalyug" was based on the pornography industry. In 2007, his first release was Madhur Bhandarkar's "Traffic Signal", where he played a street-smart money lender who lends money to poor families, but always gets it back with interest. His second release of the year 2007, was "Dhol" in which he again played a lead role. In 2008, his only release, "Superstar" in which he featured in a double-role. In 2009, he starred in "Dhoondte Reh Jaaoge" and "Jai Veeru". In 2009, he appeared in the comic-thriller "99" opposite Soha Ali Khan. In 2010, he appeared in "Golmaal 3" in which he played a supporting role as Laxman. His comeback venture in 2012, was Mukesh Bhatt's "Blood Money", in which he played the lead role as Kunal Kadam, an honest and hard worker who is unknowingly taken into the underworld by his senior boss. His latest release is "Go Goa Gone", which is India's first zombie comedy film, opposite Saif Ali Khan, Vir Das, Anand Tiwari & Puja Gupta. The film released on 10 May 2013. Khemu is currently working on Vikram Bhatt's "Bhaag Johnny". Directed by Shivam Nair, the film is a thriller, which started filming in 2013.
1058140	Minka Dumont Kelly (born Minka Dumont Dufay; June 24, 1980) is an American actress. She is most known for her roles in the TV series: "Friday Night Lights" (2006), "Parenthood" (2010), and "Charlie's Angels" (2011). She is also known for her role in "The Roommate" (2011). She appeared in the 2013 film "The Butler", as Jackie Kennedy. Early life. Kelly was born in Los Angeles. She is the only child of former Aerosmith guitarist Rick Dufay and Maureen Dumont Kelly, an exotic dancer. Her parents split up when she was young, and she was raised by her mother. Her paternal grandfather was actor and investment advisor Richard Ney. Kelly and her mother often moved to different communities, before settling in Albuquerque, New Mexico by the time Kelly was in junior high school. She has French and Irish ancestry. Career. When Kelly was 19, after graduating from Valley High School in Albuquerque, she returned to Los Angeles. While on a test shoot for a modeling agency, she was approached by a former "Playboy" Playmate who was interested in managing her, and who placed Kelly as a receptionist at a surgeon's office who would provide Kelly breast augmentation in exchange for hours worked. She ultimately decided against the procedure, leading to her being fired. However, that exposure to the medical field prompted her to attend school for a year to become a surgeon's assistant; afterward, she worked as a scrub tech. During the four years she spent in that vocation she continued auditioning for film and television roles. In 2003, Kelly made her acting debut as an extra in the short film "Turbo-Charged Prelude" a six-minute introduction to the action film "2 Fast 2 Furious". This was followed by a guest appearance on "Cracking Up". She has since appeared in a number of television shows such as "Entourage", "Drake & Josh", and "American Dreams". In 2005 Kelly landed a three-episode recurring role on The WB sitcom "What I Like About You". In April 2006 Kelly was cast as a series regular on the NBC television series "Friday Night Lights". The show, based on the high school football movie of that name, follows a high school football team in the fictional small town of Dillon. Kelly played the role of high school student and cheerleader Lyla Garrity. In preparation for her role as a cheerleader she trained with the Pflugerville High School cheerleading squad. The series premiered on October 3, 2006 with Kelly receiving praise for her performance with "The New York Times" calling her performance "heartbreaking". At the end of the show's third season Kelly left the series as her character left for university. In 2006 Kelly starred in the Horror Slasher film "The Pumpkin Karver", and had a bit role in "State's Evidence". In 2007 she reunited with "Friday Night Lights" creator Peter Berg in the film "The Kingdom" in a cameo role as Ms. Ross alongside Jamie Foxx and Jennifer Garner. In 2009 she also made a cameo in the film "(500) Days of Summer". In August 2008 Kelly was cast as the protagonist in The CW pilot "Body Politic". She played the role of Francesca "Frankie" Foster who moves to Washington to work for a senator. She befriends a group of eager up-and-comers. Despite acclaim from critics who viewed the pilot The CW did not pick up the series. Kelly also appeared in the pilot for the short-lived CBS ensemble comedy series "Mad Love" playing the role of Kate, a Midwestern girl who falls in love with Henry at the top of the Empire State Building. When the show was picked up Kelly was replaced by Sarah Chalke. In April 2010, Kelly appeared on the NBC Drama television series "Parenthood". She played the role of a behavioral aide to the child character Max who is diagnosed with Asperger syndrome. Kelly went on to appear in nine episodes of the show before making her final appearance in the episode "Taking the Leap" which aired on March 29, 2011. That same year, Kelly was named "Sexiest Woman Alive" in the annual "Esquire" magazine feature. She accepted a role in the Off Broadway play "Love, Loss, and What I Wore" for an April 27 through May 29, 2011 run with Conchata Ferrell, AnnaLynne McCord, Anne Meara, and B. Smith. In February 2011, Kelly starred as the protagonist on the Screen Gems thriller film "The Roommate". The film follows a college freshman whose roommate has an obsession with her that turns violent. The film also starred Leighton Meester and went on to make over $15.6 million in its opening weekend and over $40 million worldwide. The film was universally panned and was considered a "cheap remake" of the 1992 film "Single White Female". In December 2010, ABC announced Kelly was cast in the planned reboot of the crime drama television series "Charlie's Angels". Kelly played the role of street racer Eva French. The pilot was filmed in March 2011 and the series was picked up on May 13, 2011. "Charlie's Angels" premiered on September 22, 2011 to over 8.76 million viewers. The series received unanimously negative reviews from critics. Despite a planned thirteen episodes was to air ABC cancelled the series after the premiere of the fourth episode due to low ratings. "Variety" announced that Kelly was cast as the lead in the mystery comedy film "Searching for Sonny". The film follows two reunited friends who are suspects in a murder mystery that is similar to a play in which they appeared during High School. Production took place in May and June 2010 at Fort Worth, TX. The film won the "Best Narrative Feature" Award at the Festivus film festival. In 2011 Minka appeared alongside Adam Sandler and Jennifer Aniston in "Just Go With It". She joined an eight-day, four-country United Service Organizations tour in December 2011 with Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Martin Dempsey, Robert Horry, Jordin Sparks, Thomas Miles and Sergeant Major Bryan Battaglia. In February 2012, she was one of the celebrities who modeled in red dresses for the Heart Truth Red Dress Collection show, part of New York Fashion Week. She wore a Diane von Fürstenberg dress. In June 2012, Kelly was revealed to be the lead actress in the music video for Maroon 5's second single from the "Overexposed" album, "One More Night". Kelly appeared in the film "The Butler" (2013), as Jackie Kennedy. Personal life. From May 2008 to August 2011, she dated baseball player Derek Jeter. Kelly has also dated John Mayer.
583006	Rang (Hindi: रंग, Urdu: رنگ, translation: "Colours") is a 1993 musical blockbuster Bollywood film directed by Talat Jani and starring Jeetendra, Amrita Singh, Kamal Sadanah, Ayesha Jhulka and Divya Bharti in one of her last film appearances. She died before the film was released and it was dedicated to her memory. Due to the sudden demise, a double completed a few of Divya's scenes in the film. Plot. Yogi Joshi (Kamal Sadanah) is the hardworking middle class student who goes to college with the traditional Pooja (Ayesha Julka), who is the daughter of a single-father. Pooja has been in love with Yogi for quite some time, but Yogi seems to see her as a good friend. Pooja is very possessive of a particular parking spot in school and does not like anyone parking in that spot.
1199658	Michael Edward "Mike" O'Malley (born October 31, 1966) is an American actor and writer who has appeared in films and television series. Nominated for an Emmy for his role as ‘Burt Hummel’ in Fox’s hit series "Glee", O'Malley is also a writer on Showtime's hit drama "Shameless". Born in Boston and raised in New Hampshire, O’Malley moved to Los Angeles in the late 90’s to star in a series for NBC, called "The Mike O’Malley Show". He then spent the next six years playing ‘Jimmy Hughes’ on the CBS hit series "Yes, Dear". He has guest starred in series such as "My Name Is Earl", "Parenthood", and "Parks and Recreation", and continues to work in films such as "28 Days", "Deep Impact", "Pushing Tin", "Cedar Rapids", "Leatherheads", "The Perfect Man", "Eat, Pray, Love", "So Undercover", and "R.I.P.D.". Mike is a published playwright of plays such as "Three Years From Thirty" and "Diverting Devotion." He adapted another play, Searching for Certainty, for Peter Askin's film Certainty, which premiered at the Boston Film Festival in 2011. O’Malley resides in Los Angeles with his wife Lisa and their three children, Fiona, Seamus and Declan. Career. Television. His first role came as the host of Nickelodeon children's game shows "Get the Picture" and "Nickelodeon GUTS" (later "Global GUTS"). O'Malley starred in "Life with Roger", a series which aired from 1996 to 1997. In 1999, two episodes of "The Mike O'Malley Show" aired before the show was canceled; thirteen episodes were filmed. During the 1990s, he also appeared as "The Rick", a popular character in a series of ads for the ESPN network. Beginning in 2000, O'Malley starred as Jimmy Hughes on the CBS Comedy "Yes, Dear". The show ran until 2006. Along with "Yes, Dear" costar Anthony Clark, O'Malley appeared in the Alan Jackson music video "The Talkin' Song Repair Blues". From 2000 to 2002, O'Malley also provided a voice for The WB's "Baby Blues". In 2006, O'Malley made a guest appearance on "My Name Is Earl", as a police officer with bowling aspirations, and made several more guest appearances on the show. O'Malley has a recurring role in ESPN commercials in which he plays "The Rick", a rabid Boston sports fan. In 2008, O'Malley appeared in the NBC drama "My Own Worst Enemy". In 2008, O'Malley became the spokesman for Time Warner Cable's digital cable. In 2009, O'Malley began playing the recurring character Burt Hummel, the father of a gay student, on "Glee". It is a role which has pleasantly surprised him and lead to "Entertainment Weekly"'s Tim Stack to say, "If Mike O'Malley doesn't win an Emmy for playing Burt Hummel, I will be sorely disappointed." Chris Colfer, who plays Burt's son Kurt, has credited his off-screen relationship with O'Malley with improving the quality of their scenes together. Beginning in 2010, O'Malley portrays a recurring character on "Parenthood". He hosted "The World's Funniest Office Commercials", also in 2010. On July 8, 2010, O'Malley received a nomination for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actor – Comedy Series for playing Burt Hummel on "Glee". Prior to its second season, O'Malley was made a series regular on "Glee". On August 8, 2010, O'Malley won the Teen Choice Awards for Parental Unit. He returned to recurring guest star status for the show's third season. Film. O'Malley made his movie debut in the 1998 film "Deep Impact", playing Elijah Wood’s astronomy teacher. He followed that with a supporting role in the John Cusack/Billy Bob Thornton film about air traffic controllers called "Pushing Tin". In 2000, he portrayed Oliver, a Drug Addict, in the Sandra Bullock rehab film "28 Days". In 2005, O'Malley starred in the Heather Locklear/Hilary Duff film "The Perfect Man". In 2007, he had supporting roles in the George Clooney film "Leatherheads" and the Eddie Murphy film "Meet Dave". O'Malley was one of the people interviewed in the film "City of Champions: The Best of Boston Sports". In 2009, O'Malley participated in the American documentary film "The People Speak". In the film, he performed in a segment with political activist Staceyann Chin. Writing. O'Malley is a playwright with two of his plays, "Three Years from Thirty" and "Diverting Devotion", having been published and produced Off-Broadway. In 2003, a third play, "Searching for Certainty" was produced in Los Angeles. He later wrote the screenplay for the movie "Certainty", which is based on "Searching for Certainty". The movie began production on May 24, 2010, directed by Peter Askin and produced by O'Malley and two others. "Certainty" premiered at the Boston Film Festival on September 16, 2011, where it won the Best Screenplay, Best Editing, and Best Ensemble Cast awards. He is also a writer and consulting producer on the Showtime dramedy series "Shameless", which was renewed in January 2013 for the fourth season. Other media. In 2007, O'Malley kept a blog on Yahoo! Sports, which followed the Boston Red Sox throughout their journey in the MLB playoffs, which was eventually capped off by their World Series title. Mike O'Malley is also mentioned in several songs by rapper mc chris. Personal life. O'Malley was born in Boston, Massachusetts, and raised in Nashua, New Hampshire, the son of Marianne, a career counselor, and Tony O'Malley, an executive for the defense industry. O'Malley and his wife, Lisa, have three children: Fiona, Seamus, and Declan. O'Malley is a 1984 graduate of Bishop Guertin High School in Nashua, New Hampshire, and a 1988 graduate from the University of New Hampshire where he studied theatre. He is also a member of the Kappa Sigma fraternity. O'Malley returned to his alma mater in 2006 to deliver the commencement address to the University's 136th graduating class, and also received an honorary doctorate. Kerry O'Malley, his younger New Hampshire-born sister, is also an actress and a Broadway veteran; she received critical attention for her role in Stephen Sondheim's "Into the Woods" and recently appeared in several episodes of Showtime's "Brotherhood". O'Malley is a Boston Red Sox fan and in May 2006 threw out the first pitch at a game in Fenway Park. He is also an avid fan of the NHL's Boston Bruins and the NFL's New England Patriots.
900644	Anna Galiena (born 22 December 1954) is an Italian actress, best known to English-speaking audiences for her appearances in "Le Mari de la coiffeuse", "Jamón, jamón" and "Being Human". Movie career. In her youth, Galiena starred in numerous off and on-Broadway shows, including several revivals of Shakespeare plays. She had made over a dozen films, mainly in her native Italy before her role in "Le Mari de la coiffeuse" brought her to international attention. She went on to appear in Bigas Luna's "Jamón, jamón" and went on to make her mainstream Hollywood debut in the Bill Forsyth-directed "Being Human" starring Robin Williams. The film was, however, a massive flop. Since then, Galiena has worked in European cinema, where she is consistently in demand. With over 50 films and many television appearances to her credit, she currently has several films in production, including a prominent supporting role in the film "Virgin Territory", starring Hayden Christensen and Mischa Barton. She stars alongside Joaquim de Almeida and Ben Gazzara in the thriller "Christopher Roth". In 2007 she was a member of the jury at the 29th Moscow International Film Festival. Personal life. Galiena speaks Italian, English, and French. In "Being Human" she speaks Friulian, a Romance language spoken in north-east Italy. She was a member of jury at the Berlin International Film Festival in 2003.
1038069	The Secret Diaries of Miss Anne Lister is a 2010 British television biographical drama film about the 19th century Yorkshire landowner Anne Lister. It was directed by James Kent and starred Maxine Peake as Lister. The script by Jane English drew from Lister's diaries, written in code, and decoded many years after her death. The story follows Lister's lesbian relationships and her independent lifestyle as an industrialist. It was filmed in late 2009 in various locations in Yorkshire. The film was shown at the London Lesbian and Gay Film Festival in March 2010, and broadcast in the United Kingdom by the BBC in May. It drew mixed reviews from critics, who generally praised the performance of Maxine Peake, although some did not enjoy the script. Background and production. Anne Lister (1791–1840) was a wealthy, unmarried woman who inherited Shibden Hall in West Yorkshire from her uncle in 1826. Throughout her life, she kept diaries which chronicled the details of her everyday life, including her lesbian relationships, her financial concerns, her industrial activities and her work improving Shibden Hall. The diaries contain more than 4,000,000 words and about a sixth of them (those concerning the intimate details of her romantic and sexual relationships) were written in code. The code, derived from a combination of algebra and Ancient Greek, was deciphered in the 1930s. The script for "The Secret Diaries of Miss Anne Lister" was written by Jane English and the film was directed by James Kent. Maxine Peake, who had not previously heard of Lister, was keen to take part in a production with several strong female characters. She said of her role, "t was a privilege – I panicked about playing her at first because she is such an important figure and because she is very much part of lesbian and gay culture and you want to do a good job." She spent time with Lister expert Helena Whitbread, learning more about Lister's personality. For this part Peake was able to work with Dean Lennox Kelly, her former on-screen partner from "Shameless". Before filming began, the cast rehearsed in director Kent's flat. The drama was filmed during November and December 2009 in Yorkshire. Filming locations included Shibden Hall, Newburgh Priory, Bramham Park, Oakwell Hall, the North York Moors and the city of York. Plot. Anne Lister (Maxine Peake) is a young unmarried woman living in 19th century Yorkshire, at Shibden Hall, with her aunt (Gemma Jones) and uncle (Alan David). The one thing she wants from life is to have someone to love and to share her life with. The person she has in mind is Mariana Belcombe (Anna Madeley), with whom she has been conducting a secret romantic and sexual relationship. The relationship breaks apart when Mariana marries a rich widower named Charles Lawton (Michael Culkin). Depressed, Anne devotes her time to studying. A year after Mariana's wedding, Anne begins to think about finding another lover. She meets a young woman in church named Miss Browne (Tina O'Brien), and they become close friends. Mariana asks Anne to meet her in a hotel in Manchester. There, the two women talk and Mariana tells Anne that she has missed her, and that one day, when her husband has died, they might live together as widow and companion. She says that her husband is not healthy, and will not have long to live. Anne agrees and they buy wedding rings, to wear around their necks until they can live together. Returning to Shibden, Anne ignores the attention of Miss Browne. A local industrialist named Christopher Rawson (Dean Lennox Kelly) proposes marriage to Anne. She turns him down and says that she could only marry for love. He tells her that people talk about her and call her 'Gentleman Jack.' Later, Anne tells her aunt and uncle that she does not want a husband, that she wants to be independent and intends one day to live with a female companion. Mariana visits her on her birthday and they continue their sexual relationship. Anne attends a party with her acquaintances, including Rawson and the Lawtons. Mariana sees Anne wearing her wedding ring clearly on show and is unhappy with Anne drawing attention to herself. Anne complains that Charles Lawton is not as unhealthy as Mariana had led her to believe. Rawson sees the two women talking together and has a conversation of his own with Lawton. When Mariana returns to her husband's side, he looks dazed and asks her how Anne loves her. After the party, Mariana writes to Anne and tells her that her husband is suspicious. She tells Anne not to write to her anymore. Anne's uncle dies and she inherits his wealth. She writes to Mariana, asking her to come to live with her at once. Mariana replies that she will be travelling nearby in a month's time and that they will discuss what to do then. When the time comes, Anne meets Mariana's coach coming along the road and excitedly gets in. Mariana is angry at her drawing attention to herself. She tells Anne that she would rather die than have people know about their relationship. She says that they could be happy together, but would have to live apart. Anne tells her that she wants to spend her life with someone, and leaves. When Rawson offers to buy some land from Anne to sink a mine, she declines and says that she will mine it herself. She forms a business alliance with Ann Walker (Christine Bottomley), an unmarried acquaintance who has recently inherited her own fortune. They become close friends. Soon the two women are intimidated and harassed by Rawson, now their business rival. For protection, Ann Walker goes to stay at Shibden with Anne. Her aunt (Richenda Carey) comes to tell her niece that people are spreading shocking rumours about the two women. She asks Ann to return home before she ruins her family's name and warns her that she may ruin her chance of finding a husband. Ann tells her that she does not want a husband. When her aunt leaves, she tells Anne that she wants to live at Shibden with her. Anne asks her if she understands what the rumours and insinuations are about. Ann says that she does and makes it clear that she wants them to be together romantically. Mariana visits Anne and says that she could leave Charles now. She asks if there is still a place for her in Anne's heart, but Anne says that she has found someone she is happy with now, and Mariana leaves. Her husband lives to the age of 89. Release. The film premièred at the 24th London Lesbian and Gay Film Festival on 17 March 2010. It was broadcast in the United Kingdom by BBC Two and BBC HD on 31 May 2010. It played at the opening night of San Francisco's Frameline Film Festival on 17 June 2010 and was broadcast in Australia by ABC1 on 13 November 2011. Reception. In its BBC broadcast, "The Secret Diaries of Miss Anne Lister" drew 1.878 million viewers (7.8%) and 50,000 more, simultaneously, on BBC HD. Critics gave a mixed response to the drama. "The Daily Telegraph"'s John Preston was positive about the film and particularly praised Maxine Peake's acting. He said, "Peake is an extraordinary actress – both intensely human in her vulnerability and intensely disquieting [...] veering between predatory seductiveness and agonised self-pity." For "The Scotsman", Andrea Mullaney gave a mixed review. She praised Peake's "excellent" and "fiery" performance and said that "played with great energy, her small, alert face full of expression and emotion." She said, though, that the story "should have been more gripping than it was" but that script "wobbled around" and was too lengthy. Writing for "Metro", Keith Watson called the film "mesmerising and liberating." He praised Peake's performance and enjoyed the contrast between her scenes of "pushing politeness to its limits" and "snatching carnal ecstasy." In a review of British television programmes broadcast that week, Euan Ferguson of "The Observer" called the film the "drama of the week" and said that it "gripped, and haunted, and was beautifully and cleverly played." "The Guardian"'s Sarah Dempster was unimpressed with the film, criticising the "misery" and "gloom" and said that "Peake's presence in a production is not generally conducive to LOLZ." Rachel Cooke gave a somewhat negative review for the "New Statesman", criticising the overemphasis on Lister's sex-life and the parts of her life missing from the script. She said that the story would not have received any attention if not for the lesbianism of the main character. She said that Peake, "a wonderful actor", was "especially weird" and her characterisation of Lister was "rapacious and cocky, petulant and manipulative." She praised Susan Lynch, playing Lister's friend Tib, as "excellent." Overall, she said the film was "sex-obsessed, reductionist stuff."
585132	Shweta Basu Prasad is an Indian film actress. She started her career as a child actress in Hindi films and Television series and went on to play lead roles in Bengali,Telugu and Tamil cinema. For her performance in the 2002 film Makdee,she won the National Film Award for Best Child Artist.She learned Kathak and learning to play Sitar.She loves photography and held a Photo Exhibition of pictures clicked by her in 2012 .Currently she is directing a Documentry Film. Early life. Prasad was born in Jamshedpur, Bihar (now in Jharkhand) and moved to Mumbai when she was a child. Her mother Sarmishta is from West Bengal, her father Anuj is from Bihar. She studied commerce in the R. N. Podar High School, Santa-Cruz, Mumbai. She added her mother's maiden name Basu to her screen name. Career. In 2002, Prasad started her acting career as a child actress at the age of 11. She enacted dual roles as Chunni and Munni in the film Makdee, directed by Vishal Bhardwaj and got the National Film Award for Best Child Artist for the same. As a child artist, she also acted in the Star Plus series "Kahani Ghar Ghar Ki" as Shruti, Parvati and Oms daughter, and in soap operas like "Karishma Kaa Karishma". In 2005, she starred in the film Iqbal, which propelled her to mini stardom and got subsequent film offers. Her performance as Khadija in the film, fetched her several accolades including the Best Supporting Actress Award at the 5th Karachi International Film Festival. The following year, she acted in Ram Gopal Varma's "Darna Zaroori Hai" as Ashu. In 2008, she debuted in Telugu cinema and played her first starring role in the film Kotha Bangaru Lokam, co-starring Varun Sandesh. The film became a large commercial success. References. National Award Winner "Shweta Prasad" national award, comes to ... Iqbal - Trailer - Shreyas Talpade, Naseeruddin Shah & Shweta Prasad RUMI photo exhibition by Shweta Basu Prasad - Telugu ...
71680	Psych 9 is a 2010 horror film starring Sara Foster and Michael Biehn. Plot. A young woman (Sara Foster) with a troubled past takes a job at recently closed down hospital. Working the night shift alone she begins to experience a series of unsettling events that lead her to believe that the hospital may be connected to a number of recent murders in the area. To uncover the truth she will have to revisit the past behind the walls of Psych 9.
591960	Rama Shama Bhama is a Kannada film directed by Ramesh Arvind and produced by K Manju. Kamal Haasan played a supporting character of the male protagonist while Urvashi played the female lead. The film was released on 9 December 2005. A remake of the Tamil film, "Sathi Leelavathi" the film went on to become a huge hit all over. Directorial debut. This film marked the directorial debut of actor Ramesh Arvind. This film also marked the appearance of Kamal Haasan in Kannada films after 19 years.
1065940	Gervase Duan "G.D." Spradlin (August 31, 1920 – July 24, 2011) was an American actor. Known for his distinctive accent and flinty voice, he often played devious authority figures. He is credited in over 70 television and film productions, and performed alongside actors including Marlon Brando, Al Pacino, Johnny Depp, and George C. Scott. Early life. Spradlin was born in Pauls Valley, Oklahoma. His parents both worked as schoolteachers. Spradlin obtained his bachelor's degree in education from the University of Oklahoma. He was a member of the Delta Chi Fraternity. He then served in the Army Air Force during World War II, where he was stationed in China. Following World War II, Spradlin returned to the University of Oklahoma, where he completed a law degree in 1948. He first began his career as an attorney working in Venezuela and then became an independent oil producer forming Rouge Oil Company. Before he turned to acting he was active in local politics campaigning for John F. Kennedy in 1959. He joined the Oklahoma Repertory Theatre in 1964. Career. A notable break for Spradlin resulted from his work in television in the 1960s. Fred Roos had cast Spradlin in such television shows as "I Spy" (as the immediate superior of Pentagon spies Kelly Robinson and Alexander Scott in the episode "Tonia") and "Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C.". Spradlin portrayed Commander Maurice E. "Germany" Curts, Communications Officer, U.S. Pacific Fleet, in an uncredited role in "Tora! Tora! Tora!" in 1970. He was also in the late Sixties counter -culture film "Zabriskie Point" (1970). He worked with Jack Webb on the series "Dragnet", playing multiple roles from a safecracker to a low-level con man. When Roos co-produced "The Godfather Part II", he recommended Spradlin to play the role of Senator Geary. Spradlin portrayed a corrupt U.S. Senator from Nevada, Pat Geary, in "The Godfather, Part II". He also played a conspirator in the attempted assassination of a state governor in "Nick of Time". Among his film credits are "One on One" (1977) (as an authoritarian basketball coach), "Apocalypse Now" (as the general who assigns Martin Sheen's character to the search mission). He played the head football coach B.A. Strother in "North Dallas Forty" (1979), General Durrell the commandant of the "Carolina Military Institute" in the 1983 movie "The Lords of Discipline", and in "Ed Wood" and "The Long Kiss Goodnight", as the President of the United States. In 1984 Spradlin played a villainous Southern sheriff in "Tank". In 1986, he starred in the miniseries "Dream West". In 1988, he played Admiral Raymond A. Spruance in the miniseries "War and Remembrance." In 1989, Spradlin played a small role in the film "The War of the Roses" as a divorce lawyer, with Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner.
1102713	Israel Moiseevich Gelfand, also written Israïl Moyseyovich Gel'fand, or Izrail M. Gelfand (, ; – 5 October 2009) was a Soviet mathematician who made major contributions to many branches of mathematics, including group theory, representation theory and functional analysis. The recipient of numerous awards and honors, including the Order of Lenin and the Wolf Prize, he was a Fellow of the Royal Society and a lifelong academic, serving decades as a professor at Moscow State University and, after immigrating to the United States shortly before his 76th birthday, at the Busch Campus of New Jersey's Rutgers University. He is known for having educated and inspired generations of students through his legendary seminar at Moscow State University. His legacy continues in the mathematicians who were his students, such as Endre Szemerédi, Alexandre Kirillov, Joseph Bernstein as well as his own son, Sergei Gelfand. Early years. A native of Kherson Governorate of the Russian Empire, Gelfand was born into a Jewish family in the small southern Ukrainian town of Okny (subsequently, Krasni Okny). According to his own account, Gelfand was expelled from high school because his father had been a mill owner. Bypassing both high school and college, he proceeded to postgraduate study at Moscow State University, where his advisor was the preeminent mathematician Andrei Kolmogorov. He nevertheless managed to attend lectures at the University and began postgraduate study at the age of 19. Work. Gelfand is known for many developments including: Influence outside of mathematics. The "Gelfand–Tsetlin basis" (also in the common spelling "Zetlin") is a widely-used tool in theoretical physics and the result of Gelfand's work on the representation theory of the unitary group and Lie groups in general. Gelfand also published works on biology and medicine. For a long time he took an interest in cell biology and organized a research seminar on the subject. He worked extensively in mathematics education, particularly with correspondence education. In 1994, he was awarded a MacArthur fellowship for this work. Family. Gelfand was married to Zorya Shapiro, and their two sons, Sergei and Vladimir both live in the United States. A third son, Aleksandr, died of leukemia. Following the divorce from his first wife, Gelfand married his second wife, Tatiana. Gelfand and Tatiana became the parents of a daughter, Tatiana. The family, all in the U.S., also includes four grandchildren and three great-grandchildren. The memories about I.Gelfand are collected at the special site handled by his family. Honors and awards. Gelfand held several honorary degrees and was awarded the Order of Lenin three times for his research. In 1977 he was elected a Foreign Member of the Royal Society. He won the Wolf Prize in 1978, Kyoto Prize in 1989 and MacArthur Foundation Fellowship in 1994. He held the presidency of the Moscow Mathematical Society between 1968 and 1970, and was elected a foreign member of the U.S. National Academy of Science, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Royal Irish Academy, the American Mathematical Society and the London Mathematical Society. In an October 2003 article in "The New York Times", written on the occasion of his 90th birthday, Gelfand is described as a scholar who is considered "among the greatest mathematicians of the 20th century", having exerted a tremendous influence on the field both through his own works and those of his students. Death. Israel Gelfand died at the Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital near his home in Highland Park, New Jersey. He was less than five weeks past his 96th birthday. His death was first reported on the blog of his former collaborator Andrei Zelevinsky and confirmed a few hours later by an obituary in the Russian online newspaper "Polit.ru".
1092249	Sir Joseph Larmor FRS (11 July 1857 – 19 May 1942) was a physicist and mathematician who made innovations in the understanding of electricity, dynamics, thermodynamics, and the electron theory of matter. His most influential work was "Aether and Matter", a theoretical physics book published in 1900. Biography. He grew up in Belfast, the son of a shopkeeper. He was a student at Royal Belfast Academical Institution, Queen's University Belfast, and St John's College, Cambridge where he was Senior Wrangler. After teaching physics for a few years at Queen's College, Galway, he accepted a lectureship in mathematics at Cambridge in 1885. In 1903 he was appointed Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge, a post he retained until his retirement in 1932. He never married. Larmor proposed that the aether could be represented as a homogeneous fluid medium which was perfectly incompressible and elastic. Larmor believed the aether was separate from matter. He united Lord Kelvin's model of spinning gyrostats (see Vortex theory of the atom) with this theory. Parallel to the development of Lorentz ether theory, Larmor published the Lorentz transformations in the "Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society" in 1897 some two years before Hendrik Lorentz (1899, 1904) and eight years before Albert Einstein (1905). Larmor however did not possess the correct velocity transformations, which include the addition of velocities law, which were later discovered by Henri Poincaré. Larmor predicted the phenomenon of time dilation, at least for orbiting electrons, and verified that the FitzGerald-Lorentz contraction (length contraction) should occur for bodies whose atoms were held together by electromagnetic forces. In his book "Aether and Matter" (1900), he again presented the Lorentz transformations, time dilation and length contraction (treating these as dynamic rather than kinematic effects). Larmor opposed Albert Einstein's theory of relativity (though he supported it for a short time). Larmor rejected both the curvature of space and the special theory of relativity, to the extent that he claimed that an absolute time was essential to astronomy (Larmor 1924, 1927). Larmor held that matter consisted of particles moving in the aether. Larmor believed the source of electric charge was a ""particle"" (which as early as 1894 he was referring to as the electron). Thus, in what was apparently the first specific prediction of time dilation, he wrote "... individual electrons describe corresponding parts of their orbits in times shorter for the system in the ratio (1 – v2/c2)1/2" (Larmor 1897). Larmor held that the flow of charged particles constitutes the current of conduction (but was not part of the atom). Larmor calculated the rate of energy radiation from an accelerating electron. Larmor explained the splitting of the spectral lines in a magnetic field by the oscillation of electrons. In 1919, Larmor proposed sunspots are self-regenerative dynamo action on the Sun's surface. Motivated by his strong opposition to Home Rule for Ireland, in February 1911 Larmor ran for and was elected as Member of Parliament for Cambridge University (UK Parliament constituency) with the Liberal Unionist party. He remained in parliament until the 1922 general election, at which point the Irish question had been settled. Upon his retirement from Cambridge in 1932 Larmor moved back to County Down in Northern Ireland. He received the honorary Doctor of Laws (LL.D) from the University of Glasgow in June 1901. Publications. Larmor edited the collected works of George Stokes, James Thomson and William Thomson.
1103994	Pafnuty Lvovich Chebyshev (, ) ( – ) was a Russian mathematician. His name can be alternatively transliterated as "Chebychev", "Chebysheff", "Chebyshov", "Tchebychev" or "Tchebycheff", or "Tschebyschev" or "Tschebyscheff" (the latter two pairs are French and German transcriptions). Biography. One of nine children, Chebyshev was born in the central Russian village of Okatovo near Borovsk, to Agrafena Ivanova Pozniakova and Lev Pavlovich Chebyshev. His father had fought as an officer against Napoleon Bonaparte's invading army. Chebyshev was originally home schooled by his mother and his cousin, Avdotia Kvintillianova Soukhareva. He learned French early in life, which later helped him communicate with other mathematicians. A stunted leg prevented him from playing with other children, leading him to concentrate on his studies instead. Chebyshev studied at the college level at Moscow University, where he earned his bachelor's degree in 1841. At Moscow University, Chebyshev was a graduate student of Nikolai Brashman. After Chebyshev became a professor of mathematics in Moscow himself, his two most illustrious graduate students were Andrei Andreyevich Markov (the elder) and Alexandr Lyapunov. Later he moved to St. Petersburg, where he founded one of the most important schools of mathematics in Russia, and there is today a research institute in mathematics called the Chebyshev Laboratory in that city. Mathematical contributions. Chebyshev is known for his work in the fields of probability, statistics, mechanics, and number theory. The Chebyshev inequality states that if formula_1 is a random variable with standard deviation σ, then the probability that the outcome of formula_1 is no less than formula_3 away from its mean is no more than formula_4: The Chebyshev inequality is used to prove the Weak Law of Large Numbers. The Bertrand–Chebyshev theorem (1845|1850) states that for any formula_6, there exists a prime number formula_7 such that formula_8 of prime numbers less than formula_9, which state that formula_10 is of the order of formula_11. A more precise form is given by the celebrated prime number theorem: the "quotient" of the two expressions approaches 1.0 as formula_9 tends to infinity. Chebyshev is also known for the Chebyshev polynomials and the Chebyshev bias – the difference between the number of primes that are 3 (modulo 4) and 1 (modulo 4). Legacy. Chebyshev is considered to be a founding father of Russian mathematics. Among his well-known students were the prolific mathematicians Dmitry Grave, Aleksandr Korkin, Aleksandr Lyapunov, and Andrei Markov. According to the Mathematics Genealogy Project, Chebyshev has 7,483 mathematical "descendants" as of 2010. The lunar crater Chebyshev and the asteroid 2010 Chebyshev were named in his honour.
1062430	Kristin A. Scott Thomas, OBE (born 24 May 1960) is an English-French actress. She gained international recognition in the 1990s for her roles in "Bitter Moon", "Four Weddings and a Funeral", and "The English Patient". Since the 1980s, she has also worked in French cinema in films such as the thriller "Tell No One" and Philippe Claudel's "I've Loved You So Long". She has lived in France since she was 19, has brought up her three children in Paris, and says she considers herself more French than British. She was made a Chevalier of the Légion d'honneur in 2005. Scott Thomas is also the official Ambassador for Accor's MGallery Collection of hotels and resorts. Early life. Kristin Scott Thomas was born in Redruth, Cornwall. Her mother, Deborah (née Hurlbatt), was brought up in Hong Kong and Africa, and studied drama before marrying Kristin's father, Lieutenant Commander Simon Scott Thomas, a pilot for the Royal Navy's Fleet Air Arm who died in a flying accident when Kristin was five. She is the elder sister of actress Serena Scott Thomas, the niece of Admiral Sir Richard Thomas (who was a Black Rod in the House of Lords), and a more distant great-great-niece of Captain Scott, the ill-fated explorer who lost the race to the South Pole. Scott Thomas was brought up as a Roman Catholic. Her childhood home was in Trent, Dorset, England. Her mother remarried, to another Royal Navy pilot, who also died in a flying accident, six years after the death of her father. Scott Thomas was educated at Cheltenham Ladies' College and St. Antony's Leweston in Sherborne, Dorset, both independent schools. On leaving school she moved to Hampstead, London, and worked in a department store. She then began training to be a drama teacher at the Central School of Speech and Drama. On being told she would never be a good enough actress, she left at the age of 19 to work as an au pair in Paris. Speaking French fluently, she studied acting at the "École nationale supérieure des arts et techniques du théâtre" (ENSATT) in Paris, and at age 25 on graduation, was cast opposite pop star Prince as Mary Sharon, a French heiress, in the 1986 film "Under The Cherry Moon." Career. Her real breakout role was in a 1988 adaptation of Evelyn Waugh's "A Handful of Dust", where she won an Evening Standard British Film Award for most promising newcomer. This was followed by roles opposite Hugh Grant in "Bitter Moon" and "Four Weddings and a Funeral" where she won a BAFTA for Best Supporting Actress. 1996 saw the release of her most famous role as Katharine Clifton in "The English Patient", which gained her Golden Globe and Oscar nominations as well as critical acclaim. This was followed by a brief period working in Hollywood on films such as "The Horse Whisperer" with Robert Redford and "Random Hearts" with Harrison Ford. However, growing disillusioned with Hollywood, she took a year off to give birth to her third child. She returned on stage in 2001 when she played the title role in a French theatre production of Racine's Berenice and on screen as Lady Sylvia McCordle in Robert Altman's critically acclaimed "Gosford Park". This started a critically acclaimed second career on stage, in which she has received four nominations for a Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actress, including one win, for her performance of Arkadina in a London West End production of Anton Chekhov's "The Seagull". She reprised the role in New York in September 2008. In summer 2011 Scott Thomas returned to London's West End to star as Emma in Harold Pinter's "Betrayal" at the Comedy Theatre. The revival was directed by Ian Rickson. Her husband was played by Ben Miles and the love triangle was completed by Douglas Henshall. In January 2013, she starred in another Pinter play, Old Times, again directed by Ian Rickson.
658497	200 Motels is a 1971 American-British musical surrealist film cowritten and directed by Frank Zappa and Tony Palmer and starring The Mothers of Invention, Theodore Bikel and Ringo Starr. The film covers a loose storyline about The Mothers of Invention going crazy in the small town Centerville. A soundtrack album was released in the same year. As of 2009, 200 Motels was restored / commented on by Tony Palmer and is currently available on an England-sourced for-retail DVD. Plot. The film deals loosely with life on the road as a rock musician. The Mothers of Invention go crazy in the small town Centerville, and bassist Jeff quits the group, as did his real life counterpart, Jeff Simmons, who left the group before the film began shooting and was replaced by actor Martin Lickert for the film. The film has been dubbed a "surrealistic documentary". History. In 1970, Frank Zappa formed a new version of The Mothers of Invention which included British drummer Aynsley Dunbar, jazz keyboardist George Duke, Ian Underwood, Jeff Simmons (bass, rhythm guitar), and three members of The Turtles: bass player Jim Pons, and singers Mark Volman and Howard Kaylan, who, due to persistent legal and contractual problems, adopted the stage name "The Phlorescent Leech and Eddie", or "Flo & Eddie". Zappa began writing a film for his new lineup called "200 Motels", and the band debuted on Zappa's next solo album "Chunga's Revenge" (1970), which was produced as a preview of the film. Zappa also met conductor Zubin Mehta. They arranged a May 1970 concert where Mehta conducted the Los Angeles Philharmonic augmented by a rock band. This material served as a second preview of the film. According to Zappa, the music was mostly written in motel rooms while on tour with The Mothers of Invention. Some of it was later featured in "200 Motels". Although the concert was a success, Zappa's experience working with a symphony orchestra was not a happy one. His dissatisfaction became a recurring theme throughout his career; he often felt that the quality of performance of his material delivered by orchestras was not commensurate with the money he spent on orchestral concerts and recordings. Zappa pitched the film to United Artists, using a portfolio including a ten page treatment, two boxes of audio tape, and newspaper clippings. The film studio gave Zappa US$650,000 to finish the project, which Zappa initially intended to premiere on Dutch television before his next tour. Production. Principal scenes of "200 Motels" including the London Philharmonic Orchestra were filmed in a week at Pinewood Studios outside London, and featured The Mothers of Invention, The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Ringo Starr, Theodore Bikel, and Keith Moon. Tensions between Zappa and several cast and crew members arose before and during shooting. However, Director Tony Palmer on his 2009 reissue of "200 Motels" claims all elements of the script derived from Frank Zappa's trunk's worth of material were completed during production, and that the film's original video tapes still exist, sitting in front of him while he wrote the DVD liner notes. It was the first feature film photographed on videotape and transferred to 35 mm film utilizing a Technicolor film printer utilized by the BBC, a process which allowed for novel visual effects. Release and reception. United Artists' press kit for the film stated "For the audience that already knows and appreciates THE MOTHERS, will provide a logical extension of our concerts and recordings." The film premiere was shown at Doheny Plaza Theater in Hollywood, California to mixed reviews. Soundtrack. The soundtrack to "200 Motels" was released by United Artists Records on October 4, 1971, and features a combination of rock and jazz songs, orchestral music and comedic spoken dialogue. The rock and comedy songs "Mystery Roach", "Lonesome Cowboy Burt", "Daddy, Daddy, Daddy", "What Will This Evening Bring Me This Morning" and "Magic Fingers", and the finale "Strictly Genteel", which mixes orchestral and rock elements, were noted as highlights of the album by reviewer Richie Unterberger. The score relied extensively on orchestral music, and Zappa's dissatisfaction with the classical music world intensified when a concert, scheduled at the Royal Albert Hall after filming, was canceled because a representative of the venue found some of the lyrics obscene. In 1975, he lost a lawsuit against the Royal Albert Hall for breach of contract. When "Penis Dimension" was played to the judge, Mr Justice Mocatta, he responded "Have I got to listen to this?". "200 Motels" charted at #59 on the "Billboard" 200. The album was not released on compact disc until 1997, as a result of a licensing deal between Rykodisc (at the time the licensee for all of Zappa's other albums from the Zappa Family Trust, numbering over 60 titles) and MGM allowing them to re-release numerous rare movie-musical soundtracks on CD. With the addition of this title, Ryko were finally able to offer the complete catalog of official Zappa recordings, as numerous legal proceedings both during Zappa's lifetime and afterwards failed to cede ownership of the rights and tapes to FZT. That 2-CD edition, now out of print, contained extensive liner notes and artwork as well as a small poster for the film, as well as bonus tracks consisting of radio promos for the film and the single edit of the song "Magic Fingers". Though for many Zappa fans this album is considered a key recording of the period, it was deemed by some music critics to be a peripheral album. Allmusic's Richie Unterberger critiqued what he referred to as the "growing tendency to deploy the smutty, cheap humor that would soon dominate much of Zappa's work", but said that "Those who like his late-'60s/early-'70s work [...] will probably like this fine". Italian critic Piero Scaruffi described the album as "ambitious and monumental", and described it as a standout from other albums Zappa released during this period, which Scaruffi deemed to be juvenile and uncreative. Legacy. After "200 Motels", the band went on tour; the live album "Just Another Band From L.A." included the 20-minute track "Billy the Mountain", Zappa's satire on rock opera set in Southern California. This track was representative of the band's theatrical performances in which songs were used to build up sketches based on "200 Motels" scenes as well as new situations often portraying the band members' sexual encounters on the road.
1103527	In the field of numerical analysis, the condition number of a function with respect to an argument measures how much the output value of the function can change for a small change in the input argument. This is used to measure how sensitive a function is to changes or errors in the input, and how much error in the output results from an error in the input. Very frequently, one is solving the inverse problem – given formula_1 one is solving for "x," and thus the condition number of the (local) inverse must be used. The condition number is an application of the derivative, and is formally defined as the value of the asymptotic worst-case relative change in output for a relative change in input. The "function" is the solution of a problem and the "arguments" are the data in the problem. The condition number is frequently applied to questions in linear algebra, in which case the derivative is straightforward but the error could be in many different directions, and is thus computed from the geometry of the matrix. More generally, condition numbers can be defined for non-linear functions in several variables. A problem with a low condition number is said to be well-conditioned, while a problem with a high condition number is said to be ill-conditioned. The condition number is a property of the problem. Paired with the problem are any number of algorithms that can be used to solve the problem, that is, to calculate the solution. Some algorithms have a property called backward stability. In general, a backward stable algorithm can be expected to accurately solve well-conditioned problems. Numerical analysis textbooks give formulas for the condition numbers of problems and identify the backward stable algorithms. As a general rule of thumb, if the condition number formula_2, then you may lose up to formula_3 digits of accuracy on top of what would be lost to the numerical method due to loss of precision from arithmetic methods. However, the condition number does not give the exact value of the maximum inaccuracy that may occur in the algorithm. It generally just bounds it with an estimate (whose computed value depends on the choice of the norm to measure the inaccuracy). Matrices. For example, the condition number associated with the linear equation "Ax" = "b" gives a bound on how inaccurate the solution "x" will be after approximation. Note that this is before the effects of round-off error are taken into account; conditioning is a property of the matrix, not the algorithm or floating point accuracy of the computer used to solve the corresponding system. In particular, one should think of the condition number as being (very roughly) the rate at which the solution, "x", will change with respect to a change in "b". Thus, if the condition number is large, even a small error in "b" may cause a large error in "x". On the other hand, if the condition number is small then the error in "x" will not be much bigger than the error in "b". The condition number is defined more precisely to be the maximum ratio of the relative error in "x" divided by the relative error in "b". Let "e" be the error in "b". Assuming that "A" is a square matrix, the error in the solution "A"−1"b" is "A"−1"e". The ratio of the relative error in the solution to the relative error in "b" is This is easily transformed to The maximum value (for nonzero "b" and "e") is easily seen to be the product of the two operator norms: The same definition is used for any consistent norm, i.e. one that satisfies When the condition number is exactly one, then the algorithm may find an approximation of the solution with an arbitrary precision. However it does not mean that the algorithm will converge rapidly to this solution, just that it won't diverge arbitrarily because of inaccuracy on the source data (backward error), provided that the forward error introduced by the algorithm does not diverge as well because of accumulating intermediate rounding errors. The condition number may also be infinite, in which case the algorithm will not reliably find a solution to the problem, not even a weak approximation of it (and not even its order of magnitude) with any reasonable and provable accuracy. Of course, this definition depends on the choice of norm: If the condition number is close to one, the matrix is well conditioned which means its inverse can be computed with good accuracy. If the condition number is large, then the matrix is said to be ill-conditioned. Practically, such a matrix is almost singular, and the computation of its inverse, or solution of a linear system of equations is prone to large numerical errors. A matrix that is not invertible has the condition number equal to infinity. Non-linear. Condition numbers can also defined for nonlinear functions, and can be computed using calculus. The condition number varies with the point; in some cases one can use the maximum (or supremum) condition number over the domain of the function or domain of the question as an overall condition number, while in other cases the condition number at a particular point is of more interest. One variable. The condition number of a differentiable function "f" in one variable as a function is formula_26 Evaluated at a point "x" this is: Most elegantly, this can be understood as (the absolute value of) the ratio of the logarithmic derivative of "f," which is formula_28 and the logarithmic derivative of "x," which is formula_29 yielding a ratio of formula_26 This is because the logarithmic derivative is the infinitesimal rate of relative change in a function: it is the derivative formula_31 scaled by the value of "f." Note that if a function has a zero at a point, its condition number at the point is infinite, as infinitesimal changes in the input can change the output from zero to positive or negative, yielding a ratio with zero in the denominator, hence infinite relative change. More directly, given a small change formula_32 in "x," the relative change in "x" is formula_33 while the relative change in formula_34 is formula_35 Taking the ratio yields: The last term is the difference quotient (the slope of the secant line), and taking the limit yields the derivative. Condition numbers of common elementary functions are particularly important in computing significant figures, and can be computed immediately from the derivative; see significance arithmetic of transcendental functions. A few important ones are given below: Several variables. Condition numbers can be defined for any function "ƒ" mapping its data from some domain (e.g. an "m"-tuple of real numbers "x") into some codomain an "n"-tuple of real numbers "ƒ"("x"), where both the domain and codomain are Banach spaces. They express how sensitive that function is to small changes (or small errors) in its arguments. This is crucial in assessing the sensitivity and potential accuracy difficulties of numerous computational problems, for example polynomial root finding or computing eigenvalues.
1162880	Brian Austin Green (born Brian Green; July 15, 1973) is an American actor best known for his portrayal of David Silver on the television series, "Beverly Hills, 90210", a role he played from 1990 to 2000. Green has also had series regular roles in "" (as Derek Reese), "Freddie", "Wedding Band", and "Anger Management", as well as guest starring roles on "Smallville" (as Metallo) and "Desperate Housewives", playing the love interest of Bree Van de Kamp. In 2010, Green married actress Megan Fox, with whom he is raising two sons, one from a previous marriage and another with Megan. Early life. Green was born in Van Nuys, Los Angeles, California, the son of Joyce and George Green, who was a country and western musician. He is of Scottish, Irish, and Hungarian descent. His middle name, "Austin" was added to differentiate himself from another actor when he joined the Screen Actor's Guild as a child. Green grew up in North Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, and attended North Hollywood High School, after attending the Hamilton High School Academy of Music. Career. Prior to his role on "Beverly Hills, 90210", Green had a recurring role for three seasons (1986–1989) on the hit CBS prime time soap opera "Knots Landing", playing the role of Brian Cunningham, the son of Abby Cunningham Ewing (Donna Mills). He reprised his role in the 1997 television miniseries, "". Producer Aaron Spelling has stated that Green was cast in the role of David Silver much because he felt that Green's own personality resembled the personality they wanted that character to have. The character was often scripted to reflect Green's own interests. As the series progressed the character began to experiment with hip hop music and DJing, as did Green himself. In 1996, Green dropped "Austin" from his professional name and attempted a career as a rapper, releasing one album, titled "One Stop Carnival", produced by The Pharcyde member Slimkid3. In 90's he had a guest star on Growing Pains, Parker Lewis Can't Lose, Melrose Place, , Fantastic Four, MADtv, Biker Mice from Mars, Malibu Shores, Sabrina, the Teenage Witch and . Green appeared briefly in the multiple award-winning Showtime drama series "Resurrection Blvd." as Luke Bonner, a police officer attending law school in 2001–2004. He had a cameo on Hope & Faith where he met Megan Fox and they started dating in 2004. He appeared on the 2005 ABC sitcom "Freddie", starring Freddie Prinze, Jr. before the program's cancellation in May 2006. He was a guest star on The Twilight Zone, Las Vegas (TV series) and . He also appeared alongside former 90210 cast member Ian Ziering in the Tony Scott film, "Domino" as parodies of themselves. Green appeared in a horror short called "Grace", which was set around a miscarriage gone bad, and features "Gilmore Girls" actress Liza Weil as his love interest. The short premiered at the Fangoria Weekend of Horrors convention on June 2, 2006 and was reworked as a full-length feature film in 2009. He was a guest star on "George Lopez" as Chris in 2006. In 2008, Green was cast as "Derek Reese" in "", a Resistance fighter sent to the past by the future John Connor. He is the older brother of Kyle Reese (John Connor's father) and paternal uncle of John. Green was recurring in the first season but became a series regular at the start of the second, following a positive response from critics and fans. His character is killed by a Terminator in the penultimate episode but another Derek from an alternate timeline is introduced in the series finale and would have remained on the show if it had been renewed for a third season. Green guest-starred on the season 7 finale of ' as Anthony Green. Green has also been cast in The CW's new drama pilot "Body Politic", along with Minka Kelly, Gabrielle Union, and Jason Dohring. The series was not been picked up for fall 2009. Green said in an interview that he was co-producing a big screen adaptation of "Fathom", starring Megan Fox. On September 27, 2009, Green made a guest appearance on the television series "Saturday Night Live" in a skit involving girlfriend (now wife) Megan Fox. In the skit Green played a version of the Transformer Bumblebee in which Bumblebee is merely a man wearing a Bumblebee mask. Green was cast as Clay in "One Tree Hills seventh season. Green then left the cast due to scheduling conflicts and the role was then given to Robert Buckley and he starred as superhero Callan in the Patrick Durham-directed movie "Cross", which was released to DVD and download in May 2011. In 2009, Green was cast as John Corben/Metallo in "Smallvile". He appeared in three episodes in the ninth season between 2009–2010, the first being the ninth season premiere episode "Savior". The character is a war-time reporter, similar to the Silver Age John Corben. As a back-story for this version, he had been recently stationed in Afghanistan. When he meets Lois Lane, he expresses his distaste for vigilantes, particularly "the Blur" (Clark Kent). Corben is "reactivated" in the episode "Upgrade" after Tess' scientists are able to correct the initial design flaw in the Kryptonite heart that causes an adrenal overload and resulting psychosis. He reappears in the finale season episode "Prophecy" as a member of Marionette Ventures, with Supergirl assigned as his target. In 2010, Green appeared in a multi-episode story arc on the ABC series "Desperate Housewives". He plays Keith Watson, Bree's contractor and lover for the first part of the season, In 2012, Green had a guest appearance in the sitcom "Anger Management" playing Sean, the boyfriend of Charlie's ex-wife, Jen in the first episode of the show. This episode broke a ratings record with 5.74 million viewers on its series debut night and ranks as the most-watched sitcom premiere in cable history. He returned to the show in the episode “Charlie Breaks Up With Kate” when Jen gets back with Sean. In June 2013, Green was promoted to series regular. Green was a guest-star in the episode finale of second season "Happy Endings". He played Chris, who meets dateless Penny via Skype. He returned in the first episode of the third season "Cazsh Dummy Spillionaires". In the same year, Green starred in the a new television series, "Wedding Band", about a group of friends who perform at weddings. In the TBS comedy, Green plays Tommy, the frontman for Mother of the Bride, a group of four buddies who aren’t ready to give up the dream of being rock stars. On January 22, 2013, TBS officially cancelled the series after one season due to low ratings. Personal life. Green won the celebrity portion of the Grand Prix of Long Beach in early 2010. Relationships and family. Green dated his "Beverly Hills, 90210" co-star Tiffani Thiessen in the early and mid-1990s. After their breakup, he met actress Vanessa Marcil, also on the set of "Beverly Hills, 90210", and they began dating. Their son, Kassius Lijah, was born on March 30, 2002. Green subsequently began dating actress Megan Fox in 2004, having first met on the set of "Hope & Faith" when he was 30 years old and she was 18. In 2006, they became engaged, and then broke off their engagement in February 2009. Some time later in 2009, Fox was targeted by a group of fashion-motivated criminals known as "The Bling Ring", who robbed Green's home because she was living with him. Green and Fox announced they were engaged again in mid-June 2010, and several days later, on June 24, 2010, the two wed in a private ceremony at the Four Seasons Resort on Maui. Fox and Green have a son, Noah Shannon Green, born on September 27, 2012. In August 2013, Fox announced that she and Green are expecting their second child together. Legal issues. Brian Austin Green has criticized the paparazzi for the invasion of his private life with then-girlfriend Megan Fox (now wife) in 2010. Green said, "Megan and I so despise the paparazzi. We value our private life and our time at home. The last thing I want is to be ducking in and out of places because I'm worried about my picture being taken, especially when I'm with my son. When they follow me in cars when I pick him up from school, that's really crossing the line. I understand that they want shots of me with Megan, but we're pretty boring. They won't catch us out at clubs, getting drunk or being hauled in for DUIs. All they usually get is pictures of us leaving Staples or Target, or walking into a restaurant." On September 17, 2010, Green stated, "It wasn't so much of a problem before Megan, but once "Transformers" hit, that was it. I had never experienced paparazzi on that level, because during "90210", they were still developing pictures and selling them by hand. It was a whole different experience. I hated being famous during "90210". I'm not an extrovert. I'm 37. I have a beautiful wife. I have an amazing 8-year-old son. I love acting, but this is just my job." In March 2012, TMZ.com reported that celebrity photographer, Delbert Shaw, filed a lawsuit against Green and wife, Megan Fox, in Los Angeles County Superior Court for allegedly assaulting him after taking photographs of the couple while on vacation in Hawaii in 2010. In June 2012, Green claimed that he was simply defending himself against Shaw and that his wife should not be included in the lawsuit.
711764	The Nature of the Beast (European title: Bad Company, UK title: Hatchet Man) is a 1995 horror mystery film written and directed by Victor Salva. It stars Eric Roberts and Lance Henriksen. Plot. The story is set in Southern California and a close-up of a beeper halfway through the film reveals that the action takes place in July 1993. Jack Powell (Lance Henriksen) is a businessman with a wife and kids who live in San Diego. He's on his way home when he pulls over to the side of the road to check out a crime scene. The sheriff tells him a cut-up body has been found stuffed into the trunk of a Chrysler, and advises him not to stop and "make any new friends." Policemen slam the trunk, revealing a name has been etched across the top: "Hatchet Man." Further on down the road, Jack comes upon a hitchhiker and keeps on going. At a diner, he runs into the same man, who introduces himself as Adrian (Eric Roberts). Jack apologizes for not stopping and offers to buy Adrian lunch. Their waitress, Patsy (Eliza Roberts), is dubbed "Jingle Bells" by Adrian because of the silver bracelets she wears on one wrist. Patsy talks excitedly about a briefcase full of $1.25 million in mob money that was stolen from a Las Vegas casino the previous day. Jack looks around nervously and slides his briefcase underneath the table. Adrian advises Jack that he can usually tell all he needs to know about a man within 2 minutes of meeting him, like is he a loser, is he a football star, or mr class president. Jack doesn't seem convinced before Adrian asks him what he's got in his briefcase. When Adrian gets up to make a move on Patsy in the kitchen, Jack ditches him and makes his escape. Now miles down the highway in his car, Jack listens as a radio newscaster (voiced by writer-director Victor Salva) recounts the story of the stolen briefcase and discusses a string of murders in which all the victims have been dismembered. Jack is forced to turn back because a roadblock has been set up to cordon off a chemical spill. Jack books into a motel.In the middle of the night, Jack wakes up and walks outside his motel room to investigate another crime scene, this one located behind the diner where he and Adrian had lunch that day. He sees a severed arm with silver bracelets placed into a bag and Adrian hiding in the shadows. At this point in the film, given Jack's behavior in the diner and Adrian's pursuit of Patsy prior to her murder, we're led to believe that Jack stole the briefcase in Vegas and that Adrian is the Hatchet Man. Adrian joins Jack in his motel room and shoots up in the bathroom. This is the first scene in which Adrian discusses his misanthropic views: "People scream evil like a motherfucker, unless it's their own evil. Then, it's cool." When heavy drug use appears to have rendered Adrian unconscious, Jack attempts to leave him again, but despite repeated and increasingly frantic attempts his car won't start. Adrian stumbles out of the motel and reveals that he has removed the plugs from Jack's car. He tells Jack in no uncertain terms not to leave again or "I'll tell on you Jack I'll call the police". In the morning, Jack and Adrian take to the road together. At a gas station, they meet a young hippie couple named Gerald (Sasha Jenson) and Dahlia (Ana Gabriel) who are traveling cross-country in a Volkswagen van. Adrian wants to hang out with the hippies, but Jack insists they keep going. They stop at a service station so Jack can have a busted water hose on his car replaced. As Jack deals with the attendant, Adrian browses a pet store called the Creepy Crawly Zoo. The owner, Harliss (Phil Fondacaro), shows Adrian a Gila Monster, which uses its viselike bite to inject deadly poison into the bloodstream. Back in the car, with Jack behind the wheel, Adrian uses the Gila Monster to reassert his power over Jack by throwing the monster onto Jacks lap while he drives. Jack struggles to maintain his composure and appears frozen by fear and anxiety. To compound matters Adrian then slams his foot onto the accelarator and the car almost loses control at speed and eventually shudders to a grinding halt before Adrian lets the Gila monster go and warns Jack on his previous disobedience, and tells Jack that he is "one crazy motherfucker" Jack and Adrian spend the night at a campsite, where they once again run into Gerald and Dahlia. Adrian gets high with the young couple while Jack broods outside the VW. When Dahlia says she and Gerald are "family" because they have the same aura, Jack replies, "You don't know what a family is. How could you people do the things you do and be a family?" Adrian accuses Jack of trying to scare the hippies off. Later, Jack finds Adrian having sex with Dahlia in the back of the VW while Gerald watches. Jack gets drunk and retires. Adrian shows up later and goads him on: "Why don't you go to the van, Jack? You know you want to." After Jack and Adrian drive away in the morning, a shot of the VW shows blood smeared down the license plate and the name "Hatchet Man" etched across the back doors. The following night, Jack and Adrian stay at a secluded cabin that Jack inherited. For the first time we see the money that was stolen from the Vegas casino, which Jack and Adrian use to play poker. There is at this stage a degree of mutual acceptance in the air. Adrian prepares to shoot up again. When Jack lectures him about his "problem," Adrian slaps him around and accuses him of being an alcoholic and a hypocrite. Adrian reveals the full extent of his misanthropy in a long monologue about human nature, saying there's a hole that "rips inside everyone when they suck in their first screaming breath. It's why babies scream, Jack. I've seen men try to fill it with women, with other men, with the good book, with money, power, and everything you can think of on the planet. And you know what finally separates the men from the boys, Jackie Boy? The wisdom, the knowledge of the ages. That hole! it can't be filled... Every dark place in us, every rabid fucking impulse we have, is just the nature of the beast." Adrian releases Jack from his grip and returns to his drugs whilst advising Jack to do the same with his drink. Jack reacts by beating Adrian from behind with his briefcase, taping him to a chair and injecting him with a deadly mixture of alcohol and drugs. Adrian convulses and appears to expire, and Jack buries him in a shallow grave. Sheriff Gordon (Brion James) and his deputy, Little David (played by Salva regular Tom Tarantini) show up to check on Jack, and over their shoulders Jack can see Adrian rising from the grave. The policemen are called away on a domestic disturbance and leave without noticing Adrian. Jack attempts to gun him down. After he's unloaded his shotgun, Adrian emerges from the shadows. In the film's final twist, Adrian makes Jack an offer: "Tell me why you do it, and I'll tell you how I walked away with all that money from the Pot O' Gold Casino." Jack answers, "People wait their whole lives for someone to come along and take away their misery. For a lucky few, I am that someone." When Adrian pleads with Jack as to why he cuts up the bodies into tiny little pieces, Jack removes a hatchet from his briefcase, and now in a far more confident baritone than he has displayed at any point in the film announces, "For the fuck of it," and as the screen fades to black we are left only with the sounds of a violent struggle and left to conclude Jack has killed Adrian once and for all. The film ends with a satirical jab at suburban complacency. Jack returns home to San Diego and kisses his wife, Carol (Lin Shaye). The paperboy greets him and he replies cheerfully, "Say, hey, Billy." As the film fades to black, a quote from the Book of Jeremiah appears on the screen: "The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. Who can know it?" This echoes an earlier statement made by Adrian, who said that human beings are essentially unknowable. References to prison. "The Nature of the Beast" is the first film Salva directed after serving 15 months in the California penal system. He makes some allusions to that experience in his screenplay. Adrian says he's an ex-con, and claims to have spent enough time in prison and church "to know true boredom." He also explains to Jack the meaning of the phrase "dead man walking." At one stage enraged by Jack's apathy towards his problems Adrian grabs Jacks and tells him "I've slept in places you wouldnt shit in, I've done time with men who would...". Gay subtext. Unlike the outlaw duos in "Bonnie and Clyde" and "True Romance", the fugitives in "The Nature of the Beast" are both men. Certain elements in the film hint at the possibility of a romantic relationship between the two. When Jack passes Adrian on the road, a singer can be heard on the radio crooning, "Who's that I see sneaking up on me? Sweet misery, my old loverboy." The motel where Jack and Adrian spend the night is called the Pink Motel. After their first meeting with the hippie couple, Dahlia asks Gerald, "Honey, you think they're lovers?" Adrian repeatedly taunts Jack with sexual innuendo, at one point saying, "I'll show you mine, you show me yours." After engaging in a threesome with Gerald and Dahlia much to Jack's disgust, Adrian returns to their motel room and teases a morose Jack "I thought about you Jack... could you feel it?"
1066472	Take the Lead is a 2006 musical drama film starring Antonio Banderas, Rob Brown, Alfre Woodard, Dante Basco, Elijah Kelley, Marcus T. Paulk, Jenna Dewan, Lauren Collins and also features former America's Next Top Model contestant, Yaya DaCosta. The film was released in mainstream cinema on April 7, 2006. Although based in New York City, the film was filmed in Toronto, and used stock footage of various New York City locations. The movie is based on the life of Pierre Dulaine, a well-known ballroom dancer and a dance instructor, known for 'Dancing Classrooms'. Plot. Rock (Rob Brown), the film's underdog protagonist, arrives at a school dance with a water-damaged ticket and is denied entrance by Mr. Temple (John Ortiz) and Principal James (Alfre Woodard). Rock leaves and encounters some thugs, who lead him to vandalize Principal James' car. Pierre Dulaine (Antonio Banderas), a classical dance instructor, catches Rock in the act, but Rock runs away before Pierre can question him further. The next morning at the school, Pierre waits to see the principal as Mr. Temple discusses the detention program with Principal James. As he waits, he repeatedly opens doors for women and even stand as they walk by. A student, Eddie (Marcus T. Paulk) ridicules him for it, but Pierre stands his ground, and Eddie is seen opening a door for a girl when Pierre is called in to the principal's office. Pierre explains to the principal that he was a witness to the vandalism on her car, and eventually offers to take over Mr. Temple's detention shift, to which Principal James agrees, although she is sure that he will not last more than a day. She even wagers five dollars that he will not last. Pierre is led to the basement where the students who have earned detention for the remainder of the year, including Rock, are kept. His first class is disastrous due to the uncooperative personalities of the students, all of whom scoff at his efforts to teach them classical dance. They ridicule his choice of music, and when he tries to pair them together, various relationships between the students are revealed, including a love triangle, two cousins, and the fact that LaRhette and Rock hate each other. The next morning Pierre returns, much to the surprise of Principal James who later explains that Rock’s brother was involved with a gang war, and one of the casualties was a brother of LaRhette (Yaya DaCosta), who had refused to dance with Rock the day before. Later in detention, Rock has forged a doctor’s note excusing him from dancing. At Pierre's dance studio, Caitlin (Lauren Collins) is a student who is under pressure to learn to dance because her cotillion is fast approaching. Though she loves to dance, she is clumsy and feels like a failure, envying Morgan her graceful sensuality and saying to Pierre that, "She's like sex on hardwood." This gives Pierre an idea on how to reach out to the detention kids. Pierre invites Morgan (Katya Virshilas), a highly trained but haughty student, to his detention session for a demonstration of the tango, which inspires the detention students to be more willing to learn. Caitlin decides to join the detention students for dance class and practices with Monster, another student struggling to learn. Though the other students accuse her of wanting to "tell her upperclass friends that she's slumming," at first, they gradually learn to accept her after she admits that she feels better with them than with Morgan and her group. Rock, who still refuses to dance, makes it clear to Pierre that he attends detention not to dance, but to be able to graduate. Pierre tries to reach out to him but Rock storms away. Later he is fired from his job for being late. He goes home and confronts his parents, who have been unable to provide him food since Rock's brother's death. His drunken father kicks him out of the house and he finds a new albeit dangerous job with some street thugs. LaRhette, daughter of a prostitute who has been impregnated numerous times, cares for her younger siblings while her mother works the streets. One night, LaRhette runs out of the apartment and to the school after one of her mother's clients attempts to rape her. She practices her dancing in the basement, and runs into Rock. They fight and are caught by security. Principal James wants to suspend LaRhette and Rock, but instead agrees to give them extra detention hours with Pierre at 7:30 AM each day. Pierre tells the class about a dance competition which he wishes them to enter, and this is further inspiration for the detention students to learn. The detention basement is flooded, so Pierre takes the detention students to his dance studio to practice. They are confronted by Morgan and some of Pierre's other students. The detention students are further disenchanted by the skills of Pierre's students as well as the $200 entrance fee for the contest. However, Pierre manages to inspire them again and promises to provide funds for the detention students to enter. Caitlin is unable to enter in the competition, as her cotillion is the same night, to Monster's disappointment. The two still practice together, and their relationship deepens. LaRhette and Rock will compete in waltz, and Ramos and Danjou learn to share Sasha during practice. Mr. Temple complains about the supposed waste of resources on the dance program. He brings Pierre to a meeting with the parents' association, but Pierre convinces them to keep the dance program going after demonstrating how ballroom teaches the students "teamwork, respect, and dignity." On the night of the contest, Rock has to work. He is told that he must shoot anyone who approaches the theft operation. He shoots the sprinkler system instead, setting off the alarm and causing the thugs to run away. At the cotillion, Caitlin makes her grand entrance down the staircase and dances with Monster, surprising her mother. After they dance they make their way to the dance competition. LaRhette is disappointed that Rock has not arrived at the competition, where a $5000 prize is at stake. Sasha, Danjou, and Ramos perform an impressive three-person tango but are disqualified for it because it is a partner dance. Morgan calls it a tie and gives Sasha her trophy, while keeping the bouquet from the judges to herself. It is revealed that Pierre knew she would win and pleaded with her in advance to give the trophy to any of his inner city students who managed to come in second place. She is displeased by this, but at the very end of the film she and her dance partner start adapting the dances of the inner city students (presumably no longer opposed to their presence). Principal James, thrilled with the success of the program, insists on making the program permanent and expanding it to more schools. Rock arrives at the last minute to dance the waltz with LaRhette, whom he kisses at the end of the waltz.
636179	Crack in the World is an American science-fiction disaster movie filmed in Spain in 1964 and released by Paramount Pictures. Plot. An international consortium of scientists, operating as Project Inner Space in Tanganyika, Africa, is trying to tap into the Earth's geothermal energy by drilling a very deep hole down to the Earth's core. The scientists are foiled by an extremely dense layer of material at the boundary between the two. To penetrate the barrier and reach the magma below, they intend to detonate an atomic device at the bottom of the hole. The leader of the project, Dr. Stephen Sorenson (Dana Andrews), who is (secretly) dying of cancer, believes that the atomic device will burn its way through the barrier, but the project's chief geologist, Dr. Ted Rampion (Kieron Moore), is convinced that the lower layers of the crust have been weakened by decades of underground nuclear tests, and that the detonation could produce a massive crack that would threaten the very existence of Earth. The atomic device is used and Rampion's fears prove justified, as the crust of the Earth develops an enormous crack that progresses rapidly. Sorenson discovers that there was a huge reservoir of hydrogen underground, which turned the small conventional atomic explosion into a huge thermonuclear one that was millions of times more powerful. Another atomic device is used in the hope of stopping the crack, but it only reverses the crack's direction. Eventually the crack returns to its starting point at the test site, and a huge chunk of the planet outlined by the crack is expected to be thrown out into space. Sorenson remains at the underground control center to record the event despite pleas by his wife Maggie to evacuate with the rest of the project staff. She and Rampion barely escape in time to observe the fiery birth of a second moon. Its release stops the crack from further splitting the Earth.
1104701	Lewis Fry Richardson, FRS (11 October 1881 – 30 September 1953) was an English mathematician, physicist, meteorologist, psychologist and pacifist who pioneered modern mathematical techniques of weather forecasting, and the application of similar techniques to studying the causes of wars and how to prevent them. He is also noted for his pioneering work concerning fractals and a method for solving a system of linear equations known as modified Richardson iteration. Early life. Lewis Fry Richardson was the youngest of seven children born to Catherine Fry (1838–1919) and David Richardson (1835–1913). They were a prosperous Quaker family, David Richardson operating a successful tanning and leather manufacturing business. At age 12 he was sent to a Quaker boarding school, Bootham in York, where he received an education in science, which stimulated an active interest in natural history. In 1898 he went on to Durham College of Science (a college of Durham University) where he took courses in mathematical physics, chemistry, botany, and zoology. Two years later, he gained a scholarship to King's College, Cambridge, where he graduated with first-class honours in the natural sciences tripos in 1903. At age 47 he received a doctorate in mathematical psychology from the University of London. Career. Richardson's working life represented his eclectic interests: In 1926, he was elected to the Fellowship of the Royal Society Pacifism. Richardson's Quaker beliefs entailed an ardent pacifism that exempted him from military service during World War I as a conscientious objector, though this subsequently disqualified him from having any academic post. Richardson worked from 1916 to 1919 for the Friends' Ambulance Unit attached to the 16th French Infantry Division. After the war, he rejoined the Meteorological Office but was compelled to resign on grounds of conscience when it was amalgamated into the Air Ministry in 1920. He subsequently pursued a career on the fringes of the academic world before retiring in 1940 to research his own ideas. His pacifism had direct consequences on his research interests. According to Thomas Körner, the discovery that his meteorological work was of value to chemical weapons designers caused him to abandon all his efforts in this field, and destroy findings that he had yet to publish. Weather forecasting. Richardson's interest in meteorology led him to propose a scheme for weather forecasting by solution of differential equations, the method used nowadays, though when he published "Weather Prediction by Numerical Process" in 1922, suitable fast computing was unavailable. He described his ideas thus (his "computers" are human beings): “After so much hard reasoning, may one play with a fantasy? Imagine a large hall like a theatre, except that the circles and galleries go right round through the space usually occupied by the stage. The walls of this chamber are painted to form a map of the globe. The ceiling represents the north polar regions, England is in the gallery, the tropics in the upper circle, Australia on the dress circle and the Antarctic in the pit. A myriad computers are at work upon the weather of the part of the map where each sits, but each computer attends only to one equation or part of an equation. The work of each region is coordinated by an official of higher rank. Numerous little "night signs" display the instantaneous values so that neighbouring computers can read them. Each number is thus displayed in three adjacent zones so as to maintain communication to the North and South on the map. From the floor of the pit a tall pillar rises to half the height of the hall. It carries a large pulpit on its top. In this sits the man in charge of the whole theatre; he is surrounded by several assistants and messengers. One of his duties is to maintain a uniform speed of progress in all parts of the globe. In this respect he is like the conductor of an orchestra in which the instruments are slide-rules and calculating machines. But instead of waving a baton he turns a beam of rosy light upon any region that is running ahead of the rest, and a beam of blue light upon those who are behindhand. Four senior clerks in the central pulpit are collecting the future weather as fast as it is being computed, and despatching it by pneumatic carrier to a quiet room. There it will be coded and telephoned to the radio transmitting station. Messengers carry piles of used computing forms down to a storehouse in the cellar. In a neighbouring building there is a research department, where they invent improvements. But there is much experimenting on a small scale before any change is made in the complex routine of the computing theatre. In a basement an enthusiast is observing eddies in the liquid lining of a huge spinning bowl, but so far the arithmetic proves the better way. In another building are all the usual financial, correspondence and administrative offices. Outside are playing fields, houses, mountains and lakes, for it was thought that those who compute the weather should breathe of it freely.” (Richardson 1922) When news of the first weather forecast by the first modern computer, ENIAC, was received by Richardson in 1950, he responded that the results were an "enormous scientific advance." The first calculations for a 24-hour forecast took ENIAC nearly 24 hours to produce. He was also interested in atmospheric turbulence and performed many terrestrial experiments. The Richardson number, a dimensionless parameter of the theory of turbulence is named for him. He famously summarised turbulence in rhyming verse in "Weather Prediction by Numerical Process" (p 66): "Big whirls have little whirls that feed on their velocity," play on Augustus De Morgan's rewording of Jonathan Swift, "Great fleas have little fleas upon their backs to bite 'em, And little fleas have lesser fleas, and so ad infinitum." ("A Budget of Paradoxes", 1915). Richardson's attempt at numerical forecast. One of Richardson's most celebrated achievements is his retroactive attempt to forecast the weather during a single day—20 May 1910—by direct computation. At the time, meteorologists performed forecasts principally by looking for similar weather patterns from past records, and then extrapolating forward. Richardson attempted to use a mathematical model of the principal features of the atmosphere, and use data taken at a specific time (7 AM) to calculate the weather six hours later Ab initio. As Lynch makes clear, Richardson's forecast failed dramatically, predicting a huge rise in pressure over six hours when the pressure actually was more or less static. However, detailed analysis by Lynch has shown that the cause was a failure to apply smoothing techniques to the data, which rule out unphysical surges in pressure. When these are applied, Richardson's forecast is revealed to be essentially accurate—a remarkable achievement considering the calculations were done by hand, and while Richardson was serving with the Quaker ambulance unit in northern France. Mathematical analysis of war. Richardson also applied his mathematical skills in the service of his pacifist principles, in particular in understanding the basis of international conflict. For this reason, he is now considered the initiator, or co-initiator (with Quincy Wright and Pitirim Sorokin as well as others such as Kenneth Boulding, Anatol Rapaport and Adam Curle), of the scientific analysis of conflict—an interdisciplinary topic of quantitative and mathematical social science dedicated to systematic investigation of the causes of war and conditions of peace. As he had done with weather, he analyzed war using mainly differential equations and probability theory. Considering the armament of two nations, Richardson posited an idealized system of equations whereby the rate of a nation's armament build-up is directly proportional to the amount of arms its rival has and also to the grievances felt toward the rival, and negatively proportional to the amount of arms it already has itself. Solution of this system of equations allows insightful conclusions to be made regarding the nature, and the stability or instability, of various hypothetical conditions which might obtain between nations. He also originated the theory that the propensity for war between two nations was a function of the length of their common border. And in "Arms and Insecurity" (1949), and "Statistics of Deadly Quarrels" (1950), he sought to analyze the causes of war statistically. Factors he assessed included economics, language, and religion. In the preface of the latter, he wrote: "There is in the world a great deal of brilliant, witty political discussion which leads to no settled convictions. My aim has been different: namely to examine a few notions by quantitative techniques in the hope of reaching a reliable answer." In "Statistics of Deadly Quarrels" Richardson presented data on virtually every war from 1815 to 1945. As a result he hypothesized a base 10 logarithmic scale for conflicts. In other words, there are many more small fights, in which only a few people die, than large ones that kill many. While no conflict's size can be predicted beforehand—indeed, it is impossible to give an upper limit to the series—overall they do form a Poisson distribution. On a smaller scale he showed the same pattern for gang murders in Chicago and Shanghai. Others have noted that similar statistical patterns occur frequently, whether planned (lotteries, with many more small payoffs than large wins), or by natural organization (there are more small towns with grocery stores than big cities with superstores). Research on the length of coastlines and borders. Richardson decided to search for a relation between the probability of two countries going to war and the length of their common border. However, while collecting data, he found that there was considerable variation in the various published lengths of international borders. For example, that between Spain and Portugal was variously quoted as 987 or 1214 km, and that between the Netherlands and Belgium as 380 or 449 km.
1067144	The Happiest Millionaire is a 1967 musical film starring Fred MacMurray and based upon the true story of Philadelphia Main Line millionaire Anthony J. Drexel Biddle. The film received an Academy Award nomination for Costume Design by Bill Thomas. The musical song score is by Robert and Richard Sherman. The screenplay is by AJ Carothers based on the play that was based on the book "My Philadelphia Father" by Cordelia Drexel Biddle. This was the last film with involvement from Walt Disney, who died during its production. Costume Designer Bill Thomas, whose film credits passed the 200 mark in 1965, created more than 250 lavish costumes for the principal "Millionaire" players alone. More than 3000 complete outfits, valued at $250,000, were required for the entire production. Plot. The story begins in Autumn of 1916, and follows an Irish immigrant named John Lawless (Tommy Steele) as he applies for a butler position with eccentric Philadelphia millionaire Anthony J. Drexel Biddle (Fred MacMurray). Even though the family is a bit strange, Lawless soon learns that he fits right in. Mr. Biddle takes a liking to him immediately. For the rest of the film, Lawless serves as the narrator/commentator. Mr. Biddle busies himself with his Biddle Boxing and Bible School (located in his stable) and with his alligators in the conservatory. He is also anxious to get America into the War in Europe (World War I), despite the government's policy of neutrality. His wife, Cordelia (Greer Garson), stands quietly by, accepting his eccentricities with a sense of pride and class. Their two sons, Tony and Livingston (Paul Petersen and Eddie Hodges, respectively) are headed off to boarding school, never to be seen in the film again. Their daughter, Cordy (Lesley Ann Warren, in her film debut), is a tomboy with a mean right hook who was educated by private tutors and has had limited contact with conventional society. She is frustrated by her apparent inability to attract suitors and wants to see what is beyond the Biddle manor. Mr. Biddle reluctantly lets Cordy go to a boarding school as well (after some prodding from both Cordy and from his Aunt Mary (Gladys Cooper)), where her roommate teaches her how to lure men with feminine wiles, known as "Bye-Yum Pum Pum". At a social dance hosted by her aunt and uncle, Cordy meets Angier Buchanan Duke (John Davidson, in his film debut) and they fall in love. He tells Cordy that he is fascinated with the new automobile and wants to head to Detroit, Michigan to make his fortune there, instead of taking over his family's tobacco business. That winter, Cordy comes back to her parents' home and tells them that she is engaged. At first, this is a difficult thing for Mr. Biddle to take. He does not want to give up his little girl. But, after meeting Angie and witnessing first-hand his Jiu Jitsu fighting skills, Mr. Biddle takes a liking to him and accepts the engagement. Then Cordy travels with Angie to New York City to meet his mother (Geraldine Page). Soon the Biddles and the Dukes are making arrangements for a very grand wedding. Constant condescending comments from Angie's mother are painful for Cordy. To make matters worse, their families' elaborate planning for the "social event of the season" (it is by now Spring of 1917), makes both Cordy and Angie feel pushed aside. The tension reaches a climax when Cordy learns that Angie has abandoned his plans for Detroit, and is instead taking his place in the family business, following his mother's wishes. Cordy angrily calls the wedding off, thinking of Angie as a mama's boy, and Angie storms out of the house. Both families are instantly in a tremendous state of upheaval. Mr. Biddle sends John Lawless to look after Angie. John finds Angie at the local tavern, contemplating what he will do next. During a rousing song-and-dance sequence, John tries to convince Angie to go back to Cordy. However, Angie is stubborn and thinks of other ways to deal with his problems, among other things saying that he wants to join the Foreign Legion. Angie unwittingly starts a bar fight (with a little help from John) and is hauled off to jail. The next morning, Mr. Biddle comes to bail Angie out. He tells Angie he has to forget about his own dreams and accept his place in the family business. His words have the desired effect, inspiring Angie to defy his mother and elope with Cordy and go to Detroit. Cordy, however, believes her father talked Angie into it, so to prove his sincerity, amid the cheering of the cell mates, Angie throws Cordy over his shoulder and carries her out of the jail house to start their new life together (Short version ends here). After Mr. and Mrs. Biddle return home a delegation of Marines arrive to inform him he has been made a "provisional captain" in the Marine Corps; and is wanted immediately to go to Parris Island to help/continue training the recruits, now that America is finally entering the War. Mr. Biddle accepts with delight, and the hearty congratulations of his suddenly appearing Bible Boxing Class. Behind the final credits a car is seen driving toward a city skyline (apparently Detroit) dominated by factories spewing smoke to blacken the sky over the city. Songs. The song "Detroit" contains the lyric "F.O.B. Detroit" (free on board). According to the Shermans, Walt Disney was walking down the hall of the studio animation building and overheard them singing the song. Walt, misinterpreting the phrase as "S.O.B.", immediately went into their office and scolded them for using such offensive language in a Disney movie. The Shermans explained Walt's misinterpretation and they all had a good laugh about it. Disneyland influence. The songs "Let's Have a Drink on It" and "Fortuosity" are used in the Main Street USA loops at the Disneyland-style parks. The phone booth Mrs. Worth uses to make a call still exists. It is located inside Club 33 at Disneyland Park. Guests of the Club can use it to make phone calls. Some of the décor and set pieces from the "Let's Have a Drink on It" bar set were salvaged and placed into the Café Orleans restaurant in Disneyland's New Orleans Square. Steve Bartek, composer for Disneyland's short-lived "Rocket Rods" attraction, created a special arrangement of the Sherman brothers' "Detroit" song as part of the waiting area entertainment. Different versions. The film previewed at the length of 172 minutes, which included overture, intermission music, entr'acte, and exit music. However, the studio decided to shorten the film to 160 minutes soon afterwards for its premiere. In the face of mixed reviews and low box-office returns, the studio cut it to 144 minutes. Again failing to stem the tide, they cut it to 118 minutes. The complete 172 minute version was restored for the Disney Channel, and has been released on DVD, as have shorter versions. The full-length version was released on DVD in 2004, and was called the "Road Show" edition.
393954	Almost Love (; lit. "Youth Comic") is a 2006 South Korean film. It was directed by Lee Han, starring Kwon Sang-woo and Kim Ha-neul. Distributed by Showbox, it was released on March 23, 2006, and ran at 116 minutes. Plot. Ji-hwan is a taekwondo student with a part-time job as a stunt man, who dreams of becoming Korea's answer to Jackie Chan. Dal-rae is a drama student and aspiring actress, but tends to fail auditions because of her timid personality. The two are old friends who have grown up together, but their relationship becomes complicated when they each start dating other people. Release. "Almost Love" was released in South Korea on March 23, 2006, and topped the box office on its opening weekend with 539,307 admissions. It held the number one spot for a second consecutive weekend, going on to receive a total of 2,066,354 admissions nationwide, with a gross of $9,131,392.
1166150	Caroline Gilchrist Rhea (born April 13, 1964) is a Canadian stand-up comedian and actress who was the original host of the reality television show "The Biggest Loser" on NBC until she was replaced by Alison Sweeney after the end of the third season. She is also known for her role as Hilda Spellman from "Sabrina, the Teenage Witch", and for replacing Rosie O'Donnell as the hostess of her syndicated talk show, renamed "The Caroline Rhea Show". Rhea provides the voice for Linda Flynn-Fletcher, the mother of Phineas and Candace Flynn, on the Disney Channel series "Phineas and Ferb". Early life. Rhea was born and raised in Montreal, Quebec, the daughter of Marjorie, an antiques dealer, and David Rhea, an obstetrician and gynecologist. She has two sisters, Cynthia and Celia. She attended The Study, an all-girls private school in Westmount, Quebec and Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia. Career. Her film debut was as a bikini-clad extra in the film "Meatballs III", shot on location near Montreal. She moved to New York in 1989 to study stand-up comedy at the New School for Social Research. Rhea has said that her true training came from her first gigs at the comedy club, Catch a Rising Star. Performing around New York City, she quickly gained a reputation in the city's competitive comedy scene. These performances were augmented with appearances on "MTV's Half-Hour Comedy Hour", "Comic Strip Live" and "Caroline's Comedy Hour". She decided to move to Los Angeles for a career in Hollywood, debuting in NBC television series "Pride & Joy" co-starring with Jeremy Piven. She gained fame for her role as Aunt Hilda on the ABC (and later, The WB network) television show, "Sabrina the Teenage Witch", as well as being a regular on the latest incarnation of "Hollywood Squares". In 2002, Rhea landed her own syndicated daytime talk show, "The Caroline Rhea Show". Rosie O'Donnell hand-picked Rhea as her replacement. In 2004, Rhea became the first host of the series, "The Biggest Loser" on NBC, a weight loss reality show in which overweight members of two teams try to lose the most weight. After her 3rd season, Rhea was replaced by Alison Sweeney. In 2005, Rhea was in the movie "The Perfect Man", playing a co-worker of Jean (Heather Locklear). She has appeared in "Comic Relief 8", as well as the Ms. Foundation's "Women of Comedy from Caroline's Comedy Club" (no relation to Rhea). She appeared as a contestant in 2001 on a special edition of "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire", winning $125,000 for charity. She had her own stand-up special as part of Bravo's three-part "Funny Ladies" series, along with Joan Rivers and Paula Poundstone. Rhea has had a recurring role on the hit Disney Channel Original Series, "The Suite Life of Zack & Cody" as Ilsa Shickelgubermeiger-Von Helsing der Keppelugerhofer, an inspector turned manager of the rival hotel. In the series, she is well known for a large mole on her cheek. She has appeared on Disney's "Mom's Got a Date with a Vampire" as the mother and also "Christmas with the Kranks" in 2004. She has competed on Bravo's "Celebrity Poker Showdown" and GSN's "World Series of Blackjack". She now does the voice of Linda Flynn in "Phineas and Ferb", an animated show with Ashley Tisdale, Mitchel Musso, and Alyson Stoner. Rhea will next appear on the upcoming Fox animated series "Two Dreadful Children". Caroline Rhea also plays Noleta Nethercott on the TV series "". She has also been in the original Lifetime Television movie "To Be Fat Like Me" with Kaley Cuoco. Rhea stars as a down on her luck waitress alongside Justin Guarini and Mircea Monroe in the Marvista Entertainment production of "Fast Girl". Rhea has also done a live webcast with author, Meg Cabot. Rhea currently hosts the Canadian television series Cake Walk: Wedding Cake Edition on Slice, which premiered September 7, 2011. She is also frequently a guest on the revival of Match Game on Canada's The Comedy Network. In 2013, Rhea hosted a travelling live stage show version of the game show "Family Feud" which toured fairs in the US and Canada, including the Calgary Stampede. Personal life. Rhea and Comedian Costaki Economopoulos have a daughter Ava, who was born in New York on Thursday, October 23, 2008.
1759389	The Exam () is a 2006 Turkish comedy-drama film directed by Ömer Faruk Sorak, about five Turkish highschool students preparing to sit for the university entry exam, who enlist the services of a professional thief, played by Jean-Claude Van Damme, to steal the papers. The film went on nationwide general release across Turkey on . Plot. Five friends (Mert, Sinan, Gamze, Kaan and Uluç) are set to sit for the daunting nationwide university entry exam. Desperate to get a passing grade, they try to pool their resources together and enlist the services of a professional thief/assassin (Charles) for hire to steal the papers. All five of them have good reasons to do so. For Mert, it is essential to get into university, as he promised to his mother dying of cancer. He is the head of the family, working hard to make a living, even stopped attending school. Because of that, Mert surely cannot pass the entrance exam, so he needs to find other ways. He is in love with Gamze, whom he had cheated on before and so the girl doesn't approve of him anymore. Gamze's parents are in a continuous fight with each other which frustrates the young girl, making her want to flee from home - she needs to get into a university. Sinan's police officer father treats him badly, sure if he cannot pass the exam his cruel father would beat him up. The honest and good student Kaan is under pressure also by his family who want him to be a doctor - but no matter much he works, it is never enough for his maximalist father, not to mention Kaan doesn't want to be a doctor but rather would like to become a bass guitarist. Uluç's father is always telling his son to study, not to become a poor man like himself.
1057771	Get to Know Your Rabbit is a 1972 American comedy film written by Jordan Crittenden and directed by Brian De Palma. Synopsis. Corporate executive Donald Beeman, fed up with the rat race, impulsively quits his job and takes to the road as a traveling tap dancing magician under the tutelage of Mr. Delasandro. His former boss Mr. Turnbull, determined to convince him to return to his nine-to-five existence, chases after him as he performs his routine in seedy nightclubs and honky tonks, but instead the two create Tap Dancing Magicians, a course for pressured businessmen. When their little venture becomes one of the most successful corporations in the world, Donald ironically finds himself feeling the same way he did when he originally quit his job. Production notes. Brian De Palma had become successful with his 1968 underground comedy, "Greetings", and was hired by Warner Bros. to direct "Get to Know Your Rabbit" in 1970, right after he had directed a follow-up to "Greetings" called "Hi, Mom!". While very much a studio picture, "Rabbit" was in line with his films up to that time, which were mainly comedies. Much of the comedy has its roots in the traditional British absurdist sense of humor associated with the likes of Monty Python and "The Goon Show". Crittenden's screenplay is filled with oddball characters and bizarre situations, such as a bomber who is put on hold when he calls to announce his device will explode in six minutes, or a beautiful young woman who confesses to Donald her crush on the paper boy prompted her to prostitute herself so she could afford a newspaper subscription. Warner Bros. and star Tommy Smothers felt uneasy about De Palma's direction, as he was at that time an up-and-coming filmmaker with only a couple of films under his belt. He was fired from the production due to creative differences, mostly surrounding the ending of the film. "Get to Know Your Rabbit" was completed by the studio in 1970 but they didn't release it until two years later. Uncertain how to market it, the studio did little to promote it and the movie quickly disappeared from theaters. The experience gave the director a distaste for the studio system, and he would not work for a major studio again for several years. In 1973, the year after the release of "Get to Know Your Rabbit", De Palma would put his focus on suspense and obsession with a horror film called "Sisters". These themes would recur in much of his output in years since.
1105441	Michael David Spivak (born 1940) is an American mathematician specializing in differential geometry, an expositor of mathematics, and the founder of Publish-or-Perish Press. He is the author of the five-volume "A Comprehensive Introduction to Differential Geometry". He received a Ph.D. from Princeton University under the supervision of John Milnor in 1964. He was born in Queens, New York. His book "Calculus" takes a rigorous and theoretical approach to introductory calculus. It is used in calculus courses, particularly those with a pure mathematics emphasis, at many universities. Spivak has also written "The Joy of TeX: A Gourmet Guide to Typesetting With the AMS-TeX Macro Package" and "The Hitchhiker's Guide to Calculus". The famous book "Morse Theory", by John Milnor, was based on lecture notes by Spivak and Robert Wells. Spivak's book "Calculus on Manifolds" is also rather infamous as being one of the most difficult undergraduate mathematics textbooks. Spivak has lectured on elementary physics. His most recent book, "Physics for Mathematicians: Mechanics I", which contains the material that these lectures stemmed from and more, was published on December 6, 2010. In each of his books Spivak has hidden references to yellow pigs, an idea he apparently came up with at a bar while drinking with David C. Kelly.
1164776	Eve Aline Plumb (born April 29, 1958) is an American actress and painter. She is best known for her portrayal of Jan Brady in the iconic television sitcom "The Brady Bunch". Career. Plumb was a young child when her acting career began in TV commercials in 1966. The following year, she appeared on "The Virginian", "The Big Valley" and "Lassie". In 1968, she appeared on "It Takes A Thief" and "Family Affair"; in the latter, she played a terminally ill girl on the episode “Christmas Came A Little Early”. In 1969, she appeared on an episode of "Gunsmoke". From 1969 to 1974, Plumb appeared as middle sister Jan Brady in the ABC sitcom "The Brady Bunch". Her featured storylines included Jan’s embarrassment over not having a boyfriend, concerns about her future appearance, being a middle child, and her insecurity over wearing glasses. Several episodes centered on Jan’s jealousy of older sister Marcia, resulting in the famous “Marcia, Marcia, Marcia!” line that has arguably become the quintessential quote of the series. Plumb also supplied the voice of Jan in the ABC Saturday morning cartoon "The Brady Kids" from 1972 – 1973. After "The Brady Bunch" was cancelled in 1974, it went on to even greater success in syndicated reruns. The show has never left the television airwaves and eventually spawned numerous spinoffs, reunions and feature films. Several episodes of the show featured the Brady kids singing and as a result, Plumb and the rest of the younger cast recorded several albums. Plumb would also provide a monologue for the Pat Williams Orchestra’s 1974 recording of “California Love Story”. The single was co-produced by Plumb’s recording executive father, Neely Plumb. After "The Brady Bunch" ended, Plumb's first notable role was that of a teenage prostitute in the 1976 NBC television movie "." She also appeared in the sequel "Alexander: The Other Side of Dawn". Plumb starred as "Beth" in NBC productions of "Little Women", both a TV movie and a short-lived series. Plumb also made numerous guest-starring appearances in such shows as "Here’s Lucy", "The Love Boat", "Fantasy Island", "Wonder Woman", "One Day At A Time","The Facts of Life", "Murder, She Wrote", "The Super Mario Brothers Super Show", "" and "All My Children". Plumb was the only original cast member who declined to reunite for the 1976–77 variety show "The Brady Bunch Hour" on ABC. Much was made of her absence, including accusations that she no longer wanted to be associated with the Bradys. Plumb has stated in interviews that she was willing to do the variety show’s original special episode, but could not commit to a five-year option for additional shows. Her role would be filled by Geri Reischl, who went on to be known among "Brady Bunch" fans as “fake Jan”. The show lasted for only nine episodes. Plumb returned to the “Jan” role for the 1981 NBC TV movie "The Brady Girls Get Married", which led to "The Brady Brides", a short-lived sitcom in which she co-starred with Maureen McCormick, who played Marcia Brady. She also appeared in the 1988 CBS television movie "A Very Brady Christmas" and its 1990 spinoff dramedy series, "The Bradys". To promote their latest incarnation, the cast appeared on an episode of "Sally Jessy Raphael", which is remembered for having been shot outdoors in Florida during a rainstorm. Plumb was interviewed as part of a 1995 retrospective special titled "Brady Bunch Home Movies", produced by Susan Olsen, who played Cindy Brady. That same year, Plumb appeared on a special “child stars” installment of "The Jenny Jones Show". From 1995 - 1997, Plumb was a member of the cast of the Saturday morning sitcom "Fudge", playing the title character’s mother, Mrs. Ann Hatcher. The show aired on ABC in its first season and moved to CBS for its second season. To promote the series, Plumb appeared on "The Jon Stewart Show". Plumb also appeared in the movie "Fudge-A-Mania" (1997). In 1996, she reminisced about her Brady years on "The Rosie O'Donnell Show" and on the "E True Hollywood Story: The Brady Bunch". In 1998, Plumb was the original Pam Burkhart on "That ’70s Show" (only seen in episode 6, “The Keg”). In 2001, Plumb appeared on a special Brady-themed edition of the NBC game show "The Weakest Link". In 2004, she was part of the TV Land production "". Plumb appeared on the December 18, 2006, premiere episode of the NBC game show "Identity".
915365	Who Killed the Electric Car? is a 2006 documentary film that explores the creation, limited commercialization, and subsequent destruction of the battery electric vehicle in the United States, specifically the General Motors EV1 of the mid-1990s. The film explores the roles of automobile manufacturers, the oil industry, the US government, the California government, batteries, hydrogen vehicles, and consumers in limiting the development and adoption of this technology. After a premiere at the Sundance Film Festival, it was released theatrically by Sony Pictures Classics in June, 2006 and then on DVD by Sony Pictures Home Entertainment on November 14, 2006. During an interview with CBS News, director Chris Paine announced that he had started a new documentary about electric cars with a working title of "Who Saved the Electric Car?", later renamed "Revenge of the Electric Car", which had its world premiere at the 2011 Tribeca Film Festival on Earth Day, April 22, 2011. Topics addressed. The film deals with the history of the electric car, its modern development, and commercialization. The film focuses primarily on the General Motors EV1, which was made available for lease mainly in Southern California, after the California Air Resources Board (CARB) passed the Zero-emissions vehicle (ZEV) mandate in 1990 which required the seven major automobile suppliers in the United States to offer electric vehicles in order to continue sales of their gasoline powered vehicles in California. Nearly 5000 electric cars were designed and manufactured by GM, Toyota, Honda, Ford, Nissan, and Chrysler; and then later destroyed or donated to museums and educational institutions. Also discussed are the implications of the events depicted for air pollution, oil dependency, Middle East politics, and global warming. The film details the California Air Resources Board's reversal of the mandate after relentless pressure and suits from automobile manufacturers, continual pressure from the oil industry, orchestrated hype over a future hydrogen car, and finally the George W. Bush administration.
1100547	John Venn FRS (4 August 1834 â 4 April 1923), was a British logician and philosopher. He is famous for introducing the Venn diagram, which is used in many fields, including set theory, probability, logic, statistics, and computer science. Life and work. John Venn was born in 1834 in Hull, Yorkshire. His mother, Martha Sykes, came from Swanland, near Hull, and died while John was only three. His father was the Rev. Henry Venn who, at the time of John's birth, was the rector of the parish of Drypool near Hull. Henry Venn, a fellow of Queens', was from a family of distinction. His own father, John's grandfather, was the Reverend John Venn who had been the rector of Clapham in south London. He was a leader of the Clapham Sect, a group of evangelical Christians centered on his church who campaigned for prison reform and the abolition of slavery and cruel sports. His son described him thus: " "Of spare build, he was throughout his life a fine walker and mountain climber, a keen botanist, and an excellent talker and linguist."" John Venn's father (Henry) also played a prominent role in the evangelical Christian movement. The Society for Missions to Africa and the East was founded by evangelical clergy of the Church of England in 1799, and in 1812 it was renamed the Church Missionary Society for Africa and the East. Henry Venn was secretary to this Society from 1841. He moved to Highgate near London in order to carry out his duties and held this position until his death in 1873. John Venn was brought up strictly. It was expected that he would follow the family tradition into the Christian ministry. After Highgate School, he entered Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, in 1853. He was graduated in 1857 and shortly afterward was elected a fellow of the college. He was ordained as a deacon at Ely in 1858 and became a priest in 1859. In 1862 he returned to Cambridge as a lecturer in moral sciences. Venn also had a rare skill in building machines. He used his skill to build a machine for bowling cricket balls, which was so good that when the Australian Cricket team visited Cambridge in 1909, Venn's machine clean bowled one of its top stars four times. Venn's main area of interest was logic and he published three texts on the subject. He wrote "The Logic of Chance" which introduced the frequency interpretation or frequency theory of probability in 1866, "Symbolic Logic" which introduced the Venn diagrams in 1881, and "The Principles of Empirical Logic" in 1889. In 1883, Venn was elected to the Royal Society. In 1897, he wrote a history of his college, called "The Biographical History of Gonville and Caius College,1849â1897". He began a compilation of biographical notes of Cambridge University alumni, a work which was continued by his son, John Archibald Venn (1883â1958) and published as "Alumni Cantabrigienses" in 10 volumes from 1922-1953. John Venn died in 1923 at Cambridge, and was buried nearby at Trumpington Churchyard (Extension). In 1867 Venn married Susanna Carnegie Edmonstone, the daughter of the Rev. Charles Edmonstone. They had one child, a son, John Archibald Venn, who in 1932 became president of Queens' College, Cambridge. The Venns, father and son, wrote "Alumni Cantabrigienses" together (see below). "The annals of a clerical family" (1904) traces the Venn family history back to the seventeenth century - he was the eighth generation of his family to have a university education. In 1910 he published a work on historical biography, namely a treatise on John Caius, one of the founders of his College. Three years later he published "Early Collegiate Life" which collected many of his writings describing what life was like in the early days of Cambridge University. Working with his son he then started the immense task of compiling a history of Cambridge University "Alumni Cantabrigienses". The first volume, published in 1922, contained 76,000 names and covered the period up to 1751. It was "nothing less than a 'biographical list of all known students, graduates, and holders of office at the University of Cambridge from the earliest times to 1900'. ... The Venns, father and son, spared no industry in building up these records, which are of extraordinary value to historians and genealogists ..."
1299931	The Long Weekend is a 2005 Canadian film starring Chris Klein and Brendan Fehr as two brothers, Cooper (Klein) and Ed Waxman (Fehr). It also stars Chelan Simmons, Paul Campbell, Chandra West, and Cobie Smulders. Plot. Cooper is an actor who sees life as one big party, while Ed is in advertising and takes life too seriously. When Ed gets stressed over a deadline he has to meet, Cooper works to get his brother hooked up with a girl, thus a long weekend of stress and beautiful women, culminating in Ed's meeting, and making love to, the woman of his dreams- and all without his brother's meddling.
1067082	Open Season 3 is a 2011 American computer-animated comedy film. It is the third and final installment in the "Open Season" film series, following "Open Season" (2006) and "Open Season 2" (2008). The film was directed by Cody Cameron, and produced by Sony Pictures Animation and Reel FX Creative Studios. It theatrically premiered in Russia on October 21, 2010, and was released as a direct-to-video in the United States on January 25, 2011. Most of the previous actors reprised their roles, with the exception of Joel McHale, Mike Epps, Jane Krakowski, Billy Connolly, and Jon Favreau. They are joined by new characters that are voiced by Matthew J. Munn, Melissa Sturm, Dana Snyder, Karley Scott Collins, Ciara Bravo, Harrison Fahn, and Cody Cameron. Unlike its predecessors, "Open Season 3" received mostly negative reviews by critics. Plot. Boog plans an annual guys trip to spend time with his male friends. However, Elliot has distanced himself from him since he had started a family with Giselle. They are now the parents of three kids: Gisela, Giselita and Elvis. Boog is disappointed since everyone else wants to spend time with their families which makes Boog go on a trip of his own, which leads him to a Russian traveling circus. While in the circus, Boog meets Doug, a lazy, scruffy grizzly bear who is tired of performing in the circus on the sidelines. He craves recognition as a full-fledged king of the forest, the ruler of wildlife. Doug convinces Boog to switch his life in the forest for Doug's place at the circus. Boog accepts the offer, but the whole thing turns out a scam since all Doug wants to do was escape. Meanwhile, Boog falls madly in love with Ursa, a female grizzly bear who was born in Russia and can effortlessly walk on a tightrope, juggle and dance. When the couple begin working together, they obtain much more as a harmonious duet than it might seem at first glance. When Boog's pals find out about Boog's disappearance, they, as well as the pets put aside their differences and hatch a rescue mission to save Boog. Boog's friends arrive at the circus. They want Boog to return home, but he does not want to leave Ursa. Suddenly, Doug arrives and apologizes to Boog for tricking him. While Doug performs the circus acts for the audience, Elliot tells Boog that he can stay at the circus if he wants to. Boog does not want to leave Ursa or Elliot, so he convinces Ursa to go live in the forest with them. Ursa enjoys life in the forest. The guys finally go on the guys trip and sing Willie Nelson's "On the Road Again." In a post-credits scene, Alistair and Doug are enjoying their tour around the world. Production. "Open Season 3" was animated at Reel FX Creative Studios, which also did animation for "Open Season 2". Release. Like "Open Season 2", the movie was released theatrically in different countries:'"
1068667	Bandidas is a 2006 French/Mexican/American Western action comedy starring Salma Hayek and Penélope Cruz directed by Norwegian directors Joachim Rønning and Espen Sandberg and produced and written by Luc Besson. It tells the tale of two very different women in mid-19th century Mexico who become a bank robbing duo in an effort to combat a ruthless enforcer terrorising their town. This is the first movie that Cruz and Hayek starred in together. It was a co-production among France, the United States and Mexico.
589078	Doosra Aadmi (The Second Man) is a 1977 Hindi film, produced by Yash Chopra and directed by Ramesh Talwar. The film stars Rishi Kapoor, Neetu Singh, Raakhee, Shashi Kapoor, Deven Verma and Parikshat Sahni. The films music is by Rajesh Roshan. Plot summary. Nisha (Raakhee), an accomplished architect is a reclusive after the tragic death of her boyfriend, Shashi Saigal (Shashi Kapoor). This is when Karan Saxena (Rishi Kapoor) offers her employment with his advertising agency, she accepts. Though only she knows that Karan, newly married with Timsi (Neetu Singh) resembles Shashi a lot, and she will do anything in her power to get him and ... Soundtrack. The soundtrack includes the following tracks, composed by Rajesh Roshan, and with lyrics by Majrooh Sultanpuri
1049341	Act of Violence is a 1948 film noir directed by Fred Zinnemann and adapted for the screen by Robert L. Richards from a story by Collier Young, featuring performances by Van Heflin, Robert Ryan, and Janet Leigh. Plot. Frank Enley (Van Heflin), returns home from World War II after surviving a German POW camp where the rest of his comrades had been murdered by guards during an escape attempt. The "war hero" is respected and praised for his fine character and good works in the California town of Santa Lisa, where he, his young wife and baby had settled after moving from the East. What he does not know is that Joe Parkson (Robert Ryan), once his best friend, also lived through the ordeal, though he was left with a crippled leg. In exchange for food, Frank had alerted the Nazi camp commander to their escape plans, thinking wrongly that the men would not be punished, and Joe is now determined finally to exact justice on Frank. Frank's young wife Edith (Janet Leigh) is completely in the dark about his transgressions, while Joe's girlfriend knows everything about her man, but cannot dissuade him from his passion to set past wrongs right by seeing Frank dead. Frank must confront his dark past and the truth that he is a coward, not a hero.
1052942	Johnny Simmons (born November 28, 1986) is an American actor, most notable for being the traitor in the music video for Drake's single Hold On, We're Going Home. Simmons was born in Montgomery, Alabama, and was raised in Dallas, Texas, where he attended Nathan Adams Elementary and T. C. Marsh Middle School. He is a 2005 graduate of W. T. White High School. Simmons landed his first role in the feature film "Evan Almighty", in which he plays Dylan Baxter, opposite Steve Carell and Lauren Graham. In 2012, he co-starred with Logan Lerman, Emma Watson, and Ezra Miller in the teen drama "The Perks of Being a Wallflower". Johnny is a relative of Founding Father Patrick Henry and a third cousin of Confederate General Robert Edward Lee.
1104285	Dame Mary Lucy Cartwright DBE FRS (17 December 1900 – 3 April 1998) was a British mathematician. With J. E. Littlewood she was the first to analyze a dynamical system with chaos. She was born in Aynho, Northamptonshire where her father was the vicar and died in Cambridge, England. Through her grandmother Jane Holbech she was descended from the poet John Donne and William Mompesson, the Vicar of Eyam. Career. She studied mathematics at St Hugh's College, Oxford, graduating in 1923 with a first class degree. She was the first woman to attain the final degree lectures and to obtain a first. She then taught at Alice Ottley School in Worcester and Wycombe Abbey School in Buckinghamshire before returning to Oxford in 1928 to read for her D.Phil. She was supervised by G. H. Hardy in her doctoral studies. During the academic year 1928–9 Hardy was at Princeton, so it was E. C. Titchmarsh who took over the duties as a supervisor. Her thesis on zeros of entire functions was examined by J. E. Littlewood whom she met for the first time as an external examiner in her oral examination for the D.Phil. She would later establish an enduring collaboration with Littlewood. In 1930 Cartwright was awarded a Yarrow Research Fellowship and she went to Girton College, Cambridge, to continue working on the topic of her doctoral thesis. Attending Littlewood's lectures, she solved one of the open problems which he posed. Her theorem, now known as Cartwright's theorem, gives an estimate for the maximum modulus of an analytic function that takes the same value no more than "p" times in the unit disc. To prove the theorem she used a new approach, applying a technique introduced by Lars Ahlfors for conformal mappings. In 1936 she became director of studies in mathematics at Girton College, and in 1938 she began work on a new project which had a major impact on the direction of her research. The Radio Research Board of the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research produced a memorandum regarding certain differential equations which came out of modeling radio and radar work. They asked the London Mathematical Society if they could help find a mathematician who could work on these problems and Cartwright became interested in this memorandum. The dynamics lying behind the problems were unfamiliar to Cartwright so she approached Littlewood for help with this aspect. They began to collaborate studying the equations. Littlewood wrote: The fine structure which Littlewood describes here is today seen to be a typical instance of the butterfly effect. The collaboration led to important results, and these have greatly influenced the direction that the modern theory of dynamical systems has taken. In 1945 she simplified Hermite's elementary proof of the irrationality of π. Her version of the proof was published in an appendix to Sir Harold Jeffreys' book "Scientific Inference". In 1947 she was elected to be a Fellow of the Royal Society and, although she was not the first woman to be elected to that Society, she was the first female mathematician. Cartwright was appointed Mistress of Girton in 1948 then, in addition, a Reader in the Theory of Functions in Cambridge in 1959, holding this appointment until 1968. She was the first woman: She also received the De Morgan Medal of the Society in 1968. In 1969 she received the distinction of being honoured by the Queen, becoming Dame Mary Cartwright, Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire.
1374797	The Lost Thing is a 2000 picture book, written and illustrated by Shaun Tan. Plot. Set in the near future, in dystopian Melbourne, Australia, "The Lost Thing" is a story about Shaun who enjoys collecting bottle tops for his bottle top collection. One day, while collecting bottle tops near a beach, he discovers a strange creature, that seems to be a combination of an industrial boiler, a crab, and an octopus. This creature is referred to as "The Lost Thing" by the narrator. Shaun realizes the creature is lost and out of place. He attempts to find its owner but is not able to, due to the indifference of everyone else. As he is looking for the creature's owner, he is met by a creature who gives him a business card with an arrowhead sign on it. After searching much of the city for the sign, which they find all across the city, Shaun is able to find the sign and follows it to a similarly utopian land for lost things, where he returns the creature,and continues on with his life - although he was unable to say whether the creature really belonged there. 2010 film. This book was adapted into a 15-minute animated short film in 2010, directed by Shaun Tan and Andrew Ruhemann and narrated by Tim Minchin. It won the Oscar for Best Animated Short. It was nominated for the 2011 Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form.
585888	Meesa Madhavan (Malayalam: മീശ മാധവന്‍, English: "Mustache Madhavan") is a 2002 Malayalam romantic comedy film directed by Lal Jose and written by Ranjan Pramod; starring Dileep in the title role. The film went on to become a blockbuster and the highest grossing Malayalam film of the year, and also established Dileep's status as a star. In 2003, this film was remade in Telugu as "Dongodu" starring Ravi Teja and Kalyani and in Kannada as "Hori" starring Vinod Prabhakar. It was also unofficially remade in Tamil as "Kollaikaran" starring Vidharth. Plot. Madhavan (Dileep) is a clever thief who does robbery for a living. He is following the principles of his mentor Mullani Pappan (Mala Aravindan). Meesa Madhavan got his name by the popular saying that if Madhavan rolls his Mustache (Meesa in Malayalam) looking at someone, he will rob his house that night. His enemy was a local money lender Bhageerathan Pillai (Jagathy Sreekumar) who refused to give back his father's property. Madhavan falls in love in Bhageerathan Pillai's daughter Rukmini (Kavya Madhavan). The sub inspector in the village Eappen Pappachi (Indrajith) has an eye on Rukmini. He steals the idol from the local Temple with the intention of selling it and puts the blame on Madhavan. It becomes Madhavan's responsibility to find the culprits and he does that with his mentor's help and thus uniting with his girl friend. Reception. The film was the highest grossing film of the year 2002 with a collection of over 15 crores. It had completed 100 days in all the major cinemas and ran over 250 days.It gave its lead actor Dileep the name "Janapriyanaayakan" (Popular Star). Soundtrack. The music album of "Meesa Madhavan" happens to be one of the most popular works of Vidyasagar. The lyrics were written by Gireesh Puthenchery.
1162493	Roger Perry (born May 7, 1933) is an American film and television actor whose career began in the late 1950s. In the 1960–1961 television season, Perry portrayed a handsome young attorney, Jim Harrigan, Jr., in the ABC/Desilu Studios sitcom "Harrigan and Son", with co-stars Pat O'Brien, Helen Kleeb, and Georgine Darcy. Perry guest starred on numerous American television series from the 1950s through the 1980s. His first television appearance was as Ted Jarvis in the 1958 episode "Paper Bullets" of the syndicated crime drama, "U.S. Marshal", starring John Bromfield. Perry appeared with James Coburn and John Dehner in the 1960 episode "Friend of the Family" of the CBS western series, "The Texan", starring Rory Calhoun. One of his best known roles was that of Captain John Christopher in NBC's "" episode "Tomorrow Is Yesterday". Other television series where he appeared as guest star or as a semi-regular cast member included "Love, American Style", "Ironside", "The F.B.I.", "The Eleventh Hour", "Barnaby Jones", "The Facts of Life", and "Falcon Crest". He was married to actress Jo Anne Worley ("Laugh In") for twenty-five years. They divorced in 2000. They had no children. Since 2002, he has been married to actress Joyce Bulifant. Perry served as an intelligence officer in the United States Air Force during the early 1950s.
1100159	In numerical analysis, Richardson extrapolation is a sequence acceleration method, used to improve the rate of convergence of a sequence. It is named after Lewis Fry Richardson, who introduced the technique in the early 20th century. In the words of Birkhoff and Rota, "... its usefulness for practical computations can hardly be overestimated." Practical applications of Richardson extrapolation include Romberg integration, which applies Richardson extrapolation to the trapezoid rule, and the Bulirsch–Stoer algorithm for solving ordinary differential equations. Example of Richardson extrapolation. Suppose that we wish to approximate formula_1, and we have a method formula_2 that depends on a small parameter formula_3, so that formula_4 Define a new method
1016006	Infernal Affairs is a 2002 Hong Kong crime-thriller film directed by Andrew Lau and Alan Mak. It tells the story of a police officer who infiltrates a triad, and a police officer secretly working for the same gang. The Chinese title means ""The Unceasing Path"", a reference to Avici, the lowest level of hell in Buddhism, where one endures suffering incessantly. The English title is a word play combining the law enforcement term "internal affairs" with the adjective "infernal". Due to its commercial and critical success, "Infernal Affairs" was followed by a prequel, "Infernal Affairs II", and a sequel, "Infernal Affairs III", both released in 2003. Pre-release publicity for "Infernal Affairs" focused on its star-studded cast (Andy Lau, Tony Leung, Anthony Wong, Eric Tsang, Kelly Chen and Sammi Cheng), but it later received critical acclaim for its original plot and its concise and swift storytelling style. The film did exceptionally well in Hong Kong, where it was considered "a box office miracle" and heralded as a revival of Hong Kong cinema which at the time was considered to be direly lacking in creativity. Miramax Films acquired the United States distribution rights of this film and gave it a limited U.S. theatrical release in 2004. "Infernal Affairs" was remade by Martin Scorsese in 2006 as "The Departed", which went on to win the Academy Award for Best Picture. Plot. "Infernal Affairs" focuses on a police officer named Chan Wing-yan (Tony Leung), who goes undercover into a triad, and a triad member Lau Kin-ming (Andy Lau), who infiltrates the Hong Kong Police Force. Each mole has been planted by the rival organisation to gain an advantage in intelligence over the other side. The more the moles become involved in their undercover lives, the more issues they have to cope with. The prologue opens with the introduction of triad boss Hon Sam (Eric Tsang), who sends a number of young gangsters to the police academy as moles, among whom include a young Lau. Concurrently, a young Chan joins the police force but is seemingly expelled from the academy even though he manages to impress Superintendent Wong Chi-shing (Anthony Wong). In reality, Chan has become an undercover agent reporting only to Wong. Over the course of ten years, Chan experiences great stress from his undercover work while Lau quickly rises through the ranks in the police department. The film begins with a meeting between Chan and Lau in a hi-fi store without either of them knowing the other's identity. Wong and his team interrupt a deal between Hon Sam and a Thai cocaine dealer after receiving a tip-off from Chan using Morse code. However, Lau alerts Hon, giving him enough time to order his minions to dispose of the cocaine, eliminating solid evidence of the drug deal. After the incident, Wong and Hon are both aware that they each have a mole within their respective organisations, placing them in a race against time to root out the other mole. Later, Chan sees Hon conversing with Lau at a cinema but does not see Lau's face clearly; he ultimately fails to capture Lau. By this time, both Chan and Lau are struggling with their double identities – Chan starts losing faith in himself as a cop after being a gangster for ten years; Lau becomes more accustomed to the life of a police officer and he wants to erase his criminal background. At their next meeting, Wong intends to pull Chan out of undercover work for fear of his safety. They are unaware that Lau has his subordinate, CIB Inspector B, are tracking him. Meanwhile, Hon sends "Crazy" Keung and other henchmen to confront them after receiving intel from Lau. Inspector B informs Lau and sends an OCTB squad to save Wong. Chan flees from the building using a crane while Wong sacrifices himself to save him by distracting Hon's men. Wong is beaten and thrown off the roof by the gangsters. As the police close in, a shootout ensues in which several gangsters are killed. Keung drives Chan away from the scene, but later dies from a mortal gunshot wound. It is report on the news that Keung himself was an undercover cop; Hon assumes that he was the mole and that Chan killed him to protect the triad. Lau retrieves Wong's cell phone and contacts Chan, with both of them agreeing to foil a drug deal by Hon. The plan succeeds and many of Hon's men are arrested, while Lau betrays Hon and kills him. Everything seems to have returned to normal – Chan can revert to his true identity as a cop, while Lau has erased his criminal connections by eliminating Hon's triad. However, back at police headquarters, Chan discovers that Lau was the mole and leaves immediately. Lau, realising what has happened, erases Chan's file from the police database. Chan spends an evening with his therapist, Dr. Lee Sum-yee, with whom he has fallen in love. He sends to Lau a compact disc with a recording that Hon kept between himself and Lau; the disc is inadvertently intercepted by Lau's girlfriend, Mary. Chan and Lau meet on the same rooftop where Wong was killed earlier. Chan disarms Lau without resistance and holds his Glock 17 to Lau's head, as a rebuke to Lau's plea for forgiveness and request to remain as a cop. Inspector B arrives on the scene shortly and orders Chan to release Lau. Chan holds Lau as a hostage at gunpoint and backs into an elevator, but upon moving his head from behind Lau he is suddenly shot in the head by B. B then reveals to Lau that he is also a mole planted by Hon. As they take the lift down to the lobby, Lau kills B out of his desire to eradicate traces of his past, become a "good guy" cop, and end the mole hunt. The original ending climaxes with Lau identifying himself to the police as one of them. Lee discovers records revealing Chan as the undercover officer; B is blamed of being the mole within the force and the case is closed. Lau salutes Chan at his funeral, with Cheung and Lee present as well. A flashback reaffirms the point that Lau wished he had taken a different route in life. In mainland China, an alternate ending for the film was created, in which Lau exits the elevator and is informed by Cheung that the police have found evidence that he was a mole. Lau hands them his badge and is arrested without protest. The sequel, "Infernal Affairs III", uses the original ending instead of the alternate one. Reception. "Infernal Affairs" was released on December 12, 2002 to Hong Kong Theaters to universal critical acclaim. Review tallying website Rotten Tomatoes reported that 57 of the tallied 60 reviews were positive, for a score of 95% and a certification of "fresh". "Infernal Affairs" won seven out of the sixteen awards it was nominated for at the 22nd Hong Kong Film Awards, beating Zhang Yimou's "Hero" for the Best Film award. It also won Best Picture awards in the Golden Horse Awards and the Golden Bauhinia Awards among other awards too. It was ranked No. 30 in "Empire" magazine's "The 100 Best Films Of World Cinema" in 2010. It is considered to be one of the best films of all time and is the highest ranked Hong Kong film on Internet Movie Database's Top 250 movies list. Box office. "Infernal Affairs" has grossed HK$55,057,176 in Hong Kong and USD$169,659 in North America. Music. The original film score for "Infernal Affairs" was written and performed by Chan Kwong-wing. The theme song, "Infernal Affairs" (無間道), was composed by Ronald Ng, lyrics provided by Albert Leung, and performed in Cantonese and Mandarin by Andy Lau and Tony Leung. Remake films and products. In 2003, Plan B Entertainment acquired the rights for a Hollywood remake, titled "The Departed", which was directed by Martin Scorsese, and starred Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon, Jack Nicholson, and Mark Wahlberg, set in Boston, Massachusetts, roughly based on the life of famed Boston mobster James "Whitey" Bulger. "The Departed" was released on 6 October 2006 and went to critical acclaim and won the Academy Award for Best Picture. Andy Lau, Eric Tsang and Jacky Cheung parodied the cinema scene to promote the Hong Kong Film Awards. Lau and Tsang, in their respective characters, go through the scene where they meet to gather info on the undercover cop amongst Hon Sam's gang. Lau Kin-ming asks Hon "Why do we always meet in a cinema?", to which Hon answers "It's quiet. No one comes to movies". Jacky Cheung comes out from the shadows behind them and says "I don't know...quite a few people watch movies" and we see a slew of Hong Kong celebrities watching various clips of Hong Kong films on the screen. Originally Tony Leung was going to appear but scheduling conflicts led to the recasting. The 2003 TVB spoof celebrating the Chinese New Year called "Mo Ba To" (吐氣羊眉賀新春之無霸道), the 2004 comedy film "Love Is a Many Stupid Thing" by Wong Jing, and the 2004 TVB television drama "Shades of Truth" were rewritings based on the plot of the film. In Taiwan SHODA (劉裕銘) and a secondary school student Blanka (布蘭卡) cut and rearranged the original film and inserted new sound tracks to produce their videos "Infernal Affairs CD pro2" and "Infernal Affairs iPod" on the web. The videos had many views and both producers removed their videos after receiving cease and desist letters from the Group Power Workshop Limited (群體工作室), the Taiwan distributor of the film. Media Asia released a limited edition of 8 DVD set of the "Infernal Affairs" trilogy in an Ultimate Collectible Boxset (無間道終極珍藏DVD系列(8DVD套裝)) on 20 December 2004. Features included an online game and two Chinese fictional novels of the film series by Lee Muk-Tung (李牧童), titled 無間道I+II小說 ISBN 962-672-259-2 and 無間道III終極無間小說 ISBN 962-672-271-1. The hi-fi shop scene was later recreated with additions of excerpts of the film to encourage businesses to join the Quality Tourism Services Scheme in Hong Kong. In 2009, a Korean remake "City of Damnation", which was directed by Kim Dong-won was released on 22 January 2009. In 2009, a Telugu remake "Homam", which directed and acted by JD Chakravarthy along with Jagapathi Babu was released and became a notable movie. In 2012, "Double Face" (ダブルフェイス), a Japanese television remake starring Hidetoshi Nishijima was released by TBS and WOWOW. The production aired in two parts: "Police Impersonation" on WOWOW and "Undercover" on TBS.
1058265	Celia Weston (born December 14, 1951) is an American actress of stage, film and television, and a character actress. Professionally, she may be best known for her role as Jolene Hunnicutt on "Alice". Career. Celia Weston can be seen on weekly television drama "Memphis Beat" with Jason Lee and Alfre Woodard. In the Fall of 2010, Weston appeared on ABC's "Modern Family" as Cam's mother. Personal life. Weston is a graduate of Salem College in Winston-Salem, North Carolina and the University of North Carolina School of the Arts. She lives in New York City.
1150391	Gerald William "Jerry" Trainor (born January 21, 1977) is an American actor, comedian, and voice actor, widely known for playing Crazy Steve on "Drake & Josh". He is also known as Spencer Shay on "iCarly" and the title character Dudley Puppy on "T.U.F.F. Puppy" as well as appearing on the web series "Hungry Girl TV". Trainor most recently played Vinnie in the Nickelodeon show "Wendell & Vinnie". Life and career. Trainor was born and raised in San Diego, California, the son of Bill Trainor and Madelyn (née McNenly) Trainor. Trainor studied improv at the Groundlings school in Los Angeles. Trainor also studied theatre at the University of California, Santa Barbara.
1060140	"Miller's Crossing" is a 1990 American gangster film by the Coen brothers and starring Gabriel Byrne, Albert Finney, Marcia Gay Harden, Jon Polito and John Turturro. The plot concerns a power struggle between two rival gangs and how the protagonist, Tom Reagan (Gabriel Byrne), plays both sides off each other. In 2005, "Time" chose "Miller's Crossing" as one of the 100 greatest films made since the inception of the periodical. "Time" critic Richard Corliss called it a "noir with a touch so light, the film seems to float on the breeze like the Frisbee of a fedora sailing through the forest." Plot. Tom Reagan (Byrne) is the long-time confidant of Leo O'Bannon (Finney), an Irish American political boss who runs a city during the Prohibition-era. When Leo's up-and-coming Italian rival Johnny Caspar (Polito) announces his intent to kill bookie Bernie Bernbaum (Turturro), Leo goes against Tom's advice and extends his protection to Bernie. Bernie is the brother of Verna Bernbaum (Harden), an opportunistic gun moll who has begun a relationship with Leo while carrying on a long-term secret affair with Tom. Leo and Caspar go to war as a consequence. Tom tries everything he can to convince Leo to give Bernie up to Caspar to end the war; he attempts to convince Leo that Verna is playing him to protect her brother, but Leo will not be swayed. After an assassination attempt on Leo, Tom reveals his affair with Verna to Leo to prove that she is dishonest, causing Leo to beat Tom and turn his back on both. Tom then appears to change sides and goes to work for the ascendant Caspar. He is immediately commanded to kill Bernie at Miller's Crossing to prove his loyalty. Bernie pleads with Tom to spare him, and Tom allows him to escape. The war goes well for Caspar and he assumes Leo's position as boss of the city. However, Tom begins sowing discord between Caspar and his trusted enforcer, Eddie Dane (Freeman). At the same time, Bernie returns and tries to blackmail Tom into killing Caspar. Tom's machinations convince Caspar to kill Eddie Dane. Tom then arranges a meeting with Bernie, but sends Caspar instead. Bernie gets the jump on Caspar and kills him. Tom arrives and tricks Bernie into giving up his gun, saying they could blame Eddie Dane, then reveals his intention to kill Bernie. Bernie again begs for mercy, saying "Look into your heart", but Tom shoots him.
430915	Jesse Plemons (born April 2, 1988) is an American film and television actor. He is known for his roles as Landry Clarke in "Friday Night Lights" and as Todd Alquist in the final season of "Breaking Bad". Career. After appearing in the films "Varsity Blues" and "All the Pretty Horses", and guest-starring on "Walker, Texas Ranger" and "Sabrina, the Teenage Witch", Plemons' first prominent role was in the 2002 film "Like Mike" alongside Bow Wow and Jonathan Lipnicki. He later went on to appear in "Children on Their Birthdays" and "When Zachary Beaver Came to Town", with guest roles on the television series "Judging Amy", "The Lyon's Den", "" and "Grey's Anatomy" between 2003 and 2006. In 2006, Plemons joined the ensemble cast of NBC's television series "Friday Night Lights", detailing the fictional events surrounding a high school football team in Dillon, Texas. In the show's first season, his character Landry Clarke provided comic relief as the best friend of football quarterback Matt Saracen, though Landry himself was not on the team. He says that, among the cast and crew, it was a joke that Plemons played football better than most of the other actors even though his character was one of the few that did not play. Landry joined the football team in the second season, and Plemons, having played high school football before, told director Jeffrey Reiner that he would do his own stunts. In his first football scene, Plemons as Landry had to "get the crap beat out of over and over and over again". When hit by co-star Taylor Kitsch, his chin split open and he had to have 11 stitches. He is the second-youngest original main cast member on the series, behind Aimee Teegarden. He reunited with Kitsch and "Friday Night Lights" creator Peter Berg in the 2012 film "Battleship". Berg, who directed the film, explained he knew how comfortable Kitsch was with Plemons, "I know that he’s really good for Taylor and he makes Taylor better. So, I wrote that whole part for Jesse." He added, "I never thought of it as a "Friday Night Lights" reunion. I thought of it as protection, bringing a trusted family member in." In May 2012, Plemons joined the cast of "Breaking Bad" for its fifth and final season. Personal life. Plemons was raised in Mart, Texas. He resides in Austin. In 2007, he graduated from the Texas Tech University Independent School District, a distance learning program, which allowed him to earn his high school diploma. He also writes songs, plays guitar and sings in the band Cowboy and Indian.
1014947	Color of the Cross is a 2006 religious film written by, directed by, and starring Jean-Claude La Marre.
1598164	Thunderbird 6 is a 1968 British science-fiction adventure film written by Gerry and Sylvia Anderson, directed by David Lane and produced by Century 21 Cinema. A sequel to 1966's "Thunderbirds Are Go", it was the second film to be adapted from the 1960s television series "Thunderbirds", which combined scale models and special effects with marionette puppet characters in a filming process that the Andersons termed "Supermarionation". Intended to provide a lighter-hearted cinematic experience to contrast with the harder science of "Thunderbirds Are Go", the Andersons elected to base the plot of "Thunderbird 6" on "Skyship One", a futuristic airship that is the latest project of the scientist Brains. Alan, Tin-Tin, Lady Penelope and Parker represent International Rescue on "Skyship One"'s round-the-world maiden flight, unaware that criminal mastermind The Hood is once again plotting to acquire the secrets of the "Thunderbird" machines. Paid agents of The Hood murder the original crew of "Skyship One" prior to take-off and assume their identities, entertaining the guests while scheming to lure the Tracy brothers into a trap. Meanwhile, Brains' efforts to produce a satisfactory design concept for Jeff's proposed "Thunderbird 6" collide with fate when "Skyship One" is damaged and Alan's old Tiger Moth biplane appears to be the only hope of saving the International Rescue group and their impostor hosts. Actors John Carson and Geoffrey Keen provide guest speaking roles, with additions to the regular voice cast in the form of Keith Alexander and Gary Files. The design of the puppets that appear in "Thunderbird 6" marks a transition between the caricatures that Century 21 had used up to "Thunderbirds Are Go" and the realism introduced i "Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons". Filming ran from May to December 1967, and the art and special effects departments collaborated to realise "Skyship One" as both a miniature model and a collection of themed interior designs. A number of sequences of the Tiger Moth in flight were filmed on location with a full-sized stunt plane, but a legal dispute with the Ministry of Transport regarding alleged dangerous flying by pilot Joan Hughes forced the production team to film the remaining shots in-studio with scale replicas. Released in July 1968, "Thunderbird 6" had a mediocre reception at the box office, which ruled out the production of further sequels in the "Thunderbirds" film series. Critical response has remained mixed: although the special effects have been praised, commentators are divided on the quality of the plotting, which is considered either well-paced and concluding on a note of high action, or confusing and inordinately long, with little visual spectacle to contrast with the dialogue. Nevertheless, "Thunderbird 6" is viewed favourably in comparison to Jonathan Frakes' 2004 film adaptation, receiving praise for the perceived agelessness of its entertainment value. Plot. In 2068, the New World Aircraft Corporation (NWAC) provides Brains, the inventor of the "Thunderbird" machines of the humanitarian International Rescue organisation, with an open brief to design a revolutionary aircraft. Although Brains is ridiculed when he proposes an airship for the 21st century, NWAC accepts his blueprints and builds "Skyship One", which will circumnavigate the world on its maiden flight with pre-programmed stopover destinations. Alan, Tin-Tin, Lady Penelope and Parker will represent International Rescue as special guests. Brains, meanwhile, is forced to remain on Tracy Island when Jeff decides that International Rescue requires a "Thunderbird 6". Contracted to design this latest addition to the "Thunderbirds" fleet with no specification, Brains produces a range of concepts, all of which are rejected by Jeff. Alan and Tin-Tin travel to England in an old Tiger Moth biplane and join Penelope and Parker. As "Skyship One" embarks on its round-the-world voyage, the International Rescue guests are unaware that Captain Foster and the stewards have been murdered and replaced by agents in the pay of The Hood, who is operating under the alias of "Black Phantom" and is based at the disused El Hadim airfield near Casablanca in Morocco. Codenamed "White Ghost", the impostors are not required to demonstrate technical knowledge of "Skyship One" since it incorporates automated systems, meaning that the trip passes without incident as the airship visits such locations as New York, the Grand Canyon, then Rio de Janeiro and India. Penelope has been warming to the dashing impersonator of Captain Foster, but uncovers a listening device in her room after "Skyship One" passes through the Egyptian Pyramids. Foster and his associates have secretly been recording and editing Penelope's speech to assemble a false transmission, which requests that Jeff dispatch "Thunderbirds 1" and "2", with Brains on board, to El Hadim airfield where The Hood and his henchmen will be waiting to hi-jack the machines. When "Skyship One" makes its final stop in the Swiss Alps, Parker locates the editing equipment, but the transmission has been finished and is soon sent to John on "Thunderbird 5". Alan determines the threat against International Rescue just in time for Penelope to contact Jeff in person and warn that "Thunderbirds 1" and "2" are about to be ambushed. Dispatched by Jeff in accordance with the transmission, Scott and Virgil now open fire on and annihilate The Hood's hideout. On "Skyship One", Alan, Penelope and Parker battle Foster and his associates in a gunfight and kill two of the five White Ghost operatives, but are forced to surrender when Tin-Tin is captured as a hostage. One of the "Gravity Compensators" has also been damaged in the fighting, causing the airship to lose altitude. Crossing the English coast, it crashes into a radio mast at a missile base in Dover. With the airship balanced precariously on top of the mast and its anti-gravity field dropping, it is up to Scott, Virgil and Brains to rescue all on board before it collapses onto the base. On Tracy Island, Gordon proposes that Alan's Tiger Moth, in storage at the NWAC Headquarters, is light enough to land on the airship without precipitating its fall. Brains pilots the plane onto the top deck but is confronted by Foster and his two surviving associates. Holding Penelope hostage in the cockpit, Foster intends to abandon the others, but Alan shoots and kills the impostor. The Tiger Moth lifts off again with all hanging on to either the wings or undercarriage, just before "Skyship One" crashes to the ground and obliterates the evacuated missile base in a chain reaction. A shootout on board the Tiger Moth disposes of the last of the White Ghost agents, but a bullet has penetrated the fuel tank and the controls will not respond to Penelope. After narrow misses with a bridge on the unfinished M104 motorway and an exhaust tower, Alan and Penelope finally manage to ditch the plane into a field with Tin-Tin, Parker and Brains all unhurt. Back on Tracy Island, Brains unveils "Thunderbird 6" as none other than the repaired, repainted and revamped Tiger Moth, which all agree has proven its value as a rescue aircraft. Production. Despite the unexpected failure of "Thunderbirds Are Go" on its release in December 1966, the United Artists distributors authorised a sequel, to be budgeted at £300,000. Major production credits were unchanged from the first film: while Gerry and Sylvia Anderson scripted the film in three months and returned as producers, David Lane filled the position of director. The plot of the ill-fated "Skyship One" was intended to be more light-hearted than that of "Zero-X" in "Thunderbirds Are Go", although at the earliest production stage the focus was to be a "Russo-American space project". From an idea of Desmond Saunders, a long-standing collaborator who had an interest in aviation, the Andersons based the plot on the destruction of the British "R101" in 1930. Gerry Anderson researched airship history by reading books on the "R101", the "R100" and the "Graf Zeppelin". The plot also emulates the "Thunderbirds" Series Two episode "Alias Mr. Hackenbacker", which stars another of Brains' pioneering aircraft, "Skythrust". Introducing a vintage de Havilland Tiger Moth as the new "Thunderbird 6", in their script the Andersons allude to 1960s publicity for Esso, which advertised under the promotional banner of "Put a Tiger in Your Tank". A line from Virgil Tracy during the final rescue of the "Skyship One" occupants adapts this slogan to refer to the "Tiger" stored inside "Thunderbird 2"'s Pod. However, no character dialogue explicitly refers to the aircraft by the full name "Tiger Moth". Casting. Voice acting was recorded in six days at the Anvil Films Recording Studio at Denham in Buckinghamshire, where dialogue for "Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons" would also be recorded. Dialogue for characters returning from "Thunderbirds Are Go", such as the Tracy family, Tracy Island's other residents, Lady Penelope, Parker and The Hood is, with two exceptions, provided by the same actors. Voice actors introduced in "Thunderbird 6" are: Gerry Anderson biographers Simon Archer and Marcus Hearn suggest that "Thunderbird 6" develops the character of Lady Penelope from her previous appearances in the "Thunderbirds" franchise. This is argued to be due, in part, to a more mature reading of the character's lines from Sylvia Anderson, who provided Penelope's voice from the first episode of the "Thunderbirds" television series. Archer and Hearn also praise the work of David Graham, particularly his reading of Parker's dialogue, but note that other regular characters, such as Gordon and John, appear infrequently in the film. Puppets. With the cancellation of "Thunderbirds" after the six episodes of Series Two, the next small-screen project for AP Films, re-branded as "Century 21" in December 1966, would be "Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons". This series, which was screened from September 1967, starred a brand-new generation of Supermarionation puppets sculpted with more realistic proportions than the caricatured marionettes of "Thunderbirds". However, in the pre-production stages for "Thunderbirds Are Go", it was decided that audiences who had seen "Thunderbirds" were too accustomed to the older style of puppet for the returning characters to be upgraded to the new design. To maintain continuity, a compromise was made to produce puppets for the second "Thunderbirds" film which would mix traits from the two Supermarionation generations: although the heads and hands would remain disproportionately large, the marked caricature from the television episodes would be reduced. For guest roles, puppets were mainly recycled from their previous appearances in "Thunderbirds Are Go", although the Captain Foster puppet was a new addition. Puppeteer Wanda Webb recalls that "Thunderbird 6" maintained a high standard in the appearance of its cast, commenting on a shot which depicts Lady Penelope asleep on board "Skyship One", "I had placed the sleeping eyelids in Plasticine and made the eye shadow a little too blue. We ended up re-shooting the whole sequence." One-use puppets appear in what Supermarionation historian Stephen La Rivière describes as "a contender for the most horrific scene ever produced by Century 21": in the opening scene, the characters of the NWAC executives present gaping mouths and teeth, complete with dental fillings, when Brains' plan to design an airship sends them into howls of laughter. The decision to begin the film with a cold open and delay the title sequence and opening credits was one of Century 21's efforts to distinguish "Thunderbird 6" from the preceding film. Design. Principal photography for "Thunderbird 6" commenced on 1 May 1967, by which time "Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons" had already entered production. One of the Century 21 production units was transferred from "Captain Scarlet" to the second "Thunderbirds" film and shooting was completed in four months alongside that of the new television series. Special effects director Derek Meddings constructed the "Skyship One" model and supervised the creation of scale replicas of destinations explored in the film, such as the Great Sphinx of Giza, the Egyptian Pyramids and the Grand Canyon. The Swiss Alps shots which frame a scene set inside the fictional Whistle Stop Inn called for the FAB1 model to skate across ice, while scale figures of Alan and Tin-Tin follow the Rolls-Royce on skis. The length of movement required necessitated the construction of a special effects set that was between 40 and 50 feet (12 and 15 m) wide (the largest used for the film), filled with salt to simulate the snow-capped Swiss mountains. The film was also shot in parallel with "Joe 90", as evidenced by special effects footage of the destruction of the Dover Missile Complex re-appearing in the pilot episode of that series, and a brief appearance of Sam Loover's car during the evacuation of the Complex. The art department, headed by Bob Bell and responsible for the interiors of "Skyship One", designed each room in a unique style: while the airship's Ball Room includes spherical-shaped décor, a Games Room is furnished to a dice and chessboards theme. Although Keith Wilson was attached to the production of "Captain Scarlet", he contributed the design of Lady Penelope's bedroom, which is shaded a bright pink to match the colour of FAB1. In the course of filming, the floor of the "Skyship One" Bottle Room set ignited under the heat of the studio lights and had to be completely rebuilt. The interior of the Whistle Stop Inn is a favourite of Bell. Shooting on this set had to be carefully timed due to the presence of model trains, of a smaller scale than the puppets, which run on tracks and transport meals to the characters as their "cargo". In their biography of Gerry Anderson, Simon Archer and Marcus Hearn hold the "Skyship One" Gravity Compensation Room, in which the Gravity Compensators are represented by rotating metal frames, in high regard. However, Penelope's bedroom is described as resembling a "Barbara Cartland nightmare". Stunts. The vintage Tiger Moth appears as a scale model for sequences such as Alan and Tin-Tin's departure from Tracy Island and Brains' arrival on the top deck of "Skyship One". The production team also decided to arrange a live-action location shoot in Buckinghamshire to star a full-size biplane. Joan Hughes, an experienced pilot who had flown Spitfires and Lancaster Bombers from factories to airbases during the Second World War, was selected to fly the aircraft. Sequences that comprise live-action filming include Brains launching the Tiger Moth from a field to rescue the occupants of "Skyship One", Penelope's subsequent struggle to control the aircraft, the gun battle with Foster's remaining henchmen, the near collisions with the motorway bridge and the exhaust tower, and the final crash-landing. For the later sequences, stunt dummies fixed to the Tiger Moth's wings and undercarriage represent the characters of Alan, Tin-Tin, Parker, Brains and the White Ghost agents, while Hughes doubles for Penelope in the cockpit. The location filming was based at Wycombe Air Park. The M40 motorway, which was nearing completion at the time of production, doubled for the fictitious M104. In the run-up to filming the plane's miss with the bridge between Junctions 4 and 5, at Lane End on the High Wycombe Bypass, Ministry of Transport officials and police demanded that, in accordance with the rules of the Ministry of Civil Aviation, Hughes perform the manoeuvre with the wheels in contact with the ground. On one of the final takes of the sequence, a crosswind sprang up and the drag of the stunt dummies left Hughes fearing for the control of the aircraft if it hit the tarmac. She therefore piloted the Tiger Moth underneath the bridge, clearing it by nine feet (2.7 m), as had at first been planned. On a later attempt, she was forced to repeat the low-level glide to the objections of the Ministry of Transport officials. Hughes, a pilot of more than three decades' flight experience in 1968, later reported that the danger of the stunt marked the first occasion in her career that she had feared for her safety. Hughes and production manager Norman Foster were arrested at the scene and prosecuted. Hughes was charged on seven counts of "dangerous flying" and Foster on three of aiding and abetting, but it was not until 18 March 1968, after production on the film had ended, that both were called to Aylesbury Crown Court to stand trial. The jury viewed the final cut of "Thunderbird 6" and dismissed the case on 20 March 1968. Publicised in the "Daily Express" under the headline of "Under The Bridge Goes Lady Penelope", the acquittal inspired Foster to comment that the character had "opened the way for much greater realism in film-making." In the meantime, the Ministry of Transport had withdrawn its permission for further stunts to be filmed on the M40, forcing the production team to resort to alternative methods to complete the Tiger Moth sequences. The special effects department constructed a -scale model re-creation, located on the Century 21 outdoor backlot to reduce lighting discrepancies, with radio-controlled miniatures of the Tiger Moth made to replace Hughes' aircraft. Ranging from six feet (1.8 m) in width to a smaller -scale for filming with the puppet characters, the replicas were unreliable and frequently crashed, but Anderson asserts that the production team successfully merged the full-size and miniature shots so that it is difficult to distinguish which aircraft is piloted by Hughes and which is remote-controlled. The scale reconstruction of the M40 bridge was aligned with a backdrop of real trees and fields to simulate the intended setting as faithfully as possible. Bad weather forced the outdoor filming to run for six weeks. Built in 1940 at the de Havilland production line at Hatfield Aerodrome in Hertfordshire, the life-size Tiger Moth which appears in the film had served in the RAF and been sold to the Association of British Aero Clubs in 1953. Since "Thunderbird 6", the plane has made other appearances in cinema, including Michael Apted's 1978 film, "Agatha". Despite damage sustained in a crash in 1992, as of 2008 the repaired Tiger Moth forms part of the Diamond Nine aerobatics squadron, based at White Waltham Airfield in Berkshire. Music. Barry Gray considered the musical score for "Thunderbird 6" superior to that of "Thunderbirds Are Go" since its depiction of round-the-world travel provided scope for a large number of musical themes. Music was recorded in six sessions at the Olympic Studios at Barnes, London, between 1 and 5 February 1968, with an orchestra of 56 members. The main title music, described as "jaunty" in Gerry Anderson's biography, accompanies opening credits superimposed on shots of "Skyship One" as it sits on the NWAC airfield. The soundtrack was released in a limited edition in 2005. A rendition of the 19th-century song "The Daring Young Man on the Flying Trapeze" accompanies the aerial shots which chart Alan and Tin-Tin's departure from Tracy Island at the start of the film. Director David Lane wanted the movements of the Tiger Moth to simulate a dance in mid-air, and to this end played the song on loudspeakers from the shooting helicopter to inspire the stunt pilot. Release. Completed in December 1967 and awarded a "U" rating from the British Board of Film Classification on 22 January 1968, "Thunderbird 6" did not premiere until 29 July, at the London Odeon Cinema in Leicester Square. To promote the film, a Lady Penelope impersonator, Penny Snow, toured Britain in a pink Rolls-Royce imitation of FAB1. Commenting on the six-month postponement between classification and release, "Thunderbirds" historian Chris Bentley conjectures that United Artists had lost faith in distributing the "Thunderbirds" franchise in light of the disappointing box office returns for "Thunderbirds Are Go", and therefore intentionally shelved the sequel between January and July. Reception. Underperforming at the box office on its general release, "Thunderbird 6" went on to become a commercial failure and spoilt chances for the production of a potential third "Thunderbirds" film. In his review published in the "Daily Mail", critic Barry Norman described the sequel to "Thunderbirds Are Go" as child-orientated but still a showcase of "technical excellence". In what he termed a "class-conscious" side to the film, Norman also discussed the characterisation of Parker, a manservant, as a butt of jokes, such as being the one unfortunate character to find himself stuck upside-down in a tree as the Tiger Moth crash-lands. La Rivière theorises that the commercial failure of the film is attributable to the facts that ITC financier Lew Grade had cancelled "Thunderbirds" as a television series in 1966, and that, by July 1968, 18 months had passed since the screening of the final episode ("Give or Take a Million"), resulting in a loss of public interest in the franchise. He praises "Thunderbird 6" for its visual work, and holds the model Tiger Moth effects in particularly high regard, writing that it represents "some of the best effects work Century 21 would ever create. It is a testament to their skill and ingenuity that, in the motorway sequence, the model shots are indistinguishable from the original." However, he questions whether the sparseness of the action sequences is a disappointment to child viewers, suggesting that the film "feels like an extended puppet version of holiday magazine programme "Wish You Were Here...?"" Adding to the "unfamiliar air" of the film are the characters, who La Rivière argues sound more mature than before in a development which he partly attributes to the new casting of Gary Files and Keith Alexander. He also asserts that the film intentionally avoids iconic elements from the original "Thunderbirds" episodes, such as the "Thunderbird" launch sequences and the "Thunderbirds March" theme music. La Rivière argues that the use of the Tiger Moth as the star vehicle, and the pun on the Esso promotional banner of "Put a Tiger in Your Tank", are more suited to an adult audience. Meanwhile, children "had spent the entire 90 minutes eagerly waiting for the most fantastic piece of hardware to arrive. They got an old plane." "Thunderbirds" historian John Marriott voices similar criticism of the Tiger Moth, writing that "the big screen was an unsuitable place for the gentle irony of steam-age technology scoring triumphantly over an array of fantasy machines." Science-fiction author John Peel is dismissive of the film in general and compares it pessimistically to the "well-made fun" of "Thunderbirds Are Go". He summarises it as a "big mistake" and "a feeble last fling for a brilliant series", with a long and illogical plot, poor jokes and little action during the final rescue sequences. Responding to claims that the tone of "Thunderbird 6" differs significantly from that of its predecessor, Gerry Anderson maintains that the time that had elapsed since the airing of the final television episode meant that "we were much more aware with the second one that it wasn't just a question of making a longer episode, but it was, indeed, to make something special for the cinema." A BBC Online review suggests that the sequel to "Thunderbirds Are Go" is "a weak and perhaps too padded adventure" which is an underwhelming experience as a feature-length film. Despite summarising it as having more "the extended feel of a special TV episode", and describing the plot as substandard in comparison to the original episodes, "Thunderbird 6" is awarded a rating of three out of five stars. In contrast, Jim Schembri of Australian newspaper "The Age" asserts that the plotting is strong (and superior to that of "Thunderbirds Are Go"), and that the film also boasts "a snappier pace, with an action climax leaps ahead of anything in the latest "Bond" epic." Writing in the same newspaper, Philippa Hawker notes an increase in humour, stating of "Thunderbird 6" that it is "more self-consciously light-hearted but it's also more suspenseful." The Film4 website offers a three-star rating to match BBC Online, praising the production team's decision to introduce more naturally proportioned puppets and comparing "Thunderbird 6" favourably to Jonathan Frakes's 2004 adaptation, which is considered a "live-action bomb". Described as "great fun" and "entertaining if antiquated", the film is also referred to as "a slice of kid-friendly cinema made for a far more innocent age." Home releases. In Regions 2 and 4, "Thunderbird 6" was initially released on DVD by MGM in 2001, with special features including an audio commentary from director David Lane and producer Sylvia Anderson, the theatrical trailer, stills and production galleries. A 2004 "International Rescue Edition", including Region 1 and packaged both separately and as part of a box set with the preceding film, "Thunderbirds Are Go", contains a Dolby Digital 5.1 surround sound mix and extends the 2001 special features material with three documentaries detailing the production of the film.
584083	Mounam Pesiyadhe (;() is a 2002 Indian Tamil romantic drama film, directed and written by Ameer Sultan, making his directorial debut. It stars Suriya, Trisha, newcomers Nandha and Mahaa and choreographer-turned-actor Anju Mahendra in supporting roles along with several other newcomers, while Laila Mehdin appears in a cameo role during the climax. The major part of the film is shot in Parangipettai. The film, released on December 13, 2002 and turned out to be hit at the box office.It has been remade in telugu as Aadanthe Ado Type (2003) and later dubbed in telugu as Kanchu(2006). Also it was dubbed in hindi as "Ghatak Returns". Plot. Gautham (Suriya) is a restaurant owner. He dislikes the idea of young couples flirting with each other in the name of "love". His close friend Kannan (Nandha), on the other hand, is just the opposite. He introduces himself as an employed bachelor to every girl he meets on the road. Kannan falls in love with a young girl Maha (Maha). Unfortunately, Kannan's marriage is arranged with his cousin Sandhya (Trisha Krishnan). Neither Kannan nor Sandhya are interested in the proposal. When Gautham talks to Sandhya on behalf of Kannan and explains her that his friend is in love with someone else, Sandhya tells Gautham that she too is not interested in marrying Kannan. She even says that her dream is to marry someone like Gautham. Gautham's disbelief in love fades after meeting Sandhya. He falls in love with her. But, there is an interesting twist in the movie. Soundtrack. The soundtrack was composed by Yuvan Shankar Raja and released on October 6, 2002. It features 8 tracks overall with lyrics penned by Vaali, Kamakodiyan, Snehan, Puthuvai Nambi and director Ameer Sultan himself. The soundtrack, upon release, was very much appreciated and became very successful. Yuvan Shankar Raja himself claimed the album to be "the best he ever created since he became music director" till then. Production. Shooting took place in New Zealand, Italy, Mauritius, Egypt and other scenic locations in and around India. Moreover, a huge 30-lakhs-worth set was erected by art director Rajeevan at Pondicherry, India for a song. "Valentine" song was shot at AVM Studios, the rest of the songs were shot at locations in Mysore and Puducherry. Release. E. V. V. Satyanarayana remade this film in Telugu as "Aadanthe Ado Type" with his son Aryan Rajesh in lead role, Yuvan composed the music for Telugu version too. The original film was dubbed in Telugu as "Kanchu". Critical reception. Balaji wrote:" Pesiyadhe is almost like two completely different movies put together, with the pre- and post-intermission portions exhibiting completely different characteristics. Its first half boasts of some nice, interesting characters but is content with just laying the foundation for the story and never really moving things forward. On the other hand, the second half has the same characters behaving in ways that are cinematic and contrary to their earlier positions. But it makes up for this with some surprising twists and keeps us hooked by being fast-paced and never being predictable". Hindu wrote:"to his credit Ameer has introduced an element of suspense in the story. The end shows that the director has tried to make things a little different. The comedy merges well with the main narration and the asides are examples of healthy humour".
1059685	Jonathan Kimble "J. K." Simmons (born January 9, 1955) is an American actor. He is best known for his roles on television as Dr. Emil Skoda in NBC's "Law & Order" (and other shows in the "Law & Order" franchise), neo-Nazi Vernon Schillinger in the HBO prison drama "Oz", and as Assistant Police Chief Will Pope on TNT's "The Closer"; on film as J. Jonah Jameson in Sam Raimi's "Spider-Man" trilogy, and for voice-over work in animation and video games. Early life. Simmons was born in Detroit, Michigan, the son of Patricia (née Kimble), an administrator, and Donald William Simmons, a college professor. He has a brother, David (a singer-songwriter), and a sister, Elizabeth. He was raised in Columbus, Ohio and Missoula, Montana, and attended the University of Montana. Simmons was a member of the Seattle Repertory Theatre. Career. Musical theatre. Simmons was a Broadway actor and singer. He played Benny Southstreet in the 1992 revival of "Guys and Dolls", and in 1994, he sang multiple roles in the Wagner opera satire, "Das Barbecu". He also played the role of Jigger in a revival of "Carousel" with the Houston Grand Opera and starred in the 1987 Off-Broadway musical "Birds of Paradise". Film and television roles. Simmons is known for his TV roles as Dr. Emil Skoda, a police psychiatrist, who has appeared on three of the four incarnations of "Law & Order" and "New York Undercover", and as the sadistic inmate Vernon Schillinger on the prison drama "Oz". He also stars as Ralph Earnhardt, the father of race-car driver Dale Earnhardt, in "". He played B.R. in the film "Thank You For Smoking" and has been praised for his performance in "Juno" as "Mac" McGuff, the title character's father. Until recently he played Will Pope, Assistant Chief of the LAPD, in "The Closer". He also played J. Jonah Jameson in all three of Sam Raimi's "Spider-Man" films and the expanded video game adaptation of "Spider-Man 3". Simmons provided his voice for two newspaper editors in two episodes of the eighteenth season of "The Simpsons". The characters are never named, but are obviously meant to emulate the character of Jameson (one, bearing Jameson's appearance, even demands "pictures of Spider-Man", then on being reminded he works at a poetry journal, demands "poems about Spider-Man"). Similarly, Simmons voiced an editor-in-chief of a newspaper (with Jameson's appearance and mannerisms) for a 2013 episode of The Hub's "Pound Puppies". Simmons also provides the voice of the yellow M&M in the product's commercials, as well as the 3-D film "I Lost My M in Vegas", playing at M&M's World in Las Vegas, NV. He has also done voiceover work for Norelco razors. He also provided the voice of General Wade Eiling in "Justice League Unlimited". He recorded an audio book for "Tom Clancy's Net Force Point of Impact". Like many of his "Law & Order" co-stars, he also appeared in an episode of "", portraying a criminal in an episode that crossed over with "Law & Order" before Simmons joined the cast as Skoda. He also played a small role as an army general in the television sitcom "Arrested Development", alongside his "Juno" co-stars, Michael Cera and Jason Bateman. As well, he played Dan the Barber in the surreal Nickelodeon kid's show "The Adventures of Pete & Pete" in 1995. In 2008, he had a small part as the "CIA Superior" in "Burn After Reading". Simmons appears also in "Postal" as Candidate Wells. He has also been featured as Professor Nathaniel Burke of the University of Farmers in television commercials for Farmers Insurance Group beginning in 2010. He also played Paul Rudd's father in "I Love You, Man" Simmons is quickly becoming known for starring in films that are produced or directed by his friend Jason Reitman, including "Thank You for Smoking", "Juno", "Up in the Air" and "Jennifer's Body", written by "Juno" screenwriter Diablo Cody. He also lent his voice to Reitman's latest film "Young Adult" voicing the protagonists boss through a series of voicemails. Simmons voices the character of Tenzin, an Airbending master and the son of Aang and Katara, in the 2012 Nickelodeon series "The Legend of Korra". Also, he has resumed his role as the voice of J. Jonah Jameson in the animated series "Ultimate Spider-Man" and in "". He said he would like to reprise the role again in the upcoming sequel to the 2012 film "The Amazing Spider-Man", a reboot of the "Spider-Man" film series. Video games. Simmons has appeared as the anti-communist U. S. President Howard T. Ackerman in the video game "" and a series of promotional advertisements parodying the 2008 presidential elections. In these advertisements, he offers himself (as Ackerman) as an alternative to other, unnamed presidential candidates and used the slogan "Vote for me, if you want to live." In April 2011, he appeared in "Portal 2" as the voice of Aperture Science founder Cave Johnson, a performance that was lauded as the "surprise star turn" of the game.
1071683	Nana 2 is the sequel to the Japanese movie "Nana", an adaptation of the manga by Ai Yazawa, directed by Kentarô Ôtani. Production for the movie began in mid-September and only one and a half month shootings finished the movie in time for the December 9, 2006 release. Synopsis. Taking place shortly after the end of the first film, "Nana 2" focuses more on Komatsu Nana (Hachi/Hachiko) and her love life. Romance develops between Hachi and TRAPNEST's bassist Takumi as well as with the Black Stones' guitarist Nobu. Meanwhile, Nana works hard for her band while trying to find happiness. Both girls struggle through life, and try to keep their friendship from falling apart. More information on the story at Nana. Casting issues. There were several casting issues in the production of "Nana 2". Aoi Miyazaki had declined to reprise the role of Komatsu Nana. She was replaced with actress Yui Ichikawa. Ryuhei Matsuda had declined to play the role of Ren and was replaced with Nobuo Kyō. Also, Kenichi Matsuyama, who portrayed Shinichi Okazaki, had been replaced by Hongo Kanata. Theatrical release. Even though both theme songs were released ahead ("Hitoiro" of NANA starring MIKA NAKASHIMA on November 29, 2006 and "Truth" of REIRA starring YUNA ITO on December 6, 2006), the movie could only hit the #4 spot on the Movie Charts, from its release December 9, 2006 onward, and overall had very weak and low ratings. Many fans claimed that the exchange of main cast members led to the disappointing statistics. On December 18, NANA2 made its international debut in New York, USA. New York - Tokyo brought the main actresses Mika Nakashima and Yui Ichikawa to the limited seated IFC Cinema. The movie was well received by fans. Theme songs. "Nana 2" once again featured the two artists Mika Nakashima and Yuna Ito, releasing songs under the names Nana starring Mika Nakashima and Reira starring Yuna Ito, respectively.
1163090	Alan Young (born Angus Young 19 November 1919) is a British-born Canadian actor and voice actor best known for his role as Wilbur Post in the television series "Mister Ed" and as the voice of Scrooge McDuck in Disney films, TV series and video games. During the 1940s and 1950s, he starred in his own shows on radio and television. Biography. Early life. Young was born Angus Young in North Shields, Northumberland, England, to John Cathcart Young, a shipyard worker, and Florence Pinckney, whose ancestors included a signer of the United States Declaration of Independence. The family moved to Edinburgh, Scotland when Young was a toddler, and to West Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada when he was six years old. Young came to love radio when bedridden as a child because of severe asthma. Near the start of his radio career, during World War II, Young attempted to enlist in first the Royal Canadian Navy, then the Canadian Army, but was rejected by both due to his poor health. Career. Young became a broadcaster for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. In 1944, he moved to American radio with "The Alan Young Show", NBC's summer replacement for Eddie Cantor's show. He switched to ABC two years later, then returned to NBC. Young's film debut was "Margie" (1946), and featured in "Chicken Every Sunday" (1949), and the television version of "The Alan Young Show" began the following year. After its cancellation, Young appeared in films, including "Androcles and the Lion" (1952). He had roles in two George Pal films, "tom thumb" (1958) and "The Time Machine" (1960). He appeared in the episode "Thin Ice" of the NBC espionage drama "Five Fingers", starring David Hedison. He is best known, however, for "Mister Ed" (1961–66), a CBS television show, in which he starred as Wilbur Post, the owner of Mr. Ed, a talking horse that would talk to no one but him, thus causing hilarious situations for Wilbur Post with his wife, neighbours and acquaintances. Young's television guest appearances include "The Love Boat", "Murder, She Wrote", "St. Elsewhere", "Coach", "Party of Five", "The Wayans Bros.", "Sabrina, the Teenage Witch" (Episode: "Sweet Charity", playing Zelda's older love interest), "USA High", "Hang Time", "ER" and "Maybe It's Me". In 1993, Young recreated his role as Filby for the mini-sequel to George Pal's "The Time Machine", reuniting him with Rod Taylor, who had played George, the Time Traveller. It was called "", directed by Clyde Lucas. In 2002, he had a cameo as the flower store worker in Simon Wells' remake of "The Time Machine". In 2010, he read H.G. Wells's original novel for 7th Voyage Productions, Inc. In 1994, Young co-starred in the Eddie Murphy film "Beverly Hills Cop III". He played the role of Uncle Dave Thornton, the Walt Disney-esque founder of the fictional California theme park Wonderworld. Since 1994, he has played at least eight characters on the popular radio drama "Adventures in Odyssey", most notably antique dealer Jack Allen. Animation. During the later part of his career, he founded a broadcast division for the Christian Science Church and did voices for animated cartoons. Since 1983, he has voiced Scrooge McDuck in numerous Disney films and in the popular series "DuckTales". He also portrays Scrooge in video games that he appears in, such as the "Kingdom Hearts" series and most recently in "DuckTales: Remastered" in 2013. In "Mickey's Christmas Carol", he portrayed the character's miserly namesake. He also provided the voice of Jack Allen on the Focus on the Family radio drama, "Adventures in Odyssey" and voiced Hiram Flaversham in Disney's "The Great Mouse Detective". His other cartoon voice appearances include "Camp Lazlo", "Megas XLR", "Static Shock", "House of Mouse", "The Ren & Stimpy Show", "Duckman", "", "TaleSpin", "The Smurfs", "The New Scooby-Doo Mysteries", "Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends" and as 7-Zark-7 and Keyop in "Battle of the Planets". In 1997, he did the voice of Haggis McMutton in the PC game, "The Curse of Monkey Island". Personal life. Young was married twice: first to Mary Anne Grimes in 1941 and divorced in 1947; they had two children. Later, he married the late Virginia McCurdy; she died in 2011; they had two children. Young currently lives in Laguna Niguel, California.
1502415	Harvey Forbes Fierstein (born June 6, 1954) is an American actor and playwright, noted for the distinction of winning Tony Awards for both writing and originating the lead role in his long-running play "Torch Song Trilogy", about a gay drag-performer and his quest for true love and family, as well as writing the award-winning book to the musical "La Cage aux Folles". He has since become a champion for gay civil rights. Early and personal life. Fierstein was born to Eastern European Jewish immigrants in Brooklyn, New York, the son of Jacqueline Harriet (née Gilbert), a school librarian, and Irving Fierstein, a handkerchief manufacturer. Fierstein was raised in Conservative Judaism. He is non-observant and considers himself an atheist. Fierstein occasionally writes columns about gay issues. He was openly gay at a time when very few celebrities were. His careers as a stand-up comic and female impersonator are mostly behind him. Fierstein resides in Ridgefield, Connecticut. Career. The gravel-voiced actor is perhaps best known for the play and film "Torch Song Trilogy", which he wrote and starred in both Off-Broadway (with the young Matthew Broderick) and on Broadway (with Estelle Getty and Fisher Stevens). The 1982 Broadway production won him two Tony Awards, for Best Play and Best Actor in a Play, two Drama Desk Awards, for Outstanding New Play and Outstanding Actor in a Play, and the Theatre World Award, and the film adaptation earned him an Independent Spirit Award nomination as Best Male Lead. Fierstein also wrote the book for "La Cage aux Folles" (1983), winning another Tony Award, this time for Best Book of a Musical, and a Drama Desk nomination for Outstanding Book. "Legs Diamond", his 1988 collaboration with Peter Allen, was a critical and commercial failure, closing after 72 previews and 64 performances. His other playwriting credits include "Safe Sex", "Spookhouse", and "Forget Him". In 2007, Fierstein wrote the book to the musical "A Catered Affair" in which he also starred. After tryouts at San Diego's Old Globe Theatre in September 2007, it opened on Broadway April 17, 2008 and closed on July 27, 2008. He received a Drama Desk Award nomination for Outstanding Book of a Musical, and the show won the Drama League Award for Distinguished Production of a Musical. Fierstein wrote the book for the stage musical "Newsies", along with Alan Menken (music) and Jack Feldman (lyrics). The musical opened on Broadway in March 2012. Fierstein was nominated for the Tony Award for Book of a Musical. Recently, Fierstein completed the book for a stage musical version of the film "Kinky Boots" with music and lyrics by Cyndi Lauper. After a fall 2012 run at the Bank of America Theatre in Chicago it moved to the Al Hirschfeld Theatre on Broadway, where it was nominated for thirteen 2013 Tony Awards and won six, including best musical. Acting. Fierstein made his acting debut at La MaMa, E.T.C. in Andy Warhol's only play, "Pork". Fierstein continued to appear at La MaMa and other venues but also, having some aspirations to become a painter, enrolled at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn. He received a Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA) from Pratt in 1973. Fierstein appeared three times in "The Haunted Host" by Robert Patrick: in Boston in 1975, and at La MaMa and then Off-Broadway in 1991. In addition to "Torch Song Trilogy", "La Cage aux Folles" and "A Catered Affair", Fierstein's Broadway acting credits include playing the mother, Edna Turnblad in "Hairspray" (2002), for which he won a Tony Award for Best Leading Actor in a Musical. He later replaced Alfred Molina as Tevye in the 2004 revival of "Fiddler on the Roof". Besides his leading role in the film version of "Torch Song Trilogy" co-starring Matthew Broderick and Anne Bancroft, Fierstein's film roles include Woody Allen's "Bullets Over Broadway", Robin Williams' makeup-artist brother in "Mrs. Doubtfire", and Merv Green in "Death to Smoochy", in addition to parts in "Garbo Talks", "Duplex", "Kull the Conqueror", and "Independence Day". He narrated the documentary "The Times of Harvey Milk", for which he won a News & Documentary Emmy Award. He also voiced the role of Yao in Disney's animated feature "Mulan", a role he later reprised for the video game "Kingdom Hearts II" and the direct-to-DVD sequel "Mulan II". On television, Fierstein was featured as the voice of Karl, Homer Simpson's assistant, in the "Simpson and Delilah" episode of "The Simpsons" and the voice of Elmer in the 1999 HBO special based on his children's book "The Sissy Duckling", which won the Humanitas Prize for Children's Animation. Fierstein became the first openly gay actor to play a principal gay character in a television series when he appeared as fashion designer Dennis Sinclair in the short-lived CBS series "Daddy's Girls". Additional credits include "Miami Vice", "Murder, She Wrote", the Showtime television movie "Common Ground" (which he also wrote), and "Cheers", which earned him an Emmy Award nomination for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series. He sang a tribute to Katie Couric on the "Today Show" on May 31, 2006, her last day as anchor. He appeared as Heat Miser in the live-action remake of "The Year Without a Santa Claus" in December 2006. More recent television performances include an episode of "Family Guy", in which he played an overweight, chainsmoking mother and an episode of the second season of the series Nurse Jackie in which he played a man whose husband is dying. He also gave the voice-over for Lily in the "Last Cigarette Ever" episode of "How I Met Your Mother" when she gets a sore throat due to smoking. Fierstein returned to the theatre when he reprised the role of Tevye, replacing an injured Chaim Topol in the national tour of "Fiddler on the Roof" starting in December 2009. On February 15, 2011, he replaced Douglas Hodge as Albin/Zaza in the Broadway revival of "La Cage aux Folles" playing opposite Jeffrey Tambor who plays Georges, although days later Tambor pulled out, which the producers have stated was due to "complications from a recent hip surgery"; Christopher Sieber quickly replaced Tambor. The show closed on May 1, 2011 due to low box office; it played 433 performances and 15 previews.
1161463	Thomas Andrew "Tom" Lehrer (; born April 9, 1928) is an American singer-songwriter, satirist, pianist, and mathematician. He has lectured on mathematics and musical theater. Lehrer is best known for the pithy, humorous songs he recorded in the 1950s and 1960s. His work often parodies popular song forms, though Lehrer usually creates original melodies when doing so. A notable exception is his song "The Elements", where he sets the names of the chemical elements to the tune of the "Major-General's Song" from Gilbert and Sullivan's "Pirates of Penzance." Lehrer's earlier work typically dealt with non-topical subject matter and was noted for its black humor, seen in songs such as "Poisoning Pigeons in the Park". In the 1960s, he produced a number of songs dealing with social and political issues of the day, particularly when he wrote for the U.S. version of the television show "That Was The Week That Was". Despite their of-the-moment subject matter and references, the popularity of these songs has endured; Lehrer quoted a friend's explanation: “Always predict the worst and you’ll be hailed as a prophet.” In the early 1970s, he retired from public performances to devote his time to teaching mathematics and music theatre at the University of California, Santa Cruz. He did two additional performances in 1998 at a London gala show celebrating the career of impresario Cameron Mackintosh. Early life. Lehrer was born in 1928 to a Jewish family in Manhattan. Although he was raised Jewish, Lehrer later on became an agnostic atheist. Lehrer began studying classical piano at the age of seven. He was more interested in the popular music of the age, however. Eventually, his mother also sent him to a popular-music piano teacher. At this early age, he began writing his own show tunes, which eventually helped him in his future adventures as a satirical composer and writer in his years of lecturing at Harvard University, and later at other universities. Lehrer graduated from the Horace Mann School in Riverdale, NY. He attended Camp Androscoggin, both as a camper and a counselor. While studying mathematics as an undergraduate student at Harvard College, he began to write comic songs to entertain his friends, including "Fight Fiercely, Harvard" (1945). Those songs were later named "The Physical Revue", a joking reference to a leading scientific journal, "The Physical Review". Mathematics career. Lehrer earned his AB in mathematics ("magna cum laude") from Harvard University in 1946, when he was nineteen. He received his MA degree the next year, and was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa. He taught classes at MIT, Harvard, and Wellesley. He remained in Harvard's doctoral program for several years, taking time out for his musical career and to work as a researcher at the Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory. He served in the U.S. Army from 1955 to 1957, working at the National Security Agency. (Lehrer has stated that he invented the Jell-O Shot during this time, as a means of circumventing liquor restrictions.) All of these experiences eventually became fodder for songs, e.g., "Fight Fiercely, Harvard", "The Wild West Is Where I Want To Be" and "It Makes a Fellow Proud to Be a Soldier".
1057320	Double Impact is a 1991 American action film written and directed by Sheldon Lettich and also written, produced by and starring Jean-Claude Van Damme in a double role as Chad and Alex Wagner. Plot. The story begins with the opening of the Hong Kong Victoria Harbour tunnel by business partners Paul Wagner and Nigel Griffith (Alan Scarfe). Paul attends with his twin infant sons, Chad and Alex. However, after the celebrations, the family is followed home by a Triad hit squad on orders from Griffith and crime lord Raymond Zhang (Philip Chan). A shootout ensues, in which Paul and his wife are killed by Moon (Bolo Yeung), Griffith's henchman. Chad is rescued by the family bodyguard, Frank Avery (Geoffrey Lewis), and raised abroad. Alex is dropped off on the doorstep of a Hong Kong orphanage. In the present day, Chad (Jean-Claude Van Damme) and Frank are running a successful martial arts business in Los Angeles when Frank reveals a new "business" for the two of them in Hong Kong. Soon after arrival, they find Chad's twin brother Alex (Jean-Claude Van Damme) and Frank explains their shared past. It is revealed that Alex is immersed in the Hong Kong crime world ruled by Zhang, and has a girlfriend who works for Griffith’s company, Danielle Wilde (Alonna Shaw). After escaping the Hong Kong Marine Police for trying to sell foreign cars with electronics inside, Chad (mistaken for Alex) is taken in by the Triads to discuss the incident. During the interrogation, Chad learns about a drug lab in Causeway Bay. Alex and Chad arrange to destroy the lab by planting C4 in the complex one night, but Chad's clumsiness triggers a massive gunfight. The lab is destroyed, but Chad loses any respect for Alex. Later, Danielle and Alex talk on a ferry and discuss a meeting that will take place soon in a night club in Hong Kong, with Zhang and other bosses in attendance. Alex, Chad and Frank endure their third mission to take down Zhang using Cognac boxes with C4 encased in them.
1193029	Rubber Johnny is a six-minute experimental short film and music video directed by Chris Cunningham in 2005, using music composed by Aphex Twin. The name "Rubber Johnny" is drawn from a British slang for "condom" as well as a description of the main character, which explains the title sequence. The DVD comes with an art book, containing stills from the film, as well as conceptual drawings, photographs and more. Background. The concept for "Rubber Johnny" came from Cunningham's imagining a raver morphing as he danced. The idea evolved to the present film, in which Johnny is an isolated deformed (possibly hydrocephalic) teenager kept on a wheelchair and locked in a dark basement with his chihuahua. The film was originally intended to be a 30-second TV commercial for the Aphex Twin album "drukqs", using the track "afx237 v7". However, Cunningham grew to like the concept more and more and decided to expand the concept into a greater length (the original commercial remains in the film in an altered form.) The film was shot partially in infrared night vision on digital video. The film's music is "afx237 v7 (w19rhbasement remix)", a remix made by Cunningham; the credits music is "gwarek2", also from "drukqs". Content. The film, entirely presented in infrared vision, starts with an out-of-focus closeup of Johnny (played by Cunningham), babbling incomprehensibly while being interviewed by an unseen man. At one point Johnny mumbles the word "ma-ma" twice, after which the man asks if he wants his mother to come in. This causes Johnny to start breathing erratically and then freak out, so the man gives Johnny a sedative injection to calm him down. The video cuts to a fluorescent light turning on, then a mouse crawling over a press-sticker credits list, followed by the title, "Rubber Johnny", which is shown written on a condom, on a backwards-playing scene of it being pulled off a penis. Johnny is first seen leaning backward in his wheelchair with his oversized head hanging over the back of it. Johnny mutters a distorted "Aphex". This begins the Aphex Twin track, a skippy electronic rhythm, which Johnny begins to follow while his dog watches. His dancing involves him performing balancing tricks with his wheelchair, and deflecting light beams with his hands as he dances. About a minute into the video the music stops, a door opens and he is interrupted by someone who appears to be his father. During this, Johnny is out of his delusion and is shown sitting upright in the wheelchair, turning to look. His father is heard yelling at him indistinctly, a slap to Johnny's face is implied, and the man slams the door. After he leaves, Johnny is seen inhaling a large line of white powder. After this, the video becomes even more erratic and delusional. At the beginning there's a period in which the music comes to a standstill, and Johnny is first heard screaming in the dark and then hiding behind a door, avoiding the white light beams, while his dog watches. Then the music goes into a trippier version of the one in the first passage of the video. Nearing the end of the video, it appears as if it was filmed from behind a glass, with Johnny's face seen repeatedly getting smashed into it, and each time chunks of his face are seen articulating the vocals in the song. After this, he is interrupted a second time by his yelling father, after which the video ends with Johnny, once again, reclining back in his wheelchair and babbling at his chihuahua. The credits roll over a night scene of a train passing in the distance. Production. The effect of Johnny's face smashing into the glass was done using prosthetic-based special effects rather than digital animation.
589134	Nalini Jaywant (18 February 1926 – 20 December 2010) was an Indian movie actress from Bollywood in the 1940s and 1950s. Personal life and education. Jaywant was born in Mumbai (then Bombay) in 1926. She was first cousin of actress Shobhna Samarth, the mother of actresses Nutan and Tanuja. Since 1983, she had been living mostly a reclusive life. She was married to director Virendra Desai in the 1940s. Later, she married her second husband, actor Prabhu Dayal, with whom she acted in several movies. Nalini Jaywant died on 20 December 2010, aged 84, at her bungalow of 60 years at Union Park, Chembur, Mumbai. Career. In her teens, appeared in Mehboob Khan's Bahen (1941), a film about a brother's obsessive love for his sister. The movie had strong shades of incest. She performed in a few more movies before filming "Anokha Pyaar" (1948). In 1950, she garnered fame when she became a top star with her performances opposite Ashok Kumar in "Samadhi" and "Sangram". "Samadhi" was a patriotic drama concerning Subhas Chandra Bose and the Indian National Army. Although the leading movie magazine of the day, "Film India", called it "politically obsolete", it enjoyed success at the box office. "Sangram" was a crime drama in which Nalini played the heroine reforming the anti-hero. She and Ashok Kumar performed together in other films, such as "Jalpari" (1952), "Kafila" (1952), "Nau Bahar" (1952), "Saloni" (1952), "Lakeeren" (1954), "Naaz" (1954), "Mr. X" (1957), "Sheroo" (1957) and "Toofan Mein Pyar Kahan" (1963). Nalini remained an important leading actress through the mid-1950s, appearing in such films as "Rahi" (1953), "Shikast" (1953), "Railway Platform" (1955)), "Nastik" (1954), "Munimji" (1955), and "Hum Sab Chor Hain" (1956). The 1958 film, "Kala Pani", directed by Raj Khosla, was Nalini's last successful movie, for which she won the Filmfare Best Supporting Actress Award. "Bombay Race Course" (1965) was the last film she made, aside from a 1983 film appearance.
1100314	Edward Kasner (April 2, 1878 – January 7, 1955) was a prominent American mathematician who was appointed Tutor on Mathematics in the Columbia University Mathematics Department. Kasner was the first Jew appointed to a faculty position in the sciences at Columbia University. Subsequently, he became an adjunct professor in 1906, and a full professor in 1910, at the university. Differential geometry was his main field of study. In addition to introducing the term "googol", he is known also for the Kasner metric and the Kasner polygon. Kasner's Ph.D. dissertation was titled "The Invariant Theory of the Inversion Group: Geometry upon a Quadric Surface"; it was published by the American Mathematical Society in 1900 in their "Transactions". Googol. Kasner is perhaps best remembered today for introducing the term "googol." In order to pique the interest of children, Kasner sought a name for a very large number: one followed by a hundred zeros. On a walk in the New Jersey Palisades with his nephews, Milton (born about 1929) and Edwin Sirotta, Kasner asked for their ideas. Nine-year-old Milton suggested "googol." In 1940, with James R. Newman, Kasner co-wrote a non-technical book surveying the field of mathematics, called "Mathematics and the Imagination" (ISBN 0-486-41703-4). It was in this book that the term "googol" was first introduced: Google. Kasner's number naming legacy includes technology unforeseen in his lifetime. The Internet search engine "Google" originated from a misspelling of "googol", which refers to 10100 (the number represented by a 1 followed by 100-zeros). The "Googleplex", the Google company headquarters in Mountain View, California, is a play on words for "googolplex", the name given by Kasner's nephew to a number with so many zeros that one gets tired from counting. Kasner assigned it to the large number: (the number represented by a 1 followed by a googol of zeros).
581228	Prathi Gnayiru 9.30 to 10.00 is a South Indian Tamil film released in 2006. Plot. Prathi Gnayiru 9.30 to 10.00 movie is about four college students Ramesh (Ramesh), Remo (Karunaas), Murugan (Balaji) and Seetharaman (Ravi) who are carefree and have no responsibilities in their life. Mistaking Kalyani (Poornitha) to be a call girl, they forcibly gang rape her on a holiday. Coming to know of their mistake, they hurriedly return to Chennai. Ramesh is married off to a distant relative by his father (Delhi Ganesh). Only after the wedding, he comes to know that his wife resembles Kalyani. This sends a chill down the spines of Ramesh's friends. A sequence of events lead to Kalyani taking revenge on the friends. Whether they realized their mistake and were they taken to task forms the rest of the storyline. In the end Kalyani kills Ramesh by making him inhale chili smoke. Review. One of the worst movies ever made in tamil.
1064396	The Opposite Sex is a 1956 Metrocolor musical film. It is a remake of the 1939 classic comedy "The Women". Both films are based on Clare Boothe Luce's original play. The 1956 musical was directed by David Miller and stars June Allyson, Joan Collins, Dolores Gray, Ann Sheridan, Ann Miller, Leslie Nielsen, Jeff Richards, Agnes Moorehead, Charlotte Greenwood, Joan Blondell, Sam Levene, Dick Shawn, Jim Backus, Bill Goodwin and Harry James. Plot. The story concerns Kay Hilliard (June Allyson), a former nightclub singer who discovers her husband Steven (Leslie Nielsen) is having an affair with showgirl Crystal Allen (Joan Collins). Kay is the last to find out among her circle of gossiping girlfriends. Kay travels to Reno to divorce from Steve who then marries Crystal, but when Kay finds out that Crystal isn't true to Steve she starts fighting to win her ex-husband back. Notes. Unlike its predecessor, the cast includes male actors to play husbands and boyfriends, whose characters were only referred to in the previous film and stage versions. This alters the structure and tone of the base storyline significantly. Dick Shawn and Jim Backus appear in a stage number singing the title song. Harry James and his band are seen and heard in a flashback musical number "Young Man and His Horn." A slight change in casting. Originally, MGM studio head Dore Schary envisioned Esther Williams in June Allyson's role. According to her 2000 autobiography, "The Million Dollar Mermaid", she objected to Schary's casting suggestion, resulting in her suspension from the studio. Shortly after, on agent Lew Wasserman's advice, she left Metro after fourteen years. Jo Ann Greer dubbed Allyson's ballad "A Perfect Love" and ironically also sang for Williams in her last MGM musical, "Jupiter's Darling". Awards. The film was nominated for a Golden Globe. Translations. France : Le Sexe Opposé
1033517	Sadie Liza Frost (born 19 June 1965) is an English actress, who currently runs fashion label Frost French and has designed the kitchens for a new development in the East End of London. Early life. Frost was born in Islington, London to psychedelic artist David Vaughan, who worked for the Beatles, and his then-16-year-old muse, actress Mary Davidson. She has described her childhood as a "chaotic but positive experience," as she was born in Islington but spent much of her youth in Ashton-under-Lyne, Lancashire after her parents separated. Her parents had six relationships between them, which gave her 4 sisters and 5 brothers, including fellow actresses Holly Davidson and Jade Davidson; primary school teacher Jessi Frost, brothers called Gabriel Jupiter and Tobias Vaughan; and a sister named Sunshine Purple Tara Velvet. One of Frost's stepfathers - the rock photographer Robert Davidson - was a follower of the Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh cult, who forbade the children to say the words “No” or “Sorry”; during her father's colour-therapy phase, he insisted that everybody in the house wear orange and he wouldn’t let them eat anything that was red. They also had to take showers wearing tracksuits, and they were forced to refer to objects as the most opposite they could think of as a test of character, for example calling apples elephants. Career. Frost appeared in a Jelly Tots advertisement at age 3 and appeared with Morecambe and Wise at age 5. She attained a scholarship to the Italia Conti Academy, but after an early eating disorder, she gave up acting at 13 and attended Hampstead School. On graduation she left home to escape her parents, and at 19 she appeared in the play "Mumbo Jumbo" at the Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester, directed by Nicholas Hytner. As an actress, Frost has performed in: "Press Gang" and "Casualty." Her first film role was in "Diamond Skulls," though her most memorable film appearance is as vampire Lucy Westenra in Francis Ford Coppola’s "Bram Stoker's Dracula" in 1992. She earned her living mainly through appearing in music videos, including for Pulp's song "Common People", Planet Perfecto featuring Grace "Not Over Yet '99"; and various productions for Spandau Ballet where she met first husband Gary Kemp. Frost and Kemp appeared together in the 1990s film "The Krays". They appeared in 2 more films together, one of which was filmed while they were separated: 1994's film "Magic Hunter", which even required them to participate in a love scene. Frost took a role opposite Jude Law in Paul W.S. Anderson's directorial debut "Shopping". After marrying Law and having three children with him, she cut down on her acting commitments in the late 1990s, and moved into producing and co-founding the production company Natural Nylon. In 1999, she co-founded the fashion label FrostFrench with her friend, Jemima French. The label started in lingerie and expanded into clothing collections. FrostFrench won Elle Magazine’s Designers of the Year Award 2004. In 2004, she wrote, presented and produced a short lived series "What Sadie did next..." for E4, and in 2005 appeared in "Eating with...Sadie Frost" on BBC2. In March 2006, Frost flew to South Africa to part-fund an orphanage for the "Homes of Hope" project. In September 2006, aged 40, she posed nude for Canadian photographer Bryan Adams for a PETA anti-fur advert to coincide with London Fashion Week. In 2009, she made her West End debut in "Touched ... For the Very First Time", a new one-woman show by Zoë Lewis, directed by Douglas Rintoul and produced by Imogen Lloyd Webber. In January 2010 she starred in the play "Fool For Love" alongside Carl Barat, formerly of the Libertines. The play showed at the Riverside Studios theatre. Personal life. When 16 and dancing in a music video, she met Spandau Ballet's Gary Kemp. They married on 7 May 1988 and their son, Finlay, was born in 1990. Frost and Kemp were married for 5 years and separated; they divorced on 19 August 1995. She met Jude Law during the work on the film "Shopping". They married on 2 September 1997 and had three children: son Rafferty (born 1996), daughter Iris (born 2000) and son Rudy (born 2002). Frost and Law divorced on 29 October 2003. Frost named model Kate Moss as Iris' godmother and BBC Radio 1 deejay Nick Grimshaw as Rudy's godfather.
585995	Meera Jasmine (born as Jasmine Mary Joseph) is an Indian actress from Thiruvalla, Kerala, who appears in South Indian cinema. She won the National Film Award for Best Actress in 2004 and is a two-time recipient of the Kerala State Film Award, the Tamil Nadu State Film Awards, as well as the Kalaimamani Award from the government of Tamil Nadu. Early life. Meera Jasmine was born in a Syrian Christian family in Thiruvalla, Pathanamthitta district, Kerala, India, to Joseph and Aleyamma. She completed her schooling in Bala Vihar, Thiruvalla and Marthoma Residential School, Thiruvalla. She appeared for her Higher Secondary Exams in March 2000. She had enrolled for a BSc degree in Zoology at Assumption College, Changanassery and completed nearly three months when she was spotted by director Blessy (who was then an assistant director to director Lohithadas) and offered a role in "Soothradharan". Career. Malayalam. Meera Jasmine made her debut in the Malayalam film "Soothradharan". Her second film was "Gramaphone", directed by Kamal, in which she appeared alongside Navya Nair and Dileep. Her role as a Jewish girl was appreciated by Malayalam critics. Her third film was "Swapnakkoodu", a romantic comedy alongside Prithviraj, Kunchako Boban, Jayasurya, and Bhavana under director Kamal. Her performance was appreciated and the film was a high commercial success. Among the five main characters, the one who scored the most was again Meera. She rose to fame in Malayalam cinema with the film "Kasthooriman" directed by her mentor Lohithadas, in which she enacted comedy and sentimental scenes. She received her first Filmfare award for her performance in "Kasthooriman". The film was also a success at the box office, running for 100 days. The same year, she acted in T. V. Chandran's acclaimed "Padam Onnu Oru Vilapam". She played a 15-year-old Muslim girl who was forced to marry an older man, for which she was awarded a State Award and the National Award in addition with several other awards. It was followed by her performance as Raziya in "Perumazhakkalam" alongside Kavya Madhavan. In the film "Achuvinte Amma" (2005), she enacted the young, adorable character Achu. She then paired with Mohanlal in "Rasathanthram" (2006). She played as a girl pretending to be a boy in the first half of the film. The film went on to became a commercial success. Her next film with Dileep - "Vinodayathra", which again was directed by Sathyan Anthikkad. She was next featured opposite Mammootty in the critically acclaimed film "Ore Kadal". The film was showcased in film festivals and won awards. Her performance as an innocent middle class woman won praise from audiences. Media quoted her as, "Matching step with the megastar in this histrionic race is Meera Jasmine, who amazes you with a stunning delineation of her difficult role" . Her next film was "Calcutta News" with Dileep. Blessy, who introduced her to film field, was the director of "Calcutta News". In "Innathe Chintha Vishayam" (2008), she collaborated with Sathyan Anthikkad for his fourth consecutive film, again opposite Mohanlal, but failed to succeed. Her next films "Minnaminnikoottam" with Kamal and "Rathri Mazha" with Lenin Rajendran, which released after a long post-production delay, were box office failures. More than a year later, she played the role of a music lover and singer in Rajeev Anchal's "Paattinte Palazhy". Though the film was commercially not successful, her character was noted and her performance gave her a comeback. Her next film, "Four Friends", was a multi-starrer directed by Saji Surendran. She played the role of a cancer patient in this film. In the 2011 film "Mohabbat", she played the lead role opposite Anand Michael and Munna. After a brief hiatus, she began committing films by late-2012. She was keen in choosing more women-centric roles and in Babu Janardhanan's "Lisammayude Veedu", a sequel to the 2006 film "Achanurangatha Veedu", her role was that of a serial rape victim. She acted opposite Mohanlal in Siddique's comedy film "Ladies and Gentleman". Her latest project is Shajiyem's "Ms. Lekha Tharoor Kanunnathu", a fantasy film in which she plays a dynamic media person, who unexpectedly starts envisaging happenings that cannot be accepted according to the general perception. Tamil. Meera Jasmine's Tamil film entry made her a well-known star in the South. The successes of the Tamil film "Run" and "Bala" (2002) gave her the chance to work with the established actors of the Tamil film industry. She won the Filmfare Best Female Debut Actress award for "Run". The success of the films led her to work with directors such as Mani Ratnam in "Aayutha Ezhuthu" and SS Stanley in "Mercury Pookkal". Her latest Tamil film, "Mambattiyan" got released in December 2011. Meera has acted in 15 Tamil films. Telugu and Kannada. Meera Jasmine became noted in the Telugu film industry with "Run", the dubbed version of the same-titled Tamil film. She was in the Telugu films in 2004 with "Ammayi Bagundi" and "Gudumba Shankar" but also entered Kannada cinema by co-starring with Puneet Rajkumar in "Maurya". Her Kannada film "Arasu" again with Puneet Rajkumar and Ramya is a hit. Her other Kannada films include "Devaru Kotta Thangi" and "Ijjodu". Meera Jasmine's biggest commercial success in Telugu remains "Bhadra" with Ravi Teja in the male lead. Her other Telugu films are "Raraju, Maharadhi, Yamagola Malli Modalayindi, Gorintaku" and "Maa Ayana Chanti Pilladu", in which she is paired for a second time with Sivaji. Controversy. She offered prayers at Raja Rajeshwara temple at Taliparamba in Kerala where the entry of non-Hindus is prohibited. This led to a controversy and sparked off a protest by Hindu devotees. Later, she paid as penalty to the temple authorities to conduct the purification rituals. Awards. Tamil Nadu Government Award, "Perumazhakkalam" External links. ! colspan="3" style="background: #DAA520;" | National Film Award
1048873	Herbie Goes to Monte Carlo is a 1977 film, the third of a series of films by Walt Disney Productions starring Herbie – the white Volkswagen racing Beetle with a mind of its own. Plot. The film stars Dean Jones as returning champion race car driver Jim Douglas, joined by his somewhat cynical and eccentric riding mechanic Wheely Applegate (Don Knotts). Together with Herbie, the "Love Bug", a 1963 Volkswagen Beetle, they are participating in the fictional Trans-France Race, from Paris, France to Monte Carlo, Monaco, in which they hope to stage a racing comeback, according to dialogue.
1062677	Guy Edward Pearce (born 5 October 1967) is an English-born Australian actor and musician, known for his roles in "The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert" (1994), "L.A. Confidential" (1997), "Memento" (2000), "The King's Speech" (2010), "Lockout" (2012), "Prometheus" (2012), and "Iron Man 3" (2013). He also played Mike Young in the Australian television series "Neighbours", and has won an Emmy Award and received nominations for Golden Globe Awards, Screen Actors Guild Awards, and Saturn Awards. Early life. Pearce was born in Ely, Cambridgeshire. His mother, Anne Cocking (née Pickering), was a County Durham-born schoolteacher specialising in needlework and home economics, and his father, Stuart Pearce, was a New Zealand-born air force test pilot who died when Pearce was nine. When he was three years old, Pearce moved to Geelong, Victoria, where his mother ran a deer farm. He attended the Geelong College, a local private school, and was a member of the GSODA Junior Players. From the age of 15 to 22, he was a competitive amateur bodybuilder, leading to the title of Junior Mr. Victoria. He also partook in fencing. He lived in Box Hill North, Victoria in the late 1980s while working on the Australian drama series "Neighbours". Pearce starred in several theatre productions when he was young and at 17 years of age auditioned for his first film role "Life and Study at University" a promotion for University study, produced and directed by Peter Lane of Deakin University. The lead part called for a 23-year old University student and at first he was turned down due to his young age, but his mother insisted that her son could play the part. After repeated assurances that he could handle the role, he was auditioned and accepted. His maturity as an actor was already present as he had mastered the technique of "talking to the camera". Career. Pearce graduated to television when he was cast in the Australian soap opera "Neighbours" in 1985, playing the role of Mike Young for several years. Pearce also found roles in other television series such as "Home and Away" (1988) and "Snowy River: The McGregor Saga" (1993). The director/producer/writer Frank Howson cast Pearce in his first three films, and paid for him to go to the Cannes Film Festival in 1991 for the premiere of the Howson-directed "Hunting". The accompanying Howson-funded publicity campaign brought Pearce to the attention of the international film industry. He made his first major film breakthrough shortly after, with his role as a drag queen in "The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert" in 1994. Since then, he has appeared in several US productions including "L.A. Confidential", "Ravenous", "Rules of Engagement", "Memento", "The Count of Monte Cristo", and "The Time Machine". Pearce portrayed pop artist Andy Warhol in "Factory Girl" and Harry Houdini in "Death Defying Acts." He also appeared in "The Road" and in "Bedtime Stories" with Adam Sandler. Pearce continues to perform in Australian films, such as "The Hard Word" (2002) and the critically lauded "The Proposition" (2005), written by fellow Australian Nick Cave. In January 2009, Pearce returned to the stage after a seven-year absence. He performed in the Melbourne Theatre Company's production of "Poor Boy", a play with music, co-written by Matt Cameron and Tim Finn. In 2010, he appeared as playboy David, the Prince of Wales, who became King Edward VIII, in the award-winning film "The King's Speech". He is the eponymous lead in the Australian TV miniseries "Jack Irish", an adaptation of the detective novels of author Peter Temple broadcast on the ABC network in 2012. In May 2012, Pearce was cast to star in David Michôd's "The Rover". In 2013, he played Dr. Aldrich Killian in "Iron Man 3". Videos and awards. Pearce appeared in Australian band Silverchair's music video for "Across the Night" and in Razorlight's video for "Before I Fall to Pieces." He recorded the soundtrack for "A Slipping-Down Life", singing and playing guitar on cover versions of songs by Ron Sexsmith, Vic Chesnutt and Robyn Hitchcock. On 18 September 2011, Pearce won an Emmy for Best Supporting Actor in a Miniseries for his work in "Mildred Pierce" as Monty Beragon opposite Kate Winslet. Personal life. Pearce has been married to Kate Mestitz, a psychologist, since March 1997. He is a long-standing fan of Australian rules football, and supports the Geelong Football Club in the Australian Football League. Pearce does not believe in a god but believes "we're all connected."
586385	Sainyam is a 1994 Malayalam film written by S. N. Swamy and directed by Joshi. Mammootty, Mukesh, Vikram, Sukumaran, Mohini, Priya Raman, and Dileep appeared in lead roles. It was produced at a huge budget and was a flop at the box office. Plot. The story involves the life of Indian Air force officer (Group captain Eashwar) who engages himself into a project called "Red Alert" which involves the renovation of condemned Aircraft. He is 35 unmarried and interested in Research wing of Indian Air force. Eshwar is assisted by Wing Commander Zakir (Mukesh). As a cover, the research is being conducted at an India Airforce Academy. The cadets (Vikram, Dileep and more) especially Shradha Kaul (Priya Raman) provide comic relief. Meanwhile there are terrorists/anti-nationals trying to steal the project's secrets. The movie ends with a note stating " A tribute to the Indian Air Force".
1034426	Roy Castle, OBE (31 August 1932 in Scholes, near Holmfirth, West Riding of Yorkshire – 2 September 1994 in Buckinghamshire) was an English dancer, singer, comedian, actor, television presenter and musician. He attended Honley High School, where there is now a building in his name. He was a talented jazz trumpet player. Early career. The son of a railwayman, he was a tap dancer from an early age and trained at Nora Bray's school of dance with Audrey Spencer who later turned out to have a big dance school, and after leaving Holme Valley Grammar School he started his career as an entertainer in an amateur concert party. As a young performer in the 1950s, he lived in Cleveleys near Blackpool and appeared there at the local Queen's Theatre, turning professional in 1953 as a stooge for Jimmy Clitheroe and Jimmy James. By 1958 he was appearing at the Royal Variety Show. As a singer, he released one charting single in 1960, the Christmas song "Little White Berry". Television career. In the mid-1960s he starred in the BBC television show "The Roy Castle Show". In 1965, he appeared in the film "Dr. Who and the Daleks", playing the role of Dr. Who's first male assistant, Ian Chesterton, quite differently from the way it had been played in the original television series by William Russell. He also appeared in "Dr. Terror's House of Horrors" as a jazz musician suffering a curse after copying voodoo tunes. He also appeared in "Carry On up the Khyber" in 1968, and in the TV musical "Pickwick" for the BBC in 1969. In 1973, Castle teamed up with the actor and comedian Ronnie Barker in the original one-off called "Another Fine Mess" (an episode from a series called "Seven of One"). Barker was one of Castle's best friends, and paid tribute to their work together shortly after Castle's death. Between 1967 and 1968 Castle co-starred with Jimmy Edwards in the London West End run of the comedy farce show "Big Bad Mouse" when Eric Sykes had to withdraw because of illness. The show was resident at the Shaftesbury Theatre and, while being loosely scripted, it offered both Edwards and Castle the chance to freely ad-lib and generally break the fourth wall with the audience, Castle breaking into trumpet performances while Edwards walked into a front stall seat to read a newspaper, tap dancing and firing ping-pong balls into the stalls. He also once stood in for Bruce Forsyth hosting "The Generation Game" in 1975 while Forsyth was ill. "Record Breakers". In 1972, he first presented "Record Breakers", a children's show, and he remained host for over 20 years. He recorded the theme song for the show himself. While presenting the show he broke nine world records himself, including He was a host of the show up until a few months before his death in 1994, alongside Norris and Ross McWhirter, Fiona Kennedy and Cheryl Baker. From then on, hosting was taken over by Baker and former athlete Kriss Akabusi. It continued for 29 years until 2001, one of Britain's longest-running shows. Singing career. Between 1958 and 1969, Castle recorded numerous singles and three LPs. Only one of these LPs has seen a CD release so far: "Songs For A Rainy Day" was recorded in 1966 for Columbia (now reissued in the UK on CD by EMI Gold, re-titled "Isn't This A Lovely Day"). The record features twelve songs with rain as the theme. It is notable that some of the top British jazz players of the day such as Gordon Beck (piano), Jeff Clyne (bass), Leon Calvert (flugelhorn), Ike Isaacs (guitar), Ray Swinfield (flute) and Al Newman (saxophone) played on the record. The LP features jazz arrangements by Victor Graham and covers a variety of styles such as big band rompers ("Pennies From Heaven", "Stormy Weather"), ballads ("February Brings The Rain", "Here's That Rainy Day", "Soon It's Gonna Rain"),and bossa novas ("Everytime It Rains", "The Gentle Rain"). Personal life. He was married to the dancer Fiona Dickson in 1963 after they were introduced to each other by Eric Morecambe. They had four children. Their youngest son, Ben Castle (born 1973), is a jazz saxophonist who has played with Jamie Cullum, Carleen Anderson and Beth Rowley, among many others. Both Castle and his wife were committed Christians and they regularly attended the Baptist church near their home. Castle was also a keen football fan and supported Liverpool Football Club. Less than six months before his death, he attended the Liverpool-Everton derby match at Anfield on 14 March 1994 and stood on the famous Spion Kop terrace, as it was the last local derby that would be staged before the Kop was demolished to make way for a new all-seater stand. He had also been in the crowd at Liverpool's FA Cup final victory over Sunderland in May 1992, shortly after he was first found to have cancer. At that time Ronnie Barker paid tribute to him, referring to their portrayal of characters that bore a strong resemblance to Laurel and Hardy in "Another Fine Mess".
1057979	John Benjamin Hickey (born June 25, 1963) is an American actor with a career in stage, film and television. He won the 2011 Tony Award for Best Performance by a Featured Actor in a Play for his performance as Felix Turner in "The Normal Heart". On Broadway, he originated the role of Arthur in Terrence McNally's Tony Award-winning play "Love! Valour! Compassion!" in 1995, a role he would recreate for the 1997 film version. He played Clifford Bradshaw in the 1998 revival of "Cabaret", which won the Tony for Best Revival of a Musical, and played Reverend John Hale in the Tony-nominated 2002 revival of Arthur Miller's "The Crucible". He recently played Sean, the homeless brother of Cathy (played by actress Laura Linney), the main character on the Showtime series "The Big C". Career. Education. Hickey graduated from Plano Sr. High School, Plano Texas 1981 and attended Texas State University - San Marcos from 1981–1983, where he was active in the theater department. He earned his bachelor's degree in English at Fordham University in 1985. Film. On film, in addition to his role in "Love! Valour! Compassion!" Hickey played the lead in the 1998 independent film "Finding North" and played American novelist and playwright Jack Dunphy in the 2006 Truman Capote biopic "Infamous", along with supporting roles in a number of other films, including "The Ice Storm and The Anniversary Party". Hickey's best-known television role is perhaps that of Philip Stoddard on the short-lived gay-themed ABC sitcom "It's All Relative".
1060788	Jason Iain Flemyng (born 25 September 1966) is an English actor. He is known for his film work, which has included roles in British films such as "Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels" (1998) and "Snatch" (2000), both for Guy Ritchie, as well as Hollywood productions such as "Rob Roy" (1995) along with the Alan Moore comic book adaptations "From Hell" (2001) and "The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen" (2003). He has also appeared in prominent roles in both theatre and television in the UK. Flemyng can speak fluent French, and has made three films in that language. He won the Best Actor Award at the Geneva Film Festival for his role in 1996's "Alive and Kicking". Early life and career. Flemyng was born in Putney, London, the son of Scottish television and film director Gordon Flemyng. He decided he wanted to become an actor after appearing in theatrical productions at his school, Christ's Hospital in Sussex. "I always wanted to be an actor," he later told the BBC. "From the time I fancied a girl who played Dorothy in the school production of "The Wizard of Oz". I auditioned for the role of the scarecrow so that I could have the most stage time with her, but she ended up running off with the tin man!" In the 1980s, he was involved with the National Youth Theatre and the political organisation the Young Socialists. He also became involved with the Labour Party's Militant tendency, and was expelled from Labour in 1987 for selling the Militant newspaper. Flemyng has subsequently claimed that both his theatrical and political activities at this time were simply a way of meeting girls. In 1990 he was admitted to the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art (LAMDA), where he was a classmate of Hermione Norris. Following his graduation from LAMDA in the early 1990s he joined the Royal Shakespeare Company. Television and film work. One of his first prominent roles on screen was a guest appearance in the American television series "The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles" in 1992. He was then a regular in the ITV drama series "Doctor Finlay" from 1993 to 1996. His first film appearance was in the 1994 version of "The Jungle Book". His first major cinema role was in Angela Pope's 1996 drama "Hollow Reed", where he played a child abuser, followed by a main role in Guy Ritchie's popular 1998 London gangster film "Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels". Flemyng later claimed to have lost so much money while playing poker with the film's backers in between takes on set that he had to work on the four days of re-shoots the film required for no fee. He went on to appear in films such as "The Red Violin" and "Deep Rising" (1998), "Snatch" (2000), George A. Romero's "Bruiser" (2000) and "Rock Star" (2001). Flemyng also starred in the short film "Feeling Good", written by Dexter Fletcher, whom he met while working on "Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels". In the early 2000s he featured in two big-budget Hollywood films which were adaptations of Alan Moore comic books; as John Netley in 2001's "From Hell", with Johnny Depp, and 2003's "The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen", with Sean Connery, in which Flemyng played Dr. Henry Jekyll and Edward Hyde. The latter film was not a success, but Flemyng commented that: "It was a bit of a nightmare... the film cost a fortune and didn't make back the money it was meant to... But I still get a huge kick out of doing films like that and "From Hell". Any day you walk onto a set and Sean Connery or Johnny Depp or Brad Pitt is there has to be a good day." In parallel with his film career, Flemyng has continued to take various television roles. He told BBC News Online in 2004 that: "Of the 40 feature films I've made, 15 of them failed to make it onto the screen and have only ever been seen by cast and crew. It is very frustrating when a film you really believe in remains unseen. That's not a problem with television. If you're a painter you don't paint a picture and then stick it under the bed – you want people to see it." In 2005 he played the famous science-fiction role of Professor Bernard Quatermass when digital television channel BBC Four produced a live remake of the 1953 serial "The Quatermass Experiment." In 2005 he also played the part of Dimitry, a Russian ex-biological weapons specialist, in "Transporter 2", where he was briefly reunited with Jason Statham. In 2009, Flemyng joined the cast of the ITV science fiction cult drama series "Primeval" during its third series, as maverick ex-policeman Danny Quinn. He received top billing as the series' new star, taking over from Douglas Henshall. In March 2010 Flemyng earned a lead role as Cpl. Callow in the war/horror film "The 4th Reich". On 15 August 2010, it became public that he had been cast in the role of Azazel in the X-Men prequel, "", directed by Matthew Vaughn. In 2011, Flemyng reprised his character of Danny Quinn in the last episode of "Primeval" 's fourth series, it is said that he would return as Danny Quinn one last time before the finale of the shows fifth series. In 2012, he starred in "I Give It a Year" (released in Feb 2013), as the bride's brother-in-law in a British romcom by Working Title. Personal life. Flemyng married Elly Fairman in the summer of 2008, in Tuscany, Italy. Flemyng enjoys long-distance running and has completed several marathons. He is a fan of Chelsea F.C.
1017529	Project A Part II (; aka Jackie Chan’s Project A II) is a 1987 Hong Kong action film written, directed by and starring Jackie Chan which serves as a sequel to his massive Asian hit 1983 film "Project A". Although Jackie Chan stars as "Sergeant Dragon Ma" once again, Sammo Hung and Yuen Biao, stars from the original film are absent. Plot. The sequel continues with some runaway pirates making a vow that they must kill Dragon Ma (Jackie Chan) to take revenge for their late captain (Sam Pou). On recommendation of the Chief of Marine Force (Kwan Hoi-san), Dragon Ma is transferred to be in charge of the district of Sai Wan after the Superintendent, Chun, is thought to be staging his arrests. Chun, however, has excellent record and the "criminals" he has been engaging are shot and killed, so there is no evidence against him. Dragon Ma and his subordinates later meet Yesan (Maggie Cheung) and her cousin, Carina (Carina Lau), at a teahouse selling flowers to raise funds. He later learns that Carina is actually a member of the Chinese revolutionaries headed by Dr Sun Yat-sen. Dragon identifies himself as the new superintendent of Sai Wai Police Station, after realizing that all of his policemen except one has been taking bribes. Ho, the only upright policeman around, tells them that a gangster named Tiger Ow with gambling dens and other illegal businesses is the kingpin of the town. Dragon moves to confront Ow, but the police of his district are cowardly and unwilling to risk their lives to bring in the gangster. Dragon is forced to confront Tiger with only his three friends he brought with him from the Marine Police and Ho, the one straight cop in the district. After a big fight where the policemen are badly outnumbered, the Marine Police show up with guns, and force the gangsters to surrender. After one last fight with Ow, all the gangsters are sent to prison, inspiring the police at the station to do a better job. Dragon is then put in charge of the Governor's security for a birthday ball he is throwing for his adopted daughter (Regina Kent). Chun corroborates with a group of revolutionaries (Rosamund Kwan and Sam Lui) to implicate Dragon in a theft of the Governor's diamond pendant. Dragon is arrested. After the ball Carina is kidnapped by agents of the Empress Dowager, who are working with Chun. The Imperal Agents kidnap Carina and trap her in a wardrobe at Yesan's house. Yesan arrives with Li. Then Ma and Ho arrive, hiding there handcuffs with Ma's jacket, causing Yesan to think one of them is bisexual, since it appears like they are holding hands. Li hides, but ends up threatened by one of the imperial agents. Ma and Ho go to the bathroom together. While they are in the bathroom, the commissioner arrives with flowers. As he is filling up the vase, he realizes that the faucet is broken. He gets sprayed on and gets wet. Yesan hangs up his uniform, when Ma and Ho sees the keys to the handcuffs. They break free and hide under the bed, losing the key to the handcuffs. They see the Imperial Agents with Carina in the wardrobe. Then Yesan and the commissioner sit down to talk. The Commissioner demonstrates how to handcuff to people by handcuffing himself to the armchair. Then he can't break free. Then another person rings the doorbell. It is Chun visiting Yesan. The commissioner claims he can't be seen in this shirt. So he hides under the bed along with the chair, resulting him to see Ma and Ho. Yesan finally gets Chun to get out of her house, when Ma, Ho, Tung and Yesan defeat the Imperial agents. Eventually the Imperial Agents are arrested, the revolutionary chief escapes, and Dragon is handcuffed by Chun so that he can be brought to the main prison. Carina flees town with the help of the revolutionaries. We see Chun has arranged for Dragon to be killed by a prison warden. The pirates who swore vengeance turn up and attack both Dragon and Chun by axes around the town, but are eventually driven off after the police show up. Dragon is then handed over to the prison warden, who tied up in a sack and throws Dragon into the sea. The revolutionaries save Dragon, and take him back to their hideout above a medicine store. They try to enlist Dragon to join their cause, but he refuses to actively help them, saying that he is just a Hong Kong cop and all he can do is enforce the law and safeguard ordinary citizen's security. The head of the pirates falls sick and the pirates enter the medicine store to ask for some herbs. Dragon intervenes and offers to pay for their medicine, causing the pirates to think much better of him. The Imperial agents show up, and proceed to apprehend most of the revolutionaries, to gain possession of the black book. Dragon helps Yessan and Miss Pak run off while safeguarding the book from the agents. After a frantic run and fight scene, he beats up all of them with the help of the ax-wielding pirates. The Police Commissioner arrives with a huge police cohort and orders the arrest of Superintendent Chun, now fully aware Chun is trying to murder Dragon. Chun tries to run. A large bamboo-and-wood stage facade falls on Chun while he is attempting to get back his moneybag. Dragon, on order of the Commissioner, takes charge of the police and the area. Box office. This film grossed HK $31,459,916 at the Hong Kong box office.
1266379	Billy Bevan (born William Bevan Harris, 29 September 1887 – 26 November 1957) was an Australian film actor. He appeared in 254 American films between 1916 and 1950. Bevan was born in the country town of Orange, New South Wales, Australia. He went on the stage at an early age, travelled to Sydney and spent eight years in Australian light opera. He sailed to America with the Pollard Opera Company in 1912 and later toured Canada. Bevan broke into films with the Sigmund Lubin studio in 1916. When the company disbanded, Bevan became a supporting actor in Mack Sennett movie comedies. An expressive pantomimist, Bevan's quiet scene-stealing attracted attention, and by 1922 Bevan was a Sennett star. He supplemented his income, however, by establishing a citrus and avocado farm at Escondido, California. Usually filmed wearing a derby hat and a drooping mustache, Bevan may not have possessed an indelible screen character like Charlie Chaplin but he had a friendly, funny presence in the frantic Sennett comedies. Much of the comedy depended on Bevan's skilled timing and reactions; the famous "oyster" routine performed on film by Curly Howard, Lou Costello, and Huntz Hall—in which a bowl of "fresh oyster stew" shows alarming signs of life and battles the guy trying to eat it—was originated on film decades earlier by Bevan in the short film "Wandering Willies". By the mid-1920s Bevan was often teamed with Andy Clyde; Clyde soon graduated to his own starring series. The late 1920s found Bevan playing in wild marital farces for Sennett. Talking pictures took their toll on the careers of many silent stars, including Billy Bevan. His Australian accent came across as British, but was sufficiently neutral that he could play nondescript character parts (like a hotel employee in the Mae Murray talkie "Peacock Alley"). His starring series came to an end, however, and Bevan began a second career as a character actor and bit player. For the next 20 years he often played rowdy Cockneys (as in "Pack Up Your Troubles" with The Ritz Brothers), and affable Englishmen (as in "Tin Pan Alley" and "Terror by Night"). Bevan died in 1957 in Escondido, California, just before new audiences discovered him in Robert Youngson's silent-comedy compilations. (The Youngson films mispronounce his name as "Be-VAN"; Bevan himself offered the proper pronunciation in a "Voice of Hollywood" reel in 1930.)
1034180	Bernard Kay (Born 23 February 1928, Bolton, Lancashire) is a British actor with an extensive theatre, television and film repertoire. Career. Kay began his working life as a reporter on the "Bolton Evening News", and a stringer for the "Manchester Guardian". He was conscripted in 1946 and started acting in the army. Kay gained a scholarship to study at the Old Vic Theatre School and became a professional in 1950, as a member of the company which reopened the Old Vic after World War II. He has appeared in hundreds of TV productions including "Emmerdale Farm", "The Champions", "The Cellar and the Almond Tree", "Clayhanger", "A Very British Coup", Casualty, Casualty 1909, Doctors, "Z-Cars", "Coronation Street" and "Foyle's War". He portrayed Captain Stanley Lord of the SS Californian in the BBC dramatisation 'Trial by Inquiry: Titanic' in 1967; and he played the bandit leader Cordova in "Zorro" television episode "Alejandro Rides Again" in 1991 which was filmed in Madrid, Spain. Kay also gave a sympathetic performance as Korporal Hartwig in an early episode of "Colditz". He has appeared four times in the "Doctor Who" series in various roles, most notably as Saladin in the classic "Doctor Who" story "The Crusade" in 1965, alongside William Hartnell and Julian Glover. He also appeared in the serial "The Dalek Invasion of Earth" (1964), "The Faceless Ones" (1967) and "Colony in Space" (1971). In 2006, he guest-starred in the "Doctor Who" audio adventure "Night Thoughts". His most famous film appearance was his turn as a Bolshevik leader in "Doctor Zhivago" (1965). (He commuted between Madrid and London to play Saladin during this stint.) Stage. He has also acted extensively on the stage. In 1952, for the Nottingham Rep, he learned, rehearsed, and played "Macbeth" in less than 24 hours. In 1984, he played Shylock in a British Council tour of Asia, ending in Baghdad, in the middle of the Iraq/Iran war. Other theatre includes "An Inspector Calls" (Garrick Theatre), "Macbeth" (Nottingham Playhouse), "Titus Andronicus" (European Tour), "A Man for all Seasons" (International Tour), "The Merchant of Venice" (International Tour), "Galileo" (Young Vic), "Death of a Salesman" (Lyric Theatre, Belfast)(For which he was nominated as best actor in the RITA awards.) and "Halpern and Johnson" (New End Theatre). He has twice appeared at the Finborough Theatre, London - in 2006 in "After Haggerty" and in 2010 in "Dream of the Dog". Awards. In 2006, Kay won the creative non-fiction prize for writing as part of New Writing Ventures. Personal life. He was married to Patricia Haines (first wife of Michael Caine) from 1963 until her death in 1977.
1164142	Sally Ann Struthers (born July 28, 1947) is an American actress and spokeswoman, best known for her roles as Gloria Stivic on "All in the Family", for which she won two Emmy awards, and as Babette on "Gilmore Girls". Personal life. Sally Struthers was born in Portland, Oregon, one of two children, with sister Sue, of Margaret Caroline (née Jernes) and Robert Alden Struthers, a surgeon who left the family when Sally was 9 or 10 years old. Her maternal grandparents were Norwegian immigrants. Struthers married William C. Rader, a psychiatrist. They had one child together, Samantha Struthers Rader, before their divorce. Career. Struthers moved quickly into stardom between the late 1960s and early 1970s. In "Five Easy Pieces" (1970) she was in a nude sex scene with Jack Nicholson, but achieved fame as Gloria Stivic on the 1970s sitcom, "All in the Family". Producer Norman Lear found the actress dancing on "The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour", a counterculture variety show whose writing staff included Rob Reiner. According to a WPTT-AM radio interview with Doug Hoerth in 2003, Struthers thought that Reiner's then-fiancée and later wife, Penny Marshall, would get the role of Gloria, as Marshall resembled Jean Stapleton, who played Edith Bunker. Actress Candice Azzara had played the role of Gloria in a pilot episode, but was soon dropped. After a shaky start, the series became a hit beginning with its summer reruns, giving tens of millions of viewers the chance to see "Gloria" defending her liberal viewpoints about negative stereotypes and inequality. Struthers won two Emmy Awards (in 1972 and 1979) for her work on the show. In 2012, Struthers recalled the serendipity that helped her land the role: On the short-lived "Archie Bunker's Place" spin-off "Gloria" (1982–1983), Struthers reprised Gloria as a new divorcee (she became an "exchange student", when husband Mike exchanged her for one of his students). The series co-starred Burgess Meredith as the doctor of an animal clinic with Gloria as his assistant. She was a semi-regular panelist on the 1990 revival of "Match Game". She also was an occasional celebrity guest on "Win, Lose or Draw", even once guest hosting the NBC daytime version. She also had a recurring role as Bill Miller's manipulative mother, Louise, on the CBS sitcom "Still Standing" and regularly appeared on "Gilmore Girls" as Babette Dell. Struthers provided voices for a number of animated series such as "The Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm Show" (as a teenage Pebbles Flintstone), "TaleSpin" (as Rebecca Cunningham) and was one of the voice stars on ABC's "Dinosaurs" produced by Walt Disney and Henson Productions (as Charlene Sinclair). Struthers starred in the stage production of "Annie" at the Fabulous Fox Theatre in Atlanta, Georgia, and has been a regular since the early 2000s at the Ogunquit Playhouse, in Ogunquit, Maine, where in 2012 she performed in "Always, Patsy Cline", as Louise Segar, and "", as Roz Klein. She was arrested September 12, 2012, in Ogunquit on a charge of operating under the influence, posting $160 bail and being scheduled for a court appearance on December 14, where a $500 fine and 90 day suspension of her license are likely due to her being a first time offender. Activism. She has been a spokesperson for Christian Children's Fund (later ChildFund), advocating on behalf of impoverished children in developing countries, mainly in Africa, and has been the spokesperson for International Correspondence Schools in television ads, pitching the famous line "Do you want to make more money? Sure, we all do!". Her activism has been satirized in Episode 19 of the seventh season of "Grey's Anatomy", 3 Episodes of "In Living Color" Season 3 Episodes 6 & 18 and Season 4 Episode 27, and in the "South Park" Episodes "Starvin' Marvin", and "Starvin' Marvin in Space". Awards and nominations. Ovation Awards
1064034	William James Remar (born December 31, 1953) is an American actor and voice artist. He has appeared in movies, video games, and TV shows. He played Richard, the on-off tycoon boyfriend of Kim Cattrall's character in "Sex and the City"; Ajax in "The Warriors"; the homicidal maniac Albert Ganz in the 1982 comedy/thriller "48 Hrs."; Dutch Shultz in "The Cotton Club"; Lord Raiden in ""; and more recently Harry Morgan in "Dexter". Personal life. Remar was born in Boston, Massachusetts, the son of Elizabeth Mary, a mental health state official, and S. Roy Remar, an attorney. Career. He has spent the majority of his film career playing villains. He is known for his roles as the aggressively sexual and violent character Ajax in the 1979 cult film "The Warriors" where in a scene set in Central Park he shockingly grabs lady cop Mercedes Ruehl's breasts before being handcuffed and as the murdering sociopath Albert Ganz in the 1982 hit "48 Hrs." (both films were directed by Walter Hill and co-starred David Patrick Kelly, whose character is named Luther in both). In 1980, he starred in the film "Windwalker", as the young Windwalker, and also portrayed a gay man in the film "Cruising". Remar played real-life 1930s-era gangster Dutch Schultz in the 1984 film "The Cotton Club". Remar was cast as Corporal Hicks in the 1986 science-fiction/horror film "Aliens" (co-produced by Walter Hill), but was replaced by Michael Biehn shortly after filming began due to "creative differences" with director James Cameron. At least one piece of footage featuring Remar made it into the final version of the film, when the Marines enter the processing station and the camera tilts down from the Alien nest, though Remar is not seen in close-up. He is also filmed from the back as the Marines first enter the compound on LV-426 and when "Hicks" approaches the cocooned woman, again filmed from the rear so the viewer is unable to tell it is Remar and not Michael Biehn. In 1996, he played Quill, one of the main villains in "The Phantom". Other films include "Drugstore Cowboy", "Fear X", "Boys on the Side", ', "The Quest", "Wedlock", ', "Rites of Passage", ', "2 Fast 2 Furious", "The Girl Next Door" and in 1998 he played the patrolman in "Psycho". He was also the star of the 1986 film "Quiet Cool". He portrayed the character of Raiden in ', the sequel to the 1995 movie adaptation of "Mortal Kombat", taking over the role from Christopher Lambert. He then followed this with a role in the 1996 direct-to-video science fiction movie "Robo Warriors". Remar's other appearances include the TV series "Miami Vice", "Hill Street Blues", "Sex and the City", "Tales from the Crypt", "Jericho", "Third Watch", "Justice League Unlimited" and "Battlestar Galactica", as well as appearing as a possessed mental patient in the "X-Files" ninth season episode "Daemonicus". He was in the miniseries "The Grid" (2004) as Hudson "Hud", the love interest of Julianna Margulies' character. He starred as Tiny Bellows on the short-lived television series, "The Huntress". He had a recurring guest role in the television series "Jericho" on CBS. From 2006 to 2013, Remar co-starred in "Dexter" on Showtime. Remar was nominated for a Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actor for his portrayal of Dexter Morgan's adoptive father, Harry Morgan. He also had a role in the 2009 horror movie "The Unborn" (this film also had actor C.S. Lee, who portrays Vince Masuka in "Dexter"). In 2008 he played a brief role as General Bratt in the prologue of Pineapple Express. In 2010, he did a guest role as Giuseppe Salvatore in "The Vampire Diaries". In 2010, Remar had a guest role on "FlashForward" playing a character called James Ermine, a general for Jericho, a black-ops military contractor. Remar also had a cameo in the 1980 Western "The Long Riders" when he faced David Carradine's character in a bar fight over a woman that Remar's character was married to. He also voiced Vilgax in ' and ' replacing Steve Blum. He guest starred in "Private Practice" in 2010, playing a physician named Gibby who works with Doctors Without Borders. He voiced Cpt. Jason Narville in "Killzone 3". Remar was featured in the 2011 film ' and voiced the Autobot Sideswipe in the 2011 film ' replacing André Sogliuzzo. He has also been cast in the 2011 heist film "Setup". He also stars in the film "Arena". In 2012, Remar appeared as two different characters in Quentin Tarantino's film "Django Unchained".
1055212	Tom and Huck is a 1995 Disney film based on Mark Twain's novel "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer", and starring Jonathan Taylor Thomas, Brad Renfro, Mike McShane, and Amy Wright. The film was directed by Peter Hewitt and produced/co-written by Stephen Sommers (who also worked on another Disney adaptation of Twain's work, 1993's "The Adventures of Huck Finn"). The movie was released in the U.S. and Canada on December 22, 1995. In the film, mischievous young Tom Sawyer witnesses a murder by the vicious Native American known as "Injun Joe". Tom becomes friends with Huckleberry Finn, a boy with no future and no family, and is forced to choose between honoring a friendship or honoring an oath, because the town alcoholic is accused of the murder. Plot. The film opens with Injun Joe (Eric Schweig) accepting a job from Doctor Robinson (William Newman). Then Tom Sawyer (Jonathan Taylor Thomas) is running away from home. He and his friends ride down the Mississippi River on a raft, but hit a sharp rock, which throws Tom into the water. His friends find him washed up on the shore, and Tom finds it was Huck Finn (Brad Renfro) who carried him to safety. Huck learns of an unusual way to remove warts - by taking a dead cat to the graveyard at night. There they witness Doctor Robinson being murdered by Injun Joe. The town drunk, Muff Potter (Mike McShane) is framed for the murder; unfortunately, Tom and Huck had signed an oath saying that if either of them came forward about it, they would drop dead and rot. The duo then goes on a search for Injun Joe's treasure map (which he found in Vic Murrell's coffin), so they can declare Muff Potter innocent and still keep their oath. The only problem is, the map is in Injun Joe's pocket. After Injun Joe finds the first treasure, he burns the map and discovers that Tom was a witness to the murder. He finds Tom and warns him that if he ever told anybody what he knew, he will kill him. However, at the time, the entire town thought he was dead, and the friendship between Tom and Huck starts to decline because of the fact that their evidence (the map) to prove Muff innocent, while preserving their oath, is destroyed. At the trial of Muff Potter, Tom decides that his friendship with Muff is more important than his oath with Huck and tells the truth to the court, which finds Muff innocent of all charges and goes after Injun Joe. As a result, Injun Joe decides to hold up his end of the bargain by killing Tom. Huck becomes angry with Tom for breaking their oath and leaves town. During a festival the next day, a group of children, including Tom Sawyer and Becky Thatcher (Rachael Leigh Cook), a girl whom Tom has expressed romantic interest previously in the film, enter the caves where Tom and Becky become lost. They stumble upon Injun Joe (who was looking for Tom) in McDougal's Cave. He traps them, but Tom and Becky manage to escape. Then they find the treasure and Tom tells Becky to go get her father and bring him back. Just then, Injun Joe finds Tom, and again tries to kill him. Huck returns to help save Tom, and battles Injun Joe, who then falls into a chasm. The boys reconcile, and are declared heroes by the people. Tom is praised on the front page of the newspaper, and Widow Douglas (Marian Seldes) decides to adopt Huck Finn. Reception. Box office. The movie debuted at No.9. In its second week it rose to No.8. The U.S. and Canada box office for "Tom and Huck" was $23,920,048. Critical. The movie received mixed to negative reviews, with a 'rotten' 25% on review aggregate Rotten Tomatoes
1059140	Fred Melamed (born May 13, 1956) is an American actor and writer. Early life. Melamed is the adopted son of prominent New York television producer Louis Melamed, who worked with TV pioneer Nat Hiken on such shows as "Car 54, Where Are You?" and "The Phil Silvers Show "(aka" Sgt. Bilko)." His biological mother is actor/director Nancy Zala and his biological father was a psychoanalyst to the prominent Adler family, including Lucy and Stella Adler. According to Melamed he was born in New York City to a non-believer Jewish family who never went to synagogue, except to attend a cousin's bar mitzvah. When he was asked if he wanted to attend Hebrew school, he said no, and thus had no religious training. Career. He received his theatrical training at Hampshire College and the Yale School of Drama. At Yale, he was a Samuel F. B. Morse College Graduate Fellow. He was also a nominee for the Irene Ryan Award, a prize conferred upon the most promising young actors in the United States. While still at Yale, he was an instructor at the well-known performing arts camp, Stagedoor Manor. After his training, he appeared on stage with several resident theatre companies, including The Guthrie Theater, the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, The Yale Repertory Theater, and on Broadway in the Tony Award-Winning "Amadeus". Following Amadeus, Melamed entered what he called "a period of personal darkness", during which he effectively stopped acting on stage. At the same time, with an insider's understanding of the industry and assistance from his agent, he became established as a voice actor, and continued to do film work. Melamed's voice became a familiar presence on television, serving as the sound of the Olympics, Mercedes Benz, CBS Sports, USA Network, the Super Bowl, and numerous commercials and television programs. He became known within the industry as a voice actor, appearing in the Grand Theft Auto series, and dubbing several actors' entire performances in films. But it was for his portrayal of "sensitive" villain Sy Ableman, in Joel and Ethan Coen's 2009 film, "A Serious Man", which was nominated for Best Picture, at the 2010 Academy Awards, that he became most widely known. About that character, "Film Confessional" said, "Sy Ableman is as great a contemporary movie villain as The Joker, Hans Landa, or Anton Chigurh... The character Fred Melamed contrives is the year's most brilliant force of destruction." For his performance in "A Serious Man", Melamed, the Coen Brothers, and the film's Ensemble and Casting Directors won Film Independent's Independent Spirit Robert Altman Award. "New York" magazine listed Melamed's work as among the Best Performances of the Decade, and "Empire" called Sy Ableman "One of The Best Coen Bros. Characters of All Time". Several leading U.S. critics, including A. O. Scott of "The New York Times", Michael Philips of the "Chicago Tribune" and Roger Ebert said his performance was worthy of Academy Award nomination. In addition, Melamed has appeared in a host of Woody Allen films, including "Hannah and Her Sisters", "Radio Days", "Another Woman", "Crimes and Misdemeanors", "Shadows and Fog", "Husbands and Wives", and "Hollywood Ending". He has also played significant supporting roles in "Suspect", "The Good Mother", "The Mission", "The Pickup Artist" and other films. On television, he plays Larry David's smug psychiatrist, Dr. Arthur Thurgood, on "Curb Your Enthusiasm", and tough-guy jurist Judge Alan Karpman, on "The Good Wife". In recent film, he starred in Lake Bell's "In A World", winner of the 2013 Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award at the Sundance Film Festival, a comedy about life among the cream of L.A.'s voiceover royalty. Melamed also played Elliott Gould's son, auteur/director Bob Wilson, in "Fred", a film about the decline of a stubborn patriarch and his family. Other films include "The Dictator" (2012), with Sacha Baron Cohen and Sir Ben Kingsley, where Melamed appears in a cameo as the Director of the dictator's Nuclear Weapons Program, and "Blumenthal", where Melamed stars as deceased playwright Brian Cox's agent, best friend, and, possibly, lover. On Broadway in 2011, after a long hiatus from the theatre, Melamed originated the roles of The Father in Ethan Coen's "Talking Cure", and Thomas Moran in Elaine May's "George Is Dead", two of the one-act plays that comprised "Relatively Speaking". Subsequently, Melamed took on the role of Vanya in the Guild Hall production of "Uncle Vanya", about which "The New York Times" said he gave "... an excellent ... multi-layered performance ... Mr. Melamed easily inhabits the comic, awkward lover, but also brings out Vanya's vast loneliness ...". As a writer, he has produced screenplays including "Girl of the Perfume River", "A Jones for Gash", "The Asshat Project", and most recently, "The Preservationist", a fictional film inspired by the case of Melamed's college friend, Edward Forbes Smiley III, a renowned cartographic expert and dealer, who admitted to having been the most brazen and prolific map thief of all time. Personal life. Melamed lives with his wife and twin sons in Los Angeles. Both of the Melamed children were born with autism, and he and his wife have been involved in advocacy for persons living with Autism Spectrum Disorder and their families.
1055945	The Madagascar Penguins in a Christmas Caper is a computer-animated short produced by DreamWorks Animation. The 12-minute "Madagascar" spin-off features the adventures of four penguins, sometimes known as the Madagascar Penguins, who live in the Central Park Zoo and are trained as spies. The short premiered in theaters on October 7, 2005 with the stop-motion film, "". It was directed by animation veteran Gary Trousdale, produced by Teresa Cheng, and written by Michael Lachance. Plot. Focusing on the "Madagacar" penguins and taking place before the events of the first "Madagascar", the youngest penguin on the team, Private, slips out of the zoo on Christmas Eve to find a present for a lonely polar bear named Ted. While roaming the streets of Manhattan, he is captured by Nana (the mean old lady from the first film) who mistakes him for a chew toy for her vicious dog, Mr Chew. The other three penguins, Skipper, Kowalski, and Rico, rescue Private from the old lady's apartment before it is too late. They have an intense fight against Mr. Chew, all-the-while, not noticed by Nana, who is very occupied watching a football game. When they are done, they blow the door with dynamite, which is a running gag in the film, finally attracting Nana's attention and leaving Mr. Chew to take the fall for what the penguins have done to her place. At the end of the film they invite Ted to their home. But he has already invited several other guests, resulting in a massive sing-a-long to a parody of Jingle Bells. Home media. "The Madagascar Penguins in a Christmas Caper" was released on the later DVD editions of "Madagascar", "Shrek", and "Shrek 2", all of which were released on November 15, 2005. It was released on Blu-ray on September 23, 2008, as a bonus feature attached to "Madagascar".
1618891	Lex Barker (May 8, 1919 – May 11, 1973) was an American actor best known for playing Tarzan of the Apes and leading characters from Karl May's novels. Early life. Born Alexander Crichlow Barker, Jr. in Rye, New York, he was the second child of Alexander Crichlow Barker, Sr., a wealthy Canadian-born building contractor and his American wife, the former Marion Thornton Beals. His father later worked as a stockbroker. Barker had an elder sister, Frederica Amelia (1917–1980). Barker was also a direct descendant of the founder of Rhode Island, Roger Williams, and of Sir William Henry Crichlow, historical Governor General of Barbados. Raised in New York City and Port Chester, New York, Barker attended the Fessenden School and graduated from Phillips Exeter Academy. He played football as well as the oboe. He attended Princeton University, but dropped out in order to join a theatrical stock company, much to the chagrin of his family. Career. Barker made it to Broadway once, in a small role in a short run of Shakepeare's "The Merry Wives of Windsor" in 1938. He also had a small role in Orson Welles's disastrous "Five Kings", which met with so many problems in Boston and Philadelphia that it never made it into New York. Barker reportedly was spotted by scouts from Twentieth Century Fox and offered a film contract in 1939, but could not convince his parents to sign it (he was underage). Disowned by his family for his choice of an acting career, he worked in a steel mill and studied engineering at night. In February 1941, ten months before the attack on Pearl Harbor, Barker left his fledgling acting career and enlisted in the US Army. He rose to the rank of major during the war. He was wounded in action (in the head and leg) fighting in Sicily. Back in the United States, Barker recuperated at an Arkansas military hospital, then upon his discharge from service, traveled to Los Angeles. Within a short time, he landed a small role in his first film, "Doll Face" (1945). A string of small roles followed, the best of which was as Emmett Dalton in the Western "Return of the Bad Men" (1948). Barker soon found the role that would bring him fame. In "Tarzan's Magic Fountain" (1949), Barker became the tenth official Tarzan of the movies. His blond, handsome, and intelligent appearance, as well as his athletic, now 6'4" frame, helped make him popular in the role Johnny Weissmuller had made his own for sixteen years. Barker made only five Tarzan films, but he remains one of the actors best known for the role. His stardom as Tarzan led him to a variety of heroic roles in other films, primarily Westerns, and one interesting (and quite non-heroic) part in a World War II film, "Away All Boats" (1956). In 1957, as he found it harder to find work in American films, Barker moved to Europe (he spoke French, Italian, Spanish, and some German), where he found popularity and starred in over forty European films, including two movies based on the novels by Italian author Emilio Salgari (1862–1911). In Italy, he also had a short but compelling role as Anita Ekberg's fiancé in Federico Fellini's "La Dolce Vita" (1960). In Germany, he had his greatest success. There he starred in two movies based on the "Doctor Mabuse" stories (formerly filmed by Fritz Lang), in the movies "Frauenarzt Dr. Sibelius" and "Frühstück im Doppelbett", and in 13 movies based on novels by German author Karl May (1842–1912), playing such well-known May characters as "Old Shatterhand", "Kara Ben Nemsi", and "Dr. Sternau". In 1966, Barker was awarded the "Bambi Award" as "Best Foreign Actor" in Germany, where he was a major, very popular, star. He even recorded to songs in German language: "Ich bin morgen auf dem Weg zu dir" ("I'll be on the way to you tomorrow", composed by Martin Böttcher, the composer of some of the soundtracks of the Karl May movies) and "Mädchen in Samt und Seide" ("Girl in Silk and Velvet", composed by Werner Scharfenberger). He returned to the United States occasionally and made a handful of guest appearances on American television episodes. But Europe, and especially Germany, was his professional home for the remainder of his life. Personal life. Barker was married five times: Death. Barker died three days after his 54th birthday, in 1973, of a heart attack while walking down a street in New York City on his way to meet his fiancée, actress Karen Kondazian. The funeral was in New York. He was cremated and the ashes were taken by his last wife to Spain.
585675	Koodevide? () is a 1983 Malayalam drama film written and directed by P. Padmarajan, starring Mammootty, Suhasini and Rahman who makes his debut. The plot of the film is loosely based on a Tamil novel by Vasanthi. Plot. Alice (Suhasini) is a teacher at a boarding school in Ooty. A prodigal and unruly son of a Member of Parliament Xavier Puthooran, Ravi Puthooran (Rahman) joins the school in Alice's class. Alice manages to mentor him into a good student. Alice's boyfriend Captain Thomas (Mammootty) feels intensely jealous of the attention Alice shows upon Ravi Puthooran. He kills the boy apparently by an accident but later surrenders to the police, leaving Alice frustrated in all aspects of her life. Awards and recognitions. "Koodevide?" won several State awards and also was selected to Indian Panorama. Rahman won Kerala State Film Award for Best Second actor and Sukumari for Best Second actress (1983). The film also won the award for "Best Film with popular appeal and aesthetic value". Rahman after this debut film went ahead to become the dream boy of Malayalam film in the 1980s.
1163765	Oliver Burgess Meredith (November 16, 1907 – September 9, 1997), known professionally as Burgess Meredith, was an American actor in theatre, film, and television, who also worked as a director. Active for more than six decades, Meredith has been called "a virtuosic actor" who was "one of the most accomplished actors of the century." A life member of The Actors Studio by invitation, Meredith won several Emmys, was the first man to win the Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actor twice, and was nominated for two Academy Awards. Early life. Meredith was born in Cleveland, Ohio, the son of Ida Beth (née Burgess) and Canadian-born William George Meredith, M.D. He graduated from Hoosac School in 1926 and then attended Amherst College as a member of the Class of 1931. Meredith served in the United States Army Air Forces in World War II, reaching the rank of captain. He was discharged in 1944 to work on the movie "The Story of G.I. Joe", in which he starred as the popular war correspondent Ernie Pyle. Acting career. Theatre. In 1929, he became a member of Eva Le Gallienne's Civic Repertory Theatre company in New York City. Although best known to the larger world audience for his film and television work, Meredith was an influential actor and director for the stage. He made his Broadway debut as Peter in Le Gallienne's production of "Romeo and Juliet" (1930) and became a star in Maxwell Anderson's "Winterset" (1935), which became his film debut the following year. His early life and theatre work were the subject of a "New Yorker" profile. He received acclaim playing in the 1935 revival of "The Barretts of Wimpole Street" starring Katharine Cornell. She subsequently cast him in several of her later productions. Other Broadway roles included Van van Dorn in "High Tor" (1937), Liliom in "Liliom" (1940), Christy Mahon in "The Playboy of the Western World" (1946), and Adolphus Cusins "Major Barbara" (1957). He created the role of Erie Smith in the English-language premiere of Eugene O'Neill's "Hughie" at the Theater Royal in Bath, England in 1963. He played Hamlet in avant-garde theatrical and radio productions of the play.
591064	Then Nilavu () is a 1961 Indian Tamil romantic comedy film written and directed by C. V. Sridhar through his Chitralaya Films. The film stars Gemini Ganesan, Vyjayanthimala in the lead, with M. N. Nambiar, K. A. Thangavelu and M. Saroja as the ensemble cast. The film was produced and directed by C. V. Sridhar. The film's score was composed by A. M. Rajah while the lyrics were penned by Kannadasan. The film deals with a young man Raj who falls in love with a young woman Shanti, but she disapproves of him. She returns to her home in Bangalore city, to join her father Sokkalingam and his newly-married second wife on their honeymoon to Kashmir. Raj also joins them on tour, after being mistaken for Shanti's appointed manager (also named Raj), who no-one from the family has yet seen. Raj and Shanti eventually fall in love during the trip, but everything takes a drastic turn when the real Raj who was appointed as Shanti's manager arrives. "Then Nilavu" was released on 30 September 1961, and became a huge commercial success. Plot. Raj (Gemini Ganesan) meets Shanti (Vyjayanthimala) at a cricket match in Madras, and falls for her. Shanti does not reciprocate his love, and leaves to her home place Bangalore. Sokkalingam (K. A. Thangavelu), Shanti’s father, a widower, marries Thangam (M. Saroja). They decide to go to Kashmir for their honeymoon, and Shanti also wants to come. Sivalingam, a friend of Sokkalingam suggests an alliance between Shanti and his nephew Raj (M. N. Nambiar) who is now in Madras. Raj has secretly married Lalitha. He ditches Lalitha, when he sees this new alliance and leaves to Bangalore. As fate would have it, Raj misses the train. Just then Raj (Gemini Ganesan) arrives in Bangalore for a different reason, and Sokkalingam misinterprets him as his friend’s nephew. Sokkalingam and wife Thangam leave for Kashmir along with Raj Ganesan and Shanti, who still dislikes Raj Ganesan. After some time, Raj Ganesan and Shanti fall in love. Meanwhile Raj Nambiar reaches Kashmir in search for Sokkalingam. Lalitha, fearing the safety of her husband Raj, also reaches Kashmir in search for him. She meets Raj Ganesan and stays in his house. Lalitha meets Sokkalingam and tells that she is married to Raj. Sokkalingam misinterprets this as Raj Ganesan and throws him out of house. Meanwhile Raj Nambiar meets Sokkalingam and explains everything, therefore he replaces Raj Ganesan as Shanti's manager, despite Shanti's dislike for him. Shanti later finds out that Lalitha is Raj Nambiar's wife and reconciles with Raj Ganesan, while Sokkalingam and Thangam are still unaware. Raj Nambiar finds out that Shanti loves Raj Ganesan, and he is jealous. At the same time, he meets Lalitha who he orders to return, else she will be killed. Lalitha flees, but secretly writes a letter to him showing her affection. Raj Nambiar, touched by the letter, decides to take Lalitha on a boat ride, but has another plan: to kill Lalitha and frame Raj Ganesan. When she joins Raj Nambiar on the boat ride, he forcefully rides the boat, causing her to fall into the lake. Subsequently, he frames Raj Ganesan. Sokkalingam, enraged at how a man could kill his own wife, files a complaint about Lalitha's murder to the Kashmir Police, and soon they chase Raj Ganesan, who elopes with Shanti - his only evidence of innocence. They both run into a forest for shelter and suddenly they discover that Lalitha is still alive, but kept under custody by a group of terrorists. Raj Ganesan and Shanti are also put into the same prison as Lalitha, who reveals what happened: she was washed ashore and was discovered by one of the terrorists. He however started torturing her, and she pushed him off the cliff to his death, hence imprisoned for murder. As luck would have it, a gypsy dancer from the terrorist group helps them escape secretly. But by the time they escape, the nearby guards see them and start shooting them. The three escape onto a boat, but the boat gets a crack and starts drowning, with Raj Ganesan getting separated from Lalitha and Shanti. When he swims to the shore, the police capture him. In the high court, Raj Ganesan tries hard to prove his innocence but with no success, due to lack of evidence. However, Shanti and Lalitha arrive, surprising everyone. But the letter Lalitha wrote to her husband is discovered and after reading the last line (in which Lalitha advised her husband to kill her if wanted), the court suspects Raj Nambiar of the attempted murder. Lalitha, still affectionate to her husband, saves him by lying that it was the storm that knocked her into the lake. The case is dismissed, and everything ends well for everyone. Production. The film was the first ever film produced by C. V. Sridhar through his Chitralaya Films. This is also the first Tamil and South Indian film to be shot in Jammu and Kashmir. The first scene of the film was shot during an India-Pakistan cricket match at M. A. Chidambaram Stadium. The cricket match scene was also used as the background for the film's intro credits. Soundtrack. The film's music was composed by A. M. Rajah with the lyrics were penned by Kannadasan. The film was a major break for S. Janaki who lent her voice to actress Vyjayanthimala. Despite the album's success, C. V. Sridhar and A. M. Rajah parted their ways. The album was well received and all the songs were chartbusters. Reception. V. Balasubramaniam of "The Hindu" said, "A. M. Rajah's tryst with composing includes super duper hit songs from the films ""Kalyana Parisu"," ""Aadi Perukku"" and ""Then Nilavu"." Film critic Baradwaj Rangan said, "Oh, the songs… "Chinna Chinna Kannile, Kaalayum Neeye, Nilavum Malarum Paadudhu"… I’m misting up as I write this!"
585770	Pattanapravesham (Malayalam: പട്ടണപ്രവേശം) is a 1988 Malayalam comedy film directed by Sathyan Anthikkad and written by Sreenivasan. It is the sequel to "Nadodikkattu" and follows the story of Dasan (Mohanlal) and Vijayan (Sreenivasan) who are now CIDs and are investigating a homicide case. The film was produced by Siyad Koker under the banner of Kokers Films. Just six months after the events of the prequel, C.I.D. Ramdas (Mohanlal) and C.I.D. Vijayan (Sreenivasan) who are called to Kerala to find the murderer of a police officer. The two incompetent and clueless men find themselves facing a dangerous crime syndicate that deals in drug trafficking. In addition, Anandan Nambiar (Thilakan) who is the man they put behind bars in Nadodikkattu, escapes from jail. Pattana Pravesham is a well-scripted mix of light comedy and poignant drama, just like its prequel. The film was a critical and commercial success at the box office. In 1990, Priyadarshan made a sequel called "Akkare Akkare Akkare". Plot. The film starts with Ashoka Varma(Prathapachandran) a police officer, who has been trying to prevent smuggling and drugs exporters. On the night he found the crucial evidence needed, he was murdered in his house. To find the murderer Kerala Home Minister(Oduvil Unnikrishnan) invites C.I.D. Ramdas aka Dasan (Mohanlal) and C.I.D. Vijayan (Sreenivasan) to Kerala. On the day they arrived, CI(Azeez) takes them to their residence. They mistake Damu(Mala Aravindan) their cook for the murderer and beat him up. Due to Damu's injury they took their supper in a hotel. In that hotel Ramdas overhears a conversation and mistakes Isaac(N.L. Balakrishnan) and Prof.Vidyadharan(Paravoor Bharathan), two bird watchers, as the murderers. After the supper, Dasan and Vijayan walk along through streets and run into Isaac. When they try follow him, they are shot at and ambushed by a group of villains and a fight breaks out. After the fight they are saved by Prabhakaran Thampi(Karamana Janardanan Nair), the real smuggler and drug king, who pretends to be mill owner involved in a lot of social service projects. Prabhakaran Thampi advices Dasan and Vijayan to withdraw from the investigation telling that there are many officers, who were investigating this case, have been murdered and that he does not want the duo to share their fare. Dasan and Vijayan are frightened but they put on a brave face before him. Dasan and Vijayan decides to go undercover and started the investigation. With the help of Vijayan's idea they dress up as Moopla umbrella repair people. While investigating, a lady(K.P.A.C. Lalitha) gives them an umbrella to repair. They try to ask her about Isaac but she is not interested. They do a bad job of repairing the umbrella. At that time the lady's daughter-in-law Shobha(Ambika) arrives there and she spots Vijayan's fake beard and realizes that they are not genuine repair men. Thinking that they are burglars, the women raise a hue and cry and neighbours gather to catch the "burglars". The duo run away from there, leaving behind their repair kit. After that failure, Vijayan and Dasan dress up as Tamil parrot Tarot diviners, based on Dasan's idea. When they reach a bus station and Shoha too is there. She recognises them and alerts the other passengers that they are thieves. The local people get hold of the duo, and beat them up and take them to the police station. The CI(Azeez) reaches there and informs the local people that the dup are CID's from Tamilnadu. When the duo leave the police station, Shobha apologises them, and Ramdas accepts the apology.. After that day Ramdas arrives at Shobha's house and gives them a new umbrella as a replacement for the one he broke. Shobha gives him tea, but at that time he sees Isaac and runs after him, without drinking tea. He follows Isaac and finds his abode. In the DIG's office, Dasan and Vijayan tell the officers that they have found the murderer and they will arrest him with all necessary proof. When they come out of the DIG's office they meet up with Prabhakaran Thampi who has come there to invite DIG for the stone-laying ceremony for a hospital. Thampi enquires about the investigation. The duo tell him that they are close to catching the culprits, who are masquerading as pillars of the society (referring to Issacs) and that they will unmask them. This frightens Prabhakaran Thampi. That night, when they return from the cinema, they are attacked by a masked man (Thampi's sidekick) in their house acting on the behest of Prabhakaran Thampi. They fight with him and takes his mask from his face and one of his shoes, but he manages to escape from there.
1100457	Stephen Cole Kleene (January 5, 1909 – January 25, 1994) was an American mathematician who helped lay the foundations for theoretical computer science. One of many distinguished students of Alonzo Church, Kleene, along with Alan Turing, Emil Post, and others, is best known as a founder of the branch of mathematical logic known as recursion theory. Kleene's work grounds the study of which functions are computable. A number of mathematical concepts are named after him: Kleene hierarchy, Kleene algebra, the Kleene star (Kleene closure), Kleene's recursion theorem and the Kleene fixpoint theorem. He also invented regular expressions, and was a leading American advocate of mathematical intuitionism. Kleene pronounced his last name . Commonplace mispronunciations include and . (His son, Ken Kleene, wrote: "As far as I am aware this pronunciation is incorrect in all known languages. I believe that this novel pronunciation was invented by my father.") Biography. Kleene was awarded the BA degree from Amherst College in 1930. He was awarded the Ph.D. in mathematics from Princeton University in 1934. His thesis, entitled "A Theory of Positive Integers in Formal Logic", was supervised by Alonzo Church. In the 1930s, he did important work on Church's lambda calculus. In 1935, he joined the mathematics department at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, where he spent nearly all of his career. After two years as an instructor, he was appointed assistant professor in 1937. While a visiting scholar at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, 1939–40, he laid the foundation for recursion theory, an area that would be his lifelong research interest. In 1941, he returned to Amherst College, where he spent one year as an associate professor of mathematics. During World War II, Kleene was a lieutenant commander in the United States Navy. He was an instructor of navigation at the U.S. Naval Reserve's Midshipmen's School in New York, and then a project director at the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, D.C. In 1946, Kleene returned to Wisconsin, becoming a full professor in 1948 and the Cyrus C. MacDuffee professor of mathematics in 1964. He was chair of the Department of Mathematics and Computer Science, 1962–63, and Dean of the College of Letters and Science from 1969 to 1974. The latter appointment he took on despite the considerable student unrest of the day, stemming from the Vietnam War. He retired from the University of Wisconsin in 1979. The mathematics library at the University of Wisconsin was renamed in his honour.
1033984	Marc Zuber (born 5 May 1944 in Lucknow, India - died 28 May 2003 in London, England) was an actor. Film appearances include: "The Satanic Rites of Dracula", "The Wind and the Lion", "The Sea Wolves", "Shirley Valentine" and "". Television credits include: "The Onedin Line", "Doomwatch", "The Regiment", "The Changes", "", "Quiller", "Blake's 7", "The Sweeney", "Minder" (Aces High – and Sometimes Very Low), "Buccaneer", "The Enigma Files", "The Chinese Detective", "The Bill" and "Holby City".
1052028	The music is composed by Ennio Morricone and the theme music "Chi Mai" is known worldwide. Plot. The French secret agent Josselin Beaumont is sent to Malagawi, a fictional African country, to kill the ruling dictator, the colonel Njala. However, before he manages accomplish his mission, the political situation changes drastically and the French secret service resorts to handing over Beaumont to the Malagawian authorities. After a long and unfair trial, during which Beaumont is injected drugs, he is sentenced to long-term penal servitude at a "re-education camp". After a daring escape with one of the inmates, he returns to France and informs the French secret service of his presence, promising that he will kill Njala, who is in France for an official visit, thus getting his revenge on the people who betrayed him. The secret service responds by setting other agents on Beaumont's trail, however he manages to remain one step ahead, humiliating and killing some of the major betrayers, including the sadistic chief of the secret police Rosen.
581832	Neha Dhupia (born 27 August 1980) is an Indian actress who has worked in several superhit Bollywood films. She is a winner of the Femina Miss India title (2002). Early life. Dhupia was born in Kochi, Kerala, India to a Punjabi Sikh family. Her father, Commander Pradip Singh Dhupia, served in the Indian Navy and mother, Manpinder, is a homemaker. She went to Naval Public School then transferred to Army Public School, Dhaula Kuan, New Delhi. She graduated from Jesus and Mary College in New Delhi, affiliated to the University of Delhi, majoring in History. Career. Dhupia made her acting debut in a play in New Delhi called "Graffiti". Thereafter she appeared in a music video for Indipop band Euphoria and also modeled for various advertisement campaigns. She then appeared in the TV serial "Rajdhani". In 2002 she entered the Femina Miss India pageant finishing in first place, winning the Femina Miss India Universe title, and was subsequently sent to the Miss Universe 2002 pageant in Puerto Rico. She was placed in the top 10. Film career. Dhupia made her film debut in the 2003 Bollywood film "" (2003), which performed averagely at the box office. She rose to fame with her role in the film "Julie" and then appeared in "Sheesha" (2005) in a dual role of twin brother but the film did not do well at the box office. She then starred in films such as "Kyaa Kool Hai Hum" (2005) and "Shootout at Lokhandwala" (2007), which did well at the box office, and also featured in a segment of the anthology film "Dus Kahaniyaan" (2007).
588184	Gudgudee (Devanagari: गुदगुदी, Nastaliq:گدگدی, English:"Tickle") is an Indian film directed by Basu Chatterjee and was released in 1997. Plot. Naive and easily influenced Ajay Prasad has been married for several years, and lives in remote India with his wife and a son. The family receive an invitation to attend a wedding in Bombay. As Mrs. Prasad and their son are unable to attend, Ajay is asked to attend on his own, which he agrees to do so. Upon arrival in Bombay, he is met at the airport by Ravindranath, who welcomes him, and drives him to his apartment, located in a good upper class locality. Ajay finds out that his next door neighbor is a single woman, who acts in commercials and short advertisements. Ajay decides to indulge in an affair with her, with hilarious results.
1045138	London to Brighton is a 2006 award-winning British film. The film was written and directed by Paul Andrew Williams. Plot. The film opens with a woman and child, Kelly and Joanne, bursting into a London toilet. Joanne is crying and Kelly has a black eye. Eventually Kelly gets them on a train to Brighton, and it is clear they are running from someone. Joanne is an eleven-year-old runaway who is procured by a reluctant Kelly into having sex with an old violent mobster with a taste for underage girls. Kelly's pimp, Derek, bullies her into complying, but it all goes horribly wrong, and the old mobster is killed, presumably by one of the girls. The older man's son, Stuart, then forces Derek to find the girls. The film follows the duo's flight from London in the wake of what has happened.
1091781	Sir Isaac Newton (25 December 164220 March 1727) was an English physicist and mathematician who is widely regarded as one of the most influential scientists of all time and as a key figure in the scientific revolution. His book "Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica" ("Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy"), first published in 1687, laid the foundations for most of classical mechanics. Newton also made seminal contributions to optics and shares credit with Gottfried Leibniz for the invention of the infinitesimal calculus. Newton's "Principia" formulated the laws of motion and universal gravitation that dominated scientists' view of the physical universe for the next three centuries. It also demonstrated that the motion of objects on the Earth and that of celestial bodies could be described by the same principles. By deriving Kepler's laws of planetary motion from his mathematical description of gravity, Newton removed the last doubts about the validity of the heliocentric model of the cosmos. Newton built the first practical reflecting telescope and developed a theory of colour based on the observation that a prism decomposes white light into the many colours of the visible spectrum. He also formulated an empirical law of cooling and studied the speed of sound. In addition to his work on the calculus, as a mathematician Newton contributed to the study of power series, generalised the binomial theorem to non-integer exponents, and developed Newton's method for approximating the roots of a function. Newton was a fellow of Trinity College and the second Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge. He was a devout but unorthodox Christian and, unusually for a member of the Cambridge faculty, he refused to take holy orders in the Church of England, perhaps because he privately rejected the doctrine of trinitarianism. In addition to his work on the mathematical sciences, Newton also dedicated much of his time to the study of alchemy and biblical chronology, but most of his work in those areas remained unpublished until long after his death. In his later life, Newton became president of the Royal Society. He also served the British government as Warden and Master of the Royal Mint. Life. Early life. Isaac Newton was born (according to the Julian calendar in use in England at the time) on Christmas Day, 25 December 1642, (NS 4 January 1643.) at Woolsthorpe Manor in Woolsthorpe-by-Colsterworth, a hamlet in the county of Lincolnshire. He was born three months after the death of his father, a prosperous farmer also named Isaac Newton. Born prematurely, he was a small child; his mother Hannah Ayscough reportedly said that he could have fit inside a quart mug (≈ 1.1 litres). When Newton was three, his mother remarried and went to live with her new husband, the Reverend Barnabus Smith, leaving her son in the care of his maternal grandmother, Margery Ayscough. The young Isaac disliked his stepfather and maintained some enmity towards his mother for marrying him, as revealed by this entry in a list of sins committed up to the age of 19: "Threatening my father and mother Smith to burn them and the house over them." Although it was claimed that he was once engaged, Newton never married. From the age of about twelve until he was seventeen, Newton was educated at The King's School, Grantham. He was removed from school, and by October 1659, he was to be found at Woolsthorpe-by-Colsterworth, where his mother, widowed by now for a second time, attempted to make a farmer of him. He hated farming. Henry Stokes, master at the King's School, persuaded his mother to send him back to school so that he might complete his education. Motivated partly by a desire for revenge against a schoolyard bully, he became the top-ranked student. The Cambridge psychologist Simon Baron-Cohen considers it "fairly certain" that Newton had Asperger syndrome. In June 1661, he was admitted to Trinity College, Cambridge as a sizar – a sort of work-study role. At that time, the college's teachings were based on those of Aristotle, whom Newton supplemented with modern philosophers, such as Descartes, and astronomers such as Copernicus, Galileo, and Kepler. In 1665, he discovered the generalised binomial theorem and began to develop a mathematical theory that later became infinitesimal calculus. Soon after Newton had obtained his degree in August 1665, the university temporarily closed as a precaution against the Great Plague. Although he had been undistinguished as a Cambridge student, Newton's private studies at his home in Woolsthorpe over the subsequent two years saw the development of his theories on calculus, optics and the law of gravitation. In 1667, he returned to Cambridge as a fellow of Trinity. Fellows were required to become ordained priests, something Newton desired to avoid due to his unorthodox views. Luckily for Newton, there was no specific deadline for ordination, and it could be postponed indefinitely. The problem became more severe later when Newton was elected for the prestigious Lucasian Chair. For such a significant appointment, ordaining normally could not be dodged. Nevertheless, Newton managed to avoid it by means of a special permission from Charles II (see "Middle years" section below). Middle years. Mathematics. Newton's work has been said "to distinctly advance every branch of mathematics then studied". His work on the subject usually referred to as fluxions or calculus, seen in a manuscript of October 1666, is now published among Newton's mathematical papers. The author of the manuscript "De analysi per aequationes numero terminorum infinitas", sent by Isaac Barrow to John Collins in June 1669, was identified by Barrow in a letter sent to Collins in August of that year as:
584130	Jayam Kondaan () is a 2008 Tamil action romance film. Directed and co-written by Kannan and produced by T. G. Thiyagarajan it stars Vinay Rai, Bhavana Balachandran and Lekha Washington in the lead roles. Vivek and Kishore also appeared. The film revolves around an Information technology professional, who returns to Chennai from London, to set up his own business. He feels that if one has to reach his goal in life it is better to win over your enemies and take them along with you. He finds out that his late father had another family, and that his step sister wants to steal his home. After clashes with his sister he encounters another tragedy occurs with someone who wants to make a vendetta with the family. The film follows the sibling relationship and the threat from the avenger. The film opened to worldwide audiences after several delays, on 29 August 2008. The film opened to generally positive reviews. Plot. Arjun (Vinay) is an IT professional who was in London for years, and has now come down to Chennai to set up his own business. He has a wide friends circle like Krishna (Krishna), Gopal (Vivek) and their wives, who make him merry. Arjun's philosophy in life is to be always cool and never lose one's temper under any circumstances. He feels if one has to reach his goal in life it is better to win over your enemies and take them along. However Arjun is shocked when he finds that his late father had another family, and his half sister Brinda (Lekha Washington) is now trying to sell his family house in Madurai.It was a really big villa with lake on its one side and mountains on the other. She needs the money to go to US, as she has received a scholarship at MIT. They lock horns over the property and land up in Madurai, where a red chilly dealer Durai Raj (Nizhalgal Ravi) is staying in their house with his daughter Annapoorni aka "Molaka" (Bhavana). Arjun pretends that Poorni is his childhood sweetheart, wins her over and manages to get her vacated from the premises. There is a rowdy Guna (Kishore) who is a terror in Madurai and Arjun's entanglement with him leads to an accident in which his wife Poonkodi (Vasundhara) is killed. Now Guna is baying for revenge as he follows Arjun to Chennai. The rest of the film shows how Arjun tries to take on the responsibilities of a big brother, win over Brinda and deal with Guna, who is determined to kill him. Reception. The film was described by Sify.com as a "breezy entertainer", with the reiewer taking a liking to the film, comparing "Jayamkondaan" to the films "Run", "Sandakozhi" and the Malayalam film "Kireedom". The script and direction is described as "successful due to straightforward narration and packaging". Lekha Washington's performance was praised, citing that she "sparkles as the half sister in a well etched role" and is "the surprise packet and has the credentials to make it big". Vinay Rai "looks too thin and fragile" but "adds to the film’s energy", while Bhavana has nothing much to do other than "looking prim and proper". Out of the comedians, Sify reports that Krishna and Santhanam were more effective than Vivek who at times you feel speaks more dialogues than necessary. Praise is also heaped on Athisaya as the small town girl who gets enamored by the rowdy, describing her as a "revelation", while Kishore "fits the bill as the bad guy". In unison, Rediff.com also praise the film as a "nice blend of the cinematic and logic". The reviewer describes Vinay Rai, "as the protagonist is very comfortable in his role" and thathe has "expressive eyes, emotes well, and makes sure his audience isn't disappointed. However Lekha Washington is clearly the surprise package", echoing Sify.com's views. However it claims that Bhavana, with her "soulful eyes and acting talent, could have done with a meatier role". The film has risen above the clichés as per the review of The Hindu and the reviewer has praised Vinay for choosing this film as his second project". Critics claimed that Kannan deserves credit for a "good job" on his story and screenplay. Vidayasagar’s music was described as is "so-so", there is a feeling that you have heard these tunes before with the "picturisation is nowhere near the high standards set up by the director’s guru (Mani Ratnam). Rediff claims that Balasubramaniam's camera makes sure the "viewers aren't treated to bizarre angles" and that V. T. Vijayan's editing is "slick and smooth". Soundtrack. The film has six songs composed by Vidyasagar with the lyrics primarily penned by Vaali and Pa. Vijay. The audio of the film released worldwide on 3 June 2008, two months prior to the release. The soundtrack was successfully received with praise.
1238020	The Black List is a series of films created from 2008 through 2010 as part of The Black List Project, a film, book and museum tour of photographs conceived by photographer/filmmaker Timothy Greenfield-Sanders, with Elvis Mitchell, public radio host and former "New York Times" film critic. Volume 1. The Black List: Volume 1 premiered at Sundance Film Festival in 2008 and then in August of that year on HBO. The Black List: Volume 1 won the NAACP Spirit award in 2009 for best documentary. Volume 1 includes; Bill T. Jones, Chris Rock, Colin Powell, Slash, Dawn Staley, Faye Wattleton, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Keenen Ivory Wayans, Lorna Simpson, Louis Gossett, Jr., Mahlon Duckett, Marc Morial, Rev. Al Sharpton, Richard D. Parsons, Russell Simmons, Sean Combs, Serena Williams, Steven Stoute, Susan Rice, Suzan-Lori Parks, Thelma Golden, Toni Morrison, Vernon Jordan, William Rice and Zane. Volume 2. The Black List: Volume 2 is the follow-up to . It premiered on HBO in February 2009. The documentary is part of The Black List Project, a film, book and museum tour of photographs. It was conceived of by photographer/filmmaker Timothy Greenfield-Sanders with Elvis Mitchell, public radio host and former New York Times film critic. "The Black List: Volume 2" includes; Angela Davis, Bishop Barbara Harris, Bishop T.D. Jakes, Charley Pride, Dr. Valerie Montgomery-Rice, Governor Deval Patrick, Kara Walker, Majora Carter, Laurence Fishburne, Maya Rudolph, Melvin Van Peebles, Patrick Robinson, Rza, Suzanne De Passe, and Tyler Perry. Volume 3. Following Volumes I and II, a new remarkable group of African-American notables share candid stories and revealing insights into the struggles, triumphs and joys of black life in the U.S. in the all-new documentary The Black List: Volume III, which was released in February, 2010 and includes; Beverly Johnson, Debra L. Lee, Dr. Michael Lomax, Hill Harper, John Legend, LaTanya Richardson, Lee Daniels and Whoopi Goldberg
1164803	Allyce Beasley (born July 6, 1954) is an American actress. She is known for her role as rhyming, love-struck receptionist Agnes DiPesto in the television series "Moonlighting". For several years (as of 2007), she has been the announcer on Playhouse Disney, a morning lineup of programming for toddlers on The Disney Channel. She also appeared briefly as a guidance counselor in the Reese Witherspoon film comedy "Legally Blonde". She also was the Coach's daughter, Lisa Pantusso, on "Cheers". Personal life. Beasley was born Alice Tannenberg in Brooklyn, New York, the daughter of Harriet, a bookkeeper, and Marvin Tannenberg, a cartoonist.
1057505	In the Cut is a 2003 Australian-American mystery and erotic thriller film written and directed by Jane Campion and starring Meg Ryan, Mark Ruffalo and Jennifer Jason Leigh. Campion's screenplay is an adaptation of the novel of the same name by Susanna Moore. The film focuses on a college English professor who becomes entangled with a detective investigating a series of gruesome murders in her Manhattan neighborhood.
1041825	Basil Radford (25 June 1897 Chester, Cheshire – 20 October 1952 London) was an English character actor who featured in many British films of the 1930s and 1940s. He trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and made his first stage appearance in July 1924. He is probably best-remembered for his appearances alongside Naunton Wayne as two cricket-obsessed Englishmen in several films from 1938-1949. Film career. The two first appeared as their characters Charters and Caldicott in Alfred Hitchcock's 1938 thriller "The Lady Vanishes". They were popular enough to reprise their roles in "Night Train to Munich", which was again scripted by Frank Launder and Sidney Gilliat. They appeared together in several other 1940s films, including "Crook's Tour" (1941), "Millions Like Us" (1943), "Dead of Night" (1945), "Quartet" (1948), "It's Not Cricket" (1949) and "Passport to Pimlico" (1949). Apart from his long-running partnership with Naunton Wayne, Radford made many other memorable film appearances in character roles. His other films included "Young and Innocent" (also for Hitchcock) (1937), "The Way to the Stars" (1945), "The Captive Heart" (1946), "The Winslow Boy" (1948) and "Whisky Galore!" (1949). Radford had a crescent-shaped scar on his right cheek from serving in the trenches during the First World War. Depending on the camera angle and the lighting, it was sometimes barely perceptible but sometimes extremely prominent, as in "The Way to the Stars". Death. Radford's health began to seriously fail in the summer of 1951, forcing him to take a long break from acting. He died of a heart attack on 20 October 1952, while rehearsing for a radio show with Naunton Wayne in London. Personal life. In 1926 he married Shirley Deuchars. They had one son.
1102614	Charles Hermite () (December 24, 1822 – January 14, 1901) was a French mathematician who did research on number theory, quadratic forms, invariant theory, orthogonal polynomials, elliptic functions, and algebra. Hermite polynomials, Hermite interpolation, Hermite normal form, Hermitian operators, and cubic Hermite splines are named in his honor. One of his students was Henri Poincaré. He was the first to prove that "e", the base of natural logarithms, is a transcendental number. His methods were later used by Ferdinand von Lindemann to prove that π is transcendental. In a letter to Thomas Stieltjes in 1893, Hermite famously remarked: "I turn with terror and horror from this lamentable scourge of continuous functions with no derivatives." Life. Hermite was born in Dieuze, Moselle on 24 December 1822, with a deformity in his right foot which would affect his gait for the rest of his life. He was the sixth of seven children of Ferdinand Hermite, and his wife Madeleine Lallemand. His father worked in his mother's family drapery business, and also pursued a career as an artist. The drapery business relocated to Nancy in 1828 and so did the family. He studied at the Collège de Nancy and then, in Paris, at the Collège Henri IV and at the Lycée Louis-le-Grand. Hermite wanted to study at the École Polytechnique and he took a year preparing for the examinations and was tutored by Catalan between 1841 and 1842. In 1842 Hermite entered the École Polytechnique, where he remained as a student for one year. Hermite was refused the right to continue his studies at the École Polytechnique because of his disability (École Polytechnique is to this day a military academy). He had to fight to regain his place which he won but with strict conditions imposed. Hermite found this unacceptable and decided to leave the École Polytechnique without graduating. As a boy he read some of the writings of Joseph Louis Lagrange on the solution of numerical equations, and of Carl Gauss on the theory of numbers. In 1842, his first original contribution to mathematics, in which he gave a simple proof of the proposition of Niels Abel concerning the impossibility of obtaining an algebraic solution for the equation of the fifth degree, was published in the "Nouvelles Annales de Mathématiques". A correspondence with Carl Jacobi, begun in 1843 and continued in 1844, led to the insertion, in the complete edition of Jacobi's works, of two articles by Hermite, one concerning the extension to Abelian functions of one of the theorems of Abel on elliptic functions, and the other concerning the transformation of elliptic functions. After spending five years working privately towards his degree, in which he befriended eminent mathematicians Joseph Bertrand, Carl Gustav Jacob Jacobi, and Joseph Liouville, he took and passed the examinations for the baccalauréat, which he was awarded in 1847. He married Joseph Bertrand's sister, Louise Bertrand in 1848. In 1848, Hermite returned to the École Polytechnique as "répétiteur and examinateur d'admission". In 1856 he contracted smallpox. Through the influence of Augustin-Louis Cauchy and of a nun who nursed him, he resumed the practice of his religion. On 14 July, of that year, he was elected to fill the vacancy created by the death of Jacques Binet in the Académie des Sciences. In 1869, he succeeded Jean-Marie Duhamel as professor of mathematics, both at the École Polytechnique, where he remained until 1876, and in the Faculty of Sciences of Paris, which was a post he occupied until his death. From 1862 to 1873 he was lecturer at the École Normale Supérieure. Upon his seventieth birthday, on the occasion of his jubilee which was celebrated at the Sorbonne under the auspices of an international committee, he was promoted grand officer of the Légion d'honneur. He died in Paris, 14 January 1901, aged 78. Contribution to mathematics. An inspiring teacher, Hermite strove to cultivate admiration for simple beauty and discourage rigorous minuteness. His correspondence with Thomas Stieltjes testifies to the great aid he gave those entering scientific life. His published courses of lectures have exercised a wide influence. His important original contributions to pure mathematics, published in the leading mathematical journals of the world, dealt chiefly with Abelian and elliptic functions and the theory of numbers. In 1858 he solved the equation of the fifth degree by elliptic functions; and in 1873 he proved "e", the base of the natural system of logarithms, to be transcendental. This last was used by Ferdinand von Lindemann to prove in 1882 the same for π. Publications. The following is a list of his works.: External links. "This article incorporates text from the public-domain Catholic Encyclopedia of 1913."
1166856	Clarence Darnell Gilyard, Jr. (born December 24, 1955) is a former American actor and a current college professor who has been featured in movies and television since 1980. He is sometimes credited as Clarence A. Gilyard.
1062498	Samantha Jane Morton (born 13 May 1977) is an English actress and film director. She began her performing career with guest roles in television shows such as "Soldier Soldier," "Cracker" and "Boon". She played Hattie in 1999's "Sweet and Lowdown", for which she received attention from Hollywood, critical acclaim and an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress. Morton subsequently starred in 2002's "Minority Report" and "Morvern Callar". She received her second Academy Award nomination for her performance as the young Irish mother, Sarah, coping with life in New York City in 2003's "In America". Morton starred in 2004's "Enduring Love" and "The Libertine" and 2005's "Lassie". She won a Golden Globe for Best Actress in a Television Film for her role as Myra Hindley in 2006's "Longford". She appeared in the 2007 biographical films "Control", "" and "Mister Lonely". She then starred in 2008's "Synecdoche, New York". Morton appeared in the 2009 critically acclaimed "The Messenger". She made her directorial debut in the British television film "The Unloved". Early life. Morton was born in Nottingham, the third child of Peter Morton and Pamela Freebury, a factory worker. She has six half-siblings from her parents' relationships, subsequent to their 1979 divorce. At the age of seven, Morton was made a ward of court and never lived with her natural parents again. The next nine years were spent in and out of foster care and children's homes. She attended West Bridgford Comprehensive School. Under the effects of drugs, she threatened an older girl who had been bullying her. She was convicted of making threats to kill. She served 18 weeks in an attendance centre. Morton said in an interview, "as a child I had a serious anger problem, but from the age of 16 I've been trying to turn bad things into positives." Career. 1991–1998. Morton took up acting as a child. She joined the Central Junior Television Workshop when she was 13 and was soon being offered small-screen roles. In 1991, she was cast as Clare Anderson in the first series of Lucy Gannon's "Soldier Soldier" and also made a guest appearance, as Mandy, in an episode of "Boon" —both were Central TV productions. Moving to London at sixteen, Morton applied to numerous drama schools, including RADA, without success. In 1991 she attended Clarendon College Of Performing Arts to gain a BTEC award but subsequently left for personal reasons. She made her stage début at the Royal Court Theatre, and continued her television career with a guest appearance on "Peak Practice" and in an episode of "Cracker" called "The Big Crunch." She had a role in the first two series of Kay Mellor's successful "Band of Gold" (1995). Further television roles followed, including parts in period dramas including "Emma", "Jane Eyre" and "The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling". The well-received "Under the Skin" (1997) continued to raise her profile. 1999–2004. Impressed by her performance in "Under the Skin", Woody Allen cast her in "Sweet and Lowdown" (1999). In the film, she gave an acclaimed performance and received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress in 2000. Critic Stephanie Zacharek wrote in her review "Rising star Samantha Morton shines in this charming, finely crafted film from Woody Allen" and that "Her performance is like nothing I’ve seen in recent years." Also, James Berardinelli praised the actress, by saying that she "overmatches her more experienced co-star with a luminous and heartbreaking performance." She appeared in the film "Jesus' Son" (1999), which came out in a limited release in June 2000, after being screened at the 1999 Toronto International Film Festival. She received a nomination for Satellite Award for Best Supporting Actress – Motion Picture for her performance in that film. She starred in the biographical independent film "Pandaemonium", released 2000. She won a British Independent Film Award in the category of Best Actress. Morton played a mermaid opposite Larry Mullen in the Anton Corbijn-directed promotional video for U2's "Electrical Storm". She also provided the voice of Ruby for the Canadian animated series "Max and Ruby" from 2001 to 2003. "Morvern Callar", a British film starring Morton, received a limited release in 2002. In his review for the "San Francisco Chronicle", Nick LaSalle stated that Morton "has moments of striking subtlety and detail. Her take upon receiving a major offer for her boyfriend's novel (which she claims as her own) is as satisfying a close-up as anyone could hope to see." Morton got a Toronto Film Critics Association Award for Best Actress. Also in 2002, she appeared in the Steven Spielberg-directed film "Minority Report", opposite Tom Cruise. She won the Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actress. She was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress for "In America" in 2004. Roger Ebert wrote that Morton "reveals the power of her silences, her quiet, her presence." She also appeared in "Code 46" (2003) and "Enduring Love" (2004). 2005–2007. Morton played the Moors murderess Myra Hindley in a television film "Longford" (2006). Set between 1967 and 1997, the film depicts the relationship between the infamous child killer and Lord Longford, the politician who spent years campaigning (ultimately unsuccessfully) for her release. Morton was severely criticised by the relatives of the children who were killed by Hindley and Ian Brady, but she insisted, "It is my duty as a performer to raise issues...we're afraid to look at". Morton received a 2007 Emmy nomination and won a Golden Globe, both for Best Supporting Actress. She then starred in the independent comedy-drama film "Expired", which required her to move to Los Angeles during filming. The film opened to mixed responses from critics. "New York" magazine noted that Morton "is one of those tingly actresses whose skin barely covers her soul, and to watch her search for tender mercies in a crazy-hostile world is a gift." She played Marilyn Monroe in the drama-comedy feature film "Mister Lonely", which was first screened in 2007 at the Cannes Film Festival. During an interview, she said, "In "Mister Lonely" we all live in a commune as the characters we impersonate and support each other. I'm married to a Charlie Chaplin impersonator and we have a daughter who is a Shirley Temple impersonator." She had a supporting role in the 2007 film "", in which she played Mary, Queen of Scots. In 2007, she was nominated for the BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role for her performance in "Control" (2007), again directed by Anton Corbijn. She played Deborah Curtis, wife of musician Ian Curtis, whose biography "Touching from a Distance" formed the basis of the film. Russell Edwards, from "Variety" magazine called her performance "astonishing" and "sympathetic". 2008–present. Screenwriter Charlie Kaufman cast Morton as Hazel in "Synecdoche, New York", alongside Philip Seymour Hoffman, Michelle Williams and Emily Watson. The film was a box office bomb, but it was praised by critics, appearing on many top ten lists for 2008. In an interview with Movieline, Morton spoke about her experience of working with director Kaufman, saying, "it was like going to school, every time. You were constantly learning a different way of working, a different way of looking at my craft. And also I was giving as much as I can. It was very liberating to work with him." She starred in the war drama "The Messenger" (2009) as Oliva Patterson, a widow whose husband was killed in Iraq. The film, co-starring Ben Foster, Woody Harrelson and Jena Malone, was the directorial debut of Oren Moverman. Claudia Puig of "USA Today" asserted that Morton, "as always, gives a subtle, excellent performance." She was nominated for Best Supporting Actress at the 14th Broadcast Film Critics Association Awards and the 25th Independent Spirit Awards. Her directorial début, the semi-autobiographical Channel 4 drama "The Unloved", written in collaboration with Tony Grisoni, was first broadcast on 17 May 2009. The film was premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in September 2009. Michael Deacon praised Morton on creating an 'intense' and 'vivid' dramatic film. Morton won a BAFTA for her direction in 2010. In 2012, Morton co-starred in "Cosmopolis", directed by David Cronenberg, and provided the voice of Sola in epic science fiction film "John Carter". It was announced she will play the title role in the film "Decoding Annie Parker". Other projects. Morton has urged people to volunteer help to smaller charities. In 2008, she was part of the Vodafone Foundation's World of Difference campaign, which gives people the opportunity to work for a charity of their choice. "It's very important to know that there's over two million people dissatisfied with their work life,: she said. "And a lot of people, I think about 70 per cent of people actually want to go and work for a charity. They don't know how and actually can't afford it. So I think this campaign is hugely important because it'll give these people an opportunity to go and do that. To probably make a dream come true and help someone in the process." In March 2009, Morton returned to her hometown to show her support for its children's homes and protest against the threatened closure, by Nottingham City Council, of one of the four establishments with 24 social-care staff facing redundancy. She also fronted a TV advertising recruitment campaign for social workers in the UK in 2009. Whilst attending a fundraiser for the charity Medical Aid for Palestinians (MAP) in January 2009, she vowed never to work for the BBC again after their refusal to broadcast an emergency charity appeal for the victims of Israel's attack on Gaza on 27 December 2008. She was later joined by Tam Dean Burn, Pauline Goldmsith, Peter Mullan and Alison Peebles who also threatened to boycott the Corporation. In 2012 Morton showed her support for the Fostering Network's annual campaign "Foster Care Fortnight". Personal life. Morton had a short relationship with actor Charlie Creed-Miles from 1999 to 2000. They appeared together in "The Last Yellow" (1999). Their daughter, Esme, was born in London on 5 February 2000. In 2005, she started a relationship with filmmaker Harry Holm (the son of actor Ian Holm), shortly after she met him when Holm directed her in a video for the band The Victims. Their daughter Edie was born on 4 January 2008 in London. Their second child, possibly a boy, was born in 2012. In early 2008, she revealed that she was 'close to death' after suffering a debilitating stroke due to being hit by a piece of 17th century plaster that fell on her head (damaging her vertebral artery) in 2006. She was in the hospital for three weeks and had to learn to walk again. On 20 July 2011, Morton received an honorary degree of Doctor of Letters (DLitt) from Nottingham Trent University.
1162881	Marla Lynne Sokoloff (born December 19, 1980) is an American actress and musician, known for playing the part of Lucy Hatcher on the TV show "The Practice", and Gia Mahan on the ABC sitcom, "Full House". Early life and education. Sokoloff was born in San Francisco, California, the daughter of Cindi (née Sussman), a former caterer, and Howard Sokoloff, a podiatrist. Her family is Jewish, and originates from Russia and Germany. Sokoloff graduated from the Los Angeles County High School for the Arts. Acting. Sokoloff began acting at age 12 (1993), when she was cast as Gia Mahan in the sitcom "Full House". She played Stephanie Tanner's arch enemy, but later became her best friend. In 1998, Sokoloff landed her most notable role as she was cast as the sassy receptionist Lucy Hatcher in "The Practice". Along with other popular appearances, she is well-remembered as Joey's pregnant sister, Dina, in season 8 of "Friends". Sokoloff also had a three-episode stint as a nanny in "Desperate Housewives". In November 2006, she starred in the ABC television series "Big Day". The last episode aired on January 30, 2007. She also made a guest appearance in an episode of "Burn Notice", where she played Melanie, working undercover as a receptionist at a Miami art gallery, whose owner had murdered her character's father. Sokoloff also has starred in several movies, including "Whatever It Takes", "The Climb", "The Tollbooth", "Dude, Where's My Car?", "Sugar & Spice", and "Love On The Side". In 2008, Sokoloff starred alongside Paul Campbell, Andy Griffith, Doris Roberts, and Liz Sheridan in the romantic comedy "Play the Game". She also voices the Glatorian Kiina in "". She played Imogene O'Neill in the mini series, "Meteor". Music. Sokoloff sang and played rhythm guitar in LA-based rock band Smittin until 2003 when she struck out on her own. On February 17, 2006, she released her first solo CD, called "Grateful". Personal life. In 2004, Sokoloff began dating composer and Deadsy drummer Alec Puro. They married on November 7, 2009, and have one daughter, Elliotte Anne (born February 2012).
585688	Gandharvam (Malayalam : ഗാന്ധര്‍വ്വം) (1993) is an Indian film in Malayalam language directed by Sangeeth Sivan and Mohanlal and Kanchan appearing in lead roles along with Jagathi Sreekumar, Devan, Vijayakumar, Premkumar and Kaviyoor Ponnamma. A romantic film packed with fun and adventure, this film was a super hit in theaters. Plot. Sam Alexander (Mohanlal), a fun loving automobile workshop cum garage owner is more keen in scripting and directing plays than running his business. A theater addict, Sam, along with his friends, Pappu Mesthiri (Jagathi Sreekumar), Mammoonju (Kunjan), and Preman (Premkumar), is now working on Shakuntahlam, the famous play by Kalidas. Gracy Kutty (Kaviyoor Ponnamma), his mother is too worried with his easy going and careless attitude towards life. With one day, the main actress (Kalpana) who was supposed to play the role of Shakunthala eloping with Krishnan Kutty (Nandu), a fellow artist, Sam is busy searching for a new face to enact Shakunthala. Accidentally, one day, he meets up with Sridevi Menon (Kanchan), with whom he fell in love with. He attempts all methods to woo her and finally she falls in. Sam casts her as Sahkunthala in his drama and she unwillingly agrees for it without the knowledge of her parents. Sreedevi, daughter of Meledath Vishwanatha Menon, of the rich businessman in the city, thus acts in the drama, but on way back home, both Sam and Sreedevi are caught red handed by Vishnu Menon (Devan), her brother. Ravindran Nair (Vijayakumar), the I.G.of police, and friend of Menon had plans of getting his son Rajkumar (Kasan Khan) married to Sreedevi, so that he could own up a huge part of the business empire. With the help of Ravindran Nair, Sam is beaten up by police. Once out of jail, both Sam and Sreedevi elopes away and spend a few days away from the worries. In mean time, the duo are again caught by Menon. Sam is arrested for kidnapping Sreedevi and is jailed. At jail, he comes to know that Sreedevi is pregnant with his kid, but has no way to save the kid. Upon knowing that Sreedevi is pregnant, she is transferred to a distant place. Once, she gives birth to a baby boy, the attitude of Menon and Vishnu changes and they started looking upon him as their heir. But, sensing danger, Ravindran Nair sends Rajkumar to kidnap and kill the kid. Vishnu realizes the plan of Rajkumar and tries to save his sister and kid. In meantime, Sam escapes from jail and reaches out the house where Sreedevi stays. She attempts to commit suicide in bid to escape from Kumar, but is saved miraculously by Sam, who makes a dramatic entry. He defeats Kumar and saves the kid. Menon and Vishnu happily get both united. Reception. The film was a super hit in Kerala Box office.
578426	Art of the Devil 2 (Thai: ลองของ or Long khong) is a 2005 Thai horror film directed by Kongkiat Khomsiri, Art Thamthrakul, Yosapong Polsap, Putipong Saisikaew, Isara Nadee, Pasith Buranajan and Seree Pongniti (known collectively as the "Ronin Team"). It was released by Five Star Production. Plot. A sequel in name only to a 2004 film ("Khon len khong"), this film is about a teacher, named Aajaan Panor (portrayed by Napakpapha Nakprasitte), who is humiliated by some students. She turns to black magic to exact revenge. The film begins with a man in a fishing boat, accidentally stabbing his finger on a fish hook. He is taken to see a mystic, who claims that the man is the victim of a Cambodian curse. He is tied to a chair and fish hooks start to emerge from under his skin as he screams. In sepia-toned flashbacks, we learn the story of six school chums who have a grudge: Ta, Kim, Por, Tair, Noot, and Ko. Ta's mother died when he was young, and his father remarried Ta's teacher, Miss Panor. Kim was his girlfriend (but is now dating Por). The boyish Tair and stylish Noot might be lovers (though this is never made clear), and Ko is their fun-loving friend. During their last year at school, Miss Panor seduces Por (though this is not known to his friends). Por subsequently discovers he's not the only one in her bed. In addition to being married to Ta's father, Miss Panor is also having an affair with the sports coach (the man who dies by fish hook). Fuelled by jealousy, Por suggests filming Panor and the coach to 'prove her infidelity' to Ta's father. The six friends do so, and broadcast it to the entire school. The coach soon discovers it was them and holds the group at gunpoint while he sexually abuses them. Seeking revenge, the students approach a monk who agrees to curse the coach. A few days later, Por goes back to the monk and asks him to curse Miss Panor, too. The coach dies via fish hook. Miss Panor, who is embarrassed at her sexual exploits being revealed, is found stabbing herself repeatedly in the legs. She subsequently becomes a recluse, returning home to her cottage on the river, away from the city. The story proper begins two years after these events. The six friends gather together after Ta's father commits suicide in order to head to the remote village and pay their respects to Miss Panor. Upon arrival at Panor's cottage on the river, Noot's cell phone rings; her uncle wants her to return, so she makes her goodbyes and heads back to the city. Miss Panor is a polite hostess (if a little distant), and Ta's great-grandmother seems harmless enough, though he warns everyone that she is a bit senile. Miss Panor retires to a secret hut in the jungle, where she has several corpses gathered round, all of them sitting at desks, like students. Each corpse has a photo attached to it, indicating which former student it represents. At dinner that night, as the friends eat the soup Panor has made for them, Por spits up a fingernail. The group realises that the meat in the soup is, in fact, Noot. They search the cottage for Miss Panor. Kim finds a video camera with a tape that shows Miss Panor killing and eating the monk who cursed her, and then rushing towards the camera with a tree branch raised and bringing it down on whomever is holding the camera. Tair begins to have hallucinations of corpses shambling around everywhere. The group flees the house and sees a light outside. They call to the boat for help, but it drives past them. The driver takes a fatal fall from the boat, which sinks. Kim tumbles into the water and has a vision of Panor and Ta's father. In the vision, Panor is shown torturing Ta's father, on the premise that if she hobbles him, he can't leave her. When Panor leaves the room, Ta's father shoots himself in the head. Kim relates this to the others, and they find the gun. In the same room, there are also some jars filled with pickled mangos. In one of these jars, the group finds Ta's dead father. The group runs to the house's dusty old shrine to hide and pray. Tair has a laughing fit and is temporarily possessed by Miss Panor. Ko threatens Tair with the gun, but suddenly starts to writhe and flail as dozens of salamanders claw their way out of his body, killing him. The youths now decide to split up: Por and Ta go off into the jungle to find Panor, leaving Kim and Tair sitting outside the shrine, with Tair (now free of possession) still seeing visions of corpses. She panics and runs off, and Kim follows into the dense jungle. The boys hear Kim fall down. They run to find her, but are separated. Ta finds Kim and wrenches a piece of metal from her leg. Alone, Por has creepy visions of Panor. Ta leaves Kim to look for Por. Tair bursts from the jungle, cowering away from her visions. She seems to see Kim as a walking corpse, and in hysterics, Tair rips out her own eyes. Por finds Kim, who appears to him as Miss Panor, taunting him about their love affair. He fires the gun at Kim, but Ta rescues her just in time. Por runs off into the jungle and discovers Panor chanting in her secret hut. Por flees, but a vision of Panor appears, hamstrings him, and starts pulling out his teeth; Por crawls away and confesses that he had a love spell placed on Panor causing her to seduce him, became jealous when he found out she was also sleeping with the coach and took part in filming them and then placing a pain-inducing curse on Panor as punishment. Suddenly, his vision clears and he sees Kim and Ta. Kim is repulsed by Por's confession; she and Ta leave Por in the jungle. Miss Panor arrives, ties up Por, and takes him to her secret hut. She stabs him in the neck with a syringe full of a paralytic agent, then pours boiling water down his throat and slowly burns every inch of his skin with a blowtorch. In the jungle, Ta is carrying Kim on his back. She begs him to continue without her, but he refuses. The two of them come across a small shrine, on which is hanging Noot's bag. Her cell phone rings: it's her uncle, wondering where she is. In the secret jungle hut, Miss Panor is performing CPR on fatally burned Por in order to inflict more torture on him. Meanwhile, police officers converge outside the hut. As Miss Panor starts to use a power drill on Por's head, the officers break in and shoot her. Kim is rushed to a hospital. She recovers, and Ta comes to visit her. As they chat, the TV in Kim's room broadcasts a news show, which reports that the five students who visited Miss Panor are dead. Also discovered in the secret hut was Ta's charred corpse. In horror, Kim turns to see that Ta is actually a badly burned, walking corpse. He never went with them to visit Miss Panor; he was already dead by then. As he pets Kim's hand, Ta explains: the video of Panor eating the monk was taken by Ta's father, who had threatened divorce after witnessing the tape of her and the coach. For this, Panor tortured him and he killed himself. Panor locked Ta's great-grandmother in a closet and left her to starve. It was Ta's great-grandmother who had told Panor that in order to break the spells placed on her she had to kill the monk that was paid to perform them and eat his flesh. She also warned Panor that it could drive her insane (it does). It also becomes clear that the coach had also placed a love spell on Panor to instigate their affair just like Por did. Miss Panor was the victim of all these spells. Her attempt to free herself and seek revenge led her into insanity. She tortured Ta in all the ways that will be experienced by his friends. Ta's vengeful spirit had lured the group there so they could feel the pain that he went through. He only saved Kim from being killed because he still loves her. A flashback of their days in school returned. Kim and a classmate had a crush on Ta. Kim makes a bet with her classmate that if Ta doesn't court Kim within a week, she will "offer" Ta to her. Kim was then seen with the monk who appeared earlier, who warns her, "Once you start, it will follow you till you die." She receives a clay doll and thanks the monk. Kim jumps out of the hospital window to her death, holding the clay doll. Ta's burnt form lays beside her declaring his love for her. Nominations. Napakpapha (better known in Thailand as Mamee) was a nominee for best actress for the Bangkok Critics Assembly's 2005 awards. She was also nominated as best supporting actress for the Thailand National Film Awards. This nomination was protested by Mamee and Five Star Production, who asserted that Mamee should have been nominated in the best actress category. Five Star then boycotted the awards ceremony.
1059387	Rosemarie Braddock DeWitt (born October 26, 1971) is an American actress. DeWitt played Emily Lehman in the Fox television series "Standoff", co-starring with her husband Ron Livingston, from 2006 through 2007, and played Charmaine Craine on "United States of Tara". She also was the title character in 2008's "Rachel Getting Married", garnering several awards and nominations for best supporting actress. Early life. DeWitt was born in Flushing, Queens, New York, the daughter of Rosemarie Braddock and Kenny DeWitt. She is a granddaughter of boxer James J. Braddock, and played the role of neighbor "Sara Wilson" in the movie "Cinderella Man", which depicted James J. Braddock's life. DeWitt lived in Hanover Township, New Jersey and is a graduate of Whippany Park High School. She performed in several high school productions. She attended the New College at Hofstra University where she received a Bachelor of Arts in creative studies. While at Hofstra University, she also joined Alpha Phi. She had additional training at The Actors Center in New York.
1166829	Barbara Bates (August 6, 1925 – March 18, 1969) was an American actress best known for her role as Phoebe in the 1950 drama "All About Eve". Early life. The eldest of three daughters, Bates was born in Denver, Colorado. While growing up in Denver, she studied ballet and worked as a teen fashion model. The shy teen was persuaded to enter a local beauty contest and won, receiving two round-trip train tickets to Hollywood, California. Two days before returning to Denver, Bates met Cecil Coan, a United Artists publicist, who would ultimately change the course of her life. Career. In September 1944, Bates signed a contract with Universal Pictures after Cecil Coan introduced her to producer Walter Wanger. Soon after, she was cast as one of the "Seven Salome Girls" in the 1945 drama, "Salome Where She Danced" starring Yvonne De Carlo. Around this time, she fell in love with Coan, who was married with two sons and two daughters. In March 1945, Coan divorced his wife and secretly married Bates days later. Bates spent the next few years as a stock actress, landing bit parts in movies and doing cheesecake layouts for magazines like "Yank, the Army Weekly" and "Life". It was one of those photo sessions that caught the eye of executives at Warner Bros. who signed her in 1947. Warner Bros. highlighted her "girl-next-door" image and her acting career took off. She appeared with some of the biggest stars of the day including Bette Davis in "June Bride" and Danny Kaye in "The Inspector General".
1166010	Albert Dekker (December 20, 1905 – May 5, 1968) was an American character actor and politician best known for his roles in "Dr. Cyclops", "The Killers", "Kiss Me Deadly", and "The Wild Bunch". He is sometimes credited as Albert Van Dekker or Albert van Dekker. Early life and career. He was born Thomas Albert Ecke Van Dekker in Brooklyn, New York, the only child of Thomas and Grace Ecke Van Dekker. He attended Richmond Hill High School where he appeared in stage productions. He then attended Bowdoin College where he majored in pre-med with plans to become a doctor. On the advice of a friend, he decided to pursue acting as a career instead. He and made his professional acting debut with a Cincinnati stock company in 1927. Within a few months, Dekker was featured in the Broadway production of Eugene O'Neill's play "Marco Millions". After a decade of theatrical appearances, Dekker transferred to Hollywood in 1937, and made his first film, 1937's "The Great Garrick". He spent most of the rest of his acting career in the cinema, but also returned to the stage from time to time.
586709	Kaamchor (Idler) is a 1982 Hindi movie. Produced by Rakesh Roshan the film is directed by K. Viswanath, a remake of his Telugu film ""Subhodayam"" (1980). The film stars Rakesh Roshan, Jaya Prada, Tanuja, Sujit Kumar, Suresh Oberoi, Shreeram Lagoo and Bhagwan Dada. The films music is by the producer and lead actors brother- Rajesh Roshan. The film became a hit, along with the film's songs. Rakesh Roshan's nephew in the film is played by a young Sonu Nigam, who is now a popular singer. Music. Rajesh Roshan gave the music for this film. Songs were penned by Indeevar.
1059399	William Rankin "Will" Patton (born June 14, 1954) is an American actor. He currently stars as Captain Weaver in the TNT science fiction series "Falling Skies". Early life. Patton was born in Charleston, South Carolina, the eldest of three children. His father is Bill Patton, a playwright and acting/directing instructor who was a Lutheran minister and served as a chaplain at Duke University. Patton was raised on a farm, where his parents ran a foster home for wayward teenagers. He attended the North Carolina School of the Arts in Winston-Salem and The Actors' Studio in New York City, New York. Career notes. Patton won two Obie Awards for best actor for his performances in Sam Shepard's play "Fool for Love" and the Public Theater production of "What Did He See?". He portrayed the evil antagonist in "Desperately Seeking Susan", and had a significant role in "No Way Out", his first major film. He was nominated for the Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actor for his portrayal of General Bethlehem in "The Postman". He also portrayed coach Bill Yoast in "Remember the Titans" and FBI agent Melvin Purvis in the 1991 made-for-television film "Dillinger". Patton provided the voice for the audio version of "The Assault on Reason" by Al Gore, as well as the role of Alan Wilson on the TV show "24". Patton plays the character of Sam Conroy in the film "American Violet". As of 2011, Patton stars as Captain Weaver in the TNT sci-fi television series "Falling Skies", executive produced by Steven Spielberg.
1324679	Adam Heywood Fogerty (born 6 March 1969) is an English actor and former boxer and rugby league player. He is the son of Terry Fogerty, a rugby league player during the 1960s and '70s who played at club level for Halifax, Wigan and Rochdale Hornets, and at international level for Great Britain. Career. Fogerty was born in Oldham, Lancashire. Fogerty's boxing career saw him facing a number of opponents. He twice faced Paul Lister, with their first meeting in 1989 handing Fogerty his first and only loss in a 6-round decision. He repaid the favour with an 8th round knockout of Lister the next year. After ending his boxing career, Fogerty joined Halifax RLFC. He also played for Warrington, and won a Super League medal with St Helens. Additionally, Fogerty is the youngest player to play for the Isle of Man rugby team aged 15. Beginning in the early '90s, Fogerty began acting and has played supporting roles in several films such as "Shooting Fish" and "Played", as well as the unlicensed boxer, Gorgeous George, in the Guy Ritchie crime caper "Snatch". He played Mouse in "Mean Machine" and Raw in "Greenfingers". He has also worked on soaps Coronation Street and Hollyoaks. In 2012 he joined Barrie Rutter's Northern Broadsides theatre company to play Costard in Shakespeare's "Love's Labour's Lost".
1749290	Plot. The story is set in Japan beginning from the 1990s and ending in modern day, with each act centered on a boy named Takaki Tōno. The first act takes place during a time when cell phones are uncommon and email has not yet reached the general population. Act 1: Cherry Blossom. Takaki Tōno quickly befriends Akari Shinohara when she transfers to his elementary school. They grow closer to each other due to similar interests and attitudes; for instance, they both prefer to stay inside during recess due to their seasonal allergies. As a result, they form a strong bond; they speak to each other using their given names without any form of honorifics, which is a sign of deep friendship and familiarity in Japan. (This fact is lost in the movie's translation to English and other languages, which reduces the implied closeness of their relationship.) Upon graduating from elementary school, Akari moves to Tochigi, due to her parents' jobs. The two keep in contact by writing letters but eventually begin to drift apart. When Takaki learns that his family will be moving to Kagoshima, he decides to personally go see Akari, since they will be too far apart to visit each other at all after moving. He also prepares a letter for Akari containing his feelings. However, Takaki loses the letter during the journey and a severe snowstorm continuously delays his train for several hours. As the two finally meet and share their first kiss, Takaki realizes they will never be together again. Stranded in a shed due to the snowstorm, they fall asleep after talking late into the night. Takaki departs the next morning, and the two promise to continue writing to each other. As the train rolls away, Takaki decides that the loss of his letter is not important anymore after the kiss, while Akari silently looks at her own letter addressed to Takaki. Act 2: Cosmonaut. Takaki is now in the third year of senior high in Tanegashima, where the Tanegashima Space Center is located. Kanae Sumida, a classmate of Takaki, had fallen in love with him ever since meeting him in middle school but has never had the courage to confess her feelings. She tries to spend time with him, waiting long after school for the chance to travel home together. However, Takaki appears ignorant to Kanae's feelings and only treats her as a good friend. Kanae observes that Takaki is always writing emails to someone or staring off into the distance as if searching for something far away. It is later shown that Takaki's emails are not being sent to anyone, and that he has had recurring dreams which feature Akari. After a failed attempt to tell Takaki she loves him, Kanae eventually realizes that he is looking for something far beyond what she can offer and decides not to, though she acknowledges that she will always love him. Act 3: 5 Centimeters Per Second. It is 2008. Takaki is now a computer programmer in Tokyo, while Akari is preparing to get married to another man. Takaki is still longing for Akari to the detriment of his lifestyle, which is acknowledged by an ex-girlfriend. A depressed Takaki later leaves his job, being unable to cope with his feelings for Akari. Akari goes through her old possessions and finds the letter addressed to Takaki. Takaki and Akari have a dual narration, both recalling a recent dream depicting the events of their last meeting in the snow and hoping to watch the cherry blossoms together again. One day while walking down a road, Takaki and Akari appear to pass and recognize each other at a train crossing, where they had decided to watch cherry blossoms together thirteen years ago, right before Akari's sudden moving to Tochigi. At opposite sides of the tracks, they stop and begin to look back, but the passing trains cut off their view. Takaki waits for the trains to pass and sees that Akari is gone. After a moment, he smiles to himself and continues walking. Characters. The Manga goes into more detail about his (failed) relationships after college and his attempts to cope. Alternatively in the manga, she is seen working as a nurse after the events on the film. She decides to go looking for Takaki at Tokyo and after arriving and wandering aimlesly for a while she finally gets his phone number. Just as she decides to go back and not see him, he seems to walk in front of the park bench where she is, presumably noticing her and her noticing him. Media. Anime Film. Development. Makoto Shinkai had expressed that, unlike his past works, there would be no fantasy or science fiction elements in this film. Instead, the feature film would attempt to present the real world from a different perspective. Makoto's film gives a realistic view of the struggles many face against: time, space, people, and love. The title "5 Centimeters Per Second" comes from the speed at which cherry blossoms petals fall, petals being a metaphorical representation of humans, reminiscent of the slowness of life and how people often start together but slowly drift into their separate ways. The movie marks the first time Shinkai has worked closely with a full staff of animators and artists. DVD releases. The DVD was released on 19 July 2007 in Japan. The title was licensed by ADV Films and scheduled for a December 2007 release, but the release was delayed until March 2008. The film's Region 2 DVD release date was pushed back from 4 March 2008 to April 2008. The official Russian release by Reanimedia was already in stock in January 2008. The film is also licensed in Taiwan by Proware Multimedia International. On 11 July 2008, ADV announced that it was discontinuing print of the DVD. Bang Zoom! Entertainment has re-dubbed the entire film at the request of its original Japanese distributor, and the new dub was first streamed via Crunchyroll as part of their Day of Makoto Shinkai on 28 February 2009. On 13 August 2010, Crunchyroll CEO Kun Gao announced plans to release titles on DVD, starting with 5 Centimeters per Second. Bandai Entertainment manufactured and distributed the DVDs, which included the Bang Zoom! dub. This version was released 22 February 2011. On 29 March 2009 the distribution company Madman Entertainment announced plans to release "5 Centimetres Per Second" in Australia. The film's ending theme was "One More Time, One More Chance" by Masayoshi Yamazaki. The Blu-ray version of the film has been released on 18 April 2008 in Japan. The HD version of the film has also been released on 18 April 2008, which is region-free by default. Novel. The novel version of "5 Centimeters Per Second", licensed by Media Factory, was released on 16 November 2007 in Japan. It was the first novel written by Makoto Shinkai. The photographs in the novel were also taken by Shinkai. Another version of the novel, "One more side", was released on 20 May 2011 in Japan. The author is Shinta Kanou, who wrote the novels for Voices of a Distant Star and The Place Promised in Our Early Days which are both Makoto Shinkai's films. Manga. The manga adaptation of the film, illustrated by manga artist Yukiko Seike, started serialization in Kodansha's seinen magazine "Afternoon" from July 2010 and will be published in English as a single volume omnibus by Vertical Inc. Controversy. The popular Chinese animated series Xin Ling Zhi Chuang (Spirit's Window) is accused of copying several backgrounds from "5 Centimeters Per Second" with minor modification. The program's introduction describes it as "a program produced for the youth of China, and animation to raise wholesome minds and teach a noble view of life." Reception. The film won the Lancia Platinum Grand Prize at the Future Film Festival for best movie in animation or special effects. It won the Award for Best Animated Feature Film at the 2007 Asia Pacific Screen Awards. The limited edition DVD of the film was ranked 3rd on the Tohan charts between 18–24 July 2007, while the regular edition of the film was ranked 7th. The film was Japan's fourth most popular Blu-ray film in 2008. Mania.com lists "5 Centimeters Per Second" as the best non-Miyazaki anime. The Japan Times's Mark Schilling commends Shinkai saying that he is better than Hayao Miyazaki "at piercing the veil of the everyday to reveal a poignant, evanescent beauty most of us notice only in rare moments." Anime News Network's Bamboo Dong commends the anime for its "heartbreakingly gorgeous" piano score composed by Tenmon, which "contributes to the dreamlike quality that the film has". She also comments that film "never comes out and tells you what the characters are feeling. It never follows a strict storyline, but between the interactions on the screen and well-timed shots of lonely landscapes, everything is as clear as night and day". Mania.com's Chris Beveridge criticises the anime for its aliasing as well as it "seems to get a fairly low bitrate during a lot of it which leads to some noisy and overly grainy feeling areas. The film has so many lush colors to it that a lot of them start to show too much noise at times which is almost as distracting as the aliasing." Theron Martin reviewing for Anime News Network commends "The production also excels in its use of sound effects, especially in the bow-shooting scenes in Part 2".
1786876	Without a Clue is a 1988 British comedy film directed by Thom Eberhardt and starring Michael Caine and Ben Kingsley. Plot. Sherlock Holmes is a fictional character created by Dr. John Watson (Ben Kingsley) to enable him to solve crimes incognito during a period when he was applying for a post at an exclusive hospital, one in which the senior staff would frown on Watson's "hobby". Although he does not secure the job, Waston decides to satisfy public demand to see Holmes in person by hiring an unemployed actor Reginald Kincaid (Michael Caine) to play the part of the fictional detective. Continuing to investigate cases, now with Kincaid as "Holmes" by his side, Watson is the detective hidden behind the charade of the fictional Sherlock Holmes. Kincaid must rely on direction from Watson, who gives exact detailed instructions every step of the way. After a major case at a museum, Kincaid oversteps his boundaries with Watson, who fires him. Watson wants to write the character off and tries to start a new series about "The Crime Doctor" with Watson himself being recognized as the great detective. His publishers are quite cold to the idea. With a new crime, Watson finds he is unable to get information on his own; only when he mentions "Holmes" does he get anywhere. As the crime becomes a major case, the British government seeks the aid of "Sherlock Holmes" and no one else, including Watson's "Crime Doctor". The mystery involves the Bank of England £5 banknote printing plates that have been stolen, with the printing supervisor, Peter Giles, having gone missing on the night of the robbery. With the counterfeiting of these five pound notes, the collapse of the British Empire's economy would prove inevitable. Scotland Yard's Inspector Lestrade (Jeffrey Jones) is jealous of Sherlock Holmes. Lestrade takes every opportunity to spy on Holmes and Watson and to steal their ideas. The path of clues leads them to Peter Giles' daughter, Leslie (Lysette Anthony), and a twelve-year-old Irregular, Wiggins (Matthew Savage). Watson and "Holmes" discover that Professor Moriarty (Paul Freeman) is the mastermind behind the scheme. Watson is apparently killed, forcing "Holmes" to solve the case on his own. Having tracked the villain to an abandoned theatre, "Holmes" discovers Watson is still alive. The two work together to free Giles and defeat Moriarty. Watson has a new appreciation for Kincaid and the public is assured that the team of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. John Watson will continue their detective work. Context. The film is one of several spoofs that have been made of the canonical Sherlock Holmes. This particular spoof has two notable features. Firstly the main characters have been reversed, with a bumbling Holmes and genius detective Watson replacing the usual bumbling Watson and genius detective Holmes. Secondly, in the film Watson tires of his fictional creation, Holmes, and tries unsuccessfully to terminate his role, but is forced to bring him back by popular demand. This mirrors the real life situation of the author Conan Doyle (also a physician) who tired of his fictional creation Holmes and tried unsuccessfully to kill him off. Reception. The movie has received decent reviews from critics, and is frequently included in "top 10" lists of Sherlock films. Roger Ebert, however, gave the film two stars: Vincent Canby, writing for the "New York Times", stated that "Without A Clue" was "an appallingly witless sendup of the Sherlock Holmes-Dr. Watson stories".
1065699	The Ice Harvest is a 2005 dark comedy-drama film directed by Harold Ramis and written by Richard Russo and Robert Benton, based on the novel of the same name by Scott Phillips. It stars John Cusack, Billy Bob Thornton, and Connie Nielsen, with Randy Quaid and Oliver Platt in supporting roles. It was distributed by Focus Features, and the DVD was released on February 28, 2006. Plot. Mid-afternoon on Christmas Eve in Wichita, Kansas, mob lawyer Charlie Arglist (John Cusack) and crooked businessman and pornographer Vic Cavanaugh (Billy Bob Thornton) steal over $2 million from their mob boss Bill Guerrard (Randy Quaid). While it appears there will be an easy getaway for the pair, they learn the roads out of town are too icy to drive on. Vic takes the cash for safe-keeping and they split up and try their best to evade being captured by Guerrard and his men, who have discovered their scheme. Charlie visits Sweet Cage, a local strip-club, owned by Renata Crest (Connie Nielsen), a woman whom Charlie has long lusted for. She tasks Charlie to bring her an existing compromising picture, taken of a local crusading politician, that she can use to blackmail him to keep her club in business. Charlie goes to another strip club owned by Guerrard and removes the photo from the backroom safe. He is to meet up with her later that night. Charlie discovers Guerrard is looking for him and, anxious about getting caught, goes to a restaurant/bar to meet with Vic, who assures him things will be okay. Vic leaves while the bar manager asks Charlie to drive Pete (Oliver Platt), Charlie's old and now very drunk friend home. Pete is married to Charlie's beautiful ex-wife Sarabeth. Charlie takes Pete to Pete's in-laws, and outside the house before they go in to a formal family dinner, Pete confesses he was 'screwing' Sarabeth while she was married to Charlie. Pete asks Charlie if that makes hm angry, and Charlies replies, "Actually, it makes me curious. Makes me wonder who she's fucking now." The two late arriving does not go well, and they leave, going back to the bar they had earlier left for 'one more' drink. Pete gets even more drunk, and Charlie drives him home (previously Charlie's house), where Pete passes out. Charlie 'borrows' Sarabeth's Mercedes from the garage since Pete had just vomited in Charlie's Lincoln. Charlie goes back to Renata and gives her the photo. Renata deduces that Charlie is hiding something. He hints at the existence of money, and she suggests they go off together. Before they can do that, however, she tells him that Vic had called her earlier to say Charlie had been right about mob enforcer Roy Gelles (Mike Starr) looking for the two of them, and that Charlie needs to go meet with Vic while she closes her bar. Charlie goes to Vic's home and finds Vic's wife dead and that Vic has locked Roy in an industrial trunk. The two stuff Roy, in the trunk, into Sarabeth's Mercedes back seat, and Vic's wife's body in the car's trunk, and head for a local lake. On the way, Roy continues talking to the two of them, telling Charlie Vic killed his wife, and is going to kill Charlie too. Vic berates Charlie for 'being nice' on Christmas Eve, and gets annoyed with Roy and shoots into the trunk, which becomes quiet. Charlie and Vic get the trunk down onto a dock at the lake, but it's shot open from the inside and Roy gets out, shooting Vic in the process. Vic shoots Roy dead, but then falls into the frozen lake. Vic begs for help, but Charlie knows Vic was going to kill him and take the money for himself. He dumps Vic's wife's body on Vic, telling him, "I don't want you to die alone," and leaves Vic to die, still pleading to be saved. But Charlie then discovers the duffel bag in the car does not have the money in it, so he gets drunk. He calls Renata and tells her what has happened, but she asks him to come to her anyway. Returning to Sweet Cage, Charlie discovers Bill Guerrard's car in the parking lot. He has Renata tied up in the back office; she had enticed Charlie at the point Guerrard's gun. While Charlie fetches a double-barreled shotgun from behind the bar, Guerrard discusses the situation with Renata, surmising it was "really" her who designed the plan, as Vic was too dumb and Charlie too cowardly to pull it off, without her 'encouragement'. Charlie returns and points the gun at Guerrard, but Guerrard just taunts him. At Renata's urging, Charlie fires the gun, but it is loaded with birdshot and only superficially wounds him. As Charlie starts to cut Renata loose, Charlie is stabbed in the foot by a recovered Guerrard. Officer Tyler, making his rounds, hears the gunshot and arrives but Guerrard shoots him dead. Renata frees herself and stabs Guerrard. A struggle ensues, and Charlie manages to kill Guerrard with a second shot at point blank range. As Charlie mends his wound, when Renata says something, he realizes Vic "and" Renata were planning to go off together after Vic had killed him. Charlie finds the money, hidden in Renata's closet, while she is in the bathroom cleaning up. As they embrace, Charlie kills Renata just before she can kill him. Christmas morning, a sad Charlie drives from town with the money. He finds Sidney with his kids on the side of the road in a camper-motor home, on their way to Six Flags, that has run out of gas. Charlie lets Sidney siphon some gas from his tank. They wish each other well, but as Sidney drives off, he accidentally backs into Charlie, knocking him to the ground. Charlie picks himself up and gets back in the Mercedes, where Pete, in the back seat, has awoken from his stupor, and they wish each other 'Merry Christmas'. The pair drive off to a new and different future. Production. Frequent Harold Ramis collaborator Bill Murray was reportedly offered a role. Monica Bellucci was originally set to play the role of Renata, but had to leave due to her pregnancy. Ramis almost had to close production for a day due to the weather, which would have spoiled his tradition of never losing a shooting day.
1104737	George Bernard Dantzig (November 8, 1914 – May 13, 2005) was an American mathematical scientist who made important contributions to operations research, computer science, economics, and statistics.
1059554	Rolf Peter Ingvar Storm, known professionally as Peter Stormare (; born 27 August 1953), is a Swedish film, stage, voice and television actor, as well as a theatrical director, playwright and musician. Stormare is probably best known in the United States for playing Gaear Grimsrud in the Academy Award winning movie "Fargo". Early life. Stormare was born in Kumla, Närke, Sweden, and grew up in Arbrå, Hälsingland. He changed his surname when he discovered he shared it with a senior student at the acting academy. Just like "storm" (a word which has the same meaning in Swedish and English), "stormare" is a Swedish word, meaning "stormer". Before settling on "Stormare" he briefly contemplated changing his name to "Mrots Retep" which is simply "Peter Storm" backwards. Career. Stormare began his career with the Swedish Royal Dramatic Theatre, to which he belonged for eleven years. In 1990, he took a leading position (Associate Artistic Director) at the Tokyo Globe Theatre and made a name for himself through various Shakespeare performances including "Hamlet". Three years later, he moved to New York City and mainly took part there in English language productions. He played Carl Hamilton, a fictional Swedish secret agent similar to James Bond. He was discovered by international audiences for his critically acclaimed role as one of the kidnappers (with Steve Buscemi) in "Fargo" (1996). He later played a sleazy, unlicensed "eye-doctor" named Solomon Eddie in "Minority Report". He portrayed Dieter Stark in the 1997 film "". In 1998, he appeared in "The Frogger", a "Seinfeld" episode where he played a "rogue electrician" known as "Slippery Pete". He portrayed Uli Kunkel in the 1998 film "The Big Lebowski", as well as playing Lev Andropov, the Russian Cosmonaut in 1998's "Armageddon". In 1999 he appeared opposite Nicolas Cage, in the role of a villainous producer & director of deviant hard-core porn named "Dino Velvet" in the film "8mm". He also portrayed Gunny in the movie Windtalkers in 2002 and Alexei in the 2003 film "Bad Boys II". In 2003, Stormare played the role of Ernst Rohm in "". In the 2005 film "Constantine", Stormare played Lucifer. He played an interrogator in the 2005 movie "The Brothers Grimm". His first major character in television was on the show "Prison Break" in 2005, where he played mob boss John Abruzzi. Stormare was originally cast for the role of "Fido", but upon being cast in "Prison Break", he opted out of the film. He voiced "Mattias Nilsson" in the video games ' and ', the voice of Isair in the computer game "Icewind Dale 2", and the voice of Johann Strauss in "Quake 4". In February 2006, he starred as Wolfgang in Volkswagen's VDub series of television commercials. Stormare played the main character in the movie "Svartvattnet", which was filmed in Sweden and Norway during 2007. Stormare was also offered a role in the ABC television series "Lost" for a period of one year, which he later declined. In the 2007 film "Premonition" he played the character Dr Roth. In April 2007, he appeared in an episode of crime drama "", "Ending Happy". In December 2007, Stormare participated in the Swedish reality show "Stjärnorna på slottet" along with Britt Ekland, Arja Saijonmaa, Jan Malmsjö and Magnus Härenstam. He appears in "" as Dr. Zelinsky, a Russian scientist who builds a time machine. He runs his own record label, StormVox. He starred as Walter in the Canadian independent crime thriller "Small Town Murder Songs" (2010). He appeared in the music video of the song "Uprising" by the Swedish power metal band Sabaton. He plays himself in the 2011 Norwegian comedy "Hjelp, vi er i filmbransjen", and appeared as a psychiatrist in the Swedish horror film "Marianne" (2011). He appeared in "The Replacer" trailer for the video game , which was made for the "Revolution" DLC pack. He has since reappeared in most recent trailers for the game. Personal life. Stormare divides his time between the United States and Sweden. He is divorced from his first wife, actress Karen Sillas and is currently married to Toshimi, a native of Japan. After Bono of U2 heard some of Stormare's music, he encouraged him to make an album. In 2002, Stormare released his first album, "Dallerpölsa och småfåglar". Stormare is the godfather of Gustaf Skarsgård, the son of equally-acclaimed Swedish actor Stellan Skarsgård, and plays in a band called "Blonde From Fargo". While working on a Disney film in Prague, Stormare was introduced to Bob Dylan after the concert by bassist Tony Garnier. Peter Stormare is a Christian, and claims he has had contact with God. When he was young, he participated in the Baptist meetings in Arbrå. He has a strong spiritual side, inherited from his mother, who claimed to be a medium, and who in turn supposedly inherited this from her own father.
1595803	Samuel Timothy "Tim" McGraw (born May 1, 1967) is an American singer, songwriter and actor. Many of McGraw's albums and singles have topped the country music charts with total album sales in excess of 40 million units in the US, making him the eighth best-selling artist, and the third best-selling country singer, in the Soundscan era. He is married to country singer Faith Hill and is the son of the late baseball player Tug McGraw. McGraw had 11 consecutive albums debut at Number One on the "Billboard" albums charts. Twenty-five singles hit No. 1 on the Billboard Country Airplay chart. He has won three Grammys, 14 Academy of Country Music awards, 11 Country Music Association (CMA) awards, 10 American Music Awards, and three People's Choice Awards. His Soul2Soul II Tour with Faith Hill is the highest grossing tour in country music history, and one of the top five among all genres of music. McGraw has ventured into acting, with supporting roles in "The Blind Side" (with Sandra Bullock), "Friday Night Lights", "The Kingdom", and "Four Christmases" (with Vince Vaughn and Reese Witherspoon), and lead roles in "Flicka" (2006) and "Country Strong" (2010). He was a minority owner of the Arena Football League's Nashville Kats. Taylor Swift's debut single, "Tim McGraw", refers to him and his song, "Can't Tell Me Nothin. In acknowledgement of his grandfather's Italian heritage, McGraw was honored by the National Italian American Foundation (NIAF) in 2004, receiving the NIAF Special Achievement Award in Music during the Foundation's 29th Anniversary Gala. Early life. He was born Samuel Timothy McGraw in Delhi, Louisiana, the only child of Elizabeth "Betty" Ann D'Agostino, a waitress, and Frank Edwin "Tug" McGraw Jr., who would later become a relief pitcher for the New York Mets and the Philadelphia Phillies. McGraw is of Italian and some Irish descent on his mother's side, and of Scots-Irish, English, Scottish, French, Dutch, Czech and German descent on his father's side. In 1966, Tug was a pitcher for the Jacksonville Suns, and he lived in an apartment above Betty D'Agostino, who attended Terry Parker High School. The pair had a relationship, and when Betty became pregnant, her parents sent her to Louisiana to live with relatives and to have the baby. Raised by his mother in Start, also in Richland Parish, east of Monroe, McGraw grew up believing his stepfather, Horace Smith, was his father. From the time of his mother's marriage until the time he met his biological father, his last name was Smith. At age 11, McGraw discovered his birth certificate while searching his mother's closet to look for Christmas presents. After his discovery, his mother revealed that his biological father was Tug McGraw, and took Tim to meet him for the first time. For seven years, Tug denied being Tim's father. Tim was 18 years old when Tug first realized how much Tim looked like him at that age, and he acknowledged paternity. They remained close until Tug's death in 2004. As a child, McGraw loved to play competitive sports, including baseball, even though he did not know his natural father was a professional athlete. He attended Northeast Louisiana University, now the University of Louisiana at Monroe, on a baseball scholarship, and became a member of the Pi Kappa Alpha Fraternity. During his college period, he learned to play guitar, and would frequently perform and sing for tips, although he claims that his roommates often hid the guitar because he was so bad. His mother, Betty, returned to Jacksonville, Florida in 1987, and McGraw followed. He attended Florida Community College at Jacksonville for one term, and occasionally sat in with local bands. In 1989, on the day his hero Keith Whitley died, McGraw dropped out of college to head to Nashville and pursue a musical career. Music career. 1990s. "Tim McGraw". McGraw came to the attention of Curb Records in 1992. After cutting a demo single, McGraw gave a copy to his father, Tug McGraw. A man who was friends with Curb Records executives heard the demo while driving with Tug McGraw one day and recommended that Curb contact the young singer. Several weeks later, he was able to play his tape for Curb executives, after which they signed him to a recording contract. Two years later, in 1992, he had his first minor hit with "Welcome to the Club" off his self-titled debut album. Although the album failed to make much of a dent on the charts, McGraw did have two other minor hits from it in 1993: "Memory Lane" and "Two Steppin Mind". "Not a Moment Too Soon". His second album, "Not a Moment Too Soon", was much more successful, becoming the best-selling country album in 1994. The first single, "Indian Outlaw", caused considerable controversy, as critics argued that it presented Native Americans in a patronizing way. Some radio stations refused to play it, but the controversy helped spur sales, and the song became McGraw's first top-ten country single (getting as high as No. 8), and reaching No. 15 on the pop chart. The second single from the album, "Don't Take the Girl", became McGraw's first No. 1 country hit, and "helped cement his image as a ruggedly good-looking guy with a sensitive side". The following year, the album's title track became a No. 1 country single, while "Down on the Farm" reached No. 2, and "Refried Dreams" reached the top 5. The album sold over 6 million copies, topping the Billboard 200 as well as the country album charts. On the strength of this success, McGraw won Academy of Country Music awards for Album of the Year and Top New Male Vocalist in 1994. "All I Want". "All I Want", released in 1995, continued his run of success, debuting at No. 1 on the country charts. The album sold over 2 million copies and reached the top 5 on the Billboard 200. "I Like It, I Love It" reached No. 1 on the country charts as the lead-off single, while "She Never Lets It Go to Her Heart" also went to No. 1 in 1996. "Can't Be Really Gone", "All I Want Is a Life", and "Maybe We Should Just Sleep on It" were all top 5 hits. In 1996, McGraw headlined the most successful country tour of the year, The Spontaneous Combustion Tour, with Faith Hill as his supporting act. Faith Hill broke off her engagement to her former producer Scott Hendricks so that she and McGraw could start dating each other; they then married on October 6, 1996. The couple have since had three daughters: Gracie Katherine (born May 1997), Maggie Elizabeth (born August 1998), and Audrey Caroline (born December 2001). "Everywhere". McGraw's next album, 1997's "Everywhere", again topped the country charts and reached No. 2 on the album charts, selling 4 million copies. Four singles ("It's Your Love", "Everywhere", "Where the Green Grass Grows", and "Just to See You Smile") reached the top of the country charts from the album, with the last of these setting a new record by spending 42 weeks on the Billboard charts. The Country Music Association awarded "Everywhere" its Album of the Year award for 1997. At the 40th Grammy Awards "It's Your Love" received two Grammy Award nominations for Best Country Collaboration With Vocals and Best Country Song. "A Place in the Sun. "A Place in the Sun" in 1999 continued McGraw's streak, debuting atop both the US pop and country album charts and selling 3 million albums. It featured another four chart-topping singles on the country charts including "Please Remember Me", "Something Like That", "My Best Friend", and "My Next Thirty Years". "Some Things Never Change" reached No. 7 on the country chart. He also contributed a song for the Grammy-winning tribute album to Bob Wills: "Ride With Bob." His song, a cover of "Milk Cow Blues", was recorded as a duet with Asleep at the Wheel, whom he had met while performing together at the George Strait Country Music Festival. McGraw recorded two more duets with his wife in the late 1990s, both of which appeared on her albums. "Just to Hear You Say That You Love Me", off of her multi-platinum 1998 album "Faith", reached the top five of the US country charts, while her follow-up and 1999 album "Breathe" featured "Let's Make Love", which would win a Grammy Award in 2000 for Best Country Vocal Collaboration. 2000s. "Greatest Hits". In 2000, McGraw released his "Greatest Hits" album, which topped the charts for nine weeks and sold almost 6 million copies, making it one of the biggest-selling albums in the modern country market. In the latter half of the year, he and Hill went out on the Soul2Soul Tour, playing to sellout crowds in 64 venues, including Madison Square Garden. It was one of the top tours of any genre in the US, and the leading country tour during 2000. While in Buffalo, New York, McGraw and Kenny Chesney became involved in a scuffle with police officers after Chesney attempted to ride a police horse. McGraw came to Chesney's aid after police officers nearby believed the horse was being stolen and tried to arrest him. The two were arrested and charged with assault, but were later cleared. During a concert with the George Strait Country Music Festival several weeks later, Hill, dressed as a police officer, made an unscheduled appearance at the end of McGraw's set and led him off the stage. "Set This Circus Down". McGraw's next album, "Set This Circus Down", was released in April 2001, and spawned four number-one country hits: "Grown Men Don't Cry", "Angry All the Time" (with Faith Hill), "The Cowboy in Me", and "Unbroken". He provided harmony vocals for the Jo Dee Messina song "Bring On the Rain", which he also produced. The song topped the country charts. Hungry for more of his music, fans downloaded a version of his performance of the song "Things Change" from his appearance at the Country Music Association Awards Show. The song was played extensively on radio, becoming the first country song to appear on the charts from a fully downloaded version. "Tim McGraw and the Dancehall Doctors". In 2002, McGraw bucked country music traditions by recording his album "Tim McGraw and the Dancehall Doctors" with his tour band The Dancehall Doctors. Unlike rock music, where it is commonplace for touring bands to provide the music on albums recorded by the artist they support, country albums are typically recorded with session musicians. McGraw chose to use his own touring band, in order to recognize their part in
1163483	Nanette Fabray (born October 27, 1920) is an American actress, comedienne, singer, dancer, and activist. She began her career performing in vaudeville as a child and became a musical theatre actress during the 1940s and 1950s, winning a Tony Award in 1949 for her performance in "Love Life". In the mid-1950s, she served as Sid Caesar's comedic partner on "Caesar's Hour", for which she won three Emmy Awards. From 1979 to 1984, she appeared as Grandma Katherine Romano on "One Day at a Time". Fabray overcame a significant hearing impairment and has been a long-time advocate for the rights of the deaf and hard of hearing. Her honors representing the handicapped include the President's Distinguished Service Award and the Eleanor Roosevelt Humanitarian Award. Early life, education, and work as a child actor. Fabray was born Ruby Bernadette Nanette Fabares in San Diego, California, to Raul Bernard Fabares, a train conductor, and Lily Agnes McGovern, a housewife. The family resided in Los Angeles and Fabray's mother was instrumental in getting her daughter involved in show business as a child. At a young age, she studied tap dancing with, among others, Bill “Bojangles” Robinson. She made her professional stage debut as "Miss New Years Eve 1923" at the Million Dollar Theater at the age of three. She spent much of her childhood appearing in vaudeville productions as a dancer and singer. She appeared with stars such as Ben Turpin. Fabray's parents divorced when she was nine, but continued living together for financial reasons. During the Great Depression, her mother turned their home into a boarding house, which Fabray and her siblings helped run. In her early teenage years, Fabray attended the Max Reinhardt School of the Theatre on a scholarship. She then attended Hollywood High School, where she graduated in 1939. She entered Los Angeles Junior College in the fall of 1939, but withdrew a few months later. She had always had difficulty in school due to an undiagnosed hearing impairment, which made learning difficult. She eventually was diagnosed with a hearing loss in her 20s after an acting teacher encouraged her to get her hearing tested. Fabray said of the experience, "It was a revelation to me. All these years I had thought I was stupid, but in reality I just had a hearing problem." Career as a musical theatre actress. At the age of 19, Fabray made her feature film debut as one of Bette Davis' ladies-in-waiting in "The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex" (1939). She appeared in two additional motion pictures that year for Warner Brothers, "The Monroe Doctrine" and "A Child Is Born", but failed to gain a long-term studio contract. She next appeared in the stage production "Meet the People" in Los Angeles in 1940, which then toured the United States in 1940-1941. In the show, she sang the opera aria "Caro nome" from Giuseppe Verdi's "Rigoletto" while tap dancing. During the show's New York run, Fabray was invited to perform the "Caro nome" number for a benefit at Madison Square Garden with Eleanor Roosevelt as the main speaker. Ed Sullivan was the Master of Ceremonies for the event and the famed host, reading a cue card, mispronounced her name as "Nanette Fa-bare-ass." After this embarrassing faux pas, the actress changed the spelling of her name from Fabares to Fabray.
589172	Watan Ke Rakhwale is a 1987 Hindi-language Indian feature film directed by T. Rama Rao, starring Mithun Chakraborty, Dharmendra, Sunil Dutt, Sridevi, Moushumi Chatterjee, Prem Chopra, Shakti Kapoor and Kader Khan. The film also has Ashok Kumar in an important role. Plot. Watan Ke Rakhwale is a family drama with Mithun Chakraborty and Sridevi playing the lead, supported by Dharmendra, Sunil Dutt and Kader Khan. Summary. Radha Pratap (Sridevi) lives a wealthy lifestyle with her widowed businessman dad, Raja (Sudhir Dalvi); her maternal grandma (Lalita Pawar); and paternal uncle, Dr. Narendra (Prem Chopra), who runs a mental hospital. Shortly after her father dies in a car accident, her marriage is arranged with equally wealthy Naresh Puri (Dan Dhanoa), the only child of Raj (Kader Khan). When the marriage is about to be finalized, a man named Arun (Mithun Chakraborty) interrupts the ceremony, informing them that Radha is already married to him, and produces proof and a witness, Prof. Peter Fernandes (Ashok Kumar). The wedding is canceled amidst chaos as Radha claims that she had never seen Arun, leave alone married him. A few days later, Narendra and Raj ask Radha to sign a divorce petition, which will annul the marriage so that she will be free to marry Naresh, which she does sign. When the time comes for her to move out, she refuses and admits that she made a mistake and admits having been married Arun, who lives with his Jailer brother, Suraj Prakash (Sunil Dutt) and his wife, Laxmi (Moushumi Chatterjee). A few days later, Naresh is arrested by the Police for smuggling, and lodged in a jail, where he is killed by a convict named Mahavir (Dharmendra), who had seen Naresh sexually molest his sister, Vimla (Divya Rana). Enraged at the death of his son, Raj has his men molest and threaten Laxmi. Shortly thereafter Narendra's body is found, knifed to death. Suraj confesses to this crime, is arrested, tried in court and sentenced to 6 years in the very jail where he used to be the Jailor. Raj arranges the abduction of Radha, Laxmi, and Arun and has them confined on an island that is not within the jurisdiction of any country. The questions remain why did Arun claim that Radha is married to him, and why did Suraj confess to killing Narendra, and what is going to be the fate of Raj's victims? External links. r
1164681	Mimi Kennedy (born September 25, 1948) is an American actress, author, and activist. Early life. Kennedy was born Mary Claire Kennedy in Rochester, New York, the daughter of Nancy Helen (née Colgan) and Daniel Gerald Kennedy. She got her start in theater with the Rochester Community Players, appearing in Agatha Christie's "Spider Web" in October 1960 when she was 12 years old. Mimi was raised in the Browncroft neighborhood of Rochester. She was a 1966 graduate of Our Lady of Mercy High School. In the 1970s she was in a musical production called "Rhinegold", featuring songs by her friend Jim Steinman. Career. Kennedy made her television debut in March 1977 in the short-lived television variety series "3 Girls 3", with Debbie Allen and Ellen Foley as the other two "girls". Her most notable television roles, however, were as Dharma's mother, Abby O'Neil, on the series "Dharma & Greg" and as Ruth Sloan on "Homefront".
583657	Maya Kannadi is a Tamil film directed by Cheran. It's his ninth directorial venture. He also plays the lead role with Navya Nair. Subbu, son of veteran producer Panchu Arunachalam is the producer. Ilayaraaja scores the music and Sarath Kumar, Arya and Malavika make cameo appearances in the film. Plot. Cheran plays a young man who comes from Thiruvannamalai to Chennai with dreams and hopes about the future. He gets a job in a men's beauty parlor in Chennai. Every day, he observes and learns more about life in the city. He starts to dream and build castles in the air. Navya Nair plays Maheshwari, who works in another beauty parlor and who also has desires of her own. The rest of the story is about what happens to these two people. This three hour long film has similar themes compared to Cheran's previous films. The key message in this movie is that each person's life is in his own hands.
1246585	Philip Ahn (March 29, 1905 – February 28, 1978) was a Korean-American actor. He was the first Asian-American film actor to receive a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Biography. Ahn was born Pil Lip Ahn() in Highland Park, California. His parents emigrated to the United States in 1902 . Ahn's father, Dosan Ahn Chang-ho, was an educator and an activist for Korean independence during the colonial period. When he was in high school, Ahn visited the set of the film "The Thief of Bagdad", where he met Douglas Fairbanks. Fairbanks offered him a screen test, followed by a part in the movie. However, his mother told him, "No son of mine is going to get mixed up with those awful people." Ahn graduated from high school in 1923, and went to work in the rice fields around Colusa, California. The land was owned by the Hung Sa Dan, or Young Korean Academy, a Korean independence movement that trained Koreans to become leaders of their country once it was free from Japanese rule. Since Koreans could not own land in California, the Academy put the property in Ahn's name. Unfortunately, the rice crops failed because of heavy rains, and Ahn found himself deeply in debt. He went to work as an elevator operator in Los Angeles to pay back the debt and help support his family. It was not until 1934 that he could afford to attend the University of Southern California. His father told him if he really wanted to be an actor, he had to be the best actor he could and convinced him to take acting and cinematography courses. While still a student, he appeared in a stage production of "Merrily We Roll Along", which toured the western United States. Ahn served as president of the USC Cosmopolitan Club, was chairman of the All University Committee on International Relations, and was assistant to the dean of male students as advisor for foreign student affairs. He organized visits by foreign dignitaries, including Princess Der Ling of China, Indian journalist Chaman Lal and archeologist-explorer Robert B. Stacey-Judd. After completing his second year, however, Ahn dropped out to act full-time. Film career. Ahn's first film was "A Scream in the Night" in 1935. He appeared in the Bing Crosby film "Anything Goes", though director Lewis Milestone had initially rejected him because his English was too good for the part. His first credited roles came in 1936 in "The General Died at Dawn" and "Stowaway", opposite Shirley Temple. He starred opposite Anna May Wong in "Daughter of Shanghai" (1937) and "King of Chinatown" (1939). During World War II, Ahn often played Japanese villains in war films. Mistakenly thought to be Japanese, he received several death threats. He enlisted in the United States Army, having served in the Special Services as an entertainer. He was discharged early because of an injured ankle and returned to making films. Ahn appeared in "Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing", "Around the World in Eighty Days", "Thoroughly Modern Millie" and "Paradise, Hawaiian Style", with Elvis Presley. He got to play Korean characters in Korean War movies such as "Battle Circus" (1953) and "Battle Hymn" (1956). Television roles. In the mid-1950s, he appeared on television in the religion anthology series, "Crossroads". In 1958, he was cast as Charles Wong in the episode "The Cheater" of the 1958 NBC western television series, "Jefferson Drum", starring Jeff Richards. He appeared too on David Janssen's "Richard Diamond, Private Detective" and in the CBS sitcom, "The Eve Arden Show". From 1959 to 1962, Ahn was cast in four episodes of ABC's "Adventures in Paradise", starring Gardner McKay; from 1960 to 1962, he was cast in four episodes of the ABC/Warner Brothers crime drama, "Hawaiian Eye". Ahn appeared twice on two ABC adventure dramas, "Follow the Sun" and "Stoney Burke". He was cast as Quong Lee in the 1960 episode "Blind Marriage" of the ABC western series, "The Rebel", starring Nick Adams. In 1962, he was cast as James Wong in the episode "The Case of the Weary Watchdog" of the CBS legal drama, "Perry Mason". In 1965, Ahn appeared in the third episode, "Carry Me Back to Old Tsing-Tao", of the NBC adventure series, "I Spy". In 1968, Ahn made a USO tour of Vietnam, visiting both American and Korean troops in South Vietnam. In 1976, Ahn played the part of a Korean father on CBS's "M*A*S*H" ('Hawkeye' - Season 4, Episode 18), the part of a grandfather in another episode ('Exorcism' - Season 5, Episode 12), and the part of Winchester's tailor ('Change Day', Season 6, Episode 8). Ahn's last major role was as "Master Kan" on the television series "Kung Fu". A Presbyterian, Ahn felt that the Taoist homilies his character quoted did not contradict his own religious faith. Tributes. For contributions to the motion picture industry, Ahn was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6205 Hollywood Boulevard. He was the first Asian American actor to receive a star on Hollywood Boulevard. Personal life. Ahn was actively involved in the Korean community of Los Angeles. He worked to make Los Angeles a sister city of Pusan, Korea. He also helped to bring the Korean Bell of Friendship to San Pedro, California. The Bell of Friendship has been seen in many subsequent movies. He served for twenty years as honorary mayor of Panorama City, California. He worked to have his father and mother buried together in Seoul. His father had been buried far from the city because the Japanese hoped to play down his independence work. His mother had died in California. They had not seen each other from the time Dosan returned to Korea in 1926, before the birth of his youngest son. Working with the Korean government, Ahn helped to establish a park to honor his father and was able to have his parents buried there. Ahn's younger brother Philson had a minor acting career. He was best known as "Prince Tallen" in the twelve-episode serial "Buck Rogers", featuring Buster Crabbe. In the 1950s, Ahn opened a Chinese restaurant with his sister, Soorah. "Phil Ahn's Moongate Restaurant" was one of the first Chinese restaurants in the San Fernando Valley, and existed for more than thirty years before finally closing. Ahn died on February 28, 1978 from complications from surgery.
1165364	Mike Connors (born Krekor Ohanian August 15, 1925) is an American actor best known for playing detective Joe Mannix in the CBS television series, "Mannix". In the 1959–1960 television season, he had played a crime-fighting investigator known only as "Nick" in another CBS series, "Tightrope". Early years. Connors was born in Fresno, California, of Armenian descent. He was an avid basketball player in high school who was nicknamed "Touch" by his teammates. During World War II he served in the United States Army Air Forces. After the war he attended the University of California at Los Angeles on a basketball scholarship, where he played under coach John Wooden. He was a member of the Phi Delta Theta fraternity. William A. Wellman got him into acting after noticing his expressive face while Connors was playing basketball. He appeared on the Los Angeles CBS station as "Touch" Connors in an episode of "Jukebox Jury" before the program went national via ABC in 1953. Connors is credited in his early films, such as "Island in the Sky" (1953), "Swamp Women" (a.k.a. "Swamp Diamonds"), "Five Guns West" (1955), "The Day the World Ended (1955)", and "Flesh and the Spur" (1957) as "Touch Connors". Connors recalled in an interview that he was renamed by Henry Willson saying that "Ohanian" was too close to the actor George O'Hanlon and came up with "Touch Connors". Career. His film career started in the early 1950s. Connors was cast in the critically acclaimed John Wayne film, "Island in the Sky (1953 film)" in which he was a crewman on one of the search and rescue planes. In 1956, still billed as Touch Connors, he played an Amalekite herder in Cecil B. DeMille's "The Ten Commandments" starring Charlton Heston. He appeared in numerous television series, including the co-starring role in the 1955 episode "Tomas and the Widow" of the NBC western anthology series "Frontier". He guest starred on the early sitcoms, "Hey, Jeannie!" and "The People's Choice". He guest starred in two Rod Cameron syndicated crime dramas, "City Detective" and the western-themed "State Trooper", and played the villain in the first episode filmed (but second one aired) of ABC's smash hit "Maverick" opposite James Garner in 1957.
837313	Edward Oakley Thorp (born 14 August 1932) is an American mathematics professor, author, hedge fund manager, and blackjack player best known as the "father of wearable computer" after inventing the world's first wearable computer in 1961. He was a pioneer in modern applications of probability theory, including the harnessing of very small correlations for reliable financial gain. He is the author of "Beat the Dealer", the first book to mathematically prove, in 1962, that the house advantage in blackjack could be overcome by card counting. He also developed and applied effective hedge fund techniques in the financial markets, and collaborated with Claude Shannon in creating the first wearable computer. Thorp received his Ph.D. in mathematics from the University of California, Los Angeles in 1958, and worked at M.I.T. from 1959 to 1961. He was a professor of mathematics from 1961-1965 at New Mexico State University, and then joined the University of California, Irvine where he was a professor of mathematics from 1965 to 1977 and a professor of mathematics and finance from 1977 to 1982. Computer aided research in blackjack. Ed Thorp used the IBM 704 as a research tool in order to investigate the probabilities of winning while developing his blackjack game theory, which was based on the Kelly criterion, which he learned about from the 1956 paper by Kelly. He learned Fortran in order to program the equations needed for his theoretical research model on the probabilities of winning at blackjack. Thorp analyzed the game of blackjack to a great extent this way, while devising card-counting schemes with the aid of the IBM 704 in order to improve his odds, especially near the end of a card deck that is not being reshuffled after every deal.
1014804	Katharine Payne Towne (born July 17, 1978) is an American actress, born in Hollywood, California to Julie Payne, an actress, and Robert Towne, an Oscar-winning screenwriter, director, and actor. She is a grandchild of actors John Payne and Anne Shirley.
1028886	Elizabeth Ann Reaser (born June 15, 1975) is an American film, television, and stage actress. Her work includes the films "Stay", "The Family Stone", "Sweet Land", "Against the Current", and "The Twilight Saga" and the TV series "Saved", "Grey's Anatomy" and "The Ex-List". Early life and education. Reaser was born in Bloomfield, Michigan, an affluent Detroit suburb, the daughter of Karen Davidson (née Weidman) and John Reaser. Elizabeth was the middle of three sisters. Her mother Karen later married billionaire businessman William Davidson (Karen converted to Judaism after marrying Davidson). Reaser attended the Academy of the Sacred Heart in Bloomfield Hills. After high school, she attended Oakland University for one year, then attended the Juilliard School's Drama Division (1995-1999, "Group 28") where she graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in 1999. Career. Reaser appeared in a London stage production with an audience of two people and prepared for her role on "Saved" by spending time in an emergency room, observing the behavior of medical staff. In October 2004, "Interview" magazine hailed her as one of the "14 To Be" emerging creative women. Her work in the film "Sweet Land" earned the "Jury Award" at the Newport Beach Film Festival and a nomination for the Independent Spirit Award "Best Female Lead" award. Reaser earned a Primetime Emmy Award nomination for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Drama Series for her recurring guest appearance throughout 2007 and 2008 on the television series "Grey's Anatomy". Reaser played the role of Esme Cullen in the movie "Twilight", ' in 2009 and ' in 2010. She reprised the role in and of "The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn". Reaser appeared on the CBS' legal drama, "The Good Wife" in October 2010.
1413019	Daltry Calhoun is a 2005 film, written and directed by Katrina Holden Bronson and starring Johnny Knoxville as the lead character Daltry Calhoun and Sophie Traub as his estranged daughter. Famed director Quentin Tarantino is one of the film's executive producers. The plot involves small town Tennessee and the character Daltry Calhoun who is wrestling for control over his fading golf club and is reunited with his estranged daughter, a 14-year-old musical prodigy. Its setting, Ducktown is a small town located in the Appalachian Mountains of south eastern Tennessee along the border with North Carolina. The film was shot in Maury County, Tennessee, though there are no mountains in the locale.
630164	Chris Hemsworth (born 11 August 1983) is an Australian actor. He is best known for his role as Thor in the Marvel Studios films "Thor" (2011) and "The Avengers" (2012), and as Kim Hyde in the Australian TV series "Home and Away" (2004). He has also appeared in "Star Trek" (2009), "A Perfect Getaway" (2009), "The Cabin in the Woods" (2012), "Snow White and the Huntsman" (2012), "Red Dawn" (2012) and "Rush" (2013). He will appear in the film adaptation of "", based on the book by Nathaniel Philbrick. Early life. Chris Hemsworth was born in Melbourne, to Leonie, a teacher of English, and Craig Hemsworth, a social-services counselor. He was raised both there and in the Northern Territory, in a small Aboriginal community in the Outback called Bulman. He has stated, "My earliest memories were on the cattle stations up in the Outback, and then we moved back to Melbourne and then back out there and then back again. Certainly most of my childhood was in Melbourne but probably my most vivid memories were up there in Bulman with crocodiles and buffalo. Very different walks of life." He attended high school at Heathmont College before his family again returned to the Northern Territory, and then moved a few years later to Phillip Island. He is the middle of three boys; his brothers Luke (older) and Liam (younger) are also actors. Career. In 2004, Hemsworth auditioned for the Australian soap opera "Home and Away" role of Robbie Hunter (played by Jason Smith), but did not receive the part. He was subsequently recalled for the part of Kim Hyde and moved to Sydney to join the cast, appearing in 171 episodes of the series. He left the cast of "Home and Away" on 3 July 2007. In 2009, Hemsworth portrayed James T. Kirk's father, George Kirk, in the opening scenes of J. J. Abrams' film "Star Trek". He played the character Kale in the thriller "A Perfect Getaway" the same year. He went on to play Sam in "Ca$h", which was the first film he shot when he arrived in the United States. The film's director, Stephen Milburn Anderson, said Hemsworth had only been in the United States for six weeks when he had auditioned for the role, recalling, "Here's a guy who is young, has the right look, is a very good actor and, let's face it, he's beautiful. So I say, we need to get this guy in. I was very impressed". In November 2010, "The Hollywood Reporter" named Hemsworth as one of the young male actors who are "pushing – or being pushed" onto the Hollywood "A-List". He is best known for his role as the Marvel Comics superhero Thor in the 2011 Marvel Studios film "Thor". He and castmate Tom Hiddleston, who ultimately played the antagonist Loki, had each auditioned for the role, for which Hemsworth said he put on 20 pounds of muscle. Hemsworth reprised the role in the 2012 film "The Avengers" as one of the six superheroes sent to defend Earth from his adopted brother, Loki. He starred in the horror film "The Cabin in the Woods", which though shot shortly after the release of "Star Trek" (2009) went unreleased until 2012. It led Hemsworth to audition for the role of Thor at Joss Whedon's insistence. Also that year, Hemsworth starred opposite Kristen Stewart in the film "Snow White & the Huntsman" as the Huntsman. He also played Jed Eckert in the 2012 "Red Dawn" remake, a role he was cast in after MGM saw dailies footage of a scene from "Cabin in the Woods". Hemsworth received the part of Thor two days after being hired for "Red Dawn". In 2013, Hemsworth will reprise his role as Thor in the sequel "", set to start filming in August 2012. He also starred in Ron Howard's action film "Rush", as Formula 1 driver James Hunt. Additionally, Hemsworth is scheduled to star in the 2014 thriller "Shadow Runner". It was announced at the 2013 San Diego Comic Con International, that the sequel to the "The Avengers", would be titled "". Hemsworth will reprise his role as Thor in the 2015 film. Personal life. Hemsworth dated his "Home and Away" castmate Isabel Lucas between 2005–2006. Hemsworth began dating actress Elsa Pataky in early 2010 after meeting through their mutual representatives. They married in December 2010, and have a child together, daughter India Rose (b. 2012).
584627	Suhasini Maniratnam (born Suhasini Charuhasan, on 15 August 1961) is an Indian film actress known for her works in South Indian Cinema. She made her film debut in 1980 with the Tamil film "Nenjathai Killathe" for which she won the Tamil Nadu State Film Award for Best Actress. Suhasini has won the National Film Award for Best Actress for "Sindhu Bhairavi" in 1986. She has received four Filmfare Award for Best Actress – Kannada, and a Filmfare Award for Best Actress – Telugu, and has garnered state awards like, Tamil Nadu State Film Awards, Nandi Awards and Kerala State Film Awards. Early life and career. Suhasini was born to Charuhasan, on 15 August 1961 in Chennai in the prominent Hassan family. In 1988 she married Mani Ratnam, and has a son. Film career. Suhasini started her career as a camera assistant to Ashok Kumar and later went on to become an actress. Suhasini has acted in Kannada, Tamil, Telugu and Malayalam films. She started her career as a make-up artist for several leading actors at that time. She is extremely popular in Kannada movies. Her films "Bandhana" directed by Rajendra Singh Babu and "Suprabhatha", directed by Dinesh Baboo was a blockbuster, and thus became one of the most bankable stars of Kannada cinema of the time. "Muttina Haara" (1990) with Vishnuvardhan directed by Rajendra Singh Babu, "Benkiyalli Aralida Hoovu" (1983) directed by K. Balchander, "Hendthig Helthini" and "Amruthavarshini" directed by Dinesh Babu were all run away hits. Her work in "Mathad Mathad Mallige" with Vishnuvardhan directed by Nagathihalli Chandrashekhar, "Eradane Maduve" and its sequel "Mathondu Maduve" directed by Dinesh Baboo. Her combination with Dr.Vishnuvardhan is considered as one of the best and rare combinations of South Indian Cinema and the duo have acted together in many blockbuster films that include Bandhana, Suprabhatha, Muthina Haara, Hendthig Helthini, Himapatha, Mathad Mathad Mallige, School Master etc. She was introduced to Malayalam cinema through Padmarajan's "Koodevide" (1983), which also featured Mammootty. Her role in the AFI Fest-nominated feature "Vanaprastham" (1999), which starred Mohanlal, was particularly well received. She won the National Film Award for Best Actress in 1986 for her role in the 1985 Tamil film "Sindhu Bhairavi", directed by K. Balachander. In 1996, Suhasini stepped into direction with "Indira". She also wrote the screenplay for the film. The project was produced by G. V. Films. Suhasini and her husband Mani Ratnam are involved in the running of their production company Madras Talkies, with G. Srinivasan.
1066789	Three Men and a Little Lady is a 1990 American comedy film, and a sequel to "Three Men and a Baby" (1987). Tom Selleck, Steve Guttenberg and Ted Danson reprise the leading roles.
1055482	The Satan Bug is a 1965 science fiction film directed by John Sturges that features George Maharis and Anne Francis. It was loosely adapted from Alistair MacLean's 1962 novel of the same name. It also features a soundtrack by the prolific composer of movie scores, Jerry Goldsmith. Plot. Lee Barrett, a former intelligence agent, is asked by his former boss Eric Cavanaugh to investigate the murder of the security chief of Station Three — a top-secret bioweapons laboratory in the desert of Southern California — and the disappearance of its director, Dr. Baxter.
1067145	Lorene Scafaria (born May 1, 1978) is an American screenwriter, playwright, actress, singer, and film director. She is best known for her works on the films "Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist" and "Seeking a Friend for the End of the World", the latter her debut as director in 2012. Early life. Scafaria was born and raised in Holmdel Township, New Jersey, the daughter of Gail and Joseph R. Scafaria. Her father was an Italian immigrant, from Gioia Tauro, Calabria. She first became interested in writing when she would write up a report on a completely fake book once a month to win Pizza Hut gift certificates from her school. She began to take an interest in storytelling and had written and produced her first play in Red Bank, New Jersey by the age of seventeen. She attended Lafayette College in Pennsylvania for a year before switching to New Jersey's Montclair State University when she could no longer afford Lafayette's tuition. Film. After moving to New York City, Scafaria wrote and put up a play at the Producer's Club Theatre called "That Guy and Others Like Him", in which she also played a role. She also had a small role in the acclaimed short film, "Bullet in the Brain," winner of nine festivals and produced by CJ Follini. Still her writing agent had yet to find her a job, and so she took on more acting roles, appearing in many theater productions in addition to the films "Big Helium Dog" and "A Million Miles", among others. She sent out queries to twenty different agents, seeking representation, one of whom replied and asked Scafaria to move from New York to Los Angeles. Even though she did not anticipate real success with the agent, she moved out and became roommates with screenwriter Bryan Sipe, whom she had met making a film in New Jersey earlier. Neither of their work was considered "commercial" enough by studios, so they paired up to write a children's adventure film called "Legend Has It". Revolution Studios bought the screenplay but asked for a re-write which Scafaria described as "far less interesting", and the project was ultimately shelved. In early 2005, Scafaria was hired by Focus Features to adapt Rachel Cohn and David Levithan's book "Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist" into a film of the same name. The screenplay was her ninth, but her first adaptation. She is good friends with fellow writers Diablo Cody ("Juno"), Dana Fox ("What Happens in Vegas"), and Liz Meriwether ("No Strings Attached") who she collaborates with in their writing group they call the "Fempire". In 2012, Scadaria and the "Fempire" received the Athena Film Festival Award for Creativity and Sisterhood. She wrote Iraqi war docudrama "Sweet Relief" for Paramount Pictures and "The Mighty Flynn," a spec script which she set up at Warner Brothers. She has also written "Man and Wife", which Gabriele Muccino is attached to direct. Lorene is currently working on Sony’s musical remake of "Bye Bye Birdie" for Red Wagon and Offspring Entertainment
1056570	The Wild Child (, released in the United Kingdom as The Wild Boy) is a 1970 French film by director François Truffaut. Featuring Jean-Pierre Cargol, François Truffaut, Françoise Seigner and Jean Dasté, it tells the story of a child who spent the first eleven or twelve years of his life with little or no human contact. The film had almost 1.5 million admissions in France. Plot. The film opens with the statement: "This story is authentic: it opens in 1798 in a French forest." One summer day in 1798, a naked boy eleven or twelve years of age (Jean-Pierre Cargol) is found in a forest in the rural district of Aveyron in southern France. A woman sees him, then runs off screaming. She finds some hunters and tells them that she saw a wild boy. They hunt him down with a pack of dogs (a Beauceron, a German Shepherd, an Airedale Terrier and an English Springer Spaniel). The dogs, upon picking up the boy's scent, chase him up a tree. A branch breaks off, and the dogs attack him when he falls. He fights them off leaving one wounded, then continues to flee and hides in a hole. The dogs continue to follow his scent, eventually finding his hiding hole. The hunters arrive and force him out of the hole using smoke to cut off his air supply. After he emerges, the men grab him. Living like a wild animal and unable to speak or understand language, the child has apparently grown up in solitude in the forest since an early age. He is brought to Paris and initially placed in a school for "deaf-mutes". Dr. Jean Marc Gaspard Itard (François Truffaut) observes the boy and believes that he is neither deaf nor, as some of his colleagues believe, an "idiot". Itard thinks the boy's behavior is a result of his deprived environment, and that he can be educated. Itard takes custody of the boy, whom he eventually names Victor, and removes him to his house on the outskirts of Paris. There, under the patient tutelage of the doctor and his housekeeper (Françoise Seigner), Victor gradually becomes socialized and acquires the rudiments of language. Production. Development. Truffaut had always felt a strong connection to children, especially outcasts and young people who reject the traditions of society, and frequently used this theme in films such as "The 400 Blows" and "Small Change". In 1962, Truffaut had wanted to make a film based on the play "The Miracle Worker", however Arthur Penn had already obtained the rights and made a film later that year. In 1966, Truffaut read an article in "Le Monde" by Lucien Malson about feral children, with short examples of 52 such children from 1344 to 1968. Truffaut was especially interested in the story of Victor of Aveyron, The Wild Boy of Aveyron and began to research the story. The film's script is based upon two reports written by Dr. Itard: one written to the Academy of medicine in 1801 and one written to the French Minister of the Interior in 1806 requesting that the Ministry continue funding Victor's guardian Madame Guérin. Truffaut also studied medical texts and deaf-mutes, as well as books by Maria Montessori and documentaries on autistic chiledren. Dr. Itard's diary was invented by Truffaut and co-screenwriter Jean Gruault in order to give Dr. Itard a more direct voice in the film. Casting. After considering several little-known actors, Truffaut decided to play the part of Dr. Itard himself so that he could interact directly with the child actor playing Victor instead of depending on an intermediary. After the film's shooting was completed he said that he had "the impression not of having acted a role, but simply of having directed the film "in front" of the camera and not, as usual, "from behind" it." He later said that "the decision to play Dr. Itard myself is a more complex choice than I believed at the time... this was the first time I identified myself with the adult, the father, to the extent that at the end of the editing, I dedicated the film to Jean-Pierre Léaud because this passage, this shift became perfectly clear to me." Truffaut later elaborated on the films autobiographical elements by saying that "I think that Itard is André Bazin and the child Truffaut." Truffaut had more difficulty casting the role of Victor, knowing that he wanted a child actor who was both talented and suitably undisciplined. He first considered using either an unknown gifted child or the son of a famous celebrity, thinking that a younger version of someone like ballet dancer Rudolf Nureyev would be perfect. Unable to find a suitable actor, he enlisted his assistant to scout young, wild-looking boys at schools in Nîmes, Marseille. One day his assistant spotted a young gypsy named Jean-Pierre Cargol and sent a photograph of and interview with Cargol back to Truffaut, who immediately hired Cargol, who transpired to be the nephew of the well-known flamenco guitarist, Manitas de Plata. Filming. Filming took place on location in Aveyron, France from July to August 1969, so as not in interrupt Cargol's education. It was Truffaut's first film with cinematographer Néstor Almendros, who went on to work with Truffaut on eight more films. The film included several references to the aesthetics of silent films, such as using an iris shutter to end scenes and filming it in black and white and in 1.33 "academy aspect ratio". Truffaut directed first-time actor Cargol by instructing him to pretend to be different animals or people during specific scenes, such as "be like a dog", or "like a horse", or even "like Harpo Marx." During the shoot, Cargol was given a 8mm camera and stated that he would become "the first gypsy director", however Cargol only appeared as an actor in one more film. Truffaut later said that during the making of the film he "saw that the cinema helped his evolution. In my opinion, the difference between Jean-Pierre Cargol "before" the film and "after" it is astonishing." Truffaut had scripted a sequence in which Victor is depicted struggling against the harsh weather conditions of winter in the wild, but budgetary limitations forced him to cut out the scenes. The film has very little dialogue and is mostly dominated with Itard's voice-over, making it close to a silent film. The use of iris-ing in and out of Victor not only reinforced the film's affinity with silent films, but often symbolized Victor's coming out of and going into darkness. The film's music was arranged by Antoine Duhamel and consists of music by Antonio Vivaldi. After filming was completed, Truffaut realized that "The Wild Child" had a strong connection to his first film "The 400 Blows", not just for its depicting of frustrated children but because it mirrored his experience working with then first time actor Jean-Pierre Léaud. Truffaut said that "I was reliving somewhat the shooting of "The 400 Blows", during which I initiated Jean-Pierre Léaud into cinema. I basically taught him what cinema was." Truffaut then decided to dedicate the film to Léaud. He later added that he "realized that "L"Enfant sauvage" is bound up with both "Les Quatre Cent Coups" and "Fahrenheit 451". In "Les Quatre Cents Coups" I showed a child who missed being loved, who grows up without tenderness; in "Fahrenheit 451" it was a man who longed for books, that is, culture. With Victor of Aveyron, what is missing is something more essential – language." Truffaut also considered the making of the film to be a growing experience for him as a person and as a filmmaker, stating that "until "The Wild Child", when I had children in my films, I identified with them, but here, for the first time, I identified with the adult, the father." After the film was released, Truffaut told a reporter "I did not want to spell out my message. It is simply this: man is nothing without other men." Critical reception. Film critic Roger Ebert gave the film a positive review and discussed the film's theme as one of Truffaut's favorites. He wrote, "The story is essentially true, drawn from an actual case in 18th Century France, and Truffaut tells it simply and movingly. It becomes his most thoughtful statement on his favorite subject: The way young people grow up, explore themselves, and attempt to function creatively in the world... Truffaut places his personal touch on every frame of the film. He wrote it, directed it, and plays the doctor himself. It is an understated, compassionate performance, a perfect counterpoint to Jean-Pierre Cargol's ferocity and fear... So often movies keep our attention by flashy tricks and cheap melodrama; it is an intellectually cleansing experience to watch this intelligent and hopeful film." The staff at "Variety" magazine also praised the drama, and wrote, "This is a lucid, penetrating detailing of a young doctor's attempt to civilize a retarded boy found living in the woods in Southern France in the 18th century. Though based on a true case Itard's "Memoire et Rapport sur Victor de L'Aveyron," published in 1806, it eschews didactics and creates a poetic, touching and dignified relationship between the doctor and his savage charge... It progresses slowly but absorbingly. Truffaut underplays but exudes an interior tenderness and dedication. The boy is amazingly and intuitively well played by a tousled gypsy tyke named Jean-Pierre Cargol. Everybody connected with this unusual, off-beat film made in black-and-white rates kudos." Film critic Vincent Canby liked the acting, and wrote, ""The Wild Child" is not the sort of movie in which individual performances can be easily separated from the rest of the film, but young Cargol, who early in the film looks and sounds like a Mediterranean Patty Duke, responds with marvelous, absolute faith to his costar and director, Truffaut, who himself performs with humane, just slightly self-conscious cool." Robert Geller wrote that "...the child's humanity and pathos are not terribly removed from the increasing numbers of young teens and half-primitives who wander drugged and aimlessly, and sleep in alleys and doorwells throughout America in...Market Place, Sunset Boulevard and Times Square...film provides teenagers with meaty material for discussion of what they themselves have to give up in order to get what they may no longer think is worth getting." Themes. "The Wild Child" was released in the middle of the "flower child" era, which favored the Romantic idea of the "noble savage" over rationalism and civilization. The term "noble savage" is derived from John Dryden's "The Conquest of Granada" and the Rousseauian idea of humans being basically good in their most primitive state that had long been championed by Romantics and hippies. Many viewers interpreted the film in this way when first viewing it, but many critics and spectators began to notice that Truffaut seemed to be criticizing the concept of the "noble savage" and taking the side of the rationalists. In a publicity release for the film, Truffaut wrote "From Romulus and Remus through Mowgli and Tarzan, men have continually been fascinated by tales of beast children. It may be that in these stories of abandoned infants, reared by wolves, bears, or apes, they see a symbol of the extraordinary destiny of our race. Or it may be simply that they harbor a secret hankering after a natural existence." Film critic Mireille Amiel was disappointed by this aspect of the film and by Truffaut, asking "How can the rebel of "The 400 Blows" place himself alongside the oppressor, even one as sympathetic as Itard?" and adding "the astonishing thing is that Truffaut the filmmaker is better than Truffaut the man, and that we can accept the interest and beauty of this film at the same time that we're violently opposed to its content." In the film, when Victor is first found he is covered with scars from conflict with other animals in the wild, and Truffaut's interpretation makes it clear that civilization, and especially human communication, is a far better life for Victor than in the wild. Awards. Wins Nominations
1163631	Tony Danza (born Antonio Salvatore Iadanza; April 21, 1951) is an American actor known for starring on the TV series "Taxi" and "Who's the Boss?", for which he was nominated for an Emmy Award and four Golden Globe Awards. In 1998, Danza won the People's Choice Award for Favorite Male Performer in a New Television Series for his work on the 1997 sitcom "The Tony Danza Show". Personal life. Danza was born in Brooklyn, New York, to parents Anne Cammisa Iadanza (1925–1993) and Matty Iadanza (1920–1983), both of whom died from cancer. His mother was a bookkeeper and his father worked as a garbage man in Brooklyn. Danza's father was of Italian ancestry and Danza's mother was an immigrant from Sicily in Italy. He has a younger brother, Matty Jr. (born 1954), a Los Angeles restaurant owner. When Danza was 14, he and his family relocated to Malverne, New York on Long Island. Danza attended Malverne High School, graduating in 1968. In the first episode of his show "Teach: Tony Danza", Danza describes himself as a "bad student" in high school. Danza earned a bachelor's degree in history in 1972 from the University of Dubuque, which he attended on a wrestling scholarship.
1100386	Augustus De Morgan (27 June 1806 – 18 March 1871) was a British mathematician and logician. He formulated De Morgan's laws and introduced the term mathematical induction, making its idea rigorous. Biography. Childhood. Augustus De Morgan was born in Madurai, Madras Presidency, India in 1806. His father was Colonel Augustus De Morgan, who held various appointments in the service of the East India Company. His mother descended from James Dodson, who computed a table of anti-logarithms, that is, the numbers corresponding to exact logarithms. Augustus De Morgan became blind in one eye a month or two after he was born. The family moved to England when Augustus was seven months old. As his father and grandfather had both been born in India, De Morgan used to say that he was neither English, nor Scottish, nor Irish, but a Briton "unattached", using the technical term applied to an undergraduate of Oxford or Cambridge who is not a member of any one of the Colleges. When De Morgan was ten years old, his father died. Mrs. De Morgan resided at various places in the southwest of England, and her son received his elementary education at various schools of no great account. His mathematical talents went unnoticed until he was fourteen, when a family-friend discovered him making an elaborate drawing of a figure in Euclid with ruler and compasses. She explained the aim of Euclid to Augustus, and gave him an initiation into demonstration. He received his secondary education from Mr. Parsons, a fellow of Oriel College, Oxford, who appreciated classics better than mathematics. His mother was an active and ardent member of the Church of England, and desired that her son should become a clergyman; but by this time De Morgan had begun to show his non-conforming disposition. University education. In 1823, at the age of sixteen, he entered Trinity College, Cambridge, where he came under the influence of George Peacock and William Whewell, who became his lifelong friends; from the former he derived an interest in the renovation of algebra, and from the latter an interest in the renovation of logic—the two subjects of his future life work. His college tutor was John Philips Higman, FRS (1793--1855). At college he played the flute for recreation and was prominent in the musical clubs. His love of knowledge for its own sake interfered with training for the great mathematical race; as a consequence he came out fourth wrangler. This entitled him to the degree of Bachelor of Arts; but to take the higher degree of Master of Arts and thereby become eligible for a fellowship it was then necessary to pass a theological test. To the signing of any such test De Morgan felt a strong objection, although he had been brought up in the Church of England. In about 1875 theological tests for academic degrees were abolished in the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge. London University. As no career was open to him at his own university, he decided to go to the Bar, and took up residence in London; but he much preferred teaching mathematics to reading law. About this time the movement for founding London University (now University College London) took shape. The two ancient universities of Oxford and Cambridge were so guarded by theological tests that no Jew or Dissenter outside the Church of England could enter as a student, still less be appointed to any office. A body of liberal-minded men resolved to meet the difficulty by establishing in London a University on the principle of religious neutrality. De Morgan, then 22 years of age, was appointed professor of mathematics. His introductory lecture "On the study of mathematics" is a discourse upon mental education of permanent value, and has been recently reprinted in the United States. The London University was a new institution, and the relations of the Council of management, the Senate of professors and the body of students were not well defined. A dispute arose between the professor of anatomy and his students, and in consequence of the action taken by the Council, several professors resigned, headed by De Morgan. Another professor of mathematics was appointed, who then drowned a few years later. De Morgan had shown himself a prince of teachers: he was invited to return to his chair, which thereafter became the continuous centre of his labours for thirty years. The same body of reformers—headed by Lord Brougham, a Scotsman eminent both in science and politics who had instituted the London University—founded about the same time a Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge. Its object was to spread scientific and other knowledge by means of cheap and clearly written treatises by the best writers of the time. One of its most voluminous and effective writers was De Morgan. He wrote a great work on "The Differential and Integral Calculus" which was published by the Society; and he wrote one-sixth of the articles in the "Penny Cyclopedia", published by the Society, and issued in penny numbers. When De Morgan came to reside in London he found a congenial friend in William Frend, notwithstanding his mathematical heresy about negative quantities. Both were arithmeticians and actuaries, and their religious views were somewhat similar. Frend lived in what was then a suburb of London, in a country-house formerly occupied by Daniel Defoe and Isaac Watts. De Morgan with his flute was a welcome visitor. The London University of which De Morgan was a professor was a different institution from the University of London. The University of London was founded about ten years later by the Government for the purpose of granting degrees after examination, without any qualification as to residence. The London University was affiliated as a teaching college with the University of London, and its name was changed to University College. The University of London was not a success as an examining body; a teaching University was demanded. De Morgan was a highly successful teacher of mathematics. It was his plan to lecture for an hour, and at the close of each lecture to give out a number of problems and examples illustrative of the subject lectured on; his students were required to sit down to them and bring him the results, which he looked over and returned revised before the next lecture. In De Morgan's opinion, a thorough comprehension and mental assimilation of great principles far outweighed in importance any merely analytical dexterity in the application of half-understood principles to particular cases. During this period, he also promoted the work of the self-taught Indian mathematician Ramchundra, who has been called De Morgan's Ramanujam. He supervised the publication in London of Ramchundra's book on "Maxima and Minima" in 1859. In the introduction to this book, he acknowledged being aware of the Indian tradition of logic, although it is not known whether this had any influence on his own work. Family. In the autumn of 1837, he married Sophia Elizabeth, eldest daughter of William Frend and his wife, a granddaughter of Archdeacon Francis Blackburne. De Morgan had three sons and four daughters, including fairytale author Mary de Morgan. His eldest son was the potter William De Morgan. His second son George acquired great distinction in mathematics at University College and the University of London. He and another like-minded alumnus conceived the idea of founding a Mathematical Society in London, where mathematical papers would be not only received (as by the Royal Society) but actually read and discussed. The first meeting was held in University College; De Morgan was the first president, his son the first secretary. It was the beginning of the London Mathematical Society. Retirement and death. In 1866 the chair of mental philosophy in University College fell vacant. James Martineau, a Unitarian clergyman and professor of mental philosophy, was recommended formally by the Senate to the Council; but in the Council there were some who objected to a Unitarian clergyman, and others who objected to theistic philosophy. A layman of the school of Bain and Spencer was appointed. De Morgan considered that the old standard of religious neutrality had been hauled down, and forthwith resigned. He was now 60 years of age. His pupils secured him a pension of £500 p.a., but misfortunes followed. Two years later his son George — the "younger Bernoulli", as Augustus loved to hear him called, in allusion to the eminent father-and-son mathematicians of that name — died. This blow was followed by the death of a daughter. Five years after his resignation from University College De Morgan died of nervous prostration on 18 March 1871. Mathematical work. De Morgan was a brilliant and witty writer, whether as a controversialist or as a correspondent. In his time there flourished two Sir William Hamiltons who have often been conflated. One was Sir William Hamilton, 9th Baronet (that is, his title was inherited), a Scotsman, professor of logic and metaphysics at the University of Edinburgh; the other was a knight (that is, won the title), an Irishman, professor at astronomy in the University of Dublin. The baronet contributed to logic, especially the doctrine of the quantification of the predicate; the knight, whose full name was William Rowan Hamilton, contributed to mathematics, especially geometric algebra, and first described the Quaternions. De Morgan was interested in the work of both, and corresponded with both; but the correspondence with the Scotsman ended in a public controversy, whereas that with the Irishman was marked by friendship and terminated only by death. In one of his letters to Rowan, De Morgan says, The correspondence of De Morgan with Hamilton the mathematician extended over twenty-four years; it contains discussions not only of mathematical matters, but also of subjects of general interest. It is marked by geniality on the part of Hamilton and by wit on the part of De Morgan. The following is a specimen: Hamilton wrote, De Morgan replied, De Morgan was full of personal peculiarities. On the occasion of the installation of his friend, Lord Brougham, as Rector of the University of Edinburgh, the Senate offered to confer on him the honorary degree of LL. D.; he declined the honour as a misnomer. He once printed his name: Augustus De Morgan, "H - O - M - O - P - A - U - C - A - R - U - M - L - I - T - E - R - A - R - U - M" (Latin for "man of few letters"). He disliked the provinces outside London, and while his family enjoyed the seaside, and men of science were having a good time at a meeting of the British Association in the country he remained in the hot and dusty libraries of the metropolis. He said that he felt like Socrates, who declared that the farther he was from Athens the farther was he from happiness. He never sought to become a Fellow of the Royal Society, and he never attended a meeting of the Society; he said that he had no ideas or sympathies in common with the physical philosopher. His attitude was possibly due to his physical infirmity, which prevented him from being either an observer or an experimenter. He never voted at an election, and he never visited the House of Commons, or the Tower of London, or Westminster Abbey. Were the writings of De Morgan published in the form of collected works, they would form a small library, for example his writings for the Useful Knowledge Society. Mainly through the efforts of Peacock and Whewell, a Philosophical Society had been inaugurated at Cambridge; and to its Transactions De Morgan contributed four memoirs on the foundations of algebra, and an equal number on formal logic. The best presentation of his view of algebra is found in a volume, entitled "Trigonometry and Double Algebra", published in 1849; and his earlier view of formal logic is found in a volume published in 1847. His most distinctive work is styled a "Budget of Paradoxes"; it originally appeared as letters in the columns of the "Athenæum" journal; it was revised and extended by De Morgan in the last years of his life, and was published posthumously by his widow. George Peacock's theory of algebra was much improved by D. F. Gregory, a younger member of the Cambridge School, who laid stress not on the permanence of equivalent forms, but on the permanence of certain formal laws. This new theory of algebra as the science of symbols and of their laws of combination was carried to its logical issue by De Morgan; and his doctrine on the subject is still followed by English algebraists in general. Thus George Chrystal founds his "Textbook of Algebra" on De Morgan's theory; although an attentive reader may remark that he practically abandons it when he takes up the subject of infinite series. De Morgan's theory is stated in his volume on "Trigonometry and Double Algebra". In the chapter (of the book) headed "On symbolic algebra" he writes: De Morgan proceeds to give an inventory of the fundamental symbols of algebra, and also an inventory of the laws of algebra. The symbols are 0, 1, +, −, ×, ÷, ()(), and letters; these only, all others are derived. His inventory of the fundamental laws is expressed under fourteen heads, but some of them are merely definitions. The laws proper may be reduced to the following, which, as he admits, are not all independent of one another: The last two may be called the rules of reduction. De Morgan professes to give a complete inventory of the laws which the symbols of algebra must obey, for he says, "Any system of symbols which obeys these laws and no others, except they be formed by combination of these laws, and which uses the preceding symbols and no others, except they be new symbols invented in abbreviation of combinations of these symbols, is symbolic algebra." From his point of view, none of the above principles are rules; they are formal laws, that is, arbitrarily chosen relations to which the algebraic symbols must be subject. He does not mention the law, which had already been pointed out by Gregory, namely, formula_13 and to which was afterwards given the name of the "law of association". If the commutative law fails, the associative may hold good; but not "vice versa". It is an unfortunate thing for the symbolist or formalist that in universal arithmetic formula_14 is not equal to formula_15; for then the commutative law would have full scope. Why does he not give it full scope? Because the foundations of algebra are, after all, real not formal, material not symbolic. To the formalists the index operations are exceedingly refractory, in consequence of which some take no account of them, but relegate them to applied mathematics. To give an inventory of the laws which the symbols of algebra must obey is an impossible task, and reminds one not a little of the task of those philosophers who attempt to give an inventory of the "a priori" knowledge of the mind. Trigonometry and double algebra. De Morgan's work entitled "Trigonometry and Double Algebra" consists of two parts; the former of which is a treatise on trigonometry, and the latter a treatise on generalized algebra which he called "double algebra. The first stage in the development of algebra is "arithmetic", where numbers only appear and symbols of operations such as formula_1, formula_17, etc. The next stage is "universal arithmetic", where letters appear instead of numbers, so as to denote numbers universally, and the processes are conducted without knowing the values of the symbols. Let formula_18 and formula_19 denote any numbers; then such an expression as formula_20 may be impossible; so that in universal arithmetic there is always a proviso, "provided the operation is possible". The third stage is "single algebra", where the symbol may denote a quantity forwards or a quantity backwards, and is adequately represented by segments on a straight line passing through an origin. Negative quantities are then no longer impossible; they are represented by the backward segment. But an impossibility still remains in the latter part of such an expression as formula_21 which arises in the solution of the quadratic equation. The fourth stage is "double algebra". The algebraic symbol denotes in general a segment of a line in a given plane. It is a double symbol because it involves two specifications, namely, length, and direction; and formula_22 is interpreted as denoting a quadrant. The expression formula_21 then represents a line in the plane having an abscissa formula_18 and an ordinate formula_19. Argand and Warren carried double algebra so far - but they were unable to interpret on this theory such an expression as formula_26. De Morgan attempted it by "reducing" such an expression to the form formula_27, and he considered that he had shown that it could be always so reduced. The remarkable fact is that this double algebra satisfies all the fundamental laws above enumerated, and as every apparently impossible combination of symbols has been interpreted it looks like the complete form of algebra. In chapter 6 he introduced hyperbolic functions and discussed the connection of common and hyperbolic trigonometry. If the above theory is true, the next stage of development ought to be "triple" algebra and if formula_21 truly represents a line in a given plane, it ought to be possible to find a third term which added to the above would represent a line in space. Argand and some others guessed that it was formula_29 although this contradicts the truth established by Euler that formula_30. De Morgan and many others worked hard at the problem, but nothing came of it until the problem was taken up by Hamilton. We now see the reason clearly: The symbol of double algebra denotes not a length and a direction; but a multiplier and "an angle". In it the angles are confined to one plane. Hence the next stage will be a "quadruple algebra", when the axis of the plane is made variable. And this gives the answer to the first question; double algebra is nothing but analytical plane trigonometry, and this is why it has been found to be the natural analysis for alternating currents. But De Morgan never got this far. He died with the belief "that double algebra must remain as the full development of the conceptions of arithmetic, so far as those symbols are concerned which arithmetic immediately suggests". When the study of mathematics revived at the University of Cambridge, so did the study of logic. The moving spirit was Whewell, the Master of Trinity College, whose principal writings were a "History of the Inductive Sciences", and "Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences". Doubtless De Morgan was influenced in his logical investigations by Whewell; but other influential contemporaries were Sir William Rowan Hamilton of Edinburgh, and Professor Boole of Cork. De Morgan's work on "Formal Logic", published in 1847, is principally remarkable for his development of the numerically definite syllogism. The followers of Aristotle say that from two particular propositions such as " Some M's are A's ", and " Some M's are B's " nothing follows of necessity about the relation of the A's and B's. But they go further and say in order that any relation about the A's and B's may follow of necessity, the middle term must be taken universally in one of the premises. De Morgan pointed out that from "Most M's are A's and Most M's are B's" it follows of necessity that "some A's are B's" and he formulated the numerically definite syllogism which puts this principle in exact quantitative form. Suppose that the number of the M's is formula_31, of the M's that are A's is formula_18, and of the M's that are B's is formula_19; then there are at least formula_34 A's that are B's. Suppose that the number of souls on board a steamer was 1000, that 500 were in the saloon, and 700 were lost. It follows of necessity, that at least 700 + 500 - 1000, that is, 200, saloon passengers were lost. This single principle suffices to prove the validity of all the Aristotelian moods. It is therefore a fundamental principle in necessary reasoning. Here then De Morgan had made a great advance by introducing "quantification of the terms". At that time Sir William Rowan Hamilton was teaching in Edinburgh a doctrine of the quantification of the predicate, and a correspondence sprang up. However, De Morgan soon perceived that Hamilton's quantification was of a different character; that it meant for example, substituting the two forms "The whole of A is the whole of B", and "The whole of A is a part of B" for the Aristotelian form "All A's are B's". Hamilton thought that he had placed the keystone in the Aristotelian arch, as he phrased it. Although it must have been a curious arch which could stand 2000 years without a keystone. As a consequence he had no room for De Morgan's innovations. He accused De Morgan of plagiarism, and the controversy raged for years in the columns of the "Athenæum", and in the publications of the two writers. The memoirs on logic which De Morgan contributed to the Transactions of the Cambridge Philosophical Society subsequent to the publication of his book on "Formal Logic" are by far the most important contributions which he made to the science, especially his fourth memoir, in which he begins work in the broad field of the "logic of relatives". This is the true field for the logician of the twentieth century, in which work of the greatest importance is to be done towards improving language and facilitating thinking processes which occur all the time in practical life. Identity and difference are the two relations which have been considered by the logician; but there are many others equally deserving of study, such as equality, equivalence, consanguinity, affinity, etc. In the introduction to the "Budget of Paradoxes" De Morgan explains what he means by the word. How can the sound paradoxer be distinguished from the false paradoxer? De Morgan supplies the following test: The "Budget" consists of a review of a large collection of paradoxical books which De Morgan had accumulated in his own library, partly by purchase at bookstands, partly from books sent to him for review, partly from books sent to him by the authors. He gives the following classification: squarers of the circle, trisectors of the angle, duplicators of the cube, constructors of perpetual motion, subverters of gravitation, stagnators of the earth, builders of the universe. You will still find specimens of all these classes in the New World and in the new century. De Morgan gives his personal knowledge of paradoxers. A paradoxer to whom De Morgan paid the compliment which Achilles paid Hector — to drag him round the walls again and again — was James Smith, a successful merchant of Liverpool. He found formula_35. His mode of reasoning was a curious caricature of the "reductio ad absurdum" of Euclid. He said let formula_35, and then showed that on that supposition, every other value of formula_37 must be absurd. Consequently formula_38 is the true value. The following is a specimen of De Morgan's dragging round the walls of Troy: In the region of pure mathematics, De Morgan could detect easily the false from the true paradox; but he was not so proficient in the field of physics. His father-in-law was a paradoxer, and his wife a paradoxer; and in the opinion of the physical philosophers De Morgan himself scarcely escaped. His wife wrote a book describing the phenomena of spiritualism, table-rapping, table-turning, etc.; and De Morgan wrote a preface in which he said that he knew some of the asserted facts, believed others on testimony, but did not pretend to know "whether" they were caused by spirits, or had some unknown and unimagined origin. From this alternative he left out ordinary material causes. Faraday delivered a lecture on "Spiritualism", in which he laid it down that in the investigation we ought to set out with the idea of what is physically possible, or impossible; De Morgan did not believe this. Relations. De Morgan discovered relation algebra in his "Syllabus of a Proposed System of Logic" (1966: 208-46), first published in 1860. This algebra was extended by Charles Sanders Peirce (who admired De Morgan and met him shortly before his death), and re-exposited and further extended in vol. 3 of Ernst Schröder's "Vorlesungen über die Algebra der Logik". Relation algebra proved critical to the "Principia Mathematica" of Bertrand Russell and Alfred North Whitehead. In turn, this algebra became the subject of much further work, starting in 1940, by Alfred Tarski and his colleagues and students at the University of California. Spiritualism. De Morgan later in his life became interested in the phenomena of Spiritualism. In 1849 he had investigated clairvoyance and was impressed by the subject. He later carried out paranormal investigations in his own home with the medium Maria Hayden. The result of these investigations was later published by his wife Sophia. De Morgan believed that his career as a scientist might have been affected if he had revealed his interest in the study of spiritualism so he helped to publish the book anonymously. The book was published in 1863 titled "From Matter to Spirit: The Result of Ten Years Experience in Spirit Manifestations". According to (Oppenheim, 1988) De Morgan's wife Sophia was a convinced spiritualist but De Morgan shared a third way position on spiritualist phenomena which Oppenheim defined as a "wait-and-see position", he was neither a believer or a skeptic, instead his viewpoint was that the methodology of the physical sciences does not automatically exclude psychic phenomena and that such phenomena may be explainable in time by the possible existence of natural forces which as yet physicists had not identified. In the preface of "From Matter to Spirit" (1863) De Morgan stated: Thinking it very likely that the universe may contain a few agencies—say half a million—about which no man knows anything, I can not but suspect that a small proportion of these agencies—say five thousand—may be severally competent to the production of all the phenomena, or may be quite up to the task among them. The physical explanations which I have seen are easy, but miserably insufficient: the spiritualist hypothesis is sufficient, but ponderously difficult. Time and thought will decide, the second asking the first for more results of trial. John Beloff in "Parapsychology: A Concise History" (1997) wrote that De Morgan was the first notable scientist in Britain to take an interest in the study of spiritualism and his studies had influenced the decision of William Crookes to also study spiritualism. De Morgan was also an atheist and because of this had debarred him from a position at Oxford and Cambridge. Legacy. Beyond his great mathematical legacy, the headquarters of the London Mathematical Society is called "De Morgan House" and the student society of the Mathematics Department of University College London is called the August De Morgan Society. The crater De Morgan on the Moon is named after him.
337548	Billy Redden (born 1956 in Rabun County, Georgia) is an American actor best known for his role as Lonnie, the banjo-playing boy, in the 1972 film "Deliverance". Redden, then 15, earned his role in "Deliverance" during a casting call at Clayton Elementary School in Clayton, Georgia. To add authenticity and humor to the film, the filmmakers found Redden to fit the look of the inbred and mentally retarded banjo boy called for by the book, although Redden himself is neither. His distinctive look was enhanced using special makeup. In his famous scene, Redden plays the instrumental "Dueling Banjos" opposite actor Ronny Cox on guitar. It is noted for foreshadowing the film's theme: exploring unknown and potentially dangerous territory. Redden could not actually play the banjo. A local musician, Mike Addis, reached around from behind Redden; this was disguised using careful camera angles. Jon Voight claimed Redden "was a boy who had a genetic imbalance – a product of his mother and his brother, I think. He was quite amazing, a very talkative fellow."
677686	Percy Romeo Miller, Jr (born August 19, 1989), better known by his stage name Romeo (previously Lil' Romeo), is an American rapper, actor, basketball player, entrepreneur, and model. As a hip hop musician, Miller has released three studio albums and two compilation albums. Early life. Romeo Miller was born in New Orleans. He is the son of rapper and entrepreneur Master P and former rapper Sonya C. He is the nephew of rappers C-Murder and Silkk the Shocker and the brother of singer and actress Cymphonique Miller. Romeo was signed to No Limit at the age of five, after he wrote a rap to his father. Music career. "Lil' Romeo" (2001). He released his debut album seven years later, titled after his original alias "Lil' Romeo". This offering contained the hit single "My Baby" that charted No. 1 . R&B/Hip-hop Singles. The album peaked at No. 6 on the Billboard 200 and No. 5 on the Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums, selling more than 200,000 copies in its first week out soon making it certified Gold. The album is now Miller's highest selling album selling 600,000 copies. Also in 2001 he was featured on his uncle Silkk the Shocker's remix single of "That's Kool", which was also featured on his own album. "Game Time" (2002–2003). In 2002, a year later after his debut album, Miller put out his second studio album, "Game Time". It peaked at No. 33 on the Billboard 200 and No. 10 on the Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums selling close to a 80,000 copies the first week . It spawned the billboard charting single "2-Way" that charted to No. 66 Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs. It also spawned the album second single "True Love" which charted at No. 16 under the Hot 100 Singles. Though not as successful on the charts as Miller's debut album it was successful in sales for selling 450,000 copies. The Album is Certified Gold by the RIAA for shipment of 500,000 copies making this his second Gold album. "Romeoland" (2004–2007). In 2004, Miller released his first Independent album "Romeoland," which was not as successful as his last two Studio albums selling 30,000 the first week, but still managed to sell over 300,000 copies in the United States. It was also the last studio album to feature Miller billed as Lil' Romeo. In 2005 Romeo along with his brother Valentino Miller who was known as Young V at that time and their three cousins C-Los, Lil' D & Willie J formed the group Rich Boyz & released their debut album "" which sold 30,000 the first week and sold over 100,000 copies worldwide. In 2006 Miller released a compilation album entitled "Greatest Hits" the album featured all of his hit songs when Miller was billed as Lil' Romeo. In 2006 Romeo released the two albums "Lottery" & "God's Gift" on the new label owned by himself and his father Master P, entitled Guttar Music. "Lottery" served as Miller's second independent release while "God's Gift" served as a soundtrack to a movie with the same name the soundtrack went to sell 353,000 to date . "God's Gift" was also Miller's first album to use the name Romeo and to have explicit language. The two albums were also known for containing Miller's single "U Can't Shine Like Me" which was a direct response to Bow Wow, who fans thought dissed Miller in his song "Fresh Azimiz". In 2007 Miller released a collaboration album with his father Master P titled "Hip Hop History" it sold 34,000 the first week and sold 70,000 records worldwide. "Intelligent Hoodlum" (2008–present). In 2008 Miller stated he was working on his fourth studio album entitled "Gumbo Station". On June 17, 2008 Miller released the first single from the album which was "Get Low wit It" which featured Akon & his brother Valentino Miller it failed to gain success on the Billboard charts. On March 3, 2009 Romeo released a compilation entitled "Get Low LP" that contained songs that were supposed to be on "Gumbo Station". It debuted at No. 149 on the Billboard 200 with 5,000 copies and as of May 5, 2009 it has sold over 20,000 copies. In 2010 Romeo confirmed that he was still working on his fourth studio album but he changed the name of the album to "The College Boy". Romeo then announced that the title of the album was going to be "I Am No Limit". On January 19, 2010 Romeo released the first promotional single for the album entitled "Tell Me A Million Times" that featured Tempo. Then on January 26, 2010 Romeo released the second promotional single for the album entitled "Ice Cream Man Jr." which was a tribute to his dad Master P. On February 16, 2010 Miller released his debut mixtape "Patience Is A Virtue" to promote the album. Then on March 2, 2010 Romeo released two EPs to promote the album which were the "Famous Girl" & "Monster/Practice". Also In 2010 Miller debuted his newly founded record label The Next Generation Entertainment with his new group the College Boyys. They released a collaboration album on May 25, 2010 entitled "Spring Break" which sold over 55,000 copies the first week and evidently sold over 220,000 copies worldwide. Miller also on this day released three singles which were "You" that featured D'Anna & Lil Twist, "She Bad" that featured Millers cousins Lil' D & Black Don & "They Dont Know" but all of the singles failed to reach the charts. Romeo also performed at the 2010 Hip Hop Honors along with his brother Valentino Miller, his cousins Lil' D & Black Don, & his uncle Silkk The Shocker, along with Trina, Gucci Mane & Mystikal to honor his dad Master P & No Limit Records. In late 2010 Romeo relaunched No Limit as No Limit Forever Romeo also confirmed that he has changed the name of the album from "I Am No Limit" to "Intelligent Hoodlum". In 2011, it was confirmed that Romeo was going on a new tour with his dad Master P & his uncle Silkk the Shocker the tour was entitled ”No Limit Forever International". On January 11, 2011, Romeo released his EP "Dont Push Me." On May 3, 2011 Romeo released the first official single from "Intelligent Hoodlum" called "Famous Girl (Remix)," which was really the mastered version of the original. It still featured appearances from Sean Kingston & Miller's cousin Black Don. On August 19, 2011 Romeo released his "I Am No Limit" mixtape which was originally supposed to be his fourth studio album. Miller decided it would be best to just release it as a mixtape for his fans. In 2012 Romeo formed a new group called RESQ3; they released their first single "The Only One" and they are supposed to be releasing an album some time. Miller's new group (Resq3) also consist of hits such as "Right Along," and "No One Else Like You." Even though Romeo has created his new group, he is still working & planning on releasing his fourth studio album "Intelligent Hoodlum". On April 12, 2012 he released his first single from the album entitled "Hug Me Forever" which features his brother Valentino & his artist Kyros. He has already shot the official music video for it. On May 19, 2012, Romeo released the music video for "Hug Me Forever." It was directed by Corey Molina of Creative Dream Productions. On August 15, 2012 Romeo announced that had been working on a new mixtape entitled "Inception" which he stated will be released on August 19, 2012. It currently known as of 2013 that Miller is still working & planning to release his album "Intelligent Hoodlum" on his newly founded label No Limit Forever, & has released his official single off the album entitled "Girls X3 (Hit Me Up)". Other ventures. Acting career. Miller started his acting career with a cameo appearance in the 2001 film "Max Keeble's Big Move." He later co-starred with Jessica Alba, Mekhi Phifer and Zachary Isaiah Williams in the film "Honey" (2003). In "Honey", his supporting character was Benny, a young boy looking for a break. In 2003, he voiced himself on an episode of the animated series, "Static Shock", to which he had performed the theme song. He starred in another movie with Zachary Isaiah Williams, "God's Gift", which came out in 2006. He then went on to co-star with his dad in a movie called "Uncle P" in 2007. His next project in 2007, was a film called "ASL" in which he starred as himself, Romeo, alongside Forrest Lipton and Zachary Isaiah Williams who played the young Romeo; Williams had previously co-starred with Romeo in "Honey" and Nickelodeon's "Romeo!". Recently, Miller made a cameo appearance in "Ned's Declassified School Survival Guide" as a rapping coach for the teachers. He then guest-starred as a rapper accused of murder in the 2010 CBS series, "The Defenders" and acted in the highly successful film, "Jumping the Broom", released in May 2011. In 2011, he also starred in TV commercials for McDonald's & ICDC Colleges. In 2012 Miller starred in Tyler Perry's film "Madea's Witness Protection". He played as Jake, a young man who is trying to get his money back from a ponzi scheme for his father's church and his retirement. In 2012, he participated in Fox's dating game show "The Choice". He was a special guest star on the Nick News with Linda Ellerbee episode "If Only I Were An Only Child: The Top 10 Annoying Things My Siblings Do" which aired on Nickelodeon on May 13, 2013, on which Romeo (among others) talked about annoying things his siblings did, one of which was his brother took his shoes that Romeo was planning to wear, so he could show them to a girl he liked. Fashion designer. On July 24, 2010 Romeo launched his own clothing line titled "College Boyys." The brand has been promoted by Miller, his new group the College Boyys, and also artists such as Justin Bieber, Big Time Rush & Jaden Smith. Romeo stated
1061377	Norman Frederick Jewison, CC, O.Ont (born July 21, 1926) is a Canadian film director, producer, actor and founder of the Canadian Film Centre. Highlights of his directing career include "In the Heat of the Night" (1967), "The Thomas Crown Affair" (1968), "Fiddler on the Roof" (1971), "Jesus Christ Superstar" (1973), "Moonstruck" (1987), "Other People's Money" (1991), "The Hurricane" (1999) and "The Statement" (2003). Jewison has addressed important social and political issues throughout his directing and producing career, often making controversial or complicated subjects accessible to mainstream audiences. Early life. Jewison was born in Toronto, Ontario, the son of Dorothy Irene (née Weaver) and Percy Joseph Jewison, who managed a convenience store and post office. He attended Kew Beach School and Malvern Collegiate Institute, and while growing up in the 1930s displayed an aptitude for performing and theatre. Jewison was often mistaken for Jewish due to his surname, though he and his family were actually Protestant. He served in the Royal Canadian Navy (1944–1945) during World War II, and after being discharged traveled in the American South, where he encountered segregation, an experience that would influence his later work. Jewison attended Victoria College in the University of Toronto, graduating with a B.A. in 1949. As a student he was involved in writing, directing, and acting in various theatrical productions, including the All-Varsity Revue in 1949. Following graduation, he moved to London, where he worked sporadically as a script writer for a children's show and bit part actor for the British Broadcasting Corporation, while supporting himself with odd jobs. Out of work in Britain in late 1951, he came back to Canada to become a production trainee at CBLT in Toronto, which was preparing for the launch of CBC Television. Career. Television. When CBC Television went on the air in the fall of 1952, Jewison was an assistant director. During the next seven years he wrote, directed, and produced a wide variety of musicals, comedy-variety shows, dramas, and specials, including the "The Big Revue", "Showtime" and "The Barris Beat". In 1953 he married Margaret Ann "Dixie" Dixon, a former model. They would have three children – Michael, Kevin, and Jennifer – who would all pursue careers in the entertainment world. In 1958 Jewison was recruited to work for CBS in New York, where his first assignment was "Your Hit Parade", followed by "The Andy Williams Show". The success of these shows led to directing specials featuring performers such as Harry Belafonte, Jackie Gleason, and Danny Kaye. The television production that proved pivotal to Jewison's career was the Judy Garland "comeback" special that aired in 1961, which included Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin, and led to a weekly show that Jewison was later called in to direct. Visiting the studio during rehearsal for the special, actor Tony Curtis suggested to Jewison that he should direct a feature film. It was not until the early 1990s that he would branch back into television, starting with producing the TNT biopic 'Geronimo' (1993). Film. Jewison's career as a film director began with the comedy "Forty Pounds of Trouble" (1962), starring Curtis. The next three films he directed, including two with Doris Day, "The Thrill Of It All" (1963) and "Send Me No Flowers" (1964), were also light comedies done under contract for Universal Studios. After "The Art of Love" (1965), Jewison was determined to escape from the genre and tackle more demanding projects. His breakthrough film proved to be "The Cincinnati Kid" (1965), a drama starring Steve McQueen, now considered one of the finest movies made about gambling, and Jewison considers it one of his personal favorites because it was his first challenging drama. This triumph was followed in 1966 by the acclaimed satire on Cold War paranoia, "The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming", which was the first film Jewison also produced, and was nominated for four Academy Awards, including Best Picture. Continuing the string of successes was one of the films that has become closely identified with its director, "In the Heat of the Night" (1967), a crime drama set in a racially divided Southern town and starring Sidney Poitier and Rod Steiger, which won five Academy Awards, including Best Picture, while Jewison was nominated for Best Director. As a follow-up he directed and produced another film with McQueen, using innovative multiple screen images in the crime caper "The Thomas Crown Affair" (1968). From that point Jewison produced all feature films he directed, often with associate Patrick Palmer, and he also acted as producer for films directed by others, beginning with his former film editor Hal Ashby's directoral debut "The Landlord" (1970). After the completion of the period comedy "Gaily, Gaily" (1969), Jewison, having become disenchanted with the political climate in the United States, moved his family to England. At Pinewood Studios northwest of London, and on location in Yugoslavia, he worked on what would become one of the top grossing films of all time, the musical "Fiddler on the Roof" (1971, re-issued 1979), which won three Oscars and was nominated for five others, including Best Picture and Director. During the filming of Fiddler, Jewison was also the subject of the 1971 National Film Board of Canada documentary, "Norman Jewison, Filmmaker" directed by Douglas Jackson. Jewison's next project was the musical "Jesus Christ Superstar" (1973), based on the Broadway musical written by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice. It was filmed in Israel, where Jewison also produced the western "Billy Two Hats" (1974), starring Gregory Peck. "Superstar", controversial for its treatment of a sacred subject, was followed by another movie that sparked critical debate, this time over violence, "Rollerball" (1975), set in the near future when corporations ruled the world and entertainment centered around a deadly game. The next film he directed, the labor union drama "F.I.S.T." (1978), loosely based on the life of Jimmy Hoffa, also provided some controversy, this time regarding the screenwriting credit. Screenwriter Joe Eszterhas was unhappy to share the screenwriting credit with the film's star Sylvester Stallone, as he felt that Stallone's input had been minor, while Stallone claimed to have basically rewritten the whole script. In 1978 Jewison returned to Canada, settling in the Caledon area in Ontario and establishing a farm that produced prize-winning cattle. Operating from a base in Toronto, as well as one maintained in California, he directed high profile actors Al Pacino in "...And Justice for All" (1979), and Burt Reynolds and Goldie Hawn in the romantic comedy "Best Friends" (1982), and he produced "The Dogs of War" (1981) and "Iceman" (1984). During this period Jewison also produced the 53rd Annual Academy Awards (1981), which was slated to air the day President Ronald Reagan was shot and had to be rescheduled. Revisiting the theme of racial tension that had characterized "In the Heat of the Night", Jewison's "A Soldier's Story" (1984), based on a Pulitzer Prize winning play, was nominated for three Academy Awards, including Best Picture. His subsequent film was also based on an acclaimed play. The provocative "Agnes of God" (1985), set in a Quebec convent, starred Jane Fonda, Meg Tilly and Anne Bancroft; it received three Academy Award nominations. Jewison's next film proved to be one of the most popular romantic films ever made. "Moonstruck" (1987), starring Cher, was a box office hit that garnered three Academy Awards, including Cher as Best Actress. It also competed for the Oscar for Best Picture, and provided Jewison his third Best Director nomination. During this period he became the force behind a project that had long been of interest: the Canadian Centre for Advanced Film Studies was incorporated in 1986. Renamed the Canadian Film Centre, it began operations in 1988. As founder, Norman Jewison has continued his efforts for the Centre in many capacities. Feature films such as "House" (directed by Laurie Lynd) and "Shoemaker" (directed by Colleen Murphy), as well as many short films such as the south Asian "Shanti Baba Ram & the Dancers of Hope" (directed by Steve Rosenberg), title track by Vikas Kohli of Fatlabs) and Elevated (directed by Vincenzo Natali) have all come from the Canadian Film Centre. For the next decade Jewison continued to direct feature films released by major studios: In Country (1989), a drama concerned with Vietnam veterans and the daughter of a war casualty; "Other People's Money" (1991), a social comedy about greed in the 1980s; "Only You" (1994), a romantic comedy set in Italy; and "Bogus" (1996), a fantasy about a young boy and his imaginary friend. He also served as producer for the film January Man (1989), executive producer for the Canadian movie "Dance Me Outside", and branched back into television both as director and producer, including the series "The Rez" (1996–1998). "The Hurricane" (1999) was Jewison's third film to explore the effects of racism, telling the story of boxer Rubin "Hurricane" Carter, who had been falsely convicted for a triple murder in New Jersey during the mid-sixties. Denzel Washington was nominated for an Oscar for his portrayal of Carter. In 1999 Jewison's work was recognized by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences when he was given the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award for lifetime achievement. Achievements. The Thalberg award was one of many honours Jewison has been awarded, including Honorary Degrees from Trent, Western Ontario and the University of Toronto, and he was made a Companion of the Order of Canada in 1992. In addition, he has received numerous tributes at Canadian and international film festivals and retrospectives, and has been given a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and Canada's Walk of Fame. A park in downtown Toronto was named after him in 2001. Norman Jewison has continued directing and producing; his latest film to be released was the thriller "The Statement" (2003), based on a novel by Brian Moore, and starring Michael Caine. In recognition of his contributions to the arts, as well as his sustained support, he was installed as Chancellor of Victoria University in the University of Toronto in 2004. That same year his autobiography "This Terrible Business Has Been Good to Me" was published, expressing the enthusiasm, conviction and creative passion that have sustained a rewarding career. Jewison has been selected as the recipient of the lifetime achievement award from the Directors Guild of America. Jewison received the honor at the 62nd Annual DGA Awards on January 30, 2010 at the Century Plaza in Los Angeles. In 2010 Blake Goldring donated $1,000,000 to Victoria University at the University of Toronto to establish a specialized first year liberal arts program in Norman Jewison's name. The program began in September 2011 welcoming less than thirty select students into Norman Jewison Stream for Imagination and the Arts. Personal life. Norman Jewison and Margaret Ann Dixon married on July 11, 1953. She died on November 26, 2004, the day following her 74th birthday in Orangeville, Ontario, from undisclosed causes. They have three children: Kevin, Jennifer and Michael. Jewison has five grandchildren: Ella, Sam, Megan, Henry, and Alexandra. He was married to Lynne St. David in November, 2010. Notwithstanding his surname, as well as the fame he garnered for directing such films as "Fiddler on the Roof" and "The Statement", Norman Jewison is not Jewish. He was raised in a Protestant family. However, he told Robert Osborne in a TCM interview that, as a child, he was routinely teased by schoolmates because of what they assumed to be his religion. Filmography. As director: Awards. Academy Awards 38th Berlin International Film Festival British Academy Film Awards 14th Moscow International Film Festival New York Film Critics Circle Award
1048954	The Biscuit Eater is a 1972 Walt Disney Productions film released by Buena Vista Distribution based on a novel by James H. Street. It is the last 'One Boy and his Animal' themed film made by Disney, as this subgenre would eventually grow out of fashion. The 1972 film is a remake of a 1940 film starring Billy Lee as Lonnie. Storyline. The story revolves around an English Pointer named Moreover who has a strong relationship with a red-headed boy named Lonnie (Johnny Whitaker) despite his mishaps. Moreover is dealt to Willie Dorsey (Godfrey Cambridge), a gas station clerk, but Lonnie and his best friend Text regain possession of the dog. They train Moreover to be a prize-winning bird pointer, entering him in a field trial. The dog was considered untrainable by its first owner, Lonnie's veterinarian father, but the two twelve-year old boys take the time to make Moreover an excellent working example of his breed. Much to the chagrin of Lonnie's father, Lonnie and Text decide to enter Moreover in the state championship field trial. Moreover does well, and an incident makes the boys think that Lonnie's father will lose his dog training job if his dog, last year's champion SilverBelle, loses to their dark horse entry. Home media. It is a very little known film, with availability restricted to the American Region 1 and German Region 2 DVDs.
583757	Daas is a 2005 Tamil action-romance film written and directed by newcomer Babu Yogeswaran. The film stars Jayam Ravi, Renuka Menon in lead and Vadivelu, Livingston, Adithya, Shanmugarajan and Monica among others in supporting roles. The film's score and soundtrack are composed by Yuvan Shankar Raja. The film, released in 2005, was an average grosser. Plot. The film begins in a small village in Tirunelveli district where a few upper caste men hold a chariot festival. Antony (Jayam Ravi) along with his friends pull the chariot in to their slum and they naturally incur the wrath of a local leader Annachi (Shanmuga Rajan). Meanwhile his daughter Rajeswari (Renuka Menon) falls in love with Daas. Her sister Punitha (Monica) elopes to marry a lower caste boy Guna (Abhinay), a classmate of Daas. Coming to know about this, Annachi sends his men to bump off the couple. Eventually, Annachi set the couple ablaze in front of Daas. An angry Rajeswari in order to teach her father a lesson elopes with Daas and vows to get married. The couple then seeks refuge in the house of Nasser (Krishna) in Madurai. He promises to get them married. However coming to know about their hideout, Annachi's men reach Madurai to foil their plans. Nasser's father Vappa (Salil Ghouse) promises to get them united. Enters Sadiq (Adithya), Nasser's brother, who plans to let loose terror in the Madurai town in the name of Jehad. How Daas emerges triumphant from all the troubles and marries Rajeswari forms the rest of the story. Soundtrack. The musical score as well as the soundtrack were composed by noted music composer Yuvan Shankar Raja. The soundtrack, released on April 21, 2005, features 6 songs, the lyrics for which are written by Pa. Vijay, Viveka and Yugabharathi.
1061974	Ashley Judd (born Ashley Tyler Ciminella; April 19, 1968) is an American television and film actress and political activist. Judd grew up in a family of successful performing artists as the daughter of country music singer Naomi Judd and the half-sister of Wynonna Judd. While she is best known for an ongoing acting career spanning more than two decades, she has increasingly become involved in global humanitarian efforts and political activism. Judd has played lead roles in films, including "Ruby in Paradise" (1993), "Norma Jean & Marilyn" (1996), "Kiss the Girls" (1997), "Double Jeopardy" (1999), "Where the Heart Is" (2000), "High Crimes" (2002) and "Dolphin Tale" (2011). She also starred as Rebecca Winstone in the television series "Missing" in 2012. In 2010, she received a Mid-Career master's degree in public administration from Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, a one-year degree rather than the two-year MPA. Early life. Ashley was born as Ashley Tyler Ciminella in Granada Hills, California. She is the daughter of Naomi Judd, a country music singer and motivational speaker, and Michael Charles Ciminella, a marketing analyst for the horseracing industry. Ashley's elder half-sister, Wynonna, is also a country music singer. Her paternal grandfather was of Sicilian descent, and her paternal grandmother was a descendant of Mayflower pilgrim William Brewster. At the time of her birth, her mother was unemployed; she did not become well known as a singer until the early 1980s. Judd's parents divorced in 1972. The following year, her mother took her back to her native Kentucky, where Judd spent the majority of her childhood. She also lived in Marin County, California, for two years during grade school. Judd attended 13 schools before college, including the Sayre School (Lexington, Kentucky), Paul G. Blazer High School (Ashland, Kentucky) and Franklin High School in Tennessee. She briefly tried modeling in Japan during a school break. An alumna of the sorority Kappa Kappa Gamma at the University of Kentucky, she majored in French and minored in anthropology, art history, theater and women's studies. She spent a semester studying in France as part of her major. She graduated from the UK Honors Program and was nominated to Phi Beta Kappa, but did not graduate with her class. Forgoing her commitment to join the Peace Corps, after college she drove to Hollywood, where she studied with well-respected acting teacher Robert Carnegie at Playhouse West. During this time, she worked as a hostess at The Ivy restaurant and lived in a Malibu rental house, which burned down in 1993. Around that time, her half-sister Wynonna Judd leased her a historic farmhouse and 10 acres of land in Williamson County, Tennessee, so she moved to Tennessee and lives near her mother Naomi and Wynonna. Career. Judd appeared as Ensign Robin Lefler, a Starfleet officer, in two 1991 episodes of "", "Darmok" and "". From 1991 to 1994, she had a recurring role as Reed, the daughter of Alex (Swoosie Kurtz), on the NBC drama "Sisters". She made her feature film debut with a small role in 1992's "Kuffs". In 1993 Judd fought for and was cast in her first starring role playing the title character in Victor Nuñez's Sundance Film Festival Grand Jury Prize Dramatic winner "Ruby in Paradise". On her way to the audition, she was so nervous about getting a role that she felt defined her life, she nearly wrecked her car. "From the first three sentences, I knew it was written for me", she told the San Jose Mercury News. She received rave reviews playing Ruby Lee Gissing, a young woman trying to make a new life for herself, and it was this performance that would launch her career as an actress. Nuñez told author James L. Dickerson that the resonance of the character was Judd's creation: "The resonance, those moments, was not contrived. It was just a matter of creating the scene and trusting that it was worth telling." Oliver Stone, who had seen her in Nuñez's film, cast Judd in "Natural Born Killers", but her scenes were later cut from the version of the film released theatrically. The following year, she gained further critical acclaim for her role as Harvey Keitel's estranged daughter in Wayne Wang's "Smoke" and also as Val Kilmer's wife in Michael Mann's "Heat". That same year she also played the role of Callie in Philip Ridley's dark, adult fairy tale, "The Passion of Darkly Noon". In 1996, she co-starred with Mira Sorvino as Marilyn Monroe in "Norma Jean and Marilyn", where she recreated the photo shoot for the centerfold for the first issue of "Playboy". By the end of the 1990s, Judd had managed to achieve significant fame and success as a leading actress, after leading roles in several thrillers that performed well at the box office, including "Kiss the Girls" in 1997 and 1999's "Double Jeopardy". Several of her early 2000s films, including 2001's "Someone Like You" and 2002's "High Crimes", received only mixed reviews and moderate box office success; although she did receive positive recognition, and a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actress, for her performance in the 2004 biography of Cole Porter, "De-Lovely", opposite Kevin Kline. In the same year, however, she starred in "Twisted", the worst-reviewed movie of 2004 with 131 of 133 critics panning it. To date, "Twisted" is the last major Hollywood film in which she received top billing. In June 2007, Goody's Family Clothing announced they were going to be releasing three fashion clothing lines with Judd in the fall to be called "AJ", "Love Ashley" and "Ashley Judd". Goody's declared bankruptcy a year later due to slow sales and its last store closed in February 2009. Judd is currently the magazine advertising "face" of American Beauty, an Estée Lauder cosmetic brand sold exclusively at Kohl's department stores, and H. Stern jewelers. In early 2012, however, her image suddenly disappeared from American' Beauty's web site. In 2011, Judd co-starred with Patrick Dempsey in the film "Flypaper". It grossed only $1,100 total in its theatrical release and received a 17% Rotten Tomatoes rating (15 of 18 critics panned it). In 2012, Judd starred as Rebecca Winstone on the ABC series "Missing". The series aired from March 15 to May 17, 2012. Due to low ratings, it was not renewed for a second season. Personal life. In December 1999, Judd became engaged to Scottish racing driver Dario Franchitti, who was driving in the Champ Car World Series. Since the demise of the Champ Car World Series, Franchitti has raced in IndyCar and NASCAR. The couple married in December 2001 at Skibo Castle, near Dornoch, Scotland. They have no children, with Judd telling the "Sunday Mail", "It's unconscionable to breed, with the number of children who are starving to death in impoverished countries". On January 29, 2013, Judd and Franchitti announced that they had mutually decided to end their marriage. Although Judd is known to attend University of Kentucky basketball games regularly (frequently sitting in the student section), she has also attended several Kentucky football games. Judd has been a guest columnist for a local Kentucky newspaper, writing about the NCAA championships. Judd posed for a poster wearing only an ice hockey jersey for fund raising purposes for the University of Kentucky's hockey team. She is an avid practitioner of yoga, cooking, and gardening. In February 2006, Judd entered a program at Shades of Hope Treatment Center in Buffalo Gap, Texas and stayed for 47 days. She was there because of personal issues, including depression, insomnia and codependency. A disagreement between Judd and Indy race car driver Milka Duno took place during the 2007 Indy Racing League season. After the final race of the 2007 season, the actress stated to the assembled news media, "I know this is not very sportsmanlike, but they've got to get the 23 car (Duno) off the track. It's very dangerous. I'm tired of holding my tongue. She shouldn't be out there. When a car is 10 miles (an hour) off the pace, it's not appropriate to be racing. People's lives are at stake."
582965	Sangdil Sanam is an Indian Bollywood film directed by Shomu Mukherjee. The film stars Salman Khan and Manisha Koirala in lead roles. It released on 2 February 1994. Synopsis. Kailash Nath is the manager of a bank who lives a comfortable lifestyle with his wife, Savitri, and son, Kishan. He is friendly with the Bank Watchman, Shankar Dayal Khurana, so much so that he arranges the engagement of Kishan with Shankar's daughter, Sanam. Shortly after the engagement, the bank is robbed. Kailash becomes a suspect, is arrested, charged, and sentenced to 12 years in prison. After he completes his sentence he returns home to find that Savitri and Kishan are not traceable. He also finds out that he was framed for the bank robbery by none other than Shankar, who is now the Mayor of this town. In the meantime, Kishan, now grown up, goes to take Sanam home with him as his bride. When she refuses to do so, he forcibly takes her. Kishan is not aware that Sanam is to be married to Pradeep, the only son of millionaire Lalla. Sanam intends to publicly humiliate Kishan and Savitri prior to her marriage with Pradeep due to their poverty.
1061719	William Gary Busey (born June 29, 1944), better known as Gary Busey, is an American film and stage actor. He has appeared in a variety of films, including "Lethal Weapon", "Point Break", and "Under Siege", as well as guest appearances on "Gunsmoke", "Walker, Texas Ranger", "Law & Order", and "Entourage". He was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actor in 1978 for his role in "The Buddy Holly Story". Early life. Busey was born in Goose Creek (now Baytown), Texas, the son of Sadie Virginia (née Arnett), a homemaker, and Delmer Lloyd Busey, a construction design manager. He graduated from Nathan Hale High School in Tulsa, Oklahoma, in 1962. While attending Pittsburg State University in Pittsburg, Kansas on a football scholarship, he became interested in acting. He then transferred to Oklahoma State University in Stillwater, where he quit school just one class short of graduation. Career. Busey began his show-business career as a drummer in The Rubber Band. He appears on several Leon Russell recordings, credited as playing drums under the names "Teddy Jack Eddy" and "Sprunk", a character he created when he was a cast member of a local television comedy show in Tulsa, Oklahoma, called "The Uncanny Film Festival and Camp Meeting" on station KTUL (which starred fellow Tulsan Gailard Sartain as "Dr. Mazeppa Pompazoidi"). For his skits on Uncanny Film Festival, Busey drew on his American Hero, belligerent, know-it-all character. When he told Gailard Sartain his character needed a name, Sartain replied, "Take three: Teddy, Jack and Eddy." He played in a band called Carp, which released one album on Epic Records in 1969. Busey continued to play several small roles in both film and television during the 1970s. In 1975, as the character "Harvey Daley," he was the last person killed on the series "Gunsmoke" (in the antepenultimate episode, No. 633 – "The Busters"). In 1976, he was hired by Barbra Streisand and her producer-boyfriend Jon Peters to play Bobby Ritchie, road manager to Kris Kristofferson's character in the remake film "A Star is Born". On the DVD commentary of the film, Streisand says Busey was great and that she had seen him on a TV series and thought he had the right qualities to play the role. In 1978, he starred as Buddy Holly in "The Buddy Holly Story" with Sartain as The Big Bopper. The movie earned Busey an Academy Award nomination and the National Society of Film Critics' Best Actor award. In the film, he changes the lyrics to the song "Well All Right" and sings, "We're gonna love Teddy Jack..." a reference to his Teddy Jack Eddy persona. In the same year he also starred in the surfing movie "Big Wednesday". In the 1980s, Busey's roles included "Silver Bullet", "Barbarosa", "Insignificance" and "Lethal Weapon". In the movie "D.C. Cab", Busey portrayed the character Dell. At one point, Dell is singing along with a cassette recording of Busey singing the song "Why Baby Why" (which Busey recorded, but still remains unreleased). In the 1990s, he appeared in "Predator 2", "Rookie of the Year", "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas", "Under Siege", "The Firm", "Lost Highway", "Point Break" and "Black Sheep". Busey sang the song "Stay All Night" on "Saturday Night Live" in March 1979, Episode 14, Season 4, and on the "Late Show with David Letterman" in the 1990s.
1058678	Meet the Robinsons is a 2007 American computer-animated comedy family film produced by Walt Disney Animation Studios and released by Walt Disney Pictures on March 30, 2007. The 47th animated feature in the Walt Disney Animated Classics, the film was released in both the United States and the United Kingdom in standard and Disney Digital 3-D versions in the United States. Its standard version in the UK on March 30, 2007. The film is very loosely based on characters from the book "A Day with Wilbur Robinson", by William Joyce. The film originally had the same title as the book. The voice cast includes Jordan Fry, Wesley Singerman, Harland Williams, Tom Kenny, Steve Anderson, Laurie Metcalf, Adam West, Tom Selleck and Angela Bassett. It was released on DVD-Video and Blu-ray on October 23, 2007. Plot. Lewis is an aspiring young inventor at an orphanage whose inventions have been scaring off potential parents. He decides that his mother is the only one who truly loves him and works on a machine to scan his memory to locate her. Unfortunately, this keeps his roommate Michael "Goob" Yagoobian awake, which then causes Goob to fall asleep during an important Little League game. Taking his memory scanner to his school's science fair, Lewis meets Wilbur Robinson, a mysterious boy claiming to be a time cop from the future. Wilbur needs to recover a time machine that a man wearing a bowler hat has stolen. Lewis tries to demonstrate the scanner, but it falls apart, throwing the science fair into chaos. Upset, Lewis leaves while the Bowler Hat Guy, with the help of a robotic bowler hat named Doris, repairs and steals the scanner. Wilbur meets Lewis at the orphanage and asks him to repair the scanner. Lewis agrees to do so only if Wilbur can prove he is telling the truth, which Wilbur does by taking them to the year 2037 in a second time machine. When they arrive, however, Lewis says he can use the time machine instead of the scanner, and he and Wilbur get into an argument and crash. Wilbur then asks Lewis to fix the time machine, but Lewis has another condition: Wilbur has to take him to visit his mother afterward. Reluctantly, Wilbur agrees and hides Lewis in the garage. Lewis doesn't stay there for long, however, and ends up meeting the rest of the Robinsons except for Cornelius, Wilbur's father. Following Lewis, the Bowler Hat Guy and Doris unsuccessfully try to kidnap him. Meanwhile, the Robinsons offer to adopt Lewis, but change their mind when they learn that he's from the past. Wilbur also admits to lying to Lewis about taking him back to see his mom, causing Lewis to run off in disgust. Lewis then discovers that the Bowler Hat Guy is a grown-up version of Goob. After losing the Little League game, Goob had become so bitter that he was never adopted and remained in the orphanage long after it closed. Doris was "DOR-15," one of Lewis' failed and abandoned inventions. They both blamed Lewis for their misfortunes and decided to ruin his career by stealing the memory scanner and claiming credit for it. Leaving Lewis behind, they take off with the scanner, drastically altering the future to a world minus Wilbur and dominated by Doris clones. In a video camera, it is shown that Bowler Hat Guy is shocked by Doris' takeover of everyone and is presumably killed by the Doris clones. Lewis repairs the second time machine, goes to confront Doris and destroys her by promising to never invent her, restoring the future to its utopian self. After persuasion from Lewis, Wilbur tries to ask Goob to join the family, but he has disappeared, apparently ashamed at what he has done. Back in Wilbur's time, Lewis finally meets Cornelius, who is a grown-up version of Lewis. Cornelius explains how the memory scanner had started their successful career, which persuades Lewis to return to the science fair. Wilbur takes Lewis back, but makes one stop first: as he promised, he takes Lewis back to when his mother abandoned him. Lewis nearly stops her from leaving the infant at the orphanage, but decides not to, explaining to Wilbur that he already has a family.
1055173	Bobby Deerfield is a 1977 American romantic drama film directed by Sidney Pollack and starring Al Pacino and Marthe Keller. Based on the 1961 novel "Heaven Has No Favorites" by Erich Maria Remarque, the film is about a famous American race car driver on the European circuit who falls in love with an enigmatic Swiss woman who is terminally ill. For his performance in the film, Al Pacino was nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Motion Picture Actor. Plot. Formula One auto racer Bobby Deerfield is a calculating, control-obsessed loner who has become used to winning the checkered flag on the track. But after he witnesses a fiery crash that kills a teammate and seriously wounds a competitor, Deerfield becomes unsettled by the spectre of death. During a visit to the survivor, Deerfield's world is further set askew when he meets Lillian Morelli (Marthe Keller), a quirky, impulsive woman racing against time. Reception. Critical response. Critics panned "Bobby Deerfield" as an over-the-top melodrama with a plodding story line; audiences reportedly laughed at scenes intended to be dramatic. Race-film fans, expecting another "Grand Prix" or "Le Mans", were disappointed that the story did not play out on the race track; however, the action footage was filmed by racing cinematographers over the course of the 1976 Formula One season and features actual drivers, including Carlos Pace, James Hunt, Patrick Depailler and Mario Andretti. Vincent Canby of "The New York Times" said that it "may turn out to be the year's most cynical movie made by people who know better, including Sydney Pollack, the director, and Alvin Sargent, who wrote the screenplay." Critics continue to give the film negative reviews and the film has 22% on Rotten Tomatoes. "Time Out" stated that the film is a "classic example of a Hollywood director being struck down by a lethal 'art' attack as soon as he sets foot in Europe." "Bobby Deerfield" was released on DVD for the first time on March 11, 2008. The soundtrack, recorded on the benighted Casablanca Records label, has been unavailable for years. Box office. "Bobby Deerfield" grossed $9,300,000 in the United States. Differences from the novel. Remarque's novel on which the screenplay is based is far different from the movie, taking place just after World War II. The Swiss town of Leukerbad makes no mention of the on-location filming that took place there.
584892	Ragada () is a Tollywood action film directed by Veeru Potla. The film stars Nagarjuna Akkineni, Anushka Shetty and Priyamani. The film was released on 24 December. 2010 and dubbed into Tamil as "Vambhu". The movie was an average grosser. Synopsis. The movie starts out with Tanikelli Bharani trying to kill an innocent man, who is against Pedhanna. Tanikelli is killed by Jairam, who is one of Peddhanna's followers. Peddhanna is the biggest goon in all of AP, and he has 3 major followers who murder people for him. The other henchman just kidnap the wanted. These followers are, Jairam, Bhagavan, and Nanda. The next scene introduces Satya, getting of a truck and getting involved in a fight, which is against GK, and Peddhanna. Satya helps GK, who makes him his partner. Here, they find out that Satya is very money minded. GK's love, Sirisha, who does not love GK back, gets captured by Satya, and falls in love with him. Brahmanandam is another important character in the story whose major role is flirting with Sirisha. Priyamani enters as Ashtalakshmi, being chased by rowdies. Obviously, Satya beats them up, and finds out that the rowdies are Pedhanna's rowdies following Ashtalakshmi, for a reason she does not know of. Later, her whole family is introduced as a Brahmin family. Satya tells good tactics to GK, to fight Peddhanna. In one fight, Jairam captures Sirisha, and GK captures Jairam. Not wasting any time, Satya kills Jairam. Once again, Sirisha falls deeper in love with him. Satya gets another warning from Bhagavan, Peddhana's follower, to join him; but Satya does not. Ashtalakshmi, then, also falls in love with him. Later, Sirisha takes Satya to meet his friends at a pub, and she talks with a tattooed girl, whose face is not shown to Satya. In the next scene, Satya takes Ashtalakshmi on a date with him, that was supposed to be his date with Sirisha. Satya is cornered and goes to Bhagavan's house, and kills him, and his son. Satya thinks about why he joined the goon's gang. It is for money. The movie jumps to Satya's flashback, where they find out that Satya is an orphan, taken into care by a loving doctor, who is like Mother Teresa. The people of this City, Kadapa, worship this doctor. At that time, an election is taking place. The people want the Dr. to decide on who to vote for. Devyander, a political campaigner and who also has the support of Pedhanna, kidnaps Dr's daughter, to make sure she tells everyone to vote for him. However, she does not. Satya enters on cue, and beats up Devyander's men. It is later found out that he has to get 72 crores to keep the Dr's hospital running, as Devyander's dad donated the money to the Dr, to open the hospital. He also kills the doctor at one point of time. So, to get the money and to take revenge against the goons who killed the doctor, Satya enters into the city. At this time, Satya is back in his house and is dealing with Ashtalakshmi's parents who are weeping uncontrollably. He finds out that Peddhanna's men long ago kidnapped Ashtalakshmi's elder brother, and that is why they came to the city. But, as they can not find him, they ask Satya to help. Satya goes to the headquarters where her brother is held, and frees him. Then he finds out that Ashtalakshmi is not who she says she is, and actually robbed 120 crores from Peddhanna with the help of her brother. The rest of the story is how Satya gets the money and figures out the link between GK and Pedhanna. Soundtrack. The music and background score was composed by S. Thaman. The audio was launched on 29 November 2010 amidst the fans at the Shilpa Kala Vedika in Hyderabad. Almost all the members of Akkineni family, including Akkineni Nageswara Rao, Nagarjuna, Naga Chaitanya, Akhil, Sumanth and Sushanth, besides hundreds of fans attended the function. Akkineni unveiled the audio CD and handed over the first piece to Nagarjuna.
1163816	Edward Everett Horton (March 18, 1886 – September 29, 1970) was an American character actor. He had a long career in film, theater, radio, television and voice work for animated cartoons. He is especially known for his work in the films of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. Early life. Horton was born in Brooklyn, New York, to Isabella S. Diack and Edward Everett Horton. His mother was born in Matanzas, Cuba to Mary Orr and George Diack, immigrants from Scotland. Horton attended the Boys' High School, Brooklyn, and Baltimore City College high school in Baltimore, Maryland, where he was inducted into that school's Hall of Fame. He attended college at Brooklyn Polytechnic and Columbia University, where he was a member of Phi Kappa Psi Fraternity. He began his college career at Oberlin College, Ohio. He was asked to leave after an incident where he climbed to the top of the Service Building, and after collecting an audience, threw off a dummy, causing the viewers to think he had jumped. His sense of humor exceeded that of the college administration. Stage and film career. Horton started his stage career in 1906, singing and dancing and playing small parts in Vaudeville and in Broadway productions. In 1919, he moved to Los Angeles, California, and began acting in Hollywood films. His first starring role was in the 1922 comedy film "Too Much Business", and he portrayed the lead role of an idealistic young classical composer in "Beggar on Horseback" in 1925. In the late 1920s he starred in two-reel silent comedies for Educational Pictures, and made the transition to talking pictures with Educational in 1929. As a stage trained performer, he found more film work easily, and appeared in some of Warner Bros.' early talkies, including "The Hottentot" and "Sonny Boy". His distinctive voice was one of his trademarks. Horton originally went under his given name, Edward Horton. His father persuaded him to adopt his full name professionally, reasoning that there might be other actors named Edward Horton, but only one named Edward "Everett" Horton. Horton's screen character was instantly defined from his earliest talkies: pleasant and dignified, but politely hesitant when faced with a potentially embarrassing situation. Horton soon cultivated his own special variation of the time-honored double take (an actor's reaction to something, followed by a delayed, more extreme reaction). In Horton's version, he would smile ingratiatingly and nod in agreement with what just happened; then, when realization set in, his facial features collapsed entirely into a sober, troubled mask. Horton starred in many comedy features in the 1930s, usually playing a mousy fellow who put up with domestic or professional problems to a certain point, and then finally asserted himself for a happy ending. He is best known, however, for his work as a character actor in supporting roles. Some of his noteworthy films include "The Front Page" (1931), "Trouble in Paradise" (1932), "Alice in Wonderland" (1933), "The Gay Divorcee" (1934), "Top Hat" (1935, one of several Astaire/Rogers films in which Horton appeared), "Danger - Love at Work" (1937), "Lost Horizon" (1937), "Holiday" (1938), "Here Comes Mr. Jordan" (1941), "Arsenic and Old Lace" (1944), "Pocketful of Miracles" (1961),"It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World" (1963), and "Sex and the Single Girl" (1964). He last appeared in a non-speaking role in "Cold Turkey" (1971). Horton continued to appear in stage productions, often in summer stock. His performance in the play "Springtime for Henry" became a perennial in summer theaters. Author F. Scott Fitzgerald lived in a cottage on Horton's estate for a time in the late 1930s. Radio and television. From 1945 to 1947, Horton hosted radio's "Kraft Music Hall". During the 1950s, Horton worked in television. One of his most famous appearances is on an episode of CBS's "I Love Lucy", in which he is cast against type as a frisky, amorous suitor. (Horton, a last-minute replacement for another actor, received a special, appreciative credit in this episode.) In 1960, he guest starred on ABC's sitcom, "The Real McCoys", as J. Luther Medwick, grandfather of the boyfriend of series character Hassie McCoy (Lydia Reed). In the story line, Medwick clashes with the equally outspoken Grandpa Amos McCoy (Walter Brennan). He remains, however, best known to the Baby Boomer Generation as the venerable narrator of "Fractured Fairy Tales" in "The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show", an American animated television series that originally aired from November 19, 1959, to June 27, 1964, on the ABC and NBC television networks. In 1962, he portrayed the character 'Uncle Ned' in three episodes of the CBS television series "Dennis the Menace". In 1965, he played the medicine man, Roaring Chicken, in the ABC sitcom "F Troop". He parodied this role, portraying "Chief Screaming Chicken" on ABC's "Batman" as a pawn to Vincent Price's Egghead in the villain's attempt to take control of Gotham City. Death and influence. Horton died of cancer at age 84 in Encino, California. He is buried in Glendale's Whispering Pines section of Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery.
589702	Leela Chitnis (9 September 1909 – 14 July 2003) was an early actress in the Indian film industry. Early life. She was born in Dharwad, Karnataka to an English professor. She was one of the first educated film actresses. Her husband was part of a Marathi theatre company called Natyamanwantar. Career. Chitnis' early stage work included comedy "Usna Navra" (1934) and with her own film group "Udyacha Sansar". She started acting to support her four children. She started as an extra and went on to stunt films.
1064788	Paranormal Activity 2 is a 2010 American supernatural horror film directed by Tod Williams and written by Michael R. Perry. The film is a parallel prequel to the 2007 film "Paranormal Activity", beginning two months before and following up with the events depicted in the original film. It was released in theaters at midnight on October 22, 2010 in the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Mexico, Brazil, Poland and Ireland."Paranormal Activity 2" is also the longest film in the franchise, with a run time of 101 minutes, or 1 hour and 41 minutes. Plot. In August 2006, a "burglary" occurs at the home of Kristi (Sprague Grayden) and Dan Rey (Brian Boland), trashing their house and leaving only their infant son Hunter's bedroom untouched. The only thing stolen is a necklace that Kristi's sister, Katie (Katie Featherston), had given to her. Dan installs security cameras throughout the house after the vandalism. When the family begins to notice paranormal occurrences on the cameras, they realize they are being haunted. Martine (Vivis Cortez), the family housekeeper and nanny, attempts to cleanse the house of "evil spirits," and Dan fires her after catching her burning sage.
1266803	Toby Wing (July 14, 1915 – March 22, 2001) was an American actress and showgirl. Biography. Born Martha Virginia Wing, she began working onscreen at age 9; her father, Paul Wing, was an assistant director for Paramount Pictures. In 1931, she became one of the first Goldwyn Girls, and in 1932 she was seen in Mack Sennett-produced comedies made by Paramount, one starring Bing Crosby. Wing made an impression with producers and moviegoers, but she seldom broke through to leading roles. Many of her roles were small and barely clothed, before the introduction of the 1934 Production Code, but she became widely recognized as a sex symbol. Since her contracted studio was mired in bankruptcy during much of her career, much of her work was done on loan, primarily at Warner Bros. and later, after her release, on extremely low budget efforts on a per-film basis. Wing enjoyed a far more successful sideline doing product endorsements and was featured in innumerable fan magazines from 1933-38. She was also well known offscreen for her romances, and was linked to Jackie Coogan (to whom she was engaged during much of 1935), Maurice Chevalier, and Franklin D. Roosevelt, Jr.
1165518	Lee Ann Meriwether (born May 27, 1935) is an American actress, former model, and the winner of the 1955 Miss America pageant. She is perhaps best known for her role as Betty Jones, Buddy Ebsen's secretary and daughter-in-law in the long-running 1970s crime drama, "Barnaby Jones". The role earned her two Golden Globe Award nominations in 1975 and 1976, and an Emmy Award nomination in 1977. She is also known for her role as John Schuck's long-haired wife, Lily Munster, in the 1980s sitcom "The Munsters Today", as well as for her portrayal of Catwoman in the 1966 film version of "Batman". Meriwether had a recurring role as Ruth Martin on the daytime soap opera "All My Children" until the end of the series in September 2011. Early life. Lee Meriwether was born in Los Angeles, California to Claudius Gregg Meriwether (October 13, 1904, Oregon – July 15, 1954, San Francisco, California) and Ethel Eve Mulligan (March 25, 1903, Oregon – May 21, 1996, Los Angeles). She has one brother, Don Brett Meriwether, born May 14, 1938, in Los Angeles. She grew up in San Francisco after the family moved there from Phoenix, Arizona. She attended George Washington High School, where one of her classmates was Johnny Mathis. She later attended San Francisco City College, where one of her classmates was fellow actor Bill Bixby. After winning Miss San Francisco, Meriwether won Miss California, then Miss America with her recital of a John Millington Synge monologue. After her reign, she joined "The Today Show". An August 1, 1956 international news wire photo of Meriwether and Joe DiMaggio announced their engagement. According to DiMaggio biographer Richard Ben Cramer, it was a rumor started by Walter Winchell. Career. 1950s. Meriwether was a "Today Girl" on NBC's "The Today Show" in 1955-1956. Her feature film debut came in 1959 as Linda Davis in "4D Man", starring Robert Lansing. She appears in "The Phil Silvers Show" episode, "Cyrano de Bilko". 1960s. In 1961, Meriwether guest starred once as Gloria in the episode "Buddy and the Amazon" on her first husband, Frank Aletter,'s one-season CBS sitcom, "Bringing Up Buddy". In 1962, she was cast as Martha Elweiss in the episode "My Child Is Yet a Stranger" on the CBS anthology series, "The Lloyd Bridges Show". She played Nurse Dickens in a 1962 episode of the ABC sitcom, "I'm Dickens, He's Fenster". From 1963 to 1965, she was cast in different roles in eight episodes of the NBC medical drama, "Dr. Kildare". In 1964, she played the character Jeanelle in "This Is Going to Hurt Me More Than It Hurts You" on the CBS adventure series, "Route 66". In a 1965 episode of 12 O'clock high, "Mutiny at Ten Thousand Feet", she played Lieutenant Amy Patterson, and in "The Idolator" and a 1966 episode, "The Outsider", she played Captain Phylllis Vincent. Meriwether made a cameo appearance as Dr. Egert on the NBC series, "Man from U.N.C.L.E." in a 1965 episode entitled "The Mad, Mad Tea Party." Meriwether portrayed Catwoman for the 1966 "Batman" movie, she also appeared in two episodes of the Batman TV series in 1967 as Lisa Carson, a love interest to Bruce Wayne in the episodes 'King Tut's Coup' & 'Batman's Waterloo', at the end of which she offered Bruce Wayne a nightcap of 'Milk & Cookies'. She also co-starred as scientist Dr. Ann MacGregor in the 1966–1967 television series "The Time Tunnel". In the late 1960s and early 1970s, she had guest starring roles in numerous TV series, including "The Fugitive", "The Lloyd Bridges Show", "" episode "That Which Survives", "Perry Mason" episode #245 "The Case of the Cheating Chancellor" and the "F Troop" episode "O'Rourke vs. O'Reilly".
585343	Piravi (, meaning "The Birth") is a 1988 Malayalam feature film directed by Shaji N. Karun. It stars Premji, Archana and Lakshmi Krishnamurthy. The film's music is composed by G. Aravindan. "Piravi" met with widespread critical acclaim upon release. The film was screened and very well received at many film festivals across the world, bagging at least 31 awards in total, including the Caméra d'Or at the 1989 Cannes Film Festival. It also won the National Film Award for Best Feature Film at the National Film Awards in 1989. Plot. Raghu is one of two children born to Raghava Chakyar (Premji) and his wife. Born quite late in his parents' marriage, Raghu is brought up with immense devotion and love until adulthood.
588149	Devathai is a 1997 Tamil fantasy film written, directed and produced by Nassar. The film stars himself, Keerthi Reddy and Vineeth in the lead roles, while the film's score and soundtrack are composed by Ilaiyaraaja. The film released in June 1997 to positive reviews but only became an average grosser at the box office. Plot. The film centres around Shashanka, a dacoit who starts off as a Robin Hood type before lapsing into mass, and merciless, killings. He then falls in love with the daughter of one of his captives, only to be spurned. The dejected dacoit commits suicide. Years later, the girl is reborn in Dubai, grows up, falls in love and is on the verge of getting married when she makes a visit to India, to the family's ancestral home. Disturbing thoughts, hallucinations and meetings with a bearded man who is, though she doesn't know it just yet, Shashanka reborn, mark the visit. The rest of the story traces Shashanka's intentions of trying to convince the girl of their previous life characters. Production. After the failure of his debut directorial venture, "Avatharam", Nassar claimed he "remembered a story I had first heard as a child, it stayed with me and gave me the creative seed for this film", talking about how he picked to make a story on reincarnation. Nassar struggled to find an apt actress to play the lead role and even advertised in newspapers asking potential actors to audition, before finding and finalising on Telugu actress Keerthi Reddy. Vineeth was signed on for a supporting role, while professor of Drama, M. Ramasamy was also roped in for a role. The authorities in Dubai initially were reluctant to let Nassar shoot his film there, as a previous Tamil filmmaker had depicted the city in poor light. Eventually the actor-director was able to convince them to let him shoot his film in the city after providing them with an entire script. The art director, "Trotsky" Marudhu, revealed that he worked very hard during the portions in the first 30 minutes of the film, with the sets, costumes, weapons, make-up having to be similar to consitions 300 years ago. Nassar and Marudhu further proceeded to incorporate graphics into the film, using "Flint" software, to create several special effects scenes in the film. Release. The film opened to predominantly positive reviews, with critics praising its off-beat theme. Indolink.com cited that "don't miss the first 30-45 minutes of the movie. Excellent special effects, editing and direction makes this movie worth watching". About Keerthi Reddy, the critic added that "without doubt she is the best newcomer among the many who have turned up in tamil movies in recent times", while it was added that the reviewer "felt that Nasser gave an exceptionally good performance". The film became a financial failure for Nassar, prompting the actor to sign many films in a rush to pay off his debts. The actor revealed that his immediate busy schedule had subsequently cost him a role in Aamir Khan's critically acclaimed "Lagaan" (2001). Soundtrack. The soundtrack of the film was composed by Ilaiyaraaja, was well received by the audience. The lyrics were written by Arivumathi and Ponniyin Selvan.
1060131	How to Marry a Millionaire is a 1953 American romantic comedy film made by 20th Century Fox, directed by Jean Negulesco and produced and written by Nunnally Johnson. The screenplay was based on the plays "The Greeks Had a Word for It" by Zoë Akins and "Loco" by Dale Eunson and Katherine Albert. The music score was by Alfred Newman and the cinematography by Joseph MacDonald. The costume design was by Travilla. The film stars Marilyn Monroe, Betty Grable and Lauren Bacall, as three gold diggers along with William Powell, David Wayne, Rory Calhoun, Cameron Mitchell, Alex D'Arcy, and Fred Clark. "How to Marry a Millionaire" was the first film ever to be photographed in the new CinemaScope wide-screen process, and the second released, after "The Robe". "How to Marry a Millionaire" was also the first 1950's color and CinemaScope film ever to be shown on prime time network television (though panned-and-scanned), when it was presented as the first film on "NBC Saturday Night at the Movies" in 1961. Plot summary. Resourceful Schatze Page (Lauren Bacall), spunky Loco Dempsey (Betty Grable), and ditzy Pola Debevoise (Marilyn Monroe) rent a luxurious Sutton Place penthouse in New York City from Freddie Denmark (David Wayne), who is avoiding the IRS by living in Europe. The women plan to use it to attract and marry millionaires: Rockefeller or Vanderbilt. Pola queries whether a Mr Texaco or Mr Cadillac exists. When money is tight, Schatze pawns some of Freddie's furniture, without his knowledge of course; as winter approaches, the furnishings gradually vanish. One day, Loco carries in some groceries, assisted by Tom Brookman (Cameron Mitchell). Tom is very interested in Schatze, but she knows from prior marital experience what he is — a "gas pump jockey" — and tries repeatedly to brush him off, without success. She has her sights on bigger game: the charming, classy widower J.D. Hanley (William Powell) whose worth is irreproachably large. All the while she's stalking the older J.D., Tom keeps after her. After every one of their dates, she tells him she never wants to see him again. She refuses to marry a poor man again. Meanwhile, Loco (Grable) becomes acquainted with a grumpy businessman (Fred Clark). He is married, but she agrees to go with him to his "lodge" in Maine, mistakenly thinking she's going to meet a bunch of Elks Club members. (When they arrive, Grable misidentifies a big-band orchestra playing on the radio as that of Harry James - her actual husband at the time.) When she learns the truth about the lodge, she wants nothing to do with his plans. Unfortunately, she comes down with the measles and has to stay in the lodge until cured. She is nursed back to health with the help of a strapping young man named Eben (Rory Calhoun), who she thinks owns most of the surrounding land. She has no trouble transferring her affections to the handsome outdoorsman and they become engaged. When she finds out that he's just a forest ranger, guarding against fires on "his" land, she is very disappointed, but she loves him and is willing to overlook his financial shortcomings. The third member of the group, Pola (Monroe), is extremely nearsighted, but hates to wear her glasses where any man might see her. As she puts it, "Men aren't attentive to girls who wear glasses." (a takeoff of Dorothy Parker's "Men seldom make passes at girls who wear glasses.") She falls for a phony Arab oil tycoon, not knowing he's really a crooked speculator. Luckily, when she takes a plane from La Guardia airport to meet him, she misreads Kansas City for Atlantic City on an airport sign and ends up on the wrong plane. She sits next to a man, also wearing glasses, who thinks she's "quite a strudel" and encourages her to put hers on. It turns out that he is the mysterious Freddie Denmark; he is on his way to Kansas City to find the crooked accountant who got him into trouble with the IRS. He doesn't have much luck when he tracks the man down (he gets beaten up), but has much more success with Pola. Loco, and Pola are reunited with Schatze just before her wedding. She finally managed to overcome J.D.'s qualms about their age difference. (Earlier in the film, Bacall makes a reference to "that old guy in The African Queen" - her real-life husband, Humphrey Bogart - as an example of overcoming age differences.) Tom shows up and is recognized by the groom. It turns out that Tom is by far the richer of the two men. J.D. has an inkling how things are going to turn out, so he is not too surprised when Schatze finds herself unable to go through with the wedding because she doesn't love him. J.D. leaves graciously and Schatze, against her better judgement, ends up marrying Tom. Afterwards, the three happy couples end up at a greasy spoon, dining on hamburgers. Tom breaks the news to Schatze that he is extremely wealthy, naming all the things he owns, but she thinks he's kidding. He then calls for the bill, pulling out an enormous wad of money and pays with a $1,000 note, telling the chef to keep the change. The three women faint dead away. The men then drink a toast to their unconscious wives. Premiere. The premiere of the movie was held at the Saban Theatre, the former Fox Wilshire Theatre, in Beverly Hills, California, on November 4, 1953, with the attendance of Humphrey Bogart, Cecil B. DeMille, Robert Mitchum, Lucille Ball, Rock Hudson, Debbie Reynolds, Shelley Winters, Mitzi Gaynor, Jeffrey Hunter, Michael Rennie, among other celebrities. Portrayal of New York. Between scenes the cinematography has some iconic views of New York, fixing the viewer's mind firmly to the setting. Views include: Rockefeller Center; Central Park; the United Nations Building; and Brooklyn Bridge in the opening sequence. Other iconic views include the Empire State Building and the lights of Times Square at night. In the scene where Brewster is driving Betty Grable back home to New York they use the George Washington Bridge to avoid being seen but this backfires when they are stopped as the 50 millionth car to cross the bridge. Music. The film features an actual overture after the fashion of a live theatrical extravaganza. The 20th Century Fox Orchestra is arrayed before the camera to perform "Street Scene," conducted by its composer (and Fox studio music chief) Alfred Newman. This serves to highlight CinemaScope's new four-track magnetic stereophonic sound system and widescreen visuals. The orchestra appears throughout in wide shots and there are no closeups of any of the players, nor of Newman. At the conclusion of "Street Scene," Newman turns to take a bow before launching into the "Main Title". The orchestra reappears briefly for the "End Title", also an arrangement of "Street Scene". Newman originally composed "Street Scene" for the film version of Elmer Rice's play "Street Scene" (1931), a portrayal of New York (which explains its distinctly Gershwinesque flavor, a la "Rhapsody in Blue"), and used it in numerous subsequent New York-based films ("The Dark Corner", "Kiss of Death", "Cry of the City", "I Wake Up Screaming", "How to Marry a Millionaire"). Much of the rest of the score for "How to Marry a Millionaire" consists of similarly familiar, preexisting compositions, including several pieces composed by George Gershwin. The music soundtrack from "How to Marry a Millionaire" was released on CD by Membran International in 2004. The film's arrangement of Newman's "Street Scene" was performed in 1973 by National Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Charles Gerhardt, for the album "Captain from Castille - Classic Film Scores of Alfred Newman", accompanied by a booklet in which Page Cook chronicles the background of the piece. Television adaptation. In 1957, the film was adapted into a sitcom of the same name. The series stars Barbara Eden (as Loco Jones), Merry Anders (Michelle "Mike" Page), Lori Nelson (Greta Lindquist) and as Nelson's later replacement, Lisa Gaye as Gwen Kirby. "How to Marry a Millionaire" aired in syndication for a total of two seasons. Remake. In 2007, Nicole Kidman bought the rights to "How to Marry a Millionaire" under her production company Blossom Films, and is set to produce and possibly star in a remake.
1064738	Dragonball Evolution is a 2009 live-action science fiction film loosely based on the Japanese "Dragon Ball" manga. It was directed and co-written by James Wong, and released by 20th Century Fox.
582504	Vijay Raaz (Hindi: विजय राज़) is an Indian film actor. His breakthrough came when he played the role of Dubeyji in the movie "Monsoon Wedding". Since then, Raaz has been cast in small, often comedic roles, in many Hindi movies, often depicting the character of a common man. He marked his directorial debut with the release of Kya Dilli Kya Lahore in November 2012. Early life and career. Vijay was born and raised in Allahabad. While at college he was a part of the dramatic society The Players. He also appeared in plays at the National School of Drama. He decided to focus on a film career and moved to Mumbai where he received a role in Ram Gopal Varma's "Jungle". Naseeruddin Shah had seen him perform at the NSD and recommended him to Mahesh Mathai for "Bhopal Express" and to Mira Nair for "Monsoon Wedding". After the success of "Monsoon Wedding", Raaz received many roles. His first mainstream film cast as the leading actor was "Raghu Romeo", a box office success where Raaz depicts the life of a confused lower-class Indian fellow. He came into light for his memorable performance in the movie "Run". In which his Kauwa Biryani act became highly acclaimed. His performance in the movie got the cult status and was praised by the masses. He also played a major role in the film "Delhi Belly", where he played a ruthless gangster. As a villain in the movie he has received much critical applause for his performance. References. 6. http://www.hindu.com/lf/2004/06/13/stories/2004061301510200.htm
1179812	William Robert "Will" Young (born 20 January 1979) is an English singer-songwriter and actor who came to prominence after winning the 2002 inaugural series of the British music contest "Pop Idol", making him the first winner of the worldwide Idol franchise. His debut single "Anything Is Possible" was released two weeks after the show's finale and became the fastest-selling debut single in the UK. Young also came in fifth place in "World Idol" performing his single "Light My Fire". As a teenager, Young studied politics at the University of Exeter before moving to London, where he studied musical theatre at Arts Educational School. Young put his studies on hold in late 2001 to become a contestant on "Pop Idol". After winning the competition the following year, he released his debut album "From Now On" (2002) which went to straight to number one. "Friday's Child" (2003) followed and enjoyed greater success, eventually going platinum five times in the UK and spawning three top five singles. His albums "Keep On" (2005) and "Let It Go" (2008) are also multi-platinum and his most recent release "Echoes" (2011) became his third UK number-one album. His albums have spawned many songs that have accomplished top ten positions in the UK: four of which went to the number one spot. Young has also undertaken numerous concert tours. He has also accumulated multiple honours, including two BRIT Awards from 12 nominations, and the estimated worldwide sale of over eight million albums. Young's net worth was estimated at £13.5 million in April 2012. Aside his music career, Young has acted in film, on stage and in television. For his performance in the 2013 London revival of the musical "Cabaret", he was nominated for the Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actor in a Musical. He has also participated in philanthropy and released books "Anything is Possible" (2002), "On Camera, Off Duty" (2004) and his autobiography "Funny Peculiar" (2012). Early life. Family. Will Young was born on 20 January 1979 in Wokingham, Berkshire, and is the second-oldest child of Robin Young, the company director of an engineering firm, and Annabel Young (née Griffith), a plant nursery gardener. Born six weeks prematurely, he is ten minutes older than his twin brother Rupert. He also has an older sister, Emma.
1170175	Johnny Weissmuller (born Peter Johann Weissmüller; June 2, 1904January 20, 1984) was a German-American competition swimmer and actor best known for playing Tarzan in films of the 1930s and 1940s and for having one of the best competitive swimming records of the 20th century. Weissmuller was one of the world's fastest swimmers in the 1920s, winning five Olympic gold medals for swimming and one bronze medal for water polo. He won fifty-two US National Championships, set sixty-seven world records and was purportedly undefeated in official competition for the entirety of his competitive career. After his swimming career, he became the sixth actor to portray Edgar Rice Burroughs's ape man, Tarzan, a role he played in twelve motion pictures. Dozens of other actors have also played Tarzan, but Weissmuller is by far the best known. His character's distinctive Tarzan yell is still often used in films. Early life. Weissmüller was an ethnic German, born to Peter Weissmüller and his wife Elisabeth Kersch, who were both Banat Swabians. His generally accepted birthplace was in the Freidorf (Szabadfalu) suburb of the current city of Timişoara (German: Temeschburg, Hungarian: Temesvár) in the Kingdom of Hungary in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The village is now in Romania. However, the ship's roster from his family's arrival at Ellis Island lists his birthplace as Párdány, Kingdom of Hungary, in what is today a village in Serbia, not far from the Romanian border. According to his son (Johnny Jr), Johnny (senior) was named Peter by his parents; but, once he began to be successful as a swimmer, he formally used his brother's name, Johnny, because his brother John was, by birth, a US citizen (and had official records that verified this fact), and Peter was not (this was done so that non-citizen Peter could represent USA in the Olympics). The records of St Rochus Church in Freidorf show that Johann, son of Peter Weissmüller and Elizabeth Kersch, was baptized there on 6 May 1904. The passenger manifest of the S.S. "Rotterdam", which arrived in New York on 26 January 1905, lists Peter Weissmüller, a 29-year-old laborer, his 24-year-old wife Elisabeth, and seven-month-old Johann. The family is listed as Germans, last residence (Timișoara). They intended to join their brother-in-law Johann Ott of Windber, Pennsylvania. On November 5, 1905, Johann Peter Weissmüller was baptized at St John Cantius Catholic Church in Windber. In the 1910 census, Peter and Elizabeth Weisenmüller as well as John and Eva Ott were living at 1521 Cleveland Ave in the 22nd Ward of Chicago, with sons John, age six, born in Temesvár and Peter Jr., age five, erroneously entered as born in Illinois. Peter Weissmüller and John Ott were both brewers, Ott emigrating in 1902, Weissmüller in 1904. The ethnic group known as Banat Swabians had lived for several centuries in that region and developed a distinctive dialect and cultural traits. When Weissmüller was a small child, the family emigrated to the United States aboard the "S.S. Rotterdam" as steerage passengers. They left Rotterdam on January 14, 1905, and arrived at Ellis Island in New York harbor twelve days later as Peter, Elisabeth and Johann Weissmüller. The passenger list records them as ethnic Germans and citizens of Austria-Hungary. After a brief stay in Chicago visiting relatives, they moved to the coal mining town of Windber, Pennsylvania. (For most of Weissmüller's career, show business biographies incorrectly listed him as having been born in Pennsylvania. Some sources state that Weissmüller lied about his birthplace to ensure his place on the US Olympic swimming team.) Peter Weissmuller worked as a miner, and his youngest son, Peter Weissmüller, Jr., was born in Windber on 3 September 1905. Peter Jr. is listed on one census as born in Illinois. At age nine, Weissmüller contracted polio. At the suggestion of his doctor, he took up swimming to help battle the disease. After the family moved from Western Pennsylvania to Chicago, Weissmüller continued swimming and eventually earned a spot on the YMCA swim team. According to draft registration records for World War I, Peter and Elizabeth were apparently still together as late as 1917. On his paperwork, Peter was listed as a brewer, working for the Elston and Fullerton Brewery. He and his family were living at 226 West North Avenue in Chicago. In his book, "Tarzan, My Father", Johnny Weissmuller Jr. stated that although rumors of Peter Weissmüller living to "a ripe old age, remarrying along the way and spawning a large brood of little Weissmüllers" were reported, no one in the family was aware of his ultimate fate. Peter signed his consent for 19-year old John "Weissmuller"'s passport application in 1924, preceding Johnny's Olympic competition in France. In the 1930 federal census, Elizabeth Weissmüller, age 49, has listed with her, her sons John P. and Peter J., and Peter's wife Dorothy. Elizabeth is listed as a widow.
1056438	Smoking/No Smoking is a 1993 French comedy film. It was directed by Alain Resnais and written by Agnès Jaoui and Jean-Pierre Bacri, from the play "Intimate Exchanges" by Alan Ayckbourn. The film starred Pierre Arditi and Sabine Azéma. It won the César Award for Best Film, Best Director, Best Actor and Best Writing. Plot. "Smoking" and "No Smoking" are two segments of the film which are based on closely connected plays. The original plays covered eight separate stories, which have been pared down to three each for these movies. At a certain point in the story of each segment, the five female characters (all played by Sabine Azema) and the four male characters (all played by Pierre Arditi) have their lives skillfully recapped in terms of "what might have happened" if they had made or failed to make certain choices. For example, "No Smoking" focuses chiefly on the relationship between the mild-mannered Miles Coombes and his infinitely more aggressive and ambitious wife, Rowena. The narrator is voiced by Peter Hudson.
1253800	Norman Burton (December 5, 1923 - November 29, 2003), occasionally credited as Normann Burton, was an American film and television actor. Born in New York City, Burton was a student of The Actor's Studio. After early work on stage, he broke into films with a minor role in "Fright" (1956). His career in film and television was long and relatively successful, but he never achieved major recognition. He played the Hunt Leader, a gorilla, in the science fiction film "Planet of the Apes", notable as being the first ape to be seen by both Taylor and the audience. In film, he is perhaps best known for his unconventional (and frequently disparaged) performance as Felix Leiter in the James Bond film "Diamonds Are Forever" (1971). He played Will Giddings, an ill fated engineer, in the action film "The Towering Inferno". On television, he is best known for his performance as IADC boss Joe Atkinson during the second season of the adventure fantasy television series "Wonder Woman" starring Lynda Carter. He also was a member of the cast of the situation comedy "The Ted Knight Show" in the spring of 1978. Throughout his life, Burton was a devotee of the method school of acting, and taught method acting in Lakeside, California. Burton was just a few days short of his 80th birthday when he died as a result of an auto accident in Ajijic, Mexico. His interment was in California.
1553874	Eliza Coupe (born April 6, 1981) is an American comedic actress, most widely known for starring as Jane Kerkovich-Williams in the ABC comedy series "Happy Endings" and as Denise "Jo" Mahoney in the final two seasons of the medical comedy-drama "Scrubs". Early life and career. Coupe was born and raised in Plymouth, New Hampshire to parents Ernie and Kate. She has two brothers, Sam and Thom. Coupe attended Plymouth Regional High School in her hometown of Plymouth, New Hampshire and graduated in 1999. She is of French heritage. Coupe was active in her high school's award-winning theatre program. Her roles included Bonnie in "Anything Goes" and a Mundy sister in "Dancing at Lughnasa". Coupe graduated from California Institute of the Arts (CalArts). After college, Coupe studied in improvisational comedy at The Groundlings and ImprovOlympic. In 2003, Coupe toured France playing a soldier in an all-female version of "King Lear". In November 2005, her one-woman sketch show "The Patriots" premiered at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre in New York and won her the breakout performer award at HBO's U.S. Comedy Arts Festival in Aspen in March 2006. In 2007, Coupe appeared in "I Think I Love My Wife". She went on to appear in the short lived MTV series "Short Circuitz" and on the eighth episode of of "Flight of the Conchords", entitled "Girlfriends", as well as an episode of "Unhitched". She was a series regular in HBO's unaired "12 Miles of Bad Road" and had a recurring role in "Samantha Who?". She had a recurring role as Dr. Denise "Jo" Mahoney on the eighth season of the TV series "Scrubs" and the companion web series "". She was made a regular in "Scrubs"' ninth season. In March 2009, Coupe was cast as Callie in the ABC pilot, "No Heroics", an adaptation of the UK series of the same name. Coupe played the female lead in the independent film "Shanghai Calling", filmed in Shanghai, China. Coupe also appeared in the 2011 movie "What's Your Number?" with Anna Faris and Chris Evans. From April 2011 to May 2013, Coupe starred on the ABC ensemble comedy series "Happy Endings" alongside Elisha Cuthbert, Zachary Knighton, Adam Pally, Damon Wayans Jr. and Casey Wilson. Despite critical acclaim and a cult following, the show was cancelled by ABC after concluding its third season on May 3, 2013. Personal life. Coupe has suffered from dyslexia and ADHD since childhood. Coupe was married to acting teacher and puppeteer Randall Whittinghill since 2007. They separated in early 2013, and in June, Whittinghill filed for a divorce.
1064719	Aliens in the Attic is a 2009 American family science fiction comedy film produced by 20th Century Fox and Regency Enterprises and starring Carter Jenkins, Ashley Tisdale, Robert Hoffman, Henri Young, Regan Young and Austin Butler. The plot revolves around the children in the Pearson family having to defend their vacation house. The film was previously titled "They Came from Upstairs", which is instead used as the film's tag line. A video game of the same name was released as well. Plot. A meteor shower rockets through open space. Four glowing pods are seen hiding behind the meteor shower. Suddenly the meteor shower makes a hard right and heads towards a distant planet Earth. In a Chicago suburb, Stuart Pearson (Kevin Nealon) and his wife Nina (Gillian Vigman) head a family that includes 7-year-old Hannah (Ashley Boettcher); 17-year-old sister Bethany (Ashley Tisdale), who's just returned from a secret outing with her boyfriend Ricky Dillman (Robert Hoffman), and 15-year-old techno-geek Tom (Carter Jenkins) whose high school grades are low. Deciding the family needs some good old-fashioned togetherness, Stuart takes them to a holiday home in the middle of nowhere. Joining them is Uncle Nate (Andy Richter), Nate's 14-year-old son Jake (Austin Butler), Nana Rose (Doris Roberts), and identical 12-year-old twins Art (Henri Young) and Lee (Regan Young). Ricky also arrives unexpectedly and talks his way into staying overnight. That night dark storm clouds swirl around the house. Suddenly, the four glowing pods land on the roof. An alien crew emerges, made up of Skip (J. K. Simmons), the tough commander, Tazer (Thomas Haden Church), a muscle-bound dude armed to the teeth, Razor (Kari Wahlgren), a lethal female alien soldier, and Sparks (Josh Peck), a four-armed techie, who is the only non-threatening intruder. Since the aliens knocked over the satellite dish Ricky and Tom are sent to fix it. Ricky then reveals to Tom that he lied about everything so far, his car didn't break down, his parents don't own a lake house,and he's a lot older than 18. Ricky is actually in college and is five years older than Bethany. They find the satellite is beyond repair. Investigating further they discover the aliens. Skip tries to lull Tom and Jake into a false sense of security, but fails. Ricky is captured and implanted with a mind control device. The aliens, called "Zirkonians", via Ricky, lay claim to the planet (when asked why they didn't just say it themselves Skip responds, "This way is more fun.") Like a puppet/robot, Ricky grabs the boys – but Tom and Jake break free. It isn't long before all five kids have seen the aliens. Tom takes charge and the kids discover the mind control device only works on grownups, giving them a fighting chance. They realize they have a responsibility to protect the adults by keeping the aliens' existence a secret. Left on their own, the kids create makeshift weapons, like a home made potato spud gun. They even obtain and learn to use the mind controller. They soon take control of Ricky and turn him against the aliens. The adults remain oblivious and insist the youngsters go on a fishing expedition. Meanwhile Hannah and gentle tech Sparks become friends. Unlike his alien cohorts, Sparks hates battle; he just wants to return home to his family, and he helps by making weapons for them. He also reveals the aliens want a device hidden under the basement which will make them grow giant. As the aliens attack, the kids start to fight back. Meanwhile, Jake gets captured by the Zirkonians and is tied up and in the basement. Nana Rose comes under the control of the mind control device, which gives her super-human strength and agility. Under the control of the kids, she comes to their rescue and fights off Ricky, who is again under alien control. Nana gives Ricky a huge electric jolt, causing the alien plug to dislodge. The kids finally reveal to Bethany what's going on. After rescuing Jake, the kids find Ricky who then and there breaks up with Bethany because she talks about feelings and family too much. The five of them defeat Skip, Tazer and Razor, who flee on their teleporting machine. Sparks calls off the invasion and returns home. The rest of the vacation goes back to normal, except the kids grew closer to each other during their adventure. In the distance, Skip (apparently thrown clear when his ship left) appears, bent on revenge against the humans, but meets his demise when a crow flies by and carries Skip off to its nest to eat him. During the credits, Bethany and Tom take revenge on Ricky by making him look like a fool in front of his new girlfriend, using the alien mind control device. Bethany comments "I am so keeping this". Production. Development. The script was written by Mark Burton and Adam F. Goldberg. The film is co-financed by Fox and Regency while being distributed by Fox. Fox snapped up the script in March 2006. Marc Resteghini was overseeing for Fox while Kara Francis Smith shepherds for Regency. Barry Josephson was confirmed as the main producer while Thor Freudenthal was hired to direct principal production. The principal production began in March 2007. The film was originally titled "They Came from Upstairs" but later changed to "Aliens in the Attic" while the first title is instead used as the film's tag line. Ashley Tisdale's involvement in the film was confirmed in January 2008 as she was cast as Bethany Pearson. Robert Hoffman, Carter Jenkins and Austin Butler were later cast in the film. Doris Roberts was signed on to the film in February 2008. MTV confirmed that Josh Peck joined the cast as the voice of the alien Sparks. John Debney composed the original score for the film. Tisdale recorded a song titled "Switch" for the film, which is also included in her second album, "Guilty Pleasure". The original motion picture soundtrack was released on August 18, 2009. Filming. Principal photography began at the end of January 2008 in Auckland, New Zealand. Auckland-based production company New Upstairs Productions said filming would run for 30–40 days from January 28 to April 18, 2008 with no filming in weekends. The film was set in a rambling old villa transported from Remuera to a farm in North Auckland. The main set was an old manor and they spent $700,000 restoring the house. The main shooting ended in mid-March 2008. Tisdale, Butler and Jenkins went back to the set to shoot last-minutes scenes for the film in April 2009. Release. The film was released on July 30, 2009, in Russia and Malaysia; July 31, 2009 in United States, Canada, and Bulgaria; August 12 in the United Kingdom; September 3, 2009 in Australia. The film's original release date was in January 2009 but it was pushed back for unknown reasons. The UK release also coincided with a charity auction for Save The Children which teamed up with eBay and 20th Century Fox where various celebrities, including several actors from the movie, sold items from their attics to raise money for the charity. Critical reception. The film has received mixed reviews from critics; the film holds a 31% "rotten" rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 71 reviews, with the consensus stating "Inoffensive and kid-friendly, this mundane family comedy is light on imagination." Metacritic gives the film a score of 42 based on 10 reviews. "Entertainment Weekly" described the film as "a pointless and harmless family adventure that doesn't mentally assault the 12-and-over set and looks like a lot of fun", while "San Francisco Chronicle" has described the movie as being unoriginal and crowd pleasing. "Variety" stated the film doubtless would appeal primarily to a more narrow demographic of tweens and pre-teens and despite Tisdale's presence, it’s difficult to imagine many ticket buyers between the ages of 12 and 18 while "The New York Times" described Jenkins and Butler as the actors with more personality and Hoffman as the actor who provides the film’s occasional funny moments. "The Los Angeles Times" said the film is "an enjoyable kid-friendly film but not an out-of-this-world classic" and also mentioned the film belonged to Hoffman and Kirk Honeycutt of "The Hollywood Reporter" said the director John Schultz played everything for laughs and earns a more than a few but tech effects deliver a fair number of those laughs and described the film as an "amusing family comedy". "Radio Times" gave the film a three out of five stars rating, saying that the film is "a thrilling children's yarn with enough pop-culture references to hold grown-ups' interest". "The Dove Foundation" praised the film, saying it is "one of those movies that you find to be better than anticipated" and also said the film draws on realism in family dynamics. Lara Martin of "Digital Spy" described the film as a "kid-friendly mix of "Men in Black" crossed with "Gremlins" with a healthy dose of "Home Alone"-style violence" and also mentioned that one of the biggest disappointments in the movie is the lack of screen time given to Tisdale, billed as one of the leading actors and concluded saying it seems "a bizarre and sad waste of her obvious comedic talent". However, "The Miami Herald" gave a mixed to negative review, saying the film is a "children's movie mix of live-action and animation, it has a few positive messages, a few laughs and a few comic throwdowns". Box office. Aliens in the Attic was a minor box office success. In the US, the film was distributed by 3,106 theaters and grossed $8 million its opening weekend, resulting in No. 5 in the box office. The film has grossed the equivalent of in Russia, in United Kingdom, and a total of worldwide total. Home media. The film was released on DVD and Blu-ray on November 3, 2009. Video game. A video game based on the film was released August 4, 2009, developed by Revistronic and published by Playlogic. The game features the storyline of the film and is available for Wii, PlayStation 2 Nintendo DS and Windows PC. The game also offers players two different gameplay perspectives depending upon which video game platform player choose. For Wii, Nintendo DS PlayStation 2 and Windows PC player, the game allows player to play as Art, Lee, Tom, Hannah, Jake, Bethany or The Four Alien Explorers featuring 15 levels.
1040490	Laila Abdesselam Rouass (born 22 June 1971) is a British actress. She is probably best known for her portrayals of Amber Gates in "Footballers' Wives" (2004–2006) and Sahira Shah in "Holby City" (2011–12). She has also starred in "Primeval" and "Spooks" and been a contestant on "Strictly Come Dancing", in which she finished fourth. Early life. Rouass was born in Stepney, London to a Moroccan father and Indian mother. Career. Rouass worked as a VJ on Channel V in India in the 1990s. While on Channel V, she appeared in a music video for the band Colour Blind, directed by the then creative head of the channel, Shamin Desai. After moving back to the UK, Rouass became famous for playing the role of Bollywood actress Amber Gates in the cult ITV1 series "Footballers' Wives" between 2004 and 2006 and, albeit briefly, on the ITV2 spin-off series "". She also played recurring roles on the British soaps "Family Affairs" and "Hollyoaks", as well as appearing in episodes of "I Dream", "Casualty" and "Meet the Magoons". She starred alongside Meera Syal in the television adaptation of Syal's novel, "Life Isn't All Ha Ha Hee Hee."
1151164	Stacey Nelkin (born September 10, 1959) is an American film and television actress. Career. Nelkin starred as Bonnie Sue Chisholm in four 1979 episodes of the CBS western miniseries "The Chisholms". When the series resumed in 1980, she was replaced by Delta Burke in the role of Bonnie Sue. She became well known for her role in the 1982 horror film "" as Ellie Grimbridge.
1110205	Julie Carmen (born April 4, 1954, New York, New York) is an American actress, dancer and a licensed psychotherapist. She came to prominence onscreen in the 1980s, winning the Venice Film Festival Best Supporting Actress Award for her role in John Cassavetes' film, "Gloria". Her acting training was with Sanford Meisner at Neighborhood Playhouse and with Uta Hagen at HB Studios. Carmen was on the Board of Directors of both Women in Film for three years and IFP/West for six years. Acting work. She has starred in a variety of films including Robert Redford's "The Milagro Beanfield War", "John Carpenter's In the Mouth of Madness", "The Penitent" opposite Raul Julia and Armand Assante; "King of the Jungle" opposite John Leguizamo; and "Fright Night II" as vampire Regine Dandrige. Currently she is starring in "Dawn Patrol", directed by Daniel Petrie, Jr. opposite Scott Eastwood, Rita Wilson and Jeff Fehey. In 2012 she played a supporting role in "The Last Weekend" starring Patricia Clarkson. Carmen appeared on television as the female lead in the 1992 NBC mini-series "Drugs Wars: The Cocaine Cartel", as well as playing the mother of Angelina Jolie's character in the 1997 Hallmark Entertainment miniseries "True Women" and the female lead opposite Val Kilmer in "Gore Vidal's Billy the Kid" directed by Billy Graham. Julie played female lead opposite George C. Scott in two made for television movies, "Finding the Way Home" and "Curacao" (also called "Deadly Waters"). She was a series regular, as Linda Rodriguez, on the short-lived ABC sitcom "Condo" (1983), and guest starred in three first-season (1990) episodes of the HBO original comedy series "Dream On". She danced on Broadway in Luis Valdez's "Zoot Suit", and was resident choreographer at INTAR under the direction of Max Ferra. She studied dance at the Merce Cunningham and Erik Hawkins Studios, and Pilates with at the Joseph Pilates original studio in NYC, which led to her 1979 teaching position at Ron Fletcher's Pilates Studio in Los Angeles. In 2007, she played the lead role Liz Estrada at the Getty Villa's commissioned update of "Lysistrata".
1068576	Dark Country is a 2009 psychological crime thriller directed by and starring Thomas Jane in his directorial debut. It also stars Lauren German and Ron Perlman. Plot. Newly weds Dick (Jane) and Gina (Lauren German) decide to head across the Nevada desert for their honeymoon, driving at night to beat the heat. Before they head off, a stranger warns Dick to be careful, as couples have been known to get lost, and to stick to the Interstate. Shortly afterward, the couple realize they are heading the wrong way and turn off the highway onto another road. Dick turns off the car headlights to drive by starlight and Gina masturbates herself to orgasm as they head across the desert. Eventually Dick turns the lights back on, immediately swerving to avoid a figure in the middle of the road. Investigating, they find a man severely injured from a car accident. Unable to get a phone signal, they decide to drive him to a hospital themselves, only for the road to come to a sudden end a few miles ahead. During the drive, the couple argue and the injured man awakens with a scream. He asks Gina for a cigarette, advises her to leave her husband and becomes increasingly erratic, finally attempting to strangle Dick and almost causing the car to crash. Gina stops the car and the two men tumble out, continuing to fight until Dick beats the stranger to death with a rock. Dick convinces his wife they need to dispose of the body, and together they bury it in a shallow grave. While she fills the hole, Dick finds a revolver in her handbag. Soon after, they arrive at a rest area where several cars are parked. They tidy themselves up and argue until Dick discovers he lost his watch while they were burying the stranger. Refusing to go back, Gina waits at the rest stop with the gun while Dick returns to find his watch. Arriving at the site where they hid the body, Dick finds the grave empty. Gunshots ring out across the desert and Dick races back to the rest stop to find Gina is missing. Nearby, he stumbles onto a woman's grave and realizes that the other cars are rusted and covered with dust. In a panic, he flees, almost colliding head-on with a deputy sheriff (Ron Perlman). In the back of the police car, he rides with the deputy to a crime scene, where police are excavating murder victims from a mass grave surrounded by abandoned vehicles. The deputy explains that this was where the rest area had been 30 years before. Dick recognizes the spot as the location where he buried the stranger. As he watches on from the back of the police car, a deputy exhumes Gina's body and finds Dick's watch. Dick kicks his way out of the patrol car and escapes in one of the nearby vehicles, leading the squad of police in a chase across the desert. Driving with the lights off, he loses them, only to lose control and roll the car. Thrown clear of the wreck, he is then almost run down by another car before he passes out. Some time later, Dick wakes to find himself in the back of his own car, listening to himself and Gina argue, and realizes that he was the mysterious stranger that he fought with and murdered earlier in the evening. Production. The idea for making "Dark Country" came after Jane had read the short story by the film's writer Tab Murphy. After working for a year on the story, Jane and Murphy brought it to Lionsgate, who purchased the script. Upon learning Jane's intention to shoot the film 3D, Lionsgate backed out of the deal and allowed Jane and Murphy to take the script to Sony Pictures, whose home video division were looking for content for their new line of 3D televisions that were soon to be released. The inspiration Jane had cited for making the film came from his admiration for the horror films of old and film noir, in addition to "The Twilight Zone", "The Outer Limits" and old issues of EC Comics comic books. Before filming began, Jane, together with his storyboard artist, story boarded every shot, approaching the film like they were doing a live-action graphic novel. Wanting to have as many graphic novel elements Jane brought on-board comic artist Tim Bradstreet to work as the visual consultant and production designer in addition to Berni Wrightson, who provided the designs for the character Bloodyface, and Ray Zone as the 3D supervisor. Jane chose to do the film in 3D as a way to prove to the filmmaking community that you could create a low budget film in 3D and have it turn out looking great. The 25 day shoot took place in Albuquerque, New Mexico. The film was shot in both 3-D high definition and 2-D high-def, with the intention of a limited theatrical run in 3D. The 3D for "Dark Country" was done using two Silicon Imaging (SI) HD heads capturing at 2K resolution, the cameras were built by Hector Ortega and Stephen Pizzo of Element Technica, and supervised by Geoff Boyle, Max Penner, Tim Thomas and Paradise FX in California. The small size of the cameras allowed for more fluid camera movements compared to the cameras previously used to shoot 3D films. For the filming of scenes in 3D, Jane wished for the effect to vary in intensity and be impactful. To help in that, Jane devised a color-coded system for his cameraman to know how he wanted the 3D to be visually in any particular scenes.
1132298	Damien Dante Wayans (born April 15, 1980) is an American actor, writer, producer and director. He is a member of the Wayans family. Early life. Wayans was born in New York City, he is the nephew of the Wayans Brothers, which consists of Keenen Ivory Wayans, Damon Wayans, Kim Wayans, Shawn Wayans, and Marlon Wayans. He is the son of their sibling Elvira Wayans and brother of Chaunté Wayans. Damon Wayans, Jr. and Michael Wayans are his cousins. Career. Damien began his career in 1987 in Eddie Murphy's concert film "Eddie Murphy Raw". He acted with his uncle Damon Wayans in Major Payne. He then went on to writing and directing. His big break in acting was in Jamie Kennedy's film "Malibu's Most Wanted" when he played the role of Tec, Shondra's (Regina Hall) ex-boyfriend. Damien has written and directed several episodes of his uncle Damon's sitcom "My Wife And Kids". In 2006, Damien along with his cousin Craig Wayans wrote and produced on uncle Damon's "The Underground", a sketch comedy show on Showtime. Damien also directed a few segments. He made his directorial debut with the film "Dance Flick", which was written by Damien, Keenen, Shawn, Marlon and Craig Wayans. In 2009, Damien along with cousin Craig Wayans formed a film and TV production company called "Second Generation Entertainment", given their being the second generation of Wayans in the entertainment industry. The duo plans to create, develop and produce multiplatform content.
1455752	Deathstalker II, also known as Deathstalker II: Duel of the Titans, is a 1987 Argentine-American fantasy adventure film directed by Jim Wynorski and starring John Terlesky and Monique Gabrielle. Terlesky replaced Rick Hill, the protagonist from the previous film, in the starring role of Deathstalker. Synopsis. Princess Evie of Jzafir is deposed by the evil Jerak and his ally Sultana. Posing as Reena the Seer, Princess Evie enlists the aid of the renowned hero Deathstalker. Together they battle the forces of evil and a clone of Evie created by Jerak, to win back Evie's kingdom. Cast. Re-release The film was re-released in the 2000's by Shout Factory as Roger Corman's Cult Classics: Sword and Sorcery Collection. The collection features Deathstalker, Deathstalker II, Barbarian Queen, and The Warrior and the Sorceress.
582568	Lafangey Parindey (Hindi: लफंगे परिंदे English: Cheeky Bird) s a 2010 Hindi romantic drama directed by Pradeep Sarkar, produced by Aditya Chopra and starring Neil Nitin Mukesh and Deepika Padukone in the lead roles. Both the actors have extremely challenging roles to play in this love story set in the gritty streets of Mumbai.The film was released on 20 August 2010 under the Yash Raj Films banner. The story of the film is partially inspired from the 1978 American film, "Ice Castles" and the 1999 Tamil film, "Thulladha Manamum Thullum". and the South-Korean film Always.
1055915	The Toolbox Murders is a 1978 horror film directed by Dennis Donnelly, and written by Ann Kindberg, Robert Easter, and Neva Friedenn. The film was marketed as being a dramatization of a true story, and was listed as a video nasty. In 2004, it was remade as "Toolbox Murders". Plot. A man dressed in black drives through Los Angeles, and flashes back to a girl dying in a car accident. The man arrives at an apartment complex, and kills a female tenant (who recognizes him) with a drill. Afterward, the man dons a ski mask, and murders two other women, the first with a hammer, and the second with a screwdriver. The police are called, and they interview the people who found the bodies, as well as Vance Kingsley, the owner of the building. The next night, the killer strikes again, breaking into the apartment of a woman who is masturbating in her bathtub, and shooting her in the stomach and head with a nail gun. The murderer then abducts Laurie Ballard, a fifteen year-old who lives in the above apartment with her family. Laurie's brother Joey is questioned by Detective Jamison, and frustrated by the man's seemingly lax attitude towards Laurie's disappearance, decides to search for his sister on his own. While looking through the homes of the murdered women, Joey meets up with Kent, Vance's nephew, who has been hired to clean up the apartments of the deceased tenants. While Joey is helping Kent, Kathy Kingsley, Kent's cousin and Vance's daughter, is brought up, with Kent mentioning that Vance has not been the same since Kathy died in a car accident. It is revealed that Vance is the serial killer, having been driven insane and to religious mania by the death his daughter. He is killing sinners, and has kidnapped Laurie (who is kept tied up in Kathy's bedroom) to replace Kathy. During a discussion with Detective Jamison, Joey realizes that all the clues point to Vance being the killer, so he goes to the Kingsley house, and is followed there by Kent (who had earlier seen the bound Laurie in his uncle's home). Joey finds bloody tools in Vance's garage, and is confronted by Kent, who sets Joey on fire to protect his family. Kent walks in on Vance talking to Laurie, and enrages his uncle by telling him that he and Kathy had an incestuous relationship. Vance and Kent fight, and Kent ends up fatally stabbing Vance with a kitchen knife. Kent goes to Laurie, cuts her bonds, and rapes her. Afterward, Kent acts as if he and Laurie are married, and implies that he killed Joey and Vance, prompting Laurie to stab him to death with a pair of scissors. A dazed and bloodied Laurie wanders out of the house, as an intertitle states that the film was a dramatization of events that occurred in 1967, and that Laurie was institutionalized for three years, and now resides in San Fernando Valley with her husband, and their child. Release. "The Toolbox Murders" was released theatrically in the United States by Cal-Am Artists in March 1978. The film was put out on VHS by VCI Entertainment and, later, Video Treasures in the 1980s. "The Toolbox Murders" was one of the video nasties of the 1980s and was banned in the UK from 1982 to 2000 by the BBFC. An edited DVD was released in the UK in 2000 by VIPCO. To date, there is no uncut UK release. The film was released as a Special Edition DVD by Blue Underground in 2003, and was re-released on Blu-ray in 2010. Reception. DVD Verdict said the film was "a cut above (no pun intended) your average exploitation horror film" though went on to say "if "The Toolbox Murders" has one major flaw, it is in the division between the gory slasher and neurotic thriller film" and "The first half is gruesome. The last half is unsettling. But they really are almost two different movies". Another review by the same website was also predominantly positive, stating "Sure it's got gore and nudity galore, but I think it's survived as long as it has because it completely upsets viewer expectations in its second half. By starting out as a typical slasher and ending as a psychological thriller, "Toolbox" gets under the skin in a way that sticking with one genre or another would not have". The review concluded by saying "it's gory side is gory enough and its creepy side creepy enough to make it worth a watch for those interested in exploitation fare" despite the flat middle half and unrealistic, twist-filled ending. Oh, the Horror! responded well to "The Toolbox Murders", calling it "a gritty little affair that oozes a 70s penchant for all things exploitation" that was stylistic and upsetting, even if it was slow in parts. A one and half out of five was awarded by Hysteria Lives!, which found that despite possessing a large amount of violence and other exploitative elements, the film was tedious and drab, being flatly directed and lacking in suspense.
1185209	Angela "Angie" Martinez (born January 9, 1971) is an American radio personality, former rapper, and actress. Known as “The Voice of New York”, her afternoon radio show has consistently been ranked #1 with more young listeners than any other radio program in the country. Radio career. Angie Martinez got her first break in radio at the age of 16 answering hot lines at the urban radio station WQHT ("Hot 97"). There she met popular DJ Funkmaster Flex, and began working as his protégé. Martinez quickly picked up on the craft of running a successful radio program. Executives at the station decided to give her a chance, even though she lacked on-air experience. Acting. As an actress, Angie received small roles in independent hip hop films such as "Blood is Thicker Than Water" and "Paper Soldiers". She then appeared in "Brown Sugar" starring Taye Diggs, Queen Latifah and Sanaa Lathan. Music career. In 1996, Martinez was encouraged to give rapping a shot by friend KRS-One. She appeared on his track "Heartbeat" from his 1997 album "I Got Next". After the song gained a strong fan following, another friend, Lil' Kim, offered her a spot on the "Ladies Night Remix" of her song "Not Tonight" for the "Nothing to Lose" soundtrack. Along with Missy Elliott, Lisa "Left Eye" Lopes and Da Brat, the ladies enjoyed one of the most successful singles of 1997. It peaked on the Billboard Hot 100 chart at #2, and reached #1 on the Hip-Hop / R&B charts and the Rap charts respectively. The single sold over 1,000,000 copies and was certified Platinum. The ladies were nominated for two Grammy Awards that year, and were also invited to perform the song live on The MTV Video Music Awards. A major label battle began to sign Martinez to a recording contract. Her appearance on other rapper's material was in high demand. She recorded songs with Mary J. Blige ("Christmas in the City"), Terror Squad ("Freak Out"), N.O.R.E. ("Oh No Remix"), Beenie Man ("Tell Me Remix") and Funkmaster Flex & Big Kap's compilation album "The Tunnel" ("Wow"). She also recorded interludes for mixtapes by Kid Capri, DJ Clue and DJ Kayslay. In 2001, she appeared in the music video for Jay-Z and R. Kelly's "Guilty Until Proven Innocent".
1062280	Cinderella Man is a 2005 American drama film by Ron Howard, titled after the nickname of heavyweight boxing champion James J. Braddock and inspired by his life story. The film was produced by Howard, Penny Marshall, and Brian Grazer. Damon Runyon is credited for giving Braddock this nickname. Russell Crowe, Renée Zellweger and Paul Giamatti star. Plot. James J. Braddock is an Irish-American boxer from New Jersey, formerly a light heavyweight contender, who is forced to give up boxing after breaking his hand in the ring. This is both a relief and a burden to his wife, Mae; she cannot bring herself to watch the violence of his chosen profession, yet she knows they will have no good income without his boxing. As the United States enters the Great Depression, Braddock does manual labor as a longshoreman to support his family, even with his injured hand. Unfortunately, he cannot get work every day. Thanks to a last-minute cancellation by another boxer, Braddock's longtime manager and friend, Joe Gould, offers him a chance to fill in for just this one night and make a little money. The fight is against the number-two contender in the world, Corn Griffin. Braddock stuns the boxing experts and fans with a third-round knockout of his formidable opponent. He believes that while his right hand was broken, he became more proficient with his left hand, improving his in-ring ability. Against his wife's wishes, Braddock takes up Gould's offer to return to the ring. Mae resents this attempt by Gould to profit from her husband's dangerous livelihood, until she discovers that Gould and his wife also have been devastated by hard times. With a shot at the heavyweight championship held by Max Baer a possibility, Braddock continues to win. Out of a sense of pride, he uses a portion of his prize money to pay back money to the government given to him while unemployed. When his rags to riches story gets out, the sportswriter Damon Runyon dubs him "The Cinderella Man", and before long Braddock comes to represent the hopes and aspirations of the American public struggling with the Depression. A title fight against Baer comes his way. Braddock is a 10-to-1 underdog. Mae is terrified because Baer, the champ, is a vicious man who reportedly has killed at least two men in the ring. He is so destructive that the fight's promoter, James Johnston, forces both Braddock and Gould to watch a film of Baer in action, just so he can maintain later that he warned them what Braddock was up against. Braddock demonstrates no fear. The arrogant Baer attempts to intimidate him, even taunting Mae in public that her man might not survive. When he says this, she becomes so angry that she throws a drink at him. She cannot bring herself to attend the fight at the Madison Square Garden Bowl or even to listen to it on the radio. On June 13, 1935, in one of the biggest achievements in boxing history, Braddock defeats the seemingly invincible Baer to become the heavyweight champion of the world. A graphic at the end of the film reveals that Braddock worked on the building of the Verrazano Bridge, and that he later owned and operated heavy machinery on the docks where he worked during the Depression. Also, he and Mae used the winnings to buy a house, where they spent the rest of their lives. Production. During filming in Toronto, several areas were redressed to resemble 1930s New York. The Richmond Street side of The Bay's Queen Street store was redressed as Madison Square Garden, complete with fake store fronts and period stop lights. A stretch of Queen Street East between Broadview and Carlaw was also made up to appear to be from the 1930s and dozens of period cars were parked along the road. Maple Leaf Gardens was used for all the fight scenes, and many scenes were filmed in the Distillery District. Filming also took place in Hamilton, Ontario at the harbour for the dock workers' scene. The main apartment was shot north of St. Clair Avenue on Lauder Avenue on the east side. An awning was put up for a dress shop, later turned into a real coffee shop. The Toronto Transit Commission's historic Peter Witt streetcar and two more cars from the nearby Halton County Radial Railway were used for the filming, travelling on Toronto's existing streetcar tracks. Release. In a campaign to boost ticket sales after the film's disappointing opening, AMC Theatres advertised on June 24, 2005 that in 30 markets (about 150 theaters nationwide), it would offer a refund to any ticket-buyer dissatisfied with the film. The advertisement, published in "The New York Times" and other papers and on internet film sites, read, "AMC believes "Cinderella Man" is one of the finest motion pictures of the year! We believe so strongly that you'll enjoy "Cinderella Man" we're offering a Money Back Guarantee." The promotion moderately increased box office revenue for a short period, while at least 50 patrons demanded refunds. Following suit, Cinemark Theatres also offered a money-back guarantee in 25 markets that did not compete with AMC Theaters. AMC had last employed such a strategy (in limited markets) for the 1988 release of "Mystic Pizza", while 20th Century Fox had unsuccessfully tried a similar ploy for its 1994 remake of "Miracle on 34th Street". Reaction. Critical reception and box office. The film received positive reviews from most critics. Rotten Tomatoes judged it "Certified Fresh" with a score of 80%, based on reviews from 207 critics.
1553890	Ken Jenkins (born August 28, 1940) is an American actor, best known for his role as Dr. Bob Kelso, the Chief of Medicine on the American comedy "Scrubs". In 1969, he co-founded the Actors Theatre of Louisville and served as the Associate Artistic Director for three years. This institution has produced playwrights such as Beth Henley and Marsha Norman. Jenkins previously appeared on the series "Adult Math", as well as episodes of "Homefront", "The X-Files" (episode "Medusa", season 8), "Babylon 5", "", the Season three premiere episode of "" and "Early Edition" (episode "Deadline", season 3). He has appeared in the movies "Executive Decision", "The Abyss", "Air America", "Last Man Standing", "Fled", "Gone in 60 Seconds", "I Am Sam", "The Sum of All Fears", "Matewan", "Courage Under Fire" and the 1998 remake of "Psycho". He appeared as the father of Fran Goldsmith in Stephen King's TV miniseries, "The Stand". Jenkins also had a role in "Clockstoppers". Jenkins can sing and play the acoustic guitar, and is seen doing so on the "Scrubs" episodes "My Tuscaloosa Heart" and "My Musical". Jenkins also has a recurring role on "Cougar Town" since October 27, 2010, as the father of Jules (played by Courteney Cox). Jenkins also appears in The Blanks' music video for "Guy Love" as the owner of an L.A. bar. Personal life and family. He married artist Joan Patchen in 1958, they divorced in 1969. Together, they had three sons, Matthew, Joshua and Daniel, alongside whom he played a role in the Broadway production of "Big River" (1985). In January 1970, Jenkins married his current wife, actress Katharine Houghton (the niece of Katharine Hepburn).
1060425	Dermot Mulroney (born October 31, 1963) is an American actor and director. Early life. Mulroney was born in Alexandria, Virginia. His mother, Ellen, was a housewife and amateur actress originally from Manchester, Iowa, and his father, Michael Mulroney, was a law professor (and amateur racecar driver) at Villanova University School of Law, originally from Elkader, Iowa. He has a sister, Moira, and three brothers, Conor, Kieran (who is also an actor), and Sean. Moira formerly worked in the Philadelphia DA's office as an assistant district attorney and later at WXPN, an FM radio station in Philadelphia, but now works elsewhere in the non-profit industry. Some of Mulroney's ancestors immigrated from County Donegal and County Mayo in Ireland during the Irish Potato Famine; he is of mostly Irish descent, with more distant German ancestry. Mulroney attended Maury Elementary School and played cello in school and city youth orchestras, as well as acting in children's community theater. Mulroney attended the Interlochen Arts Camp as a cellist. He later attended T. C. Williams High School (grad. 1981) as well as Northwestern University (grad. 1985) in Evanston, Illinois, where he was a member of the fraternity of Phi Gamma Delta. Career. Most of his lead performances have been in romantic comedy films. Mulroney has appeared in many movies, including as the male lead in "My Best Friend's Wedding" alongside Julia Roberts and Cameron Diaz. He is probably best known for his western roles as either an outlaw or gunman. Mulroney co-starred in the 1988 western "Young Guns", for which he is possibly best known, in which he played "Dirty Steve" alongside Emilio Estevez, and in 1994 he starred with Mickey Rourke in "The Last Outlaw", which has since become a cult classic among western genre fans. Mulroney also played the love interest of Madeleine Stowe in the western "Bad Girls". He first gained critical acclaim in the film "Longtime Companion", portraying a young man with HIV during the early days of the outbreak of the virus, who becomes the first of his group of friends to succumb to the disease. He was also in the ensemble film "The Family Stone" starring Sarah Jessica Parker. In 2005, he played a "date-for-hire" character alongside Debra Messing in "The Wedding Date". He was also in the movie "Abduction" as Martin Price. Mulroney played Gavin Mitchell on the TV series, "Friends". His character dated Rachel for one episode but they broke up when it became too complicated between them because of Ross. In 1993, he wrote the song "Someone Else's Used Guitar" for Peter Bogdanovich's "The Thing Called Love". Mulroney also had a cameo in the Joaquin Phoenix directed video "Tired of Being Sorry" for Balthazar Getty's band Ringside. Mulroney also is credited as a song performer on the movie and for four other tunes, as well as acting in the movie. In 2007, Mulroney voiced Green Lantern Hal Jordan in the animated series "The Batman" in the season 5 episode "Ring Toss". He occasionally reads stories on the WBEZ Chicago Public Radio radio. In 2012, Mulroney played the love interest of Zooey Deschanel, Russell, in the Fox series "New Girl". In 2013, he portrayed the titular starring role in the psychotronic horror film The Rambler, which premiered at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival. In 2011, Mulroney directed the film "Love, Wedding, Marriage". Personal life. Mulroney married actress Catherine Keener in 1990 after they met in 1987 when filming "Survival Quest". The couple separated in May 2005 and filed for divorce June 11, 2007, citing irreconcilable differences. The divorce was final on December 19, 2007. They have a son named Clyde Keener Mulroney (born June 21, 1999). Mulroney is an accomplished cellist, and in 2005 appeared alongside Boyd Tinsley for Alanis Morissette's show at the House of Blues in Hollywood. He played cello in the song "Place Your Hand" from Melissa Etheridge's 1992 album "Never Enough", on the EP for Rain Phoenix's band papercranes, and on the score to ' (2006) and '. Mulroney (cello and mandolin) and his brother Kieran (violin and accordion) were both members of the punk-folk band Low and Sweet Orchestra which included members of The Pogues and The Circle Jerks. He is now a member of Cranky George, together with his brother and James Fearnley of the Pogues.
583294	Dilip Prabhavalkar is an Indian Marathi film, television and theatre actor. Although he established himself as a prominent Marathi stage and movie actor, he became particularly known on the national scene for his portrayal of Mahatma Gandhi in the 2006 film, "Lage Raho Munna Bhai". He reprised the role of Gandhi in the Telugu language remake, "Shankar Dada Zindabad". Apart from acting, Prabhavalkar is author of many plays and children's story books. Background. Dilip Prabhavalkar obtained bachelors degree in Chemistry from Ramnarain Ruia College, Matunga. Dilip Prabhavalkar gained a Master's degree in Biophysics and a diploma from the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, Mumbai, before working for a pharmaceutical company and as a partner in a video production unit. During this period, he performed as an actor in several children's and experimental plays staged at Chhabildas. Dilip Prabhavalkar is by far one of the finest thespians on Marathi stage today. His career, spanning a period of over thirty years, encompasses his accomplishments from the children's theatre and experimental stage to professional Marathi theatre, television serials and films. The following is a brief overview of his contribution and achievements in each of these fields. Acting. His first major performance was in "Lobh Nasava Hi Vinanti" a play written by Vijay Tendulkar and directed by Arvind Deshpande. In 1991, he decided to choose acting as a career. In children's and amateur theatre, Prabhavalkar was associated with Ratnakar Matkari's group and performed in all the plays staged by the troupe. His performances of a simpleton in "Prem Kahani" and Vidur in "Aranyak" — a play based on the Mahabharat — were awarded prizes at the Maharashtra State Drama Festival. He gained huge popularity because of his role as Chimanrao in the television serial "Chimanrao Gundyabhau" based on a series of short stories by C.V. Joshi. His Chimanrao is still popular and he recreated this character in his play "Hasva Phasvi". Dilip Prabhavalkar starred in a Bollywood movie "" as an old gangster, Punappa Avade in 2002. He achieved nationwide recognition when he portrayed Mahatma Gandhi in 2006's "Lage Raho Munna Bhai". The film created a nationwide awareness of Gandhian thoughts through the protagonist Munnabhai played by Sanjay Dutt. He reprised his role in the Telugu remake called "Shankar Dada Zindabad". From the experimental stage, Prabhavalkar very easily moved to the professional stage in 1976, and since then has given several brilliant performances in a variety of plays of different categories - from slapstick to light comedy, family drama and melodrama, to serious discussion plays dealing with contemporary issues. The following few examples indicate the vastitude of his range and his capabilities: His acting in a Marathi TV serial "Shriyut Gangadhar Tipare", as Gangadhar Tipare gained a huge popularity. In this serial he portrayed an elderly member of a joint family. The serial covered social issues faced by common man in day-to-day life.
1225412	Regina Taylor (born August 22, 1960) is an American actress and playwright. She has won several awards throughout her career, including a Golden Globe Award and NAACP Image Award. Biography. Taylor was born in Dallas, Texas, but starting at age 12 she went to a newly integrated school in Muskogee, Oklahoma, where she was subjected to an incident of racism by another student. The family later returned to Dallas, where she graduated from L. G. Pinkston High School in 1977. Acting. Her earliest professional acting roles were two made-for-television films while she was studying at Southern Methodist University: 1980's "Nurse" and 1981's "Crisis at Central High". In the latter movie, she was praised by critic John O'Connor of "The New York Times" for her portrayal of Minnijean Brown, a member of the Little Rock Nine, a group of African-American students who braved violence and armed guards to integrate Little Rock Central High School in 1957. Her first role to gain widespread attention was that of Mrs. Carter, the drug-addicted mother of a promising young female student, in the 1989 film "Lean on Me". She became well-known to the television viewing public for her role as Lilly Harper on the early 1990s TV series "I'll Fly Away". This role won her a and also an NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Actress in a Drama Series. Since then she has had some critical success for various supporting roles in films, such as the Spike Lee film "Clockers", "Courage Under Fire", "A Family Thing", "The Negotiator", and for the telefilms "Losing Isaiah" and "Strange Justice" — a Showtime original film in which she portrayed Anita Hill — and as the lead in the PBS telefilm "Cora Unashamed", based on a Langston Hughes short story. She was a cast member for all four seasons of the CBS drama "The Unit" as Molly Blane, the tough-minded housewife who holds the women of "the Unit" together when their husbands are on covert assignments.
584513	Thodarum () () is a Tamil film directed by Ramesh Khanna featuring Ajith Kumar, Devayani and Heera in the leading roles. The supporting cast of Manivannan, Vadivelu and Gemini Ganesan also play pivotal roles in the film. It was released on 14 January 1999. The film was a remake of 1996 Malayalam film "Kunkumacheppu" starring Manoj K. Jayan, Shobana and Priya Raman. Plot. Seetha (Devayani) is a possessive wife who suspects that all the women in the world are throwing themselves at her husband, Jayaram (Ajith Kumar). Things get a little interesting only after Meera (Heera) enters the picture and ends up hugging Jayaram right in front of Seetha's eyes. Seetha is diagnosed with a deadly heart condition and decides to have Jayaram and Meera to tie the knot for the sake of a good life for her young son. She even goes as far as getting a divorce from Jayaram to make him hate her. In the end, Seetha dies while giving birth to a female child and Jayaram and Meena gets married by naming the baby as Seetha. Production. The film was a remake of 1996 Malayalam film "Kunkumacheppu" starring Manoj K. Jayan, Shobana and Priya Raman which was also remade in Telugu as "Maavichiguru" starring Jagapati Babu, Aamani. Actor Ramesh Khanna made his debut as a director with the film after working as an apprentice to K. S. Ravikumar. "Thodarum" remains Ramesh Kanna's first and only directorial so far. Release. The film extracted poor reviews upon release, with a critic form Indolink.com citing that the "cinematography and direction provide no room for discussion" and that "Devayani appears painfully artificial". The "New Indian Express" also gave the film a critical review citing that "the director tries hard to avoid small puddles of cliches, but unfortunately falls into an ocean instead" but claims that Devayani gives a "wonderfully controlled performance", while Heera and Ajith are just "adequate". Soundtrack. Soundtrack is composed by Ilayaraja. Lyrics for the songs were written by Pazhanibharathi, Gangai Amaran, Kamakodiyan, M. Mehta, Arivumathi, Pulamaipithan.
583864	Vandae Maatharam is a 2010 Indian bilingual action film directed by Tamil director T. Aravind. The film features Mammootty in the lead role and Arjun, Sneha in supporting roles along with Shraddha Arya, Rajkapoor, Nassar, Jai Akash, Jagadish, Deepak J. D. and Rajan P. Dev. The film was simultaneously made and released in Malayalam and Tamil and was later dubbed in Telugu. The story revolves around the investigation and how two police officers, played by Mammootty and Arjun, eradicate the terrorists from entering the border. The film was released overseas on 10 September 2010 and later in India on 17 September 2010. Plot. Gopikrishnan (Mammootty) and Anwar Hussain (Arjun) are tough police officers. They analyse farmers struggle and related social violence to put forward an amicable solution to have lasting harmony. They are highly disturbed by the terrorists' infiltrations. Nandini (Sneha), an aviator, is Gopikrishnan's wife and they are sad that they don't have a child. The rest of the story deals with how they counter act against the terrorists and save the land. Production. The shooting started by the middle of 2007 and later on the story was modified due to some personal problems. The film was started with Karthi as the director, but after the first schedule the producer Henry, who also wrote the script, replaced him with debutante T. Aravind. The film was shot at locations in Kochi, Chennai, Marthandam and Thengapattanam. It took 100 days of shooting and ten schedules to complete the film. The Tamil version was initially titled Aruvadi but was later changed to "Vandae Maatharam" too. The audio launch was held on July 3, 2010 and the movie was all set to release on the eve of Ramzan, 10 September 2010 in both Tamil and Malayalam. But at the last moment, it couldn't make it to the theatres. Then, it was released on 17 September 2010. Amitabh Bachchan was approached to do a pivotal role in the movie, but as he was not able to allocate the call sheets, Nassar played the role. Two heroines were signed, Sneha was paired with Mammootty and played the role of a pilot, the other heroine Shraddha Arya was paired with Arjun and played the role of an ornithologist. In 2007, A. R. Rahman was approached to score the music of the film. But during that time, he was busy with the composing work of Jodhaa Akbar. Vidyasagar was reported to compose five songs; but at the end it turned out that D. Imman was the composer. Stunts director for the film was the renowned stunt director Allan Amin. The budget of the film has been stated to be 17 crores Reception. Sify and Nowrunnig give the film 2/5 saying, "The done to death patriotic theme receives no fresh makeover in the film. If only it had paid more attention to that feeble script instead of raking up all that clatter and clamor on screen, would it have made more sense". Soundtrack. The soundtrack features six songs composed by D. Imman and lyrics penned by Mankombu Gopalakrishnan and Vayalar Sarath Chandra Varma for the Malayalam version and Vairamuthu, Snehan, Nandalala and Viveka for the Tamil version. The albums were released on July 3, 2010. A patriotic song penned by Vairamuthu was rendered by ten singers: D. Imman, Harish Raghavendra, Vijay Yesudas, Haricharan, Naresh Iyer, Krish, Pop Shalini, Mathangi, Srilekha Parthasarathy and Chinmayi.
583798	Vedham Pudhithu ( ) (1987), starring Sathyaraj and Amala is a critically acclaimed Tamil movie, directed by Bharathiraja. Charuhasan, Saritha, Raja and 'Nizhalgal' Ravi played supporting roles in the movie. The story and dialogue was written by Kannan. This is one of the few films that highlights some of the issues caused by the Caste system. The film's narrative was seamless and starred Sathyaraj as "Balu Thevar". It contains some of Bharathiraja's trademark directorial touches as well as a lot of path breaking scenes, along with Kannan's powerful dialogues. Reception. The movie was a super hit at the box office and went on complete 150 days on the screens making it second consecutive Victory for Sathyaraj-Bharathiraja duo. Plot. Balu Thevar (Sathyaraj) and Saritha live in a village and belong to a land-owning warrior caste (Thevar), held lower in the Vedic caste system hierarchy than Brahmins. Balu Thevar though, is an atheist and speaks openly against the caste system, but is nevertheless tolerated by the villagers because he is generous in helping others in need. Their son, Raja, has just returned from the city having completed his education. He meets Amala, who is the daughter of a Brahmin Sastri (Priest), and they fall in love. Both of their parents discover their love and Amala's father tries to marry her off to another man in a neighboring village. On the way, Amala fakes her suicide to escape the marriage, and hides in a house (Nizhalgal Ravi's) that she happens to pass by. In the meantime, thinking that Amala is really dead, Amala's father confronts Raja and accuses him of causing her death. During the discussion, they slip and fall into the waterfall and both men die. At this point, Amala's younger brother (named Sankara - a play on Adi Sankaracarya, the founder of the Monistic system of Hindu Vedic Philosophy called Advaita Vedanta), who is devoutly studying the Vedas and passing through the student phase of his Brahmin life, is left an orphan. Being considered inauspicious, since his mother, father, and sister are all dead, no one from the Brahmin community wants to take care of him. He thus wanders the streets begging for food. Balu Thevar is bothered by this, and having lost his own son, he takes him home to raise him as his own son. They give up eating meat, so as not to offend the boy. However, since the boy has been eating in a lower caste home, he is rejected by his community from learning the Vedas. Sarita (the wife) is enraged, and promises to educate the boy instead in an English medium school. Balu Thevar makes fun of the boy telling him that it is not important to learn Vedas and worry about caste. At this point, the boy points out Balu Thevar's hypocrisy, at his preference for using his caste name (Thevar), while at the same time professing against the caste system. Sathyaraj sees the merit in this argument, and immediately after this abandons all his weapons (symbols of his warrior Thevar caste) by immersing them in a river, and stops referring to himself by his caste name, going only by "Balu". Amala, not knowing of Raja and her own father's death, tells Nizhalgal Ravi about her love, after which he promises to reunite them. There's a beautiful and sad song here where she imagines her happy future. Nizhalgal Ravi comes to the village and finds out what has happened and informs Amala. Amala then sadly returns to her village, and informs Saritha (the wife) to take care of her younger brother for the rest of his life and prepares to leave. Meanwhile, Janakaraj, a Brahmin who had wanted to marry Amala, but was rebuked pulicly by her, sees Amala return. He riles up the villagers of Amala's return and cites that it's extremely inauspicious for the village, since her last death rites have already been performed. He also states that it is not proper for Brahmins to live in a non-Brahmin house. He then sets some hay on fire and tells the villages it's the god's disapproval of these two crimes. He assembles a parade of villagers towards Balu (Sathyaraj)'s house with weapons, and they demand Balu to kick out Amala from his home. Balu refuses, a fight breaks out, and in the ensuing scuffle, he is stabbed and dies. His final request is for the villagers to live in unity, and not let caste divide them. In the poignant and controversial closing scene, Sankara the young boy, who has now lost two fathers, is seen alone in the twilight hour of the holy Sandhya ritual, removing his Brahminical sacred thread (invested only upon the upper castes) and immersing it in a nearby stream, disgusted with, and in open defiance of the hypocrisies of strict Brahminical casteist beliefs, while performing the last funeral rites of Balu Thevar as though he were his own son. Music. The film has music composed by Devendran while written by Vairamuthu. The songs, including "Kannukkul Nooru Nilava," were a hit. It is a common misconception that the music was composed by veteran South Indian composer Ilaiyaraaja.
1046969	(born Bert Cooper; October 18, 1934March 29, 2007) was a Bahamian-American actor on stage and in film. He was best known for the role of a big-time gangster "Biggie Smalls" in the 1975 film "Let's Do It Again", not to be confused with the deceased rapper Biggie Smalls. Christopher Wallace took the alias from Lockhart's character before a lawsuit forced Wallace to change it to Notorious B.I.G. Lockhart was survived by his wife Jennifer L. Miles and sons Leslie Cooper (deceased 2009) and Julien Miles. Acting career. Lockart was born in Nassau, Bahamas, moving to New York City when he was 18. He spent one year at the Cooper Union School of Engineering, then left to pursue an acting career. He drove a taxi and operated a carpentry business in the borough of Queens while trying to establish a career as an actor. In 1960 he made his Broadway debut, playing a gang leader in "The Cool World", which closed after just two performances. He then travelled to Italy and formed his own theater company in which he both acted and directed, before moving to West Germany and then England, where he landed various roles on British television and small roles in films such as "A Dandy in Aspic" and "Salt and Pepper". Lockhart's first notable screen role was in "Joanna", a 1967 film about an interracial romance, set in London, in which he played a nightclub owner and the boyfriend of star Genevieve Waite. "Joanna" was directed by Michael Sarne, the British director who subsequently cast Lockhart in the notorious "Myra Breckinridge", starring Raquel Welch and Mae West. Lockhart's first lead role in a movie was in the 1970 release "Halls of Anger". He played an English teacher and former basketball star who becomes vice-principal of an inner-city high school to which 60 white students are being moved. An article in "The New York Times" that year described Lockhart as having "matinee-idol looks" with "chiseled-out-of-marble features" and "skin the color of brown velvet". He also starred in Ossie Davis's "Cotton Comes to Harlem" (1970) as the Reverend Deke O'Malley, who is under investigation by the movie's main characters. In 1974 Lockhart became an actor-in-residence at the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford-upon-Avon, England. In the 1980s he was a guest star for seven episodes in the prime-time soap opera "Dynasty", playing Jonathan Lake, a love interest of the character Dominique Deveraux played by Diahann Carroll. He is familiar to horror film fans after his performance as the millionaire big-game hunter in "The Beast Must Die". released in 1974 by British studio Amicus and also starring Peter Cushing. Later years. Lockhart returned to the Bahamas in the late 1990s and worked as a director on several productions of the Freeport Players Guild. He married New York interior designer Jennifer L. Miles, the mother of his son, actor Julien Lockhart Miles. Lockhart's last film role was in "Rain", a movie that was shot in the Bahamas and was released in 2007. Lockhart died in a Nassau hospital from stroke-related complications. His wife and son indicated they would establish the Calvin Lockhart Scholarship Fund for Bahamian students interested in acting and movie production. References. Television 1970's Played "Raymond" in Good Times; as Florida Evans Gambler Cousin.
1066937	Martha Marcy May Marlene is a 2011 American drama thriller film written and directed by Sean Durkin, and starring Elizabeth Olsen, John Hawkes, Sarah Paulson, and Hugh Dancy. The plot focuses on a young woman suffering from delusions and paranoia after returning to her family from an abusive cult in the Catskill Mountains. The film contains several references to the music of Jackson C. Frank. Plot. Early one morning, Martha flees from an abusive cult in the Catskill Mountains that is led by an enigmatic leader, Patrick. She is briefly pursued by another member of the group, Watts, to a nearby diner. He encourages Martha to return, but she refuses. Outside the diner, Martha phones her sister Lucy, eventually asking for her help. Lucy picks her up from a nearby bus station and takes Martha to her lake house in Connecticut which she shares with her husband, Ted. Martha only tells Lucy that she had been living with her boyfriend in the Catskill Mountains, leaving out all mention of the cult. While sunbathing, Martha asks Lucy how far they currently are from where Lucy picked her up, to which Lucy replies "About three hours." At the lake, Martha removes all her clothing to swim in the nude, and Lucy scolds her for it. During the following days, Martha continues to exhibit unusual behavior, with little regard for the norms of conventional American society.
1151907	Shredderman Rules is a 2007 television film based on Wendelin Van Draanen's "Shredderman" book series. It originally aired on Nickelodeon along with the series finale episode of "Ned's Declassified" on June 9, 2007, and had 3.9 million viewers. The film is also the first film to be aired under the Nickelodeon Original Movie banner. The film stars "Ned's Declassified School Survival Guide'"s Devon Werkheiser as Nolan Byrd (also known as "Shredderman"). "Shredderman Rules" chronicles Nolan's attempts at stopping Bubba Bixby (Andrew Caldwell) from bullying him by setting up a website with the pen name of "Shredderman." Plot. Devon Werkheiser plays Nolan Byrd, an 8th grader who, along with many other kids, is bullied by Bubba Bixby (Andrew Caldwell) When his teacher, Mr. Green (Tim Meadows) announces that he wants his class to do a multimedia project, Nolan decides to do his project on Bubba. Nolan goes undercover, spies on Bubba, films him bullying kids at his school, and airs it on his new website www.shreddermanrules.com.
586695	Navin Nischol (18 March 1946 – 19 March 2011) was an Indian actor. He made his debut with the Hindi film "Sawan Bhadon" in 1970. Early life. Navin Nischol studied in Bangalore Military School, Bangalore erstwhile King George Royal India Military College, Bangalore. He was the first gold medalist from the Film and Television Institute of India to make it big. He starred in several superhits, such as "Victoria No. 203" (1972) and "Dhund" (1973). "Hanste Zakhm" was the great breakthrough of his career. Later on, Nischol switched to character roles and carved out a successful career for himself in television. One of his most successful serials on television was "Dekh Bhai Dekh", co-starring Sushma Seth, Shekhar Suman and Farida Jalal. He also starred in the Punjabi films "Aasra Pyar Da" (1983) and "Mahaul Theek Hai" (1999). Personal life. Navin was first married to Dev Anand's niece, Neelu Kapur, sister of Shekhar Kapur. After Neelu found out that Navin was having an affair with starlet Padmini Kapila, she divorced him and turned to Christianity. Shortly after that Padmini started having an affair with director Prakash Mehra and broke up with Navin. Navin then had an affair with Pimma, a Delhi based married woman with two children. Navin married divorcée Geetanjali. On 24 April 2006, Geetanjali hanged herself at her residence. She blamed Navin and his brother Pravin for her suicide. Nischol died of a heart attack on 19 March 2011 "en route" from Mumbai to Pune. He was 65 years old. Public Reaction to Death. Rishi Kapoor, Bollywood actor, said "I had directed Navin in Aa Ab Laut Chalein. A goodlooking man and a good human being. Very cultured and a great conversationalist. I bumped into him after ages at the Otters Club on Friday night. I don't frequent Otters Club. So in hindsight it all seems providential. The next morning he was supposed to drive with producer Gawa (Gurdeep Singh) and my brother Daboo (Randhir Kapoor) to Pune to spend a quiet Holi there. But before Gawa and Navin could reach Daboo, Navin asked Gawa to lower AC in the car. Then he just slumped and died... Just like that! It's too shocking and sad." Vipul Shah, Bollywood director, said "He was a regular at my dear friend Manmohan Shetty's parties. A really softpoken and cultured man. It is sad that his career didn't take off again after Khosla Ka Ghosla." Dibakar Banerjee, who directed Navin Nischol in Khosla Ka Ghosla, said "He was an effortless actor, superb technically. He had a pickled sense of humour. He had been through all the turns of life that an actor could possibly experience. My misfortune that I couldn't work with him again. I dearly wanted to." Kunal Kohli, producer of Nitin's film "Break Ke Baad", recalls, "He was a thorough gentleman. A very warm person. I had wonderful conversations with him. He shared stories of past films and filmmakers with me. I'd just listen to him as enraptured as a child hearing fairytales. In the evening of his life he wanted to share his experiences. I feel privileged I spent evenings hearing him talk about the past. I think I'm a richer human being because of those evenings with Navinji." Shabana Azmi, Bollywood actress, said "I remember Navin fondly. He was an underrated actor who had a very good voice and flawless diction both of which are rare. His performance in Lekh Tandon's Ek Baar Kaho is gentle, sophisticated and memorable. He used to often reminisce about his overnight stardom and the cruelty with which it was snatched away. It made him sometimes bitter, sometimes philosophical but he came to terms with it and moved on. His performance in Nagesh Kukoonoor's film Bollywood Calling as an aging filmstar was very moving. My condolences to the family."
1163108	Gabriel Damon (born April 23, 1976) is an American actor.
588183	Tu Chor Main Sipahi (In Hindi - तु चोर, मै सिपाही) is a film casting Akshay Kumar, Saif Ali Khan, Tabu and Pratibha Sinha in the lead roles. It was released on May 10, 1996 and is directed by Guddu Dhanoa. The screenplay has been written by Robin Henry Plot. Raja (Saif Ali Khan) is a notorious criminal mainly robbing well to do people. Amar (Akshay Kumar) is a macho police officer tracking him and willing to do anything to catch him. Roles are reversed when Amar loses his memory and ends up in a remote village where Raja is posing a police officer. They both team up to help the villagers from a ruthless man, Thakur Gajendar Singh (Amrish Puri). Music. Music by: Dilip Sen-Sameer Sen Tracks are listed below.
1377300	The Cheetah Girls 2 (also known as The Cheetah Girls: When in Spain or The Cheetah Girls 2: When in Spain) is the 2006 sequel to the Disney Channel Original Movie, "The Cheetah Girls." Its premiere received the highest ratings of all Disney Channel Movies at its time, a total of over 8.1 million viewers, beating the premiere ratings of "High School Musical" (7.7 million), and beating previous highest rated DCOM record holder, "Cadet Kelly" (7.8 million) as well as becoming the highest rated "Cheetah Girls" movie in the trilogy. The sequel is about a talented teen quartet who take a whirlwind tour of Spain to pursue their dreams of pop superstardom. Unlike its predecessor which incorporated karaoke-like musical numbers, "The Cheetah Girls 2" turned into more of a musical. Originally planned for release in theaters, but average change due to failure of Ice Princess. This is also the last film in the series to star Raven-Symoné. The film is currently the 7th highest-rated Disney Channel Original Movie and was the highest-rated Disney Channel Original Movie of the year 2006. Plot. The movie begins in Manhattan, three years after the first movie, where the Cheetah Girls have just completed their junior year and are performing at a Graduation Party for the Manhattan Magnet's Class of 2006 ("The Party's Just Begun").
583919	Biography. Bharath (; born on 21 July 1981) is an Indian actor, who appears in Tamil films. He is (Boys 2003) entry tamil movies bprobably best known for his critically acclaimed performances in "Chellamae" (2004), "Kaadhal" (2004), "Pattiyal" (2005) and "Veyil" (2006). Personal life. Bharath Srinivasan was born in Trichy into a Hindu, Family. He has a sister named Preethi. Bharath is a trained dancer by profession. He joined Swingers International Dance club when he was 11 years old. He did his schooling at DAV Senior Secondary School, Anna Nagar, and studied at The New College, Chennai. Bharath got married to Dubai based dentist Dr.Jeshly Joshua Receptionat Hotel Leela Palace, Chennai on 14 September . Career. Bharath made his acting debut in the 2003 Tamil film "Boys" directed by S. Shankar, in which he played the guitarist of a boy band. He was selected for the role, after Shankar had seen him performing at a dance programme "Inspirations" at the Music Academy by Swingers. In 2004, he first appeared in his first and only Malayalam film till date, the Jayaraj-directed vigilante film "4 The People", portraying one of the four protagonists. Supported by a highly popular soundtrack by Jassie Gift, the film went on to become a blockbuster, grossing 10 crores at the Kerala box office and turning out the highest-grossing Malayalam film of that year. The film was subsequently dubbed into Tamil as "4 Students", and Telugu as "Yuvasena", with its Tamil version emerging a box office success as well. Later that year, he essayed the antagonist role in "Chellamae", alongside Vishal and Reema Sen. His portrayal of Vishwa, a possessive teenager who kidnaps his childhood friend he is obsessed with and married to someone else, was appreciated by critics. It also was an boxoffice success. He played his first starring role in Balaji Sakthivel's romantic-drama film "Kaadhal" that featured him as a poor mechanic who falls in love and elopes with a wealthy 12th standard student, portrayed by then debutante Sandhya. The film, produced by Shankar, received critical acclaim and was also commercially successful. Also, his performance as the naïve but sweet lover was highly praised. "Pattiyal", a gangster thriller in which he shared screen space with Arya, was his first release in 2006. The Vishnuvardhan-directorial opened to very positive critical response and went to become a high financial success, with Bharath garnering accolades for his performance as a deaf and dumb hitman Later that year, he starred in "Azhagai Irukkirai Bayamai Irukkirathu", "Em Magan", "Chennai Kadhal" and "Veyil". While "Chennai Kadhal", a romance film by Vikraman, bombed at the box office, Thirumurugan's family drama film "Em Magan" was declared a hit film. He has received great accolades for "Veyyil", which also emerged a commercial success and was selected for screening at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival. Following "Veyyil", Bharath experienced a setback in his career as his subsequent releases—with the exception of "Pazhani"—proved to be commercially successful. He was facing an "image crisis" as he signed up for action and masala films and went on play repetitive roles as a "larger than life angry young man", essaying "small town rowdy" or "guy seeking revenge" roles. "Koodal Nagar", in which he starred alongside Bhavana and Sandhya, was his only release in 2007. He portrayed a dual role in the film which was a box office flop. In 2008 he appeared in Perarasu's "Pazhani", which was a commercial success, following which Nepali, directed by Dhurai was released. Though the film is considered a box office bomb, Bharath received rave reviews for his performance. That year he had two more releases, "Muniyandi Vilangial Moonramandu", which saw him collaborating with the "Em Magan" team again, and Hari's "Seval", none of which succeeded. In 2009 he acted in "Arumugam", directed by Suresh Krishna and "Kandein Kadhalai", the Tamil remake of the 2007 Hindi blockbuster "Jab We Met". The latter featured him in a totally contrasting role as a rich businessman, and became his only commercial success in two years. In 2010, he had a single release with "Thambikku Indha Ooru" which became a critical and commercial failure. In 2011, he appeared in the multi-starrer "Vaanam" as Bharath Chakravarthy, a guitarist, with the film becoming a successful venture at the box office. Post-release, Bharath clashed with the producer and another actor in the film, Silambarasan, claiming he did not receive as much promotion and publicity as Silambarasan's character. His next film, the romantic comedy "Yuvan Yuvathi" with Rima Kallingal released to mixed reviews, while the action-masala film "Thiruthani" also became a commercial failure. He was also subsequently seen in an extended guest appearance in Vasanthabalan's "Aravaan". In 2013, his much awaited romantic thriller film "Ainthu Ainthu Ainthu (555)" released in August. The film which was directed by Sasi received positive reviews from critics as well as audiences. In this film, Bharath sported six pack and his transformation from an urban cool dude to a steel gritted toned angry hunk was well praised.
1166560	Alexa Helen Nikolas (born April 4, 1992) is an American actress. She is best known for her role as Nicole Bristow on the Nickelodeon television series "Zoey 101". Nikolas has also appeared on various other series, including "ER", "Without a Trace", "Ghost Whisperer", "Criminal Minds", "The Walking Dead", and "Lie to Me". Career. Nikolas's most prominent role is that of Nicole Bristow on the Nickelodeon television series "Zoey 101", alongside Jamie Lynn Spears. In 2006, following the conclusion of the second season, Nikolas quit the series due to an "uncomfortable working environment" following numerous fights and incidents with Spears. In addition, Nikolas appeared on "Hidden Hills" regularly and also on the 2005 mini-series "Revelations". Following her departure from "Zoey 101", Nikolas guest starred on various other television series, most notably "The Suite Life of Zack & Cody", "Judging Amy", "ER", "Without a Trace", "Criminal Minds" and "Heroes". Nikolas appeared in a supporting role alongside Vanessa Hudgens in the latter's music video, "Come Back to Me". Nikolas appeared in the films "Motocross Kids" and "Tiptoes". In 2009, she appeared in the remake of "Children of the Corn", playing the role of the love interest of one of the antagonists. She also guest starred on Fox's "Lie to Me". In 2011, she appeared in the film Red State as Jesse, and that same year she appeared on Family Guy as additional voices. In spring of 2011 she filmed a zombie-comedy-horror film "Detention Of The Dead" and she plays Willow. The film is set for a spring 2013 release. She will appear in the long-awaited 2013 film "Into The Darkness" as Elsa. Nikolas got the recurring role of Haley in the television series The Walking Dead. She appeared in November 2012, and her character was killed off in February 2013. She appeared in 3 episodes total. Personal life. Nikolas gained controversy when pictures leaked online kissing singer Vanessa Hudgens. She married Mike Milosh on February 22, 2012. Awards. Young Artist Awards
1066465	"Gregory's Girl" is a 1981 Scottish coming-of-age romantic comedy film written and directed by Bill Forsyth and starring John Gordon Sinclair, Dee Hepburn and Clare Grogan. The film is set in and around a state secondary school in the Abronhill district of Cumbernauld. Clare Grogan's performance helped promote her career, as she was in the band Altered Images at the time of the film's release. "Gregory's Girl" was ranked #30 in the British Film Institute's list of the top 100 British films and #29 on "Entertainment Weekly"s list of the 50 best high school movies. Plot. Gregory Underwood (John Gordon Sinclair) is an awkward teenager who plays in his school football team. They are not doing very well, so the coach (Jake D'Arcy) holds a trial to find new players, with Gregory being moved to goal. Dorothy (Dee Hepburn), turns up and, despite the coach's sexist misgivings, proves to be a very good player. She subsequently takes Gregory's place as centre forward, and Gregory in turn replaces his friend Andy (Robert Buchanan) as goalkeeper. Gregory is all for her making the team, as he finds her very attractive. However, he has to compete for her attention with all the other boys who share the same opinion. Gregory initially confides in his best friend Steve (William Greenlees), the most mature of Gregory's circle of friends, and asks him for help in attracting Dorothy. Steve, however, is unable to assist him. Acting on the advice of his ten-year-old sister, Madeleine (Allison Forster), he awkwardly asks Dorothy out on a date. She accepts, but Dorothy's friend, Carol (Caroline Guthrie), shows up at the rendezvous instead and informs Gregory that something had come up; Dorothy will not be able to make it. He is disappointed, but Carol talks him into taking her to the chip shop. When they get there, she hands him off to another friend, Margo (Carol Macartney), and leaves. By this point, he is rather confused, but goes for a walk with the new girl. On their stroll, they encounter a waiting Susan (Clare Grogan), another of Dorothy's friends, and Margo leaves. Susan confesses that she had wanted to date Gregory, and that it was all arranged by her friends, including Dorothy. She explains, "It's just the way girls work. They help each other." They go to the park and talk. At the date's end, Gregory is more than pleased with the girl he ended up with, and the two kiss on his doorstep before calling it a night and arranging a second date. Madeleine, Gregory's sister, quizzes him on his date. Gregory's friends, Andy and Charlie (Graham Thompson), are even more inept with girls but see Gregory at various times, never with fewer than three beauties, and are envious of his seeming success. They try to hitchhike to Caracas, where Andy has heard the women greatly outnumber the men, but fail at that as well. Production. Many of the young actors were members of the Glasgow Youth Theatre, and had appeared in Forsyth's earlier film, "That Sinking Feeling" (1980), including Robert Buchanan, Billy Greenlees, and John Gordon Sinclair. Hepburn was spotted by Forsyth dancing in a television commercial for a Scottish department store, and after casting given six weeks of intensive football training at Partick Thistle F.C. Filming of exterior scenes at Gregory's school took place at Abronhill High School. As the film had a small budget, the actors supplied many of their own clothes; Hepburn's white shorts were borrowed from her sister. A person in a penguin costume is seen at various points in the film for no apparent reason. Inside the suit was Christopher Higson, son of production manager Peter Higson. The film was re-dubbed with rather Anglicized Scottish accents for the original American theatrical release. Both versions are available on the American DVD release. The films cast reunited for the 30th anniversary of its release in 2010, and a clip from the film featuring Hepburn was part of the opening ceremony from the London 2012 Summer Olympics. Reception. Critical response. Film critic Roger Ebert liked the film's direction, and wrote "Bill Forsyth's "Gregory's Girl" is a charming, innocent, very funny little movie about the weird kid. ... The movie contains so much wisdom about being alive and teenage and vulnerable that maybe it would even be painful for a teenager to see it. ... Maybe only grown-ups should see this movie. You know, people who have gotten over the pains of unrequited love (hollow laugh)." The staff at "Variety" liked the work of the young cast and Forsyth's direction, and wrote, "Filmmaker Bill Forsyth, whose friendly, unmalicious approach recalls that of René Clair, is concerned with young students (in particular, a soccer team goalie, Gregory) seeking out the opposite sex. ... As Gregory, John Gordon Sinclair is adept at physical comedy. Hepburn is properly enigmatic as the object of his desire, with ensemble approach giving Greg's precocious 10-year-old sister played by Allison Forster a key "femme" role." Critic Richard Skorman wrote, "Forsyth does a good job of making light of the tender part in [Gregory's] teenage psyche, and his friends and little sister in particular are quirky and lovable. Unlike the film's American counterparts, "Gregory's Girl" is refreshingly free of mean-spirited characters and horny young studs bemoaning their virginity." The review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reported that 92% of critics gave the film a positive review, based on thirteen reviews." Sequel. A sequel, "Gregory's Two Girls", was released in 1999, with Sinclair reprising the role of Gregory, who by then was a 35-year-old teacher in his former secondary school. It received mixed reviews and has never been released in North American cinemas or on DVD in this region.
582890	Jodi No.1 is a 2001 Bollywood comedy film directed by David Dhawan and starring Govinda and Sanjay Dutt in the lead roles, along with Anupam Kher, Monica Bedi and Twinkle Khanna in supporting roles. It was released on 13 April 2001 and was a success at the box office. Plot. Jai (Sanjay Dutt) and Veeru (Govinda) are good friends and also partners in crime, thus their friendship is named Jodi No. 1. They first gain the confidence of people and later con them. But soon have to run from Bombay after an encounter with a local Bhai. Because they end up having a brawl with his younger brother (Rajpat Bedi) and they by accident kill him in a night club. While on the run, Jai and Veeru meet Vikram Jeet (Aashif Sheikh), an NRI, who is on his way to work as a manager, in Goa, for Rai Bahadur (Anupam Kher), a wealthy businessman who owns a beer factory. Jai pretends to be Vikram Jeet and both he and Veeru move in Rai Bahadur's house intending to be-friend then rob him. However they fall in love with Rai Bahadur's daughters and in a series of hilarious scenes save the family from Sir John.In the end while Jai is stealing money from Rai to release Veeru from Sir John the entire Rai clan is watching the news and find out that Jai and Veeru are not who they claim to be but con men who deceive people. In the end Rai then lets Jai go with the money to save Veeru and all goes well and they marry the daughters of Rai. Reception. According to "Boxofficeindia.com" the film had an excellent opening. Altogether it made Rs.28 Crores and was declared an "Above Average" grosser. It was also the fifth highest grossing film of the year. (Bollywood films of 2001).
566925	Day of Wrath () is a black-and-white film, made in 1943, by Danish director Carl Theodor Dreyer. The film is an adaptation of "Anne Pedersdotter" (1909) by the Norwegian playwright Hans Wiers-Jenssen, based on an actual Norwegian case in the sixteenth century. Plot. "Day of Wrath" is set in a Danish village in 1623 where an old woman known as Herlof's Marte (Anna Svierkier) is accused of witchcraft. Anne (Lisbeth Movin), a young woman, is married to the aged local pastor, Absalon Pedersson (Thorkild Roose), who is involved with the trials of witches, and they live in a house shared with his strict, domineering mother Meret (Sigrid Neiiendam). Meret does not approve of Anne, who is much younger than her husband, being about the same age as the son from his first marriage. Anne gives Herlof's Marte refuge, but Marte is soon discovered in the house, though she is presumed to have hidden herself there without assistance. Herlof's Marte knows that Anne's mother, already dead at the time of the events depicted, had been accused of witchcraft as well, and had been spared thanks to Absalon's intervention, who aimed at marrying young Anne. Anne is thus informed by Herlof's Marte of her mother's power over people's life and death and becomes intrigued in the matter. Absalon's son from his first marriage, Martin (Preben Lerdorff Rye), returns home from abroad and he and Anne are immediately attracted to one another. She does not love her husband and thinks he does not love her. Under torture, Herlof's Marte confesses to witchcraft, defined among other evidence as wishing for the death of other people. She threatens to expose Anne if Absalon does not rescue her from a guilty verdict, begging him to save her as he saved Anne's mother. Marte, after pleading with Absalon a second time, does not betray his secret and is burned at the stake with the villagers looking on. Absalon feels his guilt over having saved Anne's mother, but leaving Marte to burn. Anne and Martin, clandestinely growing closer, are seen as having changed in recent days, fueling Meret's suspicion of Anne's character. Anne is heard laughing in Martin's company by her husband, something which has not occurred in their time together. Absalon regrets that he married Anne without regarding her feelings and true intentions, and tells her so, apologizing for stealing her youth and happiness. A violent storm erupts while Absalon is away visiting a dying young parishioner, Laurentius (Olaf Ussing). He had been cursed by Herlof's Marte during her interrogation and she foretold an imminent death. Meanwhile, Anne and Martin are discussing the future, and she is forced to admit wishing her husband dead, but only as an "if" rather than it actually happening. At that moment Absalon, on his way home, feels "like the touching of Death itself." On Absalon's return, Anne confesses her love for Martin to her husband and tells him she wishes him dead. He collapses and dies, calling Martin's name. Anne screams. The following morning Martin is overcome by his own doubts. Anne declares that she had nothing to do with his father's death, which she sees as providential help from above to release her from her present misery and unhappy marriage. At Absalon's funeral, Anne is denounced by Meret, her mother-in-law, as a witch. Anne initially denies the charge, but when Martin sides with his grandmother she is faced with the loss of his love and trust, and she confesses on her husband's open coffin that she murdered him and enchanted his son with the Devil's help. Her fate appears sealed. Production. "Day of Wrath" was Dreyer's first film since 1932. He had spent the previous eleven years working as a journalist and unsuccessfully attempting to launch such film projects as an adaptation of "Madame Bovary", a documentary on Africa and a film about Mary Stuart. Dreyer had first seen Wiers-Jenssen's play "Anne Pedersdotter" in 1925 and had wanted to adapt it to the screen for several years. It differs slightly from the original play, such as the scene where Anne and Martin first meet and kiss. In Wiers-Jenssen's play they are hesitant and shy, while in Dreyer's film they are bluntly sexual. Dreyer's producers had wanted him to cast Eyvind Johan-Svendsen in the role of Absalon, but Dreyer thought the actor was too much of "a Renaissance man" and preferred to cast an actor that could project the austerity that he wanted. Although both this film and most of Dreyer's other films have been criticized as being too slow, Dreyer explained that neither his pacing nor his editing were slow, but that the movements of the characters on the screen were slow in order to build tension. "Day of Wrath" was made during the period of the Nazi occupation of Denmark. Reception. The film premiered at the World Cinema in Copenhagen on November 13, 1943 and received poor reviews and was unsuccessful financially, with many Danes complaining about the film's slow pace. It later gained a better critical reputation after World War II. Many Danes saw a parallel between the witch burning and the persecution of Jews during the Nazi occupation, which had begun on August 29. Dreyer always denied the film as being analogous to persecution of Jews. However, on the advice of many of his friends he left Denmark on the pretext of selling "Day of Wrath" in foreign markets and spent the rest of the war in Sweden shortly after the film's release. The film also received negative criticism when it premiered in the United States in April 1948. Variety wrote that "the picture is tedious to the extreme," and that its "chief trouble lies in the gratingly plodding pace. And the heavy story, unlightened by the slightest sign of comedy relief.". However, in some cases the film received immediate praise. The New Yorker called the film "one of the best ever made." A. Bertrand Channon called the film a "masterpiece" that will be "discussed long after Greer Garson, Bette Davis, and Ida Lupino have joined the company of Ruth Chatterton, Norma Talmadge, and Norma Shearer." Life magazine called it "one of the most remarkable movies of recent years" and noted that a campaign by a group of critics led to the film being shown again four months later in August 1948.
1164982	Irving "Jeff" Morrow (January 13, 1907 – December 26, 1993) was an American actor educated at the Pratt Institute in his native New York City. He was a commercial artist prior to turning to acting. Acting career. As early as 1927, Morrow acted onstage as Irving Morrow in Pennsylvania. He later appeared in such plays as "Penal Law", and "Once in a Lifetime", as well as repertory in Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream", "Twelfth Night", "Romeo and Juliet" and "Macbeth". After serving in the U.S. Army during World War II, Morrow spent the late 1940s on the stage and in radio, where he won the title role in the "Dick Tracy" radio series. He appeared in many Broadway productions, notably "Three Wishes for Jamie", "Billy Budd", the Maurice Evans production of "Macbeth", and the Katharine Cornell production of "Romeo and Juliet". Morrow turned to film acting relatively late in his career, commencing with the Biblical epic "The Robe" in 1953. Often parodied as the 'Cro-Magnon Man' for his prominent brow, Morrow spent much of the 1950s appearing in a mix of A-budget epics in supporting parts, or 'B' Westerns such as "The Siege at Red River" (1954) and science fiction films as a leader and screen hero, usually paired with a busty and beautiful actress.
586704	Kala Bazaar (The Black Market) is a 1989 Hindi film directed by Rakesh Roshan. It stars Kader Khan, Anil Kapoor and Jackie Shroff in lead roles. This film deals with the socio-political issues of corruption, primarily in the form of bribery in government offices in the Indian society of nineteen eighties. Plot. The film opens at the municipal building and construction department office (Mumbai, India). The superintendent of the office, Thakur, gets a telephone call from the industrialist Ranbir Gupta. Ranbir asks if his construction permits have been approved. Thakur is flustered, but informs him that a newly appointed clerk in his office is holding up the file.
1033142	Charlie Thomas Cox (born 15 December 1982) is an English actor best known for his starring role as Tristan Thorn in "Stardust" and more recently for his supporting role in the second and third seasons of HBO's "Boardwalk Empire". Early life. Cox, the youngest of five children, was born in London, England, and brought up in East Sussex. He is the son of Patricia C. A. "Trisha" (née Harley) and Andrew Frederick Seaforth Cox, who is a publisher. His paternal ancestors include Sir Andrew Agnew, 7th Baronet, Royal Navy captain Frederick Lewis Maitland, James Ogilvy, 4th Earl of Findlater, Sir David Carnegie, 4th Baronet, and a Colonial Governor of New York, Andrew Elliot. He was brought up as a Roman Catholic. Education. Cox was educated at two independent schools: at Ashdown House School in the village of Forest Row in East Sussex and Sherborne School in the market town of Sherborne in Dorset. He later trained at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School in Bristol. Life and career. Cox played the role of Tristan Thorne in the 2007 film "Stardust". He was next seen in the 2008 film "Stone of Destiny" in which he played Ian Hamilton. He made his West End debut in a double role of Harold Pinter's "The Lover" and "The Collection" at the Comedy Theatre in London, and in the same year played the Duke of Crowborough in the pilot episode of the ITV drama series "Downton Abbey". He also appeared in Kleist's "The Prince of Homburg", playing the title role, at the Donmar Warehouse in London in 2010. He played the part of St. Josemaría Escrivá in the 2011 Roland Joffé film "There Be Dragons". Also in 2011, Cox signed on to play a recurring role in the second season of the Martin Scorsese-produced HBO original series "Boardwalk Empire" as an Irish immigrant with ties to the IRA. His character became a regular for the series' third season, which began broadcast in September 2012.
1065224	The Pink Panther 2 is a 2009 American detective comedy film directed by Harald Zwart. It is the sequel to the 2006 film "The Pink Panther", a reboot of the popular comedy series. The film was released on February 6, 2009 in North America. In the film, Inspector Clouseau must team up with detectives from other countries to rout a daring burglar, The Tornado, who has returned after a decade of inactivity. Steve Martin, who reprised the role of Clouseau, originated by Peter Sellers, polished the original script written by Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber in November 2006. MGM, partnering with Columbia Pictures on the sequel, hired the team of Lowell Ganz and Babaloo Mandel to perform a further rewrite in January 2007. Principal photography began in Paris on August 20, 2007, then moved to Boston several weeks later, where filming ended on November 2, 2007. Bollywood actress Aishwarya Rai appears as the criminology expert Sonia Solandres. John Cleese replaces Kevin Kline as Chief Inspector Dreyfus with Jean Reno and Emily Mortimer reprising their roles as Clouseau's partner Ponton and Clouseau's girlfriend Nicole. Andy García, Yuki Matsuzaki and Alfred Molina round out the cast as detectives, Italian Inspector Vicenzo Brancaleone, Japanese Inspector Kenji Mazuto and British Chief Inspector Randall Pepperidge. It was released on Blu-ray Disc and DVD on June 23, 2009. Like its predecessor, the sequel received negative reviews from critics but did a moderate business of $75,871,032 worldwide. Plot. When a master thief, the Tornado, begins stealing expensive artifacts the Government of France assembles a Dream Team of International Detectives to solve the case. Inspector Clouseau is reassigned from his task as a parking officer by Chief Inspector Dreyfus to join the Dream Team in Japan, site of the Tornado's recent heist. While meeting with Clouseau, Dreyfus ends up being the victim to one of Clouseau's blunders; Clouseau discovered the wires Dreyfus set up in his office and set them off, bringing elite unit operatives. Oddly, Clouseau had the password to call them off on his medal (which seems to an electronic device): "Hamburger". At the airport, as soon as he is officially leaving France, news breaks that the Pink Panther Diamond has also been stolen (which he said would happen the very moment he left). Clouseau travels back to the scene of the crime, where the other members of the Dream Team, Inspector Pepperidge (Great Britain), Vicenzo (Italy), Kenji (an electronics specialist from Japan), and Sonia (a researcher and criminology expert from India), are gathering. They go to Rome to investigate a black market fence, Alonso Avellaneda, who deals with The Tornado. Assuming he is The Tornado, the Dream Team question him while Clouseau snoops around. Avellaneda successfully vindicates himself by demonstrating that he lacks a bullet-wound to the right shoulder – the Tornado was shot in that shoulder during a theft over a decade ago. After they leave, Avellaneda meets with the Tornado himself. The Tornado reveals that one of the people on the Dream Team works with him. Later on that night, Clouseau and his partner, Ponton, spy on Avellaneda, using a bug they planted at the table they were sitting, as he takes a date out for dinner. Unfortunately, the mission is compromised when they find Vicenzo and Clouseau's love interest, Nicole, together at the restaurant. Having been banned for burning down the restaurant three months earlier, Clouseau disguises himself as a dancer and attempts to switch the bug to Nicole's table. In the process, he ends up burning down the restaurant again, thanks to knocking down a flambe a waiter is holding. At the same time, The Tornado steals the Pope's ring, an act which begins to turn public opinion against the Dream Team. When Clouseau's attempt to recreate the night the ring was stolen ends badly, he is voted off the team, with only Sonia sympathizing with him. Shortly afterward, Clouseau is called to an office where they see the Tornado has killed himself, and left a suicide note claiming he destroyed the Pink Panther – regarding it as being so beautiful that he could not bring anyone other than himself to own it – and left the other treasures to be recovered. Examining a key they found in the Pope's Chambers, they successfully match the DNA of the victim with DNA of the Tornado acquired when he was shot, and thus believe themselves to have solved the case. However, Clouseau is unconvinced and believes the Tornado was not the thief. For their victory in recovering the stolen items (minus the Pink Panther), a celebration is thrown in the Dream Team's honor. Clouseau, after seeing something on Sonia's car's licence plate, tries to convince Dreyfus that the real thief is still at large, but is ignored. Dreyfus relays to the group that Clouseau told him Sonia was the thief, and the group, treating the idea as a joke, works out a plausible explanation for how she could have done it; as the Tornado's ex-lover, she would have in-depth knowledge of his methods, and has set up a plan. She would make the Tornado steal all the other artifacts so all attention would be drawn to him. Then, Sonia could set him up, make him come out of hiding, kill him, forge a suicide note, and keep the Pink Panther, which was the only fencible artifact as it was the only treasure that could be broken down and sold off as smaller items rather than in its most famous form. Nicole suddenly realizes that Clouseau's story may actually be feasible, prompting Nicole to ask Sonia to conclude the joke by showing the contents of her purse, Clouseau claiming that the Pink Panther is in her purse. Disgusted by this indirect accusation, Sonia attempts to leave the party. As Sonia tries to leave, Nicole again asks her to take everything out of her purse. Sonia pulls out a gun, and after initially threatening to shoot Nicole, she shoots Clouseau, but the bullet hits the medal of honor he had received, ironically killing a waiter due to a ricochet. She then runs upstairs, with Clouseau and the rest of the Dream Team chasing her around the building, all but Clouseau making fools of themselves through various accidents caused by Clouseau's clumsiness. Finally cornered, Sonia threatens to destroy the Pink Panther, and Clouseau successfully goads her to do so. Sonia is subsequently knocked out by Ponton when she tries to flee during the distraction caused by the Pink Panther's destruction. Clouseau reveals that she had destroyed a fake gem he had switched with the real one before his departure from France (a rather unexpected clever idea from him), and that the Tornado, a master thief and a recognized authority on valuable gems, would have recognized this; therefore, his suicide note—where he praised the beauty of the gem in his possession—was forged and he was actually murdered. He reveals that he had given Sonia's car a ticket one day before the Pink Panther was stolen, contradicting her alibi of having been delayed to the crime scene because of her flight. Following the arrest of Sonia, Dreyfus tries to claim credit for having appointed Clouseau to his parking job, but Clouseau, remembering Dreyfus told him to deny this to anyone who asked, rebukes the claim. Clouseau later marries Nicole, though the wedding is short-lived after Dreyfus fires the cork out of the Champagne bottle onto a security device, causing elite unit operatives to storm the party in a manner similar to an earlier event in the film; the batteries in Clouseau's medal were dead, so he couldn't give the password. Clouseau and Nicole ditch the wedding and head for the airport for their honeymoon with the animated Pink Panther watching them leave. The film ends with the Pink Panther looking into the camera and winking (like in the original film series) as he walks into the chaotic wedding and closes the door. Filming locations. Paris, France, Boston, Bedford, Chelsea, Westwood, and Winchester, Massachusetts. Reception. Like its predecessor, the sequel has received generally negative reviews from critics. As of June 12, 2011, Rotten Tomatoes reported that 12% of critics gave positive reviews based on 129 reviews, the consensus being "Underutilizing its talented cast, "The Pink Panther 2" is little more than a series of lame slapstick gags".
1060456	The Fountain is a 2006 American romantic drama film that blends elements of fantasy, history, religion, and science fiction. It is directed by Darren Aronofsky, and stars Hugh Jackman and Rachel Weisz. The film consists of three story lines, in which Jackman and Weisz play different sets of characters who may or may not be the same two people: a modern-day scientist and his cancer-stricken wife, a conquistador and his queen, and a space traveler in the future who hallucinates his lost love. The story lines—interwoven with use of match cuts and recurring visual motifs—reflect the themes of love and mortality. Aronofsky originally planned to direct "The Fountain" on a $70 million budget with Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett in the lead roles, but Pitt's withdrawal and cost overruns led Warner Bros. to shut down production. The director rewrote the script to be sparser, and was able to resurrect the film with a $35 million budget with Jackman and Weisz in the lead roles. Production mainly took place on a sound stage in Montreal, Quebec, and the director used macro photography to create key visual effects for "The Fountain" at a low cost. The film was released theatrically in the United States and Canada on November 22, 2006. It grossed $10,144,010 in the United States and Canada and $5,761,344 in other territories for a worldwide total of $15,978,422. Critics' reactions to the film were divided, but it has gained a large cult following since its release. Plot summary. At its core, "The Fountain" is the story of a 21st-century doctor, Tom Creo (Hugh Jackman), losing his wife Izzi (Rachel Weisz) to cancer in 2005. As she is dying, Izzi begs Tom to share what time they have left together, but he is focused on his quest to find a cure for her. While he's working in the lab, she writes a story about 16th century Queen Isabella losing her territory to the Inquisition while her betrothed, conquistador Tomás Verde plunges through the Central America forest in Mayan territory, searching for the Tree of Life for his Queen. Since she does not have time herself, Izzi asks Tom to finish the story for her. As they look out to the stars, she imagines that their souls will meet there when the star dies. And we see astronaut Tommy, in 2500, travelling there for the event, in a spaceship made of an enclosed biosphere containing the Tree of Life. The three story lines are told nonlinearly, each separated by five centuries. The three periods are interwoven with match cuts and recurring visual motifs; Hugh Jackman and Rachel Weisz play the main characters for all three narratives. Even within a given narrative, the elements of that particular story are not told in chronological order. Whether these stories are actual events, or symbolic, is not clarified; and, director Darren Aronofsky emphasized that the storylines in their time periods and their respective convergences were open to interpretation. The director has said of "The Fountain"s intricacy and underlying message, "film is very much like a Rubik's Cube, where you can solve it in several different ways, but ultimately there's only one solution at the end." In a 2012 interview, Aronofsky stated that "ultimately the film is about coming to terms with your own death". Tomás the conquistador. The film opens with conquistador Tomás Verde in New Spain fighting a horde of Mayans to gain entry into a pyramid, where he is attacked by a Mayan priest with a flaming sword. Through flashbacks, it is revealed that the conquistador has been commissioned by Queen Isabella of Spain to travel to the New World in search of the Biblical Tree of Life. If Tomás can find it, she is convinced that she can put an end to the struggle between herself and an influential cleric during the Spanish Inquisition who is attempting to usurp the throne. Isabella vows to wed Tomás upon his return, citing a correlation with Adam and Eve. When Tomás arrives at his destination, he finds that his fellow knights are exhausted and refuse to continue searching for the Tree of Life. A Franciscan monk discovers the location of the temple, but is accidentally killed while Tomás represses the mutiny amongst his officers. As the priest dies, he gives Tomás a ceremonial dagger and directs him towards the pyramid. Once he arrives at the pyramid, Tomás and his men are ambushed and Tomás is captured. He is forced to the top of the pyramid, and engages in hand-to-hand combat with a Mayan priest. Tomás is stabbed in the stomach, but the priest narrowly avoids killing him when he notices that Tomás is carrying the ceremonial dagger that fulfills a Mayan prophecy. The priest believes Tomás is the "First Father", apologizes and asks Tomás to sacrifice him by slitting his throat. Tomás kills the priest and proceeds to a garden with a large tree; convinced this is the Tree of Life, Tomás applies some of its sap to his torso and is cured of his stab wound. He drinks the sap flowing from the bark. But in a reenactment of the Mayan creation myth told earlier in the film, flowers and grass burst forth from his body and he literally gives rise to new life. Tom the neuroscientist. Tom Creo is a doctor working on a cure using samples of the "Tree of Life", found through exploration in Central America, which are being tested for medicinal use for degenerative brain diseases in his lab in 2005. He is motivated by his wife Izzi's brain tumor, which has caused a rapid decline in her health. Izzi has used this time to assess the meaning of life and come to terms with her mortality, but Tom refuses to accept that she might die and has increasing resolve to find a cure. She has written a book which apparently tells the story of Tomás the conquistador, but when she collapses at a museum, she becomes convinced that she won't live long enough to finish the book and asks Tom to write the final chapter. She dies shortly thereafter and Tom dedicates himself to curing not only her disease, but death itself. His colleagues fear that this drive has made him reckless, but they try to support him emotionally at Izzi's funeral. As a final act of love and devotion, Tom plants a tree seed at Izzi's grave in the manner of a story she told him relating how a Mayan guide's dead father lived on in a tree nourished by the organic nutrients of the buried body. Tommy the space traveler. The narrative for Tommy is set entirely in deep space in a small, self-contained biosphere bubble. Jackman's character in this plot is alone flying in outer space toward the golden nebula of Xibalba with a large tree and a few personal effects inside his ship. While traveling, he meditates, performs t'ai chi, tattoos himself, with the ink pot Izzi left for 21st century Tom to finish her story; and carries on a conversation with an apparition of Izzi from 2005. It is implied that she is somehow alive inside the tree; but, it is dying and they need to reach Xibalba in order to bring it back to life. At the climax of the film, the tree dies and the star goes supernova, engulfing the traveler's ship. His body is incinerated, but the tree is brought back to life. Izzi's apparition picks a fruit from the new tree and hands it to Tom, the present-day neuroscientist, who plants it in Izzi's grave. Themes. Darren Aronofsky described the core of the film as "a very simple love story" about a man and a woman in love, with the woman dying young. The director researched people who were dying young, and learned from doctors and caregivers that such patients find new ways of coping. Aronofsky observed that the patients often die more alone because their families cannot recognize what happens with them, calling it "an incredible tragedy": "Instead of facing this tragedy in terror, she is coming to terms with what is happening to her... Many patients actually start opening up to the possibility of what's happening to them, but there's very little vocabulary to help them deal... We decided to expand it with this woman offering a gift to her husband of a metaphor that tells him where she's come to. Hopefully through time he'll be able to understand it and basically get where she is." "The Fountain"s theme of fear of death is "a movement from darkness into light, from black to white" that traces the journey of a man scared of death and moving toward it. The film begins with a paraphrase of Genesis 3:24, the Biblical passage that reflects the The Fall of Man. Hugh Jackman emphasized the importance of the Fall in the film: "The moment Adam and Eve ate of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, humans started to experience life as we all experience it now, which is life and death, poor and wealthy, pain and pleasure, good and evil. We live in a world of duality. Husband, wife, we relate everything. And much of our lives are spent not wanting to die, be poor, experience pain. It's what the movie's about." Aronofsky also interpreted the story of Genesis as the definition of mortality for humanity. He inquired of the Fall, "If they had drank from the Tree of Life of the Tree of Knowledge what would have separated them from their maker? So what makes us human is actually death. It's what makes us special." Production. Development. Director Darren Aronofsky sought to produce "The Fountain" after the release of "Requiem for a Dream" in 2000. In April 2001, he entered negotiations with Warner Bros. and Village Roadshow to direct the then-untitled film with actor Brad Pitt in the lead role. "Requiem for a Dream" was screened for Pitt, and the preliminary script for "The Fountain" persuaded the actor to join the project. Aronofsky prepared for production by traveling with a crew to Central America to consult with Mayan experts and to explore the Mexican ruins of Palenque. The group also visited Tikal, a jungle location featured in the 1977 film "". In addition to the trip, the films "Aguirre, the Wrath of God" and "The Holy Mountain" were screened for the crew to inspire it in designing a rainforest set for "The Fountain". In June 2001, actress Cate Blanchett entered talks to join Aronofsky's project. Aronofsky, who wanted the film's actual title to be a secret, gave the project the working title of "The Last Man". Production was postponed to improve the script and to wait for Blanchett, pregnant when she joined, to give birth to her child in December 2001. The start date for production was tentatively set in summer 2002. In June 2002, Warner Bros. met with Aronofsky and producer Eric Watson, expressing concerns over an escalating budget and threatening to cease the project unless a co-financier was found. Watson petitioned independent production companies for support and was able to enlist Regency Enterprises for assistance. Production was ultimately set for late October 2002 in Queensland and Sydney, Australia. The film, officially titled "The Fountain", was 'greenlit' (approved for production) with a budget of $70 million, co-financed by Warner Bros. and New Regency, who filled the gap after Village Roadshow withdrew from the project. Preparation for production of "The Fountain" cost $18 million. Abruptly, Pitt, whose requested screenplay revisions were not met, left the project seven weeks before the first day of shooting. The actor went on to star as Achilles in director Wolfgang Petersen's "Troy". With the studio threatening to shut down the project, Aronofsky sent the script to actor Russell Crowe as a potential replacement for Pitt. However, Crowe, worn out from recently completing "", declined. In September 2002, Jeff Robinov, President of Production at Warner Bros. Pictures, announced that "The Fountain" would cease production, with Blanchett receiving compensation for her time and the Australian crew being fired from the halted project. Sets built for the production of the film, including a 10-story Mayan temple, were eventually auctioned off, in addition to props and other items. Pitt said that he was disappointed to leave and added, "I remain encouraged that "The Fountain" will yet have its day." Aronofsky began to develop other films. When he looked over the books he used to research for "The Fountain", he decided to return to "The Fountain", feeling closer to it creatively than the other possible projects. Without a studio and an actor, he decided to write a "no-budget" version of the film, using his experiences filming "Pi" and "Requiem for a Dream" with small budgets. In February 2004, Warner Bros. resurrected Aronofsky's project and began to court actor Hugh Jackman to replace Pitt in the lead role. The film received a second greenlight with a budget of $35 million, in part because of the director's willingness to leave costly set pieces out of the screenplay. In August, actress Rachel Weisz joined Hugh Jackman for the film, filling the vacancy left by Blanchett. Filming lasted 60 days in early 2005 and took place mainly on a sound stage in Montreal. Writing. Darren Aronofsky and his friend Ari Handel created the story for "The Fountain", and Aronofsky wrote the screenplay. When Aronofsky saw "The Matrix" in 1999, he considered it a film that redefined the science fiction genre. He sought to make a science fiction film that would explore new territory in the genre like "The Matrix" and its predecessors "Star Wars" and "". Aronofsky had in mind a science fiction film that would go beyond the other films whose plots were driven by technology and science. The director said, "We've seen it all. It's not really interesting to audiences anymore. The interesting things are the ideas; the search for God, the search for meaning." In 1999, when Aronofsky turned 30 years old, his parents were diagnosed with cancer. He began reflecting on human mortality, "That was a really heavy-duty emotional time. I know it's a very young age, but turning thirty marks when your twenties are over and you could start considering, 'Wow, one of these days I'm actually going to die.'" While his parents overcame cancer, he began to focus on the concept of a young man saving a loved one from a life-threatening disease. He shared the concept with Handel, his undergraduate school roommate at Harvard University. Handel earned a Ph.D in neuroscience from New York University but was uncertain about a future in neuroscience. He recalled the discussion, "Darren and I just started talking about the story. We kept wanting to talk more about it as the story kept getting bigger. I decided to make some life choices to continue working with Darren, because it was so much fun." The director relied on a change of locale to inspire him to write "Pi" and "Requiem for a Dream". For "The Fountain", Aronofsky was inspired by a research trip he took to Guatemala with Handel to learn about Mayan history and philosophy. The script for "The Fountain" was influenced by the accounts of Uruguayan journalist Eduardo Galeano, who wrote examples of myth from an indigenous perspective, particularly Galeano's "Genesis" trilogy. The film "Once Upon a Time in America" also served as an influence on the script. Aronofsky, influenced by Bernal Díaz del Castillo's "The Conquest of New Spain", applied the narrative in writing the film's conquistador scenes. Aronofsky realized that since writing in 2000 the battle scene between the armies of Mayans and conquistadors, "The Lord of the Rings" film trilogy, "Troy", "King Arthur", and other films had featured massive battle scenes. He felt less inclined to mimic the scale and rewrote the battle to be mainly between Jackman's conquistador character and the Mayans. The director realized that, with one man against the army, the rewrite was a suitable metaphor for his film's theme of a man defying odds to do the impossible and conquer death. The filmmakers researched space travel and Mayan culture, including its history, religion, and spirituality. They attended brain surgeries with the actors. With the research in place, Aronofsky said, "We decided which things we wanted to be purely factual and which things we wanted to bend." The director did not strive to be historically accurate with the various time periods, perceiving the entire film as a setting of a fairy tale. He said, "It was more about painting a relationship between a queen and her warrior, and just using that for more fantasy reasons." Casting. Aronofsky saw Hugh Jackman perform as Peter Allen in the Broadway musical "The Boy from Oz" and was impressed with his performance. The director met with Jackman, who sought "a role that could show a lot of dimension," and cast him into the lead role in "The Fountain". Jackman starred previously as the muscular character Wolverine in the "X-Men" films, so for "The Fountain", he exercised to adopt a slimmer figure. Jackman practiced t'ai chi for seven months to demonstrate it in a 30-second scene. He also practiced yoga for over a year to achieve the lotus position for scenes set in space. For these scenes when he is seen in the position in mid-air, he was immersed in a swimming pool and harnessed to a rig that rotated him 360 degrees so his clothes floated freely about him. Jackman also watched a woman undergo brain tumor surgery and was shaken to see the woman have similar blond hair to his wife: "All I could think of was my wife on that table. As much as I'd read the script and theorized and practiced philosophy, I knew in that moment that I was so not ready for death." For his various characters, the actor assumed a different posture for each persona. As the conquistador, Jackman was upright and forward-leaning to evoke an unstoppable nature. As the scientist, the actor hunched over with a dedicated focus on his character's work, being weighed down by the "world on his shoulders." As the space traveler, Jackman practiced the state of zen but also exhibited a continued persistence in his endeavor. Jackman suggested that Aronofsky cast Rachel Weisz as his character's wife. The director, who was in a relationship with the actress, had originally hesitated to show the studio signs of favoritism in casting Weisz. With Jackman's earnest recommendation, the actress was cast as Izzi/Isabel. For her role, Weisz read books and first-person accounts about people who had terminal illnesses. The actress also visited hospitals to see young people who were dying and under hospice care. "There were a few days where I was in the headspace where I could say: 'I could go now'," said Weisz. "The Fountain" also stars Ellen Burstyn as Dr. Lillian Guzetti, Tom's superior, and Mark Margolis as Father Avila, who accompanies Tomás the conquistador. Burstyn and Margolis appeared in Aronofsky's "Requiem for a Dream", and the director wrote into the script roles for both of them. Sean Patrick Thomas, Donna Murphy, and Ethan Suplee were cast as assistants to Tom's lab work. Cliff Curtis was cast as Captain Ariel, a fellow conquistador, and Stephen McHattie was cast as Grand Inquisitor Silecio, a religious fanatic who threatens the Spanish queen. Seventy extras were cast as Maya warriors, including twenty who had actual Guatemala Mayan backgrounds. One of the twenty, a real-life spiritual leader, was cast as the Maya spiritual leader in the film. Design. The film's locations, with the exception of scenes filmed at a museum and at a farmhouse, were built on the Montreal sound stage. Production designer James Chinlund and his crew built sets for "The Fountain" in a large warehouse in Montreal. The sets included the 16th century jungle settings and the bubble-shaped spacecraft containing the tree of life and its garden. The spacecraft set was placed against greenscreen, and the crew hung colored reflective material, which included green, black, gold, and silver, on three circular tracks around the set. One material would be moved into place instead of the heavy equipment, and with the other materials partitioned off, a light source was used with the preferred material. Silver was used for scenes in which the spacecraft moved through the stars, and gold was used for when it entered the nebula. In "The Fountain", the Tree of Life was a central design and part of the film's three periods. The tree was based on Kabbalah's Sefirot, which depicts a "map" of creation to understand the nature of God and how he created the world ex nihilo (out of nothing). The Sefirot Tree, being two to three hundred feet tall in lore, had to be resized for "The Fountain" to fit in the camera's frame. Pieces of driftwood and pieces from real trees in Canada were collected for the tree's branches and roots, and sculpted molds of the pieces were applied to a steel frame to create the tree's body. According to production designer James Chinlund, the tree, part of an enormous set surrounded by green screens, and other sets presented difficult logistical problems because of the small budget given to the resurrected project. The tree set itself had been a collaboration between Chinlund, Aronofsky, and cinematographer Matthew Libatique to create the appropriate design, particularly the palette in comparison to the biospheric ship that carries the tree in the astronaut period. Aronofsky described the astronaut period as a homage to David Bowie's "Space Oddity"; the protagonist's name "Tom" originating from the Major Tom of the popular song. Co-writer Ari Handel researched biospherics, such as the Biosphere 2, to help design the ship that carried the protagonist and the tree through space. With respect to the glass-sphered ship's design, Aronofsky argued, "There is no reason a spaceship would be built like a giant truck in space." Aronofsky and cinematographer Matthew Libatique also discussed using a limited palette of colors, an approach that started with Aronofsky's "Pi" and continued with "Requiem for a Dream". In "The Fountain", the primary colors are gold and white. Gold represents "the Mayans, a sort of fool's gold, a false truth"; Aronofsky explained the choice, "When you see gold, it represents materialism and wealth and all these things that distract us from the true journey that we're on." White was chosen to represent mortality and truth. Weisz's characters are white, and wear white or are enveloped in white light to accentuate this presentation. Secondary colors are green, representing the color of life, and red, representing death. The director also used similar geometric constructs in the film to distinguish the three storylines. The 16th century conquistador's tale reflected triangles through pyramids and constellations, the 21st century researcher's period reflected rectangles through doors, windows, and computer screens, and the 26th century contemplative's journey reflected circles and spheres through the spacecraft and stellar bodies. Cinematography. Cinematographer Matthew Libatique shot "The Fountain" under Aronofsky's direction. Libatique, who worked with Aronofsky throughout the 1990s, prepared for over a year for "The Fountain" when Aronofsky tried to produce the film for the first time. When production restarted on a smaller budget, Libatique felt that the more budget-conscious approach resulted in a better film, "I think the streamlining of the film helped us tell the story more effectively. It's been stripped down to its core, to what it's really about: a search for immortality, when the truth of life is mortality." Aronofsky planned to have a strong presentation of the thematic movement from darkness into light. He originally sought to show only a silhouette of the man until the second of the film's three acts, but he chose not to be so extreme, wanting to be more communicative to the audience. The movement was presented less aggressively in the film; Jackman's characters are seen in silhouette at the beginning, kept out of key light. In each of the three periods, the lighting on Jackman's characters is initially dim and gradually grows brighter as the storylines unfold. Meanwhile, Weisz's characters are frequently awash with light in the storylines. Libatique described the metaphoric change of the lighting on Jackman's characters, "We follow the arc of the Thomas character as he gets closer and closer to the truth." Aronofsky preferred to use one camera whenever possible, only using a second camera if the scene was more about the setting and could be shot from two distinctly different axes. Libatique said Aronofsky preferred the eyeline match, "Darren is big on eyelines, and if you sacrifice an eyeline on an angle, he feels it nullifies the shot and de-emphasizes the performances." Aronofsky originally intended to have Jackman's characters always moving in an "unusual" left-to-right direction across the frame, but the plan was complicated by the spacecraft needing to move upward toward a light source. Visual effects. When production restarted in 2005, there was a more budget-conscious approach to filming "The Fountain", whose original budget was mostly intended for visual effects. Libatique reflected, "Visual effects a lot of the budget in the original conception. The popcorn moments were in there to justify the budget and bring target audiences into the theater. Ultimately, I think the streamlining of the film helped us tell the story more effectively. It's been stripped down to the core, to what it's really about: a search for immortality, when the truth of life is mortality. I think at the end of the day, the theme of the film will be easier to feel." To create a death scene, Aronofsky drew from Mayan mythology the description of flowers and butterflies emerging from the bodies of valiant warriors when they die. Aronofsky excluded butterflies from the death scene to minimize the film's computer-generated imagery but kept the effect of flowers bursting from the body. Jeremy Dawson and Dan Schrecker, who had provided visual effects for Darren Aronofsky's "π" and "Requiem for a Dream", returned to "The Fountain" to help the director with the film's effects. The pair was assigned the task of creating as little computer-generated imagery as possible, a difficult task with a third of the film taking place in deep space. Aronofsky chose to avoid effects that would make the film look dated in several decades but instead hold up as well as a film like "". Dawson said, "Using CG is really the easy route because it's so prevalent and the tools are great. What it did was really force us to come up with creative solutions to solve a lot of our problems." One creative solution was uncovering Peter Parks, a specialist in macro photography, who had retrieved deep-sea microorganisms and photographed them in 3-D under partial funding from the Bahamas government. Parks brewed chemicals and bacteria together to create reactions that Schrecker and Dawson shot 20,000 feet worth of film of over eight weeks. To create the effects, Peter Parks took advantage of fluid dynamics, which affected the behavior of the substances that he photographed. "When these images are projected on a big screen, you feel like you're looking at infinity. That's because the same forces at work in the water—gravitational effects, settlement, refractive indices—are happening in outer space," Parks said. The specialist's talent convinced the film's creative department to go beyond computer-generated imagery and follow Parks' lead. Instead of millions of dollars for a single special effects sequence, Parks generated all the footage for the film for just $140,000. The visual-effects company Look Effects worked on 87 shots for "The Fountain" that included major set extensions, digital mattes, image enhancement, face replacement and blemish removal, as well as animating key elements to the film's story. Henrik Fett, the visual effects supervisor of Look Effects, said, "Darren was quite clear on what he wanted and his intent to greatly minimize the use of computer graphics... I think the results are outstanding." Music. Clint Mansell—the composer for Aronofsky's previous films "Pi" and "Requiem for a Dream"—reprised his role for "The Fountain". The San Francisco-based string quartet Kronos Quartet—who previously performed for the "Requiem for a Dream" soundtrack—and Scottish post-rock band Mogwai also contributed to the film score. Mansell researched possible scores to compose one tying together the three storylines and sought to have an organic feeling to the score and explored implementing orchestral and electronic elements that would have "a real human element to them that breathes." While reading the script, Mansell was reminded of the post-rock music of Mogwai as well as Godspeed You! Black Emperor and Sigur Rós and initially planned a score based around percussion before adding the string quartet and choir. The soundtrack was released by Nonesuch Records in 2006 and received numerous award nominations. Marketing. When Warner Bros. shut down pre-production of "The Fountain" in 2002, Aronofsky reserved rights to publish a graphic novel based on the script that was not produced. He said, "I knew it was a hard film to make, and I said at least if Hollywood fucks me over at least I'll make a comic book out of it." He shopped the story to Vertigo Comics and met comic book artist Kent Williams, whose illustrations impressed him. Aronofsky hired Williams to create the graphic novel, and Ari Handel, co-writer for the film, provided Williams with research, photographs, and images on "Mayans, astronomy, pulsars, and all kinds of cool stuff" for the graphic novel's design. Aronofsky gave Williams the freedom to interpret the story as the artist saw fit. "The Fountain" was originally scheduled to be released on October 13, 2006, but the film was delayed to create a "long-lead campaign" and generate anticipation via word of mouth. The release date was ultimately set for November 22, 2006. Aronofsky shared his screenplay with eleven artists: Phil Hale, Martin Wilner, Jason Shawn Alexander, Kostas Seremetis, Dave Gibbons, Barron Storey, James Jean, Jim Lee, Olivier Bramanti, Seth Fisher, and Bill Sienkiewicz. He invited them to interpret the screenplay in each one's chosen medium, and the interpretations were intended to be available on the film's website. Aronofsky also published a book about the film that contained production stills, the original script, original art, and observations by the film's creators. The content and research agency Ramp Industry launched The Fountain Remixed, an official website driven by user-generated content. Users could download freely provided audio parts from "The Fountain"'s film score, remix the music, and upload the work onto the website to be evaluated by other users. Release. Critical reception. The film had its world premiere at the 63rd Venice Film Festival on September 2, 2006. Several critics booed "The Fountain" at the festival's press screening, while the film received a 10-minute standing ovation at the public screening the following evening. "The Fountain" was released in 1,472 theaters in the United States and Canada on November 22, 2006, a day before the American Thanksgiving holiday. The film earned $3,768,702 in the U.S. and Canadian box office during the opening weekend of November 24. "The Fountain" earned $10,144,010 in the United States and Canada, and $5,761,344 in other territories. The film, which had a production budget of $35 million, grossed $15,978,422 in theaters worldwide. The box-office performance was considered a flop with the film only earning back 54% of its budget. The review aggregate website Rotten Tomatoes reported that 51% of 187 critics gave the film positive reviews and that it got a rating average of 5.9 out of 10. At Metacritic, which assigns a weighted average score out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the film received an average score of 51 based on 36 reviews. Rotten Tomatoes reported of the critics' consensus that the movie, "about metaphysics, universal patterns, Biblical symbolism, and boundless love spread across one thousand years—is visually rich but suffers from its own unfocused ambitions." "Newsweek" reported how people received the film, "Its supporters admire the film's beauty and daring; its detractors find it overblown and hokey." Michael Atkinson, writing for "Sight & Sound", reviewed Aronofsky's endeavor, "It's difficult to recall another American film that, in pursuing a passionate and personal vision, goes so maddeningly, uproariously wrong." Atkinson said of the narrative, "The erratic and pointless leapfrogging between its storylines is torporific ... all three stories are assembled piecemeal, many of which repeat over and over as flashback and flashforwards." He complained of the numerous motifs, "It's difficult to swallow the amalgamation of Mayan, Biblical, Buddhist, Taoist and New Age iconography, all of it tossed as if into a stew." In contrast, Glenn Kenny of "Premiere" wrote of the film, ""The Fountain" is probably the deftest stories-within-stories narrative film I've seen ... By "The Fountain"s end, the multilayered meta-narrative... resolves (or does it?) into a kind of diegetic Möbius strip, to stunning effect." Kenny called the film "as demanding as it is dazzling" and compared Aronofsky's direction to Stanley Kubrick's "in terms of conceptual audacity and meticulousness of execution." He concluded, "It's a movie that's as deeply felt as it is imagined." Anthony Lane, reviewing for "The New Yorker", called "The Fountain" "a gorgeous nimbus of confusion." Lane complained about the film's up-close and far-away shots, "What fails to concern or attract Aronofsky is the place where most of us hang out—the in-between, the midshot of everyday existence." He summarized, "The movie may have significant truths to impart, although I have my doubts, but it feels too inexperienced, too unworldly, to have earned the right to them." Roger Ebert, who admired Aronofsky's previous films, conceded in the "Chicago Sun-Times" that "The Fountain" was "not a great success." He identified the film's issues: "too many screens of blinding lights," "too many transitions for their own sake," and "abrupt changes of tone." He believed that the scaling down of the film from Aronofsky's original ambition lost some elements and anticipated a director's cut truer to Aronofsky's vision. In 2009, Aronofsky reflected on the reception of "The Fountain", "There are a lot of "Fountain"-haters out the Venice Film Festival. The film's about the fact that it's OK that we die, and we should come to terms with it. But many, many people don't want to think about that, so why pay money for a meditation on losing someone you love? Everything about western culture denies that." He also believed the film was released at the wrong time, "It was pre-Obama, smack in the middle of Paris Hilton time. But there has been a serious turn now, people are starting to realise that the party's over, finally. So we can stop thinking about the culture of superficiality, start to remember there are other things going on." In the book "Positive Psychology at the Movies: Using Films to Build Virtues and Character Strengths", Ryan M. Niemiec and Danny Wedding cite the film as one which depicts the development of perspective. "character's denial and work addiction are obstacles to the development of the strength of perspective, but he is able to confront those obstacles as he develops acceptances and wisdom, represented by themes drawn from both Buddhism (meditation, rebirth, reincarnation) and Christianity (eternal life, faith, and love)." Home media. "The Fountain" was released on DVD, HD DVD, and Blu-ray in the United States on May 15, 2007. The included extras were the theatrical trailer and a six-part featurette gallery about the film's periods and settings. Aronofsky was disappointed with the limited extras available on home video. He reported that Warner Bros. did not want to have the director record a commentary track because it felt the commentary would not help sales. He hoped to petition for the film to be re-released in the Criterion Collection with extras that were not made available on the initial media. Aronofsky recorded a commentary track on his own and made the track available on his personal website. In December 2008, he expressed interest in reassembling "The Fountain", not as a director's cut, but as an alternate story that combined theatrical footage and unused footage.
400626	The Virginity Hit is a 2010 comedy film produced by Adam McKay and Will Ferrell, and directed by Huck Botko and Andrew Gurland. It stars Matt Bennett, Zack Pearlman, Jacob Davich, Justin Kline and Nicole Weaver. The film itself is a series of videos on a teen's attempt to lose his virginity, being recorded from cell phones to video cameras. Most of the cast used their own names for their characters. Plot. The film revolves around four male teenage friends in New Orleans, Louisiana: Matt, Zack, Jacob and Justin. As a celebratory routine, the boys purchase a bong and use that bong only when one of the four have sex for the first time. The boys are beginning to lose their virginity and Matt is the last one. Matt, as it is learned throughout the film, is the adopted brother of Zack after Matt's mother died from cancer when he was 9. Matt's father had drug issues and while still involved in his life, does not play a major role in it. Matt has been with his girlfriend Nicole for almost two years and the two decide to lose their virginity together on their second anniversary. Zack decides to videotape the entire process and it is portrayed as a documentary-type film. As Matt prepares for the big night, he discovers that Nicole has cheated on him with a college fraternity member, Harry. Zack goes to find Harry to confirm this but he would not confirm nor deny this. Matt and the guys assume she did in fact have sex with Harry and the plan for the big night is soon altered. Zack decides the best thing for Matt to do is still have sex with Nicole but break up with her immediately afterwards. He feels this would be great for the movie he is making. Matt and his friends set up a date for Matt at a hotel, but when Nicole realizes they are being filmed and recorded from the adjoining room, she becomes angry at Matt, and admits she did not go very far sexually with Harry. She claims he had only sucked on her breasts. Nicole's father then comes and takes Nicole away from Matt and then pushes Matt into a bush after he breaks up with her. The entire segment on the failed date soon becomes a YouTube classic. A young woman, Becca, sees the video and claims that she feels bad for Matt. She leaves a video response letting him know she is experienced and would love to be his first. Becca's first requirement for the date is that Matt buys a very expensive suit. Matt is then reminded by Zack that his mother left him a large amount of money and convinces Matt to withdraw it for the suit. Matt then learns that his father withdrew the money when he was younger and the funds are not available. Angered by this, Matt decides to confront his father about it. After doing so, he learns his father has no desire to pay him back and claims the money was used for drugs. The boys and Krysta, Zack and Matt's adopted other adopted sibling, get drunk and camp. During this time Krysta unsuccessfully tries to have sex with Matt. When the boys return home, they come up with a plot to steal the suit, which is successful.
1503594	Chita Rivera (born January 23, 1933) is an American actress, dancer, and singer best known for her roles in musical theater. She is the first Hispanic woman and the only Latino American to receive a Kennedy Center Honors award (December 2002). She was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2009. Early years. Rivera (birth name: Dolores Conchita Figueroa del Rivero) was born in Washington, D.C., the daughter of Katherine, a government clerk, and Pedro Julio Figueroa del Rivero, a clarinetist and saxophonist for the United States Navy Band. Her father was Puerto Rican and her mother was of Scottish and Italian descent. Rivera was seven years old when her mother was widowed and went to work at The Pentagon. In 1944, Rivera's mother enrolled her in the Jones-Haywood School of Ballet (now the Jones Haywood School of Dance). Later, when she was 15, a teacher from George Balanchine's School of American Ballet visited their studio and Rivera was one of two students picked to audition in New York City; she was accompanied to the audition by Doris Jones, one of the people who ran the Jones-Haywood School. Rivera's audition was successful and she was accepted into the school and given a scholarship Broadway. In 1951, Rivera accompanied a friend to the audition for the touring company of "Call Me Madam" and ended up winning the role herself. She followed this by landing roles in other Broadway productions such as "Guys and Dolls" and "Can-Can". In 1957, she was cast in the role which was destined to make her a Broadway star, the firebrand Anita in "West Side Story". (The role would bring fame and an Oscar to another Puerto Rican, Rita Moreno, in the 1961 film version). Rivera starred in a national tour of "Can-Can" and played the role of Nickie in the film adaptation of "Sweet Charity" with Shirley MacLaine. On December 1, 1957, Rivera married dancer Tony Mordente. Her performance was so important for the success of the show that the London production of "West Side Story" was postponed until she gave birth to the couple's daughter Lisa. In 1963, Rivera was cast opposite Alfred Drake in "Zenda". The Broadway-bound musical closed on the road. In 1975 she appeared as Velma Kelly in the original cast of the musical "Chicago". In 1984 she starred in the musical "The Rink" with Liza Minnelli and won her first Tony award for her role as Anna. In 1986, while performing in the Jerry Herman musical, "Jerry's Girls," Rivera was in a severe accident when her car collided with a taxi on West 86th Street in Manhattan. Injuries sustained included the breaking of her left leg in twelve places, requiring eighteen screws and two braces to mend. After rehabilitation, Rivera continued to perform on stage. Miraculously revitalized, in 1988, she endeavored in a restaurant venture in partnership with the novelist, Daniel Simone. The eatery, located on 42nd Street between 9th and 10th Avenue, was named after her, 'Chita's'. It soon became a significant attraction for the after-theater crowds and remained open until 1994. In addition to her ballet instructors, Rivera credited Leonard Bernstein and Gwen Verdon, with whom she starred in "Chicago", as being people from whom she learned a great deal. Later years. She appeared as Fastrada in a filmed-for-television version of the musical "Pippin" in 1981. In 1993, she received a Tony Award for Best Leading Actress in a Musical for her portrayal of Aurora in the musical "Kiss of the Spider Woman", written by Kander and Ebb. Rivera starred in the Goodman Theatre production of the musical "The Visit" (also by Kander and Ebb) as Claire Zachanassian in 2001. In 2008 she appeared in a revised production of the musical at the Signature Theatre in Arlington, Virginia, co-starring George Hearn. In 2003, Rivera returned to Broadway in the 2003 revival of "Nine" as Liliane La Fleur, and received her eighth career Tony Award nomination (Best Featured Actress in a Musical) and fourth Drama Desk Award nomination (Outstanding Featured Actress in a Musical). She appeared with Antonio Banderas. She later appeared on the revival's cast album. On television, Rivera was a guest on "The Judy Garland Show". She guest-starred along with Michele Lee in a February 2005 episode of "Will & Grace", and in December of that year, "", a retrospective of her career, opened on Broadway. She received another Tony nomination for her self-portrayal. Though she was expected to reprise her role in a Signature Theatre staging of "The Visit" in autumn of 2007, that was later postponed to the following season. Instead, she performed at New York's Feinstein's At The Regency supper club in New York for two weeks. Rivera performed in a staged concert of "The Visit" as a benefit at the Ambassador Theatre on November 30, 2011. Rivera makes a cameo appearance in the 2002 movie version of "Chicago". Rivera guest-starred on Disney Channel's "Johnny and the Sprites" as Queen of All Magical Beings. The episode debuted on March 15, 2008. In August 2009, president Barack Obama awarded Rivera with the Presidential Medal of Freedom In the 1960s Rivera had recorded two albums, "Chita Rivera: Get Me To The Church On Time" and "And Now I Sing". These early 1960s albums will be reissued on CD by Stage Door Records in February 2013. In November 2008, Rivera released her third solo album, "And Now I Swing". In 2012, Rivera played "Princess Puffer" in the new Broadway revival of "The Mystery of Edwin Drood" at Studio 54. She was the Grand Marshal of the Puerto Rican Day Parade in New York City on June 9, 2013. Awards and nominations. Tony Awards. Rivera has been nominated for the highest theatre honour in the U.S, the Tony Award, on nine occasions.
1163919	Hans Georg Conried, Jr. (April 15, 1917January 5, 1982), was an American comedian, character actor and voice actor best known for providing the voices of Captain Hook in Walt Disney's version of "Peter Pan" and Snidely Whiplash on "The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show", for playing the title role in "The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T", and for his work as Uncle Tonoose on Danny Thomas's sitcom "Make Room for Daddy". Known as a wit and raconteur, he regularly appeared on NBC's Tonight Show with Jack Paar from 1959 until 1962. Early years. He was born on April 15, 1917 in Baltimore, Maryland, to Edith Beryl (Gildersleeve) and Hans Georg Conried, Sr. He was given the name Hans Georg Conried Jr. There is no truth to the story that his real name was Frank Foster. His Connecticut-born mother was a descendant of Pilgrims, and his father was a Jewish immigrant from Vienna, Austria. He was raised in Baltimore and in New York City. He studied acting at Columbia University and went on to play major classical roles onstage. Conried worked in radio before working in movies in 1939, and was a member of Orson Welles' Mercury Theatre Company. He enlisted in the U.S. Army in September 1944, during World War II. Radio career and other voice work. Conried appeared regularly on radio during the 1940s and 1950s. He was in the regular cast of Orson Welles's "Ceiling Unlimited", for which he wrote the December 14, 1942, episode, "War Workers". On CBS's "The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show" he played a psychiatrist George regularly consulted for help in dealing with the dizzy Gracie. Conried's best single year was 1953, when he made his Broadway debut in "Can-Can" and was credited in six films (among them "The Twonky" and "The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T"). Other Broadway productions include "70, Girls, 70" and "Irene". He can be clearly heard on the Original Cast Albums (and CDs) of Cole Porter's "Can-Can" and Kander & Ebb's "70, Girls, 70" where, among other songs, Conried performs a sensational fast-paced patter song called "The Caper." Conried's inimitable growl and impeccable diction were well suited to the roles he played, whether portraying the dim Professor Kropotkin in the radio show "My Friend Irma" or portraying comic villains and mock-sinister or cranky types, such as Captain Hook (and Mr. Darling) in Walt Disney's "Peter Pan" and The Grinch/Narrator from Dr. Seuss' "Halloween is Grinch Night". According to the DVD commentary of "Futurama", he was the inspiration for the voice created for that series' "Robot Devil".
1041660	George Emlyn Williams, CBE (26 November 1905 – 25 September 1987), known as Emlyn Williams, was a Welsh dramatist and actor. Biography. He was born into a Welsh-speaking, working class family in Mostyn, Flintshire. Aged 11 he won a scholarship to Holywell Grammar School. At the end of his time at the grammar school he won a scholarship to Christ Church, Oxford where he read French and Italian and joined the Oxford University Dramatic Society (OUDS).
1058349	Frederic Fenimore Forrest, Jr. (born December 23, 1936) is a retired American actor. Life. Forrest was born in Waxahachie, Texas, the son of Virginia Allie (née McSpadden) and Frederic Fenimore Forrest, a furniture store owner. He is known for his roles as Chef in "Apocalypse Now", "When The Legends Die", "It Lives Again", the neo-Nazi surplus store owner in "Falling Down", "Right to Kill?" and for playing the writer Dashiell Hammett twice in film — in "Hammett" (1982) and in "Citizen Cohn" (1992 TV movie). He had a role as the notorious Mexican/Indian bandit Blue Duck in the 1989 miniseries, "Lonesome Dove". He was Academy Award-nominated in the Supporting Actor category for his role in "The Rose". He was married to Marilu Henner from 1980 to 1982. Career. Notable roles include four films directed by Francis Ford Coppola, "Apocalypse Now" (as Engineman 3rd Class "Chef" Hicks), "The Conversation", "One from the Heart" and "", along with "Hammett", produced by Coppola. He also appeared in "Valley Girl", "The Two Jakes", "The Stone Boy", "The Missouri Breaks", "The Deliberate Stranger" (TV), "Promise Him Anything" (TV) and horror maestro Dario Argento's first American film, "Trauma". On television, he played Captain Richard Jenko on the first season of the Fox Television series "21 Jump Street", in 1987. Forrest was subsequently replaced by actor Steven Williams, who played Captain Adam Fuller for the remainder of the series. He played Sgt. McSpadden in the Civil War-themed movie "Andersonville" and real-life U.S. Army General Earle Wheeler in 2002's "Path to War", the final film of director John Frankenheimer.
583729	Paarthale Paravasam is a 2001 Tamil drama film directed by K. Balachander, who with the project completed one hundred feature films. The film produced by Balachander's home banner Kavithalayaa Productions featured Madhavan and Simran in the leading roles with Lawrence Raghavendra and Sneha playing other key roles. The film's music is composed by A. R. Rahman whilst A. Venkatesh was cinematographer. "Paarthale Paravasam" tells the story of a couple going through a breakup after the husband is exposed for having a child from a juvenile relationship. It also shows the introduction of love interests for the couple, and if they reconcile forms the crux of the plot. The film released on November 14, 2001 to mixed reviews and became a commercial failure. Plot. Madhava (Madhavan) is a doctor, and a single appearance as hero in a film has made him the heartthrob of thousands of girls. He marries Simi (Simran), but a revelation about his past separates them and takes them as far as divorce. They remain friends though, even going so far as to fix up each other's second marriages.
1057530	The Last of Sheila is a 1973 mystery film directed by Herbert Ross, written by Anthony Perkins and Stephen Sondheim, It stars Richard Benjamin, Dyan Cannon, James Coburn, James Mason, Ian McShane, Joan Hackett, and Raquel Welch. The original music score was composed by Billy Goldenberg. The song "Friends," sung by Bette Midler, can be heard during the final scene of the film and the end credits. Plot. On a one-week Mediterranean pleasure cruise aboard the yacht of movie producer Clinton Greene (Coburn), the guests include actress Alice Wood (Welch), her talent-manager husband Anthony (McShane), talent agent Christine (Cannon), screenwriter Tom Parkman (Benjamin), Tom's wife Lee (Hackett), and film director Philip Dexter (Mason). The trip is, in fact, a reunion. With the exception of Lee, all were together at Clinton's home one year before, on the night a hit-and-run accident resulted in the death of Clinton's wife, gossip columnist Sheila Greene (a cameo by former Hammer horror actress Yvonne Romain). Once the cruise is under way, Clinton, a parlor game enthusiast, informs everyone that the week's entertainment will consist of "The Sheila Greene Memorial Gossip Game." The six guests are each assigned an index card containing a secret—or, in Clinton's words, "a pretend piece of gossip"—that must be kept hidden from the others. The object of the game is to discover everyone else's secret while protecting one's own.
903908	Frankie Russel Faison (born June 10, 1949), often credited as Frankie R. Faison, is an American actor. Personal life. Faison was born in Newport News, Virginia, the son of Carmena (née Gantt) and Edgar Faison. He studied drama at Illinois Wesleyan University in Bloomington, Illinois, where he joined Theta Chi Fraternity. He also attended NYU's Graduate Acting Program, graduating in 1974. He married Jane Mandel on December 26, 1988, and together, they have three children: Blake, Amanda and Rachel.
704783	Cobra Verde (also known as Slave Coast) is a 1987 German drama film directed by Werner Herzog and starring Klaus Kinski. It was based upon Bruce Chatwin's 1980 novel, "The Viceroy of Ouidah". The film depicts the life of a fictional slave trader. It was filmed in locations in Brazil, Colombia and Ghana. Klaus Kinski died four years after the release of "Cobra Verde", and the film would stand as the last of his collaborations with director Werner Herzog. Plot. Francisco Manoel da Silva (Klaus Kinski) is a debauched Brazilian rancher who reluctantly goes to work at a gold mining company after his ranch is ruined by drought. When he discovers that he is being financially exploited, he murders his boss and goes on the lam to pursue a career as an outlaw. He becomes the notorious Cobra Verde (Green Snake), the most vicious bandit of the "sertao". In his travels, da Silva encounters and subdues an escaped slave, an act that impresses wealthy sugar baron Don Octavio Coutinho (José Lewgoy). Don Coutinho, unaware that he is dealing with the legendary bandit, hires da Silva to oversee the slaves on his sugar plantation. When da Silva subsequently impregnates all three of the Don's daughters, the sugar baron is furious, but the situation becomes even more complicated when he discovers that da Silva is none other than the infamous Cobra Verde. As punishment, rather than kill him or have him prosecuted, Don Coutinho decides to send da Silva on the impossible mission of re-opening the slave trade with Western Africa. The bandit is aware he is likely to be killed in Africa, but accepts anyway. He travels by sea to Dahomey, West Africa, where he must negotiate with the fearsome King Bossa Ahadee of Dahomey (played by His Honor the Omanhene Nana Agyefi Kwame II of Nsein). Nsein is a village north of the city of Axim, Ghana Amazingly, da Silva succeeds in convincing the King to exchange slaves for new rifles. He takes over Elmina Castle and takes Taparica (King Ampaw), sole survivor of the previous expedition, for a partner. They begin operating the slave trade across the Atlantic to Brazil. Soon, however, the fickle king has them captured and brought before him. The King accuses da Silva of various crimes that he has no knowledge of, including poisoning the King's greyhound, and sentences him to death. He and Taparica are rescued the night prior to da Silva's decapitation by the King's nephew, who negotiates a blood alliance with da Silva, planning to overthrow the King. The ambitious bandit trains an enormous army of native women, and leads them on a raid to successfully overthrow King Bossa. Against all expectations, the slave trade is successfully maintained under the new King, thanks to da Silva's resourcefulness. However, da Silva eventually falls out of favor with the new King, and discovers that in the meantime the Portuguese have outlawed slavery and seized his assets, and the English have placed a price on his head. Despite the adversity, da Silva is glad that finally a change has come. The exhausted bandit tries desperately to take a boat to water, but despite his best efforts, he is unable to accomplish the task. He collapses next to the ship as the tide slowly laps in. The film ends with the hauntingly symbolic image of an African man stricken with polio walking along the shore, and a group of young native women laughingly chant over the credits. Production. The film was shot in Africa, Brazil and Colombia. Herzog showed Kinski photographs of the places where he would like to work. Kinski was interested in some landscapes in Colombia, but Herzog did not agree. However, Kinski made the trip with a group of friends to some remote places that fascinated him: the foothills of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta and the Cape of The Sailing, on the peninsula of La Guajira, Colombia. Herzog finally decided on Villa de Leyva and Valle del Cauca, in the South American country. Kinski said then: "Herzog does not know that I give life to the dead scenery. " The film was based upon Bruce Chatwin's 1980 novel, "The Viceroy of Ouidah", which was itself based on the Brazilian slave trader Francisco Felix de Sousa and his role in helping King Ghezo overthrow his brother Adandozan as King of Dahomey with the help of Ghezo's Dahomey Amazons. Tension between Herzog and Kinski. "Cobra Verde" was the last film that Werner Herzog would make with Klaus Kinski. Their now-legendary personality conflict peaked during the film. The film's production was especially affected by Kinski's fiery outbursts. The cast and crew were continually plagued by Kinski's wrath, most famously culminating in the film's original cinematographer Thomas Mauch walking out on the project after a perpetual torrent of verbal abuse from Kinski. Herzog was forced to replace Mauch with Viktor Růžička. Herzog's opinions of Kinski are deeply explored in his 1999 documentary retrospective, "My Best Fiend", where he examines their unique friendship, the associated hatred, and the legacy that both qualities were responsible for.
592158	Nagamandala () is a Kannada language film directed by T.S. Nagabharana and written by Girish Karnad Introduction. Nagamandala is a critically acclaimed Kannada movie released in 1997. The story of the film was adapted from a play of the same name written by well-known writer Girish Karnad. The movie was directed by award winning director T.S. Nagabharana, who is deemed to be one of the ace directors in Kannada film industry. Music was scored by C. Aswath and Srihari L. Khoday produced the movie. The film touches one of the most sensitive issues of marital life. In folk style and form, the film throws open a question as to who is the husband - the person who marries an innocent girl and indulges in self pleasures or the person who gives the real and complete experience of life. Cast. The film stars Prakash Rai, Vijayalakshmi, Mandya Ramesh, and B. Jayashri in prominent roles. The film is centered on three people, Appanna (Prakash Rai), his wife Rani (Vijayalakshmi) and Naga, a Cobra, who can assume the form of a human being (Prakash Rai). The strong points of the movie remain the amazing acting by the leading cast and an authentic portrayal and command on story by the director. The director has made some change to the original play in the climax. Plot Summary. Rani is a young bride who is neglected by her indifferent and unfaithful husband, Appanna. Appanna spends most of his time with his concubine and comes home only for lunch. Rani is one of those typical wives who want to win her husband’s affection at any cost. In an attempt to do so, she decides to drug her husband with a love root, which she mixes in the milk. That milk is spilled on the nearby anthill and Naga, the Cobra drinks it. Naga, who can take the form of a human being, is enchanted with her and begins to visit her every night in the form of her husband. This changes Rani’s life completely as she starts to experience the good things in life though she never knows that the person with her is not her husband but the Naga. One of these days, she gets pregnant and breaks the news to Appanna. He immediately accuses her for adultery and says that he has not fathered the child. The issue is referred to the village Panchayat. She is then asked to prove her fidelity by putting her hand in the snake burrow and taking a vow that she has not committed adultery. It is a popular belief that if any person lies holding the snake in their hand, they will be instantly killed by the snake God.
1061641	Eli Herschel Wallach (born December 7, 1915) is an American film, television and stage actor whose career has spanned more than six decades, beginning in late 1940s. For his performance as Silva Vacarro in "Baby Doll", he won a BAFTA Award for Best Newcomer and a Golden Globe nomination. Among his most famous roles are Calvera in "The Magnificent Seven" (1960), Guido in "The Misfits" (1961), and Tuco in "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly" (1966). Other notable portrayals include Don Altobello in "The Godfather Part III", Cotton Weinberger in "The Two Jakes" (both 1990), and Arthur Abbott in "The Holiday" (2006). One of America's most prolific screen actors, Wallach has remained active well into his nineties, with roles as recently as 2010 in "" and "The Ghost Writer". Wallach has received BAFTA Awards, Tony Awards and Emmy Awards for his work, and received an Honorary Academy Award at the 2nd Annual Governors Awards, presented on November 13, 2010. Early life. Wallach was born in Red Hook, Brooklyn at 156 Union St., the son of Polish Jewish immigrants Bertha (née Schorr) and Abraham Wallach. They were the only Jewish family in an otherwise predominantly Italian American neighborhood. His parents owned Bertha's, a candy store. Wallach graduated in 1936 from the University of Texas at Austin with a degree in history and in 1938 received a masters degree in education from the City College of New York. He gained his first Method experience at the Neighborhood Playhouse School of Theatre in New York City. While attending the University of Texas, Wallach performed in a play with fellow students Ann Sheridan and Walter Cronkite. Wallach served as a United States Army staff sergeant in a military hospital in Hawaii during World War II. He was soon sent to Officer Candidate School (OCS) in Abilene, Texas to train as a medical administrative officer. He graduated as a Second Lieutenant and was sent to Madison Barracks in upstate New York. He was promptly shipped to Casablanca and, later in the war, to France. It was there that a superior discovered his acting history and asked him to form a show for the patients. He and other members from his unit wrote a play called "Is This the Army?", which was inspired by Irving Berlin's "This Is the Army". In the comedic play, Wallach and the other men clowned around as various dictators, with Wallach portraying Adolf Hitler, the leader of Nazi Germany. Career. Wallach took classes in acting at the Dramatic Workshop of the New School in New York with the influential German director Erwin Piscator. Later, he attended the Actors Studio from its inception; there, he studied acting with founding member Robert Lewis, alongside Marlon Brando, Montgomery Clift, Herbert Berghof, and Sidney Lumet, and his soon-to-be wife, Anne Jackson. Wallach made his Broadway debut in 1945 and won a Tony Award in 1951 for his performance in the Tennessee Williams play "The Rose Tattoo". Additional theater credits include "Mister Roberts", "The Teahouse of the August Moon", "Camino Real", "Major Barbara", "Luv", and "Staircase", co-starring Milo O'Shea, which was a serious depiction of an aging homosexual couple. He also played a role in a tour of "Antony and Cleopatra," produced by the actress Katharine Cornell in 1946. He last starred on stage as the title character in "Visiting Mr. Green". Wallach's film debut was in Elia Kazan's controversial 1956 "Baby Doll", and he went on to a prolific career in films, although rarely in a starring role. Other early films include "The Lineup", "The Misfits" with Clark Gable and Marilyn Monroe, "The Magnificent Seven" with Yul Brynner and Steve McQueen, "Lord Jim" with Peter O'Toole, a comic role in "How to Steal a Million" with Audrey Hepburn, and perhaps most famously, as Tuco (the 'Ugly') in Sergio Leone's "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly" with Clint Eastwood. After the latter's success, Wallach appeared in several other spaghetti westerns, including "Ace High". Wallach is central to one of the most infamous show business legends. In 1953 he was cast as Angelo Maggio in the film "From Here to Eternity", but was abruptly replaced by Frank Sinatra before filming began. Sinatra went on to win an Oscar for the performance, which revived his career. Sinatra purportedly used pressure from his underworld connections to get the part, an incident that inspired the Johnny Fontane character in the classic 1972 film "The Godfather". To spare Sinatra embarrassment, Wallach says he turned down the role to appear in a Tennessee Williams play, claiming: "...henever Sinatra saw me, he’d say, 'Hello, you crazy actor!'" In 2006, Wallach made a guest appearance on the NBC show "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip", playing a former writer who was blacklisted in the 1950s. His character was a writer on "The Philco Comedy Hour", a show that aired on a fictional NBS network. This is a reference to "The Philco Television Playhouse", in several episodes of which Wallach actually appeared in 1955. Wallach earned a 2007 Emmy nomination for his work on the show. Before accepting a role as a villain in Leone's "Once Upon a Time in the West", Henry Fonda called Wallach and asked "What the hell does he know about the West?" Wallach assured Fonda he would be pleasantly surprised if he accepted the role. After the film's success, Fonda called Wallach back to thank him. Wallach and Leone had built a good relationship during shooting "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly", but had a falling-out later on. Leone had asked Wallach to play a role in his upcoming film, "A Fistful of Dynamite", but the actor explained he had a scheduling conflict. After much pleading, Wallach finally relented and turned down the other offer and waited for Leone to raise enough Hollywood money for the picture. However, the studio Leone went to had an actor, Rod Steiger, with one more picture in his studio contract and the studio announced that Leone would have to use him if they were to put up any financing. Leone then called to apologize to Wallach, who remained dumbstruck on the other end of the line. After even refusing to give Wallach a token payment for losing out on two jobs, the actor said, "I'll sue you"—to which Leone replied, "Get in line", and slammed down the phone. In his autobiography, Wallach relates the incident as regrettably being the final time the two spoke to one another.
1599188	Sook-Yin Lee is a Canadian broadcaster, musician, filmmaker, and actress. She is a former MuchMusic VJ, and, since 2002, has been the host of CBC Radio's "Definitely Not the Opera" (DNTO). Background. Lee grew up in a Vancouver suburb, the second-oldest daughter of Chinese immigrants. She was raised as a devout Roman Catholic. Her father was a post-World War II orphan from Hong Kong, and her mother an escapee from Communist China who was in and out of psychiatric institutions when Lee was young. Lee's upbringing was within a strict, secretive and unstable family. When Lee was 15, her parents split up and Lee ran away from home, for a time living on the street before eventually living with a "community of lesbians and artists". In the late 1980s, she became the lead singer for Bob's Your Uncle, a Vancouver alternative rock band. Lee often incorporated performance art techniques into the band's melodic rock. When that band broke up, Lee pursued a solo music career, releasing several solo albums and performing as an actor in theatre, film and television projects. She was the lead singer for the band Slan. Neko Case covered Lee's song "Knock Loud" on her 2001 EP "Canadian Amp". MuchMusic and CBC. In 1995, Lee became a VJ for MuchMusic, bringing her theatrical and musical background and her unique creative perspective to the channel. She was best known as the host of MuchMusic's alternative music show, "The Wedge". (Now a weekly show, "The Wedge" was a daily series when Lee hosted.) Lee is openly bisexual. In 1995, on the day that sexual orientation was added to the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms by the Supreme Court of Canada, Lee celebrated the decision by kissing a woman on the air. She later appeared on the cover of "Xtra!" in 1997. She left MuchMusic in 2001. During her last appearance as a MuchMusic VJ, Lee and her co-host turned their backs to the camera, and mooned the audience on live television. The following year, she was named as the new host of CBC Radio One's Saturday afternoon pop culture magazine "Definitely Not the Opera". In the fall of 2004, she produced and hosted a documentary celebrating Terry Fox as part of the CBC Television series "The Greatest Canadian". Fox finished second in the voting to Tommy Douglas, whose advocate was another ex-MuchMusic VJ, George Stroumboulopoulos. Film work. Lee played the lead character, Alessa Woo, alongside fellow Canadian actor Adam Beach in Helen Lee's 2001 film "The Art of Woo". In 2003, she became the centre of controversy when John Cameron Mitchell first announced that he was casting Lee in his film "Shortbus" (released 2006). Due to Mitchell's announcement that the film was to be sexually explicit in nature — Lee and other cast members perform non-simulated intercourse and masturbation on screen — the CBC initially threatened to fire her. Celebrities such as director Francis Ford Coppola, R.E.M.'s Michael Stipe, actress Julianne Moore and artist and musician Yoko Ono, as well as the CBC's listening audience, rallied behind her, and the CBC ultimately relented. The movie premiered at the 2006 Cannes Film Festival. Her performance in "Shortbus" earned Lee the 2007 "International Cinephile Society Award for Best Supporting Actress". Lee also has a smaller part in Mitchell's film "Hedwig and the Angry Inch", playing Kwahng-Yi, a guitarist in Hedwig's rock band made up of Korean-born army wives. In 2012 she was tapped to play Olivia Chow in the CBC biopic "Jack", alongside Rick Roberts as Jack Layton. Lee's feature film directorial debut "Year of the Carnivore" premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2009. She also stars in and wrote and directed "The Brazilian" segment of the 2008 film "Toronto Stories".
1044637	Taste the Blood of Dracula is a British horror film produced by Hammer Film Productions and released in 1970. It stars Christopher Lee as Count Dracula, and was directed by Peter Sasdy based upon a script by Anthony Hinds. The film was released as a double bill alongside fellow Hammer production "Crescendo". Storyline. Prologue. A businessman named Weller is travelling through Eastern Europe when he is thrown from his carriage during a struggle and knocked unconscious. After coming to he discovers it is night time. After wandering some way, he hears a deathly scream. Terrified, Weller runs and falls into a grassy slope. Looking up, he sees a caped figure screaming in agony with a large crucifix impaling him from the back. Weller watches in amazement and fear as the figure dies and disintegrates from blood to reddish dust. Examining the remains, Weller finds a ring, a cape and a brooch with dried blood on it. Dusting away the dried blood, Weller is petrified by the name on the Brooch; "Dracula". Plot. Three English gentlemen - Hargood, Paxton and Secker - have formed a circle ostensibly devoted to charitable work but in reality they indulge themselves in brothels. One night they are intrigued by a young man who bursts into the brothel and is immediately tended to after snapping his fingers, despite the brothelkeeper's objections. The gentlemen are informed that he is Courtley, who was disinherited for celebrating a Black Mass. Hoping for more intense pleasures, Hargood meets Courtley outside the brothel. The younger man takes the three to the Cafe Royal and promises them experiences they will never forget but insists that they go to see Weller and purchase from him Dracula's ring, cloak and dried blood. Having done so, the three meet with Courtley at an abandoned Church for a ceremony during which he puts the dried blood into goblets and mixes it with drops of his own blood, telling the men to drink. They refuse, so he drinks the blood himself, screams and falls to the ground. As he grabs their legs, they kick and beat him, not stopping until Courtley dies, at which they flee. While the three return to their respective homes and return to their lives, Courtley's body, left in the abandoned church, transforms into Dracula, who vows that those who have destroyed his servant will be destroyed. Dracula begins his revenge with Hargood, who has begun to drink heavily and also treats his daughter Alice harshly, furious that she continues to see Paul, Paxton's son. Dracula takes control of Alice's mind via hypnosis and as her drunken father chases after her, she picks up a shovel and kills him. The next day, Hargood is found dead and Alice is missing. The police inspector in charge of the case refuses to investigate Alice's disappearance, citing a lack of time and resources. At her father's funeral, Alice hovers behind bushes and attracts the attention of Paul's sister Lucy, telling her to meet her that night. They enter the abandoned church where Alice introduces her to a dark figure. Lucy assumes him to be Alice's lover but she is greeted by Dracula, who turns her into a vampire. With Hargood dead and Alice and Lucy missing, Paxton fears that Courtley is exacting revenge and, together with Secker, visits the abandoned church to check for Courtley's corpse. The body is missing but they discover Lucy asleep in a coffin with marks on her throat. Secker realizes she is a vampire and tries to stake her, but Paxton shoots him in the arm, forcing him to flee. While Secker stumbles his way home, Paxton weeps over his daughter's body. When he finally develops the courage to stake Lucy himself, she awakens, and Dracula appears. Alice pins Paxton down and Lucy drives a wooden stake through his chest. That night, Secker's son Jeremy sees Lucy, his lover, at his window and comes down to see her. She sinks her fangs into his throat, enslaving him while Dracula watches. The vampire Jeremy then stabs his father on Lucy's orders. On the way back to the church, Lucy begs for Dracula's approval but instead he drains her dry and leaves her destroyed. Back at the church, he prepares to bite Alice but a cock crows and he returns to his coffin. Secker's body causes Jeremy's arrest. The police inspector assumes that he hated his father and stabbed him in a rage. Paul disagrees but the inspector refuses to listen. He hands Paul a letter - "the ramblings of a lunatic" he calls it - in which Secker instructs Paul on how to fight the vampires. Following Secker's instructions, Paul makes his way to the abandoned church. He finds Lucy's exsanguinated body en route, floating in a lake. At the church he bars the door with a large cross and clears the altar of Black Mass instruments, replacing them with the proper materials. He calls for Alice, who appears together with Dracula. Paul confronts Dracula with a cross but Alice, still entranced, disarms him. She seeks Dracula's approval but he dismisses her. He tries to leave but is prevented by the cross barring the door. His retreat is also barred by a cross which an angry and disappointed Alice threw to the floor. Dracula climbs the balcony and throws objects at Paul and Alice, before backing into a stained glass window depicting a cross. He breaks the glass but suddenly sees the changed surroundings and hears the Lord's Prayer recited in Latin. Dazzled and overwhelmed by the power of the newly re-sanctified church, Dracula falls to the altar, and dissolves back into bloody dust. With the vampire destroyed, Paul and Alice leave. Critical reception. "The Hammer Story: The Authorised History of Hammer Films" called the film "the finest genuine Dracula sequel in the entire Dracula series." It currently holds a positive 64% score on Rotten Tomatoes. DVD release. On Nov 6, 2007 the movie was released in a film pack along with "Horror of Dracula", "Dracula Has Risen from the Grave", and "Dracula AD 1972".
585023	Rama Rama Krishna Krishna is a 2010 Telugu language film that stars Ram, Priya Anand and Bindu Madhavi in the lead role, whilst prominent actors Arjun Sarja, Nassar, Brahmanandam and Gracy Singh play pivotal roles. This film, directed by Srivas ("Lakshyam" fame) and produced by noted producer, Dil Raju, released on May 12, 2010. The film was dubbed later into Tamil as "Gandhipuram" and released on December 24, 2010 and in Hindi as "Nafrat Ki Jung". Plot. Movie starts in Mumbai when mafia leader Ashok Deva (Arjun) is on an unending war with his opponent Pawar (Vineet Kumar). Deva has a cute family with two sisters Sirisha and Priya (Priya Anand), wife Gauthami (Gracy Singh) and his right hand Shiva. Gauthami is killed by Pawar group on her birthday and she takes last word from her husband to leave this violence and lead a peaceful life away from mafia. Respecting her words, Deva along with his sisters and Shiva leaves to a small village Gandhipuram in East Godavari district to start his new life while Pawar group thinks that Deva is dead. Chakrapani (Naazar) is head of this village with two sons Anand and Ramakrishna (Ram). Ramakrishna is a notorious guy in the village who bashes up the bad respecting his father’s principles, who is chased by his maradalu (Bindu Madhavi) while Anand is a medico who is in love with classmate Sirisha (Deva’s sister). Feared of their parents not accepting their marriage, both of them elope to their uncle Subba Rao’s (Brahmanandm) residence in Mumbai. Now, Ramakrishna and Priya along with Shiva reach Mumbai in search of this eloped couple only to get targeted by mafia again. Pawar wants to finish Shiva and Priya but are saved by Ramakrishna who later knows about the flash back of Deva. Ramakrishna now takes on the responsibility of his brother’s marriage with Sirisha and bring them back to Gandhipuram but to be continuously chased by this mafia. At last when both the families agree for the marriage of Ramakrishna with Priya and Anand with Sirisha, here comes back mafia Pawar to take the movie to climax. Who won this mafia war? Did Ramakrishna win his love? What happened to Deva? Soundtrack. The soundtrack was composed by M.M. Keeravani, All Lyrics given by Ananth Sriram and released worldwide by Aditya Music.
584214	Pathinaaru (; ) is a 2011 Tamil romantic drama film written and directed by Sabapathy Dekshinamurthy, who earlier directed films like "V.I.P" (1997), "Punnagai Poove" (2003) and "A Aa E Ee" (2009). It stars Shiva and Madhu Shalini in lead along with musician Darbuka Siva and television artist Abhishek in pivotal roles. The film's background score and soundtrack was composed by Yuvan Shankar Raja. After being launched in October 2008 under the title "16", the film was shot for over one year, getting finished in early 2010 only. One year after its completion, Kalaipuli S. Thanu bought the distribution rights and released the film on 28 January 2011 under his V. Creations banner. However, this movie was unsuccessful at the Box-Office. Despite that the movie did not fare well at the box office, it was remade as Jolly Boy in Kannada language. Plot. Shiva (Shiva) and Indu (Madhu Shalini) are city-based students,who love each other. However, their love is strongly opposed by the latter’s parents. They're given a handwritten book titled "Pathinaaru" (Sixteen) by Indhu's mother to read. The book depicts a real-life story about two village teenagers Gopi (Kishore) and Ilavarasi (Vinitha), and their romance as they step into adolescence. Facing opposition from her affluent family, the gutsy Ilavarasi takes some bold unconventional steps, which backfires on her. The story of unrequited love and betrayal leaves Indu in a dilemma and she prepares to go with her family’s desires. But Siva is not ready to give up Indu and sets out to do his own investigation to get to the bottom of what ultimately happened to Gopi and Ilavarasi. Production. With initial plans of releasing the film for Pongal 2009, the film was officially launched under the title "16" on 15 October 2008 at the office of the production company, Passion Movie Makers, who are stepping into film production with this project, Radio jockey-turned-actor Shiva, who rose to fame through his appearances in "Chennai 600028" (2007) and "Saroja" (2008), revealed that he had signed this film after "Chennai 600028" even, which commenced only after the release of his second film "Saroja". Darbuka Siva, a percussionist in various bands, who also worked as a radio jockey together with Shiva, was signed for an important role as was the controversial director Velu Prabhakaran. The first schedule of film shooting started on 3 November 2008, when scenes involving Shiva, Darbuka Siva and Madhu Shalini were shot across the East Coast Road in Tamil Nadu. Subsequently, shooting was held at various places including Chennai, Ooty and Kodaikanal. Despite being made on a low budget and featuring a relatively new cast, the film mired in development hell, with filming, which was supposed to be completed within two months, being carried on through entire 2009, and finished in January 2010 only. Following the completion, however, the film's release still got delayed further, since it also languished in post-production hell. However, noted film producer and distributor Kalaipuli S. Thanu, after watching a preview screening of the film, decided to take over the film's theatrical rights and distribute it under his V. Creations banner in entire Tamil Nadu. Soundtrack. Film score and soundtrack of "Pathinaaru" were composed by Shiva's friend Yuvan Shankar Raja, collaborating with Sabapathy again after "Punnagai Poove" in 2003. Notably, Yuvan Shankar worked for this film without receiving any remuneration as it would have overrun the film's whole budget. The soundtrack album, considered the highlight of the film, features four songs along with a theme music track. The songs were composed in 2008 and recorded later that year and the next year, with the album being ready for release by July 2009. For a song in the flashback portion of the film, Yuvan Shankar Raja made his brother Karthik Raja sing, which is the first solo song of him under Yuvan Shankar's direction. Apart from Karthik Raja, Yuvan Shankar Raja himself, along with Hariharan, Shankar Mahadevan and Bela Shende have sung the songs. The soundtrack album was eventually released on December 24, 2010 in a small manner, with S. P. B. Charan and Samudrakani being present along with the film crew. Prior and during the time of the film's audio launch, Yuvan Shankar Raja was featured on the film posters, by which the producer promoted the film and the album.
582435	Kambakkht Ishq (Hindi: कमबख़्त इश्क़; English: Damned Love) is a Bollywood romantic comedy film directed by Sabbir Khan and produced by Sajid Nadiadwala. The film is based on the 2002 Tamil film "Pammal K. Sambandam", and features Akshay Kumar and Kareena Kapoor in pivotal roles along with actors Aftab Shivdasani and Amrita Arora in supporting roles. Hollywood actors Sylvester Stallone, Denise Richards, Brandon Routh and Holly Valance appear in cameos, playing themselves. Originally scheduled to release in December 2008, the film was postponed due to extensive production work and was released on 3 July 2009. Plot. When Hollywood stuntman Viraj Shergill (Akshay Kumar) and medical student Simrita Rai (Kareena Kapoor) come across each other at his brother Lucky's (Aftab Shivdasani) and her best friend Kamini's (Amrita Arora) hastily planned wedding ceremony, they instantly develop a dislike for each other. They both have a very low opinion of the opposite sex, and staunchly believe marriage is not the way to go for the two newlyweds, whom they try to discourage from proceeding further. Simrita convinces Kamini to test out her theory that men are after only one thing, by forcing Lucky to delay their marriage vows for three months. She is sure, Lucky will not be able to do so and this will prove to Kamini that Lucky is just another low-class male, like all others, and her claims of him being different than most men are unfounded. Viraj, upon hearing about this new development, tries to do the exact opposite. This results in a hilarious scene at a local disco bar, where Viraj lures Kamini with the hope of her finding Lucky with a "girlfriend" that he has planted in the lap of Lucky in order to make Kamini jealous. The plan backfires and Kamini and Lucky end up in divorce court where the judge puts them on a three-month probation and marriage counselling. Simrita keeps on telling kamini that all men are the same and that all they want is sex. Lucky tries to make love with kamini but kamini never lets him come near her. Meanwhile, Simrita and Viraj keep bumping into each other when they both travel to Italy independently; the former to make some quick cash as a model to pay for her medical bills, and the latter, with Lucky, to chill out and take a vacation from all of the marital stress Lucky has been facing back home. Upon returning home, Simrita is given a watch pendant by her Dolly Aunty (Kirron Kher) to wear as a good luck charm. The pendant hangs from a bracelet on her wrist. Viraj gets seriously hurt in an accident at work and is brought for emergency surgery to the hospital where Simrita is an intern. Much to each other's irritation, Simrita is given the charge to perform surgery on Viraj. After the surgery, while looking at the X-rays, she is horrified to discover that the watch on her wrist has accidentally ended up in Viraj's stomach. Simrita tries various ways of getting the watch out. During one such process, which fails, it becomes clear that Simrita is bitter about her perceived unfaithfulness of the two most prominent men from her childhood: her divorced father and her elder sister's ex-husband. By this time, Viraj is secretly beginning to fall in love with Simrita. Several days later, Simrita is successful in removing the watch from Viraj's stomach. Following the surgery, Viraj overhears the truth and leaves. Several days later, he proposes to Denise Richards in an attempt to forget about Simrita. Upon realising her mistake, Simrita helps Lucky and Kamini reconcile and decides to confess her love for Viraj at the wedding ceremony. At first, Denise is upset but then tells Viraj to go to Simrita. The two embrace and go off together in the car sharing a few passionate kisses. Cast. Cameo appearances (in alphabetical order); Production. In November 2007, producer Sajid Nadiadwala signed on actor Akshay Kumar to play the lead role in his film. Later that month Kareena Kapoor was signed on to play the female lead. It is the seventh time Kumar and Kapoor are paired on-screen. Kumar plays a Hollywood stuntman in the film and Kapoor plays a high-society girl. According to Nadiadwala, "It will be an international love story on a lavish scale." The project was originally expected to commence filming in January 2008 in Los Angeles with nine actors from Hollywood but due to extensive pre-production work on the film, it was later shifted to May 2008. Reports indicated that actor and politician Arnold Schwarzenegger was signed on to do a cameo and that the film would feature a performance from singer and actress Beyoncé Knowles. Prashant Shah, line producer of "Kambakkht Ishq" in L.A. commented, "We are in talks with Beyoncé and we have also received a letter from Arnold's office...Things will be confirmed shortly and we will be making a formal announcement when that happens." It was later reported that neither star would be appearing in the film. In March 2008, Nadiadwala announced that "this would be the first Indian film to be shot within Universal Studios." However, when a fire broke out on the backlot of Universal Studios on 1 June 2008, the shooting of the film was expected to be delayed. But the producer indicated, "so far the area where we are supposed to shoot remains unaffected. So for now we are proceeding on schedule." Later that month, the cast finally began filming for the project in Los Angeles, California, where pivotal scenes were shot at the Kodak Theatre and Universal Studios. In August 2008, reports had indicated that the film was 50–60% complete and the cast would continue filming for the project in Venice, Italy. After completing their overseas schedule, the production team later headed to shoot in Mumbai, India. During December 2008, reports surfaced indicating that Kumar and Kapoor would appear alongside Carmen Electra in a promotional music video for the film. In February 2009, Nadiadwala announced that Electra wouldn't be appearing in the music video and was replaced by the music group RDB. According to Nadiadwala, "It is not a music video but a song that we will use as an integral part of the film. It will occur close to the film's interval. It will also be the first promotional song." The first trailer of the film was shown alongside the release of Jehangir Surti's film "Aa Dekhen Zara" (2009). Release. Box office. Before the film's worldwide release of 3 July 2009, advance bookings for "Kambakkht Ishq" officially commenced from 28 June onwards to positive response from the public. The film grossed over Rs 10 million from its 125 advanced paid previews shown on Thursday July 2009 night. On 3 July 2009, "Kambakkht Ishq" opened to a bumper response of 90–100% all over India. Making a first day total of Rs85.0 million, the film emerged as the second biggest opening day gross of all time for a Bollywood film. For its opening weekend in India, "Kambakkht Ishq" accumulated a total of Rs245.0 million from 1,400 screens. The following Monday, it grossed another Rs40 million, and the following Tuesday it grossed Rs30 million. At the end of its first week, "Kambakkht Ishq" collected a total of Rs359.5 million. During its second week at the box office, the film showed a 70% drop in its collections; the movie was above average overall at the box office. Besides being released domestically in India, Eros International released the film in over 600 screens overseas in a combination of prints and digital format. For its opening weekend in the United Kingdom, the film debuted at number 8 and grossed £ 299,533 on 56 screens, for an average of £5,349 per screen. "Kambakkht Ishq" debuted at number 14 in the United States and number 11 in Australia, accumulating US$768,542 from 100 screens in the former and $152,626 from 17 screens in the latter. As of 29 July 2009, "Kambakkht Ishq" has grossed a total of £681,154 in the U.K. and $1,445,739 in the U.S. Critical response. Upon release, the film met with negative reviews. Noyon Jyoti Parasara from "AOL India" concluded, "The film has nothing going for it. It has a worryingly bad script, horrible screenplay, traumatising dialogues and unpleasant music." Parasara further explained, ""Kambakkht Ishq" is a shame when it comes to watching Indian films on the world stage." Rajeev Masand from "CNN-IBN", who gave the film 1 star out of 5, noted that "Kambakkht Ishq" "is a loud, vulgar and seriously offensive film". Taran Adarsh of "indiaFM" described "Kambakkht Ishq" as a film that would "strike a chord with the youth and those who relish zany and madcap entertainers". He praised the performances, direction, and writing, noting that the film would "see an earth-shattering opening weekend and a historic Week 1." Rachel Saltz from "The New York Times" concluded that "film has only one frantic desire: to entertain. It spottily succeeds, despite its frequently crude humor, relentless pace and a few unpalatable racial bits."
657851	Curtis Armstrong (born November 27, 1953) is an American actor best known for his portrayal as Booger in the "Revenge of the Nerds" movies, as Herbert Viola on "Moonlighting", as famed record producer Ahmet Ertegün in the film "Ray" and for voicing the titular character in the show "Dan Vs.". Early life. Armstrong was born in Detroit, Michigan, the son of Norma E. (née D'Amico), a teacher, and Robert Leroy Armstrong. He graduated from Berkley High School in Berkley, Michigan, and later attended and was graduated from Oakland University in Rochester, Michigan. Career. His first role came in the 1983 hit film "Risky Business". However, he is probably best known for his next role, that of Dudley "Booger" Dawson in the 1984 hit comedy movie "Revenge of the Nerds" and its 1987 sequel '. He later reprised his role as Booger in the 1992 television movie ' and once again in the 1994 television movie '. Armstrong's typecasting in the role was mocked in "The Simpsons" episode “E-I-E-I-(Annoyed Grunt)”. His other films include "Better Off Dead", "Big Bully", "One Crazy Summer", "Bad Medicine", "National Lampoon's Van Wilder", "Smokin' Aces", ', "Jingle All The Way", "Southland Tales", and "Beer for My Horses". He also had a recurring role as Herbert Viola on the television series "Moonlighting", and played the part of Ahmet Ertegün in the biographical film "Ray" (2004). He provided the voice for Mr. Moleguaco on the Disney Channel original series "The Emperor's New School". Curtis was also in Akeelah and the Bee & Max Keeble's Big Move. He played "Farley", a fictional composite character based on members of Elvis Presley's real entourage in the 1997 cult-comedy film "Elvis Meets Nixon". He also had a bit part as "Russel" in the short-lived TV show "Reaper." He voices "Snot" on the animated sitcom "American Dad!", parodying his role from "Revenge of the Nerds". He also had a role as Double Wide in the cartoon series "Stroker and Hoop" on Adult Swim. He appeared in the 2006 production of "Akeelah and the Bee" as Mr. Welch. He was on VH1's 100 Greatest Teen Stars despite being thirty when he played his first role. He played "Mecklen" in the 2007 film, "Smokin' Aces". In the feature film "Ray", for preparation for his role as music executive Ahmet Ertegün, he had the top part of his head shaved to simulate male pattern baldness. He guest starred in episode 10 — "Much Too Much" and had a much smaller part in episode 11 — "Owner of a Lonely Heart" in season two of "Grey's Anatomy". Armstrong played a deejay named Jerry Thunder in "That '70s Show", episode 315, "Radio Daze." In 2008, he guest starred in the "iCarly" episode "iStakeout" as a convenience store clerk who was suspected of pirating movies. In 2009 he appeared in "", and "Locker 13". He played fictional astronaut Chaz Dalton on an episode of the TV series "My Name is Earl". 2009 found Armstrong playing a paranoid character in a mental institution on the "House" season six premiere, Broken. Also in 2009 Armstrong appeared in "", as a teacher obsessed with the principal of the school, and he also appeared as a bumbling bandit in the movie "Gold Retrievers". In 2010 he made a guest appearance on the television show "Glory Daze" and currently voices the main character on the animated series "Dan Vs." and he also voices Robot in "Robot and Monster". He also appeared on Spike TV's "Blue Mountain State" (S01E11). In 2011 he appeared on an episode of "Curb Your Enthusiasm", and has a recurring role as attorney Peter Goldman in season seven of "The Closer". On October 27, 2011, he appeared as himself on the television show "Rules of Engagement". In addition to his acting career, Armstrong's affinity for the music of Harry Nilsson has prompted him to become an expert on Nilsson's work. He has written liner notes for CD reissues of Nilsson albums, and has been instrumental in archival and bonus track preparation for these reissues. Additionally, Armstrong is an avid fan of Washington Irving, Laurel and Hardy, and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories. In January 2013, he and former co-star Robert Carradine from the "Revenge of the Nerds" film series will be hosting a reality TV series called "King of the Nerds" based off the film series and their respective roles, Dudley "Booger" Dawson and Lewis Skolnick, to determine who is the nerdiest out of a group of nerds each season. In May 2013, Armstrong appeared as "Dr. Foster" in an episode of "New Girl".
1066622	The Music Never Stopped is a 2011 American drama film directed by Jim Kohlberg, who makes his directorial debut from a script by Gwyn Lurie and Gary Marks. It premiered at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival, and was given a limited release in the US on March 18, 2011. Plot. Based on Oliver Sacks' essay "The Last Hippie", the film tells the father-son relationship between Henry Sawyer (J.K. Simmons) and his son, Gabriel (Lou Taylor Pucci), who suffers from a brain tumor that prevents him from forming new memories. Henry, with his son unable to shed light on their strained relationship, must connect with him through music.
1059238	John Gavin (born John Anthony Golenor; April 8, 1931) is an American film actor and a former United States Ambassador to Mexico. Gavin is of Mexican and Irish descent, and is fluent in Spanish. Gavin currently resides in Faithlegg, County Waterford, Ireland. Early life. Gavin's father (Herald Ray Golenor)'s family is of Irish origin, and were early landowners in California when it was still under Spanish rule. Gavin's mother, Delia Diana Pablos, hailed from the historically influential Pablos family of Sonora, Mexico. After attending St. John's Military Academy (Los Angeles) and Villanova Prep (Ojai, California), both Catholic schools, he earned a B.A. from Stanford University, where he did senior honors work in Latin American economic history and was a member of Stanford's Naval ROTC unit. During the Korean War Gavin was commissioned in the U.S. Navy serving aboard the "USS Princeton" offshore Korea where he served as an air intelligence officer from 1952 to 1955. Due to Gavin's fluency in both Spanish and Portuguese he was assigned as Flag Lieutenant to Admiral Milton E. Miles. Following his naval service he offered himself as a technical adviser to a film about the US Navy, but was instead offered a screen test. Film and stage career. Contracted to Universal Pictures where he was groomed as a virile, strapping, handsome leading man in the mould of Rock Hudson. Among his most famous roles are in "A Time to Love and A Time To Die" and "Imitation of Life" (1959) for director Douglas Sirk and producer Ross Hunter, both of whom had earlier helped make a star of Hudson. Gavin also appeared in the classic thriller "Psycho" (1960) for director Alfred Hitchcock, the epic "Spartacus" (1960) directed by Stanley Kubrick, and the 1920s-era Julie Andrews musical "Thoroughly Modern Millie" (1967) for George Roy Hill, again for producer Ross Hunter. Each of those films was among the most successful box-office attractions of their year of release.
743929	David Harbour (born April 10, 1974) is an American actor who has performed in film, television and in the theater. Early life. Harbour went to Byram Hills High School in Armonk, New York along with other actors Sean Maher and Eyal Podell. He graduated from Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire in 1997. Career. Harbour got his professional start on Broadway in 1999 in the revival of "The Rainmaker" and made his television debut in 2002 in an episode of "". He played the recurring role of MI6 agent Roger Anderson in the ABC television series "Pan Am". In 2005, he was nominated for a Tony Award for his performance in a production of "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" He is known for his role as CIA agent Gregg Beam in "Quantum of Solace", as Shep Campbell in "Revolutionary Road", and as Russell Crowe's source in "State of Play". He also received praise for his role as Paul Devildis on a 2009 episode of "". His other film credits include "Brokeback Mountain", "The Green Hornet", "End of Watch" and "Between Us". In Jan. of 2013, he played a small role of a head doctor in the TV show based on the classic detective Sherlock Holmes, "Elementary".
1072048	North American publisher Vertical Inc released it in English in July 2012. Plot. A young kamuro (maid in a brothel) is sold into the red-light district Yoshiwara and is put under the care of the oiran of the Tamagiku house, Shouhi, who names her Tomeki. The girl is very rebellious. It is because of this that the leaders of the household begin to think that she will be one day a great oiran, since they need not only beauty and talent, but also the tenacity to maintain their position. Tomeki becomes O-Rin, a hikkomi (or courtesan-in-training), and later Kiyoha, the most beautiful girl in the Tamagiku household. Her popularity threatens the position of Tamagiku's oiran Mikumo, which creates great tension between the two. But rivalry is not the main problem for young Kiyoha, but rather the appearance of young Soujiro and the impossibility of love. Film. A live-action film adaptation was released in Japan on February 24, 2007. The film stars Anna Tsuchiya and marks the directorial debut of photographer Mika Ninagawa. Ringo Sheena is the music director, her album "Heisei Fūzoku" acting as the soundtrack.
1100855	He generalized the classical approach to the classification of algebraic surfaces to the classification of algebraic three-folds. The classical approach used the concept of minimal models of algebraic surfaces. He found that the concept of minimal models can be applied to three-folds as well if we allow some singularities on them. The extension of Mori’s results to dimensions higher than three is called the Mori program and, as of 2006, is an extremely active area of algebraic geometry. He was awarded the Fields Medal in 1990 at the International Congress of Mathematicians.
585271	Nizhal Nijamagiradhu is a 1978 Tamil Indian feature film directed by K. Balachander, starring Kamal Haasan, Sarath Babu, Sumithra and Sobha in lead roles. Summary. Sarath Babu and Sumithra are siblings. Sumithra hates men and she is stubborn that she won't get married ever. Kamal is the friend of Sarath Babu and often visits Sarath's house. Kamal like Sumitra's attitude and starts teasing her many times, they often quarrel as well. But Sumitra never shows her romantic side to Kamal, even though she starts liking him. She is afraid to remove her stunbborn attitude 'mask'. Sobha is a village girl working as a servant in Sarath's house. Her innocence draws Sarath towards her and they gets intimate. Later Sarath refuse her when she became pregnant. Shobha is driven out of Sarath's house and she gets an unexpected help from Hanumanth rao, an innocent friend of Kamal. He allows Shobha to stay in his house. Shobha deliver a child. Months later Sarath repents and come back to Sobha, but she decides to live her life with Hanumanth. While Sumitra throw away her 'stubborn' mask and ask Kamal to accept her. Kamal accepts her love. Remake. This is the remake of the 1966 Malayalam film "Adikal". The film has an impressive supporting cast of Krishna rao, Mouli, Hanumanth and Sundari bai. SoundTrack. Ilakkanam Marutho Kamban Emandhaan - Lyrics by Kannadasan
996484	Rebecca Sara "Becki" Newton (born July 4, 1978) is an American actress best known for her roles as Amanda Tanen on the television series "Ugly Betty" and Quinn on "How I Met Your Mother." Biography. Early life and education. Born in New Haven, Connecticut, Becki Newton was raised in Guilford, Connecticut. She is of English and Czech descent and began performing musicals and plays at local theaters, and studied at the University of Pennsylvania, where she graduated with a B.A. in European History. At Penn, Newton was a member of the Alpha Chi Omega sorority. After graduation, Newton then moved to New York City and landed several roles in television commercials for such companies as the Olive Garden. Career. Newton portrayed the character Amanda Tanen in the comedy-drama series "Ugly Betty" from 2006 to 2010. With co-star Michael Urie, Newton co-hosted the Official "Ugly Betty" Podcast. She also appeared in ABC.com's "Mode After Hours" webisode series. "Ugly Betty" was canceled in 2010 after four successful seasons allowing the show to receive a proper series finale. In late 2009, Newton performed at a New York City Center Encores! presentation of the Gershwin musical "Girl Crazy", which was directed by Jerry Zaks. She portrayed Molly Gray and performed opposite real-life husband Chris Diamantopoulos. Newton starred in the television series "Love Bites". The hour-long romantic comedy was created by executive producer Cindy Chupack, who worked on "Sex and the City". NBC announced the pick up of the series in May 2010. However, with Newton announcing her pregnancy, co-star Jordana Spiro contractually obligated to stay with her other show "My Boys" (which was later cancelled) and Chupack's desire to leave the show, "Love Bites" was pushed back to midseason. "Love Bites" aired in summer 2011 on NBC and was cancelled after eight episodes. In November 2011, Newton was cast on CBS's "How I Met Your Mother" as Quinn, a love interest for Neil Patrick Harris's character Barney Stinson. She currently stars in the Fox mid-season TV series The Goodwin Games. Personal life. Newton met her husband, Chris Diamantopoulos, in a subway station in New York, and they married on 12 May 2005. It was announced on July 1, 2010 that Newton and Diamantopolous were expecting their first child. She gave birth to a son in early Nov 2010. Her older brother, Matt Newton, is also an actor. He guest starred as the boyfriend of "Ugly Betty" character Marc St. James. Her mother, Jennifer, is an award-winning artist, and her aunt, Stephanie Chase is a classical violinist.
1072054	The film is about two sisters named Yoshie and Kikue Kasuga, Geishas who get abducted by a steel manufacturer in an attempt to transform them into murderous cyborg assassins. Plot. The film starts out with an assassination attempt on a political candidate by a Geisha (that turns out to be a robot) and two scantily-clad women wearing Tengu/Goblin masks. The goblin-clad women violently (and phalically) take out the body guards (notably shooting shuriken out their butts) as the politician is menaced and wounded by the robot geisha who has a circular saw blade in her mouth. Suddenly, another person named Yoshie (Aya Kiguchi) appears, reveals herself as a robogeisha, and destroys the villainous robot. We go back in time to see Yoshie as a servant for her sister Kikue (Hitomi Hasebe), who is a geisha in training. It is later revealed that the two sisters were orphaned, and though they used to be close (with Kikue being the favorite child), they are now enemies. Yoshie is klutzy and ruins Kikue's performance for Hikaru Kageno (Takumi Saito), heir to Kageno Steel Manufacturing. Despite her klutziness, Kageno is impressed with Yoshie's beauty, and becomes more interested when he witnesses her display of superhuman strength when threatened by Kikue. Eventually, Kageno invites the two sisters to his house, where they are captured by the goblin ladies. The two are forced to fight to the death, and after Kikue wounds and actually threatens to kill her sister, Yoshie snaps and knocks out Kikue, once again displaying superhuman physical prowess. Accordingly, Kageno and his father begin training Yoshie to become an assassin for the company along with many other young Geisha-type women, and she quickly becomes the head assassin. They are told that Kageno Steel seeks to use them to kill terrorists and other national threats in an effort to create an "Ideal World". Kikue, meanwhile, is relegated to the role of servant to the organization. Nonetheless, Kikue strives to outdo her sister and shows a greater propensity for violence than Yoshie. Eventually, both sisters frequently undergo surgery to become cyborgs (Robogeisha), with machine-gun busts and other robotic enhancements. On their first mission, however, Kikue is severely wounded when she selflessly saves Yoshie from being killed by one of their target's bodyguards. Later, Kikue explains to Kageno that though Yoshie annoys her, she still loves her sister. Nonetheless, Kikue will never be able to recuperate sufficiently to serve as an assassin. The story reaches a turning point when Yoshie is sent on a mission to kill a small group of elderly people and their young caretaker living near the Kageno Steel building. The seniors then reveal that they are the relatives of the Kageno Steel's geisha and goblin assassins, and that Kageno Steel has actually been abducting these girls to serve their own ends. Yoshie confronts Kageno and his father, who confirm the story. Then, the duo threaten to kill Kikue unless Yoshie completes what turns out to be a suicide mission. The other girls also have been inhuman for so long that they decline to return to their families, remaining geisha assassins. Yoshie barely makes it out of the building after an Explosion from the Suicide mission and her body is recovered by the senior group and she is rebuilt by the leader, who used to work for Kageno Steel. The protestors want a meeting to demand the return of their loved ones. They found a set of Kageno's blueprints for a bomb that's said to be "17 times more powerful than the atomic bomb" and intend to use to threaten Japan into ceding all power to them. The group then heads off to confront Kageno and his father and force them to return their cyborg relatives or reveal the bomb plot to the authorities. But the Meeting is revealed to be a trap as the father and son have also robotically modified themselves and kill most of the senior group. The leader, however, had installed a gun into his leg and uses it to kill Kageno's father. Hiraku, now freed from responsibility, activates a protocol that turns his family castle into a giant robot. Kageno reveals that he intends to drop the bomb into Mount Fuji, thus destroying Japan and himself and "freeing" everyone. The robot-castle is wired to mimic Kageno's every move. Yoshie launches an assault on the robot-castle, defeating her former geisha sisters and the goblin girls (in a battle featuring a butt-sword duel). She confronts Kageno, but is met by Kikui who has been upgraded into a superior model of robogeisha and who has had her mind wiped. Kikui defeats Yoshie. Knowing she has been bested, Yoshie reveals that, in fact, she was her father's favorite daughter because Kikue was actually born to their father's mistress and was looked down upon. Yoshie reminds Kikue that in fact, it was Yoshie who had defended Kikue's honor as a child and then also allowed Kikue to build their false history and become the family geisha. Finally, Yoshie confesses that she loves Kikue. These revelations manage to overcome Kikue's memory blocks and the two sisters reconcile and merge into one ultra-powerful robogeisha. The new robogeisha confronts Kageno and trick him during their fight to have the robot-castle (which mirrors his fighting moves) stop the bomb from being dropped into Mount Fuji and launch the bomb and robot-castle launch into space. Once airborne, the sisters defeat Kageno, and the bomb detonates, destroying the robot-castle and all inside (including, presumably, our heroes). The film ends with Yoshie imagining she and her sister living happily as real geisha. Release and reception. "RoboGeisha" was released in Japan on October 3, 2009 by Kadokawa Pictures. In January 2010, Funimation Entertainment bought the rights to distribute the film. The film was released in North America on April 17, 2010 by way of ActionFest, then in New York City on May 18, 2010. The film circulated to different film festivals before going to DVD and Blu-ray on November 16, 2010.
1067895	Waiting for "Superman" is a 2010 documentary film from director Davis Guggenheim and producer Lesley Chilcott. The film analyzes the failures of the American public education system by following several students as they strive to be accepted into a charter school. The film received the Audience Award for best documentary at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival. The film also received the Best Documentary Feature at the Critics' Choice Movie Awards. Synopsis. Geoffrey Canada describes his journey as an educator and his surprise when he realizes upon entering adulthood that Superman is a fictional character and that no one is powerful enough to save us all. Throughout the documentary, different aspects of the American public education system are examined. Things such as the ease in which a public school teacher achieves tenure, the inability to fire a teacher who is tenured, and how the system attempts to reprimand poorly performing teachers are shown to have an impact on the educational environment. Teaching standards are called into question as there is often conflicting bureaucracy between teaching expectations at the school, state, or federal level. The film also examines teacher's unions. Michelle Rhee, the former chancellor of the Washington, D.C. public schools (the district with some of the worst performing students at the time), is shown attempting to take on the union agreements that teachers are bound to, but suffers a backlash from the unions and the teachers themselves. Statistical comparisons are made between the different types of primary or secondary educational institutions available: state school, private school, and charter school. There are also comparisons made between schools in affluent neighborhoods versus schools in poorer ones. Since charter schools do not operate with the same restrictions as public institutions, they are depicted as having a more experimental approach to educating students. Since many charter schools are not large enough to accept all of their applicants, the selection of students is done by lottery. The film follows several families as they attempt to gain access to prominent charter schools for their children. Details. Release. "Waiting for "Superman"" premiered in the US on September 24, 2010, in theaters in New York and Los Angeles, with a rolling wider release that began on October 1, 2010. During its opening weekend in New York City and Los Angeles, the film grossed $141,000 in four theaters, averaging $35,250 per theater. Title. The film's title is based on an interview with Geoffrey Canada wherein he recounts being told (as a child) by his mother that Superman was not real, and how he was frightened because there was nobody to save him. Critical and media reception. The film has earned both praise and negative criticism from commentators, reformers, and educators. , the film has an 89% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Roger Ebert gave the movie 3.5 stars out of 4 and wrote, "What struck me most of all was Geoffrey Canada's confidence that a charter school run on his model can make virtually any first-grader a high school graduate who's accepted to college. A good education, therefore, is not ruled out by poverty, uneducated parents or crime – and drug-infested neighborhoods. In fact, those are the very areas where he has success." Scott Bowles of "USA Today" lauded the film for its focus on the students: "it's hard to deny the power of Guggenheim's lingering shots on these children." Lisa Schwarzbaum of "Entertainment Weekly" gave the film an A−, calling it "powerful, passionate, and potentially revolution-inducing." "The Hollywood Reporter" focused on Geoffrey Canada's performance as "both the most inspiring and a consistently entertaining speaker," while also noting it "isn't exhaustive in its critique." "Variety" characterized the film's production quality as "deserving every superlative" and felt that "the film is never less than buoyant, thanks largely to the dedicated and effective teachers on whom Guggenheim focuses." Geraldo Rivera praised the film for promoting discussion of educational issues. Deborah Kenny, CEO and founder of the Harlem Village Academy, made positive reference to the film in a "The Wall Street Journal" op-ed piece about education reform. The film has also garnered praise from a number of conservative critics. Joe Morgenstern, writing for "The Wall Street Journal", gave the movie a positive review saying, "when the future of public education is being debated with unprecedented intensity," the film "makes an invaluable addition to the debate." "The Wall Street Journal" William McGurn also praised the film in an op-ed piece, calling it a "stunning liberal exposé of a system that consigns American children who most need a decent education to our most destructive public schools." Kyle Smith, for the "New York Post", gave the movie 4.5 stars, calling it an "invaluable learning experience." "Forbes" Melik Kaylan similarly liked the film, writing, "I urge you all to drop everything and go see the documentary "Waiting For "Superman"" at the earliest opportunity." The film also received negative criticism. Andrew O'Hehir of "Salon" wrote a negative review of the movie, saying that while there's "a great deal that's appealing," there's also "as much in this movie that is downright baffling." Melissa Anderson of "The Village Voice" was critical of the film for not including enough details of outlying socioeconomic issues, saying, "macroeconomic responses to Guggenheim's query... go unaddressed in "Waiting for "Superman,"" which points out the vast disparity in resources for inner-city versus suburban schools only to ignore them." Anderson also opined that the animation clips were overused. In New York City, a group of local teachers protested one of the documentary's showings, calling the film "complete nonsense", saying that "there is no teacher voice in the film." Educational reception and allegations of inaccuracy. Author and academic Rick Ayers lambasted the accuracy of the film, describing it as "a slick marketing piece full of half-truths and distortions." In Ayers' view, the "corporate powerhouses and the ideological opponents of all things public" have employed the film to "break the teacher's unions and to privatize education," while driving teachers' wages even lower and running "schools like little corporations." According to the film inflation-adjusted per-student spending has more than doubled since 1971, "from $4,300 to more than $9,000 per student," but that over the same period, test scores have "flatlined." Ayers also critiqued the film's promotion of a greater focus on "top-down instruction driven by test scores," positing that extensive research has demonstrated that standardized testing "dumbs down the curriculum" and "reproduces inequities," while marginalizing "English language learners and those who do not grow up speaking a middle class vernacular." Lastly, Ayers contends that "schools are more segregated today than before "Brown v. Board of Education" in 1954," and thus criticized the film for not mentioning that in his view, "black and brown students are being suspended, expelled, searched, and criminalized." Diane Ravitch, Research Professor of Education at New York University and a nonresident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, similarly criticizes the film's lack of accuracy. Ravitch notes that a study by Stanford University economist Margaret Raymond of 5000 charter schools found that only 17% are superior in math test performance to a matched public school, casting doubt on the film's claim that privately managed charter schools are the solution to bad public schools. The film does note however that most charter schools do not outperform and that it focuses on those that do. As well, the film explicitly stated that one in five charter schools (close to the 17% statistic previously stated) were the overreaching, superior charter schools. Ravitch writes that many charter schools also perform badly, are involved in "unsavory real estate deals" and expel low-performing students before testing days to ensure high test scores. The most substantial distortion in the film, according to Ravitch, is the film's claim that "70 percent of eighth-grade students cannot read at grade level," a misrepresentation of data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress. Ravitch served as a board member with the NAEP and notes that "the NAEP doesn't measure performance in terms of grade-level achievement," as claimed in the film, but only as "advanced," "proficient," and "basic." The film assumes that any student below proficient is "below grade level," but this claim is not supported by the NAEP data. A teacher-backed group called the Grassroots Education Movement produced a rebuttal film titled "The Inconvenient Truth Behind Waiting for Superman". This film criticizes some public figures featured in "Waiting for "Superman"" and proposes different policies to improve education in the United States. Book release. There is also a companion book titled "Waiting For "Superman": How We Can Save America's Failing Public Schools."
1151518	Mather Zickel (born c. 1970) is a New York-born actor, mainly known for comedy roles, as well as the character Kieran in "Rachel Getting Married". He has worked in both film and television since the late 1990s. He graduated from the Pomfret School in 1988 and New York University in 1992. He co-starred as "Rob the Federal Agent" in season two of "Delocated" and as Will Keen in the ABC sitcom "Man Up!". He was also a recurring character in season 3 of Showtime's "House of Lies" and will appear in the new Showtime show "Masters of Sex". Other credits include the films like "The Ten," and "Wanderlust". He is a frequent collaborator of members of The State.
1062917	The Cooler is a 2003 romantic drama film directed by Wayne Kramer. The original screenplay was written by Kramer and Frank Hannah. In gambling parlance, a "cooler" is an unlucky individual whose presence at the tables results in a streak of bad luck for the other players. Plot. Unlucky Bernie Lootz (William H. Macy) has little going for him: He lives in a dreary studio apartment in a rundown motel on the Las Vegas Strip, he's indebted to Shangri-La casino boss Shelly Kaplow (Alec Baldwin), who years earlier cured him of a gambling habit by destroying his kneecap, and he can't recall the last time he had physical contact with a woman. His success as a "cooler" is jeopardized when cocktail waitress Natalie Belisario (Maria Bello) seemingly takes an interest in him, and his luck — and that of those around him — takes a turn for the better. What Bernie doesn't know is that Shelly has paid the woman to seduce him into staying in town. What Shelly doesn't know is that Natalie actually has fallen in love with Bernie, and vice versa. Additional complications arise when Shelly, an old-timer who resents the Disneyfication of Vegas, resists the efforts of new Shangri-La advisers, including Ivy League graduate and condescending upstart Larry Sokolov (Ron Livingston), to update the property and bring it into the 21st century. Production. The film premiered at the Sundance Film Festival. It was shown at the Cannes Film Festival, the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival, the Toronto Film Festival, and the Deauville Film Festival, among others, before going into limited release in the United States.
137173	Phoebe Sarah Hertha Ayrton (28 April 1854 – 23 August 1923), was an English engineer, mathematician and inventor. She was awarded the Hughes Medal by the Institution of Electrical Engineers for her work on electric arcs and ripples in sand and water. Early life and education. Hertha Ayrton was born Phoebe Sarah Marks at 6 Queen Street, Portsea, Hampshire, England on 28 April 1854. She was the daughter of a seamstress, Alice Theresa, and a watchmaker and jeweller, Levi Marks. At the age of nine, Sarah was invited by her aunts, who ran a school in north-west London, to live with her cousins and be educated with them. Through her cousins she was introduced to science and mathematics, and by the time she was sixteen she was working as a governess. She attended Girton College, Cambridge where she studied mathematics and was coached by Richard Glazebrook. She was supported in her application by George Eliot who was working on "Daniel Deronda". One of the Jewish characters, Mirah, was said to be based on Ayrton, but this is not accepted as fact. During her time at Cambridge, Ayrton constructed a sphygmomanometer, led the choral society, founded the fire brigade, and with Charlotte Scott, Girton's first wrangler, formed a mathematical club. In 1880, Ayrton passed the Mathematical Tripos but was not granted a degree because, at this time, Cambridge gave only certificates and not degrees to women. She successfully completed an external examination and received a B.Sc. degree from the University of London in 1881. Mathematics and electrical engineering work. Upon her return to London, Ayrton earned money by teaching and embroidery, ran a club for working girls, and cared for her invalid sister. She also put her mathematical skills to practical use – she taught at Notting Hill and Ealing High School, and was also active in devising and solving mathematical problems, many of which were published in "Mathematical Questions and Their Solutions" from the "Educational Times". In 1884 Ayrton patented a line-divider, an engineering drawing instrument for dividing a line into any number of equal parts and for enlarging and reducing figures. The line-divider was her first major invention and, while its primary use was likely to be for artists for enlarging and diminishing, it was also useful to architects and engineers. Ayrton's patent application was financially supported by Lady Goldsmid and feminist Barbara Bodichon, who together advanced her enough money to take out patents; the invention was shown at the Exhibition of Women’s Industries and received much press attention. Ayrton honoured Barbara Bodichon by naming her first child, a daughter born in 1886, Barbara Bodichon Ayrton (1886–1950). Ayrton's 1884 patent was the first of many – from 1884 until her death, Hertha registered 26 patents: five on mathematical dividers, 13 on arc lamps and electrodes, the rest on the propulsion of air. Patents make a clear legal claim to intellectual property, especially important for a woman married to a more famous scientist. In 1884 Ayrton began attending evening classes on electricity at Finsbury Technical College, delivered by Professor William Edward Ayrton, a pioneer in electrical engineering and physics education and a fellow of the Royal Society. On 6 May 1885 she married her former teacher, and thereafter assisted him with experiments in physics and electricity. Ayrton also began her own investigation into the characteristics of the electric arc. In the late nineteenth century, electric arc lighting was in wide use for public lighting. The tendency of electric arcs to flicker and hiss was a major problem. In 1895, Hertha Ayrton wrote a series of articles for "the Electrician", explaining that these phenomena were the result of oxygen coming into contact with the carbon rods used to create the arc. In 1899, she was the first woman ever to read her own paper before the Institution of Electrical Engineers (IEE). Shortly thereafter, Ayrton was elected the first female member of the IEE; she remained the sole female member of the institution until 1958. Ayrton was also the first woman to win a prize from the institution, the Hughes Medal, awarded to her in 1906 in honour of her research on the motion of ripples in sand and water and her work on the electric arc. By the late nineteenth century, Ayrton's work in the field of electrical engineering was recognised more widely, domestically and internationally. At the International Congress of Women held in London in 1899, Hertha presided over the physical science section. Ayrton also spoke at the International Electrical Congress in Paris in 1900. Her success there led the British Association for the Advancement of Science to allow women to serve on general and sectional committees. In 1902, Ayrton published "The Electric Arc", a summary of her research and work on the electric arc, with origins in her earlier articles from "the Electrician" published between 1895 and 1896. With this publication, her contribution to the field of electrical engineering began to be cemented. However, initially at least, Ayrton was not well received by the more prestigious and traditional scientific societies such as the Royal Society. In the aftermath of the publication of "The Electric Arc", Ayrton was proposed as a Fellow of the Royal Society by renowned electrical engineer John Perry in 1902. Her application was turned down by the Council of the Royal Society, who decreed that married women were not eligible to be Fellows. Later life and research. However, in 1904, Ayrton presented a paper at the Royal Society on the motion of ripples in sand and water. Ayrton delivered papers on the subject again before the Royal Society in 1908 and 1911; she also presented the results of her research before audiences at the British Association and the Physical Society. Ayrton's interest in vortices in water and air inspired the Ayrton fan, or flapper, used in the trenches in the First World War to dispel poison gas. Ayrton fought for its acceptance and organized its production, over 100,000 being used on the Western Front. Ayrton helped found the International Federation of University Women in 1919 and the National Union of Scientific Workers in 1920. She died of blood poisoning (resulting from an insect bite) on 26 August 1923 at New Cottage, North Lancing, Sussex. A blue plaque unveiled in 2007 commemorates Ayrton at 41 Norfolk Square in Padddington. Personal life and commemoration. Ayrton was agnostic, but retained close ties to the Jewish community. In her teens she adopted the name "Hertha" after the eponymous heroine of a Swinburne poem that criticized organized religion.
69556	Dattaraya Ramchandra Kaprekar (1905–1986) was an Indian mathematician who discovered several results in number theory, including a class of numbers and a constant named after him. Despite having no formal postgraduate training and working as a schoolteacher, he published extensively and became well known in recreational mathematics circles. Biography. Kaprekar received his secondary school education in Thane and studied at Fergusson College in Pune. In 1927 he won the Wrangler R. P. Paranjpe Mathematical Prize for an original piece of work in mathematics. He attended the University of Mumbai, receiving his bachelor's degree in 1929. Having never received any formal postgraduate training, for his entire career (1930–1962) he was a schoolteacher at Nashik in Maharashtra, India. He published extensively, writing about such topics as recurring decimals, magic squares, and integers with special properties. He also known as "Ganitanand" (गणितानंद) Discoveries. Working largely alone, Kaprekar discovered a number of results in number theory and described various properties of numbers. In addition to the Kaprekar constant and the Kaprekar numbers which were named after him, he also described self numbers or "Devlali numbers", the Harshad numbers and Demlo numbers. He also constructed certain types of magic squares related to the Copernicus magic square. Initially his ideas were not taken seriously by Indian mathematicians, and his results were published largely in low-level mathematics journals or privately published, but international fame arrived when Martin Gardner wrote about Kaprekar in his March 1975 column of "Mathematical Games" for "Scientific American". Today his name is well-known and many other mathematicians have pursued the study of the properties he discovered. Kaprekar constant. Kaprekar discovered the Kaprekar constant or 6174 in 1949. He showed that 6174 is reached in the limit as one repeatedly subtracts the highest and lowest numbers that can be constructed from a set of four digits that are not all identical. Thus, starting with 1234, we have
1064512	A Thousand Clowns is a 1962 American play by Herb Gardner. It tells the story of an eccentric comic who is forced to conform to society to retain legal custody of his orphaned nephew. A 1965 movie version was adapted from the play by Gardner and directed by Fred Coe.
1169572	Paul Dinello (born November 28, 1962) is an American actor, comedian, writer, director, and an alumnus of DePaul University, Chicago-based The Second City, Improv Institute, and Annoyance Theatre. He is best known for his role on Comedy Central's "Strangers with Candy" as Geoffrey Jellineck, the closeted gay art teacher at Flatpoint High, who carries on a not-so-secret relationship with his colleague Chuck Noblet (Stephen Colbert).
1104284	Ruth Elke Lawrence-Naimark (, born 2 August 1971) is an Associate Professor of mathematics at the Einstein Institute of Mathematics, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and a researcher in knot theory and algebraic topology. Outside academia, she is best known for being a child prodigy in mathematics. Youth. Ruth Lawrence was born in Brighton, England. Her parents, Harry Lawrence and Sylvia Greybourne, were both computer consultants. When Ruth was five, her father gave up his job so that he could educate her at home. Education. At the age of nine, Lawrence gained an O-level in mathematics, setting a new age record, later surpassed in 2001 when Arran Fernandez successfully sat GCSE mathematics aged five. Also at the age of nine she achieved a Grade A at A-level Pure Mathematics, an age record which stood until 2009 when Zohaib Ahmed passed A level mathematics with an A grade aged just turned nine years old. In 1981 she passed the Oxford University interview entrance examination in mathematics, coming first out of all 530 candidates sitting the examination, and joining St Hugh's College in 1983 at the age of just twelve. At Oxford, her father continued to be actively involved in her education, accompanying her to all lectures and tutorials. Lawrence completed her bachelor's degree in two years, instead of the normal three, and graduated in 1985 at the age of 13 with a starred first and special commendation. Attracting considerable press interest, she became the youngest British person to gain a first-class degree, and the youngest to graduate from the University of Oxford in modern times. Lawrence followed her first degree with a second degree in physics in 1986 and a D.Phil in mathematics at Oxford in June 1989, at the age of 17. Her thesis title was "Homology representations of braid groups" and her thesis adviser was Sir Michael Atiyah. Academic career. Lawrence's first academic post was at Harvard University, where she became a Junior Fellow in 1990 at the age of 19. In 1993, she moved to the University of Michigan, where she became an Associate Professor with tenure in 1997. In 1999, she emigrated to Israel and took up the post of Associate Professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Research. Lawrence's 1990 paper, "Homological representations of the Hecke algebra", in Communications in Mathematical Physics, introduced, among other things, certain novel linear representations of the braid group — known as Lawrence–Krammer representation. In papers published in 2000 and 2001, Daan Krammer and Stephen Bigelow established the faithfulness of Lawrence's representation. This result goes by the phrase "braid groups are linear." Awards and honors. In 2012 she became a fellow of the American Mathematical Society. Personal. In 1998, she married the Israeli mathematician Ari Naimark and changed her name to Ruth Lawrence-Naimark. The couple have four children, Yehuda Bezalel (born 2000), Esther Miriam (born 2001), Batsheva Simcha (born 2003), and Yehoshua Aharon (born 2006).
1065202	A Very Brady Sequel is a 1996 comedy film and sequel to 1995’s "The Brady Bunch Movie". Both films are parodies-homages of the classic 1969–1974 television sitcom "The Brady Bunch". The film was directed by Arlene Sanford (in her feature film directorial debut) and stars Shelley Long and Gary Cole as Carol and Mike Brady. The film was a box office success, although not as successful as "The Brady Bunch Movie". A second sequel, the made-for-television "The Brady Bunch in the White House", aired in November 2002. Plot. Following its predecessor, the film places the 1970s Brady Bunch family in a contemporary 1990s setting, where much of the humor is derived from the resulting culture clash and the utter lack of awareness they show toward their relatively unusual lifestyle. One evening, a man claiming to be Carol’s long-lost first husband, Roy Martin, shows up at the suburban Brady residence. He is actually a con man named Trevor Thomas and is there to steal their familiar horse statue that is actually a $20 million ancient artifact. They, portrayed as naïve, believe his story about suffering from amnesia and having plastic surgery after being injured. Throughout Trevor's stay, he is openly hostile to them, his sarcasm and insults completely going over their heads. Eventually, Trevor’s ruse is uncovered by Bobby and Cindy; in retaliation, he kidnaps Carol and takes her and the artifact to a buyer in Hawaii. The remaining Brady family travels to Hawaii to save her and foil his plans. Besides the main storyline, the children have their own subplots in the film. Greg and Marcia both want to move out of their shared rooms and when neither wants to back down, they have to share the attic together. When Trevor's arrival suggests that Carol and Mike might not be married, Greg and Marcia realize they are technically not related. That leads them to realize they are in love with each other, but try to hide it from one another throughout the movie. Eventually both cave in and they share a kiss at the end of the movie. Jan’s subplot involves her making up a pretend boyfriend named George Glass in order to make herself seem more popular. Jan then meets a real boy named George Glass during the family's trip to Hawaii. Peter, who is trying to decide what career path to choose, starts idolizing and emulating Trevor. Bobby and Cindy start a “Detective Agency” hunting down her missing doll, an act that inadvertently leads them to discover Trevor’s true intentions. Cast. The film also features a variety of cameos, including RuPaul, Zsa Zsa Gabor, Rosie O'Donnell, Barbara Eden, David Spade (uncredited as the hairstylist), Richard Belzer and John Hillerman. Reception. The film received generally mixed reviews from film critics. It currently holds a 52% rating on Rotten Tomatoes with the general consensus stating, "Although it still paints a nice picture of "The Brady Bunch", it overexaggerates its plot and characters." Nonetheless the film grossed $7,052,045 on opening weekend in August 1996 debuting on 2,147 screens. Gross sales are estimated at $21,397,954.
585716	In Harihar Nagar is a 1990 Malayalam comedy film written and directed by the duo Siddique-Lal. It stars Mukesh, Siddique, Jagadish and Ashokan in major roles. The film became one of the biggest hits in Malayalam film history and has a dedicated cult following. It is referred to as part of the golden age of Malayalam comedy and among the most hilarious movies in Indian cinema. The film has spawned two sequels, "2 Harihar Nagar" (2009) and "In Ghost House Inn" (2010), both written and directed by Lal from the duo and they ended up as box office hits. The film was remade into Hindi, Telugu and Tamil by different film makers. Plot. Mahadevan (Mukesh), Govindan Kutty (Siddique), Appukuttan (Jagadish) and Thomas Kutty (Ashokan) are four young men who live in the town 'Harihar Nagar'. The movie starts with an incident which take place in Bombay, where a briefcase is carried by a man and given to another man, and that man gives it to another man. The 'third' man is being followed by another two men who want the briefcase. The man calls a taxi and goes off, thinking that he is safe. But then the taxi stops at an isolated place, the driver shoots the man, and takes the money. In the next scene the foursome are then shown, with the song "unnam marannu thenni paranna".
1103587	In mathematics, in the area of numerical analysis, Galerkin methods are a class of methods for converting a continuous operator problem (such as a differential equation) to a discrete problem. In principle, it is the equivalent of applying the method of variation of parameters to a function space, by converting the equation to a weak formulation. Typically one then applies some constraints on the function space to characterize the space with a finite set of basis functions. Often when referring to a Galerkin method, one also gives the name along with typical approximation methods used, such as Bubnov-Galerkin method (after Ivan Bubnov), Petrov–Galerkin method (after Alexander G. Petrov) or Ritz–Galerkin method (after Walther Ritz). The approach is credited to the Russian mathematician Boris Galerkin. Examples of calculating the global stiffness matrix in the finite element method, Introduction with an abstract problem. A problem in weak formulation. Let us introduce Galerkin's method with an abstract problem posed as a weak formulation on a Hilbert space, formula_1, namely, Here, formula_4 is a bilinear form (the exact requirements on formula_4 will be specified later) and formula_6 is a bounded linear functional on formula_1. Galerkin Dimension Reduction. Choose a subspace formula_8 of dimension "n" and solve the projected problem: We call this the Galerkin equation. Notice that the equation has remained unchanged and only the spaces have changed. Reducing the problem to a finite dimensional vector subspace allows us to numerically compute formula_11 as a finite linear combination of the basis vectors in formula_12. Galerkin orthogonality. The key property of the Galerkin approach is that the error is orthogonal to the chosen subspaces. Since formula_8, we can use formula_14 as a test vector in the original equation. Subtracting the two, we get the Galerkin orthogonality relation for the error, formula_15 which is the error between the solution of the original problem, formula_16, and the solution of the Galerkin equation, formula_17 Matrix form. Since the aim of Galerkin's method is the production of a linear system of equations, we build its matrix form, which can be used to compute the solution by a computer program. Let formula_19 be a basis for formula_20. Then, it is sufficient to use these in turn for testing the Galerkin equation, i.e.: find formula_21 such that We expand formula_17 with respect to this basis, formula_24 and insert it into the equation above, to obtain This previous equation is actually a linear system of equations formula_26, where Symmetry of the matrix. Due to the definition of the matrix entries, the matrix of the Galerkin equation is symmetric if and only if the bilinear form formula_4 is symmetric. Analysis of Galerkin methods. Here, we will restrict ourselves to symmetric bilinear forms, that is While this is not really a restriction of Galerkin methods, the application of the standard theory becomes much simpler. Furthermore, a Petrov–Galerkin method may be required in the nonsymmetric case. The analysis of these methods proceeds in two steps. First, we will show that the Galerkin equation is a well-posed problem in the sense of Hadamard and therefore admits a unique solution. In the second step, we study the quality of approximation of the Galerkin solution formula_17. The analysis will mostly rest on two properties of the bilinear form, namely By the Lax-Milgram theorem (see weak formulation), these two conditions imply well-posedness of the original problem in weak formulation. All norms in the following sections will be norms for which the above inequalities hold (these norms are often called an energy norm). Well-posedness of the Galerkin equation. Since formula_8, boundedness and ellipticity of the bilinear form apply to formula_20. Therefore, the well-posedness of the Galerkin problem is actually inherited from the well-posedness of the original problem. Quasi-best approximation (Céa's lemma). The error formula_39 between the original and the Galerkin solution admits the estimate This means, that up to the constant formula_41, the Galerkin solution formula_17 is as close to the original solution formula_16 as any other vector in formula_20. In particular, it will be sufficient to study approximation by spaces formula_20, completely forgetting about the equation being solved. Proof. Since the proof is very simple and the basic principle behind all Galerkin methods, we include it here: by ellipticity and boundedness of the bilinear form (inequalities) and Galerkin orthogonality (equals sign in the middle), we have for arbitrary formula_46: Dividing by formula_48 and taking the infimum over all possible formula_14 yields the lemma.
1163959	Stella Stevens (born October 1, 1938) is an American film, television, and stage actress. She began her acting career in 1959 and starred in such popular films as "The Nutty Professor" (1963), "The Courtship of Eddie's Father" (1963), "The Silencers" (1966), "Where Angels Go, Trouble Follows" (1968), "The Ballad of Cable Hogue" (1970), and "The Poseidon Adventure" (1972). Stevens also appeared in numerous television series, miniseries, and movies, including "Alfred Hitchcock Presents" (1960, 1988), "Bonanza" (1960), "The Love Boat" (1977, 1983), "Hart to Hart" (1979), "Newhart" (1983), "Murder, She Wrote" (1985), "Magnum, P.I." (1986), "" (1995), and "Twenty Good Years" (2006). In 1960 she won a Golden Globe Award for New Star of the Year – Actress. Stevens has also worked as a film producer, director, and writer. She appeared in three "Playboy" pictorials, and was Playmate of the Month for January 1960. Early life. She was born Estelle Caro Eggleston in 1938 in Yazoo City, Mississippi, the only child of Thomas Ellett Eggleston and his wife Estelle (née Caro). One of her great-grandfathers was Henry Clay Tyler, an early settler from Boston and a jeweler who gave the Yazoo City courthouse cupola its clock.
1015870	God of Gamblers II () is a 1990 Hong Kong action comedy film written and directed by Wong Jing. It stars Andy Lau as Little Knife, Stephen Chow as the Saint of Gamblers, and Ng Man-Tat as Blackie Tat. This movie is a sequel to both "God of Gamblers", which included Lau's character, and to "All for the Winner", which starred Chow and Ng. This film should not be confused with "God of Gamblers Returns", also released as "God of Gamblers 2", and in essence the true sequel to the original "God of Gamblers". Summary. In this movie, down on his luck, Chow Sing-Cho (Stephen Chow), seeks out the God of Gamblers, in hopes of becoming his disciple. Unfortunately, the God of Gamblers is unreachable and out of the country, last heard to be in Brazil, and Michael Chan, the Knight of Gamblers (Andy Lau) replaces the God of Gamblers. When a phony attempts to impersonate the Knight of Gamblers in a huge scam, it's up to the real Knight and Saint of Gamblers to team up and defeat their formidable challenger. The film combines intricate action sequences with sharp comedic timing. Significance of the film. Wong Jing was so impressed with "All for the Winner" that he contacted Stephen Chow to star in two sequels made during 1991. This combo went on to make several money making films turning Stephen Chow into an Asian Comedy star and helping boost Jing Wong's status as one of the top film makers in Hong Kong. This movie is followed by "", which does not have Andy Lau, but features actress Gong Li in two roles.
1790402	Billie Paul Piper (born Leian Paul Piper; 22 September 1982) is an English actress and former singer. She is known for her role as Rose Tyler in Doctor Who and as Hannah Baxter in Secret Diary of a Call Girl. She was the youngest ever solo artist to debut at number one, although she is only the second youngest solo artist to have a number one single, with "Because We Want To", which reached number one when she was 15 years old. Her most famous role is as Rose Tyler, companion to The Doctor, in the television series "Doctor Who" on BBC from 2005 to 2006, a role she reprised in 2008 and 2010 and is set to reprise in 2013. In 2007, "Broadcast" magazine listed Piper at no. 6 in its "Hot 100" list of influential on-screen performers, the top woman on the list. From 2007 until 2011, she starred as the high-flying escort Belle de Jour in the TV series "Secret Diary of a Call Girl". Early life. Leian Paul Piper was born in Swindon, Wiltshire, England. On 25 April 1983, her name was officially changed to Billie Paul Piper, by her parents, Paul Victor Piper and Mandy Kane Kent. Piper has one younger brother, Charley, and two younger sisters, Harley and Elle. She studied at the Sylvia Young Theatre School. Career. 1998–2000: "Honey to the B". Piper's career began when she was selected to appear on the Saturday morning children's television show "Scratchy & Co." Piper later landed a role in a television commercial promoting the pop magazine "Smash Hits". Piper was offered a record deal at the age of 15, and in 1998 became the youngest artist ever to debut at number one in the UK singles chart with "Because We Want To", released under the stage mononym "Billie". Her follow-up single "Girlfriend" also debuted at number one. Her debut album "Honey to the B" was released immediately afterwards, and debuted and peaked at Number 14 in the UK album charts, selling more than three million copies in the UK alone along with a Platinum certification, and a 2x Platinum certification in New Zealand, where it reached No. 3. However, "Honey to the B" found limited success in other territories, such as Australia where it debuted and peaked at No. 31 despite the success of "Honey to the Bee", and in the US it almost went completely unnoticed, peaking at No. 17 on the Heatseekers. At the 1998 "Smash Hits" Poll Winners' party, she was nominated for "Best New Act" (for which she came second, it being won by B*Witched) and won "Princess of Pop" (she was the first to win this award). She then released "She Wants You" as the third single from the album. The song reached No.3. "Honey to the Bee" was released as the fourth single from the album, like the previous single, it reached No.3. At the same time, "She Wants You" was released in the USA. It reached No. 9 on the "Hot Club Dance Play" chart. In 1999, Piper was nominated for two BRIT Awards and won two awards at the 1999 "Smash Hits" Poll Winners' party, although at the latter ceremony she was reduced to tears after being booed by fans of Ritchie Neville, member of boy band Five, whom she was dating at the time. Piper then started to tour and release in Asia. The singles and the album were released during mid to late 1999. Then On 10 August that same year, the follow-up to "Because We Want To" was released in Japan, a single comprising "Girlfriend" and "She Wants You" combined. She recorded a song for "" titled "Makin' My Way (Any Way That I Can)". 2000–2003: "Walk of Life" and musical retirement. During that time, she recorded her second album. She decided to release further records under her full name, Billie Piper. She returned to the Singles Chart in May 2000 with her third number one single "Day & Night". She waited until the following September to release "Something Deep Inside", which reached No. 4, but her success wasn't to continue. In October 2000, Piper released her second album, "Walk of Life", which reached Number 14 in the UK Album Chart, but quickly fell off the charts and was certified Silver in the UK. The album only charted in two other countries, New Zealand where it reached No. 17 only, and in Australia where it was a minor success, peaking at No. 23. In Piper's autobiography, she states the album was a 'commercial bomb'. The song "Walk of Life", the final single off this album, was released in December 2000 and reached Number 25 in the UK Singles Chart. On 17 February 2001, Piper appeared in court to testify against a woman named Juliet Peters. Peters was charged with, and eventually convicted of, stalking as well as making a number of threats against Piper and members of her family. Peters received psychiatric treatment as part of her sentence. According to her autobiography, Piper was reluctant about the court case, but was pushed by her parents and her label. She also stated in the book that this was why "The Tide Is High" wasn't released as a single, writing "The court case succeeded in doing what I alone could not: cutting the ties. Without it I might have been tempted back." On 15 January 2007, BBC Radio 1 DJ Chris Moyles started a campaign to get "Honey to the Bee" back into the Top 100 on download sales as a way of testing out new chart rules that favour download sales. The campaign was successful, with "Honey to the Bee" re-entering the official UK singles chart at No. 17, eight years after it was first released. 2004-07: Transition to acting and "Doctor Who". In 2004, Piper appeared in the films "The Calcium Kid", as the romantic interest of Orlando Bloom's character, and "Things to do Before You're Thirty". Shortly before starting work on "Doctor Who", she filmed a starring role in the horror film "Spirit Trap" alongside Russian pop star Alsou, released in August 2005 to generally poor reviews. In November 2005, Piper starred as Hero in a BBC adaptation of "Much Ado About Nothing", updated for the modern day in a similar manner to the "Canterbury Tales" series in which she featured, with Hero now being a weather presenter in a television station. "Doctor Who" originally ran from 1963 to 1989. In the autumn of 2003, it was announced that the series would be resurrected beginning in 2005; the casting of Piper as Rose Tyler, a travelling companion to The Doctor (to be played by Christopher Eccleston), was announced on 24 May 2004. Piper won the Most Popular Actress category at the 2005 and 2006 National Television Awards for her work on "Doctor Who". BBC News named Piper as one of its "Faces of the Year" for 2005, primarily due to her success in "Doctor Who". At "The South Bank Show" Awards on 27 January 2006 Piper was awarded "The Times" Breakthrough Award for her successful transition from singing to acting. In March 2006, the Television and Radio Industries Club named Piper as best new TV talent at their annual awards ceremony. In September 2006, Piper was named Best Actress at the TV Quick and TV Choice Awards. After the completion of the very successful first series of the revamped "Doctor Who", the British media regularly released conflicting reports about how long Piper would be staying with the programme. In March 2006, she claimed that she would continue on "Doctor Who" into its third series in 2007. On 10 May 2006, however, she was reported to be considering quitting the series, although she did express an interest in playing a female version of the Doctor in the future (possibly related to a proposed "Doctor Who" spin-off series about Rose which was later dropped). On 15 June 2006, the BBC announced that she was to depart in the final episode of the second series, "Doomsday". Piper's decision to leave had been taken a year previously, but remained a secret until news of her departure became public. On 27 November 2007, the BBC confirmed that she would reprise her role as Rose Tyler in the fourth "Doctor Who" series for three episodes. Later, it was confirmed by Russell T. Davies in "Doctor Who Magazine" that this return had been planned since she left. It was also revealed in the "Turn Left" "Doctor Who Confidential" that Billie had made arrangements to return as Rose since she decided to leave. The series began in April 2008, and after several cameos, Piper made her official return as Rose in the series four final episodes "Turn Left", "The Stolen Earth" and "Journey's End". She did not initially state whether she would be reprising the role again. Interviewed on "Doctor Who Confidential", she commented that "it's never really the end for the Doctor and Rose, but it's certainly the end for the foreseeable future". She reprised her role as Rose Tyler in "The End of Time", the last of the 2009–10 "Doctor Who" specials. On 4 January 2013 Piper confirmed on the Graham Norton Show that the producers had not asked her to take part in an episode for the show's 50th anniversary; however, on 30 March 2013 the BBC announced that she would be returning to "Doctor Who" for the special alongside David Tennant, Matt Smith and Jenna-Louise Coleman. 2007-11: "Secret Diary of a Call Girl". Piper has completed work on two stand-alone television productions. In the first, a BBC adaptation of Philip Pullman's historical novel "The Ruby in the Smoke" broadcast in December 2006, Piper played protagonist Sally Lockhart, a Victorian orphan along with Matt Smith playing Jim Taylor. The BBC plans to film all four of Pullman's Sally Lockhart novels, with Piper continuing in the role in "The Shadow in the North" which was shown in December 2007. Piper made her stage debut in a touring production of Christopher Hampton's play "Treats", which opened in early 2007 in Windsor. "Treats" was to have ended its tour in the West End, at the Garrick Theatre, starting on 28 February 2007 with previews from 20 February. The play officially finished as of 26 May. In 2007 she appeared as the main character, Fanny Price, in an adaptation of Jane Austen's novel "Mansfield Park", screened on ITV1. This was her first acting role on television for a broadcaster other than the BBC. Piper also starred as Hannah Baxter in "Secret Diary of a Call Girl", an ITV2 adaptation of Brooke Magnanti's "The Intimate Adventures of a London Call Girl", a memoir detailing the life of a high-class prostitute who adopted "Belle de Jour" as her pseudonym. The series, which aired from 27 September 2007, saw Piper in several semi-nude scenes. As part of her preparation for the role Piper met the memoir's author some two years before her identity as a research scientist was revealed in a Sunday newspaper: "I absolutely had to meet the person behind the words to be able to take the part... People did ask me about her and I just had to smile, to avoid giving anything away...". A second season, with Piper again in the starring role, started filming in May 2008, during which two body doubles were hired in order to hide Piper's pregnancy during the sex scenes. The third season began airing in January 2010. In January 2010, tying in with the broadcast of the third season and following on from the real Belle de Jour confirming her real identity, ITV2 broadcast an interview special, "Billie and the Real Belle Bare All" which saw Piper meeting with Dr Brooke Magnanti on-camera for the first time. Piper has provided voice-overs for various television commercials, including one for Comfort fabric-softener airing in June 2007, and Debenhams currently airing 2011. Piper has also shared the role of Betty with Sue Johnston in the TV adaptation of "A Passionate Woman", screened on BBC 1 on 11 and 18 April 2010. Piper had been confirmed to join the cast of an upcoming romance-comedy film directed by Robin Sheppard called "Truth about Lies". Filming is expected to start in October 2011. 2012: Upcoming projects. Piper had been confirmed to play Carly in the UK premiere of "reasons to be pretty" at the Almeida Theatre, running from November 2011 to January 2012. It opened on 17 November to press, and has since received critical acclaim with reviewers claiming it was "one of the better productions I have seen". The Guardian, The Observer, Daily Mail, London Evening Standard, Metro, The Times, The Telegraph, Time Out, The Arts Desk, Daily Express and The Financial Times all gave the production rave reviews with a minimum of four stars. BBC Radio 4 reviewed the show live applauding Piper as "completely brilliant. Her performance is so convincing and moving, an absolutely terrific performance". The "Jewish Chronicle" hailed Billie Piper's performance as second to none, being the best of the night, and stating that "[no actor can cry more convincingly than Piper", giving the show four stars. On 4 August 2012, it was reported that Piper will make her National Theatre debut in a play by "Secret Diary of a Call Girl" creator Lucy Prebble titled "The Effect", which ran from November 2012 to February 2013. Within days of the opening preview nights the show received critical acclaim, focusing primarily on Piper's 'outstanding' performance. The play went on to become the most critically acclaimed show of the season with Billie going on to be nominated for the What's On Stage 'Best Actress' award for her work in "The Effect", the play was also nominated for 'Best New Play' and 'Best Set Designer'. Due to huge success and demand, the show was extended for a further month and an online ePetition was started for the show to be added to the National Theatre's Live Programming. On 26 March 2013, the Olivier Awards announced Piper as one of four nominations in their Best Actress category for "The Effect". Personal life. Piper married businessman, DJ, and television presenter Chris Evans in a secret ceremony in May 2001 in Las Vegas after six months of dating. Their marriage attracted much comment because Evans is 16 years older. The couple separated in 2004 and later divorced in May 2007. They have remained friends. A story in "The Independent" on 27 June 2006 stated that Piper has declared that she does not wish to claim any money from Evans' reported £30m wealth or his £540,000 salary from Radio Two. "I'm not taking a penny from him," she told the "Radio Times", "I think that's disgusting." Piper also revealed in her interview with "Radio Times" that she left her pop star career with very little money. Evans has admitted that the age gap was a reason in seeking the divorce. Piper dated and lived with law student Amadu Sowe from 2004 to 2006. Piper married actor Laurence Fox, son of actor James Fox, on 31 December 2007 at St Mary's Church in Easebourne, West Sussex. They live in Easebourne, Midhurst in West Sussex. Their first son, Winston James, was born 21 October 2008, They had a second son, Eugene Pip, on 5 April 2012. Piper became good friends with her former "Doctor Who" co-star David Tennant during their time on the show. She is also close to Matt Smith, who took over playing the title character following Tennant's departure. She acted with Matt Smith in "The Ruby in the Smoke" and its sequel, and also in "Secret Diary of a Call Girl".
583070	Mumbai Se Aaya Mera Dost is a 2003 Bollywood movie starring Abhishek Bachchan, Lara Dutta and Chunky Pandey. The film is directed by Apoorva Lakhia. The film touched on the subject of influence of television on village life. Synopsis. Dinanath Singh (Snehal Lakhia) is honored by the Indian Government, which is televised live. While receiving the honors, Dinanath informs the Government that his village is still without electricity, and he is promised that electricity will be provided in his village immediately. And electricity is provided in the village. Dina Nath's son, Karan (Abhishek Bachchan), who is in Mumbai, hears of this and returns to the village along with a C-Band ten foot satellite dish and a super flat stereo television Dinanath has one more son Ajay (Chunky Pandey), who is in Delhi after hearing this he also came back. When the satellite is set up, the villagers are thrilled by the TV shows. This helps create a running gag of copying TV culture into the rural lives. The changes lead to the village priest (Akhilendra Mishra) complaining to Chotey Thakur Rudra Pratap Singh (Yashpal Sharma) that the villagers are turning away from his temple and worship. Rudra is not concerned as he himself has a TV set in his home. But when the priest informs Rudra that his sister, Kesar (Lara Dutta) and Karan(kanji) are in love, Rudra makes a threat to destroy Karan(kanji) and all of the village in the presence of a TV crew filming the whole drama and telecasting it live worldwide. The plot comes to a culmination when, angered by Karan's(kanji) antics, Rudra arrives to destroy the village. The villagers stand up to the exploitation and fight Rudra and his goons. Finally Rudra is killed at the hands of Karan(kanji). Soundtracks. The music was created by Anu Malik. The music response for this movie was very good and some of the songs like "Shaher Ka Jadoo Re" topped some of the Bollywood music charts. Audience response. Though not a very successful film at the box office, the performance of Abhishek Bachchan was appreciated. Through this film, he adopted the rough guy look which he has continued to appear with in most of his films. It was Apoorva Lakhia's directorial début who went on to become one of the closest friends of Abhishek Bachchan.
1164204	Deborrah Kaye “Debbie” Allen (born January 16, 1950) is an American actress, dancer, choreographer, television director, television producer, and a member of the President's Committee on the Arts and Humanities. She is perhaps best known for her work on the 1982 musical-drama television series "Fame", where she portrayed dance teacher Lydia Grant, and served as the series' principal choreographer. She is the younger sister of actress/director/singer Phylicia Rashād. Life and career. Early years. Allen was born in Houston, Texas, the third child to orthodontist Andrew Arthur Allen Jr. and Vivian (née Ayers) Allen, a poet ("Spice of Dawns" and other books) and museum art director. She went on to earn a B.A. degree in classical Greek literature, speech, and theater from Howard University. She holds "honoris causa" Doctorates from Howard University and the University of North Carolina School of the Arts. She currently teaches young dancers. She also taught choreography to former Los Angeles Lakers dancer-turned-singer, Paula Abdul. Her daughter, Vivian Nixon, played Kalimba in the Broadway production of "Hot Feet". Career. Debbie Allen had her Broadway debut in the chorus of Purlie. Allen also created the role of Beneatha in the Tony Award-winning musical "Raisin". She first began receiving critical attention in 1980 for her appearance in the role of Anita in the Broadway revival of "West Side Story" which earned her a Tony Award nomination and a Drama Desk Award, she would receive a second Tony Award nomination in 1986 for her performance in the title role of Bob Fosse's "Sweet Charity". One of her earlier television appearances was in the TV sitcom "Good Times" in a memorable 2-part episode titled "J.J's Fiancee'" as J.J's drug-addicted fiancee, Diana. Allen was first introduced as Lydia Grant in the 1980 film "Fame". Although her role in the film was relatively small, Lydia would become a central figure in the television adaptation, which ran from 1982 to 1987. During the opening montage of each episode, Grant told her students: ""You've got big dreams? You want fame? Well, fame costs. And right here is where you start paying ... in sweat."" Allen was nominated for the Emmy Award for Best Actress four times during the show's run. She is the only actress to have appeared in all three screen incarnations of "Fame", playing Lydia Grant in both the 1980 film and 1982 television series and playing the school principal in the 2009 remake.
1062543	Catch Me If You Can is a 2002 American biographical crime comedy-drama film based on the life of Frank Abagnale, who, before his 19th birthday, successfully performed cons worth millions of dollars by posing as a Pan American World Airways pilot, a Georgia doctor, and a Louisiana parish prosecutor. His primary crime was check fraud; he became so skillful that the FBI eventually turned to him for help in catching other check forgers. The film was directed by Steven Spielberg and stars Leonardo DiCaprio and Tom Hanks, with Christopher Walken, Amy Adams, Martin Sheen, and Nathalie Baye in supporting roles. Development for the film started in 1980 but did not progress until 1997 when the film rights to Abagnale's book were purchased by Spielberg's DreamWorks. David Fincher, Gore Verbinski, Lasse Hallström, Miloš Forman and Cameron Crowe had all been possible candidates for director before Spielberg decided to direct. Filming took place from February to May 2002. The film was a financial and critical success, and the real Abagnale reacted positively to it. Plot. In 1963, teen-aged Frank Abagnale (Leonardo DiCaprio) lives in New Rochelle, New York with his father Frank Abagnale, Sr. (Christopher Walken), and French mother Paula (Nathalie Baye). When Frank Sr. is denied a business loan at Chase Manhattan Bank due to unspecified difficulties with the IRS, the family is forced to move from their large home to a small apartment. Paula carries on an affair with Jack (James Brolin), a friend of her husband. Meanwhile, Frank poses as a substitute teacher in his French class. Frank's parents file for divorce, and Frank runs away. When he runs out of money, he begins to rely on confidence scams to get by. Soon, Frank's cons grow bolder and he even impersonates an airline pilot. He forges Pan Am payroll checks and succeeds in stealing over $2.8 million. Meanwhile, Carl Hanratty (Tom Hanks), an FBI bank fraud agent, begins to track down Frank. Carl and Frank meet in a hotel, where Frank convinces Carl his name is Barry Allen of the Secret Service. Frank leaves, Carl angrily realizing his mistake just as it is too late. Later, at Christmas, Carl is still working when Frank calls him, attempting to apologize for duping Carl. Carl rejects his apology and tells him he will soon be caught, but laughs when he realizes Frank actually called him because he has no one else to talk to. Frank hangs up, and Carl continues to investigate, suddenly realizing (thanks to a waiter) that the name "Barry Allen" is from the Flash comic books and that Frank is just a teenager. Frank, meanwhile, has expanded his con to include the identities of doctor and lawyer, but has fallen in love with Brenda (Amy Adams), to whom he eventually admits the truth about himself and asks her to run away with him. Carl tracks him to his engagement party where Frank has left Brenda, asking her to meet him two days later so they can elope. Frank sees her waiting for him two days later, but also notices plainclothes agents waiting to arrest him. He realizes he has been set up and escapes on a flight to Europe. Seven months later, Carl shows his boss that Frank has been forging checks all over western Europe and asks permission to go to Europe to look for him. When his boss says no, Carl brings Frank's checks to printing professionals who deem that the checks were printed in France. Carl remembers from an interview with Frank's mother that she was born in Montrichard, France. He goes there and finds Frank, and tells him that the French police will kill him if he does not go with Carl quietly. Frank assumes he is lying at first, but Carl promises Frank he would never lie to him, and Carl takes him outside, where the French police escort him to prison. The scene then flashes forward to a plane returning Frank home from prison, where Carl informs him that his father has died. Consumed with grief, Frank escapes from the plane and goes back to his old house, where he finds his mother with the man she left his father for, as well as a girl who Frank realizes is his half-sister. Frank gives himself up and is sentenced to 12 years in prison, getting visits from time to time from Carl. When Frank points out how one of the checks Carl is carrying as evidence is fake, Carl convinces the FBI to offer Frank a deal by which he can live out the remainder of his sentence working for the bank fraud department of the FBI, which Frank accepts. While working at the FBI, Frank misses the thrill of the chase and even attempts to fly as an airline pilot again. He is cornered by Carl, who insists that Frank will return to the FBI job since no one is chasing him. On the following Monday, Carl is nervous that Frank has not yet appeared at work. However, Frank does show up and they discuss their next case.
519957	Wendell Xavier Ramos (born August 18, 1978 in Manila, Philippines), known as Wendell Ramos, is a Filipino actor and model who is currently signed to the Associated Broadcasting Company. Biography and career. Ramos started his showbiz career in 1995 when he joined the cast of "Bubble Gang" along with his friend Antonio Aquitania. He got into "matinee idol" status when he joined "Click". He then had sexy or daring roles with sexy female stars like Ara Mina and Diana Zubiri, among others, in different films during the 2000s. Ramos took a break from daring and comic roles into "leading man" roles in GMA shows like "Sinasamba Kita", "La Vendetta", "Kung Mahawi Man Ang Ulap" and "Tasya Fantasya". His biggest break came when he played the role of Harvey in "Ako si Kim Samsoon" which starred Regine Velasquez, Mark Anthony Fernandez and Nadine Samonte. Wendell Ramos is also one of the models of Bench along with famous stars such as Richard Gomez, Richard Gutierrez, Dingdong Dantes, Alessandra de Rossi and Francine Prieto, to name a few. He has three children with his non-showbiz wife. He is also brother of guitarist Howie Ramos from the band Rocksteddy.
1449182	Graham Arthur Chapman (8 January 1941 – 4 October 1989) was an English comedian, writer, actor, and one of the six members of the surreal comedy group Monty Python. Early life and education. Chapman was born at the Stoneygate Nursing Home, Stoneygate, Leicester. He was educated at Melton Mowbray Grammar School and studied medicine at Emmanuel College, Cambridge and later at St Bartholomew's Medical College. He was an avid fan of radio comedy from an early age, becoming especially drawn to that of "The Goon Show". In the introduction to Chapman's (2005/2006) posthumous anthology, Jim Yoakum notes that "the radio shows didn't necessarily make him laugh. Only a select few got chuckles from young Chapman including Frankie Howerd, the team of Jimmy Jewel and Ben Warriss, "It's That Man Again", "Educating Archie", "Take It From Here" and "Much-Binding-in-the-Marsh". 'I especially liked Robert Moreton, although no one else seemed to like him very much. He would do things like tell jokes the wrong way around and switch punch lines. He was obviously a very good comedian and was ahead of his time. The appearance of incompetence was wonderful. He was one of my heroes.' But the show that truly astounded Graham, and was a major influence on his comedy was "The Goon Show"" (p.xvii). Chapman states "from about the age of seven or eight I used to be an avid listener of a radio programme called "The Goon Show". In fact, at that stage I wanted to "be" a Goon" (p. 23). Career. Before "Python". Chapman and John Cleese wrote professionally for the BBC during the 1960s, initially for David Frost, but also for Marty Feldman. Chapman also contributed sketches to the BBC radio series "I'm Sorry, I'll Read That Again" and television programmes such as "The Illustrated Weekly Hudd" (starring Roy Hudd), "Cilla Black", "This is Petula Clark", and "This Is Tom Jones". Chapman, Cleese, and Tim Brooke-Taylor later joined Feldman in the television comedy series "At Last the 1948 Show". There, Chapman displayed a gift for deadpan comedy (such as in the sketch "The Minister Who Falls to Pieces") and for imitating various British dialects. Chapman and Cleese also wrote for the long-running television comedy series "Doctor in the House". Chapman also co-wrote several episodes with Bernard McKenna and David Sherlock. Monty Python. In 1969, Chapman and Cleese joined the other Pythons including Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, Terry Jones, and Michael Palin for their sketch comedy show "Flying Circus". Chapman most often played characters with personalities close to his own: outwardly calm and authoritative figures barely concealing a manic unpredictability. In David Morgan's book "Monty Python Speaks", Cleese asserted that Chapman, although officially his co-writer for many of their sketches, contributed comparatively little in the way of direct writing. Rather, the other Pythons have said that Chapman's biggest contribution in the writing room was an intuition as to what was funny. Cleese said in an interview that one of Chapman's great attributes was "his weird takes on things." In writing sessions Chapman "would lob in an idea or a line from out of left field into the engine room, but he could never be the engine", Cleese said. In the "Dead Parrot" sketch, written mostly by Cleese, the frustrated customer was initially trying to return a faulty toaster to a shop. Chapman asked "How can we make this "madder"?", and then came up with the idea that returning a dead Norwegian Blue parrot to a pet shop might make for a more interesting subject than returning a toaster. In "Monty Python Live at Aspen", Cleese said that the original idea came from a man Palin bought a car from, who had endless excuses for everything that went wrong with it. Cleese said that he and Chapman believed that "there was something very funny there, if we could find the right context for it." Chapman played the lead roles in the Pythons' two narrative feature films "Holy Grail" and "Life of Brian". Cleese complimented Chapman by saying that he was "very possibly the best actor of all of us". In the late 1970s, Chapman moved to Los Angeles, where he guest-starred on many television shows including "Hollywood Squares", "Still Crazy Like a Fox", and "The Big Show". Upon his return to England, Chapman became involved with the Dangerous Sports Club (an extreme sports club which introduced bungee jumping to a wide audience). Chapman and Douglas Adams wrote a pilot for a TV series in 1975, "Out of the Trees", but it never went beyond the initial episode. They also wrote an unmade show for Ringo Starr. Chapman mentored Adams, but they later had a falling out and did not speak for several years. In 1978, Chapman co-wrote (with Bernard McKenna) and starred in "The Odd Job" alongside David Jason who had previously appeared on "Do Not Adjust Your Set" with Idle, Jones, and Palin. The film was only moderately successful. Chapman's memoir, "A Liar's Autobiography", was published in 1980 and, unusually for a work of this type, had five authors: Chapman, his partner David Sherlock, Alex Martin, David Yallop and Douglas Adams. Although writing had begun in the late 1970s, Chapman was finally able to secure funding for his much cherished pirate project "Yellowbeard" in 1982. Once again, Chapman collaborated with writer Bernard McKenna and for the first time with Peter Cook. The film, which starred Chapman as the eponymous pirate, also featured appearances from Peter Cook, Marty Feldman, Cleese, Idle, Spike Milligan, and Cheech & Chong. It marks the last appearance of Feldman, who suffered a fatal heart attack during shooting. It was released in 1983 to mixed reviews. In a 2001 interview, Cleese described "Yellowbeard" as "one of the six worst films made in the history of the world." Eric Idle also later dismissed the film although he remembered his participation fondly. Final years. After reuniting with the other Pythons in "The Meaning of Life", Chapman began a lengthy series of American college tours in which he would tell the audience anecdotes about Monty Python, the Dangerous Sports Club, Keith Moon, and other subjects. In 1988, he appeared in the Iron Maiden video "Can I Play with Madness". His final project was to have been a TV series called "Jake's Journey". Although the pilot episode was made, there were difficulties selling the project. Chapman was also to have played a guest role as a television presenter in the "Red Dwarf" episode "Timeslides", but died before filming was to have started. In the years since Chapman's death, despite the existence of the "Graham Chapman Archive", only a few of his projects have been released. One of these projects is a play entitled "O Happy Day", brought to life in 2000 by Dad's Garage Theatre Company in Atlanta, Georgia. Cleese and Palin assisted the theatre company in adapting the play. Personal life. Chapman was a tall (6'2"/1.88 m), craggy pipe-smoker who enjoyed mountaineering and playing rugby. He was an alcoholic from his time in medical school. His fellow Pythons noted he felt he needed a drink or two to "face the world" and at times would forget in the afternoon material that had been written the same day. His drinking also affected his performance on the TV recording set as well as on the set of "Holy Grail", where he suffered from withdrawal symptoms including delirium tremens. He stopped drinking on Boxing Day 1977, having just annoyed the other Pythons with an outspoken (and drunken) interview with the "New Musical Express". Before going sober, Chapman jokingly referred to himself as the British actress Betty Marsden, possibly because of Marsden's oft-quoted desire to die with a glass of gin in her hand. John Cleese used Marsden's name in his eulogy at Chapman's memorial service. Chapman kept his sexuality a secret until 1967, although he did allude to it in some Monty Python sketches. He came out as homosexual on a chat show hosted by British jazz musician George Melly, becoming one of the first celebrities to come out publicly. Several days later, he came out to a group of friends at a party held at his home in Belsize Park, where he officially introduced them to his partner, David Sherlock, whom he had met in Ibiza in 1966. Chapman later told a story in his college tour that when he went public, a member of the television audience wrote to the Pythons to complain that she had heard a member of the team was gay, adding that the Bible said any man who lies with a man should be taken out and stoned. With fellow Pythons already aware of his sexual orientation, Eric Idle replied, "We've found out who it was and we've taken him out and had him killed." In his book "", Chapman said that this took place just before Cleese left the show, and he wondered what the woman thought about his disappearance after getting Idle's response. Chapman was a vocal spokesman for LGBT rights, and in 1972 he lent his support to the fledgling newspaper "Gay News", which publicly acknowledged his financial and editorial support by listing him as one of its "special friends". In 1971, Chapman and Sherlock adopted John Tomiczek as their son. Chapman met Tomiczek when the teenager was a runaway from Liverpool. After discussions with Tomiczek's father, it was agreed that Chapman would become Tomiczek's legal guardian, and Tomiczek later became Chapman's business manager. Tomiczek died of a heart attack in 1992. Among Chapman's closest friends were Keith Moon of The Who, singer Harry Nilsson, Bruce Dickinson of Iron Maiden, and The Beatles' Ringo Starr. Death and funeral. Chapman died on 4 October 1989 after suffering from tonsil cancer and secondary spinal cancer. Chapman had several chemotherapy treatments and tumour removal surgeries within the final months of his life, and at one point, he used a wheelchair. Weeks before Chapman's death, his cancer was declared terminal. Chapman had produced scenes for the 20th anniversary of the first broadcast of "Flying Circus", the final time he appeared on television, but he became ill again three days before his death. Those present at the time of Chapman's death in a Maidstone hospital included his brother, sister-in-law, partner David Sherlock, and his former "Python" fellows John Cleese and Michael Palin, who had to be led out of the room to deal with their grief. Terry Jones and Peter Cook had visited earlier that day. Chapman's death occurred on the eve of the 20th anniversary of the first broadcast of "Flying Circus", and Jones called it "the worst case of party-pooping in all history". It was reported that Chapman's last words were: "Sorry for saying fuck", to a nurse who accidentally stuck a needle in his arm shortly before he died. The five surviving Python members had decided to stay away from Chapman's private funeral to prevent it from becoming a media circus and to give his family some privacy. They sent a wreath in the shape of the famous Python foot with the message: "To Graham from the other Pythons. Stop us if we're getting too silly". They held a private memorial service for Chapman in St Bartholomew's Hospital in London two months after his death, with a chorus of the Chinese version of the hymn "Jerusalem" ("… Bling me my speal, oh crowds unford, bling me my chaliot of file…"). Cleese delivered his eulogy to Chapman, which began as follows: Cleese continued after a break from the laughter in the audience and claimed that Chapman had whispered in his ear the night before while he was writing the speech, saying: Palin later spoke after Cleese, saying that he liked to think that Chapman was there with them all that day—"or rather, he will be in about 25 minutes", a reference to Chapman's habitual lateness when he and the other Pythons were working together. Choking back tears, Idle stated that Chapman had thought that Palin talked too much and had died rather than listen to him any more. Idle also led the other surviving Pythons and Chapman's friends and family in a rendition of "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life" from the film "The Life of Brian". Not to be outdone by Cleese, Idle was heard saying during the song's close: "I'd just like to be the last person at this meeting to say 'fuck'. Thank you very much. God bless you, Graham." On 31 December 1999, Chapman's ashes were rumoured to have been "blasted into the skies in a rocket". In reality, Sherlock scattered Chapman's ashes on Snowdon, North Wales, on 18 June 2005. Legacy. Since Chapman's death, the speculation of a Python revival was inevitably diminished. Idle stated: "We would only do a reunion if Chapman came back from the dead. So we're negotiating with his agent." Subsequent gatherings of the Pythons have included an urn said to contain Chapman's ashes. At the 1998 Aspen Comedy Arts festival, the urn was "accidentally" knocked over by Terry Gilliam, spilling the "ashes" on-stage. The apparently cremated remains were then removed with a dust-buster. Asteroid 9617 Grahamchapman, named in Chapman's honour, is one of six asteroids named after the Python members. In 1997, Sherlock allowed Jim Yoakum to start the "Graham Chapman Archives". Later that year, the novel "" was released. It is a semi-sequel to "A Liar's Autobiography", with Chapman works compiled by Yoakum. "Ojril: The Completely Incomplete Graham Chapman", a collection of previously unpublished material, was released in 1999. It contains scripts Chapman wrote with Douglas Adams and others, such as "Our show for Ringo Starr, a.k.a. Goodnight Vienna". In 2005 "Calcium Made Interesting: Sketches, Letters, Essays & Gondolas" was published. At one time, the script for "Out of the Trees", written by Chapman and Adams in 1975 (and later extensively rewritten by Chapman with Bernard McKenna), was online. Jim Yoakum had it removed, to the disappointment of co-writer Adams, who had made no objections to it being there. Recordings of Chapman's college tours during the 1980s have been released over the years. The CD "A Liar Live" was delayed several times, but was released as "A Six Pack of Lies" in 1997. Other college tours also came out on CD, such as "Spot the Loony" in 2001. A DVD of the tours ("Looks Like a Brown Trouser Job") was released in 2005. The single episodes for "Out of the Trees", which was wiped but later recovered on an early home video system, and "Jake's Journey" still have not been released. In 2004, there was talk of a movie about Chapman's life, to be called "Gin and Tonic", by Hippofilms in co-operation with Jim Yoakum. Auditions were held in March 2004 in California, but the project has been officially abandoned. Its website is no longer active and the Internet Movie Database page has been deleted; the Graham Chapman Archive's website has disappeared as well. In June 2011, it was announced that most of the surviving Python members (everyone except Idle) will perform in a 3-D animated version of Chapman's memoir "A Liar’s Autobiography: Volume VI". The film, titled "" has a running time of 85 minutes. It was shown at the Toronto International Film Festival in September 2012 and premiered in the UK on 16 October 2012 as part of the BFI London Film Festival. The voices of Cleese, Gilliam, Jones, and Palin were spliced into commentary recorded by Chapman reading from his memoir and taped shortly before his death and the story of Graham Chapman's life is told in 17 different animation styles by 14 different animation studios. The film's official trailer claims that Graham Chapman said, "This is the best film I've been in since I died." In September 2012, a British Comedy Society blue plaque, to commemorate Chapman, was unveiled at The Angel pub in Highgate, North London, by Jones, Palin, Barry Cryer and Carol Cleveland. Palin said, "This was Graham's manor and Graham was a lovely guy. I spent many happy times with him, most of which I forget. Highgate was his patch and he should be celebrated because he was a very good, brilliant, funny, nice, wise, kind man, who occasionally drank too much."
1163862	Robert Wuhl (born October 9, 1951) is an American actor, comedian and writer. He is perhaps best known as the creator and star of the television comedy series "Arliss" (1996–2002). Early life. Wuhl was born in Union, New Jersey, to a Jewish family. His father worked as a produce distributor. After attending Union High School, Wuhl headed to the University of Houston, where he was active in the drama department and the Epsilon-Omicron Chapter of Tau Kappa Epsilon Fraternity. Wuhl was awarded a Distinguished Alumni Award from his alma mater in April 2012. Career. After several years of stand-up comedy, Wuhl had roles in movies including Tim Burton's 1989 "Batman" (as reporter Alexander Knox) with Michael Keaton, "Bull Durham" with Kevin Costner, "Cobb" with Tommy Lee Jones, "Mistress" with Robert De Niro and "Good Morning, Vietnam" with Robin Williams. His first role in movies was a starring role in the 1980 comedy "The Hollywood Knights" along with other fledgling actors Tony Danza, Michelle Pfeiffer and Fran Drescher. He wrote two of the six episodes for the TV series "Police Squad!" in 1982, and did an audio commentary for its release on DVD in 2006. He also had a small role in the 1983 film Flashdance.
1166103	Robert Michael "Bobby" Moynihan, Jr. (born January 31, 1977) is an American actor and comedian who is currently a cast member on "Saturday Night Live". Life and career. Moynihan was born and raised in Eastchester, New York, to parents Irene and Robert, Sr. He graduated from the University of Connecticut in 1999 with a BFA in Theater. At Eastchester High School he was a part of the tech club and the players club. Before joining the cast of "SNL", Moynihan had been performing as an improvisational comedian with the Upright Citizens Brigade Theater (UCB) in New York City for nearly ten years. At UCB he was a member of the improv sketch groups "Police Chief Rumble" and "The Stepfathers". Moynihan was also part of the sketch-comedy trio "The Buffoons" with comedians Charlie Sanders and Eugene Cordero. The trio performed regularly at UCB for many years and were a featured act at Montreal's "Just For Laughs" Comedy Festival in 2007. Moynihan has also frequently performed with the Derrick Comedy sketch group and appeared in many of their popular internet videos and various projects. He also filmed a supporting role in the group's feature film "Mystery Team", which premiered at Sundance in 2009 before a limited theatrical release. In the summer of 2008, Moynihan had a supporting role in the popular web-series "The Line", an online video project funded by Lorne Michaels' production company, directed by "SNL" head writer Seth Meyers, and starring "SNL" cast members Bill Hader and Jason Sudeikis. He acted as a sketch regular on "Late Night with Conan O'Brien" for a number of years and was a contributing writer on MTV's "Human Giant", and in years past, he often submitted scripts to "SNL" with comedy partner Charlie Sanders. Moynihan has also acted in a number of comedy shorts for the website "collegehumor.com", including their recent web-series "Every Week on Entourage" where he plays "Turtle" from Entourage. During the summer of 2008, Moynihan gained a bit of recognition when he was featured in a national television ad campaign for ESPN Radio with Yankees broadcaster Michael Kay. In the summer of 2009, Moynihan starred in the music video for Colbie Caillat's single, "Fallin' For You". He also appeared in three of The Lonely Island's music videos; Boombox, Shy Ronnie 2 and Threw It On The Ground. He made a memorable guest appearance as the drug addicted Conrad Bellingham on "Mercy". He also appeared in the films "The Invention of Lying", "When in Rome", and "Certainty".
1015793	Teresa Mo Sun-kwan (born November 5, 1959), with ancestry in Dongguan, Guangdong, is a Hong Kong actress. She started her career in 1970s, and joined TVB in 1981. She became famous for being cast in "The Justice of Life", which was based on Stephen Chow's works. In 1991 she made frequent appearances in feature films. Personal life. In 1978, Mo was proposed to by then-boyfriend and fellow ATV colleague, Leslie Cheung. She is currently married to director Tony Au; they have two daughters. She is a Christian.
1167138	Josephine Hutchinson (October 12, 1903 – June 4, 1998) was an American actress. Life. She was born in Seattle, Washington. Her mother, Leona Roberts, was an actress best known for her role as "Mrs. Meade" in "Gone with the Wind". Through her mother's connections, Hutchinson made her film debut at the age of thirteen in "The Little Princess", starring Mary Pickford. She later attended the Cornish School of Music and Drama in Seattle, and then moved to New York City where she began acting in theater. By the late 1920s she was one of the actors able to make the transition from silent movies to talkies.
584450	Pammal K. Sambandam () is a 2002 Tamil comedy film directed by Moulee and scripted by Crazy Mohan.The film features Kamal Haasan in the title role alongside Simran with Abbas and Sneha in primary supporting roles. The film was produced by P. L. Thenappan under Media Dreams, while Deva composed the soundtrack for the film.This film was also dubbed into Telugu as Bramhachari. Plot. When stuntman Sambandham (Kamal Haasan) and Dr. Janaki (Simran) come across each other at his brother Anand's (Abbas) and her best friend Malathi's (Sneha) hastily planned wedding ceremony, they instantly develop a dislike for each other. They both have a very low opinion of the opposite sex, and staunchly believe marriage is not the way to go for the two newlyweds, whom they try to discourage from proceeding further. Janaki convinces Malathi to test out her theory that men are after only one thing, by forcing Anand to delay their marriage vows for three months. She is sure, Anand will not be able to do so and this will prove to Malathi that Anand is just another low-class male, like all others, and her claims of him being different than most men are unfounded. Sambandham, upon hearing about this new development, tries to do the exact opposite. This results in a hilarious scene at a local disco bar, where Sambandham lures Malathi with the hope of her finding Anand with a "girlfriend" that he has planted in the lap of Anand in order to make Malathi jealous. The plan backfires and Malathi and Anand end up in divorce court where the judge puts them on a three-month probation and marriage counselling. Later, Janaki is given a watch pendant by her aunt to wear as a good luck charm. The pendant hangs from a bracelet on her wrist. Sambandham gets seriously hurt by a bull hit, due to a chaos created by Janaki for protesting against torturing animals in film shooting where Sambandham works.Later Janaki herself brought him for emergency surgery to her hospital and performs surgery on Sambandham. After the surgery, while looking at the X-rays, she is horrified to discover that the watch on her wrist has accidentally ended up in Sambandham's stomach. Janaki tries various ways of getting the watch out. During one such process, which fails, it becomes clear that Janaki is bitter about her perceived unfaithfulness of the two most prominent men from her childhood: her divorced father and her elder sister's ex-husband. By this time, Sambandham begins to fall in love with Janaki and gets engaged to her. After the engagement, Janaki is successful in removing the watch from Sambandham's stomach. Following the surgery, Janaki calls off the engagement and Sambandham leaves with a heavy heart. Several days later, he accepts an arranged marriage proposal from a female weightlifter in an attempt to forget about Janaki. Upon realizing her mistake, Janaki helps Anand and Malathi reconcile and decides to confess her love for Sambandham at the wedding ceremony. However, the weightlifter is not interested to marry Sambandham and wants to elope with her boyfriend. Sambandham helps them elope in a hilarious chase where the weightlifter's father (Manivannan) and Sambandham's uncle (Santhana Bharathi) chase the trio to a police station where the weightlifter and her boyfriend marry. Janaki too arrives at the police station and finally confesses her love for Sambandham. Production. Kamal Haasan initially approached Moulee to make a film for his own production house, but efforts were unfruitful. Subsequently the film was started under P. L. Thenappan in August 2001 and the shoot was complete within three months. The film's invitation card for the launch was shaped in the form of the alphabet "K", which formed a significant theme throughout the film. The card also featured images of Devayani who was later replaced in the film by Sneha. Devayani was removed after she went on honeymoon following her sudden marriage and thus she was unable to fulfil her original schedules. Kamal Haasan's character was a stunt double under Vikram Dharma in the film and the stunt director had used the air-ramp for the first time in a Tamil film. The film was initially slated to be released coinciding with the Diwali season of 2001, but due to the delay of Kamal Haasan's other film, "Aalavandhan", it was shifted to January 2002. During the making of the film, the significance of the initial K was hidden before Kamal Haasan revealed at a press conference two weeks before release that it stood for "Kalyanam" (Marriage), which the lead characters despised of. Release. "Pammal K. Sambandam" took a big opening at the box office, running 175 days in 100 centers. Reception. The film opened to positive reviews for it's humorous dialogues of Crazy Mohan and praised the lead performances, Specially Simran's Performance comparing with Kamal Haasan. The The Hindu claimed that "if Mouli had sustained the humorous strain throughout, PKS would have turned out to be a complete comic treat from start to finish. Why he did not do it remains a riddle." The critic also praised lead performances, specially Simran's performance noted as "She gets a chance to perform in a role that has funny slants to it and has proved that she is capable of comedy too". The Rediff praised Crazy Mohan's dialogue writing and all lead performances. Specially Simran's performance was acclaimed well comparing with Kamal Haasan "Kamal is his usual self,while Simran --- who, perhaps uniquely among female stars in the south, seems totally unfazed about acting opposite the three-time National Award winner -- looks a bit anaemic, tired even. Simran, though, sizzles in the dance sequences, making Kamal look old and jaded by contrast". Remakes. It was remade in Hindi as "Kambakkht Ishq" in 2009 by Sajid Nadiadwala with Akshay Kumar and Kareena Kapoor in the lead roles.
1163818	William Claude Dukenfield (January 29, 1880 – December 25, 1946), better known as W. C. Fields, was an American comedian, actor, juggler and writer. Fields' comic persona was a misanthropic and hard-drinking egotist, who remained a sympathetic character despite his snarling contempt for dogs, children, and women. The characterization he portrayed in films and on radio was so strong it was generally identified with Fields himself. It was maintained by the publicity departments at Fields' studios (Paramount and Universal) and was further established by Robert Lewis Taylor's biography, "W.C. Fields, His Follies and Fortunes" (1949). Beginning in 1973, with the publication of Fields' letters, photos, and personal notes in grandson Ronald Fields' book "W.C. Fields by Himself", it was shown that Fields was married (and subsequently estranged from his wife), and financially supported their son and loved his grandchildren. Biography. Early years. Fields was born William Claude Dukenfield in Darby, Pennsylvania, the oldest child in a poor family. His father, James Lydon Dukenfield, was from an English family that emigrated to America from Sheffield, England in 1854. James Dukenfield served in Company M of the 72nd Pennsylvania Infantry Regiment in the American Civil War and was wounded in 1863. Fields' mother, Kate Spangler (née Felton), 15 years younger than her husband, was a Protestant of German ancestry. The 1876 "Philadelphia City Directory "lists James Dukenfield as a clerk. After marrying, he worked as an independent produce merchant and a part-time hotel-keeper. Claude Dukenfield (as he was known) worked at the Strawbridge and Clothier department store and in an oyster house, before he ran away from home at age 11. Self-educated, he spent substantial time perfecting his juggling, practicing till his fingers bled. At age 15, he was performing a juggling act at church and theater shows, and entered vaudeville as a "tramp juggler" using the name W. C. Fields. He soon was traveling as "The Eccentric Juggler", and included amusing asides and increasing amounts of comedy into his act, becoming a headliner in North America and Europe. By the early 1900s, while touring, he was regularly called the world’s greatest juggler. In 1906, he made his Broadway debut in a musical comedy, "The Ham Tree". Fields embellished stories of his youth, but his home life seems to have been a reasonably happy one. His family supported his ambitions for the stage and saw him off on the train for his first stage tour. His father visited him for two months in England when Fields was performing there in music halls. His stage costume from 1915 onwards featured a top hat, cut-away coat and collar, and a cane—an appearance remarkably similar to the cartoon character Ally Sloper. Fields fancied himself a cartoonist in the early 1900s while he was traveling in Europe, and it is speculated that Ally Sloper may have been the inspiration for his costume. The Sloper character may in turn have been inspired by Dickens' Mr Micawber, whom Fields later played on film. Fields was known among his friends as "Bill". Edgar Bergen called him Bill in the radio shows (while Charlie McCarthy called him many names). Fields played himself in "Never Give a Sucker an Even Break", and his "niece" called him "Uncle Bill". (In one scene he introduced himself: "I'm W.C., uh, Bill Fields"). When he was portrayed in films as having a son, he often named the character "Claude", after his own son. He was sometimes billed in England as "Wm. C. Fields", because "W.C." is British slang for a water closet (toilet). His public use of initials was a commonplace formality of the era in which he grew up. "W.C. Fields" also fit more easily onto a marquee than "W.C. Dukenfield". Personal life. Fields married a fellow vaudevillian, chorus girl Harriet "Hattie" Hughes, on April 8, 1900. Their son, William Claude Fields, Jr., was born on July 28, 1904. Although Fields was "an avowed atheist regarded all religions with the suspicion of a seasoned con man", he yielded to Hattie's wish to have their son baptized. At the time Fields was away from Hattie on tour in England. By 1907, however, he and Hattie separated; she had been pressing him to stop touring and settle into a respectable trade, while he was unwilling to give up show business. Until his death, Fields continued to correspond with Hattie and voluntarily sent child-support payments. He had another son, named William Rexford Fields Morris (born August 15, 1917), with girlfriend Bessie Poole. Bessie was an established Ziegfeld Follies performer and met Fields while performing in New York City at the famous Amsterdam Theater. Her beauty and quick wit attracted Fields, who was the featured act from 1916 until 1922. She was killed in a bar fight several years after their son's birth, leaving him to be raised in foster care, where he acquired the surname Morris from his foster mother. Fields sent voluntary support to young Bill in care of his foster mother until he graduated from high school, when he sent $300 as a gift. Fields lived with Carlotta Monti (1907–1993) after they met in 1932, beginning a relationship that lasted until his death in 1946. Monti had small roles in two of Fields' films, and in 1971 wrote a biography, "W.C. Fields and Me", then made into a motion picture at Universal Studios in 1976. Fields was listed in the 1940 census as single and living at 2015 DeMille Drive (Cecil B. DeMille lived at 2000, the only other address on the street). Fields and alcohol. Fields' screen character often expressed a fondness for alcohol, a prominent component of the Fields legend. Fields never drank in his early career as a juggler, because he did not want to impair his functions while performing. Eventually, the loneliness of constant travel prompted him to keep liquor in his dressing room as an inducement for fellow performers to socialize with him on the road. Only then did he begin drinking on a regular basis. On movie sets Fields kept a vacuum flask of mixed martinis, which he euphemistically referred to as his "pineapple juice". During the filming of "Tales of Manhattan", a prankster switched the contents of the flask with pineapple juice. Upon discovery, Fields was heard to yell, "Who put pineapple juice in my pineapple juice?" Fields expressed his fondness for alcohol to Gloria Jean (playing his niece) in "Never Give a Sucker an Even Break": "I was in love with a beautiful blonde once, dear. She drove me to drink. That's the one thing I am indebted to her for." Equally memorable was a line in the 1940 film "My Little Chickadee": "Once, on a trek through Afghanistan, we lost our corkscrew...and were forced to live on food and water for several days!" The oft-repeated anecdote that Fields refused to drink water "because fish fornicate in it" is unsubstantiated. In 1936, Fields' heavy drinking precipitated a significant decline in his health. By the following year he recovered sufficiently to make one last film for Paramount, "The Big Broadcast of 1938", but his troublesome behavior kept producers away and he remained professionally idle until his debut on radio. By then, he was chronically ill, and suffering from delirium tremens. On stage. Vaudeville. Fields started as a juggler in vaudeville, appearing in the makeup of a genteel tramp with a scruffy beard and shabby tuxedo. He juggled cigar boxes, hats, and other objects in what appears to have been a unique and fresh act, parts of which are reproduced in some of his films. Fields confined his act to pantomime so he could play international theaters. He toured several continents as a world-class juggler and an international star. A good portion of his act is contained in "The Old Fashioned Way". Broadway. In America, Fields found he could get more laughs by adding dialogue to his routines. He developed his trademark mumbling patter and sarcastic asides during this time. (According to the A&E "Biography" program about Fields (1994), when he was young his mother would sit with him on the front steps and mumble comments about the passersby.) From 1916 to 1922, he starred on Broadway in Florenz Ziegfeld's "Ziegfeld Follies" revues. Therein, he delighted audiences with a wild billiards skit, complete with bizarrely shaped cues and a custom-built table used for a number of hilarious gags and surprising trick shots. His pool game is reproduced, in part, in some of his films, notably in "Six of a Kind" (1934). In addition to starring in multiple editions of the "Follies", Fields starred in the Broadway musical comedy "Poppy" (1923), wherein he perfected his persona as a colorful small-time con man. Films. Silent era. Fields starred in two short comedies, filmed in New York in 1915; his stage commitments prevented him from doing more movie work until 1924. He reprised his "Poppy" (1923) role in a silent-film adaptation, retitled "Sally of the Sawdust" (1925) and directed by D. W. Griffith, after which he starred in "It's the Old Army Game" (1926), which featured his friend Louise Brooks, later a screen legend for her role in G. W. Pabst's "Pandora's Box" (1929) in Germany. Fields' 1926 film included a silent version of the porch sequence which would one day be expanded in the sound film "It's a Gift" (1934). Fields wore a scruffy clip-on mustache in all of his silent films, discarding it after his first sound feature film, "Her Majesty Love", his only Warner Brothers production. At Paramount. Fields made four short subjects for comedy pioneer Mack Sennett in 1932 and 1933, distributed through Paramount Pictures. During this period, Paramount began featuring Fields in full-length comedies, and by 1934 he was a major movie star. It was for one of the films of this period ("International House") that outtakes of one scene (Fields, and two other actors) allegedly recorded the only moving image record of the 1933 Long Beach earthquake. This footage was later revealed to have been faked as a publicity stunt for the movie. He often contributed to the scripts of his films, under unusual pseudonyms such as the seemingly prosaic "Charles Bogle", which appeared on most of his films in the 1930s; "Otis Criblecoblis", which contains an embedded homophone for "scribble"; and "Mahatma Kane Jeeves", a play on Mahatma and a phrase an aristocrat might use when about to leave the house: "My hat, my cane, Jeeves". In features such as "It's a Gift" and "Man on the Flying Trapeze", he is reported to have written or improvised more or less all of his own dialogue and material, leaving story structure to other writers. In his films, he often played hustlers, carnival barkers and card sharps, spinning yarns and distracting his marks. He had an affection for unlikely names and many of his characters bore them. Some examples are: In addition to playing a hustler, Fields was fond of casting himself as a victim: a hapless householder under the thumb of his shrewish wife and/or mother-in-law. His 1934 classic "It's a Gift" included his stage sketch of trying to escape his nagging family by sleeping on the back porch and being bedeviled by noisy neighbors and salesmen. That film, along with films such as "You're Telling Me!" and "Man on the Flying Trapeze", ended happily with a windfall profit that restored his standing in his screen families. Although lacking formal education, he was well read and a lifelong admirer of author Charles Dickens, whose characters' unusual names inspired Fields to do likewise for his various characters. He achieved a career ambition by playing the character Mr. Micawber, in MGM's "David Copperfield" in 1935. In 1936, Fields re-created his signature stage role in "Poppy" for Paramount Pictures. Supporting players. Fields had a small cadre of supporting players that he employed in several films: At Universal. Fields' renewed popularity from his radio broadcasts with Bergen & McCarthy earned him a contract with Universal Pictures in 1939. His first feature for Universal, "You Can't Cheat an Honest Man", carried on the Fields-McCarthy rivalry. In 1940, Fields made "My Little Chickadee", with Mae West, and "The Bank Dick", perhaps his best-known film, in which he has the following exchange with bartender Shemp Howard: Fields fought with studio producers, directors, and writers over the content of his films. He was determined to make a movie his way, with his own script and staging, and his choice of supporting players. Universal finally gave him the chance, and the resulting film, "Never Give a Sucker an Even Break" (1941), is a masterpiece of absurd humor in which Fields appeared as himself, "The Great Man". Universal's singing star Gloria Jean played opposite Fields, and his cronies Leon Errol and Franklin Pangborn served as his comic foils. But the film Fields delivered was so surreal that Universal recut and reshot parts of it, then quietly released both the film and Fields. "Sucker" was his last starring film. By then he was heavier and less mobile than at the peak of his film career during 1934–1935, when he was reasonably fit and trim. Fields completed a scene for the 20th Century Fox film "Tales of Manhattan" (1942), in which he played an eccentric professor hired by Margaret Dumont to give a temperance lecture to a gathering of high society swells. This scene was cut from the film before release, supposedly due to running time. It was found in the vaults at Fox in the mid-1990s and was included in the video and DVD releases of the movie. The scene features an Italian clothier played by Phil Silvers and later a temperance meeting with society people at the home of a rich woman, Margaret Dumont, in which Fields finds that the punch has been spiked, resulting in a room full of drunken guests and a very happy Fields. On radio. While Fields was inactive in film due to extended illness, he recorded a brief speech for a radio broadcast. His familiar, snide drawl registered so well with listeners that he quickly became a popular guest on network radio shows. One of his funniest routines had him trading insults with Edgar Bergen's dummy Charlie McCarthy on "The Chase and Sanborn Hour". Fields would twit Charlie about his being made of wood: When Fields would refer to McCarthy as a "woodpecker's pin-up boy" or a "termite's flophouse," Charlie would fire back at Fields about his drinking: Bergen: "Why, Bill, I thought you didn't like children." Thanks to radio, Fields reached a wider audience than ever before, and he was soon in demand for films again. Final years. Fields occasionally entertained guests at home. Generally, he fraternized with actors, directors, and writers who shared his fondness for good company and good liquor. John Barrymore, Gene Fowler, and Gregory La Cava were a few of his intimates. Anthony Quinn and his wife Katherine DeMille (daughter of Hollywood director Cecil B. DeMille) were visiting Fields one afternoon when the Quinns' two-year-old son, Christopher, drowned in Fields’ lily pond. Fields was greatly distraught and brooded about the incident for months. He drained the pool and reportedly never used it again. Fields had a substantial library in his home. Although a staunch atheist, or perhaps because of that, he studied theology and owned several volumes on the subject as well as multiple Bibles. Gene Fowler, noticing a Bible on the shelf, asked Fields, "What the hell are you doing with that"? Fields replied, "Been lookin' for loopholes". 1940s. In a 1994 "Biography" TV show, Fields' 1941 co-star Gloria Jean described how she would visit his house from time to time, and they would talk. Gloria Jean found Fields to be kind and gentle in real life, and believed he yearned for the kind of family he lacked when he was a child. The show reported that Fields eventually reconciled with his estranged wife and son and enjoyed playing with his grandchildren. With a presidential election looming in 1940, Fields toyed with the idea of lampooning political campaign speeches. He wrote to vice-presidential candidate Henry A. Wallace, intending to glean comedy material from Wallace’s speeches, but when Wallace responded with a warm, personal fan letter to Fields, the comedian decided against skewering Wallace. Instead, Fields wrote a book entitled "Fields for President", consisting of humorous essays in the form of a campaign speech. Dodd, Mead and Company published it in 1940, with illustrations by Otto Soglow, but declined to reprint it at the time. The book sold poorly, largely because people were confused as to whether or not it was meant to be taken seriously. In 1971, Dodd, Mead reprinted it when Fields was seen as an anti-establishment figure; the 1971 reprint is illustrated with photographs of Fields. Fields' film career slowed considerably in the 1940s. His illnesses confined him to brief guest-star appearances in other people's films. An extended sequence in 20th Century Fox's "Tales of Manhattan" (1942) was cut from the original release of the film and later reinstated for some home video releases. He performed his famous billiard-table routine one more time on camera, for "Follow the Boys", an all-star entertainment revue for the Armed Forces. (Despite the charitable nature of the movie, Fields was paid $15,000 for his appearance, and he was never able to perform in person for the armed services.) In "Song of the Open Road" (1944), Fields juggled for a few moments, remarking, "This used to be my racket". His last film, the musical revue "Sensations of 1945", was released in late 1944. He guested occasionally on radio as late as 1946, often with Edgar Bergen. Just before his death that year, Fields recorded a spoken-word album, delivering his comic "Temperance Lecture" and "The Day I Drank A Glass Of Water" at Les Paul's studio, where Paul had installed his new multi-track recorder. The session was arranged by Paul's old Army pal Bill Morrow, a friend in common with Fields. Fields' vision had deteriorated so much that he read his lines from large-print cue cards. It was Fields' last performance. Death. Fields died in 1946, from an alcohol-related stomach hemorrhage, on the holiday he claimed to despise: Christmas Day. As documented in "W.C. Fields and Me" (Carlotta Monti's memoir published in 1971 and made into a 1976 film of the same name starring Rod Steiger), he died at Las Encinas Sanatorium, Pasadena, California, a bungalow-type sanitarium where, as he lay in bed dying, his longtime love, Carlotta Monti, went outside and turned the hose onto the roof, to allow Fields to hear for one last time his favorite sound—falling rain. According to the documentary "W.C. Fields Straight Up", his death occurred in this way: he winked and smiled at a nurse, put a finger to his lips, and died. Fields was 66, and had been a patient for 22 months. His funeral took place on January 2, 1947, in Glendale, CA. Fields was cremated and his ashes interred in the Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery, in Glendale. Gravestone. There have been stories that Fields wanted his grave marker to read either, "On the whole, I would rather be in Philadelphia" (his home town) or, "All in all, I would rather be in Philadelphia", both lines similar to one he used in "My Little Chickadee": "I'd like to see Paris before I die...Philadelphia would do!" (In the same film, he made a point of referring to "Philadelphia cream cheese"; whether he knew of the J. L. Kraft Foods product is unknown. This rumor also morphed into, "I would rather be "here" than in Philadelphia". The anecdote that Fields often remarked, "Philadelphia, wonderful town, spent a week there one night", is similarly unsubstantiated.) It is also said that Fields wanted, "I'd rather be in Philadelphia", on his gravestone because of the old vaudeville joke among comedians, "I would rather be dead than play Philadelphia". Whatever his wishes might have been, the interment marker for Fields' ashes merely bears his stage name and the years of his birth and death. The genesis of the line as originally phrased can be found in the 1925 "Vanity Fair" article, "A Group of Artists Write Their Own Epitaphs". The mock-epitaph for Fields reads, "Here Lies / W.C. Fields / I Would Rather Be Living in Philadelphia." Contested bequeathment. In a provision of his will that was contested by his wife Hattie and his son Claude, W. C. Fields—an atheist to the end—left a portion of his estate to fund the education of orphans in a school "where no religion of any sort is preached". Unrealized film projects. W. C. Fields was the original choice for the title role in the 1939 version of "The Wizard of Oz". One rumor was that he believed the role was too small. Another alleged that he requested too much money: his asking price was $100,000, while MGM offered $75,000. However, his agent asserted that Fields rejected the role because he wanted to devote his time to writing "You Can't Cheat an Honest Man". Fields figured in an Orson Welles project. Welles' bosses at RKO Radio Pictures, after losing money on "Citizen Kane", urged Welles to choose as his next film a subject with more commercial appeal. Welles considered an adaptation of Charles Dickens' "The Pickwick Papers" which would have starred Fields and John Barrymore, but Fields' schedule would not permit it. The project was shelved, and Welles went on to adapt "The Magnificent Ambersons". During the early planning for his film "It's a Wonderful Life", director Frank Capra considered Fields for the role of Uncle Billy, which eventually went to Thomas Mitchell. Influence and legacy. According to Woody Allen (in a "New York Times" interview from January 30, 2000), W. C. Fields is one of six "genuine comic geniuses" he recognized as such in movie history, along with Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, Groucho and Harpo Marx, and Peter Sellers. The United States Postal Service issued a W.C. Fields commemorative stamp on the comedian's 100th birthday, in January 1980. Filmography. Information for this filmography is derived from the book, "W. C. Fields: A Life on Film", by Ronald J. Fields. All films are feature length except where noted.
1060359	William Joseph Devane (born September 5, 1937) is an American film, television and theater actor, perhaps best known for his role as Greg Sumner on the primetime soap opera "Knots Landing" (1983-1993). Life and career. Devane was born in Albany, New York in 1937 (some sources say 1939), the son of Joseph (Joe) Devane, who had been Franklin D. Roosevelt's chauffeur when he was Governor of New York. Devane graduated from the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York. In 1966, Devane portrayed Robert Kennedy in the Off-Broadway spoof MacBird. He gained acclaim for his role as President John F. Kennedy in a TV movie about the Cuban Missile Crisis, "The Missiles of October" (1974), and again when he played blacklisted radio personality John Henry Faulk in the Emmy Award-winning TV movie, "Fear on Trial" (1975). He is widely known for his ten years as the villainous Greg Sumner on "Knots Landing". In 1994, Devane appeared as Al Capone in "" in an episode entitled
1099762	Joseph Michael Hilbe (born 30 December 1944) is an American statistician and philosopher,
1356198	The Poughkeepsie Tapes is an American documentary-style 2007 horror film directed by John Erick Dowdle and starring Bobbi Sue Luther, Samantha Robson and Ivar Brogger. Plot. When police raid a house in a city north of New York, they discover a profoundly disturbing record of one man's ugly crimes. Investigators find over 800 videotapes shot by the killer which present a visual record of his murders in all their horrifying details. Both state and federal law enforcement teams sift through the gruesome images, looking for clues of his identity, the identity of his victims, and where he could have gone. Repeated viewings of the materials reveal little beyond the terrible facts of the crimes, and as the authorities comb through the madman's images, they find the tapes have had a disquieting effect on them. The killer does not only capture the murders themselves, but the abductions, tortures and postmortem mutilations of his victims (along with bizarre fetishes involving balloons) all the while never allowing himself to be shown on film unless entirely disguised. Because the killer numbered the video tapes in order, investigators are able to determine that he started with the most vulnerable of victims: an 8 year old named Jennifer Gorman is abducted while playing in her front yard. After the success of his first abduction and murder, the killer becomes less impulsive in his crimes. Carefully selecting the area in which he will strike next, he convinces a couple, the Andersons, that his car has broken down and they agree to give him a ride to a local gas station for aid. On the way, he clubs the male in the head and subdues the female using a cloth doused in a chemical solution while filming her face in close up. Investigators understand this would have taken considerable practice to achieve. The tape shows that the killer performed a C-section on the female, placing the severed head of her husband inside her womb before sewing her up again to later rouse her from unconsciousness and film her reaction. In the process of investigating the Andersons' disappearance, they come to realise the level of mutilation the killer is capable of, as well as his degree of premeditation. The killer made himself known in the CCTV footage of another gas station some time before the Andersons' abduction and murder, using sign language to give clues where he intends to dispose of one of the bodies.
698053	Pierre Bouguer (16 February 1698, Croisic – 15 August 1758, Paris) was a French mathematician, geophysicist, geodesist, and astronomer. He is also known as "the father of naval architecture". Career. His father, Jean Bouguer, one of the best hydrographers of his time, was regius professor of hydrography at Le Croisic in lower Brittany, and author of a treatise on navigation. He taught his sons Pierre and Jan at their home, where he also taught private students. In 1714, at the age of 16, Pierre was appointed to succeed his deceased father as professor of hydrography. In 1727 he gained the prize given by the French Academy of Sciences for his paper "On the masting of ships", beating Leonhard Euler; and two other prizes, one for his dissertation "On the best method of observing the altitude of stars at sea", the other for his paper "On the best method of observing the variation of the compass at sea". These were published in the Prix de l’Academie des Sciences. In 1729 he published "Essai d'optique sur la gradation de la lumière", the object of which is to define the quantity of light lost by passing through a given extent of the atmosphere, and became the first known discoverer of what is now more commonly known as the Beer-Lambert law. He found the light of the sun to be 300 times more intense than that of the moon, and thus made some of the earliest measurements in photometry. In 1730 he was made professor of hydrography at Havre, and succeeded Pierre Louis Maupertuis as associate geometer of the Academy of Sciences. He also invented a heliometer, afterwards perfected by Joseph von Fraunhofer. He was afterwards promoted in the Academy to the place of Maupertuis, and went to reside in Paris. In 1735 Bouguer sailed with Charles Marie de La Condamine on a scientific mission to Peru, in order to measure a degree of the meridian arc near the equator. Ten years were spent in this operation, a full account of which was published by Bouguer in 1749, "La figure de la terre". In 1746 he published the first treatise of naval architecture, "Traité du navire", which among other achievements first explained the use of the metacenter as a measure of ships' stability. His later writings were nearly all upon the theory of navigation and naval architecture. In January, 1750 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society. Recognition. A crater on Mars was named in his honor. A lunar crater and an asteroid was also named after him. His name is also recalled as the meteorological term Bouguer's halo (also known as Ulloa's halo, after Antonio de Ulloa, a Spanish member of his South American expedition) which an observer may see infrequently in fog when sun breaks through (for example, on a mountain) and looks down-sun—effectively a "Fog bow" (as opposed to a "rain-bow"). "An infrequently observed meteorological phenomenon; a faint white, circular arc or complete ring of light that has a radius of 39 degrees and is centered on the antisolar point. When observed, it is usually in the form of a separate outer ring around an anticorona." A large bronze statue of him stands at the port in Le Croisic.
1156125	Laura Diane Vandervoort (born September 22, 1984) is a Canadian actress. She is best known for her roles as Sadie Harrison in the Canadian television series "Instant Star", Kara Zor-El in the American television series "Smallville", and Lisa in the ABC science fiction series "V". Life and career. Growing up, Vandervoort was involved in several sports such as football, karate, basketball, tennis, gymnastics, and baseball. She is related to well known Canadian actor Gordon Pinsent. After taking several classes and doing background work on Canadian shows such as "Road to Avonlea" and "Harriet the Spy", Vandervoort got her first speaking role in the Canadian children's series "Goosebumps" and "Are You Afraid of the Dark?". After commercials and guest-starring roles on "Mutant X", "Prom Queen", "Goosebumps", "Twice in a Lifetime", "Doc", "", "Troubled Waters", "The Dresden Files", and a few Disney TV movies ("Mom's Got a Date with a Vampire", and "Alley Cats Strike"), at age 19 Vandervoort landed a lead role as Sadie Harrison on the CTV television series "Instant Star", which ran for four seasons. In 2006, Vandervoort shot her first feature titled "The Lookout" with Jeff Daniels, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Matthew Goode, and Isla Fisher. Several other TV appearances such as "" led Vandervoort to the role of Clark Kent's Kryptonian cousin "Kara Kent" (the woman destined to become Supergirl) on the CW series "Smallville". She was a regular in season seven, and appeared in the "Bloodline" episode for season eight. She then returned for another two episodes in the 10th and final season of Smallville. Following the CW and "Smallville", Vandervoort then shot the sequel to the feature film "Into the Blue" titled "". She next filmed an independent production titled "The Jazzman", which also starred Canadian stars Michael Ironside (who appeared in the second "V" mini-series as well as the 1984 "V" regular series) and Corey Sevier. Vandervoort portrayed "Lisa," an extraterrestrial Visitor, in the 2009 ABC series "V", a reboot of the 1980s science fiction franchise of the same name. In 2010, Vandervoort appeared in the two-part miniseries "Riverworld" in which she plays Jessie Machalan, the fiancée of war correspondent Matt Ellman who wakes up after death on a planet populated by everyone who has ever lived on Earth. It as also been announced on her official website that Vandervoort has been attached in a feature film called "Entitled", which also stars Ray Liotta and Kevin Zegers. In October 2011, she posed for PETA as part of the "Exotic Skins" campaign. In 2012, she had a small role in Seth MacFarlane's hit comedy film "Ted". She is slated to appear in Space's TV adaptation of the Kelley Armstrong novel "Bitten", which will premiere in January 2014.
1042021	Sir John Selby Clements, CBE (25 April 1910 – 6 April 1988) was an English actor and producer who worked in theatre, television and film. Clements attended St Paul's School and St John's College, Cambridge University then worked with Nigel Playfair and afterwards spent a few years in Ben Greet's Shakespearean Company. He made his first stage appearance in 1930. Clements founded the Intimate Theatre at Palmers Green in 1935, which is a combined repertory and try-out theatre. He appeared in almost 200 plays, and presented a number of plays in the West End as actor-manager-producer. He also started his film work in 1933. Clements was the artistic director of the Chichester Festival Theatre from 1966 to 1973. He married the actress Kay Hammond and together they became a critical success on stage with their West End revival of Noël Coward's play "Private Lives" in 1945. In 1952 they both appeared in Clements' own play "The Happy Marriage", an adaptation of Jean-Bernard Luc's "Le Complexe de Philemon". Clements starred as Edward Moutlon Barrett in the musical Robert and Elizabeth, a successful adaptation of The Barretts of Wimpole Street. His stepson is the actor John Standing. As a film actor John Clements came to prominence when the film director Victor Saville chose him to star opposite Ralph Richardson in "South Riding" (1938). The two actors were reunited in the very successful "The Four Feathers" (1939). After this Clements' film career was somewhat intermittent although he made a series of British war films for Ealing Studios and British Aviation Pictures, such as "Convoy" (1940), "Ships with Wings" (1942), "Tomorrow We Live" (1943), and as Yugoslav guerrilla leader Milosh Petrovitch in "Undercover" (1943). He had a cameo role (as Advocate General) in "Gandhi" (1982). Clements was made a Commander of the British Empire (CBE) in 1956 and knighted in 1968.
1163832	Dina Merrill (born December 9, 1925) is an American actress and socialite. Early life. Merrill was born Nedenia Marjorie Hutton in New York City, New York, the only child of Post Cereals heiress, Marjorie Merriweather Post, and her second husband, Wall Street stockbroker, Edward Francis Hutton. She was educated at Miss Porter's School and studied at George Washington University. But she suddenly dropped out after only a year (to the chagrin of her disapproving parents) after sensing a strong desire to perform, and enrolled at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. In April 2005 she received a lifetime achievement award from the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. Career. When Merrill informed her father that she wanted to become an actress on the New York stage, he was outraged. He did not want the "good name" of Hutton paraded on the Great White Way. She asked her father whom he disliked more than anyone else in the world, and he replied Charlie Merrill, founder of Wall Street competitor Merrill Lynch. Out of spite, Nedenia Hutton became Dina Merrill. Merrill has thus far acted in twenty-two motion pictures, including 1957's "Desk Set", 1959's "Operation Petticoat" (with Cary Grant, who was married to her cousin, Woolworth heiress Barbara Hutton), 1960's "The Sundowners" and "Butterfield 8", 1961's "The Young Savages", 1963's "The Courtship of Eddie's Father", 1977's "A Wedding", 1991's "True Colors", and 1992's "The Player". Merrill appeared regularly as a guest star on numerous television series in the 1960s, notably as villainess Calamity Jan in a 1966 episode of "Batman" alongside her then-husband, Cliff Robertson. Merrill's theater credits include the 1983 Broadway revival of the Rodgers & Hart musical "On Your Toes", starring Russian prima ballerina Natalia Makarova. In 1991, she appeared in the rotating cast of the off-Broadway staged reading of "Wit & Wisdom". Personal Life. Merrill has been married three times. In 1946, she wed Stanley M. Rumbough, Jr., an heir to the Colgate-Palmolive toothpaste fortune and an entrepreneur. They had three children: Stanley, David (1950–1973) and Nedenia ("Nina"). They divorced in 1966. Later that year, she wed Oscar-winning actor Cliff Robertson. In 1969, Merrill gave birth to their daughter, Heather, who died of cancer in 2007. Merrill has six grandchildren: Nedenia Hutton and Kerwelyn Colgate Craig, David Colgate (Cole), Allegra Hutton, Siena Post, and Kiera Basten Rumbough. In 1989, Merrill married former actor Ted Hartley. In 1991, the couple merged their company, Pavilion Communications, with RKO to form RKO Pictures (which owns the copyright to the films and intellectual property of RKO Radio Pictures movie studio). Merrill is a presidential appointee to the Board of Trustees of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, a trustee of the Eugene O'Neill Theater Center, and a vice president of the New York City Mission Society. She served on the board of directors and the compensation committee of Lehman Brothers for over 18 years.
1163338	Pamela Denise Anderson (born 1 July 1967) is a Canadian-American actress, model, producer, author, activist, and former showgirl, known for her roles on the television series "Home Improvement", "Baywatch", and "V.I.P." She was chosen as a Playmate of the Month for "Playboy" magazine in February 1990. For a time, she was known as Pamela Anderson Lee (or Pamela Lee) after marrying Mötley Crüe drummer Tommy Lee. She maintains dual Canadian and American citizenship. Anderson is a notable member of the Animal Rights movement and has conducted campaigns condemning the commercial fur industry and promoting veganism through the animal welfarist organisation PETA. Early life. Anderson was born in Ladysmith, British Columbia, the daughter of Barry, a furnace repairman, and Carol (née Grosco) Anderson, a waitress. Her great-grandfather, Juho Hyytiäinen, was Finnish, a native of Saarijärvi, and left the Grand Duchy of Finland (which was a part of the Russian Empire at the time) in 1908. He changed his name to Anderson when he arrived as an immigrant. Anderson also has Russian ancestry on her mother's side. During high school, Anderson was a volleyball player. Career. After graduating from École Highland Secondary School in 1985, Anderson moved to Vancouver and worked as a fitness instructor. Discovery. During the summer of 1989, Anderson went with friends to a BC Lions Canadian Football League game at BC Place in Vancouver, during which live video of her wearing a tightly-fitted Labatt's Beer t-shirt was shown on the stadium's huge video screen, causing an immense roar of approval from the crowd. As part of a PR event for the brewery, she was then escorted down to field level to wide applause. From that event, her photographer boyfriend Dan Ilicic produced a poster of his own called the Blue Zone Girl. "Playboy" magazine career. In the aftermath of her sudden Vancouver celebrity, she appeared as the cover girl on "Playboy" magazine's October 1989 issue. At that point she decided to live in Los Angeles to further pursue her modeling career ambitions. "Playboy" subsequently chose her as Playmate of the Month in their February 1990 issue, in which she appeared in the centerfold photo. Anderson then elected to have breast implant surgery. Anderson has since appeared in "Playboy" several times in the 1990s and 2000s. Anderson's "Playboy" career spans twenty-two years, including parts of four decades, (1989–2011), and she has appeared on more "Playboy" covers than anyone else. She has also made appearances in the publication's newsstand specials. Anderson wrote the foreword in the "Playboy" coffee table book "Playboy's Greatest Covers". Acting and modeling. After her move to Los Angeles, she won a minor role as the original "Tool Time girl" on the hit television sitcom, "Home Improvement". She left the show after two seasons and won the role of C. J. Parker on "Baywatch", a role she played between 1992 and 1998. Anderson was still modeling for "Outdoor Life" and appearing on the cover of the magazine each year. In 1993, Anderson appeared in a music video "Can't Have Your Cake" by Vince Neil to promote his first solo album "Exposed". In 1994, she was cast in her first starring film role, in "Raw Justice", also known as "Good Cop, Bad Cop," costarring with Stacy Keach, David Keith and Robert Hays. Under the alternate title, the film won the Bronze Award at the Worldfest-Charleston in the category for dramatic theatrical films. In 1996, she appeared in "Barb Wire" playing Barbara Rose Kopetski, which was later claimed by some sources to be Anderson's real name, although it is not. The movie, a thinly veiled futuristic remake of "Casablanca", was not a commercial success. In April 1997, she guest-hosted "Saturday Night Live." She appeared on one of two covers for the September issue of "Playboy". In September 1998, Anderson starred as Vallery Irons in the Sony Pictures Entertainment syndicated show "V.I.P." created by J. F. Lawton. Blending action and humor in a fast-paced adventure series, with Anderson often poking fun at her tabloid image, the show explored the exciting and sometimes treacherous lives of the rich and famous. The series lasted through a successful four-year run. In 1999, she appeared as a giantess in the music video for "Miserable" by California alternative rock band Lit. Her role as C.J. Parker gave her more popularity and gained her attention from international viewers. She returned to "Baywatch" for the 2003 reunion movie, "". She appeared on "The Nanny" as Fran's rival, Heather Biblow. In early 2004, Anderson returned to the spotlight. In May, she appeared naked on the cover of "Playboy" magazine. It was the first time she had appeared naked on any magazine cover. Later, she posed naked for "Stuff" and "GQ" magazines. Anderson became a naturalized citizen of the United States on 12 May 2004, while retaining her Canadian citizenship. She has lived in Southern California since 1989. In 2004, she released the book "Star", co-written by Eric Shaw Quinn, about a teenager trying to become famous. After this, she began touring the United States, signing autographs for fans at Wal-Mart stores nationwide. Her second book, the sequel "Star Struck", released in 2005, is a thinly veiled look at her life with Tommy Lee and the trials of celebrity life. In April 2005, Anderson starred in a new Fox sitcom "Stacked" as Skyler Dayton, a party girl who goes to work at a bookstore. It was canceled on 18 May 2006, after two seasons, although some episodes were never aired. On 14 August 2005, Comedy Central created the "Roast of Pamela Anderson" to honor the sex symbol for the past decade. In December 2005, NBC cut off a video of Anderson pole dancing on Elton John's "The Red Piano." NBC said that the footage was inappropriate for prime time. The video was shown on huge screens during the event, while John played "The Bitch is Back". In March 2006, it was announced that Anderson would receive a star on Canada's Walk of Fame thanks to her many years as a model and actress. She is only the second model to receive a star. In April 2006, Anderson hosted Canada's Juno Awards, becoming the first non-singer and model to do so. She was referenced in the 2006 mockumentary, "", as the title character becomes obsessed with her, and plans to abduct and marry her. She appears as herself at a book signing at the end of the film, confronted by Borat in a staged botched abduction. She performed on 13–14 February 2008 in a Valentine's Day striptease act at the Crazy Horse cabaret in Paris. Anderson then starred in "", which debuted on 3 August 2008 on E! in the United States. In December 2009, Anderson guest-starred as "Genie of the Lamp" in the pantomime "Aladdin" at the New Wimbledon Theatre in Wimbledon, south-west London, England. Anderson took over the role from comedienne Ruby Wax, with former EastEnders actress Anita Dobson and comedian Paul O'Grady also booked for the role. In 2010, she appeared in the short film "The Commuter" directed by the McHenry Brothers and shot entirely on the Nokia N8 smartphone as promotion for the phone in the UK. "Big Brother". On 9 July 2008, Anderson entered the Australian "Big Brother" house for a three-day visit. This was Anderson's first foray into reality television. In November 2010, Anderson appeared on season 4 of "Bigg Boss", the Indian version of the "Big Brother" television franchise. She stayed as a guest in the house for three days for a reported sum of Rs. 2.5 crores (approx US$ 550,000). Furthering her involvement in the franchise, In September 2011, Anderson took part in the 12th series of the UK version of "Big Brother". On 9 September 2012, it was officially announced that she will enter the House in Bulgaria on 16 September, taking part in the fourth season of "VIP Brother", which is the celebrity spin-off of "Big Brother" in Bulgaria. On Day 12 for the "Promi Big Brother (season 1)" in Germany, she entered the house, as a Special Guest Star on the final day. David Hasselhoff, a former "Baywatch" co-star, was a contestant in Day 1 to Day 5. "Dancing with the Stars". Anderson was a contestant on the tenth season of "Dancing with the Stars", partnered with professional dancer Damian Whitewood. The season premiered on Monday, 22 March 2010, and after seven weeks, Anderson was eliminated. She also took part in the 15th season all-star edition in 2012 with Tristan MacManus. Anderson and MacManus were eliminated in the first week of competition. In 2011, she appeared on the Argentinian version of "Dancing with the Stars", entitled "Bailando por un sueño" (Bailando 2011). She once again danced with Whitewood. She withdrew from the competition after the fourth round. "Dancing On Ice". In 2013, Anderson appeared on series 8 of the British reality TV show "Dancing On Ice", partnered with former winner Matt Evers. They became the first couple that series to be voted off by the judges due to a few stumbles. Personal life. Relationships. In addition to her fame from modelling and acting, Anderson has received a great deal of press attention for her well-publicized personal life. Her relationships have made headlines in gossip magazines for years. Anderson married Tommy Lee, drummer of Mötley Crüe, on 19 February 1995, after knowing him for 96 hours and the couple eventually had two sons, Brandon Thomas Lee and Dylan Jagger Lee, named for Anderson's great grandfather, Dale Jagger Grosco who fought in World War II. During this time, she was known professionally as "Pamela Anderson Lee". Anderson filed for divorce from Lee twice and reconciled with him twice, before the couple finally divorced in 1998.
32632	Insanitarium is a 2008 psychological horror film starring Jesse Metcalfe, Kiele Sanchez, Kevin Sussman, Olivia Munn, Carla Gallo and Peter Stormare. The film is directed by Jeff Buhler. Plot. The film follows a man, Jack (Jesse Metcalfe), faking insanity in order to save his sister, Lily (Kiele Sanchez), who has been involuntarily institutionalized. The siblings soon find that the strange doctor at the asylum, Mr. Gianetti (Peter Stormare), has been testing an experimental compound, orphium, on the patients that seems to be turning them into flesh-eating zombies; Loomis (Kurt Caceres), another patient, spreads the infection. The two siblings band together with a terminally paranoid man, Dave (Kevin Sussman), and a helpful nurse, Nancy (Olivia Munn), in the hopes of finding a way out of the asylum. They are attacked by most of the prisoners and staff, who kill Nancy; while on the 4th floor, they encounter the doctor, who gives Dave an icepick lobotomy, incapacitating him; he attempts to get Jack too, but ends up being infected by Loomis. At the end of the film, as the two siblings are in a police car heading to the asylum to investigate, the officers (Mark Kelly & Sharon Schaffer) accidentally let the patients escape into the outside world. It ends with a panning shot, revealing the city below the asylum's hillside location. The secondary plot focuses on the affair between Charles (Evan Parke) and Heather (Lisa Athrowe). Production. The film was shot during August/September 2007 with the majority of filming taking place at the abandoned RFK Memorial Hospital in Hawthorne, California. The "maximum security" set and the "laundry chute" were both constructed from scratch on site in an empty wing of the hospital. Mathew Mungle Creations, the same special effects company that supplied the notorious effects for the Jeff Buhler written "Midnight Meat Train", also supplied the special effects for Insanitarium. Nearly everything was done using practical effects and prosthetics with very little contribution from CGI, including the decapitation of a fake cat. Stormare improvised many parts of his role, including the "panties in the mouth" scene with Carla Gallo, who plays Vera, his research assistant. She comments on this scene in the behind the scenes DVD extras.
757066	Debra Gale Marshall (born March 2, 1960) (formerly McMichael and Williams) is an American actress and former professional wrestling manager and WWE Diva. Well known by her ring name Debra, she is notable for her appearances with the World Wrestling Federation (WWF) between 1998 and 2002. She began her career in professional wrestling in 1995, accompanying her husband Steve "Mongo" McMichael to the ring in World Championship Wrestling (WCW).
1034691	Hywel Thomas Bennett (born 8 April 1944) is a British film and television actor. Bennett is known for his recurring title role as James Shelley in the television sitcoms "Shelley" (1979–84) and its sequel "The Return of Shelley" (1988–92).
1141455	Victor Varnado (May 15, 1969) is an American standup comedian and actor. Born in Gary, Indiana, he is African American and albinistic. He was born legally blind due to his Albinism. He grew up in Huntsville, Alabama and later moved to Minneapolis, Minnesota. Career. In Minneapolis, Varnado worked with the local improvisation troupes ComedySportz MN, The Bad Mamma Jammas and several regional theater companies, before landing his first role in the Big River Productions film "Full Moon Rising", playing a copy clerk. Soon after, his role in Giraffe Films' "Kids Adventures in Oz" spurred him on move to New York to pursue an acting career. His first "big break" came when he landed a role in Elton John's music video "Recovering Your Soul". Shortly after, he starred in Forensic Films' "Julien Donkey-Boy" with Ewen Bremner, Werner Herzog and Chloë Sevigny. He was subsequently cast in Universal's feature film "End of Days" (1999), starring Arnold Schwarzenegger. He co-starred in Eddie Murphy's space-age comic thriller, "The Adventures of Pluto Nash" (2002). Winner of the Most Valuable Performer award in the 2001 Montreal Just For Laughs Improv Championship, and bronze medalist in the 2002 Comedy Central Laugh Riots National Stand-Up Competition, Varnado can currently be seen as Otis, an outrageous urban comic, in the independent film "Hacks". Showing in the New York International Film Festival playing in Los Angeles, "Hacks" was an official selection for The Milan Film Festival. Varnado is working on a superhero film with famous comic book legend Stan Lee. He has performed character voices for a new video game for Sony PlayStation 3 called "Rat Race". Varnado is a member of Chicago City Limits, New York¹s longest running comedy improv theater company for which he writes and direct as well as performing regularly as a stand up comedian. He has also been a guest on the popular podcast "Keith and The Girl".
946970	Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (born Ferdinand Lewis Alcindor, Jr., April 16, 1947) is a retired American professional basketball player. He is the leading scorer in the history of the National Basketball Association (NBA). During his career, Abdul-Jabbar was a record six-time NBA Most Valuable Player (MVP), a record 19-time NBA All-Star, a 15-time All-NBA selection, and an 11-time NBA All-Defensive Team member. A member of six NBA championship teams, Abdul-Jabbar twice was voted NBA Finals MVP. In 1996, he was named one of 50 Greatest Players in NBA History. In college at UCLA, he played on three consecutive national championship teams, and his high school team won 71 consecutive games. During his NBA career, he played with the Milwaukee Bucks and Los Angeles Lakers. At the time of his retirement, Abdul-Jabbar was the NBA’s all-time leader in points scored, games played, minutes played, field goals made, field goal attempts, blocked shots, defensive rebounds, and personal fouls. In 2008, ESPN named him the “greatest player in college basketball history”. Others, including Pat Riley and Isiah Thomas, have stated that he is the greatest basketball player of all time. Abdul-Jabbar has also been an actor, a basketball coach, and a best-selling author. In 2012, he was selected by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to be a U.S. global cultural ambassador. Early life. Abdul-Jabbar was born Ferdinand Lewis Alcindor, Jr., on April 16, 1947, and grew up in New York City, the only child of Cora Lillian, a department store price checker, and Ferdinand Lewis Alcindor, Sr., a transit police officer and jazz musician. At birth, he weighed 12 pounds, 10 ounces (5.73 kg), and was twenty-two-and-a-half inches (57.2 cm) long. He was raised as a Roman Catholic and attended Power Memorial Academy, a Catholic high school in Manhattan. In the summer of 1968, while attending UCLA, he took the Shahada twice and converted to Sunni Islam. From an early age he began his record-breaking basketball accomplishments. In high school, which he started as a 6 foot 8 inch player, he led Power Memorial Academy to three straight New York City Catholic championships, a 71-game winning streak, and a 79–2 overall record. His 2,067 total points were a New York City high school record. College. Lew Alcindor played four seasons for the UCLA Bruins; on the freshman team in 1965-66 and from 1966–69 under coach John Wooden, contributing to the team's three-year record of 88 wins and only two losses: one to the University of Houston in which Alcindor had a not fully healed eye injury (see below), and the other to crosstown rival USC who played a "stall game" (i.e., there was no shot clock in those days, so a team could hold the ball as long as it wanted before attempting to score). In his first college game Lew set a UCLA single game record with 56 points. During his college career, Alcindor was twice named Player of the Year (1967, 1969); was a three-time First Team All-American (1967–69); played on three NCAA basketball champion teams (1967, 1968, 1969); was honored as the Most Outstanding Player in the NCAA Tournament (1967, 1968, 1969); and became the first-ever Naismith College Player of the Year in 1969. In 1967 and 1968, he also won USBWA College Player of the Year which later became the Oscar Robertson Trophy. Alcindor became the only player to win the Helms Foundation Player of the Year award three times. The 1965–1966 UCLA Bruin team was the preseason #1. But on November 27, 1965, the freshman team led by Alcindor defeated the varsity team 75–60 in the first game in the new Pauley Pavilion. Alcindor scored 31 points and had 21 rebounds in that game. The dunk was banned in college basketball after the 1967 season, primarily because of Alcindor's dominant use of the shot. It was not allowed again until 1976. While playing for UCLA, Alcindor suffered a scratched left cornea on January 12, 1968, at the Cal game when he was struck by Tom Henderson of Cal in a rebound battle. He would miss the next two games against Stanford and Portland. This happened right before the momentous game against Houston. His cornea later would be scratched again during his pro career, subsequently causing him to wear goggles for protection. Alcindor boycotted the 1968 Summer Olympics by deciding not to join the United States Men's Olympic Basketball team that year, protesting the unequal treatment of African-Americans in the United States. Along with playing basketball, Alcindor earned a degree in history from UCLA. In his free time he studied martial arts, the most notable being Jeet Kune Do under Bruce Lee. Game of the Century. On January 20, 1968, Alcindor and the UCLA Bruins faced the Houston Cougars in the first-ever nationally televised regular-season college basketball game. In front of 52,693 fans at the Houston Astrodome, Elvin Hayes scored 39 points and had 15 rebounds—while Alcindor, who suffered from a scratch on his left cornea, was held to just 15 points—as Houston beat UCLA 71–69. The Bruins' 47-game winning streak ended in what has been called the "Game of the Century". Hayes and Alcindor would have a rematch in the 1968 NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Tournament where UCLA, with a healthy Alcindor, would defeat Houston in the semi-finals 101–69 and go on to win the National Championship. School records. As of the 2011–2012 season, he still holds or shares a number of individual records at UCLA: Professional career. Milwaukee Bucks. The Harlem Globetrotters offered Alcindor $1 million to play for them, but he declined, and was picked first in the 1969 NBA Draft by the Milwaukee Bucks (who were in only their second season of existence.) The Bucks won a coin-toss with the Phoenix Suns for first pick. He was also chosen first overall in the 1969 American Basketball Association draft by the New York Nets. The Nets believed that they had the upper hand in securing Alcindor's services because he was from New York; however, when Alcindor told both the Bucks and the Nets that he would accept one offer only from each team, the Nets bid too low. Lew Alcindor's entry into the NBA was timely, as center Bill Russell had just left the Boston Celtics, and Wilt Chamberlain, though still effective, was 33 years old. Alcindor's presence enabled the 1969–70 Bucks to claim second place in the NBA's Eastern Division with a 56–26 record (up from 27–55 the previous year); and he was an instant star, ranking second in the league in scoring (28.8 ppg) and third in rebounding (14.5 rpg), for which he was awarded the title of NBA Rookie of the Year. The next season, the Bucks acquired All-Star guard Oscar Robertson, known to sports fans as "the Big 'O'." Milwaukee went on to record the best record in the league with 66 victories in the 1970–71 NBA season, including a then-record 20 straight wins. Alcindor was awarded his first of six NBA Most Valuable Player Awards, along with his first scoring title (31.7 ppg). He also led the league in total points, with 2,596. In the playoffs, the Bucks went 12–2 (including a four-game sweep of the Baltimore Bullets in the NBA Finals), won the championship, and Alcindor was named Finals MVP. On May 1, 1971, the day after the Bucks won the NBA championship, he adopted the Muslim name Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, its Arabic translation roughly "generous/noble (Kareem), servant of (Abdul) the mighty/stern one (Jabbar) of God." He had previously converted to Islam while at UCLA. Abdul-Jabbar remained a dominant force for Milwaukee, repeating as scoring champion (34.8 ppg and 2,822 total points) and NBA Most Valuable Player the following year, and helping the Bucks to repeat as division leaders for four straight years. In 1974, Abdul-Jabbar won his third MVP Award in five years and was among the top five NBA players in scoring (27.0 ppg, third), rebounding (14.5 rpg, fourth), blocked shots (283, second), and field goal percentage (.539, second). While remaining relatively injury-free throughout his NBA career, Abdul-Jabbar twice broke his hand. The first time was during a pre-season game in 1974, when he was bumped hard and got his eye scratched, which angered him enough to punch the basket support . When he returned, after missing the first 16 games of the season, he started to wear protective goggles. The second time he broke his hand was in the opening game of the 1977–78 NBA season. Two minutes into the game, Abdul-Jabbar punched Milwaukee's Kent Benson in retaliation for an overly aggressive elbow. He was out for two months. Although Abdul-Jabbar always spoke well of Milwaukee and its fans, he said that being in the Midwest did not fit his cultural needs and requested a trade to either New York or Los Angeles in October 1974. Los Angeles Lakers. In 1975, the Lakers acquired Abdul-Jabbar and reserve center Walt Wesley from the Bucks for center Elmore Smith, guard Brian Winters, and rookie "blue chippers" Dave Meyers and Junior Bridgeman. In the 1975–76 season, his first with the Lakers, he had a dominating season, averaging 27.7 points per game and leading the league in rebounding, blocked shots, and minutes played. His 1,111 defensive rebounds remains the NBA single-season record (defensive rebounds were not recorded prior to the 1973–74 season). Also it marked the last time anyone had 4,000 or more PRA (Points + Rebounds + Assists) in a single NBA season. He earned his fourth MVP award, but missed the post-season for the second straight year. Once he joined the Lakers, Abdul-Jabbar began wearing his trademark goggles (he briefly ditched them in the 1979–80 season). Years of battling under NBA backboards, and being hit and scratched in the face in the process, had taken their toll on his eyes and he developed corneal erosion syndrome, where the eyes begin to dry out easily and cease to produce moisture. He once missed a game in the 1986–87 season due to his eyes drying out and swelling as a result. In the 1976–77 season, Abdul-Jabbar had another strong season. He led the league in field goal percentage, finished second in rebounds and blocked shots, and third in points per game. He helped lead the Lakers to the best record in the NBA, and he won his record-tying fifth MVP award. In the playoffs, the Lakers beat the Golden State Warriors in the Western Conference semi-finals, setting up a confrontation with the Portland Trail Blazers. The result was a memorable matchup, pitting Abdul-Jabbar against a young, injury-free Bill Walton. Although Abdul-Jabbar dominated the series statistically, Walton and the Trail Blazers (who were experiencing their first-ever run in the playoffs) swept the Lakers, behind Walton's skillful passing and leadership. Abdul-Jabbar's play remained strong during the next two seasons, being named to the All-NBA Second Team twice, the All-Defense First Team once, and the All-Defense Second Team once. The Lakers, however, continued to be stymied in the playoffs, being eliminated by the Seattle SuperSonics in both 1978 and 1979. In 1979, the Lakers acquired 1st overall draft pick Earvin "Magic" Johnson. The trade and draft paved the way for a Laker dynasty as they went on to become one of the most dominant teams of the 1980s, appearing in the finals eight times and winning five NBA championships. Individually, while Abdul-Jabbar was not the dominant center he had been in the 1970s, he experienced a number of highlight moments. Among them were his record sixth MVP award in 1980, four more All-NBA First Team designations, two more All-Defense First Team designations, the 1985 Finals MVP, and on April 5, 1984 breaking Wilt Chamberlain's record for career points. Later in his career, he bulked up to about 265 pounds, to be able to withstand the strain of playing the highly physical center position into his early 40s. While in L.A., Abdul-Jabbar started doing yoga in 1976 to improve his flexibility, and was notable for his physical fitness regimen. He says, "There is no way I could have played as long as I did without yoga." In 1983, Abdul-Jabbar's house burned down, destroying many of his belongings including his beloved jazz LP collection. Many Lakers fans sent and brought him albums, which he found uplifting. On June 28, 1989, after twenty professional seasons, Abdul-Jabbar announced his retirement. On his "retirement tour" he received standing ovations at games, home and away and gifts ranging from a yacht that said "Captain Skyhook" to framed jerseys from his basketball career to an Afghan rug. In his biography "My Life", Magic Johnson recalls that in Abdul-Jabbar's farewell game, many Lakers and Celtics legends participated. Every player wore Abdul-Jabbar's trademark goggles and had to try a sky hook at least once, which led to comic results. The Lakers made the NBA Finals in each of Abdul-Jabbar's final three seasons, defeating Boston in 1987, and Detroit in 1988. The Lakers lost to the Pistons in a four-game sweep in his final season. At the time of his retirement, Abdul-Jabbar held the record for most games played by a single player in the NBA; this would later be broken by Robert Parish. He also was the all-time record holder for most points (38,387), most field goals made (15,837), and most minutes played (57,446). Post-NBA career. Since 2005, Abdul-Jabbar has served as special assistant coach for the Lakers. Abdul-Jabbar had been interested in coaching since his retirement, and given the influence he had on the league, he thought that the opportunity would present itself. However, during his playing years, Abdul-Jabbar had developed a reputation of being introverted and sullen. He did not speak to the press, leading to the impression that he disliked them. In his biography "My Life", Magic Johnson recalls instances when Abdul-Jabbar brushed him off when Magic (as a ball boy) asked for his autograph, Abdul-Jabbar froze out reporters who gave him a too enthusiastic handshake or even hugged him, and refused to stop reading the newspaper while giving an interview. Many basketball observers, in addition to Abdul-Jabbar, believe that Kareem's reticence, whether through disdain for the press corps or simply because of introversion, contributed to the dearth of coaching opportunities offered to Abdul-Jabbar by the NBA. In his words, he said he had a mindset he could not overcome, and proceeded through his career oblivious to the effect his reticence may have had on his coaching prospects in the future. Abdul-Jabbar said: "I didn't understand that I also had affected people that way and that's what it was all about. I always saw it like they were trying to pry. I was way too suspicious and I paid a price for it." Since he began lobbying for a coaching position in 1995, he has managed to obtain only low-level assistant and scouting jobs in the NBA, and a head coaching position only in a minor professional league. Abdul-Jabbar has worked as an assistant for the LA Clippers and the Seattle SuperSonics, helping mentor, among others, their young centers, Michael Olowokandi and Jerome James. Abdul-Jabbar was the head coach of the Oklahoma Storm of the United States Basketball League in 2002, leading the team to the league's championship that season, but he failed to land the head coaching position at Columbia University a year later. He then worked as a scout for the New York Knicks. Finally, on September 2, 2005, he returned to the Lakers as a special assistant to Phil Jackson to help the Lakers' centers, and in particular their young draftee Andrew Bynum. Abdul-Jabbar's influence has been credited with Bynum's emergence as a more talented NBA center. Abdul-Jabbar has also served as a volunteer coach at Alchesay High School on the Fort Apache Indian Reservation in Whiteriver, Arizona in 1998. Player profile. Abdul-Jabbar played the center position and is regarded as one of the best of all time. He is the all-time leading NBA scorer with 38,387 points, having collected six championship rings, six regular season MVP and two Finals MVP awards, fifteen NBA First or Second Teams, a record nineteen NBA All-Star call-ups and averaging 24.6 points, 11.2 rebounds, 3.6 assists and 2.6 blocks per game. He is ranked as the NBA's third leading all-time rebounder (17,440). He is also the third all-time in registered blocks (3,189), which is even more impressive because this stat had not been recorded until the fourth year of his career (1974). On offense, Abdul-Jabbar was an unstoppable low-post threat. In contrast to other low-post dominators like Wilt Chamberlain, Artis Gilmore or Shaquille O'Neal, Abdul-Jabbar was a relatively slender player, standing 7–2 but only weighing 225 lbs (though in his latter years the Lakers listed Abdul-Jabbar's weight as 265). However, he made up for his relative lack of bulk by showing textbook finesse, strength and was famous for his ambidextrous skyhook shot, which defenders found impossible to block. It contributed to his high .559 field goal accuracy, making him the eighth most accurate scorer of all time and a feared clutch shooter. Abdul-Jabbar was also quick enough to run the Showtime fast break led by Magic Johnson and was well-conditioned, standing on the hardwood an average 36.8 minutes. In contrast to other big men, Abdul-Jabbar also could reasonably hit his free throws, finishing with a career 72% average. On defense, Abdul-Jabbar maintained a dominant presence. He was selected to the NBA All-Defensive Team eleven times. He frustrated opponents with his superior shot-blocking ability, denying an average 2.6 shots a game. As a teammate, Abdul-Jabbar exuded natural leadership and was affectionately called "Cap" or "Captain" by his colleagues. He was also known for his strict fitness regime, which made him one of the most durable players of all time. In the NBA, his 20 seasons and 1,560 games are performances surpassed only by former Celtics' center Robert Parish. Abdul-Jabbar made the NBA's 35th and 50th Anniversary Teams, and was named one of the 50 Greatest Players of All Time in 1996. Lakers coach Pat Riley once said, "Why judge anymore? When a man has broken records, won championships, endured tremendous criticism and responsibility, why judge? Let's toast him as the greatest player ever." Isiah Thomas remarked, "If they say the numbers don't lie, then Kareem is the greatest ever to play the game." Sky-hook. Abdul-Jabbar was well known for his trademark "sky-hook", a hook shot in which he bent his entire body (rather than just the arm) like a straw in one fluid motion to raise the ball and then release it at the highest point of his arm's arching motion. Combined with his long arms and great height, , the sky hook was difficult for a defender to block without goaltending. It was a reliable and feared offensive weapon and contributed to his high lifetime field goal percentage of 0.559. As a twist, he was adept at shooting the skyhook with either hand, which made him even more difficult to defend against. According to Abdul-Jabbar, he learned the move in fifth grade after practicing with the Mikan Drill and soon learned to value it, as it was "the only shot I could use that didn't get smashed back in my face". NBA career and statistics. Career highs. 40-point games. 70 times in the regular season 55 with Milwaukee Bucks 15 with Los Angeles Lakers 50-point games. All of Abdul-Jabbar's 50-point efforts occurred while he played for the Milwaukee Bucks.
581156	Bhavni Bhavai ("Tale of the Life" in English) is a 1980 Gujarati film directed by Ketan Mehta. Mehta's debut film is a successful adaptation of folk idioms into cinema. The film is dedicated to Bertolt Brecht, Goscinny and to the inventor of the Bhavai, Asait Thakore, who was a Brahmin outcast and lived among the lower caste communities. His descendants, the Targalas, are the traditional Gujarati performers of the plays he wrote. The Bhavai evolved into one of India's most energetic folk music and dance-dramas. The film is in the form of a story told by a group of Harijans migrating to a city pausing for a night. Documentary footage of India's freedom struggle as well as references to contemporary violent caste riots in Ahmedabad and severe drought in North Gujarat is employed in the film.
1102145	Baron Augustin-Louis Cauchy (; 21 August 1789 – 23 May 1857) was a French mathematician who was an early pioneer of analysis. He started the project of formulating and proving the theorems of infinitesimal calculus in a rigorous manner, rejecting the heuristic principle of the generality of algebra exploited by earlier authors. He defined continuity in terms of infinitesimals and gave several important theorems in complex analysis and initiated the study of permutation groups in abstract algebra. A profound mathematician, Cauchy exercised a great influence over his contemporaries and successors. His writings cover the entire range of mathematics and mathematical physics. "More concepts and theorems have been named for Cauchy than for any other mathematician (in elasticity alone there are sixteen concepts and theorems named for Cauchy)." Cauchy was a prolific writer; he wrote approximately eight hundred research articles and five complete textbooks. He was a devout Roman Catholic, strict Bourbon royalist, and a close associate of the Jesuit order. Biography. Youth and education. Cauchy was the son of Louis François Cauchy (1760–1848) and Marie-Madeleine Desestre. Cauchy had two brothers, Alexandre Laurent Cauchy (1792–1857), who became a president of a division of the court of appeal in 1847, and a judge of the court of cassation in 1849; and Eugene François Cauchy (1802–1877), a publicist who also wrote several mathematical works. Cauchy married Aloise de Bure in 1818. She was a close relative of the publisher who published most of Cauchy's works. By her he had two daughters, Marie Françoise Alicia (1819) and Marie Mathilde (1823). Cauchy's father (Louis François Cauchy) was a high official in the Parisian Police of the New Régime. He lost his position because of the French Revolution (July 14, 1789) that broke out one month before Augustin-Louis was born. The Cauchy family survived the revolution and the following Reign of Terror (1794) by escaping to Arcueil, where Cauchy received his first education, from his father. After the execution of Robespierre (1794), it was safe for the family to return to Paris. There Louis-François Cauchy found himself a new bureaucratic job, and quickly moved up the ranks. When Napoleon Bonaparte came to power (1799), Louis-François Cauchy was further promoted, and became Secretary-General of the Senate, working directly under Laplace (who is now better known for his work on mathematical physics). The famous mathematician Lagrange was also no stranger in the Cauchy family. On Lagrange's advice, Augustin-Louis was enrolled in the École Centrale du Panthéon, the best secondary school of Paris at that time, in the fall of 1802. Most of the curriculum consisted of classical languages; the young and ambitious Cauchy, being a brilliant student, won many prizes in Latin and Humanities. In spite of these successes, Augustin-Louis chose an engineering career, and prepared himself for the entrance examination to the École Polytechnique. In 1805 he placed second out of 293 applicants on this exam, and he was admitted. One of the main purposes of this school was to give future civil and military engineers a high-level scientific and mathematical education. The school functioned under military discipline, which caused the young and pious Cauchy some problems in adapting. Nevertheless, he finished the Polytechnique in 1807, at the age of 18, and went on to the École des Ponts et Chaussées (School for Bridges and Roads). He graduated in civil engineering, with the highest honors. Engineering days. After finishing school in 1810, Cauchy accepted a job as a junior engineer in Cherbourg, where Napoleon intended to build a naval base. Here Augustin-Louis stayed for three years, and although he had an extremely busy managerial job, he still found time to prepare three mathematical manuscripts, which he submitted to the "Première Classe" (First Class) of the Institut de France. Cauchy's first two manuscripts (on polyhedra) were accepted; the third one (on directrices of conic sections) was rejected. In September 1812, now 23 years old, after becoming ill from overwork, Cauchy returned to Paris. Another reason for his return to the capital was that he was losing his interest in his engineering job, being more and more attracted to abstract beauty of mathematics; in Paris, he would have a much better chance to find a mathematics related position. Although he formally kept his engineering position, he was transferred from the payroll of the Ministry of the Marine to the Ministry of the Interior. The next three years Augustin-Louis was mainly on unpaid sick leave, and spent his time quite fruitfully, working on mathematics (on the related topics of symmetric functions, the symmetric group and the theory of higher-order algebraic equations). He attempted admission to the First Class of the Institut de France but failed on three different occasions between 1813 and 1815. In 1815 Napoleon was defeated at Waterloo, and the newly installed Bourbon king Louis XVIII took the restoration in hand. The Académie des Sciences was re-established in March 1816; Lazare Carnot and Gaspard Monge were removed from this Academy for political reasons, and the king appointed Cauchy to take the place of one of them. The reaction by Cauchy's peers was harsh; they considered his acceptance of membership of the Academy an outrage, and Cauchy thereby created many enemies in scientific circles. Professor at École Polytechnique. In November 1815, Louis Poinsot, who was an associate professor at the École Polytechnique, asked to be exempted from his teaching duties for health reasons. Cauchy was by then a rising mathematical star, who certainly merited a professorship. One of his great successes at that time was the proof of Fermat's polygonal number theorem. However, the fact that Cauchy was known to be very loyal to the Bourbons, doubtless also helped him in becoming the successor of Poinsot. He finally quit his engineering job, and received a one-year contract for teaching mathematics to second-year students of the École Polytechnique. In 1816, this Bonapartist, non-religious school was reorganized, and several liberal professors were fired; the reactionary Cauchy was promoted to full professor. When Cauchy was 28 years old, he was still living with his parents. His father found it high time for his son to marry; he found him a suitable bride, Aloïse de Bure, five years his junior. The de Bure family were printers and booksellers, and published most of Cauchy's works. Aloïse and Augustin were married on April 4, 1818, with great Roman Catholic pomp and ceremony, in the Church of Saint-Sulpice. In 1819 the couple's first daughter, Marie Françoise Alicia, was born, and in 1823 the second and last daughter, Marie Mathilde. Cauchy had two brothers: Alexandre Laurent Cauchy, who became a president of a division of the court of appeal in 1847, and a judge of the court of cassation in 1849; and Eugène François Cauchy, a publicist who also wrote several mathematical works. The conservative political climate that lasted until 1830 suited Cauchy perfectly. In 1824 Louis XVIII died, and was succeeded by his even more reactionary brother Charles X. During these years Cauchy was highly productive, and published one important mathematical treatise after another. He received cross appointments at the Collège de France, and the Faculté des Sciences of the University. In exile. In July 1830 France underwent another revolution. Charles X fled the country, and was succeeded by the non-Bourbon king Louis-Philippe (of the House of Orléans). Riots, in which uniformed students of the École Polytechnique took an active part, raged close to Cauchy's home in Paris. These events marked a turning point in Cauchy's life, and a break in his mathematical productivity. Cauchy, shaken by the fall of the government, and moved by a deep hatred of the liberals who were taking power, left Paris to go abroad, leaving his family behind. He spent a short time at Fribourg in Switzerland, where he had to decide whether he would swear a required oath of allegiance to the new regime. He refused to do this, and consequently lost all his positions in Paris, except his membership of the Academy, for which an oath was not required. In 1831 Cauchy went to the Italian city of Turin, and after some time there, he accepted an offer from the King of Sardinia (who ruled Turin and the surrounding Piedmont region) for a chair of theoretical physics, which was created especially for him. He taught in Turin during 1832–1833. In 1831, he had been elected a foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. In August 1833 Cauchy left Turin for Prague, to become the science tutor of the thirteen-year-old Duke of Bordeaux Henri d'Artois (1820–1883), the exiled Crown Prince and grandson of Charles X. As a professor of the École Polytechnique, Cauchy had been a notoriously bad lecturer, assuming levels of understanding that only a few of his best students could reach, and cramming his allotted time with too much material. The young Duke had neither taste nor talent for either mathematics or science, so student and teacher were a perfect mismatch. Although Cauchy took his mission very seriously, he did this with great clumsiness, and with surprising lack of authority over the Duke. During his civil engineering days, Cauchy once had been briefly in charge of repairing a few of the Parisian sewers, and he made the mistake of telling his pupil this; with great malice, the young Duke went about saying that Mister Cauchy started his career in the sewers of Paris. His role as tutor lasted until the Duke became eighteen years old, in September 1838. Cauchy did hardly any research during those five years, while the Duke acquired a lifelong dislike of mathematics. The only good that came out of this episode was Cauchy's promotion to Baron, a title that Cauchy set great store by. In 1834, his wife and two daughters moved to Prague, and Cauchy was finally reunited with his family, after four years of exile. Last years. Cauchy returned to Paris and his position at the Academy of Sciences late in 1838. He could not regain his teaching positions, because he still refused to swear an oath of allegiance. However, he desperately wanted to regain a formal position in Parisian science. In August 1839 a vacancy appeared in the Bureau des Longitudes. This Bureau had some resemblance to the Academy; for instance, it had the right to co-opt its members. Further, it was believed that members of the Bureau could "forget" about the oath of allegiance, although formally, unlike the Academicians, they were obliged to take it. The Bureau des Longitudes was an organization founded in 1795 to solve the problem of determining position on sea – mainly the longitudinal coordinate, since latitude is easily determined from the position of the sun. Since it was thought that position on sea was best determined by astronomical observations, the Bureau had developed into an organization resembling an academy of astronomical sciences. In November 1839 Cauchy was elected to the Bureau, and discovered immediately that the matter of the oath was not so easily dispensed with. Without his oath, the king refused to approve his election. For four years Cauchy was in the absurd position of being elected, but not being approved; hence, he was not a formal member of the Bureau, did not receive payment, could not participate in meetings, and could not submit papers. Still Cauchy refused to take any oaths; however, he did feel loyal enough to direct his research to celestial mechanics. In 1840, he presented a dozen papers on this topic to the Academy. He also described and illustrated the signed-digit representation of numbers, an innovation presented in England in 1727 by John Colson. The confounded membership of the Bureau lasted until the end of 1843, when Cauchy was finally replaced by Poinsot. All through the nineteenth century the French educational system struggled with the question of separation of Church and State. The Catholic Church sought freedom of education; the Church found in Cauchy a staunch and illustrious ally in this struggle. He lent his prestige and knowledge to the École Normale Écclésiastique, a school in Paris run by Jesuits, for training teachers for their colleges. He also took part in the founding of the Institut Catholique. The purpose of this institute was to counter the effects of the absence of Catholic university education in France. These activities did not make Cauchy popular with his colleagues who, on the whole, supported the Enlightenment ideals of the French Revolution. When a chair of mathematics became vacant at the Collège de France in 1843, Cauchy applied for it, but got just three out of 45 votes. The year 1848 was the year of revolution all over Europe; revolutions broke out in numerous countries, beginning in France. King Louis-Philippe, fearful of sharing the fate of Louis XVI, fled to England. The oath of allegiance was abolished, and the road to an academic appointment was finally clear for Cauchy. On March 1, 1849, he was reinstated at the Faculté de Sciences, as a professor of mathematical astronomy. After political turmoil all through 1848, France chose to become a Republic, under the Presidency of Louis Napoleon Bonaparte, nephew of Napoleon Bonaparte, and son of Napoleon's brother, who had been installed as the first king of Holland. Soon (early 1852) the President became the Emperor of France, and took the name Napoleon III. Not unexpectedly, the idea came up in bureaucratic circles that it would be useful to require a loyalty oath from all state functionaries, including university professors. Not always does history repeat itself, however, because this time a cabinet minister was able to convince the Emperor to exempt Cauchy from the oath. Cauchy remained a professor at the University until his death at the age of 67. He received the Last Rites and died at 4 a.m. on May 23, 1857. His name is one of the 72 names inscribed on the Eiffel Tower. Work. Early work. The genius of Cauchy was illustrated in his simple solution of the problem of Apollonius—describing a circle touching three given circles—which he discovered in 1805, his generalization of Euler's formula on polyhedra in 1811, and in several other elegant problems. More important is his memoir on wave propagation, which obtained the Grand Prix of the French Academy of Sciences in 1816. Cauchy's writings covered notable topics including: the theory of series, where he developed the notion of convergence and discovered many of the basic formulas for q-series. In the theory of numbers and complex quantities, he was the first to define complex numbers as pairs of real numbers. He also wrote on the theory of groups and substitutions, the theory of functions, differential equations and determinants. Wave theory, mechanics, elasticity. In the theory of light he worked on Fresnel's wave theory and on the dispersion and polarization of light. He also contributed significant research in mechanics, substituting the notion of the continuity of geometrical displacements for the principle of the continuity of matter. He wrote on the equilibrium of rods and elastic membranes and on waves in elastic media. He introduced a 3 × 3 symmetric matrix of numbers that is now known as the Cauchy stress tensor. In elasticity, he originated the theory of stress, and his results are nearly as valuable as those of Siméon Poisson. Number theory. Other significant contributions include being the first to prove the Fermat polygonal number theorem. Complex functions. Cauchy is most famous for his single-handed development of complex function theory. The first pivotal theorem proved by Cauchy, now known as "Cauchy's integral theorem", was the following: where "f"("z") is a complex-valued function holomorphic on and within the non-self-intersecting closed curve "C" (contour) lying in the complex plane. The "contour integral" is taken along the contour "C". The rudiments of this theorem can already be found in a paper that the 24-year-old Cauchy presented to the Académie des Sciences (then still called "First Class of the Institute") on August 11, 1814. In full form the theorem was given in 1825. The 1825 paper is seen by many as Cauchy's most important contribution to mathematics. In 1826 Cauchy gave a formal definition of a residue of a function. This concept regards functions that have poles—isolated singularities, i.e., points where a function goes to positive or negative infinity. If the complex-valued function "f"("z") can be expanded in the neighborhood of a singularity "a" as where φ("z") is analytic (i.e., well-behaved without singularities), then "f" is said to have a pole of order "n" in the point "a". If "n" = 1, the pole is called simple. The coefficient "B"1 is called by Cauchy the residue of function "f" at "a". If "f" is non-singular at "a" then the residue of "f" is zero at "a". Clearly the residue is in the case of a simple pole equal to, where we replaced "B"1 by the modern notation of the residue. In 1831, while in Turin, Cauchy submitted two papers to the Academy of Sciences of Turin. In the first he proposed the formula now known as Cauchy's integral formula, where "f"("z") is analytic on "C" and within the region bounded by the contour "C" and the complex number "a" is somewhere in this region. The contour integral is taken counter-clockwise. Clearly, the integrand has a simple pole at "z" = "a". In the second paper he presented the residue theorem, where the sum is over all the "n" poles of "f"("z") on and within the contour "C". These results of Cauchy's still form the core of complex function theory as it is taught today to physicists and electrical engineers. For quite some time, contemporaries of Cauchy ignored his theory, believing it to be too complicated. Only in the 1840s the theory started to get response, with Pierre-Alphonse Laurent being the first mathematician, besides Cauchy, making a substantial contribution (his Laurent series published in 1843). Cours d'Analyse. Cauchy gave an explicit definition of an infinitesimal in terms of a sequence tending to zero. Namely, such a null sequence "becomes" an infinitesimal in Cauchy's and Lazare Carnot's terminology. Sources disagree if Cauchy defined his notion of infinitesimal in terms of limits. Some have argued that such a claim is ambiguous, and essentially a play of words on the term "limit". Similarly, some sources contest the claim that Cauchy anticipated Weierstrassian rigor, and point out internal contradictions in post-Weierstrassian Cauchy scholarship relative to Cauchy's 1853 text on the sum theorem. Barany recently argued that Cauchy possessed a kinetic notion of limit similar to Newton's. Regardless of how Cauchy viewed the rigor of using infinitesimal methods, these methods continued in practice long after "Cours d'Analyse" both by Cauchy and other mathematicians and can be justified by modern techniques. Taylor's theorem. He was the first to prove Taylor's theorem rigorously, establishing his well-known form of the remainder. He wrote a textbook (see the illustration) for his students at the École Polytechnique in which he developed the basic theorems of mathematical analysis as rigorously as possible. In this book he gave the necessary and sufficient condition for the existence of a limit in the form that is still taught. Also Cauchy's well-known test for absolute convergence stems from this book: Cauchy condensation test. In 1829 he defined for the first time a complex function of a complex variable in another textbook. In spite of these, Cauchy's own research papers often used intuitive, not rigorous, methods; thus one of his theorems was exposed to a "counter-example" by Abel, later fixed by the introduction of the notion of uniform continuity. Argument principle, stability. In a paper published in 1855, two years before Cauchy's death, he discussed some theorems, one of which is similar to the "Argument Principle" in many modern textbooks on complex analysis. In modern control theory textbooks, the Cauchy argument principle is quite frequently used to derive the Nyquist stability criterion, which can be used to predict the stability of negative feedback amplifier and negative feedback control systems. Thus Cauchy's work has a strong impact on both pure mathematics and practical engineering. Output. Cauchy was very productive, in number of papers second only to Leonhard Euler. It took almost a century to collect all his writings into 27 large volumes: His greatest contributions to mathematical science are enveloped in the rigorous methods which he introduced; these are mainly embodied in his three great treatises: His other works include: Politics and religious beliefs. Augustin-Louis Cauchy grew up in the house of a staunch royalist. This made his father flee with the family to Arcueil during the French Revolution. Their life there was apparently hard; Augustin-Louis's father, Louis François, spoke of living on rice, bread, and crackers during the period. A paragraph from an undated letter from Louis François to his mother in Rouen says: In any event, he inherited his father's staunch royalism and hence refused to take oaths to any government after the overthrow of Charles X. He was an equally staunch Catholic and a member of the Society of Saint Vincent de Paul. He also had links to the Society of Jesus and defended them at the Academy when it was politically unwise to do so. His zeal for his faith may have led to his caring for Charles Hermite during his illness and leading Hermite to become a faithful Catholic. It also inspired Cauchy to plead on behalf of the Irish during the Potato Famine. His royalism and religious zeal also made him contentious, which caused difficulties with his colleagues. He felt that he was mistreated for his beliefs, but his opponents felt he intentionally provoked people by berating them over religious matters or by defending the Jesuits after they had been suppressed. Niels Henrik Abel called him a "bigoted Catholic" and added he was "mad and there is nothing that can be done about him", but at the same time praised him as a mathematician. Cauchy's views were widely unpopular among mathematicians and when Guglielmo Libri Carucci dalla Sommaja was made chair in mathematics before him he, and many others, felt his views were the cause. When Libri was accused of stealing books he was replaced by Joseph Liouville which caused a rift between him and Cauchy. Another dispute concerned Jean Marie Constant Duhamel and a claim on inelastic shocks. Cauchy was later shown, by Jean-Victor Poncelet, that he was in the wrong.
1057158	Lost in America is a 1985 comedy film directed by Albert Brooks that was co-written by Brooks with Monica McGowan Johnson. Brooks stars alongside Julie Hagerty. Plot. David and Linda Howard are typical 1980s yuppies in Los Angeles who are fed up with their lifestyle. He works in an advertising agency and she for a department store. But after he fails to receive a promotion he was counting on and is asked to transfer to the firm's New York office instead, David angrily insults his boss and is fired. He coaxes his wife to quit her job as well and seek a new adventure.
1039639	Ken Bones is a British actor best known for his television, film and stage appearances. He is a member of the Royal Shakespeare Company. Biography. Theatre appearances. Bones trained at RADA between 1971–73, where he won the Honours Diploma, the Ronson Prize, the Kendal Award, the Poel Prize and John Barton Prize. His first professional stage appearance was as Roy in "The Odd Couple" at Crewe in January 1974. His other appearances in that season included Wick in "Little Malcolm", Vincent Crummles in "Nicholas Nickleby" and Dr Hennessey in "Count Dracula". During 1974 and 1975 Bones was a member of the Prospect Theatre Company, taking part in the company's national tour in such venues as the Edinburgh Festival and London's Roundhouse, playing Gower in "Henry IV" and "Henry V" with Timothy Dalton, and the Narrator in the rock musical "Pilgrim" with Paul Jones and Peter Straker. Bones joined the Marlowe Theatre in Canterbury in 1976, and with whom he played Ernst Ludwig in "Cabaret", Mr Shanks in "Habeas Corpus", Trofimov in "The Cherry Orchard", Milo Tindal in "Sleuth" and Curly Delafield in "Knuckle". In 1977 he toured with the "Mermaid Theatre" educational company 'The Molecule Club' teaching science to children. In 1978 Bones played Lucifer in the first modern revival of "The Lincoln Mystery Cycle" in Lincoln Cathedral. During 1978 he joined Southern Exchange Theatre Company, which was established by Charles Savage to provide regional theatre for civic theatres without resident repertory companies playing at the Wyvern Theatre in Swindon, the Hexagon in Reading and the Lighthouse in Poole. With this company he played Ramble in "Lock Up Your Daughters", Leonard in "Time and Time Again", Saul Hodgkin in "The Ghost Train", Alec Kooning in "Dear Janet Rosenberg..", The Man in Chekov's "The Lady with the Little Dog" and Bob Cratchit in "A Christmas Carol". In 1979 Bones played the Earl of Warwick in "Saint Joan", Eilert Loevborg in "Hedda Gabler" with Gayle Hunnicutt, and John in "Absent Friends". In 1980 he appeared in a national tour of "Woyzeck" with Foco Novo Theatre Company playing the Drum Major. His other stage appearance include the Duke in "The Revenger's Tragedy" and Dr Klein in "Her Naked Skin" for the National Theatre, and, for the Royal Shakespeare Company he has appeared in 21 plays, including "Antony and Cleopatra", "The Tempest", "Othello", "The Duchess of Malfi", "Macbeth", "The Winter's Tale", "Cyrano de Bergerac", "Les Liaisons Dangereuses", "Tamburlaine", "Much Ado About Nothing" and "King Lear". In London's West End Bones has appeared in "You Never Can Tell", "Communicating Doors", "Becket", "The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui" and "Antony and Cleopatra"; and for other theatres "Design for Living", "Relative Values", "As You Like It", "A Midsummer Night's Dream" "Doctor Faustus" with Ben Kingsley, and "Sir Thomas More". Most recently he played Reverend Brown in "Inherit the Wind" with Kevin Spacey at the "Old Vic". Film and TV roles. Bones' first television appearance was in the BBC Jubilee Play "A Day in the Life" by Ray Connolly, in 1977. In 1980 he appeared in an episode of "Fox" as Kemble. Bones played Sergeant Parkes in an episode of "Spearhead" (1981), Paul Roussillon in "Bergerac" (1988), and a Superintendent in "London's Burning" (1988). Also in 1988 Bones played Victorian medium Robert James Lees in ITV's "Jack the Ripper" starring Michael Caine. His first feature film was "Bellman and True" (1987) directed by Richard Loncraine and starring Bernard Hill. The "New York Times" film critic said "Mr Bones makes a memorable screen debut as the bullying Gort." In 1995 Bones played Toussant in the film "Cutthroat Island", and in 1998 made appearances in "Dangerfield" and "Cold Feet". He played Admiral Bill Wilson in the 1999 film "Wing Commander", and in 2001 he played Banquo in a made for television film of the Royal Shakespeare Company's "Macbeth" which starred Antony Sher as Macbeth. The film was the televised version of a stage show which had an enormously successful run in England, Japan and the USA. In 2002 Bones played Keith Burns in an episode of "Spooks" and in 2003 appeared in "Casualty" as Robbie. His 2004 roles include Hippasus in the film "Troy" starring Brad Pitt, Mr Mansell in "Heartbeat" and Assistant Commissioner Bob Mullen in "New Tricks". During recent years Bones has appeared in "Doctors" (2007), "Holby City" (2008 and 2010) and "The Bill" (1987-2009) as DCI Ted Ackroyd, as well as in the film "Perfect Hideout" (2008) starring Billy Zane. In 2009 he played Erasmus in "", and in 2011 he appeared in the six-part series "The Hour". He has also played a character named Sethius in popular CBBC television series "Young Dracula". Ken Bones portrays Lord Halifax, British Foreign Secretary from 1938 to 1940, in 2012's Season 2 of "Upstairs Downstairs", the 2010 British television series. He will be appearing in the "Doctor Who" 50th Anniversary special as The General. In 2013, it was announced that Bones had joined the cast of "Atlantis".
256715	Eddie Steeples (born November 25, 1973) is an American actor known for his roles as the "Rubberband Man" in an advertising campaign for OfficeMax, and as Darnell "Crabman" Turner on the NBC sitcom "My Name Is Earl". Overview. Eddie Steeples was born and raised in Spring, Texas, and was the oldest of eight children. His mother was an evangelist and his stepfather a preacher. By the age of four, he knew that he wanted to be an actor. He spoke of it so often, that his mother was prepared for the blow when, at the age of 18, he confirmed his plans. After graduating from Klein Oak High School in 1992, Steeples moved to Santa Cruz, where he took acting classes at a community college and sought fame and a starring role opposite Tom Cruise. When the Cruise co-starring role didn’t happen, Steeples moved eastward, making a stop at the St. Louis Black Repertory Theatre and another pit stop at Howard University in D.C. to hone his craft, before finally landing in New York City. There Steeples joined the experimental film group Mo-Freek, and a hip hop group, No Surrender. Among the Mo-Freek productions he has frished in are "Lost in the Bush", "Caravan Summer", and "People Are Dead". He also starred in the short film "Whoa" and appeared as a guest on The Chris Rock Show. Steeples became nationally known when he was cast as the "Rubberband Man" in a series of award-winning commercials for OfficeMax. He has also appeared in the feature film "Torque," starring Ice Cube, Faison Love, and Jaime Pressly. Steeples appeared in the film "Akeelah and the Bee", starring Laurence Fishburne and Angela Bassett, released in April 2006. An independent film written and directed by Steeples, entitled "Robbers", is now in post-production. Steeples played the role of Darnell Turner on the NBC comedy series "My Name Is Earl", which premiered on September 20, 2005 and ran for four seasons. Steeples on the show was known as Darnell Turner (witness protection name) aka Harry Monroe (real name) aka "Crab Man".
1164506	Betsy Palmer (born November 1, 1926) is an American actress, best known as a regular panelist on the game show "I've Got a Secret", and later for playing Pamela Voorhees in the slasher film "Friday the 13th." Life and career. Palmer was born Patricia Betsy Hrunek in East Chicago, Indiana, the daughter of Marie (née Love), who headed the Chicago Business College, and Vincent R. Hrunek, an industrial chemist who was an immigrant from Czechoslovakia. She graduated from DePaul University, where she studied theater. Palmer married Dr. Vincent J. Merendino on May 8, 1954; the couple had one daughter, Missy (b. 1962). They divorced in 1971. Palmer got her first acting job in 1951 when she joined the cast of a 15 minute long, daily soap opera, "Miss Susan", which was produced in Philadelphia. She was "discovered" for this role while enjoying a party in the apartment of actor Frank Sutton (Gunnery Sergeant Vince Carter of "Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C."). She had been in New York City less than one week. A life member of The Actors Studio, Palmer's stage work included a tour of "South Pacific" (as Nellie Forbush) and the title role in "Maggie", a 1953 musicalization of "What Every Woman Knows". She would later become a familiar face on television as a long-running regular panelist on the quiz show "I've Got a Secret". She joined the show's original run, replacing Faye Emerson in 1958 and remaining until the show's finale in 1967. She did not subsequently reprise her role in any of the various revivals of the show. Palmer appeared as Kitty Carter in "The Long Gray Line" (1955), starring Tyrone Power and Maureen O'Hara. She also played nurse Lt. Ann Girard (the main female character) in the all-star cast of the classic film "Mister Roberts" (1955), which starred Henry Fonda, Jack Lemmon, and James Cagney. She also played Carol Lee Phillips in the film "Queen Bee" (1956), which starred Joan Crawford. Palmer starred alongside Fonda again as well as Anthony Perkins in the Paramount production of "The Tin Star" (1957), a Western that was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Writing, Story or Screenplay. In 1958, she played an undercover agent Phyllis Carter/Lynn Stuart in the film "The True Story of Lynn Stuart", co-starring Jack Lord and featuring Kim Spalding as her husband, Ralph Carter. Palmer's need to purchase a new car was her reason for taking her most famous role in "Friday the 13th". She recounted, in an interview, that her initial reaction to the experience was: "What a piece of shit! Nobody is ever going to see this thing." Despite her distaste for the film, she consented to a cameo appearance in "Friday the 13th Part 2". She ultimately came to embrace her participation in the films since it made her more famous rather than infamous, appearing in the 2006 documentary "Betsy Palmer: A Scream Queen Legend". Palmer was asked to reprise her role as Mrs. Voorhees in "Freddy vs. Jason" in 2003, but turned it down, reportedly due to the low remuneration she was offered. Palmer created the role of "Suz Becker" on the CBS daytime soap opera "As the World Turns". From 1991 to 1992, the actress appeared on "Knots Landing" as Virginia "Ginny" Bullock, the aunt of Valene Ewing (played by series star Joan Van Ark). Later years. She acted in a Mayfield Dinner Theatre production of "On Golden Pond" in Edmonton, Alberta in 1997. In 2005, she appeared in the horror short "Penny Dreadful" and in 2007 as the older version of the title character in "Waltzing Anna". She provided the voice of the title character, the ghost of a witch, in the 2007 horror film "". Television appearances. From 1953 to 2001, Palmer was a guest star on 73 television programs, including (in no particular order): Awards. Palmer was the recipient of the 2005 Major Award from the New England Theatre Conference NETC online for her stage work.
1015882	The Lucky Guy (行運一條龍) is a 1998 Hong Kong comedy film directed by Lee Lik-Chi (李力持) and starring Stephen Chow, Sammi Cheng (鄭秀文), Daniel Chan (陳曉東) and Shu Qi. Synopsis. "Lucky" Coffee Shop is well known for its egg tarts and tea. Waiter Sui, named as Prince Egg Tart, attracts lots of girls but only loves Candy. He and his friends, Nam, and Fok, all have love problems. At the same time, the coffee shop may collapse since the landlord is increasing the rent tremendously. Let's see how the lucky guys of the shop can revert this situation...
1170046	Lisa Darr (born April 21, 1963) is an American actress. Darr was born Lisa Darr Grabemann in Chicago, Illinois, the daughter of Mollie, an actress, and Karl Grabemann, a lawyer. She attended Stanford University and graduated in 1985 with a degree in biology; she went on to receive an MFA in Acting from UCLA.
1074332	Rita Gam (born April 2, 1927) is an American film and television actress and documentary film maker. She was nominated for a Golden Globe and won the Silver Bear for Best Actress. Career. Gam's acting career began on Broadway and in television, after which she moved on to films. She appeared first in the 1952 film noir "The Thief", which starred Ray Milland. Another notable role was Herodias in 1961's "King of Kings". She shared the Silver Bear for Best Actress award with Viveca Lindfors at the 1962 Berlin Film Festival, for their performances in Tad Danielewski's "No Exit". In 1963, Gam was a leading member of The Minnesota Theatre Company in the opening season of The Tyrone Guthrie Theatre in Minneapolis, along with George Grizzard, Hume Cronyn, Jessica Tandy, and Zoe Caldwell.
1066724	Mary Lynn Ann Burns (born July 5, 1950), better known as Marilyn Burns, is an American actress, best known for her roles in Tobe Hooper's horror cult films "The Texas Chain Saw Massacre" (1974), and "Eaten Alive" (1977). She is also known for portraying Linda Kasabian in the three-time Emmy-nominated miniseries "Helter Skelter" (1976). Early life and career. Burns was born in Erie, Pennsylvania, and raised in Houston, Texas. She always had an interest in the arts. During seventh grade, she appeared in a musical production of "A Midsummer Night's Dream". In 1970, she made her first film appearance in the Robert Altman movie "Brewster McCloud" (1970). Burns attended the University of Texas at Austin and graduated from there with a degree in Drama in 1971.
1199667	Chord Paul Overstreet (born February 17, 1989) is an American actor, singer and musician, known for his role as Sam Evans on the television series "Glee". Early years. Overstreet was born in Nashville, Tennessee, to make-up artist Julie Miller and country music singer-songwriter Paul Overstreet. He has an older brother, Nash Overstreet, who plays guitar in the band Hot Chelle Rae, an older sister, Summer, and three younger sisters, Harmony, Skye and Charity. He is of German, Irish, English, and "a little bit of Native American" descent. He was named after the musical term of the same name. Overstreet was raised on a farm outside of Nashville. Encouraged by his parents to pursue music, he started playing the mandolin at an early age, and moved on to the drums, flute, piano, and guitar. He is also a songwriter. In his teenage years, he modeled for advertisements for Famous Footwear and Gap. Acting career. Overstreet began to pursue his passion of performing after his high school graduation in 2007. After two unsuccessful years, Overstreet started his acting career on the web series "Private", as Josh Hollis. He was also featured in an episode of "iCarly" "iSpeed Date" (for a few minutes) and the unaired pilot of "No Ordinary Family". His first film role was that of Teenage Boy in the 2009 thriller "The Hole", and he starred in the 2011 film "A Warrior's Heart" as Dupree, alongside Ashley Greene and Kellan Lutz.
1039765	Anna Madeley (born 1976) is an English actress. She has been described by the British Theatre Guide's Philip Fisher as one of the United Kingdom's "brightest and most versatile young actresses". Biography. Madeley grew up in London, attending North London Collegiate School, and began her career as a child actress. She then trained at the Central School of Speech and Drama. Madeley has performed three seasons with the Royal Shakespeare Company: 2001–2002; and 2003–2004. She acted in "The Roman Actor" opposite Sir Antony Sher. In 2005 she appeared in three acclaimed off-West End productions (Laura Wade's "Colder Than Here", as well as "The Philanthropist" (directed by David Grindley) and "The Cosmonaut's Last Message...", both at the Donmar Warehouse), and rounded off the year with a starring role in the National Theatre's adaptation of Jamilla Gavin's novel "Coram Boy". In 2006, Madeley starred in two BBC TV films – firstly as the title character in "The Secret Life of Mrs Beeton", as well as in the original drama "Aftersun" – and the high profile ITV drama "The Outsiders". In 2007, Madeley appeared in Channel 4's "Consent", which combined a dramatised vignette about an alleged date rape with a "real life" sequence in which lawyers and a jury made up of members of the public participated in a trial. In February 2007, Madeley played Nina in a production of "The Seagull" for a time, when the main actress fell ill. She was the only cast member to reprise her role in Grindley's 2009 Broadway production of "The Philanthropist". In 2010 she appeared "The Secret Diaries of Miss Anne Lister", based on a script by Jane English, and starring Maxine Peake as Anne Lister, a 19th century industrialist who was Britain's "first modern lesbian" and who kept a detailed journal. The film was the opening night film at the Frameline Film Festival at the Castro Theatre in San Francisco on 17 June 2010. In January 2013 Anna stars in British horror brand Hammer's first steps into the world of live theatre in a new stage adaptation of The Turn of the Screw.
420320	Stan Lee (born Stanley Martin Lieber; born December 28, 1922) is an American comic book writer, editor, publisher, media producer, television host, actor, voice actor and former president and chairman of Marvel Comics. In collaboration with several artists, most notably Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko, he co-created Spider-Man, the Hulk, the X-Men, the Fantastic Four, Iron Man, Thor, and many other fictional characters, introducing complex, naturalistic characters and a thoroughly shared universe into superhero comic books. In addition, he headed the first major successful challenge to the industry's censorship organization, the Comics Code Authority, and forced it to reform its policies. Lee subsequently led the expansion of Marvel Comics from a small division of a publishing house to a large multimedia corporation. He was inducted into the comic book industry's The Will Eisner Award Hall of Fame in 1994 and the Jack Kirby Hall of Fame in 1995. Early life. Stanley Martin Lieber was born in New York City on December 28, 1922, in the apartment of his Romanian-born Jewish immigrant parents, Celia (née Solomon) and Jack Lieber, at the corner of West 98th Street and West End Avenue in Manhattan. His father, trained as a dress cutter, worked only sporadically after the Great Depression, and the family moved further uptown to Fort Washington Avenue, in Washington Heights, Manhattan. When Lee was nearly 9, his only sibling, brother Larry Lieber, was born. He said in 2006 that as a child he was influenced by books and movies, particularly those with Errol Flynn playing heroic roles. By the time Lee was in his teens, the family was living in a one-bedroom apartment at 1720 University Avenue in The Bronx. Lee described it as "a third-floor apartment facing out back", with him and his brother sharing a bedroom and his parents using a foldout couch. Lee attended DeWitt Clinton High School in The Bronx. In his youth, Lee enjoyed writing, and entertained dreams of one day writing The Great American Novel. He has said that in his youth he worked such part-time jobs as writing obituaries for a news service and press releases for the National Tuberculosis Center; delivering sandwiches for the Jack May pharmacy to offices in Rockefeller Center; working as an office boy for a trouser manufacturer; ushering at the Rivoli Theater on Broadway; and selling subscriptions to the "New York Herald Tribune" newspaper. He graduated high school early, at age 16½ in 1939, and joined the WPA Federal Theatre Project. Career. Early career. With the help of his uncle Robbie Solomon, Lee became an assistant in 1939 at the new Timely Comics division of pulp magazine and comic-book publisher Martin Goodman's company. Timely, by the 1960s, would evolve into Marvel Comics. Lee, whose cousin Jean was Goodman's wife, was formally hired by Timely editor Joe Simon. His duties were prosaic at first. "In those days artists dipped the pen in ink, I had to make sure the inkwells were filled", Lee recalled in 2009. "I went down and got them their lunch, I did proofreading, I erased the pencils from the finished pages for them". Marshaling his childhood ambition to be a writer, young Stanley Lieber made his comic-book debut with the text filler "Captain America Foils the Traitor's Revenge" in "Captain America Comics" No. 3 (May 1941), using the pseudonym "Stan Lee", which years later he would adopt as his legal name. Lee later explained in his autobiography and numerous other sources that he had intended to save his given name for more literary work. This initial story also introduced Captain America's trademark ricocheting shield-toss, which immediately became one of the character's signatures. He graduated from writing filler to actual comics with a backup feature, "'Headline' Hunter, Foreign Correspondent", two issues later. Lee's first superhero co-creation was the Destroyer, in "Mystic Comics" No. 6 (Aug 1941). Other characters he created during this period fans and historians call the Golden Age of comics include Jack Frost, debuting in "USA Comics" No. 1 (Aug. 1941), and Father Time, debuting in "Captain America Comics" No. 6 (Aug. 1941). When Simon and his creative partner Jack Kirby left late in 1941, following a dispute with Goodman, the 30-year-old publisher installed Lee, just under 19 years old, as interim editor. The youngster showed a knack for the business that led him to remain as the comic-book division's editor-in-chief, as well as art director for much of that time, until 1972, when he would succeed Goodman as publisher. Lee entered the United States Army in early 1942 and served stateside in the Signal Corps, writing manuals, training films, and slogans, and occasionally cartooning. His military classification, he says, was "playwright"; he adds that only nine men in the U.S. Army were given that title. Vincent Fago, editor of Timely's "animation comics" section, which put out humor and funny animal comics, filled in until Lee returned from his World War II military service in 1945. Lee then lived in the rented top floor of a brownstone in the East 90s in Manhattan. He married Joan Clayton Boocock on December 5, 1947, and in 1949, the couple bought a two-story, three-bedroom home at 1084 West Broadway in Woodmere, New York, on Long Island, living there through 1952. By this time, the couple had daughter Joan Celia "J.C." Lee, born in 1950; another child, Jan Lee, died three days after delivery in 1953. Lee by this time had bought a home at 226 Richards Lane in the Long Island town of Hewlett Harbor, New York, where he and his family lived from 1952 to 1980, including the 1960s period when Lee and his artist collaborators would revolutionize comic books. In the mid-1950s, by which time the company was now generally known as Atlas Comics, Lee wrote stories in a variety of genres including romance, Westerns, humor, science fiction, medieval adventure, horror and suspense. In the 1950s, Lee teamed up with his comic book colleague Dan DeCarlo to produce the syndicated newspaper strip, "My Friend Irma", based on the radio comedy starring Marie Wilson. By the end of the decade, Lee had become dissatisfied with his career and considered quitting the field. Marvel revolution. In the late 1950s, DC Comics editor Julius Schwartz revived the superhero archetype and experienced a significant success with its updated version of the Flash, and later with super-team the Justice League of America. In response, publisher Martin Goodman assigned Lee to create a new superhero team. Lee's wife urged him to experiment with stories he preferred, since he was planning on changing careers and had nothing to lose. Lee acted on that advice, giving his superheroes a flawed humanity, a change from the ideal archetypes that were typically written for preteens. Before this, most superheroes were idealistically perfect people with no serious, lasting problems. Lee introduced complex, naturalistic characters who could have bad tempers, fits of melancholy, vanity; they bickered amongst themselves, worried about paying their bills and impressing girlfriends, got bored or even were sometimes physically ill. The first superhero group Lee and artist Jack Kirby created was the Fantastic Four. The team's immediate popularity led Lee and Marvel's illustrators to produce a cavalcade of new titles. With Kirby primarily, Lee created the Hulk, Iron Man, Thor and the X-Men; with Bill Everett, Daredevil; and with Steve Ditko, Doctor Strange and Marvel's most successful character, Spider-Man, all of whom lived in a thoroughly shared universe. Comics historian Peter Sanderson wrote that in the 1960s: Stan Lee's Marvel revolution extended beyond the characters and storylines to the way in which comic books engaged the readership and built a sense of community between fans and creators. Lee introduced the practice of including a credit panel on the splash page of each story, naming not just the writer and penciller but also the inker and letterer. Regular news about Marvel staff members and upcoming storylines was presented on the Bullpen Bulletins page, which (like the letter columns that appeared in each title) was written in a friendly, chatty style. By 1967, the brand was well-enough ensconced in popular culture that a March 3 WBAI radio program with Lee and Kirby as guests was titled "Will Success Spoil Spiderman" .
218360	Grigore Constantin Moisil (; 10 January 1906 – 21 May 1973) was a Romanian mathematician, computer pioneer, and member of the Romanian Academy. His research was mainly in the fields of mathematical logic, (Łukasiewicz–Moisil algebra), algebraic logic, MV-algebra, and differential equations. He is viewed as the father of computer science in Romania.
62757	Hypatia (b. ca. AD 350–370, d. 415) ( ; ; "Hypatía") was an Alexandrine Neoplatonist philosopher in Egypt who was the first well-documented woman in mathematics. As head of the Platonist school at Alexandria, she also taught philosophy and astronomy. As a Neoplatonist philosopher, she belonged to the mathematic tradition of the Academy of Athens, as represented by Eudoxus of Cnidus; she was of the intellectual school of the 3rd century thinker Plotinus, which encouraged logic and mathematical study in place of empirical enquiry and strongly encouraged law in place of nature. According to the only contemporary source, Hypatia was murdered by a Christian mob after being accused of exacerbating a conflict between two prominent figures in Alexandria: the governor Orestes and the Bishop of Alexandria. Kathleen Wider proposes that the murder of Hypatia marked the end of Classical antiquity, and Stephen Greenblatt observes that her murder "effectively marked the downfall of Alexandrian intellectual life". On the other hand, Maria Dzielska and Christian Wildberg note that Hellenistic philosophy continued to flourish in the 5th and 6th centuries, and perhaps until the age of Justinian. Life. The mathematician and philosopher Hypatia of Alexandria was the daughter of the mathematician Theon Alexandricus (ca. 335–405). She was educated at Athens. Around AD 400, she became head of the Platonist school at Alexandria, where she imparted the knowledge of Plato and Aristotle to any student; the pupils included pagans, Christians, and foreigners. The contemporary 5th-century sources do identify Hypatia of Alexandria as a practitioner and teacher of the philosophy of Plato and Plotinus, but, two hundred years later, the 7th-century Egyptian Coptic bishop John of Nikiû identified her as a Hellenistic pagan and that "she was devoted at all times to magic, astrolabes and instruments of music, and she beguiled many people through her Satanic wiles". Not all Christians were as hostile towards her as John of Nikiu or the monks who killed her: some Christians even used Hypatia as symbolic of Virtue. The Byzantine "Suda" encyclopaedia reported that Hypatia was "the wife of Isidore the Philosopher" (apparently Isidore of Alexandria); however, Isidore of Alexandria was not born until long after Hypatia's death, and no other philosopher of that name contemporary with Hypatia is known. The "Suda" also stated that "she remained a virgin" and that she rejected a suitor with her menstrual rags, saying that they demonstrated there to be "nothing beautiful" about carnal desire—an example of a Christian source using Hypatia as a symbol of Virtue. Hypatia corresponded with former pupil Synesius of Cyrene, who was tutored by her in the philosophical school of Platonism and later became bishop of Ptolemais in AD 410, an exponent of the Christian Holy Trinity doctrine. Together with the references by the pagan philosopher Damascius, these are the extant records left by Hypatia's pupils at the Platonist school of Alexandria. The contemporary Christian historiographer Socrates Scholasticus described her in "Ecclesiastical History": Death. Events leading to her murder. Two widely cited, but divergent texts describe the feud between Orestes, the prefect (or Governor) of Alexandria and Cyril, the Bishop of Alexandria. The feud and the city-wide anger it provoked ultimately brought about the death of Hypatia. One source, the "Historia Ecclesiastica" (or "Ecclesiastical History") was written by Socrates Scholasticus (who was himself a Christian), some time shortly after Hypatia's death in AD 415. Scholasticus gives a more complete, less biased account of the feud between Orestes and Cyril, and the role Hypatia played in the feud that resulted in her death. The other source, "The Chronicle", written by John of Nikiu in Egypt, around 650 AD, demonizes Hypatia and Orestes directly, while validating all Christians involved in the events Nikiu describes. "The Chronicle", in being more biased on the matter of the historical feud, omits several points of the narrative that are detailed in Scholasticus’s account. Ecclesiastical History, Socrates Scholasticus Orestes, the governor of Alexandria, and Cyril, the Bishop of Alexandria, found themselves in a bitter feud in which Hypatia would come to be one of the main points of contention. The feud, which took place in 415 AD, began over the matter of Jewish dancing exhibitions in Alexandria. Since these exhibitions attracted large crowds and were commonly prone to civil disorder of varying degrees, Orestes published an edict which outlined new regulations for such gatherings and posted it in the city's theater. Soon after, crowds gathered to read the edict, angry over the new regulations that had been imposed upon them. At one such gathering, Hierax, a Christian and devout follower of Cyril, read the edict and applauded the new regulations, which many people felt was an attempt to incite the crowd into sedition. In what Scholasticus suspected as Orestes' "…jealousy the growing power of the bishops…[which encroached on the jurisdiction of the authorities…", Orestes immediately ordered Hierax to be seized and publicly tortured in the theater. Upon hearing of this, Cyril threatened the Jews of Alexandria with "the utmost severities" if harassment of Christians was not ceased at once. In response, the Jews of Alexandria grew only more furious over Cyril's threat, and in their anger they eventually resorted to violence against the Christians. They plotted to flush the Christians out at night by running through the streets, claiming that the Church of Alexander was on fire. When the Christians responded to what they were led to believe was the burning down of their church, "the Jews immediately fell upon and slew them", using rings to recognize one another in the dark, while killing everyone else in sight. When the morning came, the Jews of Alexandria could not hide their guilt, and Cyril, along with many of his followers, took to the city’s synagogues in search of the perpetrators of the night's massacre. After Cyril found all of the Jews in Alexandria, he ordered them to be stripped of all their possessions, banished them from Alexandria, and allowed the remaining citizens to pillage the goods they left behind. With Cyril's banishment of the Jews, "Orestes [...] was filled with great indignation at these transactions, and was excessively grieved that a city of such magnitude should have been suddenly bereft of so large a portion of its population…". Because of this, the feud between Cyril and Orestes only grew stronger, and both men wrote to the emperor regarding the situation. Eventually, Cyril attempted to reach out to Orestes through several peace overtures, including attempted mediation and, when that failed, showed him the Gospels. Nevertheless, Orestes remained unmoved by such gestures. Meanwhile, approximately 500 monks, who resided in the mountains of Nitria, and were "of a very fiery disposition", heard of the ongoing feud between the Governor and Bishop, and shortly thereafter descended into Alexandria, armed and prepared to fight alongside Cyril. Upon their arrival in Alexandria, the monks quickly intercepted Orestes' chariot in town and proceeded to bombard and harass him, calling him a pagan idolater. In response to such allegations, Orestes countered that he was actually a Christian, and had even been baptized by Atticus, the Bishop of Constantinople. The monks paid little attention to Orestes’ claims of Christianity, and one of the monks, by the name of Ammonius, struck Orestes in the head with a rock, which caused him to bleed profusely. At this point, Orestes’ guards fled for fear of their lives, but a nearby crowd of Alexandrians came to his aid, and Ammonius was subsequently secured and ordered to be tortured for his actions. Upon excessive torture, Ammonius died. Following the death of Ammonius, Cyril ordered that he henceforth be remembered as a martyr. Such a proclamation did not sit well with "sober-minded" Christians, as Scholasticus pointed out, seeing that he "suffered the punishment due to his rashness…because he would not deny Christ", and this fact, according to Scholasticus, became more apparent to Cyril through general lack of enthusiasm for Ammonius's case for martyrdom. Scholasticus then introduces Hypatia, the female philosopher of Alexandria and woman who would become a target of the Christian anger that grew over the feud. Daughter of Theon, and a teacher trained in the philosophical schools of Plato and Plotinus, she was admired by most men for her dignity and virtue. Of the anger she provoked among Christians, Scholasticus writes, Hypatia ultimately fell "victim to the political jealousy which at the time prevailed" - Orestes was known to seek her counsel, and a rumor spread among the Christian community of Alexandria in which she was blamed for his unwillingness to reconcile with Cyril. Therefore, a mob of Christians gathered, led by a reader (i.e. a minor cleric) named Peter whom Scholasticus calls a fanatic. They kidnapped Hypatia on her way home and took her to the "Church called Caesareum. They then completely stripped her, and then murdered her with tiles". Socrates Scholasticus was hence interpreted as saying that, while she was still alive, Hypatia's flesh was torn off using oyster shells (tiles; the Greek word is "ostrakois", which literally means "oystershells" but the word was also used for brick tiles on the roofs of houses and for pottery sherds). Afterward, the men proceeded to mutilate her, and finally burn her limbs. When news broke of Hypatia's murder, it provoked great public denouncement, not only against Cyril, but against the whole Alexandrian Christian community. Scholasticus closes with a lament: "Surely nothing can be farther from the spirit of Christianity than the allowance of massacres, fights, and transactions of that sort". "Chronicle", John of Nikiu Bishop John of Nikiu, who lived several hundred years after the events he describes, writes bitterly of Hypatia, claiming that "she beguiled many people through (her) Satanic wiles". Orestes, who Nikiu writes, was himself a victim of Hypatia's demonic charm, regularly honored her, and took to abandoning the Christian Church in order to follow her teachings more closely. Moreover, Orestes himself persuaded others to leave the Church in favor of Hypatia's philosophical teachings, and went as far as to host such "unbelievers" at his house. One day, Orestes published an edict "regarding public exhibitions in the city of Alexandria", and all citizens gathered to read Orestes's edict. Cyril, curious to see why the edict caused such an uproar, sent Hierax, a "Christian possessing understanding and intelligence", who although opposed to paganism, did as Cyril asked and went to learn the nature of Orestes's edict. Meanwhile, the Jews who gathered in anger over the edict, believed that Hierax had only come for the sake of provocation (which, according to Scholasticus's text, was Hierax's intent). Upon this assumption, Orestes had Hierax punished for a crime for which "he was wholly guiltless". For the punishment and torture of Hierax, as well as the death of several monks, including Ammonius, Cyril grew increasingly furious with Orestes. (Here, Nikiu blatantly ignores the assault on Orestes by the 500 monks, of which Ammonius played an active role in bringing about his torture and death.) Cyril then warned the Jews against any further harm upon the Christians. However, with the support of Orestes (which was in no way implied by Scholasticus), the Jews felt confident in defying Cyril's authority, and so one night ran through the streets proclaiming: "The church of the apostolic Athanasius (Alexander) is on fire: come to its succour, all ye Christians". The Christians responded to the claims only to be slaughtered by the Jews in a coordinated ambush. The next morning, all remaining Christians of the town came to Cyril with news of the massacre, after which Cyril marched with them to purge the Jews from Alexandria. In so doing, Cyril allowed the pillaging of their possessions, and soon after purified all the synagogues in the city and made them into Churches (Scholasticus makes no mention of "purifying" the Synagogues). In the expulsion of the Jews, Orestes was unable to offer them any assistance. Shortly thereafter, a group of Christians, under Peter the magistrate, went looking for Hypatia, the "pagan woman who had beguiled the people of the city and the prefect through her enchantments". They found her sitting in a chair, at which point they seized and brought her to "the great church, named Caesarion", where they proceeded to rip the clothes off of her body. Following this, they took to dragging her through the streets of Alexandria until she died. Once she had died, they burned her remains. Nikiu's description of Hypatia's death also differs from Scholasticus's interpretation. Following the death of Hypatia, Bishop Cyril was named "the new Theophilus". With the death of Hypatia, Nikiu writes, the Christians had expelled the last remnant of pagan idolatry. Works. No written work, widely recognized by scholars as Hypatia's own, has survived to the present time. Many of the works commonly attributed to her are believed to have been collaborative works with her father, Theon Alexandricus, this kind of authorial uncertainty being typical for female philosophers in Antiquity. A partial list of Hypatia's works as mentioned by other antique and medieval authors or as posited by modern authors: Her contributions to science are reputed to include the charting of celestial bodies and the invention of the hydrometer, used to determine the relative density (or specific gravity) of liquids. However, the hydrometer was invented before Hypatia, and already known in her time. Her student Synesius, bishop of Cyrene, wrote a letter describing his construction of an astrolabe. Earlier astrolabes predate that of Synesius by at least a century, and Hypatia's father had gained fame for his treatise on the subject. However, Synesius claimed that his was an improved model. Synesius also sent Hypatia a letter describing a hydrometer, and requesting her to have one constructed for him. Legacy. Late Antiquity to the Age of Reason. Shortly after her murder, there appeared under Hypatia's name a forged anti-Christian letter. The Neoplatonist historian Damascius (ca. AD 458–538) was "anxious to exploit the scandal of Hypatia's death", and attributed responsibility for her murder to Bishop Cyril and his Christian followers; that historical account is contained in the "Suda". Damascius's account of the Christian murder of Hypatia is the sole historical source attributing direct responsibility to Bishop Cyril. Maria Dzielska proposes that the bishop's body guards might have murdered Hypatia. The intellectual Eudokia Makrembolitissa (1021–1096), the second wife of Byzantine Emperor Constantine X Doukas, was described by the historian Nicephorus Gregoras as a "second Hypatia". Centuries later, the early 18th-century deist scholar John Toland used the murder of Hypatia as the basis for the anti-Catholic tract "Hypatia: Or the History of a most beautiful, most vertuous, most learned, and every way accomplish’d Lady; who was torn to pieces by the Clergy of Alexandria, to gratify the pride, emulation, and cruelty of their Archbishop, commonly, but undeservedly, stil'd St. Cyril". In turn, the Christians defended themselves from Toland with "The History of Hypatia, a most Impudent School-Mistress of Alexandria: Murder'd and torn to Pieces by the Populace, in Defence of Saint Cyril and the Alexandrian Clergy from the Aspersions of Mr. Toland", by Thomas Lewis, in 1721. 19th century. In the 19th century, interest in the "literary legend of Hypatia" began to rise. Diodata Saluzzo Roero's 1827 "Ipazia ovvero delle Filosofie" suggested that Cyril had actually converted Hypatia to Christianity, and that she had been killed by a "treacherous" priest. In 1843, German authors Soldan and Heppe argued in their highly influential "History of the Witchcraft Trials" that Hypatia may have been, in effect, the first famous "witch" punished under Christian authority (see Witch-hunt). In his 1847 "Hypatie" and 1857 "Hypatie et Cyrille", French poet Charles-Marie-René Leconte de Lisle portrayed Hypatia as the epitome of "vulnerable truth and beauty". Charles Kingsley's 1853 novel "Hypatia – or New Foes with an Old Face", which portrayed the scholar as a "helpless, pretentious, and erotic heroine", recounted her conversion by a Jewish-Christian named Raphael Aben-Ezra after supposedly becoming disillusioned with Orestes. In 1867, the early photographer Julia Margaret Cameron created a portrait of the scholar as a young woman. On 2 January 1893, a stage play "Hypatia", written by G. Stuart Ogilvie, opened at the Haymarket Theatre in London. It was based on the novel by Charles Kingsley, and was produced by Herbert Beerbohm Tree. The title role was initially played by Julia Neilson, and it featured an elaborate musical score written by the composer Hubert Parry. 20th century. Some authors mention her in passing, such as Marcel Proust, who dropped her name in the last sentence of "Madame Swann at Home," the first section of "Within a Budding Grove". Some characters are named after her, such as Hypatia Cade, a precocious child and main character in the science fiction novel "The Ship Who Searched" by Mercedes Lackey and Anne McCaffrey. Rinne Groff's 2000 play "The Five Hysterical Girls Theorem" features a character named Hypatia who lives silently, in fear that she will suffer the fate of her namesake. Hypatia is the name of a 'shipmind' (ship computer) in "The Boy Who Would Live Forever", a novel in Frederik Pohl's Heechee series. Umberto Eco's novel "Baudolino" sees the protagonist meet a secluded society of satyr-like creatures who all take their name and philosophy from Hypatia. A fictional version of the historic character appears in several works and indeed series, such as She also appears, briefly, as one of the kidnapped scientists and philosophers in the Doctor Who episode Time and the Rani. American astronomer Carl Sagan, in "", gave a detailed speculative description of Hypatia's death, linking it with the destruction of the Library of Alexandria. A more scholarly historical study of her, "Hypatia of Alexandria" by Maria Dzielska (translated into English by F. Lyra, published by Harvard University Press), was named by "Choice Magazine" as an "Outstanding Academic Book of 1995, Philosophy Category". She has been claimed by second wave feminism, most prominently as "", published since 1986 by Indiana University Press. Judy Chicago's large-scale "The Dinner Party" awards her a place-setting, and other artistic works draw on or are based on Hypatia. A central character in Iain Pears' "The Dream of Scipio" is a woman philosopher clearly modeled on (though not identical with) Hypatia. The last two centuries have seen Hypatia's name honored in the sciences, especially astronomy. 238 Hypatia, a main belt asteroid discovered in 1884, was named for her. The lunar crater "Hypatia" was named for her, in addition to craters named for her father Theon and for Cyril. The 180 km "Rimae Hypatia" is located north of the crater, one degree south of the equator, along the Mare Tranquillitatis. By the end of the 20th century Hypatia's name was applied to projects ranging in scope from an Adobe typeface (Hypatia Sans Pro), to a cooperative community house in Madison, Wisconsin. A genus of moth also bears her name. 21st century. Her life continues to be fictionalized by authors in many countries and languages. Two recent examples are "Ipazia, scienziata alessandrina" by Adriano Petta (translated from the Italian in 2004 as "Hypatia: Scientist of Alexandria"), and "Hypatia y la eternidad" (Hypatia and Eternity) by Ramon Galí, a fanciful alternate history, in Spanish (2009). Azazil, by Egyptian Muslim author Dr. Youssef Ziedan, tells the story of the religious conflict of that time through the eyes of a monk, including a substantial section on Hypatia; Zaydan's book has been criticized by Christians in Egypt. Her life is portrayed in the Malayalam novel "Francis Itty Cora" (2009) by T. D Ramakrishnan. Examples in English include More factually, "Hypatia of Alexandria: Mathematician and Martyr" (2007) is a brief (113 page) biography by Michael Deakin, with a focus on her mathematical research. Hypatia has been considered a universal genius. The 2009 movie "Agora", directed by Alejandro Amenábar, focuses on Hypatia's final years. Hypatia, portrayed by actress Rachel Weisz, is seen investigating the heliocentric model of the solar system proposed by Aristarchus of Samos, and even anticipating the elliptical orbits discovered by Johannes Kepler 1200 years later. In the 2013 play "False Assumptions" by Lawrence Aronovitch, Hypatia is portrayed as one of three ghosts observing the life of Marie Curie.
1064116	Tia Carrere (born Althea Rae Janairo; January 2, 1967) is an American actress, model, voice artist, and singer who obtained her first big break as a regular on the daytime soap opera "General Hospital". She is most widely known for her roles as Cassandra Wong in the feature films "Wayne's World" and "Wayne's World 2", as Nani in "Lilo & Stitch", its sequel films and "", as Queen Tyr'ahnee in "Duck Dodgers", and as Sydney Fox in the syndicated television series "Relic Hunter", and for her participations as a contestant in the second season of the United States version of "Dancing with the Stars" and the fifth season of "The Celebrity Apprentice". Early life. Carrere was born in Honolulu, Hawaii, the daughter of Filipino parents, Audrey Duhinio Janairo, a computer supervisor, and Alexander Janairo, a banker. Carrere identifies herself as being of "Filipino, Spanish, and Chinese descent ... raised in Hawaii." Carrere attended Sacred Heart Academy, an all-girls school. Carrere longed to be a singer as a child. Although she was eliminated during the first round of her 1985 "Star Search" appearance at the age of 17, she was spotted by a local producer while shopping at a Waikiki grocery store and was cast in the movie "Aloha Summer", which he produced and had a cameo in. Film and television career. Following this initial success, Carrere returned to Los Angeles, California and, after working several months as a model, landed a first ever role in the American television series "Airwolf" in early 1985. Her first major breakthrough was in the daytime soap opera "General Hospital". She played the role of Jade Soong Chung from 1985 to 1987. She also had a guest appearance on "Tour of Duty" and "The A-Team", which was supposed to lead to her joining the cast; her "General Hospital" obligations prevented her from joining the team. Her character was dropped after one episode, and was never mentioned again. She also made guest appearances on the shows "MacGyver" ("The Wish Child") as a sexy karate instructor, as well as a different assassin character in a later episode ("Murderer's Sky"), on "Anything But Love" as the adopted daughter of Marty Gold (Richard Lewis), and "Married... with Children" as Piper Bauman, a rival of Kelly Bundy, who attempted to steal a modeling job from her.
1100688	Noam David Elkies (born August 25, 1966) is an American mathematician and chess master. In 1981, at age 14, Elkies was awarded a gold medal at the 22nd International Mathematical Olympiad, receiving a perfect score of 42 and becoming one of just 26 participants to attain this score. the youngest ever to do so. Elkies graduated from Stuyvesant High School in 1982 and went on to Columbia University, where he won the Putnam competition at the age of sixteen years and four months, making him one of the youngest Putnam Fellows in history. He was a Putnam Fellow two more times during his undergraduate years. After graduating as valedictorian at age 18 with a summa cum laude in Mathematics and Music, he earned his Ph.D. at the age 20 under the supervision of Benedict Gross and Barry Mazur at Harvard University. In 1987, he proved that an elliptic curve over the rational numbers is supersingular at infinitely many primes. In 1988, he found a counterexample to Euler's sum of powers conjecture for fourth powers. His work on these and other problems won him recognition and a position as an associate professor at Harvard in 1990. In 1993, he was made a full, tenured professor at the age of 26. This made him the youngest full professor in the history of Harvard, surpassing previous then-youngest professors Alan Dershowitz, William H. Press, and Lawrence Summers (who were each made full professors at age 28). Elkies, along with A. O. L. Atkin, extended Schoof's algorithm to create the Schoof–Elkies–Atkin algorithm. He is a composer and solver of chess problems (winning the 1996 World Chess Solving Championship). Elkies is active in musical composition. He has discovered many new patterns in Conway's Game of Life and has studied the mathematics of still life patterns in that cellular automaton rule. Elkies also studies the connections between mathematics and music. He sits on the Advisory Board of the Journal of Mathematics and Music. Elkies is also a fellow at Harvard's Lowell House. He is a faculty adviser to the Harvard Israel Review.
393933	His Last Gift (; also known as "Last Present") is a 2008 South Korean film. Plot. Tae-ju, a murderer serving a life sentence in prison, is given a temporary release to save the life of a seriously ill young girl, Se-hee, who suffers from Wilson's disease and desperately needs a liver transplant. Se-hee is the daughter of Yeong-woo, and old friend of Tae-ju's who is now a police officer. Upon discovering that Se-hee's now deceased mother was his ex-girlfriend, Tae-ju realises that he is in fact her biological father, and does everything he can to try and save her life. Release. Prior to the release of the film, actors Shin Hyun-joon and Heo Joon-ho staged a charity concert in Seoul, intended to reflect on the main themes of the film. The concert was held on
583914	Avan Ivan () is a 2011 Tamil comedy-drama film written and directed by Bala, who with this project directs his fifth feature film. The film stars Arya, Vishal Krishna, Janani Iyer and Madhu Shalini in the lead roles. The film, produced by Kalpathi S. Agoram's AGS Entertainment, features music by Yuvan Shankar Raja, cinematography by Arthur A. Wilson and editing by Suresh Urs. Set in the backdrops of Theni, "Avan Ivan" illustrates the relationship between two boisterously playful half-brothers. The film, which was dubbed in Telugu as "Vaadu Veedu", released worldwide on 17 June 2011, to mixed to positive critical response. Plot. Walter Vanangamudi (Vishal Krishna) and Kumbudren Saamy (Arya) are half-brothers, who constantly fight and try to outdo each other. Both brothers are pickpockets and get encouragement from their respective mothers. Walter's mother Maryamma (Ambika) encourages her son to steal and continue their "family tradition". However, Walter, an aspiring actor with an effeminate touch, is rather interested in arts than committing crimes. The Zamindar (G. M. Kumar), referred to as 'Highness' by the community, takes an affinity towards Saamy and Walter and treats them as his own family. He constantly encourages Walter to take up acting seriously and to be friendly towards his brother. Walter is smitten by a Police Constable Baby (Janani Iyer) from whom he attempts to steal after being dared by his brother to prove himself. She finds him completely amusing and eventually falls for him. He returns several stolen goods from his home and from Kumbudren Samy to rescue her from being dismissed and goes to great lengths to impress her. Kumbudren Samy falls for a college student Thenmozhi (Madhu Shalini) who is intimidated by his rough ways at first but reciprocates his love later on. One day, a police inspector who had insulted the Zamindar is tracked down and punished by Kumbudren Samy and Walter. While Walter takes the police truck and dumps it in the forest, Kumbudren Samy is caught by the police inspector. He acts like he swallowed a blade so he can see Thenmozhi once before going to jail. He is rushed to the hospital sees her and fools the entire police force even though Baby is quite suspicious. Kumbudren Samy tries to bribe the doctor to lie but she tells the police constable who only pleads with the him but later gives up and releases him. Actor Suriya attends a school function in the town to promote educational awareness through his Agaram Foundation. Just as he is about to leave the Zamindar requests him to stay and witness Walter's acting skills, who shows off his depictions of the nine emotions (Navarasas) and impresses everyone, including Kumbedren Samy. The drunk Kumbredren Samy then reveals to the drunk Zamindar that he actually does love his brother and that all the anger and hate it is just an act. Meanwhile, the Zamindar exposes the illegal activities of a cattle smuggler (R. K.). The smuggler loses his animal farm and is taken into custody by the police amid media fare. Kumbudren Samy brings Thenmozhi to the Zamindar's house to introduce them to each other. Thenmozhi is identified to be the Zamindar's enemy's daughter, which Kumbudren Samy was unaware of. When the Zamindar tells him to break up with her, Saamy refuses and attacks him verbally, telling that he doesn't have a family and no one loves him so he would never understand. An angered Zaminder throws out Kumbudren Samy and Walter as well who tried to defend his brother and gets extremely drunk. Later that evening, both brothers make up with the Zamindar and invite him to their home. The Zamindar even signs over his land to Thenmozhi's father who was trying to get a hold of the land and organises for their marriage. Few days later, the smuggler returns, kidnaps the Zamindar and flogs him into unconsciousness, before hanging him to death from a tree. Walter and Kumbudren Samy are devastated and almost collapse with grief. While Kumbudren Samy fails in his attempt to take revenge, getting flogged and injured severely, Walter manages to bash up the smuggler and his men. The smuggler has been tied down under the platform with the Zamindar's body and is burnt to death along with the Zamindar, while both brothers dance madly. Production. Development. After finishing and releasing his magnum opus "Naan Kadavul" in February 2009, Bala, whose previous feature films had all been tragedy drama films dealing with serious and dark subjects, announced that for his next directorial, he would be moving away from such films and make a full-length light-hearted comedy film. He was working on its script in the following months, whilst declaring that it will be a double hero subject. Allegedly Bala had come to this decision, since his earlier films, despite receiving critical acclaim, garnered poor or only average box office returns. During the post-production phase, Bala disclosed that the film was "fun till the last 15 minutes, after which it turns serious", adding that he decided to "change tracks", after several people including his mentor Balu Mahendra advised him to do so. Though initially Soundarya Rajinikanth's Ocher Studios were reported to be the producer of the film, Kalpathi S. Agoram finally took up the project and decided to produce it under the banner of AGS Entertainment. On 25 January 2010, an official press meet was held, where the film's official title was finally revealed and the film's lead female actress as well as the technicians were announced, with which the project official commenced. During the launch, Bala told that unlike his earlier films, "Avan Ivan" would have an "extra dose of comedy, besides action and family sentiments." He had also disclosed that, unlike his earlier films, he will complete "Avan Ivan" within eight months of time and be ready for a release in late 2010. According to sources, Bala intended to name the film as "Avana Ivan" first, but as it was already registered by director Bharath, who was not willing to give away the title, he changed the title to "Avan Ivan". Casting. For the two lead male characters, who play step brothers in the film, several actors from the Tamil film industry were considered. Real-life siblings Surya and Karthi, as well as Jeeva and Githan Ramesh were considered for the roles, which were at last bagged by Arya, renewing his association with Bala after "Naan Kadavul", and Vishal Krishna. Vishal later creditted Arya, who were friends even before entering the film industry, for becoming part of the project. Both actors had to change their looks; they reportedly tonsured their heads for their roles, and kept their looks secretive, avoiding public appearances. Reports further suggested that Vishal played a transgender in the film, which he went on to deny, while clarifiying that he sports a squint and wore braces throughout the film. He reportedly became the first ever actor to attempt a squint look in a feature film, which was considered for an entry in The Guinness Book of World Records. Regarding the lead female roles, Bala and his close associates had travelled across entire Tamil Nadu, searching for the right person, who should be preferably a new face and fluent in Tamil language. In late November 2009 in association with Indiaglitz.com, a "heroine hunting" program was conducted through the internet, where women, who were 18-year old and could understand Tamil, could apply for the role. In November 2009, Varalaxmi Sarathkumar, daughter of actor Sarath Kumar, who will debut in "Podaa Podi" alongside Silambarasan Rajendar, was reportedly roped in for the role. However, at the official press meet in late January 2009, it was revealed that Janani Iyer, a Chennai-based model, who had appeared in several television advertisements, was chosen for the role. For another lead female character, Pooja Umashankar, who was also part of Bala's "Naan Kadavul", and Nivedhitha, who had starred in small-budget films "Kadhai" and "Porkkalam" were initially considered. Eventually, former Telugu VJ, model and actress Madhu Shalini was finalised, to portray the role of a college student and the love interest of Arya's character, while she was also made by Bala to dub for herself. Meanwhile, businessman-turned-actor R. K. was roped in for to play a villainous role. In May 2010, Suriya was signed to appear in a guest role as himself. Reemma Sen was also reported to perform a cameo role, however shortly before release, this was revealed to be a false news. Furthermore, Yuvan Shankar Raja was announced as the music director of the film, joining Bala again after the successful "Nandha" in 2001. About replacing his usual music director Ilaiyaraaja by his son, Bala said that since it was a youth-centric film, Yuvan Shankar Raja can "bring the right feel". Suresh Urs, who had worked on all Bala films since "Nandha", was roped in as the film's editor, while Arthur A. Wilson remained the cinematographer. S. Ramakrishnan was assigned to write the dialogues, after J. S. Ragavan and professor Gnanasambanthan were approached. Filming. Bala, whose films usually take several years to get completed and released, disclosed that this film, however, would be finished in eight months time. The film's shooting, which was supposed to commence on 10 February 2010 in Tenkasi and Shenkottah and to be completed in two schedules, started with a slight delay nine days later in Courtallam, where a major portion was shot. Almost the entire film was shot in and across Theni, with minor portions being filmed in Ambasamudram, and Chennai at the Kilpauk Medical College Hospital. The climax part was filmed at the last, which was completed by late January 2011 and with which Vishal had finished his portion. The entire shooting was completed in early February, with Vishal later confessing that he was the sole reason for the delay in completion. The film took almost 200 days to complete, but became Bala's fastest shoot nonetheless. From 10 February 2011, the dubbing and post-production works commenced. Soundtrack. "Avan Ivan"s soundtrack is composed by Yuvan Shankar Raja and marks his second collaboration with Bala, following a highly critically acclaimed work in "Nandha". Deviating from his usual style of composing, he did not use any Western musical elements such as synths and auto-tune, but only "pure ethnic (Indian) sounds", further disclosing that the entire album and score was recorded live. Yuvan Shankar recorded the whole orchestra in one take, after few rehearsals. In August 2010, an intense pathos song was recorded in the voice of Vijay Prakash, while the following month, he recorded several different Indian folk drums with 40 people. Yuvan revealed that he was given over two months time for each song, while Bala later commented that Yuvan's job for "Avan Ivan" was of "international standard". The Master recording was handed over by Yuvan Shankar Raja on 18 March 2011. The soundtrack album was released exactly one month later, on 18 April 2011 by Bala's mentor Balu Mahendra in a grand event held at the Residency Towers, Chennai. Controversially, the songs had been leaked to the Internet few days before the official release, after Sony Music had sent the master copies to abroad earlier. The album consists of 5 tracks, four songs and an instrumental, with lyrics penned by Na. Muthukumar. The lyrics for the Telugu version of the soundtrack, which was released on 1 June 2011 at Taj Banjara Hotel in Hyderabad, were written by Ananth Sreeram and Chandrabose. The song "Oru Malayoram" featured vocals by children Priyanka, Srinisha and Nithyashree, who were participants in the second season of the reality-based singing-competition Airtel Super Singer Junior. Only one songs from the soundtrack, "Dia Dia Dole", was used in its entirety, along with an altered shorter version of "Rasathi" and parts of "Mudhal Murai", while "Avanapathi" and "Oru Malayoram" were completely left out. The film however featured two additional tracks, not included in the soundtrack, which would be released in a second edition. Critical reception. The album received positive reviews from music critics. Richard Mahesh from Behindwoods gave a 2.5/5 rating and said "Yuvan Shankar Raja has experimented with a new-dimensional music that sounds good on the whole. While ‘Avanapathi’ and ‘Rasathi’ turning us irresistibly addictive to its tunes, ‘Oru Malayoram’ will be a melodic hit of this season." describing the album as "different but a laudable show by Yuvan" Pavithra Srinivasan from Rediff gave a 3/5 rating and said "When it comes to Avan Ivan, it looks like Yuvan has voluntarily tried to move out of his comfort zone, given up on his template and experimented, particularly with the instrumental arrangement and most times, it works. Go for it." Indiaglitz said "Songs from Bala's films never failed to disappoint us. The director has repeated the magic this time too and the credit goes to Yuvan Shankar Raja." Release. Prior to release, "Avan Ivan" was given a U/A (Parental Guidance) rating by the Central Board of Film Certification. It was reported to be distributed and marketed by Sun Pictures, however following the Tamil Nadu legislative assembly election, 2011 the production studio AGS Entertainment decided to release the film directly. Initially planned to release in January 2011, the release was pushed to April, before eventually releasing on 17 June 2011. The film was released by GK Media in 20 screens in the United States and reportedly became the biggest overseas release for Bala as well as Arya and Vishal . Owing to Vishal's popularity in Andhra Pradesh, Vishal's brother, Vikram Krishna, decided to dub the film into Telugu as "Vaadu Veedu" and release it under his GK Films Corporation banner simultaneously with the Tamil version. Reception. Critical response. The film received mixed to positive reviews from critics. "Behindwoods" gave two and a half out of five stars citing that the film had a "loose screenplay" but was compensated by a "power packed performance" by the actors. The reviewer compared Arya and Vishal Krishna saying "Unlike Vishal, Arya doesn’t have much scope over performance, but manages to remain under spotlights with his rib-tickling comedy tracks and dialogue delivery. Although we have the signature as ‘A Film By Bala’ during final credits, it’s worth mentioning that the film completely belongs to Vishal." A reviewer from "in.com" gave three and half out of five and said that the movie is a "definite watch for Bala's followers and to watch the new Vishal emerge as a performer". Further praising Vishal, the critic stats, "there is no doubt that from the beginning of the making of the film, there has been so much riding on Vishal's character as he has been playing the role of a squint and has done a fab job." Rohit Ramachandran of "nowrunning.com" gave it two out of five stars stating that ""Avan Ivan", in the end, is Vishal and Arya battling for recognition in the acting arena." "Supergoodmovies" also gave three and a half stars and concluded that ""Avan Ivan" will not let down the audience. Though not a typical Bala film, a feel of joy creeps as we watch the film. It is one of the best technically made movies by Bala so far." "Rediff" gave two and a half out of five and wrote that ""Avan Ivan" does have, at its heart, a nice storyline with plenty of comic elements. But director Bala doesn't really capitalize on its strengths, and never pulls you into the story except in parts which is disappointing, as he is among today's trend-setters in Tamil cinema." Malathi Rangarajan from "The Hindu" claimed that "the intermission leaves you wondering at the frivolousness and facileness of the story that's very much unlike Bala. Nothing much happens in the first hour or so. Thankfully, he makes amends with a riveting climax." A critic from "Oneindia.in" cited: "Watch the film for the expression of ‘Nava Rasas’ just after the interval bang and the climax scene and you will get a feel that it is a 100 per cent paisa vasool." "Chennai Online"s reviewer stated that Bala had "attempted to provide us with a film that has comical elements as its major strength. He has gone overboard and failed to present it with coherent script. As a result the movie turns out to be a disappointing experience despite having stunning performances", while "Indiaglitz" commented: "All said, "Avan Ivan" is not a typical Bala film, and it has its own dull moments, courtesy cliched scenes and dragging second half. But it also has many ingredients to entertain the masses." "CNN-IBN" wrote: "Overall "Avan Ivan" suffers from a sloppy script despite having some fine performances. The lack of balance between Bala's emphatic portrayal of different kind of life and his effort to provide fun is the major problem of the movie. The fun becomes farce and the seriousness turns out to be ineffective." Box-office. "Avan Ivan" sold 6.8 million tickets worldwide. It had a solo release on 17 June 2011. The film opened across 350 screens in Tamil Nadu and collected 8.9 million in the opening weekend at the Chennai box office. According to Sify, the film had earned a distributor share of 8.3 million from 18 Chennai screens. At the end of the third weekend, the film had earned 46.5 million in Chennai. Its dubbed Telugu version, "Vaadu Veedu" released simultaneously with the Tamil version, and grossed an estimated 15 million in the opening weekend in Andhra Pradesh, while collecting around 5 million in Nizam area only, which was considered a remarkable figure for a dubbed release. The dubbed version had reportedly earned 40 million in Andhra Pradesh, outclassing original Telugu ventures. In the United Kingdom, the film was released by Ayngaran International across 14 screens and collected $49,921 in the first three days, opening at 15th place. At the end of the second weekend, the film had earned $80,933 overall in UK. FiveStar distributed the film in Malaysia in 32 theatres, where it grossed $232,781 in the first weekend, opening at fourth.
1278391	Fading of the Cries is a 2011 American fantasy film written and directed by Brian Metcalf, produced by Brian Metcalf, Karoline Kautz and Thomas Ian Nicholas. It stars Brad Dourif, Thomas Ian Nicholas, Mackenzie Rosman and Elaine Hendrix. Synopsis. Jacob is a young man who defends his town from evil forces, aided by a magic sword. He saves a girl called Sarah from a hoard of the reanimated dead, and they escape through the floor of a church. An evil necromancer named Mathias confronts Sarah and demands an amulet given to her by her uncle before he died. Sarah refuses, and after threatening to unleash all the evils he can conjure, Mathias disappears.
744145	Ashton Holmes (born February 17, 1978) is an American actor, best known for the role of Jack Stall in "A History of Violence", Private Sidney Phillips in the HBO miniseries "The Pacific", and as Tyler Barrol on the ABC drama series "Revenge". Personal life. Holmes was born in Albany, New York. At a young age he began taking acting lessons and appeared in community theater. He attended The Albany Academy. During his senior year of high school, he attended the intern program of the New York State Theater Institute. Holmes was involved with the Albany music scene, and was the lead singer for local band Method of Groove. During this time, Holmes befriended Nyack, New York band Coheed and Cambria, and began shopping around their demos to local indie labels. According to the Coheed and Cambria documentary "", in which Holmes appears, it was Holmes who eventually earned them their first record deal with Equal Vision Records. Career. Holmes made his debut on television with a recurring role in the daytime soap opera "One Life to Live". In 2005 he starred in David Cronenberg's film "A History of Violence". The next year, he had a recurring role on ABC's series "Boston Legal". He also appeared in "Peaceful Warrior" in 2006, "What We Do Is Secret" and "Normal Adolescent Behavior" in 2007. In 2007 Holmes co-starred with Emily Blunt in the horror film "Wind Chill". In 2008 he appeared in the comedy-drama film "Smart People". On television he appeared in episodes of ', "Cold Case", "Ghost Whisperer", "Numbers", "House", ' and "". In 2010 Holmes played Sid Phillips in the HBO miniseries "The Pacific". From 2010 to 2011, he starred as Thom in The CW series "Nikita". From 2011 to 2012, he appeared as Tyler Barrol on the ABC drama series "Revenge". On February 21, 2013, it was reported that Holmes was cast as Wyatt Bickford in the ABC drama pilot "Reckless".
393754	Kim Kang-woo (born July 11, 1978) is a South Korean actor. Career. Kim majored in film production at Chung-Ang University, and made his debut in Kim Ki-duk's 2002 film "The Coast Guard" while still a senior, later commenting that the role of a soldier was the only one he could get without any prior experience. Subsequent roles in the drama series "Breathless" and "Three Leafed Clover" earned Kim the nickname "Mr. Right" as he became known for his portrayal of honest and diligent characters. His first leading film role was in Jeong Jae-eun's 2005 sophomore feature "The Aggressives", for which he and co-star Chun Jung-myung were the co-recipients of the "Best New Actor" award at the 6th Pusan Film Critics Awards. In 2007, Kim starred in Park Heung-sik's "The Railroad", which told the story of two strangers who reveal their inner pain to each other when they are stranded at the last railway station before the Korean Demilitarized Zone. Kim was upset when the film was only released in ten theatres, and went to screenings by himself in an effort to promote the film, where he greeted and conversed with members of the audience. In spite of its poor box office performance, "The Railroad" found favour with critics, and Kim won the "Best Actor" award at the 25th Torino Film Festival. Although happy to win the award, Kim found it more gratifying to observe Italian audiences responding to the film in the same way as Korean audiences, recognising the power of film to transcend national borders. He also admitted to being anxious because of the increased expectations people would have over his future performances. Kim found commercial success with his next film, "Le Grand Chef", which despite opening during a slow season sold more than three million tickets to become the fourth biggest selling South Korean film of 2007. Based on a popular manhwa, the film focused on the conflict between two rival chefs, played by Kim and Im Won-hee. To prepare for his role, Kim attended cooking classes for one and a half months, and for one crucial scene in particular he visited a slaughterhouse, receiving a big shock as he knew nothing about the slaughtering process. In addition, he was required to film a number of scenes with a cow, and spent some ten days acquainting himself with it—grooming it, feeding it and taking it for walks—remarking that it was "like working with a very sensitive actress". Personal life. On June 18, 2010, Kim married his longtime girlfriend Han Moo-young (older sister of actress Han Hye-jin). Their son was born in 2011.
1169764	Fred Stoller (born March 19, 1958) is an American stand-up comedian, actor, writer, and voice artist. Early life and career. Stoller had been a stand-up comedian in nightclubs since the early 1980s at the time of his first television appearance, in 1987, when he appeared on "Stand-Up America" and later on "The Young Comedians Special" alongside six other comedians. He is best known for his frequent appearances as Gerard on the CBS sitcom "Everybody Loves Raymond", Mr. Lowe in "Ned's Declassified School Survival Guide" and as Sheldon Singer, the son of Harold Gould's deli-owning character, on the short-lived sitcom "Singer & Sons". He has also made guest appearances on several other TV series. He wrote two episodes of "Seinfeld" ("The Soup" and the Kramer/chimpanzee subplot of "The Face Painter"). Stoller is also known as the voices of Stanley in the "Open Season" franchise, Rusty the Wrench on "Handy Manny" and Fred the Squirrel in "The Penguins of Madagascar". In 2012, Stoller published a successful e-book titled "My Seinfeld Year", in which he chronicled his experiences after being hired as a new staff writer. He has since released a book titled "Maybe We'll Have You Back: The Life of a Perennial TV Guest Star".
657725	Shaheb Name Golam (also ) is a Bangladeshi Bengali language film directed and written by Razo Chowdhury. Produced and distributed by MO: Korshad Alam. It is a family drama-based film, starring Shakib Khan and Mousumi in the lead roles. It also features Nirob, Shahara, Recy, Misa Shoudhagor, Omar Sunny in supporting roles. Music. 'Shaheb Name Golam' films music directed by Imon Saha. all song become super duper hit. Soundtrack. ! Track's !! Title's !! Singer's !! Performer's
1151712	Naturi Cora Maria Naughton (born May 20, 1984) is an American singer-songwriter, rapper, and actress. Naughton is formerly one-third of the R&B trio 3LW and is perhaps best known for her roles in "Fame", "Notorious", and "The Playboy Club". Naughton was a series regular in season one of the Lifetime television drama series "The Client List" as Kendra. Early life and education. Naughton was born and raised in East Orange, New Jersey, the daughter of Brenda, a part-time paralegal, and Ezra Naughton, a retired accountant. Her musical talent first emerged at the age of five years old, when she joined her church choir at New Hope Baptist Church in East Orange, New Jersey. She attended St. Joseph's Catholic school, and later attended Immaculate Conception High School in Montclair, New Jersey. It was soon after that time, Naughton was discovered. She has sung the national anthem at various events in New Jersey and attended Seton Hall University. Career. 3LW. In 1999, at age 15, Naughton joined Adrienne Bailon and Kiely Williams to form the group 3LW. Their first single, "No More (Baby I'ma Do Right)", was released in the fall of 2000. "No More" was a success and was followed by the second single, "Playas Gon' Play" in early 2001. The group's debut album, "3LW", was released on December 5, 2000. The album went platinum, selling 1.3 million copies in the U.S. In the summer of 2001, the group went on the MTV TRL tour along with Destiny's Child, Dream, Nelly, Eve, and Jessica Simpson. 3LW spent the first half of 2002 in the studio, recording an album tentatively titled "Same Game, Different Rules". The album and its intended lead single "Uh Oh" were presented to the label, who felt it did not have enough urban radio appeal. The tracks from "Same Game, Different Rules" were leaked to the Internet in MP3 format, and Epic considered dropping the band. A fan support campaign for 3LW named 'Never Let Go of 3LW' followed, and the act was retained. Recording a new set of tracks, 3LW returned in the summer of 2002 with the P. Diddy-produced single "I Do (Wanna Get Close To You)", featuring Loon. By August 2002, the group was set to release its newest LP, "A Girl Can Mack", when Naughton announced that she was no longer a member of the group. Naughton says that the other two girls and their management had forced her out. The problems reached a breaking point after a heated argument with Williams, Bailon, and their manager, which allegedly ended with Williams throwing a hot plate full of KFC food at Naughton. Epic Records then ended their relationship with both 3LW and Naughton. Despite Naughton's departure both Bailon and Williams resumed as a duo for a short amount of time and later Jessica Benson became Naughton's replacement. The group has since disbanded. Solo work. Naughton recorded five tracks for the "Fame" soundtrack which was released on August 25, 2009. The following month Naughton scored her first solo chart entry ever with her cover of "Fame" peaking at No. 33 on the UK Singles Chart. The single also reached the Top 20 in Finland, Portugal and Norway. In 2010 an Extended Play was released titled "Fame Presents Naturi Naughton as Denise". The EP included tracks already heard before as well as previously unreleased tracks. In February 2010, when appearing on the BET talk show "The Mo'Nique Show", Naughton expressed interest in recording a solo-debut album. However, Naughton has revealed she is instead focusing on her acting career but has not ruled out an album. An ensemble of demos have leaked to the internet, including a duet with Lil' Kim. However, it is unknown whether or not they will be released on her debut album. She was believed to be working with music producer Full Force at the time. Acting work. Throughout 2005 to 2008, Naughton starred in the Tony Award-winning Broadway musical "Hairspray" as Little Inez. In March 2008 Naughton was cast to portray Grammy Award-winning rap artist Lil' Kim in "Notorious", a biopic film about The Notorious B.I.G. The film was released in January 2009 to mixed reviews and went on to make over $43 million worldwide. Despite the mixed reviews, Naughton in particular received positive reviews from critics for her portrayal. The film marked Naughton's first and only role which required nudity and sexuality. Naughton was cast as Denise, an aspiring singer, in the Lionsgate remake of the 1980 film of the same name "Fame". Filming took place in New York City and Los Angeles in November and December 2008. The film was released in September 2009 and opened No. 3 at the U.S. box office in its opening weekend despite negative reviews from critics. The film went on to make $77 million worldwide. In August 2010, Naughton was announced to appear in an episode of the award-winning AMC drama television series "Mad Men". Naughton portrays the role of Toni Charles, a Playboy Bunny mistress to the character Lane Pryce. The episode, "Hands and Knees", aired on September 26, 2010. The role marked the second time Naughton portrayed a fictional Playboy Bunny. That same month Naughton appeared in the Warner Bros. Pictures comedy film "Lottery Ticket". In March 2011, Naughton appeared in the drama television series pilot "The Playboy Club" which centers around the lives of the employees of the original Playboy Club operating in Chicago. The series was picked up by NBC in May 2011. Naughton portrayed the role of Brenda, a Playboy Bunny who dreams of being the first African-American Playboy centerfold. The series premiered on September 19, 2011 and was cancelled after three episodes due to low ratings. In October 2011, Naughton appeared in an episode of the FX sitcom "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia". Naughton portrays the role of a 1970s jazz club singer named Sha-Dynasty. In December 2011, Naughton was announced to have been cast in the Lifetime drama television series "The Client List" opposite Jennifer Love Hewitt. The series is a re-imagining of the 2010 film of the same name "The Client List". Naughton portrays the role of Kendra a hard-working masseuse at a parlor. The series premiered on April 8, 2012 to 2.79 million viewers and mixed reviews from critics. In May 2012 Lifetime renewed the series for a 15-episode second season. In September 2012, Naughton will star in the upcoming BET original film "Let The Church Say Amen" which is adapted from author ReShonda Tate Billingsley's 2005 best-selling novel of the same name. The film will be the directorial debut of actress Regina King.
583288	Renuka Shahane (born 27 March 1965) is an Indian actress working in the Bollywood film industry and in Indian television, best known as the presenter of Doordarshan TV show "Surabhi" (1993–2001). Personal life. Renuka Shahane was born in Maharashtra. She studied Arts from Mithibai college. She is married to Ashutosh Rana, also a Bollywood actor. They have two sons, Shouryaman and Satyendra. Career. Shahane started her career with the Marathi film "Hach Sunbaicha Bhau" and has done many Marathi Films. She then worked in the popular TV show, Surabhi. She became popular after her role in "Hum Aapke Hain Koun..!", a 1994 blockbuster film. She released her first Marathi film as a director called "Rita". Adapted from her mother Shanta Gokhale's novel, "Rita Welingkar", Renuka plays the pivotal role of a friend, guide and philosopher of Rita, the main protagonist. Renuka has Jackie Shroff, Pallavi Joshi, Suhasini Mulay and Mohan Agashe in the cast. Circus was one of the initial Indian television serials that she starred in. She portrayed the love interest of then relatively unknown Shah Rukh Khan's character. Her role as a strong-willed woman in another television serial Imtihaan was widely appreciated.
1395927	Paul Guilfoyle (; born April 28, 1947) is an American television and film actor. He is currently a regular cast member of the forensic television drama "" where he plays Captain Jim Brass. Early life. Guilfoyle was born in Canton, Massachusetts. He attended Boston College High School and spoke at the 2005 commencement of the school's seniors. Guilfoyle enrolled at Lehigh University in 1968. He eventually graduated from Yale in 1977 with a major in economics. He studied at the Actor's Studio before building up a substantial theatrical reputation on and off Broadway, including 12 years with the Theatre Company of Boston, appearances in David Rabe's "The Basic Training of Pavlo Hummel" with Al Pacino and in David Mamet's "Glengarry Glen Ross". He is often mistakenly referred to as the son of character actor Paul Guilfoyle but they are not related. Career. Guilfoyle appeared in "Howard the Duck", and in an early episode of "Crime Story", playing a criminal who takes a hostage, getting into a shootout with the Major Crimes Unit. He has since become one of the industry's leading character actors, specializing in roles on both the good and bad side of law enforcement. His television appearances most notably include guest roles on "Miami Vice", "Law & Order", "New York Undercover", "Ally McBeal" and "Justice League Unlimited" as Travis Morgan, the Warlord. His film credits are numerous, spanning nearly three decades. His appearances in notable films include "Three Men and a Baby", "Wall Street", "Celtic Pride", "Beverly Hills Cop II", "Quiz Show", "Hoffa", "Mrs. Doubtfire," "Air Force One", "Striptease", "Amistad", "The Negotiator", "Extreme Measures", "Session 9", "Primary Colors" and "L.A. Confidential". Guilfoyle also appears in Alter Bridge's video for their single "Broken Wings", and the HBO original movie "Live from Baghdad". Guilfoyle is best known for his role as L.V.P.D. Captain James "Jim" Brass in the crime drama "", a role he had since the show's inception in 2000. Personal life. Guilfoyle lives in New York City with his family. He is fluent in French.
1064048	This Is Spinal Tap is an American 1984 rock music mockumentary directed by Rob Reiner about the fictional heavy metal music band Spinal Tap. The movie satirizes the wild personal behavior and musical pretensions of hard rock and heavy metal musical bands, as well as the hagiographic tendencies of rock documentaries of the time. Reiner and the three main actors are credited as the writers of the movie, based on the fact that much of the dialogue was ad libbed by them. Several dozen hours of footage were filmed before Reiner edited it to the released movie. A 4½ hour bootleg version of the movie exists and has been traded among fans and collectors for years. The three main members of Spinal Tap—David St. Hubbins, Derek Smalls and Nigel Tufnel—are played by the American actors Michael McKean, Harry Shearer and Christopher Guest, respectively. The three actors play their musical instruments and speak with mock English accents throughout the movie. Reiner appears as Marty DiBergi, the maker of the documentary. Other actors in the movie are Tony Hendra as group manager Ian Faith, and June Chadwick as St. Hubbins' interfering girlfriend Jeanine. Actors Paul Shaffer, Fred Willard, Fran Drescher, Bruno Kirby, Howard Hesseman, Ed Begley, Jr., Patrick Macnee, Anjelica Huston, Vicki Blue, Dana Carvey, Billy Crystal, Brinke Stevens, and Linnea Quigley all play supporting roles or make cameo appearances in the movie. In 2002, "This Is Spinal Tap" was deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" by the Library of Congress and was selected for preservation by the United States National Film Registry. Plot. Stylistically the movie is a parody of rock documentaries, purportedly filmed and directed by the fictional Marty DiBergi (Rob Reiner). The faux documentary covers a 1982 United States concert tour by the fictional British rock group "Spinal Tap" to promote their new album "Smell the Glove", but interspersed with one-on-one interviews with the members of the group and footage of the group from previous periods in their career. The band was started by childhood friends, David St. Hubbins (Michael McKean) and Nigel Tufnel (Christopher Guest), during the 1960s. Originally named "The Originals", then "The New Originals" to distinguish themselves from an existing group of the same name, they settled on the name "The Thamesmen", finding success with their skiffle/Rhythm and blues single "Gimme Some Money". They changed their name again to "Spinal Tap" and enjoyed limited success with the flower power anthem "Listen to the Flower People". Ultimately, the band became successful with Heavy metal music and produced several albums. The group was joined eventually by bassist Derek Smalls (Harry Shearer), keyboardist Viv Savage (David Kaff), and a series of drummers, each of whom mysteriously died in odd circumstances, including spontaneous human combustion, a "bizarre gardening accident" and, in at least one case, choking to death on the vomit of person(s) unknown. DiBergi's interviews with St. Hubbins and Tufnel reveal that they are competent composers and musicians, but are dimwitted and immature. Tufnel, in showing his guitar collection to DiBergi, reveals an amplifier that has volume knobs that go to eleven; when DiBergi asks, "Why don't you just make ten louder and make ten be the top number and make that a little louder?" Tufnel can only reply, ""These" go to "eleven"." Tufnel later plays a somber quasi-classical music composition on piano for DiBergi, claiming it to be a "Mach piece" (a hybrid between Mozart and Bach), before revealing the composition to be entitled "Lick My Love Pump". As the tour starts, concert appearances are repeatedly canceled due to low ticket sales. Tensions continue to increase when several major retailers refuse to sell "Smell the Glove" because of its sexist cover art and there is growing resentment shown towards the group's manager Ian Faith (Tony Hendra). Tufnel becomes even more perturbed when St. Hubbins' girlfriend Jeanine (June Chadwick) — a manipulative yoga and astrology devotee — joins the group on tour, begins to participate in band meetings, and attempts to influence their costumes and stage presentation. The band's distributor, Polymer Records, opts to release "Smell the Glove" with an entirely black cover without consulting the band. The album fails to draw crowds to autograph sessions with the band. To revive interest, Tufnel suggests staging a performance of "Stonehenge," an epic song that is to be accompanied in concert by a lavish stage show, and asks Ian to order a giant Stonehenge megalith for the show. However, Tufnel, rushing a sketch on a napkin, mislabels its dimensions, using a double prime symbol instead of single prime. The resulting prop, seen for the first time by the group during a show, is only 18 inches high (instead of the intended 18 feet), making the group a laughingstock on stage. The group accuses Faith of mismanagement, and when St. Hubbins suggests Jeanine should co-manage the group, Faith quits in disgust. The tour continues, rescheduled into smaller and smaller venues. Tufnel becomes marginalized by Jeanine and St. Hubbins. At their next gig (at a United States Air Force base near Tacoma, WA) Tufnel is upset by an equipment malfunction and leaves the group in the middle of a show. In their next gig, in an amphitheater at an amusement park (second-billed behind a puppet show), they find that Nigel's absence severely limits their repertoire. They are forced to improvise a fusion-esque, experimental song entitled "Jazz Odyssey", which is poorly received. At the last show of the tour, as the group considers venturing into a musical theatre production on the theme of Jack the Ripper entitled 'Saucy Jack', Tufnel reappears and informs them that he is "a messenger" from Ian Faith and "Sex Farm" is wildly popular in Japan, in fact it's at number 5 in the charts there. He then tells David that Faith would like to arrange a new tour in that country. David is initially cool to the idea, but later, when on stage, David beckons Nigel on to join them and he grabs his guitar and plays with them onstage. David then gets caught up in the moment of the tour's final performance and not only allows Nigel to return, but rehires Faith back as manager as well. Despite losing their drummer Mick Shrimpton (R.J. Parnell) as he inexplicably explodes onstage, the film ends with Spinal Tap playing a series of sold-out arena shows for enthusiastic fans on their Japanese tour. Reception. "This Is Spinal Tap" was only a modest success upon its initial release. Audience feedback cards from early screenings had comments such as "Too shaky. Get new cameraman." However, the film found greater success, and a cult following, after it was released on video. Since its release, "This Is Spinal Tap" has received universal acclaim from critics and is widely regarded as one of the best films of 1984. Roger Ebert of the "Chicago Sun-Times" gave the film 4 stars out of 4 and wrote ""This Is Spinal Tap" is one of the funniest, most intelligent, most original films of the year. The satire has a deft, wicked touch. Spinal Tap is not that much worse than, not that much different from, some successful rock bands." Ebert later placed the film on his ten best list of 1984. The film currently holds a 95% "Certified Fresh" rating on the review aggregate website Rotten Tomatoes. In 2002, "This Is Spinal Tap" was deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" by the Library of Congress and was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry. Critics praised the film not only for its satire of the rollercoaster lifestyles of rock stars but also for its take on the non-fiction film genre. David Ansen from "Newsweek" called the film "a satire of the documentary form itself, complete with perfectly faded clips from old TV shows of the band in its mod and flower-child incarnations" (qtd. in Muir 31). Even with cameos from Billy Crystal and Patrick Macnee, "Spinal Tap" still managed to trick many of its moviegoers into believing the band existed. Reiner admits "when "Spinal Tap" initially came out, everybody thought it was a real band... the reason it did go over everybody's head was that it was very close to home" (qtd. in Yabroff par. 1). The movie cut close to home for some musicians. Jimmy Page, Robert Plant, Jerry Cantrell, Dee Snider and Ozzy Osbourne all reported that, like Spinal Tap, they had become lost in confusing arena backstage hallways trying to make their way to the stage. Singer Tom Waits claimed he cried upon viewing it and Eddie Van Halen has said that when he first saw the film, everyone else in the room with him laughed as he failed to see the humor in the film. "Everything in that movie had happened to me," Van Halen said. When Dokken's George Lynch saw the movie he is said to have exclaimed, "That's us! How'd they make a movie about us?" Glenn Danzig had a similar reaction when comparing Spinal Tap to his former band The Misfits saying, "When I first saw Spinal Tap, I was like, 'Hey, this is my old band.'" On Pete Townshend's 1985 album "", the back cover describes Pete Fountain, a "famous guitarist" visiting the title location, as seen by an old childhood friend. When Pete mentions an incident where his drummer complained that "the caviar in their dressing room was the wrong viscosity - for throwing," the friend notes ""This is Spinal Tap" is obviously a true story." Lars Ulrich told a press conference crowd that the Metallica/Guns N' Roses 1992 tour seemed "so Spinal Tap." This tour was in support of Metallica's own "black album". Shortly after the tour started, Metallica's James Hetfield suffered third degree burns on his arms after he stood too close to a pyrotechnic device. Earlier in that tour, backstage at the Freddie Mercury Tribute Show, Metallica met with Spinal Tap and discussed how their "black album" was an homage to Spinal Tap's "Smell the Glove". This was captured on the Metallica DVD "A Year and a Half in the Life of Metallica". In a 1992 interview, Nirvana explains declining the offer to be a part of the movie Singles. Kurt Cobain goes on to say, “There’s never really been a good documentary on rock and roll bands.” Dave Grohl then cuts in saying, “Except for Spinal Tap, was the only rock movie worth watching.” Which Kurt agreed with, as well as mentioning Don’t Look Back, by D.A. Pennebaker. According to a 1997 interview in "Spin" magazine with Aerosmith rhythm guitarist Brad Whitford, "The first time ] saw it he didn't see any humor in it." When the movie was released, Aerosmith's most recent album, "Rock in a Hard Place", depicted Stonehenge prominently on the cover. It became a common insult for a pretentious band to be told they were funnier than Spinal Tap. As George Lynch put it, the more seriously a band took themselves, the more they resembled Spinal Tap. After seeing a 1986 performance by British metal band Venom, singer Henry Rollins compared them to Spinal Tap. In their respective "Behind the Music" episodes, Quiet Riot's Rudy Sarzo and Ratt's Robbin Crosby compared their own bands to Spinal Tap to some extent. For example, as a parallel to the "Shit Sandwich" incident, Quiet Riot's fourth album "Condition Critical" was given the two-word review of "Condition Terminal" by J. D. Considine in "Musician" magazine. His review of the short-lived band GTR's eponymous debut LP in the same magazine was "SHT." R.E.M.'s Mike Mills described early tours as "very Spinal Tap", citing, among other things, the fact that they had indeed played at a United States Air Force base. According to Harry Shearer in the Criterion edition DVD commentary, keyboard player John Sinclair had just returned from touring with Uriah Heep when principal photography was about to begin, and told them how they had been booked to play an air force base. They subsequently used the story in the film. U2 guitarist The Edge said in the documentary "It Might Get Loud" that when he first saw "Spinal Tap" "I didn't laugh, I wept," because it summed up what a brainless swamp big-label rock music had become. Canadian heavy metal band Anvil, whose drummer is named Robb Reiner, have been called "the real Spinal Tap" based on the misadventures depicted in their documentary "Anvil! The Story of Anvil". In the Pearl Jam documentary "Pearl Jam Twenty", the band members joke around about the fact that all of the band members are still the original members but they have had 5 drummers over the years describing this as 'very Spinal Tap of us'. In the documentary a mock silent film called the Drummer Story is shown explaining what happened to their previous drummers. In the silent film one of them is almost eaten by a seamonster only to be rescued by Eddie Vedder who plays a lifeguard. In 2008, "Empire" magazine ranked "This Is Spinal Tap" number 48 on its list of "The 500 Greatest Movies of All Time". "The New York Times" also placed the film on their list of "The Best 1000 Movies Ever Made". In January 2010, "Total Film" placed "This Is Spinal Tap" on its list of "The 100 Greatest Movies of All Time". When "Entertainment Weekly" compiled their list of "The 100 Greatest Movies of All Time", the publication included the film as "just too beloved to ignore". In 2011, "Time Out London" named it the best comedy film of all time. American Film Institute recognition Home video release. "This Is Spinal Tap" has been released twice on DVD. The first release was a 1998 Criterion edition which used supplemental material from the 1994 Criterion Laserdisc release. It is their only double sided DVD in their catalogue. It included an audio commentary track with Christopher Guest, Michael McKean and Harry Shearer; a second audio commentary track with Rob Reiner, Karen Murphy, Robert Leighton and Kent Beyda; 79 minutes of deleted scenes; "Spinal Tap: The Final Tour", the original twenty-minute short they shot to pitch the film; two trailers that feature Rob Reiner showing a film about cheese rolling (because "Spinal Tap" itself was still in the editing room); a TV promo, "Heavy Metal Memories"; and a music video for "Hell Hole". Sales of this edition were discontinued after only two years and the DVD has become a valuable collector's item. Much of this material had appeared on a 1994 CD-ROM by The Voyager Company that included the entire film in QuickTime format. In 2000, MGM Home Entertainment released a special edition with more or less the same extras from the Criterion edition, plus a new audio commentary track with Guest, McKean and Shearer performing in character throughout, commenting on the film entirely in their fictional alter-egos, and often disapproving of how the film presents them; 70 minutes of deleted scenes (some of which were not on the Criterion DVD); a new short, "Catching Up with Marty DiBergi" (where it is revealed that the members of Spinal Tap were very disappointed in DiBergi for making a "hatchet job" of their film); the "Heavy Metal Memories" promo and six additional TV promos; music videos for "Gimme Some Money", "Listen to the Flower People" and "Big Bottom"; and segments of Spinal Tap appearing on "The Joe Franklin Show". The special features were produced by Automat Pictures. However, this version of the film was missing the subtitles that appear throughout the film (for example, introducing band members, other personnel, and location names) and did not include the commentaries from the Criterion edition. The MGM DVD is missing the subtitles burned into the film; they have been replaced with player generated subtitles. A 25th Anniversary Edition Blu-ray Disc release was released on July 28, 2009. It includes all bonus features from the MGM DVD plus an interview with Nigel about Stonehenge and the band's Live Earth performance. It does not include the commentaries from the Criterion Collection DVD, even though MGM had stated that they would be included in the earliest press release for the Blu-ray version (most likely due to legal issues). Additionally, it does not include the promised "create your own avatars" features. However, this version does restore the subtitles that introduce band members/locales/events/etc. that were missing from MGM's DVD. On IGN, "This Is Spinal Tap" was the only DVD—and seemingly the only thing reviewed on IGN—to get 11 out of 10, though this is a joke in reference to the memorable scene in the film. Appearances in other media. Harry Shearer, who played Derek Smalls, went on to become one of the main voice artists on "The Simpsons", providing voices for Principal Skinner, Mr. Burns, Waylon Smithers, Ned Flanders and many others. Spinal Tap's members voiced cartoon versions of themselves in "The Otto Show". The Internet Movie Database's ranking for This Is Spinal Tap is on a scale from one to eleven, rather than their usual scale of one to ten, paying homage to Tufnel's amplifier that can be turned up to eleven instead of ten.
582850	Na Tum Jaano Na Hum (, , translation: "Neither you know nor I") is a 2002 Bollywood romance film starring Hrithik Roshan, Esha Deol and Saif Ali Khan. The film is directed by Arjun Sablok. Despite a strong star cast the film failed at the box office although it had a good story quite different from usual love stories. Plot. Esha Malhotra (Esha Deol) is a bright, spirited girl who has just left college. She finds a note from a past student of her school that coincides with her own feelings of love. She calls into a radio station and requests a song, repeating the words left on the note. An anonymous man calls in soon after, stating that he is the one who had written the letter and he would like to meet her someday since they seem to be the same. The radio announcer sets up a date and time for their meeting at the radio station. The man arrives but finds only a letter waiting for him. The letter does not state her name or address, only a post box number to which she requests him to write to so that they can be friends. The correspondence begins. The man turns out to be photographer Rahul Sharma (Hrithik Roshan). They do not meet, exchange numbers or tell their names but continue to write each other. Fate brings the two together when Esha hires Rahul to be their photographer for a campaign, of course she didn't know it was him nor he did that it was her.
1559132	Linda Haynes (born November 4, 1947) is a blonde-haired American actress who appeared in several films in the 1970s and early 1980s before retiring from the business and becoming a legal secretary. A life member of The Actors Studio, Haynes is best known for her roles in "Coffy", "The Nickel Ride", "Rolling Thunder", "The Drowning Pool", "Human Experiments", "", and "Brubaker". Career. Haynes' first film was "Latitude Zero" in 1969, which also starred Cesar Romero, Richard Jaeckel, and Joseph Cotten. She mysteriously left the acting world in 1980 and was found in 1995 by director Quentin Tarantino and author Tom Graves. In 2011 Graves published a short ebook about her titled "Blonde Shadow: The Brief Career and Mysterious Disappearance of Actress Linda Haynes". Critical Evaluation. Although no comparably substantive treatments of her career have surfaced thus far, Graves and Tarantino are far from alone in citing the integrity of Haynes' work - though some also note a corresponding failure of filmmakers to put it to good use. In her 1977 review of "Rolling Thunder" in New York Magazine, Molly Haskell remarks: The men... come off better than the women because they are excused from ever uttering a word. Linda Haynes, who was so exciting and authentically rural in Robert Mulligan's "Nickel Ride", has that most thankless role of the adoring and impossibly patient woman who must babble on to fill the silences. In his book-length critique of cinema's track record, regarding the homecoming veteran, author Emmett Early discusses the same film: Linda Haynes plays the barmaid with measured abandon. She says at one point, after Charlie has involved her in a violent scene, "Why do I get stuck with crazy men?" Charlie replies, "That's the only kind that's left." He describes himself as already dead when she tries to make love to him. Like Charlie, the movie fails to take advantage of her talents. Reviewing the 2011 DVD release of "The Nickel Ride", Slant Magazine's Fernando F. Croce (who elsewhere cites "the unheralded Linda Haynes") notes that its downtrodden protagonist (portrayed by sometime playwright Jason Miller): nevertheless hangs on to a thread of taciturn self-respect largely thanks to his "cracker wife" Sarah (perennial "Whatever Happened To?" case Linda Haynes, a sort of thrift-store Sissy Spacek who can imprint a whole blowsy lifetime into the way she shimmies her hips). Reviewing the same film, critic Glenn Erickson notes that the protagonist's "intensely loyal... ex-dancer girlfriend' is portrayed by "the remarkable Linda Haynes."
1605667	Tove Christensen (born February 20, 1973) is a Canadian film producer and actor, and the older brother of Golden Globe Award-nominated actor Hayden Christensen. Early life. Christensen was born in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, the son of Alie, a speechwriter for the heads of large companies, and David Christensen, a software program writer and communications executive. His father is Danish Canadian and his mother has Italian and Swedish ancestry. Christensen stands 6 foot and 4 inches. He has a younger brother, Hayden Christensen, and two younger sisters, Hejsa and Kaylen. Career. Christensen has done both film producing and acting. He is best known for producing the film "Shattered Glass" in which his brother, Hayden, starred, working with actors Peter Sarsgaard, Chloë Sevigny, Rosario Dawson, Melanie Lynskey and Hank Azaria. Tove Christensen also produced "The Education of Charlie Banks", which starred Jesse Eisenberg and Jason Ritter. He has acted in one film, "Without Limits", which starred Donald Sutherland, Billy Crudup, Monica Potter, and Matthew Lillard, and in television's Buffy the Vampire Slayer in which he played a supporting character of a prom attendee who gets assaulted by "devil dogs". He had one line in the episode and was billed only as "Tuxedo Boy". Arrest. On September 2, 2009 Christensen was arrested for allegedly assaulting his girlfriend by dragging her 30 feet behind his car. He was held on $30,000 bail.
584082	Punnagai Poove ( ; ) is a 2003 Tamil romantic drama film directed by D. Sabapathy of "V. I. P" and written by R. N. R. Manohar, director of "Masilamani", starring Nandhaa of "Mounam Pesiyadhe" fame, newcomer Rekha Vedavyas and Kaveri in lead and the likes of Vadivelu, Senthil and renowned music composer M. S. Viswanathan in other supporting roles, whilst Bollywood actress Sarika, ex-wife of Kamal Haasan, making a comeback to Tamil films after 17 years, and music composer Yuvan Shankar Raja, who scored the music for this film as well, make special cameo appearances in the film. The film, produced by 'Kalaippuli' S. Thanu, released on 20 April 2003. Soundtrack. The film score and soundtrack were composed by Yuvan Shankar Raja, who teamed up with director D. Sabapathy for the first time. The soundtrack released on 3 November 2002 and features 8 tracks with lyrics penned by Arivumathi, Pa. Vijay, Pazhani Bharathi and M. Rathnakumar. For the first time, composer Yuvan Shankar Raja made an appearance in a film, by featuring in and performing one of the songs, "En Kadhal", which was sung by himself as well. One additional song, "Idhu Innisaiya", sung by Bollywood singer Hema Sardesai and Yuvan Shankar Raja, featuring Bollywood actress Sarika on screen, was not included in the soundtrack. Other music featured in the film include:
687545	Cheryl Lynn "Rainbeaux" Smith (June 6, 1957 – October 25, 2002) was an American actress. She was known for her role in the exploitation film "Caged Heat". Career. Smith was born in Los Angeles, California. Smith's first film appearance was in the short "The Birth of Aphrodite", after a friend of her mother suggested her for the role. This led to supporting roles in other films, including the cult classic B-movies "Caged Heat", "Phantom of the Paradise", "The Swinging Cheerleaders", "Revenge of the Cheerleaders", "The Pom Pom Girls", "Laserblast" and a cameo role in "Cheech and Chong's Up in Smoke". Her starring debut was in the cult horror film "Lemora".
1015851	The God of Cookery () is a 1996 Hong Kong comedy film directed by Hong Kong comedian, actor and director, Stephen Chow, best known in the West for his films "Shaolin Soccer" and "Kung Fu Hustle". This is known to be Chow's first film to utilize deep and sometimes dark themes while retaining his signature nonsensical style. An 35-mm print of the film brought by Amanda Cohen of "Dirt Candy" was shown at a sold-out screening at one of Alamo Drafthouse Cinema South Lamar's "Food and Film Events". Synopsis. The story begins in medias res, with Stephen Chow having ordered and subsequently criticized Turkey's (Karen Mok) Assorted Noodles for its lack of taste, terrible choice of ingredients and feces in the pig's colon, as she lashes out at him for his criticism towards her cooking. He tells her he is the God Of Cookery.
1170300	Larisa Romanovna Oleynik (; born June 7, 1981) is an American actress. She came to fame in the mid-1990s, after starring in the title role of the popular television series, "The Secret World of Alex Mack", and has also appeared in theatrical films, including "The Baby-Sitters Club" and "10 Things I Hate About You".
589892	Shehzada ((English Translation: The Prince)) is a 1972 Bollywood drama film directed by K. Shankar, set during the British Raj. The film stars Rajesh Khanna and Raakhee as the lead pair and supporting cast included Veena, Pandari Bai and Karan Dawan.The music was given by R.D.Burman. Reception. "Shehzada" grossed 1.90 crores in 1972 at the box-office and was declared "Semi-Hit".
1034478	Rodney Bewes (born 27 November 1937) is an English television actor and writer who is best known for playing Bob Ferris in the BBC television sitcom "The Likely Lads" (1964–66), its colour sequel "Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads?" (1973–74), the various radio series based on them (1967–68 and 1975), and in the big screen film "The Likely Lads" (1976). Life. Bewes was born in Bingley near Bradford in the West Riding of Yorkshire. His early life was a typical northern working class childhood, until his family moved to Luton in Bedfordshire, where he attended Stopsley Boys' School. Because of his early ill-health (he suffered from asthma) his mother tended to keep him off school. From the age of 12 he was appearing in television plays for the BBC, and at 14 he moved to London to attend RADA's preparatory school. After two years of national service in the RAF, Bewes went to RADA. At nights he was working in hotels, doing the washing up, to finance his studies at RADA during the day, and hence was frequently to be found asleep in class. He was expelled during his final year. In the early 1960s he was appearing in productions at the Borough Polytechnic Institute (now London South Bank University) alongside Richard Briers and Brian Murphy. He then began appearing in repertory theatre and obtained parts in the television shows "Dixon of Dock Green" (1962) and "Z-Cars" (1963). He also appeared in the film version of "Billy Liar" (1963) alongside his close friend Tom Courtenay. The following year his northern working class background and natural northern accent stood him in good stead, landing him the role of northern working class hero Bob Ferris in "The Likely Lads". In between his two spells as a 'Likely Lad' in the 1960s and 1970s, Bewes also appeared in "Man in a Suitcase" (1967), "Father, Dear Father" (1968) and as "Mr Rodney" on "The Basil Brush Show" (1968–69). Bewes starred in his own ITV sitcom "Dear Mother...Love Albert" (1969–72), which he also created and co-wrote. He also appeared in the film "Spring and Port Wine" (1970) which starred James Mason, and played the Knave of Hearts in "Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland" (1972). Some of Bewes's later film and television roles include "Jabberwocky" (1977), "The Spaceman and King Arthur" (1979), "The Wildcats of St. Trinian's" (1980), and the 1984 "Doctor Who" serial "Resurrection of the Daleks". His television career largely ended in the mid-1980s. Although he is better known for his comedy and light entertainment roles, viewers were given an opportunity to see Bewes's serious acting ability in a made-for-TV film adaptation of John Ford's 17th century play, Tis Pity She's a Whore" (1980). During 1982, he served as spokesman for the now defunct trade organisation the British Onion Marketing Board, appearing in a number of print advertisements during the year. On stage Bewes has enjoyed success in the 1990s and since with one-man versions of "Three Men in a Boat" and "Diary of a Nobody", both of which shows he has toured extensively in the United Kingdom. At the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 1997 he won the Stella Artois Prize for his one-man production of "Three Men in a Boat". In July 2013 he was The Marshal (Petain) in the Southwark Playhouse production of Ustinov's "The Moment of Truth". The autobiography of Rodney Bewes, "A Likely Story", was published in September 2005. Bewes revealed in it, and also on Michael Parkinson's BBC Radio 2 show in 2005, that his "Likely Lads" co-star James Bolam has not spoken to him for the last 30 years, after they fell out over a misunderstanding regarding a press interview Bewes had given. In 2010 Bewes also complained about his former co-star's refusal to allow repeats of "The Likely Lads", preventing his earning anything from them; "he must be very wealthy; me, I've just got an overdraft and a mortgage."
1166105	Michaela Suzanne Watkins (born December 14, 1971) is an American comedic actress best known as a cast member on "Saturday Night Live" from 2008–2009 and for her recurring role as Lucy in the sitcom "The New Adventures of Old Christine". Early life. Watkins was born in Syracuse, New York, the daughter of Myrna and Mark Watkins. She is of Jewish heritage. She went to Jamesville-Dewitt -Moses-Dewitt Elementary School and Wellesley High School in Wellesley, Massachusetts. Michaela is a graduate of Boston University, where she studied theater and acting. Watkins lived in Portland, Oregon from 1996–2000. She built a theatrical career there, appearing onstage with Portland Center Stage and the defunct improv group Toad City Productions. Subsequently she became active in Los Angeles Theatre for many years, taking on roles with Circle X Theatre and 2100 Square Feet. "Saturday Night Live". In November 2008, Watkins joined the cast of "Saturday Night Live" along with Abby Elliott. Watkins made her first major appearance on the show as Arianna Huffington on the November 22nd Weekend Update. Watkins remained on "SNL" as a featured player throughout the rest of the 2008-2009 season, up to the season finale on May 16, 2009. However while "SNL" was on summer hiatus, the news broke in early September 2009, that Watkins, along with fellow castmate Casey Wilson, were both to be let go from the show and would not be returning for the 2009-2010 season. In a statement, Watkins said: I will say to you now, though, that I had a GREAT time there. Met some of the most truly talented and fantastic people, had the most exciting job and I honestly can say I don't have any regrets I can think of right now. Although it seems kinda crazy right now, this may shake out to make sense to everyone. Lorne isn't known for indulging in any lip-service and I feel very encouraged by his words last week. I'm working on something I'm very excited about now, so... the journey continues, and I feel so lucky I got to stop off at 30 Rock. It was awesome. Post-"SNL". After her exit from "SNL" in September 2009, Watkins has returned to Los Angeles and continues to perform at The Groundlings. Watkins had a supporting role in the romantic comedy "The Back-Up Plan" starring Jennifer Lopez and Alex O'Loughlin. Watkins played the part of Mona, the longtime best friend of Jennifer Lopez. In December 2009, she returned for two episodes of "The New Adventures of Old Christine", playing her recurring role of Lucy. In 2011, Watkins appeared with recurring roles in the comedy programs "Enlightened" and "New Girl". As well as making guest appearances on shows such as "Hung", "Curb Your Enthusiasm", and "Modern Family", she most recently appeared in the 2012 comedy "Wanderlust" starring Paul Rudd and Jennifer Aniston. In 2013, she will co-star with Malin Åkerman, Bradley Whitford, and Marcia Gay Harden in the upcoming ABC family comedy "Trophy Wife". The series will premiere on September 24, 2013. Personal life. Watkins is married to Fred Kramer, who is the executive director of the Jewish World Watch organization. They married in July 2013.
1060450	Peter Berg (born March 11, 1962) is an American actor, film director, producer and writer. He is known for directing films such as "The Rundown" (2003), "Friday Night Lights" (2004), "The Kingdom" (2007), "Hancock" (2008) and "Battleship" (2012). He also developed the television series "Friday Night Lights", which was adapted from the film he directed. As an actor he is best known for his role as Dr. Billy Kronk on the CBS medical drama "Chicago Hope". Early life. Berg was born in New York City, New York. He is the son of Sally and Laurence "Larry" Berg. Berg's father was Jewish and his mother Christian. He is the cousin of writer H. G. Bissinger, whose book "Friday Night Lights" provides the basis for the film and TV series of the same name. His mother co-founded a youth group named Catalog for Giving and worked at a psychiatric hospital when Berg was growing up. He has a younger sister, Mary. After graduating from The Taft School in 1980, Berg attended Macalester College in Saint Paul, Minnesota, where he majored in theater arts and theater history. He graduated in 1984, and in 1985 moved to Los Angeles to pursue his film career. Career. Berg put his acting aspirations on hold when he first arrived in Los Angeles, choosing instead to learn about the film business as a production assistant. In 1992, Berg gained recognition for playing a World War II soldier in the film "A Midnight Clear". In 1998, Berg made his feature directorial debut with "Very Bad Things", a black comedy starring Jon Favreau, Christian Slater, Jeremy Piven, Daniel Stern, and Leland Orser. The film, which was shown at the Toronto and San Sebastian Film Festivals, received mixed critical reception. In 2000, he created "Wonderland", an edgy dramatic television series set in an asylum. While the ABC show received rave reviews and garnered a cult following, it failed to deliver ratings and was quickly canceled. Berg in 2003 directed "The Rundown". Starring Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson and Seann William Scott, the Berg-helmed action comedy received mixed reviews from critics and disappointed at the box office, only grossing 80 million of its reported 85 million budget. In 2004, Berg began work on his third directorial effort, "Friday Night Lights", a football film based on the New York Times bestseller written by Buzz Bissinger. In 2006, Berg developed and became executive producer of NBC’s Peabody and Emmy Award-winning drama "Friday Night Lights", based on the novel and film of the same name. Berg followed up in 2007 with "The Kingdom", a Michael Mann-produced political thriller set in Saudi Arabia, starring Academy Award winners Jamie Foxx and Chris Cooper, also with Jennifer Garner whom Berg met when he appeared in a two-part episode of "Alias" where he played Garner's ex-boyfriend. Berg’s film "Hancock", starring Will Smith, Charlize Theron and Jason Bateman, was one of the biggest grossing films of 2008. Berg directed the Hulu.com commercial featuring Alec Baldwin, which both The New York Times and Time magazine named best spot of Super Bowl XLIII. In 2009, Berg directed a two-hour pilot movie for a Fox television series "Virtuality". Even though the show was not picked up for a full season, the pilot was released on DVD exclusively through Best Buy. Berg also directed the ESPN documentary "Kings Ransom" in 2009. Berg also wrote the 2010 film "The Losers". Berg also directed the 2012 science-fiction/action film "Battleship", and is developing a sequel to "Hancock", the film adaptation of Marcus Lutrell's book "Lone Survivor", and a live-action version of the graphic novel "". Personal life. On August 28, 1993, Berg married long-time girlfriend Elizabeth Rogers; they divorced in 1998. Berg has a son, Emmett, who was born December 1999. He began dating comedienne Whitney Cummings in early 2013.
1061713	Jessica Claire Timberlake (born March 3, 1982), better known by her maiden and professional name, Jessica Biel"," is an American actress, model and singer. She began her career as a vocalist appearing in musical productions until she was cast as Mary Camden in the family-drama series "7th Heaven", for which she achieved recognition. The series till now is the longest-running series that has ever aired on The WB channel and is the longest-running family drama in television history.
1043873	Alexander Knox (16 January 1907 – 25 April 1995) was a Canadian actor and author of adventure novels set in the Great Lakes area during the 19th century. Biography. Born in Strathroy, Ontario, he graduated from the University of Western Ontario and later moved to Boston, Massachusetts to perform on the stage with the Boston Repertory Theater. After the company folded following the stock market crash of 1929, Knox returned to London, Ontario where for the next two years he worked as a reporter for "The London Advertiser" before moving to London, England where, during the 1930s he appeared in several films. He starred opposite Jessica Tandy in the 1940 Broadway production of "Jupiter Laughs" and in 1944, he was chosen by Darryl F. Zanuck to star in "Wilson", the biographical film about US President Woodrow Wilson, for which he won a Golden Globe Award and was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor. However, during the McCarthy Era, he was blacklisted by the Hollywood film studio bosses and he returned to England.
676220	Woman Obsessed is a 1959 romantic drama film about the hardships faced by a widow and her eight-year-old son on a rugged Canadian ranch.
1016352	Rob-B-Hood (, also known as Robin-B-Hood) is a 2006 Hong Kong action comedy film written, produced, and directed by Benny Chan, and starring Jackie Chan, Louis Koo and Michael Hui. The film was produced with a budget of HK$130 million (US$16,8 million) and filmed between December 2005 and January 2006. "Rob-B-Hood" is the first film in over 30 years in which Jackie Chan plays an anti-hero. "Rob-B-Hood" tells the story of a kidnapping gone wrong in Hong Kong; a gang of burglars consisting of Thongs, Octopus and the Landlord kidnap a baby from a wealthy family on behalf of triads. With the Landlord arrested, Thongs and Octopus take care of the baby for a short time, developing strong bonds with him. Reluctant to hand the baby over, the two are forced to protect him from the triads who hired them in the first place. "Rob-B-Hood" was released in Hong Kong, China and Southeast Asia on 29 September 2006 based in Hong Kong to generally positive reviews. The film topped the Chinese box office in October 2006 and despite not being given a release in most European and North American countries, it grossed over US$20 million worldwide. Plot. The film begins showing Thongs and Octopus evading security guards in a hospital, having stolen money and cancer medication from the safe. Meanwhile, a newborn baby to the wealthy Lee family is snatched by Max, the mother's ex-boyfriend, prompting the security guards give chase, ignoring the burglars, and corner Max on an escalator. Following a violent struggle, Max and the baby fall over the side—The baby is caught by Thongs, while Max plummets to his death. While the guards are distracted, Thongs and Octopus leave in the Landlord's minivan. A few months later, the Landlord finds his flat burgled, his life savings gone. He receives a phone call from his middleman Uncle Seven, offering him a job to kidnap baby Lee on behalf of a triad boss, who claims the baby is his grandson. Enticed by the HK$7 million reward, Thongs and Octopus accept the job without knowing its objectives, finding out only after the Landlord has fled the Lees' mansion with the baby. Disgusted by the idea of kidnapping a baby, Thongs threatens to return him, but relents after the Landlord tells him of his predicament. En route to their rendezvous point in Sai Kung, the trio encounter a police road block which the Landlord attempts to outrun, only to crash his van down a hill. As the police close in on them, the stuck Landlord instructs Thongs and Octopus to leave with the baby. While in custody for reckless driving, the Landlord learns of the baby's value through the news. He phones Thongs, instructing him not to hand the baby over to anyone prior to his release so he can jack up the price. Over the next few days, Thongs and Octopus take care of the baby, developing a strong bond with him. The two begin to regret their vices: Thongs resists the urge to gamble, while Octopus feels sorry for cheating on his wife. Meanwhile, both the triads and the police are after the baby. The triad boss, enraged by the non-delivery of his "grandson", sends his men to retrieve the baby from Thongs' flat. Confronted by both the triads and Police Inspector Mok, Thongs and Octopus go into hiding with the baby. Shortly after his release, the Landlord is brought to the triad boss, who increases his offer to HK$30 million for the baby. He finds Thongs and Octopus at the hospital, where the baby is being treated for fever. The Landlord informs the two of the triads' latest offer, but Thongs and Octopus are more concerned about the baby's welfare than the cash. However, the two agree to bring the baby to the triad boss' mansion, where the Landlord will meet them with the rest of the money. They reach the triad boss' mansion and hand over the baby reluctantly. As the trio are about to leave, they hear the baby crying for them as a blood sample is taken from his arm. Thongs and Octopus experience a flashback of the days they spent with the baby. Overcome by their feelings, they fight their way into the triad boss' private amusement park to recover the baby while the Landlord leaves with the money. Thongs almost manages to escape with the baby, but is forced to surrender when the triads threaten to hurl Octopus to his death. Thongs and Octopus are taken to the triad boss, who insists the baby is his grandson, only to be proven wrong by the blood test. Driven mad, the boss places the baby in a deep freeze room next to Max's corpse so the baby can be with his son, prompting Thongs and Octopus to fight for the baby. The two end up trapped in the room with two minions, but are saved when Inspector Mok arrives with the Landlord, who swiftly cracks the lock to the room. Thongs and Octopus run to the garage with the comatose baby, where Thongs attempts to revive him with a makeshift defibrillator powered by a car battery from a Pagani Zonda. Despite his efforts, the baby does not come to and is driven off in an ambulance, where his heart is found to be beating weakly. Imprisoned for kidnapping, Thongs, Octopus and the Landlord volunteer for a mock capital punishment demonstration during an open day, using the opportunity to apologize to their loved ones. After the demonstration, Inspector Mok informs the three that their sentences have been further reduced by the Department of Justice. Thongs, Octopus, and the Landlord then see the baby alive and well with his parents. As a token of appreciation for saving the baby's life, Thongs, Octopus and the Landlord are offered jobs by the Lee family as a bodyguard, chauffeur and head of security respectively. Production. "Rob-B-Hood" was a joint production from JCE Movies Limited, a company set up by Jackie Chan in 2003, and Huayi Brothers Film & Taihe Investment Company, distributors of films such as "Warriors of Heaven and Earth", "The Banquet" and "". Chan has starred in over 50 action films, and has intimated in recent years that he has grown tired of being typecast as the "nice guy". The film is notable as the first in over 30 years, in which he plays a negative character—a criminal and compulsive gambler. Writing. Jackie Chan contacted Benny Chan shortly after the release of "New Police Story" to discuss plans for a new action film. Chan stated that he did not want to play the typical nice guy role that has been the staple of his previous films. Eventually, Benny Chan and scriptwriter Alan Yuen came up with a daring idea: Chan will play Thongs, a petty criminal who has fallen out with his family over his gambling habit. Benny Chan had originally intended for Jackie to play a full-fledged villain, who "hits women and burns people with cigarettes". However, the script was toned down to appease the Chinese censors, who found the character to be too evil. Nevertheless, for only the third time in his acting career, Chan plays a character who is sentenced to prison. Chan co-wrote the film and designed the action sequences, whilst director Benny Chan wrote the film's dramatic elements, completing the script by October 2005. Two additional protagonists were designed as Thongs' partners in crime, with the intention of increasing the comedic value of the film through their interactions. The film's Chinese title is "Bo Bui Gai Wak" (Cantonese: 寶貝計劃, literally "Project BB", with "BB" being a homophone for "Baby"), a reference to Chan's award winning 1983 film "Project A" (Cantonese: "A Gai Wak", A計劃). Casting. The cast of "Rob-B-Hood" includes actors ranging from newcomer Gao Yuanyuan to veteran actor Chen Baoguo. Daniel Wu and Nicholas Tse, stars of "New Police Story", make cameo appearances as homosexual security van drivers during a car chase in the film. Octopus, Thong's partner in crime, is played by Louis Koo, an award winning actor with past appearances including the TVB drama series "Detective Investigation Files IV" and the films "Election" and "Election 2". Although Koo co-starred with Jackie Chan, a number of action scenes involving his character were shot with a stunt double. In addition, Koo was the baby's favourite on set—Whenever the baby cried, Koo was always the first to cheer him up. The Landlord, the leader of Thongs and Octopus, is played by Michael Hui, a Hong Kong Film Award-winning comedic actor who starred in various box office hits from 1970s to 1990s before emigrating to Canada shortly before the handover of Hong Kong. Hui was chosen for the part because he is the ideal actor to play a character who persuades others to do bad things. The producers had originally intended Hui to fight along with Chan and Koo, however, it was eventually decided that Hui would simply act as the brains of the gang. "Rob-B-Hood" features a collaboration between Jackie Chan and Yuen Biao. The pair, along with Sammo Hung, were Peking Opera School classmates and co-starred in a number of action comedy films in the 1980s, including "Project A", "Wheels on Meals", and the "Lucky Stars" trilogy. Chan had originally intended to co-star with both Yuen and Hung, reuniting the trio for the first time since 1988 film "Dragons Forever". However, Hung declined due to a scheduling conflicts. Yuen Biao plays the role of Police Inspector Steve Mok, assigned to investigate the baby's disappearance. Some of Yuen's past antics were revisited in "Rob-B-Hood", including a fight in which he tried in vain to handcuff Chan's character. Over 100 auditions were held before the suitable baby was found to star in the film. Benny Chan chose Matthew Medvedev, a one-year old infant of Chinese and Colombian descent. Medvedev, known as Baby Matthew, was literally recruited off the street when an assistant director spotted him with his parents on the MTR. Although his family was simply visiting Hong Kong, they agreed to stay and let Matthew appear in "Rob-B-Hood". Filming. "Rob-B-Hood" is the third Jackie Chan film directed by Benny Chan, following "Who Am I?" and "New Police Story". Filming took place in Hong Kong between December 2005 and April 2006 with a budget of HK$16.8 million. Filming locations included Central, Sai Kung, Sha Tin, Hong Kong Ocean Park, Cyberport, Tai Po Waterfront Park and Victoria Prison. Benny Chan described the filming process as some of the darkest days of his career, explaining that the baby was a factor beyond his control, and could not work more than eight hours a day. Whenever a scene involving the baby was shot, the crew members had to be silent, communicating in sign language. Benny Chan stated it took time, patience, and money to guide the baby through each shot, and numerous retakes were required due to the baby's constant crying and napping. As a result, production went over budget. Special methods were sometimes used to coax the baby into cooperation. One scene required the baby to suckle Chan's nipple. The baby was initially hesitant, but relented after the crew brushed a large amount of honey onto the nipple. Jackie Chan was the stunt director of "Rob-B-Hood", having choreographed all the stunts with the Jackie Chan Stunt Team. He continued his tradition of performing his own stunts in the film, for example, jumping between several air-conditioners on the outer wall of a tall building to reach the ground. Several scenes required Chan to coordinate his stunts with the baby, including a car chase around the Sha Tin industrial area, in which he managed to snatch the baby away seconds before a car crashed into him; and a scene in Ocean Park in which he climbed on the underside of a roller coaster with the baby in hand. Chan suffered minor injuries attempting stunts in the film, having been kicked in the chest by a stuntman wearing the wrong boots and fallen off a quad bike, while attempting to perform a wheelie. Chan's combat choreography included the use of improvised weapons in combat; when he fought a pair of skilled henchmen in a deep freeze room, he defeated them by spraying them with milk and then using a large fan to blast them with cold air. Releases. "Rob-B-Hood" had its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival on 8 September 2006. After the film's premiere at the Venice Film Festival, several scenes highlighting the personal relationships between characters were deleted from "Rob-B-Hood" prior to its release to the general public. Benny Chan explains that including too many dramatic scenes may distract the audience from the plot. The uncut version of "Rob-B-Hood" is included in the DVD release as the "Extended Version" feature. The cut version of the film was released simultaneously in Hong Kong, China, Singapore, Malaysia and other Southeast Asian countries on 29 September. Afterwards, "Rob-B-Hood" was released in Japan on 7 April 2007. Greece remains the only European country in which "Rob-B-Hood" was released, on 13 February 2007. The film is rated IIA in Hong Kong (unsuitable for children), G in Singapore and U in Malaysia. The Japanese title of "Rob-B-Hood" is プロジェクトBB ("Purojekuto BB"), literally "Project BB", the name initially proposed for the film. In Greece, the film is known as Ασύλληπτοι Απατεώνες (transliteration: "Asulliptoi Apateones"), meaning "Inconceivable Frauds". In the United States, the film is known as "Robin-B-Hood". DVD. The first pressing of the DVD was released in Hong Kong in November 2006 on Region 0. This has since been discontinued and the subsequent standard and limited edition releases were on Region 3. All Hong Kong versions contain two discs: a movie disc and an extras disc. The movie disc features both the cinematic and uncut versions of the film, along with a commentary track by Benny Chan. The extras disc contains a "behind-the-scenes" video, the post-production press conference, a collection of deleted scenes and the music video of the theme song. The limited edition DVD is housed in a box-file style box and contains various pieces of merchandise including branded sandals and door signs. An even more limited release of 5000 units was briefly available, and handed out at various film festivals. This edition contained a crystal dummy, an imitation bank note and a branded 2007 calendar in addition to the merchandise in the other limited edition release. The DVD was later released in other East Asian countries, including China (Region 6), Japan (Region 2), South Korea, Thailand and Malaysia (Region 3). On December 26, 2007, the DVD was released in the US (Region 1) by Dragon Dynasty in a "two-disc ultimate edition", which contains much of the same extras as the Hong Kong releases, including the commentary by Benny Chan, though with US trailers replacing the domestic ones. However, the runtime for this release is 126:28, which is somewhere between the theatrical cut (121:46) and the director's cut (135:11) on the Hong Kong releases. On May 24, 2010, DVD was released in Cine Asia in a "two disc ultimate edition" at the UK in Region 2. Reception. "Rob-B-Hood" was generally well received by critics. The film received praise at the Venice Film Festival for having a delicate balance between action and drama. Jay Weissberg of "Variety" described the film as "a mildly fun ride that banked on Jackie's tried-and-true comic charm in a standard baby kidnapping farce enlivened by just enough action sequences to keep hoary diaper scenes from soiling the playpen". Credit was given to the stunt choreography and the acting partnership of Jackie Chan and Louis Koo, although some reviewers were disappointed about the absence of Sammo Hung. The plot of "Rob-B-Hood" received mixed reviews: The Chinese newspaper "Xiao Xiang Chen Bao" found it concise, hilarious and touching, whereas Jay Weissberg criticised it for being unoriginal. In addition, Felix Cheong of "Channel NewsAsia" found the subplots involving the antagonists' families redundant, detracting from the main story and making the film "tediously long". However, Chan was praised for his decision to play a darker character in "Rob-B-Hood". Andrew Sun of "South China Morning Post" stated that "one of the best things Chan can do for his flagging movie career is to play a heavy—a nasty, scum-of-the-earth antagonist, since you do not always have to play a hero to be a hero." Sun emphasised the need for Chan to show flexibility in his roles, citing a number of actors that have thrived by playing the occasional villain. Box office. "Rob-B-Hood" grossed HK$1.2 million the day it was released in Hong Kong. In China, the film topped the box office during the four day National Day holiday weekend, grossing ¥8.9 million. It went on to top the Chinese box office in October with box office figures exceeding ¥90 million. "Rob-B-Hood" performed well in Southeast Asia, grossing US$404,000 in Singapore, US$400,000 in Malaysia and US$604,000 in Thailand during its first four days. In total, "Rob-B-Hood" had a worldwide gross of US$20,434,179 despite not being released in North America and most of Europe.
484610	Media. OVAs. Four single episode original video animations (OVA) have been released in the "Boku no Pico" series. Each episode was directed by Katsuyoshi Yatabe and produced by Natural High. The first was released to DVD by Soft on Demand on September 7, 2006. The second followed on April 16, 2007. The third episode was released on October 9, 2008. A box set containing the first two episodes and the soundtrack CD was released by Soft on Demand on April 19, 2007. On November 11, 2007, the first OVA was re-edited with a different script and re-released. The edited version is the only one of the series to be considered appropriate for viewers under 18. Manga. A single chapter manga, was written by Aoi Madoka and published in the May 2007 issue of "Hanaota". Game. On April 6, 2008, it was confirmed on the producer's blog that a PC game, starring Pico and Chico, is being produced. The game will have its own "new theme song". The game was released on January 29, 2010. Song Collection. A compilation of songs, , was released in Japan on July 9, 2009. The running time is 30 minutes, and it includes more than 8 music videos starring the characters from previous OVAs. It also includes sing-along and karaoke options to each song.
588491	Thathwamasi is a 2010 Malayalam film directed by Viswa Chaithanya. Vineeth, Lakshmi Gopalaswamy and Manikkuttan plays the lead roles in this film. Plot. Thathwamasi is about a group of pilgrims’ travelling from a border village in Kerala to Sabarimala to visit Lord Ayyappas temple. A police constable, an atheist, who is on duty there, joins them. Unexpected incidents that happen during the journey transform their life forever.
899553	After the Fox () is a 1966 British-Italian comedy film starring Peter Sellers and directed by Vittorio De Sica. The screenplay is in English, by Neil Simon and De Sica's longtime collaborator Cesare Zavattini. Despite its notable credits, the film was poorly received when it was released. It has since gained a cult following for its numerous in-jokes skewering pompous directors (including Cecil B. de Mille, John Huston, Federico Fellini, Michelangelo Antonioni, and De Sica himself), vain film stars, their starstruck audiences, and pretentious film critics. Plot. A short cartoon teaser shows the "Fox" trying to steal gold and various police forces trying to stop him. The story begins in Cairo with the hijacking of US$3 million in gold bullion. The thieves need a way to smuggle the two tons of gold bars into Europe. There are only four master criminals considered able to smuggle the gold: one is French (but so crippled he can barely move his wheelchair); one is Irish (but so nearsighted that he is arrested after trying to hold up a police station instead of a bank); one is German (but so fat he can barely get through a door). The only man cunning enough to outwit Interpol is Aldo Vanucci (Peter Sellers), also known as The Fox, a master criminal with a talent for disguise. Vanucci, who is in prison at the time of the robbery, knows about the smuggling contract but is reluctant to accept it, because he does not want to break the heart of his mother and young sister Gina (Britt Ekland). But when his three sidekicks inform him that Gina has grown up and doesn't always return home from school, an enraged Vanucci vows to break out of prison. He succeeds by making the police believe that he is the prison doctor who has been tied up by Vanucci. When the guards accidentally bring the doctor and Vanucci face to face with each other, Vanucci rips off his false beard and flees. Once out, he goes home to his mother, who considers him to be a disgrace, and sister, who aspires to become a film actress. He makes contact with Okra (Akim Tamiroff), the original gold robber, and accepts the contract for smuggling the gold inside Italy on the condition that he will get 50 percent. Two policemen are constantly on his trail and Vanucci has to use many disguises and tricks to throw them off his trail. During one such escapade in a cinema, it suddenly strikes him that police offer protection to film crews. This idea forms the basis of his master plan. Vanucci poses as an Italian neo-realist director named Federico Fabrizi. He plans to bring the gold ashore in broad daylight as part of a scene in an avant garde film. To give the picture an air of legitimacy, he cons over-the-hill American matinee idol Tony Powell (Victor Mature) to star in the film, which is blatantly titled "The Gold of Cairo". Fabrizi then enlists the starstruck population of Sevalio, a tiny fishing village, to unload the shipment. The plan works without any hiccups and the gold arrives safely inside Italy. Unfortunately for Vanucci, Okra double-crosses him and tries to get away with all the gold, without giving him his share; in a Wacky Races like car chase, Okra; Vanucci; Powell and the Police chase one another through a smoke screen and all end up crashing into each other. After Vanucci is caught, all the misled villagers who helped him are accused of being co-conspirators, and Vanucci's "film" is used as evidence against them in court (an Italian film critic comically proclaims that it's a masterpiece). Vanucci suffers a crisis of conscience and accepts his guilt in court, thereby vindicating the villagers, but proclaiming that he will escape from prison once again. The film's final scene shows Vanucci escaping from prison yet again by impersonating the prison doctor-this time he ties the doctor up and takes his place. He then walks out when the prison guards think the doctor is Vanucci. As he attempts to remove the fake beard that is part of his disguise, he discovers that the beard is real, meaning that the "wrong man" has escaped from prison. Production. This was Neil Simon's first screenplay. At the time, he had three hit shows running on Broadway: "Little Me"; "Barefoot in the Park"; and "The Odd Couple". Simon has said that he originally wanted to write a spoof of art house films such as "Last Year at Marienbad" and Michelangelo Antonioni's films, but the story evolved into the idea of a film-within-a-film. Aldo Vanucci brings to mind the fast-talking cons of Phil Silvers and the brilliant dialects of Sid Caesar. This is probably no coincidence since Simon wrote for both on television. In his 1996 memoir "Rewrites", Simon recalled that an agent suggested Peter Sellers for the lead, while Simon preferred casting "an authentic Italian" such as Marcello Mastroianni or Vittorio Gassman. Sellers loved the script, however, and it was he who asked Vittorio De Sica to direct. De Sica's interest in the project surprised Simon, who at first dismissed it as a way for the director to support his gambling habit. But De Sica said he saw a social statement to be made, namely how the pursuit of money corrupts even the arts. Simon believed De Sica also relished the opportunity to take potshots at the Italian film industry. De Sica insisted that Simon collaborate with Cesare Zavattini. Since neither spoke the other's language, the two writers worked through interpreters. "He had very clear, concise, and intelligent comments that I could readily understand and agree with", Simon wrote. Still, Simon worried that inserting social statements into what he considered a broad farce wouldn't do justice to either. Yet "After The Fox" does touch on themes found in De Sica's earlier work, namely disillusionment and dignity. Peter Sellers said that his main reason for doing the film was the chance to work with Vittorio De Sica. Sellers said he relied on De Sica to keep his characterizations on the mark. Victor Mature, who had retired five years earlier, was lured back to the screen by the prospect of parodying himself as Tony Powell. Mature was always a self-effacing star who had no delusions about his own work. At the height of his fame, he had applied for membership in the Los Angeles Country Club, but was told that the club did not accept actors. He replied: "Have you seen my work?" One of Tony's lines must have struck a chord with the then 53 year old actor: "I'd rather get laughs than sympathy." A clip from Mature's 1949 film Easy Living (in which he plays an aging football star) appears in the film. According to Neil Simon, Sellers demanded that his wife, Britt Ekland, be cast as Gina, the Fox's sister. Ekland married Sellers in 1964. Ekland's looks and accent were wrong for the role, but to keep Sellers happy De Sica acquiesced. Still, Simon recalled, Ekland worked hard on the film. Sellers and Ekland made one other film together, "The Bobo" (1967). Also featured are: Akim Tamiroff as Okra, the mastermind of the heist in Cairo; Martin Balsam as Tony's agent, Harry; Maria Grazia Buccella as Okra's voluptuous accomplice; Lydia Brazzi as Mama Vanucci; and Lando Buzzanca as the chief of police in Sevalio. Simon recalled that the Italian supporting cast learned their lines phonetically. Tamiroff had been working on and off for Orson Welles filming "Don Quixote", playing Sancho Panza. The film was never finished. Buccella was a former Miss Italy (1959) and placed third in the Miss Europe pageant. She was considered for the role of Domino in "Thunderball". Lydia Brazzi was Rossano Brazzi's wife. She was not a professional actress. The budget for the film was US$3 million, which included location shooting in the village of Sant' Angelo on Ischia in the Bay of Naples as well as the construction of an exact replica of Rome's most famous street, the Via Veneto, on the Cinecittà lot. The Sevalio sequences were shot during the height of the tourist season. Reportedly the villagers of Sant' Angelo were so busy accommodating tourists that they had no time to appear as extras in the film. The extras were brought in from a neighboring village. Simon lamented that De Sica insisted on using his own film editors, two middle-aged women who did not speak English and thus did not understand the jokes. The film was later re-cut in Rome by one of John Huston's favorite film editors, Russell Lloyd, but Simon believes more funny bits "are lying in a cutting room in Italy." The voices and accents of the Italian comic actors were dubbed in London, mainly by Robert Rieti, and edited in Rome by Malcolm Cooke, who had been a post-sync dialogue editor on "Lawrence of Arabia". Simon summed up his opinion of the film: "To give the picture its due, it was funny in spots, innovative in its plot, and was well-intentioned. But a hit picture? Uh-uh...Still today", After the Fox" remains a cult favorite." Burt Bacharach and Hal David wrote the scores and the title songs for both films. The title song "After the Fox", as performed by The Hollies and Sellers, was released as a single in September 1966 (b/w "The Fox-Trot", United Artists UP1152) but did not chart. Release. The film has some kinship with "What's New Pussycat?", which was released the previous year and also starred Sellers. That film was the first written by Woody Allen who, like Neil Simon, had been a staff writer for Sid Caesar. Even the advertising tagline on the posters and trailer for "After The Fox" proclaimed, "You Caught The Pussycat...Now Chase The Fox!". The poster art for both films was illustrated by Frank Frazetta. Considering this was Simon's first original screenplay, parallels can be drawn with fellow Sid-Caesar-staff-writer Mel Brooks's first screenplay, "The Producers", satirizing the Broadway aspect of show business and also featuring con-men and a final courtroom scene followed by a jail scene. Influence. The scene in the film where Aldo speaks to Okra through the beautiful Maria Grazia Buccella inspired a similar scene in "Austin Powers in Goldmember" (2002), in which Austin Powers talks to Foxxy Cleopatra through the Nathan Lane character. The Bollywood movie Tees Maar Khan (2010) is an "official" remake of "After the Fox".
1034487	Nigel Allan Havers (born 6 November 1951) is an English actor. He played Lord Andrew Lindsay in the 1981 British film "Chariots of Fire", earning a Bafta nomination for the role, and Dr Tom Latimer in the British TV comedy series "Don't Wait Up". He portrayed the role of Lewis Archer in "Coronation Street" from 2009 to 2010. He returned to the role in 2012 and departed once again in February 2013. Early life and family. Nigel Havers was born in London, and is the younger son of Michael Havers (later Baron Havers), who was a barrister known for successfully defending Mick Jagger and Keith Richards on drug charges in 1967 and being lead prosecutor of Peter Sutcliffe (popularly known as the Yorkshire Ripper) in 1981, becoming Lord Chancellor in the Conservative Government in 1987. His paternal aunt, the Baroness Butler-Sloss, was the first woman to be elevated to the Court of Appeal and subsequently the first woman appointed to head the Family Division of the High Court. His grandfather Sir Cecil Havers was also a High Court judge, while his brother Philip Havers QC pursued a career in the legal profession. Havers took part in the BBC TV series Who Do You Think You Are?, broadcast in the UK in July 2013. As part of the show he explored his ancestry from an Essex businessman, on his father's side, and a Cornish miller on his mother's side. Education. Havers was educated at the Arts Educational School, an independent school in London, opting against the Eton education traditional to his family (except his father, who was educated at Westminster School), because he thought that fagging "sounded frightful". Life and career. Havers's first acting job was in the radio series "Mrs Dale's Diary" and he subsequently went on to working for the Prospect Theatre Company initially "carrying a spear and making cups of tea" as he puts it in his autobiography. After this he had a stint working for a Jamie Symonds. Mr Symonds, who was interviewed on "Richard and Judy", stated "Nige used to babysit for us back then as well as iron and generally fix things. I loved him greatly as I still do. I miss his fluffy hair and his strong hands". From an early age Havers had an eye for the ladies; Kenneth More, a friend of his father, advised a young Havers that "if you are charming, you don't have to ask them to go to bed, they ask you". He describes his experiences with an early leading lady, Maxine Audley thus: "I was in her dressing room doing whatever she asked me to, and I mean anything and everything. One afternoon I sauntered into her dressing room, still in my officer's kit, only to find a similarly clad new member of the cast rehearsing what I had perfected over the past few months. My time was up. She blew me a kiss and I slid away. Actually, I was rather relieved, I needed a rest." After his theatre work, Havers slid into a period of acting unemployment, during which time he worked for a wine merchant. He ended this part of his career when his girlfriend, who later became his first wife, Carolyn Cox, suggested they move in together in 1974. In 1975 Havers's career began to pick up with an appearance in "Upstairs, Downstairs," appearing in one of the series' last episodes, "Joke Over" as Peter Dinmont, one of Georgina's Lesley-Anne Down "Roaring Twenties" "party" friends. Dinmont is in the Rolls Royce when Georgina accidentally kills a farmer on a bicycle. Dinmont refuses to testify on Georgina's behalf at a preliminary trial, as he was passed out drunk in the back seat and did not witness the accident. His first film appearance was a small part in "Pope Joan" (1972) and he was a character in "The Glittering Prizes" in 1976, but his first major success came with the leading role in a BBC dramatisation of "Nicholas Nickleby" (1977), closely followed by another BBC drama serial, "A Horseman Riding By". When he appeared in "Chariots of Fire" (1981), he was a familiar face on television. Despite appearing in such films as "A Passage to India" (1984) and "Empire of the Sun" (1987), he never made a name for himself as a film star, but has continued in a succession of starring roles on television. He co-starred for several years in the 1980s BBC sitcom "Don't Wait Up" alongside Tony Britton. He also starred in "The Little Princess" in 1986 with Maureen Lipman, which won him a dedicated audience. He is also widely recognised in the Lloyds Bank television commercials. In 2009 he appeared in the U.S. television drama "Brothers & Sisters", and the "Doctor Who" spin-off "The Sarah Jane Adventures". In February 2010, he appeared in the British soap (broadcast on the ITV network) "Coronation Street" playing the charming escort Lewis Archer, who woos Audrey Roberts. In November 2010 Havers became a contestant on the tenth series of "I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here!", which started on 14 November 2010. A week after the first episode of the series was aired, it emerged on ITV morning show "DayBreak", that Nigel Havers had walked from the jungle. Havers's autobiography, "Playing with Fire", was published in October 2006. He is a supporter of the British Red Cross. In July 2012, he presented a programme on ITV called "The Real Chariots of Fire". This was about the runners who inspired the film "Chariots of Fire". Private life. In the mid-1980s Havers began an affair with Polly Williams, the sister of his friend, the actor Simon Williams. News broke as he was appearing in TV series "The Charmer" and caused him to be identified with the role in his public persona. Havers has written of the depression he experienced trying to choose between his marriage to Carolyn Cox and their young daughter Kate, born in 1977, and his mistress. During this time he consulted a psychiatrist at the Devonshire Hospital in London. Things were resolved in his mind when he took a part in the TV film "Naked Under Capricorn", which was filmed in Alice Springs, Australia. He describes in his autobiography wrangling a herd of cattle and catching sight in the distance of a figure who turned out to be Williams. The following year they were married. Polly Williams died of cancer on 24 June 2004. Subsequently Havers challenged his wife's will, in which she left her estate to her children from an earlier marriage, obtaining a share of the estate in an out-of-court settlement. Havers married Georgiana Bronfman in New York City on 8 June 2007. A blessing was held in Saint Tropez the following month. Georgiana is the former wife of Canadian billionaire drinks magnate, Edgar Bronfman, Sr During Episode 4 of Series 5 of the BBC One show "Would I Lie To You?" (first aired 29 September 2011), Havers revealed that in his youth he went on a date with a flamenco dancer who turned out to be a man. He discovered this only after spending two hours with the dancer before going for a close dance — during which he found out. On 15 November 2012, Nigel was issued with an honorary membership of the exclusive Panama club. On July 31, 2013, he appeared in Episode 2 of Series 10 of Who Do You Think You Are?
1166373	Cherlynne Theresa "Lynne" Thigpen (December 22, 1948 – March 12, 2003) was an American stage and television actress, best known for her role as "The Chief" in the various "Carmen Sandiego" television series. Early life. Thigpen was born in Joliet, Illinois, and obtained a degree in teaching. She taught English in high school briefly while studying theatre and dance at the University of Illinois. Thigpen moved to New York City in 1971 to begin her career as a stage actress. Career. Theatre. Thigpen had a long and prolific theater career, and appeared in numerous musicals including "Godspell", "The Night That Made America Famous", "The Magic Show", "Working", "Tintypes" and "An American Daughter" (for which she won her Tony Award for her portrayal of Dr. Judith Kaufman in 1997) . Film. Her first feature film role was Lynne in "Godspell" (1973), co-starring opposite Victor Garber and David Haskell. She appeared notably as the omniscient Radio DJ in "The Warriors", and as Leonna Barrett, the mother of an expelled student in "Lean on Me", a story of famous American principal Joe Louis Clark. She had a role in "Shaft", alongside Samuel L. Jackson, as Carla Howard, the murder victim's mother. She also played the Second President of the world council in "Bicentennial Man" (1999). Her last film was "Anger Management" (2003), starring Adam Sandler and Jack Nicholson (which was released only a month following her death and paid tribute to her in the end credits). Television. Thigpen was perhaps best known for playing Luna in the television show, "Bear in the Big Blue House" as well as "The Chief" of the ACME Detective Agency in the long-running PBS children's geography game show "Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego?", which involves both education and comedy, and, on occasion, musical performance. She remained The Chief in the successor show, "Where in Time is Carmen Sandiego?", but of ACME Time Net. She also appeared in many other television series during her career, most notably in a recurring role as Grace Keefer on the ABC daytime drama "All My Children" and a supporting role as Ella Mae Farmer, a statistics clerk for the Washington, D.C. police department, on the CBS crime drama "The District". She guest-starred in episodes of "Gimme A Break!", "L.A. Law", "Law & Order", "The Days and Nights of Molly Dodd", "", and "Thirtysomething". Radio. She appeared in radio skits of the Garrison Keillor program "The American Radio Company of the Air". Her voice was also heard on over 20 audio books, primarily works with socially relevant themes. Death. Thigpen died of a cerebral hemorrhage on March 12, 2003, in her Marina del Rey, California home. Thigpen had been complaining of headaches during the final days of her life. Drugs and foul play were ruled out by the coroner's autopsy, which found "acute cardiac dysfunction, non-traumatic systemic and spontaneous intraventricular hemorrhage and hemorrhage in the brain." Thigpen was interred at Elmhurst Cemetery in her hometown of Joliet, Illinois. Response and legacy. When Thigpen died, the third season finale of "The District" had a tribute to her character, Ella Mae Farmer. Thigpen's death led to a four-year hiatus of "Bear in the Big Blue House". A planned film version of "Bear" was also put on hold. Two years after Thigpen's death, Tara Mooney interviewed with "Bear" star Ray D'Arcy on Today FM stated: "The crew's hearts just weren't in it anymore". Thigpen's friends and family established a non-profit foundation, The Lynne Thigpen - Bobo Lewis Foundation, to help young actors and actresses learn how to survive and succeed in New York theater and to mentor the next generation of Broadway stars. Thigpen was posthumously nominated for a Daytime Emmy Award for voicing Luna the moon in "Bear in the Big Blue House," but lost to Jeff Corwin. Her final film, "Anger Management", was dedicated in her memory. Also, an elementary school in her hometown was named in her honor.
1169501	Carrie Louise Hamilton (December 5, 1963 in New York City – January 20, 2002, in Los Angeles) was an American actress, singer, and playwright. She was the daughter of comedienne Carol Burnett and producer Joe Hamilton. Life. Hamilton worked in a number of productions for stage, film, video, and television. She took the role of Reggie Higgins in the TV version of the musical "Fame" for the fifth and sixth seasons (1985–1987), and portrayed the role of Maureen Johnson in the first national tour of the stage musical "Rent" to considerable acclaim. She also studied music and acting at Pepperdine University in Malibu, California.
591544	Virsa (, ਵਿਰਸਾ) (meaning: heritage); is an Indian, Punjabi language film revolving around social and cultural values. The film is a joint venture between (and has cast crew from) Pakistan and India. It has been directed by Pankaj Batra. It has a huge budget for a Punjabi movie. The film has been shot all over Australia. The film stars Pakistani actors Noman Ijaz and Mehreen Raheel, Indian actors Gulshan Grover, Arya Babbar, Kanwaljeet Singh, Aparna Sharma and Australian actor Andrew Duvall (ELSIS teacher). Virsa Post Production took place in Pixion Studio. The film was released on 7 May 2010. The music is by Jawad Ahmad, with cinematography of R.A. Krishnaa and choreography by Seema Desai and Jasmin Oza. Plot. Virsa is the story of Nawaz Ali and Ranvir Singh Grewal and their families. Nawaz Ali hails from Lahore in Pakistan and Ranvir Singh Grewal belongs to a village, Jakopur, in Punjab, India. About 20 years ago, both of them migrated to Sydney, Australia, in search of work, where they met and became the best of friends. Gradually, their hard work paid off. Ranvir opened an Indian restaurant, which became a runaway success. Nawaz Ali opened a shop opposite Ranvir’s restaurant. It did well and he could manage to lead a comfortable life but he was not as successful as Ranvir. Nawaz Ali was very grounded in his culture and values and this helped him to remain level-headed and not get carried away by the comforts of life in Australia. He never lost sight of what was morally and ethically right and stood by his Asian values. On the other hand, Ranvir got carried away by his success. He felt that he was superior to the other Indians and Asians who were not as successful. He found merit in all things associated with the white folks – their lifestyle, their values and culture, their behaviour and mannerisms – and looked down upon his Indian upbringing and values. He had no more use for ethics and morality. He became very conscious of his money, status and reputation. The difference in outlook and behaviour drive the two friends apart until they reach a point where Ranvir stops talking to Nawaz. However, Nawaz still cares for his friend and tries to keep their friendship alive. As the film opens, Ranvir and Nawaz are well settled in Australia with their respective families. Nawaz has one son, Amaan Ali and Ranvir has a son, Yuvraj, and a daughter, Meet. Amaan and Yuvraj are roughly the same age and best buddies since childhood, despite the rift between their fathers. However, the difference in the thinkings of the two fathers is reflected in the personalities of their sons. Amaan is a sensible, level-headed young man. He is strongly grounded in and comfortable with his Asian identity. However, he is contemporary in his outlook. He does a fine balance of sticking to his values even as he adapts to the society around him and its mores and traditions. Yuvraj is the exact opposite of Amaan. Due to Ranvir’s indulgent attitude, Yuvraj grows up to be a rich, spoilt brat. He also feels closer to the white folks than to the Asians around him. He has no idea of Indian culture or values, no ethics and no morals. He loves women, booze, drugs... Yuvraj’s sister, Meet, is quite like him in her values, upbringing and behaviour. She is going steady with a white young man but is not sure how her father will react to this development. However, she also has a special relationship with Amaan. Nothing is said but she instictively feels that she can always depend on his help, that he will always be there for her. Amaan too feels an instinctive pull towards her but waits for the right time to tell her of his love for her. Ranvir feels that the people in his village look down upon him because they feel that he is not a good son, since his father, Sardar Joginder Singh, lives here all alone. Sardarji wants to stay in Punjab, till his last breath. Ranvir cons Sardarji into going with him. In Australia, however, things are very different. The cost of living is high and labour is expensive. Ranvir enlists Sardarji’s help for his restaurant. Gradually, Sardarji’s status becomes no more than that of a paid servant. One night, at a party, Yuvraj meets Mahi. Mahi has come from Punjab to Sydney for her studies. She is a modern day young Indian woman, contemporary but with a solid foundation in Indian values and culture. She is beautiful, sexy, intelligent and confident. As they fall in love, she tries to reform him and for some time, it seems as though he will sort his life out. But old habits die hard. Yuvraj gradually falls back into his old ways and Mahi is unable to stop him. Will Ranvir ever see Nawaz’s point of view and will they ever be friends again? Will Sardarji remain a prisoner to his son’s whims or will he rebel against him and return to Punjab? Will Yuvraj ever understand ethics and morality? Will Mahi return to Yuvraj? Will Ranvir accept a white boyfriend for Meet? And Amaan, who loves Meet – will he ever tell her about his love? As Virsa answers these and other questions, it makes a strong statement about remaining true to one’s values, culture and upbringing even as we constantly adapt and adjust to the society around us. It explores ways of addressing the identity conflicts of immigrant Asians in Western societies so that the succeeding generations can benefit from the best facets of both the cultures. Soundtrack. Music By: Jawad Ahmed
588841	Yeshwant is a 1997 Bollywood crime film directed by Anil Mattoo, produced by Vijay K. Ranglani. It stars Nana Patekar and Madhoo in pivotal roles.
481856	The Soviet Story is a 2008 documentary film about Soviet Communism and Soviet–German collaboration before 1941 written and directed by Edvīns Šnore and sponsored by the UEN Group in the European Parliament. The film features interviews with western and Russian historians such as Norman Davies and Boris Sokolov, Russian writer Viktor Suvorov, Soviet dissident Vladimir Bukovsky, members of the European Parliament and the participants, as well as the victims of Soviet terror. The film argues that there were close philosophical, political and organizational connections between the Nazi and Soviet systems before and during the early stages of World War II. It highlights the Great Purge as well as the Great Famine, Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, Katyn massacre, Gestapo-NKVD collaboration, Soviet mass deportations and medical experiments in the GULAG. Reception. The film has attracted praise and criticism from academic historians and political commentators. The Economist review of "The Soviet Story" praises the film by saying
1063959	Jason Morgan Ritter (born February 17, 1980) is an American actor, son of late actor John Ritter and actress Nancy Morgan. Ritter is probably best known for his role as Kevin Girardi in the television series "Joan of Arcadia", as Sean Walker in the NBC series "The Event" and the voice of Dipper Pines in "Gravity Falls". He now plays the recurring role of Mark Cyr in the NBC television series "Parenthood" for which he received an Emmy Award nomination. Early life. Ritter was born on February 17, 1980 in Los Angeles, California the son of Nancy Morgan and the late actor John Ritter, and the grandson of musician/actor, Tex Ritter, and Dorothy Fay. His stepmother is actress Amy Yasbeck. He has three siblings. Ritter first appeared in the opening credits of his father's show, "Three's Company". Ritter attended middle and high school at the Crossroads School in Santa Monica, California, with Simon Helberg, who became his roommate at NYU. He then attended (as did Helberg) and graduated from New York University's Tisch School of the Arts, where he studied at the Atlantic Theatre Company. He also studied at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London. Career. Ritter appeared in "", co-starring as Baum's son alongside his own father. He appeared in the movie "PG" (2002), and one year later played a role in "Swimfan". In 2003, Ritter had a major role in the slasher/horror film "Freddy vs. Jason" as Will Rollins. He appeared in "Raise Your Voice" and "Happy Endings". He portrayed Jeb Bush in the Oliver Stone film "W". In 2007, he also voiced substitute teacher, Mr. Fisk, in an episode of "All Grown Up", the grown up version of "Rugrats", a teacher whom Angelica falls in love with. In 2008, he released "Good Dick", a movie which he produced and starred in along with his girlfriend, Marianna Palka, who also wrote and directed the film. Among his theater credits are Wendy Wasserstein's "Third" at Lincoln Center, for which he won the Clarence Derwent Award and the Martin E. Segal Award for his portrayal of the title character; the Off Broadway production of "The Beginning of August", and the role of Tim in the world premiere of Neil LaBute's play "The Distance From Here" at London's Almeida Theatre. Ritter has volunteered as an actor with the Young Storytellers Program. Ritter has appeared in the MTV show "Punk'd". Ritter also starred as Sean Walker in the season-long NBC drama series "The Event", which premiered on September 20, 2010. Ritter will be seen alongside Kate French in the upcoming short film, "Atlantis", a romance film centered around two strangers who fall in love during the preparation for the final launch of the NASA space shuttle "Atlantis". It was confirmed in early March 2013 that he will play Gavin opposite Alexis Bledel's Stacey in "Us & Them", FOX's sitcom pilot based on "Gavin & Stacey".
1092628	Alexander Alexandrovich Friedmann (also spelled Friedman or Fridman, ) (June 29 (17 old style) by himself, June 16 (4 old style) by J. O'Conor in 1888, Saint Petersburg, Russian Empire – September 16, 1925, Leningrad, USSR) was a Russian and Soviet physicist and mathematician. He is best known for his pioneering theory that the universe was expanding, governed by a set of equations he developed now known as the Friedmann equations. Early life. Alexander Friedmann was born to the composer and ballet dancer Alexander Friedmann (who was a son of a baptized Jewish cantonist) and the pianist Ludmila Ignatievna Voyachek. He lived much of his life in Saint Petersburg. Friedmann obtained his degree in St. Petersburg State University in 1910, and became a lecturer in Saint Petersburg Mining Institute. From his school days, Friedmann found an inseparable companion in Jacob Tamarkin, who at the end of his career was one of Brown University's most distinguished mathematicians. World War I. Friedmann fought in World War I first on behalf of Imperial Russia as a bomber, and then for the Soviet Union, after the Russian Revolution of 1917. During the war, he served in the Russian army as an aviator, an instructor and eventually, under the revolutionary regime, as the head of an airplane factory. Professorship. Friedmann became a professor at Perm State University in 1918. Friedmann in 1922 introduced the idea of an expanding universe that contained moving matter; Belgian astronomer Georges Lemaître would later independently reach the same conclusion in 1927. In June 1925 he was given the job of the director of Main Geophysical Observatory in Leningrad. In July 1925 he participated in a record-setting balloon flight, reaching the elevation of . Work. Relativity. Friedmann's 1924 papers, including "" ("On the possibility of a world with constant negative curvature of space") published by the German physics journal "Zeitschrift für Physik" (Vol. 21, pp. 326–332), demonstrated that he had command of all three Friedmann models describing positive, zero and negative curvature respectively, a decade before Robertson and Walker published their analysis. This dynamic cosmological model of general relativity would come to form the standard for both the Big Bang and Steady State theories. Friedmann's work supports both theories equally, so it was not until the detection of the cosmic microwave background radiation that the Steady State theory was abandoned in favor of the current favorite Big Bang paradigm. The classic solution of the Einstein field equations that describes a homogeneous and isotropic universe is called the Friedmann–Lemaître–Robertson–Walker metric, or "FLRW", after Friedmann, Georges Lemaître, Howard Percy Robertson and Arthur Geoffrey Walker, who worked on the problem in 1920's and 30's independently of Friedmann. Hydrodynamics and meteorology. In addition to general relativity, Friedmann's interests included hydrodynamics and meteorology. Students. Physicists George Gamow and Vladimir Fock were among his students. Personal life. He married Natalia Malinina in the last years of his life. They had a religious wedding ceremony, though both were far from religious. Death. Friedmann died on September 16, 1925, at the age of 37, from typhoid fever that he contracted during a vacation in Crimea. Named after Friedman. The moon crater Fridman is named after him.
1065301	Romany Romanic Malco, Jr. (born November 18, 1968) is an American actor and music producer. He has been nominated for several awards, including an NAACP Image Award, MTV Movie Award, and Screen Actors Guild Award. Malco portrayed Conrad Shepard on the Showtime series "Weeds". He most recently played George St. Cloud on the ABC primetime one-hour drama "No Ordinary Family". He also did one of the raps as MC Skat Kat on the Grammy award-winning "Opposites Attract", a duet with Paula Abdul. Early life. Malco was born in Brooklyn, New York. His family is from Trinidad, with extended relatives in Venezuela. As a teen, he moved to Texas and attended Ross S Sterling High School. After graduation, he formed the rap group R.M.G., and upon relocating to Los Angeles, the crew signed a deal with Virgin Records. The group's name was changed to College Boyz and "Victim of the Ghetto” off their album Radio Fusion Radio went to #2 on the rap charts. Acting career. Malco was working as a music producer on "The Pest" when John Leguizamo, impressed by his dynamic personality, encouraged Romany to pursue acting. He went on to perform in roles as Jay in Judd Apatow’s 2005 film "The 40 Year Old Virgin" and as Conrad Shepard in the Showtime television series "Weeds". He played supporting roles in films such as "Blades of Glory", "The Love Guru", and "Baby Mama".
1044628	Frankenstein Created Woman is a 1967 British Hammer Horror film directed by Terence Fisher. It stars Peter Cushing as Baron Frankenstein and Susan Denberg as his new creation. It is the fourth film in Hammer's Frankenstein series. Where Hammer's previous Frankenstein films were concerned with the physical aspects of the Baron's work, the interest here is in the metaphysical dimensions of life, such as the question of the soul, and its relationship to the body. Storyline. Prologue. A man is taken from a cart and taunts the police and the priest escorting him. It becomes apparent he is sentenced to death by the guillotine for murder. At that moment, the man sees his son, Hans, nearby and begs that he should not see him die. The priest heads over to the boy but Hans runs away. Leaving him, the priest returns to the last rites. From a distance, Hans watches on, then flees. Plot. Years later, Hans Werner (Robert Morris) is working as an assistant to Baron Victor Frankenstein (Peter Cushing), helped by Dr Hertz (Thorley Walters) who is in the process of discovering a way of trapping the soul of a recently deceased person. Frankenstein believes he can transfer that soul into another recently deceased body to restore it to life. Hans is now also the lover of Christina (Susan Denberg), daughter of innkeeper Herr Kleve. Christina's entire left side is disfigured and partly paralysed. Young dandies Anton (Peter Blythe), Johann (Derek Fowlds) and Karl (Barry Warren) frequent Kleve's inn where they taunt Christina and refuse to pay. Johann threatens to have his father revoke Kleve's license if he complains. The three insist that they be served by Christina and mock her for her deformities. The taunting angers Hans, who gets in a fight with the three of them and cuts Anton's face with a knife. Eventually Kleve throws the dandies out for non-payment. They return in the night to steal wine from his inn. Kleve catches them and they beat him to death. Hans, the son of a murderer known for his short temper, is convicted. Despite the Baron and Hertz's defences against the accusations, Hans is executed by the guillotine, much to Anton, Johann and Karl's delight. Seeing this as an opportunity, Frankenstein gets hold of Hans' fresh corpse and traps his soul. Distraught over Hans's death and feeling the guilt for not defending him, Christina drowns herself by jumping off a bridge. The peasants bring her body to Dr Hertz to see if he can do anything. Frankenstein and Hertz transfer Hans' soul into her body. Over months of complex and intensive treatment, they completely cure her physical deformities. The result is a physically healthy female with no memory. She keeps asking who she is. Frankenstein insists on telling her nothing but her name and keeping her in Hertz's house. She kills Anton, Karl and Johann, driven mostly by the ghostly insistence of Hans. Frankenstein and Dr. Hertz become rather suspicious of her behaviour surrounding the killings and take her to where Hans was executed. However, they believe she subconsciously retains her memories of her father's death rather than Hans. By the time they realise the truth, they find her already murdering Johann. Upon holding the severed head of Hans, the ghostly voice tells Christina she's avenged his death; though before either one can talk to her, she runs to the edge of a waterfall. Despite the Baron's pleas of telling her identity, Christina's mind has already been made. She has no one left to live for and then drowns herself again. Saddened by her loss and for not telling her who she really was, Frankenstein walks silently away... Production. "Frankenstein Created Woman" was originally mooted as a follow-up to "The Revenge of Frankenstein" during its production in 1958, at a time when Roger Vadim's "Et Dieu créa la femme" ("And God Created Woman") was successful. The film finally went into production at Bray Studios on 4 July 1966. It was Hammer's penultimate production there. Critical reaction. Leonard Maltin is blunt: "everything goes wrong, including script." "Halliwell's Film and Video Guide" describes this film as a crude and gory farrago" while the "Time Out Film Guide" says it is full of cloying Keatsian imagery which somehow transcends the more idiotic aspects of the plot." Some commentators on "Frankenstein Created Woman" have been more positive. Martin Scorsese picked the movie as part of a 1987 National Film Theatre season of his favourite films, saying "If I single this one out it's because here they actually isolate the soul... The implied metaphysics are close to something sublime." The film currently holds 60% on Rotten Tomatoes.
1163672	Margaret Brooke Sullavan (May 16, 1909 – January 1, 1960) was an American stage and film actress. Sullavan began her career onstage in 1929. In 1933 she caught the attention of movie director John M. Stahl and had her debut on the screen that same year in "Only Yesterday". Sullavan preferred working on the stage and made only 16 movies, four of which were opposite James Stewart in a popular partnership. She retired from the screen in the early forties, but returned in 1950 to make her last movie, "No Sad Songs for Me" (1950), in which she plays a woman who is dying of cancer. For the rest of her career she would only appear on the stage. She was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance in "Three Comrades" (1938). Sullavan made no further films, and acted only on the stage, after 1950. She experienced increasing hearing problems, depression, and mental frailty in the 1950s. She died of an overdose of barbiturates, which was ruled accidental, on January 1, 1960 at the age of 50. Background. Sullavan was born in Norfolk, Virginia, the daughter of a wealthy stockbroker, Cornelius Sullavan and his wife, Garland Brooke. The first years of her childhood were spent isolated from other children. She suffered from a painful muscular weakness in the legs that prevented her from walking, so that she was unable to mingle with other children until the age of six. After recovery she emerged as an adventurous and tomboyish child who preferred playing with the children from the poorer neighborhood, much to the disapproval of her class-conscious parents. She attended boarding school at Chatham Episcopal Institute (now Chatham Hall), where she was president of the student body and delivered the salutary oration in 1927. She moved to Boston and lived with her half-sister, Weedie, where she studied dance at the Boston Denishawn studio and (against her parents' wishes) drama at the Copley Theatre. When her parents cut her allowance to a minimum, Sullavan defiantly paid her way as a clerk in the Harvard Cooperative Bookstore (The Coop), located in Harvard Square, Cambridge. Career. Early years. Sullavan succeeded in getting a chorus part in the Harvard Dramatic Society 1929 spring production "Close Up", a musical written by Harvard senior and later Broadway and Hollywood composer Bernard Hanighen. The President of the Harvard Dramatic Society, Charles Leatherbee, along with the President of Princeton's Theatre Intime, Bretaigne Windust, who together had established the University Players on Cape Cod the summer before, persuaded Sullavan to join them for their second summer season. Another member of the University Players and one who had the comic lead in "Close Up" was Henry Fonda. In the summer 1929 Sullavan appeared opposite Fonda in "The Devil in the Cheese", her debut on the professional stage. She returned for most of University Players's 1930 season. In 1931, she squeezed in one production with the University Players between the closing of the Broadway production of "A Modern Virgin" in July and its tour in September. She rejoined the University Players for most of its 18-week 1930-31 winter season in Baltimore. Sullavan's parents did not approve of her choice of career. However, in 1930 she played the lead in "Strictly Dishonorable" by Preston Sturges with her parents among the audience. Confronted with her evident talent their objections ceased. "To my deep relief", Sullavan later recalled. "I thought I'd have to put up with their yappings on the subject forever." A Shubert scout saw her in that play as well and eventually she met Lee Shubert himself. At that moment Sullavan suffered from a bad case of laryngitis. Consequently, her voice was huskier than usual. Shubert loved it. In subsequent years Sullavan would joke that she cultivated that "laryngitis" into a permanent hoarseness by standing in every available draft. Sullavan made her debut on Broadway in "A Modern Virgin" (a comedy by Elmer Harris), on May 20, 1931. At one point in 1932 she starred in four Broadway flops in a row ("If Love Were All", "Happy Landing", "Chrysalis" (with Humphrey Bogart) and "Bad Manners"), but the critics praised Sullavan for her performances in all of them. In March 1933, Sullavan replaced another actor in "Dinner at Eight" in New York. Movie director John M. Stahl happened to be watching the play and was intrigued by Sullavan and decided she would be perfect for a picture he was planning, "Only Yesterday". At that time Sullavan had already turned down offers from Paramount and Columbia for five-year contracts. Sullavan was offered a three-year, two-pictures-a-year contract at $1,200 a week. She accepted it and had a clause put in her contract that allowed her to return to the stage on occasion. Later on in her career Sullavan would only sign short-term contracts because she did not want to be "owned" by any studio. Hollywood. Sullavan arrived in Hollywood on May 16, 1933, her 24th birthday. Her film debut came that same year in "Only Yesterday". She chose her scripts carefully. She was dissatisfied with her performance in "Only Yesterday". When she saw herself in the early rushes, she had been so appalled that she had tried to buy out her contract for $2,500, but Universal refused. In his November 10, 1933, review in "The New York Herald Tribune", Richard Watts, Jr. wrote that Sullavan "plays the tragic and lovelorn heroine of this shrewdly sentimental orgy with such forthright sympathy, wise reticence and honest feeling that she establishes herself with some definiteness as one of the cinema people to be watched". She followed that role with one in "Little Man, What Now?" (1934), about a couple struggling to survive in impoverished post–World War I Germany. Originally, Universal had been reluctant to make a movie about unemployment, starvation and homelessness, but "Little Man" had been an important project to Sullavan. After "Only Yesterday" she wanted to try "the real thing". She later said that it had been one of the few things she had done in Hollywood that gave her a great measure of satisfaction."The Good Fairy" (1935) was a comedy that Sullavan, although not a natural comedienne, had insisted on doing to demonstrate her "wide-ranging versatility". During the production, she married its director, William Wyler. King Vidor's "So Red the Rose" (1935) dealt with the Civil War effects on the South and preceded "Gone With the Wind" by four years and Margaret Mitchell's novel by one year. Sullavan played a childish Southern-belle who matures into a responsible woman. The film also dealt with the situation of the freed black characters. In "Next Time We Love" (1936), Sullavan plays opposite the then-unknown James Stewart. She had been campaigning for Stewart to be her leading man and the studio complied for fear that she would stage a threatened strike. The film dealt with a married couple that has grown apart over the years. The plot was unconvincing and simple, but the gentle interplay between Sullavan and Stewart saves the movie from being a soapy and sappy experience. "Next Time We Love" was the first of four films made by Sullavan and Stewart.
1060358	Powers Allen Boothe (born June 1, 1948) is an American television and film actor. Some of his most notable roles include his Emmy-winning 1980 portrayal of Jim Jones in "" and his turns as Cy Tolliver on "Deadwood", as "Curly Bill" Brocious in "Tombstone", as well as Vice-President Noah Daniels on "24" and as the voice of Gorilla Grodd in the DC Animated Universe. He currently stars as Lamar Wyatt in the ABC musical drama series "Nashville". Personal life. Boothe was born on a farm in Snyder, the seat of Scurry County, Texas, to Emily Kathryn Reeves and Merrill Vestal Boothe. Boothe is the father of actress Parisse Boothe. He resides in Los Angeles, where he raises racing quarter horses. He attended Texas State University (then Southwest Texas State College) in San Marcos as an undergraduate, where he joined Lambda Chi Alpha fraternity and received his Master of Fine Arts from Southern Methodist University in Dallas in 1972. Career. After graduating from college, Boothe joined the repertory company of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, with roles in "Henry IV, Part 2" (portraying Henry IV of England), "Troilus and Cressida", and others. His New York stage debut was in the 1974 Lincoln Center production of "Richard III". Five years later, his Broadway theater debut came in a starring role in the one-act play "Lone Star", written by James McLure.
676979	Anita Pallenberg (born 6 April 1944, Rome, Italy) is an Italian-born actress, model, and fashion designer. She was the romantic partner of Rolling Stones multi-instrumentalist and guitarist Brian Jones and later the partner of Keith Richards, the guitarist of the same band, from 1967 to 1979, by whom she has two surviving children. Early life. Pallenberg was born on 6 April 1944 in German-occupied Rome, the daughter of Arnaldo Pallenberg, an Italian artist and Paula Wiederhold, a German secretary. Anita became fluent in four languages at an early age and studied medicine, picture restoration and graphic design. Before settling in London, she lived in Germany, her native Rome, as well as New York City, where she was involved with the Living Theatre, starring in the play "Paradise Now", which featured on-stage nudity, and Andy Warhol's Factory. Romantic involvements. Pallenberg is known for her romantic involvement with Rolling Stones band members Brian Jones, whom she met in 1965 in Munich, where she was working on a modelling assignment, and Keith Richards, for whom she left Jones in 1967 while on holiday in Morocco after Jones' violent behaviour towards Pallenberg. She remained in a relationship with Richards until 1980 although they never married. There were rumours that she also had a brief affair with Mick Jagger during the filming of "Performance", and Keith Richards states in his autobiography "Life" that it happened. However, Pallenberg denied the affair in March 2007 when "Performance" was released on DVD. Children. Pallenberg and Richards together had three children: son Marlon Leon Sundeep (born 10 August 1969), daughter Angela (her middle name, which she chose to go by after initially being named and called Dandelion by her parents), born 17 April 1972), and a second son, Tara Jo Jo Gunne (26 March – 6 June 1976), who died in his cot 10 weeks after birth. Influence on the Rolling Stones. Author A. E. Hotchner mentions Pallenberg's influence on the development and presentation of the Rolling Stones from the late 1960s and through the 1970s. She played an unusual role in the male-dominated world of rock music in the late 1960s, acting as much more than just a groupie or partner of a band member. Jagger respected her opinion enough that tracks on "Beggars Banquet" were remixed when Pallenberg criticised them. In the 2002 compilation release of "Forty Licks", Pallenberg is credited as singing background vocals on "Sympathy for the Devil". Tony Sanchez's account of his time as Richards's bodyguard and drug dealer mentions Pallenberg's strange spiritual practices: "She was obsessed with black magic and began to carry a string of garlic with her everywhere — even to bed — to ward off vampires. She also had a strange mysterious old shaker for holy water which she used for some of her rituals. Her ceremonies became increasingly secret, and she warned me never to interrupt her when she was working on a spell."Sanchez goes on to describe Anita as having been "like a life-force, a woman so powerful, so full of strength and determination that men came to lean on her". Richards says she shared his addiction to heroin; she was charged first in the 1977 Toronto heroin arrest that led to Richards being arrested on charges that could have led to a lengthy prison sentence. A warrant for Pallenberg's arrest was the reason police came to search the pair's hotel rooms; she pleaded guilty to marijuana possession and was fined, several weeks after Richards's arrest. In 1981, after Richards and Pallenberg had split up, Richards stated that he still loved Pallenberg and saw her as much as he ever did, although he had already met his future wife Patti Hansen. In a 1985 "Rolling Stone" interview, Mick Jagger claimed that Pallenberg "nearly killed me", when he was asked whether the Rolling Stones had any responsibility for the personal drug addictions of people close to the band. Singer Marianne Faithfull, Jagger's girlfriend in the late 1960s, remained a friend of Pallenberg's. They appeared together in the fourth series (2001) of the BBC-TV/Comedy Central/ Saunders and French production of "Absolutely Fabulous" in episode four, "Donkey", with Faithfull playing "God" and Pallenberg "The Devil" in a dream sequence experienced by Jennifer Saunders' character Edina Monsoon. Cleared of manslaughter. In 1979, a 17-year-old boy, Scott Cantrell, shot himself in the head with a gun owned by Keith Richards, while in Pallenberg's bed, at the South Salem, New York house shared by Richards and Pallenberg. The youth had been employed as a part-time groundskeeper at the estate and was involved in a sexual relationship with Pallenberg. Richards was in Paris recording with the Rolling Stones but his son was at the house when the teen killed himself. Pallenberg was arrested; however, the death was ruled a suicide in 1980, despite rumours that Pallenberg and Cantrell had been playing a game of Russian roulette. The police investigation stated that Pallenberg was not in the room or on the same floor of the house at the time the fatal shot was fired. Film and fashion. Pallenberg has appeared in more than a dozen films over a forty year span. Most notably, she appeared as The Great Tyrant in Roger Vadim's cult-classic sci-fi film "Barbarella", and as the sleeper wife of Michel Piccoli in the film "Dillinger Is Dead", directed by Marco Ferreri. She had a small part in Volker Schlöndorff's "Michael Kohlhaas - der Rebell" which was filmed in Slovakia in 1969 and the 1970 avant-garde "Performance" in which she played the role of Pherber (actually filmed in 1968 but not released for two years). She appeared in a 1968 documentary about the Rolling Stones, "Sympathy for the Devil", directed by French filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard. In a March 2007 interview Anita related her encounters in Rome in 1960, while "La Dolce Vita" was being filmed, with Italian filmmakers such as Federico Fellini, Alberto Moravia, Luchino Visconti and Pier Paolo Pasolini. In 1985 for the video of "Wild Boys" Duran Duran used the clip of Pallenberg from "Barbarella". Pallenberg has been portrayed in popular film and television. Monet Mazur played a young Pallenberg in the 2005 film "Stoned", a biographical film about the last year of Brian Jones' life. In 2006 the NBC television show "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip" included a story arc in which the character Harriet Hayes was hired to play Pallenberg in a film. Pallenberg studied fashion design as a mature student at Central Saint Martins in London; she graduated in 1994. She now divides her time between New York City and Europe, and sporadically appears in public as a party DJ.
589430	Manoranjan is a 1974 Indian Hindi film directed by Shammi Kapoor. It is a remake of "Irma La Douce". Sanjeev Kumar plays Jack Lemmon's role, Zeenat Aman Shirley MacLaine's and Shammi Kapoor plays Lou Jacobi's. Hotel Casanova is called Hotel Mauj!. Among the rest of the cast are Paintal, Asit Sen and Dev Kumar. "Manoranjan" is perhaps the only Hindi movie where prostitution was presented as a 'fun' activity without moralising and the lead actress sleeps with men other than the hero and is not an issue. For 1974 the film in India was a revolution, and was panned by the critics and the audience due to the sense of immorality. Plot. Havaldar Ratan is a rookie at the local police station, and is assigned duty on foot patrol on Manoranjan Street, a notorious red-light area, on the very first day of his job. He strikes up a conversation with a good-looking young woman named Nisha, and tells her that there is a possible violation of Suppression of Immoral Trafficking Act taking place on this street. He witnesses several women soliciting men, and decides to call in the paddy wagon, and get them arrested. Alas, one of the men frequenting the prostitutes is none other than Ratan's superior officer, who immediately summons Ratan, and has him removed from service on corruption charges. Nisha takes pity on a homeless and unemployed Ratan, and asks him to live with her. He does not want her to sell her body, and so he decides to work at night, and during the day he takes on the guise of a rich Nawab and spends time with her. Things go along smoothly, until Ratan decides that it is now time to get rid of the "Nawab", and he does so, only to find out that the police have been informed that he has killed the Nawab, and they are out to arrest him. What follows is hilarious chaos that will change Ratan and Nisha's lives forever. Production. In a 2008 interview with the BBC, Shammi Kapoor revealed that he had planned to star in "Irma La Douce" since the early 1960s when he first saw it in a theatre in London. He originally wanted to play the role of Nestor Patau, the honest police officer. However, by the time the film was made Kapoor felt he was too old for the role, and Sanjeev Kumar was given the part. The films was shot at Mehboob Studios and Natraj Studios. Kapoor also directed a video magazine called "Shammi Kapoor Presents Manoranjan" to promote the film. Music. R.D. Burman composed the songs. Asha Bhosle earned a Filmfare Nomination as Best Female Playback Singer for the song "Chori Chori Sola Singar," the only nomination for the film.
1058810	Joey Lauren Adams (born January 9, 1968) is an American actress who has appeared in more than thirty films. She is known for her distinctive, raspy voice and for her roles in Bio-Dome as well as Kevin Smith's View Askewniverse films, particularly "Mallrats" and "Chasing Amy", with the latter giving her a Golden Globe for Best Actress nomination. Career. She began her film career in 1977 with a small part in "". In 1991, she appeared in the 100th episode of "Married... with Children" entitled "Top of the Heap" and subsequently starred in its short lived spinoff. In 1993, Adams landed her first major film role as Simone in Richard Linklater's "Dazed and Confused". The same year, she appeared in the "Saturday Night Live" spinoff film "Coneheads" as one of Connie Conehead's friends.
1061710	Luke Cunningham Wilson (born September 21, 1971) is an American actor known for his roles in films such as "Idiocracy", "Old School", "Bottle Rocket", "The Royal Tenenbaums" and "Legally Blonde". He is the brother of actors Andrew Wilson and Owen Wilson. He was a member of the cast of the HBO television series "Enlightened" (2011-2013). Early life. Wilson was born in Dallas, Texas, a son of Robert Andrew Wilson, an advertising executive and previous executive at KERA, a public television station, and Laura Cunningham Wilson, a photographer. His family, originally from Massachusetts, is of Irish American descent . He is the younger brother of Andrew Wilson and Owen Wilson. All three brothers attended St. Mark's School of Texas. According to his brother Owen, Luke was voted class president the first year he attended St. Mark's. Career. Wilson's acting career began with the lead role in the short film "Bottle Rocket" in 1994, which was co-written by his older brother Owen Wilson and director Wes Anderson. It was remade as a feature-length film in 1996. After moving to Hollywood with his two brothers, he was cast opposite Calista Flockhart in "Telling Lies in America" and made a cameo appearance in the film-within-the-film of "Scream 2", both in 1997. Wilson filmed back-to-back romantic films in 1998, opposite Drew Barrymore, "Best Men", about a group of friends who pull off a heist on their way to a wedding, and "Home Fries", about two brothers interested in the same woman for different reasons. He played the doctor beau of a schoolteacher in "Rushmore" (also 1998), also directed by Anderson and co-written by brother Owen. In 1999, "Blue Streak" was released featuring Wilson as detective Carlson. He later starred opposite Reese Witherspoon in the 2001 comedy "Legally Blonde", which was followed by " Old School" and "The Royal Tenenbaums". Wilson also had a role on "That '70s Show", as Michael Kelso's older brother Casey Kelso, appearing sporadically from 2002 through 2005.
1502424	Anita Rose Morris (March 14, 1943 – March 2, 1994 was an American actress, singer and dancer. Career. Among many roles, Morris's most prominent film role was as Carol Dodsworth, the mistress to Danny DeVito, in "Ruthless People" and for her sensual performance as Carla in the musical "Nine" opposite Raul Julia. While nominated for a Best Featured Actress Tony Award as Carla, she lost to Liliane Montevecchi, also in "Nine". 21 years later, Jane Krakowski won the Tony Award in the same category as Morris, playing Carla in a revival with Antonio Banderas. Her signature number in "Nine" was "A Call from the Vatican", and she also sang "Simple", late in act two. She was scheduled to perform the former at the Tony Awards in 1982, but the television censors found her outfit too revealing. Her stage work began in the American Mime Theatre, and carried her to Broadway both for "Nine", "Jesus Christ Superstar", "Seesaw", "The Magic Show" (cast album & video/DVD), "Sugar Babies" (replacement for the "Soubrette" originated by Ann Jillian) and "The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas". Morris portrayed Rob Lowe's lover Rhonda Ray in "The Hotel New Hampshire" (1984). Other film work included "Bloodhounds of Broadway" with Madonna, Randy Quaid and Matt Dillon, "Ruthless People" with Danny DeVito and Bette Midler, "18 Again!" with George Burns and Charlie Schlatter, "Absolute Beginners" with David Bowie, and "Radioland Murders", which was her final film role. During the 1980s and early 1990s, she played guest roles in sitcoms and dramas, including "Miami Vice", "Who's the Boss?", "Murder, She Wrote", "Cheers", "Melrose Place", "Matlock", "Tales from the Crypt" and "A Different World". In 1984, Morris appeared in The Rolling Stones' music video "She Was Hot". Life and death. Morris was married to Grover Dale in 1973 and had a son, James Badge Dale. She developed ovarian cancer in 1980, died on March 2, 1994 and was buried in Maplewood Cemetery in Durham, North Carolina.
582668	Akele Hum Akele Tum (English: "I'm On My Own, You're On Your Own") is a 1995 Hindi musical drama romance film. It starred Aamir Khan, Manisha Koirala and Master Adil, and was directed by Mansoor Khan. The music is by Anu Malik and the lyrics are by Majrooh Sultanpuri. The plot of this film is based on 1979 Academy Award winning film "Kramer vs. Kramer", starring Meryl Streep and Dustin Hoffman. The film did not fare as expected at the box office. Plot. Rohit Kumar (Aamir Khan) is an aspiring playback singer while Kiran (Manisha Koirala) is an ambitious classical singer-in-training. They meet, relate to each other's sentiments, fall in love and get married. When Kiran's parents oppose their marriage, they decide to lead a separate life. However, after marriage, Kiran's ambitions take a back seat as she feels suppressed by her household responsibilities and her son's look after. Time fails to abate Kiran's frustration until she decides to leave Rohit and start a new life all over again. Now a loner, Rohit is forced to look after both his son and his own falling career. After some obvious teething troubles, Rohit succeeds in creating a separate world for himself and his son, Sonu. Meanwhile, Kiran becomes a huge film star. She tries to reconcile with Rohit but as luck would have it, Rohit is a proud man and misinterprets her support as her pity and things become worse. A court case is eventually filed for the custody of Sonu. Rohit faces a tough time preparing for the case as his financial position is not as sound as Kiran's. He sells his best songs at a very low price so that he can fight the custody battle. During the court battle, Kiran's lawyer Bhujbal (Paresh Rawal) uses every possible trick to show that Rohit does not deserve the custody of his child. He even uses the information that Rohit had told Kiran (only because he felt that she had a right to know about her son's life) against him. Rohit instructs his lawyer to fight the case honestly as he does not wish to hurt Kiran and her reputation. In the end the court rules in favor of the mother and Kiran is given custody of the child. During this time, common friends of Rohit and Kiran try to explain to Kiran that Rohit had changed for the better and that he was now very much attached to his son. Kiran also realises that their son would never find happiness only with her. She tells Rohit that she will not take Sonu away and that she wants him to stay at his own home to which Rohit replies that this was Kiran's home as well. Kiran seemingly moves to get out of the house but then closes the door and smiles. Rohit and Kiran hug each other and their son and the movie ends. Box Office. "Akele Hum Akele Tum" grossed 8,25,00,000. The movie was declared average . Music. The music was given by Anu Malik and the song "Raja Ko Rani Se Pyar" sung by Udit Narayan & Alka Yagnik went on to become a big hit.
1163461	Suzanne Pleshette (January 31, 1937 – January 19, 2008) was an American actress and voice actress. After beginning her career in the theatre, she began appearing in films in the early 1960s, such as "Rome Adventure" (1962) and Alfred Hitchcock's "The Birds" (1963). She later appeared in various television productions, often in guest roles, and played Emily Hartley on "The Bob Newhart Show" from 1972 until 1978, receiving several Emmy Award nominations for her work. She continued acting until 2004, four years before her death. Early life. Pleshette was born in Brooklyn Heights, New York City. Her grandparents were Jewish immigrants, three of them from Russia and one of them from Austria-Hungary. Her mother, Geraldine (née Kaplan), was a dancer and artist who performed under the stage name Geraldine Rivers. Her father, Eugene Pleshette, was a stage manager, network executive and manager of the Paramount Theater in Brooklyn. She graduated from Manhattan's High School of Performing Arts and then attended Syracuse University for one semester before transferring to Finch College. A graduate of Manhattan's prestigious acting school, The Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theater, under the tutelage of legendary acting teacher Sanford Meisner. Acting career. Reviewers described her appearance and demeanor as sardonic and her voice as sultry. She began her career as a stage actress. She made her Broadway debut in Meyer Levin's 1957 play "Compulsion", adapted from his novel inspired by the Leopold and Loeb case.
1223581	This Gun for Hire is a 1942 film noir, directed by Frank Tuttle and based on the novel "A Gun for Sale" by Graham Greene. The film stars Veronica Lake, Robert Preston, Laird Cregar, and Alan Ladd. Plot. In wartime San Francisco, chemist and blackmailer Albert Baker (Frank Ferguson) is killed by remorseless hit man Raven (Ladd), who recovers a stolen chemical formula. Raven is double-crossed by his employer, Willard Gates (Cregar), who pays him with marked bills and reports them to the Los Angeles Police as stolen from his company, Nitro Chemical. Raven learns of the set up and decides to get revenge. LAPD detective lieutenant Michael Crane (Robert Preston), vacationing in San Francisco to visit his girlfriend and nightclub entertainer Ellen Graham (Lake), is immediately assigned the case but Raven eludes an attempt at capture. Meanwhile, Gates is set up to hire Ellen to work in his LA nightclub. She is taken to a clandestine meeting with Senator Burnett (Roger Imhof), where she learns that Gates and Nitro Chemical are under secret investigation as suspected traitors, and is recruited to spy on Gates. Gates and Ellen board a train for Los Angeles, followed by Raven. By chance, the first empty seat Raven can find is beside Ellen's. The next morning, Gates is alarmed when he sees them asleep with Raven's head on her shoulder. He wires ahead to alert the police, but Raven forces Ellen at gunpoint to help him elude them again. He is about to kill her but is interrupted by workmen, allowing Ellen to flee. She tries to contact Crane, but he has left San Francisco to return to LA. That evening the suspicious Gates invites Ellen to his Hollywood mansion, where his chauffeur Tommy (Marc Lawrence) knocks her unconscious to set up a fake suicide. Crane goes to the mansion looking for Ellen but Gates has already left. While Crane questions Tommy, Raven arrives and hides outside, where he sees Tommy discard Ellen's purse, to keep Crane from spotting it. Raven realizes that Ellen is in danger. After Crane leaves, Raven knocks Tommy down a flight of stairs when the chauffeur denies Ellen is still there. Raven searches the house and rescues her. Tommy recovers and warns Gates at his club, where Crane has caught up with him. Raven and Ellen are confronted as they enter the club, so Raven takes her hostage as he flees. She surreptitiously drops monogrammed playing cards as a trail of "breadcrumbs". The police corner them in a railroad yard but wait for daylight to move in. Raven reveals to Ellen that he was orphaned at a young age and raised by an aunt who beat him until he snapped one day and killed her, for which he was imprisoned in reform school. She tells him that the formula he recovered was for a poison gas that Nitro is selling to the Japanese and begs him to extract a signed confession instead of killing Gates. Ellen helps Raven escape the dragnet, hoping she has appealed to his patriotism. However he breaks his promise to her and kills a policeman to get away. Raven arrives as Nitro Chemical conducts a gas attack drill and its employees wear gas masks, obscuring their faces. Gates orders Tommy to guard his door. However Tommy spots Raven and gives chase, but is knocked out. Raven disguises himself in Tommy's uniform and gas mask to surprise Gates, forcing him to take him to company president Alvin Brewster (Tully Marshall), the criminal mastermind. Raven barricades himself with them when the police and Ellen arrive, and coerces both into signing a confession. Brewster dies of a heart attack while trying to kill Raven, who then cold-bloodedly shoots Gates. Crane is lowered on a scaffold and exchanges gunfire with Raven, wounding him. Raven passes up the opportunity to kill Crane when he sees Ellen helping the detective. Other police fatally shoot Raven, but he lives long enough to assure Ellen that he got the confession and receive her assurance that she did not turn him in. Reception. Ladd received fourth billing. Because of fan reaction and critical praise, the film made him a star. Bosley Crowther, the critic for "The New York Times", wrote that while the actors credited ahead of him gave good performances, "Mr. Ladd is the buster; he is really an actor to watch. After this stinging performance, he has something to live tip to—or live down." Crowther characterized the film itself as a "fast and exciting melodrama." Lake's star was rising rapidly due to her performances in the 1941 films "I Wanted Wings" and "Sullivan's Travels". "This Gun for Hire" was a big box office success when released and Lake's other films of 1942, "The Glass Key" and "I Married a Witch" were also box office hits. Adaptations to other media. "This Gun For Hire" was adapted as a radio play on the January 25, 1943 broadcast of Lux Radio Theater and the April 2, 1945 broadcast of The Screen Guild Theater. Alan Ladd reprised his role in both adaptations while Veronica Lake reprised in the latter, but was replaced with Joan Blondell in the former.
587905	Rao Gopal Rao (14 January 1937 — 13 August 1994) was an Indian film, Character actor and producer, known for his works predominantly in Telugu cinema. He was the member of Rajya Sabha, from April 1986 to April 1992. Early life. Rao Gopal Rao was born in 1937 in Ganganapalli near Kakinada, Andhra Pradesh.
1039572	Sir Antony Sher, KBE (born 14 June 1949) is a South African-born British actor, writer and theatre director. Early life. Sher was born into a Lithuanian-Jewish family in Cape Town, South Africa, the son of Emmanuel and Margery Sher, who worked in business. He grew up in the suburb of Sea Point and is a cousin of playwright Ronald Harwood. Sher, however, has worked mainly in the United Kingdom and is now a British citizen. In 1968, after completing his compulsory military service, he left for London to audition at the Central School of Speech and Drama and the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA), but was unsuccessful. He instead studied at the Webber Douglas Academy of Dramatic Art from 1969 to 1971. After training, and some early performances with the theatre group Gay Sweatshop, he joined the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1982. Career. In the 1970s, Sher was part of a group of young actors and writers working at the Liverpool Everyman Theatre. Comprising figures such as writers Alan Bleasdale and Willy Russell and fellow actors Trevor Eve, Bernard Hill, Jonathan Pryce and Julie Walters, Sher has summed up the work of the company with the phrase "anarchy ruled". With the Royal Shakespeare Company, Sher took the title role in "Tartuffe" and played the Fool in "King Lear". His big break arrived in 1984, when he performed the title role in "Richard III" and won the Laurence Olivier Award. Since then he has played the lead in such productions as "Tamburlaine", "Cyrano de Bergerac", "Stanley" and "Macbeth". He has also played Johnnie in Athol Fugard's "Hello and Goodbye", Iago in "Othello", Malvolio in "Twelfth Night" and Shylock in "The Merchant of Venice". Sher received his second Laurence Olivier Award in 1997 for his performance as the eponymous Stanley Spencer in "Stanley". He also has several film credits to his name, including "Yanks" (1979), "Superman II" (1980), "Shadey" (1985) and "Erik the Viking" (1989). Sher starred as the Chief Weasel in the 1996 film adaptation of "The Wind in the Willows" and as Benjamin Disraeli in the 1997 film "Mrs Brown". Sher's television appearances include the mini-series "The History Man" (1981) and "The Jury" (2002). In 2003, he played the central character in an adaptation of the J. G. Ballard short story, "The Enormous Space", filmed as "Home" and broadcast on BBC Four. In "Hornblower" (1999), he played the role of French royalist Colonel de Moncoutant, Marquis de Muzillac, in the episode "The Frogs and the Lobsters". More recent credits include a cameo in the British comedy film "Three and Out" (2008) and the role of Akiba in the television play "God on Trial" (2008). Other work. Sher's books include the memoirs "Woza Shakespeare: Titus Andronicus in South Africa" (with Gregory Doran, 1997), "Year of the King" (1985), "Beside Myself" (2002), "Characters" (1990) and "Primo Time" (2005). His novels are "Middlepost" (1989), "Cheap Lives" (1995), "The Indoor Boy" (1996) and "The Feast" (1999). Sher has also written several plays, including "I.D." (2003) and "Primo" (2004). The latter was adapted as a film in 2005. In 2008, "The Giant", the first of his plays in which Sher did not feature, was performed at the Hampstead Theatre. The main characters are Michelangelo (at the time of his creation of "David"), Leonardo da Vinci and Vito, their mutual apprentice. In 2005, Sher directed "Breakfast With Mugabe" at the Swan Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon. The production moved to the Soho Theatre in April 2006 and the Duchess Theatre one month later. In 2007, he made a crime documentary for Channel 4, titled "Murder Most Foul", about his native South Africa. It examines the double murder of actor Brett Goldin and fashion designer Richard Bloom. In 2011, Sher appeared in the BBC TV series "The Shadow Line" in the role of Glickman. Personal life. In 2005, Sher and his partner – director Gregory Doran, with whom he frequently collaborates professionally – became one of the first gay couples to enter into a civil partnership in the UK.
1162455	Gordon MacRae (March 12, 1921 – January 24, 1986) was an American actor and singer, best known for his appearances in the film versions of two Rodgers and Hammerstein musicals, "Oklahoma!" (1955) and "Carousel" (1956), and playing William "Bill" Sherman in "On Moonlight Bay" (1951), and "By The Light of the Silvery Moon" (1953). Early life. Born in New Jersey, MacRae graduated from Deerfield Academy in 1940 and served as a navigator in the United States Army Air Forces during World War II. Prior to this, he attended Nottingham High School in Syracuse, NY. Career. He made his Broadway debut in 1942, acquiring his first recording contract soon afterwards. Many of his hit recordings were made with Jo Stafford. It was in 1948 that he appeared in his first film, "The Big Punch", a drama about boxing. He soon began an on-screen partnership with Doris Day and appeared with her in several films. In 1951, he starred with Doris Day in "On Moonlight Bay", followed by the sequel "By the Light of the Silvery Moon" in 1953. That same year, he also starred opposite Kathryn Grayson in the third film version of "The Desert Song". This was followed by leading roles in two major films of Rodgers and Hammerstein musicals, "Oklahoma!" (1955) and "Carousel" (1956), both films opposite Shirley Jones. On radio, he was the host and lead actor on "The Railroad Hour", a half-hour anthology series made up of condensed versions of hit Broadway musicals. MacRae appeared frequently on television, on such programs as "The Martha Raye Show" and "The Ford Show, Starring Tennessee Ernie Ford", both on NBC. On Christmas 1958, MacRae and Ford performed the Christmas hymn "O Holy Night". Earlier in 1958, MacRae guest starred on the short-lived NBC variety series, "The Polly Bergen Show". Thereafter, MacRae appeared on "The Ed Sullivan Show", "The Pat Boone Chevy Showroom", and "The Bell Telephone Hour". He continued his musical stage career, often performing with his wife, as in a 1964 production of "Bells Are Ringing", also performing as Sky Masterson in the popular musical "Guys and Dolls", his wife playing the role of Miss Adeleide, reprising her Broadway role. In the late 1960s he co-hosted for a week on "The Mike Douglas Show". He also toured in summer stock and appeared in nightclubs. In 1967, he replaced Robert Preston in the original Broadway run of the musical "I Do! I Do!", starring opposite Carol Lawrence, who had taken over the role from Mary Martin. In the 1970s, he portrayed a murderer on the popular TV series "McCloud" and played a supporting role in what turned out to be his last film, the 1979 motion picture "The Pilot". Personal life. He was married to Sheila MacRae from 1941 until 1967; the couple were the parents of Heather MacRae and Meredith MacRae. He married Elizabeth Lamberti Schrafft on September 25, 1967, and they remained married until his death. He was close friends with Shirley Jones and was the godfather of her son Shaun Cassidy. Gordon and Sheila MacRae also had two sons named Gordon (Gar) and Robert Bruce (Bruce). Filmography. Feature films: Short subjects: Discography. This is Gordon Macrae Capital Records References. I have Album cover "Gordon MacRae" 72438-19268-2-6 From; The Beautiful Music Conpany ..20 song on the album. Have picture but can't locate it on line. I borrowed this from the Public Library System.
1057557	Homicidal is a 1961 thriller film produced and directed by the self-proclaimed "King of Showmanship", William Castle. Written by Robb White, the film stars Glenn Corbett, Patricia Breslin, Eugenie Leontovich, Alan Bunce, Richard Rust, and Joan Marshall (billed as Jean Arless). It was released with a "fright break" that allowed patrons to receive a refund if they were too scared to stay for the climax of the film. Plot. A mysterious attractive blonde (Arless), an elderly family nurse who uses a wheelchair and is unable to speak (Leontovich), and a soon to be 21-year-old family heir all share an isolated brooding mansion where many unseemly events occur. Film prologue. As with most of his films William Castle spoke directly to the audience in a prologue similar to those Alfred Hitchcock used for his then popular TV show. William Castle told the audience:
1239366	Elizabeth Whitcraft is an American actress who played small parts in some notable American films in the 1980s and 1990s. She was often credited as Liza Whitcraft or Liz Whitcraft. Born in 1961, and raised in New Jersey, she also lived for a time in Philadelphia and New York City, then moved to L.A. in the early 1980s. Career. Her break came in 1984, where she had a supporting role in the film "Birdy". She then worked in several films that starred Robert De Niro, "Angel Heart" (1987), and "Goodfellas" (1990) (she played the girlfriend of Joe Pesci's character Tommy). In 1988, she played a slightly more notable role as Doreen DiMucci in "Working Girl". Whitcraft also did a few TV guest spots on the series "Spenser For Hire" (1985) and "Quantum Leap" (1989). After co-starring in the drama "Object of Obsession" in 1995, Whitcraft left the acting profession. However, she did make a brief acting appearance as a fashion stylist in George Clooney's HBO TV series "Unscripted" (2005). Whitcraft now works as a fashion stylist in Los Angeles for print, film and TV.
1068759	Welcome to the Rileys is a 2010 American independent drama film directed by Jake Scott, written by Ken Hixon, and starring Kristen Stewart, James Gandolfini and Melissa Leo. The film debuted at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival. Plot. Ever since the death of their daughter Emily, Doug (James Gandolfini) and Lois Riley (Melissa Leo) have been drifting apart. As Lois wrestles with a suffocating sense of guilt over her daughter's death, Doug copes by entering into an affair with Vivian, a local waitress. Lately, Lois hasn't even been able to muster the courage to venture outside, summoning hairdressers to her home in order to maintain appearances and communicating with few people other than her sister Harriet and the local pastor. When Vivian dies and Doug finds himself in a New Orleans strip club during a business trip, he realizes he's come to a dangerous crossroads in life.
1061588	Dorothy Jean Dandridge (November 9, 1922 – September 8, 1965) was an American actress and singer, and was the first African-American to be nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress. She performed as a vocalist in venues such as the Cotton Club and the Apollo Theater. After many bit parts, and a few minor roles, Dandridge landed her first notable film role in "Tarzan's Peril" (starring Lex Barker), in 1951. She won her first starring role in 1953, playing a teacher in a low-budget film with a nearly all-black cast, "Bright Road", released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. In 1954, she was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress and a BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role for "Carmen Jones". In 1959, she was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Motion Picture Musical or Comedy for "Porgy and Bess". In 1999, she was the subject of the HBO biopic "Introducing Dorothy Dandridge", starring Halle Berry as Dandridge. She has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Dandridge was married and divorced twice: first, to dancer and entertainer Harold Nicholas (the father of her daughter, Harolyn Suzanne), and then to Jack Denison. She died at age 42. Early life. Dorothy Dandridge was born on November 9, 1922, in Cleveland, Ohio, to Cyril Dandridge (October 25, 1895 – July 9, 1989), a cabinetmaker and minister, and Ruby Dandridge (née Butler), an aspiring entertainer. Dandridge's parents separated shortly before her birth. Ruby created a song-and-dance act for her two young daughters, Vivian and Dorothy, under the name of "The Wonder Children". The sisters toured the Southern United States almost non-stop for five years (rarely attending school), while Ruby worked and performed in Cleveland. During the Great Depression, work virtually dried up for the Dandridges, as it did for many Chitlin' circuit performers. Ruby moved to Hollywood, California, where she found steady work on radio and film in small parts as a domestic servant. In 1937, "The Wonder Children" were renamed "The Dandridge Sisters" and booked into such venues as the Cotton Club and the Apollo Theater in Harlem, New York City. Career. Early career. Dandridge's first screen appearance was a bit part in an Our Gang comedy, "Teacher's Beau" (1935). In 1937, she appeared as one of the many singers in the Marx Brothers' feature film "A Day at the Races". The following year, Dorothy and her sister Vivian appeared briefly in "Going Places". In 1940, Dandridge played a murderer in the race film "Four Shall Die" — her first credited film role. Though the part was a supporting role and the film was somewhat of a success, Dandridge struggled to find good film roles.
334868	Sheree Julienne Wilson (born in Rochester, Minnesota on December 12, 1958) is an American actress, producer and former model. She is best known for her role as April Stevens on the American prime-time television series "Dallas" (a role she played from 1986 to 1991), and as Alexandra "Alex" Cahill-Walker, on television series "Walker, Texas Ranger" from 1993-2001. Early life. The daughter of two IBM executives, Wilson moved to Colorado at the age of nine. In 1981, Wilson received a degree in fashion merchandising and business from the University of Colorado Boulder. Career. While working in Denver on a fashion shoot, one of the photographers mistook Wilson for the model; he introduced her to a New York modeling agent, who signed her on the spot. She moved to Manhattan and within eighteen months, had appeared in over thirty commercial campaigns for Clairol, Sea Breeze, Keri-Lotion and Maybelline. Her print work ran in such popular magazines as "Mademoiselle", "Glamour" and "Redbook". After three years of modeling, Wilson moved to Los Angeles. Her first roles included the black comedy "Crimewave" directed by Sam Raimi, "Velvet", an ABC/Aaron Spelling television movie, and an episode of the espionage series "Cover Up". The following year, she had a lead with Tim Robbins in the comedy "Fraternity Vacation", and also appeared in the 1985 CBS television miniseries "Kane & Abel", with Peter Strauss. This immediately led to "Our Family Honor", a CBS drama about Irish cops versus the Mafia, in which she starred with Ray Liotta, Michael Madsen and Eli Wallach. Her career continued to flourish, with a role in the television movie "News at Eleven" in 1986. Later in 1986, Wilson gained the role as April Stevens on the CBS soap opera "Dallas", a role she played for almost five seasons (1986–1990). Wilson left the series in the first half of the 1990-91 season (which would be the show's final season) as she was pregnant. Her character was gunned down during her honeymoon (with new husband Bobby Ewing) in Paris. Wilson’s performance earned her the “Soap Opera Digest Award” for Best Death Scene.
1163617	Tony Randall (February 26, 1920May 17, 2004) was an American actor, producer, and director, known for his role as Felix Unger in the television adaptation of Neil Simon's play, "The Odd Couple". Early years. Randall was born Arthur Leonard Rosenberg, to a Jewish family, in Tulsa, Oklahoma, the son of Julia (née Finston) and Mogscha Rosenberg, an art and antiques dealer. He attended Tulsa Central High School. Randall attended Northwestern University for a year before going to New York City to study at the Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theatre. He studied under Sanford Meisner and choreographer Martha Graham around 1935. As Anthony Randall, he starred with Jane Cowl in George Bernard Shaw's "Candida" and Ethel Barrymore in Emlyn Williams's "The Corn Is Green". Randall then served for four years with the United States Army Signal Corps in World War II, refusing an entertainment assignment with Special Services. After the war, he worked at the Olney Theatre in Montgomery County, Maryland before heading back to New York City. Prior to his appearance in "Candida", Randall worked as an announcer at radio station WTAG, Worcester MA. Career. Randall appeared in minor roles on Broadway, and supporting roles on tours. In the 1940s one of his first job was playing "Reggie" on the long-running radio series "I Love a Mystery". In 1946, he was cast as one of the brothers in a touring production of Katharine Cornell's revival of "The Barretts of Wimpole Street". His first major role in a Broadway hit was in "Inherit the Wind" in 1955 portraying Newspaperman E. K. Hornbeck (based on real life cynic H. L. Mencken). In 1958, he played the leading role in the musical comedy "Oh, Captain!", taking on a role originated on film by Alec Guinness. "Oh, Captain!" was a financial failure, but Randall received a Tony Award nomination for his legendary dance turn with prima ballerina Alexandra Danilova. Television. His first major television role was as history teacher Harvey Weskit in "Mr. Peepers" (1952–1955). He then starred in an NBC-TV special "The Secret of Freedom" which was filmed during the summer of 1959 in Mount Holly, New Jersey, and broadcast on the network during the fall of 1959 and again in early 1960. He returned to television in 1970 as Felix Unger in "The Odd Couple", opposite Jack Klugman, a role lasting for five years. The names of Unger's children on "The Odd Couple" were Edna and Leonard, named after Randall's sister and Randall himself. In 1974, Randall and Jack Klugman appeared in television spots endorsing a "Yahtzee" spinoff, "Challenge Yahtzee". They appeared in character as Felix and Oscar, and the TV spots were filmed on the same set as "The Odd Couple". Later he starred in "The Tony Randall Show", playing a Philadelphia judge, and "Love, Sidney". In the TV movie that served as the latter show's pilot, Sidney Shorr was written as a gay man, but his character's sexuality was made ambiguous when the series premiered. Randall refused to star in any more television shows. Randall was the host for the October 30 – November 2, 1987 free preview of HBO's short-lived premium channel Festival. In September 1993, Randall and Jack Klugman reunited in the CBS-TV movie "The Odd Couple: Together Again" reprising their roles. The story began when, after Felix ruined plans for his daughter Edna's wedding, his wife Gloria threw him out of the house for 11 days, which left him no choice but to move back in with Oscar and to help him recover, getting him back in shape after throat cancer surgery left his voice very raspy. Film. He starred as nearly all of the leading characters in the 1964 classic film "7 Faces of Dr. Lao", which was based on The Circus of Dr. Lao by Charles G. Finney. The film received an Oscar for William J. Tuttle's makeup artistry. His film roles included "Oh, Men! Oh, Women!" (1957) "Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?" (1957), "The Mating Game" (1959), "Pillow Talk" (1959), "Let's Make Love" (1960), "Boys' Night Out" (1962), "The Brass Bottle" (1964), "Hello Down There" (1969), "Scavenger Hunt" (1979), "The King of Comedy" (1983) and "" (1990). Stage. In 1991, he founded the National Actors Theatre (ultimately housed at Pace University in New York City) where starred in A Christmas Carol (1994), The Inspector General (1994), Three Men on a Horse (1993), and gave his final stage performance in Luigi Pirandello's "Right You Are (If You Think You Are)" in 2003. Periodically, he performed in stage revivals of "The Odd Couple" with Jack Klugman including a stint in London in 1996. The following year, Randall and Klugman reunited to appear on Broadway in a revival of "The Sunshine Boys." From 1988 to 1990, he appeared in John Dexter's production of "M. Butterfly". Guest appearances. On September 4, 1955, Randall and Jack Klugman appeared together with Gena Rowlands in the episode "The Pirate's House" of the CBS anthology series, "Appointment with Adventure". Randall was a frequent guest on "The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson" and often spoke of his love of opera, saying it was due in no small part to the salaciousness of many of the plotlines. He also admitted to sneaking tape recorders into operas to make his own private recordings. He chided Johnny Carson for his chain-smoking, and was generally fastidious. At the time of his death, Randall had appeared as a guest on "The Tonight Show" 105 times, more often than any other celebrity. Randall appeared frequently on "What's My Line?", "Password", "The Hollywood Squares", and the "$10,000" and "$20,000 Pyramids". He also parodied his pompous image with an appearance as a "contestant" on "The Gong Show" in 1977. First aired on October 11 of 1980, Randall was a guest star on the 5th and final season of The Muppet Show. This was the 100th episode of the show. Randall, along with John Goodman and Drew Barrymore was one of the first guests on the debut episode of "Late Night with Conan O'Brien" on 13 September 1993. He would also appear in Conan's "5th Anniversary Special" with the character PimpBot 5000. Randall was also a frequent guest on both of David Letterman's late-night shows "Late Night with David Letterman" and the "Late Show with David Letterman", making 70 appearances, according to his obituary in the "Washington Post"; Letterman said that Randall was one of his favorite guests, along with Regis Philbin. On November 7, 1994, Randall appeared on the game show "Jeopardy!", as part of a Special Edition Celebrity "Jeopardy!" episode, playing on behalf of the National Actors Theatre. He came in second place after General Norman Schwarzkopf, Jr. and before Actress Stefanie Powers, with a final score of $9,900. In 1999, Randall was featured in the Simpsons episode "Maximum Homerdrive" (season 10, episode 17). A picture of Randall is seen on a wall of fame in a steakhouse, displaying the only two persons who have finished a 16-lb. steak called "Sir Loinalot". Other creative activities. In 1973, Tony Randall and Jack Klugman recorded an album called "The Odd Couple Sings" for London Records. Roland Shaw and The London Festival Orchestra and Chorus provided the music and additional vocals. The record was not a chart-topper but is a highly sought-after item for many Odd Couple fans. A noted raconteur, Randall co-wrote with Mike Mindlin a collection of amusing and sometimes racy show business anecdotes called "Which Reminds Me", published in 1989. In keeping with his penchant for both championing and mocking the culture that he loved, during the Big Band era revival in the mid-1960s he produced a record album of 1930s songs, "Vo Vo De Oh Doe", inspired by (and covering) The New Vaudeville Band's one-hit wonder, "Winchester Cathedral." He mimicked (and somewhat exaggerated) the vibrato style of Carmen Lombardo, and the two of them once sang a duet of Lombardo's signature song "Boo Hoo (You've Got Me Crying for You)" on "The Tonight Show". Activism. Randall was an advocate for the arts. During the summer of 1980, he served as the celebrity host of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra's concerts in Central Park, New York City. He was politically liberal. During the U.S. presidential primaries in 1972, he appeared as the featured celebrity at numerous fundraising house-parties for Democratic candidate George McGovern. Personal life. Randall was married to Florence Gibbs from 1942 until her death from cancer in 1992. The following year, he said, "I wish I believed I'd see my parents again, see my wife again. But I know it's not going to happen." He remarried on November 17, 1995, to Heather Harlan, an intern in one of his theatrical programs. At the time, Tony was 75, Heather 25. The two of them later had two children. They remained married until his death in May 2004. In his book "Which Reminds Me," he said that any publicity an actor generates should be about his work, not himself. "The public knows only one thing about me: I don't smoke." In 1995 he made his engagement and marriage to Harlan and his fatherhood public. Death. Randall died in his sleep on May 17, 2004, at NYU Medical Center of pneumonia that he had contracted following coronary bypass surgery in December 2003. His remains are interred at the Westchester Hills Cemetery in Hastings-on-Hudson, New York State. Awards and honors. Randall was nominated for five Golden Globe awards and six Emmy Awards, winning one Emmy in 1975 for his work on the sitcom "The Odd Couple". In 1993, he received The Hundred Year Association of New York's Gold Medal Award "in recognition of outstanding contributions to the City of New York." Pace University granted him an honorary Doctor of Fine Arts degree in 2003. References. Notes "Further reading"'
1192700	American Cowslip is the title of an independent feature film by director Mark David. It revolves around heroin addict, Ethan Inglebrink, whose life is centered around his garden and his group of eccentric friends. "American Cowslip" is David's third film, following his debut, "Sweet Thing" (1999), and his second, acclaimed feature, "Intoxicating" (2003).
1034087	Peter Paul Wyngarde (born 23 August 1928) is a French-born English actor best known for playing the character Jason King, a bestselling novelist turned sleuth, in two British television series: "Department S" (1969–1970) and "Jason King" (1971–1972). Biography. Early life and career. He was born Cyril Goldbert in Marseille, France, the son of an English father and a French mother. His father worked for the British Diplomatic Service, and as a result his childhood was spent in a number of different countries. In 1941, while his parents were away in India, he went to stay with a Swiss family in Shanghai. The Japanese Army took over Shanghai's International Settlement on 8 December 1941, and as a British citizen Goldbert was interned in the Lunghua civilian internment camp on 10 April 1943. Conditions in the camp were sometimes harsh. According to J. G. Ballard's autobiography "Miracles of Life", "Cyril Goldbert, the future Peter Wyngarde" was a fellow internee at Lunghua Camp and "He was four years older than me...". Ballard was born in November 1930 but according to Lunghwa Camp records compiled in 1943, Goldbert was actually born in 1928. His younger siblings, Adolphe Henry and Marion Simeone, were under Swiss protection and thus exempt from internment. As a young man he went into acting and from the mid-1950s had various acting roles in feature films, television plays and television series guest appearances. One of these, a television adaptation of Julien Green's novel "South" (1959, originally "Sud"), in which Wyngarde featured in a lead role, is thought to be earliest television play with an overtly homosexual theme. In 1960 he played Sir Roger Casement in an episode in the Granada TV's "On Trial" series produced by Peter Wildeblood. Wyngarde's film work was limited but had impact. In Jack Clayton's "The Innocents" (1961), he had brief (unspeaking) scenes as the leering Peter Quint with Deborah Kerr and Pamela Franklin. The following year he was the lead actor in the occult thriller "Night of the Eagle". By the late 1960s, he was a regular guest star on many of the popular UK series of the day — many of which were espionage adventure series — including "The Avengers", "The Saint", "The Baron", "Sherlock Holmes", "The Champions", "The Troubleshooters", "Love Story", "I Spy" and "The Man In Room 17". He also played the authority figure Number Two in "The Prisoner" ("Checkmate", 1967). Wyngarde became a British household name through his starring role in the espionage series "Department S" (1969). His Jason King character often got the girl and as she is about to kiss him, he manages to avoid it, much to the annoyance of co-actor Joel Fabiani. After that series ended, his character, the suave womaniser Jason King, was spun off into a new action espionage series entitled "Jason King" (1971), which ran for one season (26 one-hour episodes). The quirky series was sold overseas and Wyngarde briefly became an international celebrity, being mobbed by female fans in Australia. A revival in October 1973 of "The King and I", featuring Wyngarde in the male lead role, and initially with Sally Ann Howes as Anna, ran for 260 performances at the Adelphi Theatre in London. Later life and career. In 1975, he was arrested, convicted and fined £75 for an act of "gross indecency" in the toilets of Gloucester Bus Station, which followed an arrest and caution for similar activities in the toilets at Kennedy Gardens in Birmingham the previous year. After the first incident, Wyngarde was interviewed for the "News of the World" and the Birmingham-based "Sunday Mercury", and asserted that the arrest was due to a misunderstanding; in his defence after the second incident he claimed he had suffered a "mental aberration". Although it affected his image, particularly with his audience who largely identified him as the ladies' man Jason King, Wyngarde's homosexuality was actually well known in acting circles, where he was known by the nickname of "Petunia Winegum". From 1956, he had a ten-year-long relationship with fellow actor Alan Bates. After losing his TV celebrity status, Wyngarde worked in Austria, acting and directing at the English Theatre in Vienna, and also in South Africa and Germany. He landed the role of General Klytus in the 1980 film version of "Flash Gordon", and although his face was hidden behind a mask for the part, his distinctive voice is clearly recognisable in the film. In 1983, he appeared in the thriller "Underground" opposite Raymond Burr at the Royal Alexandra Theatre, Toronto, and at the Prince of Wales Theatre, London. During the 1980s and 1990s he made a number of TV appearances, including the "Doctor Who" serial "Planet of Fire" (1984), "Hammer House of Mystery & Suspense" (1984), "The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes" (1994) and the film "Tank Malling" (1989). In recent years he has been a regular guest at Memorabilia, a cult, science fiction and sporting memorabilia fair at the National Exhibition Centre in Birmingham. His most recent television appearance was as a guest of Simon Dee in the Channel Four one-off revival of his chat show "Dee Time" in 2003. In 2007, Wyngarde participated in recording featurettes for a reissue of "The Prisoner" on DVD, including a mock interview segment titled "The Pink Prisoner"; this material was released in the "Prisoner" DVD set issued in the UK in 2007 and in North America on both DVD and Blu-ray in October 2009. A number of published references state that Wyngarde's real name is Cyril Louis (or Lovis) Goldbert. The now-defunct Hellfire Club official website described this as a myth that developed from his jokingly giving his uncle's name, Louis Jouvet, in an interview in the 1970s. However, J.G. Ballard and his family knew him as Cyril Goldbert when they were interned in Lunghua civilian internment camp during World War 2. Music. In 1970, Wyngarde recorded an album for RCA Victor entitled simply "Peter Wyngarde", featuring a single, "La Ronde De L'Amour/The Way I Cry Over You". However, Wyngarde did not deliver a set of easy listening standards as might be expected, but a most unusual collection of spoken word/musical arrangements. The LP is believed to have been quickly withdrawn after its release, but has gained cult status in the intervening years. Selections are often played on XM Radio's Internet-only retro-lounge channel 79, "On the Rocks". Almost thirty years after its release, the album was reissued on CD by the British RPM Records label as "When Sex Leers Its Inquisitive Head". According to Wyngarde himself (quoted in the liner notes of the CD re-issue), prior to the RCA deal, EMI Records had also been interested in cashing in on his fame and suggested issuing an album of him performing a selection of Sinatra songs. However, RCA allowed him carte blanche, assuming that the record would be a failure and could be used by them as a tax loss. However, when the initial pressings quickly sold out and it showed a profit, they declined to press any more copies. Track listing:
1058387	Ever After: A Cinderella Story is a 1998 film inspired by the fairy tale "Cinderella", directed by Andy Tennant and starring Drew Barrymore, Anjelica Huston and Dougray Scott. The screenplay is written by Tennant, Susannah Grant, and Rick Parks. The original music score is composed by George Fenton. The film's closing theme song "Put Your Arms Around Me" is performed by the rock band Texas. The usual pantomime and comic/supernatural elements are removed and the story is instead treated as historical fiction, set in Renaissance-era France. Plot. In the early nineteenth century, the Grande Dame of France, an elderly aristocrat, summons The Brothers Grimm to tell them the real story of the little cinder girl. She shows them a portrait of a young woman named Danielle de Barbarac, and a glass slipper, and begins her tale; which takes place in the late fifteenth century/early sixteenth century. Danielle, a little girl at age eight, lives with her widowed father, Auguste, who shares with her a love of books and progressive ideas. He brings home a new wife, the haughty Baroness Rodmilla de Ghent, who has two daughters about Danielle's age, Marguerite and Jacqueline. He has a heart attack soon after, and with his dying breath professes his purely deep and close fatherly love for Danielle rather than his romantic love to Rodmilla, who envies Danielle and treats her like a servant thereafter for the next ten years. Marguerite is as cruel as Rodmilla, but Jacqueline is kind and gentle. Ten years later, in the manor's orchard, eighteen-year old Danielle catches a man stealing her father's horse. She unseats him with a well-aimed apple, but is horrified to learn that he is Henry, the Crown Prince of France, trying to escape the duties and responsibilities of court.
581827	Khoon Bhari Maang is an Indian Bollywood movie released on 12 August 1988, directed and produced by Rakesh Roshan. It is a remake of the Australian mini-series "Return to Eden" (1983), and is about a wealthy widow who is almost killed by her lover and sets out for revenge. The film was a comeback venture for Rekha and was a critical and commercial success. Synopsis. Aarti Verma (Rekha) is a widow with two children. She is an unattractive woman with a large birthmark on her face. Aarti's husband died in a car accident under mysterious circumstances, and her father (Saeed Jaffrey) is one of the richest and most famous businessmen in the city. However, when Aarti's father is murdered by his worker Hiralal (Kader Khan), Aarti's world is completely destroyed. She does not find any sense for her life, except bringing up her children. Hiralal pretends to be a friend, and takes care of her like a father. He brings his poor nephew Sanjay (Kabir Bedi) from abroad, who is also the lover of Aarti's best friend Nandini (Sonu Walia). Although Nandini loves Aarti, she is intensely in love with Sanjay, and after he requests her to help him, she finally agrees to help him rob Aarti of her wealth. Slowly, Sanjay gets close to Aarti's children. Nandini and the rest of the family convince Aarti to marry Sanjay and finally, she marries him. The day after the wedding, Aarti, Sanjay and Nandini go on a short trip, in which Sanjay pushes Aarti from the rowboat into crocodile-infested waters, so that she dies, and he inherits her wealth. The crocodile mauls Aarti and mutilates her body and face. However, Aarti's body is not found and Sanjay cannot inherit the legacy until her body is found and her death is established beyond any doubt. As a result, the family is in a hysterical situation. Sanjay, out of frustrations becomes abusive to the children and Aarti's pets. While all of this is occurring, Aarti is found adrift by an old farmer, who rescues her. A few months later, the horribly-disfigured Aarti decides to return to her city and avenge herself and her family. She exchanges her expensive diamond earrings for a huge amount of money, using the money to pay for extensive plastic surgery, and becomes a stunningly beautiful woman, very different from her earlier self. Aarti then changes her name to Jyoti and finds a job as a model in the same agency where Nandini works as well. Now a new person with a new identity, her goal is to conquer Sanjay as a stranger, and kill him in the same way as he had tried to kill her. Aarti, now "reincarnated" as Jyoti, goes on a dangerous journey of murder and revenge, and she will not be satisfied until she regains her home, family and dignity. Music. The film has four songs composed by Rajesh Roshan: Main Teri Hoon Jaanam borrows heavily from Vangelis' Chariots of Fire Reception. Reviews towards "Khoon Bhari Maang" were positive, with most of the critics' praise being directed towards Rekha's performance. In a 2000 article reviewing the last two decades in Hindi cinema, Bhawana Somaaya from "The Hindu" wrote, "Rakesh Roshan offers Rekha the role of a lifetime in "Khoon Bhari Maang"." M.L. Dhawan from "The Tribune", while documenting the famous Hindi films of 1988, argued, "With "Khoon Bhari Maang", Rakesh Roshan destroyed the myth that it was essential to have a hero as the protagonist and that heroines were there just to serve as interludes and mannenquins." Dhawan further noted, "This fast-paced movie was a crowning glory for Rekha, who rose like a phoenix in this remake of "Return to Eden", and bedazzled the audience with her daredevilry." Akshay Shah from Planet Bollywood wrote, "a perfect female oriented... demands repeat viewing."
1240486	Campus Confidential is a television comedy film starring Christy Carlson Romano and Keri Lynn Pratt, and directed by Melanie Mayron. The film was written by David Kukoff and Matt Roshkow, and co-produced by Firm Films. It premiered August 21, 2005 on ABC Family. The film also stars Teddy Dunn and Nicole Paggi. Plot. The film takes place in a small suburb where new student, Violet Jacobs, finds herself dealing with a social hierarchy. When things go bad she recruits the help of a new friend, and editor of the paper, Cornelia Nixon. Together they create a tabloid called "THE TATTLER". It has stories on all the "A-List" kids in the school. But things take a turn for the worse when power hungry Cornelia writes a false story about Brandon, Violet's crush. The story ends when the tabloid is crushed by Violet blackmailing Cornelia with evidence of a plastic surgery she had long ago. Then a retraction is published for all the people who got hurt. The film is a modern-day interpretation of Animal Farm by George Orwell, but with a different ending, as referenced in one of the final scenes of the movie. Releases. The film is available for download on iTunes.
586429	Bhindi Baazaar Inc. is a Hindi thriller directed by Ankush Bhatt and produced by Karan Arora, starring Kay Kay Menon, Piyush Mishra, Prashant Narayanan, Deepti Naval, Gautham K Sharma, Shilpa Shukla, Pawan Malhotra. The film is set in the underbelly of Mumbai, between the infamous by-lanes where crime is prevalent as a way of life.
1227366	Spinout is a 1966 American musical film and comedy starring Elvis Presley as the lead singer of a band and part-time race car driver. The film was #57 on the year end list of the top-grossing films of 1966. Years later, "Spinout" was included as one of the choices in the book "The Fifty Worst Films of All Time".
1712433	The Inglorious Bastards (, literally: "That damned armored train") is a 1978 Italian war film directed by Enzo G. Castellari, written by Sandro Continenza, Sergio Grieco, Franco Marotta, Romano Migliorini, and Laura Toscano, and starring Bo Svenson, Peter Hooten, Fred Williamson, Michael Pergolani, and Jackie Basehart. The film score was written by Francesco De Masi. Plot. In France during World War II, a group of American soldiers are in the process of being shipped off to military prison for a variety of infractions, ranging from desertion to murder. While they are being transported, a German air attack hits the convoy, killing most of the prisoners but allowing the five surviving prisoners to fight off the escorting MPs and escape.
1377233	"Sharpay's Fabulous Adventure" is a direct-to video film and "High School Musical" spin-off starring Ashley Tisdale. The film looks at Sharpay Evans' life after her graduation trying to get a role in a Broadway show. The film was released as a Blu-ray and DVD combination pack on April 19, 2011. The Disney Channel Original Movie premiered on Disney Channel on May 22, 2011. It was the first Disney Channel Original Movie to be released on DVD before being broadcast on Disney Channel. Plot. Sharpay Evans (Ashley Tisdale) performs a dance number at the Lava Springs Country Club (Gonna Shine). There she meets a famous producer Jerry Taylor (Pat Mastroianni) who offers her a chance to star in his newest show on Broadway. Sharpay thinks the audition is for her, but it's actually for Boi, her dog. Sharpay later convinces her father to let her move to New York City on her own. He hesitantly accepts, but he has a condition: if the plan backfires, Sharpay is forced to move back with her parents and work at Lava Springs. While in New York, Sharpay is kicked out of her penthouse because they don't allow dogs. While in despair, she meets Peyton (Austin Butler), an aspiring film director, who offers her a studio apartment. Sharpay accepts but is disgusted to find out what it is. Sharpay, Peyton, and Boi go shopping to give her studio a little make over. While Peyton sees Sharpay in distress, he brings her to the stage of the Radio City Music Hall which makes her feel much better. There she meets Neal Roberts and Gill Samms, producers of Jerry's show (My Boi and Me). When she finds out they only want Boi, she becomes discouraged. However, with the help of Peyton, she auditions him, but only to be caught in a tie with very competitive Roger Elliston (Bradley Steven Perry). Minutes later, Sharpay meets Amber Lee Adams (Cameron Goodman) who Sharpay looks up to, the star of the show. Leaving the theater, Sharpay is threatened by Roger that if she doesn't drop out, there will be serious consequences. Later in the film, Boi and Countess (Roger's female pup) run away together. Sharpay and Roger form a truce and team up to find them. Fortunately, Peyton finds them at the theater. Meanwhile, Amber Lee fires her right hand and hires Sharpay just to boss her around. Unknowingly, Sharpay is a maid to her and answers to her every need. Amber makes it appear that she is Sharpay's friend and that her being a servant would place Boi for the role. Sharpay later finds out that Amber Lee isn't all who she cracks up to be. She is actually a mean diva who is rude to everyone on the production, and worse, plans to fire remove the dogs in the picture to make the musical all about her. Sharpay and Roger concocts a plan to get her fired from the show. Her plan works, only to get Sharpay fired and Amber Lee quitting from the production. Just as it seems that the production is about to get canceled due to Amber Lee quitting, Peyton shows footage to the producers that Sharpay can be the girl to star in the show (New York's Best Kept Secret). They take his word and hire Sharpay as the lead role in ""A Girl's Best Friend"" (The Rest Of My Life). Sharpay accepts the offer only if Boi and Countess split the role of Shelby. Sharpay and Peyton share a kiss and she finally gets her dream of performing on Broadway. In the end, Ryan Evans (Lucas Grabeel) appears at her door and when Sharpay left the room, he gets stuck in the fold-up bed. Production. Tisdale is the executive producer of the film, along with Bill Borden and Barry Rosenbush who previously produced the first three "High School Musical" films. In making the announcement, Gary Marsh, the president of Disney Channels Worldwide, said: "In 'Sharpay,' Ashley Tisdale brought to life one of the most memorable comedic characters we've seen in years. This movie captures the absolutely perfect next chapter in Sharpay's life, as she tries to cultivate the humanity buried, deep, deep within her – a challenging and hilarious endeavor." The film had "Sharpay's Fabulous Adventure" as a working title, before being renamed to "High Stakes". According to DisneyChannelMediaNet.com, the film's title has been changed back to "Sharpay's Fabulous Adventure". Former "High School Musical" actress Vanessa Hudgens expressed interest in making a cameo appearance in the film. On May 21, 2010, however, Tisdale told MTV that Hudgens would not appear in the film because she's "too busy promoting films and stuff" but announced there will be a special guest appearance. On June 8, Austin Butler's involvement was announced, as well as Bradley Steven Perry's. The name of the character played by Cameron Goodman, was never officially announced by Disney Channel, although several outlets listed the name as Lisa Lamore. During an interview on February 16, 2011, Goodman stated the name of the character she plays is Amber Lee Adams. Filming began on May 25, 2010, in Toronto, Canada, and wrapped on July 6, 2010. The movie trailer was released in November 2010, and has since been shown on Disney Channel. The film was produced by Prinsessa Productions Ltd. and Borden & Rosenbrush Entertainment. Reception. The movie has met with mixed reviews from critics. Brian Orndorf stated "Though frivolous, "Sharpay's Fabulous Adventure" is an enjoyable romp with everyone's favorite pampered princess, delivering limited antics with a great deal of charisma." David Nusair of "Reel Film Reviews" called it "...bland and surprisingly low-rent..." James Plath said "Though "Sharpay's Fabulous Adventure" doesn't have the same verve or originality of the 'HSM' movies, it's still solid-pink entertainment that should delight the target audience of mostly pre-teen and early teenage girls (and boys who like Tisdale but would never, in a million years, admit it)." The movie received 4.9 million viewers on its premiere on Disney Channel on May 22, 2011. Release. Media. The film was released on Blu-ray and DVD on April 19, 2011 in three different format packages: a stand-alone DVD, a 2-disc DVD and Blu-ray combo pack, and a limited edition set which includes the film in DVD, Blu-ray, and digital download, as well as a pink clutch purse. The Blu-ray Disc includes bloopers and two featurettes: "Evolution of Sharpay" and "Austin Cam: Austin Butler Student Film". It sold 234,000 copies on its first week, debuting at number nine on the DVD sales chart. After six weeks of release, it had sold over 400,000 copies and made over $7 million in sales. Soundtrack. On May 22, 2010, Tisdale confirmed she was recording music for the film. "Deadline" also reported four original songs are going to be featured in the film. Songwriter Amy Powers stated on her official website that Tisdale had recorded the songs "My Boi and Me" and "The Rest of My Life" (both were co-written with Matthew Tishler) for the film. In a press release by Disney Channel, "I'm Gonna Shine" (written by Randy Petersen and Kevin Quinn) and "New York's Best Kept Secret" (written by David Lawrence and Faye Greenberg) were confirmed as the other two original songs to be featured in the film.
1061434	Richard Weedt Widmark (December 26, 1914March 24, 2008) was an American film, stage and television actor. He was nominated for an Academy Award for his role as the villainous Tommy Udo in his debut film, "Kiss of Death", for which he also won the Golden Globe Award for Most Promising Newcomer. Early in his career Widmark specialized in similar villainous or anti-hero roles in films noir, but he later branched out into more heroic leading and support roles in westerns, mainstream dramas and horror films, among others. For his contribution to the motion picture industry, Widmark has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6800 Hollywood Boulevard. In 2002, he was inducted into the Western Performers Hall of Fame at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. Early life. Widmark was born in Sunrise Township, Minnesota, the son of Ethel Mae (née Barr) and Carl Henry Widmark. Widmark grew up in Princeton, Illinois, and also lived in Henry, Illinois for a short time, moving frequently because of his father's work as a traveling salesman. He attended Lake Forest College, where he studied acting and also taught acting after he graduated. Radio. Widmark made his debut as a radio actor in 1938 on "Aunt Jenny's Real Life Stories". In 1941 and 1942, he was heard daily on the Mutual Broadcasting System in the title role of the daytime serial "Front Page Farrell", introduced each afternoon as "the exciting, unforgettable radio drama... the story of a crack newspaperman and his wife, the story of David and Sally Farrell." Farrell was a top reporter for the "Brooklyn Eagle". When the series moved to NBC, Widmark turned the role over to Carleton G. Young and Staats Cotsworth. During the 1940s, Widmark was also heard on such network radio programs as "Gang Busters", "Inner Sanctum Mysteries", "Joyce Jordan, M.D.", "Molle Mystery Theater", "Suspense" and "Ethel and Albert". In 1952 he portrayed Cincinnatus Shryock in an episode of "Cavalcade of America" entitled "Adventure on the Kentucky". He returned to radio drama decades later, performing on "CBS Radio Mystery Theater" (1974–82), and was also one of the five hosts on "Sears Radio Theater" (as the Friday "adventure night" host) from 1979-81. Broadway and films. Widmark appeared on Broadway in 1943 in F. Hugh Herbert's "Kiss and Tell". He was unable to join the military during World War II because of a perforated eardrum. He was in Chicago appearing in a stage production of "Dream Girl" with June Havoc when 20th Century Fox signed him to a seven-year contract. Widmark's first movie appearance was in 1947's "Kiss of Death", as the giggling, sociopathic villain Tommy Udo. His most notorious scene found Udo pushing a wheelchair-bound woman (played by Mildred Dunnock) down a flight of stairs to her death. Widmark was almost not cast. He said, "The director, Henry Hathaway, didn't want me. I have a high forehead; he thought I looked too intellectual." Hathaway was overruled by studio boss Darryl F. Zanuck. "Hathaway gave me kind of a bad time," recalled Widmark. "Kiss of Death" was a commercial and critical success: Widmark won the Golden Globe Award for New Star Of The Year - Actor, and was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance. Widmark's character was also the inspiration for the song "The Ballad of Tommy Udo" by the band Kaleidoscope. Widmark played "Dude" in the Western film "Yellow Sky" with Gregory Peck and Anne Baxter the following year, with his name over the title, billed third.
1062776	Judd Asher Nelson (born November 28, 1959) is an American actor, screenwriter, and producer. He is best known for his roles as John Bender in "The Breakfast Club", Alec Newbary in "St. Elmo's Fire", Hot Rod and Rodimus Prime in "" and Jack Richmond in "Suddenly Susan". Early life. Nelson was born in Portland, Maine, the son of Merle (née Royte), a court mediator and former member of the Maine state legislature, and Leonard Nelson, a corporate lawyer. His family was Jewish, and his father was the first Jewish president of the Portland Symphony Orchestra. He has two sisters, Eve and Julie. He went to school at St. Paul's School in Concord, New Hampshire, and Waynflete School in Portland, Maine, and studied at Haverford College in Pennsylvania, leaving during his sophomore year. He subsequently moved to Manhattan to study acting with Stella Adler. Career. 1980s. Nelson began acting in the mid-1980s, starring in "Making the Grade" (1984) and "Fandango" (1985), the latter in which he starred opposite a young Kevin Costner. It was his roles in John Hughes's "The Breakfast Club" and Joel Schumacher's "St. Elmo's Fire" - and his affiliation with the Brat Pack - that made Nelson a star (along with Emilio Estevez, Anthony Michael Hall, Rob Lowe, Andrew McCarthy, Demi Moore, Molly Ringwald, and Ally Sheedy). The "St. Elmo's Fire (Man in Motion)" music video - also directed by Joel Schumacher - reached #1 in the USA (1985) and was written and performed by John Parr; Nelson appears in the video. A subsequent article in "New York" magazine, which focused primarily on the success of these films, resulted in the term "Brat Pack" being coined. In 1986 Nelson provided the voice of Hot Rod/Rodimus Prime in ' and teamed up with "Breakfast Club" alumna Ally Sheedy for a third time in "Blue City". He also provided narration for Bill Couturie's ', a critically acclaimed war documentary that featured a cast including Tom Berenger, Robert De Niro, Willem Dafoe, and Matt Dillon. Film critic Roger Ebert praised the documentary, and it maintains a 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. 1987 saw him starring in the Bob Clark courtroom comedy "From the Hip", which co-starred John Hurt and Elizabeth Perkins; he also provided a stand-out performance in "Billionaire Boys Club (film)", a courtroom thriller based on actual events. Nelson closed the 1980s with the William Lustig thriller, "Relentless" (1989), in which he plays a Los Angeles serial killer being hunted by two cops (Robert Loggia and Leo Rossi); he provided a cameo in the Adam Rifkin road film "Never on Tuesday" (1989) along with Nicolas Cage, Cary Elwes, Emilio Estevez and Charlie Sheen; and appeared in Tommy Chong's Far Out Man (1989) with Rae Dawn Chong and C. Thomas Howell. 1990s. Nelson began 1990s with a starring role opposite Max von Sydow in the World War II drama "Hiroshima: Out of the Ashes" (1990); the film focused on the horror of the Hiroshima bombing; it co-stars Mako Iwamatsu and Pat Morita. He then worked for a second time with Adam Rifkin, this time starring in "The Dark Backward" (1991) with Bill Paxton; this quirky comedy also featured fellow actor Rob Lowe, as well as Lara Flynn Boyle, James Caan, and Wayne Newton; Nelson plays the worst comedian in stand-up comedy history. 1991 would also see a starring role in the Mario Van Peebles-directed "New Jack City", an urban gangster film with Wesley Snipes, Ice-T, Vanessa A. Williams, and Chris Rock; the film was a commercial success. He then had a special guest appearance in the popular HBO TV series "Tales from the Crypt" - on the episode "What's Cookin" (1992) - with Christopher Reeve and Meat Loaf, followed by a starring role with Richard Jordan in the thriller "Primary Motive" (1992), and a similar role in "Entangled" (1993) opposite Pierce Brosnan, which was set in Paris. In 1994 Nelson appeared with Steve Buscemi and Adam Sandler in the comedy "Airheads", with Gina Gershon in the psychological thriller "Flinch", and with then partner Shannen Doherty in the thriller "Blindfold: Acts of Obsession"; he further wrote, produced, and starred in the thriller "Every Breath" in which he co-starred with Joanna Pacula. He headlined the Australian thriller, "Blackwater Trail" (1995), with Peter Phelps before receiving a starring role on the NBC television sitcom "Suddenly Susan" (1996), which saw success for a four-season run; this was followed by a starring role in the Shaquille O'Neil movie "Steel" (1997); the film also starred Annabeth Gish and Richard Roundtree ("Steel" was a commercial flop). Nelson wrapped up the 1990s with another urban gangster thriller, "Light It Up (film)" (1999), which featured an ensemble cast including R&B singer/actor Usher Raymond (in his first leading role), Rosario Dawson, Forest Whitaker, and Vanessa L. Williams; he also played Alan Freed in the latter's life story, "Mr. Rock 'N' Roll: The Alan Freed Story" (1999) opposite Mädchen Amick and Paula Abdul. 2000s. In the 21st century, Nelson has appeared in such TV series as "The Outer Limits" (2000), ' (2006), ' (2007), "Las Vegas" (2007), "Eleventh Hour" (2008) as a psychologist researching soldiers returning from Iraq who suffer from Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), "Psych" (2010), and a recurring role in "Two and a Half Men" (2010).
1070808	Plot. A murder case has occurred and the police are unable to find loopholes in the alibi of the main suspect, Ms Yasuko Hanaoka, thus creating obstacles in the investigation. Detective Kaoru Utsumi again sought the help of professor Manabu Yukawa who, seeing the case has nothing to do with physics, initially refuses to help. However, after a happy reunion with his genius classmate, Tetsuya Ishigami, for whom he has high admiration and who is also the neighbor of the main suspect, he senses that Ishigami is in love with Hanaoka and decides to investigate the case on his own. He succeeds in cracking the case only to reveal a sad and shocking truth that will do no good to all parties save the police. Despite having a reputation of being emotionless when solving cases, this time Yukawa is much affected by the outcome. Reception. The film is not well known to the rest of the world, although it attracted much attention in Japan. It is not reviewed by any prominent English websites, but it was generally well received by both the audiences and the critics in the countries in which it has been shown. The film was very successful in Japan grossing $52,323,944 and becoming the 6th highest grossing film of 2008.
1744455	, often shortened to , is a Japanese light novel series written by Oyuki Konno with illustrations by Reine Hibiki. Originally written as a short story in 1997, Shueisha has published 39 light novel volumes since April 1998. The story focuses on a group of teenage girls attending the Catholic Lillian Girls' Academy in Tokyo, Japan. Its storyline largely revolves around the lives and close relationships of the school's student council known as the Yamayuri Council. A manga adaptation was published by Shueisha in "Margaret" and its sister magazine "The Margaret". Between 2004 and 2009, the series was adapted by Studio Deen into three 13-episode anime television series and a five-episode original video animation (OVA) series. The anime adaptations have been released in North America by Nozomi Entertainment under the title "Maria Watches Over Us". A live-action film adaptation was released in Japan in November 2010. Several audio dramas and music albums were also published. "Maria-sama ga Miteru" received generally positive reviews by critics. It has been described as representative of "yuri" novels, and has been credited with starting "the modern "yuri" trend," in addition to reviving the Class S genre. Critics have praised the series for its strong characterization, even among peripheral characters, and for its emphasis on romance and emotion over sexuality. The dramatization, however, has been criticized as being overly dramatic at times, but the lack of malicious characters has been described as reducing the chance for more drama. The extensive use of French titles has also been criticized as being distracting and initially difficult to follow. Over 5.4 million copies of the of the light novels have been published. Plot. Setting and themes. The setting for "Maria-sama ga Miteru" is , a fictional Catholic school founded in 1901 in Musashino, Tokyo, Japan; the school is depicted as an elegant, clean, pure, and very prestigious institution. Among the facilities of Lillian, aside from the classrooms, there is a church, a greenhouse, a kendo dojo, an auditorium, a park, and the Rose Mansion, where the Yamayuri Council meet. The students are very respectable and in good standing. The uniform at the school is a long, black Japanese school uniform with a white collar. The school uses the fictional sœur system where any second- or third-year student, the "grande sœur" ("big sister"), might pick a younger girl who will become her ""sœur"" ("sister" in French). The "grande sœur" gives her the "petite sœur" ("little sister") a rosary and promises to look after her and guide her. The basic etiquette demands the "petite sœur" to call her "grande sœur" ""onee-sama"" ("older sister" in Japanese). Aside from being used in prayer, the rosary is the instrument that certifies the "sœur" union and relationship between two students. There is an implicit code of behavior between "sœurs", especially in the Yamayuri Council—the student council of the school: quietness, measure and respect towards each other; values deeply attached to traditional Japanese education. French is occasionally used throughout the story; for example, the series is given the French subtitle "La Vierge Marie vous regarde", which means "The Virgin Mary is watching you". In keeping with the tone of the series, formal language is used: is a strictly formal and respectful greeting in Japanese, and is used both to greet and to bid farewell. By custom, this greeting is used often in the Lillian School; this has been one of the distinguishable and popular phrases of the series, and it is used to begin or to finish each volume. The Animax English-language version translates the word as "good day to you". The Lillian Girls' Academy uses the lily symbolism as the white lily is the flower of the Virgin Mary. The white lily is a Christian symbol of virginity and purity. This lily imagery is also used as a reference to yuri: the story has some elements of romance between female characters; the use of lilies reinforces this in subtext, as do the names of the student council and of the school itself. The series is only explicit about a romantic relationship once in a flashback, but many of the sisters have romantic friendships. The musical choices of the "Maria-sama ga Miteru" anime adaptations are generally classical music-inspired. The Christian hymn is often referred to in the series. In the context of the series, it is a children's song taught to the students at Lillian. Story and characters. "Maria-sama ga Miteru"'s story revolves around the students of the Lillian Girls' Academy and is character-driven, focusing on interactions between the characters rather than any sort of ongoing plot or goal to attain. When the story begins, Yumi Fukuzawa, a first-year student at Lillian, is praying in front of the Virgin Mary statue near the school entrance when she is suddenly approached by a cold second-year student named Sachiko Ogasawara who straightens Yumi's uniform neckerchief. This seemingly simple act of kindness stays with Yumi the rest of the day, and she speaks of her meeting with Sachiko to her friends during class and lunch. After school is over, Yumi's classmate Tsutako Takeshima meets with Yumi to show her that she took a photograph of Yumi's meeting with Sachiko earlier that morning. Yumi asks if she can have the photo, but Tsutako says she will give her the snapshot under two conditions: one being that Tsutako can display it at the upcoming school festival, and two being that Yumi get Sachiko's permission to do so as well. Yumi agrees to this, which sets in motion a series of events involving the entire Yamayuri Council. A few weeks after first meeting Sachiko, Yumi accepts Sachiko's rosary and therefore agrees to become her "petite sœur". This officially inducts Yumi into the Yamayuri Council where she assists them in school matters alongside Yoshino Shimazu and Shimako Tōdō—the "petite sœurs" of Rei Hasekura and Sei Satō, respectively. Through her activities in the Yamayuri Council, Yumi becomes closer to the other members and generally finds her experiences with the group to be enjoyable. Yamayuri Council. Much of the story of "Maria-sama ga Miteru" revolves around the , which acts as the student council. The Yamayuri Council meet in a building called the . Located within the school, it consists of two stories, including a meeting room on the second story. The Yamayuri Council itself consists of three offices, named after roses: , , and . These are also referred to by their colors; the is "Rosa Foetida", the is "Rosa Gigantea", and the is "Rosa Chinensis". Due to the high importance the three Rose families have in the development of the student activities within school, those who become "petites sœurs" of any of the mentioned families receive a functional "inheritance" through the "grandes sœurs" teachings, to adopt a position given certain circumstances. In this way, there are patrons recognized through the generations of the members of the Rose families. Still, after graduating, the "grandes sœurs" of the Yamayuri Council may continue with a fair participation in the events concerning their families, as shown in the novels. A , or , is one of three senior members of the Yamayuri Council, although it is also possible to generally speak of all the members of the Yamayuri Council as roses. A Rose makes the important decisions within this group, since she has control over the student council. Candidates for the position, which lasts through the school year, are chosen through an election. Any student can run to become a Rose, although the position is usually given to the "en boutons", the Roses' "petite sœurs". The "petite sœur" of a "Rosa" is called an , otherwise known as a . "En bouton" is French for "in bud"—as used in the example "Rosa Chinensis en bouton"—and is unofficially considered part of the Yamayuri Council, as is the "petite sœur" of the "en bouton", if she has one. The "en boutons" must be in a lower year than their "Rosa", and generally the "en boutons" execute the plans discussed by the Roses, like assistants. Although the "Rosa" positions of the Yamayuri Council are traditionally passed to the "en bouton" on the graduation of the current holder, they are nonetheless elected offices which anyone may run for. The "petite sœur" of the "en bouton" is called —as used in the example "Rosa Chinensis en bouton petite sœur"—and is otherwise known as the . She must be in a lower year than her "en bouton" and performs small duties, such as attending to the Roses' "en bouton"s, cleaning the Rose Mansion, and making tea and snacks for the Yamayuri Council. This lasts a school year, and the following year, when their "en bouton" is elected as "Rosas", the "petite sœurs" become "en boutons" automatically. Production. After writing her debut novel series for three years starting in March 1994, Oyuki Konno published a short story called "Maria-sama ga Miteru" in the February 1997 issue of the "shōjo" magazine "Cobalt" with illustrations by Yuma Aoi. In 1993, Konno had previously won both Cobalt's Novel Award and Readers' Award for "Yume no Miya", and by February 1997, nine volumes had been released. In the afterword of the first "Maria-sama ga Miteru" light novel volume, Konno admitted that "Maria-sama ga Miteru" was very different from her usual genre of story-telling in "Yume no Miya", which she described as an "imperial story" set in a fictionalized classical Japan. For the basis of Lillian Girls' Academy, Konno drew from her own experiences attending an all-girl high school, and some of the scenery of Lillian was also taken from this, such as a ginkgo pathway which stretched out from the main gate. The laid-back atmosphere of the school was also incorporated into Lillian, although Konno's school did not have a "sœur" system and it was not a Catholic school. Konno had been exposed to Christianity from a young age: she attended a completely Christian kindergarten which had a sanctuary and cloister in the middle of the school. Konno notes that she put her own questions about the Virgin Mary's heart into the story via Yumi. Konno ultimately mixed together various sources and ended up with Lillian Girls' Academy. Media. Light novels. After writing the "Maria-sama ga Miteru" short story, Konno expanded it into a series of novels. The first volume was published on April 24, 1998, with illustrations by Reine Hibiki. In terms of the storyline, this first novel marks the beginning of the series; the original 1997 short story was reworked and republished in the ninth volume "Cherry Blossom" in 2001. As of April 28, 2012, Shueisha have published 39 light novels in the series with "Farewell Bouquet".　In February 2003, with 12 volumes released, Konno began to publish more short stories in "Cobalt", with illustrations by Hibiki. Counting the 1997 debut, 27 short stories have been published as of March 2012, which have been included in later novels. The first five volumes of the light novel series were translated into German by Tokyopop. In August 2008, Konno began a spin-off series of light novels called , also illustrated by Hibiki. These focus on Yumi's younger brother Yūki and his schoolmates at Hanadera. As of August 2013, nine novels in the series have been published. Manga. A manga adaptation, drawn by Satoru Nagasawa, was serialized in Shueisha's shōjo manga magazine "Margaret" between October 2003 and October 2005. Following this, the manga was transferred to Shueisha's sister magazine "The Margaret" between May 2006 and December 2007. The manga was again serialized in "The Margaret" between May and August 2010. The individual chapters were collected and published in nine "tankōbon" volumes released by Shueisha between February 2004 and October 2010. The first eight volumes were republished in five omnibus volumes in Japan between April and July 2010. The story in each volume follows the corresponding volume of the novels. The first eight volumes were translated into German by Tokyopop. Six brief manga one-shots, illustrated by Reine Hibiki and based on some scenes from the novels, were published by Shueisha in "Cobalt" between February 2003 and December 2004. They are: , , , , , and . "Before the Festival" was later included in volume 18 of the novels, "Premium Book", and the other five were later published in volume 26 of the novels, "Illustration Collection". A one-shot of "Oshaka-sama mo Miteru", illustrated by Sakura Kenjō, was published in Shueisha's "Comic Cobalt" magazine in August 2010. Anime. A 13-episode anime television series adaptation of "Maria-sama ga Miteru" aired in Japan between January 7 and March 31, 2004 on TV Tokyo. Produced by Studio Deen and directed by Yukihiro Matsushita, the screenplay was written by Reiko Yoshida, and Akira Matsushima based the character design used in the anime on Reine Hibiki's original designs. The art director for the series is Nobuto Sakamoto. The sound director is Yoshikazu Iwanami, and the soundtrack is composed by Mikiya Katakura. The series was later released by Geneon to seven VHS and DVD compilation volumes from April to October 2004. Most of the production staff would return to produce two additional television series and an original video animation (OVA) series. The 13-episode second season, titled , aired between July 4 and September 26, 2004 on TV Tokyo. The series was later released by Geneon to six VHS and DVD compilation volumes from October 2004 to April 2005. The third season, a five-episode OVA series titled "Maria-sama ga Miteru", was released on DVD from November 29, 2006 to July 25, 2007; each episode is approximately 50 minutes long. The 13-episode fourth season, again titled "Maria-sama ga Miteru", aired between January 3 and March 28, 2009 on AT-X. The series was released by Geneon to six DVD compilation volumes from March to August 2009. Instead of Yukihiro Matsushita who had directed the first three seasons, the fourth season is directed by Toshiyuki Katō. In addition to the main anime series, a parody series called is included as a bonus on the DVD releases of the three televisions seasons and the OVA series. There are 29 episodes: seven from season one, six for season two, five for season three, and eleven for season four. The episodes consist of short segments of fake outtakes and parody skits drawn in a super deformed style and starring the cast of the anime. Nozomi Entertainment, the licensing branch of Right Stuf Inc., have licensed the three television series and the OVA series under the title "Maria Watches Over Us" for North American distribution. The four series were released as DVD box sets with English subtitles as follows: July 29, 2008 for season one, November 25, 2008 for season two, March 24, 2009 for season three, and July 6, 2010 for season four. The second season was translated and dubbed into English for broadcast in Southeast Asia by the anime satellite TV network Animax from March 2007. The first three seasons were licensed in Spain by Jonu Media. Audio CDs. For the first "Maria-sama ga Miteru" anime series, the opening theme "Pastel Pure" and the ending theme is "Sonata Blue". Both songs are instrumental tracks composed by Mikiya Katakura of the band Ali Project and were released on a theme song album in February 2004. The original soundtrack for the first anime series was released in February 2004. For "Maria-sama ga Miteru: Printemps", the opening theme is a vocal version of "Pastel Pure" by Ali Project and the ending theme is again "Sonata Blue". The single for "Pastel Pure" was released in August 2004. The original soundtrack for "Printemps" was released in September 2004. For the "Maria-sama ga Miteru" OVA series, the opening theme is again the instrumental version of "Pastel Pure", and there are two ending themes. The single for the first ending theme by Kotoko was released in October 2006, and the single for the second ending theme by Kotoko was released in March 2007. The original soundtrack for the OVA series was released in March 2007. For the "Maria-sama ga Miteru" fourth season, the single for the opening theme by Kukui was released in February 2009, and the single for the ending theme by Kaori Hikita was also released in February 2009. For the "Maria-sama ga Miteru" live-action film, the theme song "Heavenly Days" by CooRie was released on her album "Heavenly Days" in October 2010. Three volumes of albums titled "Maria-sama ga Miteru: Haru Image Album" containing image songs and background music tracks were released between April and September 2005. Each image album was assigned to one of the three families of roses; the songs were sung by the voice actors of the anime series. A vocal album titled "Christmas Album" was released in December 2008. Shueisha produced 12 drama CDs between January 14, 2004 and December 14, 2007, and Frontier Works produced three additional drama CDs between July 24, 2009 and July 22, 2010; the CDs use the same voice actors from the anime series. The drama CDs are based on the stories in the novels. The fifth and tenth drama CDs by Shueisha were released in limited edition versions each with a slipcase and a pair of character mini-figures. Internet radio show. An Internet radio show to promote "Maria-sama ga Miteru" called was hosted by Kana Ueda, the voice of Yumi Fukuzawa, and featured other voice actors from the anime series as guests. The show features conversations and publicity, often commenting with news of the anime series and other funny situations from the plot of the novels. It had a pre-broadcast special for Christmas on December 22, 2005, and later broadcast 19 episodes between March 9 and November 24, 2006. The show was streamed online every other Thursday, and was produced by Animate TV. Three additional broadcasts followed: a New Year's Day special on January 25, 2007, a "Hinamatsuri" special on March 1, 2007, and another Christmas special on December 20, 2007. The radio show returned to broadcast 13 main episodes and 3 specials between August 27, 2008 and September 30, 2009. Again hosted by Ueda, the show was streamed online every last Wednesday of the month, and was also produced by Animate TV. Combined, the two radio show seasons were later released on 13 CD compilation volumes by Frontier Works between August 4, 2006 and February 24, 2010. Live-action film. A live-action film adaptation premiered in Japanese theaters on November 6, 2010. The film is directed by Kōtarō Terauchi, and Terauchi co-wrote the script with Keiji Sagami. The film's music is composed by Chika Fujino. The film was released on Blu-ray Disc and DVD in Japan on July 29, 2011. To tie in with the film, a new edition of the first light novel was published in June 2010 with a cover featuring stars Honoka Miki and Haru. Reception. It was reported in April 2010 that 5.4 million copies of the of the original light novels have been published. Reception to the "Maria-sama ga Miteru" anime series has been generally positive, although Anime News Network (ANN) noted that the series leaves itself "wide open to cynical sniggering." Carlos Ross from Them Anime regarded it as "one of the most beautiful and graceful anime" series, adding that the animation is sometimes of questionable quality but overall "very appealing". Andrew Shelton from AMR found the series to be "fairly unique" compared to other shōjo works, explaining that although the story is "a little basic" and "overly dramatic", what is most important is the "response and actions of the character on who the story is focused." Stig Høgset, also from Them Anime, commented that the third season was criticized for being too short, but he personally did not feel "like it was lacking something." Jason Thompson credits "Maria-sama ga Miteru" with starting "the modern yuri trend." Newer anime titles that "Maria-sama ga Miteru" is compared to include "Otome wa Boku ni Koishiteru", "Strawberry Panic!", "Best Student Council", and "Aria". Carlos Ross, writing about the first novel in the series, felt the story was a "classic rags-to-riches tale," but that it was "also sweet, touching and witty when it needs to be." He criticized the lack of teachers and schoolwork in the series, which lead to the plot being filled with extracurricular activities, which are common to high school series. He also criticized Yumi's low self-esteem. A characteristic element of the series is the extensive use of French titles, which Carlos Ross has criticized as "distracting". Mania.com criticized the early anime episodes as being "difficult", and saying that the first episode "throws a lot of terms and names at you". On the other hand, Ross compared the "atmosphere" presented by the series' artwork with those from other anime titles of similar setting, including the bright and vivid "Revolutionary Girl Utena". Another reviewer from Them Anime also compared "Maria-sama ga Miteru" with "Oniisama e...", but noted that the former is much less dramatic. Marc Hairston commented on the unusual character designs compared to other series, and said they are "ordinary students." ANN also noted the "clear, expressive eyes and character designs that are gifted with an understated mobility," praising the casting choices, and noting that even "peripheral" characters are "fully realized." Holly Ellingwood of Active Anime described the relationships between the characters as "intensely platonic" and "pseudo-gay" for the most part. ANN noted that the second anime season tends to overdramatize, especially in the last three episodes. ANN also describes the second season as "more embarrassing and shoujo-ai oriented" than the first season, but that the solid characterization is still a strength of the series. Holly Ellingwood of Active Anime appreciated the focus on characters other than Yumi and Sachiko for the second season, regarding Shimako's loss of Sei and befriending Noriko as being "one of the more moving" arcs of "Printemps". ANN regarded the OVA season as the best of the first three seasons, citing the improved production standards and the less melodramatic storylines. ANN notes that the fourth season is "a return to dramatic form" after the relaxation of the OVA series, but it is not as melodramatic as the second season, due to the increased maturity of the cast. Chris Beveridge, writing for Mania.com, found it odd that Yumi and Sachiko did not spend so much time together in the fourth season, and felt that the series needed an epilogue, but enjoyed seeing Yumi taking on some "adult responsibilities." Andrew Shelton has suggested that "Maria-sama ga Miteru"'s "reduced capacity for epic drama" is due to the lack of malicious characters; he considers the series "pure shōjo", mostly due to its character-driven storyline. Japanese reviewers for their part regard the story as a revival of the Class S genre, and specifically a modern-day equivalent of Nobuko Yoshiya's "Hana Monogatari". Hairston notes that "Maria-sama ga Miteru" emphasizes romance and emotion over sexuality, and it has a respectful treatment of its homoerotic themes. He describes the series as "one of the most interesting and touching anime series of the last two years", adding that it is "about self-discovery and self-acceptance." A Pizza Hut tie-in campaign for the fourth anime series started on January 7, 2008. The Rose Mansion from the story was recreated in the "Second Life" virtual world and opened on February 8, 2008.
584286	Thenmerku Paruvakatru () is a 2010 Tamil drama film written and directed by Seenu Ramasamy and produced by Shibu Issac. It stars Vijay Sethupathi and Vasundhra Chiyertra in the lead roles alongside Saranya Ponvannan, in her 100th film. It released on 24 December 2010. The film received mixed reviews, but was eventually featured at the 58th National Film Awards ceremony, where it was named the Best Feature Film in Tamil while Saranya Ponvannan and lyricist Vairamuthu were awarded the Best Actress and Best Lyricist prizes, respectively. Plot. Set on the backdrop of Theni, the story is about Murugan (Vijay Sethupathi) who is a goat shepherd and he has a loving mother Veerayi (Saranya Ponvannan). She is a widow and struggles hard to raise Murugan and has an overflowing affection for him. Meanwhile, there is a gang which attacks the villagers at night and steal their goats. Murugan along with his group manages to catch one of the members in an attack and discover that it is a girl. Her name is Pechi (Vasundhra Chiyertra) and her family steals goat for livelihood. While Murugan develops feelings for her, Pechi's family is known to be quite dangerous. Veerayi comes to know this and asked her son(Murugan) to marry a girl of her choice. He refuses to accept her wish. Complication arise between them. An old lady of her house tells Veerayi to let her son to marry the girl he loves. A possessive widow tells how her husband was killed to that old lady. Her husband was killed by a group of thieves.The head of the gang is none other than the Father of the girl whom her son loves. Reception. The Hindu wrote, ""Thenmerku Paruvakkaatru" with its mother sentiment makes a mark among films with rural themes". Sify called the film "OK" and wrote, "It is made like a 70’s tear jerker with the central character being the all sacrificing mother". The New Indian Express wrote, "A film that has worked out well in all departments, "Thenmerku Paruvakaatru" is worth a watch. Behindwoods gave 1 out of 5 stars and wrote, "While the opening scene makes one sit up and take notice, the movie pales into insignificance soon after with nothing much to hold the viewer’s interest. Essentially, "Thenmerkku Paruvakatru" is a regular village drama and can easily be written down as one of those small timers aspiring to make a fast buck or two".
1016146	Collin Chou (born 11 August 1967), sometimes credited as Ngai Sing, is a Hong Kong-based Taiwanese actor and martial artist. Chou is best known in the United States for his portrayal of Seraph in the films "The Matrix Reloaded" and "The Matrix Revolutions", and in the video game "Enter the Matrix". In Asian cinema, Chou has co-starred with Jet Li, Donnie Yen and Sammo Hung in martial arts films such as "" (2005), "Fearless" (2006), and "Flash Point" (2007). He is also known for playing the antagonist "Jade Warlord" in "The Forbidden Kingdom" (2008), which starred Jet Li and Jackie Chan. Chou attended Pierce Community College in Los Angeles, United States.
1099794	Nearest neighbor search (NNS), also known as proximity search, similarity search or closest point search, is an optimization problem for finding closest points in metric spaces. The problem is: given a set "S" of points in a metric space "M" and a query point "q" ∈ "M", find the closest point in "S" to "q". In many cases, "M" is taken to be "d"-dimensional Euclidean space and distance is measured by Euclidean distance, Manhattan distance or other distance metric. Donald Knuth in vol. 3 of "The Art of Computer Programming" (1973) called it the post-office problem, referring to an application of assigning to a residence the nearest post office. Applications. The nearest neighbor search problem arises in numerous fields of application, including: Methods. Various solutions to the NNS problem have been proposed. The quality and usefulness of the algorithms are determined by the time complexity of queries as well as the space complexity of any search data structures that must be maintained. The informal observation usually referred to as the curse of dimensionality states that there is no general-purpose exact solution for NNS in high-dimensional Euclidean space using polynomial preprocessing and polylogarithmic search time. Linear search. The simplest solution to the NNS problem is to compute the distance from the query point to every other point in the database, keeping track of the "best so far". This algorithm, sometimes referred to as the naive approach, has a running time of "O"("Nd") where "N" is the cardinality of "S" and "d" is the dimensionality of "M". There are no search data structures to maintain, so linear search has no space complexity beyond the storage of the database. Naive search can, on average, outperform space partitioning approaches on higher dimensional spaces. Space partitioning. Since the 1970s, branch and bound methodology has been applied to the problem. In the case of Euclidean space this approach is known as spatial index or spatial access methods. Several space-partitioning methods have been developed for solving the NNS problem. Perhaps the simplest is the k-d tree, which iteratively bisects the search space into two regions containing half of the points of the parent region. Queries are performed via traversal of the tree from the root to a leaf by evaluating the query point at each split. Depending on the distance specified in the query, neighboring branches that might contain hits may also need to be evaluated. For constant dimension query time, average complexity is "O"(log "N") in the case of randomly distributed points, worst case complexity analyses have been performed. Alternatively the R-tree data structure was designed to support nearest neighbor search in dynamic context, as it has efficient algorithms for insertions and deletions.
1055390	Once Upon a Crime is a 1992 ensemble comedy film starring Richard Lewis, John Candy, James Belushi, Cybill Shepherd, Sean Young and Ornella Muti. The film was directed by Eugene Levy. It is the remake of the Mario Camerini comedy "Crimen". Plot. The plot revolves around a series of couples in Monte Carlo, Monaco. Augie Morosco (John Candy) is a reformed gambler whose wife Elena Morosco (Ornella Muti) (playing a similar character to her role in "Oscar") is concluding a business deal, Neil Schwary (James Belushi) is a gambler looking to strike it big and whose wife Marilyn Schwary (Cybil Shepherd) is hoping to buy some designer clothes. Julian Peters (Richard Lewis) and Phoebe (Sean Young) met each other in Rome and are attempting to return a dachshund to the wealthy Madam Van Dougan. Madam Van Dougan is found murdered and the interactions between Julian and Phoebe and the other couples begin to look increasingly suspicious, as Inspector Bonnard (Giancarlo Giannini) needs to unravel the clues. Over the course of the film, Augie returns to gambling, Elena has an affair and Julian sells and repurchases the dog. Synopsis. The film is often described as having "A chaotic screenplay, which results in everyone needing to shout at each other all the time". The plot is fast-moving and often involves frantic wisecracking from all the principal characters. A memorable example is Julian being asked by Bonnard to "look at this man's face" (the man being a witness). Julian takes one look at the strangely featured man and screams. Later, Augie is requested to provide an alibi for the crime which took place "Between one and one-thirty in the morning". His alibi is that he was making love to his wife, and he can be certain because "Her screams of pleasure woke up the street and someone cried out ... 'It's between one and one-thirty in the morning! Give that poor woman a break! Lewis' customary dry humour is ever-present, including his description of himself and Young as "Julian Peters and Phoebe? We sound like a high-wire act!" There are some elements of physical comedy, including the facial expressions of the characters as the contents of a suitcase are revealed. A striking example, however, is Augie's re-enactment of how he crept from room to room of a hotel at night. Reception. The film earned negative reviews from critics. Janet Maslin gave the film a negative review in the "New York Times," saying it was not funny, and adding "As a general rule, films whose plots revolve around lost dogs are apt to be short on comic inspiration, and this one is no exception." It was nominated for one Razzie Award, Worst Supporting Actress for Sean Young. Inspirations. In 2006, Abbas-Mustan known for directing thriller movies in Bollywood, adapted this movie as 36 China Town starring Shahid Kapoor and Kareena Kapoor. 36 China Town is a frame-by-frame, shot-to-shot imitation of "Once Upon a Crime".
586840	Raju Srivastava" ' (; born Satya Prakash Srivastava on December 25, 1963) often credited as Raju Shrivastav or Raju Srivastava, is an Indian comedian, and more popularly, an observational comedian. He is known for his acute scrutiny and comical perception about various instances in daily life. Early life. Raju Srivastava was born on 25 December 1963, in Kanpur, India. His father Late Ramesh Chandra Srivastava, known as Balai Kaka, was a famous poet from kanpur. Being a good mimic, Srivastava pursued the dream of becoming a comedian since childhood. In his school time, he used to imitate his teachers. He gained initial recognition as an Amitabh Bachchan impressionist. He landed in Mumbai, and started doing live stage shows with the renowned Orchestra 'Melody Makers' before getting a break in the film industry where he did small roles in a number of movies. Srivastava was a participant on Bigg Boss (Season 3). He has two children, Antara and Aayushmaan. His wife Shikha is a House maker. Career. Srivastav has done around 3500 stage shows in India and abroad. He also launched a series of his audio cassettes and video CDs.
1517212	Man in the Wilderness is a 1971 American action film about a scout for a group of mountain men who are traversing the Northwestern United States during the 1820s. The scout is mauled by a bear and left to die by his companions. He survives and recuperates sufficiently to track his former comrades, forcing a confrontation over his abandonment. The story is loosely based on the life of Hugh Glass. It stars Richard Harris as Zachary Bass and John Huston as Captain Henry. The expedition is notable in the movie for bringing a large boat with them, borne on wheels. Captain Henry's aim of using the boat to traverse the rivers (possibly the Missouri or the Platte) comes to naught in the final scene, when the expedition comes across the drained riverbed. Plot. The fundamental theme of the story is the spiritual redemption of an emotionally damaged man, Zachary Bass. By using flashbacks to his childhood, the director provides to the viewer the basis for Bass's emotional damage brought about by abandonment by his father and abuse by his schoolmaster.
583981	Manobala (Tamil: மனோபாலா) is a Tamil director and comedian actor who prominently plays supporting roles. Career. Manobala has directed 40 films, 16 television serials and 3 tele-films during his career as a director. As an actor, he had appeared in more than 175 films as of July 2009. Those in the Tamil film industry and outside are well aware of the initial bonding between Kamal Haasan and Manobala, and are also aware that the duo stopped talking to one another after an issue that took place at the Directors Union.
588991	Kranti (English: "Revolution") is a 1981 Indian Hindi film. Produced and directed by Manoj Kumar, starring Manoj Kumar along with a very large cast consisting of Dilip Kumar, Shashi Kapoor, Hema Malini, Shatrughan Sinha, Parveen Babi, Sarika, Prem Chopra, Madan Puri and Paintal. The story was written by Javed Akhtar. The film marked the return of Dilip Kumar to films after a five year hiatus. Synopsis. The film takes place in the 19th Century British India and is the story of the fight for independence from the British spanning between 1825 to 1875. The film tells the story of two men that lead the war against British Rule. Sanga (Dilip Kumar) and Bharat (Manoj Kumar) known as Kranti, a prince (Shashi Kapoor) and a freedom fighter (Shatrughan Sinha) The British were reluctant to give India its independence on a silver platter. Independence was the result of a long and bloody battle. "Kranti" is the story of how two men became soldiers within the battle. Sangha is an honest and dedicated employee in the kingdom of Ramgarh, owing allegiance and loyalty to no one except Raja Laxman Singh. When Laxman Singh conditionally permits the British to use the port for trading purposes, Sangha finds out that the British are taking out gold and jewellery and bringing in ammunition, he puts a stop to this. He goes to report this outrage to Laxman Singh, only to find him stabbed to death and he charged with treason and of killing him. Sentenced to death, he escapes and forms a group of revolutionaries who have only one motto - drive the British out of India. This group multiplies into several armies, all united with one slogan - an Independent India, also known as Kranti. Box office notes. "Source: Top Earners 1980-1989"
1165965	Gretchen Corbett (born August 13, 1947) is an American actress most noted for the role of Beth Davenport on the television series "The Rockford Files" from 1974 to 1978. Early Life in Oregon. Corbett was born in 1947 in Camp Sherman, Oregon, the great-great-granddaughter of Oregon pioneer and Senator Henry W. Corbett. She studied drama at Pittsburgh's Carnegie Tech just before its merger into Carnegie Mellon University in 1967. Her pursuit of a serious acting career first brought her to the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in Ashland. She moved to New York and enjoyed a successful career on stage, with many roles on and off Broadway.
583059	Fareb (translation: "delusion") is a 2005 Bollywood thriller film directed by Dipak Tijori. The film stars sisters Shilpa and Shamita Shetty and Manoj Bajpai. The music is composed by Anu Malik. Plot. The film opens with the murder of business magnate Amit Singhania (Bakul Thakker) who lives a wealthy lifestyle along with his wife, Ria Singhania (Shamita Shetty), in a spacious bungalow. He runs a company, Spykar Jeans. Ria is asked to co-operates with the Police, who suspect her for foul play as she is the sole proprietor of Amit's business and wealth. The police also suspect Amit's subordinate, Siddharth Sardesai (Parmeet Sethi), who may have killed Amit, who was also having an affair with Sonia Sharma (Sonia Kapoor), who works for an ad agency run by Diwakar. Ria meets with Aditya (Manoj Bajpai), who also works for the same ad agency, and is attracted to him, both get intimate, but Aditya, who is married to Neha (Shilpa Shetty), and has a school-going son, Arya, decides to break off this relationship much to the chagrin of Ria, who decides to teach Aditya a lesson - and she does this by acquiring the ad agency where Aditya works, and is all set to turn Aditya's life upside down. Aditya confronts her and returns home in a drunken state with blood on his clothes. Shortly thereafter Aditya is arrested by Police Inspector Kelly - and the charge is murder - that of Ria Singhania. A frantic Neha hires Advocate Milind Mehta (Milind Gunaji) - but will hiring a lawyer ensure the release of Aditya especially when the Police know that he had the motive and was possibly the last person to have been with Ria?
1034467	Francis Alick "Frankie" Howerd OBE (6 March 1917, York – 19 April 1992) was an English comedian and comic actor whose career, described by fellow comedian Barry Cryer as "a series of comebacks", spanned six decades. Early career. Howerd was born. the son of soldier Francis Alfred William (1887–1934) and Edith Florence Howard (née Morrison, 1888–1962), at the City Hospital in York, England, in 1917 (not 1922 as he later claimed). He was educated at Shooters Hill Grammar School in Woolwich, London. His first stage appearance was at age 13 but his early hopes of becoming a serious actor were dashed when he failed an audition for RADA. He began to entertain during World War II service in the British Army. It was at this time that he adapted his surname to Howerd "to be different". Despite suffering from stage fright, he continued to work after the war, beginning his professional career in the summer of 1946 in a touring show called "For the Fun of It". His act was soon heard on radio, when he made his debut, in early December 1946, on the BBC's "Variety Bandbox" programme with a number of other ex-servicemen. His profile rose in the immediate postwar period (aided with material written by Eric Sykes, Galton and Simpson and Johnny Speight). In 1954, he made his screen debut opposite Petula Clark in "The Runaway Bus", which had been written for his specific comic talent. The film was so low-budget that it could not afford scenery; instead a fog-generator was used so that little was visible behind the action. The film, however, was an immediate hit, even though Howerd never established a major film presence thereafter. Career revival. Howerd was a regular feature in the 1950s version of the comic "Film Fun" but when he began experimenting with different formats and contexts, including stage farces, Shakespearean comedy roles, and television sitcoms, he began to fall out of fashion. After suffering a nervous breakdown at the start of the 1960s, he began to recover his old popularity, initially with a season at Peter Cook's satirical Establishment Club in Soho in London. He was boosted further by success on "That Was The Week That Was" (TW3) in 1963 and on stage with "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum" (1963–1965), which led into regular television work. In 1966 and 1967, he co-hosted a 90-minute Christmas show called "The Frankie and Bruce Christmas Show" with Bruce Forsyth, featuring many top acts of the day. During the 1960s and '70s, he was involved in shows for the BBC and Thames Television (as well as "Frankie Howerd Reveals All" for Yorkshire Television in 1980). Ray Galton and Alan Simpson wrote for him from 1964 to 1966 when he worked for the BBC and also for a one-off show for Thames, "Frankie Howerd meets the Bee Gees", shown on 20 August 1968. He was famous for his seemingly off-the-cuff remarks to the audience, especially in the show "Up Pompeii!", which was a direct follow-up from "Forum". His television work was characterised by direct addresses to camera and by his littering monologues with verbal tics such as "Oooh, no missus" and "Titter ye not". A later sale of his scripts, however, showed that the seemingly off-the-cuff remarks had all been meticulously planned. Barry Cryer said of his technique: "What he could do with a script was amazing, like all the great performers. He transformed something you'd just written – what you hoped was in a Frankie Howerd idiom – but when you heard him do it, my God, it was something else; – it was gossiping over the garden wall, the "apparent" waffle – he was like a tightrope walker, you thought he's going to fall off in a minute, you thought , 'Come on, Frank' , we're waiting for a laugh, and then, suddenly, "Bang". He knew exactly what he was doing." Another feature of his humour was to feign innocence about his obvious and risqué double entendres while mockingly censuring the audience for finding them funny. Howerd appeared as Francis Biggar, one of the lead characters in 1967's "Carry On Doctor", one of the more memorable films of the Carry On... canon. The success of the film version of "Up Pompeii" in 1971 saw British exhibitors vote him the ninth most popular star at the British box office that year. In 1971 Howerd recorded, with June Whitfield, a comedy version of the song "Je t'aime", made famous by Jane Birkin and Serge Gainsbourg, in which she featured as "Mavis" alongside Howerd's "Frank", and a third unexplained sleeping partner named "Arthur". The song was included in the 2004 CD re-issue of "Oh! What a Carry On!". He was awarded an OBE in 1977. Later career. In 1976, Howerd appeared in "The Frankie Howerd Show" on CBC Television. It received good ratings but was not renewed In 1978, Howerd appeared in the big-budget Hollywood musical "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" playing Mean Mr Mustard, acting alongside musical and film talent such as Peter Frampton, the Bee Gees, George Burns, Alice Cooper, Aerosmith and Steve Martin. He was cast by producer Robert Stigwood as he was on Stigwood's record label at the time. The film was a critical and commercial flop. Since Howerd was not well known to American audiences, this may have been his biggest exposure in the US. After six years without a regular television show in the United Kingdom (though he had hosted a one-off UK version of "The Gong Show" for Channel 4, which was critically panned and was not commissioned for a full series), Howerd returned to TV screens in 1987 in the Channel 4 show "Superfrank!", scripted by Miles Tredinnick and Vince Powell. In the last years of his career, Howerd developed a following with student audiences and performed a one-man show at universities and in small theatrical venues. He was also a regular and popular guest on the late night BBC Radio 1 programme "Into the Night", hosted by Nicky Campbell. Howerd often worked with Sunny Rogers who was his accompanying pianist from 1960 onwards. She appeared in his TV and live theatre shows including his last major West End appearance—his one-man show—at the Garrick Theatre in 1990. In 1982, Howerd appeared in the televised versions of "Trial by Jury" (as the Learned Judge) and "H.M.S. Pinafore" (as Sir Joseph Porter, KCB). Personal life. Throughout his career, Howerd hid his potentially career-destroying homosexuality (acts between consenting males being illegal in England and Wales until 1967) from both his audience and his mother, Edith. In 1958, he met wine waiter Dennis Heymer at the Dorchester Hotel while dining with Sir John Mills; Howerd was 40 and Heymer was 28. Heymer became his lover as well as manager, and stayed with Howerd for more than thirty years, until Howerd's death, with Heymer helping to revive Howerd's flagging career in the 1960s. However, the two had to remain discreet as Howerd feared being blackmailed if anyone beyond his immediate circle found out. The relationship was explored in 2008 in a drama for BBC Four, "Rather You Than Me", starring David Walliams and Rafe Spall. Backstage, Howerd was notoriously bold in his advances, and was known for his promiscuity. One of Howerd's former boyfriends was comic actor Lee Young who created the TV sitcom "Whoops Baghdad" (1973) for him. Howerd's uncomfortable relationship with his sexuality he once said to Cilla Black, "I wish to God I wasn't gay" as well as his depressive mental state, led him to seek resolution through a series of different methods. Heymer would often drop Howerd off on Friday at his psychiatrist, who would ply him with LSD over the weekend. In his early career Howerd suffered from a stutter, which caused him some distress. Close friend Cilla Black said in 2008: "That devastated him" adding, "Often he'd be physically ill with stage fright.". Howerd and Heymer lived for the last twenty or so years of his life in Wavering Down, a house in the village of Cross, Somerset under the Mendip Hills. After Howerd's death, Heymer curated Howerd's collection of memorabilia until his own death in 2009. The two were buried together in a replica Egyptian sarcophagus. Death. Having contracted a virus during a Christmas trip up the River Amazon in 1991, Howerd suffered respiratory problems at the beginning of April 1992 and was rushed to London's Harley Street Clinic, but was released at Easter to enjoy his last few days at home. He collapsed and died of heart failure two weeks afterwards, on the morning of 19 April 1992. He was 75 years old. Two hours before he died, he was speaking on the telephone to his TV producer about new ideas for his next show. Howerd died one day before fellow comedian Benny Hill. News of the two deaths broke almost simultaneously and some newspapers ran an obituary of Howerd in which Hill was quoted as regretting Howerd's passing, saying "We were great, great friends". The quote was released by Hill's agent, who was not aware that his client had died. Legacy. A BBC TV biography about Frankie Howerd — "Rather You Than Me" — was broadcast by BBC Four on 9 April 2008, and repeated on 10 February 2013. The script was written by Peter Harness, after extensive interviews with Howerd's partner, Dennis Heymer. The comedian David Walliams was cast as Howerd. On 15 May 2009, Heymer died in the home that he and Howerd had shared. He was 80. Howerd's home, Wavering Down, is a tourist attraction and, in the summer, hosts concerts and opens regularly as a museum of Howerd's collection of memorabilia and personal effects such as his false teeth and ill-fitting toupee to raise funds for charities. Howerd's grave is at St. Gregory's Church in Weare, Somerset. Howerd also lived at 27 Edwardes Square, Kensington, London W8 6HH. The house bears a blue plaque installed by the Dead Comics' Society. The church hall of St Barnabas Church, Eltham, is called the Frankie Howerd Centre.
1063805	Joan Chong Chen (Chinese name: ; born April 26, 1961) is a Chinese actress, film director, screenwriter and film producer. She became famous in China for her performance in the 1979 film "Little Flower" and came to international attention for her performance in the 1987 Academy Award-winning film "The Last Emperor". She is also known for her roles in "Twin Peaks", "Red Rose, White Rose", "Saving Face" and "The Home Song Stories", and for directing the feature film "". Biography. Early life and career. Chen Chong was born in Shanghai, China to a family of pharmacologists. (Her grandparent Changshao Zhang was educated at University College London and was later a visiting student at Harvard). She and her older brother, Chase, were raised during the Cultural Revolution. At the age of 14, Chen was discovered on the school rifle range by Jiang Qing, the wife of leader Mao Zedong and major Chinese Communist Party figure, as she was excelling at marksmanship. This led to her being selected for the Actors' Training Program by the Shanghai Film Studio in 1975, where she was discovered by veteran director Xie Jin who chose her to star in his 1977 film "Youth" () as a deaf mute whose senses are restored by an Army medical team. Chen graduated from high school a year in advance, and at the age of 17 entered the prestigious Shanghai International Studies University, where she majored in English. Acting career. Chen Chong first became famous in China for her performance alongside Tang Guoqiang () in Zhang Zheng's () "Little Flower" () in 1979, for which she won the Hundred Flowers Award (). Chen portrayed a pre-Maoist revolutionary's daughter, who, reunited with her brother, a wounded Communist soldier, later learned that his doctor was her biological mother. "Little Flower" was her second film and she soon achieved the status of China's most loved actress; she was dubbed "the Elizabeth Taylor of China" by "Time magazine" for having achieved stardom while still a teenager. In addition, Chen is famous in China for her role in the 1979 film "Hearts for the Motherland" (). The film directed by Ou Fan () and Xing Jitian () depicts an overseas Chinese family that returns to China from southeast Asia out of their patriotic feelings but encounter political troubles during the Cultural Revolution. The songs, "I Love You, China" () and "High Flies the Petrel" (), sung by Chen's character, are perennial favorites in China. In 1981, Chen starred in "Awakening" (), directed by Teng Wenji (). At age 20, Chen moved to the United States, where she studied filmmaking at California State University, Northridge. Her first Hollywood movie was "Tai-Pan", filmed on location in China. She went on to star in Bernardo Bertolucci's "The Last Emperor" in 1987 and the David Lynch/Mark Frost television series "Twin Peaks" as Josie Packard. In 1993 she co-starred in Oliver Stone's "Heaven & Earth". She portrayed two different characters in Clara Law's "Temptation of a Monk" (): a seductive princess of Tang dynasty, and a dangerous temptress. The award-winning film was adapted from a novel by Lilian Lee. In 1994 she came back in Shanghai to star in Stanley Kwan's "Red Rose, White Rose" () opposite Winston Chao, and subsequently won a Golden Horse Award and a Hong Kong Film Critics Society Award for her performance. In 1996, she was a member of the jury at the 46th Berlin International Film Festival. Tired of being cast as an exotic beauty in Hollywood films, Chen moved into directing in 1998 with the critically acclaimed "" (), adapted from the novella "Heavenly Bath" () by her friend Yan Geling. She later directed "Autumn in New York", starring Richard Gere and Winona Ryder, in 2000. In the middle of the 2000s, Chen made a comeback in acting and began to work intensely, alternating between English and Chinese-language roles. In 2004, she starred in Hou Yong's family saga "Jasmine Women" (), alongside Zhang Ziyi, in which they played multiple roles as daughters and mothers across three generations in Shanghai. She also starred in the Asian American comedy "Saving Face" as a widowed mother, who is shunned by the Chinese-American community for being pregnant and unwed and therefore has come to live with her lesbian daughter. In 2005, she appeared in Zhang Yang's family saga "Sunflower" (), as a mother whose husband and son have a troubled father-son relationship over 30 years. She then starred in the Asian American independent film "Americanese" and in Michael Almereyda's "Tonight at Noon", the first part of a two part project, scheduled to be released in 2009 In 2007, Chen was acclaimed for her performance in Tony Ayres' drama "The Home Song Stories". She portrayed a glamorous and unstable Chinese nightclub singer who struggles to survive in seventies Australia with her two children. Chen. The role earned her four awards including the Australian Film Institute Award for Best Actress and the Golden Horse Award for Best Actress. The same year saw her co-starring in two other acclaimed films: Ang Lee's "Lust, Caution", opposite Tony Leung Chiu-Wai, and Jiang Wen's "The Sun Also Rises", opposite Anthony Wong Chau-Sang, for which she received an Asian Film Award for Best Supporting Actress. In 2008, she starred alongside Sam Chow () in "Shi Qi" (), directed by Joe Chow (), as a rural mother of a 17-year-old in eastern Zhejiang province. The same year Joan Chen portrayed in Jia Zhangke's "24 City" a factory worker once fancied because she resembled Chen herself in the 1979 film "Little Flower", but who missed her chance at love. She then co-starred in Bruce Beresford's 2009 adaptation of the autobiography of dancer Li Cunxin "Mao's Last Dancer", along with Wang Shungbao and Kyle MacLachlan. In 2009, Chen starred alongside Feng Yuanzheng () and Liu Jinshan () in the Chinese TV series "Newcomers to the Middle-Aged" (), directed by Dou Qi (), in which she played a female doctor facing middle-age problems. She also played the part of goddess Guan Yin in the 2010 Chinese TV adaptation of "Journey to the West", directed by Cheng Lidong (). In October 2009 Joan Chen was the curator of the first Singapore Sun Film Festival, whose theme was "The Art of Living Well". She selected and curated five films for screening during the festival: "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly", "Dead Man Walking", "Hannah and Her Sisters", "Still Life" () and "Edward Scissorhands". In 2010, Chen joined the cast of Leehom Wang's directorial debut "Lian ai tong gao" ()., Alexi Tan's "Color Me Love" (alongside Liu Ye), Ilkka Järvilaturi's "Kiss, His First" (alongside Tony Leung Ka-fai and Gwei Lun-mei) and veteran acting coach Larry Moss' "Relative Insanity" (along with Juliette Binoche). In May 2010, she was set to star and direct one of the three parts of the anthology film "Seeing Red". As of the 2011 episode 3.13 entitled "Immortality" she plays Secretary Bishop's girlfriend on the J.J. Abrams created sci-fi television series FRINGE. Personal life. Chen married her second husband, cardiologist Peter Hui, on January 18, 1992. She was formerly married to actor Jimmy Lau from 1985 to 1990. Joan and her current husband have 2 daughters and live in San Francisco, USA but spend part of every year in Shanghai, China with Joan's family, so their daughters can be familiar with Chinese culture. Chen began the process of adopting twin girls from Nan Ning in 1998, but cancelled the adoption proceedings after becoming pregnant with her daughter. During her early years in California Chen attended California State University, Northridge. In 1989, she became a naturalized citizen of the United States. On April 9, 2008, Chen wrote an article entitled "Let the Games Go On" on the "Washington Post", about the politicization of the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing. Charitable work. In May 2008, Chen appeared alongside James Kyson Lee and Amy Hanaialiʻi Gilliom in a public service announcement for the Banyan Tree Project campaign to stop HIV/AIDS-related stigma in Asian & Pacific Islander communities. In October 2008, Chen made the cover of Trends Health magazine alongside actresses Ke Lan () and Ma Yili () to promote the Chinese Pink Ribbon Breast Cancer Prevention campaign. On January 8, 2010, Chen attended alongside Nancy Pelosi, Nicole Kidman and Joe Torre the ceremony to help Family Violence Prevention Fund break ground on a new international center located in the Presidio of San Francisco intended to combat violence against women and children. During the ceremony, Chen performed an excerpt from the documentary play, "The Thumbprint of Mukhtar Mai" (presented as part of "Seven"). On January 15, 2010, Chen was set to appear, along with other Asian American personalities in a series of videos supporting the Center for the Pacific Asian Family.
1037545	Craig Fairbrass (born May 6, 1964) is an English actor. He is known for his physicality and distinctive London accent. Life and career. Fairbrass was born in Mile End, East London, England. He made his acting debut in an episode of the television series "Shelley" in 1980. This was followed by appearances in series such as "Emmerdale", "Three Up Two Down" and "London's Burning". He has also appeared in such films as "For Queen and Country" with Denzel Washington, and "Cliffhanger" with Sylvester Stallone. Fairbrass is well known in the United Kingdom for his appearance and portrayal of Dan Sullivan in the BBC soap "EastEnders" from 1999 to 2001. He went on to appear in several other television series such as "Dream Team", where he played Terry Rose. In January 2007, he starred as Henry Caine in "", a sequel to the Michael Keaton film "White Noise". In February 2007, he appeared as the renegade Jaffa Arkad in the episode "Talion" in the final season of "Stargate SG-1". More recently, he starred in the film "Rise of the Footsoldier". He voiced "Gaz" in the videogame ' (2007), "Ghost" in ' (2009) and Sgt. Wallcroft in '. In March 2008, he appeared in the US television series '. He stars also in the vampire film "Dead Cert" and played alongside Billy Murray in this as well as "Freight" and "Just For The Record". Fairbrass also worked alongside Billy Murray in "Eastenders". His most recent role was mercenary Cole opposite Danny Dyer and Jaime Murray in Mark McQueen's freerunning zombie film "Devil's Playground". Fairbrass is married to Elke Kellick, a former Page Three model, and they have two sons together, Jack Fairbrass and Luke Fairbrass.
1485563	Harland Reesor Williams (born November 14, 1962) is a Canadian-American actor, comedian, author, artist, musician and radio personality. Personal life. Harland Reesor Williams was born on November 14, 1962, in Toronto, Ontario, to Lorraine (née O'Donnell), a social worker, and John Reesor Williams, a lawyer who served as a member of the Ontario legislature from 1975 to 1985. He was the middle child of four sisters.
1062647	Joseph Patrick Carroll Naish (January 21, 1896 – January 24, 1973), known professionally as J. Carrol Naish, was an American character actor. He was nominated twice for an Academy Award for film roles, and he later found fame in the title role of CBS Radio's "Life With Luigi" (1948–1953), which was also on aired on television. Early life. Born in New York City, Naish appeared on stage for several years before he began his film career. He began as a member of Gus Edwards's vaudeville troupe of child performers. After World War I, Naish formed his own song and dance act in Paris. He was traveling the globe from Europe to Egypt to Asia, when his China-bound ship developed engine problems, leaving him in California in 1926.
590401	Suchitra Sen ( ) or Rama Dasgupta () (born 6 April 1931), is an Indian actress who acted in several Bengali films. In particular, the movies in which she paired opposite another legend in Bengali films, Uttam Kumar, became classics in the history of Bengali cinema. She now lives a life of a recluse rarely making any public appearances. When she left movies, she was slowly but steadily losing the position of leading lady of Bengali silver screen. She is the first Bengali actress to be awarded in an international film festival (Best Actress award for "Saat Paake Bandha" in the 1963 Moscow film festival). Notably, she allegedly refused the Dadasaheb Phalke Award in 2005, preferring to live in seclusion out of the public eye. In 2012, Sen was conferred with West Bengal government`s highest award Banga Bibhushan. Personal life and education. Sen was born in Pabna in present day Pabna District of Bangladesh. Her father Karunamoy Dasgupta was the headmaster of the local school and her mother Indira Devi was a homemaker. She was their fifth child and third daughter. She had her formal education in Pabna. She married Dibanath Sen, son of a wealthy Bengali industrialist, Adinath Sen in 1947 and had one daughter, Moon Moon Sen, who is an actress. Sen made a successful entry after marriage into Bengali films 1952 and then a less successful transition to the Bollywood film industry. According to some unconfirmed but persistent reports in the Bengali press, her marriage was severely strained by her success in the film industry. Career. Sen made her debut in films with "Shesh Kothaay" in 1952, but it was never released. The following year saw her act opposite Uttam Kumar in "Sharey Chuattor", a film by Nirmal Dey. It was a box-office hit and remembered for launching Uttam-Suchitra as a leading pair. They went on to become the icons for Bengali dramas for more than 20 years, becoming almost a genre to themselves. She received a Best Actress Award for the film "Devdas" (1955), which was her first Hindi movie. Her patented Bengali melodramas and romances, especially with Uttam Kumar, made her the most famous Bengali actress ever. Her films ran through the 1960s and the 1970s. Her husband died, but she continued to act in films, such as the Hindi hit "Aandhi" (1974), where she played a politician. "Aandhi" was inspired by India's Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. Sen received a Filmfare Award nomination as Best Actress, while Sanjeev Kumar, who essayed the role of her husband, won the Filmfare as Best Actor.A point to be noted, her husband,who himself was an industrialist, invested a lot in her success, but later a great deal of rift developed among them. One of Suchitra's best known performances was in "Deep Jwele Jaai" (1959). She played Radha, a hospital nurse employed by a progressive psychiatrist, Pahadi Sanyal, who is expected to develop a personal relationship with male patients as part of their therapy. Sanyal diagnoses the hero, Basanta Choudhury, as having an unresolved Oedipal dilemma — the inevitable consequence for men denied a nurturing woman. He orders Radha to play the role though she is hesitant as in a similar case she had fallen in love with the patient. She finally agrees and bears up to Choudhury's violence, impersonates his mother, sings his poetic compositions and in the process falls in love again. In the end, even as she brings about his cure, she suffers a nervous breakdown. The film is full of beautiful, often partly lit, close ups of Sen which set the tone of the film and is aided by a mesmerizing performance by her. Asit Sen remade the film in Hindi as "Khamoshi" (1969) with Waheeda Rehman in the Suchitra Sen role.) Suchitra's other landmark film with Asit Sen was "Uttar Falguni" (1963). Suchitra carries the film single-handedly in the dual role of a courtesan Pannabai and her daughter Suparna, a lawyer. In particular, she is brilliant as Pannabai, bringing much poise, grace and dignity in the role of a fallen woman determined to see her daughter grow up in a good, clean environment. Suchitra as Pannabai is able to connect directly with the viewer and make him or her feel deeply for all that she goes through the course of the film thus giving her death at the end a solid, emotional wallop. Her international success came in the year of 1963, when she won the best actress award in Moscow Film Festival for the movie "Saat Paake Bandha". In fact, she is the first female to receive an international film award. She refused Satyajit Ray's offer due to date problem; as a result Ray never made the film Devi Chaudhurani, a movie based on the erstwhile ruler Her Royal Highness Maharani Joy Durga Devi Chaudhurani of the Manthana Kingdom Estate of Rangpur in Bangladesh, popularly known in history as Devi Chaudhurani. His Royal Highness Rajah Bhupendra Narayan Roy Choudhury was the last ruler of the kingdom, and 'His Royal Highness Prince Rupendra Narayan Anirban Narayan Roy Choudhury of Rangpur' who commonly uses the name Anirban Roy Choudhury is the present titular crown prince of the estate. His She also refused Raj Kapoor's offer for a film under the RK banner. She retired from the screen in 1978 after a career of over 25 years to a life of quiet seclusion. She has avoided the public gaze after her retirement and has devoted her time to the Ramakrishna Mission. Suchitra Sen was a contender for the Dadasaheb Phalke Award for the year 2005, provided she was ready to accept it in person. Her refusal to go to New Delhi and personally receive the award from the President of India deprived her of that award.
583290	Harishchandrachi Factory (Marathi: हरिश्‍चंद्राची फॅक्टरी, "Harishchandra's Factory") is a 2009 Marathi film, directed by Paresh Mokashi, depicting the struggle of Dadasaheb Phalke in making "Raja Harishchandra" in 1913: India's first feature film, the birth of Indian cinema. "Harishchandrachi Factory" is the directorial debut of Paresh Mokashi who won the Best Director award at Pune International Film Festival, where the film was shown. In September 2009, it was selected as India's official entry to Academy Award in the Best Foreign Language Film Category, making it the second film, after "Shwaas" (2004), in Marathi cinema to receive this honour. Overview. The film is the story about the beginning of the Indian film industry, set in 1913, when two business partners fall out, resulting in one leaving the company. As the family struggle to survive Phalke (Nandu Madhav) decides to make his own silent motion picture with the support of his family. He travels to England to learn about the new medium and, after he returns, brings together a team of actors and technicians to produce his first film about the story of Raja Harishchandra. Through all the hard work, the movie becomes a hit — marking the beginning of one of the world's biggest film industries. One of the remarkable feats in this film is that it is entirely shot in the style of the movies made in Dadasaheb Phalke's days. There was no camera movement possible in those days - actors and actresses would move in and out of view, much like stage actors. This movie is similarly made. With the exception of a couple of zooming in shots, almost the entire movie is made without the camera moving. Many of the camera angles appear to be contrived (e.g., the outside shots when Phalke goes to London; the shots on the trolley in Bombay) - until this particular feat is kept in mind. The zoom shots are also not done smoothly - there is a mildly perceptible hand shake, to indicate the experiments that Phalke himself could have conducted. Critical reception. The film was officially released in India on 29 January 2010 and received critical appreciation.
1236408	Dominic Bernard Patrick Luke Monaghan (; born 8 December 1976) is a German-born English actor. He has received international attention from playing Meriadoc Brandybuck in Peter Jackson's adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien's "The Lord of the Rings" and for his role as Charlie Pace on the television show "Lost". Early life. Monaghan was born in Berlin, Germany, to British parents: Maureen, a nurse, and Austin Monaghan, a science teacher. He has an elder brother called Matthew who is the main songwriter and joint vocalist of the indie band Radiosepia. Monaghan's family lived in Berlin, Düsseldorf, Stuttgart and Münster, moving about every four years. When he was about 11 years old, his family moved from Germany to Heaton Moor in Stockport, England. Monaghan's first language is English, but he also speaks some German and is well known for his ability to impersonate others and replicate accents. Bernard is his maternal grandfather's name, and Patrick his paternal grandfather's name. He chose Luke as his confirmation name after Luke Skywalker from "", his favourite film series, which was also one of his inspirations for becoming an actor. He attended St Anne's Roman Catholic High School (where his uncle taught and later became head teacher) and Aquinas College, where he studied English literature, drama and geography. Career. Although Monaghan held many occupations when he was younger, he always wanted to be an actor. After his second year at St. Anne's, Monaghan became a regular in school plays such as "Oliver Twist", "A Christmas Carol" and "Bugsy Malone" before joining Manchester Youth Theatre. There, he was scouted for "Hetty Wainthropp Investigates", on which he played Hetty's under-aged sidekick, Geoffrey Shawcross, for four series. He made his feature-film debut as Russian sailor Sasha in the TV film "Hostile Waters". Monaghan later starred in the Lord of the Rings trilogy as Meriadoc Brandybuck, for which he achieved international acclaim and success. Monaghan narrated "", a documentary about "Lord of the Rings" fandom. He also provided the narration for The Discovery Channel's documentary "Devil's Bible" in 2008. He also appeared in "Soldiers of Fortune" alongside Sean Bean and Christian Slater. He was a regular cast member on the ABC series "Lost " playing drug addict rock star Charlie Pace. Monaghan originally auditioned for the role of Sawyer. The role of Pace was then changed from an old, washed up rocker from the 1980s, to a young one-hit wonder in order to accommodate Monaghan's age. In 2009, Monaghan starred in "". On 15 July 2009 it was confirmed that he would join the cast of ABC Studios' science fiction television series "FlashForward" as the character Simon. The series premiered on 24 September 2009. It was canceled after its first season. On 18 March 2010 Monaghan was spotted at the Universal Sheraton filming a short called "Gloria". It was part of a programme called REESES Puff's Extraordinary Cinema (Where the teens replace the pros). He played the part of Caleb Reese. In 2010, Megan Fox and Monaghan made an appearance as a couple in an abusive relationship in the music video for rapper Eminem's song "Love the Way You Lie". Scenes include the celebrities on top of a liquor store. Fox and Monaghan also filmed inside the store and "at a seedy dive bar next door" to the store. In November 2012, A new show on Channel 5 titled "Wild Things with Dominic Monaghan" began airing. The show shows Monaghan travelling to various locations such as Venezuela and Ecuador to film and interact with the exotic and often dangerous local wildlife. Personal life. Monaghan is a nature lover, and has been active in the planting of trees, cacti and the pod-seeds of mature hedge-row bushes. He owns a small forest in India, and has worked with the animal rights group PETA. Monaghan has a great love for insects and reptiles that he developed during his childhood, and has kept an assortment of pets, including a leaf-mantis named Gizmo, a black widow spider named Witchitar and an albino snake named Blink. The newly discovered Spider :de:Ctenus monaghani is named after him. An avid outdoorsman, Monaghan enjoys activities such as surfing, kayaking, snowboarding, football, basketball and hiking. He has also stated that he likes hunting for insects and reptiles outdoors. He learned karate as a child, used to practice yoga, and often goes to the gym for strength and weight training. He is a longtime supporter and fan of Manchester United. Monaghan loves to play various games, and has hosted game nights for fellow cast members in the past. He is also fond of working the "New York Times" crossword puzzle. On his right arm he has a tattoo of the Elvish word "nine" written in Quenya-mode Tengwar, a reference to his involvement in the "Lord of the Rings" and the fact that his character was one of the nine members of the Fellowship of the Ring. Seven other cast members and John Rhys-Davies' stunt double also got matching tattoos during the film's production, at Monaghan's instigation. Below that tattoo is another that reads, "Life imitates art", an Oscar Wilde quote. On his left arm is a tattoo, "Living is easy with eyes closed", a line from The Beatles' "Strawberry Fields Forever". He also has two stars tattooed on his left foot, one black, and one white. In 2010, Monaghan got two more tattoos, one on the upper side of the back ("Love you take is equal to the love you make", taken from the song "The End" by The Beatles). The other, done by Kat Von D on the television show LA Ink, is located on his lower right arm ("Luminous beings are we, not this crude matter", a quote from Yoda). He resides in the Los Angeles, California area. In 2008 Monaghan held a photographic exhibit in Los Angeles in which he sold prints of his own works. A portion of the proceeds from the exhibit were given to an orangutan rescue organisation. Past relationships include his "Lost" co-star Evangeline Lilly from 2004 to 2009. In June 2008 Monaghan travelled to Argentina with Lilly to film the pilot of the American version of "CQC". He has long been working on a script with "LOTR" co-star and good friend Billy Boyd. Dominic provided the inspiration for the naming of Boyd's band Beecake after he sent his friend a picture of a cake covered in bees.
996489	Alejandro "Alec" Mapa (; born July 10, 1965) is a American actor, comedian and writer. Early life. Mapa was born in San Francisco and attended George Washington High School. While in high school, he played Randolph McAfee in a production of "Bye Bye Birdie". Mapa's senior year productions were "Cabaret" and "Harvey", both in which he had the lead roles. Mapa was also a champion orator in the Humorous and Dramatic Interpretation categories of Speech. Career. Mapa got his first professional break when he was cast to replace B.D. Wong in the Broadway production of M. Butterfly. On television, he has made guest appearances on a wide variety of programs, including "The Jamie Foxx Show", "Roseanne", "Seinfeld", "NYPD Blue", "Friends", "Murder One" and "Dharma & Greg". He had a supporting role in the short-lived 2001 comedy "Some of My Best Friends". He played Adam Benet in the UPN comedy "Half & Half". He wrote and performed in a one-man play titled "I Remember Mapa", about his experiences growing up gay in San Francisco. Mapa was a featured performer on the Logo original stand-up comedy series "Wisecrack". In 2006 appeared as Vern, Gabrielle's personal shopper, on the TV series "Desperate Housewives". He had a recurring role on the 2006-2010 series "Ugly Betty", as Suzuki St. Pierre, the flamboyant host of a fictional gossip and news show (who, it is revealed, is actually a straight—and married—journalist named Byron Wu). He performed the voice of Rick's flamboyantly gay uncle Bakla on the 2007-2009 animated series "". Mapa's film credits include parts in "Bright Lights, Big City", "Playing by Heart", "Connie and Carla" and "Marley & Me", among others. He was featured in the movies "" and "Tru Loved". He also played as a stylist in the movie "You Don't Mess with the Zohan". In 2008, Mapa hosted Logo's "Transamerican Love Story", a reality dating program starring transgender woman Calpernia Addams selecting from among eight potential suitors. In the same year, he also hosted "Dancing With Dogs" on Animal Planet. Mapa also performed on the 2009 Atlantis Freedom Caribbean Cruise headlining in the Arcadia Theater. In 2010, Mapa became one of the co-hosts of Logo's The Gossip Queens, a daily series where he helps present celebrity gossip. In his act, he jokes that he is sometimes confused with Rex Lee, another flamboyant Asian homosexual who plays Lloyd on the HBO dramedy "Entourage". Personal life. Mapa is openly gay and lends his support to various projects supporting the gay, lesbian, and Asian American communities. In 2008, Mapa legally married Jamison 'Jamie' Hebert, after dating since 2002. On the TV series "The Gossip Queens", Mapa stated in the opening episode that he and his husband had recently adopted a 5 year old boy.
583538	Kabul Express (Hindi: काबुल एक्स्प्रेस, Urdu: کابل ایکسپریس) is a Bollywood film that was released on 15 December 2006. The film stars John Abraham, Arshad Warsi, Pakistani actor Salman Shahid, Afghan actor Hanif Hum Ghum and American actress Linda Arsenio. The film is produced by Aditya Chopra under Yash Raj Films and is directed by documentary film maker Kabir Khan. "Kabul Express" is the first fictional film for director Kabir Khan who has made several documentaries over the years in Afghanistan. According to him "Kabul Express" is loosely based on his and his friend Rajan Kapoor's experiences in post-taliban Afghanistan.
64856	Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell, OM, FRS (18 May 1872 – 2 February 1970) was a British philosopher, logician, mathematician, historian, and social critic. At various points in his life he considered himself a liberal, a socialist, and a pacifist, but he also admitted that he had never been any of these in any profound sense. He was born in Monmouthshire, into one of the most prominent aristocratic families in Britain. Russell led the British "revolt against idealism" in the early 20th century. He is considered one of the founders of analytic philosophy along with his predecessor Gottlob Frege and his protégé Ludwig Wittgenstein. He is widely held to be one of the 20th century's premier logicians. He co-authored, with A. N. Whitehead, "Principia Mathematica", an attempt to ground mathematics on logic. His philosophical essay "On Denoting" has been considered a "paradigm of philosophy". His work has had a considerable influence on logic, mathematics, set theory, linguistics, artificial intelligence, computer science (see type theory and type system), and philosophy, especially philosophy of language, epistemology, and metaphysics. Russell was a prominent anti-war activist; he championed anti-imperialism and went to prison for his pacifism during World War I. Later, he campaigned against Adolf Hitler, then criticised Stalinist totalitarianism, attacked the involvement of the United States of America in the Vietnam War, and was an outspoken proponent of nuclear disarmament. In 1950 Russell was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature "in recognition of his varied and significant writings in which he champions humanitarian ideals and freedom of thought." Biography. Early life and background. Bertrand Russell was born on 18 May 1872 at Ravenscroft, Trellech, Monmouthshire, into an influential and liberal family of the British aristocracy. His parents, Viscount and Viscountess Amberley, were radical for their times. Lord Amberley consented to his wife's affair with their children's tutor, the biologist Douglas Spalding. Both were early advocates of birth control at a time when this was considered scandalous. Lord Amberley was an atheist and his atheism was evident when he asked the philosopher John Stuart Mill to act as Russell's secular godfather. Mill died the year after Russell's birth, but his writings had a great effect on Russell's life. His paternal grandfather, the Earl Russell, had twice been asked by Queen Victoria to form a government, serving her as Prime Minister in the 1840s and 1860s. The Russells had been prominent in England for several centuries before this, coming to power and the peerage with the rise of the Tudor dynasty. They established themselves as one of Britain's leading Whig families, and participated in every great political event from the Dissolution of the Monasteries in 1536–40 to the Glorious Revolution in 1688–89 and the Great Reform Act in 1832. Lady Amberley was the daughter of Lord and Lady Stanley of Alderley. Russell often feared the ridicule of his maternal grandmother, one of the campaigners for education of women. Childhood and adolescence. Russell had two siblings: Frank (nearly seven years older than Bertrand), and Rachel (four years older). In June 1874 Russell's mother died of diphtheria, followed shortly by Rachel's death. In January 1876, his father died of bronchitis following a long period of depression. Frank and Bertrand were placed in the care of their staunchly Victorian paternal grandparents, who lived at Pembroke Lodge in Richmond Park. His grandfather, former Prime Minister John Russell, died in 1878, and was remembered by Russell as a kindly old man in a wheelchair. His grandmother, the Countess Russell (née Lady Frances Elliot), was the dominant family figure for the rest of Russell's childhood and youth. The countess was from a Scottish Presbyterian family, and successfully petitioned the Court of Chancery to set aside a provision in Amberley's will requiring the children to be raised as agnostics. Despite her religious conservatism, she held progressive views in other areas (accepting Darwinism and supporting Irish Home Rule), and her influence on Bertrand Russell's outlook on social justice and standing up for principle remained with him throughout his life (one could challenge this view that Bertrand stood up for his principles, based on Bertrand Russell's own well-known quote: "I would never die for my beliefs, I could be wrong.") —her favourite Bible verse, 'Thou shalt not follow a multitude to do evil' (Exodus 23:2), became his motto. The atmosphere at Pembroke Lodge was one of frequent prayer, emotional repression, and formality; Frank reacted to this with open rebellion, but the young Bertrand learned to hide his feelings. Russell's adolescence was very lonely, and he often contemplated suicide. He remarked in his autobiography that his keenest interests were in religion and mathematics, and that only the wish to know more mathematics kept him from suicide. He was educated at home by a series of tutors. At age 11, his brother Frank introduced him to the work of Euclid, which transformed Russell's life. During these formative years he also discovered the works of Percy Bysshe Shelley. In his autobiography, he writes: "I spent all my spare time reading him, and learning him by heart, knowing no one to whom I could speak of what I thought or felt, I used to reflect how wonderful it would have been to know Shelley, and to wonder whether I should meet any live human being with whom I should feel so much sympathy." Russell claimed that beginning at age 15, he spent considerable time thinking about the validity of Christian religious dogma, which he found very unconvincing. At this age, he came to the conclusion that there is no free will and, two years later, that there is no life after death. Finally, at the age of 18, after reading Mill's "Autobiography", he abandoned the "First Cause" argument and became an atheist. University and first marriage. Russell won a scholarship to read for the Mathematical Tripos at Trinity College, Cambridge, and commenced his studies there in 1890, taking as coach Robert Rumsey Webb. He became acquainted with the younger George Edward Moore and came under the influence of Alfred North Whitehead, who recommended him to the Cambridge Apostles. He quickly distinguished himself in mathematics and philosophy, graduating as a high Wrangler in 1893 and becoming a Fellow in the latter in 1895. Russell first met the American Quaker Alys Pearsall Smith when he was 17 years old. He became a friend of the Pearsall Smith family—they knew him primarily as 'Lord John's grandson' and enjoyed showing him off—and travelled with them to the continent; it was in their company that Russell visited the Paris Exhibition of 1889 and was able to climb the Eiffel Tower soon after it was completed. He soon fell in love with the puritanical, high-minded Alys, who was a graduate of Bryn Mawr College near Philadelphia, and, contrary to his grandmother's wishes, married her on 13 December 1894. Their marriage began to fall apart in 1901 when it occurred to Russell, while he was cycling, that he no longer loved her. She asked him if he loved her and he replied that he didn't. Russell also disliked Alys's mother, finding her controlling and cruel. It was to be a hollow shell of a marriage and they finally divorced in 1921, after a lengthy period of separation. During this period, Russell had passionate (and often simultaneous) affairs with a number of women, including Lady Ottoline Morrell and the actress Lady Constance Malleson. Early career. Russell began his published work in 1896 with "German Social Democracy", a study in politics that was an early indication of a lifelong interest in political and social theory. In 1896 he taught German social democracy at the London School of Economics, where he also lectured on the science of power in the autumn of 1937. He was a member of the Coefficients dining club of social reformers set up in 1902 by the Fabian campaigners Sidney and Beatrice Webb. He now started an intensive study of the foundations of mathematics at Trinity, during which he discovered Russell's paradox, which challenged the foundations of set theory. In 1903 he published his first important book on mathematical logic, "The Principles of Mathematics", arguing that mathematics could be deduced from a very small number of principles, a work which contributed significantly to the cause of logicism. At the age of 29, in February 1901, Russell underwent what he called a "sort of mystic illumination", after witnessing Whitehead's wife's acute suffering in an angina attack. "I found myself filled with semi-mystical feelings about beauty... and with a desire almost as profound as that of the Buddha to find some philosophy which should make human life endurable", Russell would later recall. "At the end of those five minutes, I had become a completely different person." In 1905 he wrote the essay "On Denoting", which was published in the philosophical journal "Mind". Russell became a fellow of the Royal Society in 1908. The first of three volumes of "Principia Mathematica", written with Whitehead, was published in 1910, which, along with the earlier "The Principles of Mathematics", soon made Russell world-famous in his field. In 1910 he became a lecturer in the University of Cambridge, where he was approached by the Austrian engineering student Ludwig Wittgenstein, who became his PhD student. Russell viewed Wittgenstein as a genius and a successor who would continue his work on logic. He spent hours dealing with Wittgenstein's various phobias and his frequent bouts of despair. This was often a drain on Russell's energy, but Russell continued to be fascinated by him and encouraged his academic development, including the publication of Wittgenstein's "Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus" in 1922. Russell delivered his lectures on Logical Atomism, his version of these ideas, in 1918, before the end of the First World War. Wittgenstein was, at that time, serving in the Austrian Army and would subsequently spend nine more months in an Italian prisoner of war camp at the end of the conflict. First World War. During the First World War, Russell was one of the very few people to engage in active pacifist activities, and in 1916, he was dismissed from Trinity College following his conviction under the Defence of the Realm Act. He was charged a fine of £100, which he refused to pay, hoping that he would be sent to prison. However, his books were sold at auction to raise the money. The books were bought by friends; he later treasured his copy of the King James Bible that was stamped "Confiscated by Cambridge Police." A later conviction for publicly lecturing against inviting the US to enter the war on Britain's side resulted in six months' imprisonment in Brixton prison (see "Bertrand Russell's views on society") in 1918. While in prison, Russell read enormously, and wrote the book "Introduction to Mathematical Philosophy". He was reinstated in 1919, resigned in 1920, was Tarner Lecturer 1926, and became a Fellow again 1944–49. Between the wars and second marriage. In August 1920 Russell travelled to Russia as part of an official delegation sent by the British government to investigate the effects of the Russian Revolution. He met Vladimir Lenin and had an hour-long conversation with him. In his autobiography, he mentions that he found Lenin rather disappointing, sensing an "impish cruelty" in him and comparing him to "an opinionated professor". He cruised down the Volga on a steamship. Russell's lover Dora Black, a British author, feminist and socialist campaigner, visited Russia independently at the same time—she was enthusiastic about the revolution, but Russell's experiences destroyed his previous tentative support for it. He wrote a book "The Practice and Theory of Bolshevism" about his experiences on this trip, taken with a group of 24 others from Britain, all of whom came home thinking well of the régime, despite Russell's attempts to change their minds. For example, he told them that he heard shots fired in the middle of the night and was sure these were clandestine executions, but the others maintained that it was only cars backfiring. Russell subsequently lectured in Beijing on philosophy for one year, accompanied by Dora. He went there with optimism and hope, as China was then on a new path. Other scholars present in China at the time included Rabindranath Tagore, the Nobel laureate Indian poet. While in China, Russell became gravely ill with pneumonia, and incorrect reports of his death were published in the Japanese press. When the couple visited Japan on their return journey, Dora notified the world that "Mr. Bertrand Russell, having died according to the Japanese press, is unable to give interviews to Japanese journalists." The press, not appreciating the sarcasm, were not amused. Dora was six months pregnant when the couple returned to England on 26 August 1921. Russell arranged a hasty divorce from Alys, marrying Dora six days after the divorce was finalised, on 27 September 1921. Their children were John Conrad Russell, 4th Earl Russell, born on 16 November 1921, and Katharine Jane Russell (now Lady Katharine Tait), born on 29 December 1923. Russell supported his family during this time by writing popular books explaining matters of physics, ethics, and education to the layman. Some have suggested that at this point he had an affair with Vivienne Haigh-Wood, the English governess and writer, and first wife of T. S. Eliot. Together with Dora, he founded the experimental Beacon Hill School in 1927. The school was run from a succession of different locations, including its original premises at the Russells' residence, Telegraph House, near Harting, West Sussex. On 8 July 1930 Dora gave birth to her third child, a daughter, Harriet Ruth. After he left the school in 1932, Dora continued it until 1943. Upon the death of his elder brother Frank, in 1931, Russell became the 3rd Earl Russell. He once said that his title was primarily useful for securing hotel rooms. Russell's marriage to Dora grew increasingly tenuous, and it reached a breaking point over her having two children with an American journalist, Griffin Barry. They separated in 1932 and finally divorced. On 18 January 1936, Russell married his third wife, an Oxford undergraduate named Patricia ("Peter") Spence, who had been his children's governess since 1930. Russell and Peter had one son, Conrad Sebastian Robert Russell, 5th Earl Russell, who became a prominent historian and one of the leading figures in the Liberal Democratic party. During the 1930s, Russell became a close friend and collaborator of V. K. Krishna Menon, then secretary of the India League, the foremost lobby for Indian independence in Great Britain. Second World War. Russell opposed rearmament against Nazi Germany, but in 1940 changed his view that avoiding a full scale world war was more important than defeating Hitler. He concluded that Adolf Hitler taking over all of Europe would be a permanent threat to democracy. In 1943, he adopted a stance toward large-scale warfare, "Relative Political Pacifism": War was always a great evil, but in some particularly extreme circumstances, it may be the lesser of two evils. Before the Second World War, Russell taught at the University of Chicago, later moving on to Los Angeles to lecture at the UCLA Department of Philosophy. He was appointed professor at the City College of New York in 1940, but after a public outcry, the appointment was annulled by a court judgement: his opinions (especially those relating to sexual morality, detailed in "Marriage and Morals" ten years earlier) made him "morally unfit" to teach at the college. The protest was started by the mother of a student who would not have been eligible for his graduate-level course in mathematical logic. Many intellectuals, led by John Dewey, protested against his treatment. Albert Einstein's often-quoted aphorism that "Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds ... " originated in his open letter in support of Russell, during this time. Dewey and Horace M. Kallen edited a collection of articles on the CCNY affair in "The Bertrand Russell Case". He soon joined the Barnes Foundation, lecturing to a varied audience on the history of philosophy; these lectures formed the basis of "A History of Western Philosophy". His relationship with the eccentric Albert C. Barnes soon soured, and he returned to Britain in 1944 to rejoin the faculty of Trinity College. Later life. During the 1940s and 1950s, Russell participated in many broadcasts over the BBC, particularly "The Brains Trust" and the Third Programme, on various topical and philosophical subjects. By this time Russell was world-famous outside of academic circles, frequently the subject or author of magazine and newspaper articles, and was called upon to offer opinions on a wide variety of subjects, even mundane ones. En route to one of his lectures in Trondheim, Russell was one of 24 survivors (among a total of 43 passengers) in an aeroplane crash in Hommelvik in October 1948. He said he owed his life to smoking since the people who drowned were in the non-smoking part of the plane. "A History of Western Philosophy" (1945) became a best-seller, and provided Russell with a steady income for the remainder of his life. In a speech in 1948, Russell said that if the USSR's aggression continued, it would be morally worse to go to war after the USSR possessed an atomic bomb than before it possessed one, because if the USSR had no bomb the West's victory would come more swiftly and with fewer casualties than if there were atom bombs on both sides. At that time, only the United States possessed an atomic bomb, and the USSR was pursuing an extremely aggressive policy towards the countries in Eastern Europe which it was absorbing into its sphere of influence. Many understood Russell's comments to mean that Russell approved of a first strike in a war with the USSR, including Nigel Lawson, who was present when Russell spoke. Others, including Griffin, who obtained a transcript of the speech, have argued that he was merely explaining the usefulness of America's atomic arsenal in deterring the USSR from continuing its domination of Eastern Europe. In 1948, Russell was invited by the BBC to deliver the inaugural Reith Lectures—what was to become an annual series of lectures, still broadcast by the BBC. His series of six broadcasts, titled "Authority and the Individual", explored themes such as the role of individual initiative in the development of a community and the role of state control in a progressive society. Russell continued to write about philosophy. He wrote a foreword to "Words and Things" by Ernest Gellner, which was highly critical of the later thought of Ludwig Wittgenstein and of Ordinary language philosophy. Gilbert Ryle refused to have the book reviewed in the philosophical journal "Mind", which caused Russell to respond via "The Times". The result was a month-long correspondence in "The Times" between the supporters and detractors of ordinary language philosophy, which was only ended when the paper published an editorial critical of both sides but agreeing with the opponents of ordinary language philosophy. In the King's Birthday Honours of 9 June 1949, Russell was awarded the Order of Merit, and the following year he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. When he was given the Order of Merit, George VI was affable but slightly embarrassed at decorating a former jailbird, saying that "You have sometimes behaved in a manner that would not do if generally adopted." Russell merely smiled, but afterwards claimed that the reply "That's right, just like your brother" immediately came to mind. In 1952 Russell was divorced by Spence, with whom he had been very unhappy. Conrad, Russell's son by Spence, did not see his father between the time of the divorce and 1968 (at which time his decision to meet his father caused a permanent breach with his mother). Russell married his fourth wife, Edith Finch, soon after the divorce, on 15 December 1952. They had known each other since 1925, and Edith had taught English at Bryn Mawr College near Philadelphia, sharing a house for 20 years with Russell's old friend Lucy Donnelly. Edith remained with him until his death, and, by all accounts, their marriage was a happy, close, and loving one. Russell's eldest son, John, suffered from serious mental illness, which was the source of ongoing disputes between Russell and John's mother, Russell's former wife, Dora. John's wife Susan was also mentally ill, and eventually Russell and Edith became the legal guardians of their three daughters (two of whom were later found to have schizophrenia). At the age of 89, in September 1961, Russell was jailed for seven days in Brixton Prison after taking part in an anti-nuclear demonstration in London, for "breach of peace". The magistrate offered to exempt him from jail if he pledged himself to "good behaviour", to which Russell replied: "No, I won't." In 1962 Russell played a public role in the Cuban Missile Crisis: in an exchange of telegrams with Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev, Khrushchev assured him that the Soviet government would not be reckless. Russell also wrote to John F. Kennedy, who returned his telegram unopened. According to historian Peter Knight, after the John F. Kennedy assassination, Russell, "prompted by the emerging work of the lawyer Mark Lane in the US ... rallied support from other noteworthy and left-leaning compatriots to form a "Who Killed Kennedy Committee" in June 1964, members of which included Michael Foot MP, Caroline Benn, the publisher Victor Gollancz, the writers John Arden and J. B. Priestley, and the Oxford history professor Hugh Trevor-Roper. Russell published a highly critical article weeks before the Warren Commission Report was published, setting forth "16 Questions on the Assassination" and equating the Oswald case with the Dreyfus affair of late 19th century France, in which the state wrongly convicted an innocent man. Russell also criticized the American press for failing to heed any voices critical of the official version. Political causes. Russell spent the 1950s and 1960s engaged in various political causes, primarily related to nuclear disarmament and opposing the Vietnam War (see also Russell Vietnam War Crimes Tribunal). The 1955 Russell–Einstein Manifesto was a document calling for nuclear disarmament and was signed by 11 of the most prominent nuclear physicists and intellectuals of the time. He wrote a great many letters to world leaders during this period. He was in contact with Lionel Rogosin while the latter was filming his anti-war film "Good Times, Wonderful Times" in the 1960s. He became a hero to many of the youthful members of the New Left. In early 1963, in particular, Russell became increasingly vocal about his disapproval of what he felt to be the US government's near-genocidal policies in South Vietnam. In 1963 he became the inaugural recipient of the Jerusalem Prize, an award for writers concerned with the freedom of the individual in society. In October 1965 he tore up his Labour Party card because he suspected the party was going to send soldiers to support the US in the Vietnam War. Final years and death. Russell published his three-volume autobiography in 1967, 1968, and 1969. Russell made a cameo appearance playing himself in the anti-war Hindi film "Aman" which was released in India in 1967. This was Russell's only appearance in a feature film. On 23 November 1969 he wrote to "The Times" newspaper saying that the preparation for show trials in Czechoslovakia was "highly alarming". The same month, he appealed to Secretary General U Thant of the United Nations to support an international war crimes commission to investigate alleged torture and genocide by the United States in South Vietnam during the Vietnam War. The following month, he protested to Alexei Kosygin over the expulsion of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn from the Writers Union. On 31 January 1970 Russell issued a statement which condemned Israel's aggression in the Middle East, and in particular, Israeli bombing raids being carried out deep in Egyptian territory as part of the War of Attrition, and called for an Israeli withdrawal to the pre-1967 borders. This was Russell's final political statement or act. It was read out at the International Conference of Parliamentarians in Cairo on 3 February 1970, the day after his death. Russell died of influenza on 2 February 1970 at his home, Plas Penrhyn, in Penrhyndeudraeth, Merionethshire, Wales. His body was cremated in Colwyn Bay on 5 February 1970. In accordance with his will, there was no religious ceremony; his ashes were scattered over the Welsh mountains later that year. In 1980 a memorial to Russell was commissioned by a committee including the philosopher A. J. Ayer. It consists of a bust of Russell in Red Lion Square in London sculpted by Marcelle Quinton. Titles and honours from birth. Russell held throughout his life the following titles and honours: Views. Views on philosophy. Russell is generally credited with being one of the founders of analytic philosophy. He was deeply impressed by Gottfried Leibniz (1646–1716), and wrote on every major area of philosophy except aesthetics. He was particularly prolific in the field of metaphysics, the logic and the philosophy of mathematics, the philosophy of language, ethics and epistemology. When Brand Blanshard asked Russell why he didn't write on aesthetics, Russell replied that he didn't know anything about it, "but that is not a very good excuse, for my friends tell me it has not deterred me from writing on other subjects." Views on religion. Russell described himself as an atheist, "speaking popularly" and "in regard to the Christian God", but "speaking to a purely philosophical audience", an agnostic. For most of his adult life Russell maintained that religion is little more than superstition and, despite any positive effects that religion might have, it is largely harmful to people. He believed that religion and the religious outlook (he considered Communism, Capitalism, Secular Humanism, Socialism, and other systematic ideologies to be forms of religion) serve to impede knowledge and foster fear and dependency, and are responsible for much of the war, oppression, and misery that have beset the world. He was a member of the Advisory Council of the British Humanist Association and President of Cardiff Humanists until his death. Views on society. Political and social activism occupied much of Russell's time for most of his life. Russell remained politically active almost to the end of his life, writing to and exhorting world leaders and lending his name to various causes. Russell argued for a "scientific society", where war would be abolished, the growth of population limited, and prosperity shared. He suggested the establishment of a "single supreme world government" able to enforce peace, claiming that "the only thing that will redeem mankind is co-operation". In 'Reflections on My Eightieth Birthday' ("Postscript" in his "Autobiography"), Russell wrote: "I have lived in the pursuit of a vision, both personal and social. Personal: to care for what is noble, for what is beautiful, for what is gentle; to allow moments of insight to give wisdom at more mundane times. Social: to see in imagination the society that is to be created, where individuals grow freely, and where hate and greed and envy die because there is nothing to nourish them. These things I believe, and the world, for all its horrors, has left me unshaken." Selected bibliography. A selected bibliography of Russell's books in English, sorted by year of first publication: Russell also wrote many pamphlets, introductions, articles, and letters to the editor. One pamphlet titled, "I Appeal unto Caesar: the case of the conscientious objectors", ghost written for Margaret Hobhouse, the mother of imprisoned peace activist Stephen Henry Hobhouse allegedly helped secure the release of hundreds of conscientious objectors from prison. His works can be found in anthologies and collections, perhaps most notably "The Collected Papers of Bertrand Russell", which McMaster University began publishing in 1983. This collection of his shorter and previously unpublished works is now up to 16 volumes, and many more are forthcoming. An additional three volumes catalogue just his bibliography. The Russell Archives at McMaster University possess over 30,000 of his letters.
1632839	Edwina Beth "Edy" Williams (born July 9, 1942) is an American television and film actress. Early years. Born in Salt Lake City, Utah and raised in Oregon and Southern California, Williams began her career as a model and beauty pageant contestant. After winning several local pageants, Williams
1350360	Burnt by the Sun 2 (, translit. Utomlyonnye solntsem 2: Predstoyanie) is a 2010 Russian drama film directed by and starring Nikita Mikhalkov. The film consists of two parts: Exodus ("Предстояние", literally 'Prestanding') and Citadel ("Цитадель"). It is the sequel to Mikhalkov's 1994 film "Burnt by the Sun", set in the Eastern Front of World War II. "Burnt by the Sun 2" had the largest production budget ever seen in Russian cinema ($55 mln), but it turned out to be Russia's biggest box office flop, and received negative reviews from critics both in Russia and abroad. Plot. Exodus. The film begins in June 1941. Five years have passed since the lives and destinies of Colonel Sergei Petrovich Kotov, his wife Maroussia, their daughter Nadia, as well as those of Mitia and the Sverbitski family, were irrevocably changed: it has meant five years of incarceration for General Kotov (Nikita Mikhalkov), the former Revolutionary hero betrayed by Stalin. He escapes certain death in the Gulag and fights on the Eastern Front as a private. It has been five years of terror for his wife Maroussia, without the husband she believes is dead and with a daughter who has rejected her. Nadia has spent five years in hiding, proud of her father whom she refuses to disown and whom she believes is alive, despite all reports to the contrary. Mitya (Oleg Menshikov) survived his suicide attempt, and reluctantly continues to execute the orders of a regime he holds in contempt. Stalin, with his nation under attack by former ally Adolf Hitler, recalls many of those whom he has had executed or exiled to the GULAG. He tries to mobilize the Soviet population - by any means necessary - to rise against the threat of Nazism. Reception. The film received mostly negative reviews from both Russian and western critics. It was panned for historical inaccuracies, retconning, bad acting and other failures. It was criticized for abruptly breaking with the continuity of the first film, including mysteriously resurrecting characters presumed dead and changing their ages. For example, according to the first film, Nadia would have been 11 in 1941, but she is portrayed as an adult.
1268577	Mary Pickford (April 8, 1892 – May 29, 1979) was a Canadian motion picture actress, co-founder of the film studio United Artists and one of the original 36 founders of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Known as "America's Sweetheart," "Little Mary" and "The girl with the curls," she was one of the Canadian pioneers in early Hollywood and a significant figure in the development of film acting. Because her international fame was triggered by moving images, she is a watershed figure in the history of modern celebrity and, as one of silent film's most important performers and producers, her contract demands were central to shaping the Hollywood industry. In consideration of her contributions to American cinema, the American Film Institute named Pickford 24th among the greatest female stars of all time. Early life. Mary Pickford was born Gladys Marie Smith in Toronto, Ontario. Her father, John Charles Smith, was the son of English Methodist immigrants, and worked a variety of odd jobs. Her mother, Charlotte Hennessy, was of Irish Catholic descent. She had two younger siblings, Jack and Lottie Pickford, who would also become actors. To please the relatives, Pickford's mother baptized her in both the Methodist and Catholic churches. Pickford later claimed that her middle name was changed to "Marie" during one of these baptisms. Pickford's alcoholic father left his family in 1895. He died three years later of a cerebral hemorrhage. Hennessy, who had worked as a seamstress throughout the separation, began taking in boarders. One of these lodgers was a theatrical stage manager, and at his suggestion, the seven-year-old Pickford was given two small roles, one of a boy and the other a girl, in a stock company production of "The Silver King" at Toronto's Princess Theatre. She subsequently acted in many melodramas with Toronto's Valentine Company, finally playing the major child role in their version of "The Silver King" and capping her short career with the starring role of Little Eva in their production of "Uncle Tom's Cabin", the most popular play of the 19th century. Career. Early years. By the early 1900s, acting had become a family enterprise. Pickford, her mother and two younger siblings toured the United States by rail in third-rate companies and plays. After six impoverished years, Pickford allowed one more summer to land a leading role on Broadway, planning to quit acting if she failed. In 1906 Mary, Lottie and Jack supported the great Irish American singer Chauncey Olcott on Broadway in the play "Edmund Burke". Mary finally landed a supporting role in a 1907 Broadway play, "The Warrens of Virginia". The play was written by William C. deMille, whose brother, the then-unknown Cecil B. DeMille, also appeared in the cast. David Belasco, the producer of the play, insisted that Gladys Smith assume the stage name Mary Pickford. After completing the Broadway run and touring the play, however, Pickford was once again out of work. On April 19, 1909, the Biograph Company director D. W. Griffith screen-tested her at the company's New York studio for a role in the nickelodeon film "Pippa Passes". The role went to someone else but Griffith was immediately taken with Pickford. She quickly grasped that movie acting was simpler than the stylized stage acting of the day. Most Biograph actors earned $5 a day but, after Pickford's single day in the studio, Griffith agreed to pay her $10 a day against a guarantee of $40 a week. Pickford, like all actors at Biograph, played both bit parts and leading roles, playing mothers, ingenues, spurned women, spitfires, slaves, native Americans, and a prostitute. As Pickford said of her success at Biograph: "I played scrubwomen and secretaries and women of all nationalities... I decided that if I could get into as many pictures as possible, I'd become known, and there would be a demand for my work." Pickford appeared in 51 films in 1909 – almost one a week. She also introduced her friend Florence La Badie to D. W. Griffith, which launched La Badie's successful film acting career. In January 1910, Pickford traveled with a Biograph crew to Los Angeles. Many other companies wintered on the West Coast, escaping the weak light and short days that hampered winter shooting in the East. Pickford added to her 1909 Biographs ("Sweet and Twenty", "They Would Elope," and "To Save Her Soul", to name a few) with films from California. Actors were not listed in the credits in Griffith's company. Audiences nonetheless noticed and identified Pickford within weeks of her first film appearance. Exhibitors in turn capitalized on her popularity by advertising on sandwich boards that a film featuring "The Girl with the Golden Curls," "Blondilocks" or "The Biograph Girl" was inside. Pickford left Biograph in December 1910 and spent 1911 starring in films at Carl Laemmle's Independent Moving Pictures Company (IMP). IMP was absorbed into Universal Pictures in 1912, along with Majestic. Unhappy with their creative standards, she returned to work with Griffith in 1912. Some of her best performances were in films such as "Friends", "The Mender of Nets", "Just Like a Woman", and "The Female of the Species". That year Pickford also introduced Dorothy and Lillian Gish (both friends from her days touring melodrama) to Griffith. Both became major silent stars, in comedy and tragedy respectively. Pickford made her last Biograph picture, "The New York Hat," in late 1912 and returned to Broadway in the David Belasco production of "A Good Little Devil." The experience was the major turning point in her career. Pickford, who had always hoped to conquer the Broadway stage, discovered how deeply she missed film acting. In 1913, she decided to work exclusively in film. In 1912, Adolph Zukor had formed Famous Players in Famous Plays – later Famous Players-Lasky and then Paramount Pictures – one of the first American feature film companies. Pickford left the stage to join his roster of stars. Zukor believed film's potential lay in recording theatrical players in replicas of their most famous stage roles and productions. Zukor first filmed Pickford in a silent version of "A Good Little Devil." The film, produced in 1913, showed the play's Broadway actors reciting every line of dialogue, resulting in a stiff film that Pickford later called "one of the worst I ever made...it was deadly." Zukor agreed; he held the film back from distribution for a year. Pickford's work in material written for the camera by that time had attracted a strong following. Comedy-dramas like "In the Bishop's Carriage" (1913), "Caprice" (1913), and especially "Hearts Adrift" (1914) made her irresistible to moviegoers. "Hearts Adrift" was so popular that Pickford asked for the first of her many publicized pay raises based on the profits and reviews. The film also marked the first time Pickford’s name was put above the title on movie marquees. "Tess of the Storm Country" was released five weeks later. Brownlow observes that the movie “sent her career into orbit and made her the most popular actress in America, if not the world.” Her appeal was summed up two years later by the February 1916 issue of "Photoplay" as "luminous tenderness in a steel band of gutter ferocity". Only Charlie Chaplin – who reportedly slightly surpassed Pickford's popularity in 1916 – had a similarly spellbinding pull with critics and the audience. Each enjoyed a level of fame far exceeding that of other actors. Throughout the 1910s and 1920s, Pickford was believed to be the most famous woman in the world, or, as a silent-film journalist described her, "the best known woman who has ever lived, the woman who was known to more people and loved by more people than any other woman that has been in all history." Pickford's closest female rival at this time at the box office and with the public was 31-year-old Marguerite Clark. She also came from stage acting and had a girlish/whimsical charm to which audiences responded. Stardom. In August 1918, Pickford's contract expired and when refusing Zukor's terms for a renewal, she was offered $250,000 to leave the motion picture business. Pickford turned him down and went to First National Pictures, which agreed to her terms. In 1919, Pickford – along with D.W. Griffith, Charlie Chaplin, and Douglas Fairbanks – formed the independent film production company United Artists. Through United Artists, Pickford continued to produce and perform in her own movies; she could also distribute them the way she chose. In 1920, Pickford's film "Pollyanna" grossed around $1,100,000. The following year, Pickford's film "Little Lord Fauntleroy" would also be a success, and in 1923, "Rosita" grossed over $1,000,000 as well. In this period, Pickford also made "Sparrows" (1926), which blended the Dickensian with newly minted German expressionist style, and the romantic comedy "My Best Girl" (1927). The arrival of sound was her undoing. Pickford underestimated the value of adding sound to movies, claiming that "adding sound to movies would be like putting lipstick on the Venus de Milo". She played a reckless socialite in "Coquette" (1929), a role where she no longer had her famous ringlets, but rather a 1920s bob; Pickford had cut her hair in the wake of her mother's death in 1928. Fans were shocked at the transformation. Pickford's hair had become a symbol of female virtue, and cutting it was front-page news in "The New York Times" and other papers. "Coquette" was a success and won her an Academy Award for Best Actress, but the public failed to respond to her in the more sophisticated roles. Like most movie stars of the silent era, Pickford found her career fading as talkies became more popular among audiences. Her next film, "The Taming of The Shrew", made with husband Douglas Fairbanks, was not well received at the box office. Hollywood was panicked by the impending arrival of the talkies. On March 29, 1928, a radio show was broadcast from Pickford's bungalow, featuring Douglas Fairbanks, Charles Chaplin, Norma Talmadge, Gloria Swanson, John Barrymore, D.W. Griffith and Dolores del Rio, among others, to speak on the "The Dodge Brothers Hour" to prove they could meet the challenge of talking movies. Now in her late thirties, Pickford was unable to play the children, teenage spitfires and feisty young women so adored by her fans, nor could she play the sleekly elegant heroines of early sound. In 1933, Pickford underwent a Technicolor screen test for an animated/live action film version of "Alice in Wonderland", but Walt Disney discarded the project when Paramount released its own version of the book. Only one Technicolor "still" of her screen test still exists. Pickford retired from acting in 1933. She continued to produce films for others, including "Sleep, My Love" (1948) with Claudette Colbert and "Love Happy" (1949) with the Marx Brothers. The film industry. Pickford used her stature in the movie industry to promote a variety of causes. During World War I, she promoted the sale of Liberty Bonds, through an exhausting series of fund-raising speeches that kicked off in Washington, D.C., where she sold bonds alongside Charles Chaplin, Douglas Fairbanks, Theda Bara, and Marie Dressler. Five days later she spoke on Wall Street to an estimated 50,000 people. Though Canadian-born, she was a powerful symbol of Americana, kissing the American flag for cameras and auctioning one of her world-famous curls for $15,000. In a single speech in Chicago she sold an estimated five million dollars' worth of bonds. She was christened the U.S. Navy's official "Little Sister"; the Army named two cannons after her and made her an honorary colonel. At the end of World War I, Pickford conceived of the Motion Picture Relief Fund, an organization to help financially needy actors. Leftover funds from her work selling Liberty Bonds were put toward its creation, and in 1921, the Motion Picture Relief Fund (MPRF) was officially incorporated, with Joseph Schenck voted its first president and Mary Pickford as its vice president. In 1932, Pickford spearheaded the "Payroll Pledge Program," a payroll-deduction plan for studio workers who gave one half of one percent of their earnings to the MPRF. As a result, in 1940 the Fund was able to purchase land and build the Motion Picture Country House and Hospital. But Pickford's most profound influence (beyond her acting) was to help reshape the film industry itself. When she entered features, Hollywood believed that the movies' future lay in reproducing Broadway plays for a mass audience. Pickford, who entered feature film with two Broadway credits but a far greater following among fans of nickelodeon flickers, became the world's most popular actress in a matter of months. In response to her popularity, Hollywood rethought its vision of features as "canned theatre," and focused instead on actors and material that were uniquely suited to film, not stage performances. An astute businesswoman, Pickford became her own producer within three years of her start in features. According to her Foundation, "she oversaw every aspect of the making of her films, from hiring talent and crew to overseeing the script, the shooting, the editing, to the final release and promotion of each project." Pickford first demanded (and received) these powers in 1916, when she was under contract to Adolph Zukor's Famous Players In Famous Plays (later Paramount). He also acquiesced to her refusal to participate in block-booking, the widespread practice of forcing an exhibitor to show a bad film of the studio's choosing in order to also show a Pickford film. In 1916, Pickford's films were distributed, singly, through a special distribution unit called Artcraft. The Mary Pickford Corporation was briefly Pickford's motion-picture production company. In 1919, she increased her power by co-founding United Artists (UA) with Charlie Chaplin, D. W. Griffith, and her soon-to-be husband, Douglas Fairbanks. Before UA's creation, Hollywood studios were vertically integrated, not only producing films but forming chains of theaters. Distributors (also part of the studios) then arranged for company productions to be shown in the company's movie venues. Filmmakers relied on the studios for bookings; in return they put up with what many considered creative interference. United Artists broke from this tradition. It was solely a distribution company, offering independent film producers access to its own screens as well as the rental of temporarily unbooked cinemas owned by other companies. Pickford and Fairbanks produced and shot their films after 1920 at the jointly owned Pickford-Fairbanks studio on Santa Monica Boulevard. The producers who signed with UA were true independents, producing, creating and controlling their work to an unprecedented degree. As a co-founder, as well as the producer and star of her own films, Pickford became the most powerful woman who has ever worked in Hollywood. By 1930, Pickford's career as an actress had greatly faded. When she retired from acting in 1933, Pickford continued to produce films for United Artists, and she and Chaplin remained partners in the company for decades. Chaplin left the company in 1955, and Pickford followed suit in 1956, selling her remaining shares for three million dollars. Personal life. Pickford was married three times. She married Owen Moore, an Irish-born silent film actor, on January 7, 1911. It is believed she became pregnant by Moore in the early 1910s and had a miscarriage or an abortion. Some accounts suggest this led to her inability to have children. The couple had numerous marital problems, notably Moore's alcoholism, insecurity about living in the shadow of Pickford's fame, and bouts of domestic violence. The couple lived apart for several years. Pickford became secretly involved in a relationship with Douglas Fairbanks. They toured the US together in 1918 to promote Liberty Bond sales for the World War I effort. Around this time, Pickford also suffered from a bout of the flu during the 1918 flu pandemic, but survived. Pickford divorced Moore on March 2, 1920, and married Fairbanks on March 28 of the same year. They went to Europe for their honeymoon; fans in London and in Paris caused riots trying to get to the famous couple. The couple's triumphant return to Hollywood was witnessed by vast crowds who turned out to hail them at railway stations across the United States. "The Mark of Zorro" (1920) and a series of other swashbucklers gave the popular Fairbanks a more romantic, heroic image. Pickford continued to epitomize the virtuous but fiery girl next door. Even at private parties people instinctively stood up when Pickford entered a room; she and her husband were often referred to as "Hollywood royalty." Their international reputations were broad. Foreign heads of state and dignitaries who visited the White House often asked if they could also visit Pickfair, the couple's mansion in Beverly Hills. Dinners at Pickfair included a number of notable guests. Charlie Chaplin, Fairbanks' best friend, was often present. Other guests included George Bernard Shaw, Albert Einstein, Elinor Glyn, Helen Keller, H. G. Wells, Lord Mountbatten, Fritz Kreisler, Amelia Earhart, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Noël Coward, Max Reinhardt, Baron Nishi, Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Austen Chamberlain, Sir Harry Lauder, and the Indian spiritual teacher Meher Baba. The public nature of Pickford's second marriage strained it to the breaking point. Both she and Fairbanks had little time off from producing and acting in their films. They were also constantly on display as America's unofficial ambassadors to the world, leading parades, cutting ribbons, and making speeches. When their film careers both began to flounder at the end of the silent era, Fairbanks' restless nature prompted him to overseas travel (something which Pickford did not enjoy). When Fairbanks' romance with Sylvia, Lady Ashley became public in the early 1930s he and Pickford separated. They divorced January 10, 1936. Fairbanks' son by his first wife, Douglas Fairbanks Jr., claimed that his father and Pickford long regretted their inability to reconcile. On June 24, 1937, Pickford married her third and last husband, actor and band leader Charles 'Buddy' Rogers. They adopted two children: Roxanne (born 1944, adopted 1944) and Ronald Charles (born 1937, adopted 1943, a.k.a. Ron Pickford Rogers). As a PBS "American Experience" documentary noted, Pickford's relationship with her children was tense. She criticized their physical imperfections, including Ronnie's small stature and Roxanne's crooked teeth. Both children later said that their mother was too self-absorbed to provide real maternal love. In 2003, Ronnie recalled that "Things didn't work out that much, you know. But I'll never forget her. I think that she was a good woman." Later years. After retiring from the screen, Pickford became an alcoholic, as her father had before her. Other alcoholics in the family included her first husband Owen Moore, her mother Charlotte, and her younger siblings Lottie and Jack. Charlotte died of breast cancer in March 1928 after several operations. Within a few years, Lottie and Jack died of alcohol-related causes. These deaths, her divorce from Fairbanks, and the end of silent films left Pickford deeply depressed. Her relationship with her children, Roxanne and Ronald, was turbulent at best. Having lost the love of her life, her career, and her mother within a very short time Pickford withdrew and gradually became a recluse, remaining almost entirely at Pickfair and allowing visits only from Lillian Gish, her stepson Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., and a few select others. She did appear in court in 1959, in a matter pertaining to her co-ownership of North Carolina TV station WSJS-TV. The court date coincided with the date of her 66th birthday; under oath, when asked to give her age, Pickford replied, "I'm 21, going on 20". In the mid-1960s, Pickford often received visitors only by telephone, speaking to them from her bedroom. Buddy Rogers often gave guests tours of Pickfair, including views of a genuine western bar Pickford had bought for Douglas Fairbanks, and a portrait of Pickford in the drawing room. A print of this image now hangs in the Library of Congress. In addition to her Oscar as best actress for "Coquette" (1929), Mary Pickford received an Academy Honorary Award for a lifetime of achievements in 1976. The Academy sent a TV crew to her house to record her short statement of thanks. Pickford had become an American citizen upon her marriage to Douglas Fairbanks in 1920. Towards the end of her life, Pickford made arrangements with the Department of Citizenship to regain her Canadian citizenship because she wished to "die as a Canadian". Her request was approved and she became a dual Canadian-American citizen. Death. On May 29, 1979, Pickford died at a Santa Monica hospital of complications from a cerebral hemorrhage she had suffered the week before. Pickford was buried in the Garden of Memory of the Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, California. Buried alongside her in the Pickford private family plot are her mother Charlotte, her siblings Lottie and Jack Pickford, and the family of Elizabeth Watson, Charlotte's sister, who had helped raise Pickford in Toronto. Legacy. The Pickford Center for Motion Picture Study at 1313 Vine Street in Hollywood, constructed by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, opened in 1948 as a radio and television studio facility. The Mary Pickford Theater at the Library of Congress is named in her honor. Mary Pickford Auditorium at Claremont McKenna College is named in her honor. There is a first-run movie theatre in Cathedral City, California called The Mary Pickford Theatre. The theater is a grand one with several screens and is built in the shape of a Spanish Cathedral, complete with bell tower and three-story lobby. The lobby contains a historic display with original artifacts belonging to Pickford and Buddy Rogers, her last husband. Among them are a rare and spectacular beaded gown she wore in the film "Dorothy Vernon of Haddon Hall" (1924) designed by Mitchell Leisen, her special Oscar, and a jewelry box. The 1980 stage musical "The Biograph Girl" about the silent film era features the character of Pickford. In 2007, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences sued the estate of the deceased Buddy Rogers' second wife, Beverly Rogers, in order to stop the public sale of one of Pickford's Oscars. A bust and historical plaque marks her birthplace in Toronto, now the site of the Hospital for Sick Children. The plaque was unveiled by her husband Buddy Rogers in 1973. The bust by artist Eino Gira was added ten years later. Her date of birth on the plaque is displayed as April 8, 1893. This can only be assumed to be because her date of birth was never registered – and throughout her life, beginning as a child, she led many people to believe that she was a year younger so she would appear to be more of an acting prodigy and continue to be cast in younger roles, which were more plentiful in the theatre. The family home had been demolished in 1943, and many of the bricks delivered to Pickford in California. Proceeds from the sale of the property were donated by Pickford to build a bungalow in East York, Ontario, then a suburb of Toronto. The bungalow was the first prize in a lottery in Toronto to benefit war charities, and Pickford herself unveiled the home on May 26, 1943. In 1993, a Golden Palm Star on the Palm Springs, California, Walk of Stars was dedicated to her. Pickford received a posthumous star on Canada's Walk of Fame in Toronto in 1999. In 2006, along with fellow deceased Canadian stars Fay Wray, Lorne Greene and John Candy, Pickford was featured on a Canadian postage stamp. From January 2011 until July 2011, the Toronto International Film Festival exhibited a collection of Mary Pickford memorabilia in the Canadian Film Gallery of the TIFF Bell LightBox building. In February 2011, the Spadina Museum, a museum dedicated to the 1920s and 1930s era in Toronto, staged performances of "Sweetheart: The Mary Pickford Story", a one-woman musical based on the life and career of Pickford. In 2013, a copy of an early Pickford film that was thought to be lost (Their First Misunderstanding) was found by Peter Massie, a carpenter tearing down an abandoned barn in New Hampshire. It was donated to Keene State College and is currently undergoing restoration by the Library of Congress for exhibition. The film is notable as being the first in which Pickford was credited by name.
587633	Gharana Mogudu () is a 1992 Telugu melodrama-action film which starred Chiranjeevi and Nagma in the lead roles. The film directed by K. Raghavendra Rao, became the first Telugu film to gross over 100 million rupees at the box office.
1245082	American Teen is a 2008 documentary film directed by Nanette Burstein ("On the Ropes", "The Kid Stays in the Picture") and produced by 57th & Irving. It competed in the Documentary Competition at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival, where it received the Directing Award: Documentary. Following the Sundance Film Festival, the movie was picked up by Paramount Vantage and was released to general cinema July 25, 2008. Much of the movie was filmed at Warsaw Community High School in Warsaw, Indiana. Director Nanette Burstein originally reviewed more than 100 different schools in the pre-production process, and ten schools replied, agreeing to participate. After she interviewed incoming seniors at all 10, she chose Warsaw. Criticism. Some film critics have accused the director, Nanette Burstein, of giving the documentary a sensationalized feel, and others have gone so far as to claim that the film feels scripted and the very presence of the cameras take the reality out of the situation.
1060136	Gerald Tommaso DeLouise (born April 30, 1940) better known by his stage name Burt Young, is an American actor, painter and author. He is best known for his Academy Award-nominated role as Sylvester Stallone's brother-in-law and best friend Paulie in the "Rocky" film series. Personal life. Young was born in Queens, New York, the son of Josephine and Michael. He was trained by Lee Strasberg at the Actors Studio. Young is widowed and has one daughter, Anne Morea. He lives in Port Washington, New York. Career. Young made his name playing rough-edged working class Italian-American characters, the best-known example being his signature role as Sylvester Stallone's brother-in-law Paulie in "Rocky" (1976), for which he received an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor. He is one of four actors (the other three being Stallone, Stu Nahan and Tony Burton) who have appeared in every "Rocky" film (although, additionally Talia Shire appears in Rocky I-V, and makes a flashback appearance in Rocky Balboa). He has played similar roles in "Chinatown", "Convoy", "Back to School", "The Pope of Greenwich Village", "Once Upon a Time in America", "Last Exit to Brooklyn", ', and even a brutal and darker role in '. Young has also appeared in many television programs, including "The Rockford Files", "Baretta", "Law & Order", "Walker, Texas Ranger", "M*A*S*H", guest-starred in a "Miami Vice" episode, and made an appearance on "The Sopranos" ("Another Toothpick") as Bobby Baccalieri's father, who is dying of cancer and comes out of retirement to execute a hit on his godson. Young is a painter whose art has been displayed in galleries throughout the world. He is also a published author whose works include two filmed screenplays and a 400-page historically based novel called "Endings". He has written two stage plays: "SOS" and "A Letter to Alicia and the New York City Government From a Man With a Bullet in His Head". Other. Young participated in the 1984 New York City Marathon.
1067894	No End in Sight is a 2007 documentary film about the American occupation of Iraq. The film marks the directorial debut of Academy Award winning documentary film producer Charles H. Ferguson. The film premiered January 22, 2007 at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival. The film opened in limited release in the United States on July 27, 2007, playing in two theaters. , the film had grossed $1.4 million, and had been released on DVD. Interviews. To a large extent the film consists of interviews with the people who were involved in the initial Iraqi occupation authority and the ORHA (the Office for Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance, later replaced by the CPA, the Coalition Provisional Authority). Thirty-five people are interviewed, many of them former Bush loyalists who have since become disillusioned by what they experienced at the time. In particular, many of those interviewed claim that the inexperience of the core members of the Bush administration — and their refusal to seek, acknowledge or accept input from more experienced outsiders — was at the root of the disastrous occupation effort. Others include former soldiers stationed in Iraq, as well as authors and journalists critical of the war planning. Those interviewed are: Content. "No End in Sight" is a documentary film that focuses on the two-year period following the American invasion of Iraq in March 2003. The film asserts that serious mistakes made by the administration of President George W. Bush during that time were the cause of ensuing problems in Iraq, such as the rise of the insurgency, a lack of security and basic services for many Iraqis, sectarian violence and, at one point, the risk of complete civil war. According to "No End in Sight", there were three especially grave mistakes made by L. Paul Bremer, the head of the CPA: The film cites these three mistakes as the primary causes of the rapid deterioration of occupied Iraq into chaos, as the collapse of the government bureaucracy and army resulted in a lack of authority and order. It was the Islamic fundamentalists that moved to fill this void, so their ranks swelled with many disillusioned Iraqi people. Reception. The film had an average score of 89 out of 100, based on 27 reviews. A. O. Scott of "The New York Times" called it "exacting, enraging" and said "Ferguson presents familiar material with impressive concision and impact, offering a clear, temperate and devastating account of high-level arrogance and incompetence." Scott said "most of the movie deals with a period of a few months in the spring and summer of 2003, when a series of decisions were made that did much to determine the terrible course of subsequent events" and wrote "the knowledge and expertise of military, diplomatic and technical professionals was overridden by the ideological certainty of political loyalists." Scott also remarked, "It might be argued that since Mr. Bremer, Mr. Rumsfeld and Mr. Wolfowitz declined to appear in the film, Mr. Ferguson was able to present only one side of the story. But the accumulated professional standing of the people he did interview, and their calm, detailed insistence on the facts, makes such an objection implausible." Scott concluded, "It’s a sober, revelatory and absolutely vital film." Rob Nelson of the "Village Voice" said "Masterfully edited and cumulatively walloping, Charles Ferguson's "No End in Sight" turns the well-known details of our monstrously bungled Iraq war into an enraging, apocalyptic litany of fuck-ups." Nelson said the film "is certainly a film about failure, perhaps the ultimate film about failure. Or maybe a film about the ultimate failure?", also writing that the film "is less a work of investigation (or activism) than history." Rob Nelson wrote, "Focusing on the war itself, Ferguson is chiefly interested in compiling a filmed dossier of incompetence—not so much to argue that the war could have been won and won early, but to suggest that the magnitude of arrogant irresponsibility will carry aftershocks as far into the future as the mind can imagine." Nelson also said, "Ferguson's approach is at once relentless and, with the help of Campbell Scott's flat narration, chillingly calm and composed." Nelson wrote, "The evidence speaks for itself, and "No End in Sight"—addressed to those who'll be swayed against the war by ineptitude more than immorality—is the rare American documentary that doesn't appear to preach to the converted, or at least not only to the converted", also saying "For those of us who've opposed the war for years, the movie is at once intensely frightening and, it must be admitted, disturbingly reassuring." Roger Ebert of the "Chicago Sun-Times" gave the film 4 stars and said "This is not a documentary filled with anti-war activists or sitting ducks for Michael Moore. Most of the people in the film were important to the Bush administration." Ebert concluded, "I am distinctly not comparing anyone to Hitler, but I cannot help being reminded of the stories of him in his Berlin bunker, moving nonexistent troops on a map, and issuing orders to dead generals." At the 2007 Sundance Film Festival, "No End in Sight" won the Special Jury Prize for Documentaries. On January 22, 2008, "No End in Sight" was named by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences as one of 5 films nominated for a prize in the "Best Documentary Feature" category. "Time" magazine's Richard Corliss named the film one of the Top 10 Movies of 2007, ranking it at #7. Corliss praised the film, saying it "stands out for its comprehensive take on how we got there, why we can't get out", and opined that everyone should see it, calling it "the perfect stocking-stuffer for holiday enlightenment."
585606	Dada Sahib is a 2000 Malayalam film co-written and directed by Vinayan and starring Mammootty in the dual title roles. He played the roles of Dada Sahib, an old freedom fighter and Abubacker, an army man and patriot.Dada Sahib became a super hit after Narasimham Thenkasippattanam . Mammootty got critical acclaim for the Perfomence of Dada Sahib. Plot. Dada Mohammed Sahib popularly called Dadasahib, is an old freedom fighter, and his son Abubacker is a former subeidar in the army. Abubacker is the brave son of a brave father, cannot help himself from reacting when he finds some terrorist activities and arms racket taking place in his own town Thaliyoor. But finally he finds himself being arrested on charges of espionage, treason and terrorist activity and the court too gives its final verdict-the death sentence. The President too rejects his plea and finally the sentence is carried out. It is after this that the story takes a new turn; Abubacker escapes from death and a battle ensues between good and the evil forces.
1062128	Cybill Lynne Shepherd (born February 18, 1950) is an American actress, singer and former model. Her better known roles include starring as Jacy in "The Last Picture Show" (1971), as Betsy in "Taxi Driver" (1976), as Maddie Hayes in "Moonlighting" (1985–1989), as Cybill Sheridan in "Cybill" (1995–1998), as Phyllis Kroll in "The L Word" (2007–2009) and as Madeleine Spencer in "Psych" (2008–2013). Early life. Shepherd was born in Memphis, Tennessee, the daughter of Patty (née Shobe), a homemaker, and William Jennings Shepherd, who managed a home appliance business. Named after her grandfather Cy and her father Bill, Shepherd won the 1966 "Miss Teenage Memphis" contest at age 16, and the 1968 "Model of the Year" contest at age 18, making her a fashion star of the 1960s, resulting in fashion modeling work through high school and after. Career. According to Shepherd's autobiography, it was a 1970 "Glamour" magazine cover that caught the eye of film director Peter Bogdanovich. His then-wife, Polly Platt, claimed that it was she who, upon seeing the cover in a check-out line in a Ralphs grocery store in southern California, said "That's Jacy," referring to the role Bogdanovich was casting—and ultimately offered to Shepherd—in "The Last Picture Show" (1971). She developed a relationship with him on the set, along with co-star Jeff Bridges, screenwriter Larry McMurtry, and Frank Marshall (film producer). First experience of fame. Her first film was "The Last Picture Show" (1971 film), also starring Jeff Bridges and Timothy Bottoms. The film became a critical and box office hit, earning several Academy Awards and nominations. Shepherd was nominated for a Golden Globe. Shepherd was cast opposite Charles Grodin in "The Heartbreak Kid" (1972). She played Kelly, the beautiful, sunkissed young woman whom Grodin's character falls for while on his honeymoon in Miami. Directed by Elaine May, it was another critical and box office hit. Also in 1972, Shepherd posed as a Kodak Girl for the camera manufacturer's then ubiquitous cardboard displays. In 1974, Shepherd released her debut studio album "Cybill Does It...To Cole Porter" for MCA Records and again teamed with Peter Bogdanovich for the title role in "Daisy Miller", based on the Henry James novella. The film—a period piece set in Europe—proved to be a box office failure. Her next film, "At Long Last Love" (1975), a musical again directed by Bogdanovich, also flopped. Shepherd returned with good reviews for her work in Martin Scorsese's "Taxi Driver" (1976). According to Shepherd, Scorsese had requested a "Cybill Shepherd type" for the role. She portrayed an ethereal beauty with whom Robert De Niro's character, Travis Bickle, becomes enthralled. After a series of less successful roles, including "The Lady Vanishes", the remake of Alfred Hitchcock's 1938 film of the same name, she moved back to her home town of Memphis to work in regional theatre. Returning to New York in 1982, she took to the stage alongside James MacArthur in a theatre tour of "Lunch Hour" by Jean Kerr. Return to Hollywood. Back from Memphis, Shepherd won the role of Colleen Champion in the night-time drama, "The Yellow Rose" (1983), opposite Sam Elliott. Although critically acclaimed, the series lasted only one season. A year later Shepherd was cast as Maddie Hayes in ABC's "Moonlighting" (1985–1989), which became the role that defined her career. The producers knew that her role depended on having chemistry with her co-star, and she was involved in the selection of Bruce Willis. A lighthearted combination of mystery and comedy, the series won Shepherd two Golden Globe awards. She starred in "Chances Are" (1989) with Robert Downey Jr. and Ryan O'Neal, receiving excellent reviews. She then reprised her role as Jacy in "Texasville" (1990), the sequel to "The Last Picture Show" (1971), as the original cast (including director Peter Bogdanovich) reunited 20 years after filming the original. She also appeared in Woody Allen's "Alice" (1990), and Eugene Levy's "Once Upon a Crime" (1992), as well as several television films. In 1997 she won her third Golden Globe award for CBS' "Cybill" (1995–1998), a television sitcom, in which the title character, Cybill Sheridan, an actress struggling with hammy parts in B movies and bad soaps, was loosely modeled on herself (including portrayals of her two ex-husbands). In 2000 Shepherd's bestselling autobiography was published, titled "Cybill Disobedience: How I Survived Beauty Pageants, Elvis, Sex, Bruce Willis, Lies, Marriage, Motherhood, Hollywood, and the Irrepressible Urge to Say What I Think", written in collaboration with Aimee Lee Ball. That same year, Shepherd hosted a short-lived syndicated talk show version of the book "Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus", but left the show in early 2001 and was replaced by Cristina Ferrare, Bo Griffin, Samantha Phillips, Drew Pinsky, and Rondell Sheridan. In 2003 she guest-starred on "8 Simple Rules" as Cate Hennessy's (portrayed by Katey Sagal) sister. She has played Martha Stewart in two television films: ' (2003) and ' (2005). From 2007 until it ended, Shepherd appeared on the Showtime drama, "The L Word" as the character Phyllis Kroll for the show's final three seasons. In 2008 she joined the cast of the USA Network television series "Psych" as Shawn Spencer's mother, Madeleine Spencer. On November 7, 2008, Shepherd guest-starred in a February episode of the CBS drama "Criminal Minds". In the fall of 2010 Shepherd appeared in an episode of ABC's new show, "No Ordinary Family". and in November of the same year she guest-starred in an episode of CBS' "$h*! My Dad Says". After appearing alongside Jennifer Love Hewitt in the 2010 television film "The Client List", Shepherd became a regular on the series based on the film in 2012 and will continue this role in the show's second season in 2013. In July 2012 Shepherd made her Broadway debut in the revival of Gore Vidal's "The Best Man" at the Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre alongside James Earl Jones, John Stamos, John Larroquette, Kristin Davis and Elizabeth Ashley to positive reviews. Political activism. Throughout her career, Shepherd has been an outspoken activist for issues such as gay rights and abortion rights. In 2009, Shepherd was honored by the Human Rights Campaign in Atlanta to accept one of two National Ally for Equality awards. She has been an advocate for same-sex marriage and parental rights. She was present at the opening of the National Civil Rights Museum in her hometown of Memphis, for which she lent some financial support. Personal life. In her autobiography she revealed that in 1978 she called her mother, crying, unhappy with the way her life and career were going, to which her mother replied "Cybill, come home." She went home to Memphis where she met, and began dating, local auto parts dealer and nightclub entertainer, David M. Ford. She became pregnant and they married that year, but the marriage ended in divorce in 1982. Their daughter, Clementine Ford, was born in 1979. In 1987 she became pregnant by chiropractor, Bruce Oppenheim, and married him, giving birth to twins, Cyrus Zachariah and Molly Ariel Shepherd-Oppenheim during the fourth season of "Moonlighting". They were divorced in 1990. Oppenheim went on to marry the actress Jenilee Harrison and it was Harrison who noticed a patch on Shepherd's back which was diagnosed as melanoma and subsequently removed. In June 2012 she became engaged to boyfriend, Andrei Nikolajevic. Religious beliefs. Shepherd has described her religious beliefs as "a goddess-worshipping Christian Pagan Buddhist". Autobiography. Shepherd made the following claims in her autobiography: Award nominations. Emmy Awards. Nominations: In her autobiography, Shepherd addressed rumors that she was jealous of her co-stars Bruce Willis and Christine Baranski for winning Emmy awards while she has not: "The grain of truth is this: Who doesn't want to win an Emmy?" Golden Globe Awards. Wins: Nominations: External links. For the official website, see the Infobox
1040446	Jimi Mistry (born 1 January 1973) is a British actor. Early life. Mistry was born in Scarborough, North Riding of Yorkshire, England, to an Indian Hindu father and an Irish Roman Catholic mother. He was brought up a Roman Catholic and attended St. James' Catholic High School in Cheadle Hulme (1985–88) before his family moved to Cardiff where he attended Radyr Comprehensive School. He trained at the Birmingham School of Speech and Drama. Career. Mistry first gained exposure playing Dr Fred Fonseca on BBC TV's "EastEnders", and has since worked on film and stage. His work includes starring roles in "East is East", "The Guru" with Heather Graham and Marisa Tomei, "Blood Diamond" alongside Leonardo DiCaprio, Guy Ritchie's "RocknRolla" and "Partition" alongside Kristin Kreuk. He can be seen in the Warner Bros. film "2012" from director Roland Emmerich alongside John Cusack, Danny Glover, Amanda Peet and Thandie Newton, and the BAFTA-nominated movie "Exam". In 2010 he appeared in Gurinder Chadha's new film "It's a Wonderful Afterlife" which premiered at the 2010 Sundance film festival; "Basement", a horror film with Danny Dyer; and "West is West", the sequel to "East is East". Mistry has also produced/written and starred in a music documentary about Ibiza entitled "And The Beat Goes On", exploring the history of the island, the birth of House Music and the art of the DJ. DJs involved in the film include Paul Oakenfold, Danny Rampling, Nicky Holloway, David Guetta, Brandon Block, Alfredo, Pete Tong and Danny Tenaglia. He regularly DJs in clubs across UK and Europe. He is set to join the ITV soap opera Coronation Street as a friend of Gary Windass, in November 2013 Mistry competed in the 2010 series of BBC's "Strictly Come Dancing", partnered by Flavia Cacace and was eliminated on week 7. Personal life. Mistry lived with Meg Leonard from 1993; they married in 2001 and divorced in March 2010. They have one daughter, Elin Leonard Mistry, born 13 May 2001. He currently resides in Crouch End, London with his fiancée Flavia Cacace.
1062051	Timothy Francis "Tim" Robbins (born October 16, 1958) is an American actor, screenwriter, director, producer, activist and musician. He is known for his roles as Nuke in "Bull Durham", Jacob Singer in "Jacob's Ladder", Griffin Mill in "The Player", Andy Dufresne in "The Shawshank Redemption", and as Dave Boyle in "Mystic River", for which he won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. Early life. Robbins was born in West Covina, California, and raised in New York City. He is the son of Mary Cecelia (née Bledsoe), an actress, and Gilbert Lee Robbins (1931–2011), a musician, folk singer, actor, and former manager of The Gaslight Cafe. Robbins has two sisters, Adele and Gabrielle, and a brother, David. He was raised Catholic. He moved to Greenwich Village with his family at a young age, while his father pursued a career as a member of the folk music group, The Highwaymen. Robbins started doing theater at age twelve and joined the drama club at Stuyvesant High School. He spent two years at SUNY Plattsburgh and then returned to California to study at the UCLA Film School. Career. Robbins's acting career began at Theater for the New City, where he spent his teenage years in their Annual Summer Street Theater and also played the title role in a musical adaptation of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's "The Little Prince". After graduation from college in 1981, Robbins founded the Actors' Gang, an experimental theater group, in Los Angeles with actor friends from his college softball team (including John Cusack). In 1982, he appeared as domestic terrorist Andrew Reinhardt in three episodes of the television program "St. Elsewhere". In 1985, he guest-starred in the second episode of the television series "Moonlighting", "Gunfight at the So-So Corral". He also took small parts in films, such as the role of frat animal "Mother" in "Fraternity Vacation" (1985) and "Lt. Sam 'Merlin' Wells" in the fighter pilot film "Top Gun" (1986). He played in "The Love Boat", as a young version of one of the characters in retrospection about the Second World War. His breakthrough role was as pitcher Ebby Calvin "Nuke" LaLoosh in the 1988 baseball film "Bull Durham". He received critical acclaim and won the Best Actor Award at Cannes for his starring role as an amoral film executive in Robert Altman's 1992 film "The Player". He made his directorial and screenwriting debut with 1992's "Bob Roberts", a mockumentary about a right-wing senatorial candidate. Robbins then starred alongside Morgan Freeman in the critically acclaimed "The Shawshank Redemption" (1994), which was based on Stephen King's short story. Robbins has written, produced, and directed several films with strong social content, such as the critically acclaimed capital punishment saga "Dead Man Walking" (1995), starring Sarandon and Sean Penn. The film earned him an Oscar nomination for Best Director. His next directorial effort was 1999's Depression-era musical "Cradle Will Rock". Robbins has also appeared in mainstream Hollywood thrillers, such as 1999's "Arlington Road" (as a terrorist) and 2001's "Antitrust" (as a malicious computer tycoon), and in comical films such as "The Hudsucker Proxy", "Nothing to Lose", and "High Fidelity". Robbins has also acted in and directed several Actors' Gang theater productions. Robbins won the Best Supporting Actor Oscar and the SAG Award for his work in "Mystic River" (2003), as a man traumatized from having been molested as a child. In 2005, he won the 39th annual Man of the Year Pudding Pot Award given by the Hasty Pudding Theatricals of Harvard. His most recent acting roles include a temporarily blind man who is nursed to health by a psychologically wounded young woman in "The Secret Life of Words" and an apartheid torturer in "Catch a Fire". In early 2006, Robbins directed an adaptation of George Orwell's novel "1984", written by Michael Gene Sullivan of the Tony Award-winning San Francisco Mime Troupe. The show opened at Actors' Gang, at their new location at The Ivy Substation in Culver City, California. In addition to venues around the United States, it has played in Athens, Greece, the Melbourne International Festival in Australia and the Hong Kong Arts Festival. Robbins is considering adapting the play into a film version. Robbins appeared in 2008's "The Lucky Ones", with co-star Rachel McAdams. Shooting took place in Illinois, including scenes filmed at Mojo's Music in Edwardsville, Illinois. Robbins played Senator Hammond, the disapproving father of the film's villain Hector Hammond, in the 2011 superhero film "Green Lantern". In 2010 Robbins released the album "Tim Robbins & The Rogues Gallery Band", a collection of songs written over the course of 25 years that he ultimately took on a world tour. He was originally offered the chance to record an album in 1992 after the success of his film "Bob Roberts", but he declined because he had "too much respect for the process", having seen his father work so hard as a musician, and because he felt he had nothing to say at the time.
1100713	Stanislaw Marcin Ulam (, pronounced ) (13 April 1909 – 13 May 1984), was a renowned Polish mathematician. He participated in America's Manhattan Project, originated the Teller–Ulam design of thermonuclear weapons, invented the Monte Carlo method of computation, and suggested nuclear pulse propulsion. In pure and applied mathematics, he produced many results, proved many theorems, and proposed several conjectures. Born into a wealthy Polish Jewish family, Ulam studied mathematics at the Lwów Polytechnic Institute, where he earned his D.Sc. in 1933 under the supervision of Kazimierz Kuratowski. In 1935, John von Neumann, whom Ulam had met in Warsaw, invited him to come to the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey, for a few months. From 1936 to 1939, he spent summers in Poland and academic years at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he worked to establish important results regarding ergodic theory. On 20 August 1939, he sailed for America for the last time with his 17 year old brother Adam Ulam. He became an assistant professor at the University of Wisconsin–Madison in 1940, and a United States citizen in 1941. In October 1943, he received an invitation from Hans Bethe to join the Manhattan Project at the secret Los Alamos Laboratory in New Mexico. There, he worked on the hydrodynamic calculations to predict the behavior of the explosive lenses that were needed by an implosion-type weapon. He was assigned to Edward Teller's group, where he worked on Teller's "Super" bomb for Teller and Enrico Fermi. After the war he left to become an associate professor at the University of Southern California, but returned to Los Alamos in 1946 to work on thermonuclear weapons. With the aid of a cadre of female "computers", including his wife Françoise Ulam, he found that Teller's "Super" design was unworkable. In January 1951, Ulam and Teller came up with the Teller–Ulam design, which is the basis for all thermonuclear weapons. Ulam considered the problem of nuclear propulsion of rockets, which was pursued by Project Rover, and proposed, as an alternative to Rover's nuclear thermal rocket, to harness small nuclear explosions for propulsion, which became Project Orion. With Fermi and John Pasta, Ulam studied the Fermi–Pasta–Ulam problem, which became the inspiration for the vast field of Nonlinear Science. He is probably best known for realising that electronic computers made it practical to apply statistical methods to functions without known solutions, and as computers have developed, the Monte Carlo method has become a ubiquitous and standard approach to many problems. Poland. Ulam was born in Lemberg, Galicia, on 13 April 1909. At this time, Galicia was in the Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, known to Poles as the Austrian partition. In 1918, it became part of the newly restored Poland, the Second Polish Republic, and the city took its Polish name again, Lwów. The Ulams were a wealthy Polish Jewish family of bankers, industrialists, and other professionals. Ulam's immediate family was "well-to-do but hardly rich". His father, Józef Ulam, was born in Lwów and was a lawyer, and his mother, Anna (née Auerbach), was born in Stryj. His uncle, Michał Ulam, was an architect, building contractor, and lumber industrialist. From 1916 until 1918, Józef's family lived temporarily in Vienna. After they returned, Lwów became the epicenter of the Polish–Ukrainian War, during which the city experienced a Ukrainian siege. In 1919, Ulam entered Lwów Gymnasium Nr. VII, from which he graduated in 1927. He then studied mathematics at the Lwów Polytechnic Institute. Under the supervision of Kazimierz Kuratowski, he received his Master of Arts degree in 1932, and became a Doctor of Science in 1933. At the age of 18, in 1929, he published his first paper "Concerning Function of Sets" in the journal "Fundamenta Mathematicae". From 1931 until 1935, he traveled to and studied in Wilno (Vilnius), Vienna, Zurich, Paris, and Cambridge, England, where he met G. H. Hardy and Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar. Along with Stanisław Mazur, Mark Kac, Włodzimierz Stożek, Kuratowski, and others, Ulam was a member of the Lwów School of Mathematics. Its founders were Hugo Steinhaus and Stefan Banach, who were professors at the University of Lwów. Mathematicians of this "school" met for long hours at the Scottish Café, where the problems they discussed were collected in the Scottish Book, a thick notebook provided by Banach's wife. Ulam was a major contributor to the book. Of the 193 problems recorded between 1935 and 1941, he contributed 40 problems as a single author, another 11 with Banach and Mazur, and an additional 15 with others. In 1957, he received from Steinhaus a copy of the book, which had survived the war, and translated it into English. In 1981, Ulam's friend R. Daniel Maudlin published an expanded and annotated version. Coming to America. In 1935, John von Neumann, whom Ulam had met in Warsaw, invited him to come to the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey, for a few months. In December of that year, Ulam sailed to America. At Princeton, he went to lectures and seminars, where he heard Oswald Veblen, James Alexander, and Albert Einstein. During a tea party at von Neumann's house, he encountered G. D. Birkhoff, who suggested that he apply for a position with the Harvard Society of Fellows. Following up on Birkhoff's suggestion, Ulam spent summers in Poland and academic years at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts from 1936 to 1939, where he worked with John C. Oxtoby to establish results regarding ergodic theory. These appeared in Annals of Mathematics in 1941. On 20 August 1939, in Gdynia, Józef Ulam, along with his brother Szymon, put his two sons, Stanislaw and 17 year old Adam, on a ship headed for America. Within two weeks, the . Within two months, the Germans completed their occupation of western Poland, and the Soviets and occupied eastern Poland. Within two years, Józef Ulam and the rest of his family were victims of the Holocaust, Steinhaus was in hiding, Kuratowski was lecturing at the underground university in Warsaw, Stożek and his two sons had been killed in the massacre of Lwów professors, and the last problem had been recorded in the Scottish Book. Banach survived the Nazi occupation by feeding lice at Rudolf Weigl's typhus research institute. In 1963, Adam Ulam, who had become an eminent kremlinologist at Harvard, received a letter from George Volsky, who hid in Józef Ulam's house after deserting from the Polish army. This reminiscence gave a chilling account of Lwów's chaotic scenes in late 1939. In later life Ulam described himself as "an agnostic. Sometimes I muse deeply on the forces that are for me invisible. When I am almost close to the idea of God, I feel immediately estranged by the horrors of this world, which he seems to tolerate". In 1940, after being recommended by Birkhoff, Ulam became an assistant professor at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Here, he became an United States citizen in 1941. That year, he married Françoise Aron. She had been a French exchange student at Mount Holyoke College, whom he met in Cambridge. They had one daughter, Claire. In Madison, Ulam met his friend and colleague C. J. Everett, with whom he would collaborate on a number of papers. Manhattan Project. In early 1943, Ulam asked von Neumann to find him a war job. In October, he received an invitation to join an unidentified project near Santa Fe, New Mexico. The letter was signed by Hans Bethe, who had been appointed as leader of the theoretical division of Los Alamos National Laboratory by Robert Oppenheimer, its scientific director. Knowing nothing of the area, he borrowed a New Mexico guide book. On the checkout card, he found the names of his Wisconsin colleagues, Joan Hinton, David Frisch, and Joseph McKibben, all of whom had mysteriously disappeared. This was Ulam's introduction to the Manhattan Project, which was America's wartime effort to create the atomic bomb. Hydrodynamical calculations of implosion. A few weeks after Ulam reached Los Alamos in February 1944, the project experienced a crisis. In April, Emilio Segrè discovered that plutonium made in reactors would not work in a gun-type plutonium weapon like the "Thin Man", which was being developed in parallel with a uranium weapon, the "Little Boy" that was dropped on Hiroshima. This problem threatened to waste an enormous investment in new reactors at the Hanford site and to make slow separation of uranium isotopes the only way to prepare fissile material suitable for use in bombs. To respond, Oppenheimer implemented, in August, a sweeping reorganization of the laboratory to focus on development of an implosion-type weapon and appointed George Kistiakowsky head of the implosion department. He was a professor at Harvard and an expert on precise use of explosives. The basic concept of implosion is to use chemical explosives to crush a chunk of fissile material into a critical mass, where neutron multiplication leads to a nuclear chain reaction, releasing a large amount of energy. Cylindrical implosive configurations had been studied by Seth Neddermeyer, but von Neumann, who had experience with shaped charges used in armor piercing ammunition, was a vocal advocate of spherical implosion driven by explosive lenses. He realized that the symmetry and speed with which implosion compressed the plutonium were critical issues, and enlisted Ulam to help design lens configurations that would provide nearly spherical implosion. Within an implosion, because of enormous pressures and high temperatures, solid materials behave much like fluids. This meant that hydrodynamical calculations were needed to predict and minimize asymmetries that would spoil a nuclear detonation. Of these calculations, Ulam said: Nevertheless, with the primitive facilities available at the time, Ulam and von Neumann did carry out numerical computations that led to a satisfactory design. This motivated their advocacy of a powerful computational capability at Los Alamos, which began during the war years, continued through the cold war, and still exists. Otto Frisch remembered Ulam as "a brilliant Polish topologist with a charming French wife. At once he told me that he was a pure mathematician who had sunk so low that his latest paper actually contained numbers with decimal points!" Statistics of branching and multiplicative processes. Even the inherent statistical fluctuations of neutron multiplication within a chain reaction have implications with regard to implosion speed and symmetry. In November 1944, David Hawkins and Ulam addressed this problem in a report entitled "Theory of Multiplicative Processes". This report, which invokes probability-generating functions, is also an early entry in the extensive literature on statistics of branching and multiplicative processes. In 1948, its scope was extended by Ulam and Everett. Early in the Manhattan project, Enrico Fermi's attention was focused on the use of reactors to produce plutonium. In September 1944, he arrived at Los Alamos, shortly after breathing life into the first Hanford reactor, which had been poisoned by a xenon isotope. Soon after Fermi's arrival, Teller's "Super" bomb group, of which Ulam was a part, was transferred to a new division headed by Fermi. Fermi and Ulam formed a relationship that became very fruitful after the war. Post war Los Alamos. In September 1945, Ulam left Los Alamos to become an associate professor at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. In January 1946, he suffered an acute attack of encephalitis, which put his life in danger, but which was alleviated by emergency brain surgery. During his recuperation, many friends visited, including Nicholas Metropolis from Los Alamos and the famous mathematician Paul Erdős, who remarked: "Stan, you are just like before." This was encouraging, because Ulam was concerned about the state of his mental faculties, for he had lost the ability to speak during the crisis. Another friend, Gian-Carlo Rota, asserted in a 1987 article that the attack changed Ulam's personality; afterwards, he turned from rigorous pure mathematics to more speculative conjectures concerning the application of mathematics to physics and biology. This assertion was not accepted by Françoise Ulam. By late April 1946, Ulam had recovered enough to attend a secret conference at Los Alamos to discuss thermonuclear weapons. Those in attendance included Ulam, von Neumann, Metropolis, Teller, Stan Frankel, and others. Throughout his participation in the Manhattan Project, Teller's efforts had been directed toward the development of a "super" weapon based on nuclear fusion, rather than toward development of a practical fission bomb. After extensive discussion, the participants reached a consensus that his ideas were worthy of further exploration. A few weeks later, Ulam received an offer of a position at Los Alamos from Metropolis and Robert D. Richtmyer, the new head of its theoretical division, at a higher salary, and the Ulams returned to Los Alamos. Monte Carlo method. Late in the war, under the sponsorship of von Neumann, Frankel and Metropolis began to carry out calculations on the first general-purpose electronic computer, the ENIAC. Shortly after returning to Los Alamos, Ulam participated in a review of results from these calculations. Earlier, while playing solitaire during his recovery from surgery, Ulam had thought about playing hundreds of games to estimate statistically the probability of a successful outcome. With ENIAC in mind, he realized that the availability of computers made such statistical methods very practical. John von Neumann immediately saw the significance of this insight. In March 1947 he proposed a statistical approach to the problem of neutron diffusion in fissionable material. Because Ulam had often mentioned his uncle, Michał Ulam, "who just had to go to Monte Carlo" to gamble, Metropolis dubbed the statistical approach "The Monte Carlo method". Metropolis and Ulam published the first unclassified paper on the Monte Carlo method in 1949. Fermi, learning of Ulam's breakthrough, devised an analog computer known as the Monte Carlo trolley, later dubbed the FERMIAC. The device performed a mechanical simulation of random diffusion of neutrons. As computers improved in speed and programmability, these methods became more useful. In particular, many Monte Carlo calculations carried out on modern massively parallel supercomputers are embarrassingly parallel applications, whose results can be very accurate. Teller–Ulam design. On 29 August 1949, the Soviet Union tested its first fission bomb, the RDS-1. Created under the supervision of Lavrentiy Beria, who sought to duplicate the American effort, this weapon was nearly identical to Fat Man, for its design was based on information provided by spies Klaus Fuchs, Theodore Hall, and David Greenglass. In response, on 31 January 1950, President Harry S. Truman announced a crash program to develop a fusion bomb. To advocate an aggressive development program, Ernest Lawrence and Luis Alvarez came to Los Alamos, where they conferred with Norris Bradbury, the laboratory director, and with George Gamow, Edward Teller, and Ulam. Soon, these three became members of a short-lived committee appointed by Bradbury to study the problem, with Teller as chairman. At this time, research on the use of a fission weapon to create a fusion reaction had been ongoing since 1942, but the design was still essentially the one originally proposed by Teller. His concept was to put tritium and/or deuterium in close proximity to a fission bomb, with the hope that the heat and intense flux of neutrons released when the bomb exploded, would ignite a self-sustaining fusion reaction. Reactions of these isotopes of hydrogen are of interest because the energy per unit mass of fuel released by their fusion is much larger than that from fission of heavy nuclei. Because the results of calculations based on Teller's concept were discouraging, many scientists believed it could not lead to a successful weapon, while others had moral and economic grounds for not proceeding. Consequently, several senior people of the Manhattan Project opposed development, including Bethe and Oppenheimer. To clarify the situation, Ulam and von Neumann resolved to do new calculations to determine whether Teller's approach was feasible. To carry out these studies, von Neumann decided to use electronic computers: ENIAC at Aberdeen, a new computer, MANIAC, at Princeton, and its twin, which was under construction at Los Alamos. Ulam enlisted Everett to follow a completely different approach, one guided by physical intuition. Françoise Ulam was one of a cadre of women "computers" who carried out laborious and extensive computations of thermonuclear scenarios on mechanical calculators, supplemented and confirmed by Everett's slide rule. Ulam and Fermi collaborated on further analysis of these scenarios. The results showed that, in workable configurations, a thermonuclear reaction would not ignite, and if ignited, it would not be self-sustaining. Ulam had used his expertise in Combinatorics to analyze the chain reaction in deuterium, which was much more complicated than the ones in uranium and plutonium, and he concluded that no self sustaining chain reaction would take place at the (low) densities that Teller was considering. In late 1950, these conclusions were confirmed by von Neumann's results. In January 1951, Ulam had another idea: to channel the mechanical shock of a nuclear explosion so as to compress the fusion fuel. On the recommendation of his wife, Ulam discussed this idea with Bradbury and Mark before he told Teller about it. Almost immediately, Teller saw its merit, but noted that soft X-rays from the fission bomb would compress the thermonuclear fuel more strongly than mechanical shock and suggested ways to enhance this effect. On 9 March 1951, Teller and Ulam submitted a joint report describing these innovations. A few weeks later, Teller suggested placing a fissile rod or cylinder at the center of the fusion fuel. The detonation of this "spark plug" would help to initiate and enhance the fusion reaction. The design based on these ideas, called staged radiation implosion, has become the standard way to build thermonuclear weapons. It is often described as the "Teller–Ulam design". In September 1951, after a series of differences with Bradbury and other scientists, Teller resigned from Los Alamos, and returned to the University of Chicago. At about the same time, Ulam went on leave as a visiting professor at Harvard for a semester. Although Teller and Ulam submitted a joint report on their design and jointly applied for a patent on it, they soon became involved in a dispute over who deserved credit. After the war, Bethe returned to Cornell University, but he was deeply involved in the development of thermonuclear weapons as a consultant. In 1954, he wrote an article on the history of the H-bomb, which presents his opinion that both men contributed very significantly to the breakthrough. This balanced view is shared by others who were involved, including Mark and Fermi, but Teller persistently attempted to downplay Ulam's role. "After the H-bomb was made," Bethe recalled, "reporters started to call Teller the father of the H-bomb. For the sake of history, I think it is more precise to say that Ulam is the father, because he provided the seed, and Teller is the mother, because he remained with the child. As for me, I guess I am the midwife." With the basic fusion reactions confirmed, and with a feasible design in hand, there was nothing to prevent Los Alamos from testing a thermonuclear device. On 1 November 1952, the first thermonuclear explosion occurred when Ivy Mike was detonated on Enewetak Atoll, within the US Pacific Proving Grounds. This device, which used liquid deuterium as its fusion fuel, was immense and utterly unusable as a weapon. Nevertheless, its success validated the Teller–Ulam design, and stimulated intensive development of practical weapons. Fermi–Pasta–Ulam problem. When Ulam returned to Los Alamos, his attention turned away from weapon design and toward the use of computers to investigate problems in physics and mathematics. With John Pasta, who helped Metropolis to bring MANIAC on line in March 1952, he explored these ideas in a report "Heuristic Studies in Problems of Mathematical Physics on High Speed Computing Machines", which was submitted on 9 June 1953. It treated several problems that cannot be addressed within the framework of traditional analytic methods: billowing of fluids, rotational motion in gravitating systems, magnetic lines of force, and hydrodynamic instabilities. Soon, Pasta and Ulam became experienced with electronic computation on MANIAC, and by this time, Enrico Fermi had settled into a routine of spending academic years at the University of Chicago and summers at Los Alamos. During these summer visits, Pasta and Ulam joined him to study a variation of the classic problem of a string of masses held together by springs that exert forces linearly proportional to their displacement from equilibrium. Fermi proposed to add to this force a nonlinear component, which could be chosen to be proportional to either the square or cube of the displacement, or to a more complicated "broken linear" function. This addition is the key element of the Fermi–Pasta–Ulam problem, which is often designated by the abbreviation FPU. A classical spring system can be described in terms of vibrational modes, which are analogous to the harmonics that occur on a stretched violin string. If the system starts in a particular mode, vibrations in other modes do not develop. With the nonlinear component, Fermi expected energy in one mode to transfer gradually to other modes, and eventually, to be distributed equally among all modes. This is roughly what began to happen shortly after the system was initialized with all its energy in the lowest mode, but much later, essentially all the energy periodically reappeared in the lowest mode. This behavior is very different from the expected equipartition of energy. It remained mysterious until 1965, when Kruskal and Zabusky showed that, after appropriate mathematical transformations, the system can be described by the Korteweg–de Vries equation, which is the prototype of nonlinear partial differential equations that have soliton solutions. This means that FPU behavior can be understood in terms of solitons. Nuclear propulsion. Starting in 1955, Ulam and Frederick Reines considered nuclear propulsion of aircraft and rockets. This is an attractive possibility, because the nuclear energy per unit mass of fuel is a million times greater than that available from chemicals. From 1955 to 1972, their ideas were pursued during Project Rover, which explored the use of nuclear reactors to power rockets. In response to a question by Senator John O. Pastore at a congressional committee hearing on "Outer Space Propulsion by Nuclear Energy", on January 22, 1958, Ulam replied that "the future as a whole of mankind is to some extent involved inexorably now with going outside the globe." Ulam and C. J. Everett also proposed, in contrast to Rover's continuous heating of rocket exhaust, to harness small nuclear explosions for propulsion. Project Orion was a study of this idea. It began in 1958 and ended in 1965, after the Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty of 1963 banned nuclear weapons tests in the atmosphere and in space. Work on this project was spearheaded by physicist Freeman Dyson, who commented on the decision to end Orion in his article, "Death of a Project". Bradbury appointed Ulam and John H. Manley as research advisors to the laboratory director in 1957. These newly created positions were on the same administrative level as division leaders, and Ulam held his until he retired from Los Alamos. In this capacity, he was able to influence and guide programs in many divisions: theoretical, physics, chemistry, metallurgy, weapons, health, Rover, and others. In addition to these activities, Ulam continued to publish technical reports and research papers. One of these introduced the Fermi–Ulam model, an extension of Fermi's theory of the acceleration of cosmic rays. Another, with Paul Stein and Mary Tsingou, titled "Quadratic Transformations", was an early investigation of chaos theory and is considered the first published use of the phrase "chaotic behavior". Return to academia. During his years at Los Alamos, Ulam was a visiting professor at Harvard from 1951 to 1952, MIT from 1956 to 1957, the University of California, San Diego, in 1963, and the University of Colorado at Boulder from 1961 to 1962 and 1965 to 1967. In 1967, the last of these positions became permanent, when Ulam was appointed as professor and Chairman of the Department of Mathematics at Boulder, Colorado. He kept a residence in Santa Fe, New Mexico, which made it convenient to spend summers at Los Alamos as a consultant. In Colorado, where he rejoined his friends Gamow, Richtmyer, and Hawkins, Ulam's research interests turned toward biology. In 1968, recognizing this emphasis, the University of Colorado School of Medicine appointed Ulam as Professor of Biomathematics, and he held this position until his death. With his Los Alamos colleague Robert Schrandt he published a report, "Some Elementary Attempts at Numerical Modeling of Problems Concerning Rates of Evolutionary Processes", which applied his earlier ideas on branching processes to biological inheritance. Another, report, with William Beyer, Temple F. Smith, and M. L. Stein, titled "Metrics in Biology", introduced new ideas about biometric distances. When he retired from Colorado in 1975, Ulam had begun to spend winter semesters at the University of Florida, where he was a graduate research professor. Except for sabbaticals at the University of California, Davis from 1982 to 1983, and at Rockefeller University from 1980 to 1984, this pattern of spending summers in Colorado and Los Alamos and winters in Florida continued until Ulam died of an apparent heart attack in Santa Fe on 13 May 1984. Paul Erdős noted that "he died suddenly of heart failure, without fear or pain, while he could still prove and conjecture." In 1987, Françoise Ulam deposited his papers with the American Philosophical Society Library in Philadelphia. She continued to live in Santa Fe until she died on 30 April 2011, at the age of 93. Both Françoise and her husband are buried with her French family in Montmartre Cemetery in Paris. Impact and legacy. From the publication of his first paper as a student in 1929 until his death, Ulam was constantly writing on mathematics. The list of Ulam's publications includes more than 150 papers. Topics represented by a significant number of papers are: set theory (including measurable cardinals and abstract measures), topology, transformation theory, ergodic theory, group theory, projective algebra, number theory, combinatorics, and graph theory. In March 2009, the Mathematical Reviews database contained 697 papers with the name "Ulam". Notable results of this work are: With his pivotal role in the development of thermonuclear weapons, Stanislaw Ulam changed the world. According to Françoise Ulam: "Stan would reassure me that, barring accidents, the H-bomb rendered nuclear war impossible." In 1980, Ulam and his wife appeared in the television documentary "The Day After Trinity". The Monte Carlo method has become a ubiquitous and standard approach to computation, and the method has been applied to a vast number of scientific problems. In addition to problems in physics and mathematics, the method has been applied to finance, social science, environmental risk assessment, linguistics, radiation therapy, and sports. The Fermi–Pasta–Ulam problem is credited not only as "the birth of experimental mathematics", but also as inspiration for the vast field of Nonlinear Science. In his Lilienfeld Prize lecture, Donald Campbell noted this relationship and described how FPU gave rise to ideas in chaos, solitons, and dynamical systems. In 1980, Donald Kerr, laboratory director at Los Alamos, with the strong support of Ulam and Mark Kac, founded the Center for Nonlinear Studies (CNLS). In 1985, CNLS initiated the "Stanislaw M. Ulam Distinguished Scholar" program, which provides an annual award that enables a noted scientist to spend a year carrying out research at Los Alamos. The fiftieth anniversary of the original FPU paper was the subject of the March 2005 issue of the journal Chaos, and the topic of the 25th Annual International Conference of CNLS. The University of Southern Mississippi and the University of Florida supported the "Ulam Quarterly", which was active from 1992 to 1996, and which was one of the first online mathematical journals. Florida's Department of Mathematics has sponsored, since 1998, the annual "Ulam Colloquium Lecture", and in March 2009, the "Ulam Centennial Conference". Ulam's work on non-Euclidean distance metrics in the context of molecular biology made a significant contribution to sequence analysis and his contributions in theoretical biology are considered watersheds in the development of cellular automata theory, population biology, pattern recognition, and biometrics generally. Colleagues noted that some of his greatest contributions were in clearly identifying problems to be solved and general techniques for solving them. In 1987, Los Alamos issued a special issue of its "Science" publication, which summarized his accomplishments, and which appeared, in 1989, as the book "From Cardinals to Chaos". Similarly, in 1990, the University of California Press issued a compilation of mathematical reports by Ulam and his Los Alamos collaborators: "Analogies Between Analogies". During his career, Ulam was awarded honorary degrees by the Universities of New Mexico, Wisconsin, and Pittsburgh.
402079	Paulina Porizkova (born () on 9 April 1965) is a Czech-born model and actress, who holds dual U.S. and Swedish citizenship. At 18 years old, she became the first woman from Central Europe to be on the cover of the "Sports Illustrated" 1984 swimsuit issue. She was the second woman (after Christie Brinkley) to be featured on the swimsuit issue's front cover consecutive times (1984 and 1985). Porizkova also joined judging in "America's Next Top Model" in Cycles 10–12. Early life. Born in Prostějov, Czechoslovakia, Porizkova was a toddler when her parents fled Czechoslovakia to Lund, Sweden to escape the 1968 Warsaw Pact invasion. She was left in the care of her grandmother. Czechoslovakian authorities would not allow her parents to reclaim her, and the ensuing battle was widely publicized in the Swedish press, making Porizkova a cause célèbre. After a failed rescue attempt, in which her mother was detained by the national police, international political pressure led by Olof Palme caused the communist government to allow the Pořízek family to be reunited after seven years. Porizkova acquired Swedish citizenship. The reunion was soon ended when Porizkova's father left the family, and her parents filed for divorce. Porizkova and her father have been estranged ever since. Career. Modeling. An aspiring photographer friend took pictures of Porizkova and sent them to the Elite modeling agency in 1980, hoping they would notice her own photography skills. However, instead of taking the photographer on board, Elite head John Casablancas noticed Porizkova's physical beauty and potential, and offered her a ticket to Paris.
1056591	A Man and a Woman () is a 1966 French film written and directed by Claude Lelouch and starring Anouk Aimée and Jean-Louis Trintignant. Written by Lelouch and Pierre Uytterhoeven, the film is about a young widow and widower who meet by chance at their children's boarding school and whose budding relationship is complicated by the memories of their deceased spouses. The film is notable for its lush photography, which features frequent segues between full color, black-and-white, and sepia-toned shots, and for its memorable musical score by Francis Lai. "A Man and a Woman" had a total of 4,272,000 admissions in France and was the 6th highest grossing film of the year in that country. In the United States, the film earned $14,000,000. "A Man and a Woman" won many awards, including the Palme d'Or at the 1966 Cannes Film Festival, and Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language Film and Best Writing. A sequel, "" ("Un Homme et une Femme, 20 Ans Déjà") was released in 1986. Plot. A young widow, Anne Gauthier (Anouk Aimée), is raising her daughter Françoise (Souad Amidou) alone following the death of her husband (Pierre Barouh) who worked as a stuntman and who died in a movie set accident that she witnessed. Still working as a film script supervisor, Anne divides her time between her home in Paris and Deauville in northern France where her daughter attends boarding school. A young widower, Jean-Louis (Jean-Louis Trintignant), is raising his son Antoine (Antoine Sire) alone following the death of his wife Valerie (Valerie Lagrange) who committed suicide after Jean-Louis was in a near fatal crash during the 24 Hours of Le Mans. Still working as a race car driver, Jean-Louis divides his time between Paris and Deauville where his son also attends boarding school. One day Anne and Jean-Louis meet at the Deauville boarding school after Anne misses the last train back to Paris. Jean-Louis offers her a lift and the two become acquainted during the drive home, enjoying each other's company. When he drops her off, he asks if she would like to drive up together the following weekend, and she gives him her phone number. After a busy week at the track preparing for the next race, Jean-Louis calls and they meet early Sunday morning and drive to Deauville in the rain. Clearly attracted to each other, they enjoy a pleasant Sunday lunch with their children who get along well. Later that afternoon they go for a boat ride followed by a walk on the beach at sunset.
1037755	Samantha Zoe Womack ( Janus; born 2 November 1972) is an English actress, singer and director, both on television and stage. In recent years she has been best known for playing the role of Ronnie Mitchell in "EastEnders", but made her name in the mid-1990s as Mandy Wilkins in "Game On". She also represented the United Kingdom in the Eurovision Song Contest 1991. Early life. Womack was born in Brighton, East Sussex. Her singer-songwriter father Noel left the family when she was six, and soon after her model-actress mother Diane married a doctor and the family moved to Edinburgh. Janus lived on the QE2 with her choreographer grandmother Sheila Holt for a short time. She has a younger half sister Zoe. Aged fifteen she left home for a life in squats, drinking, smoking and taking drugs. She eventually turned her life around, and attended the Sylvia Young Theatre School in London. Womack is the niece of Angie Best, a former wife of footballer George Best. Her cousin is Calum Best, son of Angie and George. Career. The actress first came to prominence in March 1991, when still only 18, when she won the annual "A Song for Europe" competition to represent the United Kingdom in the "Eurovision Song Contest". She finished joint tenth and the song, "A Message to Your Heart", peaked at number 30 on the UK Singles Chart. Womack developed her first love of acting, appearing in episodes of "The Bill" and "Press Gang"; in 1993 she appeared in "Demob" alongside Griff Rhys Jones and Martin Clunes; and took to the West End stage, replacing Debbie Gibson as Sandy in "Grease." From 1994 to 1998 Womack played Mandy in the popular BBC Two sitcom "Game On" alongside Ben Chaplin (later replaced by Neil Stuke). She remained on the show until it was decommissioned in 1998. In between series of "Game On", she had a part in the BBC One drama "Pie in the Sky" from 1995 until 1996. Womack then starred in the pilot for "The Grimleys" with Jack Dee, and the film "Up 'n' Under" with Neil Morrissey. In 1998 she starred in the ITV1 series "Liverpool 1" alongside her future husband Mark Womack. She then returned to comedy in the ITV sitcom "Babes in the Wood". Co-starring another Sylvia Young Theatre School student, Denise van Outen, it was critically panned despite respectable ratings, and Womack left after the first series. In 1999 she starred as Cinderella in the ITV Christmas pantomime, with Harry Hill, Alexander Armstrong, Frank Skinner, Paul Merton, Ronnie Corbett and many more. In 2002 she returned to TV screens in the BBC One drama "Strange" and after that series ended in 2003, she has had roles in the films "The Baby Juice Express" and "Dead Man's Cards". In 2005, she directed an anti-bullying music video for Liverpool band Just 3, entitled "Stand Tall". The video starred Liverpool F.C. footballer Jamie Carragher and herself. The video was heavily backed by Childline ambassador Esther Rantzen. A popular choice for photo shoots in men's magazines such as "FHM", she came 21st in the FHM 100 Sexiest Women in the World 1998 poll and 41st in the same listing in 1999. In 2006, she starred in the BBC One comedy "Home Again" as Ingrid, and as Miss Adelaide in the West End production of the musical "Guys and Dolls" at London's Piccadilly Theatre, initially alongside Patrick Swayze and then "Miami Vice" star Don Johnson. She reprised the role at the Sunderland Empire alongside Alex Ferns in 2007. On 11 May 2007, it was announced that she would be joining "EastEnders" as Ronnie Mitchell, a cousin of the Mitchell brothers. She had previously appeared in the soap in a minor role as a girlfriend of Simon Wicks. In April 2008, several future scenes featuring Ronnie had to be scrapped after Womack broke her shoulder when she tripped and fell down the stairs at her home while rushing to get ready for work. In January 2011, "The Sun" reported that Womack had resigned from "EastEnders". Since appearing on "EastEnders", she has made regular television appearances, including "Friday Night with Jonathan Ross", "The Paul O'Grady Show", "Richard & Judy" and "Loose Women". In November 2007, she sang along "EastEnders" co-stars in the 2007 "Children in Need" charity appeal. In March 2011, she appeared with Lenny Henry, Angela Rippon and Reggie Yates in the BBC fundraising documentary for Comic Relief called "Famous, Rich and in the Slums", where the four celebrities were sent to Kibera in Kenya, Africa's largest slum. In 2011 Womack played the leading role Ensign Nellie Forbush, a U.S. Navy nurse from Little Rock, Arkansas, in the Lincoln Center production of Rodgers and Hammerstein's musical "South Pacific" at the Barbican Theatre in London. In November 2011, it was reported that Womack was in the running, alongside Dannii Minogue, to become a judge on the 2012 series of "Britain's Got Talent". Womack turned down the role as she was busy performing the theatre tour of South Pacific. The new judging panel was later confirmed for series six to be Simon Cowell, Alesha Dixon, Amanda Holden and David Walliams. She was a subject in series nine of the BBC's "Who Do You Think You Are?" documentary series in 2012. In early 2013, Samantha's official Twitter news page and agency website confirmed that she would play the recurring role of Tanya in series three of Sky Living's Mount Pleasant which was later confirmed by her Twitter news page to release in early September 2013. In March 2013, Womack starred alongside her husband on stage in the world premiere of "Hope" at the Royal Court Theatre in Liverpool. In May 2013, it was confirmed that Womack would return to "EastEnders" on a six month contract. Personal life. Janus married Italian Junfan Mantovani in 1997 after a long relationship. The relationship broke down and the couple divorced in 1998. In 2007, Janus won "substantial" damages from the Sunday Sport newspaper over a story headlined "Sam's sex and drugs shame". She sued the Sport over an article published on July 22, which claimed she had "coke fuelled threesomes" and took part in a "three hour drug fuelled lesbian orgy" She then starred in "Liverpool 1", and started a relationship with Mark Womack while she was still married to Mantovani. She and Womack married on 16 May 2009 and have two children (both born in Westminster, London): son Benjamin Thomas Womack (born February 2001) (after having him Janus took two years off to enjoy motherhood) and their daughter Lily-Rose Womack (born 17 March 2005), while Mark has another son from a previous marriage, Michael Womack. Womack has stated that she would like more children but her husband is not so keen. In 2009, Janus took her husband's surname of Womack and began to use it professionally in her role on "EastEnders". On 23 August 2009, her 60-year-old estranged father was found hanged in the bathroom of his council flat in Brighton, where he lived alone. He had committed suicide. Womack and her husband are best friends with Scott Maslen and his wife Estelle Rubio. They have known each other since they were teenagers. Maslen is godfather to Womack's two children (and she is godmother to Maslen's son, Zak) and they often go on holiday together with their children, which Womack revealed during an appearance on "Friday Night with Jonathan Ross" in January 2008. Womack is also best friends with co-star Rita Simons, who plays her sister Roxy Mitchell. In the autumn of 2007, Maslen joined the cast of "EastEnders" as the character Jack Branning, the brother of Max Branning, who quickly takes a shine to Ronnie. This was something that both Maslen and Womack were initially uncomfortable with when they read it in the scripts, Maslen commenting in various interviews that having to kiss Womack was like having to kiss his sister. The characters have since married, and had a baby (James Branning) who died of cot death on New Year's Eve 2010, sparking a controversial storyline and eventually led to her departure. , Womack lives in Bedfordshire,England with her family.
1161302	Duane Martin (born August 11, 1965) is an American film and television actor. He now focuses on his real estate career. Personal life. Martin was born in Brooklyn, New York, and is a graduate of New York University. He is married to former "Martin" and "My Wife and Kids" star Tisha Campbell-Martin. The couple wed on August 17, 1996. Together they have two sons: Xen Martin and Ezekiel Czar. Career. Martin played NCAA Division III basketball at NYU and was signed as an un-drafted free agent to a non-guaranteed contract in the National Basketball Association (NBA) with the New York Knicks in 1989. However, he was soon cut and never actually played in the NBA. This led to him pursuing an acting career. Martin first made his TV appearance in the short-lived NBC comedy series "Out All Night", which also starred Patti LaBelle, Vivica A. Fox and Morris Chestnut. He appeared in the Boyz II Men music video "I'll Make Love to You". He was a cast member with Vivica A. Fox and Jon Cryer in the short-lived Fox sitcom "Getting Personal". He portrayed TV reporter Robert James on the The CW TV series "All of Us". He guest starred on his wife's sitcom "Rita Rocks" (2009) as Chuck; and Fernando on "The Paul Reiser Show" (2011). Notable feature film roles include Willie in "White Men Can't Jump" (1992), Jr. Philips in "The Inkwell" (1994), and Kyle Lee Watson in "Above the Rim" (1994). In the romantic comedy "The Seat Filler" (2004), Martin plays a lead role as law student Derrick who falls in love with a celebrity. He portrays himself in the BET comedy Real Husbands of Hollywood. Awards and nominations. BET Comedy Awards Daytime Emmy Award NAACP Image Award
1061743	Kate Garry Hudson (born April 19, 1979) is an American actress. She came to prominence in 2001 after winning a Golden Globe and receiving several nominations, including a nomination for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, for her role in "Almost Famous". She then starred in the hit film "How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days" (2003) which gained her wider fame. She has since established herself in Hollywood after starring in several productions including "Raising Helen" (2004), "The Skeleton Key" (2005), "You, Me and Dupree" (2006), "Fool's Gold" (2008) and "Bride Wars" (2009). She also appeared in the musical comedy-drama television series "Glee" as Cassandra July. Early life. Hudson was born in Los Angeles, California, the daughter of Academy Award–winning actress Goldie Hawn and Bill Hudson, an actor, comedian, and musician. Her parents divorced eighteen months after her birth; she and her brother, actor Oliver Hudson, were raised in Snowmass, Colorado by her mother and her mother's long-time boyfriend, actor Kurt Russell. Hudson has stated that her biological father "doesn't know me from a hole in the wall", and that she considers Russell to be her father. Her biological father has indicated that he has made several efforts to connect with Kate and Oliver, but neither has reciprocated. Hudson has described her mother as "the woman that I've learned the most from, and who I look up to, who has conducted her life in a way that I can look up to". She has four half-siblings: Emily and Zachary Hudson, from her biological father's subsequent marriage to actress Cindy Williams; Lalania Hudson, from his relationship with another woman; and Wyatt, from her mother's relationship with Russell. Hudson is of Italian (from her paternal grandmother), English, Hungarian Jewish, German, as well as very distant Dutch descent. She was raised in her maternal grandmother's Jewish religion. In 1997, she graduated from Crossroads, a college preparatory school in Santa Monica. She was accepted to New York University but chose to pursue an acting career instead of an undergraduate degree. Career. Hudson's breakthrough was as Penny Lane in Cameron Crowe's "Almost Famous" (2000), for which she won the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. She had previously appeared in the lesser-known films "Gossip", a teenage drama, and "200 Cigarettes", a New Year's-set comedy with a large cast of actors. Regarding her early career and success, Hudson has noted that she is a "hard worker" and did not want to be associated with her well-known parents, wishing to avoid the perception that she "rode on somebody's coattails". In 2002, she starred in the remake of the historical romance "The Four Feathers", a film which was not well received by critics or audiences. Her next film, the romantic comedy "How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days", was a box office success, grossing over $100 million after its February 2003 release. Hudson subsequently appeared in several romantic comedies, including "Alex and Emma" and "Raising Helen"; the films met with varying degrees of success. Hudson headlined a thriller called "The Skeleton Key" in 2005. The film, which had a production budget of $43 million, enjoyed box office success, grossing over $91.9 million worldwide ($47.9 million in North America). Her later film, a comedy titled "You, Me and Dupree" and co-starring Owen Wilson and Matt Dillon, grossed $21.5 million on its opening weekend of July 14, 2006. In 2007, Hudson directed the short film "Cutlass", one of Glamour magazine's "Reel Moments" based on readers' personal essays. "Cutlass" co-stars Kurt Russell, Dakota Fanning, Virginia Madsen, Chevy Chase and Kristen Stewart. In 2008, she appeared in "Fool's Gold", a romantic comedy released on February 8, and her second film to co-star Matthew McConaughey. She had been certified in scuba diving in the Great Barrier Reef for the movie's underwater scenes. Also the same year, she appeared in another romantic comedy, "My Best Friend's Girl", which was released in September. Hudson next appeared in the musical film "Nine", alongside Daniel Day-Lewis, Marion Cotillard, Penélope Cruz, Nicole Kidman and Judi Dench. The film, directed by Rob Marshall, was released in December 2009. Hudson was critically acclaimed for her unknown dancing skills, showcased in a stylish 1960s inspired original piece called "Cinema Italiano", which was written specifically for the film and for Hudson's character. She starred in the film adaptation of Jim Thompson's "The Killer Inside Me". The film premiered on January 24, 2010, at the Sundance Film Festival. In 2011, she played Darcy in "Something Borrowed", based on Emily Giffin's novel of the same name. In 2012, she made her first appearance on "Glee" as Cassandra July. Hudson's character is Rachel Berry's dance teacher at NYADA (New York Academy of the Dramatic Arts). Personal life. Hudson married Chris Robinson, the frontman for The Black Crowes, on December 31, 2000 in Aspen, Colorado. The couple lived in a house that was once owned by director James Whale and traveled together during Hudson's film shoots or Robinson's music tours. Hudson gave birth to son Ryder Russell Robinson in January 2004. On August 14, 2006, Hudson's publicist announced that Hudson and Robinson had separated. On November 18, 2006, Robinson filed divorce papers, citing "irreconcilable differences". The divorce was finalized on October 22, 2007. In spring 2010, Hudson began dating Muse frontman Matthew Bellamy. In February 2011, Hudson bought a house in London, England. A "Daily Mail" source reported that she planned to live in London with Bellamy six months a year. Hudson and Bellamy became engaged in April 2011. Their son together, Bingham Hawn Bellamy, was born in July 2011. Hudson has also said that she does not enjoy seeing herself on screen, specifying that she "gets cold... shakes and... sweats" when watching her performances for the first time. In July 2006, Hudson sued the English version of the "National Enquirer" after it reported she had an eating disorder, describing her as "painfully thin". Hudson said the tabloid's statements were "a blatant lie" and she was concerned about the impact the false report could have on impressionable young women. The newspaper apologized and compensated her. She, like her mother, practices Buddhism.
1744406	, known simply as When They Cry for the North American release of the anime adaptation, is a Japanese murder mystery dōjin soft sound novel series produced by 07th Expansion. The games are built on the NScripter game engine and are playable on the Windows operating system. The first game in the series, "Onikakushi-hen", was released on August 10, 2002, and the eighth and final game in the original PC series, "Matsuribayashi-hen", was released on August 13, 2006. While the first four games carried the overall title "Higurashi no Naku Koro ni", the next four games were produced under the title "Higurashi no Naku Koro ni Kai". A bonus fan disc called "Higurashi no Naku Koro ni Rei" was released on December 31, 2006. In addition to the original series, new story arcs were created in manga form and in video games for the PlayStation 2 and Nintendo DS in order to expand upon the story. The original eight PC releases were released in English by MangaGamer with the first four games on December 15, 2009, followed by the last four being released monthly starting with "Meakashi-hen" on February 28, 2010. The series is focused on a group of young friends and the strange events that occur in the rural village Hinamizawa where they reside. Two sets of drama CDs were produced, one by Wayuta and the other by Frontier Works. Novelizations of the game series were released by Kodansha Box between August 2007 and March 2009. A manga series adapted from the games began with eight different manga artists working separately on one to three of the multiple story arcs, and is published by Square Enix and Kadokawa Shoten. The manga was licensed for release in English in North America by Yen Press under the title "Higurashi When They Cry" and the first volume was released in November 2008. Following the manga's release in Japan, two TV anime series were produced by Studio Deen in 2006 and 2007; a third anime adaptation was released as an original video animation series in 2009. The first anime series was licensed by Geneon Entertainment in English, but the license expired in 2011. A live action film adaptation of the series, directed by Ataru Oikawa, premiered in Japanese theaters in May 2008, with a sequel released in May 2009. Gameplay. "Higurashi" is a murder mystery game described as a "sound novel" by 07th Expansion. A sound novel is similar to a visual novel in that the gameplay requires relatively little player interaction as most of the game is composed of text dialogues. The original release contained no voice acting for the characters. While a visual novel's basis would be the visual aspect, as the name suggests, a sound novel's basis takes more care in producing an atmosphere via the music, sound effects, and the story itself. The game utilizes intermissions where the player can obtain several Tips. These Tips allow the player to read various supplementary information that may or may not be useful in solving the mystery. For example, one of the Tips can be as simple as "this is a small village; children who go to this school are combined into one classroom regardless of what grade or year they are in." On the other hand, they can provide valuable hints, such as being able to read the excerpts of the newspaper articles regarding the murders that occurred in Hinamizawa. At the beginning of each of the story arcs, a cryptic poem by someone known as Frederica Bernkastel is read; these reveal some of what is going to happen in the following arc. The PlayStation 2 port "Matsuri" differs from the original game series in that it includes full voice acting, redrawn CGs, and integration of the question arcs starring Keiichi into a single branching storyline. "Matsuri" includes the first seven PC arcs ("Matsuribayashi-hen" is excluded) and three original final arcs—"Taraimawashi-hen", "Tsukiotoshi-hen" and "Miotsukushi-hen". After the original seven arcs are cleared, the first two final arcs become available. Furthermore, when these two final arcs are cleared, the epilogue, "Miotsukushi-hen", is unlocked. Characters. In "Higurashi no Naku Koro ni", there are seven main characters who appear in almost every scenario. The main protagonist is Keiichi Maebara, a young boy who has recently moved to Hinamizawa with his family, and begun to adapt to life in the countryside. Keiichi has a natural charisma which allows him to make friends easily. Since Hinamizawa is a small town of about two thousand people, with only a single school, there are not many children around his own age; he easily meets the others his age and becomes friends with them. One of these good friends is a girl named Rena Ryugu. She, like Keiichi, is new in Hinamizawa, having only returned from Ibaraki a year before the story begins. She has an obsession with things she considers to be cute—generally, others do not agree—and will often scavenge for such things at the local dump and bring them back home. Before she met Keiichi, Rena became friends with a girl one year older named Mion Sonozaki, who is looked at as the leader of the group and is the president of their club. Mion has a tomboyish personality, a facade for a girlish side she keeps hidden from the others. Mion has a twin sister, Shion, who lives in the nearby town of Okinomiya. Although their personalities are quite different, she and Mion have switched places in the past, and the change is nearly indistinguishable. There are other girls in the club younger than Keiichi, Rena and Mion. One is Satoko Houjou, a clever girl who is quite skilled at setting traps when playing games with her friends. She usually has an energetic and mischievous personality, but this hides a past full of trauma. Satoko also had an older brother named Satoshi. Her friend, Rika Furude, is revered by the villagers as the heir of the local shrine and plays the role of a miko in the annual Watanagashi Festival. Despite her young age, she sometimes expresses a type of wisdom which would normally be beyond her years, and is quite fond of sake. Rika is also the girl who becomes the central figure, so that Hinamizawa can avoid a tragic end. Helping her is Hanyū who appears late in the story but in fact has been with Rika for a very long time, though only Rika could see her. Of the remaining cast, there are those such as Kuraudo Ooishi, a veteran police officer who is dead set on solving the mystery of the yearly murders that occur in Hinamizawa before his retirement. A freelance photographer named Jirou Tomitake comes to Hinamizawa occasionally; he seems to be friends with Miyo Takano, a female nurse at the local village clinic who has a keen interest in Hinamizawa's past and culture. She works with Kyousuke Irie, the head doctor of the clinic and "coach" to the village children. Irie feels a strong connection to Satoko and cares for her deeply. During the "Tatarigoroshi-hen" arc, Irie expresses the desire to either adopt her, or to wait until she is of age and marry her. Plot. Story overview. "Higurashi no Naku Koro ni" takes place during June 1983, at a fictional rural village called (based on the village of Shirakawa, Gifu, a World Heritage Site), which has a population of approximately 2,000. The main character, Keiichi Maebara, moves to Hinamizawa and befriends his new classmates Rena Ryugu, Mion Sonozaki, Rika Furude, and Satoko Houjou. Keiichi joins their after-school club activities, which consist mostly of card and board games (and punishment games for the loser, usually him). Hinamizawa appears to be a normal, peaceful, rural village to Keiichi. However, the tranquillity abruptly ends after the annual Watanagashi Festival, a celebration to commemorate and give thanks to the local god, "Oyashiro". Keiichi learns that every year for the past four years, one person has been murdered and another has gone missing on the day of the Watanagashi Festival. Keiichi himself soon becomes drawn into the strange events surrounding the Watanagashi Festival and Oyashiro. In each story arc, he or one of his friends become paranoid, and a crime is committed. Usually, the crime involves the murder of one of their own friends. While it seems impossible to tell their delusions apart from the mystery of Hinamizawa, slowly the truth is revealed. Story arcs. In the "Higurashi" games, there are several story arcs, the original eight of which are referred to as either question arcs or answer arcs. The answer arcs generally recapitulate the events of the corresponding question arc, but from a different perspective, using the change of protagonist to solve various mysteries and come to a different conclusion. Each of the eight original games for the PC represented separate arcs of the overall storyline. Apart from the main question/answer relationship, the stories of the arcs are not directly connected, although a multitude of parallels exist which allow the observant reader to gain extra insight into the mystery. Higurashi no Naku Koro ni. The games form what are referred to as the question arcs. These first four games of the series were meant to give the player a sense of the world where the story takes place and introduce the mysterious circumstances surrounding the village of Hinamizawa. Since there are no concrete answers given to the questions that the story presents in these arcs, the question arcs allow the player to form his or her own opinions about the events taking place in Hinamizawa. Each question arc game contains all of the previous question arcs. Kai. The games form what are known as the answer arcs. The last four games released in the series, were, in contrast to the question arcs, meant to answer all of the questions presented in the first half of the series. These arcs can be considered the "solutions" of the previous arcs. Each answer arc game contains all of the previous answer arcs. Rei. Three extra chapters were included in a fan disc named , two of which were newly created. "Higurashi no Naku Koro ni Rei" was released on December 31, 2006. Matsuri. Three original chapters were created for the PlayStation 2 version , by Alchemist. Kizuna. Four original chapters were created for the Nintendo DS version , by Alchemist. Manga arcs. These side stories are original chapters serialized in manga form which supplement the games and partially continue the story. Development. The "Higurashi no Naku Koro ni" series is the first visual novel series produced by 07th Expansion. The game director and scenario writer for the series is Ryukishi07, who also drew all of the character illustrations. Background images were taken from photographs taken by Ryukishi07, his younger brother Yatazakura, and Kameya Mannendō. Programming was worked on by Yatazakura who worked on the main structure, 4U who worked on the intermission and Tips, and BT who worked on the mini games. The games were designed using the game engine NScripter. The music of "Higurashi" was provided by various music artists including both professionals and "dōjin" artists, including Dai, the composer of most of the music found in the answer arcs. Ryukishi07 wrote in 2004 how he was influenced by Key's works during the planning of "Higurashi no Naku Koro ni". Ryukishi07 played Key's games as a reference, among other visual novels, and analyzed them to figure out the reason why they were found to be so popular. He figured that the secret was due to how the stories would start with ordinary, enjoyable days, but then a sudden occurrence would happen leading the player to cry due to the shock value. He used a similar model for the basis of "Higurashi" but instead of leading the player to cry, Ryukishi07 wanted to scare the player with the addition of horror elements. In this way, Ryukishi07 wished to be in some way associated with Key who he described as a "masterpiece maker". In an interview in the December 2008 issue of Yen Press's "Yen Plus" manga anthology, Ryukishi07 stated that "Higurashi" had its origins from an unpublished theater script called he had written a few years before the first "Higurashi" game was released. When he decided to rewrite the script and release it, he wanted to build upon "the contrast between a fun, ordinary life, and something terrifying and out of the ordinary." Ryukishi07 was greatly influenced by the worlds of Seishi Yokomizo when developing the universe of "Higurashi". Ryukishi07 had decided "early on to design the story so that the truth comes to light by looking at several overlapping stories," though he originally planned to release it as a single game due to initially believing he could finish the story in a single year. The word "higurashi" is the name of a kind of cicada. "Naku" means , specifically referring to those sounds made by non-human organisms. According to the original creator, Ryukishi07, the red Na (な) in the logo is an official part of the title. Release history. The first game of the "Higurashi" visual novel series, entitled "Onikakushi-hen", was first released on August 10, 2002. This was the first chapter of the question arcs, which went under the title "Higurashi no Naku Koro ni". The fifth game, and first chapter of the answer arcs, "Meakashi-hen", was released on December 30, 2004. The games in the answer arcs used the title "Higurashi no Naku Koro ni Kai". The series is divided into eight main chapters—four question arcs followed by four answer arcs—and one more chapter, created as part of a fandisc, known as "Rei". Each chapter keeps the same cast of main characters and general premise, but unfolds in a different manner. Each of the chapters give valuable answers, hints, and clues as to the mysteries of the previous installment, while at the same time bringing forth even more mysteries. The eight original PC games are being released in English by MangaGamer under the title "Higurashi When They Cry" starting with the first four games released in December 2009 and the last four released in monthly intervals starting in February 2010. MangaGamer's release of the visual novels does not include several background music tracks and other bonus features specific to the original Japanese version which include: the staff room, the music room, and a minigame. The eight original PC games are also being released in French by Saffran Prod under the title "Le sanglot des cigales", starting with the first two games released together in November 2009. The Japanese company Seams has done releases for iPhone/iPod Touch/iPad in Japanese and English. The Japanese version includes all eight games. The English version is based on the translation by MangaGamer and as of May 2012 includes the first five games. A dōjin game named "Higurashi Daybreak", based on the "Higurashi" series and featuring an original scenario by Ryukishi07, was developed by Twilight Frontier, the creators of "Immaterial and Missing Power" and "Eternal Fighter Zero". The gameplay is that of a versus third-person shooter, in which most of the characters of the main "Higurashi" series are playable. "Higurashi Daybreak" was first released on August 13, 2006, and an expansion pack followed on April 22, 2007. A video game console port for the PlayStation 2 was released as by Alchemist on February 22, 2007. "Higurashi" is the third dōjin game to be ported to a video game console; the first was "Hanakisō" by HaccaWorks*, and the second was "Melty Blood" by French-Bread and Ecole. Although "Higurashi" was the first to have a video game console port announced, its longer development time made it the third to be released. Due to the popularity of "Matsuri", a second enhanced PlayStation 2 port, known as , was released on December 20, 2007. It was sold as an append disc to the original "Matsuri" and as a standalone game. It contains all of "Matsuri"'s content, in addition to "Matsuribayashi-hen" from the original games and other bonus content. A series of four games for the Nintendo DS under the collective title with new story arcs are being developed by Alchemist. The first, with the added title , was released on June 26, 2008 containing the first three chapters from the question arcs, and a new chapter entitled "Someutsushi-hen", with its story based on the "Onisarashi-hen" manga series. The second, with the added title , was released in November 2008. The third game in the series, with the added title , was released in March 2009. The final game, subtitled , was released in February 2010. Adaptations. Drama CDs. There were two official sets of drama CDs released, one by Wayuta, and the other by Frontier Works. Wayuta has released seven CDs since May 27, 2005 starting with "Onikakushi-ken" and going through the main story arcs from the visual novel series to "Tsumihoroboshi-hen" on February 22, 2008. Two more drama CDs will be released by Wayuta to cover "Minagoroshi-hen" and "Matsuribayashi-hen". Wayuta has already released two bonus drama CDs named "Append Disc 01" released on December 29, 2005 at Comiket 69, and "Append Disc 02" released on October 26, 2007. Wayuta also released two drama CDs covering a new arc named , the first on April 25, 2007, and the second on May 9, 2008. Frontier Works released two CDs, starting with an anthology piece called "Anthology Drama CD 1" on December 22, 2005, followed by a sequel entitled "Anthology Drama CD 2" on March 24, 2006. There have also been numerous drama CDs released during special events such as at Comiket or through magazine subscription. Manga. There are eight main titles in the "Higurashi" manga series, spanning the four question arcs and the four answer arcs. Each question arc manga are compiled into two bound volumes. The first two answer arc manga are compiled into four volumes, meanwhile "Minagoroshi-hen" is compiled into six volumes, and "Matsuribayashi-hen" into eight. The manga uses multiple artists between the various arcs. Karin Suzuragi draws "Onikakushi-hen", "Tsumihoroboshi-hen", and "Matsuribayashi-hen", Yutori Hōjō draws "Watanagashi-hen" and "Meakashi-hen", Jirō Suzuki draws "Tatarigoroshi-hen", Yoshiki Tonogai draws "Himatsubushi-hen", and Hanase Momoyama draws "Minagoroshi-hen". Another manga entitled is drawn by Yuna Kagesaki and began in Kadokawa Shoten's "Comp Ace" on August 26, 2008. The manga series was licensed by Yen Press for English distribution in North America under the title "Higurashi When They Cry". The manga was initially serialized in Yen Press' "Yen Plus" anthology magazine, the first issue of which went on sale on July 29, 2008. The first English volume of the manga was originally planned to be sold in early 2009, but was released in November 2008. There are three side stories related to the main "Higurashi" story, but with new characters. The first, named , is drawn by En Kitō and was serialized between March 2005 and July 2006 in "Comp Ace". The next, entitled , is drawn by Mimori and was serialized between in "GFantasy" between 2006 and 2007. The last side story known as is also drawn by En Kitō and was serialized between in "Comp Ace" between 2006 and 2007. A manga adaptation of "Higurashi"s precursor "Hinamizawa Teiryūjo" began serialization in the debut issue of Square Enix's "Big Gangan" magazine, sold on October 25, 2011. Novels. There are four light novels which contain additional illustrations by five different artists, and seventeen novelizations of the separate visual novel arcs. Each novel is written by Ryukishi07. The light novels were all released as limited editions not sold in stores. The first one, "Nekogoroshi-hen", was illustrated by Karin Suzuragi, Yutori Hōjō, and Jirō Suzuki, and was sent out to those who bought the first volume of the manga versions of "Onikakushi-hen", "Watanagashi-hen", and "Tatarigoroshi-hen". One needed to send the cut out stamps in all three of these manga by the deadline in order to receive this special short story. The second light novel, "Kuradashi-hen", was illustrated by Yoshiki Tonogai, Karin Suzuki, Yutori Hōjō, and Mimori. This novel was sent out to those who bought the second volume of the manga version of "Himatsubushi-hen", and the first volumes of the manga "Tsumihoroboshi-hen", "Meakashi-hen", and "Yoigoshi-hen". One needed to send the cut out stamps in all four of these manga by a certain deadline in order to receive this special short story. The third light novel, "Hajisarashi-hen", contained illustrations by Rato, and was included with the limited edition of the PlayStation 2 game "Higurashi no Naku Koro ni Matsuri". The light novels were published by Square Enix and released between 2006 and 2007. The fourth novel, "Kuradashi-hen Zoku" is a sequel to "Kuradashi-hen" and was sent out to those who bought the second volumes of the manga "Tsumihoroboshi-hen", "Meakashi-hen", and "Yoigoshi-hen". One needed to send the cut out stamps in all four of these manga by a certain deadline in order to receive this special short story. Kodansha Box released seventeen novelizations of the visual novel arcs between August 2007 and March 2009, starting with "Onikakushi-hen" and ending with "Higurashi no Naku Koro ni Rei". Most of the story arcs are divided into two volumes, except for "Himatsubushi-hen" and "Higurashi no Naku Koro ni Rei" which are compiled into one volume each, and "Matsuribayashi-hen" which is compiled into three volumes. "Rei" included illustrations by Tomohi. Anime. The first anime series, produced by Studio Deen and directed by Chiaki Kon, covers the four question arcs as well as the first two answer arcs. The original "Higurashi no Naku Koro ni" anime adaptation aired in Japan between April 4 and September 26, 2006, comprising twenty-six episodes. In Japan, most of the characters were voiced by the same voice actors that voiced their respective characters in the drama CD series. The series is available on DVD in Japan, France, and North America (following Geneon Entertainment's licensing of the series). However, in September 2007, Geneon's U.S. division announced that it would discontinue all ongoing anime projects, including "Higurashi", effective November 6, 2007. Only three of a planned six DVDs of "Higurashi" were released, under the title "When They Cry: Higurashi". On July 3, 2008, Geneon and Funimation Entertainment announced an agreement to distribute select titles in North America. While Geneon still retains the license, Funimation assumes exclusive rights to the manufacturing, marketing, sales and distribution of select titles. "Higurashi" was one of several titles involved in the deal. Funimation released a complete box set of the series in August 2009. However, as of August 2011, the rights to the series expired due to low sales. People in Japan who had bought all nine of the DVDs of the first season had the chance to receive a special anime DVD entitled "Higurashi no Naku Koro ni Gaiden Nekogoroshi-hen", based on the short story that was given to those who had bought the manga. Despite being a bonus for the first season (and having the first season's opening and closing sequences), "Nekogoroshi-hen" featured the updated animation style as seen in the second season. A continuation of the series, based on one new story arc and the final two original answer arcs of the franchise, entitled "Higurashi no Naku Koro ni Kai", aired in Japan between July 6 and December 17, 2007, containing twenty-four episodes. The second season featured different character designs than the first season. As the result of a murder case in September 2007 in Japan involving the murder of a police officer by his sixteen-year-old daughter with an axe, as well as the Japanese media relating the case to anime such as "Higurashi", the latest episode screenings of both "Higurashi no Naku Koro ni Kai" and another anime, "School Days", were canceled by a number of Japanese TV stations; however, AT-X, TV Saitama and Sun TV announced that they would be airing the episodes as planned. Later, TV Saitama announced that they had ceased broadcasting of "Higurashi no Naku Koro ni Kai" from episode thirteen onwards. Additionally, "Higurashi no Naku Koro ni Kai" had its opening altered when it re-aired. Originally, a bloody bill hook cleaver (as used by Rena) was shown halfway through (at timestamp 0:55) the opening; it was replaced with an image of a van from the series' fictional junk yard. A three-arc, five-episode original video animation series, entitled "Higurashi no Naku Koro ni Rei", began to be released on February 25, 2009, and is directed by Toshifumi Kawase. The OVA series also started a limited broadcasting in Bandai Channel prior to DVD release. The OVA contains three story arcs, "Hajisarashi-hen", "Saikoroshi-hen", and "Hirukowashi-hen", with "Saikoroshi-hen" concluding in three episodes, and the other two arcs concluding in one episode each. "Hajisarashi-hen" was originally a light novel included with the limited edition of the PlayStation 2 game "Higurashi no Naku Koro ni Matsuri", and took the place of "Batsukoishi-hen" from the "Higurashi no Naku Koro ni Rei" fandisc. Frontier Works announced another original video anime series, "Higurashi no Naku Koro ni Kira", in March 2011, which marks the tenth anniversary of "Higurashi no Naku Koro ni". An anime series titled "Higurashi no Naku Koro ni Kaku: Outbreak", adapted from Ryukishi07's short story "Higurashi Outbreak", has been announced. Films. A live action film adaptation of the series entitled , directed by Ataru Oikawa, premiered in Japanese theaters on May 10, 2008. The film is an adaptation of the first story arc, "Onikakushi-hen". Gōki Maeda plays Keiichi, Airi Matsuyama plays Rena, Rin Asuka plays Mion, Aika plays Rika, and Erena Ono plays Satoko. A sequel, also live action, was released in Japanese theaters on April 18, 2009 and is entitled . The sequel is based on the "Tsumihoroboshi-hen" arc. Music. Unlike visual novels created by established companies, 07th Expansion did not create the music found in the "Higurashi" games. The music for the question arcs consists of license free songs found on the Internet, while the music for the answer arcs was provided by dōjin music artists that were fans of "Higurashi". Later, a CD album called "Thanks/you" was released by the dōjin music artist, Dai; many of his tracks were used in the answer arcs. Fans initially referred to this album as the official soundtrack, however the actual official soundtrack has since been released for the series, featuring a majority of the songs featured in the answer arcs. This two-disc set is, to date, the most complete collection of songs from the games. The first season anime's opening theme is "Higurashi no Naku Koro ni" sung by Eiko Shimamiya; it went on sale in Japan on May 24, 2006. The ending theme is "Why, or Why Not" sung by Rekka Katakiri; it was released on June 28, 2006. There have been two original soundtracks released for the anime adaptation. The main composer for the tracks was Japanese composer Kenji Kawai and the albums were produced by Frontier Works. Volume 1 was released on July 21, 2006 and volume 2 was released on October 6, 2006 in Japan. Three character song CDs were also released, sung by voice actors from the anime adaptation, between March 28 and July 25, 2007. The second season anime's opening theme is "Naraku no Hana" also sung by Eiko Shimamiya. The first season's opening theme, when played backwards, includes the words . This 'backwards' portion of the song is also included in the second season's opening theme. The ending theme is "Taishō a" performed by anNina. The OVA season's opening theme is "Super scription of data" by Eiko Shimamiya, and the ending theme is by anNina. For the first live-action film, a short version of the film's theme song was released on December 22, 2007, in Japan. Once again, Eiko Shimamiya sang the song, entitled . Shimamiya also performed the ending theme entitled . Reception. Over 100,000 copies of the original games were sold in Japan, a feat not attained by a dōjin game since Type-Moon released "Tsukihime". Many fans attribute the game's success to the suspense and horror the novel portrays, with no definite answer provided. Fan-based community boards emerged where fans began discussing their own theories. The popularity of the games grew exponentially as many took interest in their well-outlined script and story, which eventually led the game to be showcased in large gaming magazines with positive reviews. With the announcement of the live-action film adaptation of "Onikakushi-hen" came the news that over 500,000 copies of the games have been sold. The enhanced PlayStation 2 port, "Higurashi no Naku Koro ni Matsuri", has sold over 140,000 copies to date, and has received a total review score of 31/40 (out of the four individual review scores of 9, 8, 8, and 6) from the Japanese gaming magazine "Famitsu". The game was voted the tenth most interesting bishōjo game by readers of "Dengeki G's Magazine" in an August 2007 survey. Anime. A review of "Higurashi When they Cry" by "The Escapist" gave the anime a highly positive review. The reviewer, James Henley, praised the story, saying that each arc is interesting in its own way, but said that watching "Kai" was necessary to fully understand the story. He also praised the cast of characters, and how, despite having only one main male character, it never falls into harem stereotypes, and how each one has a unique back story, revealed in different arcs. He criticized the dub as poor quality, but recommended the anime, mainly subbed, if one "can stomach the brutality." "The Anime Almanac" similarly praised the story, as a unique method of storytelling and the art of the characters, but went to add that the "moe" design on the girls made the scary scenes less threatening. He ultimately recommended the series. Another review, from "T.H.E.M Anime", was less positive, giving it 3 out of 5 stars, praising the story, but panning the sorrow of the characters and the violence, saying ""Higurashi" is a hard show to watch; while it's interesting, each chapter is progressively soul-sucking and depressing, as the characters struggle desperately to avoid grisly fates, often to no avail, multiple times." He finished the review by saying "..."Higurashi" is interesting and visceral enough to be worth viewing by the more adventurous." "The Ross Man" criticized the fact that all the elements from an arc are reset, so, even though the viewers are aware, they explain things like what the Oyashiro curse is. He commented, "There's only so many times I can take 'Where did Satoko's older brother disappear to?!' or 'Wait, what's this about Oyashiro-sama's curse?'". He said that he was hooked, but that "Groundhog Day" had a similar premise and did it better. He ultimately gave it a C+. Manga. In Japan, the third volume of the manga adaptation ranked as the 19th weekly best-selling book on January 16, 2008. The first volume ranked as the 18th weekly bestseller on June 10, 2008. The fourth volume ranked as the 19th bestseller on January 14, 2009. In the United States, the first volume was ranked 253rd in the top 300 graphic novels sold in November 2008 and ranked as 25th in the top 25 Manga sold in the first quarter of 2009 release of "ICv2 Retailers Guide to Anime/Manga". Debi Aoki of About.com stated that reading the chapters in succession as they were presented in its serialization in "Yen Plus" made the story "easier to follow" and built the suspense better. However, Justin Colussy-Estes of Comic Village disagreed feeling that this structure "backfirename="Colussy-Estes"> Justin Colussy-Estes of Comic Village praised the setting for hinting at something "much darker". He also praised the structure stating that the "mystery develops slowly" to immerse the reader in the characters and then later force the reader to "confront the possibility that one or more of them may be [the murderer"; a decision he described as "clever". Critics criticized the manga for using "cliché" characterizations typical of the harem genre. However, Phil Guie of Popcultureshock expressed disappointment that this characterization "is brushed aside" for the horror as it gave the friendship between characters "real depth" adding to the surprise of the plot twists. Anime News Network's Casey Brienza praised the manga for being an "effective" horror story as it follows an ordinary situation, a harem manga plot, which "becomes terrifying" producing an effect that is "trashy horror at its absolute greatest". However, she expressed being frustrated by the end of the second volume as the central question remains "infuriatingly unanswered" though still felt the manga is "wholly enjoyable and satisfying" nonetheless. Brienza stated that although the artwork is "average", the illustrator "seems to know exactly how to transition between the adorable and the abominable—and does so with dramatic, nightmarish effect." Aoki described the artwork as although "panderto otaku fetishes" containing "generic" and "awkward" character designs, providing "overbearing cutesiness [that makes the secrets that the girls are hiding behind their smiles just that much creepier."
743897	Shirley Stoler (March 30, 1929 – February 17, 1999) was an American actress best known for her roles in "The Honeymoon Killers" and Lina Wertmüller's "Seven Beauties". Early Years. Born to Polish immigrants on March 30, 1929, the Brooklynese Shirley Stoler made her stage debut in 1955 and gained experience as a member of New York's experimental La Mama and Living Theatre companies. She had become a key underground player by the time she earned film infamy in 1970 at age 41. Film & TV Career. Throughout her career, Stoler was large and often played villainesses (such as in "The Honeymoon Killers" and on TV in an episode of "Charlie's Angels") whose scariness often derived from Stoler's physical strength and size. A character actress as well as an occasional lead, Stoler appeared in small roles in classic films including "Klute", "The Deer Hunter", and "Desperately Seeking Susan".
1062774	Andrew Thomas McCarthy (born November 29, 1962) is an American actor, award-winning travel writer and television director from Westfield, N.J. He is known for his roles in the 1980s films "St. Elmo's Fire", "Mannequin", "Weekend at Bernie's", "Pretty in Pink", and "Less Than Zero", and more recently for his roles in the television shows "Lipstick Jungle", "White Collar" and "Royal Pains". Career. McCarthy gained recognition in Hollywood during the 1980s. His boy-next-door looks continually had him placed as the sincere and kind leading man. His breakout role was in the 1983 theatrical film "Class". As McCarthy's career grew, he involuntarily became a member of the '80s Hollywood group of young actors known as the "Brat Pack"; McCarthy's better-known films include the Brat Pack films "St. Elmo's Fire" and "Pretty in Pink". During the filming of "St. Elmo's Fire", McCarthy took up smoking, a habit he dropped in 1995. He starred in the 1987 box office hits, "Mannequin" and "Less Than Zero", a theatrical adaptation of Bret Easton Ellis' popular novel. In 1985, McCarthy starred with Donald Sutherland and Kevin Dillon in "Heaven Help Us" (also known as "Catholic Boys") playing Michael Dunn. In 1985, McCarthy made his Broadway debut in "The Boys of Winter." He quickly returned to Hollywood in 1988 to star in several films, such as "Fresh Horses" and "Kansas". He had another hit in the 1989 comedy film "Weekend at Bernie's". In 1991, he played the lead role in the motion picture "Year of the Gun", a thriller which received mixed reviews from critics. In 1992, he starred in the romantic comedy film "Only You". In 1993, he reprised the lead role of Larry Wilson in the sequel to the box office hit "Weekend at Bernie's", "Weekend at Bernie's II", the sequel was successful in the box office. He also had a supporting role in the critically acclaimed "The Joy Luck Club". In 1994, he starred in the motion pictures "Getting In", "Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle" and "Dead Funny". In 1994, he starred in the motion picture Escape Clause. In 1996, he starred in the motion picture "I'm Losing You", a theatrical adaptation of the novel "I'm Losing You". He also starred in the period piece, "Mulholland Falls". In 1997, he starred in the motion picture "Stag". He also starred in the 1999 theatrical film "A Twist of Faith" as a police detective. He returned to Broadway theatre to star in "Side Man", McCarthy's version of the play won a Tony Award for Best Play in 1999. In 2003, McCarthy was set to guest star in two episodes of '. Due to bad relations with actor Vincent D'Onofrio, series creator Dick Wolf decided against it. Wolf later stated, "Mr. McCarthy engaged in fractious behavior from the moment he walked on the set." McCarthy fired back in a statement of his own saying, "I was fired because I refused to allow a fellow actor to threaten me with physical violence, bully me and try to direct me." Despite this incident, he later guest starred in an episode of ' (with Chris Noth, not D'Onofrio) that originally aired in November 2007. In 2004, he played Dr. Hook in "Stephen King's Kingdom Hospital". He appeared in five episodes of the now-cancelled NBC television series "E-Ring". In 2008, he starred in the NBC television series "Lipstick Jungle" as a billionaire, but was eventually cancelled, and had a minor role in "The Spiderwick Chronicles". He is ranked #40 on VH1's 100 Greatest Teen Stars of all time list. McCarthy recently directed several episodes of the hit CW television series, "Gossip Girl", including Touch of Eva in the fourth season. In 2010 and 2011, he also appeared in the hit USA show "White Collar"; he was praised by several critics for his performance in the episodes. He returned to the series in the next season to direct the episode "Neighborhood Watch". Personal life. McCarthy was born in Westfield, New Jersey. His mother worked for a newspaper and his father was involved in investments and stocks. McCarthy moved to Bernardsville, New Jersey, as a teenager and attended the Pingry School. He also attended the town's public school, Bernards High School, for part of a year. In 1999, McCarthy married his college sweetheart Carol Schneider 20 years after they first dated. He later stated his reasons for tracking her down after they had drifted apart: "I ran into someone who said they had seen Carol and her boyfriend and they seemed really happy, and for some reason it bothered me for a week. I called her and asked her if she was really with this guy and asked her out for coffee." In 2002, Schneider gave birth to a son, Sam. In 2005, the couple divorced. On August 28, 2011 he married Dolores Rice. They have a daughter, Willow. In 2004, he announced that he once had a serious alcohol problem, which began at age 12. In 1992, he entered a detoxification program and has been sober since. McCarthy has also become a travel writer, and is currently an Editor at Large at National Geographic Traveler magazine. In 2010, McCarthy was escorted out of an underground church in Lalibela, Ethiopia, for entering the site without documentation. He had been in the church on assignment for the travel magazine "Afar". A book written by McCarthy, "The Longest Way Home: One Man's Question for the Courage to Settle Down", was published in 2012.
1105079	Pierre-Simon, marquis de Laplace (; ; 23 March 1749 – 5 March 1827) was a French mathematician and astronomer whose work was pivotal to the development of mathematical astronomy and statistics. He summarized and extended the work of his predecessors in his five-volume "Mécanique Céleste" (Celestial Mechanics) (1799–1825). This work translated the geometric study of classical mechanics to one based on calculus, opening up a broader range of problems. In statistics, the Bayesian interpretation of probability was developed mainly by Laplace. Laplace formulated Laplace's equation, and pioneered the Laplace transform which appears in many branches of mathematical physics, a field that he took a leading role in forming. The Laplacian differential operator, widely used in mathematics, is also named after him. He restated and developed the nebular hypothesis of the origin of the solar system and was one of the first scientists to postulate the existence of black holes and the notion of gravitational collapse. Laplace is remembered as one of the greatest scientists of all time. Sometimes referred to as the "French Newton" or "Newton of France", he possessed a phenomenal natural mathematical faculty superior to that of any of his contemporaries. Laplace became a count of the First French Empire in 1806 and was named a marquis in 1817, after the Bourbon Restoration. Early years. Many details of the life of Laplace were lost when the family château burned in 1925. Laplace was born in Beaumont-en-Auge, Normandy in 1749. According to W. W. Rouse Ball, he was the son of a small cottager or perhaps a farm-laborer, and owed his education to the interest excited in some wealthy neighbors by his abilities and engaging presence. Very little is known of his early years. It would seem that from a pupil he became an usher in the school at Beaumont; but, having procured a letter of introduction to d'Alembert, he went to Paris to advance his fortune. However, Karl Pearson is scathing about the inaccuracies in Rouse Ball's account and states: His parents were from comfortable families. His father was Pierre Laplace, and his mother was Marie-Anne Sochon. The Laplace family was involved in agriculture until at least 1750, but Pierre Laplace senior was also a cider merchant and "syndic" of the town of Beaumont. Pierre Simon Laplace attended a school in the village run at a Benedictine priory, his father intending that he be ordained in the Roman Catholic Church. At sixteen, to further his father's intention, he was sent to the University of Caen to read theology. At the university, he was mentored by two enthusiastic teachers of mathematics, Christophe Gadbled and Pierre Le Canu, who awoke his zeal for the subject. Laplace did not graduate in theology but left for Paris with a letter of introduction from Le Canu to Jean le Rond d'Alembert. According to his great-great-grandson, d'Alembert received him rather poorly, and to get rid of him gave him a thick mathematics book, saying to come back when he had read it. When Laplace came back a few days later, d'Alembert was even less friendly and did not hide his opinion that it was impossible that Laplace could have read and understood the book. But upon questioning him, he realized that it was true, and from that time he took Laplace under his care. Another version is that Laplace solved overnight a problem that d'Alembert set him for submission the following week, then solved a harder problem the following night. D'Alembert was impressed and recommended him for a teaching place in the "École Militaire". With a secure income and undemanding teaching, Laplace now threw himself into original research and in the next seventeen years, 1771–1787, he produced much of his original work in astronomy. Laplace further impressed the Marquis de Condorcet, and already in 1771 Laplace felt that he was entitled to membership of the French Academy of Sciences. However, in that year, admission went to Alexandre-Théophile Vandermonde and in 1772 to Jacques Antoine Joseph Cousin. Laplace was disgruntled, and at the beginning of 1773, d'Alembert wrote to Lagrange in Berlin to ask if a position could be found for Laplace there. However, Condorcet became permanent secretary of the "Académie" in February and Laplace was elected associate member on 31 March, at age 24. On 15 March 1788, at the age of thirty-nine, Laplace married Marie-Charlotte de Courty de Romanges, a pretty eighteen-and-a-half-year-old girl from a good family in Besançon. The wedding was celebrated at Saint-Sulpice, Paris. The couple had a son, Charles-Émile (1789–1874), and a daughter, Sophie-Suzanne (1792–1813). Analysis, probability and astronomical stability. Laplace's early published work in 1771 started with differential equations and finite differences but he was already starting to think about the mathematical and philosophical concepts of probability and statistics. However, before his election to the "Académie" in 1773, he had already drafted two papers that would establish his reputation. The first, "Mémoire sur la probabilité des causes par les événements" was ultimately published in 1774 while the second paper, published in 1776, further elaborated his statistical thinking and also began his systematic work on celestial mechanics and the stability of the solar system. The two disciplines would always be interlinked in his mind. "Laplace took probability as an instrument for repairing defects in knowledge." Laplace's work on probability and statistics is discussed below with his mature work on the analytic theory of probabilities. Stability of the solar system. Sir Isaac Newton had published his "Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica" in 1687 in which he gave a derivation of Kepler's laws, which describe the motion of the planets, from his laws of motion and his law of universal gravitation. However, though Newton had privately developed the methods of calculus, all his published work used cumbersome geometric reasoning, unsuitable to account for the more subtle higher-order effects of interactions between the planets. Newton himself had doubted the possibility of a mathematical solution to the whole, even concluding that periodic divine intervention was necessary to guarantee the stability of the solar system. Dispensing with the hypothesis of divine intervention would be a major activity of Laplace's scientific life. It is now generally regarded that Laplace's methods on their own, though vital to the development of the theory, are not sufficiently precise to demonstrate the stability of the Solar System, and indeed, the Solar System is now understood to be chaotic, although it actually appears to be fairly stable. One particular problem from observational astronomy was the apparent instability whereby Jupiter's orbit appeared to be shrinking while that of Saturn was expanding. The problem had been tackled by Leonhard Euler in 1748 and Joseph Louis Lagrange in 1763 but without success. In 1776, Laplace published a memoir in which he first explored the possible influences of a purported luminiferous ether or of a law of gravitation that did not act instantaneously. He ultimately returned to an intellectual investment in Newtonian gravity. Euler and Lagrange had made a practical approximation by ignoring small terms in the equations of motion. Laplace noted that though the terms themselves were small, when integrated over time they could become important. Laplace carried his analysis into the higher-order terms, up to and including the cubic. Using this more exact analysis, Laplace concluded that any two planets and the sun must be in mutual equilibrium and thereby launched his work on the stability of the solar system. Gerald James Whitrow described the achievement as "the most important advance in physical astronomy since Newton". Laplace had a wide knowledge of all sciences and dominated all discussions in the "Académie". Laplace seems to have regarded analysis merely as a means of attacking physical problems, though the ability with which he invented the necessary analysis is almost phenomenal. As long as his results were true he took but little trouble to explain the steps by which he arrived at them; he never studied elegance or symmetry in his processes, and it was sufficient for him if he could by any means solve the particular question he was discussing. On the figure of the Earth. During the years 1784–1787 he published some memoirs of exceptional power. Prominent among these is one read in 1783, reprinted as Part II of "Théorie du Mouvement et de la figure elliptique des planètes" in 1784, and in the third volume of the "Mécanique céleste". In this work, Laplace completely determined the attraction of a spheroid on a particle outside it. This is memorable for the introduction into analysis of spherical harmonics or Laplace's coefficients, and also for the development of the use of what we would now call the gravitational potential in celestial mechanics. Spherical harmonics. In 1783, in a paper sent to the "Académie", Adrien-Marie Legendre had introduced what are now known as associated Legendre functions. If two points in a plane have polar co-ordinates ("r", θ) and ("r" ', θ'), where "r" ' ≥ "r", then, by elementary manipulation, the reciprocal of the distance between the points, "d", can be written as: This expression can be expanded in powers of "r"/"r" ' using Newton's generalised binomial theorem to give: The sequence of functions "P"0"k"(cosф) is the set of so-called "associated Legendre functions" and their usefulness arises from the fact that every function of the points on a circle can be expanded as a series of them. Laplace, with scant regard for credit to Legendre, made the non-trivial extension of the result to three dimensions to yield a more general set of functions, the spherical harmonics or Laplace coefficients. The latter term is not in common use now . Potential theory. This paper is also remarkable for the development of the idea of the scalar potential. The gravitational force acting on a body is, in modern language, a vector, having magnitude and direction. A potential function is a scalar function that defines how the vectors will behave. A scalar function is computationally and conceptually easier to deal with than a vector function. Alexis Clairaut had first suggested the idea in 1743 while working on a similar problem though he was using Newtonian-type geometric reasoning. Laplace described Clairaut's work as being "in the class of the most beautiful mathematical productions". However, Rouse Ball alleges that the idea "was appropriated from Joseph Louis Lagrange, who had used it in his memoirs of 1773, 1777 and 1780". The term "potential" itself was due to Daniel Bernoulli, who introduced it in his 1738 memoire "Hydrodynamica". However, according to Rouse Ball, the term "potential function" was not actually used (to refer to a function "V" of the coordinates of space in Laplace's sense) until George Green's 1828 An Essay on the Application of Mathematical Analysis to the Theories of Electricity and Magnetism. Laplace applied the language of calculus to the potential function and showed that it always satisfies the differential equation: An analogous result for the velocity potential of a fluid had been obtained some years previously by Leonard Euler. Laplace's subsequent work on gravitational attraction was based on this result. The quantity ∇2"V" has been termed the concentration of "V" and its value at any point indicates the "excess" of the value of "V" there over its mean value in the neighbourhood of the point. Laplace's equation, a special case of Poisson's equation, appears ubiquitously in mathematical physics. The concept of a potential occurs in fluid dynamics, electromagnetism and other areas. Rouse Ball speculated that it might be seen as "the outward sign" of one of the "a priori" forms in Kant's theory of perception. The spherical harmonics turn out to be critical to practical solutions of Laplace's equation. Laplace's equation in spherical coordinates, such as are used for mapping the sky, can be simplified, using the method of separation of variables into a radial part, depending solely on distance from the centre point, and an angular or spherical part. The solution to the spherical part of the equation can be expressed as a series of Laplace's spherical harmonics, simplifying practical computation. Planetary and lunar inequalities. Jupiter–Saturn great inequality. Laplace presented a memoir on planetary inequalities in three sections, in 1784, 1785, and 1786. This dealt mainly with the identification and explanation of the perturbations now known as the "great Jupiter–Saturn inequality". Laplace solved a longstanding problem in the study and prediction of the movements of these planets. He showed by general considerations, first, that the mutual action of two planets could never cause large changes in the eccentricities and inclinations of their orbits; but then, even more importantly, that peculiarities arose in the Jupiter–Saturn system because of the near approach to commensurability of the mean motions of Jupiter and Saturn. In this context "commensurability" means that the ratio of the two planets' mean motions is very nearly equal to a ratio of some pair small whole numbers. Two periods of Saturn's orbit around the Sun almost equal five of Jupiter's. The corresponding difference between multiples of the mean motions, , corresponds to a period of nearly 900 years, and it occurs as a small divisor in the integration of a very small perturbing force with this same period. As a result, the integrated perturbations with this period are disproportionately large, about 0.8° degrees of arc in orbital longitude for Saturn and about 0.3° for Jupiter. Further developments of these theorems on planetary motion were given in his two memoirs of 1788 and 1789, but with the aid of Laplace's discoveries, the tables of the motions of Jupiter and Saturn could at last be made much more accurate. It was on the basis of Laplace's theory that Delambre computed his astronomical tables. Lunar inequalities. Laplace also produced an analytical solution (as it turned out later, a partial solution), to a significant problem regarding the motion of the Moon. Edmond Halley had been the first to suggest, in 1695, that the mean motion of the Moon was apparently getting faster, by comparison with ancient eclipse observations, but he gave no data. It was not yet known in Halley's or Laplace's times that what is actually occurring includes a slowing down of the Earth's rate of rotation: see also Ephemeris time – History. When measured as a function of mean solar time rather than uniform time, the effect appears as a positive acceleration. In 1749, Richard Dunthorne confirmed Halley's suspicion after re-examining ancient records, and produced the first quantitative estimate for the size of this apparent effect: a rate of +10" (arcseconds) per century in lunar longitude, which was a surprisingly good result for its time and not far different from values assessed later, e.g. in 1786 by de Lalande, and to compare with values from about 10" to nearly 13" being derived about century later. The effect became known as the "secular acceleration of the Moon", but until Laplace, its cause remained unknown. Laplace gave an explanation of the effect in 1787, showing how an acceleration arises from changes (a secular reduction) in the eccentricity of the Earth's orbit, which in turn is one of the effects of planetary perturbations on the Earth. Laplace's initial computation accounted for the whole effect, thus seeming to tie up the theory neatly with both modern and ancient observations. However, in 1853, J. C. Adams caused the question to be re-opened by finding an error in Laplace's computations: it turned out that only about half of the Moon's apparent acceleration could be accounted for on Laplace's basis by the change in the Earth's orbital eccentricity. Adams showed that Laplace had in effect considered only the radial force on the moon and not the tangential, and the partial result thus had overestimated the acceleration; when the remaining (negative) terms were accounted for, it showed that Laplace's cause could only explain about half of the acceleration. The other half was subsequently shown to be due to tidal acceleration. Laplace used his results concerning the lunar acceleration when completing his attempted "proof" of the stability of the whole solar system on the assumption that it consists of a collection of rigid bodies moving in a vacuum. All the memoirs above alluded to were presented to the "Académie des sciences", and they are printed in the "Mémoires présentés par divers savants". Celestial mechanics. Laplace now set himself the task to write a work which should "offer a complete solution of the great mechanical problem presented by the solar system, and bring theory to coincide so closely with observation that empirical equations should no longer find a place in astronomical tables." The result is embodied in the "Exposition du système du monde" and the "Mécanique céleste". The former was published in 1796, and gives a general explanation of the phenomena, but omits all details. It contains a summary of the history of astronomy. This summary procured for its author the honour of admission to the forty of the French Academy and is commonly esteemed one of the masterpieces of French literature, though it is not altogether reliable for the later periods of which it treats. Laplace developed the nebular hypothesis of the formation of the solar system, first suggested by Emanuel Swedenborg and expanded by Immanuel Kant, a hypothesis that continues to dominate accounts of the origin of planetary systems. According to Laplace's description of the hypothesis, the solar system had evolved from a globular mass of incandescent gas rotating around an axis through its centre of mass. As it cooled, this mass contracted, and successive rings broke off from its outer edge. These rings in their turn cooled, and finally condensed into the planets, while the sun represented the central core which was still left. On this view, Laplace predicted that the more distant planets would be older than those nearer the sun. As mentioned, the idea of the nebular hypothesis had been outlined by Immanuel Kant in 1755, and he had also suggested "meteoric aggregations" and tidal friction as causes affecting the formation of the solar system. Laplace was probably aware of this, but, like many writers of his time, he generally did not reference the work of others. Laplace's analytical discussion of the solar system is given in his "Méchanique céleste" published in five volumes. The first two volumes, published in 1799, contain methods for calculating the motions of the planets, determining their figures, and resolving tidal problems. The third and fourth volumes, published in 1802 and 1805, contain applications of these methods, and several astronomical tables. The fifth volume, published in 1825, is mainly historical, but it gives as appendices the results of Laplace's latest researches. Laplace's own investigations embodied in it are so numerous and valuable that it is regrettable to have to add that many results are appropriated from other writers with scanty or no acknowledgement, and the conclusions – which have been described as the organized result of a century of patient toil – are frequently mentioned as if they were due to Laplace. Jean-Baptiste Biot, who assisted Laplace in revising it for the press, says that Laplace himself was frequently unable to recover the details in the chain of reasoning, and, if satisfied that the conclusions were correct, he was content to insert the constantly recurring formula, ""Il est aisé à voir que..."" ("It is easy to see that..."). The "Mécanique céleste" is not only the translation of Newton's "Principia" into the language of the differential calculus, but it completes parts of which Newton had been unable to fill in the details. The work was carried forward in a more finely tuned form in Félix Tisserand's "Traité de mécanique céleste" (1889–1896), but Laplace's treatise will always remain a standard authority. Black holes. Laplace also came close to propounding the concept of the black hole. He pointed out that there could be massive stars whose gravity is so great that not even light could escape from their surface (see escape velocity). Laplace also speculated that some of the nebulae revealed by telescopes might not be part of the Milky Way but rather galaxies themselves. Thus, he anticipated Edwin Hubble's major discovery 100 years in advance. Arcueil. In 1806, Laplace bought a house in Arcueil, then a village and not yet absorbed into the Paris conurbation. Claude Louis Berthollet was a neighbour—their gardens were not separated—and the pair formed the nucleus of an informal scientific circle, latterly known as the Society of Arcueil. Because of their closeness to Napoleon, Laplace and Berthollet effectively controlled advancement in the scientific establishment and admission to the more prestigious offices. The Society built up a complex pyramid of patronage. In 1806, Laplace was also elected a foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. Analytic theory of probabilities. In 1812, Laplace issued his "Théorie analytique des probabilités" in which he laid down many fundamental results in statistics. The first half of this treatise was concerned with probability methods and problems, the second half with statistical methods and applications. Laplace's proofs are not always rigorous according to the standards of a later day, and his perspective slides back and forth between the Bayesian and non-Bayesian views with an ease that makes some of his investigations difficult to follow, but his conclusions remain basically sound even in those few situations where his analysis goes astray. In 1819, he published a popular account of his work on probability. This book bears the same relation to the "Théorie des probabilités" that the "Système du monde" does to the "Méchanique céleste". Inductive probability. While he conducted much research in physics, another major theme of his life's endeavours was probability theory. In his "Essai philosophique sur les probabilités" (1814), Laplace set out a mathematical system of inductive reasoning based on probability, which we would today recognise as Bayesian. He begins the text with a series of principles of probability, the first six being: One well-known formula arising from his system is the rule of succession, given as principle seven. Suppose that some trial has only two possible outcomes, labeled "success" and "failure". Under the assumption that little or nothing is known "a priori" about the relative plausibilities of the outcomes, Laplace derived a formula for the probability that the next trial will be a success. where "s" is the number of previously observed successes and "n" is the total number of observed trials. It is still used as an estimator for the probability of an event if we know the event space, but have only a small number of samples. The rule of succession has been subject to much criticism, partly due to the example which Laplace chose to illustrate it. He calculated that the probability that the sun will rise tomorrow, given that it has never failed to in the past, was where "d" is the number of times the sun has risen in the past. This result has been derided as absurd, and some authors have concluded that all applications of the Rule of Succession are absurd by extension. However, Laplace was fully aware of the absurdity of the result; immediately following the example, he wrote, "But this number the probability that the sun will rise tomorrow is far greater for him who, seeing in the totality of phenomena the principle regulating the days and seasons, realizes that nothing at the present moment can arrest the course of it." Probability-generating function. The method of estimating the ratio of the number of favorable cases to the whole number of possible cases had been previously indicated by Laplace in a paper written in 1779. It consists of treating the successive values of any function as the coefficients in the expansion of another function, with reference to a different variable. The latter is therefore called the probability-generating function of the former. Laplace then shows how, by means of interpolation, these coefficients may be determined from the generating function. Next he attacks the converse problem, and from the coefficients he finds the generating function; this is effected by the solution of a finite difference equation. Least squares and central limit theorem. The fourth chapter of this treatise includes an exposition of the method of least squares, a remarkable testimony to Laplace's command over the processes of analysis. In 1805 Legendre had published the method of least squares, making no attempt to tie it to the theory of probability. In 1809 Gauss had derived the normal distribution from the principle that the arithmetic mean of observations gives the most probable value for the quantity measured; then, turning this argument back upon itself, he showed that, if the errors of observation are normally distributed, the least squares estimates give the most probable values for the coefficients in regression situations. These two works seem to have spurred Laplace to complete work toward a treatise on probability he had contemplated as early as 1783. In two important papers in 1810 and 1811, Laplace first developed the characteristic function as a tool for large-sample theory and proved the first general central limit theorem. Then in a supplement to his 1810 paper written after he had seen Gauss's work, he showed that the central limit theorem provided a Bayesian justification for least squares: if one were combining observations, each one of which was itself the mean of a large number of independent observations, then the least squares estimates would not only maximize the likelihood function, considered as a posterior distribution, but also minimize the expected posterior error, all this without any assumption as to the error distribution or a circular appeal to the principle of the arithmetic mean. In 1811 Laplace took a different non-Bayesian tack. Considering a linear regression problem, he restricted his attention to linear unbiased estimators of the linear coefficients. After showing that members of this class were approximately normally distributed if the number of observations was large, he argued that least squares provided the "best" linear estimators. Here "best" in the sense that they minimized the asymptotic variance and thus both minimized the expected absolute value of the error, and maximized the probability that the estimate would lie in any symmetric interval about the unknown coefficient, no matter what the error distribution. His derivation included the joint limiting distribution of the least squares estimators of two parameters. Laplace's demon. In 1814, Laplace published what is usually known as the first articulation of causal or scientific determinism: This intellect is often referred to as "Laplace's demon" (in the same vein as "Maxwell's demon") and sometimes "Laplace's Superman" (after Hans Reichenbach). Laplace, himself, did not use the word "demon", which was a later embellishment. As translated into English above, he simply referred to: ""Une intelligence... Rien ne serait incertain pour elle, et l'avenir comme le passé, serait présent à ses yeux."" Even though Laplace is known as the first to express such ideas about causal determinism, his view is very similar to the one proposed by Boscovich as early as 1763 in his book "Theoria philosophiae naturalis". Laplace transforms. As early as 1744, Euler, followed by Lagrange, had started looking for solutions of differential equations in the form: In 1785, Laplace took the key forward step in using integrals of this form in order to transform a whole difference equation, rather than simply as a form for the solution, and found that the transformed equation was easier to solve than the original. Other discoveries and accomplishments. Mathematics. Amongst the other discoveries of Laplace in pure and applied mathematics are: Surface tension. Laplace built upon the qualitative work of Thomas Young to develop the theory of capillary action and the Young–Laplace equation. Speed of sound. Laplace in 1816 was the first to point out that the speed of sound in air depends on the heat capacity ratio. Newton's original theory gave too low a value, because it does not take account of the adiabatic compression of the air which results in a local rise in temperature and pressure. Laplace's investigations in practical physics were confined to those carried on by him jointly with Lavoisier in the years 1782 to 1784 on the specific heat of various bodies. Politics. Minister of the Interior. In his early years Laplace was careful never to become involved in politics, or indeed in life outside the "Académie des sciences". He prudently withdrew from Paris during the most violent part of the Revolution. In November 1799, immediately after seizing power in the coup of 18 Brumaire, Napoleon appointed Laplace to the post of Minister of the Interior. The appointment, however, lasted only six weeks, after which Lucien, Napoleon's brother, was given the post. Evidently, once Napoleon's grip on power was secure, there was no need for a prestigious but inexperienced scientist in the government. Napoleon later (in his "Mémoires de Sainte Hélène") wrote of Laplace's dismissal as follows: Grattan-Guinness, however, describes these remarks as "tendentious", since there seems to be no doubt that Laplace "was only appointed as a short-term figurehead, a place-holder while Napoleon consolidated power". From Bonaparte to the Bourbons. Although Laplace was removed from office, it was desirable to retain his allegiance. He was accordingly raised to the senate, and to the third volume of the "Mécanique céleste" he prefixed a note that of all the truths therein contained the most precious to the author was the declaration he thus made of his devotion towards the peacemaker of Europe. In copies sold after the Bourbon Restoration this was struck out. (Pearson points out that the censor would not have allowed it anyway.) In 1814 it was evident that the empire was falling; Laplace hastened to tender his services to the Bourbons, and in 1817 during the Restoration he was rewarded with the title of marquis. According to Rouse Ball, the contempt that his more honest colleagues felt for his conduct in the matter may be read in the pages of Paul Louis Courier. His knowledge was useful on the numerous scientific commissions on which he served, and, says Rouse Ball, probably accounts for the manner in which his political insincerity was overlooked. Roger Hahn disputes this portrayal of Laplace as an opportunist and turncoat, pointing out that, like many in France, he had followed the debacle of Napoleon's Russian campaign with serious misgivings. The Laplaces, whose only daughter Sophie had died in childbirth in September 1813, were in fear for the safety of their son Émile, who was on the eastern front with the emperor. Napoleon had originally come to power promising stability, but it was clear that he had overextended himself, putting the nation at peril. It was at this point that Laplace's loyalty began to weaken. Although he still had easy access to Napoleon, his personal relations with the emperor cooled considerably. As a grieving father, he was particularly cut to the quick by Napoleon's insensitivity in an exchange related by Jean-Antoine Chaptal: "On his return from the rout in Leipzig, he accosted Mr Laplace: 'Oh! I see that you have grown thin—Sire, I have lost my daughter—Oh! that's not a reason for losing weight. You are a mathematician; put this event in an equation, and you will find that it adds up to zero.'" Political philosophy. In the second edition (1814) of the "Essai philosophique", Laplace added some revealing comments on politics and governance. Since it is, he says, "the practice of the eternal principles of reason, justice and humanity that produce and preserve societies, there is a great advantage to adhere to these principles, and a great inadvisability to deviate from them". Noting "the depths of misery into which peoples have been cast" when ambitious leaders disregard these principles, Laplace makes a veiled criticism of Napoleon's conduct: "Every time a great power intoxicated by the love of conquest aspires to universal domination, the sense of liberty among the unjustly threatened nations breeds a coalition to which it always succumbs." Laplace argues that "in the midst of the multiple causes that direct and restrain various states, natural limits" operate, within which it is "important for the stability as well as the prosperity of empires to remain". States that transgress these limits cannot avoid being "reverted" to them, "just as is the case when the waters of the seas whose floor has been lifted by violent tempests sink back to their level by the action of gravity". About the political upheavals he had witnessed, Laplace formulated a set of principles derived from physics to favor evolutionary over revolutionary change: In these lines, Laplace expressed the views he had arrived at after experiencing the Revolution and the Empire. He believed that the stability of nature, as revealed through scientific findings, provided the model that best helped to preserve the human species. "Such views," Hahn comments, "were also of a piece with his steadfast character." Laplace died in Paris in 1827. His brain was removed by his physician, François Magendie, and kept for many years, eventually being displayed in a roving anatomical museum in Britain. It was reportedly smaller than the average brain. Religious opinions. "I had no need of that hypothesis". A frequently cited but apocryphal interaction between Laplace and Napoleon purportedly concerns the existence of God. A typical version is provided by Rouse Ball: In 1884, however, the astronomer Hervé Faye affirmed that this account of Laplace's exchange with Napoleon presented a "strangely transformed" ("étrangement transformée") or garbled version of what had actually happened. It was not God that Laplace had treated as a hypothesis, but merely his intervention at a determinate point: Laplace's younger colleague, the astronomer François Arago, who gave his eulogy before the French Academy in 1827, told Faye that the garbled version of Laplace's interaction with Napoleon was already in circulation towards the end of Laplace's life. Faye writes: The Swiss-American historian of mathematics Florian Cajori appears to have been unaware of Faye's research, but in 1893 he came to a similar conclusion. Stephen Hawking said in 1999, "I don't think that Laplace was claiming that God does not exist. It's just that he doesn't intervene, to break the laws of Science." The only eyewitness account of Laplace's interaction with Napoleon is an entry in the diary of the British astronomer Sir William Herschel. Since this makes no mention of Laplace saying, "I had no need of that hypothesis," Daniel Johnson argues that "Laplace never used the words attributed to him." Arago's testimony, however, appears to imply that he did, only not in reference to the existence of God. Views on God. Born a Catholic, Laplace appears for most of his life to have veered between deism (presumably his considered position, since it is the only one found in his writings) and atheism. Faye thought that Laplace "did not profess atheism", but Napoleon, on Saint Helena, told General Gaspard Gourgaud, "I often asked Laplace what he thought of God. He owned that he was an atheist." Roger Hahn, in his biography of Laplace, mentions a dinner party at which "the geologist Jean-Étienne Guettard was staggered by Laplace's bold denunciation of the existence of God". It appeared to Guettard that Laplace's atheism "was supported by a thoroughgoing materialism". But the chemist Jean-Baptiste Dumas, who knew Laplace well in the 1820s, wrote that Laplace "gave materialists their specious arguments, without sharing their convictions". Hahn states: "Nowhere in his writings, either public or private, does Laplace deny God's existence." Expressions occur in his private letters that appear inconsistent with atheism. On 17 June 1809, for instance, he wrote to his son, ""Je prie Dieu qu'il veille sur tes jours. Aie-Le toujours présent à ta pensée, ainsi que ton pére et ta mére" pray that God watches over your days. Let Him be always present to your mind, as also your father and your mother." Ian S. Glass, quoting Herschel's account of the celebrated exchange with Napoleon, writes that Laplace was "evidently a deist like Herschel". In "Exposition du système du monde", Laplace quotes Newton's assertion that "the wondrous disposition of the Sun, the planets and the comets, can only be the work of an all-powerful and intelligent Being". This, says Laplace, is a "thought in which he would be even more confirmed, if he had known what we have shown, namely that the conditions of the arrangement of the planets and their satellites are precisely those which ensure its stability". By showing that the "remarkable" arrangement of the planets could be entirely explained by the laws of motion, Laplace had eliminated the need for the "supreme intelligence" to intervene, as Newton had "made" it do. Laplace cites with approval Leibniz's criticism of Newton's invocation of divine intervention to restore order to the solar system: "This is to have very narrow ideas about the wisdom and the power of God." He evidently shared Leibniz's astonishment at Newton's belief "that God has made his machine so badly that unless he affects it by some extraordinary means, the watch will very soon cease to go". In a group of manuscripts, preserved in relative secrecy in a black envelope in the library of the "Académie des sciences" and published for the first time by Hahn, Laplace mounted a deist critique of Christianity. It is, he writes, the "first and most infallible of principles ... to reject miraculous facts as untrue". As for the doctrine of transubstantiation, it "offends at the same time reason, experience, the testimony of all our senses, the eternal laws of nature, and the sublime ideas that we ought to form of the Supreme Being". It is the sheerest absurdity to suppose that "the sovereign lawgiver of the universe would suspend the laws that he has established, and which he seems to have maintained invariably". In old age, Laplace remained curious about the question of God and frequently discussed Christianity with the Swiss astronomer Jean-Frédéric-Théodore Maurice. He told Maurice that "Christianity is quite a beautiful thing" and praised its civilizing influence. Maurice thought that the basis of Laplace's beliefs was, little by little, being modified, but that he held fast to his conviction that the invariability of the laws of nature did not permit of supernatural events. After Laplace's death, Poisson told Maurice, "You know that I do not share your opinions, but my conscience forces me to recount something that will surely please you." When Poisson had complimented Laplace about his "brilliant discoveries", the dying man had fixed him with a pensive look and replied, "Ah! we chase after phantoms ["chimères"." These were his last words, interpreted by Maurice as a realization of the ultimate "vanity" of earthly pursuits. Laplace received the last rites from the curé of the Missions Étrangères (in whose parish he was to be buried) and the curé of Arcueil. However, according to his biographer, Roger Hahn, since it is "not credible" that Laplace "had a proper Catholic end", the "last rights" ("sic") were ineffective and he "remained a skeptic" to the very end of his life. Laplace in his last years has been described as an agnostic. Excommunication of a comet. In 1470 the humanist scholar Bartolomeo Platina wrote that Pope Callixtus III had asked for prayers for deliverance from the Turks during a 1456 appearance of Halley's Comet. Platina's account does not accord with Church records, which do not mention the comet. Laplace is alleged to have embellished the story by claiming the Pope had "excommunicated" Halley's comet. What Laplace actually said, in "Exposition du système du monde" (1796), was that the Pope had ordered the comet to be "exorcized" ("conjuré"). It was Arago, in "Des Comètes en général" (1832), who first spoke of an excommunication. Neither the exorcism nor the excommunication can be regarded as anything but pure fiction.
1059884	Tammy Blanchard (born December 14, 1976) is an American actress. She has worked primarily in films and television, making her professional start in the soap opera "Guiding Light". For her first stage appearance, she played the role of Louise/Gypsy in the 2003 Broadway revival of the musical "", for which she earned both a Tony Award nomination and a Theatre World Award. She received the Emmy Award for her portrayal of a teenage Judy Garland in the television movie "." She also appeared as Hedy LaRue in the 2011 Broadway revival of "How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying" and was nominated for a 2011 Tony Award for Featured Actress in a Musical for the role. Life and career. Blanchard was born in Bayonne, New Jersey. She made her professional acting debut on the soap opera "Guiding Light" in 1997, where she played spoiled rich girl Drew Jacobs. Her role on the show increased over the years, and by the time of her departure in 2000 she had become a major player on the series. She was then cast as the younger version of Judy Davis's Judy Garland in the 2001 television docudrama "Life with Judy Garland: Me and My Shadows". She received glowing reviews for her performance and earned an Emmy Award for Best Supporting Actress in a Miniseries. She played Marianne Mulvaney in the Lifetime television movie "We Were the Mulvaneys" (2002), and was noted for her "fragile strength" by "The New York Times" reviewer. In 2004, she played Sally Reid in the CBS made-for-television movie, "When Angels Come to Town" with Peter Falk. Blanchard earned a Tony Award nomination and a Theatre World Award for her work in her Broadway debut in the 2003 revival of "", in which she played the title role opposite Bernadette Peters. Blanchard's film roles include "The Good Shepherd" (2006), starring as the deaf lover of Matt Damon's character; "Bella" (2006), which took the top prize at the 2006 Toronto International Film Festival; "The Ramen Girl" (2007); and "Deadline" (2009). She co-starred with Jessica Lange in the CBS television remake of the 1976 television film "Sybil", in which she portrays a woman with DID (Dissociative Identity Disorder). She appeared in the multi-star cast of the television docudrama "Living Proof" (2008) as the first woman to have been treated with the breast cancer drug Herceptin. She plays Amy Roberts, the widow of a murderer, in the made-for-television movie "Amish Grace", which first aired on the Lifetime Movie Network in March 2010. The movie is based on the Amish school shooting. "The Huffington Post" noted that "This is an amazing young actress and she deserves to get better and better roles." The "Hollywood Reporter" noted that Blanchard gives "a moving turn". She appeared in the 2010 film "Rabbit Hole" alongside Nicole Kidman and Aaron Eckhart as Kidman's sister. Blanchard played the role of "office bombshell Hedy La Rue" in the Broadway revival of "How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying", which opened on March 27, 2011 and closed on May 20, 2012. For this role Blanchard received her second Tony Award nomination for Best Featured Actress in a Musical. The feature film "Union Square", co-written and directed by the Sundance Film Festival's Grand Jury Award Winner, Nancy Savoca, premiered at the Toronto Film Festival in 2011, and is being screened in New York City in July 2012. In it, Blanchard co-stars with Patti Lupone, Mira Sorvino, Mike Doyle, Michael Rispoli and Daphne Rubin-Vega. Personal life. Blanchard lives in her hometown of Bayonne and has a daughter, who is 3 years old as of 2011. Awards. Won Nominated
1074248	Luana Patten (July 6, 1938 – May 1, 1996) was an American film actress. Career. Luana Patten was born in Long Beach, California, the daughter of Harvey T. Patten and the former Alma Miller. Patten made her first film appearance in Joel Chandler Harris's 1946 musical "Song of the South" with Bobby Driscoll. They also appeared together in "Song of the South"'s sister film "So Dear to My Heart".
1502404	Roger Bart (born September 29, 1962) is an American actor and singer who has received Tony Award, Drama Desk Award, and Screen Actors Guild Awards. Early life. Bart was born in Norwalk, Connecticut, the son of a teacher and a chemical engineer, and grew up in Bernardsville, New Jersey. His uncle is journalist Peter Bart. Career. He made his Broadway debut in "Big River" as Tom Sawyer in 1987. Additional theatre credits include Jonathan in the Alan Menken/Tim Rice musical "King David", Harlequin in "Triumph of Love", Snoopy in the Broadway revival of "You're A Good Man, Charlie Brown" (for which he won the Drama Desk Award and a Tony), Carmen Ghia and later Leo Bloom in "The Producers" (earning Drama Desk and Tony nominations), and "The Frogs" at Lincoln Center, which reunited him with fellow "Producers" star Nathan Lane and Susan Stroman. In 1996 and 1997, Bart appeared as Bud Frump in the USA national tour of "How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying". On television, Bart played George Carlin's son on "The George Carlin Show" (1994), and on "Bram and Alice" (2002) he portrayed Bram's assistant Paul Newman. He became widely known to viewers with his portrayal of George Williams, the murderous pharmacist in love with Bree Van de Kamp (Marcia Cross), on "Desperate Housewives", which earned him a SAG Award. Bart provided the singing voice for Hercules in Disney's "Hercules", as well as the singing voice of Scamp in "". He was featured in the 2004 remake of "The Stepford Wives" with Nicole Kidman, Matthew Broderick, Bette Midler, Christopher Walken and Glenn Close, and in "The Producers" (2005), in which he reprised his role of "common-law assistant" Carmen Ghia. In December 2006, Bart played Howard "The Weasel" Montague in the Sci Fi Channel miniseries "The Lost Room". In June 2007, he starred as Stuart in "", the sequel to 2006's "Hostel". In 2007 He had supporting roles in "American Gangster", and "Spy School". In 2008, he appeared in "Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay", the sequel to 2004's "Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle", and "Midnight Meat Train". Bart also originated the lead role of Dr. Frederick Frankenstein in the musical adaptation of Mel Brooks' "Young Frankenstein", which opened on Broadway in November 2007, following a run in Seattle. He recently reprised the role alongside former Broadway co-stars Shuler Hensley and Cory English in the United States national tour which launched in September 2009. He ended his run on August 8, 2010 and was succeeded by Christopher Ryan. Bart originally portrayed the role of Igor in the original workshop read through.
1052328	Madame Rosa () is a 1977 French film adaptation of the novel "The Life Before Us" (1975; French: "La vie devant soi"), authored by Romain Gary under the pseudonym of Émile Ajar. Through his double identity, Gary, who had already received the Prix Goncourt in 1956 for "Les Racines du ciel", received it again, in 1975 for "La vie devant soi", becoming the first writer to be twice attributed the highly coveted award. The film adaptation was directed by Moshé Mizrahi and produced by Daniel Pomerantz. Plot. Madame Rosa (Simone Signoret) is a frail, aging, retired Jewish prostitute and Auschwitz survivor who earns a meager living by caring for the children of younger female sex workers, as well as for Momo (short for Mohammed) (Sami Ben Youb), a young Arab boy on the verge of adolescence. Momo hasn't seen his parents in years. He and Madame Rosa struggle to make ends meet, and as her body and mind start to fail, it becomes clear that Momo is the only person she has left in the world. Despite his young age, he has to help Madame Rosa who refuses to be hospitalized. He will stay with her as she faces her ultimate fears and prepares for her last and most difficult voyage. Background. The story of Madame Rosa and Momo unfolds in a multi-ethnic, multi-religious and multi-cultural community. The profound emotional bond between the two main characters, one an old Jewish woman and the other a young Arab boy, is what drives the film emotionally from the beginning to the end. The film also emphasizes the compassion and empathy that can be found in such a disadvantaged community context through the helping gestures of the secondary characters. Madame Lola, for example, while being bluntly described by Momo as "a transvestite" who had been "a boxing champion in Senegal", is depicted in both the book and the film without any sensationalism. To the contrary, she is presented as a compassionate human being who is concerned by the poverty of Madame Rosa and Momo, giving them food and money without expecting anything in return. Momo says of her that "she's really somebody", that he "likes her"; Madame Rosa declares, "She's a Saint, I don't know where we'd be without her". The dynamic represented between Madame Rosa, Momo and their transsexual prostitute neighbor, Madame Lola, stands as a good example of the type of deeply humanistic values and respect for human difference, whether that difference is of a sexual, religious, or racial nature, that is embedded in Romain Gary's written text and further successfully emphasized through Moshé Mizrahi's cinematographic representation of the story. Book version. Ralph Manheim's English-language translation of "La Vie devant soi" has been published twice by Doubleday, under different titles:
1066885	Breezy is a 1973 American romantic drama film, starring William Holden and Kay Lenz. It was written by Jo Heims, and was the third film directed by Clint Eastwood, who can be briefly seen in an uncredited cameo leaning on a pier wearing a white jacket. Plot. Edith Alice "Breezy" Breezerman (Kay Lenz), a free-spirited teenage runaway, wakes up from a one night stand, gets dressed then walks out the door with her guitar. She catches a ride to the valley with a stranger who seems harmless at first, then when he starts to drive in the wrong direction and talks about "giving his last hitchhiker something to yell about", she runs-away and ends up on Frank Harmon's (William Holden) front lawn. Frank is a middle aged divorced man, who lives a solitary life at his post modern home in the hills. As he gets into his car to drive to work, Breezy jumps into his car asking for a ride to the valley. Breezy tells Frank about her the trouble she had this morning with the stranger and the two bond. Eventually Breezy sees a dog lying in the road and makes Frank pull over. Angered by Frank's lack of empathy for the poor animal Breezy becomes angry and then runs off crying. Realizing that the dog is still alive Frank carries the dog back to his car, when he opens the door the back seat Frank sees that Breezy left her guitar in his back seat and becomes angry because of all the trouble she has caused him.
1061195	Tuesday Weld (born August 27, 1943) is an American actress. She began acting as a child, and progressed to mature roles in the late 1950s. She won a Golden Globe Award for Most Promising Female Newcomer in 1960. Over the following decade she established a career playing dramatic roles in films.
633178	Salome Jens (born May 8, 1935) is an American stage, film and television actress. She is perhaps best known for portraying the Female Changeling on "". Life and career. Jens was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, the daughter of Salomea (née Szujeuska) and Arnold John Jens, a farmer and builder. Jens graduated Bay View High School with a 96 average and was crowned Miss Bay View at the long running South Shore Water Frolics. Later in life, she remarked that "the only time I can imagine contemplating suicide would be if I was told that I had to go back and live in Milwaukee forever." She has been married twice, first to film actor Ralph Meeker, and then to television personality Lee Leonard. Her performances in the theatre have been rare but well regarded. She nabbed the lion's share of attention in the small role of "The Thief" in the New York premiere production of Jean Genet's "The Balcony". She won excellent notices playing Josie in "A Moon for the Misbegotten" at the downtown Circle-in-the-Square theatre in the late 1960s in New York, and she did a "Cleopatra" at Stratford. Jens' debut was in the title role of "Terror from the Year 5000", which was later featured in the 8th Season of "Mystery Science Theater 3000". She subsequently had major roles in "Angel Baby" and the television series "Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman". In 1971, she also appeared as a widow with two children in the 1971 "Gunsmoke" episode, "Captain Sligo," with Richard Basehart in the title role as an Irish cattle buyer who courts her.
1235863	"Nora's Hair Salon" is a 2004 independent comedy-drama film, written by Chanel Capra and Jean-Claude La Marre, and directed by Jerry LaMothe. This film stars Jenifer Lewis, Tamala Jones, and Tatyana Ali. Plot "this text concludes details about the ending". Nora Harper (Jenifer Lewis) is an African-American businesswoman who owns a hair salon in Los Angeles, California. She keeps watch over her employees, friends, relatives, and regular customers. Lilleana (Tatyana Ali) is a new employee from the Dominican Republic, and she is also in an abusive relationship with her wants-more-than friend, Bennie (Bobby Brown). Chloe (Tamala Jones) is a hair stylist who has aspirations of a career in show business. Ming (Lucille Soong) does manicures and has problems with her temper, and loves offering her opinions. Devin (Jean-Claude LaMarre) is a bisexual man who is uncertain about his relationship with Delicious (Donn Swaby). Later in the film, Nora has a heart attack. Her friends from the salon hope for her recovery but she dies shortly before the end of the film. In the end the salon remains open, selling Nora's hairstyling products. Sequel. A Direct-to-video sequel putting Lilleana as the main character was released entitled "", starring Tatyana Ali, Stacy Dash, Donn Swaby, Bobby Brown and Mekhi Phifer. The film is lighter in tone and content as it is rated PG-13. Series creator and co-star Jean Claude-Lamarre cameos as Devin, who has become a minister and is now straight, much to the anger of his ex Delicious. A second sequel was released in 2011 entitled "Nora's Hair Salon 3: The Cutting Edge". However, none of the original cast stars in it. This time around, Delicious is the main character and new owner of the salon.
585004	Don Seenu is a 2010 Telugu film starring Ravi Teja and Shriya Saran in the lead roles while actor Srihari plays a key role in the film. Hindi actress Anjana Sukhani is also a part of the film, which is her first in Telugu . Music has been scored by Mani Sharma and the film has been directed by a debutant "Gopichand Malineni". Shriya has made her comeback in Telugu cinema after a long gap of 5 years. The film was releases on 6 August 2010 and got positive reviews. This film is going to be remade into Hindi with either Salman Khan or Saif Ali Khan in Ravi Teja's role, the film was dubbed into Hindi as Sabse Bada Don and was released in 2010. Plot. This story is all about an ambitious boy named Seenu (Ravi Teja) who dreams of becoming a don. He always likes to be called as ‘Don’ Seenu since childhood due to the strong influence of the Amitabh Bachchan starrer ‘Don’. He grows up with just one passion - that of becoming the World's No: 1 Don. Thanks to his enterprising nature, he gains access to the cream of the city's dons, and uses his cleverness to play off the top two - Machiraju (Sayaji Shinde) and Narsingh (Sri Hari), fierce rivals - against each other. Seenu wants to join one of these dons and grow up in the ranks. He joins hands with Machiraju. In the process he is given a task to go to Germany and win the heart of Narsing’s sister whose marriage is fixed with the son of the super don Mukesh (Mahesh Manjrekar). Seenu goes to Germany and wins the heart of Deepthi (Shriya Saran) and later, he discovers that he was shown the wrong girl. The wrong girl is none another than the sister of Machiraju. This leads to various turns in the plot. What happens next is all about how Seenu achieves his dream of becoming a don and live happily with Deepthi or does he? Cast. Other cast are include : Soundtrack. "Don Seenu"'s soundtrack is composed by Mani Sharma. The soundtrack album, which was released on 22 July at Taj Deccan Hotel in Hyderabad, Noted director Dasari Narayana Rao released the first audio CD, whereas movie mughal D. Ramanaidu released the audio cassette. It features 6 songs, which one being a remix. Ramajogayya Sastry has written the lyrics for three songs, whilst Bhaskarabhatla have write lyrics for two songs, besides that, Vennelakanti also have penned for one song. Reception. The movie opened with extremely positive reviews and eventually became one of the biggest hits of 2010.
1056713	This Sporting Life is a 1963 British feature film based on a novel of the same name by David Storey which had won the 1960 Macmillan Fiction Award. It recounts the story of a rugby league footballer, Frank Machin, in Wakefield, a mining area of Yorkshire, whose romantic life is not as successful as his sporting life. Storey, a former professional rugby league footballer, also wrote the adapted screenplay. The film stars Richard Harris, Rachel Roberts, William Hartnell and Alan Badel. It was directed by Lindsay Anderson. The film was Richard Harris' first starring role, and won him a Best Actor Award at the 1963 Cannes Film Festival. He was also nominated for an Oscar for Best Actor in a Leading Role. Rachel Roberts won another BAFTA award for "This Sporting Life" (her first was for "Saturday Night and Sunday Morning") and an Oscar nomination for best actress. Harris was nominated for the BAFTA that year but was topped by Dirk Bogarde for his role in the Joseph Losey production "The Servant". Plot. Set in Wakefield, the film concerns a bitter young Yorkshire coal miner, Frank Machin (Harris). Following a nightclub altercation in which he takes on the captain of the local rugby league club and smacks a couple of the others, he is recruited by the team's manager, who sees profit in his aggressive streak. Although at first somewhat uncoordinated at league, he impresses the team's owner, Gerald Weaver (Badel), with his spirit and brutality of his playing style during the trial. He is signed up to the top team as a loose forward (number 13) and impresses all with his aggressive forward play. He often punches or elbows the opposition players throughout the game.
1064980	Targets is a 1968 American thriller film written, produced and directed by Peter Bogdanovich. Plot. The story concerns a quiet insurance agent and Vietnam War veteran named Bobby Thompson (Tim O'Kelly) who murders his young wife, his mother and a grocery delivery boy at home and then initiates an afternoon shooting rampage from atop a Los Angeles area oil refinery. Several motorists and passengers are wounded or killed on the nearby freeway. When the police respond and start to close in on him he flees and resumes his shootings at a Reseda drive-in theater where an aging horror film icon, Byron Orlok (Boris Karloff) is making a final promotional appearance before retirement. Orlok slaps the murderer into submission and the police arrive and affect an arrest. Thompson wonders aloud about the exact number of victims. Production. The character and actions of the killer are patterned after Charles Whitman, the University of Texas sniper. The character of actor Byron Orlok, named after Max Schreck's vampire Count Orlok in 1922's "Nosferatu", is patterned after Boris Karloff himself, who in fact plays the part in his last appearance in a major American film (although Bogdanovich states that, unlike Orlok, Karloff was not embittered with the movie business and did not wish to retire).
1164149	Roscoe Lee Browne (May 2, 1925 – April 11, 2007) was an American actor and director, known for his rich voice and dignified bearing. Biography. Browne was the fourth son of a Baptist minister, Sylvanus S. Browne, and his wife Lovie (née Lovie Lee Usher). Born in Woodbury, New Jersey, Browne first attended historically black Lincoln University in Pennsylvania, where he became a member of Omega Psi Phi fraternity and graduated with a bachelor's degree in 1946. He undertook postgraduate work at Middlebury College in Vermont, Columbia University in New York City, and at the University of Florence in Italy. Also an outstanding middle-distance runner, Browne won the Amateur Athletic Union 1,000-yard national indoor championship in 1949. He occasionally returned to Lincoln University between 1946 to 1952 to instruct classes in comparative literature, French, and English. Upon leaving academia he earned a living for several years selling wine for Schenley Import Corporation. Despite his limited amateur acting experience, in 1956 he stunned guests at a party – among them opera singer Leontyne Price – when he announced his intention to quit his secure job with Schenley to become a full-time professional actor. Acting career. Despite the apprehensions of his friends, Browne managed to land the roles of soothsayer and Pindarus in "Julius Caesar", directed by Joseph Papp for New York City's first Shakespeare Festival Theater. More work with the Shakespeare Festival Theater followed, and in 1961 he voiced a part as an off-screen camera operator, J. J. Burden, in "The Connection" (1961), his first movie role. Despite lacking extensive experience numerous film roles established his reputation as an exceptionally versatile character actor who was also capable of performing scene-stealing cameos. Science fiction fans know Browne as the voice of the evil robot Box in the movie "Logan's Run". Endowed with a resonant, baritone voice and able to project cynicism and a haughty, patrician tone cultivated over the years from reciting lines from Shakespeare, Browne was much in demand for narration and voice-over parts in film and on vinyl albums, audio tapes and CDs. During 1968-69 he was heard as a late-night DJ on WNEW-FM in New York reciting poetry, passages from the Bible, and assorted literary works. In 1968, he recorded "Music and Gibran", which consisted of English interpretations of Khalil Gibran's poetry, mixed over Middle Eastern background music performed by John Berberian (oud), Souren Baronian (clarinet and baritone saxophone), and Robert Marashlian, among others. Browne was determined not to accept stereotyped and demeaning roles that had routinely been offered to black actors, and he resisted emulating others. Browne also desired to do more than act and narrate, and in 1966 he wrote and made his directorial stage debut with "A Hand Is On The Gate" starring Cicely Tyson, James Earl Jones, Moses Gunn, and other rising black talent. A lifelong bachelor who coveted his privacy, in the turbulent decades of the civil rights revolution Browne avoided participation in public protests preferring instead to be “more effective on stage with metaphor...than in the streets with an editorial”. His theatrical work brought him to the attention of producer Leland Hayward, and in 1964 he began a regular stint as a cast member on Hayward's satirical NBC-TV series "That Was the Week That Was". Starting in the late 1960s, Browne increasingly became a guest star on TV on both comedy and dramatic shows like "Mannix", "All in the Family", "Good Times", "Sanford and Son", "The Cosby Show", "A Different World", and dozens of other shows. He also was a regular on "Soap" where he played Saunders, the erudite butler from 1979–81, replacing Robert Guillaume who went on to his own show "Benson". (Browne later guest-starred on "Benson" with Guillaume.) His appearances on "The Cosby Show", including a memorable episode in which he recited Shakespeare with fellow guest star Christopher Plummer, also drew acclaim as well winning an Emmy Award in 1986 for his guest role as Professor Foster. He and fellow actor Anthony Zerbe toured the United States with their poetry performance piece, "Behind the Broken Words", which included readings of poetry, some of it written by Browne, as well as performances of comedy and dramatic works.
402674	Lois Hamilton (October 14, 1952 – December 23, 1999) was an American model, author, actress, artist and aviatrix. Early life and career. Hamilton was born Lois Aurino in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She studied at Temple University in her native Philadelphia before going on to the University of Florence in Florence, Italy, where she received degrees in Psychology and Fine Arts. Her looks brought an opportunity with the Ford Modeling Agency where she became one of its top models during the 1970s. Hamilton graced the covers of many magazines, including "Cosmopolitan", "Fortune", "Mademoiselle", "Vogue Italia", "Prevue", "Neue Revue Illustrierte", "Newsweek", "Paris Match", "Hello!", "Redbook", "Ladies' Home Journal", "Glamour", "Time", and many others. Some of her ad campaigns included Chanel, Clairol, Halston, Pucci and Hermès, and she appeared in over 150 commercials worldwide. Moving to Hollywood, she made a successful transition from model to actress. Within a year, she landed more TV stints than any other actress at her agency. She worked with such notables as Ivan Reitman, Neil Simon, Sydney Pollack, Robert Redford, Ned Beatty, Burt Reynolds, John Candy, John Larroquette, Dom DeLuise, Roger Moore, Bill Murray, Jane Fonda, Dean Martin, Carl Reiner, David Carradine, Sammy Davis, Jr., Steve Guttenberg, Howard W. Koch, Albert S. Ruddy, Hal Needham, and Thomas R. Bond II to name a few. Under the name Lois Hamilton or Lois Areno, she appeared in several Hollywood films as well as on television shows including many popular series such as "Card Sharks", "The Dukes of Hazzard" and "Three's Company". When she wasn't involved in a feature film or television project, she took to the skies, where she was a licensed private pilot. She logged over 600 hours in the air and was an accomplished aerobatic pilot, flying her 1936 German biplane. Hamilton was also an accomplished sculptress, painter and writer. She exhibited her bronze sculptures and oil paintings in many one-woman shows in Los Angeles. An author as well, she penned her first novel, "Move Over Tarzan", a woman's guide on how to be as assertive as the most aggressive, successful man using a woman's femininity. Death. On December 23, 1999, Hamilton locked herself in her hotel room at the Sheraton Hotel in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Apparently depressed over her lingering injuries from an auto accident earlier in the year, she took a fatal overdose of sleeping pills. She was 47 years old. She is buried in Valhalla Memorial Park Cemetery.
591941	Lifeu Ishtene () is a dark comedy-drama Kannada film written and directed by Pawan Kumar. It features Diganth, Sindhu Lokanath and Samyukta Horanadu in the lead roles. The music is directed by Mano Murthy (which is his 25th movie) and the music album was released in July 2011 with lyrics being penned by Jayanth Kaikini along with Yograj Bhat who has also co-produced the film. The film was released in over 40 theaters across Karnataka on 9 September 2011 to a collection of over 6 crores in three weeks and received good critical reviews. Plot. Vishaal (Diganth) is a careless youngster who does not have any set goals in life. In contrast, his friend Shivu (Neenasam Satish) is serious and advises Vishaal to reform himself. But Vishaal, whose parents allow him a lot of freedom, finds his own way to deal with his love affairs. He falls in love with Nandini (Sindhu Loknath) and wants to marry her. Nandini wants Vishaal to take up a job as it will help her discuss the marriage proposal with her father. He thinks she is the one for him, but only till the point where he has to choose between his music career and her. At this point they break up. Later Vishaal meets television anchor Rashmi (Samyukta Horanadu) who is ready to marry him but Vishaal realises he wishes to be alone. Meanwhile, his best friend Shivu falls ill and the film ends with both of them video-conferencing about life in general. Production. Director Pawan Kumar had previously worked as an Assistant Director for Yograj Bhat's recent films like "Manasaare" and "Pancharangi" which were well received by critics. The title "lifeu ishtene" was taken from one of the most popular Kannada songs in 2010 from "Pancharangi" movie. Three weeks after the successful show of the film, Pawan Kumar said he is planning a sequel to the film which is tentatively titled "Wifeu Ishtene" which will "show how marriage is a bad idea for the character that Diganth played in "Lifeu Ishtene"." International release. The film will be screened overseas in the countries of USA, UK, Australia, Singapore, among others from October 2011 onwards. In California's Bay Area, the screening is scheduled for 14, 15, 16, 22 and 23 October at Serra Theaters. Online Release. The movie got released online to curb piracy and to reach out to NRI audience.The film released in two versions. While the high resolution one is priced at five dollars, the low resolution version for two dollars and fifty cents. Reception. Overall, the film garnered very good reviews from critics. Newspapers like Bangalore Mirror and Times of India both rated the film 4/5 stars. The film is noted for its story, screenplay and dialogues - all composed by the director Pawan Kumar. Magazine "Just Femme" has praised the film's just portrayal of feminine characters by saying that "the women in the film are real and they are not the usual whitened, straight-haired, fake-boobed, dolled-up women who constantly forgive the men around them." The Times of India summed it by calling it a 'film for the GenNext' which is a "brilliant directorial debut by Pawan Kumar who has infused freshness in the story combined with excellent script, lively narration and not a single dull moment in the story with punchy dialogues that reminds of a 'Yograjbhat touch.'" Soundtrack. "Lifeu Ishtene" music album, composed by Mano Murthy, was released on 29 July 2011. The rights for the album was purchased by Ashwini Audio House. The music director Mano Murthy of "Mungaru Male" fame has introduced two new singers Renju and Ankitha Pai for this film. During the audio release ceremony, lyricists Jayanth Kaikini and Yograj Bhat spoke not on the significance of the song but when and under what situation it was written and recorded. Director Soori, who is a close friend of Yograj Bhat, was also present during the audio release.
1015856	The Legend of Zu, also known as Zu Warriors in the United States, is a 2001 Hong Kong film produced and directed by Tsui Hark. The film starred Ekin Cheng, Louis Koo, Cecilia Cheung, Patrick Tam, Zhang Ziyi and Sammo Hung. It is based on the same source as the 1983 film "Zu Warriors from the Magic Mountain". Plot. Peace-keeping immortals living in clans inhabit a mythical mountain range called Zu, which exists between Heaven and Earth. A demon called Insomnia desires to rule Zu and the world below; it begins wiping out the various clans. In the Kunlun Mountains, Dawn sends away her apprentice, King Sky, because she believes that their emotional attachment hinders their progress. She gives him her weapon, the Moon Orb, to help him train; he is to return only after attaining a higher level. If she cannot be found, the Moon Orb will find her. Moments after they part, Insomnia attacks Dawn and disintegrates her. 200 years later, at Omei, Grandmaster White Brows senses darkness coming and dispatches his disciple, Red, to investigate. King Sky joins Red and the Omei clan to fight Insomnia. White Brows engages and weakens Insomnia with his weapon, the Sky Reflector; Insomnia retreats into the legendary Blood Cave; Omei's top warriors pursue Insomnia. At the cave, King Sky notices Enigma, who resembles Dawn. White Brows warns that the cave is capable of sucking away the powers of those who venture near it. Red and King Sky risk their lives to battle Insomnia within the cave, but they narrowly escape after White Brows sacrifices the Sky Reflector to save them. With Insomnia absorbing the cave's energy, White Brows has Red guard the cave entrance while the Omei reconnoiter. At Omei, White Brows tries to combine Enigma's Heaven Sword with Hollow's Thunder Sword, the two guardian weapons, to form a new weapon, the Flaming Sword of Thunder. Unfortunately, the fusion process fails, turning it into scrap metal, and rebounds; Hollow dies and Enigma is seriously injured, but King Sky rescues her. White Brows appears before King Sky and admits that Enigma is the reincarnation of Dawn. He then appoints King Sky as the chief of Omei as he ventures into a new dimension to find a weapon to defeat Insomnia. Before leaving, he resurrects Hollow, who is renamed "Ying", hoping that the reborn Hollow can wield the Thunder Sword in their most desperate hour. King Sky asks Enigma to help him attempt to use the sword, but is unsuccessful and he was burnt alive in the process. Enigma tries to save him, but fails and buries him. Meanwhile, Red is possessed by Amnesia (a flower demon) while guarding the Blood Cave. Red returns to Omei and decimates the clan and captures Enigma. Amnesia then destroys the rest of Omei, weakening the clan. To the survivors' frustration, Ying has yet to re-awaken his abilities. In a pitted fight against one of the Sword Saints, Thunder, Ying's abilities and memories return. Concurrently, through the power of resurrection, King Sky revives just in time to intercept White Brows's weapon. With his new weapon, King Sky joins Ying in confronting Red at the Blood Cave. After Ying rescues Enigma, they return to Omei to stop Insomnia's final assault. King Sky exorcises Red, but the latter sacrifices himself to destroy Amnesia. At Omei, Enigma and Ying successfully fuse their swords to form a new weapon to defeat Insomnia. King Sky joins the duo and they weaken Insomnia. Enigma possesses Insomnia to prevent the demon from escaping, giving King Sky a chance to destroy it. Just as Insomnia is destroyed, Enigma remembers herself as Dawn and tells King Sky she is happy to find him again before disappearing. After the battle, Enigma is reincarnated as a new immortal and Mount Omei is restored. King Sky parts with the Omei to rebuild his clan. Reception. Box office. The film grossed HK$10 million in its theatrical release in Hong Kong. Distribution. Although Miramax Films bought the rights to distribute it in the United States, the film was never released in theaters, despite advertising the American release with movie trailers (which appeared as previews & on the Apple website under Movie Trailers). It was eventually released on DVD on August 19, 2005 under the title of Zu Warriors. Critical reception. The film received mixed reviews from critics. Those who praised the film mostly noted its thrilling action scenes and elaborate, computer-generated sets. Unfortunately, the U.S. release cut the film down extensively, from 104 minutes to 80 minutes. Most of the scenes that were cut were plot and character development based, leaving most of the action intact. The end result being that the U.S. release (while action packed) is much harder to follow, with shallow characters and a plot so stripped of substance that it does not inspire the viewer to care about what is happening. The film is weakened dramatically from its original edit.
1042676	Carry on Admiral (released in the United States as The Ship Was Loaded) is a 1957 British comedy film directed by Val Guest and featuring David Tomlinson, Ronald Shiner and Joan Sims. It was not part of the "Carry On" series, which it predates, though it is similar in tone and style to the earliest films in the series and features Joan Sims. It was based on the 1947 stage play "Off the Record", written by Ian Hay. Plot. In the course of a drunken reunion, two old friends (one a junior Government minister, the other a Royal Navy officer about to take command for the first time) switch clothes before passing out. Next morning, their changed clothes result in a series of cases of mistaken identity. The film follows the efforts of each to reunite himself with his own destiny. Cast. The fictional ship HMS "Sherwood" in the film is played by a "Daring"-class destroyer. Other ships shown include the battleship and the frigate during the title sequence, two "Dido"-class cruisers in early background scenes, and a Loch-class frigate during the closing credits. There are several scenes filmed in Admiralty House, in Portsmouth Naval Base.
144847	Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Undead is a 2009 American independent film written and directed by Jordan Galland. The film's title refers to a fictitious play-within-the-movie, which is a comic reinterpretation of Shakespeare’s "Hamlet" and its aftermath and whose title is a reference to the play "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead". The cast includes Devon Aoki, John Ventimiglia, Kris Lemche, Ralph Macchio, Jeremy Sisto and Waris Ahluwalia. The film stars Jake Hoffman (son of Dustin Hoffman). An original musical score was composed and performed by Sean Lennon. Shooting began in late November, 2007, and principal photography was completed on December 23, 2007. It was filmed entirely in New York City with the Red Digital Cinema Camera, an extra-high-definition video camera. Plot summary. Julian Marsh (Jake Hoffman), an unemployed young lothario, is forced by his doctor dad (Chip Zien) to accept a job directing an off-Broadway play called "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Undead", which is described as a weird adaptation of "Hamlet". The play has been written by a mysterious, pallid Romanian named Theo Horace (John Ventimiglia), a vampire who has just killed a young woman (Bijou Phillips). Unaware of the danger that surrounds Theo’s play, Julian casts his best friend Vince (Kris Lemche) as Hamlet and uses his new job to impress his ex-girlfriend, Anna (Devon Aoki), an aspiring actress. To Julian’s dismay, Anna has taken up with a shady businessman named Bobby Bianchi (Ralph Macchio), who has reputed ties to the Mafia. When Anna is cast as Ophelia, she slowly gets involved with Theo. The roles of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern in Theo’s play are filled by Carlo (Carlos Velazquez) and Mickey (Mike Landry), two narcissistic actors as foolish as the characters they are cast to play. Opening night draws near and people begin to die. Two bumbling New York City detectives (Jeremy Sisto and Lou Carbonneau) chase suspects as the movie builds to its climactic sequence. The play within the film. Theo's play, "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Undead", is revealed in short segments throughout the movie. Its basic plot points are that Hamlet’s friend Horatio (played by Theo) is a master vampire, over 2000 years old, who had once lived in ancient Rome. Through a series of twists and turns, Hamlet and his simple-minded friends, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, become vampires themselves. When Horatio attempts to turn Hamlet’s girlfriend Ophelia into a vampire, she thwarts him by drowning herself first. Hamlet angrily confronts Horatio but discovers that one vampire cannot kill another. His only hope of reversing the curse that rendered him a vampire is to find the Holy Grail and drink from it. Horatio also becomes obsessed with finding the Grail in order to destroy it. The battle for the Grail between Hamlet and Horatio lasts for centuries and leads to the creation of four plays, each concealing a secret message. The first is Shakespeare's "Hamlet", written at Horatio’s bidding. The second is "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern," written in the nineteenth century by W. S. Gilbert (half of the duo of Gilbert and Sullivan). The third is Tom Stoppard's "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead," written in 1964. The final play in the cycle is this one, "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Undead", written by Horatio himself under the name Theo Horace. Its purpose: to lure the real Hamlet into a final confrontation. Production. Jordan Galland first conceived of the name, "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Undead", after playing Rosencrantz in a high school production of Tom Stoppard's play, "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead", at the age of 14. Several years later he was introduced to Stoppard, who encouraged him to pursue the idea. The film was shot in New York City at the end of 2007, using the Red Digital Cinema Camera (also known as The Red One), an ultra-high-definition video camera, which can record resolutions up to 4520 x 2540 using a Super 35-sized CMOS sensor. Galland, along with his editor, Connor Kalista, and cinematographer, Chris Lavasseur, presented their experience with the Red One at a content panel (“Case Study: Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Undead”) at the National Association of Broadcasters’ convention (NABShow 2008), on April 15, 2008. Soundtrack. Galland's longtime collaborator Sean Lennon has created an original musical score for the film. Release. The film ran in a limited cinema release in the United States on 11 June 2010. It is distributed by Indican Pictures. Critical reception. Website Metacritic assigned the film a 45 out of 100, indicating "mixed or average reviews". "Variety" gave the film a fairly positive review stating: ""Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Undead" is one sly slice of the ridiculous.
1162459	Jimmy Boyd (January 9, 1939 – March 7, 2009) was an American singer, musician, and actor. He was best known for his recording of the song "I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus". Early years. James Boyd was born near McComb, Mississippi to Leslie and Winnie Boyd. His father was a farmer and picked cotton to help support his own family of 21 brothers and sisters. When Jimmy Boyd was 2 years old, his father put his wife and their two sons on a train to Riverside, California. With not enough money to buy tickets for himself, Leslie Boyd hitchhiked on freight trains to join his family.
344793	Matthew McGrory (May 17, 1973 – August 9, 2005) was an American actor, known for his great height. Early life. McGrory was born in West Chester, Pennsylvania. He studied pre-law at Widener University, where he resided in campus housing on the first floor of Howell Hall. He also studied Criminal Justice at West Chester University. McGrory grew to the height of and had size 29.5 shoes. He was over five feet tall when he graduated from kindergarten. Career. McGrory's large size led to appearances on The Howard Stern Show beginning in December 1996 with the nickname "Big Foot", as a member of Stern's Wack Pack. He also appeared on Oprah Winfrey's daytime talk show and in music videos including Iron Maiden's "The Wicker Man" and the 1999 Marilyn Manson "Coma White" (and "God is in the TV" VHS cover). He can also be seen in Blondie's video for their 2003 hit "Good Boys." Due to his height and deep voice, he was in demand to play roles in movies cast as a giant – he did so in films such as "Bubble Boy" (2001), "Big Fish" (2003), "House of 1000 Corpses" (2003) and "The Devil's Rejects" (2005). Television appearances included "Malcolm in the Middle", "Charmed", and "Carnivàle". The "Guinness Book of World Records" awarded him the titles of the tallest actor, the largest toe, and the world's largest feet not caused by Elephantiasis – size 29½. At the time of his death he was playing André the Giant in a film about the wrestler's life. Death. He lived in Sherman Oaks, California, with his girlfriend Melissa. On August 9, 2005, McGrory died at age 32 of natural causes (he was never diagnosed as having gigantism). Rob Zombie's film "The Devil's Rejects" was dedicated to him.
1064302	Dina Meyer (born December 22, 1968) is an American film and television actress best known for her roles as Barbara Gordon in "Birds of Prey", Dizzy Flores in "Starship Troopers" and Detective Allison Kerry in the "Saw" films. She portrayed Mrs. Hong as a recurring guest star on ABC's "Scoundrels". Personal life. Dina Meyer was born and raised in Forest Hills, Queens, New York. Her family, which includes her older brother Gregory and her younger brother Evan, moved to Dix Hills, Long Island, just before her last year of junior high school. Her first experience in the entertainment industry came when she did some modeling from ages nine to 16. She always wanted to become an actress but her parents did not think that was a wise career move; they wanted her to get a good education, so she went to college and graduated from Long Island University in 1990 with a bachelor's degree in business administration with a concentration in marketing and a minor in French. Career. Meyer started acting in 1993, with her first major role playing Lucinda Nicholson in the TV series "Beverly Hills, 90210". In the same year she made her film debut in the TV film "Strapped". She broke out two years later, playing the cybernetically enhanced bodyguard Jane in the cyberpunk thriller "Johnny Mnemonic". In addition to "Johnny Mnemonic", she has played roles in other science fiction productions including "Starship Troopers", "Birds of Prey" and "Star Trek Nemesis". She played Detective Allison Kerry in the horror/thriller film "Saw" and its sequels. She made several guest appearances on "Friends" and "Miss Match," the latter alongside another former Batgirl actress, Alicia Silverstone. She also played one of the leads on "Point Pleasant". In March 2006, Meyer was in the series premiere episode of "Thief" as Wanda, the wife of Andre Braugher's character Nick, although her character did not reappear. In 2009 she made an appearance on "Burn Notice" as Samantha, Michael Weston's ex-fiancee. Meyer has a recurring role on ABC's 2010 series "Scoundrels" as Mrs. Hong.
1163478	Ida Lupino (4 February 1918 – 3 August 1995) was an English-American film actress and director, and a pioneer among women filmmakers. In her forty-eight year career, she appeared in fifty-nine films and directed seven others, mostly in the United States, where she became a citizen in 1948. She co-wrote and co-produced some of her own films as well. She appeared in serial television programmes fifty-eight times and directed fifty other episodes. Additionally, she contributed as a writer to five films and four TV episodes. Early life and family. Lupino was born in Camberwell, London, to actress Connie O'Shea (Connie Emerald) and music hall entertainer Stanley Lupino, a member of the theatrical Lupino family. Lupino's birth year is 1918 and not 1914 as some biographies have claimed.
1035800	Julie Therese Wallace (born 28 May 1961 in Wimbledon, London, England) is an English actress. Biography. Julie T. Wallace is the daughter of the actor Andrew Keir, and is the sister of the actors Sean Keir and Deirdre Keir. She stands 6 feet 2 inches tall (188 cm). She made her television debut in the title role in the BBC TV dramatisation of Fay Weldon's "The Life and Loves of a She-Devil" in 1986. The following year, she made a cameo playing the part of Rosika Miklos in the James Bond film "The Living Daylights." She starred in "The Comic Strip Presents..." "Queen of the Wild Frontier." In 1996, she was featured as Serpentine in Neil Gaiman's BBC miniseries "Neverwhere". She also played Major Iceborg in the 1997 cult classic "The Fifth Element". She has continued to make regular film and television appearances in supporting roles, with recurring roles in "Last of the Summer Wine" and "Catterick". She appeared in the short film "Rita" alongside Edward Bryant, and most recently in the BBC comedy series "Big School".
1163206	Thomas Christopher "Chris" Parnell (born February 5, 1967) is an American comic actor best known as a cast member on "Saturday Night Live" from 1998–2006 and for his role as Dr. Leo Spaceman on NBC's Emmy Award-winning comedy series "30 Rock". Parnell currently voices Cyril Figgis on the FX animated comedy "Archer" and co-stars as Fred Shay on the ABC sitcom "Suburgatory". Early life. Parnell was born in Memphis, Tennessee. His family was Southern Baptist. He graduated from Germantown High School and later attended the University of North Carolina School of the Arts where he received his BFA in Drama. After graduating, Parnell moved back to Tennessee and taught acting and film at his former high school. With a strong passion for performing, Parnell eventually moved to Los Angeles to pursue an acting career. While in Los Angeles, he began performing with The Groundlings, where he was eventually discovered by "Saturday Night Live". Career. After performing as a company player with The Groundlings for a number of years, Parnell was hired to join the cast of "Saturday Night Live" as a featured player on September 26, 1998, and was promoted to repertory player the following season. In the summer of 2001, budget cuts and hiring four new cast members required Lorne Michaels to dismiss two cast members; he chose to lay off Parnell and Jerry Minor over Horatio Sanz, Rachel Dratch, and Maya Rudolph, but Parnell was rehired in the middle of the next season, and Lorne Michaels has been attributed as having called firing Parnell a mistake. While on SNL, Parnell appeared in numerous sketches, and commercial parodies, and performed memorable impressions of various celebrities. Among his notable sketches are "Lazy Sunday", a rap video he shot with Andy Samberg about buying cupcakes and going to see "The Chronicles of Narnia", and "More Cowbell". He has also performed raps about hosts Jennifer Garner, Britney Spears, Kirsten Dunst and Ashton Kutcher. On the 30 Rock DVD commentary (S05E04 West Coast) Tina Fey and Beth McCarthy Miller said Parnell was nick-named "The Ice Man" whilst working at SNL, because of his apparent immunity to breaking, citing the "Cowbell sketch" in which he was the only actor not to break. In the summer of 2006, Lorne Michaels announced that four cast members would be fired due to budget cuts, but he did not say who. On September 22, 2006 it was announced that three cast members had been fired: Parnell, Horatio Sanz, and Finesse Mitchell. This effectively made him the only SNL performer to have been fired twice by Lorne Michaels, though Parnell did say in a 2008 interview with The Sound of Young America podcast that he was okay with being let go this time, because he was considering leaving after that season anyway, but added that he probably would have stayed one last season if he was asked back. He had been with SNL for eight seasons; at the time only four people (Darrell Hammond, Tim Meadows, Kevin Nealon, and Al Franken) had been cast members longer. He has since made uncredited cameo appearances on the show, including parodying newscasters Tom Brokaw, Jim Lehrer, and Bob Schieffer. Parnell and his former "SNL" castmate Horatio Sanz starred together in "Big Lake", a 2010 sitcom on Comedy Central from executive producers Will Ferrell and Adam McKay. Parnell was the voice of Fly in the animation movie "Hotel Transylvania" and is currently a series regular on the FX animated series "Archer" and made recurring guest appearances as Dr. Leo Spaceman on "30 Rock" and provides the voice of the narrator on the PBS children's series "WordGirl". Parnell currently co-stars on the ABC comedy series "Suburgatory" where he plays the husband of his former "SNL" co-star Ana Gasteyer. His role started out as recurring in the first season but he was bumped up to a series regular in the second season. Filmography.
582392	Mr. India is a 1987 Indian Hindi science fiction superhero film directed by Shekhar Kapur. It stars Sridevi , Anil Kapoor and Amrish Puri in lead roles The film was the second biggest hit of 1987, and remains a cult classic in India. The film was known for several of its lines and songs, including Sridevi's "Miss Hawa Hawaii" performance, and Amrish Puri's quote "Mogambo khush hua" (Mogambo is pleased), which is one of the most famous quotes of Bollywood and has become synonymous with Puri. The Mogambo character is also considered to be one of the best villains in Bollywood history. Laxmikant-Pyarelal's music performed well too, especially the song Hawa Hawaii which is very popular till today. The film has often been featured in different lists of top Bollywood films. "Indiatimes Movies" ranks the movie amongst the "Top 25 Must See Bollywood Films". This was the last film that the writing duo Salim-Javed wrote together. They had split up earlier in 1982, but came back for one last film. The film was also remade in Tamil as "En Rathathin Rathame", starring K. Bhagyaraj. in Kannada as "Jai Karnataka", starring Ambareesh. On the centenary of Indian Cinema, "Mr. India" has been declared one of the 100 Greatest Indian Films of All Time. Plot. The film opens with the revelation that violence has escalated in India, in which the central villain is Mogambo (Amrish Puri). Mogambo is a brilliant yet insane General whose goal is to conquer India. From his island, modeled after the island of Dr. No, Mogambo monitors the evil-doings perpetrated by his henchmen. All his subordinates know the formal salute "Hail Mogambo!", emphasizing his complete authority over his minions.This film tells the story of a common man who is suffered by financial problems reguarding with some orphan boys and girls. Arun Verma (Anil Kapoor) is an orphan and a street-walking violinist who rents a large, old house. There, he houses a dozen or so orphaned children and takes care of them with the help of his cook and caretaker Calendar (Satish Kaushik). Arun is poor, owes debts to the local food merchant Roopchand (Harish Patel), and is overdue to pay the landlord Maniklal (Yunus Parvez). In spite of these problems, Arun tries to look on the bright side of every situation. As time goes by, Calendar reminds Arun that the cost of running the home continues to rise. Arun decides to rent out the room on the first floor. When he goes to the local newspaper to run an advertisement for the room, he meets Seema Sohni (Sridevi) and makes her his tenant. They get off to a rocky start but Seema eventually becomes friends with everyone.
1165701	Neville Brand (August 13, 1920 – April 16, 1992) was an American television and movie actor. Early life. Neville Brand was born in Griswold, Iowa to Leo and Helen Brand as one of seven children. His father had worked as an electrician and bridge building steel worker in Detroit. Neville was raised in Kewanee, Illinois, where he attended high school. After his schooling, he helped support the family employed as a soda jerk, waiter, and shoe salesman in Kewanee.
1164611	Virginia Grey (March 22, 1917 – July 31, 2004) was an American actress. She was born in Los Angeles, California, the daughter of director Ray Grey. One of her early babysitters was movie star Gloria Swanson. Grey debuted at the age of ten in the silent film "Uncle Tom's Cabin" (1927) as Little Eva. She continued acting for a few more years, but then left movies in order to finish her education. Grey returned to films in the 1930s with bit parts and extra work, but she eventually signed a contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and appeared in several films, including "The Hardys Ride High" (1939), "Another Thin Man" (1939), "Hullabaloo" (1940), and "The Big Store" (1941). She left MGM in 1942, and signed with several different studios over the years, working steadily. During the 1950s and 1960s, producer Ross Hunter frequently included Grey in his popular soap melodramas, such as "All That Heaven Allows", "Back Street" and "Madame X". She had an on again/off again relationship with Clark Gable in the 1940s. After his wife Carole Lombard died and he returned from military service, Clark and Virginia were often seen at restaurants and nightclubs together. Many, including Virginia herself, expected him to marry her. The tabloids were all expecting the wedding announcement. It was a great surprise when he hastily married Lady Sylvia Ashley in 1949. Virginia was heartbroken. They divorced in 1952, but much to Virginia's dismay their brief romance was never rekindled. Her friends say that her hoping and waiting for Clark was the reason she never married. She was a regular on television in the 1950s and 1960s, appearing on "Playhouse 90", "U.S. Marshal", "General Electric Theater", "The DuPont Show with June Allyson", "Your Show of Shows", "Red Skelton", "Wagon Train", "Bonanza", "Marcus Welby, M.D.", "Love, American Style", "Burke's Law", "The Virginian", "Peter Gunn" and many others. She was portrayed by Anna Torv in the HBO Mini-series "The Pacific".
1162994	Mitchell Ryan is an American actor known mostly for playing Burke Devlin in the gothic soap opera Dark Shadows. Early life. Ryan was raised in Louisville, Kentucky. He served in the U.S. Navy during the Korean War. After the Korean War, he went to the Barter Theatre in Abingdon, Virginia. There he went on to make his acting debut in "Thunder Road" along with the Theatre's founder Robert Porterfield. Career. A life member of The Actors Studio, Ryan's Broadway theatre credits include "Wait Until Dark", "Medea", and "The Price". Ryan was an original cast member on the cult TV soap "Dark Shadows", playing Burke Devlin until he was fired from the show in June 1967 due to his alcoholism, and replaced by Anthony George.
1016437	CJ7 () is a 2008 Hong Kong-Chinese science fiction film co-written, co-produced, starring, and directed by Stephen Chow. It was released on 31 January 2008 in Hong Kong. It was also released on 14 March 2008 in the United States. In August 2007 the film was given the title "CJ7", a play on China's successful Shenzhou manned space missions—Shenzhou 5 and Shenzhou 6. It was previously known by a series of working titles—"Alien", "Yangtze River VII", "Long River 7" and most notably, "A Hope". "CJ7" was filmed in Ningbo, in the Zhejiang province of China. Plot. Chow Ti is a poor laborer working on construction sites. He lives in a partially demolished house with his son, Dicky. Chow is eager to save money so he can continue sending his son to private school. However, Dicky is often bullied by other children and his teacher, and he usually finds comfort with a young educator, Ms. Yuen. One day, while at a department store, Dicky begs his father to buy him a popular robotic toy called CJ1. Chow cannot afford it, and the situation ends badly when Chow spanks the stubborn Dicky in front of other customers. Again, Dicky finds comfort in Ms. Yuen, who is passing by. That night, Chow visits the junkyard where he often picks up home appliances and clothes for Dicky. He finds a strange green orb and takes it home, telling Dicky that it is a new toy. Hesitant at first, Dicky agrees to keep it. The following evening, the orb transforms into a cuddly alien creature that befriends Dicky. After playing, he names the alien "CJ7", and then falls asleep. He dreams that the alien will help him gain popularity and good grades at school. Dicky takes CJ7 to school, but he receives a zero on his exam and is humiliated during physical education. Frustrated, Dicky tries to dispose of the CJ7, but realizes his mistake and later reconciles with it. The next day, because of his alien pet, Dicky begins to make new friends at school. However, when his father discovers that he lied about his bad exam result, Chow confiscates CJ7. The father and son fall out, so Dicky sticks close to Ms. Yuen, who promises she will look after him. This cheers Chow up somewhat, who fears he might lose his son's love. Dicky manages to pass another test with aid of Ms. Yuen,and is excited to show his father about this. Later, while Chow is working on a skyscraper, his foot becomes entangled in a rope. He later dies at a hospital. CJ7 then sacrifices his life to revive Chow. The next morning, Dicky promises his father he will never give up school. At the last day of school, the kids field trip into a park where Dicky sees a UFO land nearby, from which run hundreds of little aliens, led by the resurrected CJ7. Production. As with the title "CJ7", the earlier working titles, "A Hope", "Yangtze River VII", and "Long River 7", referred to the Chinese manned space program. The mission of Shenzhou 6 was completed in 2006 and the real Shenzhou 7 successfully launched in September 2008. The film had a budget of US$20 million, and heavily uses CG effects. Xu Jiao, the child who plays Dicky, is in fact female. She had to cross-dress to be in the film. Homages. References to Chow's other films are made during some scenes, particularly during Dicky's dream sequence. These references include Dicky using his super sneakers to kick a soccer ball into the goal, which subsequently collapses (referencing "Shaolin Soccer") and Dicky flying into the sky with his sneakers, jumping from the head of an eagle, seeing CJ7's shape as a cloud and using the Buddha's Palm, (referencing "Kung Fu Hustle"). The scene where Dicky tosses away his glasses while they self-destruct is a reference to John Woo's "Mission Impossible II". On one of the DVD featurettes, Chow cites "E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial" and "Doraemon" as an influence on the film. Critical reception. During its North American limited release, "CJ7" received mixed reviews from critics. The review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reported that 51% of critics gave the film positive reviews, based on 73 reviews, much lower than Stephen Chow's previous films "Shaolin Soccer" (91%) and "Kung Fu Hustle" (90%). Metacritic reported the film had an average score of 46 out of 100, based on 18 reviews. The film fared no better with local Hong Kong critics. Perry Lam of "Muse" gave a decidedly negative review of the film: 'We go to see a Stephen Chow movie for its great entertainment value and, occasionally, its terrific cinematic panache. We don't need to be told that we are morally superior because we don't have much money.' Awards and nominations. 28th Hong Kong Film Awards
1052912	"Not to be confused with Peter Griffin" Peter Atwill Griffith (October 23, 1933 – May 14, 2001) was an American advertising executive and former child stage actor. Life and career. Griffith was born in Baltimore, Maryland, the son of Hilda (née Atwill) and Ben E. Griffith. He had one sister Sally Ann Griffith. Griffith was a veteran in the U.S. Army serving in the Korean War. His mother managed his acting career as he worked as a child actor, appearing on Broadway a few times.
1061003	Kim Victoria Cattrall (; born 21 August 1956) is an English-born Canadian actress. She is known for her role as Samantha Jones in the HBO comedy/romance series "Sex and the City" and for her leading roles in the 1980s films "Police Academy", "Big Trouble in Little China", "Mannequin", "Porky's" and "". For her role as Samantha Jones, she won a Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress in 2002 and received four nominations for the role. Her success in "Sex and the City" also led her to receive two Screen Actors Guild Awards out of seven nominations (including two for Outstanding Female Actress in a Comedy Series) and five Emmy Award nominations for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series. In 2005, "TV Guide" ranked Cattrall # 8 on its "50 Sexiest Stars of All Time" list. Early life. Cattrall was born in Mossley Hill, Liverpool. Her mother, Gladys Shane (née Baugh), was a secretary, and her father, Dennis Cattrall, was a construction engineer. When she was three months old, her family emigrated to the Canadian city of Courtenay in British Columbia. At 11, she returned to England when her grandmother became ill. She took a number of acting examinations with the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art (LAMDA), before returning to Canada at age 16 to finish high school. Career. Cattrall began her career after graduating from high school in 1972, when she left Canada for New York City. There, she attended the American Academy of Dramatic Arts and upon her graduation, signed a five-year film deal with director Otto Preminger. She made her film debut in Preminger's "Rosebud" in 1975. A year later, Universal Studios bought out that contract and Cattrall became one of the last participants in the contract player system of Universal (also referenced as MCA/Universal during this period) before the system ended in 1980. The Universal system's representative in New York, Eleanor Kilgallen (sister of Dorothy Kilgallen), cast Cattrall in numerous TV guest-star roles. One of the first jobs Kilgallen got her was in a 1977 episode of "Quincy, M.E." starring Jack Klugman, whom Kilgallen also represented. In 1978, Cattrall played the female lead in a two-hour episode of "Columbo". In 1979, she played the role of Dr. Gabrielle White in "The Incredible Hulk" and would go down in TV "Hulk" lore as one of the few characters who knew David Banner (alter ego of the titular character) was alive and was the creature. Her work in television paid off and she quickly made the transition to cinema. She starred opposite Jack Lemmon in his Oscar-nominated film "Tribute" in 1980, and in "Crossbar", the film about a high jumper who loses his leg and still participates in the Olympic trials, with Cattrall's help. The following year, she starred in the critically acclaimed "Ticket to Heaven". In 1982, Cattrall played P.E. teacher Miss Honeywell (""Lassie"") in "Porky's", followed two years later by a role in the original "Police Academy". In 1985, she starred in three films: "Turk 182", "City Limits" and "Hold-Up", the last with French star Jean-Paul Belmondo. In 1986, she played Kurt Russell's brainy flame in the action film "Big Trouble in Little China". In 1987, her lead role in "Mannequin" proved a huge success with audiences. One of her best-known film roles is that of Lieutenant Valeris in "". Near the end of filming, Cattrall had a photographer shoot a roll of film on the "Enterprise" bridge set, in which she wore nothing but her Vulcan ears. After finding out about the unauthorised photo session, Leonard Nimoy had the film destroyed. Aside from her film work, Cattrall is also a stage and theatre actress, with performances in Arthur Miller's "A View from the Bridge" and Anton Chekhov's "Three Sisters" and "Wild Honey" to her credit. In 1997, she was cast in "Sex and the City", Darren Star's series which was broadcast on HBO. As Samantha Jones, Cattrall gained international recognition. She capitalised on her success by appearing in steamy television commercials promoting Pepsi One. She also signed a publishing deal to write a book about sex with her third husband, Mark Levinson. In addition, she can be heard reading the poetry of Rupert Brooke on the CD "Red Rose Music SACD Sampler Volume One". Her film work continued during "Sex and the City" when she appeared in Britney Spears' first film venture, "Crossroads". "Sex and the City" ended as a weekly series in spring 2004 with 10.6 million viewers. Cattrall reprised the role of Samantha Jones in the "Sex and the City" film, released on 30 May 2008. She also appeared in the sequel released in May 2010. She was nominated for 5 "Emmy Awards" for her role in the show. In 2005, she appeared in the Disney film "Ice Princess", in which she played ice skating coach Tina Harwood of the film's lead character. She portrayed Claire, a paralysed woman who wants to die, in the West End drama revival of "Whose Life Is It Anyway?". In October 2006, she appeared in a West End production of David Mamet's "The Cryptogram" at the Donmar Warehouse in London. Since late 2005, she has appeared in a number of British television commercials for Tetley Tea. In July 2006, a commercial for Nissan cars, which featured Cattrall as Samantha Jones, was withdrawn from New Zealand television, apparently because of complaints about its innuendo. In 2006, she starred alongside Brendan Gleeson in John Boorman's 2006 film "The Tiger's Tail", a black comedy that focuses on the impact of the Celtic Tiger economy on Irish people. On ITV, she starred alongside David Haig, Daniel Radcliffe and Carey Mulligan in "My Boy Jack", the story of author Rudyard Kipling's search for his son lost in the First World War. In early 2009, Kim Cattrall played Amelia Bly in Roman Polanski's well received "The Ghost Writer", which was released in 2010. On 16 June 2009, it was announced that Cattrall would receive a star on Canada's Walk of Fame in Toronto. The induction ceremony was held on 12 September 2009. In November 2009 whilst filming "Sex and the City 2" in Marrakech, Morocco, she took part in an seminar, 'Being directed' with Director John Boorman as part of the 3rd Edition of the Arts in Marrakech Festival. On 24 February 2010, Cattrall began a critically acclaimed run in the West End of London at the Vaudeville Theatre as leading lady, Amanda, opposite Matthew Macfadyen, almost twenty years her junior, in a revival of Noël Coward's play "Private Lives". She performed until 3 May 2010. In the same year Cattrall starred as Gloria Scabius (alongside Macfadyen once again) in the critically acclaimed Channel 4 adaptation of William Boyd's Novel "Any Human Heart". Cattrall played Cleopatra in a production of "Antony and Cleopatra", directed by Janet Suzman, opposite Jeffery Kissoon as Anthony, in Liverpool at the Playhouse in October 2010, with a subsequent revival at Chichester Festival Theatre (with Michael Pennington as Anthony) in September 2012. In 2010, Cattrall was named an Honorary Fellow of Liverpool John Moores University in recognition of her contributions to the dramatic arts. In 2011, Cattrall reprised her role as Amanda in a production of Noël Coward's "Private Lives" opposite Canadian actor Paul Gross in Toronto, Canada and on Broadway. That year, Cattrall also appeared in "Uptown Downstairs Abbey", the Comic Relief parody of the critically acclaimed historical television dramas Downton Abbey and Upstairs Downstairs. Playing Lady Grantham, she starred alongside Jennifer Saunders, Joanna Lumley, Victoria Wood, Harry Enfield, Patrick Barlow, Dale Winton, Olivia Colman, Tim Vine, Simon Callow, Michael Gambon, and Harry Hill. From June to August 2013, Cattrall is schedule to star in The Old Vic's production of Tennessee Williams's "Sweet Bird of Youth", directed by Olivier Award-winner Marianne Elliott. Personal life. Cattrall has been married three times. Her 1977 to 1979 marriage to Larry Davis was annulled. Her second marriage was from 1982 to 1989 to Andre J. Lyson; with him, she lived in Frankfurt and learned to speak German fluently, but admits she has forgotten a lot over the years. From 1998 to 2004, she was married to audio designer and jazz bassist Mark Levinson. The two co-wrote the 2002 book "Satisfaction: The Art of the Female Orgasm". Cattrall has also been linked with former Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau, actor Daniel Benzali, musician Gerald Casale of the New Wave group Devo, French public intellectual Bernard-Henri Lévy, and her "Whose Life Is It Anyway?" co-star Alexander Siddig. She currently lives in New York and in an East Hampton, New York, waterfront home. In 2007, Cattrall revealed that, in December 1988, she had been booked on Pan Am Flight 103, the plane which crashed in Lockerbie, Scotland, after a terrorist bomb was detonated during the flight. She cancelled her booking on the flight at the last minute to complete some Christmas shopping in London. She holds dual British and Canadian citizenship. In a 2011 interview on the Canadian radio show "Q", Cattrall stated that reports that she became a U.S. citizen in 2008 are incorrect. In a 2010 interview with British journalist Sophy Grimshaw, Cattrall also stated: "It’s been falsely reported on the net many times that I became an American citizen, which I have not. I love America, I love New York, but I will never give up who I am. I’m not an American." In August 2009, Cattrall took part in the BBC TV show "Who Do You Think You Are?", where she discovered some uncomfortable facts about her grandfather, George Baugh. Baugh, who disappeared in 1938, having abandoned his family – including Cattrall's then 8-year-old mother and two younger sisters – turned out to have bigamously married his new wife Isabella Oliver the following year in Tudhoe, County Durham, and subsequently had another four children. In 1961, he emigrated to Australia, where he became a postmaster, retiring in 1972 and dying in Sydney in 1974. Cattrall's mother and aunts had known nothing of their father's life after he left until they heard what the "Who Do You Think You Are?" researchers had discovered, nor had the family previously seen a clear photograph of him. An edited version of the episode was later shown as a part of the U.S. series of the same name. Cattrall is an avid supporter of Liverpool F.C.
585846	Ustaad (Malayalam: ഉസ്താദ്) is a 1999 Indian Malayalam film written by Ranjith and directed by Sibi Malayil. The film follows Parameshwaran, a high profile businessman, who leads a dual life of an underworld negotiator. It starred Mohanlal, Indraja, Divya Unni, Narendra Prasad, N. F. Varghese and Vineeth. It was produced jointly by Shaji Kailas and Ranjith under the banner of Country Talkies. The film was well received at the box office and became a huge hit. Plot. Two men are negotiating with boss Yousuf Shah (Rajeev), who produces a suitcase of money, but the deal falls through and Shah has his henchmen beat them up. They call for backup, and a van arrives. Ustaad (Mohanlal) jumps out of the van, beats up the gang at the factory, and eventually Shah, where he sits with him and completes the deal. Back in Kozhikode, his hometown, Ustaad is merely Parameshwaran, an adorable brother, and guardian to his younger sister Padmaja (Divya Unni). He maintains a low profile as a businessman who has ventured into real estate.
1677188	The Singing Ringing Tree () was a children's film made by East German studio DEFA in 1957 and shown in the form of a television series by the BBC. It was a story in the style of the Brothers Grimm, directed by Francesco Stefani. Plot summary. The story concerns a beautiful but selfish and haughty princess who rejects the proposal of a wealthy prince. She scorns the gifts he offers her, and says that she will marry him only if he brings her the mythical "singing ringing tree". The prince locates the tree in the territory of an evil dwarf, who offers to give him the enchanted tree, on the understanding that, if the princess still rejects him, he will be in the dwarf's power and will be turned into a bear. Because the tree will only sing and ring when the princess falls in love with the prince, she is disappointed in it and continues to reject the prince. The prince is forced to return to the dwarf's lair and is turned into a bear. The princess sends her father to find the singing ringing tree for her, but he is met by the prince, in the guise of a bear, who gives him the tree on condition that the king returns with the first thing the king sees on his return. This turns out to be the princess, who is now delivered into the hands of the dwarf. The dwarf, seeing the princess's self-centred behaviour, casts a spell to make her ugly. The bear tells her that she will regain her beauty only if she changes her ways. Gradually she is won over by the bear and becomes beautiful again. Despite the dwarf's attempts to keep her and the prince apart, she eventually falls in love with him and the singing ringing tree finally lives up to its name. Cast. In credits order. Production. The film was shot in colour entirely in the studio in Potsdam, Brandenburg, East Germany. There was later confusion as to whether the actor who played the dwarf was named Richard Krüger and died in Strasbourg, or was Hermann Emmrich who died in 1995 and is buried in Prenzlau in north eastern Germany. It is now thought that they were one and the same person. Release. After its release in East Germany, it sold 5,901,141 tickets in the country. The film was then purchased by the BBC and cut into three parts to create a mini-series which was first broadcast on black and white television from 19 November 1964 to 3 December 1964 as part of "Tales from Europe", with an English-language voice-over track (not dubbed, however, the original soundtrack was simply faded up and down). It was repeated many times through to 1980. In 1988 it was released on VHS video in Germany and it is now available on a DVD. Reviews. A "Radio Times" readers' poll in 2004 voted this programme the 20th spookiest TV show ever. "The Fast Show" parody. A spoof of the series was created as a sketch in the last season of "The Fast Show", entitled, "The Singing Ringing Binging Plinging Tinging Plinking Plonking Boinging Tree".
1067662	The Curse of the Jade Scorpion is a 2001 crime comedy film written by, directed by, and starring Woody Allen. The cast also features Helen Hunt, Dan Aykroyd, Elizabeth Berkley, John Schuck, Wallace Shawn, David Ogden Stiers, and Charlize Theron. The plot concerns an insurance investigator and an efficiency expert who are both hypnotized by a crooked hypnotist into stealing jewels. The film bears much more in common with Allen's earlier screwball comedy films than with other films made by him around the same time. Plot. In 1940, C. W. Briggs (Woody Allen) is an insurance investigator in New York City who is highly successful, owing to his many connections and ability to think like a criminal. His work does not impress Betty Ann Fitzgerald (Helen Hunt), an efficiency expert who butts heads with C. W. over his old-fashioned views. Her advice is usually followed however, because she secretly is in a relationship with her boss, Chris Magruder (Dan Aykroyd), who constantly reassures her that they will be free to pursue their relationship in public once he finalizes his divorce with his wife. While attending a dinner with some employees, Voltan (David Ogden Stiers), a stage magician calls on Betty Ann and C. W. to be in his hypnotism act. Using the words "Madagascar" and "Constantinople" on them respectively as trigger words to put them in a trance, the two are given the suggestion that they are newlyweds who are madly in love before being reawakened. When C. W. returns home for the evening, he receives a call from Voltan, who uses C. W.'s trigger word to put him back in a trance and orders him to steal jewels for him. C. W. has no recollections of these crimes after he is woken up and is determined to prove himself by solving the crimes. He starts investigating Betty Ann on the grounds of her suspicious behavior (actually related to her affair with Chris) and sneaks into her house one evening. There, he witnesses Chris tell her that he has reconciled with his wife and will not have a divorce. When he leaves, Betty Ann becomes drunk in a fit of depression and tries jumping out of a window. C. W. stops her and spends the night keeping her from other self-destructive activity. Eventually, investigations start picking up evidence pointing to C. W., leading to his arrest. He manages to escape to Betty Ann's place, where she grudgingly hides him. Thinking that Briggs is no longer available, Voltan starts calling Betty Ann, using her trigger word of "Madagascar" to put her in a hypnotic state and resume stealing for him. It also becomes apparent that the subliminal suggestion of being in love has remained, as Betty Ann and C. W. continue acting the part of newlyweds with each other while hypnotized. This leads C. W.'s co-workers George Bond (Wallace Shawn) and Alvin "Al" (Brian Markinson) to recall the initial hypnotism and realize that it is the cause of the robberies. George, an amateur magician, frees C. W. of the trigger word and upon remembering everything, he rushes to the site where the still hypnotized Betty Ann is delivering the jewels to Voltan. Voltan discovers C. W. and holds him at gunpoint. However, C. W. deduces that a small-time criminal like Voltan would not have the nerve to do something as drastic as murder. Voltan tries escaping, but the police catch him shortly after. Back at work, C. W. tries convincing Betty Ann that he loves her and she is better off with him than Chris (who insists once more that his relationship with his wife has begun to deteriorate and that they will be divorcing). She remains unwilling to break up with Chris, leading C. W. to ask, "Where are you going? Madagascar?" and puts her in a hypnotic and loving state. As they are leaving, George remarks that he had already deprogrammed her, and C. W. realizes that as well and understands that Betty Ann is going with him voluntarily, and the two walk off. Critical reception. The film received mixed reviews from critics; review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reported that the film received 45% positive reviews, based on 122 reviews. Metacritic reported the film had an average score of 52 out of 100, based on 31 reviews. Allen himself seems to be in relative agreement with some critics, remarking that it is perhaps his worst movie. Allen has said he felt he let down the rest of the cast by casting himself as the lead. He explained that part of the problem was the period setting and the set building expense which made it too expensive to go back and reshoot anything. Allen famously re-shot the entirety of his 1987 drama "September" after he felt he got the casting wrong. With its production budget of $26 million, it is Allen's most expensive film. In relation to most of his most successful productions, the film fared poorly in American theaters with ticket sales of less than seven million dollars. Its worldwide gross was $18.9 million. However, in the ten years since its release, it is beginning to enjoy a new generation of cult status comedic recognition. Roger Ebert wrote, "There are pleasures in the film that have little to do with the story. Its look and feel is uncanny; it's a tribute to a black-and-white era, filmed in color, and yet the colors seem burnished and aged. No noir films were shot in color in the 1940s, but if one had been, it would have looked like this. And great attention is given to the women played by Hunt, Berkley and Theron; they look not so much like the women in classic film noir as like the women on film noir posters - their costumes and styles elevate them into archetypes. Hunt in particular has fun with a wisecracking dame role that owes something, perhaps, to Rosalind Russell in "His Girl Friday"." Tribute. French singer-songwriter Dimie Cat pays a tribute to the American director through the film The Curse of the Jade Scorpion in the song Woody Woody, from the album ZigZag.
1266464	Jean Pierre Hersholt (12 July 1886 – 2 June 1956) was a Danish-born actor who lived in the United States, where he was a leading film and radio talent, best known for his 17 years starring on radio in "Dr. Christian" and for playing Shirley Temple's grandfather in "Heidi". Asked how to pronounce his name, he told "The Literary Digest", "In English, "her'sholt"; in Danish, "hairs'hult"." Of his total credits, 75 were silent films and 65 were sound films. He appeared in 140 films and directed four. Early life. Hersholt was born in Copenhagen, Denmark, the son of Claire (née Petersen) and Henry Hersholt, actors who worked with the Danish Folk Theatre. Hersholt toured Europe performing with his family when he was young. He then graduated from the Copenhagen Art School. His first two films were made in Germany in 1906. He emigrated to the US in 1913, and the remainder of his movies were made in America. Career. Hersholt's best remembered film roles include Marcus Schouler in Erich von Stroheim's 1924 "Greed" and Shirley Temple's beloved grandfather in the 1937 film version of the 1880 children's book, "Heidi", written by Swiss author Johanna Spyri. During his long career in the movies, his roles ran the gamut from early silent villains to secondary parts in which his mild Danish accent and pleasant voice suited him to depict a succession of benevolent fathers, doctors, professors and European noblemen. Hersholt's last role was in the 1955 movie "Run for Cover". In "The Country Doctor" (1936), a movie starring the Dionne quintuplets, Hersholt portrayed Dr. John Luke, a character based on Dr. Allan Roy Dafoe, the Canadian obstetrician who delivered and cared for the Dionne Quintuplets. Two sequels followed. Hersholt wanted to do the role on radio but could not get the rights. He decided to create his own doctor character for radio, and since he was a Hans Christian Andersen enthusiast, he borrowed that name for his character of the philosophical Dr. Paul Christian who practiced in the Midwest town of River's End with the assistance of Nurse Judy Price. With the opening theme music of "Rainbow on the River", "Dr. Christian" was introduced on CBS on November 7, 1937 on "The Vaseline Program", aka "Dr. Christian's Office" and later "Dr. Christian", sponsored by Chesebrough Manufacturing's Vaseline. The small-town physician's good humor, innate common sense and scientific training helped drive off a series of villainous types who tried to interfere with the peaceful lifestyle of River's End. Produced by Dorothy McCann, the radio series became a popular long-run hit, continuing on CBS until 6 January 1954, with Hersholt so strongly identified with the role that he received mail asking for medical advice. There were various spin-offs as Hersholt co-wrote a Dr. Christian novel and made a series of six family films as Christian from 1939 to 1941, for instance "Dr. Christian Meets the Women" in 1940. In 1956, his Dr. Christian character made the transition to television, scripted by Gene Roddenberry, with Macdonald Carey as his nephew Dr. Mark Christian. From the '30s through the '50s, Neil Reagan, brother of Ronald Reagan, directed the radio series Dr. Christian, starring Jean Hersholt. In 1939 Hersholt helped form the Motion Picture Relief Fund to support industry employees with medical care when they were down on their luck. The fund was used to create the Motion Picture Country House and Hospital in Woodland Hills, California, and it led to the creation in 1956 of the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award, an honorary Academy Award given to an ""individual in the motion picture industry whose humanitarian efforts have brought credit to the industry"". Hersholt's large collection of Hans Christian Andersen books is now in the Library of Congress. He translated over 160 of Andersen's fairy tales into the English language. These were published in 1949 in six volumes as "The Complete Andersen", this work is "... rated as "the" standard translation, being one of the best" in English. Hersholt was appointed a knight of the Order of the Dannebrog in 1948, partly due to this endeavour. Family. Hersholt was married to his wife, Via, in 1914. They had one child: Allan. He was the paternal half-uncle of the late actor Leslie Nielsen and former Canadian Deputy Prime Minister Erik Nielsen. Jean Hersholt's grandson Gregg Hersholt has been a radio news broadcaster in the Pacific Northwest since 1973. Death. Hersholt died of cancer in Hollywood, and is interred in Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, California. His grave is marked with a statue of Klods-Hans (English: Clumsy Hans), a Hans Christian Andersen character who left home to find his way in the world — much as Hersholt himself had done. Honors and awards. Hersholt was honored for his services to the industry twice with an honorary Academy Award, first in 1940 and the second time in 1950, and in his honor the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award was named by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. He has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6501 Hollywood Boulevard for his work in motion pictures and another one at 6701 Hollywood Boulevard for his work in radio.
1050495	In the Land of Blood and Honey is a 2011 American romantic drama film written and directed by Angelina Jolie and starring Zana Marjanović, Goran Kostić, and Rade Šerbedžija. The film is Jolie's directorial debut and depicts a love story set against the background of the Bosnian War. It opened in the United States on December 23, 2011, in a limited theatrical release. Plot. In the 1990s, in the wreckage of Sarajevo during the wrath of the Bosnian War, Danijel is a soldier fighting for the Bosnian Serbs. In a prisoner camp led by his strict father, the ruthless Yugoslav People's Army (JNA) general Nebojša, he finds Ajla, his former love, who is a Bosniak and therefore a prisoner. The Bosnian Serb policy against Bosniaks, and the secrecy of their relationship before the war, may endanger the lives of the former lovers. Production. Jolie got the idea to write a script of a wartime love story after traveling to Bosnia and Herzegovina as a U.N. goodwill ambassador. While writing the script she consulted with Richard Holbrooke, a U.S. diplomat and high-ranking Clinton Administration official who was one of the architects of the Dayton Agreement that put an end to the Bosnian War, General Wesley Clark, who was the director for strategic plans and policy on the United States Department of Defense's Joint Chiefs of Staff during the war, and Tom Gjelten, a foreign correspondent for NPR. After finishing the screenplay, she secured a production team and financing for the project that was being called "Untitled Bosnian Love Story." When it came down for the production team to choose a director, Jolie realized she herself wanted to direct. When casting calls and auditions were held, her name was deliberately withheld from all aspects of the project. When it was revealed to the cast that Angelina Jolie wrote the script, a number of them expressed pleasant surprise. In July 2010, with the film already in pre-production, the producers approached the Serbian tycoon and media magnate Željko Mitrović over the usage of the sounds stages and studio sets owned by his Pink International Company's subsidiary Pink Films International in Šimanovci. However, he refused to do business with them, releasing a press statement: "I've held great affection and admiration for Angelina Jolie both as a person and as an artist, but unfortunately she's full of prejudice against the Serbs. I do not wish to be part of something that for the umpteenth time presents the Serbs as eternal bad guys." The film was shot in Budapest and Esztergom during October and November 2010. The cast were entirely local actors from various parts of former Yugoslavia, many of whom lived through the war. Jolie said she spoke with the cast about their experiences during the war and tried to incorporate them into the film. The film was also shot in two versions – one in English, the other in the local languages.
1100720	Richard Courant (January 8, 1888 – January 27, 1972) was a German American mathematician. Life. Courant was born in Lublinitz in the German Empire's Prussian Province of Silesia. During his youth, his parents had to move quite often, to Glatz, Breslau, and in 1905 to Berlin. He stayed in Breslau and entered the university there. As he found the courses not demanding enough, he continued his studies in Zürich and Göttingen. Courant eventually became David Hilbert's assistant in Göttingen and obtained his doctorate there in 1910. He had to fight in World War I, but he was wounded and dismissed from the military service shortly after enlisting. After the war, in 1919, he married Nerina (Nina) Runge, a daughter of the Göttingen professor for Applied Mathematics, Carl Runge. Richard continued his research in Göttingen, with a two-year period as professor in Münster. There he founded the Mathematical Institute, which he headed as director from 1928 until 1933. Courant left Germany in 1933, earlier than many of his colleagues. While he was classified as a Jew by the Nazis, his having served as a front-line soldier exempted him from losing his position for this particular reason at the time; however, his public membership in the social-democratic left was a reason for dismissal to which no such exemption applied.[http://www-irma.u-strasbg.fr/~schappa/GoeNS.pdf] After one year in Cambridge, Courant went to New York City where he became a professor at New York University in 1936. He was given the task of founding an institute for graduate studies in applied mathematics, a task which he carried out very successfully. The Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences (as it was renamed in 1964) continues to be one of the most respected research centers in applied mathematics. Apart from his outstanding organizational talent, Courant is well remembered for his mathematical achievements. He and David Hilbert authored the influential textbook "Methods of Mathematical Physics", which is still widely used more than eighty years after it was written. He was the co-author, with Herbert Robbins, of a popularization titled "What is Mathematics?", which is still in print. Although Robbins wrote most of the book, he received almost none of the royalties. Courant owned the copyright, and passed almost none of the money on to Robbins. Courant's name is also attached to the finite element method, with his numerical treatment of the plain torsion problem for multiply-connected domains, published in 1943. This method is now one of the ways to solve partial differential equations numerically. Courant is a namesake of the Courant–Friedrichs–Lewy condition and the Courant minimax principle. Courant died in New Rochelle, New York. Richard and Nerina had four children: Ernest, a particle physicist and innovator in particle accelerators; Gertrude (*1922), a PhD biologist and wife of the mathematician Jürgen Moser (1928–1999); Hans, a physicist who participated in the Manhattan Project; and Leonore, a professional musician and wife of the mathematician Jerome Berkowitz (1928–1998). Perspective on mathematics. Commenting upon his analysis of experimental results from in-laboratory soap film formations, Courant believed that the existence of a physical solution does not obviate the need for mathematical proof. Here is a quote from Courant on his mathematical perspective:
327392	Paul S. Feig (born September 17, 1962) is an American director, actor and author. Feig directed the blockbuster Oscar nominated 2011 film "Bridesmaids" featuring Kristen Wiig. He created the critically acclaimed show "Freaks and Geeks" and has directed several episodes of "The Office" and "Arrested Development"; plus select episodes of "30 Rock", "Parks and Recreation", "Mad Men" and other television series. Feig has been nominated for two Emmy Awards for writing on "Freaks and Geeks" and three for directing on "The Office". He is also known for playing Mr. Eugene Pool, Sabrina's science teacher, on the first season of "Sabrina, the Teenage Witch", as well as Tim, a camp counselor, in the film "Heavyweights". Life and career. Feig was born in and raised in Mount Clemens, Michigan. His mother, Elaine Elizabeth (née Artingstall), was a telephone operator, and his father, Sanford William Feig, owned an army-surplus store. Feig's father was born Jewish and converted to Christianity; Feig's parents met at a church social, and Feig was raised in Christian Science. After a year at Wayne State University, Feig moved to Los Angeles, where he studied at USC, worked as a tour guide at Universal Studios Hollywood, embarked on a stand-up comedy act, and landed minor roles on various television shows. Feig also appeared in several films, including a role alongside good friend Ben Stiller in the 1995 film "Heavyweights", in which he played camp counselor Tim. On the first season of "Sabrina, the Teenage Witch", Feig portrayed Mr. Eugene Pool, Sabrina's science teacher. With "Heavyweights" co-scripter Judd Apatow, Feig created the short-lived dramedy series "Freaks and Geeks", inspired by his experiences at Chippewa Valley High School in Michigan. The show aired on NBC during the 1999–2000 television season. Eighteen episodes were completed, but the series was canceled after only twelve had aired. Despite the short run, "Freaks and Geeks" has since maintained a devoted cult following. The show was named in "Time" magazine's 100 Greatest Shows of All Time, and in summer 2008, "Entertainment Weekly" ranked "Freaks and Geeks" as the 13th best show of the past 25 years. Feig was nominated for two Emmys for writing the show's pilot and the season finale. Feig has been married to Laurie Karon since 1994.
1165642	Roy Roberts (March 19, 1906 - May 28, 1975) was an American character actor. Over his more than 40-year career, he appeared in more than nine hundred productions on stage and screen. Biography. Born Roy Barnes Jones in Dade City in Pasco County, near Tampa, Florida, he began his acting career on the stage, first appearing on Broadway in May 1931 before making his motion picture debut in "Gold Bricks", a 1936 two-reel comedy short released by 20th Century-Fox. He appeared in numerous films in secondary parts and returned to perform on Broadway in such productions as "Twentieth Century", "My Sister Eileen", and "Carnival in Flanders" until he began making guest appearances on television series. After appearing on Gale Storm's "My Little Margie" in 1956, he became part of several television series for which he is best remembered. In a show that was the precursor to "The Love Boat", Roberts played the ship's captain for four years in Storm's next hit, "Oh! Susanna", which aired on CBS from 1956 to 1960. He guest-starred in scores of series, including the western-themed crime drama, "Sheriff of Cochise", the western series, "My Friend Flicka" and "The Travels of Jaimie McPheeters", and Brian Keith's Cold War drama, "Crusader". Roberts appeared on four episodes of the CBS legal drama, "Perry Mason", including the role of murderer Arthur Janeel in the 1961 episode, "The Case of the Malicious Mariner." During the middle 1960s, Roberts was one of the most recognizable faces on television, and had recurring roles concurrently on a number of popular programs, including: In the 1940s and 1950s, Roberts was a regular in many films noir, including "Force of Evil" (1948), "He Walked by Night" (1948), "Nightmare Alley" (1947), "The Brasher Doubloon" (1947), "Borderline" (1950) and "The Enforcer" (1951). In 1953 he appeared as Vincent Price's crooked business partner (and first victim) in "House of Wax". He also appeared in the neo-noirs "The Outfit" (1973) and "Chinatown" (1974). He also had a small role in the hit 1963 Stanley Kramer comedy, "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World" as a police officer. Unfortunately, his role was cut from later television and movie versions to reduce running time. However, because of an interest in restoring "IAMMMMW" to its original length, Roberts' brief role has seen life again in versions made for laserdisc and extended-length DVDs. Roberts died in Los Angeles, California, of a heart attack and was interred at Greenwood Memorial Park in Fort Worth, Texas.
585804	Punjabi House (Malayalam: പഞ്ചാബി ഹൌസ്) is a 1998 Malayalam comedy musical film written and directed by Rafi Mecartin, starring Dileep, Mohini, Lal, Cochin Hanifa, Harisree Asokan, Neena Kurup, and Janardanan. The music was composed by Suresh Peters, making his debut as a film composer. The film was released as a grand Onam release on the day of Thiruvonam. The film was remade by Priyadarshan in Bollywood as "Chup Chup Ke" in 2006, starring Shahid Kapoor, Kareena Kapoor, Neha Dhupia, and Sunil Shetty.
632805	Christopher Gauthier (born 27 January 1976) is an English-born actor. He is married with two children and currently resides in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. Chris had a recurring role on the SyFy Channel series "Eureka", as Café Diem owner Vincent. While filming the final 10 episodes of season three of "Eureka", Chris also filmed the 2009 CBS Mystery Event "Harper's Island" in which he appears as Malcolm Ross, and in "Freddy vs. Jason" as Shack.
1100064	Reid W. Barton (born May 6, 1983) is one of the most successful performers in the International Science Olympiads. He is an MIT alumnus. Biography. Barton is the son of two environmental engineers. Officially homeschooled since third grade, Barton took part-time classes at Tufts University, in chemistry (5th grade), physics (6th grade), and subsequently Swedish, Finnish, French, and Chinese. Since eighth grade he worked part-time with MIT computer scientist Charles E. Leiserson on CilkChess, a computer chess program. Subsequently, he worked at Akamai Technologies with computer scientist Ramesh Sitaraman to build one of the earliest video performance measurement systems that have since become a standard in industry. After Akamai, Barton went to grad school at Harvard to pursue a Ph.D in Math. Mathematical and programming competitions. Barton was the first student to win four gold medals at the International Mathematical Olympiad, culminating in full marks at the 2001 Olympiad held in Washington, D.C., shared with Gabriel Carroll, Xiao Liang and
1102721	Robert Phelan Langlands (born October 6, 1936) is a Canadian mathematician best known as the founder of the Langlands program, a vast web of conjectures and results connecting representation theory and automorphic forms to the study of Galois groups in number theory. He is an emeritus professor at the Institute for Advanced Study. Career. Langlands received an undergraduate degree from the University of British Columbia in 1957, and continued on there to receive an M. Sc. in 1958. He then went to Yale University where he received a Ph.D. in 1960. His academic positions since then include the years 1960-67 at Princeton University, ending up as Associate Professor, and the years 1967-72 at Yale University. He was appointed Hermann Weyl Professor at the Institute for Advanced Study in 1972, becoming Professor Emeritus in January 2007. Research. His Ph.D. thesis was on the analytical theory of semi-groups, but he soon moved into representation theory, adapting the methods of Harish-Chandra to the theory of automorphic forms. His first accomplishment in this field was a formula for the dimension of certain spaces of automorphic forms, in which particular types of Harish-Chandra's discrete series appeared. He next constructed an analytical theory of Eisenstein series for reductive groups of rank greater than one, thus extending work of Maass, Roelcke and Selberg from the early 1950s for rank one groups such as formula_1. This amounted to describing in general terms the continuous spectra of arithmetic quotients, and showing that all automorphic forms arise in terms of cusp forms and the residues of Eisenstein series induced from cusp forms on smaller subgroups. As a first application, he proved the Weil conjecture on Tamagawa numbers for the large class of arbitrary simply connected Chevalley groups defined over the rational numbers. Previously this had been known only in a few isolated cases and for certain classical groups where it could be shown by induction. As a second application of this work, he was able to show meromorphic continuation for a large class of formula_2-functions arising in the theory of automorphic forms, not previously known to have them. These occurred in the constant terms of Eisenstein series, and meromorphicity as well as a weak functional equation were a consequence of functional equations for Eisenstein series. This work led in turn, in the winter of 1966/67, to the now well known conjectures making up what is often called the Langlands program. Very roughly speaking, they propose a huge generalization of previously known examples of reciprocity, including (a) classical class field theory, in which characters of local and arithmetic abelian Galois groups are identified with characters of local multiplicative groups and the idele quotient group, respectively; (b) earlier results of Eichler and Shimura in which the Hasse-Weil zeta functions of arithmetic quotients of the upper half plane are identified with formula_2-functions occurring in Hecke's theory of holomorphic automorphic forms. These conjectures were first posed in relatively complete form in a famous letter to Weil, written in January 1967. It was in this letter that he introduced what has since become known as the formula_2-group and along with it, the notion of functoriality. Functoriality, the formula_2-group, the rigorous introduction of adele groups, and the consequent application of the representation theory of reductive groups over local fields changed drastically the way research in automorphic forms was carried out. Langlands's introduction of (or in cases where others had done previous work, emphasis on) these notions broke up large and to some extent intractable problems into smaller and more manageable pieces. For example, they made the infinite-dimensional representation theory of reductive groups into a major field of mathematical activity. Functoriality is the conjecture that automorphic forms on different groups should be related in terms of their formula_2-groups. As one example of this conjecture the letter to Weil raised the possibility of solving the well known conjecture of Emil Artin regarding the behaviour of Artin's formula_2-functions, a hope partly realized in Langlands' later work on base change. In its application to Artin's conjecture, functoriality associated to every formula_8-dimensional representation of a Galois group an automorphic representation of the adelic group of formula_9. In the theory of Shimura varieties it associates automorphic representations of other groups to certain formula_10-adic Galois representations as well. The book by Hervé Jacquet and Langlands on formula_11 presented a theory of automorphic forms for the general linear group formula_11, establishing among other things the Jacquet–Langlands correspondence showing that functoriality was capable of explaining very precisely how automorphic forms for formula_11 related to those for quaternion algebras. This book applied the adelic trace formula for formula_11 and quaternion algebras to do this. Subsequently James Arthur, a student of Langlands while he was at Yale, successfully developed the trace formula for groups of higher rank. This has become a major tool in attacking functoriality in general, and in particular has been applied to demonstrating that the Hasse-Weil zeta functions of certain Shimura varieties are among the formula_2-functions arising from automorphic forms. The functoriality conjecture is far from proved, but a special case (the octahedral Artin conjecture, proved by Langlands and Tunnell) was the starting point of Andrew Wiles' attack on the Taniyama–Shimura conjecture and Fermat's last theorem. In the mid-1980s Langlands turned his attention to physics, particularly the problems of percolation and conformal invariance. In recent years he has turned his attention back to automorphic forms, working in particular on a theme he calls `beyond endoscopy'. In 1995 Langlands started a collaboration with Bill Casselman at the University of British Columbia with the aim of posting nearly all of his writings—including publications, preprints, as well as selected correspondence—on the Internet. The correspondence includes a copy of the original letter to Weil that introduced the formula_2-group. Awards and honors. Langlands has received the 1996 Wolf Prize (which he shared with Andrew Wiles), the 2005 AMS Steele Prize, the 1980 Jeffery-Williams Prize, the 1988 NAS Award in Mathematics from the National Academy of Sciences, the 2006 Nemmers Prize in Mathematics, and the 2007 Shaw Prize in Mathematical Sciences (with Richard Taylor) for his work on automorphic forms. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of London in 1981. In 2012 he became a fellow of the American Mathematical Society.
585934	Philomina (1926 - 2 January 2006) was a veteran Malayalam film actress. She had acted in more than 750 films in her career. She played mostly character and comedy roles, besides that of grandmother and mother. She started acting on the stage. This experience stood her in good stead when she was offered her first film role. The character of Anappara Achamma in "Godfather" is acknowledged to be one of the powerful roles ever in Malayalam cinema. Early life. Entering the film industry with eight years of experience in professional drama, she worked with the drama troupe of P J Antony in the early days. She used to say it was her initial experience with an actor like Antony that helped her shape her film career. Philomina's parents were perturbed, when she had to travel to Chennai for the first shoot, it was Moidu Padiyathu who convinced her parents. Her first movie, "Kuttikkupayam" (1964), produced by T.E. Vasudevan and directed by M. Krishnan Nair was a big hit. Philomina, who essayed the role of Prem Nazir's mother, a Muslim character. She got married to Antony a Theater Artist, but lost her husband when her son was three years old. Film career. Philomina won her first State award, for the best supporting actress, in 1970 for her roles in films "Thurakkathavaathil" and "Olavum Theeravum". In 1987, she received the award for the second time for "Thaniyavarthanam". Somewhere during this time, there was a short break in her career. She came back in the films of Bharathan and Padmarajan. The roles in films like "Chatta", "Innale", "Njan Gandharvan", "Venkalam", "Churam", "Vietnam Colony". Her roles in "Kudumbapuranam", "Godfather", "Uppukandam Brothers", "Thalayanamandram" and "Kakkothikavile Appuppanthadikal" would also be remembered for long. It was Sathyan Anthikkad who first cast Philomina in a comic role. The film "Madanmaar Londonil", gave this talented actress a new image. Her roles in films like "Malayogam", "Kireedam", "Uncle Bun", "Manathe Kottaram", "Vrudhanmaare Sookshikkuka" and "In Harihar Nagar". In a career spanning over four decades Philomina starred in 750 films and numerous television serials. She was last seen in "Meerayude Dukhavum Muthuvinte Swapnavum". Later life. Philomina was living in a small, well done-up apartment in Kochi till she shifted to her son's place in Chennai a couple of years before her death. She was a chronic diabetic and suffered stroke in 2005. She was getting insulin shots for her diabetic condition. She was bed-ridden for over a month. She died at her son- Joseph's residence in Chennai due to diabetes related problems in January 2006. Awards. Kerala State Film Awards: References. http://en.msidb.org/displayProfile.php?category=actors&artist=Philomina&limit=147
1015449	Greta Celeste Gerwig (born August 4, 1983) is an American actress and filmmaker. Gerwig first came to prominence through her association with the mumblecore film movement. She has collaborated with directors Joe Swanberg and Noah Baumbach on several projects, including the film "Nights and Weekends", which the two co-wrote, co-directed and in which they co-starred. Gerwig made her mainstream debut in 2011, in "No Strings Attached". She also co-starred alongside Russell Brand in "Arthur". Life and career. A native of Sacramento, California, Gerwig is the daughter of Christine (née Sauer), a nurse, and Gordon Gerwig, a financial consultant and computer programmer. She has German, Irish, and English ancestry. Gerwig was raised as a Unitarian Universalist, but also attended an all-girls Catholic school. She has described herself as "an intense child". With an early interest in dance, she intended to do a degree in musical theatre in New York. She graduated from Barnard College, where she studied English and philosophy instead. Originally intending to become a playwright, Gerwig was cast in a minor role in Joe Swanberg's "LOL" in 2006, while still studying at Barnard. She began a partnership with the director and an association with other mumblecore filmmakers. Commenting on her work in "Greenberg" and other films, "New York Times" critic A. O. Scott described the actress as an "ambassador of a cinematic style that often seems opposed to the very idea of style." She made her first talk show appearance, on "Jimmy Kimmel Live!", in 2010. Mainstream success remained elusive "I was really depressed. I was 25 and thinking, 'this is supposed to be the best time and I'm miserable' but it felt like acting was happening for me, and I went back to acting classes'. Yet in 2011, Gerwig received an award for Acting from the Athena Film Festival for her artistry as one of Hollywood's definitive screen actresses of her generation. Gerwig voices one of the main characters in the Adult Swim cartoon "China, IL". In 2011 she was cast as one of the leads in the HBO pilot The Corrections which was cancelled. Gerwig has reportedly been dating writer-director Noah Baumbach since late 2011, though they have only officially acknowledged the relationship recently. They worked together on his film "Greenberg" in 2010, and co-wrote "Frances Ha", which was theatrically released in May 2013, after being screened on the festival circuit since September 2012.
144854	Escanaba in da Moonlight ("da" is Yooper for "the") is a 2001 movie starring Jeff Daniels. It is a comedy about hunting and hunting traditions and is set (and filmed) in the Escanaba, Michigan area. The movie is the film adaptation of the play of the same name, which premiered at Jeff Daniels' Purple Rose Theatre in Chelsea, Michigan. Plot. Reuben Soady (Daniels) goes to the hunting camp cottage, otherwise known as deer camp, with his father Albert (played by Harve Presnell), brother Remnar (Joey Albright) and Jimmy "the Jimmer" Negamanee from Menominee (Wayne David Parker). If Reuben, now 43, doesn't manage to shoot a buck by the end of the season, he will become the oldest Soady in recorded history not to have achieved this task, a taboo that leads people in the community to believe he is jinxed. Reuben breaks with tradition, taking advice from his Native American wife Wolf Moon Dance (Kimberly Norris), who offers him spiritual remedies involving a drink made with moose testicles and porcupine urine to protect him from evil spirits. After various unexplainable phenomena, they meet a DNR officer, Tom T. Treado (Randall Godwin), who claims to have literally seen God on the ridge. At various times, Reuben, Jimmer, and ranger Tom all get possessed by spirits. Eventually, Reuben runs out into the cold wearing only his long underwear and a hat, and finds himself face-to-face with his dead great-grandfather Alphonse, who guides him to shooting a buck sent for him by the spirits. Reuben returns triumphantly. Yooper/Michigan Culture. A significant portion of the movie involves references to elements of "Yooper" (slang reference to the U.P. or Upper Peninsula of Michigan) and broader Michigan culture. Some references are obscure to viewers unfamiliar with this culture and might be considered in-jokes.
1056184	Mark Alan Dacascos (born February 26, 1964) is an American actor and martial artist. He won numerous karate and various styles of kung fu championships between the ages of 7 and 18.
1441520	Ayat-Ayat Cinta () is an Indonesian drama film by Hanung Bramantyo starring Fedi Nuril, Rianti Cartwright, Carissa Putri, Melanie Putria, and Zaskia Adya Mecca. It is a romantic religious drama based on the bestselling novel with the same title by Habiburrahman El Shirazy. While the story is set in Cairo, Egypt, the film was shot in India and Semarang, Indonesia. "Ayat-Ayat Cinta" was released on February 28, 2008 in Indonesia, May 8, 2008 in Singapore, and June 19, 2008 in Malaysia. Synopsis. Fahri bin Abdillah Shiddiq (Nuril) is a poor, intelligent student who wins a scholarship to complete a graduate degree at Egypt's esteemed Al Azhar University. Highly disciplined and dedicated by nature, Fahri embraces life in Cairo, finishing his studies and translation of religious books with full enthusiasm. Only one goal is left unattempted: the pursuit of marriage. Innocent and pure, Fahri does not believe in the concept of relationships prior to marriage. He is inarticulate and shy around women. All his life, only two women have been close to him: his mother and grandmother. This changes drastically for him in Egypt, where he suddenly finds himself surrounded by four beautiful, distinctly different women. Nurul (Putria), a student at Al Azhar like Fahri, is the Muslim daughter of a renowned Indonesian cleric. Fahri feels unworthy of her and thus ignores his feelings for her, leaving her confused and guessing. Maria Girgis (Putri) is a shy, open-minded Coptic neighbour who is attracted to the teachings of the Qur'an, and finds herself falling in love with Fahri (a fact she only reveals to her diary). Noura (Mecca) is another of Fahri's Egyptian neighbours, and is often abused. She develops strong romantic feelings for Fahri, who only sympathises with her situation. His rejection of her affections destroys her and eventually leads to a false accusation of rape. Aisha (Cartwright) is a German-Turkish student in Cairo who bewitches Fahri with her beautiful eyes. After Fahri defends her against narrow-minded Muslim bigots on the train, both immediately develop feelings for each other. Released. "Ayat-Ayat Cinta" was initially set to be released in cinemas on December 19, 2007. However, the release date was constantly changed due to several problems, but it ultimately premiered on February 28, 2008. Soundtrack. The film's title track "Ayat-Ayat Cinta" was selected as the lead single of the album soundtrack to promote the film. A music video was also made for the single.
900647	Respiro is a 2002 Italian film written and directed by Emanuele Crialese and released in English-language markets in 2003. The film stars Valeria Golino, Vincenzo Amato, and Francesco Casisa. In the Italian language, "respiro" means a "breath". Plot. Grazia, played by Golino, is a free-spirited mother of three married to shy fisherman Pietro (Vincenzo Amato) and living on the idyllic but isolated island of Lampedusa in the Mediterranean Sea. She shows signs of manic depressive behavior — one moment she's laughing wildly and swimming half-naked in the sea, while the next she's curled in a ball on her bed. Out of her earshot, the adult members of her extended family vaguely discuss sending her to a facility of some sort in Northern Italy. Grazia is closely shepherded by her oldest son Pasquale, played by Casisa, who appears to be about fourteen years old and often assumes more of a parental role with his mother. After Pietro puts down one of Grazia's dogs because he thinks it might be dangerous, impulsive Grazia sets all the stray dogs free in the town's makeshift kennel. After the dogs swarm over the island, the locals demand that Pietro do something about his wife. But when he tells her he plans to send her away to Northern Italy, she runs away and hides in a cave on the shore, where she's secretly tended by young Pasquale, who brings her clean clothes and food every day. Pietro and some friends doggedly search the island for Grazia, so Pasquale leaves one of her dresses by the edge of the sea as a ruse. Pietro finds the dress — the one she was wearing the day she disappeared — and nearly everyone presumes she has drowned. Pietro, however, continues to search for her, and just before an important local religious festival, he sees her swimming in the water. He dives in to assist her, thinking a miracle has occurred, and many of the villagers follow suit, thus providing a sheltering circle around her as she is brought safely to shore. Awards and nominations. Writer/director Crialese won the Critics Week Grand Prize and the Young Critics Award at the Cannes Film Festival. The film was also nominated for the Best European Union Film at the César Awards and received other nominations and awards in various European award competitions. Soundtrack. Artist John Surman wrote the original score featuring sequenced synthesizer and alto saxophone. There was no soundtrack CD released, however part of the score can be found on his 1981 album "The Amazing Adventures of Simon Simon". The track is called "Part 1 - Nestor's Saga (The Tale of The Ancient)". The soundtrack also featured "La Bambola" performed by the Italian artist Patty Pravo. Critical reception. The English-language reviews for "Respiro" were generally positive. Steven Holden wrote in "The New York Times" that "not since "Y Tu Mamá También" has a movie so palpably captured the down-to-earth, flesh-and-blood reality of high-spirited people living their lives without self-consciousness." Writing for "Premiere" magazine, critic Peter Debruge noted, "in the annals of Mediterranean island love stories, Respiro reflects the effortless charm of a film like "Il Postino"." Critic Desson Thomson of "The Washington Post", however, felt "its long-winded denouement, in which Grazia runs away rather than be sent to an institution, doesn't bring the story full circle. It just extends it."
1064322	Jonathan E. Silverman (born August 5, 1966) is an American actor. He is perhaps best known for his role in "Weekend at Bernie's" and its sequel "Weekend at Bernie's II". Personal life. Silverman was born in Los Angeles, California, the son of Devora (née Halaban) and Hillel Emanuel Silverman, a rabbi. He is the grandson of famous Conservative Rabbi Morris Silverman. He has no relation to comedian Sarah Silverman. David Schwimmer was his best friend in high school. He is married to actress Jennifer Finnigan, whom he met when he briefly co-starred on the series "The Bold and the Beautiful". Career. Silverman is known for his roles in the TV series "Gimme A Break!", as well as in the films "Brighton Beach Memoirs" (a film version of the first play of Neil Simon's Eugene Trilogy), "Girls Just Want to Have Fun", "Caddyshack II", "Little Big League", and "Weekend at Bernie's". Silverman played the title role in the mid-1990s television sitcom "The Single Guy" (which aired on NBC), as well as the lead role in the early 1990s movie "Little Sister". He has also appeared on "" (in a 3rd season episode called "Under the Influence"). He appeared briefly on "The Bold and the Beautiful" in the early 2000s. He last starred in the short-lived sitcom "In Case of Emergency", which was a mid-season replacement on ABC for the 2006 season. He also played the role of Eddie in "Beethoven's Big Break". In February 2009 he guest-starred in "Psych", and in "Hot in Cleveland" in 2012. He was also in the movie "Jam". He appeared in the television show White Collar, Season 3, Episode 5 "Veiled Threat" as a con artist.Hes also been in "Inkubus" and the upcoming "Self Stored" by Wood HAven Productions. He appeared in Gimme A Break episode "Julie's Lie" Season 4, Episode 10 (1984), as Julie's boyfriend.
400670	Paul Christian Scheer (born January 31, 1976) is an American actor, comedian, writer, and director. Scheer currently stars on the FX series "The League" and in the Adult Swim comedy-action-parody series "", which he created and directs. His most recent films include "Clear History", "Hell Baby", "Ass Backwards", and "Hell & Back". A web series for JASH called The Arscheerio Paul Show recreates classic moments from the Arsenio Hall Show. He hosts the comedy podcast "How Did This Get Made?" Previously he co-created and starred in the cult MTV sketch series "Human Giant" alongside Rob Huebel and Aziz Ansari. Scheer has made appearances on comedy programs such as "Modern Family", "Burning Love", "30 Rock", "Best Week Ever", "Childrens Hospital", "Funny or Die Presents", "Parks and Recreation", "Happy Endings", "Party Down", "Bob's Burgers", and "Yo Gabba Gabba". Scheer has been in the films "Rapture-Palooza", "Piranha 3D", "Bride Wars", "School for Scoundrels", and "Year One". Personal life. Scheer was born in Huntington, New York. He graduated from St. Anthony's High School (New York) and attended New York University, where he majored in Communication and Education. Scheer began dating actress/writer June Diane Raphael in January 2004, after the artistic director of Manhattan's Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre brought Scheer in to offer tips to Raphael and her comedy partner Casey Wilson on making improvements to their two-woman sketch show. They moved from New York to Los Angeles in 2005. In 2009, they married in a smallish affair at the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History. Scheer's best man was a Jack Nicholson impersonator. Career. Live performances. In 1995, Scheer became a member of New York City's longest running Off-Broadway comedy show, "Chicago City Limits". As a member of their touring company Scheer extensively traveled throughout the United States as well as overseas. In 1998, he joined the Upright Citizens Brigade Theater in New York City where he performed Sketch and Improvisation with Respecto Montalban, winners of the 2003 ECNY Award for "Best Improv Show." The group included such members as Rob Riggle, Rob Huebel, Jack McBrayer and Dannah Feinglass. They performed their unique brand of long form improvisation to sold out crowds every Saturday night for over five years and collaborated with Adam McKay (director/writer of "Anchorman") on a political sketch comedy show called "George Bush is a Motherfucker". In 2002 Scheer created and starred in "Automatic Vaudeville" at the Ars Nova Theater, which the "Hollywood Reporter" called "one of the top five shows in the country." Scheer moved to Los Angeles in 2006 and is a regular performer at Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre in Los Angeles (UCBTLA). Every Wednesday at 9:30PM he performs FACEBOOK, an improvised show based on audience member's Facebook profiles. The show was named the "Best Improv Show" by "Los Angeles Magazine" and has been profiled on "Good Morning America". Cast members include Rob Riggle and Rob Huebel. Every 1st and 3rd Monday of the Month at 11PM Scheer co-hosts Crash Test with Human Giant Alum Rob Huebel. "Los Angeles Magazine" calls the show "Extremely Funny...Several thumbs up" and MetroMix proclaims "Sketch Comedy doesn't get much funnier." Scheer also occasionally performs in a two person improv show, Scheer/McBrayer with Jack McBrayer his 30 Rock nemesis. In 2010 Scheer organized a charity event with Ben Stiller called Night of 140 Tweets in which he got 140 comedians to appear on stage at the UCB Theater in Los Angeles, each of them reading a single tweet. Some of the performers included Ben Stiller, Will Ferrell, Ashton Kutcher, Demi Moore, Aziz Ansari, The Cast of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Dane Cook, Wilmer Valderrama, John Cho, Mindy Kaling, Sasha Grey, and more (See the full cast here http://pro.imdb.com/title/tt1753393/). The event released as a charity DVD and online download raised over $500,000 of dollars for Haiti. Television. "The League". The League is a sitcom, which premiered on FX on October 29, 2009. The series is a semi-scripted comedy from Jeff and Jackie Marcus Schaffer about a group of friends in a fantasy football league. Currently in its fourth season, Scheer has co-scripted a handful of episodes, "The Anniversary Party", "Expert Witness", "Sober Buddy", "Tailgate" with co-star Nick Kroll. Scheer plays Dr. Andre Nowzick, a rich plastic surgeon whose naivete makes him the brunt of many jokes. "Human Giant". Around the summer of 2005, Scheer began collaborating with fellow comedians Rob Huebel and Aziz Ansari as well as director Jason Woliner to make short films. The first series created by the group was "Shutterbugs", which followed Huebel and Ansari as cutthroat child talent agents. This was followed up by the "Illusionators", which starred Ansari and Scheer as Criss Angel-style goth magicians. In mid-2006, MTV greenlit a sketch series from the group which debuted April 5, 2007. The show has completed two seasons. In interviews, the group has mentioned that they were offered a third season by MTV but were unable to complete it due to Ansari's commitments to the new NBC show Parks and Recreation. However, the group has stated that MTV has left the door open for the group to complete a third season at a later date or to produce a special for the network. The group recently re-united for "Stunt Kidz" a sketch in the Ansari hosted MTV Movie Awards. In November 2008, The Hollywood Reporter noted the group is currently developing a feature film with Red Hour Films, the production company run by Ben Stiller and producer Stuart Cornfeld. "NTSF:SD:SUV::". NTSF:SD:SUV::, (AKA National Terrorism Strike Force: San Diego: Sport Utility Vehicle) follows a group of reckless, aggressive, and pun wielding government agents who work hard to protect San Diego from numerous terrorist threats such as a Killer dolphin, Swedish virtual reality gangs, and a time traveling Leonardo da Vinci. Out of all the acronym-ed police procedurals that dominate the airwaves this show has most acronyms. Scheer stars along with Karen Gillan (Doctor Who), Rob Riggle (The Daily Show, 21 Jump Street), Kate Mulgrew (Star Trek: Voyager), Brandon Johnson (Funny People), June Diane Raphael (New Girl), and Martin Starr (Party Down). Over the course of three seasons notable guest stars as Jeff Goldblum (Jurassic Park, Independence Day), Adam Scott (Parks and Recreation), Bob Odenkirk (Mr. Show, Breaking Bad), Ray Liotta (Goodfellas), Alison Brie (Community, Mad Men), Aziz Ansari (Parks and Recreation, Human Giant), Aubrey Plaza (Parks and Recreation), Ed Helms (The Hangover, The Office), Bill Hader (Saturday Night Live), Robert Forrester (Jackie Brown), Summer Glau (Firefly), Max Greenfield (New Girl), Lance Reddick (Fringe/Wire), Jack McBrayer (30 Rock), Kristen Schaal (Flight of the Conchords, 30 Rock), among others. NTSF:SD:SUV::'s creative team also includes executive producers/writers Jonathan Stern (Childrens Hospital, Burning Love) and Curtis Gwinn (Animal Practice). It is produced by Abominable Pictures, Inc. and Scheer's 2nd Man on the Moon Productions. "Yo Gabba Gabba". Paul Scheer and Jack McBrayer make semi-regular appearances on the Nick Jr. series "Yo Gabba Gabba!", in a segment called "Knock Knock Joke of the Day". They have appeared in seasons one and two, and, according to Scheer's Twitter, have recently taped segments for season three. Scheer and McBrayer were featured as themselves in the "Yo Gabba Gabba!" comic book, and have even made appearances on the "Yo Gabba Gabba!" live tour. In 2012, Scheer appeared as a villainous Cowboy Android in an episode of "The Aquabats! Super Show!", another series from the creators of "Yo Gabba Gabba!". Other. "How Did This Get Made?", a podcast on the Earwolf Network hosted by Paul Scheer, June Diane Raphael, and Jason Mantzoukas, each show has a celebrity guest/comedian and features the deconstruction and mockery of terrible films. In 2011, iTunes selected "How Did this Get Made" as its favorite comedy podcast of the year and in 2012 LA Weekly named the show, "The Best Comedy Podcast." Guests have included Kevin Smith, Damon Lindelof, "Weird" Al Yankovic, Danny Trejo, Vanilla Ice, Adam Scott, Nick Kroll, Rob Huebel, Doug Benson, Brian Taylor (director of "Crank" and ', Lexi Alexander (director of ') and Greg Sestero (producer/co-star of "The Room"). In 2006, "Variety" named Scheer one of the "Top 10 Comics to Watch" and "AP Magazine" hailed him as one of their favorite comedians. Scheer's connection as being the centerpiece to comedy in Los Angeles has been documented both by Splitsider, New York Magazine, and TV Blogster.
1028583	James Tupper (born August 4, 1965) is a Canadian actor best known for his role as Jack Slattery on the ABC television series "Men in Trees" and recently appeared as Dr. Chris Sands on the NBC medical drama series "Mercy" (2009–10), which was cancelled by NBC in May 2010. Tupper was born in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, Canada. He studied acting at Concordia University, Montreal, and later at Rutgers University in New Jersey, where he earned a Master's Degree. Personal life. Tupper split from his wife in November 2006 (according to "Entertainment Tonight") and moved in with actress Anne Heche in August, 2007. Their son, Atlas Heche Tupper, was born over the weekend of March 7–8, 2009. In his spare time Tupper enjoys carpentry and birdwatching. After high school, he lived on a coffee farm in East Africa and studied Swahili. He has acted in several off-Broadway plays, including "An Actor Prepares" and "After the Rain". Tupper co-wrote and appeared in 2005's "Loudmouth Soup", a fully improvised indie that was filmed in one night that is soon to be released on video. He has had a recurring role on "Samantha Who?" as Samantha's love interest, Owen.
1162756	David Keith McCallum, Jr. (born 19 September 1933) is a Scottish actor and musician. He is best known for his roles as Illya Kuryakin, a Russian-born secret agent, in the 1960s television series "The Man from U.N.C.L.E.", as interdimensional operative Steel in "Sapphire & Steel", and for his current role as NCIS Medical Examiner, Dr. Donald "Ducky" Mallard in the series "NCIS". Early life. McCallum was born in Glasgow, Scotland, the second of two sons of Dorothy Dorman, a cellist, and orchestral leader David McCallum, Sr. When he was 10, his family moved to London for his father's move to lead the London Philharmonic Orchestra. Early in the Second World War he was evacuated to Scotland, where he lived with his mother at Gartocharn by Loch Lomond. McCallum won a scholarship to University College School, a boys' independent school in Hampstead, London, where, encouraged by his parents to prepare for a career in music, he played the oboe. In 1946 he began doing boy voices for the BBC radio repertory company. Also involved in local amateur drama, at age 17 he appeared as Oberon in an open-air production of "A Midsummer Night's Dream" with the Play and Pageant Union. He left school at age 18 and, following military service with the Royal West African Frontier Force, attended the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (also in London), where Joan Collins was a classmate. Career. McCallum became Assistant Stage Manager of the Glyndebourne Opera Company in 1951. In 1951 he did his National Service where he was commissioned into the Middlesex Regiment and seconded to the Gold Coast Regiment. He began his acting career doing boy voices for BBC Radio in 1947 and began taking bit-parts in British films from the late 1950s, and his first acting role was in "Whom the Gods Love, Die Young" playing a doomed royal. A James Dean-themed photograph of McCallum caught the attention of the Rank Organisation, who signed him in 1956. However, in an interview with Alan Titchmarsh broadcast on 3 November 2010, McCallum stated that he had actually held his Equity card since 1946. Early roles included a juvenile delinquent in "Violent Playground" (1957), an outlaw in "Robbery Under Arms" (1957) and as junior radio operator Harold Bride in "A Night to Remember" (1958). His first American film was "Freud the Secret Passion" (1962), directed by John Huston, which was shortly followed by a role in Peter Ustinov's "Billy Budd". McCallum played Lt. Cmdr. Eric Ashley-Pitt "Dispersal" in "The Great Escape" which was released in 1963. He took the role of Judas Iscariot in 1965's "The Greatest Story Ever Told". Notable pre-U.N.C.L.E. television roles included two appearances on "The Outer Limits" and a guest appearance on "Perry Mason" in 1964 as defendant Phillipe Bertain in "The Case of the Fifty Millionth Frenchman." "The Man from U.N.C.L.E.". "The Man from U.N.C.L.E", intended as a vehicle for Robert Vaughn, made McCallum into a sex symbol, his Beatle-style blond haircut providing a trendy contrast with Vaughn's traditional appearance. McCallum's role as the mysterious Russian agent Illya Kuryakin was originally conceived as a peripheral one. However, McCallum took the opportunity to construct a complex character whose appeal rested largely in what was shadowy and enigmatic about him. Kuryakin's popularity with the audience and Vaughn's and McCallum's on-screen chemistry were quickly recognised by the producers and McCallum was elevated to co-star status.
1165653	Leif Erickson (October 27, 1911 – January 29, 1986) was an American stage, film, and television actor. Background. Born as William Y. Wycliffe Anderson, in Alameda near San Francisco, California, Erickson worked as a soloist in a band as vocalist and trombone player, performed in Max Reinhardt's productions,and then gained a small amount of stage experience in a comedy vaudeville act. Initially billed by Paramount Pictures as Glenn Erickson, he began his screen career as a leading man in westerns. Erickson made his film debut in two 1933 band films with Betty Grable before starting a string of Buster Crabbe western films based on Zane Grey novels. Erickson took off four years to serve in the Navy during World War II as a combat photographer. Erickson served as an instructor, was shot down twice in the Pacific, and was twice wounded. Career. Erickson appeared in films such as "College Holiday" (1936), "Conquest" (1937), "Ride a Crooked Mile" (1938), "The Snake Pit" (1948)," Sorry, Wrong Number" (1948), "Invaders from Mars" (1953), "On the Waterfront" (1954), "The Fastest Gun Alive" (1956), "Twilight for the Gods" (1958), "A Gathering of Eagles" (1963), "Roustabout" (1964), and "The Carpetbaggers" (1964). One of his more notable roles was as Deborah Kerr's macho husband in the stage and film versions of "Tea and Sympathy". He also played the role of Pete, the vindictive boat engineer, in the 1951 screen remake of the famed musical "Show Boat". His final film appearance was in "Twilight's Last Gleaming" (1977).
1058075	Heavenly Creatures is a 1994 New Zealand drama film directed by Peter Jackson, from a screenplay he co-wrote with his partner, Fran Walsh, about the notorious 1954 Parker–Hulme murder case in Christchurch, New Zealand. The film features Melanie Lynskey and Kate Winslet in their screen debuts. The main premise deals with the obsessive relationship between two teenage girls, Pauline Parker and Juliet Hulme, who murder Parker's mother. The events of the film cover the period from the girls' meeting in 1952 to the murder in 1954. The film opened to strong critical acclaim at the 51st Venice International Film Festival in 1994 and became one of the best-received films of the year. Reviewers praised most aspects of the production. Particular attention was given to the performances by the previously unknown Winslet and Lynskey, and for Jackson's directing. The film received an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Screenplay but lost to "Pulp Fiction". Plot. In 1950s Christchurch, New Zealand, a 14-year-old girl from a working-class family, Pauline Parker (Lynskey), befriends the more affluent English 15-year-old Juliet Hulme (Winslet) when Juliet transfers to Pauline's school. They bond over a shared history of severe childhood disease and isolating hospitalizations, and over time develop an intense friendship. Pauline admires Juliet's outspoken arrogance and beauty. Together they paint, write stories, make clay figurines, and eventually create a fantasy kingdom called Borovnia. It is the setting of the adventure novels they write together, which they hope to have published and eventually made into films in Hollywood. Over time it begins to be as real to them as the real world. Pauline's relationship with her mother, Honora, becomes increasingly hostile and the two fight constantly. This angry atmosphere is in contrast to the peaceful intellectual life Juliet shares with her family. Pauline spends most of her time at the Hulmes', where she feels accepted. Juliet introduces Pauline to the idea of "the Fourth World", a Heaven without Christians where music and art are celebrated. Juliet believes she will go there when she dies. Certain actors and musicians are "saints" in this afterlife.
144659	Glenn Taranto (born 27 January 1959) is an American actor and screenwriter, perhaps best known for his role as Gomez on "The New Addams Family".
1034105	James Cossins (4 December 1933 – 12 February 1997) was an English character actor. Born in Beckenham, Kent, he became widely recognised as the abrupt, bewildered Mr. Walt in the "Fawlty Towers" episode "The Hotel Inspectors". He played a magistrate in episodes of three different British sitcoms, "Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads?", "The Good Life" and "Citizen Smith". After serving in the Royal Air Force he trained at RADA where he won the silver medal in 1952, he then appeared in repertory theatre and played a wide range of characters throughout his colourful and extensive career on television and stage. His film credits include "The Anniversary" and "The Lost Continent" (both 1968), "Gandhi" (1982), and "The Man with the Golden Gun" (1974). On the small screen, he appeared as a guest in a variety of shows, including "Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em", "The Likely Lads" and "Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads?", "Minder", "Bergerac", "The Sweeney", "Shadows", "All Creatures Great and Small", "Citizen Smith", "Just William", "The Good Life", "L for Lester", Neville Dennis in "Callan" "Rules of the Game" (1972), "Z-Cars", and as the regular character Bruce Westrop (in 1979) in "Emmerdale Farm". He also played Major Bagstock in "Dombey and Son" (1983), and appeared in the first series of "All in Good Faith" in 1985. Cossins died at the age of 63 in 1997.
633706	Cyia Batten (born January 26, 1972) is an American dancer, model and film/television actress as well as former Pussycat Dolls dance troupe. She has worked as a professional dancer all over the world for various projects including The Pussycat Dolls and Carmen Electra, Teatro Comunale di Firenze and others.
1151525	The Baxter is a 2005 film written by, directed by and starring American comedian Michael Showalter. A “Baxter”, as defined by the film, is the nice, dull guy in a romantic comedy who is dumped at the end of the story for the protagonist. Much light humor is made of showing Showalter as a "Baxter" in several typical romantic comedy clichés; for instance, he is shown being left at the altar as a former love is claimed by her high school sweetheart, and being left in college at a pep rally for an underdog sports hero. The plot revolves around the life of Elliot Sherman during the two weeks before his wedding, as he doggedly fights off the curse of his former Baxter role in relationships. IFC Films financed the film and produced it with Plum Pictures. They gave the film a very limited release; it had a U.S. box office gross of $181,872. Plot. Eliot is a dependable and reliable—though thoroughly average—young man with a streak of bad luck. It seems that he is terminally typecast as a nice guy in a life that mimics the clichés of typical romantic comedies. In High School he was stood up by his date on Prom night when her ex-boyfriend, the most popular kid in school, swept her off her feet while he was getting drinks. In college, his next serious girlfriend was wooed back by her ex-boyfriend during a pep rally when he announced that he would abandon the Lacrosse team in favor of attending her music audition to Juilliard. Later, during business school, the same thing happens when he and his then-girlfriend are intercepted by one of her ex-boyfriends with a puppy. Having lost three girlfriends to their ex-boyfriends has made Eliot defensive at the proposition of being abandoned (yet again) and having his heart broken. About a week before his wedding to his girlfriend, Caroline Swann, he discovers that she had a long-lost love in High School, Bradley, from whom she was inseparable. Eliot tries to keep himself composed, but even his Caroline's reassurances do not convince him that her feelings for Bradley are buried. Though he makes a last-ditch effort to convince her to elope, she refuses, and Eliot starts bracing himself for the worst when Bradley drops by and begins trying to win Caroline's affections again. In frustration, Eliot has a chance encounter with an office temp, Cecil (Michelle Williams), who shares the same elevator with him while he blurts out his unfortunate past. As he resigns himself to losing Caroline to Bradley, Cecil offers him a ray of hope: she does not believe in "Baxters" and thinks that his predicament is avoidable.
1165698	Phyllis Coates (born Gypsie Ann Evarts Stell on January 15, 1927) is an American film and television actress. She is perhaps best known for her portrayal of reporter Lois Lane in the 1951 film "Superman and the Mole Men" and in the first season of the television series "Adventures of Superman". Early life and career. After graduating from high school in her native Wichita Falls, Texas, Coates went to Los Angeles to study at UCLA. However, a chance meeting with entertainer Ken Murray resulted in her working in his vaudeville show as a chorus girl. She later performed as one of Earl Carroll's showgirls at his Earl Carroll Theatre. She signed a movie contract with Warner Brothers extending from 1948 to 1956, and she co-starred with George O'Hanlon in the studio's popular Joe McDoakes short-subject comedies in what can be considered the "first sitcom." She was married briefly to the series' director, Richard L. Bare, and continued to appear in the films after the couple divorced.
1116677	Sir Ronald Ross KCB FRS (13 May 1857 – 16 September 1932) was an Indian-born British doctor who received the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 1902 for his work on malaria. His discovery of the malarial parasite in the gastrointestinal tract of the "Anopheles mosquito" led to the realization that malaria was transmitted by "Anopheles", and laid the foundation for combating the disease. Early life. Sir Ronald Ross was born in India, the eldest son of General Sir Campbell Claye Grant Ross of the British Indian Army and Matilda Charlotte Elderton. His grandfather, Lieutenant Colonel Hugh Ross, had malaria, and the boy resolved to find a cure for the disease. At the age of eight, he was sent to England for his education. He commenced the study of medicine in London in 1875. He passed his final examination in 1880 and joined the Indian Medical Service in 1881. His second posting was in Madras. He commenced the study of malaria in 1892. Discovery. Ross studied malaria between 1882 and 1899, working at the Presidency General Hospital, Calcutta. Ross built a bungalow with a laboratory at Mahanad village, where he used to stay from time to time, collecting mosquitoes in Mahanad and adjoining villages and conducting research. In 1883, Ross was posted as the Acting Garrison Surgeon at Bangalore during which time he noticed the possibility of controlling mosquitoes by controlling their access to water. In 1897, Ross was posted to Ooty and fell ill with malaria. After this he was transferred to Secunderabad, where Osmania University and its medical school is located. He discovered the presence of the malarial parasite within a specific species of mosquito, of the genus Anopheles, which he initially called "dapple-wings". He was able to find the malaria parasite in a mosquito that he artificially fed on a malaria patient named Hussain Khan. He also did pioneering work in Malaria and the life cycle of P.vivax in the gut of anopheles mosquito while invited to Labac T.E. in southern Assam( NE Indian state), while he was invited there by Dr. Henry Joseph Grover, the CMO of the Labac T.E. Hospital ( the article with a picture of his microscope can be seen to the day at the Labac T.E. Hospital), where he did work on the understanding the life cycle in mosquito. In 1899, Ross went to Britain and joined the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine as a professor. In 1901 Ross was elected a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons and also a Fellow, of which he became Vice-President from 1911 to 1913. In 1902, Ross was awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine for his work on malaria. His assistant, Kishori Mohan Bandyopadhyay, was awarded a gold medal. In the same year, he was appointed a Companion of the Most Honourable Order of Bath by King Edward VII, and discovered how malaria was transmitted. In 1911 he was elevated to the rank of Knight Commander of the same Order. During his active career Ross advocated the task of prevention of malaria in different countries. He carried out surveys and initiated schemes in many places, including West Africa, the Suez Canal zone, Greece, Mauritius, Cyprus, and in the areas affected by the First World War. He also initiated organisations, which have proved to be well established, for the prevention of malaria within the planting industries of India and Sri Lanka, and declared 20 August World Mosquito Day. He made many contributions to the epidemiology of malaria and to methods of its survey and assessment. Perhaps his greatest was the development of mathematical models for the study of its epidemiology, initiated in his report on Mauritius in 1908, elaborated in his Prevention of malaria in 1911 and further elaborated in a more generalised form in scientific papers published by the Royal Society in 1915 and 1916. These papers represented a profound mathematical interest which was not confined to epidemiology, but led him to make material contributions to both pure and applied mathematics. Through these works Ross continued his great contribution in the form of the discovery of the transmission of malaria by the mosquito. He also found time and mental energy for many other pursuits, being a poet, playwright, writer and painter. Particularly, his poetic works gained him wide acclaim which was independent of his medical and mathematical standing. Ross Institute and Hospital for Tropical Diseases. The Ross Institute and Hospital for Tropical Diseases was founded and in 1926 established at Bath House, a grand house with keeper's lodge and large grounds adjacent to Tibbet's Corner at Putney Heath. The hospital was opened by the then Prince of Wales, the future Edward VII. It was later incorporated into the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine in Keppel Street. Bath House was later demolished and mansion flats built on the property. In memory of its history and owner the block was named Ross Court. Within the grounds an older dwelling, Ross Cottage, remains. Family. Ross married Rosa Bessie Bloxam in 1889. They had two sons, Ronald and Charles, and two daughters, Dorothy and Sylvia. His wife died in 1931. Ross died a year later after a long illness and asthma attack, at Bath House. He was buried at the nearby Putney Vale Cemetery. Honors and awards. Ross received many honours in addition to the Nobel Prize, and was given honorary membership of learned societies of most countries of Europe, and elsewhere. He got an honorary M.D. degree in Stockholm in 1910 at the centenary celebration of the Caroline Institute and his 1923 autobiography "Memoirs, Etc." was awarded that year's James Tait Black Memorial Prize. While his vivacity and single-minded search for truth caused friction with some people, he enjoyed a vast circle of friends in Europe, Asia and the United States who respected him for his personality as well as for his genius. In India, Ross is remembered with great respect. Because of his relentless work on l, the deadly epidemic which used to claim thousands of lives every year could be successfully controlled. There are roads named after him in many Indian towns and cities. In Calcutta the road linking Presidency General Hospital with Kidderpore Road has been renamed after him as Sir Ronald Ross Sarani. Earlier this road was known as Hospital Road. In his memory, the regional infectious disease hospital at Hyderabad was named after him as Sir Ronald Ross Institute of Tropical and Communicable Diseases in recognition of his services in the field of tropical diseases. The building where he worked and actually discovered the malarial parasite, located in Secunderabad near the Begumpet Airport, is a heritage site and the road leading up to the building is named Sir Ronald Ross Road. In Ludhiana, Christian Medical College has named its hostel as "Ross Hostel". The young doctors often refer to themselves as "Rossians". The University of Surrey, UK, has named a road after him in its Manor Park Residences. Ronald Ross primary school near Wimbledon Common is named after him. The school's coat of arms includes a mosquito in one quarter. Sir Ronald Ross Institute of Parasitology was established in memory of Ronald Ross in Hyderabad, under Osmania University. Most recently, the University of Liverpool has named a large Biological Science building in his honour. The Ronald Ross building is home to the University's Institute of Infection and Global Health.
1162586	Barbara Britton (September 26, 1919 – January 17, 1980) was an American film and television actress. She is best known for her Western film roles opposite Randolph Scott, Joel McCrea, and Gene Autry, and for her two-year tenure as inquisitive amateur sleuth Pam North on the television series "Mr. and Mrs. North". Biography. Barbara Brantingham was born September 26, 1919 Long Beach, California. She attended Polytechnic High School and Long Beach City College, majoring in Speech with the intention of working as a speech and drama teacher. While in school she began to show an interest in acting and began working on local stage productions. In 1941, while appearing in a Pasadena Tournament of Roses Parade, a photo of Britton was used on the front page of a local newspaper. A talent scout took notice, and she was soon signed to a Paramount Pictures contract. That same year, she appeared in her first two films: the William Boyd western "Secret of the Wasteland" and "Louisiana Purchase" starring Bob Hope. Her first major film appearance was in a small role in the John Wayne film "Reap the Wild Wind" (1942). During the 1940s Britton starred in three films for which she is most recognized today, two of which co-starred Randolph Scott. The first was the 1945 film "Captain Kidd" with Scott, followed by "The Virginian" in 1946 opposite Joel McCrea. The third was the 1947 Randolph Scott film "Gunfighters". She teamed with Scott again in the 1948 western "Albuquerque", and that same year she starred opposite Gene Autry in "Loaded Pistols". In total, she starred or appeared in 26 films during that decade. Reportedly because of lasting trauma suffered while making the 1943 war picture "So Proudly We Hail!", she sought the help of physician and psychoanalyst Dr. Eugene J. Czukor in 1944. The film was about a group of nurses returning from the war in the Philippines who recall their experiences in combat and in love. Britton and Dr. Czukor (22 years her senior) were married on April 2, 1945, and the marriage lasted until Britton's death 34 years later. Britton starred in the 1950s television show "Mr. and Mrs. North", a Thin Man-like mystery show, with Richard Denning and Francis De Sales. She was probably best known for being the spokesperson for Revlon products in the 1950s and 1960s, appearing in ads and commercials that included live spots on "The $64,000 Question". She also portrayed Laura Petrie in Carl Reiner's "Head of the Family", the 1959 pilot for the later Dick Van Dyke Show. One of Britton's last roles was on the daytime TV soap opera "One Life to Live" in 1979. She died of pancreatic cancer in New York City on January 17, 1980 at the age of 60.
1102720	Solomon Lefschetz (; 3 September 1884 – 5 October 1972) was an American mathematician who did fundamental work on algebraic topology, its applications to algebraic geometry, and the theory of non-linear ordinary differential equations. Life. He was born in Moscow into a Mizrahi Jewish family (his parents were Ottoman citizens) who moved shortly after that to Paris. He was educated there in engineering at the École Centrale Paris, but emigrated to the USA in 1905. He was badly injured in an industrial accident in 1907, losing both hands. He moved towards mathematics, receiving a Ph.D. in algebraic geometry from Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts in 1911. He then took positions in University of Nebraska and University of Kansas, moving to Princeton University in 1924, where he was soon given a permanent position. He remained there until 1953. In the application of topology to algebraic geometry, he followed the work of Charles Émile Picard, whom he had heard lecture in Paris at the École Centrale Paris. He proved theorems on the topology of hyperplane sections of algebraic varieties, which provide a basic inductive tool (these are now seen as allied to Morse theory, though a Lefschetz pencil of hyperplane sections is a more subtle system than a Morse function because hyperplanes intersect each other). The Picard-Lefschetz formula in the theory of vanishing cycles is a basic tool relating the degeneration of families of varieties with 'loss' of topology, to monodromy. His book "L'analysis situs et la géométrie algébrique" from 1924, though opaque foundationally given the current technical state of homology theory, was in the long term very influential (one could say that it was one of the sources for the eventual proof of the Weil conjectures, through SGA7). In 1924 he was awarded the Bôcher Memorial Prize for his work in mathematical analysis. The Lefschetz fixed point theorem, now a basic result of topology, he developed in papers from 1923 to 1927, initially for manifolds. Later, with the rise of cohomology theory in the 1930s, he contributed to the intersection number approach (that is, in cohomological terms, the ring structure) via the cup product and duality on manifolds. His work on topology was summed up in his monograph "Algebraic Topology" (1942). From 1944 he worked on differential equations. He was editor of "the Annals of Mathematics" from 1928 to 1958. During this time, "Annals" became an increasingly well-known and respected journal, and Lefschetz played an important role in this. The rise of "Annals", in turn, stimulated American mathematics. Lefschetz came out of retirement in 1958, because of the launch of Sputnik, to augment the mathematical component of Glenn L. Martin Company’s Research Institute for Advanced Studies (RIAS) in Baltimore, Maryland. His team became the world's largest group of mathematicians devoted to research in nonlinear differential equations. The RIAS mathematics group stimulated the growth of nonlinear differential equations through conferences and publications. He left RIAS in 1964 to form the Lefschetz Center for Dynamical Systems at Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island.
438937	Wild Hearts Can’t Be Broken is a 1991 film about Sonora Webster Carver, a rider of diving horses. It is based on events in her life as told in her memoir "A Girl and Five Brave Horses". It was filmed in the small town of Orangeburg, South Carolina on the McCants' family farm.
587709	Sahasa Veerudu Sagara Kanya () is a 1996 Tollywood film starring Venkatesh, Malashree and Shilpa Shetty and directed by K. Raghavendra Rao and produced by Buragapalli Shivarama Krshna. It was dubbed into Hindi and Tamil languages. Hindi version was titled "Sagar Kanya". It was declared a hit at the box office and ran for 150 days. Music by M.M. Keeravani is an asset to this film. The movie is loosely based on the Hollywood film "Splash". Synopsis. The film is about Sahasa Veerudu (Venkatesh), the film's hero and Sagara Kanya (Shilpa Shetty), a mermaid. Malashree plays Ganga, Sahasa's cousin who loves him. They stay with some comedians in a house near the seashore. Kaikala Satyanarayana, the villain of the film, tries to acquire a ship which drowned with lot of treasure on board. He associates himself with a witch who helps him in finding the treasure. After a few attempts the witch finds out that the treasure can be recovered with the help of a mermaid. Accidentally one day Sagara comes on to land from the water and loses her mermaid body. She turns out to be a beautiful woman. Whenever water is spilled over her, however, she turns back into a mermaid. On land she becomes involved with the hero, Venkatesh. She is named as Bangaram. Bangaram starts loving Sahasa. The witch comes to know about Sagara and informs Kaikala that only a mermaid can find the treasure. The film continues with Sagara being harassed and with Sahasa's adventures. In the end Sahasa wins over the evil elements. Bangaram returns to the sea uniting Sahasa and his cousin.
1163620	Thomas Daniel "Tim" Conway (born December 15, 1933) is an Emmy Award-winning American comedian and actor, who has worked in sitcoms, sketch comedy and film. Conway is best known for his role in the popular 1960s World War II situation comedy "McHale's Navy" as the inept Ensign Charles Parker, second in command to Lieutenant Commander Quinton McHale (played by Ernest Borgnine), for co-starring alongside Carol Burnett on "The Carol Burnett Show," and as the voice of Barnacle Boy from the animated series "SpongeBob SquarePants" (alongside Borgnine, who provided the voice of Mermaid Man until his death in 2012). Early life. Conway was born in Willoughby, Ohio, a suburb of Cleveland, to a Romanian mother, and grew up in nearby Chagrin Falls. He attended Bowling Green State University in Bowling Green, Ohio, majoring in speech and radio, and was a member of the Phi Delta Theta Fraternity. After graduating, he joined the Army, and thereafter took a job at a Cleveland radio station, at first answering mail and later as a writer in the promotional department. Conway changed his first name to "Tim" to avoid confusion with actor Tom Conway. Career. "Ghoulardi". Conway moved back to Cleveland to work with Ernie Anderson on KYW-TV, an NBC affiliate, in 1958 and 1959 and later, from 1960 to 1962, on WJW-TV (then a CBS affiliate) on a weekday morning film (under the "Ernie's Place" banner), where he also wrote material for the comedic skits shown in between film intermissions. Conway also recorded a comedy album with Anderson. WJW dismissed Conway, in part because he (and Anderson) misled station management into thinking he was a director. Because of this move, which deprived Anderson of his co-host and comic foil, the station asked Anderson if he could host a B-grade (and lower) horror film show on Friday nights instead. Conway continued to make many appearances alongside Anderson's alter ego "Ghoulardi", in addition to "Big Chuck" Schodowski, a station engineer who Anderson got to assume much of Conway's sidekick status (and who ultimately succeeded Anderson as co-host of the horror film program). After he became famous, Conway resurfaced periodically on Cleveland television on the "Hoolihan and Big Chuck" and "Big Chuck and Lil' John" shows on WJW-TV in guest spots, and occasional skits. Conway has since made regular guest appearances at numerous "Ghoulardifest" functions held by WJW over the years, along with former Cleveland TV personality Bob "Hoolihan" Wells, in tribute to Anderson, who died in 1997. "The Steve Allen Show". Comedic actress Rose Marie visited WJW in 1961, as part of CBS's promotional practice of sending their major show stars directly to local affiliates: in this case, it was for "The Dick Van Dyke Show". She viewed tapes of some of Anderson and Conway's skits and proceeded to take Conway under her wing. Following his departure from WJW, Conway moved to New York City; where, with Rose Marie's assistance, he auditioned for, and gained a spot on, ABC's "The Steve Allen Show" as a regular player. Conway (who by this point had officially changed his first name to Tim) continued on the show for two seasons. "McHale's Navy". Conway gained a national following from his role as the bumbling, naive Ensign Charles Parker, Executive Officer of the PT-73, in the 1960s sitcom "McHale's Navy", alongside Ernest Borgnine and Joe Flynn, where the two had gotten along well. After cancellation, Conway became a good friend to the legendary Oscar-winning actor. He used to run into Borgnine a lot, even appearing at his mentor's 90th birthday celebration, and 4 years later, paid tribute to his friend at 7th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards on TNT. He lost his decades-long friend on July 8, 2012, the year after Borgnine was being honored. Prior to his TV commander's death, Conway revealed that "Borgnine was 'like a big teddy bear' and 'a very pleasant person to be around' when he worked with him on the World War Two sitcom 'McHale's Navy'." Afterwards, he starred in a string of short-lived TV series, starting with 1967's "Rango" which starred Conway as an incompetent Texas Ranger. "Turn-On". Conway was part of one of the most infamous network TV programming catastrophes ever: "Turn-On", a counter-cultural sketch comedy show on ABC was derided as a ripoff of NBC's "Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In. " Ironically "Turn-On was "created and directed by Laugh-In's creator George Schlatter. Even though Conway was only listed as a guest star on the pilot, which ABC broadcast on February 5, 1969, it was the only episode that ever aired.
1059564	American Gigolo is a 1980 American crime drama film starring Richard Gere, written and directed by Paul Schrader. Schrader considers it one of four similar films, which he calls "double bookends": "Taxi Driver", bookended by "Light Sleeper", and "American Gigolo" bookended by "The Walker". Plot. Julian Kaye (Richard Gere) is a male escort in Los Angeles whose job supports his expensive taste in cars, stereophonic equipment, cocaine and clothes. He is, at times, blatantly narcissistic and superficial; however, he claims to take some pleasure in his work from being able to sexually satisfy women. When on an assignment for his primary procuress, Anne (Nina Van Pallandt), he meets Michelle Stratton (Lauren Hutton), the unhappy wife of a local politician, who becomes interested in him. Julian's other pimp, Leon (Bill Duke), sends him to the house of a financier, Mr. Rheiman, who asks Julian to physically abuse and have sex with his wife while he watches them. As Julian begins to get to know Michelle, he learns that the financier's wife, Mrs. Rheiman, was murdered. Los Angeles Police Department Detective Sunday (Hector Elizondo) investigates Julian as a primary suspect. Though he was with a client, Lisa Williams (K Callan), on the night of the murder, the client refuses to give Julian an alibi in order to protect her and her husband's reputations. As Julian's relationship with Michelle deepens, suspicion of the murder mounts against him. He soon realizes that he is being framed and grows increasingly desperate. His mounting anguish is visually represented by a degeneration in style as his clothes become rumpled, he goes unshaven, and he even rents a cheap commuter car after his Mercedes SL has been tampered with. Julian finally confronts Leon, who confesses that one of the other, younger "gigolos" who works for him had killed the wealthy man's wife, and Leon had conceived the plan to frame Julian. After an argument, Julian accidentally pushes Leon over the apartment balcony and he falls to his death. With no one to help him, Julian ends up in jail, awaiting trial for the murder. However, when all seems lost, Michelle risks her reputation and that of her husband to provide Julian with the alibi that can save him from prison. Production. Christopher Reeve reportedly turned down the part of Julian Kaye despite being offered a million-dollar fee, before Richard Gere became attached to the role. Gere said in 2012 that he was drawn to the role because of its gay subtext. "I read it and I thought, 'This is a character I don't know very well. I don't own a suit. He speaks languages; I don't speak any languages. There's kind of a gay thing that's flirting through it and I didn't know the gay community at all.' I wanted to immerse myself in all of that and I had literally two weeks. So I just dove in." John Travolta became interested in the part and briefly replaced Gere before getting "cold feet" and dropping out. This is not the only role that Travolta has turned down only to be taken by Gere: it had previously happened with "Days of Heaven" (1978) and occurred again when Travolta was offered the lead in both "An Officer and a Gentleman" (1982) and "Chicago" (2002). Gere's very brief nude scenes marked the first time a major Hollywood actor was frontally nude in a film. According to Gere, the nudity was not in the original script. "It was just in the natural process of making the movie. I certainly felt vulnerable, but I think it's different for men than women." Julie Christie was originally cast in the role of Michelle Stratton but her departure was precipitated by Gere's replacement of Travolta. By the time Gere had returned to the project, Lauren Hutton had already been hired. Meryl Streep was also offered the part of Michelle but declined because she didn't like the tone of the film.
584307	Thiruvilaiyaadal Aarambam (; ) is a 2006 Tamil comedy film directed by Boopathy Pandian and produced by Dr. Vimala Geetha. Dhanush and Shriya Saran play the lead roles, while Prakash Raj, Karunas and Saranya play other pivotal roles. The film, which had music composed by D. Imaan, was released on 15 December 2006 and won critical and commercial acclaim Superhit film of 2006. Plot. Thirukumaran (Dhanush) is a carefree laid back guy who has a great time with his friends (Karunas, Sukumar and others). He falls in love with Priya (Shriya Saran), who is the sister of Guru (Prakash Raj), a rich business tycoon. The story is about a cat-and-mouse game between Thiru and Guru, who is against Thiru and Priya's love. Thiru (Dhanush), the hero wins the game at the end. Production. The film was announced in late August 2005 with Boopathy Pandian and Dhanush coming together after a previous collaboration in "Devathayai Kanden" (2004). Shriya Saran, who rose to fame in Tamil films after her role in "Mazhai", was signed as the heroine and the film was titled as "Naveena Thiruvilayadal", though the prefix was later dropped. In September 2010, actor Sivaji Ganesan's Fan Club issued legal notice to the film's producer, Vimala Geetha, to change the name of the film "Thiruvilayadal" within 15 days or face legal action before the necessary forum. They had felt that the title was reminiscent of the 1965 Sivaji film of the same name, and felt that the new venture would defame the old film. K. Bhagyaraj was initially pencilled in to play Dhanush's father in the film, but was later replaced by Mouli due to the delay of the film. Shriya Saran was forced to opt out of the film in October 2005 owing to her commitment to work in Rajinikanth's "Sivaji". Reports suggested that either Tamannaah or Ileana may be approached to replace her, while the film's inactivity led to rumours that the film was cancelled.
1068125	Gabrielle Anwar (born 4 February 1970) is an English actress. She is known for her role as Margaret Tudor on "The Tudors", for dancing the tango with Al Pacino in "Scent of a Woman," and for her role as Fiona Glenanne on USA's "Burn Notice". Early life. Anwar was born in Laleham, Surrey. Her mother, Shirley Hills, is an actress, and her father, Tariq Anwar, is an award-winning film producer and editor. Her father was born in Delhi, India, to an Austrian Jewish mother and an Indian father. Her mother is English. Gabrielle attended Laleham C of E Primary and Middle School from 1975 to 1982; an end-of-term St. Trinian's sketch in the school concert of 1982 gave an early indication of her theatrical leanings. She studied drama and dance at the Italia Conti Academy of Theatre Arts in London. Career. Anwar's acting debut was in the British miniseries "Hideaway". She made her film debut in "Manifesto", which was followed by more British television productions including "First Born", "Summer's Lease", "Press Gang", and "The Mysteries of the Dark Jungle". While working on films and television in London, she met American actor Craig Sheffer, and moved with him to Hollywood. Anwar and Sheffer have co-starred in a number of American films together, such as "In Pursuit of Honor", "The Grave", "Turbulence 3: Heavy Metal", "Flying Virus", "Save It for Later", "Water Under the Bridge", and "Long Lost Son". Her first American film was "If Looks Could Kill", in which she played the daughter of a murdered British Agent (played by Roger Daltrey). In 1992, she made a guest appearance on "Beverly Hills, 90210" as Tricia Kinney. She followed that with the films "Wild Hearts Can't Be Broken" (inspired by "A Girl and Five Brave Horses"), "Scent of a Woman", "Body Snatchers", "For Love or Money", and "The Three Musketeers". In 1994, "People" magazine named her one of the 50 most beautiful people in the world. One of her most memorable moments on screen came in 1992's "Scent of a Woman", when she danced a tango with Al Pacino, whose character was blind. Anwar has appeared in the TV series "John Doe" and recently acted in '. Anwar played Princess Margaret, sister of King Henry VIII, on Showtime's "The Tudors" in 2007. She later played Fiona Glenanne in the long-running TV series "Burn Notice". In 2008, Anwar made an appearance as Eva Sintzel, a woman trying to get pregnant through the fictitious Hudson Cryobank in the ' episode "Inconceivable". Personal life. Anwar has a daughter, Willow, born in 1993, with whom she appeared in the film "Daddy Who?" Willow's father is actor Craig Sheffer, with whom Anwar had a relationship in the late 1980s and 1990s. Anwar was later married to actor John Verea with whom she had son, Hugo, and daughter, Paisley, before divorcing. Sheffer is godfather to Anwar's children from her relationship with Verea. Since April 2010, Anwar has been in a relationship with Shareef Malnik.
1065001	40 Days and 40 Nights is a 2002 romantic comedy film directed by Michael Lehmann, written by Rob Perez and starring Josh Hartnett, Shannyn Sossamon and Paulo Costanzo. The film depicts Matt Sullivan during a period of abstinence from any sexual contact for the duration of Lent. Plot. Matt Sullivan (Josh Hartnett) and his roommate, Ryan (Paulo Costanzo), are co-workers at a San Francisco dot-com company. Matt is obsessed with his ex-girlfriend, Nicole (Vinessa Shaw), who has just gotten engaged. He confides to his brother, John (Adam Trese), who is training to become a Catholic priest, that he has sexual problems because of his obsession. Matt vows to chastity for 40 days and 40 nights for Lent. In this movie it is also implied that Matt does not masturbate or otherwise actively seek orgasm for the same period, since doing so could be considered sexual. John warns Matt that chastity is not easy; meanwhile, Ryan starts a popular office pool to bet on how long Matt can last. Matt meets Erica (Shannyn Sossamon), a cyber nanny, and they begin to date. They face many challenges in their relationship, including her discovery of his celibacy vow and Matt's continuing feelings for Nicole. Matt's co-workers make many unsuccessful attempts to persuade him to have sex in order to win the pool, and as the days pass Matt's obsession with sex grows. At one point he angrily grabs a pornographic magazine from an office desk and begins to march towards a toilet stall in order to masturbate, but his co-workers stop him and convince him to maintain his pledge. Despite the range of increasingly powerful cultural incentives to sex and orgasm surrounding Matt — scantily-dressed women, billboards, et cetera — Matt's commitment holds, and begins to frustrate a lot of the people around him who had fully expected him to break it long before he could get close to his goal. In the meantime, Erica and Matt are falling in love, and they plan a special encounter for the 40th night to celebrate his successfully completing his vow. On the 40th day, a newly single Nicole learns of the betting pool, makes a large bet and then rapes Matt while he is asleep.
583965	Asin Thottumkal (born 26 October 1982), known mononymously as Asin, is an Indian actress. She began her acting career in the South Indian film industry, but now appears predominantly in Bollywood films. She is the only Malayali actress, other than Padmini, who has the distinction of having dubbed in her own voice for all her films, irrespective of language. Asin also has the distinction of being the 'numero uno' heroine of Tamil cinema over the span 5 years from 2004 to 2008 with a string of blockbuster hits and was fondly referred to as Queen of Kollywood. Currently Asin is one of the leading actresses in Bollywood and tops the Bollywood Hundred Crore Club among actresses. Making her acting debut in Sathyan Anthikkad's Malayalam film "Narendran Makan Jayakanthan Vaka" (2001), Asin had her first commercial success with the Telugu film "Amma Nanna O Tamila Ammayi" in 2003, and won a Filmfare Best Telugu Actress Award for the film. "M. Kumaran S/O Mahalakshmi" (2004) was her debut in Tamil and a huge success. She received her Filmfare Best Tamil Actress Award for her most noted critically acclaimed performance in her third Tamil film, "Ghajini" (2005). She then played the lead female roles in many successful films, most notable being the dramatic thriller "Varalaru (2006), the action thriller "Pokkiri" (2007), romantic drama "Vel (2008) and the blockbuster "Dasavathaaram" (2008) opposite Kamal Haasan and hence established herself as the leading actress of Tamil cinema and was also honoured by the Tamil Nadu government with the Kalaimamani award for her excellence in the field of art and literature. In 2013, Asin was conferred with Pride of South Indian Cinema award at SIIMA for her contribution to Tamil cinema. In late 2008, Asin made her debut in the Bollywood film "Ghajini" (2008) opposite Aamir Khan which was the first Bollywood film to have collected more than 1 billion in the domestic box office, subsequently collecting worldwide. Asin won the Filmfare Best Female Debut Award and many accolades for Ghajini. 2011 marked the most successful phase of Asin's Bollywood career, as she starred in Anees Bazmee's romantic comedy, "Ready", in which she co-starred alongside Salman Khan. The film was a major hit at the box office, collecting worldwide. In 2012, Asin first starred in Sajid Khan's multistarrer "Housefull 2" which collected more than 1 billion and received blockbuster status. She then featured in Bol Bachchan and Khiladi 786, which were also commercially successful with the former grossing over 1 billion. Early life. Asin was born in Cochin (now Kochi) in Kerala to a Syro-Malabar Catholic Nasrani family. Her father, Joseph Thottumkal originally from Thodupuzha, managed several businesses. Her mother, Seline Thottumkal, who moved settlements from Kochi to Chennai to Mumbai to live with her daughter, is a surgeon. Asin's father was keen to name her as Mary, after her grandmother. He however named her Asin as the name had a beautiful meaning. Asin has quoted that her name means "pure and without blemish". She states that the 'A' in her name is from Sanskrit meaning "without", and 'sin' from English". She attended Naval Public School from LKG through X standard. She scored over 90% in her X board exams but chose Humanities in XI standard, shocking her family who were confident she would take up science and get into the civil services. She then attended St. Teresa's School in Kochi for her Plus Two education. After that she attended St. Teresa's College in Kochi, a college affiliated with MG University, where she graduated with a Bachelors of Arts degree in English Literature. Career. Early work (2001–2004). Asin's first acting assignment was a television advertisement for BPL Mobile. She debuted in a Malayalam film "Narendran Makan Jayakanthan Vaka" in 2001, at the age of 15. After taking a year out to pursue her education, Asin returned with her breakthrough film as an actress, "Amma Nanna O Tamila Ammayi" opposite Ravi Teja, portraying a Tamil girl in her first Telugu language film, which subsequently fetched her the Telugu Filmfare Award for Best Actress. In the same year she won the Santosham Best Actress Award for her performance alongside Akkineni Nagarjuna in her second Telugu film, "Shivamani". Her following two Telugu films, "Lakshmi Narasimha" and "Gharshana", both portrayed Asin as the love interest for police officers and both were successful ventures. Asin's first Tamil language film was "M. Kumaran S/O Mahalakshmi", in which she co-starred with Jayam Ravi. Asin reprised her role from her film "Amma Nanna O Tamila Ammayi" for the remake, which saw her portraying a Malayali girl instead of the Tamil girl in the original. The movie subsequently went on to super hits in Tamil cinema during 2004, introducing Asin to Tamil film industry. After a brief return to Telugu films, to do "Chakram", she appeared in "Ullam Ketkumae". The film, initially launched in 2002 and was supposed to be her debut as a lead heroine, is a college love story, directed by Jeeva, which was long-delayed but eventually became a successful venture at the box-office, creating wider opportunities for her and the rest of the cast. Kollywood breakthrough & Stardom (2005–2007). After the release of "Ullam Ketkumae", Asin was cited as a leading heroine of the Tamil film industry after starring in blockbuster films like "Ghajini", "Sivakasi", "Varalaru" and "Pokkiri" respectively. The film which provided the breakthrough for Asin was "Ghajini". The film, co-starring Surya and was directed by A. R. Murugadoss, earned her the Tamil Filmfare Award for Best Actress. Her role was that of a vivacious young model named Kalpana. Sify.com praised her portrayal as "magical", describing her character as a "lovable chatterbox", played with "sheer ability in the romantic interludes, the poignant and heartfelt scenes when she rescues minor girls from villains and her gory end are touching". The following Diwali in 2005, Asin had two releases, "Sivakasi" and "Majaa". Despite the latter becoming an average grosser, the former went on to be a successful venture at the box office. The following year, her long-delayed venture, "Varalaru" opposite Ajith Kumar also succeeded at the box office, and The Hindu said she "looks lustrous and sails through her role smoothly". Asin appeared in Pawan Kalyan's "Annavaram", another successful venture which was a remake of Thirupaachi. In January 2007, Asin appeared opposite Ajith Kumar and Vijay in two different films, "Aalwar" and "Pokkiri", with the latter becoming a success, whilst "Aalwar" became a failure. Whilst Asin's role in "Aalwar" was criticised, her performance in "Pokkiri" was lauded by critics. Her final project of the year was opposite Surya, in Hari's "Vel", which had a Diwali 2007 release, subsequently becoming her third successful film which released during the Diwali season in three years. Asin, who portrayed a TV anchor, was appreciated for her role in the film. Bollywood debut (2008–2010). Asin appeared in her first dual role in K. S. Ravikumar's "Dasavathaaram" opposite Kamal Haasan, who portrayed ten roles. The film, which was under production since September 2006, Despite being overshadowed by Haasan's ten roles, Asin's portrayals in the film were praised as her "best-to-date" with one of her roles being that of a Vaishnavite in 12th century Tamil Nadu; whilst the other character was a Brahmin girl from Chidambaram for which she won her first ITFA Best Actress Award. "Dasavathaaram" subsequently went on to become one of the blockbusters . Since establishing herself as the leading actress in South India, Asin opted to move into Bollywood. Her first film, "Ghajini" opposite Aamir Khan was the remake of her breakthrough film of the same name. Upon release, the film garnered positive reactions from critics and masses alike, with Asin being singled out for her "fabulous" portray. Noted critic Taran Adarsh described her Hindi debut as "fabulous" and that "to share the screen space with an actor of the stature of Aamir Khan and yet remain in your memory even after the show has ended is no cakewalk. She looks fresh and photogenic and acts her part brilliantly", giving Asin's performance a positive outlook. "Ghajini" became the highest grossing Bollywood film of 2008 and sixth highest-grossing Bollywood film of all time according to net collections. Asin later appeared in Vipul Shah's "London Dreams" alongside Salman Khan and Ajay Devgn, in which she played as a south Indian girl, Priya, who is emotional but strong willed and an ambitious dancer at the same time. The film received mixed reviews from critics. Comeback in Kollywood. Her first film of 2011 was "Kaavalan" which released on 15 January 2011. The film was a critical and commercial success. "Behindwoods" review of the film praised her performance: "Asin, in Tamil for the first time after "Dasavatharam", convinces us with her portrayal. The chemistry of the lead pair has worked out well; especially the portions w things that ultimately result in love". The Chemistry between Vijay and Asin worked out well and was appreciated like their before films Sivakasi and Pokkiri. The film also includes Vadivelu as the comedian along with Mithra Kurian, Roja, Rajkiran playing supporting roles. Breakthrough & Stardom in Bollywood (2011–present). Her next movie with Salman Khan, "Ready" was released on 3 June 2011 to mixed reviews. Critics praised the chemistry between Salman and Asin. Upon release, Ready became the second highest weekend grossing Bollywood film, after "Dabangg" and went on to became the fifth film in Bollywood history to cross the coveted mark in the domestic market. [[File:Cast of 'Bol Bachchan' interview at
1058500	Charlie Bartlett is a 2007 American comedy-drama film directed by Jon Poll. The screenplay by Gustin Nash focuses on a teenager who begins to dispense therapeutic advice and prescription drugs to the student body at his new high school in order to become popular. The film premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival on May 1, 2007, and was shown at the Cannes Film Market, the Maui Film Festival, and the Cambridge Film Festival before going into theatrical release in the United States and Canada on August 3, 2007. Plot. The son of a depressed but doting mother (Hope Davis) and a father who is serving time for tax evasion, wealthy teenager Charlie Bartlett (Anton Yelchin), - after being expelled from several private academies for various infractions - enrolls in a public school run by embittered alcoholic Principal Nathan Gardner (Robert Downey, Jr.). Unable to fit-in with most of his fellow students, Charlie forms an alliance with school bully Murphy Bivens (Tyler Hilton) and offers him half the proceeds from the sale of a variety of prescription drugs Charlie obtains by feigning physical and emotional symptoms during sessions with different psychiatrists.
1099665	In statistics, propagation of uncertainty (or propagation of error) is the effect of variables' uncertainties (or errors) on the uncertainty of a function based on them. When the variables are the values of experimental measurements they have uncertainties due to measurement limitations (e.g., instrument precision) which propagate to the combination of variables in the function. The uncertainty is usually defined by the absolute error Δ"x". Uncertainties can also be defined by the relative error (Δ"x")/"x", which is usually written as a percentage. Most commonly the error on a quantity, Δ"x", is given as the standard deviation, "σ". Standard deviation is the positive square root of variance, "σ"2. The value of a quantity and its error are often expressed as an interval . If the statistical probability distribution of the variable is known or can be assumed, it is possible to derive confidence limits to describe the region within which the true value of the variable may be found. For example, the 68% confidence limits for a one dimensional variable belonging to a normal distribution are ± one standard deviation from the value, that is, there is approximately a 68% probability that the true value lies in the region . If the variables are correlated, then covariance must be taken into account. Linear combinations. Let formula_1 be a set of "m" functions which are linear combinations of formula_2 variables formula_3 with combination coefficients formula_4. and let the variance-covariance matrix on x be denoted by formula_7. Then, the variance-covariance matrix formula_9 of "f" is given by This is the most general expression for the propagation of error from one set of variables onto another. When the errors on "x" are uncorrelated the general expression simplifies to where the "x" superscript is merely notation, not exponentiation. Note that even though the errors on "x" may be uncorrelated, the errors on "f" are in general correlated; in other words, even if formula_12 is a diagonal matrix, formula_13 is in general a full matrix. The general expressions for a single function, "f", are a little simpler. Each covariance term, formula_16 can be expressed in terms of the correlation coefficient formula_17 by formula_18, so that an alternative expression for the variance of "f" is In the case that the variables "x" are uncorrelated this simplifies further to Non-linear combinations. When "f" is a set of non-linear combination of the variables "x", an interval propagation could be performed in order to compute intervals which contain all consistent values for the variables. In a probabilistic approach, the function "f" must usually be linearized by approximation to a first-order Taylor series expansion, though in some cases, exact formulas can be derived that do not depend on the expansion as is the case for the exact variance of products. The Taylor expansion would be: where formula_22 denotes the partial derivative of "fk" with respect to the "i"-th variable. Or in matrix notation, where "J" is the Jacobian matrix. Since "f 0" is a constant it does not contribute to the error on "f". Therefore, the propagation of error follows the linear case, above, but replacing the linear coefficients, "Aik" and "Ajk" by the partial derivatives, formula_24 and formula_25. In matrix notation, That is, the Jacobian of the function is used to transform the rows and columns of the covariance of the argument. Simplification. Neglecting correlations or for independent variables yields a common formula among engineers and experimental scientists to calculate error propagation, the variance formula: formula_27 where formula_28 represents the standard deviation of the function formula_29, formula_30 represents the standard deviation of formula_31, formula_32 represents the standard deviation of formula_33, and so forth. One practical application of this formula in an engineering context is the evaluation of relative uncertainty of the insertion loss for power measurements of random fields. It is important to note that this formula is based on the linear characteristics of the gradient of formula_29 and therefore it is a good estimation for the standard deviation of formula_29 as long as formula_36 are small compared to the partial derivatives. Example. Any non-linear function, "f(a,b)", of two variables, "a" and "b", can be expanded as hence: In the particular case that formula_39, formula_40. Then or Caveats and warnings. Error estimates for non-linear functions are biased on account of using a truncated series expansion. The extent of this bias depends on the nature of the function. For example, the bias on the error calculated for log "x" increases as "x" increases since the expansion to 1+"x" is a good approximation only when "x" is small. In the special case of the inverse formula_43 where formula_44, the distribution is a reciprocal normal distribution and there is no definable variance. For such inverse distributions and for ratio distributions, there can be defined probabilities for intervals which can be computed either by Monte Carlo simulation, or, in some cases, by using the Geary–Hinkley transformation. The statistics, mean and variance, of the shifted reciprocal function, formula_45, where formula_46 however exist in a principal value sense if the difference between the shift or pole, formula_47, and the mean formula_48 is real. The mean of this transformed random variable is then indeed the scaled Dawson's function formula_49 in a principal sense
1163235	Frederick Hubbard "Fred" Gwynne (July 10, 1926July 2, 1993) was an American actor. Gwynne was best known for his roles in the 1960s sitcoms "Car 54, Where Are You?" and "The Munsters", as well as his later roles in "Pet Sematary," "Cotton Club" and "My Cousin Vinny". He was recognized for his distinctive baritone voice. Early life. Gwynne was born in New York City, a son of Frederick Walker Gwynne, a partner in the securities firm Gwynne Brothers, and his wife Dorothy Ficken. His paternal grandfather was an Episcopal priest born in Camus, near Strabane, County Tyrone, Northern Ireland, and his maternal grandfather was an immigrant from London, England. Gwynne attended the Groton School, and graduated from Harvard University, where he was affiliated with Adams House, in 1951. Although Gwynne grew up in Tuxedo Park, New York, he spent most of his childhood in South Carolina, Florida, and Colorado because his father traveled extensively. At Harvard, he was a member of the Fly Club, sang with the "a cappella" group the Harvard Krokodiloes, was a cartoonist for the "Harvard Lampoon" (eventually becoming its president), and acted in the Hasty Pudding Theatricals shows. During World War II, Gwynne served in the U.S. Navy. He later studied art under the G.I. Bill. Career. Gwynne joined the Brattle Theatre Repertory Company after graduation, then moved to New York City. To support himself, Gwynne worked as a copywriter for J. Walter Thompson, resigning in 1952 upon being cast in his first Broadway role, a gangster in a comedy called "Mrs. McThing", which starred Helen Hayes. Phil Silvers was impressed by Gwynne from his work in "Mrs. McThing" and sought him for his television show. As a result, in 1955, Gwynne made a memorable appearance on "The Phil Silvers Show," in the episode "The Eating Contest" as the character Private Ed Honnergar, whose depressive eating binges are exploited by Sgt. Bilko (Phil Silvers), who seeks prize money by entering Honnergar in an eating contest. Gwynne's second appearance on "The Phil Silvers Show" (in the episode "Its For The Birds" in 1956 in which Bilko persuades bird expert Honnergar to go on The $64,000 Question) and many other shows led writer-producer Nat Hiken to cast him in the sitcom "Car 54, Where Are You?" as Patrolman Francis Muldoon, opposite Joe E. Ross. During the two-season run of the program he met longtime friend and later co-star, Al Lewis. Gwynne was 6 ft 5 (1.96 mt) in tall, an attribute that contributed to his being cast as Herman Munster, a goofy parody of Frankenstein's monster, in the sitcom "The Munsters". For his role he had to wear 40 or 50 lbs of padding, makeup, and 4-inch elevator shoes. His face was painted a bright violet because it captured the most light on the black-and-white film. Gwynne was known for his sense of humor and retained fond recollections of Herman, saying in later life, "... I might as well tell you the truth. I love old Herman Munster. Much as I try not to, I can't stop liking that fellow." After his experience in "The Munsters," however, he found himself typecast. In 1969, he was cast as Jonathan Brewster in a television production of "Arsenic and Old Lace." A talented vocalist, Gwynne sang in a Hallmark Hall of Fame made-for-television production, "The Littlest Angel" (1969), and went on to perform in a variety of roles on stage and screen. In 1974, he appeared in the role of Big Daddy Pollitt in the Broadway revival of "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" with Elizabeth Ashley, Keir Dullea and Kate Reid. In 1975 he played the Stage Manager in "Our Town" at the American Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford, Connecticut. He returned to Broadway in 1976 as Colonel J. C. Kinkaid in two parts of "A Texas Trilogy". In 1984, he tried out for the part of Henry on the show "Punky Brewster". He is said to have withdrawn from the audition in frustration when the auditioner identified him as Herman Munster rather than by his real name. The role of Henry subsequently went to George Gaynes. In 1987, Gwynne starred in a short-lived TV series "Jake's M.O." where he played an investigative reporter. Gwynne's performance as Jud Crandall in "Pet Sematary" was based on author Stephen King himself, who is also quite tall — only an inch shorter than the actor — and uses a similarly thick Maine dialect. Gwynne also had roles in the movies "Simon", "On the Waterfront", "So Fine", "Disorganized Crime", "The Cotton Club", "Captains Courageous", "The Secret of My Success", "Water", "Ironweed", "Fatal Attraction" and "The Boy Who Could Fly". Despite his misgiving about having been typecast, he also agreed to reprise the role of Herman Munster for the 1981 TV reunion movie "The Munsters' Revenge". In his last film, Gwynne played Judge Chamberlain Haller in the 1992 film comedy "My Cousin Vinny", in which he used a Southern accent, and his verbal sparring with Joe Pesci's character over how to pronounce the word "youths" was prominently featured in the film's trailer. In addition to his acting career, Gwynne sang professionally, painted, and wrote and illustrated children's books, including "It's Easy to See Why", "A Chocolate Moose for Dinner", "The King Who Rained", "Best In Show", "Pondlarker", "The Battle of the Frogs and Mice," and "A Little Pigeon Toad". Many of these efforts were based on children's frequent misperceptions of things they hear from adults, such as the "chocolate moose for dinner," which was illustrated as a large brown quadruped seated at the dinner table. The other books on this theme were "The King Who Rained," "A Little Pigeon Toad" (in which a child's mother thus describes her father), and "The Sixteen Hand Horse." Perhaps one of the reasons the books did not achieve wider popularity was the fact that their format was geared to a very young audience, but the concept itself was more appealing to older children and adults. He also lent his voice talents to commercials and radio shows such as "CBS Radio Mystery Theater," and for some radio fans, he is known foremost for his contribution to CBSRMT's success. Later, he held a number of shows of his art work, the first in 1989. Personal life. In 1952, Gwynne married socialite Jean Reynard, a granddaughter of New York City mayor William Jay Gaynor. They had five children—three sons, Evan, Dylan, and Keiron, and two daughters, Madyn and Gaynor—before divorcing in 1980. Dylan died in a drowning accident as a child in 1963, and Keiron was born with developmental disabilities. In 1988, Gwynne married Deborah Flater. Death. Gwynne died of pancreatic cancer in Taneytown, Maryland, on July 2, 1993, at the age of 66, eight days before his 67th birthday. Gwynne was survived by his second wife, Deborah, and four children. He is interred at the Sandymount United Methodist Church graveyard in Finksburg, Maryland, in an unmarked grave.
1034119	John William Francis Hallam (28 October 1941 – 14 November 2006) was a Northern Irish character actor, who was well known in the United Kingdom for playing hard men or military types. Early life. John Hallam was born, the son of a superintendent at London Docklands, in 1941 in Lisburn, County Antrim, after the family were evacuated to Northern Ireland during the Second World War. On returning to England, he boarded at St Albans School, before starting his working life in a London bank. Despite having a talent for mathematics, he said he was sacked for getting the figures right without being able to explain how he did so. As a result, he ended up selling deckchairs on the South Coast, where he eventually found acting work in repertory theatre. Career. Hallam began acting with Laurence Olivier's embryonic National Theatre Company, playing the Stage Door Keeper in "Trelawney of the Wells" (Old Vic Theatre, 1965). He was seen performing on television for the first time in 1967, in the small role of a watchman when the BBC screened the director Franco Zeffirelli's National Theatre production of "Much Ado About Nothing" (Old Vic). Stage roles became infrequent when an unending flow of film and television work followed. On the big screen, he worked his way up from bit-parts as an officer in The Charge of the Light Brigade (directed by Tony Richardson, 1968) and a revolting Burpa tribesman in Carry On Up the Khyber (a rare comedy, 1968) to more substantial roles as Sir Meles of Bohemia in "A Walk with Love and Death" (the director John Huston's tale of 14th-century romance in France, 1969). Over the years, Hallam became a familiar face on British television, appearing in the films "Nicholas and Alexandra" (1971), "Murphy's War" (1971), "The Pallisers" (1974), "Flash Gordon" (1980) and "Dragonslayer" (1981) - where he played the film's main antagonist. In 1973 he played the troubled Dr. Peter Conway in the science fiction series "Moonbase 3", but his most notable television role was as Thomas Mallen in the drama series "The Mallens" (1979). He also appeared in the director's cut of the 1973 film "The Wicker Man", playing McTaggart. He also play Lamson in the 1985 science-fiction cult classic "Lifeforce", directed by Tobe Hooper, and also appeared in the BBC's television adaptations of two tales from "The Chronicles of Narnia": "Prince Caspian and The Voyage of the Dawn Treader", from 1988 until 1990. He had a semi-regular role in the BBC soap opera "EastEnders", playing prison inmate Barnsey Barnes, a character that appears as the cellmate of regular character Den Watts (Leslie Grantham) while he is serving time at the fictional Dickens Hill prison. Hallam appeared on the show between 1988 and 1989. In 1989 he appeared in the "Doctor Who" serial "Ghost Light" appearing as the memorable alien "Light". In 1991, he appeared in the Hollywood film "". In 1997 he played Mandara in "Kull the Conqueror", Personal life. Hallam married Vicky Brinkworth in 1966, and they had four children together, but divorced in 1992 after twenty-six years of marriage. His cousin is Clive Mantle, who is best known for playing Mike Barrett in "Casualty". At the peak of his height he stood at 6 foot 4 inches. Death. On 14 November 2006, Hallam died in Clifton, Oxfordshire, England at the age of 65. He was divorced and had four children.
586425	Arunoday Singh (born 1983) is an Indian film actor. His debut movie was "Sikandar" (2009). Arunoday Singh was seen in Sudhir Mishra's "Yeh Saali Zindagi" (2011) and more recently in Pooja Bhatt's "Jism 2" (2012). Personal life. Arunoday Singh is a grandson of Arjun Singh, an Indian politician. He is an alumnus of Brandeis University, having previously been educated at a boarding school at Kodaikanal, where he performed in school plays. According to him, it was after watching actor Marlon Brando in "On the Waterfront" (1954) that he decided to become an actor. After his graduation, he did a few courses in the New York Film Academy, and thereafter enrolled in the Acting Studio in New York, during the period he also performed in plays. Career. After finishing his studies he started giving auditions, and finally made his debut with "Sikandar" (2009), directed by Piyush Jha, playing a Kashmiri terrorist. His second film was Anil Kapoor's home production "Aisha" (2010), an adaptation of the novel, "Emma" by Jane Austen, with Sonam Kapoor. Also in the same year, he appeared in 'Vinay Shukla's take on Gender and sexuality in "Mirch" through a collage of five stories, with Raima Sen and Konkana Sharma, where he played the central character of a struggling film director. In 2011, he acted alongside Irrfan Khan and Aditi Rao Hydari, another newcomer in Sudhir Mishra's "Yeh Saali Zindagi" (2011). His performance earned him a nomination for Best Actor in a Supporting Role at the 18th Screen Awards.
1068004	The Secret of Moonacre is a 2008 fantasy film based on the novel "The Little White Horse" by Elizabeth Goudge. The film was released in the UK February 2009 by Warner Bros. The World Premiere was held at Toronto International Film Festival in 2008. The movie was directed by Gábor Csupó and starred Dakota Blue Richards as the leading role. Plot. In the English countryside of Moonacre Valley there resides two clans: the de Noirs and the Merryweathers. A woman of the de Noir clan is so pure of heart that nature gifts her with a set of powerful magical moon pearls, and she comes to be known as the Moon Princess. The two families unite to celebrate her wedding to Sir Wrolf Merryweather, and exchange two beautiful animals as gifts: her father, Sir William offers a rare black lion to the bridegroom, and Sir Wrolf bestows a white unicorn from the ocean to his bride.
1712270	Trinity Is Still My Name () also known as All the Way Trinity is a 1971 Italian spaghetti western feature film directed by Enzo Barboni. It is a sequel to "They Call Me Trinity", and also stars Terence Hill and Bud Spencer. Plot. The film begins with Bambino (Bud Spencer) walking through the desert. He sees smoke from a campfire, and goes to investigate. There he finds four escaped Denver convicts, and steals their beans and horses, after knocking one convict out with a single blow to the top of his head. When the guy awakens he has become addlepated, and that becomes a running gag throughout the film. Next, the film starts the opening credits and the title song, while we see Trinity (Terence Hill) on his travois. He wakes up to see the campfire Bambino saw. The convicts are trying to fry more beans. Trinity pretends to be an innocent lackwit, even advising the convicts to try to snap their addlepated companion out of his state by hitting him on the head again. When this doesn't work, the convicts decide to punish the "kid" by just "winging" him, but Trinity defends himself by displaying his superior gun skills. Trinity then steals the beans and tricks them into fighting each other to see which one he doesn't shoot. He leaves them fighting.
1060200	Mona Lisa Smile is a 2003 drama film produced by Revolution Studios and Columbia Pictures in association with Red Om Films Productions, directed by Mike Newell, written by Lawrence Konner and Mark Rosenthal, and starring Julia Roberts, Kirsten Dunst, Maggie Gyllenhaal, and Julia Stiles. The title is a reference to the "Mona Lisa", the famous painting by Leonardo da Vinci, and the song of the same name, originally performed by Nat King Cole, which was covered by Seal for the movie. Julia Roberts received a record $25 million for her performance—the highest ever earned by an actress. Plot. In 1953, Katherine Ann Watson (Julia Roberts), a 30-year-old graduate student in the department of Art History at UCLA, takes a position teaching "History of Art" at Wellesley College, a conservative women's private liberal arts college in Massachusetts because she wants to make a difference and influence the next generation of women. At her first class, Katherine discovers that the girls have already memorized the entire syllabus from the textbook so she instead uses the classes to introduce them to Modern Art and encourages spirited classroom discussions about topics such as what makes good art and what the Mona Lisa's smile means. This brings her into conflict with the conservative College President (Marian Seldes) who warns Katherine to stick to the syllabus if she wants to keep her job. Katherine comes to know many of the students in her class well and seeks to inspire them to seek more than marriage to eligible young men. Joan Brandwyn (Julia Stiles) dreamt of being a lawyer and enrolled as pre-law so Katherine encourages her to apply to Yale Law School, where she is accepted. Joan, however, elopes with her fiancé Tommy (Topher Grace), and is very happy. She decides that what she wants most is to be a wife and mother after graduation and asks Katherine to respect her choice.
1056235	Maximum Risk is a 1996 American action film directed by Ringo Lam his American directorial debut, starring Jean-Claude Van Damme and Natasha Henstridge. Plot. Alain Moreau (Jean-Claude Van Damme) is a cop in Nice, France. Alain is at a funeral that is being held for a fellow cop, when Alain’s partner Sebastien (Jean-Hugues Anglade) shows up, and requests for his presence at a crime scene. When they arrive, Sebastien shows Alain a dead body of someone that looks exactly like him. They discover that his name was Mikhail Suverov, who was born on exactly the same day Alain was. As it turns out, Mikhail is the twin brother Alain never knew he had. Tracing his brother's steps back to New York City, Alain discovers that Mikhail was a member of the Russian Mafia, who was chased down and killed when he attempted to get out. Of course, now Alain is mistaken for Mikhail, who was also mixed up in a series of affairs concerning the FBI and the russian mafia. With his only real ally being Mikhail's fiancé Alex Bartlett (Natasha Henstridge), Alain sets out to avenge his brother's death, which is complicated not only by the Mafia, but by two corrupt FBI agents. Reception. "Maximum Risk" opened on September 13, 1996, at the number 1 spot at the box office, taking in $5,612,707 in its first weekend, and made a final tally of just $14,502,483. Critics were mixed on the movie, noting that as a Ringo Lam film it was a disappointment when compared to his earlier work, while as a Van Damme feature it was better than average and probably one of his best films.
1043155	The Happiest Days of Your Life is a 1950 British comedy film directed by Frank Launder, based on the play by John Dighton. The two men also wrote the screenplay. It's one of a stable of classic British film comedies produced by Frank Launder and Sidney Gilliat for British Lion Film Corporation. The film was made on location and at Riverside Studios, London. In several respects, including some common casting, it was a precursor of the more anarchic "St. Trinian's" films of the 1950s. Plot. Set in 1949, confusion reigns when St Swithin's Girls' School is accidentally billeted at Nutbourne College: a boys' school. The two heads, Wetherby Pond (Alastair Sim) and Muriel Whitchurch (Margaret Rutherford), try to cope with the ensuing chaos, as the children and staff attempt to live in the newly cramped conditions (it being impossible to share dormitories or other facilities), and seek to prevent the children taking advantage of their new opportunities. Additional humour is derived from the departure of the Nutbourne College domestic staff and their hurried (and not very effective) replacement with the St Swithin's School Home Economics class. The main comedy is derived from the fact that the parents of the St Swithins girls would consider it improper for their daughters to be exposed to the rough mix of boys in Pond's school, and from the consequent need to conceal the fact that the girls are now sharing a school that's full of boys. Pond is offended at the suggestion that his boys are not suitable company for the young ladies of St Swithin's, but he needs to appease Miss Whitchurch to salvage his chances of an appointment to a prestigious all-boys school for which he is in the running, and which depends on his ability to prevent his current post presenting the appearance of a bear garden. Matters come to a head when a group of school governors, from the prestigious establishment to which Pond has applied to become the next headmaster, pay a visit at the same time as the parents of some of the St Swithin's girls. Frantic classroom changes are made, and hockey, lacrosse and rugby posts and nets are swapped about, as students and staff try to hide the unusual arrangement. Two simultaneous tours of the school premises are arranged: one for the girls parents, and a separate one for the Governors; and never the twain must meet! The facade finally collapses when the parents become obsessed with seeing a girls lacrosse match at the same time as one of the Governors has been promised a rugby match. The punchline is delivered – a clever swipe at wartime bureaucracy – when, weeks too late, a Ministry of Schools official arrives, to declare everything sorted out. "You're a co-educational school, I believe; well I've arranged for "another" co-educational school to replace St Swithin's next week... Oh, it appears they're ahead of schedule." At this point, several more coachloads of children and staff appear noisily, and utter chaos reigns. Fade out on Alastair Sim and Margaret Rutherford, quietly discussing in which remote and unattractive corner of the British Empire they might best try to pick up the pieces of their respective careers, with her mentioning having a brother who "grows groundnuts in Tanganyika." Reception. The acting was much praised, in particular Joyce Grenfell as one of the teaching staff of St Swithin's; while Alastair Sim's portrayal of the kindly headmaster, Wetherby Pond, was seen as one of his strongest ever roles. The film was very successful on its release, being the fifth most popular movie at the British box office for 1950. It led to an unofficial sequel, "The Belles of St Trinian's", in 1954: another comedy about a girls' school at which chaos reigned, which was also produced by Launder and Gilliat. Several members of the cast of "The Happiest Days of Your Life" were retained for the sequel, including Alastair Sim, Joyce Grenfell, Richard Wattis and Guy Middleton with Ronald Searle again providing the cartoons for the film titles.. Quotes. Miss Whitchurch: "Many of our gels come from the colonies. St Swithin's has always specialised in outposts." Pond: "Madam, I am not in the least interested in where they come from, or whether the Sun never sets upon them. The point is, they can't stay here!" Upon discovery of a pitched battle in the dormitory between the boys and the girls, Pond is heard to remark "This is a time when little boys should be seen, and not interrupted..." Pond has been trying to teach an English grammar lesson in the front hall of the school and has been interrupted almost continuously by Miss Whitchurch, passing girls, two men carrying and dropping an iron bedstead, and a woman canvasser talking loudly and insistently to the housekeeper at the front door... Pond: "What's the use – I might as well try to teach in Waterloo Station." Housekeeper: "Mr Pond, there's a lady at the door who wants to know if you'll vote for Miss Weston in the election." Pond's gaze rolls around to face her. Pond: "Mrs Hampstead, you may inform your lady that if there is a MALE candidate, whether he is Conservative, Socialist, Communist or Anarchist – or for that matter Liberal – "he" will have my vote."
689021	Victoria Vetri (born September 26, 1944) is an American model and actress. Biography. Vetri was born in San Francisco, California to parents who were immigrants from Italy. She attended Hollywood High School in Hollywood, California between 1959 and 1963 and later studied art at Los Angeles City College. She began acting and modelling in her teens. Vetri is a singer and dancer who once turned down the voice dub for Natalie Wood in "West Side Story" (1961). Of this she remarked "I did not want to be known as a standby." She also auditioned for the title role in the Stanley Kubrick adaptation of "Lolita" but lost the role to Sue Lyon. She also writes poetry and plays guitar. Using the name Angela Dorian, she was chosen as "Playboy's" Playmate of the Month for the September 1967 issue and subsequently was the 1968 Playmate of the Year. Her centerfold was photographed by Carl Gunther. Vetri won $20,000 in prizes when she was selected Playmate of the Year. Among these were a new car (an all pink 1968 AMC AMX), gold watch, skis and a ski outfit, a complete wardrobe, a movie camera, a typewriter, a tape recorder, a stereo, and a guitar. A nude photo of her (along with fellow playmates Leslie Bianchini, Reagan Wilson and Cynthia Myers) was scanned and inserted into Apollo 12 Extra-vehicular activity astronaut cuff checklists by pranksters at NASA. She appears briefly in "Rosemary's Baby", credited as "Angela Dorian". In one scene Rosemary remarks that she resembles the actress Victoria Vetri. In January 1969, she signed a multi-picture contract with Warner Seven Arts. Vetri was given a starring role in "When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth". She refused to have her hair turned blonde from its natural auburn for the film. The story required a blonde so Vetri demanded a wig instead. Columnist Hy Gardner nominated Vetri as "a new sex symbol on the Hollywood horizon" in March 1971. Vetri posed topless for the April 1984 "Playboy" pictorial "Playmates Forever! Part Two". In Tom Clancy's 2004 biography of Gen. Tony Zinni, USMC (Ret.), "Battle Ready" (Chapter 2), Zinni remarks on having received a copy of the September 1967 "Playboy" Centerfold foldout from a group of other advisers for his birthday. He still has it as a memento of his time in Vietnam. Arrest. Victoria Vetri (legally Victoria Rathgeb) was charged with attempted murder after she allegedly shot her husband from close range inside the Hollywood apartment that they shared after an argument on Saturday, October 16, 2010. Vetri was arrested the same day by the Los Angeles Police Department’s Hollywood Division and has remained jailed since then on $1.53 million bail, which the judge refused to reduce. In Jan 2011 she was denied a reduction of the charge of attempted murder and was ordered to stand trial on this charge. In September 2011, Vetri pled no contest to a reduced charge of attempted voluntary manslaughter and was sentenced to nine years in state prison.
1064183	Predator 2 is a 1990 science fiction action film starring Danny Glover. Written by Jim and John Thomas and directed by Stephen Hopkins, the film is a sequel to 1987's "Predator", with Kevin Peter Hall again playing the role of the Predator. Despite receiving negative reviews, the film gained a moderate return at the box office. Plot. In 1997, Los Angeles is suffering from both a heat wave and a turf war between heavily-armed Colombian and Jamaican drug cartels. A Predator (Kevin Peter Hall) watches a shootout between the police and Colombians, observing as Lieutenant Michael Harrigan (Danny Glover) charges into the firefight to rescue two wounded officers and drive the Colombians back into their hideout. While the police are ordered to wait for a federal task force to arrive on the scene, the Predator crashes through a skylight and attacks the Colombians. Harrigan and his detectives Leona Cantrell (María Conchita Alonso) and Danny Archuleta (Rubén Blades) enter against orders and find the Colombians have been slaughtered. Harrigan pursues the gang leader onto the roof and shoots him, catching a glimpse of the camouflaged Predator's silhouette, but dismissing it as an effect of the heat. Harrigan is rebuked by his superiors for his disobedience. He is also introduced to Special Agent Peter Keyes (Gary Busey), leader of the task force who are purportedly investigating the cartels, and Detective Jerry Lambert (Bill Paxton), the newest member of Harrigan's team. Later that evening, the Predator kills several Jamaican cartel members, while they are ritualistically murdering the Colombian drug lord at his home. Despite being ordered to wait for Keyes, Harrigan and his team enter the penthouse where they find the Jamaicans' skinned corpses suspended from the rafters, noting the similarity to the earlier Colombian massacre. Keyes kicks Harrigan's team out, but Archuleta later returns to continue investigating. He finds one of the Predator's speartip weapons in an air conditioning vent, but is then killed by the Predator. Harrigan vows to bring down Danny's killer, believing they are dealing with an assassin. A forensic scientist finds the speartip does not correspond to any known element in the periodic table. Looking for answers, Harrigan meets with Jamaican drug lord King Willie (Calvin Lockhart), a voodoo practitioner. King Willie tells Harrigan that the killer is supernatural, and that he should prepare himself for battle against him. After Harrigan is escorted away by gang members, the Predator kills King Willie, the latter's head made into a trophy. Cantrell and Lambert are intervening in a mugging on the subway when the Predator attacks them. Cantrell herds the passengers to safety while Lambert faces off against the Predator and is killed. The Predator is about to kill Cantrell as well, but releases her when his thermal vision reveals that she is pregnant. Arriving on the scene, Harrigan chases the Predator but is stopped by Keyes, who reveals that the killer is an extraterrestrial hunter with infrared vision that uses active camouflage and has been hunting humans for sport, referring to previous events in Central American jungle. Keyes and his team have set a trap in a nearby slaughterhouse, using thermally insulated suits and cryogenic weapons in an attempt to capture him for study. However, the Predator sees through the trap by using his mask to scan through various electromagnetic wavelengths and kills the team. Harrigan intervenes, shooting the Predator several times and removing his mask. Still alive, the Predator kills Keyes using a throwing disc and escapes to the roof. Harrigan knocks him over the side and finds himself on a narrow ledge with the Predator hanging below. The Predator attempts to activate the self-destruct device on his forearm, but Harrigan captures the throwing disc and uses it to sever his forearm and destroy the device. The Predator falls through an apartment window and uses a medical kit to treat his wounds, then flees through the building. Harrigan follows him down an elevator shaft and finds a spacecraft in an underground chamber. Inside the ship, the two face off in a final duel, with Harrigan finally killing the Predator by impaling him with the throwing disc. A number of other Predators appear, collecting their dead comrade and presenting Harrigan with an antique flintlock pistol labeled "Raphael Adolini 1715". Harrigan escapes the ship as it takes off and reaches the surface just as the remainder of Keyes' team arrives, furious that they were unable to capture the alien. Harrigan knows that the creatures have been on Earth before, and suspects they will soon return. Production. Principal photography began in February 20, 1990 and ended on June, 1990. Due to excessive violence, "Predator 2" was originally given an NC-17 rating in the U.S. The film was eventually rated R by the Motion Picture Association of America after being re-cut to its final theatrical length. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who starred as "Dutch" in the 1987 film, was asked to reprise his role in the sequel. Schwarzenegger was outspoken against the sequel's concept, feeling that taking it into the city was a bad idea. Schwarzenegger declined and decided instead to sign on for a different sequel, "". The character was rewritten as the role of Peter Keyes. Returning to the role of Anna in the sequel, Elpidia Carrillo was slated to be in two scenes but was cut back to a brief appearance on a video screen in the government agents' surveillance trailer. Her character is showing damage to the Central American jungle caused by the explosion at the conclusion of the first film. In "Predator 2", the main Predator was designed to look more urban and hip than its predecessor. Design changes included tribal ornamentation on the forehead, which was made steeper and shallower, brighter skin coloration and a greater number of fangs. Reception. The film received mostly negative reviews, though reviewers were generally impressed by the casting of Danny Glover as an action hero. The reviewers for the "Washington Post" were split: Rita Kempley enjoyed the movie, noting she felt that it had "dismal irony of "RoboCop" and the brooding fatalism of "Blade Runner"", and felt Glover "brings an unusual depth to the action adventure and proves fiercely effective as the Predator's new nemesis." Desson Howe felt the film was "blithely unoriginal" and numbingly violent, but also praised Glover's ability to bring warmth to the center of a cold movie. In her review for "The New York Times", Janet Maslin called the film "an unbeatable contender" for the "most mindless, mean-spirited action film of the holiday season." "Chicago Sun-Times" critic Roger Ebert, in giving the film two out of four stars, suggested that it represents an "angry and ugly" dream; he also felt that the creatures' design had racist undertones where "subliminal clues [...] encourage us to subconsciously connect the menace with black males." Box office. Released on November 21, 1990, "Predator 2" was #4 at the US box office in its opening weekend, with a gross of over $8 million behind the films "Dances with Wolves", "Three Men and a Little Lady", and "Home Alone". The film grossed a total of $57 million, $30 million of which was from the USA. The worldwide box office revenue totaled $57,120,318 in ticket sales. Although this surpassed the cost of the film's budget, it was considered an overall disappointment in comparison to its predecessor's performance. Novelization. A novelization of the film written by Simon Hawke was released on December 1, 1990 by the publishing company Jove. The novelization provided a small amount of information regarding the fate of "Dutch" from the first film. Keyes recalls memories of speaking with the battered Major while infirmed in a hospital, suffering from radiation sickness. "Dutch" is said to have escaped from the hospital, never to be seen again. Furthermore, the novel tells a great deal of the story from the Predator's point of view, such as its humiliation of having its mask removed by Harrigan, and its reasoning for not killing Cantrell due to its discovery of her pregnancy. Video game. A video game adaptation of the film was released for the Sega Mega Drive/Genesis console in 1992. The game was published by Acclaim through its Arena Entertainment label and developed by Teeny Weeny Games, Ltd. In the game players guide Lt. Mike Harrigan as he tracks the Predator through seven levels based on the film, while facing several drug gangs and rescuing civilian hostages before they fall prey to the alien hunter. The game is played in a top-down perspective simulating a third person isometric view, with swarms of enemies who appear through one-way doors scattered throughout the levels. Lt. Harrigan also has to contend with the Predator, both as a boss at the end of each level, and as a time limit. If the player takes too long to rescue a hostage, the Predator will blast the hostage with his tri-laser. If too many hostages are killed — the number depending on the difficulty setting — the game ends and the screen fades to red with the words "You lost too many hostages". Weapons include pistols, machine guns, shotguns and also a few highly-advanced Predator weapons like the net, the disc and the spear that the player can pick up and use. Each defeated gang member drops drugs that can be picked up and automatically sent off to the drug squad for points. No sounds or music from the film were used, but still scenes from the film do introduce the levels, which include the streets of L.A., the rooftops, the main city subway, the slaughterhouse district and the predator ship.
1065548	Jessica Harper (born October 10, 1949) is an American actress and producer, as well as a singer and author of children's music and books. Early life. Harper was born in Chicago, Illinois, the daughter of Eleanor (née Emery), a writer, and Paul Church Harper, Jr., a painter and the former chairman of the Needham Harper Worldwide advertising agency in New York. She attended the North Shore Country Day School and Sarah Lawrence College. She has three brothers including a twin brother, William Harper, a composer, Sam Harper, a screenwriter and director, Charles Harper, and two sisters, Lindsay Harper duPont and Diana Harper. Career. Harper has appeared in more than twenty motion pictures, most notably Dario Argento's horror classic "Suspiria", "My Favorite Year" alongside Peter O'Toole and Mark Linn-Baker, as Phoenix in "Phantom of the Paradise" (in which she sang several songs), as Cathy Cake in "Inserts" by John Byrum, and as Janet Majors in "Shock Treatment", where she again demonstrated great skills as a singer in the rock/pop style. She costarred with Steve Martin and Bernadette Peters in "Pennies from Heaven". Woody Allen featured her in his films "Stardust Memories" and "Love and Death". She appeared in the fourth season of "It's Garry Shandling's Show" and in the Steven Spielberg/Tom Cruise film "Minority Report". She was most recently seen in a 2005 episode ("Forget Me Not") of the television series "Crossing Jordan". She has written eleven books for children, and made seven albums of songs for children. She was named by "Parenting" magazine as "Parent of the Month" in 2004. In 2000, she sang background vocals on selected tracks on the Dan Hicks and his Hot Licks album "Beatin' the Heat". In December 2010, Harper released a cookbook titled "The Crabby Cook Cookbook: Recipes and Rants". In a January 2011 interview Harper said, "I thought it was high time there was a book that acknowledged that not everybody experiences the joy of cooking, that sometimes cooking for a family on a daily basis can be really irritating! This book, with 135 easy recipes, is for those people, crabby cooks like me! It’s a collection of humor, survival tips and recipes, for the kitchen-challenged!" In March 2011, she was on tour promoting her book. Stops included Chicago, where she held a "Lunch and Learn with Jessica Harper". Family. Harper is married to Thomas Edgar Rothman, former Co-Chairman of 20th Century Fox. She has two daughters, Elizabeth and Nora, who are featured on her children's albums and books.
247358	Midnight Son is a 2011 vampire horror film written and directed by Scott Leberecht, produced by Matt Compton, and starring Zak Kilberg. A trailer was released late October 2010. Plot. Jacob (Zak Kilberg) is a young man in Los Angeles, California who lives a life of isolation by day and works as a security guard by night. This is due to a rare skin disorder developed in his youth that prevents him from being exposed to sunlight. His world opens up when he meets and falls in love with a local bartender and secret druggie, Mary (Maya Parish), recently departing a relationship with a drug dealer. Beginning to crave blood, as everyday food no longer cures his hunger, Jacob suspects he may be a vampire, though his physician, Dr. Barnes (Kevin McCorkle), diagnoses him to be anemic. His condition worsens and he goes from consuming animal blood to depending on human blood for medical sustenance, a necessity which brings out his violent tendencies on people in the city. Jacob, longing to be normal, hides his deteriorating condition from Mary, and their romantic relationship suffers because of it. Searching for blood at a hospital, Jacob comes in contact with an immoral hospital physician named Marcus (Jo D. Jonz), who alongside his younger, misguided brother, Russell (Arlen Escarpeta), helps Jacob by milking a patient for blood in exchange for money, a grim method Jacob is against. Shortly, Detective Ginslegh (Larry Cedar) narrows his focus on Jacob during a homicide investigation.
581810	Mahesh Waman Manjrekar (Marathi: महेश वामन मांजरेकर) (born 16 August 1953 ) is an Indian director, actor, writer and producer. He is credited with directing the critically acclaimed films "" (1999), "Astitva" (2000) and "Viruddh... Family Comes First" (2005). He has won a National Film Award and two Star Screen Awards. Besides direction, he has acted in several films, including some of his own productions. He first gained acclaim as an actor for his performance in the 2002 film "Kaante", and later played negative roles in the Telugu film "Okkadunnadu" (2007) and as the gangster Javed in the film "Slumdog Millionaire" (2008). He played the role of Shivaji Maharaj in Marathi film "Me Shivajiraje Bhosale Boltoy". He also played the role of Harpist Dongara in the "Aakhri Chunauti" series of episodes in "C.I.D.".
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1350969	Corey Johnson (born May 17, 1961) is an American actor largely active in the United Kingdom. Johnson was born John Johnson in New Orleans, Louisiana. His films include "Out for a Kill", "The Contract", "The Bourne Ultimatum", "The Bourne Legacy", "Saving Private Ryan", Guillermo del Toro's adaptation of "Hellboy", the 2005 Ray Bradbury film "A Sound of Thunder", and "Harrison's Flowers". He also appeared in the award-winning mini series by HBO; "Band of Brothers". Johnson had a breakout year in 1999, first playing the wiseguy American tomb-raider Daniels in "The Mummy", then the bungling, dim-witted assassin Bruno Decker in "Do Not Disturb" opposite William Hurt and Michael Chiklis. Johnson appeared as smug business tycoon Henry van Statten in "Dalek", an episode of the 2005 revival of "Doctor Who". Other TV guest spots include "Spooks", "Foyle's War", "Celeb" and "Nash Bridges". He played the role of Louis Nacke II, a passenger, in "United 93". In April 2007 Johnson made his Broadway debut as Nixon's Chief of Staff Jack Brennan in "Frost/Nixon". While appearing on Broadway, Johnson also filmed "The Caller" with Elliott Gould and Frank Langella. In 2004, Johnson was nominated for a Best Actor award at the British TMAs for his portrayal of Eddie Carbone in Arthur Miller's "A View from the Bridge". He has also provided voice acting for several video games including the video game tie-in with the movie "Reign of Fire" and "Constantine". Johnson then played The Judge/Saint Peter in "The Last Days of Judas Iscariot" at the Almeida Theatre in London.
1236329	Doug Anthony Hutchison (born May 26, 1960) is an American actor, known for playing disturbing and antagonistic characters, including Obie Jameson in the feature film "The Chocolate War", Sproles in the film "Fresh Horses" (both released in 1988), and as the sadistic corrections officer Percy Wetmore in the 1999 film adaptation of Stephen King's "The Green Mile". He has a production company, Dark Water Inc. Family. Doug Anthony Hutchison was born May 26, 1960 in Dover, Delaware. He attended Apple Valley High School in Apple Valley, Minnesota and Bishop Foley High School in Madison Heights, Michigan. He later attended University of Minnesota at Minneapolis-St Paul, and studied at The Juilliard School in New York City.
1059978	Michael Carmen Pitt (born April 10, 1981) is an American actor and musician. Pitt is known in film for his role in Bernardo Bertolucci's "The Dreamers", and in television for his role as Jimmy Darmody in the HBO series "Boardwalk Empire". Career. Theater and television. Pitt made his off-Broadway debut in 1999 in the play "The Trestle at Pope Lick Creek" at the New York Theatre Workshop. A casting agent, whom Pitt mistook as a police officer attempting to arrest him, noticed him and recommended him for a guest role on the television series "Dawson's Creek" (he played Henry Parker in 15 episodes between 1999 and 2000). Film. Pitt's breakout role as the lover of a transgender rock star in "Hedwig and the Angry Inch" in 2001 led to supporting roles in "Bully" and in mainstream Hollywood fare such as "Murder by Numbers" and "The Village", as well as the lead in Bernardo Bertolucci's "The Dreamers". Pitt next appeared in Asia Argento's "The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things", and starred in Gus Van Sant's "Last Days", playing a rock star "inspired" by Nirvana frontman, Kurt Cobain. He performed all of the songs, which closely resembled Cobain's guitar and singing styles. On set, he met Thurston Moore of Sonic Youth, who had been hired by Van Sant to serve as the film's music consultant. The pair formed a close bond, with Moore writing, " wanted me to hang out with Michael and talk about his character, and let him be in character. We ended up spending a lot of time together. My daughter Coco still relates to Michael as Blake from Last Days." In 2007 he starred opposite Keira Knightley in "Silk", adapted from the novel by Alessandro Baricco. He played the lead role of Hervé Joncour, a French silkworm smuggler, who falls in love with a baron's concubine while in Japan. The same year he starred in the romantic comedy "Delirious" as a young homeless man who befriends a celebrity photographer, played by Steve Buscemi, and falls in love with a pop singer (Alison Lohman). The movie appeared at the Sundance Film Festival. He also starred in "Funny Games", Michael Haneke's remake of his own 1997 film, alongside Tim Roth and Naomi Watts. Return to television. In 2010, Pitt was cast as Jimmy Darmody in the HBO series, "Boardwalk Empire" (about the rise of Atlantic City during the Prohibition era), with Steve Buscemi. Music. Pitt sang and played guitar in his band, Pagoda, whose self-titled debut album was released by Universal/Fontana/Ecstatic Peace in 2007. Under the title, "Jimi Pitt and the Twins of Evil", Pitt performed "Hey Joe" with the Twins of Evil for "The Dreamers" soundtrack. Modeling. In 2012, Pitt was named the face of Italian fashion house Prada to model their men's clothes.
1058323	William Edward Fichtner (born November 27, 1956) is an American actor. He has appeared in a number of notable film and TV series. He is known for his roles as Butch Cavendish in "The Lone Ranger", the Accountant in "Drive Angry", as David "Sully" Sullivan in "The Perfect Storm", as Alexander Mahone on "Prison Break", William Sharp in "Armageddon", and as Ken Rosenberg in the video games ' and '. Early life. Fichtner was born in Mitchel Air Force Base on Long Island, and was raised in Cheektowaga, New York, the son of Patricia A. (née Steitz) and William E. Fichtner. He has German ancestry. Fichtner graduated from Maryvale High School (Cheektowaga) in 1974. After graduating from Farmingdale State College in 1976 with an associate degree in criminal justice, he attended SUNY Brockport and earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in criminal justice in 1978. Fichtner then studied at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York. Fichtner credits his Farmingdale State College admissions counselor, Don Harvey, with his decision to study acting. Harvey, who became a lifelong friend, took Fichtner to his first Broadway show. On 18 May 2008, Fichtner was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters by Farmingdale State College. Career. Fichtner began his acting career as Josh Snyder in "As the World Turns" in 1987. Fichtner's film credits include "Contact", "Heat", "Armageddon", "Go", "Equilibrium", "Black Hawk Down", "The Perfect Storm", "The Longest Yard", "Crash", "Ultraviolet", and "The Dark Knight". Mainly a character actor, one of Fichtner's few leading roles is in "Passion of Mind", also starring Demi Moore and Stellan Skarsgård. For his role in "Crash" he won a Screen Actors Guild Outstanding Performance Award and a "Best Acting Ensemble" Award from Broadcast Film Critics Choice. Credited as Bill Fichtner, he voiced the character Ken Rosenberg in the video games ' and '. Between 2005 and 2006, Fichtner also starred in the science-fiction TV series "Invasion" as Sheriff Tom Underlay. After "Invasion" was cancelled, Fichtner played FBI Agent Alexander Mahone in the second through fourth seasons (2006–2009) of "Prison Break". Later that year, he presented an award at the National Hockey League award show. He also appears in "The West Wing" episode, "The Supremes" as Christopher Mulready, a conservative judge nominated to the Supreme Court. Fichtner also had a role as the Gotham National Bank manager in the feature film "The Dark Knight", and as Jurgen in "Equilibrium". In June 2009, Fichtner signed on to guest star on "Entourage" playing TV producer Phil Yagoda, who is trying to remake his hit 1990s teen series. He also voices Master Sergeant Sandman in the 2011 video game "". In May 2013, Fichtner was cast as Shredder in 2014's "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles".
585467	Vinay Forrt (), who belongs to Fort Kochi in Kerala, is a theater activist with more than a decade's experience as well as a postgraduate in acting from Film and Television Institute of India, Pune. Personal life. Vinay forrt was born in Fort Kochi to M.V.Mani and Sujatha, a Postgraduate in Acting from Film and Television Institute of India, Pune, is an ardent follower of Indian Theatre for nearly a decade, as an actor and an activist. Vinay received the National Scholarship from the Government of India for the Best Senior Theatre Actor (2004–2006). He got Silent but highly promising debuts in Malayalam, Hindi and Tamil Filmdom. He is a contemporary dancer as well. While pursuing his post graduation in acting from FTII,Pune he was selected by Shyamaprasad to play a character called Jamal in his film "Ritu". Acting career. Vinay forrt made debut through "Ritu" by Shyamaprasad, "Veettilekulla Vazhi" directed by Dr.Biju and costarring Prithviraj Sukumaran and Indrajith, "The Blueberry Hunt" an English film by Anup Kurian with Naseeruddin Shah in lead, 'Chatak' a Hindi film directed by reema borah, Jayakumarin Thirakathai a Tamil film by sharath haridasan, "Apoorvaragam" by Sibi Malayil costarring Nishan, Asif Ali and Nithya Menen. He is waiting for his next releases "Karmayogi (2011 film)" by V. K. Prakash, 'Kaanakombathu' by Mahadevan and scripted by Madhu Muttam and 'Navagatharkku Swagatham' scripted by Kalavoor Ravikumar and directed by Jayakrishna Karanavar and also 'Shutter' directed by Joy Mathew.
583795	Sunaina (Hindi: सुनैना ) (born 17 April 1989) is an Indian actress who primarily appears in Tamil films, also acted in two Telugu, one Kannada and Malayalam language films. She got her break in the Tamil film "Kadhalil Vizhunthen", which co-starred Nakul. It was a major success in the box office. Her portrayal of Ester in "Neerparavai" directed by Seenu Ramasamy bagged her a nomination for Filmfare Award for Best Actress – Tamil. Sunaina was born on 17 April 1989 in Nagpur, Maharashtra, India. She attended Mount Carmel Girls' High School, Nagpur, and she is currently enrolled in a private college studying for a Bachelor of Commerce.
1058562	The World of Henry Orient is a 1964 American comedy film based on the novel of the same name by Nora Johnson. It was directed by George Roy Hill and stars Peter Sellers, Paula Prentiss, Angela Lansbury, Tippy Walker, Merrie Spaeth, Phyllis Thaxter, Bibi Osterwald, and Tom Bosley. Filming started in June 1963 and wrapped in October of that year. The premiere was at Radio City Music Hall on March 19, 1964. In 1965 the film was nominated for the Golden Globe Award in the category "Best Motion Picture, Musical or Comedy" and for a Writers Guild of America Award for "Best Written American Comedy." Plot. Concert pianist Henry Orient (Peter Sellers) is trying to have an affair with a married woman, Stella Dunnworthy (Paula Prentiss), while two teenage private-school girls, Valerie Boyd (Tippy Walker) and Marian Gilbert (Merrie Spaeth), stalk him and write their fantasies about him in a diary. Orient's paranoia leads him to believe that the two girls, who seem to pop up everywhere he goes, are spies sent by the husband of his would-be mistress. When Val's mother, Isabel Boyd (Angela Lansbury), finds their diary, she suspects that Henry has acted inappropriately with her daughter. She contacts Orient and they end up having an affair. Val finds out about it, as does her dad (Tom Bosley), resulting in an unhappy ending for the marriage of Val's parents, but a much closer relationship with her father. Production. The pianist's unusual surname, "Orient", came about because Nora Johnson based the character on Oscar Levant, a real-life concert pianist, raconteur and film actor. Since the word "levant" means orient in French (literally the direction from which the Sun rises), the name is a play on words. In the film, several allusions to the pianist's unusual name occur when his two teenage fans put on Chinese conical hats, address their idol as "Oriental Henry," kow-tow to an Asian-style altar, and adopt vaguely Japanese-sounding names for themselves. Reception. "The World of Henry Orient" was the official U.S. entry at the 1964 Cannes Film Festival. The film was well received by critics and has an 88% rating at Rotten Tomatoes. In his review for "The New York Times", Bosley Crowther wrote that it was "one of the most joyous and comforting movies about teenagers that we've had in a long time". It was voted one of the Year's Ten Best Films by the National Board of Review in 1964. Musical adaptation. A Broadway musical adaptation of "The World of Henry Orient" called "Henry, Sweet Henry", with music and lyrics by Bob Merrill, book by Nunnally Johnson (the father of Nora Johnson), direction by George Roy Hill and choreography by Michael Bennett, opened at the Palace Theatre on October 23, 1967. It starred Don Ameche as Henry Orient, Neva Small as Marian Gilbert, Robin Wilson as Valerie Boyd, Milo Bouton as Mr Boyd, Carol Bruce as Mrs. Boyd and Louise Lasser as Stella. Pia Zadora also appeared in the role of a student. The show ran for 80 performances and closed on December 31, 1967, receiving less than stellar reviews. William Goldman, in his study of the 1967-68 theater year "The Season", claimed that the musical was of high quality but was old fashioned, and "had the misfortune" to open just a week after all the critics "were overcome by "Hair"," which had a modern sound. Although the show was not a success, one of its performers, Alice Playten, received a 1968 Theatre World Award, and was nominated for a Tony Award for "Best Featured Actress in a Musical" for playing the role of Kafritz, which was enlarged substantially for the play. In addition, Michael Bennett was nominated for a Tony for "Best Choreography."
584406	Aval Varuvala ( ) is a 1998 Tamil film directed by Raj Kapoor based on the successful Telugu film, "Pelli" (1997). The film stars Ajith Kumar and Simran in the main roles with Babloo Prithviraj in another significant role. The film fared very well at the box office despite receiving mixed review from critics. Plot. Ajith Kumar (as Jeeva), who lives with his grandmother in Madurai, says he would marry the girl he likes at first sight. He goes to Chennai after getting a job as a bank manager there. In a shopping mall, he gets a glimpse of Simran (as Divya) and promptly falls in love. He identifies her scooter model and soon he goes on a mission in search of her to end up in a colony surrounded by comedians (Goundamani, Senthil, Venniradai Moorthy, Dhamu, Kovai Sarala). The colony people mistakenly thought that Jeeva is trying to steal the scooter and therefore he lied that he was looking for a house to rent. Then, he agreed to stay in the colony after conforming that Divya and her mother, Sujatha (as Janaki) is residing in the colony. From there on, Jeeva tries to impress Divya. The comedian’s gang found out that Jeeva is trying to approach Divya and agreed to help Jeeva. They ask Janaki’s opinion about Divya’s marriage. However, Divya refused the offer saying that she is not interested in getting married. A lonely sad, pathetic looking Janaki seemed to hide something. The gang gave few ideas to persuade Divya but all failed. Tired of fool ideas, Jeeva himself tell Janaki that he want to marry her daughter. Impressed by Jeeva’s good manner, Janaki advised Divya to accept him. Truthful to the expectations, Divya revealed that Janaki is actually her mother-in-law. Knowing that Jeeva loves her, Divya insults him so that he would give up. But, he didn’t. Every time Jeeva did well to her, it reminds her husband, Prithvi (Babloo Prithviraj)’s cruel and she started to compare them both. In a dramatic flashback, Prithvi is killed (so we think) by Divya when he encourages his friends to sexually abuse her. Believing the bad time is behind them, Janaki and Divya start a new life in a new town as mother and daughter team. Divya falls in love with Jeeva with the help of the comedian’s gang. However, Janaki did not allow Divya to tell Jeeva about her past. The whole colony cheered by the news and arranged an engagement. Well... almost. Prithvi returns for their betrothal to reclaim his possession. He blackmailed Divya to sleep with him one night before her marriage and ask Jeeva to sanction him a loan of Rs 25 lakhs. Otherwise, he will reveal the truth to everyone. Somehow, Jeeva knows the truth and claimed to be proud to become Divya’s husband. This distracts Prithvi who then decides to stop the marriage. What can a good mother do to stop the evil son? She poisons him and kills herself too for the sake of a peaceful life for her daughter-in-law. Hence mothers-in-law are dedicated. Release. Indolink.com gave the film a mixed review citing that "Ajith has very little to do in this female oriented movie", while "Simran shows she can act too". The reviewer added that Prithviraj as the sadist "does a good job, though it looks outrageous." Soundtrack. The film soundtrack features score and 6 songs composed by S. A. Rajkumar, with lyrics by Pazhani Barathi
1059157	The Reaping is an 2007 American horror film, starring Hilary Swank. The film was directed by Stephen Hopkins for Warner Bros. Pictures, Village Roadshow Pictures and Dark Castle Entertainment. The music for the film was scored by John Frizzell. Plot. Katherine Winter (Hilary Swank) and colleague, Ben (Idris Elba), investigate and disprove claims of miracles. In Louisiana, Katherine receives a call from a friend, Father Michael Costigan (Stephen Rea), who says that his photographs of her have developed burn marks that when assembled, form a sickle-like symbol, a possible warning from God, which she ignores. She then meets Doug Blackwell (David Morrissey), a teacher from the nearby town of Haven, asks Katherine to find out why Haven's river has turned red. The locals believe this is a biblical plague caused by a girl, Loren McConnell (AnnaSophia Robb), who they believe killed her older brother in the river. They travel to Haven where Katherine meets Loren and has a vision of her turning the river red. Meanwhile Ben witnesses dead frogs seemingly fall from the sky. Doug invites them to spend the night at his house, since the town doesn't have a motel. That night as they're about to eat dinner, they encounter flies and disease, which kills off local cows. Later that evening, Katherine explains to Doug at his wife's grave why she left the church; five years ago, she was an ordained minister. After a drought while doing missionary work in the Sudan with her husband and daughter, the locals sacrificed her family, believing they were the cause. Katherine and Doug then go back to the house, where they have sex. Test results from the river prove it to contain human blood. The citizens meanwhile are shaving their children's hair, due to an outbreak of lice. Ben and Doug try to get the mayor to evacuate the town, but he and his staff are struck down with boils. The town then forms a mob, ready to kill Loren. Katherine calls Father Costigan, who explains that he has researched a Satanic cult which sacrifices every second-born to create a child with "the eyes of the Devil" to bring them power. He also states that an angel, who cannot be harmed by the cult, will destroy them. He insists that Loren is the devil child, while Katherine is the angel. Suddenly, a supernatural force burns Costigan's room, killing him. Katherine goes to the McConnell house where she finds the cult's sacrificial chamber. There, she finds Loren's mother, who pulls out a gun and kills herself. Katherine grabs a knife and proceeds outside where a small group has gathered, including Ben and Doug. Suddenly, thousands of locusts appear, killing some of them. Doug runs away and falls in the river of blood, Katherine locks herself in the house, and Ben hides in a crypt, where he discovers skeletons and bodies of sacrificed children. He calls Katherine, when Loren appears outside. Katherine hurries after Ben, but finds him dead. She confronts Loren as darkness falls and fireballs shoot from the sky. Katherine is about to kill Loren, when they share another vision. The cult, along with Doug, are shown trying to kill Loren, who was a second-born child. Loren escaped and her brother Brody stabbed her, but her wound miraculously healed, and Brody died. Katherine realizes that Loren is innocent and that she is the angel God sent. The townsfolk surround them as Doug tells her that God is protecting Loren, and only an ordained servant of God like Katherine can kill her. He explains that they invited Katherine to investigate the plagues because they hoped she would join them, since she had turned her back on God like they did. Katherine refuses, reminding them that they had sacrificed generations of second-borns, leaving a town of first-borns. Suddenly fire rains down on the town, killing everyone, including Doug. Later, as Katherine and Loren drive away, Loren discloses to Katherine that Katherine is pregnant. As this is her second child, Katherine realizes that her son is the prophesied demonic child. Production. Filming for the movie took place in and around Baton Rouge, Louisiana with many scenes shot in an abandoned WalMart store. Swank convinced the producers to move the film's setting from New England to Louisiana. When Hurricane Katrina occurred midshoot (August 26, 2005), the production of the film was suspended for one week. Many scenes were shot at Ellerslie Plantation near St. Francisville, Louisiana. The DVD special features record that the producers considered shooting in another city, but decided that Louisiana needed the economic benefit of the movie being shot there. Before and during the making of the movie, skeptic investigator Joe Nickell was consulted. The type of skeptical investigations by the movie's main character in the first part of the movie is roughly based on Nickell's investigations of claims of the paranormal since 1969. The film was originally scheduled to play in theaters on August 11, 2006, then November 8, 2006; it was then switched to March 30, 2007, (the date featured on the above poster), and then to April 6, 2007. It was finally released on April 5, 2007, to coincide with Holy Thursday. Score. The score was originally written by Philip Glass, and went as far as the recording; however, the producers were not completely satisfied and decided to give it another try. John Frizzell was then brought in to compose a new score. Reception. The film received negative reviews from critics. Rotten Tomatoes gives a score of 8% based on reviews from 132 critics. with the consensus stating: "It may feature such accomplished actors as Hilary Swank and Stephen Rea, but "The Reaping" also boasts the apropos tagline "What hath God wrought?". It's schlocky, spiritually shallow, and scare-free." Controversy. Jacqueline Van Rysselberghe, the Mayor of Concepción, Chile, formally objected to the producers of the film over its portrayal of the city in the opening scene. She pointed out that rather than being the dirty underdeveloped tropical city as shown in the movie, Concepción is an industrialized city with many universities and was surprised that such inadequate research of the setting had been carried out for a $100 million movie.
582332	Shaadi No. 1 (translated: "Marriage No. 1") is an Indian comedy film released in November 2005. The film, directed by David Dhawan, stars Fardeen Khan, Zayed Khan, Sharman Joshi, Ayesha Takia, Esha Deol, Soha Ali Khan, Riya Sen, Aarti Chhabria, Sophia Chaudhary, Sanjay Dutt and Satish Shah. The plot is said to be inspired from the Kannada movie "Kothigalu Saar Kothigalu". Synopsis. Raj Mittal (Fardeen Khan), Veer Saxena (Zayed Khan) and Aryan Kapoor (Sharman Joshi) are unhappy with their respective marriages even though they love their spouses. Their wives Bhavana (Ayesha Takia), Diya (Esha Deol) and Sonia (Soha Ali Khan) are busy with their everyday lives, and their husbands feel ignored by them. Bhavana constantly uses religion as an excuse to not be intimate with her husband, Diya aspires to be an actress, and Sonia is a lawyer who is obsessed with her cases. Soon the three men come across three beauties: Madhuri (Riya Sen), Rekha (Aarti Chhabria) and Dimple (Sophie Choudry). It is not long before they are tempted by them. Unfortunately for them Lucky Bhai (Sanjay Dutt) is out to make their life hell and expose them to their unassuming wives. Trivia. "Garam Masala" was released at the same time as "Shaadi No. 1" and "Kyon Ki". During the filming of "Shaadi No. 1", Riya Sen was hit by a motorbike and supposedly had a near death experience.
583557	Mrinalini Sharma () is an Indian model and Bollywood actress. Early life and education. Sharma hails from New Delhi. Mrinalini did her schooling in Carmel Convent School, Chanakyapuri, New Delhi. Thereafter she did her graduation from Jesus and Mary College, Delhi (University of Delhi). Career. She started her career as a model in Delhi and soon shifted to Mumbai. She has been cast in many commercial advertisements and began her career in Bollywood with an item number in Prakash Jha’s movie "Apaharan". Her acting career took off with two films with Mahesh Bhatt. The first one was "Awarapan" in which she got to share the screen space with Emraan Hashmi. The movie also starred actress Shriya Saran. The other movie was choreographer Raju Khan’s directorial debut "Showbiz".
1463241	Pavuluri Mallana, who followed Adikavi Nannaya is a mathematician of 11th century. He composed 'Ganitam' which is the first Telugu rendering of an original Sanskrit work on mathematics. He was contemporary of king Rajaraja Narendra (1022–1063 AD). He has translated "Ganitasara Samgraham", a mathematical treatise of Mahivaracharya into Telugu language as "Sara Sangraha Ganitamu". He also wrote "Bhadradri Rama Satakamu" published by Vavilla Ramaswamy Sastrulu and Sons in 1916. Rajaraja Narendra has donated Navakhandavada agraharam near Pithapuram named Mallana. His grandson, also named Mallana, is a famous writer. This Pavuluru village is presently in Parchuru Mandal of Prakasam district.
1066906	A Child Is Waiting is a 1963 American drama film written by Abby Mann and directed by John Cassavetes. Burt Lancaster portrays the director of a state institution for mentally handicapped and emotionally disturbed children, and Judy Garland is a new teacher who challenges his methods. Plot. Jean Hansen, a Juilliard graduate, joins the staff of the Crawthorne State Mental Hospital and immediately clashes with the director, Dr. Matthew Clark, about his strict training methods. She becomes emotionally involved with 12-year-old Reuben Widdicombe, and is certain his attitude will improve if he is reunited with the divorced parents who abandoned him. She sends for Mrs. Widdicombe, who agrees with the doctor's opinion that it would be best if Reuben doesn't see her, but as she leave the grounds, her son sees her and chases her car. Distraught, he runs away from the school. Dr. Clark finds him and brings him back the following morning, and Jean offers to resign. Clark asks her to stay and continue her rehearsals for the Thanksgiving pageant. On the day of the show, Reuben's father Ted arrives, having decided to enroll him in a private school. When he hears Reuben recite a poem and positively react to the audience's applause, he decides to leave him in the care of Jean, who is asked to welcome a new boy to the institution by Dr. Clark. Production. Producer Stanley Kramer modeled the film's school on the Vineland Training School in New Jersey. He wanted to bring the plight of mentally and emotionally disturbed children to the movie-going public and try "to throw a spotlight on a dark-ages type of social thinking which has tried to relegate the subject of retardation to a place under the rocks." He wanted to cast Burt Lancaster because the actor had a troubled child of his own. Ingrid Bergman, Katharine Hepburn, and Elizabeth Taylor were considered for the role of Jean Hansen, which went to Judy Garland, who previously had worked with Lancaster and Kramer on the 1961 film "Judgment at Nuremberg". She was experiencing severe personal problems at the time and the director felt a supportive work environment would help her get through them.
1162936	David L. Lander (born June 22, 1947) is an American actor, comedian, composer, musician, and baseball scout. David has also worked as the Goodwill Ambassador for the National Multiple Sclerosis Society. He is best known for his portrayal of Squiggy on the sitcom "Laverne & Shirley". Biography. Lander was born David Leonard Landau in Brooklyn, New York, to schoolteacher parents. He played the role of Andrew "Squiggy" Squiggman on the situation comedy "Laverne & Shirley" from 1976 to 1982 along with sitcom sidekick Lenny, played by Michael McKean. Lander's partnership with McKean began during their acting classes at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh where they developed the characters of Lenny and Squiggy. After Pittsburgh they teamed up in the Los Angeles-based comedy ensemble The Credibility Gap. The duo released an album as Lenny and the Squigtones in 1979 featuring Christopher Guest on guitar, credited as Nigel Tufnel, a name Guest would later reuse in the spoof rock band Spinal Tap. Lander and McKean also appeared together in the 1979 Steven Spielberg comedy "1941", and the 1980 Kurt Russell film "Used Cars". Lander has also appeared in numerous other TV shows and movies including "The Bob Newhart Show", "Barney Miller", "Happy Days", "Married... with Children", "Twin Peaks", "On the Air", "The Weird Al Show", "Mad About You", and "The Drew Carey Show". His film roles were more sparse but still memorable; these included the part of a minor league baseball radio announcer in the film, "A League of Their Own" and a bit part of the minister officiating the marriage ceremony in "Say It Isn't So". Lander created the starring role of the demented fast food franchise clown Bruce Burger in the cult film "Funland" directed by Michael A. Simpson. Lander also has experience as a voice actor, with a resume dating back to 1969 where he "dramatically reproduced" Elvis Presley quotations for the Pop Chronicles music documentary and 1970 when he was the voice of Jerry Lewis in the Filmation series "Will the Real Jerry Lewis Please Sit Down". Later voice roles included "The Big Bang", "A Bug's Life", "Oswald", ' and the animated TV series "Galaxy High" as the six-armed Milo de Venus. He also reprised his role as Squiggy in the animated sitcom, "The Simpsons". Lander also provided the voice of Smart Ass, the chief weasel of Judge Doom’s Toon Patrol in the 1988 Disney film "Who Framed Roger Rabbit". Lander reprised his role for Smart Ass on the related ride, but his character was renamed Wiseguy. He was credited as Stephen Lander in "Boo, Zino and the Snurks". His latest voice role is that of Ch'p in the DC Comics animated movie, '. Lander had done the voice of "Henry the Penguin" during the four-year run of the cartoon Oswald, from 2001 to 2004. His distinctive voice was clear during the show's run. Lander suffers from multiple sclerosis. Officially diagnosed on 15 May 1984 at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, he went public in 1999 and regularly speaks at related conventions. In 2002, his autobiography was published, "Fall Down Laughing: How Squiggy Caught Multiple Sclerosis and Didn't Tell Nobody" (ISBN 1-58542-052-2), written with Lee Montgomery. In addition to acting, Lander, a Pittsburgh Pirates fan, has a small stake in the Portland Beavers. He has worked as a baseball talent scout since 1997, first for the Anaheim Angels, and now for the Seattle Mariners. Lander was married 10 March 1979 to Kathy Fields. He lives in Thousand Oaks, California. He has a daughter, Natalie Lander, who was on MTV's show, "".
1151519	Wedding Daze (also known as The Pleasure of Your Company and The Next Girl I See) is a 2006 romantic comedy movie, written and directed by Michael Ian Black. It stars Jason Biggs and Isla Fisher. Plot. Against the advice of his best friend Ted (Michael Weston), Anderson (Jason Biggs) publicly proposes to his girlfriend Vanessa (Audra Blaser), while dressed in a cupid costume. The shock of the unexpected proposal leads to her instantaneous death. Utterly devastated and distraught, Anderson quits his job and goes into mourning. A year later, Anderson is still obsessed with his "perfect" (and dead) former girlfriend. While Ted and Anderson are lunching together in a diner, to help him move on, Ted persuades Anderson to give romance one more try. To placate his friend, Anderson agrees, looks around, and asks attractive waitress Katie (Isla Fisher) to marry him. To both men's utter astonishment, she accepts Anderson's proposal. Anderson and Katie then decide to take things slow, the same day she moves into Anderson's apartment. Meanwhile Anderson is feeling guilty as when he is accidentally knocked unconscious he talks to his former girlfriend, the late Vanessa, promising to be ever faithful. However he goes ahead with plans to meet Katie's parents, and brings Katie to meet his parents. The pair soon begin to get on well with each other. Katie's father, Smitty, breaks out of jail to walk her down the aisle. He arrives at his ex-wife (Katie's mother)'s house and through their long lost passion for one another, their love sparks again, much to Stuart's (Lois's current husband) discomfort. After a falling out over Anderson's late girlfriend, Anderson and Katie's relationship looks to be over. This pivotal moment in the film leads to the pair finally declaring their fondness of one another. In line with the film's spontaneous feel, the couple suddenly run off to Atlantic City, with help from Ted. Anderson, Katie, Ted and the rest of the party drive to Atlantic City in a car from the car dealership where Ted works (under the pretense of test driving the vehicle). Katie's ex-boyfriend, William, tries to persuade Katie that they should be together. He proceeds to assault Anderson on the way to their wedding. Ted's boss reports the car stolen, and in an unfortunate event, they crash into a police car, resulting in their arrest. Meanwhile, Katie's parents know where they're headed and make their way there, stopping to rob the Tuxedo Depot in preparation for the wedding. Katie's parents are then arrested for robbing the store. They all end up in the same police station, and Anderson's parents also turn up after he calls them. In a lucky turn of events the group is able to escape from the station after stealing an officer's gun and locking them in a cell. At this point Anderson and Katie establish for the final time that they want to get married, and for the first time the whole group is in favor. Now in a police van, which the policemen let them use, they drive to Atlantic City and Anderson and Katie finally get married. However, as soon as they step outside they are all arrested. Anderson and Katie spend their honeymoon in jail and bribe a judge with a blender they received as a wedding present. Setting. The film is set in Staten Island, New York. A lot of the scenes are set in the neighborhood of West New Brighton. The scene outside Gregorio's Florist where Anderson and Katie hug and kiss as well as all the diner scenes are filmed on Forest Avenue, West New Brighton. Critical reception. According to film review aggregation site Rotten Tomatoes, 33% of reviews were positive out of 9 reviews.
343610	Moving McAllister is a 2007 American comedy film starring Mila Kunis, Jon Heder, Rutger Hauer, and Billy Drago. The film was shot largely in Utah and St Johns County, Florida and was produced by Camera 40 Productions. It was released on September 14, 2007 in the United States. Synopsis. With only four days until the bar exam, an utterly unprepared law intern, Rick Robinson (Ben Gourley), is given a rare opportunity to score points with his boss, Maxwell McAllister (Rutger Hauer) and without thinking, commits to a favor he cannot afford. Rick soon finds himself stuck in a grueling cross country road trip driving a rundown U-Haul truck carrying all his boss's worldly possessions. To make matters worse, he is left in charge of Mr. McAllister's bratty Hollywood-bound niece Michelle (Mila Kunis) and her out-of-control pet pig. The trip from Miami to Los Angeles meets several snags. The truck breaks down on a backwoods road in the deep South, and Rick's clothes are burned by the hillbilly family providing them refuge for the night. Later, another breakdown results in Rick being knocked unconscious. He is rescued by a peculiar hitchhiker called Orlie (Jon Heder), who finds a motel room for him and Michelle. Orlie asks to accompany Rick and Michelle, and is accepted, as Rick believes he owes him a favor for his rescue. Michelle takes a shine to Orlie, and they proceed to have fun at Rick's expense.
589621	Prem Pujari is a 1970 Bollywood film produced, directed and written by Dev Anand for Navketan films. The movie stars Anand, Waheeda Rehman, Shatrughan Sinha, Prem Chopra, Madan Puri, Amrish Puri. It has some very popular songs composed and directed by S. D. Burman. Plot summary. Ramdev Bakshi (Dev Anand) is a peaceful, quiet man who is only interested in wildlife and nature. He is sent then to the Indo-Chinese border in the army by his father, a war hero. Here he refuses to lift his gun and attack. He is then court-martialled. Later he is captured by the Chinese and humiliated, but when a beautiful Chinese agent promises him a better future by working and spying for her (against India), he agrees but foils their wicked plans by spying over them. Later the Indo-Pakistani War of 1965 breaks out. He joins in the action to show what he is made of by killing Pakistani soldiers hiding in the bushes in an Indian village in the Khemkaran sector. Location. The film was shot in Switzerland and has Grimsel Hotel in one of the songs.Some part of movie was also shot in Bihar near a famous tourist place Rajgir at India.Here Shatrughan Sinha was picked to play his part from the gathered public. Reception. While "Prem Pujari" did not do very well at the box office, some of its songs (e.g., "Rangeela Re," "Shokhiyon mein," "Taaqat watan ki hum se hai" (patriotic song) and "Phoolon ke rang se Dil ki Kalam se"), all of which were penned by the famous lyricist poet Neeraj, are known for the purety of their Urdu and Hindi languages and are regarded as evergreen classics.
1165732	Coleen Gray (born October 23, 1922) is an American movie and television actress born in Staplehurst, Nebraska. She is best known for her roles in the films "Nightmare Alley" (1947), "Red River" (1948) and Stanley Kubrick's "The Killing" (1956). Early career. Born Doris Jensen, Gray was a farmer's daughter from Seward County in eastern Nebraska. After graduation from high school, she studied dramatics at Hamline University, from which she received a Bachelor of Arts. She then decided to travel to California. When she reached La Jolla she obtained employment as a waitress in a restaurant. After several weeks there, she moved to Los Angeles and enrolled in a drama school. She had leading roles in the Los Angeles stage productions "Letters to Lucerne" and "Brief Music", which won her a 20th Century Fox contract in 1944. After initially playing a bit part in "State Fair" (1945), she became pregnant and briefly stopped working, only to return a year later as the love interest of the character played by John Wayne in "Red River" (1948), which was shot in 1946 but held for release until 1948, by which time she had already graduated to leading roles in films noir such as "Kiss of Death" (1947) opposite Victor Mature and "Nightmare Alley" (1947) opposite Tyrone Power.
584061	Kannamoochi Yenada? (; ) is a 2007 Tamil comedy-drama film written and directed by V. Priya. The film stars Prithviraj, Sathyaraj, Sandhya and Raadhika Sarathkumar in lead and Sripriya, Manobala and Radha Ravi in supporting roles. The film's score and soundtrack is composed by Yuvan Shankar Raja. The film, a remake of the 2005 American film "Guess Who", which is itself a remake of the 1967 American film "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner", was jointly produced and distributed by Raadan Media Works, UTV and Pyramid Saimira. It released on 8 November 2007 during Deepavali. Plot. Harish Venkatraman (Prithviraj Sukumaran), a software architect by profession who lives in Malaysia, is the millionaire nephew of Maheswaran Iyer (Radharavi). Having lost his parents early in life, he runs the business of his uncle with impressive results. He stumbles upon the psychiatry student Deva (Sandhya), in the most cinematic manner, and as script would have it, falls for her that very instant. Deva is the daughter of Commissioner Arumugam (Sathyaraj) and Dhamayanthi (Raadhika Sarathkumar) in Chennai. As the plot progresses, Deva is being summoned by her parents for their silver jubilee wedding anniversary back home. Notwithstanding the fact that he has a flourishing business to attend to and much to the wrath of his uncle - who arranges for his wedding with his business partner’s daughter - Harish takes the next flight to Chennai to accompany Deva. He is subjected to a warm welcome by Radhika and cold shoulder by Arumugam. To make matters worse, Harish's uncle's (Radharavi) vicious character assassination – in the name of a complaint he sends to the Police Commissioner’s office – doesn’t help Harish in the task of gaining enough confidence among his girlfriend’s parents. Will Harish ever win his love back, now that his chance of impressing Deva’s parents are doomed, forms the rest of the story. Soundtrack. The music was scored by Yuvan Shankar Raja, teaming up with director V. Priya again after "Kanda Naal Mudhal" (2005). The soundtrack was released on 23 August 2007 by Vivek Oberoi. It features 5 tracks, including a retune of the yesteryear hit song "Andru Vandhadhum" from the M. G. R.-starrer "Periya Idathu Penn", being just the second song to be retuned after A. R. Rahman's "Thottal Poo Malarum" from the film "New". Noticeably, singer Shankar Mahadevan lent his voice for three songs. Lyrics were provided by Thamarai. Yuvan Shankar Raja won accolades for creating an "interesting" and "thoroughly enjoyable" album, which was cited to be "an absolute treat to listen to". "Behindwoods", which described the song "Kannamoochi" as "this year’s one of the most enjoyable songs" and the song "Sanjaram" as a "masterpiece", said, that the Yuvan-Priya duo had even bettered their previous venture "Kanda Naal Mudhal", giving the album four out of five stars.
590326	Ritwik Ghatak (, "Ritbik Kumar Ghôţôk", ; 4 November 19256 February 1976) was a Bengali Indian filmmaker and script writer. Along with prominent contemporary Bengali filmmakers Satyajit Ray and Mrinal Sen, his cinema is primarily remembered for its meticulous depiction of social reality. Although their roles were often adversarial, they were ardent admirers of each other's work and, in doing so, the three directors charted the independent trajectory of parallel cinema, as a counterpoint to the mainstream fare of Hindi cinema in India. Ghatak received many awards in his career, including National Film Award's Rajat Kamal Award for Best Story in 1974 for his "Jukti Takko Aar Gappo" and Best Director's Award from Bangladesh Cine Journalist's Association for "Titash Ekti Nadir Naam". The Government of India honoured him with the Padma Shri for Arts in 1970. Early life. Ritwik Ghatak was born in Dhaka in East Bengal (now Bangladesh). Ghatak's father Suresh Chandra Ghatak was a district magistrate and a poet and playwright; his mother's name was Indubala Devi. He and his twin sister Prateeti, were the youngest of nine children. The other children were Manish, Sudhish, Tapati, Sampreeti, Brototi, Ashish Chandra and Lokesh Chandra. He and his family moved to Calcutta (now Kolkata) just before millions of other refugees from East Bengal began to flood into the city, fleeing the catastrophic Bengal famine of 1943 and the partition of Bengal in 1947. Identification with this tide of refugees was to define his practice, providing an overriding metaphor for cultural dismemberment and exile that unified his subsequent creative work. The 1971 Bangladesh Liberation War, which led to more refugees fleeing to India, was to have a similar impact on his work. Family. Ritwik married Surama Devi, niece of active left-wing member, Sadhana Roychowdhury. They separated and she went to her ancestral place, Shillong after Ritwik was temporarily sent to a mental hospital. They had three children: son Ritaban and two daughters. Ritaban is a filmmaker in his own right and is involved in the Ritwik Memorial Trust. He has restored Ritwik's "Bagalar Banga Darshan", "Ronger Golam" and completed his unfinished documentary on Ramkinkar. He has also made a film titled "Unfinished Ritwik". He is now working on adapting Bibhutibhushan Bandopadhyay’s short story 'Ichhamati'. Ritwik's elder daughter Samhita, has made a docufeature titled "Nobo Nagarik". His younger daughter passed away in 2009. Ghatak's elder brother Manish Ghatak was a radical writer of his time, a professor of English and a social activist who was deeply involved with the IPTA theatre movement in its heyday and later on headed the Tebhaga Andolan of North Bengal. Manish Ghatak's daughter is the writer and activist Mahasweta Devi. Creative career. In 1948, Ghatak wrote his first play "Kalo sayar" (The Dark Lake) and participated in a revival of the landmark play "Nabanna". In 1951, Ghatak joined the Indian People's Theatre Association (IPTA). He wrote, directed and acted in plays and translated Bertolt Brecht and Gogol into Bengali. In early 1970s, he wrote and directed his last play "Jwala" (The Burning). The music director was Darbar Bhaduri, who was called by Ghatak 'Dada' or 'Guru' from his childhood. Ghatak was greatly inspired by Darbar Bhaduri. In Rajshahi, Bangladeh—his homeland Ritwik lived beside Bhaduri's house. Almost all time he was with Darbar Bhaduri. Darbar Bhaduri was a 'King maker' who kept away from outside world. Ghatak by pressure made Darbar Bhaduri the music director of "Jwala", and the music was extraordinary. Ghatak entered the film industry with Nimai Ghosh's "Chinnamul" (1950) as actor and assistant director. "Chinnamul" was followed in two years by Ghatak's first completed film "Nagarik" (1952), both major breakthroughs for the Indian cinema. Ghatak's early work sought theatrical and literary precedent in bringing together a documentary realism, a stylised performance often drawn from the folk theatre, and a Brechtian use of the filmic apparatus. Ghatak's first commercial release was "Ajantrik" (1958), a comedy-drama film with science fiction themes. It was one of the earliest Indian films to portray an inanimate object, in this case an automobile, as a character in the story. Ghatak's greatest commercial success as a script writer was for "Madhumati" (1958), one of the earliest films to deal with the theme of reincarnation. It was a Hindi film directed by another Bengali filmmaker Bimal Roy. It earned Ghatak his first award nomination, for the Filmfare Best Story Award. Ritwik Ghatak directed eight full-length films. His best-known films, "Meghe Dhaka Tara" ("The Cloud-Capped Star") (1960), "Komal Gandhar" ("E-Flat") (1961), and "Subarnarekha" ("Golden Lining") (1962), a trilogy based in Calcutta and addressing the condition of refugee-hood, proved controversial and the commercial failure of "Komal Gandhar" ("E-Flat") and "Subarnarekha" prevented him from making features through the remainder of the 1960s. In all three, he used a basic and at times starkly realistic storyline, upon which he inscribed a range of mythic references, especially of the 'Mother Deliverer', through a dense overlay of visual and aural registers. Ghatak moved briefly to Pune in 1966, where he taught at the Film and Television Institute of India (FTII). During his year at FTII, he was involved in the making of two student films: "Fear" and "Rendezvous". Ghatak returned to filmmaking in the 1970s, when a Bangladeshi producer financed the 1973 epic "Titash Ekti Nadir Naam" ("A River Called Titas"). Making films became difficult because of his poor health due to extreme alcoholism and consequent diseases. His last film was the autobiographical "Jukti Takko Aar Gappo" ("Reason, Debate And Story") (1974), in which he portrayed Neelkantha (Nilkanth) the lead character. He also had a number of incomplete feature and short films in his credit. Impact and influence. At the time of his death (February 1976), Ghatak's primary impact would seem to have been through former students. Though his stint teaching film at FTII was brief, one-time students Mani Kaul, John Abraham, and especially Kumar Shahani (among many others), carried Ghatak's ideas and theories, which were further elaborated upon in his book "Cinema And I", into the mainstream of Indian art film. Other students of his at the FTII included the acclaimed filmmakers Saeed Akhtar Mirza and Adoor Gopalakrishnan. Ghatak stood entirely outside the world of Indian commercial film. None of the elements of the commercial cinema (singing and dancing, melodrama, stars, glitz) featured in his work. He was watched by students and intelligentsia, not by the masses. His students have tended to work in the art cinema or independent cinema tradition. While other neo-realist directors like Satyajit Ray succeeded in creating an audience outside India during their lifetime, Ghatak was not so fortunate. While he was alive, his films were appreciated primarily within India. Satyajit Ray did what he could to promote his colleague, but Ray's generous praise did not translate into international fame for Ghatak. For example, Ghatak's "Nagarik" (1952) was perhaps the earliest example of a Bengali art film, preceding Ray's "Pather Panchali" by three years but was not released until after his death in 1977. His first commercial release "Ajantrik" (1958) was one of the earliest Indian films to portray an inanimate object, an automobile, as a character in the story, many years before the Herbie films. Ghatak's "Bari Theke Paliye" (1958) had a similar plot to François Truffaut's "The 400 Blows" (1959), but Ghatak's film remained obscure while Truffaut's went on to become one of the most famous of the French New Wave. One of Ghatak's final films, "Titash Ekti Nadir Naam" (1973), is one of the earliest to be told in a hyperlink format, featuring multiple characters in a collection of interconnected stories, predating Robert Altman's "Nashville" (1975) by two years. Ghatak's only major commercial success was "Madhumati" (1958), a Hindi film which he wrote the screenplay for. It was one of the earliest to deal with the theme of reincarnation and is believed to have been the source of inspiration for many later works dealing with reincarnation in Indian cinema, Indian television, and perhaps world cinema. It may have been the source of inspiration for the American film "The Reincarnation of Peter Proud" (1975) and the Hindi film "Karz" (1980), both of which dealt with reincarnation and have been influential in their respective cultures. "Karz" in particular was remade several times: as the Kannada film "Yuga Purusha" (1989), the Tamil film "Enakkul Oruvan" (1984), and more recently the Bollywood "Karzzzz" (2008). "Karz" and "The Reincarnation of Peter Proud" may have inspired the American "Chances Are" (1989). The most recent film to be directly inspired by "Madhumati" was the hit Bollywood film "Om Shanti Om" (2007), which led to the late Bimal Roy's daughter Rinki Bhattacharya accusing it of plagiarism and threatening legal action against its producers. Ghatak's work as a director had an impact on many later Indian filmmakers, including those from the Bengali film industry and elsewhere. Ghatak is said to have influences on Kumar Shahani, Mani Kaul, Ketan Mehta, and Adoor Gopalakrishnan. For example, Mira Nair has cited Ghatak as well as Ray as the reasons she became a filmmaker. Ghatak's impact as a director began to spread beyond India much later; beginning in the 1990s, a project to restore Ghatak's films was undertaken, and international exhibitions (and subsequent DVD releases) have belatedly generated an increasingly global audience. In a critics' poll of all-time greatest films conducted by the Asian film magazine "Cinemaya" in 1998, "Subarnarekha" was ranked at No. 11. In the 2002 "Sight & Sound" critics' and directors' poll for all-time greatest films, "Meghe Dhaka Tara" was ranked at No. 231 and "Komal Gandhar" at No. 346. In 2007, "A River Named Titas" topped the list of 10 best Bangladeshi films, as chosen in the audience and critics' polls conducted by the British Film Institute. Bangladeshi filmmaker Shahnewaz Kakoli said she has been greatly influenced by Ritwik Ghatak's films and regarded Ghatak as her idol. She told– Like all Bengalis, I too have grown up watching movies of Satyajit Ray and Ghatak, though I like Ghatak more and I idolise him. I am greatly inspired by him and consequently my movie 'Uttarer Sur' (Northern Symphony) too is influenced by Ghatak. Works. Though Ghatak is mainly known as film director, he wrote many stories and plays. In his creative career, Ghatak made eight full-length feature films and few short films and documentaries. He also wrote many short stories, plays and poetries. Ghatak wrote more than 50 articles and essays on film. Ideology. Ghatak was not only a film director, he was a theorist, too. His views and commentaries on films have been parts of scholarly studies and researches. As a filmmaker his main concentration was on men and life and specially the day-to-day struggle of ordinary men. He could never accept the partition of India of 1947 which divided Bengal into two countries. In almost all his film he dealt with this theme. Filmmaking was not only art for him. In his opinion it was only a means to the end of serving people: It was only a means of expressing his anger at the sorrows and sufferings of his people.
1227389	Change of Habit is a 1969 American musical drama film directed by William A. Graham and starring Elvis Presley and Mary Tyler Moore. Written by James Lee, S.S. Schweitzer, and Eric Bercovici, based on a story by John Joseph and Richard Morris, the film is about three Catholic nuns, preparing for their final vows, who are sent to a rough inner city neighborhood dressed as lay missionaries to work at a clinic run by a young doctor. Their lives become complicated by the realities they face in the inner city, and by the doctor who falls in love with one of the nuns. The film was produced by Joe Connelly for NBC Productions and distributed by Universal Pictures. Filmed on location in the Los Angeles area and at the Universal Studios during March and April of 1969, "Change of Habit" was released in the United States on November 10, 1969 and spent four weeks on the "Variety" Box Office Survey, peaking at #17. "Change of Habit" was Presley's 31st and final film acting role; his remaining film appearances were in concert documentaries. The film was Moore's fourth and final film under her brief Universal Pictures contract; she would not appear in another theatrical movie until "Ordinary People" in 1980. Moore and Edward Asner, who also appears in the film, would go on to star in "The Mary Tyler Moore Show", one of the most popular television shows in the 1970s. Plot. Dr. John Carpenter is a physician in a ghetto clinic who falls for a co-worker, Michelle Gallagher, unaware that she is a nun. Elvis stars as a professional man for the first time in his career. Dr. Carpenter heads a ghetto clinic in a major metropolis. He is surprised to be offered assistance by three women. Unknown to him, the three are nuns in street clothing who want to aid the community but are afraid the local residents might be reluctant to seek help if their true identities were known. The nuns are also facing opposition from the ungodly priest from the local parish. Carpenter falls in love with Sister Michelle Gallagher, played by wholesome Mary Tyler Moore, but Sister Michelle's true vocation remains unknown to Dr. Carpenter. She also has feelings for the doctor but is reluctant to leave the order. The film concludes with Sister Michelle and Sister Irene entering a church where Dr. Carpenter is singing to pray for guidance to make her choice. Production. By 1969, Presley's future in Hollywood was under threat. Although still financially successful, mainly due to the "make 'em quick, make 'em cheap" attitude of Presley's manager Colonel Tom Parker, Presley's films had been making less profit in recent years. When Parker had struggled to find any studio willing to pay Presley's usual $1 million fee, he struck a deal with NBC to produce one feature film, and a TV Special entitled 'Elvis'. NBC would pay Presley $1.25 million for both features, and Parker was happy in the knowledge that he was still able to earn $1 million for his client. The film "Change of Habit" had been announced in 1967, with Mary Tyler Moore signing up in October 1968. It was considered a Moore vehicle until January 1969 when Presley signed on to take the lead role. The film was shot in the Los Angeles area and at the Universal Studios during March and April 1969. It was released nationwide in the United States on November 10, 1969 and spent four weeks on the "Variety" Box Office Survey, peaking at #17. Mary Tyler Moore and Edward Asner would soon become co-stars of her self-named "The Mary Tyler Moore Show", one of television's enduring hits from 1970-77. In "Change of Habit", however, they shared no scenes. Soundtrack. When Presley entered Decca Universal Studio on March 5, 1969, for two days to record his final dramatic motion picture soundtrack, what would come to be known as the comeback television special had already been broadcast, its attendant album had been his first top ten LP in four years, and he had just finished the sessions at American Sound Studio yielding "From Elvis in Memphis" and the top ten singles "In the Ghetto" and "Suspicious Minds" that would cement his resurgence as a force in American popular music. He had a month-long engagement at the International Hotel in Paradise, Nevada lined up in August, his first live performances in eight years, and clearly now had turned his career around. A song recorded at American, "Rubberneckin'", would be used in the film and subsequently issued as the b-side of RCA single 47-9768 "Don't Cry Daddy" in conjunction with the movie premiere. Four songs would be recorded at the soundtrack sessions, of which "Let's Be Friends" would not be used in the film. The four songs would be released commercially on budget albums, "Let's Be Friends," the title track "Change of Habit," and "Have A Happy" on "Let's Be Friends" the following year, with "Let Us Pray" issued on the 1971 album "You'll Never Walk Alone".
1166392	Ryan Lee Stiles (born April 22, 1959) is an American-born Canadian actor, comedian, director, and voice actor whose work is often associated with improvisational comedy. He is best known for his improv and co-production work on the American and British versions of "Whose Line Is It Anyway?" and the role of Lewis Kiniski on "The Drew Carey Show". He plays Herb Melnick on the CBS comedy "Two and a Half Men" and was a performer on the show "Drew Carey's Improv-A-Ganza". Early life and career. The youngest of five children, Ryan Stiles was born in Seattle, Washington to Canadian mother and father Irene and Sonny. He grew up in a modest but loving environment provided by his mother, a homemaker, and his father, a supervisor at a Vancouver-based fish processing plant. When he was 10, his family moved to Vancouver. Although he was a good student, Stiles has admitted that "being a high-school senior gave too much freedom." He got so carried away with his flexible schedule that at age 17, he quit school a few months shy of graduation. In spite of his parents' objections, he was able to support himself doing stand-up routines at clubs near his home in Vancouver, British Columbia. He helped Rich Elwood start Punchlines Comedy Club. During this time he was the head writer of The Don Harron Show on CTV and the host of Comedy College on CBC. Ryan was a regular improv performer with the Vancouver Theatresports League and Punchline's No Name Player before joining the Second City comedy ensemble at Expo 86. He continued with Second City in Toronto, and later in L.A. Then in 1990 he landed a spot in the original British version of "Whose Line Is It Anyway?", which lasted for 9 years. His performance on the program earned him both critical praise and a devoted fan following in the U.K. This break lead to numerous guest shots on U.S. TV programs such as "Murphy Brown", "Mad About You", and "The John Larroquette Show", and an audition for the part as Lewis Kiniski on "The Drew Carey Show". Work in the U.S. film industry soon followed, including roles in such feature films as "Hot Shots!", "Hot Shots! Part Deux", "Courting Courtney", and the Academy Award-nominated short "Rainbow War". Television work. By 1989, Stiles had gained the attention of the producers of the British improvisational comedy show "Whose Line Is It Anyway?". Stiles was a regular on the show until 1998, and the show's short production season allowed him to make numerous television and film appearances in the United States. In 1995, Stiles was asked by American comic Drew Carey to be a regular on his comedy "The Drew Carey Show". Stiles played Drew's erudite but underachieving best friend, Lewis Kiniski. Stiles' first line in the pilot episode of the show, "And that's why the French don't wash," is a line he had previously used in an episode of the British version of "Whose Line?". "Whose Line Is It Anyway?". In 1998, Carey successfully lobbied ABC to get an American version of "Whose Line Is It Anyway?" produced. Following the final season of the British version in 1998, the American version premiered, with both Stiles and Carey credited as executive producers. Stiles and Colin Mochrie were the only two performers to appear in every episode of the US version, although Wayne Brady also became a regular near the beginning of the second season. The series was produced until 2006. Stiles was the most prolific performer on the original UK version of "Whose Line?", appearing in 76 of the series' 136 episodes (including compilations). He first appeared in the fifth episode of the second season, which aired in late 1988. He appeared in one other episode of that season, before returning for four episodes of the third season. His prominence increased with each season, including appearances in every episode of Season 4, which was filmed in New York; ultimately, he appeared in every episode from the seventh season onwards. Stiles was known for several recurring impressions he performed on the shows. These included Carol Channing, Elvis Presley, John Wayne, Jimmy Stewart, Steve Irwin and Christopher Lloyd's character in "Taxi", Jim Ignatowski. He made his dislike of the musical segments of the show abundantly clear at every opportunity whenever he was chosen to perform in them, mostly because of his inability to come up with lyrics quickly. In particular, he disliked the games Hoedown and Irish Drinking Song, often reacting negatively (or with sarcastic enthusiasm) to the games' announcement. Other than in early UK episodes, Stiles was always the last performer to sing in Hoedown and other similar musical games, allowing him more time to devise lyrics and giving him the final punchlines as well as the opportunity to inject (usually not-so-subtle) jabs at the Hoedown itself, or at the host for having him perform it. Stiles had first met Colin Mochrie years before while performing stand-up. They first performed together in Vancouver TheaterSports, then in The Second City Toronto. On "Whose Line", there were a number of games which exclusively paired Mochrie and Stiles every time they were played. Though other performers did so, he was the most common performer to make bald jokes at Mochrie's expense. In return, Mochrie often made jokes about Stiles's height, nose, attractiveness, and tendency to wear exotic, flamboyant shoes. However, Stiles would sometimes stand up to or make jokes at the other performers (including Drew Carey) who made fun of Mochrie's baldness or Mochrie in general, notably during Scenes From A Hat. Stiles took part in the regular practice of mocking host Clive Anderson on the UK series, though he did so with less frequency than others. By contrast, on the American version, he was among the most frequent mockers of Carey, especially during the Hoedowns. Stiles almost always wore a button-down shirt, typically a dress shirt, and was one of the few performers (along with Greg Proops, and Colin during tapings of the UK version) to commonly wear a necktie. One of Stiles's notable trademarks on the US series were his dress shoes, many of which were an unusual color, most notably his blue shoes, or had a flashy pattern of several colors. This was because he had to get many of his shoes custom made by George Esquivel, since his height & shoe size often made it problematic for Stiles to buy shoes from a store. Stiles' shoes and the size of his nose were sometimes mocked by Carey and the other performers. In addition, a running gag on both versions of the show had the producers trying (and invariably failing) to stump Stiles, by giving him increasingly bizarre mannerisms or characters in the games that require him to act them out. When reading them just prior to the scene, he and Carey would often laugh at what was written on the cards. Stiles received a nomination for a Primetime Emmy Award for Individual Performance in a Variety or Music Program in 2002 for his work on the show. Though he never appeared in the series, Stiles (along with Kaitlyn Olson) performed in the taping of the unaired pilot episode of "Drew Carey's Green Screen Show", which involved improv games similar to "Whose Line?" games played in front of a massive green screen. Animation was later added to the improv footage. Stiles returned for the revival of "Whose Line Is It Anyway?" in the summer of 2013. Other appearances. Stiles appeared in the 1991 film "Hot Shots!" as Mailman Farnham, and also starred in the 1993 sequel "Hot Shots! Part Deux", as marine Rabinowitz. Since 2004, Stiles has played recurring character Dr. Herb Melnick on the comedy "Two and a Half Men"; the show's original stars Jon Cryer and Charlie Sheen (who is no longer on the show) were Stiles's co-stars in the "Hot Shots!" movies. Stiles also made short guest appearances on "Murphy Brown", "Mad About You", "Mad TV", and "Dharma & Greg". In July 2008, he was a guest star on "Reno 911!" as Sergeant Clift, an acting coach. During the 1994 Major League Baseball strike, Stiles appeared in several commercials for Nike, hanging out in an empty ballpark, doing things such as playing the organ and attempting to do the wave alone. The commercials ended with the line: "Play ball. Please." Personal life. In 1981, Stiles met Patricia McDonald at Punchlines where she was waitressing. They lived together for seven years before marrying in 1988. They have three children: Sam, Mackenzie, and Claire. When not working in Hollywood, he lives at his home on Lake Samish, outside Bellingham, Washington, where he has opened the Upfront Theatre, a small theatre dedicated to live improv comedy. Stiles once lived in a house previously owned by Liberace in Sherman Oaks, California, but he sold it.
582153	Malaika Arora Khan, known as Malaika Arora before her marriage, is an Indian actress, dancer, model, VJ, and television presenter. She is one of India's top item girls. She is most famous for her dancing in the songs "Chaiyya Chaiyya" (1998) and "Munni Badnaam Hui" (2010). She turned film producer in 2008, with her husband, Arbaaz Khan. Their company Arbaaz Khan Productions released its first film, "Dabangg", in 2010. Early life and background. Khan was born as Malaika Arora on 23 October 1973 in Chembur, Mumbai to a Punjabi father, Anil Arora, a native of Indian border town Fazilka and a Malayali Catholic mother, Joyce Polycarp. Her father worked in the Merchant Navy. She completed her secondary education at Swami Vivekanand School in Chembur. Her aunt, Grace Polycarp, was the principal of the school. She is also an alumnus of the Holy Cross High School Thane where she studied until ninth grade. She completed her college education from Jai Hind College, Churchgate. She lived in Borla Society, Chembur opposite Basant Talkies before starting her modeling career. Career. Khan was selected as one of the MTV VJs when MTV India started its operations. She rose to an interviewer for MTV India, becoming the most prominent non-movie, non-model female in urban India. MTV India, recognizing her potential, gave her plum roles co-anchoring with Cyrus Broacha the popular program "Love Line" and "Style Check", at award ceremonies and concerts on the television channel. Khan then entered the modeling world. Her modeling career was equally successful. She appeared in many advertisements as well as cameos for song and item numbers in Bollywood films such as "Chaiyya Chaiyya" in the film "Dil Se..". In 2005, she did another item number, "Kaal Dhamaal," in the film, "Kaal". She did an item number in Mahesh Babu's Telugu film "Athidhi". In 2007, she did a title song in "Heyy Babyy" directed by Sajid Khan and another popular song for "Om Shanti Om" for Farah Khan. She also did an item number in the film, "Welcome" with Nana Patekar and Anil Kapoor. In 2009 she was a Rishton Ke Parkhi in the Star Plus reality show called "Perfect Bride" with Shekhar Suman and Amrita Rao. In 2010, she featured in the superhit item song "Munni Badnaam Hui" in the film "Dabangg", which was produced by her husband Arbaaz Khan. On 12 March 2011, she led a successful world record attempt in Melbourne, Australia, as part of the Bollywood and Beyond film festival. 1235 participants performed a choreographed dance to "Munni Badnaam" with Malaika leading them from the stage. She was the Taiwan Excellence celebrity endorser in 2012. She endorsed Dabur's 30-plus. She states that she never wanted to do acting. Malaika performed live alongside Atif Aslam, Shaan and Bipasha Basu for the first time in series of concerts at LG Arena Birmingham & The O2 Arena London. Television. Arora Khan appeared in the television show "Nach Baliye" as one of the three judges. The show was aired on STAR One in mid-2005. She continued as a judge in "Nach Baliye 2" which started airing in the last quarter of 2006. In this show, she performed many item numbers as an example for all contestants. She highly criticized Bakhtiyaar Irani for being arrogant in the show. She strongly mentioned that he should do a crash course on humility to improve his behaviour. Khan appeared in the show "Zara Nachke Dikha" as a judge with the Indian actor Chunky Pandey on Star One. Khan was seen as judge in the show "Jhalak Dikhhla Jaa" in 2010 with actress Madhuri Dixit and choreographer Remo D'Souza. Malaika is on the judges panel in the show India's Got Talent. Personal life. Khan is married to Bollywood actor-director-producer Arbaaz Khan whom she met during a coffee ad shoot. Together they have a son, Arhaan. Her sister is actress Amrita Arora, and her brothers-in-law are Bollywood Superstar Salman Khan and Bollywood actor-director-producer Sohail Khan. Her father-in-law is scriptwriter Salim Khan.
588998	Sanjeev Kumar (Gujarati: હરિભાઈ જરીવાલા) 9 July 1938 - 6 November 1985) was a noted Indian film actor. He won several major awards including two National Film Awards for Best Actor for his performances in the movies, "Dastak" (1971) and "Koshish" (1973). He acted in various genres ranging from romantic drama to thrillers. Much unlike his peers, Sanjeev Kumar did not mind playing roles that were non glamorous, such as characters way beyond his age. Movies like "Sholay" and "Trishul" exemplify his talents. He is well remembered for his versatility and genuine portrayal of his characters. Early life and background. Sanjeev Kumar, born Harihar Jethalal Zariwala in Surat, Gujarat, (also referred as Haribhai) to a Gujarati Jain family spent his early years in Surat. His family eventually settled in Mumbai. A stint in a film school led him to Bollywood, where he eventually became an accomplished actor.Sanjeev Kumar has two younger brothers and one sister. Career. Kumar started his acting career as stage actor, starting with IPTA in Mumbai and later he joined the Indian National Theatre. Even as a stage actor, he had a penchant for played older roles, at age 22, an old man in an adaptation of Arthur Miller's "All My Sons". This when director Gulzar first spotted him, later he was to cast Kumar in the roles of older man in "Koshish" (1973), "Aandhi" (1975), "Mausam" (1975). In the following year, in a play directed by AK Hangal, he again played the role of a 60-year-old with six children . Sanjeev Kumar made his film debut with a small role in "Hum Hindustani" in the year 1960. Sanjeev's first film as a protagonist was the 1965 "Nishan". In 1968, he acted alongside the famous actor of those times, Dilip Kumar in "Sangharsh". In 1970, the movie "Khilona" brought him recognition. He went on to star in the box office hits "Seeta Aur Geeta" (1972), "Manchali" (1973) and "Aap Ki Kasam". He started working with Gulzar, a well-known director in the early 1970s. He performed in a total of nine movies with Gulzar, including "Koshish" (1973), "Aandhi"(1975), "Mausam" (1975), "Angoor" (1981) and "Namkeen" (1982). Sanjeev Kumar deservedly won the BFJA Awards for Best Actor (Hindi) for his exemplary portrayal of a deaf and mute person in the movie Koshish in which the female lead was played by Jaya Bhaduri, who acted as his deaf and mute wife and was herself nominated for Best Actor award by Filmfare for the same role. These were some of his best movies. His portrayal of the character Thakur, from the movie Sholay, released in August 1975 was one of his stellar performances. With his humble origins in "B Grade" stunt movies, Sanjeev Kumar eventually rose to become one of the most versatile and recognized faces of Hindi cinema.He had also played an incomplete flim love and god Sanjeev Kumar's excellent comic timing entertained audiences in films like Seeta Aur Geeta, Biwi O Biwi, Pati, Patni Aur Woh, Angoor and Hero to name a few. He demonstrated a willingness to take on unconventional roles that challenged him as an actor. His role as Mirza Sajjad Ali, a chess-obsessed Lucknowi (citizen of Lucknow), in Satyajit Ray's classic "Shatranj Ke Khilari" (1977) exemplified that aspect. Perhaps his best-remembered roles were in the blockbuster films "Sholay" (1975) and "Trishul" (1978). In Naya Din Nayi Raat (1974) Sanjeev Kumar reprised the nine-role epic performance by Sivaji Ganesan in Navarathiri (1964), which was also previously reprised by Akkineni Nageswara Rao in Navarathri (Telugu; 1966). This film enhanced his status and reputation as a serious player in Bollywood. He stood his ground against leading superstars such as Amitabh Bachchan and Shashi Kapoor in the Yash Chopra multi star cast film "Trishul" (1978) and with Dilip Kumar in the Subhash Ghai film "Vidhaata" (1982). During the early 1980s, Sanjeev Kumar took to acting primarily in supporting roles. In 1980, he starred in a Punjabi movie "Fauji Chacha". The movie Raja Aur Runk, released in 1968, starring Sanjeev Kumar was a great success. The song 'O Phirki Wali' and "Mera Naam Hai Chameli" were the some of the best produces of the evergreen Bollywood composers, Lakshmi Kant Pyarelal. Personal life. Sanjeev Kumar He remained single all his life, though fell deeply in love with fellow actress Hema Malini, although she never reciprocated his feelings. He was involved with actress Sulakshana Pandit, but he remained unmarried until the end. Health problems and death. Kumar was born with a congenital heart condition, and many members of his family hadn't lived past 50. After his first heart-attack, he even underwent a bypass in the US. However, on November 6, 1985., at the age of 47, he suffered a massive heart attack, which resulted in his death. His younger brother Nakul died before him, which other brother Kishore two years later. Ironically for an actor who had played many elderly roles, he died at less than 50 years of age. Over ten movies starring Sanjeev Kumar were released after his death, with the last one "Professor Ki Padosan" being released in 1993. At the time of his death, only about three-fourths of this movie was complete, and it was decided eventually to alter the story line in the second half of the film to explain the absence of Sanjeev Kumar's character. Awards. Filmfare Awards. Sanjeev Kumar was nominated for 14 Filmfare Awards. Thrice as Best Supporting Actor and remaining as Best Actor. He won the awards twice as Best Actor and once as Best Supporting Actor, as shown below.
1503734	Boyd Payne Gaines (born May 11, 1953) is an American stage, film, and television actor. Early life and education. He was born in Atlanta, Georgia, to Ida and James Gaines. He attended the Juilliard School as a member of the Drama Division's "Group 8" (1975–1979). Career. Gaines has appeared in a number of films and television shows, including "Fame", "L.A. Law" and "Law & Order", but perhaps he is best known for playing a dental student and dentist Mark Royer, who married Valerie Bertinelli's Barbara Cooper on TV's "One Day at a Time" and as Coach Brackett from the 1982 movie "Porky's". Gaines is a voice-actor, and is credited with recording several audiobooks. He also played Lt Ring in the 1986 film Heartbreak Ridge. Awards and nominations. Gaines was nominated for a Tony Award for Best Performance by a Leading Actor in a Play in 2007, for "Journey's End", making him the first actor to be nominated in each of the four Tony categories for which an actor is eligible. Four performers have been nominated for all four performance awards. Gaines was the first performer to be nominated for each of Best Featured Actor in a Play in 1989 for "The Heidi Chronicles", Best Actor in a Musical in 1994 for "She Loves Me", Best Featured Actor in a Musical in 2000 for "Contact" (and again in 2008 for "Gypsy") and Best Actor in a Play in 2007 for "Journey's End". Gaines won in three of the categories (and four of the five nominations), missing only for the performance in "Journey's End".
1064988	Secondhand Lions, a 2003 American comedy-drama film written and directed by Tim McCanlies, tells the story of an introverted young boy (Haley Joel Osment) who is sent to live with his eccentric great-uncles (Robert Duvall and Michael Caine) on a farm in Texas. Plot. In 1962 in the Texas countryside, 14-year old Walter Caldwell (Haley Joel Osment) is left by his irresponsible, deceitful mother, Mae (Kyra Sedgwick), to live for the summer with his reclusive, bachelor great-uncles, Hub (Robert Duvall) and Garth (Michael Caine) McCann, brothers who are said to have a secret fortune
1743201	The first novel was published in Japan in May 2003, with the final novel published on July 2003. The novels were later made into a manga series, a cancelled OVA anime series and an anime film trilogy. Viz Media licensed the novels and published all three in one volume. Kodansha Comics USA publishes the manga series in English, and Sentai Filmworks releases anime films on DVD and Blu-ray Disc. Plot. Taking place in a futuristic city called Kamina City, Rune Ballot is a young prostitute who was taken in by the notorious gambler Shell Septinous. One night, Shell abandons Rune and attempts to murder her in an explosion. However, she is rescued and transformed into a cyborg by Dr. Easter. An Artificial intelligence in the form of a Mouse accompanies her to adapt to her new life. Rune is trained to use the advanced technology fitted on her to defend herself against Shell's attempts to have her killed to stop her from testifying against him. Media. Novel. The story was written by Tow Ubukata, and illustrated by Katsuya Terada was serialized in Hayakawa's SF Magazine. The first novel was published in May 2003, and the final novel was published on July 2003. Viz Media licensed the novels in English and published all three in one volume on January 18, 2011. Manga. A manga adaptation illustrated by Yoshitoki Oima was published in Kodansha's Bessatsu Shōnen Magazine between October 9, 2009 and May 9, 2012, compiled in seven volumes. The first volume was released in Japan on March 17, 2010, and the last on June 9, 2012. Kodansha Comics USA published the manga in English, the first volume was released on August 23, 2011, while the last one was released on May 21, 2013. Anime OVAs. An OVA anime series was announced by Gonzo in 2005 which would have been directed by Yasufumi Soejima and produced by Geneon, screenplay written by Ubukata himself and character designs by Range Murata ("Blue Submarine No. 6, Last Exile"). However, the project was cancelled in 2006. Anime films. On January 18, 2010, a website opened up that announced that an anime adaptation would take place. Later, it was confirmed that the "Mardock Scramble" anime would be turned into a film trilogy. The film trilogy was animated at GoHands studio and produced by Aniplex, directed by Susumu Kudo and the screenplay was written by Ubukata himself. The first film, "The First Compression" was released in Japanese theaters on November 6, 2010. It was also aired in Anime Festival Asia 2010. The second film, "The Second Combustion" was released in to Japanese theaters on September 3, 2011. The third film, "The Third Exhaust" was released in Japanese theaters on September 29, 2012.
1165659	Douglas Fowley (May 30, 1911 - May 21, 1998) was an American movie and television actor. The 5'11" actor is probably best remembered for his role as the frustrated movie director Roscoe Dexter in "Singin' in the Rain" (1952). Biography. Fowley was born Daniel Vincent Fowley in The Bronx in New York City. He appeared in more than 240 films and later in dozens of television programs. He began acting while attending St. Francis Xavier Military Academy. Fowley began as a singing waiter and then worked as a copy boy for "The New York Times", a runner for a Wall Street broker, a United States Postal Service employee, a barker, a salesman, a professional football player, and finally a professional actor. After nightclub performing and stage work, Fowley appeared in 1933 in his first film, "The Mad Game", alongside Spencer Tracy. Early in his acting career, he was usually cast as movie heavies or gangsters in B-movies, including Charlie Chan and Laurel and Hardy features. Fowley and his then wife, contract actress Shelby Payne, are the parents of 1960s record producer Kim Fowley. Fowley's films include "Twenty Mule Team", "Fall Guy", "Mighty Joe Young", "Angels in the Outfield" (1951), "Battleground", "Armored Car Robbery", "Chick Carter, Detective", "The Naked Jungle", "The High and the Mighty" and "Walking Tall".
585545	Chathikkatha Chanthu (Malayalam: ചതിക്കാത്ത ചന്തു, English: "Chanthu Who Never Cheats") is a 2004 Malayalam musical-comedy film written and directed by Rafi Mecartin, and produced by Lal. It stars a huge cast consisting of Jayasurya, Vineeth, Lal, Navya Nair, Bhavana, Madhu, Cochin Haneefa, Salim Kumar, Siddique, and Janardhanan. The music is composed by Alex Paul. The film was remade in Kannada as "Kal Manja" with Komal. Plot. Chandu (Jayasurya) has a problem with his name: Everyone who hears it instantly believes that he is a cheat (Chathiyan Chandu). He wants to be a famous script writer. He approaches all directors, but his stories are flops. So he decides to write his own story. Chandu is the son of a servant who works in a big mansion. The master's (Janardhanan) daughter Indira (Bhavana) is in love with Chandu. But Chandu doesn't want to "hurt" his master. So he refuses Indira's love, but Indira never gives up. One day Janardhanan gets hold of the love story and wants Chandu to give up. He asks Chandu to write letters that will describe his love with an imaginary "Vasumathi" in an imaginary "Thottakkattukara" village. Janardhanan purposefully gives Bhavana the letters which makes her heartbroken. In one of those letters Janardhanan asks Chandu to write that he is planning to leave town with "Vasumathi" which completely breaks Indira's heart. But she posts all the letters after reading them. Thampuran (Janardhanan) then asks Chandu to leave town. Now as fate permits, there really is a "Vasumathi" (Navya Nair) in a real Thottakkattukara village, who is on the verge of suicide (reason revealed later). Chandu's letters give her hope, and she decides to leave town as per the last letter. But there comes the clash: In the Madras bus there is Krishnan (Vineeth) to whom Chandu tells his own story and tells him that even if the real Vasumathi comes he will not accept her. Hearing the story Krishnan and the passengers in the bus feels sorry for her ask her to go back to her home. However krishnan takes chandhu and vasumathi with him to his stay place. The next day he takes them to his shooting spot there chandhu tells his story to Lal who is the director of the movie he also adds that Vasumathi comes out of the home believing those letters. When Lal tells that no girl will come like that stupidly Vasumathi opens her story that she was born in a rich family and her relations kills her mother and granny and cruelly treats her as if she was possessed by demons. She was tortured everyday by a Hindu priest. So she decides to die at that time she receives the letter. She completely believes that there is someone for her and comes out of her home. When Vasumathi finishes her story Krishnan says to Lal that it was her own life and they decides to make them join together. And suddenly there is a twist Bhavana arrives the place the total plan collapses.And then in the absence of Krishnan Vasumathi was compelled to go with her brother-in-law. When krishnan returns home he reveals the truth to Chandhu. After that the entire movie team rescues Vasumathi. At last there was a happy ending. A wedlock between Chandhu and Vasumathi as well as Indira (bhavana)and Krishnan. Box-office performance. The movie was a superhit at the Kerala Box Office. The imaginative story plot line and comedy scenes were well praised.The story is one that reaveals that 'ghosts' are just imaginative creations developed in movies. It also shows how the "effects" of ghosts are portrayed in a movie.
1165126	Barton MacLane (December 25, 1902 – January 1, 1969) was an American actor, playwright, and screenwriter. Although he appeared in many classic films from the 1930s through the 1960s, he was known for his role as Gen. Martin Peterson on the 1960s NBC television comedy series "I Dream of Jeannie", with Barbara Eden and Larry Hagman. Career. MacLane was born in Columbia, South Carolina on Christmas Day, 1902. He attended Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut, where he excelled at American football. His first movie role, in "The Quarterback" (1926), was a result of his athletic ability. He then attended the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. He made his Broadway debut in 1927, playing the assistant district attorney in Bayard Veiller's "The Trial of Mary Dugan". He then performed in the 1928 Broadway production of "Gods of the Lighting" and was part of the original cast of "Subway Express" as Officer Mulvaney in 1929. He appeared in the Marx Brothers' 1929 film debut "The Cocoanuts". MacLane made his first credited film appearance in the 1931 romantic drama "His Woman". The following year, he wrote the play "Rendezvous", which he sold to Arthur Hopkins. The play was performed on Broadway, with MacLane in a featured role.
1164658	Gene Nelson (March 24, 1920 – September 16, 1996) was an American dancer, actor, screenwriter, and director. Biography. Born Leander Eugene Berg in Astoria, Oregon, he moved to Seattle when he was one year old. He was inspired to become a dancer by watching Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers films when he was a child. After serving in the Army during World War II during which he also performed in the musical "This Is the Army", Nelson landed his first Broadway role in "Lend an Ear", for which he received the Theatre World Award. He also appeared on stage in "Follies", which garnered him a Tony Award nomination, and "Good News". Gene Nelson played Will Parker in "Oklahoma!" and also starred as Buddy in the 1971 Broadway musical "Follies", for which he received a Tony Award nomination for Best Actor. The iconic production featured a score by Stephen Sondheim and was co-directed by Michael Bennett (also choreographer) and Harold Prince (also producer); the cast also included Alexis Smith, Yvonne de Carlo, Dorothy Collins, Ethel Barrymore Colt, Ethel Shutta, and John McMartin. Nelson directed episodes of the original "Star Trek", the first season of "I Dream of Jeannie", and "Gunsmoke". In 1959, he appeared with Keith Larsen and Buddy Ebsen in the NBC adventure series "Northwest Passage" as a young man trying to prove his innocence in a murder case. Nelson also directed the Elvis Presley films "Kissin' Cousins" (1964) and "Harum Scarum" (1965). He also co-wrote the "Kissin' Cousins" screenplay for which he received a WGA award nomination for best written musical. He also taught in the Theater Arts Department at CSU San Francisco in the late 1980s. Nelson died of cancer, aged 76, in Los Angeles. He was survived by three children, Douglas, Victoria and Chris.
584986	Adhurs ("Tremor") is a 2010 Telugu-language film, directed by V.V. Vinayak. The film stars NTR Jr. in a dual-role, and Nayantara and Sheela as female leads. Music is scored by Devi Sri Prasad. The film was a "Hit" at the box-office and was the third successful hit with V. V. Vinayak and Jr. NTR combo.This ic NTR's second double acting This movie dubbed in Hindi as "Judwaa No.1". Story. The story is about two twin brothers who get separated at birth. Narasimha (NTR) gets raised by a single mother and he becomes an undercover agent to a top cop. Chari (NTR) is brought up by a family of traditional Hindu priests. A gang of baddies (Asish Vidyardhi and Mahesh Manjrekar) are in search of the family of a top scientist. The rest of the story is about the relationship between the scientist and the twins and the comedy generated by switching between the characters. Release. The film was launched on 23 April 2008 at the Film Nagar Cultural Center in Hyderabad, India. "Adurs" received a good opening at the box office in Khammam despite threat from some pro-Telangana outfits. It was released in major towns such as Khammam, Palvancha, Sathupally, Bhadrachalam and Wyra. It was screened for four shows without any interruption at all centres barring Yellandu where the theatre management preferred not to go for it following threatening calls received from certain organisations. Police and the TDP played an effective role in ensuring trouble-free screening of the movie. Reception. Rediff gave a four stars said "Brahmanandam is hilarious. Performance-wise, NTR Jr takes the cake. He is simply marvellous as Chari, the Brahmin spouting loud dialogues while his Narasimha is tough yet more sober. NTR presents the contrasts well. All in all, Adhurs is NTR's show all the way!" Sify gave a verdict as "Mass entertainer" noted "NTR brings total justice to his dual role as Chari and Narasimha. His characterisation as a Brahmin youth is simply superb and hilarious, but at the same time raking up a controversy with a group of the Brahmins community approaching the State governor Mr Narasimhan to ban the film. On the other hand, NTR’s role as Narasimha as rugged guy would work well with the mass audience. Nayanthara and Sheela provide the glam quotient while Brahmanandam is hilarious as Bhattu, receiving a big footage which runs into nearly 40 minutes in the film." The Hindu gave a mixed review stated "NTR in two roles is pretty easy with the diction. His dances are amazing and accord the ‘mass kick’ in the title song that comes before the climax. The humour component is adequately handled by Brahmanandam who hogs the limelight as a Hindu priest." Music. The audio released on 3 December 2009. "Adhurs" soundtrack was composed by Devi Sri Prasad whilst lyrics were penned by Chandrabose & Ramajogayya Sastry. The Soundtrack has Chartbusters like: "Shambho Shiva Shambho", "Pilla Naa Valla Kaadu", "Assalaam Valekhum" and "Chandrakala".
1163410	Jerry Van Dyke (born July 27, 1931) is an American comedian and actor, the younger brother of Dick Van Dyke. He made his acting debut on "The Dick Van Dyke Show" with several guest appearances as Rob Petrie's brother, Stacey. Later in his career from 1989 to 1997, he was one of the supporting stars of Craig T. Nelson's ABC sitcom, "Coach". Early life. Van Dyke was born in Danville, Illinois, in 1931 to Loren (nickname “Cookie”) and Hazel (née McCord) Van Dyke. He is of Dutch descent on his father's side and of English and Scottish descent on his mother's side. His mother is a "Mayflower" descendant. Early career. Van Dyke began his stand-up comedy career while still in Danville High School, and was already a veteran of strip joints and nightclubs when he joined the Air Force Tops In Blue in 1954 and 1955. During the mid-fifties, Van Dyke worked at WTHI-TV in Terre Haute, Indiana. "The Jerry Van Dyke Show", which included future CBS News "Early Show" news anchor Joseph Benti, Nancee South, and Ben Falber, was popular fare. In the service he performed at military bases around the world, twice winning the "All Air Force Talent Show". Following his first guest appearances on "The Dick Van Dyke Show" and two others on CBS's "The Ed Sullivan Show", CBS made him a regular on "The Judy Garland Show". He was also given hosting chores on the 1963 game show "Picture This". In that same year, movie audiences saw him in supporting roles in the films "McLintock!", "Palm Springs Weekend", and "The Courtship of Eddie's Father". Television career. In 1963, Van Dyke was cast on an episode of the CBS anthology series, "GE True", hosted by Jack Webb. When "The Judy Garland Show" was unsuccessfully revamped, Van Dyke left the program. He turned down the offer to play Gilligan in "Gilligan's Island", a role which went instead to Bob Denver. He rejected as well an offer to replace Don Knotts as Barney Fife on "The Andy Griffith Show". Van Dyke finally accepted the lead role of attorney David Crabtree in the short-lived sitcom, "My Mother the Car" (1965), the misadventures of a man whose deceased mother Gladys (voiced by Ann Sothern) is reincarnated as a restored antique car. Although the series was a commercial failure, Van Dyke continued to work steadily in supporting television and film roles through the rest of the decade. He starred in another short-lived situation comedy, "Accidental Family" (1967), as widowed comedian Jerry Webster who buys a farm to raise his son while he is not away on professional tours. During the 1970s, Van Dyke returned to stand-up comedy. He spent much of the decade touring Playboy Clubs around the country and headlining venues in Las Vegas and Reno, Nevada, Summerfest in Milwaukee and in Atlantic City, New Jersey. He returned to television for guest appearances on "The Mary Tyler Moore Show", "Love, American Style", and "Fantasy Island", and roles in "The Amazing Cosmic Awareness of Duffy Moon" (1976) and "13 Queens Boulevard" (1979). In 1988, he made a guest appearance on Scott Baio's "Charles In Charge" as Jamie's health teacher, Mr. Merkin. In 1989, Van Dyke portrayed Luther Van Dam, a beloved, yet befuddled assistant coach on the long-running series "Coach". For this role, he received four consecutive Emmy Award nominations (1990 through 1993) for "Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series." Later career. Van Dyke continues to make frequent television appearances and performs stand up comedy in major venues around the country. In 1995, he appeared in a series of Hardee's commercials to promote the Big Hardee, then in the late 1990s acted as the spokesperson for Big Lots. He appeared in the 2000s sitcom "Yes, Dear" as a recurring character, "Big Jimmy," the father of Jimmy Hughes. He made a guest appearance on a of "My Name Is Earl" and in 2010, he made an appearance on the second season episode, "A Simple Christmas" of the television series, "The Middle", playing Frankie's father, Tag Spence. He returned in the third season Thanksgiving episode, "Thanksgiving III," in November 2011, and "Thanksgiving IV" in November 2012. Van Dyke also played the object of Maw Maw's affections on the 18th episode of the first season of the series "Raising Hope". Personal life. Van Dyke has been married twice, and has three children from first wife Carol: daughters Jerri Lynn and Kelly Jean, and son Ronald. Kelly Jean Van Dyke, who worked in the adult film industry under the name Nancee Kelly, committed suicide in 1991, after an emotional phone call with her husband Jack Nance. Van Dyke is the granduncle of Shane Van Dyke. Jerry and current wife Shirley live on his 800-acre ranch near Malvern, Arkansas. Van Dyke is an avid poker player and announced a number of poker tournaments for ESPN in the late 1990s and early 2000s. He is also a 4-string banjo player with several performances on the "Dick Van Dyke Show" to his credit.
1065335	Deep Cover is a 1992 neo-noir crime thriller film starring Laurence Fishburne (this being the last film in which Fishburne was credited as 'Larry') and Jeff Goldblum and directed by veteran actor Bill Duke. It is also notable for its theme song of the same name, composed by Dr. Dre and the then-newcomer Snoop Doggy Dogg. Plot. Russel Stevens Jr. is the son of a drug addicted, alcoholic man. His father tells his son never to be like him. Stevens then witnesses his father getting killed while robbing a liquor store. He swears that he will never end up the way he has. 20 years later, Stevens (Laurence Fishburne) is now a police officer for the Cincinnati Police. Officer Stevens is recruited by a DEA Special Agent, Gerald Carver (Charles Martin Smith) to go undercover on a major sting operation in Los Angeles. Stevens poses as drug dealer 'John Hull' in order to infiltrate and work his way up the network of the west coast's largest drug importer, Anton Gallegos (Arthur Mendoza) and his uncle Hector Gúzman, (René Assa) a South American politician. Stevens relocates to a cheap hotel in LA and begins dealing cocaine. His room is opposite that of crack cocaine addict Belinda Chacón (Kamala Lopez-Dawson), a struggling single mother who tries to sell her son James to Stevens for money to buy drugs.
1085939	Golden Ameda Brooks (born December 1, 1970) is an American actress. She is best known for her nine-year role as Maya Wilkes on the UPN/CW comedy "Girlfriends". Biography. As a child she was a figure skating competitor and won several trophies. Brooks is also a classically trained dancer; she studied and taught ballet, jazz, and modern dance. Brooks studied literature and sociology, and is a graduate of UC Berkeley. Her concentration was Media Representation of Minorities; her minor was Theater. She earned a Masters degree from Sarah Lawrence College. She has a daughter with her former boyfriend D.B. Woodside, Dakota Tao Brooks-Woodside, born on September 1, 2009. Career. "Girlfriends". Brooks is best known for her portrayal of the character Maya Wilkes (Joan's former sharp-tongued secretary and now acclaimed author) on the CW sitcom "Girlfriends", in which she starred from 2000-2008. She directed the 2006 episode titled "Hustle & Dough," and wrote the 2007 episode titled "Snap Back," which featured guest star Erykah Badu. The character Maya is portrayed to be several years younger than the other characters Joan, Toni, and Lynn, but in reality Brooks is the eldest among the actors. Other achievements. Brooks has been featured in many films and television shows. She was also featured in the 50 Cent music video for "Straight to the Bank." On television, she appeared in a 2000 episode of "The Jamie Foxx Show" as a girl named Nancy, whom Jamie confuses with Fancy. In 2001, she appeared in an episode of "Moesha", portraying her "Girlfriends" character Maya Wilkes. She also appeared in an episode of "Pete and Pete", playing big Pete's love interest Heather. In the film "Beauty Shop", she appeared alongside Queen Latifah, Alicia Silverstone, and Kevin Bacon. She was also featured in the movie "Motives", co-starring with Vivica Fox and Shemar Moore. In April 2011, the straight-to-DVD movie "The Inheritance" was released. Brooks co-stars in the horror/thriller along with Darrin Dewitt Henson, D.B. Woodside, Keith David and Rochelle Aytes. Additional projects include the 2009 films "Polish Bar" and "My Place in the Horror". In 2012 Brooks joined the cast of Hart of Dixie for season 2 playing Ruby Jeffries, Mayor Lavon Hayes' ex-girlfriend from high school, who runs against him for mayor. She is good friends with the title character Zoe Hart and a rival of southern belle Lemon Breeland. Brooks volunteers with the Pediatric AIDS Foundation and AIDS Project Los Angeles. She is active with actors such as Danny Glover in the Robey Theater Company.
592727	Oru Thalai Raagam is a 1980 Tamil-language Indian feature film produced and directed by E.M.Ibrahim, starring Shankar, Roopa, Chandrasekhar, Usha Rajendar and Ravindran. Even though the title card shows E.M.Ibrahim as the director, the film has been actually ghost directed by Vijaya T. Rajendar. Plot. "Oru Thalai Raagam" is a campus romantic film which brings nostalgia for all the campus lovers of 80's. The film has a tragic end. Synopsis. "Oru Thalai Raagam" is the story of Subhadra (Roopa) and Raja (Shankar). They are classmates and their colleagues includes Ravindran, Chandrasekhar, Thyagu and others. They all catch train to the college from a common railway station. Raja sincerely loves Subhadra, but she does not reciprocate as she is an introvert as well as she is afraid of society's backlash. Moreover her mother's character is n't spoken good by the same people. Even though Subhadra loves Raja, she always tries to insult him whenever opportunity comes, but on positive side, she sometimes shows her feeling for him as well. Raja's life become hell as he could n't concentrate on his studies and not taking care of his health as well and he gets affected by liver jaundice. Raja cuts a sorry figure among his colleagues and all of them want Subhadra to accept Raja's love. Later Rajs's health deteriorates as he still neglect to have proper food and rest. Finally the college days are over for the batch and Roopa decides to proclaim her love. Roopa gets in the train and see Raja sitting in the compartment and she happily speak with him accepting his love and seek apology for her indifferent behavior, but it was too late as Raja is already dead. Reception. The film completed 365 days of run in several theatres.
1033843	Alexander Hugh "Alex" Norton (born 27 January 1950) is a Scottish actor. He is probably best known for his roles as DCI Matt Burke in "Taggart" and Eddie in the "Renford Rejects". Personal life. Norton was born in Househillwood and spent his childhood in Moffat Street in the Gorbals before moving to Pollokshaws. He discovered acting at the age of 14 via an out-of-school drama group. This led to his part in the TV series "Dr. Finlay's Casebook" and with it the decision that acting was what he wanted to concentrate on. Because of his background and his father's lack of approval of his chosen career, Alex decided to avoid the traditional route into acting and instead worked from part to part. In 1973 he became one of the founder members of the company, touring Scotland with "The Cheviot, the Stag, and the Black Black Oil". In the 1970s he met his wife, Sally Kinghorn. They met on the set of a BBC Schools series. She and he have 3 sons, Jamie, Rory, and Jock. Also, he was presented with the opportunity to play a part in Peter Jackson's "King Kong" (2005); however, he could sadly not accept because it happened to interfere with the TV project he was currently working on. Career. He has appeared in numerous films including Bill Forsyth's "Gregory's Girl" and "Local Hero", Bill Douglas's epic film "Comrades", "Little Voice", "Orphans", and Hollywood blockbusters such as "Patriot Games" with Harrison Ford, "White Hunter, Black Heart", with Clint Eastwood, "Braveheart" starring Mel Gibson, and "" with Johnny Depp. He played Captain Bellamy, a captain of a supposedly haunted ship; a rumor sparked the discovery of Elizabeth Swan's dress on board. Norton's character Bellamy picked up the character of William Turner who was lost at sea. This decision ultimately lead to his characters death by the mythical creature the Kraken. A fun fact about the character of Captain Bellamy is that he may or may not have been based on an actual eighteenth-century pirate by the name of "Black Sam" Bellamy. This role was perfect for Norton to play because of his Scottish roots. He portrayed a perfectly believable, honest, and logical Scottish Pirate. Norton also voiced Thurston McCondry in the animated shorts Haunted Hogmanay and Glendogie Bogey. From August to September 2012 he played the role of Gerard Findlay in Waterloo Road, a headteacher from rival school Havelock High. Awards. Norton has also won two awards for writing. "Extras", an episode of "First Sight" for Channel 4, and "Waiting for Elvis" for STV. He also has an interest in directing. He directed the first production of Tony Roper's "The Steamie", as well as directing Glasgow's King's Theatre's pantomimes for a five-year period. Nowadays he is concentrating on playing DCI Burke in "Taggart". His role in the show sees him working in Glasgow for half the year. He has also done voice over work on Medieval Total War II as the voice of some of the Scottish Characters in the game. He also appeared on The Weakest Link TV Drama Characters Edition. He was the 1st one voted off. Norton also fronts the STV crime show "Unsolved".
583098	Madhoo (born Madhubala on 26 March 1972) is an actress in Indian films. She has acted in Malayalam, Hindi, Tamil, Telugu and Kannada films. She is best remembered for her portrayals in Maniratnam's "Roja" (1992) and Shankar's "Gentleman" (1993). Early Life & Family. She was named after the late Hindi actress Madhubala. Madhoo is the niece of actress Hema Malini. She did her schooling from St.Joseph's high school in Juhu - Mumbai Career. She made her debut in the Malayalam film "Ottayal Pattalam" opposite Mukesh, and was later introduced to Tamil by K. Balachander through the movie "Azhagan" (1991) co-starring Mammooty, Bhanupriya and Geetha. She made her Hindi movie debut with another newcomer Ajay Devgan in "Phool Aur Kaante" (1991). She made her comeback in 2008, in the Hindi film, Kabhi Socha Bhi Na Tha, and has been appearing in supporting roles in films since then. Personal life. She married Anand Shah on 19 February 1999. She has two daughters Ameyaa (16 November 2000) and Keia (9 November 2002).
583763	Kadhal Azhivathillai (; ) is the debut film for Silambarasan as an actor. This film was directed and acted by Vijaya T. Rajendar. This film's stars are Silambarasan and Charmi. Plot. Simbhu is elected college chairman after he beats Charmi, the daughter of Ravishankar(Radharavi), a minister. Predictably, the two soon fall for each other though they never directly reveal it. But when Ravishankar comes to know of the love affair, he is staunchly against it, and is willing to go any distance to make sure that it never succeeds. At home, Simbu's father(Prakashraj) mentally tortures his wife(Seetha) since he suspects her of having an affair with her ex-lover. Outside home, Simbhu is helped by Vakil Dada (T.Rajendar), a lawyer who makes sure justice is served, whatever the means. The movie deals with the oldest of stories - the poor boy-rich girl love story - and makes no attempts to treat it in a different way or in an interesting manner. It follows the typical sequence of events in such stories. We have the initial enmity between Simbhu and Charmi, the gradual thawing of the icy relationship between the two, the idiot suitor who Charmi's parents want her to marry, her family's horror on finding out about her romance, their attempts to kill it and of course, the lovers' strong refusal to give up their love against all the opposition. There is no deviation from this at any point and as a result, we can predict with great accuracy, what would happen next in the story. In the end Charmi is married to simbhu. Then, At the end Thaksa ate all the food especially the chicken . The end. This movie was recommended as Worst movie of the Year in one of Singapore FM Radio contest by most no of people. Worthy award.. Soundtrack. The music is composed by Vijaya T. Rajendar and most of the songs were sung by Silambarasan. Also the lyrics are by Vijaya T. Rajendar. There 8 songs featured in the film:.
584547	Ezhumalai is a South Indian Tamil film released in 2002. The Film is the remake of Telugu Blockbuster "Narasimha Naidu" starring Balakrishna, Mukesh Rishi. This movie was later dubbed in Telugu again as "Simhabaludu". Plot. There are two neighboring villages in Rayalaseema. Goons head one village and Raghupati Naidu (Vijayakumar) is heading another village. As Raghupati Naidu is peace loving, his village is dogged by the misdeeds of goons from the neighboring village. In order to save the future of his village, Raghupati Naidu asks one male kid from each family to be given for the purpose of saving the village. Raghupati Naidu selected his fourth son Ezhumalai(Arjun Sarja) as his family's contribution towards the security of the village. All these kids will be trained and prepared to protect the village. 15 years later. Anjali (Gajala) is the niece of Jaya Prakash, who happens to be one of the goons from the goons' village who later settled in another village. Ezhumalai sets up a naatya ashram to teach classical dance to the students. Anjali falls in love with Ezhumalai at the first sight. Anjali joins Ezhumalai as the student and tries to make Ezhumalai fall in love with her. Later on, she comes to know that Ezhumalai is already married and he has a kid too who is growing in the ashram. Ezhumalai is a widower as his wife Lakshmi (Simran) is no more. Anjali tries to get closer to the kid so that she can then marry Ezhumalai. The parents of Anjali fix up the marriage of Anjali with one of their relatives. When the uncle of Anjali comes to know that she is in love with a widowed dance master; he attacks him and threatens him that he would kill the kid. When they find Anjali missing, the entire battalion of goons invades the ashram of dance master only to find that he flew away. Ezhumalai, after coming to know that goons were coming to attack him, vacates the ashram and boards the train. At the same time Anjali too boards the train, though Ezhumalai rejects it. Then a fleet 16 Whites Sumos containing goons chases the train using a parallel road. And they over take train and stop it forcibly at a station. Then we have around 100-armed goons surrounding the train and vying for the blood of Ezhumalai. After a couple of minutes Ezhumalai gets down the train showing his back to them. And then turns around. The moment, the goons realize that the dance master is none but Ezhumalai; they leave all their arms and run away to save their dear lives.This Movie is Blockbuster hit Then Ezhumalai explains Anjali his flash back. Raghupati Naidu realizes that no parents in the village is willing to marry off their daughter to Ezhumalai since he is meant for sacrificing for the safety of village. At that point of time Raghupati Naidu selects a beautiful girl called Lakshmi for his son. But Lakshmi is too sensitive and hates anything to do with violence. Hence Raghupati Naidu asks Ezhumalai to act as a soft guy who has liking for classical dance. After marriage Lakshmi realizes the fact and decides to live with it. Ezhumalai's three elder brothers arrive along with their families. Ezhumalai has lot of love and adulation for his brothers whereas they treat him very bad which Ezhumalai takes in good sense. After a few days Lakshmi lashes out at those guys who are making mockery of Ezhumalai. Then they complain about Lakshmi to Ezhumalai. Being upset about this, Ezhumalai sends Lakshmi to her parents place. At her parents place, Lakshmi gives birth to a son. The brothers of Ezhumalai are still upset with the insult that is made to them by Lakshmi and decides to leave back to the states. They arrange for the police security and refuse for Ezhumalai to accompany them. During this period, the goons plan to kill the brothers of Ezhumalai and the son and wife of Ezhumalai .Ezhumalai manages to save his brothers who realize their mistake albeit late but lakshmi is killed when she tries to save her baby.
1064736	The Incredible Shrinking Woman is a 1981 science fiction/comedy film directed by Joel Schumacher, written by Jane Wagner and starring Lily Tomlin, Charles Grodin, Ned Beatty, John Glover and Elizabeth Wilson. This film is a take-off on the 1957 science fiction classic film "The Incredible Shrinking Man", and credited as based on Richard Matheson's 1956 novel, "The Shrinking Man". The original music score was composed by Suzanne Ciani. Plot. Pat Kramer is an ordinary suburban housewife and mother whose husband works for an advertising company. After being exposed to an experimental perfume, she begins to shrink, gradually at first, then rapidly. A few weeks pass, and Pat has shrunk to the height of her own children. Eventually, she becomes a celebrity of sorts, appearing on "The Mike Douglas Show," and captures the hearts of the American people. Soon she is less than a foot tall, making her like a doll to her children, and forcing her to move into a dollhouse. Pat is kidnapped by a group of mad scientists, who make it seem that she perished in the kitchen garbage disposal. They plan to shrink everyone in the world by performing experiments on her to learn her secret. With the help of a kind young lab custodian and a super-intelligent gorilla named Sydney, she escapes. Speaking of her escape to a crowd of people, she continues to shrink, saying her goodbyes before becoming microscopic in size. Vanishing from sight, she is again presumed dead, but in fact she falls into a puddle of spilled household chemicals - which returns her to her original size. After her homecoming celebrating her returning to a normal, she notices that her wedding ring is now too tight, while her foot is splitting her shoe open, suggesting she might STILL be growing... Production notes. The film's writer, Jane Wagner, is Tomlin's longtime life partner and frequent collaborator. Lily Tomlin plays four characters in this film: lead character Pat Kramer; her neighbor Judith Beasley (a character derived from Tomlin's live shows); Tomlin's "Laugh-In" characters "Ernestine" (a telephone operator); and "Edith Ann," a little girl who wanders in the lab (seen only in the TV version). Lily Tomlin and Elizabeth Wilson previously appeared together in "Nine to Five" as Violet Newstead and Roz Keith, respectively. Rick Baker, who plays Sidney the Gorilla in the film, was the very first recipient of the Oscar for Best Make-Up for "An American Werewolf in London" when the category was first introduced in 1981. Baker's career, especially his early fascination with gorillas and his work in three movies featuring them is told in the TV documentary "Gorillas: Primal Contact." Actor Dick Wilson plays a fussy supermarket manager - much like his famous Charmin tissue TV commercial character: Mr. Whipple. Remake is in the works but no production date has been set. Reception. Upon release, the "New York Times"' Vincent Canby called the film "an amiably funny variation on Jack Arnold's classic 1957 science-fiction film, "The Incredible Shrinking Man," which had been based on Richard Matheson's novel "The Shrinking Man,"" and went on to write that the film was "a low-key comedy that rambles from one comic idea to the next with the slightly uneasy manner of a nightclub comedian doing a new improvisation. It succeeds in bits and pieces that are separated by long patches that are more remarkable for their good will than for their wit." Regarding Jane Wagner's screenplay, he wrote: "Miss Wagner has a great talent for the kind of monologues, sketches and oddball characters that made Miss Tomlin's "Appearing Nitely" so memorable on Broadway, but not for creating a sustained comic narrative." "The Chicago Sun-Times"' Roger Ebert was more enthusiastic for the comedy, calling it "a terrific movie for kids and teenagers. It's a melancholy fact of the times we live in that any movie of even moderate ambition is supposed to become a blockbuster - and that "family movies," with few exceptions, are inane, innocent, and boring. But The "Incredible Shrinking Woman" is not inane, is sometimes wickedly knowing, and is only periodically boring." Ebert noted that the movie was "also funny in its visual approach, showing us a suburban world in which everything is done in hideously jolly colors and everybody, even the TV anchorman, wears peach blazers. America in this movie looks like a gigantic paint-color chart," but ultimately remarked that while the movie succeeds on several levels, it does so "without ever breaking through to become a really inspired comedy."
1221292	From Beginning to End () is a 2009 Brazilian drama film that premiered on November 27, 2009, starring Fábio Assunção, Júlia Lemmertz, Gabriel Kaufmann, Lucas Cotrim, João Gabriel Vasconcellos and Rafael Cardoso. The film is considered low budget, not exceeding 2 million. Aluizio Abranches, creator and director of the film, took his idea to many entrepreneurs, some of them even suggested that it should be a relationship between a brother and sister or heterosexual, but Abranches was true to his idea and did not give up on it, until he got sponsorship from a small producer Marco Nanini. The film's director claims it is not intended in any way to raise flags. Although the film deals with homosexuality and incest, two types of relationships that are often considered "taboo", Abranches stated that his only intention was to show a love story. Production. Filming. The movie was filmed almost entirely in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Parts of the movie were filmed in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Music. The soundtrack was released in December 2009, and has been a huge hit all over Brazil. It brings together several big names from Brazilian pop music such as Maria Bethania, Angela Ro Ro, Simone and Zizi Possi. Songs like "Summer 78", "Folhas de Outono", "Saudade" and "Outono" have become the biggest hits on this album. Release. The film attracted more than ten thousand viewers during its weekend debut. Playing in only nine theaters (compared with 550 showing "2012"), the film finished sixth place during its opening weekend. The film was shown on May 26 during the 2010 Seattle International Film Festival. In June 26 during the 2010 Frameline Film Festival. In July 9 during the 2010 Outfest Film Festival and July 15 during the 2010 QFest. Marketing. The director put the film's trailer on YouTube, generating more than 400,000 views and comments which ranged from outrage to enthusiasm. Reception. Box office performance. "From Beginning to End" grossed $62,081 in nine theaters its opening weekend, $365,094 in second weekend, the film finished sixth place during its opening weekend. The film went on to gross $386,049 in Brazil and $14,373 in Taiwan, for a foreign total of $400,422. Critical reception. The film has received mixed reviews, some praising it for retaining a good plot while transcending boundaries and others condemning it as an ordinary plot using the subject matter to gain attention.
1186730	The Wall is the eleventh studio album by the English progressive rock group Pink Floyd. Released as a double album on 30 November 1979, it was subsequently performed live with elaborate theatrical effects, and adapted into a feature film, "Pink Floyd – The Wall". As with the band's previous three LPs, "The Wall" is a concept album and deals largely with themes of abandonment and personal isolation. It was first conceived during their 1977 In the Flesh Tour, when bassist and lyricist Roger Waters's frustration with the spectators' perceived boorishness became so acute that he imagined building a wall between the performers and audience. The album is a rock opera that centres on Pink, a character Waters modelled after himself, with some aspects based on the band's original leader, Syd Barrett. Pink's life experiences begin with the loss of his father during the Second World War, and continue with ridicule and abuse from his schoolteachers, an overprotective mother and finally, the breakdown of his marriage. All contribute to his eventual self-imposed isolation from society, represented by a metaphorical wall. "The Wall" features a notably harsher and more theatrical style than Pink Floyd's previous releases. Keyboardist Richard Wright left the band during the album's production but remained as a salaried musician, performing with Pink Floyd during "The Wall" Tour. Commercially successful upon its release, the album was one of the best selling of 1980, and as of 1999, it had sold over 23 million RIAA certified units (11.5 million albums) in the United States. "Rolling Stone" magazine placed "The Wall" at number 87 on its list of "The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time". Background. Pink Floyd's In the Flesh Tour was their first playing in large stadiums, and in July 1977—on the final date at the Montreal Olympic Stadium—a small group of noisy and excited fans near the stage irritated Waters to such an extent that he spat at one of them. He was not the only band member who felt disaffected at the show, as guitarist David Gilmour refused to perform the band's usual encores ("Money" and "Us and Them"), leaving the rest of the band, with backup guitarist Snowy White, to improvise a slow, sad twelve-bar blues, which Waters described as "some music to go home to". Later that night, while returning from hospital to treat an injury sustained to his foot while play-fighting backstage with manager Steve O'Rourke, Waters spoke with music producer Bob Ezrin, and a friend of Ezrin's, a psychiatrist sharing their car, about the feelings of alienation he was experiencing on the tour. He articulated his desire to isolate himself by constructing a wall across the stage between the performers and the audience. He later said, "I loathed playing in stadiums ... I kept saying to people on that tour, 'I'm not really enjoying this ... there is something very wrong with this.'" While Gilmour and Wright were in France recording solo albums, and Nick Mason was busy producing Steve Hillage's "Green", Waters began to write new material. The spitting incident became the starting point for a new concept, which explored the protagonist's self-imposed isolation after years of traumatic interactions with authority figures and the loss of his father as a young child. To execute "The Wall" concept was to attempt to analyse the performer's psychological separation from the audience, using a physical structure as a metaphorical and theatrical device. In July 1978 the band reconvened at Britannia Row Studios, where Waters presented two new ideas for concept albums. The first was a 90-minute demo with the working title "Bricks in the Wall". The second, a project about a man's dreams across one night that dealt with marriage, sex, and the pros and cons of monogamy and family life versus promiscuity. The first option was chosen by the group for the new Pink Floyd project and the second idea eventually became Waters's first solo effort, a concept album titled, "The Pros and Cons of Hitch Hiking". By September, the band were experiencing financial difficulties. Financial planners Norton Warburg Group (NWG) had invested £1.3–3.3 million (up to £ in contemporary value) of the group's money in high-risk venture capital to reduce their tax liabilities. The strategy failed as many of the businesses NWG invested in lost money, leaving the band facing tax rates potentially as high as 83 per cent. Pink Floyd terminated their relationship with NWG, demanding the return of uninvested funds. The band thus urgently needed to produce an album to make money. Because the project's 26 tracks presented a challenge greater than the band's previous albums, "Waters decided to bring in an outside producer and collaborator." He later said, "I needed a collaborator who was musically and intellectually in a similar place to where I was."
1628616	Portia Doubleday (born June 22, 1988) is an American actress. She is perhaps best known for her roles in the 2009 film "Youth in Revolt" as Sheeni Saunders and in the 2011 film "" as Jasmine Lee and later in the 2013 film version Carrie as Chris Hargensen. Life and career. Doubleday was born and raised in Los Angeles, California, the daughter of Christina Hart and Frank Doubleday. She grew up in a show business family: her parents are former professional actors, and her older sister, Kaitlin, is also an actress. Her mother now works in the entertainment industry as a writer, and also produces plays. Doubleday attended the Los Angeles Center for Enriched Studies, a magnet school in west Los Angeles. Doubleday first appeared in a commercial for Goldfish crackers at the age of eight, and had a small role in the film "Legend of the Mummy" (1997). Her parents insisted that she finish high school before pursuing a career in acting. Doubleday was cast in the pilot episode of "United States of Tara", a television series created by Diablo Cody. Doubleday played 15-year-old Kate, the daughter of Toni Collette's character. Doubleday was replaced however, when the series' creative team chose to go in a different direction with the character. She appeared in the short film "18" in 2009, about a girl dealing with the end of her mother's life.
1030687	Bullet to the Head is a 2012 American action film, written by Alessandro Camon and directed by Walter Hill based upon Alexis Nolent's French graphic novel "Du Plomb Dans La Tete". The film stars Sylvester Stallone, Sung Kang, Sarah Shahi, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, Christian Slater, and Jason Momoa. Alfred Gough, Miles Millar, and Kevin King Templeton produced the film. The film premiered at the International Rome Film Festival on November 14, 2012. The film received a wide United States release on February 1, 2013. Plot. In New Orleans, hitman Jimmy Bobo and his partner Louis Blanchard kill a corrupt policeman, Hank Greely, although Bobo leaves a prostitute, Lola, alive. Later, at a bar, Blanchard is murdered by Keegan, who also attempts to kill Bobo, but fails. Washington D.C. Detective Taylor Kwon arrives in New Orleans to investigate Greely's death and meets Lieutenant Lebreton, who informs him Lola confirmed Greely was assassinated. Kwon goes to the morgue, and, after seeing Blanchard's body and finding out who he is, he deduces that Blanchard and Bobo killed Greely. Meanwhile, Keegan meets with his employer, Robert Morel, and Morel's lawyer Marcus Baptiste. Baptiste reveals that Greely tried to blackmail Morel, and provided local mobster Baby Jack with a file detailing Morel's illegal operations. Keegan later kills Baby Jack and his men and retrieves the file. Kwon meets Bobo in a bar and informs him that he knows Bobo and Blanchard killed Greely. Bobo leaves, and when Kwon tries to follow him, he is attacked by corrupt cops who were ordered by Morel to prevent Kwon from further investigating about Greely. Bobo rescues Kwon and takes him to a tattoo parlor, where Bobo's daughter, Lisa, treats Kwon's wounds. They later go to a massage parlor where Bobo interrogates Ronnie Earl, the middleman who hired Bobo and Blanchard on Morel's behalf. Ronnie Earl tries to kill Bobo, but Bobo manages to kill him, although his gun jams. Bobo later confronts Kwon, who admits to having tampered with Bobo's gun, nearly causing his death. Bobo and Kwon agree to work together. Bobo and Kwon kidnap Baptiste and take him to Bobo's house, where he is forced to give them a flash drive detailing Morel's plans to acquire housing projects and demolish them to build office buildings and reveals Keegan is an ex-mercenary hired to be Morel's enforcer. Afterwards, Bobo shoots him in the head. Keegan and his men trace Baptiste's cellphone to Bobo's house, but Bobo and Kwon are able to escape and detonate a bomb, killing Keegan's men. Keegan then becomes obsessed with killing Bobo. Kwon meets with Lieutenant Lebreton to ask for his help, but Lebreton tries to kill him, as he is also on Morel's payroll, but Bobo kills him and saves Kwon. Meanwhile, Keegan learns about Lisa and kidnaps her. Morel then calls Bobo and offers to trade Lisa for the flash drive. Bobo agrees, and meets with Morel in an abandoned warehouse, where he delivers the flash drive to him and rescues Lisa, while Kwon infiltrates the building to arrest Morel. Keegan becomes furious when Bobo is allowed to leave and kills Morel and his men before going after Bobo. Keegan confronts Bobo and they have an axe fight, which ends with Bobo slashing Keegan's throat with Blanchard's knife, followed by Kwon shooting Keegan in the head. Kwon retrieves the flash drive and Bobo shoots him in the shoulder to make it appear as if Kwon failed to capture him. Lisa decides to stay with Kwon, with whom she initiates a romantic relationship, and Bobo leaves. He later meets Kwon at a bar, where Kwon tells him he did not mention Bobo's existence to the police this time, but if Bobo continues in the business, Kwon will take him down. Bobo welcomes him to try and drives off into the night. Production. The film is based on Alexis Nolent's French graphic novel "Du Plomb Dans La Tete", translated as "Bullet to the Head", with the script written by Alessandro Camon. The producing team previously produced the film "I Am Number Four". An executive attached to the film has said, "movie is exactly the type of fast-paced, universally themed project that suits our business model. Sylvester Stallone is an international icon and we're really excited to be in business with him." Originally Wayne Kramer was attached to direct, but left the project when his vision of the film was darker than Stallone wanted. Thomas Jane was originally cast for the part that would eventually go to Sung Kang. The role was recast at the insistence of producer Joel Silver, stating a need for a "more 'ethnic' actor" to appeal to a wider audience. "Bullet to the Head" was shot in New Orleans and started filming on June 27, 2011. On August 23, 2011, it was announced that the film would be released on April 13, 2012. On February 23, 2012, the release date was moved back to an unknown date. It was released on February 1, 2013. Reception. Critical response. "Bullet to the Head" has received mixed reviews from critics. Rotten Tomatoes gives the film a score of 46% based on 131 reviews, with the site's consensus: ""Bullet to the Head"s unapologetically trashy thrills evoke memories of its star and director's proud cinematic pasts – but sadly, those memories are just about all it has to offer". Metacritic gives the film a score of 48/100 based on reviews from 32 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". Box office. "Bullet to the Head" was Sylvester Stallone's worst opening weekend gross in 32 years, and his second-lowest opening weekend gross of all time. "Bullet to the Head" made $4,458,201 for its opening weekend. As of March 24, 2013, the film has grossed $9,489,829 in the United States and $12,334,090 worldwide bringing a total to $21,823,919, failing to bring back its $55 million budget. Music. The soundtrack album was released digitally on January 29, 2013 and at the stores on February 19. The album features the film's score contains 15 tracks composed by Steve Mazzaro and produced by Hans Zimmer.
582033	Divya Om Prakash Bharti (often spelled as Bharathi or Bharati) (25 February 1974 – 5 April 1993), was an Indian film actress, starring in a number of commercially successful Hindi, Telugu and Tamil films in the early 1990s. Bharti began a career as an actress in Telugu films with the 1990 film "Bobbili Raja". She progressed to Hindi films in 1992 with "Vishwatma". Bharti went on to have commercial success with films like "Shola Aur Shabnam" and "Deewana" that same year, for which she garnered a Filmfare Award for Best Female Debut. She acted in over 14 Hindi films between 1992 and early 1993. Bharti died on 5 April 1993 at the age of 19. She fell off her 5-storey apartment in Versova, Mumbai. Eye witnesses reported to have seen her slip down the parapet of her balcony after losing balance. Early life. Divya Bharti was born on 25 February 1974, in Mumbai, India, as the eldest child of Om Prakash Bharti, an insurance officer, and his second wife, Meeta Bharti. She had a younger brother named Kunal whom she dearly loved, as well as two half siblings who were the result of her father's first marriage. She spoke Hindi, English and Marathi fluently. In her early years, Bharti was known for her bubbly personality and love for life, as well as for her doll-like looks. Her cousin is newcomer actress Kainaat Arora. Bharti studied at Maneckji Cooper High School in Juhu, Mumbai, in the same era as actors Farhan Akhtar and Rani Mukherji attended. She was an average student and completed grade 9. One of her favourite hobbies during childhood was visiting the Gymkhana in Mumbai. She had a great passion for swimming. Career. 1988 – 1990: Early Work and Career Beginnings. In 1988, Bharti was discovered by film-maker Nandu Tolani. Upon seeing her, Tolani insisted on signing her for one of his films. At that time, Bharti was in the ninth standard. She was originally scheduled to make her screen debut in "Gunahon Ka Devta" in 1988, but her role was cancelled. Kirti Kumar noticed Divya at a video library and thus was eager to sign her for his project "Radha Ka Sangam" opposite Govinda, as he was searching for a new face. Weeks later, Kirti went personally to meet Dilip Shankar and managed to release Divya from their contract. Before the first shot was taken, Bharti was out of the film after being groomed for two years and replaced by Juhi Chawla. Bharti's career was stalled until D. Ramanaidu, one of the biggest producers of Telugu films, offered her "Bobbili Raja" opposite his son Daggubati Venkatesh. She commenced shooting for her screen debut. The film was released in the summer of 1990 and became a colossal hit. Although highly regarded for her acting abilities, Bharti acted in only one Tamil film, "Nila Penne" opposite Anand. The film was critically and financially unsuccessful. 1990 – 1992: Rise to Stardom in Telugu Cinema. With more hits, Bharti became a bigger name in Telugu cinema. In box-office ratings, she figured next to Vijayshanti. In 1991, Bharti had back-to-back hits, including "Rowdy Alludu" and "Assembly Rowdy" opposite Chiranjeevi and Mohan Babu. Later that year, A Kodandarami Reddy's action romance "Dharma Kshetram" under Sri Rajeev Productions was released. Bharti got to work for the first time with prominent Telugu film actor Nandamuri Balakrishna. The film went on to become one of the biggest Telugu hits of its time. Nandamuri Balakrishna praised Bharti by calling it "an exceptional performance". In Telugu language films, Bharti was always credited as Divya Bharathi. 1992 – 1993: Rise to Stardom in Bollywood. Bharti's first Bollywood film was "Vishwatma" opposite Sunny Deol, directed by Rajiv Rai and released on 2 January 1992. The film was an average grosser at the box office, and gained Bharti wider recognition from the public as well as film critics. Notably, the music of the film was very successful, especially the song "Saat Samundar" which became a favorite and put Bharti in the limelight of Bollywood. A week later, Bharti's next film, Lawrence D'Souza's romantic drama "Dil Ka Kya Kasoor", alongside Prithvi, failed at the box office, though was recognized for its outstanding music. However, "Filmfare" magazines started including Bharti in the list of 1992 Top Ten Best Actress Performances. After Bharti's flops, she was quoted as saying, "I wanted to prove myself. But I've fallen flat on my face. Now, I have to begin my climb all over again. Yet, I'm positive that one day, success will be mine." ("Stardust", March 1992). In March 1992, David Dhawan's "Shola Aur Shabnam" was released. It was popular with critics and was a box office hit in India, reviving Bharti's career once again. She received a Lux Face of the Year title. It also gave a big boost to Govinda and launched David Dhawan as an established director. Four months later, Bharti achieved further success in Raj Kanwar's "Filmfare"-award winning love story "Deewana" starred veteran actor Rishi Kapoor and newcomer Shahrukh Khan, which is regarded as one of the biggest blockbuster hits of 1992. Her performance in "Deewana" was highly appreciated. Critics reported that Bharti belonged to a new breed of Hindi film actors who broke away from character stereotypes. Bharti and Shahrukh Khan won the Filmfare Award for Best Female Debut and Filmfare Award for Best Male Debut respectively. By July 1992, Bharti's work in "Deewana" was said to have earned her more recognition. She had several other releases that year, among them "Jaan Se Pyaara", "Geet" and "Balwaan". In October, she starred in Hema Malini's "Dil Aashna Hai", again co-starring Shahrukh Khan. The film garnered negative reviews and poor box office returns. Hema Malini labelled her role by stating that "The lady has not just looked glamorous but she has walked with symmetry, smiled with austerity and spoke with sangfroid." Bharti's last film release while she was alive was the ensemble "Kshatriya", released just 10 days before her death. Personal life. After being falsely linked to a variety of Bollywood actors and other personalities within the film industry, Bharti decided to get married to film producer Sajid Nadiadwala on 10 May 1992, after she had just turned 18. They had met at Film City, when Sajid dropped by to meet Govinda on the sets of "Shola Aur Shabnam". Bharti changed her name to Sannah Nadiadwala, while still working under the name Divya Bharti. Magazines at that time speculated about Bharti having converted to Islam, this however, has never been confirmed by neither Nadiadwala nor Bharti's family. Bharti was known to be a very religious Hindu. She commonly slept on the statues of Hindu Gods beneath her pillow.
1042583	The Red Beret (retitled Paratrooper for the US release) is a 1953 British war film directed by Terence Young and starring Alan Ladd, Leo Genn and Susan Stephen. It is the fictitious story about an American who enlists in the British Parachute Regiment in 1940, claiming to be a Canadian. It is notable as the first film made by Irving Allen's and Albert R. Broccoli's Warwick Films, with many of the crew later working on various films for Warwick Films and Broccoli's Eon Productions. It is partly based on the 1950 non-fiction book with the same title, about the Parachute Regiment and its first operation, Operation Biting, in February 1942, written by Hilary Saint George Saunders. The lead character was originally intended to be British, but when Richard Todd, who had been a paratrooper during the war, turned down the role because he felt it was "too far fetched", Albert R. Broccoli offered it to the American Alan Ladd and the story was rewritten by Ladd's personal screenwriter Richard Maibaum to fit him in. Plot. Steve MacKendrick (Alan Ladd), nicknamed "Canada" because that is where he claims he is from, volunteers in 1940 for the British Army's paratroop school. He obviously has a good deal more background and leadership skills than he lets on. Canada tries to become better acquainted with a pretty parachute rigger named Penny Gardner (Susan Stephen). She is initially put off by his attitude, but they eventually start dating. Both Penny and his new commander, Major Snow (Leo Genn), see potential (and a mystery that does not add up) in him, despite his strong efforts to avoid assuming any responsibility. Canada turns down Snow's offer to send him to officer school. After completing parachute school, Canada's unit goes on a raid on the German radar station at Bruneval. An RAF radar expert, Sergeant Box, accompanies the raiders to retrieve a key component to take back to Britain. The mission is a success. Back in Britain, Canada is recognised by an American airman. He tells Penny that he resigned his commission from the USAAF after ordering his best friend and co-pilot to parachute out of their bomber when an experimental rocket gets stuck. When his friend's parachute does not open properly and he is killed, Canada blames himself and refuses any responsibility that might endanger anyone's life. When Snow confronts Canada with what he has learned (from a security investigation that he has ordered), Canada wrongly assumes Penny told what she learned, and he breaks up with her. The unit's next operation involves taking and destroying an airfield at Bône during the invasion of North Africa. With Major Snow wounded and the men trapped in a minefield, Canada must risk others to extricate the unit. Afterward, Canada and Penny become reconciled.
1061701	Timothy Tarquin Hutton (born August 16, 1960) is an American actor and director.
1265157	Lili Damita (July 10, 1904 – March 21, 1994) was a French actress who appeared in 33 movies between 1922 and 1937. Early life and education. Born Liliane Marie-Madeleine Carré in Blaye, France, she was educated in convents and ballet schools in several European countries, including France, Spain and Portugal. At 14, she was enrolled as a dancer at the Opera de Paris. By the age of 16, she was performing in popular music halls, eventually appearing in the Revue at the Casino de Paris. She also worked as a photographic model. Offered a role in film as a prize for winning a magazine beauty competition in 1921, she appeared in several silent films before being offered her first leading role in "Das Spielzeug von Paris" (1925) by Hungarian-born director Michael Curtiz, whom she married in 1925 (they divorced a year later). She was an instant success, and Curtiz directed her in two more films: "Fiaker Nr 13" (1926) and "Der Goldene Schmetterling" (1926). Damita continued appearing in German productions directed by Robert Wiene ("Die Grosse Abenteuerin"; 1927), G.W. Pabst ("Man Spielt nicht mit der Liebe"; 1926), and British director Graham Cutts ("The Queen Was in the Parlour"; 1927). Career. In 1928, at the invitation of Samuel Goldwyn she went to Hollywood, making her American debut in a film titled "The Rescue". Leased out to various studios, she appeared with stars such as Gary Cooper, Maurice Chevalier, Laurence Olivier, Cary Grant, and James Cagney. Her films included the box office successes "The Cock-Eyed World" (1929), the semi-silent "The Bridge of San Luis Rey" (1929), and "This Is the Night" (1932). Personal life. In 1935, she married her second husband, a virtual unknown who would become Hollywood's biggest box office attraction, Errol Flynn, with whom she had a son, Sean Flynn (born 1941). Following the marriage, she retired from the screen. The couple divorced in 1942. (Barbara Hershey portrayed her in the TV film "My Wicked, Wicked Ways" based on Errol Flynn's autobiography.) While living in Palm Beach, Florida, Damita married Allen Loomis, a retired Fort Dodge, Iowa dairy owner, and spent part of each year living there. During the Cambodian Civil War (Khmer Rouge Reign), her son Sean Flynn was working as a freelance photo journalist under contract to "Time" magazine when he and fellow journalist Dana Stone went missing on the road south of Phnom Penh, Cambodia, on April 6, 1970. Although Damita spent an enormous amount of money searching for her son, he was never found, and in 1984 he was declared legally dead. DNA testing was conducted on remains found in Cambodia and turned over to the U.S. embassy in March 2010. However, the results, released June 30, 2010 by JPAC, showed the remains were not those of Sean Flynn. Death. Lili Damita died of Alzheimer's disease on March 21, 1994, in Palm Beach, Florida, aged 89. She was interred in the Oakland Cemetery in Fort Dodge, Iowa, her third husband's hometown. Selected filmography. [[File:Lili Damita and Victor McLaglen.jpg|thumb|right|180px|Promotional photo of Lili Damita and Victor McLaglen for "The Cock-Eyed World"]]
1090207	Sir Michael James Lighthill, FRS (23 January 1924 – 17 July 1998) was a British applied mathematician, known for his pioneering work in the field of aeroacoustics. Biography. Lighthill specialised in fluid dynamics, and worked at the National Physical Laboratory, Trinity College, Cambridge and between 1946 and 1959 at the University of Manchester where he held the Beyer Chair. Lighthill then moved from Manchester to become director of the Royal Aircraft Establishment at Farnborough. There he worked on the development of television and communications satellites, and on the development of manned spacecraft. This latter work was used in the development of the Concorde supersonic airliner. In 1955, together with G. B. Whitham, Lighthill set out the first comprehensive theory of kinematic waves (an application of the method of characteristics), with a multitude of applications, prime among them fluid flow and traffic flow. Lighthill's early work included two dimensional aerofoil theory, and supersonic flow around solids of revolution. In addition to the dynamics of gas at high speeds he studied shock and blast waves. He is credited with founding the subject of aeroacoustics, a subject vital to the reduction of noise in jet engines. "Lighthill's eighth power law" states that the acoustic power radiated by a jet engine is proportional to the eighth power of the jet speed. He also founded non-linear acoustics, and showed that the same non-linear differential equations could model both flood waves in rivers and traffic flow in highways. In 1964 he became the Royal Society's resident professor at Imperial College London, before returning to Trinity College, Cambridge, five years later as Lucasian Professor of Mathematics, a chair he held until 1979, when he was succeeded by Stephen Hawking. Lighthill then became Provost of University College London (UCL) — a post he held until 1989. Lighthill founded the Institute of Mathematics and its Applications in 1964. In 1968, he was awarded an Honorary Degree (Doctor of Science) by the University of Bath. In 1972 he was invited to deliver the MacMillan Memorial Lecture to the Institution of Engineers and Shipbuilders in Scotland. He chose the subject 'Aquatic Animal Locomotion'. In the early 1970s, partly in reaction to significant internal discord within that field, the Science Research Council (SRC), as it was then known, asked Lighthill to compile a review of academic research in Artificial Intelligence. Lighthill's report, which was published in 1973 and became known as the "Lighthill report," was highly critical of basic research in foundational areas such as robotics and language processing, and "formed the basis for the decision by the British government to end support for AI research in all but two universities", starting what is sometimes referred to as the "AI winter." His hobby was open-water swimming. He died in the water in 1998 when the mitral valve in his heart ruptured while swimming round the island of Sark, a feat which he had accomplished many times before.
902644	Cave of Forgotten Dreams is a 2010 3D documentary film by Werner Herzog, about the Chauvet Cave, a cavern in southern France that contains the oldest human-painted images yet discovered, some as old as 32,000 years. The film premiered at the 2010 Toronto International Film Festival and consists of footage filmed inside the cave as well as interviews with various scientists and historians. The film also includes footage of the nearby Pont d'Arc natural bridge. Production. Herzog's interest in the Chauvet cave was prompted by Judith Thurman's "New Yorker" article "First Impressions". Thurman is listed as one of the co-producers of the film. The cave is carefully preserved and the general public is not allowed to enter. Herzog received special permission from the French Minister of Culture to film inside the cave. Having received permission, Herzog nonetheless had to film under heavy restrictions. All people authorized to enter must wear special suits and shoes that have had no contact with the exterior. Also, because of near-toxic levels of radon and carbon dioxide, nobody can stay in the cave for more than a few hours per day. Herzog was allowed to have only three people with him in the cave: the cinematographer Peter Zeitlinger, a sound recorder (Eric Spitzer-Marlyn), and an assistant. Herzog himself worked the lights. The crew was allowed to use only battery-powered equipment they could carry into the cave themselves, and only lights that gave off no excess heat. The 3-D cameras were custom-built for the production, and were often assembled inside the cave itself. Herzog was allowed six shooting days of four hours each. The crew could not touch any part of the cave's wall or floor, and were confined to a walkway. The production encountered several technical difficulties in working with the 3-D cameras in a documentary setting. At the time of production, 3-D films were typically shot on stages with heavy use of digital manipulation. Often, foreground and background elements would be shot separately and digitally composited into the finished shot. Techniques for 3-D filmmaking in natural environments with a single camera and no compositing were largely undeveloped, and had to be worked out experimentally by the crew in post-production. Before production of "Cave of Forgotten Dreams", Herzog was skeptical of the artistic value of 3-D filmmaking, and had only seen one 3-D film (James Cameron's "Avatar"). Herzog still believes that 3-D is not suited for general use in cinema, but used it in "Cave" to help "capture the intentions of the painters", who incorporated the wall's subtle bulges and contours into their art.
1057428	52 Pick-Up is a 1986 crime thriller film directed by John Frankenheimer. The film stars Roy Scheider and Ann-Margret and is based on Elmore Leonard's novel of the same name. Plot. Harry Mitchell (Roy Scheider) is a successful industrialist living in the suburbs of Los Angeles whose wife Barbara (Ann-Margret) is running for city council while he is having an affair. Harry is confronted by three blackmailers demanding $105,000 for a videotape of him and his mistress, Cini (Kelly Preston). Because of his wife's political aspirations, he can't go to the police. Harry's lawyer advises him that paying the blackmailers won't likely make them go away, so he refuses to pay. The criminals up the ante by murdering Cini and framing Harry for the murder, demanding $105,000 a year for the rest of his life to keep the evidence they have on him under wraps. Harry opens his financial records to one of them with a background in accounting, Alan Raimy (John Glover). Seeing that their mark owes money to the government and cannot afford the $105,000, Raimy agrees to accept Harry's counter offer of $52,000, at least as a first payment. Harry then turns the blackmailers against one another, putting his wife's life in grave danger in the process. Novel vs. film. The film is regarded as reasonably close to Elmore Leonard's original novel, except that it is set in Los Angeles instead of Detroit. Also, in the novel the Harry Mitchell character is having problems with the labor force at his business in addition to the main blackmail/kidnap plot. Reception. The movie gained mixed reviews. On the one hand, Patrick Goldstein, writing in the Los Angeles Times, described it as "a dull, plodding thriller that finds Mitchell in a deadly war with a trio of crazed blackmailers." On the other hand, Roger Ebert, writing in the Chicago Sun-Times, claimed it "provides us with the best, most reprehensible villain of the year and uses his vile charm as the starting point for a surprisingly good film. ... This is a well-crafted movie by a man who knows how to hook the audience with his story; it's Frankenheimer's best work in years." "The New York Times" film critic Janet Maslin described it as "fast-paced, lurid, exploitative and loaded with malevolent energy. John Frankenheimer, who directed, hasn't done anything this darkly entertaining since 'Black Sunday.'" Box office. The movie debuted poorly at the box office.
909281	Cody Cameron (born October 12, 1970) is an American story artist, director and voice actor, best known for voicing Pinocchio and the Three Little Pigs in the "Shrek" series and Mr. Weenie in the "Open Season" franchise. Career. Cameron started his career at DreamWorks Animation writing dialogue and storyboarding for the "Shrek" franchise, "Shark Tale", and "Madagascar". In 2004, Cameron left DreamWorks to join Sony Pictures Animation. He worked there as a story artist on "Surf's Up", and wrote and directed a short film "The ChubbChubbs Save Xmas", a sequel to "The ChubbChubbs!". Cameron also voiced Mr. Weenie in the "Open Season" franchise and directed direct-to-video sequel "Open Season 3". As of December 2011, he is set to co-direct with Kris Pearn "".
1065383	Barbara Carrera (born Barbara Kingsbury on September 1, 1944) is a Nicaraguan-American film and television actress and former model. She is best known for her roles as Bond girl Fatima Blush in "Never Say Never Again" and as Angelica Nero on the soap opera "Dallas". Biography. Early life. Barbara Kingsbury was born in San Carlos, Río San Juan, Nicaragua. Her mother, Florencia Carrera, was a Nicaraguan of European and Native ancestry, and her father, Louis Kingsbury, was a U.S. employee of the American embassy in Nicaragua. Her parents separated when she was seven. Carrera had at least one half-sibling, a sister, Maisie Kingsbury. There is some uncertainty regarding Carrera's year of birth, which some sources give as 1947 or 1951, but most list 1945. She apparently prefers to say 1953 but public records state 1944. Sometime after the age of 10, Carrera moved to the United States to live with her father, who placed her in a school in Memphis. She moved to New York at the age of fifteen. Career. Kingsbury began a career as a model at the Eileen Ford agency at the age of 17, at which point she changed her last name to her mother's maiden name, Carrera. In 1972, she appeared on the screen in a publicity role for the Chiquita bananas. Her first film role was as a fashion model in "Puzzle of a Downfall Child" (1970), which fared poorly at the box office. In 1976, she earned her first Golden Globe nomination for her role in "The Master Gunfighter". She later played in such films as "The Island of Dr. Moreau", "Lone Wolf McQuade", "Condorman", "Point of Impact", "Tryst" and "Embryo". For her portrayal of the villainess Fatima Blush in the James Bond film "Never Say Never Again", she earned a 1984 Golden Globe nomination for "Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role in a Motion Picture". She worked opposite Laurence Olivier in "Wild Geese II" the next year. On television, she played a part in the soap opera "Dallas" as Angelica Nero, and more prominently, in the historical miniseries "Centennial" in 1978 and "Masada" (opposite Peter O'Toole and Peter Strauss) in 1981. These roles brought her to the mainstream attention of American audiences. She also starred as Emma Forsayth in the miniseries "" in 1988. Carrera has appeared on the pages and covers of such magazines as "Vogue", "Paris Match", "Harper's Bazaar", and twice posed in "Playboy" (March 1982). She was nominated for a Golden Globe for her role in "The Master Gunfighter" in 1975. In 1997, she was appointed ambassador-at-large for Nicaragua by then President Arnoldo Alemán. She is also an artist and her work has been showcased in the Makk Galleries in Beverly Hills, California since the 1980s, and the Roy Miles Gallery in London, England. In May 2002, her works were exhibited at the Hollywood Entertainment Museum and have typically been sold for up to $8,000. Personal life. Carrera has been married and divorced three times, her spouses being: After her third marriage, Carrera was involved with the 11th Duke of Northumberland and, later, with Cameron Docherty, a Scottish-born journalist. She has no children.
774575	Thirty Two Short Films About Glenn Gould is an award-winning 1993 film about the piano prodigy Glenn Gould played by Colm Feore. The film's screenplay was written by François Girard (who also directed) and Don McKellar. The film does not present a single narrative, rather a series of thirty-one short films. These include documentaries (five interviews with people who knew him), re-creations of scenes from Gould's life, and various odd items (such as "Gould Meets McLaren", in which animated spheres reminiscent of those in Norman McLaren's animations move to Gould's music). The segments range in length from six minutes to less than one minute. According to Girard: "As Gould was such a complex character, the biggest problem was to find a way to look at his work and deal with his visions. The film is built of fragments, each one trying to capture an aspect of Gould. There is no way of putting Gould in one box. The film gives the viewer 32 impressions of him. I didn't want to reduce him to one dimension." The soundtrack consists almost entirely of piano recordings by Gould. A notable exception is the overture to Wagner's "Tristan und Isolde". It includes pieces famously linked with him, such as Bach: The Goldberg Variations, and the "Well-Tempered Clavier", as well as others which are less so. The film won four Genie Awards and Best Canadian Feature Film at the Toronto International Film Festival. The structure and style of the "The Simpsons" episode "22 Short Films About Springfield" (first aired April 14, 1996), is inspired by this film. It was also used in an "Animaniacs" short entitled "Ten Short Films About Wakko Warner". The title also inspired Cory Arcangel's piece "A Couple Thousand Short Films About Glenn Gould" which constructed the Goldberg variations out of clips of notes from YouTube.
1153426	Thomas John Patrick Welling (born April 26, 1977) known professionally as Tom Welling, is an American actor, director, producer, and model, best known for his portrayal of Clark Kent in the WB/CW series "Smallville". A high-school athlete, Welling initially worked in construction and, in 1998, he successfully modeled men's clothing for several popular brands. In 2000, he made a successful transition to television. He has been nominated for and received several awards for his portrayal of Clark Kent. He also had a recurring role in "Judging Amy". He has also been involved behind the camera as an executive producer and a director. His films include "Cheaper by the Dozen", its sequel, the 2005 remake of "The Fog", and upcoming "Parkland" and "Draft Day". Early life. Welling was born in the lower Hudson Valley on April 26, 1977. His family moved frequently, making stops in Wisconsin, Delaware, and Michigan. Welling attended Okemos High School in Okemos, Michigan, where he started acting in plays, but then switched into sports. Welling played baseball and soccer, but his favorite sport is basketball. Welling is one of four children with two older sisters, Rebecca and Jamie. His younger brother, Mark Welling, is also an actor. Career. Originally a construction worker, Welling was discovered in 1998 at a party in Nantucket by a catalog camera scout who suggested he try modeling. Welling modeled for Louisa Modeling Agency until 2000, when he relocated to Los Angeles. There he modeled for Tommy Hilfiger, Abercrombie & Fitch, and Calvin Klein while pursuing an acting career. In 2000, Welling appeared in the video for Angela Via's single, "Picture Perfect", playing Vía's love interest. Welling has stated that he did not like modeling and that he was not good at it because it was all on the outside or from an external point of view. He pursued acting because he wanted to express a range of emotions. Welling auditioned to play the character Tag Jones on "Friends", but was not cast. In his first major acting role, Welling portrayed karate teacher Rob Meltzer, "a.k.a." "Karate Rob", a younger love interest of Amy Brenneman's character on the CBS series "Judging Amy", which aired in 2001. Welling was originally signed for three episodes; after receiving enthusiastic fan reviews, the producers kept him for three more. Welling also had a small role in UPN's "Special Unit 2", and he appeared in the pilot episode of the FOX sitcom "Undeclared". "Smallville". Welling was cast in the television series "Smallville" after a nationwide search for an actor to play Clark Kent. In an interview with a teen magazine, Welling spoke about the day he auditioned for the role: "I was on my way back from the Warner Bros. studio, and I stopped in a gas station to call my manager and tell him how it went. I called and got him on the phone and he said, 'Can you hold on a second?' Next thing I know, there are literally seven people on the other line and almost in unison they say, 'Tom, you got it!'" The pilot aired in October 2001 and became the highest-rated debut for The WB, with 8.4 million viewers. Welling told "TV Guide" that he turned down the lead role twice, but after reading the script, decided to take the job. Like Christopher Reeve, he was not a "Superman" fan prior to being cast as Clark Kent. In fact, he said, he continues to not read "Superman" comics: "I made a conscious decision to stay away from that material. We're doing something different at a time before all that, I don't want that to affect what I'm doing, even subconsciously." He did get the chance to meet two previous "Superman" actors: Christopher Reeve, who appeared in season 2: episode 17 titled "Rosetta", and Dean Cain, who appeared in season 7: episode 4 titled "Cure". Welling was named one of "People" magazine’s "Breakthrough Stars of 2001", and also won the Teen Choice Award as "Choice Breakout Star (Male)" in 2002 for his role as Clark Kent. Following the third season, Welling was interviewed by "Smallville Magazine" and stated that if he could play one character on the show that was not Clark Kent, it would be Lex Luthor; "Lex Luthor! I wouldn’t mind having my head shaved – as an actor, is the ultimate, getting to play the complete opposite of your character." In 2004 Welling was approached about starring in the big screen adaptation of "Superman" when director Brett Ratner was attached to project. Comic book artist Alex Ross even did two sketches of Welling as the "Man of Steel" to see what the actor would look like in the famous costume. In August 2009, Welling won another Teen Choice Award as "Choice TV Actor (Action Adventure)" for "Smallville". Film. In December 2003, Welling played Charlie Baker, the oldest son and second oldest in the Baker family which had 12 children in the film "Cheaper by the Dozen" opposite Steve Martin and Bonnie Hunt, which is a remake of the 1950 movie starring Clifton Webb and Myrna Loy, based on the 1948 book by Frank and Lillian Gilbreth. Welling talked about why he was interested in the project in an interview with Paul Fischer: "The top three reasons I decided to do this film were, one, Steve Martin, two, Steve Martin and three, Steve Martin. That was the number one draw for me. Then, after reading the script, I really liked this character, Charlie. I liked what he went through, what he had to go through, and I felt I understood where he was coming from. And I just wanted to be a part of it." Welling had always been a fan of Steve Martin's and stated that he "absolutely loved" working with him.
1028981	Patrick Galen Dempsey (born January 13, 1966) is an American actor and race car driver, best known for his role as neurosurgeon Dr. Derek Shepherd ("McDreamy") on the ABC medical drama "Grey's Anatomy." Prior to "Grey's Anatomy" he made several television appearances and was nominated for an Emmy Award. He has also appeared in several films, including "Sweet Home Alabama", "Made of Honor", "Valentine's Day", "With Honors", "Flypaper", "Freedom Writers", and "".
1069910	Benson Fong (Chinese: 鄺炳雄, pinyin: Kuàng Bǐngxióng; October 10, 1916 – August 1, 1987) was an American character actor. Born in Sacramento, California, Fong was from a mercantile family. After graduating from high school in Sacramento, he studied briefly in China before joining relatives in commercial activities in California. Career. Beginning in 1937, he appeared in minor film roles, though he later had important roles in many films, including "The Keys of the Kingdom", "His Majesty O'Keefe", "Flower Drum Song", and "Our Man Flint". During World War II he was often cast in either Japanese or Chinese roles. He is best remembered as Number Three Son "Tommy Chan" in the "Charlie Chan" movies of 1944-46. His later career as an actor included many TV appearances. He was "The Old One" in "Kung Fu". Fong made four guest appearances on "Perry Mason" between 1958-1961, including the role of defendant James Hing in the 1959 episode, "The Case of the Caretaker's Cat."
1388033	Daniel Kálmán Biss (born August 27, 1977) is an American mathematician and member of the Illinois Senate from the 9th district, serving since January 2013. The district includes Chicago's northern suburbs, including Evanston, Glencoe, Glenview, Golf, Morton Grove, Northbrook, Northfield, Skokie, Wilmette, and Winnetka. Biss previously served in the Illinois House of Representatives from 2011 to 2013. Personal life, education and mathematical career. Biss was born into a family of musicians: his brother is the noted pianist Jonathan Biss, his parents are the violinists Paul Biss and Miriam Fried, and his grandmother was the Russian-born cellist Raya Garbousova.
1681625	Efectos Secundarios ("Side Effects") is a 2006 film directed by Issa López. The film stars Marina de Tavira, Alejandra Gollás, Arturo Barba and Pedro Izquierdo. It was originally released to theatres in the Mexico on September 1, 2006. Plot summary. Marina, Adan, Mimí and Ignacio met in high school. Marina fell in love with Ignacio at graduation, after he pulled her out of a pool and gave her mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, which she interpreted as a kiss. During graduation as well, Adan in a prank gone awry broke Mimi's ankle, which resulted on her missing out on her one shot to appear in a famous soap opera. Now twelve years later Marina is a sculptor unable to finish her latest piece. Adan is a recovering alcoholic, junkie and sex addict. Mimi works in a kids show playing the part of a bumblebee and Ignacio is a risk annalist for an insurance company, obsessed with the death of his girlfriend 8 years before. They all attend to a high school reunion party for different reasons. Marina wants to find out if Ignacio feels something about her, Adan wants to rekindle his old relationship with his ex "La Chule", Mimi was forced to attend by her overbearing mother once again on the eve of a big audition and Ignacio goes to see Mimi, his cousin. During the course of the reunion Adan during the heat of passion with his ex accidentally pushes Mimi of the roof breaking her ankle once more and losing his cellphone in the process which is subsequently found by Mimi, who swears revenge upon Adan. Ignacio and Marina meet, and Ignacio reveals that he never liked her, at this point Marina is struck by a car in the same spot Ignacio's girlfriend was. Later at the hospital Marina agrees to help Ignacio find the driver if he agrees to date her, he reluctantly agrees. Mimi having once more lost an important audition has given up and accepted her life, but her mother forces the producer give her an audition during which she is interrupted by Adan and his girlfriend's niece, who immediately catches the producers eye and is cast instead of Mimi. Mimi proceeds to wreak vengeance upon Adan taking to point of consuming heroin and alcohol again. Meanwhile Ignacio finds the truck driver and proceeds to talk to him, he feels hatred towards the trucker at first but soon his feeling turn to pity when he listens to his story, now finally having obtained closure over the death of his wife he realizes he loves Marina and goes to see her. While kissing she notices burns on his hands and asks him about them, he responds that during graduation he and his friends were making a bonfire near the pool and his arm caught on fire when he went through his arm in the water to put out the flames. Marina gets upset about this, she thought Ignacio had saved her because he loved her. Marina storms off looking for Adan only to find him drunk at the school trying to stop Mimi from killing herself; after Ignacio appears, Adan and Ignacio fight which leaves Ignacio unconscious and in the pool. Marina not wanting to lose Ignacio jumps in the pool and rescues him.
1103994	Pafnuty Lvovich Chebyshev (, ) ( – ) was a Russian mathematician. His name can be alternatively transliterated as "Chebychev", "Chebysheff", "Chebyshov", "Tchebychev" or "Tchebycheff", or "Tschebyschev" or "Tschebyscheff" (the latter two pairs are French and German transcriptions). Biography. One of nine children, Chebyshev was born in the central Russian village of Okatovo near Borovsk, to Agrafena Ivanova Pozniakova and Lev Pavlovich Chebyshev. His father had fought as an officer against Napoleon Bonaparte's invading army. Chebyshev was originally home schooled by his mother and his cousin, Avdotia Kvintillianova Soukhareva. He learned French early in life, which later helped him communicate with other mathematicians. A stunted leg prevented him from playing with other children, leading him to concentrate on his studies instead. Chebyshev studied at the college level at Moscow University, where he earned his bachelor's degree in 1841. At Moscow University, Chebyshev was a graduate student of Nikolai Brashman. After Chebyshev became a professor of mathematics in Moscow himself, his two most illustrious graduate students were Andrei Andreyevich Markov (the elder) and Alexandr Lyapunov. Later he moved to St. Petersburg, where he founded one of the most important schools of mathematics in Russia, and there is today a research institute in mathematics called the Chebyshev Laboratory in that city. Mathematical contributions. Chebyshev is known for his work in the fields of probability, statistics, mechanics, and number theory. The Chebyshev inequality states that if formula_1 is a random variable with standard deviation σ, then the probability that the outcome of formula_1 is no less than formula_3 away from its mean is no more than formula_4: The Chebyshev inequality is used to prove the Weak Law of Large Numbers. The Bertrand–Chebyshev theorem (1845|1850) states that for any formula_6, there exists a prime number formula_7 such that formula_8 of prime numbers less than formula_9, which state that formula_10 is of the order of formula_11. A more precise form is given by the celebrated prime number theorem: the "quotient" of the two expressions approaches 1.0 as formula_9 tends to infinity. Chebyshev is also known for the Chebyshev polynomials and the Chebyshev bias – the difference between the number of primes that are 3 (modulo 4) and 1 (modulo 4). Legacy. Chebyshev is considered to be a founding father of Russian mathematics. Among his well-known students were the prolific mathematicians Dmitry Grave, Aleksandr Korkin, Aleksandr Lyapunov, and Andrei Markov. According to the Mathematics Genealogy Project, Chebyshev has 7,483 mathematical "descendants" as of 2010. The lunar crater Chebyshev and the asteroid 2010 Chebyshev were named in his honour.
1165604	Yvonne Joyce Craig (born May 16, 1937) is an American ballet dancer and actress best known for her role as Batgirl from the 1960s TV series "Batman", and as the Orion Marta in the "" episode “”. Early life and career. Yvonne Craig was born in Taylorville, Illinois and grew up in Columbus, Ohio for the first 14 years of her life. She originally trained to be a ballet dancer and was a member of the corps de ballet of the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo in the 1950s. Gradually, she moved into acting, and in 1959 appeared in three films: "The Young Land", "The Gene Krupa Story", and "Gidget". She also had a guest role as Beverly Mills in the 1959 episode "Little Miss Wow" of the television series "Mr. Lucky". In 1960, she appeared as a busty young coed with Bing Crosby in "High Time", where she met and married singer/actor Jimmy Boyd. In the following year, she appeared with Cesar Romero in "Seven Women from Hell". Romero would later play the Joker in "Batman". Another connection to "Batman" occurred when Craig appeared in "The Case of the Lazy Lover", a 1958 episode of the television series "Perry Mason", which also featured Neil Hamilton as her stepfather. Hamilton would later play her father, Commissioner Gordon, in "Batman". After divorcing Boyd in 1962, Yvonne starred in several films, including roles with Elvis Presley in two films; "It Happened at the World's Fair" and "Kissin' Cousins". She also appeared with Dennis Hopper and appeared in "In Like Flint" as a Russian Ballet dancer opposite James Coburn. Move into television. In the mid-1960s, with film roles beginning to taper off, she moved into television, appearing in several shows including "The Barbara Stanwyck Show", "Death Valley Days", "Hennesey", and "My Three Sons". One of her more memorable roles came in 1969 when Craig appeared on "" as Marta, a green-skinned Orion slave girl in the third season episode "" (1968).
1166468	Gregory Sierra (born January 25, 1941) is an American actor known for his roles as Detective Sergeant Chano Amenguale on "Barney Miller" and as Julio Fuentes, the Puerto Rican neighbor of Fred G. Sanford on "Sanford and Son (portrayed by Redd Foxx). He also guest-starred as a Jewish radical in an unusually dramatic episode of "All in the Family", working with the Hebrew Defense Association, an organization whose goal it was to stop antisemitism in the neighborhood. In the plot, he volunteers in helping to chase away neo-Nazi thugs presiding in the neighborhood who spray-painted a swastika on the Bunkers' front door. He is later killed by a car bomb planted by the neo-Nazis. The actor later went on to star as Dr. Tony Menzies on the unsuccessful sitcom "A.E.S. Hudson Street".
588721	Kudiyon Ka Hai Zamana is a Bollywood comedy film directed by Amur Batula. Released in 2006 it stars Mahima Chaudhary, Rekha and Ashmit Patel. Its central set up is of four female friends and their problems with boyfriends and husbands, and it has been compared to "Sex and the City". Mayuri, Kanika, Natasha, and Anjali have been friends for many years. All of them come from very wealthy families. While Mayuri has been married 4 times, she still has feelings for her first husband, Girish, and keeps aloof from her current spouse, Akash; Natasha is married to Punit, and is expecting a child; Kanika is in the process of getting married to Rahul; while Anjali, who is 24 years of age, is unmarried. All four constantly bet large sums of money on trivial issues, mostly involving men, but only Anjali keeps winning. On the eve of Kanika's marriage, she, Mayuri and Natasha get Anjali to commit in writing that she will only get married after she turns 25, to which she agrees. Now her three friends get together and resolve to find men, who will woo, win her heart, and get married to her before she turns 25. Accordingly 4 men attempt to woo Anjali and try to win her heart. Karan is a stock-broker, wealthy and handsome; Rocky is a wannabe WWF wrestler, wealthy, and handsome; Cyrus is a bit of a child-man, but is rich; and Amar Khanna is a wealthy singer. Anjali is all set to give her heart to one of these men - but just before she says yes - she finds out about the bet - and refuses to marry any one of the men
1165227	In 1964-65, Corbett had a recurring role as Lt. Tom Lockridge on Twelve O'Clock High for two episodes: "The Men and the Boys" and "Those Who Are About To Die". Obtained from the METV television network. Glenn Corbett (August 17, 1933 – January 16, 1993) was an American actor, best known for his roles as the original Zefram Cochrane, the inventor of warp drive, on the original Star Trek series, and on CBS's adventure drama "Route 66".
589478	Pyar Ka Mausam "(English: Season of Love)" is a 1969 movie under Nasir Hussain films banner. Hussain wrote, produced, and directed the film. It starred Shashi Kapoor, and the Nasir Husain fixture- Asha Parekh. It also had Bharat Bhushan, Nirupa Roy, Madan Puri and another Nasir Husain fixture Rajendranath. Nasir's nephew Faisal Khan who was 3 years old at the time plays Shashi Kapoor's character as a child. Two more Husain fixtures wrote the memorable songs: lyricist Majrooh Sultanpuri and music composer R.D. Burman, who also has an acting role in the film. The film became a Silver Jubilee Hit. Analysis. The story was on Nasir Husain's favorite theme, a family whose members get separated at the start of the movie and after much action are reunited at the end of the movie. The theme song (Tum bin jaoon kahan) is played several times in the film: Mohammed Rafi's version is picturized on the hero Shashi Kapoor three times, while Kishore Kumar's version is picturized on Bharat Bhushan twice. The song is a key part of the movie like the key songs in later movies of Nasir Hussain (Yaadon Ki Baraat and Hum Kisise Kum Naheen).
1062672	A Letter to Three Wives is a 1949 American romantic drama film which tells the story of a woman who mails a letter to three women, telling them she has left town with the husband of one of them. It stars Jeanne Crain, Linda Darnell, Ann Sothern, Kirk Douglas, Paul Douglas in his film debut, Jeffrey Lynn, and Thelma Ritter. An uncredited Celeste Holm provides the voice of Addie Ross, the unseen woman who wrote the eponymous letter. The movie was adapted by Vera Caspary and Joseph L. Mankiewicz from a Cosmoplitan Magazine 1946 novel "Letter to Five Wives" by John Klempner. It was directed by Mankiewicz, who went on to direct "All About Eve" the following year. The film won the Academy Awards for Best Director and Best Writing, Screenplay and was nominated for Best Picture. Plot. Just as they are about to take a group of underprivileged children on a riverboat ride and picnic, Deborah Bishop (Jeanne Crain), Rita Phipps (Ann Sothern), and Lora Mae Hollingsway (Linda Darnell) receive a message from Addie Ross informing them that she has run off with one of their husbands. She, however, leaves them in suspense as to which one. All three marriages are shown in flashback to be strained. Deborah grew up on a farm. Her first experience with the outside world came when she joined the Navy WAVES during World War II, where she met her future husband Brad (Jeffrey Lynn). When they return to civilian life, Deborah is ill at ease in Brad's upper class social circle. Adding to her insecurity, she learns that everyone expected Brad to marry Addie, whom all three husbands consider practically a goddess. However, she is comforted by Brad's friend Rita, a career woman who writes stories for sappy radio soap operas. Her husband George (Kirk Douglas), a schoolteacher, feels somewhat emasculated since she earns much more money. He is also disappointed that his wife constantly gives in to the demands of her boss, Mrs. Manleigh (Florence Bates). Rita's flashback is to a dinner party she gave for her boss. She forgot that her husband's birthday was that night, and only remembered when a birthday present, a rare Brahms recording, arrived from Addie Ross. Lora Mae grew up poor, not just on the "wrong side of the tracks," but literally next to the railroad tracks. (Passing trains shake the family home periodically.) She sets her sights on her older, divorced employer, Porter (Paul Douglas), the wealthy owner of a statewide chain of department stores. Her mother, Ruby Finney (Connie Gilchrist), is unsure what to think of her daughter's ambition, but Ruby's friend (and the Bishops' servant) Sadie (an uncredited Thelma Ritter) approves. Matters come to a head when she sees a picture of Addie Ross on the piano in his home. She tells him she wants her picture on a piano: her own piano in her own home. He tells her he isn't interested in marriage, and she breaks off their romance. However, he loves her too much, and finally gives in and proposes, skipping a New Year's party at Addie's house to do so. When the women return from the picnic, Rita is overjoyed to find her husband at home. They work out their issues; she promises to not let herself be pushed around by Mrs. Manleigh. Deborah's houseman gives her a message stating that Brad will not be coming home that night. A heartbroken Deborah goes alone to the dance with the other two couples. When Porter complains about his wife dancing with another man, she tells him he has no idea how much Lora Mae really loves him, but Porter is certain his wife only sees him as a "cash register." Unable to take it anymore, Deborah gets up to leave, announcing that Brad has run off with Addie. Porter stops her, confessing it was he who started to run away with Addie, but then explains, "A man can change his mind, can't he?" Porter then tells his wife that, with his admission in front of witnesses, she can divorce him and get what she wants. To his shock, Lora Mae claims she did not hear a word he said. He asks her to dance. The voice of Addie Ross bids all a good night. In the film, she is shown only once and from behind. Differences between novel and film. The film was based on John Klempner's novel "A Letter to Five Wives". Two wives were lost in the transition to the screen. At one point, the film was called "A Letter to Four Wives". When submitting the adapted screenplay to 20th Century-Fox chief Darryl F. Zanuck, Joseph L. Mankiewicz mentioned that he found it too long and asked how Zanuck felt about shortening the movie. "Take out one of the wives," Zanuck replied. Originally, the movie would have featured Anne Baxter as Martha. Zanuck did not feel Baxter's segment was as strong as the other three, so it was cut. All the major characters differ substantially between the novel and film, and the nature of the problems with their marriages also. In the novel, Lora May (not Lora Mae) is less a gold digger than a woman who has always been dominated by her wealthy husband; Rita is trying to succeed in a second marriage with a man she has never felt passionate about; and Deborah is a plain and quiet ex-spinster whose "catch" of a husband has been disappointed in her lack of success in society. As for the other two wives, Martha and her husband locked horns over child-rearing issues, while Geraldine was devoting excessive time and money to her singing career with few results. The novel also gives no indication that any of the couples will work through their problems (the film, ambiguities notwithstanding, has a decidedly happy ending), and the identity of the errant husband is different (though not his rationale). Production. The rights of John Klempner's "Letter to Five Wives" was acquired by 20th Century Fox in February 1946, seven months after it was first published in a magazine. Melville Baker and Dorothy Bennett wrote the first treatments of the script. Even though he was not credited for the final film, Baker was responsible for coming up with the idea that the character Addie was only to be heard, and not seen. In October 1946, F. Hugh Herbert was assigned to write the screen adaptation. His final participation was not confirmed. In the same month, it was announced that Samuel G. Engel took over production from Joseph L. Mankiewicz. Even before a script was finished, Gene Tierney, Linda Darnell, Maureen O'Hara, Dorothy McGuire and Alice Faye were cast in "A Letter to Five Wives" in November 1946. For a while, the project was shelved, until Mankiewicz started working on the first drafts of the script between March and late April 1948. Around this time, Sol C. Siegel was assigned to replace Engel as the film's producer. Vera Caspary adapted the story to "A Letter to Four Wives", and Mankiewicz eventually decided in mid-1948 to focus on only three marriages, thus retitling it to "A Letter to Three Wives". In June 1948, it was on the top of 20th Century Fox' list of films to be produced over the following ten months. In addition to the actresses already named as cast members, Anne Baxter, Tyrone Power were also at one point cast. Furthermore, Joan Crawford and Ida Lupino were considered for the (eventually offscreen) role of Addie. When Baxter was cast, in April 1948, the film was still known under its working title "A Letter to Four Wives". She was cast a day after Jeanne Crain, who signed on for the role after months of rumors of her participation. By May 1948, Baxter, Crain, Darnell and Ann Sothern were the four actresses to portray the title roles, and Macdonald Carey campaigned for a secondary role. Adaptations. In 1985, the film was remade into a television movie of the same name starring Loni Anderson as Lora Mae, Michele Lee as Rita, Stephanie Zimbalist as Debra, Charles Frank as Brad, Michael Gross as George and Ben Gazzara as Porter. Ann Sothern also appeared as Ma Finney. In popular culture. In 2010, "The Simpsons" made their own version of the story, in an episode called "Moe Letter Blues".
588603	Aashiqui.in is a 2011 Bollywood romantic film directed by Shankhadeep, starring Ankita Shrivastava and debutant Ishaan Manhaas in the lead roles. The music and the background score of the film are composed by Nitin kumar gupta and Prem Hariya, and the lyrics are penned by Gupta as well. The film was released in cinemas on February 11, 2011, and the story follows a man who meets his love interest on the internet. Plot. Cyrus (Ishaan Manhaas) is a college swim champ who has difficulty in setting his future. He aspires to becoming a writer, but as his father (Kamal Malik) wishes him to take his swimming skills to a national level, Cyrus hides his aspirations so as not disappoint his dad. Though popular in college, he feels out of place and seeks someone who can really understand him. When a child, April (Ankita Shrivastava) lived an idyllic lifestyle with her widowed restaurant-owner father (Amit Dhamija). He remarries Mona (Sharmila Joshi), who herself has two daughters, Saniya (Shubhi Ahuja) and Taniya (Priti Gandwani). Soon after the marriage, April's father passes away, and her stepmother and step sisters begin to treat her like a servant. Years later, and even while burdened by domestic duties, April manages to attend college and keep a part-time job to earn pocket money. Her only confidant is her childhood friend Raj (Dheeraj Miglani). Cyrus and April meet anonymously online, becoming close without revealing their real-world identities. When they finally decide for a real-world meeting, April is able to discover Cyrus' true identity beforehand, but he does not know hers. Feeling that he is too good for her, April avoids committing to a meeting. Cyrus, feeling he has finally found the one person who would understand him as both a friend and perhaps love, seeks her everywhere. Themes. Inspired by the original Cinderella tale, the film involves a young woman being controlled by an overbearing step-mother and two step-sisters in a storyline which includes a hero protagonist mimicking the Cinderella Prince Charming, the two meeting at a costumed ball, the heroine rushing to leave before midnight, a glass shoe being left behind when she leaves the ball, and after the hero's search for her, he and the heroine live "happily ever after."
587624	Sagara Sangamam is a 1983 Telugu film directed by K. Viswanath and produced by Edida Nageshwara Rao, starring Kamal Haasan, Jayaprada, Geetha, Sarath Babu, S. P. Sailaja and Chakri Toleti. The film is listed among CNN-IBN's list of hundred land mark Indian films of all time. The movie was dubbed into Tamil as "Salangai Oli". It was dubbed later into Malayalam. Kamal Hassan had lent his voice for all three versions. The film was showcased at the International Film Festival of India. The film got critical acclaim at the Asia Pacific Film Festival. Plot. Balakrishna (Kamal Haasan) is an economically disadvantaged but multi-talented dancer, adept at the Indian classical dances of Kuchipudi, Bharatanatyam, Kathak, etc. Fondly called Balu, his simple and honest soul does not permit him to attain professional success in the commercial world that requires a certain level of moral laxness. Madhavi (Jayaprada), a wealthy young woman and a dance patron, notices his talent and acts as his benefactress, helping him secure his lifelong opportunity of participating in a high-level classical dance festival. Balu's aging mother passes away from the afflictions of poverty two days before the performance. Balu, who was very attached to her, is emotionally devastated. As a result, he fails to participate in the dance festival. Madhavi nevertheless gives him support and encouragement and sets him on the mend. Balu gradually develops a fondness for Madhavi as their relationship grows. He hides his love for her but eventually picks up the courage to express it. Balu discovers that, while Madhavi shares his feelings, she is a married woman separated from her husband. The husband later returns to unite Madhavi and Balu, but Balu decides to sacrifice his love showing respect for the institution of marriage. The years pass, and Balu, a disappointed man, has become an inconsolable alcoholic and a newspaper journalist/art critic. Meanwhile, Madhavi's husband dies, and she hears about Balu's condition. In a bid to revive his will to live and his passion for his art, she tends to his medical needs, through his friend, Raghu (Sarath Babu) and solicits Balu to be the dance master for her daughter, Sailaja (SP Sailaja). The film ends with Sailaja's stage performance with Balu watching her in a wheelchair, his health having completely deteriorated. While watching the performance, he passes away. Raghu and Madhavi are seen taking him away quietly, without interrupting the performance, back to the hospital.
1056465	The Taste of Others ( ; ), is a 2000 French film. It was directed by Agnès Jaoui, and written by her and Jean-Pierre Bacri. It stars Jean-Pierre Bacri, Anne Alvaro, Alain Chabat, Agnès Jaoui, Gérard Lanvin and Christiane Millet. The movie won the César Award for Best Film, Best Supporting Actor, Best Supporting Actress and Best Writing in 2001, and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. It currently ranks fourteenth on Rotten Tomatoes as best reviewed movie, with 100% positive reviews. Plot. Castella (Bacri) owns a steel factory. He is told that in order to conduct a business with a group of Iranians, he must learn English, so he hires Clara (Alvaro) to teach him. His wife, Angelique (Millet), is an interior decorator who loves her dog and is in the process of working on her sister-in-law's apartment. The couple go to the theatre, where their niece is performing in a production of "Bérénice", accompanied by the driver, Bruno (Chabat), and Castella's temporary bodyguard, Franck (Lanvin). While there, he sees Clara, who is an actress. Meanwhile, we learn from Franck and Bruno's conversation that the former was a police officer. After working tirelessly with his partner towards bringing down a seemingly untouchable criminal, their investigation was abruptly ended. Franck had finally suffered enough corruption and quit the force, while the partner he respected never spoke a word about it. Franck sends Bruno to the bar to buy cigarettes. The barmaid, Manie (Jaoui), remembers having had sex with Bruno, but Bruno regrets that he does not remember her.
1082354	The Girl of Your Dreams () is a 1998 Spanish drama film produced and directed by Fernando Trueba based on facts: during the Spanish Civil War, cinema studios supported the Republic, so Franco's followers had to go to Germany or Italy to make fictional films at Universum Film AG, known as UFA studios in Berlin to shoot both Spanish and German language versions. For example, in 1938 Florián Rey filmed "Carmen, la de Triana" and a German-language double film named "Andalusische Nächte" (English: "Nights in Andalusia"), both starring Imperio Argentina, an actress with whom, according to legend, Hitler fell in love. Imperio Argentina sued producers and director for using her life without permission to make this film. In Trueba's film, Goebbels falls in love with the Spanish Andalusian actress Macarena Granada (Penélope Cruz).
1059255	Billy Madison is a 1995 American comedy film directed by Tamra Davis. It stars Adam Sandler in the title role, along with Bradley Whitford, Bridgette Wilson, Norm Macdonald and Darren McGavin. The film was written by Sandler and Tim Herlihy, and produced by Robert Simonds. It made over $26.4 million worldwide and debuted at #1. The film is about a slacker (Billy Madison) who must go back to school in order to take over his father's company. The comedy also features Chris Farley and Steve Buscemi with uncredited appearances.
1055582	Captain Ron is a 1992 American comedy film directed by Thom Eberhardt, produced by David Permut, and written by John Dwyer for Touchstone Pictures. It stars Kurt Russell as the title character, a sailor with a quirky personality and a checkered past, and Martin Short as a middle-class family man who hires him to sail a yacht through the Caribbean with the man and his family aboard. Mary Kay Place, Benjamin Salisbury, and Meadow Sisto also star as the man's wife and children.
582598	Firaaq is a 2008 Hindi political thriller film set one month after the 2002 violence in Gujarat, India and looks at the aftermath in its effects on the lives of everyday people. It claims to be based on "a thousand true stories". "Firaaq" means both separation and quest in Arabic. The film is the directorial debut of actress Nandita Das and stars Naseeruddin Shah, Deepti Naval, Paresh Rawal, Raghubir Yadav, Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Shahana Goswami, Amruta Subhash, Sanjay Suri, and Tisca Chopra. It has largely been well received locally and internationally. "Firaaq" won three awards at the Asian Festival of First Films in Singapore in December 2008, the Special Prize at the International Thessaloniki Film Festival, and an award at the Kara Film Festival. It won two National Film Awards at 56th National Film Awards. Plot. "Firaaq" follows the life of several ordinary people, some who were victims, some silent observers, and some perpetrators one month after the 2002 violence in Gujarat. It focuses on how their lives are affected and (irrevocably) changed.
1165696	Max Showalter (June 2, 1917 – July 30, 2000) was an American film, television, and stage actor, as well as a composer, pianist, and singer. One of Showalter's most memorable roles was as Jean Peters' character's husband in the 1953 film "Niagara". Showalter is also credited as Casey Adams. Early career. Born in Caldwell, Kansas, to Ira Edward Showalter (1887-1953) and Elma Roxanna Dodson Showalter (1889-1953), he developed a desire for acting as a toddler while accompanying his mother to local theatres where she played piano for silent movies. By the late 1930s, he had multiple stage roles under his belt, and soon made his Broadway debut in "Knights of Song". Showalter also appeared in the traveling musical "This Is the Army" for two years and in other notable Broadway productions like "Make Mine Manhattan" and "The Grass Harp". His most memorable stage role was as Horace Vandergelder in the Broadway hit show, "Hello Dolly!". Showalter performed the role more than 3,000 times opposite Carol Channing, Betty Grable and Ginger Rogers. Motion pictures and television. In the late 1940s, Showalter was signed to 20th Century Fox as a featured contract player. His name was changed by Fox's founder, Darryl F. Zanuck to the more "bankable" Casey Adams. He made his feature film debut in "Always Leave Them Laughing" (1949). He first appeared on live television in the short-lived musical variety series "The Swift Show" (1948–49), also known as the "The Lanny Ross Show".
1056135	Gailard Sartain (born September 18, 1946) is an American comedic and serious actor, often playing characters with roots in the South. He was a regular on the country music variety series "Hee Haw". He is also an accomplished and successful painter and illustrator. Early years and education. Sartain was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma, the son of a Tulsa fire chief. He attended Cascia Hall Preparatory School, is a 1963 graduate of Will Rogers High School in Tulsa and was a member of the Epsilon Mu chapter of the Kappa Sigma Fraternity at the University of Tulsa, from which he graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree. In 1968, Gailard moved to New York City, where he worked as an assistant to illustrator Paul Davis. Career. Sartain's entry into entertainment was launched in Tulsa. Working originally as a cameraman at a local television station, he gained notoriety through the creation of a late night off-the-wall comedy program entitled "The Uncanny Film Festival and Camp Meeting". Dressed as a wizard, wearing a dark blue robe and pointed wizard's cap, Sartain hosted the program as "Dr. Mazeppa Pompazoidi". Other cast members included fellow Tulsans Gary Busey and Jim Millaway. The program was broadcast on the Tulsa CBS affiliate KOTV and later the ABC affiliate KTUL. It featured B-movies, with skits written and performed by Sartain, Busey and company between the movie segments. Discovered by a talent scout during his stint as Mazeppa, Sartain was hired in 1972 as a regular on the television program "Hee Haw". Sartain remained as a regular cast member of the popular show for nearly 20 seasons. He also served as a regular on other series including "" (1975–76) and "Shields and Yarnell" (1978). Sartain played C.D. Parker for one episode during the pilot season of "Walker, Texas Ranger". He also supplied the voice of a social worker in the pilot episode of the animated series "King of the Hill". He has appeared in more than forty motion pictures, most notably as The Big Bopper in "The Buddy Holly Story", Sheriff Ray Stuckey in "Mississippi Burning", "The Outsiders," "The Hollywood Knights", "Fried Green Tomatoes", ""The Replacements"" as Offensive Assistant Coach Leo Pilachowski,"The Big Easy", "The Grifters", "The Patriot", and an uncredited role in the 1994 comedy "Wagons East" starring John Candy and Richard Lewis.
1373056	Noureen DeWulf (born February 28, 1984) is an American actress, currently starring as Lacey in FX's "Anger Management". She is best known for her roles in films such as "West Bank Story", "Ghosts of Girlfriends Past", and "The Back-up Plan". Early life. DeWulf was born in New York City to Indian Gujarati parents from Pune. She grew up in Stone Mountain, Georgia. Acting career. DeWulf began her acting career in the Academy Award-winning short film "West Bank Story", where she played the lead role of Fatima, a singing and dancing Palestinian cashier who falls in love with an Israeli soldier. She has been working in comedic television series and films ever since. From 2009 to 2011, she played recurring roles on NBC's "Outsourced", TNT's "Hawthorne" and MTV's "The Hard Times of RJ Berger", and appeared in the Lifetime miniseries "Maneater". DeWulf has been seen in a number of box-office hits, including "Ocean's Thirteen", and "The Back-up Plan". She has starred opposite Matthew McConaughey as Melanie, the present ghost in "Ghosts of Girlfriends Past" and played opposite Jeremy Piven in "" in 2009. DeWulf starred in "The Taqwacores" which premiered at Sundance in 2010. She currently co-stars with Charlie Sheen in the TV series "Anger Management", which premiered June 28, 2012. on FX. Personal life. DeWulf married Buffalo Sabres goaltender Ryan Miller on September 3, 2011. She has stated that she follows no religion, but has described herself as "hugely spiritual". Magazine appearances. In 2007, DeWulf ranked in "Maxim" magazine's "Hot 100" as one of the most desirable women on the planet according to the magazine's readers. In 2009, she was listed in the 'Top 30 under 30' for "Nylon" magazine. In addition, DeWulf has appeared in pictorials in "Details", "Men's Health", "Zink", "Giant", and "Complex". She has appeared on the covers of "East West Woman" and "Audrey" magazines.
582885	Diljale (one who has suffered a burnt heart) is an Indian Hindi action romance film released in the year 1996. It stars Ajay Devgn, Sonali Bendre and Madhoo as the lead protagonists. Amrish Puri, Shakti Kapoor and Parmeet Sethi played supporting roles in the film. The film was directed by Harry Baweja. It was a major hit and established Sonali Bendre's acting credentials. Plot. The story is based in Kashmir. It starts with a sad Radhika (Sonali Bendre) being introduced to an Army Major (Parmeet Sethi) by her father, Raja Saab (Shakti Kapoor) an erstwhile king and current politician. Raja Saab tells her that the Major will be a good husband for her. On the day of the engagement, news breaks of a terrorist attack in a nearby village led by the terrorist, Shaka (Ajay Devgn). The Major and Raja Saab leave with a large force to that village. But that turns out to be a ruse as Shaka comes to the place of the engagement and burns the marriage Mandap. Then he gives a long look to Radhika, who looks at him with hatred, and leaves. Shaka reaches his lair where he meets his leader, Dara (Amrish Puri) and Shabnam (Madhoo) and the rest of his gang. Dara welcomes him and proclaims him to be Diljale. Shabnam, who loves him, tries to hug him but Shaka rebuffs it. Shaka then goes to visit his mother (Farida Jalal) where the story of Shaka is shown in a flashback. Shaka was originally Shyam, a patriotic college student and son of a local village leader. Radhika studies in the same college and they both fall deeply in love. When Raja Saab tries to usurp all the village land, Shyam's father organizes all the villages against him. Raja Saab bribes a local police officer (Gulshan Grover) who proclaims Shyam's father as a terrorist and kills him in an encounter. When Shyam goes to Raja Saab's home to take revenge, Raja Saab (who knows of their love affair and feels it is below his family's dignity) frames Shyam also as a terrorist and tries to kill him. Shyam escapes but Radhika, who only sees him threatening her father, berates him and proclaims him a terrorist. Brokenhearted Shyam joins Dara's group and becomes Shaka. Back in the present time, the Major surrounds Shaka at his mother's home but finds himself outnumbered by Shaka's men. Shaka asks him to go away. The Major then confronts Radhika and asks her if she knows Shaka from earlier. Under pressure from Raja Saab, she denies knowing Shaka.
1065392	Shopgirl is a 2005 American romantic drama film directed by Anand Tucker and starring Steve Martin, Claire Danes, and Jason Schwartzman. The screenplay by Steve Martin is based on his 2000 novella of the same name. The film is about a complex love triangle between a bored salesgirl, a wealthy businessman, and an aimless young man. Produced by Ashok Amritraj, Jon Jashni, and Steve Martin for Touchstone Pictures and Hyde Park Entertainment, and distributed in the United States by Buena Vista Pictures, "Shopgirl" was released on October 21, 2005 and received generally positive reviews from film critics. The film went on to earn $11,112,077 and was nominated for four Satellite Awards, including Best Picture and Best Adapted Screenplay. Plot. Mirabelle Buttersfield (Claire Danes), a transplanted Vermonter, is an aspiring artist and saleswoman at the evening gloves counter at Saks Fifth Avenue in Beverly Hills. Her quiet, orderly existence - filled with both the mundane (futon furniture and an aging pickup truck) and the serious (a large student loan and a supply of antidepressants) - is disrupted by the sudden appearance of two disparate men. Jeremy (Jason Schwartzman) is an immature, awkward, socially inept, penniless twenty-something graphic designer for an amplifier manufacturer and aspiring typographer who enters Mirabelle's life first (in a laundromat). Mirabelle, aching for any kind of meaningful contact with someone else, gives him a chance, but it quickly fizzles after a half-hearted date (that she pays for) followed by a woefully underwhelming sexual encounter. Ray Porter (Steve Martin) is a considerably older, suave, well-dressed, wealthy, divorced logician. Ray charms Mirabelle over the course of a few dates, one of which ends at his house. Mirabelle offers herself to him, and the morning after they have sex Ray tells her that he does not intend for their relationship to be serious due to his constant traveling between L.A. and Seattle. Each has a different understandings of this talk: Ray tells his psychiatrist that Mirabelle knows that he is going to see other people, and Mirabelle tells her acquaintances that Ray wanted to see her more.
744533	Nathaniel Lees is an Auckland, New Zealand born actor and theatre director of Samoan descent. He is known for his role as Captain Mifune in "The Matrix" trilogy and his role as "Uglúk" in '. He has also had roles on the TV series "Young Hercules", ' and '. He is also well known for a long career in theatre, having received many prestigious rewards for his contribution to the arts. He appeared in "30 Days of Night" with Josh Hartnett. He also played Master Mao in the "Power Rangers" series '. Early television appearances in New Zealand included a regular role in the 1989 series "Shark in the Park". Theatre Director. Lees was the director of the award winning play "Think of a Garden" written by John Kneubuhl, produced by Cath Cardiff and performed at Taki Rua Theatre in Wellington 1995. At the prestigious Chapman Tripp Theatre Awards 1995, the play won "Production of the Year" and Lees was awarded "Director of the Year." In 1996, he directed "A Frigate Bird Sings" co-written by Oscar Kightley and Dave Fane and produced by Makerita Urale for the New Zealand International Festival of the Arts. The set was designed by Kate Peters and Michel Tuffery. The play was nominated for "Production of the Year, Director of the Year," and "Set Design" at the 1996 Chapman Tripp Theatre Awards. In 2003, Lees directed "The Songmaker's Chair" by Albert Wendt. He also directed "Awhi Tapu", by Maori playwright Albert Belz. Drol
1057959	Leatherheads is a 2008 American sports comedy film from Universal Pictures directed by and starring George Clooney. The film also stars Renée Zellweger, Jonathan Pryce, and John Krasinski and focuses on the early years of professional American football. The script is by Duncan Brantley and ESPN's Rick Reilly. Plot. Jimmy "Dodge" Connelly (George Clooney) is captain of the Duluth Bulldogs, a struggling professional American football team circa 1925. Dodge is determined to save both his team and pro football in general when the players lose their sponsor and the league is on the brink of collapse. He convinces Princeton University's college football star, Carter "the Bullet" Rutherford, to join the Bulldogs, hoping to capitalize on Carter's fame as a decorated hero of the First World War (like Alvin York, he single-handedly captured a large group of German soldiers). In addition to his legendary tales of combat heroism, Carter has dashing good looks and unparalleled speed and skill on the field. As a result of his presence, both the Bulldogs and pro football in general begin to prosper. "Chicago Tribune" newspaper reporter Lexie Littleton becomes the object of the affections of both Dodge and Carter. Lexie has been assigned to find proof that Carter's war heroics are bogus. Carter confesses that the surrender of the Germans was a lucky accident and that his role in it was more foolish than heroic. Carter soon discovers Lexie's agenda and is doubly hurt when he learns that Dodge and Lexie are starting to show affections for each other and even shared a kiss. The ensuing fight over Lexie's affections puts her off. Spurred on by the threats of Carter's manager, she decides to publish the story. The story sparks a firestorm of accusations and reprimands. Carter's manager resorts to shady dealing to cover it up, even bribing the original witness to change his story. Dodge's attempts to legitimize pro football take a life of its own. The new commissioner formalizes the game's rules, taking away improvisational antics. In addition, the commissioner takes the responsibility of clearing up the Carter controversy to set an example for the new direction of professional football. With the whole world against Lexie (even the "Tribune" is pushing her to retract her story), Dodge concocts a clever ruse. Interrupting a private hearing in the commissioner's office, Dodge threatens Carter with a confrontation by his old army mates. Dodge claims that they are just outside the door, ready to congratulate him for his heroic actions. In truth, the men are Bulldogs in borrowed Army uniforms. Carter confesses the truth. The commissioner frees Lexie from printing a retraction. Carter is ordered to simply say he got too much credit for his war actions, but must give a hefty part of his paycheck to the American Legion. Carter's conniving manager is banned from football as well. Dodge is warned that if he pulls any old tricks to win the next game, he will lose his place in the league. Dodge plays in one last game. This time it will be against Carter, who has changed sides from Duluth to Chicago. The rivalry for Lexie's affection spills onto the field. The game does not go so well for Dodge, including how muddy the field is. Dodge decides football should be played without rules. Lexie notices that after a brawl, Dodge is missing and with most players covered in mud, no one can tell who is who. There appears to be an interception and Chicago seems to have won, but when the mud is removed it's seen that the player is none other than Dodge Connelly, who disguised himself as a Chicago player on the play. The play is changed from an interception to a touchdown, and the Bulldogs win. Carter mentions to Dodge that he is finished playing football, based on the threat the commissioner had made. He intends to tell the newspapers the real story about his "capture" of the German soldiers. Dodge argues that America "needs" heroes and it is implied the true story won't be told. Dodge and Carter part on good terms once again. After the game, Dodge meets up with Lexie and they ride into the sunset on Dodge's motorbike, discussing with humor the possibilities in their future, which include bankruptcy, scandals and jail time. During the end credits, pictures show Dodge and Lexie getting married, Carter donating $10,000 to the US military and Carter's former manager with new clients Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig. Real-life basis. In an interview on the "Late Show with David Letterman", Clooney mentioned the plot is loosely based on George Halas's signing of University of Illinois football star Harold "Red" Grange. Grange was signed to a contract with the Chicago Bears in 1925, the day after his final game at Illinois. The team itself is loosely based on the Duluth Eskimos. Clooney later explained that "We wanted to call them the Eskimos, but because we were drinking in the movie, the NFL said we couldn't use the actual names." The Canton Bulldogs was the first successful pro football team, which is why the Professional Football Hall of Fame is located in Canton, Ohio. Production. "Leatherheads" began filming on February 12, 2007. Filming locations mainly included locations in Chattanooga, Tennessee, upstate South Carolina around Anderson, Greenville, Ware Shoals, Greer and Travelers Rest, as well as Boiling Springs and western North Carolina around Statesville, Greensboro and Winston-Salem, specifically at Hanes Middle School and the Winston-Salem Millenium Center. Additional train scenes were filmed in the Winston-Salem suburb of Tobaccoville, specifically in the community of Donnaha. The crew and cast headquarters during the Winston-Salem scenes were based in the nearby town of East Bend, in Yadkin County, NC. The football game scenes at the beginning and at the end of the picture were filmed at Memorial Stadium at Central Piedmont Community College in Charlotte, North Carolina, with technical advisor T.J. Troup "teaching them the intricacies of 1920s football so that they look and sound like real players of the era." Train scenes were filmed at the North Carolina Transportation Museum in Spencer, North Carolina and The Tennessee Valley Railroad Museum in Chattanooga, TN. Filming wrapped in mid-May 2007. After initially being set for release in December 2007, the studio moved the release date to April 4, 2008. On March 24, George Clooney and Renée Zellweger premiered the film in Maysville, Kentucky, birthplace of Clooney's father and aunt, Nick Clooney and Rosemary Clooney. Clooney and Zellweger visited Duluth to promote the film. The piano player bent over the tack piano with eyes glued to music is the composer of the original music in this film, Oscar-winning songwriter Randy Newman. The George and Ira Gershwin song "The Man I Love" is sung in the film but the song was not extant in 1925. It was "part of the 1927 score for the Gershwin antiwar musical satire "Strike Up the Band"". Special effects. The motorcycle that Clooney and Zellweger rode in "Leatherheads" is not a vintage V-twin motorcycle. It is one of three custom-built 36-volt electric-powered Indian replicas. Box office performance. In its opening weekend, the film grossed $12.6 million in 2,769 theaters in the United States and Canada, ranking #3 at the box office behind "Nim's Island", below the expectations of Universal Studios. Viewers in their 50s to 80s were the main audience for the film. As of October 2013, the movie had made about $31.2 million from the United States and Canada and $10.1 million from other markets making a global total of $41.3 million. The budget for the film was $58 million. Critical reception. The film received mixed reviews from critics. As of April 5, 2008, the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reported that 52% of critics gave the film positive reviews, based on 163 reviews. Metacritic reported the film had an average score of 57 out of 100, based on 32 reviews. Writing credits. In 2007, a Writers Guild of America arbitration vote decided not to award Clooney a screen credit for the film, preferring to credit only the original writers, longtime "Sports Illustrated" columnist Rick Reilly and his former magazine colleague, Duncan Brantley. In response to the WGA's ruling, Clooney resigned his full WGA status to go "financial core" within the guild, meaning that while still technically a member, he only has limited rights. While he did not contest the ruling of the WGA, Clooney said that he did not want to exclude Brantley and Reilly, agreeing that they deserved the first position credit for their work, but felt that his "major overhaul" of the 17-year-old script to turn it into a screwball comedy left only two of the original scenes intact. Co-producer Grant Heslov stated that he thought the guild "made the wrong decision," saying, "This script that Duncan and Rick wrote sat languid until after we finished "Good Night, and Good Luck" ... George liked "Leatherheads" but said it never felt quite right. He took it to Italy with him, and I remember when he called to say he thought he'd solved it. One thing that you clearly see, if you read the original, the subsequent drafts and then his draft, is that he wrote the majority of the film ... We both thought Duncan and Rick would get first position credit, which they deserved. But this wasn't right."
1058290	Jodelle Micah Ferland (born October 9, 1994) is a Canadian actress, best known for her portrayals of Sharon/Alessa in the 2006 horror film "Silent Hill", Mary Jensen in the 2004 miniseries "Kingdom Hospital" and Bree Tanner in the 2010 film "". Life and career. Ferland was born in Nanaimo, British Columbia, the daughter of Valerie and Marc Ferland. Her siblings are actress Marisha Ferland and musician Jeremy Ferland.
899065	"Fellini's Casanova" ("Il Casanova di Federico Fellini") is a 1976 Italian film by director Federico Fellini, adapted from the autobiography of Giacomo Casanova, the 18th century adventurer and writer. Shot entirely at the Cinecittà studios in Rome, the film won an Academy Award for Best Costume Design, with the Oscar going to Danilo Donati. The film portrays Casanova's life as a freakish journey into sexual abandonment. Any meaningful emotion or sensuality is eclipsed by increasingly strange situations. The narrative presents Casanova's adventures in a detached, methodical fashion, as the respect he yearns for is constantly undermined by more basic urges. Plot. The film opens with a carnival in Venice as a prelude to a series of erotic encounters that follow Giacomo Casanova through the cities of 18th century Europe. It is during this festival that a gigantic bust fails to rise from the water, which is taken as a bad omen. Casanova is then introduced as he defiles a fake nun for the pleasure of a rich voyeur; Casanova succeeds in entertaining him, but he is frustrated that the man finds no interest in his alchemical research and further scheming. As he rows back to mainland, Casanova is arrested, judged and imprisoned by the High Court over his famed debauchery. During his time in prison, Casanova reminisces of his affair with a seamstress and later on one of her servants, Anna Maria, who is bound by frequent fainting and requires constant bloodletting. He eventually consummates his desire to be with Anna Maria. Back in prison, Casanova escapes through the rooftops and exiles himself from Venice, being taken into the Paris court of the Madame d'Urfé. The Madame, an aged woman, enthralled by Casanova's apparent knowledge of alchemy, wishes to transform her soul into a man's through ritualistic intercourse with him (an act that requires the presence of a younger woman in the room, so that Casanova can get aroused). Casanova then moves to the court of a hunchback, Du Bois, in between taking charge of a beautiful girl—"the love of life"—Henriette. Du Bois puts on a homosexual performance for his guests that unsettles some of his guests and Casanova is brought to tears as Henriette plays some music. The lovers vow fidelity to each other, but the following morning Henriette has disappeared. Du Bois informs Casanova that an emissary of a far-away court has reclaimed Henriette, and she's left her bidding that Casanova not attempt following her. While in London, an aged Casanova is robbed by two women and he attempts suicide by drowning himself in the Thames. A vision of a giantess and two dwarves detracts him, and follows them to a Frost fair, where he arm-wrestles the giantess—a princess—and later pays to watch her bathe with the dwarves. Casanova resumes his travelling the following day. He frequents a deranged party at Lord Talou's in Rome, where he wins a bet with a stagecoach driver, Righetto, over how many orgasms he can have in one hour. The competition brings him higher acclaim. In Germany he falls in love with an alchemist's daughter, Isabella, who fails to keep up with an appointment to go to Dresden with him; Casanova instead partakes in an orgy within the hostel he's been stranded. He has a brief, chance encounter with his enstranged mother in a theater. He then moves to a court in Württemberg, where his desire to be taken seriously as a writer/inventor are frustrated by the court's orgiastic, wild nature. It is here that he meets Rosalba, a mechanical doll with whom he shares a dance and later on goes to bed with. Times goes by and an old Casanova finds himself librarian to Count Waldstein at his castle in Dux. Life at the castle is more than frustrating for Casanova, as he is made eat with other servants and does not get the respect nor the food he claims to deserve. Waldstein's manservant, Faulkircher, and his lover Vidarol, make him object of mockery and animosity. A portrait of him is hanged and defecated on. Later on, during a fervent poetry recital, a court member fails to suppress a giggle at Casanova, who, humiliated and disappointed, goes back up to his room. The final scene has a weary, bloodshot Casanova cringing in an armchair and recounting a recent dream. In this dream, Casanova is back in Venice. He catches a glimpse of the giant bust seen in the beginning of the film, buried under thick layers of ice in the lagoon. He chases the ghosts of his past lovers, all of whom disappear. An ornate stagecoach beckons him to join its passengers. He finally meets with Rosalba, the mechanical doll, once again. They quietly dance with each other. Production. Producer Dino De Laurentiis saw Robert Redford in the role of Casanova but Fellini refused to cast him. When De Laurentiis bowed out of the project and Fellini signed a new contract with producer Alberto Grimaldi, Donald Sutherland was cast in the role, requiring that he shave his head and wear both prosthetic nose and chin. Fellini had to re-shoot parts of this movie, including the elaborate Venice carnival scene, when approximately seventy reels of film—including the first three weeks of shooting—were stolen at the Technicolor labs of Tiburtino, Rome, on August 27, 1975. The thieves were apparently interested in Pasolini's "Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom" (1975), and some reels of this film were also stolen, along with half of Damiano Damiani's spaghetti western "A Genius, Two Partners and a Dupe" (1975). Music was composed by Nino Rota, a frequent Fellini collaborator. Style. "Fellini’s Casanova" is noted for its symbolic, highly stylised "mise en scène" and the casting of Donald Sutherland in the lead role. By using a range of visual effects, Fellini attempted to depict Casanova as a debauched figure incapable of displaying any genuine emotion. This Felliniesque style is most noticeable in Sutherland’s acting and appearance, which was made overtly graphic at the director's request. Other unusual techniques include a scene where Sutherland rows across a stormy sea made from black plastic sheets.
1164508	Zelda Rubinstein (May 28, 1933 – January 27, 2010) was an American actress and human rights activist, best known as eccentric medium Tangina Barrons in the Poltergeist film series. Playing 'Ginny', she was a regular on David E. Kelley's Emmy Award winning television series "Picket Fences" for several seasons. She also made guest appearances in the TV show "" (1996), as seer 'Christina' and was the voice of Skittles candies in their long-running 'Taste the Rainbow' ad campaign. Rubinstein was also known for her outspoken activism for little people and her early participation in the fight against HIV/AIDS. Early life. Rubinstein was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on May 28 to Jewish immigrant parents. She was the youngest of three children and the only little person in her family. Rubinstein did not become comfortable with her short stature until she was an adult. In a 1992 interview with the "Chicago Sun-Times", Rubinstein told the newspaper that she "had a rough childhood, I became very verbally facile. . . . I learned to meet everyone head-on." She stood just due to a deficiency of the anterior pituitary gland, which produces growth hormone. Commenting in 2002 on the challenges of being a very short statured person, Rubinstein said, "Little People are "societally" handicapped. They have about two minutes to present themselves as equals—and if they don’t take advantage of that chance, then people fall back on the common assumption that 'less' is less." Rubinstein won a scholarship to the University of Pittsburgh, where she earned her bachelor's degree in bacteriology and became a sister of the national sorority Phi Sigma Sigma. She moved to Berkeley, California, at the age of 25, studied at the University of California, Berkeley, and worked as a medical lab technician at blood banks. Acting career. In 1978 Zelda decided to pursue an acting career. She studied acting at the University of California. "Poltergeist" was her first major film role. She remained active in film and television from thereon, frequently portraying various psychic characters, such as her appearance on "Jennifer Slept Here". She also narrated the horror television series, "Scariest Places on Earth", which aired in the U.S. on ABC Family and in Canada on YTV. Rubinstein's other minor/major film roles included "Sixteen Candles", "Under the Rainbow", "Cages", "Teen Witch", "The Wildcard", "Southland Tales" and "National Lampoon's Last Resort". She also contributed voice-over work for TV including "Hey Arnold!", and "The Flintstones". She made numerous guest appearances on network TV shows, including "Caroline in the City", "Martin", "Mr. Belvedere", and had a starring role as Ginny Weedon in the TV series "Picket Fences". Her character there was killed off in typical off-beat fashion, by falling into a freezer. She also appeared in an episode of "Tales From The Crypt" in which she played the mother of a girl who has been dead for 40 years. In 1993, she made a cameo appearance in the campy thriller "Acting on Impulse", which reunited her with "Poltergeist III" co-star Nancy Allen. She also starred in two different roles on the same show in 1984 and in 1990: "Santa Barbara". Beginning in 1999, she did voiceovers in television starting with the Fox Family reality TV Show, "Scariest Places On Earth," commercials promoting movies such as "Lady in the Water," and products including Skittles candy. Her last film role came in 2007 when she made a cameo appearance in the horror film "". She also appeared in a cameo as herself at the Revenge of the Mummy ride in Universal Studios Florida on the screens which shows various actors from the films warning the people to leave, telling them about the curse of Imhotep. Human rights and activism. Rubinstein became active in the fight against HIV/AIDS in 1984. She appeared in a series of advertisements, directed towards gay men specifically, promoting safer sex and AIDS awareness. Rubinstein did so at risk to her own career, especially so shortly after her rise to fame, and admitted later that she did "pay a price, career-wise". She attended the first AIDS Project Los Angeles AIDS Walk.
582736	Khiladi () is a 1992 Bollywood suspense thriller film directed by Abbas Mustan. The film was Akshay Kumar's breakthrough role and also stars Ayesha Jhulka, Deepak Tijori, Sabeeha. While Prem Chopra, Shakti Kapoor, Anant Mahadevan and Johnny Lever played supporting roles. "Khiladi" was the first installment in the Khiladi (film series) which had "Khiladi" in the title and Akshay Kumar in the leading role. It was followed by "Main Khiladi Tu Anari" (1994), "Sabse Bada Khiladi" (1995), "Khiladiyon Ka Khiladi" (1996), "Mr. and Mrs. Khiladi" (1997), "International Khiladi" (1999), "Khiladi 420"(2000) and "Khiladi 786" (2012). Khiladi was critically and commercially success at the box-office and the tenth highest grossing film of 1992. Synopsis. Raj Malhotra (Akshay Kumar), Boney (Deepak Tijori), Neelam Choudhary (Ayesha Jhulka) and Sheetal Nath (Sabeeha) are four pranksters in their college. Raj is younger brother of Inspector Suresh Malhotra (Shakti Kapoor), Boney probably has no relatives, Sheetal is the daughter of minister Kailash Nath (Prem Chopra) while Neelam is rich heiress with her uncle (Anant Mahadevan) as her only living relative. Raj and Neelam as well as Boney and Sheetal are romantically involved. Raj bets habitually and has not lost yet, but when he bets that he can extort money from Kailash, the remaining gang is sceptical. As per the bet, they make Kailash believe that Sheetal is kidnapped, while in reality they have housed themselves in a cottage outside Bombay belonging to Pillai (Johnny Lever). But when Sheetal is murdered mysteriously, the investigation is given to Suresh. Raj, Boney and Neelam try to clean their trail. The group has escaped three fatal accidents. Suspicions arise whether the accidents were just macabre coincidences. Little do they know that the problem is much bigger and sinister than they can ever imagine. Plot. When Raj makes the bet, he decides that Boney will pose as a kidnapper with him. Raj puts his plan into action and Kailash gets moving. Kailash panics and decides to not to alert the police. However, one of his aides smells a rat. On deciding that Sheetal has been kidnapped, Suresh is saddled with the case. Learning this, the group panics. Kailash, however, delivers the money, ignorant of the development. Raj and Boney recover the money and go to meet the ladies, who are still sceptical. Neelam sees them coming and goes to receive them. She is surprised to see the money and the trio calls Sheetal. Sheetal arrives with a strange look on her face and collapses dead — revealing a knife in her back. The gang is taken unawares by this unexpected development, but quickly recovers and hides Sheetal's body before anyone gets a scent. They successfully evade the suspicions of Suresh and finally manage to hide Sheetal's body in trunk of a car parked in a theare parking. Sheetal's body is found and her kidnappers become prime suspects. Meanwhile, some strange developments are taking place: a dancer named Julie (Kunika) blackmails Kailash. It is revealed that Julie is a well-known dancer but has been blackmailing Kailash for quite some time. She asks a hefty amount; Kailash refuses. She threatens him and tells him to attend a dance show she has arranged. There, Kailash is supposed to give her the money as prize. Neelam gets a pleasant surprise when her uncle shows up to see how she is doing. Coincidentally, he is going to attend the function too. Raj and Boney decide to participate. On learning about Julie's meeting with Kailash, Suresh thinks that there is more to the case than it appears. Boney gets on stage to dance with Julie and, in the middle of the dance, recognizes her as the woman who nearly killed them. Realizing that those accidents were more than a coincidence, he decides to confront her after the show. After the show, Neelam goes to her hostel while Raj goes home. Meanwhile, Suresh becomes confident that the trio is involved in the case. He confronts Raj who tells the truth. Here, Boney comes to meet Julie, only to see her dressing room door is locked. He hears some voices and peeps through a keyhole. Julie is with a man whom Boney is unable to see. Boney's suspicion proves correct: Julie tells the man that she tried to kill the gang on his orders. She blackmails the man, too, and he kills her. At this point, Boney sees the killer and flees. The killer is alerted of Boney's presence and sends goons to kill him. Raj and Suresh try to find Boney after they realize that he is missing. Meanwhile, Boney is stabbed and about to be killed by the goons when the brothers arrive. After Raj single-handedly takes on the goons, Boney tells him that Neelam is in danger before becoming unconscious. Raj calls Neelam and alerts her; the phone gets suddenly disconnected. He rushes to her hostel with Suresh. Neelam is alone in the hostel and is horrified to find that the watchman is already dead. Meanwhile, Raj tells the truth to Suresh. Neelam gets attacked by the killer. She doesn't get to see his face but is able to defend herself. She succeeds in throwing him out of the window, thinking that he is dead. As she is gasping for breath, the killer is revealed to be her uncle. She is shocked. He tries to kill her. Raj and Suresh arrive in time to arrest him. While in lockup, he reveals the truth: He is not Neelam's uncle. He is the manager of her estate, who was given her custody by her dying father, as Neelam had no other living relatives. He thought that he would get at least some part of the estate as her guardian, but her father's will revealed that when she turns 18, he will lose all the estate to her. According to another clause, if she died before turning 18, he would inherit the estate. Neelam's premature death had to be natural, not foul play. Since he couldn't risk becoming a suspect, he sent Neelam to Bombay under the guise of higher education. He hired Julie to kill the gang, to write off Neelam's death as an accident. When Julie failed, he took the matter in his own hands. On learning the gang's plan, he went to the cottage and killed Sheetal, mistaking her for Neelam. After his testimony, the gang is exonerated. Boney recovers and the gang gives Kailash his money back. Kailash forgives them, telling them to not to play such a rude prank with anyone.
1163179	Michael Showalter (born June 17, 1970) is an American comedian, actor, writer, and director. He is a member of the sketch comedy trio Stella. Showalter first came to recognition as a cast member on MTV's "The State", which aired from 1993 to 1995. He co-wrote (with David Wain) and starred in "Wet Hot American Summer" (2001) and he wrote, directed, and starred in "The Baxter" (2005), with Michelle Williams, Justin Theroux and Elizabeth Banks. Both of these movies featured many of his co-stars from "The State", and so do several of his other projects. Early life. Michael Showalter was born in Princeton, New Jersey, the son of Elaine Showalter (née Cottler), an author, literary critic and professor, and English Showalter, a Yale-educated professor of 18th century French literature. His father is Episcopalian and his mother is Jewish. He has one older sister, Vinca Showalter LaFleur, a professional speechwriter. He attended Princeton High School. For five years, Showalter shared an apartment with his friend Andrea Rosen.
1163554	Raymond Albert "Ray" Romano (born December 21, 1957) is an American actor, stand-up comedian, screenwriter and voice actor, best known for his roles on the sitcom "Everybody Loves Raymond" and voicing Manny in the "Ice Age" film series. He recently starred in the TNT comedy-drama "Men of a Certain Age". Family and biography. Ray Romano was born in Queens, New York, the son of Lucie, a piano teacher, and Albert Romano (1925 – March 2010), a real estate agent and engineer. He is from an Italian background, and grew up in the Forest Hills neighborhood of Queens. He has an older brother Richard (born 1956), a sergeant with the NYPD, and a younger brother Robert (born 1965 or 1966), a second grade teacher in New York City. Romano married his wife, Anna, on October 11, 1987. They met while working at a bank together. They have four children: one daughter, Alexandra (born 1990), and three sons: twins Matthew and Gregory (born 1993), and Joseph Raymond (born February 16, 1998). Romano's on-screen daughter for "Everybody Loves Raymond" was named after his real-life daughter. Also, in the series pilot, Ray and Debra's twin boys were named after Gregory and Matthew, Romano's real twin sons, but Romano felt it was too weird to have all his TV kids have the same names as his real kids, so they changed the twins' names to Geoffrey and Michael on screen. Romano's family has made various appearances in the show. Romano's real-life daughter Alexandra "Ally" Romano made several appearances on "Everybody Loves Raymond" as Molly, the best friend of his on-screen daughter, Ally, and the daughter of Ray Barone's arch-nemesis, Peggy the Cookie Lady. Romano's father, Albert Romano, has made various appearances as "Albert", one of Frank Barone's lodge buddies in various episodes such as "Debra at the Lodge", and "Boys' Therapy". Romano's brother, Richard Romano, has appeared in the episodes "Golf For It", "Just a Formality" and "The Toaster". In February 2012, Romano revealed that his wife, Anna, had successfully battled stage one breast cancer in 2010. Romano told "People" magazine that "the reason we're going public is to share our experience, yeah, but to have an effect. Our goal is to help people." Career. Ray attended elementary and middle school at Our Lady Queen of Martyrs in Forest Hills. After transferring from Archbishop Molloy High School, Romano graduated from Hillcrest High School in 1975. He was in the same high school class as Fran Drescher and later appeared on Drescher's sitcom, "The Nanny", as an old classmate. Before getting into show business, Romano briefly attended Queens College, in Flushing, New York, where he studied accounting. Romano quit after gaining only 15 credits in three years, but he would later return. Ray's early comedy career started when he competed in the Johnnie Walker Comedy Search in 1989. His career included many outlets, such as Comedy Central, where he had been a recurring guest voice on the show "Dr. Katz, Professional Therapist". He also was a contestant on "Star Search" in the stand-up comedy category. He originally was cast to play Joe (originally named Rick) on the American television sitcom "NewsRadio", but was fired and replaced by Joe Rogan. He then appeared on "Late Show with David Letterman" doing his stand up routine which formed his ties with CBS. Shortly thereafter, he became the star of his own show, "Everybody Loves Raymond" on CBS, that featured a cast and format more suitable to Romano's brand of humor. Ray and his comedian friend, Kevin James, starred in the salesman comedy, "Grilled", as two guys of the same profession who are both very desperate to land a big sale.
1056810	I Could Never Be Your Woman is a 2007 American romantic comedy film directed and written by Amy Heckerling and starring Michelle Pfeiffer and Paul Rudd. The film was released on May 11 in Spain, July 18 in Belgium, September 14 in Brazil, September 20 in Greece and October 19 in Taiwan. The film was not released theatrically in the United States, instead going direct to DVD on February 12, 2008. It was also sent straight to DVD in Italy (February 6), the UK (July 14), Finland (August 6), Australia, Iceland (both August 27) and Germany (December 11). It also went direct to DVD on February 1, 2011 in France. Plot. Rosie (Michelle Pfeiffer), is a 40-year old divorced mother who works as a scriptwriter and producer for a TV show, "You Go Girl." Rosie is insecure about her age, and uses cosmetics to maintain her appearance. She has a very close relationship with her thirteen-year old daughter, Izzie (Saoirse Ronan), which becomes even closer when she learns that she has recently fallen for a boy in her class named Dylan. Despite her ex-husband's urging that she start dating again, she has no man in her life. To the dismay of Rosie and her British co-writer, David (David Mitchell), her boss, Marty (Fred Willard) decides that the show may no longer cover controversial subjects, so Rosie decides to cast a new character for the show. She is taken by Adam (Paul Rudd), a bright and charming young man from one of her auditions, and decides to cast him as a new, nerdy character to fall for the character played by her arrogant and self-centred lead actress, Brianna (Stacey Dash). Adam's character is well received by test audiences, and Rosie persuades Marty to give him a chance.
581946	Dhoom 2 (,English: "Blast 2", also abbreviated and known as D:2, D2 and Dhoom 2: Back In Action) is a 2006 Bollywood action heist film directed by Sanjay Gadhvi and produced by Aditya Chopra and Yash Chopra at an estimated budget of under the Yash Raj Films banner. It is the second film in the "Dhoom" series. Abhishek Bachchan and Uday Chopra star in the film as buddy cops Jai Dixit and Ali, respectively. The duo attempt to capture Mr. A (Hrithik Roshan), a professional thief whose passion is to steal rare and valuable collectibles using high-technology gadgets.The film features Bipasha Basu and Aishwarya Rai in lead female roles.The film was shot primarily in India, Durban, and Rio de Janeiro, becoming the first major Hindi film to be shot in Brazil. The film's distributor, Yash Raj Films, promoted the film by forging associations with Pepe Jeans and Coca-Cola. The film premiered on 24 November 2006 in India, where it received the widest release in Indian cinema history with over 1800 prints. "Dhoom 2" was generally well received by both critics and audiences; it was accepted well by both children and adults. It became the highest-grossing Indian film of 2006, and was the highest-grossing film of all time as well at the time of its release. It is the seventh highest-grossing Bollywood film in overseas markets. After grossing over , the film was elevated to a "blockbuster" rating on Box Office India. It received an 80% approval rating among critics on Rotten Tomatoes. Critics praised "Dhoom 2" for its exotic locales and elaborate action sequences. However, there was an appeal by the Mumbai city police commissioner to censor the fast-paced rash driving scenes in the film due to fears that it would inspire Indian youths to ride their motorcycles rashly, resulting in an increase in the number of road accidents. A sequel titled "Dhoom 3" is currently in production. Plot. The film begins with Mr. A (Hrithik Roshan) sky-diving and landing on a train that is carrying the British Queen. He steals her crown by disguising himself as the Queen and escapes. Newly-promoted officer Ali (Uday Chopra) and Jai Dixit (Abhishek Bachchan) are introduced to Shonali Bose (Bipasha Basu), a special officer assigned to investigate Mr. A's case, who also happens to be a former classmate of Jai. After the initial investigation, Dixit analyses the underlying trend in Mr. A's heists. As per his analysis, a theft in one of two famous Mumbai city museums will follow. However, Dixit realises that the artefact in the museum he is guarding happens to be imperfect. He immediately flees to the other museum when a disguised Mr. A steals a rare diamond and escapes. In a televised challenge to the police, Mr. A announces that he will steal an ancient warrior sword. In response, Dixit, Bose and Khan enforce a strict vigil at the location housing the sword. At night, Mr. A meets his impersonator in the room that holds the sword. The police are alerted, but they manage to steal the sword and escape. The impersonator turns out to be Sunehri (Aishwarya Rai), a woman who idolises Mr. A, and after this they form an alliance. In Rio de Janeiro, Mr. A and Sunehri plan their next heist. As Dixit's analysis has named Rio the location of Mr. A's next heist, Jai and Ali travel to the city. Meanwhile, the relationship between Mr. A and Sunehri evolves into romance. He unveils his real identity, Aryan, to her. However, Mr. A discovers that Sunehri is a spy working for Jai after seeing them together at a theatre and then a parade. Aryan forces Sunehri to play a game of Russian roulette. Sunehri cries and refuses to shoot Aryan because she loves him, but Aryan forces her. However, after six attempted shots from the gun, neither is injured because Aryan had not inserted a bullet into the gun. Sunehri admits she betrayed Aryan and that she loves him. Elsewhere in Rio de Janeiro, Ali develops strong affections towards Monali (Bipasha Basu), Shonali's twin sister. In their final heist, Aryan and Sunehri successfully steal some early Lydian coins while disguised as performing dwarfs. Sunehri indicates that she does not wish to remain allied with Jai, forcing Jai and Ali to go after them. After the chase, all of them end up on the top of a waterfall, where Sunehri is caught by Ali. Sunehri, despite conveying her feelings for Aryan, shoots him. Aryan falls from the waterfall, after which Jai allows Sunehri to go free. After six months, it is revealed that Aryan is still alive and has opened a restaurant in the Fiji islands with Sunehri. Jai meets Aryan and Sunehri at the restaurant and states that despite their crimes, he does not wish to imprison the couple. Aryan shows him where all the stolen artefacts can be found. Jai is aware of the couple's feelings towards each other, but warns them against returning to their life of crime. Production. Development. The "Dhoom series" began with the release of "Dhoom" in 2004. The film became a commercial box office hit and received generally positive reviews from audiences, but not so much from critics. As a result, producer Yash Chopra announced plans for a sequel to the film, entitled "Dhoom 2: Back in Action". John Abraham, portrayer of Kabir Sharma, the villain of the predecessor, was eliminated from the sequel because Chopra did not want "Dhoom 2" to repeat the stories featured in its predecessor. Instead, Hrithik Roshan and Aishwarya Rai were introduced into the franchise as the sequel's main villains. Aishwarya Rai's character was summarised as Catwoman, a female fictional comic book fictional character. Rai stated, "All I can tell you is it would be nothing like anything you've seen me do before." Producer Aditya Chopra told Rai to lose weight after she gained it for her role in 2004's "Bride & Prejudice". Yash Chopra stated, "But yes, the role does require Aishwarya to convey oodles of sensuality. She has asked for a couple of months to get into shape. We (at Yash Raj Films) are very clear about every character in every script and what's required of the actors. Before "Dhoom", Esha Deol was specifically briefed about the look and the attitude she needed to cultivate. She readily agreed, and look at what "Dhoom" did to her career!" Roshan also lost twelve pounds of weight at Aditya Chopra's request. With the exception of Abraham and Esha Deol, all of the other main actors in "Dhoom" were hired again for "Dhoom 2". Filming. "Dhoom 2" was filmed in Mumbai (India), Namibia, Durban (South Africa), and Rio de Janeiro, (Brazil), making it the first Bollywood film to be filmed in Brazil. In total, production lasted eighteen months and cost of . To ensure the sequel would be different from the original, which became famous for its brash motorcycle stunts, director Sanjay Gadhvi included very few motorcycles in "Dhoom 2". Nonetheless, Roshan's role required him to perform several dangerous stunts involving activities such as roller-blading, sand boarding and snow boarding. The film made extensive use of visual effects, which were filmed at Yash Raj Studios. While filming at Yash Raj Studios, the film suffered from a flood that destroyed the studio sets and delayed production. Fight and action sequences were storyboarded before being shown to Gadhvi and Allan Amin, who would make changes. The scenes were then sketched, given "proper shot list", and shared with Tata Elxsi, who oversaw the previsualisation of the sequences. Several scenes were filmed with the use of green screen and computer-generated imagery. For example, the stunts Roshan's performed on a train in the Namib Desert used green screen; after Roshan recorded the stunts on a set, Gadhvi travelled to the desert to film the background. Other stunts in the film were performed by stuntmen whose faces were later digitally exchanged with the actors'. The bullet effects and Hrithik's gadgets and mechanical arm were also computer generated. The scene involving Abhishek Bachchan coming out of a lake using a jet ski was also created using a green screen. The stunt came out of 90 degrees, but Sanjay Gandhvi wanted a 60 degrees jump. So, it was shot with a Super 35, and hence the angle could be changed. Gandhvi discussed the use of technology in an interview; Soundtrack. The soundtrack of "Dhoom 2" was recorded at YRF Studios. The music was composed by Pritam with background score by Salim-Sulaiman. The lyrics were penned by Sameer except "Dhoom Again" by Asif Ali Beg and "Crazy Kiya Re — Remix" was remixed by Bunty Rajput. Although most of the song's lyrics are primarily written in Hindi with some English, "Dhoom Again" is almost entirely in English. The soundtrack ending up pulling average reviews from critics but higher praise from the public. It became the best selling Bollywood soundtrack of the year. Release. "Dhoom 2" was released on 24 November 2006 in India, where it received the widest release in Indian cinema history at the time with over 1800 prints, including 250 digital copies, and some locations raised ticket prices for the film. The film was promoted with several tie-ins. Coca-Cola promoted the film as "Coke Uthale, Dhoom Machale". India's video game producing company FXLabs developed a game based on the film. Pepe Jeans sold "Dhoom 2"-related garments, including shirts, jeans, bandanas, caps, and metal accessories. Chetan Shah, the country head of Pepe Jeans London, stated: "Pepe Jeans is tremendously excited to be associated with the most awaited movie of the year Dhoom:2. The incredible starcast of Hrithik Roshan, Aishwarya Rai, Abhishek Bachchan, Bipasha Basu and Uday Chopra and the exciting and explosive content of the movie encapsulates everything that the Pepe Jeans brand stands for- young, cool, trendy, hip, fashionable and innovative. Box-office. In India, "Dhoom 2" broke several box-office records, mainly those for opening day and opening weekend grosses, including a first week of in Mumbai and for all of India. In Mumbai, the film's distributors received a profit of on its first week's business. "Box Office India" awarded it a "blockbuster" rating after the film netted in India and grossed worldwide on a budget of . It is currently the 13th highest-grossing film in India (unadjusted for inflation) "Dhoom 2" grossed US$979,000 in North America in 63 theatres over its three-day opening weekend ($1.3 million over four days), becoming the third largest opening weekend for a Bollywood film in North America. Overall, it was the seventeenth ranked film at the American box office. "Box Office Mojo" reports the film earned a total of $2,643,586 inside the United States and a total of $29,752,841 in other countries, including India. In Dubai, it achieved the highest first day opening for a Bollywood film. "Dhoom 2" ranked sixth among opening weekends for international films at the United Kingdom box-office with a gross (average per screen) of £8,151. At the Australian box office, the film had the twelfth highest opening and collected approximately A$176,462. It grossed approximately NZ $51,453 on five screens in New Zealand. It is estimated to have grossed US$8,750,000 total in the overseas markets. Reception. India. In India, the film received mostly positive reviews from critics. Taran Adarsh of Bollywood Hungama gave the film 4.5 out of 5 stars, reporting "On the whole, "Dhoom 2" is a winner all the way. For Yash Raj, who've not only produced but also distributed the film, "Dhoom 2" should emerge as one of the biggest hits of their career." Rajesh Karkera of Rediff gave it three and a half stars out of five, calling it "A complete roller-coaster ride which left me completely enthralled and exhausted. Sure, there are faults when you stop to think rationally. But that does not stop you from being dazzled by the film." Rajeev Masand of CNN-IBN gave it a three star rating, saying that "Dhoom 2" is without doubt better than its predecessor, and that Hrithik Roshan is the heart and soul of the film. Vijay Venkataramanan of Planet Bollywood gave it seven out of ten stars; while complaining about flaws in the plot and Aishwarya Rai’s performance, he still called it a good adrenaline-pumping entertainer. International. Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reported 80% of five critics were positive and gave it a "fresh" certificate. People of "Variety" commented, "Loaded with enough attitude, Bollywood starpower and buff bodies to stop a speeding train, "Dhoom 2" has been doing humongous biz since its November 24 worldwide opening, and provides adequate proof that Yash Raj Films is good for more than just family-oriented comedy-dramas." Rachel Saltz of "The New York Times" reviewed, "The pleasure principle is palpable in the giddy, slick "Dhoom 2", a satisfying example of the new, thoroughly modern Bollywood. It may represent the newfangled Bollywood, but old-fashioned star power is what animates and elevates it above its occasional narrative flaws and longueurs." "Film Journal International"s Ethan Alter said, ""Dhoom 2" has all of the benefits of a big-budget Bollywood production: big-name stars, exotic locales, well-produced musical numbers and elaborate (by Bollywood standards, anyway) action sequences. It makes no lasting contributions to world cinema, but if two-and-a-half hours of disposable entertainment are all you're after, you could do far worse." "L.A. Weekly"s David Chute stated the film, "A movie meal as satisfying as this one can make you feel that nothing else matters." Jaspreet Pandohar of the BBC gave it a two-star rating, writing "By roping in acclaimed action director Alan Amin to take care of the thrills and spills, you'd expect Gadhvi to have spent time crafting out a sophisticated storyline instead of simply sending his cast on a cat-and-mouse chase around the globe. It's only Roshan's charismatic performance as the criminal mastermind, and the sizzling chemistry he shares with Rai's sassy cohort, that rescues this adventure from becoming an elongated tourism commercial." Manish Gajjar, Bollywood Correspondent for BBC Shropshire said, "With its high-powered action sequences matching Hollywood standards, "Dhoom 2" is a winner all the way at the box office!" Controversies. The city of Mumbai's police commissioner called for censoring of the fast-paced rash driving scenes in the film due to fears that it would inspire Indian youths to ride their motorcycles rashly, resulting in an increase in the number of road accidents. Unlike the original, the robberies depicted in "Dhoom 2" were not inspired by any real-life crimes. The film, however, inspired the robbery of a man by his nephew, who wore clothing similar to Hrithik's in the film while committing the crime. Accolades. "Dhoom 2" was nominated for several awards that year, but only picked up a few of the major ones. At the Filmfare Awards, Hrithik Roshan won the Best Actor, out of five total nominations for the film. At the International Indian Film Academy Awards (IIFA), the film won for Best Makeup and the Best Costume Design. At the Stardust Awards, Aishwarya Rai won Star of the Year – Female and director Sanjay Gadhvi won the Hottest Young Film Maker title. At the 2007 MTV India Style Awards, however, "Dhoom 2" swept nearly all of the movie awards, winning the following: Home media. "Dhoom 2" was released in DVD format on February 2007. It was distributed by Yash Raj Films in all regions as a two disc set, and for region 1 as a single disc set. It was released on Blu-ray in December 2009. The film is also noteworthy because its soundtrack is the first in Indian cinema to be released in DVD-Audio in addition to other audio formats. The tracks have been mixed in London in 5.1 Surround Sound and audiophiles can choose the format from the audio menu. Four bonus tracks from other films are included, and the lyrics of all 10 tracks can be viewed on-screen while the music is playing, enabling Karaoke sing-along. Sequel. A sequel titled "Dhoom 3" is currently in production, with Abhishek Bachchan and Uday Chopra reprising their roles, Aamir Khan and Katrina Kaif playing lead villains, and also including Jackie Shroff.
1064114	Monsters vs. Aliens is a 2009 American 3D computer-animated science fiction action comedy film produced by DreamWorks Animation and distributed by Paramount Pictures. It was DreamWorks Animation's first feature film to be directly produced in a stereoscopic 3-D format instead of being converted into 3-D after completion, which added $15 million to the film's budget.
1376089	Barbie Thumbelina, or "Barbie Presents: Thumbelina", is a 2009 Barbie film directed by Conrad Helten. It is the fifteenth in the series of Barbie animated films, and features the voice of Kelly Sheridan as Barbie. The story title is like Hans Christian Andersen's Thumbelina, but the story plot is different. Plot. The story opens with Barbie and kindergarten students walking in a big meadow, ready to plant trees. Emma, one of the children, finds a small tree and decides to plant it, but her friends laugh at her because of it, making her sad. However, Barbie cheers her up by telling her that a small tree can grow into a very big tree. Then Barbie tells the children about Thumbelina. Thumbelina is one of the Twillerbees. Twillerbees have the ability to make plants grow faster (and as revealed later on, they can grow plants out of nowhere as well). Thumbelina is excited when there will be Twillerbabies. She creates fake wings for herself and for her two friends, Janessa and Chrysella. They will use the wings to see the Twillerbuds bloom to be Twillerbabies. When they try the wings, suddenly many tractors come to their field. Hiding in the flowers, the trio are trapped. They are brought into an apartment they never knew before.
1066102	"Shaft's Big Score!" is a 1972 action film directed by Gordon Parks. It is the second entry in the trilogy starring Richard Roundtree as the private-eye John Shaft. Ernest Tidyman once more supplied the screenplay. The first film's composer Isaac Hayes was unavailable, so Parks, the returning director, did the score himself. The film was produced on a budget of $1,978,000. Plot. While New York is never at a loss for criminal activity, things take a turn for the worse when the corrupt co-owner of a funeral parlor and insurance agency kills his partner, a personal friend of John Shaft, only to discover that the money he was planning to steal to pay his gambling debts is missing. He makes a deal with the mobster he owes (Joseph Mascolo) to split the business but also makes the same deal with crime lord Bumpy Jonas (Moses Gunn). The bullets start flying when the hoods find they've been played against each other, and Shaft is forced to clean up the mess. Reception. The movie received a lukewarm reception from critics, although Roger Ebert awarded the film 3 stars out of 4. It earned estimated North American rentals of $4 million.
586233	Pulival Kalyanam is a 2003 Malayalam film by Shafi starring Jayasurya and Kavya Madhavan. It is a unique love story embedded in a family drama. Plot. Harikrishnan (Jayasurya) is the adopted younger brother of Karunan (Lal). When Karunan loses his right hand in an accident, Hari at a young age takes responsibility of his family. Karunan's sister, Sreekutti is in love with the son of Paramanandam (Jagathy Sreekumar), who is unscrupulous and demands a huge dowry for the marriage to be made possible. To make this marriage possible Harikrishnan and Karunan take a loan from a financier (Salim Kumar) and invest it in an explosives business, only to lose it completely. Simultaneously, Harikrishnan gets his phone muddled with Ganga (Kavya Madhavan) on account of both the models being the same. Ganga's father Raghavendra Sett(Lalu Alex) is the boss of Paramanandam. Hari and Ganga have loads of comical misunderstandings before falling in love and deciding to get married. Of course this is not acceptable to Raghavendra Sett, and he puts obstacles in their way. The story is whether or not Hari and Ganga can overcome these obstacles. BoxOffice. The Film received mostly positive response and was a Super Hit in the boxoffice.
981169	Martin Wilhelm Kutta (November 3, 1867 – December 25, 1944) was a German mathematician. Kutta was born in Pitschen, Upper Silesia (today Byczyna, Poland). He attended the University of Breslau from 1885 to 1890, and continued his studies in Munich until 1894, where he became the assistant of Walther Franz Anton von Dyck. From 1898, he spent a year at the University of Cambridge. He was professor at the RWTH Aachen from 1900 to 1912. Kutta became professor at the University of Stuttgart in 1912, where he stayed until his retirement in 1935. In 1901, he co-developed the Runge-Kutta method, used to solve ordinary differential equations numerically. He is also remembered for the Zhukovsky-Kutta aerofoil, the Kutta-Zhukovsky theorem and the Kutta condition in aerodynamics.
1073429	The Secret Adventures of Tom Thumb is a 1993 stop-motion animated film made by bolexbrothers, and funded by the BBC, La Sept, producer Richard Hutchinson and Manga Entertainment, which also distributed the film on video. Though it draws its title character from the fairy tale "Tom Thumb", the story and setting is substantially different, depicting Tom as a fetus-like child living in a grim and squalid urban environment.
1742402	, often shortened simply to "Pretty Cure Splash Star" or "PreCure Splash Star", is a magical girl anime series produced by Toei Animation and Asahi Broadcasting Corporation, which aired in Japan Animax, TV Asahi and Asahi Broadcasting Corporation between February 5, 2006 and January 28, 2007. It is the third series in Izumi Todo's "Pretty Cure" franchise, following a new story different from the previous two series. The series is directed by Toshiaki Komura, who previously directed Kinnikuman Nisei. The character designs were done by Akira Inagami, who previously worked on the character designs on both Futari Wa Pretty Cure and Futari Wa Pretty Cure: Max Heart. The series's theme and concept is based on the Japanese idiom , which symbolizes the beauties of Nature, or the traditional themes of natural beauty in Japanese aesthetics. Plot. Saki Hyuuga and Mai Mishou met at age nine for the first time after they followed two glowing balls that flew towards the Sky Tree, a big tree situated on top of a mountain in their town. Five years later, they met again at the same place and became the new legendary warriors PreCure (Pretty Cure). Flappy and Choppy, spirits from the Land of Fountains, revealed that they were the glowing balls and the girls were chosen to protect the Fountain of Sun hidden in Saki and Mai's world, which they refer to as the Land of Greenery. Saki and Mai are transformed into Cure Bloom and Cure Egret using the spirits. Later they are upgraded to Cure Bright and Cure Windy with help from two additional spirits Mupu and Fupu. The villains of this series are the Dark Fall, who are searching for the Fountain of Sun, the last of the seven fountains that feed the World Tree - the source of all life forms for all worlds. The Leader of the Dark Fall has set his aim on this tree, and it is Pretty Cure's job to protect it. In the "Splash Star" movie, Sirlion, a warrior from Dark Fall, opens up a gateway to the Land of Clocks using directions from Mai. His plan to dominate the world is to halt the Eternal (Infinite) Clock and freeze time, cutting off everyone's future. Saki and Mai were already in disagreement after Saki overslept and Mai wandered off into a nearby clock store, causing them to miss the sign-up for the karaoke singing contest. After being thrown into an endless maze, Saki and Mai have to work in unison if they want to solve the puzzle. Characters. Pretty Cures. The Pretty Cures were warriors chosen by the Land of Fountains to restore the Seven Holy Fountains and prevent Dark Fall from taking over the land of greenery. They both transform using the and shout . In the later episodes, both Saki and Mai transform using the harnessing the powers of Mupu and Fupu. After transforming, the duo introduces as with Mai saying and ends with Saki saying . Dark Fall. Throughout the whole series, Pretty Cure's enemies are the Dark Fall Villains. In episode 41, Gooyan used the Fairy Carafe to bring the killed villains (except Michiru and Kaoru) back to life to defeat Pretty Cure. Other characters. Manabu Miyasako
726462	Man at Bath () is a 2010 French film by Christophe Honoré starring François Sagat and Chiara Mastroianni. The film premiered in competition at Locarno International Film Festival in Switzerland in 2010 and was released in cinemas on 22 September 2010. This is gay pornographic actor François Sagat's second major role in general release non-pornographc film as Emmanuel after his role in "L.A. Zombie". Director Christopher Honoré told French gay website Yagg.com that he was interested in Sagat because he "redefines the notion of masculinity". Sagat is the only actor to feature in two competition entries during the festival. Plot. Emmanuel (François Sagat) is a gay hustler living with his lover, the filmmaker Omar (played by Omar Ben Sellem) outside Paris. After a quarrel between the two, Emmanuel is left brokenhearted to fend for himself as Omar makes his way to Manhattan. The film separately follows the two men, discovering how their heartbreak gives way to fresh outlooks and doleful acceptance.
584826	Anita Hassanandani, also known as Natassha, is an Indian model and film and television actress. Career. Hassanandani is best known for acting in Tamil, Hindi, Kannada, and Telugu films. After her success as a model for EverYuth, Sunsilk, Boroplus and other brands, she made her debut on the television screen in daytime soap "Kabhii Sautan Kabhii Sahelii". She made her Hindi film debut with the 2003 Thriller film "Kucch To Hai". She later worked in the films "Krishna Cottage", a supernatural thriller; and "Koi Aap Sa". She also starred in the television show "Kavyanjali", playing the protagonist Anjali, a middle class girl marrying into a business tycoon's family. Other than her mainstream Bollywood film and television screen performances, she also worked in some South Indian movies including "Nenupelliki ready" and "Thotti gang". "Nuvvu Nenu" was a hit Telugu movie; later the movie was remade with the name "Yeh Dil" in Hindi with Tusshar Kapoor. She appeared in a song in a Telugu movie, Nenunnanu.
1059595	Barry Knapp Bostwick (born February 24, 1945) is a Tony Award winning American stage and screen actor. He is known for playing Brad Majors in the 1975 cult classic "The Rocky Horror Picture Show". He replaced Peter Scolari as Mr. Tyler in the sitcom "What I Like About You", as well as portraying Mayor Randall Winston in the sitcom "Spin City". Bostwick has also had considerable success in musical theater. Early life. Bostwick was born in San Mateo, California. He is the son of Elizabeth "Betty" (née Defendorf), a housewife, and Henry "Bud" Bostwick, a city planner and actor. His only sibling, Henry "Pete" Bostwick, was killed in a car accident on July 20, 1973. Bostwick attended San Diego's United States International University in 1967, majoring in acting, got his start on the Hillbarn Theatre stage now located in Foster City, and worked for a time as a circus performer. He also attended NYU's Graduate Acting Program, graduating in 1968. Career. In 1970, Bostwick was a member of a pop group called The Klowns, assembled and promoted by Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus, whose members performed wearing stylized clown makeup and costumes. Their lone, 1970 album was produced by Jeff Barry, and generated a minor Billboard hit single, "Lady Love". He replaced C.C. Courtney in the musical "Salvation". His next stage appearance was in the 1971 rock opera "Soon", which closed after three performances. In 1972, Bostwick originated the role of bad boy Danny Zuko in the stage production of "Grease", earning a Tony Award nomination for his performance. In 1975 he starred with Tim Curry and Susan Sarandon in "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" portraying the character of Brad Majors. He also won a Tony Award for his performance in the 1977 musical "The Robber Bridegroom". In 1982 he starred in "Megaforce", widely considered one of the worst films ever made. From 1996 to 2002, Bostwick portrayed Randall Winston, the mayor of New York City in the sitcom "Spin City" opposite Michael J. Fox and his successor, Charlie Sheen. In 2006 Bostwick landed a role replacing Peter Scolari as Mr. Tyler in the relatively unknown star vehicle sitcom for then-16-year-old Amanda Bynes "What I Like About You". Since 2004, Bostwick has had a recurring role on "". He has also had leading roles in various miniseries, including "George Washington", its sequel "The Forging of a Nation", "Scruples", "A Woman of Substance", "War and Remembrance", and "Till We Meet Again".
1265408	Anna May Wong () (January 3, 1905 – February 3, 1961) was the first Chinese American movie star, and the first Asian American actress to gain international recognition. Her long and varied career spanned both silent and sound film, television, stage, and radio. Born near the Chinatown neighborhood of Los Angeles to second-generation Chinese-American parents, Wong became infatuated with the movies and began acting in films at an early age. During the silent film era, she acted in "The Toll of the Sea" (1922), one of the first movies made in color and Douglas Fairbanks' "The Thief of Bagdad" (1924). Wong became a fashion icon, and by 1924 had achieved international stardom. Frustrated by the stereotypical supporting roles she reluctantly played in Hollywood, Wong left for Europe in the late 1920s, where she starred in several notable plays and films, among them "Piccadilly" (1929). She spent the first half of the 1930s traveling between the United States and Europe for film and stage work. Wong was featured in films of the early sound era, such as "Daughter of the Dragon" (1931) and "Daughter of Shanghai" (1937), and with Marlene Dietrich in Josef von Sternberg's "Shanghai Express" (1932). In 1935 Wong was dealt the most severe disappointment of her career, when Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer refused to consider her for the leading role of the Chinese character O-Lan in the film version of Pearl S. Buck's "The Good Earth", choosing instead the German actress Luise Rainer to play the leading role. Wong spent the next year touring China, visiting her family's ancestral village and studying Chinese culture. In the late 1930s, she starred in several B movies for Paramount Pictures, portraying Chinese Americans in a positive light. She paid less attention to her film career during World War II, when she devoted her time and money to helping the Chinese cause against Japan. Wong returned to the public eye in the 1950s in several television appearances as well as her own series in 1951, "The Gallery of Madame Liu-Tsong", the first U.S. television show starring an Asian-American series lead. She had been planning to return to film in "Flower Drum Song" when she died in 1961, at the age of 56. For decades after her death, Wong was remembered principally for the stereotypical "Dragon Lady" and demure "Butterfly" roles that she was often given. Her life and career were re-evaluated in the years around the centennial of her birth, in three major literary works and film retrospectives. Interest in her life story continues and another biography, "Shining Star: The Anna May Wong Story", was published in 2009. Early life. Anna May Wong was born Wong Liu Tsong (meaning "yellow willow frost" respectively, though "yellow" being her family name can be considered functionless here semantically) on January 3, 1905, on Flower Street in Los Angeles, one block north of Chinatown, in an integrated community of Chinese, Irish, German, and Japanese residents. She was the second of seven children born to Wong Sam Sing, owner of the Sam Kee Laundry in Los Angeles, and his second wife Lee Gon Toy. Anna May Wong's parents were second-generation Cantonese Americans; her maternal and paternal grandparents had resided in the U.S. since at least 1855. Her paternal grandfather, A Wong Wong, was a merchant who owned two stores in Michigan Hills, a gold-mining area in Placer County. He had come from Chang On, a village near Taishan, Guangdong Province, China in 1853. Anna May's father spent his youth traveling between the U.S. and China, where he married his first wife and fathered a son in 1890. He returned to the U.S. in the late 1890s, and in 1901, while continuing to support his family in China, he married a second wife, Anna May's mother. Anna May's older sister Lew Ying (Lulu) was born in late 1902, and Anna May was born in 1905, followed by five more children. In 1910, the family moved to a neighborhood on Figueroa Street where they were the only Chinese on their block, living alongside mostly Mexican and Eastern European families. The two hills separating their new home from Chinatown helped Wong to assimilate into American culture. She attended public school with her older sister at first, but then moved to a Presbyterian Chinese school when the girls became the target of racial taunts from other students. Classes were taught in English, but Wong attended a Chinese language school afternoons and on Saturdays. About that same time, U.S. motion picture production began to relocate from the east coast to the Los Angeles area. Movies were shot constantly in and around Wong's neighborhood. She began going to Nickelodeon movie theaters and quickly became obsessed with the "flickers", missing school and using lunch money to attend the cinema. Her father was not happy with her interest in films, feeling that it interfered with her studies, but Wong decided to pursue a film career regardless. At the age of nine, she constantly begged filmmakers to give her roles, earning herself the nickname "C.C.C." or "Curious Chinese Child". By the age of 11, Wong had come up with her stage name of Anna May Wong, formed by joining both her English and family names. Early career. Wong was working at Hollywood's Ville de Paris department store when Metro Pictures needed 300 girl extras to appear in Alla Nazimova's film "The Red Lantern" (1919). Without her father's knowledge, a friend of his with movie connections helped Anna May land an uncredited role as an extra carrying a lantern. She worked steadily for the next two years as an extra in various movies, including Priscilla Dean and Colleen Moore pictures. While still a student, Wong came down with an illness identified as St. Vitus's Dance which caused her to miss months of school. She was on the verge of emotional collapse when her father took her to a practitioner of traditional Chinese medicine. The treatments proved successful, though Wong later claimed this had more to do with her dislike of the methods. Other Chinese thought such as Confucianism and particularly Taoism and the teachings of Laozi had a strong influence on Wong's personal philosophy throughout her life. The family's religious life also included Christian thought, in the form of Presbyterianism, and as an adult she was a Christian Scientist for some time. Finding it difficult to keep up with both her schoolwork and her passion, she dropped out of Los Angeles High School in 1921 to pursue a full-time acting career. Reflecting on her decision, Wong told "Motion Picture Magazine" in 1931: "I was so young when I began that I knew I still had youth if I failed, so I determined to give myself 10 years to succeed as an actress." In 1921, Wong received her first screen credit for "Bits of Life", the first anthology film, in which she played the wife of Lon Chaney's character, Toy Ling, in a segment entitled "Hop". She later recalled it fondly as the only time she played the role of a mother; her appearance earned her a cover photo in the British magazine "Picture Show". At the age of 17 she played her first leading role, in the early Metro two-strip Technicolor movie "The Toll of the Sea". Written by Frances Marion, the story was based loosely on "Madama Butterfly". "Variety" magazine singled Wong out for praise, noting her "extraordinarily fine" acting. "The New York Times" commented, "Miss Wong stirs in the spectator all the sympathy her part calls for, and she never repels one by an excess of theatrical 'feeling'. She has a difficult role, a role that is botched nine times out of ten, but hers is the tenth performance. Completely unconscious of the camera, with a fine sense of proportion and remarkable pantomimic accuracy ... She should be seen again and often on the screen." Despite such reviews, Hollywood proved reluctant to create starring roles for Wong; her ethnicity prevented U.S. filmmakers from seeing her as a leading lady. David Schwartz, the chief curator of the Museum of the Moving Image, notes, "She built up a level of stardom in Hollywood, but Hollywood didn't know what to do with her." She spent the next few years in supporting roles providing "exotic atmosphere", for instance playing a concubine in Tod Browning's "Drifting" (1923). Film producers capitalized on Wong's growing fame but they relegated her to supporting roles. Still optimistic about a film career, in 1923 Wong said: "Pictures are fine, and I'm getting along all right, but it's not so bad to have the laundry back of you, so you can wait and take good parts and be independent when you're climbing." Stardom. At the age of 19, Anna May Wong was cast in a supporting role as a scheming Mongol slave in the Douglas Fairbanks picture "The Thief of Bagdad" (1924). Playing a stereotypical "Dragon Lady" role, her brief appearances on-screen caught the attention of audiences and critics alike. The film grossed more than $2 million and helped introduce Wong to the public. After this second prominent role, Wong moved out of the family home into her own apartment. Conscious that Americans viewed her as "foreign born" even though she was born and raised in California, Wong began cultivating a flapper image. In March 1924, planning to make films about Chinese myths, she signed a deal creating Anna May Wong Productions; when her business partner was found to be engaging in dishonest practices, Wong brought a lawsuit against him and the company was dissolved. It soon became evident that Wong's career would continue to be limited by American anti-miscegenation laws, which prevented her from sharing an on-screen kiss with any person of another race, even if the character was Asian, but being portrayed by a white actor. The only leading Asian man in U.S. films in the silent era was Sessue Hayakawa. Unless Asian leading men could be found, Wong could not be a leading lady. Wong continued to be offered exotic supporting roles, playing indigenous native girls in two 1924 films. Filmed on location in the Territory of Alaska she portrayed an Eskimo in "The Alaskan". She returned to Los Angeles to perform the part of Princess Tiger Lily in "Peter Pan". Both films were shot by cinematographer James Wong Howe but "Peter Pan" was more successful; the hit of the Christmas season. The next year, Wong was singled out for critical praise in a manipulative Oriental vamp role in the film "Forty Winks". Despite such favorable reviews, she became increasingly disappointed with her casting and began to seek other roads to success. In early 1925 she joined a group of serial stars on a tour of the vaudeville circuits; when the tour proved to be a failure, Wong and the rest of the group returned to Hollywood. In 1926, Wong put the first rivet into the structure of Grauman's Chinese Theatre when she joined Norma Talmadge for its groundbreaking ceremony, although she was not invited to leave her hand- and foot-prints in cement. In the same year Wong starred in "The Silk Bouquet". Re-titled "The Dragon Horse" in 1927, the film was one of the first U.S. films to be produced with Chinese backing, provided by San Francisco's Chinese Six Companies. The story was set in China during the Ming Dynasty, and featured Asian actors playing the Asian roles. Wong continued to be assigned supporting roles. Hollywood's Asian female characters tended toward two stereotypical poles: the naïve and self-sacrificing "Butterfly" and the sly and deceitful "Dragon Lady". In "Old San Francisco" (1927), directed by Alan Crosland for Warner Brothers, Wong played a "Dragon Lady", a gangster's daughter. In "Mr. Wu" (1927) she played a supporting role as increasing censorship against mixed race onscreen couples cost her the lead. In "The Crimson City", released the following year, this happened again. Move to Europe. Tired of being both typecast and being passed over for lead Asian character roles in favor of non-Asian actresses, Wong left Hollywood in 1928 for Europe. Interviewed by Doris Mackie for "Film Weekly" in 1933, Wong complained about her Hollywood roles: "I was so tired of the parts I had to play." She commented: "There seems little for me in Hollywood, because, rather than real Chinese, producers prefer Hungarians, Mexicans, American Indians for Chinese roles." In Europe, Wong became a sensation, starring in notable films such as "Schmutziges Geld" (aka "Song" and "Show Life", 1928), and "Großstadtschmetterling" ("City Butterfly"). Of the German critics' response to "Song", "The New York Times" reported that Wong was "acclaimed not only as an actress of transcendent talent but as a great beauty". The article noted that Germans passed over Wong's American background: "Berlin critics, who were unanimous in praise of both the star and the production, neglect to mention that Anna May is of American birth. They mention only her Chinese origins." In Vienna, she played the title role in the operetta "Tschun Tschi" in fluent German. An Austrian critic wrote, "Fräulein Wong had the audience perfectly in her power and the unobtrusive tragedy of her acting was deeply moving, carrying off the difficult German-speaking part very successfully." While in Germany, Wong became an inseparable friend of the director Leni Riefenstahl. Her close friendships with several women throughout her life, including Marlene Dietrich and Cecil Cunningham, led to rumors of lesbianism which damaged her public reputation. These rumors, in particular of her supposed relationship with Dietrich, embarrassed Wong's family who in any case had long been opposed to her acting career, at that time not considered to be an entirely respectable profession. London producer Basil Dean bought the play "A Circle of Chalk" for Wong to appear in with the young Laurence Olivier, her first stage performance in the UK. Criticism of her California accent, described by one critic as a "Yankee squeak", led to Wong seeking vocal tutoring at Cambridge University, where she acquired a British accent. Composer Constant Lambert, infatuated with the actress after having seen her in films, attended the play on its opening night and subsequently composed "Eight Poems of Li Po", dedicated to her. Wong made her last silent film, "Piccadilly", in 1929, the first of five English films in which she had a starring role. The film caused a sensation in the UK. Gilda Gray was the top-billed actress, but "Variety" commented that Wong "outshines the star", and that "from the moment Miss Wong dances in the kitchen's rear, she steals 'Piccadilly' from Miss Gray." Though the film presented Wong in her most sensual role in a British film, once again she was not permitted to kiss her Caucasian love interest, and a controversial planned scene involving a kiss was cut before the film was released. Forgotten for decades after its release, "Piccadilly" was later restored by the British Film Institute. "Time" magazine's Richard Corliss calls "Piccadilly" Wong's best film, and "The Guardian" reports that the rediscovery of this film and Wong's performance in it has been responsible for a restoration of the actress' reputation. While in London, Wong was romantically linked with writer and broadcasting executive Eric Maschwitz, who wrote the lyrics to "These Foolish Things (Remind Me Of You)" as an evocation of his longing for her after they parted. Wong's first talkie was "The Flame of Love" (1930), which she recorded in French, English, and German. Though Wong's performance – particularly her handling of the three languages – was lauded, all three versions of the film received negative reviews. Return to Hollywood. During the 1930s, American studios were looking for fresh European talent. Ironically, Wong caught their eye and she was offered a contract with Paramount Studios in 1930. Enticed by the promise of lead roles and top billing, she returned to the United States. The prestige and training she had gained during her years in Europe led to a starring role on Broadway in "On the Spot", a drama that ran for 167 performances and which she would later film as "Dangerous to Know". When the play's director wanted Wong to use stereotypical Japanese mannerisms, derived from "Madame Butterfly", in her performance of a Chinese character, Wong refused. She instead used her knowledge of Chinese style and gestures to imbue the character with a greater degree of authenticity. Following her return to Hollywood in 1930, Wong repeatedly turned to the stage and cabaret for a creative outlet. In November 1930, Anna May's mother was run over and killed by an automobile in front of the Figueroa Street house. The family remained at the house until 1934, when Wong's father returned to his hometown in China with Anna May's younger brothers and sister. Anna May had been paying for the education of her younger siblings, who put their education to work after they relocated to China. Before the family left, Wong's father wrote a brief article for "Xinning", a magazine for overseas Taishanese, in which he expressed his pride in his famous daughter. With the promise of appearing in a Josef von Sternberg film, Wong accepted another stereotypical role – the title character of Fu Manchu's vengeful daughter in "Daughter of the Dragon" (1931). This was the last stereotypically "evil Chinese" role Wong played, and also her one starring appearance alongside the only other well-known Asian actor of the era, Sessue Hayakawa. Though she was given the starring role, this status was not reflected in her paycheck: she was paid $6,000, while Hayakawa received $10,000 and Warner Oland, who is only in the film for 23 minutes, was paid $12,000. Wong began using her newfound celebrity to make political statements: late in 1931, for example, she wrote a harsh criticism of the Mukden Incident and Japan's subsequent invasion of Manchuria. She also became more outspoken in her advocacy for Chinese American causes and for better film roles. In a 1933 interview for "Film Weekly" entitled "I Protest", Wong criticized the negative stereotyping in "Daughter of the Dragon", saying, "Why is it that the screen Chinese is always the villain? And so crude a villain – murderous, treacherous, a snake in the grass! We are not like that. How could we be, with a civilization that is so many times older than the West?" Wong appeared alongside Marlene Dietrich as a self-sacrificing courtesan in Sternberg's "Shanghai Express". Her sexually charged scenes with Dietrich have been noted by many commentators, and fed rumors about the relationship between the two stars. Though contemporary reviews focused on Dietrich's acting and Sternberg's direction, film historians today judge that Wong's performance upstaged that of Dietrich. The Chinese press had long given Wong's career very mixed reviews, and were less than favorable to her performance in "Shanghai Express". A Chinese newspaper ran the headline: "Paramount Utilizes Anna May Wong to Produce Picture to Disgrace China", and continued, "Although she is deficient in artistic portrayal, she has done more than enough to disgrace the Chinese race." Critics in China believed that Wong's on-screen sexuality spread negative stereotypes of Chinese women. The most virulent criticism came from the Nationalist government, but China's intellectuals and liberals were not always so opposed to Wong, as demonstrated when Peking University awarded the actress an honorary doctorate in 1932. Contemporary sources reported that this was probably the only time that an actor had been so honored. In both America and Europe, Wong had been seen as a fashion icon for over a decade. In 1934, the Mayfair Mannequin Society of New York voted her "The World's best-dressed woman", and in 1938 "Look" magazine named her "The World's most beautiful Chinese girl". Atlantic crossings. After her success in Europe and prominent role in "Shanghai Express", Wong's Hollywood career returned to its old pattern. Because of the Hays Code's anti-miscegenation rules, she was passed over for the leading female role in "The Son-Daughter" in favor of Helen Hayes. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer deemed her "too Chinese to play a Chinese" in the film, and the Hays Office would not have allowed her to perform romantic scenes since the film's male lead, Ramón Novarro, was not Asian. Wong was scheduled to play the role of a mistress to a corrupt Chinese general in Frank Capra's "The Bitter Tea of General Yen" (1933), but the role went instead to Toshia Mori. Again disappointed with Hollywood, Wong returned to Britain, where she stayed for nearly three years. In addition to appearing in four films she toured Scotland and Ireland as part of a vaudeville show. She also appeared in the King George Silver Jubilee program in 1935. Her film "Java Head" (1934), though generally considered a minor effort, was the only film in which Wong kissed the lead male character, her white husband in the film. Wong's biographer, Graham Russell Hodges, commented that this may be why the film remained one of Wong's personal favorites. While in London, Wong met Mei Lanfang, one of the most famous stars of the Beijing Opera. She had long been interested in Chinese opera and Mei offered to instruct Wong if she ever visited China. In the 1930s, the popularity of Pearl Buck's novels, especially "The Good Earth", as well as growing American sympathy for China in its struggles with Japanese Imperialism, opened up opportunities for more positive Chinese roles in U.S. films. Wong returned to the U.S. in June 1935 with the goal of obtaining the role of O-lan, the lead female character in MGM's film version of "The Good Earth". Since its publication in 1931, Wong had made known her desire to play O-lan in a film version of the book; and as early as 1933, Los Angeles newspapers were touting Wong as the best choice for the part. Nevertheless, the studio apparently never seriously considered Wong for the role because Paul Muni, an actor of European descent, was to play O-lan's husband, Wang Lung. The Chinese government also advised the studio against casting Wong in the role. The Chinese advisor to MGM commented: "whenever she appears in a movie, the newspapers print her picture with the caption 'Anna May again loses face for China' ". According to Wong, she was instead offered the part of Lotus, a deceitful song girl who helps to destroy the family and seduces the family's oldest son. Wong refused the role, telling MGM head of production Irving Thalberg, "If you let me play O-lan, I will be very glad. But you're asking me – with Chinese blood – to do the only unsympathetic role in the picture featuring an all-American cast portraying Chinese characters." The role Wong hoped for went to Luise Rainer, who won the Best Actress Oscar for her performance. Wong's sister, Mary Liu Heung Wong, appeared in the film in the role of the Little Bride. MGM's refusal to consider Wong for this most high-profile of Chinese characters in U.S. film is remembered today as "one of the most notorious cases of casting discrimination in the 1930s". Tour of China. After the major disappointment of losing the role in "The Good Earth", Wong announced plans for a year-long tour of China, to visit her father and his family in Taishan. Wong's father had returned to his hometown in China with her younger brothers and sister in 1934. Aside from Mei Lanfang's offer to teach her, she wanted to learn more about the Chinese theater, and through English translations to better perform some Chinese plays before international audiences. She told the "San Francisco Chronicle" on her departure, "... for a year, I shall study the land of my fathers. Perhaps upon my arrival, I shall feel like an outsider. Perhaps instead, I shall find my past life assuming a dreamlike quality of unreality." Embarking in January 1936, she chronicled her experiences in a series of articles printed in U.S. newspapers such as the "New York Herald Tribune", the "Los Angeles Examiner", the "Los Angeles Times", and "Photoplay". In a stopover in Tokyo on the way to Shanghai, local reporters, ever curious about her romantic life, asked if she had marriage plans, to which Wong replied, "No, I am wedded to my art." The following day, however, Japanese newspapers reported that Wong was married to a wealthy Cantonese man named Art. During her travels in China, Wong continued to be strongly criticized by the Nationalist government and the film community. She had difficulty communicating in many areas of China because she was raised with the Taishan dialect rather than Mandarin. She later commented that some of the Chinese dialects sounded "as strange to me as Gaelic. I thus had the strange experience of talking to my own people through an interpreter." The toll of international celebrity on Wong's personal life manifested itself in bouts of depression and sudden anger, as well as excessive smoking and drinking. Feeling irritable when she disembarked in Hong Kong, Wong was uncharacteristically rude to the awaiting crowd, which then quickly turned hostile. One person shouted: "Down with Huang Liu Tsong – the stooge that disgraces China. Don't let her go ashore." Wong began crying, and a stampede ensued. After she left for a short trip to the Philippines, the situation cooled and Wong joined her family in Hong Kong. With her father and her siblings, Wong visited his family and his first wife at the family's ancestral home near Taishan. Conflicting reports claim that she was either warmly welcomed or met with hostility by the villagers. She spent over 10 days in the family's village, and some time in neighboring villages before continuing her tour of China. After returning to Hollywood, Wong reflected on her year in China and her career in Hollywood: "I am convinced that I could never play in the Chinese Theatre. I have no feeling for it. It's a pretty sad situation to be rejected by Chinese because I'm 'too American' and by American producers because they prefer other races to act Chinese parts." Wong's father returned to Los Angeles in 1938. Late 1930s. To complete her contract with Paramount Pictures, Wong made a string of B movies in the late 1930s. Often dismissed by critics, the films gave Wong non-stereotypical roles which were publicized in the Chinese-American press for their positive images. These smaller-budgeted films could be bolder than the higher-profile releases, and Wong used this to her advantage to portray successful, professional, Chinese-American characters. Competent and proud of their Chinese heritage, these roles worked against the prevailing U.S. film portrayals of Chinese Americans. In contrast to the usual official Chinese condemnation of Wong's film roles, the Chinese consul to Los Angeles gave his approval to the final scripts of two of these films, "Daughter of Shanghai" (1937) and "King of Chinatown" (1939). In "Daughter of Shanghai", Wong played the Asian-American female lead in a role that was rewritten for her as the heroine of the story, actively setting the plot into motion rather than the more passive character originally planned. The script was so carefully tailored for Wong that at one point it was titled, "Anna May Wong Story". Of this film, Wong told "Hollywood Magazine", "I like my part in this picture better than any I've had before ... because this picture gives Chinese a break – we have sympathetic parts for a change! To me that means a great deal." "The New York Times" gave the film a generally positive review, commenting of its B-movie origins, "An unusually competent cast saves the film from the worst consequences of certain inevitable banalities. cast ... combine with effective sets to reduce the natural odds against any pictures in the "Daughter of Shanghai" tradition." In October 1937, the press carried rumors that Wong had plans to marry her male co-star in this film, childhood friend and Korean-American actor Philip Ahn. Wong replied, "It would be like marrying my brother." Bosley Crowther was not so kind to "Dangerous to Know" (1938), which he called a "second-rate melodrama, hardly worthy of the talents of its generally capable cast". In "King of Chinatown" Wong played a surgeon who sacrifices a high-paying promotion in order to devote her energies to helping the Chinese fight the Japanese invasion. "The New York Times"' Frank Nugent gave the film a negative review. Though he commented positively on its advocacy of the Chinese in their fight against Japan, he wrote, "... Paramount should have spared us and its cast ... the necessity of being bothered with such folderol". Paramount also employed Wong as a tutor to other actors, such as Dorothy Lamour in her role as a Eurasian in "Disputed Passage". Wong performed on radio several times, including a 1939 role as "Peony" in Pearl Buck's "The Patriot" on Orson Welles' "The Campbell Playhouse". Wong's cabaret act, which included songs in Cantonese, French, English, German, Danish, Swedish, and other languages, took her from the U.S. to Europe and Australia through the 1930s and 1940s. In 1938, having auctioned off her movie costumes and donated the money to Chinese aid, the Chinese Benevolent Association of California honored Wong for her work in support of Chinese refugees. The proceeds from the preface that she wrote in 1942 to a cookbook titled "New Chinese Recipes", one of the first Chinese cookbooks, were also dedicated to United China Relief. Between 1939 and 1942, she made few films, instead engaging in events and appearances in support of the Chinese struggle against Japan. Later years. Wong starred in "Lady from Chungking" (1942) and "Bombs over Burma" (1943), both anti-Japanese propaganda made by the poverty row studio Producers Releasing Corporation. She donated her salary for both films to United China Relief. "The Lady from Chungking" differed from the usual Hollywood war film in that the Chinese were portrayed as heroes rather than as victims rescued by Americans. Even after American characters are captured by the Japanese, the primary goal of the heroes is not to free the Americans, but to prevent the Japanese from entering the city of Chongqing (Chungking). Also, in an interesting twist, the Chinese characters are portrayed by Chinese-American actors, while the Japanese villains – normally played by Chinese-American actors – are acted by European Americans. The film ends with Wong making a speech for the birth of a "new China". "The Hollywood Reporter" and "Variety" both gave Wong's performance in "The Lady from Chungking" positive reviews, but commented negatively on the film's plot. Later in life, Wong invested in real estate and owned a number of properties in Hollywood. She converted her home on San Vincente Boulevard in Santa Monica into four apartments which she called "Moongate Apartments". She served as the apartment house manager from the late 1940s until 1956, when she moved in with her brother Richard on 21st Place in Santa Monica. In 1949, Wong's father died in Los Angeles at the age of 91. After a six-year absence, Wong returned to film the same year with a small role in a B movie called "Impact". From August 27 to November 21, 1951, Wong starred in a detective series that was written specifically for her, the DuMont Television Network series "The Gallery of Madame Liu-Tsong", in which she played the title role which used her birth name. Wong's character was a dealer in Chinese art whose career involved her in detective work and international intrigue. The ten half-hour episodes aired during prime time, from 9:00 to 9:30 p.m. Although there were plans for a second season, DuMont canceled the show in 1952. No copies of the show or its scripts are known to exist. After the completion of the series, Wong's health began to deteriorate. In late 1953 she suffered an internal hemorrhage, which her brother attributed to the onset of menopause, her continued heavy drinking, and financial worries. In 1956, Wong hosted one of the first U.S. documentaries on China narrated entirely by a Chinese American. Broadcast on the ABC travel series "Bold Journey", the program consisted of film footage from her 1936 trip to China. Wong also did guest spots on television series such as "Adventures in Paradise", "The Barbara Stanwyck Show", and "The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp". For her contribution to the film industry, Anna May Wong received a star at 1708 Vine Street on the inauguration of the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1960. She is also depicted larger-than-life as one of the four supporting pillars of the "Gateway to Hollywood" sculpture located on the southeast corner of Hollywood Boulevard and La Brea Avenue, with the actresses Dolores del Río (Hispanic American), Dorothy Dandridge (African American) and Mae West. In 1960, Wong returned to film in "Portrait in Black", starring Lana Turner. She still found herself stereotyped, with one press release explaining her long absence from films with a supposed proverb, which was claimed to have been passed down to Wong by her father: "Don't be photographed too much or you'll lose your soul", a quote that would be inserted into many of her obituaries. She was scheduled to play the role of Madame Liang in the film production of Rodgers and Hammerstein's "Flower Drum Song", but was unable to take the role due to failing health. On February 3, 1961, at the age of 56, Wong died of a heart attack as she slept at home in Santa Monica, two days after her final screen performance on the television show "The Barbara Stanwyck Show". Her cremated remains were interred in her mother's grave at Rosedale Cemetery in Los Angeles. The headstone is marked with her mother's Anglicized name on top, and the Chinese names of Anna May (on the right) and her sister Mary (on the left) along the sides. Romances. In the early 1920s Wong had an affair with director Tod Browning. It was a romance largely unknown of at the time and highlighted by the fact that it was an interracial relationship and that Wong was underage. Legacy. Wong's image and career have left a legacy. Through her films, public appearances and prominent magazine features, she helped to "humanize" Asian Americans to white audiences during a period of overt racism and discrimination. Asian Americans, especially the Chinese, had been viewed as perpetually foreign in U.S. society but Wong's films and public image established her as an Asian-American citizen at a time when laws discriminated against Asian immigration and citizenship. Wong's hybrid image dispelled contemporary notions that the East and West were inherently different. Among Wong's films, only "Shanghai Express" retained critical attention in the U.S. in the decades after her death. In Europe and especially England, her films appeared occasionally at festivals. Wong remained popular with the gay community who often claimed her as one of their own and for whom her marginalization by the mainstream became a symbol. Although the Chinese Nationalist criticism of her portrayals of the "Dragon Lady" and "Butterfly" stereotypes lingered, Wong herself was forgotten in China. Nevertheless, the importance of Wong's legacy within the Asian-American film community can be seen in the Anna May Wong Award of Excellence, which is given yearly at the Asian-American Arts Awards; the annual award given out by the Asian Fashion Designers was also named after Wong in 1973. For decades following her death, Wong's image remained as a symbol in literature as well as in film. In the 1971 poem "The Death of Anna May Wong", Jessica Hagedorn saw Wong's career as one of "tragic glamour" and portrayed the actress as a "fragile maternal presence, an Asian-American woman who managed to 'birth' however ambivalently, Asian-American screen women in the jazz age". Wong's character in "Shanghai Express" was the subject of John Yau's 1989 poem "No One Ever Tried to Kiss Anna May Wong", which interprets the actress' career as a series of tragic romances. In David Cronenberg's 1993 film version of David Henry Hwang's 1986 play, "M. Butterfly", Wong's image was used briefly as a symbol of a "tragic diva". Her life was the subject of "China Doll, The Imagined Life of an American Actress", an award-winning fictional play written by Elizabeth Wong in 1995. As the centennial of Wong's birth approached, a re-examination of her life and career took shape; three major works on the actress appeared and comprehensive retrospectives of her films were held at both the Museum of Modern Art and the American Museum of the Moving Image in New York City. Anthony Chan's 2003 biography, "Perpetually Cool: The Many Lives of Anna May Wong (1905–1961)", was the first major work on Wong and was written, Chan says, "from a uniquely Asian-American perspective and sensibility". In 2004, Philip Leibfried and Chei Mi Lane's exhaustive examination of Wong's career, "Anna May Wong: A Complete Guide to Her Film, Stage, Radio and Television Work" was published, as well as a second full-length biography, "Anna May Wong: From Laundryman's Daughter to Hollywood Legend" by Graham Russell Hodges. Though Anna May Wong's life, career and legacy reflect many complex issues which remain decades after her death, Anthony Chan points out that her place in Asian-American cinematic history, as its first female star, is permanent.
1502359	Clive Selsby Revill (born 18 April 1930) is a New Zealand-born British character actor best known for his performances in musical theatre and on the London stage. Early life and stage career. Revill was born in Wellington, New Zealand, the son of Eleanor May (née Neel) and Malet Barford Revill. He originally trained to be an accountant in New Zealand, but decided to change his career path in 1950 when he made his stage debut as Sebastian in "Twelfth Night". He then moved to England, where he appeared in The Shakespeare Memorial Theatre Company's celebrated 1956–1958 season of productions in Stratford, which included "Hamlet", "Love's Labour's Lost", "The Merchant of Venice", "Julius Caesar" and "The Tempest". He went on to have such varied stage roles as Ratty in "Toad of Toad Hall" and Jean-Paul Marat in "The Marat/Sade". He made his Broadway debut in 1952, playing Mr. Pickwick in "The Pickwick Papers", and subsequently appeared in "Irma La Douce", "The Incomparable Max" and "Oliver!", for which his Fagin was nominated for a Tony Award. He is also known for his roles in the operettas of Gilbert and Sullivan, on both stage and television. He starred in the first national tour of the musical "Drood", replacing George Rose who was murdered during the run. He also participated in the workshop production of "Tom Jones: The Musical", playing the role of Squire Western and reprising it on the cast recording. Film career. His red hair and distinctive Mr. Punch-like features often saw him cast as comic eccentrics in a number of British films of the 1960s and 1970s such as "Kaleidoscope" (1966), "Modesty Blaise" (1966), "Fathom" (1967), "The Assassination Bureau" (1969) and "One of Our Dinosaurs Is Missing" (1975). He also had notable supporting turns in Otto Preminger's "Bunny Lake Is Missing" (1965) opposite Laurence Olivier, "Mack the Knife" (1989), and his American film debut "A Fine Madness" (1966), as well as a rare leading role in the horror film "The Legend of Hell House" (1973). He was often cast as humorous foreign characters (he has played everything from Chinese to Russian). Two of his highest profile roles of this kind were in two films for Billy Wilder: "The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes" (1970) and "Avanti!" (1972), for which he was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for his part as put-upon hotel manager Carlo Carlucci. Television career. He played both Ko-Ko (the starring role) in "The Mikado" and the title character, John Wellington Wells, in "The Sorcerer" for the Brent Walker television series of Gilbert and Sullivan productions, shown by the BBC in 1983. Relocating to America, he has guest-starred in many television series, such as "Columbo" episode: "The Conspirators" (1978), "Hart to Hart", "Dynasty", "Magnum, P.I.", "The Love Boat", "Remington Steele", "Murder, She Wrote" episodes: "Murder to a Jazz Beat" (1985) and "Curse of the Daanau" (1988), "Babylon 5" and '. He starred as the wizard Vector in the short-lived cult series "Wizards and Warriors". He also voiced Alfred Pennyworth in the first three episodes of ', he appeared in the 1990s Fox network cult classic comedy TV series "Get a Life". Voice work. He is also known for his voice work, which includes the voice of Emperor Palpatine in the original 1980 version of ' (he was later replaced by Ian McDiarmid in the 2004 DVD version for continuity's sake, though Revill is still credited), numerous cartoons such as "The Transformers", ' and "DuckTales" and more recently video games, including ' and '.
1064784	Arielle Caroline Kebbel (born February 19, 1985) is an American model and actress. She is known for her roles in films such as "" (2005), "John Tucker Must Die" (2006), "Aquamarine" (2006) and " Vampires Suck" (2010), as well as television series including "Gilmore Girls" (2003–04), "The Vampire Diaries" (2009–13), "Life Unexpected" (2010) and "90210" (2011–13). Early life and modeling career. Kebbel was born in Winter Park, Florida. Her mother, Sheri, is a talent manager and owns a production company. Kebbel graduated from Crenshaw School in Winter Garden. She was a contestant at the 2002 Miss Florida Teen USA beauty pageant. Before pursuing a career in acting, Kebbel was a full-time model. She has since appeared in publications such as "Maxim", "H", "Lucky", "Men's Health", "Stuff" and "FHM". Acting career. Within the first week of moving to Los Angeles, California, Kebbel successfully auditioned for her first major role portraying Lindsay Lister on The CW's "Gilmore Girls". She went on to become a major recurring role throughout the third, fourth and fifth season. She has since appeared in television shows such as "Entourage", "Grounded for Life", "" and "The Vampire Diaries". She has been cast in two pilots, "Football Wives" and "No Heroics", both developed for ABC which have not been picked up.
1105255	Maxwell Herman Alexander "Max" Newman, FRS (7 February 1897 – 22 February 1984) was a British mathematician and codebreaker. His work in World War II led to the construction of Colossus, the first operational electronic computer, and he established the Royal Society Computing Machine Laboratory at the University of Manchester which produced the first working stored program electronic computer in 1948, the Manchester Small-Scale Experimental Machine. Education and early life. Max Newman was born Maxwell Neumann in Chelsea, London, England, on 7 February 1897. His father was Herman Alexander Neumann, originally from the German city of Bromberg (now in Poland) who had emigrated with his family to London at the age of 15. Herman worked as a secretary in a company, and married Sarah Ann (Pike), an English schoolteacher, in 1896. The family moved to Dulwich in 1903, and Newman attended Goodrich Road school, then City of London School from 1908. At school, he excelled in classics and in mathematics. He played chess and the piano well. Newman won a scholarship to study mathematics at St John's College, Cambridge in 1915, and in 1916 gained a first in part I of the Cambridge Mathematical Tripos. World War I. His studies were postponed by World War I. His father was interned as an enemy alien after the start of the war in 1914, and upon his release he returned to Germany. In 1916, Newman changed his name by deed poll to the anglicised "Newman" and Sarah did likewise in 1920. In January 1917 Newman took up a teaching post at Archbishop Holgate's Grammar School in York, leaving in April 1918. He spent some months in the Royal Army Pay Corps, and then taught at Chigwell School for six months in 1919 before returning to Cambridge. He was called up for military service in February 1918, but claimed conscientious objection due to his beliefs and his father's country of origin, and thereby avoided any direct role in the fighting. Between the wars. Graduation. He resumed his interrupted studies in October 1919, and graduated in 1921 as a wrangler (equivalent to a first) in Part II of the Mathematical Tripos, and gained distinction in Schedule B (the equivalent of Part III). His dissertation considered the use of 'symbolic machines' in physics, foreshadowing his later interest in computing machines. Early academic career. On 5 November 1923 he was elected a Fellow of St John's. He worked on the foundations of combinatorial topology, and proposed that a notion of equivalence be defined using only three elementary "moves". Newman's definition avoided difficulties that had arisen from previous definitions of the concept. Publishing over twenty papers established his reputation as an "expert in modern topology". Newman wrote "Elements of the topology of plane sets of points", a definitive work on general topology, and still highly recommended as an undergraduate text. He also published papers on mathematical logic, and solved a special case of Hilbert's fifth problem. He was appointed a lecturer in mathematics at Cambridge in 1927, where his 1935 lectures on the Foundations of Mathematics and Gödel's Theorem inspired Alan Turing to embark on his pioneering work on the "Entscheidungsproblem" (decision problem) using a hypothetical computing machine. In spring 1936, Newman was presented by Turing with a draft of "On Computable Numbers with an Application to the Entscheidungsproblem". He realised the paper's importance and helped ensure swift publication. Newman subsequently arranged for Turing to visit Princeton where Alonzo Church was working on the same problem but using his Lambda calculus. During this period, Newman started to share Turing's dream of building a stored-program computing machine. During this time at Cambridge, he developed close friendships with Patrick Blackett, Henry Whitehead and Lionel Penrose.
1056782	A Midnight Clear is a 1992 American war film directed by former actor Keith Gordon with an ensemble cast featuring Ethan Hawke, Gary Sinise, Peter Berg, Kevin Dillon, and Arye Gross. Set towards the end of World War II, the film tells the story of an American intelligence unit which finds a German platoon that wishes to surrender. Synopsis. In France in December, 1944, an American Intelligence squad locates a German platoon in the Ardennes, wishing to surrender rather than die in Germany's final war offensive. The two groups of men, isolated from the war at present, put aside their differences and spend Christmas together before the surrender plan turns bad and both sides are forced to fight each other. Critical reception. The film received mostly positive reviews, with an 88% favorable rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 26 reviews. " The Washington Post" reviewer lauded it as "a war film completely unlike any other, a compelling accomplishment that's more soul than blood and bullets." Vincent Canby of the "New York Times" praised the film's solid construction, concluding that "In "A Midnight Clear", just about everything works."
1763906	The California Kid is a 1974 TV movie starring Martin Sheen, Vic Morrow, Nick Nolte, Michelle Phillips, Gary Morgan, and Janit Baldwin. Plot. The story takes place in 1958, and involves a town, Clarksburg, California, with a famous speed trap, in which a disturbed Sheriff Roy Childress (Vic Morrow), whose wife and daughter were killed by a speeder, turns bad, with a habit of deliberately punishing speeders by pushing their cars off the mountain highway in his 1957 Plymouth Belvedere. Two Navy sailors on leave (one portrayed by Sheen's younger brother, Joe Estevez), speeding to get back to base on time in a 1951 Ford Custom, are pushed off to their deaths by the sheriff. Soon after, a stranger arrives, driving a hot rodded black 1934 Ford three-window coupe. He provokes Sheriff Childress into giving him a speeding ticket on purpose, establishes his credentials with the sheriff as a hot rodder and potential speed maniac, with an explicit reference to the 3-window's tested speed. He pays the ticket in front of Judge J.A. Hooker (Frederic Downs), and it is revealed he is Michael McCord (Martin Sheen), older brother of one of the sailors. Believing his brother's death was no accident, he does his own investigating, with the help of Maggie (Michelle Phillips). He finds a stripped bumper from his brother's Ford at the impound yard, dented as if by pushbars. He checks out the lay of the land. Knowing how his brother was killed, he goes out to the Curve, testing its limits. When Lyle Stafford (Gary Morgan), the younger brother of the town's auto mechanic Buzz Stafford (Nick Nolte) is killed and his girlfriend Sissy (Janit Baldwin) badly injured by the sheriff after the duo go for a drive in a 1955 Mercury, McCord sees the pushbars on the sheriff's car. When Buzz wants to kill the sheriff for revenge, McCord persuades him not to. Then the sheriff tries to run McCord out of town, and the stage is set for the climactic duel. McCord then runs the speed trap, challenging the sheriff, who tries to run him off the road. McCord is ready, knowing his car's limits for the curve, and the sheriff is a victim of his own obsession, going too fast to make the deadly turn. He drives off the cliff, while McCord manages to stop in the sand. Production. Pete Chapouris customized a 1934 Ford three window coupe, selected on sight by the producers. The '34 would become legendary among customizers and hot rodders. Incidentally, the close-up shot of the car's engine in the movie is not in fact that of the '34 coupe featured, but a masked shot of the engine in another legendary film car, the '32 Ford from "American Graffiti". At the time Chapouris created the car, the customizing style he employed was at odds with most contemporary enthusiast thinking, and was generally considered "old-fashioned" in a world where "resto-rodding" (a style of customizing sympathetic to the car's original design and specification) was the current trend. However, this old-time styling of the car made it perfect for its role in the movie, where—with a few tweaks (added dummy sidepipes, a 'c' channel rear bumper, and replacing the 1960s-era Halibrand wheels with more era-correct steel wheels and Ford hubcaps)--it provided the perfect example of a well-built 1950s hot rod. Such was the impact of the car in its role in the movie, today the name "The California Kid" refers more to the car itself than the film among rodders. For its role in the film, the words "The California Kid" were added just below the side windows on both sides in a script-type lettering, along with the flourish of an extra piece of small flame paintwork alongside it. The extra flames were quickly deleted after filming (they were rather unnatractive and not in keeping with the style of flames already applied to the car) though the script has remained ever since.
1056991	The Marc Pease Experience is a 2009 comedy film directed by Todd Louiso and written by Louiso and Jacob Koskoff. Shot primarily in and around Wilmington and New Hanover County, North Carolina in early 2007, the film is centered around Marc Pease, a man living in the past, when he was the star of his high school's musicals. The film stars Jason Schwartzman as Pease, Ben Stiller as Pease's former mentor, and Anna Kendrick as his love interest. Plot. In high school, Marc Pease (Jason Schwartzman) ran out on his performance as the Tin Man in a production of "The Wiz", succumbing to his stage fright despite his mentor Mr Gribble's (Ben Stiller) encouragement. Eight years later, he is dating Meg Brickman (Anna Kendrick), a high school senior who is bitter about being in the chorus and not having a principal role in Gribble's latest production of "The Wiz". Marc is keen for Gribble to produce the demo tape for his a cappella singing group Meridian 8 (which has already lost four of eight original members). Gribble, however, tries to avoid Marc, frustrated that Marc refuses to leave him alone because of the friendly advice he gave Marc eight years ago. While tidying Meg's bedroom, Marc finds a tape labelled "Meg singing", but discovers after he listens to it that she is singing with Gribble, and at the end of the song, their noises suggest that they are having sex. Meg, meanwhile, begins to doubt Gribble's sincerity when he tells her what a terrific singer she is when she realizes that she is always in the chorus. Questioning whether she even enjoys singing, she decides to quit. Marc drives to a performance with Meridian 8, where the only way he can keep the group from splitting up is to lie that Gribble has given them the chance to record in a studio. After insisting that he should sing his Tin Man's song, he starts crying on stage, and is later forced to admit that Gribble has not yet responded to his request to produce the demo. That night, the opening night of "The Wiz", Marc is working as a chauffeur for a high school prom couple. After dropping them off and cutting off his frequently ridiculed ponytail, he arrives at the show in the interval. He unsuccessfully tries to discuss Meridian 8's demo with Gribble, who brushes him off, then learns from another bandmate that they are losing another member. After hearing the Tin Man's song from outside the auditorium, Marc goes inside and drags Gribble out into an empty classroom. Marc confronts him about his empty promises for Meridian 8 to record in a studio. Gribble tells Marc that he is still living as if he were in high school, and an angered Marc threatens to play Meg's tape to the school principal and expose Gribble's affair with a student. As they fight, Marc accuses Gribble of denying Meg a main role as a means of revenge on him, and destroys the tape for Meg's sake. He then goes backstage and breaks up with Meg because she is too young for him. Seeing that the actor of the Wiz has injured himself, Marc takes his cape, runs onto the stage and sings the Wiz's song. Meg runs away but decides that she loves singing and returns to the stage. Marc's performance is met with cheers from the audience, and he is overjoyed. One year later, having left exorcised his "Wizard of Oz" demons, Marc is working as a professional singer under the title "The Marc Pease Experience". Production. "The Marc Pease Experience" is Todd Louiso's second directorial project, having previously directed "Love Liza" (2002) and acted in minor roles in "High Fidelity" (2000), "Thank You for Smoking" (2006) and "Snakes on a Plane" (2006). Jason Schwartzman was signed to star in the film by February 2007, with Ben Stiller in talks. Final funding from Paramount Vantage and producer Michael London was received in early February, with production slated to start in March. Anna Kendrick's role in the film was announced in mid-April, after filming had begun. Principal photography began on March 12, 2007 in the state of North Carolina, where the entirety of the film was shot. Various locations around Wilmington and New Hanover County were used for filming, including Wilmington's Eugene Ashley High School and the school's auditorium. Filming continued through March and into April. On the last day of shooting at Eugene Ashley High, Stiller presented the school's morning announcements. A number of student interns from the University of North Carolina at Wilmington's Film Studies Department were actively involved in "The Marc Pease Experience"s production as part of their internship program. After principal photography was completed, during post-production Louiso "realized we needed to go back and add some stuff". The 2007–2008 Writers Guild of America strike began at this time, however, and so there was a delay of six months before the extra scenes could be scripted and filmed. Release. Due to the consolidation of Paramount Vantage into Paramount Pictures, its parent studio, in June 2008, "The Marc Pease Experience" had a limited release into ten U.S. markets on August 21, 2009. The film opened in San Francisco, Chicago, Philadelphia, Miami, Dallas, Cleveland, Minneapolis, Seattle, Sacramento, and Boston in what was described by Drew Taylor of "The Playlist" as only "an obligation by the studio to release the film theatrically". Box office. The film grossed US$3,000 from ten screens on its opening weekend with a per-screen average of only $300. By the end of its domestic run, the film had grossed $4,033 and an international addition of $386,551, totaling $390,584. Critical reception. Before the film's release, Alex Billington of FirstShowing.net dubbed it "the next "Rushmore"" — which also starred Jason Schwartzman in the lead — based on the similar character elements.
1054254	Thomas and the Magic Railroad is a 2000 British-American feature film based on the TV series "Thomas the Tank Engine & Friends", The Railway Series by the Rev. W. Awdry, and the United States TV series "Shining Time Station". The film was co-produced by Gullane Entertainment and the Isle of Man Film Commission and distributed by Destination Films. It was written, produced and directed by Britt Allcroft. It was first released in the U.K. where critics were unfamiliar with the characters from "Shining Time Station" and accused the film of "Americanizing" Thomas. Critical reception in the U.S. was somewhat better ("An enchanting ride." AP. "Delight for young moviegoers." Garnett News Service), but still mostly negative, in stark contrast to the praise given to the original "Shining Time Station", which was an award-winning show. It currently holds a 19% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Since the film's release, various specials based on Thomas and Friends have been released, although they are not directly related to this film. Plot. Sir Topham Hatt (UK: The Fat Controller), the supervisor of all of the engines on the railway on Sodor, is on holiday leaving Mr. Conductor in charge. Meanwhile, Thomas and Gordon encounter an evil diesel locomotive named Diesel 10, who states he has incomplete work on Sodor. He is planning to get rid of steam engines on Sodor once and for all. Mr. Conductor has problems of his own; the mysterious gold dust that allows him to magically teleport from place to place is running low. As a result, there is no way for anyone to travel from Shining Time to Sodor or back again. There is a lost engine that is able to travel between Sodor and Muffle Mountain using the Magic Railroad as she is kept hiding in a safe place. Burnett Stone, an elderly man, lives on Muffle Mountain, near Shining Time Station, in which Stacy Jones was the manager. Unknown to everyone, he is the owner of the lost engine, whose name is Lady. The engine crashed after an earlier encounter with Diesel 10 after using all the coal that was provided for her. Regardless of the restoration, she cannot produce any steam despite the types of coal that was provided. Percy and Thomas find out that there is a secret railway and there are magic buffers that lead to it. However, Diesel 10 overhears them. Toby the Tram Engine follows Diesel 10 and hears him telling his diesel locomotive sidekicks Splatter and Dodge of his plans to destroy the steam locomotives. Diesel 10 thinks that this horrid act seems possible mainly because Mr. Conductor's whistle contains gold dust inside which he uses to travel is running out, and he is therefore becoming too weak to stop Diesel 10. Wanting to warn his friends of Diesel's plans, Toby rings his bell to distract them. Diesel 10 tries destroying Toby, but instead destroys the sheltering they were resting in, trapping them. Burnett's granddaughter Lily visits him, and meets C. Junior, Mr. Conductor's good-natured but lazy cousin, who takes her to Sodor and introduces her to the talking engines who live there, including Thomas. Later, Thomas is assigned to transport Lily back to Burnett on Muffle Mountain after inadvertently discovering the entrance of the long-abandoned Magic Railroad by an old grotto. He takes his lost truck of special Island-of-Sodor coal and arrives on the other end of the Magic Railway, located at the edge of a high cliff near the top of Muffle Mountain. Lily goes to her grandfather's house, leaving Thomas stranded on the mountain. However, the wind causes Thomas to accidentally uncouple himself from the truck, causing him to roll off the mountain into a field where he re-enters the Magic Railroad through another portal there. Lily reunites with Burnett at his workshop, where he shows her Lady and explains his problem getting the engine to steam. Using the Sodor coal truck, the engine eventually comes to life and makes the steam. Lily and Burnett take Lady along the Magic Railroad, regenerating itself in the process. Lady comments that Burnett had never forgotten about Magic. They reunite with Thomas and find their way back to Sodor, where Diesel 10 finds them and goes after them. When Thomas and Lady cross the crumbling Viaduct, one of its arches begin to collapse. Lady makes it across, and Thomas jumps a large gap in the supports. After the arch collapses, Diesel 10 attempts to cross the gap but instead falls off and plunges into the ravine below where he lands in a passing barge filled with sludge, carrying him away along the canal. When evening falls, Thomas, Lady, Burnett and Lily meet Mr. Conductor and C-Junior. They use the water from a wishing well and shavings from the rails of the Magic Railroad to make more gold dust, and the Island of Sodor and Shining Time Station are saved. C-Junior, encouraged by his success in being able to help out, offers to take a job on Sodor, and Mr. Conductor presents him with his conductor's cap so that C-Junior can now take over Mr. Conductor's role on Sodor, while Mr. Conductor says that he will now travel back to serve at Shining Time Station. Meanwhile, Thomas happily returns home in Tidmouth Sheds to tell the other engines about his encounter with Lady. Production. Development. As early as 1994, even prior to the launch of the fourth season of the television series of "Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends", Britt Allcroft planned a Thomas the Tank Engine feature film. Then in 1995, Allcroft was approached by Barry London, then Vice-Chairman of Paramount Pictures, with an idea for a Thomas film. His interest is thought to have stemmed from his daughter, then 3, being enthralled by "Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends". In February 1996, Allcroft signed a contract with Paramount Pictures to write a script with the title, "Thomas and the Magic Railroad"., with a release date of 1997. However when Barry London left Paramount Pictures, plans for the film were shelved by Paramount, leading Allcroft to seek other sources of funding. Then in the Summer of 1998, Allcroft saw an Isle of Man Film Commission advert. They were offering tax incentives to companies wanting to film on the Island. Allcroft visited and felt the location perfect. Then in 1999, Barry London became Chairman of the newly founded Destination Films. He renewed his interest in the project and Destination Films became the main financial backer and studio for the film. Filming. The movie was filmed at the Strasburg Rail Road in Strasburg, Pennsylvania (United States), as well as in Toronto, Ontario, Canada and on the Isle of Man. Castletown railway station on the Isle of Man Railway formed part of Shining Time Station and the goods shed at Port St Mary railway station became Burnett Stone's workshop. Running shots of the "Indian Valley" train were filmed at the Strasburg Rail Road location. The large passenger station where Lily boards the train is the Harrisburg Transportation Center. Norfolk & Western 4-8-0 475 was repainted as the Indian Valley locomotive. Sodor was realised using models and chroma key. The models were animated using live action remote control, as on the television series. The model sequences were filmed in Toronto, Canada instead of Shepperton Studios, the "home" of the original TV show; however, several of the show's key staff were flown over to participate. The Magic Railroad was created using models and CGI and water color painting. Original version. In a 2007 interview, director Britt Allcroft commented the finished film was drastically changed from what it was originally going to be the way she had written it, with the character PT Boomer, (going to be played by Doug Lennox) being deleted or dropped out of the film after the US test audiences said that he was much too frightening for young children (but still seen in a number of trailers). Lily Stone (played by Mara Wilson) was supposed to be the narrator of the story. Before filming, Thomas' voice would be provided by John Bellis, a fireman and part-time taxi driver who worked on the film as the Isle of Man transportation co-ordinator and facilities manager. Bellis received the role when he happened to pick up Britt Allcroft and her crew from the airport. According to Allcroft, after hearing him speak for the first time, she told her colleagues, "I have just heard the voice of Thomas. That man is exactly how Thomas would sound!" Bellis accepted the role. Unfortunately he lost the role after a test screening. Audiences in Los Angeles disliked Bellis' voice for Thomas due to his Liverpudlian accent, claiming that he made Thomas sound much too old. Subsequently, Bellis was deleted or dropped out from his role and was replaced by Edward Glen, who gave Thomas a lot more of a youthful-sounding voice. Bellis did receive a credit for his work on the Isle of Man, and his voice can still be heard extensively in one or two of the trailers. Bellis said he was "gutted", but wished the film-makers well. "It was supposed to be my big break, but it hasn't put me off and I am hoping something else will come along." Reception. The film was premièred at the Odeon Leicester Square; for the purpose, a steam locomotive, no. 47298 painted to resemble Thomas, was brought to the cinema by low loader on 9 July 2000. The film earned $15,748,009 in ticket sales, compared to its $19 million budget. During its second weekend of screening in Britain it had only taken in £170'000. "Thomas and the Magic Railroad" received generally unfavorable reviews from critics. The film has a score of 19% on Rotten Tomatoes with the consensus: "Kids these days demand cutting edge special effects or at least a clever plot with cute characters. This movie has neither, having lost in its Americanization what the British original did so right." However, it did receive a positive review from Associated Press and Gannett newspapers. Nell Minow of Common Sense Media also gave the film a positive review, giving it three out of five stars and writing that it "will please fans" but that the plot "might confuse kids". Roger Ebert of the "Chicago Sun-Times" gave the film one star and wrote "(the fact) That "Thomas and the Magic Railroad" made it into theaters at all is something of a mystery. This is a production with 'straight to video' written all over it. Kids who like the Thomas books might kinda like it. Especially younger kids. Real younger kids. Otherwise, no." While he admired the models and art direction, he criticized how the engines' mouths didn't move when they spoke, the overly depressed performance of Peter Fonda, as well as the overall lack of consistency in the plot. Video game. A video game was released based on the film. "Thomas & the Magic Railroad: Print Studio" was published by Hasbro Interactive and released for PC on August 25, 2000.
1058795	Beyond the Poseidon Adventure is a 1979 American disaster film, a sequel to the 1972 film "The Poseidon Adventure". It was directed by Irwin Allen and starred Michael Caine and Sally Field. The film was a critical and commercial failure, and was the only Allen disaster film not to receive any Academy Award nominations. Plot. The film continues the story from the original movie's conclusion. The "Poseidon" is still afloat, and the six survivors of Reverend Scott's team have been rescued. Cockney tugboat captain Mike Turner (Michael Caine) discovers the shipwreck. Accompanied by second mate Wilbur (Karl Malden) and passenger Celeste Whitman (Sally Field), he heads out to claim salvage rights, as the tugboat "Jenny" lost her cargo in the same storm that capsized the "Poseidon".
1016011	Confession of Pain is a 2006 Hong Kong crime drama film directed by Andrew Lau and Alan Mak, starring Tony Leung, Takeshi Kaneshiro, Shu Qi and Xu Jinglei. Plot summary. Police inspectors Lau Ching-hei and Yau Kin-bong arrest a rapist in 2003. When Yau returns home later, he sees that his pregnant girlfriend has committed suicide by slitting her wrists. Yau is so depressed with her death that he indulges in alcohol and turns in his police badge to work as a private investigator. He becomes obsessed with finding out the reason for his girlfriend's suicide. Three years later, Yau discovers that his girlfriend had actually cheated on him and she was waiting at a bar for her secret lover on the night she died. Her secret lover did not show up that night because he was involved in a car accident. Yau initially thought that he will be angry with his girlfriend's lover, but he ends up taking care of the comatose man in the hospital. Yau gets over the unhappy incident and falls in love with Hung, a girl who sells beer in the same bar. Lau's wife, Susan, is the daughter of the billionaire Chow Yuen-sing. One night, Lau and two accomplices break into his father-in-law's residence, where they kill Chow and his butler, Uncle Man. Later, Lau lures his partners-in-crime to a rundown house and murders them, after which he attempts to make the scene seem as though the two of them killed each other in a dispute over the loot. Susan is not convinced that only the two killers were involved, so she hires Yau to help her investigate further. She has also become paranoid after her father's murder, so Lau has to discreetly give her pills to calm her down and put her to sleep. After a long investigation, which includes a few dangerous confrontations with a "suspect", Yau discovers Lau's secret and dark past. Chow Yuen-sing had murdered Lau's family members in Macau several years ago when Lau was still a boy, and he bribed the police to close the case. Lau survived, took on a new identity, and grew up in an orphanage before moving to Hong Kong, where he became a police officer. Lau seeks vengeance on Chow and he pretended to fall in love with Susan and married her. He attempts to kill Susan by drugging her and locking her inside the kitchen after turning on the gas. Susan survives, but is badly injured because there was an explosion, and ends up in hospital. Lau visits Susan in hospital and mentally confesses the truth to her. She reveals that she already knows he tried to murder her because she was still partially conscious when he drugged her and locked her in the kitchen. She then asks him if he ever really loved her. Lau realises that, in his desire for revenge, he has destroyed a new family he created with Susan. Susan does not believe him, loses her will to live, and dies. Yau meets Lau outside the hospital and tells him his conclusion. Lau returns to Susan's room, where he feels overwhelmed by guilt and eventually commits suicide by shooting himself in the head. Soundtrack. Ayumi Hamasaki performed the theme song "Secret", which appears in the international release of the film. The Mandarin theme song in the Chinese version, "Secret of a Forlorn City" (傷城秘密), was performed by Denise Ho. Distribution. "Confession of Pain" was released in Hong Kong theatres on 21 December 2006. The two-disc DVD edition, two-disc DVD special edition (with postcard book) and VCD edition were all released in Hong Kong on 14 February 2007. The DVD editions feature audio in DTS-ES and a second disc featuring a documentary of the making of the movie, photo galleries and other bonus features. The Japanese release rights went to Avex Trax, with the title ""Kizudarake no Otokotachi"" (傷だらけの男たち), which roughly translates as "Heavily Scarred Men". Sponsors of the film include: Giorgio Armani, Ayumi Hamasaki, 1010, San Miguel, Citicall, Philip Stein, D-Link, Neway and APM. Reception. Box office. "Confession of Pain" opened in Hong Kong in the same week as Zhang Yimou's "Curse of the Golden Flower" and was beaten on the opening day, but was still able to generate box office revenues of HK$3 million on its opening weekend. Critical reception. Critical reception towards the film was mixed. Most critics positively reviewed the performances by Tony Leung and Takeshi Kaneshiro, but criticised the plot for the lack of suspense because it revealed prematurely the identity of the murderer. Andrew Chan of the Film Critics Circle of Australia writes, "Ultimately the film is too predictable to be a thriller, too few “Chapman To” to be a comedy and far too much Shu Qi to be not entirely annoying. With that being said, the most important element that this film lacks is the almost non-existent connection with the audience and the effect is leaving the audience muddled up and confused." Awards and nominations. The film was nominated for seven awards in the 26th Hong Kong Film Awards, including Best Screenplay (Alan Mak, Felix Chong), Best Actor (Tony Leung), Best Cinematography (Andrew Lau, Lai Yiu-fai), Best Film Editing, Best Art Direction, Best Costume and Make-Up Design, and Best Original Film Score (Chan Kwong-wing). However, it only won one award for Best Cinematography. 26th Hong Kong Film Awards Remake. A Hollywood remake of "Confession of Pain" was announced by Warner Bros., who bought the rights of the film. Leonardo DiCaprio's production company, Appian Way, is producing the film alongside Roy Lee, who brokered the remake deals on Asian movies from "The Ring" to "Infernal Affairs". At the moment, however, it is not yet known if DiCaprio, who also starred in the Hollywood remake of "Infernal Affairs" (another Lau/Mak film), "The Departed", will also star in the film. William Monahan, who won a Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar for "The Departed", will work on the script.
1373067	Anthony Michael Ruivivar (born ) is an American actor known for his portrayal of FDNY paramedic Carlos Nieto in the TV series "Third Watch", and other law enforcement roles in different TV series. Background. Ruivivar was born in Honolulu, Hawaii to a musician father. In January 1998 he married actress Yvonne Jung, who would later appear in seasons 5 and 6 (2003–2005) of "Third Watch" as FDNY EMS Paramedic Holly Levine. In the show, Ruivivar and Jung's characters became a couple and got married in the series finale. In real life they have 2 children; son Kainoa was born on and daughter Levi was born on . Ruivivar's father is of Filipino, Chinese, and Spanish descent and his mother is of German and Scottish descent.Given his physical appearance, Ruivivar usually portrays Hawaiian, Filipino or Latino characters. Ruivivar also speaks Spanish, and he used it in "Third Watch". He received his Bachelor of Fine Arts from Boston University. Career. Ruivivar's early appearances include the films "Race the Sun" (1996) and a minor character in "Starship Troopers" (1997). Ruivivar's breakthrough role came in 1999 as Carlos Nieto, a paramedic in the action/drama series "Third Watch" (1999–2005), which centers around the life of Police Officers, Paramedics, and Firemen of a fictional Precinct and Fire Station in New York City. In the show, Carlos was a Hawaiian born Filipino-American who was abandoned by his family and spent his youth in various foster homes. Carlos started as a cocky rookie, often clashing with his superior. Sometimes, he would display a presumptuous and uncaring attitude towards his patients, and other times he would act as a comic relief. He was the only paramedic to stay as a major character for the 6 seasons of the show. After "Third Watch", Ruivivar remained in the drama genre, usually playing a police officer, detective or FBI agent, in various TV series such as "Traveler", "Numb3rs", "Criminal Minds", "" (all 2007), and "Lie to Me" (2009).
1060555	Edward Fitzgerald Burns (born January 29, 1968) is an American actor, film producer, writer, and director best known for appearing in several films like "Saving Private Ryan" (1998) and "One Missed Call" (2008). Burns made his directorial debut with movies such as "The Brothers McMullen" (1995), "She's the One" (1996) and "Sidewalks of New York" (2001). Early life. Burns was born in Woodside, Queens, New York, the son of Molly (née McKenna), a federal agency manager, and Edward J. Burns, a public relations spokesman and police officer. He was raised a Roman Catholic. Burns is the second of three children (with siblings Mary and Brian) in an Irish American family. He was raised in Valley Stream, New York, on Long Island. He briefly attended Chaminade High School before transferring to Hewlett High School. After high school, Burns attended, from 1987 to 1992, SUNY Oneonta, University at Albany, and Hunter College. Career. Burns got his start in the film industry right after college as a production assistant on the Oliver Stone film, "The Doors". While working as a gofer at "Entertainment Tonight", he financed, produced, directed and starred in his first film "The Brothers McMullen" in his spare time, which was largely shot in his hometown of Valley Stream. Once he completed the film, he was able to get a copy to Robert Redford after an ET junket interview for "Quiz Show" at the Rhiga Royal Hotel in Manhattan. In 1996, Burns wrote, directed and starred in the ensemble drama "She's The One" with Jennifer Aniston, Cameron Diaz and Amanda Peet, as well as "Sidewalks of New York" in 2001. Burns is also known for his acting work on movies such as "Saving Private Ryan" (1998), "Life or Something Like It" (2002), and "Confidence" (2003). "Looking for Kitty" (2004), which Burns wrote, directed and starred in, was shot with a hand-held $3,000 digital Panasonic AG-DVX100 camera with a Mini35 adapter. The film's entire budget was $200,000 and was filmed in New York City with a tiny crew and without standard permits. Burns discussed this unusual film-making process in the director's commentary on the DVD and wrote in the Director's Letter "If you are an aspiring filmmaker, in this day of inflating budgets and runaway production, the truth is you can make a movie for no money in New York... and have a blast". His film "Purple Violets" premiered exclusively on iTunes on November 20, 2007. Burns began a string of guest appearances on the HBO original series "Entourage" mid-way through season 3, as well as appearing as Grace Adler's boyfriend in "Will & Grace". In "Entourage" Burns plays himself and is (within the context of the series) writing a new TV series in which Johnny Drama is able to land a part. In 2007, Burns announced plans to partner with Virgin Comics to create a series entitled Dock Walloper. Burns plans to use the comic series as a springboard to a film of the same story. In March 2009, The Lynch Pin, a series of shorts starring, written and directed by Burns were released via the internet. The ten episodes are only available to view online as of August 2009 and future plans for the project are unknown. With the modest success of Purple Violets, Burns was considering taking a studio directing assignment to make money. After reading a few scripts and taking a few meetings, he chose to remain a writer/director. He then wrote "Nice Guy Johnny" and shot it quickly, on the RED One camera, for a reported $25,000 with a small crew. "Nice Guy Johnny" premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival in 2010. To coincide with the 10th anniversary of the Tribeca Film Festival in 2011, Burns wrote a movie, "Newlyweds" that he also directed and starred in. Following a model similar to "Nice Guy Johnny", "Newlyweds" was shot on the Canon 5D, with an even smaller crew, for $9000 in 12 days. The film premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival in 2011 as the closing night film. He claimed on Twitter that the $9,000 budget broke out to "5k for actors, 2k insurance, 2k food and drink. 9k in the can." He is currently running a screenwriting contest with the web startup Scripped for a crowdsourced screenplay which he intends to help get produced. Personal life. Burns is married to model Christy Turlington and has two children, Grace (born 2003) and Finn (born 2006).
591923	"Avinash" is an Indian actor who stars predominantly in South Indian language films and notably in the Kannada, Telugu and Tamil film industries. Known for his authentic portrayal of complex characters and versatility, Avinash is one of the most sought-after actors in the supporting category. He is one of the few actors to enjoy both critical and commercial success. He has been in the industry for two decades now and has acted in more than 375 films in total. Early life. Avinash was born in Yelandur to Smt. Indira and Sri. B.K. Narayana Rao, a lawyer. He studied at Hardwicke High School in Mysore and completed his education at Manasa Gangothri, Mysore, with an M.A. in English literature. Drawn to theatre and cinema from a very young age, he had a very active theater life at Mysore and later at Bangalore. Career. With a post graduate degree in English literature, Avinash started his career as a lecturer of literature at N.I.E. College, Mysore and then moved to B.E.L. College and M.E.S. College Bangalore. During that time, he was also active in the theater circles. He was part of many plays staged by Sanket, a very popular group headed by the late Shankar Nag. He was also part of the theater group headed by veteran B. Jayashree. His first notable role was as the Hindu saint Madhvacharya by G.V.Iyer. After the critical success of "Madhvacharya", Avinash decided to pursue a career as an actor. In his career spanning more than 375 films and two decades, he has starred with many of the leading stars of South India. His notable films include "Huliya" directed by K.V. Raju, Chinnari Mutha, "Singaravva" directed by T.S. Nagabharana, "Dweepa" directed by Girish Kasaravalli, "Mathadana" directed by T.N.Seetharam, "Apthamitra" and "Aptharakshaka" directed by P.Vasu and, recently, "Siruthai" starring Karthi Sivakumar and "Doubles", a Malayalam film starring Mammooty. His upcoming films are "Paramathma" directed by Yogaraj Bhat and "7aam Arivu", directed by A.R. Murugadoss starring Surya Sivakumar. Personal life. He is married to television actress Malavika Avinash. Partial Filmography. A list of few films with Avinash as actor follows: Other activities. He is an active part of superstar Dr. Vishnuvardhan's Snehaloka Cricket Team (SCT). The SCT includes many celebrities such as Bharathi Vishnuvardhan (actor and president of SCT), Anirudh Jathkar (actor), Shobaraj (actor), Sagar S (music director), K S Shivaram (actor), Vijayakumar (producer) and many more. They organize cricket matches for charity and do a lot of social service. References. i* http://lll.livemalayalam.com/uncategorized/kannada-actor-avinashs-malayalam-debut/
520138	Muro Ami ("Reef-Hunters") is a Filipino film that depicts one of the worst forms of child labor in the illegal fishing system. The film follows the story of Fredo, a ruthless captain of 150 "Muro Ami" divers, who employ illegal fishing practices, such as pounding and crushing corals to scare fish, driving them towards the nets. With a high quota to meet, Fredo forces the divers, who consist mostly of children, to accomplish at least eight dives a day to meet their goal before the millennium. Tired and harassed after the burdensome task being given to them, the children have to make do in subhuman conditions in the Muro Ami boat, "The Aurora". They sleep in rat-infested bunks and are fed only twice a day. Life above the water in the boat is much worse than the suffering the children encounter beneath the sea. For every dive, a child's life is perilously in danger. On January 22, 2008, filmmaker Nick Deocampo, Director of the Movie Workers Welfare Foundation (Mowelfund) announced the holding of a Ricardo Lee Film Festival from February 4 to 10, 2008 – the World Arts Festival under Mayor Tito Sarion, in Daet city, Camarines Norte. Lee's scripts became Philippine cinema classics of Philippine cinema, which made the 2nd golden age of 1980 Filipino movies. 5 films will be shown in the festival: Gina Alajar's "Salome," "Anak," "Muro Ami," "Gumapang Ka sa Lusak", and "Memories of Old Manila". Awards and citations. Winner of thirteen awards of its sixteen nominations at the 1999 Metro Manila Film Festival including Best Child Performer (Rebecca Lusterio), Best Story (Marilou Diaz-Abaya, Ricardo Lee, Jun Lana), Best Screenplay (Ricardo Lee and Jun Lana), Best Director (Marilou Diaz-Abaya) and Best Picture. It also received the Jury and Public Choice Award in the Bénodet Filmfest in France. Production. Direction: Marilou Diaz-Abaya Screenplay: Ricardo Lee and Jun Lana Cinematography: Rody Lacap Film Editing: Jesus Navarro Production Design: Leo Abaya Art Direction: Bonna Fajardo and Mannix Mateo Music: Nonong Buencamino Producers: Butch Jimenez, Jimmy Duavit, Marilou Diaz-Abaya
1062644	Christine Ann Lahti (born April 4, 1950) is an American actress and film director. Throughout her career, she has garnered 2 Golden Globe Awards from 8 nominations, an Emmy Award from 6 nominations and an Academy Award from 2 nominations. Her first Academy Award nomination was for Best Supporting Actress for her work in the 1984 film "Swing Shift". Her second nomination was for her work as a director when she won the Academy Award for Short Film, Live Action for her 1995 film "Lieberman in Love". Early life. Lahti was born in Birmingham, Michigan, the daughter of Elizabeth Margaret (née Tabar), a painter, homemaker, and nurse, and Paul Theodore Lahti, a surgeon. Her paternal grandparents were Finnish immigrants and her maternal grandparents were from Austria-Hungary. Lahti was raised Lutheran. Lahti studied fine arts at Florida State University and received her bachelor's degree in drama from the University of Michigan, where she joined Delta Gamma sorority. Career. After college, Lahti headed to New York City, where she worked as a waitress and did commercials. Her breakthrough movie was "...And Justice for All" (1979) with Al Pacino. After featuring in a few films and TV shows in the late 1970s and early 1980s, Lahti chose roles that allowed her to spend time with her three children. She has also focused on television, beginning with her role in the made-for-TV adaptation of "The Executioner's Song" (1982). She appeared on Broadway in Wendy Wasserstein's seriocomic play, "The Heidi Chronicles". Lahti received an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress for "Swing Shift" (1984), and won an Academy Award for Best Short Film, Live Action for "Lieberman in Love" (1995), in which she starred and directed. It was adapted from "Lieberman in Love", a short story by W. P. Kinsella. Lahti won a Primetime Emmy Award and a Golden Globe Award in 1998 for her role in "Chicago Hope". In 2001, her first directorial film, "My First Mister", was released. Starring Leelee Sobieski and Albert Brooks, the movie debuted with good reviews. In DVD commentary she applauds the work of her cast and crew, remarking " was very lucky to have such a wonderful crew..." She did feel regret that the film was rated R, for language, despairing that the movie might not be viewed by teenagers who would like and relate with the characters. Also, Lahti mentioned several times that she would have liked to have more time to shoot different perspectives in order to facilitate story arc. Lahti starred in the Executive ADA role on" " as Sonya Paxton, while the character Alexandra Cabot (Stephanie March) was in appeals. She was in the first four episodes of the 11th season and returned for the show's eighth episode, where she clashed with Alexandra Cabot. Lahti later guest starred in the ninth and seventeenth episode of the where she reprised her role as Executive ADA Sonya Paxton. Her character was murdered in the seventeenth episode. She returned to Broadway upon joining the cast of the Tony Award-winning play "God of Carnage" on November 17, 2009, replacing actress Marcia Gay Harden. Both actresses had a few special appearances on "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit". In September 2011, Lahti starred with Morgan Freeman in the Broadway debut of Dustin Lance Black's play, 8—a staged reenactment of the federal trial that overturned California's Prop 8 ban on same-sex marriage—as Kris Perry. In March 2012, she was featured with Jamie Lee Curtis and Jansen Panettiere at the Wilshire Ebell Theatre. The production was broadcast on YouTube to raise money for the American Foundation for Equal Rights. Personal life. Lahti has been married to television director Thomas Schlamme, a native of Texas, since September 4, 1983. They have three children: Wilson and twins Joseph Tabor and Emma Kate (born 1993). She is active in political causes. Thomas and Christine reside in Los Angeles with their children. Since May 2005, Lahti has been a contributing blogger at "The Huffington Post".
1074725	"Chato's Land" is a 1972 western Technicolor film directed by Michael Winner, starring Charles Bronson and Jack Palance. It falls more closely into the revisionist Western genre, which was at its height at the time. The original screenplay was written by Gerry Wilson. Plot. When Chato, who is half Apache, kills the local sheriff, in self-defense, a former Confederate officer, Capt. Quincey Whitmore gathers a posse to hunt him down. It includes a number of local ranchers and townspeople, along with a Mexican who is used as a scout and tracker. The posse pursues Chato into the wilderness, deliberately led into Apache country by him. Chato sabotages their water supply and puts several of their horses to flight.
583039	Kya Yehi Pyar Hai (English: "Is This Love") is a romantic film starring Jackie Shroff, Aftab Shivdasani and Amisha Patel in lead roles. It was produced by Tips Films and Allu Aravind's Geetha Arts. The movie was directed by K. Murali Mohan Rao, and its music was composed by Sajid-Wajid. It is a remake of the Tamil film "Love Today". Plot. Rahul Tiwari (Aftab Shivdasani) is in love with Sandhya Patil (Amisha Patel) — and has been for the last four years — and he has not had the courage to tell her. He follows her everywhere, waits until the public bus she uses, and then boards it. Sandhya is not even aware of Rahul, leave alone his affection for her. One day Rahul finds out where Sandhya lives, and he finds out that her father is police inspector Raj Patil "Raja" (Ashish Vidyarthi), a cruel, sadistic, drunk, and abusive man, whose wife Rachna (Neena Kulkarni) and daughter live in fear, even when he is not around. Raj Patil has no respect for any human being, his superiors, his subordinates, nor members of the public to whom he is sworn to protect. When Raj finds out that Rahul is trying to enter the life of his daughter, he arrests him publicly, beats him up, and locks him in a cell in his police station.
1162512	Thelma White (December 4, 1910 – January 11, 2005) was an American radio and film actress. White is best known for her role in the 1936 exploitation film "Reefer Madness". Early life and career. Born Thelma Wolpa in Lincoln, Nebraska, White debuted in her family's circus show at age 2, acting as a "living doll" who would stand in place until she got a cue to begin cooing and wriggling. At the age of 10 she was dancing in vaudeville as part of The White Sisters, leading to jobs with the Ziegfeld Follies and Earl Carroll revue before she moved to Hollywood in the late 1920s. Her first film was "A Night in a Dormitory" (1930) co-starring Ginger Rogers. That job led to a number of short films at Pathé Exchange (later RKO Pictures), where she played leading lady to some of the most familiar comic faces of the day, such as Edgar Kennedy and Leon Errol.
1165738	Susan Kohner (born November 11, 1936) is an American actress who worked in film and television. She is best known for her role as Sarah Jane in "Imitation of Life" (1959), for which she was nominated for an Oscar and won two Golden Globe awards. She played an African-American woman (of mixed ancestry) who passed for white as a young adult. After Kohner married in 1964, she retired from acting to devote time to her family. Her two sons, Chris Weitz and Paul Weitz, are both film directors, screenwriters and sometime actors. Early life and career. Born as Susanna Kohner in Los Angeles, Kohner is the daughter of Lupita Tovar, a Mexican actress, and Paul Kohner, a Jewish film producer who was born in Bohemia. Her mother was Catholic. Most of Kohner's film roles came during the late 1950s and early 1960s, including co-starring with Sal Mineo in both "Dino" (1957) and "The Gene Krupa Story" (1959).
1015988	Kent Cheng Jak-si (born 22 May 1951) is a Hong Kong film and television actor. He has won twice the best actor award in the Hong Kong Film Awards. Biography. Cheng was born in a poor family in Hong Kong. He intended to be an actor when he was a child, written on his comprehension. However, the comprehension was seriously criticized by his teacher. Cheng joined a film company in 1972, but he could not gain any position in that film company, until joining TVB in 1976. Since then he became an actor for several TV dramas. In 1980s he changed his focus in acting in films and directing. In 1985 he won the Best Actor award in the Hong Kong Film Awards for his role in the film called "Why Me?". Cheng won again in 1996. Cheng opened a film company in 1990s, but failed and struggled through financial problems during the late 1990s. He thus returned to be an actor for TVB in 1993. However, Cheng could not gain a leading role, so he decided to turn to ATV in 1997. In recent years he focused in mainland China. In 2006 he returned to TVB.
1162854	Patsy Kelly (January 12, 1910 – September 24, 1981) was an American stage, radio, film and television actress. She is best known for her role as the brash, wisecracking sidekick to Thelma Todd in a series of short comedy films produced by Hal Roach in the 1930s. Known as the "Queen of Wisecracks", Kelly's career continued after Todd's death in 1935 in similar roles. After her film career declined in the mid-1940s, Kelly returned to New York where she worked in radio and summer stock. She also became a personal assistant to Tallulah Bankhead. Kelly returned to the screen after 17 years with guest spots on television and in film roles.
1164159	Christina Ann "Kristy" McNichol (born September 11, 1962) is an American actress and singer. McNichol is known for her roles as Letitia “Buddy” Lawrence on the television drama series "Family" and as Barbara Weston on the sitcom "Empty Nest". She is also the sister of former child actor Jimmy McNichol. McNichol retired from acting when she was diagnosed with bipolar disorder in 1992. Early life and career. McNichol was born in Los Angeles, California, the daughter of Carolyn McNichol Lucas, a business manager and actress, and James Vincent "Jim" McNichol Sr., a carpenter. She has two brothers from that marriage, Thomas McNichol and James Vincent "Jimmy" McNichol Jr. Her parents divorced when she was six years old. When McNichol was 19, her mother married her much younger German boyfriend Siegfried Lucas. In the same year Lucas and McNichol's mother adopted McNichol's sister Jennifer Lucas. McNichol appeared with her brother Jimmy in commercials and later, on her own, in guest appearances on such other series as "Starsky and Hutch", "The Bionic Woman", "Love American Style" and "The Love Boat," thanks to family friend Desi Arnaz. Her first stint as a series regular came in the role of Patricia Apple in the short-lived CBS television series "Apple's Way" (1974). In 1976, McNichol was cast as Buddy Lawrence (actual personal name "Letitia") in the television drama series "Family" (1976–80), for which she earned two Emmy Awards for Best Supporting Actress in a Dramatic Series (1977 and 1979). Many actors and actresses guest-starred on the show, including Helen Hunt, Michael J. Fox and Leif Garrett. "Family," produced by Aaron Spelling, was considered a breakthrough for television drama that dealt with "real life" issues.
1043481	Seven Waves Away (alternate U.S. titles: Abandon Ship! and Seven Days From Now) is a 1957 British drama film starring Tyrone Power, Mai Zetterling, Lloyd Nolan, and Stephen Boyd. When his ship goes down, an officer has to make an agonizing decision on his overcrowded lifeboat. The plot has similarities to the real-life sinking of the American ship "William Brown" in 1841. Though there is no direct acknowledgment by the filmmakers, the film ends with a voice-over stating, "The story which you have just seen is a true one. In real life, Captain Alexander Holmes was brought to trial on a charge of murder. He was convicted and given the minimum sentence of six months because of the unusual circumstances surrounding the incident." Plot. The luxury liner SS "Crescent Star" sinks in seven minutes after striking a rogue mine in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, taking with her nearly all of the 1156 people on board. Twenty-seven of the survivors converge on a single lifeboat designed to accommodate only nine. The dying captain passes command to executive officer Alec Holmes (Tyrone Power). Holmes then learns from "Sparks" Clary (John Stratton), the ship's radio operator, that both transmitters were destroyed before a call for help could be sent. Holmes decides to try to reach the nearest land, Africa, 1500 miles away. With a major storm approaching, Frank Kelly (Lloyd Nolan) warns Holmes that the overloaded boat will be swamped unless some of the passengers are jettisoned. The mortally injured Kelly then sacrifices himself by jumping overboard. Holmes decides to get rid of the old and injured, over the shocked protests of his girlfriend, ship's nurse Julie White (Mai Zetterling). When he orders Will McKinley (Stephen Boyd) to dispose of an unconscious woman, McKinley obeys, then jumps in after her. One by one, Holmes sends others to certain death, until there are 15 left aboard. Edith Middleton (Moira Lister) observes that an atomic scientist, a brilliant playwright, and a famous former opera singer have been sacrificed to save two "apemen", a racketeer, and a devout coward. Passenger Michael Faroni (Eddie Byrne) demands Holmes go back for the others. When Holmes refuses, Faroni seriously wounds him in the shoulder with a switchblade and is in turn shot dead with a flare gun. The lightened lifeboat weathers the storm and the rest of the survivors thank Holmes for saving them. Realizing he is now a liability due to his wound, Holmes throws himself overboard, but Julie brings him back aboard. Then, they spot a ship. As it comes to pick them up, the others, with the exceptions of Julie White and Edith Middleton, quickly distance themselves from Holmes' actions.
584886	Suman Setty () is a popular developing comedian/actor in Tollywood, the Telugu Film Industry and Kollywood, the Tamil film industry in South India. He bears a striking resemblance to tamil actor Senthil. Background. Setty is a native of Miryalaguda, from Andhra Pradesh, India. He is famous for his dialogue modulation and expressions, which brought him into lime light. He is living with his family in Vishakapatnam Career. Renown Cine Story Writer Satyanand, first identified his acting Skills and encouraged him to act in films.Producer and Director Teja has given him first opportunity in his movie Jayam, which became one of Tollywood's biggest hits. Teja made this movie with entirely new cast, with which other actors Nitin, Sada also came into limelight. After Jayam, Suman Setty secured more opportunities in Tamil and Telugu Films and he did variety of roles. Today he is one of the notable comedians in Tollywood and Kollywood.
1064134	Kill Bill: Volume 1 is a 2003 American action/thriller film written and directed by Quentin Tarantino. It is the first of two films that were theatrically released several months apart, the second one titled "Kill Bill Volume 2". "Kill Bill" was originally scheduled for a single theatrical release, but with a running time of over four hours, it was separated into two volumes. "Kill Bill: Volume 1" was released in late 2003, and "Kill Bill: Volume 2" was released in early 2004. The two films are frequently referred to collectively as simply "Kill Bill." They follow a character initially identified as "The Bride", a former member of an assassination team who seeks revenge on her ex-colleagues who massacred members of her wedding party and tried to kill her. The movie is often noted for its stylish direction and its homages to film genres such as Hong Kong martial arts films, Japanese chanbara films, Italian spaghetti westerns, girls with guns, and rape and revenge. Plot. An intertitle displays the proverb "Revenge is a dish best served cold". A pregnant woman (Uma Thurman), known as "The Bride", lies badly wounded at her wedding, telling an unseen Bill (David Carradine) that she is carrying his baby as Bill shoots her in the head. However, it is later revealed that she miraculously survives the headshot, but was left comatose for four years. The Bride's second revenge killing is shown some time after her recovery. The Bride finds Vernita Green (Vivica A. Fox) at her home and fights her, but they cease after Vernita's young daughter Nikki arrives from school. It is revealed that both women are former members of the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad, elite assassins under the employ of Bill. Bill and the Deadly Vipers had attacked The Bride at her wedding. While the two women are talking in the kitchen during their truce, Vernita attempts to kill The Bride with a pistol hidden in a box of "Kaboom" cereal. The shot misses the Bride, who retaliates by throwing a knife to Vernita's chest; she dies slowly. When the Bride notices Nikki standing in the doorway, she offers Nikki revenge should she seek it as an adult, then leaves. The Bride then strikes Vernita's name off a checklist; the name "O-Ren Ishii" has already been crossed out. Going back to the time of her coma, another member of the Deadly Vipers, the one-eyed Elle Driver (Daryl Hannah), enters The Bride's hospital room where she lies comatose, and prepares a lethal injection. Driver is interrupted by Bill on the phone, who states they will take action only if she awakes. Four years later, the Bride awakens and is horrified to discover that she is no longer pregnant. Meanwhile, she learns that a hospital worker named Buck has been raping her in her comatose state, and accepting cash from those who wish the chance to do the same. While a trucker is preparing to assault her, the Bride bites off his tongue, killing him. She then incapacitates and kills Buck by repeatedly smashing his head between a door and its jam, and steals Buck's truck. She swears revenge, and picks her first target: O-Ren Ishii (Lucy Liu), who has since become the leader of the Tokyo yakuza. Once she recovers, the Bride travels to Okinawa to obtain a sword from legendary swordsmith Hattori Hanzō (Sonny Chiba), who has sworn never to forge a sword again. After learning that her target is his former student, Bill, he agrees he is morally obligated to forge his finest sword for her. The Bride tracks down O-Ren at a Tokyo nightclub, challenging her to a fight and severing the arm of Sofie Fatale (Julie Dreyfus), O-Ren's assistant and a protégée of Bill's. She then fights off O-Ren's Yakuza army, including the elite "Crazy 88" squad and O-Ren's personal bodyguard, 17-year-old sadist Gogo Yubari (Chiaki Kuriyama), before dueling O-Ren in a snow-draped Japanese garden and killing her. She finally tortures Sofie into revealing information about Bill, leaving Sofie alive to tell Bill that the Bride is coming to kill him and the others. Bill asks Sofie whether the Bride knows that her daughter is, in fact, still alive. Production. Quentin Tarantino intended to produce "Kill Bill" as one film. With a budget of , production lasted . Harvey Weinstein, then co-chief of Miramax Films, was known for pressuring directors to keep their films' running times short. When Tarantino began editing the film, he and Weinstein agreed to split the film into two. With the approach, Tarantino could edit a fuller film, and Weinstein could have films with reasonable running times. The decision to split "Kill Bill" into two volumes was announced in July 2003. The anime sequence was produced by Production I.G. Influences. The overall storyline of "Kill Bill" is adapted from "Lady Snowblood", a 1973 Japanese film in which a woman kills off the gang who murdered her family. "The Guardian" commented that "Lady Snowblood" was "practically a template for the whole of Kill Bill Vol. 1". It references the TV show "Yagyū ichizoku no inbō" (Japanese > "Intrigue of the Yagyu Clan") by quoting a variant of the speech in the show's opening sequence. The film also references "Samurai Reincarnation" (1981) by quoting its iconic line: "If you encounter God, God will be cut". Hattori Hanzō is modelled on legendary swordmaker Muramasa. The character is also a reference to the Japanese television show "Kage no Gundan" ("Shadow Warriors" in America), in which Sonny Chiba portrayed a fictionalized version of the 16th century samurai Hattori Hanzō, as well as his descendants in later seasons. Tarantino, in "Vol. 1" special features, claims that his film's Hanzō is one of those descendants. "Kill Bill" pays tribute to film genres including the spaghetti western, blaxploitation, Chinese wuxia, Japanese yakuza films, Japanese samurai cinema, and kung fu movies of the 1960s and 1970s. This last genre, which was largely produced by the Shaw Brothers, is given an obvious nod by the inclusion of the Shaw Scope logo at the beginning of "Kill Bill Vol. 1". One influential exploitation film that Tarantino has mentioned in interviews is the Swedish "Thriller – A Cruel Picture", released in the U.S. as "They Call Her One Eye". Tarantino, who has called "Thriller" "the roughest revenge movie ever made", recommended that actress Daryl Hannah watch the film to prepare for her role as the one-eyed killer Elle Driver. Tarantino used anime to depict some violent scenes. He was inspired by the Tamil film "Aalavandhan" to use this method. Before the end of the list of credits there is a list of names under R.I.P. that mentions further influences, including Charles Bronson, Chang Cheh, Kinji Fukasaku, Sergio Leone, LoLieh and Shintaro Katsu, Music. As with Tarantino's previous films, "Kill Bill" features an eclectic soundtrack comprising many musical genres. On the two soundtracks, music ranges from country music to selections from the Spaghetti Western film scores of Ennio Morricone. Bernard Herrmann's theme from the film "Twisted Nerve" is whistled by the menacing Elle Driver in the hospital scene. A brief, 15-second excerpt from the opening of the "Ironside" theme music by Quincy Jones is used as the Bride's revenge motif, which flares up with a red-tinged flashback whenever she is in the company of her next target. Instrumental tracks from Japanese guitarist Tomoyasu Hotei figure prominently, and after the success of "Kill Bill" they were frequently used in American TV commercials and at sporting events. As the Bride enters "The House of Blue Leaves", go-go group The 5,6,7,8's perform "I Walk Like Jayne Mansfield", "I'm Blue (The Gong-Gong Song)" and "Woo Hoo". The connection to "Lady Snowblood "is further established by the use of "The Flower of Carnage" the closing theme from that film. James Last's "The Lonely Shepherd" by pan flute virtuoso Gheorghe Zamfir plays over the closing credits. Theatrical release. "Kill Bill: Volume 1" was released in theaters on , 2003. It was the first Tarantino film in six years since "Jackie Brown" was released in 1997. In the United States and Canada, "Volume 1" was released in and grossed on its opening weekend. It ranked first at the box office, beating "School of Rock" (in its second weekend) and "Intolerable Cruelty" (in its first). "Volume 1" was the widest theatrical release of Tarantino's career to date, and it was also his highest-grossing opening weekend to date. Previously, "Jackie Brown" and "Pulp Fiction" (the latter released in 1994) had each grossed on their opening weekends. Paul Dergarabedian, president of Exhibitor Relations, said "Volume 1"s opening weekend gross was significant for a "very genre specific and very violent" film that in the United States was restricted to theatergoers 17 years old and up. According to the studio, exit polls showed that 90% of the audience was interested in seeing the second volume after seeing the first. Outside the United States and Canada, "Kill Bill Volume 1" was released in . The film outperformed its main competitor "Intolerable Cruelty" in Norway, Denmark and Finland, though it ranked second in Italy. "Volume 1" had a record opening in Japan, though expectations were higher due to the film being partially set there and having homages to Japanese martial arts. The film had "a muted entry" in the United Kingdom and Germany due to being restricted to theatergoers 18 years old and up, but "experienced acceptable drops" after its opening weekend in the two territories. By , 2003, it had made in the . "Kill Bill Volume 1" grossed a total of in the United States and Canada and in other territories for a worldwide total of . Critical reception. "Kill Bill: Volume 1" received positive reviews from film critics. Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes gives the film a score of 85% based on reviews from 218 critics and reports a rating average of 7.7 out of 10. Its consensus among critics is, ""Kill Bill" is nothing more than a highly stylized revenge flick. But what style!" At Metacritic, which assigns a weighted average score out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the film received an average score of 69 based on 43 reviews. A. O. Scott of "The New York Times" said Tarantino's previous films "Pulp Fiction" and "Jackie Brown" were "an exploration of plausible characters and authentic emotions". He wrote of "Kill Bill Volume 1", "Now, it seems, his interests have swung in the opposite direction, and he has immersed himself, his characters and his audience in a highly artificial world, a looking-glass universe that reflects nothing beyond his own cinematic obsessions." Scott attributed "the hurtling incoherence of the story" to Tarantino's sampling of different genres that include spaghetti westerns, blaxploitation, and Asian action films. The critic summarized, "But while being so relentlessly exposed to a filmmaker's idiosyncratic turn-ons can be tedious and off-putting, the undeniable passion that drives "Kill Bill" is fascinating, even, strange to say it, endearing. Mr. Tarantino is an irrepressible showoff, recklessly flaunting his formal skills as a choreographer of high-concept violence, but he is also an unabashed cinephile, and the sincerity of his enthusiasm gives this messy, uneven spectacle an odd, feverish integrity." Manohla Dargis of the "Los Angeles Times" called "Kill Bill Volume 1" "a blood-soaked valentine to movies" and wrote, "It's apparent that Tarantino is striving for more than an off-the-rack mash note or a pastiche of golden oldies. It is, rather, his homage to movies shot in celluloid and wide, wide, wide, wide screen—an ode to the time right before movies were radically secularized." Dargis said, "This kind of mad movie love explains Tarantino's approach and ambitions, and it also points to his limitations as a filmmaker," calling the abundance of references sometimes distracting. She recognized Tarantino's technical talent but thought "Kill Bill Volume 1"s appeal was too limited to popular culture references, calling the film's story "the least interesting part of the whole equation". Cultural historian Maud Lavin argues that The Bride's embodiment of murderous revenge taps into viewers' personal fantasies of committing violence. For audiences, particularly women viewers, this overly aggressive female character provides a complex site for identification with one's own aggression. Accolades. Uma Thurman received a Golden Globe Best Actress nomination in 2004. She was also nominated in 2004 for a BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role, in addition with four other BAFTA nominations. "Kill Bill: Vol.1" was placed in Empire Magazine's list of the 500 Greatest Films of All Time at number 325 and the Bride was also ranked number 66 in Empire magazine's "100 Greatest Movie Characters". Parody. In the Robot Chicken episode "The Deep End," Jesus Christ hunts down his greatest nemesis, the Easter Bunny, "Tarantino-style" in "Kill Bunny", while also hunting down Santa Claus (in the place of O-Ren Ishii) and the "Crazy Jews" (a parody of the Crazy 88 composing only of rabbis). Kill Buljo is a 2007 Norwegian parody of the Quentin Tarantino film "Kill Bill". It is set in Finnmark, Norway and portrays the protagonist Jompa Tormann's hunt for Tampa and Papa Buljo. The film depends heavily on satirizing stereotypes about Norway's Sami population. According to the Norwegian newspaper "Dagbladet", Quentin Tarantino himself has watched the film's trailer and was quite happy about it, looking forward to seeing the film itself. "Kill Bill" is also a popular subject for parodies on YouTube, featuring everything from live action to hamsters, Lego, stuffed animals, bath toys and a variety of animation techniques. Home release. In the United States, "Volume 1" was released on DVD and VHS on April 13, 2004, the week "Volume 2" was released in theaters. In a December 2005 interview, Tarantino addressed the lack of a special edition DVD for "Kill Bill" by stating "I've been holding off because I've been working on it for so long that I just wanted a year off from "Kill Bill" and then I'll do the big supplementary DVD package." The United States does not have a DVD boxed set of "Kill Bill", though box sets of the two separate volumes are available in other countries, such as France, Japan and the United Kingdom. Upon the DVD release of "Volume 2" in the US, however, Best Buy did offer an exclusive box set slipcase to house the two individual releases together. "Volume 1", along with "Volume 2", was released in High Definition on Blu-ray on September 9, 2008 in the United States.
430935	Beneath the Darkness is an American horror-thriller film directed by Martin Guigui, and starring Tony Oller, Dennis Quaid, Devon Werkheiser and Aimee Teegarden. Premise. Ely Vaughn (Quaid) is a beloved native of a small Texas town with a dark secret. formerly the star quarterback, now the local mortician. When Ely discovers that his wife Rosemary is cheating on him with the high school English teacher’s husband, David Moore, he makes sure they can’t do it again. First, he kills Rosemary, but he doesn’t bury her body. Instead, he hides it in his house and dances with the body each night, as though she’s still alive. Second, he chases down her lover while he’s out jogging at night and buries him in Rosemary’s grave, alive. Two years later, a group of high school kids think they see a ghost in Ely’s window. What they’re really seeing is Ely dancing with his wife’s body, but they don’t know that. They assume since Ely’s van is gone, that he’s not home. So they dare each other to go inside and see what’s going on. The problem is that Ely is home and he’s pissed at the intrusion. They walk in on him dancing with his wife and he blows his top, chasing them down the stairs and grabbing Danny before he can get away. Travis rushes back inside just in time to see Ely shove Danny down the stairs and then stomp on his head until he’s crushed it. Of course, no one believes Travis. They all believe Ely, that it was an “accident”, and that Danny’s head was injured in the fall down the stairs. But Travis and his girlfriend Abby are determined to get proof that they’re telling the truth, that Ely is not quite right in the head, and that he murdered Danny. This time when they break in, Ely knocks out Abby and hides her in a casket buried in the backyard. He shoots Travis and almost kills him. At the hospital, the doctor notifies the police and they keep Travis under “house arrest” until he calls Brian to come help him get out. He makes his way back to Ely’s house, but Ely catches him too and then takes him and Abby out to the cemetery to bury them alive. While Travis is digging their grave, at gunpoint, Abby is in the van getting loose. Rather than running, she dresses in Rosemary’s clothes to help push Ely’s last bit of sanity over the edge. Travis and Abby knock Ely into the grave and bury him, then walk to town to get the Sheriff. Unfortunately, Ely doesn’t die. But he does end up in a very nice white-walled palace with bars on the window. Production. On November 19, 2010, Martin Guigui was named as the director and co-producer of the project. Guillermo Del Toro cast Dennis Quaid for the lead role of Ely on November 20, 2010. On November 25, 2010, Guigui announced via Facebook that pre-production had begun on the project, which is being financed by Sunset Pictures. On November 20, 2010, Tony Oller was cast for the lead role of Travis. TV Series star Devon Werkheiser was cast on November 21, and was joined one week later by actress Aimee Teegarden and American actor Brett Cullen. Filming began on November 22, 2010, in Austin, Texas, with other scenes being shot in Smithville, Texas. Release. The film had a limited theatrical release starting January 6, 2012. The film was released on DVD February 28, 2012, and became available on Netflix Instant Streaming the same day. Reception. The Hollywood Reporter published in its review that "Beneath the Darkness is a teens-in-trouble thriller with barely enough momentum to make it to the end credits" and that "it's clear nobody in the production has any interest making a pulpy fun movie" and "the screenplay is too proud of its going-nowhere literary allusions". The "New York Post" remarked, "Even Dennis Quaid’s uncharacteristic hamming as a mad mortician in a small Texas town can’t save this silly, scare-free horror film briefly haunting theaters en route to entombment on home video."
1375719	Robin Duke (born March 13, 1954, Toronto, Ontario, Canada) is a Canadian actress and comedian. Duke may be best known for her work on the television comedy series "SCTV" and, later, "Saturday Night Live". She co-founded "Women Fully Clothed", a sketch comedy troupe which toured Canada. She teaches comedy, as a faculty member, at Humber College in Toronto. Early life & career. Duke went to high school with Catherine O'Hara at Burnhamthorpe Collegiate Institute in Etobicoke; they first met during a production of the play "Harvey". In 1976 Duke joined O'Hara as part of the Toronto version of the stage comedy troupe The Second City. while also making several appearances in the troupe's television series, "SCTV". Duke became a regular on "SCTV" from 1980–81, when she replaced O'Hara. She joined the cast of "Saturday Night Live" in 1981, when O'Hara suddenly dropped out of that show. " NBC's Saturday Night Live (SNL)" (1981-1984). Duke was an actor and writer on SNL from 1981 to 1984. Duke was hired in place of Catherine O'Hara, who was chosen as a cast member when Dick Ebersol was hired following Jean Doumanian's termination and the termination for most of her cast members. O'Hara backed out after "SNL" writer Michael O'Donoghue yelled at cast and crew members for ruining the show during its sixth season. Her most popular character was probably Wendy Whiner, a woman who, with her equally whiny husband (Joe Piscopo), annoyed everyone she met. She is also remembered for appearing with Mr. T as the equally bizarre "Mrs. T" in a faux commercial for the real-life product "Mr. and Mrs. T's Bloody Mary Mix". Film acting credits. Duke went on to appear in such films as "Club Paradise" (1986), "Groundhog Day" (1993) and "Stuart Saves His Family" (1995), along with many television guest appearances. Voice Over acting credits. Duke is also the voice of Penny in the children's animated television series "George and Martha". Her other voice roles include the following: "Women Fully Clothed" (2004). In 2004, Duke along with Kathryn Greenwood, Debra McGrath, Jayne Eastwood and Teresa Pavlinek created Women Fully Clothed, a sketch comedy troupe. The group has toured Canada and appeared in Scotland at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe.
1748948	It is based in part on "Boro, the Caterpillar", a story idea which Hayao Miyazaki considered working on prior to the start of production on "Princess Mononoke". The short film's main character is a diving bell spider who seems to have fallen in love with a water strider. Although she is scared of him at first, the water strider soon gets used to the presence of the spider.
585272	Kutty Padmini () is a South Indian movie actress who predominantly works in Kollywood. She was a child star in her debut movie "Ambala Anjulam" (1959). She has also acted in Telugu and Malayalam movies. Personal life and background. Kutty Padmini was born on 5 June 1956 in Madras in a Tamil family. Career. Kutty Padmini entered filmdom at the age of 3. She went on to act in many movies as child artist. However, her notable film role was in the 1965 Tamil film "Kuzhandaiyum Deivamum" along Jaishankar and Jamuna where she played dual roles. She appeared for a dance sequence in the film "Maanavan" (1970) along with Kamal Haasan, which was also the first adult role for him. She went on to act in other films as a child star and later on as a heroine and in supporting roles. Later she played supporting roles in films like "Avargal", "Aval Appadithan", both co-starring Rajinikanth and Kamal Haasan, "Penmani Aval Kanmani" and "Kan Simittum Neram", the debut film of Sarath Kumar. Television career. She made a foray into TV megaserials and has churned out quite a few successful TV programmes like "Krishnadasi" and others.
1724942	Charles Babbage, FRS (26 December 1791 – 18 October 1871) was an English polymath. He was a mathematician, philosopher, inventor and mechanical engineer, who is best remembered now for originating the concept of a programmable computer. Considered a "father of the computer", Babbage is credited with inventing the first mechanical computer that eventually led to more complex designs. His varied work in other fields has led him to be described as "pre-eminent" among the many polymaths of his century. Parts of Babbage's uncompleted mechanisms are on display in the London Science Museum. In 1991, a perfectly functioning difference engine was constructed from Babbage's original plans. Built to tolerances achievable in the 19th century, the success of the finished engine indicated that Babbage's machine would have worked. Early life. Babbage's birthplace is disputed, but according to the "Oxford Dictionary of National Biography" he was most likely born at 44 Crosby Row, Walworth Road, London, England. A blue plaque on the junction of Larcom Street and Walworth Road commemorates the event. His date of birth was given in his obituary in "The Times" as 26 December 1792; but then a nephew wrote to say that Babbage was born one year earlier, in 1791. The parish register of St. Mary's Newington, London, shows that Babbage was baptised on 6 January 1792, supporting a birth year of 1791. Babbage was one of four children of Benjamin Babbage and Betsy Plumleigh Teape. His father was a banking partner of William Praed in founding Praed's & Co. of Fleet Street, London, in 1801. In 1808, the Babbage family moved into the old Rowdens house in East Teignmouth. Around the age of eight Babbage was sent to a country school in Alphington near Exeter to recover from a life-threatening fever. For a short time he attended King Edward VI Grammar School in Totnes, South Devon, but his health forced him back to private tutors for a time. Babbage then joined the 30-student Holmwood academy, in Baker Street, Enfield, Middlesex, under the Reverend Stephen Freeman. The academy had a library that prompted Babbage's love of mathematics. He studied with two more private tutors after leaving the academy. The first was a clergyman near Cambridge; through him Babbage encountered Charles Simeon and his evangelical followers, but the tuition was not what he needed. He was brought home, to study at the Totnes school: this was at age 16 or 17. The second was an Oxford tutor, under whom Babbage reached a level in Classics sufficient to be accepted by Cambridge. At the University of Cambridge. Babbage arrived at Trinity College, Cambridge, in October 1810. He was already self-taught in some parts of contemporary mathematics; he had read in Robert Woodhouse, Joseph Louis Lagrange, and Marie Agnesi. As a result he was disappointed in the standard mathematical instruction available at Cambridge. Babbage, John Herschel, George Peacock, and several other friends formed the Analytical Society in 1812; they were also close to Edward Ryan. As a student, Babbage was also a member of other societies such as The Ghost Club, concerned with investigating supernatural phenomena, and the Extractors Club, dedicated to liberating its members from the madhouse, should any be committed to one. In 1812 Babbage transferred to Peterhouse, Cambridge. He was the top mathematician there, but did not graduate with honours. He instead received a degree without examination in 1814. He had defended a thesis that was considered blasphemous in the preliminary public disputation; but it is not known whether this fact is related to his not sitting the examination. After Cambridge. Considering only his reputation, Babbage quickly made progress. He lectured to the Royal Institution on astronomy in 1815, and was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1816. After graduation, on the other hand, he applied for positions unsuccessfully, and had little in the way of career. In 1816 he was a candidate for a teaching job at Haileybury College; he had recommendations from James Ivory and John Playfair, but lost out to Henry Walter. In 1819, Babbage and Herschel visited Paris and the Society of Arcueil, meeting leading French mathematicians and physicists. That year Babbage applied to be professor at the University of Edinburgh, with the recommendation of Pierre Simon Laplace; the post went to William Wallace. With Herschel, Babbage worked on the electrodynamics of Arago's rotations, publishing in 1825. Their explanations were only transitional, being picked up and broadened by Michael Faraday. The phenomena are now part of the theory of eddy currents, and Babbage and Herschel missed some of the clues to unification of electromagnetic theory, staying close to Ampère's force law. Babbage purchased the actuarial tables of George Barrett, who died in 1821 leaving unpublished work, and surveyed the field in 1826 in "Comparative View of the Various Institutions for the Assurance of Lives". This interest followed a project to set up an insurance company, prompted by Francis Baily and mooted in 1824, but not carried out. Babbage did calculate actuarial tables for that scheme, using Equitable Society mortality data from 1762 onwards. During this whole period Babbage depended awkwardly on his father's support, given his father's attitude to his early marriage, of 1814: he and Edward Ryan wedded the Whitmore sisters. He made a home in Marylebone in London, and founded a large family. On his father's death in 1827, Babbage inherited a large estate (value around £100,000), making him independently wealthy. After his wife's death in the same year he spent time travelling. In Italy he met Leopold II, Grand Duke of Tuscany, foreshadowing a later visit to Piedmont. In April 1828 he was in Rome, and relying on Herschel to manage the difference engine project, when he heard that he had become professor at Cambridge, a position he had three times failed to obtain (in 1820, 1823 and 1826). Astronomical Society. Babbage was instrumental in founding the Astronomical Society in 1820. Its initial aims were to reduce astronomical calculations to a more standard form, and to circulate data. These directions were closely connected with Babbage's ideas on computation, and in 1824 he won its Gold Medal, cited "for his invention of an engine for calculating mathematical and astronomical tables". Babbage's motivation to overcome errors in tables by mechanisation has been a commonplace since Dionysius Lardner wrote about it in 1834 in the "Edinburgh Review" (under Babbage's guidance). The context of these developments is still debated. Babbage's own account of the origin of the difference engine begins with the Astronomical Society's wish to improve "The Nautical Almanac". Babbage and Herschel were asked to oversee a trial project, to recalculate some part of those tables. With the results to hand, discrepancies were found. This was in 1821 or 1822, and was the occasion on which Babbage formulated his idea for mechanical computation. The issue of the "Nautical Almanac" is now described as a legacy of a polarisation in British science caused by attitudes to Sir Joseph Banks, who had died in 1820. Babbage studied the requirements to establish a modern postal system, with his friend Thomas Frederick Colby, concluding there should be a uniform rate. Colby was another of the founding group of the Society. He was also in charge of the Survey of Ireland. Herschel and Babbage were present at a celebrated operation of that survey, the remeasuring of the Lough Foyle baseline. British Lagrangian School. The Analytical Society had initially been no more than an undergraduate provocation. During this period it had some more substantial achievements. In 1816 Babbage, Herschel and Peacock published a translation from French of the lectures of Sylvestre Lacroix, which was then the state-of-the-art calculus textbook. Reference to Lagrange in calculus terms marks out the application of what are now called formal power series. British mathematicians had used them from about 1730 to 1760. As re-introduced, they were not simply applied as notations in differential calculus. They opened up the fields of functional equations (including the difference equations fundamental to the difference engine) and operator (D-module) methods for differential equations. The analogy of difference and differential equations was notationally changing Δ to D, as a "finite" difference becomes "infinitesimal". These symbolic directions became popular, as operational calculus, and pushed to the point of diminishing returns. The Cauchy concept of limit was kept at bay. Woodhouse had already founded this second "British Lagrangian School" with its treatment of Taylor series as formal. In this context function composition is complicated to express, because the chain rule is not simply applied to second and higher derivatives. This matter was known to Woodhouse by 1803, who took from Louis François Antoine Arbogast what is now called Faà di Bruno's formula (a misnomer). In essence it was known to Abraham De Moivre (1697). Herschel found the method impressive, Babbage knew of it, and it was later noted by Lovelace as compatible with the analytical engine. In the period to 1820 Babbage worked intensively on functional equations in general, and resisted both conventional finite differences and Arbogast's approach (in which Δ and D were related by the simple additive case of the exponential map). But via Herschel he was influenced by Arbogast's ideas in the matter of iteration, i.e. composing a function with itself, possibly many times. Writing in a major paper on functional equations in the "Philosophical Transactions" (1815/6), Babbage said his starting point was work of Gaspard Monge. Academic. From 1828 to 1839 Babbage was Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge. Not a conventional resident don, and inattentive to teaching, he wrote three topical books during this period of his life. He was elected a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1832. Babbage was out of sympathy with colleagues: George Biddell Airy, his predecessor there, thought an issue should be made of his lack of interest in lecturing. Babbage planned to lecture in 1831 on political economy. Babbage's reforming direction looked to see university education more inclusive, universities doing more for research, a broader syllabus and more interest in applications; but William Whewell found the programme unacceptable. A controversy Babbage had with Richard Jones lasted for six years. He never did give a lecture. It was during this period that Babbage tried to enter politics. Simon Schaffer writes that his views of the 1830s included disestablishment of the Church of England, a broader political franchise, and inclusion of manufacturers as stakeholders. He twice stood for Parliament as a candidate for the borough of Finsbury. In 1832 he came in third among five candidates, missing out by some 500 votes in the two-member constituency when two other reformist candidates, Thomas Wakley and Christopher Temple, split the vote. In his memoirs Babbage related how this election brought him the friendship of Samuel Rogers: his brother Henry Rogers wished to support Babbage again, but died within days. In 1834 Babbage finished last among four. "Declinarians", learned societies and the BAAS. Babbage now emerged as a polemicist. One of his biographers notes that all his books contain a "campaigning element". His "Reflections on the Decline of Science and some of its Causes" (1830) stands out, however, for its sharp attacks. It aimed to improve British science, and more particularly to oust Davies Gilbert as President of the Royal Society, which Babbage wished to reform. It was written out of pique, when Babbage hoped to become the junior secretary of the Royal Society, as Herschel was the senior, but failed because of his antagonism to Humphry Davy. Michael Faraday had a reply written, by Gerrit Moll, as "On the Alleged Decline of Science in England" (1831). On the front of the Royal Society Babbage had no impact, with the bland election of the Duke of Sussex to succeed Gilbert the same year. As a broad manifesto, on the other hand, his "Decline" led promptly to the formation in 1831 of the British Association for the Advancement of Science (BAAS). The "Mechanics' Magazine" in 1831 identified as Declinarians the followers of Babbage. In an unsympathetic tone it pointed out David Brewster writing in the "Quarterly Review" as another leader; with the barb that both Babbage and Brewster had received public money. In the debate of the period on statistics ("qua" data collection) and what is now statistical inference, the BAAS in its Statistical Section (which owed something also to Whewell) opted for data collection. This Section was the sixth, established in 1833 with Babbage as chairman and John Elliot Drinkwater as secretary. The foundation of the Statistical Society followed. Babbage was its public face, backed by Richard Jones and Robert Malthus. "On the Economy of Machinery and Manufactures". Babbage published "On the Economy of Machinery and Manufactures" (1832), on the organisation of industrial production. It was an influential early work of operational research. John Rennie the Younger in addressing the Institute of Civil Engineers on manufacturing in 1846 mentioned mostly surveys in encyclopedias, and Babbage's book was first an article in the "Encyclopædia Metropolitana", the form in which Rennie noted it, in the company of related works by John Farey, Jr., Peter Barlow and Andrew Ure. From "An essay on the general principles which regulate the application of machinery to manufactures and the mechanical arts" (1827), which became the "Encyclopædia Metropolitana" article of 1829, Babbage developed the schematic classification of machines that, combined with discussion of factories, made up the first part of the book. The second part considered the "domestic and political economy" of manufactures. The book sold well, and quickly went to a fourth edition (1836). Babbage represented his work as largely a result of actual observations in factories, British and abroad. It was not, in its first edition, intended to address deeper questions of political economy; the second (late 1832) did, with three further chapters including one on piece rate. The book also contained ideas on rational design in factories, and profit sharing. "Babbage principle". In "Economy of Machinery" was described what is now called the "Babbage principle". It pointed out commercial advantages available with more careful division of labour. As Babbage himself noted, it had already appeared in the work of Melchiorre Gioia in 1815. The term was introduced in 1974 by Harry Braverman. Related formulations are the "principle of multiples" of Philip Sargant Florence, and the "balance of processes". What Babbage remarked is that skilled workers typically spend parts of their time performing tasks that are below their skill level. If the labour process can be divided among several workers, labour costs may be cut by assigning only high-skill tasks to high-cost workers, restricting other tasks to lower-paid workers. He also pointed out that training or apprenticeship can be taken as fixed costs; but that returns to scale are available by his approach of standardisation of tasks, therefore again favouring the factory system. His view of human capital was restricted to minimising the time period for recovery of training costs. Publishing. Another aspect of the work was its detailed breakdown of the cost structure of book publishing. Babbage took the unpopular line, from the publishers' perspective, of exposing the trade's profitability. He went as far as to name the organisers of the trade's restrictive practices. Twenty years later he attended a meeting hosted by John Chapman to campaign against the Booksellers Association, still a cartel. Influence. It has been written that "what Arthur Young was to agriculture, Charles Babbage was to the factory visit and machinery". Babbage's theories are said to have influenced the layout of the 1851 Great Exhibition, and his views had a strong effect on his contemporary George Julius Poulett Scrope. Karl Marx argued that the source of the productivity of the factory system was exactly the combination of the division of labour with machinery, building on Adam Smith, Babbage and Ure. Where Marx picked up on Babbage and disagreed with Smith was on the motivation for division of labour by the manufacturer: as Babbage did, he wrote that it was for the sake of profitability, rather than productivity, and identified an impact on the concept of a trade. John Ruskin went further, to oppose completely what manufacturing in Babbage's sense stood for. Babbage also affected the economic thinking of John Stuart Mill. George Holyoake saw Babbage's detailed discussion of profit sharing as substantive, in the tradition of Robert Owen and Charles Fourier, if requiring the attentions of a benevolent captain of industry, and ignored at the time. The French engineer and writer on industrial organisation Léon Lalande was influenced by Babbage, but also the economist Claude Lucien Bergery, in reducing the issues to "technology". William Jevons connected Babbage's "economy of labour" with his own labour experiments of 1870. The Babbage principle is an inherent assumption in Frederick Winslow Taylor's scientific management. Natural theology. In 1837, responding to the series of eight "Bridgewater Treatises", Babbage published his "Ninth Bridgewater Treatise", under the title "On the Power, Wisdom and Goodness of God, as manifested in the Creation". In this work Babbage weighed in on the side of uniformitarianism in a current debate. He preferred the conception of creation in which natural law dominated, removing the need for "contrivance". The book is a work of natural theology, and incorporates extracts from related correspondence of Herschel with Charles Lyell. It was quoted extensively in "Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation". Babbage put forward the thesis that God had the omnipotence and foresight to create as a divine legislator. He could make laws which then produced species at the appropriate times, rather than continually interfering with "ad hoc" miracles each time a new species was required. In "Vestiges" the parallel with Babbage's computing machines is made explicit, as allowing plausibility to the theory that transmutation of species could be pre-programmed. Babbage has been seen as influenced by Indian thought, in particular Indian logic; one possible route would be through Henry Thomas Colebrooke. Mary Everest Boole claims that Babbage was introduced to Indian thought in the 1820s by her uncle George Everest: Some time about 1825, came to England for two or three years, and made a fast and lifelong friendship with Herschel and with Babbage, who was then quite young. I would ask any fair-minded mathematician to read Babbage's Ninth Bridgewater Treatise and compare it with the works of his contemporaries in England; and then ask himself whence came the peculiar conception of the nature of miracle which underlies Babbage's ideas of Singular Points on Curves (Chap, viii) – from European Theology or Hindu Metaphysic? Oh! how the English clergy of that day hated Babbage's book! Later life. The British Association was consciously modelled on the Deutsche Naturforscher-Versammlung, founded in 1822. It rejected romantic science as well as metaphysics, and started to entrench the divisions of science from literature, and professionals from amateurs. Belonging as he did to the "Wattite" faction in the BAAS, represented in particular by James Watt the younger, Babbage identified closely with industrialists. He wanted to go faster in the same directions, and had little time for the more gentlemanly component of its membership. Indeed, he subscribed to a version of conjectural history that placed industrial society as the culmination of human development (and shared this view with Herschel). A clash with Roderick Murchison led in 1838 to his withdrawal from further involvement. At the end of the same year he sent in his resignation as Lucasian professor, walking away also from the Cambridge struggle with Whewell. His interests became more focussed, on computation and metrology, and on international contacts. Metrology programme. A project announced by Babbage was to tabulate all physical constants (referred to as "constants of nature", a phrase in itself a neologism), and then to compile an encyclopedic work of numerical information. He was a pioneer in the field of "absolute measurement". His ideas followed on from those of Johann Christian Poggendorff, and were mentioned to Brewster in 1832. There were to be 19 categories of constants, and Ian Hacking sees these as reflecting in part Babbage's "eccentric enthusiasms". Babbage's paper "On Tables of the Constants of Nature and Art" was reprinted by the Smithsonian Institution in 1856, with an added note that the physical tables of Arnold Henry Guyot "will form a part of the important work proposed in this article". Exact measurement was also key to the development of machine tools. Here again Babbage is considered a pioneer, with Henry Maudslay, William Sellers, and Joseph Whitworth. Engineer and inventor. Through the Royal Society Babbage acquired the friendship of the engineer Marc Brunel. It was through Brunel that Babbage knew of Joseph Clement, and so came to encounter the artisans whom he observed in his work on manufactures. Babbage provided an introduction for Isambard Kingdom Brunel in 1830, for a contact with the proposed Bristol & Birmingham Railway. He carried out studies, around 1838, to show the superiority of the broad gauge for railways, used by Brunel's Great Western Railway. In 1838, Babbage invented the pilot (also called a cow-catcher), the metal frame attached to the front of locomotives that clears the tracks of obstacles; he also constructed a dynamometer car. His eldest son, Benjamin Herschel Babbage, worked as an engineer for Brunel on the railways before emigrating to Australia in the 1850s. Babbage also invented an ophthalmoscope, which he gave to Thomas Wharton Jones for testing. Jones, however, ignored it. The device only came into use after being independently invented by Hermann von Helmholtz. Cryptography. Babbage achieved notable results in cryptography, though this was still not known a century after his death. Letter frequency was category 18 of Babbage's tabulation project. Joseph Henry later defended interest in it, in the absence of the facts, as relevant to the management of movable type. During the Crimean War of the 1850s, Babbage broke Vigenère's autokey cipher as well as the much weaker cipher that is called Vigenère cipher today. His discovery was kept a military secret, and was not published. Credit for the result was instead given to Friedrich Kasiski, a Prussian infantry officer, who made the same discovery some years later. Babbage did write to the "Journal of the Society for Arts" a short letter "Cypher Writing" which was printed on 7 December 1855. His priority wasn't established until 1985. Public nuisances. Babbage involved himself in well-publicised but unpopular campaigns against public nuisances. He once counted all the broken panes of glass of a factory, publishing in 1857 a "Table of the Relative Frequency of the Causes of Breakage of Plate Glass Windows": Of 464 broken panes, 14 were caused by "drunken men, women or boys". Babbage's distaste for commoners ("the Mob") included writing "Observations of Street Nuisances" in 1864, as well as tallying up 165 "nuisances" over a period of 80 days. He especially hated street music, and in particular the music of organ grinders, against whom he railed in various venues. The following quotation is typical:
1256537	The Last Mistress (, literally "An old mistress") is a 2007 French-Italian film based on a controversial novel by French writer Jules Amédée Barbey d'Aurevilly. It stars Asia Argento and Fu'ad Aït Aattou as the two main characters. The movie was directed by French filmmaker Catherine Breillat. The film was entered into the 2007 Cannes Film Festival. Plot. Ryno de Marigny (Fu'ad Aït Aattou), before getting married to the young and innocent Hermangarde (Roxanne Mesquida), makes a last visit to La Vellini (Asia Argento), his Spanish mistress, to bid goodbye in an act of lovemaking. His liaison with La Vellini is the subject of the Parisian gossip, and before Hermangarde's grandmother gives her blessing, she wants to hear from Ryno everything about this relationship. Ryno reveals a tempestuous story but indicates that his ten year romance is over; he now is in love with Hermangarde. After the marriage, the newlyweds move away to a castle at the seashore. They are happy and soon Hermangarde conceives. But the "last/old mistress" reappears, and while Ryno tries to keep her out of his life, she is not to be rejected, and Hermangarde finds out about it. Critical reception. The film appeared on some critics' top ten lists of the best films of 2008. Stephen Holden of "The New York Times" named it the 5th best film of 2008, and Sheri Linden of "The Hollywood Reporter" named it the 9th best film of 2008. References. Blateau, Anne-Elisabeth. "Une vieille maîtresse sans Breillat" (A Last Mistress without Breillat), in "Carré d'Art : Barbey d'Aurevilly, Byron, Dalí, Hallier", by Jean-Pierre Thiollet, Anagramme éd., Paris, 2008, pp. 143–149.
1058709	The Rescuers is a 1977 American animated adventure film produced by Walt Disney Productions and first released on June 22, 1977 by Buena Vista Distribution. The 23rd film in the Walt Disney Animated Classics series, the film is about the Rescue Aid Society, an international mouse organization headquartered in New York and shadowing the United Nations, dedicated to helping abduction victims around the world at large. Two of these mice, jittery janitor Bernard (Bob Newhart) and his co-agent, the elegant Miss Bianca (Eva Gabor), set out to rescue Penny (Michelle Stacy), an orphan girl being held prisoner in the Devil's Bayou by treasure huntress Madame Medusa (Geraldine Page). The film is based on a series of books by Margery Sharp, most notably "The Rescuers" and "Miss Bianca". Due to the film's success, a sequel entitled "The Rescuers Down Under" was released in 1990. Plot. In an abandoned river boat in Devil's Bayou, a young orphan named Penny, drops a message in a bottle containing a plea for help into the river. The bottle is carried out to sea and washes up in New York City, where it is recovered by the Rescue Aid Society, an international mouse organization inside the United Nations. The Hungarian representative, Miss Bianca, volunteers to accept the case and chooses Bernard, a stammering janitor who has triskaidekaphobia, as her co-agent. The two visit Morningside Orphanage, where Penny lived, and meet an old cat named Rufus. He tells them about a woman named Madame Medusa who once tried to lure Penny into her car and may have succeeded in abducting Penny this time. The mice travel to Medusa's pawn shop, where they discover that she and her partner, Mr. Snoops, are on a quest to find the world's largest diamond, the Devil's Eye. They also discover that Mr. Snoops is in the Devil's Bayou with Penny, whom they have indeed kidnapped. With the help of an albatross named Orville, and a dragonfly named Evinrude, the mice follow Medusa to the bayou. There, they learn that Penny was captured to enter a hole that leads down into the pirates' cave where the Devil's Eye is located. Miss Bianca's perfume inadvertently attracts the attention of Medusa's pet alligators, Brutus and Nero. Bernard and Miss Bianca flee and find Penny. The arrival of the two mice raises her morale. Together, the three devise a plan, which is put into action on the following day. Wanting to escape tonight, Bernard orders Evinrude to get Ellie Mae and the other local animals who loathe Medusa, which he accepts. However, in the middle of his quest, Evinrude is thwarted by a flock of hungry bats, delaying him. The following morning, Medusa and Mr. Snoops send Penny down into a pirate's cave to find the gem, with Miss Bianca and Bernard hiding in her skirt pocket. The three soon find the Devil's Eye within a pirate skull; as Penny pries the mouth open with a sword, the mice push it out from within, but soon the oceanic tide rises and floods the cave. Miss Bianca, Penny, and Bernard barely manage to retrieve the diamond and escape. Medusa steals the diamond for herself, attempting to run off with the diamond, leaving Snoops without any shares, and hides it in Penny's teddy bear. When she trips over a cable set as a trap by Bernard and Bianca, Medusa loses the bear to Penny, who runs away with it. After a struggle with Snoops who already turned to her, Medusa retaliates with gunfire, causing the mice to flee until they are met by Brutus and Nero. With help from Ellie Mae and the other animals, Bernard and Miss Bianca trick them into entering a cage-like elevator, trapping them. Two of the gang set off Mr. Snoops's fireworks, making the boat sink. Meanwhile Penny and the mice commandeer Medusa's "Swampmobile", a motor-boat used by Medusa to travel in the swamp and resembling the front clip Ford Model T body mounted to a small boat, with a single tractor seat for the driver. They get it moving using Luke's homemade moonshine as fuel, while Medusa unsuccessfully pursues them, and is left clinging to the boat's smoke stacks with Brutus and Nero trying to eat her below (because she whipped them while she was chasing Penny) while Snoops is seen rafting away while laughing. Back in New York, the Rescue Aid Society watch TV to hear that the Devil's Eye is given to the Smithsonian Institution and Penny is adopted by a new father and mother. Bernard and Miss Bianca remain partners in the Rescue Aid Society's Missions. Soon there is another call for help and they depart on Orville, accompanied by Evinrude, to a new rescue mission. Production. "The Rescuers" was four years in the making with the combined talents of 250 people, including 40 animators who produced approximately 330,000 drawings; there were 14 sequences with 1,039 separate scenes and 750 backgrounds. Contrary to popular belief, Walt Disney was involved in early development of the film. Though actual production did not begin until about 1973, the suggestion of considering Margery Sharp's "Miss Bianca" novels was made in 1962 (at this time, only the first two had been published). However, Walt Disney disliked the idea of a faithful adaptation of Sharp's "The Rescuers" (1959), in which Miss Bianca, Bernard, and a third mouse named Nils rescued a Norwegian poet from imprisonment, and suggested that the subject of rescue be changed to a polar bear named Willie held captive in a zoo. Following his death in 1966, Sharp's second novel in the series was selected as the primary source for adaptation. "The Rescuers" was the first Disney film that combined the talents of Walt Disney's original crew of story writers and animators (including his "Nine Old Men") with a newer, less experienced crew that Walt Disney Productions had recruited in the mid-1970s. "The Rescuers" marked the last joint effort by veterans Milt Kahl, Ollie Johnston, and Frank Thomas, and the first Disney film worked on by Don Bluth as an animator, instead of an assistant animator. Other animators who stepped up during production were Glen Keane, Ron Clements, and Andy Gaskill, who would all play an important role in the Disney Renaissance of the 1980s and 90s. "The Rescuers" was also the company's first major animated success since "The Jungle Book" (1967) and the last until "The Little Mermaid" (1989). "The Rescuers" marked the end of the silver age of Disney animation that had begun with "Cinderella" (1950). It also marked the first successful animated film that Walt Disney himself had not worked on. During the 1960s and early 70s Disney films took on the trend of comedy, rather than story, heart, and drama. "The Rescuers" marked the return of the animated drama films the studio had previously been known for, such as "Bambi" and "Dumbo". Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston stated in their website that "The Rescuers" had been their return to a film with heart and also considered it their best film without Walt Disney. Also unique to the animation was the opening credits: this film marked the first time that practiced camera movements over still photographs were used to make the opening credits. Prior to this, the studio had used the cels with the credits motionless over different still backgrounds, sometimes over one single background, as was done in "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" (1937). "The Rescuers" was also the first Disney animated film to feature a prologue, or part of the story prior to the opening credits sequence, making said sequence part of the storyline. In a loose concept of the story, jazz singer Louis Prima was to voice a character named Louis the Bear. The story was going to be about a bear named Louis who escapes from a zoo with the help of two mice, and was to feature six songs sung by Prima written by Floyd Huddleston. Unfortunately in 1975, following headaches and episodes of memory loss, Prima discovered he had a stem brain tumor, and the project was scrapped. "The Rescuers" marked the end of the studio's so-called "sketchy" animation period of the 1960s and 70s. The new xerographic process restored a softer outline that previously was not possible with the technology, which so far only had been able to produce black outlines. This allowed the use of a medium-gray tone and even a purple tone for outlines, such as that used for Miss Bianca. Inspirations. "The Rescuers" is based on novels by Margery Sharp and there are a number of differences between the film and the original works. Bernard was inspired by the character of the same name in Margery Sharp's "The Rescuers" series and much of his personality and character were kept. In the novel "Miss Bianca", however, Bernard plays a very minor role. Penny was inspired by Patience, the orphan in the novel. Mr. Snoops is a version of Mandrake, a character of the book. His appearance is a caricature of animation historian John Culhane. Culhane claims he was practically tricked into posing for various reactions, and his movements were imitated on Mr. Snoops's model sheet. However, he stated, "Becoming a Disney character was beyond my wildest dreams of glory." Brutus and Nero are based on the two bloodhounds, Tyrant and Torment in the novels. A pigeon was originally proposed to be the transportation for Bernard and Bianca, until Disney animator Ollie Johnston remembered a "True Life Adventures" episode that showed albatrosses and their clumsy take-offs and landings, and suggested the ungainly bird instead. Originally, Cruella de Vil from "One Hundred and One Dalmatians" (1961) was to have been recast as the villainess in "The Rescuers", but this idea was dropped since the studio was not interested in producing sequels at the time. She was replaced by a retouched version of the Diamond Duchess in "Miss Bianca". The two characters share surprisingly few similarities, other than perhaps the tendency to drive recklessly. The motive to steal a diamond originated in Margery Sharp's 1959 novel, "Miss Bianca". Her appearance was based on animator Milt Kahl's ex-wife, who he did not particularly like. This was Kahl's last film for the studio, and he wanted his final character to be his best; he was so insistent on perfecting Medusa that he ended up doing almost all the animation for the character himself. Release. "The Rescuers" was re-released to theaters on December 16, 1983 along with a new Mickey Mouse featurette, "Mickey's Christmas Carol", Mickey's first theatrical appearance after a 30-year absence. In anticipation of its upcoming theatrically released sequel in 1990, "The Rescuers Down Under", "The Rescuers" saw another successful theatrical run on March 17, 1989. Marketing. To tie in with the film's 25th Anniversary, "The Rescuers" debuted in the Walt Disney Classics Collection line in 2002, with three different figures featuring three of the film's biggest stars, as well as the opening title scroll. The three figures were sculpted by Dusty Horner and they were: "Brave Bianca", featuring Miss Bianca the heroine and priced at $75, "Bold Bernard", featuring hero Bernard, priced also at $75 and "Evinrude Base", featuring Evinrude the dragonfly and priced at $85. The title scroll featuring the film's name, "The Rescuers" and from the opening song sequence "The Journey," was priced at $30. All figures were retired in March 2005, except for the opening title scroll which is still widely available. "The Rescuers" was the inspiration for another Walt Disney Classics Collection figure in 2003. Ken Melton was the sculptor of "Teddy Goes With Me, My Dear", a limited edition, 8-inch sculpture featuring the evil Madame Medusa, the orphan girl Penny, her teddy bear "Teddy" and the Devil's Eye diamond. 1,977 of these sculptures were made, in reference to the film's release year, 1977. The sculpture was priced at $299 and instantly declared retired in 2003. In November 2008, a sixth sculpture inspired by the film was released. Made with pewter and resin, "Cleared For Take Off" introduced the character of Orville into the collection and featured Bernard and Bianca a second time. The piece, inspired by Orville's take-off scene in the film, was sculpted by Ruben Procopio. Critical reception. "The Rescuers" was successful upon its original theatrical release earning $48 million at the box office and becoming Disney's most successful film to that date. The film broke a record for the largest financial amount made for an animated film on opening weekend, a record it kept until 1986, when "An American Tail" broke the record. "The Rescuers" was Disney's first significant success since "The Jungle Book" (1967) and the last until "The Little Mermaid" (1989). "The Rescuers" was said to be Disney's greatest film since "Mary Poppins" (1964), and seemed to signal a new golden age for Disney animation. The film holds an 85% "Certified Fresh" rating at Rotten Tomatoes. TV Guide gave the film three stars out of four, saying that "Four years in the making, costing nearly $8 million, THE RESCUERS is a beautifully animated film that showed Disney still knew a lot about making quality children's fare even as their track record was weakening. The story concerns two mice, Bernard and Miss Bianca (their voices provided by Newhart and Gabor), who set out to rescue a girl named Penny (Stacy) from the evil Mme Medusa (Page). The girl is held captive in a swamp, which offers the setting for some genuinely frightening action. Comic relief is provided by a bird named Orville, who transports the mice as they search for the girl. The voices are all well suited to the characters, and the film is a delight for children as well as adults who appreciate good animation and brisk storytelling." Ellen MacKay of Common Sense Media gave the film four out of five stars, writing, "Great adventure, but too dark for preschoolers". In his book, "The Disney Films", film historian Leonard Maltin refers to "The Rescuers" as "a breath of fresh air for everyone who had been concerned about the future of animation at Walt Disney's," praises its "humor and imagination and is expertly woven into a solid story structure [...] with a delightful cast of characters." Finally, he declares the film "the most satisfying animated feature to come from the studio since "101 Dalmatians"." He also briefly mentions the ease with which the film surpassed other animated films of its time. Jack Shaheen, in his study of Hollywood portrayals and stereotypes of Arabs, noted the inclusion of delegates from Arab countries in the Rescue Aid Society. Accolades. "The Rescuers" was nominated in 1978 for an Academy Award for the song "Someone's Waiting for You" at the 50th Academy Awards. The song lost to "You Light Up My Life" from the film of the same name. The American Film Institute nominated "The Rescuers" for its Top 10 Animated Films list. Home media. "The Rescuers" premiered on VHS and Laserdisc on September 18, 1992 as part of the Walt Disney Classics series. It was re-released on VHS as part of the Walt Disney Masterpiece Collection on January 5, 1999, but was recalled three days later and reissued on March 23, 1999 (see "Controversy"). "The Rescuers" was released on DVD on May 20, 2003 as a standard edition, which was discontinued in November 2011. On August 21, 2012, a 35th anniversary edition of "The Rescuers" was released on Blu-ray alongside its sequel in a "2-Movie Collection". Controversy. On January 8, 1999, three days after the film's second release on home video, The Walt Disney Company announced a recall of about 3.4 million copies of the videotapes because there was an objectionable image in one of the film's background cels. The image in question is a blurry image of a topless woman that appears in two out of the film's more than 110,000 frames. The image appears twice in non-consecutive frames during the scene in which Miss Bianca and Bernard are flying on Orville's back through New York City. The two images could not be seen in ordinary viewing because the film runs too fast — at 30 frames per second on video. In 1999, two days after the recall was announced, the London press site "The Independent" reported:A Disney spokeswoman said that the images in "The Rescuers" were placed in the film during production, but she declined to say what they were or who placed them... The company said the aim of the recall was to keep its promise to families that they can trust and rely on the Disney brand to provide the best in family entertainment. "The Rescuers" video was reissued March 23, 1999 with the offending image edited out. On May 20, 2003, the film was released on DVD. Soundtrack. The songs were written by Sammy Fain, Carol Connors, and Ayn Robbins, and performed by Shelby Flint. For the first time since "Bambi", all the most significant songs were sung as part of a narrative, as opposed to by the film's characters as in most Disney animated films. Tracklist. Side A 01. The Journey - Shelby Flint 02. Rescue Aid Society - Bernard Fox, Bob Newheart, and Robie Lester 03. Tomorrow Is Another Day - Shelby Flint Side B 04. Someone's Waiting For You - Shelby Flint 05. Tomorrow Is Another Day (Reprise) - Shelby Flint Sequel. "The Rescuers" was the first Disney animated film to have a sequel. After three successful theatrical releases of the original film, "The Rescuers Down Under" was released theatrically on November 16, 1990. "The Rescuers Down Under" takes place in the Australian Outback, and involves Bernard and Bianca trying to rescue a boy named Cody and a giant golden eagle called Marahute from a greedy poacher named Percival C. McLeach. Both Bob Newhart and Eva Gabor reprised their lead roles. Since Jim Jordan, who had voiced Orville, had since died, a new character, Wilbur (Orville's brother, another albatross) was created and voiced by John Candy.
591198	Memories in March is a 2010 Indian drama film directed by Sanjoy Nag. The film stars Deepti Naval, Rituparno Ghosh and Raima Sen. The film is the effective exploration of a situation wherein a bereaved mother comes to terms with her late son’s sexual identity. Plot. Delhi-based Arati Mishra believed her worst day was when she was divorced from her U.S.-based husband, Suresh, until she got the news that her Kolkata-based son, Siddhartha, had been killed in a vehicular accident. She travels to Kolkata; is received at the airport by her son's co-worker, Sahana Choudhury, and accompanies her to the crematorium. After the cremation, she is then taken to the guest-house where her son used to live, and told that Siddhartha had been at a party, had not only consumed considerable alcohol but had also insisted on driving, and met with a fatal accident. The next day, she accompanies Sahana to her son's place of employment where she meets some of the staff and signs some documents, but ends up distressed when she is not permitted to take her son's belongings. Quite upset, blaming the office workers' for letting her son drive under the influence, she does not realize that she will be in for more shocks and surprises when she will find that her son had a secret life.
1088199	In the field of numerical simulation methods, meshfree methods are those which do not require a mesh connecting the data points of the simulation domain. Meshfree methods enable the simulation of some otherwise difficult types of problems, at the cost of extra computing time and programming effort. Motivation. Numerical methods such as the finite difference method, finite-volume method, and finite element method were originally defined on meshes of data points. In such a mesh, each point has a fixed number of predefined neighbors, and this connectivity between neighbors can be used to define mathematical operators like the derivative. These operators are then used to construct the equations to be simulated, such as the Euler equations or the Navier–Stokes equations. But in simulations where the material being simulated can move around (as in computational fluid dynamics) or where large deformations of the material can occur (as in simulations of plastic materials), the connectivity of the mesh can be difficult to maintain without introducing error into the simulation. If the mesh becomes tangled or degenerate during simulation, the operators defined on it may no longer give correct values. The mesh may be recreated during simulation (a process called remeshing), but this can also introduce error, since all the existing data points must be mapped onto a new and different set of data points. Meshfree methods are intended to remedy these problems. Meshfree methods are also useful for: Example. In a traditional finite difference simulation, the domain of a one-dimensional simulation would be some function formula_1, represented as a mesh of data values formula_2 at points formula_3, where We can define the derivatives that occur in the equation being simulated using some finite difference formulae on this domain, for example and Then we can use these definitions of formula_10 and its spatial and temporal derivatives to write the equation being simulated in finite difference form, then simulate the equation with one of many finite difference methods. In this simple example, the spatial step size formula_11 and the temporal step size formula_12 are constant, and the left and right mesh neighbors of the data value at formula_3 are the values at formula_14 and formula_15, respectively. But if the values can move around, or can be added to or removed from the simulation, that destroys the spacing and the simple finite difference formulae for derivatives will no longer be correct. Smoothed-particle hydrodynamics (SPH), one of the oldest meshfree methods, solves this problem by treating our data points as physical particles with mass and density which can move around over time, and which carry some value formula_16 with them. SPH then defines the value of formula_10 between the particles by where formula_19 is the mass of particle formula_20, formula_21 is the density of particle formula_20, and formula_23 is a kernel function that operates on nearby data points and is chosen for smoothness and other useful qualities. By linearity, we can write the spatial derivative as Then we can use these definitions of formula_10 and its spatial derivatives to write the equation being simulated as an ordinary differential equation, and simulate the equation with one of many numerical methods. In physical terms, this means calculating the forces between the particles, then integrating these forces over time to determine their motion. The advantage of SPH in this situation is that the formulae for formula_10 and its derivatives do not depend on any adjacency information about the particles; they can use the particles in any order, so it doesn't matter if the particles move around or even exchange places. One disadvantage of SPH is that it requires extra programming to determine the nearest neighbors of a particle. Since the kernel function formula_23 only returns nonzero results for nearby particles within twice the "smoothing length" (because we typically choose kernel functions with compact support), it would be a waste of effort to calculate the summations above over every particle in a large simulation. So typically SPH simulators require some extra code to speed up this nearest neighbor calculation. History. One of the earliest meshfree methods is smoothed particle hydrodynamics, presented in 1977. Over the ensuing decades, many more methods have been developed, some of which are listed below. List of methods and acronyms. The following numerical methods are generally considered to fall within the general class of "meshfree" methods. Acronyms are provided in parentheses.
1065869	Two-Faced Woman (1941) is a romantic comedy starring Greta Garbo and produced by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Production. The film stars Greta Garbo, in her final film role, and Melvyn Douglas, with Constance Bennett, Roland Young, and Ruth Gordon. The film was directed by George Cukor and produced by Gottfried Reinhardt from a screenplay by S. N. Behrman, Salka Viertel, and George Oppenheimer, based on a play by Ludwig Fulda. The music score was by Bronislau Kaper, the cinematography by Joseph Ruttenberg, the art direction by Cedric Gibbons, and the costume design by Adrian. Plot. A fashion magazine editor (Douglas) marries a ski instructor (Garbo) and the couple settles in New York City.
1059298	The Dresser is a successful 1980 West End and Broadway play by Ronald Harwood, which tells the story of an aging actor's personal assistant, who struggles to keep his charge's life together. It was subsequently made into a 1983 film, based on Harwood's own screenplay. The film was directed by Peter Yates and produced by Yates with Ronald Harwood. The cinematography was by Kelvin Pike. The film version of "The Dresser" stars Albert Finney, Tom Courtenay, Zena Walker, Eileen Atkins, Michael Gough and Edward Fox. Finney and Courtenay were both nominated for Academy Awards, BAFTA Awards and Golden Globe Awards for their performances, with Courtenay winning the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor - Motion Picture Drama in a tie with Robert Duvall for Tender Mercies. Story. In a touring Shakespearean theater group, a backstage hand — the dresser — is devoted to the brilliant but tyrannical head of the company. He struggles to support the deteriorating star as the company struggles to carry on during the London blitz. The pathos of his backstage efforts rival the pathos in the story of Lear and the Fool that is being presented on-stage, as the situation comes to a crisis. Background and production. UK. Ronald Harwood based the play on his experiences as dresser to distinguished English Shakespearean actor-manager Sir Donald Wolfit, who is the model for the character "Sir" in the play. The play was first presented on 6 March 1980 at The Royal Exchange Theatre and then opened at the Queen's Theatre in London on 30 April 1980, with Freddie Jones as "Sir" and Tom Courtenay as Norman. The play was nominated for Best Play at the Laurence Olivier Awards for 1980. Broadway. The play opened at the Brooks Atkinson Theatre on 9 November 1981 and ran for 200 performances, with Tom Courtenay repeating his performance as Norman and Paul Rogers as "Sir". The play was nominated for the 1982 Tony Award for Best Play, Best Actor in a Play (Tom Courtenay) and the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Actor in a Play (Paul Rogers). On film (1983). Awards and nominations. The film was nominated for five Academy Awards: two Best Actor in a Leading Role nominations (Tom Courtenay and Albert Finney), Best Director, Best Picture and Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium. Albert Finney won the Silver Bear for Best Actor at the 34th Berlin International Film Festival.
1102290	Leonhard Euler ( ; , ; 15 April 170718 September 1783) was a pioneering Swiss mathematician and physicist. He made important discoveries in fields as diverse as infinitesimal calculus and graph theory. He also introduced much of the modern mathematical terminology and notation, particularly for mathematical analysis, such as the notion of a mathematical function. He is also renowned for his work in mechanics, fluid dynamics, optics, and astronomy. Euler spent most of his adult life in St. Petersburg, Russia, and in Berlin, Prussia. He is considered to be the pre-eminent mathematician of the 18th century, and one of the greatest mathematicians ever. He is also one of the most prolific mathematicians ever; his collected works fill 60–80 quarto volumes. A statement attributed to Pierre-Simon Laplace expresses Euler's influence on mathematics: "Read Euler, read Euler, he is the master of us all." Life. Early years. Euler was born on April 15, 1707, in Basel to Paul Euler, a pastor of the Reformed Church, and Marguerite Brucker, a pastor's daughter. He had two younger sisters named Anna Maria and Maria Magdalena. Soon after the birth of Leonhard, the Eulers moved from Basel to the town of Riehen, where Euler spent most of his childhood. Paul Euler was a friend of the Bernoulli family—Johann Bernoulli, who was then regarded as Europe's foremost mathematician, would eventually be the most important influence on young Leonhard. Euler's early formal education started in Basel, where he was sent to live with his maternal grandmother. At the age of thirteen he enrolled at the University of Basel, and in 1723, received his Master of Philosophy with a dissertation that compared the philosophies of Descartes and Newton. At this time, he was receiving Saturday afternoon lessons from Johann Bernoulli, who quickly discovered his new pupil's incredible talent for mathematics. Euler was at this point studying theology, Greek, and Hebrew at his father's urging, in order to become a pastor, but Bernoulli convinced Paul Euler that Leonhard was destined to become a great mathematician. In 1726, Euler completed a dissertation on the propagation of sound with the title "De Sono". At that time, he was pursuing an (ultimately unsuccessful) attempt to obtain a position at the University of Basel. In 1727, he first entered the "Paris Academy Prize Problem" competition; the problem that year was to find the best way to place the masts on a ship. Pierre Bouguer, a man who became known as "the father of naval architecture" won, and Euler took second place. Euler later won this annual prize twelve times. St. Petersburg. Around this time Johann Bernoulli's two sons, Daniel and Nicolas, were working at the Imperial Russian Academy of Sciences in St Petersburg. On July 10, 1726, Nicolas died of appendicitis after spending a year in Russia, and when Daniel assumed his brother's position in the mathematics/physics division, he recommended that the post in physiology that he had vacated be filled by his friend Euler. In November 1726 Euler eagerly accepted the offer, but delayed making the trip to St Petersburg while he unsuccessfully applied for a physics professorship at the University of Basel. Euler arrived in the Russian capital on 17 May 1727. He was promoted from his junior post in the medical department of the academy to a position in the mathematics department. He lodged with Daniel Bernoulli with whom he often worked in close collaboration. Euler mastered Russian and settled into life in St Petersburg. He also took on an additional job as a medic in the Russian Navy. The Academy at St. Petersburg, established by Peter the Great, was intended to improve education in Russia and to close the scientific gap with Western Europe. As a result, it was made especially attractive to foreign scholars like Euler. The academy possessed ample financial resources and a comprehensive library drawn from the private libraries of Peter himself and of the nobility. Very few students were enrolled in the academy in order to lessen the faculty's teaching burden, and the academy emphasized research and offered to its faculty both the time and the freedom to pursue scientific questions. The Academy's benefactress, Catherine I, who had continued the progressive policies of her late husband, died on the day of Euler's arrival. The Russian nobility then gained power upon the ascension of the twelve-year-old Peter II. The nobility were suspicious of the academy's foreign scientists, and thus cut funding and caused other difficulties for Euler and his colleagues. Conditions improved slightly upon the death of Peter II, and Euler swiftly rose through the ranks in the academy and was made professor of physics in 1731. Two years later, Daniel Bernoulli, who was fed up with the censorship and hostility he faced at St. Petersburg, left for Basel. Euler succeeded him as the head of the mathematics department. On 7 January 1734, he married Katharina Gsell (1707–1773), a daughter of Georg Gsell, a painter from the Academy Gymnasium. The young couple bought a house by the Neva River. Of their thirteen children, only five survived childhood. Berlin. Concerned about the continuing turmoil in Russia, Euler left St. Petersburg on 19 June 1741 to take up a post at the "Berlin Academy", which he had been offered by Frederick the Great of Prussia. He lived for twenty-five years in Berlin, where he wrote over 380 articles. In Berlin, he published the two works for which he would become most renowned: The "Introductio in analysin infinitorum", a text on functions published in 1748, and the "Institutiones calculi differentialis", published in 1755 on differential calculus. In 1755, he was elected a foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. In addition, Euler was asked to tutor Friederike Charlotte of Brandenburg-Schwedt, the Princess of Anhalt-Dessau and Frederick's niece. Euler wrote over 200 letters to her in the early 1760s, which were later compiled into a best-selling volume entitled "Letters of Euler on different Subjects in Natural Philosophy Addressed to a German Princess". This work contained Euler's exposition on various subjects pertaining to physics and mathematics, as well as offering valuable insights into Euler's personality and religious beliefs. This book became more widely read than any of his mathematical works, and was published across Europe and in the United States. The popularity of the 'Letters' testifies to Euler's ability to communicate scientific matters effectively to a lay audience, a rare ability for a dedicated research scientist. Despite Euler's immense contribution to the Academy's prestige, he was eventually forced to leave Berlin. This was partly because of a conflict of personality with Frederick, who came to regard Euler as unsophisticated, especially in comparison to the circle of philosophers the German king brought to the Academy. Voltaire was among those in Frederick's employ, and the Frenchman enjoyed a prominent position within the king's social circle. Euler, a simple religious man and a hard worker, was very conventional in his beliefs and tastes. He was in many ways the antithesis of Voltaire. Euler had limited training in rhetoric, and tended to debate matters that he knew little about, making him a frequent target of Voltaire's wit. Frederick also expressed disappointment with Euler's practical engineering abilities: Eyesight deterioration. Euler's eyesight worsened throughout his mathematical career. Three years after suffering a near-fatal fever in 1735, he became almost blind in his right eye, but Euler rather blamed the painstaking work on cartography he performed for the St. Petersburg Academy for his condition. Euler's vision in that eye worsened throughout his stay in Germany, to the extent that Frederick referred to him as "Cyclops". Euler later developed a cataract in his left eye, rendering him almost totally blind a few weeks after its discovery in 1766. However, his condition appeared to have little effect on his productivity, as he compensated for it with his mental calculation skills and exquisite memory. For example, Euler could repeat the Aeneid of Virgil from beginning to end without hesitation, and for every page in the edition he could indicate which line was the first and which the last. With the aid of his scribes, Euler's productivity on many areas of study actually increased. He produced on average, one mathematical paper every week in the year 1775. Return to Russia. The situation in Russia had improved greatly since the accession to the throne of Catherine the Great, and in 1766 Euler accepted an invitation to return to the St. Petersburg Academy and spent the rest of his life in Russia. However, his second stay in the country was marred by tragedy. A fire in St. Petersburg in 1771 cost him his home, and almost his life. In 1773, he lost his wife Katharina after 40 years of marriage. Three years after his wife's death, Euler married her half-sister, Salome Abigail Gsell (1723–1794). This marriage lasted until his death. In St. Petersburg on 18 September 1783, after a lunch with his family, during a conversation with a fellow academician Anders Johan Lexell, about the newly discovered planet Uranus and its orbit, Euler suffered a brain hemorrhage and died a few hours later. A short obituary for the Russian Academy of Sciences was written by Jacob von Staehlin-Storcksburg and a more detailed eulogy was written and delivered at a memorial meeting by Russian mathematician Nicolas Fuss, one of Euler's disciples. In the eulogy written for the French Academy by the French mathematician and philosopher Marquis de Condorcet, he commented, He was buried next to Katharina at the Smolensk Lutheran Cemetery on Vasilievsky Island. In 1785, the Russian Academy of Sciences put a marble bust of Leonhard Euler on a pedestal next to the Director's seat and, in 1837, placed a headstone on Euler's grave. To commemorate the 250th anniversary of Euler's birth, the headstone was moved in 1956, together with his remains, to the 18th-century necropolis at the Alexander Nevsky Monastery. Contributions to mathematics and physics. Euler worked in almost all areas of mathematics: geometry, infinitesimal calculus, trigonometry, algebra, and number theory, as well as continuum physics, lunar theory and other areas of physics. He is a seminal figure in the history of mathematics; if printed, his works, many of which are of fundamental interest, would occupy between 60 and 80 quarto volumes. Euler's name is associated with a large number of topics. Euler is the only mathematician to have "two" numbers named after him: the immensely important Euler's Number in calculus, "e", approximately equal to 2.71828, and the Euler-Mascheroni Constant γ (gamma) sometimes referred to as just "Euler's constant", approximately equal to 0.57721. It is not known whether γ is rational or irrational. Mathematical notation. Euler introduced and popularized several notational conventions through his numerous and widely circulated textbooks. Most notably, he introduced the concept of a function and was the first to write "f"("x") to denote the function "f" applied to the argument "x". He also introduced the modern notation for the trigonometric functions, the letter for the base of the natural logarithm (now also known as Euler's number), the Greek letter Σ for summations and the letter to denote the imaginary unit. The use of the Greek letter "π" to denote the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter was also popularized by Euler, although it did not originate with him. Analysis. The development of infinitesimal calculus was at the forefront of 18th Century mathematical research, and the Bernoullis—family friends of Euler—were responsible for much of the early progress in the field. Thanks to their influence, studying calculus became the major focus of Euler's work. While some of Euler's proofs are not acceptable by modern standards of mathematical rigour (in particular his reliance on the principle of the generality of algebra), his ideas led to many great advances. Euler is well known in analysis for his frequent use and development of power series, the expression of functions as sums of infinitely many terms, such as Notably, Euler directly proved the power series expansions for and the inverse tangent function. (Indirect proof via the inverse power series technique was given by Newton and Leibniz between 1670 and 1680.) His daring use of power series enabled him to solve the famous Basel problem in 1735 (he provided a more elaborate argument in 1741): Euler introduced the use of the exponential function and logarithms in analytic proofs. He discovered ways to express various logarithmic functions using power series, and he successfully defined logarithms for negative and complex numbers, thus greatly expanding the scope of mathematical applications of logarithms. He also defined the exponential function for complex numbers, and discovered its relation to the trigonometric functions. For any real number φ (taken to be radians), Euler's formula states that the complex exponential function satisfies A special case of the above formula is known as Euler's identity, called "the most remarkable formula in mathematics" by Richard P. Feynman, for its single uses of the notions of addition, multiplication, exponentiation, and equality, and the single uses of the important constants 0, 1, , and . In 1988, readers of the "Mathematical Intelligencer" voted it "the Most Beautiful Mathematical Formula Ever". In total, Euler was responsible for three of the top five formulae in that poll. See also:
589259	Qayamat is a 1983 Indian Hindi film directed by Raj N. Sippy. It is an Indian version of the 1962 Hollywood film "Cape Fear". The film stars Dharmendra as a man who goes to jail and holds his police officer friend (Shatrughan Sinha) responsible for the jailing. On his return after a long sentence he sets about taking revenge, targeting the officer and his family (Smita Patil and Poonam Dhillon). Jaya Prada appears in flashbacks as Dharmendra's wife.
1039800	Vivien Merchant (born Ada Thompson; 22 July 1929 – 3 October 1982) was an English actress. She began her career in 1942 and became known for dramatic roles on stage and in films. In 1956 she married the playwright Harold Pinter and performed in many of his plays. Merchant achieved considerable success from the 1950s to the 1970s, but she suffered from depression and alcoholism as her marriage ended, and she died two years after her divorce. Career. Merchant took her stage name as a composite of the actress Vivien Leigh and her brother, who was a merchant seaman (cited by Michael Billington). She began acting professionally in 1942, with supporting juvenile roles in repertory, progressing to West End roles in such works as Noël Coward's "Sigh No More" and "Ace of Clubs", becoming an established lead in repertory in the early 1950s. Merchant subsequently performed in many stage productions and several films, including "Alfie" (1966), "Accident" (1967), "Frenzy" (1972) and "The Offence" (also 1972). Her performance in "Alfie" gained her Academy Award and Golden Globe nominations for Best Supporting Actress, and the National Board of Review Award for Best Supporting Actress. After Merchant married the playwright Harold Pinter in 1956, she appeared in many of his plays, including the 1960 revival of his first play, "The Room" at the Hampstead Theatre, "A Slight Ache", "A Night Out", "The Collection" and "The Lover"; the last also a celebrated television production partnering Alan Badel at Associated Rediffusion, for which she was given an Evening Standard Theatre Award for Best Newcomer and the BAFTA Award for Best Actress, both in 1963. Merchant subsequently appeared as Wendy in "Tea Party" opposite Leo McKern in 1965 and as Ruth in "The Homecoming" (1964) on stage (1965) and screen (1973). The last of his plays in which she performed on stage was "Old Times" (1971) as Anna. She played Lady Macbeth to Paul Scofield's Macbeth for the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1967, directed by Sir Peter Hall. Merchant took the role of Madame in the Greenwich Theatre revival of Jean Genet's "The Maids" partnering Glenda Jackson and Susannah York: this was filmed in 1974 by Christopher Miles. In 1975, Merchant and Timothy Dalton headed the cast of a revival of Noël Coward's "The Vortex" at the Greenwich Theatre. Personal life. Merchant was the first wife of Harold Pinter, whom she met while working as a repertory actress; he was then working as an actor under the stage name of David Baron. They married in 1956, and their son, Daniel, was born in 1958.
1150403	Kristin Lisa Herrera (born February 21, 1989) is an American actress. She is best known for her role as Dana Cruz on the first season of the Nickelodeon series "Zoey 101" and as Lourdes Del Torro on "General Hospital". Life and career. Herrera was born in Los Angeles, California and has two older brothers and has a sister , named Ryan and Justin and ashley. She is of Mexican and Puerto Rican descent and speaks fluent Spanish. She attended Hillcrest Christian School in Granada Hills, Los Angeles. Herrera has been acting in commercials since she was six. Her first TV role was in a phone service commercial. Other roles include Eleena on "NYPD Blue", Aimee Varga on "The Division", Sophie on "The Bernie Mac Show", Katie on "7th Heaven" and Frederika in "ER". In 2005, she played Dana Cruz in Zoey 101, Zoey (Jamie Lynn Spears) and Nicole's (Alexa Nikolas) roommate. After the first season, she departed from the show because the producers thought she looked too old and was replaced by Victoria Justice. Her character was originally planned to end up as Logan's girlfriend, but was replaced by Quinn Pensky. She also co-starred in feature film "Freedom Writers" opposite Hilary Swank. Herrera has taken a hiatus from acting, stating that she would like to pursue it again in the future. Her last acting role was on the soap opera "General Hospital" in 2008.
485504	Robert M. Axelrod (born May 27, 1943) is an American political scientist. He is Professor of Political Science and Public Policy at the University of Michigan where he has been since 1974. He is best known for his interdisciplinary work on the evolution of cooperation, which has been cited in numerous articles. His current research interests include complexity theory (especially agent-based modeling), and international security. Axelrod is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. Biography. Axelrod received his B.A. in mathematics from the University of Chicago in 1964. In 1969, he received his Ph.D. in political science from Yale University. He taught at the University of California, Berkeley from 1968 until 1974. Among his honors and awards are membership in the National Academy of Sciences, a five-year MacArthur Prize Fellowship, the Newcomb Cleveland Prize of the American Association for the Advancement of Sciences for an outstanding contribution to science. He was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1985. In 1990 Axelrod was awarded the inaugural NAS Award for Behavior Research Relevant to the Prevention of Nuclear War from the National Academy of Sciences. Recently Axelrod has consulted and lectured on promoting cooperation and harnessing complexity for the United Nations, the World Bank, the U.S. Department of Defense, and various organizations serving health care professionals, business leaders, and K-12 educators. Axelrod was the President of the American Political Science Association (APSA) for the 2006-2007 term. He focused his term on the theme of interdisciplinarity. In May 2006, Axelrod was awarded an honorary degree by Georgetown University.
1225475	Carrie Preston (born June 21, 1967) is an American film and television actress, producer and director. Her husband is actor Michael Emerson, and her brother is actor John G. Preston. She is known for her work on "True Blood" , "The Good Wife" and " Person of Interest". Early life and education. Preston was born and raised in Macon, Georgia, by her mother, an artist and art therapist, and her father, a . A young Carrie Preston discovered her true calling in performing arts. She began performing in community theater shows at age 8, and by age 12 she had begun her own front-yard theater company with other neighborhood kids.
1227288	Priscilla Ann Presley (née Wagner; born May 24, 1945) is an American actress and businesswoman. She is the ex-wife of singer Elvis Presley, and the mother of singer-songwriter Lisa Marie Presley. Priscilla was chairwoman of the board of Elvis Presley Enterprises from 1982 to 1998, helping to turn Graceland into a multi-million dollar tourist attraction. As an actress, Priscilla starred with Leslie Nielsen in the three successful "Naked Gun" films between 1988 and 1994, and played Jenna Wade on the television series "Dallas" for five years. Ancestry and early life. Presley was born Priscilla Ann Wagner in Brooklyn. Her maternal grandfather, Albert Henry Iversen (1899–1971), emigrated from Egersund in Norway to the United States in 1905. He married Lorraine Davis (1903–1984), who was of Scots-Irish and English descent. They had three children: Albert, Jr. (March 1922), James Richard (March 1924) and Anna Lillian Iversen (March 1926). Anna was later called, or her name was changed to, Ann. She was called Rooney (short for Annie Rooney) as a child. At the age of 19, she gave birth to Priscilla. They both still have cousins in Norway. In a letter to the City Hall of Egersund, Ann asked for information about their relatives, and wrote that Priscilla was interested in knowing about them; Priscilla's parents then visited family members in Norway in 1992. Priscilla has a square named after her in Egersund – Priscilla Presleys plass. The area is in the street outside the house where her grandfather was born in 1899, and lived. Priscilla and her family were invited by the Lord Mayor of Egersund to the opening ceremony of Priscilla Presleys plass, which took place August 23, 2008, but were unable to go due to Lisa Marie's being pregnant. Priscilla's biological father was US Navy pilot James Wagner. His parents were Kathryn and Harold Wagner. On August 10, 1944, at the age of 23, he married Priscilla's mother; they had been dating for more than three years. He was killed in a plane crash while returning home on leave when Priscilla was six months old. When Priscilla discovered this "family secret" while rummaging through an old wooden box of family keepsakes, she was encouraged by her mother to keep it from the other children as she feared it would "endanger our family closeness". In 1948, her mother met a United States Air Force officer named Paul Beaulieu, from Quebec. The couple were married within a year. Beaulieu took over the raising of Priscilla, and was the only father she would ever know. Over the next few years Priscilla grew up quickly, helping to care for the growing family as her father's Air Force career moved them from Connecticut to New Mexico to Maine. In her own words, she described herself during this period as "a shy, pretty little girl unhappily accustomed to moving from base to base every two or three years." Priscilla later recalled that she felt uncomfortable moving so often because she never knew if she could make friends for life, or even if she would fit in with the new people she met on each move. In 1956, the Beaulieus moved to and settled in Austin, Texas, but soon her father was transferred to Wiesbaden, Germany. Priscilla was "crushed" by this news, and after finishing Junior High her fears of leaving her friends behind and making new ones were once again at the forefront of her mind. Life in Germany. Initially the Beaulieus stayed at the Helene Hotel when they arrived in Germany, but after three months, the cost of living there became too expensive and they looked for a place to rent. The family settled in a large apartment in a "vintage building constructed long before World War I". Soon after moving in, the Beaulieus realized that it was a brothel, but due to scarce housing, they were forced to remain there. Feeling like an outsider once again due to her lack of understanding of the German language, Priscilla frequented the Eagles Club; a place where American families would gather to have dinner and be entertained. It was "within walking distance" of their apartment, and proved to be an important discovery for Priscilla. She would go there "every day after school" and listen to the jukebox while writing letters back home to her friends in Austin. At the Eagles Club, Priscilla met Currie Grant, a young American Air Force recruit whose Commanding Officer knew Priscilla's father. Through Grant, she came to meet Elvis Presley. Grant stated that he was good friends with the singer and that he and his wife would visit him quite often. Priscilla states that Grant offered to introduce her to Elvis, but being cautious and skeptical of such a claim about his friendship with Presley, she said she would have to ask her parents. Currie Grant states that it was Priscilla who asked him to introduce her, as she was curious about meeting Presley. However, over the next two weeks Grant met with Priscilla's parents and assured them that she would be well chaperoned. Life with Elvis. Germany. Elvis and Priscilla met on September 13, 1959, during a party at Elvis' home in Bad Nauheim, Germany, during his stay in the army. Despite her being 14 years old, she made a huge impression on Elvis with her much older appearance. Elvis allegedly regressed to acting like an "awkward, embarrassed" boy-next-door figure in front of her. However, by the end of the evening he had managed to compose himself. Despite Priscilla's parents being angered by her late return home during that first meeting and insisting that she would never meet Elvis again, his eagerness for another meeting, and his promise never to bring her home late again, led them to relent. They were frequently together until Elvis left Germany in March 1960. After Elvis left Germany, Priscilla was inundated with requests for interviews from media outlets around the world. She received fan mail from Elvis fans, some nice and some not so nice, as well as mail from "lonesome G.I.'s". Convinced she would never see Elvis again, and with rumors of his ongoing relationship with Nancy Sinatra flying around the gossip magazines, Priscilla resigned herself to the fact that her whirlwind romance was over. Move to Graceland. After Elvis' return to America, the couple stayed in contact over the phone, though they would not see each other again until the summer of 1962, when Priscilla's parents agreed to let her visit for two weeks. Priscilla's parents allowed her to go only if Elvis would pay for a first-class round trip, arrange for her to be chaperoned at all times, and that she write home every day. Elvis agreed to all these demands and Priscilla flew to Los Angeles. Elvis told her that they were going to Las Vegas and, to throw her parents off the scent, he had Priscilla write a postcard for every day they would be gone so that they could be mailed from Los Angeles by a member of his staff. It was during this visit, while on a trip to Las Vegas, that Priscilla first took amphetamines and sleeping pills to keep up with Elvis' lifestyle. After another visit at Christmas, Priscilla's parents finally let her move to America for good in March 1963. Part of the agreement was that she would attend an all-girls Catholic school, the Immaculate Conception High School, and live with Elvis' father and his stepmother in a separate house on the Graceland estate until she graduated from high school. Part of the agreement also was that they would eventually marry. However, after a few weeks, she was moved into Graceland to be with Elvis, although her parents did eventually agree to her living there if Elvis promised to marry her. Priscilla later said, "The move was natural. I was there all the time anyway". Priscilla was always keen to go to Hollywood with Elvis, but he kept telling her that he was too busy for that and she was made to stay in Memphis. During the filming of Viva Las Vegas, Elvis began an affair with his co-star Ann-Margret. When Priscilla read of these reports in the press, she confronted Elvis. He told her that they were simply rumors to promote the film and that she should not believe everything that she read in the press. For the next few years, Elvis would have intimate relationships with many of his leading ladies and co-stars, all the while denying their existence to Priscilla. Eventually she was allowed to visit him in Hollywood, but her visits were kept short. Marriage and pregnancy. Shortly before Christmas 1966, Elvis proposed to Priscilla. According to author Albert Goldman, this was the result of a phone call from Priscilla's father to remind Elvis in "no uncertain terms" that over four years had passed since his promise to marry, although this "rumor" has been strenuously denied by both Priscilla and her father since. Other accounts suggest that Priscilla threatened to take her story to the press if Elvis refused to marry her, and that her father threatened to have Elvis charged under the Mann Act; "taking a minor across state lines for sexual purposes". Colonel Parker, Elvis' manager, also attempted to encourage him to marry by reminding him about his RCA "morals clause" within his record contract. Parker had always been leery of Elvis' relationship with Priscilla, knowing full well how Jerry Lee Lewis's career had been affected by his involvement with a minor. Elvis was reluctant to marry for a number of reasons, primarily the fear that his career could be harmed by marriage. Goldman also claims that Elvis would often state that he "wasn't made to be married". Priscilla also suggested in a 1973 interview with "Ladies Home Journal" magazine that she and Elvis were quite happy to just live together, but "at that time it wasn't nice for people to live together". Accounts by Elvis' cook, Alberta, claim that he was so upset about the wedding that she caught him crying about it one day. When she asked why he didn't just cancel the wedding if it upset him so much, he replied "I don't have a choice". Marty Lacker, a close friend to Elvis, has also spoken about Elvis' reluctance to marry, claiming that Parker practically scared him into marriage by insisting his career would be over like Jerry Lee Lewis's if he didn't marry. Others, however, including Joe Esposito, have always insisted that Elvis was "thrilled to finally marry Priscilla". After originally setting a date "over the holidays", Elvis pushed the wedding back a few months and they married on May 1, 1967, at the Aladdin Hotel in Las Vegas. The wedding, arranged by Parker to maximize publicity, featured very few guests and was over in only eight minutes. It was followed by a quick press conference and a $10,000 breakfast reception, attended by friends, family, and business associates from MGM, RCA, and the William Morris Agency. The wedding caused rifts between Elvis and several of his closest friends who were not invited to the actual wedding ceremony. Red West, especially, was furious about the situation. He and his wife had been personally invited by Elvis to Las Vegas for the wedding, had dressed for the occasion, and at the last minute were told that they would not be present. For Red, who had been with Elvis since the beginning of his rise to fame and had given Elvis the role of best man at his own wedding, this was enough of an insult that he decided to quit his job working for Elvis. Many other friends of Elvis were also disappointed and held resentment towards him for many years to follow, although they mainly blamed Parker for their exclusion rather than Elvis himself. Following the reception, Elvis and Priscilla boarded a private jet and enjoyed a short honeymoon in Palm Springs. On May 4, they flew back to Memphis and retreated to their private ranch, just over the Mississippi state line, for a three-week break. Many of Elvis' inner circle joined them, although for the most part the couple were left alone and were able to enjoy each other's company without the intrusion of the Memphis Mafia. Priscilla reveled in her chance to be a proper wife; cooking, cleaning, and washing for her husband. "I loved playing house" she later remarked, adding "Here was an opportunity to take care of him myself. No maids or housekeepers to pamper us." In an attempt to heal rifts, Elvis and Priscilla held another reception at Graceland on May 29 for the friends and family who were unable to attend the original ceremonies. Soon after, Priscilla found out that she was pregnant. She was upset at such an early pregnancy, certain that it would destroy the closeness she had finally found with Elvis. She had asked him earlier if she could take birth control pills, but Elvis had insisted they weren't perfected yet. She considered abortion, and even discussed it with Elvis at one point, but both decided they could not live with themselves if they had gone through with it. Their only child, Lisa Marie, was born exactly nine months after their wedding, on February 1, 1968. Priscilla wrote in her 1985 biography, "Elvis and Me", that around the time Elvis was filming "Live a Little, Love a Little" (1968) she began taking private dance lessons. She found herself deeply attracted to the instructor, known simply as Mark in the book, and she confesses to having a short affair. She implies regret, however, saying "I came out of it realizing I needed much more out of my relationship with Elvis." Despite Priscilla's affair and Elvis' on-and-off relationships with his co-stars and leading ladies, the first few years they were married seemed a happy time for the couple. However, when Elvis' career took off again after his 1968 television special, he was constantly touring and playing in Las Vegas. Elvis had also been seeing other women on and off, often leaving Priscilla at home with Lisa Marie. Due to Elvis' being away so often, the marriage soured. Separation and divorce. Elvis was a keen karate student, and persuaded Priscilla to take it up. Priscilla thought it was a good idea, as it would pass the time she spent alone if she had a hobby to concentrate on, and she was also keen to share in Elvis' interests. Following suggestions from Elvis, Priscilla began taking lessons from Mike Stone, a karate instructor she had met in 1972 backstage at one of Elvis' concerts. She soon began an affair with him. Priscilla states in her book, "My relationship with Mike had now developed into an affair. I still loved Elvis greatly, but over the next few months I knew I would have to make a crucial decision regarding my destiny". She later states "Elvis must have perceived my new restlessness". A couple of months later, she said that Elvis had requested to see her in his hotel suite. It was then that she states in her book that Elvis "forcefully made love to me", and said, "This is how a real man makes love to his woman". She later stated in an interview that she regretted her choice of words in describing the incident, and said it had been an overstatement. She went on to say following the incident, "what really hurt was that he was not sensitive to me as a woman and his attempt at reconciliation had come too late" suggesting that his actions were a deliberate attempt at reconciliation or compensation for his lack of sexual interest in Priscilla which had been a source of hurt and discontent for her for years. Priscilla states in her book "He had mentioned to me before we were married that he had never been able to make love to a woman who had a child" and she later expressed the personal repercussions of their sexual dysfunction "I am beginning to doubt my own sexuality as a woman. My physical and emotional needs were unfulfilled." After this incident, Priscilla summarized "this was not the gentle, understanding man I grew to love." Elvis and Priscilla separated on February 23, 1972, and filed for legal separation on July 26. To avoid Priscilla's having to make her home address available on the public records and therefore risking the security of both her and Lisa Marie, Elvis filed for divorce on August 18 and it was finalized on October 9, 1973, after almost six and a half years of marriage. The couple agreed to share custody of their daughter and Priscilla was awarded an outright cash payment of $725,000 as well as spousal support, child support, 5% of Elvis' new publishing companies and half the income from the sale of their Beverly Hills home. This was all Priscilla had wanted as she was keen to make it on her own and prove that her marriage to Elvis was not about money. Soon afterwards, however, her new lawyers had persuaded her to up her demands, pointing out that a star of Elvis' stature could easily afford more for his ex-wife and child. Priscilla and Elvis remained close, leaving the courthouse on the day of their divorce hand in hand. Although Priscilla was granted full custody of Lisa Marie, she promised Elvis that he could have access to her any time he wished. He would later remark to Linda Thompson that he thought he could "mold" Priscilla into the woman he wanted her to be, but that he had realized too late that you "can't teach a person to be affectionate." Priscilla still attended a number of Elvis' Las Vegas shows, and on several occasions he would ask her to speak to his current girlfriends to advise them on how to look after him. Elvis confided to close friend Larry Geller that Priscilla had been more of a sister than a soulmate. Priscilla has not remarried since her divorce from Elvis, although she has had several long-term relationships. The first of these was with Mike Stone, which lasted two years. In 1978, Priscilla began dating model-actor Mike Edwards, remaining with him until 1984. Edwards and his daughter Caroline lived with Priscilla and Lisa Marie during this time. In 1988, Edwards wrote a tell-all book titled "Priscilla, Elvis and Me" (the title is a parody of Priscilla's own memoir, "Elvis and Me") in which he claimed that Priscilla cheated on him with actor Richard Gere, and admitted to having been sexually attracted to Lisa Marie. In 1984, Priscilla met Brazilian screenwriter Marco Garibaldi (Marco Antonio Garcia) and they had a son, Navarone Anthony, on March 1, 1987. In March 2006, they ended their relationship. Between 2007 and 2009, Priscilla was in a relationship with entertainment mogul Nigel Lythgoe. In 2010, Priscilla dated Raquel Welch's ex-husband, restaurateur Richard Palmer. Since December 2011, Priscilla has been linked to Australian singer Barry Crocker. Religion. Priscilla is a devoted member of Church of Scientology, and speaks publicly for the religion's anti-psychiatry front group, the CCHR. Career. Hal B. Wallis, a Hollywood producer who had financed many of Elvis' earlier films, had shown an interest in signing Priscilla to a contract. Elvis, however, had no intentions of allowing his wife to have a career of any kind; in his opinion, albeit a very common one at the time, "a woman's place was in the home looking after her man". Priscilla had shown an interest in dancing and modeling, but her knowledge of Elvis' opinion meant that she kept them as hobbies instead of pursuing them as careers. She did get the opportunity to model for a local store once, but when Elvis heard about it, he asked her to give it up. Bis & Beau. In 1973, after her split from Elvis, Priscilla set up a joint venture with her friend and stylist Olivia Bis. Together they opened a clothing boutique in Los Angeles called Bis & Beau. Elvis was supportive of Priscilla's venture, and even contacted several friends in public relations to help with promotion for the launch. In a 1973 interview to promote the opening of the store, Priscilla said, "After the separation, I had to make up my mind about what I wanted to do, and since I had worked with Olivia for such a long time on my own clothes, I decided to try it professionally. We both do the designing for the shop, and have people who sew for us." The shop was a successful venture, with celebrity clients including Cher, Lana Turner, Barbra Streisand, and Natalie Wood shopping there regularly. The shop closed in 1976. Business in Graceland. After Elvis' death (1977), Vernon Presley (d. 1979) served as executor of the estate choosing Priscilla as executor for Elvis' only child, Lisa Marie (who was then only 11). Graceland itself cost $500,000 a year in upkeep, and expenses had dwindled Lisa Marie's inheritance to only $1 million. Taxes due on the property and other expenses due came to over $500,000. Faced with having to sell Graceland, Priscilla examined other famous homes/museums. She hired a CEO, Jack Soden, to turn Graceland into a tourist attraction. Graceland was opened to the public on June 7, 1982. Priscilla's gamble paid off; only four weeks after opening Graceland's doors, the estate made back all the money it had invested. Priscilla became the chairwoman and president of Elvis Presley Enterprises (EPE), stating she would remain in the position until Lisa Marie reached 21 years of age. Under Priscilla's guidance, the enterprise's fortunes soared and eventually the trust grew to be worth over $100 million. Acting. Priscilla had originally been offered a role as one of the angels on "Charlie's Angels". She turned down the role because she disliked the show. Priscilla made her television debut as co-host of "Those Amazing Animals" in 1980. In 1983, she got her first chance to act professionally on a season 2 episode of "The Fall Guy" titled "Manhunter". She then found a role in a television film titled "Love is Forever", starring alongside Michael Landon. Although she was treated well by most of the cast and crew, and her acting was praised by several of her co-stars, she found Landon difficult to work with on set. After the television film aired, Priscilla landed the role of Jenna Wade on the popular prime-time soap opera "Dallas". She played the role of Wade for five years, leaving the show in 1988 to focus on other parts. She has appeared in several well known television series, including "Melrose Place", "Touched by an Angel", and "Spin City". Priscilla has also appeared in a few feature film roles, most notably as Lt. Frank Drebin's girlfriend and (later) wife in the "Naked Gun" film series. Other outlets. In 1988, Priscilla launched her own range of fragrances, and followed this up with a range of linen. She has also helped produce a couple of films, including "Breakfast With Einstein" and "Finding Graceland". Priscilla lent her support to the Dream Foundation, a charity set up to help terminally ill people achieve their dreams. Other endeavors. Priscilla was also a contestant on Season 6 of "Dancing with the Stars". British pantomime. Priscilla made her pantomime debut in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs at the New Wimbledon Theatre, Christmas 2012, starring opposite Warwick Davis. Presley said she was "delighted" by the opportunity, which she described as an "honour". Animal advocacy. In 2013, Presley spoke out against the Tennessee Ag-Gag Bill in a letter to Tennessee Governor Bill Haslam. Presley cited her and Elvis' love of horses and expressed her concern that the bill would hinder animal cruelty investigations and reduce protections for horses and other farm animals.
1060963	Rear Window is a 1954 American suspense crimefilm directed by Alfred Hitchcock, written by John Michael Hayes and based on Cornell Woolrich's 1942 short story "It Had to Be Murder". Originally released by Paramount Pictures, the film stars James Stewart, Grace Kelly, Wendell Corey, Thelma Ritter and Raymond Burr. It was screened at the 1954 Venice Film Festival. The film is considered by many filmgoers, critics and scholars to be one of Hitchcock's best. The film received four Academy Award nominations and was ranked #42 on AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies list and #48 on the 10th-anniversary edition. In 1997, "Rear Window" was added to the United States National Film Registry. Plot. After breaking his leg photographing a racetrack accident, professional photographer L.B. "Jeff" Jefferies (James Stewart) is confined in his Greenwich Village apartment, using a wheelchair while he recuperates. His rear window looks out onto a small courtyard and several other apartments. During a summer heat wave, he passes the time by watching his neighbors, who keep their windows open to stay cool. The tenants he can see include a dancer he nicknames "Miss Torso", a lonely woman he nicknames "Miss Lonelyheart", a pianist, several married couples, a middle-aged sculptor, and Lars Thorwald (Raymond Burr), a traveling jewelry salesman with a bedridden wife. One evening Jeff hears a woman scream "Don't!" and a glass break. Later he is awakened by thunder and sees Thorwald leaving his apartment, Thorwald makes repeated late-night trips carrying his sample case. Jeff notices that Thorwald's wife is gone and sees Thorwald cleaning a large knife and handsaw. Later, Thorwald ties a large trunk with heavy rope and has moving men haul it away. Jeff discusses these observations with his wealthy socialite girlfriend Lisa Fremont (Grace Kelly) and his insurance company home-care nurse Stella (Thelma Ritter), and becomes obsessed with their theory that Thorwald murdered his wife. He explains their theory to his friend Tom Doyle (Wendell Corey), a New York City Police detective, and asks him to find out whether anyone actually picks up the packing crate. Doyle looks into the situation but finds nothing suspicious, and discovers that "Mrs. Thorwald" picked up the packing crate. After Doyle leaves, Jeff asks Lisa if she thinks it was ethical for him to spy on his neighbor with binoculars and a telephoto lens; Lisa replies that she doesn't know much about "rear window ethics" but comments on their morbid curiosity by asking, "Whatever happened to that old saying, 'Love thy neighbor'?" Soon after, a neighbor's dog is found dead, its neck broken. When the owner sees the lifeless body of her dog she screams to the courtyard: "You don't know the meaning of the word 'neighbors'. Neighbors like each other, speak to each other, care if anybody lives or dies! But none of you do!" and cries in grief. During the woman's hysterics, the neighbors all rush to their windows to see what has happened, except for Thorwald, whose cigar can be seen glowing as he sits in his dark apartment. Convinced that Thorwald is guilty after all, Jeff has Lisa slip an accusatory note under Thorwald's door so Jeff can watch his reaction when he reads it. Then, as a pretext to get Thorwald away from his apartment, Jeff telephones him and arranges a meeting at a bar. He thinks Thorwald may have buried something in the courtyard flower patch and then killed the dog to keep it from digging it up. When Thorwald leaves, Lisa and Stella dig up the flowers but find nothing. Lisa then climbs the fire escape to Thorwald's apartment and squeezes in through an open window. When Thorwald returns and grabs Lisa, Jeff calls the police, who arrive in time to save her. With the police present, Jeff sees Lisa with her hands behind her back, wiggling her finger with Mrs. Thorwald's wedding ring on it. Thorwald also sees this, realizes that she is signaling to someone, and notices Jeff across the courtyard. Jeff phones Doyle, now convinced that Thorwald is guilty of something, and Stella heads for the police station to post bail for Lisa, leaving Jeff alone. He soon realizes that Thorwald is coming to his apartment. When Thorwald enters the apartment and approaches him, Jeff repeatedly sets off his camera flashbulbs, temporarily blinding Thorwald. Thorwald grabs Jeff and pushes him toward the open window as Jeff yells for help. Jeff falls to the ground just as some police officers enter the apartment and others run to catch him. Thorwald confesses to the murder of his wife and the police arrest him. A few days later, the heat has lifted and Jeff rests peacefully in his wheelchair, now with casts on both legs. The lonely neighbor woman chats with the pianist in his apartment, the dancer's lover returns home from the army, the couple whose dog was killed have a new dog, and the newly married couple are bickering. In the last scene of the film, Lisa reclines on the daybed, appearing to read a book on foreign travel in order to please him, but as soon as he is asleep she puts the book down and happily opens a fashion magazine. Cast. Director Alfred Hitchcock makes his traditional cameo appearance in the songwriter's apartment, where he is seen winding a clock. Production. The film was shot entirely at Paramount studios, including an enormous set on one of the soundstages. There was also careful use of sound, including natural sounds and music drifting across the apartment building courtyard to James Stewart's apartment. At one point, the voice of Bing Crosby can be heard singing "To See You Is to Love You", originally from the 1952 Paramount film "Road to Bali". Also heard on the soundtrack are versions of songs popularized earlier in the decade by Nat King Cole ("Mona Lisa", 1950) and Dean Martin ("That's Amore", 1952), along with segments from Leonard Bernstein's score for Jerome Robbins's ballet "Fancy Free" (1944), Richard Rodgers's song "Lover" (1932), and "M'appari tutt'amor" from Friedrich von Flotow's opera "Martha" (1844), most borrowed from Paramount's music publisher, Famous Music. Hitchcock used costume designer Edith Head on all of his Paramount films. Although veteran Hollywood composer Franz Waxman is credited with the score for the film, his contributions were limited to the opening and closing titles and the piano tune ("Lisa") played by one of the neighbors, a composer (Ross Bagdasarian), during the film. This was Waxman's final score for Hitchcock. The director used primarily "diegetic" sounds — sounds arising from the normal life of the characters — throughout the film. The camera that features prominently in the film can be identified as a 35mm Exakta Varex VX with a Kilfitt Fern-Kilar f/5.6 400mm lens (with the Exakta logo obscured by black gaffer's tape). Reception. A "benefit world premiere" for the film, with United Nations officials and "prominent members of the social and entertainment worlds" in attendance, was held on August 4, 1954 in New York City, with proceeds going to the American-Korean Foundation (an aid organization founded soon after the end of the Korean War and headed by President Eisenhower's brother). The movie went on to earn an estimated $5.3 million at the North American box office in 1954. The film received overwhelmingly positive reviews from critics and is considered one of Hitchcock's finest films. On the website Rotten Tomatoes, the film has been universally praised, garnering a 100% certified fresh rating, based on 61 reviews, with the consensus stating that "Hitchcock exerted full potential of suspense in this masterpiece." Critic Bosley Crowther of "The New York Times" attended that premiere, and in his review called the film a "tense and exciting exercise" and Hitchcock a director whose work has a "maximum of build-up to the punch, a maximum of carefully tricked deception and incidents to divert and amuse." Crowther also notes: "Time" called it "just possibly the second most entertaining picture (after "The 39 Steps") ever made by Alfred Hitchcock" and a film in which there is "never an instant ... when Director Hitchcock is not in minute and masterly control of his material." The same review did note "occasional studied lapses of taste and, more important, the eerie sense a Hitchcock audience has of reacting in a manner so carefully foreseen as to seem practically foreordained." "Variety" called the film "one of Alfred Hitchcock's better thrillers" which "combines technical and artistic skills in a manner that makes this an unusually good piece of murder mystery entertainment." Nearly 30 years after the film's initial release, Roger Ebert reviewed the Universal re-release in October 1983, after Hitchcock's estate was settled. He said the film "develops such a clean, uncluttered line from beginning to end that we're drawn through it (and into it) effortlessly. The experience is not so much like watching a movie, as like ... well, like spying on your neighbors. Hitchcock traps us right from the first ... And because Hitchcock makes us accomplices in Stewart's voyeurism, we're along for the ride. When an enraged man comes bursting through the door to kill Stewart, we can't detach ourselves, because we looked too, and so we share the guilt and in a way we deserve what's coming to him." "Rear Window" is currently the 28th highest rated movie on Internet Movie Database at 8.6/10 on the IMDB Top 250 list, making it Hitchcock's highest rated film on the website. Analysis. Hitchcock's fans and film scholars have taken particular interest in the way the relationship between Jeff and Lisa can be compared to the lives of the neighbors they are spying upon. The film invites speculation as to which of these paths Jeff and Lisa will follow. Many of these points are considered in Tania Modleski's feminist theory book, "The Women Who Knew Too Much": The characters themselves verbally point out a similarity between Lisa and Miss Torso (played by Georgine Darcy). Other analyses, including that of François Truffaut in "Cahiers du cinéma" in 1954, center on the relationship between Jeff and the other side of the apartment block, seeing it as a symbolic relationship between spectator and screen. Film theorist Mary Ann Doane has made the argument that Jeff, representing the audience, becomes obsessed with the "screen", where a collection of storylines are played out. This line of analysis has often followed a feminist approach to interpreting the film. Doane, who used Freudian analysis to claim women spectators of a film become "masculinized", pays close attention to how Jeff's rather passive attitude to romance with the elegant Lisa changes when she metaphorically crosses over from the spectator side to the screen: it is only when Lisa seeks out the wedding ring of Thorwald's murdered wife that Jeff shows real passion for her. In the climax, when he is pushed through the window (the screen), he has been forced to become part of the show. In his book, "Alfred Hitchcock's "Rear Window"", John Belton addresses the underlying issues of voyeurism, patriarchy and feminism that are evident in the film. He quotes ""Rear Window's" story is "about" spectacle; it explores the fascination with looking and the attraction of that which is being looked at." Generally, Belton's book asserts that there is more to Hitchcock's thriller than what initially meets the eye. These issues that society faces today are all more than just present in the film, they are emphasized and strengthened. Hitchcock uses sound to convey the thematic elements behind Jeff's behavior and the audience's relationship to his subjective point of view. The music in "Rear Window" is entirely diegetic, and therefore every character in the courtyard hears the sound and acts based on what they hear. Hitchcock is less interested in reality than in how reality is perceived. Thus his use of entirely diegetic sound illustrates the idea that what we see as the audience is real. Legacy. The film received four Academy Award nominations: Best Director for Alfred Hitchcock, Best Screenplay for John Michael Hayes, Best Cinematography, Color for Robert Burks, Best Sound Recording for Loren L. Ryder, Paramount Pictures. John Michael Hayes won a 1955 Edgar Award for Best Motion Picture. In 1997, "Rear Window" was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". "Rear Window" was restored by the team of Robert A. Harris and James C. Katz for its 1999 limited theatrical re-release (utilizing Technicolor dye-transfer prints for the first time in this title's history) and the Collector's Edition DVD release in 2000. American Film Institute recognition Ownership. Ownership of the copyright in Woolrich's original story was eventually litigated before the United States Supreme Court in "Stewart v. Abend", 495 U.S. 207 (1990). The film was copyrighted in 1954 by Patron Inc. — a production company set up by Hitchcock and Stewart. As a result, Stewart and Hitchcock's estate became involved in the Supreme Court case, and Sheldon Abend became a producer of the 1998 remake of "Rear Window". "Rear Window" is one of several of Hitchcock's films originally released by Paramount Pictures, for which Hitchcock retained the copyright, and which was later acquired by Universal Studios in 1983 from Hitchcock's estate. Influence. "Rear Window" has been repeatedly re-told, parodied, or referenced.
757154	Steve Austin (born Steven James Anderson; December 18, 1964), better known by his ring name "Stone Cold" Steve Austin, is an American actor, producer, and retired professional wrestler signed to WWE in a Legends deal. Austin performed for several wrestling promotions such as World Championship Wrestling (WCW), Extreme Championship Wrestling (ECW) and the World Wrestling Federation (WWF). Declared by WWE (formerly WWF) chairman Vince McMahon to be the most profitable wrestler in the company's history, he gained mainstream popularity in the WWF in the late 1990s as "Stone Cold" Steve Austin, a disrespectful, beer-drinking antihero who routinely defied the establishment and his boss Mr. McMahon. Austin has been described as the industry's biggest star in the late 1990s and early 2000s, and the "poster boy for the WWF's Attitude Era." Austin held 21 championships throughout his professional wrestling career, and is a 6-time WWF Champion as well as the fifth Triple Crown Champion. He was also the winner of the 1996 King of the Ring tournament, as well as the 1997, 1998 and 2001 Royal Rumbles. He was forced to retire from in ring competition in 2003, due to a series of knee and neck injuries. Throughout the rest of 2003 and 2004, he was featured as the Co-General Manager and "Sheriff" of "Raw". Since 2005, he has continued to make occasional appearances, and was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame in 2009 by Vince McMahon. In 2011, Steve Austin returned to WWE to host the reboot of the reality series "Tough Enough". Early life. Austin was born Steven James Anderson in Victoria, Texas. After his father left the family, his mother, Beverly, re-married to Ken Williams, and Austin adopted his stepfather's surname. He spent most of his childhood in Edna, Texas. After attending high school, Austin got a football scholarship at Wharton County Junior College, followed by a full scholarship at the University of North Texas. Professional wrestling career. World Championship Wrestling (1991–1995). After some time, Austin decided to become a professional wrestler and enrolled at the wrestling school run by Chris Adams, whose school was run out of the Dallas Sportatorium where he was wrestling for World Class Championship Wrestling. Austin made his debut in World Class in 1989 under his real name, but was later given the name "Steve Austin" by Memphis-area booker Dutch Mantel. Austin's run in Memphis was part of the merger between World Class and the Continental Wrestling Association out of Memphis, with the combined company known as the United States Wrestling Association. Austin would eventually return to Dallas and feud with Adams, with Percy Pringle and Jeannie Adams (Adams' real-life former wife and Austin's girlfriend at the time) as his valets. It was during this time Austin adopted the "Stunning" nickname that followed him to WCW. Austin left USWA after its final folding in 1990 and signed with WCW the next year. He was originally paired with a valet named Vivacious Veronica, but was later joined by Jeannie Adams, known as "Lady Blossom". Just weeks after his debut, Austin defeated Bobby Eaton for his first WCW World Television Championship on June 3, 1991. Later that year, Austin joined Paul E. Dangerously's Dangerous Alliance. Austin lost the WCW Television Championship to Barry Windham in a two out of three falls match on April 27, 1992. He regained the title from Windham on May 23. Austin enjoyed a second lengthy reign before losing to Ricky Steamboat on September 2, 1992. The Dangerous Alliance disbanded shortly thereafter. At Halloween Havoc, he replaced Terry Gordy, teaming with "Dr. Death" Steve Williams to wrestle Dustin Rhodes and Barry Windham for the unified WCW and NWA World Tag Team title. The teams wrestled to a thirty-minute time limit draw. In January 1993, Austin formed a tag team known as The Hollywood Blonds with Brian Pillman. They won the WCW World Tag Team Championship on March 3, defeating Ricky Steamboat and Shane Douglas. The Hollywood Blonds held the title for five months. At "Clash of the Champions XXIII" the Blonds faced Ric Flair and Arn Anderson in a two-out-of-three-falls tag Team title match. Flair and Anderson defeated the Blonds, but were not awarded the title as one fall had been determined by a disqualification. At "Clash of the Champions XXIV", Austin and Pillman were scheduled to defend their title against Anderson and Paul Roma. An injured Pillman, however, was replaced by Steven Regal. Austin and Regal lost to Anderson and Roma. With Pillman still injured, Austin joined Colonel Robert Parker's Stud Stable. After Pillman returned, Austin betrayed and defeated him in a singles match at "Clash of the Champions XXV". At Starrcade, in a two-out-of-three-falls match, Austin defeated Dustin Rhodes in two straight falls to win the WCW United States Heavyweight Championship. Austin lost the title to Ricky Steamboat on August 24, 1994. Austin was scheduled to face Steamboat in a rematch for the title at Fall Brawl, but Steamboat was unable to wrestle due to a back injury, and Austin was awarded the title by forfeit. His second reign as US Champion ended just minutes later when he lost to Steamboat's replacement, Jim Duggan in a match that lasted thirty-five seconds. Austin unsuccessfully challenged Duggan for the United States Championship at both Halloween Havoc 1994 and "Clash of the Champions XXIX". After returning from a knee injury in early 1995, Austin took part in a tournament for the vacant WCW United States Heavyweight title, where he defeated Duggan via count-out in the first round, but lost to Randy "Macho Man" Savage in the quarterfinals. Extreme Championship Wrestling (1995). In 1995, Austin was fired by WCW Vice President Eric Bischoff, after suffering a triceps injury, while wrestling on a Japanese tour; Bischoff and WCW did not see Austin as a 'marketable' wrestler. Austin described his opinion on being fired over the phone as Eric Bischoff having taken the coward's way out. Eventually, Austin was contacted by Paul Heyman of Extreme Championship Wrestling (ECW), who had managed him in WCW. Heyman hired Austin to do in-ring interviews, as he still had not recovered from his injury enough to wrestle. While in ECW, Austin used the platform to develop his future "Stone Cold" persona as well as a series of vignettes running down WCW in general and Bischoff in particular, most memorably in several promos that mocked his then-status as "WCW Monday Nitro" host by introducing "Monday NyQuil", where he was joined by "Bongo" (a set of drums, meant to represent Steve "Mongo" McMichael) in promoting the show "where the big boys play with each other". While with ECW, Austin was known as "Superstar" Steve Austin. He had a match with The Sandman and feuded with Mikey Whipwreck. Whipwreck, who was the ECW World Heavyweight Champion at the time, defeated Austin at November to Remember. The Sandman defeated Steve Austin and Whipwreck in a Triple Threat match at December to Dismember in 1995 for the ECW World Heavyweight Championship. Heyman would later state that he had wanted Austin to win the ECW Title, but Austin had refused because he felt he was more effective "as the hunter, rather than the hunted." World Wrestling Federation/Entertainment (1995–2002). The Ringmaster (1995–1996). In late 1995, Austin joined the WWF after Diesel and Jim Ross helped convince WWF's owner Vince McMahon to hire him. Initially, Austin wrestled as "The Ringmaster" and was managed by Ted DiBiase, who awarded him with the Million Dollar Championship. He defeated Savio Vega in his first WrestleMania appearance, at WrestleMania XII. During this time, Austin shaved his head bald and came to be known as "The Ringmaster" Steve Austin; the prefix would soon be discarded and he would simply perform under his own name. At , Austin lost a "Caribbean Strap match" to Vega. In accordance to the pre-match stipulations, DiBiase was forced to leave the WWF, giving Austin the opportunity to forge his own path. Austin later told announcer Dok Hendrix that he had purposely lost the match in order to rid himself of DiBiase, who was headed for rival promotion World Championship Wrestling (WCW). DiBiase's departure from WWF allowed Austin to develop his then-future character of Stone Cold. Austin 3:16 - The rise of Stone Cold (1996–1997). Austin's genuine rise to superstardom began at the 1996 King of the Ring. Austin began using his trademark finishing maneuver, the Stone Cold Stunner (a move that was used previously by Jimmy Garvin, while the two were in WCW); with this new technique, he won the King of the Ring tournament. After defeating Marc Mero in the semi-finals, Austin defeated Jake "The Snake" Roberts in the finals. At the time, Roberts was portraying a born-again Christian, so after the match, Austin cut a now famous promo during his coronation, telling Roberts, ""You sit there and you thump your Bible, and you say your prayers, and it didn't get you anywhere! Talk about your psalms, talk about ... Austin 3:16 says I just whipped your ass!"" "Austin 3:16" ultimately became one of the most popular catch phrases in wrestling history, and subsequently the slogan became one of the best-selling t-shirts in WWE merchandise history. It is also credited as the iconic moment that began the WWF's "Attitude Era", along with the Montreal Screwjob. Austin spoke about Bret Hart constantly and taunted him relentlessly. Hart finally accepted Austin's challenge and returned to the WWF in October 1996. At Survivor Series, in a match to determine the number-one contender to the WWF Championship, Hart pinned Austin in a match which helped create the foundations for the eventual year-long feud between the two. The match came hot on the heels of an incident broadcast live on "Raw", which saw Austin "break into" Brian Pillman's house, with Pillman holding a gun. During the 1997 Royal Rumble match, Austin was originally eliminated by Bret Hart, but the officials did not see it, and he sneaked back into the ring and eliminated Hart by throwing him over the ropes, winning the match himself. This led to the first-ever pay-per-view main event of Austin's WWF career at , after Shawn Michaels suffered a knee injury and left the WWF Championship suddenly vacant. Austin was eliminated early from the four-way match at In Your House 13 for the title after injuring his own knee, but was involved in the finish which saw Hart win his fourth WWF Championship, which he lost the next night on "Raw" to Sycho Sid due to Austin's interference, continuing his feud with Hart. At WrestleMania 13, Hart defeated Austin in a 'Submission' match with Ken Shamrock as a special referee. During the match, Austin had been cut and was bleeding profusely from his face, but he still refused to tap out when Hart locked in his Sharpshooter. Austin finally passed out from blood loss, still held in the Sharpshooter, and lost the match. Hart, after the bell, continued to assault Austin, who despite his wounds refused any assistance back to the locker room, thus turning Hart heel and Austin babyface in a rare double-turn. Austin eventually got his revenge on Hart in the main event of , in a match to determine the number-one contender to The Undertaker's WWF Championship. Austin won when Hart was disqualified due to assistance from The British Bulldog, earning him a title match against The Undertaker at . Austin faced Hart once again in a street fight on the April 21 episode of "Raw", injuring his opponent's leg with a steel chair during the bout. The match was ultimately awarded to Austin when Hart refused to tap out of the Sharpshooter. He proceeded to beat Hart while on a stretcher in the back of an ambulance. At A Cold Day In Hell, Austin had The Undertaker down with the Stunner, but while distracted with a timely interference by Brian Pillman, Stone Cold's old tag partner, Undertaker nailed Austin with a Tombstone Piledriver and achieved the victory. During this time, Austin found a way to win the WWF Tag Team Championship on two separate occasions. On May 25, 1997, Austin and Shawn Michaels defeated Owen Hart and The British Bulldog for the title. They held the title until July 14, before Michaels was forced to vacate due to an injury. That same night a tournament was held to determine who would face Austin and a partner of his choosing for the vacant championship. Hart and Bulldog won the tournament, with Austin refusing to pick a partner and choosing to wrestle the former tag team champions by himself. Late in the match, a debuting Dude Love came out to offer assistance and Austin became a two-time tag team champion. Austin continued his feud with the Hart family, becoming embroiled in a heated rivalry with Owen Hart, who pinned a distracted Austin and secured victory for The Hart Foundation in the ten-man Tag Team match main event of , where Austin was partnered with Ken Shamrock, Goldust, and The Legion of Doom. At SummerSlam, Austin and Owen Hart faced each other with Hart's Intercontinental Championship on the line and an added stipulation that Austin would have to kiss Hart's buttocks if he lost. During the match Hart botched a piledriver and dropped Austin on his head, resulting in a legitimate broken neck and temporary paralysis for Austin. As Hart stalled by baiting the audience, Austin managed to crawl over and pin Hart using a roll-up to win the Intercontinental Championship. A visibly injured and dazed Austin was helped to his feet by a number of referees and led to the back. Due to the severity of his neck injury, Austin was forced to relinquish both the Intercontinental Championship and the Tag Team Championships. Austin was sidelined until Survivor Series. However, in the interim he made several appearances, one being at where he was involved in the finish of a match between Hart and Faarooq, which was the final match in a tournament for the Intercontinental Championship. Austin hit Faarooq with the Intercontinental Championship belt while the referee's back was turned, causing Hart to win the match. Austin's motive was to keep the Intercontinental Championship around Hart's waist, as demonstrated when he interfered in Hart's matches on the October 20 and 27 episodes of "Raw". Austin regained the Intercontinental Championship from Hart at Survivor Series. With Hart out of the way, Austin set his sights on The Rock, who stole Austin's belt on the November 17 episode of "Raw" after Austin suffered a beating by his Nation of Domination stablemates. In the weeks to come, The Rock began declaring himself to be "the best damn Intercontinental Champion" ever. The Rock kept possession of the belt until , when Austin defeated him to 'retain' the title and get his belt back. As Austin had used his pickup truck to aid in his victory, McMahon ordered him to defend the title against The Rock the next night on "Raw". In an act of defiance after forfeiting the title to The Rock, Austin tossed the belt into a New Hampshire river. WWF Champion and feud with Mr. McMahon (1997–1999). On September 22, 1997, on the first-ever "Monday Night Raw" to be broadcast from Madison Square Garden, Owen Hart was giving a speech to the fans in attendance. During his speech, Austin entered the ring with five NYPD officers following, and assaulted Hart. As it looked like Austin was going to fight the officers, Vince McMahon ran into the ring to lecture Austin about why he couldn't be "physically" able to compete. After telling McMahon that he respects the fact that he and the WWF cared, Austin attacked McMahon with a Stone Cold Stunner, leaving McMahon in shock. Austin was then arrested on charges of trespassing, assault, and assaulting a police officer. This marked the beginning of the Austin-McMahon rivalry. With Bret Hart's departure for WCW, Austin and Shawn Michaels were the top superstars in the company. Austin won the 1998 Royal Rumble, lastly eliminating The Rock. The next night on "Raw", Austin interrupted Vince McMahon in his presentation of Mike Tyson, who was making a special appearance, over the objection of McMahon referring to Tyson as "the baddest man on the planet." Austin flipped off Tyson, which led to Tyson shoving Austin much to McMahon's embarrassment, who began to publicly disapprove of the prospect of Austin as his champion. Tyson was later announced as "the special enforcer" for the main event at WrestleMania XIV, although he appeared to be aligning himself with WWF Champion Shawn Michaels' stable D-Generation X. This led to Austin's WWF Championship match against Michaels at WrestleMania XIV, which he won with help from Tyson, who turned on DX by making the deciding three-count against Michaels, and later hit him with his knock-out punch. This became Shawn Michaels' last match until 2002 as he had suffered two legitimate herniated discs and another completely crushed at the hands of The Undertaker in a Casket match at the Royal Rumble. With Michaels' absence and winning the WWF Title, Austin Era was ushered in, and with it, The Attitude Era. On the "Raw" after Austin won the WWF Title, Vince McMahon presented him with a new title belt and warned Austin that he did not approve of his rebellious nature and that things could be done "the easy way or the hard way." Austin gave his answer in the form of another Stunner. This led to a segment a week later where Austin had pledged a few days prior in a meeting to "play ball" with McMahon, appearing in a suit and tie, with a beaming McMahon taking a picture of himself and his new corporate champion. The entire thing was a ruse by Austin who in the course of the segment proceeded to tear off the suit, tell McMahon it was the last time he would see Austin dressed like this, punch his boss in the "corporate grapefruits," and take another picture of the two of them while McMahon was doubled over in pain. In April 1998, it appeared Austin and McMahon were going to battle out their differences in an actual match, but the match was declared a no-contest when Dude Love made an appearance. This led to a match between Dude Love and Austin at , where Austin hit McMahon with a steel chair, then the following month they had a rematch at for the WWF Championship. Austin managed to retain the title despite McMahon acting as the referee and his "Corporate Stooges" (Gerald Brisco and Pat Patterson) as timekeeper and ring announcer, respectively. McMahon continued to do everything he could to ruin Austin, and he finally scored a big victory for his side at the 1998 King of the Ring tournament. There, Austin lost the WWF Championship to Kane in a First Blood match after the Undertaker intervened and hit him with a chair while the ref was incapacitated, despite Stone Cold having knocked Kane unconscious and thwarted an earlier intervention by Mick Foley. Austin further infuriated McMahon by winning back the championship the next night on "Raw". Austin also emerged victorious against The Undertaker at SummerSlam. In response, McMahon set up a Triple Threat match at , where The Undertaker and Kane pinned Austin at the same time. McMahon decided to vacate the WWF Championship and award it based on a match between The Undertaker and Kane, in which Austin was the guest referee. Austin refused to count for either man and attacked both towards the end of the match. McMahon later fired him, although Austin got revenge by kidnapping McMahon and dragging him to the middle of the ring at "gunpoint," which ended up being a toy gun with a scroll that read "Bang! 3:16." Also the segment was very "embarrassing" to McMahon as it showed he was so scared that he urinated his pants. Stone Cold was later re-signed by Shane McMahon. In the semifinals of the Survivor Series tournament to award the vacant WWF championship, Austin lost to Mankind, after Shane double-crossed Austin. The next night on "Raw", Judge Mills Lane ruled that The Rock had to defend his newly won WWF Championship against Austin that night, as stipulated in the new contract Austin had signed two weeks earlier with Shane. The Undertaker interfered and hit Austin with a shovel, earning Austin a disqualification victory, but The Rock kept the championship. At , Steve Austin defeated The Undertaker in a Buried Alive match after Kane Tombstoned The Undertaker into the grave. With this victory, Austin qualified for the 1999 Royal Rumble. Austin's next definitive chance to exact revenge on Mr. McMahon came during the 1999 Royal Rumble match. On "Raw", McMahon drew Austin's entry number with the obvious intention of screwing him over. Austin drew entry number one, while McMahon drew number two thanks to WWF Commissioner Shawn Michaels. During the Rumble match, McMahon slipped out of the ring and into the crowd as Austin chased him down. It turned out to be a trap as McMahon led Austin into the lobby restroom where he was ambushed by members of The Corporation. Austin was injured and taken away in an ambulance. With Austin gone and not in the Rumble match, McMahon joined the announce table in calling the match. Later on, however, Austin returned in an ambulance and re-entered the Royal Rumble, delivering a Stunner to the Big Boss Man and eliminating him. With the assistance of the Corporation and a last minute interference from The Rock, Austin was eliminated by McMahon himself, and McMahon won the 1999 Royal Rumble. With McMahon turning down his number-one contender spot against The Rock, WWF Commissioner Michaels awarded Austin the title shot during "Raw" the next night. At , Stone Cold got a one-on-one match against McMahon in a Steel Cage match, with the WWF Championship opportunity at WrestleMania XV at stake. During the match, Paul Wight made his debut, breaking through from under the ring and attacking Austin. Wight's attack propelled Austin into the side of the cage forcing the cage to give way and dropping Austin to the floor first, making him the victor. Austin defeated The Rock at WrestleMania XV for his third WWF Championship. Austin faced The Rock in a rematch at Backlash, in which Shane McMahon was the referee. During the match, Vince McMahon approached the ring, only to hand Austin back his 'Smoking Skull' belt and take Shane out of the proceedings. Austin won the match when another referee made the count. The Undertaker, however, won the WWF Championship from Austin at Over the Edge. Due to events revolving around Vince McMahon, Stephanie and Linda McMahon made Stone Cold the Chief Executive Officer of the company. Vince and Shane McMahon challenged Austin to a Handicap Ladder match at King of the Ring with the CEO title on the line, which the duo of father and son won. The next night on "Raw", however, Austin made it clear that while he was the CEO of the company, he could have a title shot at any time and place to be determined by himself. Austin made the WWF Championship match that night on "Raw" and defeated The Undertaker to win his fourth WWF Championship. However, after he won it, The Undertaker came and hit him with the title belt, leading to a First Blood match between the two at Fully Loaded where Mr. McMahon stipulated that if Austin lost he would never be able to wrestle for the WWF Championship again, and if Austin won, he would never see McMahon again. Austin won after interference from X-Pac, hitting The Undertaker with a TV camera and gave McMahon a goodbye Stone Cold Stunner. Austin held on to the WWF Championship until SummerSlam when he lost it to Mankind in a Triple Threat match also featuring Triple H. Austin would get his rematch at No Mercy against Triple H but lost after The Rock accidentally struck him with a sledgehammer that was meant for Triple H. When Survivor Series rolled around, Triple H was still champion. Austin was booked into a Triple Threat match for the WWF Championship against Triple H and The Rock. However, Austin was run down by a car in the parking lot. The Big Show would replace Austin in the match and would win the WWF Championship. What followed was neck surgery by Dr. Lloyd Youngblood and a nine-month rehabilitation with the car angle as his reason for leaving. The Power Trip (2000–2001). Austin appeared at Backlash 2000, attacking Triple H and Vince McMahon to help The Rock reclaim the WWF Championship. At Unforgiven, Austin made his official return. The company, meanwhile, tried to find out who ran him down at Survivor Series the previous year. Rikishi finally admitted to being the driver because "he did it for the Rock." Rikishi felt that Austin occupied the top spot in the company and with him gone, Rock, a fellow Samoan, would be able to ascend to the top of the company. At No Mercy, Austin was back to face Rikishi in a No Holds Barred match. During the match, Austin motioned he was going to drive his truck into Rikishi, who by that time was a bloody mess. Before he could, he was stopped by officials, the match being deemed no-contest and Austin was (kayfabe) arrested and later bailed by Commissioner Mick Foley. During a handicap match against Rikishi and Kurt Angle, Triple H came down with the apparent intention of teaming with Austin. After clearing the ring, Triple H smashed his sledgehammer over Austin's head, and revealed it was actually him behind the whole scheme, devised to shield the WWF Championship from Austin and end his career. At Survivor Series, Triple H had plotted to run Austin down again during their match (thus repeating the events of the previous year's Survivor Series) but his plot failed when Austin lifted Triple H's automobile with a forklift, then let it drop 20 feet, causing Triple H to shout "Holy shit!" just before the car was released. Also, in the year 2000, Stone Cold Steve Austin competed in a 6 man Hell in a Cell match at Armageddon for the WWF Championship, against Triple H, the Undertaker, Rikishi, Kurt Angle and The Rock. In the end, Stone Cold Steve Austin gave The Rock a Stunner and was about to pin him when Triple H came in the way and got a stunner. But Kurt Angle took advantage of the situation and pinned The Rock and picked up the victory, hence retaining the WWF Championship. After the match, Stone Cold Steve Austin delivered a stunner to Kurt Angle, while he was celebrating his victory. Austin won his third Royal Rumble in January 2001, last eliminating Kane. His rivalry against Triple H ended at No Way Out in a Three Stages of Hell match, with Triple H beating Austin two falls to one. Then, at WrestleMania X-Seven, Austin faced The Rock for the second time, turning heel by hitting Rock with a steel chair several times provided to him by an interfering Vince McMahon, a man he once considered his arch-nemesis, to win the WWF championship. With the victory, Austin became a five-time WWF Champion. The next night on "Raw", after teasing a quick face turn, the heel turn continued. He also altered his character considerably over the next few months, in a deliberate turn from the rebellious and anti-establishment character beloved by the fans, Austin became a whiny, temperamental primadonna who would complain incessantly when he felt he was not getting the respect from the fans and wrestlers that he deserved. He also developed an infatuation with McMahon, going to great lengths to impress him and even going so far as to hugging him and bringing him presents. McMahon, though visibly uncomfortable and wary by the attention, was still grateful to have Austin with him instead of against him. During a cage match with The Rock in a rematch for the title, Triple H came down to the ring with a sledgehammer and together with Austin viciously attacked The Rock and put him out of action. Austin further cemented his heel turn the following Thursday on Smackdown! when, during an interview with Jim Ross about his actions at WrestleMania, thought Ross was denouncing their friendship and then proceeded to attack and brutally assault Ross. Austin and Triple H became a team and called themselves The Two-Man Power Trip. Austin and Triple H were the top heels in the company, and feuding with The Undertaker and Kane. After defeating Kane and The Undertaker for the WWF Tag Team Championship at Backlash, they held the Tag Team Titles, the WWF Championship (Austin), and the WWF Intercontinental Championship (Triple H) all at once. At Judgment Day, Triple H lost his Intercontinental Title to Kane. Then, the following night on "Raw", Austin and Triple H wrestled against Chris Jericho and Chris Benoit with the Tag Team Titles on the line. Midway through the match, Triple H tore his quadriceps muscle. As planned, the team lost the Tag Team Titles at the end of the match when Triple H accidentally hit Austin in the stomach with a sledgehammer but the injury to Triple H, which kept him out for the remainder of the year, forced the WWF to go in another direction. Austin officially broke up The Power Trip on that week's "SmackDown!", criticizing Triple H for his injury and for hitting him with the sledgehammer. He continued to align himself with McMahon and began feuding with Jericho and Benoit by himself, with Kurt Angle joining the group as Triple H's replacement. For most of the next month leading to King of the Ring, he constantly fell victim to a double submission involving Jericho's Walls of Jericho and Benoit's Crippler Crossface, Austin did not wrestle as he was nursing an injury but continued to feud with the reigning tag team champions, eventually costing them the titles on the "SmackDown!" preceding King of the Ring against the Dudley Boyz. Austin defeated Jericho and Benoit in a triple-threat match during the main event of the King of the Ring despite interference from the debuting Booker T. Stone Cold would suffer a back injury during the match after Booker T dropped Stone Cold through the Spanish Announce Table, as revealed in the Stone Cold: The Bottom Line On The Most Popular Superstar of All Time DVD. The Invasion (2001-2002). After King of the Ring, Austin was left without a feud as Benoit was lost for the next year after neck surgery and Jericho moved on to other things. He began a small spat with Angle over who was McMahon's biggest supporter. Meanwhile, the purchase of World Championship Wrestling by McMahon began to bear fruit as The Invasion began. McMahon was not able to fight off the invading WCW wrestlers, and when they formed an alliance with a group of Extreme Championship Wrestling alumni that were signed to the WWF and both Shane and Stephanie McMahon were now aligned against their father, McMahon's empire began to crumble and he had zero help from his two biggest stars at the time. Austin made it known that he was against teaming with Angle, whom Austin saw as both a threat to his WWF Championship, as well as an annoying tag-along. Finally, a frustrated McMahon called Austin out and demanded that he bring "the old Stone Cold" back, even going as far as asking Austin to give him a Stone Cold Stunner, so he could effectively captain a team of WWF wrestlers in a ten-man tag team match at the upcoming InVasion pay-per-view in July. A dejected Austin initially refused, but on the following edition of "Raw" he returned to his old ways and hit Stunners on every member of the Alliance. Then, at InVasion, Austin captained the WWF team consisting of himself, Angle, Jericho, and the Undertaker and Kane against the team of WCW's Booker T and Diamond Dallas Page and ECW's Rhyno and the Dudley Boyz. Late in the match, however, as Angle had Booker in the ankle lock, Austin turned on Angle by Stunning him and joined the Alliance. The reason why Austin did this was that he felt McMahon was grooming Angle to take over his spot, that he was trying to get in touch with The Rock to return, and that he himself was "unappreciated" when McMahon insisted he return to the old Austin. Austin was immediately made the Alliance's new leader and began to feud with Angle over his WWF Championship. Also, during this time, Austin would begin his "What?" catchphrase, which he would say randomly while giving a promo. The catchphrase eventually would start to go over with the fans towards the end of the Invasion, and is still coined by the fans to this day. Austin lost his title to Angle at Unforgiven by submitting to the ankle lock, but began badgering Angle for a rematch after claiming his hand was under the ropes (which it was). Austin received that rematch on the October 8, 2001 edition of "Raw" and won the title after WWF Commissioner William Regal betrayed Angle and joined the Alliance. Austin then began feuding with Alliance member Rob Van Dam, who was the only member of the Alliance to be cheered by the fans despite the villainous tactics of the group. Austin faced Angle and RVD at No Mercy later that month and won by pinning Van Dam. On the October 29, 2001 "Raw" Angle joined the Alliance and became the second most powerful wrestler in the group. Survivor Series was coming up, and it was ultimately decided to have a winner-take-all Survivor Series tag match with the winning team becoming the surviving entity. Austin was chosen to captain team Alliance, which consisted of Angle, Shane McMahon, RVD and Booker T, against Team WWF which was captained by The Rock, who had returned the week following Austin's betrayal of the WWF at InVasion. The Rock's team included Jericho, Kane, The Undertaker, and The Big Show. Before Survivor Series, Austin and Rock rekindled their rivalry at the UK-only pay-per-view Rebellion and Austin successfully defended his WWF title with help from Angle. At Survivor Series, Austin was one of the last two wrestlers in the match, with The Rock being the other, and was the last remaining hope for the Alliance to survive. Late in the match, Austin attempted to win the match with the Rock Bottom, the Rock's finishing maneuver, but failed to earn a three count. He then kicked out of his own Stone Cold Stunner, which the Rock nailed on him, and attacked two referees including Alliance referee Nick Patrick. With the officials down, Angle ran to the ring and picked up Austin's title belt. He then entered the ring and struck Austin with it, betraying the Alliance and enabling The Rock to hit the Rock Bottom on Austin for the pin and the victory. With that, the InVasion ended, the Alliance was forced to disband, and Austin's future in the company was in question. Eventually, McMahon decided he was going to strip Austin of the title and award it to Angle for his actions. Just before he could, Ric Flair returned to the WWF for the first time since his 1993 departure and announced he was now half owner of the company. Austin returned moments after this announcement and attacked Angle and McMahon for their actions. He was then handed his title belt by Flair and celebrated with him in the ring, returning to the fans' good graces once again. Flair then decided that Austin would face off against The Rock, who was still in possession of the former WCW World Championship (which was renamed the World Championship), at the upcoming Vengeance pay-per-view in December to unify the titles. However, since Austin was still feuding with Angle and Rock had an unresolved feud with Jericho over his own title, McMahon overruled Flair and said that both men would wrestle their respective rivals for their respective titles at Vengeance, with the winners to face each other and the winner of that match to be crowned Undisputed WWF Champion. Austin won his first match by defeating Angle with the Stone Cold Stunner and faced World Champion Jericho in the unification match. Austin lost the match after McMahon and Booker T interfered and lost his title. Immediately after, Austin and Booker T began feuding which would lead to various fights in strange venues, such as a church confessional, a bingo hall, and a supermarket. Issues with Bookings and Creative Teams and departure (2002-2003). Beginning 2002, although Austin's character remained with the WWF's most popular wrestlers as top face, his upcoming story lines in the build-up to WrestleMania were somewhat questionable compared to those of his previous years. In the 2002 Royal Rumble, Triple H made his long-awaited return from injury, with he and Austin two of the last four participants in the ring along with Kurt Angle and Mr Perfect. Austin was eliminated by Kurt Angle, however he shortly went back in the ring and hit all three with a steel chair. A few days later on "Raw," he defeated Kurt Angle to earn a shot at Chris Jericho's WWF Undisputed Championship at "No Way Out 2002". In the build-up to No Way Out, McMahon had re-signed the New World Order, who started a feud with him after (kayfabe) Austin refused a beer gift. Problems in the backstage creativity were however then seemingly beginning to surface. Austin was reported as being unhappy regarding Hulk Hogan's return to the WWF, and was reported as refusing to lose to Hogan in a proposed match at WrestleMania X8, while Hogan reportedly told McMahon the same regarding losing to Austin . Consequently, the match was re-billed as The Rock defeating Hogan, whilst Austin defeated Scott Hall, climaxing his feud with the nWo. In a surprise altercation the next night on "Raw", Austin refused to show up and took a week-long break without the company's consent, claiming exhaustion. McMahon claimed his actions caused fury among fans who had paid to see him that night. Austin returned on the April 1, 2002 episode of "Raw", the first of the new "brand extension" era. The show was centered on which show he would sign with, and he ultimately chose Raw. Austin entered a feud with The Undertaker that resulted in a number-one contender's match for the WWF Undisputed Championship at Backlash 2002, which Austin lost despite having his foot on the rope when he was pinned. He would later be betrayed by Big Show, who went on to rejoin the nWo, and Ric Flair. Austin then defeated Big Show and Flair in a handicap match at Judgment Day. In an interview on WWE television by telephone in May 2002, Austin stunned the company and fans by launching a verbal attack on the direction the company was heading in and slated the creative team for not using him the way he felt they previously did. The commentators struggled to keep Austin's opinions on a neutral wavelength, leading to the WWE apologising to fans for the outburst and stated it was not part of Austin's current or upcoming storylines. McMahon responded a week later on the same show playing down the outburst, claiming that Austin was merely the type of wrestler who was occasionally difficult to work with. The WWE rehired Eddie Guerrero for Austin to feud with, while also prepping Austin for a feud with Brock Lesnar. Austin, however, vetoed any matches that would result in him losing to Lesnar and ultimately walked out of the company. Austin later explained that he thought hot-shotting a rookie made Austin look weak and did not give Lesnar a proper stage for such a big win over a star of the magnitude that Austin held. Further fanning the flames amongst Austin's growing number of detractors was a well-publicized domestic dispute incident between Austin and his wife Debra. On June 3, following the dispute with Debra, Austin made his last appearance for WWE on "Raw". After Austin no-showed the episode of "Raw" the following week, his storylines were dropped. Austin walked out again publicly stating he felt bad storylines were presented to him by the creative team. This time his departure was for good. McMahon, along with longtime Austin supporter and real-life friend Jim Ross, buried Austin on WWE programming, referring to him as "taking his ball and going home" because he wasn't getting his way, whilst also explaining to the fans that neither he nor Ross were able to persuade Austin to change his mind. McMahon insisted that Austin owed an apology to all the fans across the world, especially those who paid solely to see him that night. McMahon toasted to Austin's career with a beer thanking him for all his hard work nonetheless. The Rock also made an appearance on Raw despite being drafted to Smackdown!, and announced his frustrations towards Austin. Austin's merchandise continued to sell greatly in the weeks following his departure, however with no sign of a return likely to be seen, the company stopped marketing his character, his merchandise, and removed his profile from WWE.com. This period was documented in an episode of "WWE Confidential". Return to World Wrestling Entertainment/WWE (2003–present). Final feuds and retirement (2003-2004). For the remainder of 2002, Austin kept a low profile and did not make any public appearances. It was reported however by the end of the year, Austin and McMahon met and resolved their differences. He then agreed to return to the company in early 2003. In an interview with WWE Raw Magazine, he announced deep regret over the situation that led to his departure and the way in which he had left, and deeper regret over inaccurate speculation regarding his alleged grudges held against other WWE wrestlers, claiming he had no problem with Scott Hall rejoining the company. However, he admitted he still held strong reservations about his singles match with Hall at WrestleMania only lasting 7 minutes and felt build-up to the match did not live up to his or Hall's fans expectations, and was angered by speculation suggesting he disagreed with Kevin Nash re-joining the company, insisting he and Nash have always been good friends. He confessed he had a major rift with Paul Levesque's (Triple H's) role in the company upon his return in 2002, but insisted as of 2003 they resolved their issues. In addition, he claimed a brief dispute with Dwayne Johnson (The Rock) was resolved quickly upon his return, and that none of his disputes with the talent roster continued or played the major part in his departure. In February, Austin returned at No Way Out in a short match against Eric Bischoff. Austin would wrestle only one match between then and WrestleMania in another short match against Bischoff on "Raw" but was then defeated by The Rock at WrestleMania XIX, who returned about the same time as a smug, "sell out" villain, which, ultimately, became Austin's last official match in WWE. It was also revealed later in the documentary "The Mania Of Wrestlemania" (Based around the Wrestlemania 19 event) that the letters O.M.R were put on his jacket for his match against The Rock symbolically meaning "One More Round" The night after on "Raw", Bischoff (kayfabe) "fired" Austin on medical grounds. The next morning, Austin gave an interview on WWE.com announcing his retirement from wrestling, although he stated that he and Vince McMahon had reached an agreement seeing him only appear in non-wrestling roles on a weekly basis. In reference to Bischoff firing him on Raw that week, he said that although firing was for storyline purposes, he admitted the medical problems read out on "Raw" were real and mainly related back to his injury sustained at SummerSlam 1997 in a match with Owen Hart, and had begun to seriously plague him since late 2001. He confessed wrestling against the advice of his doctors up to his departure in 2002, which forced him to quit wrestling, and cited this as the sole reason as to why he suddenly departed, with doctors advising an awkward or violent move performed on him could have resulted in Austin being permanently disabled or resulting in death. The following week, Austin began his non-wrestling career with the WWE and began a fresh storyline when he was brought back by Linda McMahon as the Co-General Manager of Raw. He continued this storyline for the remainder of the year, still showing wrestling moves including the Stone Cold Stunner and several exchanges of punches and kicks, although limiting regularity of these being performed. On the November 17, 2003 episode of "Raw", Austin was "fired" from Raw as the result of a stipulation in a match at Survivor Series where Austin's hand-picked team of wrestlers failed to beat Bischoff's team of wrestlers. Austin quickly returned to WWE television before the end of 2003 when he was part of the WWE Tribute to the Troops taped live in front of U.S. troops in Iraq, posing and stunning Mr. McMahon. He finally came back on "Raw" on December 29 as its "Sheriff", giving a Stone Cold Stunner to Eric Bischoff and rehiring Shawn Michaels, who had just been "fired" by Bischoff. Austin appeared on and off as 2004 began, culminating in him being the special guest referee for the notorious match between Brock Lesnar and Goldberg at WrestleMania XX in which fans cheered for Austin and jeered both Lesnar and Goldberg due to both men announcing their departures from the company following the event. Then, on April 17, WWE put out a press release on their website claiming that Steve Austin and WWE were unable to settle long-running contract disputes and had again parted ways. Sporadic appearances and WWE Hall of Famer (2005-present). Stone Cold Steve Austin made his first appearance on WWE programming in a year at WrestleMania 21 where he was confronted by "Rowdy" Roddy Piper in "Piper's Pit" until Carlito interrupted to insult both. This resulted in Carlito receiving a Stone Cold Stunner from Austin and Piper throwing him out of the ring. The segment ended with Stone Cold and Piper celebrating with beer until he gave Piper a Stone Cold Stunner as well. He then appeared on a few subsequent episodes of Raw. At ECW One Night Stand Austin came to the ring following the show's main event. Wearing a Las Vegas Outlaws XFL jersey, Stone Cold came to the ring to give The Sandman a beer which he had asked for. However, Austin invited the whole locker room to the ring for a Beer Bash. However, before the bash he demanded the WWE Crusaders come to the ring for a fight. Tazz came to the ring, which started the brawl. After Taz applied the Tazzmission to Kurt Angle the brawl ended. ECW stood alone in the ring after throwing all of the Crusaders out of the ring. Mick Foley (as Cactus Jack) then dragged Eric Bischoff to the ring. The Dudley Boyz gave him a Dudley Death Drop, followed by Chris Benoit giving him a Diving Headbutt, Rey Mysterio followed that with a 619. When Stone Cold then asked Bischoff about his feelings on the night, he responded with "F**K ECW", which prompted Austin to give Bischoff a stunner. As the Dudley Boyz took Bischoff outside, and loaded him onto a Garbage truck, the remaining ECW Originals took part in a "beer bash" as the show went off the air. He was on Raw the following night. Then, at "WWE Homecoming", Stone Cold again returned to "Raw", delivering Stunners to all four members of the McMahon family. An angle including Jim Ross being fired led to a match in which Stone Cold agreed to face Bischoff's replacement, Jonathan Coachman, at Taboo Tuesday, with the stipulation of Ross regaining his announcing job if Austin were to win and Austin losing his own job if he lost the match. Austin hurt his back prior to the match, and could not wrestle unless he was heavily medicated, so the match was cancelled. To explain away his failure to appear at Taboo Tuesday, Vince McMahon said on "Raw" that Stone Cold had been involved in an accident, thus preventing him from competing. Batista substituted for Austin defeating The Coach along with Vader and Goldust. The stipulation was dropped due to Austin not competing. Austin returned to WWE briefly to face John "Bradshaw" Layfield in a beer drinking contest at the March 5, 2006 episode of "Saturday Night's Main Event". Austin won by disqualification as he saw JBL cheating by pouring the beer down his clothes. JBL threw some beer in Austin's face and tried to run away, but Chris Benoit quickly threw JBL back in the ring. Austin gave a stunner to JBL and then celebrated with the Stone Cold beer salute. Austin then inducted Bret Hart into the WWE Hall of Fame on April 1, 2006. Austin returned to WWE programming (appearing on "Raw", "ECW", and "SmackDown!") in March 2007, partially to promote his starring role in the release of WWE Films' production, "The Condemned". On March 31, 2007, Austin inducted his friend Jim Ross into the WWE Hall of Fame. At WrestleMania 23, Austin, as a special guest referee, officiated the match between Bobby Lashley and Umaga. The stipulation for the match was that if Lashley lost, Donald Trump's head would be shaved, and if Umaga lost, Mr. McMahon's head would suffer the same fate. In the course of the event, Austin delivered stunners to Umaga, Vince McMahon, Shane McMahon, and Donald Trump. Lashley eventually won the match, and Trump, Austin and Lashley then shaved Mr.McMahon's head on live TV. Stone Cold ended by stunning McMahon as well as Donald Trump and toasting beers. He then appeared in a video on the June 11 episode of "Raw" as part of "Mr. McMahon's Appreciation Night", where he shared his thoughts on his past feuds with McMahon. Austin appeared on the August 18, 2007 episode of "Saturday Night's Main Event", as a possible illegitimate child of Mr. McMahon and stunned McMahon and Jonathan Coachman. Austin appeared at SummerSlam to aide Matt Hardy in battling Montel Vontavious Porter in a Beer Drinking Contest. The match ended in a no contest after Austin handed a beer to MVP and gave him the Stone Cold Stunner. Austin made another appearance at Cyber Sunday, where he guest refereed a World Heavyweight Championship match between the champion Batista, and the challenger The Undertaker. Batista walked out the champion after delivering a Batista Bomb to The Undertaker.On the November 5, 2007 episode of "Raw", Austin made an appearance to confront Santino Marella for criticizing "The Condemned". The argument ended as Marella received a Stone Cold Stunner from Austin, who then walked backstage only to return with a Budweiser beer truck to hose down Marella and his valet Maria with beer. On December 10, 2007 during the "Raw 15th Anniversary" special, Austin returned after Vince McMahon received the mandible claw from Mankind and a chokeslam from The Undertaker for proclaiming himself "the greatest Raw superstar of all time." Shortly after, McMahon received a Stone Cold Stunner and Austin called out all WWE stars in attendance to the ring to celebrate the 15th anniversary of Raw. The show closed as Austin, Triple H and Hornswoggle poured beer on McMahon, who was knocked out outside the ring. On October 26, 2008, at Cyber Sunday, Austin was the special guest referee during a match between Batista and Chris Jericho for the World Heavyweight Championship. In between the match Stone Cold told a fleeing Jericho that if he was counted out or disqualified, Batista would win the title. During the course of the match, Batista accidentally knocked Austin down. When Austin recovered, Randy Orton, who had come out as the third referee, knocked Austin back down, only to receive a Stone Cold Stunner when Austin recovered. Eventually Batista won the match by hitting his signature Batista Bomb on Chris Jericho, leading Austin to give the three count, making Batista the new World Heavyweight Champion. On January 12, 2009, episode of "Raw", Austin was announced to be the first member of the WWE Hall of Fame Class of 2009. He was inducted by his long-term on-screen rival Vince McMahon, who referred to Austin as "The Greatest WWE Superstar of all time." During the induction, there were ""one more match"" chants, to which Austin said he was officially closing the door on his wrestling career and starting a new chapter in his life. At WrestleMania XXV, Austin was introduced alongside the WWE Hall of Fame Class of 2009. After the introductions, Austin's theme music hit, and he re-entered the ringside area wearing a vintage "Austin 3:16" shirt driving an ATV. He then enjoyed his trademark beer bash with the fans and with long-time friend Jim Ross. Austin returned to the company on the March 15, 2010 episode of Raw as its guest host. On that episode of "Raw" he moderated a contract signing between Vince McMahon and Bret Hart for their match at WrestleMania XXVI. In the same episode Austin met up backstage with his longtime rival Shawn Michaels, who asked Austin whether he believed that Michaels could end the Undertaker's undefeated WrestleMania streak in their upcoming match. Austin replied "Hell yeah I think you can beat the Undertaker, but I don't think you're going to, The streak is going to go 18-0". Michaels lost the match extending the Undertaker's streak to 18-0 and forcing Michaels to retire. On the 900th episode of "Raw"; which took place on August 30, 2010; the intro and theme for Stone Cold Steve Austin were shown. However, this was only a trick by fellow wrestler CM Punk who was attempting to prove a point about what the Straight Edge Society believed was a disturbing history of the WWE. Steve Austin did not actually make an appearance on this night. In early 2011, Austin was announced as the head trainer and host for the revival of "WWE Tough Enough". On the March 7 episode of "Raw", Austin interrupted the contract signing of the special guest referee to the Michael Cole and Jerry Lawler match at WrestleMania XXVII, originally scheduled to be John "Bradshaw" Layfield. After stunning Layfield, Austin signed the contract instead and became the official guest referee for the scheduled match. Although Lawler won by submission, the anonymous Raw General Manager reversed the decision and disqualified Lawler, claiming that Austin had "overstepped his authority". He appeared on Raw the following night with the cast from Tough Enough, while also getting into an altercation with The Miz and Alex Riley On April 7, 2011, Austin gave an interview where he talked about his return, filming Tough Enough and the respect he has for CM Punk. Austin was asked about a return to the ring and said that he felt that if he had to, he had two more years in him and could still do a full-time schedule. However, he then stated that he was happy with where he was at in life and wanted to be able to hunt and fish 10–20 years from now and be able to do it pain free. On the June 6th episode of Raw, Austin appeared live alongside old rival Vince McMahon to declare Andy Leavine as the winner of Tough Enough. He also served as the Special Guest Referee in the evening's tag team main event, John Cena and Alex Riley vs. The Miz and R-Truth. The end of the match came as a result of Austin hitting the infamous Stone Cold Stunner on The Miz, which was followed by an Attitude Adjustment from Cena and then the pinfall victory. However, the Anonymous Raw General Manager chimed in and the GM's ringside mouthpiece Michael Cole announced that since Austin had abused his authority as referee, The Miz and R-Truth win via disqualification. Austin did not take kindly to the GM overturning his decision and Cole also received a Stunner, which was followed with another Attitude Adjustment courtesy of Cena. Austin and Cena closed the show, celebrating with a beer bash. Austin appeared as the special guest GM on the "WWE All-Star edition" of Monday Night Raw. During the show, Austin destroyed the Anonymous Raw General Manager's laptop by running over it with his ATV. Television and film career. Austin filmed as guest roles on "Celebrity Deathmatch" and "Nash Bridges", where he played Detective Jake Cage. He appeared in the 1998 "Billboard" Music Awards. He has appeared on shows like V.I.P, "Dilbert", Teen Choice Awards, CMT Music Awards. His motion picture debut was in a supporting role as Guard Dunham in the 2005 remake of "The Longest Yard". Austin had his first starring film role, as Jack Conrad, a dangerous convict awaiting execution in a Salvadoran prison, who takes part in an illegal deathmatch game that is being broadcast to the public in the 2007 thriller "The Condemned". In 2010, Austin appeared in the film "The Expendables" as Dan Paine, the bodyguard and right hand man for the primary antagonist of the film. He appeared as Hugo Panzer on television series "Chuck". He has also starred in "Damage", "Hunt to Kill", "The Stranger", "Tactical Force", "Knockout" and "Recoil". Austin is the host for the reality competition show "Redneck Island" which aired in June 2012 on CMT, and has continued for a third season. Austin appeared in the Adam Sandler film "Grown Ups 2" (2013). In April 2013, Austin started a weekly podcast entitled "The Steve Austin Show"; on the podcast, he talks about everything that interests him and interviews guests. Personal life. Austin dated Kathryn Burrhus throughout high school and college, and the two married on November 24, 1990. Nonetheless, Austin pursued a relationship with Jeannie Clark ("Lady Blossom"), with whom he was working. His marriage to Burrhus was quickly annulled on August 7, 1992, and Austin and Clark married on December 18, 1992. Together, they have two daughters, Stephanie (born in 1992), and Cassidy (born in 1996). Steve's daughter Cassidy lives with her mother in the UK. He also adopted Jade, Clark's daughter with former husband Chris Adams. Austin and Clark divorced on May 10, 1999 and their daughters live in Southend-on-Sea, England with Clark, while Jade lives in America with her husband and son. On September 13, 2000, Austin married WWE Diva Debra Marshall. On June 15, 2002 police were called to their residence in San Antonio, Texas. They found a hysterical Marshall with bruises. Austin had left the house and was asked by police not to return. On August 14, 2002, Austin was arrested and charged with domestic abuse. He pled no contest on November 25, 2002 and was given a year's probation, a $1,000 fine, and ordered to carry out eighty hours of community service. Marshall would later claim that Austin was a steroid user and this incident was the result of roid rage. Austin filed for divorce from Marshall on July 22, 2002 and the divorce was finalized on February 5, 2003. On June 29, 2007, Marshall told "Fox News" that Austin beat her three times. She also stated that WWE put a gag order on her so she would not reveal that Stone Cold hit her, as it would cost the company millions of dollars. The WWE did not respond to her allegations. In December 2007, the "Wrestling Observer" newsletter reported that "Stone Cold" Steve Austin legally changed his real name (Steven Williams) to his wrestling name Steve Austin. Austin currently resides in Los Angeles, California and in Tilden, Texas, where he owns the Broken Skull Ranch. Austin views NFL on a daily basis. (though residing from Victoria, he supports the Dallas Cowboys) In late 2009 Austin married his fourth wife Kristin Austin who he lives in Los Angeles, CA with three dogs, Brio, Shona, and Hershey
1463295	Komaravolu S. Chandrasekharan (born 21 November 1920) is a professor emeritus at Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule Zürich. and a founding faculty member of School of Mathematics, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR). He is known for his work in number theory and summability and was given numerous awards including Padma Shri, Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Award, Ramanujan Medal, and Honorary fellow of TIFR. Mr.Chandrasekharan was born in 1920 to a School head master Mr.Komaravolu Rajaiah and Padmakshamma. Chandrasekharan completed his high school from Bapatla village in Guntur from Andhra Pradesh. He completed his M.A. in mathematics from the Presidency College, Chennai and a Ph.D. from the Department of Mathematics, University of Madras in 1942, under the supervision of K. Ananda Rau.
1044101	Kenneth Connor MBE (6 June 191828 November 1993) was an English comedy stage, radio, film and TV actor, best known for his appearances in the "Carry On" films. Career. Born in Islington, London, the son of a naval petty officer who organised concert parties, Connor first appeared on the stage at the age of two as an organ-grinder's monkey in one of his father's shows, in Portsmouth. By 11 years old, he had his own act. He attended the Central School of Speech and Drama, where he was a Gold Medal winner. Connor made his professional debut in J. M. Barrie's "The Boy David", at His Majesty's Theatre, London in December 1936. During World War II he served as an infantry gunner with the Middlesex Regiment but continued acting by touring Italy and the Middle East with the Stars in Battledress concert party and ENSA. While waiting to be demobbed in Cairo, Connor received a telegram from William Devlin asking him to join the newly formed Bristol Old Vic, where he gained a solid grounding in the classics. He moved on to the London Old Vic Company for a 1947–48 season at the New Theatre. His most notable performances there were as Chaplain de Stogumber in "Saint Joan" and Dobchinsky in "The Government Inspector", which starred Alec Guinness. Realising he was not a "tall, impressive juvenile lead or a young lover type", he decided to specialise in comedy. He took over from Peter Sellers in Ted Ray's radio show "Ray's a Laugh" – launched by the BBC in 1949 as a successor to Tommy Handley's ITMA. He played the brother-in-law and other oddball characters such as Sidney Mincing. Ray took Connor with him to his TV shows, and the pair would star together in the third Carry On film, "Carry On Teacher". On occasion he appeared in "The Goon Show", standing in for regular cast members struck down by illness. He also appeared in the anarchic, Goon-style TV series "Idiot Weekly, Price 2d" (1956) and "A Show Called Fred" (1956). In 1955, Connor gained a small role in the film "The Ladykillers" (1955) as a taxi driver. In 1958, he was cast in the first "Carry On" film, "Carry On Sergeant" and became one of the regular cast in the series, appearing in seventeen of the original thirty films and many of the associated television productions. Alongside Kenneth Williams and Eric Barker, Connor was one of only three actors to appear in both the first and last of the original sequence of "Carry On" films ("Carry On Sergeant" and "Carry On Emmanuelle"). In his earlier "Carry On" appearances, Connor frequently played the romantic lead or other sympathetic straight roles, while later appearances saw him play pompous unsympathetic characters such as married men with wandering eyes and lascivious remarks. In "Carry On Nurse" (1959), his real-life son Jeremy appeared as his character Bernie Bishop's son. In 1961, he starred with fellow "Carry On" stars Sid James and Esma Cannon in the comedy film "What a Carve Up!". In fact, in the 1959 - 1961 period, he was one of the most prominent leading men in British comedy films. As well as "What a Carve Up!" and the "Carry On" films, other films he starred in during this period included "Watch Your Stern" (1960), "Nearly a Nasty Accident!" (1961) and the "Dentist" films. In the early 1960s, he appeared as various characters in the "Four Feather Falls" puppet series. Connor had a good tenor voice, which he occasionally used to good effect, such as in the 1962 "Carry On Cruising". In contrast with some of his "Carry On" co-stars, Connor found further success on the London stage. He starred in the revue "One Over the Eight" (1962), at the Duke of York's Theatre, the original London West End production with Frankie Howerd of the Stephen Sondheim musical "A Funny Thing Happened On the Way to the Forum" (1963), as Hysterium – and directed the show when it went on tour – "The Four Musketeers" (1967), with Harry Secombe at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, playing King Louis XIII, and the revue "Carry On London" (1973) at the Victoria Palace. Between 1971 and 1973, Connor joined "Dad's Army" stars Arthur Lowe and Ian Lavender on the BBC radio comedy "Parsley Sidings". On television he appeared in "The Black and White Minstrel Show", as Whatsisname Smith in the children's show "Rentaghost" (1983–84), and as Monsieur Alfonse in Allo 'Allo!" (1984–1992) and Uncle Sammy Morris in "Hi-de-Hi!" (1986–88). He also made guest appearances in sitcoms including "That's My Boy" and "You Rang, M'Lord?" and he made a memorable cameo in an episode of "Blackadder the Third" in 1987, alongside fellow veteran comic star Hugh Paddick. He was honoured by the Queen with appointment as a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in 1991. He was still working just two days before his death, with an appearance on "Noel Edmond's Telly Addicts". His final TV appearance, as Mr Warren in "The Memoirs Of Sherlock Holmes" episode "The Adventure of the Red Circle", was broadcast posthumously in 1994. Connor died of cancer at his home in Harrow, London in 1993, and was survived by his wife Margaret (Miki), his son and three grandchildren, Thomas, Hayley and Rose, all of whom have been accomplished child actors.
1163957	Christopher John George (February 25, 1931 – November 28, 1983) was an American television and film actor who was perhaps best known for his starring role in the 1966–1968 TV series "The Rat Patrol". He was nominated for a Golden Globe in 1967 as Best TV Star for his performance in the series. He was also the recipient of a New York Film Festival award as the "Best Actor in a Television Commercial". George was married to actress Lynda Day George. Early life. Christopher George was born in Royal Oak, Michigan, on February 25, 1931, the son of Greek immigrants John and Vaseleke George. John George was born in Thebes, Greece and was a veteran of World War I, and Vaseleke was born in Athens.
725220	Maitland Ward (born Ashley Maitland Welkos on February 3, 1977 in Long Beach, California) is most commonly known as Rachel McGuire from the hit prime time series, "Boy Meets World". Career. She starred as Jessica Forrester on "The Bold and the Beautiful", where she appeared from 1994 to 1996. She landed that role, which was only her second major audition, when she was 17 and still a junior in high school. Although acting has always been her lifelong passion, Maitland did not actually pursue a professional career until that time. In an interview with Olivia Wilder in August 2010, Ward expressed a desire to revisit the character of Jessica if asked to return. After graduating from high school, Maitland attended Cal State University at Long Beach, where she was a member of Sigma Kappa sorority, and continued to focus on her acting. Maitland landed guest-starring roles on "USA High" and the final season of ABC's "Home Improvement"; and co-starred with Jay Thomas and Mario Lopez in the dramatic movie, "Killing Mr. Griffin".
1162853	Billy Barty (October 25, 1924 – December 23, 2000) was an American film actor. In adult life he stood three feet, nine inches (114 cm), and because of his short stature he was often cast in movies and television episodes as outspoken or wisecracking characters, playing opposite taller performers. During the 1950s he became a TV star, appearing regularly in the Spike Jones ensemble. Biography. Barty, an Italian American, was born William John Bertanzetti in Millsboro, Pennsylvania. From 1962 until his death, he was married to Shirley Bolingbroke of Malad City, Idaho. They had two children, Lori Neilson and TV/film producer and director Braden Barty. Barty and his family were members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Movie career. Barty co-starred with Mickey Rooney in the Mickey McGuire shorts, a comedy series of the 1920s and 1930s based on the "Toonerville Folks" comics. Small for his age even then, Barty would impersonate very young children alongside brawny authority figures or wild animals, and making these threats seem even larger by comparison. In the 1933 film "Gold Diggers of 1933", a nine-year-old Barty appeared as a baby who escapes from his stroller. He also appeared as The Child in the 1933 film "Footlight Parade".
1104092	Narendra Krishna Karmarkar (born 1957) is an Indian mathematician, who developed Karmarkar's algorithm. He is listed as an ISI highly cited researcher. Biography. Narendra Karmarkar was born in Gwalior to a Marathi-Hindu family. Karmarkar received his B.Tech in Electrical Engineering from IIT Bombay in 1978, M.S. from the California Institute of Technology and Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of California, Berkeley.
1055868	Saturn 3 is a 1980 British science fiction thriller film produced and directed by Stanley Donen. It stars Farrah Fawcett, Kirk Douglas and Harvey Keitel. The screenplay was written by Martin Amis, from a story by John Barry. Though a British production (made by Lew Grade's ITC Entertainment and shot at Shepperton Studios), the film has an American cast and director. Plot. In the distant future, an overcrowded Earth relies on research conducted by scientists in remote stations across the solar system. One of these, a small experimental hydroponics research station on Saturn's third moon, is run solely by Adam (Douglas) and his colleague and lover Alex (Fawcett). Adam, the younger Alex and their dog Sally enjoy their isolation, far from an overcrowded and troubled Earth. The couple have been on Saturn 3 for three years, but Alex has spent all her life in space. Alex and Adam's idyll is broken by the arrival of Captain Benson (Keitel), who has been sent to Saturn 3 as part of a project to replace at least one of the moon's scientists with a robot. Benson assembles the robot and names him Hector. One of the first of its kind, a "Demigod Series", Hector relies on "pure brain tissue" extracted from human fetuses and programmed using a direct link to Benson's brain. Benson states that it will render one of the crew "obsolete", most likely Major Adam who tells his partner that he is close to "abort time" according to the government on Earth. Unknown to both Alex and Adam, Benson is a homicidal sociopath who murdered the captain originally assigned to Saturn 3 and took his place on the mission. Benson had actually failed a crucial test of psychological stability. As Benson uses the link to his brain to program the robot, Hector acquires Benson's homicidal nature and his lust for Alex. Hector initially kills Sally the dog and then assaults Benson, since it has learned about him being a murderer during the reprogramming process. Adam and Alex manage to disable the robot while it is recharging. Believing the danger over, Adam accuses Benson of gross incompetence and orders him to dismantle the robot and return to Earth when an eclipse ends. Benson obliges, but Hector is soon reassembled by the base's older robots. Resuscitated, Hector murders Benson while he is dragging Alex to his ship. Hector then blows up Benson's spacecraft before Adam and Alex can escape in it, trapping them all on Saturn 3 together. Overpowering the humans, Hector installs a brain link at the base of Adam's spine which will give the robot direct access to Adam's brain. Before Hector can make the connection, Adam destroys it, sacrificing himself by detonating explosives hidden on his person. In the final scene Alex, now alone, is shown aboard an Earth-bound spacecraft. Development. John Barry conceived the project as a much more lavish vision of the future. The film's producers, Lew Grade's ITC Entertainment, intended the production to cash in on the sudden vogue for science fiction and horror following the success of "Alien". Farrah Fawcett was also hoped to be a major draw for a teenage male audience and much of the film's promotion was based around the revealing space suits she was due to wear in the film. Donen played down the exploitation elements resulting in a film that the producers struggled to market. Barry was set to make his directorial debut with the film, but he was replaced after shooting started, according to some reports due to a dispute with Kirk Douglas. Stanley Donen, who was already attached to the project as producer, replaced him. Reportedly, Donen was dissatisfied with Harvey Keitel's characteristic Brooklyn accent. Keitel's voice is dubbed over by British actor Roy Dotrice who, for this performance, adopted a mid-Atlantic accent. Two scenes that had been filmed for the production were edited out, due to Lew Grade objecting to the subject matter. These were a dream sequence that involved both Adam and Alex killing Benson and a scene where Hector ripped apart Benson's dead body on a table in one of the colony's laboratories. Regardless of these cuts, the film was given an MPAA rating of R, for scenes of violence and brief nudity. In the UK, the film was given a more relaxed A certificate by the BBFC for it's theatrical release, though subsequent home video releases were given a 15 certificate. ITC was also producing "Raise the Titanic!" at the same time. As the other film went over-schedule and over-budget, the production of "Saturn 3" was cut back. In screenwriter Martin Amis's novel "Money" the main character, John Self, is based in part on John Barry (Self's father is named Barry Self as well). The ageing film star "Lorne Guyland", obsessed by his own virility, is based on Douglas. Similarly, the project that John Self attempts to complete is as wracked with disaster as was the production of "Saturn 3." When the film was broadcast on NBC in mid-1984 certain scenes that had been edited from the original print had been restored: Adam offering to take Alex to Earth, Alex was voicing her concern to Adam about taking Hector outside of the complex, Adam taking Hector outside in the moonbuggy, Benson asking how Alex's eye was after her accident, Adam leaving Hector near the shuttle probe, Hector re-entering the colony and sabotaging the outer airlock mechanism to prevent Adam from coming back inside, an extended scene of Benson walking down a corridor, Adam trying to re-enter Saturn 3 and blowing the outer airlock door off with an explosive adhesive, an extended scene of Adam in the decontamination chamber, Alex voicing her worry that Hector might have killed Adam, Alex being dragged away by Benson and yelling at him, Adam embracing Alex and watching Hector drag away Benson's dead body, Adam holding a towel to his head after Benson had hit him with a pipe and claiming that "Hector is no humpty-dumpty", both Adam and Alex wondering how Hector managed to reassemble itself, and finally both Adam and Alex sharing a laugh over a humorous incident while hiding in the communications room. Additional music cues were also added to scenes involving the opening credits and Benson's death. Reception. The film was panned by many reviewers as derivative and lacking in suspense. Some of the space effects shots were perceived as lackluster compared to the new standard set by "". The film holds a 14% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
585821	Innathe Chintha Vishayam (2008) is an Malayalam film directed by Satyan Anthikad. It stars Mohanlal and Meera Jasmine in the lead roles. The film's score and soundtrack is composed by Ilayaraja. The film is based on the current scenario of increased divorces in modern-day Indian society. Plot. Dr .Murali Krishanan (Mukesh), the most successful dentist in the city is more interested in having female associations, more than often. He hides them from his wife Teresa (Sukanya), even by assigning male names for them in his mobile. One fine day he is in a tight corner with his wife raiding his mobile contacts, and for evading the conflicts associated, he walks out of her life even leaving his daughter Lakshmi (Baby Nivedita) . The second family, Pithambaran (Vijayaraghavan) and his wife Premila (Mohini) with their lovely children Malavika and Madhavan are leading a good life. But due to increased possessiveness for his wife, Pithambaran returns home from gulf throwing away his good job, and starts escorting his wife all along. He even develops inferiority complex which further complicates things for Premila, ultimately resulting in continuous fights and separation. And in the third family, Rehna (Muthumani) is not able to continue with her lawyer profession due to the orthodox attitude of her husband and his family. She too walks out of his life, and starts working independently. Into the lives of these three ladies who starts living separately arrives, G K alias Gopakumar (Mohanlal), a garment exporter. He has bought the house where Teresa is staying away from her husband Muralikrishnan. Now left in a difficult situation which does not allow G K, to throw out Teresa and her daughter, to establish his office, Gopakumar is trying newer ways to get the couple together. And in the process he meets the other similar ladies who happen to be friends of Teresa. The film follows how G K with his fashion designer Kamala (Meera Jasmin) and land Broker Immanuel (Innocent), succeeds in getting the feuding couples back to lives of reunion. Soundtrack. The songs in this movie were composed by music maestro "Isaignani" Dr. Ilaiyaraaja. The lyrics were penned by Gireesh Puthenchery.
1052701	Train of Life (in French Train de Vie, in Romanian Trenul vieţii) is a tragicomedy film by France, Belgium, Netherlands, Israel and Romania made in 1998 in the French language. It tells the story of an eastern European Jewish village's plan to escape the Holocaust. Plot. The movie starts off with a man, named Schlomo (Lionel Abelanski), running crazily through a forest, with his voice playing in the background, saying that he has seen the horror of the Nazis in a nearby town, and he must tell the others. Once he gets into town, he informs the rabbi, and together they run through the town and once they have got enough people together, they hold a town meeting. At first, many of the men do not believe the horrors they are being told, and many criticize Schlomo, for he is the town lunatic, and who could possibly believe him? But the rabbi believes him, and then they try to tackle the problem of the coming terrors. Amidst the pondering and the arguing, Schlomo suggests that they build a train, so they can escape by deporting themselves. Some of their members pretend to be Nazis in order to ostensibly transport them to a concentration camp, when in reality, they are going to Palestine. Thus the Train of Life is born. The movie ends with the voiceover of Schlomo himself, who tells the stories of his companions after the arrival of the train. At first, we can see his face very close and then the camera makes a slow back motion, this enlaging the field of the screen, showing him between grinning and smiling behind the barbed wire of a concentration camp, the spectators understanding that he became mad because of the pain of seeing most his companions exterminated. Reception. The movie was not a box office success in the USA. Stefan Steinberg of the World Socialist Web Site commented that Roberto Benigni had turned down an offer to play the role of Schlomo in Mihaileanu's film to focus on "Life is Beautiful" and claimed that "Train of Life" is "a far better film". Steinberg was impressed by "the immense affection and care with which Mihaileanu has recreated the life and self deprecating humour of the Jewish villagers".
394013	Secret Reunion (; lit. "Sworn Brothers" or "Blood Brothers") is a 2010 South Korean spy thriller film directed by Jang Hoon, and one of the highest grossing Korean films of 2010. The story follows Song Kang-ho as Agent Lee Han-gyoo of the National Intelligence Service (NIS) who falls from grace after failing to stop the assassination of a North Korean dissident. The sleeper cell responsible includes relative newcomer Ji-won played by Kang Dong-won, who gets marked as a traitor when the mission goes south. Six years later both men are working different jobs when they bump into each other and quickly form a bond. This is the second film by director Jang Hoon after completing "Rough Cut" two years prior. Plot. Ji-won is one of numerous North Korean undercover spies living in South Korea as ordinary citizens, until he's called to fulfill his mission: the assassination of Kim Jong-il's second cousin who wrote a book that the North Korean government deems as a great betrayal to the Fatherland. However, one of his fellow spies, Tae-soon, betrays his orders by switching his allegiance to South Korea, and Ji-won mistakenly becomes the target for both countries. Lee Han-gyoo is a dedicated agent of the National Intelligence Service (NIS) who tries to foil the hit. Despite having insider information, he doesn't notify his agency superiors, and only involves his team in the mission. Unable to prevent the assassination, and with the loss of his fellow agents in a gun fight, he becomes the sole scapegoat for the agency and gets discharged.
1165425	John Ernest "Johnny" Crawford (born March 26, 1946) is a prolific American character actor, singer, and musician. At age 12, Crawford rose to fame for playing Mark McCain, the son of Lucas McCain (played by Chuck Connors), in the popular ABC western series, "The Rifleman," which originally aired from 1958 to 1963. He first performed before a national audience as a "Mouseketeer". Family life. Crawford was born in Los Angeles, California, the son of Betty (née Megerlin) and Robert Lawrence Crawford, Sr. His maternal grandparents were both Belgian, and his maternal grandfather was violinist Alfred Eugene Megerlin. In 1959, Johnny, his older brother Robert L. Crawford, Jr., a co-star of NBC's "Laramie" series, and their father Robert, Sr., were all nominated for Emmy Awards (the brothers for acting and their father for film editing). Career. One of Walt Disney's original Mouseketeers, in 1955, Crawford has acted on stage, in films, and on television. Disney started out with 24 original Mouseketeers. But, at the end of the first season the studio reduced the number to 12 and Johnny was released from his contract. His first important break as an actor followed with the title role in a Lux Video Theatre production of, "Little Boy Lost," a live NBC broadcast on March 15, 1956. Following that performance, the young actor worked steadily with many seasoned actors and directors. Freelancing for two-and-a-half years, he accumulated almost 60 television credits, including featured roles in three episodes of NBC's "The Loretta Young Show" and an appearance as Manuel in, "I Am an American," an episode of the syndicated crime drama "Sheriff of Cochise". By the spring of 1958, he had also performed 14 demanding roles in live teleplays for NBC's "Matinee Theatre", appeared on CBS's sitcom, "Mr. Adams and Eve", in the "Wagon Train" episode "The Sally Potter Story" (in which Martin Milner also appeared) and on the syndicated series, "Crossroads", "Sheriff of Cochise" and "Whirlybirds" and made three pilots in the hope of being on a TV series. The third pilot, which was made as an episode of "Dick Powell's Zane Grey Theater", was picked up by ABC and the first season of "The Rifleman" began filming in July 1958. Crawford was nominated for an Emmy Award at age 13 for his role as Mark McCain, the son of Lucas McCain, played by Chuck Connors, in the Four Star Television series "The Rifleman", which originally aired from 1958 to 1963. Throughout "The Riflemans five seasons, there was a remarkable on-screen chemistry between Connors and Crawford in the depiction of their father-son relationship. They were still close friends when Connors died on November 10, 1992, and Crawford gave a eulogy at Connors' memorial. During the late 1950s and early 1960s, Crawford had wide popularity with American teenagers and a recording career that generated five Billboard Top 40 hits, including the single, "Cindy's Birthday," which peaked at #8, in 1962. His other hits included "Rumors" (#12, 1962), "Your Nose is Gonna Grow" (#14, 1962) and "Proud" (#29, 1963). Late in 1961, Crawford appeared as Victor in the episode "A Very Bright Boy" of the ABC sitcom, "The Donna Reed Show". Earlier, his brother Robert had also been a guest star on "The Donna Reed Show". Once in 1964 and once in 1965, Johnny Crawford appeared on the NBC education drama, "Mr. Novak", starring James Franciscus as a Los Angeles high school English teacher. Among his films, Crawford played an American Indian in the unique adventure film, "Indian Paint" (1965). He got mixed up with a disturbed young girl played by Kim Darby in "The Restless Ones" (1965); and Crawford got shot by John Wayne in "El Dorado" (1967). While enlisted in the United States Army for two years, Crawford worked on training films as a production coordinator, assistant director, script supervisor and occasional actor. His rank was sergeant at the time of his honorable discharge in December 1967. In 1968, Crawford played a soldier wanted for murder in, "By the Numbers," an episode of the popular TV series "Hawaii Five-O", starring Jack Lord. "The Resurrection of Broncho Billy" was a USC student film Crawford agreed to do as a favor to his close friend, producer John Longenecker. It won the 1970 Academy Award for Best Live Action Short Subject. Stills from "The Resurrection of Broncho Billy" "The Naked Ape" was a partially animated 1973 feature film starring Johnny Crawford and Victoria Principal, produced by Hugh Hefner. In an article about that movie he became the first man to be shown in full-frontal nudity in "Playboy" magazine. Since 1992, Johnny Crawford has led a California-based vintage dance orchestra which performs at special events. His band has been sponsored by the Playboy Jazz Festival; and the orchestra has been the repeated choice for fifteen annual Art Directors Guild Awards shows at the Beverly Hilton. A remastered version of the orchestra's highly rated first album, "Sweepin' the Clouds Away", was officially released on September 30, 2011. In 2012, Crawford did an introductory commercial for "The Rifleman" for MeTV, saying, "Watch me on 'me,' MeTV, on "The Rifleman"!" Personal life. Crawford reconnected with his high school sweetheart, Charlotte Samco, in 1990, and they married in 1995. Crawford had a key role in the early career of entertainer Victoria Jackson, of "Saturday Night Live" fame. After the two appeared together in a summer stock production of "Meet Me in St. Louis," he presented her with a one-way ticket to California and encouraged her to pursue a Hollywood career. This led Jackson to early appearances on the "Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson", before she was cast as a regular on "SNL".
689054	Ola Ray (born August 26, 1960) is an American model and actress most notable for co-starring alongside Michael Jackson in his film for "Thriller" in 1983. She modeled for "Playboy" and was the Playmate of the Month for the June 1980 issue. Ray complained in the past about difficulties collecting royalties from her participation in "Thriller". At first, Ray blamed Michael Jackson, but then apologized to him in 1997. However, Ray eventually sued Jackson on May 5, 2009 in a dispute to obtain uncollected royalties. Jackson died less than two months later on June 25 at age 50. In 2012, Jackson's estate settled the lawsuit.
591555	The following pages for each decade list films produced in Pakistan by year of release. 2010s. Movie : Kafira (2011) Language : Punjabi Releasing : Eid-ul-Azha Starcast : Sajjad Ahmed Warriach, Legendary Shahid Hameed, Shafqat Cheema and Akram Udasm Sobiyah Director : Saleem Murad Written by Saleem Murad Producer : Dr. Sajjad Ahmad Warraich Production : Inqalaab Production First Punjabi Movie of Pakistan having Visual Effects. Kafra Shot on HD Camera Assistant Director:Naghman Saleem Kafira is a Liberal Love Story Edited by: Naghman Saleem and Zeeshan Amjad External links. __NOTOC__ Movie : Kafira (2011) Language : Punjabi Releasing : Eid-ul-Azha Starcast : Sajjad Ahmed Warriach, Legendary Shahid Hameed, Shafqat Cheema and Akram Udasm Sobiyah Director : Saleem Murad Written by Saleem Murad Producer : Dr. Sajjad Ahmad Warraich Production : Inqalaab Production First Punjabi Movie of Pakistan having Visual Effects. Kafra Shot on HD Camera Assistant Director:Naghman Saleem Kafira is a Liberal Love Story Edited by: Naghman Saleem and Zeeshan Amjad
1163523	Jack Gilford (July 25, 1907 – June 4, 1990) was an American actor on Broadway, films and television. Early life. Gilford was born Jacob Aaron Gellman on the lower East Side of Manhattan in New York City, and grew up in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. His parents were Romanian-born Jewish immigrants Sophie "Susksa" (née Jackness), who owned a restaurant, and Aaron Gellman, a furrier. Gilford was the second of three sons, with an older brother Murray ("Moisha") and a younger brother Nathaniel ("Natie"). Gilford was discovered working in a pharmacy by his mentor Milton Berle. While working in amateur theater, he competed with other talented youngsters, including a young Jackie Gleason. He started doing imitations and impersonations. His first appearance on film was a short entitled "Midnight Melodies" where he did his imitations of George Jessel, Rudy Vallee and Harry Langdon. He developed some unique impressions that became his trademarks — most notably, one of "split pea soup coming to a furious boil" using only his face. Other unusual impressions he created were a fluorescent light going on in a dark room, John D. Rockefeller Sr. imitating Jimmy Durante, and impressions of animals. Career. In 1938, Gilford worked as the master of ceremonies in the first downtown New York integrated nightclub, "Cafe Society" owned and operated by Barney Josephson. He was a unique blend of the earlier style of the Yiddish theater, vaudeville and burlesque, and started the tradition of monology such as later comedians Lenny Bruce and Woody Allen used. Gilford won many industry awards. He was nominated for several Tony Awards for best supporting actor as Hysterium in "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum" (1963), and for his role as Herr Schultz in "Cabaret" (1966). He was nominated for an Academy Award for best supporting actor in (1973) for his role as Phil Green in "Save the Tiger" (his co-star Jack Lemmon won for Best Actor). Sir Rudolf Bing engaged Gilford for the comic speaking role of the tippling jailer Frosch in the operetta "Die Fledermaus". Loved in the part, Gilford performed it 77 times between 1950 and 1964.
1062403	Alfre Ette Woodard (born November 8, 1952) is an American film, stage, and television actress. She has been nominated once for an Academy Award and Grammy Award, 18 times for the Emmy Award (winning four), and has also won a Golden Globe Award and three Screen Actors Guild Awards. Early life. Woodard was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma to Constance, a homemaker, and Marion H. Woodard, an entrepreneur and interior designer. Woodard attended Bishop Kelley High School, a private Catholic school in Tulsa. She studied drama at Boston University, from which she graduated. Career. Woodard has made numerous appearances in television series and motion pictures. She was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in the 1983 film "Cross Creek". In 1993, she starred in the film "Passion Fish" for which she was nominated for a Golden Globe Award.
1163616	Carl Reiner (born March 20, 1922) is an American actor, film director, producer, writer, and comedian. He has won twelve Emmy Awards and one Grammy Award during his career. Early life. Reiner was born in the Bronx, New York, the son of Bessie (née Mathias) and Irving Reiner, who was a watchmaker. His parents were Jewish immigrants, his father from Romania and his mother from Austria. When he was sixteen, his older brother Charlie read in the "New York Daily News" about a free dramatic workshop being put on by the Works Progress Administration and told him about it. His uncle, Harry Mathias was the first entertainer in his family. He had been working as a machinist fixing sewing machines. He credits Charlie with changing his career plans. Career. Reiner performed in several Broadway musicals, including "Inside U.S.A.", and "Alive and Kicking", and had the lead role in "Call Me Mister". In 1950, he was cast by producer Max Leibman in Sid Caesar's "Your Show of Shows", appearing on air in skits while also working alongside writers such as Mel Brooks and Neil Simon. He also worked on "Caesar's Hour" with Brooks, Simon, Larry Gelbart, Mel Tolkin, Mike Stewart, Aaron Ruben, Sheldon Keller and Gary Belkin. Starting in 1960, on The Steve Allen Show, Reiner teamed with Mel Brooks as a comedy duo. Their performances on stage and television included Reiner playing the straight man to Brooks' "2000 Year Old Man" character. The routine eventually expanded into a series of five comedy albums and a 1975 animated TV special. In 1959, Reiner developed a television pilot, "Head of the Family", based on his experience on the Caesar shows. However, the network didn't like Reiner in the lead role. In 1961, it was recast and retitled "The Dick Van Dyke Show", and became an iconic series, making stars of his lead actors Dick Van Dyke and Mary Tyler Moore. In addition to writing many of the episodes, Reiner occasionally appeared as temperamental show host "Alan Brady", who ruthlessly browbeats his brother-in-law (played by Richard Deacon). The show ran from 1961 to 1966. In 1966, he co-starred in the Norman Jewison film "The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming". Reiner began his directing career on the Van Dyke show. After that show ended its run, Reiner's first film feature was an adaptation of Joseph Stein's play "Enter Laughing" (1967), which in turn was based on Reiner's semi-autobiographical 1958 novel of the same name. Balancing writing, directing, producing, and acting, Reiner has worked on a wide range of films and television programs. Films from his early directing career included the cult comedy "Where's Poppa?" (1970), starring George Segal and Ruth Gordon, "Oh, God!" (1977) with George Burns and "The Jerk" (1979) with Steve Martin. Reiner played a large role in the early career of Steve Martin, by directing and co-writing four films for the comedian: "The Jerk" in 1979, "Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid" in 1982, "The Man with Two Brains" in 1983, and "All of Me" in 1984. Reiner also appeared in both "The Jerk" and "Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid". In 1989, he directed "Bert Rigby, You're a Fool". In 2000, Reiner was honored with the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor. A year later, he played thief and con man Saul Bloom in Steven Soderbergh's remake of "Ocean's Eleven" and has reprised that role in its sequels, "Ocean's Twelve" and "Ocean's Thirteen". In 2004 he voiced the lion Sarmoti in the animated TV series "Father of the Pride". Reiner is the author of several books, including his 2004 memoir, "My Anecdotal Life: A Memoir", and novels such as 2006's "NNNNN: A Novel". In "American Film", Reiner expressed his philosophy on writing comedy: "You have to imagine yourself as not somebody very special but somebody very ordinary. If you imagine yourself as somebody really normal and if it makes you laugh, it's going to make everybody laugh. If you think of yourself as something very special, you'll end up a pedant and a bore. If you start thinking about what's funny, you won't be funny, actually. It's like walking. How do you walk? If you start thinking about it, you'll trip." In May 2009, Reiner guest starred as a clinic patient on the season finale of the Fox series "House". He also lent his voice to the character of Santa Claus in the NBC Christmas special "Merry Madagascar" in November 2009, and reprised his role as Santa in The Penguins of Madagascar holiday special "The All Nighter Before Christmas. In December 2009, Reiner guest-starred as a television producer on the CBS sitcom "Two and a Half Men". In June 2010, Reiner guest starred in TV Land's new series "Hot in Cleveland" as Elka Ostrovsky's date and reprised the role in July 2010. Reiner also made appearances on "The Cleveland Show" as Murray and wrote the story for the episode "Your Show of Shows", named after the program that started his career. Reiner has the distinction of being the only person to appear on "The Tonight Show" with each of its five hosts. Personal life. On December 24, 1943, Reiner married singer Estelle Lebost. The two were married 64 years until her death in 2008. At the time of the marriage, he was 21 and she was 29. Estelle delivered the line "I'll have what she's having" in the deli scene of their son Rob's 1989 film "When Harry Met Sally". She died on October 25, 2008, at age 94. Reiner is the father of actor and director Rob Reiner (b. 1947), poet, playwright and author Sylvia Anne (Annie) Reiner (b. 1957), and painter, actor, and director Lucas Reiner (b. 1960). Reiner has described himself as a Jewish atheist. He says, "I have a very different take on who God is. Man invented God because he needed him. God is us." Acting credits. " Gidget Goes Hawaiian" (1961)
583482	Life Mein Kabhi Kabhiee is a 2007 Bollywood film, directed by Vikram Bhatt. It was released on 13 April 2007. Produced by Baba Films banner, it is a social thriller. Synopsis. Five friends, Rajiv (Dino Morea), Ishita (Anjori Alagh), Jai (Sameer Dattani), Monica (Nauheed Cyrusi) and Manish (Aftab Shivdasani), get drunk on their last day in college and place a bet of Rs.200 among themselves, each claiming she/he will be the happiest in life. They give each other five years to win the bet.
1166359	Maureen "Mo" Ann Collins (born July 7, 1965) is an American actress and comedian. Collins is perhaps best known for being a member of the ensemble on FOX's sketch comedy series "MADtv". She became well known for several characters during her tenure on the show. She was a cast member from the 4th season (1998) through the 9th season (2004); she only appeared in fourteen episodes during season 9 due to contractual reasons. She returned to "MADtv" in the 10th season for one episode, and again when she made an appearance on the 300th Episode doing her popular character Lorraine Swanson. Career. "MADtv". Collins joined the cast of "MADtv" at the beginning of season 4 (Fall 1998) and stayed until the end of season 9 (Spring 2004), despite appearing in only 14 episodes during the ninth season. Her popular stint on the show lead her to come back to guest star in 2005 during Season 10 and in 2007 during the 300th episode on season 13. She was also known for trying to stifle laughter during some of her skits much like Harvey Korman on The Carol Burnett Show. Her most featured and arguably most popular characters were Doreen, the screechy-voiced mother of overgrown toddler Stuart (when Mo Collins left the show, Doreen was written off as being asleep after her latest alcoholic bender or never mentioned); the odd, annoying, confused middle-aged woman Lorraine, and the perpetually unlucky Trina. Collins also did a multitude of celebrity impressions, including Alanis Morissette, Angelina Jolie, Barbara Bush, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Cher, Diane Sawyer, Jenny Jones, Mary Tyler Moore (in several "modern day spin" parodies of "The Mary Tyler Moore Show"), Mary Hart, Courteney Cox, Madonna, Martha Stewart, Shakira, Pamela Anderson, Teri Hatcher, Catherine Hicks, Jane Kaczmarek (as Lois on a "Malcolm in the Middle" parody called "Malcolm X in the Middle"), and Penny Marshall. Personal life. Collins is a survivor of a rare form of cancer known as GIST. She was diagnosed in spring 2011 by a stroke of luck when she happened to notice an odd lump in her abdomen. Said Collins: "I would have done nothing about it. I was 44, feeling healthy, everything was going great for me, but my fiancé, Alex said, ‘You need to get it checked out’." Alex's insistence paid off. She had a primary tumor in her duodenum and was able to find a doctor who knew enough to know that she needed to see a specialist.
584975	Naa Autograph () is a 2004 Tollywood film directed by S. Gopal Reddy. The film stars Ravi Teja as the protagonist, with Bhumika Chawla, Gopika, Mallika and Prakash Raj playing other important roles. The film is a remake of the superhit Tamil film "Autograph" which starred Cheran and Sneha in the lead roles. Plot. The film begins with Seenu (Ravi Teja), who runs an advertising agency in Hyderabad, setting off on a journey, distributing wedding invitations for his forthcoming wedding. Along the way, he encounters various individuals from his past, who bring back memories of three women that have had an impact on his love life. First, Seenu goes to his village in Andhra Pradesh where he spent his childhood. He remembers the antics he had done during his childhood, his school and his first love Vimala (Mallika). After finishing school, Vimala got married and she never met Seenu again. In the present day, Seenu invites everyone from his village for his wedding including his friends, his old school master and Vimala, her husband and her three children. Then, Seenu goes to a village in Kerala where he moved after his father Sriram (Paruchuri Venkateswara Rao), a postmaster, was transferred there. He had his college education there. He was constantly bullied by the students there as he did not know Malayalam, but eventually managed to become friends with a fellow student Satyam (Sunil), whose mother tongue was also Telugu. Satyam served him as a translator. Seenu soon fell in love with Lathika (Gopika), a Malayali girl. Lathika too reciprocated his feelings and soon their relationship becomes intimate. However, when Lathika's family came to know of this, they drove out Seenu's family from the village and got her married to a local youth who also had a crush on her. In the present day, Seenu reunites with Satyam in Kerala and invites him for his wedding. When they arrive at Lathika's house to invite her too, Seenu becomes upset to see that his former love had become a widow (her husband had died in a boating accident a couple of years prior). After they were thrown out of the village in Kerala, Seenu and his parents moved to Hyderabad. Seenu had not got over Lathika and became an emotional wreck, and started to smoke and drink. He remained an emotional wreck until he met Divya (Bhumika Chawla), who worked in an advertisement agency headed by one Prakash (Prakash Raj). Divya, in fact, secured this job for Seenu after she saw him and his friend Bhagavan (Krishna Bhagavan) distributing pamphlets to the passengers in a bus, seeking job opportunities, hoping one of them may help them out in finding a job. Soon Seenu and Divya became close friends and Divya instilled confidence, unearthed his hidden talents and taught him the lesson that one has to go ahead in life without looking back. Soon, Divya revealed that her widowed mother was a paralytic patient and that she worked to take care of her mother. After Divya's mother died, Seenu, who had fallen in love with Divya, proposed her, but she rejected it, saying that she was happy to be just a good friend. Finally, Seenu decided to get married to a girl of his parents choice, Sandhya (Kanika), for which he is distributing invitations in the present day. Everyone he invited, including Vimala, Lathika and Divya, attend his wedding. The film ends with Seenu reflecting on his life's journey to the audience. Box Office. The film, despite being a remake, was highly successful at the box office.
1016445	The Sorcerer and the White Snake, previously known as, "It's Love and Madame White Snake" is a 2011 film directed by Ching Siu-tung and starring Jet Li. It is based on the Chinese "Legend of the White Snake". Production started in September 10, 2010 and ended on January 16, 2011. The film will be in 3-D and was shown out of competition at the 68th Venice International Film Festival on 3 September 2011. It was released in China on 28 September 2011 and Hong Kong on 29 September. Plot. The film starts with Abbott Fahai and his assistant Neng Ren heading towards a snow blizzard through a magical door. An ice harpy appears at the top of the mountains and turns the impetuous Neng Ren into an ice statue. She then reveals her past and reasons to kill all men. Unable to persuade the ice harpy to turn over a new leaf, Fahai is forced to fight the ice harpy. The battle ends with Fahai capturing the ice harpy using a demon trapper, which releases Neng Ren from ice. Neng Ren is then tasked to confine the ice harpy at Lei Feng Pagoda, and the master and assistant head back to the door which disappears after closing behind them. At Lei Feng Pagoda, Neng Ren transfers the ice harpy from the demon trapper into the magic circle, which holds other trapped demons in it. On the other side of the mountain, two snake demons (Qingqing and Susu) are playing around, enjoying their time when they spot a physician, Xu Xian, picking herbs at the foot of the mountain with his friends. Qingqing, being a playful snake, scares Xu Xian causing him to fall into the lake below. Susu, being the gentler snake, assumes human form and kisses Xu Xian which allows Vital Essence to flow from her into his body thus saving him. Soon, Xu Xian wakes up and tells his friends about being kissed by a beautiful girl, which only makes them laugh. After finding a victim of a bat demon, Fahai and Neng Ren leave the temple immediately to subdue the bat demon to avoid more casualties. Xu Xian came across them and offers a boat ride to the city. Susu starts thinking about the day she kissed Xu Xian and decides to head to the city to find Xu Xian. Meanwhile, while Qingqing is exploring the city, she came across Neng Ren and decided to help him subdue the bat demon by revealing its location. Neng Ren defeats the bat demon's cohorts, but is unable to subdue the bat demon king who bites him. Though he is subsequently saved by Fahai, Neng Ren starts turning into a bat demon himself the next day and decides to run away. In the meanwhile, after a series of pranks, Xu Xian recognizes Susu and they spend the night together, which is rather unfortunate for Xu Xian because he does not know that he was making love to a snake in a human form. Neng Ren is found by Quinqing and the two befriend each other. They realize that Neng Ren, despite becoming a bat demon, still has all his human taste for human food, and most of his human qualities. Meanwhile Xu Xian and Susu wed. Shortly thereafter Fahai finds Xu Xian and after seeing a mysterious substance in his medicines he gives Xu Xian a spirit blade. Susu is pursued by Fahai, who tells her to leave Xu Xian. She doesn't, which causes Fahai and his disciples to invade her and Xu Xian's cottage. Susu fights the battle in her snake form, but is stabbed by Xu Xian unaware of her true identity. Susu escapes but is gravely injured. Xu Xian, after realizing what he has done, decided to get the spirit root to heal her. Helped by Susu's friend, a mouse, Xu Xian manages to retrieve a root kept inside the Lei Feng Pagoda that could save Susu, but is possessed by demons as a result of this. Fahai and the other monks capture Xu Xian and prepare to cast spells to banish the demons from his body. Susu recovers and she goes to find Xu Xian along with Quinqing. They are confronted by Fahai, who tries to explain to them that the spell should not be broken before it is complete. Susu did not believe him and thought he was saying this to separate them so the two sisters start battling Fahai. After countless wounds Fahai lies back exhausted. As he looks around he sees Neng Ren helping to save his former colleagues, the monks of the temple who were trying to complete the spell to release Xu Xian from the demons. He looks up at the sky and questions whether he was right to have been a demon hunter all his life. Susu releases Xu Xian from the spell after which Xu Xian does not have any memory of Susu. Susu blames this on Fahai, after which they have one last battle. Fahai manages to trap Susu in the temple of Lei Feng Pagoda. At this point, Susu repents and asks to see Xu Xian just one last time. Simultaneously, Fahai gets the answer to his question and understands what he must do. Filled with the divine spirit, he lifts up the pagoda to allow Susu's last wish to come true. After a brief reunion with Xu Xian, she tells him of her story of having meditated for a thousand years before she met him. She tells him that it was all worth less than a moment with him. She kisses him, causing him to remember everything. As the pair go to kiss one last time Susu is sucked back into the temple, leaving Xu Xian chasing her as both cry and reach out for each other. Qingqing, watching all this from a distance with Neng Ren, tells him that she doesn't want to love anyone as her sister loved Xu Xian, and leaves saying that he will never be a true bat demon anyway. After this, we see Xu Xian picking herbs around the temple and inside Susu has returned to her true form as a white snake trapped inside the temple. Fahai is seen walking the mountainside when suddenly Neng Ren (now a complete bat demon) appears alongside him. Throwing him an apple to eat Fahai tells him that his new look suits him, and they continue on the journey together again. Production. Leading actors Ethan Juan, Peter Ho, Mark Chao and Raymond Lam fought for the lead role in the film. In the end, Lam got the role. It was reported that Juan and Chao were dropped as they were deemed to be not well known enough in China and Ho's image did not suit the male lead. Jet Li was announced to be part of the cast during early pre-production however his role was not revealed until September 2010, when some actors' roles were announced including Jet Li as Fa Hai, Eva Huang as White Snake, Raymond Lam as Xu Xian, Charlene Choi as Green Snake and Wen Zhang, whom Li invited to play his disciple Neng Ren. Regarding the action scenes, Jet Li said he had never been this exhausted before. Li says, Raymond Lam said he was always being hit by others, Filming wrapped on January 16, 2011. Originally titled Madame White Snake in English, the film logo was unveiled during the production wrap press conference with the new official English title, "It's Love. However, the English title was changed to The Sorcerer and the White Snake when the distributor was announced. But the actual title used has been The Emperor and the White Snake", both on DVD and at IMDb.
1017121	Dream Home (維多利亞壹號 "Wai dor lei ah yut ho", lit. "Victoria No. 1") is a 2010 Hong Kong slasher film directed and co-written by Pang Ho-cheung. The film is the story of Cheng Lai-sheung (Josie Ho) who saves up money to buy her dream home. After the sellers decide to turn her down, she goes into a murderous frenzy. "Dream Home" was originally meant to be released in October 2009 in Hong Kong but due to legal disputes between 852 Films and the director the film premiered in Italy on April 23, 2010 and in Hong Kong on May 13. The film received mixed reviews which focused on whether or not the satirical and horrific scenes worked well together. Plot summary. In Hong Kong, Cheng Lai-sheung (Josie Ho) works two jobs with the hope of earning enough money to buy her own apartment with a view of the Victoria Harbor. In mixed chronological order, we see scenes from Lai-sheung's past. In her childhood, her family and friends are evicted from their low-rent housing so that developers can build expensive flats. Later in life, she vows to buy her mother and father a new apartment, but is unable to fulfill her promise before her mother dies. When her father becomes ill, she begins searching in earnest for a new place, finally fixating on the building that now stands where she previously lived.
627112	Sunny Mabrey (born November 28, 1975) is an American actress and model. Prior to debuting in films, Mabrey appeared in music videos, such as "Nookie" from Limp Bizkit. She appeared in "The New Guy", "", and was the lead actress in "Species III".
1742718	Plot. Sawako Kuronuma, called Sadako by her classmates for her resemblance to the character from "The Ring", has always been feared and misunderstood because of her appearance. There are rumors that Sawako can see ghosts and curse people. However, despite her appearances, she is a sweet and timid girl who longs to be able to make friends with everyone and be liked by everyone else. When her idol, popular boy Kazehaya, begins talking with her, everything changes. She finds herself in a new world, trying to make friends and talking to different people and she can't thank Kazehaya enough for giving her these opportunities. Slowly, but surely, a sweet love blossoms between the two as they overcome circumstances and obstacles that stand in their way. Media. Manga. Originally planned on being a one-shot to be compiled in her previous work, "Crazy For You", Shiina decided to expand the story and make it into a full series. It has been running in Japan in "Bessatsu Margaret" since 2006, with 18 compiled volumes as of January 2013. Shiina took a break starting in the March 2009 issue to have a baby; serialization resumed in the October issue. The series is licensed by Viz Media for an English-language North American release. Light novels. "Kimi ni Todoke" has been adapted into two series of light novels in Japan released by Shueisha, one under their Cobalt imprint and one under their newer Mirai Bunko imprint. Eleven volumes have been released so far in the Cobalt imprint series; the first was released on August 1, 2007 and most recent on March 1, 2012. They are being written by Kanae Shimokawa, who also novelized the Nana movie and Yukan Club. Five volumes of the Mirai Bunko version have been released thus far; the first on March 1, 2011 and most recent on April 5, 2011. A separate volume was released September 11, 2009. The volume took the place of the manga in Bessatsu Margaret magazine while Karuho Shiina took a break due to her pregnancy; it contains the story of Kazehaya and Sawako's first meeting, before the events of the manga. Video game. Banpresto released a game for the Nintendo DS in Japan based upon the series on October 16, 2009, entitled . A second Nintendo DS game, also from Banpresto, was released in the Spring of 2011 under the title . Anime. The first season of the "Kimi ni Todoke" anime adaptation aired between October 2009 and March 2010. A second season was announced in the November 2010 issue of Betsuma magazine. The second season aired in Japan on NTV on January 2011. Both seasons of the anime are produced by Production I.G. and directed by Hiro Kaburagi. The music is done by S.E.N.S. Project, with the opening sung by Tomofumi Tanizawa and the ending by Chara. NIS America announced at Anime Expo 2011 that they have licensed the first season of Kimi ni Todoke. They released the first season on DVD/Blu-ray on January 10, 2012, and released the second season later that year. Live-action film. The February 2010 issue of Bessatsu Margaret (released in January 2010), announced that a live-action film adaptation of the series had been approved. Mikako Tabe and Haruma Miura starred in the film, released in Japanese theatres on September 25, 2010 and directed by Naoto Kumazawa. The Live-action movie was released on Blu-ray and DVD on March 11, 2011. Reception. Manga. Volumes of the series commonly rank in listings of top selling manga in Japan: Japanese Comic Ranking At the debut of the twelfth volume, all twelve of the current volumes were ranked on Oricon's list of 100 best-selling manga for the week. According to Anime News Network, "Kimi ni Todoke" is now the "shōjo manga with the most #1 books and the most books to sell one million copies since 2008" in Japan. The series was the third best-selling manga series in Japan in 2010, with 6,572,813 copies sold. As of the release of the 16th volume in May 2012, "Kimi ni Todoke" will have reached a total of over 20 million copies in print. Anime News Network called the series "hands down one of the best new English-translated manga series of 2009" and suggested that everyone, not just shōjo manga fans, read the series. The first volume of the series was listed as a "Hot Fall Graphic Novel" for libraries in the teen section by YALSA. The series was also listed in the Best Comics for Teens category of the School Library Journal's Best Comics for Kids in 2009 list. "Kimi ni Todoke" has also been included on the American Library Association's list of 2010 Great Graphic Novels for Teens. Live action. According to Oricon, the series was listed as 3rd on a list of titles that Japanese readers wanted a drama adaptation for. The live action movie adaptation opened at second place in Kogyo Tsushinsha's box office chart during its first week in Japanese theaters. The movie was number 3 on Box Office Mojo's chart during its first two days, earning the equivalent to US $2,770,613 on 285 screens. Anime. Many of the first season volumes have sold well in the first week of release to be ranked on the weekly Oricon Sales Chart for Japan's Animation DVDs. The second season of the anime was number one in a poll of Dengeki Online readers as their most anticipated anime series debuting in January 2011. Anime News Network reviewer Carl Kimlinger gave the second season 4½ out of 5 stars, saying, "This remains the finest series of its type since "Lovely Complex", and the most beautiful since...well, I don't know when." Japanese viewers voted it the most enjoyable anime of the Winter 2011 season during a poll taken just before the season ended.
591930	Rajesh Krishnan (Born 1 January 1973) is an Indian playback singer and film actor. Although he is popularly known for his works in Kannada films, he has recorded his voice for over 1000 films including Telugu, Tamil, Hindi and many other regional language film songs. Making his mainstream debut in the film "Gauri Ganesha" (1991), he has sung for many devotional albums, theme albums and commercials in a career spanning over almost two decades. Early life. Rajesh Krishnan was born in a Tamil family of musicians (settled in Bangalore) like G Ramanathan. His mother Meera Krishnan was his first Guru. Rajesh Krishnan started his career as a track singer under the guidance of composer Hamsalekha. At the age of 13, Rajesh attended children's’ film festival representing St. Joseph’s Indian high school. Career. He has sung over 3000 songs in Kannada, 500 in Telugu, 250 plus in Tamil, Hindi. And in about 15 languages for projects like devotional albums, theme albums and commercials in a career spanning over 18 years.
1044090	Carry On Doctor (1967) is the fifteenth in the series of "Carry On" films to be made. It is the second in the series to have a medical theme. Frankie Howerd makes the first of his two appearances in the film series and stars alongside regulars Sid James, Kenneth Williams, Jim Dale, Charles Hawtrey, Joan Sims, Peter Butterworth, and Bernard Bresslaw. Hattie Jacques returns for the first time since Carry On Cabby four years earlier, while Barbara Windsor returns after her debut in Carry On Spying three years earlier. Carry On Doctor marked Anita Harris's second and final appearance in the series. Plot. Francis Bigger (Howerd) is a charlatan faith healer, convinced that "mind over matter" is more effective than medical treatment. During a lecture, he stumbles offstage and is admitted to the local hospital. In hospital, he incessantly groans and whines about being "maltreated", demanding better treatment than the other, eccentric patients. These include: bedridden layabout Charlie Roper (James) who shams illnesses to stay in hospital; Ken Biddle (Bresslaw) who makes frequent trips to the ladies' ward to flirt with his love interest, Mavis Winkle (Dilys Laye); and Mr Barron (Hawtrey) who seems to be suffering sympathy pains while his wife awaits the birth of their baby. While being treated, Bigger meets two very different doctors. Clumsy yet charming Dr Kilmore (Dale) is popular with the patients and loved from afar by the beautiful Nurse Clark (Harris) while hospital registrar Dr Tinkle (Kenneth Williams) is universally detested, as is his battleaxe Matron (Jacques), who harbours an unrequited love for him. After Bigger's arrival, novice nurse Sandra May (Windsor), arrives at the hospital with her intention to declare her (questionable) love for Tinkle, and enters Biggers room, violating hospital rules that female staff are not permitted in the male quarters. Matron and Kilmore burst in on her declarations of love, which are cruelly rebuffed by Tinkle. Matron throws Nurse May out, and she leaves while tearfully announcing she'd rather die than live without Tinkle. Dr Tinkle fears for his position after this incident, and contrives with Matron to get rid of Kilmore and Sandra May, lest they reveal the truth. Shortly after, Sandra May climbs on to the roof of the nurses' home to sunbathe in her bikini top. Dr Kilmore and Nurse Clark assume she is going to throw herself off the roof in despair after Tinkle's rejection. Kilmore rushes to save her and climbs on to the roof. He realises she is sunbathing and prepares to leave, but Sandra assumes to her horror he is leering over her, and shrieks in fear. Her screams attract attention and soon the entire hospital staff and townspeople flock to watch. Nurse Clark attempts to help Kilmore before he falls off, but he accidentally tears her skirt off, leaving her in her underwear and stockings. Kilmore crashes through a window to safety, but lands in a bath... with a nurse in it, who assumes he is attacking her. His good reputation is destroyed among everyone except his patients. Dr Kilmore is given a hearing with the hospital governor, but Matron and Tinkle deny his revelation of Sandra May's fight with Tinkle. As Sandra May has left the hospital, Kilmore has no proof to support him and is forced to resign. Nurse Clark reports the treachery of Tinkle and Matron to the patients and together they decide to exact revenge upon the pair for what they have done. Filming and locations. Interiors: Exteriors:
220600	Werewolves on Wheels is a 1971 American exploitation film that blends two genres: the outlaw biker film and the traditional horror movie. Plot. As a group of bikers moves across the desert, they come across an old church that a satanic cult has taken over. The cultists give them drugged food, and the bikers soon fall asleep. That night the cultists cast a curse on the biker leader's girlfriend, that makes her turn into a werewolf after nightfall; she soon infects her boyfriend. The bikers leave the church, and begin to be killed off whenever they stop for the night. Things come to a climax when the couple changes in front of the bikers, who quickly kill the beasts. The bikers return to the church to have their revenge, but stop when they see themselves in the cult-procession. Production. In many scenes, footage was used of real bikers with no experience or training in acting going about their lives as normal. Thus, parts of this film could be regarded as an early experiment in reality as entertainment.
1017651	Once Upon a Time in China IV is a 1993 Hong Kong martial arts action film directed by Yuen Bun. The film is the fourth installment the "Once Upon a Time in China" series; and co-written and produced by Tsui Hark who co-wrote and directed the first three installments, co-wrote and produced the film. The film also saw Vincent Zhao taking over the role of Chinese folk hero Wong Fei-hung from Jet Li, who played the character in the previous three films. Plot. The film is set in 1900, during the late Qing Dynasty, when Wong Fei-hung and his companions (his new romantic interest 14th Aunt, his father Wong Kei-ying, and his students Leung Foon and Clubfoot) face new enemies. This time, their opponents include German and British forces, as well as the xenophobic feminist Red Lantern Society. During a parade, the Red Lantern Society attacks a German church. Before things get out of control, Wong comes to the foreigners' aid and he fights with the society's members, who are armed with rope weapons and ether-filled lanterns. As the champion of the Lion Dance Competition in the third film, Wong is invited by a Chinese general to join him in representing China in an international lion dance competition. The contest is actually a challenge posed by the Eight-Nation Alliance to China, and the Chinese need to win in order to defend their sovereignty and put on a display of national strength. Since the competition is an international one, contestants are not limited to using lion masks, hence other animal masks, such as dragon, centipede and eagle, are present. Wong is late for the competition as he was busy dealing with the Red Lantern Society, so the general's dragon dance teams started without him. The contest turned out to be a brutal massacre, as the foreigners' animal masks are equipped with various types of weapons and they are using dirty tricks to ensure victory. The general and several dancers are killed in the contest. When Wong finally arrives, he is shocked and issues a formal challenge to the foreigners, requesting for a rematch. This time, Wong's teams are better prepared and they emerge victorious. Ironically, after Wong's triumph, he receives news that the armies of the Eight-Nation Alliance have invaded and occupied Beijing, inflicting a crushing defeat on China. Wong has no choice but to leave Beijing with his companions and return to Foshan. Box office. The departure of Jet Li and the reduced input of Tsui Hark heavily affected the box office takings. However, this also allowed the film to be made with much lower budget. Despite many negative reviews it received, the fourth installment grossed HK $11,301,790, a return significant enough for the producers to go ahead with the next film in the franchise, "Once Upon a Time in China V".
1743997	The series was adapted as an animated television series by J.C.Staff, initially broadcast on Fuji TV in two seasons from April to September 2005 and June to September 2006. The series was also adapted as a live action movie, which was released in theaters in Japan on July 22, 2006, and two pirate live-action television dramas in 2008, one broadcast in Japan on Fuji TV from January 8, 2008 to March 18, 2008 and the other broadcast in Taiwan on CTS beginning on May 25, 2008. Plot. Yūta Takemoto, Takumi Mayama and Shinobu Morita are three young men who live in the same apartment complex and are students at an art college in Tokyo.
1062596	Christopher Shannon "Chris" Penn (October 10, 1965 – January 24, 2006) was an American film and television actor known for his roles in such films as "The Wild Life", "Reservoir Dogs", "The Funeral", "Footloose", "Rush Hour", "True Romance", "All the Right Moves" and "Pale Rider" and in the video game "". Early life. Penn was born in Los Angeles, California, the youngest son of Leo Penn, an actor and director, and Eileen Ryan (née Annucci), an actress. His paternal grandparents were Jewish emigrants from Lithuania and Russia, and his mother was a Roman Catholic of Italian and Irish descent. According to Penn's mother, Leo Penn may have had distant Sephardic ancestry, as the family's surname was originally "Piñón". His brothers are actors Sean Penn and musician Michael Penn. Career. Penn started acting at the age of 12 at the Loft Studio and made his film debut in 1979’s "Charlie and the Talking Buzzard", starring Christopher Hanks. In 1983, he was featured in Francis Ford Coppola’s youth drama "Rumble Fish" and appeared in the high school football drama "All the Right Moves" as the best friend of Tom Cruise's character. He also appeared in the hit dance movie "Footloose" in 1984 as the best friend of Kevin Bacon's character; played a villain in the Clint Eastwood western "Pale Rider" (1985); and co-starred with his brother Sean Penn and mother Eileen Ryan in "At Close Range" (1986). Penn was typically cast as a tough character, featured as a villain or a working-class lug, or in a comic role. Two of his more memorable performances were in "Reservoir Dogs" as Nice Guy Eddie and "True Romance" as Nicky Dimes (both characters in scripts written by Quentin Tarantino). In 1996 he won the award for Best Supporting Actor at the Venice Film Festival for "The Funeral". In 1986, Chris was cast in a short run TV show titled "Young Riders". He appeared in season one as a villain and was killed by Josh Brolin's character William Hickock.
1038238	Bernard Hill (born 17 December 1944) is an English film, stage and television actor. In a career spanning thirty years, he is known for playing Yosser Hughes, the troubled 'hard man' whose life is falling apart in Alan Bleasdale's groundbreaking 1980s TV drama "Boys from the Blackstuff". He is also known for roles in blockbuster films, including Captain Edward Smith in "Titanic", King Théoden in "The Lord of the Rings" film trilogy and as the Warden of San Quentin Prison in the Clint Eastwood film "True Crime". Early life. Hill was born in Blackley, Manchester, Lancashire. He attended Xaverian College, and then Manchester Polytechnic School of Drama at the same time as Richard Griffiths. He graduated with a diploma in theatre in 1970. Career. "Boys from the Blackstuff". Hill first came to prominence in Britain through his Yosser Hughes, a Liverpool working class man ultimately driven to the edge by an uncaring system, in Alan Bleasdale's BBC "Play for Today", "The Black Stuff" and its more famous series sequel (also by Bleasdale), "Boys from the Blackstuff". His character's much-repeated phrase "Gizza job" (""Give us a job"") became popular with protesters against Margaret Thatcher's government, because of the high unemployment of the time. With his bemused brood of kids never let out of his sight, Bernard Hill's powerful depiction of a man crumbling before the audience's eyes brought him numerous awards but, as he later revealed, almost ""drove him to the edge of insanity"". Subsequent roles. Hill then appeared as Sergeant Putnam in "Gandhi" (1982), directed by Richard Attenborough. Though Hill did not figure prominently in the cast, he benefited from being part of an Oscar-winning film. Next up for Hill was Roger Donaldson’s "The Bounty" (1984), a fourth dramatisation of the famed mutiny on HMS "Bounty". He had previously taken smaller parts in a number of British television dramas, appearing in the acclaimed "I, Claudius" in 1976 as Gratus, the no-nonsense soldier of Caligula's bodyguard who drew Claudius from his hiding-place in the palace, and presented him as the proper heir to the empire, and also as Richard Plantagenet, Duke of York in the BBC Television Shakespeare 1982 productions of Shakespeare's "Henry VI" plays. In 1985, he played the lead role in a TV dramatisation of John Lennon's life, "A Journey in the Life". In addition to TV roles, Hill appeared on stage in "The Cherry Orchard", and the title roles in "Macbeth" and "A View from the Bridge". Hill starred alongside acting greats, including Anthony Hopkins, Laurence Olivier and Daniel Day-Lewis, as well as Mel Gibson and Liam Neeson. Hill then received critical acclaim for his performance as Joe Bradshaw in "Shirley Valentine" (1989), about a Liverpool housewife (Pauline Collins) who was a former anti-establishment rebel and engages in an extramarital affair. Hill added more prominent films to his resume, including "Mountains of the Moon" (1990), "Skallagrigg" (1994) and "Madagascar Skin" (1995). In the mid-1990s, Hill began appearing in films more regularly. His first major role in "The Ghost and the Darkness" (1996), starring Val Kilmer as a bridge-building engineer who must trust a big game hunter (Michael Douglas) despite their mutual animosity. Hill then went down with the ship when he played Captain Edward J. Smith on the ill-fated "Titanic" (1997), by James Cameron, with whom Hill got along quite well — an experience not shared by most working on the film. Being in the biggest grossing film of all time attracted attention to his career, as Hill became more sought-after for more prominent parts. Hill played Philos in "The Scorpion King" (2002), starring The Rock, Michael Clarke Duncan and Kelly Hu. Hill became known to a worldwide audience when he was cast in the role of King Théoden of Rohan in Peter Jackson's "The Lord of the Rings" film trilogy based on Tolkien's novel of the same name. Before casting him as King Théoden, director Peter Jackson considered Hill for the part of Gandalf. When he was due to leave the set at the end of production, Jackson gave Hill two gifts, Théoden's helmet and sword Herugrim. At the 2006 BAFTA TV Awards and International Emmy Award, Hill was nominated for his portrayal of David Blunkett in the one-off satirical drama, "A Very Social Secretary". Hill is one of the few actors who have acted in three films that went on to win the Academy Award for Best Picture. He did this with "Gandhi" (1982), "Titanic" (1997) and "" (2003). More recently, he held a minor role in the 2008 film "Valkyrie", as the commanding general of the German Afrika Korp X Panzer Division, and as a voice actor for Sir Walter Beck in "Fable III" (2010). Hill has been the narrator in many television documentaries. Due to his affinity and links to the region, along with his extensive CV in film, Hill was announced as a new patron and judge of the Norwich Film Festival, that was held on March 2012. He is currently filming "From There To Here", a three-part BBC drama series about Manchester. He plays Samuel Cotton who runs a sweet factory with his son. Personal life. Hill currently lives in Suffolk. He is married to Marianne Hill, and has a son named Gabriel. Selected stage and screen credits. Theatre. Information taken from filmreference.com Filmography. Information taken from filmreference.com, netglisme.com, and "The Internet Movie Database" Television. Information taken from "The Internet Movie Database"
1065123	Life or Something Like It is a 2002 romantic comedy/drama film directed by Stephen Herek. The film focuses on television reporter Lanie Kerrigan (Angelina Jolie) and her quest to find meaning in her life. The original music score was composed by David Newman. The film's taglines are: "Destiny is what you make of it" and "What if you only had 7 days to live?" Plot. Lanie Kerrigan (Angelina Jolie), a successful reporter for a Seattle television station interviews a self-proclaimed prophet, Jack (Tony Shalhoub), to find out if he really can predict football scores. Instead, Prophet Jack not only predicts the football score, and that it would hail the next day, but also that she would die in seven days, meaning the following Thursday. When his first two prophecies turn out to be correct, Kerrigan panics and again meets with Jack, asking him for another prophecy so that she can prove it wrong, which would imply uncertainty of her death. Jack tells her that there will be a relatively significant earthquake in San Francisco at 9:06 am; she hopes that it will be wrong but again it also becomes reality. Now Lanie becomes sure of her upcoming death and is forced to reevaluate her life.
1169372	Jenilee Harrison (born June 12, 1958) is an American actress possibly best known for her role as the replacement "dumb blonde" roommate Cindy Snow on the hit sitcom "Three's Company", between 1980 and 1982. She went on to play Jamie Ewing in "Dallas" from 1984 to 1986. Career. Early years. Before breaking into show business, Harrison was a cheerleader from 1978–1980 for the Los Angeles Rams. "Three's Company". Harrison joined the cast of ABC's "Three's Company" in 1980. She entered the show as a replacement for Suzanne Somers who played the sitcom's ditzy "dumb blonde" Chrissy Snow. Somers left the show just after the show's fifth season had begun. Harrison was cast as Somers' replacement. Harrison's character, Cindy Snow, was created to be Chrissy Snow's cousin. Unlike Chrissy, Cindy was not a "dumb blonde"; instead, she was an extremely clumsy farm-girl. The character of Cindy was similar enough to Chrissy, however, that producers could use scripts already written with the Chrissy character in mind. Harrison debuted on "Three's Company" in the episode en-titled "Chrissy's Cousin" (season 5, episode 7). She enters as Jack and Janet's new roommate after Chrissy's departure. Cindy proves she's a klutz right away by knocking Jack down. Her constant "accidents" (mainly with Jack) added to the show's gags of characters being clumsy. Even though she had replaced Somers, Harrison was not given opening credits billing, and instead Somers still obtained opening billing (as a part of finishing off her contract). Harrison was end-credits billed, as a guest star.
1510795	Thomas Ellis Gibson (born 3 July 1962) is an American actor and director. His best known roles include Daniel Nyland on CBS's "Chicago Hope", Greg Montgomery on ABC's "Dharma & Greg", and Aaron Hotchner on CBS's "Criminal Minds". Early life and education. Gibson was born in Charleston, South Carolina, the youngest of four children of Beth and Charles M. "Mac" Gibson. He is of Irish Catholic background. Gibson's interest in the performing arts began at a young age. Gibson was fascinated with Louis Armstrong. He and his sister were on a swim team together and they frequented a pizza parlor after their swim meets. It was at this pizza parlor that Gibson would then sing along with a Dixieland band, complete with his attempt at a Louis Armstrong voice. As a child, Gibson enrolled in Little Theater School and later graduated from Bishop England High School. He then attended the College of Charleston (1979–1981) and became an intern at the Alabama Shakespeare Festival, where he was encouraged to apply to the prestigious Juilliard School. After a year and a half at Charleston, Gibson won a scholarship to Juilliard's Drama Division ("Group 14": 1981–1985), where he graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in 1985. Career. Gibson's career in acting had an early start, beginning at just nine years of age in children's theater. He appeared in Julian Wiles' "Seize the Street: the Skateboard Musical", a Young Charleston Theater Company (now Charleston Stage) production. As a teenager, he began his classical theater training by becoming a member of the Young Charleston Theater Company and the Footlight Players, often performing at the historic Dock Street Theatre. During his time at College of Charleston, Gibson was an intern at the Alabama Shakespeare Festival. Gibson made his stage debut in David Hare's "A Map of the World" in the New York Shakespeare Festival. He subsequently did many more plays for producer Joe Papp, both in Public Theater and in Central Park. He worked on and off Broadway for the next 10 years in a diverse selection of plays by Shakespeare, Marlowe, Molière, Tennessee Williams, Howard Brenton, Romulus Linney, Noël Coward, Alan Ball and many others before turning to the small screen. Gibson also waited tables at Tavern on the Green, though it is not known what years this occurred. Gibson broke onto the small screen in 1987 by landing a guest role on CBS' legal drama "Leg Work", followed by stints on the daytime dramas "As the World Turns" (CBS) and "Another World" (NBC). In 1992, Gibson made his big screen debut in Ron Howard's "Far and Away", in which he portrayed Stephen Chase. Chase was the villainous rival of Joseph Donnelly (Tom Cruise) for Shannon Christie's (Nicole Kidman) affections. His next lead role in a film came the following year (1993) in Denys Arcand's "Love and Human Remains", in which he portrayed David, a homosexual waiter. Gibson later re-united with Arcand in "Stardom" (2000). Also in 1993, he played the slimy misanthrope Beauchamp Day in the "Tales of the City" miniseries (1993). Gibson then turned his attention back to the small screen and portrayed Dr. Danny Nyland in the CBS medical drama "Chicago Hope" from 1994 to 1998, starring alongside future "Criminal Minds" costar Mandy Patinkin. Then, in a comic turn, and in what is perhaps his best known work, Gibson portrayed "Greg Montgomery" in the ABC sitcom "Dharma & Greg" from 1997 to 2002, for which he was twice nominated for a Golden Globe Award.
1164143	Rhea Jo Perlman (born March 31, 1948) is an American actress, best known for her role as Carla Tortelli on the sitcom "Cheers", for which she won four Emmy Awards. Early life. Perlman was born in Brooklyn, New York, to Philip and Adele Perlman. Her father was an actor, and a doll-and toy-part salesman; he later played barfly Phil on Cheers. Her sister Heide Perlman is a writer, story editor, and producer on the television shows "Cheers" and "Frasier". Rhea Perlman attended Hunter College in New York and is an active Democrat. She began her acting career in 1972 when she played a bit role in the film "Hot Dogs for Gauguin". That same year she appeared in Westbeth Playwrights Feminist Collective's production of "Up – An Uppity Revue", along with her future husband, Danny DeVito. Career. Perlman began acting in the early 1970s with numerous appearances on TV films and short films. One of her first notable parts was a recurring role on the television show "Taxi" as Zena, girlfriend of Louie DePalma (played by Danny DeVito). In 1982 she landed a role as Carla Tortelli on the hit sitcom "Cheers." She won the Emmy four times, in 1984, 1985, 1986 and 1989. She was also nominated for a Golden Globe six times. During her "Cheers" career, she was nominated for an Emmy every year but 1992, becoming the "Cheers" star to have the most wins and nominations. In 1986, Perlman starred in an episode of Steven Spielberg's "Amazing Stories" titled "The Wedding Ring," which also starred DeVito as her character's husband.
1061809	Tom Berenger (born Thomas Michael Moore; May 31, 1949) is an Emmy Award-winning, Oscar-nominated American television and motion picture actor.
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1054410	3 Women is a 1977 American film written and directed by Robert Altman, and starring Shelley Duvall, Sissy Spacek and Janice Rule. It depicts the increasingly bizarre, mysterious relationship between a woman (Duvall) and her roommate (Spacek) in a dusty, underpopulated Californian town. The story came directly from a dream Altman had, which he did not fully understand but nonetheless adapted into a treatment, intending to film without a script. 20th Century Fox financed the project on the basis of Altman's reputation. A script was completed before filming, although, as with most Altman films, the script was preliminary for what emerged during production. Roger Ebert named this best film of 1977. For 27 years, the film was unavailable on home video. It gained the reputation of a cult film after frequent broadcasts on television in the 1980s and 1990s. The film was finally released on DVD in 2004 by the Criterion Collection, with a feature-length commentary by Altman. In 2011, it was released on Blu-ray, also by Criterion. Plot. Pinky Rose (Sissy Spacek), a timid and awkward young woman, begins a job at a health spa for the elderly in a small California desert town. There, she becomes enamored with Millie Lammoreaux (Shelley Duvall), a confident and talkative employee. Both natives of Texas, the two begin to develop a friendship and, in spite of their stark personality differences, decide to become roommates. Pinky moves in with Millie at the Purple Sage Apartments, owned by a has-been cowboy, Edgar Hart, and his wife Willie (Janice Rule), a mysterious pregnant woman who paints striking and unsettling murals. Millie takes Pinky along on her evening visits to Dodge City, a local tavern and shooting range also owned by Willie, where Millie talks incessantly. Tensions begin to rise between Pinky and Millie over their living situation; one night, when Millie prepares a dinner party for friends who fail to show up, she gets into a fight with Pinky and leaves the apartment, only to return with a drunk Edgar, and the two have sex. Pinky, distraught, jumps off of the apartment balcony into the swimming pool. Pinky survives the attempt but goes into a coma, and her parents arrive from Texas to visit her. When she regains consciousness, she doesn't recognize her parents and insists they aren't hers, and she is sent home with Millie to recover. As the two assimilate back into their lives, Pinky begins to exhibit increasingly uncharacteristic behaviors— she begins drinking and smoking, has an affair with Edgar, and spends her time at the shooting range, just as Millie had. Millie becomes increasingly frustrated by Pinky's imitative shift in personality, and begins to exhibit Pinky's timid and submissive personality herself. One night after Pinky has a bad dream (represented through an abstract montage of Millie crying and Willie's bizarre murals), a drunk Edgar enters their apartment and awakes them, telling them that Willie is about to give birth. The two drive to Edgar and Willie's farmhouse, where Willie is alone and in labor, and she gives birth to a stillborn. The film ends with Pinky and Millie, who are now working at Dodge City; a delivery vendor at the tavern references Edgar's "gun accident" to Millie, who seems unaffected by it, and Pinky appears to have reverted to her childlike timidity; she now refers to Millie as her mother. Pinky and Millie leave the tavern and walk to Willie's farmhouse, where the three of them begin to prepare dinner together. Interpretation. The minimal plot involves two women whose personalities are in sharp contrast when they first meet and move in together. The third woman of the titular three is a key supporting character—a mural artist (played by Rule) who owns, with her husband, the same apartment building. The events take place in a small desert community typical of those found east of Los Angeles. For obvious reasons the film has a dream-like quality, focusing more on behavior, mood and mystery than on plot devices.
1060924	Trading Places is a 1983 American comedy film directed by John Landis, starring Dan Aykroyd and Eddie Murphy. It tells the story of an upper class commodities broker and a homeless street hustler whose lives cross paths when they are unknowingly made part of an elaborate bet. Ralph Bellamy, Don Ameche, Denholm Elliott, and Jamie Lee Curtis also star. The storyline is often called a modern take on Mark Twain's classic 19th century novel "The Prince and the Pauper". The film was written by Timothy Harris and Herschel Weingrod and was produced by Aaron Russo. It was released to theaters in North America on June 8, 1983, where it was distributed by Paramount Pictures. The film earned over US$90 million during its theatrical run in the United States, finishing as the fourth highest earning film of the year and the second highest earning R-rated film of 1983. Denholm Elliott and Jamie Lee Curtis won the awards for Best Actor in a Supporting Role and Best Actress in a Supporting Role, respectively, at the 37th British Academy Film Awards. The film was nominated for several additional awards including Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy at the 41st Golden Globe Awards. Plot. Duke brothers Randolph and Mortimer own Duke & Duke, a successful commodities brokerage in Philadelphia. Holding opposing views on the issue of nature versus nurture, they make a wager and agree to conduct an experiment, switching the lives of two people at opposite ends of the social hierarchy and observing the results. They witness an encounter between their managing director—the well-mannered and educated Louis Winthorpe III, engaged to the Dukes' grand-niece Penelope—and a poor street hustler named Billy Ray Valentine. Valentine is arrested at Winthorpe's insistence because of a suspected robbery attempt. The Dukes decide to use the two men for their experiment. Winthorpe is framed as a thief and drugs are planted on him. He is fired from his job, his bank accounts are frozen, and he is denied entry to the Duke-owned town-house where he resides. He befriends a prostitute named Ophelia who allows him to stay at her apartment on the condition of receiving a reward once he re-establishes himself. Winthorpe finds himself ostracized and abandoned by Penelope and his former friends. Claiming to operate an assistance program for the underprivileged, the Dukes bail Valentine out of jail, install him in Winthorpe's position at the company and give him use of Winthorpe's home. Valentine becomes well-versed in the business and acts well-mannered, even applying his street smarts to the job. During the firm's Christmas party, Winthorpe is caught planting drugs in Valentine's desk in an attempt to get his job back. After Winthorpe flees, Valentine hides in a bathroom stall to smoke a joint he took from the desk. The Dukes enter the bathroom and, unaware of Valentine's presence, discuss the outcome of their experiment and settle their wager for $1. Valentine overhears this exchange and seeks out Winthorpe. After Winthorpe attempts suicide, Valentine, Ophelia and Winthorpe's former butler Coleman nurse him back to health and inform him of the Dukes' experiment. On television, they learn of a Clarence Beeks transporting a secret report on orange crop forecasts. Winthorpe and Valentine recall large payments made to Beeks by Duke & Duke and realize that the Dukes are planning to obtain this report to corner the market on frozen orange juice. The group agrees to disrupt their plan as revenge. Learning of Beeks' travel plans, the four board his train to switch the report with a forgery. Beeks uncovers their scheme and attempts to kill them. He fails and is subdued, and the group dress him in a gorilla costume and lock him in a cage with a real gorilla. The forgery is delivered to the Dukes. On the commodities trading floor, the Dukes commit all their holdings to buying frozen concentrated orange-juice futures contracts; other traders follow their lead, inflating the price. After Valentine is given a brief crash course in how the commodities market works, he and Winthorpe sell futures at the inflated price. Following the broadcast of the actual crop report, showing that the orange crop will be normal, the price of orange-juice futures plummets. Valentine and Winthorpe buy back their futures at the lower price from everyone but the Dukes, turning a large profit. The Dukes fail to meet a margin call, and are left owing $394 million. Valentine and Winthorpe explain to the Dukes that they made a wager on whether they could get rich while making the Dukes poor. Valentine collects $1 from Winthorpe while Randolph collapses holding his chest and Mortimer expresses outrage at his brother about their failed plan. Beeks and the gorilla are loaded onto a ship heading for Africa. The now wealthy Valentine, Winthorpe, Ophelia and Coleman vacation on a tropical beach. Themes. The storyline of "Trading Places"—a member of society trading places with another whose socio-economical status stands in direct contrast to his own—often draws comparisons to Mark Twain's novel "The Prince and the Pauper". First published in 1881, the novel follows the lives of a prince and a beggar—both of them of adolescent age—who use their uncanny resemblance to each other as a premise to switch places temporarily; the prince takes on a life of poverty and misery while the pauper enjoys the lavish luxuries of a royal life. Parallels have also been drawn between "Trading Places" and Mozart's 18th century comic opera "The Marriage of Figaro" in which a servant (Figaro) foils the plans of his rich master who tried to steal Figaro's bride to be. The music from "The Marriage of Figaro" is used as a cinematic narrative in the film when the viewers are introduced to the daily routine of protagonist Louis Winthorpe's privileged life with the opera's overture playing in the background. David Budd, in his 2002 book "Culture Meets Culture in the Movies", writes about the experiences of characters when the expected roles of races in society are sometimes reversed. The 1995 fiction film "White Man's Burden" and John Howard Griffin's factual book "Black Like Me" are used as a foundation to show how different the experience of white people can be when subjected to the prejudices faced by black people. In that respect, Budd proclaims "Trading Places" as "uncannily illustrative if heavy-handed". Beginning from the premise that, in the film, the "expectations of the races also stand upon their head", Budd states that "through even a highly comedic vessel a message loudly asking for a reassessment of prejudice, and for level playing fields, is heard." American philosopher and professor at Harvard University Stanley Cavell wrote about "Trading Places" in his 2005 book "Cavell on film". Cavell postulates that film is sometimes used as a new technology in the production and experience of an opera. He explains that this axiom asserts its importance not in the fact that "our time" sees an increased expectation of new operas being developed but, rather, in the fact that there is an increased expectation of "new productions of operas." Cavell draws a comparison of themes between "Trading Places" and the opera "The Marriage of Figaro", stating that "what "Trading Places" wants from its reference to "Figaro" is mostly the idea of resourceful and sociable young and poor overcoming with various disguises the conniving of the unsociable old and rich but with no sense that the old may be redeemed by a recognition of their faults and no revolutionary desire to see the world formed on a new basis." Cast. The cast also includes: Robert Curtis-Brown as Todd, Winthorpe's romantic rival for Penelope; James Belushi as Harvey, a party-goer on New Year's Eve; Jamie Lee Curtis' sister Kelly Curtis cameos as Penelope's friend Muffy; Frank Oz as a police officer; and Bo Diddley as a pawnbroker. Tom Davis and Al Franken, Aykroyd and Murphy's "Saturday Night Live" coworkers, cameo as train baggage handlers. Reception. Box office. "Trading Places" was released theatrically in the United States on June 8, 1983. During its opening weekend, the film earned $7.3 million from 1,375 theaters—an average of $5,334 per theater—ranking as the third highest grossing film of the weekend behind "Superman III" ($13.3 million)—debuting the same weekend—and "" ($11.2 million). The film remained in the top ten grossing films for 17 weeks. It went on to earn $90.4 million during its U.S. theatrical run, making it the 4th highest grossing film of 1983, behind "Flashdance" ($92.9 million), "Terms of Endearment" ($108.4 million) and "Return of the Jedi" ($252.5 million), and the second highest grossing R-rated film of 1983 behind "Flashdance". Adjusted for inflation, the film remains the number 58 highest-grossing R-rated film of all time. Critical response. Review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes gives the film an approval rating of 89% based on reviews from 38 critics, and an average rating of 7.2 out of 10, with the site's consensus "featuring deft interplay between Eddie Murphy and Dan Aykroyd, "Trading Places" is an immensely appealing social satire." Metacritic provides a score of 66 out of 100 from 9 critics, which indicates "generally favorable" reviews. Author and critic Richard Schickel of "Time" magazine called "Trading Places" "one of the most emotionally satisfying and morally gratifying comedies of recent times". While admitting Aykroyd's success in demonstrating "perfect prissiness as Winthorpe", Schickel commented on Murphy's performance as Valentine calling Murphy "a force to be reckoned with" and stating that he "makes "Trading Places" something more than a good-hearted comedy. He turns it into an event." Film critic Roger Ebert of "Chicago Sun-Times" awarded the film three and a half stars out of four while offering that the film resembles "Tootsie" and comparing it to comedies of Frank Capra and Preston Sturges. Ebert stated "This is good comedy", he commended the character development in the film calling the characters "wonderful comic inventions" and explained that its comedic success is because the film "develops the quirks and peculiarities of its characters, so that they're funny because of who they are." He further commented on the cast by favorably commenting on acting as "engaging", stating that "Murphy and Aykroyd are perfect foils for each other", that they're both capable of being "specifically eccentric", that "they both play characters with a lot of native intelligence" and concluding that "It's fun to watch them thinking." Commenting on Bellamy and Ameche in the roles of the Duke brothers, Ebert called their involvement in the film "a masterstroke of casting."
582279	Sarika Thakur, better known as Sarika, is an Indian actress. Early life. Sarika was born to a Marathi family in New Delhi, India. Career. Sarika started her film career as a child actor, Master Sooraj, playing the role of a boy during the 1960s in Bollywood. Her most notable and popular appearance as a child artist was in the 1967 musical superhit Hamraaz where she was seen as the daughter of Vimi named baby/saarika. She appeared in many children's movies as well as B grade movies. Later She moved to better films with Rajshri Productions "Geet Gaata Chal" with Sachin, with whom she starred in many Hindi and Marathi films and is known to have had a brief affair as well. After their breakup, she got involved with actor and model Deepak Parashar, before she came into contact with Kamal Hassan, whom she worked with in "Karishma". In her acting career, she was often cast as a "westernized girl" in films from 1980's. She gave up her career after her marriage to Kamal Hassan and moved to Chennai with him during the peak of her career. After separation, she has now made a comeback in Hindi films. She played Ipsita Ray Chakraverti in the film "Sacred Evil – A True Story" which failed at the box office.
1068868	A New Kind of Love is a 1963 American romantic comedy film directed by Melville Shavelson and starring Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward. Frank Sinatra sings in the credits the song A New Kind of Love. Plot. A journalist mistakes a woman for a prostitute. While he tries to interview her about her job he falls in love with her. Awards and nominations. Academy Award Golden Globe Award Laurel Awards
585685	Alibhai is a 2007 big budget film directed by Shaji Kailas. It stars Mohanlal and Gopika in leading roles. The film was a. super hit at the box office. Synopsis. Alibhai (Mohanlal) is the King "Dadha" of Palayam market, Kozhikode. He is the unquestionable hero in that area and savior of the poor and downtrodden. Ganga (Gopika) and Chenthamara (Navya Nair), who sell flowers in the market are crazy about Alibhai, but he has no time for romance because he devotes all his time fighting for the cause of the people. In his past, Alibhai had some bad experiences with his devils Siddique and Aryaman. They wanted to drive out Alibhai from the market and build a shopping mall with the help of local politicians. At one stage, they planted a bomb and killed many of his friends and neighbours. Alibhai got hold of them single-handedly and became the godfather for that area. Cast & Crew. Producer. Antony Perumbavoor Director. Shaji Kailas Music Director. Alex Paul
1067692	Philip Michael Bosco (born September 26, 1930) is an American actor. Personal life. Bosco was born in Jersey City, New Jersey, the son of Margaret Raymond (née Thek), a policewoman, and Philip Lupo Bosco, a carnival worker. His father was of Italian descent and his mother was of German ancestry. Bosco went to high school at St. Peter's Preparatory School in Jersey City. He attended the Catholic University of Washington, D.C. Bosco married Nancy Ann Dunkle on January 2, 1957. They have seven children, Jenny, Diane, Philip, Chris, John, Lisa, Celia and 15 grandchildren. A long-time resident of Teaneck, New Jersey, Bosco now lives in Haworth, New Jersey. Career. Bosco began his career in Broadway theatre. He received a Tony Award nomination for his debut in "The Rape of the Belt" in 1960 and spent the next three decades supporting major stars in classic revivals like "Cyrano de Bergerac", "King Lear," and "Twelfth Night." His speciality was George Bernard Shaw, winning raves for Broadway revivals of "Man and Superman", "Saint Joan", "Mrs. Warren's Profession", "Major Barbara", "Heartbreak House" (opposite Rex Harrison), and "You Never Can Tell," winning Tony nominations for the last three. He also appeared with Shirley Knight in the Roundabout Theatre Company revival of "Come Back, Little Sheba". Following his Tony-winning performance in the farce "Lend Me a Tenor" in 1990, Bosco appeared on Broadway in "An Inspector Calls" (1994), "The Heiress" (1995), "Twelfth Night" (1998), "Copenhagen" (2000), and "Twelve Angry Men" (2004). He played "Grandpa Potts" in the 2005 Broadway production of "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang", and capped his Shawian work as the aged Captain Shotover in a Broadway revival of "Heartbreak House" in 2006. He retired from the stage in 2009, after appearing in the City Center Encores production of Finian's Rainbow, although he leant his voice to Douglas Carter Beane's 2010 play "Mr. and Mrs. Fitch." Bosco has appeared regularly in the "Law & Order" franchise of television series, in various roles ranging from judges to lawyers to villains. (He is perhaps known for his role of Judge Joseph Terhune on "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit"). His film credits include "Hogan's Goat", "Working Girl", "Children of a Lesser God", "Nobody's Fool", "Wonder Boys", "The Money Pit", "Quick Change", "The First Wives Club" and "The Savages", with Philip Seymour Hoffman and Laura Linney. Bosco narrated the 1991 documentary film Coney Island, directed by Ric Burns and did the voice of a number of characters for his brother Ken's documentaries for PBS. Bosco also portrayed Vincenzo the butler in the 1995 comedy "It Takes Two," co-starring Steve Guttenberg, Kirstie Alley and Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen, and portrayed Walter Wallace, father of the bride-to-be in the 1997 romantic comedy "My Best Friend's Wedding", co-starring Julia Roberts, Cameron Diaz and Dermot Mulroney. In 1988, Bosco won a Daytime Emmy award for his appearance in the ABC Weekend Special 'Read Between The Lines'. Bosco was a series regular on the FX original series "Damages". He read "Desert Giant: The World of the Saguaro Cactus" by Barbara Bash as its narrator on the PBS series "Reading Rainbow" in its sixty-second episode on March 27, 1990. It was shot in Arizona's Sonoran Desert.
585212	Velaikaran (Tamil: வேலைக்காரன்; English: "Servant") is a Tamil film directed by SP. Muthuraman, starring Rajinikanth, Sarath Babu and Amala. This film is the remake of the Bollywood film "Namak Halaal" starring Amitabh Bachchan, Shashi Kapoor, Smita Patil and Parveen Babi in the lead. The movie became blockbuster in Kollywood box office and broken many records. Plot. Young Ragupathy(Rajinikanth) is brought up by his paternal grandfather Valayapathy (V.K.Ramasamy). He decides for him to go to the city in search of a new job and life. While in the city he meets up with Senthil who guides him into an interview in a 5-star hotel owned by Rajkumar (Sarath Babu). While in the hotel, Ragupathy meets Amala and falls in love with her. During this time, many attempts are made to kill Rajkumar by his uncle and son Nassar. The blame for this murders goes to Rajkumar'smother K. R. Vijaya, who is actually Ragupathy's mother. Realising all this Ragupathy takes an oath no matter what happens he will not let any harm come to Rajkumar. As these attempts are being made, can Ragupathy thwart them all? Music. The music composed by Ilaiyaraaja and lyrics written by Mu. Metha.
589080	Kora Kagaz (Hindi: कोरा कागज़; translation: Blank Paper) is a 1974 Hindi drama film produced by Sanath Kothari and directed by Anil Ganguly. The film stars Vijay Anand, Jaya Bhaduri, A.K. Hangal, Achala Sachdev and Deven Verma. The films music is by Kalyanji Anandji. The famous title song "Mera Jeevan Kora Kagaz" was by Kishore Kumar. The film is based on a story "Saat Paake Bandha" by Ashutosh Mukhopadhyay and is a remake of a Bengali film by the same name "Saat Pake Bandha"(1963) starring Suchitra Sen. Plot. Professor Sukesh Dutt (Vijay Anand) and Archana Gupta (Jaya Bhaduri) meet each other in a chance encounter while traveling by BEST bus service in Mumbai. Their meeting again results in formal introduction to each other. Both get attracted to each other and get married. Archana's mother does not like Sukesh due to his modest income. She makes up stories about their affluence, which offends Sukesh. This results in acrimony between Archana and Sukesh, and they decide to separate. Archana goes to live with her parents, while Sukesh relocates. Archana's family asks her to forget Sukesh, and re-marry, which Archana finds difficult since she still has feelings for Sukesh.
589124	Chhoti Si Baat (Devnagari: छोटी सी बात) is a 1975 Hindi romantic comedy film directed by Basu Chatterjee. The film's title means "Such a Small Thing" in Hindi. Considered one of the best Hindi comedy films of the 1970s, it is a nostalgic favourite for its quirky take on pre-hypercongestion Bombay. The film became a box office hit and also earned Filmfare nominations and a Filmfare Award for Best Screenplay for Basu Chatterjee. It also established Amol Palekar as having an uncommon comic talent for playing mousy characters, a role he would go on to repeat several times in his career. This movie is based on "School for Scoundrels", a 1960 British Comedy which itself was based on the "Gamesmanship" series of books by Stephen Potter. As with other Basu Chatterjee films, moviestars have small cameos playing themselves: Dharmendra and Hema Malini(whose mother Jaya Chakravarthy helped produce the film) are in a movie-within-a-movie for the song "Janneman janneman," while Amitabh Bachchan plays himself in another scene, where he seeks advice from Ashok Kumar's character. He is dressed in costume from Zameer (1974 film), whose film poster is prominently displayed at the bus stop scenes in "Chhoti Si Baat." B.R. Chopra, is the producer for Zameer (1974 film), just as he is for "Chhoti Si Baat." Synopsis. "Chhoti Si Baat" is a romantic comedy about a painfully shy young man Arun Pradeep (Amol Palekar), who lacks self-confidence and fails to stand up for his convictions, in the process letting all and sundry walk all over him. One fine day he comes across Prabha Narayan (Vidya Sinha) at the bus stop en route to work and it's love at first sight... for Arun that is. Lacking enough courage and unsure if his feelings are reciprocated, he pines for her from afar and follows her around, at a safe distance (or so he thinks). Prabha, fully aware of his affections, secretly relishes his discomfort, while waiting for him to make the first move.
1557865	Snow White and the Three Stooges is the second feature film to star the Three Stooges after their 1959 resurgence in popularity. By this time, the trio consisted of Moe Howard, Larry Fine, and Joe DeRita (dubbed "Curly Joe"). Released by 20th Century Fox, this was the trio's take on the classic fairy tale "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs". The film was retitled Snow White and the Three Clowns in Great Britain. Olympic gold medalist figure skater Carol Heiss starred as Snow White, who must flee her home after her stepmother wishes her to be dead. Seeking refuge in the cottage of the seven dwarfs, she accidentally meets the Stooges, who are house sitting for them while they are away. Plot. Once upon a time, in the kingdom of Fortunia, a noble king and his lovely young queen lack but one blessing to make their joy complete. The queen gives birth to a daughter named Snow White, but dies soon after. The king mourns her, but in time, he remarries because of the pleading of his people. His new Queen is a beautiful, but evil woman who soon becomes jealous of Snow White's beauty. On her 17th birthday, Snow White's father dies and the wicked queen immediately imprisons her. Eventually, the queen's jealousy of her stepdaughter becomes so great that she orders her killed. Snow White escapes her hired assassin and finds refuge in the empty cottage of the seven dwarfs, soon to be joined by the Three Stooges, who are traveling to the castle with their ward Quatro. But the boy they have raised since childhood (also narrowly escaping an assassination attempt by the queen) is in reality Prince Charming, who though he has lost his memory, is betrothed to Snow White. Snow White and the Prince fall in love, but the queen has him kidnapped when she suspects his true identity. The Stooges, disguised as cooks, attempt to rescue him, but he falls from a staircase in the palace and is presumed dead. Meanwhile, the queen learns from her magic mirror that Snow White is still alive. With the help of her magician, Count Oga, she transforms herself into a witch and succeeds in getting Snow White to take a bite from a poisoned apple. As she rides back to the palace, she encounters the Stooges, and thanks to an inadvertent wish they make on a magic sword (stolen from Count Oga), she crashes her broom into a mountainside and falls to her death. The Stooges then find the poisoned Snow White, but they do not bury her. Instead, they place her on a bed, and pray to her each day. Meanwhile, the Prince (Quatro) has not died from his fall. Instead, he is saved by a group of men who want to revolt against the Evil Queen's rule over Fortunia. As the prince recovers, he realizes that his memory has returned, and so he knows that he is indeed a Prince, and that Snow White is the princess he was destined to marry. After leading a successful revolt which places him on the throne of Fortunia, the prince sends out searchers to find Snow White and the Stooges, unaware that, thanks to yet another inadvertent wish on Count Oga's sword, they are no longer in the country of Fortunia. All searches are fruitless, and Prince Charming is close to giving up hope when he learns of the Evil Queen's magic mirror. The mirror responds truthfully to the desperate Prince's pleas, and the Prince sets off on his journey. He arrives at the Stooges' cabin just in time to dispel the effects of the poisoned apple. Snow White and Prince Charming are married and live happily ever after. Production. Frank Tashlin was originally set to direct the film at a budget of $750,000 ($ today). Fox then replaced him with Walter Lang, who had previously directed the Stooges in 1933's "Meet the Baron". Lang transformed the film into a lavish epic with a budget of $3.5 million ($ today), making it the most expensive film the Stooges ever made. The film was produced and co-written by future U.S. Information Agency head Charles Z. Wick. Edson Stroll's singing voice was dubbed by Bill Lee. Patricia Medina later recalled that Carol Heiss repeatedly tried to get her fired from the film. Reception. Despite the signifcant investment, "Snow White and the Three Stooges" did poorly at the box office. The only 1960s Stooge feature filmed in color, it also became the least popular. Critics did not take kindly to the film, citing a lack of on-screen time for the trio. The studio was unable to recover the film's costs because the comedy-fantasy was tailored specifically to children who paid only fifty cents each for admission. It would have taken an audience of over 15 million minors for "Snow White and the Three Stooges" to merely break even. Moe Howard himself often referred to the film as "a Technicolor mistake." The film, however, was nominated for the Writers Guild of America award for Best Musical Screenplay for 1961.
1103520	A round-off error, also called rounding error, is the difference between the calculated approximation of a number and its exact mathematical value. Numerical analysis specifically tries to estimate this error when using approximation equations and/or algorithms, especially when using finitely many digits to represent real numbers (which in theory have infinitely many digits). This is a form of quantization error. When a sequence of calculations subject to rounding error is made, errors may accumulate, sometimes dominating the calculation. Cases where significant error accumulates are known as ill-conditioned. Representation error. The error introduced by attempting to represent a number using a finite string of digits is called "representation error". Here are some examples of representation error in decimal representations: Increasing the number of digits allowed in a representation reduces the magnitude of possible round-off errors, but any representation limited to finitely many digits will still cause some degree of round-off error for uncountably many real numbers. Additional digits used for intermediary steps of a calculation are known as guard digits. Rounding multiple times can cause error to accumulate. For example, if 9.945309 is rounded to two decimal places (9.95), then rounded again to one decimal place (10.0), the total error is 0.054691. Rounding 9.945309 to one decimal place (9.9) in a single step introduces less error (0.045309). This commonly occurs when performing arithmetic operations (See Loss of Significance). Standardized Rounding Methods. There are five standard ways of performing the rounding in IEEE standard arithmetic: Breaking ties by rounding towards an even value preserves the expected value of the original number and treats positive and negative numbers symmetrically, and also slightly more often supplies an even number that is less likely than an odd number to cause a rounding decision in later computations if those are similar to the computation that resulted in falling at just that midpoint (e.g., if it is being fed back into an iteration). It is common practice in meteorology to round published temperatures towards an odd value in such situations; this has all the same properties apart from the last.
1057811	Michael James "Mike" Vogel (born July 17, 1979) is an American actor and former fashion model. Vogel began acting in 2001, and has since appeared in several films and series, including "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre", "The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants", "Grind", "Poseidon", "Blue Valentine", "The Help", and "Cloverfield". He plays Dale "Barbie" Barbara, the protagonist in the CBS science-fiction drama "Under the Dome". Early life. Vogel was born in Abington Township, Pennsylvania and raised in Warminster Township, Pennsylvania, he is of German descent; both of his grandfathers fought in World War II, with one being a tank commander and fighting in the Battle of the Bulge, and the other being a Seabee in the Navy. Vogel has two younger siblings: a brother, Daniel Aaron, and a sister, Kristin. Vogel attended William Tennent High School, the same high school as Sprint spokesman Brian Baker and boxer Kermit Cintron, where Vogel was on the Freshman wrestling team. During the early 2000s, he frequently traveled to New York City in order to audition for acting roles and modeling slots. Career. Vogel began modeling for Levi's, and was subsequently cast in the television series "Grounded for Life" appearing in a recurring role between 2001 and 2004. His first film role was in the skateboarding-themed "Grind", which was released on August 15, 2003. The film's co-stars included Adam Brody and Jennifer Morrison. Vogel's next role was in the made-for-television remake of "Wuthering Heights", which premiered on MTV a month after "Grind"'s release, in September 2003. In the film, Vogel played Heath opposite Erika Christensen's Kate. Vogel's last 2003 role was in the remake of "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre", which was released in October to high box office performance. In 2005, after "Grounded for Life" was canceled, Vogel appeared in four film roles. First, he played Eric Richman, the romantic interest of Blake Lively's character in "The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants", which had a June release. His next role was the lead in the low-budget film, "Supercross", which was theatrically released in August. Vogel filmed his role in "Havoc", a dark, R-rated drama also starring Anne Hathaway, in 2003, but the film was not released until November 2005, when it bypassed theaters and was released directly-to-video. Vogel's final 2005 role was in "Rumor Has It...", starring Jennifer Aniston, in which he had a supporting role as the son of Kevin Costner's character. Vogel's first 2006 role was in the disaster film "Poseidon", a remake of the 1972 film "The Poseidon Adventure"; he plays the fiancé of Emmy Rossum's character. The film, which had a budget of $160m, opened on May 12 grossed  $181,674,817 at the international box office. Vogel was originally offered the role of Angel in "", but backed out to appear in "Poseidon". The same year, he appeared in "Caffeine", a romantic comedy and signed to appear in a horror movie called "Open Graves", shot in Spain. In 2007, Vogel appeared in the film "The Deaths Of Ian Stone", part of the horror film festival 8 Films to Die For. In 2009, Vogel starred in the neo-noir film "Across The Hall" and the horror film "Open Graves". He was part of the 2010 romantic comedy film "She's Out of My League", "Blue Valentine", TV series "Miami Medical" and "Heaven's Rain". Vogel was part of the 2011 comedy film "What's Your Number?" and plays Johnny Foote in the film adaption "The Help". He most recently played Dean on the short-lived ABC drama "Pan Am" (based on the defunct airline of the same name), and appeared as Deputy Zach Shelby in the first seven episodes of "Bates Motel", A&E's contemporary prequel series to the 1959 novel "Psycho". BuddyTV ranked him #96 on its list of "TV's Sexiest Men of 2011". As of June 2013, Vogel stars as Dale "Barbie" Barbara on the CBS science-fiction drama series "Under the Dome", based on the novel of the same name by Stephen King. The series has been renewed for a second season to air in 2014. Personal life. Vogel married Courtney, a former model in January 2003, and has two pugs, Orlando and Olivia. Mike and Courtney have three daughters: Cassy Renee Vogel, born 2007; Charlee B. Vogel, born 2009; Chanel Grace Vogel, born 2013; the family resides in Austin, Texas.
583529	Janbaaz is a 1986 Indian film directed by Feroz Khan. The movie became popular for its steamy sex scene of Anil Kapoor and Dimple Kapadia. Plot. Rana Vikram Singh lives in a huge farmhouse with his wife, Laxmi and two sons: Rajesh (Feroz Khan), a police officer and Amar (Anil Kapoor), a fun-loving playboy. Amar's entry begins with him playing a round of loaded Russian Roulette which he wins and proclaims himself jaanbaaz. Rajesh has gone through a traumatic experience of losing his love Seema (Sridevi), when she succumbed to drug addiction. He vows to fight the drug menace. An underworld kingpin Raja (Shakti Kapoor) murders Rana's old friend. Reshma (Dimple Kapadia), his friend's daughter, takes shelter in Rana's house. Rajesh is on the drug trail. Reshma's father lost a huge bet (by being tricked) to Raja after which Raja killed him in a fake accident. When Reshma comes to live with them, Amar has sex with her in a barn. After enjoying Reshma and stealing her virginity, Amar refuses to marry her. Reshma is heartbroken but continues to move on with her life. When Rana comes to know of Amar's interest in Reshma, he warns him that Reshma is not suitable for their family. But Amar maintains an interest and is jealous to see Reshma in the company of Vikas, an employee at the farmhouse. A fight ensues between Vikas and Amar, and Vikas is killed. Amar is now on the run, and Rajesh has been assigned the task of apprehending him.
674333	Veronika Voss (, "The Longing of Veronika Voss") is a black-and-white 1982 film directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder. This, Fassbinder's penultimate film, is the second film of his BRD Trilogy, coming between "The Marriage of Maria Braun" and "Lola". It is also the last film released in Fassbinder's lifetime.
64788	In 1642, while still a teenager, he started some pioneering work on calculating machines. After three years of effort and fifty prototypes, he invented the mechanical calculator. He built 20 of these machines (called Pascal's calculators and later Pascalines) in the following ten years. Pascal was an important mathematician, helping create two major new areas of research: he wrote a significant treatise on the subject of projective geometry at the age of 16, and later corresponded with Pierre de Fermat on probability theory, strongly influencing the development of modern economics and social science. Following Galileo and Torricelli, in 1646 he refuted Aristotle's followers who insisted that nature abhors a vacuum. Pascal's results caused many disputes before being accepted. In 1646, he and his sister Jacqueline identified with the religious movement within Catholicism known by its detractors as Jansenism. His father died in 1651. Following a mystical experience in late 1654, he had his "second conversion", abandoned his scientific work, and devoted himself to philosophy and theology. His two most famous works date from this period: the "Lettres provinciales" and the "Pensées", the former set in the conflict between Jansenists and Jesuits. In this year, he also wrote an important treatise on the arithmetical triangle. Between 1658 and 1659 he wrote on the cycloid and its use in calculating the volume of solids. Pascal had poor health, especially after his 18th year, and his death came just two months after his 39th birthday. Early life and education. Pascal was born in Clermont-Ferrand; he lost his mother, Antoinette Begon, at the age of three. His father, Étienne Pascal (1588–1651), who also had an interest in science and mathematics, was a local judge and member of the "Noblesse de Robe". Pascal had two sisters, the younger Jacqueline and the elder Gilberte. In 1631, five years after the death of his wife, Étienne Pascal moved with his children to Paris. The newly arrived family soon hired Louise Delfault, a maid who eventually became an instrumental member of the family. Étienne, who never remarried, decided that he alone would educate his children, for they all showed extraordinary intellectual ability, particularly his son Blaise. The young Pascal showed an amazing aptitude for mathematics and science. Particularly of interest to Pascal was a work of Desargues on conic sections. Following Desargues' thinking, the 16-year-old Pascal produced, as a means of proof, a short treatise on what was called the "Mystic Hexagram", "Essai pour les coniques" ("Essay on Conics") and sent it—his first serious work of mathematics—to Père Mersenne in Paris; it is known still today as Pascal's theorem. It states that if a hexagon is inscribed in a circle (or conic) then the three intersection points of opposite sides lie on a line (called the Pascal line). Pascal's work was so precocious that Descartes was convinced that Pascal's father had written it. When assured by Mersenne that it was, indeed, the product of the son not the father, Descartes dismissed it with a sniff: "I do not find it strange that he has offered demonstrations about conics more appropriate than those of the ancients," adding, "but other matters related to this subject can be proposed that would scarcely occur to a 16-year-old child." In France at that time offices and positions could be—and were—bought and sold. In 1631 Étienne sold his position as second president of the "Cour des Aides" for 65,665 livres. The money was invested in a government bond which provided if not a lavish then certainly a comfortable income which allowed the Pascal family to move to, and enjoy, Paris. But in 1638 Richelieu, desperate for money to carry on the Thirty Years' War, defaulted on the government's bonds. Suddenly Étienne Pascal's worth had dropped from nearly 66,000 livres to less than 7,300. Like so many others, Étienne was eventually forced to flee Paris because of his opposition to the fiscal policies of Cardinal Richelieu, leaving his three children in the care of his neighbor Madame Sainctot, a great beauty with an infamous past who kept one of the most glittering and intellectual salons in all France. It was only when Jacqueline performed well in a children's play with Richelieu in attendance that Étienne was pardoned. In time Étienne was back in good graces with the cardinal, and in 1639 had been appointed the king's commissioner of taxes in the city of Rouen — a city whose tax records, thanks to uprisings, were in utter chaos. In 1642, in an effort to ease his father's endless, exhausting calculations, and recalculations, of taxes owed and paid, Pascal, not yet 19, constructed a mechanical calculator capable of addition and subtraction, called Pascal's calculator or the Pascaline. The Musée des Arts et Métiers in Paris and the Zwinger museum in Dresden, Germany, exhibit two of his original mechanical calculators. Though these machines are early forerunners to computer engineering, the calculator failed to be a great commercial success. Because it was extraordinarily expensive the Pascaline became little more than a toy, and status symbol, for the very rich both in France and throughout Europe. However, Pascal continued to make improvements to his design through the next decade and built 20 machines in total. Contributions to mathematics. Pascal continued to influence mathematics throughout his life. His "Traité du triangle arithmétique" ("Treatise on the Arithmetical Triangle") of 1653 described a convenient tabular presentation for binomial coefficients, now called Pascal's triangle. The triangle can also be represented: He defines the numbers in the triangle by recursion: Call the number in the ("m" + 1)th row and ("n" + 1)th column "t""mn". Then "t""mn" = "t""m"–1,"n" + "t""m","n"–1, for "m" = 0, 1, 2, ... and "n" = 0, 1, 2, ... The boundary conditions are "t""m",−1 = 0, "t"−1,"n" = 0 for "m" = 1, 2, 3, ... and "n" = 1, 2, 3, ... The generator "t"00 = 1. Pascal concludes with the proof, In 1654, prompted by a friend interested in gambling problems, he corresponded with Fermat on the subject, and from that collaboration was born the mathematical theory of probabilities. The friend was the Chevalier de Méré, and the specific problem was that of two players who want to finish a game early and, given the current circumstances of the game, want to divide the stakes fairly, based on the chance each has of winning the game from that point. From this discussion, the notion of expected value was introduced. Pascal later (in the "Pensées") used a probabilistic argument, Pascal's Wager, to justify belief in God and a virtuous life. The work done by Fermat and Pascal into the calculus of probabilities laid important groundwork for Leibniz' formulation of the infinitesimal calculus. After a religious experience in 1654, Pascal mostly gave up work in mathematics. Philosophy of mathematics. Pascal's major contribution to the philosophy of mathematics came with his "De l'Esprit géométrique" ("Of the Geometrical Spirit"), originally written as a preface to a geometry textbook for one of the famous ""Petites-Ecoles de Port-Royal" ("Little Schools of Port-Royal")". The work was unpublished until over a century after his death. Here, Pascal looked into the issue of discovering truths, arguing that the ideal of such a method would be to found all propositions on already established truths. At the same time, however, he claimed this was impossible because such established truths would require other truths to back them up—first principles, therefore, cannot be reached. Based on this, Pascal argued that the procedure used in geometry was as perfect as possible, with certain principles assumed and other propositions developed from them. Nevertheless, there was no way to know the assumed principles to be true. Pascal also used "De l'Esprit géométrique" to develop a theory of definition. He distinguished between definitions which are conventional labels defined by the writer and definitions which are within the language and understood by everyone because they naturally designate their referent. The second type would be characteristic of the philosophy of essentialism. Pascal claimed that only definitions of the first type were important to science and mathematics, arguing that those fields should adopt the philosophy of formalism as formulated by Descartes. In "De l'Art de persuader" ("On the Art of Persuasion"), Pascal looked deeper into geometry's axiomatic method, specifically the question of how people come to be convinced of the axioms upon which later conclusions are based. Pascal agreed with Montaigne that achieving certainty in these axioms and conclusions through human methods is impossible. He asserted that these principles can be grasped only through intuition, and that this fact underscored the necessity for submission to God in searching out truths. Contributions to the physical sciences. Pascal's work in the fields of the study of hydrodynamics and hydrostatics centered on the principles of hydraulic fluids. His inventions include the hydraulic press (using hydraulic pressure to multiply force) and the syringe. He proved that hydrostatic pressure depends not on the weight of the fluid but on the elevation difference. He demonstrated this principle by attaching a thin tube to a barrel full of water and filling the tube with water up to the level of the third floor of a building. This caused the barrel to leak, in what became known as Pascal's barrel experiment. By 1646, Pascal had learned of Evangelista Torricelli's experimentation with barometers. Having replicated an experiment that involved placing a tube filled with mercury upside down in a bowl of mercury, Pascal questioned what force kept some mercury in the tube and what filled the space above the mercury in the tube. At the time, most scientists contended that, rather than a vacuum, some invisible matter was present. This was based on the Aristotelian notion that creation was a thing of substance, whether visible or invisible; and that this substance was forever in motion. Furthermore, "Everything that is in motion must be moved by something," Aristotle declared. Therefore, to the Aristotelian trained scientists of Pascal's time, a vacuum was an impossibility. How so? As proof it was pointed out: Following more experimentation in this vein, in 1647 Pascal produced "Experiences nouvelles touchant le vide" ("New Experiments with the Vacuum"), which detailed basic rules describing to what degree various liquids could be supported by air pressure. It also provided reasons why it was indeed a vacuum above the column of liquid in a barometer tube. On 19 September 1648, after many months of Pascal's friendly but insistent prodding, Florin Périer, husband of Pascal's elder sister Gilberte, was finally able to carry out the fact-finding mission vital to Pascal's theory. The account, written by Périer, reads: "The weather was chancy last Saturday... around five o'clock that morning...the Puy-de-Dôme was visible...so I decided to give it a try. Several important people of the city of Clermont had asked me to let them know when I would make the ascent...I was delighted to have them with me in this great work... "...at eight o'clock we met in the gardens of the Minim Fathers, which has the lowest elevation in town...First I poured 16 pounds of quicksilver...into a vessel...then took several glass tubes...each four feet long and hermetically sealed at one end and opened at the other...then placed them in the vessel quicksilver...I found the quick silver stood at 26" and 3½ lines above the quicksilver in the vessel...I repeated the experiment two more times while standing in the same spot... produced the same result each time... "I attached one of the tubes to the vessel and marked the height of the quicksilver and...asked Father Chastin, one of the Minim Brothers...to watch if any changes should occur through the day...Taking the other tube and a portion of the quick silver...I walked to the top of Puy-de-Dôme, about 500 fathoms higher than the monastery, where upon experiment...found that the quicksilver reached a height of only 23" and 2 lines...I repeated the experiment five times with care...each at different points on the summit...found the same height of quicksilver...in each case..." Pascal replicated the experiment in Paris by carrying a barometer up to the top of the bell tower at the church of Saint-Jacques-de-la-Boucherie, a height of about fifty meters. The mercury dropped two lines. In the face of criticism that some invisible matter must exist in Pascal's empty space, Pascal, in his reply to Estienne Noel, gave one of the 17th century's major statements on the scientific method, which is a striking anticipation of the idea popularised by Karl Popper that scientific theories are characterised by their falsifiability: "In order to show that a hypothesis is evident, it does not suffice that all the phenomena follow from it; instead, if it leads to something contrary to a single one of the phenomena, that suffices to establish its falsity." His insistence on the existence of the vacuum also led to conflict with other prominent scientists, including Descartes. Pascal introduced a primitive form of roulette and the roulette wheel in the 17th century in his search for a perpetual motion machine. Adult life, religion, philosophy, and literature. Religious conversion. In the winter of 1646, Pascal's 58 year-old father broke his hip when he slipped and fell on an icy street of Rouen; given the man's age and the state of medicine in the 17th century, a broken hip could be a very serious condition, perhaps even fatal. Rouen was home to two of the finest doctors in France: Monsieur Doctor Deslandes and Monsieur Doctor de La Bouteillerie. The elder Pascal "would not let anyone other than these men attend him...It was a good choice, for the old man survived and was able to walk again..." But treatment and rehabilitation took three months, during which time La Bouteillerie and Deslandes had become household guests. Both men were followers of Jean Guillebert, proponent of a splinter group from the main body of Catholic teaching known as Jansenism. This still fairly small sect was making surprising inroads into the French Catholic community at that time. It espoused rigorous Augustinism. Blaise spoke with the doctors frequently, and upon his successful treatment of Étienne, borrowed works by Jansenist authors from them. In this period, Pascal experienced a sort of "first conversion" and began to write on theological subjects in the course of the following year. Pascal fell away from this initial religious engagement and experienced a few years of what some biographers have called his "worldly period" (1648–54). His father died in 1651 and left his inheritance to Pascal and Jacqueline, of which Pascal acted as her conservator. Jacqueline announced that she would soon become a postulant in the Jansenist convent of Port-Royal. Pascal was deeply affected and very sad, not because of her choice, but because of his chronic poor health; he too needed her. "Suddenly there was war in the Pascal household. Blaise pleaded with Jacqueline not to leave, but she was adamant. He commanded her to stay, but that didn't work, either. At the heart of this was...Blaise's fear of abandonment...if Jacqueline entered Port-Royal, she would have to leave her inheritance behind... nothing would change her mind." By the end of October in 1651, a truce had been reached between brother and sister. In return for a healthy annual stipend, Jacqueline signed over her part of the inheritance to her brother. Gilberte had already been given her inheritance in the form of a dowry. In early January, Jacqueline left for Port-Royal. On that day, according to Gilberte concerning her brother, "He retired very sadly to his rooms without seeing Jacqueline, who was waiting in the little parlor..." In early June 1653, after what must have seemed like endless badgering from Jacqueline, Pascal formally signed over the whole of his sister's inheritance to Port-Royal, which, to him, "had begun to smell like a cult." With two thirds of his father's estate now gone, the 29-year-old Pascal was now consigned to genteel poverty. For a while, Pascal pursued the life of a bachelor. During visits to his sister at Port-Royal in 1654, he displayed contempt for affairs of the world but was not drawn to God. Brush with death. On 23 November 1654, between 10:30 and 12:30 at night, Pascal had an intense religious vision and immediately recorded the experience in a brief note to himself which began: "Fire. God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob, not of the philosophers and the scholars..." and concluded by quoting Psalm 119:16: "I will not forget thy word. Amen." He seems to have carefully sewn this document into his coat and always transferred it when he changed clothes; a servant discovered it only by chance after his death. This piece is now known as the "Memorial". The story of the carriage accident as having led to the experience described in the "Memorial" is disputed by some scholars. His belief and religious commitment revitalized, Pascal visited the older of two convents at Port-Royal for a two-week retreat in January 1655. For the next four years, he regularly travelled between Port-Royal and Paris. It was at this point immediately after his conversion when he began writing his first major literary work on religion, the "Provincial Letters". The "Provincial Letters". Beginning in 1656, Pascal published his memorable attack on casuistry, a popular ethical method used by Catholic thinkers in the early modern period (especially the Jesuits, and in particular Antonio Escobar). Pascal denounced casuistry as the mere use of complex reasoning to justify moral laxity and all sorts of sins. The 18-letter series was published between 1656 and 1657 under the pseudonym Louis de Montalte and incensed Louis XIV. The king ordered that the book be shredded and burnt in 1660. In 1661, in the midsts of the formulary controversy, the Jansenist school at Port-Royal was condemned and closed down; those involved with the school had to sign a 1656 papal bull condemning the teachings of Jansen as heretical. The final letter from Pascal, in 1657, had defied Alexander VII himself. Even Pope Alexander, while publicly opposing them, nonetheless was persuaded by Pascal's arguments. Aside from their religious influence, the "Provincial Letters" were popular as a literary work. Pascal's use of humor, mockery, and vicious satire in his arguments made the letters ripe for public consumption, and influenced the prose of later French writers like Voltaire and Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Wide praise has been given to the "Provincial Letters". The "Pensées". Pascal's most influential theological work, referred to posthumously as the "Pensées" ("Thoughts"), was not completed before his death. It was to have been a sustained and coherent examination and defense of the Christian faith, with the original title "Apologie de la religion Chrétienne" ("Defense of the Christian Religion"). The first version of the numerous scraps of paper found after his death appeared in print as a book in 1669 titled "Pensées de M. Pascal sur la religion, et sur quelques autres sujets" ("Thoughts of M. Pascal on religion, and on some other subjects") and soon thereafter became a classic. One of the "Apologie"'s main strategies was to use the contradictory philosophies of skepticism and stoicism, personalized by Montaigne on one hand, and Epictetus on the other, in order to bring the unbeliever to such despair and confusion that he would embrace God. Pascal's "Pensées" is widely considered to be a masterpiece, and a landmark in French prose. When commenting on one particular section (Thought #72), Sainte-Beuve praised it as the finest pages in the French language. Will Durant hailed it as "the most eloquent book in French prose." In "Pensées", Pascal surveys several philosophical paradoxes: infinity and nothing, faith and reason, soul and matter, death and life, meaning and vanity—seemingly arriving at no definitive conclusions besides humility, ignorance, and grace. Rolling these into one he develops Pascal's Wager. Last works and death. T. S. Eliot described him during this phase of his life as "a man of the world among ascetics, and an ascetic among men of the world." Pascal's ascetic lifestyle derived from a belief that it was natural and necessary for a person to suffer. In 1659, Pascal fell seriously ill. During his last years, he frequently tried to reject the ministrations of his doctors, saying, "Sickness is the natural state of Christians." Louis XIV suppressed the Jansenist movement at Port-Royal in 1661. In response, Pascal wrote one of his final works, "Écrit sur la signature du formulaire" ("Writ on the Signing of the Form"), exhorting the Jansenists not to give in. Later that year, his sister Jacqueline died, which convinced Pascal to cease his polemics on Jansenism. Pascal's last major achievement, returning to his mechanical genius, was inaugurating perhaps the first bus line, moving passengers within Paris in a carriage with many seats. In 1662, Pascal's illness became more violent, and his emotional condition had severely worsened since his sister's death, which happened the previous year. Aware that his health was fading quickly, he sought a move to the hospital for incurable diseases, but his doctors declared that he was too unstable to be carried. In Paris on 18 August 1662, Pascal went into convulsions and received extreme unction. He died the next morning, his last words being "May God never abandon me," and was buried in the cemetery of Saint-Étienne-du-Mont. An autopsy performed after his death revealed grave problems with his stomach and other organs of his abdomen, along with damage to his brain. Despite the autopsy, the cause of his poor health was never precisely determined, though speculation focuses on tuberculosis, stomach cancer, or a combination of the two. The headaches which afflicted Pascal are generally attributed to his brain lesion. Legacy. In honor of his scientific contributions, the name Pascal has been given to the SI unit of pressure, to a programming language, and Pascal's law (an important principle of hydrostatics), and as mentioned above, Pascal's triangle and Pascal's wager still bear his name. Pascal's development of probability theory was his most influential contribution to mathematics. Originally applied to gambling, today it is extremely important in economics, especially in actuarial science. John Ross writes, "Probability theory and the discoveries following it changed the way we regard uncertainty, risk, decision-making, and an individual's and society's ability to influence the course of future events." However, it should be noted that Pascal and Fermat, though doing important early work in probability theory, did not develop the field very far. Christiaan Huygens, learning of the subject from the correspondence of Pascal and Fermat, wrote the first book on the subject. Later figures who continued the development of the theory include Abraham de Moivre and Pierre-Simon Laplace. In literature, Pascal is regarded as one of the most important authors of the French Classical Period and is read today as one of the greatest masters of French prose. His use of satire and wit influenced later polemicists. The content of his literary work is best remembered for its strong opposition to the rationalism of René Descartes and simultaneous assertion that the main countervailing philosophy, empiricism, was also insufficient for determining major truths. In France, prestigious annual awards, Blaise Pascal Chairs are given to outstanding international scientists to conduct their research in the Ile de France region. One of the Universities of Clermont-Ferrand, France – Université Blaise Pascal – is named after him. The University of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, holds an annual math contest named in his honour. Roberto Rossellini directed a filmed biopic (entitled "Blaise Pascal") which originally aired on Italian television in 1971. Pascal was a subject of the first edition of the 1984 BBC Two documentary, "Sea of Faith", presented by Don Cupitt.
1054313	Crimewave is a 1985 American comedy film directed by Sam Raimi and starring Reed Birney, Paul L. Smith, Louise Lasser, Brion James, and Bruce Campbell, the latter of which also served as a producer. Following the commercial success of "The Evil Dead" (1981), Raimi and Campbell decided to collaborate on another project. Joel Coen of the Coen brothers served as one of the editors on "The Evil Dead", and worked with Raimi on the screenplay. Production was difficult for several members of the crew, and the production studio, Embassy Pictures, refused to allow Raimi to edit the film. Several arguments broke out during the shoot for the film, because of continued interference by the studio. An unusual slapstick mix of film noir, black comedy and B-movie conventions, the film portrays bizarre situations involving a death row inmate. The film was a box-office flop, and has since fallen into obscurity outside of fans of Campbell and Raimi. Few critics reviewed the film, though the little amount of critical attention it received was mostly negative. Several elements of the film influenced later productions by Raimi, and the failure of "Crimewave" directly led to the inception of "Evil Dead II" (1987). The film has achieved the status of a minor cult film. Plot. The film begins with a shot of Victor Ajax (Reed Birney), who has been sentenced to death, sitting in an electric chair. The film then flashes back to show that Victor once was a promising young technician in the employ of Trend-Odegard Security. Mr. Trend (Edward R. Pressman), co-owner of the company, has learned of a plan by his partner to sell the company to Renaldo "The Heel" (Bruce Campbell) and responds by hiring two exterminators who promise to "kill all sizes" (Brion James and Paul Smith) in order to eliminate Odegard and his plan. When Victor, who has been installing security cameras in Trend's apartment building, seems about to go back to the store, Trend distracts him with a lecture about "the grand design" and sends Victor on a quest to find his dream girl.
1060754	Pocketful of Miracles is a 1961 American comedy film starring Bette Davis and Glenn Ford, and directed by Frank Capra. The screenplay by Hal Kanter and Harry Tugend is based on the screenplay "Lady for a Day" by Robert Riskin, which was adapted from the Damon Runyon short story "Madame La Gimp". The film proved to be the final project for both Capra and veteran actor Thomas Mitchell but also featured the film debut of Ann-Margret. Supporting player Peter Falk was nominated for an Academy Award but George Chakiris won that year for "West Side Story". Capra said that Falk's performance was a bright spot in this "miserable film." The 1989 film "Miracles" starring Jackie Chan and Anita Mui is based on "Pocketful of Miracles". Plot. Dave the Dude (Glenn Ford) is a successful, very superstitious New York City gangster who buys apples from street peddler Apple Annie (Bette Davis) to bring him good luck. On the eve of a very important meeting, he finds Annie terribly upset.
583882	Manadhai Thirudivittai () ; ) is a 2001 Indian Tamil film, written and directed by newcomer R. D. Narayanamurthy, starring Prabhudeva, Kausalya and newcomer Gayatri Jayaraman in lead roles and also stars both the comedians Vivek and Vadivelu, being their most recent collaboration in Tamil films. The film, which has music scored by Yuvan Shankar Raja, released on 14 November 2001 and met with average results the box office. However, the film was nonetheless dubbed into Telugu and released as "Manasuna Manasai" in 2005. The film successfully ran for 100 days. The director R. D. Narayanamurthy and Prabhudeva celebrated the success in a grand manner. Vadivel and Viveks comedy was well appreciated and a key point for success of this film Production. The producers of the film initially tried to rope in Shilpa Shetty to play the lead heroine, but the actress refused as her previous pairing with Prabhu Deva in Mr. Romeo ended up being a commercial failure while Sonia Agarwal was rejected after make-up test and she was replaced by newcomer Gayathri Jayaram. Soundtrack. The soundtrack, composed by Yuvan Shankar Raja was released on 22 September 2001 by Sa Re Ga Ma. It features 6 tracks, lyrics were penned by Pa. Vijay and Kalai Kumar. Though the songs didn't attract the masses overall, the song "Manja Kaattu Maina" was one of the most popular songs of 2001. Release. Critical reception. Rediff wrote:"On paper, Manathai Thirudi Vittai seems to have everything going for it. Yet, somehow, it doesn't quite jell. For the most part, the film oscillates between the good and the merely banal". Hindu wrote:"Armed with a suspenseful story and a cohesive screenplay, director has come out with a fare that is reasonably appealing".
1065688	Alexander David "Alex" Linz (born January 3, 1989) is an American actor who starred in several late 1990s and early 2000s films and television programs as a child actor. His notable film roles include "Home Alone 3" (1997) and "Max Keeble's Big Move" (2001). From 1998 to 2001, Linz provided the voice of Franklin, a human boy in the live-action/animated series "The Wacky Adventures of Ronald McDonald". Early life. Linz was born in Santa Barbara, California, the son of Deborah Baltaxe, an attorney, and Dr. Daniel Linz, a professor of psychology at the University of California, Santa Barbara. His parents are now divorced, and he lives with his mother. He has a younger sister named Lily Alice. Linz's mother is Jewish and Linz had a Bar Mitzvah when he was 13. He attended Alexander Hamilton High School in Los Angeles and graduated from the University of California, Berkeley, where he was a member of the improvisation and sketch comedy group, jericho!. Linz currently lives in California. Career. Linz made his acting debut in 1995 on an episode of the television series "Cybill". He subsequently appeared in several television productions, played Phillip Chancellor IV on the soap opera "The Young and the Restless" in 1995 for a short period of time, and was cast as the son of Michelle Pfeiffer's character in the 1996 film "One Fine Day". In 1997, Linz replaced Macaulay Culkin as the lead actor in "Home Alone 3", and voiced a young Tarzan in the 1999 animated film version. Linz had several starring roles in 2000s films aimed at younger audiences, including the 2001 comedy "Max Keeble's Big Move", in which he played the title role, 2002's "Race to Space", which received a minor theatrical release, and 2003's Hanukkah-themed made-for-television Disney Channel film "Full-Court Miracle", in which he played the lead player in a Jewish school's basketball team. He was also, briefly, the voice of Arnold in the extremely popular Nickelodeon cartoon "Hey Arnold!" for the last two episodes, titled "April Fools' Day" and "The Journal". Linz appeared in the comedy "The Amateurs", starring Jeff Bridges. The film was made in 2005. His most recent credit is in the 2007 drama "Choose Connor", starring Steven Weber.
1180112	Justin Guarini (born Justin Eldrin Bell; October 28, 1978) is an American singer/songwriter and actor who rose to fame in 2002 as the first runner-up on the debut season of the television show "American Idol". Background. Guarini was born in Columbus, Georgia. His father, Eldrin Bell, is African American, and is a former Atlanta, Georgia, Chief of Police, and former Chairperson of Clayton County Commission (Georgia). His mother, Kathy Pepino Guarini, is Italian American, and was a journalist for WTVM TV in Columbus, and later for CNN. Guarini was primarily raised by his mother and stepfather, physicist Jerry Guarini, in Philadelphia's suburb of Doylestown, Pennsylvania. Early life and career beginnings. Guarini's musical experience started at the age of four when he was accepted by the Atlanta Boy Choir. After moving to Pennsylvania in 1985, he joined the Archdiocese of Philadelphia Boys Choir. Throughout his school years Guarini sang in school choirs, and from 1996-2000 was the lead soloist in an award winning a cappella group named The Midnight Voices. The group released an independent album in 1999 with proceeds benefiting a music scholarship fund at Guarini's alma mater, Central Bucks High School East in Doylestown, Pennsylvania. He was a director/performer at the Riverside Haunted Woods in Bridgeton, Pennsylvania in 2001. His high school and college theater credits include the lead roles in "The Mystery of Edwin Drood", "The Little Prince", "The Pirates of Penzance", "The Taming of the Shrew", and "Once on This Island". In addition to singing and stage performing, Guarini plays the piano and guitar. After studying vocal performance and theater studies at the University of the Arts (Philadelphia) in Pennsylvania, Guarini later moved to New York City where he attended the School for Film and Television. He worked in New York nightclubs, and auditioned for New York Theater before successfully auditioning for "American Idol" in April 2002. Shortly after being chosen for "American Idol", he was offered a role in the Broadway production of "The Lion King". Guarini wrote about his decision between the two offers in his exclusive 2008 blog for the television site, Fancast, stating, "I had attended master classes… I learned Zulu and Sotho phrases, as well as the music from the show. It was a dream almost come true at the time. But, now I knew I was onto something, and I wasn’t letting go. I politely declined the offer of a role...". He was also considering a contract offer from an independent record label, but the show's rules prohibited participants from having existing record contracts.
1170177	Jock Mahoney (February 7, 1919 – December 14, 1989) was an American actor and stuntman of Irish, French, and Cherokee ancestry. Born Jacques O'Mahoney, he was credited variously as Jock Mahoney, Jack O'Mahoney or Jock O'Mahoney. He starred in two western television series, "The Range Rider" and "Yancy Derringer". He played Tarzan in two feature films and was associated in various capacities with several other Tarzan productions. He was a stepfather of the actress Sally Field. Early life and career. Mahoney was born in Chicago but reared in Davenport, Iowa. He entered the University of Iowa in Iowa City but dropped out to enlist in the United States Marine Corps when World War II began. He served as both a pilot and a flight instructor. After his discharge, he moved to Los Angeles, California, and for a time was a horsebreeder. However, he soon became a movie stuntman, doubling for Gregory Peck, Errol Flynn, and John Wayne. Director Vincent Sherman recalled staging the climactic fight scene in the 1948 film "Adventures of Don Juan", and finding only one Hollywood stuntman who was willing to leap from a high staircase in the scene. The man was Mahoney, who demanded and received $1,000 for the dangerous stunt. Billed as Jacques O'Mahoney in the late 1940s, he performed in several features, shorts, and serials for Columbia Pictures. He succeeded stuntman Ted Mapes as the double for Charles Starrett in the "Durango Kid" western series. The Durango Kid often wore a mask, which enabled Mahoney to replace Starrett in the action scenes. Mahoney's daring stunts made it seem that the older Starrett grew, the more athletic he became. Stuntman and actor. Like many Columbia contract players, Mahoney worked in the studio's two-reel comedies. Beginning in 1947, writer-director Edward Bernds cast Mahoney in slapstick comedies starring The Three Stooges. Mahoney had large speaking roles in these films, and often played his scenes for laughs. Striking a dauntless, heroic pose, Mahoney would suddenly get clumsy, tripping over something or taking sprawling pratfalls. Columbia management noticed Mahoney's acting skills and gave him starring roles in adventure serials, beginning in 1950. Cowboy star Gene Autry, then working at Columbia, hired Mahoney to star in a television series. Autry's Flying A Productions filmed seventy-nine half-hour episodes of the syndicated "The Range Rider" from 1951 to 1953 and 1959, a lost episode shown six years after the series ended. He was billed as Jack Mahoney. The character had no name other than Range Rider. His series co-star was Dick Jones, playing the role of Dick West In the 1958 western "Money, Women and Guns", Mahoney played the starring role. The film also starred Kim Hunter. For the 1958 television season, he starred in the popular cult semi-western "Yancy Derringer" series for thirty-four episodes, which aired on CBS. Yancy Derringer was a gentleman adventurer living in New Orleans, Louisiana, after the Civil War. He had a Pawnee Indian companion named Pahoo Katchewa ('pa-who-kaht'-chee-wah') ("Wolf Who Stands in Water") who did not speak, played by X Brands. Derringer had saved the life of Pahoo, who thereafter remained devoted to Derringer. Tarzan films. In 1948, Mahoney auditioned to play Tarzan after the departure of Johnny Weissmuller, but the role went to Lex Barker. In 1960, he appeared as Coy Banton, a villain in "Tarzan the Magnificent", starring Gordon Scott. His strong presence, work ethic, and lean (6 foot 4 inch, 220 pound) frame impressed producer Sy Weintraub who wanted a "new look" for the fabled apeman. In 1962, Mahoney became the thirteenth actor to portray Tarzan when he appeared in "Tarzan Goes to India", shot on location in India. A year later, he again played the role in "Tarzan's Three Challenges", shot in Thailand. When this film was released, Mahoney, at 44, became the oldest actor to play the jungle king, a record that still stands. Dysentery and dengue fever plagued Mahoney during the shoot in the Thai jungles, and he plummeted to 175 pounds. It took him a year and a half to regain his health. Owing to his health problems and the fact that producer Weintraub had decided to go for a "younger look" for the apeman, his contract was mutually dissolved. Television guest roles. In 1960, Mahoney guest starred in the "Rawhide" episode "Incident of the Sharpshooter." He also appeared in television guest-starring roles on such series as "Batman", the Ron Ely "Tarzan" series (again playing a villain), "Hawaii Five-O", "Laramie", and "The Streets of San Francisco". In 1973, he suffered a stroke while filming an episode of "Kung Fu", but recovered, though he sometimes had to use a wheelchair thereafter. Later career and death. In 1981, Mahoney returned to the Tarzan film series as the stunt coordinator on the John Derek-directed remake of "Tarzan, the Ape Man". He was billed as "Jack O'Mahoney". He also made guest appearances on the television series "B. J. and the Bear" and "The Fall Guy". During the final years of his life Mahoney was a popular guest at film conventions and autograph shows. He died of another stroke two days after being involved in an automobile accident in Bremerton, Washington. His ashes were scattered into the Pacific Ocean. Legacy. A tribute to Mahoney entitled "Coming Home" is found on the Internet site of the late marksman Joe Bowman of Houston, a close Mahoney friend. On February 6, 1990, the poem was read at a memorial tribute to Mahoney held at the Sportsmen's Lodge in Studio City, California. More than 350 attended, included Bowman. The reading was conducted by Mahoney's widow, Autumn Mahoney. Personal life. Mahoney was married three times, first to Lorraine O'Donnell, with whom he had two children. He next married actress Margaret Field in 11 Dec 1959 in Las Vegas. They had one child, Princess O'Mahoney, born in 1952. Mahoney and Field divorced in June 1968. The following year, he married actress Autumn Russell. They remained together until his death. As Margaret Field's husband, Mahoney was stepfather to Richard and Sally Field. Mahoney and Sally Field appeared together in the 1978 film "Hooper". His daughter Princess O'Mahoney later became a television and film assistant director.
1061734	Timothy Simon "Tim" Roth (born 14 May 1961) is an English actor and film director. He has appeared in "Reservoir Dogs", "Pulp Fiction", "Made in Britain", "To Kill a King", "Skellig", "Planet of the Apes", "The Incredible Hulk" and "Rob Roy" for which he received an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor. He also starred as Cal Lightman in the TV series "Lie to Me". Early life. Tim Roth was born in Dulwich, London, the son of Ann, a painter and teacher, and Ernie, a Fleet Street journalist, painter, and (until the 1970s) a member of the British Communist Party. His father was born with the surname Smith in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn, New York, to an English immigrant family; he changed his surname to Roth in the 1940s, "partly through solidarity with the victims of the Holocaust, partly because the English were far from welcome in some of the countries to which his job took him". Roth attended the Strand School in Tulse Hill. As a young man, he wanted to be a sculptor and studied at London's Camberwell College of Art. Career. Roth made his acting debut at the age of 21 playing a white power skinhead in a 1983 TV film titled "Made in Britain". He played an East End character in "King of the Ghetto", a controversial drama based on a novel by Farukh Dhondy set in Brick Lane and broadcast by the BBC in 1986. In contrast to his "Made in Britain" role, Roth played a desperately shy and introverted character in the 1983 Mike Leigh film, "Meantime". In 1985, he appeared in the television film "Murder with Mirrors" opposite Bette Davis, John Mills and Helen Hayes. He played an apprentice hitman in Stephen Frears' "The Hit" with Terence Stamp and John Hurt, earning an "Evening Standard Award for Most Promising Newcomer". He appeared in several other films towards the end of the decade and in 1989 he had a supporting role as the buffoonish lackey Mitchell in Peter Greenaway's "The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover". In 1990, he began to enjoy international attention with starring roles as Vincent van Gogh in Robert Altman's "Vincent & Theo" and as Guildenstern in Tom Stoppard's "Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead". Roth and other young British actors of the time such as Bruce Payne, Gary Oldman, Colin Firth and Paul McGann were dubbed the "Brit Pack", a nickname based on the Brat Pack of the United States. Roth was cast as Mr. Orange in Quentin Tarantino's 1992 ensemble film "Reservoir Dogs". This paved the way for more work in Hollywood. In 1994, Tarantino cast him as a robber in "Pulp Fiction". They also collaborated in the 1995 film "Four Rooms", where he played the role of Ted the Bellhop. His role as Archibald Cunningham opposite Liam Neeson in "Rob Roy" earned him an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor, a Golden Globe nomination and won him a BAFTA for the same performance. In 1996 he starred with Drew Barrymore in Woody Allen's musical comedy "Everyone Says I Love You". He also starred as "Danny Boodman T.D. Lemon 1900" (or just "1900") in "The Legend of 1900" and in the same year co-starred with Tupac Shakur in the drama "Gridlock'd". He made his debut as a director in 1999 with "The War Zone", a film version of Alexander Stuart's novel. In 2001, he portrayed General Thade in Tim Burton's "Planet of the Apes". Roth was the original choice for the role of Severus Snape in the "Harry Potter" film series, but he turned it down for the "Planet of the Apes" role. From 2009 to 2011, he starred in a series on Fox called "Lie To Me". He played Dr. Cal Lightman, an expert on body language who assists local and federal law organisations in the investigations of crimes. His character was based on Dr. Paul Ekman, a notable psychologist and expert on body language and facial expressions. In 2010, Roth appeared on the cover to Manic Street Preachers' 2010 studio album, "Postcards from a Young Man". In 2012, he was announced as the President of the Jury for the Un Certain Regard section at the 2012 Cannes Film Festival. Personal life. Tim Roth has a son, Jack, born to Lori Baker in 1984, who is also an actor. Roth married Nikki Butler in 1993, and they have two sons, Timothy Hunter (b. 1995) and Michael Cormac (b. 1996). Roth is a supporter of the Green Party of England and Wales.
1082230	Elsa Lafuente Pataky (born 18 July 1976), known professionally as Elsa Pataky, is a Spanish model, actress, and film producer. Early life. Elsa Pataky was born in Madrid, Spain, the daughter of José Francisco Lafuente, a Spanish biochemist, and Cristina Pataky Medianu, a publicist of Romanian and Hungarian ancestry. Pataky attended the CEU San Pablo University, studying journalism and taking acting classes.
1110464	Stella Maeve Johnston (born November 14, 1989) is an American film and television actress. Her first feature film role was in the comedy–drama "Transamerica" (2005), and she has since acted in the comedy "Harold" (2008) and the crime drama "Brooklyn's Finest" (2009). She has made appearances on multiple television series, including recurring roles on "Gossip Girl" (2008–2009) and "House" (2010–2011). She played Sandy West in "The Runaways" (2010), a drama film about the 1970s all-girl rock band of the same name, alongside Kristen Stewart and Dakota Fanning. In 2013, she was cast as the younger sister of Det. Walter Clark (Theo James) in CBS's crime drama television series, "Golden Boy".
689220	Blake Sennett (born September 22, 1976) is the lead guitarist for indie rock band Rilo Kiley and the lead singer/lead guitarist for his alt-rock side project the Elected. He was born Blake Sennett Swendson in San Diego, California. He attended La Jolla High School with his Rilo Kiley bandmate Pierre De Reeder. In addition to being a musician, Sennett was a child actor, appearing on the television shows "Salute Your Shorts" and "Boy Meets World". Sennett originally went by the names Blake Soper and Blake Swendson as an actor. Early years. In the early to mid-1990s, Sennett appeared in shows primarily marketed toward teens. During this period he ended up playing two big supporting roles of Ronnie Pinsky on "Salute Your Shorts" and Joseph "Joey the Rat" Epstein on "Boy Meets World". After "Salute Your Shorts" was canceled and his role on "Boy Meets World" was written off, Sennett switched gears and began to focus on music. He met Rilo Kiley bandmate Jenny Lewis through Tara Subkoff in 1993. The two formed the band in 1998 and dated for several years until ending their relationship after the release of "The Execution of All Things" in 2002. Music. In the early 1990s, when Sennett was in high school, he played drums in a band called the Caustic Truth. Future Rilo Kiley bassist Pierre De Reeder was his bandmate. Sennett was kicked out of the band, and the remaining members kept his drums. In 1996, he composed the score for the film "Don's Plum". Lewis was the female lead in the film. Because of a lawsuit brought by stars Leonardo DiCaprio and Tobey Maguire, this film cannot be distributed in the United States or Canada. However, it was released in 2001 in Europe as a Region 2 DVD. This version contains Sennett's original score, as well as the song "Go Ahead," written by Sennett and Jenny Lewis in 1996. The song was included on Rilo Kiley's first LP, Take-Offs and Landings (2001). Sennett has remained good friends with Maguire, Ethan Suplee, and Scott Bloom since the making of the film. He had previously starred with Ben Savage and Suplee on "Boy Meets World". In 2003, he founded a second band, the Elected, along with his good friend Mike Bloom.
589027	Sunil Dutt (6 June 1929 – 25 May 2005), born Balraj Dutt, was an Indian Hindi movie actor (also acted in many Punjabi movies), producer, director and politician. He was the cabinet minister for Youth Affairs and Sports in the Manmohan Singh government (2004 – 2005). His son, Sanjay Dutt, is also an actor. In 1984 he joined the Indian National Congress party and was elected to Parliament of India for five terms from the constituency of Mumbai North West. In 1968, he was honoured with the Padma Shri by the Government of India. Early Life. Sunil Dutt was born in a Punjabi family on 6 June 1929 in Jhelum, West Punjab, British India (now in Pakistan).. When he was five years old, Dutt's father died. When he was 18, the Partition of India began inciting Muslim - Hindu violence across the country. A Muslim named Yakub, who had been friends with Sunil's father, saved their entire family. The family resettled in a small village on the bank of river Yamuna called "Mandoli" in Yamuna Nagar district of Haryana. Later he moved to Lucknow and spent a long time in Aminabad Galli during graduation and to fulfill his dreams he moved to Mumbai. In Mumbai, he joined Jai Hind College as an undergraduate and took up at the Mumbai's BEST Transport division. Career. Starting out in radio, Sunil Dutt was hugely popular on the Hindi Service of Radio Ceylon, the oldest radio station in South Asia. He moved to acting in Hindi films and got introduced to the film industry in the 1955 film "Railway Platform". He shot to the stardom in the 1957 film "Mother India" in which he co-starred with Nargis, whom he married on 11 March 1958. In the film, Dutt played a short-tempered, angry son of Nargis. During the making of this film a fire accident happened on the sets. It is believed that Dutt braved the raging fire to save Nargis and thereby won her love. He had one son Sanjay Dutt, also a successful film actor and two daughters, Priya Dutt and Namrata Dutt (Anju). His daughter Namrata married Kumar Gaurav, son of Rajendra Kumar. The two fathers were co-stars in "Mother India". Dutt was one of the major stars of Hindi cinema in the late 1950s and 1960s and continued to star in many successful films which included "Sadhna" (1958), "Sujata" (1959), "Mujhe Jeene Do" (1963), "Khandaan" (1965) and "Padosan" (1967). His collaboration with B.R. Chopra proved to be successful in films such as "Gumraah" (1963), "Waqt" (1965) and "Hamraaz" (1967). One of his favourite writers and friends was Aghajani Kashmeri. Dutt created a record of sorts by directing and starring in the unique film "Yaadein" (1964) in which he was the only actor in the cast. He later turned producer of the 1968 film "Man Ka Meet" which introduced his brother Som Dutt who was unsuccessful in films. In 1971 he produced, directed and starred in the big-budget period romantic film "Reshma Aur Shera" (1971) which was a huge failure at the box office. He continued to star in hit films which included "Pran Jaye Par Vachan Na Jaye" (1974), "Nagin" (1976), "Jaani Dushman" (1979) and "Shaan" (1980). He also starred in a series of Punjabi religious movies in 1970s: "Man Jeete Jag Jeet" (1973), "Dukh Bhanjan Tera Naam" (1974), and "Sat Sri Akal" (1977).
566936	The Five Obstructions () is a 2003 Danish film by Lars von Trier and Jørgen Leth. The film is a documentary, but incorporates lengthy sections of experimental films produced by the filmmakers. The premise is that Lars von Trier has created a challenge for his friend and mentor, Jørgen Leth, another filmmaker. Von Trier's favourite film is Leth's "The Perfect Human" (1967). Von Trier gives Leth the task of remaking "The Perfect Human" five times, each time with a different 'obstruction' (or obstacle) given by von Trier. Collaboration with Martin Scorsese. At the Berlinale 2010, Lars von Trier, Martin Scorsese and Robert De Niro announced plans to work on a remake of Scorsese's film "Taxi Driver". The film will be made with same restrictions as were used in "The Five Obstructions".
1017159	Womb Ghosts () is a 2010 Hong Kong horror film directed and written by Dennis Law. Plot. A dead foetus lives on after death inside a woman's body, existing as a Womb Ghost. Unnatural termination of such life will turn the baby into the evilest and most vicious kind of spirit. The plot takes place mainly in a mental hospital where the women who are being impregnated mysteriously. When a young inmate had a miscarriage, the doctors tried to remove the dead fetus inside her. Little did they know that a horrifying outcome is just one of many things that haunts their mental hospital, a non-stop horror experience where haunting begins when life ends… Only one answer can be given to the existence of such an ungodly creature, the Womb Ghost. Release. The film was released on March 18, 2010 in Hong Kong. "Womb Ghosts" debuted as the eighth highest grossing film for the weekend on its premiere. The next week, it charted at ninth place. The film has grossed $211,004 in Hong Kong. Reception. Twitch Film gave the film a generally favorable review while noting that "others will simply see this as another boring Asian ghost flick and it's difficult to contradict them. Even though the film is visually attractive, boasts a solid soundtrack and some decent acting, it's really not all that different from its peers." Film Business Asia gave a rating of four out of ten, stating that "Womb Ghosts" "has some squirmy moments but is shackled by a confused script."
1028374	Les Vampires is a 1915–16 French silent crime serial film written and directed by Louis Feuillade. Set in Paris, it stars Édouard Mathé, Musidora and Marcel Lévesque. The main characters are a journalist and his friend who become involved in trying to uncover and stop a bizarre underground Apache gang, known as The Vampires (who are not the mythological beings their name suggests). The serial consists of ten episodes, which vary greatly in length. Being roughly 7 hours long, it is considered one of the longest films ever made. It was produced and distributed by Feuillade's company Gaumont. Due to its stylistic similarities with Feuillade's other crime serials "Fantômas" and "Judex", the three are often considered a trilogy. Fresh from the success of Feuillade's previous serial, "Fantômas", and facing competition from rival company Pathé, Feuillade made the film quickly and inexpensively with very little written script. Upon its initial release "Les Vampires" was given negative reviews by critics for its dubious morality and its lack of cinematic techniques compared to other films. However, it was a massive success with its wartime audience, making Musidora a star of French cinema. The film has since come under re-evaluation and is considered by many to be Feuillade's "magnum opus" and a cinematic masterpiece. It is recognised for developing thriller techniques, adopted by Alfred Hitchcock and Fritz Lang, and avant-garde cinema, inspiring Luis Buñuel and others. It is included in the book "1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die". Plot. Episode 1 - "The Severed Head". Philipe Guérande (Édouard Mathé), a reporter working for the newspaper "The Paris Chronicle" who is investigating a criminal organisation called the Vampires, receives a telegram at work stating that the decapitated body of the national security agent in charge of the Vampire investigations, Inspector Durtal, was found in the swamps near Saint-Clement-Sur-Cher, with the head missing. Being turned down by the local magistrate (Thelès), he spends the night in a nearby castle owned by Dr. Nox (Jean Aymé), an old friend of his father, along with Mrs. Simpson (Rita Herlor), an American multimillionaire who desires the property. After waking up in the night, Philipe finds a note in his pocket saying ‘Give up your search, otherwise bad luck awaits you! – The Vampires’ and a mysterious passage behind a painting in his room. Meanwhile, Mrs. Simpson’s money and jewels are stolen in her sleep by a masked thief, but Philipe is suspected of the crime. Philipe again visits the magistrate, who now believes his case, and they trick Dr. Nox and Mrs. Simpson into waiting in an anteroom. At the castle, Philipe and the magistrate find the head of Inspector Durtal hidden in the passage in Philipe’s room. Back in the anteroom, they find that Mrs. Simpson is dead and that Dr. Nox has vanished. Her pocket contains a note from the Grand Vampire saying that he has murdered the real Dr. Nox and is now assuming his identity. Episode 2 - "The Ring That Kills". Grand Vampire in disguise as Count de Noirmoutier, reads that ballerina Marfa Koutiloff (Stacia Napierkowska), who is engaged to Philipe, will perform a ballet called "The Vampires". To prevent her from publicizing the Vampires' activities and to deter Philipe, he gives Marfa a poisoned ring before her performance, which kills her onstage. Amidst the panicking crowds Philipe recognizes the Grand Vampire and follows him to an abandoned fort and is captured by the gang. They agree to interrogate Philipe at midnight and execute him at dawn. Philipe finds that the Vampire guarding him is one of his co-workers, Oscar-Cloud Mazamette (Marcel Lévesque). They decide to work together and capture the Grand Inquisitor when he arrives at midnight. They bind and hood the Grand Inquisitor, and set him up for execution in place of Phillipe. At dawn the Vampires arrive for the execution, but the police raid the lair. The Vampires escape, but as they flee they mistakenly execute their own Grand Inquisitor, who turns out to be the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. Episode 3 - "The Red Codebook". While faking illness to get off work, Philipe tries to decode a red booklet that he lifted from the Grand Inquisitor’s body, which contains the crimes of the Vampires. He discovers that his house is under surveillance by the Vampires, so he leaves in disguise. Following clues in the booklet he arrives at "The Howling Cat" night club. Performing there is Irma Vep (Musidora), whose name Philipe sees is an anagram for vampire. After her act, the Grand Vampire assigns Irma to retrieve the red booklet. As Philipe returns home Mazamette arrives, along with a poison pen he stole from the Grand Vampire. A few days later, Irma arrives at their house disguised as a new maid, but Philipe recognizes her. She tries to poison him, but fails. His mother (Delphine Renot) leaves to meet her brother after receiving word that he has been in a car accident, but it turns out to be a trap and she is captured by the Vampires. While Philipe is asleep, Irma lets another Vampire into his home but he shoots them. They escape, however, because his gun was loaded with blanks. In a shack in the slums, Philipe’s mother is held by Father Silence (Louis Leubas), a deaf-mute, and is forced to sign a ransom note, but she kills him with Mazamette’s poison pen and escapes. Episode 4 - "The Spectre". The Grand Vampire, under the alias of a real estate broker "Treps," meets Juan-José Moréno (Fernand Herrmann), a businessman, who asks for an apartment with a safe. The Grand Vampire puts Moréno into an apartment whose safe is rigged to be opened from the rear through the party wall of an apartment belonging to Irma Vep and the Grand Vampire. However, the case Moréno places inside contains the Vampires’ black attire. Later, in disguise as bank secretary "Juliette Bertaux," Irma learns that a man called Mr. Metadier has to bring ₣300,000 to another branch. In the event that he is unable to make the delivery, Irma will. Soon afterward, Mr. Metadier is murdered by the Vampires and his body thrown from a train. When Irma is about to take the money for him a spectre of Mr. Metadier appears and takes it instead. The Grand Vampire pursues the spectre, who escapes down a manhole. Later that day, Mme. Metadier appears at the bank, saying she hasn’t seen her husband in days. They also find out that the money hasn’t been delivered. Philipe learns of this and goes to the bank in disguise. Recognizing the secretary as Irma, he finds her address and a few hours later sneaks in, using Mazamette as a ploy. Irma and the Grand Vampire open the safe from their side, only to find Metadier’s body and the money. Philipe tries to capture them but is knocked down and they escape. Philipe calls the police just as Moréno enters and finds his safe opened from the other side. He walks through and is caught by Philipe. Moréno is revealed to be another criminal in disguise, and claims not to have killed Metadier, but to have found his body by the train tracks where the Vampires had dumped it. Moréno found Metadier's letter of authority on his corpse, took Metadier's body home, disguised himself as Metadier, put the body in his safe, assumed Metadier's identity, took the money, and put it too in his safe. The upshot is that the money is now in the Vampires' possession. The police arrive and arrest Moréno. Episode 5 - "Dead Man's Escape". The examining magistrate from Saint-Clement-Sur-Cher relocates to Paris and is assigned to the Vampire case and the Moréno affair. After being summoned to the magistrate, Moréno commits suicide using a concealed cyanide capsule. His body is left in his cell, but during the night he wakes up, very much alive. He kills the night-watchman and takes his clothes, escaping from the prison. He is noticed by Mazamette, who is suffering from insomnia. The following morning, Moréno is found to have escaped. While writing an account of the events, Philipe is pulled out of his window by the Vampires and whisked into a large costume box. He is driven away and the box is unloaded, but incompetently, and it slides down a large flight of stairs. The Vampires retreat and Philipe is let out by two bystanders. He visits the costume designer Pugenc whose name and box number (13) are on the costume box, just missing Moréno and his gang who have bought police uniforms for a scheme of their own. Philipe learns from Pugenc that the costume box was to go to Baron de Mortesalgues on Maillot Avenue, and realizes that "Mortesalgues" must be another alias of the Grand Vampire. Later, Moréno confronts Philipe in a café, but when Philipe calls for the nearby policemen, they turn out to be part of Moréno’s gang and he is again captured. Meanwhile, Mazamette breaks into Moréno's hideout. Philipe is taken there to be hanged by the gang, unless he can give them means to revenge themselves against the Vampires. He tells them that Baron de Mortesalgues is the Grand Vampire, and they spare him, tying him up. Mazamette appears and frees him. That evening, the Grand Vampire, in disguise as Baron de Mortesalgues, holds a party for his "niece," who is Irma Vep in disguise. The party attracts many members of the Parisian aristocracy. "Mortesalgues" reveals that at midnight there will be a surprise; but the "surprise" is a sleeping-gas attack on the guests. The Vampires steal all of the guests' valuables while they are unconscious. The Vampires flee with the stolen items on the top of their car, but Moréno, forewarned by Philipe, robs the Vampires and sends Philipe a letter telling him that, for the moment, they are even. Mazamette visits Philipe; he is angry with their lack of progress and wants to quit. Philipe opens a book of "La Fontaine's Fables" and points to the line, “in all things, one must take the end into account”, and Mazamette's resolve is renewed. Episode 6 - "Hypnotic Eyes". Fifteen days have passed since the events at Maillot. Moréno is looking for clues to lead him to the Vampires, and reads in a paper that a Fontainebleau notary has been murdered by them; as he happens to possess a gaze with a terrible hypnotic power, he takes control of his new maid, Laura, to turn her into his slave. Meanwhile, Philipe and Mazamette happen to see a newsreel on the murder inquest, in which they spot Irma Vep and the Grand Vampire. They cycle to Fontainebleau to investigate. Enroute they spot an American tourist, Horatio Werner, riding fast into the forest, and follow him. He places a box under one of the boulders, and they take it. The Grand Vampire, who is staying in the Royal Hunt Hotel under the pseudonym of Count Kerlor, along with Irma in disguise as his son, Viscount Guy, reads in a paper that George Baldwin (Émile Keppens), an American millionaire, has been robbed of $200,000. Whoever can capture the criminal, Raphael Norton, who has fled to Europe with the actress Ethel Florid, will be awarded the unspent balance of the loot. "Kerlor" notices that Mr and Mrs. Werner, who are staying at the hotel, are distressed by this notice, and concludes that Mr. Werner is Raphael Norton. Philipe and Mazamette arrive at the hotel and find that the Vampires are based there. In a different hotel they force open the box and find Baldwin’s stolen money inside. Moréno comes to the Royal Hunt in disguise. While the Grand Vampire tells the hotel guests a story, Irma breaks into the Werners' suite, finding a map leading to the box in the forest. When she leaves, she is captured and chloroformed by Moréno, who takes the map. While his gang take Irma away, he dresses his hypnotized maid, Laura, as Irma and tells her to give the Vampires the map. Once one of the Vampires (Miss Édith) follows the map to get the treasure, Moréno’s gang ambushes her, only to find that Philipe has already taken it. Moreno demands that the Grand Vampire ransom Irma Vep. In the early morning, the police raid the hotel and find that Werner is actually Norton, so Philipe and Mazamette win the money. Moréno falls in love with Irma and decides not to return her to the Grand Vampire. Instead, he hypnotizes her and causes her to write a confession of her involvement in the murders of the Fontainbleau notary (in this episode), Metadier (episode 4), the ballerina Marfa Koutiloff (episode 2), and Dr. Nox (episode 1). The Grand Vampire comes to meet Moréno, but Moréno by hypnotic command compels Irma to kill him. The episode ends with the now-wealthy Mazamette informing a dozen adoring journalists that "although vice is seldom punished, virtue is always rewarded." Episode 7 - "Satanas". A mysterious man (Louis Leubas) arrives at Moréno’s home, and shows that he knows that the Grand Vampire’s body is inside a trunk. Moréno tries to get rid of him, but he is paralysed by a pin in the man’s glove. The man reveals himself to be the true Grand Vampire, Satanas, and that the first was a subordinate. While at a cabaret called the "Happy Shack", Moréno and Irma receive a note from Satanas saying they will see proof of his power at two o'clock. At two he fires a powerful cannon at the "Happy Shack", largely destroying it. Meanwhile, Philipe decides to visit Mazamette, but he is out "chasing the girls." He hides as Mazamette arrives home, drunk, with two women and a friend, who he later chases out angrily at gunpoint. The next morning, Irma and Moréno go to Satanas’ home to surrender, and Satanas offers them the chance to work with him, informing them that American millionaire George Baldwin is stopping at the Park Hotel. Satanas wants Baldwin's signature. One of Moréno’s accomplices, Lily Flower (Suzanne Delvé), goes to the Park Hotel and poses as an interviewer from "Modern Woman" magazine and through trickery gets Baldwin to sign a blank piece of paper. Afterwards, Irma enters and dupes Baldwin into recording his voice saying "Parisian women are the most charming I've ever seen, all right!" Lily Flower brings Baldwin's signature to Moréno’s home, and Moréno writes out an order (over Baldwin's signature) to pay Lily Flower $100,000. Moréno’s gang seize the hotel telephone operator of Baldwin's hotel; Irma takes her place by using a forged note. When the bank cashier calls Baldwin to confirm that he has given a very large draft to an attractive Parisian woman, Irma intercepts the call, and plays the recording she made of Baldwin's voice, and the cashier is persuaded. While Lily Flower is taking the money, Mazamette comes in, recognising her as his old squeeze from the "Happy Shack", and follows her, seeing her hand the money to a man in a taxi—Moréno! Moréno gives Satanas the money, but he is given it back as a present. Philipe and Mazamette capture Lily Flower at her home and make her call Moréno and tell him to come, but when he and Irma arrive they fall into a trap and are caught by the police. Episode 8 - "The Thunder Master". Irma, sentenced to life imprisonment, has been sent to St. Lazarus’ prison. A transfer order is sent to the prison to send Irma to a penal colony in Algeria. On the day of her departure, Irma finds out that Moréno has been executed. Satanas follows Irma’s transportation route, stopping at a seaside hotel in disguise as a priest. At the port, he gives some religious comfort to the prisoners, but Irma’s copy contains a secret message saying “the ship will blow up” and giving her directions on how to safeguard herself. Satanas destroys the ship with his cannon. Meanwhile, Philipe finds through the red codebook that the explosive shell that landed on the “Happy Shack” came from Montmartre, and Mazamette goes to investigate. His son, Eustache Mazamette (René Poyen), is sent home from school for bad behaviour, so they go to "investigate" together. They find some men loading boxes into a house, and notice one of the top hat cases contains a shell. Later, reading that no survivors have been found from the exploding ship, Satanas visits Philipe to avenge Irma’s death. Satanas paralyses Phillipe with the poisoned pin in his glove and leaves a bomb in a top hat to kill him off. Mazamette arrives and throws the top hat out the window just in time. At Satanas’ home, Eustache is used as a ploy to hide Mazamette in a box, but Satanas sees this through a spy-hole. Satanas threatens Eustache, but Eustache shoots at Satanas, and the police raid the building and arrest him. After the action, they find that Mazamette’s nose has been broken by Eustache’s shot. Meanwhile, Irma is shown to have survived the blast on the ship, and is on her way back to Paris as a stowaway under a train. She is helped by the station staff and police, pretending that she is in “one of those eternal love stories beloved by popular imagination.” She makes her way to the Vampire hangout, the “Howling Cat” nightclub, where she performs, and is rapturously greeted by the Vampires. Upon hearing of the arrest of Satanas, one of the Vampires, Venomous (Frederik Moris), appoints himself the new chief. By Satanas’ orders, they mail him an envelope containing a poisoned note, which he eats to commit suicide. Episode 9 - "The Poisoner". Irma is now a devoted collaborator of Venomous, who is set on getting rid of Philipe and Mazamette. He learns that Philipe is engaged to Jane Bremontier (Louise Lagrange), and the following day Irma and Lily Flower rent an apartment above hers. Irma’s maid, a Vampire also, hears that Philipe and Jane’s engagement party will be catered for by the famous Béchamel House. Venomous cancels their catering order, and on the day of the party the Vampires appear instead. Jane’s mother (Jeanne Marie-Laurent) gives the concierges one bottle of the Vampires' champagne as a present, and just as dinner is served the male concierge, Leon Charlet, drinks it, is poisoned and dies. His wife stops the party guests from drinking their champagne just in time, and the Vampires make a hasty escape. A few days later, Mazamette and Philipe’s mother pick up Jane and her mother in the night in order to take them to a safe retreat near Fontainebleau. Irma, who tries to fill the getaway car with soporific gas, is spotted by Mazamette, but Irma gasses him, and he is taken away asleep while Irma hides in a box on the car. Mazamette is dumped on the street and taken to the police station, believed to be drunk. When he wakens, he calls Philipe to warn him, but Irma slips out of the box and gets away in the car before Philipe can catch her. Irma jumps off the car near the Pyramid Hotel, and calls Venomous to meet her there, but Philipe has also arranged to meet Mazamette there. Philipe spots Irma at the Pyramid Hotel, captures her and ties her up. Philipe and Mazamette leave Irma in Mazamette's car and attempt to ambush Venomous, but Irma honks the car horn to warn him. Venomous saves Irma and drives off in Mazamette’s car, so Philipe and Mazamette chase him in his. Venomous leaps off; Philipe chases Venomous on foot, following him onto the top of a moving train, but Venomous gets away. Mazamette, enraged at the police for not letting him help Philipe on the train, hits one of the officers, who arrest him. At the police station, Philipe and Mazamette carry on so dramatically that the police decide not to book Mazamette, who is after all a famous philanthropist. But the Vampires are still on the loose. Episode 10 - "The Terrible Wedding". A few months have passed, and Philipe and Jane are now married. Augustine Charlet (Germaine Rouer), widow of the poisoned concierge, is hired by the Guérandes to be their chamber maid. Augustine, still tormented by the mysterious poisoning death of her husband, receives an advertising circular for a psychic, Madame d’Alba of 13 Avenue Junot, and decides to consult her. Madame d’Alba, a Vampire, hypnotises Augustine and instructs her to unlock the door of Philipe’s apartment at 2 am. Mazamette, who has taken an attraction to Augustine, awakens that night and sees her descend the stairs to unlock the door. The Vampires enter, tie her up, and feed poisonous gas into the Guérandes’ room. Mazamette shoots at them and they flee, and Augustine explains her actions. As they go to the police, Venomous tries to break in through a bedroom window, but Jane shoots at him. When she looks out the window she is lassoed down and carried away. At daybreak, the police raid Avenue Junot. Irma and Venomous escape through the roof and drive away, capturing Augustine. Mazamette shoots at the car, causing an oil leak. Philipe follows the trail to the Vampires’ lair and lays traps at nightfall while the gang celebrate the wedding of Irma and Venomous. The police do a large scale police raid at daybreak, while the Vampires are still celebrating. As Irma hides, all of the Vampires are either killed or captured by the police. She confronts their captives, but is shot by Jane. Paris now being safe from the Vampires, Mazamette proposes to Augustine and she accepts. Production. Development and writing. The genre of crime serial was popular and prolific at the time, and Feuillade had had a big success with his previous work, the serial "Fantômas". It is suspected that production of "Les Vampires" started when Gaumont learned that rival company Pathé had acquired the rights to release the serial "The Mysteries of New York", known in America as "The Exploits of Elaine", and felt they had to fend off competition. Another American serial, "The Perils of Pauline", had become massively popular since the release of "Fantômas". The idea of the criminal gang was possibly inspired by the Bonnot Gang, a highly advanced anarchist group who had a high-profile crime spree in Paris during 1911-1912. Feuillade wrote the script himself, but did it in a very simplistic way, usually writing the premise and relying on the actors to fill in the details. Later episodes were more scripted, however. It is also inconsistent at points; for example, in "Satanas" Moréno orders one of his accomplices to search Mazamette's apartment, but the incident is never heard of or mentioned again. The style has been compared to that of a pulp magazine (which it was later serialized as.) In an essay on the film, Fabrice Zagury stated "...Feuillade's narrative seldom originates from principles of cause and effect... Rather it unwinds following labyrinthine and spiral-shaped paths." None of the episodes employ the cliffhanger mechanic, popularised by "The Perils of Pauline". The cast chosen were mostly new to Feuillade, the only recurring actors from "Fantômas" being extras. Filming and editing. The film was mostly shot on location in Paris, and is said to have been strenuous, some actors having to leave due to the wartime efforts. It was shot inexpensively, evidenced by the utilization of painted flats for doors and re-use of furniture in the film’s sets and its reliance on stock footage for more elaborate shots such as a ferry exploding in "The Thunder Master". The episodes were also produced very quickly; estimations have been made that there would have been a three to four month period between the filming of an episode and the release. Feuillade makes little use of popular cinematic techniques, most of the film consisting of long takes with stationary cameras with the occasional use of a close up to show plot details such as photos or letters. This was done to give the film a more "real look". Due to a lack of scripting by Feuillade many of the scenes were improvised on the days of shooting. Musidora, a former acrobat, did all her own stunts. Work on the film was done at the same time as of his later serial "Judex".
1057531	The Silence of the Hams (Italian: "Il Silenzio dei Prosciutti") is a 1994 parody film directed and written by Italian comedian Ezio Greggio. It is a parody of many popular thriller and horror films, notably "The Silence of the Lambs" and Alfred's Hitchcock's "Psycho". The comedy, like many of its contemporaries (including "The Naked Gun") , is largely driven by word-play, sight gags, running jokes, and multiple references to popular culture of the time, like "Michael Jackson's Thriller", and tongue-in-cheek references to the then-current state of American politics (like a fight scene between Presidents George Bush Sr. and Bill Clinton). As a curiosity, there is a Mel Brooks cameo in this film, who made a number of well regarded parodies ("Blazing Saddles", "Young Frankenstein", "Spaceballs"). Plot. The film follows rookie detective Jo Dee Fostar (Billy Zane), on his first case. The case involves a serial killer, wanted for over 120 murders. In order to find the killer, he must enlist the help of convicted murderer Dr. Animal Cannibal Pizza (Dom Deluise). However, during the investigation, his girlfriend, Jane Wine (Charlene Tilton), is asked by her boss to take a large sum of money to the bank. Instead of doing this, she leaves town with the money. While hiding, she decides to rest at the Cemetery Motel, which is later revealed to be a cemetery named Motel after its owner, Antonio Motel. Jo must then enlist the help of Det. Balsam (Martin Balsam, who played the private investigator in the original Psycho film) and Dr. Pizza to not only find the murderer, but his missing girlfriend as well. All of this takes the cast on many adventures at the Cemetery Motel. In the final confrontation, most characters are revealed to be somebody else in disguise. Critical Response. "The Silence of the Hams" was universally panned by both critics and audiences alike: The film has a 0% rating on review aggregateRotten Tomatoes based on eight reviews and a dismal 4.2 rating on IMDB from over 2,900 users. Time Out London called it a "wholly redundant exercise", while Empire criticised it for "a script staggeringly bereft of humour or invention, and a clumsy, amateurish direction that seems largely concerned with focusing on Charlene Tilton's breasts".
584275	Kaadhal Solla Vandhen (; ) is a 2010 Indian Tamil-language romance film written and directed by Boopathy Pandian, which stars Balaji Balakrishnan of "Kana Kaanum Kaalangal" fame, Meghana Raj and Karthik Sabesh in lead and Arya in a guest role. The film, previously titled as "Naanum En Sandhyavum" and "Naan Avalai Sandhitha Pozhudhu", is produced by S3 Films and features music scored by Yuvan Shankar Raja. It released on 13 August 2010 to mixed reviews and proved to be highly unsuccessful at the box office. Production. In early 2008, Boopathy Pandian first announced a project titled "Naanum En Sandhyavum" ("Me and my Sandhya"), with which he was planning to introduce his younger sibling Arjun Prabhu as an actor. He signed him for the lead male role in the film, whilst Malayalam actress Meera Nandan was approached to essay the lead female character called Sandhya, for which reportedly also Kajal Aggarwal, Bhama and Vedhika were considered. Yuvan Shankar Raja was announced as the music director for film. Following the announcement, however, there were no more news or any further details disclosed in the media and the film got shelved. In early 2010 then, reports claimed that the director had completed a film titled "Naan Avalai Sandhitha Pozhudhu" ("When I met her"), starring newcomers and featuring Yuvan Shankar Raja's music. Boopathy Pandian had restarted the projects, changing its title and replacing the lead couple by two relatively unknown artists; Balaji Balakrishnan, who starred in the popular STAR Vijay television series "Kana Kaanum Kaalangal" and also appeared in the N. Linguswamy-produced 2009 film "Pattalam", was signed as the male protagonist, whilst Meghana Raj, daughter of actors Sunderraj and Pramila, who was also earlier signed by K. Balachander for his long-delayed production venture "Krishnaleelai", was roped in to enact the role of Sandhya. The title of the film was later changed again to "Kaadhal Solla Vandhen" as disclosed by Balaji on his Facebook site. The film's shooting was primarily carried on in and around Perambalur, with major portions being filmed at the Dhanalakshmi Srinivasan Engineering College. Soundtrack. The film score and soundtrack are composed by Yuvan Shankar Raja, working together with director Boopathy Pandian for the first time. The soundtrack album, which was released on 16 June 2010 at Sathyam Cinemas, Chennai, consists of 5 songs, all of which being solo numbers and notably featuring only male voices, with the fourth song "Saamy Varugudhu" being sung by real Hindu priests (poosaris). The film did feature another song as part of the film score that was not included in the soundtrack.
1099309	Monte Carlo methods (or Monte Carlo experiments) are a broad class of computational algorithms that rely on repeated random sampling to obtain numerical results; i.e., by running simulations many times over in order to calculate those same probabilities heuristically just like actually playing and recording your results in a real casino situation: hence the name. They are often used in physical and mathematical problems and are most suited to be applied when it is impossible to obtain a closed-form expression or infeasible to apply a deterministic algorithm. Monte Carlo methods are mainly used in three distinct problems: optimization, numerical integration and generation of samples from a probability distribution. Monte Carlo methods are especially useful for simulating systems with many coupled degrees of freedom, such as fluids, disordered materials, strongly coupled solids, and cellular structures (see cellular Potts model). They are used to model phenomena with significant uncertainty in inputs, such as the calculation of risk in business. They are widely used in mathematics, for example to evaluate multidimensional definite integrals with complicated boundary conditions. When Monte Carlo simulations have been applied in space exploration and oil exploration, their predictions of failures, cost overruns and schedule overruns are routinely better than human intuition or alternative "soft" methods. The modern version of the Monte Carlo method was invented in the late 1940s by Stanislaw Ulam, while he was working on nuclear weapon projects at the Los Alamos National Laboratory. It was named, by Nicholas Metropolis, after the Monte Carlo Casino, where Ulam's uncle often gambled. Immediately after Ulam's breakthrough, John von Neumann understood its importance and programmed the ENIAC computer to carry out Monte Carlo calculations. Introduction. Monte Carlo methods vary, but tend to follow a particular pattern: For example, consider a circle inscribed in a unit square. Given that the circle and the square have a ratio of areas that is /4, the value of pi can be approximated using a Monte Carlo method: In this procedure the domain of inputs is the square that circumscribes our circle. We generate random inputs by scattering grains over the square then perform a computation on each input (test whether it falls within the circle). Finally, we aggregate the results to obtain our final result, the approximation of .
1058470	What About Bob? is a 1991 comedy film directed by Frank Oz, and starring Bill Murray and Richard Dreyfuss. Murray plays Bob Wiley, a psychiatric patient who follows his egotistical psychiatrist Dr. Leo Marvin (Dreyfuss) on vacation. When the unstable Bob befriends the other members of Marvin's family, it pushes the doctor over the edge.
1038235	Gemma Jones (born Jennifer Gemma Jones; 4 December 1942) is an English character actress on both stage and screen. Early life. Jones was born in Marylebone, the daughter of Irene (née Isaac) and Griffith Jones, an actor. Her brother, Nicholas Jones, is also an actor. She attended the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. Career. Gemma Jones appeared at Nottingham Playhouse in 1965, as Anya, in The Cherry Orchard. Jones became known to television viewers after starring in the BBC serial "Kenilworth" (1967) as Queen Elizabeth I and in BBC2's 1970 dramatisation of "The Spoils of Poynton". She was first recognised outside the UK in 1974, after playing the Empress Frederick in the BBC television drama series "Fall of Eagles" and Louisa Trotter in another BBC drama, "The Duchess of Duke Street". In 1980, she played the role of Portia in the BBC Television Shakespeare production of "The Merchant of Venice", opposite Warren Mitchell's Shylock.
1016093	Young and Dangerous () is a 1996 Hong Kong crime film about a group of triad members, detailing their adventures and dangers in a Hong Kong Triad society. Directed by the film's cinematographer Andrew Lau, the film features a large ensemble cast, which includes Ekin Cheng, Jordan Chan, Francis Ng, Gigi Lai and Simon Yam. Based on a popular comic book series named "Teddy Boy", the film contributed a lot to the public image of triads and was condemned by certain quarters as glorifying secret triad societies. However, it was immensely popular in Hong Kong and spun a long list of sequels and spin-offs. Its main actors and actresses have also became major stars in their own right. Plot. Beginning in 1985, teenagers Chan Ho Nam (Ekin Cheng), his best friends "Chicken" Chiu (Jordan Chan), Tai Tin Yee (Michael Tse), Pou Pee (Jerry Lamb) and older brother Chow Pee (Jason Chu) idolize the local "Hung Hing" Society and one of its leaders, "Uncle Bee" (Ng Chi Hung). When Ho Nam and his friends are beaten by Hung Hing's "Ugly Kwan" (Francis Ng) and his men following a misunderstanding, they decide to join the society, following Bee. 10-years later in 1995, Ho Nam and his buddies have established themselves as Bee's enforcers, performing their first successful hit on Kwan's right-hand "Ba Bai" (Joe Chen). At the same time, Brother Fai Hung has the stuttering Smartie (Gigi Lai a.k.a Tania Sammy) carjack Ho Nam's Toyota MR2 and demands payment, but unfortunately she gets caught by Ho Nam and his friends and is punished by eating dozens of Chinese barbecue pork buns. Seeing Ho Nam is making a name for himself in the society, Kwan attempts to buy him out and have Ho Nam work for him instead of Bee, but the gangster refuses. When he finds Smartie about to be forced into an adult film produced by Kwan's studio, Ho Nam takes her aside, claiming she is his woman. The indebted Smartie follows him, even beginning to fall for him. One day, Bee is tasked with an assignment by Hung Hing Chairman Chiang Tin Sung (Simon Yam) to head to Macau and perform another hit. Bee orders Ho Nam and his men to execute the plan. Sadly, this was all a ploy on Kwan's doing: by using Chicken's fidelity to separate him from Ho Nam and falsifying information to Chairman Chiang, Ho Nam and his remaining friends are ambushed by other triad members under Kwan. Chow Pee is brutally killed and Ho Nam is blamed for the failed hit. Friendships begin to tear apart when Chicken's girlfriend and Ho Nam are kidnapped and drugged by Kwan's men into sex, videotaping their actions as proof of violating orders. With nearly all of Hung Hing looking for them for explanations, Chicken heads to Taiwan in exile. At a Hung Hing summit, Kwan accuses Bee of failing the hit and Ho Nam for breaking the "code" of sleeping with his best friend's woman, with the videotape as evidence. Kwan also takes the opportunity of blaming Chairman Chiang for not inducing better protocols within the society and nominates himself as the new chairman. Other branch leaders are in agreement, thus Chiang steps down and Kwan takes the head position, with only Bee opposing him. To settle things, Ho Nam is punished and banned from rejoining Hung Hing. Ten months later, Kwan orders Bee killed alongside his entire family. With most of Hung Hing siding with Kwan, and no evidence to support Kwan killing Bee, Ho Nam can do next to nothing, until Chicken returns from Taiwan, now a branch leader in a local triad and re-establishes relations with his friends. Deciding to get rid of Kwan and bring back the morally inclined Chiang, Ho Nam and Chicken bribe other branch leaders into assassinating Kwan. Working indirectly with local law enforcement, who have discovered Kwan has been smuggling cocaine using his film studio, Ho Nam and his allies manage to corner Kwan, who admits to everything, until he is shot and killed by a police officer for mistakenly wielding a firearm. Chiang returns and retakes the position of Hung Hing chairman, congratulating Ho Nam for his efforts, ensuring his name will be well known throughout the society. This movie glorifies the value in being virtuous even in a life of crime. In a world in which loyalties do not exist, these group of young gangsters stood by their friends and followed the code of friendship even to the end. Against all odds it seems, that good eventually triumphed over evil at the snapshot to portraits as the screen fades to background in grey the screen fades to black and the movie ends it was officially reinnaugurated by Young and Dangerous 2 it was officially premiered on 30 March 1996.
1044088	Carry On Abroad is the twenty-fourth in the series of "Carry On" films to be made, released in 1972. The film features series regulars Sid James, Kenneth Williams, Joan Sims, Bernard Bresslaw, Barbara Windsor, Kenneth Connor, Peter Butterworth and Hattie Jacques. It was the 23rd and final appearance for Charles Hawtrey. June Whitfield returns after appearing in "Carry On Nurse" 13 years earlier. Jimmy Logan makes the first of two appearances in the series. Plot. The film opens with pub landlord and frequent holidaymaker Vic Flange (Sid James) openly flirting with the sassy saucepot, Sadie Tompkins (Barbara Windsor) as his battleaxe wife, Cora (Joan Sims), looks on with disdain. Their twitching friend, Harry (Jack Douglas) arrives and lets slip that the package holiday Vic has booked to the Mediterranean island Els Bels (a pun on the slang expression "Hell's Bells") also includes Sadie, much to Cora's outrage. Cora, who avoids holidays because she hates flying, suddenly decides to accompany her boorish husband on the trip, to ensure he keeps away from Sadie. The next day, Stuart Farquhar (Kenneth Williams), the nasally representative of Wundatours Travel Agency, and his seductive assistant, Moira Plunkett (Gail Grainger), welcome the motley passengers. Among them the henpecked and love-starved Stanley Blunt (Kenneth Connor) and his prudish, overbearing wife, Evelyn (June Whitfield); a drunken, bowler-hatted mummy's boy, Eustace Tuttle (Charles Hawtrey); brash Scotsman, Bert Conway (Jimmy Logan); young and beautiful friends Marge and Lily (Sally Geeson and Carol Hawkins respectively); and Brother Bernard (Bernard Bresslaw), a timid young monk who has difficultly fitting into his new path of life. Unfortunately, upon their arrival they discover their hotel is only half-finished; the builders have just quit suddenly for unspecified reasons, leaving the remaining five floors unfinished. Distraught manager Pepe (Peter Butterworth) desperately tries to run the place in a myriad of different guises – the manager, the doorman and the porter – and the chef is his shrewish wife, Floella (Hattie Jacques), who battles repeatedly with the temperamental stove while their Lothario son Georgio idles behind the bar. The hotel also hides an assortment of faults and Pepe is soon overrun with complaints: Vic discovers Sadie naked in his shower; Lily and Marge's wardrobe has no back to it, allowing them to be accidentally seen by Brother Bernard in the opposite room; sand pours out of Moira's taps; the lavatory drenches Bert. The phone system itself is faulty and the guests end up complaining to each other for much of the time. Nevertheless, Stuart is determined to ensure everyone has a good time. Dinner the first night is foul and made even more unpleasant by an arrival of mosquitos. Although agreeing to play leapfrog with Tuttle, Lily and Marge have their eyes on other things. Marge takes a shine to Brother Bernard, while Lily lures the dashing Nicholas (David Kernan) away from his jealous (and implied gay) friend, Robin (John Clive), and Marge and Brother Bernard develop an innocent romance. Meanwhile, Stanley Blunt attempts to seduce Cora whilst his nagging wife is not present, but Cora is more interested in keeping Vic away from Sadie, who grows fond of Bert Conway. While most of the party go off to the village, Stanley ensures his wife is left behind so that he can spend the day attempting to woo Cora. Vic samples a local drink, "Santa Cecelia's Elixer", which blesses the drinker with x-ray vision and he is able to see through women's clothing. However, the tourists are arrested for causing a riot at Madame Fifi's (Olga Lowe) local brothel after Vic, Bert and Eustace annoy the girls there; left-behind Evelyn is seduced by Georgio, which leads to her abandoning her frigid manners. In the local prison, Miss Plunkett seduces the Chief of Police, and the tourists are released. Back at the hotel, Mrs Blunt resumes her sex life with a surprised Stanley. The last night in the hotel starts as a success, with all the guests at ease with each other thanks to the punch being spiked with Santa Cecelia's Elixer. Midway through the night it begins to rain, and the hotel is shown to have been constructed on a dry river bed – as the hotel begins to collapse Pepe finally loses his patience and sanity with the guests, who party on, oblivious to the disintegrating hotel. The film shifts forward an unspecified period of time, and shows an Els Bels reunion at Vic & Cora's pub. All the guests are happy and reminisce about the holiday they barely survived. Cast and crew. The film's opening credits also include 'Sun Tan Lo Tion' (sun tan lotion) as 'Technical Director'. This was the last film featuring Charles Hawtrey. The brothel keeper is played by Olga Lowe, one of the first actresses to work with Sid James when he arrived in the UK in 1946. Lowe was also the actress on stage with James on the night he died in Sunderland. Filming and locations. Interiors: Exteriors:
1102024	Jean-Pierre Serre (; born 15 September 1926) is a highly influential French mathematician. He has made fundamental contributions to algebraic topology, algebraic geometry, and algebraic number theory. Biography. Early years. Born in Bages, Pyrénées-Orientales, France, to pharmacist parents, Serre was educated at the Lycée de Nîmes and then from 1945 to 1948 at the École Normale Supérieure in Paris. He was awarded his doctorate from the Sorbonne in 1951. From 1948 to 1954 he held positions at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique in Paris. In 1956 he was elected professor at the Collège de France, a position he held until his retirement in 1994. His wife, Professor Josiane Heulot-Serre, was a chemist ; she also was the director of the Ecole Normale Supérieure de Jeunes Filles. Their daughter is the historian and writer Claudine Monteil. His nephew is the french mathematician Denis Serre. Career. From a very young age he was an outstanding figure in the school of Henri Cartan, working on algebraic topology, several complex variables and then commutative algebra and algebraic geometry, where he introduced sheaf theory and homological algebra techniques. Serre's thesis concerned the Leray–Serre spectral sequence associated to a fibration. Together with Cartan, Serre established the technique of using Eilenberg–MacLane spaces for computing homotopy groups of spheres, which at that time was one of the major problems in topology. In his speech at the Fields Medal award ceremony in 1954, Hermann Weyl gave high praise to Serre, and also made the point that the award was for the first time awarded to an algebraist. Serre subsequently changed his research focus. However, Weyl's perception that the central place of classical analysis had been challenged by abstract algebra has subsequently been justified, as has his assessment of Serre's place in this change. Algebraic geometry. In the 1950s and 1960s, a fruitful collaboration between Serre and the two-years-younger Alexander Grothendieck led to important foundational work, much of it motivated by the Weil conjectures. Two major foundational papers by Serre were "Faisceaux Algébriques Cohérents" (FAC), on coherent cohomology, and "Géometrie Algébrique et Géométrie Analytique" (GAGA). Even at an early stage in his work Serre had perceived a need to construct more general and refined cohomology theories to tackle the Weil conjectures. The problem was that the cohomology of a coherent sheaf over a finite field couldn't capture as much topology as singular cohomology with integer coefficients. Amongst Serre's early candidate theories of 1954–55 was one based on Witt vector coefficients. Around 1958 Serre suggested that isotrivial principal bundles on algebraic varieties — those that become trivial after pullback by a finite étale map — are important. This acted as one important source of inspiration for Grothendieck to develop étale topology and the corresponding theory of étale cohomology. These tools, developed in full by Grothendieck and collaborators in Séminaire de géométrie algébrique (SGA) 4 and SGA 5, provided the tools for the eventual proof of the Weil conjectures by Pierre Deligne. Other work. From 1959 onward Serre's interests turned towards group theory, number theory, in particular Galois representations and modular forms. Amongst his most original contributions were: his "Conjecture II" (still open) on Galois cohomology; his use of group actions on Trees (with H. Bass); the Borel-Serre compactification; results on the number of points of curves over finite fields; Galois representations in ℓ-adic cohomology and the proof that these representations have often a "large" image; the concept of "p"-adic modular form; and the Serre conjecture (now a theorem) on mod-"p" representations that made Fermat's last theorem a connected part of mainstream arithmetic geometry. In his paper FAC, Serre asked whether a finitely generated projective module over a polynomial ring is free. This question led to a great deal of activity in commutative algebra, and was finally answered in the affirmative by Daniel Quillen and Andrei Suslin independently in 1976. This result is now known as the Quillen-Suslin theorem. Honors and awards. Serre, at twenty-seven in 1954, is the youngest ever to be awarded the Fields Medal. He went on to win the Balzan Prize in 1985, the Steele Prize in 1995, the Wolf Prize in Mathematics in 2000, and was the first recipient of the Abel Prize in 2003. He has been awarded other prizes, such as the Gold Medal of the French National Scientific Research Centre (Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, CNRS). He is a foreign member of several scientific Academies (France, US, Norway, Sweden, Russia, the Royal Society...) and has received about a dozen honorary degrees (Cambridge, Oxford, Harvard, ...). In 2012 he became a fellow of the American Mathematical Society. Serre has been awarded the highest honors in France as Grand'cross of the Legion of Honor (grand' croix dand l'Ordre de la Légion d'Honneur) and Grand cross of the Legion of Merit( grand'croix de l'Ordre National du Mérite).
1060232	Soapdish is a 1991 comedy film which tells a backstage story of the cast and crew of a popular fictional television soap opera. It stars Sally Field as an aging soap star, joined by Kevin Kline, Robert Downey, Jr., Elisabeth Shue, Whoopi Goldberg, Teri Hatcher, Cathy Moriarty, Garry Marshall, Kathy Najimy, and Carrie Fisher, as well as cameo appearances by TV personalities like Leeza Gibbons, John Tesh (both playing themselves as "Entertainment Tonight" hosts/reporters), real-life soap opera actors, Stephen Nichols and Finola Hughes and Ben Stein. Kline was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy for the film. "Soapdish" was directed by Michael Hoffman, from a screenplay by Robert Harling and Andrew Bergman. The film was produced by Aaron Spelling and Field's then-husband Alan Greisman. Plot. Celeste Talbert, the longtime star of the struggling daytime drama "The Sun Also Sets", is targeted by her jealous costar Montana Moorehead; Montana connives to supplant Celeste as the show's star by promising sexual favors to its producer, David Seton Barnes. To make the audience hate Celeste's character, Montana and David come up with a last-minute plot change in which she will accidentally kill a young, destitute deaf-mute, played by the newly-cast Lori Craven. Despite the strong objections of Head Writer Rose Schwartz and Celeste herself, the scene plays out, but is interrupted by Celeste's recognition of Lori as her real-life niece. Network honcho Edmund Edwards sees potential in the relationship and makes Lori a regular cast member, as Celeste tries to talk her niece out of an acting career. Montana and David seek to further unnerve Celeste by bringing back Jeffrey Anderson, an actor who had been fired from "The Sun Also Sets" (and his character decapitated) decades before after his romantic relationship with Celeste had gone sour. Bitter at being reduced to performing dinner theater for uninterested seniors in Florida, Jeffrey relishes the chance to needle Celeste. Outwardly despising Jeffrey but perhaps still harboring some feelings for him, Celeste is horrified as he and the much-younger Lori develop a close friendship. Later on in dramatic fashion, Celeste stops a scripted onscreen kiss between Lori and Jeffrey by revealing that Lori is actually her daughter by Jeffrey. On camera, Celeste explains that she had been responsible for getting Jeffrey fired because of the pregnancy, and had passed Lori off as her niece due to pressure from the network. This incites disgust and scorn from nearly everyone on the show towards Celeste, but the scandal ignites renewed interest in the show, causing the ratings to skyrocket. A board meeting between the show's staff—including Rose, who speaks out in Celeste's defense—takes place thereafter, where David insists that she be fired, but he is quickly overruled as the situation has not only resulted in positive press for the show, but has generated a great deal of public sympathy for Celeste. The next day, after an unpleasant exchange with Lori, Celeste goes to Jeffrey and pleads with him to speak to Lori on her behalf. Jeffrey is resistant at first, but after Celeste gives him advice on how to approach her and break the ice, the conversation leads to Celeste and Jeffrey embracing. Just when it seems the two are about to reconcile, Montana interrupts them and slyly implies that she and Jeffrey slept together the previous night. Disgusted, Celeste storms off, leaving the situation between her and Jeffrey even worse than before. The dilemma is further inflamed when Rose—who by now is no longer angry with Celeste—shows her a tabloid newspaper proclaiming that Montana is pregnant with Jeffrey's child. After an explosive exchange between the three of them takes place over this, Celeste, Jeffrey and Lori go to the head of the network with their concerns and demand that some action must be taken to solve the problem. But it's Lori who delivers an ultimatum stating "It's them or me--that is the bottom line here! "They" go or "I" go!" A decision is made by the network, and the actors head into a live episode in which they will read their lines from a teleprompter to keep secret until the last minute who will be written off. It is revealed that Lori's character has "brain fever" and will die; still hoping to be rid of Celeste, Montana ad-libs and suggests that a brain transplant can save her. Lori is shocked by the revelation, but in character, Celeste immediately plays along, offering her own brain for the operation. Touched by the sacrifice, Lori asks Celeste and Jeffrey not to leave the show, and softens to her newfound parents. Montana, desperate to stop them, reiterates that she is pregnant with Jeffrey's child, but she is publicly ruined by Rose who, with the help of vengeful Ariel Maloney, who had become fond of Jeffrey, reveals the secret from a high school yearbook that Montana was once a man named Milton Moorehead. David is shocked and Montana flees the set, screaming in horror. Later, Celeste, Jeffrey, and Lori win soap opera awards as Milton performs dinner theater at Jeffrey's former venue. Reception. It received mixed reviews and has a 69% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
1050045	Meghan Ory (born August 20, 1982) is a Canadian television and film actress. She starred as Red Riding Hood/Ruby Lucas on the ABC fantasy series "Once Upon a Time" and is currently starring in the upcoming CBS drama "Intelligence" as Riley Neal. Life and career. Ory was born in Victoria, British Columbia and attended Royal Oak Middle School and then Claremont Secondary School. After receiving the Fine Arts Award for Acting from Royal Oak in 1996, she began pursuing a career in acting. Her first professional acting role came in 1999 in the Fox Family Channel television movie, "The Darklings", opposite Suzanne Somers and Timothy Busfield. A guest appearance on the television series "" followed, before she landed her first regular TV role on the Fox Family series "Higher Ground" in 2000, along with Hayden Christensen. After appearing on the MTV series "2ge+her" (2000), Ory joined the cast of the Canadian television series "Vampire High" in 2001. She continued working in television with guest appearances on "The Outer Limits", "Dark Angel", "Glory Days", and "Maybe It’s Me". She appeared in the TV movies, "Lucky 7" and "National Lampoon's Thanksgiving Family Reunion" in 2003, as well as the TV series "Smallville", "Life As We Know It", and "The Collector", and "Family Reunion" in 2004. Also in 2004, Ory made her feature film debut in "Decoys", directed by Matthew Hastings, whom she had previously worked with on "Higher Ground" and "Vampire High". In 2006, Ory appeared in UPN series "South Beach", and the Hallmark mini-series "Merlin's Apprentice", alongside Sam Neill and Miranda Richardson. She also appeared in the feature film "John Tucker Must Die" and the made-for-TV film "Her Sister's Keeper". In 2007, Ory appeared in "Blonde and Blonder" with Pamela Anderson and Denise Richards, and the television film "Nightmare". In 2008, Ory appeared in the television series "Flash Gordon" episode "Thicker Than Water". In 2009, Ory appeared in the television series "Knight Rider (2008)" episode 17 (Season 1) "I love the Knight Life" as Megan Connelly. She portrayed Claire Thompson in the horror-thriller film "Dark House". She also appeared as a guest star of Canadian TV Series Sanctuary as Laura. In 2010, Ory appeared in the Keystone Light beer commercial "Rescue of Beer".". Beginning fall 2011, Ory starred as Red Riding Hood/Ruby Lucas on the ABC fantasy series "Once Upon a Time". She was in most of the episodes of the first season and was promoted to the main cast in the second season of the series. She left the cast at the end of the second season, but stated that she is open for a guest starring part in the future whenever the time is available to her. In March 2013, Ory was cast as the female lead opposite Josh Holloway in the CBS drama pilot "Intelligence", which co-stars Marg Helgenberger. In 2008, she married John Reardon, with whom she worked on "Merlin's Apprentice".
1044338	Joyce Carey, OBE (30 March 1898 – 28 February 1993) was a British actress, best known for her long professional and personal relationship with Noël Coward. Her stage career lasted from 1916 until 1984, and she was performing on television in her nineties. Though never a star, she was a familiar face both on stage and screen. In addition to light comedy, she had a large repertory of Shakespearean roles. Career. Joyce Carey was born as Joyce Lawrence, the daughter of actors Gerald Lawrence and Lilian Braithwaite. Lawrence was a handsome matinée idol, who had been a juvenile in Henry Irving's Shakespeare company; Braithwaite was a major West End star. Carey was educated at the Florence Etlinger Dramatic School. Carey made her stage debut, aged 18, in October 1916 as Princess Katherine in an all-female production of "Henry V". She joined Sir George Alexander's company at the St James's Theatre playing Jacqueline, a French countess, in "The Aristocrat". After a succession of West End roles in light comedy, Carey took on further Shakespeare parts, appearing at Stratford-upon-Avon as Anne Page, Perdita, Titania, Miranda and Juliet. Over the next few years she added Hermia, Celia and Olivia to her Shakespearean repertoire, in between regular appearance in West End comedies. Her first appearance in a Noël Coward play was as Sarah Hurst in "Easy Virtue" in New York in 1926. For most of the following seven years, Carey's career was chiefly in New York, following a great success in "The Road to Rome" in 1927. In 1934 she wrote (pseudonymously), and acted a supporting role in, a comedy, "Sweet Aloes", which ran in London for more than a year. In 1936 she resumed her connection with Coward, playing a series of character roles in his cycle of short plays, "" in London and New York. During World War II, Carey toured with John Gielgud for the Entertainments National Service Association (ENSA) bringing theatre to members of the armed forces at home and abroad, recreating some of her roles from "Tonight at 8:30". In 1942 she rejoined Coward to tour in his three newest plays, "This Happy Breed" as Sylvia, "Blithe Spirit" as Ruth, and "Present Laughter" as Liz – a character based partly on the actress herself. She later played all three roles in London. After the war she played in new Coward plays, "Quadrille" (with Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne) and "Nude with Violin" (with Gielgud in London and Coward in New York). "The Times" said of her film work: "One role in a film written by Coward will remain always in the memory: with haughty disdain and an accent of fearful gentility Carey was the manageress of the station buffet in "Brief Encounter", who froze her customers and slapped down attempts at familiarity from Stanley Holloway's ticket collector." Carey's other Coward film roles were the petty officer's wife in "In Which We Serve" and Mrs Bradman in "Blithe Spirit". Her other films included "The Way to the Stars" and "Cry the Beloved Country". Between 1976 and 1979 she starred in the popular ITV series The Cedar Tree. Her last stage performance, opposite Peter O'Toole, was as Mrs Higgins in Pygmalion in 1984, but she continued working on screen into her nineties, attracting enthusiastic notices for her portrayal of a frail old lady faced with eviction in Michael Palin's BBC play, "No 27". Critical opinion and personal life. "The Times" wrote in its obituary of Carey: Award. Carey was awarded the OBE in 1982. She never married: she enjoyed the enduring friendship of Coward's adopted "family". When Coward received his knighthood in 1970, Carey, along with costume designer Gladys Calthrop, accompanied him to the ceremony at Buckingham Palace. She died in London, aged 94.
1059288	Timothy James Bottoms (born August 30, 1951) is an American actor and film producer. Early life. Bottoms was born in Santa Barbara, California, the eldest son of Betty (née Chapman) and James "Bud" Bottoms, who is a sculptor and art teacher. He is the brother of actors Joseph Bottoms (born 1954), Sam Bottoms (1955–2008) and Ben Bottoms (born 1960). In 1967, Bottoms toured Europe as part of the Santa Barbara Madrigal Society. Sam Bottoms died due to brain cancer in 2008. At one point, Sam was the only sibling close to Timothy. Career. Bottoms made his film debut in 1971 as Joe Bonham in Dalton Trumbo's "Johnny Got His Gun". The same year, he appeared alongside his brother Sam in "The Last Picture Show". (He portrayed the same character in the 1990 sequel "Texasville"). He has appeared in other notable films such as "The Paper Chase", "Love and Pain and the Whole Damn Thing", "Rollercoaster" and "Elephant". Bottoms has the unique distinction of portraying U.S. President George W. Bush in three widely varying productions. In 2000–2001, he played a parody of Bush in the Comedy Central sitcom "That's My Bush!"; he subsequently appeared as Bush in a cameo appearance in the family film "". Finally, following the September 11, 2001 attacks, Bottoms once again played Bush, this time in a serious fashion, in the telefilm "DC 9/11", one of the first movies to be based upon the attacks. During an episode of the Fox television show "That '70s Show" in which a tornado warning has been issued and the students of the high school are trapped, Bottoms is seen as the panicking principal. He appeared in a recurring role during the first season of the FX series "Dirt" as Gibson Horne, who owned the magazine that series main character Lucy Spiller worked for. He also co-produced the documentary "Picture This – The Times of Peter Bogdanovich in Archer City, Texas" (1991) dealing with behind-the-scenes look on the films "The Last Picture Show" and "Texasville". In the documentary, he revealed that he had a crush on his co-star Cybill Shepherd during "The Last Picture Show," but she did not reciprocate his feelings. He was also heavily featured in the Metallica video for "One", which featured footage of the film "Johnny Got His Gun".
113195	Robert Trebor (born June 7, 1953) is an American character actor, perhaps best known for starring as "Salmoneus" on the cult hits ' and '. His stage name is a palindrome meaning it is spelled the same way backwards as it is forwards. Biography. Early life. Trebor was born Robert Schenkman and grew up in Northeast Philadelphia, first showing signs of interest in acting around age 13. He was soon taking acting classes and participating in local theater groups. He also won several filmmaking awards from Kodak short film competitions, and the local ABC_Philadelphia and PBS affiliates for a short black and white film called "Communicate!?" "Starring Himself". He wrote, directed, and starred in this short, as well as composed the music on an early version of a Moog synthesizer. His first lead role on the stage was as Finch in "How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying" for the St. Joseph's Summer Music Theatre Festival. Along with his acting Robert won several national awards from Scholastic Magazines for writing film and theatre reviews. Ironically one of his award winning reviews was for John Frankenheimer's "The Fixer". Years later he would star for Mr. Frankenheimer in the film "52 Pickup". After a brief focus on oratory, he returned to acting, majoring in theater at Northwestern University. He returned to Philadelphia to star with Bill Irwin in a revival of George Gershwin's "Strike Up The Band" for the inaugural season of the American Music Theatre Festival at the historic Walnut Street Theatre. Trebor has alternated between film and television. On the silver screen, his most acclaimed work is probably "52 Pickup", directed by John Frankenheimer. Film and television. Trebor played the Son of Sam killer in the much-praised "Out of the Darkness" opposite Martin Sheen. On television, after playing Waylin the slave in "Hercules and the Lost Kingdom", the second of five TV movies, Trebor rose to fame for playing the ever-out-to-make-a-buck merchant Salmoneus, a character originating on "Hercules: The Legendary Journeys" and making occasional crossovers to sister show "Xena: Warrior Princess". Theatre. A recent project for the theatre is a one-man show called "The Return of Brother Theodore". The Los Angeles Weekly gave the show its prized "GO" recommendation and said, "actor Robert Trebor reincarnates Gottlieb in a 45-minute late-night solo performance that paints Brother Theodore’s belligerent reflections on a twisted life with broad yet powerful comedic strokes." This production was nominated by The LA Weekly for Best Solo Performance of 2007.
1164513	Mr. T (born Laurence Tureaud; May 21, 1952) is an American actor known for his roles as B. A. Baracus in the 1980s television series "The A-Team", as boxer Clubber Lang in the 1982 film "Rocky III", and for his appearances as a professional wrestler. Mr. T is known for his trademark African Mandinka warrior hairstyle, his gold jewelry, and his tough-guy image. In 2006 he starred in the reality show "I Pity the Fool", shown on TV Land, the title of which comes from the catchphrase of his Lang character. Early life. Mr. T was born in Chicago, Illinois, the youngest son in a family with twelve children. His father, Nathaniel Tureaud Sr., was a minister. Tureaud, with his four sisters and seven brothers, grew up in a three-room apartment in one of the city's housing projects, the Robert Taylor Homes, in a poorly constructed building, in an area with high levels of environmental pollutants and the largest concentration of poverty in America. While growing up, Tureaud regularly witnessed murder, rape, and other crimes, but attributes his survival and later success to his will to do well and his mother's love. Tureaud attended Dunbar Vocational High School, where he played football, wrestled, and studied martial arts. While at Dunbar he became the city-wide wrestling champion two years in a row. He won a football scholarship to Prairie View A&M University, where he majored in mathematics, but was expelled after his first year.
1058453	Alessandro Antine Nivola (born June 28, 1972) is an American actor, who has appeared in feature films such as "Coco Before Chanel", "Best Laid Plans", "Jurassic Park III", "Face/Off", and the first two films of the "Goal!" trilogy. Early life. Nivola was born in Boston, Massachusetts. His mother, Virginia (née Davis), is an artist, and his father, Pietro Salvatore Nivola, is a professor of political science who wrote the book "Laws of the Landscape: How Policies Shape Cities in Europe and America". Nivola's paternal grandfather was the Italian sculptor Costantino Nivola, and his paternal grandmother, Ruth Guggenheim, was a Jewish refugee from Germany. Nivola has described his mother as "a WASP, from the South", and has stated that she is a descendant of Confederate President Jefferson Davis. He has a brother, Adrian, and attended Phillips Exeter Academy. Career. Nivola began his acting career while still an undergraduate at Yale, landing the leading role in a Seattle production of Athol Fugard's ""Master Harold"...and the Boys". After college, Nivola debuted on Broadway in 1995 as the young lover of Helen Mirren in "A Month in the Country". The next year he appeared in the 1996 NBC miniseries "Danielle Steel's The Ring" and landed his first film role as Joanna Going's preppy husband in "Inventing the Abbotts" before being cast as Nicolas Cage's paranoid sociopath brother in John Woo's "Face/Off" (both in 1997). Nivola adopted an English accent to play a mystery man from former girlfriend Rachel Weisz's past in "I Want You" (1998), directed by Michael Winterbottom. He then appeared in the thriller "Best Laid Plans" and again as an Englishman in Patricia Rozema's screen version of the Jane Austen novel, "Mansfield Park", both in 1999. He played a rock singer involved with his record producer, played by Frances McDormand, in the film "Laurel Canyon". Nivola was one of the faces for the GAP's 2002 Ads campaign "For Every Generation". Nivola trained hard for the filming of the "Goal!" trilogy, and has picked up a lot of skill and pace and was commended for his sudden burst of talent by the directors of "Goal! 2". In the film "Coco avant Chanel", Nivola again played an Englishman and learned to speak French for the role. In 2010, Nivola appeared in the Off-Broadway play "A Lie of the Mind", directed by Ethan Hawke at the Theatre Row in New York City. Personal life. Nivola married British actress Emily Mortimer in the Chilterns, Buckinghamshire in January 2003; the couple have a son, Samuel John, born in Westminster, London, on September 23, 2003. They also have a daughter, May Rose, born on January 15, 2010. They live in Brooklyn, New York.
1062471	The Fighter is a 2010 biographical sports drama film directed by David O. Russell, and starring Mark Wahlberg, Christian Bale, Amy Adams and Melissa Leo. The film centers on the life of professional boxer Micky Ward (Wahlberg) and his older half-brother Dicky Eklund (Bale). The film also stars Amy Adams as Micky's love interest, and Melissa Leo as Micky's and Dicky's mother. "The Fighter" is Russell and Wahlberg's third film collaboration, following "Three Kings" and "I Heart Huckabees". The film was released in select North American theaters on December 17, 2010 and was released in the United Kingdom on February 4, 2011. It was nominated for seven Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director, winning the awards for Best Supporting Actor (Christian Bale) and Best Supporting Actress (Melissa Leo). It was the first film to win both awards since "Hannah and Her Sisters" in 1986. Plot. Micky Ward (Mark Wahlberg) is an American welterweight boxer from Lowell, Massachusetts. Managed by his mother, Alice Ward (Melissa Leo), and trained by his older half-brother, Dicky Eklund (Christian Bale), Micky has not had a particularly successful career: He's become a "stepping stone" for other boxers to defeat on their way up. Complicating matters, Dicky, a former boxer whose peak of success was knocking Sugar Ray Leonard down in an HBO televised match, has fallen apart since then, becoming addicted to crack cocaine. He is now being filmed for an HBO documentary he believes to be about his "comeback". On the night of an undercard fight in Atlantic City, Micky's scheduled opponent is ill, and a substitute is found who is 20 pounds heavier than Micky. Despite Micky's reservations, his mother and brother agree to the terms so that they can all get the purse. Micky is soundly defeated by the much heavier fighter in an obvious mismatch. Frustrated with his career and embarrassed by his defeat, Micky tries to retreat from the world and forms a relationship with Charlene Fleming (Amy Adams), a former college athlete who dropped out and became a bartender. After several weeks, Alice arranges another fight for Micky, who hesitates, concerned it will turn out the same as before. His mother and seven sisters blame Charlene for his lack of motivation. Micky mentions that he's received an offer to be paid to train in Las Vegas, but Dicky says he will match the offer so he can keep training and working with his family. Dicky then tries to get money by posing his girlfriend as a prostitute and then, once she picks up a client, impersonating a police officer to steal the client's money. This is quickly foiled by the actual police and Dicky is arrested after a chase and a fight with them. Micky intervenes to try to stop the police from beating his brother, and a police officer breaks his hand before arresting him. At their arraignment, Micky is released but Dicky is sent to jail. Finally fed up, Micky washes his hands of Dicky. On the night of the HBO documentary's airing, Dicky's family, and Dicky himself in prison, are horrified to see it is called "" and about how crack addiction ruined Dicky's career and life. Devastated, Dicky begins training and trying to get his life together in prison. Micky is lured back into boxing by his father, who believes Alice and his stepson Dicky are bad influences. The other members of his training team and a new manager, Sal Lanano, persuade Micky to return to boxing with the explicit understanding that his mother and brother will no longer be involved. They place Micky in minor fights to help him regain his confidence. He is then offered another major fight against an undefeated up-and-coming boxer. During a prison visit, Dicky advises Micky on how best to work his opponent, but Micky feels his brother is being selfish and trying to restart his own failed career. During the actual match, Micky is nearly overwhelmed at the beginning but then implements his brother's advice and is eventually triumphant; he earns the title shot for which his opponent was being groomed. Upon his release from prison, Dicky and his mother go to see Micky train. Assuming things are as they were, Dicky prepares to spar with his brother, but Micky informs him that he's no longer allowed per Micky's agreement with his current team. In the ensuing argument, in which Micky chastises both factions of his family, Charlene and his trainer leave in disgust. Micky and Dicky spar until Micky knocks Dicky down. Dicky storms off, presumably to get high again, and Alice chides Micky, only to be sobered when he tells her that she has always favored Dicky. Dicky returns to his crack house, where he says goodbye to his friends and heads to Charlene's apartment. He tells her that Micky needs both of them and they need to work together. After bringing everyone back together, the group goes to London for the title fight. Micky scores another upset victory and the welterweight title. The film jumps a few years ahead, with Dicky, as talkative as ever, crediting his brother as the creator of his own success. Production. Scout Productions acquired the life rights of boxer Micky Ward and his brother, Dick Eklund, in July 2003. Eric Johnson and Paul Tamasy were also hired to write the screenplay, which was rewritten by Lewis Colick. Mark Wahlberg joined the production in early 2005, with the intention of doing Ward's life story "justice. We don't want to do any over-the-top, unrealistic fight scenes." Paramount Pictures, the United States distributor of the film, hired Paul Attanasio to rewrite Collick's draft in February 2007 in an attempt to emphasize the themes of brotherhood and redemption. Hoping to start production in Massachusetts in June 2007, Wahlberg had Martin Scorsese read the screenplay, hoping he would direct. Scorsese turned down the offer, finding the Massachusetts-setting redundant after having finished "The Departed". The actor cited Scorsese's "Raging Bull" as an influence for "The Fighter", but Scorsese was not interested in directing another boxing film. Darren Aronofsky was hired to direct in March 2007, with Scott Silver rewriting the script in September 2007. Production proceeded with filming set to begin October 2008 and Christian Bale replacing Brad Pitt. By then Aronofsky had dropped out to work on MGM's currently aborted "RoboCop" remake, followed by "Black Swan". Wahlberg and Bale chose David O. Russell as Aronofsky's replacement. Wahlberg had also starred in Russell's "Three Kings" and "I Heart Huckabees". Aronofsky was given an executive producer credit for his contributions on "The Fighter", and was enthusiastic to have Russell as the director. In April 2009, Relativity Media stepped up to entirely finance the film, selling the international distribution rights to The Weinstein Company a month later. "The Fighter" began principal photography on July 13, 2009, on an $11 million budget in a 33-day shooting schedule, which was half the budget that Paramount was working with. The production utilized Massachusetts' film tax credits to cover parts of the film's cost. The movie was filmed on location in Ward's hometown of Lowell, Massachusetts. Its boxing matches were shot at the Tsongas Center at UMass Lowell, and gym scenes at Arthur Ramalho's West End Gym, one of the real-life facilities where Ward had trained. The boxing-match footage was created "in big, choreographed sections that were taken directly from of Micky's actual fights," said Russell. "And we used the actual commentary from Larry Merchant, Roy Jones Jr. and Jim Lampley." Russell used "[the actual cameras from that era. were a sort of Beta [video-format] camera that gave a very certain look, and we actually hired the director from HBO and his crew who had done those fights" to replicate them shot-for-shot. Release. To promote the film, Wahlberg appeared on the cover of "Sports Illustrated" and "Men's Fitness", and Bale on "Esquire", in November 2010. An advanced charity premiere took place in Lowell, Massachusetts, the setting of "The Fighter", on December 9, a day before the film's scheduled national release. Home media. "The Fighter" was released in a Blu-ray/DVD/Digital Copy combo pack and standard DVD in the US on March 15, 2011. Comparison to actual events. The movie has Ward on a losing streak coming into the 1988 Mike Mungin fight. In reality, Ward was 18–1 and on a four-fight winning streak when he fought Mungin. Ward's four-fight losing streak actually took place in 1990–91. In the movie Ward is knocked down in round three of the Neary fight. In reality, Ward was not knocked down in that fight.
1063342	Lou Diamond Phillips (born February 17, 1962) is an American film, television, and stage actor and director. His breakthrough came when he starred in the film "La Bamba" as Ritchie Valens. He earned a supporting actor Golden Globe Award nomination for his role in "Stand and Deliver" and a Tony Award nomination for his role in "The King and I". Other notable films in which Phillips has starred include "Courage Under Fire", "Che", and "Love Takes Wing". Early life and education. Phillips was born as Lou Diamond Upchurch at the Subic Bay U.S. Naval Station in Zambales Philippines, the son of Lucita Aranas and Gerald Upchurch, an officer in the United States Navy. His father was an American of Scots-Irish and one-quarter Cherokee descent, and his mother, a native of Candelaria, is of Filipino Spanish descent.
560271	Kevin Bernhardt is an American film writer, film actor, television actor, and producer. Bernhardt is best known as a screenwriter, with over 20 screenplays produced since the mid-1990s. His dozen lead actor/film roles before that included J.P. Monroe and his Cenobitic alter-ego in the 1992 Action/Horror film "", Dean in "Top of the World" (1997), and Billy Knox in "The Immortals" (1995). Bernhardt had had series regular roles on "Dynasty" as Father Tanner McBride and "General Hospital (1985-1987)" as lady-killer (literally) Kevin O'Connor. Bernhardt was born in Holly Hills, Florida, where he was adopted by Navy Damage Control Officer 'Red' Bernhardt and wife Beverly. His most memorable years there were spent at an African-American elementary school (Turie T. Small), as part of the integration which took place in the late 1960s. But his family relocated to a trailer park in Susquehanna County, Pennsylvania, where he completed high school and worked very hard to become an Eagle Scout. Bernhardt attended college at the State University of New York at Binghamton on a National Merit Scholarship sponsored by the Eureka tent factory, where his mother worked. He supplemented his income in the Kroehler furniture factory. After completing a Bachelor's Degree in Economics in the winter of 1984, he immediately traveled to Los Angeles, where he passed the Series 7 exam and was hired by Robert Brandt and Company, the only fourth market securities trading firm in the country. But his true passion was the theater, and after six months successfully trading stocks between institutional investors, Bernhardt left it behind for a career as a screenwriter/actor. He landed a contract role on "General Hospital " just a few weeks later, replacing then-popular daytime actor Jack Wagner during a contract dispute - in his coveted role as singer Frisco Jones. Wagner of course returned, but ABC then took the unprecedented step of creating a second and entirely different role for Bernhardt on the same show. He was the center of attention in the newly created 'Laurelton Murders' storyline, and with it "General Hospital" led the ratings for two years. Though he preferred screen-writing, Bernhardt took acting seriously enough to study in the small master class taught by Stella Adler. And he continued to work steadily as an actor for several years; in TV with another contract role as a priest (with love interest Heather Locklear) on Dynasty, as well as several mostly 'bad-guy' leads in films such as Hellraiser III. His personal life also flourished with a marriage to Purple Rain star Apollonia. But once he saw his first screenplay produced - he decided to devote his undivided attention to screenwriting. Since then his writing has attracted a diverse array of well-known actors, ranging from Sylvester Stallone and Wesley Snipes, to Chris Rock and Charlie Sheen. Those actors also resulted in the first few breakthrough films for companies including Avi Lerner’s NuImage-Millennium and Eli Samaha’s Franchise Pictures.
1042658	Marianne Stone (23 August 1922 – 21 December 2009) was an English character actress. She appeared in many films from the early 1940s to the late 1980s. She usually played working class parts such as barmaids, secretaries and landladies, and is probably best known for her contribution to the "Carry On" films where she appeared in nine in total and took part in an episode of the "Carry On Laughing" television series ("The Case of the Screaming Winkles"). Among her many other films are appearances in such classics as "Brighton Rock" (1947), "Seven Days to Noon" (1950), "The 39 Steps" (1959), "Lolita" (1962), "Ladies Who Do" (1963), "Oh! What a Lovely War" (1969) and the first two "Quatermass" films. Her most serious and arguably most dramatic role was as Lena Van Broecken in three episodes of the BBC's "Secret Army" between 1977 and 1978. Stone, whose nickname was "Mugsie", was credited in her early films under the name "Mary Stone", and also has been credited as "Marion Stone". She was married for fifty years, from 1947 to 1997, to actor turned theatre critic and film historian Peter Noble, with whom she had two children, one of whom is DJ Kara Noble. Although she appeared in a record 201 films, in the 1980s the offers dried up and she retired. Stone died 21 December 2009 at the age of 87.
1060367	Mary Elle Fanning (born April 9, 1998) is an American actress. She is the younger sister of actress Dakota Fanning and mainly known for her starring roles in "Phoebe in Wonderland", "Somewhere" and "We Bought a Zoo". In 2011, Fanning starred in her breakout role as Alice Dainard in J. J. Abrams' sci-fi-drama blockbuster, "Super 8". For this role she received overwhelming critical acclaim and was often cited as one of the film's best aspects. She received nominations for a Saturn Award, a Young Artist Award, a Broadcast Film Critics Association Award, a Teen Choice Award, a Scream Award, an MTV Movie Award, and more including a special Spotlight Award at the Hollywood Film Festival. Early life and education. Fanning was born in Conyers, Georgia on April 9, 1998, the daughter of Heather Joy (née Arrington), who played tennis professionally, and Steven J. Fanning, who played minor league baseball for the St. Louis Cardinals and now works as an electronics salesman in Los Angeles. Her maternal grandfather is American football player Rick Arrington, and her aunt is ESPN reporter Jill Arrington. Fanning is the younger sister of Dakota Fanning, who is also an actress. Fanning has Irish, German, English, and French ancestry. Fanning and her family are members of the Southern Baptist Convention. She has been quoted as saying "We're just normal sisters. We both go to school and we just play together." Fanning currently attends Campbell Hall School in North Hollywood, Los Angeles, which was also attended by child actresses Ashley and Mary-Kate Olsen. Career. Fanning started acting at the age of 2 years and 8 months. She began her acting career by playing the younger version of her older sister Dakota's characters in the mini-series "Taken" and the movie "I Am Sam". In 2002, at the age of four, Fanning won her first role independent of her sister in the comedy "Daddy Day Care". Anecdotal evidence of her emerging skill was seen in the decision to cast her in the role of Ruth in "The Door in the Floor" (2002) opposite Jeff Bridges and Kim Basinger. The film's producers originally planned to hire identical twins for the intense shooting schedule, but were so impressed with Fanning that they used only her. Late in 2003, Fanning appeared in "Because of Winn-Dixie" in the small role of Sweetie Pie Thomas. In 2004, she did voice-work in the English dubbed version of Miyazaki's animated film "My Neighbor Totoro", in the role of Mei. Later that same year, she filmed "I Want Someone to Eat Cheese With". In early 2005, Fanning filmed scenes in "Charlotte's Web" as the "future granddaughter" of Fern Arable played by Dakota Fanning. However, the scenes didn't make the final cut. In mid-2005, she played Debbie, the daughter of Richard and Susan Jones (played by Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett) in the Academy Award-winning film "Babel". In early 2006, Fanning filmed scenes in both "The Nines" and "Déjà Vu". In mid-2006, she filmed "The Lost Room" a sci-fi TV mini-series. Also in 2006, she appeared on the episode "Need to Know" of "House: MD", playing the patient's daughter. By the end of 2006, Fanning began to book lead roles. The first of these was the one of Emma Learner in "Reservation Road"—the grieving daughter of Grace and Ethan Learner. The film deals with the aftermath of a tragic car accident in which Emma's brother is killed. Late in 2008, Fanning had a small part in "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" as a younger version of Cate Blanchett's character. Mid-year 2007, Fanning filmed the title role Phoebe of "Phoebe in Wonderland"—the tale of a little girl who won't—or can't—follow the rules. "Phoebe in Wonderland" also starred Felicity Huffman and was released in March 2009. From July through October 2007, Fanning appeared in "The Nutcracker in 3D", playing Mary. Set in 1920's Vienna, this is a tale of a little girl whose godfather gives her a special doll on Christmas Eve. The movie was filmed in Budapest, Hungary and was released late 2010. In March 2008, Fanning and her sister Dakota were scheduled to star in "My Sister's Keeper", but the opportunity fell through when Dakota learned she would have to shave her head. The sisters were immediately replaced by Abigail Breslin and Sofia Vassilieva. Variety reported in April 2009 that Fanning would be starring in Academy Award-winning screenwriter Sofia Coppola's new film, "Somewhere". The plot centers around a "bad-boy" actor who is forced to re-evaluate his life when his daughter, played by Fanning, arrives unexpectedly. The film was released during the 2010 awards season. At its first film festival, the 67th Venice Film Festival, it took out the Golden Lion. In late 2010, Fanning began working on Francis Ford Coppola's new film "Twixt", that Coppola wrote, based on a dream he had. She plays the role of a young ghost named V. In 2011, Fanning starred in J. J. Abrams' sci-fi-drama film "Super 8" as Alice Dainard. The movie was released on June 10, 2011 and centers around a group of kids who are forced to deal with strange happenings in their small town. In December 2011, Fanning appeared in Cameron Crowe's "We Bought a Zoo". She played Lily, a thirteen-year-old who is working at the zoo's restaurant, and lives on the property with her only parental figure, Kelly (Scarlett Johansson). On September 2012, Fanning starred as Ginger along with Alice Englert who played Rosa in the drama film "Ginger & Rosa" that took place during 1962 in London. The film was directed by Sally Potter and was released on October 19, 2012. Fanning has received widespread acclaim for her performance, with A. O. Scott of the "The New York Times" writing that she "shows a nearly Streepian mixture of poise, intensity and technical precision. It is frightening how good she is and hard to imagine anything she could not do." Ty Burr, film critic for "The Boston Globe", praised her "luminous naturalism that seems the opposite of performance" and felt that "Fanning easily convinces you of Ginger’s emotional reality." Fanning has also been rumored to star as Martha in the screen-adoption of Kevin Henkes novel, "Olive's Ocean", which also happens to be the young star's favorite book. The film's producer, Donald Rosenfeld, got the idea of making the book into a film after Fanning told Rosenfeld that her favorite book was "Olive's Ocean" while on the set of her sister's new movie, "Effie" (which Rosenfeld also produced.) Christina Hammonds Reed is writing the film's screenplay while Rosenfeld will produce. There is no director for the film at the moment. Filming of the new Walt Disney film directed by Robert Stromberg entitled "Maleficent", which Fanning will star in alongside Angelina Jolie, began on June 18, 2012, and post production started October 5, 2012. The film was first scheduled for release on March 14, 2014 but later changed to July 2, 2014. Jolie will play the role of Maleficent and Fanning will play Princess Aurora.
1042262	Arthur Lowe (22 September 1915Â â 15 April 1982) was an English actor. His career spanned over thirty years and he starred in numerous theatre and television productions. He is best known for playing Captain George Mainwaring in the popular British sitcom "Dad's Army" from 1968 until 1977. He was nominated for seven BAFTAs throughout his distinguished career and became one of the most recognisable faces on television.
401985	Cynthia Ann "Cindy" Crawford (born February 20, 1966) is an American model. Crawford is known for her trademark mole just above her lip, and has adorned hundreds of magazine covers throughout her career. Her success at modeling made her an international celebrity that has led to roles in television and film, and to work as a spokesperson. In 1995, Forbes magazine named her the highest paid model on the planet. She was named No. 3 on VH1's "40 Hottest Hotties of the 90s" and was named one of the "100 Hottest Women of All-Time" by "Men's Health". Early life and education. Crawford was born in DeKalb, Illinois on February 20, 1966, the daughter of Jennifer Sue Crawford-Moluf (née Walker) and John Dan Crawford. She has two sisters, Chris and Danielle. She has stated that her family has been in the U.S. for generations and that her ancestry is mostly German, English, and French. She was discovered at the age of 16 by a newspaper photographer who noticed her at work during her summer job of detasseling corn and took a picture of her. The photo and positive feedback she received were enough to convince her to take up modeling. She entered the Elite Model Management's Look of the Year contest at 17 and was the runner-up. Elite Model Management in Chicago then started representing her. Crawford graduated from DeKalb High School in 1984, as valedictorian. She won an academic scholarship to study chemical engineering at Northwestern University, which she attended for only one quarter. She dropped out in order to pursue a full-time modeling career. After working for photographer Victor Skrebneski in Chicago, Crawford moved to Manhattan in 1986 and signed with the Elite New York modeling agency. Career. During the 1980s and 1990s, Cindy Crawford was among the most popular supermodels, and a ubiquitous presence on magazine covers, runways, and in fashion campaigns. She was repeatedly and frequently featured on the cover of many magazines, including: "Vogue", "W", "People", "Harper's Bazaar", "Elle", "Cosmopolitan", and "Allure". A partial count in 1998 totalled over 400 appearances. Crawford also appeared in many fashion campaigns during her career, including those for Gianni Versace, Escada, Revlon, and Ink. She has also worked for Omega, Maybelline, Clairol, and Chilean Retail Stores Ripley (partner of Macys). In 1987, Crawford appeared during the opening credits of the Michael J. Fox film "The Secret of My Success". Three years later she appeared in the video for George Michael's "Freedom '90" alongside other models Christy Turlington, Linda Evangelista, Tatjana Patitz and Naomi Campbell. Subsequently, Crawford played the lost love of Jon Bon Jovi in the video for his 1994 version of ""Please Come Home For Christmas"" and "John Taylor" in the 2011 video for Duran Duran's "Girl Panic" (featuring supermodels as the band, including Naomi Campbell as Simon Le Bon). The red Versace dress which she wore to the 63rd Academy Awards in 1991 had a major influence on fashion, and many copies and fakes of the dress were produced. In 1992, Crawford—through GoodTimes Home Video and her company Craw Daddy Productions—made an exercise video with Radu Teodorescu named "Cindy Crawford: Shape Your Body"; although criticised by some for being unsafe, it was hugely successful and led to two equally lucrative followups, "Cindy Crawford: The Next Challenge" in 1993 (again with Radu) and "Cindy Crawford: A New Dimension" in 2000 (the latter, made with fitness expert Kathy Kaehler and produced not long after Cindy gave birth to her first child, was aimed at new mothers getting back into shape). In 2001, Cindy also made a shorter fitness video aimed at children, "Mini-Muscles with Cindy Crawford and the Fit-wits", an animated production featuring the voices of Cindy (who also appears at the beginning in live action), Radu and Kobe Bryant. The inaugural issue of "George", a short lived political magazine in the 1990s, featured Crawford dressed like George Washington on the cover. In 2005, The American Society of Magazine Editors listed it as the 22nd best magazine cover of the last 40 years. Crawford is 5 feet 9 inches tall, with brown hair and eyes. Her measurements are 34"-25.5"-36". Crawford's trademark is a mole (or "beauty mark") above her upper lip. She is so closely associated with this physical feature that she appeared in an advertising campaign for chocolates featuring commercials wherein she "licked off" her own mole. During the beginning of her career, the mole was removed from her earlier modeling pictures, including her first "Vogue" cover. Her resemblance early in her career to model Gia Carangi led her to being known as "Baby Gia". Crawford has also been on TV and in films. From 1989 to 1995, Crawford was host of MTV's "House of Style". In the early 1990s, Crawford starred in the Pepsi and Pepsi Stuff advertising. In 1995, Crawford broke into movies as the female lead in the movie "Fair Game". Her performance was panned by critics—Leonard Maltin commented "In her acting debut, supermodel Crawford makes a good jogger." The film was also a financial failure, with expenses of $50 million and $11 million takings at the box office. In 2001, she costarred as part of an ensemble cast in "The Simian Line". Again the film was not successful or critically acclaimed, but Crawford's acting was not criticized. She has had many lesser roles guest starring on TV and as supporting roles, often playing herself. For example, in 2000, she was one of the celebrities (along with Victoria Silvstedt, Anna Falchi and Megan Gale) playing themselves in the Italian comedy "Bodyguards – Guardie del corpo". In July 1988, she posed nude for "Playboy" magazine in a shoot by photographer Herb Ritts. In October 1998, Crawford returned to the pages of "Playboy" for a second nude pictorial, again taken by Ritts. Crawford has consistently ranked highly on lists of the world's sexiest people. She was ranked number 5 on "Playboy"'s list of the 100 Sexiest Stars of the 20th century. A 1997 "Shape" magazine survey of 4,000 picked her as the second (after Demi Moore) most beautiful woman in the world. In 2002, Crawford was named one of the 50 Most Beautiful People by "People" magazine. In her forties, she claimed No. 26 in the 2006 Hot 100 issue of "Maxim" magazine. Fashion designer Michael Kors summed up her impact: After modeling. Crawford quit full-time modeling in 2000, and now appears only occasionally in fashion magazines. She continues to provide celebrity endorsement for a variety of projects. In 2005, Crawford created a line of beauty products with Jean-Louis Sebagh called Meaningful Beauty for Guthy-Renker. Crawford has admitted to regularly receiving certain cosmetic procedures, including Botox and vitamin injections. She first saw a plastic surgeon at the age of 28. In 2005, Crawford launched a new line of furniture under the "Cindy Crawford Home Collection" name. The collection is manufactured by HM Richards Inc. She assisted in the creation of the line by consulting on the features, colors, or styles that fit the needs of families or reflected her own tastes. She also has a furniture line with Raymour & Flanigan and launched home goods line with J. C. Penney in late 2009. Crawford returned to modeling in May 2011, appearing on the cover of the May 2011 issue of "Vogue" Mexico. Personal life. Crawford was married to actor Richard Gere from 1991 to 1995. She has been married to former model Rande Gerber since May 29, 1998, with whom she has two children, son Presley Walker (born 1999) and daughter Kaia Jordan (born 2001). Activism and charity work. When Crawford was 10 years old, her younger brother Jeff—whom she continues to praise as "the fourth most influential person in my life"—died of leukemia. Since becoming a model, Crawford has made childhood leukemia a focal point of her charity work, donating proceeds of her calendars to medical research. Crawford has been a long-time supporter of the pediatric oncology program at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where Jeff was treated, stating that she believes he received the best care possible. She is also an honorary board member of the Multiple Myeloma Research Foundation. In 2007, she became an official supporter of the Ronald McDonald House Charities and is a member of their celebrity board, called the Friends of RMHC. Crawford is on the Honorary Committee of the California Wildlife Center. Political endorsements. In 2011, Crawford endorsed Mitt Romney for President of the United States. In 2008 she endorsed Barack Obama.
584559	Arun Vijay (born 19 November 1977) is a Tamil film actor. He is the only son of veteran film actor Vijayakumar and has been active in the Tamil film industry since 1995. He is also a stunt coordinator in most of his films. An adventurous person by nature, he has his license to skydive from the United States Parachute Association. Early life and family. Arun Vijay was born into a film family as the only son to actor Vijayakumar and his first wife Muthukannu. He has two elder sisters Kavitha, who has acted in a single film, "Coolie", and Anitha. Arun Vijay's step mother is actress Manjula Vijayakumar, who had essayed lead roles in over 100 films in the 1970s, while his half-sisters Vanitha, Preetha and Sridevi have also appeared in several films. In 2006, Arun Vijay married Aarthi, daughter of film producer Dr. N. S. Mohan and a post-graduate in Psychology, with whom he has a daughter, Purvi and a son, Arnav Vijay. In 2010, Kavitha's daughter Hasini married N. S. Mohan's son Hemanth, who is a co-producer of Feather Touch Entertainments and has also acted alongside Arun Vijay in "Malai Malai". Career. In 2009, Arun Vijay opted against starring in low budget films and collaborated with his father-in-law's production house Feather Tocuh Entertainment for his future projects. The first venture, "Malai Malai" directed by A. Venkatesh, became a commercial success. The next film, "Maanja Velu" (2010) by the same team, was a moderate success.
1152556	Orgy of the Dead is an unrated 1965 film directed by Stephen C. Apostolof under the alias A. C. Stephen. The screenplay was adapted by cult film director Edward D. Wood, Jr from his own novel. It is a combination of horror and erotica, and is something of a transition for Wood, who began as a horror writer and later wrote pornography. Plot summary. The film's graveyard prologue is a recreation of the opening scene from Ed Wood's then-unreleased 1958 film "Night of the Ghouls". Criswell reprises his role from the earlier film. The action begins when a young couple, Bob (William Bates) and Shirley (sexploitation actress Pat Barrington, billed as Pat Barringer) survive a car crash only to find themselves tied to posts in a misty cemetery where they are forced to watch dead spirits dance for the Emperor of the Night played by Criswell (best known for "Plan 9 From Outer Space"). Ten striptease performances by topless dancers from beyond the grave outfitted in various motifs comprise most of this movie. The Wolf Man (wearing a very obvious mask) and The Mummy are also tossed in for comic relief. Barrington doubles as the blond Gold Girl (inspired by Shirley Eaton in "Goldfinger") while her red-headed "Shirley" character watches her perform. Criswell's undead consort, the sexy Black Ghoul, was written for Maila Nurmi, a.k.a. Vampira, but was instead played by Fawn Silver, who wore a black bouffant wig. Production. Wood served as writer, production manager, casting agent, and even held up cue cards on this low-budget film, although he did not direct. An article on the making of this film was published in "Femme Fatales", 7:1 (June 1998).
588668	Natarang, also spelled Natrang (, an ornamental word for "artist", especially a theatre artist) is a 2010 Indian Marathi film directed by debutant Ravi Jadhav and starring Atul Kulkarni and Sonalee Kulkarni. Veteran music composer duo Ajay Atul composed the original score for the film. The film depicts the journey of a young artiste in overcoming hurdles in the form of family, friends, society and to finally realise the unthinkable dream. Set in the 1970s, in the backdrop of a village in Maharashtra, Natarang highlights the emotions related to gender bias and the sacrifices of an artiste for the love of his art. Plot. Gunvantrao Kagalkar aka 'Guna' (Atul Kulkarni), a poor village labourer, nurtures an obsession for Tamasha - a popular theatrical folk art form of Maharashtra. Unforeseen circumstances lead him to lose his job as labourer and lands him in situation where he sets up a theatre company along with his friend and mentor Pandba (Kishor Kadam). Guna is convinced that his troupe cannot take off unless it has a female dancer. After painstaking search, Pandoba finds Naina (Sonalee Kulkarni), the daughter of his former lover Yamunabai (Priya Berde), who is willing to dance for the company on the condition that it has a "Nachya", a "pansy" character, a man who acts in an effeminate manner. As no one is willing to take up the role, due to the eunuch taboo, Guna takes it upon himself to play the character. The strongly built Guna takes up the challenge of doing the role due to his passion for the art. Despite lack of support from his family, Guna works hard to get the role right, and his play becomes successful in a very short while. However, due to their success, the play gets entangled in the power struggle between two local politicians who wish to use its success for political mileage. Meanwhile, Guna's father dies in his village, and his wife and son are subject to harassment from other villagers. Rival political gangs attack Guna's play and torch his theater. Guna is accused of being a eunuch and gang-raped. However, despite being rejected by his family and discouraged by his friends, Guna continues with his stage career, where he is joined only by Naina. It is implied that Guna and Naina marry, and that their play gathers national and international fame. The film ends with an aged Guna, now addressed as Gunvantrao Kagalkar wins the lifetime achievement award at a major awards ceremony. Adaptation. The film is a cinematic adaptation of the Marathi novel named "Natarang" by Anand Yadav. Yadav initially expressed qualms about entrusting a debutant director with the film adaptation of his novel, however he was convinced by Ravi Jadhav's study and understanding of the novel. Yadav later expressed satisfaction over the film. Yadav's 1978 novel was earlier adapted to a theater production, whose performance however "caused pains to the author." There were plans for a film adaptation starring Ganpat Patil as Guna and Nilu Phule as Pandoba, but these did not work out. Release. Natarang was released in a grand premiere at the Cinemax Multiplex in Andheri, Mumbai on New Year's Day 2010. The premiere was attended by luminaries from both the Marathi and the Bollywood film industries. It was the first time a Marathi film was released in a grand premiere. It was re-released on popular demand with English subtitles on January 22. Soundtrack. The original and the background scores were composed by Ajay Atul, based on the song lyrics by Guru Thakur. The script and story of the film demands period compositions and traditional dance numbers as in Lavani and Gavalan. Vijay Chavan received special accolades for his performance on the "dholki". The music has been described as "soulful, melodious, and rhythmically rural" and as "touching just the right chords" Critical reception. Natarang was screened in the MAMI (Mumbai Academy of the Moving Image) film festival, and the Pune International Film Festival. It was the only Indian film to be selected in the "Above the cut" category in MAMI. It was selected as the opening film in the Asian Film Festival in Kolhapur. The film won seven awards at the annual Zee Gaurav Awards ceremony, including best director for Ravindra Jadhav, best music composition for Ajay-Atul and best supporting actor for Kishor Kadam. Although the Lāvaṇī dance sequences were well received by the audiences, they were criticized by traditional Lāvaṇī performers and academics as having an item song slant. Critics have especially targeted the "provocative dress style" of Sonalee Kulkarni and Amruta Khanvilkar, saying that it runs contrary to traditional, conservative Lāvaṇī costume. Box office. Natarang opened to a successful run state wide and earned Rs. 70 million in the first three weeks of its run. Overall, Marathi films earned Rs. 200 million in the first quarter of 2010, outperforming Bollywood in both box office collection and critical acclaim. The films "Natarang", Mahesh Manjrekar's Shikshanachya Aaicha Gho and Paresh Mokashi's Harishchandrachi Factory themselves collected more than Rs. 160 million at the box office.
581943	Saawariya (or Sanwariya another pronunciation) (, translation: "My Love") is a 2007 Hindi romance filmproduced and directed by Sanjay Leela Bhansali. The film is based on Fyodor Dostoevsky's short story "White Nights". Co-produced by Sony Pictures Entertainment and released on 9 November 2007, it is the first Bollywood movie to receive a North American release by a Hollywood studio, shortly preceding Walt Disney Pictures' animated feature "Roadside Romeo" (2008), and Warner Bros.' "Chandni Chowk to China". Additionally, it is one of the first Bollywood films to be released on Blu-ray Disc. The film marks the debut of both the lead actors; Ranbir Kapoor (son of actors Rishi Kapoor and Neetu Singh) and Sonam Kapoor (daughter of Anil Kapoor). It also stars Rani Mukerji and Salman Khan in cameos and Zohra Sehgal in a supporting role. It flopped as it clashed with Shahrukh Khan's Om Shanti Om. Plot. The story is narrated by Gulabji (Rani Mukerji), a prostitute who frequents RK Bar (the town's most luxurious club). She introduces the audience to the bar's lead singer, Ranbir Raj (Ranbir Kapoor) whom she lovingly calls "Saawariya" (or loved one), who is a free-spirited and kind-hearted guy with no worries at all. One night, while sleeping on the street, he and Gulabji meet. Despite knowing what Gulabji does, Raj still treats her in a friendly manner and, unlike other men, is kind to the other prostitutes and tries to brighten their sad lives. When he tells Gulabji that he needs somewhere to stay and a job for a living, she tells him that there is only one woman who'll give him a place to stay. That woman is Lilian (Zohra Sehgal) – but she allows only those she likes. Raj decides to meet her the next morning. Raj meets Lilian, and they have a very emotional chat, during which Lillian reveals she had a son who left her many years ago and never returned. After being overwhelmed by the sheer genuineness of Raj, she agrees to let him stay with her because he reminds her of her long lost son. Raj goes out for a walk in the night and meets a mysterious girl dressed in black and holding an umbrella. He tries to talk to her and starts following her, but under the wrong impression, she shouts at Raj and tells him to go away. Raj tells her that he will go away, but on the condition that he'd escort her to safety, lest someone with bad intentions would follow and trouble her. Then, as predicted by Raj, a drunkard begins following her and Raj saves her from him. Raj insists she allow him to escort her to her home, to which she agrees. Raj then discovers that her name is Sakina (Sonam Kapoor), and that night Raj falls in love with her. After thinking about her all night, Raj decides to confess about his feelings to Sakina. When he calls to her the next night after resigning from his job so he can see her, Sakina ignores him and refuses to speak to him. Raj gets angry with her but the pair reconcile. He takes her to his favourite place, on the top of town clock building. In front of a picturesque scene of the blue moon and a train arriving on the horizon, Sakina reveals that she is in love with someone: his name is Imaan (Salman Khan), and explains to Raj how she fell in love with him when he boarded at her house. Imaan left the house but promised to return on Eid for Sakina. It has been a while and Imaan has still not returned for her, though she has been waiting for him faithfully. Hearing this, Raj does not confess about his feelings and becomes heart-broken. Although Raj now knows that Sakina doesn’t love him and her friendship was not love but just pure friendship, he readies himself to help her anyhow. However, his love-lorn heart refuses to believe that there is someone called Imaan. He asks Gulabji for advice, who advises him to tell Sakina how he feels. With the entire neighbourhood cheering him on, he decides to propose to Sakina on the night of Eid. He takes Sakina to RK Bar and sings his favourite song for her. Sakina remembers that it’s time to meet Imaan at the bridge and leaves. Following her, Raj tells her that he has discovered that there is no Imaan and it's all a myth; upon hearing this, Sakina hurts Raj, telling him to let her go. Raj goes to Gulabji, saying he wants to be with her for the night (referring to her profession), insulting her. Gulabji, who loves Raj but knows that he loves Sakina, gets deeply hurt by this and gets Raj thrown out of the brothel onto the street, where he is beaten up by a few of Gulabji's hench men. She tells one of her colleagues that even though she loves Raj, this is not the way she intends to love him and if he gets entangled in the world of prostitutes, he will forever lose his pure soul. He returns to the place where Sakina is waiting, where Imaan has still not arrived. Sakina, befuddled and heart-broken, becomes sure that there is no chance of Imaan coming back, so she decides to be with Raj, as she knows how much he loves her. Raj tries to make Sakina happy and succeeds; they enjoy the first snowfall. When they are returning home, they pass the bridge where they first met and see Imaan waiting for Sakina. Torn between the two: her true love and the love of the guy who loves her unconditionally, Sakina hesitates as she steps toward Imaan. Raj, however, tells her to go and reunite with Imaan. The movie ends as a tribute to yesteryear great Raj Kapoor, where Raj walks and sings exactly like him from Shree 420, retreating into a side street and walks off, remembering the sweet moments he spent with Sakina. Production. Bhansali initially wanted Rani Mukerji and Salman Khan's extended guest appearance to be hidden from the public but later made public that they would be seen in supporting roles. The first official teaser of the film was accessed by "New York Times" on 25 August 2007. The first screening was held on 28 October 2007, though only for those associated with the film. Story controversy. After the release of the film, it became embroiled in controversy. There were charges that the plot was lifted from the Tamil movie "Iyarkai", without the permission of the film's National Award winning director S. P. Jananathan. But, the story of "Iyarkai" itself is loosely based on "White Nights", a Russian short story by Fyodor Dostoevsky, just as "Saawariya" claims to be. Soundtrack. The soundtrack for the film was released to mixed reviews on 19 September 2007. "Indiafm" gave the music three out of five stars, stating that, "The title song would be remembered for months to come, if not years, the others do not really go that extra distance". Reception. Despite high expectations for the film, "Saawariya" did not live up to its expectations throughout the Indian audience. On the other hand, "Saawariya" got mixed reviews in other countries. It maintains a 39% rotten rating on Rotten Tomatoes with an average rating of 5/10 and a 44% Mixed or average rating on MetaCritic. Newcomers Ranbir and Sonam's performances were praised, and Ranbir Kapoor won Best Male Debut at the Filmfare Awards. The film was commercially a flop.
1059348	Caroline "Carrie" Snodgress (October 27, 1945 – April 1, 2004) was an American actress. Biography. Snodgress was born in Park Ridge, Illinois. She attended Maine Township High School East in Park Ridge then Northern Illinois University before leaving to pursue acting. Snodgress trained for the stage at the Goodman Theatre, in Chicago. After a number of minor TV appearances, her film debut was an uncredited appearance in "Easy Rider" in 1969 and a credited appearance in 1970 in "Rabbit, Run" opposite James Caan. Her next film, "Diary of a Mad Housewife" (1970), earned her a nomination for Academy Award for Best Actress and two Golden Globe wins, as Best Actress in a Comedy or a Musical and New Star of the Year - Actress. She left acting soon after to live with musician Neil Young and care for their son Zeke, who was born with what was thought to be cerebral palsy, but which doctors later attributed to a slight brain aneurysm before birth. She returned to acting in 1978 in "The Fury". According to Sylvester Stallone,"The first choice for Adrian (in the movie "Rocky") was a girl named Carrie Snodgress, who I wanted badly because, at the time, I wanted Adrian's family to be Irish and Harvey Keitel would be the brother. She said there wasn't enough money in it (we were getting paid $360 before taxes), so I said “I'll give you my share, I truly want you.” She passed to do a part in "Buffalo Bill and the Indians", which never happened for her." Neil Young's song "A Man Needs a Maid" was inspired by Snodgress, featuring the lyric "I fell in love with the actress/she was playing a part that I could understand." The song "Motion Pictures" from "On the Beach" is also inspired by their relationship. Snodgress turned her back on Hollywood in 1971 to live with boyfriend Neil Young on his northern California ranch and care for their son, Zeke, who was born with cerebral palsy and other special needs. She and Young split up about 1975. Later she and film score composer Jack Nitzsche became lovers. In 1979, Nitzsche was charged with threatening to kill her after he barged into her home and beat her with a handgun. He pled guilty to threatening her, was fined, and placed on three years' probation. Her Broadway debut came in 1981 with "A Coupla White Chicks Sitting Around Talking". She also appeared in "All the Way Home", "Oh! What a Lovely War", "Caesar and Cleopatra", "Tartuffe", "The Balcony" and "The Boor" (all at the Goodman Theatre, Chicago); and "Curse of the Starving Class" at the Tiffany Theatre (in Los Angeles). Other films include "Murphy's Law", "White Man's Burden", "Pale Rider" and "Blue Sky". Death. She had been hospitalized in Los Angeles awaiting a liver transplant when she died of heart and liver failure. She was 58 years old.
1044026	The Day the Earth Caught Fire is a British science fiction disaster film starring Edward Judd, Leo McKern and Janet Munro. It was directed by Val Guest and released in 1961, and is one of the classic apocalyptic films of its era. The film, which was partly made on location in London and Brighton, used matte painting to create images of abandoned cities and desolate landscapes. The production also featured the real "Daily Express", even using the paper's own headquarters, the Daily Express Building in Fleet Street, London.
1060835	House of Flying Daggers is a 2004 "wuxia" film directed by Zhang Yimou. It differs from other "wuxia" films in that it is more of a love story than a straight martial arts film. The use of strong colours is again a signature of Zhang Yimou's work. Several scenes in a bamboo forest completely fill the screen with green. Near the end of the film, a fight scene is set in a blizzard. The actors and blood are greatly highlighted on a whiteout background. Another scene uses bright yellow as a colour theme. The costumes, props, and decorations were taken almost entirely from Chinese paintings of the period, adding authenticity to the look of the film . The film opened in limited release within the United States on December 3, 2004, in New York City and Los Angeles, and opened on additional screens throughout the country two weeks later. The film was chosen as China's entry for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film for the year 2004; but was not nominated in that category though it was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Cinematography. Plot. The film is set in 859 CE. The once great Tang Dynasty is now in decline. Numerous rebel groups have formed, the largest of which is the House of Flying Daggers, based in Fengtian county. The Flying Daggers steal from the rich and give to the poor, gaining the support of the locals. The local authorities have managed to kill the leader of the Flying Daggers, but the rebel group only becomes stronger, due to a mysterious new leader. Jin (Takeshi Kaneshiro) and Liu (Andy Lau), two police captains, are ordered to kill the new leader within ten days. In order to accomplish this, they arrest Mei (Zhang Ziyi), a blind dancer who is suspected of being the daughter of the old leader of the Flying Daggers. While Mei is incarcerated, Jin and Liu decide to let her go to track the mastermind; Jin will pretend to be a lone warrior called Wind, and break her out of prison. This will gain her trust, and hopefully, Jin will be led to the headquarters of Flying Daggers. The plan works, but Mei and Jin fall in love on the way. They are followed at a distance by Liu; Jin and Liu meet secretly to discuss their plans. Jin jokes about his seduction of the girl; Liu warns him sternly against getting involved. To add authenticity to the deception, Liu and his men ambush the pair: the fight is, however, a fake. Further on, they are attacked again, but this time their assailants are apparently for real: Jin and Mei battle for their lives, being saved only by the intervention of an unseen knife-thrower. Furious, Jin confronts Liu: Liu explains that he has reported the matter up the chain of command and his general has taken over the pursuit. Jin realizes that he is now expendable. Once again, Jin and Mei are attacked by the General's men. They are hopelessly outnumbered; at the last minute they are saved when the House of Flying Daggers reveal themselves. Jin and Liu are captured and taken to their headquarters. At this point, a number of surprising revelations are made. Mei is not blind, nor is she the old leader's daughter - she was merely pretending to be. Yee (Song Dandan), the Madam of the Peony Pavilion, pretends to be Nia. Nia is revealed to be the real leader of the House of Flying Daggers. Liu is in fact an undercover agent for the House of Flying Daggers, which has engineered the whole chain of events in order to draw the General into a decisive battle. Furthermore, Liu is in love with Mei: he has waited for three years for her whilst working undercover. Mei, however, cannot bring herself to love Liu: over the last few days she has fallen for Jin. Liu is enraged and tries to rape Mei, but she is saved by her superiors, who embed a dagger in Liu's back. However, she is punished by being ordered to kill Jin. Instead, Mei takes him away then frees him from his bonds before they make love in the field. Jin then begs Mei to flee with him, but she is torn between her love and her duty to the House, as well as guilt over Liu; Jin leaves alone. Mei finally decides to ride after Jin, but is ambushed by Liu who is embittered by her rejection and consumed by jealousy for Jin. Mei, not realizing that Liu has thrown two daggers stuck together, only manages to ward off one before the other strikes her in the chest. As Mei lies dying, Jin returns to find Liu, and they begin an epic battle of honor and revenge, fighting from autumn to winter. As Liu and Jin battle, soldiers close in on the House of Flying Daggers headquarters. Mei, regaining consciousness, grabs the dagger in her chest and threatens to pull it out and to throw it in order to kill Liu if Liu kills Jin with his throwing dagger; in doing so Mei would sacrifice her own life, as it would enable the blood to flow and cause her to bleed to death. Jin begs her not to do it, willing to die rather than let her be killed. Infuriated, Liu throws his arm out as if to throw a knife at Jin, leading Mei to rip the dagger out of her own heart and throw it, not at Liu but instead in an attempt to deflect Liu's attack and save Jin. However, all her dagger does is deflect a droplet of blood, as Liu never let go of his dagger. Liu stumbles off into the blizzard as a grief-stricken Jin holds Mei's lifeless body, singing the song originally sung by Mei at the beginning of the film in the Peony Pavilion. It is left ambiguous as to whether the House of Flying Daggers survied the soldiers assult or not. Production. Anita Mui was originally cast for a major role, which was to be her final film appearance. She died of cervical cancer before any of her scenes were filmed. After her death on December 30, 2003, director Yimou Zhang decided to alter the script rather than find a replacement. The film is dedicated to her memory. To prepare for her role, for two months Zhang Ziyi lived with a blind girl who had lost her sight at the age of twelve because of a brain tumor. Takeshi Kaneshiro injured his leg when he went horse-back riding. As a result, Zhang Yimou had Kaneshiro spend two scenes sitting or kneeling down in order to alleviate the pain, which was stated in Zhang Yimou's audio commentary. Most of the film was filmed in Ukraine's Carpathian Mountains (the Hutsul Region National Park), such as the scene in the snow or birch forests. The film team spent 70 days on location (September–October 2003), based in Kosiv. However, the often noted bamboo forest sequences were filmed in China. It snowed so early (October) that the filmmakers had to change the script and the film. They did not want to wait because the leaves were still on the trees. Zhang Yimou was very happy with how it turned out, however, because it set the perfect tone. Like its predecessor "Hero", "House of Flying Daggers" uses wuxing color-theory in both a deliberate and ironic manner. Literary origins. The film features the theme of a beautiful woman who brings woe to two men. This theme is borrowed from a famous poem written by the Han Dynasty poet Li Yannian ():'" (See also external site with characters in images: simp. trad.) Critical reception. "House of Flying Daggers" debuted in May at the 2004 Cannes Film Festival to enthusiastic receptions. The film reportedly received a 20-minute standing ovation at its Cannes Film Festival premiere. The film received widespread critical acclaim. At film review aggregation website Metacritic, the film received an average score of 89%, based on 37 reviews. Rotten Tomatoes gives the film a "Certified Fresh" score of 88% based on reviews from 160 critics. Metacritic also ranked the film at the end of the year as the 6th best reviewed film of 2004. Phil Hall of "Film Threat" raved the film by stating: "Quite simply, "House of Flying Daggers" is a film that sets several new standards for production and entertainment values. It is a wild riot of color, music, passion, action, mystery, pure old-fashioned thrills and even dancing. With an endless supply of imagination and a kinetic force of nature in its amazing star Zhang Ziyi, "House of Flying Daggers" cuts all other films to shreds." Desson Thomas of the "Washington Post" praised the director Zhang Yimou's use of color in the film as "simply the best in the world" and described the film as: "the slow-motion trajectory of a small bean, hurled from a police captain's hand, is a spectacular thing. It's a stunning, moving image, like a hummingbird caught in action." While Kevin Thomas of the "Los Angeles Times" praised the film by stating: ""House of Flying Daggers" finds the great Chinese director at his most romantic in this thrilling martial arts epic that involves a conflict between love and duty carried out to its fullest expression." A.O. Scott of "The New York Times" described the film as: "A gorgeous entertainment, a feast of blood, passion and silk brocade." But the review also stated: ""House of Flying Daggers" for all its fire and beauty, may leave you a bit cold in the end." Roger Ebert of the "Chicago Sun Times" gave the film four out of four stars and states: "Forget about the plot, the characters, the intrigue, which are all splendid in "House of Flying Daggers", and focus just on the visuals", and Ebert also states that: "the film is so good to look at and listen to that, as with some operas, the story is almost beside the point, serving primarily to get us from one spectacular scene to another." "House of Flying Daggers" was placed at 93 on Slant Magazine's best films of the 2000s. and ranked #77 in "Empire" magazines "The 100 Best Films Of World Cinema" in 2010. Box office. "House of Flying Daggers" opened in North America on December 3, 2004 in 15 theatres. It grossed US$397,472 ($26,498 per screen) in its opening weekend. The film's total North American gross is $11,050,094. The film made an additional US$81,751,003 elsewhere in the world, bringing its total worldwide box office gross to $92,801,097. It was also the third highest grossing foreign language film in the North America market in 2004.
460626	Ira and Abby is a 2006 romantic comedy film directed by Robert Cary and released in the US by Magnolia Pictures. The poignant love story stars Chris Messina and Jennifer Westfeldt (who also wrote the screenplay) in the title roles, and co-stars Fred Willard, Frances Conroy, Jason Alexander, Robert Klein and Judith Light. Summary. The movie follows the story of Ira Black, a 33-year-old psychology Ph.D. candidate with therapist parents. Black has been in an on-and-off relationship with Leah for the past nine years and is, as he confides to his therapist, unsatisfied with their relationship on many levels. It is implied that they two have the same conversation every time Black comes to the office. His therapist then informs him that their 12 years of doctor-patient relationship must come to a close as therapy clearly isn't helping him. The therapist encourages Black to be spontaneous, finish his dissertation, and do things he wouldn't normally do. Ira goes to his favorite cafe and struggles (as usual) to order. After flip-flopping several times, he finally orders. While he's eating his meal, he looks across the street to see a gym and remembers that Leah found him overweight. After his meal, he goes to the gym and makes an appointment for a tour with the irritating receptionist and waits 45 minutes before Abby arrives to show him around.
724732	Willa Joanna Chance Holland (born June 18, 1991) is an American actress and fashion model. She is best known for her role as Kaitlin Cooper, Marissa Cooper's younger sister, on the television series "The O.C.". She also appeared on The CW series "Gossip Girl", as Agnes Andrews, and "Arrow", as Thea Queen. Early life. Holland was born in Los Angeles, the daughter of cinematographer Keith Holland and actress Darnell Gregorio-De Palma. She has two sisters, Brianna Holland (born 1988) and Piper De Palma (born 1996). Holland spent the earlier part of her childhood in Chelsea, London. It was during that period that she spent time on the set of the film "" which was directed by her stepfather Brian De Palma. She went to Kenter Canyon Elementary School, Paul Revere Middle School, and Palisades Charter High School. Career. Holland spent the summer of 1999 in The Hamptons with her family. After a day playing at Steven Spielberg's home with now model Shadat Patwary, the seed was planted that she should spend her life acting in film. Spielberg told her mother "You've got to put her in front of a camera!". Upon her return to Los Angeles that September, Holland signed with Ford Modeling Agency at age seven, and immediately booked a shoot for Burberry.
1789642	Mega Shark Versus Giant Octopus is a monster/disaster film by The Asylum, released on May 19, 2009, in the United States and on August 7, 2009, in the United Kingdom. It was directed by Ace Hannah and stars singer Debbie Gibson and actor Lorenzo Lamas. Though it was met with a negative reaction from critics for its outlandish plot, it is arguably the most popular film by "The Asylum" to date. The film is about the hunt for two prehistoric sea monsters causing mayhem and carnage at sea. This film is also notable as one of the very few American films to feature an Asian American male as a romantic lead as Vic Chao's character Dr. Seiji Shimada, serves as a love interest for Debbie Gibson's character, Emma MacNeil.
588625	Habib Tanvir (1 September 1923 – 8 June 2009) was one of the most popular Indian Urdu, Hindi playwrights, a theatre director, poet and actor. He is the writer of plays such as, "Agra Bazar" (1954) and "Charandas Chor" (1975). A pioneer in Urdu, Hindi theatre, he is most known for his work with Chhattisgarhi tribals, at the Naya Theatre, a theatre company he founded in 1959 in Bhopal, and went on to include indigenous performance forms such as "nacha", to create not only a new theatrical language, but also milestones such as "Charandas Chor", "Gaon ka Naam Sasural, Mor Naam Damad" and "Kamdeo ka Apna Basant Ritu ka Sapna". For him true "theatre of the people" existed in the villages, which he strived to bring to the urban "educated", employing both folk performers as actors alongside urban actors. He died on 8 June 2009 at Bhopal after a three week long illness. Upon his death, he was the last of pioneering actor-managers in Indian theatre, which included Sisir Bhaduri, Utpal Dutt and Prithviraj Kapoor, and often he managed plays with mammoth cast, such as "Charandas Chor" which included an orchestra of 72 people on stage and "Agra Bazaar" had 52 people. During his lifetime he won several national and international awards, including the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award in 1969, Padma Shri in 1983, Kalidas Samman 1990, Sangeet Natak Akademi Fellowship in 1996, and the Padma Bhushan in 2002; apart from that he had also been nominated to become a member of the Upper House of Indian Parliament, the Rajya Sabha (1972–1978). His play 'Charandas Chor' (Charandas, The Thief) got him the Fringe Firsts Award at Edinburgh International Drama Festival in 1982, and in 2007, it was credited for "an innovative dramaturgy equally impelled by Brecht and folk idioms, Habib Tanvir seduces across language barriers in this his all-time biggest hit about a Robin Hood-style thief" as it was included in the Hindustan Times' list of 'India’s 60 Best works since Independence'. Biography. Early life. Born in Raipur, Chhattisgarh(erstwhile Madhapradesh) to Hafiz Ahmed Khan, who hailed from Peshawar. He passed his matriculation from Laurie Municipal High School, Raipur, and later completed his B.A. from Morris College, Nagpur in 1944. Thereafter he attend Aligarh Muslim University, for a year doing his M.A first year. Early in life, he started writing poetry and took upon a "takhalluz", pen name, Tanvir, and soon he was being called, Habib Tanvir. Career. In 1945, he moved to Bombay, and joined All India Radio (AIR) Bombay as a producer, while in Bombay, he wrote songs for Urdu, Hindi films and even acted in a few. He also joined the Progressive Writers' Association (PWA) and became an integral part of Indian People's Theatre Association (IPTA) as an actor. Later, when most of prominent IPTA members were imprisoned for opposing the British rule, he was asked to take over the organization. In 1954, he moved to New Delhi, and worked with Qudsia Zaidi’s Hindustani Theatre, and also worked with Children's theatre, and authored numerous plays. Later in the same year, he produced his first significant play 'Agra Bazar', based on the works and times of the plebian 18th-century Urdu poet, Nazir Akbarabadi, an older poet in the generation of Mirza Ghalib. In this play he used local residents and folk artist from Okhla village in Delhi and students of Jamia Millia Islamia creating a palette never seen before in Indian theatre, a play not staged in a confined space, rather a bazaar, a marketplace. This experience with non-trained actors, and folk artists later blossomed with his work with folk artists of Chhattisgarh. Stay in Europe. In 1955, now in his 30's, Habib moved to England, he trained in Acting at Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts (RADA) (1955) and in Direction at Bristol Old Vic Theatre School (1956). For the next two years, he travelled through Europe, watching various theatre activities. One of the highlights of this period, was his eight-month stay in Berlin in 1956, during which he got to see several plays of Bertolt Brecht, produced by Berliner Ensemble, just a few months after Brecht's death. This proved to a lasting influence on him, as in the coming years, he was also used local idioms in his plays, to express trans-cultural tales and ideologies. This over the years, gave rise to a 'theatre of roots', which was marked by an utter simplicity in style, presentation and technique, yet remaining eloquent and powerfully experiential. Return to India. A deeply inspired Habib returned in 1958 and took directing full-time. He produced, 'Mitti ki Gaadi' post-London play, based on Shudraka's Sanskrit work, Mrichakatika, it became his first important production in Chhattisgarhi. This was the result of the work he has been doing since his return, with six folk actors from Chhattisgarh. There was no turning back from there. This led to the foundation of 'Naya Theatre' a theatre company he founded in 1959. In his exploratory phase, 1970–73, he broke free from one more theatre restriction, he no longer made the folk artists with whom he had been performing all his plays speak Hindi, and instead switched to Chhattisgarhi, a local language, they were more accustomed to. Later, he even started experimenting with 'Pandavani', a folk singing style from the region and temple rituals, making his plays stand out amidst the backdrop of plays which were still using traditional theatre techniques like blocking movements or fixing lights on paper. Soon spontaneity and improvisation became the hallmark of the new style, where the folk artists were allowed greater freedom of expression. A further evolution was seen in 1972 with his next venture with Chhattisgarhi "Nach" style, a play titled 'Gaon Ka Naam Sasural, Mor Naam Damaad', based on a comic folk tale, where an old man falls in young woman, who eventually elopes with a young man. The technique has finally evolved to an accomplished form, by the time he produced his seminal play, 'Charandas Chor' in 1975, which immediately created a whole new idiom in modern India theatre; whose highlight was "Nach" - a chorus that provided commentary through song. Later, he collaborated with Shyam Benegal, when he adapted the play to a feature length film, by the same name, starring Smita Patil and Lalu Ram. In 1980, he directed the play "Moti Ram ka Satyagraha" for Janam (Jan Natya Manch) on the request of Safdar Hashmi. During his career, Habib has acted in over nine feature films, including Richard Attenborough's film, Gandhi (1982), 'Black and White' and in a yet-to-be-released film on the Bhopal gas tragedy. His first brush with controversy came about in the 1990s, with his production of a traditional Chhattisgarhi play about religious hypocrisy, 'Ponga Pandit'. The play was based on a folk tale and had been created by Chhattisgarhi theatre artists in the 1930s. Though he had been producing it since the sixties, in the changed social climate after the Babri Masjid demolition, the play caused quiet an uproar amongst Hindu fundamentalists, especially the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS), whose supporters disrupted many of its shows, and even emptied the auditoriums, yet he continued to show it all over. His Chhatisgarhi folk troupe, surprised again, with his rendition of Asghar Wajahat’s 'Jisne Lahore Nahin Dekhya' in 1992. Then in 1993 came, 'Kamdeo Ka Apna Basant Ritu Ka Sapna', Tanvir's Hindi adaptation of Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream". In 1995, he was invited to the United States by the Chicago Actors Ensemble, where he wrote his only English language play, 'The Broken Bridge'. In 2002, he directed, 'Zahareeli Hawa', a translation of 'Bhopal' by the Canadian-Indian playwright Rahul Varma, based on the Bhopal Gas Tragedy. During his illustrious career he brought works from all genres to stage, from ancient Sanskrit works by Sudrak, Bhasa, Visakhadatta and Bhavabhuti; to European classics by Shakespeare, Molière and Goldoni; modern masters Brecht, Garcia, Lorca, Gorky, and Oscar Wilde; Tagore, Asghar Wajahat, Shankar Shesh, Safdar Hashmi, Rahul Varma, stories by Premchand, Stefan Zweig and Vijaydan Detha, apart from an array of Chhattisgarhi folk tales. Legacy. In 2010, at the 12th Bharat Rang Mahotsav, the annual theatre festival of National School of Drama, Delhi, a tribute exhibition dedicated to life, works and theatre of Habib Tanvir and B.V. Karanth was displayed. The 13th Bharat Rang Mahotsav opened with an Assamese adaptation of his classic play "Charandas Chor", directed by Anup Hazarika, a NSD graduate.,
1724863	Herman Heine Goldstine (September 13, 1913 – June 16, 2004) was a mathematician and computer scientist, who was one of the original developers of ENIAC, the first of the modern electronic digital computers. Personal life. Herman Heine Goldstine was born in Chicago in 1913. He attended the University of Chicago, graduating Phi Beta Kappa with a degree Mathematics in 1933, a master's degree in 1934 and a PhD. in 1936. For three years he was a research assistant under Gilbert Ames Bliss, an authority on the mathematical theory of exterior ballistics. In 1939 Goldstine began a teaching career at the University of Michigan, until the United States' entry into World War II when he joined the Army. In 1941 he married Adele Katz who was an ENIAC programmer and wrote the technical description for ENIAC. He had a daughter and a son with Adele who died in 1964. Two years later he married Ellen Watson. In retirement Goldstine became executive director of the American Philosophical Society in Philadelphia between 1985 and 1997 where he was able to attract many prestigious visitors and speakers.
1052408	Mouchette () is a 1967 French film directed by Robert Bresson, starring Nadine Nortier and Jean-Claude Guilbert. It is based on the novel by Georges Bernanos. It was entered into the 1967 Cannes Film Festival, winning the OCIC Award (International Catholic Organization for Cinema and Audiovisual). Mouchette tells the story of a girl entering adolescence, the daughter of a bullying alcoholic father and ailing mother set in a rural French village. One stormy night Mouchette's world changes. It is a coming of age film which Bresson portrays in his own unique style. According to Bresson, "Mouchette offers evidence of misery and cruelty. She is found everywhere: wars, concentration camps, tortures, assassinations." The Criterion Collection DVD release includes a trailer for this film made by Jean-Luc Godard. Plot. This is the tale of a young girl whose life is filled with tragedy. Mouchette (Nadine Nortier), whose name means "little fly," lives in an isolated French village with her alcoholic father and bedridden mother, where she takes care of her infant brother and does all the housework. The film opens with a gamekeeper, Mathieu (Jean Vimenet), watching a poacher, Arsène (Jean-Claude Gilbert), as he sets his snares in the sunlit woods. Mouchette is first introduced at her school, in bedraggled clothes and oversized clogs, where she is mocked by her classmates and chastised by her teacher, first for refusing to sing, and then for singing off-key. To correct this, her teacher grabs her by the head, orienting Mouchette's ear toward the piano keys, while striking the correct note several times. Later, Mouchette throws mud at several girls in her class who run away. Later, in a contrast to the misery of her daily life, Mouchette goes to the fair and rides on the bumper cars. She meets a young man who bumps his car into hers several times. She bumps into his a few times. Despite the physical shocks incurred upon her during the activity, Mouchette seems to overlook them, and even likes the young man. Afterwards her father abruptly intervenes, slapping her on the face before she can speak to the boy. While walking home from school one day, she gets lost in the woods and must seek shelter in a nearby house when a fierce rainstorm falls. The owner of the house, Arsène, an alcoholic epileptic, fears he has killed a man with whom he had fought and attempts to use Mouchette as an alibi to disabuse him of the blame. After she agrees to repeat the story he gives her, Arsène rapes her. She runs into the woods to hide and at sunrise leaves for home, humiliated by the experience. Later in the day, when confronted about the fight in the woods, she tries to offer the agreed upon story, having to state reluctantly that she was at Arsène's house through the night because they were lovers. Returning home and finding her mother's condition worsening, she attempts to assuage her fears by comforting her. When her mother eventually succumbs to this sickness, she is invited into the house of an elderly woman who gives her several dresses as well as a shroud to cover her mother upon her mourning. After Mouchette insults her and damages the elderly woman's carpet, she leaves where she goes to a nearby lake, covers herself in the shroud, rolls herself downhill into the water, and drowns. Cast. Besides his preference for non-professional actors, Bresson also liked to cast actors he had never used before. The one major exception is Jean-Claude Guilbert, who had the rôle of Arnold in "Au hasard Balthazar", and plays Arsène in this film. Critical Reviews. "Mouchette" is considered as one of the best of Bresson's films by critics. "Sight & Sound"'s prestigious critics’ poll placed "Mouchette" in the top 20 in 1972.
688725	Malibu Express is a 1985 action/adventure film starring Darby Hinton, Sybil Danning, Lori Sutton and Art Metrano. It was directed, written, and produced by Andy Sidaris. The film features 80's "Playboy" Playmates Kimberly McArthur, Barbara Edwards, Lorraine Michaels, and Lynda Wiesmeier in its cast as well. In it, Danning "cinched her image as B-budget bad girl". Regis and Joy Philbin cameo as talk show hosts. Synopsis. Espionage threatens the security of American Computer Technology and a skirt-chasing private investigator is coerced by the Feds to root out the spies among the rich, over-sexed socialites unknowingly supporting them. Plot summary. A wealthy playboy/private-investigator named Cody Abilene is hired by a Government Intelligence Operative to investigate a lead into who is selling computer technology to the Russians. While investigating rich socialites, amorous naked vixens, an ex-con with a penchant for blackmail, and keeping it all from his sexy lady cop friend Beverly Mcafee, Cody puts himself in the crosshairs of the traitorous tech-spies who will gladly kill to stay in business. The scope of the conspiracy is revealed after Cody and Beverly make love at a suspect's beachhouse, only to find a pair of hitmen gunning for them as they get dressed. Gunplay, car chases and races ensue. Reception. "Malibu Express" is described as a "routine erotic spy tale" by Eleanor Mannikka of "All Movie Guide". The "Video Movie Guide 2001" rated the movie with a single "turkey", amazed that the movie got an "R" rating, "since it's clearly soft porn." "TV Guide" gave the film two stars. Barbara Edwards' appearance in the hero's shower is cited as "one of the hottest topless lesbian shower scenes in the long and hot tradition of lesbian shower scenes." Releases. The film was first released in March 1985, then on DVD in 2002. It then appeared in two DVD collections, "Andy Sidaris Collection, Vol. 1" (of 6 discs) in 2003, and "Triple B Collection, Vol. 1" in 2005.
1060626	Michael Raymond O'Keefe (born April 24, 1955) is an American film and television actor. Early life. O'Keefe was born Raymond Peter O'Keefe, Jr. in Mount Vernon, New York, the oldest of seven children in a devoutly Roman Catholic Irish American family. His father was a law professor at Fordham University, and also taught at St. Thomas university. O'Keefe attended the American Academy of Dramatic Arts and New York University, and made his acting debut in a 1970 Colgate television commercial. He is a cousin of Will Eno. Career. O'Keefe's best known film role is Danny Noonan in the comedy film "Caddyshack". He received a Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination for his role as the oldest son of a Marine aviator in "The Great Santini", starring Robert Duvall, also nominated for an Academy Award for the film. He played a Marine in 1980 in the miniseries "A Rumor of War" as the friend of Brad Davis' character, Philip Caputo, and played the lead role in the 1982 film, "Split Image", as an all-American college athlete who gets lured into a religious cult by a beautiful girl (Karen Allen). He has also appeared in the independent film "The Glass House", and starred with Tommy Lee Jones in the 1983 pirate adventure "Nate and Hayes" (also known as "Savage Islands"). More recently O'Keefe appeared opposite George Clooney in "Michael Clayton". He has appeared twice opposite Jack Nicholson, as his son in "Ironweed" and as the father of a murdered girl in "The Pledge". His film "Frozen River" was in the competition at the Sundance Film Festival in 2008. He also plays the powerful District Attorney Calvin Beckett in the film "American Violet". O'Keefe's Broadway theatre credits include "Side Man", "Mass Appeal", "Fifth of July", and "Reckless" with Mary-Louise Parker.
582371	Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara () is a 2011 Indian coming-of-age comedy-drama road film, directed by Zoya Akhtar and produced by Farhan Akhtar and Ritesh Sidhwani of Excel Entertainment. The film features an ensemble cast including Hrithik Roshan as Arjun, Abhay Deol as Kabir and Farhan Akhtar as Imraan. It also stars Katrina Kaif as Laila, Kalki Koechlin as Natasha, and Ariadna Cabrol as Nuria along with Naseeruddin Shah making a special appearance. Made on a budget of , the film was shot in Spain, India, Egypt and the UK. The story follows three friends, Arjun, Imraan and Kabir, who have been inseparable since childhood. They set off to Spain on a bachelor trip and meet Laila, who falls in love with Arjun and helps him overcome his problem of workaholism. Kabir and his fiancée experience significant misunderstanding in the meanwhile, which they soon overcome. After solving the problem, the three friends go to locations in the country where each friend chooses a sport for the group to attempt.
567024	The Perfect Human () is a 1967 short film by Jørgen Leth lasting 13 minutes. It depicts a man and a woman, both labelled 'the perfect human' in a detached manner, "functioning" in a white boundless room, as though they were subjects in a zoo. The film was later seen in five different versions when Leth was challenged by filmmaker Lars von Trier, which were compiled in "The Five Obstructions".
1017384	Sex and Zen III (玉蒲团之官人我還要) is a 1998 Hong Kong comedy erotic film following "Sex and Zen" (1991) and "Sex and Zen II" (1996). Synopsis. The plot follows new prostitutes Susan (Karen Yeung), Fanny (Tung Yi), and Chinyun (Chung Chun), who are inducted into the Fragrance House brothel where they are trained in the ways of lovemaking by their veteran madam Tall Kau. Chinyun had been educated. She has knowledge of poems and verses and is trained to be a poetic prostitute. Fanny has sexy eyes and a flirts nature. She will be trained to seduce any men she sees. Upon examination, Tall Kau tells Chinyun she is barren and her vagina is too tight to receive men. Tall Kau promises to teach her the art of Fellatio to satisfy a man instead. The girls practice with a wooden penis, much to Susan's disgust. Chinyun assures her that she has the perfect body to satisfy men and should not have to worry about it. They have sex and promise to be there for one another. The three girls are made to save their virginities to wait until they are ready to be presented. Fanny breaks the rules and has sex with one of the workers. Tall Kau catches them in the act. The workers gets castrated, while Fanny has several butterflies tattooed to her bottom. Chu Chi-Ang, a budding scholar, and his friend comes to Fragrance House for the first time to see what the fuss is about. He meets Sir Lui (Category III who explains to him details about the brothel and the special event. When the girls are presented, Chu Chi-Ang becomes enamored with Susan is crowned the best girl as she had masturbated on stage, stimulating everyone in the room. The two girls before her only danced and flirted with the men. Sir Lui offers to buy Susan for Chu Chi-Ang as they have became friends and Chu Chi-Ang revealed to him earlier that he's still a virgin. Although Chu Chi-Ang likes Susan very much, he declines his offer stating it is too much. He only agrees to accept it, after Sir Lui negotiates a deal with him. Sir Lui buys Fanny, who came in second. Susan and Fanny are given to the men in a wedding night like fashion with the girls wearing veils. Susan enjoys a night of passion with Chu Chi-Ang, while Fanny painfully endures Sir Lui's roughness as he has an abnormal libido. He also does not release inside a woman unless she is his wife. Chu Chi-Ang paints flowers on the bloody white cloth with Susan's virgin blood so they can keep it as a semimetal item. Fanny begins to hate Susan as she envious her for having a much gentle lover like Chu Chi-Ang. She realizes that Sir Lui really wanted Susan, but choose her because he is considerate of his friend. After Sir Lui buys her from the brothel, as a concubine, she vows revenge on Susan. Having spent all of his money at the brothel in two months, Chu Chi-Ang is broke and decides to go to the capital for the exam. He promise to return for her when he obtains a title. Tall Kau tells him that he owes her money and must cut three inches off his penis if he does pay. Chu Chi-Ang's servent, Hwang, offers to have them take three inches off him as a why to repay his master for working for him. Hwang is revealed to have a foot and three inches long penis, shocking everyone. Tall Kau drools at the sight and orders him into her room so they can negotiate. Hwang returned to Chu Chi-Ang and Susan hours later after having three inches cut and having sex with Tall Kau. Chu Chi-Ang promise Susan he will return for her and runaway Hwang but are caught by Tall Kau who plan to make Chu Chi-Ang into a prostitute to repay the debt. Chinyun gives Tall Kau all of the money she had saved to release Chu Chi-Ang. After he leaves, Susan refuse to take other men and gets severaly punished by Tall Kau. Sir Lui arrives and buys Susan as a concubine. He promises not to lay a hand on her until she fully agrees. Before she leaves, Susan tells Chinyun to tell Chu Chi-Ang to pick her up at Sir Lui's home when he comes. Arriving at Sir Lui's homes, Susan reunite with Fanny, who still hates, but pretends to be friendly. Sir Lui convince Susan to dress as a boy to keep her safe and takes her out for drinks with a friend of his. After she gets drunk he blindfolds her and convince her to say she needs him and agrees to have sex with him. He and his friend have sex with her. Fanny watches from behind a window and laughs at Susan. Chu Chi-Ang and Hwang are ambush by thieves while in the woods. Hwang is stabbed while Chu Chi-Ang is almost raped. A man in blue named Hung appears and helps him. Chu Chi-Ang begs him to teach him martial arts. Hung offers to teach Chu Chi-Ang sexual arts instead since he is too weak for martial arts. Using his four wives that are traveling with him, Hung demonstrates his skills. Fanny is having an affair with Sir Lui's cousin, Suen. Together they plot to murder Sir Lui and take his properties. At Sir Lui's birthday party, Susan receives a letter from a servant by Chu Chi-Ang. She writes back. Sir Lui comes to her and reveals that the letter was his way of testing her. He reads the letter out loud and is touched that Susan choose to honor him as her husband and cut ties with Chu Chi-Ang. He tells her that after his wife died, he never married and only took concubines. He likes her for she is sincere and proposes to her. They are to be married tomorrow. He goes and take a sort of mixed Viagra potion, but it had been switched by Suen with poison. He dies while having sex with Susan. Fanny and Suen enter the room and accuses Susan of murdering him, since she is covered in blood. In court, Fanny points the finger at Susan. Susan said Sir Lui told her to bite his dick as he feels his penis is shrinking. She reluctantly does so and it tears off, blood spilling over her face. Since it is well known that Sir Lui takes Viagra potions, the judge concludes that he must have died from an overdose and sends Fanny home. Fanny is angry that Susan is not arrested but leaves. Susan is ordered to stay in the judges home while the autopsy is performed. There Susan meets the judge's wife who assures her that everything is fine. After the judge's wife offers her tea she becomes dazed and confused. The judge's wife convinces her to sign a paper and go to sleep. Offers arrive and drag Susan back to the court room, where Fanny and Suen is also there. The autopsy reveals that Sir Lui was poison. A deed signed by her claimed that she sold him home. The judge bring the paper with Susan's signature. She tells the judge that his wife told her to sign a release form for the autopsy. The judge tells her that his wife died years ago and he never remarried. He has her slapped for lying. A herbal doctor arrives and claims he plotted with Susan. Seeing that she is framed, Susan refuse to accept that she murdered Sir Lui although she is tortured. In the prison, Susan meets the judge's fake wife who tells her that she is one of the jailers. Susan demands to know why she framed her, but the woman and two others attempt to beat her into admitting that she murdered Sir Lui. She continues to refuse. Chinyun runs in front of an officer's cart to beg for help for Susan and is shocked to see who emerges. Chu Chi-Ang arrive at Sir Lui's home in dirty clothes and asks Fanny if there is a woman name Susan there. She tells him about the murder and that Susan is in jail. He claims he is there to ask Susan to lend him money. Sir Lui's cousin throws money at him and tells him to leave. Chu Chi-Ang refuses the money and leave. Fanny orders a servant to bring him back. Fanny tells him who she is and asks if regret not choosing her. He tells her that he spent all of his time with Susan and lost all of his money. She tells him that she likes him and wants him to stay with her and study for the next exam. They have sex. Chu Chi-Ang performs the skills he had learned from Hung and satisfies her. She invites him to stay with her, but he tells her Suen won't allow it. She tells him all is fine and whispers in his ear. Suen comes home, angry at Fanny. The servant told him what happened. Fanny admits to having sex with him, but assures Suen that it was nothing. Suen tells her he loves her very much and to not do it again. He gives her the money from his collecting from renters and drinks the soup she offers him. Fanny laughs as she tells him an eye for an eye and that she poisoned him. She tells him that after his and Susan's death she and Chu Chi-Ang will have everything. Suen pulls out a knife to kill them, but Hung punches him. Chu Chi-Ang reveals that he did pass the exams and received the title of Secret Officer. Fanny and Suen point fingers at each other for planning and committing the murder. Chu Chi-Ang tells Suen that there is no poison and that both are going to trail. In court, Chu Chi-Ang states their crimes as Fanny laughs and compliments his skills in bed and refuse to confess. He has her gagged and torture into confessing, but she dies instead. Chu Chi-Ang has her taken out and buried and orders Suen to be castrated. He has Susan in and declares her innocent. With her head lowered she didn't see his face. He gives her money as recommendation. Susan and Chinyun happily reunite. Chu Chi-Ang stops them and tell her that Chinyun was the person who stopped his cart and told him what happened. Chu Chi-Ang wants to marry Susan and have Chinyun live with them. Susan tells him no as she wants to honor her deceased husband and become a nun for the rest of her life. Chinyun tells him they are becoming nuns so he and Susan wouldn't be a scandal. He watches sadly as the two women walk into the temple.
1044326	Carve Her Name with Pride is a 1958 British drama film based on the book of the same name by R.J. Minney. Set during World War II, the film is based on the true story of the heroism of Special Operations Executive agent Violette Szabo, with Virginia McKenna in the lead role. The film includes the reading of the poem "The Life That I Have", written by Leo Marks and given to Szabo as she left for a mission in Nazi-occupied France. Plot. Violette Szabo is a young woman whose father is English and mother is French, living in London during World War II. She meets French Army officer Etienne Szabo, stationed in the city, and within three days they become engaged to be married. They have a daughter, Tania, but Etienne never sees her as he is killed fighting in North Africa; she and the daughter move into her parents' home.
1105282	Anatoly Timofeevich Fomenko () (born 13 March 1945 in Stalino, USSR) is a Soviet and Russian mathematician, professor at Moscow State University, well known as a topologist, and a full member of the Russian Academy of Sciences. He is a supporter of revising historical chronology. Mathematical work. Anatoly T. Fomenko is a full member (Academician) of the Russian Academy of Sciences (1994), the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences (1991), the International Higher Education Academy of Sciences (1993) and Russian Academy of Technological Sciences (2009), as well as a doctor of physics and mathematics (1972), a professor (1980), and head of the Differential Geometry and Applications Department of the Faculty of Mathematics and Mechanics in Moscow State University (1992). Fomenko is the author of the theory of topological invariants of integrable Hamiltonian system. He is the author of 180 scientific publications, 26 monographs and textbooks on mathematics, a specialist in geometry and topology, variational calculus, symplectic topology, Hamiltonian geometry and mechanics, and computer geometry. Fomenko is also the author of a number of books on the development of new empirico-statistical methods and their application to the analysis of historical chronicles as well as the chronology of antiquity and the Middle Ages. Fomenko is the author of extensive writings in his original fields of mathematics, and is also known for his original drawings inspired by topological objects and structures. Historical revisionism. Fomenko is a supporter of drastically revising historical chronology. He has created his own revision called New Chronology, based on statistical correlations, dating of zodiacs, and by examining the mathematics and astronomy involved in chronology. Fomenko claims that he has discovered that many historical events do not correspond mathematically with the dates they are supposed to have occurred on. He asserts from this that all of ancient history (including the history of Greece, Rome, and Egypt) is just a reflection of events that occurred in the Middle Ages and that all of Chinese and Arab history are fabrications of 17th and 18th century Jesuits.
1062758	Dudley Stuart John Moore, CBE (19 April 193527 March 2002) was an English actor, comedian, composer and musician. Moore first came to prominence in the UK as one of the four writer-performers in the ground-breaking comedy revue "Beyond the Fringe" in the early 1960s, and then became famous as half of the extremely popular television double act Pete and Dud alongside Peter Cook. His comedic partnership with Peter Cook continued until the mid-1970s, when he settled in Los Angeles to concentrate on his movie acting. His fame as a comedy film actor was heightened by the success of hit Hollywood films, particularly "Foul Play", "10" and "Arthur". He received an Oscar nomination for the latter role. He was frequently referred to in the media as "Cuddly Dudley" or "The Sex Thimble", a reference to both his short stature and his reputation as a "ladies' man". Early life. Moore was born in the original Charing Cross Hospital, in central London, the son of Ada Francis (née Hughes), a secretary, and John Moore, a railway electrician. He was brought up in Dagenham, East London. He was notably short: and was born with club feet that required extensive hospital treatment and, coupled with his diminutive stature, made him the butt of jokes from other children. His right foot responded well to corrective treatment and had straightened itself by the time he was six, but his left foot became permanently twisted and consequently his left leg below the knee was withered. This was something he remained very self-conscious of throughout his life. He became a choirboy at the age of six and took up the piano and violin. He rapidly developed into a highly talented pianist and organist and was playing the pipe organ at local church weddings by the age of 14. He attended Dagenham County High School where he received musical tuition from a dedicated teacher, Peter Cork. Cork became a friend and confidant to Moore, continuing to correspond with him until 1994. Moore's musical talent won him an organ scholarship to Magdalen College, Oxford. While studying music and composition there, he also performed with Alan Bennett in the Oxford Revue. Bennett then recommended him to a producer who was putting together "Beyond the Fringe", a comedy revue, where he first met his comedic partner Peter Cook. "Beyond the Fringe" was at the forefront of the 1960s UK satire boom and after becoming a huge success in Britain it transferred to the United States, where it was also a big hit. During his university years, Moore had developed a love of jazz music and soon became an accomplished jazz pianist and composer. He began working with such leading musicians as John Dankworth and Cleo Laine. In 1960, he left Dankworth's band to work on "Beyond the Fringe". During the 1960s he formed the Dudley Moore Trio, with drummer Chris Karan and bassist Pete McGurk. Following McGurk's suicide in June 1968, Peter Morgan joined the group as his replacement. Moore's admitted principal musical influences were Oscar Peterson and Erroll Garner. In an interview he recalled the day he finally mastered Garner's unique left-hand strum and was so excited that he walked around for several days with his left hand constantly playing that cadence. His early recordings included "My Blue Heaven", "Lysie Does It", "Poova Nova", "Take Your Time", "Indiana", "Sooz Blooz", "Baubles, Bangles & Beads", "Sad One for George" and "Autumn Leaves". The trio performed regularly on British television, made numerous recordings and had a long-running residency at Peter Cook's London nightclub, the Establishment. In the 1960s Moore was a close friend of record producer Chris Gunning and played piano (uncredited) on the 1969 single "Broken Hearted Pirates" which Gunning produced for Simon Dupree and the Big Sound. Moore composed the soundtracks for the films "Bedazzled", "Inadmissible Evidence", "Staircase" and "Six Weeks", among others. Career. Partnership with Peter Cook. After following the Establishment to New York City, Moore returned to the UK and was offered his own series on the BBC, "Not Only... But Also" (1965). It was commissioned specifically as a vehicle for Moore, but when he invited Peter Cook on as a guest, their comedy partnership was so notable that it became a permanent fixture of the series. Cook and Moore are most remembered for their sketches as two working class men, Pete and Dud, in macs and cloth caps, commenting on politics and the arts, but they fashioned a series of one-off characters, usually with Moore in the role of interviewer to one of Cook's upper class eccentrics. The pair developed an unorthodox method for scripting the material by using a tape recorder to tape an ad libbed routine that they would then have transcribed and edited. This would not leave enough time to fully rehearse the script so they often had a set of cue cards. Moore was famous for "corpsing"—the programmes often went on live, and Cook would deliberately make him laugh in order to get an even bigger reaction from the studio audience. Regrettably, the BBC erased any of the videotapes and film reels of these seminal TV shows (a practice that wiped out large portions of other British television productions as well, such as "Doctor Who"), though some of the soundtracks (which were issued on record) have survived. Moore and Cook co-starred in the film Bedazzled (1967) with Eleanor Bron, and also had tours called Beyond the Fringe and Good Evening. In 2009 it came to light that at the time three separate British police forces had wanted them to be prosecuted under obscenity laws for their comedy recordings made during the late 1970s under the pseudonyms "Derek and Clive". Shortly following the last of these, "Derek and Clive – Ad Nauseam", Moore made a break with Cook, whose alcoholism was affecting his work, to concentrate on his film career. When Moore began to manifest the symptoms of the disease that eventually killed him (progressive supranuclear palsy), it was at first suspected that he too had a drinking problem. Two of Moore's early starring roles were the titular drunken playboy "Arthur" and the heavy drinker George Webber in "10". Later career. In the late 1970s, Moore moved to Hollywood, where he had a supporting role in the hit film "Foul Play" (1978) with Goldie Hawn and Chevy Chase. The following year saw his break-out role in Blake Edwards's "10", which he followed up with the film "Wholly Moses!" The latter was not a major success. Moore played Watson to Cook's Holmes in 1978's "Hound of the Baskervilles". Moore was noteworthy as a comic foil to Sir Henry and played three other roles: one in drag and one as a one-legged man. Moore also played the piano for the entire score and appears at the start and end of the film as a flamboyant and mischievous pianist. Moore also scored the film. In 1981, Moore appeared as the lead in the comedy "Arthur", an even bigger hit than "10", which also starred Liza Minnelli and Sir John Gielgud. It was both commercially and critically successful; Moore received an Oscar nomination for Best Actor whilst Gielgud won the Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his role as Arthur's stern but compassionate manservant. Moore lost to Henry Fonda (for "On Golden Pond"). He did, however, win a Golden Globe award for Best Actor in a Musical/Comedy. In 1984, Moore had another hit, starring in the Blake Edwards directed "Micki + Maude", co-starring Amy Irving. This won him another Golden Globe for Best Actor in a Musical/Comedy. His subsequent films, including "", a sequel to the original, and an animated adaptation of "King Kong", were inconsistent in terms of both critical and commercial reception; Moore eventually disowned the former. In later years, Cook would wind up Moore by claiming he preferred "Arthur 2: On the Rocks" to "Arthur". In addition to acting, Moore continued to work as a composer and pianist, writing scores for a number of films and giving piano concerts, which were highlighted by his popular parodies of classical favourites. In 1976 he played piano on Larry Norman's album "In Another Land", in particular on the song "The Sun Began to Rain." In addition, Moore collaborated with the conductor Sir Georg Solti to create a 1991 television series, "Orchestra!", which was designed to introduce audiences to the symphony orchestra. He later worked with the American conductor Michael Tilson Thomas on a similar television series from 1993, "Concerto!", likewise designed to introduce audiences to classical music concertos. He also appeared as Ko-Ko in a Jonathan Miller production of "The Mikado" in Los Angeles in March 1988. In 1997, Moore was interviewed for the "New York Times" by the music critic Rena Fruchter, herself an accomplished pianist. They became close friends. At that time Moore's film career was already on the wane. He was having trouble remembering his lines, a problem he had never previously encountered (for this reason he was sacked from Barbra Streisand's film "The Mirror Has Two Faces"). He opted to concentrate on the piano, and enlisted Fruchter as an artistic partner. They performed as a duo in the U.S. and Australia. However, his disease soon started to make itself apparent there as well, as his fingers would not always do what he wanted them to do. Symptoms such as slurred speech and loss of balance were misinterpreted by the public and the media as a sign of drunkenness. Moore himself was at a loss to explain this. He moved into Fruchter's family home in New Jersey and stayed there for five years, but this, however, placed a great strain both on her marriage and her friendship with Moore, and she later set him up in the house next door. Moore was the subject of "This Is Your Life" - for a second time - in March 1987 when he was surprised by Eamonn Andrews at his Venice Beach restaurant; he had previously been honoured by the programme in December 1972. In the 1990s, Moore also starred as a man named David trying to catch some chickens in a series of Tesco adverts. He stated in a later interview that this was the highlight of his career so far, and that he was paid '£20,000 for each advert'. Moore was deeply affected by the death of Peter Cook in 1995, and for weeks would regularly telephone Cook's home in London just to get the telephone answering machine and hear his friend's voice. Moore attended Cook's memorial service in London and at the time many people who knew him noted that Moore was behaving strangely and attributed it to grief or drinking. In November 1995, Moore teamed up with friend and humorist Martin Lewis in organising a two-day salute to Cook in Los Angeles that Moore co-hosted with Lewis. Moore is the main subject of the play "", by Chris Bartlett and Nick Awde. Set in a chat-show studio in the 1980s, it focuses on Moore's comic and personal relationship with Peter Cook and how their careers took off after the split of the partnership. Entrepreneur. Moore co-owned a fashionable restaurant in Venice, California (1980s–2000). The restaurant was named 72 Market Street Oyster Bar and Grill. Moore played piano in the restaurant whenever he dropped by the premises. Personal life. Moore was married and divorced four times: to actresses Suzy Kendall, Tuesday Weld (by whom he had a son, Patrick, in 1976), Brogan Lane, and Nicole Rothschild (one son, Nicholas, born in 1995). He maintained good relationships with Kendall, Weld and Lane, but expressly forbade Rothschild to attend his funeral. At the time his illness became apparent, he was going through a difficult divorce from Rothschild, despite sharing a house in Los Angeles with her and her previous husband. Moore dated and was a favourite of some of Hollywood's most attractive women, including Susan Anton. In 1994, Moore was arrested after Rothschild claimed he had beaten her before that year's Oscars; she later withdrew her charges. Illness and death. In September 1997 Moore underwent quadruple heart bypass surgery in London, and subsequently suffered four minor strokes. In June 1998, Nicole Rothschild was reported to have told an American television show that Moore was "waiting to die" due to a serious illness, but these reports were denied by Suzy Kendall. On 30 September 1999, Moore announced that he was suffering from the terminal degenerative brain disorder progressive supranuclear palsy, some of whose early symptoms were so similar to intoxication that he had been accused of being drunk, and that the illness had been diagnosed earlier in the year. He died on 27 March 2002, as a result of pneumonia, secondary to immobility caused by the palsy, in Plainfield, New Jersey. Rena Fruchter was holding his hand when he died, and she reported his final words were, "I can hear the music all around me." Moore was interred in Hillside Cemetery in Scotch Plains, New Jersey. Fruchter later wrote a memoir of their relationship ("Dudley Moore", Ebury Press, 2004). In December 2004, the Channel 4 television station in the United Kingdom broadcast "Not Only But Always", a TV film dramatising the relationship between Moore and Cook, although the principal focus of the production was on Cook. Around the same time the relationship between the two was also the subject of a stage play called "". Honours and awards. In June 2001, Moore was appointed a Commander of the Order of The British Empire (CBE). Despite his deteriorating condition, he attended the ceremony, mute and wheelchair-bound, at Buckingham Palace to collect his honour.
64878	Charles Sanders Peirce (, like "purse", September 10, 1839 – April 19, 1914) was an American philosopher, logician, mathematician, and scientist, sometimes known as "the father of pragmatism". He was educated as a chemist and employed as a scientist for 30 years. Today he is appreciated largely for his contributions to logic, mathematics, philosophy, scientific methodology, and semiotics, and for his founding of pragmatism. In 1934, the philosopher Paul Weiss called Peirce "the most original and versatile of American philosophers and America's greatest logician". "Webster's Biographical Dictionary" said in 1943 that Peirce was "now regarded as the most original thinker and greatest logician of his time." An innovator in mathematics, statistics, philosophy, research methodology, and various sciences, Peirce considered himself, first and foremost, a logician. He made major contributions to logic, but logic for him encompassed much of that which is now called epistemology and philosophy of science. He saw logic as the formal branch of semiotics, of which he is a founder. As early as 1886 he saw that logical operations could be carried out by electrical switching circuits; the same idea was used decades later to produce digital computers. Life. Peirce was born at 3 Phillips Place in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He was the son of Sarah Hunt Mills and Benjamin Peirce, himself a professor of astronomy and mathematics at Harvard University and perhaps the first serious research mathematician in America. At age 12, Charles read his older brother's copy of Richard Whately's "Elements of Logic", then the leading English-language text on the subject. So began his lifelong fascination with logic and reasoning. He went on to earn the B.A. and M.A. from Harvard; in 1863 the Lawrence Scientific School awarded him a B.Sc. that was Harvard's first "summa cum laude" chemistry degree; and otherwise his academic record was undistinguished. At Harvard, he began lifelong friendships with Francis Ellingwood Abbot, Chauncey Wright, and William James. One of his Harvard instructors, Charles William Eliot, formed an unfavorable opinion of Peirce. This opinion proved fateful, because Eliot, while President of Harvard 1869–1909—a period encompassing nearly all of Peirce's working life—repeatedly vetoed Harvard's employing Peirce in any capacity. Peirce suffered from his late teens onward from a nervous condition then known as "facial neuralgia", which would today be diagnosed as trigeminal neuralgia. Brent says that when in the throes of its pain "he was, at first, almost stupefied, and then aloof, cold, depressed, extremely suspicious, impatient of the slightest crossing, and subject to violent outbursts of temper". Its consequences may have led to the social isolation which made his life's later years so tragic. Early employment. Between 1859 and 1891, Peirce was intermittently employed in various scientific capacities by the United States Coast Survey, where he enjoyed his highly influential father's protection until the latter's death in 1880. That employment exempted Peirce from having to take part in the Civil War; it would have been very awkward for him to do so, as the Boston Brahmin Peirces sympathized with the Confederacy. At the Survey, he worked mainly in geodesy and gravimetry, refining the use of pendulums to determine small local variations in the Earth's gravity. He was elected a resident fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in January 1867. The Survey sent him to Europe five times, first in 1871 as part of a group sent to observe a solar eclipse; there, he sought out Augustus De Morgan, William Stanley Jevons, and William Kingdon Clifford, British mathematicians and logicians whose turn of mind resembled his own. From 1869 to 1872, he was employed as an Assistant in Harvard's astronomical observatory, doing important work on determining the brightness of stars and the shape of the Milky Way. On April 20, 1877 he was elected a member of the National Academy of Sciences. Also in 1877, he proposed measuring the meter as so many wavelengths of light of a certain frequency, the kind of definition employed from 1860 to 1883. During the 1880s, Peirce's indifference to bureaucratic detail waxed while his Survey work's quality and timeliness waned. Peirce took years to write reports that he should have completed in months. Meanwhile, he wrote entries, ultimately thousands during 1883–1909, on philosophy, logic, science, and other subjects for the encyclopedic "Century Dictionary". In 1885, an investigation by the Allison Commission exonerated Peirce, but led to the dismissal of Superintendent Julius Hilgard and several other Coast Survey employees for misuse of public funds. In 1891, Peirce resigned from the Coast Survey at Superintendent Thomas Corwin Mendenhall's request. He never again held regular employment. Johns Hopkins University. In 1879, Peirce was appointed Lecturer in logic at the new Johns Hopkins University, which was strong in a number of areas that interested him, such as philosophy (Royce and Dewey did their PhDs at Hopkins), psychology (taught by G. Stanley Hall and studied by Joseph Jastrow, who coauthored a landmark empirical study with Peirce), and mathematics (taught by J. J. Sylvester, who came to admire Peirce's work on mathematics and logic). 1883 saw publication of his "Studies in Logic by Members of the Johns Hopkins University" containing works by himself and Allan Marquand, Christine Ladd, Benjamin Ives Gilman, and Oscar Howard Mitchell. They were among his graduate students. This nontenured position proved to be the only academic appointment Peirce ever held. Brent documents something Peirce never suspected, namely that his efforts to obtain academic employment, grants, and scientific respectability were repeatedly frustrated by the covert opposition of a major Canadian-American scientist of the day, Simon Newcomb. Peirce's efforts may also have been hampered by a difficult personality; Brent conjectures as to further psychological difficulty. Peirce's personal life also handicapped him. His first wife, Harriet Melusina Fay ("Zina"), left him in 1875. He soon took up with a woman, Juliette, whose maiden name, given variously as Froissy and Pourtalai and nationality (she spoke French) remain uncertain, but his divorce from Zina became final only in 1883, whereupon he married Juliette. That year, Newcomb pointed out to a Johns Hopkins trustee that Peirce, while a Hopkins employee, had lived and traveled with a woman to whom he was not married; the ensuing scandal led to his dismissal in January 1884. Over the years Peirce sought academic employment at various universities without success. He had no children by either marriage. Poverty. In 1887 Peirce spent part of his inheritance from his parents to buy of rural land near Milford, Pennsylvania, which never yielded an economic return. There he had an 1854 farmhouse remodeled to his design. The Peirces named the property "Arisbe". There they lived with few interruptions for the rest of their lives, Charles writing prolifically, much of it unpublished to this day (see Works). Living beyond their means soon led to grave financial and legal difficulties. He spent much of his last two decades unable to afford heat in winter and subsisting on old bread donated by the local baker. Unable to afford new stationery, he wrote on the verso side of old manuscripts. An outstanding warrant for assault and unpaid debts led to his being a fugitive in New York City for a while. Several people, including his brother James Mills Peirce and his neighbors, relatives of Gifford Pinchot, settled his debts and paid his property taxes and mortgage. Peirce did some scientific and engineering consulting and wrote much for meager pay, mainly encyclopedic dictionary entries, and reviews for "The Nation" (with whose editor, Wendell Phillips Garrison, he became friendly). He did translations for the Smithsonian Institution, at its director Samuel Langley's instigation. Peirce also did substantial mathematical calculations for Langley's research on powered flight. Hoping to make money, Peirce tried inventing. He began but did not complete a number of books. In 1888, President Grover Cleveland appointed him to the Assay Commission. From 1890 on, he had a friend and admirer in Judge Francis C. Russell of Chicago, who introduced Peirce to editor Paul Carus and owner Edward C. Hegeler of the pioneering American philosophy journal "The Monist", which eventually published at least 14 articles by Peirce. He wrote many texts in James Mark Baldwin's "Dictionary of Philosophy and Psychology" (1901–5); half of those credited to him appear to have been written actually by Christine Ladd-Franklin under his supervision. He applied in 1902 to the newly formed Carnegie Institution for a grant to write a systematic book of his life's work. The application was doomed; his nemesis Newcomb served on the Institution's executive committee, and its President had been the President of Johns Hopkins at the time of Peirce's dismissal. The one who did the most to help Peirce in these desperate times was his old friend William James, dedicating his "Will to Believe" (1897) to Peirce, and arranging for Peirce to be paid to give two series of lectures at or near Harvard (1898 and 1903). Most important, each year from 1907 until James's death in 1910, James wrote to his friends in the Boston intelligentsia to request financial aid for Peirce; the fund continued even after James died. Peirce reciprocated by designating James's eldest son as his heir should Juliette predecease him. It has been believed that this was also why Peirce used "Santiago" ("St. James" in English) as a middle name, but he appeared in print as early as 1890 as Charles Santiago Peirce. (See Charles Santiago Sanders Peirce for discussion and references). Peirce died destitute in Milford, Pennsylvania, twenty years before his widow. Reception. Bertrand Russell (1959) wrote, "Beyond doubt [...] he was one of the most original minds of the later nineteenth century, and certainly the greatest American thinker ever." (Russell and Whitehead's "Principia Mathematica", published from 1910 to 1913, does not mention Peirce; Peirce's work was not widely known till later.) A. N. Whitehead, while reading some of Peirce's unpublished manuscripts soon after arriving at Harvard in 1924, was struck by how Peirce had anticipated his own "process" thinking. (On Peirce and process metaphysics, see Lowe 1964.) Karl Popper viewed Peirce as "one of the greatest philosophers of all times". Yet Peirce's achievements were not immediately recognized. His imposing contemporaries William James and Josiah Royce admired him, and Cassius Jackson Keyser at Columbia and C. K. Ogden wrote about Peirce with respect, but to no immediate effect. The first scholar to give Peirce his considered professional attention was Royce's student Morris Raphael Cohen, the editor of an anthology of Peirce's writings titled "Chance, Love, and Logic" (1923) and the author of the first bibliography of Peirce's scattered writings. John Dewey studied under Peirce at Johns Hopkins and, from 1916 onwards, Dewey's writings repeatedly mention Peirce with deference. His 1938 "Logic: The Theory of Inquiry" is much influenced by Peirce. The publication of the first six volumes of the "Collected Papers" (1931–35), the most important event to date in Peirce studies and one that Cohen made possible by raising the needed funds, did not prompt an outpouring of secondary studies. The editors of those volumes, Charles Hartshorne and Paul Weiss, did not become Peirce specialists. Early landmarks of the secondary literature include the monographs by Buchler (1939), Feibleman (1946), and Goudge (1950), the 1941 Ph.D. thesis by Arthur W. Burks (who went on to edit volumes 7 and 8), and the studies edited by Wiener and Young (1952). The Charles S. Peirce Society was founded in 1946. Its "Transactions", an academic quarterly specializing in Peirce, pragmatism, and American philosophy, has appeared since 1965. In 1949, while doing unrelated archival work, the historian of mathematics Carolyn Eisele (1902–2000) chanced on an autograph letter by Peirce. So began her 40 years of research on Peirce the mathematician and scientist, culminating in Eisele (1976, 1979, 1985). Beginning around 1960, the philosopher and historian of ideas Max Fisch (1900–1995) emerged as an authority on Peirce; Fisch (1986) includes many of his relevant articles, including a wide-ranging survey (Fisch 1986: 422–48) of the impact of Peirce's thought through 1983. Peirce has gained a significant international following, marked by university research centers devoted to Peirce studies and pragmatism in Brazil (CeneP/CIEP), Finland (HPRC, including ), Germany (Wirth's group, Hoffman's and Otte's group, and Deuser's and Härle's group), France (L'I.R.S.C.E.), Spain (GEP), and Italy (CSP). His writings have been translated into several languages, including German, French, Finnish, Spanish, and Swedish. Since 1950, there have been French, Italian, Spanish, British, and Brazilian Peirceans of note. For many years, the North American philosophy department most devoted to Peirce was the University of Toronto's, thanks in good part to the leadership of Thomas Goudge and David Savan. In recent years, U.S. Peirce scholars have clustered at Indiana University - Purdue University Indianapolis, home of the Peirce Edition Project (PEP), and the Pennsylvania State University. Works. Peirce's reputation rests largely on a number of academic papers published in American scientific and scholarly journals such as "Proceedings of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences", the "Journal of Speculative Philosophy", "The Monist", "Popular Science Monthly", the "American Journal of Mathematics", "Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences", "The Nation", and others. See Articles by Peirce, published in his lifetime for an extensive list with links to them online. The only full-length book (neither extract nor pamphlet) that Peirce authored and saw published in his lifetime was "Photometric Researches" (1878), a 181-page monograph on the applications of spectrographic methods to astronomy. While at Johns Hopkins, he edited "Studies in Logic" (1883), containing chapters by himself and his graduate students. Besides lectures during his years (1879–1884) as Lecturer in Logic at Johns Hopkins, he gave at least nine series of lectures, many now published; see Lectures by Peirce. Harvard University obtained from Peirce's widow soon after his death the papers found in his study, but did not microfilm them until 1964. Only after Richard Robin (1967) catalogued this "Nachlass" did it become clear that Peirce had left approximately 1650 unpublished manuscripts, totaling over 100,000 pages, mostly still unpublished except on microfilm. On the vicissitudes of Peirce's papers, see Houser (1989). Reportedly the papers remain in unsatisfactory condition. The first published anthology of Peirce's articles was the one-volume "Chance, Love and Logic: Philosophical Essays", edited by Morris Raphael Cohen, 1923, still in print. Other one-volume anthologies were published in 1940, 1957, 1958, 1972, 1994, and 2009, most still in print. The main posthumous editions of Peirce's works in their long trek to light, often multi-volume, and some still in print, have included: 1931–58: "Collected Papers of Charles Sanders Peirce" (CP), 8 volumes, includes many published works, along with a selection of previously unpublished work and a smattering of his correspondence. This long-time standard edition drawn from Peirce's work from the 1860s to 1913 remains the most comprehensive survey of his prolific output from 1893 to 1913. It is organized thematically, but texts (including lecture series) are often split up across volumes, while texts from various stages in Peirce's development are often combined, requiring frequent visits to editors' notes. Edited (1–6) by Charles Hartshorne and Paul Weiss and (7–8) by Arthur Burks, in print and online. 1975–87: "Charles Sanders Peirce: Contributions to" The Nation, 4 volumes, includes Peirce's more than 300 reviews and articles published 1869–1908 in "The Nation". Edited by Kenneth Laine Ketner and James Edward Cook, online. 1976: "The New Elements of Mathematics by Charles S. Peirce", 4 volumes in 5, included many previously unpublished Peirce manuscripts on mathematical subjects, along with Peirce's important published mathematical articles. Edited by Carolyn Eisele, out of print. 1977: "Semiotic and Significs: The Correspondence between C. S. Peirce and Victoria Lady Welby" (2nd edition 2001), included Peirce's entire correspondence (1903–1912) with Victoria, Lady Welby. Peirce's other published correspondence is largely limited to the 14 letters included in volume 8 of the "Collected Papers", and the 20-odd pre-1890 items included so far in the "Writings". Edited by Charles S. Hardwick with James Cook, out of print. 1982–now: "Writings of Charles S. Peirce, A Chronological Edition" (W), Volumes 1–6 & 8, of a projected 30. The limited coverage, and defective editing and organization, of the "Collected Papers" led Max Fisch and others in the 1970s to found the Peirce Edition Project (PEP), whose mission is to prepare a more complete critical chronological edition. Only seven volumes have appeared to date, but they cover the period from 1859–1892, when Peirce carried out much of his best-known work. W 8 was published in November 2010; and work continues on W 7, 9, and 11. In print and online. 1985: "Historical Perspectives on Peirce's Logic of Science: A History of Science", 2 volumes. Auspitz has said, "The extent of Peirce's immersion in the science of his day is evident in his reviews in the "Nation" [...] and in his papers, grant applications, and publishers' prospectuses in the history and practice of science", referring latterly to "Historical Perspectives". Edited by Carolyn Eisele, out of print. 1992: "Reasoning and the Logic of Things" collects in one place Peirce's 1898 series of lectures invited by William James. Edited by Kenneth Laine Ketner, with commentary by Hilary Putnam, in print. 1992–98: "The Essential Peirce" (EP), 2 volumes, is an important recent sampler of Peirce's philosophical writings. Edited (1) by Nathan Hauser and Christian Kloesel and (2) by PEP editors, in print. 1997: "Pragmatism as a Principle and Method of Right Thinking" collects Peirce's 1903 Harvard "Lectures on Pragmatism" in a study edition, including drafts, of Peirce's lecture manuscripts, which had been previously published in abridged form; the lectures now also appear in EP 2. Edited by Patricia Ann Turisi, in print. 2010: "Philosophy of Mathematics: Selected Writings" collects important writings by Peirce on the subject, many not previously in print. Edited by Matthew E. Moore, in print. Mathematics. Peirce's most important work in pure mathematics was in logical and foundational areas. He also worked on linear algebra, matrices, various geometries, topology and Listing numbers, Bell numbers, graphs, the four-color problem, and the nature of continuity. He worked on applied mathematics in economics, engineering, and map projections (such as the Peirce quincuncial projection), and was especially active in probability and statistics. Peirce made a number of striking discoveries in formal logic and foundational mathematics, nearly all of which came to be appreciated only long after he died: In 1860 he suggested a cardinal arithmetic for infinite numbers, years before any work by Georg Cantor (who completed his dissertation in 1867) and without access to Bernard Bolzano's 1851 (posthumous) "Paradoxien des Unendlichen". ↓ The Peirce arrow, symbol for "(neither)...nor...", also called the Quine dagger. In 1880–81 he showed how Boolean algebra could be done via a repeated sufficient single binary operation (logical NOR), anticipating Henry M. Sheffer by 33 years. (See also De Morgan's Laws). In 1881 he set out the axiomatization of natural number arithmetic, a few years before Richard Dedekind and Giuseppe Peano. In the same paper Peirce gave, years before Dedekind, the first purely cardinal definition of a finite set in the sense now known as "Dedekind-finite", and implied by the same stroke an important formal definition of an infinite set (Dedekind-infinite), as a set that can be put into a one-to-one correspondence with one of its proper subsets. In 1885 he distinguished between first-order and second-order quantification. In the same paper he set out what can be read as the first (primitive) axiomatic set theory, anticipating Zermelo by about two decades (Brady 2000, pp. 132–3). In 1886 he saw that Boolean calculations could be carried out via electrical switches, anticipating Claude Shannon by more than 50 years.
1061651	Terry Ann "Teri" Garr (born December 11, 1944) is an American actress and dancer best known for her film roles in "Young Frankenstein", "Close Encounters of the Third Kind", "Tootsie", "Oh, God!". "Mr. Mom", "After Hours", "The Black Stallion" and "One from the Heart", and television's "Friends". Early life. Garr was born in 1944 (or 1949) in Lakewood, Ohio. Her father, Eddie Garr (born Edward Leo Gonnoud), was a vaudeville performer, comedian, and actor whose career peaked when he briefly took over the lead role in the Broadway drama "Tobacco Road". Her mother, Phyllis Lind (née Emma Schmotzer), was a dancer, a Rockette, wardrobe mistress, and model. Her father was of Irish descent and her maternal grandparents were Austrian immigrants. Career. Early in her career, she was credited, variously, as Terri Garr, Terry Garr, Teri Hope, or Terry Carr. Garr's movie debut was as an extra in 1963's "A Swingin' Affair". At the end of her senior year, Garr auditioned for the cast of the Los Angeles Road Company production of "West Side Story", where she met one of the most important people in her early career, David Winters, who became her friend, her dance teacher, and her mentor and cast her in many of his early movies and projects.
591494	Reema Khan (Urdu: ), known by her screen name Reema, is a Pakistani Lollywood film actress, director and producer. She has appeared in more than 200 films since making her debut in 1990. Early life. Reema Khan was born in Lahore, Pakistan. She was first spotted in 1990 by the Pakistani film director Javed Fazil and was offered the leading role in his film "Bulandi". Career. Khan started her film career starring in Javed Fazil’s "Bulandi" in 1990. Khan's early films included "Zherilay", "Ishq", "Naag Devta", "Pyar hi pyar", "Sailab", "Dil", "Aag", "Shama" and "Sahiba". These were followed by films such as "Hina", "Anjuman", "Chakuri", "Chandni", "Neelam" and "Insaniat". Later she appeared in "Hathi Meray Sathi" directed by Shameem Ara and in "Rani Beti Raj Karegi" directed by Altaf Hussain. In 2002, Asif Ali Pota’s "Fire" and Samina Peerzada’s "Shararat" were released. She was the first Pakistani actress to be signed by Pepsi Co., Pakistan for their series of advertisements. She has now become an official partner of the Lahore zoo. Personal life. Reema Khan married American cardiologist surgeon S. Tariq Shahab on November 16, 2011 in Virginia. The nikkah took place at a local court in Virginia according to American law while "Rukhsati" took place on November 18, 2011. Her Walima was held in Pearl Continental Hotel Lahore on 27th May , 2012. Director and producer. Her debut film as a director and producer, "Koi Tujh Sa Kahan", was released in Pakistan and overseas. It went on to win the Best Film award at the Lux Style Awards in 2006. Khan won the award for the Best Actress and Best Director for the same film while Moammar Rana won the Best Actor Award.
586942	Shabir Sebastian Ahluwalia is an Indian television actor, best known for his roles (character) as Rishi Garewal in the Soap Opera, "Kahiin to Hoga" and Milind Mishra in the serial "Kayamath". He made his debut in Bollywood with movie Shootout at Lokhandwala. His second movie was "Mission Istanbul" (2008). Personal Life. Shabbir Ahluwalia is was born on 10 August, 1979 in Mumbai to a Catholic mother and Punjabi (Sikh) father. He completed his education from St.Xavier's High School, Vile Parle (West), Mumbai and University of Maryland, College Park, US. He spells his name as "Shabir" although the media uses the spelling "Shabbir" He is married to Kanchi Kaul. Career. In 2010 he bagged the first place in "Fear Factor – Khatron Ke Khiladi Level 3", the Indian version of "Fear Factor". Despite his recent win in Khatron Ke Khiladi, Shabbir is mostly known for his role till date is that of Milind Mishra in Kayamath co-starring Panchi Bora. The role got him many awards and his chemistry with his co-star Panchi was highly applauded. Shabbir has hosted Star Parivaar Awards 2007, Nach Baliye, Dancing Queen, Meethi Churi. Shabbir also made an appearance in Lux Bollywood Ka Ticket Kaun Jeetega, a reality show, where incidentally his Kayamath co-star Panchi Bora was a contestant, to promote his movie Mission Istanbul. Shabbir also performs regularly on various award functions like the 10th Indian Telly Awards, Star parivar 2008. Shabbir's most recent projects include Guinness World Records Ab India Todega where he is an on-field anchor along with Preity Zinta. Recently Shabbir turned producer and started his production company called Flying Turtles along with his friends. His company is currently producing the drama "Ganga ki Dheej" on Sahara One. Currently he is seen in the role of Dutta Shriram Patil in the daily soap "Laggi Tujhse Lagan" opposite actress Mahi Vij, wife of his Kayamath co-star Jay Bhanushali. He is the winner of reality show Fear Factor – Khatron Ke Khiladi Level 3. Shabbir has done two movies for his good friend Ekta Kapoor's Production house Balaji Telefilms. He made his debut in Bollywood with "Shootout at Lokhandwala" (2007) alongside Vivek Oberoi and Tusshar Kapoor. The movie performed averagely at the box office. His second movie was "Mission Istanbul" (2008) which was a flop at the box office. He has also done a Television commercial for "Bhikaner Bhujia". He has played football and cricket for charity and is also the captain of the celebrity cricket team Boxy Boys.
1063419	Fast Five (alternatively known as Fast & Furious 5 or Fast & Furious 5: Rio Heist) is a 2011 American action film written by Chris Morgan and directed by Justin Lin. It is the fifth installment in the "Fast and the Furious" film series. It was released first in Australia on April 20, 2011, and then in the United States on April 29, 2011. "Fast Five" follows Dominic Toretto (Vin Diesel), Brian O'Conner (Paul Walker) and Mia Toretto (Jordana Brewster) as they plan a heist to steal $100 million from corrupt businessman Hernan Reyes (Joaquim de Almeida) while being pursued for arrest by U.S. Diplomatic Security Service (DSS) agent Luke Hobbs (Dwayne Johnson). When developing "Fast Five", Universal Studios deliberately departed from the street racing theme prevalent in previous films in the series, to transform the franchise into a heist action series involving cars. By doing so, they hoped to attract wider audiences that might otherwise be put off by a heavy emphasis on cars and car culture. "Fast Five" is considered the transitional film in the series, featuring only one car race and giving more attention to action set pieces such as gun fights, brawls, and the heist of $100 million. The production mounted a comprehensive marketing campaign, marketing the film through social media, virtual games, cinema chains, automobile manufacturers and at NASCAR races. "Fast Five" achieved financial success, breaking box office records for the highest-grossing April opening weekend and the second-highest spring opening weekend, and surpassing "Fast & Furious" (2009) to become the highest-grossing film in the franchise. "Fast Five" has grossed over $625 million worldwide, making it number 66 on the all-time worldwide list of highest-grossing films, in unadjusted dollars, and the seventh-highest-grossing film of 2011. The film was praised by critics, who liked the combination of comedy and "action sequences that toy idly with the laws of physics"; some labeled the film the best of the series. Johnson was singled out for his performance, critics calling him "the best thing, by far, in "Fast Five"" and remarking that scenes shared by Johnson and Diesel were often the "best moments". Despite the positive response, many were critical of the film's running time, considering it too long, and others criticized the treatment of women, stating " cameo strikingly in buttock form. Others actually have first names." South American reviewers were critical of the film's portrayal of Rio de Janeiro as a haven for drug trafficking and corruption, labeling it a "stereotype". A sequel, "Fast & Furious 6" was released in May 2013. Plot. When Dominic "Dom" Toretto is being transported to Lompoc prison by bus, his sister Mia Toretto and friend Brian O'Conner lead an assault on the bus, causing it to crash and freeing Dom. While the authorities search for them, the trio escape to Rio de Janeiro. Awaiting Dom's arrival, Mia and Brian join their friend Vince and other participants on a job to steal three cars from a train. Brian and Mia discover that agents from the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) are also on the train and that the cars are seized property. When Dom arrives with the rest of the participants, he realizes that one of them, Zizi, is only interested in stealing one car, a Ford GT40. Dom has Mia steal the car herself before he and Brian fight Zizi and his henchmen, during which Zizi kills the DEA agents assigned to the vehicles. Dom and Brian are captured and brought to crime lord Hernan Reyes, the owner of the cars and Zizi's boss. Reyes orders the pair be interrogated to discover the location of the car, but they manage to escape and retreat to their safehouse. While Brian, Dom, and Mia examine the car to discover its importance, Vince arrives and is caught trying to remove a computer chip from it. He admits he was planning to sell the chip to Reyes on his own, and Dom forces him to leave. Brian investigates the chip and discovers it contains details of Reyes' criminal empire, including the locations of US$100 million in cash. Following the murder of the DEA agents aboard the train, blamed on Dom and his team, DSS agent Luke Hobbs and his team arrive in Rio to arrest Dom and Brian. With the help of local officer Elena Neves, they travel to Dom's safehouse, but find it under assault by Reyes' men. Brian, Dom and Mia escape, and Dom suggests they split up and leave Rio, but Mia announces she is pregnant with Brian's child. Dom agrees to stick together and suggests they steal Reyes' money to start a new life. The trio organizes a team to perform the heist, recruiting Han Seoul-Oh, Roman Pearce, Tej Parker, Gisele Yashar, Leo and Santos. Vince later joins the team after saving Mia from being captured by Reyes' men, earning Dom's trust once more. Hobbs and his team eventually find and arrest Dom, Mia, Brian and Vince. While transporting them to the airport for extradition to the United States, the convoy is attacked by Reyes' men, who kill Hobbs' team. Hobbs and Elena are saved by Dom, Brian, Mia and Vince as they fight back against Reyes' men and escape, but Vince is shot in the process and dies. Wanting to avenge his murdered team, Hobbs and Elena agree to help with the heist. The gang breaks into the police station where Reyes' money is kept and tear the vault from the building using their cars, dragging it through the city with police in pursuit. Believing they cannot outrun the police, Dom makes Brian continue without him while he attacks the police and the pursuing Reyes, using the vault attached to his car to smash their vehicles. Brian returns and kills Zizi, while Reyes is badly injured by Dom's assault. Hobbs arrives on the scene and kills Reyes. Hobbs refuses to let Dom and Brian go free but, unwilling to arrest them, agrees to give them a 24-hour head start to escape. The gang splits Reyes' money, leaving Vince's share to his family, before the members go their separate ways. On a tropical beach, Brian and a visibly pregnant Mia relax. They are met by Dom and Elena. Brian challenges Dom to a final, no-stakes race to prove who is the better driver. In a post-credits scene, Hobbs is given a file by Monica Fuentes concerning the hijack of a military convoy in Berlin. In the file, Hobbs discovers a recent photo of Dom's former girlfriend Letty Ortiz, who had been presumed dead. Cast. The central cast is rounded out by Puerto Rican singers Tego Calderón and Don Omar as Leo and Santos respectively, members of the heist team. Michael Irby plays Reyes' right-hand man Zizi. Alimi Ballard, Fernando Chien, Yorgo Constantine and Geoff Meedy portray Hobbs' team members Fusco, Wilkes, Chato and Macroy. Michelle Rodriguez appears in photographs as Letty Ortiz, Dominic's former girlfriend, who is presumed dead following the events of "Fast & Furious". Eva Mendes appears in an uncredited cameo as agent Monica Fuentes, reprising her role from "2 Fast 2 Furious". Production. Development. By February 3, 2010, it was confirmed that a fifth film, referred to as "Fast Five", was going into production in the "Fast and Furious" series, and that a sixth film was being planned. It was also confirmed that Diesel, Walker, writer Chris Morgan and producer Neal H. Moritz would all return to their roles for the new installment. Moritz said that, following the success of "Fast & Furious" (2009), which had reunited Diesel, Brewster, Walker and Rodriguez from the original film, the production wanted to bring them back again for the next one. Diesel felt that the story between the characters portrayed by himself and Walker should continue, envisioning it as three chapters, of which "Fast Five" would be the last. Diesel also wanted to bring back a variety of characters that had been in previous films without interacting, put them together and "have a lot of fun".
1688769	Montana Amazon is a 2010 American independent feature film starring Olympia Dukakis, Haley Joel Osment, Alison Brie and Haley Pullos. Plot. A crazed grandmother is a fugitive with her two teenage grandchildren. Along the way problems, revelations and adventures ensue.
1718156	In mathematics and numerical analysis, the Ricker wavelet is the negative normalized second derivative of a Gaussian function, i.e., up to scale and normalization, the second Hermite function. It is a special case of the family of continuous wavelets (wavelets used in a continuous wavelet transform) known as Hermitian wavelets. It is usually only referred to as the "Mexican hat" in the Americas, due to cultural association; see "sombrero". The Ricker Wavelet is frequently employed to model seismic data, and as a broad spectrum source term in computational electrodynamics. The multidimensional generalization of this wavelet is called the "Laplacian of Gaussian" function. In practice, this wavelet is sometimes approximated by the "difference of Gaussians" function, because it is separable and can therefore save considerable computation time in two or more dimensions. The scale normalised Laplacian (in formula_2-norm) is frequently used as a blob detector and for automatic scale selection in computer vision applications; see Laplacian of Gaussian and scale space. The Mexican hat wavelet can also be approximated by derivatives of Cardinal B-Splines
1163949	Carol Lynley (born February 13, 1942) is an American actress and former child model. Life and career. Lynley was born Carole Ann Jones in Manhattan, the daughter of Frances (née Felch), a waitress, and Cyril Jones. Her father was Irish and her mother, a native of New England, was of English, Scottish, Welsh, German, and Native American ancestry. She began her career as a child model under the name Carolyn Lee. When she started acting, after appearing on the April 22, 1957, cover of "Life" magazine at 15, she discovered that another actress already had registered the name, so she modified it to the homophone Carol Lynley. Early on, Lynley distinguished herself in both the Broadway stage and Hollywood screen versions of the controversial drama "Blue Denim" (1959), in which the teenaged characters played by Lynley and co-star, Brandon deWilde, had to deal with an unwanted pregnancy. In 1959, Lynley was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for "Most Promising Newcomer – Female". Lynley may be best known for her film roles in "Return to Peyton Place", "Under the Yum Yum Tree", "Bunny Lake is Missing", "The Cardinal", "Harlow", and the original "The Poseidon Adventure", in which she performed the Oscar-winning song "The Morning After" (but her singing voice actually was that of studio singer, Renee Armand).
1236215	Matthew Chandler Fox (born July 14, 1966) is an American actor. He is known for his roles as Charlie Salinger on "Party of Five" and Jack Shephard on the supernatural drama television series "Lost". Early life. Fox was born in Abington, Pennsylvania, the son of Loretta B. (née Eagono) and Francis G. Fox. One of his paternal great-great-great-grandfathers was Union General George Meade. His father was from a "very blue-blood" Pennsylvania family of mostly English descent, while his mother was of half Italian and half British Isles ancestry. When Fox was a year old, he moved to Wyoming with his parents and siblings, Francis, Jr. (b. 1961) and Bayard (b. 1969). They settled in Crowheart, on the Wind River Indian Reservation. His mother was a teacher, and his father, who had been a consultant for an oil company, raised longhorn cattle and horses, and grew barley for Coors beer. When Fox was young, his parents worked as caretakers of the remote "Bitterroot Ranch" outside Dubois, Wyoming. Fox graduated from high school in Wyoming and attended Deerfield Academy for a post-graduate year. Following Deerfield, Fox attended Columbia University, where he majored in Economics and became a brother of the Phi Gamma Delta fraternity. Fox interviewed for a job to sell stocks at Prudential-Bache. Career. One of Fox's very first performances was in a student film. The film can be viewed here. At the age of 25, Fox made his debut on an episode of "Wings". That same year, he also starred on a short-lived dramatic series, "Freshman Dorm". Still not a familiar face on the small screen, he continued to be cast in supporting roles, including the role of Charlie in the CBS Schoolbreak Special series, "If I Die Before I Wake" before he made his big screen debut in "My Boyfriend's Back" (1993). In 1994, Fox was cast in a starring role as Charlie Salinger, the eldest of five siblings who lose both parents in a car accident on the 1990s teen drama "Party of Five", co-starring with Scott Wolf, Neve Campbell, Jennifer Love Hewitt, and Lacey Chabert. In 1996, "People Magazine" named Fox one of the 50 Most Beautiful People in the World. After "Party of Five" was cancelled following its sixth season, Fox starred in another TV series, "Haunted", in 2002. From September 2004 until May 2010, Fox played the role of the dedicated yet troubled surgeon, Dr. Jack Shephard, on "Lost". He initially auditioned for the role of James "Sawyer" Ford. However, co-creator J. J. Abrams thought he would be better for the role of Jack, a role originally slated to be for the pilot episode only. Fox was nominated for a Golden Globe, won the 2005 Satellite Award, and shared the 2006 Screen Actors Guild Award for "Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series", for his role in "Lost". On December 2, 2006, he hosted "Saturday Night Live" with musical guests Tenacious D. In 2006, Fox co-starred with Matthew McConaughey in the sports drama, "We Are Marshall". He also played a bit part in the action film "Smokin' Aces" and starred in the 2008 thriller, "Vantage Point". In May 2008, Fox starred as Racer X in the movie "Speed Racer". Fox has repeatedly stated that he is "done with television" after "Lost". In 2011, he starred in the stage play "In a Forest, Dark and Deep" with Olivia Williams in London's West End. Fox appears in "Alex Cross" (2012), as Michael "The Butcher" Sullivan/"Picasso". Fox developed an extremely muscular physique for the role and shed most of his body fat. He appeared in the 2013 film "World War Z" alongside Brad Pitt. Personal life. Fox met his wife, Margherita Ronchi, at university, and they married shortly after in 1992. They have two children, a daughter named Kyle and a son named Byron. Fox is a keen photographer. A bonus disc released with The Complete First Series of "Lost" includes features "The Art of Matthew Fox", showing pictures he took of the cast and crew while on set. On August 28, 2011, Fox was reported to have punched a female bus driver in the chest and pelvic area after he attempted to board a party bus reserved for a private bachelor party outside of Christie's Cabaret in Cleveland, Ohio. On September 16, 2011, a spokeswoman for the city of Cleveland announced that prosecutors had decided not to charge Fox. A civil suit related to the alleged incident has been filed. On May 6, 2012, Fox was arrested for driving under the influence in Oregon. He was taken into custody and released that same day. On June 1, 2012, Fox's lawyer entered a plea of no contest to one count of DUI in Deschutes County Circuit Court and stated that they will move forward with a diversion program to avoid criminal charges.
586060	Manassinakkare (Malayalam: മനസ്സിനക്കരെ, English: "Beyond the Mind") is a 2003 Malayalam family drama film directed by Sathyan Anthikkad and written by Ranjan Pramod. It stars Sheela, Jayaram, Nayantara, Innocent, Oduvil Unnikrishnan, K. P. A. C. Lalitha, Siddique, Sukumari, Nedumudi Venu, and Mammukoya in the main roles. The film's score and soundtrack were composed by Ilayaraja.
1105015	Maria Gaetana Agnesi (May 16, 1718 – January 9, 1799) was an Italian mathematician and philosopher. She is credited with writing the first book discussing both differential and integral calculus and was an honorary member of the faculty at the University of Bologna. She devoted the last four decades of her life to studying theology (especially patristics) and to serving the poor. Maria Teresa Agnesi Pinottini, clavicembalist and composer, was her sister. Early life. Maria Gaetana Agnesi was born in Milan on May 16, 1718, to a wealthy and literate family. Her father wanted to elevate his family into the Milanese nobility. In order to achieve his goal, he had married in 1717 Anna Fortunata Brivio. Her mother's death provided her the excuse to retire from public life. She took over management of the household. Having been born in Milan, Maria was recognized as a child prodigy very early; she could speak both Italian and French at five years of age. By her thirteenth birthday she had acquired Greek, Hebrew, Spanish, German, Latin, and was referred to as the "Walking Polyglot". She even educated her younger brothers. When she was 9 years old, she composed and delivered an hour-long speech in Latin to some of the most distinguished intellectuals of the day. The subject was women's right to be educated. When she was fifteen, her father began to regularly gather in his house a circle of the most learned men in Bologna, before whom she read and maintained a series of theses on the most abstruse philosophical questions. Records of these meetings are given in Charles de Brosses' "Lettres sur l'Italie" and in the "Propositiones Philosophicae", which her father had published in 1738. Maria was very shy in nature and did not like these meetings. Although her father refused to grant this wish of joining a convent, he agreed to let her live from that time on in an almost conventual semi-retirement, avoiding all interactions with society and devoting herself entirely to the study of mathematics. During that time, Maria studied both differential and integral calculus. Her father, Pietro Agnesi, also married twice more after Maria's mother died, so that Maria Agnesi ended up the oldest of 21 children. In addition to her performances and lessons, her responsibility was to teach her siblings. This task kept her from her own goal of entering a convent. Fellow philosophers thought she was extremely beautiful and her family was recognized as one of the wealthiest in Milan. Maria became a professor at the University of Bologna. Contributions to mathematics. "Instituzioni analitiche". The most valuable result of her labours was the "Instituzioni analitiche ad uso della gioventù italiana", a work of great merit, which was published at Milan in 1748 and "was regarded as the best introduction extant to the works of Euler." The first volume treats of the analysis of finite quantities and the second of the analysis of infinitesimals. A French translation of the second volume by P. T. d'Antelmy, with additions by Charles Bossut (1730–1814), was published in Paris in 1775; and an English translation of the whole work by John Colson (1680–1760), the Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge, "inspected" by John Hellins, was published in 1801 at the expense of Baron Maseres. Witch of Agnesi. The "Instituzioni analitiche...", among other things, discussed a curve earlier studied and constructed by Pierre de Fermat and Guido Grandi. Grandi called the curve "versoria" in Latin and suggested the term "versiera" for Italian, possibly as a pun: 'versoria' is a nautical term, "sheet", while "versiera/aversiera" is "she-devil", "witch", from Latin "Adversarius", an alias for "devil" (Adversary of God). For whatever reasons, after translations and publications of the "Instituzioni analitiche..." the curve has become known as the "Witch of Agnesi". Other. Agnesi also wrote a commentary on the "Traité analytique des sections coniques du marquis de l'Hôpital", which, though highly praised by those who saw it in manuscript, was never published. Later life. In 1750, on the illness of her father, she was appointed by Pope Benedict XIV to the chair of mathematics and natural philosophy and physics at Bologna. She was the first woman to be appointed professor at a university. After the death of her father in 1752 she carried out a long-cherished purpose by giving herself to the study of theology, and especially of the Fathers and devoted herself to the poor, homeless, and sick. After holding for some years the office of director of the Hospice Trivulzio for Blue Nuns at Milan, she herself joined the sisterhood, and in this austere order ended her days, though the terms of her death are unknown.
1246904	Clarence Linden "Buster" Crabbe II (; February 7, 1908 – April 23, 1983) was an American athlete and actor. He won the 1932 Olympic gold medal for 400m freestyle swimming before subsequently breaking into acting. He starred in a number of popular films in the 1930s and 1940s. He also played the title role in the serials "Flash Gordon" and "Buck Rogers". Birth. He was born as Clarence Linden Crabbe II to Edward Clinton Simmons Crabbe, a real estate broker, and his wife, Lucy Agnes McNamara, in Oakland, California. He had one brother, Edward Clinton Simmons Crabbe II (1909–1972), known as "Buddy". Hawaii and Olympics. Raised in Hawaii, Crabbe graduated from the Punahou School in Honolulu. He competed in two Olympic Games as a swimmer. In 1928 he won the bronze medal for the 1,500 meters freestyle, and in 1932 he won the gold medal for the 400 meters freestyle when he beat Jean Taris of France by a tenth of a second.. He attended the University of Southern California, where he was the school's first All-American swimmer (1931) and a 1931 NCAA freestyle titlist. He also became a member of the Sigma Chi Fraternity before graduating from USC in 1931. In 1933 he married Adah Virginia Held, (December 16, 1912 – August 26, 2004) and gave himself one year to make it as an actor. If he didn't, he would start law school at USC. Crabbe and his wife were the parents of two daughters, Sande and Susan, and a son, Cullen. Sande died of an apparent anorexia in 1957, after a long fast when she was 20; at the time of her death, she weighed only 60 pounds.
585216	Dharmathin Thalaivan is a 1988 Tamil film directed by SP. Muthuraman, starring Rajnikanth, Prabhu Ganesan, Charlie, Nassar, Captain Raju, Kushboo, Suhasini and Vijayachanddrika. The film is the remake of Amitabh Bachchan-Randhir Kapoor starrer "Kasme Vaade". The film marked the debut of Kushboo in Tamil cinema. It was declared superhit at the box office and completed a 100 day run in many centres. Plot. Balu (Rajinikanth), an absent minded lecturer in a college, and Sumathi (Suhasini) love each other and plan to marry soon. Balu lives with his younger brother, Raju (Prabhu), and Raju already calls Sumathi "Anni". Raju is a bad student and somewhat a rowdy, spoiled by Balu and Sumathi's pamperings. Raju keeps getting into fights with a fellow student (Nassar) and as a result keeps getting into trouble. When Balu comes to help Raju during one of those fights he is killed by Nassar. Sumathi goes into a trance, dons the garb of a widow and does not plan to marry again. Both Raju and Sumathi move to Bangalore. Then one day a look-alike of Balu, named Shankar (Rajinikanth) enters Sumathi and Raju's life. Guilt-ridden Raju thinks that he has gotten his brother back, and tries to make amends by hiring Shankar, not knowing that Shankar is a wanted criminal, and is looking for an escape route from the authorities. But the electric attraction between Shankar and Sumathi eventually wins Shankar over from his past evil ways. Nevertheless Shankar can not so easily escape his past. Sumathi is kidnapped in order to force Shankar to aid a kingpin (Captain Raju) by using an international car rally championship as cover to smuggle diamonds. With Raju's help, of course, good prevails over evil and symbolically, Shanker is wounded protecting Sumathi and as they role free of the shooting and explosions and come to rest, it is seen that Sumathi's forehead has been marked crimson by the blood of her soul mate. Raju has learnt a heart-crushing lesson in the dangers or excess and frivolity but in the end, there is hope and greater wisdom. In the midst of all this, he also falls in love with and marries Kushboo. Soundtrack. The music was composed by Ilayaraja while lyrics written by Vaali, Panju Arunachalam and Gangai Amaran. The song "Thenmadurai Vaigainadhi" was and still remains one of the most popular songs from Rajini films.
743806	Jesse L. Martin (born Jesse Lamont Watkins; January 18, 1969) is an American actor and singer. He is known for originating the role of Tom Collins in the Broadway theatrical production of "Rent", and for his portrayal of NYPD Detective Ed Green on the NBC drama television series "Law & Order". Early life. Martin, the third of five sons, was born in Rocky Mount, Virginia, located in the Blue Ridge Mountains. His father, Jesse Reed Watkins (1943-2003), was a truck driver, and his mother, Virginia Price, a college counselor; the two divorced when he was a child. His mother eventually remarried and Martin adopted his stepfather's surname. When Martin was in grade school, the family relocated to Buffalo, New York, and the move was not an immediate success: Martin hated speaking because of his thick Southern accent and was often overcome with shyness. A concerned teacher influenced him to join an after-school drama program and cast him as the pastor in "The Golden Goose". Being from Virginia, the young Martin played the character the only way he knew how: as an inspired Southern Baptist preacher. The act was a hit, and Martin emerged from his shell. Martin attended high school at The Buffalo Academy for Visual and Performing Arts, where he was voted "Most Talented" in his senior class. He later enrolled in New York University's prestigious Tisch School of the Arts Theatre Program, while simultaneously serving as the wildly popular president of his New York University dorm, Rubin Hall, a famous building on 5th Avenue and 10th street, where Mark Twain once lived. He was in charge of scores of productions there, bringing cheer and good will to the almost 1000 residents. Career. Stage Work. After graduation, Martin toured the states with John Houseman's The Acting Company. He appeared in "Shakespeare's Rock-in-Roles" at the Actors Theatre of Louisville and "The Butcher's Daughter" at The Cleveland Play House, and returned to Manhattan to perform in local theatre, soap operas, and commercials. Finding that auditions, regional theater, and bit parts were no way to support himself, Martin waited tables at several restaurants around the city. He was literally serving a pizza when his appearance on CBS's "Guiding Light" aired in the same eatery. While the show aired, the whole waitstaff gathered around the bar television to cheer his performance. Often, during the dinner rush, he broke out in song. When he gave his customers their dinner checks, he told them to "keep it, because someday I'll be famous!" Many of his coworkers in the restaurants continue to follow his career and are considered his early "fan club". Martin made his Broadway debut in "Timon of Athens", and then performed in "The Government Inspector" with Lainie Kazan. While employed at the Moondance Diner, he met the playwright Jonathan Larson, who also worked on the restaurant's staff. In 1996, Larson's musical "Rent" took the theatre world by storm, with Martin in the role of gay computer geek/philosophy professor Tom Collins. The 1990s update of Puccini's "La Bohème" earned six Drama Desk Awards, five Obie Awards, four Tony Awards, and the Pulitzer Prize. In 1998, the West End production of "RENT" opened with four of the original cast members, including Martin. He also played Tad in the concept album of "Bright Lights, Big City". In 2010, Martin returned to the stage for one of his biggest theater commitments since "Law & Order" performing in the productions of "The Merchant of Venice" and "The Winter's Tale" as a part of "The Public Theater'"s "Shakespeare in the Park" at the "Delacorte Theater" in Central Park. He played the roles of Gratiano and King Polixenes, respectively. The two shows were performed in repertory, beginning with previews on June 9th, 2010 through to the final performance on August 1st, 2010. "The Merchant of Venice" later transferred to Broadway to the "Broadhurst Theater" for a limited engagement, during which time Martin reprised his role as Gratiano. The show began previews on October 19, 2010, and officially opened on November 7. The show began a hiatus on January 9 to accommodate Al Pacino's pre-existing obligations, and resumed from February 1, 2011 to February 20, 2011; Martin did not reprise his role after the hiatus due to previous commitments. Martin took part in a one-night-only reading benefit of "Romeo and Juliet" to celebrate the 50th Anniversary of the opening of the Delacorte Theater in Central Park, alongside Meryl Streep, Kevin Kline, Raúl Esparza and others on June 18, 2012. Television. Martin soon landed roles on Fox's short-lived "413 Hope St." and Eric Bross' independent film "Restaurant" (1998). "Ally McBeal's" creator, David E. Kelley, attended "Rent's" Broadway premiere and remembered Martin when the show needed a new boyfriend for Calista Flockhart's Ally. Martin's performance as Dr. Greg Butters on "Ally McBeal" caught David Duchovny's eye, who then cast Martin as a baseball-playing alien in a 1999 episode of "The X-Files" titled "The Unnatural" that Duchovny wrote and directed. While still shooting "Ally McBeal", Martin heard rumours that actor Benjamin Bratt planned to leave the cast of "Law & Order". Martin had tried out for the show years before and won the minor role of a car-radio thief named Earl the Hamster, but decided to wait for a bigger part. With the opportunity presenting itself, Martin approached "Law & Order" producer Dick Wolf regarding the opening. Wolf hoped to cast him, and upon hearing that CBS and Fox both offered Martin development deals, he gave the actor the part without an audition. From 1999 to 2008, he played Det. Ed Green on "Law & Order". He had a brief hiatus at the end of the 2004–2005 season while he was filming the movie adaptation of "Rent" in which he reprised the role of Tom Collins. Martin's final episode of "Law & Order" aired April 23, 2008, as he was replaced by Anthony Anderson. Martin returned to NBC a year later, as the co-star of "The Philanthropist". On September 14th, 2012, NBC announced that Martin would be joining the cast of "SMASH" during season 2 for a nine-episode arc as Scott Welker, the artistic director of the Manhattan Theatre Workshop. Martin has also been cast as one of the leads in an NBC pilot of "The Secret Lives of Husbands and Wives" as Greg Cooke. It was announced on May 10th, 2013, that NBC would not be picking up the pilot. Film. On March 4th, 2013, it was announced that Martin would replace Lenny Kravitz as Marvin Gaye in an upcoming biopic directed by Julien Temple, and produced by Vassal Benton and Fred Bestall. Martin had been attached to a different Gaye biopic for years and had stated that it was his dream role to portray the legendary Motown singer. Other work. Martin voiced the character Ed Green in the video game "", and narrated the audio book "The Fire Next Time" by James Baldwin and "On the Shoulder of Giants, Volume 2: Master Intellects and Creative Giants by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. He also co-produced the Off-Broadway production of "Fully Committed" with "RENT" co-star Adam Pascal (and two other producers). Sits on the board of trustees for the Jonathan Larson Performing Arts Foundation along with "RENT" co-producer Kevin McCollum. Personal Life. In October 2006, Martin returned to Buffalo, New York, to work on an independent film ("Buffalo Bushido"). While eating at a restaurant, his luggage was stolen from an SUV; his belongings were never returned. He is also known to be a proud resident of New York City and is adamant that he will never leave.
1059578	Legally Blonde is a 2001 American film directed by Robert Luketic, written by Karen McCullah Lutz and Kirsten Smith, and produced by Marc E. Platt. It is based on a novel by Amanda Brown. The film stars Reese Witherspoon as a sorority girl who struggles to win back her ex-boyfriend by earning a law degree, along with Luke Wilson as a young attorney she meets during her studies, Matthew Davis as her ex-boyfriend, Selma Blair as his new fiancée, Victor Garber and Holland Taylor as law professors, Jennifer Coolidge as a manicurist, and Ali Larter as a fitness instructor that was once her friend accused of murder. In America, the film was released on July 13, 2001, and received generally positive reviews. It was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture: Musical or Comedy and was ranked 29th on Bravo's 2007 list of "100 Funniest Movies". For her performance, Witherspoon was nominated for Best Actress – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy and the 2002 MTV Movie Award for Best Female Performance. The film's box-office success led to a 2003 sequel, "", and a 2009 direct-to-DVD spin-off, "Legally Blondes". Additionally, "Legally Blonde: The Musical" premiered on January 23, 2007, in San Francisco and opened in New York City at the Palace Theatre on Broadway on April 29, 2007, starring Laura Bell Bundy. The musical has since closed on Broadway, but opened to very good reviews and box office in London's West End. The large ambitious scores to both feature films were written by Rolfe Kent and were orchestrated by Tony Blondal. They featured a 90-piece orchestra and were recorded at the Sony Scoring Stage in Culver City, CA. Plot. In her senior year at University of California Los Angeles, girlish sorority president Elle Woods majors in fashion merchandising and is hopelessly in love with her boyfriend, Warner Huntington III, who will attend Harvard Law School the following year. She excitedly expects him to ask her to marry him, but he breaks up with her instead, claiming that he has to be with someone more "serious". After spending days holed up in her room, Elle's two best friends Margot and Serena take her to get her nails done. While waiting, she finds an article about Warner's older brother and his new fiancee, whom he met in law school. Desperate to win Warner back, Elle takes the Law School Admission Test, applies to Harvard, and is accepted. Upon arriving, her classmates disapprove of her because of her looks and naive behavior, and she discovers that Warner is engaged to another student, Vivian Kensington. The only friend Elle makes is Paulette, a divorced manicurist at a local salon. Elle later helps Paulette gain custody of her dog back from her ex-husband, and she also helps her seduce the delivery man who she has a crush on. After Vivian tricks Elle into attending a party in a Playboy Bunny costume where she retaliates by insulting her, Elle has a discussion with Warner and finally realizes he will never respect her. Now determined to succeed on her own, Elle studies hard and impresses her professors and classmates in many occasions, proving herself enough for Vivian to consider her a threat, and wins an internship with Professor Callahan, as do Warner and Vivian. They work with Callahan and an associate, attorney Emmett Richmond (who also befriended Elle in her first day at school), to defend Brooke Taylor-Windham, a famous fitness instructor accused of murdering her much older billionaire husband, Hayworth Windham. Brooke was once Elle's fitness instructor and a member of her sorority. Elle believes Brooke is innocent, but Brooke's stepdaughter, Chutney, and the household cabana boy say she is guilty, and that they saw Brooke standing over Windham's dead body, covered in his blood, while Brooke testifies that she loved her husband and only found him after he had been shot to death. Brooke refuses to provide Callahan an alibi, but when Elle visits her in prison, Brooke admits that she had liposuction on the day of the murder. Public knowledge of this fact would ruin Brooke's reputation as a fitness instructor, so Elle agrees to keep it secret and refuses to reveal the alibi to Callahan. Impressed by her integrity, Vivian starts to befriend Elle, also admitting that Warner was put on Harvard's wait-list and only got in because his father pulled some strings. The case against Brooke begins to weaken when Elle deduces that the cabana boy is gay after he correctly identifies Elle's shoe style. During the cross-examination, Emmett tricks him into identifying his boyfriend in court, proving that his testimony about having an affair with Brooke was a lie. Impressed by her performance, Callahan discusses Elle's future with her and then makes sexual advances on her, which Elle immediately rejects. Overhearing part of the conversation, Vivian is frustrated by Elle apparently using her sexuality to gain her internship. Elle, also thinking that Callahan chose her for sexual reasons, decides to leave law school. Before leaving, she tells Emmett what really happened and how Callahan was getting a bit too comfortable around her. Professor Stromwell, who once removed Elle from her class for being unprepared, helps regain Elle's spirit. Meanwhile, Emmett explains Elle's encounter with Callahan to Vivian and Brooke. Brooke is enraged by that and Vivian realizes her mistake. Before the trial continues, Brooke dismisses Callahan and hires Elle as her new attorney with Emmett supervising. Elle begins shakily while cross-examining Chutney, who testifies that she was home during her father's murder, but did not hear the gunshot because she was in the shower washing her hair after getting her hair permed earlier that day. Elle gets Chutney to reconfirm her story, then reveals that washing permed hair within the first 24 hours would have deactivated the ammonium thioglycolate, and Chutney's curls are still intact. Exposed, Chutney admits to killing Hayworth accidentally because she thought he was Brooke, whom she hated for marrying her father because she was Chutney's age. Brooke is exonerated, and Chutney is arrested. After the trial, Warner tries to reconcile with Elle, but she rejects him, explaining that she needs a boyfriend who is less of a "bonehead" in her new career. Two years later, Elle, who has graduated with high honors, is the class-elected speaker at the ceremony, and has been invited into one of Boston's best law firms; Vivian is now Elle's best friend and has called off her engagement with Warner, who graduated without honors, no girlfriend, and no job offers; Paulette has married her delivery man and is expecting a baby girl to be named after Elle; and finally, Emmett has started his own practice, is now Elle's boyfriend, and will propose to her that night. Cast. The cast also includes:
1079090	Ingrid Lilian Thulin (; 27 January 1926 – 7 January 2004) was a Swedish film actress. Life and career. Thulin was born in Sollefteå, Ångermanland, northern Sweden, the daughter of Nanna (née Larsson) and Adam Thulin, For many years she worked regularly with Ingmar Bergman; among other films, Thulin appeared in Bergman's "Wild Strawberries" (1957), "The Magician" (1958, where she acted dressed as a boy), in "Winter Light" (1962), as well as "The Silence" (1963) and "Cries and Whispers" (1972).
744184	CyberWorld (also known as CyberWorld 3D) is a 2000 3-D comedy anthology film shown in IMAX and/or IMAX 3D, presented by Intel. Several segments originally filmed in 2-D are showcased as converted to 3-D format. Plot. Phig (Jenna Elfman) is the host of the movie, as she shows the "Cyberworld", World Computer-like, meanwhile the computer bugs come and try to eat the Cyberworld. When Phig knows about them and hunts for destructive computer bugs, she presents various short stock clips of computer animated productions, such as scenes from "Antz" and episodes of "The Simpsons" post-converted to 3D. Release. Box office. "CyberWorld" was a box office success, grossing $16,653,900. Critical reception. The film currently holds a 55% 'Rotten' rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Roger Ebert, writing for the "Chicago Sun-Times", praised the film for accurately presenting what 3D technology is capable of. He particularly singled out the size of the IMAX screens the film was projected on. He went on to write, "(The film) takes advantage of the squarish six-story screen to envelop us in the images; the edges of the frame don't have the same kind of distracting cutoff power they possess in the smaller rectangles of conventional theaters." However, Paul Tatara of CNN.com was displeased with the film's over-reliance on 3D effects, continuing on to say, "Unfortunately, you can't escape the sensation that you might end up wearing the contents of your stomach while you watch it."
583528	Cyrus Broacha is a TV anchor, theatre personality, political satirist, columnist and author. He is also a prankster, best known for his show "Bakra" on MTV and his show "The Week That Wasn't" on CNN-IBN. Early years. Cyrus was born on August 7, 1971 to a Parsi father and Catholic mother. He studied at Cathedral and John Connon School, Mumbai and graduated from St. Xavier's College, Mumbai. He was also a student of the Lee Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute (New York).
585056	Sri Anjaneyam() is a Telugu film directed and produced by Krishna Vamsi. It stars Nitin, Charmme Kaur, Arjun Sarja in the lead roles. Prakash Raj and Ramya Krishna play supporting roles. This film has been dubbed in Tamil as Hanumaan. It is also dubbed in Hindi as "My Boss Bajarangbali" and remade in Oriya as "Chhati Chiri dele tu" directed by S.K.Muralidharan starring Anubhav Mohanty & Sidhant Mohapatra. Production. when I saw Jayam and Dil. I observed him for a couple of months. After deciding that Nitin is an apt actor for this role, I approached him and signed him for the main lead role. The hero in this film is a fanatic devotee of Lord Anjaneya. After observing his loyalty to Lord Anjaneya, the village men start calling him 'Anji'. I wanted an actor who possesses those qualities of divinity, authority and purity. I don't want the image of that actor to dominate the character he is playing. He should look soft. But there should be enormous strength behind that soft looks. The best example is 'Oke Okkadu' film in which Arjun looked so soft, but shows his enormousness and power with his deeds as CM. I met Arjun at the marriage of Soundarya. I went there along with Jagapati Babu. Jagapati Babu and Arjun are good friends. We spent 5 hours together. I observed his body language and the way he communicates. And it connected to the characterization I have done for Lord Anjaneya in this film's script. I waited for 15 more days and then called up Arjun over the phone. When I narrated this story to Arjun, he cried three times. After listening to the story, Arjun said that he had been waiting to do even a single scene role in my films. He is a great devotee of Lord Anjaneya. The stage 3 of Disney studios has the visual effects section in Orlando, USA. There are lots of visual effects wizards who worked for lots of Hollywood projects. We consulted technical directors like Edward and Chakri (Chakri acted as a child artist - camera boy - in K Viswanath's Sagara Sangamam). We gave them the story board of 'Sri Anjaneyam'. Those guys would do the graphics part of the film. Some other unit would do visual effects. Roll flaming and digitalization would take place at Prasad Labs in Mumbai in co-ordination with a Canadian Lab. Sai Prasad (grand son of LV Prasad and son of Ramesh Prasad) established Prasad Labs at Mumbai with international standards. This film lab offers 50% better quality negative developing and printing. If they charge Rs 2/- per meter for developing the roll in Hyderabad, Prasad Labs at Mumbai do charge Rs 9/- per meter. The print cost is also more. I am going to get it done at Prasad Labs, Mumbai. The reason in simple! There are lots of fabulous scenes in my film. Let me narrate a scene here. I have to create an Anjaneya Swamy of 15,000 feet height. Widest lens available here (24 mm) is not wide enough to capture it. I have to capture Lord Anjaneya with movement. The height of Anjaneya is so huge that the peak of temple comes to half of his knee's height. I want to show Lord Anjaneya to such an extent that it exceeds the weirdest imaginations we have. A fight in this film is canned using the motion capture camera, motion control camera and regular cameras. Amin Ghani (Bollywood stunt coordinator) got a very costly equipment to assist this action sequence. The technicians working from this film are Germans, Americans, Canadians, Hong Kong people and Indians.
687622	All About Anna is a Danish film released in 2005, directed by Jessica Nilsson and starring Gry Bay and Mark Stevens. The film is explicit in its exploration of sexual relationships.
1376964	How to Hook Up Your Home Theater is a 2007 theatrical cartoon from Walt Disney Animation Studios, directed by Kevin Deters and co-directed by Stevie Wermers-Skelton. This is the first theatrical Goofy solo cartoon short made in 46 years, since "Aquamania". In the style of Goofy's "Everyman" cartoons of the 1950s, this short follows Goofy as he buys and then sets up his home theater system, to watch football. Production. The short was partially produced using a new "paperless" production pipeline for Disney, the first major change in production technique for hand-drawn animation at Disney since the introduction of CAPS, and was also an attempt to see if the new digital animation tools could be used to produce a short with the same graphic look as that of a late 1940s, early 1950s cartoon. Instead of animating with pencil on paper, some of the animators, such as Dale Baer, worked on Wacom's cintiq tablets along with Toon Boom Harmony for the animation, while other animators such as Mark Henn and Andreas Deja continued to work in the traditional method with pencil on paper. It was reported on Animation World Network that about 50% of the short was done using the new paperless technique. Release. The short was released with the Disney film "" on December 21, 2007. It was also paired with "The Game Plan" for the film's release in the United Kingdom. The short was shown early at the "Animate with the Greats" class taking place at Facet's Theatre. Several Walt Disney Animation Studios animation artists taught the class, including Kevin Deters and Stevie Wermers. It is also available for purchase on the iTunes Store. "How To Hook Up Your Home Theater" is the first Walt Disney Feature Animation release to have a female director credit. It was included in the Animation Show of Shows in 2007.
1164653	Keye Luke (, Cantonese: Luk Shek Lun; June 18, 1904 – January 12, 1991) was a Chinese-born American actor. He was best known for playing Lee Chan, the "Number One Son" in the Charlie Chan films, the original Kato in the 1939-1941 Green Hornet film serials, and Master Po in the television series "Kung Fu". He was the first Chinese-American contract player signed with RKO, Universal, and MGM and was one of the most prominent Asian actors of American cinema in the mid-twentieth century. Background. Luke was born in Canton, China to a father who owned an art shop, but grew up in Seattle. He was part of the Luke family, a relative of Wing Luke, namesake of Seattle's Wing Luke Asian Museum. He had four siblings who all migrated to California during the Depression. His younger brother Edwin Luke also became an actor in the Charlie Chan series. Keye Luke became a naturalized citizen of the United States in 1944—in a moment fictionally recreated in Lisa See's novel "Shanghai Girls".
1068526	Avalanche Express is a 1979 cold war adventure thriller film produced and directed by Mark Robson, about the struggle over a defecting Russian general. It starred Lee Marvin, Robert Shaw (in his last performance), Maximilian Schell, and Linda Evans. The screenplay by Abraham Polonsky was based on the novel by Colin Forbes. Both Shaw and Robson died near the end of shooting. Plot. Russian general Marenkov (Robert Shaw) decides to defect to the West, and CIA agent Harry Wargrave (Lee Marvin) leads the team that is to get him out. Wargrave decides that Marenkov should travel across Europe by train, on the fictional "Avalanche Express". The idea is to lure the Russians into attacking the train, and thus discover who their secret agents in Europe are. Consequently, during the train journey they must survive both a terrorist attack and an avalanche, all planned by Russian spy-catcher Nikolai Bunin (Maximilian Schell). Production problems. During production in Ireland, both director Mark Robson and starring actor Robert Shaw died of heart attacks within weeks of each other. Monte Hellman was brought in to finish the direction, and Gene Corman (Roger Corman's brother) was called in to complete Robson's duties as producer. Robert Rietty was hired to re-voice Robert Shaw's dialogue in the opening scene, as it was decided to redo that scene in Russian with English subtitles instead of having the Russians speak broken English. As a consequence, for continuity, all of Shaw's dialogue throughout the film was re-voiced by Rietty. Neither Hellman, Corman or Rietty were credited for their work, but the film's end credit contains a note stating: "The producers wish to express their appreciation to Monte Hellman and Gene Corman for their post production services."
1064208	John Christopher McGinley (born August 3, 1959) is an American actor. He is most notable for his roles as Perry Cox (Percival Ulysses Cox) in "Scrubs", Bob Slydell in "Office Space", Sergeant Red O'Neill in Oliver Stone's "Platoon" and Marv in Stone's "Wall Street". He has also written and produced for television and film. Apart from acting, McGinley is also an author and a spokesperson for the National Down Syndrome Society. Early life. McGinley, who is one of five children, was born in the Greenwich Village section of New York City, the son of a schoolteacher and a stockbroker. His paternal great-grandfather was from Donegal, Ireland. McGinley was raised in Millburn, New Jersey, and attended Millburn High School, where he played wide receiver for the school's football team. He studied acting at Syracuse University, and later at New York University's Graduate Acting Program at the Tisch School of the Arts, graduating in 1984. Upon completing his education, McGinley did a variety of different work, including Off Broadway and Broadway productions, and a two-year stint on the soap opera "Another World". Career. McGinley has had a prolific career, primarily as a supporting character actor. He was noticed by a casting scout while working as John Turturro's understudy in John Patrick Shanley's 1984 production of "Danny and the Deep Blue Sea", which led to a successful audition for the role of Sergeant Red O'Neill in the Oscar-winning "Platoon" (1986). McGinley had been cast in his first film role in Alan Alda's "Sweet Liberty" earlier in 1986. That was followed the next year with "Wall Street" (1987), and again the next with "Talk Radio" (1988). He also was featured in a 1980s Subaru commercial. He appeared in the "Celebrity Challenge" version of "American Gladiators", losing to Dean Cain. McGinley wrote the script for 1990s "Suffering Bastards," in which he also co-starred. He worked continually throughout the 1990s, appearing in films such as "Point Break" (1991), "Highlander 2" (1991), "Article 99" (1992), "Wagons East!" (1994), "Se7en" (1995), "The Rock" (1996), "Set It Off" (1996), "Nothing to Lose" (1997) and "Office Space" (1999) (McGinley improvised several takes about his character's fondness for Michael Bolton). In 2007, he had a role as Chuck in the film "Are We Done Yet?". He has also had a small role as a gay highway patrolman in the Touchstone Pictures film "Wild Hogs." McGinley has done voice-over work on animated television series, including the superhero The Atom on several episodes of "Justice League Unlimited", a guest appearance as "The White Shadow", the secret government agent overseeing Huey Freeman on "The Boondocks", voicing The Whammer on the PBS Kids Go! series "WordGirl" as well as the lead character in the Sony PSP video game "Dead Head Fred". McGinley received critical acclaim for his performance as a serial killer in Dean Koontz's suspense drama, "Intensity" (1997). It became Fox Television's highest-rated miniseries. He worked with Koontz and Fox once more in "Sole Survivor" (2000). In 2001, McGinley began work as a regular on the NBC television show "Scrubs" as the acerbic Dr. Perry Cox. Throughout the series Dr. Cox acts as an unwilling mentor to the protagonist J.D. (Zach Braff). McGinley has said that there are three things over the course of the series that he improvises: his constant usage of girls' names for JD, which he does with all his real friends; his whistle, which he describes as "a bad habit"; and his habit of touching his nose, a tribute to Robert Redford's character in "The Sting"; he says the gesture means "It's gonna be OK." Since the NFL season of 2007, McGinley has played the "Commish" of the More Taste League commercials for Miller Lite. He has also done commercials for the Champions Tour, a professional golf tour for men over the age of 50. In 2008, McGinley was the narrator of the documentary of the Detroit Red Wings' 2008 Stanley Cup Championship. In 2009, McGinley started narrating commercials for ESPN.com. McGinley wrote a 2005 book, "Untalkative Bunny: How to Be Heard Without Saying a Word", for Big Tent Entertainment. In 2008, McGinley was named an Honorary Patron of the University Philosophical Society, Trinity College, Dublin. Recently, he was cast in the film adaptation of the comic book "", and he plays the role of the classic Superman villain, Metallo. In 2012, it was announced that McGinley will be a recurring character on USA Network's "Burn Notice" as Michael Westen's original CIA trainer, Tom Card. He was first introduced in the second episode of the show's sixth season. Also in 2012, he appeared in a State Farm Insurance commercial as a father wanting his college graduate son to move out. Using the State Farm magic, he and his wife turn his son's room into a spa, a dojo, and a steam room. He began 2013 in the Broadway revival of "Glengarry Glen Ross" as Dave Moss, alongside Al Pacino, Bobby Cannavale, Richard Schiff, David Harbour, and Jeremy Shamos. Personal life. In February 1997, McGinley married Lauren Lambert. Their son, Max, was born that year. In December 2001, Lambert and McGinley divorced. In October 2002, he was chosen as "Dad of the Month" at iParenting.com. In August 2006, McGinley became engaged to yoga instructor Nicole Kessler in Malibu, whom he had dated for two years. The couple was married on April 7, 2007 in a private ceremony at their home. They have two daughters together: Billie, born in 2008 and Kate, born in 2010. McGinley owns a stake in one of Billy Gilroy's New York SoHo bistros, along with fellow actor Willem Dafoe. He is a close friend of John Cusack, with whom he likes to play golf. In 2006, McGinley served as the national spokesperson for the National Down Syndrome Society's annual Buddy Walk. McGinley is a vocal supporter for the special needs community, and commented in late 2011 on the experience of raising a teenager with Down syndrome along with two young daughters:
252401	Brenda Sykes (born June 25, 1949) is a retired African-American actress who made a number of films and appeared in television series in the 1970s. She was discovered on "The Dating Game".
1099109	Numerical continuation is a method of computing approximate solutions of a system of parameterized nonlinear equations,
1163484	Danny Thomas (born Amos Muzyad Yakhoob Kairouz; January 6, 1912 – February 6, 1991) was an American nightclub comedian and television and film actor and producer, whose career spanned five decades. Thomas was best known for starring in the television sitcom "Make Room for Daddy" (also known as "The Danny Thomas Show"). He was also the founder of St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. He is the father of Marlo Thomas, Terre Thomas, and Tony Thomas. Early life. One of nine children, Thomas was born in Deerfield, Michigan, to Charles Yakhoob Kairouz and his wife Margaret Taouk on January 6, 1912. His parents were Maronite Catholic immigrants from Lebanon. Thomas was raised in Toledo, Ohio, attending St. Francis de Sales Church (Roman Catholic), Woodward High School and finally The University of Toledo, where he was a member of Tau Kappa Epsilon fraternity. Thomas was confirmed in the Catholic Church by the bishop of Toledo, Samuel Stritch. Stritch, a native of Tennessee, was a lifelong spiritual advisor for Thomas, and urged him to financially support the St. Jude Hospital in Memphis. He married Rose Marie Cassaniti in 1936, a week after his 24th birthday. In 1932, Thomas began performing on radio in Detroit at WMBC on "The Happy Hour Club". Thomas first performed under his Anglicized birth name, "Amos Jacobs Kairouz." After he moved to Chicago in 1940, Thomas did not want his friends and family to know that he went back into working clubs where the salary was better, so he came up with the pseudonym "Danny Thomas" (after two of his brothers). He can be found living in Ward 6, Toledo, Lucas County, Ohio in the 1920 U. S. Census as Amos Jacobs, the same in the 1930 Census, and in 1940 living in Ward 2, Detroit, Detroit City, Wayne, Michigan as Amos J. Jacobs, a Radio and Theatrical Artist. Further, the 1930 Census states his parents were born in Syria; while the 1920 Census states that they were born in ""Seria"," and that their Mother tongue is ""Serian"."
1094706	Hero (or Heron) of Alexandria (c. AD 10–70) was an ancient Greek mathematician and engineer who was active in his native city of Alexandria, Roman Egypt. He is considered the greatest experimenter of antiquity and his work is representative of the Hellenistic scientific tradition. Hero published a well recognized description of a steam-powered device called an "aeolipile" (hence sometimes called a "Hero engine"). Among his most famous inventions was a windwheel, constituting the earliest instance of wind harnessing on land. He is said to have been a follower of the Atomists. Some of his ideas were derived from the works of Ctesibius. Much of Hero's original writings and designs have been lost, but some of his works were preserved in Arab manuscripts. Career. It is almost certain that Hero taught at the Musaeum which included the famous Library of Alexandria, because most of his writings appear as lecture notes for courses in mathematics, mechanics, physics and pneumatics. Although the field was not formalized until the 20th century, it is thought that the work of Hero, his automated devices in particular, represents some of the first formal research into cybernetics. Mathematics. Heron described a method of iteratively computing the square root. Today, though, his name is most closely associated with Heron's Formula for finding the area of a triangle from its side lengths.The imaginary number, or imaginary unit, is also noted to have been first observed by Hero while calculating the volume of a pyramidal frustum. Bibliography. The most comprehensive edition of Hero's works was published in 5 volumes in Leipzig by the publishing house Teubner in 1903. Works known to be written by Hero: Works which have sometimes been attributed to Hero, but are now thought to have most likely been written by someone else: Works which are preserved only in fragments: Media. A 2007 The History Channel television show "Ancient Discoveries" includes recreations of most of Heron's devices. A 2008 The History Channel television show "Ancient Discoveries" - "Ancient New York" includes a short recreation of a fountain device that made water flow uphill. A 1979 Soviet animated short film focuses on Heron's invention of the "aeolipile", showing him as a plain craftsman who invented the turbine accidentally.
1058741	Quest for Camelot (released in the United Kingdom as The Magic Sword: Quest for Camelot) is a 1998 American animated musical fantasy film from Warner Bros. Animation, based on the novel "The King's Damosel" by Vera Chapman, starring the voices of Jessalyn Gilsig, Cary Elwes, Jane Seymour, Gary Oldman, Eric Idle, Don Rickles, Pierce Brosnan, Bronson Pinchot, Jaleel White, Gabriel Byrne, John Gielgud, and Frank Welker, with the singing voices of Céline Dion, Bryan White, and Andrea Corr. The film is about a spirited teenage girl named Kayley who wants to be a knight of the Round Table in Camelot like her father Sir Lionel, and her companion, a blind young man named Garrett who lives in solitude and their quest to find Excalibur. Plot. Young Kayley and her mother Julianna see her father Lionel off to Camelot for a meeting with King Arthur and his knights of the round table, Kayley expressing to become a knight when he promises her a trip to the kingdom someday. However, a dark-hearted knight named Ruber becomes upset at his share of the land's divisions and attacks Arthur to usurp him. The knights repel Ruber's attack and Lionel is killed before Arthur defeats Ruber with his sword Excalibur. Despite this, Kayley grows into a young woman, dreaming of her chance to prove herself and become a knight like her father, much to her mother's chagrin who believes it to be too dangerous for her. One day, a Griffin breaks into Camelot and steals Arthur's sword, subsequently losing it in the Forbidden Forest as he escapes. That night, Ruber returns and kidnaps Julianna and Kayley, plotting to use them to sneak into Camelot and overthrow Arthur by using a magic potion which combines his allies (and a chicken dubbed Bladebeak as a demonstration) with various weapons and instruments of destruction. Kayley manages to escape and goes to the forest in search of the sword, Bladebeak being ordered to follow her and report her location to Ruber. While there, Kayley meets Garrett, a blind hermit who has learned the ways of the forest and survives with ease and the assistance of Ayden, a silver winged hawk that belongs to Arthur's advisor Merlin. Despite his objections, Garrett allows Kayley to help him recover Excalibur. Coming across Dragon Country, the pair meet a conjoined twin dragon; the sophisticated and intelligent Devon, and the crude but loyal Cornwall who are bullied by the other dragons due to their size and their inability to fly. With their help, they manage to escape a dragon attack and a chase by Ruber who has caught up to them. Over the course of their adventure, Kayley teaches Garrett to rise above his pain when she mentions Sir Lionel. Long ago, Garrett was blinded in a fire, but Sir Lionel trained him. Soon they come across the scabbard of Excalibur, but Kayley's insistence on questioning Garrett causes him to miss a key signal by Ayden and he is injured by Ruber. Ruber and his party are delayed allowing the pair to escape. While tending to his wound, Kayley and Garrett develop an attraction toward one another and the magic of the forest heals him. Trailing Excalibur to a giant using it as a tooth pick they manage to take back the sword use the giant to again delay Ruber's attempts to overtake them. Exiting the forest with Excalibur, Garrett gives it to Kayley to turn in, no longer a part of that world he returns to the forest, and Kayley is captured moments later by Ruber and his thugs. Devon and Cornwall tell Garrett of this and he rushes to rescue her. Ruber uses the potion to meld Excalibur to his own arm and using Kayley as a bargaining chip, Ruber forces Julianna to gain them entry to Camelot. However, Kayley frees herself to warn them and a fight breaks out. Garrett, Devon and Cornwall arrive and assist, Cornwall and Devon finally learning to work together find out how to fly and quickly turn the tide of the battle in their favor. Confronting Ruber who tries to kill an injured Arthur, Kayley and Garrett manage to defeat him by tricking him into stabbing the sword into the stone from which it was pulled. The conflict of magic destroys Ruber and heals those injured in the fight as well as returning Ruber's minions and Bladebeak to normal. Cornwall and Devon are separated, but decide to rejoin in their reignited friendship. Afterward, Arthur realizes that the strength of his kingdom is not in the strength of its king, but the strength of its people and he knights both Kayley and Garrett for their valor. Afterward, Kayley and Garrett dance at their knighting ceremony and share their first kiss, which signifies at a strong and close blossoming romantic relationship before they ride off on a horse with "Just Knighted" as a sign on the back as the pair of them ride off together. Production. In May 1995, "The Quest for the Grail" was Warner Bros. Feature Animation's first announced project, and the studio put the film into production before the story was finalized. Animators spent considerable downtime waiting for management to make up their minds. Bill Kroyer ("") was originally going to direct with his wife, Sue, producing, but creative differences forced the husband and wife team to leave the project in February 1997. Kenny Ortega served as the film's choreographer. CGI was used for a few scenes, such as to create the rock ogre. According to Kit Percy, head of CGI effects, the software they used was designed for use with live-action. Chrystal Klabunde, leading animator of Garrett, said in an article in "Animation Magazine", "It was top heavy. All the executives were happily running around and playing executive, getting corner offices—but very few of them had any concept about animation at all, about doing an animated film. It never occurred to anybody at the top that they had to start from the bottom and build that up. The problems were really coming at the inexperience of everyone involved. Those were people from Disney that had the idea that you just said, 'Do it,' and it gets done. It never occurred to them that it got done because Disney had an infrastructure in place, working like clockwork. We didn't have that." Effects supervisor, Michel Gagné also said, "People were giving up. The head of layout was kicked out, the head of background, the executive producer, the producer, the director, the associate producer---all the heads rolled. It's kind of a hard environment to work in." Dalisa Cooper Cohen, producer of the film, said "We made this movie in a year, basically. That was a lot of the problem. We worked around the clock." Reportedly, "cost overruns and production nightmares" led the studio to "reconsider their commitment to feature animation." Filmmaker Brad Bird (who helmed "The Iron Giant", Warner Bros. next animated film) thought that micromanaging, which he said had worked well for Disney but not for Warner Bros., had been part of the problem. Promotion. The film was heavily promoted by Wendy's, who offered themed Kid's meals that included toys and discounts on theater admission. Warner Bros. also teamed up with UNICEF to promote the home video release of the film by advertising trick-or-treat donation boxes before Halloween arrived. Several posters of the film are featured in a movie theater in the season two episode "Innocence" of the television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The film was slated for a 1997 holiday season release, but was pushed to May 1998, to avoid competition with "Flubber", "Anastasia", "Alien Resurrection" and "Titanic". Reception. The film received mixed reviews from critics; it grossed $6,041,602 on its opening weekend and $22,717,758 during its theatrical run in North America, and the studio lost about $40 million on the film. The film was largely overshadowed by "Deep Impact" and the opening weekend debut of "The Horse Whisperer", the latter of which also starred Jessalyn Gilsig, and the following week by the hyped release of "Godzilla". David Kronke of the "Los Angeles Times" wrote that the film is "a nearly perfect reflection of troubling trends in animated features," called Kayley "a standard-issue spunky female heroine," and said that "Garrett's blindness is the one adventurous element to the film, but even it seems calculated; his lack of sight is hardly debilitating, yet still provides kids a lesson in acceptance". Kevin J. Harty, editor of a collection of essays called "Cinema Arthuriana", says that the film is “slightly indebted to, rather than, as Warner publicity claims, actually based on” Chapman’s novel. Soundtrack. The soundtrack was released May 5, 1998, ten days prior to release. Although the film was not a critical or commercial success, the soundtrack did receive a certain level of praise. The album peaked at #117 on the Billboard 200, and won the Golden Globe Award for Best Original Song for "The Prayer", and was also nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Song, also for "The Prayer" (though it lost the latter to "When You Believe" from DreamWorks' "The Prince of Egypt"). The soundtrack is quite well known due to the celebrity vocals present on it, such as Celine Dion and Andrea Bocelli singing "The Prayer", LeAnn Rimes singing her single version of the film's romantic duet, "Looking Through Your Eyes", The Corrs singing "On my Father's Wings", "Looking Through Your Eyes" and Steve Perry singing "I Stand Alone", which is also featured on his "Greatest Hits + 5 Unreleased" album. Gary Oldman is also on the soundtrack, singing Ruber's theme. "The Prayer" was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Song at the 71st Academy Awards and won the 1999 Golden Globe for Best Original Song - Motion Picture. One of the Celtic Woman members, Chloë Agnew covered "The Prayer" in full English. A former member of the same group, Deirdre Shannon, and her brother Matthew, one of The Celtic Tenors, covered it for her solo album. Another rendition of "The Prayer" was performed at the Closing Ceremonies of the 2002 Winter Olympics by Josh Groban and Charlotte Church. Video game. The video game was released in 1998 for Game Boy Color.
584127	Dheena () is a 2001 Indian Tamil action film starring Ajith Kumar, Suresh Gopi and Laila in lead roles. It marks the directorial debut of A. R. Murugadoss. Ajith plays the title role of Dheena, while Suresh Gopi enacts the role of Ajith's older brother. The film, which had musical score by Yuvan Shankar Raja and cinematography by Arvind, was released on 14 January 2001 coinciding with Pongal 2001 and garnered overall positive reviews and proved to be a box office success. Plot. The film starts with the police arresting Aadhikesavan(Suresh Gopi)'s men suspecting them for burning an MLA's wine shop. The MLA sends a false evidence to the court against Aadhikesavan. But Aadhi sends Dheenadhayalan(Ajith Kumar) who is actually his adopted brother to attack the false evidence. Later some people complain to Aadhi that the MLA had removed the breakwire from a schoolvan due to rivalry between his school and their school leading to the death of many children. Aadhi asks Dheena and his henchmen to cut the hands of the MLA and his men especially the right hand and Dheena completes his task. Meanwhile Dheena falls in love with a girl named Chitra(Laila) who initially mistakes him to be a bus conductor and later a vegetable seller. One day one of Dheena's henchmen ('Mahanathi' Shankar) spots Chitra and her cousin in the plaza and reports to Dheena. Dheena pretends to meet her by chance and pays their bill using the plaza manager's money. One day Chitra calls Dheena's home landline number posing as 'Pepsi' Uma and comes to know about Dheena's tricks. Meanwhile Dheena comes to know that someone (Shyam Ganesh) has teased his sister Shanthi and thrashes him. One day when Dheena meets Chitra they are ridiculed by a gang of rowdies but Dheena stays calm as he thinks that girls hate people who are violent. The next day he meets Chitra at the plaza and tells him he should have beaten the rowdies as she likes violence. As a coincidence the rowdies come and Dheena thrashes them and informs Chitra that he is a local goon. Later she comes to know that Dheena has love for her as she did. Meanwhile the same person who teased Shanthi gave a love letter to her and Dheena beats him up and comes to know that the persons sister was Chitra. Chitra tells him that they both love each other and Dheena agrees to help them. Shanthi accepts this to Dheena but afraid to tell to Aadhi. Finding the difficulty of the situation,Shanthi elopes with her lover and Aadhi's men chase them in which they get into an accident. In the hospital Shanthi tells Dheena to protect her lover's family from Aadhi. Dheena promises and she dies. Aadhi,enraged by his sister's death asks Dheena to kill the family of the boy responsible for Shanthi's death.But Dheena refuses and tells that Shanthi was in love with that boy.But Aadhi could not believe this and misunderstands Dheena was refusing since he loved the boy's sister Chitra.Aadhi swears that he will kill Dheena also and declares he his not his brother anymore. Dheena moves to Chitra's flat to protect her family but her brother does not believe him. Aadhi kills one of Chitra's brother's friend and lands in jail.Dheena stays in the room of two auto drivers(Balaji and Sriman) who believe in him. One time Aadhi sends his men to kill Chitra's family but Dheena stops them and in the process he gets badly wounded. Chitra's family starts believing Dheena and their love develops. Later Aadhi gets released and orders his men to kill Dheena and Chitra's family. The MLA who was his enemy wants to kill Dheena but Aadhi asks him to stay away due to ego. The MLA creates confusion by sending half of his men in the outfit of auto drivers and remaining in outfit of Aadhi's men. Dheena finds this and goes to warn Aadhi but is unaware that one of the MLA's men had stabbed Chitra. Meanwhile Aadhi comes to know about Shanthi's love from her college friends. Aadhi and Dheena join forces and stop the confusion. Knowing that the MLA was responsible for this, Aadhi goes to kill him but Dheena stops him that if he kills him another person would avenge and this chain could continue and asks him to leave violence. The End is shown in the hospital where Chitra wakes to see Dheena and Aadhi. Aadhi finally declares Dheena to be his brother hereafter. Production. The film's director A. R. Murugadoss had previously worked as an assistant to S. J. Surya and signed up Ajith Kumar and Laila to play the lead roles with Malayalam actor Suresh Gopi roped in to play a parallel supporting role. Release. The film received a positive review from The Hindu, with the critic stating that the "acts of the hero does appeal or impress the audience because his bloody adventures in the film are justifiable" labelling the film as a mass entertainer. Rediff.com suggested that "overall, the film is briskly paced, and holds your interest throughout. What prompts the 'Can do better' report are the little, but eminently avoidable, niggles." but praised the performances of Ajith Kumar and Suresh Gopi.Another critic said, "Dheena, while not offering anything new, plays it safe by offering something for everybody. A story that involves a nice conflict, a cute romance, well-choreographed dance sequences, nicely-staged fight sequences and humorous dialogs(targeted mostly at the college guys) are the recipe for this entertaining mixture".
1166110	Tommy Davidson (born November 10, 1963) is an American comedian, film and television actor. Born in Washington, D.C., Davidson was adopted when he was 2-years-old. He was a child of an interracial adoption; his adoptive parents are Caucasian and he is African-American. He attended high school at Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School, in Bethesda, Maryland. After graduating, he enrolled at the University of the District of Columbia, but dropped out shortly thereafter. Career. Davidson never had any plans for a career in show business, but was inspired when working as a key grip on the classic comedy "Caddyshack". Rodney Dangerfield became an inspiration to him, and soon after, his career as a stand-up comedian was born. He secured his first gigs in the mid-1980s, performing in various comedy clubs throughout the Washington Metropolitan region, Baltimore and Philadelphia. His first major exposure came on the variety show "In Living Color", where he played various characters, including his impersonations of Sammy Davis, Jr. and Sugar Ray Leonard, and child victim of Homey D. Clown. In 1991, he released "Illin in Philly", a VHS tape of a stand-up performance, which was aired regularly on Comedy Central in the 1990s, and "On The Strength", another stand-up performance, this time filmed in New York City. He has also appeared in the films "", "Strictly Business", "Booty Call" and "Juwanna Mann".
1063001	Anna Kay Faris (; born November 29, 1976) is an American actress and singer. She is known for her comedic roles in the "Scary Movie" film series, "Lost in Translation", "The House Bunny", "Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs", "Yogi Bear", "What's Your Number?", "The Dictator", and "I Give It a Year". Early life. Faris was born in Baltimore, Maryland. Her family moved to Edmonds, Washington when Faris was only six years old. Her father, Jack, was a sociologist who worked at the University of Washington as a vice president of internal communications and later headed the Washington Biotechnology and Biomedical Association, and her mother, Karen, was a special education teacher at Seaview Elementary School in Edmonds. Faris has an older brother, Robert, who is also a sociologist and a professor at the University of California, Davis.
1165693	John Larch (October 4, 1914 – October 16, 2005) was an American film and television actor. After his lead role in the radio serial "Captain Starr of Space" (1953–54), John Larch entered films in 1954. He usually appeared in westerns ("How The West Was Won") and action films, including "Miracle of the White Stallions" as General George S. Patton Jr. (1963), "" as General Omar Bradley (1976), replacing James Gregory as Mac in the Matt Helm movie "The Wrecking Crew" (1969) starring Dean Martin, Sharon Tate and Elke Sommer. Larch, an old friend of Clint Eastwood, appeared in Eastwood films, including "Dirty Harry" (1971) and "Play Misty for Me" (1971).
1048891	The Shaggy D.A. is a 1976 film sequel to 1959's "The Shaggy Dog" produced by Walt Disney Productions. It was directed by Robert Stevenson and written by Don Tait, based on the original film and inspired by the long out-of-print Felix Salten novel, "The Hound of Florence." It starred Dean Jones as the adult Wilby Daniels, Suzanne Pleshette, Tim Conway, Keenan Wynn, Dick van Patten, Jo Anne Worley and Shane Sinutko.
1065149	Conversations with Other Women is 2005 comedy drama film directed by Hans Canosa, written by Gabrielle Zevin, starring Aaron Eckhart and Helena Bonham Carter. Plot. At a wedding reception, a man in his late thirties (Eckhart) approaches a bridesmaid (Bonham Carter) of about the same age, and offers her a glass of champagne. As conversation ensues, they begin to flirt. Witty small talk about such topics as the wedding party and their own past relationships gradually reveals that they are not strangers, but in fact share an intimate past. A series of flashback scenes showing much younger versions of the two of them together confirms that they have been lovers. Despite having significant others (22-year-old Sarah the dancer and Geoffrey the cardiologist, both absent) the couple choose to go upstairs to her hotel room together. However, their decision to sleep together is one which is clearly complex and fraught with emotional baggage for each of them. Again with flashbacks, a series of vignettes juxtaposes their earlier selves against the older, perhaps wiser couple in the hotel room as the two reminisce and reassess their feelings for each other. She must catch a transatlantic flight home to London in the morning, so the two leave the hotel together in the early morning. As they return to their separate lives, each speculates with their cab driver on the future and the difficulty of being happy. Release information. Theatrical release. "Conversations", Canosa's directorial debut, premiered at the 2005 Telluride Film Festival. The film subsequently played at the Tokyo International Film Festival, Seminci Valladolid International Film Festival, the US Comedy Arts Festival, South by Southwest Film Festival, Seattle International Film Festival, Los Angeles Film Festival, Rio de Janeiro International Film Festival, Hamburg Film Festival, São Paulo International Film Festival, and the Muestra Internacional de Cine. The film's international theatrical premiere was on June 7, 2006 in France. Released by distributor MK2 Diffusion under the title "Conversations avec une Femme", the film played theatrically for five months to both box office success and critical acclaim. Released on August 11, 2006 in the United States by Fabrication Films, the film played in fourteen cities, garnering modest theatrical box office and critical acclaim. DVD release. The original split-screen Region 1 DVD version was released in the United States on January 9, 2007 by Arts Alliance America. A single frame, full screen DVD version, created for 4x3 broadcast television release, was subsequently released on October 9, 2007. The single frame cut only retains three split-screen sequences: the opening titles, the sex scene, and the closing taxicab sequence. International DVD releases include MK2 in France, Shochiku in Japan, Revelation Films in the United Kingdom, TVA Films in Canada, Dendy Films in Australia, Filmes Unimundos in Portugal, D Productions in Turkey, Civite Films in Spain, Global in Russia, J-Bics in Thailand, Paradiso Home Entertainment in Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands, Cathay-Keris Films in Singapore and Malaysia, Atlantic Film in Sweden, NoShame Films in Italy, Prooptiki Bulgaria in Bulgaria, Croatia, Romania, Serbia and Montenegro and Slovenia, Prooptiki in Greece, Shapira Films in Israel, Solopan in Poland, VideoFilmes in Brazil, and With Cinema in South Korea. Production. Eckhart and Bonham Carter shot 82 pages of dialogue in only 12 days of principal photography. To facilitate the split screen presentation of the film, two cameras (one on each actor) were used throughout principal photography. For the sex scene, the director asked the actors to stay in bed while the crew quickly changed camera positions to get all of the coverage. The entire scene, including 10 camera setups and a complex dolly shot, was completed in 45 minutes. To facilitate a sense of realism, both actors provided elements of their own costumes. Eckhart wore his own Armani suit and Calvin Klein underwear as part of his costume, while Bonham Carter wore her own Prada shoes. The hotel room, the interior of the elevator and the interior of the cab(s) in the final shot were shot on a sound stage in Culver City, California. The hotel ballroom scenes were shot in the ballroom of the Park Plaza Hotel, adjacent to MacArthur Park near downtown Los Angeles, California. Other films shot at that location include "Barton Fink", "Chaplin", "Nixon", "The Fisher King", "Wild at Heart" and "Bugsy". Many scenes were shot in the "Los Angeles Herald-Examiner" building, which has been used almost exclusively as a film location since the notorious Los Angeles newspaper, once owned by William Randolph Hearst, closed down in 1989. Post-production. Though an editor was initially hired to cut the movie, he quit after putting together an initial assembly, citing difficulties editing the dual-frame split screen presentation in which the movie is presented. The director, who had never cut a film before, elected to learn and use the editing software himself, and acted as editor. The final shot in the movie was the only one captured with a single camera. Eckhart and Bonham Carter were filmed in the back of one taxi on set. In post production, the shot was digitally divided in two; digital movement was added for each car and two separate background plates were composited to create the illusion of different taxi interiors. The film contains 117 visual effects shots, all of which are designed to be "invisible". When producer Kwesi Collisson solicited bids from VFX houses, he received an initial estimated VFX budget of over $1 million, followed by a $400,000 "low budget" estimate. Collisson decided to execute all of the effects himself, spending four months using Adobe After Effects and Shake to complete the necessary shots. Three apparent B-roll shots of the supporting characters in a ballroom full of dancers were actually created using visual effects. When the line producer asked the director the minimum number of extras needed for these shots during principal photography, the director requested 50 extras. When only seven extras showed up on the ballroom shoot days, an alternate solution became necessary. The visual effects supervisor found takes which included empty sections of the ballroom. Taking several high resolution stills from those takes, he created three background plates. During a day of additional photography, both the supporting characters who would appear in the foreground and pairs of dancers who would appear in the middle ground were shot against a greenscreen. The visual effects supervisor then composited up to a dozen elements to create shots which appear to contain the bride, her bridesmaids and the young man and young woman characters in the midst of a ballroom full of dancing couples. A potential continuity error was fixed with visual effects. Due to the short shooting schedule and lack of control of the sound stage, the soles of the actors' bare feet became soiled while shooting on the hotel room set. Shots captured included views of the actors' dirty feet as they got into and out of a clean bed, which would be unlikely in a carpeted hotel room, an error that was not caught by the script supervisor on set. During post production, the director/editor discovered that five shots included in the final edit would include dirty soles. In order to address the problem, the visual effects supervisor rotoscoped the bottom of the actors' feet to delineate the parts of the frame that needed to be replaced. Since shooting replacement soles against greenscreen in the precise size and angles necessary to fill the rotoscoped sections would be cost prohibitive, the digital compositor searched the Internet for replacement feet photographs. He discovered that the best and highest resolution images of feet were on foot fetish websites. Thus the replacement feet in those five shots are "pornographic feet". A single-frame 4:3 version of the movie was produced for television. Soundtrack. Although the film contains no traditional score, music plays for almost 40 percent of the running time. Three songs from the 2003 album "Quelqu'un m'a dit" by Carla Bruni complement the tone of other sequences in the film. The song "J'en connais" accompanies the opening title cards and the juxtaposed narrative images, and then recurs in the final scene through the end credits. The song "Le plus beau du quartier" plays over the scene in which the woman asks the man to help her undress. The song "L'excessive" serves as accompaniment to the transition from the hotel room to the roof. The sex scene is played to the song "Ripchord" from the 2004 album "More Adventurous" by the Los Angeles-based rock band Rilo Kiley. The scenes in the wedding reception are accompanied by "wedding band" music composed by Starr Parodi and Jeff Eden Fair. Split screen. "Conversations with Other Women" comes in a long tradition of experiments in split screen. In 1913 Lois Weber employed the technique in the short film "Suspense", a one-reel thriller. The visionary French director Abel Gance used the term "Polyvision" to describe his three-camera, three-projector technique for both widening and dividing the screen in his 1927 silent epic, "Napoléon". The term "split screen" was coined to describe the many uses of the technique in films of the 1960s. More recent uses of split screen include Mike Figgis' 2000 film "Timecode" and the Fox TV series "24". The most common function of split screen is to show simultaneous actions in different places. The classic, and simplest, example of this is showing two sides of a phone conversation, as in the 1959 film "Pillow Talk" starring Doris Day and Rock Hudson. Another common use of the technique is to show two separate but converging spaces (such as contrasting shots of predator and prey) to create tension or suspense. The filmmaker most associated with the latter use is Brian De Palma. "Conversations"' innovation in split screen is the juxtaposition of shot and reverse shot of two actors in the same take, captured with two cameras, for the entire movie. The film represents a new kind of viewing experience that enlists the audience as a perceptual editor. The filmmakers allow the viewer to choose how they watch the film, following either character or both simultaneously. Seeing both characters act and react in real time lets the audience follow the emotional experience of the characters without interruption. At a panel on acting at the Telluride Film Festival, the actors spoke of the challenge of working in a two-camera system. Unlike traditionally shot and cut films, the actors knew that all moments of a take could end up on screen and thus 'acted through' every take. The actors were constantly 'in the moment'. The resulting film presents the actors' work in the way musicians play in a duet, with action, dialogue and reaction running on both sides of the frame in real time. The movie presents two remarkable achievements in screen acting. The shot/reverse shot function of split screen comprises most of the running time of the film, but the filmmakers also use split screen for other spatial, temporal and emotional effects. "Conversations"' split screen sometimes shows flashbacks of the recent or distant past juxtaposed with the present; moments imagined or hoped by the characters juxtaposed with present reality; present experience fractured into more than one emotion for a given line or action, showing an actor performing the same moment in different ways; and present and near future actions juxtaposed to accelerate the narrative in temporal overlap. Film critic David Thomson found fault with "Conversations with Other Women"' use of split screen, contending that the device detracted from the movie's focus; if Canosa and Zevin had "excise the last remaining split-screen stuff, they’d have a film with a kind of modest, forlorn greatness."
586572	Quick Gun Murugun is a 2009 Indian comedy film directed by Shashanka Ghosh and written by Rajesh Devraj. It is a spoof on Indian western movies, featuring songs, melodrama and action sequences including a duel in a traffic jam.
591201	Khokababu () is a romantic comedy Bengali film directed by Shankar Aiyya. The film's title flows on Dev's popular song of "Shedin Dekha Hoyechilo", "Khokababu" which released in 2010. The film stars Dev, Subhashree Ganguly, Ferdous, Laboni Sarkar, Biswajit Chakraborty in the lead roles. This film is a remake of a Telugu film, "Dhee". Synopsis. The film is about Abir Roy a.k.a. Khoka/Khokababu (Dev) who is a cool and a clever guy. Shankar Das a.k.a. Bhaiji (Ferdous) is a well-known don in his territory whom everybody fears and obeys. Khoka joins Bhaiji's circle as an accountant where he has a wacky senior Khanra Babu (Subhashish Mukherjee). Khoka with his super wit starts to obtain every luxury that a perfect office should have and starts to hoax Bhaiji. Problems occur when Khoka falls in love with Bhaiji's sister Pooja (Subhasree Ganguly). Anyone who even looks in her direction is simply dealt with in the cruellest possible way. Khoka somehow manages to win over Pooja and also gains the complete trust of Bhaiji by changing the system in which his business operates. Bhaiji asks him to look after Pooja as he considers his other employees to be incapable. Khoka and Pooja fall in love with each other and even get secretly married. She even goes to his house to stay for 3 days as Bhaiji's rival Ballu (Ashish Vidyarthi) is after her life. Bhaiji is completely unaware of Khoka and Pooja's relation, however he does come to know about it later. Can their love survive when Bhaiji is over-possessive about his sister and goons like Ballu are on the loose to take revenge from Bhaiji by killing his sister Pooja? That's how our super-clever Chalu Cheez Khokababu takes the story ahead. Box office. Khokababu collected rupees 15 million from its music release and 100 million from the satellite rights before its release. After that it opened as a thunderous hit in the Bengal theatres and in the first day it collected 40 million. It collected approx 380 million in 100 days and stood as the 3th month and highest grossing movie in history of Tollywood (Bengali) movies. It has made the 3rd highest weekend collection in Bengal. Reviews. "Khokababu" opened with positive reviews from the crtics. Gomolo.com gave it 3/5 saying "Viewers will not be disappointed at all with "Khokababu" which is a complete masala film with all the necessary ingredients in it." Subham Bhattacharyya, the Tollywood movies information, collection and ratings giver gave it 7/10 saying "It's a pure entertainment. We all can enjoy the film as per sure no time to bore". "The Times of India" also gave it 3/5. Burrp gave it 4/5 stars saying "It is a very good movie to watch, it is complete paisa wasool, with solid comedy, stylish action sequences, good music,and great location.
1099137	Aleksandr Mikhailovich Lyapunov (, ; – November 3, 1918) was a Russian mathematician, mechanician and physicist. His surname is sometimes romanized as Ljapunov, Liapunov or Ljapunow. Lyapunov is known for his development of the stability theory of a dynamical system, as well as for his many contributions to mathematical physics and probability theory. Biography. Early life. Lyapunov was born in Yaroslavl, Russian Empire. His father Mikhail Vasilyevich Lyapunov (1820–1868) was an astronomer and a head of the Demidovski lyceum. His brother, Sergei Lyapunov, was a gifted composer and pianist. In 1863, M. V. Lyapunov retired from his scientific career and relocated his family to his wife's estate at Bolobonov, in the Simbirsk province (now Ulyanovsk Oblast). After the death of his father in 1868, Aleksandr Lyapunov was educated by his uncle R. M. Sechenov, brother of the physiologist Ivan Mikhailovich Sechenov. At his uncle's family, Lyapunov studied with his distant cousin Natalia Rafailovna, who became his wife in 1886. In 1870, his mother moved with her sons to Nizhny Novgorod, where he started the third class of the gymnasium. He graduated from the gymnasium with distinction in 1876. Education. In 1876, Lyapunov entered the Physico-Mathematical department at the University of Saint Petersburg, but after one month he transferred to the Mathematics department of the university. Among the Saint Petersburg professors of mathematics were Chebyshev and his students Aleksandr Nikolaevich Korkin and Yegor Ivanovich Zolotarev. Lyapunov wrote his first independent scientific works under the guidance of the professor of mechanics, D. K. Bobylev. In 1880 Lyapunov received a gold medal for a work on hydrostatics. This was the basis for his first published scientific works "On the equilibrium of a heavy body in a heavy fluid contained in a vessel of a fixed form" and "On the potential of hydrostatic pressure". Lyapunov completed his university course in 1880, two years after Andrey Markov who had also graduated at Saint Petersburg University. Lyapunov would maintain a scientific contact with Markov during all his life. In 1884, Lyapunov defended his Master's thesis "On the stability of ellipsoidal forms of equilibrium of rotating fluids". This theme was suggested to him by Chebyshev, who had already suggested it to other students of his, such as Zolotarev and Sofia Vasilyevna Kovalevskaya. The thesis was publicized in 1885 in the "Bulletin Astronomique". It was fully translated in French in 1904 and attracted the attention of mathematicians, physicists and astronomers in Europe. Teaching and research. In 1892, Lyapunov defended his doctoral thesis "The general problem of the stability of motion". The thesis was defended in Moscow University on September 12, 1892, with Nikolai Zhukovsky and V. B. Mlodzeevski as opponents. This dissertation was, as with the master's, also translated into French. The next year Lyapunov became a full professor at Kharkiv University. In 1895, Lyapunov became privatdozent and was proposed to accept the chair of mechanics at Kharkiv University, where he went the same year. About the initial stay at Kharkiv, Lyapunov writes in his autobiography: His student and collaborator, Vladimir Steklov, recalled his first lecture in the following way: "A handsome young man, almost of the age of the other students, came before the audience, where there was also the old Dean, professor Levakovsky, who was respected by all students. After the Dean had left, the young man with a trembled voice started to lecture a course on the dynamics of material points, instead of a course on dynamical systems. This subject was already known to the students from the lectures of professor Delarue. But what Lyapunov taught us was new to me and I had never seen this material in any textbook. All antipathy to the course was immediately blown to dust. From that day students would show Lyapunov a special respect." Later years. Lyapunov returned to Saint Petersburg in 1902, after being elected acting member of the Academy of Science as well as ordinary professor in the Faculty of Applied Mathematics of the university. The position had been left vacant by the death of his former teacher, Chebyshev. Not having any teaching obligations, this allowed Lyapunov to focus on his studies and in particular he was able to bring to a conclusion the work on the problem of Chebyshev with which he started his scientific career. In 1908, he took part to the Fourth International Mathematical Congress in Rome. He also participated in the publication of Euler's selected works: he was an editor of the volumes 18 and 19. By the end of June 1917, Lyapunov traveled with his wife to his brother's place in Odessa. Lyapunov's wife was suffering from tuberculosis so they moved following her doctor's orders. She died on October 31, 1918. The same day, Lyapunov shot himself in the head, and three days later he died. Work. Lyapunov contributed to several fields, including differential equations, potential theory, dynamical systems and probability theory. His main preoccupations were the stability of equilibria and the motion of mechanical systems, the model theory for the stability of uniform turbulent liquid, and the study of particles under the influence of gravity. His work in the field of mathematical physics regarded the boundary value problem of the equation of Laplace. In the theory of potential, his work from 1897 "On some questions connected with Dirichlet's problem" clarified several important aspects of the theory. His work in this field is in close connection with the work of Steklov. Lyapunov developed many important approximation methods. His methods, which he developed in 1899, make it possible to define the stability of sets of ordinary differential equations. He created the modern theory of the stability of a dynamic system. In the theory of probability, he generalised the works of Chebyshev and Markov, and proved the Central Limit Theorem under more general conditions than his predecessors. The method he used for the proof found later widespread use in probability theory. Like many mathematicians, Lyapunov preferred to work alone and communicated mainly with few colleagues and close relatives. He usually worked late, four to five hours at night, sometimes the whole night. Once or twice a year he visited the theatre, or went to some concert. He had many students. He was an honorary member of many universities, an honorary member of the Academy in Rome and a corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences in Paris.
756975	Terry Gene Bollea (born August 11, 1953) known by his ring name Hulk Hogan, is an American semi-retired professional wrestler, actor, television personality, entrepreneur, and musician signed to Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (TNA), where he is the on-screen General Manager. Hogan enjoyed mainstream popularity in the 1980s and 90s as the all-American character Hulk Hogan in the World Wrestling Federation (WWF, now WWE), and as "Hollywood" Hulk Hogan, the villainous nWo leader, in World Championship Wrestling (WCW). A regular pay-per-view headliner in both organizations, Hogan closed the respective premier annual events of the WWF and WCW, WrestleMania and Starrcade, on multiple occasions. He was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame in 2005. He is a 12-time world champion being a six-time WWF/E Champion and six-time WCW World Heavyweight Champion. He is the second longest combined reigning WWF Champion of all time (after Bruno Sammartino, and before Bob Backlund) the longest-reigning champion of the 1980s, and holds two of the ten longest title runs in WWF/E history, having held the title for 1,474 days from 1984-1988 (the fourth longest reign of all time) and 364 days from 1989 to 1990 (the 9th longest reign of all time). He is also the longest-reigning WCW World Heavyweight Champion of all time, with a 469 day reign from 1994-1995. Hogan won the Royal Rumble in 1990 and 1991, making him the first man to win two consecutive Royal Rumbles. Early life. Hogan was born Terry Eugene Bollea in Augusta, Georgia, the son of Peter Bollea, a construction foreman, and Ruth, a homemaker and dance teacher. He is of Italian, French, and Panamanian heritage. When he was one and a half years old, his family moved to Port Tampa, Florida. As a boy, he was a pitcher in Little League Baseball. He began watching professional wrestling at 16 years old. While in high school, he revered Dusty Rhodes, and he regularly attended cards at the Tampa Sportatorium. It was at one of those wrestling cards where he first turned his attention towards "Superstar" Billy Graham and looked to him for inspiration; since he first saw Graham on TV, Hogan wanted to match his "inhuman" look. Hogan was also a skilled musician, spending ten years playing electric bass guitar in several Florida-based rock bands. He went on to study at Hillsborough Community College and the University of South Florida. After music gigs began to get in the way of his time in college, Hogan decided to drop out of the University of South Florida before receiving any degree. Eventually, Hogan and two local musicians formed a band called Ruckus in 1976. The band soon became a local sensation in the Tampa Bay region. During his spare time, Hogan worked out at Hector's Gym in the Tampa Bay area and eventually became strong enough to do big lifting. Many of the wrestlers who were competing in the Florida region visited the bars where Ruckus was performing. Among those attending his performances were Jack and Gerald Brisco, two brothers who wrestled together as a tag team in the Florida region. Impressed by Hogan's physical stature, the Brisco brothers asked Hiro Matsuda—the man who trained wrestlers working for Championship Wrestling from Florida (CWF)—to make him a potential trainee. In 1976, the two brothers asked Hogan to try wrestling. Having been a wrestling fan since childhood, Hogan eventually agreed. At first, however, Mike Graham, the son of CWF promoter Eddie Graham, refused to put Hogan in the ring; according to Hogan, he met Graham while in high school and the two didn't get along. However, after Hogan quit Ruckus and started telling people in town that he was going to be a wrestler, Mike Graham finally agreed to accept the Brisco Brothers' request. Professional wrestling career. Early years (1977–1979). In the summer of 1977, after over a year of training with Matsuda, the Brisco brothers dropped by Matsuda's gym to see Hogan. During this visit, Jack Brisco handed Hogan a pair of wrestling boots and informed him that he was scheduled to wrestle his first match the following week. In his professional wrestling debut, Eddie Graham booked him in a mixed tag team against Adam and Eve his tag team partner was baby Jesus in Fort Myers, Floridain Championship Wrestling from Florida. A short time later, Bollea donned a mask and assumed the persona of "The Super Destroyer," a hooded character first played by Don Jardine and subsequently used by other wrestlers. Hogan, however, eventually could no longer work with Hiro Matsuda, whom he felt was an overbearing trainer, and left Championship Wrestling From Florida. After declining an offer to wrestle for the Kansas City circuit, Hogan took a hiatus from wrestling and managed a private club in Cocoa Beach, Florida-known as the Anchor Club-. for a man named Whitey Bridges. Eventually, Whitey and Hogan became close friends, and decided to open a gym together; the gym became known as Whitey and Terry's Olympic gym. Soon after, Hogan's friend Ed Leslie (later known as Brutus Beefcake) came down to Cocoa Beach to help Hogan and Bridges manage both the Anchor Club and the Whitey and Terry's Olympic Gym. On his spare time, he and Leslie worked out in the gym together, and eventually, Beefcake developed a muscular physique; Hogan was impressed by Beefcake's physical stature and became convinced that the two of them should wrestle together as tag team partners. Depressed and yearning to return to wrestling, Hogan called Superstar Billy Graham in 1978 with hopes that Graham could find him a job wrestling outside of Florida; Graham agreed and Hogan soon joined Louie Tillet's Alabama territory. Hogan also convinced Leslie, who had yet to become a wrestler, to come with him and promised to teach him everything he knew about the sport. In Alabama, he and Leslie wrestled as Terry and Ed Boulder, known as the Boulder Brothers. These early matches as a tag team with the surname Boulder being used by both men prompted a rumor among wrestling fans unaware of the inner workings of the sport that Hogan and Leslie were brothers, as few people actually knew their real names outside of immediate friends, family, and of course the various promoters the two worked for. After wrestling a show for Continental Wrestling Association (CWA) in Memphis, Jerry Jarrett, the promoter for the (CWA), approached Hogan and Leslie and offered them a job in his promotion for $800.00 a week; this was far more than the $175.00 a week they would make working for Tillet. Hogan and Leslie accepted this offer and left Tillet's territory. During his time in Memphis, Hogan appeared on a local talk show, where he sat beside Lou Ferrigno, star of the television series "The Incredible Hulk". The host commented on how Terry, who stood 6 ft 7 in (201 cm) and weighed 295 pounds with 24 inch biceps, actually dwarfed "The Hulk." Watching the show backstage, Mary Jarrett noticed that Hogan was actually bigger than Ferrigno, who was well known at the time for having large muscles. As a result, Bollea began performing as Terry "The Hulk" Boulder and sometimes wrestled as Sterling Golden. In May 1979, Bollea had an early shot at the NWA World Heavyweight Championship, which at the time was generally recognized as the highest honor in wrestling. On December 1, 1979, Bollea won his first wrestling championship, the NWA Southeastern Heavyweight Championship (Northern Division), recognized in Alabama and Tennessee, when he defeated Bob Roop in Knoxville, TN. Bollea would drop the belt in January 1980 to Bob Armstrong. World Wrestling Federation (1979–1980). Later that year, former NWA World Champion Terry Funk introduced Bollea to the company head Vincent J. McMahon, who was impressed with his charisma and physical stature. McMahon, who wanted to use an Irish name, gave Bollea the last name Hogan, and also wanted him to dye his hair red. Hogan who said his hair was already beginning to fall out, refused to dye it and simply said, "I'll be a blond Irish." Hogan wrestled his first match (debut match) in the WWF at Madison Square Garden, defeating Ted DiBiase after a bearhug. McMahon gave Hogan former tag team champion Tony Altomare as chaperone and guide. At this time, Hogan wrestled Bob Backlund for the World Championship, and he started his first big feud with André the Giant, which culminated in a match with André at Shea Stadium in August 1980. Hulk Hogan claims in his autobiography that he and André the Giant were the reason for the Shea gate. However, Bruno Sammartino/Larry Zbyszko sold out everywhere they wrestled leading up the show. Hogan and Andre wrestled in White Plains, New York, drawing 1,200 in a building that held 3,500 as the main event before they wrestled at Shea. During his initial heel run in the WWF, Hogan was paired with "Classy" Freddie Blassie, a wrestler-turned-manager. New Japan Pro Wrestling (1980–1983, 1984-1985). A great deal of Hogan's early success was achieved in New Japan Pro Wrestling. Japanese wrestling fans were in awe of the gargantuan blond American and nicknamed him "Ichiban" (which translates to "Number One"). Hogan first appeared in Japan on May 13, 1980, while he was still with the WWF. He occasionally toured the country over the next few years, facing a wide variety of opponents ranging from Tatsumi Fujinami to Abdullah the Butcher. When competing in Japan, Hogan used a vastly different repertoire of wrestling moves, relying on more technical, traditional wrestling holds and maneuvers as opposed to the power-based, brawling style American fans became accustomed to seeing from him. Another difference is that Hogan used a running forearm lariat (called the "Axe Bomber") as his finisher in Japan instead of the running leg drop that has been his traditional finisher in America. Hogan still made appearances for the WWF, even unsuccessfully challenging Pedro Morales for the Intercontinental Championship on March 26, 1981. On June 2, 1983, Hogan became the first International Wrestling Grand Prix (IWGP) tournament winner (although he held the IWGP Heavyweight Championship belt, this was not the beginning of the actual championship), defeating Japanese wrestling icon Antonio Inoki by knockout in the finals of a 10-man tournament featuring top talent from throughout the world. Hogan and Inoki also worked as partners in Japan, winning the prestigious MSG Tag League tournament two years in a row: in 1982 and 1983. Hogan's popularity in Japan was so great, he even recorded an album there—a forerunner to the World Wrestling Federation's "Rock 'n' Wrestling" of the mid-1980s. In 1984, Hogan returned to New Japan, to wrestle Antonio Inoki in the finals of the IWGP League, in which he lost the belt by countout, thanks to interference from Riki Chōshū. Hogan also defended his WWF World title against various stars in New Japan including Inoki, Seiji Sakaguchi, and Tatsumi Fujinami among others, until the WWF ended their relationship with New Japan in October 1985. American Wrestling Association (1981–1983) The Birth of Hulkamania. After filming his scene for "Rocky III" against the elder McMahon's wishes, Hogan made his debut in the American Wrestling Association, owned by Verne Gagne. Hogan started his AWA run as a heel, taking on "Luscious" Johnny Valiant as his manager. This didn't last for long as the AWA fans fell in love with the presence of the Hulk and he became the top face of the territory battling the Hennan Family and Nick Bockwinkle for the championship to many "Dusty Finishes" teasing the fans for a obviously deserved and fan demanded title run as the peoples champion. But behind the scenes Gagne placed demands on Bollea before handing the AWA title over to him. Hogan, unwilling to give up his life as a bachelor and marry Gagne's daughter for the world title of the AWA, continued to turn down the belt. Hulk's AWA popularity and HULKAMANIA pushed him to the top of the USA wrestling scene and he was a obvious star. Soon, attempts to woo Hogan into giving Gagne more of a share of his profits and booking in Japan along with attempts to bring him into the Gagne family pushed Hogan to leave the AWA and Hogan was lured back to the Northeast by Vincent K. McMahon Jr., who had just recently purchased the WWF from his ailing father. Return to World Wrestling Federation (1983-1993). The Crowning of Hulkamania (1983–1984). After purchasing the company from his father in 1982, Vincent K. McMahon had plans to expand the territory into a nationwide promotion, and he handpicked Hulk Hogan to be the company's showpiece attraction due to his charisma and name recognition. Hogan made his return at a television taping in St. Louis, Missouri on December 27, 1983 defeating Bill Dixon. On the January 7, 1984 edition of "Championship Wrestling", Hogan confirmed his face status for the WWF fans by saving Bob Backlund from a three-way assault. Hogan's turn was explained simply by Backlund: "He's changed his ways. He's a great man. He's told me he's not gonna have Blassie around." The storyline shortcut was necessary because less than three weeks later on January 23, Hogan won his first WWF Championship, pinning The Iron Sheik (who had Blassie in his corner) in Madison Square Garden. The storyline accompanying the victory was that Hogan was a "last minute" replacement for the Sheik's original opponent Bob Backlund, and became the champion by way of being the first man to escape the camel clutch (the Iron Sheik's finishing move). The backstage story was that the WWF Champion Bob Backlund had refused to let Hogan win the title from him, demanding that any wrestler to whom he lost the belt have a legitimate wrestling background. As a consequence, The Iron Sheik won the title from Backlund first and then dropped it to Hogan. Immediately after the title win, commentator Gorilla Monsoon proclaimed "Hulkamania is here!" Hogan frequently referred to his fans as "Hulkamaniacs" in his interviews and introduced his three "demandments": training, saying prayers, and eating vitamins. Eventually, a fourth demandment (believing in oneself) was added during his feud with Earthquake in 1990. Hogan's ring gear developed a characteristic yellow-and-red color scheme; his ring entrances involved him ritualistically ripping his shirt off his body, flexing, and listening for audience cheers in an exaggerated manner. The majority of Hogan's matches during this time involved him wrestling heels who had been booked as unstoppable monsters, using a format which became near-routine: Hogan would deliver steady offense, but eventually lose momentum, seemingly nearing defeat. He would then experience a sudden second wind, fighting back while "feeding" off the energy of the audience, becoming impervious to attack—a process described as "Hulking up". His signature maneuvers—pointing at the opponent (which would later be accompanied by a loud "YOU!" from the audience), shaking his finger to scold him, three punches, an Irish Whip, the big boot and running leg drop—would follow and ensure him a victory. That finishing sequence would occasionally change depending on the storyline and opponent; for instance, with "Giant" wrestlers, the sequence might involve a body slam. Over the next year, Hulk Hogan became the face of pro wrestling as McMahon pushed the WWF into a pop culture enterprise with The Rock 'n' Wrestling Connection on MTV, drawing record houses, pay-per-view buyrates, and television ratings in the process. The centerpiece attraction for the first WrestleMania on March 31, 1985, Hogan teamed with legit friend, TV and movie star Mr. T, to defeat his archrival "Rowdy"Roddy Piper and "Mr Wonderful" Paul Orndorff. On the first edition of "Saturday Night's Main Event", Hogan successfully defended the WWF title against Cowboy Bob Orton in a match which Hogan won by a disqualification (Orton had been in the corner of Piper and Orndorff at Wrestlemania and had accidentally caused his team's defeat by knocking out Orndorff after he jumped from the top turnbuckle and hit him in the back of the head with his arm cast in a shot meant for Hogan). Hogan was named the most requested celebrity of the 1980s for the Make-a-Wish Foundation children's charity. He was featured on the covers of "Sports Illustrated" (the first and as of 2013, only professional wrestler to do so), "TV Guide", and "People" magazines, while also appearing on "The Tonight Show" and having his own CBS Saturday morning cartoon titled "Hulk Hogan's Rock 'n' Wrestling". Hogan, as the premier WWF icon, headlined eight of the first nine WrestleMania events. He also co-hosted "Saturday Night Live" on March 30, 1985 during this lucrative run. AT&T reported that his 900 number information line was the single biggest 900 number from 1991 to 1993. Hogan operated the 900 number through his stint in WWF and then recreated it when he joined World Championship Wrestling. WWF Champion (1984–1988). On the October 5, 1985 edition of "Saturday Night's Main Event", he successfully defended the title against Nikolai Volkoff in a flag match. He met long-time rival Roddy Piper in a WWF title match at the Wrestling Classic pay-per-view (PPV) event. Hogan retained the title by disqualification after Bob Orton interfered and hit Hogan with his cast. Hogan had many challengers in the way as the new year began. Throughout 1986, Hogan made successful title defenses against challengers such as Terry Funk, Don Muraco, King Kong Bundy (in a steel cage match at WrestleMania 2), Paul Orndorff, and Hercules Hernandez. In the fall of 1986, Hogan occasionally wrestled in tag matches with The Machines as Hulk Machine under a mask copied from New Japan Pro Wrestling gimmick "Super Strong Machine." At WrestleMania III in 1987, Hogan was booked to defend the title against André the Giant, who had been the sport's premier star and was pushed as undefeated for the previous two decades. A new storyline was introduced in early 1987; Hogan was presented a trophy for being the WWF Champion for three consecutive years. André the Giant, a good friend came out to congratulate him. Shortly afterward, André was presented a slightly smaller trophy for being "undefeated in the WWF for 15 years." Hogan came out to congratulate André, who walked out in the midst of Hogan's speech. Then, on an edition of "Piper's Pit", Hogan was confronted by Bobby Heenan, who announced that André was his new protégé, and Andre challenged Hogan to a title match at WrestleMania III. At WrestleMania III, Hogan successfully defended the WWF World Heavyweight Championship against André the Giant. During the match, Hogan bodyslammed the 520-pound Frenchman (which was dubbed "the bodyslam heard around the world") and won the match after a leg drop. The Mega Powers (1988–1989). Hogan remained WWF Champion for four years (1,474 days). In front of 33 million viewers, however, Hogan finally lost the belt to André on the February 5 edition of "The Main Event" after a convoluted scam involving "The Million Dollar Man" Ted DiBiase and Earl Hebner (who assumed the place of his twin brother Dave Hebner, the match's appointed referee). After André delivered a belly to belly suplex on Hogan, Hebner counted the pin while Hogan's left shoulder was clearly off the mat. After the match, André handed the title over to DiBiase to complete their business deal. As a result, the WWF Championship was vacated for the first time in its 25-year history because WWF President Jack Tunney decreed the championship could not be sold from one wrestler to another. At WrestleMania IV, Hogan participated in a tournament for the vacant WWF title to regain it; he and André were given a bye into quarter-finals but their match resulted in a double disqualification. Later that night in the main event, Hogan came to ringside to stop André interfering which helped "Macho Man" Randy Savage defeat Ted DiBiase to win the title. Together, Hogan, Savage, and manager Miss Elizabeth formed a partnership known as The Mega Powers. After Savage became WWF Champion at WrestleMania IV, they feuded with The Mega Bucks (Ted DiBiase and André the Giant) and defeated them at the main event of the first SummerSlam. They then went on to feud with Slick's Twin Towers: Akeem and Big Boss Man. In mid-1988, Hogan wrestled at house shows in singles competition with his "War Bonnet", a red and yellow gladiator helmet with a fist-shaped crest. This was notably used to give Bad News Brown his first WWF loss at a Madison Square Garden house show before it was discarded altogether. The War Bonnet gimmick was revisited in the WWE's online comedy series "Are You Serious?" in 2012. The Mega Powers began to implode due to Savage's burgeoning jealousy of Hogan and his paranoid suspicions that Hogan and Elizabeth were more than friends. At the Royal Rumble in 1989, Hogan eliminated Savage from the Royal Rumble match while eliminating Bad News Brown, which caused tension, only to be eliminated by the Twin Towers himself. The duo broke up while wrestling The Twin Towers on the February 3, 1989 edition of "The Main Event". During the match, Savage accidentally collided with Miss Elizabeth. Hogan took her backstage to receive medical attention, temporarily abandoning Savage. When he returned to the ring, Savage slapped Hogan and left the ring, where Hogan eventually won the match by himself. After the match, Savage attacked Hogan backstage, which started a feud between the two. Their feud culminated in Hogan beating Savage for his second WWF Championship at WrestleMania V. WWF Championship reigns (1989–1992). Hogan's second run lasted a year, during which time he starred in the movie "No Holds Barred". The film was the inspiration of a feud with Hogan's co-star Tom Lister, Jr., who appeared at wrestling events as his movie character, Zeus. Zeus was a monster heel who was "jealous" over Hogan's higher billing and wanted revenge. Hogan, however, was easily able to defeat Zeus in a series of matches across the country during late 1989, beginning with a tag team match at SummerSlam, in which Hogan and Brutus Beefcake topped Zeus and Savage. Hogan and Beefcake defeated Zeus and Savage in a rematch at the No Holds Barred pay-per-view to end the feud. During his second run, Hogan won the 1990 Royal Rumble match. He dropped the title to Intercontinental Champion The Ultimate Warrior in a title versus title match at WrestleMania VI on April 1, 1990. Hogan soon became embroiled in a heated feud with the 470-pound Earthquake, who had crushed Hogan's ribs in a sneak attack on "The Brother Love Show" in May 1990. On television, announcers explained that Hogan's injuries and his WrestleMania VI loss to Warrior both took such a huge toll on his fighting spirit that he wanted to retire. Viewers were asked to write letters to Hogan and send postcards asking for his return (they got a postcard-sized picture in return, autographed by Hogan, as a "thank-you"). Hogan returned by SummerSlam 1990 and for several months, dominated Earthquake in a series of matches across the country. His defeat of this overwhelmingly large foe caused Hogan to add a fourth demandment: believing in yourself. He also became known as "The Immortal" Hulk Hogan. Hogan then became the first wrestler to win two Royal Rumble matches in a row, as he won the 1991 Royal Rumble match. At WrestleMania VII, Hogan stood up for the USA against Sgt. Slaughter, defeating him for his third WWF Championship. In the fall of 1991, Hogan was challenged by Ric Flair, the former NWA champion who recently arrived in the WWF. The feud remained unresolved, as Hogan lost the WWF title to The Undertaker at Survivor Series, and he won it back at This Tuesday in Texas six days later. Flair had interfered in both matches and due to the resulting controversy, the title was again declared vacant. The WWF Championship was decided at the 1992 Royal Rumble in the Royal Rumble match. Hogan failed to regain the championship as he was eliminated by friend Sid Justice and in turn caused Sid to be eliminated, leaving Ric Flair the winner and new champion. Hogan and Sid patched things up and teamed together on the February 8, 1992 edition of "Saturday Night's Main Event" against Flair and Undertaker but during the match Sid abandoned Hogan, starting their feud. At WrestleMania VIII, Hogan defeated Sid via disqualification due to interference by Sid's manager Harvey Wippleman. Hogan was then attacked by Papa Shango and was saved by the returning Ultimate Warrior. At this time, news sources began to allege that Dr. George a doctor for the Pennsylvania State Athletic Commission, had been selling steroids illegally to wrestlers in general and Hogan in particular. Hogan appeared on an episode of "The Hall Show" to deny the allegations. Due to intense public scrutiny, Hogan took a leave of absence from the company. Return and departure (1993–1994). Hogan returned to the WWF in February 1993, helping out his friend Brutus Beefcake in his feud with Money Inc. ("The Million Dollar Man" Ted DiBiase and Irwin R. Schyster), and officially renaming themselves The Mega-Maniacs, taking on Money Inc.'s former manager "The Mouth of the South" Jimmy Hart (a long time friend of Hogan's outside of wrestling) as their manager in what was the first time WWF audiences had seen Hart as a face. At WrestleMania IX, Hogan and Beefcake took on Money Inc. for the WWF Tag Team Championship. However, Hogan thought he was too big of a star to be a tag champion and instead wanted the World title. So Hogan and Vince McMahon came up with the plan that Hogan and Brutus would be disqualified in their match. Hogan went into the match sporting a cut above a black eye rumored to be caused by a Randy Savage punch after an argument between the two the day before the event. The WWF used Hogan's injury in a storyline that had DiBiase allegedly paying a group of thugs to take Hogan out before WrestleMania. Later that night, Hogan won his fifth WWF Championship by pinning Yokozuna only moments after Yokozuna had defeated Bret Hart. McMahon then planned that Hogan and Bret Hart would eventually fight in a big match at Summerslam 1993 in which Hogan would drop the title to Hart. Hogan did not want to drop the title in a clean loss to Hart, due to Hart's size and doubts over whether he could draw. He opted to lose the title to the heel Yokozuna instead. At the first annual King of the Ring pay-per-view on June 13, 1993, Hogan defended the championship against the former champion, Yokozuna, in his first title defense since defeating Yokozuna at WrestleMania IX. Yokozuna kicked out of Hogan's signature leg drop and scored the pinfall after Hogan was blinded by a fireball shot by a "Japanese photographer" (actually a disguised Harvey Wippleman). This was Hogan's idea as he did not want Yokozuna to gain a clean victory over him. The victorious Yokozuna proceeded to give Hogan a Banzai Drop. This was Hogan's last WWF pay-per-view appearance until 2002, as both he and Jimmy Hart were preparing to leave the promotion. Hogan continued his feud on the international house show circuit with Yokozuna until August 1993. After that, Hogan sat out the rest of his contract which expired later that year. In 1994, Hogan, having received immunity from prosecution, testified in the trial of Vince McMahon relating to shipments of steroids received from Dr. Zahorian by both parties. Under oath, Hogan admitted that he had used anabolic steroids since 1976 to gain size and weight, but that Vince McMahon had neither sold him the drugs, nor ordered him to take them. The evidence given by Hogan proved extremely costly to the government's case against McMahon. Due to this and jurisdictional issues, McMahon was found not guilty. Return to New Japan (1993–1994). On May 3, 1993, Hulk Hogan returned to NJPW as WWF Champion, defeating IWGP Heavyweight Champion The Great Muta in a dream match at Wrestling Dontaku. Hogan wrestled against Muta again, under his real name, Keiji Mutoh on September 26, 1993. Hogan also wrestled The Hell Raisers with Muta and Masahiro Chono as his partners. His last match in Japan was on January 4, 1994 at Battlefield, when he defeated Tatsumi Fujinami. World Championship Wrestling (1994-2000). Early run (1994–1996). After Hogan left the WWF in the summer of 1993, he split his time working on movies, television, wrestling in Japan, and spending time with his family. In June 1994, Hogan signed with Ted Turner's World Championship Wrestling (WCW) and began appearing on television the next month. Hogan won the WCW World Heavyweight Championship in his debut match, defeating Ric Flair in a 'dream' match at Bash at the Beach. After overcoming the likes of Flair, The Butcher (former partner Brutus Beefcake), Vader, and the Dungeon of Doom for the next fifteen months (the longest reign of all time for this championship), Hogan dropped the belt to The Giant at Halloween Havoc 1995 via DQ. Following the controversial loss (which was due to a "contract clause"), the WCW title became vacant. In early 1996, Hogan continued his feud with The Giant, before teaming with Randy Savage in a feud with the Alliance to End Hulkamania. After coming out victorious from his feuds, Hogan began to only appear occasionally on WCW programming. New World Order (1996–1998). At Bash at the Beach in 1996, during a six man tag team match pitting The Outsiders (Kevin Nash and Scott Hall) against WCW loyalists, Hogan interfered on behalf of Nash and Hall, attacking Randy Savage, thereby turning heel for the first time in nearly fifteen years. After the match, Hogan delivered a promo, accosting the fans and WCW for underappreciating his talent and drawing power, and announcing the formation of the New World Order (nWo). The new stable gained prominence in the following weeks and months. Hogan grew a beard alongside his famous mustache and dyed it black, traded his red and yellow garb in for black and white clothing, often detailed with lightning bolts, and renamed himself Hollywood Hulk Hogan (often shortened to Hollywood Hogan). Hogan returned to WCW programming eight days after his heel turn. Hogan won his second WCW World Heavyweight Championship at Hog Wild, defeating The Giant for the title. He spray painted "nWo" across the title belt, scribbled across the nameplate, and referred to the title as the "nWo title" during this and any other time he held the title while in the nWo. Hogan then started a feud with Lex Luger after Luger and The Giant defeated Hogan and Dennis Rodman in a tag team match at Bash at the Beach. On the August 4, 1997 edition of "Nitro", Hogan lost the WCW title to Luger by submission. Five days later, at Road Wild, Hogan defeated Luger to regain the WCW title and begin his third WCW World Heavyweight Championship. Hogan then lost the belt to Sting in a match at Starrcade. In the match, WCW's newly contracted Bret Hart accused referee Nick Patrick of fast-counting a victory for Hogan and had the match restarted—with himself as referee. Sting later won by submission. After a rematch the following night, where Sting controversially retained the title, the WCW Championship became vacant. Sting then went on to win the vacant title against Hogan at SuperBrawl VIII. Hogan then developed a rivalry with former friend (and recent nWo recruit) Randy Savage, who had just cost Hogan the title match at SuperBrawl by hitting him with a spray can. The heat culminated in a steel cage match at Uncensored, which ended in a no contest. Savage took the World Championship from Sting at Spring Stampede, while Hogan teamed with Kevin Nash to take on Roddy Piper and The Giant in the first-ever Bat match. Hogan betrayed Nash by hitting him with the bat and then challenged Savage the following night for his championship. In the no disqualification match for Savage's newly won title, Nash entered the ring and powerbombed Hogan as retribution for the attack the previous night. Bret Hart interfered moments later and turned heel by jumping in to attack Savage and preserve the victory for Hogan, who won his fourth WCW World Heavyweight Championship. However, Nash's attack on him signified a split of the nWo into two separate factions—Hogan's became nWo Hollywood and Nash's became nWo Wolfpac—that feuded with each other for the remainder of the year. Hogan defended the title until July of that year, when WCW booked him in a match against newcomer and then WCW United States Champion Goldberg, who had yet to lose a match in the company. Late in the match, Hogan was distracted by Karl Malone, and Goldberg pinned Hogan to win the WCW World Heavyweight Championship. Hogan spent the rest of 1998 wrestling celebrity matches. His second tag team match with Dennis Rodman pitted them against Diamond Dallas Page and Karl Malone at Bash at the Beach and at Road Wild, he and Eric Bischoff lost to Page and Jay Leno thanks to interference from Kevin Eubanks, who leveled Bischoff with a Diamond Cutter. Hogan also had a rematch with the Ultimate Warrior at Halloween Havoc, where his nephew Horace aided his victory. Return to WCW (1998-1999). On the Thanksgiving episode of "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno", Hogan officially announced his retirement from professional wrestling, as well as his candidacy for President of the United States. Campaign footage aired on "Nitro" of Hogan and Bischoff holding a press conference, making it appear legitimate. In the long run, however, both announcements were false and merely done as a publicity stunt attempting to draw some of the hype of Jesse Ventura's Minnesota gubernatorial win back to him. After some time off from WCW, Hogan returned on the January 4, 1999 edition of "Nitro" to challenge Kevin Nash for the WCW title. Hogan won the match for his fifth WCW World Heavyweight Championship, but many people found the change to be "scandalous". As a result, the warring factions of the nWo reunited into one group, which began feuding with Bill Goldberg and The Four Horsemen. Conflicts with Vince Russo (1999–2000). He then lost the title to Ric Flair at Uncensored in a Steel Cage First Blood match. A heavily bleeding Flair won via pinfall in a match refereed by Charles Robinson. During that match, however, Hogan began to show some signs that a face turn was imminent, showing off some old tactics like his "Hulking up" no-sell. The turn would have to wait, however, as Hogan was severely injured in a Texas Tornado match for the world championship featuring him, Sting, Diamond Dallas Page, and Flair at Spring Stampede On the July 12 edition of "Nitro", Hogan made his grand return as a full-fledged face and accepted an open challenge from Savage, who had gained the world title at Bash at the Beach the night before in a tag team match by pinning Kevin Nash. Thanks to interference from Nash, Hogan defeated Savage to win his sixth and final WCW World Heavyweight Championship. Nash turned on him the next week, however, and the two began a feud that lasted until the next pay-per-view. On August 9, 1999, he started the night dressed in the typical black and white, but after a backstage scene with his son, Hogan came out dressed in the traditional red and yellow for his main-event 6-man tag team match. He then defeated Nash in a retirement match at Road Wild to retain his title. Injuries and frustrations were mounting up however, and he was absent from television from October 1999 to February 2000. In his book "Hollywood Hulk Hogan", Bollea said that he was asked to take time off by newly hired head of creative booking Vince Russo and was not told when he would be brought back at the time. Despite some reservations, he agreed to do so. On October 24 at Halloween Havoc, Hogan was to face Sting for the WCW World Heavyweight Championship (which he had lost to Sting at Fall Brawl the previous month, when Sting beat Hogan by cheating and had turned heel in the process). Hogan, however, came to the ring in street clothes, laid down for the pin, and left the ring. Soon after his return in February 2000, at Bash at the Beach on July 9, Hogan was involved in a controversial work with Vince Russo. Hogan was scheduled to challenge Jeff Jarrett for the WCW World Heavyweight Championship. Before the match, there was a backstage dispute between Hogan and Russo. Hogan wanted to take the title, but Russo was going to have Jarret win, and lose it to Booker T. Russo told Hogan that he was going to have Jarret lay down for him, simulating a conflict, although Jarret wasn't told it was a work. When the bell rang, Jarret laid down in the middle of the ring while Russo threw the WCW World Title belt in the ring and yelled at Hogan from ringside to pin Jarrett. A visibly confused Hogan complied with a foot on Jarrett's chest after getting on the microphone and telling Russo, "Is this your idea, Russo? That's why this company is in the damn shape it's in, because of bullshit like this!" After winning and being announced as the new WCW World Heavyweight Champion, Hogan immediately took the WCW World Title. Moments later, Russo returned to the ring, angrily proclaiming, "I can guarantee you that this is the last time you will ever see that piece of shit in a WCW stadium!" This is also when the public discovered, through Russo, the "creative control" clause that Hogan had, which meant that Hogan was able to control what would happen with his own character and be able to do so without anyone else being able to tell him no. This has been a common complaint about Hogan, since he has been known to request such clauses in his contracts (even in WWE) because it is believed by many that he uses them to be able to "bury" others that would prove to be a threat to his legacy (which also might lead to the belief that the on-air criticisms that Mark Madden made about him were not kayfabe even though he was usually a heel commentator, with Madden saying "Amen!" when Russo said that Hogan would not be back in WCW after that night). In his Bash at the Beach shoot promo, Russo said that he was arguing with Hogan all day prior to the event in the back because he wanted to use the clause in the Jarrett match, saying, "That means that, in the middle of this ring, when knew it was bullshit, he beats Jeff Jarrett!" Since Hogan refused to job to Jarrett, a new WCW World Heavyweight Championship was created, setting the stage for a title match between Booker T and Jeff Jarrett later that night. Whether or not the whole incident was a shoot or a work was hotly debated. As a result, Hogan filed a defamation of character lawsuit against Russo soon after, which was eventually dismissed in 2002. Russo claims the whole thing was a work, and Hogan claims that Russo made it a shoot. Eric Bischoff agreed with Hogan's side of the story when he wrote that Hogan winning and leaving with the title was a work, and that he and Hogan celebrated after the event over the success of the angle, but that Russo coming out to fire Hogan was an unplanned shoot which led to the lawsuit filed by Hogan. In the months following the eventual demise of WCW in March 2001, Hogan underwent surgery on his knees in order for him to wrestle again. As a test, Hogan worked a match in Orlando, Florida for the Xcitement Wrestling Federation promotion run by his longtime handler Jimmy Hart. Hogan defeated Curt Hennig in this match and felt healthy enough to accept an offer to return to the WWF in February 2002. Return to World Wrestling Federation/Entertainment. Hollywood Hogan and Undisputed WWE Champion (2002). At No Way Out in 2002, Hogan returned to the company that had made him a pop culture icon. Returning as leader of the original nWo with Scott Hall and Kevin Nash, the three got into a confrontation with The Rock and cost Steve Austin a chance at becoming the Undisputed WWF Champion against Chris Jericho in the main event. The nWo feuded with both Austin and The Rock, and Hogan accepted The Rock's challenge to a match at WrestleMania X8. At the event, Hogan asked Hall and Nash not to interfere, wanting to defeat The Rock by himself. Despite the fact that Hogan was supposed to be the heel in the match, the crowd cheered for him heavily. The Rock cleanly won the contest, but befriended Hogan at the end of the bout and helped him fight off Hall and Nash, who were upset by Hogan's conciliatory attitude. After the match, Hogan was a definite face again, siding with The Rock, though he continued wearing black and white tights for a few weeks after WrestleMania X8 until he resumed wearing his signature red and yellow tights. During this period, the "Hulk Rules" logo of the 1980s was redone with the text "Hulk "Still" Rules." Hulk wore the original "Hulk Rules" attire 12 years earlier, when he headlined WrestleMania VI at the same arena, in the SkyDome. For a time, he was still known as "Hollywood" Hulk Hogan, notably keeping the Hollywood Hogan style blond mustache with black beard while wearing Hulkamania-like red and yellow tights and using the "Voodoo Child" theme music he used in WCW. On April 4, Hogan feuded with Triple H and defeated him for the Undisputed WWF Championship and sixth and final WWF Championship at Backlash, thus becoming the last ever WWF champion before the initials dispute against the World Wildlife Fund For Nature. On May 19 at Judgment Day, he lost the belt to The Undertaker. After losing a Number One Contenders match for the Undisputed Championship to Triple H on June 6, Hogan began feuding with Kurt Angle resulting in a match between the two at the King of the Ring, which Angle won by submission. On the July 4, 2002 edition of "SmackDown!", Hogan teamed with Edge to defeat Billy and Chuck and capture the WWE World Tag Team Championship for the first time. They celebrated by waving the American flag as the overjoyed audience sang along to Hogan's theme song "Real American." They later dropped the titles to The Un-Americans (Lance Storm and Christian), at Vengeance. In August 2002, Hogan was used in an angle with Brock Lesnar, culminating in a main event singles match. Lesnar won by submission (the match was called after Hogan became unconscious from a bear hug hold). Lesnar became only the second WWE Superstar to defeat Hogan by submission (after Kurt Angle), and the first to defeat Hogan by having the match called. Following the match, Lesnar continued to beat on Hogan, leaving him bloody and unconscious in the ring in what many fans recall as the worst beating Hogan ever received of his career. As a result of Lesnar's assault, Hogan went on hiatus and was not able to return until early 2003, shaving off his black beard and dropping "Hollywood" from his name in his return. He battled The Rock (who had turned heel) once again at No Way Out and defeated Vince McMahon at WrestleMania XIX in a match billed as "20 years in the making." Mr. America and departure (2003). Later, he had a run as the masked Mr. America. The persona was supposed to be Hulk Hogan in disguise, wearing a mask. He used Hulk Hogan's "Real American" theme music and used all of Hogan's signature gestures, moves, and phrases. He was the subject of a storyline that took place after Hulk Hogan was forced by Vince McMahon to sit out the rest of his contract. After Hogan won at WrestleMania XIX, McMahon was frustrated with him and wanted Hulkamania to die. A WWE pre-debut push took place with mysterious Mr. America promos airing for weeks during "SmackDown!". There was also on-screen discussion on "SmackDown!" between then General Manager Stephanie McMahon and other players concerning her hiring Mr. America "sight unseen." On May 1, Mr. America debuted on "SmackDown!" on a "Piper's Pit" segment. McMahon appeared and claimed that Mr. America was Hulk Hogan in disguise; Mr. America shot back by saying, "I am not Hulk Hogan, brother!" (lampooning Hogan's use of "brother" in his promos). The feud continued through the month of May, with a singles match between Mr. America and Hogan's old rival Roddy Piper at Judgment Day. McMahon tried desperately to prove that Mr. America was indeed Hulk Hogan but failed at all attempts. Mr. America even passed a lie detector test. Mr. America's last WWE appearance was on the June 26 edition of "SmackDown!" when The Big Show and The World's Greatest Tag Team (Shelton Benjamin and Charlie Haas) defeated the team of Brock Lesnar, Kurt Angle, and Mr. America in a six-man tag team match when Show pinned Mr. America. After the show went off the air, Mr. America unmasked to show the fans that he was indeed Hulk Hogan, putting his finger to his lips telling the fans to keep quiet about his secret. The next week, Hogan quit WWE due to frustration with the creative team. On the July 3 edition of "SmackDown!", Vince McMahon showed the footage of Mr. America unmasking as Hogan and "fired" him, although Hogan had already quit in real life. The Mr. America gimmick came under fire briefly from Marvel Comics, who anointed it a rip-off of Captain America, citing costume similarity; the single star on the mask was also a trademark on Captain America's chest piece. This was also adding fuel to the fire over the rights to use the Hulk Hogan name because of Marvel's ownership of the Incredible Hulk character. Because of these problems, WWE was forced to edit out all references to the "Hulk Hogan" name, including pictures which featured Hogan wearing memorabilia that said "Hulk" (a majority of them) and started to refer to Hogan under the "Hollywood Hogan" name he used in WCW. It was later revealed that Hogan was unhappy with the payoffs for his matches after his comeback under the Mr. America gimmick. Vince decided to terminate Hogan's contract, and Hogan left WWE in 2003. Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (2003). Shortly after Hogan left WWE, TNA Wrestling began making overtures to Hogan, culminating in Jeff Jarrett, co-founder of TNA and then NWA World Heavyweight champion, launching an on-air attack on Hogan in Japan in October 2003. The attack was supposed to be a precursor to Hogan battling Jarrett for the NWA title at TNA's first three-hour pay-per-view. However, due to recurring knee and hip problems, Hogan did not appear in TNA. Still, the incident has been shown several times on TNA broadcasts, and was included in the TNA DVD "TNA's Fifty Greatest Moments". Return to WWE (2005–2007). In 2005, weeks before WrestleMania 21, it was announced on all WWE programming that Hogan would be inducted into the Hall of Fame. On April 2, Hogan was inducted by actor and friend Sylvester Stallone. Hogan was applauded for several minutes before he was able to make a speech. When he paused during his speech, the crowd chanted "One More Match! One More Match!" The fans also chanted "Austin, Hogan" (referring to a Steve Austin vs. Hulk Hogan match); Hogan responded "that may be a good match someday". At WrestleMania 21 on April 3, Hogan came out to rescue Eugene, who was being attacked by Muhammad Hassan and Khosrow Daivari. Some of the build-up to Hogan's induction into the Hall of Fame and preparation for this angle were shown on the first season of "Hogan Knows Best". The next night on "Raw", Hassan and Daivari came out to confront and assault fan favorite Shawn Michaels. The following week, Michaels approached "Raw" General Manager Eric Bischoff demanding a handicap match with Hassan and Daivari. Bischoff refused but told Michaels if he found a partner he would be granted a tag team match. Michaels then made a plea for Hulk Hogan to come back and team with him. On the April 18 episode of "Raw", Hassan again led an attack on Michaels until Hogan appeared, and saved Michaels and accepted his offer. At Backlash 2005, Hassan and Daivari lost to Hogan and Michaels. Hogan then appeared on July 4 edition of "Raw" as the special guest of Carlito on his talk-show segment "Carlito's Cabana". After being asked questions by Carlito concerning his daughter Brooke Hogan, Hogan proceeded to attack Carlito. This was then followed up by an appearance of Kurt Angle, who made comments about Brooke, which further upset Hogan. Hogan was eventually double teamed by Carlito and Angle but was saved by Shawn Michaels. Later that night, Michaels and Hogan defeated Carlito and Kurt Angle in a tag match. During the post match celebration, Michaels delivered Sweet Chin Music to Hogan and walked off. The following week on "Raw", Michaels appeared on "Piper's Pit" and challenged Hogan to face him one-on-one for the first time. Hogan appeared on "Raw" one week later and accepted the challenge. The match took place at SummerSlam. The "Legend vs. Icon" storyline was the main event for the Raw brand going into SummerSlam. The match went back and forth, with two referees getting knocked out and Michaels using a steel chair to try to gain an advantage. Even after Michaels hit his Sweet Chin Music, Hogan still kicked out and mounted some offense against Michaels, finally hitting him with the legdrop and scoring the victory. Michaels extended his hand to him, telling him that he "had to find out for himself," and Hogan and Michaels shook hands. Michaels left the ring to allow Hogan to celebrate with the crowd. Prior to WrestleMania 22, Hogan inducted friend and former announcer "Mean" Gene Okerlund into the WWE Hall of Fame. Hogan returned on the July 15, 2006 edition of "Saturday Night's Main Event" with his daughter Brooke. During the show, Randy Orton flirted (kayfabe, as he was engaged to his former wife, Sam Speno, at the time) with Hogan's daughter, and later attacked Hogan in the parking lot and hit the RKO onto the trunk of Hogan's car. He later challenged Hulk to a match at SummerSlam, which Hogan won. In regards to the public reaction to Summerslam, and his treatment as an employee, he said: He also spoke extensively on his payment, and his concerns of not being a top priority to Vince McMahon, despite the fact that he felt he was the company's biggest draw: Hogan's last WWE appearance to date occurred on December 10, 2007 on the "WWE Raw" 15th anniversary. He saved Hornswoggle from being attacked by The Great Khali. Memphis Wrestling and PMG Clash of Legends (2007). After a brief fall out with McMahon and WWE, Hogan was lured to Memphis Wrestling with the proposal of wrestling Jerry Lawler. The match had been promoted on Memphis Wrestling Prime Time for several months. On April 12, 2007, however, Lawler announced in a news conference that WWE had barred him from wrestling Hogan on the basis that NBC performers (including Lawler, on the basis of co-hosting the NBC-owned USA Network's "WWE Raw" and his appearances on the biannual WWE "Saturday Night's Main Event") are contractually prohibited from appearing on VH1, the channel on which "Hogan Knows Best" airs. The situation resulted in a lawsuit being filed against WWE by event promoter Corey Maclin. Lawler was replaced with Paul Wight. Hulk Hogan defeated Wight at PMG Clash of Legends on April 27, 2007 when he picked up and bodyslammed Wight and pinned him following his signature Leg Drop. Return to TNA Wrestling (2009-2013). Dixie Carter's business partner (2009–2010). On October 27, 2009 it was announced on TNAwrestling.com that Hulk Hogan had signed a contract to join TNA on a full-time basis where, partnered with Eric Bischoff, he would partner with TNA President, Dixie Carter. The footage of his signing and the press conference in the Madison Square Garden following it were featured on the October 29 episode of "TNA Impact!". His role remained uncertain. On November 21, 24, 26, and 28, Hogan performed with a group of wrestlers including Spartan-3000, Heidenreich, Eugene, Brutus "The Barber" Beefcake and Orlando Jordan across Australia in a tour titled "Hulkamania: Let the Battle Begin". The main event of each show was a rematch between Hogan and Ric Flair—the wrestler who defeated Hogan more times than any other. Hogan defeated Flair in all four matches, bringing his career record against Flair from 2–8 to 6–8. It was the first time Hogan had performed in Australia. On December 5, 2009, Hogan announced on UFC's The Ultimate Fighter that he would be making his official TNA debut on January 4, 2010, in a special live three-hour Monday night edition of "TNA Impact!" to compete with WWE's "WWE Raw" (which featured the return of Bret Hart) Carter revealed Hogan's role in the company in an interview with The UK Sun stating when his job came to question, "he is involved with everything from looking at the talent to how we shoot the show". On the January 4, 2010 "Impact!", Hogan debuted after a motorcade arrival reuniting briefly with former nWo partners Kevin Nash, Scott Hall, and Sean Waltman, the latter two of whom made their returns to the company. He, however, refused to join them for a full-fledged reunion of their group claiming, "it's a different time", and stuck to his business relations with Bischoff, who made his appearance to declare that, the two of them would "flip the company upside down" and everyone would have to earn their spot. Hogan also encountered TNA Founder, Jeff Jarrett on the broadcast, appearing via video wall and interrupting Jarrett's company success speech, stating that Carter was instrumental to the company's survival, and that just like the rest, Jarrett would have to (kayfabe) earn his spot in TNA. At TNA Genesis on January 17, Hogan and Bischoff revealed a newly renovated TNA Impact! Zone, and reintroduced the traditional four sided ring, opposing the six sided ring TNA had in use. On the February 18 edition of "Impact!" Hogan took Abyss under his wing, and during this sequence, gave him his Hall of Fame ring and claimed it would make him a "god of wrestling". The following week Hogan announced that he would be making his in-ring TNA debut on the March 8 live Monday night edition of "Impact!" teaming with Abyss to face A.J. Styles and Ric Flair. That night, Hogan and Abyss defeated Styles and Flair, when Abyss scored a pinfall over Styles. Afterwards, the returning Jeff Hardy saved Hogan and Abyss from a beat down at the hands of Styles, Flair and Desmond Wolfe. This proceeded in later weeks to become a Team Flair versus Team Hogan situation, whereas Jarrett and the debuting Rob Van Dam joined Team Hogan and Beer Money and Sting, who rekindled his feud with Hogan with an attack, joined Team Flair. At Lockdown Team Hogan (Hulk Hogan, Abyss, Jeff Jarrett, Jeff Hardy and Rob Van Dam) defeated Team Flair (Ric Flair, Sting, Desmond Wolfe, Robert Roode and James Storm) in a Lethal Lockdown match. Immortal (2010–2011). On the June 17 edition of "Impact!" Hogan's alliance with Abyss came to an abrupt end, when Abyss turned heel. Abyss later claimed that he was controlled by some entity, that was coming to TNA. The next months Hogan worked with Bischoff, Jeff Jarrett and Samoa Joe against Sting and Kevin Nash, who claimed that they knew that Hogan and Bischoff were up to something. During this time Abyss went on a rampage, attacking Rob Van Dam to the point that he was forced to vacate the TNA World Heavyweight Championship and eventually put his hands on TNA president Dixie Carter, which led to her signing the paperwork, presented by Bischoff, that would have Abyss fired from TNA following his match with Van Dam at Bound for Glory. Hogan was set to wrestle with Jarrett and Joe against Sting, Nash and D'Angelo Dinero at Bound for Glory, but was forced to miss the event due to a back surgery. However, he would make a surprise appearance at the end of the event, turning heel, helping Jeff Hardy win the vacant TNA World Heavyweight Championship and aligning himself with Hardy, Bischoff, Abyss and Jarrett. This is also Hogan's first working as a heel since he reunited with the NWO in the WWE. On the following edition of "Impact!" it was revealed that Bischoff had tricked Carter and the paperwork she had signed a week earlier, were not to release Abyss, but to turn the company over to him and Hogan. Meanwhile, Bischoff's and Hogan's new stable, now known as Immortal, formed an alliance with Ric Flair's Fortune. Dixie Carter returned on the November 25 edition of "Reaction", informing Hogan and Bischoff that a judge had filed an injunction against the two on her behalf over not having signatory authority, indefinitely suspending Hogan from TNA. During his absence, Hogan underwent a potentially career–ending spinal fusion surgery on December 21, 2010. Hogan returned to TNA on the March 3, 2011, edition of "Impact!", declaring himself as the new owner of TNA, having won the court battle against Dixie Carter. In April, he began hinting at a possible return to the ring to face the TNA World Heavyweight Champion, Sting. On the May 12 edition of the newly renamed "Impact Wrestling", Hogan lost control of the program to Mick Foley, who revealed himself as the Network consultant, who had been causing problems for Immortal ever since Hogan and Bischoff took over the company; however, this angle was aborted just three weeks later, when Foley left the promotion. During the following months, Hogan continued to interfere in Sting's matches, costing him the TNA World Heavyweight Championship first at Hardcore Justice, recruiting Kurt Angle to Immortal in the process, then on the September 1 edition of "Impact Wrestling" and finally at No Surrender. On the September 15 edition of "Impact Wrestling", Sting defeated Immortal member Ric Flair to earn the right to face Hogan at Bound for Glory. On October 4, it was reported that Hogan had signed a contract extension with TNA. After feigning retirement from professional wrestling, Hogan accepted the match at Bound for Glory on the October 6 edition of "Impact Wrestling", while also agreeing to hand TNA back to Dixie Carter, should Sting manage to win the match. General Manager (2011–2013). On October 16 at Bound For Glory, Hogan was defeated by Sting, ending his run as the storyline president of TNA. After the match, Immortal attacked Sting. Hogan then "Hulked up", tore his shirt, and helped Sting chase the stable out of the ring, turning face once again in the process. The following "Impact Wrestling", Hogan, wearing his trademark yellow and red again, admitted to his mistakes, and put over Sting for winning, who ended up helping Hogan this time chase Immortal from the ring. After that, Hogan took a hiatus from TNA. On January 26, 2012, Hogan returned to the ring at a house show in Nottingham, England, where he, James Storm and Sting defeated Bobby Roode, Bully Ray and Kurt Angle in a six man tag team main event. Hogan returned to "Impact Wrestling" on February 2, when he was revealed as Garett Bischoff's trainer. On the March 29 edition of "Impact Wrestling", Hogan returned and accepted Sting's offer to replace him as the new General Manager. In July, Hogan, alongside Sting, began feuding with a mysterious group of masked men, who had dubbed themselves the "Aces & Eights". The group's attack on Hogan on the July 12 episode of "Impact Wrestling" was used to write Hogan off television as he was set to undergo another back surgery. Hogan returned as Hollywood Hogan on the August 23 episode of "Impact Wrestling", attacking Aces & Eights. In November, Hogan would move into a storyline with Bully Ray after Austin Aries revealed a secret relationship between Ray and Hogan's daughter Brooke. After seeing them kissing in a parking garage on the December 20 episode of "Impact Wrestling", Hogan would ended up suspending Ray indefinitely on the January 3, 2013, episode. The following week, after Ray saved Brooke from a kidnapping by the Aces & Eights, Brooke accepted his marriage proposal much to Hogan's dismay. Despite Hogan's disapproval, he still walked Brooke down the aisle for her wedding on the next episode of "Impact Wrestling". During the ceremony, Ray's groomsmen Taz interrupted and revealed himself as a member of the Aces & Eights, leading the group to attack Hogan, Ray, and the rest of the groomsmen. On the January 31 episode of "Impact Wrestling", Hogan reinstated Ray so he could take on the Aces & Eights. On the February 21 episode of "Impact Wrestling", Hogan named Ray the number one contender to the TNA World Heavyweight Championship. However, on March 10 at Lockdown, Ray betrayed the Hogans, after Aces & Eights helped him win the title and he revealed himself as the President of the Aces & Eights. Following Lockdown, Hogan blamed Sting for Ray winning the title as it was Sting who encouraged Hogan to give Ray the title shot, leading to Sting eventually walking out on Hogan. At the end of the April 25 episode of "Impact Wrestling", Sting returned and saved Hogan from an attack by Aces & Eights. The following week, Hogan and Sting managed to reconcile their differences. On the October 3rd, 2013 episode of "Impact Wrestling", Hogan told Dixie Carter that he would not be on her side and that he quit. Hogan was officially written off, as a result of his contract expiring with TNA. Endorsements and business ventures. Food industry. Hulk Hogan's "Pastamania" was a restaurant in the Mall of America in Bloomington, Minnesota, created and financed by Hogan. It opened on the Labor Day weekend of 1995 and was heavily promoted on World Championship Wrestling's live show "WCW Monday Nitro", which actually premiered that September at the mall. The restaurant, which remained in operation for less than a year, featured such dishes as "Hulk-U's" and "Hulk-A-Roos". In an interview on the "The Tonight Show" and "Late Night with Conan O'Brien", Bollea claimed that the George Foreman Grill was originally offered to him, but he failed to respond in time, and George Foreman endorsed the grill instead. Bollea endorsed a blender, known as the Hulk Hogan Thunder Mixer. This claim was confirmed on an episode of "Hogan Knows Best", in which his wife Linda and the family are worried about Hogan's wrestling career and plead with him to take up a career in marketing. Hogan explains about turning down the Foreman grill, and his choice to invest in the shake-mixer instead, saying that whenever he thinks about investing in something "big," he thinks about what happened with the grill and the shake-mixer. However, he has since endorsed an indoor grill known as "The Hulk Hogan Ultimate Grill." In 2006, Bollea unveiled his own energy drink "Hogan Energy", distributed by Socko Energy. It was featured in an episode of "Hogan Knows Best". His name and likeness are also applied to a line of microwavable hamburgers, cheeseburgers, and chicken sandwiches sold at Wal-Mart called "Hulkster Burgers". On November 1, 2011 Bollea launched a new website called "Hogan Nutrition", which features many nutritional and dietary products. In September 2008, Bollea's net worth was revealed to be over $30 million. In September 2011, Bollea revealed that his lavish lifestyle, and divorce had cost him hundreds of millions of dollars and nearly bankrupted him. On New Year's Eve 2012, Bollea opened a beachfront restaurant called "Hogan's Beach", located in the Tampa area. Other. During an interview with "The Sun" in 2007, Bollea claimed to be planning his own federation to compete against Vince McMahon. Bollea says he has raised $40 million of the $80–$100 million goal and his venture is something that will eventually revolutionize the sport of professional wrestling. In October 2007, Bollea transferred all trademarks referring to himself to his liability company named "Hogan Holdings Limited". The trademarks include Hulk Hogan, "Hollywood" Hulk Hogan, Hulkster, Hogan Knows Grillin, Hulkamania.com, and Hulkapedia.com. In April 2008, Bollea announced that he would lend his license to video game developer Gameloft to create "Hulkamania Wrestling" for mobile phones. Hogan stated in a press release that the game would be "true to experiences in wrestling" and use his classic wrestling moves like the Doublehand Choke Lift and Strong Clothesline. As of 2010, Hogan stars alongside Troy Aikman in commercials for Rent-A-Center. On March 24, 2011, Hogan made a special appearance on "American Idol", giving a big surprise to wrestling fans Paul McDonald and James Durbin. On October 15, 2010, Endemol Games UK (a subsidiary of media production group Endemol UK) announced a partnership with Bischoff Hervey Entertainment to produce "Hulk Hogan's Hulkamania", an online gambling game featuring video footage of Hogan. Other media. Acting. Hulk Hogan's crossover popularity led to several television and movie roles. Early in his career Bollea played the part of Thunderlips in "Rocky III" (1982). He also appeared in "No Holds Barred" (1989), before starring in the family films "Suburban Commando" (1991), "Mr. Nanny" (1993), "Santa with Muscles" (1996), and "" (1998). He starred in his own television series, "Thunder in Paradise", in 1994. He is the star of "The Ultimate Weapon" (1997), in which Brutus Beefcake also appears in a cameo. Bollea also starred in a pair of television movies, originally intended as a pilot for an ongoing series for TNT, produced by Eric Bischoff. The movies, "Shadow Warriors: Assault on Devil's Island" and "Shadow Warriors: Hunt for The Death Merchant", starred Hogan alongside Carl Weathers and Shannon Tweed as a freelance mercenary team. In 1995, he appeared on TBN's "Kids Against Crime". Bollea made cameo appearances in "Muppets from Space", "" (the theatrical cut) and "Spy Hard" as himself. Hogan was offered the role of Zeus in "Little Hercules in 3D" on an episode of "Hogan Knows Best" and was shown during the filming of the movie. Hogan also made two appearances on "The A-Team" (in 1985 and 1986), and along with Roddy Piper. Nick's favorite animated show, "Captain Planet and the Planeteers", was another popular stop for Hogan's recognizable voice. He was the voice of "BP", "Sly Sludge's" evil sidekick. His famous catchphrase was "You're gonna pay at the pump, brother!" He also had a vital role in the two-part episode of "Suddenly Susan" in 1999. In 2001, Hogan guest-starred on an episode of "Walker, Texas Ranger", playing a reformed criminal now operating a Christian Community Center and helping Walker steer teenagers away from gangs. Hogan also appeared in 1992 commercials for Right Guard deodorant dressed in fine clothing and painting and his line "anything less would be uncivilized". Hogan has become a busy voice actor in recent years making guest voice spots on "Robot Chicken" and "American Dad!" and as a main actor in the Cartoon Network/Adult Swim series "China, IL". Reality television. On July 10, 2005, VH1 premiered a new reality show titled "Hogan Knows Best" which centered around Hulk Hogan, his then-wife Linda, and their children Brooke and Nick. Set in their home in Clearwater, Florida, the show followed the family in their efforts to fulfill the dreams of their children while still maintaining their sense of closeness. At the show's onset, 16-year-old Brooke was trying to break into the music industry while younger brother Nick (age 14) went through a series of career aspirations including his failure to become a professional race car driver and following in his dad's footsteps as a pro wrestler. As of July 2008, "Hogan Knows Best" transferred its focus into a new show called "Brooke Knows Best" which focuses on his daughter's move into a new apartment to continue her pursuit of a music career. Bollea hosted the comeback series of "American Gladiators" on NBC in 2008. He also hosted and judged the short-lived reality show, "Hulk Hogan's Celebrity Championship Wrestling". Hogan had a special titled "Finding Hulk Hogan" on A&E on November 17, 2010. Music and radio. Bollea released a music CD, "Hulk Rules", as Hulk Hogan and The Wrestling Boot Band. Also, Green Jellÿ released a single, a duet with Hogan, performing Gary Glitter's classic song "I'm the Leader of the Gang (I Am)". He has also made cameos in several music videos. From her self-named show, "Dolly" the music video for Dolly Parton's wrestling-themed love song "Headlock on my Heart" features Hogan as "Starlight Starbright". On the show, Parton mentioned that the tabloid Weekly World News had "reported" that she had written a song about her love for a wrestler, and said "if you read in the Weekly World News, it must be true!" In the music video "Pressure" by Belly ft. Ginuwine, Bollea and his daughter Brooke both made brief cameo appearances. Bollea is a regular guest on Bubba the Love Sponge's radio show. He also served as the best man at Bubba's January 2007 wedding. On March 12, 2010, Bollea hosted his own radio show, titled "Hogan Uncensored", on Sirius Satellite Radio's Howard 101. Video games. Bollea did a video game voice acting on "" as Angel De la Muerte a member of the Saints. In October 2011, Bollea released a video game called "Hulk Hogan's Main Event". Hogan also was featured in games such as WCW/nWo Revenge, WWF Royal Rumble, WWE WrestleMania X8, WWE Day of Reckoning 2, WWE SmackDown! vs. Raw 2006, WWE SmackDown! vs. Raw 2007, WWE Legends of WrestleMania and WWE All Stars. There have been many internet rumors that Hogan will be a playable character in WWE 2K14 due to Wrestlemania VI arena and the Ultimate Warrior being in the game as these two faced each other at the event. On August 9, it was confirmed by 2K Sports that Hogan will be a playable character in his "Hulk Hogan" character and his "Hollywood Hulk Hogan" character for his match against The Rock at Wrestlemania X8. Personal life. On March 27, 1985, just days prior to the inaugural WrestleMania, Richard Belzer requested on his cable TV talk show Hot Properties that Hulk Hogan demonstrate one of his signature wrestling moves. After consistently refusing but being egged on by Belzer, Hogan put Belzer in a modified Guillotine choke, which caused Belzer to pass out. When Hogan released him, Belzer hit his head on the floor, sustaining a laceration to the scalp that required a brief hospitalization. Belzer sued Hogan for $5 million and later settled out of court; the settlement was rumored at $1.5 million. On October 20, 2006, on Bubba the Love Sponge, it was claimed (with Hogan in the studio) that the settlement totaled $5 million, half from Hogan and half from Vince McMahon. During his June 23, 2008 appearance on Sirius Satellite Radio's The Howard Stern Show, Belzer suggested that the real settlement amount was actually closer to $400,000. On December 18, 1983, Bollea married Linda Claridge (born August 24, 1959). They have a daughter Brooke (born May 5, 1988) and a son Nick (born July 27, 1990). Bollea made his personal life the centerpiece of the television show "Hogan Knows Best", which includes his wife and two children. Bollea's 17 year old son Nick was indicted as an adult on November 7, 2007 on four criminal charges. The charges stemmed from an August car accident that seriously injured the passenger in Nick's car, John Graziano. Nick pleaded no contest and was sentenced to eight months in prison on May 9, 2008. According to an interview in "The National Enquirer", Christiane Plante claimed that Bollea had an affair with her in 2007 while the Hogan family was shooting "Hogan Knows Best". Plante was 33 years old at the time and had worked with Brooke Hogan on her 2006 album. On November 20, 2007, Linda filed for divorce in Pinellas County, Florida. Hulk told "St. Petersburg Times" that he was unaware of the filing when the paper called for a comment. The Graziano family's lawyer believed the divorce might have been an attempt to divide the family's assets from a planned civil suit against the Bolleas regarding their son, Nick. After filing for divorce, Linda (48 at the time) began dating Charlie Hill (19 at the time). Hill had been a student at Brooke and Nick's high school, one grade above Nick and one grade below Brooke. In November 2008, Linda claimed to the public that she made the decision to end her marriage after finding out about Hulk Hogan's affair. Hogan said that he had considered committing suicide; however, he moved on and married his current wife Jennifer McDaniel. In his 2009 autobiography, however, Hogan acknowledged that Linda on numerous occasions suspected he was having infidelities whenever he developed friendships with other women, but denied allegations that he ever cheated on Linda. Bollea lived with his daughter, Brooke, who starred in the now-cancelled VH1 reality series, "Brooke Knows Best". Bollea has suffered numerous health problems, particularly with his back since retiring as a wrestler following the years of heavyweight training and jolting as a wrestler. On October 27, 2009, St. Martin's Press released Bollea's autobiography, "My Life Outside the Ring." Hogan credits Laila Ali, co-star on "American Gladiators", with preventing him from committing suicide. Bollea has been in a relationship with Jennifer McDaniel since early 2008. The two were engaged in November 2009 and married on December 14, 2010, in Clearwater, Florida. Hogan became a distributor for multi-level marketing company ViSalus Sciences after looking for business opportunities outside of wrestling. Hogan supports the American Diabetes Association. In April 2012, a sex tape between Hogan and Heather Clem, the estranged wife of radio personality Bubba the Love Sponge emerged online. On October 4, 2012, Gawker released a short clip of the video. In this video, Bubba can be heard saying that the couple can "do their thing" and he will be in his office. Furthermore, at the end of the video, he can also be heard telling Heather, "If we ever need to retire, here is our ticket". Hogan later told Howard Stern on his satellite radio show that, "it was a bad choice and a very low point" and "I was with some friends and made a wrong choice. It has devastated me, I have never been this hurt." He also claimed the video was from six years ago to relieve the resentment from his new wife (it's worthy to note that six years prior, Hogan was married to Linda Hogan). On October 15, 2012, Hogan filed a lawsuit against Bubba the Love Sponge and Heather Clem for invading his privacy. Hogan later settled the lawsuit on October 29, 2012. Following the settlement, Clem also publicly apologised to Hogan. Honors. Bollea was honored as the 2008 King of the Krewe of Bacchus, a New Orleans carnival organization. Hogan visited the Children's Hospital of New Orleans and rode in the parade where he threw doubloons with his likeness. Hogan received the honor in part because meeting Hogan is one of the most requested "wishes" of the terminally ill children benefited by the Make-A-Wish Foundation. Whenever Pittsburgh Penguins center Evgeni Malkin scores a goal at Consol Energy Center, Hogan appears on the Jumbotron and says "Whatcha gonna do when Malkamania runs wild on you?"
1066646	Suspiria is a 1977 Italian horror film directed by Dario Argento and released on 1 February 1977. Co-written by Argento and Daria Nicolodi and produced by Claudio and Salvatore Argento, the film stars Jessica Harper, Stefania Casini, Flavio Bucci, Miguel Bosè, Alida Valli, and Joan Bennett. The film follows American ballet student Suzy Bannion (Harper) who transfers to a prestigious dance academy in Germany, only to discover that it is controlled by a coven of witches. The score was performed by progressive rock band Goblin. It is the first of the trilogy Argento refers to as "The Three Mothers", followed by "Inferno" and "The Mother of Tears". "Suspiria" has become one of Argento's most successful feature films, receiving critical acclaim for its visual and stylistic flair, use of vibrant colors and its soundtrack. It was nominated for two Saturn Awards: Best Supporting Actress for Joan Bennett in 1978 and Best DVD Classic Film Release in 2002. This was Bennett's final film. It has since become a cult classic and a remake was planned for 2013 but put on hold indefinitely. Plot. Suzy Bannion, an American ballet student, arrives from her flight in Munich, Germany on a stormy night to enroll in a prestigious dance academy in Freiburg. After Suzy is unable to gain access into the academy, she decides to spend the night in town. Meanwhile, Pat Hingle, a former student who is expelled from the academy and seen leaving the academy in a somewhat frightened mood by Suzy, finds refuge at a friend's apartment in town. After Pat locks herself inside of the bathroom, a mysterious arm smothers Pat against the glass and repeatedly stabs her with a large knife and then graphically disembowels her. Her friend overhears her screaming and tries to scream for help, although nobody replies. Pat is then bound with a cord before she is hung in mid-air after crashing through a large stained-glass ceiling. Her friend is killed directly below by the falling glass and metal. Upon Suzy's arrival at the academy the next morning, she is introduced to Madame Blanc and Miss Tanner. She is escorted to the ballet students' locker room, where she meets Sarah and Olga, the latter with whom she has arranged to stay with off-campus. The following morning, Blanc offers Suzy a dormitory room, but she declines Blanc's offer. After a strange encounter with the academy's cook, Suzy seemingly struggles before fainting during a lesson. Later that night, Suzy awakens to discover that she has been moved into a dormitory room against her wishes. The doctors then tell Suzy that she is to be "medicated" with a glass of wine daily. Suzy befriends Sarah after the two are roomed together. As Suzy and the rest of the students prepare for dinner, hundreds of maggots fall from the ceiling. The students are told this was due to spoiled food boxed in the attic. The girls are then invited to sleep in the practice hall overnight. During the night, Sarah identifies a distinctive whistling snore as that of the school's director, who is not due to return to the academy for several weeks. The next morning, Tanner orders Daniel to leave the academy immediately after his guide dog bites Albert. Later that night, Sarah overhears the teacher's footsteps and begins to count them whilst Suzy becomes irresistibly drowsy and falls asleep. Meanwhile, while Daniel and his guide dog cross a plaza within the city, Daniel senses a strange presence. Suddenly, his seemingly calm dog lunges at Daniel and tears his throat out, killing him. The next day, Suzy recalls the words "iris" and "secret" from Pat's mumbling before leaving the academy. Later that night, Suzy and Sarah go for a swim while Sarah reveals to Suzy that she and Pat were close friends, and recalls that Pat had been "talking strangely for some time". The two girls search for Pat's notes in Sarah's room, but they appear to have been stolen. Suzy suddenly becomes drowsy and falls asleep before Sarah flees to the attic after hearing approaching footsteps. Sarah is chased by an unseen pursuer and, thinking she will be able to escape through a window into another room, falls into a huge pile of barbed wire. Becoming entangled, she struggles in anguish until a mysterious black-gloved hand of a dark figure appears and slits her throat. The following morning, Blanc and Tanner inform Suzy that Sarah has abruptly left the academy. Confused and suspicious, Suzy goes to meet one of Sarah's acquaintances, a psychologist, Frank Mandel, who explains that the academy was founded by Helena Markos, a cruel Greek émigré who was widely believed to be a witch. Dr. Mandel's colleague, Professor Millus, then tells Suzy that a coven can only survive with their queen. Upon Suzy's return to the academy that night, she discovers that all of the students have gone to the theater. She overhears the footsteps Sarah identified before and follows them to Blanc's office. She suddenly recalls Pat's mumbling after discovering irises painted all over the walls of Blanc's office. After entering a hidden passage, she discovers Blanc, Tanner and the staff forming a ritual where they plot Suzy's death. Unseen, Suzy then turns to find Sarah's body nailed to a coffin. Frightened, Suzy then sneaks into another room, where she accidentally awakens a shadowy figure who reveals herself as Helena Markos. Helena then orders Sarah's nearby corpse to rise from the dead to murder Suzy. Suzy then stabs Helena with one of the room's decorative knives, which appears to kill her (she fades from view screaming) and Sarah's reanimated corpse. Helena's demise causes the building to set alight. As the academy is slowly destroyed with the coven inside, Suzy manages to escape before the entire building catches on fire. Production. "Suspiria" is noteworthy for several stylistic flourishes that have become Argento trademarks. The film was made with anamorphic lenses. The production design and cinematography emphasize vivid primary colors, particularly red, creating a deliberately unrealistic, nightmarish setting, emphasized by the use of imbibition Technicolor prints. The imbibition process, used for "The Wizard of Oz" and "Gone with the Wind", is much more vivid in its color rendition than emulsion-based release prints, therefore enhancing the nightmarish quality of the film. It was one of the final feature films to be processed in Technicolor. The title and general concept of "The Three Mothers" came from "Suspiria de Profundis", an uncredited inspiration for the film. There is a section in the book entitled "Levana and Our Ladies of Sorrow". The piece asserts that just as there are three Fates and three Graces, there are three Sorrows: "Mater Lacrymarum, Our Lady of Tears", "Mater Suspiriorum, Our Lady of Sighs" and "Mater Tenebrarum, Our Lady of Darkness". Scriptwriter Daria Nicolodi stated that "Suspiria"'s inspiration came from a tale her grandmother told her as a young child about a real life experience she had in an acting academy where she discovered "the teachers were teaching arts, but also black magic." This story was later confirmed by Argento to have been made up. In the "Suspiria: 25th Anniversary" documentary, Harper commented on the fact that while making "Suspiria", as was common practice in Italian filmmaking at the time, the actors' dialogue was not properly recorded, but was later dubbed through ADR, or additional dialogue recording. She also recalled that part of the reason for this was because each actor spoke their native language (for instance, Harper, Valli, and Bennett spoke English; Casini, Valli, and Bucci spoke Italian; and several others spoke German), and as each actor generally knew what the other was saying anyway, they each responded with their lines as if they had understood the other. Argento also expressed disappointment over the fact that Harper's voice, which he liked, was not heard in the Italian market as she was dubbed in Italian by another actress. Soundtrack. Italian prog rock band Goblin composed most of the film's musical score in collaboration with Dario Argento. Goblin had previously scored Argento's earlier film "Deep Red" as well as several subsequent films following "Suspiria". In the film's opening credits, they are referred to as "The Goblins". Like Ennio Morricone's compositions for Sergio Leone, Goblin's score for "Suspiria" was created before the film was shot. It has been reused in multiple Hong Kong films, including Yuen Woo-ping's martial arts film "Dance of the Drunk Mantis" (1979) and Tsui Hark's horror-comedy "We Are Going to Eat You" (1980). Goblin frontman Claudio Simonetti later formed the heavy metal band Daemonia. The 2001 Anchor Bay DVD release contains a video of the band playing a reworking of the "Suspiria" theme song. The DVD edition also contains the entire original soundtrack as a bonus CD, which is currently out of print in North America. The main title theme was named as one of the best songs released between 1977 and 1979 in the book "The Pitchfork 500: Our Guide to the Greatest Songs from Punk to the Present", compiled by influential music website Pitchfork. It has been sampled on the Raekwon and Ghostface Killah song "Legal Coke", from the R. A. G. U. mix tape. It was also sampled by RJD2 for the song "Weather People Off Cage's Album Weather Proof" and by Army of the Pharaohs in their song "Swords Drawn". The soundtrack from the film has also been sampled in the cult television series "Invader Zim". Goblin has played the soundtrack live in three locations to standing ovations - as a World Premiere at the Nov 2012 "Melbourne Music Week" at the "Australian Centre for the Moving Image", in July 2013 at the "Revelation Perth International Film Festival" and on 19 July 2013 at Civic Theatre Auckland New Zealand in the Live Cinema Section of "New Zealand Film Festival". Critical reception. The film has received critical acclaim from contemporary critics. According to film review aggregator site Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds a 94% "fresh" rating based on thirty-one reviews with the consensus, "The blood pours freely in Argento's classic "Suspiria", a giallo horror as grandiose and glossy as it is gory". Rotten Tomatoes also ranked it number 41 on their 2010 list of the greatest horror films. Whilst some critics praise the film's visual performance, use of color and soundtrack, others have criticized it for its lack of sense and puzzling storyline. Janet Maslin of "The New York Times" wrote a mixed review, saying the film had "slender charms, though they will most assuredly be lost on viewers who are squeamish." Dave Kehr of the "Chicago Reader" gave a positive review, claiming that "Argento works so hard for his effects—throwing around shock cuts, colored lights and peculiar camera angles—that it would be impolite not to be a little frightened". Although J. Hoberman of "The Village Voice" gave a positive review as well, he calls it "a movie that makes sense only to the eye". "The Village Voice" ranked "Suspiria" #100 on their list of the 100 greatest films made in the 20th century. Adam Smith of "Empire" magazine awarded the film a perfect score of five out of five. "Empire" magazine also ranked "Suspiria" #312 on their list of the 500 greatest films ever as well as number 45 on their list 'The 100 Best Films of World Cinema'. AllMovie called it "one of the most striking assaults on the senses ever to be committed to celluloid [...] this unrelenting tale of the supernatural was—and likely still is—the closest a filmmaker has come to capturing a nightmare on film." "Entertainment Weekly" ranked "Suspiria" #18 on their list of the 25 scariest films ever. A poll of critics of "Total Film" ranked it #3 on their list of the 50 greatest horror films ever. One of the film's sequences was ranked at #24 on Bravo's "The 100 Scariest Movie Moments" program. IGN ranked it #20 on their list of the 25 best horror films. In pop culture. Two bands, a Norwegian thrash metal band and a pioneering mid-1990s UK gothic rock band, have named themselves after the film. Several albums have also used the title, including an album by gothic metal band Darkwell, an album by Darkwave band Miranda Sex Garden and "Suspiria de Profundis" by Die Form, which can also be regarded as inspired by Thomas De Quincey's work of the same title. The film's music has been imitated and sampled by various artists, including Ministry in the track "Psalm 69" from their album "", Cage Kennylz on "Weather People" and Atmosphere on "Bird Sings Why the Caged I Know". The Houston, Texas-based Two Star Symphony Orchestra included a track titled "Goblin Attack" on their 2004 CD "Danse Macabre: Constant Companion" that features a strings rendition of the "Suspiria" theme; the track's title also appears to be a reference to the band Goblin. The 69 Eyes have a song called "Suspiria Snow White" on their album "Back in Blood". In books by Simon R. Green, mentions are often made of a "Black Forest Dance Academy" in Germany, a place where witches and Satanists gather, a possible reference to "Suspiria". Remakes. During June 2006, Japanese studio Gonzo announced the production of an anime remake of "Suspiria" (サスペリア) is in development, but it has not yet announced a release date for TV broadcast. The anime adaptation will be directed by Yoshimasa Hiraike ("SoltyRei"). It was announced through MTV in 2008 that a remake of "Suspiria" is in production and will be directed by David Gordon Green, who directed films such as "Undertow" and "Pineapple Express". As with many remakes of cult films, the announcement has been met with hostility by some, including Argento himself. The film will be produced by Italian production company First Sun. In August 2008, the Bloody Disgusting website reported that Natalie Portman and Annette Savitch's Handsome Charlie Films were set to produce the remake and that Portman would play the lead role. The First Sun project was also announced to be produced by Marco Morabito and Luca Guadagnino. After a period of no news in which it was thought that the remake attempt had failed, Green admitted in August 2011 he is again trying to remake the film. It was announced on 15 May 2012 that actress Isabelle Fuhrman will play the lead role. In late 2012, the planned remake was put on hold. In January 2013, Gordon Green revealed that it may never happen due to legal issues.
1100340	George Boole (; 2 November 1815 – 8 December 1864) was an English mathematician, philosopher and logician. He worked in the fields of differential equations and algebraic logic, and is now best known as the author of "The Laws of Thought". As the inventor of the prototype of what is now called Boolean logic, which became the basis of the modern digital computer, Boole is regarded in hindsight as a founder of the field of computer science. Boole said, ... no general method for the solution of questions in the theory of probabilities can be established which does not explicitly recognise ... those universal laws of thought which are the basis of all reasoning ... Early life. George Boole's father, John Boole (1779–1848), was a tradesman in Lincoln and gave him lessons. He had an elementary school education, but little further formal and academic teaching. William Brooke, a bookseller in Lincoln, may have helped him with Latin; which he may also have learned at the school of Thomas Bainbridge. He was self-taught in modern languages. At age 16 Boole became the breadwinner for his parents and three younger siblings, taking up a junior teaching position in Doncaster, at Heigham's School. He taught briefly in Liverpool. Boole participated in the local Mechanics Institute, the Lincoln Mechanics' Institution, which was founded in 1833. Edward Bromhead, who knew John Boole through the Institution, helped George Boole with mathematics books; and he was given the calculus text of Sylvestre François Lacroix by Rev. George Stevens Dickson, of St Swithin Lincoln. It took him many years to master calculus, however, without a teacher. At age 19 Boole successfully established his own school at Lincoln. Four years later he took over Hall's Academy, at Waddington, outside Lincoln, following the death of Robert Hall. In 1840 he moved back to Lincoln, where he ran a boarding school. Boole became a prominent local figure, an admirer of John Kaye, the bishop. He took part in the local campaign for early closing. With E. R. Larken and others he set up a building society in 1847. He associated also with the Chartist Thomas Cooper, whose wife was a relation. From 1838 onwards Boole was making contacts with sympathetic British academic mathematicians, and reading more widely. He studied algebra in the form of symbolic methods, as these were understood at the time, and began to publish research papers. Professor at Cork. Boole's status as mathematician was recognised by his appointment in 1849 as the first professor of mathematics at Queen's College, Cork in Ireland. He met his future wife, Mary Everest, there in 1850 while she was visiting her uncle John Ryall who was Professor of Greek. They married some years later. He maintained his ties with Lincoln, working there with E. R. Larken in a campaign to reduce prostitution. Boole was elected Fellow of the Royal Society in 1857; and received honorary degrees of LL.D. from the University of Dublin and Oxford University. Death. On 8 December 1864, Boole died of an attack of fever, ending in pleural effusion. He was buried in the Church of Ireland cemetery of St Michael's, Church Road, Blackrock (a suburb of Cork City). There is a commemorative plaque inside the adjoining church. Works. Boole's first published paper was "Researches in the theory of analytical transformations, with a special application to the reduction of the general equation of the second order", printed in the "Cambridge Mathematical Journal" in February 1840 (Volume 2, no. 8, pp. 64–73), and it led to a friendship between Boole and Duncan Farquharson Gregory, the editor of the journal. His works are in about 50 articles and a few separate publications. In 1841 Boole published an influential paper in early invariant theory. He received a medal from the Royal Society for his memoir of 1844, "On A General Method of Analysis". It was a contribution to the theory of linear differential equations, moving from the case of constant coefficients on which he had already published, to variable coefficients. The innovation in operational methods is to admit that operations may not commute. In 1847 Boole published "The Mathematical Analysis of Logic ", the first of his works on symbolic logic. Differential equations. Two systematic treatises on mathematical subjects were completed by Boole during his lifetime. The "Treatise on Differential Equations" appeared in 1859, and was followed, the next year, by a "Treatise on the Calculus of Finite Differences", a sequel to the former work. In the sixteenth and seventeenth chapters of the "Differential Equations" is an account of the general symbolic method, and of a general method in analysis, originally described in his memoir printed in the "Philosophical Transactions" for 1844. During the last few years of his life Boole worked on a second edition of his "Differential Equations", and part of his last vacation was spent in the libraries of the Royal Society and the British Museum; but it was left incomplete. Isaac Todhunter printed the manuscripts in 1865, in a supplementary volume. Analysis. In 1857, Boole published the treatise "On the Comparison of Transcendents, with Certain Applications to the Theory of Definite Integrals", in which he studied the sum of residues of a rational function. Among other results, he proved what is now called Boole's identity: for any real numbers "a""k" > 0, "b""k", and "t" > 0. Generalisations of this identity play an important role in the theory of the Hilbert transform. Symbolic logic. In 1847 Boole published the pamphlet "Mathematical Analysis of Logic". He later regarded it as a flawed exposition of his logical system, and wanted "An Investigation of the Laws of Thought (1854), on Which are Founded the Mathematical Theories of Logic and Probabilities" to be seen as the mature statement of his views. Boole's initial involvement in logic was prompted by a current debate on quantification, between Sir William Hamilton who supported the theory of "quantification of the predicate", and Boole's supporter Augustus De Morgan who advanced a version of De Morgan duality, as it is now called. Boole's approach was ultimately much further reaching than either sides' in the controversy. It founded what was first known as the "algebra of logic" tradition. Boole did not regard logic as a branch of mathematics, but he provided a general symbolic method of logical inference. Boole proposed that logical propositions should be expressed by means of algebraic equations. Algebraic manipulation of the symbols in the equations would provide a fail-safe method of logical deduction: i.e. logic is reduced to a type of algebra. By 1 (unity) Boole denoted the "universe of thinkable objects"; literal symbols, such as "x", "y", "z", "v", "u", etc., were used with the "elective" meaning attaching to adjectives and nouns of natural language. Thus, if "x" = horned and "y" = sheep, then the successive acts of election (i.e. choice) represented by "x" and "y", if performed on unity, give the class "horned sheep". Thus, (1 – "x") would represent the operation of selecting all things in the world except horned things, that is, all not horned things, and (1 – "x") (1 – "y") would give all things neither horned nor sheep. Treatment of addition in logic. Boole conceived of "elective symbols" of his kind as an algebraic structure. But this general concept was not available to him: he did not have the segregation standard in abstract algebra of postulated (axiomatic) properties of operations, and deduced properties. His work was a beginning to the algebra of sets, again not a concept available to Boole as a familiar model. His pioneering efforts encountered specific difficulties, and the treatment of addition was an obvious difficulty in the early days. Boole replaced the operation of multiplication by the word 'and' and addition by the word 'or'. But in Boole's original system, + was a partial operation: in the language of set theory it would correspond only to disjoint union of subsets. Later authors changed the interpretation, commonly reading it as exclusive or, or in set theory terms symmetric difference; this step means that addition is always defined. In fact there is the other possibility, that + should be read as disjunction, This other possibility extends from the disjoint union case, where exclusive or and non-exclusive or both give the same answer. Handling this ambiguity was an early problem of the theory, reflecting the modern use of both Boolean rings and Boolean algebras (which are simply different aspects of one type of structure). Boole and Jevons struggled over just this issue in 1863, in the form of the correct evaluation of "x" + "x". Jevons argued for the result "x", which is correct for + as disjunction. Boole kept the result as something undefined. He argued against the result 0, which is correct for exclusive or, because he saw the equation "x" + "x" = 0 as implying "x" = 0, a false analogy with ordinary algebra. Probability theory. The second part of the "Laws of Thought" contained a corresponding attempt to discover a general method in probabilities. Here the goal was algorithmic: from the given probabilities of any system of events, to determine the consequent probability of any other event logically connected with the those events. Legacy. Boolean algebra is named after him, as is the crater Boole on the Moon. The keyword "Bool" represents a Boolean datatype in many programming languages, though Pascal and Java, among others, both use the full name "Boolean". The library, underground lecture theatre complex and the Boole Centre for Research in Informatics at University College Cork are named in his honour. 19th-century development. Boole's work was extended and refined by a number of writers, beginning with William Stanley Jevons. Augustus De Morgan had worked on the logic of relations, and Charles Sanders Peirce integrated his work with Boole's during the 1870s. Other significant figures were Platon Sergeevich Poretskii, and William Ernest Johnson. The conception of a Boolean algebra structure on equivalent statements of a propositional calculus is credited to Hugh MacColl (1877), in work surveyed 15 years later by Johnson. Surveys of these developments were published by Ernst Schröder, Louis Couturat, and Clarence Irving Lewis. 20th-century development. In 1921 the economist John Maynard Keynes published a book on probability theory, "A Treatise of Probability". Keynes believed that Boole had made a fundamental error in his definition of independence which vitiated much of his analysis. In his book "The Last Challenge Problem", David Miller provides a general method in accord with Boole's system and attempts to solve the problems recognised earlier by Keynes and others. Theodore Hailperin showed much earlier that Boole had used the correct mathematical definition of independence in his worked out problems
1504116	Jonathan Hadary (born October 11, 1948) is an American actor. Born in Chicago, Illinois and raised in Bethesda, Maryland, Hadary arrived at Tufts University already an accomplished actor. He was cast in many shows at Tufts, both student and faculty directed. During his sophomore year, he became an understudy for the Boston company of "You're a Good Man Charlie Brown". This being the Vietnam era, the actor playing Charlie Brown was drafted. The actor playing Schroeder was moved to the Charlie Brown role, and Hadary took the part of Schroeder. He finished the Boston run of the show and the toured with it for some time. Hadary made his New York City stage debut in the 1976 Playwrights Horizons staging of Albert Innaurato's "Gemini". Critical acclaim for the off-Broadway production resulted in it transferring to PAF Playhouse and then to Circle Repertory Company, and finally to Broadway, where it ran for 1819 performances. Hadary worked off-Broadway again on the 1979 Howard Ashman and Alan Menken musical adaptation of Kurt Vonnegut's "God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater", Ted Tally's 1980 play "Coming Attractions", and the 1981 Tom Lehrer revue "Tom Foolery". The following year he returned to Broadway to replace Harvey Fierstein in "Torch Song Trilogy". A member of the acting company at Circle Repertory Company, Hadary won an Obie Award for his performance in the 1985 William M. Hoffman play "As Is" at Circle Rep, and again, the play moved to Broadway, where it was nominated for three Tony Awards and won the Drama Desk Award for Best Play. In 1989, he co-starred opposite Tyne Daly in "", which earned him Tony Award and Drama Desk Award nominations.
567003	Ulrich Thomsen (born 6 December 1963) is a Danish actor. Thomsen was born in Fyn, Denmark and graduated from the Danish National School of Theatre and Contemporary Dance in 1993, after which playing on several theatres in Copenhagen, such as Dr. Dantes Aveny, Mungo Park and Østre Gasværks Teater. His film debut was in 1994 in "Nattevagten", ("Nightwatch") directed by Ole Bornedal. Since then a number of roles in, among others, Thomas Vinterberg's "De største Helte" (1996), Susanne Bier's "Sekten" (1997) and Anders Thomas Jensen's "Flickering Lights" (2000). The major breakthrough in his career came in the 1998 film "Festen" followed by an important role in the James Bond film "The World Is Not Enough" (1999) portraying the part of henchman Sasha Davidov. This established Thomsen as an international actor, famous outside his native Denmark. He also played a part in the 2002 English film "Killing Me Softly".
1068719	Suicide Kings is a 1997 American neo-noir/comedy-drama film, starring Christopher Walken as a mafia boss, Denis Leary as his driver, and Sean Patrick Flanery, Johnny Galecki, Jay Mohr, Jeremy Sisto, and Henry Thomas as a group of high society twenty-somethings who kidnap Walken. It was based on Don Stanford's short story, "The Hostage", and directed by Peter O'Fallon. Plot. The movie opens with Charlie Barret (Walken) walking to his private table in a restaurant, only to see three young men sitting at his table - Avery (Henry Thomas), Max (Sean Patrick Flanery) and Brett (Jay Mohr). Charlie happens to know Avery's father, and after an initial reluctance, is willing to go with the boys for a 'night on the town'. As the scene progresses, it shifts back and forth to the planning of what they're going to do to Charlie - they plan to kidnap him by strapping him to his seat and use some chloroform to knock him out. Naturally, things don't go as smoothly as they wanted, and Charlie tries fighting back - but eventually succumbs and passes out. When Charlie wakes up, he sees himself surrounded by the three men, and a fourth friend, T.K. (Jeremy Sisto), dressed in a doctor's uniform, checking his vital signs. It's soon revealed that Charlie 'used' to be Carlo Bartolucci, a mob figure. The boys then explain that Avery's sister, Elise, has been kidnapped, and that the kidnappers (Frank Medrano and Brad Garrett) are demanding $2 million ransom for her release. They figure that Charlie still has connections to get that kind of money to the gangsters, and they want his cooperation. To ensure that Charlie knows how serious they are, Charlie is shown his pinkie finger, complete with a signet ring, cut off and floating in a bowl of ice - since the same was allegedly done to Avery's sister. Part of the incentive that Charlie help them immediately is that there is a small window of time available where a hospital could successfully sew the finger back on and the clock was running out. Charlie flies into a rage, stating "I'm looking at dead men." However, he eventually agrees to help them. Part of the reason Charlie decides to help is that it becomes apparent towards the middle of the film that due to lifelong heavy drinking, Charlie has a major deficiency of Vitamin K, a major component needed for the body to form blood clots: Basically meaning that while a normal healthy person would have minimal bleeding after having his pinkie amputated (Especially considering that T.K. has medical training and bandaged up the wound correctly), Charlie, on the other hand, would continue to bleed to death without proper medical treatment. Charlie then contacts his lawyer, who in turn contacts Lono (Denis Leary), Charlie's bodyguard, asking him to track Charlie down. Lono goes about his own investigation, asking for (and in some cases beating out) information from people, including the hostess, Jennifer (Nina Siemaszko) who usually waits on Charlie, and a friend of Charlie's, Lydia (Laura San Giacomo). During the course of these conversations, an added backstory is shown about both Lono and Charlie, including how Charlie got his signet ring. Charlie, meanwhile, tries to take the boys' naïvete to his advantage. A fifth friend, Ira (Galecki) shows up — they are in his father's house, and Ira didn't know anything about what they had planned. Charlie starts playing the boys off of each other, slowly getting information out of them, including how they got into this mess in the first place. After much cajoling and piecing information together, Charlie learns that Avery was actually the one responsible for his sister's kidnapping. The boys had, the previous summer, spent a wild weekend in Atlantic City, where they dropped tens of thousands of dollars on various bets. Avery had gotten in over his head wagering on a basketball game, and had to come up with a way to pay off his $50,000 debt. The two mobsters approached him and told him they would kidnap his sister and take the "ransom" as payment for the debt. Lono eventually makes his way to Ira's house and has Charlie removed from his restraints, around the same time that the money is sent to the two thugs. The next day, Charlie and Lono meet up with the two gangsters who had kidnapped Avery's sister, around the same time that Avery learns that his sister is not at the hospital where she is supposed to have been. Charlie and Lono figure out that Elise had come up with a plan to fake the kidnapping and ask for a $2 million ransom; the thugs would get $1 million for playing along, while Max and Elise would walk away with the rest. Charlie and Lono track Max and Elise to a boat off a tropical island where, although Charlie understands their reasons for conning him, he has Lono kill them both. We see the screen tint orange as it goes out of focus, and hear two shots. They have reclaimed the rest of their money. Alternate endings. The film also features two alternate endings. In one of them, Charlie allows Max and Elise to live, but reclaims the $1 million, giving them a small amount of the money back. In the other ending, Charlie allows them to live, but takes his money, after which Lono shoots holes in the boat, causing it to slowly sink. However, test audiences didn't like these endings as much, feeling that Max and Elise needed to pay for the betrayal of their friends and grief they had caused. Production. Josh McKenny, based his screen play on the short story written by Don Stanford in 1996 titled “The Hostage” as indicated in the movie's closing credits. The story and the movie have many similarities; however the new title and some of the adapted screenplay draw clear reference to a similar events that actually took place in affluent Westchester County in the early 1980s when a group of twenty-somethings home from various Ivy League schools over several summers ran a lucrative gambling and money laundering enterprise that grew to become the largest in the Eastern United States. The group with ties to affluent Scarsdale, Bedford, Rye, Bronxville, and Fairfield referred to themselves in documents, evidence and later by both the local and national press as "vita privare regisio", Latin for "Suicide Kings". The movie makes strong reference to individuals associated with that group and similar events that actually took place including the kidnapping of a high-ranking member of organized crime.
584402	Parthen Rasithen (English: Saw Admired) is a 2000 Indian Tamil movie starring Prashanth, Simran and Laila in the lead roles and directed by Saran. The film music was composed by Bharadwaj. Much of the plot and plot elements have been lifted from the 1971 American thriller Play Misty for Me, directed by Clint Eastwood. The film was remade in telugu as "Naa Manasistha Raa" with Meka Srikanth, Soundarya and Richa Pallod. Plot. Shankar(Prashanth) is a graduate of BSC nautical science, waiting for a job in the shipping industry. He is a tenant in the house of Banu(Simran), who is his good friend and confidante. They spend almost all their time together and she seeks him out as a refuge from her step brother Panneer(Raghuvaran), whom she dislikes but is forced to live together with. Shankar falls in love with Sarika(Laila). She reciprocates but problems and misunderstandings plague their romance. Casting. Initially Nandita Das and Simran were choice of director to play lady leads. Saran first offered the script to Simran and she wanted to play the character of Bhanu a villainous role. then Saran asked her to come for a screen test and she got good feedback from Saran. Then Laila was selected to play the other lead after Saran impressed by her in the movie Rojavanam. Music. The music has been composed by composer Bharadwaj and the title track still remains an all time favourite melody. The highlight of the title track is the beautiful mouth organ prelude by Mr.Venkatasubramaniam aka Kyaba of the Madras chorale group with great backing provided by ace Bass guitarist Keith peters and the lead vocals by Yugendran Vasudevan nair. The lyrics were written by Vairamuthu. For the first time Prashanth lend his voice for a soundtrack. Critical reception. Hindu wrote:"It is a spectacular role for Simran and she has made optimum use of it. A well-etched character which is suspenseful at every turn. Simran's eyes sparkle with animus, jealousy and venom in the scene in which she confronts Laila. Laila as the docile, taciturn beauty is an appealing foil to the fiery and vibrant Simran. Prashanth's plausible reactions to Simran's unrelenting moves, saying that he cannot think of her as a venomous person, are natural, and his performance is laudable. Raghuvaran is his usual self as the brother of Simran. There is no scope for him to show his mettle because though the character floats limpidly there is not much depth". Lolluexpress wrote:"An excellent movie and its worth watching in big screens. After watching few movie that were released in the recent times i really consider "PARTHEN RASITHEN" to be the best one". Balaji wrote:"The movie has a good story that keeps us guessing regarding the path it is going to take, a genuinely surprising twist, some nice characterizations and good comedy". Chennaionline wrote:"film begins promisingly enough and moves at an interesting pace in the first half. The script is well worked out, the director paying attention to minute details. But then he moves away from the main plot, brings in some twists and turns, gets confused and comes back to the story again".
1044786	Margaret Leighton (26 February 1922 – 13 January 1976) was an English actress. She was known for her exquisite sense of grandeur and refinement. She created the role of Hannah Jelkes in Tennessee Williams' "The Night of the Iguana". Life and career. Born in Barnt Green, Worcestershire, Leighton made her stage debut as Dorothy in "Laugh With Me" (1938), which was also performed that year for BBC Television. She became a star of the Old Vic. Her Broadway debut was as the Queen in "Henry IV" (1946) starring Laurence Olivier and Ralph Richardson during a visit to America of the Old Vic company, which performed a total of five plays from its repertoire before returning to London. After appearing in two British films, including the starring role of Flora MacDonald opposite David Niven in "Bonnie Prince Charlie" (1948), the tall willowy actress played second female lead in Alfred Hitchcock's "Under Capricorn" (1949) starring Ingrid Bergman, Joseph Cotten and Michael Wilding. She starred with Walter Pidgeon in the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer crime/mystery "Calling Bulldog Drummond" (1951). Leighton had three husbands: publisher Max Reinhardt (married 1947-divorced 1955); actor Laurence Harvey (married 1957-divorced 1961); and actor Michael Wilding (married 1964-her death 1976). She had no children. She won the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play for her performance in "Separate Tables" (1956); she won another Tony in that category for "The Night of the Iguana" (1962), playing the luminous Hannah Jelkes (a role played by Deborah Kerr on film) opposite Bette Davis's Maxine Faulk. Leighton was nominated for Best Actress in a Play for "Much Ado About Nothing" (1959) opposite John Gielgud and for "Tchin-Tchin" (1962) opposite Anthony Quinn. She also had a noteworthy list of TV appearances, including "Alfred Hitchcock Presents", "Ben Casey" and "Burke's Law". She won the Emmy Award for Outstanding Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role in Drama for "Hamlet" (1970). And she was nominated for an Emmy in 1966 for Outstanding Single Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role in a Drama for four episodes of "Dr. Kildare". Her last appearance on Broadway was as Birdie Hubbard in a revival of Lillian Hellman's "The Little Foxes" (1967) starring Anne Bancroft as Regina Giddens. For her film role as Mrs. Maudsley in "The Go-Between" (1970), Leighton won the British BAFTA Film Award for Best Supporting Actress. She received a BAFTA nomination for Best British Actress for her role as Valerie Carrington in "Carrington V.C." (1955). She received a Hollywood Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress for "The Go-Between". Margaret Leighton died of multiple sclerosis, aged 53, in Chichester, Sussex.
1062424	The People vs. Larry Flynt is a 1996 American biographical drama film directed by Miloš Forman about the rise of pornographic magazine publisher and editor Larry Flynt, and his subsequent clash with the law. The film stars Woody Harrelson, Courtney Love, and Edward Norton. The film was written by Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski. It spans about 25 years of Flynt's life from his impoverished upbringing in Kentucky to his court battle with Reverend Jerry Falwell, and is based in part on the U.S. Supreme Court case "Hustler Magazine v. Falwell". The film grossed just over $20.3 million domestically with a budget of $35 million. Plot. In 1953, 10-year-old Larry Flynt (Block) is selling moonshine in Kentucky. Twenty years later, Flynt (Harrelson) and his younger brother, Jimmy (Brett Harrelson) run the Hustler Go-Go club in Cincinnati. With profits down, Flynt decides to publish a newsletter for the club, the first "Hustler" magazine, with nude pictures of women working at the club. The newsletter soon becomes a full-fledged magazine, but sales are weak. After "Hustler" publishes nude pictures of former first lady Jackie Kennedy Onassis, sales take off. Flynt becomes smitten with Althea Leasure (Love), a stripper who works at one of his clubs. With Althea and Jimmy's help, Flynt makes a fortune from sales of "Hustler". With his success comes enemies - as he finds himself a hated figure of anti-pornography activists. He argues with the activists, saying that "murder is illegal, but if you take a picture of it you may get your name in a magazine or maybe win a Pulitzer Prize". "However", he continues, "sex is legal, but if you take a picture of that act, you can go to jail". He becomes involved in several prominent court cases, and befriends a young lawyer, Alan Isaacman (Norton). In 1975, Flynt loses a smut-peddling court decision in Cincinnati but is released from jail soon afterwards on a technicality. Ruth Carter Stapleton (Hanover), a Christian activist and sister of President Jimmy Carter, seeks out Flynt and urges him to give his life to Jesus. Flynt seems moved and starts letting his newfound religion influence everything in his life, including "Hustler" content. In 1978, during another trial in Georgia, Flynt and Isaacman are both shot by a man with a rifle while they walk outside a courthouse. Isaacman recovers, but Flynt is paralyzed from the waist down and uses a wheelchair for the rest of his life. Wishing he was dead, Flynt renounces God. Because of the emotional and physical pain, he moves to Beverly Hills and spirals down into depression and drug use. During this time, Althea also becomes addicted to painkillers and morphine. In 1983, Flynt undergoes surgery to deaden several nerves, and as a result, feels rejuvenated. He returns to an active role with the publication, which, in his absence, had been run by Althea and Jimmy. Flynt is soon in court again for leaking videos relating to the John DeLorean entrapment case, and during his courtroom antics, he fires Isaacman, then throws an orange at the judge. He later wears an American flag as an adult diaper along with an army helmet, and wears T-shirts with provocative messages such as "I Wish I Was Black" and "Fuck This Court." After spitting water at the judge Flynt is sent to a psychiatric ward, where he sinks into depression again. Flynt publishes a satirical parody ad in which Jerry Falwell (Paul) tells of a sexual encounter with his mother. Falwell sues for libel and emotional distress. Flynt countersues for copyright infringement, because Falwell copied his ad. The case goes to trial in December 1984, but the decision is mixed, as Flynt is found guilty of inflicting emotional distress but not libel.
1104015	John Edensor Littlewood (9 June 1885 – 6 September 1977) was a British mathematician, best known for the results achieved in collaboration with G. H. Hardy. Life. Littlewood was born in 1885 in Rochester in Kent. He was the son of Edward Thornton Littlewood and Sylvia Ackland. He lived in Wynberg in Cape Town from 1892 to 1900 where his father (a 9th wrangler) was a headmaster. His uncommon middle name was the maiden name of his great-great-grandmother Sarah Edensor, who married Thomas Littlewood. He attended St Paul's School in London for three years, where he was taught by F. S. Macaulay, now known for his contributions to ideal theory. He studied at Trinity College, Cambridge and was the Senior Wrangler in the Mathematical Tripos of 1905. He was elected a Fellow of Trinity College in 1908 and, apart from three years as Richardson Lecturer in the University of Manchester, the balance of his career was spent at the University of Cambridge. He was appointed Rouse Ball Professor of Mathematics in 1928, retiring in 1950. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1916, awarded the Royal Medal in 1929, the Sylvester Medal in 1943 and the Copley Medal in 1958. He was president of the London Mathematical Society from 1941 to 1943, and was awarded the De Morgan Medal in 1938 and the Senior Berwick Prize in 1960. Work. Most of Littlewood's work was in the field of mathematical analysis. He began research under the supervision of Ernest William Barnes, who suggested that he attempt to prove the Riemann hypothesis: Littlewood showed that if the Riemann hypothesis is true then the Prime Number Theorem follows and obtained the error term. This work won him his Trinity fellowship. However, the link between the Riemann hypothesis and the Prime Number Theorem had been known before in Continental Europe, and Littlewood also wrote later in his book, "A Mathematician’s Miscellany" that his actually only rediscovered result did not shed a bright light on the isolated state of British mathematics at the time. He coined Littlewood's law, which states that individuals can expect "miracles" to happen to them, at the rate of about one per month. He continued to write papers into his eighties, particularly in analytical areas of what would become the theory of dynamical systems. Littlewood is also remembered for his book of reminiscences, "A Mathematician's Miscellany" (new edition published in 1986). Among his own Ph. D. students were Sarvadaman Chowla, Harold Davenport and Donald C. Spencer. Spencer reported that in 1941 when he (Spencer) was about to get on the boat that would take him home to the United States, Littlewood reminded him: ""n", "n" alpha, "n" beta!" (referring to Littlewood's conjecture). Littlewood's collaborative work, carried out by correspondence, covered fields in Diophantine approximation and Waring's problem, in particular. In his other work, he collaborated with Raymond Paley on Littlewood–Paley theory in Fourier theory, and with Cyril Offord in combinatorial work on random sums, in developments that opened up fields that are still intensively studied. He worked with Mary Cartwright on problems in differential equations arising out of early research on radar: their work foreshadowed the modern theory of dynamical systems. Littlewood's inequality on bilinear forms was a forerunner of the later Grothendieck tensor norm theory. With Hardy. Littlewood collaborated for many years with G. H. Hardy. Together they devised the first Hardy–Littlewood conjecture, a strong form of the twin prime conjecture, and the second Hardy–Littlewood conjecture. In a 1947 lecture, the Danish mathematician Harald Bohr said, "To illustrate to what extent Hardy and Littlewood in the course of the years came to be considered as the leaders of recent English mathematical research, I may report what an excellent colleague once jokingly said: 'Nowadays, there are only three really great English mathematicians: Hardy, Littlewood, and Hardy–Littlewood.'" There is a story (related in the Miscellany) that at a conference Littlewood met a German mathematician who said he was most interested to discover that Littlewood really existed, as he had always assumed that Littlewood was a name used by Hardy for lesser work which he did not want to put out under his own name; Littlewood apparently roared with laughter. There are versions of this story involving both Norbert Wiener and Edmund Landau, who, it is claimed, "so doubted the existence of Littlewood that he made a special trip to Great Britain to see the man with his own eyes".
1033067	John McEnery (born 1 November 1943) is an English actor and writer. Born in Birmingham, Warwickshire, he trained (1962–64) at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School, playing, among others, Mosca in Ben Jonson's "Volpone" and Gaveston in Marlowe's "Edward II". At the age of 20 he found his first stage work, spending three seasons with the Everyman Theatre in Liverpool. He joined the National Theatre company in 1966. While working at the Everyman, he met actress Stephanie Beacham, whom he later married. The couple had two daughters, Phoebe and Chloe, but subsequently divorced. He starred alongside Claude Jade and Jean-Pierre Cassel in Gérard Brach's bittersweet "The Boat on the Grass" about a girl between two friends, but his first notable screen role was as Mercutio in Franco Zeffirelli's "Romeo and Juliet"; he was nominated for a BAFTA for his performance. He later played Russian politician Alexander Kerensky in "Nicholas and Alexandra" (1971), and took the title role in the 1972 film "Bartleby", in which he starred opposite Paul Scofield. In the 1980s, at Sheffield's Crucible Theatre, he took the title role in Gogol's "The Government Inspector", directed by the Russian actor and director Oleg Tabakov. In 1998 he wrote the play "Merry Christmas, Mr. Burbage" in honour of the 400th anniversary of the creation of the Globe Theatre. In 2011 he appeared as Rowley in "The School for Scandal" (directed by Deborah Warner) at the Barbican Centre. In 2008, he appeared in a guest role in "Sidetracked", the first episode of "Wallander". One of his brothers is actor Peter McEnery, and another is photographer David McEnery.
589631	Ram Aur Shyam (English: "Ram And Shyam") is a 1967 Indian Hindi feature film, directed by Tapi Chanakya. Its producer was B. Nagi Reddy. It was previously produced as "Ramudu Bheemudu" by D. Ramanaidu under Suresh Productions Banner, a Telugu film starring N.T. Rama Rao, in 1964; "Ram Aur Shyam" is Nagi Reddi's Hindi version. Originally Vyjayanthimala and Mala sinha were supposed to star in the roles portrayed by Waheeda rehman and Mumtaz but do to some reasons they were replaced. "Ram Aur Shyam" has music by Naushad and lyrics by Shakeel Badayuni, it stars Dilip Kumar, Pran, Waheeda Rehman, Mumtaz, Nirupa Roy. The theme owes its origins to Alexandre Dumas, père's story "The Corsican Brothers": twins who look remarkably alike but have very different temperaments. In "The Corsican Brothers" the twins grow up together. In "Ram aur Shyam", on the other hand, they have been separated at birth and discover each other only towards the end. Like "The Corsican Brothers", which has been adapted into several feature films, "Ram Aur Shyam" has inspired remakes in Hindi movies too, with "Seeta Aur Geeta" (featuring female twins, played by Hema Malini) in 1972; "Chaalbaaz" (starring Sridevi) in 1989; and "Kishen Kanhaiya" (starring Anil Kapoor) in 1990.
1099258	Computational statistics, or statistical computing, is the interface between statistics and computer science. It is the area of computational science (or scientific computing) specific to the mathematical science of statistics. This area is also developing rapidly, leading to calls that a broader concept of computing should be taught as part of general statistical education. The terms 'computational statistics' and 'statistical computing' are often used interchangeably, although Carlo Lauro (a former president of the International Association for Statistical Computing) proposed making a distinction, defining 'statistical computing' as "the application of computer science to statistics", and 'computational statistics' as "aiming at the design of algorithm for implementing statistical methods on computers, including the ones unthinkable before the computer age (e.g. bootstrap, simulation), as well as to cope with analytically intractable problems" ["sic"]. The term 'Computational statistics' may also be used to refer to computationally "intensive" statistical methods including resampling methods, Markov chain Monte Carlo methods, local regression, kernel density estimation, artificial neural networks and generalized additive models.
584079	Saamy () is a 2003 Indian Tamil film written and directed by Hari. The film has Vikram, Trisha and Kota Srinivasa Rao in the lead. The film's music was composed by Harris Jayaraj. The film made at a cost of 5 crore was successful and grossed 16 crore at the box office. Like other films directed by Hari this film also specialises a particular city and this time it is Tirunelveli. Saamy along with "Kaakha Kaakha" started a trend of police films in Tamil such as "Bheeshmar", "Gambeeram", "Anjaneya" and many others. Kota Srinivasa Rao made his debut in Tamil as a villain in this film. Plot. Aarusaamy (Vikram) is the Deputy Commissioner of Police of Tirunelveli who efficiently brings the city under control. Aarusaamy arrives at Tirunelveli after being in exile for some years after being wrongly accused of bribery by corrupt politicians. In an early scene in the film, he eats idli with beer and performs some drunken antics, which had a negative impact on the viewing public. At the outset, he pretends to be a corrupt cop by accepting bribes from the very influential Annachi. Later Saamy starts to rebel against him and the rest is about how he succeeds in overcoming the corrupt politicians. Aarusaamy's father (Vijayakumar) who wanted to become a cop was unable to become due to corruption and takes care of agriculture for his living. But he wanted to make his son a cop. Vikram too passes the IPS examinations in merit, but was asked for bribe. His father mortgages his properties and makes him get the desired job. Being an honest cop, Aarusaamy is honoured with transfers all over Tamil Nadu due to political pressure. Finally, in Trichy, he is accused of bribery by a politician and he gets suspended. It takes him six months to prove himself and he is posted in Tirunelveli now. In Tirunelveli, he adapts a new policy of adjusting with the local goons so that he can serve the people in an effective way. Perumal Pichai (Kota Srinivasa Rao), is an underworld don who has the total control of Southern Tamil Nadu, both in politics as well as rowdyism but he is less known in the media. He bribes Aarusaamy so that he will not disturb his business because both Perumal Pichai and Aarusaamy belongs to his caste. Saamy also accepts it but requests him to make some changes which he in turn accepts. As a result, the city is under the control of Law and Order. He is always accompanied by "Punctuality" Paramasivam (Ramesh Khanna), who is an inspector. Saamy falls in love with a college-going Brahmin girl, Bhuvana (Trisha Krishnan) and they get engaged. Bhuvana's father, (Delhi Ganesh) is a straightforward government officer who never got bribe and leads a noble life. Saamy and Bhuvana meet each other when Saamy goes in search of a home for rent to Bhuvana's home. Bhuvana misinterprets Saamy and Paramasivam as thieves and locks them in a room. The ruling party has called of for a one-day strike all over the state and Perumal Pichai is handed with the responsibility of Tirunelveli on the eve of Pongal festival. But Saamy takes steps to maintain law and order and the strike becomes a failure. This makes Perumal Pichai angry. He was waiting for a chance to take revenge on Saamy and they attack the market on the day of Saamy's marriage since all the policemen would be attending the wedding. Besides this, Saamy also 'seals' the petrol bunk (gas station) of Perumal Pichai because the workers at the petrol bunk assaulted a woman and others when they challenged very less distribution of petrol than being promised. This incident was the last straw that broke the camel's back and started the revolution of Saami against Perumal Pichai. This incident marks the start of direct clash between Saamy and Perumal Pichai. Both challenge to get rid of the other in 7 days time. Perumal Pichai uses his influences and gets Saamy transferred but Saamy is given a time of 7 days to take charge. Saamy also loses his father in a bomb blast in his home which was targeted to kill him. He plans accordingly and takes revenge on Perumal Pichai by the eve of 7th day. Production. After directing "Thamizh", Kavithalayaa Productions called Hari to direct a film for them since Hari assisted few of their films. The film was titled as "Saamy", Vikram and Trisha were selected to play lead pair. Telugu actor Kota Srinivasa Rao was selected to play negative role making his debut in Tamil. The film's shooting schedule took place at Karaikudi, Some fight scenes were shot at the busy lanes in Karaikudi where Vikram chased some rowdies, The fight scene was shot for five days, with Priyan canning the shots and Super Subbarayan choreographing the fights. Vikram worked on his body for the film, sporting a thick waist to show notable differences from his other police film, Dhill and also put on eight kilograms. Soundtrack. The soundtrack album and background score were composed by composer Harris Jayaraj. Harris Jayaraj has tried his hand in Sindhu Bhairavi in ‘Ithuthaana'. Lyrics were written by Thamarai, Na. Muthukumar & Snehan. Tamil Tracklist Telugu Tracklist Release. Critical reception. Sify wrote:"The patchy storyline merely serves as a pretext to spark off several skirmishes and bombastic dialogues. Ultimately it is Vikram who dominates this action movie. In fact he is the mainstay of the picture Director Hari packs in a sting, but Saamy is strictly for the no holds barred action addicts". Bizhat called it:"taut, fully engaging actioner". Hindu wrote:"Kavithalaya's "Saami" should follow the "Dhil", "Dhool" line. Vikram's daredevilry and macho appeal ought to go down well with the masses. His presence of mind and intelligence are bound to make an impression on those who expect something more". Box office. Saamy was released approximately in 100 screens in Tamil Nadu. The film had a huge opening as it was a summer vacation for the Tamil audiences. Theatres in Chennai had almost 100% occupancies and the film recovered all its budget within 4 to 5 days. Remakes. The film was remade into Telugu as "Lakshmi Narasimha" with Balakrishna and Asin in lead roles though the original version was dubbed and released in Telugu as "Swamy IPS". It was also remade in Bengali as বারূদ with Mithoon Chakraborty and in Hindi as Policegiri by the notable director K.S.Ravikumar with Sanjay Dutt and Prachi Desai.
1100400	Giuseppe Peano (; 27 August 1858 – 20 April 1932) was an Italian mathematician. The author of over 200 books and papers, he was a founder of mathematical logic and set theory, to which he contributed much notation. The standard axiomatization of the natural numbers is named the Peano axioms in his honor. As part of this effort, he made key contributions to the modern rigorous and systematic treatment of the method of mathematical induction. He spent most of his career teaching mathematics at the University of Turin. Biography. Peano was born and raised on a farm at Spinetta, a hamlet now belonging to Cuneo, Piedmont, Italy. He attended the Liceo classico Cavour in Turin, and enrolled at the University of Turin in 1876, graduating in 1880 with high honours, after which the University employed him to assist first Enrico D'Ovidio, and then Angelo Genocchi, the Chair of Infinitesimal calculus. Due to Genocchi's poor health, Peano took over the teaching of the infinitesimal calculus course within 2 years. His first major work, a textbook on calculus, was published in 1884 and was credited to Genocchi. A few years later, Peano published his first book dealing with mathematical logic. Here the modern symbols for the union and intersection of sets appeared for the first time. In 1887, Peano married Carola Crosio, the daughter of the Turin-based painter Luigi Crosio, known for painting the "Refugium Peccatorum Madonna". In 1886, he began teaching concurrently at the Royal Military Academy, and was promoted to Professor First Class in 1889. The next year, the University of Turin also granted him his full professorship. Peano's famous space-filling curve appeared in 1890 as a counterexample. He used it to show that a continuous curve cannot always be enclosed in an arbitrarily small region. This was an early example of what came to be known as a fractal. In 1890 Peano founded the journal "Rivista di Matematica", which published its first issue in January 1891. In 1891 Peano started the Formulario Project. It was to be an "Encyclopedia of Mathematics", containing all known formulae and theorems of mathematical science using a standard notation invented by Peano. In 1897, the first International Congress of Mathematicians was held in Zürich. Peano was a key participant, presenting a paper on mathematical logic. He also started to become increasingly occupied with "Formulario" to the detriment of his other work. In 1898 he presented a note to the Academy about binary numeration and its ability to be used to represent the sounds of languages. He also became so frustrated with publishing delays (due to his demand that formulae be printed on one line) that he purchased a printing press. Paris was the venue for the Second International Congress of Mathematicians in 1900. The conference was preceded by the First International Conference of Philosophy where Peano was a member of the patronage committee. He presented a paper which posed the question of correctly formed definitions in mathematics, "i.e." "how do you define a definition?". This became one of Peano's main philosophical interests for the rest of his life. At the conference Peano met Bertrand Russell and gave him a copy of "Formulario". Russell was so struck by Peano's innovative logical symbols that he left the conference and returned home to study Peano's text. Peano's students Mario Pieri and Alessandro Padoa had papers presented at the philosophy congress also. For the mathematical congress, Peano did not speak, but Padoa's memorable presentation has been frequently recalled. A resolution calling for the formation of an "international auxiliary language" to facilitate the spread of mathematical (and commercial) ideas, was proposed; Peano fully supported it. By 1901, Peano was at the peak of his mathematical career. He had made advances in the areas of analysis, foundations and logic, made many contributions to the teaching of calculus and also contributed to the fields of differential equations and vector analysis. Peano played a key role in the axiomatization of mathematics and was a leading pioneer in the development of mathematical logic. Peano had by this stage become heavily involved with the "Formulario" project and his teaching began to suffer. In fact, he became so determined to teach his new mathematical symbols that the calculus in his course was neglected. As a result he was dismissed from the Royal Military Academy but retained his post at Turin University. In 1903 Peano announced his work on an international auxiliary language called "Latino sine flexione" ("Latin without inflexion," later called Interlingua, but which should not be confused with the later Interlingua of the IALA). This was an important project for him (along with finding contributors for 'Formulario'). The idea was to use Latin vocabulary, since this was widely known, but simplify the grammar as much as possible and remove all irregular and anomalous forms to make it easier to learn. In one speech, he started speaking in Latin and, as he described each simplification, introduced it into his speech so that by the end he was talking in his new language. The year 1908 was big for Peano. The fifth and final edition of the "Formulario" project, titled "Formulario Mathematico", was published. It contained 4200 formulae and theorems, all completely stated and most of them proved. The book received little attention since much of the content was dated by this time. However, it remains a significant contribution to mathematical literature. The comments and examples were written in "Latino sine flexione". Also in 1908, Peano took over the chair of higher analysis at Turin (this appointment was to last for only two years). He was elected the director of "Academia pro Interlingua". Having previously created Idiom Neutral, the Academy effectively chose to abandon it in favor of Peano's Latino sine flexione. After his mother died in 1910, Peano divided his time between teaching, working on texts aimed for secondary schooling including a dictionary of mathematics, and developing and promoting his and other auxiliary languages, becoming a revered member of the international auxiliary language movement. He used his membership of the "Accademia dei Lincei" to present papers written by friends and colleagues who were not members (the Accademia recorded and published all presented papers given in sessions). In 1925 Peano switched Chairs unofficially from Infinitesimal Calculus to Complementary Mathematics, a field which better suited his current style of mathematics. This move became official in 1931. Giuseppe Peano continued teaching at Turin University until the day before he died, when he suffered a fatal heart attack.
1056249	The Rules of the Game (original French title: La Règle du jeu) is a 1939 French film directed by Jean Renoir about upper-class French society just before the start of World War II. He originally adapted the story from Alfred de Musset's "Les Caprices de Marianne", a popular 19th-century comedy of manners: "My first intention was to film a transposition of Caprices de Marianne to our time. It is the story of a tragic mistake: the lover of Marianne is taken for someone else and is bumped off in an ambush". He was also inspired by "Jeu de l'amour et du hasard" of Marivaux, by Molière, and took some details from Beaumarchais: the quotation at the beginning of the film comes from "Le Mariage de Figaro"
1036234	Peter John Kay (born 2 July 1973) is an English comedian, writer, actor, director, and producer. He rose to prominence after winning competitions such as Channel 4's "So You Think You're Funny?" and a well received "Live at the Top of the Tower" (2000) show. He has had two other subsequent arena tours, "Mum Wants A Bungalow Tour" (2002/2003) and "The Tour That Didn't Tour "(2010/2011). The latter is the world's best-selling live stand-up comedy show in history, officially acknowledged by the Guinness World Records as the biggest stand up comedy tour in the world. Kay's television work includes "That Peter Kay Thing" (1999), "Phoenix Nights" (2000), "Max and Paddy's Road to Nowhere" (2004), and "Peter Kay's Britain's Got the Pop Factor... and Possibly a New Celebrity Jesus Christ Soapstar Superstar Strictly on Ice" (2008). Kay has sold over ten million DVDs, a record for a comedian. He featured on the Comic Relief re-release of Tony Christie's "(Is This the Way to) Amarillo?", reaching number one on the UK Singles Chart and becoming the best-selling single of 2005 in the UK. Early career. Peter Kay was born in Farnworth (near Bolton), Lancashire, to an English father, Michael John Kay (1948–1999), and a Northern Irish mother, Margaret Deirdre O'Neill, who comes from County Tyrone. He attended Mount St Joseph High School, leaving with one GCSE in art. He took several menial jobs, including working in a toilet roll factory, a Netto supermarket, a cash and carry and a bingo hall, which later inspired episodes or sequences in "That Peter Kay Thing". He began a degree course at Liverpool Hope University but dropped out and was given an unconditional offer to attend a HND in media performance at the University of Salford. He then attended the University of Salford's school of media, music and performance where he studied for a Higher National Diploma in Media Performance, which he completed; this involved a stand-up course at which he excelled. His first stand-up was a competition in Manchester hosted by later co-star and co-writer of Phoenix Nights, Dave Spikey. Kay was last on the bill and won the competition, beating Johnny Vegas. His earliest television appearance was an interview with Granada Television in which he listed the contents of his room. This would later be used in "That Peter Kay Thing" in the role of Leonard de Tomkinson. Kay's experience working at the Manchester Arena inspired him to wear the official yellow jacket of the MEN Arena for the final performance of his "Mum Wants a Bungalow" tour. Kay has said that he sought a career in comedy. During time working as a cinema usher, he experimented with stand-up, participating in several local events as well as others at the Comedy Store in Manchester. After losing his job at the cinema, Kay was presented with the choice between finding another menial job or moving into comedy. After he entered and won Channel 4's "So You Think You're Funny?" contest in 1997, his first semi-professional stand-up appearances were at the 1998 Edinburgh Fringe Festival, where he received a prestigious Perrier Award nomination. During this time, he also appeared at various other clubs such as London's influential Comedy Store and the Barracuda Club in Lincoln. Although this led to a certain level of public recognition, it was only after his heavily-promoted show "Live at the Top of the Tower" in 2000 that Kay attained mainstream recognition. During this period, he appeared on several chat shows, such as "Parkinson" and "Friday Night with Jonathan Ross", where he had previously been a warm up man. Production also began on "Phoenix Nights", which was to see him achieve critical acclaim as well as mainstream success. Subsequent advertisements, for John Smith's bitter, which imitate the realistic style of "Phoenix Nights", saw Kay develop his catchphrases "'ave it!" and "two lamb bhunas". Kay is a supporter of Bolton Wanderers. 1997–2000: Early career and productions. Kay's first TV project was in an episode of "New Voices", a comedy series which showcased up and coming talent. His episode, "Two Minutes", written by Johanne McAndrew, saw him play a getaway driver as two of his mates attempted to rob a pub of its takings. This was broadcast in 1997. After appearing on BBC2's "The Sunday Show" presenting his own slot entitled "Peter Kay's World of Entertainment", Kay made an episode of Channel 4's "The Comedy Lab", "The Services", in 1998. This served as a pilot for the later "That Peter Kay Thing". His idea for this series was to create a testbed for ideas and concepts that he could later use within other series. The idea of having several characters all played by himself was something with which Kay experimented. After a favourable reception to the pilot, "That Peter Kay Thing" was devised. It was based solely on the experiences of Kay's earlier life working in several menial jobs. The range of characters included Brian Potter, who would go on to become the primary character in Phoenix Nights, and who Kay said was a combination of all his bosses' personalities along with the voice of a man he knows. The eccentric Leonard de Tomkinson is reputedly based on a real man named Leonard who used to visit Peter during his working time at the local Majestic Garage. Following the series' success, Kay and his co-writers, Neil Fitzmaurice and Dave Spikey, used the episode "In The Club" as the basis for Phoenix Nights. "Peter Kay's Phoenix Nights" was his notable TV programme, written by him, Dave Spikey and Neil Fitzmaurice and set in a newly refurbished social club run by wheelchair-bound Brian Potter. The club was based on an episode of "That Peter Kay Thing" entitled "In The Club". The cast of "Phoenix Nights" was made up almost entirely of stand-up comics whom the writers had met on 'the circuit'. The show was an immediate hit. It followed the story of the club and the various events that happened there. Expertly written, much of the humour was somewhat implicit – relying on subtle background clues and hints or paradoxes. The first series was partly filmed at St Gregory's Social Club in Farnworth, Lancashire, where the exterior, hallways and function suite were all used. Other sets, such as the Jocky Wilson suite, were built at Granada Studios. For the second series, all filming took place at St Gregory's. "Max & Paddy's Road to Nowhere" was a spin-off of "Phoenix Nights". Featuring the bouncer characters from the show played by Peter Kay and Paddy McGuinness and even featured at times characters from Phoenix Nights. Notably this did not include the characters portrayed by his former co-writers Neil Fitzmaurice or Dave Spikey, the latter's character instead being represented by a body double in brief scenes. Made for Channel 4 to be shown on a Friday, 6 episodes were made and broadcast from November to December 2004. The DVD of the series was released in October 2005, but unlike previous DVDs does not feature commentary from either Kay or McGuinness, instead opting for "surprise" commentators. In December 2005, a spoof workout DVD was also released, starring McGuinness and Kay, entitled "Max and Paddy's: The Power Of Two". All the music was once again written (or co-written with Peter Kay) by Toni Baker who did all the music for "Phoenix Nights" and "Max & Paddy's Road to Nowhere". On 17 April 2006, Channel 4 broadcast a "Peter Kay Night", showing out-takes from "Phoenix Nights" (previously featured on DVD), a behind-the-scenes documentary of the "Mum Wants a Bungalow" tour and also the whole "Peter Kay Live in Manchester" show. During this evening, Kay was seen in character as Max (from "Max and Paddy's Road to Nowhere" & "Phoenix Nights") discussing the tribute with Paddy (Patrick McGuinness). Max stated that he disliked Peter Kay and thought that Channel 4 was going downhill for dedicating an entire night to him. Paddy wondered why ITV have not snapped up Kay. Max is shown to be ignorant of current events, failing to realise that civil partnerships are now legal and that Elton John has made use of it, to controversial news stories involving Michael Barrymore, Gary Glitter, Diana, Princess of Wales and Michael Jackson. Channel 4 repeated the "Peter Kay Night" on 25 March 2007 and again on 12 October 2008 which included Peter's new show "Peter Kay's Britain's Got the Pop Factor... and Possibly a New Celebrity Jesus Christ Soapstar Superstar Strictly on Ice." Peter wrote Pop Factor with Paul Coleman. Since 2002, Kay has featured in television advertisements for John Smith's beer (despite being teetotal), through which the catchphrase—"'Ave it!"—gained popularity for an unceremonious hoof upfield in a football-themed advert. He later claimed in his autobiography that he never meant to use "ave-it", he just said it after kicking the ball successfully. He also voiced the "Tizer Head" in 2001 advertisements for Tizer, which were used to sponsor . Kay appeared in the Marks and Spencer Christmas advert for 2010 which began airing late October 2010. 2000–2011: Stage shows. Kay has released several DVDs of live performances, including "Live at the Top of the Tower", "Live at the Bolton Albert Halls", "Peter Kay: The Live Collections" (the previous two combined) and "Peter Kay: Live at Manchester Arena". Kay appeared on stage at the "Queen + Paul Rodgers" concert at Manchester's MEN Arena (with Patrick McGuinness) and in London's Hyde Park in 2005 both as himself and in the persona of Brian Potter. Kay also appeared at the BBC's televised charity event Comic Relief in 2003 and 2005, sharing the stage with Alan Partridge (actor Steve Coogan) in 2003. As part of the 2005 event, on 14 March Kay promoted a re-release of Tony Christie's 1971 hit "(Is This the Way to) Amarillo?". The song had earlier featured in "Phoenix Nights", and Kay performed in the accompanying music video. On Sunday 20 March 2005, the single reached number one in the UK Singles Charts, and stayed there for seven consecutive weeks. In 2007 he released "I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles)", originally by the Proclaimers, with Matt Lucas for Comic Relief. Kay introduced British band James at V2007 and again the next year in Liverpool on their 2008 spring tour. He performed a short set and even wrote a request on the setlist, which the band performed as an encore. A recording of this is available on the limited edition Live in 2008 CD sold on the subsequent tour (listed as "a couple of extra bits"). In November 2009, Kay announced that he would play four (later extended to 20) dates in Manchester in April and May 2010 with a tour entitled "The Tour That Doesn't Tour Tour”. The reason given for restricting the tour to Manchester only was so that Peter could remain close to his family. On 27 November 2009 during an interview on Friday Night with Jonathan Ross, Kay announced that, due to the demand and extra dates, the tour will most likely tour, jokingly renaming it The Tour That Doesn't Tour Tour...Now On Tour. Venues for tour include London's O2 Arena, Birmingham's National Indoor Arena and LG Arena, Cardiff International Arena, Sheffield Arena, SECC, Belfast Odyssey, Dublin the O2, Liverpool Arena, Newcastle Metro Radio Arena, which will take place in November 2010 and April 2011 and then end again at Manchester and entitled 'The Tour That Doesn't Tour...Now On Tour...The Farewell Tour'. In October 2010 Kay announced 6 further dates for 2011, due to phenomenal demand. From February 2007, Kay played flamboyant gay director Roger DeBris in the Mel Brooks musical, "The Producers" for the Manchester leg of the UK Tour, at the Palace Theatre, Manchester until 12 May 2007. He reprised his role later in the year at the Scottish Exhibition and Conference Centre, Glasgow. He also appeared in the Royal Variety Performance 2008, which was staged at the London Palladium on Thursday 11 December. He hosted 2009's Royal Variety Performance at the Opera House, Blackpool. He took part in Comic Relief 2013 as himself in his own sketch Peter Kay's stand down. 1998–2005: Film career. Kay's film appearances have included minor roles in, "Going Off Big Time" (2000) with Neil Fitzmaurice, "24 Hour Party People" (2002), "Roddy Smythe Investigates" (2003) and "The League of Gentlemen's Apocalypse" (2005). He also provided a voice to the character PC McIntosh for the film "" (2005). Guest appearances. He appeared in the first episode of the 2002 series of the BBC's comedy-drama Linda Green, playing a pizza delivery man who ended up being something of a soulmate to the eponymous heroine. He has had two cameo roles in "Coronation Street". The first, in the late 1990s, was a brief appearance as a shopfitter, but in January 2004 he co-wrote his own scenes, appearing alongside real-life good friend, Sally Lindsay, who played Shelley Unwin. On 17 June 2006, Kay appeared in a "Doctor Who" episode titled "Love & Monsters". His character, the sinister Victor Kennedy, proved to be an alien called the Abzorbaloff in disguise. Although the episode itself was quite comedic, Kay's role was more serious than those he normally plays. Kay has also appeared twice alongside British band Take That, in "An Audience with Take That" and as Geraldine McQueen in "Take That Come To Town". He also co-wrote "The Winner's Song" and "Once Upon A Christmas Song" with Take That member, Gary Barlow. He made a surprise appearance at The Queen's Diamond Jubilee Concert on 4 June 2012, in which he was dressed as a Beefeater. Chat shows. Kay has appeared on numerous chat shows, including "Parkinson", "The Paul O'Grady Show", "The Jonathan Ross Show" and "The Late Late Show" in Ireland. When he appeared on The Paul O'Grady Show (ITV1) at Christmas 2005, he came on in a Christmas tree costume. For his second appearance with Paul on "The New Paul O'Grady Show" (Channel 4) he was dressed as a Catholic nun wearing a large mask of himself, mimicking the front cover of his new book, The Sound of Laughter. At Christmas 2006 he made a third appearance, this time dressed up as a snowman. On his fourth appearance, on 5 June 2007, he came onto the set dressed as a chicken. He also co-hosted "Top of the Pops" in character as Brian Potter alongside Fearne Cotton in January 2006. In September 2006 he co-presented the Edith Bowman afternoon show on BBC Radio 1 where he revealed that he had written a third series of "Phoenix Nights". In addition two specials of "Max and Paddy's Road to Nowhere" have been penned. On 15 March 2007, he was the first guest of the inaugural recording of Danny Baker's "All Day Breakfast Show". He appeared as a guest on the last ever "Parkinson" show on ITV on 16 December 2007, making a return to the programme on which he'd been a warm-up act years before. He hugged everyone on the show. He also brought with him a bag of 'goodies' including party hats and also a lollipop man's outfit as a joke for Parkinson's use during his retirement. Another appearance on "The Paul O'Grady Show", had him coming into the studio with the same exaggerated mask used on the cover of his autobiography "Saturday Night Peter". The theme tune of "Saturday Night Fever" accompanied him, as well as the white suit also worn on the cover. He also appeared on "Paul O'Grady Live" in 2010. Kay has also appeared on "This Morning" and caused much hilarity with presenters Eamonn Holmes and Ruth Langsford when he appeared in 2009 and 2010, especially when Kay talked about a dog's lipstick and "Embarrassing Bodies". In 2010, it ended with an encounter with Holmes and Kay when Holmes called Langsford a 'Chubby Chaser'. When "The Jonathan Ross Show" was on BBC One, Kay appeared where he announced he would remake the film series Die Hard in Manchester, renamed 'Die Well 'Ard'. When the show moved to ITV, he appeared there and was similarly amusing when he wandered around the set, revealing that the backdrop was not actually a view of the cityscape of London and wore a mixture of moustaches in order to ruin the editing of the show. Other projects. Kay has released three autobiographies, two of them are called "The Sound of Laughter" and "Saturday Night Peter", both books have parody titles of films, The Sound of Music and Saturday Night Fever. He has just recently released a new book named "The Book That's More Than Just a Book". Awards. In 2003, he was listed in "the Observer" as one of the 50 Funniest British Comedians. In addition, he made an appearance in a 2005 poll of comedians and critics to find the "Comedians' Comedian", a search for the 50 greatest funnymen of all time. In March 2005 he also came top in a survey sponsored by the Jongleurs comedy club chain to find Britain's favourite comedian. In 2006, a Channel 4 television show "100 Greatest Funny Moments" voted him at the Number 1 spot, most notably for his stand-up act, "Mum Wants a Bungalow" tour at the Bolton Albert Halls, including his description of a family wedding and Bullseye. Peter Kay was included in the "Independent on Sunday's" "Happy List" in 2009 as "simply Britain's best comedian", and – as an exception to their general rule – was included again in 2010 for also raising funds for Children in Need. Criticism. In 1999, Kay caused controversy with a joke about murdered television presenter Jill Dando. "The Sun" newspaper covered the story on its front page, labelling Kay as a "sick comic". Despite having co-written "Phoenix Nights" with Dave Spikey and Neil Fitzmaurice, Fitzmaurice spoke of his dissatisfaction with Kay taking sole credit when he left their names off the script book. “I can only presume they took out all the bits Dave and I wrote.” Kay was also nominated for a book prize alone. Fitzmaurice added, "The only way I can explain it is that people are affected by fame in different ways. It was basically about a lack of respect, a lack of recognition for me and Dave." Spikey also criticised "Max and Paddy" saying: "Hate to say it but pretty obvious, blatant, unsophisticated comedy for me. But, hey what do I know? It did very well and got nominated for a National TV award so I must be in the minority." In 2001, there was criticism of Kay following his depiction in both "That Peter Kay Thing" and "Phoenix Nights" (series one) of a fire safety officer called Keith Lard. The character seemed to have resemblances to a real-life fire safety officer called Keith Laird. Although the similarity was dismissed as coincidental, Channel 4 were forced to offer an apology and financial compensation to Mr Laird. Stand-up DVDs. In December 2011 it was reported that Kay had sold over 10 million DVDs, a UK record for a comedian and more than the combined sales of best selling films "Avatar" and "Mamma Mia!".
725549	Haviland Morris (born September 14, 1959) is a American film, television, and Broadway actress, who currently works in real estate. Early life. Morris was born in New Jersey and spent much of her childhood in Hong Kong. Her father worked in the electronics industry. Morris graduated from Purchase College, where she was a classmate of Stanley Tucci. Acting career. Haviland Morris is most famous for her role as Caroline Mulford in "Sixteen Candles". Because she's a redhead, Morris wore a blonde wig in the film. Morris would later appear in such feature films as Madonna's "Who's That Girl" (1987) and "" (1990). Morris went on a hiatus in 1991 and did not appear on any movies or TV shows until the fall of 1994. She played Karen Pruitt in "Home Alone 3" in 1997 and Dr. Claire Baxter on "One Life to Live" from 2001–2003. She provided the voice for Michelle Payne in the popular video game "Max Payne". She has appeared in three "Law & Order" series ("Law & Order", ', and '), as well as "Sex and the City" and other shows. Her most recent movie role was in the film "Rick", which starred Bill Pullman. In 2007, she appeared in independent film "Cherry Crush". In 2008, she made several appearances on "One Tree Hill" as a counselor. Personal life. She is married and has a daughter. She currently works as a licensed real estate salesperson. She won the "Rookie of the Year" for her outstanding customer service with the Halstead Real Estate.
1068995	A Simple Noodle Story (), internationally A Woman, a Gun and a Noodle Shop (Blood Simple in the UK) is a 2009 film directed by Zhang Yimou. It is a remake of "Blood Simple", the 1984 debut of the Coen brothers, whose films Zhang Yimou lists as among his favorites. The film transports the original film's plot from a town in Texas to a noodle shop in a small desert town in Gansu province.
1463224	Ganesh Prasad (1876 – 1935) was an Indian mathematician who specialized in the theory of potentials, theory of functions of a real variable, Fourier series and the theory of surfaces. He was trained at the Universities of Cambridge and Göttingen and on return to India he helped develop the culture of mathematical research in India. The mathematical community of India considers Ganesh Prasad as the "Father of Mathematical Research in India". He was also an educator taking special interest in the advancement of primary education in the rural areas of India. Early Days. Ganesh Prasad was born on 15 November 1876 at Ballia, Uttar Pradesh. He obtained the B.A. degree from Muir Central College, Allahabad, M.A. degree from the Universities in Allahabad and Calcutta and the D.Sc. degree from Allahabad University. After teaching at the Kayasth Pathshala, Allahabad, and at the Muir Central College, Allahabad, for about two years, he proceeded to Cambridge for higher studies and research.
1055613	George Richard Beymer, Jr. (born February 20, 1939) is an American actor who is best known for playing the role of Tony in the 1961 film version of "West Side Story", for his performance as Peter in "The Diary of Anne Frank", and as Ben Horne on the 1990 television series "Twin Peaks". Personal life. Beymer was born in Avoca, in Pottawattamie County in southwestern Iowa, the son of Eunice (née Goss) and George Richard Beymer, a printer. He and his family moved in 1940 to Los Angeles, California. In 1961, Beymer began a brief relationship with Sharon Tate, who was working as an extra on his film, "Hemingway's Adventures of a Young Man". Beymer encouraged Tate to pursue an acting career, and after she was introduced to his agent, Tate signed a contract with Filmways. In 1964, he became involved in Freedom Summer in Mississippi. During this time, he filmed an award-winning documentary. Beymer currently resides in Fairfield, Iowa, where he continues to make movies, to write, sculpt, and paint. Film. In the 1950s, he began appearing in films and achieved success in "So Big" (1953), "Johnny Tremain" (1957), "The Diary of Anne Frank" (1959), and "West Side Story" (1961) before sharing a 1962 Golden Globe Award for New Star of the Year - Actor with Bobby Darin and Warren Beatty. Beymer achieved a notable success in the film "The Longest Day" (1962). Television. Beymer began his acting career in Los Angeles, in 1949, in television. In 1957, Beymer appeared on the syndicated American Civil War drama "Gray Ghost" in the episode "An Eye for an Eye". In 1958, he was cast as Joe Belden in the episode "Man Hunt" of the western aviation series, "Sky King", with Kirby Grant and Gloria Winters. Gary Conway was cast in the same episode as Jack Beal. Beymer has appeared in guest roles in television series. These include three appearances on "" as Li Nalas in the episodes "The Homecoming", "The Circle", and "The Siege". Beymer appeared as Dr. Matthew Sheridan with Yasmine Bleeth in 1996 in the made-for-TV movie "The Face", which was also known as "A Face to Die For". In 1984, he played the role of David Fenton, the husband of Mimi Rogers's character on the short-lived show Paper Dolls. He had a featured role in the television series "Twin Peaks" in 1990, playing Ben Horne. Film making. In 1964, Beymer became involved in Freedom Summer in Mississippi. During this time, he filmed the award-winning documentary "A Regular Bouquet: Mississippi Summer", documenting the efforts of volunteers registering African Americans to vote. The avant-garde film "The Innerview", which he directed/produced/wrote the screenplay for/edited, won the Josef von Sternberg Award at the Mannheim-Heidelberg International Filmfestival in 1974. Books. In 2007, Beymer completed his first book. The self-published novel, "Impostor: Or Whatever Happened to Richard Beymer?" The book is a semi-autobiographical account of a young actor's struggle to find himself amidst murder, mystery and mayhem. As visual artist. Beymer's photographs of "Twin Peaks" cast and crew were featured in the gallery of behind the scenes photos on the "Twin Peaks" "Definitive Gold Box Edition" that was released on October 30, 2007. He is also a painter and sculptor.
1100697	Wendelin Werner (born September 23, 1968) is a German-born French mathematician working in the area of self-avoiding random walks, Schramm-Loewner evolution, and related theories in probability theory and mathematical physics. In 2006, at the 25th International Congress of Mathematicians in Madrid, Spain he received the Fields Medal. He is currently professor at ETH Zürich. Werner became a French national in 1977. After a "classe préparatoire" at Lycée Hoche, he studied at the École Normale Supérieure from 1987 to 1991. His 1993 doctorate was written at the Université Pierre-et-Marie-Curie and supervised by Jean-François Le Gall. Werner was a research officer at the CNRS (National Center of Scientific Research, Centre national de la recherche scientifique) from 1991 to 1997, during which period he held a two-year Leibniz Fellowship, at the University of Cambridge. He has been Professor at
1162926	Donald Lee "Don" Stroud (born 1 September 1943) is an American actor and surfer who appeared in many films in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, and has starred in over 100 films and 175 television shows to date. Early life. Stroud was born and grew up in Honolulu, Hawaii, the son of comedian and vaudevillien Clarence Stroud (of the Stroud Twins), and singer Ann Livermore (née McCormack), who toured the world with Frank Sinatra. Stroud's mother and stepfather owned and operated the popular "Embers Steak House" and nightclub where Ann performed nightly. Don thrived on the beach in Waikiki under the watchful eyes of such mentors as Blackout, Mud, Buckshot, Rabbit and Steamboat. Stroud learned much from these famous beach boys, and in 1960, at the age of 17, he placed fourth in the "Duke Kahanamoku World Surfing Championship" at Makaha, Hawaii. He also earned a black belt in the Hawaiian martial art of Kajukenbo Self Defense. Career. Stroud was surfing at Waikiki when he was discovered by actor Troy Donahue who was filming ABC's "Hawaiian Eye" and needed a stunt double for his surfing scenes. Don, at 18, 6'2" and 175 pounds, stepped up and was hired on the spot. He loved the gig so much, he decided to go to Hollywood to give acting a try. Upon arriving in Los Angeles, he landed a variety of jobs, including parking cars, bouncer and then manager of the world famous Whisky a Go Go nightclub on the Sunset Strip, where such greats as Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix and Jim Morrison of the Doors appeared. It was at the "Whisky" that actor Sidney Poitier turned Don on to his acting career. Stroud went on to become one of Hollywood's great heavies and character actors. Stroud co-starred with Clint Eastwood in two films, "Coogan's Bluff" (1968) and "Joe Kidd" (1972). He also appeared in several episodes of CBS's "Hawaii Five-O" and in the Barry Sullivan NBC western series "The Road West". Stroud co-starred in Roger Corman’s film "Von Richthofen and Brown" (1971). Stroud played Roy Brown opposite John Phillip Law’s Baron von Richthofen. Corman used Lynn Garrison's Irish aviation facility, complete with replica World War One aircraft. Garrison taught Stroud the rudiments of flying so that he could manage to take off and land the aircraft, making some of the footage more realistic. On September 16, 1970, Stroud came closer to realism than he expected. During a low-level sequence flying a two-seat SV4C Stampe biplane across Lake Weston, a large bird flew through the propeller’s arc, striking Garrison in the face, knocking him unconscious. The aircraft flew into five powerlines, snap rolled and plunged into the lake inverted. Garrison and Stroud were rescued some time later. Stroud was wet but unhurt. Garrison required 60 stitches to close a head wound. He was flying the next day. Don Stroud starred as real-life jewel thief Jack Murphy, in the movie "Murph the Surf" (1975). He also starred in the horror/thriller "Death Weekend" (1976) and had a supporting role in the cult horror film "The Amityville Horror" (1979). Stroud co-starred in "The Buddy Holly Story" (1978) as the late musician's drummer (in which he actually played the drums), and played a James Bond villain in the film "Licence to Kill" (1989). He played Captain Pat Chambers in the television series "Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer", with Stacy Keach, with whom he co-starred in the film "The Killer Inside Me" (1975). Stroud starred in four television series, notably "The New Gidget" (1986) where he was a natural to play the "Kahuna", "Nash Bridges" (1996–2001), and "" (1996–2000). In 1973, he was paid $10,000 to appear as a nude centerfold in "Playgirl" Magazine's November issue. Don's brother Duke Stroud is also an actor, memorable as the furious air-traffic controller in 1986's "Top Gun". Duke also stages plays and teaches acting at Pasadena City College (Nick Nolte's alma mater). According to the Internet Movie Database, Stroud's work includes an associate producer credit on the 2006 TV series "Good Morning Hawaii" and a role in the 2009 film "Sutures". He also appeared in Quentin Tarantino's "Django Unchained". Stroud made a brief appearance in the new "Hawaii Five-0" on October 10, 2011. In the second season's fourth episode, entitled "Mea Makamae", which means 'Treasure' in Hawaiian, Stroud played a bartender.
1162610	Robert Winthrop Ginty (November 14, 1948 – September 21, 2009) was an American movie actor, producer, scenarist, and director of movies and TV series episodes. Early life. Ginty was born in Brooklyn, New York, the son of Elsie M. (née O'Hara), a government worker, and Michael Joseph Ginty, a construction worker. Ginty was involved with music from an early age, playing with Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Carlos Santana and John Lee Hooker. He studied at Yale and trained at the Neighborhood Playhouse and the Actors Studio. Ginty worked in the regional theater circuit, and New York theatre Broadway. Harold Prince hired him as his assistant after seeing him perform in The New Hampshire Shakespeare Festival Summerstock Company under the direction of John Ogden 1973. Television career. Ginty moved to California in the 1970s, where he found frequent work as a strong-armed player on television action, appearing in different series in the mid-1970s. In 1976, he attained some popularity after finding a steady role starring with Robert Conrad in "Baa Baa Black Sheep", a successful television series about the experiences of United States Marine Corps aviator Pappy Boyington and his squadron of misfits during World War II.
586004	Oduvil Unnikrishnan (13 February 1938 – 27 May 2006) was an award-winning Indian film actor known for his versatile acting skills, shown in his portrayal of classical ancient aristocratic personalities in Malayalam cinema with his unique provincial linguistic style, expressions and dialect. He was noted as a serious as well as comic actor. He composed music for an album named "Parasuram Express" (1984) to lyrics written by Bichu Thirumala and an unreleased film named "Sarvam Saha" directed by Ravi Gupthan. Early life. Oduvil Unnikrishnan was born on 13 February 1938 in Wadakkanchery, Thrissur, Kerala, India to Vadakkancheri Enkakkatt Oduvil Veettil Krishna Menon and Parukkutty Amma. His uncle Sarasakavi Oduvil Unnikrishna Menon was a noted Malayalam dancer. Unnikrishnan was interested in music since his childhood, and he learned vocal music and percussion instruments like mridangam and tabla. His trainer in vocal music was Kalamandalam Vasudeva Panikker. With his knowledge of music instruments, he joined some orchestra groups. He later joined renowned Malayalam theatres like K.P.A.C. and Kerala Kalavedi. His major job in those theatres was that of a tablist. He also sang many songs and composed songs for many albums, like 'Parasuram Express' an album named after the train through the places where it goes. He performed many fill-in roles in plays as well. That was his first experience in acting. Film career. Oduvil Unnikrishnan debuted the film industry in the late 1970s with a role in "Darshanam", directed by P. N. Menon. His second film was "Chenda", directed by A. Vincent. His early notable roles were that of a mahout in "Guruvayur Keshavan", directed by Bharathan and as Subbaiyer in "Sarapanjaram", directed by Hariharan. He earned public recognition through character roles in films directed by Thoppil Bhasi, Hariharan and Sathyan Anthikkad. He has acted in more than 400 films. His memorable roles include those in "Nizhalkuthu", "Kathapurushan", "Thooval Kottaram, Sargam, Yodha, Ponmuttayidunna Tharavu, Oru Cheru Punchiri, Aaram Thamburan" and "Manassinakkare". He could even make very brief roles like that of a idaykka player in "Devasuram", directed by I. V. Sasi.
1163427	Wardell Edwin "Ward" Bond (April 9, 1903 – November 5, 1960) was an American film actor whose rugged appearance and easygoing charm were featured in over 200 movies and the television series "Wagon Train". Biography. Early life. Bond was born in Benkelman, Nebraska, a small town located in the southwestern corner of Nebraska near the Kansas and Colorado borders. The Bond family, John W., Mabel L., and sister Bernice, lived in Benkelman until 1919 when they moved to Denver. Ward graduated from East High School in Denver. Bond attended the University of Southern California and played football on the same team as future USC coach Jess Hill. At 6'2" and 195 pounds, Bond was a starting lineman on USC's first national championship team in 1928.
342061	10 Questions For The Dalai Lama is a 2006 documentary film in which filmmaker Rick Ray meets with Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama at his monastery in Dharamsala, India. The film maker asks him ten questions during the course of the interview which is inter-cut with a biography of Tenzin Gyatso, a history of modern Tibet and a chronicle of Ray's journey securing the interview. Synopsis. The film begins as a chronicle of Rick Ray's journey through India to interview Tenzin Gyatso. The film switches between present and recent past, with stages of the trip introducing sections on the personal history of Tenzin Gyatso, the process used to select a Dalai Lama and Gyatso's journey into exile.
589635	Mere Mehboob ('My Lover') is a 1963 Indian film directed by Harnam Singh Rawail and starring Rajendra Kumar, Sadhana, Ashok Kumar, Nimmi, Pran, Johnny Walker and Ameeta. The film became a "blockbuster" and took the number one position at the box office in 1963. The movie drew a background from Aligarh Muslim University, Aligarh and traditional Lucknow. The famous song "Mere Mehboob Tujhe Mere" was shot in the University Hall and in a couple of places one gets to see the university. The opening scene of the movie shows the famous residential hall and the associated clock tower 'Victoria Gate'. Plot. After bumping into a college girl one day, a young man suddenly finds himself falling hopelessly in love with her. The only problem is that, clad as she is in a traditional burkha, he has only seen her hands. The remaining part explains how he finds her. Over-discreet questioning and misunderstandings lead to a series of mistaken identities and misdirected romances.
1059739	Natasha T. Henstridge (born August 15, 1974) is a Canadian actress and former fashion model. In 1995, she came to prominence with her debut movie role as the genetically engineered human-alien hybrid Sil in the science-fiction thriller "Species". Other notable on-screen roles include "The Whole Nine Yards", "The Whole Ten Yards", "It Had To Be You", "Ghosts of Mars", "She Spies", the TV series "Eli Stone", and the Canadian TV mini-series "Would Be Kings", for which she won the Gemini Award for best actress. Her most recent regular role is as Dawn Chamberlain in the TV series "The Secret Circle". Early life. Henstridge was born in Springdale, Newfoundland, the daughter of Helen Henstridge, a homemaker, and Brian Henstridge, a construction manager and business owner. Her maternal grandparents were from the Mi'kmaq Nation. She was raised in Fort McMurray, Alberta, with her younger brother, Shane. Modeling career. At the age of 14, Henstridge entered the Casablanca Modeling Agency's "Look of the Year" contest and was chosen first runner-up. The following year, she went to Paris to pursue her modeling ambitions. At 15, she was featured on her first magazine cover, the French edition of "Cosmopolitan". Several more magazine covers followed and Henstridge went on to do television commercials for products such as Olay, Old Spice, and Lady Stetson. Her modeling career established, Henstridge moved on to a career in movies. Film. In her 1995 film debut "Species", Henstridge played Sil, a genetically engineered alien/human hybrid created from a message received by SETI, who breaks free from the captivity of a laboratory. Pursued by a team of experts who band together to stop her before she multiplies, Sil embarks on a killing spree while also discovering her powerful instinct to mate. "Species" was an instant hit, making $113 million (USD) at the box office. Notable for its sexual content, the film won Henstridge the MTV Movie award for "best kiss" for a scene in which her character, while kissing an aggressive would-be suitor, impales his head with her tongue. In 1998, she played Eve, a more ambiguous genetic duplicate of Sil, in "Species II", which was a failure at the box office. A few smaller independent movies followed, including "Bela Donna" and "Dog Park", with varied box office returns. Henstridge starred opposite Jean-Claude Van Damme in the action/adventure movie "Maximum Risk". She also starred in the 2000 film "The Whole Nine Yards" and its 2004 sequel "The Whole Ten Yards". Despite having some reservations about the science fiction genre, she signed up for John Carpenter's "Ghosts of Mars" (2001) in the lead role. The film was not well-received, with a 20% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. In 2004, she briefly appeared as Eve in "Species III". Television. Henstridge has played a number of roles on television, for example in "Caracara" and "The Outer Limits". From 2005 to 2006, she had a recurring role on the ABC drama "Commander in Chief", which starred Geena Davis as a fictional female U.S. President. She also hosted "" on TLC, a show about urban legends. She guest-starred in the South Park first season episode "Tom's Rhinoplasty" as a substitute teacher, and was credited as "the chick from Species". Henstridge was working on the TV show "She Spies", prior to its cancellation. She has also completed a TV movie for the Lifetime channel titled "Widow on the Hill". In 2006, she filmed the CTV original mini-series "Would Be Kings" in Hamilton, Ontario, for which she won a Gemini Award. She also starred in the expansion set to the video game , entitled . In 2008, Henstridge played a role on the ABC show, "Eli Stone". She has also been involved with two other productions, joining the cast of Dave Rodriguez's "Anytown", an indie drama that examines a racist high school attack and its aftermath. She has also been involved with the production of "Should've Been Romeo" from American Independent Pictures. In 2009, Henstridge did a guest spot on "The Tonight Show" with Conan O'Brien. During this she demonstrated a Newfoundland custom called "Screeching In" which involved getting O'Brien to drink Newfoundland Screech rum and kiss a large fish. In 2011, she appeared on the Season 9 finale and Season 10 premiere of "" as Renee Locklear. She then starred in the CW TV series "The Secret Circle" as Dawn Chamberlain the widow on the hill. Personal life. Henstridge was married to actor Damian Chapa from 1995 to 1996. She has two sons by actor Liam Waite, who was her companion for several years: Tristan River, born October 1998, and Asher Sky, born September 2001. Henstridge was in a relationship with Darius Campbell, a Scottish singer-songwriter, stage actor, and author, since 2004. They became engaged but broke it off in early 2010, to eventually be married on Valentine's Day, 2011. The couple filed for divorce in July 2013.
1294285	Irving John ("I. J."; "Jack") Good (9 December 1916 – 5 April 2009) was a British mathematician who worked as a cryptologist at Bletchley Park with Alan Turing. After World War II, Good continued to work with Turing on the design of computers and Bayesian statistics at the University of Manchester. Good moved to the United States where he was professor at Virginia Tech. He was born Isadore Jacob Gudak to a Polish-Jewish family in London. He later anglicized his name to Irving John Good and signed his publications "I. J. Good."
1028846	Eric Dane (born November 9, 1972) is an American actor. After appearing in television roles throughout the 1990s and 2000s, he became known for playing Dr. Mark "McSteamy" Sloan on the medical drama television series "Grey's Anatomy", and has recently branched into film, co-starring in "Marley & Me", "Valentine's Day", and "Burlesque. Early life. Dane was born in San Francisco, California to a homemaker mother, Leah, and an interior designer/architect father. He has a younger brother. Dane was raised in his mother's Jewish religion. He attended Sequoia High School in Redwood City, California, from 1987 to 1990, and San Mateo High School in San Mateo, California, from 1990 to 1991, where he graduated. Dane was an athlete in high school, playing on the Boys' Varsity water polo team, but decided to pursue a career in acting after appearing in a school production of Arthur Miller's "All My Sons". Career. In 1993, Dane moved to Los Angeles, where he played small roles in the television series "Saved by the Bell", "The Wonder Years", "Roseanne", and "Married With Children", among others. But in 2000, he was signed for a recurring role in "Gideon's Crossing", and followed this with a two-season run in "Charmed". His made-for-television film credits included two biopics, "Serving in Silence" (about Margarethe Cammermeyer's experiences in the military), and "Helter Skelter", in which he portrayed Charles "Tex" Watson, a member of the Manson family. Dane's first major feature film appearance was in "The Basket" (1999). He also appeared in "Zoe, Duncan, Jack & Jane", "Sol Goode", "Feast", "", and starred in "Open Water 2". In 2005, Dane guested as Dr. Mark Sloan (nicknamed "McSteamy" by Meredith Grey) in "Yesterday," the eighteenth episode of the second season of the ABC medical drama "Grey's Anatomy". Positive audience reaction to the character led to Dane's becoming a regular in the show's third season. His first appearance in the season, in which he walked out of the bathroom soaking wet and wearing only a strategically placed towel, was labeled a "watercooler moment." Dane resigned from the show and appeared on the first two episodes of season 9. In December 2006, he starred in the A&E television film "Wedding Wars" as the brother of a gay man (played by John Stamos) who goes on strike in support of marriage equality. Dane, alongside Patrick Dempsey, appeared in the same big-screen project, the 2010 romantic comedy "Valentine's Day". The Garry Marshall-directed film followed five interconnecting stories about Los Angelenos anticipating (or in some cases dreading) the holiday. In October 2012, Dane joined the main cast of the upcoming Michael Bay produced, TNT drama series "The Last Ship". Personal life. Dane married actress Rebecca Gayheart on October 29, 2004. Dane and Gayheart's first child, a daughter, Billie Beatrice, was born March 3, 2010. On December 28, 2011, the couple's second daughter, Georgia Geraldine, was born. Dane made headlines when he participated in a nude tape with his wife and Kari Ann Peniche. Eric Dane checked himself into rehab in June 2011; he entered a California treatment center to rectify his problem with dependency on prescription drugs after suffering a sports injury.
1064284	Zachary Knight "Zach" Galifianakis ( ; born October 1, 1969) is an American stand-up comedian, actor and pianist known for his numerous film and television appearances including his own "Comedy Central Presents" special. He garnered attention for his role as Alan Garner in "The Hangover" trilogy, directed by Todd Phillips and in the road trip comedy "Due Date" (2010). Early life. Galifianakis was born in Wilkesboro, North Carolina. His mother, Mary Frances (née Cashion), ran a community center for the arts, and his father, Harry Galifianakis, was a heating oil vendor. Galifianakis' paternal grandparents emigrated from Crete, Greece, and Galifianakis was baptized in his father's Greek Orthodox faith. His mother has English, Ulster-Scots, Scottish, Welsh, French, and Irish ancestry. He has two siblings: a younger sister, Merritt, and an older brother, Greg. His cousin is "Washington Post" cartoonist Nick Galifianakis. His uncle, Nick Galifianakis, was a congressman from North Carolina between 1967 and 1973. He attended Wilkes Central High School, and subsequently attended but did not graduate from North Carolina State University, where he was a communications major. Early career. Galifianakis' career began on television, when he played the recurring role of a stoner named Deuce in the short-lived sitcom "Boston Common". Then he joined "Saturday Night Live" as a writer but lasted only two weeks. Galifianakis co-starred in the film "Out Cold" and had small roles in "Corky Romano", "Below", "Bubble Boy", "Heartbreakers", "Into the Wild", "Super High Me", "Little Fish Strange Pond", and "Largo". He had his own episode of "Comedy Central Presents", which first aired in September 2001. It included a stand-up routine and a segment with a piano, and concluded with an a cappella group (The Night Owls, introduced as his "12 ex-girlfriends") singing "Eternal Flame" by The Bangles while he made jokes. In 2002, he was the host of his own VH1 talk show called "Late World with Zach". It featured many of his friends and regular performers from the LA comedy and music venue Largo where he appeared frequently during this time period. One episode featured Largo regulars Jon Brion and Rhett Miller as musical guests. His next television role was as a coroner named Davis in the Fox drama "Tru Calling", which lasted from 2003 to 2005. He has also appeared many times on "Jimmy Kimmel Live!" and has made three appearances on "Reno 911!" as "Frisbee". Galifianakis starred as Alan Finger on the Comedy Central show "Dog Bites Man", a fake news program that caught people during candid moments thinking they were being interviewed by a real news crew. In addition, he was on an episode of the Comedy Central show "The Sarah Silverman Program" as Fred the Homeless Guy. He also had a recurring guest role as a doctor on the animated Adult Swim show "Tom Goes to the Mayor" and appeared in several episodes of "Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job!" in a recurring role as Tairy Greene. In 2006, Galifianakis was featured in Fiona Apple's music video for the song "Not About Love" where he is seen lip-synching the lyrics to the song. A year later Kanye West employed Galifianakis and indie rock musician Will Oldham for similar purposes in the second version of the video for his song "Can't Tell Me Nothing". In June 2006 Galifianakis released the single "Come On and Get It (Up in 'Dem Guts)", a comedic rap/hip-hop/dance song which features Apple's vocals. Galifianakis was, together with Patton Oswalt, Brian Posehn, and Maria Bamford, one of the four Comedians of Comedy, a periodic packaged comedy tour in the style of The Original Kings of Comedy and the Blue Collar Comedy Tour. They chose to perform at live rock clubs as opposed to comedy clubs to try to reach a different audience. Much of the tour was taped, and has been featured in both a short-lived TV series on Comedy Central and a full length movie that has appeared at SXSW and on Showtime. On February 22, 2008, he made an appearance on the "". He interviewed various members of the "Jackass" cast. Galifianakis starred in the independent film "Visioneers" which played in select cities in 2008. This was Galifianakis's first starring role in a film and was given a direct-to-DVD release. That same year, Galifianakis appeared in a web video series of advertisements for Absolut vodka, along with Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim, creating a parody of the "Golden Girls" in which one has a deep anger issue, breaking the fourth wall in exasperation and outright violence on the set. He also completed the pilot "Speed Freaks" for Comedy Central. "Between Two Ferns with Zach Galifianakis". Galifianakis has a series of videos on the Funny or Die website titled "Between Two Ferns With Zach Galifianakis" where he conducts interviews with popular celebrities between two potted ferns. He has interviewed Jimmy Kimmel, Michael Cera, Jon Hamm, Natalie Portman, Charlize Theron, Bradley Cooper (with a brief appearance by Carrot Top), Conan O'Brien and Andy Richter (with a brief appearance by Andy Dick), Ben Stiller, Steve Carell, Sean Penn, Bruce Willis, Tila Tequila, Jennifer Aniston, Will Ferrell, and Justin Bieber. His interview style consists of typical interview questions, bizarre non sequiturs, and sometimes inappropriate sexual questions and comments. Mainstream performances: 2009–present. Galifianakis co-starred as Alan Garner in the hit comedy "The Hangover" and earned the MTV Movie Award for the Best Comedic Performance. Following "The Hangover"'s release, Galifianakis was prominently advertised in subsequent films that featured him in supporting roles. These included "G-Force", "Youth in Revolt", and the Oscar-nominated film "Up in the Air". Galifianakis also played a supporting role in the HBO series "Bored to Death". He hosted "Saturday Night Live" on March 6, 2010 during the show's 35th season, during which he shaved his beard mid-show for a sketch, and then closed the show wearing a fake beard. He hosted again on March 12, 2011 and shaved his head this time, in a Mr. T-like hairstyle, which was allegedly supposed to be used for a sketch that never aired due to time constraints. In 2010, he starred in several films, including "Dinner for Schmucks", "It's Kind of a Funny Story", and "Due Date". On October 29, 2010, while debating marijuana legalization on the show HBO's "Real Time with Bill Maher", Galifianakis appeared to have smoked marijuana on live television; host Bill Maher denied that it was real marijuana in an interview with Wolf Blitzer during an episode of "The Situation Room". In 2011, he returned as Alan Garner in the sequel, "The Hangover Part II", which was set in Thailand and voiced Humpty Dumpty in DreamWorks Animation's "Puss in Boots". Galifianakis starred alongside Will Ferrell in "The Campaign", a political comedy directed by Jay Roach and released in 2012. Personal life. On August 11, 2012, Galifianakis married Quinn Lundberg, co-founder of the Growing Voices charity, at the UBC Farm in Vancouver, British Columbia. Galifianakis and Lundberg are expecting their first child, due in September 2013. He is a frequent user of chewing tobacco. For his character in the 2007 film "Into the Wild", he was asked to put prunes in his mouth to appear as if he was using dipping tobacco; instead, he told them to get him the real stuff.
1060272	Here Comes Mr. Jordan (1941) is a romantic comedy-fantasy film in which a boxer, mistakenly taken to Heaven before his time, is given a second chance back on Earth. It stars Robert Montgomery, Claude Rains and Evelyn Keyes. The movie was adapted by Sidney Buchman and Seton I. Miller from the play "Heaven Can Wait" by Harry Segall. It was directed by Alexander Hall. It won Academy Awards for Best Writing, Original Story and Best Writing, Screenplay. It was nominated for Best Actor in a Leading Role (Robert Montgomery), Best Actor in a Supporting Role (James Gleason), Best Cinematography, Black-and-White, Best Director and Best Picture. "Here Comes Mr. Jordan" was followed by "Down to Earth" (1947), in which two of the actors reprised their roles. It was remade as "Heaven Can Wait" (1978), and "Down to Earth" (2001) (sharing the name with the sequel to "Here Comes Mr. Jordan"). It was also remade in India as "Jhuk Gaya Aasman" (1968). Plot. Boxer and amateur pilot Joe Pendleton (Robert Montgomery) flies his small plane to his next fight in New York City, but crashes when a control cable severs. His soul is "rescued" by 7013, an officious angel (Edward Everett Horton), who assumed that Joe could not have survived. Joe's manager, Max Corkle (James Gleason), has his body cremated. In the afterlife, the records show his death was a mistake; he was supposed to live for 50 more years. The angel's superior, Mr. Jordan (Claude Rains), confirms this, but since there is no more body, Joe will have to take over a newly dead corpse. Mr. Jordan explains that a body is just something that is worn, like an overcoat; inside, Joe will still be himself. Joe insists that it be someone in good physical shape, because he wants to continue his boxing career. Joe keeps saying the body they find "Has to be in the pink", a color that Mr. Jordan finds annoying. Another annoying fact is that Joe has somehow managed to bring his saxophone with him to heaven; it's his good luck charm, on which he plays "The Last Rose of Summer" very badly. After Joe turns down several unsuitable "candidates", Mr. Jordan takes him to see the body of a crooked, extremely wealthy banker-investor named Bruce Farnsworth. Farnsworth's wife Julia (Rita Johnson) and his secretary, Tony Abbott (John Emery) have just drugged and drowned him in a bathtub. Joe is reluctant to take over a life so unlike his previous one, but when he sees the murderous pair mockingly berating Miss Logan (Evelyn Keyes), the daughter of a financier who was sold worthless bonds by Farnsworth's bank, he changes his mind and agrees to be inserted into Farnsworth's body. The audience continues to see Montgomery as Pendleton, but everyone in the film, including his wife and secretary (who are astonished to see that the murder was not successful after all), see and hear Farnsworth. As Farnsworth, Joe reforms. He repays all the investors, including Miss Logan's father. He sends for Corkle and convinces him that he is Joe (by playing his saxophone just as badly as he did in his previous incarnation). With Farnsworth's money to smooth the way, Corkle trains him and arranges a bout with the current heavyweight champion, but Mr. Jordan returns to warn Joe that, while he is destined to be the new champion, it cannot happen that way. Joe has just enough time to warn Miss Logan, with whom he's fallen in love, to look for him in another body, most likely a boxer, before he is shot by his secretary. The body is concealed and Joe returns to a ghostly existence. Accompanied by Mr. Jordan, Joe finds that his replacement in the prizefight with the champ is a clean-cut, honest fighter named Murdoch, whom Joe knows and respects. Finding that he has forgotten his lucky saxophone, Joe runs back to the Farnsworth mansion to find that everyone believes Farnsworth has "disappeared." Corkle has hired a private investigator to find him. The usually down-to-earth Corkle openly explains about Joe, Mr. Jordan and the body-switching, sounding like a Spiritualist (or, as the detective thinks, a nut). Joe manages to mentally nudge Corkle to turn on the radio to the prizefight, and hears that Murdoch has collapsed without even being touched. Mr. Jordan reveals that the boxer was shot by gamblers because he refused to throw the fight. Joe takes over Murdoch's body and wins the fight. Back at the mansion, Corkle hears one of the radio announcers mention a saxophone hanging by the ringside and realizes Joe has assumed Murdoch's body. Corkle races down to the dressing room. There, Joe passes along information from Mr. Jordan that Farnsworth's body is in a refrigerator in the basement of the mansion. Corkle tells the detective (Donald MacBride), who promptly has Mrs. Farnsworth and the secretary arrested. As Murdoch, Joe fires his old, crooked manager and hires Corkle. Mr. Jordan reveals to Joe that this is his destiny; he can be Murdoch and live his life. Healing the gunshot wound and at the same time removing Joe's memory of his past life, Mr. Jordan hangs around for a bit longer until Miss Logan arrives. She wanted to see Corkle, but runs into Murdoch instead. The pair feel they have met before. The two go off together, while Mr. Jordan smiles over another job well done and says "So Long, Champ". Reception. The film was nominated for AFI's Top 10 Fantasy Films list.
1463264	Narayana Pandita () (1340–1400) was a major mathematician of India. Plofker writes that his texts were the most significant Sanskrit mathematics treatises after those of Bhaskara II, other than the Kerala school. He wrote the "Ganita Kaumudi" (lit "Moonlight of mathematics") in 1356 about mathematical operations. The work anticipated many developments in combinatorics. About his life, the most that is known is that: Narayana Pandit had written two works, an arithmetical treatise called "Ganita Kaumudi" and an algebraic treatise called "Bijganita Vatamsa". Narayanan is also thought to be the author of an elaborate commentary of Bhaskara II's Lilavati, titled "Karmapradipika" (or "Karma-Paddhati"). Although the "Karmapradipika" contains little original work, it contains seven different methods for squaring numbers, a contribution that is wholly original to the author, as well as contributions to algebra and magic squares. Narayanan's other major works contain a variety of mathematical developments, including a rule to calculate approximate values of square roots, investigations into the second order indeterminate equation "nq"2 + 1 = "p"2 (Pell's equation), solutions of indeterminate higher-order equations, mathematical operations with zero, several geometrical rules, and a discussion of magic squares and similar figures. Evidence also exists that Narayana made minor contributions to the ideas of differential calculus found in Bhaskara II's work. Narayana has also made contributions to the topic of cyclic quadrilaterals. Narayana is also credited with developing a method for systematic generation of all permutations of a given sequence.
1077583	The Great Global Warming Swindle is a polemical documentary film that suggests that the scientific opinion on climate change is influenced by funding and political factors, and questions whether scientific consensus on anthropogenic global warming exists. The program was formally criticised by Ofcom, the UK broadcasting regulatory agency, which upheld complaints of misrepresentation made by David King. The film, made by British television producer Martin Durkin, presents scientists, economists, politicians, writers, and others who dispute the scientific consensus regarding anthropogenic global warming. The programme's publicity materials assert that man-made global warming is "a lie" and "the biggest scam of modern times." Its original working title was "Apocalypse my arse", but the title "The Great Global Warming Swindle" was later adopted as an allusion to the 1980 mockumentary" The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle" about British punk band the Sex Pistols. The UK's Channel 4 premiered the documentary on 8 March 2007. The channel described the film as "a polemic that drew together the well-documented views of a number of respected scientists to reach the same conclusions. This is a controversial film but we feel that it is important that all sides of the debate are aired." According to Hamish Mykura, Channel 4's head of documentaries, the film was commissioned "to present the viewpoint of the small minority of scientists who do not believe global warming is caused by anthropogenic production of carbon dioxide." Although the documentary was welcomed by global warming sceptics, it was criticised by scientific organisations and individual scientists (including one of the scientists interviewed in the film and one whose research was used to support the film's claims). The film's critics argued that it had misused and fabricated data, relied on out-of-date research, employed misleading arguments, and misrepresented the position of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Later broadcasts corrected three errors which had been found in the original film. The film's producer, Martin Durkin, has asserted that the errors were minor and did not affect the film's conclusions. Viewpoints expressed in the film. The film's basic premise is that the current scientific opinion on the anthropogenic causes of global warming has numerous scientific flaws, and that vested monetary interests in the scientific establishment and the media discourage the public and the scientific community from acknowledging or even debating this. The film asserts that the publicised scientific consensus is the product of a "global warming activist industry" driven by a desire for research funding. Other culprits, according to the film, are Western environmentalists promoting expensive solar and wind power over cheap fossil fuels in Africa, resulting in African countries being held back from industrialising. The film won best documentary award at the 2007 Io Isabella International Film Week. A number of academics, environmentalists, think-tank consultants and writers are interviewed in the film in support of its various assertions. They include the Canadian environmentalist Patrick Moore, former member of Greenpeace but now a critic of the organisation; Richard Lindzen, professor of meteorology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Patrick Michaels, Research Professor of Environmental Sciences at the University of Virginia; Nigel Calder, editor of "New Scientist" from 1962 to 1966; John Christy, professor and director of the Earth System Science Center at University of Alabama; Paul Reiter of the Pasteur Institute; former British Chancellor of the Exchequer Nigel Lawson; and Piers Corbyn, a British weather forecaster. Carl Wunsch, professor of oceanography at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, was also interviewed but has since said that he strongly disagrees with the film's conclusions and the way his interview material was used. Assertions made in the film. The film takes a strongly denialist view of current scientific thinking on climate change. It argues that the consensus on climate change is the product of "a multibillion-dollar worldwide industry: created by fanatically anti-industrial environmentalists; supported by scientists peddling scare stories to chase funding; and propped up by complicit politicians and the media". Using a series of interviews and graphics, the film sets out to challenge the scientific consensus by focusing on what it says are inconsistencies in the evidence, and the role said to have been played by ideology and politics. Evidential issues. The film highlights what it asserts are a number of contradictions and inconsistencies in the evidence supporting man-made global warming. Political issues. The programme makes a number of assertions arguing that the integrity of climate research has been compromised by financial, ideological and political interests: Disputing the global warming consensus. The film argues that the consensus among climate scientists about global warming does not exist. Reception and criticism. The show attracted 2.5 million viewers and an audience share of 11.5%. Channel 4 stated that it had received 758 calls and emails about the programme, with those in favour outnumbering complaints by six to one. Following criticism from scientists the film has been changed since it was first broadcast on Channel 4. One graph had its time axis relabelled, the claim that volcanoes produce more than humans was removed, and following objections about how his interview had been used, the interview with Carl Wunsch was removed for the international and DVD releases of the programme. Other scientific arguments used in the film have been described as refuted or misleading by scientists working in the relevant fields. Critics have also argued that the programme is one-sided and that the mainstream position on global warming, as supported by the scientific academies of the major industrialised nations and other scientific organisations, is incorrectly represented. Complaints received by Ofcom. The British broadcasting regulator, the Office of Communications (Ofcom), received 265 complaints about the programme, one of which was a 176-page detailed complaint co-authored by a group of scientists. Ofcom ruled on 21 July 2008 that the programme had unfairly treated Sir David King, the IPCC and Professor Carl Wunsch. Ofcom also found that part 5 of the programme (the 'political' part) had breached several parts of the Broadcasting Code regarding impartiality; however, the Code rules on impartiality did not apply to the scientific arguments in parts 1–4, because the link between human activity and global warming had largely been settled before March 2007. OfCom did not rule on the programme's accuracy, but did rule that: "On balance it did not materially mislead the audience so as to cause harm or offence." On 4 and 5 August 2008, Channel 4 and More 4 broadcast a summary of Ofcom's findings, though it will not face sanctions. Reactions from scientists. In a BBC interview about this study, Lockwood commented on the graphs shown in the documentary: All the graphs they showed stopped in about 1980, and I knew why, because things diverged after that ... You can't just ignore bits of data that you do not like. Criticism from two scientists featured in the programme. Carl Wunsch. Carl Wunsch, professor of Physical Oceanography at MIT, is featured in the Channel 4 version of the programme. Afterwards he said that he was "completely misrepresented" in the film and had been "totally misled" when he agreed to be interviewed. He called the film "grossly distorted" and "as close to pure propaganda as anything since World War Two", and he lodged a complaint with Ofcom. He particularly objected to how his interview material was used: In the part of The Great Climate Change Swindle where I am describing the fact that the ocean tends to expel carbon dioxide where it is warm, and to absorb it where it is cold, my intent was to explain that warming the ocean could be dangerous—because it is such a gigantic reservoir of carbon. By its placement in the film, it appears that I am saying that since carbon dioxide exists in the ocean in such large quantities, human influence must not be very important—diametrically opposite to the point I was making—which is that global warming is both real and threatening. Filmmaker Durkin responded: Carl Wunsch was most certainly not 'duped' into appearing in the film, as is perfectly clear from our correspondence with him. Nor are his comments taken out of context. His interview, as used in the programme, perfectly accurately represents what he said.
1763897	The Stranger Within is a 1974 science fiction film that premiered on ABC on October 1, 1974, as the ABC Movie of the Week. The film was inspired by "Rosemary's Baby", but included a science-fiction twist. The film was directed by Lee Philips and starred Barbara Eden and George Grizzard. Plot. Ann Collins (Barbara Eden), a painter, and her husband David Collins (George Grizzard) are expecting a baby. What confuses the couple is that David has had a vasectomy, and Ann is not supposed to be pregnant. Even though David suspects that Ann has been unfaithful to him, he stays with her. Because Ann has had pregnancy troubles in the past that has put her health at risk, David wants Ann to get an abortion, but every time the two try to go to get the procedure done, Ann experiences extreme labor pains and can never go through with the procedure. Throughout the course of her pregnancy, Ann has strange cravings for black coffee, raw meat, and massive amounts of salt. She also exhibits personality and physical changes, including wanting to read books constantly, enduring freezing temperatures, developing acutely sensitive hearing, taking long and strenuous walks in the mountains, an inability to listen to other people, and healing her injuries within minutes. David wants Bob (David Doyle), a hypnotist, to see if he can obtain any information about why Ann is acting so strangely. Ann does not say a word, even when she is hypnotized. One day when Ann comes home from one of her walks in the mountains, she finds David, Bob, and Phyllis (Joyce Van Patten), Ann's friend, waiting for her. She quickly drinks boiling hot coffee to catch her breath, and David notices that the coffee makes her drunk. Bob tries hypnotizing Ann again, and an extraterrestrial being starts speaking through her. The being says that his father banished him to this warm planet (Earth) and that he wants to go back to his home where it is “cool”. He says that Ann was impregnated while she was in the mountains painting. After the alien stops talking through Ann, she finally falls to sleep. During the night, Ann sneaks out to an abandoned house in the woods, where she gives birth. She walks into the woods, where many other women are also walking with their alien babies. David looks at one of Ann’s paintings, depicting the alien being's home planet. The painting starts to smoke. David looks out the window and screams Ann’s name, as he watches a space ship take Ann to the alien’s home planet. DVD release. "The Stranger Within" was released on Region 1 DVD on October 6, 2009 from the online Warner Bros. Archive Collection.
591946	Amrutha Varshini () is a 1997 Indian Kannada drama film directed by Dinesh Babu and starring Ramesh Aravind, Suhasini and Sharath Babu in the lead roles. Trivia. Directed by Dinesh Baboo, the movie takes us through the mind of Ramesh, who falls in love with the already married Suhasini (Sharath Babu, her husband) and their journey through their lives and the events that unfold. The movie has a large number of songs, sung by SPB and K. S. Chithra. The music composition is by Deva to the lyrics of K. Kalyan. The movie is remade into Malayalam as "Mazhavillu" by the same director. The songs of the movie are all time hit melodies which continue to be heard daily on the FM channels.
1059429	Chicken Run is a 2000 British stop-motion animation family comedy film made by the Aardman Animations studios and directed by Peter Lord and Nick Park. It was the first feature-length film by Aardman and the first produced in partnership with DreamWorks, which co-financed and distributed the film. The film features the voices of Julia Sawalha, Mel Gibson, Timothy Spall, Phil Daniels, Tony Haygarth and Miranda Richardson. "Chicken Run" received very positive reviews, and was a box office hit. The plot centres around a band of chickens who see a smooth-talking Rhode Island Red named Rocky as their only hope to escape from certain death when the owners of their farm decide to move from selling eggs to selling chicken pot pies. The film was initially part of a five-picture deal between DreamWorks and Aardman Animations, which was never completed, due to the companies' splitting over 'creative differences'. Plot. The Tweedys are a middle-aged couple who run a struggling chicken farm somewhere in Yorkshire, England, circa the 1950s. Mrs. Tweedy (voiced by Miranda Richardson) is the ill-tempered (she suffers mental breakdown) brains of the pair, while Mr. Tweedy (voiced by Tony Haygarth) is much less intelligent but can readily do the farm's manual work. The coop is run in the style of a World War II POW camp, with the chickens accountable for the number of eggs they lay daily. Their unofficial leader Ginger (voiced by Julia Sawalha) has attempted numerous escapes, often using contraband smuggled in by a pair of rats named Nick and Fetcher (voiced by Timothy Spall and Phil Daniels). However, Ginger is routinely captured by Mr. Tweedy and his dogs and is later thrown into a coal bin for solitary confinement. Ginger is released from the bin just in time for roll call the next day, when Mrs. Tweedy removes one chicken who has laid no eggs for a week and kills her with a hatchet for the Tweedys' dinner. Ginger becomes increasingly desperate to find a plan of escape which will work, but faces problems with Nick and Fetcher, who are tired of being paid with chicken feed and want their own eggs instead. Mrs. Tweedy soon realises that the couple's farm is failing and reads a catalogue on an ambiguous method of increasing profits. Realising something is wrong, Ginger attempts to rally the other chickens' spirits so they will speed up their efforts to escape. However, she soon concludes that their only viable plan is to go over the fence, something that has not been tried yet. As she sits outside the coop that night, she sees a Rhode Island Red cockerel named Rocky (voiced by Mel Gibson), who hurtles over the fence and crash-lands in the coop. The other chickens fawn over Rocky, while Ginger finds a torn section of a poster that appears to show Rocky flying. After Ginger discovers that Rocky is from a circus, she agrees to hide him from his owners if he teaches them how to fly. Rocky reluctantly agrees, but says he cannot show them immediately because he injured his wing in the crash. Instead, Rocky puts Ginger and the other chickens through a set of exercises that seem to have no purpose, while assuring them that they are making progress. The chickens are surprised by a large piece of equipment being delivered to the farm, followed by Mrs. Tweedy's order to double their feed rations. Ginger concludes that the Tweedys are trying to fatten the chickens up and then kill them all, leading to an argument between her and Rocky over telling the chickens the truth and not destroying their morale. Discovering that Ginger's news has sent them into a depression, Rocky organises a party using a radio procured by Nick and Fetcher. Rocky's wing has fully healed by now, but before Ginger can persuade him to give a flying demonstration, she is taken by Mr. Tweedy for a test of their new equipment - a machine for making chicken pot pies.
900291	Kerstin Anita Marianne Ekberg (born 29 September 1931) is a Swedish actress, model, and cult sex symbol. She is best known for her role as Sylvia in the 1960 Federico Fellini film "La Dolce Vita", which features the legendary scene of her cavorting in Trevi Fountain alongside Marcello Mastroianni. Early life. Ekberg was born on 29 September 1931, in Malmö, Skåne, the eldest girl and the sixth of eight children. In her teens, she worked as a fashion model. In 1950, Ekberg entered the Miss Malmö competition at her mother's urging leading to the Miss Sweden contest which she won. She consequently went to the United States to compete for the Miss Universe title despite not speaking English. Early career. Though she did not win Miss Universe, as one of six finalists she did earn a starlet's contract with Universal Studios, as was the rule at the time. In America, Ekberg met Howard Hughes, who at the time was producing films and wanted her to change her nose, teeth and name (Hughes said "Ekberg" was too difficult to pronounce). She refused to change her name, saying that if she became famous people would learn to pronounce it, and if she did not become famous it would not matter. As a starlet at Universal, Ekberg received lessons in drama, elocution, dancing, horseriding and fencing. She appeared briefly in the 1953 Universal films, "Abbott and Costello Go to Mars" and "The Golden Blade". Ekberg skipped many of her drama lessons, restricting herself to horseriding in the Hollywood Hills. Ekberg later admitted she was spoiled by the studio system and played instead of pursuing bigger film roles. Mainstream career. The combination of a colourful private life and physique gave her appeal to gossip magazines such as "Confidential" and to the new type of men's magazine that proliferated in the 1950s. She soon became a major 1950s pin-up. In addition, Ekberg participated in publicity stunts. Famously, she admitted that an incident where her dress burst open in the lobby of London's Berkeley Hotel was pre-arranged with a photographer. By the mid-1950s, after several modelling jobs, Ekberg finally broke into the film industry. She guest starred on "Casablanca" and "Private Secretary." She had a small part in "Blood Alley" (1955) starring John Wayne and Lauren Bacall. She appeared alongside the Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis comedy act in "Artists and Models" (1955) and "Hollywood or Bust" (1956) both for Paramount Pictures. For a while she was publicized as "Paramount's Marilyn Monroe." Paramount cast her in "War and Peace," which was shot in Rome in 1956 alongside Mel Ferrer and Audrey Hepburn before RKO gave the actress her first leading role in "Back from Eternity." Ekberg would go on to appear in "Man in the Vault" and "Zarak" both in 1956. The productions were minor and left a small impact on her career. In 1957, she starred in the British drama "Interpol" with Victor Mature and Valerie also in 1957 with Sterling Hayden. In 1958, she appeared in two high-profile films, where she co-starred with Bob Hope in "Paris Holiday" and starred with Philip Carey and Gypsy Rose Lee in "Screaming Mimi." After starring in the European releases "Sheba and the Gladiator" in 1959, Ekberg's career began to decline. In 1960, Federico Fellini gave Ekberg her greatest role in "La Dolce Vita," in which she played the unattainable "dream woman" opposite Marcello Mastroianni. The film has been released in the languages of English, French, German, and Italian. After this, she accepted a fairly good role in "The Dam of the Yellow River" in 1960. She then appeared in "Boccaccio '70" (1962), a film that also featured Sophia Loren and Romy Schneider. Soon thereafter, Ekberg was being considered to play the first Bond girl, Honey Ryder in "Dr. No," but the role went to an unknown Ursula Andress. In 1963, Ekberg would go on to co-star with Andress, Frank Sinatra, and Dean Martin in the western-comedy "4 for Texas." Fellini would call her back for two more films: "I clowns "(1972), and "Intervista " (1987), where she played herself in a reunion scene with Mastroianni. Personal life. Ekberg was married to the British actor Anthony Steel from 1956 to 1959 and married to Rik Van Nutter, also an actor, from 1963 to 1975. In an interview, she said she wished she had a child, however stating the opposite on another occasion. Ekberg has not lived in Sweden since the early 1950s and rarely visits the country. However, she has welcomed Swedish journalists into her house outside Rome and in 2005 appeared in the popular radio program "Sommar," where she talked about her life. She stated in an interview that she would not move back to Sweden before she dies where she will be buried. Ekberg said the Swedish people and media have not appreciated her sufficiently. Nevertheless, her personal and radio appearances have been popular in Sweden. On 19 July 2009, she was admitted to the San Giovanni Hospital in Rome after falling ill in her home in Genzano according to a medical official in its neurosurgery department. She had been living in Italy for many years. Despite her condition not being serious Ekberg was put under observation in the facility. In December 2011, it was reported that the 80-year-old Ekberg was "destitute" following three months in a hospital with a broken thigh in Rimini, during which her home was robbed and badly damaged in a fire. Ekberg applied for help from the Fellini Foundation, itself in difficult financial straits.
1040383	Jodhi Tania May (born Jodhi Tania Edwards; 8 May 1975, some sources indicate 1 May 1975 and 30 November 1974) is an English stage, film and television actress. She remains the youngest recipient of Best Actress award at the Cannes Film Festival. Early life. She was born Jodhi Tania Edwards in 1975 in Camden Town, London, to a French-Turkish mother and German father. Her name was later legally changed to Jodhi Tania May. Her mother, Jocelyn Hakim, is an art teacher of French-Turkish Jewish descent, who as a student arranged to marry artist-designer Malcolm McLaren to obtain citizenship, paying him £50 to marry her in a Lewisham register office in 1972. They later divorced, a move that cost McLaren’s grandmother £2000 to secure for him. Jodhi has not publicly identified her father, besides stating he is German. She was educated at Camden School for Girls. May first acted at the age of 12 in 1988's "A World Apart". The role earned her a Best Actress award at the 1988 Cannes Film Festival, shared with her co-stars Barbara Hershey and Linda Mvusi. Other than a brief lull while studying English at Wadham College, Oxford, she has had near constant work since her debut, and can regularly be seen on film, television and the British stage. Career. Notable roles have included Alice Munro in Michael Mann's "The Last of the Mohicans", Lea Papin in "Sister My Sister", Florence Banner in "Tipping the Velvet", Anne Boleyn in the first adaptation of "The Other Boleyn Girl", and Sabina Spielrein in the play "The Talking Cure". In 2002, May wrote and directed a short film called "Spyhole". In August 2005, May appeared in "Blackbird" by David Harrower alongside Roger Allam at the Edinburgh Festival in a production by German star director Peter Stein. The play got a transfer to the Albery Theatre, London in February 2006. "Blackbird" subsequently won a best new play award. In 2010, she played the lead role of Kay in Mark Haddon's play Polar Bears at the Donmar Warehouse. May played Janet Stone in the 2011 noir thriller "I, Anna", alongside Gabriel Byrne, Charlotte Rampling, Eddie Marsan, and Honor Blackman.
1103421	Gerd Faltings (born 28 July 1954) is a German mathematician known for his work in arithmetic algebraic geometry. Life. Faltings was born in Gelsenkirchen. From 1972 to 1978, he studied mathematics and physics at the University of Münster. In 1978 he received his PhD in mathematics and in 1981 he got the "venia legendi" (Habilitation) in mathematics, both from the University of Münster. During this time he was an assistant professor at the University of Münster. From 1982 to 1984, he was professor at the University of Wuppertal. After that he was professor at Princeton University from 1985 to 1994. He was awarded the Fields Medal in 1986 for proving the Mordell conjecture, which states that any non-singular projective curve of genus "g" > 1 defined over a number field "K" contains only finitely many "K"-rational points. Since 1994 he has been a director of the Max Planck Institute for Mathematics in Bonn. In 1996, he received the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, which is the highest honour awarded in German research.
358111	Space Jam is a 1996 American family live-action/animated sports comedy film starring Michael Jordan and featuring the "Looney Tunes" characters. The film was produced by Ivan Reitman, and directed by Joe Pytka, with Tony Cervone and Bruce W. Smith directing the animation. A fictional account of Jordan's first retirement from the NBA, the film was released theatrically by Warner Bros. under the Family Entertainment brand label on November 15, 1996. It plays out as an alternate story of Jordan's initial return to basketball, this time with him being inspired by Bugs Bunny and others. Despite mixed reviews from critics, "Space Jam" was a box office success, opening at #1 in the US, and grossing over $230 million worldwide. Plot. The film opens in 1973 with a young Michael Jordan practicing basketball shots late at night and then segues to footage of Michael as a pro basketball player at his prime. In 1993, professional basketball player Michael Jordan announces his retirement from the NBA to follow in his father's footsteps and turns to a career in baseball. Meanwhile the Nerdlucks, a group of criminal aliens led by their boss Mister Swackhammer (voiced by Danny DeVito), plot to capture the Looney Tunes characters, who really exist in a secret animated world called Tune Land (hidden under planet Earth), and make them their newest attractions at Moron Mountain, a failing amusement park. Swackhammer believes enslaving the Tunes in this way will bring in more customers and save Moron Mountain from foreclosure.
1028350	Afterschool is a 2008 drama film filmed, written, and directed by Antonio Campos. Filmed at the Pomfret School in Pomfret, Connecticut, Afterschool premiered at the 2008 Cannes Film Festival in the program Un Certain Regard. The film gained an Independent Spirit Award and Gotham Award nomination for Campos and won the Jury Prize for experimental narrative film at the Nashville Film Festival. Plot. While doing a film project at a private school, internet-video obsessed teenager Robert (Ezra Miller) catches two twins dying due to drugs contaminated with rat poison. Confused, Robert does not call for help but rather simply walks over to the girls and sits on the floor with them, pulling one into his lap as she dies. This scene, caught on security camera and by another student on a cell phone, is repeatedly shown, but always from the same angle: with Robert's back to the viewer. The viewer cannot see her death but only hear her cries slowly subside. This is all caught on a video camera Robert was using for a school project. The girls die. An atmosphere of paranoia and unease sets in among students and teachers, Robert being affected as well. The school claims that the drugs were bought outside the school and enforces a new, much harsher, drug policy wherein bags are searched and students are expelled. Robert and another student, Amy (Addison Timlin), are assigned to make a memorial video. The school is not happy with the result and has it re-edited, to make a smoother version. While making the video, Robert and Amy begin a romantic relationship, wherein they both have sex for the first time in a wooded area. However, it is later hinted that Amy and Rob's roommate may be involved romantically, as well. He fights with his roommate, who sold the drugs to the twins, and shouts that he killed the girls. The school questions him about this accusation, and is relieved that Robert says it was not substantiated. Robert is asked to take a leave of absence from the school. Toward the end of the film, we are finally shown the scene of the girls' deaths from the front and see Robert pressing his hand over her mouth and nose, smothering her. Later, Robert is shown at the school nurse, taking a daily dose of pills, showing that Robert is now on medication,The film ends as an unseen person with a cell phone videos him while he looks at two pictures of the deceased twins. Reception. The film currently holds a 78% 'Fresh' rating on review aggregate website Rotten Tomatoes, with the consensus "Antonio Campos' "Afterschool" is an intelligent, ambitious debut that boasts strong performances and plenty of ideas."
1054630	The Duellists is a 1977 historical drama film that was Ridley Scott's first feature film as a director. It won the Best Debut Film award at the 1977 Cannes Film Festival. The basis of the screenplay is the Joseph Conrad short story "The Duel" (titled "Point of Honor" in the United States) published in "A Set of Six". Plot. In Strasbourg in 1800, fervent Bonapartist and obsessive duellist Lieutenant Gabriel Feraud (Harvey Keitel) of the French 7th Hussars nearly kills the nephew of the city's mayor in a sword duel. Under pressure from the mayor, Brigadier-General Treillard (Robert Stephens) sends a member of his staff, Lieutenant Armand d'Hubert (Keith Carradine) of the 3rd Hussars, to put Feraud under house arrest. As the arrest takes place in the house of Mme. DeLeon (Jenny Runacre), a prominent local lady, Feraud takes it as a personal insult from d'Hubert, and matters are made worse when Feraud asks d'Hubert if he would "let them spit on Napoleon" and d'Hubert doesn't immediately reply. Upon reaching his quarters, Feraud challenges d'Hubert to a duel. However, the duel is inconclusive; d'Hubert slashes Feraud's forearm but is unable to finish him because he is attacked by Feraud's housemaid. As a result of his part in the duel, d'Hubert is dismissed from the General's staff and returned to active duty with his unit. The war intervenes in the men's quarrel and they do not meet again until six months later in Augsburg in 1801. Feraud immediately challenges d'Hubert to another duel and seriously wounds him. Recovering, d'Hubert takes lessons from a fencing master and in the next duel (held in a cellar with heavy sabres) the two men fight each other to a standstill. Soon afterwards, d'Hubert is relieved to learn he has been promoted to captain. Military protocol forbids officers of different ranks from fighting one another. The action then moves forwards to 1806 when d'Hubert is serving in Lübeck. He is shocked to hear that the 7th Hussars have arrived in the city and that Feraud is now also a captain. Aware that in two weeks time he is himself to be promoted to major, d'Hubert attempts to slip away but is spotted by Feraud's perpetual second and Feraud challenges him to another duel which is to be fought on horseback with sabres. The duel is won by d'Hubert because he slashes Feraud across the forehead which prevents him from continuing because the cut bleeds heavily into his eyes. Soon afterwards, Feraud's regiment is posted to Spain. The pair do not meet again until they chance upon each other during the French Army's disastrous Retreat from Moscow in 1812. However before they can restart their quarrel, Cossacks attack forcing d'Hubert and Feraud to fight together rather than each other. Two years later, after Napoleon's exile to Elba, d'Hubert is a brigadier-general recovering from a leg wound at the home of his sister Leonie (Meg Wynn Owen) in Tours. She introduces him to Adele (Cristina Raines), niece of her neighbour (Alan Webb). The couple fall in love and are married. A Bonapartist agent (Edward Fox) attempts to recruit d'Hubert as rumours of Napoleon's imminent return from exile abound. But d'Hubert refuses to command a brigade if the Emperor returns from Elba. However when Feraud, who is now also a brigadier-general and a leading Bonapartist, hears this, he declares d'Hubert is a traitor to the Emperor. He claims that he always suspected d'Hubert's loyalty, which is why he challenged him to a duel in the first place. After Napoleon is defeated at Waterloo, d'Hubert joins the army of Louis XVIII. Feraud is arrested and is expected to be executed for his part in the Hundred Days. However d'Hubert approaches the Minister of Police Joseph Fouché (Albert Finney) and persuades him to release Féraud (without revealing d'Hubert's part in his reprieve). Feraud is paroled to live under police supervision in a certain province. After Féraud learns of d'Hubert's promotion in the new French Army, he sends two former officers to seek out d'Hubert so he can challenge him to a duel with pistols. Eventually the two men meet in a ruined château on a wooded hill. Feraud rapidly discharges both his pistols before being caught at point blank range by d'Hubert. However d'Hubert refuses to shoot him because tradition dictates he now owns Feraud's life. Instead he informs Feraud he must now submit to his decision that in all future dealings Feraud shall conduct himself "as a dead man". The duel finally come to an end, d'Hubert returns to his life and happy marriage while Feraud returns to his provincial exile. Historical basis. The Conrad short story evidently has its genesis in the real duels that two French Hussar officers fought in the Napoleonic era. Their names were Dupont and Fournier-Sarlovèze, whom Conrad disguised slightly, changing Dupont into d'Hubert and Fournier into Féraud. In "The Encyclopedia of the Sword", Nick Evangelista wrote: As a young officer in Napoleon's Army, Dupont was ordered to deliver a disagreeable message to a fellow officer, Fournier, a rabid duellist. Fournier, taking out his subsequent rage on the messenger, challenged Dupont to a duel. This sparked a succession of encounters, waged with sword and pistol, that spanned decades. The contest was eventually resolved when Dupont was able to overcome Fournier in a pistol duel, forcing him to promise never to bother him again. They fought their first duel in 1794 from which Fournier demanded a rematch. This rematch resulted in at least another 30 duels over the next 19 years in which the two officers fought mounted, on foot, with swords, rapiers and sabres. Critical reception. The film has been compared to Stanley Kubrick's "Barry Lyndon". In both films, duels play an essential role. In his commentary for the DVD release of his film Scott comments that he was trying to emulate the lush cinematography of Kubrick's film, which approached the naturalistic paintings of the era depicted. The film is lauded for its historically authentic portrayal of Napoleonic uniforms and military conduct, as well as its generally accurate early-nineteenth-century fencing techniques as recreated by fight choreographer William Hobbs. The military adviser was well-known military historian Richard Holmes. The main locations used for shooting the film were in and around Sarlat-la-Canéda in the Dordogne region of France. Home media. On 29 January 2013, Shout! Factory released the film on Blu-ray.
583787	Pudhukottaiyilirundhu Saravanan () is a 2004 Tamil action romance film written and directed by S. S. Stanley. The film featured Dhanush and newcomer Aparna Pillai in lead roles, while Karunas played a supporting role. After this film, Dhanush was called Indian Bruce Lee. The music for the was scored by Yuvan Shankar Raja, while Krishnakanth produced the venture. The film was released on 14 January 2004, coinciding with Thai Pongal, and received an average response commercially and critically. It grossed 15 crore at the box office. The film was later dubbed and released as "Sourya" in Telugu. Plot. This movie is copied from a 2000 German-Turkish road movie 'Im Juli'(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Im_Juli)... Saravanan's(Dhanush) parents manage to send him to Singapore after having gone through a severe financial drought thinking that he would pay off all their debts as soon as he lands in Singapore. But little do they know that their son would be charged for murder there. Saravanan finds a job in Singapore through an agent and lands there with high hopes of earning 3 lakh and sending back to his family. Put up in a cramped apartment, Saravanan gets into an argument with some Chinese immigrant there.One day, he burns Saravanan's passport and with anger on him, Saravanan start's fighting him. The Chinese guy kills himself by running in towards him trying to kill him with a fire extinguisher, where Saravanan goes by the side, and falls onto the ground on the second block of the apartment. Everyone thinks that Saravanan's is responsible for this. On his agent's advice, Saravanan goes on the run. Shalini (Aparna) lives a luxurious life with her uncle in Singapore. Her parents and other relatives live in India. Shalini's uncle gets into a huge debt and ends up pawning Shalini in a gamble. After losing the bet he escapes at gunpoint. He finds Saravanan and he makes a request for Saravanan that he takes Shalini back safely to her family in India, and in return he will get the amount of money he has been wishing for, 3 Lakh as payment. Now Saravanan and Shalini are on the run, when he agrees with this. Since Saravanan does not have a passport and is being searched by Singapore police, with the help of Vimal(Karunas) Saravanan gets a duplicate passport. The two had to walk, hitchhike a ride or steal a car and travel all the way by road through Malaysia, Thailand and Burma to get to India. They sing, dance, make merry and also earn some money in the bargain. On the way, the problems they encounter make them both come close.They hitchhike a ride on a jeep so they could get to Malaysia where the two were covered in vegetables so they would not get noticed by the police but there were border checking, when one of the checker put a sword inside the vegetables on the jeep to see if anyone's hiding there, there was nothing. Shalini was safe but Saravanan got injured by this, as the Jeep drove on. As they arrive to Malaysia, after the usual initial dislike on them in Singapore, Shalini Falls in love with Saravanan. One day, Saravanan tells her that he is getting married to his relative by the decision of their parents, but he hasn't seen her face before. By hearing this, Shalini felt sad, but she still loves him as they continue on their journey by walking. However, they have crossed the border of Malaysia safely by wearing a school girls uniform and pretending that they are schoolgirls going on a trip with other girls. As they reach Thailand, Saravanan starts to help by doing some odd jobs to get money. Shalini spends that money on a tattoo and Saravanan got angry with this, but as she shows him what she puts, it was his name tattooed on her chest showing how much love she has on him. Saravanan got shocked by this and later on starts to develop a little feelings on her. They continued on their journey by hitchhiking a ride to get to the border of Thailand so they could reach Burma. As they reach Burma by boat and ship, they don't have any money on them for food, because of spending the last money on an alcohol to make themselves feel warm when it was cold in the coast of Burma. There were people betting an arm wrestle to win money, however Saravanan had a bet and won the arm wrestle and gets all the coins and cash they had. Now they're finally coming to the ending of crossing the border, but this time they sneak in through the heavily guarded Burma-Indian border, under the cover of a sandstorm that has forced the army to take refuge in their tents. On December 14 they finally reach India and Shalini is handed over to her parents safely. Her parents give Saravanan 3 lakhs and the moment has come to part. Shalini talks to Saravanan and tells him if he has feelings for her, he should come back to the same location after 2 months February 14. Shalini goes home with her parents and Saravanan goes back to Pudhukottai. Now, he finds himself thinking about Shalini. Did Saravanan go back to the location to accept Shalini's love? Production. Stanley who won critical acclaim for his debut in "April Madhathil" collaborated with Dhanush, who had given back-to-back hits in "Kadhal Kondein" and "Thiruda Thirudi" to make a film. Aparna Pillai won the Miss Chennai contest as a student and was sent to other pageants including the Miss Petite International contest in the United States. The director Stanley saw an article which appeared in The Hindu about her trip to the USA and asked her to come for a make-up test, before selecting to play the female lead in the film. "Pudhukottaiyilirundhu Saravanan" was the first Tamil film after MGR's 1973 Tamil film "Ulagam Sutrum Valiban" to have scenes shot in Thailand. The film was shot also in Singapore, Malaysia and Pulicat in Thiruvallur District, India. The song with Tharika was shot at a huge set, complete with waterfalls and a pond at the Prasad Studios erected by art director Santhanam, it took about five days to shoot the song. The film was sold to distributors for Rs 11 crore, showing the actor's high market value at the box office. Release. The film won mixed reviews with a critic from The Hindu noting that "Story wise there's nothing much. All the same there are no boring villains or a contrived climax. Intended to be a light film, it stays that way till the end, but the director could have given a thought to the plausibility angle." Dhanush's fight scene were amazing, After this film Dhanush was called as the Indian Bruce Lee. Aparna, who made her debut in this film, her performance were superb. The film became a hit at the box office. It ran for 50 days and grossed 10 crore in the box office.", The relationship between the two once they go on the run is enjoyable. Their little fights are sweet and small sequences are cute and funny. Their falling for each other doesn't seem too cinematic and the way their characters are shaped makes it easy to believe when they gradually develop feelings for each other. The climax is short and effective. The film was later dubbed and released as "Sourya" in Telugu. Post-release it was caught in controversy when a song, to which the lyrics had been censored, was shown uncut. Dhanush says he is innocent and has nothing to do with all these controversies. Soundtrack. The soundtrack of the film, composed by Yuvan Shankar Raja and released on 4 December 2003, features 6 tracks and was hailed as the highight of the film. Yuvan Shankar Raja himself sang two songs and hero Dhanush sang the song 'Naatu Sarakku', debuting as a playback singer as well. Lyrics were penned by Pa. Vijay, Thamarai, Snehan and Na. Muthukumar. Pudhu Kaadhal and Malargale are melodious while Baby Baby is catchy with its lyrics making a nice transition from English to Tamil. Tracklist
729708	Murder by Decree (1979) is a British-Canadian thriller film involving Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson in the case of the serial murderer Jack the Ripper. As Holmes investigates London's most infamous case, he finds that the Ripper has friends in high places. The film's story of the plot behind the murders is taken from the book "" by Stephen Knight. The original script contained the names of the historical suspects, Sir William Gull, 1st Baronet and John Netley. In the actual film, they are referred to as Thomas Spivy (Gull) and William Slade (Netley). This plot device was later used in other Jack The Ripper-themed films. Production. The film was directed by Bob Clark. It stars Christopher Plummer and James Mason as Holmes and Watson, respectively, and presents a largely different version of Holmes from the Rathbone days, with the aesthete still prevailing, yet tinged with a humanity and emotional empathy. James Mason's Dr. Watson is also a departure. Although he may appear at first to resemble the bumbling Nigel Bruce version of the character, he soon shows his level head and scientific and medical training to be valuable assets. The supporting cast includes Donald Sutherland, Susan Clark, John Gielgud, Anthony Quayle, David Hemmings and Geneviève Bujold. Frank Finlay plays Inspector Lestrade, a part he had previously portrayed in the similar 1965 film "A Study in Terror" in which Quayle likewise played a supporting role. Plummer had earlier portrayed Holmes in 1977's "Silver Blaze". Reception. The film was nominated for 8 Genie Awards in 1980, of which it won 5, including Best Achievement in Direction (Bob Clark), Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role (Geneviève Bujold) and Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role (Christopher Plummer). Vincent Canby, writing in the "NY Times" in February 1979, liked the film very much;
781703	Delta Farce is a 2007 spoof/comedy released by Lions Gate Entertainment on May 11, 2007. It is directed by C. B. Harding and stars Bill Engvall, Larry the Cable Guy, DJ Qualls and Danny Trejo. It is the first film after the Blue Collar Comedy Tour concert films to star both Engvall and Larry the Cable Guy. The title is a play on the Delta Force, one of the United States Army's elite special operations units alongside the Army Rangers and the Green Berets. Plot. Larry McCoy (Larry the Cable Guy), Bill Little (Bill Engvall), and Everett Shackleford (DJ Qualls) are members of the Army National Guard. Larry loses his job and his girlfriend Karen reveals that she is pregnant with someone else’s baby. Bill is having a hard time with wife Connie and Everett lives in a storage locker as a security guard after getting fired from being a police officer. Bill shows Larry how to get over his grief of Karen by shooting the gifts that he got Karen. Meanwhile, an Army Colonel gets a request for more troops for Fallujah and sends Master Sergeant Kilgore (Keith David) to assess the situation at the local reserve base where he finds Bill, Larry, and Everett. He puts them through a training regimen and sends them to Fallujah. They fall asleep in a Humvee aboard the cargo plane and the pilots dump all of the cargo when the plane experiences turbulence. Sergeant Kilgore is also pulled out of the plane when he is snagged on a pallet of supplies. After they wake up the next morning, they believe they are in Iraq. When climbing out of the Humvee, Everett stomps on the radio. They find Kilgore lying next to one of the supply crates, concluding he had died. After running out of water, Everett starts to urinate in a canteen and leaves it on a crate. They solemnly bury him and give a brief eulogy. After gearing up, Larry holds a machine gun and says, "All right ladies...Let’s Git R Done." Little do they know, they've are actually about 500 km from Mexico City. After some driving and looking at a map of Iraq, Larry confirms that they were lost. Everett complains about not getting to shoot anyone yet while Bill and Larry tell him the rules of engagement. Everett sees two Mexicans with their mule and views them as a threat. He fires as the two men and their donkey duck to the floor. The three soldiers confront the men and see that Everett killed their mule by mistake. Larry tells them that they're here to liberate their people. The mule regains consciousness and the two Mexicans ask the soldiers to help their village. They accept. Back at the landing sight, Kilgore jumps out of his burial and sees a sign which shows that he is in Mexico. He sees a canteen on a crate (which Everett peed in). He pours it on his head, drinks it, and realizes that it’s urine. Meanwhile, the soldiers and the two Mexicans look over a rock and Larry sees through the binoculars that "Iraqi Insurgents" abusing the residents of La Miranda. Larry, Bill, and Everett devise a plan and Bill isn't sure. Larry looks back and sees one of the Insurgents holding the Mayor’s daughter by the arm, presumably to be taken away as a slave girl or raped. The three soldiers drive into the village, poorly shooting and manage to drive and scare most of them away while capturing one for questioning. The villagers throw a party to celebrate. Meanwhile, Kilgore is found to be alive. Larry asks the prisoner, Ricardo, if he is Republic Guard or Al Qaeda and where are the weapons of mass destruction, and Everett, in a homemade sniper suit, asks if he's a Turd or a Shi'ite. Ricardo realizes they are confused and laughs at them. When Larry asks what was funny, Ricardo says, "You're not in Iraq, gringo." Larry realizes that gringo is a term used by Mexicans. Larry finds Bill who says jokingly that they may be in Mexico. They realize they are still fighting terrorism in a different form. They learn the name of the leader of the bandits is Carlos Santana (Danny Trejo). Meanwhile, the soldiers fix up the town, calling the mission "Operation: Sombrero." A bartender informs Bill of a nearby phone while he tries to fix the radio and Bill leaves without telling Larry or Everett. As Bill is being reprimanded for being in Mexico instead of Iraq, Santana takes him hostage. Santana takes Bill back to the town and threatens to kill him, but Larry points out that he can kill Santana despite the number of bandits. Bill is released and Kilgore arrives to yell at Bill and Larry. He doesn't notice Santana and the others until he is held at gunpoint. Everett arrives and a fight begins. The next day, Kilgore agrees to help defend La Miranda. The townspeople hide in the church when the bandits arrive. The bandits arrive with a Sherman tank. Everett attempts to get the rocket launcher in the bunk house, but the tank destroys the bunk house. Larry runs off to the cannon and sets it up. The tank aims at him and at the last second he kicks the cannon and it fires, blowing the tank up. The men of the village decide to join the fight. They scare the enemy away, but Santana stays behind and captures Maria to be his slave. Larry punches Santana and rescues Maria. They then share their first kiss while other U.S. troops arrive and capture the insurgents. Somehow, news reports start inexplicably spreading across the globe about the humanitarian aid given by the army in "Operation: Sombrero" and its efforts to capture local crime lord Carlos Santana. The soldiers receive Silver Stars for their actions as Bill also receiving the Purple Heart for being shot in the behind. Sergeant Kilgore moves to Miami, Florida, where he opens a private exercise camp. Everett moves to Mexico and becomes a luchador named "Carne Asada." Bill sues the Mexican government and moved to Beverly Hills after an out of court settlement. Larry goes back to Mexico, marries Maria, and opens up a restaurant called "Larry's Mess Hall" in Cabo San Lucas. Santana was jailed and put into a rehab program. After being released, he became a ventriloquist to the repaired José. Reception. The film received an overwhelmingly negative response from critics. Based on 40 reviews it received a "rotten" rating of 5% from Rotten Tomatoes, with the consensus stating: "Too afraid to be a real satire of the Iraq War, Delta Farce instead devolves into a reprehensible, unfunny mix of slapstick, gay panic, and flatulence jokes."
654775	Larry-Boy and the Rumor Weed is the 12th episode in the "VeggieTales" animated series, and the second installment of the LarryBoy adventures. It was released in July 1999 on VHS formats and January 28, 2003 on DVD formats. Subtitled "A Lesson in the Power of Words", it illustrates how destructive false rumors or negative words can be, and conversely, how positive words can do good. It is a mild parody of "Little Shop Of Horrors." Unlike other episodes with the VeggieTales Theme Song at the start, this is one of the episodes without Bob the Tomato and the countertop segments. Marc Vulcano, the animation supervisor for the film had just joined Big Idea Productions from Sierra On-Line, Inc. This video was the last VeggieTales production to be rendered entirely in Softimage. Plot. The episode begins immediately with Percy Pea and Li'l Pea leaving the movie theater. As they pause to think about what had happened the last time they were there, they are cornered by a shady character (Scallion #3) who asks them for a nickel. Percy refuses, but the Scallion then demands the money he is carrying for milk money. As the "Milk Money Bandit" escapes to the rooftops with his loot, he is cornered by Larry-Boy (Larry the Cucumber), who shakes the stolen money off of the scallion and throws him into Officer Scooter's patrol car. Following this, Larry-Boy is busy reviewing his capture technique with Alfred (Archibald Asparagus) when he accidentally knocks an unfinished plant off the ledge. It gets caught on some electrical telephone wires on the way down, where a nearby woman is busy gossiping on the phone on the 2nd floor of the apartment building, and then falls into the sewers where the strange combination of electricity and gossip brings the plant to life. The next morning, Alfred is speaking at Veggie Valley Elementary. As his story comes to a close, he tells the teacher that he needs to go home and "recharge his batteries." Not quite understanding the figure of speech, students Junior Asparagus and Laura Carrot come to the false conclusion that Alfred is a robot. As they are walking home, they run into a small talking weed who overhears the two children and talks them into sharing their secret with her. Similar weeds then begin to appear throughout Bumblyburg, spreading the rumor and twisting the faulty assumptions of the citizens into fear of Alfred. At Larry Manor, Larry and Alfred are tending to the garden when Alfred heads inside to answer the phone. Another Rumor Weed appears and tries to spread the word about Alfred, but Larry doesn't let it get a word in edgewise. Alfred then calls Larry in to answer the phone: Mayor Blueberry (Madame Blueberry) informs him that strange weeds are growing all over the city and saying strange things about Alfred. Suiting up as Larry-Boy, the hero drives into action.
1557648	Bela Lugosi Meets a Brooklyn Gorilla is a 1952 comedy film directed by William Beaudine and starring horror veteran Béla Lugosi and nightclub comedians Duke Mitchell and Sammy Petrillo in roles approximating Martin and Lewis. Plot. On their way to perform in Guam, nightclub performers Duke Mitchell and Sammy Petrillo find themselves stranded on a seemingly treacherous island, known by the natives as "Kola Kola". The natives are quite friendly, especially Nona, the tribal chief's daughter, who tries to help the two get off the island. Though Paradise has been found, for the time being, the duo soon discovers that a mad scientist named Dr. Zabor (Bela Lugosi), lives on the other side of the island. Seeing a chance to get help, the two visit the strange doctor. Tension mounts as Duke falls in love with Nona. Seeing Duke as a threat, a jealous Dr. Zabor plans to literally make a monkey out of Duke, for he too loves Nona. Sammy tries to help his pal, with unexpected results. Production. The film was originally to have been titled "White Woman of the Lost Jungle." The "Gorilla" title was thought up by Broder's ten year old son. Producer Herman Cohen decided it would be foolish not to exploit Bela Lugosi's appearance in the film. Sammy Petrillo had established something of a career imitating Jerry Lewis, whom he resembled closely. Petrillo and Duke Mitchell - who took on the Dean Martin role - played in various clubs in Las Vegas among other cities. "Bela Lugosi Meets a Brooklyn Gorilla" was to be the first in a series of films starring Mitchell and Petrillo, but this wound up as their only movie. Once Jerry Lewis heard about the film he turned up at the studio offices threatening legal action against the producer and Petrillo for copying his act so closely. Petrillo continued to perform in night clubs through the years, keeping his Jerry Lewis impersonation as one part of his act. Years later, after Martin and Lewis had split up, Dean Martin almost surreptitiously arranged the production of a Mitchell and Petrillo television series until it fell through.
584759	gross =
1035789	Stephen Mangan (born 22 July 1972) is an English actor, best known for his roles as Guy Secretan in the television series "Green Wing", Dan Moody in "I'm Alan Partridge", Sean Lincoln in "Episodes" and holistic detective Dirk Gently in "Dirk Gently". Early life and education. Mangan was born in Winchmore Hill, North London, to Irish Catholic parents from the west coast of Ireland. He has two sisters, Anita and Lisa. Mangan was educated at two independent schools for boys: at Lochinver House School, in Potters Bar, Hertfordshire and Haileybury and Imperial Service College (now co-educational), a boarding school in the village of Hertford Heath (also in Hertfordshire), in the same year as Dom Joly. He was in a school band called Aragon that recorded an EP called "The Wizard's Dream." After gaining a Bachelor of Arts in Law at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, Mangan took a year out to nurse his mother, Mary, who died of colon cancer at age 45. Weeks after her death, he auditioned for the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA). His father James died of a brain tumour at age 63. Career. After graduating from RADA in 1994, Mangan did not pursue lead roles on-screen, preferring to take what he saw as the less limited opportunities on the stage. He gained television experience by performing in adverts, but only for overseas markets. In 2000, he appeared in "Billy Elliot". His breakthrough television performance was as Adrian Mole in the six-part BBC TV show series "" in 2001. He has performed voice-overs for television and radio advertisements, including for Specsavers and Barclaycard with "Green Wing" co-star Julian Rhind-Tutt. He is also known for his appearances in a series of televised advertisements for the instant coffee brand, Nescafe. On radio, he has done an advertisement supporting Marie Curie Cancer Care (2009). In television, he's appeared in an untitled Victoria Pile project (2008), as well as the film "Beyond the Pole" in 2010. In 2008, he played the title role in "The Norman Conquests" at the Old Vic and subsequently on Broadway at the Circle in the Square Theatre in 2009. He was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Featured Actor in a Play for his work in the play. In 2007, he appeared in a pilot for Channel 4's "Comedy Showcase", called "Free Agents", which was commissioned for a 6 episode series that was broadcast in 2009. He also stars in the 2011 BBC-Showtime comedy series "Episodes", with Matt LeBlanc and Tamsin Greig. He has said that he was "bitterly upset" at the BBC's axing of the BBC4 Programme "Dirk Gently". The programme was abandoned after four episodes due to a freeze on the licence fee. He has been cast in the animated feature "" as the voice of the titular postman. On 28 April 2013, Mangan returned to host the British Academy Television Craft Awards in London for a second time. Personal life. He is married to the actress Louise Delamere and they have two sons, Harry (October 2007) and Frank (2010). He is also a Celebrity Mastermind champion, scoring 29 points, 15 of which were on his specialist subject, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. He is a fan of Tottenham Hotspur and goes to games with Tamsin Greig's husband Richard Leaf. He is an atheist: When asked the question whether football is bigger than God, he answered: "I think football is too beautiful and holy to be sullied by religion."
1164027	Nancy Walker (May 10, 1922 – March 25, 1992) was an American actress and comedienne of stage, screen, and television. She was also a film and television director (most notably of "The Mary Tyler Moore Show", on which she also made several acting guest appearances). During her five-decade long career, she may be best remembered for her long-running role of Ida Morgenstern, who first appeared on several episodes of "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" and later became a prominent recurring character on the spinoff series "Rhoda." Early life. Walker was born as Anna Myrtle Swoyer in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1922, the elder of two daughters of vaudevillian Dewey Barto (Stewart Steven Swoyer) and Myrtle Lawler. Both she and her father stood 4'11" (1.50 m). Her mother died when her younger sister Betty Lou was an infant. She and Betty Lou, who would also have a musical career, were raised "in-a-trunk" by their father (Dewey Barto; 1896–1973). Barto was a vaudeville entertainer with George Mann in the comedic and acrobatic dance act, Barto and Mann. Acting career. Walker made her Broadway debut in 1941 in "Best Foot Forward." The role provided Walker with her film debut when she signed a contract with "M-G-M" to make a movie version, starring Lucille Ball, which was filmed in 1943. That same year, she appeared with Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland in the second film version of "Girl Crazy". Her next film, "Broadway Rhythm", in which she had a featured musical number backed by Tommy Dorsey and His Orchestra, "Milkman, Keep Those Bottles Quiet", ended Walker's contract with Metro. Her height reportedly made her difficult to cast. Her dry comic delivery enabled her to continue acting throughout the 1940s and 1950s, originating the roles of Hildy Eszterhazy ("I Can Cook, Too!") in "On the Town" and Katey O'Shea in "Copper and Brass" on Broadway. She was nominated for a Tony Award in 1956 for her work in the musical revue "Phoenix '55" and again in 1960 for her performance in the hit musical "Do Re Mi" co-starring with Phil Silvers. Her appearances in musicals led to record releases. One release, "I Hate Men" (1959), with Sid Bass and his orchestra, featuring such show tunes as "I'm Gonna Wash That Man Right Outa My Hair" and "You Irritate Me So," featured Walker on the cover humorously sticking male dolls with pins. Dozens of television guest appearances and recurring roles followed, providing her with steady work. Her career spanned five decades, and included comedies, dramas and television variety shows such as "Faye Emerson's Wonderful Town", "The Garry Moore Show" and "The Carol Burnett Show." In the 1960-61 television season, she appeared in two episodes of NBC's "The Tab Hunter Show". In 1970, she secured a recurring role as Emily the housekeeper on the television series "Family Affair," which starred Brian Keith.
582775	Aaghaaz (English- "Start") is a 2000 Indian Bollywood mobster action film directed by Yogesh Ishwar. It is the remake of a Telugu movie "Shivaiah", which was also produced by D. Suresh Babu. Plot summary. The film is the story of Govind Narang, an honest and chivalrous man from a small village in Punjab. He falls in love with Sudha, but marries "Masterji"'s daughter, Pushpa, to save her from public ridicule. Pushpa was impregnated by a police officer who refuses to marry her. She does not love Govind and hates Sudha with a passion. Together with her brother, Laxman, Pushpa tries to expel Sudha from of the village, but is unsuccessful. When Laxman finds out about Pushpa's infidelity, he poisons her, and after his wife's death, Govind relocates to Mumbai with his sister, Ratna. He meets beautiful Gitika and they fall in love. One day, as Govind defends the honor of a young girl from the brother of a hoodlum, Johnny Handsome, he generates hatred and animosity. Johnny is humiliated by Govind and swears vengeance with the help of Sadanana Kutty and Karim Khan Toofani. On the other hand, Govind befriends Ram Shevak, and with his help and assistance of a landowner arranges the purchase of a large plot of land so that hawkers and small shop-owners could set up their businesses. But nothing goes according to plan. The plot of land and the owner turn out to be fake, and Govind gets all the blame; His sister is openly raped, in broad daylight; and Govind himself gets seriously wounded in broad daylight before the very eyes of the people he defended. In the end, though it ends happily with his sister marrying a close friend of the family.
1162961	Bonnie Bartlett (born June 20, 1929) is an American television and film actress. Her career spans over 60 years, with her first major role being on a 1950s daytime drama, "Love of Life". She is best known for her role as Ellen Craig on the medical drama series "St. Elsewhere". She and her husband, actor William Daniels, who played her fictional husband Dr. Mark Craig, won 1986 Emmy Awards on the same night, becoming the first married couple to accomplish the feat since Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne in 1965. Biography. Early life. Bartlett was born in Wisconsin Rapids, Wisconsin, the daughter of Carrie and E.E. Bartlett, and raised in Moline, Illinois. Her father was an insurance salesman and a failed actor, and she was determined to live out his dream. Bartlett met her husband, actor William Daniels at Northwestern University. They were married on June 30, 1951. In 1961, she gave birth to a son, who died just 24 hours later. They later adopted two children: Michael, who became an assistant director and stage manager in Los Angeles, and Robert, who became an artist and computer graphics designer based in New York City. Career. Bartlett studied acting with Lee Strasberg, and first got her start in television playing the heroine "Vanessa Dale Raven" on the soap opera "Love of Life" from 1955 to 1959, replacing actress Peggy McCay. Ironically, she had a previous role on the program, in which briefly she played the character of Ellie Crown, a role which was played for several years by Hildy Parks. She then moved on to nighttime roles in the 1960s. Her most widely known role was as Ellen Craig on St. Elsewhere. Initially an infrequently recurring character, she took on greater prominence in the 1984–1985 season when the storyline included Ellen and Mark's marital problems. The storyline deepened in the next season when their son was killed and they had to raise their granddaughter. Bartlett won back-to-back Emmys, and was made a contract player. Further difficult material included Ellen and Mark's divorce and slow reconciliation following the loss of their granddaughter in a custody dispute with her birth mother. While her children were growing up, Bartlett was mostly a stay-at-home mother, accepting only small guest appearances on such programs as "Gunsmoke", "The Rockford Files", "The Waltons" as well as a recurring role as Grace Snyder Edwards on "Little House on the Prairie" from 1974 to 1977. Her acting career picked up considerably in the 1980s, including the miniseries "V" and "North and South: Book II".
1123864	Baudhāyana, (fl. c. 800 BCE) was the author of the Baudhayana sūtras, which cover dharma, daily ritual, Vedic sacrifices, etc. He belongs to the Yajurveda school, and is older than the other sūtra author Āpastambha. He was the author of the earliest "Sulba Sūtra"—appendices to the Vedas giving rules for the construction of altars—called the "". These are notable from the point of view of mathematics, for containing several important mathematical results, including giving a value of pi to some degree of precision, and stating a version of what is now known as the Pythagorean theorem. The sūtras of Baudhāyana. The of are associated with the "Taittiriya" (branch) of Krishna (black) "Yajurveda". The sutras of have six sections,
1064337	Semi-Pro is a 2008 American sports comedy film from New Line Cinema. The film was directed by Kent Alterman and stars Will Ferrell, Woody Harrelson, André Benjamin and Maura Tierney. The film was shot in Los Angeles near Dodger Stadium (in the gym of the Los Angeles City Fire Department Training Center), in Detroit and in Flint, Michigan. It was released in theaters on February 29, 2008 and was released on DVD and Blu-ray Disc on June 3, 2008. This was the last film from New Line Cinema before its sister company Warner Bros. took over. Plot. Set in 1976, Jackie Moon is a singer who has used the profits from his one hit single "Love Me Sexy", to buy a basketball team in the American Basketball Association, the Flint Tropics, becoming the owner, head Coach and starting power forward. The ABA Commissioner announces a plan to merge the league with the National Basketball Association, but only four teams will move to the more established league. The Tropics, the worst team in the league, are in danger of dissolving. In response, Jackie argues that the teams with the four best records overall should be merged into the NBA. The Commissioner reluctantly accepts Jackie's offer.
1063267	An Education is a 2009 British coming-of-age drama film, based on a memoir of the same name by British journalist Lynn Barber. The film was directed by Lone Scherfig from a screenplay by Nick Hornby, and stars Carey Mulligan as Jenny, a bright schoolgirl, and Peter Sarsgaard as David, the charming con man who seduces her. The film was nominated for three Academy Awards in 2010 including Best Picture and Best Actress for Carey Mulligan. "An Education" premiered at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival to critical acclaim. It screened on 10 September 2009 at the Toronto International Film Festival and was featured at the Telluride by the Sea Film Festival in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, USA, on 19 September 2009. The film was shown on 9 October 2009, at the Mill Valley Film Festival. It was released in the US on 16 October 2009 and in the UK on 30 October 2009. Plot. In 1961 London, Jenny Mellor is a 16-year-old schoolgirl on track to get accepted to Oxford University when she meets a charming Jewish businessman, David Goldman, who pursues her romantically. He takes her to concerts, clubs, and fine restaurants, and easily charms her parents into approving of the relationship. Later, Jenny discovers that David is a con man who makes money through a variety of shady practices. She is initially shocked but silences her misgivings in the face of David's persuasive charm. Soon, David takes Jenny to Paris as a birthday gift. Jenny's parents invite Graham, a boy Jenny knows from Youth Orchestra, to Jenny's birthday party, but David arrives and Graham goes home. When David proposes marriage, Jenny accepts and leaves school. She then discovers David is already married. When she reveals her discovery to David, he drops out of sight. Jenny despairs, feeling she has thrown her life away, but with the help of her favorite teacher, resumes her studies and is accepted at Oxford the following year. Production. Writing. Nick Hornby created the screenplay based on an autobiographical essay by the British journalist Lynn Barber about her schoolgirl affair with Jewish conman Simon Prewalski, referred to by her as Simon Goldman, which was published in the literary magazine "Granta". Both the memoir and the film also allude briefly to Peter Rachman, the notorious post-war London property speculator, who Goldman is working for. Barber's full memoir, "An Education", was not published in book form until June 2009, when filming had already been completed. Hornby said that what appealed to him in the memoir was that "She's a suburban girl who's frightened that she's going to get cut out of everything good that happens in the city. That, to me, is a big story in popular culture. It's the story of pretty much every rock 'n' roll band." Although the screenplay involved Hornby writing about a teenage girl, he did not feel it was more challenging than writing any other character: "I think the moment you're writing about somebody who's not exactly you, then the challenge is all equal. I was glad that everyone around me on this movie was a woman so that they could watch me carefully. But I don't remember anyone saying to me, 'That isn't how women think.'" Recreating 1961 England. Although Jenny's family home and her school are supposed to be in the suburb of Twickenham, Middlesex (incorrectly referred to as 'Twickenham, London' - Twickenham did not become part of Greater London till 1965), the residential scenes featured in the film were shot on location in the Gunnersbury area of Ealing, west London as well as Mattock Lane in West Ealing and The Japanese School in Acton, which used to be the site of the girls' school called Haberdashers' Aske's School for Girls. The area is convincingly arranged to appear as it would have in the 1960s, with the only noticeable exception being the 1990s-era street lighting. There are several other anachronisms, such as a police two-tone horn at a time when bells were still used, the skirt lengths and hairstyles of the schoolgirls, and the fact that St John's Smith Square was not opened as a concert hall until 1969. The Pentax camera featured in the film (at 1.02.11) appears to be a Pentax S1 (or similar), which "was" available at the time. Release. Critical response. "An Education" was released to critical acclaim. It has a 94% "Fresh" rating and a 8.0 average rating on Rotten Tomatoes, based on 179 critics' reviews. The film has a Metacritic score of 85 for "universal acclaim", based on 34 reviews. Rotten Tomatoes offers this consensus: "Though the latter part of the film may not appeal to all, "An Education" is a charming coming-of-age tale powered by the strength of relative newcomer Carey Mulligan's standout performance." Box office. "An Education" grossed £1,633,504 in the UK. and $US26,096,852 worldwide. Accolades. "An Education" won the Audience Choice award and the Cinematography award at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival. Mulligan won a Hollywood Film Festival award for Best Hollywood Breakthrough Performance for a Female. It was selected as Sight & Sound's film of the month. The film was nominated for three Academy Awards: Best Picture, Best Actress for Carey Mulligan and Best Adapted Screenplay. The 63rd British Academy Film Awards saw the film come away with one award (for Best Actress) from nine nominations. The film received six British Independent Film Awards nominations and five Satellite Awards nominations. Home media. "An Education" was released on DVD and Blu-ray on 30 March 2010.
593505	Halina Reijn (born 10 November 1975 in Amsterdam) is a Dutch actress and writer. Halina Reijn was professionally trained at the Theatre Academy in Maastricht. While still a student, she was asked to join the ensemble at the Theatercompagnie where she had leading roles in plays such as "Hamlet" (as Ophelia) and "Shopping and Fucking" (as Lulu) for which she received the prestigious Dutch theatre prize, the Colombina, as "Best Supporting Actress" in 1998. In 2003 she joined the ensemble at Toneelgroep Amsterdam. In the 2006/2007 season, she performed in four plays: “The Taming of the Shrew”; “Hedda Gabler”; “Oresteia”; and “Mourning Becomes Electra”, for which she was nominated for a Theo d’Or as “Best Female Actress”.
724769	Travis Scott Van Winkle (born November 4, 1982) is an American actor. Early life. Travis was born on November 4, 1982, in Victorville, California, the middle of three children of Sally (née Fitzgerald) and Charles Van Winkle. He remained in Victorville until he was two years old, and then moved to Oscoda, Michigan. When he was eight, his family moved again to Peachtree City, Georgia, where he finished at McIntosh High School and attended college until he was twenty. At twenty, he decided to pursue his dream of acting, and took the leap to go to Hollywood. Career. Van Winkle made his debut in "That's So Raven", and in TV has performed in "The O.C.", "MAD TV", "Malcolm in the Middle" and "7th Heaven". Other film credits include one of the leads in Fox's "Meet the Spartans", David R. Ellis's film "Asylum", Universal's "Accepted" and Michael Bay's "Transformers". While he has modeled for "Abercrombie & Fitch" shot by Bruce Weber, Van Winkle appeared in the reboot of "Friday the 13th" (another Michael Bay production) as Trent DeMarco, a character he previously portrayed in "Transformers". In an interview with FearNet, Van Winkle said that he was very hyped about the film, and enjoyed playing in it. Van Winkle also appeared in Julianne Hough's music video "That Song in My Head". In 2009 he appeared in Smile Empty Soul's music video for "Don't Ever Leave". In 2011-2012, he made guest appearances in television series such as "2 Broke Girls", "Happy Endings" and "Two and a Half Men". In October 2012, he was cast in the TNT action drama pilot "The Last Ship", executive produced by Michael Bay. In December, he was cast in a recurring role as Jonah on the second season of The CW series Hart of Dixie.
582079	Konkona Sen Sharma ("Kôngkôna Shen Shôrma"; born 3 December 1979) is an Indian actress. She is the daughter of filmmaker and actress Aparna Sen. Sharma appears primarily in Indian arthouse and independent films, and her achievements in the genre have established her as one of the leading actresses of contemporary parallel cinema. Making her debut as a child artist in the film "Indira" (1983), Sharma debuted as an adult in the Bengali thriller "Ek Je Aachhe Kanya" (2000). She first gained attention with the English-language film "Mr. and Mrs. Iyer" (2002), which was directed by her mother, and received the National Film Award for Best Actress for her performance in the film. Her appearance in the drama "Page 3" (2005) got her wider recognition from audiences, and she has since starred in a number of films, most of which have garnered her critical praise rather than commercial success. She won two consecutive Filmfare Best Supporting Actress Awards for her performances in "Omkara" (2006) and "Life in a... Metro" (2007), respectively. Her performance in the former won her a second National Award under the Best Supporting Actress category. Early life. Sen Sharma is the daughter of Mukul Sharma (a science writer and journalist) and Aparna Sen (an actress and film director). She also has an older sibling Kamalini Chatterjee. Sen Sharma's maternal grandfather, Chidananda Dasgupta, is a film critic, scholar, professor, writer and one of the co-founders of the Calcutta Film Society. Her late grandmother Supriya Dasgupta was a cousin of legendary modern Bengali poet Jibanananda Das. Sen Sharma has a degree in English from St Stephen's College, Delhi which she received in 2001. She was a student of the Modern High School for Girls, Calcutta, as well as the Calcutta International School. Career. Sen Sharma made her debut as a child artist in the film "Indirah" (1983). In 2000, she made her adult debut in the Bengali film "Ek Je Aachhe Kanya", in which she played a negative character. It was followed by a role in Rituparno Ghosh's acclaimed film "Titli", opposite Mithun Chakraborty and her mother Aparna Sen. In 2001, she starred in the English-language film "Mr. and Mrs. Iyer", directed by Aparna Sen. The film performed well mainly in multiplexes and was a major critical success. Sen Sharma's performance as a Tamil housewife and her mastery of the accent were received well and she was awarded the National Film Award for Best Actress. Her performance was later included in the 2010 issue of the "Top 80 Iconic Performances" by "Filmfare". This was followed by the National Film Award-winning social film, "Page 3" (2005). Her role of a smart journalist drew praise and she became a more familiar face to the movie-going public. Sen Sharma was offered the lead role in Mira Nair's Hollywood film, "The Namesake" (2007), but owing to clashing dates with other films, she could not commit to the project. However, she followed it with acclaimed performances as a mentally ill woman in "15 Park Avenue" (2005) and as a middle age village woman in "Omkara" (2006). For the latter, she received both the Filmfare Best Supporting Actress Award and the National Film Award for Best Supporting Actress. Her next release "" (2006) got average reviews. In 2006, Sen Sharma made her directorial debut with an 18-minute Bengali short film titled "Naamkoron (Naming Ceremony)" for the Kala Ghoda Film Festival. Following this, Sen Sharma acted in "Dosar", a Bengali art film by Rituporno Ghosh which was premiered at several international film festivals. She won the Best Actress award at Mahindra Indo-American Arts Council (MIAAC) Film Festival for her performance. Her first release of 2007 was her second collaboration with Madhur Bhandarkar, a noir film named "Traffic Signal", in which she played a street prostitute. Later that year, she appeared in Anurag Basu's "Life in a... Metro". The film opened to positive reviews and performed well at the Indian box office. "Metro" depicted the lives of different individuals in Mumbai, and Sen Sharma's performance as a young and insecure woman earned her a second Filmfare Award. In late 2007, Sen Sharma acted in two movies under the Yash Raj Films banner. She noted her excitement toward these two projects as these were the first films in which she had to lip-sync for songs. In the first one, "Laaga Chunari Mein Daag", a drama directed by Pradeep Sarkar, she portrayed the character of a Banaras small town young woman, Chutki, alongside Rani Mukerji. The film was a critical and commercial failure in India, even though her performance was received well. The second one was "Aaja Nachle", which was widely promoted as the comeback film of Madhuri Dixit. The film did not do well. Rajeev Masand from CNN-IBN noted her performance in the film as being "...nothing short of fantastic. Her greatest strength is that she isn't afraid of making a fool of herself and she doesn't worry about being laughed at. As a result, her performance in "Aaja Nachle" is fearless and uninhibited." In 2008, Sen Sharma starred in "Dil Kabaddi". She starred in a short film ("How Can It Be?") directed by Mira Nair for a movie project called "8", which was screened at several film festivals in 2008 before having a theatrical release. In 2009, she appeared in the low-budget English-language film "The President Is Coming", directed by Kunaal Roy Kapur. The film opened to generally positive reviews. Reviews were favorably directed toward her. Nikhat Kazmi from "The Times of India" wrote, "Performance-wise, it's the uptight and complex-ridden Ms Konkona who walks away with laurels and laughs even as the film takes a healthy snigger at the desi self." Sen Sharma next starred in Zoya Akhtar's "Luck by Chance", opposite Farhan Akhtar. Upon release, the film met with highly positive reviews from critics, as did her performance, but its financial income was modest. Sen Sharma's latest 2009 release was Ayan Mukerjee's romantic comedy "Wake Up Sid" in which she starred alongside Ranbir Kapoor. Upon release, the film received universally positive reviews, and her performance received rave reviews. Taran Adarsh of "Bollywood Hungama" wrote, "Konkona is natural to the core and the best part is, she's so effortless. Here's another winning performance from this incredible performer." "The New York Times" wrote, "Ms. Sharma has made a specialty of characters like Aisha: independent urban women, whose dreams involve careers as well as love. Her Aisha is a nuanced creation — ambitious, sympathetic, believable — and Mr. Mukerji, making his directing debut, is right to let her run away with the film." In 2010, Sen Sharma starred in Ashwani Dheer's comedy "Atithi Tum Kab Jaoge" opposite Ajay Devgan and Paresh Rawal. and Neeraj Pathak's "Right Yaa Wrong" where she played a lawyer. She has completed shooting for Rituparno Ghosh's comedy film "Sunglass" and Vinay Shukla's "Mirch".
1059285	Brian Joseph White (born April 21, 1975) is an American actor, producer, model, dancer, and stockbroker. Early life. White was born near Boston, Massachusetts, the son of Estelle Bowser, a financial advisor, and Jo Jo White, a basketball player for the Boston Celtics, sports executive, and restaurateur. He is the oldest of six children. White attended Newton South High School and was a graduate of Dartmouth College, where he was a member of the Beta Theta Pi fraternity. Career. White began acting in a number of television series such as "Moesha", "The Parkers", "Spyder Games", "Second Time Around", and "The Shield". He then moved into film roles, appearing in "The Family Stone", "Brick", "Stomp the Yard", "The Game Plan", and "". He had a recurring role as Lieutenant Carl Davis on "Moonlight". In 2009, White appeared in "Fighting" and "12 Rounds". He starred in "I Can Do Bad All By Myself", and followed this with a regular role in the series "Men of a Certain Age." In 2011, White starred in "The Heart Specialist" and "Politics of Love". He then began touring with the David E. Talbert stage play "What My Husband Doesn't Know". The tour ran from May 8 to December 18. White became the co-host of the UNCF national "Empower Me" tour and starred in the music video for Monica's song "Until it's Gone". In 2012, he appeared in "Good Deeds" and "The Cabin in the Woods". Personal life. White married his wife, Paula Da Silva, in 2010. They reside in Los Angeles, California.
1062768	Isabella Fiorella Elettra Giovanna Rossellini (born 18 June 1952) is an Italian actress, filmmaker, author, philanthropist, and model. Rossellini is noted for her 14-year tenure as a Lancôme model, and for her roles in films such as "Blue Velvet" and "Death Becomes Her". Background and early life. Rossellini is the daughter of Swedish actress Ingrid Bergman and Italian director Roberto Rossellini. She has three siblings from her mother: her twin sister Isotta Ingrid Rossellini, who is an adjunct professor of Italian literature; a brother, Robertino Ingmar Rossellini; and a half-sister, Pia Lindström, who formerly worked on television and is from her mother's first marriage with Petter Lindström. She has four other siblings from her father's two other marriages: Romano (died at age nine), Renzo, Gil, and Raffaella. Rossellini was born in Rome, and raised there, as well as in Santa Marinella and Paris. She underwent an operation for appendicitis at the age of five. At 11, she was diagnosed with scoliosis. In order to correct it, she had to undergo an 18 month ordeal of painful stretchings, body casts, surgery on her spine using pieces of one of her shin bones (used to add supports for the individual vertebrae without risking foreign body rejection issues), and a recovery from that surgery. Consequently, she has permanent incision scars on her back and shin. At 19, she went to New York, where she attended Finch College, while working as a translator and a RAI television reporter. She also appeared intermittently on "L'altra Domenica" ("The Other Sunday"), a TV show featuring Roberto Benigni. However, she did not decide to stay full-time in New York until her marriage to Martin Scorsese (1979–1982). Career. Modeling. At the age of 28, her modeling career began, when she was photographed by Bruce Weber for British "Vogue" and by Bill King for American "Vogue". During her career, she has also worked with many other renowned photographers, including Richard Avedon, Steven Meisel, Helmut Newton, Peter Lindbergh, Norman Parkinson, Eve Arnold, Francesco Scavullo, Annie Leibovitz, Denis Piel, and Robert Mapplethorpe. Her image has appeared on such magazines as "Marie Claire", "Harper's Bazaar", "Vanity Fair", and "ELLE". In March 1988, an exhibition dedicated to photographs of her, called "Portrait of a Woman", was held at the Musee d'Art Moderne in Paris. Rossellini's modeling career led her into the world of cosmetics, when she became the exclusive spokesmodel for the international cosmetics brand Lancôme in 1982, replacing Nancy Dutiel in the United States and Carol Alt in Europe. At Lancôme, in 1990, she was involved in product development for the fragrance Trésor. In 1996, she was removed as the face of Lancôme for being "too old", since she was in her 40s at the time. In October 1992, Rossellini modelled for Madonna's controversial book "Sex". Rossellini also appeared in Madonna's music video for her successful Top 5 hit song "Erotica" released that autumn. In 1995, Rossellini worked with the Coty Group and developed her own brand of cosmetics, Isabella Rossellini's Manifesto. She is signed to Trump Model Management. Film and television. Rossellini made her film debut with a brief appearance as a nun opposite her mother in the 1976 film "A Matter of Time". Her first role was the 1979 film "Il Prato". In 1980 she appears on Renzo Arbore's film "Il pap'occhio", with Martin Scorsese. She did not become successful with acting until after her mother's death in 1982, when she was cast in her first American film, "White Nights" (1985). She is probably best known for her pivotal role as the tortured nightclub singer Dorothy Vallens in David Lynch's "Blue Velvet," in which she also did her own singing. Some other notable film roles include her work in "Cousins", "Death Becomes Her", "Immortal Beloved", and "Fearless". In 2003, Rossellini had a recurring role on the television series, "Alias". In that same year, she also appeared in the Canadian film "The Saddest Music in the World" directed by Guy Maddin. In 2004, she played the High Priestess Thar in the Sci-Fi Channel miniseries "Legend of Earthsea". In addition, she acted in an Off-Broadway production of "The Stendhal Syndrome". She became an ambassador for the Silversea Cruise Line, which has her appearing in print ads and on their website. In 2006, Rossellini appeared in several television documentaries. First, she narrated a two-hour television special on Italy for the Discovery Channel's "Discovery Atlas" series. In addition, on an episode of the Sundance Channel series "Iconoclasts", which also featured the Segway PT inventor Dean Kamen, she told about her past and current activities. In 2007, Rossellini guest starred on two episodes of the television show "30 Rock", playing Alec Baldwin's character's ex-wife. She also appeared on an episode of the TV series "Friends" in 1996 as herself in The One With Frank Jr. In 2008, Rossellini toured the festival circuit, including the Sundance Film Festival, with a series of short films entitled "Green Porno", which she wrote and co-directed with Jody Shapiro. Each "Green Porno" film is two minutes long, and has Rossellini reenacting the mating rituals of various animals. Rossellini was announced as the President of the Jury for the 61st Berlin International Film Festival in 2011. She played the role of Gabriella Guglielmi-Valentino in "Silent Life", released in 2012. Awards. Rossellini received a 1987 Independent Spirit Award for Best Female Lead for her role in "Blue Velvet". In 1997, she received a Golden Globe nomination for Best Performance by an Actress in a Mini-Series or Motion Picture Made for TV for her role in "Crime of the Century" and an Emmy Award nomination for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Drama Series for her work on the television series "Chicago Hope". Also in 1997, Rossellini was awarded The George Eastman Award. In 1998, she received an Honourable Mention at the 48th Berlin International Film Festival for her role in the film "Left Luggage". At the 63rd Berlin International Film Festival she is to be awarded with the Berlinale Camera. Activism. Rossellini is involved in conservation efforts. She is a board member of the Wildlife Conservation Network, and president and director of the Howard Gilman Foundation, a leading institution focused on the preservation of wildlife, arts, photography and dance. She received $100,000 from Disney to help with her conservation efforts in those two organizations. She has also helped with the Central Park Conservancy, and is a major benefactor of the Bellport-Brookhaven Historical Society of Bellport, Long Island, where she is a part-time resident. Rossellini is involved in training guide dogs for the blind. She is a former trustee of the George Eastman House and a 1997 George Eastman Award honoree for her support of film preservation. She is also a National Ambassador for the U.S. Fund for UNICEF. Writing. Rossellini has written three books—her self-described fictional memoir, "Some of Me" (1997), "Looking at Me (on pictures and photographers, 2002)", and "In the name of the Father, the Daughter and the Holy Spirits: Remembering Roberto Rossellini" (2006), accompanied by the Guy Maddin-directed short film "My Dad Is 100 Years Old" (both the film and the book are tributes to her father). In the film, she played almost every role, including David Selznick, Alfred Hitchcock, and her mother Ingrid Bergman. In 2008, Rossellini wrote a number of television shorts on the Sundance Channel called "Green Porno". The short segments (about two minutes each) are written, hosted and acted out by Rossellini. She has written a book to accompany the third season—a multimedia experiment that contains a companion DVD, both of which serve as additional information for the series' third season. Personal life. Rossellini holds dual Italian and United States citizenship. She was married to Martin Scorsese from 1979 to 1982. After her marriage to Scorsese ended, she married Jon Wiedemann (1983–1986), a Harvard-educated model from Texas (now a Microsoft executive). Later, she dated David Lynch, Gary Oldman, and Gregory Mosher. She has a daughter, Elettra Rossellini Wiedemann (born 1983), and a son, Roberto (born 1992). She has always lived near her twin sister Isotta (aka Ingrid), whether while growing up in Rome or in New York City. Consequently, her twin sister's children Tommaso and Francesca grew up closely with their cousins Elettra and Roberto.
1043892	William 'Bill' Kerr (born 10 June 1922) is an South African-born Australian stage, television and film actor. He was born into a performing arts family in Cape Town, South Africa, but grew up in Wagga Wagga, New South Wales, Australia. Life and career. He began working as a child actor in depression era Australia, taking his first major role in "The Silence of Dean Maitland", one of Australia's first talking films. National Service. After serving in the Second World War, Kerr moved to Britain to further his acting career, and during the 1940s he was regularly featured in the BBC radio series "Variety Bandbox". His trademark was his catch phrase "I'm only here for four minutes..." Career. In the 1950s, he had a regular role as an Australian lodger in the BBC radio comedy series "Hancock's Half Hour". Initially sharper than Hancock's characterisation, it was developed into a more dim-witted character who became the butt of Hancock's jokes. His television appearances in Britain include a 1968 "Doctor Who" story called "The Enemy of the World", with Patrick Troughton, and a long-running part in the early 1960s BBC-TV soap, "Compact". Kerr had much theatrical success in Britain, playing the Devil in the original West End production of "Damn Yankees", directed by Bob Fosse, and "Cole". Kerr appeared in a touring production of the play, "The Teahouse of the August Moon" in 1956. He also worked with Spike Milligan. He appeared in Milligan and John Antrobus's stage play "The Bed-Sitting Room", which opened at the Mermaid Theatre on 31 January 1963. A subsequent production opened on 3 May 1967 at the Saville Theatre, and "a cast containing an unusually high proportion of Australian actors including Bill Kerr and David Nettheim." Then in 1972 he co-starred with Anthony Newley in the long-running Newley/Bricusse musical, "The Good Old Bad Old Days". In 1975, Kerr took the part of Bluey Notts, described as "an Australian bookie's clerk, a crude racialist", in "The Melting Pot". This was a sitcom written by Spike Milligan and Neil Shand, which was cancelled by the BBC after just one episode had been broadcast. He also appeared in several British films, including "The Dam Busters" and "The Wrong Arm of the Law", before moving back to Australia. Although probably best known as a comic actor, and especially for his appearances in "Hancock's Half Hour", he has since played a number of serious roles, notably in Peter Weir's films "Gallipoli" (1981) and "The Year of Living Dangerously" (1982). He also worked on the Australian stage in the 1980s, in musicals such as "My Fair Lady", where he received excellent reviews as Alfred Doolittle. Kerr has thrice played real-life Australian military personalities, appearing as bomber pilot Micky Martin in "The Dam Busters" (1955), as General John Monash in the TV mini-series "Anzacs" (1985) and as General Harry Chauvel in the film "The Lighthorsemen" (1986). In addition to his serious roles, he also continued to appear in comedies including the film "The Coca-Cola Kid" in 1985 and in 2001, he appeared in the Australian comedy "Let's Get Skase". Kerr also appeared in "Glenview High" and the 1998 television comedy series "Minty". In 1980 he played the part of Douglas Kennedy in the soap opera "The Young Doctors". Kerr has also been involved in documentaries, providing the narration for "No Survivor - The Mysterious Loss of HMAS Sydney" Nine Network Australia (1995), "Malice or Mutiny" for the ABC Australia 2003 and "Animal X Natural Mystery Unit" series for Discovery in the US, TV2 Norway and many others. Honour. On 26 January 2011 Kerr received the 2011 Walk of Honour in Wagga Wagga, which was unveiled on 17 May 2011.
1757975	Politics of Love (also known as "Love Barack") is a 2011 film directed by William Dear. Bollywood actress Mallika Sherawat and American actor Brian J. White play leading roles. Plot. The film involves the unexpected romance that develops between an Indian-American, Democratic campaign worker Aritha (Rithika was initially) Gupta (Mallika Sherawat) who falls for an African-American Republican Kyle Franklin (Brian White) in the month leading up to the 2008 U.S. Presidential Election. Release and Box office. Politics of Love was released in US theaters on August 26, followed by its digital distribution on demand from September 3, 2011. Review. "Politics of Love" emerges as an amusing entertainment says LA Times. Politics of Love is a light and amusing fun movie. Mallika Sherawat was panned for her performance in this film, quoted as "trying too hard".
1067105	The Return of Swamp Thing is a sci-fi-comedy film released in 1989, and directed by Jim Wynorski. It is based on the DC Comics (later Vertigo Comics) title "Swamp Thing" and is a sequel to the 1982 horror film "Swamp Thing" directed by Wes Craven; however, it had a lighter tone than the previous film. The film's main title montage consists of comic book covers set to Creedence Clearwater Revival's "Born on the Bayou". The film stars Dick Durock and Louis Jourdan returning from the original film as Swamp Thing and Arcane, and costars Sarah Douglas and Heather Locklear. Plot. After her mother's mysterious death, Abby Arcane (Heather Locklear) travels to the Florida swamps to confront her evil stepfather Dr. Arcane (Louis Jourdan), who had been resurrected with a ludicrous explanation after his death in the first film. In an attempt to stave off the effects of aging, Dr. Arcane, assisted by Dr. Lana Zurrell (Sarah Douglas), combines genes from various swamp animals and human beings, creating an army of monsters. Dr. Arcane tries to use his stepdaughter Abby in his genetic experiments until she is rescued by Swamp Thing (Dick Durock), a scientist previously transformed into a bog creature after a confrontation with the evil doctor, and a conscience-stricken Dr. Zurrell. Reception. "The Return of Swamp Thing" acquired largely poor reception from critics. Vincent Canby of "The New York Times" gave a negative review, proclaiming the film "is intended for people who missed the 1982 "Swamp Thing" and don't want the bother of renting the videocassette." He added that it "means to be funnier than it ever is" and "contains scenes of violence, most of which are so unconvincing as to be less scary than an average comic book." Another negative review came from "Variety". Its summary headline read: ""The Return of Swamp Thing" is scientific hokum without the fun. Second attempt to film the DC Comics character will disappoint all but the youngest critters." A writer for "Time Out" gave a somewhat neutral review, stating "Wynorski is well-versed in double-bluffing his audience, denying them the chance of balking at dreadful special effects by implying that the ineptitude is deliberate. He opts for cheap nostalgic laughs and camp '50s sci-fi scenery; depending on whether you find this funny, you'll either smile knowingly or gasp in disbelief." Another positive review was from Roger Ebert. He gave the movie "Thumbs Up" when Gene Siskel did not. Before his death a year later, Dick Durock stated in a 2008 interview, "They tried in "Return of Swamp Thing" to make it comedy, campy, and that's tough to make that work. I think the TV series they kind of gave up on that idea and got back to the darker side of the character as he was written in the comic book." Kathleen Norris published a poem referring to this movie ("Return of Swamp Thing") in her book" Journey: New and Selected Poems 1969-1999" (2001). Heather Locklear won the Razzie Award as Worst Actress for her performance in the film. Novelization. Peter David wrote a novelization of the film. Disappointed with the script, David rewrote large chunks of the story. To his surprise, the producers enjoyed the changes and allowed the book to see print as-is. VHS and DVD release. RCA/Columbia Pictures Home Video released the film in 1989 on VHS. The film was issued on DVD by Image Entertainment, with a commentary by Wynorski which suggests that some of the film's humor was not as intentional as it seems, and that Wynorski had a degree of contempt for the material. The DVD also includes two environmental public service announcements for television recorded with Durock in character and the two children featured in the movie. The PSAs aired in certain markets in 1989. Warner Brothers re-released the film in April 2008 on DVD. Television series and sequel. In July 1990, USA Network premiered the "Swamp Thing" television series. This saw Dick Durock reprising his role using a modified version of the "Return of Swamp Thing" costume. The series took a deliberate turn away from the campy themes of its 1989 film predecessor and leaned toward the darkness of Wes Craven's version. It lasted into 1993 with a total of 72 episodes.
1064301	Costas Mandylor (born Costas Theodosopoulos; 3 September 1965) is an Greek Australian actor. He is perhaps best known for his role as Kenny in "Picket Fences", and for portraying Mark Hoffman in the "Saw" films. Early life. Mandylor was born in Melbourne, the son of Louise (née Mandylaris) and Yannis Theodosopoulos, who is a taxi driver. He is of Greek ancestry. Mandylor took a version of his mother's maiden name, citing his real name in Greek being too long. He grew up in St Kilda and South Melbourne. He moved to the United States in 1987 where he started taking acting lessons. He was initially unable to find any work acting and had to work any job available. Career. Mandylor's first major role was in the 1989 film "Triumph of the Spirit" playing a European Jew, which was filmed at the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp. He returned to Los Angeles meeting director Oliver Stone and auditioned and got the role of an Italian count in "The Doors" (1991). Mandylor landed a leading role in "Mobsters" playing a New York gangster, Frank Costello. He went mentally prepared for the role, telling the "Los Angeles Times", "It was interesting that I got that part, because I felt tuned in to gangsters, it was a genre I'd read a lot. When I was 13, I got a job as a dishwasher in a Melbourne nightclub and saw everything there, real gangsters, and had met characters who were dangerous people from an underground world." In 1992 he had a lead role on the CBS television drama, "Picket Fences", playing officer Kenny Lacos until the show ended in 1996. Mandylor also had a lead role in the "Saw" films as Detective Mark Hoffman. Personal life. Mandylor played professional soccer in Europe until suffering shin splints. In 1991, he was chosen by "People" as one of the "50 Most Beautiful People in the world". Mandylor married Talisa Soto in May 1997; they divorced in 2000. His brother, Louis Mandylor, is also an actor.
1034077	James Christopher Bolam, MBE (born 16 June 1935) is an English actor, best known for his roles as Jack Ford in "When the Boat Comes In", Trevor Chaplin in "The Beiderbecke Trilogy", Terry Collier in "The Likely Lads" and its sequel "Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads?", Roy Figgis in "Only When I Laugh", Dr Arthur Gilder in "Born and Bred", Jack Halford in "New Tricks" and the title character of Grandpa in the children's BBC programme "Grandpa in My Pocket". Early life. Bolam was born in Sunderland, County Durham, England. His father, Robert Alfred Bolam, was from Northumberland, and his mother, Marion Alice Durey, from County Durham. Career. After attending Bede Grammar School, Sunderland, Bolam attended Bemrose School in Derby. He was formally trained at the Central School of Speech and Drama in London, and first appeared on screens in the early 1960s, initially in popular TV shows such as "Z-Cars" and the gritty northern films "A Kind of Loving" and "The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner". He appeared along with John Thaw in the 1967 Granada TV serial, "Inheritance". "The Likely Lads" made Bolam a star during its 1964 to 1966 run. Bolam himself adapted the shows for BBC radio soon afterwards, and appeared in films such as "Half a Sixpence", "Otley", and "O Lucky Man!" before the ""Lads"" returned in 1973. "Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads?" ran for two series, in 1973 and 1974 and a 45-minute Christmas special broadcast on Christmas Eve in the later year. In 1975 Bolam appeared alongside the original cast in a further BBC Radio series adapted from the 1973 TV series and in 1976 there was a further reunion in a feature film spin-off from the series, simply entitled "The Likely Lads". Bolam's co-star Rodney Bewes revealed in 2005 that the two actors had not spoken since the film had been made, a period of over thirty years. The rift, according to Bewes, developed through his telling a journalist that when Bolam's wife had revealed that she was pregnant, Bolam was so startled that the car he was driving swerved alarmingly. Bolam has never commented on what caused the rift, but he is known for being guarded about his private life. He once commented: "I'm having a man fix the track rods on my car. I don't want to know anything about him. Why should he want to know anything about me?" In 1976, Bolam made a return to straight drama as Jack Ford in the BBC Television series "When the Boat Comes In", which ran until 1981. Since then he has mostly appeared in comedies and comedy dramas such as "Only When I Laugh" (as Roy Figgis), "The Beiderbecke Affair" (as Trevor Chaplin), "The Beiderbecke Tapes", "Andy Capp" (in the title role), "The Beiderbecke Connection", "Second Thoughts" (as Bill MacGregor), "Midsomer Murders", "Pay and Display", "Dalziel and Pascoe", "Close and True", "Born and Bred" (as Dr. Arthur Gilder), and "New Tricks" (as Jack Halford). In 1978 he played Willie Garvin in a BBC World Service radio adaptation of the Modesty Blaise book "Last Day in Limbo". In 1982 he provided the voice for The Tod in the animated film version of "The Plague Dogs", and in the year 2000, he played Sir Archibald Flint in the "Doctor Who" audio play "The Spectre of Lanyon Moor". He was also the narrator for the 3 part football documentary Three Lions which aired before Euro 2000 on BBC One. The 3 episodes were about England National Team's history from the 1966 World Cup until before the Euro 2000 finals. In 2002 he played the serial killer Harold Shipman, in "Shipman", the ITV adaptation of Brian Masters' book on the case, "Prescription for Murder". He portrayed Harold Wilson, the former Prime Minister, in the 2006 BBC documentary "The Plot Against Harold Wilson". He appeared in Frank Loesser's musical "How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying" at the Chichester Festival Theatre during the 2005 summer season. He is currently playing Grandpa in the Cbeebies show "Grandpa In My Pocket". In 2009 he played Ken Lewis, CEO of the Bank of America, in the television dramatisation "The Last Days of Lehman Brothers". His appearances on the London stage include "Jeffrey Bernard is Unwell" by Keith Waterhouse and Ben Elton´s play, "Gasping". Bolam was appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the 2009 Birthday Honours. It was announced on 20 September 2011, that Bolam had quit the role of Jack Halford in "New Tricks", just days after two more series were commissioned. Personal life. Bolam lives in Wisborough Green, West Sussex with his wife, the actress Susan Jameson (who co-starred with him in the TV series "When the Boat Comes In", "New Tricks, and Grandpa In My Pocket"). They have a daughter, Lucy.
1059979	Gretchen Mol (born November 8, 1972) is an American actress and former model. She is known for her roles in films like "Rounders", "Celebrity", "", "The Thirteenth Floor", and "The Notorious Bettie Page", where she played the title character. She currently appears as Gillian Darmody in HBO's "Boardwalk Empire". Early life. Mol was born in Deep River, Connecticut, where her mother, Janet (née Morgan), is an artist and teacher and her father is a school teacher at RHAM. She went to high school with Broadway actor Peter Lockyer, with whom she performed in school musicals and plays. Her brother, Jim Mol, is a director and editor in the film industry. Mol attended The American Musical and Dramatic Academy and graduated from the William Esper Studio. After summer stock in Vermont, she took a job for a while as an usher at Angelika Film Center. She was living in a Hell's Kitchen walk-up when she was noticed by a talent agent who spotted her working as a hat check girl at Michael's restaurant in New York. Stage. Mol's acting career began in summer stock theatre in Vermont where she played a variety of roles including "Godspell" and "110 In The Shade". She played Jenny in Neil LaBute's "The Shape of Things" on stage in both London and New York in 2001, in a role she reprised in the film version, released in 2003. The "New York Times" critic Ben Brantley, in his review of the play (which he disliked), wrote, " gives by far the most persuasive performance as the unworldly Jenny, and you wind up feeling for her disproportionately, only because she seems to be entirely there, in the present tense". In 2004, Mol spent a year singing and dancing as Roxie in the Broadway production of "Chicago". Film. In 1994, Mol was spotted by photographer Davis Powell. He photographed her in New York's Central Park and replaced her unrepresentative portfolio with professional-looking black & white images which landed her on the cover of "W" magazine within weeks and foreshadowed her "It Girl" and "Bettie Page" looks. Shortly afterwards, she ended her brief modeling career and entered acting full-time. While major roles have been sporadic, Mol has been in more than 30 feature films. She made her film debut in Spike Lee's 1996 film, "Girl 6." She said "I was auditioning for "Guiding Light" and I was happy I got a Spike Lee movie, which was a tiny part, but all of a sudden I had Spike Lee on my resume. I didn't audition for day player anymore". After "Girl 6", New York filmmaker Abel Ferrara took notice and cast her in two movies, "The Funeral" (1996) and "New Rose Hotel" (1998). She had a small role in "Donnie Brasco" (1998). But by now, she was being typecast as "the girlfriend," which she attempted to change by taking a role opposite Jude Law in "Music from Another Room" (1998), a romantic comedy. The film went virtually unnoticed by critics and audiences. In 1998, she appeared in several notable films including "Rounders", starring Matt Damon and Woody Allen's "Celebrity" opposite Leonardo DiCaprio. In 1998 she also came to prominence when she was featured on the cover of "Vanity Fair" magazine, dubbed the "It Girl of the Nineties" by the magazine. For her second film with Woody Allen, 1999's "Sweet and Lowdown," she played a minor role which the "Greenwich Village Gazette" called "notable". She played the female lead role in the 1999 film "The Thirteenth Floor". She played the victim of a con artist in the 2003 film, "Heavy Put-Away", based on the Terry Southern story. In 2006, she shared the lead in a romantic comedy, "Puccini for Beginners", in which her character has a lesbian affair. Mol worked with Mary Harron for two years as the director struggled to finance "The Notorious Bettie Page": "I kind of felt like I lived with it for a while; certainly not as long as Mary Harron did but I got a good chance to really feel like I knew something about Bettie so by the time the role was mine and I was on set I was pretty confident. I felt like I really worked for it." The next year, 2007, was one of her busiest, with four films in production or in release, including a remake of "" starring Russell Crowe, and "An American Affair", in which her character, Catherine Caswell, has an affair with John F. Kennedy. When released in February 2009, the film was harshly criticized by "New York Times" critic Stephen Holden, though he said that Mol's part was "quite well acted". In April 2008, she began filming "Tenure" in Philadelphia, working opposite Luke Wilson, and Andrew Daly. Though it had received some good reviews after being screened at several film festivals, it was released direct-to-video in February 2010. Television. Mol's first television work was in a Coca-Cola commercial. Mol had a small role of Maggie Tilton in the 1996 miniseries "Dead Man's Walk", based on the Larry McMurtry novel. She also was in a few episodes of "Spin City". She was the star of the short-lived David E. Kelley series "Girls Club" (2002), a drama about three women lawyers. The series was not well received and it was cancelled after two episodes. She appeared in two TV remakes of classic films: "Picnic" (2000), in the role of Madge Owens, and "The Magnificent Ambersons" as Lucy Morgan (2002). She made a Hallmark Hall of Fame television movie in January 2007, starring in "The Valley of Light", a story set in post-World War II based on a novel by Terry Kay. It was her second Hallmark production. She had a minor role in "Calm at Sunset" in 1996.
588159	Utt Pataang is a 2011 Bollywood Comedy thriller film, written and directed by Srikanth V. Velagaleti and features Vinay Pathak in a double role alongside, Mahie Gill, Mona Singh and Saurabh Shukla in the leading roles. The film was released on February 4, 2011, to mixed reviews and was also a commercial failure. It is inspired by Japanese film, "A Stranger of Mine" (2005). Synopsis. Ramvilas Sharma (Vinay Pathak) has just ended his live-in relationship with his girlfriend Sanjana Mahadik (Mahie Gill). His detective friend Nandu (Saurabh Shukla) sets him up with Koel Datta (Mona Singh), who has also ended her relationship with her boyfriend after finding out that he was cheating on her.
142682	Alexander Morgan Mason (born June 26, 1955) is a politician, film producer and actor. He was born in Beverly Hills, California, and is the son of the late Academy award-nominated British actor James Mason and his wife Pamela Mason, actress and commentator. He is a former Acting Chief of Protocol of the United States, as well as a former Deputy Chief of Protocol. He also served as Special Assistant to President Ronald Reagan. His grandfather, the financier and film producer Isidore Ostrer, was head of the Gaumont-British Picture Corporation. As a child, Mason appeared in the films "The Sandpiper", with Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, and "Hero's Island", along with his father. He married singer Belinda Carlisle in 1986. They have a son, James Duke Mason, born in 1992. Political career. Mason served as executive director of Illingworth Morris, Ltd., then the world's largest woollen textile company, before going to work for Ronald Reagan's 1979 presidential campaign. He served as assistant finance director, then as major events director, and served as a member of the campaign's executive advisory committee. Reagan selected him as a delegate-at-large from California to the Republican national convention in 1980. After the election, Mason was named special assistant to the co-chairmen of the presidential inaugural committee. After the inauguration, Mason was appointed deputy chief of protocol at the State Department. He was then named as special assistant to the president for political affairs at the White House. During his tenure he was chosen to attend the funeral services of Egyptian president Anwar Sadat as a member of the official United States delegation along with former US presidents Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter. Public relations and film. On November 5, 1982, Mason resigned his White House position and became the vice president of Rogers and Cowan Public Relations. In 1984, he became a board member of Musifilm Ltd., a partnership with MCA/Universal. Mason went on to become an executive producer of "sex, lies, and videotape" (1989), which won the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival and the Sundance Film Festival. In 1986, Reagan appointed him to The Commission for the Preservation of America's Heritage Abroad, and made him a special advisor to the President's Council on Physical Fitness and Sports. In 1990, Mason became vice president and head of the independent film division of the William Morris Agency in Beverly Hills. He left to become chief executive of London Films in 1996. Mason founded the European television channel Innergy in 1999. References. The Reagan Diaries, page 109.
1562986	Brooke McCarter (born April 22, 1963) is an American actor of film and television noted for one of his earliest roles as Paul in "The Lost Boys" in 1987, alongside Jason Patric, Corey Haim, Kiefer Sutherland, Jami Gertz, Corey Feldman, Dianne West, Alex Winter, Jamison Newlander and Barnard Hughes. McCarter has also appeared in films such as "Thrashin"' in 1986, "Wired" in 1989, "The Uh-oh Show" in 2009, and has made television appearances in shows such as "The Twilight Zone". Brooke McCarter began his career in the entertainment industry as a model with the prestigious Ford modeling agency in New York after winning a national talent search right out of college. He soon began doing major campaigns for companies such as Levis and JC Penney. Brooke engaged in a performing arts curriculum of voice, dance and acting. He then studied exclusively with acting coach icon Stella Adler. Upon completing his New York education he quickly moved to Los Angeles and began working immediately, booking national commercials for major products such as Pepsi, Miller and Chevrolet. Brooke then began his cult actor status with his first feature film, Thrashin, the first skateboard movie which launched the careers of Tony Hawk, Josh Brolin and the Red Hot Chili Peppers. His first big break came with a co-starring role in the 80's vampire hit The Lost Boys, which also launched the careers of Keifer Sutherland and Corey Haim and Corey Feldman. Brooke appeared in TV shows such as the Twlight Zone and Route 66. His last feature film was Wired, about the life of John Belushi starring Michael Chikilis. Brooke then turned to his musical talent as a drummer and music programmer, and began scoring independent feature films such as Fast Getaway and documentaries such as Leaves of Green in which he served as director as well. In 1998 he took a 10 year break from Hollywood to pursue other business interests in the telecommunications industry. In 2009, Brooke returned to cult horror movie status with the lead role in horror icon Herschell Gordon Lewis's The Uh-Oh Show due to be released spring of 2010.
1162733	William Hopper, born DeWolf Hopper, Jr. (January 26, 1915 – March 6, 1970) was an American actor. Hopper was born in New York City, the only child of singer and comic stage actor DeWolf Hopper (1858–1935) and actress and gossip columnist Hedda Hopper (1885–1966). He is best remembered for playing private detective Paul Drake in more than 250 episodes of television's "Perry Mason" and for his role as the father of the Natalie Wood character in "Rebel Without a Cause". Early life. Hopper's debut motion picture appearance was as a baby in his father's 1916 silent movie "Sunshine Dad". His mother divorced his father in 1922 and moved to Hollywood with their son. Military service. He enlisted in the Navy in 1942, served as a frogman, and received a Bronze Star for bravery and heroic action during operations in the Pacific. He was discharged when the war ended in 1945. Acting career. 1930s–1940s. Hopper began his acting career as a teenager, working in summer stock in Ogunquit, Maine. He went from there to Broadway, where he appeared in two plays in 1934, "Order Please" and "Romeo and Juliet". Early in his film career, Hopper appeared uncredited in numerous movies or under the name DeWolf Hopper. In 1936, he played a small role as a photographer in the Columbia Pictures film "The King Steps Out" starring Grace Moore and Franchot Tone. In 1937 he portrayed the leading man in two films, "Public Wedding" with Jane Wyman and "Over the Goal". He also enjoyed significant roles alongside Ann Sheridan in "The Footloose Heiress" (1937) and "Mystery House" (1938). After that he had roles that included playing a sergeant in the Western "Stagecoach" (1939) starring Claire Trevor and John Wayne; an intern in "The Return of Dr. X" starring Humphrey Bogart; a New York reporter in "Knute Rockne, All American" (1940) starring Pat O'Brien, Gale Page, Ronald Reagan, and Donald Crisp; a reporter in the post-Hollywood Production Code version of "The Maltese Falcon" (1941) starring Humphrey Bogart and Mary Astor; and a reporter in "Yankee Doodle Dandy" (1942) starring James Cagney and Walter Huston. Reagan and Hopper appeared in nine films together between 1937 and 1942. 1950s–1970s. In the mid 1950s Hopper resumed his movie career with the part of Roy in "The High and the Mighty" (1954) starring John Wayne, Claire Trevor, Laraine Day, and Robert Stack. In 1956 Hopper had a supporting role in Wayne's production of "Good-bye, My Lady". Other appearances included his iconic role as the father of Natalie Wood in the James Dean classic "Rebel Without a Cause" (1955), as Robert Mitchum's ill-fated older brother Arthur in the William Wellman adventure "Track of the Cat" (1954), and as the often absent father Col. Kenneth Penmark in "The Bad Seed" (1956) also starring Nancy Kelly and Patty McCormack. Hopper, along with Joan Taylor and a very young Bart Braverman, starred in the classic Ray Harryhausen science fiction film "20 Million Miles to Earth" (1957). Also in 1957 he played a supporting role in the pilot episode of the television series "The Restless Gun", which was broadcast as an episode of "Schlitz Playhouse of Stars". His television guest appearances included the "The Joseph Cotten Show", "Gunsmoke", "Fury", "Studio 57", "The Millionaire", and "Schlitz Playhouse of Stars". He made two movie appearances during his years on "Perry Mason" but retired after the television show was canceled in 1966. He made one final movie appearance as a judge, Frederic D. Cannon in Gore Vidal's "Myra Breckinridge" (1970) starring Raquel Welch, John Huston, Farrah Fawcett, Rex Reed, and Mae West. Perry Mason. Hopper is best known for his regular role as the private investigator Paul Drake on CBS's courtroom television series "Perry Mason" (1957–1966) with Raymond Burr in the title role and Barbara Hale as secretary Della Street. In the 1959 episode, "The Case of Paul Drake's Dilemma," Hopper played the defendant, the only time in the series' nine-year run that Paul Drake was tried for murder. A heavy smoker, Hopper can be seen smoking in numerous episodes of the show. In 1959 Hopper was nominated for an Emmy Award for Best Supporting Actor in a Dramatic Series for his performance as Paul Drake. Personal life. He had one much older half-brother from his father's second marriage in the 1880s.
1063059	Illeana Douglas (born July 25, 1965) is an American actress, director, screenwriter, and producer. Background. Douglas is a granddaughter of the actor Melvyn Douglas and his first wife, artist Rosalind Hightower, and has said that her grandfather's performance in "Being There", in particular, was influential on her own career. Her paternal great-grandfather was Latvian-born composer and pianist Edouard Hesselberg. Career. Douglas is known for her part in Martin Scorsese's "Cape Fear" (1991) – one of four Scorsese films in which she has appeared – plus her starring role as singer-songwriter Denise Waverly in Allison Anders' "Grace of My Heart" (1996) and supporting roles in "To Die For" (1995) and "Ghost World" (2001). On television, Douglas appeared briefly as Garry Shandling's love interest on "The Larry Sanders Show", starred in the series "Action" (1999) with Jay Mohr, guest starred on "Seinfeld", "Frasier" and "The Drew Carey Show", and has played a public defender on several episodes of "" in 2002 and 2003. She appeared in two episodes of the critically acclaimed HBO TV-series "Six Feet Under", both of which earned Emmy nominations for Guest Actress in a Drama. She also appeared as Mrs. Ari's sister Marci in the Season 7 finale of "Entourage". In 2006, she starred in the Lifetime TV film "Not Like Everyone Else" and played herself in "Pittsburgh" opposite Jeff Goldblum. In 2007, Douglas was added to the cast of "Ugly Betty", playing Sheila, an editor for "MODE" magazine. At the Walt Disney World Resort in the Disney's Hollywood Studios theme park, Douglas plays Aerosmith's manager in the preshow video for the Rock 'n' Roller Coaster attraction. She later appeared in an Aerosmith music video as Liv Tyler's mother. Douglas has tried her hand at writing and directing, with a comedy short "The Perfect Woman" (1993), the documentary "Everybody Just Stay Calm—Stories in Independent Filmmaking" (1994), and the satire "Boy Crazy, Girl Crazier" (1995); and she has been the producer for several projects including "Illeanarama", a collection of her short films for the Sundance Channel. In April 2011, she was scheduled to begin a potentially recurring role on the CW drama series "Gossip Girl" as Lily's older sister, Carol, though Sheila Kelley replaced her as Carol due to scheduling conflicts. Personal life. From 1989 until 1997, Douglas was the companion of director Martin Scorsese. On 16 May 1998, she married producer and writer Jonathan Axelrod, the stepson of producer George Axelrod; they divorced in 2001.
134102	Robert LaSardo (born September 20, 1963) is an American actor. LaSardo was born in Brooklyn, New York. He began his career studying at the High School of Performing Arts in New York City, before going on to the Stella Adler Studio of Acting. Robert also spent four years in the U.S. Navy, spending two of those years handling Navy attack dogs in the Aleutian Islands.
1223906	Ann Wedgeworth (born January 21, 1934) is an American actress, who appeared regularly on "Another World" (1967–70), "Somerset" (1970–73), "Three's Company" (1979), and "Evening Shade" (1990–94). In 1978 she received the Tony Award for Best Performance by a Featured Actress in a Play for "Chapter Two" Early life. Born Elizabeth Ann Wedgeworth to Cortus and Elizabeth (née Thompson) Wedgeworth, she graduated from Highland Park High School in University Park, Texas, where she was a childhood friend and high school classmate of Jayne Mansfield. She dropped her first name after graduating from the University of Texas in 1957, and moved to New York City. After auditioning several times, she was admitted to The Actors Studio. Career. "Three's Company". Wedgeworth joined the cast of "Three's Company" in 1979. After the departure of Mr. and Mrs. Roper, Wedgeworth somewhat replaced Mrs. Roper's love-starved personality as Lana Shields, an older neighbor who has had three previous husbands. Lana first appears in "Love Thy Neighbor" (season 4, episode 2), when Jack Tripper is talked into being Lana's date. "Mrs. Shields", as Jack originally addresses her, becomes head-over-heels in love with him, and by the end of the episode has moved in next door to Jack, Janet Wood, and Chrissy Snow. However, after a few episodes Lana's appearances became smaller and less frequent. Lana disappeared from the show before mid-season, with no explanation given.
585517	Drona 2010 is a 2010 Malayalam film directed by Shaji Kailas. Mammotty appears in double role supported by Kanika, Navya Nair, Manoj K. Jayan, Thilakan, Jayan, Biju Pappan, Suraj Venjaramood, Bala and K. P. A. C. Lalitha. Scripted by A. K. Sajan, the film revolves around a mysterious old mansion believed to be haunted by a ghost. The film was released on January 27, 2010. It is dubbed in Hindi as "Return Of Chandramukhi". Plot. Kunjunni (Mammootty), in an inebriated condition arrives on a rainy night to purchase Nellur Mana, which is believed to be haunted by the ghost of Savithri (Dhanya Mary Varghese). Being crazy about old houses and palaces, Kunjunni, who is in to realty business was lured into this deal by Gireeshan (Manoj K. Jayan), the son of Guptan Namboothiri (Thilakan), a feudal land lord. In a fight with Kunjunni, his younger son had fell from the terrace and had got paralyzed below the hips. Now Guptan Namboothiri wants to avenge for it. Upon reaching the old house, Kunjunni is attacked by the goons of Gireeshan, but he escapes miraculously. An atheist, Kunjunni leads a carefree life away from the traditions of his family and is inlove with Thulasimani (Kanika), the daughter of Pisharody, the old friend of his late father, who was also a famous tantrik. In spite of all the blocks that comes on his way, Kunjunni reaches back to own the house. Gireeshan leads him inside and he feels the presence of some supernatural powers inside. While stepping into the pond, he feels trapped inside and as if someone was pulling him down. The dead body of Kunjunni was found at the nearby river on next day. Pattazhi Madhavan Nambooothiri (Mammootty), his brother, who is also a strong tantrik and Samskrit professor decides to probe the reasons that caused his brother's death. Madhavan Namboothiri suspects Gireeshan's role in it. Madhavan is married to Mithra (Navya Nair), the daughter of Guptan Namboothiri against his wishes,and they have sexual contacts . Madhavan, along with his three disciples starts residing at Nellur mana. It is also revealed that his father also had died by drowning in the pond long back, while was here to perform a vasthu puja. Madhavan and his disciples come across several supernatural experiences inside the house. Madhavan finds several vastu doshas existing in the house that had caused a series of accidents including fire tragedies that had killed several members long back. Madhavan brings in the youngest member of Uliyanoor thachan (Suraj Venjaramood)to rectify the errors. Along with that, he also does several pujas to clear up the mess. But things get more complicated with the arrival of Tulasimani. She is haunted by an unseen force from time to time. It is revealed that Tulasi is none other, but the daughter of Chitran Namboothiri, who was killed in a fire accident years back. Automatically, the ownership of the house comes in to the hands of Tulasi. One night, one among the disciples of Madhavan is killed. The same night, Madhavan is attacked by Jayan, son of Gupthan Namboothiri. The next day, Jayan's corpse is found in the river. Beeran (Devan), the SP of police arrives at the spot for investigation and is shocked to find another corpse, that is of Vishahari, a trusted left hand of Jayan in the house. Madhavan explains Beeran the secrets of the supernatural things happening inside. A secret passage exists from the pond to the river that carries anyone who steps into the pond to the river. He also explains, that it was not any supernatural element that had killed his disciple, but was Jayan and Vishahari, who were in the house to hunt down Madhavan. The next night, Madhavan is getting prepared for the final puja to clear up the whole mess, when Gireeshan arrives in the garbs of Savitri. It is revealed that Gireeshan is suffering from multiple personality disorder and it is him, whom many people mistook to the ghost of Savitri. Madhavan physically overcomes Gireeshan and defeats him, thereby putting an end to the mystery of the ghost. He thus moves back from Nellur Mana, handing the key to Thulasimani. Reception. The movie received poor reviews from critics, with an average rating of 2/5 from the critics of nowrunning.com and 5.5/10 from the critics of indiaglitz.com. The film was a disaster at the box office.
1691981	Pinocchio 3000 (or P3K, Pinocchio the Robot) is a 2004 Canadian computer-animated film by Christal Films. Like "A.I. Artificial Intelligence", it is a futuristic science fiction interpretation of the classic tale "The Adventures of Pinocchio" where Pinocchio is a robot brought to life by tapping into a city's power surge, rather than a puppet animated by magic. The story centers around the basic legend of Pinocchio attempting to fit into living with humans, having difficulties, becoming frustrated with them, and eventually overcoming them. Most of the base elements and characters have been used, in different forms. The story takes place in the town of Scamboville, a futuristic city constantly under development under the reign of its namesake, Scamboli. Plot. The story begins with an inventor named Geppetto making a robot, Pinocchio, as his son. Meanwhile, an evil mayor named Scamboli is making a technology city called "Scamboville", to get rid of nature. He also hates children except for his beloved daughter, Marlene. Marlene has a problem about there being no space for children to have fun. So, Scamboli is going to make a theme park called "Scamboland". This night, Geppetto and Spencer the Penguin are preparing to make Pinocchio come to life. But Scamboli seizes control of the city mains to light up his theme park for the Grand Opening. So, Geppetto has no choice but to steal his electricity. Suddenly, Scamboland has a power cut and the children leave. After Pinocchio comes to life, much to his family's delight, Cyberina the fairy appears. She decides to grant Geppetto's wish to turn Pinocchio into a real boy if he learns about Right and Wrong. The next morning, Pinocchio is walking his way to school with Spencer , but he meets up with Zach, Cynthia and Marlene. Marlene challenges Pinocchio to an Imagination game, hosted by Cyberina. Marlene wins the game, but Pinocchio snatches the medal from her. As he runs away, he comes across Scamboli's robotic henchmen, Cabby and Rodo, who take Pinocchio to see Scamboli. While they talk to each other, Pinocchio says, "Life would be great if kids were more like us", sparking an idea in Scamboli's diabolical brain.
1164183	Melissa Joan Catherine Hart (born April 18, 1976) is an American actress, writer, television director, television producer, singer and businesswoman. Hart is known for her title roles in the television series "Clarissa Explains It All" (1991–94), the live action version of "Sabrina, the Teenage Witch" (1996–2003), and "Melissa & Joey" (2010–present). Hart has been married to musician Mark Wilkerson since July 19, 2003; together, they have three children. Biography. Hart was born in Smithtown, New York, on Long Island, the first child of Paula, a producer and talent manager, and William Hart, a carpenter, shellfish purveyor, clam hatchery worker, and entrepreneur. She grew up in nearby Sayville. Her parents had four other children after Melissa: Trisha, Elizabeth, Brian, and Emily. Her parents were divorced in the early 1990s, and she moved with her mother and siblings to New York City. In 1994 her mother married television executive Leslie Gilliams, and her father remarried also (Lisa Hart). Melissa Hart was named after the Allman Brothers song "Melissa", while her middle name, Joan, came from her maternal grandmother. She chose Catherine as her confirmation name when she was in the eighth grade. As a teen she became self-conscious of her right side lazy eye lid but as acting jobs kept coming in, she realized that it was not going to affect her career at all. Hart is the eldest of eight children with six sisters, and one brother. Sisters Trisha, Elizabeth and Emily Hart, brother Brian, and half-sisters Alexandra Gilliams and Samantha Gilliams have all acted. Her youngest half-sister Mackenzie Hart is not in show business. Career. Beginnings. Hart's career began at age four when she made a television commercial for a bathtub doll called Splashy. From then on, she appeared regularly in commercials, making 25 of them before the age of five. Other early television work included a small role in the miniseries "Kane & Abel" in 1985, a guest-starring role in an episode of "The Equalizer" in 1986, and a starring role alongside Katherine Helmond in the Emmy Award-winning TV movie "Christmas Snow", also in 1986. She made a cameo guest appearance on the April 22, 1986 episode of the NBC daytime soap opera Another World. She also auditioned for the lead role Jamie Lloyd in "", losing the role to Danielle Harris. In 1989, she became the understudy for a Broadway production of "The Crucible" starring Martin Sheen. 1991–1994: "Clarissa Explains It All". In 1991 Hart landed the starring role on the Nickelodeon series "Clarissa Explains It All", a comedy about a teen girl in everyday situations, which was successful during its four-year run. The show brought her four consecutive Young Artist Award nominations, winning three. Her role in the series also led to her starring in the FMV video game Nickelodeon's Director's Lab as a tour guide who takes the player around a movie studio. In 1992, she and "Clarissa" cast member Jason Zimbler appeared on the game show Nick Arcade as contestants, she is one of the few people who played the beta version of Sonic The Hedgehog 2 on the Video Challenge. Initially, after first being recognized on the streets, Hart felt embarrassed to perform on a kids show while being a teenager. Nevertheless, she was enthusiastic about the role, and "all hoped for that [she would get to do it for a while." Hart also recorded two albums as Clarissa, "This Is What 'Na Na' Means" and a recording of "Peter and the Wolf". In 1995, a year after the end of "Clarissa Explains It All", Hart filmed an unaired sequel called "Clarissa," a pilot for CBS starring a college-aged Clarissa, this time, explaining it all about her foray into the professional world as an intern at a newspaper. The show featured a slow, jazz version of her original theme song, and also starred Robert Klein as her boss. Hart appeared on Nickelodeon's anthology show "Are You Afraid of the Dark?" Season 2 episode "The Tale of the Frozen Ghost" in 1991. 1996–2003: "Sabrina, The Teenage Witch". After the television series ended, Hart attended New York University. However, she did not complete her degree, because she earned the title role for the 1996 TV movie "Sabrina the Teenage Witch". This was followed by the television series of the same name which lasted seven seasons on ABC and The WB. She later collaborated on an animated version that featured Hart voicing the two aunts Hilda and Zelda, and Hart's younger sister Emily Hart starring in the title role. In between times, she also guest-starred on the series "Touched by an Angel" and starred in several TV movies. In 1998, Hart landed a small part in the movie "Can't Hardly Wait", and then started filming "Next to You", starring alongside Adrian Grenier. Hart asked her friend Britney Spears to do a remix of her song "(You Drive Me) Crazy" and add it to the movie's soundtrack. To capitalize on the song's success as a top-ten hit, the title of the movie was changed to "Drive Me Crazy" and Hart joined Spears in the music video for that song. Around the same time, Spears was given a guest role in an episode of "Sabrina, the Teenage Witch" where she played herself. Hart appeared in lingerie in a series of photographs and an accompanying article in the October 1999 issue of the men's magazine Maxim. Hart maintained her acting career in the 2000s including working on the film "Rent Control", which aired in 2005 on the ABC Family cable network. Hart continued her role on "Sabrina, the Teenage Witch", which finished in 2003, and also performed several voice-over roles for animation. In 1999, Hart made her directorial debut in an episode of Disney Channel's "So Weird" called "Snapshot" which starred her sister, Emily Hart. She later directed an episode of Nickelodeon's "Taina" in 2001. In 2001–2002, she directed 6 episodes of "Sabrina the Teenage Witch", including the season 6 finale. Hart and fellow "Sabrina, the Teenage Witch" actress Lindsay Sloane made a joint appearance in That 70s Show in the episode "Eric Gets Suspended". 2004–present: Post-Sabrina and "Melissa & Joey". After the end of "Sabrina, The Teenage Witch", Hart directed her first movie, a 15-minute live-action short film called "Mute" (2005), starring her sister Emily.
1062310	A superhero film, superhero movie, or superhero motion picture is a film that is focused on the actions of one or more superheroes; individuals who usually possess superhuman abilities relative to a normal person and are dedicated to protecting the public. These films typically feature action, fantasy and/or science fiction elements, with the first film of a particular character often includes a focus on the origin of the special powers including the first fight against the character's most famous supervillain, or archenemy.
1039644	Thomas William "Tom" Hiddleston (born 9 February 1981) is an English actor. He played the character of Loki in the Marvel Studios films "Thor" (2011) and "The Avengers" (2012), for which he won the MTV Movie Award for Best Fight and Best Villain in 2013. Other notable films have included Steven Spielberg's World War I film "War Horse" (2011), the British drama "The Deep Blue Sea" (2011), Woody Allen's romantic comedy "Midnight in Paris" (2011), and the 2012 BBC series "Henry IV" and "Henry V". He is set to reprise the role of Loki for the upcoming film "" (2013). Early life and education. Hiddleston was born in Westminster, London, to parents Diana Patricia (née Servaes), a former stage manager and arts administrator, and James Norman Hiddleston, a scientist in physical chemistry who was the managing director of a pharmaceutical company. His father is from Greenock, Scotland and his mother from Suffolk, England. He is the middle child with two sisters, Sarah (oldest), a journalist in India, and Emma (youngest), also an actor. He was raised in Wimbledon, in his early years, and later in Oxford. He started off at the preparatory school, The Dragon School in Oxford, and by the time he was 13, he boarded at Eton College, at the same time that his parents were going through a divorce. "I think I started acting because I found being away at school while my parents were divorcing really distressing." Hiddleston continued on to Pembroke College at the University of Cambridge, where he earned a double first in Classics. He graduated from RADA in 2005. Career. During Hiddleston's second term at Cambridge, he was seen in a production of "A Streetcar Named Desire" by talent agent Lorraine Hamilton, of Hamilton Hodell. While still doing student plays, he began doing British television, landing parts in Stephen Whittaker’s adaptation of "Nicholas Nickleby" for ITV the BBC/HBO co-production "Conspiracy", and as Randolph Churchill, the son of Winston Churchill, in the BBC/HBO drama "The Gathering Storm". On graduating from the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, Hiddleston won his first film role, playing Oakley in Joanna Hogg’s first feature, "Unrelated". He also appeared in the leading role of Edward in Joanna Hogg's second feature, "Archipelago", and had leading roles in Declan Donnellan's company Cheek by Jowl's productions "The Changeling", and "Cymbeline". His Donmar Warehouse credits include Cassio in Michael Grandage's production of Shakespeare's "Othello" alongside Chiwetel Ejiofor and Ewan McGregor to critical acclaim and later Lvov in their West End revival of Chekhov's "Ivanov". His TV credits include Magnus Martinsson in the BBC detective drama "Wallander", Bill Hazledine in "Suburban Shootout", John Plumptre in the BBC costume drama TV film "Miss Austen Regrets" and William Buxton in the BBC drama series "Return to Cranford". He is best known for his portrayal of Loki in the 2011 Marvel Studios film, "Thor". He was invited to audition by Kenneth Branagh, the film's director, after having previously worked with Branagh on "Ivanov" and "Wallander". "Ken has had a life-changing effect. He was able to say to the executives, 'Trust me on this, you can cast Tom and he will deliver'. It was massive and it's completely changed the course of what is available to me to do. Ken gave me my break." In the beginning, he originally auditioned for the part of Thor. "I initially auditioned to play Thor. That was what I was being considered for, because I’m tall and blonde and classically trained, and that seemed to be the mold for what Thor was, he was to be a classical character. And it was in my auditions. I owe this entirely to Marvel and their open-mindedness, they saw something that they thought was interesting. They saw some temperament that they liked." The casting director gave Hiddleston six weeks to bulk up, so he went on a strict diet and gained twenty pounds of muscle. In the end, Branagh decided he was more suitable as the antagonist and cast him as Loki. To prepare for his role as Loki, Hiddleston trained in the Brazilian martial art of capoeira. In 2011, he portrayed novelist F. Scott Fitzgerald in writer-director Woody Allen's "Midnight in Paris", the noble Captain Nicholls in War Horse, a film based on the 1982 novel by Michael Morpurgo, directed by Steven Spielberg, and Freddie Page, a RAF pilot in the British drama "The Deep Blue Sea", alongside Rachel Weisz. He reprised his role as the supervillain Loki in the 2012 movie "The Avengers". While filming a scene with Chris Hemsworth, who plays "Thor", the film's director, Joss Whedon told the fighting duo that the scene didn't look real enough, so Hiddleston told Hemsworth to really hit him for the fight scene. "I said to Chris, 'Dude, just hit me. Just hit me because I'm protected here and it's fine.' He's like, 'Are you sure?' I was like, 'Yeah, it will look great. Just go for it.'" Hiddleston will reprise his Loki role again in "" (2013), which started filming in July 2012. In 2012 he appeared in the BBC Two series "The Hollow Crown", portraying Prince Hal in the TV-movie adaptations of Shakespeare's "Henry IV, Parts I & II" and Henry V in "Henry V". Hiddleston narrated the audio book "The Red Necklace" by Sally Gardner, poetry for "iF Poems" and "The Love Book" on iTunes, for the British Museum on "the Ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead", and was the voiceover for BBC's documentary on the "Galapagos Island". Hiddleston will star in the film adaptation of Elliott Chaze's 1953 crime novel "Black Wings Has My Angel", as escaped con Tim Sunblade. Costarring with Anna Paquin and Elijah Wood, filming was originally supposed to start in September 2012 but in an October 2012 interview, Hiddleston divulged that filming would be put on hold due to the recent births of Paquin's twins and her wanting to take time to be a mother. Hiddleston said, "It was a sort of fun noir thing, but it's way, way off in the future. It's just Thor 2 at the moment." In 2013, Hiddleston will play vampire, Adam, in Jim Jarmusch's film "Only Lovers Left Alive" with Tilda Swinton as Eve and Mia Wasikowska. It was announced that Hiddleston would play Robert Capa, the Hungarian war photographer and photojournalist, in the upcoming film "Close Enough", alongside Hayley Atwell. He replaced Benedict Cumberbatch in the upcoming gothic horror film "Crimson Peak" directed by Guillermo Del Toro. The film is set to start filming in Toronto in February 2014 with a 2015 release date.
394196	Memories of Murder (; RR: "Sarinui chueok") is a 2003 South Korean crime-drama film directed by Bong Joon-ho. It is based on the true story of the country's first known serial murders, which took place between 1986 and 1991 in Hwaseong, Gyeonggi Province. Song Kang-ho and Kim Sang-kyung star as Detective Park and Detective Seo, respectively, two of the detectives trying to solve the crimes. The film was the second feature film directed by Bong Joon-ho, following his 2000 debut film "Barking Dogs Never Bite". The screenplay was adapted by Bong and Shim Sung-bo from Kim Kwang-rim's 1996 stage play about the same subject. The film's cinematography, as well as Song Kang-ho's performance, earned it wide praise. Plot. In October 1986, a young woman is found raped and murdered in a ditch near a field. Soon after, another woman is found raped and murdered in a field. Local detective Park Doo-man, not having dealt with such a serious case before, is overwhelmed; key evidence is improperly collected, the police's investigative methods are suspect, and their forensic technology is near non-existent. Detective Seo Tae-yoon is sent from Seoul to assist them; their methods clash and he is unable to convince them they are dealing with a serial killer until his predictions of another murder come true. He realizes that the killer waits until a rainy night, and only kills women wearing red. A female police officer realizes that a local radio station is always requested to play a particular song during the nights the murders are committed. While Seo investigates and tries to piece together the clues, Park and his men beat confessions out of a local man found masturbating at the scene of one crime, and a scarred mentally handicapped boy whom they threaten to kill, going so far as to make him dig his own grave. Seo clears both of those suspects and follows a trail of clues to a handsome factory worker who had only moved to the area a short time before the first murder. The detectives are unable to pin anything on him; when they realize that the handicapped boy witnessed one of the crimes and try to speak to him, they frighten him so badly that he runs in front of an oncoming train and is killed. Finally, when yet another murder is committed and DNA evidence sent for processing in the United States comes back inconclusive, Seo's frustrations flow over and he snaps. He flies into a rage and roughs up the factory worker; only Park stops Seo from shooting the suspect.
1066668	Never Back Down (also known as The Fighters) is a 2008 action film starring Sean Faris, Amber Heard, Cam Gigandet, and Djimon Hounsou. It was theatrically released on March 14, 2008. The film's tagline is "Win or lose... Everyone has their fight". The film is rated PG-13 for "mature thematic material involving intense sequences of fighting/violence, some sexuality, partying, and language – all involving teens". An unrated version called the "Extended Beat Down Edition", featuring nudity and more blood, was released on DVD on July 29, 2008. Plot. Jake Tyler (Sean Faris) has recently moved from Iowa to Orlando, Florida with his mother, Margret (Leslie Hope), and younger brother, Charlie (Wyatt Smith), to support Charlie's shot at a professional tennis career. Jake was a star athlete on the football team at home, but in this new city, he is an outsider with a reputation for being a quick tempered brawler after an internet video of him starting a fight circulates around his new school. Making an attempt to fit in, at the invitation of a flirtatious classmate, Baja Miller (Amber Heard), Jake goes to a party where he is unwillingly pulled into a fight with the fighting champion at the school, Ryan McCarthy (Cam Gigandet). Originally, Jake does not wish to fight until Ryan taunts him about his father who died while driving drunk with Jake in the car. Unsurprisingly, Jake is defeated in the fight, but a classmate, Max Cooperman (Evan Peters), who later becomes one of his best friends, introduces himself to Jake and tells him about the sport known as Mixed Martial Arts. He sees a star in Jake and asks that he meet with his mentor, Jean Roqua (Djimon Hounsou). It is immediately apparent to Jake that MMA is not street fighting, but rather an art form he wants to master. Roqua agrees to take Jake as a pupil, but under the condition that Jake refrains from fighting outside of the gym which Jake agrees to, despite knowing he wishes to confront Ryan anyway. Baja attempts to apologize to Jake, but he does not sympathize with her and refuses to forgive her. Baja then confronts Ryan about the fight with Jake and proceeds to end their relationship. Ryan begins to create a scene before the entire school but Jake steps in to defend Baja. After Ryan insults him again and leaves, Jake attends training with Roqua. Still angry about the incident, Roqua asks Jake to leave so that he could "cool off". After he and Max leave the gym, Jake gets into a brawl with a group of guys in a Hummer whom Jake easily disposes of while Max films. This video again circulates around the school raising Jake's social status but agitating Ryan in the process. Ryan then proceeds to challenge Jake to compete in the Beatdown, an underground fighting tournament of which Ryan is the reigning champion. After having been banished from the gym by Roqua after his fight is discovered, Jake begs for forgiveness saying his anger is quelled when he is training with Roqua. Roqua agrees to allow Jake to train at his gym again, but does not take it easy on him anymore. He then prepares to compete in the Beatdown. Jake apologizes to Baja for not listening when she first apologized and the two proceed to begin a relationship. While training with Roqua, Jake inquires why he lives in the gym. Jake discovers that Roqua is from Brazil and he is in exile because he believes he is the reason his brother, Joseph the favorite son, was killed and his father had disowned him for.
1163762	Edward Bridge "Ted" Danson III (born December 29, 1947) is an American actor, author and producer, well known for his role as lead character Sam Malone in the sitcom "Cheers", and his role as Dr. John Becker on the series "Becker". He is currently starring in the CBS drama "". He also plays a recurring role on Larry David's HBO sitcom "Curb Your Enthusiasm", starred alongside Glenn Close in legal drama "Damages" and was a regular on the HBO comedy series "Bored to Death". In his 30-year career, Danson has been nominated for 15 Primetime Emmy Awards, winning two; ten Golden Globe Awards nominations, winning three; one Screen Actors Guild Awards nomination; one American Comedy Award and a star on Hollywood's Walk of Fame. He was ranked second in TV Guide's list of the top 25 television stars. Danson has also been a longtime activist in ocean conservation. In March 2011, he published his first book, "Oceana: Our Endangered Oceans And What We Can Do To Save Them", written with journalist Michael D'Orso. Early life. Danson was born in San Diego, California, the son of Jess Danson (née MacMaster) and Edward Bridge Danson, Jr., an archaeologist and museum director and raised in Flagstaff, Arizona.
1078493	Martin Compston (born 8 May 1984) is a Scottish actor and former professional footballer. He is perhaps most notable for his role as Liam in "Sweet Sixteen", for his role as Ewan Brodie in "Monarch of the Glen", and for his lead role in the popular crime show "Line of Duty". Biography. Compston was born and brought up in Greenock, Inverclyde, and attended St. Columba's High School in neighbouring Gourock. A youth footballer, after leaving school he signed for local professional team Greenock Morton. Compston made two appearances for Morton at the end of the 2001–2002 season, in which the 'Ton were relegated from the Scottish Football League First Division. In both matches he appeared as a substitute, and both times Morton lost 4–0, to Alloa Athletic and Queen of the South. Having never acted before, he successfully auditioned for the lead role in Ken Loach's "Sweet Sixteen", which was being filmed locally. The film's success at the Cannes Film Festival gave him instant celebrity status in Scotland. His subsequent film career was comparatively low key as he wanted to "serve his apprenticeship" with a regular role in the BBC TV drama serial "Monarch of the Glen". He then appeared in three films: "A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints" (Jury Prize and Best Ensemble Cast at the Sundance Festival) with Robert Downey, Jr.; "Red Road" (Jury Prize at Cannes), shot in Scotland with Kate Dickie and Tony Curran, for which he was nominated Best Supporting Actor at the Scottish BAFTAs; and "True North" with Peter Mullan and Gary Lewis, for which he was nominated as Best Actor at the British Independent Film Awards. Compston made a cameo appearance in small budget web series "Night Is Day". He also reportedly auditioned for the role of Scotty in the new "Star Trek" film, but the role ultimately went to Simon Pegg. His next role was in the 2010 film "Soulboy". He also appeared in the horror film "The 4th Reich" as Pte. Newman. Compston appeared in The View's music video for "Grace". In June–July 2012, Compston starred in the BBC police drama "Line of Duty". The show has been confirmed for a second series. In 2012 Compston also starred in the violent thriller "Piggy". Back to his Scottish roots, he then appeared in the lead role in "The Wee Man", directed by Ray Burdis, a film depicting the life of renowned Glasgow Gangster Paul Ferris. It was released in the UK in January 2013. In April 2013 Compston starred in the ITV mini-series "The Ice Cream Girls". Compston will be appearing as Roy James in the upcoming BBC One two-part drama marking the 50th anniversary of the Great Train Robbery.
1060538	Jeremiah "Jerry" O'Connell (born February 17, 1974) is an American actor, best known for his roles in the TV series "Sliders", Andrew Clements in "My Secret Identity", Vern Tessio in the film "Stand by Me", Derek in "Scream 2", Charlie Carbone in "Kangaroo Jack", and Detective Woody Hoyt on the drama "Crossing Jordan". He starred as Pete Kaczmarek in the CBS TV series "The Defenders" until its cancellation in 2011. He also had a starring role in the comedy horror film "Piranha 3D". Early life and education. O'Connell was born in New York City, the son of Linda (née Witkowski), an art teacher, and Michael O'Connell, an advertising agency art director. His maternal grandfather, Charles S. Witkowski, was the mayor of Jersey City, New Jersey.
582663	Mukesh Khanna is an Indian television and film character actor, best known for his portrayal in Doordarshan Television Serial Shaktimaan and as Bhishma in B. R. Chopra's "Mahabharat". Career. He was born on 23 June , in Mumbai, India. He came into the film industry in 1982 after graduating from Film and Television Institute of India. He rose to fame and is still best known for playing Bhishma in B. R. Chopra's "Mahabharat". Khanna had a major role as an Indian superhero in the "Shaktiman" series, which was successful all over India with children. He worked in the television series "Aryamaan – Brahmaand Ka Yodha" as the character of the same name on Toon Disney in India. Khanna has worked in many television productions and films depicting him as police inspector such as the film "Hera Pheri". He has also worked in a television series called "Waqt Bataye Ga". He has played roles in films such as "Tahalka" and "International Khiladi". He played the father of Bobby Deol's character in the film "Barsaat". He was offered the role of Shantanu in Ekta Kapoor's "Kahaani Hamaaray Mahaabhaarat Ki"; he refused. He told the press that Ekta's "Mahabharat" is sure to be a flop because BR Chopra's "Mahabharat" had actors in it; her "Mahabharat" has "models" in it.
63884	Mary Fairfax Somerville (26 December 1780 – 28 November 1872) was a Scottish science writer and polymath, at a time when women's participation in science was discouraged. She studied mathematics and astronomy, and was the second woman scientist to receive recognition in the United Kingdom after Caroline Herschel. Early life and work. She was the daughter of Irish Vice-Admiral Sir William George Fairfax (scion of a distinguished family of Fairfaxes), and was related to several prominent Scottish houses through her mother. She was born at the manse of Jedburgh, in the Borders, the house of her mother's sister, wife of Dr Thomas Somerville (1741–1830), author of "My Own Life and Times". Her childhood home was at Burntisland, Fife. Returning from sea, her father considered the 10-year-old Mary "a savage" and sent her for a year of tuition at Muselburgh, an expensive boarding school. She returned being able to read, and able to write, albeit poorly; she could perform simple arithmetic and knew a little French. Following this, she was informally taught elementary geography and astronomy, but found her education limited compared to what her brother might receive. To supplement this, therefore, she was taught Latin by her uncle, Dr Thomas Somerville, who described her as an eager student. Once, listening in to her brother receive tutoring in mathematics, she answered when he could not; impressed, his tutor allowed her to continue with lessons unofficially. She also studied art with Alexander Nasmyth in Edinburgh, who taught her about perspective – inspired, she managed to obtain a copy of Euclid's "Elements of Geometry", and began to teach herself from it. Meanwhile, she continued in the traditional roles of the daughter of a well-connected family, attending social events and maintaining a sweet and polite manner – she was nicknamed "the Rose of Jedburgh" among Edinburgh socialites. Around this time, however, following the death of her sister at age ten, her parents forbade Mary from further study, believing it had contributed to her sister's death. This did not deter her from studying on her own, although she had to continue in secret. In 1804 she married her distant cousin, the Russian Consul in London, Captain Samuel Greig, son of Admiral Samuel Greig. They had two children, one of whom, Woronzow Greig, became a barrister and scientist. They lived in London, and it was not a happy time for Somerville – although she could study more easily, her husband did not think much of women's capacity to pursue academic interests. She returned home to Scotland upon his death in 1807. Her inheritance from Greig gave her the freedom to pursue intellectual interests. In 1812 she married another cousin, Dr William Somerville (1771–1860), inspector of the Army Medical Board, who encouraged and greatly aided her in the study of the physical sciences. They had four children. During her marriage she made the acquaintance of the most eminent scientific men of the time, among whom her talents had attracted attention. Before she had acquired general fame, Laplace told her, "There have been only three women who have understood me. These are yourself, Mrs Somerville, Caroline Herschel and a Mrs Greig of whom I know nothing" (of course, Somerville was first "and third" of these three). Translation and writing. Having been requested by Lord Brougham to translate for the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge the "Mécanique Céleste" of Laplace, she greatly popularized its form, and its publication in 1831, under the title of "The Mechanism of the Heavens", at once made her famous. She stated "I translated Laplace's work from algebra into common language". Her other works are the "On the Connexion of the Physical Sciences" (1834), "Physical Geography" (1848), which was commonly used as a text book until the early 20th century, and "Molecular and Microscopic Science" (1869). In 1835, she and Caroline Herschel became the first women members of the Royal Astronomical Society. In 1838 she and her husband went to Italy, where she spent much of the rest of her life. In 1868, four years before her death at age 91, she signed
587901	Allu Rama Lingaiah (1 October 1922 – 31 July 2004) was an Indian Telugu language comedic actor from Palakollu, India who appeared in over one thousand Tollywood films. Film career. Rama Lingaiah began his film career in 1953 with "Puttillu" and his last film "Jai" was in the year before his death. He was awarded the Padma Shri in 1990 by the Government of India, and received the Raghupathi Venkaiah Award in 2001. Rama Lingaiah played memorable roles in classics like "Mayabazar" (as one of the Sarma-Sastry duo), "Missamma", "Muthyala Muggu", "Sankarabharanam" (his speech preceding the song "Dorakunaa Ituvanti Seva" commenting on the downfall of modern-day music, and the scene where he admonishes Somayajulu), "Saptapadi", "Yamagola" ("Taalamu vesitini, gollemu marachitini!"), and numerous movies of the 80s, where he played a soft and unhated villain with the likes of Raogopal Rao and Nagabhushanam. His comedic timing and his nasal voice distinguished his many comic performances. Family ties. Rama Lingaiah's immediate family members are well established in the Telugu film industry including
584054	Minnale (; ) is a 2001 Tamil film written and directed by Gautham Menon. The film featured Madhavan, Abbas and Reemma Sen, with Vivek and Nagesh also appearing in pivotal roles. The film's soundtrack was composed by debutant Harris Jayaraj, which became successful prior to release, helping the film take a good opening. The film opened to positive reviews from critics and enjoyed significant commercial success.
1163569	Rodney Dangerfield (born Jacob Rodney Cohen, November 22, 1921 – October 5, 2004) was an American comedian and actor, known for the catchphrase "I don't get no respect!" and his monologues on that theme. He is also remembered for his 1980s film roles, especially in "Easy Money", "Caddyshack", and "Back to School". Early life. Dangerfield was born in Deer Park within the Town of Babylon, New York, in Suffolk County, Long Island, New York. He was the son of Jewish parents, the vaudevillian performer Phil Roy (Philip Cohen) and Dotty Teitelbaum. His ancestors came to the United States from Hungary. His father was never home and he would only usually see him twice a year. Several years later, his father begged for forgiveness and Dangerfield forgave him.
583248	Rajit Kapur (Hindi: रजित कपूर, Urdu: رجِت کپُر) is an Indian actor. He is particularly known for his award-winning portrayal of Mahatma Gandhi in the 1996 film, "The Making of the Mahatma". One of his most popular stints is his portrayal of Byomkesh Bakshi in a television series of the same name based on the character created by Sharadindu Bandyopadhyay and directed by Basu Chatterjee. He is also known for his acting in the Malayalam film "Agni Sakshi". Career. Rajit Kapur is an actor as well as a director. He has acted in plays like Love letters and Class of 84.
1064202	Justin Lee Bartha (born July 21, 1978) is an American actor who is well known for his co-starring roles as Riley Poole in the "National Treasure films" and as Doug Billings in "The Hangover trilogy". He starred in the NBC comedy "The New Normal", as David Sawyer. Personal life. Bartha was born in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and moved to West Bloomfield, Michigan, when he was eight. His father, Stephen, is a real estate developer, while his mother, Betty, is a school teacher. He has one older brother, Jeffrey. Bartha was raised in a Reform Jewish family. Bartha attended Camp Walden in Cheboygan, Michigan, for 5 years as a child. After he graduated from West Bloomfield High School in 1996, he moved to New York City and studied acting at New York University. Bartha dated actress Ashley Olsen from 2008 to 2011. He is currently engaged to Lia Smith, a personal trainer. Career. Bartha began his film career behind the camera as a production assistant on the film "Analyze This". His acting debut came with his first film, "54" as Clubgoer. He wrote and directed a short film, "Highs and Lows" with Darrell M. Smith as co-producer, which was shown at the South by Southwest Film Festival in 2003. Additionally, he wrote, produced, and starred in an MTV pilot called "The Dustin and Justin Show". Bartha had major roles in the critically bashed "Gigli" and "Carnival Sun" in 2003 before his co-starring role in "National Treasure" (2004) as Riley Poole, which launched him into the mainstream. In 2006, Bartha had roles in "Failure to Launch" and the television's "Teachers" which only aired six episodes. In November 2007, Bartha was cast in an indie comic-drama, "Holy Rollers". His character lures a young Hasidic Jew (Jesse Eisenberg) into becoming an ecstasy dealer. Filming began in New York in the spring of 2008, and the film was released in 2010. Bartha also starred alongside Catherine Zeta-Jones in the Bart Freundlich film, "The Rebound". The romantic comedy is about a 25-year-old man who starts a romance with his older single mother neighbor. The film began shooting in April 2008 in New York and finished in June. In in the 2009 Golden Globe-winning film, "The Hangover", he played Doug Billings, one of Phil's mild-mannered groom-to-be friend who goes on a weekend trip to Vegas with his three best friends. After a wild night of partying, he goes missing and his friends frantically search the town to find him. He reprised the role in 2011's "The Hangover Part II", and again in 2013's "The Hangover Part III". Bartha starred as Max in the Broadway revival of the play "Lend Me a Tenor" by Ken Ludwig. He performed alongside Tony Shalhoub, Anthony LaPaglia, Brooke Adams, and Jan Maxwell. A farcical comedy, it was directed by Stanley Tucci and started previews at the Music Box Theatre on March 11, 2010, with the official opening date on April 4, 2010. In 2011, Bartha signed on to star in the premiere of Zach Braff's play "All New People" at Second Stage Theatre. "All New People" began June 28 and ran through mid-August. Anna Camp, David Wilson Barnes and Krysten Ritter co-starred in this production under the direction of Peter DuBois. In February 2012, Bartha signed on to co-star on the NBC comedy pilot "The New Normal". On May 7, 2012, NBC ordered the project to series. The show was centered around a gay couple (Bartha & Andrew Rannells) and the surrogate mother (Georgia King) they selected to bear their child. It premiered on September 11, 2012, but was officially cancelled the next year on May 10, 2013.
1247955	Larry Keating (June 13, 1899 – August 26, 1963) was an American actor best known for his role of next-door neighbor Roger Addison on the television series "Mister Ed", which he played from 1961 until his death in 1963. Career. Keating was one of several actors to play neighbor Harry Morton* on "The Burns and Allen Show" (and its short-lived sequel, "The George Burns Show"). He was an announcer for NBC in the 1940s, an announcer for ABC radio's "This Is Your FBI" from 1945 to 1953, and a regular on the short-lived series "The Hank McCune Show". (* Keating took over the role from Fred Clark.) Keating's film credits include "The Mating Season" (1951) with Gene Tierney, Thelma Ritter and Miriam Hopkins, "When Worlds Collide" (1951), and "Monkey Business" (1952). Death. Keating died of leukemia on August 26, 1963. His final movie role was in "The Incredible Mr. Limpet". He is entombed in Portland, Oregon's Mount Calvary Cemetery.
1263782	Vampyros Lesbos () is a 1971 West German-Spanish horror film directed and co-written by Jesús Franco. The film stars Ewa Stroemberg as Linda Westinghouse, an American who works in a Turkish legal firm. Westinghouse has a series of erotic dreams that involve a mysterious vampire woman who seduces her before feeding on her blood. When she travels to an island to settle an inheritance, Lucy recognizes a woman as the vampire from her dreams. The film was shot in 1970 in Turkey. It was a popular success in theaters in Europe on its release and was the first film to have a more psychedelic score for a Franco film and the first to have a lesbian theme as a prominent feature of the film. The film's score became popular in the mid-1990s when it was included on the compilation "Vampyros Lesbos: Sexadelic Dance Party", an album that became a top ten hit on the British Alternative charts. Plot. On a remote island, beautiful bloodsucker Countess Nadine Oskudar (Soledad Miranda) lures unwary victims with her seductive nightclub act and sets her sights on silky blonde Linda (Ewa Strömberg), initiating her into the realm of love beyond the grave. After their first carnal encounter, Linda wanders the beach in a daze and falls under the care of Dr. Seward (Dennis Price), who's intent on using Nadine to become a vampire himself. Production. "Vampyros Lesbos" was filmed in Turkey between June 1, 1970 and July 10, 1970. Franco applied film devices that were used in his previous film such as long strip club sequences and female protagonists while the lesbian subtext was more prominent in this film than any previous work. The music score also differs from the jazz soundtracks of his previous films with a more psychedelic music influenced soundtrack. The soundtrack was composed by Manfred Hübler, Siegfried Schwab and Jesús Franco who credited himself under the alias of David Khune. The film went under several titles before being released as "Vampyros Lesbos" including '"Das Mal des Vampirs" ("Evil of the Vampires") and "Im Zeichen der Vampire" ("Mark of the Vampire"). Less than a month after finishing production on "Vampyros Lesbos", Franco began working on his next film "She Killed in Ecstasy" (1971). Release. "Vampyros Lesbos" was released in July 15, 1971 in Germany and in Spain in 1973 where it was a popular with audiences in Europe. The film was released on DVD by Synapse Video on January 4, 2000. Image Entertainment released the film on December 27, 2000 on DVD. A remake of "Vampyos Lesbos" directed by Matthew Saliba was released in 2008. The film follows the story of Franco's film. Reception. "Total Film" gave the film three stars out of five, noting that "Despite (or perhaps because of) the hilariously leaden acting, dull script and amateurish direction, this film still exerts a certain fascination." Jonathan Rosenbaum of The "Chicago Reader" gave the film a negative review, comparing director Jesús Franco to Ed Wood. Slant Magazine gave the film a positive review of three and half stars out of four, finding the film "effortlessly dreamlike" as well as praising the soundtrack. Film 4 gave the film a mixed review, noting that "you never come to Franco's films (over 150 of them) for the plots, but his dreamy, unsettling direction does develop the central tragedy of Carody's love for Westinghouse." as well as praising the film's soundtrack. In his 2009 book "The Pleasure and Pain of Cult Horror Films: An Historical Survey", Bartomiej Paszylk took umbrage with some of the high-brow critics of the film, though ultimately acquiescing to its shortcomings, "Truth be told, Franco's "vampyros" are far more interested in being "lesbos" than in drinking human blood, but the movie is so mesmerizing and so outright sexy that you really shouldn't mind that. Soundtrack. The soundtrack to "Vampyros Lesbos" was released as "Vampyros Lesbos: Sexadelic Dance Party" on compact disc in 1995 by Motel Records. The music on the album is compiled from the albums "Psychedelic Dance Party" and "Sexadelic" and consists of film music of three Franco films: "Vampyros Lesbos", "She Killed in Ecstacy" and "The Devil Came From Akasava". The album was released during a period where there was a resurgence of interest in Space age pop music, a style focused on easy listening music from the 1950s and 1960s. The track "The Lions and the Cucumber" from the album was later used again on the by American director Quentin Tarantino. The album is dedicated to actress Soledad Miranda. The soundtrack was a top 10 hit on the British Alternative charts on its release over 20 years after the film was released. On September 29, 1997, a remix album titled "The Spirit of Vampyros Lesbos" was released. The album was a collection of remixes from various electronic artists including Two Lone Swordsmen, Cristian Vogel and Alec Empire who released their own mixes of the films soundtrack. Allmusic gave the album a negative of three stars out of five referring to the album's music as "excruciating" as well noting that a track on the album is "built on a shameless ripoff of the "Satisfaction" guitar riff". "Entertainment Weekly" gave the album a B+ rating, opining that it was "not for cheese lovers only."
583755	Thalai Nagaram (2006) தலைநகரம் is a Tamil film directed by Suraj. The film stars director Sundar C and Jyothimayi. This film was a low-budget production and the soundtrack was composed by D. Imman. This story is a tale of a man who sacrifices his life to kick out gangsters ruining others lives. It also stars Vadivelu, Prakash Raj and Bose Venkat among others. It enjoyed huge success. The soundtrack was a great hit and the song "Etho Nennukiren" charted at the top position for 1 week. It completed 100 days. It's a successful remake of Priyadarshan-Mohanlal starrer "Abhimanyu". Box office. The film collected a distributor share of Rs 4 to 5 crores at the box office.
1067189	Kellan Christopher Lutz (born March 15, 1985) is an American fashion model and actor. He is best known for playing Emmett Cullen in "The Twilight Saga" film series. Early life. Lutz was born on March 15, 1985 in Dickinson, North Dakota, the son of Karla and Bradley Lutz. He has one sister and six brothers. He has German ancestry. Lutz grew up in North Dakota, the Midwest, and Arizona, and graduated from Horizon High School in Scottsdale, Arizona, before deciding to pursue an acting career. Career. He has acted on a number of television shows. He had recurring roles on "Model Citizens" and "The Comeback", and smaller roles in episodes of "The Bold and the Beautiful", ', "Summerland", "Six Feet Under", ', and "Heroes". He was also in the films "Stick It", "Accepted", and "Prom Night". Additionally, Lutz has performed on the California stage and was the host of Bravo's "Blow Out". He also appeared in the 2006 commercial for Hilary Duff's fragrance With Love... Hilary Duff, and in the 2007 music video for her single, "With Love". In 2008, he appeared in another music video, Hinder's "Without You". In the same year, Lutz also appeared in the miniseries "Generation Kill", based on the book by Evan Wright. He played Emmett Cullen in the film adaptations of the "Twilight" saga by Stephenie Meyer and reprised his role for the sequel, released in November 2009. He also appeared as George Evans in the "90210" spinoff on The CW. Lutz reunited with his "Twilight" co-star and close friend, Ashley Greene, in the film "A Warrior's Heart". Lutz also appeared in "A Nightmare on Elm Street" as Dean, "a well-liked, well-off high school jock", in April 2010, and as the feisty Poseidon, God of the Sea in "Immortals" (2011). Lutz was one of the candidates for the lead role in the film "". He was considered for the lead role in "Conan the Barbarian" but eventually lost out to Jason Momoa. In 2011, together with his "Immortals" co-star Mickey Rourke, he shot Java Heat movies in Indonesia. He is currently signed with Ford Models. He is one of the models featured in the 2010 Calvin Klein X underwear campaign. Charity work. Lutz supports the animal charity PETA and stars in a video supporting the adoption of animals instead of buying them. He is also a supporter of rebuilding efforts in New Orleans, in particular with the St. Bernard Project. Lutz endorsed the documentary film "The Paw Project", which focuses on the declawing of exotic and domesticated cats in America. Personal life. He enjoys skateboarding, weight training, track, baseball, basketball, lacrosse, swimming, tennis, racquetball, badminton, snow skiing, snowboarding, dance, and numerous other activities. He also has a passion for horror films, and prefers to perform his own stunts when making films. Lutz previously dated 90210 co-star AnnaLynne McCord on and off, before beginning a relationship with Australian actress Sharni Vinson in mid-2011. The couple split in May of 2013 after almost 2 years of dating.
1163678	Dana Andrews (January 1, 1909 – December 17, 1992) was an American film actor. He was one of Hollywood's major stars of the 1940s, and continued acting, though generally in less prestigious roles, into the 1980s. One of his best-known roles, and the one for which he received the most praise, was as war veteran Fred Derry in "The Best Years of Our Lives" (1946). Early life. He was born Carver Dana Andrews on a farmstead outside Collins, Covington County, Mississippi, one of thirteen children of Charles Forrest Andrews, a Baptist minister, and his wife Annis (née Speed). The family subsequently moved to Huntsville, Texas, where his younger siblings (including the late actor Steve Forrest) were born. He attended college at Sam Houston State University and also studied business administration in Houston, Texas. In 1931, he traveled to Los Angeles, California, seeking opportunities as a singer. He worked at various jobs, including pumping gas in Van Nuys. Reportedly, an employer paid for his studies in opera and also at the Pasadena Playhouse, a theater and acting school.
1053610	The Sasquatch Gang (also known as The Sasquatch Dumpling Gang) is a 2006 comedy film written and directed by Tim Skousen, the first assistant director on "Napoleon Dynamite". The film was shot in Oregon in locations such as the forests of rural parts of Clackamas County and a dirt track speedway in Banks. The six-week shoot was completed in the summer of 2005. The film premiered in January 2006 at the Slamdance Film Festival, where it won the Audience Award. It was also shown at the HBO US Comedy Arts Festival in Aspen, picking up 2 awards. One for Justin Long for Best Actor and Tim Skousen Best Director. It also showed at the Waterfront Film Festival, New Zealand Film Festival, Sidewalk Film Festival, and Vail Film Festival. The film opened in limited release in the United States on November 30, 2007. The film was released on DVD March 25, 2008. The film was rated PG-13 by the MPAA for "crude humor and language". Plot. Young sci-fi/fantasy enthusiast Gavin Gore (Jeremy Sumpter) and his ragtag group of nerd friends, girlfriend Sophie Suchowski (Addie Land), swordsman Hobie Plumber (Hubbel Palmer), and young Maynard Keyes (Rob Pinkston) stumble upon some "large tracks" and a "big ole sasquatch dumplin'" whilst walking some trails in the nearby woods. Unbeknownst to the friends, two of Gavin's redneck neighbors, Zerk Wilder (Justin Long) and Shirts Joachim (Joey Kern) planted some fake evidence as a plan to gain profits and pay off Zerk's credit card bill. Soon the publicity stunt gains the attention of a local Sasquatch "expert" (Carl Weathers).
1103008	Jean Baptiste Joseph Fourier (21 March 1768 – 16 May 1830) was a French mathematician and physicist born in Auxerre and best known for initiating the investigation of Fourier series and their applications to problems of heat transfer and vibrations. The Fourier transform and Fourier's Law are also named in his honour. Fourier is also generally credited with the discovery of the greenhouse effect. Biography. Fourier was born at Auxerre (now in the Yonne département of France), the son of a tailor. He was orphaned at age nine. Fourier was recommended to the Bishop of Auxerre, and through this introduction, he was educated by the Benvenistes of the Convent of St. Mark. The commissions in the scientific corps of the army were reserved for those of good birth, and being thus ineligible, he accepted a military lectureship on mathematics. He took a prominent part in his own district in promoting the French Revolution, serving on the local Revolutionary Committee. He was imprisoned briefly during the Terror but in 1795 was appointed to the "École Normale Supérieure", and subsequently succeeded Joseph-Louis Lagrange at the "École Polytechnique". Fourier went with Napoleon Bonaparte on his Egyptian expedition in 1798, and was made governor of Lower Egypt and secretary of the Institut d'Égypte. Cut off from France by the English fleet, he organized the workshops on which the French army had to rely for their munitions of war. He also contributed several mathematical papers to the Egyptian Institute (also called the Cairo Institute) which Napoleon founded at Cairo, with a view of weakening English influence in the East. After the British victories and the capitulation of the French under General Menou in 1801, Fourier returned to France. [and Fourier (1820).jpg|250px|right|thumb|1820 watercolor caricatures of French mathematicians Adrien-Marie Legendre (left) and Joseph Fourier (right) by French artist Julien-Leopold Boilly, watercolor portrait numbers 29 and 30 of "Album de 73 Portraits-Charge Aquarelle’s des Membres de I’Institute".]]
1039692	Helen Elizabeth McCrory (born 17 August 1968) is a British actress. She portrayed Cherie Blair in both the 2006 film "The Queen" and the 2010 film "The Special Relationship". She also portrayed Narcissa Malfoy in the final three "Harry Potter" films. In 2011, she starred in Martin Scorsese's family mystery film "Hugo" as Mama Jeanne and most recently in the new James Bond film, "Skyfall". Early life. McCrory was born in Paddington, London. Her mother, Anne (née Morgans), is Welsh, and her father, Iain McCrory, is a Glasgow-born diplomat. She is the eldest of three children. She was educated at Queenswood, a Hertfordshire boarding school, after which she spent a year living in Italy. Upon her return to Britain, she began studying acting at the Drama Centre in London. Career. In 2002, McCrory was nominated for a London "Evening Standard" Theatre Award for Best Actress (for playing Elena in Chekhov's "Uncle Vanya" at the Donmar Warehouse). She was later nominated for a 2006 Laurence Olivier Theatre Award for her role as Rosalind in "As You Like It", in London's West End. In April, 2008, she made a "compelling" Rebecca West in a production of Ibsen's "Rosmersholm" at the Almeida Theatre, London. She appeared in ' (2003), as Barbara Villiers, Countess of Castlemaine, and in supporting roles in such films as ' (1994), "Charlotte Gray" (2001), "The Count of Monte Cristo" (2002), and "Casanova" (2005). In "The Queen" (2006) she played Cherie Blair, a role she reprised in Peter Morgan's follow up, "The Special Relationship". She appeared in a modernised TV adaptation of Frankenstein's Monster, simply called "Frankenstein". Her first pregnancy forced her to pull out of "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix" (2007), in which she had been cast as Bellatrix Lestrange. (She was replaced by Helena Bonham Carter.) However, McCrory later played Bellatrix's sister Narcissa Malfoy in "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince", released in July 2009. McCrory reprised her role in the final films, "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 1" and "Part 2". She also played Rosanna Calvierri in the episode "The Vampires of Venice" of the BBC television show, "Doctor Who". McCrory was to appear in "The Last of the Haussmans" at the Royal National Theatre which began 12 June 2012. The production was broadcast to cinemas around the world on 11 October 2012 through the National Theatre Live programme. In 2013 McCrory narrated poetry for "The Love Book App, "an interactive anthology of love literature developed by Allie Byrne Esiri. Personal life. On 4 July 2007, McCrory married actor Damian Lewis. They have a daughter, Manon (b. 2006), and a son, Gulliver (b. 2007). They live in Tufnell Park, London, and Los Angeles. She is an Honorary Patron of the London children's charity Scene & Heard.
589142	Kala Bazar (English: "Black Market") is a 1960 Hindi film produced by Dev Anand for Navketan Films. Written and directed by Dev's younger brother Vijay Anand, the film starred Dev Anand, Waheeda Rehman, Vijay Anand, Chetan Anand, Nanda, Rashid Khan, Madan Puri, Leela Chitnis, Mumtaz Begum and Helen. S.D. Burman composed the music, while the lyrics were penned by Shailendra. It was noted for having several of Bollywood's stars in a cameo at the film premiere of Mother India (1957), and it was also the only film to star the three Anand brothers together. It became a semi-hit at the box office. Plot. Raghuvir (Dev Anand) is a poor bus conductor who is fired from the job after getting into an argument with a passenger. With an ailing mother (Leela Chitnis) and two younger siblings to take care of, Raghu doesn't know how to provide for his family. When he passes by a cinema hall and sees Kalu (Rashid Khan) selling movie tickets, he gets an idea. Raghu steals 3000 from Advocate Desai (Chetan Anand) and sets up his own black marketing business. First, he works with Kalu, and at the premiere of Mother India, their tickets sell faster and faster as more film stars arrive - they include Dilip Kumar, Geeta Dutt, Guru Dutt, Kishore Kumar, Raaj Kumar, Rajendra Kumar, Lata Mangeshkar, Sohrab Modi, Mohammed Rafi, Nargis, Nadira and Nimmi. Finally, he sells his last ticket for 50 when one ticket cost only 2. Elated with his newfound business, Raghu and Kalu go from strength to strength, recruiting many poor and homeless thieves. When Ganesh (Madan Puri) dares to challenge him, Raghu beats him up. The next day, Ganesh agrees to work for Raghu. Now a wealthy man, Raghu buys a new, spacious flat for his family in Marine Drive. Things change when a group of students buy movie tickets from him. Alka (Waheeda Rehman) finds out that her friends bought them in black, and tears the tickets. This has a great impact on Raghu, who is standing nearby and watching. Her boyfriend, Nandkumar Chattopadhyay (Vijay Anand) promises her not to do it again. Smitten with Alka, Raghu starts to follow her. When Nand gets a scholarship and travels overseas, Alka's parents decide to take her to Ooty to take her mind off Nand. Raghu sees this as a perfect opportunity and gets on the same cabin as her family. He sings "Apni To Har Aah Ek Toofan Hai", trying to flirt with Alka, while the song itself was veiled as a prayer. He also helps to cure Alka's father's back pain with a massage, and soon, he becomes friends with the family. All that taken care of, he sets out to romance Alka, but she resists and turns away his love when she lies that she is engaged to Nand. Heartbroken, Raghu returns to Bombay to continue his business, but his love for Alka has changed him. When he left Alka in Ooty, he promised that he would never do anything bad. Raghu tries to convince his partners to stop black marketing and get an honest job, but they all eventually go back to their bad deeds. Raghu continues to try and earn an honest living, and to his surprise, he meets Alka one day in Bombay. Alka, meanwhile, also falls for Raghu, but hesitates to tell him. Finally, she writes a letter to Nand, telling him to forget her because she loves Raghu. The latter is delighted, and Alka tells him to come in the evening to talk to her parents. However, everything goes awry when she learns that Nand has returned. When Nand comes to her house, the two of them argue, but finally both concede that their "love" was just childishness. Now free to profess her love for Raghu, Alka goes to his house, only to learn that he has been arrested for black marketing... Trivia. The film has a scene in which several stars make guest appearances while appearing for the premiere of the movie Mother India. They include Dilip Kumar, Geeta Dutt, Guru Dutt, Kishore Kumar, Raaj Kumar, Rajendra Kumar, Lata Mangeshkar, Sohrab Modi, Mohammed Rafi, Nargis, Nadira and Nimmi.
774547	Love and Human Remains is a 1993 Canadian film directed by Denys Arcand and based on Brad Fraser's stage play "Unidentified Human Remains and the True Nature of Love". Fraser also wrote the screenplay for the film adaptation. The film version follows the storyline of the original play fairly closely: a gay man and his hetero, female roommate try to find love and sexual gratification in Ottawa, as a serial killer is loose in the city. While the film was shot on location in Montreal, Quebec, the original stage play and the screenplay are both set in Edmonton, Alberta. There are attempts made in the dialogue, props and background film footage to identify the city as Edmonton, as in David's remark, "Let's order a Rosebowl pizza and discuss your sexual crises" (Rose Bowl Pizza is a well-known restaurant and bar in Edmonton). In another scene, the TV news reporter signs off from "CFR-" and gets cut off by the TV remote control before she can say "-N," the final call letter of Edmonton's CTV affiliate station. Sal's remark, "It's chicken night at Flash," is an allusion to Flashbacks, a long-gone Edmonton gay bar. There's also repeated use of a "Sun" newspaper (the "Edmonton Sun" is one of the city's major daily newspapers, although the city's name is not included in the masthead of the prop paper) and CBC-TV Canadian Football League footage of an Edmonton Eskimos game. Fraser won a Genie Award for his adapted screenplay, while stars Mia Kirshner, Joanne Vannicola, and Matthew Ferguson received acting nominations. It has not been released as a Region 1 DVD, although it is available in the UK on a Region 0 ("region-free") PAL DVD issued by Arrow Films.
583085	Chor Machaye Shor (translation: "Cry of A Thief") is a 2002 Bollywood action comedy film. It is a remake of the 1999 Hollywood film "Blue Streak", which itself is a remake of the 1965 British film "The Big Job". Synopsis. Fortunately, before his arrest Shyam manages to hide the diamonds at a nearby construction site, intending to return for it as soon as he gets out of prison. Two years pass and Shyam's release date arrives. Returning to his ill-gotten gains, he is horrified to discover that what was once a building site is now a new police headquarters with his stolen diamonds forming part of the foundation.
256185	The Legend of Boggy Creek is a 1972 horror docudrama about the "Fouke Monster," a Bigfoot-type creature that has been seen in and around Fouke, Arkansas since the 1950s. The film mixes staged interviews with some local residents who claim to have encountered the creature, along with fictitious reenactments of said encounters. Charles B. Pierce, an advertising salesman from Texarkana on the Arkansas/Texas border, borrowed over $100,000 from a local trucking company, used an old 35mm movie camera and hired locals (mainly high school students) to help make the 90-minute film. The film has generated approximately $20 million in box office revenue and is available on DVD. Plot. The film, which claims to be a true story, sets out to detail the existence of the "Fouke Monster," a Bigfoot-like creature that has reportedly been seen by residents of a small Arkansas community since the 1950s. It is described as being completely covered in reddish-brown hair, leaving three-toed tracks in bean fields, and having a foul odor. Several locals from the small town of Fouke, Arkansas, recall their stories, often appearing as themselves, claiming that the creature has killed several large hogs as well as other animals. In one scene, a kitten is shown as having been "scared to death" by the creature. The narrator informs the audience that while people have shot at the creature in the past, it has always managed to escape. In another scene, hunters attempt to pursue the creature with dogs, but the dogs refuse to give chase. A police constable states that while driving home one night, the creature suddenly ran across the road in front of him. In a later sequence, culled from the actual newspaper accounts inspiring the film, the creature is shown menacing a family in a remote country house. After being fired upon, the creature attacks, sending one family member to the hospital. Production. Pierce originally planned to call the film "Tracking the Fouke Monster". Sequels. "Return to Boggy Creek" (1977). "Return to Boggy Creek" was directed by Tom Moore. The film carries over none of the original's docudrama elements. It stars Dawn Wells of "Gilligan's Island" fame, and Dana Plato of "Diff'rent Strokes". Wells portrays the mother of three children who become lost in the swamp until the creature comes to their rescue. "Boggy Creek II: And The Legend Continues" (1985). A third film, originally titled "The Barbaric Beast of Boggy Creek, Part II", involved Pierce and was written as a sequel to the original film. It follows the adventures of a University of Arkansas professor (Pierce) and his students, one of which is Pierce's son, on their trip to Fouke, Arkansas, to find and study the creature. A few scenes in the beginning of the movie were shot at the university, including an Arkansas Razorbacks football game. The movie was featured in an episode of "Mystery Science Theater 3000". The "Big Creature" in the film was portrayed by James Faubus Griffith. "Boggy Creek: The Legend Is True" (2010). This film's story is unrelated to the others in the franchise, shifting from Arkansas to Texas. It deals with a bigfoot-like creature attacking a group of teenagers that are vacationing in the fictional area of Boggy Creek, Texas. The film was written and directed by Brian T. Jaynes. It was originally produced in 2010 and released straight to DVD on September 13, 2011. "The Legacy of Boggy Creek" (2011). This low-budget indie film was originally released in 2009 under the title "The Skunkape Story", but was later re-edited and released to home video in 2011 as "The Legacy of Boggy Creek". The docudrama chronicles the events that began after the original attacks in Fouke. It was written and directed by Dustin Ferguson. Releases. Theatrical. "The Legend of Boggy Creek" was released theatrically to major financial success given its budget of only $160,000, earning around $20 million at the box office. "Return to Boggy Creek" and "Boggy Creek II: And The Legend Continues" were released to theaters later, in 1977 and 1985, respectively. Neither of the sequels were as successful as the original film. The final two films have been released straight to video. Home Video. Both "The Legend of Boggy Creek" and "Boggy Creek II: And The Legend Continues" have been released on VHS several times. Between 2002 and 2011, Hen's Tooth Video, Education 2000 Inc., Sterling Entertainment, Unicorn Video, RHR Home Video, and Cheezy Flicks Entertainment all released "The Legend of Boggy Creek" on Region 1 DVD. Several of these versions are now out of print. The version RHR Home Video offers is the only true widescreen print available. In 2005, Elite Entertainment released "Boggy Creek II: And The Legend Continues" on Region 1 DVD. Additionally, in 2004, the "Mystery Science Theater 3000" episode that lampooned the film was released on DVD by Rhino Entertainment. Only the Rhino Entertainment version is still in print. "Return to Boggy Creek" has only been issued on VHS by CBS Home Entertainment with no plans for a DVD release as of 2011. On September 13, 2011, "Boggy Creek: The Legend Is True" was released on DVD and Blu-ray by Hannover House. It features a Widescreen transfer and a handful of special features. Also in 2011, "The Legacy of Boggy Creek" was released on DVD by RHR Home Video. Cinematic influence. Its docudrama format was purposefully echoed in 1999's "The Blair Witch Project." In 2008, Duane Graves and Justin Meeks accurately recreated the drive-in feel of the movie in their blatant "Boggy" homage titled "The Wild Man of the Navidad", released by IFC Films.
582485	Aditya Roy Kapur (born 16 November 1985) is an Indian film actor and former VJ for Channel V. He is the younger brother of Siddharth Roy Kapur and Kunaal Roy Kapur. Active in Bollywood, Aditya made his Hindi film debut with Vipul Shah's "London Dreams" (2009), and later gained visibility for his roles in the 2010 films "Action Replayy" and "Guzaarish". He rose to fame in 2013 with Mohit Suri's directorial "Aashiqui 2", which became a box office blockbuster. Kapur went on to star in a supporting role in another blockbuster "Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani", which released the following month. Early life and background. Aditya Roy Kapur was born in Mumbai to a Punjabi father and a Jewish mother, Salome Roy Kapur "nee" Aaron, Miss India 1972 (Eve's Weekly) who did modelling, acted in a film, "Tu Hi Meri Zindagi" (1965) with Deb Mukherjee, before becoming a film choreographer, known for choreographing the song, "Main Shaayar Toh Nahin" in "Bobby" (1973). Aditya did his schooling from G. D. Somani Memorial School, in Cuffe Parade, Mumbai, where all his siblings studied and where his mother directs school plays. Subsequently he graduated from St. Xavier's College, Mumbai. Currently he lives in Mumbai. Aditya is not a trained actor, though he has taken dance lessons and also diction classes to improve his Hindi accent. According to him he "had no burning ambition to become an actor," and was content being a VJ, until he was called to audition for "London Dreams". During his school years, he wanted to be a cricketer but he quit cricket coaching classes after sixth standard. His grandfather Raghupat Roy Kapur left his home and the family business of departmental store chain, Midumal Durgadas, aka Roy Bros in Lahore in the 1940s and shifted to Bombay (now Mumbai) to get associated with the film industry. He eventually acquired the pseudonym G Rakesh and produced by his first film, "Shahenshah Akbar" in 1943, with K.N. Singh as the lead. Soon his wife and children joined him and he went on to produce films like "Zanjeer" (1947), and even directed films "Lekh" (1949), with Motilal and Suraiya and "Banwra" (1950) with Raj Kapoor and Nimmi. His maternal grandparents, Sam and Ruby Aaron were qualified dance teachers, who introduced the Sama dance form to India, and also taught actor Bhagwan for film "Albela" (1951). Kapoor is the youngest of the three siblings, his eldest brother Siddharth Roy Kapur is the CEO of UTV Motion Pictures, who recently married noted Bollywood actress Vidya Balan, his other elder brother Kunaal Roy Kapur is also an actor, who has acted in films such as "Delhi Belly" (2011) and "Nautanki Saala" (2013). Career. Aditya started his career as a VJ on music channel Channel V, where his comic timing and "unique style of hosting" made him a hit, and then made his debut as an Indian musician in the 2009 musical "London Dreams" by Vipul Shah, where he co-starred Ajay Devgan and Salman Khan as one of the two brothers, part of Ajay Devgan's band in the movie, along with another VJ, Rannvijay Singh. Then starred in the Vipul Shah's next, a 2010 time-traveling comedy "Action Replayy", playing Akshay Kumar and Aishwarya Rai's adult son who goes back in time to make their marriage a love marriage. He acted again alongside Aishwarya Rai, in "Guzaarish" (2010) directed by Sanjay Leela Bhansali, where he played an apprentice magician to Hrithik Roshan's character. In 2013, Kapur starred in "Aashiqui 2", which was directed by Mohit Suri. The film is the sequel to 1990's "Aashiqui", and in the film, Kapur starred opposite Shraddha Kapoor. Kapur's portrayal of Rahul Jaykar (RJ), a once-popular alcoholic singer who is intent on making Shraddha's character, Aarohi, a singing sensation, earned him mostly positive reviews; despite the film receiving a mixed critical reception. The film was also Kapur's first commercial success, with the film being termed a blockbuster. Kapur's second and latest release in 2013, is "Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani", directed by Ayan Mukerji, which saw him alongside Ranbir Kapoor, Deepika Padukone and Kalki Koechlin. The film also became a blockbuster and earned positive to mixed reviews. He will also be seen as the main lead in Gautham Menon's "Assi Nabey Poore Sau", the Hindi version of Menon's "Yeto Vellipoyindhi Manasu" and "Neethaane En Ponvasantham"; which will see him star opposite Samantha Ruth Prabhu. He has recently signed his first Yash Raj film, Habib Faisal's Dawaat-e-ishq opposite Parineeti Chopra.""'
592219	Shankar Nagarkatte (9 November 1954 - 30 September 1990), known as Shankar Nag, was an actor and director of Kannada cinema. He also directed and acted in the teleserial, "Malgudi Days", based on celebrated novelist R.K.Narayan's short stories. Besides these, he was actively involved in Kannada theater activities. He co-wrote "22 June 1897", an Indian national award-winning Marathi film. Early career. Shankar Nagarkatte was born on 9 November 1954 in Mallapur village in Honnavar (Uttara Kannada), Karnataka. His parents were Anandi and Sadanand Nagarkatte. His elder brother is the popular Kannada actor Anant Nag. After completing formal education, Shankar moved to Mumbai. In Mumbai, he was attracted to Marathi theater and immersed himself in theatrical activities. Incidentally, he met his future wife, Arundhathi during a drama rehearsal. Shankar Nag then shifted base to Karnataka. His elder brother Anant Nag had already established himself as an actor and urged Shankar to act in films. He was offered a role of a mercenary by Girish Karnad in the epic movie, "Ondanondu Kaladalli", which was loosely based on Akira Kurosawa's masterpiece, "Seven Samurai". His debut film as actor fetched him a national award at the Delhi International Film Festival. Thus began his film career, where, in a span of 12 years (from 1978 to 1990) he acted in some 80 Kannada movies, as a leading man, besides co-producing (with actor-brother Anant Nag) and directing some films like "Minchina Ota" (a rare example of a heist movie in Kannada), "Janma Janmada Anubandha" and "Geetha" (both of which had music by South Indian maestro Ilayaraja). Later days. Commercial film producers took notice of Shankar Nag and he began acting in typical masala movies. "Seetaramu" was Shankar Nag's first commercial movie. Shankar was an unconventional hero with an unshaven face, distinct swagger, dark eyes and had a rough voice. Although he had never undergone any martial arts training, he earned the sobriquet of "Karate King." His popular films include "Auto Raja", "Geeta", "S.P. Sangliana", and "Minchina Ota". He had also identified himself with the Janata Party in 1980s. Directorial debut. Shankar began his directorial with "Minchina Ota". This won him seven state awards, including the best film. And then came a series of films directed by him. Janma Janmada Anubandha, Geetha, "Accident" (which won many state and national awards), "Ondu Muttina Kathe" (with Rajkumar in the lead), "Nodi Swamy Navirodu Hige", "Hosa Teerpu", "Lalach". "Malgudi Days". Shankar did not limit his efforts to cinema. He was equally immersed in theatre and television. "Malgudi Days" is the best example of Shankar's oeuvre on television. Prior to globalization, Doordarshan was the only broadcaster in India. In addition to programme production, Doordarshan used to invite private producers to produce television serials. Shankar accepted the offer and directed "Malgudi Days", based on the collection of short stories by R.K.Narayan in 1987, under the banner of Padam Rag Films. Well known actors Vishnuvardhan and Ananth Nag appeared in the serial. Master Manjunath, who essayed the role of impish Swami, became a household name. The music, accompanied by the nasal twang "Tananaa tana na naa" was composed by L. Vaidyanathan. The teleserial was shot in Agumbe, Shimoga district, Karnataka. Shankar went to direct another teleserial, titled "Swami" in the same year. "Malgudi Days" has been rated as one of the finest serials ever to be made in the history of Indian Television. He anchored the Parichaya program on DD1-Kannada, in its starting days. Shankar retained an interest in theatre. His brother Ananth Nag and he founded SANKET, an amateur theatre group, which still produces plays. His first ever directorial effort in Kannada was Anju Mallige by Girish Karnad. He continued with productions like Barrister, Sandhya Chhaya. Sometime here he was joined by T N Narasimhan who wrote and co-directed "Nodi Swamy Navirodu Hige" which had, apart from himself, his wife Arundhati Nag and Ramesh Bhat in the cast. Death. Shankar Nag died in a car crash at Anagodu village on the outskirts of Davanagere town on 30 September 1990, while proceeding to Lokapur in Bagalkot district of Karnataka with his wife Arundhati Nag and daughter Kavya, in the shooting of his film Jokumaraswamy. Sundarakanda was his last film as actor and was released a few days after his death. It's a belief among his many ardent fans that Shankar Nag would have changed that face of Kannada Film Industry had he lived longer.
1055147	Tears of the Black Tiger (, or Fa Thalai Chon, literally, "the heavens strike the thief") is a 2000 Thai western film written and directed by Wisit Sasanatieng. The story of a tragic romance between Dum, a fatalistic, working-class hero, who has become an outlaw, and Rumpoey, the upper-class daughter of a provincial governor, it is equal parts homage to and parody of Thai action films and romantic melodramas of the 1950s and 1960s. The film was the first from Thailand to be selected for competition at the 2001 Cannes Film Festival, where it was critically hailed. It was screened at several other film festivals in 2001 and 2002, including the Vancouver International Film Festival, where it won the Dragons and Tigers Award for Best New Director. It also won many awards in Thailand for production and costume design, special effects and soundtrack. Critics have noted the film's stylized use of color and conspicuous violence, and have compared it to the revisionist westerns of Sergio Leone and Sam Peckinpah. It has also been compared to the works of such directors as Douglas Sirk, John Woo, Jean-Luc Godard, Sam Raimi and Quentin Tarantino. Miramax Films purchased the film for distribution in the United States, but changed the ending and then shelved it indefinitely. In 2006, the distribution rights were obtained by Magnolia Pictures, which screened the original version of the film in a limited release from January to April 2007 in several US cities. Plot. A young woman waits in the rain under an ornate gazebo in a lotus pond. She carries with her a photo of the man she is waiting for. The man, whose name is Dum, is with another gunman named Mahesuan. Dressed all in black and wearing a cowboy hat, Dum enters a house and fires his pistol. The bullet ricochets around before it burrows into a man's forehead. A red title card then flashes up and says: "Did you catch that? If not, we'll play it again!" And the shot is replayed in slow motion, showing the bullet bouncing off items in a Rube Goldberg fashion. Dum then rushes off, galloping his horse across the plain. However, by the time he reaches the gazebo, the woman, whose name is Rumpoey, is gone. She has returned home, where she is to be engaged to Police Captain Kumjorn in a marriage arranged by her father, the provincial governor. Mahesuan is bitter about his status as a sidekick to Dum. He was the best gunman in the outlaw gang headed by the brutal Fai, until Dum came along. Eager to settle the score, Mahesuan goes looking for Dum and finds him playing a harmonica. Mahesuan knocks it out of Dum's hand and baits him into a gunfight. The quick-drawing Dum fires first, but Mahesuan is not injured. However, a dead snake drops from an overhanging tree branch onto Mahesuan's cowboy hat. Dum killed the venomous snake, saving Mahesuan's life. Dum then thinks back to his childhood 10 years ago during the Second World War, when Rumpoey and her father left the city to stay on Dum's father's small farm in rural Thailand. Rumpoey is a demanding girl. She smashes a bamboo flute that Dum is playing and demands that he take her on a boat ride in the lotus pond. They visit the gazebo, or "sala" in Thai language, and it is called "Sala Awaiting the Maiden." Dum says a woodcutter built it to await a wealthy family's daughter whom he had fallen in love with. However, the maiden was prevented from meeting the woodcutter, so she hanged herself. Rumpoey is touched by the story. On the way home, they collide with a boat carrying three boys, who taunt Rumpoey. Dum defends Rumpoey, is struck with an oar and then their boat overturns. He rescues Rumpoey but is late in coming home. So he is punished by his father, who lashes the boy's back with a rattan cane. Rumpoey, feeling sorry for getting Dum into trouble, buys him a harmonica to replace the flute she broke. Shifting back to present time, Dum and Mahesuan ride to an old Buddhist temple, where they swear a blood oath in front of the Buddha statue. Meanwhile, Captain Kumjorn is eager to bring law and order to the wild west of Suphanburi Province. In an attack on Fai's hide-out, the police forces seem to be gaining the upper hand. But then Dum and Mahesuan arrive on a cliff overlooking the battle and use rocket-propelled grenade launchers to decimate the police. Kumjorn is captured, and Dum is ordered by Fai to execute him. Kumjorn pleads with Dum to tell his fiancée of his fate, and he pulls out a framed photo of his beloved. Dum is stunned to see a photo of Rumpoey. Mahesuan enters to find Kumjorn gone and Dum with a knife in his chest. As Dum's wound is being treated, he thinks back to one year ago, when he was a university student in Bangkok, where he became re-acquainted with Rumpoey. Dum pleads with her to leave him alone, reasoning that they are from different social classes and are fated to never be together. Later, Rumpoey is attacked by a gang of male students, the same boys from her childhood boat accident. Dum comes to her rescue but ends up expelled. Rumpoey finds Dum walking, and offers to give him a ride in her car. She then instructs her driver to take them to a nearby beach. Dum and Rumpoey confide their love for each other, and they agree to meet a year later at Sala Awaiting the Maiden. However, Dum arrives at home and finds his father murdered. He takes his father's rifle, tracks the killers and shoots some of them. With one bullet left, he turns the gun on himself, but is stopped by Fai, who has ridden up with his horsemen. Fai recognizes the rifle, saying he had given it to Dum's father years before. Fai then hands Dum a pistol and tells him to finish the job of killing the men who murdered his father. Dum is now an outlaw. Shifting back to the present, where it is the night before Rumpoey's wedding to Kumjorn, she tries to hang herself, but is stopped by her maid. Fai, meanwhile, plans to attack the governor's mansion, and Mahesuan, suspecting that Dum intentionally let Kumjorn go free, betrays Dum. A gun battle ensues, but Dum escapes. Dum, dressed in a white suit, appears at the wedding and warns Kumjorn of Fai's plans to attack. Kumjorn, however, wants to shoot the man he knows as the "Black Tiger" and is his rival for Rumpoey's affection. Fai's men attack and Mahesuan breaks into the mansion, where he discovers Rumpoey, and knocks her unconscious. Mahesuan is carrying Rumpoey away when he meets Dum and demands a rematch gunfight. As a raindrop drips through a hole in the brim of Mahesuan's hat, Dum fires and the bullet rips through Mahesuan's teeth. Dum, next confronted by Kumjorn, reaches into his pocket. Kumjorn, believing that he is reaching for his gun, shoots Dum. But Dum was only reaching for the photograph of Rumpoey that Kumjorn had once carried. As Dum lies dying in the rain with Rumpoey sobbing over him, some of Dum's words from earlier are narrated again – that life is suffering, punctuated only by a never-ending search for happy moments. Production. Origins. While "Tears of the Black Tiger" has been compared to the revisionist westerns of Sam Peckinpah and Sergio Leone, director Wisit Sasanatieng drew on many Thai cultural influences in the creation of the film, including Thai films of the 1950s made by pioneering director Rattana Pestonji, whose films Wisit had viewed in screenings at the Thailand National Film Archive. "Whenever the Film Archive screened an old film, I'd be there. Usually, I'd be the only one there", Wisit said in an interview at the Vancouver International Film Festival in 2000. "Most Thai audiences dislike Thai movies, especially the old ones, which they consider "nam nao"", he said, using the Thai language euphemism for the old films, which are viewed as stagnant and cliched. Literally, "nam nao" means "stinky water." "What I saw in them was a way to stay true to the spirit of those old styles of Thai filmmaking, as well as a way to make them new again. And none of the older generation of filmmakers impressed me more than Rattana Pestonji." In addition to Rattana's 1950s and 1960s drama films, "Tears of the Black Tiger" draws on 1960s and 1970s Thai action cinema, derisively termed by critics as "raboed phoo khao phao krathom" ("bomb the mountain, burn the huts") films. Among the stars from this era were Mitr Chaibancha and Sombat Metanee, who co-stars as gang leader Fai. Wisit has acknowledged the influence of Leone's Spaghetti Westerns but has said, "mine is 'Tom Yum Goong cowboys' because at one time cowboys were very popular in Thai films as you can see in Mitr Chaibancha's films." Still more influences include the novels of Thai humorist Por Intharapalit and an old Thai pop ballad, "Fon Sang Fah" ("When the Rain Bids the Sky Farewell"). "I do love those 'rain' songs. I kept picturing a beautiful frame of two guys shooting each other in the rain. And that sparked it all", Wisit said in an interview for the film's production notes. Initially "Fon Sang Fah" was to be the title of the film, but eventually "Fah talai jone" (literally "the heavens strike the thief") was chosen because the name has different meanings depending on the context. In addition to being the Thai name for an herb, Andrographis paniculata, "Fah talai jone" "can convey either a sense of obsoleteness or the feel of great chic", the director said. "In terms of the film it refers to predestination, in which most Thais believe. To put it frankly, the main reason is simply because I liked the name." Production design, lighting, processing. "Tears of the Black Tiger" was the directorial debut for Wisit, who had previously penned the screenplays for the 1950s-set teenage gangster tale "Dang Bireley's and Young Gangsters" and the historical Thai ghost legend, "Nang Nak", both directed by Nonzee Nimibutr, who produced "Tears of the Black Tiger". Production design was by Ek Iemchuen, a classmate of Wisit's from Silpakorn University who also worked on "Nang Nak" and "Dang Bireley's" as well as the 2001 period drama, "Jan Dara", also by Nonzee. The production designs reflects traditional aspects of Thai culture. For example, the first gun battle between Mahesuan and Dum is set on what is obviously a sound stage with a painted backdrop, a setting that is similar to likay, a Thai form of folk opera. "I wanted the audience to feel like they're reading a novel with moving illustrations", Wisit said. "It's pure imagination and completely unrealistic. I wanted to try and go back to our roots. I wanted to make a link between the traditional and the contemporary in our own style." Over-saturated colors were used to reflect scenes of rural Thailand, which the director saw as bright and colorful. Walls on the sets and locations were painted pink or green, and lighting was used to achieve the saturation. The film was treated in the color grading process by transferring it to digital Betacam tape and then back to 35 mm film. Oxide Pang, working as a telecine colorist, won a special effects award in Thailand for his work. Wisit was able to experiment with the set design and lighting effects in a commercial he directed for Wrangler Jeans, which featured the film's leading man, Chartchai Ngamsan, as a boxer. Casting and promotion. Most of the cast were relative newcomers, whom the director said he chose because he felt established stars would not be able to handle the old-style dialog. Chartchai Ngamsan and Supakorn Kitsuwon had previously had supporting roles in "Dang Bireley's and Young Gangsters". Italian-born, Thailand-raised model and actress Stella Malucchi was acting in a music video in Bangkok, which was noticed on television by Wisit. He then sought out Malucchi, saying he thought she had the right look for the part of Rumpoey. He told her later she reminded him of Elizabeth Taylor. Through costuming and makeup, Malucchi, a "plain farang", in the words of Wisit, was transformed into the daughter of a Thai noble family. There are experienced actors in the cast as well, including Sombat Metanee and Naiyana Sheewanun, who worked in the era of Thai filmmaking that Wisit was trying to recreate. Old-style ways of promoting the film were used. In the 1950s, films in Thailand were promoted with serial novels and radio dramas. Wisit and his wife Siripan Techajindawong, writing under the pen name Koynuch, wrote some chapters that were published for a "Fah talai jone" book after the film was released. A radio version of "Fah talai jone" was performed while the film was in cinemas in Thailand. Wisit designed movie posters and print ads that emulated the style of Thai film posters from the 1950s and 1960s. Reception. Festivals and awards. "Tears of the Black Tiger" opened on September 28, 2000, in a wide release for Thai cinemas. The film was a flop at the domestic box office, but it received several awards. At the Thailand National Film Association Awards, the film won best costume design for Chaiwichit Somboon. The Bangkok Critics Assembly awarded Ek Iamchuen for best artistic design, Sombat Metanee for best supporting actor and Amornbhong Methakunavudh for best film score. The Entertainment News Reporters Association of Thailand gave "Phra Suraswadee", or "Golden Doll", prizes to lyricist Siriphan Techajindawong and arranger Sunthorn Yodseethong for the song "Kamsuanjan" ("The Moon Lament"), Ek Iemchuen for best art direction and telecine colorist Oxide Pang for best special effects. "Tears of the Black Tiger" was referenced in another Thai film, "Monrak Transistor", in 2001. The comedy by director Pen-ek Ratanaruang starred Supakorn Kitsuwon, who co-starred in "Tears" as Mahesuan. At the 2006 Bangkok International Film Festival, "Tears of the Black Tiger" was screened as part of a tribute to Sombat Metanee, who portrays the outlaw leader, Fai. The film's North American premiere was on October 5, 2000 at the Vancouver International Film Festival, where it won the Dragons and Tigers Award for best new director. It was the first Thai film to be screened at the Cannes Film Festival, where it was in the Un Certain Regard competition in May 2001. At the Gijón International Film Festival in 2001, it won the best art direction award, and at the fifth Puchon International Fantastic Film Festival it won a jury prize. Other festival appearances included the Seattle International Film Festival and Edinburgh International Film Festival in 2001 and the Sundance Film Festival, International Film Festival Rotterdam, Deauville Asian Film Festival and Moscow International Film Festival in 2002. Critical reception. On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has a 76% fresh rating, based on 58 reviews. On Metacritic, it has a score of 69/100, based on 19 reviews, for a "generally favorable" rating. Critics were "wowed" by the film at the 2001 Cannes Film Festival, according to Peter Bradshaw of "The Guardian", who termed the film a "stir-fry horse opera an uproarious high-camp cowboy drama." Philip French of "The Observer" found parallels to "Once Upon a Time in the West", particularly between the anti-hero Dum and Charles Bronson's harmonica-playing character. He also saw similarities to the deliberately artificial action of Sam Raimi's "The Quick and the Dead". He said the "outlandishly painted backdrops and garish acid colors" reminded him of old Asian movie posters. "The overall effect is hallucinatory, as if we're experiencing someone else's druggy dream." Chuck Stephens, writing for "Film Comment", said the blend of 1970s Thai action cinema and the Spaghetti Westerns of Sergio Leone results in a "hybrid of hybrids ... a Pad Thai western where cowboys covet machine guns and swear blood oath to one another under the shadow of an impassive Buddha." The BBC's Jason Korsner criticized the film for its "deliberately laboured plot", which he said was "offset by some fascinating action sequences, including gunfights which would make Tarantino jealous." However, "Sight & Sound" magazine's Edward Buscombe called the action "tame by contemporary Hollywood standards" but said it was "curiously seductive" because of its colorful imagery. Buscombe, as well as Philip French, remarked how "Tears of the Black Tiger" contrasted with another Asian cinema export to the West that year: the balletic martial arts film, "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon". David Edelstein of "New York Magazine" compared the film to 1940s low-budget westerns of Lash LaRue, Douglas Sirk melodramas, the heroic bloodshed films of John Woo and George A. Romero's gore-filled horror films. "It's no buried postmodern masterpiece, but it certainly is a jaw-dropper: a delirium-inducing crash course in international trash", Edelstein wrote. A. O. Scott of "The New York Times" commented on the stoic, macho posturing of Chartchai Ngamsan's Dum, and the underlying homoeroticism of the character's relationship with Mahesuan, portrayed by Supakorn Kitsuwon. " may be the love of Dum's life, but there is far more heat and intimacy in his relationship with Mahesuan." Elizabeth Weitzman of the "New York Daily News" noted the film's appeal as a camp film and as a cult film, saying "the best B-movies are both." Purchase by Miramax, alternate versions. International sales rights to "Tears of the Black Tiger" were purchased by Fortissimo Films, which marketed a 101-minute "international cut", edited by director Wisit Sasanatieng from the original 110-minute length. The shorter version omits some transitional scenes in order to streamline the pacing of the film. This version was released theatrically in several countries, including France, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. Among the deleted scenes are those involving the comic relief character, Sergeant Yam, Rumpoey's engagement to Captain Kumjorn and other transitional scenes. Fortissimo sold the US distribution rights to Miramax Films during the 2001 Cannes Film Festival. Miramax then sent word that it wanted to alter the film. Wisit offered the company an even shorter version than the international cut, but the company refused. "They didn't allow me to re-cut it at all", Wisit said in an interview with the "Los Angeles Times". "They did it by themselves and then sent me the tape. And they changed the ending from tragic to happy. They said that in the time after 9/11, nobody would like to see something sad." Altering films was routine for Miramax, at the time headed by Harvey and Bob Weinstein, who defended their actions by saying the films needed editing to make them marketable to American audiences. Other examples were the Miramax releases of "Shaolin Soccer" and "Hero". "I'm not cutting for fun", Harvey Weinstein said in an interview. "I'm cutting for the shit to work. All my life I served one master: the film. I love movies." The Miramax version was screened at the Sundance Film Festival in 2002. The company then shelved the film, fearing it would not do well in a wider release. This was another routine by the Weinsteins, who delayed releases so they could shift potential money-losing films to future fiscal years and ensure they would receive annual bonuses from Miramax's corporate parent, The Walt Disney Company. As "Tears of the Black Tiger" languished in the Miramax vaults, its cult film status was heightened and it became a "Holy Grail" for film fans. For viewers in the US, the only way to watch it was to purchase the DVD from overseas importers, however some of those versions of the film had also been heavily edited. In late 2006, Magnolia Pictures acquired the film's distribution rights from Miramax. Magnolia screened the original version of the film in a limited release from January to April 2007 in several US cities. DVD releases. The original version of the film, with English subtitles, was released on DVD in Thailand by Digital Right, and it is out of print. A Singaporean Region 3 release, also with English subtitles, had scenes involving graphic violence cut. The Region 2 release, marketed in Europe by Pathé and in Region 4 by Madman Entertainment is the 101-minute "international cut". The first DVD release for Region 1 was on April 24, 2007 by Magnolia Pictures, which acquired the original, uncut version of the film. Soundtrack. Just as "Tears of the Black Tiger" has been compared to the Spaghetti Westerns of director Sergio Leone, the music in the film has been likened to the scores Ennio Morricone composed for Leone's films. However, the score is sourced from the types of big band jazz and pop music sounds that were heard in Thailand in the 1940s and 1950s. Among the songs is the 1940s Thai pop ballad, "Fon Sang Fah" ("When the Rain Bids the Sky Farewell"). There is also "Mercy", composed by 1940s Thai bandleader and jazz violinist Eua Sunthornsanan, which features whimsical fiddle playing and whistling. However, the lyrics to the song, written by Leud Prasomsap, offer a contrast to the mood evoked by the jaunty tune: A traditional song, "Kamsuanjan" ("The Moon Lament"), was arranged with new lyrics by Wisit's wife, Siripan Techajindawong. She and arranger Sunthorn Yodseethong won the "Phra Suraswadee" ("Golden Doll") prize for best song from the Entertainment News Reporters Association of Thailand. One song appears from the tune and words to be a translation of Thomas Moore's The Last Rose of Summer. Track listing. A soundtrack CD was issued around the time the film was released. The first half of the CD is songs with vocals. The songs are then repeated as instrumentals.
952030	Griffin Patrick O'Neal (born October 28, 1964) is an American actor. Early life. O'Neal was born in Los Angeles, California, the son of actor Ryan O'Neal and the late actress Joanna Moore (born Dorothy Cook). He has one sister, Tatum, and two half brothers, Patrick and Redmond. His grandfather was novelist/screenwriter Charles "Blackie" O'Neal. Films. Griffin O'Neal appeared in 11 movies between 1976 and 1992. Several of these were TV movies or films released directly to video. He appeared in films including "The Escape Artist", "April Fool's Day", "Assault of the Killer Bimbos", and "Ghoulies III". Film critic Vincent Canby of the "New York Times" wrote in 1982 that Griffin O'Neal "shares with his sister a natural screen presence." Likewise, film critic Leonard Maltin wrote that Griffin O'Neal has a "pleasing screen presence". Accidents. In 1986, Griffin O'Neal had a boating accident in Annapolis, Maryland that took the life of film producer Gian-Carlo Coppola. O'Neal, who was piloting the boat, tried to pass between two other boats, unaware that they were connected by a towline. O'Neal barely had time to duck, but Coppola was struck by the towline and killed. Prior to the accident, O'Neal was being directed by Francis Ford Coppola (Gian-Carlo's father) in the film "Gardens of Stone", and afterward O'Neal asked to be replaced in the film. He was convicted of negligently operating a boat, and received an 18-day jail sentence for not completing community service.
1182920	William Ray Norwood Jr. (born January 17, 1981), known by his stage name Ray J, is an American singer, songwriter, record producer and actor. Born in McComb, Mississippi and raised in Carson, California, he is the brother of recording artist and actress Brandy Norwood. In 2007, he was the subject of a sex tape with former girlfriend Kim Kardashian. Life and career. Early life. William Ray Norwood Jr. was born in McComb, Mississippi to Willie Norwood and Sonja Bates-Norwood. His older sister Brandy is an award-winning, multi-platinum recording artist. His second cousin, Snoop Lion, is a multi-platinum recording rapper. Early in his life, he moved with his family from McComb, Mississippi to Los Angeles, California, and in 1989 started appearing in television commercials for different companies. In 1989, at the age of eight, Norwood began auditioning for and appearing in television commercials; he played the foster son in "The Sinbad Show", from 1993 to 1994. This period in Norwood's life would shape his acting career. According to Bradley Torreano of allmusic, "his easygoing image and boyish looks appealed to the producers of Brandy's television show, "Moesha", giving him a role on the UPN series as Dorian "D-Money", a role he played from 1999 until the show ended in 2001. Early in his career, Ray J was known for wearing a Pacers headband. 1995–2006: "Everything You Want", "This Ain't a Game", and "Raydiation". He signed to Elektra Records in 1995 and he began to record his debut album "Everything You Want" the same year. "Let It Go" appeared on the "Set It Off" soundtrack. It peaked number 25 in the U.S. and number 11 in New Zealand. The second single peaked at number 54 on the U.S. R&B chart. In 1997, he was dropped from the label. He produced, putting together the music for several commercials and a few of the demos for his second record. Ray J recorded "Another Day in Paradise" with Brandy, which was a Top Ten success in Austria, UK, Germany, Sweden, Switzerland, Belgium, Norway, Ireland, the Netherlands and number 11 in Australia and France. The song was the lead single of the R&B/Hip Hop tribute "Urban Renewal", in which he co-produced and performed songs. Norwood also worked with The Neptunes, Rodney Jerkins and Lil' Kim, and several other producers and singers for his second studio album "This Ain't A Game". The album was released in 2001. The lead single "Wait A Minute" peaked at #30 on the U.S. Hot 100 chart and #8 on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart. "Formal Invite" followed at #54 on the R&B chart. After a two year break, Norwood returned to recording studios, adding the finishing touches on his third studio album "Raydiation" with help from producers such as Rodney Jerkins, Timbaland, R. Kelly, and Rob Egerton. A joint venture by Sanctuary Records and Ray-J's own label, independent Knockout Entertainment, the album was finally released on September 27, 2005 in North America after several delays, debuting at number forty-eight on the "Billboard" 200 chart, selling 18,321 copies in the first week. The album's lead single "One Wish" was a top 20 success in the US, UK, Ireland, and New Zealand. "Raydiation" eventually sold over 400,000 copies domestically. In 2005, Norwood joined the cast of UPN's "One On One", where he played the character D-Mack for the final season. On both shows, Ray's character was related to Brandy's (cousin/half-brother on "Moesha", brother on "One on One"). 2007–11: Sex tape, "All I Feel", and "A Family Business". In February 2007, a pornographic home video he made with former girlfriend Kim Kardashian in 2003 was made public. Kardashian sued Vivid Entertainment for ownership of the tape. In late April 2007, Kardashian dropped the suit and settled with Vivid Entertainment for $5 million. Knockout Entertainment announced a multi-million dollar album deal with Koch Records and Shaquille O'Neal's "Deja 34" entertainment company. The first album for this deal is Ray J's fourth album "All I Feel", which features The Game and Yung Berg among others. It was released on April 1, 2008. The album's first single is "Sexy Can I" featuring rapper Yung Berg peaked at number three on the Top Singles (Hot 100) for six weeks. A video for the track, directed by R. Malcolm Jones, was shot in December 2007. J stars in the Black Christmas movie Dark Christmas under the direction from Deon Taylor. In 2009, Norwood starred in his own VH1 reality dating show, "For the Love of Ray J". The show premiered on February 2, 2009. For his show on March 24, 2009 he released the soundtrack/studio album called "For The Love Of Ray J". On November 2, 2009, the show's second season premiered. In 2010, Norwood and his sister Brandy Norwood premiered the VH1 reality series "" along with their parents. The show debuted in April 2010 and chronicled the backstage happenings of both siblings, while taking a bigger role in their family's management and production company, R&B Productions. On June 19, 2011, Ray J, along with his sister Brandy and his dad Willie Norwood Sr., released A Family Business, which serves as a soundtrack to their hit reality TV show, "", and was released through Time-Life Music. He released a single from the album called "Turnin' Me On". The song will be featured on his upcoming album as well. 2012–present: "Raydiation 2". Ray J is currently working on his upcoming fifth studio album "Raydiation 2". The lead single "I Hit It First" was released on April 6, 2013. "I Hit It First" caused controversy for allegedly aiming its lyrics at Kim Kardashian and Kanye West. The song has since debuted at #51 on the Billboard Hot 100. Ray J is hosting Oxygen's new reality game show series "Bad Girls All-Star Battle".
1162777	Joan Davis (June 29, 1907 – May 22, 1961) was an American comedic actress whose career spanned vaudeville, film, radio and television. Remembered best for the 1950s television comedy "I Married Joan", Davis had a successful earlier career as a B-movie actress and a leading star of 1940s radio comedy. Born Madonna Josephine Davis in Saint Paul, Minnesota, Davis had been a performer since childhood. She appeared with her husband Si Wills in vaudeville. Career. Films. Davis' first film was a short subject for Educational Pictures called "Way Up Thar" (1935), featuring a then-unknown Roy Rogers. Educational's distribution company, Twentieth Century-Fox, signed Davis for feature films. Tall and lanky, with a comically flat speaking voice, she became known as one of the few female physical clowns of her time. Perhaps best known for her co-starring turn with Bud Abbott and Lou Costello in "Hold That Ghost" (1941), she had a reputation for flawless physical comedy. Her pantomime sequence in "Beautiful But Broke" (1944) was a slapstick construction-site episode. She co-starred with Eddie Cantor in two features, "Show Business" (1944) and "If You Knew Susie" (1948). Cantor and Davis were very close offscreen as well. Radio. Joan Davis entered radio with an August 28, 1941 appearance on "The Rudy Vallee Show" and became a regular on that show four months later. Davis then began a series of shows that established her as a top star of radio situation comedy throughout the 1940s. When Vallee left for the Coast Guard in 1943, Davis and Jack Haley became the co-hosts of the show. With a title change to "The Sealtest Village Store", Davis was the owner-operator of the store from July 8, 1943 to June 28, 1945 when she left to do "Joanie's Tea Room" on CBS from September 3, 1945 to June 23, 1947. Sponsored by Lever Brothers on behalf of Swan Soap, the premise had Davis running a tea shop in the little community of Smallville. The supporting cast featured Verna Felton. Harry von Zell was the announcer, and her head writer was Abe Burrows, formerly the head writer (and co-creator) of "Duffy's Tavern" and eventually a legendary Broadway playwright. The tea shop setting continued in "Joan Davis Time", a CBS Saturday night series from October 11, 1947 to July 3, 1948. With Lionel Stander as the tea shop manager, the cast also included Hans Conried, Mary Jane Croft, the Choraliers quintet and John Rarig and his Orchestra. "Leave It to Joan" ran from on July 4 to August 22, 1949 as a summer replacement for "Lux Radio Theater" and continued from September 9, 1949 to March 3, 1950. She was also heard on CBS July 3 through August 28, 1950. She was a frequent and popular performer on Tallulah Bankhead's legendary radio variety show, "The Big Show" (1950–52). Television. When "I Love Lucy" premiered in October 1951 on CBS Television and became a top-rated TV series, sponsors wanted more of the same with another actress who wasn't afraid of strenuous physical comedy. "I Married Joan" premiered in 1952 on NBC, casting Davis as the manic wife of a mild-mannered community judge (Jim Backus) who got her husband into wacky jams with or without the help of a younger sister, played by her real-life daughter, Beverly Wills. "I Married Joan" did not nearly achieve the ratings success enjoyed by "I Love Lucy", but during its first two years, it received moderately successful ratings even cracking the top 25 for the 1953-1954 season. However, by the start of its third year, not only were the ratings beginning to slip, but Davis was beginning to experience heart problems. As a result, the series was canceled in the spring of 1955. Ironically, in its original syndicated run, the series was extremely popular and received high ratings. However once Joan Davis passed on in the Spring of 1961, most if not all local TV stations at the time yanked the show off their line-ups due to a question of taste - laughing at someone who has died. There were exceptions, though, like Curly Howard ( Three Stooges ) and The Little Rascals but those shows back then attracted more kids than adults and the kids back then would laugh at anybody on TV/movies - living or dead - as long as they were entertained.
1017546	Dragon Lord () is a 1982 Hong Kong martial arts sports comedy film written, directed by and starring Jackie Chan as Dragon Ho. It was originally supposed to be a sequel to "The Young Master" and even had the name "Young Master in Love" until it was changed to "Dragon Lord". The film experimented with various elaborate stunt action sequences in a period setting, serving as a transition between Chan's earlier comedy kung fu period films (such as "Drunken Master" and "The Young Master") and his later stunt-oriented modern action films (such as "Project A" and "Police Story"). "Dragon Lord" also featured sports scenes incorporating martial arts stunts, later inspiring "Shaolin Soccer". Synopsis. Dragon (Jackie Chan) tries to send a love note to his girlfriend via a kite but the kite gets away and as he tries to get it back, he finds himself inside the headquarters of a gang of thieves who are planning to steal artifacts from China. Reception. Box office. In its original Hong Kong theatrical run, "Dragon Lord" grossed HK $17,936,344. The film did not make as much as it was expected to in Hong Kong but was a big hit in Japan. Awards and nominations. This is the first Jackie Chan film that includes outtakes (bloopers), which was inspired by Jackie Chan from The Cannonball Run. His later movies will also include outtakes. Production. One of Chan's complex scenes involved a Jianzi game requiring many takes for a single shot. This scene would later inspire "Shaolin Soccer". "Dragon Lord" went over budget and took twice as long to shoot as was originally planned due to Chan's many retakes of shots to get them exactly as he wanted them. The opening bun festival scene was originally intended to end the film but was moved as Chan wanted a spectacular opening to the film. The pyramid fight that takes place during this scene required over 2900 takes, holding the world record for the highest number of takes for a single scene. The final fight scene, which takes place in a barn, also featured elaborate stunts, including one where Chan does a back flip off a loft and falls to the lower ground. According to his book "I Am Jackie Chan: My Life in Action", Chan injured his chin during a stunt, making it difficult to say his lines and direct. DVD release. On August 25, 2003, DVD was released in Hong Kong Legends at UK in Region 2. Dimension Films released the film on DVD in the U.S. on May 11, 2004.
1166251	Rachael Elaine Harris (born January 12, 1968) is an American actress and comedian. Early life. Harris was born in Worthington, Ohio. She graduated from Worthington High School. She went on to graduate from Otterbein College, in 1989, majoring in theatre. Career. Harris performed with the Los Angeles, California, improvisational comedy troupe the Groundlings, and taught for a time with the Groundlings school. She debuted on television in a 1993 episode of "SeaQuest DSV". After an appearance on ' in 1997, Harris went on to a recurring role in The WB's "Sister, Sister". Other television credits include a stint as a correspondent for "The Daily Show's" 2002–2003 season, as well as roles on "The Sarah Silverman Program", "Reno 911!", "The West Wing", "The Good Guys", "Friends", "Curb Your Enthusiasm", "Monk", ' and in November 2008, "Desperate Housewives". She also appears in "Suits" as Sheila, Louis Litt's on-and-off again love interest. Harris played the supporting role of Kevyn Shecket, Kirstie Alley's personal makeup artist, on the Showtime series "Fat Actress" in 2005. She played Cooper in the ABC sitcom "Notes from the Underbelly". Her film credits include roles in "Best in Show", "A Mighty Wind", "For Your Consideration", "Kicking & Screaming", and "Daddy Day Care". In the 2009 comedy "The Hangover" she plays Melissa, girlfriend to Ed Helms's character Stu. She previously co-starred with Helms on "The Daily Show". She played Greg's mother in the film "Diary of a Wimpy Kid" (2010), and reprised the role in the two sequels. Harris hosted "Smoking Gun TV" in 2004, and has made multiple appearances on such VH1 documentaries as "I Love the '80s", "I Love the '90s", and "Best Week Ever". Off-Broadway Harris has performed in "Love, Loss, and What I Wore". Harris' TV commercial work includes ads for Dinty Moore, Avis, Expedia, Quaker Oats, T-Mobile, Geico, and a Super Bowl commercial for the 2010 Census. She is the voice of turtle Karolyn Slowsky in the Comcast Slowskys television commercials. Harris signed on to ABC's "Cougar Town", TVGuide.com confirmed. She plays Shanna, a woman that the network describes as being the "nemesis" of Jules. Also on ABC, she made a guest appearance in the "Modern Family" episode "Caught in the Act" as a restaurateur. Harris stars in the indie comedy/drama film "Natural Selection" which was well received at its 2011 South by Southwest debut, winning both jury and audience awards for best narrative feature, in addition to best screenplay, best editing, and best score/music. Harris received the breakthrough performance award for her role as Linda.
1437183	Hero Wanted is a 2008 action film and crime drama, directed by Brian Smrz and starring Cuba Gooding, Jr., Ray Liotta, and Norman Reedus. The film was shot entirely in Sofia, Bulgaria in the spring of 2007 and premiered on January 17, 2008 in Los Angeles, California. Synopsis. Liam Case (Gooding, Jr.) is a garbage man whose life hasn't quite turned out the way he expected it would. In order to impress the girl of his dreams, Liam plans an elaborate heist that will culminate with him jumping in to save the day at the last minute. When the day of the heist arrives, however, the plan takes an unexpected turn and Liam winds up in the hospital. Upon learning that a mysterious killer has slain the criminal that left both himself and the bank teller for dead during the chaos of the robbery, Liam realizes that the associates of the murdered thief won't stop until they have avenged the death of their fallen partner in crime. Home media. The film was released direct-to-video on April 29, 2008, and included a downloadable Digital Copy (PC and/or PSP) version of the disc with studio-imposed restrictions (and was one of the first DVDs to offer this now commonplace feature).
1063288	Sela Ann Ward (born July 11, 1956) is an American movie and television actress, perhaps best known for her television roles as Teddy Reed on the American TV series "Sisters" (1991–96) and as Lily Manning on "Once and Again" (1999–2002). In 2010 she joined the CBS drama "", as a series regular, playing Jo Danville. Early life. Ward was born in Meridian, Mississippi, the oldest of four children of Annie Kate (née Boswell), a housewife who died of ovarian cancer on February 12, 2002, and Granberry Holland "G.H." Ward, Jr., an electrical engineer who died on January 13, 2009. She has a younger sister, Jenna, and two brothers, Brock and Granberry (Berry) III.
301788	Dana Reeve (née Morosini) (March 17, 1961 – March 6, 2006) was an American actress, singer, and activist for disability causes. She was the widow of actor Christopher Reeve. Early life and family. Reeve was born Dana Charles Morosini in Teaneck, New Jersey to Charles Morosini, a cardiologist, and Helen Simpson Morosini, who died in February 2005.
939956	Jodi Marie Benson (née Marzorati; October 10, 1961) is an American actress, voice actress, and soprano singer. She is best known for providing both the speaking and the singing voices of Disney's Princess Ariel in "The Little Mermaid" and its sequels. In 2002 and 2006, she reprised the role of Ariel in the English versions of the "Kingdom Hearts" series. Most recently Benson voiced the character Barbie in the 1999 movie "Toy Story 2", the 2010 movie "Toy Story 3" and the Toy Story Toon "Hawaiian Vacation". Voice and screen acting. Jodi Benson has become well known in popular culture for providing the voice of Ariel in "The Little Mermaid". She even parodied this later when she provided the voice for the character of Ann Darrow in "The Mighty Kong" - Ann sang and swam through the water with her hair flowing about her. She provided the voice for a character called Aquagirl in a two-part episode of "Batman Beyond". She also provided the voice of the character of Tula in the Hanna-Barbera adventure-fantasy series, Pirates of Dark Water. In an interview with "Christians in Cinema", Benson said that winning the role of Ariel was God-ordained. She has also said that her work for Disney is "not just a job, it is a gift that God has given me. It is my ministry." She has also said that she never gets tired of singing her signature song, "Part of Your World". Benson has also done voice-overs in video games. She played Ariel again in the video games "Kingdom Hearts" and "Kingdom Hearts II". She was also in "Grandia II" where she was the American voice actress for Millenia. From its premiere in 2005 to its end in 2008, Benson did voice work for the Emmy Award-winning Cartoon Network animated series, "Camp Lazlo", as the characters Patsy Smiles, Scoutmistress Jane Doe, and Almondine the Owl. She also voiced Professor Owl in an Disney educational short film. Benson played Cloe in "The Save-Ums" in 2007 and had a small role as "Sam" in Disney's "Enchanted" (Benson's only live-action movie role so far) as a tribute to Ariel. She provided the voice of Barbie in "Toy Story 2" and "Toy Story 3". In non-Disney films, Benson was a voice actress for Don Bluth's version of Hans Christian Andersen's "Thumbelina", voicing the title character. She performed many songs in this film, including a duet with Gary Imhoff in "Let Me Be Your Wings". On the 1998 VHS edition of "The Little Mermaid", Benson appeared as herself during the intro and before and after the previews, telling two CGI goldfish named Gil and Phil about then upcoming releases from Disney such as "", "Mulan", "Melody Time" and "Lady and the Tramp" on video, "A Bug's Life", "Disney Cruise Line" and Disney's One Saturday Morning on ABC. In June 2010, Benson re-recorded "Part of Your World" for "The Little Mermaid" segment for the World of Color night-time show at Disney California Adventure Park park. In an interview at the World of Color premiere, Benson confirmed that she was lending her voice as Ariel for "" attraction opened 2011 at Disney California Adventure Park and due to open 2012 in Magic Kingdom. Benson was honored with a Disney Legend Award on August 19, 2011, for voicing Princess Ariel in "The Little Mermaid movie/TV series" and Barbie in the "Toy Story series". Musical theatre. Benson's Broadway credits include a role in the short-lived Broadway musical "Smile", where she introduced a song called "Disneyland". Howard Ashman, the lyricist of "Smile", would go on to write the lyrics for "The Little Mermaid". Benson also sings "Disneyland" on a compilation CD called "Unsung Musicals". In 1989, Benson appeared in another short-lived musical, "Welcome to the Club", alongside Samuel E. Wright, who performed the voice for Sebastian the Crab in "The Little Mermaid". In 1992, Benson received a Tony Award nomination for Best Actress in a Musical for her role as Polly Baker in "Crazy For You". She played the narrator in "Joseph And The Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat" in 1998. Benson also played the Queen in a one night concert version of Rodgers & Hammersteins "Cinderella" at the Nashville Symphony Orchestra in May 2010. She was at the 2012 SYTA conference singing her signature song "Part of Your World" on Monday, August 27, 2012. Benson joined Candlelight at Walt Disney World on December 10–13, 2012. Jodi joined "2013 Spring Pops" on May 14-15 2013 singing along the Boston Symphony Orchestra.
1101314	Carl Gustav Jacob Jacobi (10 December 1804 – 18 February 1851) was a German mathematician, who made fundamental contributions to elliptic functions, dynamics, differential equations, and number theory. His name is occasionally written as Carolus Gustavus Iacobus Iacobi in his Latin books, and his first name is sometimes given as Karl. Jacobi was the first Jewish mathematician to be appointed professor at a German university. Biography. Jacobi was born of Ashkenazi Jewish parentage in Potsdam. From 1816 to 1821 Jacobi went to the Victoria-Gymnasium, where he went to the senior classes right from the beginning, but still had to stay for several years. He studied at Berlin University, where he obtained the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in 1825, his thesis being an analytical discussion of the theory of fractions. In 1827 he became a professor and in 1829, a tenured professor of mathematics at Königsberg University, and held the chair until 1842. Jacobi suffered a breakdown from overwork in 1843. He then visited Italy for a few months to regain his health. On his return he moved to Berlin, where he lived as a royal pensioner until his death. During the Revolution of 1848 Jacobi was politically involved and unsuccessfully presented his parliamentary candidature on behalf of a Liberal club. This led, after the suppression of the revolution, to his royal grant being cut off – but his fame and reputation were such that it was soon resumed. In 1836, he had been elected a foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. Jacobi's grave is preserved at a cemetery in the Kreuzberg section of Berlin, the Friedhof I der Dreifaltigkeits-Kirchengemeinde (61 Baruther Street). His grave is close to that of Johann Encke, the astronomer. The crater Jacobi on the Moon is named after him. Scientific contributions. One of Jacobi's greatest accomplishments was his theory of elliptic functions and their relation to the elliptic theta function. This was developed in his great treatise "Fundamenta nova theoriae functionum ellipticarum" (1829), and in later papers in Crelle's Journal. Theta functions are of great importance in mathematical physics because of their role in the inverse problem for periodic and quasi-periodic flows. The equations of motion are integrable in terms of Jacobi's elliptic functions in the well-known cases of the pendulum, the Euler top, the symmetric Lagrange top in a gravitational field and the Kepler problem (planetary motion in a central gravitational field). He also made fundamental contributions in the study of differential equations and to rational mechanics, notably the Hamilton–Jacobi theory. It was in algebraic development that Jacobi’s peculiar power mainly lay, and he made important contributions of this kind to many areas of mathematics, as shown by his long list of papers in Crelle’s Journal and elsewhere from 1826 onwards. One of his maxims was: 'Invert, always invert' ('man muss immer umkehren'), expressing his belief that the solution of many hard problems can be clarified by re-expressing them in inverse form. In his 1835 paper, Jacobi proved the following basic result classifying periodic (including elliptic) functions: "If a univariate single-value function is multiply periodic, then such a function cannot have more than two periods, and the ratio of the periods cannot be a real number. " He discovered many of the fundamental properties of theta functions, including the functional equation and the Jacobi triple product formula, as well as many other results on q-series and hypergeometric series. The solution of the Jacobi inversion problem for the hyperelliptic Abel map by Weierstrass in 1854 required the introduction of the hyperelliptic theta function and later the general Riemann theta function for algebraic curves of arbitrary genus. The complex torus associated to a genus formula_1 algebraic curve, obtained by quotienting formula_2 by the lattice of periods is referred to as the Jacobian variety. This method of inversion, and its subsequent extension by Weierstrass and Riemann to arbitrary algebraic curves, may be seen as a higher genus generalization of the relation between elliptic integrals and the Jacobi, or Weierstrass elliptic functions Jacobi was the first to apply elliptic functions to number theory, for example proving of Fermat's two-square theorem and Lagrange's four-square theorem, and similar results for 6 and 8 squares. His other work in number theory continued the work of C. F. Gauss: new proofs of quadratic reciprocity and introduction of the Jacobi symbol; contributions to higher reciprocity laws, investigations of continued fractions, and the invention of Jacobi sums. He was also one of the early founders of the theory of determinants; in particular, he invented the Jacobian determinant formed from the "n"² differential coefficients of "n" given functions of "n" independent variables, and which has played an important part in many analytical investigations. In 1841 he reintroduced the partial derivative ∂ notation of Legendre, which was to become standard. Students of vector fields and Lie theory often encounter the Jacobi identity, the analog of associativity for the Lie bracket operation. Planetary theory and other particular dynamical problems likewise occupied his attention from time to time. While contributing to celestial mechanics, he introduced the Jacobi integral (1836) for a sidereal coordinate system. His theory of the "last multiplier" is treated in "Vorlesungen über Dynamik", edited by Alfred Clebsch (1866). He left many manuscripts, portions of which have been published at intervals in Crelle's Journal. His other works include "Commentatio de transformatione integralis duplicis indefiniti in formam simpliciorem" (1832), "Canon arithmeticus" (1839), and "Opuscula mathematica" (1846–1857). His "Gesammelte Werke" (1881–1891) were published by the Berlin Academy. Family. He was a brother of the German engineer and physicist Moritz Hermann von Jacobi.
1163613	Hope Elise Ross Lange (November 28, 1933 – December 19, 2003) was an American film, stage, and television actress. Lange was nominated for the Best Supporting Actress Golden Globe and the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her portrayal of Selena Cross in the 1957 film "Peyton Place". In 1970, she won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series for her role as Carolyn Muir in the sitcom "The Ghost & Mrs. Muir". Early life. Lange was born into a theatrical family in Redding, Connecticut. Her father, John George Lange (1885–1942), was a cellist and the music arranger for Florenz Ziegfeld and conductor for Henry Cohen; her mother, Minette (née Buddecke) (1898–1970), was an actress. They had three daughters, Minelda (1922–2004), Joy, (1927–2007), and Hope, and a son, David. John worked in New York City and the family moved to Greenwich Village when Hope was a young child. Lange sang with other children in the play "Life, Laughter and Tears", which opened at the Booth Theatre in March 1942. At age 9, Lange had a speaking part in the award-winning Broadway play "The Patriots", which opened in January 1943. John Lange died in September 1942 but the family stayed in New York City. Minette ran a restaurant on Macdougal Street near Washington Square Park from 1944 to 1956. The name was "Minette's of Washington Square", although some sources confuse it with "Minetta Tavern", an Italian restaurant on Macdougal Street founded in 1937. The entire family worked in the restaurant; the oldest daughter, Minelda, ran the cash register while Joy and Hope waited on tables. While attending high school; Lange studied dance, modeled, and worked in the family restaurant. She sometimes walked the dog of former First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, who had a nearby apartment. When her photo appeared in the newspaper, she received an offer to work as a New York City advertising model. She appeared on the June 1949 cover of "Radio-Electronics" magazine wearing the "Man from Mars" Radio Hat. This portable radio built into a pith helmet was a sensation in 1949. Lange attended college for two years at Reed College in Oregon and at Barmore Junior College in New York. She met her first husband, Don Murray, at Barmore. Career. She began working in television in the 1950s with appearances on "Kraft Television Theatre", which caught the eye of a Hollywood producer. Lange came to prominence in her first film role in "Bus Stop" with Marilyn Monroe and Don Murray, whom she married on April 14, 1956. Murray later said that Monroe grew jealous of another blonde being hired for the movie and asked the studio producers to dye Lange's blonde hair light brown. As a result of favorable reviews, Lange landed a major role in the then-risqué 1957 film "Peyton Place". Her strong performance earned her a nomination for a Golden Globe Award and another for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. She would become a rather well-recognized supporting actress of ingénue roles. Lange later said that she became somewhat typecast in her ingénue film appearances and this is why her movie career was short-lived. She went on to appear in Nicholas Ray's 1957 film, "The True Story of Jesse James" as James' wife, opposite Robert Wagner. She appeared in "The Young Lions" alongside Montgomery Clift. She starred as the wife of Jeffrey Hunter's character in Anton Myrer's wartime drama "In Love and War" in 1958. These roles eventually led to Lange earning top billing in 1959's "The Best of Everything", with Suzy Parker and Joan Crawford. Lange appeared as Elvis Presley's older psychologist love interest in "Wild in the Country" in 1961, despite being only 13 months Elvis' senior. She then appeared in Frank Capra's final movie, "Pocketful of Miracles", alongside Glenn Ford. The next year, she appeared with Ford again in the romantic comedy "Love Is a Ball". Lange returned to television for a 1966 role in the series "The Fugitive" (1963). She starred from 1968 to 1970 in the popular television series, "The Ghost & Mrs. Muir" for which she earned two Emmy Awards and a Golden Globe Award nomination. This success was followed by three seasons on "The New Dick Van Dyke Show" as Dick Van Dyke's wife, Jenny Preston, from 1971 to 1974, declining to return for a fourth season of the show. She also appeared in twelve television movies. In 1977, she returned to the Broadway stage where her acting career had originally begun. She also played the wife of Charles Bronson in the original "Death Wish" film. In 1985, she appeared in "" and in 1986, she took a role as Laura Dern's mother in David Lynch's "Blue Velvet". She took a Broadway role in "Same Time, Next Year" and then made appearances in the television movie based on Danielle Steel's "Message from Nam" and in 1994's "Clear and Present Danger". Lange made appearances in the Maine town in which "Peyton Place" had been filmed during the film's 40th anniversary celebrations in 1998. Personal life. Date of birth. Lange's year of birth is often reported as 1931, but the correct year is 1933. A possible source of this error is the "Reader's Digest Almanac and Yearbook". It has shown the 1931 date from as early as 1980 to the 2009 issue. The 1976 and earlier editions give the year of birth as 1933. Other references such as "Chase's Annual Events" have always shown 1933, as does her Social Security Death Index entry. The 1933 year also matches the ages given in newspaper accounts of Lange in her youth. "The New York Times" covered the annual "Young People's Concert" awards given at Carnegie Hall. Lange received an award in April 1945 and again in April 1946, when her age was given as 12. Lange's age of 12 in April 1946 would correspond to a birthdate in November 1933, not 1931. Also, a short feature story was published in February 1951 about Hope Lange's culinary skills. The first paragraph gives the biography of a seventeen-year-old Hope Lange of Greenwich Village, New York. Her late father was "director of music for Florenz Ziegfield" and her mother had a catering business. In addition to modeling, acting, and dancing; Hope could make "terrific" sandwiches. The article gives her recipes for "Sardine Strips" and "Cheese Ribbon" sandwiches. Born in 1933, Lange would have been 17 years old in February 1951. Relationships. Lange's first marriage was to actor Don Murray in 1956; they had two children, actor Christopher Murray and photographer Patricia Murray. Lange left Don Murray in 1961 for actor Glenn Ford, associate producer and co-star of "Pocketful of Miracles". She and Ford never married. She then left acting for three years after her October 19, 1963, marriage to producer-director, Alan J. Pakula, whom she divorced in 1971. In 1972 she also dated Frank Sinatra and began a relationship with married novelist John Cheever. In 1986, she married theatrical producer Charles Hollerith, with whom she remained the rest of her life. Death. Lange died on December 19, 2003, at St. John's Hospital in Santa Monica, California, as a result of an ischemic colitis infection at the age of 70.
980174	Pink Narcissus (1971) is an American arthouse drama film by James Bidgood visualizing the erotic fantasies of a gay male prostitute. Synopsis. Between visits from his keeper, or john, a handsome male prostitute (Bobby Kendall), alone in his apartment, lounges, fantasizing about worlds where he is the central character. For example, he pictures himself as a matador, a Roman slave boy and the emperor who condemns him, and the keeper of a male harem for whom another male performs a belly dance. Production. The movie is mostly shot on 8 mm film with bright, otherworldly lighting and intense colors. Aside from its last, climactic scene, which was shot in a downtown Manhattan loft, it was produced in its entirety (including outdoor scenes) in Bidgood's small New York apartment over a seven-year (from 1963 to 1970) period and ultimately released without the director's consent who therefore had himself credited as "Anonymous". Provenance. Because the name of the filmmaker was not widely known, there were rumors that Andy Warhol was behind it. In the mid-1990s, writer Bruce Benderson, who was obsessed with the film, began a search for its maker based on several leads and finally verified that it was James Bidgood, who was still living in Manhattan and was working on a film script. In 1999, a book researched and written by Benderson was published by Taschen about Bidgood's body of photographic and filmic work. Bidgood's unmistakable kitschy style has later been imitated and refined by artists such as Pierre et Gilles. In 2003, the film was re-released by Strand Releasing.
1067614	W.W. and the Dixie Dancekings is a 1975 film directed by John G. Avildsen and written by Thomas Rickman. The 20th Century Fox film took place in 1957 and featured the first acting appearances of Jerry Reed and Brad Dourif.
1059817	Annette O'Toole (born April 1, 1952) is an American actress, dancer, and singer-songwriter. She is most recently known for portraying Martha Kent, the mother of Clark Kent on the television series "Smallville". Early life and career. O'Toole was born Annette Toole in Houston, Texas, the daughter of Dorothy Geraldine (née Niland) and William West Toole, Jr. Her mother taught dance, something O'Toole learned at the age of 3. She started taking acting lessons after family moved to Los Angeles when she was 13; her first role was on "The Danny Kaye Show". She also had guest appearances in shows such as "My Three Sons" (1960), "The Virginian", "Gunsmoke", "Hawaii Five-O", and "The Partridge Family". 1970s–1980s. O'Toole's first major film role was as a jaded beauty pageant contestant in the 1975 satire 'Smile'; she got the role after doing an impression of a "dead cockroach" at the audition. She also appeared as Robby Benson's tutor/girlfriend in the college basketball story 'One on One' in 1977. She co-starred opposite Gary Busey in the 1980 film "Foolin' Around". In 1981, she starred in the HBO onstage production of "Vanities", as well as in the TV movie "Stand By Your Man", which detailed the life of country music legend Tammy Wynette. Later on in 1982, she appeared briefly as Nick Nolte's girlfriend in "48 Hours". That same year, she played Alice Perrin in "Cat People" and in 1983 she played Lana Lang (love interest to Clark Kent/Superman) in Superman III. In 1985, she co-starred with Barry Manilow in the CBS television movie "Copacabana" playing Lola La Mar to Manilow's Tony Starr. Also in 1985, she had a starring role as Ms. Edmunds in the original "Bridge to Terabithia". In 1987's "Cross My Heart", a romantic comedy, O'Toole had a leading role opposite Martin Short. 1990s–2000s. In 1990, she had roles in two ABC television miniseries. She played the adult Beverly Marsh in the miniseries adaptation of the Stephen King novel "It". She also portrayed Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy in "The Kennedys of Massachusetts", a role that earned her an Emmy nomination for Outstanding Lead Actress. In 1993, she starred in "Desperate Justice" as Ellen Wells. However, in 1995, she starred in a made for TV film on the Lifetime television network based on the true crime novel "Dead by Sunset" which was written by Ann Rule. She portrayed the character Cheryl Keeton. She had a recurring role on the television shows "Nash Bridges" (1996) and starred in her own series "The Huntress" (2000). She starred in the TV movie "Keeping the Promise" as Anne Hallowell, Matt Hallowell's mother. In October 2001, 18 years after portraying Lana Lang in a feature film (Superman III), she returned to the Superman "mythos" in the role of Martha Kent, Superman's adoptive mother, in the television series "Smallville". She remained part of the show's main cast, though at times in the background, until the end of its sixth season. On January 19, 2010, it was announced that O'Toole would be returning to "Smallville" for at least one episode. On November 22, 2010, Annette O'Toole played the role of Veronica; a middle aged woman suffering from a severe case of Alzheimer's, in season 3 episode 7 of the TV series "Lie to Me". In March 2013 she appeared in Grey's Anatomy as a school teacher who finds out after surgery she will die from cancer. Musical career. In retrospect, O'Toole can date the beginning of her songwriting career to events during a car ride after the September 11 attacks; as her husband Michael McKean describes it, "On September 11, 2001, Annette found herself without an airline to carry her back down to Los Angeles from Vancouver, where she films "Smallville". So she drove a rental car down. The two of us drove it back up together, and on the long drive up there, somewhere between Portland and Seattle, she told me she had a tune in her head." The "tune in her head" became "Potato's in the Paddy Wagon", one of three songs the couple wrote for "A Mighty Wind", including the Oscar-nominated song "A Kiss at the End of the Rainbow." O'Toole sang "What Could Be Better?" — a song she and her husband co-wrote — for the 2004 Disney children's album "A World of Happiness".
1060492	Michael S. Vartan (born November 27, 1968) is a French-American film and television actor. He is probably best known for the role of Michael Vaughn on the American television action drama "Alias". He most recently starred in the TNT medical drama "Hawthorne". Early life. Vartan was born in Boulogne-Billancourt, Hauts-de-Seine, France, the son of Doris (née Pucher), a painter and artist, and Eddie Vartan, a musician. His paternal aunt is singer Sylvie Vartan and his stepfather is writer Ian La Frenais. Vartan's Bulgarian-born father was of Armenian, Bulgarian, and Hungarian ancestry, and Vartan's American mother is Jewish and originally from Poland. Vartan has said about his French background that "The funny thing is I'm actually a Polish Jew who happens to be born in France. My mom is Polish and my dad is Bulgarian. I don't have an ounce of French blood. But I work it". He has stated that he tends to be considered a Frenchman in the United States and an American in France. His parents divorced when he was five and he moved to America with his mother. He moved back to France to be with his father until his high school years, and grew up a "farm kid" in a "simple environment" in Fleury, Manche, a small town in Normandy. At the age of eighteen, Vartan moved back in with his mother in Los Angeles, telling her that he wanted to be an artist, because he did not wish to fulfill the mandatory military service required in France. In Los Angeles, he attended an acting school after he was told he possessed acting talent. He had also attended the prestigious Lycée Français de Los Angeles. Vartan now considers himself to be American and stated on the talk show "Rove" that he would like Australia to be his second home. He is bilingual, speaking both English and French fluently. Career. After starring roles in European films, including an acclaimed performance in the Taviani Brothers' Fiorile, and several smaller film roles, Vartan had noticeable supporting roles in major Hollywood movies, including "Never Been Kissed" (1999), "One Hour Photo" (2002) and "Monster-in-Law" (2005). In 2007, he appeared in the Australian horror film "Rogue", and starred in the film "Jolene" in 2008. Vartan's most notable role to date has been as Michael Vaughn in the American television series "Alias" (2001–2006). Vartan has also had guest appearances on "Friends" (as Dr. Tim Burke, Tom Selleck's character's son) and "Ally McBeal" (as Jonathan Basset). He also appeared on the show "Kitchen Confidential", which starred his former "Alias" co-star Bradley Cooper, as a French chef who was Cooper's rival. In September 2007, Vartan played James Walker, a main role in the ABC drama "Big Shots". However, the show was canceled after one season. Vartan is co-starred opposite Jada Pinkett Smith in TNT's series "Hawthorne". Vartan replaced Jeffrey Nordling, who played the role in the pilot. TNT canceled the series after its third season. Personal life. Over the course of his relationship with "Alias" co-star Jennifer Garner, he never made any public appearances with her. Garner confirmed their relationship in August 2003. Vartan began dating Garner in mid-2003, and though rumors of their break-up began in March 2004, Garner only confirmed the end of their relationship in August 2004. On March 5, 2010, he announced his engagement to Lauren Skaar, whom he met in a Whole Foods Market parking lot in Los Angeles in 2009. The couple married on April 2, 2011 at the Pelican Hill Resort in Newport Beach, California. He has a dog named Millie, with whom he appeared in a PETA video about good canine care and to whom he wrote a "love letter" for an anthology. Vartan is a keen supporter of Australian rules football, having watched the game on numerous visits to Australia, in particular Melbourne. He is good friends with Brendan Fevola and supports Carlton.
900182	Monster Shark (original Italian title "Shark: Rosso nell'oceano; also known as Shark: Red on the Ocean, Devouring Waves and Devil Fish") is a 1984 Italian natural horror film, and one of several environmental disaster films to emerge following the success of the 1975 film "Jaws", including films such as: "Great White", "Orca", "Piranha", "Tentacles" and "Tintorera". Plot. The film takes place along a stretch of coastline somewhere in Florida in the United States, where a local tourist spot has become plagued by a mysterious marine creature. Little do they know, the monster is the product of a secret military experiment — a genetic hybrid mutated from a common octopus and the prehistoric super-predator "Dunkleosteus". Unfortunately, the creature has broken loose, and is now feeding on swimmers and tourists swimming or sailing along the coast. Also, the monster is only an infant, and will continue to grow if it is left to hunt much longer. A team of scientists led by a scientist named Peter and his colleague, Dr. Stella Dickens, are trying to find the creature and stop it, but a group of military scientists are trying to stop "them", as the experiment was classified and is military business. Both groups are slowly picked off by the creature while they try to track it down. They eventually find that it is hiding in the Everglades and manage to corner it in shallow waters and kill it with repeated blasts from flamethrowers. At the end, Peter tells Stella that he has finally decided to take a vacation. When she asks where they are going, he tells her "the mountains". The ending is a freeze-frame shot. Reception. "Monster Shark" was poorly received by critics. , the IMDB rates the film in 61st place on their Bottom 100 list. Popcorn Pictures only gave the film marks for its artwork stating that "it could be a cure for insomnia". "Mystery Science Theater 3000". On August 15, 1998, "Monster Shark", under its alternative title of "Devil Fish", was featured on an episode of the movie-mocking television series "Mystery Science Theater 3000", on which it was spoofed for its poor acting and erratic editing.
1163539	Megan Mullally (born November 12, 1958) is an American actress and singer. After working in theatre in Chicago, Mullally moved to Los Angeles in 1985 and began to appear in supporting roles in film and television productions. She made her Broadway debut in "Grease" in 1994 and she has since appeared in several Broadway musicals. From 1998 until 2006, she played Karen Walker on the TV sitcom "Will & Grace", arguably her best-known role to date. From 2006 until early 2007, Mullally hosted the short lived talk show "The Megan Mullally Show". She has since appeared in guest-starring roles in television programs such as "Parks and Recreation", "Happy Endings", "30 Rock", "Up All Night", "Boston Legal", and a GLAAD Award-winning episode of "The New Adventures of Old Christine". In 2010, Mullally starred as Lydia in the second season of "Party Down". She also co-stars as Chief on Adult Swim's "Childrens Hospital", and has recurred as Tammy Swanson on NBC's "Parks and Recreation" (playing her real-life husband, Nick Offerman's, ex-wife), Dana Hartz on ABC's "Happy Endings", and Aunt Gayle on the FOX animated comedy "Bob's Burgers". She received seven consecutive Emmy Award nominations for "Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series" for her role on "Will & Grace", winning twice in 2000 and 2006. She has also received four Screen Actors Guild Awards for her performance, and was nominated for four Golden Globe awards. Early life. Mullally was born in Los Angeles, California, the daughter of Martha (née Palmer) and Carter Mullally, Jr., an actor who was a contract player with Paramount Pictures in the 1950s. Mullally moved to her father's native Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, at the age of six. She studied ballet from the age of six and performed at the Oklahoma City Ballet during high school, also studying at the School of American Ballet in New York City. Following her graduation from Casady School, she attended Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, where she studied English Literature and Art History, and subsequently became active in Chicago theatre. Career. Television. Mullally moved to Los Angeles, California, in 1985. Two weeks later, she was signed by the William Morris Agency. One of her first acting spots was on a McDonald's commercial that also featured John Goodman. She made her series debut in 1986 in "The Ellen Burstyn Show". She subsequently guest starred on sitcoms such as "Seinfeld", "Frasier", "Wings", "Ned and Stacey", "Mad About You", "Caroline in the City" and "Just Shoot Me!". She played a central character in a season-five episode of "Murder, She Wrote", "Coal Miner's Slaughter", recalling in 2012, "I hadn't gotten a job for so long, and I was in a complete panic because I didn't know how I was going to pay my rent. So I get a call one day from my agent that I'd gotten offered a guest role, and it paid $5,000. I literally fell down onto my knees and testified and wept. I played some former protégée of Jessica Fletcher. It's one of my favorite things I've ever shot." In 1990, Mullally tested for the co-starring role of Elaine Benes on "Seinfeld". Mullally in 1998 landed the role of Karen Walker, Grace Adler's sarcastic, pill-popping assistant, in the NBC sitcom "Will & Grace". She won the Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series in both 2000 and 2006, and was nominated in 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, and 2005. She won the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Comedy Series three times, in 2002, 2003 and 2004, and with cast members Eric McCormack, Debra Messing, and Sean Hayes, she shared the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Comedy Series in 2001. She is the first of only two actresses to win a SAG Award three years in a row. She was nominated each year from 2000 until 2003, for the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress - Series, Miniseries or Television Film. In 2005, Mullally saw comedian and actor Bill Hader performing with his Second City class in Los Angeles, and shortly thereafter brought Hader to the attention of "Saturday Night Live" producer Lorne Michaels. Also in 2005, Mullally was awarded the Women in Film Lucy Award "in recognition of her innovation in creative works that have enhanced the perception of women through the medium of television". Following "Will & Grace", Mullally hosted her own talk show, "The Megan Mullally Show" from 2006-2007. She has hosted "Saturday Night Live", guest-hosted the "Late Show with David Letterman", hosted the 2006 TV Land Awards, and been a featured performer twice on the Tony Awards. She has been featured in advertisements for M&M's, Old Navy, and I Can't Believe It's Not Butter. Mullally guest-starred on the Season Three premiere of NBC's hit show "30 Rock". Other appearances include "", "Campus Ladies", director/actor David Wain's "Wainy Days," an episode of HBO's Funny or Die, and the Funny or Die web video "That's What She Said". Mullally has guest-starred five times as Tammy Swanson on the NBC series "Parks and Recreation", in the episodes "Ron and Tammy" "", "Li'l Sebastian", "Ron and Tammys" and "The Trial of Leslie Knope". Mullally plays the role of the second ex-wife of the character Ron Swanson, played by her real-life husband, Nick Offerman. She co-starred in 2010 as Lydia on the Starz ensemble series "Party Down". Mullally currently co-stars as "Chief" on the Adult Swim series "Childrens Hospital". In 2011, Mullally began a recurring role as Dana Hartz, the mother of Penny (Casey Wilson), on the ABC sitcom "Happy Endings". The following months, Fox announced Mullally would join the series "Breaking In" when the show returned for a second season on March 6, 2012. Theater. Mullally made her Broadway debut as Marty in the 1994 revival of "Grease", and subsequently appeared as Rosemary in the hit 1995 revival of "How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying" opposite Matthew Broderick. In 2007, Mullally starred as Elizabeth in Mel Brooks' original Broadway musical, "Young Frankenstein". She can be heard on the cast albums of all three productions. In 1996, she starred in "You Never Know" at the Pasadena Playhouse. Mullally appeared in 2000 as Pamela in the multiple award-winning production of Chuck Mee's "The Berlin Circle", for which she won both the LA Weekly Theatre Award and the Backstage West Garland Award. Mullally starred as Beverly in the acclaimed production of Adam Bock's "The Receptionist" at the Odyssey Theatre (notably, the longest sold-out run of a show in that theatre's history), for which she was awarded the 2010 Backstage West Garland Award for Best Performance by an Actress. Mullally is also a Chicago theater veteran and member of Los Angeles theatre company The Evidence Room. Music. Mullally is a member of the band Supreme Music Program. SMP has released three albums to date, "The Sweetheart Break-In", "Big as a Berry" and "Free Again!". Mullally and Stephanie Hunt formed the band Nancy and Beth in 2012. They went on tour in March 2013, along with Megan's husband Nick Offerman. Film. Mullally has appeared in Marc Forster's Sundance competition entry "Everything Put Together", "Anywhere But Here" with Susan Sarandon and Natalie Portman, "About Last Night" with Demi Moore and Rob Lowe, "Speaking of Sex" with James Spader, and "Stealing Harvard" with Tom Green and Jason Lee. Mullally played a singing teacher in the 2009 film remake of "Fame", and can be heard on the soundtrack recording. Additionally, Mullally sang the song "Long John Blues" (performed on-screen by Kristen Bell) in 2010's "Burlesque". She recently played the role of a mother in the 2013 indie film "The Kings of Summer." Personal life. Mullally's first marriage, in the mid-1990s, was to talent agent Michael Katcher. In 2000, Mullally met actor Nick Offerman while doing a play together in Los Angeles. The two married in 2003. Offerman guest-starred on "Will & Grace" during its fourth season; in return, Mullally has guest-starred on "Parks and Recreation", on which Offerman plays a lead role. Mullally plays Tammy, the conniving ex-wife of Offerman's character Ron Swanson, appearing in six episodes so far. In 1999, Mullally commented in an interview in "The Advocate" magazine, "I consider myself bisexual, and my philosophy is, everyone innately is." In March, 2013, while on the talk show "Kathy", she appeared with her husband and fellow guest Michelle Trachtenberg, and when Kathy opened a poll of who is heterosexual, Megan raised her hand. Subsequent, post-"Advocate" interviews with websites "AfterEllen" in 2006 and "Queerty" in 2009 again supported the stance that Megan is heterosexual. In a 2010 interview with "The Advocate" she clarified the confusion regarding her comment in 1999, stating: "I know the gay community wants me to be bisexual, but unfortunately I’m not as bisexual as people have wanted me to be. I am married to a man, we’ve been together 10 years, and I’ve never had sex with a woman. But I do still think everybody has an ability to love that isn’t limited by gender."
1018136	Jason Tobin, credited in Chinese as To Jun Wai (杜俊緯), is a British-Chinese film and television actor. Early life. He was born in Hong Kong where he attended the King George V School in Kowloon, Hong Kong; he is of mixed parentage, being half English and half Chinese. Shyness kept him out of school drama productions and it wasn't until the age of 18 while living in Asia, and ready to return to the UK to study law at university, that he verbalized his dream to become an actor.
64176	Eric Steven Lander (born February 3, 1957) is a Professor of Biology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), former member of the Whitehead Institute, and founding director of the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard who has devoted his career to realizing the promise of the human genome for medicine. He is co-chair of U.S. President Barack Obama's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology. In 2013 he was awarded the $3 million Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences for his work. Early life and education. Lander's parents, Harold and Rhoda Lander, were both lawyers. He was captain of the math team at Stuyvesant High School and an International Mathematical Olympiad Silver Medalist for the United States, graduating from high school in 1974. At the age of seventeen, he wrote a paper on quasiperfect numbers for which he won the Westinghouse Prize. Lander attended Princeton University, where he graduated in 1978 as valedictorian. He wrote his doctoral D.Phil. thesis on algebraic coding theory and symmetric block designs at the University of Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar, under the supervision of Peter Cameron. Career. Early mathematical career. As a mathematician, he studied combinatorics and applications of representation theory to coding theory. He enjoyed mathematics but did not wish to spend his life in such a "monastic career". Unsure of what to do next, he took up a job teaching managerial economics at Harvard Business School; he also began to write a book on information theory. At the suggestion of his brother, Arthur Lander, he started to look at neurobiology "because there's a lot of information in the brain." In order to understand mathematical neurobiology, he felt he had to study cellular neurobiology; this in turn led to studying microbiology and continued down to the level of genetics. "When I finally feel I have learned genetics, I should get back to these other problems. But I'm still trying to get the genetics right." His studies introduced him to David Botstein, a geneticist working at MIT. Botstein was working on a way to unravel how subtle differences in complex genetic systems can become disorders like cancer, diabetes, schizophrenia, and even obesity. Lander then joined Whitehead Institute (1986) and later joined MIT as a geneticist. In 1987, he was given the prestigious MacArthur Fellowship. In 1990 he founded the WICGR (Whitehead Institute/MIT Center for Genome Research). WICGR became one of the world's leading centers of genome research, and under Lander's leadership, it has made great progress in developing new methods of analysing mammalian genomes. The Whitehead Institute has also made important breakthroughs in applying this information to the study of human variation and particularly the study of medical genetics. The WICGR formed the basis for the foundation of the Broad Institute, a transformation in which Lander was instrumental. Contributions to genomics. There were two main groups attempting to sequence the human genome: the first was the Human Genome Project (HGP), the publicly funded effort that intended to publish the information it obtained so the public could use it freely and without restrictions. This was a collaborative effort involving many research groups from countries all over the world. The second effort was undertaken by Celera Genomics who intended to patent the information obtained and charge subscriptions for use of the sequence data (Celera has since abandoned this policy and has donated large amounts of sequence information for free public use). Established first, the HGP moved slowly in the early phases of research as the role of the Department of Energy was unclear and sequencing technology was in its infancy. Upon the entrance of the private entity Celera into the race to discover the genome, the pressure was on the HGP to establish as much of the genome in the public domain as quickly as possible. This was a change for the HGP, because many scientists at the time wanted a more complete copy of the genome. Along with other members of the HGP, Lander pushed for quicker discovery so that genes would not be discovered by Celera first, and then patented by Celera. In 2001, the public draft of the human genome was published in the journal "Nature". The Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research, Center for Genome Research, is listed first (the order was according to total genomic sequence contributed). Lander is the first author named.
1061004	Cynthia Ellen Nixon (born April 9, 1966) is an American actress, best known for her portrayal of Miranda Hobbes in the HBO series "Sex and the City" (1998–2004), the film "Sex and the City" and its sequel "Sex and the City 2". Some of her other work has included starring in the films: "The Manhattan Project", "Baby's Day Out", "Let It Ride", "Warm Springs", "Little Manhattan", "The Babysitters", "Rampart", and a recurring role in the television show "The Big C". She has received two Screen Actors Guild Awards, two Emmy Awards, a Tony Award, a Grammy Award, and a GLAAD Media Award. Early life and education. Nixon was born in New York City, New York, the daughter of Anne Knoll, an actress from Chicago, Illinois, and Walter E. Nixon, a radio journalist from Texas. She graduated from Hunter College High School and attended Barnard College. In the spring of 1986, she studied abroad with Semester at Sea. Career. Early career. In 1984, while a freshman at Barnard College, Nixon made theatrical history by simultaneously appearing in two hit Broadway plays directed by Mike Nichols. These were "The Real Thing", where Nixon played the daughter of Jeremy Irons and Christine Baranski; and "Hurlyburly", where she played a young woman who encounters sleazy Hollywood executives. The two theaters were just two blocks apart and Nixon's roles were both short, so she could run from one to the other. Onscreen, she played the role of Salieri's maid/spy, Lorl, in "Amadeus" (1984), standing out well amidst a powerhouse cast at just 17 years of age.
1059687	Rachel Ticotin (born November 1, 1958) is an American film and television actress. She has appeared in films such as "Fort Apache, The Bronx"; "Total Recall" and "Con Air". She has appeared in the NBC legal drama "" as Lt. Arleen Gonzales. Early life. Ticotin (pronounced "tick-oh-tin") was born in the Bronx, New York, the daughter of Iris Torres, a Puerto Rican educator, and Abe Ticotin, a Russian Jewish used car salesman. Her sister, Nancy Ticotin, is also an actress. Her brother, Sahaj, is a musician and the lead singer for the rock group Ra. Ticotin grew up, and received her primary and secondary education, in the Bronx, which has a large Puerto Rican community. Her parents enrolled her in the Ballet Hispanico of New York where she took ballet lessons. Career. In 1978, Ticotin appeared as a dancer in the film "King of the Gypsies", making that her official film debut. She also acted on the Off-Broadway production of Miguel Piñero's "The Sun Always Shines for the Cool". (During this period, she also received an onscreen credit as a production assistant on Brian De Palma's "Dressed to Kill".) Her first big break came in 1981, when she was cast as "Isabella" opposite Paul Newman in the movie "Fort Apache, The Bronx". That same year, she was listed as one of 12 promising New Actors in John Willis Screen World Vol.33. In 1983, she landed a regular role on NBC's television drama "Love and Honor". Other television series in which she has appeared in are, "Ohara" (1987), "Women on the Inside" (1991), "Crime & Punishment" (1993), and "Gargoyles" (1994). Among the movies in which she has been cast are the following, "Critical Condition" (1986) as "Rachel Atwood", "Where the Day Takes You" (1992) as "Officer Landers", "Falling Down" (1993) as "Detective Sandra Torres", "Total Recall" (1990) as "Melina" alongside Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sharon Stone, (1997) as Mcbride alongside Omar Epps in "First Time Felon" and "Con Air" (1997) alongside Nicolas Cage, where she earned an ALMA Award for her role as "prison guard Sally Bishop". In 1995, she played the role of "Doña Inez", the Mexican mother of "Don Juan DeMarco" in the tongue-in-cheek romantic comedy of the same name, with Johnny Depp playing the title role. Ticotin has participated in over 40 film and television series, appearing in "Man on Fire" (2004) as "Mariana" and "The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants" (2005). Ticotin was cast as "Vangie Gonzalez Taylor" in the second season of PBS's television series "" alongside Edward James Olmos, Esai Morales, Raquel Welch and Kate del Castillo. Ticotin also appeared on television in season two of the popular ABC series "Lost." She was cast as Captain Teresa Cortez, mother of Michelle Rodriguez's character "Ana Lucia Cortez". In September 2010, she joined that cast of the NBC legal drama, "" as Lt. Arleen Gonzales in place of Wanda De Jesus, who originally portrayed the role. Ticotin reshot the scenes originally by De Jesus. Personal life. In 1983, Ticotin married David Caruso, with whom she had a daughter, Greta, born June 1, 1984. In 1989, she divorced Caruso and has been married to Peter Strauss since 1998. Awards and nominations. ALMA Awards Saturn Award Blockbuster Entertainment Award
1164535	Edward Leonard "Ed" O'Neill (born April 12, 1946) is an American actor. He is best known for his role as the main character, Al Bundy, on the Fox TV Network sitcom "Married... with Children", for which he was nominated for two Golden Globes. Since 2009, O'Neill has been playing patriarch Jay Pritchett on the award-winning ABC sitcom "Modern Family", a role for which he was nominated for three Primetime Emmy Awards and won three Screen Actors Guild Awards. Early life. O'Neill was born into an Irish Catholic family in Youngstown, Ohio. His mother, Ruth Ann (née Quinlan), was a homemaker and social worker, and his father, Edward Phillip O'Neill, was a steel mill worker and truck driver. O'Neill attended Ursuline High School and won a football scholarship to Ohio University, where he majored in history. O'Neill left Ohio after his sophomore year: he spent more time playing sports and partying than studying and also feuded with his coach. He transferred to Youngstown State University, where he was a defensive lineman. O'Neill was signed by the Pittsburgh Steelers in 1969, but was cut in training camp. Later, on "Married... with Children", O'Neill played a former high-school football star who had failed to make it big and constantly reminisced about his "glory days" at Polk High ("I once scored four touchdowns in a single game"). As part of this theme, former Pittsburgh Steelers great and hall of fame quarterback Terry Bradshaw also made two guest appearances on the show. O'Neill was also a social studies teacher at Ursuline High School, before becoming an actor. Career. O'Neill reenrolled at YSU after being cut by the Pittsburgh Steelers and was one of the first students at the school's then new theatre program. He played Lennie in a stage production of John Steinbeck's "Of Mice and Men" at the American Repertory Theater in Cambridge, Massachusetts. In 1985, O'Neill appeared alongside Jeff Kinsland in a Red Lobster commercial eating fish and made a brief guest appearance in "The Equalizer". In 1986, he was cast as the character of NYPD Police Detective Jimmy "Popeye" Doyle for the planned television series "Popeye Doyle". The Popeye Doyle character originally appeared in the motion picture "The French Connection" (played by Gene Hackman). The two-hour made-for-television movie/pilot was filmed and shown on network television. O'Neill received good reviews for his performance, and the pilot received good ratings, but the series was not picked up for production. O'Neill is primarily known for playing the lead role of Al Bundy in "Married... with Children", a long-running American sitcom about a dysfunctional family living in Chicago. It was the first primetime television series to air on the Fox Network as a midseason replacement, debuting on April 5, 1987 and concluding June 9, 1997. During and following the success of "Married... with Children", O'Neill appeared in several movies, including "The Bone Collector", "Little Giants", and "Dutch". He also had small parts in "Wayne's World" and "Wayne's World 2", and appeared as Relish the Troll King in "The 10th Kingdom". O'Neill made a brief appearance on the comedy variety show "In Living Color", playing the "Dirty Dozens" champion who defeats the challenger, played by Jamie Foxx. He also made a cameo on the sitcom "8 Simple Rules" where he was the ex-boyfriend of Cate S. Hennessy (played by Katey Sagal, who portrayed O'Neill's TV wife Peg Bundy on "Married with Children"). He also appeared in the movie "The Adventures of Ford Fairlane" with Andrew Dice Clay and in "Cruising" with Al Pacino. During the mid-1990s, he had a long string of appearances in commercials for 1-800-COLLECT. "Law & Order" franchise creator Dick Wolf cast O'Neill as Sgt. Joe Friday in his 2003 remake of Jack Webb's classic TV crime series "Dragnet". The series was canceled by ABC in its second season. O'Neill went on to appear as Governor Eric Baker (D-PA), a recurring character on NBC's "The West Wing". Baker, a strong candidate for the Democratic Presidential Nomination, assumed the office of the Vice President under Matt Santos at the end of the series. O'Neill also played Bill on HBO's television series "John From Cincinnati". In 2008, O'Neill appeared in an advertisement for then-presidential candidate Barack Obama as "Al the Shoesalesman". In January 2009, O'Neill reunited with David Faustino (Bud Bundy from "Married with Children") for two episodes of Faustino's show "Star-ving". O'Neill also appeared with the entire cast of "Married with Children" again when they were honored at the 7th Annual "TV Land Award" show in 2009. Since 2009, O'Neill has played the role of Jay Pritchett on the ABC sitcom "Modern Family", a role that earned him three Primetime Emmy Award nominations in 2011, 2012, and 2013. Starting in winter 2012, O'Neill has lent his voice to TV advertisements for allergy pill Zyrtec.
1082788	Elena Anaya (born July 17, 1975) is a Spanish actress whose career dates back to 1995. She starred alongside Antonio Banderas in Pedro Almodóvar's "The Skin I Live In". Early life. Anaya was born in Palencia, Spain, the daughter of an industrial engineer and a housewife. She is the youngest of three children. Career. Anaya first received international attention in 2001 for her role in the sexually explicit drama "Sex and Lucía". She also had a small part in Almodóvar's "Talk to Her". Her best-known Hollywood film role was as one of Dracula's brides in 2004's "Van Helsing". That same year, Anaya was named as one of European films' Shooting Stars by European Film Promotion. In 2006, Anaya appeared in Justin Timberlake's music video for his single, "SexyBack". After some "quiet" years playing supporting roles in international films such as "Savage Grace" and "Cairo Time", Anaya roared back into prominence with a starring role in 2010's "Room in Rome", and then a return to Almodóvar in "The Skin I Live In". Personal life. In August 2011, Spanish tabloid magazine "Cuore" published photographs of Anaya kissing female director Beatriz Sanchís at a naturist beach in Menorca. Although the actress has never publicly spoken about her private life, it was revealed that Anaya and Sanchís have apparently been dating since 2008.
1164801	Robert Charles Edner (born October 5, 1988) is an American actor, singer, dancer, and rapper. He was a member of the boy band After Romeo. Career. Edner's first credit was in 1997, as "Chip" in a straight-to-video Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen release. After bit parts on various television shows, he made his first film appearance in 1999's "The Muse", in the role of "Boy at Sarah's House". His role in the film "" earned him the nickname "Spy Kid" from fellow Varsity Fanclub members. Edner has also made numerous guest appearances on television shows, including "Charmed", "Judging Amy", "7th Heaven", and "Veronica Mars". Edner has not had many roles since 2002; his most recent credit was a starring turn as Crystal Bernard's son in "Welcome to Paradise", in 2007. He has also done some voice work, providing additional ADR in films, including "Agent Cody Banks", "Kangaroo Jack", and "Monsters, Inc.", and was the English-language voice of "Final Fantasy XII" character Vaan. Edner has also worked in commercials and is the brother of Ashley Edner. Edner is a former member of the Hollywood Knights celebrity basketball team, and the NBA Entertainment League (NBAE). Dancing and music career. Edner's dancing landed him a featured role dancing like Michael Jackson in the music video for Alien Ant Farm's cover version of "Smooth Criminal"; he appeared in Jennifer Lopez's "Ain't It Funny", as well. Edner dueted with Alexa Vega on the song "Heart Drive" from the film "". He also co-wrote the song "Alone" with Ryan Cabrera. From 2008 to 2011, Edner was a member of the boy band Varsity Fanclub, whose members have included David Lei Brandt, Drew Ryan Scott, Jayk Purdy, TC Carter and Thomas Fiss. On April 30, 2011, and May 1, 2011, Edner posted a series of public messages on his Twitter profile publicly discussing conflicts with the band's new (and as yet unsigned manager), Philipp Hallenberger. Edner claimed that he was not informed of an April 2011 Varsity Fanclub photo shoot and that he was being "forced out" of the band by Hallenberger. Edner posted on April 30, 2011: "Trust me, this is not my decision and I will be fighting this. I want nothing more than to be in this group and have no intention to quit." Edner did not accompany Varsity Fanclub on their summer 2011 tour of Germany, has made no further appearances with them to date, and is no longer included in their promotional material.
585085	Bujjigadu () is a 2008 Telugu language film directed by Puri Jagannadh and produced by K. S. Rama Rao. Prabhas plays the lead role, with Trisha Krishnan and Sanjana playing the heroines. The film has been dubbed into Tamil as Kumaran Rajini Rasigan. This movie is dubbed in Hindi as Deewar-Man of Power.
1058823	The Nativity Story is a 2006 drama film based on the nativity of Jesus starring Keisha Castle-Hughes and Shohreh Aghdashloo. Filming began on May 1, 2006, in Matera, Italy, and in Morocco. New Line Cinema released it on December 1, 2006, in the United States and one week later on December 8 in the European Union. The film made history as being the first film ever to stage its world premiere in Vatican City. Plot. The plot begins with the portrayal of the Massacre of the Innocents. The remainder of the movie portrays the annunciation (conception) and nativity (birth) of Jesus Christ to explain why King Herod (Ciarán Hinds) ordered the murder. Teenage Mary (Keisha Castle-Hughes), betrothed to marry Joseph of Judea (Oscar Isaac), is spoken to by God and told that she is to deliver His child and call him Jesus. Mary then goes to stay with her cousin Elizabeth (Shohreh Aghdashloo) for the harvest, when she witnesses the birth of John the Baptist to Elizabeth, who is past child bearing age, and her husband Zachariah (Stanley Townsend). Mary returns from the visit pregnant, to the shock of Joseph and her parents. Mary is accused of fornication, for which, if she is found guilty, she could be stoned to death in a public execution. At first Joseph does not believe Mary's explanation that she was visited by an angel, and that she has not broken her vow of chastity. He resolves to quietly divorce her, but before he acts on this plan, he is visited by the very same angel. Joseph then believes Mary, and promises to stay by her side. Meanwhile, Caesar Augustus has demanded that every man and his family must return to his place of birth for the census. For Joseph, as a direct descendant of King David, this involves a trip across rocky terrain from Nazareth to Bethlehem, the place of his birth. Such a trip (with Mary on a donkey also carrying supplies, and given the terrain) would likely have taken several weeks. When they reach Bethlehem, Mary goes into labor. Joseph frantically seeks a place for the two to stay, but there is no room in any inn or home (thanks in part to the census). At the last minute, an innkeeper offers his stable for shelter. While Mary's story is being told, a concurrent plot line features the travels of the three Magi, Gaspar, Melchior and Balthasar, who had previously discovered that three planets will align to form a great star. This Star of Bethlehem appears before the Magi, after a visit by the angel, Gabriel. The Magi eventually visit Herod and tell him that a King of the Jews has been born. Herod considers himself to be King of the Jews; thus, he asks them to journey to the East and pay a visit to the newborn Jesus, and report the location back to Herod under the pretense that he, too, would like to worship him. Unbeknown to Mary and Joseph, the Magi show up at the stable in which the family is staying, and present the baby with the well-known gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. As instructed by the angel, the Magi do not return to Herod, but return to their origin via a different route. King Herod realizes that the wise men have defied him, and in retribution demands the murder of every boy in Bethlehem up to the age of two. Joseph is warned in a dream of the danger and flees with Mary and the child to Egypt. Reception. Box office. "The Nativity Story" opened to a modest first weekend at the domestic box office by grossing $7.8 million, with a 39% increase over the extended Christmas weekend. After its initial run, the film closed out with about $37.6 million in domestic gross and $8.8 million in foreign gross, resulting in a worldwide total of almost $46.4 million on a reported $35 million budget. Critical response. The movie received mixed reviews. Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reports that 38% of 128 film critics have given the film a positive review, with a rating average of 5.3 out of 10. Metacritic, which assigns a weighted average score out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, gives the film a score of 52 based on 28 reviews. A. O. Scott of "The New York Times" gave the film a positive review saying, "At its best, "The Nativity Story" shares with "Hail Mary" an interest in finding a kernel of realism in the old story of a pregnant teenager in hard times. Buried in the pageantry, in other words, is an interesting movie." Ann Hornaday of "The Washington Post" concluded a positive review of the film stating, "The most intriguing thing about "The Nativity Story" transpires during the couple's extraordinary personal journey, advancing a radical idea in an otherwise long slog of a cinematic Sunday school lesson: that Jesus became who He was not only because He was the son of God, but because He was the son of a good man." Conversely, many critics felt that the film did not take the story to new cinematic heights. Owen Gleiberman of "Entertainment Weekly" noted, ""The Nativity Story" is a film of tame picture-book sincerity, but that's not the same thing as devotion. The movie is too tepid to feel, or see, the light." Kenneth Turan of "The Los Angeles Times" said, "This is not a chance to 'experience the most timeless of stories as you've never seen it before' but just the opposite: an opportunity, for those who want it, to encounter this story exactly the way it's almost always been told." Controversies. A discussion arose during filming when Keisha Castle-Hughes became pregnant out of wedlock. Music. Mychael Danna's score of the film was released as an album on December 5, 2006. The album was nominated for a Dove Award for Instrumental Album of the Year at the 39th GMA Dove Awards. An album of songs inspired by the film was also released under the title "The Nativity Story: Sacred Songs". It featured music by artists like Point of Grace, Amy Grant, Jaci Velasquez, and others.
582950	Anari No. 1 is a 1999 Hindi language movie directed by Kuku Kohli. The film stars Govinda, Raveena Tandon and Simran in lead roles and Aruna Irani, Kader Khan, Satish Shah, Satyendra Kapoor in supporting roles and the songs are composed by Dilip Sen and Sameer Sen. The film was a huge hit. Plot. Naive Raja is employed as a lowly waiter in a hotel. One day he serves and looks after a wealthy businessman K.K., who lends him a suit, and gives him some money, so that he could find a rich woman to woo and marry. Raja thinks Sapna is wealthy and successfully woos her and wins her heart, only to find out that she too is on the lookout for a rich prince charming. She thought Raja was the rich, debonair, and eligible bachelor Rahul Saxena. With the help of garage owner, Sattarbhai all three of them concoct a plot to kidnap Rahul Saxena, hold him for ransom, while Raja takes his place. After kidnapping him, Raja does take his place with Rahul's family, his stepmom, Sharda, dad Dhanraj, uncle, aunt, and sweetheart Sona. Sona happens to be the daughter of Raja's mentor K.K., and this arouses anger with K.K. when he finds out that Raja has chosen Sona to seduce. Then things start to go wrong as Raja himself gets kidnapped, as he is mistaken for Rahul.
252650	Agner Krarup Erlang (1 January 1878 – 3 February 1929) was a Danish mathematician, statistician and engineer, who invented the fields of traffic engineering and queueing theory. By the time of his relatively early death at the age of 51, Erlang created the field of telephone networks analysis. His early work in scrutinizing the use of local, exchange and trunk telephone line usage in a small community to understand the theoretical requirements of an efficient network led to the creation of the Erlang formula, which became a foundational element of present day telecommunication network studies. Life. Erlang was born at Lønborg, near Tarm, in Jutland. He was the son of a schoolmaster, and a descendant of Thomas Fincke on his mother's side. At age 14, he passed the Preliminary Examination of the University of Copenhagen with distinction, after receiving dispensation to take it because he was younger than the usual minimum age. For the next two years he taught alongside his father. A distant relative provided free board and lodging, and Erlang prepared for and took the University of Copenhagen entrance examination in 1896, and passed with distinction. He won a scholarship to the University and majored in mathematics, and also studied astronomy, physics and chemistry. He graduated in 1901 with an MA and over the next 7 years taught at several schools. He maintained his interest in mathematics, and received an award for a paper that he submitted to the University of Copenhagen. He was a member of the Danish Mathematicians' Association (TBMI) and through this met amateur mathematician Johan Jensen, the Chief Engineer of the Copenhagen Telephone Company (KTAS in Danish), an offshoot of the International Bell Telephone Company. Erlang worked for the CTC (KTAS) from 1908 for almost 20 years, until his death in Copenhagen after an abdominal operation. He was an associate of the British Institution of Electrical Engineers. Contributions. While working for the CTC, Erlang was presented with the classic problem of determining how many circuits were needed to provide an acceptable telephone service. His thinking went further by finding how many telephone operators were needed to handle a given volume of calls. Most telephone exchanges then used human operators and cord boards to switch telephone calls by means of jack plugs. Out of necessity, Erlang was a hands-on researcher. He would conduct measurements and was prepared to climb into street manholes to do so. He was also an expert in the history and calculation of the numerical tables of mathematical functions, particularly logarithms. He devised new calculation methods for certain forms of tables. He developed his theory of telephone traffic over several years. His significant publications include: These and other notable papers were translated into English, French and German. His papers were prepared in a very brief style and can be difficult to understand without a background in the field. One researcher from Bell Telephone Laboratories is said to have learned Danish to study them. The British Post Office accepted his formula as the basis for calculating circuit facilities. A unit of measurement, statistical distribution and programming language listed below have been named in his honour.
1075287	The Day of the Animals is a 1977 American horror film thriller directed by William Girdler and based on a story written by Edward L. Montoro. Premiering on May 13, 1977, the movie reunited stars Christopher George and Richard Jaeckel, director Girdler and producer Montoro from the previous year's hit film "Grizzly". Plot. A battle for survival begins as a group of mountain hikers in Northern California encounter a chemically imbalanced forest. The recent depletion of the Earth's ozone layer causes the sun to shine powerful ultraviolet light carrying some kind of solar radiation that somehow causes all animals above the altitude of 5,000 feet to run amok and kill, which is very unfortunate for a group of hikers (including Christopher George, Lynda Day George, and Leslie Neilsen) who get dropped off up there by helicopter just before a quarantine is announced for all the surrounding towns. This has a dramatic effect on the rest of the nation, turning common household pets and pests into vicious attackers. Over the course of the movie, multiple wild and dangerous animals stalk and attack the hikers, and eventually start picking them off. These include a Mountain Lion, a Grizzly Bear, a pack of Wolves and several Birds of Prey (Hawks, Falcons, Eagles and Owls). One of the hikers, Paul Jenson (Leslie Neilsen) goes mad as he is one of the very few humans to be exposed to the solar radiation making all the animals mad, and he eventually attacks the group, killing one of them. He finally takes on a grizzly bear and is killed by a bite to the neck. The others manage to get below the 5,000 foot "radiation zone" area until they are trapped by several German Shepherds in an isolated cabin. Two of the hikers are killed by the vicious canines and the last three of the group members escape on a raft in a nearby river. They are rescued the next day as they float down river to a Park Rangers station. The next day, groups of U.S. Army troops, wearing radiation suits and armed with flame-throwers and various automatic weapons, arrive to secure the areas. By then almost all the animals that went mad are killed by the very same solar radiation that drove them mad in the first place. This implies that life for humans will return to normal fairly soon and the carnage will finally be over. At the end of the movie, a surviving hawk lunges at the screen just before the credits roll. Cast. The grizzly bear is portrayed by the mother of Bart the Bear.
1068137	The Haunting of Molly Hartley is a 2008 supernatural horror film written by John Travis and Rebecca Sonnenshine and directed by Mickey Liddell starring Haley Bennett, Chace Crawford, AnnaLynne McCord, Jake Weber, and Jessica Lowndes. Plot. The film begins with a teenage girl (Jessica Lowndes) going into the woods to meet her boyfriend. He gives her an early birthday present, but her father shows up and demands that she leave with him. As they drive home she tells him that she will be marrying her boyfriend as soon as she turns eighteen. He breaks down and apologizes to her before crashing their car. Seeing that she is not dead, he kills her with a broken piece of mirror, saying he couldn't let the darkness take her. The film then switches to present day, and Molly's story.
584775	Goripalayam is a 2010 Indian Tamil-language drama film written and directed by "Mayandi Kudumbathar" fame Rasu Madhuravan. The film stars Vikranth, Harish, Ramakrishnan of "Kunguma Poovum Konjum Puravum" fame, Manivannan's son Raghuvannan and Poongodi in lead roles. The film released on 7 May 2010 to Moderate responses. Plot. Azhagar (harish), son of a police constable, is tempted to take bad habits seeing his father in his younger days. Azhagar along with his friends A to Z (Ramakrishnan) Azhagappa (Raghuvannan) and Inippu Murugan (Prakash) lead a carefree life involving in petty crimes.Unfortunately they hold responsibility in the death of
1057207	The Recruit is a 2003 American spy thriller film directed by Roger Donaldson, starring Al Pacino, Colin Farrell, and Bridget Moynahan. It was released on January 31, 2003 in North America by Touchstone Pictures. The film received mixed reviews from critics.
1170333	Kristoffer Tabori (born Christopher Donald Siegel; 4 August 1952) is an American actor and television director. Early life. Tabori was born in Malibu, California, the son of director Don Siegel and Swedish-American actress Viveca Lindfors. He appeared in one of his mother's films, "Weddings and Babies", as a young boy. His parents divorced in 1953 and Lindfors married Hungarian writer and director George Tabori. He adopted his stepfather's surname and changed the English spelling of his forename. Career. He started his career as a stage actor in his teens in the late 1960s, and during the 1970s and 1980s he appeared in many films, including Arthur Miller's "A Memory of Two Mondays" and Aldous Huxley's "Brave New World". The majority of his work, however, was in television drama, and during the latter two decades Tabori appeared in dozens of guest roles in many of the medium's most popular network shows, including "", "Cannon", "Marcus Welby, M.D.", "The Streets of San Francisco", "The Rockford Files", and many more. In 1988 he also played the part of Sir Henry Baskerville in a television production of "The Hound of the Baskervilles" next to Jeremy Brett as Sherlock Holmes and Edward Hardwicke as Dr. Watson. During the 1990s, Tabori began directing in television and has over forty shows, mostly episode dramas, to his credit. In 2007, Tabori directed the TV film "Anna's Storm" and episodes of "Falcon Beach", and in 2008 directed episodes of "The Guard" and "jPod". He directed the SyFy Channel aliens-Western film "High Plains Invaders".
585422	Veeralipattu is a 2007 Malayalam film directed by Kukku Surendran. The film features Prithviraj Sukumaran, Murali and Padmapriya in the lead roles. The film was produced by Sunil Surendran under the banner of Open Channel and was distributed by Maruthi Film Factory. Songs. The songs for the film were composed by Viswajith; the lyrics were written by Vayalar Sarath Chandra Varma. The background music was scored by Mohan Sithara. The soundtrack was distributed by Manorama Music.
1062072	Caleb Casey McGuire Affleck-Boldt (born August 12, 1975), is an American actor and film director. Throughout the 1990s and early 2000s, he played supporting roles in mainstream hits like "Good Will Hunting" (1997) and "Ocean's Eleven" (2001) as well as in critically acclaimed independent films such as "Chasing Amy" (1997). Casey is the younger brother of actor and director Ben Affleck, with whom he has frequently collaborated professionally. In 2007, his breakout year, Affleck gained recognition and critical acclaim for his work in "Gone Baby Gone" and "The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford", for which he received an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor. Early life. Affleck was born in Falmouth, Massachusetts. He is the second son of Christine Anne "Chris" (née Boldt), a school district employee and teacher, and Timothy Byers Affleck, a drug counselor, social worker, janitor, auto mechanic, bartender, and former actor with the Theater Company of Boston. Affleck is three years younger than his brother Ben. He has English, Irish, German, Scottish, French, and Swedish ancestry (the surname "Affleck" is Scottish). He is a tenth cousin, once removed, of actor Matt Damon, through a common New England ancestor. He was raised in a mostly Episcopalian family. As a child, he had numerous pets, including cats, snakes, guinea pigs and turtles. Affleck went to George Washington University and later transferred to Columbia University in New York City, where he majored in physics, astronomy, and Western philosophy, but never graduated. Affleck worked sporadically on television while finishing high school and attending college during the early 1990s. Career. Early work, 1995–2006. Affleck's first movie role was as a sociopathic teenager in Gus Van Sant's 1995 dark comedy "To Die For", alongside Joaquin Phoenix and Nicole Kidman. After co-starring with Halle Berry in the 1997 box office flop "Race the Sun", later that year he appeared in two films featuring his brother Ben: "Chasing Amy" and "Good Will Hunting". Affleck's next few films, the underground movie "Desert Blue" (1998) with Kate Hudson, the black comedy "Drowning Mona" (1999) with Bette Midler, Jamie Lee Curtis, Neve Campbell, and Danny DeVito, and the 2001 horror movie "Soul Survivors" (co-starring Luke Wilson) were all critical as well as commercial failures. In 2001, Affleck became part of an ensemble cast in the remake of the Rat Pack movie "Ocean's Eleven", directed by Steven Soderbergh. Supporting the star leads, George Clooney and Brad Pitt, Affleck played Virgil Malloy, one of the pair of Mormon brothers hired to drive the getaway vehicle. Affleck reprised this character in two sequels, "Ocean's Twelve" (2004) and "Ocean's Thirteen" (2007). In the third installment of the trilogy, several scenes are set in Mexico and he has extended dialogue in Spanish. Affleck lived in Mexico as a child and speaks Spanish. Affleck co-wrote the screenplay for the 2002 film "Gerry" with Gus Van Sant and Matt Damon. The film, about two men who get lost while hiking in the desert, received mixed reviews; after premiering at the Sundance film festival, it got only a limited release in the United States in 2003. In 2006, Affleck featured in "Lonesome Jim" and "The Last Kiss", where he plays a friend of Zach Braff's character. He then made a cameo in the Joaquin Phoenix-directed video "Tired of Being Sorry" for Balthazar Getty's band Ringside. Breakthrough, 2007–present. In 2007, Affleck starred in the Western "The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford", playing Robert Ford opposite Brad Pitt's Jesse James. For his performance, he received a Golden Globe nomination for Best Supporting Actor in a Motion Picture, a nomination for a Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Supporting Role - Motion Picture, and an Oscar nomination for Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role. "Entertainment Weekly" observed that "a revelatory Casey Affleck brings Ford to life with a mature sense of an underling's craven, fawning petulance." Other reviewers praised Affleck for being "terrific" and a "real revelation" while making "an indelible impression as the insecure, physically unprepossessing weakling." The film's director, Andrew Dominik, said that Affleck was so good in the role partly because, like Ford, he “knows what it’s like to live in somebody’s shadow,” referring to Affleck's older brother. Affleck also played his first leading man in a mainstream production in 2007. He starred in the Boston crime thriller "Gone Baby Gone" as the protagonist, Patrick Kenzie. Directed, produced, and co-written by Ben Affleck, the film was critically acclaimed and earned Casey further plaudits for his acting. "The Boston Globe" commented, "I'd never stopped to consider Casey Affleck as a movie star before, but under his big brother's tutelage, he blooms as a leading man of richly watchable savvy and intelligence." The "New York" magazine similarly praised Affleck's portrayal of the tough private detective and concluded, "Casey Affleck has never had a pedestal like the one his brother provides him, and he earns it. His Patrick is pale and raspy ... He’s not physically imposing, but he reels off four-letter words so fast that it leaves his bigger and more dangerous opponents staring in disbelief." In 2010 Affleck released his first major directorial effort, "I'm Still Here", a mockumentary about the musical career of his friend and brother-in-law Joaquin Phoenix, who attempted to live a lifestyle of a rapper in one year. After much speculation, Affleck admitted shortly after the film's release that Phoenix's role was a "performance" rather than genuine behavior, stating that he "never intended to trick anybody", rather, the production was a work of "gonzo filmmaking" inspired by journalists such as Hunter S Thompson. Next, Affleck teamed with Jessica Alba and Kate Hudson in "The Killer Inside Me" (2010), a film adaptation of the 1952 novel of the same name. In January 2010, "The Killer Inside Me" premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, where it was received poorly by many critics and created controversy due to its graphic portrayal of violence against women, which prompted many viewers to walk out of the screening. However critics generally praised Affleck's performance as a serial killer. Affleck is scheduled to play the lead role in Ridley Scott's upcoming production "The Kind One", a period noir drama, set for release in 2012. He will star as Gabriel in "Paradise Lost" with Bradley Cooper. In 2012, he will star opposite Rooney Mara in the independent modern-day Bonnie and Clyde film "Ain't Them Bodies Saints". Personal life. Affleck married Summer Phoenix, his girlfriend of six years, on June 3, 2006 in Savannah, Georgia. The couple were introduced by her brother, Joaquin. They have two sons, Indiana August, born on May 31, 2004 in Amsterdam, and Atticus, born in January 12, 2008. Affleck is involved with many animal rights movements and campaigns for PETA and Farm Sanctuary. He is a vegan, and thus does not eat "meat or any other animal products." Affleck resides in Los Angeles and Winter Park, Florida with his family. In 2010, Affleck was sued by two former female co-workers for sexual harassment; the cases were settled out of court.
584271	Sigappu Rojakkal () is a 1978 Tamil thriller film starring Kamal Haasan and Sridevi. Directed by P. Bharathiraja, music by Ilaiyaraaja and cinematography by P. S. Nivas In an era of over-dramatised acting in Tamil films, "Sigappu Rojakkal" was one of the notable and the best exceptions. The film was a blockbuster and completed a 175-day run at the box office. The film won two Filmfare Awards in the Best Actor and Best Director categories.
1058363	Encino Man (in most of Europe as California Man and in Austria, Germany and Switzerland as Steinzeit Junior), is a 1992 comedy film directed by Les Mayfield and starring Brendan Fraser, Sean Astin, and Pauly Shore. The plot revolves around two geeky teenagers from Encino, Los Angeles, California, played by Astin and Shore, who discover a caveman in their backyard frozen in a block of ice. The caveman, played by Fraser, has to learn to live in the 20th century. Along the way, he teaches them about life. It was followed by a TV movie sequel, "Encino Woman", in 1996. Plot. During the first ice age, a caveman attempts to make fire with his girlfriend. An earthquake causes a cave-in that buries the two of them. This segues into a present-day Los Angeles earthquake that awakens average teenager Dave Morgan who, along with his best friend Stoney strive to attain popularity in high school but come off more as rejects and outcasts. Dave is in love with Robyn Sweeney, a sweet and attractive girl who has been his best friend since grade school, and until she reached "babehood" had been rejected by Dave on several occasions. Her boyfriend Matt Wilson is a dimwitted jock and school bully who is constantly responsible for making both Dave and Stoney the objects of ridicule by embarrassing them in various ways, usually directly due to Dave's growing affections toward Robyn. One day, as Dave is digging a pool in his back yard, he comes across a chunk of ice that has the body of a man in it. They leave the ice block unattended in the garage and space heaters left on cause the ice to melt, releasing the caveman from the opening of the film. The caveman falls head first into the 20th century, discovering a garbage truck which he misinterprets as a mammoth from his time, and television which he discovers upon entering Dave's house. When the boys return home, they find hand paint covering the walls and the house is in disarray. Investigating a beeping smoke alarm, they discover the caveman in Dave's bedroom, attempting to start a fire "Indian-style" by rotating a stick in the center of a pile of kindling. At first the caveman panics at the sight of them, but then Stoney quickly calms him by using the flame of a lighter to mesmerize him. After bathing him and trimming him to look like an average teenager, Dave names him "Link" as in the missing link.
1164211	Richard Kline (born April 29, 1944) is an American actor and television director. He is best known for playing the sleazy neighbor and used car salesman, Larry Dallas, on the sitcom, "Three's Company". Early life. Richard Klein was born in New York City to Leah Klein. He was raised in Queens by parents who practiced Reform Judaism. He attended Queens College and has a Master of Fine Arts degree in theater from Northwestern University. After he graduated, he served with the United States Army in the Vietnam War. Career. Kline became involved in theater and made his professional debut in 1971 as part of the Lincoln Center Repertory Company. Regional theater productions during this period included "Chemin de Fer" (in Chicago with actor Dennis Franz), "Death of a Salesman", and "Love's Labour's Lost". A classically trained singer, Kline made his Broadway career debut in "City of Angels", a musical (1990). In addition to his television and big screen appearances, Kline has hosted two game show pilots, "Jumble" in 1988 and "To Tell the Truth" in 1990. The show's rights were then sold to NBC with Gordon Elliott, then Lynn Swann and Alex Trebek later hosting. Kline's "TTTT" pilot did air on the East Coast as a mistake on September 3, 1990, the day the show debuted. He also subbed in for Charles Nelson Reilly as a guest panelist on "Sweethearts" for a week of shows in December 1988. His game show celebrity appearances included both "The $25,000 and $100,000 Pyramid", "Super Password", "All New All-Star Beat the Clock", and "Body Language". Kline also won $10,000 on "The $10,000 Pyramid" as a civilian contestant in 1974. Kline told SitcomsOnline.com he would like to compete on Jeopardy. In February 2010 he was cast as the Wizard in the first national tour of "Wicked". Kline will be seen next in October in a play directed by David Hyde Pierce and starring Tyne Daly.
1163468	Zsa Zsa Gabor (; born 6 February 1917) is a Hungarian-born American socialite and actress who acted in supporting roles in movies, on Broadway, and occasionally on television.
1068459	Happy Feet Two is a 2011 Australian-American 3D computer-animated family musical film directed by George Miller. It is a sequel to Miller's 2006 film "Happy Feet" and features Elijah Wood, Robin Williams, Hugo Weaving, Magda Szubanski and Anthony LaPaglia reprising their roles from the first film. Pink and Richard Carter replaced the deceased Brittany Murphy and Steve Irwin as Gloria and Bryan the beachmaster, respectively. Happy Feet Two is dedicated in memory of Irwin and Murphy. Common also replaced Fat Joe as Seymour. The original cast is joined by new characters voiced by Hank Azaria, Brad Pitt, Matt Damon, and Sofía Vergara. Kennedy Miller Mitchell and Dr. D Studios in Sydney, New South Wales, produced the film, which premiered in North American theaters on November 18, 2011 in Digital 3D and IMAX 3D. The film was released with a "Looney Tunes" short called "I Tawt I Taw a Puddy Tat" starring Sylvester Cat and Tweety Bird. Plot. Erik, son of the penguins Mumble and Gloria, is reluctant to try dancing as most of the penguins in Emperor-Land do. His first attempt at dancing ends in humiliation. Erik and his two best friends, Bodicea and Atticus, follow Ramon to Adélie-Land and find that Adélie-Land has been ruled by a God-like "penguin" named Sven. Sven is the only one of his kind in Emperor Land, he survived the loss of his native fishing grounds (evidently ruined by a warming climate) by his "miraculous" ability to fly (from his appearance and accent, the audience, but not the penguins, can realize that Sven is really a puffin). Erik instantly becomes enamored with Sven, who takes a liking to him. Sven and Lovelace tell the others that they were saved by humans. The two eventually flee and end up on Antarctica, where Sven performs his first miracle by revealing moss to the local penguins. Sven uses his power of "Sven Think" to help Ramon find a mate. Ramon instantly falls in love with Carmen, another Adélie penguin who is uninterested. Mumble follows the chicks' footprints to Adélie-Land and orders them to return to Emperor-Land, but they refuse. Sven sends Erik back to Emperor-Land with Mumble.
1164753	Rachel India True (born November 15, 1966) is an American film and television actress. True is known for her roles in such films as "The Craft" and the television sitcom "Half & Half". Biography. Career. In 1991, True had some appearances, beginning a string of TV jobs, including turns on "Beverly Hills, 90210", "The Drew Carey Show", "Once and Again", and HBO's "Dream On". By 1993, she had moved to Los Angeles and appeared opposite Chris Rock in his movie "CB4". After "CB4", she was cast alongside Alyssa Milano for the movie "Embrace of the Vampire". True's next movie was "The Craft", where she played a member of a teenage coven along with Robin Tunney, Neve Campbell and Fairuza Balk. True and Campbell became best friends during the filming, a friendship they maintain.
1089986	Martin David Kruskal (; September 28, 1925 – December 26, 2006) was an American mathematician and physicist. He made fundamental contributions in many areas of mathematics and science, ranging from plasma physics to general relativity and from nonlinear analysis to asymptotic analysis. His single most celebrated contribution was the discovery and theory of solitons. He was a student at the University of Chicago and at New York University, where he completed his Ph.D. under Richard Courant in 1952. He spent much of his career at Princeton University, as a research scientist at the Plasma Physics Laboratory starting in 1951, and then as a professor of astronomy (1961), founder and chair of the Program in Applied and Computational Mathematics (1968), and professor of mathematics (1979). He retired from Princeton University in 1989 and joined the mathematics department of Rutgers University, holding the David Hilbert Chair of Mathematics. Apart from his research, Kruskal was known as a mentor of younger scientists. He worked tirelessly and always aimed not just to prove a result but to understand it thoroughly. And he was notable for his playfulness. He invented the Kruskal Count, a magical effect that has been known to perplex professional magicians because – as he liked to say – it was based not on sleight of hand but on a mathematical phenomenon. Personal. Martin David Kruskal was born in New York City and grew up in New Rochelle. He was generally known as Martin to the world and David to his family. His father, Joseph B. Kruskal, Sr., was a successful fur wholesaler. His mother, Lillian Rose Vorhaus Kruskal Oppenheimer, became a noted promoter of the art of origami during the early era of television and founded the Origami Center of America in New York City, which later became OrigamiUSA. He was one of five children. His two brothers, both eminent mathematicians, were Joseph Kruskal (1928-2010; discoverer of multidimensional scaling, the Kruskal tree theorem, and Kruskal's algorithm) and William Kruskal (1919–2005; discoverer of the Kruskal–Wallis test).
1079900	Love Happy was the 14th (including "Humor Risk") and last starring feature for the Marx Brothers. The film stars Harpo Marx, Chico Marx, and, in a smaller role than usual, Groucho Marx, plus Ilona Massey, Vera-Ellen, Paul Valentine, Marion Hutton, Raymond Burr, Bruce Gordon (in his film debut), and Eric Blore, with a walk-on by Marilyn Monroe. It was directed by David Miller, and written by Frank Tashlin and Mac Benoff, based on a story by Harpo. The film was produced by former silent film star Mary Pickford and released by United Artists. Although shooting began in August 1948, the film was not released generally until March 3, 1950. (The film stated copyright as 1949, however, because the movie premiered in San Francisco in October 1949.) The production ran out of money during shooting, so they came up with a unique form of product placement (rare for the time): a rooftop chase around advertising billboards. Plot. A group of aspiring actors are putting together a musical revue called "Love Happy". Harpo, the troupe's mascot, keeps the actors from starving by stealing canned goods from a local grocer. On one occasion, he accidentally grabs a sardine can containing the stolen Romanoff diamonds. As a result, Harpo becomes the target of adventuress Madame Egilichi (Ilona Massey) and her stooges (Melville Cooper, Raymond Burr, Bruce Gordon). Production. "Love Happy" was originally conceived as a solo vehicle for Harpo under the title "Diamonds in the Sidewalk", but Groucho often said the brothers did the film to help Chico pay off gambling debts. Once Chico was in, the producers refused to finance it unless all three Marx Brothers were featured. Groucho appears without his usual greasepaint moustache and thick eyebrows. He is rarely in the same scenes as his brothers (the three are never seen together), and mainly provides an encompassing narration to explain things in the film when the necessary sequences for a coherent narrative were unavailable. Groucho avoided mentioning the film at all in his autobiography, "Groucho and Me" (1959), apparently at that time considering "A Night in Casablanca" (1946) their last film together. He did acknowledge the film in his later book, "The Groucho Phile: An Illustrated Life" (1976). Because of the encapsulated nature of Groucho's scenes, it had been assumed that his presence was an afterthought. However, recently discovered letters from Groucho show that he was to have been part of the project from its earliest stages in 1946-47. Product placement. In its 8 October 1949 front page editorial, as well as its review of the movie in the same issue, the motion picture trade periodical "Harrison's Reports", which always disapproved of any movie showing brand-name products, severely criticized this film for its rooftop chase among billboards promoting Baby Ruth, General Electric, Fisk Tires, Bulova watches, Kool cigarettes, Wheaties and Mobil. Reception. "Love Happy" is regarded as the worst Marx Brothers movie. The Internet Movie Database rates "The Story of Mankind" lower, but that was not specifically produced as a Marx Brothers vehicle. At the end of his March 8, 1950 episode of his "You Bet Your Life" radio show, Groucho lamely promotes the film as "Harpo, Chico, and I tell a few jokes and do some acting. It's "very" educational." In later years, on "Today", Groucho dismissed it as a "terrible movie", while speaking of the lasting impression Marilyn Monroe made during her screen test. Musical numbers. The film has a musical score and lyrics by Ann Ronell, with a lively film noirish dancing version of Sadie Thompson featuring Vera-Ellen and former ballet dancer Paul Valentine as one of the US Marines on a South Pacific Island. Chico plays a duet on "Gypsy Love Song" with actor-musician Leon Belasco as Mr. Lyons, the owner of the stage props and costumes. Belasco, on violin, starts playing many fancy trills until Chico says, "Look, Mista Lyons, I know you wanna make a good impression — but please, don't play better than me!"
588501	Shaapit is a 2010 Bollywood film directed by Vikram Bhatt, starring Aditya Narayan, Rahul Dev, Shweta Agarwal and Shubh Joshi in the lead roles. The film is based on the story of a family whose daughters have been carrying a curse, from generation to generation. It also stars Murli Sharma and Nishigandha Wad. This film was shot in Film City and released on 19 March 2010, under the banner of ASA Film Pvt Ltd. Plot. The film opens with Aman, seemingly lifeless, narrating how he and his sweetheart Kaya are doomed to perish together. He remembers happier times, when he met and courted and finally proposed to Kaya. No sooner than he had proposed, they had met with a sudden car accident. They are miraculously unhurt save a few minor injuries. But when Kaya's parents realise Aman had proposed to her, they become sad and grave, and Kaya's mother earnestly persuades her father to tell them the truth. Kaya's mother reveals the curse upon their family. Kaya's father is a descendant of an ancient royal family. Some 300 years ago, the brother of the then king Ranjeet Singh had attempted to molest a beautiful girl in the palace. The girl escaped and jumped to her death. It turned out that the girl was the daughter of the royal "guru, Acharya" Sachidanand, and that the girl was about to be wed. The "acharya", a wise and powerful spiritual master, was enraged beyond belief. He pronounced a terrible curse upon Ranjeet Singh: no daughter in Ranjeet Singh's line shall ever enjoy marriage; if they ever attempt to marry or become engaged, they will immediately meet with death. Aman and Kaya are devastated. He reaches out to professor Pashupati, an expert in the occult. The professor explains that generational curses (such as the one upon Kaya) are typically connected with an evil spirit. This spirit is the keeper of the curse, and it executes the curse (by taking the lives of the victims). Aman recollects that the evil spirit had caused their car accident. Aman suggests they destroy the spirit. The bemused professor laughs this off and urges Aman to forget Kaya and move on. Aman and his friend Shubh are disappointed. Aman is persistent. He looks up some of the professors work and retrieves (in a dangerous chase with an evil spirit) a "cursed" book from the library. Convinced that Aman is determined and capable, the professor agrees to help them.Their first stop is an abandoned cinema. The professor explains that it is haunted by several spirits, and some of the noble spirits may be able to help them locate the evil curse-keeper. Aman and Kaya enter the theatre. They are surrounded by spirits, and one of them splatters a few drops of blood on Kaya's wrists. The professor interprets: the drops are the co-ordinates of the ancient kingdom of Magha, present day Mahipalpur. They arrive at Mahipalpur and settle into the decrepit government guest house. The evil spirit is relentless. It attacks Kaya and tries to bury her alive. They save her just in time, but she goes into hypoxic shock. The professor describes a water-immersion method to send Shubh back in time. Shubh is again attacked by the spirit, but this time he returns with an amulet. The amulet reveals the clue that leads them to Rani Mohini, the evil spirit, the keeper of the curse. Aided by the curator of the 300-year old Magha jail, the professor performs a seance to invoke the spirit of Ranjeet Singh. This spirit reveals the sinister history of the royal family. Rani Mohini was never satisfied with her station as the second wife of Raja Gajsingh. She was also a sorceress. She plotted to assassinate the King and his two sons, Ranjeet and Kuljeet. Her assassins killed Raja Gajsingh, but were ultimately defeated and killed by the royal guard. Ranjeet Singh ascended the throne, and, upon learning of Rani Mohini's dark powers, promptly arranged to execute her. Rani Mohini, however, created a black charm (locked in an amulet) to keep her soul on earth. Upon her execution, her soul became the keeper of the curse (by "Acharya" Sachidanand) and would torment Ranjeet Singh's family forever. Kaya's conditions worsens. She is wheeled into surgery. The professor and Aman and Shubh hurry into the River Palace to confront the evil spirit of Rani Mohini. They connect the clues from the amulet and from Ranjeet Singh, and deduce that the spirit of Mohini can be despatched to the nether world when her mortal remains (ashes) are dissolved. After a difficult and lengthy battle with the spirit, Aman floods the River Palace. He nearly drowns (and cuts back to the initial frame), but Shubh saves him just in time. The film ends with Aman narrating how the power of love can overcome any obstacle. Awards and nominations. Nominated
1057893	John Ortiz (born May 23, 1968) is an American actor and artistic director/co-founder of LAByrinth Theater Company. Personal life. Born and raised in the Bushwick neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York, he is of Puerto Rican ancestry. Ortiz resided in that borough with his wife and son until 2010. At that time they moved to California, where they currently live. Career. In 1993, John made his film debut as Al Pacino's young cousin ‘Guajiro’ in "Carlito's Way". He went on to appear in over 30 films including "El Cantante", "Take the Lead", "Before Night Falls", "Amistad", "Ransom", and "Narc". His recent film performances include those in Ridley Scott's "American Gangster", as Russell Crowe's partner Javy Rivera, and Michael Mann's "Miami Vice" as drug lord Jose Yero. Among Ortiz's television roles, he has most recently played the lead in J.J. Abrams’ "Hope Against Hope" for HBO, a series regular on Denis Leary's "The Job" and CBS’ "Clubhouse" as well as the NBC cop drama "Blue Blood", directed by Brett Ratner. In 1992, Ortiz formed Latino Actors Base with 13 other Latino actors to provide themselves with a place to work and an opportunity to become a tightly knit ensemble. Today, that ensemble is known as LAByrinth Theater Company: an award winning troupe of over 100 artists from a wide range of cultural backgrounds and creative disciplines. With LAByrinth, he most recently played the role of Clyde in the world premiere of "Jack Goes Boating" by Bob Glaudini (Drama Desk nomination). In 2006, he appeared as Che Guevara in the world premiere of "School of the Americas" by Jose Rivera, a co-production between LAByrinth Theater Company and The Public Theater. Other co-productions between LAByrinth and the Public include the role of Jesus in the world premiere of "The Last Days of Judas Iscariot" by Stephen Adly Guirgis, and José Solo in "Guinea Pig Solo" by Brett C. Leonard. Other LAByrinth Theater credits include "Jesus Hopped the A Train" by Stephen Adly Guirgis in London and New York (Drama Desk nomination, Drama League Award) and "Where's My Money?" written and directed by John Patrick Shanley. In 2003, Ortiz made his Broadway debut in Nilo Cruz’ Pulitzer Prize winning play "Anna in the Tropics". He appeared in three world premiere plays by José Rivera: "The Adoration of the Old Woman" at La Jolla Playhouse, "Sueño" at MCC Theater and "The Street of the Sun" at Mark Taper Forum. He was also featured in two New York premieres of Rivera's plays: "References to Salvador Dalí Make Me Hot" at the Public Theater (OBIE Award) and "Cloud Tectonics" at Playwrights Horizons. Ortiz also appeared in "The Skin of Our Teeth" and "De Donde" at the Public Theater; the world tours of "The Merchant of Venice" and "The Persians" directed by Peter Sellars; "House Arrest" at Arena Stage; and the national tour of "A Few Good Men"; "Pentecost" at Yale Repertory Theatre. Recent projects. He appears in the feature films "", "Pride and Glory", "Public Enemies" and "Fast & Furious", and "Jack Goes Boating", directed by Philip Seymour Hoffman, in January 2009. In Summer 2009, he will star on stage in "Othello" at the Vienna Festival. Beginning in December 2012, he stars as Jackie in the Stephen Adly Guirgis play The Motherfucker with the Hat at Chicago's Steppenwolf Theatre Company.
1054696	All About the Benjamins is a 2002 American action comedy film directed by Kevin Bray, and starring Ice Cube and Mike Epps as a bounty hunter and repeat offender who join forces to find a group of diamond thieves, the former for glory, and the latter to retrieve a winning lottery ticket. Plot. Bucum (Ice Cube), a maverick bounty hunter, is onto his operation into capturing and arresting a petty drug dealer Lil J (Anthony Michael Hall). He confronts him and handcuffs him in his trailer but he soon calls his girlfriend, who is wielded with a shotgun and violently shoots at Bucum until he manages to tackle her down and into arresting Lil J. Later, Bucum's boss Martinez (Anthony Giaimo), however becomes very reluctance towards Bucum since he had taken Lil J instead of Martinez taking responsibility of Lil J. Inside, after a brief conversation with his attractive co-worker Pam (Valerie Rae Miller), Martinez informs Bucum that he must capture two-time hustler and con man Reggie White (Mike Epps), who Bucum has captured three times prior. Bucum catches Reggie at a convience store and has a chase through the streets but fails. Meanwhile, during a photoshoot, diamond thieves Julian (Roger Guenveur Smith) and Ursula (Carmer Chaplin) are posing as a photographer and model until Mr. Barkley arrives. The duo murders the co-photographer, the makeup artist, Barkley's bodyguards, much to Barkley's surprise. Barkley is then shot in the head after a brief dialogue with Julian for murdering the witnesses. They then retrieve the diamonds from Barkley. Bucum catches at Reggie again and chases him until he remains unnoticed since he is hidden in a van. The thieves comes down and shoots at Bucum and escaping, unbeknowist to them that Reggie is hidden. In a boatyard, the thieves finds Reggie in the van and shoots at him when he escapes, leaving his wallet behind. At the crime scene, Martinez is fed up of Bucum's attempts and orders him to stay away from Reggie. In Reggie's apartment, Reggie and his girlfriend Gina (Eva Mendes) eventually wins the lottery, only to find out that Reggie lost the latter, which was in Reggie's wallet. In the boatyard, Julian and Ursula are yelled at by their boss Williamson (Tommy Flanagan), who pulls out his anger by shooting Julian in the arm, severely wounding him and leading to an arm brace. Reggie is soon captured by Bucum during an attempt to retrieve his wallet and while in the car, Reggie manages to convince Bucum to find his wallet and find the thieves. At the boatyard, Bucum and Reggie realizes that the van is unclear of its location, so Bucum tries to find the thieves while Reggie is handcuffed to his bed with Gina. Julian, in a psychopathic estate, is told to assassinate Reggie. He arrives at the apartment, and is knocked unconscious by Bucum. The duo then decides to torture Julian into answers by pending a screwdriver into Julian's arm brace, which can rip through his skin. Julian then reveals Williamson's name. Bucum awaits in the boatyard of Williamson's boat dealership and poses as a costumer. This soon fails, and he decides to go to the Barkley residence. At the house, they find a dead Mrs. Barkley and eventually find the real diamonds. They return to Bucum's apartment and soon they find Williamson has kidnapped Gina. In response, they roll a car into Williamson's boat dealership with Julian and Ms. Barkley's murderer inside. He finds a tape recorder that informs Williamson to meet him at a dog track with Gina to reveal the real diamonds. This goes successful with Pam posing as a janitor, Reggie revealing the diamonds, and Bucum taking position as sniper in a dog tracksman disguise to take out a sniper workiing for Williamson until Reggie flips the diamonds off of Williamson's hands and leads to a shootout and chase. During the chase, Williamson pulls out a bazooka and opens fire, missing Bucum, Reggie, Gina and Pam but instead blowing up a nearby fish truck. He escapes, and Bucum and Reggie are so fed up with the plan that they decide to break up their workship. Pam convinces Bucum to talk to Reggie and they make up again. The duo leads to a boat in which Gina and Pam awaits behind them. Bucum gives Reggie a taser since Reggie accidentally drops one of Bucum's guns into the ocean. On the boat, when Bucum leaves since he sees Pam and Gina running away, Reggie finds his wallet but is soon caught up by Williamson and Ursula and even forces Reggie to take his money on the boat. Bucum, taking Ursula as hostage, catches up with them. Williamson, in response, kills Ursula by shooting her in the head and wounds Reggie, leading to a fight as the boat speeds up. Williamson is knocked out by the boat's speed and crashed ancessory. Bucum and Reggie reunites until Williamson, badly injured, attacks Bucum until Reggie tases him and Bucum shoots Williamson to death. Later, Bucum and Reggie are figuring out what to do next but the coast guards are coming, and Bucum is forced to handcuff Reggie and hide the money. Six weeks later, Reggie is released from prison, and Bucum, who has a new car and spending money along with Gina and Pam, shows Reggie the ticket. The film ends as the quarter, along with two elderly con associates of Reggie, skiing on the boat through the ocean. Critical reception. "All About the Benjamins" scored poorly on Rotten Tomatoes with 30% on the Tomatometer. Some of the critics said it was, "A sloppy, poorly directed action-comedy, All About the Benjamins is too derivative and gratuitously violent."
1058438	Ben Cross (born 16 December 1947) is an English actor of the stage and screen, known for his portrayal of the British Olympic athlete Harold Abrahams in the 1981 film "Chariots of Fire". Early life. Cross was born Harry Bernard Cross in London to a working class Catholic family. His mother was a cleaning woman and his father a doorman and nurse. He began acting at a very young age and participated in school plays. Cross was educated at Bishop Thomas Grant secondary modern school in Streatham South London. Early work. Cross initially worked in various jobs including work as a window cleaner, waiter and joiner. He was master carpenter for the Welsh National Opera and property master at the Alexandra Theatre in Birmingham. In 1970 at the age of 22, he was accepted into London's Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts (RADA) - the alma mater of actors such as John Gielgud, Glenda Jackson and Anthony Hopkins, but later expressed little interest in pursuing the classical route. He also appeared as a CI5 agent in an episode of The Professionals After graduation from RADA, Cross performed in several stage plays at Duke's Playhouse where he was seen in "Macbeth", "The Importance of Being Earnest" and Arthur Miller's "Death of a Salesman." He then joined the Prospect Theatre Company and played roles in "Pericles", "Twelfth Night", and "Royal Hunt of the Sun". Cross also joined the cast in the immensely popular musical "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat" and played leading roles in Sir Peter Shaffer's "Equus", "Mind Your Head" and the musical "Irma La Douce" – all at Leicester's Haymarket Theatre. Cross's first big screen film appearance came in 1976 when he went on location to Deventer, Netherlands, to play Trooper Binns in Joseph E. Levine's World War II epic "A Bridge Too Far" which starred an international cast, including Dirk Bogarde, Sean Connery, Michael Caine and James Caan. In 1977, Cross became a member of the Royal Shakespeare Company and performed in the premier of "Privates on Parade" as "Kevin Cartwright" and played Rover in a revival of a Restoration play titled "Wild Oats". Cross's path to international stardom began in 1978 with his performance in the play "Chicago" in which he played Billy Flynn, the slick lawyer of murderess Roxie Hart. 1980s–1990s. During Cross's performance in "Chicago", he was recognised and recommended for a leading role in the multiple Oscar-winning "Chariots of Fire". For their performances in the film, Cross and his co-star Ian Charleson both won "Most Promising Artiste of 1981" awards from the Variety Club Awards in February 1982. Cross's starring role in "Chariots of Fire" has been credited with continuing a transatlantic trend in elegant young English actors that had been set by Jeremy Irons in "Brideshead Revisited", and was followed by Rupert Everett in "Dance with a Stranger", Rupert Graves in "A Room With a View", and Hugh Grant in "Maurice". Cross followed up "Chariots of Fire" with performances as a Scottish physician, Dr Andrew Mason, struggling with the politics of the British medical system during the 1920s, in "The Citadel", a 10-part BBC dramatisation of A.J. Cronin's novel, and as Ashton (Ash) Pelham-Martyn, a British cavalry officer torn between two cultures in the ITV miniseries "The Far Pavilions". In 1982, the U.S. union Actors' Equity, in a landmark reversal of a previous ruling, allowed Cross to appear in John Guare's off-Broadway play "Lydie Breeze". The decision was tied to a joint effort by Actors' Equity, the League of New York Theatres and the British union Equity to allow British and U.S. actors unrestricted opportunities to work in both countries. The agreement eventually led to regular equal exchange agreements for equivalent acting jobs between London and New York. During the 1984 Summer Olympic Games, Cross appeared in a commercial for American Express ('Don't leave home without it') with the 87-year-old Jackson Scholz, a sprinter for the 1924 American Olympic team whose character was featured in the film "Chariots of Fire". When Cross says something about beating Scholz, the latter remarks, ""You" didn't beat me!" with mock indignation. Proving he is 'still pretty fast', Scholz beats Cross to the draw in picking up the tab with his credit card. He subsequently replaced James Garner as the featured actor endorsing the Polaroid Spectra camera in 1986. Cross was also featured in "GQ Magazine" as one of the annual "Manstyle" winners in January, 1985 followed by a featured photo shoot in March, 1985. In 1985, he played Barney Greenwald in a hit revival of Herman Wouk's courtroom drama "The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial" at the Queen's Theatre, London. In a 1985 interview the actor admitted he preferred American roles because of their emotionalism, saying of English acting: 'Over here, people hide behind mannerism and technique and don't come up with any soul. American actors are much freer with the emotions. It's pretty hard in Europe not to have experience of Americans because we're exposed to a lot of American product.' Cross also said that he was sympathetic to the American dream of success: 'I am ambitious. There's no point of being ashamed of the fact that one has ambitions. Despite what a lot of people think in our profession, you can have ambitions and still turn in good work and still earn a living. There's no clash there.' Cross expressed the hope that his reputation would 'span the Atlantic,' and that those in the industry would not ignore him because he did not live in New York or Los Angeles. 'A prospective director would have to convince me that I could bring something new, fresh and exciting to a classical part that hundreds of other people have played,' he said. Over the years, Cross has played Solomon in the 1997 Trimark Pictures production "Solomon"; Captain Nemo in the 1997 CBS film "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea"; vampire Barnabas Collins in the 1991 MGM miniseries remake of the cult classic soap opera "Dark Shadows"; another vampire in the 1989 USA Network film "Nightlife"; Sir Harold Pearson in the 1994 Italian production "Caro Dolce Amore (Honey Sweet Love)"; Iraqi pilot Munir Redfa blackmailed into flying a MiG from Iraq to Israel in the 1988 HBO spy film "Steal the Sky"; and Nazi SS colonel and certified war criminal Helmut von Schraeder, who has his face and voice surgically changed, poses as a Jew in a concentration camp, then by twist of fate becomes a Zionist and ends up an Israeli major general in the 1989 Ian Sharp's TV miniseries "Twist of Fate", also titled "Pursuit". 2000 to present. Cross played Ikey Solomon in the Australian production "The Potato Factory" in 2000. In 2005, Cross, an anti-death penalty campaigner, starred as a death-row prisoner in Bruce Graham's play, "Coyote on a Fence", at the Duchess Theatre. He played Rudolf Hess in the 2006 BBC production "". In November 2007, Cross was cast in the role of Sarek, in the new "Star Trek" film directed and produced by J.J. Abrams. Cross spoke to "Star Trek" magazine following the film's release, saying, 'My agent put me forward for "Star Trek", and he sent a couple of films to J.J.. I'm sure he was too busy to watch the whole of "Species", but when we were on the set, he mentioned to me that there was one particular shot in it where I turned to the camera, and in that moment, it came to him how perfect it would be for me to play Sarek.' In order to prepare for the role, Cross drew on his experience as a parent as well as Sarek's previous on-screen appearances. Having been present when his daughter was born, he was able to 'call on all sorts of things' in the scene where Amanda has baby Spock, a scene which did not make it into the theatrical cut of the film. While he found the emotionless trait of a Vulcan a challenge to play, he found the father/son relationship between Sarek and Spock easier to play. 'As Sarek, I had to be true to the Vulcan cultural ethic, which in the beginning, I found very difficult. I got a lot of help with that from J.J.. Dealing with the adult Spock (played by Zachary Quinto) was a much more mature relationship, and I found the father/son aspect one of the easier things to play.' In 2012, Cross was cast as Rabbit, the main antagonist on the Cinemax original series Banshee. Rabbit is "a ruthless Ukrainian gangster who has been hunting down two of his former top thieves for 15 years." Other professions. Cross is a director, writer and musician as well. He has written music, screenplays and articles for English language publications and has also written the lyrics for an album with Bulgarian singer Vasil Petrov, which was released in late 2007. He also sang two Sinatra songs with Petrov in the Apollonia Festival at the Black Sea in September 2007. Among many of his original works is the musical "Rage" about Ruth Ellis, which was performed in various regional towns in the London area. He also starred in it and played the part of the hangman. Cross's first single as a lyricist was released by Polydor Records in the late 1970s and was titled "Mickey Moonshine". The nom de guerre for the performance had occurred to Ben when he recalled an earlier involvement with the music industry as a session singer for Decca between 1972 and 1974. At this time, he had recorded at a moment's notice an uptempo number called 'Name it, You Got it', when the scheduled performer had failed to arrive at the studio on time. Interestingly, this recording achieved some play on the British Northern soul scene and Ben intends to reprise his performance as Micky Moonshine at a forthcoming Northern event. Other works include "The Best We’ve Ever Had" and "Nearly Midnight", both written by Cross and directed by his son Theo. In addition, the original soundtrack for "Nearly Midnight" was written, produced and performed by his daughter Lauren. These works were performed in Edinburgh in 2002 and 2003 respectively. "Square One", directed by Cross, was performed at the Etcetera Theatre in London in 2004. Personal life. Cross has lived all over the world, including London, Los Angeles, New York, southern Spain, Vienna, and, most recently, Sofia, Bulgaria. He is familiar with the Spanish, Italian, and German languages and enrolled in a course studying Bulgarian. He has been married twice: first to Penny, from 1977 to 1992, with whom he has two children named Lauren and Theodore; and then to Michelle until 2005.
631598	Erik Kenneth William Knudsen (born March 25, 1988) is a Canadian actor. He is perhaps best known for portraying Daniel Matthews in "Saw II", Alec Sadler in "Continuum" and Dale Turner in the CBS series "Jericho". Life and career. Knudsen was born in Toronto, Ontario. In 1999 Knudsen got his first acting role as Alex Schreffler in the TV series "Real Kids, Real Adventures". In 2001, Knudsen guest starred on "The Guardian" and appeared in three other episodes. He was nominated a Young Artist Award for his performance. In 2003, Knudsen starred in the TV series "Mental Block". He co-starred as Leroy "Lefty" in the film adaptation of "Youth in Revolt", and "Scott Pilgrim vs. the World", as Lucas "Crash" Wilson, who was the lead singer of fictional band Crash and the Boys. Knudsen portrayed Robbie in the 2011 film "Scream 4". Knudsen plays Ryan in the film "The Barrens", co-starring "True Blood"'s Stephen Moyer, which was released in late 2012. He plays teen tech genius Alec Sadler in the Canadian Science Fiction series "Continuum", along with Rachel Nichols and Victor Webster.
1061762	Barbara Hershey (born Barbara Lynn Herzstein; February 5, 1948), once known as Barbara Seagull, is an American actress. In a career spanning nearly 50 years, she has played a variety of roles on television and in cinema, in several genres including westerns and comedies. She began acting at age 17 in 1965, but did not achieve much critical acclaim until the latter half of the 1980s. By that time, the "Chicago Tribune" referred to her as "one of America's finest actresses." Hershey was awarded an Emmy and a Golden Globe for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Miniseries/TV Film for her role in "A Killing in a Small Town" (1990). She has been nominated for two more Golden Globes: in 1989 for Best Supporting Actress for her role as Mary Magdalene in Martin Scorsese's "The Last Temptation of Christ", and for her role in Jane Campion's "Portrait of a Lady" (1996). For the latter film, she was also nominated for an Academy Award and she won a Los Angeles Film Critics Award for Best Supporting Actress. In addition, she has won two Best Actress awards at the Cannes Film Festival for her roles in "Shy People" (1987) and "A World Apart" (1988). She also featured in Woody Allen's critically acclaimed "Hannah and Her Sisters" (1986), for which she was nominated for a British Academy Award, Garry Marshall's melodrama "Beaches" (1988) and she earned a second British Academy Award nomination for Darren Aronofsky's "Black Swan" (2010). Establishing a reputation early in her career as a "hippie," Hershey experienced conflict between her personal life and her acting goals. Her career suffered a decline during a six-year relationship with actor David Carradine, with whom she had a child. She experimented with a change in stage name that she later regretted. During this time her personal life was highly publicized and ridiculed. It was not until she separated from Carradine and changed her stage name back to Hershey that her acting career became well established. Later in her career, she began to keep her personal life private. Early life. Barbara Herzstein was born in Hollywood, California. She is the daughter of Melrose (née Moore) and Arnold Nathan Herzstein. Her father, a horse racing columnist, was Jewish (his parents emigrated from Hungary and Russia) and her mother, a native of Arkansas, was a Presbyterian of Irish descent. The youngest of three children, Barbara always wanted to be an actress. Her family nicknamed her "Sarah Bernhardt". She was shy in school and so quiet that people thought she was deaf. By the age of 10 she proved herself to be an "A" student. Her high school drama coach helped her find an agent and in 1965, at age 17, she landed a role on Sally Field's television series, "Gidget". She said that she found Field to be very supportive of her in her first acting role. According to "The New York Times All Movie Guide", she graduated from Hollywood High School in 1966, but David Carradine, in his autobiography, said she dropped out of high school after she began acting. Barbara's acting debut, three episodes of "Gidget", was followed by the short-lived television series, "The Monroes" (1966), which also featured Michael Anderson, Jr.. At this point, she had adopted the stage name of Hershey. Although she said that the series helped her career, she expressed some frustration with her role saying, "One week I was strong, the next, weak". While on the series, Hershey garnered several other roles, including one in Doris Day's final feature film, "With Six You Get Eggroll". Career. 1960s. In 1969 Hershey co-starred in the Glenn Ford western "Heaven with a Gun". On the set, she met and began a romantic relationship with actor David Carradine, who later starred in the television series "Kung Fu" "(see Personal Life)". In the same year, she acted in the controversial drama "Last Summer", which was based on the novel by Evan Hunter. Hershey played Sandy in this film, the "heavy," influencing two young men, played by Bruce Davison and Richard Thomas, to rape another girl, Rhoda, played by Catherine Burns. Even though the film, directed by Frank Perry, received an X rating for the graphic rape scene, it earned a Best Supporting Actress Oscar nomination for Burns.
1130340	Stephen Nichols (born February 19, 1951) is an American actor, most notable for his roles on American daytime soap operas. He played the part of Steve (Patch) Johnson on NBCs "Days of our Lives" from 1985-1990; after that, he had a stint on ABC's "General Hospital" as Stefan Cassadine from 1996-2003. He returned to the role of Steve (Patch) Johnson on "Days of our Lives" in June 2006 after 16 years, remaining through February 2009. He played (from December 2009 to January 2013) the role of Tucker McCall on "The Young and the Restless". Career. After turning down an art scholarship to Ohio State University, he traveled west, studied yoga and lived as a monk while preparing vegetarian meals for the monks and nuns in a Hollywood ashram. After three years of celibacy, a steady diet of ice cream and the films of Truffaut and Bergman, he landed at the Theater Academy of Los Angeles City College where he studied for two years. Nichols went on to study with Stella Adler, Jack Colvin and Harry Mastrorgeorge.
1035118	Elizabeth Jane "Beth" Goddard (born 1969) is a British actress. She grew up in Clacton-on-Sea, Essex and attended Clacton County High School and the Rose Bruford College in Sidcup, Kent, from 1986 to 1989. She met her husband, Philip Glenister, best known for his role as Gene Hunt in TV drama "Life on Mars", at a birthday party of Jamie Glover in 1997. They married in 2006. The couple have two daughters, Millie and Charlotte, born in 2002 and 2005 respectively. Goddard played Belinda Ashton in the ITV detective drama "Lewis", broadcast in March 2008. Goddard also starred as Suze Littlewood in the comedy "Gimme Gimme Gimme". She appeared alongside her husband in the third series of BBC One drama Ashes to Ashes". "In this episode the couple shared an on screen kiss. One of her first television roles was as unscrupulous yellow journalist Clare Moody in a 1994 episode of the ITV drama "Cracker". Her character was involved in reporting on the crimes committed by serial killer Albie Kinsella (Robert Carlyle), who targeted her for supposedly writing the controversial "TRUTH" page about the Hillsborough disaster and showing no remorse for it, even continuing to use fabricated information to print stories for more profit. Albie ultimately killed her character with a letter bomb.
1042910	Joan Greenwood (4 March 1921 – 28 February 1987) was an English actress. Born in Chelsea, she studied at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. Her husky voice, coupled with her slow, precise elocution, was her trademark. Perhaps her most famous role was Gwendolen in "The Importance of Being Earnest" (1952). Life and career. Greenwood worked mainly on the stage, where she had a long career, appearing with Donald Wolfit's theatre company in the years following World War II.
927623	Mera Pind (English: "My village") is a Punjabi film released on 20 September 2008, directed and produced Manmohan Singh. The film stars Harbhajan Mann, Navjot Singh Sidhu, Kimi Verma and Gurpreet Ghuggi. Plot. Mera Pind is the story of a well-to-do NRI Navroz Singh Lamba (Navjot Sidhu) who has chosen to settle in his native village and spread the message of empowerment and entrepreneurship among the village youth. Led by Himmat (Harbhajan Maan), the youth set off a revolution in the development of the village. It inspires Punjabis who are increasingly opting to settle abroad, to undertake business in their own villages and cities. Mera Pind is also a story of a young man seeking his love, the only barrier being the girl's father. Box office. "Mera Pind" was successful at the box office, both domestically and overseas. In Punjab it broke the record of the highest opening for a Punjabi film, grossing 50 lakhs over its first weekend. Overseas the film had a limited release but did "extraordinary" business as it grossed 55 lakhs in the United Kingdom, 75 lakhs in North America and broke another record for the three day total grossing 1.55 crore nett from just 25 prints. The film grossed a worldwide total of 2.75 crore nett from two weeks and was declared a Blockbuster.
1082785	Princesas is a 2005 film by Spanish director Fernando León de Aranoa. The "princesas" in the film are two prostitutes: Caye, a Spaniard who is hiding her profession from her family, and Zulema, who is saving money to send to her family in the Dominican Republic. The two women ply their trade on the streets of Madrid. The film's initial release was in 2005; it was released in the United States in August 2006 at the IFC Center in New York City and nationally to many digital cable subscribers via IFC OnDemand. Plot. Caye (Candela Peña) goes to Gloria’s Hair Salon which she frequents and discusses everything from life to politics during her time off with other customers; who are also her friends. They have a shared hatred toward the immigrant prostitutes they observe from the salon. This is because some of them (including Caye) are also prostitutes and feel the immigrants take clients (and ultimately business and money) from them. Caye’s point of view is quickly changed when she meets Zulema (Micaela Nevárez), an illegal immigrant prostitute working to send money home to her mother and son Edward she left in the Dominican Republic. The two quickly develop a strong bond and support each other with everything including shopping, fashion tips and hair styles. Caye takes Zulema to her mother’s house for dinner, her phone constantly rings but Caye refuses to answer, something her mother is always confused and bothered about. There Zulema quickly volunteers for the job to teach sex education at Caye’s sister’s school, affording her the ability to send a toy truck to her son for his birthday. Caye meets Manuel, a computer programmer, outside a club. With some persuasion, Caye convinces him to go with her. Over beers at a café, Caye confesses she is a prostitute. Manuel does not believe her and laughs it off and they begin a relationship.
582170	I Hate Luv Storys is a 2010 Indian romantic comedy film starring Sonam Kapoor and Imran Khan in the lead roles. The film is written and directed by Punit Malhotra and produced under Karan Johar's Dharma Productions and Ronnie Screwvala's UTV Motion Pictures. The film was released on 2 July 2010 and went on to become a box office hit. The film was partly filmed in Queenstown, New Zealand. Plot. Simran (Sonam Kapoor) loves Bollywood romances—so much so that her life has begun to resemble one. With her awesome job and a "Mr. Perfect" fiancé, Raj (Sameer Dattani), she lives a dreamy life. But then comes Jay (Imran Khan), who brings a fresh joy into her life. Jay is an assistant to a director who is famous for his love story films; however, Jay hates love stories. He is a Casanova and a disbeliever of love. He first hates Simran for her obsession with romance, and Simran also has a bad impression of him, but soon after, the two become friends. Simran's close bond with Jay brings problems in her love life. She feels that Raj is not right for her, and falls in love with Jay, dreaming of spending her entire life with him. She decides to confess her feelings to him, but after doing so, Jay explains that he never thought of her that way—they were only best friends. Heartbroken, Simran leaves. She does not speak to Jay.
1170151	Sandy Helberg (born May 28, 1949) is an American actor. Early life. Helberg was born in Frankfurt, Germany, to Tonia (née Altman) and Sam Helberg. His parents were both Holocaust survivors and had met in a concentration camp. They soon immigrated to the United States where his father, originally a barber, eventually became a successful real estate developer in Toledo, Ohio where Helberg grew up. Career. He later moved to New York where he studied acting with Sanford Meisner at the Neighborhood Playhouse. Sandy did stand-up and was part of an improv group that worked clubs in Greenwich Village. He later moved to Los Angeles, becoming an original member of the Los Angeles improv group, The Groundlings. Acting in several comedy films, in particular three Mel Brooks films "High Anxiety", "" and "Spaceballs", he starred in the comedy films "The Hollywood Knights" and "Up the Creek". Sandy wrote and starred in short lived 1977 TV series "The Lorenzo and Henrietta Music Show" and the 1979 CBS TV series "Flatbush". He has made numerous guest appearances on TV shows, including "Trapper John, M.D.", "Remington Steele", "Newhart", "The Jeffersons", "M*A*S*H", "Married... with Children", "The Wonder Years", "Night Court", "Fernwood Tonight", "Knight Rider", "Too Close for Comfort", "Get a Life", "House Calls", "Cybill", and "Days of our Lives" among others. Sandy also co-starred in the NBC miniseries, "Harold Robbins' 79 Park Avenue" and CBS movie of the week, "More Wild Wild West". Sandy was the original Gopher Smith in "The Love Boat" pilot. Personal life. He has been married to Harriet Helberg (née Birnbaum) since April 6, 1975, and has 2 sons, Mason and actor Simon Helberg. Filmography. Writer of TV episodes for "The Golden Girls," (100th episode) "Perfect Strangers," "Dear John," "Harry and the Hendersons," with wife/writing partner Harriet Helberg Co-producer of "USO Salute to the Troops" for HBO/TBS
1084361	Invasion of the Bee Girls is a 1973 science fiction film. The first film venture for writer Nicholas Meyer, it was directed by Denis Sanders and stars William Smith, Anitra Ford and Victoria Vetri. Meyer almost didn't put his name to the project after he saw it but was later convinced by his manager at the time. Synopsis. The premise of the movie is that a mad scientist (played by Anitra Ford) has created an army of beauties who seduce men to death. One by one the male victims are killed before the local police catch on to the plans of the infested females. Plot. Neil Agar, a special agent with the State Department's Office of Security (the predecessor of the Diplomatic Security Service), is dispatched to Peckham, California to investigate the death of John Grubowsky, a bacteriologist working at government-sponsored Brandt Research. Quickly making the acquaintance of the laboratory’s head librarian, Julie Zorn, he begins interviewing the firm’s leading scientists, many of whom have reputations as sexual players. His investigation is soon complicated by a growing number of deaths, all men who died of congestive heart failure caused by sexual exhaustion. Faced with a rapidly escalating body count, the local sheriff, Captain Peters, holds a town meeting at which the laboratory’s leading sex researcher, Henry Murger, urges the town populace to practice sexual abstinence – an idea greeted with derision by the locals. Neil and Julie arrange a meeting with Murger afterwards to discuss his theories as to the cause of his deaths, only to see him chased down and run over by a car with an unseen driver. While investigating Murger’s home in search of clues, Neil discovers a secret room concealing sexual paraphernalia and Murger’s gay lover, Joe, who informs Neil that he saw Murger driving off with an unknown woman prior to his death. Despite a curfew and the establishment of a military quarantine, the scientists continue playing their sex games. One of them, Herb Kline, is approached by Susan Harris, a beautiful entomologist working on bees. Though described by the men as an “iceberg,” she flirts with Kline and invites him over for dinner. That night, as they engage in sex, Kline suffers a fatal thrombosis and Harris reveals black compound eyes suggesting that she is more than she appears. Meanwhile, convinced there is a similar pattern at work, Neil begins studying the sexual patterns of insects. Seeking information about the mating habits of bees, he interrogates Dr. Harris at her lab; when he departs, she resumes her project – the transformation of Kline’s wife Nora into a Bee Girl through a process of controlled mutation. With the aid of other previously mutated women, she cocoons Nora and places her in a chamber where she is swarmed by mutated bees; when she emerges, she is bombarded with radiation and awakens with the same black compound eyes and drive to mate that the other transformed women possess. The next morning, Herb Kline’s body is discovered; when Captain Peters goes to inform Nora, she attempts unsuccessfully to seduce him. Having worked out much of what has taken place, Neil summons the remaining department chairs and presents his theory. Though the geneticist, Stan Williams, scorns the idea, the head of the diagnostics department, Aldo Ferrara, is more receptive. At Grubowsky's funeral, Neil and Julie bring a radiation detector, which picks up the gamma radiation coming from the women in attendance who have been subjected to the treatment. Aware that they have been detected, the transformed women move to eliminate the remaining scientists; Williams is killed by his now-mutated wife and Ferrara dies during a visit by Dr. Harris, who then lures Julie to her lab to be transformed. When Neil discovers Ferrara’s body, he realizes what the women are up to. Racing to the lab, he interrupts the women as they begin the process of turning Julie into one of their number. With Harris threatening to kill Julie unless he leaves, he moves to depart but pulls out a revolver instead and shoots the machinery. Neil then rescues Julie and bars the door, leaving the mutated women to die amidst a cascade of exploding machinery. Sequel. A semi-sequel to the movie, the play "Beyond the Invasion of the Bee Girls" was produced by House of Dames in 1998 in Seattle, Washington. Release. This movie has also been released on DVD as "Graveyard Tramps" and featured the Compilation Stephen Romano presents Shock Festival.
1100332	Gregory John Chaitin (pronounced "CHAY tin") (born 1947) is an Argentine-American mathematician and computer scientist. Beginning in the late 1960s, Chaitin made contributions to algorithmic information theory and metamathematics, in particular a new incompleteness theorem in reaction to Gödel's incompleteness theorem. Mathematics and computer science. He attended the Bronx High School of Science and City College of New York, where he (still in his teens) developed the theories that led to his independent discovery of Kolmogorov complexity. Chaitin has defined Chaitin's constant Ω, a real number whose digits are equidistributed and which is sometimes informally described as an expression of the probability that a random program will halt. Ω has the mathematical property that it is definable but not computable. Chaitin's early work on algorithmic information theory paralleled the earlier work of Kolmogorov. Chaitin is also the originator of using graph coloring to do register allocation in compiling, a process known as Chaitin's algorithm. Other scholarly contributions. Chaitin also writes about philosophy, especially metaphysics and philosophy of mathematics (particularly about epistemological matters in mathematics). In metaphysics, Chaitin claims that algorithmic information theory is the key to solving problems in the field of biology (obtaining a formal definition of 'life', its origin and evolution) and neuroscience (the problem of consciousness and the study of the mind). Indeed, in recent writings, he defends a position known as digital philosophy. In the epistemology of mathematics, he claims that his findings in mathematical logic and algorithmic information theory show there are "mathematical facts that are true for no reason, they're true by accident. They are random mathematical facts". Chaitin proposes that mathematicians must abandon any hope of proving those mathematical facts and adopt a quasi-empirical methodology. Honors. In 1995 he was given the degree of doctor of science "honoris causa" by the University of Maine. In 2002 he was given the title of honorary professor by the University of Buenos Aires in Argentina, where his parents were born and where Chaitin spent part of his youth. In 2007 he was given a Leibniz Medal by Wolfram Research. In 2009 he was given the degree of doctor of philosophy "honoris causa" by the National University of Córdoba. He was formerly a researcher at IBM's Thomas J. Watson Research Center and is now a professor at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro. Criticism. Some philosophers and logicians strongly disagree with the philosophical conclusions that Chaitin has drawn from his theorems. The logician Torkel Franzén criticized Chaitin’s interpretation of Gödel's incompleteness theorem and the alleged explanation for it that Chaitin’s work represents.
581587	Lakshmi Kalyanam is a 2007 Tollywood action drama film directed by Teja. Nandamuri Kalyan Ram and Kajal Aggarwal essayed the lead roles. The film released on 15 February 2007 and was declared a hit at the box office. This film was dubbed in Hindi as "Meri Saugandh". This film was Kajal's Tollywood debut. Plot. Two feuding villages form the backdrop of this story, with Ramu (Kalyan Ram) and Lakshmi (Kajal Agarwal) belonging to one village and villain Giridhar (Ajay) to another. Lakshmi and Kalyanram are cousins, who grow up to love each other, which is not appreciated by Lakshmi's father, who is also the village head. Meanwhile, Giridhar's evil eye falls upon Lakshmi when he chances upon her in college. He writes on her back in blood that he would marry her. This enrages Kalyanram who thrashes Giridhar only to be taunted to prove his love towards Lakshmi by opening the doors of the temple, which is the bone of contention between the two villages. Music. Audio of Lakshmi Kalyanam was released on January 26, 2007 at Big 92.7 FM radio station in Hyderabad. Big FM station director Ashwin launched the audio and gave the first unit to music director RP Patnaik. This function was also graced by Swapna (programming director of BIG FM), Jeethi (producer), Nihal, Pranathi and Malavika. Madhura Entertainment bought the audio rights.
1061099	George Richard Chamberlain (born March 31, 1934) is an American stage and screen actor and singer, who became a teen idol in the title role of the television show "Dr. Kildare" (1961–1966). Since then, he has appeared in several mini-series such as "Shōgun" (1980) and "The Thorn Birds" (1983), many successful films, performed classical stage roles and worked in the musical theatre. Early life. Chamberlain was born in 1934 in Beverly Hills, California, the son of Elsa Winnifred (née Matthews) and Charles Axiom Chamberlain, who was a salesman. In 1952, Chamberlain graduated from Beverly Hills High School and later attended Pomona College (class of 1956). Career. Chamberlain co-founded a Los Angeles-based theatre group, Company of Angels, and began appearing in television series in the 1950s. He was cast as Lt. Dave Winslow in "Chicota Landing", a 1960 episode of the NBC western series, "Riverboat". In the story line, Juan Cortilla, a Mexican bandit played by Joe De Santis, is stormed from jail. Chamberlain, as United States Army Lieutenant Winslow asks Grey Holden (lead series character played by Darren McGavin) to transport Cortilla and his men to a military garrison. Instead, Cortilla takes over Holden's vessel, the "Enterprise", and its gunpowder. Connie Hines appears with Chamberlain as Lucy Bridges, and Ted de Corsia is cast as another bandit. Less than a year later in 1961, Chamberlain gained widespread fame as the young intern, Dr. Kildare, in the NBC/MGM television series of the same name, co-starring with Raymond Massey. Chamberlain's singing ability also led to some hit singles in the early 1960s, including the "Theme from Dr. Kildare" entitled "Three Stars Will Shine Tonight", which struck No. 10 according to the "Billboard"' Hot 100 Charts. "Dr. Kildare" ended in 1966, after which Chamberlain began performing on the theatre circuit. In 1966, he was cast opposite Mary Tyler Moore in the ill-fated Broadway musical "Breakfast at Tiffany's", co-starring Priscilla Lopez, which, after an out-of-town tryout period, closed after only four previews. Decades later he returned to Broadway in revivals of "My Fair Lady" and "The Sound of Music".
1557988	Louis Feinberg (October 5, 1902 – January 24, 1975), known professionally as Larry Fine, was an American comedian, actor, violinist, and boxer, who is best known as the smartest member of the comedy act The Three Stooges. Early life. Fine was born to a Jewish family as Louis Feinberg at 3rd and South Street in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. His father, Joseph Feinberg (who was Russian-Jewish), and mother, Fanny Lieberman, owned a watch repair and jewelry shop. In early childhood, his arm was burned with acid that his father used to test whether or not gold was real: having mistaken it for a beverage, Larry had raised the acid bottle to his lips when his father noticed and knocked it from his hand, accidentally splashing Larry's forearm. He was later given violin lessons to help strengthen the damaged muscles, a skill which would be put to use in many of the Stooges' films. He became proficient on the instrument, and his parents wanted to send him to a European music conservatory, but the outbreak of World War I prevented this. In scenes where all three Stooges are playing fiddles, only Larry is actually playing while the other two are only pantomiming. To strengthen his arm further, Larry took up boxing in his teens, fighting in (and winning) one professional bout. His father, opposed to Larry's fighting in public, put an end to his brief career as a boxer. Acting career. As Larry Fine, he first performed as a violinist in vaudeville at an early age. In 1925, he met Moe Howard and Ted Healy. Howard and his brother Shemp had been working as audience stooges for Healy. Shemp left soon after to attempt a solo career and was in turn replaced by another brother, Curly. Larry's trademark bushy hair had its origin, according to rumor, from his first meeting with Healy: he had just wet his hair in a basin, and it dried oddly as they talked. Healy encouraged him to keep the zany hairstyle and, according to a 1973 TV interview on the Mike Douglas show with Moe: Beginning in 1932, the team made 206 short films and several features, their most prolific period starring Larry, Moe and Curly. Their career with Healy was marked by disputes over pay, film contracts, and Healy's drinking and verbal abuse. They left Healy for good in 1934. In many of the Stooge shorts, Fine did more reacting than acting, staying in the background and serving as the voice of reason in contrast to the zany antics of Moe and Curly. He was easily recognized by his hairdo, bald on top with lots of thick, bushy, curly hair around the sides and back for which Moe would often call him "Porcupine". He was a surrealistic foil and the middle ground between Moe's gruffly "bossy" and Curly and Shemp's (and later Joe's and Curly Joe's) childish personae. And like the other Stooges, he was often on the receiving end of Moe's abuse. His reasonableness was the perfect foil to Moe's brusque bluntness and Curly or Shemp's boyish immaturity, but Larry would sometimes propose something impossible or illogical and be quickly put down by Moe, both verbally and physically, who would often react by pulling a handful of hair out of Larry's head. But in the earliest Stooge two-reelers (and occasionally the later ones), Larry frequently indulged in utterly nutty behavior. He would liven up a scene with a random improvised remark or ridiculous action. In the hospital spoof "Men in Black", Larry, wielding a scalpel, chortles, "Let's pluck him... and see if he's ripe!" In "Disorder in the Court", a tense courtroom scene is interrupted by Larry breaking into a wild Tarzan yell. Of course, after each of his outbursts, Moe would gruffly put him down. According to his brother, Larry developed a callus on one side of his face from being slapped innumerable times by Moe over the years. Larry's on-screen goofiness was an extension of his own relaxed personality. Director Charles Lamont recalled, "Larry was a nut. He was the kind of guy who always said anything. He was a yapper." Writer-director Edward Bernds remembered that Larry's suggestions for the scripts were often "flaky" but occasionally contained a good comic idea. The Stooges became a big hit on television in 1959 when Columbia Pictures released a batch of the trio's films, whose popularity brought them to a new audience and revitalized their careers. Personal life. Offstage, Larry was a social butterfly. He liked a good time and surrounded himself with friends. He and his wife, Mabel, loved to party and every Christmas served lavish midnight meals. Some of his friends called him a "yes man" since he was always so agreeable, no matter what the circumstances. Larry's devil-may-care personality carried over to the world of finance. He was a terrible businessman and spent his money as soon as he earned it. He had a significant gambling addiction, leading him to gamble away all the money he had on him either at racetracks or high-stakes gin rummy card games. In an interview, Fine even admitted that he often gave money to actors and friends who needed help and never asked to be repaid. As Joe Besser and director Edward Bernds recall, because of his constant and free spending and gambling, Larry was almost forced into bankruptcy when Columbia stopped filming new Three Stooges episodes in December 1957. Because of his profligate ways and Mabel's dislike for housekeeping, Larry and his family lived in hotels –- first in the President Hotel in Atlantic City, New Jersey where his daughter Phyllis was raised, then the Knickerbocker Hotel in Hollywood. He did not own a house until the late 1940s, when he purchased one in the Los Feliz area of Los Angeles, California. On May 30, 1967, Mabel died of a sudden heart attack. Larry was on the road and about to take the stage for a live show at Rocky Point Amusement Park in Warwick, Rhode Island when he heard the bad news. He immediately flew home to California, leaving the other two stooges to improvise their remaining shows at the park. Mabel's death came nearly six years after the early death of their only son, John, in a car crash on November 17, 1961 at age 24. Their only daughter, Phyllis, died of cancer in 1989 at 60. John's widow, Christy (Kraus), died on October 26, 2007 after a lengthy illness. Final acting years and death. In the mid-60s, the Three Stooges tried their hand at a new comedy show titled "The New Three Stooges", a mixture of live and animated segments. While it produced good ratings, they were too old by this point to do slapstick comedy well and Larry also began showing early signs of the stroke that would eventually kill him, such as frequent trouble delivering his lines properly. Returning to work, Fine and the other two Stooges were working on a new TV series entitled "Kook's Tour" in January 1970 when Larry suffered a debilitating stroke that paralyzed the left side of his body. He eventually moved to the Motion Picture House, an industry retirement community in Woodland Hills, where he spent his remaining years. Even in his paralyzed state, he did what he could to entertain the other patients and was visited regularly by his old partner Moe Howard. He was confined to a wheelchair during his last five years. Like Curly Howard, Fine suffered several additional strokes before his death on January 24, 1975. He was interred in Glendale's Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in the Freedom Mausoleum, Sanctuary of Liberation. Fine is sometimes erroneously listed as the father of sportscaster Warner Wolf, who is in fact the son of Jack Wolf, one of several other "stooges" who played in Ted Healy's vaudeville act at one time or another. He is, however, the father-in-law of actor and Los Angeles television personality Don Lamond, best known for hosting Stooges shorts on KTTV for many years.
1226860	All You Need Is Cash (also known as The Rutles) is a 1978 television film that traces (in mockumentary style) the career of a fictitious British rock group called The Rutles. As "TV Guide" described it, the group's resemblance to The Beatles is "purely — and satirically — intentional." The film was co-produced by the production companies of Eric Idle and Lorne Michaels, and directed by Idle and Gary Weis. It was first broadcast on 22 March 1978 on NBC, earning the lowest ratings of any show on American Prime time network television that week. It did much better in the ratings when it premiered in the UK on BBC2 less than one week later. The music and events in the lives of the Rutles paralleled that of The Beatles, spoofing many of the latter's career highlights. For instance, the animated film "Yellow Submarine" is parodied as "Yellow Submarine Sandwich", and the song "Get Back" became "Get Up And Go". Songs from the film were released on an accompanying soundtrack album. Overview. "All You Need Is Cash" was one of the first films of its kind, and an inspiration for the successful Rob Reiner cult comedy "This Is Spinal Tap", released in 1984. The Rutles were played by Eric Idle, John Halsey, Ricky Fataar, and Neil Innes. The band originally appeared in a sketch on Idle's program Rutland Weekend Television. The sketch was later re-broadcast on the American television show "Saturday Night Live". For the film, Fataar replaced David Battley as Stig. "All You Need Is Cash" is a series of skits and gags that illustrate the fictional Rutles story, closely following the chronology of The Beatles'. Innes, a former member of the British musical comedy group Bonzo Dog Band and associate of the Monty Python troupe, became acquainted with the Beatles when the Bonzo Dog Band had a cameo appearance in the movie "Magical Mystery Tour" in which they performed "Death Cab for Cutie". Paul McCartney had also produced the Bonzo's only hit single, "I'm the Urban Spaceman", composed and sung by Innes. Fourteen of Innes' songs were released on a soundtrack album (the CD version added six songs omitted from the original vinyl album). The album was both critically and commercially successful and was nominated for a Grammy award for Best Comedy Recording of the year. The orchestrations and arrangements for the Rutles recordings were made by film composer John Altman. The film has many cameo appearances by both British and American comedians, including "Monty Python", "Saturday Night Live" and "Rutland Weekend Television". George Harrison has a cameo role as a television journalist conducting an interview outside the headquarters of Rutle Corps, oblivious to the stream of people coming out of the building carrying items stolen from the office; this is a reference to the Beatles' famously plundered Apple Boutique and Apple Headquarters, where even the ceiling lining was looted. The interview ends abruptly as the microphone is stolen out of his hand. The film also features cameos from Idle's fellow Python Michael Palin, several "SNL" cast members including Gilda Radner, John Belushi, Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Al Franken and Tom Davis, Bianca Jagger as Dirk McQuickly's wife Martini, Ronnie Wood as a Hells Angel, and Mick Jagger, and Paul Simon and Roger McGough as themselves. The Beatles publicity was also parodied. London was awash with posters saying "The Rutles Are Coming", analogous to the similar "The Beatles Are Coming" poster. The program fared well on its British debut on BBC television. The film's cult status grew from the success of the soundtrack album, and after its release on the new medium of home video. Subsequent re-releases. The show has been released on DVD, originally in a 66-minute version incorporating cuts for syndication, later in a "special edition" restored to its full length of 72 minutes and with extras including a commentary by Idle. The full-length version replaces a spoof newsreel voiceover by Idle with an American-sounding announcer. The soundtrack was reissued on CD. It included additional tracks from the original television sessions remixed in stereo by Neil Innes. Innes, Fataar and Halsey returned in 1996 to record "The Rutles Archaeology", but without the involvement of Eric Idle.
1504123	Gene Saks (born November 8, 1921) is an American stage and film director. Life and career. Saks was born in New York City, the son of Beatrix (née Lewkowitz) and Morris J. Saks. Saks studied at Cornell University and trained for acting at the Dramatic Workshop of The New School in New York with the influential German director Erwin Piscator. Saks has shared a long-term professional relationship with playwright/comedy writer Neil Simon, directing his plays "Biloxi Blues", "Brighton Beach Memoirs", "Jake's Women", "Rumors", "Lost in Yonkers", "Broadway Bound", "The Odd Couple", and "California Suite". Additional Broadway credits include "Enter Laughing"; "Half a Sixpence"; "Mame"; "I Love My Wife"; "Same Time, Next Year"; and "Rags". Among Saks' screen credits are "Cactus Flower", which won Goldie Hawn the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, "Barefoot in the Park", "The Last of the Red Hot Lovers", "The Odd Couple", "Mame", "So I Married an Axe Murderer" (uncredited), and the 1995 television production of "Bye Bye Birdie, and Nobody's Fool with Paul Newman. Saks made his acting debut on Broadway in "South Pacific" in 1949. On stage he also appeared in "A Shot in the Dark", "The Tenth Man", and "A Thousand Clowns", in the role of Leo "Chuckles The Chipmunk" Herman, which he reprised in the film version. He portrayed Jack Lemmon's brother in the screen adaptation of Simon's "The Prisoner of Second Avenue". Saks was married to fellow Actors Studio member, actress Bea Arthur, from 1950-1980. The couple had two sons. He has a daughter with second wife Keren Saks.
1082488	"Julia's Eyes" () is a critically acclaimed 2010 Spanish horror film directed by Guillem Morales and written by Morales and Oriol Paulo. Plot. The film begins with the death of the blind Sara, who appears to be being tormented by an unseen stranger. Heading to her basement to attempt suicide, she curses the hidden tormentor and refuses to give them the satisfaction of seeing her hang herself; but as she tries to remove the noose from her neck, the stool beneath her is kicked away, leaving her to die. Miles away, Sara's twin sister Julia collapses at work, sensing something amiss with her sister. After driving to Sara's house, Julia and her husband Isaac find Sara hanged. The police suspect no foul play, deciding that Sara was depressed after turning blind due to a degenerative eye disease that is slowly robbing Julia's vision as well. Julia, however, is unconvinced, believing that somebody else was in the house at the time of Sara's death, after finding Dusty Springfield's 'The Look of Love' in Sara's record player, a song her sister apparently hated. After feeling a hand that was not Isaac's on her shoulder while laying flowers on Sara's grave at her funeral, Julia becomes paranoid that the 'invisible man' who played a hand in Sara's death is nearby. After speaking to Sara's blind neighbour, Soledad, Julia visits the Baumann Centre for the Blind to learn more about Sara's life shortly before her death. She wanders into a women's locker room and overhears a group of women discussing her sister. She learns that Sara had a boyfriend with whom she had spent the weekend in a hotel. When the blind women sense her presence and surround her, they ask who is the man that entered with her: confused, she tells them she came alone, to which the women respond that a man came with her and is standing behind her. Only glimpsing the man's shadow as he flees, Julia chases him through the dark basement, but he escapes her and the stress causes an attack of blindness. Returning to Sara's house, she finds a mysterious key and the receipt for Sara's stay in the Hotel Bella Vista before being confronted by Isaac, who berates her for 'chasing ghosts' and is concerned that the stress will cause her sight to deteriorate faster. Julia persuades him to spend the night in a hotel with her, claiming that she wants to take their minds off what has happened, and they travel to the Hotel Bella Vista. There, Julia finds that the details of Sara's boyfriend have been apparently cleared from the hotel's records, though a waiter mistakes her for Sara and lets slip that her sister's eyes were covered by bandages during her stay. Julia confronts Isaac, who tells her that their doctor had confided in him that the operation Julia believed Sara was waiting for in the hopes of regaining her sight -thereby ruling out suicide, since her sister was waiting for an eye donor - had failed. During their argument, Julia suffers another attack of blindness and is nearly hit by a car; at which Isaac is distraught as he realises his wife's vision is rapidly failing her. They reconcile and make love.
1748253	In the mathematical field of numerical analysis, De Casteljau's algorithm is a recursive method to evaluate polynomials in Bernstein form or Bézier curves, named after its inventor Paul de Casteljau. De Casteljau's algorithm can also be used to split a single Bézier curve into two Bézier curves at an arbitrary parameter value. Although the algorithm is slower for most architectures when compared with the direct approach, it is more numerically stable. Definition. A Bézier curve "B" (of degree "n") can be written in Bernstein form as follows where "b" is a Bernstein basis polynomial The curve at point "t"0 can be evaluated with the recurrence relation Then, the evaluation of formula_5 at point formula_6 can be evaluated in formula_7 steps of the algorithm. The result formula_8 is given by : Moreover, the Bézier curve formula_5 can be split at point formula_6 into two curves with respective control points : Example implementation. Here is an example implementation of De Casteljau's algorithm in Haskell: Notes. When doing the calculation by hand it is useful to write down the coefficients in a triangle scheme as When choosing a point "t"0 to evaluate a Bernstein polynomial we can use the two diagonals of the triangle scheme to construct a division of the polynomial into
1673993	The Twelve Tasks of Asterix ("Les Douze travaux d'Astérix") is a 1976 French animated feature film based on the "Asterix" comic book series. René Goscinny and Albert Uderzo, the creators of the series, wrote the story and directed the film themselves; with co-direction by Pierre Watrin and the screenplay co-written by Pierre Tchernia, a friend of Goscinny and Uderzo. The movie was directed, produced and animated at Goscinny and Uderzo's own animation studio, Studios Idéfix and the only Asterix animated film how used Xerography Process. It is the only Asterix movie to date (animated or live-action) to be based on an original screenplay rather than on material from any of the comic book stories. Later, however, it was adapted into a comic book as well as an illustrated text story book and a series of twelve books for young readers. Plot. After a group of legionaries is once again beaten up by the gauls, they imagine: "With such huge strength, they can't be human... they must be gods". Julius Caesar is informed, and laughs. He makes a decision with his council and goes to Armorica, to speak with Vitalstatistix. He gives the Gauls a series of 12 tasks, inspired by Hercules (but new ones, since the 12 Labours are outdated). Vitalstatistix assembles their best warriors, Asterix and Obelix, to do the job. The Roman Caius Tiddlus is sent along with them to guide them and check they complete each task. The Twelve Tasks. After the Gauls succeed in every task, Caesar agrees that they are gods, gives them control of the Roman Empire, and retires to live with Cleopatra in a little house in the country. Caius Tiddlus takes his reward by retiring to the Isle of Pleasure. In the village's celebration, Obelix asks Asterix if the Gauls really did conquer Rome. Asterix tells him that everything that happened to them was a mere cartoon, in which everything is possible. Obelix takes advantage of this and teleports himself and his wild boar meat to the Isle of Pleasure, where he is finally able to enjoy himself. Comic book and story book adaptations. There is a comic book adaptation of the film. The English translation, only published as part of a once off comic book annual, was based on the dialogue of the English version of the film and was titled "Asterix Conquers Rome". There is also an illustrated book of the film containing the story in text. The story book is more regularly published and more widely translated than the very rare comic book. In addition there are also twelve rare illustrated text story books for young readers, one for each of the twelve tasks.
629456	Cedar Boys is a 2009 Australian film about life of Middle Eastern young adults in Western Sydney, Australia. Written by Turkish-Australian first-time director Serhat Caradee and produced by Ranko Markovic, Matthew Dabner and Jeff Purser. "Cedar Boys" has a dedication at the end to Caradee's mother, who died of cancer 19 days after the film was completed. The film had its world premiere at the 2009 Sydney Film Festival. It opened in theatres on 30 July 2009 and was made available on DVD on 7 December 2009. The film won the Audience Award during the 56th 2009 Sydney International Film Festival and was nominated for "Best Film" category at the 2009 Kodak Inside Film Awards in Sydney. It was an official selection in many festivals including Vancouver, Chicago, Antalya, Dubai and the 2010 London Australian Film Festival. Plot. Tarek (Les Chantery) a Lebanese-Australian, living in Sydney's tough western suburbs wants to help his imprisoned older brother, Jamal (Bren Foster) but can't afford the costs. His mate Nabil (Buddy Dannoun), a cleaner persuades Tarek to steal drugs from a drugs depot and their drug dealing friend Sam (Waddah Sari) helps in distribution. Meanwhile Tarek has met Amie (Rachael Taylor), an Anglo-Australian girl who likes to party and to snort cocaine. Budget, Reception and Box Office. Cedar Boys cost $1.3M. The film received mixed reviews from critics. "Cedar Boys" grossed $204,160 at the box office in Australia.
1034023	Miriam Karlin, OBE (23 June 19253 June 2011) was an English actress whose career lasted for more than 60 years. She was best known for her role as Paddy in "The Rag Trade", a 1960s BBC and 1970s LWT sitcom, and in particular for the character's catchphrase "Everybody out!" Her trademark throughout her career was her deep, husky voice and London accent. Early life. Born Miriam Samuels in Hampstead, North London, she was brought up in an Orthodox Jewish family; members of her extended family were among those who later died at Auschwitz. She was the daughter of Céline (née Aronowitz) and Harry Samuels, a barrister, who specialised in industrial and trade union law. Her elder brother was Michael Samuels (19202010), a historical linguist responsible for the "Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary". When performing in one of her first radio shows, Terry-Thomas's "Top of the Town", Karlin based some of the zany characters that she invented and played on people who had appeared before the rent tribunal chaired by her father. Career. After training at RADA, Karlin made her stage debut for the Entertainments National Service Association (ENSA) in wartime shows, and subsequently appeared in repertory theatre and cabaret. She appeared in productions of "The Diary of Anne Frank", "The Bad Seed", "The Egg", "Fiddler on the Roof" and "Bus Stop", among others. She made her film debut in 1952's "Down Among the Z Men", as well as featuring in "Room at the Top", "Heavens Above!", "Ladies Who Do", "Mahler" (by Ken Russell), "A Touch of the Sun", "A Clockwork Orange" and "The Millionairess". In 1960, she appeared opposite Sir Laurence Olivier in the film adaptation of John Osborne's play "The Entertainer". She performed in the stage version of "Fiddler on the Roof" at Her Majesty's Theatre, starring the Israeli actor Topol. In 1972, Karlin appeared in the title role in "Mother Courage and her Children" at the Palace Theatre, Watford, in a production notable for the force of her performance, and its faithfulness to the Brechtian "Verfremdungseffekt". In television, Karlin became known for playing the belligerent shop steward Paddy in the "The Rag Trade", a BBC sitcom set in a textile factory, between 1961 and 1963. Her character would take advantage of the slightest opportunity to call a strike; her trademark was blowing a whistle and shouting "Everybody out!" The show was revived by rival channel ITV in 1977. She later played Yetta Feldman, the Jewish ghost, in the sitcom "So Haunt Me", and also appeared in the TV film "The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde" (1989). Karlin performed on stage for the Royal Shakespeare Company at Stratford-upon-Avon, the Aldwych Theatre, and the Barbican Centre. She appeared in a national tour of "84 Charing Cross Road", and in 1990 became the first woman to play the title role in Harold Pinter's "The Caretaker", in a production at the Sherman Theatre in Cardiff. In 2008, at the age of 83, she appeared in Stewart Permutt's "Many Roads to Paradise" at the Finborough Theatre in London. Personal life. Karlin, who never married, lived in South London. A self-proclaimed atheist, she was a lifelong campaigner for Jewish and left-wing political causes, as well as an anti-fascist activist. A member of the Anti-Nazi League, she was prominent in protests against Holocaust denier David Irving, and campaigned to expose what she claimed were the Nazi sympathies of the Austrian politician Jörg Haider. She was an active member of the actors' union, Equity, and was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in 1975 for her union and welfare work. Karlin was a Distinguished Supporter of the British Humanist Association, a patron of both the Burma Campaign UK (which campaigns for democracy and human rights in Burma) and Dignity in Dying (which campaigns for changes to laws on assisted dying) and a trustee of the Eddie Surman Trust (an HIV charity). Death. In 2006, while filming an Agatha Christie TV mystery, "By the Pricking of My Thumbs", Karlin was told that she had cancer and that part of her tongue would have to be removed. She died on 3 June 2011.
1062186	Theodore Scott Glenn (born January 26, 1941) is an American actor. His roles have included Wes Hightower in "Urban Cowboy" (1980), astronaut Alan Shepard in "The Right Stuff" (1983), Emmett in "Silverado" (1985), Commander Bart Mancuso in "The Hunt for Red October" (1990), Jack Crawford in "The Silence of the Lambs" (1991), Roger in "Training Day" (2001), Ezra Kramer in "The Bourne Ultimatum" (2007), and The Wise Man in "Sucker Punch" (2011). Early life. Glenn was born Theodore Scott Glenn in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the son of Elizabeth, a homemaker, and Theodore Glenn, a business executive. He grew up in Pittsburgh, and has Irish and Native American ancestry. During his childhood he was regularly ill, and for a year was bed-ridden. Through intense training programs he recovered from his illnesses, also overcoming a limp. After graduating from a Pittsburgh high school, Glenn entered The College of William and Mary where he majored in English. He then joined the Marine Corps for three years and worked roughly five months as a reporter for the "Kenosha Evening News", located in Kenosha, Wisconsin. He then tried to become an author, but found he could not write good dialogue. To learn the art of dialogue, he began taking acting classes. In 1965, Glenn made his Broadway debut in "The Impossible Years". He joined George Morrison's acting class, helping direct student plays to pay for his studies and appearing onstage in La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club productions. In 1967, he married Carol Schwartz; Glenn converted to his wife's Judaism upon their marriage. In 1968, he joined The Actors Studio and began working in professional theatre and TV. In 1970, director James Bridges offered him his first movie role, in "The Baby Maker", released the same year. Career. Glenn left for Los Angeles, California and spent eight years there acting small roles in films and doing brief TV stints, including a TV movie "Gargoyles". He appeared in Francis Ford Coppola's "Apocalypse Now" (1979), in a small role, while there and also worked with directors like Jonathan Demme and Robert Altman. Fed up with Hollywood, in 1978 Glenn left Los Angeles with his family for Ketchum, Idaho and worked for the two years he lived there as a barman, huntsman and mountain ranger, occasionally acting in Seattle stage productions.
1034502	__NOTOC__ Clement Graham Crowden (30 November 1922 – 19 October 2010) was a Scottish actor. He was best known for his many appearances in television comedy dramas and films, often playing eccentric "offbeat" scientist, teacher and doctor characters. Early life. Crowden was born in Edinburgh, the son of Anne Margaret (née Paterson) and Harry Graham Crowden. He was educated at Clifton Hall School and the Edinburgh Academy before serving briefly in the Royal Scots Youth Battalion of the army until he was injured in a bizarre accident. During arms drill, he was shot by his sergeant-major when his rifle discharged. The sergeant said "What is it now, Crowden?" Crowden replied, "I think you've shot me, sergeant." He later found work in a tannery. Acting career. Crowden is known for his roles in BBC comedy-dramas, including Dr. Jock McCannon in "A Very Peculiar Practice" and Tom Ballard in "Waiting for God". He also had a long and distinguished theatrical career, most notably at Laurence Olivier's National Theatre where he performed as The Player King in "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead", the play by Tom Stoppard. He occasionally played mad scientists in film, taking the role of Doctor Millar in the Mick Travis films of director Lindsay Anderson, "O Lucky Man!" (1973) and "Britannia Hospital" (1982), and also playing the sinister Doctor Smiles in the film of Michael Moorcock's first Jerry Cornelius novel, "The Final Programme" (1973). He also played the eccentric History master in Anderson's "if..." (1968). In 1970 he appeared in the popular Thames Television series "Callan" as The Groper, a deregistered doctor who had been in Wormwood Scrubs called on by Callan when unofficial medical assistance was required (e.g. Series 3, "A Village Called G", and likely others between 1967–73 though some are now lost). In 1975, he made an appearance in "No Way Out" an episode of the popular British sitcom "Porridge" alongside Ronnie Barker, Brian Wilde, Richard Beckinsale and Fulton Mackay, as the prison doctor when Fletcher was complaining of an injured leg. He was offered the role of the Fourth Doctor in "Doctor Who" in 1974, when Jon Pertwee left the role, but turned it down, informing producer Barry Letts that he was not prepared to commit himself to the series for three years. The role ultimately went to Tom Baker. He did, however, appear in "The Horns of Nimon" (1979) as a villain opposite Baker. This was the reason why Ian Marter was originally hired as the producers and directors considered Crowden to be too old to be seen running about and taking on a larger physical role and so brought in Marter. In 1990, he appeared as a lecherous peer in the BBC comedy "Don't Wait Up", and in 1991 he played a modest role in the "Rumpole of the Bailey" episode "Rumpole and the Quacks", portraying Sir Hector MacAuliffe, the head of a medical inquest into the potential sexual misconduct on the part of Dr. Ghulam Rahmat (portrayed by Saeed Jaffrey). For many however, it was the role he landed in 1990 as the leading character of Tom Ballard in the sitcom "Waiting for God" opposite Stephanie Cole's character Diana Trent, as the two rebellious retirement home residents, that made him a household name. The show ran for five years and was a major success. In 1994, Crowden played the part of Professor Pollux in the BBC TV adaptation of the John Hadfield novel "Love on a Branch Line". Crowden then voiced the role of Mustrum Ridcully in the 1997 animated Cosgrove Hall production of Terry Pratchett's "Soul Music". In 2001, he guest-starred in the "Midsomer Murders" episode "Ring Out Your Dead" and also played The Marquis of Auld Reekie in "The Way We Live Now". Between 2001 and 2002 he played a role in the BBC Radio 4 comedy series "The Leopard in Autumn". In 2003, he made a cameo appearance as a sadistic naval school teacher in "The Lost Prince". In 2005–08, he starred in the BBC Radio 4 sci-fi comedy "Nebulous" as Sir Ronald Rolands. In 2008, he appeared as a guest star in "Foyle's War". For many years towards the end of his life, he lived in Mill Hill, London NW7. Death. Crowden died on 19 October 2010 in Edinburgh after a short illness. Crowden is survived by his wife, Phyllida Hewat, whom he married in 1952, a son and three daughters, one of whom, Sarah, followed him into acting. References. Michael Palin, "Halfway to Hollywood", p. 162
1100064	Reid W. Barton (born May 6, 1983) is one of the most successful performers in the International Science Olympiads. He is an MIT alumnus. Biography. Barton is the son of two environmental engineers. Officially homeschooled since third grade, Barton took part-time classes at Tufts University, in chemistry (5th grade), physics (6th grade), and subsequently Swedish, Finnish, French, and Chinese. Since eighth grade he worked part-time with MIT computer scientist Charles E. Leiserson on CilkChess, a computer chess program. Subsequently, he worked at Akamai Technologies with computer scientist Ramesh Sitaraman to build one of the earliest video performance measurement systems that have since become a standard in industry. After Akamai, Barton went to grad school at Harvard to pursue a Ph.D in Math. Mathematical and programming competitions. Barton was the first student to win four gold medals at the International Mathematical Olympiad, culminating in full marks at the 2001 Olympiad held in Washington, D.C., shared with Gabriel Carroll, Xiao Liang and
584223	Unnaipol Oruvan () is a 2009 Tamil drama-thriller film directed by debutante Chakri Toleti. It stars Kamal Haasan and Mohanlal in the lead roles. The film was simultaneously made in Telugu as "Eeenadu" with Venkatesh playing Mohanlal's role, both remakes of the Hindi film "A Wednesday!" (2008). The film tells the story of a police commissioner who gets an anonymous call. The caller demands that he release militants in exchange for information about many bombs planted across Chennai. The caller is serious as the police find a bomb planted very close to their headquarters. The commissioner is later cornered between releasing militants who had been responsible for killing innocent people and stopping bomb blasts around the city. Whatever he chooses forms the rest of the plot. "Unnaipol Oruvan" received positive reviews from the critics and was a commercial success. Plot. In the opening frame, the recently dismissed police commissioner of Chennai, I.G. Raghavan Maraar (Mohanlal), standing at the seashore, describes in a voice-over about his termination due to a common man who walked into his life and turned everything topsy-turvy. This scene leads into the flashback. An unnamed man (Kamal Haasan) is shown strategically placing a travel bag in a train in the Chennai Central railway station and in a shopping mall. He proceeds to place another bag, under the false pretense of lodging an FIR, in the toilet of a police station in Anna Salai, Chennai. He then arrives on the rooftop of a building under construction and sets up his base of operations, equipped with modern technology gadgets and instruments. He calls up Maraar and informs him that five bombs have been placed in locations throughout Chennai, which are programmed to explode simultaneously within four hours. The common man demands that he would like to negotiate with a senior government official. Maraar seeks the services of the chief secretary (Lakshmi) to act as the negotiator. Maraar also alerts his team involved in intelligence research and surveillance, tapping all the available resources in gathering preliminary information and tracing the location of the caller. Meanwhile, the caller tips off television news reporter Natasha Rajkumar (Anuja Iyer), telling her to reach Anna Salai police station immediately as it is going to be "the most important day of her life". Maraar initially suspects the anonymous caller to be bluffing, but his doubts are dispelled as the caller, to prove his seriousness and the police force's helplessness, reveals that a bomb has been planted in the Anna Salai police station. When the bomb disposal squad find the bomb, there is only three minutes left. The common man calls Maraar and tells him the instructions to deactivate the bomb. Based on these, the bomb is defused. Natasha reaches the scene on the caller's instructions and reports about the situation. There is intense debate between Maraar and the chief secretary on who would act as the negotiator with the common man. The chief minister does not want to get into this; the chief secretary does not want to take upon the responsibility. Hence, Maraar himself takes on the role of the negotiator with the common man. The common man demands the release of four terrorists — Abdullah, Inayadullah, Ahamadullah and Karamchand Lala — who have been involved in and arrested for many of the major terrorist attacks and activities that have happened in the country during the previous decade. Maraar cleverly uses Natasha to fake a report on live television that four terrorists are being relocated to an undisclosed common site, turning the caller's tool back onto him. Maraar's men find out that the caller is using advanced software to automatically switch the numbers and locations of his mobile phone SIM card every minute, rendering their manpower and the obsolete equipment useless and prompting them to employ the services of a young hacker, who turns out to be an IIT dropout. In the meantime, Maraar is able to obtain a facial composite of the caller with help of the police officer to whom the caller had approached to lodge the fake FIR, but much of the time passes without any concrete results on the identity or the location of the caller. Ultimately, Maraar agrees with the caller's demand and puts two of his best men, Arif Khan (Ganesh Venkatraman) and Sethuraman (Bharath Reddy), in charge of handing over the four terrorists at the Sozhavaram airstrip. Once there, the caller confirms the identity of the four men via a conference call with Arif and Maraar. He then asks Arif and Sethu to unlock their handcuffs and leave them alone at a particular spot. Sethu orders his men to do as told but, at the last moment, Arif decides not to hand over Abdullah to ensure all the information regarding the locations of the bombs can be forced out from the caller. Sethu argues with Arif and demands he do as ordered, but Arif forcefully grabs the terrorist and starts walking away. As they leave behind the remaining three, the caller, unaware of the ongoing fiasco, uses a cell phone placed in a rigged jeep at the spot to detonate an explosion in which all the three terrorists perish. Arif relays this information to Maraar, which is confirmed by the anonymous caller as he reveals that he is just a "stupid common man", not belonging to any terrorist outfit, and his plan was not to free the terrorists but to kill them, avenging all the terrorist attacks they had helped carry out in Coimbatore and other major cities of India, thus "cleaning the roach-infested house". Maraar tries to reason with him and tries to find out his religion, the justification for this action, any personal incidents that prompted him to take such an action etc. The common man narrates an incident of how a Muslim woman was being tortured and molested by communal people. The common man also says that he can take actions for the sufferings meted out to people from other communities too. The caller threatens to blow up the remaining bombs across the city unless Arif and Sethu kill Abdullah. The Chief Secretary (Lakshmi) tells Maraar that the Chief Minister has to know about the Current Situation but Maraar disagrees and tells her that he'll face the consequences, and orders Arif to kill the terrorist. As Natasha reports the scene on television, the young hacker traces the caller's location but refuses to reveal it saying that the caller was actually "brainy", and compared to him, the hacker was only one among the billions. But Maraar looks in the hacker's computer, discovers the location and leaves abruptly towards the site. The caller calls up Maraar, as he is on the way, for a final time to further reveal that he had not planted any other bomb in the city. At this point, Maraar surprisingly declares he already knew there were no more bombs which makes it clear that his decision to kill the last terrorist wasn't taken in fear but in confidence. Maraar reaches the caller's location just as the latter is leaving the place, having destroyed all his gadgets and equipments, leaving behind no evidence. The two meet briefly when Maraar, identifying the anonymous caller on the basis of the face sketch, offers the man a ride home and introduces himself. Both shake hands, when Maraar's voice-over cuts back as he says the man told him his real name but his name doesn't have any significance. The film ends on an idealistic note, with Maraar admitting that they all knew the common man was disturbed because of the insecure environment and the incompetence of the governing authorities but he never imagined him to go to such lengths and have the guts to do something like that. He also repeats that the facts of this incident cannot be found in any written record but only in the memories of those who actually witnessed it, and acknowledges that although the incidence has ambiguous moral significance, he personally feels that whatever happened, happened for the best. Production. Casting. While Kamal Haasan was cast in the lead role; confirmation of Mohanlal's presence in the film followed. Ganesh Venkatraman, who debuted in the 2008 film "Abhiyum Naanum", was later confirmed for a supporting role. Bharath Reddy, who played a cop in the Telugu film "Siddam", is playing another supporting cop role. UTV Motion Pictures distributed the film along with Rajkamal International, Haasan's home production company, which produced it. "Unnaipol Oruvan" was directed by Chakri, a US-based filmmaker and a close friend of Haasan. Chakri had previously played the role of Govind's friend, Sai Ram, in "Dasavathaaram", and the role of a child who takes still photographs of Kamal in the 1983 Telugu film "Saagara Sangamam". Neeraj Pandey wrote the film's dialogue and screenplay. The music was composed by Kamal Haasan's daughter, Shruthi Haasan. The title was changed from "Thalaivan Irukkiran" to "Unnaipol Oruvan" in early April 2009. Recent news in 2012 confirms that "Thalaivan Irukkiran" is a different film altogether, that is touted to be a multistarrer. Filming. "Unnaipol Oruvan" started its first filming schedule on 6 February 2009. It completed shooting in 65 days. It was initially set to release on August 12, 2009, since the date coincided with the release of Kamal Haasan’s first film "Kalathur Kannamma" and his entry into Tamil cinema in 1959, marking 2009 as Haasan's 50th year in cinema. However, owing to technical and administrative difficulties, the release was postponed to September 18. The film was given a U/A (Parental Guidance) rating from the Central Board of Film Certification, mainly because of its theme — terrorism. Critical reception. "Unnaipol Oruvan" received positive reviews from the critics. Sify said that technically the film was picture-perfect and that both Kamalahassan and Mohanlal coming together is worth the ticket money. It mentioned that unlike in the Hindi version where Naseeruddin Shah had an edge over Anupam Kher, here the best dialogues were almost equally given to Mohanlal as well. Behindwoods rated that overall it was a brilliant work which will be appreciated by every socially responsible citizen of India. Indiaglitz commented that Unnaipol Oruvan deserves to be watched to see how Kamal & Mohanlal pit against Nasser & Kher. Kollywood Today praised that the movie was stupendously awesome and was a must-watch. Pavithra Srinivasan of rediff.com provided 4 stars and also had the same comments. Soundtrack. The music was composed by Shruti Haasan, daughter of Kamal Haasan. The album contains four songs and a remix. The songs are featured throughout the film. Kamal Haasan, singer Blaaze, and Manyusha Puthran contributed the lyrics. The audio launch was held on 6 September 2009 at Sathyam Cinemas.
1150377	Victoria Dawn Justice (born February 19, 1993) is an American actress, singer-songwriter, and dancer. She debuted as an actress at the age of 10 and has since appeared in several films and television series including the Nickelodeon series "Zoey 101" and "Victorious". She has made appearances in several theatrical releases, including "Unknown" as well as the 2006 thriller "The Garden". She has appeared in several Nickelodeon series, including "True Jackson, VP", "The Troop", "The Penguins of Madagascar" and "iCarly", as well as on the Nickelodeon game shows "BrainSurge" and "Figure It Out" as a contestant. In 2010, she starred in the Nickelodeon film "The Boy Who Cried Werewolf". Aside from acting, Justice is involved in her musical career. She has performed several songs for the soundtrack to the Nickelodeon musical "Spectacular!", in which she starred. She has recorded a number of songs for the "Victorious" series. Justice has announced the release of her debut album, which is expected to be released sometime during 2013. Early life. Victoria Justice was born on February 19, 1993, in Hollywood, Florida, to Serene and Zack Justice. She has a younger sister named Madison. Her father is of English, German, and Irish descent, and her mother is of Puerto Rican ancestry. Justice first developed an interest in acting when she was eight years old after watching a children's commercial. She and her family relocated to Hollywood, California, in 2003. In 2005, she auditioned and was accepted into the musical theatre program at Los Angeles' Millikan Performing Arts Academy. Justice has done commercials for companies such as Ralph Lauren, Gap and Guess. She appeared in national commercials for Mervyn's, Peanut Butter Toast Crunch and Ovaltine. Career. 2003–09: beginnings and "Zoey 101". Justice began her acting career when she was 10 years old, when she made a guest appearance on the "Gilmore Girls" episode "The Hobbit, the Sofa and Digger Stiles". Justice portrayed Jill No. 2 in a walk-on role. After her appearance in the series, her family moved to Los Angeles, when Justice stated she wanted a career in acting. The following year, Justice guest starred on the second episode of the Disney channel series "The Suite Life of Zack & Cody", in which she played a young pageant contestant named Rebecca. Later, Justice was awarded a role in the 2005 drama-thriller Mary. Justice portrayed the role of Stella, a young girl who begins seeing visions of Mary Magdalene. The film debuted at 2005 Venice Film Festival, before being showed at several other Festivals, including the 2005 Toronto Film Festival, Deauville Film Festival and the San Sebastián International Film Festival. During the same year, Justice was awarded a main role in the Nickelodeon series "Zoey 101" as Lola Martinez, a new student who is also an aspiring actress. When she found out she had earned the role, she said, "I was extremely happy; I was bouncing up and down and screaming. That was a really great moment." The season 2 episode that introduced Justice's character debuted on September 11, 2005. Justice also had roles in two other films that year. She had a cameo appearance in the R-rated film "When Do We Eat?", as well as earning the role of Rose in the Hallmark television film "Silver Bells", the following of which has become a Hallmark Hall of Fame film. In 2006, while filming episodes for "Zoey 101", Justice made a guest appearance on an episode of the series "Everwood", in the episode "Enjoy the Ride". Justice made her theatrical film debut that year, when she was given a cameo role in the film "Unknown". The film was a financial failure, and received mixed reviews from critics. In 2006, Justice played the supporting role of Holly in the thriller film "The Garden". The film was met with negative reviews from critics. 2007 and 2008 saw Justice focusing on the third and fourth seasons of "Zoey 101", which was coming to a close. Justice released a promotional single midway through 2007, while she was still filming "Zoey 101". The song was a cover of the Vanessa Carlton song, "A Thousand Miles". May 2, 2008, saw the airing of the final episode of the series. When being interviewed in 2010 about her musical career, Justice has stated "My family could always tell, ever since I was little, that is something that's always come natural to me and that I've always wanted to do. It's something that's just been in my blood. Ever since I was little, I was taking tap classes, jazz classes, hip-hop classes, acting classes. I just always wanted to cultivate that and do that more. But, the moment where I actually realized, "Woah, this is something that I can actually do for the rest of my life and maybe be successful at," was actually the pilot of Victorious when I did the performance number for the first time. I just remember standing on stage and seeing all these people looking at me and I was nervous. And then, the music started and I started dancing around and really feeling it and having an amazing time, and that's when it clicked for me that this is what I want to do for the rest of my life."
501226	Will McCormack (born 1974) is an American film, television and stage actor. Early life and education. William Joseph McCormack Jr. was born in 1974 to William Joseph McCormack Sr. and Norah Magdalene Ross McCormack. He has two older sisters, actress Mary McCormack and Michigan Supreme Court Justice & former University of Michigan law professor Bridget Mary McCormack. He graduated from Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut. Career. McCormack's key television roles include Jason La Penna on "The Sopranos" (1999–2001). More recently, he played the role of Leo Spiller, brother of lead character Lucy Spiller (Courteney Cox), in the FX series "Dirt". He also played a recurring role as the FBI agent in the television drama "In Plain Sight", which stars his older sister, Mary McCormack. In 1996, McCormack appeared on Broadway at the Criterion Center Stage Right as a member of the ensemble in a revival of the drama play "Summer and Smoke" (1948) by Tennessee Williams, produced by The Roundabout Theatre Company. He has also appeared in two Off-Broadway theatre productions. Filmography and television work. "(films, except as noted)"
1063957	Trinidad "Trini" Alvarado (born January 10, 1967) is an American actress best known for her performances as Margaret "Meg" March in the 1994 film adaptation of Louisa May Alcott's novel "Little Women" and Lucy Lynskey in the comedy/horror film "The Frighteners". She also has had notable stage performances and singing roles in musicals.
1164245	Faith Ford (born September 14, 1964) is an American television and film actress, known for having played the roles of Corky Sherwood on "Murphy Brown" and Hope Fairfield-Shanowski on "Hope & Faith". Early life. Ford was born as Alexis Ford in Alexandria, Louisiana, the younger daughter of Pat, a schoolteacher, and Charles Ford, an insurance agent. Ford lived in nearby Pineville and began acting while attending Pineville High School. She moved to New York City at the age of 17 and began to model and find commercial work. Career. In 1983, Ford gained her first television role on ABC's "One Life to Live"; her first major role was on the NBC soap opera "Another World", where she played Julia Shearer (a role previously played by Kyra Sedgwick) for several years. Ford was let go by the producers and soon moved to Hollywood, where she gained a regular role on the short-lived sitcom, "The Popcorn Kid", a five-episode appearance on "thirtysomething" and later her role on "Murphy Brown". After a ten-year run, the series ended, and Ford immediately pursued other TV endeavors. In 1998, she executive produced her own short-lived sitcom "Maggie Winters". Ford also appeared on "The Norm Show" with Norm Macdonald, Laurie Metcalf and Artie Lange from 1999 to 2001. She also began to focus on additional TV movies at this time. Ford was married to Robert Nottingham from 1989 until 1996 and has been married to personal trainer/screenwriter Campion Murphy since 1998. Ford's sister, Devon O'Day, hosts country radio programs, owns a media company, and is an author. Ford and Murphy co-produced an original short film, entitled "Citation of Merit", which appeared in numerous film festivals across the U.S. Ford starred with Kelly Ripa in "Hope & Faith" as Hope Shanowski, a homemaker who lives a peaceful life until her sister, an actress and Hollywood star, moves to live with her and complicates her life in a variety of wild and surreal situations, where she managed a catering business; the sitcom lasted three seasons. The show was pulled from the ABC lineup in May 2006 after a decline in ratings following a switch from Fridays to Tuesdays. In 2004, she published her own cookbook, "Cooking with Faith", and credited her mother and two grandmothers for having taught her how to cook. Ford played the mother of a family whose husband had died in Disney's film "The Pacifier", which was released in early 2005. In 2007, she appeared in the sitcom, "Carpoolers". At the moment, she currently hosts and stars in "Mind Body Balance", a web series on MSN. In June 2009, she spoke about her series and the future of digital programming at the Digital Content NewFront. In 2011, Ford appeared in the teen film "Prom" made by Walt Disney. Ford played the role of Kitty Prescott, the mother of main character Nova Prescott, played by Aimee Teegarden. Awards. Nominations
590296	Victor Banerjee (, Hindi: विक्टर बनर्जी) (born 15 October 1946) is an Indian actor who appears in Hindi, Bengali and English language films. He has also appeared in a number of Indian TV series. He has worked for prominent directors such as Roman Polanski, James Ivory, David Lean, Jerry London, Mrinal Sen, Shyam Benegal, Satyajit Ray and Ram Gopal Varma. Early life. Banerjee was born of a Bengali Hindu family and is a descendant of Womesh Chandra Bonnerjee, a leading intellectual and first president of the Indian National Congress (1885). He received his schooling at St. Edmund's, Shillong, and graduated in English Literature from St. Xavier's College, Calcutta. Career. In 1984, he acted as Dr. Aziz Ahmed in David Lean's film of "A Passage to India", bringing him to the attention of Western audiences. Victor was nominated for BAFTA award for this role in 1986. He won two other awards for this role: Evening Standard British Film Award and NBR Award (National Board Review, USA). He acted in Merchant Ivory Productions "Hullabaloo Over Georgie and Bonnie's Pictures", Satyajit Ray's "Shatranj Ke Khilari" and "Ghare Baire" and in Mrinal Sen's Mahaprithivi. Though in recent years he has largely been involved with Bollywood, he is also affiliated with the Bengali film industry. He also plays 'character actor' roles from time to time in the British cinema. He was also cast in the role of Jesus by director Steven Pimlott in the 1988 production of the York Mystery Plays. Life. When not in Calcutta, he is to be found in the hill station of Landour in the Lower Western Himalaya in northern India. His wife's name is Maya Banerjee. He has two daughters, Dia and Keya.
1247537	Flying Disc Man from Mars (1950) is a Republic film serial. This is considered a weak example of the serial medium, even compared to other post-World War II serials. Plot. Martian invader, Mota, attempts to conquer the Earth as Mars is worried about its use of new atomic technology. They consider that it would be much safer, and beneficial for both Earth and Mars, if the Martians were in charge. Mota, having been shot down by an experimental ray gun, blackmails American scientist, and former Nazi, Dr Bryant into assisting him and hires some criminals to be his henchmen. Kent Fowler, the private pilot who shot down Mota with Dr Bryant's ray gun, gets caught up in these events while working security for atomic industrial sites. Production. "Flying Disc Man from Mars" was budgeted at $152,640 although the final negative cost was $157,439 (a $4,799, or 3.1%, overspend). It was the most expensive Republic serial of 1950. It was filmed between 21 August and 12 September 1950 under several working titles: "Atom Man from Mars", "Disc Man from Mars", "Disc Men of the Skies", "Flying Planet Men" and "Jet Man from Mars". The serial's production number was 1709. This is a sequel to earlier serial "The Purple Monster Strikes". The villain Mota reuses the Purple Monster costume from that serial. Special effects. The Flying Disc from "King of the Mounties" is reused for this serial. The Japanese logo is still visible on its side. Stock footage from several earlier serials was used to pad out the serial and keep costs down. This includes the Rocket crash from "The Purple Monster Strikes", a car chase from "Secret Service in Darkest Africa" and various pieces from "G-Men vs. the Black Dragon". All effects in this serial were produced by the Lydecker brothers, the in-house duo who worked on most of Republic's serials. Cliffhangers. Walter Reed survives the serial by bailing out of whatever vehicle he was in. Release. Theatrical. "Flying Disc Man from Mars"'s official release date is 25 October 1950, although this is actually the date the sixth chapter was made available to film exchanges. This was followed by a re-release of "The Tiger Woman", re-titled as "Perils of the Darkest Jungle", instead of a new serial. The next new serial, "Don Daredevil Rides Again", followed in spring of 1951. A 75-minute feature film version, created by editing the serial footage together, was released on 28 March 1958 under the new title "Missile Monsters". It was one of fourteen feature films Republic made from their serials. Chapter titles. Source:
628988	Vincenzo Colosimo (born 11 November 1966) is an Australian AFI Award winning stage, television and screen actor. He has worked in both Australia and the United States. Personal life. Colosimo was born in Melbourne, one of four children of Italian-born parents from Calabria. He grew up in the inner city suburb of North Carlton. He has a daughter, Lucia (2002), with his former partner, actress Jane Hall. Colosimo and Hall worked together on "A Country Practice" in 1994. He lives in Westgarth, a suburb of Melbourne, in a house once owned with Hall. He was selected as one of the entrants to the Who's Who in Australia 2011 edition. Career. Film career. Colosimo has had some success on film, mainly in Australia. He made his film debut in the coming-of-age story "Moving Out" in 1982 and featured in 1984's "Street Hero". Other credits include the cult movie "Chopper" (2000), in which he played Melbourne drug dealer Neville Bartos opposite Eric Bana, "The Wog Boy" (2000) "Lantana" (2001), "Walking on Water" (2002), "The Nugget" (2002), "Take Away" (2004) and "Opal Dream" (2006). In 2008, he starred alongside Leonardo DiCaprio in the 2008 American film "Body of Lies". He is scheduled to act in Australian-based director Mario Andreacchio's movie entitled "The Last Dragon" in 2009. In 2010, Colosimo starred in "" (the sequel to "The Wog Boy)". Colosimo also appeared in the vampire film "Daybreakers", starring alongside Sam Neill, Willem Dafoe and Ethan Hawke. In 2011, he starred in the film "Face to Face". Television career. Despite several movie roles and guest roles in "A Country Practice" (1994), "Good Guys Bad Guys" (1997) and "Stingers" (2002), it was not until his performance as Joe Sabatini in "Something in the Air" in 2001 and 2002 that resulted in wider exposure. In 2003, he starred in the telemovie, "After the Deluge". In 2003 and 2004, he played Dr. Rex Mariani in "The Secret Life of Us". Vince also starred as himself in episode 6 of the hit ABC series "". He is chosen as the actor to play Phil Olivetti in the fictional mini-series within the show. From 2005 until late 2007, Colosmio had guest roles in "Blue Heelers" (2005), "MDA" (2005), "Two Twisted" (2006) and "City Homicide" (2007). His American credits include popular shows such as "The Practice" (2004) and "Without a Trace" (2003). 'In 2008, Colosimo had a busy year. He portrayed Melbourne Gangland figure Alphonse Gangitano in the Channel 9 series "Underbelly" (in a guest role), played in Channel Ten's telemovie "Emerald Falls" and Channel Nine's "Scorched". He also appeared in "Top Gear Australia"'s "Star in a bog-standard car" section in the first episode. In early 2009, Colosimo appeared in "Carla Cametti PD", a six-part series that aired on SBS. In 2010, he had the leading male role in the tele-movie, "Wicked Love: The Maria Korp Story". In 2012 he and his ancestors featured in the SBS show, "Who Do You Think You Are?" Business. Colsimo is part-owner of a cafe in Northcote, Expresso Alley. Awards. AFI Awards Logie Awards Newport Beach Film Festival, USA
1026876	Pearl Mae Bailey (March 29, 1918 – August 17, 1990) was an American actress and singer. After appearing in vaudeville, she made her Broadway debut in "St. Louis Woman " in 1946. She won a Tony Award for the title role in the all-black production of "Hello, Dolly!" in 1968. In 1986, she won a Daytime Emmy award for her performance as a fairy godmother in the ABC Afterschool Special, "Cindy Eller: A Modern Fairy Tale". Her rendition of "Takes Two to Tango" hit the top ten in 1952. Early life. Bailey was born in Southampton County in southeastern Virginia, to Joseph and Ella Mae Ricks Bailey. She was reared in the Bloodfields neighborhood of Newport News, Virginia. She made her stage-singing debut when she was 15 years old. Her brother Bill Bailey was beginning his own career as a tap dancer, and suggested she enter an amateur contest at Philadelphia’s Pearl Theater. She entered, won first prize, later won a similar contest at Harlem’s famous Apollo Theater, and decided to pursue a career in entertainment. Career. Bailey began by singing and dancing in Philadelphia’s black nightclubs in the 1930s, and soon started performing in other parts of the East Coast. In 1941, during World War II, Bailey toured the country with the USO, performing for American troops. After the tour, she settled in New York. Her solo successes as a nightclub performer were followed by acts with such entertainers as Cab Calloway and Duke Ellington. In 1946, Bailey made her Broadway debut in "St. Louis Woman". Bailey continued to tour and record albums in between her stage and screen performances. Early in the television medium, Bailey guest starred on CBS's "Faye Emerson's Wonderful Town". Her support of female impersonator Lynne Carter led him to credit Bailey with launching his career. In 1954, she took the role of Frankie in the film version of "Carmen Jones", and her rendition of "Beat Out That Rhythm on the Drum" is one of the highlights of the film. She also starred in the Broadway musical "House of Flowers". In 1959, she played the role of Maria in the film version of "Porgy and Bess", starring Sidney Poitier and Dorothy Dandridge. Also that year, she played the role of "Aunt Hagar" in the movie "St. Louis Blues", alongside Mahalia Jackson, Eartha Kitt, and Nat King Cole. Though she was originally considered for the part of Annie Johnson in the 1959 film Imitation of Life, the part went to Juanita Moore, for which Moore received an Academy Award nomination. In 1967, Bailey and Cab Calloway headlined an all-black cast version of "Hello, Dolly!" The touring version was so successful, producer David Merrick took it to Broadway where it played to sold-out houses and revitalized the long running musical. Bailey was given a special Tony Award for her role and RCA made a second original cast album.. That is the only recording of the score to have an overture which was written especially for that recording. A passionate fan of the New York Mets, Bailey sang the national anthem at Shea Stadium prior to game 5 of the 1969 World Series, and appears in the Series highlight film showing her support for the team. She also sang the national anthem prior to game 1 of the 1981 World Series between the New York Yankees and Los Angeles Dodgers at Yankee Stadium. During the 1970s she had her own television show, and she also provided voices for animations such as "Tubby the Tuba" (1976) and Disney's "The Fox and the Hound" (1981). She returned to Broadway in 1975, playing the lead in an all-black production of "Hello, Dolly!". She earned a B.A. in theology from Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., in 1985, at age 67. Later in her career, Bailey was a fixture as a spokesperson in a series of Duncan Hines commercials, singing "Bill Bailey (Won't You Come Home)". In her later years Bailey wrote several books: "The Raw Pearl" (1968), "Talking to Myself" (1971), "Pearl's Kitchen" (1973), and "Hurry Up America and Spit" (1976). In 1975 she was appointed special ambassador to the United Nations by President Gerald Ford. Her last book, "Between You and Me" (1989), details her experiences with higher education. On January 19, 1985, she appeared on the nationally-televised broadcast of the 50th Presidential Inaugural Gala, the night before the second inauguration of Ronald Reagan. In 1988 Bailey received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Reagan. Personal life. On November 19, 1952, Bailey married jazz drummer Louie Bellson in London. They adopted a child, Tony, in the mid-1950s, and subsequently a girl, Dee Dee J. Bellson, born April 20, 1960. Tony Bellson died in 2004, and Dee Dee Bellson, at age 49, died July 4, 2009, five months after her father, Louie Bellson, who died on Valentine's Day 2009. Bailey, a Republican, was appointed by President Richard Nixon as America's "Ambassador of Love" in 1970. She attended several meetings of the United Nations and later appeared in a campaign ad for President Gerald Ford in the 1976 election. She was awarded the Bronze Medallion (New York City award) in 1968 and a Presidential Medal of Freedom on October 17, 1988. Death. Pearl Bailey died at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital in Philadelphia on August 17, 1990. Following an autopsy, Dr. Emanuel Rubin, professor and chairman of the Department of Pathology at Jefferson Medical College, announced the cause of death as arteriosclerotic coronary artery disease with significant narrowing of the coronary artery. She is buried at Rolling Green Memorial Park in West Chester, Pennsylvania. In popular culture. Seth MacFarlane, creator of television's "Family Guy" and "American Dad!", paid tribute to Pearl Bailey in "American Dad!", where the high school that Steve Smith attends is called Pearl Bailey High School.
1057899	School Ties is a 1992 film directed by Robert Mandel starring Brendan Fraser, Matt Damon, Ben Affleck, Chris O'Donnell, Cole Hauser, Randall Batinkoff, and Anthony Rapp. Fraser plays the lead role as David Greene, a Jewish high school student who transfers from a Pennsylvania public school to a New England prep school in his senior year after he is awarded an athletic scholarship. Plot. David Greene (Brendan Fraser) is a working-class Jewish teenager from Scranton, Pennsylvania during the 1950s who is given a football scholarship to St. Matthew's, an exclusive Massachusetts prep school, for his senior year. Upon his arrival, he meets his teammates Rip Van Kelt (Randall Batinkoff), Charlie Dillon (Matt Damon), Jack Connors (Cole Hauser), and his roommate Chris Reece (Chris O'Donnell) and learns of the school's cherished honor code system. David soon learns that his new-found friends are prejudiced against Jews, which leads David to hide his religion from them. David becomes the team hero and wins the attentions of beautiful débutante Sally Wheeler (Amy Locane), whom Dillon claims is his girlfriend. In the afterglow of a victory over the school's chief rival St. Luke's, Dillon inadvertently discovers that David is Jewish and, out of jealously, makes this widely known, causing Sally and his teammates to turn against David—soon after, he finds a sign above his bed bearing a swastika and the words "Go home Jew". David is constantly harassed by his classmates, led by Richard "McGoo" Collins (Anthony Rapp) and his body guard-like roommate Chesty Smith (Ben Affleck); only Reece and another unnamed student remain loyal to Greene. Overwhelmed by pressure from his prestigious family, Dillon uses a crib sheet to cheat in an important history exam. David and Van Kelt each spot him doing so, but remain silent. Dillon accidentally drops the sheet on the floor after the test; when the teacher, Mr. Geirasch (Michael Higgins), discovers it, he informs the class that he will fail all of them if the cheater does not confess. He leaves the task of finding the cheater up to the students, led by Van Kelt, the head prefect. When David confronts Dillon and threatens to turn him in if he does not confess, Dillon unsuccessfully attempts to buy David's silence with money. Just when David is about to reveal Dillon to the other students, Dillon accuses David. Both agree to leave and to trust the rest of the class to decide who is telling the truth. The majority of the class blame David out of antisemitic prejudice, while Reece, the unnamed student and Connors, going against his own self-professed antisemitism, argue that it is unlike David to cheat or be dishonest. The class votes that David is guilty, prompting Van Kelt to tell him to report to the elitist headmaster, Dr. Bartram (Peter Donat), to confess to cheating. David goes to Bartram's office and says that he was the cheater, but unbeknown to him Van Kelt has already told the headmaster that the real offender was Dillon. Bartram tells David and Van Kelt that they should have reported the offense, but absolves them; Dillon, meanwhile, is expelled. As David leaves the headmaster's office, he sees Dillon leaving the school. Dillon says that he will be accepted to Harvard anyway and that years later everybody will have forgotten about his cheating at school, while David will still just be a Jew. "And you'll still be a prick," David replies, and walks away. Filming. The scene at the bus depot in Scranton, Pennsylvania, was filmed at a package store in Leominster, Massachusetts. The scene shot at Skip's Blue Moon Diner was filmed in downtown Gardner, Massachusetts. Most of the movie was filmed on location at Middlesex School in Concord, Massachusetts. In addition, Groton School, Worcester Academy, Lawrence Academy at Groton and St. Mark's School (all area prep schools) were also involved in the filming. Opening scenes are of the south and west sides of Wyandotte Street (Route 378 heading north), the Bethlehem Steel Plant and Zion Lutheran Church from the top of the graveyard looking northwest to 4th Street in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. The scene in the opening credits in front of Dana's Luncheonette and some scenes inside were filmed in Lowell, Massachusetts. Reception. The film received mixed to positive reviews. The film has a 68% rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 37 reviews. Roger Ebert found it "surprisingly effective", whereas Janet Maslin found it followed a "predictable path".
559918	Plot. Rina Takeda and Haruna Tobimatsu co-star as sisters Ayaka and Natsuki Kurenai, the youngest descendants of a legendary Okinawan karate master named Shoujirou Kurenai. As children, they live a happy life with their father (Tatsuya Naka) who encourages them both to practice karate. However, one day a mysterious group breaks into their dojo – killing their father, kidnapping Natsuki, and stealing the black belt which has been passed down in their family for over 200 years. Several years later, Ayaka is living the humble life of an ordinary high school student in Yokohama. One day, when Ayaka was working a group of burglars were stealing a woman's purse. Ayaka uses her karate skills to stop them causing her to be a hero to the public. Ayaka's heroics was caught on camera causing the evil organization to notice Ayaka's fighting skills. Natsuki, on the other hand, has been trained as a killing machine by the mysterious group that kidnapped her all those years ago. Soon, Natsuki and the group begin to take aim at Ayaka. Out of love for her sister and with the teachings of her father still in her heart, Ayaka decides to do whatever it takes to get Natsuki and their family’s black belt back from the clutches of the mysterious group. Reception. The movie received a positive review.
900815	Black Emanuelle (Italian: "Emanuelle nera") is an Italian-Spanish softcore sexploitation film from 1975 directed by Bitto Albertini. "Black Emanuelle" follows an erotic adventure of Mae Jordan (Laura Gemser), a globe-trotting, hedonistic investigative journalist and photographer known to her readers as 'Emanuelle'. The African setting of the film (shot mostly in Kenya) was particularly used to justify the title featuring a non-black lead actress.
129935	Jason Lively (born March 12, 1968) is an American actor. Career. Lively started his career by appearing in the pilot episode of "The Dukes of Hazzard" when he was 10 years old. His first film appearance was four years later in the 1983 film "Brainstorm". That same year he also had another appearance in "The Dukes of Hazzard". His most recognizable roles came later when he played Rusty Griswold in "National Lampoon's European Vacation", and Chris in "Night of the Creeps". After that, he appeared in the films "Ghost Chase" and "Maximum Force". In 1993, he appeared in the video game "Return to Zork", along with his sister, Robyn Lively. Reprised his role as Rusty Griswold in 2012 in a series of Old Navy holiday commercials featuring the Griswold family. Personal life. Jason is the son of talent manager Elaine Lively (née McAlpin) and her first husband, Ronnie Lively. He is the brother of actors Lori Lively (b. 1966), Robyn Lively (b. 1972) and half-brother of actors Eric Lively (b. 1981) and Blake Lively (b. 1987).
903941	Sherwin David "Wood" Harris (born October 17, 1969) is an American actor. He is best known for his roles as high school student Julius Campbell in the 2000 film "Remember the Titans" and the drug kingpin Avon Barksdale on the HBO crime drama "The Wire". Biography. Harris was born in Chicago, Illinois, the son of Mattie, a housewife, and John Harris, a bus driver. He holds a Bachelors of Arts in Theater Arts from Northern Illinois University (NIU) and a Master of Arts from New York University. He is the younger brother of actor Steve Harris. Career. While enrolled in NYU, Harris starred in his first major film role in the basketball drama "Above the Rim", starring opposite Tupac Shakur, and appeared in many theatrical stage productions of various off-Broadway plays. Harris subsequently guest-starred in a variety of television and film venues before portraying legendary rock guitarist Jimi Hendrix in Showtime's 2000 movie, "Hendrix". Later that year, Harris received his first NAACP Image Award nomination for "Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Motion Picture" along with the "Blockbuster Movie Award" nomination for "Favorite Supporting Actor in a Motion Picture" for his role as Julius "Big Ju" Campbell in "Remember The Titans". In 2002, he starred in the Dame Dash produced cult-classic film, "Paid in Full", based on the true story of three Harlem drug dealers with Harris playing the real-life kingpin, Azie Faison. He starred as Avon Barksdale, loosely based on the real-life Nathan Barksdale, in the first three seasons of HBO's original series "The Wire", as well as one episode in the fifth season. He also produced his own debut album, "Beautiful Wonderful", which was intended for release in 2005. In June 2008 director Martin Guigui revealed that Harris was cast as Nate "Sweetwater" Clifton in "Sweetwater", a movie about the first black player in the NBA. , it is still in production. In 2009 Harris had a major role in the film "Just Another Day", where he played a successful rapper named A-maze. The film is about the clash between a young up-and-coming rapper and an older one at the top of his game. Incidentally, the younger rapper was portrayed by Jamie Hector, whose character Marlo Stanfield had a similar role in the Wire, with respect to Harris's character. In 2012, Harris narrated the ESPN 30 for 30 film "Benji". In the same year he also played Harold "Mitch" Mitchell in the Broadway revival of "A Streetcar Named Desire" by Tennessee Williams; alongside Blair Underwood, Nicole Ari Parker, and Daphne Rubin-Vega.
1062229	Paul Bettany (born 27 May 1971) is an English actor. He first came to the attention of mainstream audiences when he appeared in the British film "Gangster No. 1" (2000), and director Brian Helgeland's film "A Knight's Tale" (2001). He has gone on to appear in a wide variety of films, including "A Beautiful Mind" (2001), "" (2003), "Dogville" (2003), and the adaptation of the novel "The Da Vinci Code" (2006). He is also known for his voice role as J.A.R.V.I.S. in "Iron Man" (2008), "Iron Man 2" (2010), "The Avengers" (2012), and "Iron Man 3" (2013). He has been nominated for various awards, including BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role and a Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture. Bettany is married to American actress Jennifer Connelly, with whom he has three children. His commercially most successful films have been "The Da Vinci Code " which grossed US$ 758 million, "A Beautiful Mind" which grossed US$ 314 million, and "The Tourist" which grossed US$ 278 million worldwide. Early life. Bettany was born in Shepherd's Bush, London, the son of Anne (née Kettle), a stage singer, theatre teacher, and stage manager, and Thane Bettany, a dancer, actor, and drama teacher. Initially, Bettany was raised Roman Catholic, but later attended Methodist and Church of England congregations with his father as his father experimented with different Christian branches. Bettany later became an atheist. While his father taught at the all-girls boarding school Queenswood School in Hertfordshire, the family lived on the campus. When Bettany was 16, his brother Matthew died at age 8 after falling onto concrete from a tennis pavilion roof at Queenswood. Soon after, Bettany dropped out of school, left home, and went to live on his own as a street performer in London. There, he lived in a small flat and earned money by playing his guitar in the streets as a busker. His parents later divorced. After two years, he found a new job in a home for the elderly. After working there for a year, Bettany enrolled at the Drama Centre in London. Career. In 1990 at the age of 19, Bettany began a three-year course at the Drama Centre London in Chalk Farm. He made his stage debut in Stephen Daldry's acclaimed West End revival of "An Inspector Calls" at the Aldwych Theatre, playing the part of Eric Birling. He also appeared in the Royal Shakespeare Company's productions of "Richard III", "Romeo and Juliet", and "Julius Caesar" (for which he received a Charleson Award nomination). When Bettany was 21 he appeared in a BBC production of Oliver Twist, as Bill Sikes. After appearing in the finale of Sean Bean's series "Sharpe" as HRH The Prince of Orange at the Battle of Waterloo, he made his film debut with a small part in "Bent", a Holocaust drama which also featured Clive Owen, Jude Law, and Ian McKellen. He continued doing work in stage and television, these included Joe Penhall's "Love and Understanding", which played at London's Bush Theatre and then ran in Connecticut. He had roles in the television productions "Killer Net" and "Coming Home", during which he met and dated Emily Mortimer. He did his last theatre work in "One More Wasted Year" and "Stranger's House" at the Royal Court Theatre.
1037421	Sean Martin Michael Maguire (born 18 April 1976 in Ilford, Essex) is an English actor and singer, who rose to fame in 1988 when at the age of eleven he took on the role of "Tegs" Ratcliffe on the BBC children's drama "Grange Hill", in which he remained until 1992. For a short time after leaving Grange Hill, he played Aidan Brosnan in "EastEnders". He has appeared in several feature films and had moderate success as a singer. He is known in the US for his roles as Donovan Brink on the UPN sitcom "Eve", and as Kyle Lendo in the CBS sitcom "The Class". Sean recently appeared in the 2nd series of "Scott & Bailey" as P.C. Sean McCartney. Early life. Maguire's family were prominent in the London Irish community in the late 1970s as Irish dancers and the whole family performed regularly at events and in competitions. Sean Maguire danced traditional Irish dances alongside his family. Career. His first role was at the age of five, opposite Laurence Olivier in "A Voyage Round My Father". At age seven, he played one of the many children in the "Every Sperm is Sacred" musical number in the 1983 film "Monty Python's The Meaning of Life". In 1993, he joined the cast of the British soap opera "EastEnders" playing Aidan Brosnan, a young Irish footballer playing for fictional side Walford F.C. In 1994, Sean left the show to take a starring role in the BBC drama series "Dangerfield", playing Marty Dangerfield. He has also appeared in "Holby City" and "Sunburn". In 1995, Sean was voted "3rd person you'd most like to see get messy" by CBBC viewers and famously received a custard pie in his face from presenter Chris Jarvis dressed as "The Anorak." Like many soap actors, Maguire then pursued a career in music, releasing three albums: his self-titled debut album in 1994, "Spirit" in 1996, and "Greatest Hits" in 1998. Sean's biggest hit was "Good Day", which reached number 12 in May 1996. During this time, Maguire appeared on the Childliners record "The Gift Of Christmas" alongside acts such as the Backstreet Boys, Boyzone, E.Y.C., MN8, Deuce, Ultimate Kaos, Let Loose, East 17, Peter Andre, Michelle Gayle, Dannii Minogue and many more. Maguire announced his retirement from the music industry during his final performance at Maesteg Town Hall. Not content with acting on TV, Sean has recently branched out into films. In the early 1990s, he appeared in "Waterland" alongside Ethan Hawke and Jeremy Irons, and has also allegedly been credited as having a part in "A Kiss Before Dying", but his part may have ended up on the cutting room floor as he did not appear to be in this film after all. In 2001, Maguire played the title role in the TV-film "Prince Charming", alongside Bernadette Peters, Christina Applegate and Billy Connolly - with Martin Short as his assistant, Rodney. In 2005, he also made "The Third Wish" - which co-starred actors Jenna Mattison, Armand Assante, Betty White and James Avery. He also appeared as "Euan" in the defunct WB Network sitcom "Off Centre" (which also co-starred actors Eddie Kaye Thomas from the "American Pie" films and Jason George from also defunct US soap "Sunset Beach"). Maguire played one of the main characters, Donovan Brink, on the television series "Eve". He was starring in the CBS sitcom "The Class", playing gay character Kyle Lendo, but the show was cancelled in May 2007. He completed filming in 2006-07 for a US comedy film "LA Blues". He played a character called Jack Davis. His film "Meet the Spartans" went to No. 1 in the US box office chart in 2008, although the film was panned by critics, and was voted 2nd worst film of 2008 by "The Times" newspaper, and he starred in "Mr Eleven" on ITV1 in autumn 2008. Maguire also signed on to a guest spot in Cupid for ABC, portraying an Irish musician. Maguire played the lead role in "Kröd Mändoon and the Flaming Sword of Fire", a comedy fantasy series in which he plays a "sensitive, but clueless freedom fighter". The show premiered in the US on Comedy Central on 9 April 2009, in Canada on Citytv on 8 June, and in the UK on BBC Two on 11 June.
437834	Arthur T. Benjamin (born March 19, 1961) is an American mathematician who specializes in combinatorics. Since 1989 he has been a Professor of Mathematics at Harvey Mudd College. He is known for mental math capabilities and mathemagics performances. These have included shows at the Magic Castle and TED. He is also the first mathematician to have been featured on the Colbert Report. He has a Bachelor of Science with highest honors in Applied Mathematics from Carnegie Mellon University in 1983, a Master of Science in Engineering in Mathematical Sciences in 1985 and a Doctor of Philosophy from Johns Hopkins University in 1989; his PhD dissertation was titled "Turnpike Structures for Optimal Maneuvers". During his freshman year at CMU he wrote the lyrics and created the magic effects for the musical comedy, "Kije!", in collaboration with author Scott McGregor and composer Arthur Darrell Turner. This musical was the winner of an annual competition and was first performed as the CMU's Spring Musical in 1980. The Mathematical Association of America gave him a regional award for distinguished teaching in 1999 and a national one in 2000. He was the Mathematical Association of America's George Pólya Lecturer for 2006-8. In 2012 he became a fellow of the American Mathematical Society. He also filmed a series of The Teaching Company lectures called "The Joy of Mathematics", "Discrete Mathematics", and "The Secrets of Mental Math". "Mathemagics", a multimedia disc released for the 3DO Interactive Multiplayer in 1994, consists largely of short demonstrations and lessons by Benjamin in mental math and mathemagics. Benjamin was one of the performers at the inaugural San Diego Science Festival on April 4, 2009. Benjamin won the American Backgammon Tour in 1997. He has written a book named "Think like a Math Genius" in which he shares ways to work with numbers quickly in mind without use of paper and pencil.
1058184	"Weekend at Bernie's" is a 1989 comedy film directed by Ted Kotcheff and starring Andrew McCarthy and Jonathan Silverman as a couple of young insurance corporation employees who discover their boss is deceased. Believing that they are responsible for his death and that a hitman will not kill them if Bernie is around, they attempt to convince people that he is still alive.
1055148	Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (; ) is a 2010 Thai film written, produced and directed by Apichatpong Weerasethakul. The film based around the theme of reincarnation, won the Palme d'Or at the 2010 Cannes Film Festival. Plot. The film centers on the last days in the life of its title character. Together with his loved ones – including the spirit of his dead wife and his lost son who has returned in a non-human form – Boonmee explores his past lives as he contemplates the reasons for his illness. Themes. "Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives" is the final installment in a multi-platform art project called Primitive. The project deals with the Isan region in Thailand's northeast, and in particular the village of Nabua in Nakhon Phanom, near the border to Laos. Previous installments include a seven-part video installation and the two short films "A Letter to Uncle Boonmee" and "Phantoms of Nabua", both of which premiered in 2009. The project deals with themes of memories, transformation and extinction, and touches on a violent 1965 crackdown on communist sympathisers in Nabua by the Thai army. Regarding the feature film's place within the overarching project, Apichatpong has said that it "echoes other works in the 'Primitive' installation, which is about this land in Isan with a brutal history. But I'm not making a political film - it's more like a personal diary." According to Apichatpong, the film is primarily about "objects and people that transform or hybridise". A central theme is the transformation and possible extinction of cinema itself. The film consists of six reels each shot in a different cinematic style. The styles include, by the words of the director, "old cinema with stiff acting and classical staging", "documentary style", "costume drama" and "my kind of film when you see long takes of animals and people driving". Apichatpong further explained in an interview with "Bangkok Post": "When you make a film about recollection and death, you realise that cinema is also facing death. Uncle Boonmee is one of the last pictures shot on film - now everybody shoots digital. It's my own little lamentation". Production. Apichatpong Weerasethakul says that a man named Boonmee approached Phra Sripariyattiweti, the abbot of a Buddhist temple in his home town, claiming he could clearly remember his own previous lives while meditating. The abbot was so impressed with Boonmee's ability that he published a book called "A Man Who Can Recall His Past Lives" in 1983. By the time Apichatpong read the book, Boonmee had died. The original idea was to adapt the book into a biographical film about Boonmee. However, that was soon abandoned to make room for a more personal film, while still using the book's structure and content as inspiration. The stories and production designs were inspired by old television shows and Thai comic books, which often used simple plots and were filled with supernatural elements. The film was an international co-production between Apichatpong's company" Kick the Machine", Britain's "Illuminations Films", France's "Anna Sanders Films", Germany's "The Match Factory" and "Geissendörfer Film- und Fernsehproduktion" and Spain's "Eddie Saeta". It received 3.5 million Baht in support from the Royal Thai Ministry of Culture. Filming took place between October 2009 and February 2010, as the weather conditions allowed, both in Bangkok and the northeast of Thailand, Isan. The movie was shot with 16 mm film instead of digital video both for budgetary reasons and to give the film a look similar to that of classic Thai cinema. Release. The film premiered in competition at the Cannes Film Festival on 21 May 2010. Theatrical distribution in Thailand was at first uncertain. "Every time I release a movie, I lose money because of the advertising and promotion, so I'm not sure if it's worth it, even though I would love to show it at home", Apichatpong said in an interview. On 25 June, however, Kick the Machine released it in a month-long run, limited to one theater in Bangkok. It passed uncut by the Thai censorship board, despite featuring scenes similar to those cut from the director's past two feature films. Distribution rights for the United States were acquired by Strand Releasing and it was released on 2 March 2011. Cartoonist Chris Ware created the poster for the U.S. release. Reception. Sukhdev Sandhu of "The Daily Telegraph" gave the film a perfect score of five stars in an early festival review. Sandhu wrote: "It’s barely a film; more a floating world. To watch it is to feel many things – balmed, seduced, amused, mystified," and continued: "There are many elements of this film that remain elusive and secretive. But that’s a large part of its appeal: Weerasethakul, without ever trading in stock images of Oriental inscrutability, successfully conveys the subtle but important other-worldliness of this part of Thailand". In "Screen International", Mark Adams called the film "a beautifully assembled affair, with certain scenes staged with painterly composure, and also increasingly moving as the subtle story develops. Plus Apichatpong Weerasethakul is not afraid of adding in moments of surreal humour – often laugh-out-loud moments for that – which helps the pacing of the film." Willis Wong of "Intermedias Review" acclaimed director's achievement: "'Uncle Boonmee' is a slow, meditative and often baffling journey visually gorgeous and worth taking."
1058884	Inseminoid (titled Horror Planet in the United States) is a British science-fiction horror film released in 1981. Director Norman J. Warren's eighth film, the plot of "Inseminoid" concerns a group of future scientists excavating the ruins of an ancient civilisation on a distant planet. When a monstrous alien creature attacks and inseminates one of the women in the team, chaos ensues as the unbalanced victim, possessing unnatural strength, murders her colleagues one after another in a psychotic bid to protect her unborn twin hybrid offspring. It stars Judy Geeson, Robin Clarke, and Stephanie Beacham. Victoria Tennant makes an early film appearance. Filmed between May and June 1980, "Inseminoid" is based on a script written by Nick and Gloria Maley, a couple who had contributed to the special effects of Warren's films starting with "Satan's Slave" (1976). A low budget of £1 million, half of which was contributed by the Hong Kong Shaw Brothers, funded location filming in both the Chislehurst Caves in Kent and on the island of Gozo in Malta. Composer John Scott perfected the electronic score of "Inseminoid" in multiple hours-long studio sessions following the completion of shooting. Although initial box office reception was positive both in the United Kingdom and overseas, "Inseminoid" has since failed to impress a majority of critics, who have faulted Warren's film for perceived poor acting, special effects and set design. Despite praise for actress Judy Geeson's depiction of the lead character, Sandy, approval of the film in general has been tarnished due to its concept of an extraterrestrial insemination, which has been viewed negatively in comparison to the premise of "Alien" (1979). Both Warren and "Alien" distributors 20th Century Fox have rejected claims that the script of "Inseminoid" was influenced by that of the earlier film. Academic criticism of "Inseminoid" has concentrated on the film's treatment of the female sex and female sexualities in the context of corruption by an alien source. In addition to its depiction of the abject Sandy, who is rendered a distorted Other in the aftermath of her unnatural impregnation, the film has been seen to incorporate a clash between the patriarchal and the maternal towards its climax, as the would-be-mother eliminates her former friends one by one. Complementing the film's successful VHS run, a novelisation of "Inseminoid" has been written by author Larry Miller. Plot. On a desolate planet, a team of 12 Xeno project scientists are conducting an archaeological excavation of the ruins of an ancient civilisation. Shortly after an underground tomb network is found to contain crystals and wall inscriptions, photographer Dean White (Dominic Jephcott) is engulfed in a rock blast and left incapacitated. Deciphering the alien language in the caves, xenolinguist Mitch (Trevor Thomas) theorises that the civilisation was built on the concept of dualism: the planet orbits a binary star, and a pair of twins seems to have ruled the race that once inhabited it. Medical assistant Sharon (Heather Wright) finds that an energy field surrounds the crystals, leading her to believe that a "chemical intelligence" ordered life on the planet. A deranged Ricky Williams (David Baxt) is impelled to re-enter the caves when a sample of crystals starts to pulsate and the chemical intelligence exerts its influence through a mark on his arm. Thrown into a grille in a compromised environmental suit, a panicked Gail (Rosalind Lloyd) commits suicide, removing her helmet and freezing to death in the toxic atmosphere while trying to amputate her trapped foot with a chainsaw. Documentation officer Kate Frost (Stephanie Beacham) shoots Ricky with a harpoon gun before he opens both the inner and outer airlock doors and renders the air inside the base unbreathable. Following the burial of Ricky and Gail, Mitch and Sandy (Judy Geeson) return to the caves to collect more crystals. A monstrous creature appears and dismembers Mitch before proceeding to rape Sandy. Found distraught, Sandy receives treatment from Sharon and chief medical officer Karl (Barry Houghton), who discovers that the assault has initiated an accelerated pregnancy despite the regular intravenous injections of contraceptives given to the women in the team. When further explosions within the catacombs scupper chances of deeper investigation, the surviving members of the team are left with nothing to do except await the arrival of a Xeno rescue shuttle. The intelligence assumes control of Sandy, who has been marked in the same way as Ricky. Mentally unbalanced, Sandy demonstrates superhuman strength while stabbing Barbra (Victoria Tennant) to death with scissors. She then mutilates Dean and the remains of Mitch, drinking their blood. The rest of the team seek refuge in the Operations Room as Sandy destroys important hardware—including the base transmitter—with explosives. When the imbalance in Sandy's mind appears to correct itself, Karl, Sharon and Commander Holly McKay (Jennifer Ashley) attempt sedation to spare her unborn offspring. Sandy's madness returns and Holly and Karl are killed in an accident with heat-sealing apparatus, whereupon Sandy disembowels the corpses. Senior officer Mark (Robin Clarke) radios Sandy, his lover, from the Operations Room to stall for time as Kate and operations chief Gary (Stephen Grives) leave to commandeer chainsaws. The ruse is uncovered and Sandy harpoons Gary outside the airlock, breathing the atmosphere to no ill effect as she mauls his flesh. Preparing for a final confrontation, Mark stumbles across Sandy's newborn mutant twins. He entrusts them to Sharon as their mother blasts through the Operations Room door and destroys all the equipment inside, although it is evident that she has lost her unnatural strength. Crippled from the blast of an explosive charge, Kate is gored to death. In a last stand, Mark strangles and kills Sandy with a ripped-out cable. He returns to Sharon to find one of the twins biting at her gashed neck, before its sibling launches itself at him. Twenty-eight days later, Xeno Auxiliary Module 047 lands on the planet to investigate the loss of contact with the team. With the base in ruins, the mission records destroyed and the complement of scientists either murdered or missing, combat marksmen Corin (Kevin O'Shea) and Roy (Robert Pugh) abandon the search for survivors and pilot Jeff (John Segal) contacts Xeno control to request clearance to return. The final shots reveal that Sandy's children have stowed themselves away inside a storage compartment on board the shuttle. Production. Following the releases of "Satan's Slave" (1976), "Prey" (1978) and "Terror" (1979), Norman J. Warren had at first been attached to direct a film titled "Gargoyles". When this production collapsed at the scripting stage, Warren and his producer, Richard Gordon, accepted a plot proposal from the husband-and-wife team of Nick and Gloria Maley, who had worked on "Satan's Slave" as members of the special effects department besides "" (1977) and "Superman" (1978). The Maleys drafted their concept as a composite of their favourite science-fiction ideas and a chance to exhibit the best of their effects work, although the suggested title, "Doomseeds", had to be changed to avoid confusion with the 1977 film "Demon Seed". The script for the new "Inseminoid", which indicates that the film is set two decades in the future in a militaristic universe, required a number of amendments prior to filming, although the premise gained the approval of Warren and Gordon. Agreeing to fund half of the proposed £1 million budget, the Hong Kong Shaw Brothers became partners in the film's production. Elder brother Sir Run Run Shaw is credited as the presenter of "Inseminoid" in the opening titles. With a production staff of 75, principal photography commenced on 12 May 1980. John Metcalfe, camera operator for "Satan's Slave" and "Terror", assumed the role of cinematographer. His former role fell to the less experienced Dick Pope. Three weeks of location filming at the Chislehurst Caves in Kent preceded a one-week indoor session at Lee International Studios at Wembley Park in London. The second unit completed special effects and linking shots in a fifth week, based at Film House in Wardour Street. To simulate the desolate landscape of the alien planet in long shots, the production team departed for the island of Gozo off Malta for a final recording session of two days, capitalising on the strong Mediterranean sun to produce good lighting. Opting to record using Mitchell cameras incorporating 35 mm Eastman Kodak film and anamorphic lenses, Warren recalls that the produced footage boasted "an incredibly sharp image and what I would term as the 'American' look." He remembers that the setting of the Chislehurst Caves rendered the subterranean complex more realistic than a potential in-studio alternative given the modest budget of "Inseminoid". However, the cold, damp, airless conditions, combined with the uneven surface of the cave floors, complicated the filming sessions and necessitated frequent repairs of equipment. Shooting often ran for 12 hours at a time and led to frequent minor injuries among the cast and production staff, while some developed intense feelings of claustrophobia in the confined space. Gordon suggests that the uncomfortable working conditions made the performances of the cast more realistic, but concedes that although, "I think all this paid off in terms of what we got on the screen for the budget, but the circumstances were very difficult." In the absence of suitable facilities inside the caves, the personnel established administrative, dressing and make-up rooms in a car park some distance from the recording area. Co-writer Nick Maley reprised his role as a special effects technician to produce the infant twin props that appear in the climax of the film. Shooting on "Inseminoid" wrapped 48 hours behind schedule. Music. On his contribution to "Inseminoid", Warren stated that Peter Boyle proved to be "a pleasure to work with, because he had a natural feel for the material and managed to create just the right pace and rhythm throughout the film." During the post-production process, the editing staff increased the brightness of the original print, concerned that a dim appearance would damage the chances of sales to television broadcasters, and removed the most graphic shots of the birth of the mutant children for the purposes of classification. The opening title visuals, consisting of vibrant oil frames, are a contribution of Oxford Scientific Films. Determining that the low budget precluded an orchestral soundtrack, Warren and his long-standing composer, John Scott, agreed that all the music should be electronic. Produced after hours of studio multi-tracking and overdubbing, Warren considers the final score an "amazing achievement" and praises Scott's realisation of a soundtrack incorporating the "experimental" electronic brand of music. The score received an LP release in 1982. Casting. Producer Richard Gordon cast American actors Clarke and Ashley while on business in Hollywood. Prior to "Inseminoid", Ashley had starred in minor films of such independent studios as Crown International Pictures, while Clarke had just completed filming on the 1980 film "The Formula". Warren recalls that although Ashley "was not the greatest actress, she was very enthusiastic and very easy to work with." The professional relationship between Warren and Clarke broke down during the filming of sequences such as Dean's incapacitation inside the caves, when the director and actor disagreed about the extent to which Clarke needed to respond to the script when his character raises his voice to a shout. Warren asserts that Clarke's "high opinion of himself" made the actor "a nightmare to work with", and adds that he "could be extremely difficult, making every scene with him an uphill struggle." Rapports between the director and other cast members proved to be positive: in particular, Geeson is credited as "an absolute dream to work with" and praised for her acting of the maddened expectant mother, which Warren argues avoids descending into unintentional humour. Gordon also offers a positive assessment, stating that Geeson accepted the demands of her part with enthusiasm and did not complain that it demeaned her as an actress. Warren retains fond memories of Beacham's "very professional" performance, and remarks that, "with tongue firmly in cheek, she would often wind me up by asking what her motivation was for a particular action, just as I about to call 'Action!', knowing full well that my answer would be, 'Because it's in the script'." Beacham, a mother of two infant children, agreed to appear in the film to support her family: "I had to choose between a play that I really, really wanted to do, which would have paid me £65 a week, and this script for a film called "Inseminoid". Hey! No choice. Two pink babies asleep upstairs! No choice!" Distribution. In the United Kingdom, "Inseminoid" premiered on 22 March 1981 in the Midlands. It later opened at 65 cinemas in the region, and reached London in October. Overseas, German cinemas had begun to exhibit the film in January under the title "Samen des Bösen" (English: "Seeds of Evil"). To the dislike of Warren, distributors Almi released the film under the title "Horror Planet" in the United States and Canada, but later restored the name to the original "Inseminoid". Original pre-release advertising included a regional "mail drop" of circulars presenting screenshots of a screaming Geeson and the tagline "Warning! An Horrific Alien Birth! A Violent Nightmare in Blood! "Inseminoid" at a Cinema Near You Soon!" Warren, who regrets the decision to publicise the film in such a graphic manner, comments, "The problem with mail-drops is that you have no way of knowing who lives in the house, or who will see it first. It could be a pregnant woman, and old lady, or even worse, a young child. So it was not such a good idea." Rated "X" in the United Kingdom, in the United States "Inseminoid" screened under the "R" certificate for its "profanity, nudity, violence, rape and gore". In 2005, the British Board of Film Classification revised its certification of "Inseminoid", re-rating the film "15" from "18" for its "strong, bloody violence". "Inseminoid" became one of the first films to be released on VHS soon after its appearance in cinemas, and reached seventh position in British video sales charts in November 1981. Renewed editions became available in 1992 and 1998. Reception. "Inseminoid" attracted positive critical reception on its original release. In terms of box office performance, it reached a high of fifth position in the 1981 British charts. At one point it ranked seventh at the box office in France, while in the United States it proceeded to enter the "Los Angeles Times" list of top ten films. American director Roger Corman congratulated Warren on the film and considered commissioning him for further productions. However, a private screening had failed to impress members of the British Academy of Film and Television Arts, who dismissed "Inseminoid" as "'Commercial rubbish! ... Not the sort of thing the Academy should be showing ... And certainly not the kind of film the British film industry should be making!'" In 1982, "Inseminoid" received a minor accolade at the Italian Fantafestival (winning the Best Special Effects prize) and a nomination at the Fantasporto convention in Portugal (for the Best Film award). Recalling how the depiction the female sex in "Inseminoid" displeased women's circles, Warren states, "It seems it is quite common for pregnant women to have nightmares about giving birth to some kind of monster. Of course, all their complaints and their letters which were printed in the local papers only helped to increase the queue at the box office." Examining the acting in a review published in "Starlog" magazine, Alan Jones expressed a preference for the British members of the cast, crediting Geeson as "absolutely first-rate" and criticising "the weak performances from the token Americans, Robin Clarke and Jennifer Ashley". Praising the production values for cost-effectiveness, he discerned signs of Warren's "particular trademark" in such murder scenes as that of Barbra (through repeated scissor-stabbing) and Holly (through heat-searing). He professed his opinion that "Inseminoid" "is not faultless by any means", citing a predictable and often "ridiculous" plot as factors detracting from his pleasure in viewing the film. Nevertheless, he asserted that "Inseminoid" meets audience demands for a B film of its genre, progressing "at such a pace that you nearly almost forget that you've seen it all before", and declared it to be "far less routine and far more enjoyable than I had expected." Critical response in the United States proved to be less favourable. In a review published in Virginia in January 1983, Edward Jones of "The Free-Lance Star" offered praise for the "novel touch" of casting a would-be-mother as the principal villain, commenting, "In what has to be a new low, even for extraterrestrial-horror films, all the men end up punching this pregnant woman in the stomach. What a time to have twins!" Nevertheless, "Inseminoid" is discarded as "no more than a mix of everything-you've-ever-seen-in-a-horror-movie-and-didn't-particularly-want-to-see-again." In a November 1983 edition of the Floridian newspaper "Boca Raton News", Skip Sheffield branded the film "horrible" and "cheapo", suggesting that his readers "Imagine "Alien" without the fantastic sets, convincing special effects and literate dialogue, and you have a picture of "Horror Planet"." He added his opinion that brutal violence does not guarantee narrative suspense, punning on the name Run Run Shaw in his downbeat conclusion that ""Horror Planet" is a film to run, run away from—fast." In 2004, Douglas Pratt argued that "Inseminoid" consists of "some gooey gore shots but few other thrills" and denounced the quality of the acting and props used. He still conceded that "Inseminoid" "goes through the motions properly, however, so fans will probably find it worth passing the time." The film is award one star out of five on the AllRovi website, where reviewer Cavett Binion rules that it is a "fairly standard rip-off" of "Alien" in spite of the originality of its core premise, with a "rabid, eye-popping performance" from Geeson that is "more than a bit uncomfortable to watch." The rape sequence is seen as a "surreal and truly disgusting flashback" and the title of the film itself deemed "sleazy". Warren rejects the label "video nasty", which has been applied to "Inseminoid" on the incorrect assumption that its violent content made it impossible to release uncut on home video formats in the United Kingdom. In response to the idea that the film has attained cult status, he remarks, "if "Inseminoid" has become some form of cult movie, then I am very pleased and, indeed, very flattered." On his private response to his work, he answers that "I don't think you could ever be one hundred percent satisfied with any film you make", and that, in the scenario of remaking "Inseminoid", he would darken the lighting of certain scenes to heighten the tension and demand a longer filming schedule. Interpretation. "Inseminoid" has been criticised as a perceived imitation, "knock-off" or "rip-off" of the 1979 science-fiction horror film "Alien". Peter Wright, a film historian, interprets both the "atmospheric" scenes set in the underground tomb network, and the mess hall sequence preceding Rick's madness, as potential derivations from Ridley Scott's film: while the first recalls the setting of the remote planetoid, LV-426, the second resonates with the "Chest Burster" horror scene. Wright asserts that the connection of "Inseminoid" to "Alien" could appear to be "exploitative", while Barry Langford of the University of London sees "Inseminoid" as representative of the dependence of British cinema on its American counterpart. Alan Jones suggests that "any similarity between "Inseminoid" and "Alien" is totally intentional. Except here is the basic idea contained in "Alien" taken to its sleaziest extreme." He interprets one such parallel in the character of Kate who, it is argued, emulates the appearance of Sigourney Weaver in the role of Ellen Ripley. However, he cites "Contamination" (1980) and "Scared to Death" (1981) as less effective imitations of Scott. Besides "Alien", Edward Jones discerns elements of the novel "Dracula" (1897), the television series "The Bionic Woman" (1976–8), and the films "Night of the Living Dead" (1968) and "The Thing" (1982) in the plot of "Inseminoid". However, Warren denies claims of an imitation, citing the discrepancies between the production schedules: when "Inseminoid" entered the shooting stage, "Alien", which had been filmed in closed studios, had been released in the United Kingdom months before. Although the director accepts the often "uncanny" similarities between the films, "Alien" distributors 20th Century Fox discounted the threat of derivation after watching final cut of "Inseminoid": "They agreed it was not an "Alien" rip-off, and in fact, the head of Fox sent us a very nice letter saying how much he enjoyed the film and wished us luck with the release ... I find it flattering that anyone can compare "Alien", which cost in the region of $30 million, with "Inseminoid" which cost less than £1 million. We must have done something right." Wright construes the transformation of Sandy from innocent female to a murderous mother-to-be of human-alien crossbred twins as a "direct manifestation of masculine anxiety regarding female reproductive capacity". He notes that the origin of the horror that powers "Inseminoid" is internalised as the seed of a violent alien life form, which renders Sandy "woman-as-other", or "abject Other". This opposes transferring "fear of woman onto the alien other" as demonstrated through the extraterrestrial villain of "Alien". However, it is reminiscent of the 1977 film "Demon Seed", which casts an advanced computer as the source of a defiling rape that leads to insemination: "in both films, women are framed as 'Other' by their sexual congress with more conventional iconic others: the machine and the alien." Pregnancies are depicted as sources of horror, an attitude apparent in the "uterine and cervical" opening credits of "Inseminoid", which indicate that "the viewer is entering the realm of the monstrous womb ... the titling reveals a microscopic insect resident in the body of a larger organism." Wright argues that Warren's inspiration of terror through a distorted representation of the uterus strikes a chord with the 1979 film "The Brood", in which a woman produces deformed children through asexual reproduction. Commenting further, he examines the rape sequence itself, in which Sandy witnesses Karl injecting her with an unknown substance prior to the alien insemination, and forms a connection to dialogue in other scenes which indicates that the female Xeno scientists are administered regular intravenous injections for the purposes of contraception. The impregnation of Sandy through perverted intercourse, conflicting with the suppression of childbirth that is manifested through Karl's use of a hypodermic and (phallic) needle, reveals "coherent sexism" insofar as "Inseminoid" "attacks the very notion of female sexual freedom, while suggesting, paradoxically, that contraception is the responsibility of women." That Sandy reproduces at an accelerated pace and regresses into an animalistic state form factors adding to her depiction as an abject Other and an object for "male paranoia". In the final struggle, which pits the patriarchal social structure of the Xeno team against the maternal element embodied through the pregnant female, it is not until Gary has half-suffocated in the toxic atmosphere that he is murdered. Wright argues that the sequence reassures a male in spite of its graphic content, suggesting that no female, including one with superhuman strength, can possess the power to deprive a man of life in cold blood. A murderer of colleagues of both sexes, that Sandy dies at the hands of Mark ultimately renders her an aid to the re-empowerment of the male sex, although the twin offspring are quick to avenge their departed mother. Comparing the plot of "Inseminoid" to Biblical scriptures, Christopher Partridge of Lancaster University turns his attention to the nature of the twins, referring to them as "essentially space Nephilim, technological demons with appetites and habits reminiscent of the mythic forebears." Maternal images endure into the epilogue documenting the arrival of Jeff, Corin and Roy at the Xeno base. In an allusion to the human menstrual cycle, it is said that 28 days have elapsed since the communications break-down. The destruction of the installation and the deaths of its occupants are attributed to an "internal disturbance of some kind", forming "an ironic phrase which encapsulates the film's vision of pregnancy as an irruption of Otherness from within." Focusing on Larry Miller's 1981 novelisation of "Inseminoid", described as "imaginative and misogynistic", Wright refers to sequences in the narrative, some absent in the original film, that inspire repulsion in the mind of the reader at the distortion of the female form. New transformations that afflict Sandy include oozing sores (which Wright construes as an aberration of natal oil secretion) and pus emanating from the nipples (argued to mirror colostrum, or pre-milk). Sandy accepts such unnatural metamorphoses, which culminate in the onset of labour, with fascination. Cultural references. A punk rock band from Long Island, New York named themselves after the film. Their theme song, "Horror Planet", contained lyrical references to horrific aspects of the plot. The song was not released as a record but was circulated on cassette demonstration tapes prior to the only official release by the band. In 1985, Horror Planet released a professionally-produced recording on an EP record with hand-painted fabric sleeves. The songs from the Horror Planet record were subsequently re-released in their entirety on the anthology CD compilation, "Something in the Water: the Secret History of Long Island Punk", by Winged Disk Records. A brief clip of "Inseminoid" is featured in the "South Park" episode "Helen Keller! The Musical", seen during character Eric Cartman's disturbing vision while he uses sensory deprivation to penetrate the mind of Helen Keller.
1164242	Peter Billingsley (born April 16, 1971), also known as Peter Michaelsen and Peter Billingsley-Michaelsen, is an American actor, director, and producer best known for his role as Ralphie in the 1983 movie "A Christmas Story" and as "Messy Marvin" in the Hershey's Chocolate Syrup commercials during the 1970s. He began his career as an infant, in television commercials. Early life, family and education. Billingsley was born in New York City, New York. His father, Alwin Michaelsen, is a financial consultant who graduated from Princeton in 1954, and his mother, Gail Billingsley was once Alwin's secretary. Gail is the niece of Stork Club owner Sherman Billingsley. Gail's cousin, Glenn Billingsley, was briefly married to actress Barbara Billingsley (1915–2010); she continued to use his last name for her stage name. Gail was the one who initially took the children around to auditions. All five of the children in the family had acting careers when they were young. The oldest of Billingsley's siblings, Dina and Win, had the briefest acting careers working mostly in commercials with brief guest spots on television shows. Dina and her current husband live in Chester County, Pennsylvania. Win is now an attorney in Istanbul, Turkey. Billingsley's older sister Melissa Michaelsen was probably best known for her role as Maxx Davis in the 1980 television show "Me and Maxx". Slightly older than Peter is brother Neil Billingsley who began playing Danny Walton on the daytime soap opera "Search for Tomorrow" in 1975 and had numerous roles in commercials and guest shots on TV series. Following his acting career, Neil entered the world of finance and works in New York City. Billingsley received his early childhood education from a combination of tutors (including child actor tutor Wesley Staples), public schools and private institutions (including the Professional Children's School in New York City), Phoenix Country Day School in Paradise Valley, AZ, and eventually passed his California High School Proficiency Exam at the age of fourteen. He seems to have also attended some public secondary schools following the GED including Arcadia High School in Phoenix. In the late 1980s, Billingsley took a brief break from show business to attend Phoenix College. Career. Billingsley's first acting role was as a two-year-old in a Geritol commercial with Betty Buckley playing his mom. He went on to star in about 120 television ads throughout the 1970s and early 80s. At 12 he was quoted as saying: "After 100 (commercials), you lose count." He was likely best known for a series of commercials for Hershey's chocolate syrup in which he portrayed the popular character Messy Marvin. One of Billingsley's earliest film roles was 1978's "If Ever I See You Again (film)", written and directed by Joseph Brooks. His role in 1981's "Paternity" opposite Burt Reynolds earned a nomination for "Best Young Comedian - Motion Picture or Television" at The Young Artist Awards. Also in 1981, he appeared in "Honky Tonk Freeway", and that October was a guest on "The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson". In 1982 Billingsley starred in several features, including "Death Valley", "Massarati and the Brain", and the made-for-TV movie "Memories Never Die" with Lindsay Wagner and his sister, Melissa Michaelsen. He had a featured guest role as Gideon Hale on "Little House on the Prairie", began a three-year stint as a co-host on NBC's popular "Real People" (which would land him another Young Artist Award nomination), and he hosted a two-episode offshoot of the show called "Real Kids". In 1983 Billingsley starred in "A Christmas Story", based on Jean Shepherd's "In God We Trust, All Others Pay Cash", which built its audience slowly over the years and is now broadcast for twenty-four hours from Christmas Eve until Christmas Day on TBS. "A Christmas Story" tells of a boy named Ralphie who wants nothing more than a Red Ryder BB gun for Christmas, while all the grown-ups in his life discourage him with the warning that "you'll shoot your eye out." This film earned Billingsley another Young Artist Award nomination, and is arguably the one role he is most associated with. Billingsley himself has been quoted as saying that people still approach him on the street, only to say "you'll shoot your eye out, kid!" In 1984 Billingsley starred in an adaptation of "The Hoboken Chicken Emergency" with Dick Van Patten and Gabe Kaplan, a special Thanksgiving episode of the PBS series "WonderWorks". He also appeared on a "Super Teen" special edition of the popular "Family Feud" and on the game show "Celebrity Hot Potato". As the late 1980s approached, Billingsley's acting career slowed. He was a guest star on "Who's The Boss?", "Punky Brewster", "The Wonder Years", and "Highway To Heaven", and appeared in the film "The Dirt Bike Kid" (for which he won a Young Artist Award), and "Carly's Web", "Russkies" (alongside a young Joaquin Phoenix) and "Beverly Hills Brats". The early 1990s saw Billingsley tackling older roles such as a would-be jock who gets hooked on steroids in the CBS Schoolbreak Special "The Fourth Man". On that project he formed a close friendship with Vince Vaughn. His next Schoolbreak Special appearance was in 1994's "The Writing on the Wall", starring Hal Linden as a rabbi who teaches three boys about the horrors of intolerance after they are caught defacing his home, temple, and car with swastikas and anti-Semitic graffiti. Billingsley was nominated for an Emmy Award for this role. Other work. The most rewarding of his later film acting assignments was 1993's "Arcade", in which he starred as a teenaged "virtual reality" addict, and also worked as the post-production supervisor (credited as Peter Michaelsen). He made some career decisions and began working behind the scenes more. Known as Peter Michaelsen, he was assistant editor on "Knights", a film which featured Kris Kristofferson. In 1994 Peter starred in, wrote, and directed (credited as Peter Billingsley) the short film "The Sacred Fire", and credited as Peter Michaelsen in the executive producer function. This film won an Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Films' Golden Scroll Award. His career behind the scenes continued, including work on The Discovery Channel's "A.R.K., The Adventures of Animal Rescue Kids", "Patriot Son", "The X Show", "Made", and "Elf", in which he has a cameo appearance. In 2001 he was nominated for an Emmy Award as co-executive producer for the show "Dinner for Five". In 2005 he helped produce the movie "Zathura". He was an executive producer for the Universal Pictures production "The Break-Up" starring Jennifer Aniston and Vince Vaughn in which he also plays Andrew appearing alongside frequent collaborator Jon Favreau. Billingsley served as executive producer on director Favreau's "Iron Man" feature film; he also acted in the film, playing a scientist who works for Obadiah Stane. Billingsley, Favreau and Vaughn all appear in 2008's "Four Christmases." "Couples Retreat" (2009) starring Favreau and Vaughn was Billingsley's first major film as director. Billingsley's acting career continues as well, with small roles in "Sherman Oaks", "Family Reunion: A Relative Nightmare", "Elf", "L.A. Heat" and "No Deposit, No Return", which was voted Best Feature Film at the New York International Independent Film and Video Festival in 2000. He also took an acting part in an experimental film for the new Maxivision 48 projection system developed by Dean Goodhill. Billingsley released a CD titled "Christmas Stories...Christmas Songs" on Run For Cover Records in 1999 with longtime friend Brian Evans. Billingsley has recently signed on as Executive Producer of a musical adaptation of "A Christmas Story" that opened in Seattle during the second week of December 2010. He is "...honored to be a part of this project and look forward to bringing the play to more stages... Just think about the idea of a leg-lamp kickline."
590351	Saswata Chatterjee also known as Apu is a popular Bengali male actor of television and films based in Kolkata, India. Born to famous Bengali actor Subhendu Chatterjee, Saswata began his career with a Hindi serial directed by Saibal Mitra, based on Samaresh Majumdar's Kaalpurush. He gained popularity by portraying the character of Topshe in a television series directed by Sandip Ray. His breakthrough role came in Sujoy Ghosh's 2012 blockbuster Hindi film, Kahaani, where he played a simple looking scary contract killer Bob Biswas. The nation went berserk with his portrayal of the villain and comparisons with the iconic Bolly-baddies 'Mogambo' and 'Gabbar Singh' were also drawn. He has also been nominated for International Indian Film Academy Awards (IIFA) for best actor for his negative role in "Kahaani". His last released Meghe Dhaka Tara is one of the highly appreciated Bengali movie in recent times. Early life. Saswata Chatterjee was born on 19 December 1970 to Subhendu Chatterjee, one of the famous Bengali actor. From his Childhood days, Saswata loved to watch a lot of theater and enact scenes in front of the mirror. His father had no clue about what he wanted to do in life. He would pester him about this and that decided to take up acting as profession. Personal life. Saswata Chatterjee lives in Kolkata and is married to Mohua, a teacher, The actor has one daughter. Career. Saswata started his career with a Hindi serial directed by Saibal Mitra, based on Samaresh Majumdar’s Kaalpurush. Later, he acted on a television series directed by Sandip Ray, where he portrayed the character of "Topshe". After this television debut, his acting skills were appreciated and he gain popularity. In 2012, he worked on blockbuster Hindi film, 'Kahaani' with Sujoy Ghosh and famous Bollywood actress Vidya Balan. In that film, he played the role of a cold-blooded killer named Bob Biswas. His role as Bob became so popular that Saswata describes it as The character went viral on Facebook and Twitter with thousands of followers. A graphic novel is in the making was also inspired from Bob's character. His latest, Meghe Dhaka Tara was released on 14 June 2013, a film which is inspired from the life and works of Bengali film director Ritwik Ghatak and also depicts the socio-political environment of contemporary West Bengal during the Tebhaga and Naxalite movements. In this movie, he played the lead character as Nilkantha Bagchi and his acting is widely appreciated. In an interview Chatterjee told that he tried to give his weight and he shed some body weight to fit in the character of Nilkantha. He told, he watched a lot of Ghatak's films and documentaries to understand his body language. Chatterjee told in an interview that during the shooting he became so involved with his character that he even faced difficulties to talk to his wife Mohua at that time.
1365905	The Year Without a Santa Claus is a 1974 Rankin/Bass stop motion animated television special. The story is based on Phyllis McGinley's 1956 book of the same name, illustrated by Kurt Werth. Plot. The special is narrated by Shirley Booth (as Mrs. Claus). Santa Claus (voiced by Mickey Rooney, who voiced the same character in "Santa Claus Is Comin' to Town," of which this special is a semi-sequel) wakes up with a cold and is told by his doctor, who thinks that nobody cares about Christmas any more (even though he wishes Santa Claus and Mrs. Claus a merry Christmas), that he should make some changes to his routine on Christmas. He decides to take a holiday, and it is up to the elves, Jingle and Jangle, to find people who still believe in Santa Claus. The elves, however, run into trouble along the way flying between Heat and Snow Miser who are fighting, when they get shot down and are lost in Southtown, a small town in the Southern United States. They get a ticket from a Police Officer who does not know them or their baby reindeer, Vixen. They get accused of "riding a vixen the wrong way on a one way street, crossing the White Line, and wearing funny looking clothes on a Sunday." When they try to disguise Vixen as a dog, Vixen is mistaken for a lost dog and is sent to the pound, where she sickens in the heat. They befriend a young boy named Ignatius Thistlewhite ("Iggy" for short) and all visit the skeptical Mayor of Southtown, who laughs hysterically at their story but agrees to free the reindeer if Jingle and Jangle prove that they are Santa's magical elves by making it snow in Southtown on Christmas Day. Figuring into the storyline are two of the best-remembered Rankin/Bass characters, Heat Miser (voiced by George S. Irving) and his brother Snow Miser (voiced by Dick Shawn) who are opposite forces of Nature and are "constantly" at war against each other. Kind Mrs. Claus comes to ask both of them to work out a compromise to permit a Christmas snow in South Town, U.S.A, Heat Miser's territory; he agrees only if Snow Miser will surrender the North Pole to his control, only to hear the obviously offended Snow Miser shout in shock "COOPERATE?! 'Surrender the North Pole' "YOU" CALL 'COOPERATE?!'". When they refuse to cooperate, Mrs. Claus goes to their mother, Mother Nature, who forces them to compromise. Meanwhile, Santa dresses in "civilian" clothes in order to find and rescue Vixen and ends up finding that some people still believe in him and in the spirit of Christmas, especially when the world's children decide they will make him presents if he plans on taking a holiday. The children's decision sets off headlines around the world. One little girl, however, is sad to miss Santa on Christmas Eve, and she writes that she'll have a "Blue Christmas." Touched by all the evidence he has seen of caring and generosity, Santa decides to pack the sleigh and make his Christmas Eve journey after all, including a public stop in a snowy South Town. Production. The special premiered in 1974 on ABC where it aired annually until 1980, and still airs on the ABC Family cable network. Warner Bros. Television is the show's current distributor, through their ownership of the post-1974 Rankin/Bass TV library. Remake. A 90-minute 2006 live-action remake of the Rankin-Bass classic "The Year Without a Santa Claus" which premiered on NBC December 11, 2006. A widescreen DVD was released on December 12, 2006 (UPC 085391115120). This remake follows the same basic concept as the original: Santa, disillusioned by children's lack of belief in him and in the spirit of giving, decides not to deliver toys this Christmas Eve, despite the arguments by Mrs. Claus and two of his helper-elves, Jingle and Jangle. They decide to provide Santa with some proof that children still believe and that they still deserve toys from Santa, so the elves visit the United States in search of Christmas spirit. Sequel. This 2008 sequel used stop-motion animation like the original. It was animated by Cuppa Coffee Studios. Mickey Rooney, at age 88, reprised his role as Santa Claus; and George S. Irving, at age 86, reprised his role as Heat Miser. Snow Miser, originally voiced by Dick Shawn who died in 1987, was voiced by Juan Chioran. Mrs. Claus, originally voiced by Shirley Booth who died in 1992, was voiced by Catherine Disher.
1173035	Kirk Jones (born November 3, 1973), better known by his stage name Sticky Fingaz, is an American rapper and actor. He is a member of the multi-platinum record selling rap group Onyx. His name comes from the slang term given to someone who is a thief (as in "everything I touch, I take"). As an actor, he is perhaps best known for his television roles as Private Maurice "Smoke" Williams on the 2005 FX drama "Over There", his recurring role as rapper Kern Little on "The Shield", and as the title character in the 2006 Spike action-horror-drama "". He appears on crime-drama shows such as "NCIS" and "Law & Order".
1040610	Laura Fraser (born 24 July 1976) is a Scottish actress, known for portraying Lydia Rodarte-Quayle during season 5 of AMC's "Breaking Bad". Early life. Fraser was born in Glasgow, Scotland, the daughter of Rose, a college lecturer and nurse, and Alister Fraser, a screenwriter and businessman. She attended Hillhead High School and is a former member of the Scottish Youth Theatre. She trained at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama. Career. Fraser's first big break was playing Door in the BBC's dark fantasy series "Neverwhere" in 1996. She also starred in the 1998 BBC film "The Tribe", and played Lavinia in "Titus" (1999). Other notable film appearances were "A Knight's Tale" and "Vanilla Sky", both in 2001. She starred in the BBC period drama serials "He Knew He Was Right" (2004), "Casanova" (2005), and "Reichenbach Falls" (2007). She starred in the 2006 British comedy film "Nina's Heavenly Delights". In 2007, she played Claire Bellington in the ITV series "Talk to Me". She starred in "Florence Nightingale", first broadcast on BBC One on 1 June 2008. Fraser starred as Cat in the 2010 BBC Three series "Lip Service". In December 2010, it was announced that she had been cast in the role of Jessica Brody in the pilot for "Homeland". Fraser was replaced in the series by Morena Baccarin. In June 2012, it was announced that she would play Lydia in the final season of the AMC drama series "Breaking Bad".
1365875	A Lonely Place to Die is a 2011 thriller film directed by Julian Gilbey and based on a screenplay from Will Gilbey and Julian Gilbey. It stars Melissa George, Ed Speleers, Karel Roden, Eamonn Walker, Sean Harris and Kate Magowan. Plot. A group of five mountaineers are hiking and climbing in the Scottish Highlands when they discover a young Serbian girl buried alive in a small chamber in the wilderness. They face dangerous terrain and become caught up in a terrifying game of cat and mouse with the kidnappers as they try to get the girl to safety. Production. Shooting began on 13 May 2010 in Scotland under the working title "The Grave at Angel's Peak". Julian Gilbey shot the film from the screenplay "The Long Weekend" by Will Gilbey. The film is produced by Carnaby International, the studio behind "Doghouse". Franka Potente was originally cast for the role as Alison and was later replaced by Melissa George. In April 2011, the film had its world premiere at the Actionfest Film Festival in Asheville, North Carolina USA where it was awarded 'Best Film' and 'Best Director'. After the Cannes film market in May 2011, Kaleidoscope Entertainment picked up the UK rights to release the film.
1163166	Kitty Carlisle (also known as Kitty Carlisle Hart; September 3, 1910April 17, 2007) was an American singer, actress and spokeswoman for the arts. She is best remembered as a regular panelist on the television game show "To Tell the Truth". She served 20 years on the New York State Council on the Arts. In 1991, she received the National Medal of Arts from President George H. W. Bush. Early life. Kitty Carlisle was born as Catherine Conn ("Kitty" is a nickname for "Catherine"; the surname was pronounced Cohen) in New Orleans, Louisiana. Her family was of German Jewish heritage. Her grandfather, Ben Holtzman, was the mayor of Shreveport, Louisiana. A Confederate veteran of the American Civil War, Holtzman had been a gunner on the CSS "Virginia", perhaps better known as by its previous Union name of "Merrimack", the famous Confederate ironclad warship that fought the USS "Monitor". Carlisle's father, Dr. Joseph Conn, was a gynecologist who died when she was 10. Her mother, Hortense Holtzman Conn, was a woman obsessed with breaking into the prevailing Gentile society. (She once said to a taxi driver who asked if her daughter were Jewish, "She may be, but I'm not.") Carlisle's early education took place in New Orleans. In 1921, she was taken to Europe, where her mother hoped to marry her off to European royalty, believing the nobility there more amenable to a Jewish bride — only to end up flitting around Europe and living in what Carlisle recalled as "the worst room of the best hotel." Carlisle was educated at the Chateau Mont-Choisi in Lausanne, Switzerland, then at the Sorbonne and the London School of Economics. She studied acting in London at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. Career. Acting. After returning to New York in 1932 with her mother, she appeared, billed as Kitty Carlisle, on Broadway in several operettas and musical comedies, and in the American premiere of Benjamin Britten's "The Rape of Lucretia". She also sang the title role in Georges Bizet's "Carmen" in Salt Lake City. She privately studied voice with Juilliard teacher Anna E. Schoen-Rene, who had been a student of Pauline Viardot-Garcia and Manuel Garcia. Carlisle's early movies included "Murder at the Vanities" (1934), "A Night at the Opera" (1935) with the Marx Brothers, and two films with Bing Crosby, "She Loves Me Not" (1934) and "Here Is My Heart" (1934). Carlisle resumed her film career later in life, appearing in Woody Allen's "Radio Days" (1987) and in "Six Degrees of Separation" (1993), as well as on stage in a revival of "On Your Toes", replacing Dina Merrill. Her last movie appearance was in "Catch Me If You Can" (2002) in which she played herself in a dramatization of a 1970s "To Tell the Truth" episode.. Television. In the early 1950s, Carlisle was an occasional panelist on the NBC game show, "Who Said That?", in which celebrities try to determine the speaker of quotations taken from recent news reports. Carlisle became a household name through "To Tell the Truth", where she was a regular panelist from 1956 to 1978, and later appeared on revivals of the series in 1980, 1990–91 and one episode in 2000. (One of her most notable hallmarks was her writing of the number one: When she voted for number one, it was written with a Roman numeral I.) She was also a semi-regular panelist on "Password", "Match Game", "Missing Links", and "What's My Line?" Opera. On December 31, 1966, Carlisle made her debut with the Metropolitan Opera, as Prince Orlofsky in Strauss's "Die Fledermaus". She sang the role 10 more times that season, then returned in 1973 for four more performances. Her final performance with the company was on July 7, 1973. She reprised this role during the Beverly Sills Farewell Gala in October 1980. Personal life. Carlisle married playwright and theatrical producer Moss Hart on August 10, 1946, the two having met as actors at the Bucks County Playhouse in New Hope, Pennsylvania. The couple had two children. Hart died on December 20, 1961, at their home in Palm Springs, California. Carlisle never remarried, but briefly dated former governor and presidential candidate Thomas E. Dewey after the death of his wife. Known for her gracious manners and personal elegance, Carlisle became prominent in New York City social circles as she crusaded for financial support of the arts. She was appointed to various state-wide councils, and was chair of the New York State Council of the Arts from 1976 to 1996. The New York State Theater, in Albany, New York is named the Kitty Carlisle Hart Theatre in recognition of this. She also served on the boards of various New York City cultural institutions and additionally would make an appearance at the annual CIBC World Market's Miracle Day, a children's charity event at the former CIBC Center (300 Madison Avenue). In her later years, she kept company with the financier and art collector Roy Neuberger. She also widely performed her one woman show in which she told anecdotes about the many great men in American musical theatre history whom she had personally known, notably George Gershwin who had proposed marriage (according to an interview in "American Heritage" magazine), Irving Berlin, Kurt Weill, Oscar Hammerstein, Alan Jay Lerner, and Frederick Loewe, interspersed with a few of the songs that made each of them famous. In 2006, Carlisle performed at Feinstein's at the Regency in New York City; in St. Louis, Missouri; Phoenix, Arizona; Atlanta, Georgia; and at the famed Plush Room in San Francisco. According to her official website, her appearances in Atlanta in November 2006 were her last public performances. In December 2006, she made her final public appearance as the special celebrity guest for the annual Noël Coward Society birthday tribute in which she laid flowers in front of Coward's statue at The Gershwin Theatre in New York City. Death. Carlisle died on April 17, 2007, from congestive heart failure resulting from a prolonged bout of pneumonia. She had been in and out of the hospital since she contracted pneumonia some time prior to November 2006. She died in her New York City apartment, with her son, Christopher Hart, at her bedside. She was buried in a crypt next to her husband, Moss Hart, at Ferncliff Cemetery in Hartsdale, New York.
581838	Supriya Pathak Kapoor (born 7 January 1961) is an Indian actress hailing from a long line of performers. She is famous for her role in the Indian sitcoms "Khichdi" and "Idhar Udhar". Family. Supriya Pathak is daughter of Dina Pathak, a well known character actress famous for playing mother and grandmother roles during the 1980s and 1990s. Her sister Ratna Pathak is also an actress, who is married to actor Naseeruddin Shah. Supriya is married to actor Pankaj Kapur with whom she has a daughter and son. Her step son is the famous Bollywood actor Shahid Kapoor. Career. Supriya began her career with the critically acclaimed 1981 film "Kalyug" which was followed by roles in many more critically acclaimed films such as "Vijeta" (1982), "Bazaar" (1982), "Masoom" (1983) and "Mirch Masala" (1985). She also had a minor role as Mahatma Gandhi's niece in the multi-award-winning biopic "Gandhi" (1982) and starred in the 1988 French film "The Bengali Night" alongside Hugh Grant and in "Raakh" opposite "Aamir Khan". She'd starred in Tinnu Anand's Amitabh Bachchan blockbuster Shahenshah (1988 film) as Amitabh's sister. In the early 1990s, she took a long break from acting in films but appeared in several television series. After an 11-year hiatus from acting, she starred in the 2005 film "Sarkar" opposite Amitabh Bachchan, following which she also worked in some other films, most recently being the 2009 Ranbir Kapoor - Konkona Sen Sharma starrer "Wake Up Sid". She is best known for her role of Hansa Praful Parekh in the TV Series "Khichdi". She also played the role of female antagonist, "Umaben Borisagar", in Sony TV's "Chhanchhan". Awards & Nominations. In 2003, Supriya and her husband won awards at the M. T. R. Foods Indian Telly Awards for Best Actor in a Comic role. Supriya always thought of herself as the type of actress suited to play tragic roles but playing the role of Hansa, for which she won the award, changed her perspective.
1044015	Confessions of a Window Cleaner is a 1974 British sex comedy film, directed by Val Guest. Like the other films in the "Confessions" series; "Confessions of a Pop Performer", "Confessions of a Driving Instructor" and "Confessions from a Holiday Camp", it concerns the erotic adventures of Timothy Lea, based on the novels written under that name by Christopher Wood. Each film features Robin Askwith and Antony Booth. Plot. Like many British sex comedies of the 1970s the narrative involves a male protagonist who gets into compromising situations with a succession of women. The optimistic and inept Timothy Lea is freshly employed by his brother-in-law Sid as a window cleaner. With Sid an impending father to be, he looks to Timmy to fully 'satisfy' his customers, little realising that Timmy's accident prone ways often stretch to his sex life with his clients. Timmy bed hops from unsatisfied housewives to even a lesbian love tryst, all the while with his main eye on successful police woman, Elizabeth Radlett, who will have none of Timmy's sexual advances. He proposes as a result, much to his family's upset, unaware that Timmy's usual run of luck will affect the outcome! Critical reception and impact. It has been called, "perhaps the best known and most successful British sex film" of the era, and was the top-grossing British film of 1974. As well as its sequels in the "Confessions" series it spawned another unrelated series of films which began with "Adventures of a Taxi Driver" (1975). The film made Robin Askwith a star in the UK. When the films were originally released they were regarded as very risqué and essentially soft core pornography, owing to the amount of nudity involved - generally female, with Robin Askwith being the only male shown naked. However the sex scenes themselves are more suggestive than explicit, being essentially played for laughs. Nonetheless, it was not until 1997 that Channel 5 became the first British terrestrial channel to show the entire series of "Confessions" films. At this time the "Daily Mail" newspaper was very critical of the sexual content of Channel 5's late night schedule, referring to Channel 5 as Channel Filth and the "Confessions" series as "Films from the darkest days of British cinema".
1163635	Yvonne De Carlo (born Margaret Yvonne Middleton; September 1, 1922 – January 8, 2007) was a Canadian-born American actress, dancer, and singer of film, television, and musical theatre, best known for starring as Sephora in Cecil B. DeMille's "The Ten Commandments" (1956), after having appeared in many B movie westerns. Her best remembered role in television is as Lily Munster in the CBS television series "The Munsters" (1964-1966). Early life. Daughter of a salesman, William Middleton, and an aspiring actress, Marie De Carlo, she was born Margaret Yvonne Middleton in Point Grey, now part of Vancouver, British Columbia. Her nickname was 'Peggy'. "I was named Margaret Yvonne – Margaret because my mother was very fond of one of the derivatives of the name. She was fascinated at the time by the movie star Baby Peggy, and I suppose she wanted a Baby Peggy of her own." Her maternal grandfather, Michael De Carlo, was Sicilian-born, and her maternal grandmother, Margaret Purvis, was Scottish-born. They worked for British field marshall Lord Kitchener, as his livery servant and his secretary. Her mother ran away from home when she was 16 to become a ballerina; after several years working as a shop girl, she married in 1924. Peggy was three years old when her father abandoned the family. She then lived with her grandparents. By the time she entered grade school Douglas Road Elementary, in Burnaby, B.C., she found her strong singing voice brought her the attention she longed for. Her mother recognized Peggy's singing talent, but she had already decided her daughter would be a dancer. Teenaged Peggy was taken to Hollywood, where her mother enrolled her in dancing school; she also attended Le Conte Middle School in Hollywood. De Carlo lived in a downtown apartment with her mother, while Marie took on odd jobs such as waitressing. Mother and daughter were uprooted when their visas expired. Unable to find work, they returned to Vancouver. She dropped out of Vancouver's King Edward High School to focus on her dance studies. She attended the B.C. School of Dancing, where a Canadian dance instructor, June Roper, started her in a new direction. The following year at the Orpheum Theatre, Peggy appeared as a hula dancer in the famous revue "Waikiki". A new nightclub, the Palomar, opened in Vancouver, and she acquired a week-long booking. Hoping to present a more sophisticated image, she combined her middle name with her mother's maiden name and became "Yvonne De Carlo."
1748314	Carl-Wilhelm Reinhold de Boor (born 3 December 1937) is a German-American mathematician and professor emeritus at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Early life. Born in Stolp, Germany (now, as part of Poland, called Słupsk), as the 7th of 8 children born to Werner (an anti-Nazi Lutheran minister) and Toni de Boor in 1937, he fled in 1945 with his family, settling eventually in Schwerin, then part of East Germany. As a child, he was often ill, suffering from a variety of conditions. In 1955, young Carl took advantage of the temporary political thaw following Joseph Stalin's death in 1953, obtained a 1-month visa to West Germany and biked there, then decided to stay when he learned there that his application to Humboldt University (in East Berlin) for the study of chemistry had been turned down (because of his poor performance in mathematics). However, Otto Friedrich (a brother of Carl's father's first wife) was willing and able to help him. Two years later, he met and fell in love with Otto's niece, Matilda Friedrich, the daughter of Carl Friedrich, the political scientist and constitutional scholar. With the support of the Friedrich family, Carl emigrated to the United States in 1959, learning English on his trip across the Atlantic (he could read Beatrix Potter when he boarded the boat). Education and career. Having earned only a high school diploma after 3 and a half years of study at Hamburg University, de Boor entered Harvard as a graduate student of mathematics. After working for a year as a research assistant to Garrett Birkhoff, he went to work for General Motors Research in Warren, Michigan, where he met splines. He received his first postgraduate degree, a Ph.D. from the University of Michigan, in 1966, and then became an assistant professor at Purdue University. In 1972, he accepted a position as professor of mathematics and computer science at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, working out of the UW's Army Math Research Center, which had recently been bombed in opposition to the Vietnam War. Research and teaching. A chief attraction of the UW job was the opportunity to work directly with Isaac Schoenberg, considered the father of splines, the piecewise polynomials de Boor would further develop. In particular, he formulated a relatively fast and numerically stable algorithm for calculating the values of splines (used extensively in computer-aided design and computer graphics), and advocated for the formulation of spline functions in terms of the basis splines, or B-splines developed by Schoenberg and Curry. He was a teacher, guiding numerous graduate students. He is the author of a number of works, including an introductory textbook on numerical analysis (with S.D. Conte) and a textbook on spline approximation. Carl has also worked with MATLAB extensively over the years and is the author of the Spline Toolbox. Carl de Boor retired from the University of Wisconsin–Madison in 2003 and relocated to the Pacific Northwest, where he continues to work with colleagues on mathematical problems, and to travel. He currently lives on Orcas Island, in Washington state, with his second wife, Helen Bee, author of numerous texts in human development, to whom he has been married since 1991. In addition to his emeritus status at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, he is also an affiliated professor at the University of Washington. de Boor has been listed as an ISI Highly Cited Author in Mathematics by the ISI Web of Knowledge, Thomson Scientific Company. Awards. In 1997 he was elected to the National Academy of Sciences, and he received the 2003 National Medal of Science in mathematics. Other honors have included election to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1987 and the National Academy of Engineering in 1993, honorary degrees from Purdue University and Technion (the Israel Institute of Technology), as well as membership in the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina in Germany and the Polish Academy of Science. He won the John Von Neumann Prize from the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics in 1996 and the John Gregory Award of Geometric Design in 2009. Personal. Carl is a lover of music—especially classical, and more especially Johann Sebastian Bach—walks, good food, and games of all sorts.
927322	SpaceCamp is a 1986 American space adventure film based on a book by Patrick Bailey and Larry B. Williams and inspired by the U.S. Space Camp in Huntsville, Alabama. Directed by Harry Winer from a screenplay by Clifford Green (as W. W. Wicket) and Casey T. Mitchell, the film stars Kate Capshaw, Kelly Preston, Larry B. Scott, Lea Thompson, Tate Donovan and Joaquin Phoenix (credited as Leaf Phoenix). The movie was panned by critics and is famous for being a "marketing nightmare," as it was released less than five months after the "Challenger" accident of January 28, 1986, that killed all seven on board (although filming was completed before the disaster occurred). The film performed poorly at the box office, grossing less than $10 million in the US. A rewrite of the book, released to coincide with the movie, mentioned the "Challenger" disaster. Plot. Four teenagers and a 12-year-old boy go to space camp for three weeks during the summer to learn about the NASA space program and mimic astronaut training. They meet their instructor, Andie Bergstrom, a NASA-trained astronaut who is frustrated that she has not yet been assigned to a shuttle mission. Her bitterness is compounded by the fact that her husband, camp director Zach Bergstrom, is an astronaut who has walked on the moon. Max befriends a robot named Jinx, which was deemed unsuitable for space work because it overheated and was overly-literal. Max and the robot declare themselves to be "friends forever", while Kevin pursues Kathryn romantically. Rudy wishes to open the first fast food franchise on the moon, and Tish reveals that despite appearing to be a Valley girl, she is a genius with a photographic memory. Kathryn and Kevin sneak away for some romance near the launch pad, but Jinx unintentionally gives them away when Andie and Zach discover they are missing. During a confrontation, Andie explains that she believes Kathryn has what it takes to accomplish her ambition, and understanding the necessity of the harsh treatment Andie is giving her, she vows to improve her performance. Zach's conversation with Kevin is less successful. Kevin takes out his anger on Max, and while upset Max states that "...I wish I were in outer space..." Taking him literally, Jinx secretly enters NASA's computer room and prepares a "thermal curtain failure" on the "Space Shuttle Atlantis" while the group are on board. This causes one of the boosters to ignite during the engine test. Launch Control is forced to ignite the second booster and launch the shuttle in order to avoid a crash. The shuttle is not flight ready however; it has no long range radio, is critically low on oxygen and does not have enough air to last to the re-entry window at Edwards Air Force Base. Andie takes the shuttle to the partially constructed Space Station "Daedalus" to retrieve oxygen stored there. Realizing that while they have no voice communications with NASA they do have telemetry, Tish begins using a switch to send a Morse code signal to NASA, but it is not noticed by ground control. Andie is slightly too big to reach the oxygen cylinders, so Max suits up for an EVA. During a critical moment, Max begins to panic until Kevin, knowing that Max is a fan of "Star Wars", begins calling him "Luke", and tells him to "use the Force", which calms him enough that he can complete the mission. Max and Andie retrieve the containers. In the shuttle, Rudy attempts to decipher the technical schematics to work out how to feed the oxygen into the shuttle's tanks. His lack of confidence frustrates Kathryn, who tries reading the diagram herself and gives Andie instructions that conflict with Rudy's. Andie follows Rudy's correct instructions. Kathryn's self-confidence is shaken as she realises her interference nearly caused disaster. The second oxygen container malfunctions, injuring Andie. Unaware of this, Ground Control begins the autopilot sequence to land the shuttle - closing the bay doors and stranding Andie outside. Andie regains consciousness and urges them to leave her and take the re-entry window, as the shuttle does not have enough oxygen to make the next window. Kathryn is unable to make a decision, but Kevin finally shows himself to be the shuttle Commander and overrides the autopilot. Max rescues Andie. Having missed the Edwards re-entry window the crew come up with a plan to land at White Sands, New Mexico. Armed with this news, Tish uses morse code to signal NASA to let them land there. At Ground Control, Jinx brings the signal to Zach's attention, and they prepare for the White Sands landing. With Andie injured, Kathryn fulfills her role as pilot, but begins fretting and doubting her abilities until Kevin cajoles and teases her into landing the shuttle. Production. Lea Thompson mentioned in an interview that after their first day of shooting, they were 10 days behind schedule and what was supposed to be a 3 month shoot became six. She also mentioned that "We had T-shirts printed up that said, ""SpaceCamp": Itâs Not Just A Movie, Itâs A Career." Oh, actually, instead of "SpaceCamp", it actually said "SpaceCramp"." Reception. "SpaceCamp" received mixed to negative reviews with only 40% of critics giving it positive reviews on Rotten Tomatoes. Critic Roger Ebert gave it a one and half star rating and saying that "Our thoughts about the Space Shuttle will never be the same again, and our memories are so painful that "SpaceCamp" is doomed even before it begins." "Variety" says that ""SpaceCamp" never successfully integrates summer camp hijinks with outer space idealism to come up with a dramatically compelling story", while James Sanford of the "Kalamazoo Gazette" responds "Not exactly out of this world". Website At-A-Glance gave the film an even worse review, "It's tough to accept this movie's premise. A bunch of kids are given a tour of the Space Shuttle as NASA is testing its engines. An accident happens, and they, along with their guide, are launched into space. Once up there, can they be talked back down? Add an annoying, seemingly sentient robot into the mix. Add the standard "two dimensional character development" arc, where each member of the cast overcomes his or her single character trait/flaw by the end of the story. Add gobs of sap, gushiness, and boredom. Mix well, and you've got a first-class mess." Actress Lea Thompson mentioned that "Iâve had a lot of people come up to me and say that they became physicists or inventors, how much they loved that movie and how much it inspired them."
1036114	Martin John Christopher Freeman (born 8 September 1971) is an English actor. He is best known for his portrayal of Tim Canterbury in "The Office", Dr. Watson in "Sherlock", and Bilbo Baggins in Peter Jackson's "The Hobbit" film trilogy. Other notable roles including "Love Actually", "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy", "Nativity!", and the "Three Flavours Cornetto trilogy", most prominently in "The World's End". Early life. Martin Freeman was born in Aldershot, Hampshire, the youngest of five children. His parents, Philomena (née Norris) and Geoffrey Freeman, a naval officer, separated when Freeman was a child, and when Freeman was ten, Geoffrey died of a heart attack. Freeman was raised in a Roman Catholic family and attended the Salesian School, Chertsey before attending Brooklands College for media studies. Although his family was not strict in their religious practices, his religion had a profound influence on him. As a child, he was asthmatic, and had to undergo a hip operation due to a "dodgy" leg. Career. Freeman joined a youth theatre group at 15, but it was not until he was 17 that his confidence in his acting led to the decision to pursue it as a career. He went on to attend the Central School of Speech and Drama. Freeman has appeared in at least 18 TV shows, 14 theatre productions, and several radio productions. He is notable for his role as Tim Canterbury in "The Office". He appeared in the sitcom "Hardware". He also appeared in several films, including Sacha Baron Cohen's "Ali G Indahouse" (2002) and Richard Curtis' "Love Actually" (2003). He began to move into more serious dramatic roles on television with his appearance as Lord Shaftesbury in the 2003 BBC historical drama "". He can also be seen making a brief appearance in the first episode of the second series of "This Life". Freeman also starred in the BBC television series "The Robinsons" and had a cameo in episode 1 of "Black Books". In 2007, he appeared in "The All Together" written and directed by Gavin Claxton, as well as the Bill Kenwright theatre production of "The Last Laugh". He is featured in the video for Faith No More's cover of "I Started a Joke".
724839	Katherine Evelyn Anita "Katie" Cassidy (born November 25, 1986) is an American actress who stars as Laurel Lance on The CW superhero television series "Arrow" (2012–present). She has also appeared in The CW series "Supernatural" (2007–2008), "Melrose Place" (2009–2010), and "Gossip Girl" (2010 and 2012); in CBS' "Harper's Island" (2009); and in the films "When a Stranger Calls" (2006), "Black Christmas" (2006), "Taken" (2008), "A Nightmare on Elm Street" (2010) and "Monte Carlo" (2011). Cassidy has roles in the upcoming films "Fencewalker" and "The Scribbler". Early life and family. Cassidy was born in Los Angeles, the daughter of actor David Cassidy and model Sherry Williams, who first met and dated in early 1970, then had an off and on relationship over the next sixteen years. Cassidy's paternal grandparents were actors Jack Cassidy and Evelyn Ward, and she is the niece of teen idol and television producer Shaun Cassidy and actor Patrick Cassidy. Cassidy grew up in Calabasas, California with her mother and stepfather, Richard Benedon, an ER physician. She has two older half-sisters, Jenna and Jamie, and a younger half-brother, Beau Cassidy. As a child, Cassidy took to tumbling, competing and eventually became a cheerleader for the California Flyers, a competitive team. She cheered as a freshman for Calabasas High School where she attended high school and graduated with honors in 2005. While in elementary school, Cassidy became interested in show business and participated in several community theatre productions beginning at the age of 7, and as a teenager studied with an acting coach. She did some modeling which culminated in a campaign ad for Abercrombie and Fitch in 2004. Her mother would not allow her to act professionally until completing her high school education with college prep courses. Career. Music. In 2002, Katie Cassidy recorded a version of "I Think I Love You," which had been a hit for her father's made-for-television band, the Partridge Family. She was 15 at the time, five years younger than her dad when he recorded his version. In his autobiography, David Cassidy said he did not support his then-estranged daughter's attempt at a music career, saying she was too young and had not yet 'paid her dues.' Television. In 2003, Cassidy made her television and acting debut appearing in an episode of the Lifetime Television Drama television series "The Division". Cassidy has continued to guest appear in television shows such as "Celebrity Apprentice 4", "Listen Up!" and "New Girl". In 2005, Cassidy appeared in a recurring role on The WB television series "7th Heaven" over the course of four episodes. That same year, she also appeared in the UPN Teen Drama television series "Sex, Love & Secrets". In 2007, Cassidy appeared on The CW supernatural drama television series "Supernatural". Cassidy played the role of Ruby, a demon. Making her debut in the show's third season, Cassidy appeared in over six episodes. In 2008, though her character returned for the show's fourth season, Cassidy was replaced by actress Genevieve Cortese. In October 2008, Variety announced Cassidy was cast in the CBS horror mystery mini-series television series "Harper's Island". Cassidy portrayed the role of Patricia "Trish" Wellington, a bride-to-be. The series centered on a group of family and friends who gather on an island for a wedding on an island known for its sinister past full of gruesome murders. In each episode, at least one character is killed off. Cassidy and her fellow cast members were not told about their characters' deaths until the day they received a script. The series premiered on April 9, 2009 to 10.21 million viewers. Despite ratings failing to maintain the pilot's success, CBS aired the remainder of the series with the series finale airing on July 11, 2009. That same year, The CW cast Cassidy in the Drama television series "Melrose Place". The series is a reboot of the 1990s series of the same name. Cassidy portrays the role of Ella Sims a publicist who resides in a West Hollywood apartment complex and centers on its residents. The series premiered on September 8, 2009 to 2.31 million viewers. Despite mixed reviews, Cassidy's performance was praised by critics and was cited as "the best thing about the Melrose reboot" by "New York" and has been cited as "the best thing about the Melrose reboot" by magazine. The CW cancelled the series in May 2010 due to low ratings. In June 2010, The CW announced Cassidy would have a major recurring arc in the fourth season of the teen drama television series "Gossip Girl". Cassidy features as Juliet Sharp who attends Columbia and sets out to ruin the life of the show's central character Serena van der Woodsen. Cassidy made her first appearance in the season premiere and went on to appear in over 11 episodes of the season. In March 2011, Cassidy was cast in the ABC pilot "Georgetown". Cassidy was cast as Nikki, a smart and quick-witted junior staffer in the White House Communications Office with connections to the First Lady. The pilot was created by "Gossip Girl" creator Josh Schwartz. The series was not picked up by ABC. In 2012, Cassidy was cast in The CW series "Arrow", which is based on the Green Arrow comic books, as the female lead Laurel Lance, also known as the superhero Black Canary. The series also stars Stephen Amell and Willa Holland and premiered in North America on The CW on October 10, 2012. Film. In 2006, Cassidy made her film debut as Tiffany Madison in the horror film "When a Stranger Calls". Cassidy has gone on to have notable supporting roles in films "Click", "Taken" and "Live!". In February 2006, Cassidy was cast as Kelly Prelsey in the Dimension Films horror-slasher film "Black Christmas", a remake of the 1974 film. The movie centers on an escaped maniac who returns to his childhood home on Christmas Eve, which is now a sorority house, and one by one kills all sorority sisters. The film was released on December 15, 2006 to negative reviews from critics. The film was a moderate success making over $50 million worldwide. In April 2010, Cassidy appeared in another remake; this time the iconic horror classic "A Nightmare on Elm Street", originally released in 1984 of the same name. Cassidy portrayed the role of Kris Fowles; a high school student who becomes a victim to Freddy Krueger. Filming begin in Chicago with the film earning over $31 million in its opening weekend. Cassidy was nominated for a Teen Choice Award in the "Horror/Thriller Actress" category for her role, which she lost to Megan Fox. Shortly after the release of A Nightmare on Elm Street, Variety announced Cassidy was cast in the Adventure Comedy film "Monte Carlo". The film, which also stars Leighton Meester and Selena Gomez, follows three friends who pose as wealthy socialites whilst on holiday in Monte Carlo. Production began in May 2010 with filming taking place in Monaco, Budapest, Paris and Texas. The film was released on July 1, 2011 and received mixed to negative reviews from critics and went on to gross $39 million worldwide. In June 2011, Cassidy replaced actress Sienna Miller in the independent dark comedy film "Freaky Deaky" in which she stars alongside Brendan Fraser, Matt Dillon, and Craig Robinson. Cassidy portrays Robin Abbott, who plots with her ex-boyfriend to con an alcoholic movie mogul out of millions of dollars. In May 2012, Cassidy was cast as the title character in the film adaptation of "The Scribbler" alongside Eliza Dushku, Michelle Trachtenberg and Gina Gershon. She plays Suki, a young woman with multiple personality disorder. Personal life. Cassidy is a spokesperson for the charity H.E.L.P. Malawi.
587916	Bobbili Raja () is a 1990 Telugu romantic comedy action blockbuster film directed by B. Gopal and produced by Suresh Productions. It stars Venkatesh in the lead role and Divya Bharti in her film debut alongside Vanisree and Kaikala Satyanarayana. The music was scored by Ilayaraja. The film was inspired from "Romancing the Stone" and "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade". Most of the scenes are from Gods must be crazy II. Plot. The movie is about Raja, who has always lived in the jungle with his mother and grandpa and Rani, daughter of the minister who has had all the comforts of life. How they come together and fall for each other is the story. Box office. The film had a 175-day run in 3 centres. It is Venkatesh's first silver-jubilee hit movie.[http://www.cinegoer.com/venky175.htm] "Bobbili Raja" was later dubbed into Tamil as "Vaaliban" and into Hindi as "Rampur Ka Raja".
1062908	Christopher "Chris" Tucker (born August 31, 1971) is an American actor and comedian. He is best known for playing the role of Smokey in "Friday" and as Detective James Carter in the "Rush Hour" film series. Tucker became a frequent stand up performer on Def Comedy Jam in the 1990s. He has also appeared in Luc Besson's "The Fifth Element" before beginning work on the highly successful "Rush Hour" films. In 2007, he negotiated a $25 million salary to appear in "Rush Hour 3", which made him the highest paid actor in Hollywood at the time. Early life. Tucker was born on August 31, 1971, in Atlanta, Georgia, the youngest son of Mary Louise ("née" Bryant) and Norris Tucker. His father was an independent businessman who owned a janitorial service. Tucker grew up in Decatur, Georgia, and after graduating from Columbia High School in Decatur, Tucker moved to Los Angeles, California to pursue a career in comedy and acting. Career. In 1992, at the age of 20, Tucker was a frequent performer on Def Comedy Jam. He made his cinematic debut in "House Party 3", and gained greater film recognition alongside rapper Ice Cube in the 1995 film "Friday". In 1997, he co-starred with Charlie Sheen in "Money Talks", and alongside Bruce Willis in "The Fifth Element". He, along with Jackie Chan, later starred in the 1998 martial arts action comedy "Rush Hour" and its sequels, "Rush Hour 2" and "Rush Hour 3", in which he played James Carter, an abrasive wise-cracking detective. After the commercial success of the first "Rush Hour" film, Tucker held out for a $20 million salary for "Rush Hour 2" and was paid $25 million salary for "Rush Hour 3". The latter was part of a $40 million two-movie contract with New Line Cinema that also included an unnamed future film. He was also to receive 20% of the gross against his salary from the "Rush Hour 3". Tucker did not reprise his role as Smokey in "Next Friday" (2000) or in "Friday After Next" (2002) because he had become a born-again Christian after filming "Money Talks" (1997). He starred in Michael Jackson's video "You Rock My World" and made a cameo appearance in Tupac Shakur's "California Love". On February 13, 1999, Tucker participated in the NBA All-Star Weekend's Celebrity Game. Other celebrities participating include rapper Master P, NBA Hall of Famers Clyde Drexler and Dominique Wilkins, wide receiver Terrell Owens, and four Harlem Globetrotters. Tucker was announced in 2007 to star in the New Line drama film "Mr. S: My Life with Frank Sinatra", directed by Brett Ratner and based on George Jacobs' autobiography of working as Frank Sinatra's valet during the Rat Pack era of 1953–1968. In 2011, Tucker made a comeback to stand-up comedy. The next year, Tucker returned to film in "Silver Linings Playbook", co-starring Bradley Cooper, Jennifer Lawrence and Robert De Niro. Tucker's performance in the film was well received by critics and audiences alike. The film itself received numerous nominations and awards; Tucker was among the winners of the Broadcast Film Critics Association Award for Best Cast in 2012. He also hosted the 2013 BET Awards. Personal life. Tucker has a son named Destin, who lives with his mother in Los Angeles. He divides his time among Bel Air, Los Angeles and Atlanta, Georgia. Tucker is good friends with fellow "Rush Hour" star Jackie Chan, and was also close friends with the singer Michael Jackson, introducing and dancing with him at his , and appearing in Jackson's video "You Rock My World" from his 2001 album "Invincible" and attending Jackson's memorial service. Tucker's career was also influenced by Jackson, as he is seen dancing and singing to Jackson's song "Don't Stop 'til You Get Enough" in a scene in "Rush Hour 2" and imitating Jackson's dancing style in "Friday". A friend of Bill Clinton, Tucker has traveled with the former President overseas, though he endorsed Barack Obama rather than Hillary Clinton in the 2008 primaries. Tucker participated in a PBS documentary on the genetic makeup of African Americans. He found he has African, European, and Native American ancestry. Through DNA tests (as aired on the 2006 PBS documentary "African American Lives"), Tucker's patrilineal ancestry was traced back to the Ambundu ethnic group of Angola and one line of his mother's to the Bamileke of Cameroon. He also managed to trace his family tree back to the 1830s. Tucker was shown traveling to Angola, the birthplace of his ancestors, with the program's host, Henry Louis Gates. Tucker also shows interest in basketball. His favorite NBA team is Los Angeles Lakers.
1208422	Feel the Noise is a drama film written by Albert Leon, directed by Alejandro Chomski and produced by Jennifer Lopez. It was released on October 5, 2007 and stars Omarion, Giancarlo Esposito, Victor Rasuk and James McCaffrey. Plot. After a run-in with local thugs, a Harlem born aspiring rapper of an African American Mother and Puerto Rican father..Rob (Omarion) flees to Puerto Rico and to a Puerto Rican father (Giancarlo Esposito) he never knew, and finds his salvation in Reggaeton, a spicy blend of hip-hop, reggae and Latin beats. Puerto Rico, the spiritual home of Reggaeton, inspires Rob and his step-brother Javi (Victor Rasuk) to pursue their dream of becoming Reggaeton stars. Together with a dancer named C.C., they learn what it means to stay true to themselves and each other, while overcoming obstacles in love, greed and pride, all culminating in an explosive performance at New York's Puerto Rican Day Parade. Critical reception. As of October 17, 2007 on Metacritic, the film had an average score of 36 out of 100, based on 9 reviews. It has a 13% rotten rating on Rotten Tomatoes. At the U.S. box office, since its release it has grossed $5,898,393, and $552,713 from foreign markets.
674003	Martina Gedeck (born 14 September 1961) is a German actress. She came to broader, international attention due to her roles in films such as "Mostly Martha" (2001), "The Lives of Others" (2006), and "The Baader Meinhof Complex" (2008). She has won numerous awards, including the Deutscher Filmpreis in 1997 for Supporting Actress in "Life is All You Get", and in 2002 for Actress in "Mostly Martha". Biography. Martina Gedeck was born 14 September 1961 in Munich, West Germany and grew up in Bavaria, the oldest of three girls. In 1971, her family moved to Berlin, where the eleven-year-old debuted as an actress in children's television shows. After graduating school in 1981, she enrolled at the Free University of Berlin, majoring in German Literature and History. From 1982 to 1986, Martina attended acting classes at the Berlin University of the Arts. During that time, she made her stage debut at the Theater am Turm in Frankfurt. Gedeck performed regularly at the Deutsches Schauspielhaus in Hamburg, and appeared in plays in Basel, Berlin, Frankfurt, and Hamburg. In 1994, Gedeck gained the attention of film audiences with her performance in Sönke Wortmann's hit comedy "Maybe... Maybe Not" ("Der bewegte Mann"). In 1995, Gedeck received critical praise for her award-winning performance in the television drama "Hölleisengretl". In 1997, she furthered her reputation with her performance as Lilo in Wolfgang Becker's "Life is All You Get" ("Das Leben ist eine Baustelle"). In 1997, she received the German Film Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role for her performance as a shy waitress in Helmut Dietl's "Rossini" ("Rossini oder die mörderische Frage, wer mit wem schlief"). By the end of the 1990s, Gedeck had established herself as "one of the most prolific character actresses in Germany" with ambitious feature films such as "Jew-Boy Levi" ("Viehjud Levi") and television dramas like Dominik Graf's "Deine besten Jahre". She garnered awards and nominations throughout this period of her career. Gedeck's international breakthrough came with her performance in Sandra Nettelbeck's "Mostly Martha" ("Bella Martha"). In the film, she plays a workaholic chef who is forced to adjust to major changes in her personal and professional life that are beyond her control. The film won the Créteil International Women's Film Festival Grand Prix Award, and the Goya Award for Best European Film in 2002. It also received a German Film Award Nomination for Outstanding Feature Film. For her performance, Gedeck received a European Film Award Nomination for Best Actress (2002), the German Film Award for Outstanding Individual Achievement for Actress (2002), and the German Film Critics Association Award for Best Actress (2003). In 2006 Gedeck appeared in five major films: "The Elementary Particles" (2006) as Christiane, "The Lives of Others" (2006) as Christa-Maria Sieland, "The Perfect Friend" (2006) as Marlène, "Summer '04" (2006) as Miriam Franz, and Robert De Niro's "The Good Shepherd" (2006) as Hanna Schiller, starring opposite Matt Damon and John Turturro. "The Lives of Others" won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. In 2008 Gedeck played the role of Ulrike Meinhof in "The Baader Meinhof Complex". In 2010, Gedeck, who is affiliated with the Green Party, served as an elector in the Federal Assembly to elect the new President of Germany. That year, she appeared in "" and "Agnosía".
1738520	William Dwight Schultz (born November 24, 1947) is an American stage, television, film actor and voice artist. He is best known for his roles as Captain "Howling Mad" Murdock on the 1980s action series "The A-Team", and as Reginald Barclay in ', ' and the film "". He is also well known in animation as the mad scientist Dr. Animo in the "Ben 10" series, Chef Mung Daal in the children's cartoon "Chowder", and Eddie the Squirrel in "CatDog". Early life. Schultz was born in Baltimore, Maryland. He is a graduate of Calvert Hall College High School and an alumnus of Towson University, both located in Towson, Maryland. Career. Schultz' breakthrough role was the character of Captain "Howling Mad" Murdock on "The A-Team". At the series outset, the producers felt that his character would be too over-the-top for viewers and planned to drop him after his debut, but early test screenings showed that he was popular with the audience. As a result, he was effectively "written back in" to the series. Schultz has also appeared in films including "The Fan" (1981) with Broadway Actress Lauren Bacall, and starred in "Fat Man and Little Boy" (1989), as J. Robert Oppenheimer. He auditioned for the part of Dr. Wayne Fiscus on the television show "St. Elsewhere", but lost out to Howie Mandel. In the early 1990s, he had a recurring role as Lieutenant Reginald Barclay in '. Schultz reprised the role for ' and the film "". Schultz is also known for his voice talent. He is still active in the field and lends his voice to numerous popular video games and cartoons. In November 2009, he confirmed that he (and former A-Team co-star, Dirk Benedict) would have a cameo in the feature film "The A-Team", however, both Schultz's and Benedict's parts were ultimately cut from the film proper, but placed after the credits of the theatrical showing as an easter egg. In the cameo appearance, Schultz was supposed to play the role of a psychiatrist monitoring an electro-shock therapy session with the "new" Murdock. He was the host of a conservative talk radio podcast called "Howling Mad Radio", which ended in March 2009. Schultz has also guest hosted for Michael Savage on "The Savage Nation," Jerry Doyle on "The Jerry Doyle Show", and Rusty Humphries on "The Rusty Humphries Show" on numerous occasions. Personal life. Schultz married former actress Wendy Fulton ("Bare Essence") in 1983. They have one daughter, Ava (b. 1987), who serves in the Marines. Schultz and his family currently live in Santa Clarita, California. Schultz is a Christian. Schultz is a conservative and in 2012 began regular appearances on "The Glazov Gang", an internet political talk show hosted by Jamie Glazov, the managing editor of FrontPage Magazine. He also posts political commentaries and podcasts on his official fansite.
1017477	Way of the Dragon, released in the United States as Return of the Dragon, is a 1972 Hong Kong martial arts–comedy film written, produced, and directed by Bruce Lee, who also starred in the lead role. The film was Lee's directorial debut, and featured co-stars such as Nora Miao, Chuck Norris, Robert Wall, Hwang In-Shik, and others. Plot. Tang Lung (Bruce Lee) is sent from Hong Kong to Rome to help Uncle Wang, and niece Chen Ching-hua, whose restaurant is being targeted by the local mafia. Tang fends off the gangsters and wins Chen's admiration. Tang becomes friends with the other restaurant workers and teaches them "Chinese boxing". The mafia boss sends a gunman to kill Tang, but Tang defeats him. The boss then goes to the restaurant with armed thugs but Tang defeats them. The boss warns Chen he will have Tang killed if he stays in Rome. Tang refuses to leave. The boss then sends a sniper to kill Tang but fails again. Chen is kidnapped by the boss and compelled to sign the contract at his headquarters, but Tang and his friends rescue her. The mafia boss's consigliere hires three foreign martial artists, to challenge Tang. Tang defeats two of them with help from his friends near the Colosseum. After Tang leaves, Uncle Wang kills Tony and Jimmy, blaming Tang for getting in his way, as he would receive a large sum of money if he persuaded Chen to sell the restaurant to the mob. Tang then has a final showdown inside the Colosseum with the karate fighter Colt, the best of the hired fighters. Tang defeats Colt and police arrest the mafia boss. In the final scene, Tang bids farewell to Chen and leaves Rome alone. Production. Bruce Lee formed his own production company Concord Productions with Golden Harvest founder, Raymond Chow. Reception. The film set a new box office record in Hong Kong. It ranked #95 in "Empire" magazine's list "The 100 Best Films of World Cinema" in 2010. DVD releases. Universe (Hong Kong) Fortune Star – Bruce Lee Ultimate DVD Collection (Hong Kong) Fox (America) Fox – Bruce Lee Ultimate Collection (America) "Hong Kong Legends – Special Collector's Edition (United Kingdom)" Hong Kong Legends – Platinum Edition (United Kingdom) Hong Kong Legends – Platinum Edition (Australia) Blu-ray Disc release. Kam & Ronson (Hong Kong)
340294	Hilarie Ross Burton (born July 1, 1982) is an American actress. A former host of MTV's "Total Request Live", she portrayed Peyton Sawyer on the WB/CW drama "One Tree Hill" for six seasons (2003-2009). Burton gained wider recognition with leading roles in the films "Our Very Own", "Solstice" and "The List". In 2010, she began starring as Sara Ellis on the USA crime dramedy "White Collar," and in a recurring role as Dr. Lauren Boswell on the ABC medical drama "Grey's Anatomy" in 2013. Early life. Burton was born on July 1, 1982 in Sterling, Virginia. Her father is a former Green Beret. She is the eldest of four children with three brothers. She graduated from Park View High School in 2000, where she was student council treasurer her sophomore year, vice-president her junior year, and captain of the cheerleading squad, student council president, and homecoming queen her senior year. Burton attended New York University and Fordham University. Career. Burton's first big break came when working as a VJ for the "Total Request Live" on MTV. She was supposed to be a guest commentator for one segment, but producers decided to offer her a permanent job. Burton went on to present at the "2000 MTV Video Music Awards" and "MTV's Iced Out New Year's Eve". Burton went on to portray herself on The WB teen drama television series "Dawson's Creek" in 2002, which was marked as her acting debut. In April 2003, Burton was cast in The WB drama pilot, "One Tree Hill". Burton portrayed the role of Peyton Sawyer, a fiercely independent visual and musical artist and cheerleader. The series premiered on September 23, 2003 and went on to be the network's top rated program of the year. The role was considered Burton's breakout role and is her best-known to date. For her role in the series, Burton was featured on the cover of "Maxim", "American Cheerleader Magazine" and "People". Her performance received critical praise and she earned three Teen Choice Award nominations. In May 2009, The CW announced Burton would not be returning for the show's seventh season based on her own decision not to return, contrary to rumors she left due to salary issues. In June 2005, Burton made her film debut in the independent drama film "Our Very Own". The film centered on five small-town teenagers who dream of a better life. The film starred Allison Janney and Cheryl Hines and was released to positive reviews from critics. Burton and her fellow stars in the film received the "Outstanding Ensemble Acting" award at the prestigious Sarasota Film Festival. In September 2007, Hilarie appeared in the Lifetime drama film "Normal Adolescent Behavior". Hilarie played the role of Ryan and followed a group of friends whom are in a six-way polyfidelitous relationship. That same year Burton starred in the supernatural horror film "Solstice" alongside Amanda Seyfried. In June 2008, Burton starred in the independent thriller film"The List". Burton portrayed the role of Jo Johnston and was filmed in Wilmington, North Carolina while Burton was on production break for "One Tree Hill". The film was released for a limited release and went on to make $132,863 in the US alone. That same year Burton had a small role in the Fox Searchlight Pictures drama film "The Secret Life of Bees". Burton played Deborah Owens, the deceased mother to Dakota Fanning's character. In January 2009, Burton was cast in another independent drama, "Bloodworth". The film is an adaptation of "Provinces of Night" by author William Gay. Filming also took place in Wilmington, North Carolina in April and May that same year. The film also starred Hilary Duff and Val Kilmer and premiered at the 2010 Santa Barbara International Film Festival in February 2010. The film later went on to a limited release on May 20, 2011 to positive reviews from critics and over $12,971 worldwide. In July 2010 "Variety" announced Burton would have a recurring arc in the USA Network crime comedy-drama series "White Collar". Burton portrays the role of Sara Ellis, an insurance investigator. In February 2011, Burton was upgraded to a series regular for the series third season which premiered on June 7, 2011. The series was renewed for a fourth season in August 2011 with Burton reprising her role, credited in the recurring cast. On January 23, 2012, Burton guest-starred on the ABC police comedy-drama "Castle", in season 4: episode 13 titled "An Embarrassment of Bitches" portraying a reality television star named Kay Cappuccio who is accused of the murder of a famous dog trainer. Burton also began a recurring role in the ABC medical drama "Grey's Anatomy" for the last three episodes of the ninth season in 2013, playing Dr. Lauren Boswell. Personal life. Burton resides in Wilmington, North Carolina, where "One Tree Hill" is filmed. In 2004, Burton married "One Tree Hill" assistant director Ian Prange, son of executive producer Greg Prange. They divorced in 2009. She has a cat named after writer Edgar Allan Poe, and is close friends with fellow "One Tree Hill" stars Bethany Joy Galeotti, Sophia Bush, James Lafferty, Chad Michael Murray and Elisabeth Harnois. In May 2007, Burton ranked #77 in the "Maxim" Hot 100 List of 2007. She also appeared on the cover of the November 2006 edition of Maxim with "One Tree Hill" co-stars Sophia Bush and Danneel Harris. In previous years, Burton ranked #2 on Femme Fatales: The 50 Sexiest Women of 2005 and #12 on Much Music's 20 Hottest Women of 2003. In 2007, Burton created her own production company called Southern Gothic Production (SoGoPro) along with Nick Gray, Kelly Tenney, James Burton and Meg Mortimer. Burton is also on the North Carolina Film Council. Burton has been in a relationship with fellow actor Jeffrey Dean Morgan since 2009. The couple welcomed a son Augustus "Gus" in March 2010.
768929	Bollywood Queen is a British Indian take on the William Shakespeare play "Romeo and Juliet", directed by Jeremy Wooding and starring Preeya Kalidas and James McAvoy in the lead roles. Produced by Jeremy Wooding, the film was released in 2003. Plot. Geena (Preeya Kalidas) is a Bollywood fanatic from a respectable Gujarati family. She has finished school, and is at university doing a business studies course. She is dating Dilip (Ronny Jhutti), an ambitious computer whizz, but wants her love life to be like it is in the movies. However, Dilip only wants sex. Geena's family owns Ganesh Global, a clothing company which imports materials and saris from India. Geena has a part-time job working in the shop. She is also in a secret band with two other girls, Anjali (Kat Bhathena) and Neeta (Karen David). Jay (James McAvoy) is a young Scottish boy, who joins his brother Dean (Ciarán McMenamin) in London, who also works in the clothing industry, for someone called Frank (Ian McShane). He owns a guitar, of which he is extremely protective. One day, when Geena is walking along the road, Jay and his brother happen to be managing some poles. One of the poles nearly falls on Geena, but Jay lunges at her and pushes her out of the way before it can crush her. Geena, disgusted at this, hurries along, leaving her phone behind. Jay sees the phone and takes it, but his brother Dean repossesses it. Jay then takes the phone back and gives it to Geena, who then thanks him for saving her life. She then gives him her phone number, and they begin to meet up regularly. The two start to fall in love, meeting up in secret regularly and hiding from Geena's family. However, Dean comes to know of the affair and launches an attack on Ganesh Global. One of Geena's brothers also sees the two together, and Geena gets into trouble with her family. Her brother then takes away her phone. Geena's brothers then beat Jay up, leaving him bleeding. Jay and Geena then run away together and escape their family. Dean is in hospital, and Jay visits him and takes away all his money. Eventually, Jay and Geena return to London and Jay settles his dispute with his father and brother. Geena then turns up for her relative's wedding, dressed in Indian attire, and sings with her band. She then attempts to reunite with her family, and it is revealed her brother, Sanjay (Amerjit Deu) is a criminal, and is handling illegal suits, and that her brother, Tariq (Saraj Chaudhry) is gay. Jay and Geena then leave in the bride and groom's carriage, and her mother says to her father, "She'll be back." Reception. The film was not very well received by the public, both English and Asian communities. It received mostly negative reviews from critics. Awards and nominations. British Independent Film Awards
899762	Ugo Tognazzi (; 23 March 1922 - 27 October 1990) was an Italian film, TV, and theatre actor, director, and screenwriter. Early life. Tognazzi was born in Cremona, in northern Italy but spent his youth in various localities as his father was a traveller clerk for an insurance company.
1063228	Taylor Daniel Lautner (pronounced ; born February 11, 1992) is an American actor, voice actor, model, and martial artist. Lautner is best known for playing Jacob Black in "The Twilight Saga" film series based on the novels of the same name by Stephenie Meyer. As a child, Lautner took up martial arts in Holland, Michigan and was ranked number one in his category by the American Sports Karate Association. Lautner later began his acting career, appearing in bit roles in comedy series such as "The Bernie Mac Show" (2003) and "My Wife and Kids" (2004), before having voice roles in television series like "What's New, Scooby-Doo?" (2005) and "Danny Phantom" (2005). In 2005, he appeared in the film "Cheaper by the Dozen 2" and starred in "The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl in 3-D". He also starred in the 2011 action film "Abduction". The late 2000s saw Lautner become a teen idol and sex symbol, after extensively changing his physique to keep the role of Jacob Black in further "Twilight" installments, and generating media attention for his looks. In 2010, he was ranked second on "Glamour"'s "The 50 Sexiest Men of 2010" list, and fourth on "People"'s "Most Amazing Bodies" list. Also in the same year, Lautner was named the highest-paid teenage actor in Hollywood. Early life and career beginnings. Lautner was born on February 11, 1992, in Grand Rapids, Michigan, to Deborah and Daniel Lautner. His mother works for a software development company, while his father is a Midwest Airlines pilot. He has one younger sister named Makena. Raised as a Roman Catholic, Lautner has Austrian, English, German, Swiss-German, French, Irish, and Dutch heritage, and has stated that he has "distant" Native American ancestry (specifically Ottawa and Potawatomi), through his mother. Lautner grew up in Hudsonville, Michigan, a town near Grand Rapids. Lautner stated that when he was younger he was bullied in school because he was an actor. He commented, "I just had to tell myself I can't let this get to me. This is what I love to do. And I'm going to continue doing it." He took his first karate class at the age of six. A year later, he attended the national karate tournament in Louisville, Kentucky, where he met Michael Chaturantabut, the founder of Xtreme Martial Arts. Chaturantabut invited Lautner to a camp he held at University of California, Los Angeles. Lautner trained with Chaturantabut for several years, earning his black belt by the age of eight, and winning several junior world championships. He appeared in an ISKA karate event televised on ESPN in 2003 that was later lampooned on the sports-comedy show Cheap Seats that first aired in 2006. In junior high, Lautner—who was involved in karate, baseball and hip-hop dance—won the award for "Best Smile" and played in the school's Turkey Bowl American Football game. He went to public school in Valencia until his sophomore year of high school. Chaturantabut, who once portrayed the Blue Ranger in "Power Rangers Lightspeed Rescue", suggested to Lautner that he take up acting. For a few years, the Lautners flew from Michigan to Los Angeles for auditions when his talent agency called, and returned to Grand Rapids for school sometimes the same day. Lautner balanced karate and acting with being on the football and baseball teams at his school, and taking up jazz and hip-hop dance. After that became tiring, Lautner and his family decided to move to California for a month, to try it out, before moving to Santa Clarita, California, permanently in 2002. Career. 2001–07: Early career. In his first months after moving to Los Angeles, Lautner appeared in small television roles, small film roles, and ads and commercials. In 2001, Lautner first appeared in the made-for-television film, "Shadow Fury". He then got a voice-over job in a commercial for "Rugrats Go Wild". He then appeared in small television parts on "The Bernie Mac Show", "My Wife and Kids", and "Summerland". Lautner then earned voice-over roles in animated series such as "Danny Phantom", "Duck Dodgers", and "What's New, Scooby-Doo?". In 2005, he had a role as Elliot Murtaugh in the comedy film "Cheaper by the Dozen 2". The same year, he earned his first breakout role, starring in the film, "The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl in 3-D". Lautner spent three months on location in Austin, Texas, to film the movie, which was received with negative reviews from critics, and was a minor international success. However, Lautner was nominated at the 2006 Young Artist Awards for Best Performance in a Feature Film by a Leading Actor. For the film, Lautner choreographed all of his fight scenes after director Robert Rodríguez learned of his extensive martial arts training. Months later, he was cast as Eliot Murtaugh in "Cheaper by the Dozen 2", which was panned by critics, being named one of the "Worst Films of the 2000s" by Rotten Tomatoes. After returning from Canada filming the latter movie, Lautner said he realized his newfound fame, from "Sharkboy and Lavagirl". In 2008 he appeared in the show "Love Inc." and the TV special "He's a Bully, Charlie Brown". Two years later, Lautner appeared in a lead role in the short-lived NBC drama, "My Own Worst Enemy", portraying Christian Slater's son, Jack Spivey. "Rolling Stone" coined his early roles as either "the popular kid, jock, or bully." 2008–09: Breakthrough and "The Twilight Series". In 2007, filmmakers began a search for actors to portray Jacob Black, a Native American friend of lead character Bella Swan in "Twilight", the first film in the The "Twilight" Saga film series. In January 2008, an open casting call was held in Portland, Oregon. Lautner had not heard of the "Twilight" series before, but was urged by his agent to audition. At his audition, he read lines with Kristen Stewart, who had already been cast as Bella, and they acted out scenes from ' and '. The film was a commercial success, earning $69 million its opening weekend, and has grossed $392 million worldwide. It received mixed reviews from critics, having a "Rotten" rating with a weighted average of 5.5/10. In describing the critical consensus, it stated: "Having lost much of its bite transitioning to the big screen, "Twilight" will please its devoted fans, but do little for the uninitiated." On Metacritic, which assigns a weighted mean rating out of 100 reviews from film critics, it has an average score of 56 from the 37 reviews. At the 2009 MTV Movie Awards, Lautner was nominated for Male Breakthrough Performance, which was won by co-star Robert Pattinson. Initially, director Chris Weitz wanted to recast the role of Jacob Black for "Twilight"'s sequel, "", due to the major physical changes that occur in Black between the two novels, and have an actor that would accurately portray "the new, larger Jacob Black." Black's role in the novel also increases significantly, with him falling in love with Bella and becoming a werewolf, putting the actor in a starring role. Representatives for Weitz had stated that they were make a full effort to recast the "high-profile gig," and MTV News confirmed that Weitz was looking at Michael Copon to take on the role; however, Summit Entertainment said a decision had not been made. In an attempt to keep the role, Lautner weight-trained extensively and gained approximately 30 pounds of muscle. In January 2009, Weitz and Summit Entertainment announced that Lautner would continue to play the role of Jacob in the sequel. In an interview, fellow cast member Kristen Stewart talked about Lautner's transformation saying, "He's an entirely different person physically." Stewart later said, "He gets a lot of attention because he's buff, but I think as soon as the movie comes out, people are going to realize that's not why he got the job." Co-star Robert Pattinson said after seeing Lautner's body, "I saw him and thought 'Jesus, I'm going to get fired." In an interview with "The Wrap", Weitz said Lautner deserved a lot of credit for the movie's box office, stating, "If you look at the movie, it should have been the weakest in the franchise, because Robert Pattinson doesn't play as big a role." Weitz said Lautner had to "pick up that slack, and if his character hadn't been emotionally, not just physically, appealing, the movie wouldn't have been as big a hit." The commercial performance of the film outpaced the first film, setting several box office records including the biggest midnight opening in the United States and Canada and the biggest single-day opening. The opening weekend of "New Moon" is the third highest opening weekend in domestic history with $142,839,137. "The Twilight Saga: New Moon" also has the sixth highest worldwide opening weekend with $274.9 million total. Critical reception was less favorable, with the movie getting a 4.6/10 average from Rotten Tomatoes, and a 44 on Metacritic. Lautner won Favorite Breakout Movie Actor at the 35th People's Choice Awards. Although it began after the release of the first film, upon release of "New Moon", Lautner and his co-stars Stewart and Pattinson transitioned to teen idol status, with Lautner particularly admired by teens for his new physical characteristics, becoming a sex symbol. The trio appeared on many covers and televised appearances together. In between the second and third films in the "Twilight" series, Lautner was a part of the ensemble cast in the movie "Valentine's Day" as Willy Harrington, acting alongside his rumored girlfriend at the time, American country pop singer Taylor Swift. The duo was nominated at the 2010 MTV Movie Awards for Best Kiss. Although it received generally negative reviews, the film grossed $213 million and had the second biggest opening in the United States for a romantic comedy film. Lautner presented at the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards and the 82nd Academy Awards. Lautner hosted "Saturday Night Live" on December 12, 2009, making him one of the youngest celebrity hosts in the show's history. 2010–present: Continuing "Twilight" and other projects. Lautner returned for the third "Twilight" film, "", in 2010. Receiving mixed reviews from critics, the film surpassed its predecessor to become the highest-grossing film of the franchise and the highest-grossing romantic fantasy, werewolf and vampire movie of all time at the American and Canadian box office. It ranks as the 36th highest grossing film of all-time in the U.S. and Canada. The popularity of Lautner and his cast members continued to summit, especially via the "Team Edward vs. Team Jacob" campaign that promoted the film. Lautner's fanbase also began to expand to older audiences. Lautner won Best Fantasy Actor at the 2010 Scream Awards, and he is nominated for Favorite Movie Actor for his role in "Eclipse" at the 37th People's Choice Awards. On November 2010 "The Hollywood Reporter" named Lautner as one of the young male actors who are "pushing – or being pushed" into taking over Hollywood as the new "A-List". Lautner was initially supposed to be in two films, "Northern Lights" and a movie based on Max Steel, but pulled out of both films due to scheduling conflicts and better offers. Other planned projects were the lead in a movie about Stretch Armstrong and a hostage thriller, "Cancun". Lautner filmed a "Bourne Identity"-esque spy film with Lily Collins, entitled "Abduction". It was released in September 2011 to universally negative critical reviews and Lautner's performance was heavily criticised. He appeared in the remaining parts of the "Twilight" series, the "The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn" films, which were released over a two-year period from 2011–2012. As of 2010, Lautner was considered to be the highest-paid teen actor in Hollywood. Style and image. Publications such as "GQ", "Rolling Stone", and "People" have referred to Lautner as a sex symbol, with the latter publication calling the actor a future epitome of pop culture. He has been called the new young adult star that can "both woo the girls with his intensity and impress the boys with his rugged agility." According to Mickey Rapkin of "GQ", the use of Lautner's physique in films has been compared to Megan Fox in her work. After his massive physical change following "Twilight", Lautner became a tabloid teen idol with his co-stars Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart. Lautner, determined to stay in the series, worked out every day and gained over 30 pounds of muscle in order to bulk up for the role of Jacob Black in the remaining films in the "The Twilight Saga". Michelle Lanz of MSN Wonderwall said that Lautner's change may have saved his career. Several critics credit Lautner's physical characteristics for much of the success of the "Twilight" series, with critic Sharon Waxman stating, "as a tabloid teen idol, he certainly deserves some credit for "New Moon's" $700 million worldwide gross." Lautner's abs in particular have been subject to media attention, with "The Wrap" stating that companies bidding for the actor in movies in 2011 would "shell out for the young actor's much-on-display though mostly untried abs." Mickey Rapkin of "GQ" said, "the film's marketing issues were solved when Lautner's "abdominal muscles became "New Moon"'s main talking point, not to mention his calling card." He was named number one on Access Hollywood's "Top 5 Hollywood Abs" list. Before the actor turned 18, his sexualized image was often critiqued, and subject to controversy. In December 2009, Lautner appeared on the cover of "Rolling Stone" in a wet t-shirt. Jennifer Cady of E! Online said to wait a few months when Lautner would "be of age, which will make this whole operation you got going on completely legal." In his interview with the magazine, after declining to talk about whether he was dating Taylor Swift, the magazine pressed Lautner on rumors of him being homosexual, which he brushed off. Brent Hartinger, a columnist for AfterElton, blasted the magazine, calling the questioning "unimaginably irresponsible," commenting that Lautner was just "a 17-year old kid" and that while the rumors were baseless and speculation from certain blogs and fans, it was disappointing that a "legitimate media outlet" would print gossip. Hartinger said the magazine reached a "new low" and did not have common decency, noting that there was not a line between "child and adult" although Lautner was in adult-like roles. Lautner has stated that he doesn't want to be just known for his looks, as some have attributed his popularity to that and not his actual acting skill. In an interview, the actor revealed that he was originally supposed to have a baring scene in the movie "Valentine's Day". He stated, "The script said we were walking into school and Willy takes off his shirt. I said, 'Whoa, whoa, whoa. Time out. He's gonna take off his shirt in the middle of school? No, no, no. The reason I took off my shirt for "New Moon" is because it's written in the book that way. And there's reasons behind it." Lautner later said he would not bare his chest for any role that did not call for it. In June 2010, Lautner covered "GQ" magazine. The actor was lampooned in conservative writer Laura Ingraham's satirical "The Obama Diaries", commenting to have Lautner as a mascot for the White House Easter Egg Roll, to fit their health-conscious theme, and have Lautner don a furry bunny head and appear shirtless. In 2010, Lautner was ranked number two on "Glamour"'s "50 Sexiest Men of 2010 " list. "Men's Health" ranked him at third on their list of "Top 10 Summer Bodies." Additionally in 2010, he was ranked fourth on "People"'s "Most Amazing Bodies" list. Personal life. Lautner has an intricate workout plan, which was covered by "Men's Health", and has a specific diet after developing his body for "". In addition, he still practices and trains in martial arts regularly. He has stated that he is drug and alcohol free. Lautner resides with his parents and younger sister in Valencia, California, which he says he prefers due to the dearth of paparazzi. Lautner has said that he has never thought of moving out on his own, stating, "The thing I love is that my home life hasn't changed. I still help out with the garbage. I still help out with the lawn." He owns a BMW 5 series, with dark-tinted windows intended to provide anonymity. The boost given to his career by the success of the "Twilight" films made him too busy to attend school, so he took the California High School Proficiency Exam to graduate from high school in 2008. He has stated on "Late Show with David Letterman" that if he does not have work, he would like to go back to school. He now takes online classes at his local community college.
1167040	Nadia Dajani (born December 26, 1965) is an American actress. She currently hosts the baseball comedy web series, "Caught Off Base with Nadia".
1058837	Erica Lei Leerhsen (born February 14, 1976) is an American actress. She is best known for her lead roles in the horror films ', "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" and '. She is often referred to as a modern day scream queen. She is also known for her acting on television series, such as her lead role in "The Guardian" and several guest appearances, including "The Sopranos", "Alias", and others. Early life and education. Leerhsen was born in New York City, and raised in Ossining, Westchester County, New York, along with her two younger sisters, Debbie and Nora, by their father Charles Leerhsen, a longtime editor of celebrity publication "Us Weekly". She attended St. Augustine's School and Ossining High School and graduated from Boston University College of Fine Arts in 1998. She earned BFA in acting the same year. Career. Career progression, 2000–2002. Leerhsen made her film debut in the short film "Junior Creative" (2000), as Sarah. The film received several good reviews. She appeared in the horror sequel "", though she originally auditioned for the part that eventually went to Kim Director. The film was panned by film critics, but it debuted at number 2 with $13,000,000 in the United States, and finished with $26,421,314 Overall, internationally the film made $47,737,094. She was also voted #96 in 2001's Maxim Hot 100. In 2001, Leerhsen appeared in an episode of the third season of "The Sopranos", where she played a lesbian tennis instructor who falls for Drea de Matteo's character. That same year, She was part of cast of the well-acclaimed TV show "The Guardian", she played as Amanda Bowles, an ambitious but caring associate, who leaves mid-way through season one. She played a supporting role in Woody Allen's "Hollywood Ending". The film received mixed response by critics and at the box office making $14,569,744 at the end of its theatrical run. It was screened out of competition at the 2002 Cannes Film Festival. Worldwide success, 2003–2007. Leerhsen was honored with the title "Arrow in the Head's Mistress of the Year 2003". She starred alongside Jessica Biel in the horror remake "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre", in which Leerhsen had a lead role as one of the doomed teens. During her screen test for the film, her screams were so loud that people on other floors of the building called the police to report that a young woman was being attacked. The film received mixed reviews and was a box office success, scoring the number-one spot in its opening week and going on to earn more than $80 million in the U.S. She was a guest star in two episodes of the TV show "Alias". She appeared in Woody Allen's romantic comedy film "Anything Else", opposite Jason Biggs, Christina Ricci, Stockard Channing, Danny DeVito, Jimmy Fallon, KaDee Strickland, and Allen. The film was the opening–night selection at the 60th annual Venice International Film Festival. Leerhsen starred in the 2004 independent thriller "The Warrior Class", where she played Anson Mount's love interest. The film got released on DVD on February 6, 2007. Leerhsen starred opposite Michael Peña in the independent comedy drama film "Little Athens". The film was released at the 2005 Toronto International Film Festival, and on DVD on November 21, 2006. She had a guest appearance in the TV show "Ghost Whisperer", and appeared as the character Bronwin in the romantic comedy film "Mozart and the Whale", which was released in limited theaters on April 14, 2006. That same year, Leerhsen guest appeared as Brenda Sanders in the CBS series "" episode "The Score". She starred in "", the 2007 sequel to the 2003 horror film "Wrong Turn". The film was directed by Joe Lynch and co-starring Henry Rollins and Texas Battle. It got released on DVD on October 9, 2007 in the United States, was commercially successful and received a positive response from critics. Recent work, 2008–present. She also had the lead role in the horror/thriller film "Living Hell", where she played Carrie Freeborn, a hazmat specialist. The film, written and directed by Richard Jefferies premiered on the SCI FI Channel on February 23, 2008, and was released on DVD under the title Organizm on June 10 in the United States. Leerhsen starred in the 2009 independent horror film "Lonely Joe". The film's premise followed a reporter from New York City, Michele, who returns to her hometown to investigate and find out what happened, related with the mysterious murder of her brother. As she discovers bodies dating back more than fifty years, she begins to feel as if she is part of the story she is investigating. Filming began on October 15, 2007 and wrapped on November 6, 2007. Leerhsen also stars in "The Message", a supernatural thriller film about a young woman who is forced to come to terms with her personality flaws. She is visited by a group of angels who try to guide her on a path away from her darker side. In 2010, she landed a role in the horror film "The Butterfly Room", which is an Italian/American production, produced by Ethan Wiley for Wiseacre Films and directed by Jonathan Zarantonello. Personal life. Leerhsen currently lives in Los Angeles. She married professional cyclist Antony Galvan in February 2007, but the couple divorced in 2008. On June 29, 2012, she married David Wilson in California. She enjoys yoga, running, and playing basketball.
146757	Vanessa Ferlito (born December 28, 1980) is an American actress. Personal life. An Italian American, Ferlito was born in Brooklyn, New York. Her father died when she was two of a heroin overdose. Her mother and stepfather own a hair salon in Brooklyn. Ferlito gave birth to her first child, son Vince, in September 2007. She is an active member of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA). Career. She is known for her roles in "The Sopranos", "Man of the House", Quentin Tarantino's "Death Proof", for her role as Claudia Hernandez during "24s third season, but she is most commonly known for her role as Detective Aiden Burn on '. She chose to leave the show because she wanted to focus on theatre and films, where her biggest role to date has been as the trader in "" who helps Jake, the main protagonist get revenge against the film's antagonist . Even though she is of Italian descent she often plays Latinas on TV and in films. In 2012, Ferlito was cast in Jeff Eastin's new drama series "Graceland".
395784	Kim Jong-woon () was born on 24 August 1984, mononymously credited by his stage name Yesung () is a South Korean singer, Musical Actor and radio DJ. He is best known as a member of the K-pop boy band Super Junior and its subgroups Super Junior-K.R.Y. and Super Junior-H. He is one of the three main vocalists of Super Junior. His stage name 'Yesung' is translated to "art-like voice" and is derived from the phrase "예술가의 성대", meaning "vocal cords of an artist". Biography. Yesung was born on August 24, 1984 in Seoul and later moved to Cheonan, South Chungcheong at age 10. He is the older son of two; his younger brother's name is Kim Jongjin. From a young age, Yesung expressed an interest in singing. In 1999, he joined a broadcast singing competition and won gold at the Cheonan Singing Competition. In 2001, Yesung's mother signed him up to audition for SM Entertainment's Starlight Casting System, in which he impressed the judges with his "artistic voice", and signed as trainee under SM Entertainment that same year. 2005-2007: Debut with Super Junior. Yesung officially debut as part of 12-member project group "Super Junior 05" on 6 November 2005 on SBS's music programme "Popular Songs", performing their first single, "Twins (Knock Out)". Their debut album "SuperJunior05 (Twins)" was released a month later on 5 December 2005 and debuted at #3 on the monthly MIAK K-pop album charts. In March 2006, SM Entertainment began to recruit new members for the next Super Junior generation. However, plans changed and the company declared a halt in forming future Super Junior generations. Following the addition of thirteenth member Kyuhyun, the group dropped the suffix "05" and became officially credited as Super Junior. The re-polished group's first CD single "U" was released on 7 June 2006, which was their most successful single until the release of "Sorry, Sorry" in March 2009. In the fall of 2007, the group released their second official album, "Don't Don", which became Super Junior's best-selling album and Korea's second best-selling album of the year. From September 2006 to September 2007, Yesung was host for radio program, "M.I.R.A.C.L.E for You", where members of Super Junior often appeared as guests. However, before the radio show's first anniversary, Yesung left in order to concentrate on Super Junior's second album, "Don't Don". The last air date for the radio show was 8 September 2007. In November 2006, Yesung, along with members Ryeowook and Kyuhyun, formed Super Junior's first subgroup, Super Junior-K.R.Y., a group specializing in R&B ballads. In 2007 Yesung became a member of Super Junior-H. He debut as an actor on 26 July 2007 with the release of "Attack on the Pin-Up Boys", a high school comedy starring fellow Super Junior members. He played the school's rock star who gets attacked by a mysterious force. 2008-2009: Musical theatre. On 9 May 2008, Yesung was sent to the hospital after he injured his leg during the 70 km 24-Hour "Marathon of Hope" in which he and band mates Shindong, Sungmin, Leeteuk, Eunhyuk and Kangin participated. The event was in collaboration with the SBS charity program "Hope TV 24" and the money raised was donated to a Mongolian school in South Korea which was at risk of closing down. Due to the injury, Yesung was unable to complete the marathon, but appeared on stage on crutches with his fellow members. Also on 8 August, Yesung was sent to the hospital after falling from a 1.5m stage while rehearsing at the KBS music program, "Music Bank". The injury aggravated old injuries from the neck and waist and was hospitalised for two days. He sang ballad track "Love Really Hurts" for the original soundtrack of television drama "Tazza", which aired from 16 September to 25 November 2008. In 2009, Yesung made his musical theatre debut in "Namhansanseong" (lit. South Korean Mountain Fortress), which is based on the novel of the same name by Kim Hoon, which is based on the historical incident of Byeongja Horan, at the Namhansanseong in Gyeonggi-do. But the musical focuses on the lives of common people and their spirit of survival during harsh situations. Yesung played villain "Jung Myung-soo", a servant-turned-interpreter who feels sad from being betrayed by his country, from 9 October to 4 November at the Seongnam Arts Center Opera House. On 6 November, he made a surprise appearance on KBS' Music Bank with label mates SHINee in place of Jonghyun, who was recovering from influenza, in a performance of "Ring Ding Dong". 2010: OST. In 2010, Yesung starred in the title role of musical "Hong Gil Dong", alongside band mate Sungmin who also played the historical figure Hong Gildong. It played at the Woori Financial Art Hall at the Olympic Park from 18 February to 18 April 2010. On 31 March 2010, Yesung contributed to the OST of television drama "Cinderella's Sister", starring Moon Geun-young and Chun Jung-myung. The song, "It Has To Be You", is a ballad that tells the story about a man who refused to look for another girl, except for the one he loved. On 4 June, Yesung performed it for the first time, and his first solo stage, on Music Bank which reached #3 on show's K-Chart. In July 2010, Yesung appeared with band mate Leeteuk as MC's for MBC's "Love Pursuer". The show presents a Korean celebrity being showered with affection from a secret admirer, with the challenge of guessing who the admirer is. Yesung was himself the subject of admiration in episode 10. During the recording of "Dream Team 2" on 21 August 2011, he fell from a platform and strained his waist again, but was reported to be a minor injury. On 4 September, he became the new MC for "MUZIT", a musical talk show alongside K.Will and veteran composer Yoo Youngsuk. It showcased various musical talents from the Korean music industry. From 1 October to 28 October 2010, also he starred in his third musical "Spamalot" playing the main role of Sir Galahad. On 29 December 2010, Yesung together with Luna of f(x), sang the track "Loving You", on part two of the original soundtrack of KBS drama "President". 2011: DJ and K.R.Y Concert. On 31 January 2011, Yesung's third solo song, from the OST of SBS drama, "Paradise Ranch," was released. "Waiting For You" is a ballad that tells the story of a man who is adamant on waiting until the end of the world for his lover to return to him. He performed it for the first time at the K.R.Y Concert in Seoul on 11 February. From 28 February to 21 June 2011, Yesung temporarily replaced band mate Eunhyuk as radio DJ partnering with Leeteuk on "Super Junior's Kiss the Radio", while Eunhyuk was away on promotional activities for Super Junior-M's third EP "Perfection". In June, he joined KBS's "Immortal Song 2" where singers render their own versions of old songs from music legends and winners are selected by voting. He lost in the first episode but won the third episode when he sang Boohwal's song "The More I Love". His second duet with Jang Hyejin, was released on 14 July 2011 throughout Korea's digital charts. "I Am Behind You" is from the album "Cooperation Part 1" . The song has a fantastic harmony and is mixed with the lyrics of secretly loving someone and wondering if that person could possibly be feeling the same way about them. On 18 July 2011, "For One Day" was released. It is from the OST SBS historical drama "Warrior Baek Dong Soo" . The song explores an emotional farewell from a lover. Yesung performed this live for the first time on 6 October 2011 at the K.R.Y Concert in Nanjing. On 27 September 2011, he along with Eunhyuk and Shindong filled in for bandmate Heechul, who enlist for mandatory military service on 1 September, during the performance on Music Bank and Show! Music Core of Kim Jang-hoon latest single, "Breakups are So Like Me". Heechul is featured in the song and starred in the music video, which was completed the day before he enlisted. 2012: Comeback with Super Junior. In June 2012, Yesung reunited with his Super Junior band mates for their sixth studio album, "Sexy, Free & Single" for released on 4 July. On 24 June Yesung's teaser photo was released showing him partially bare chested with a crown of branches on his head. On nearly that month, they made a new repackage album, SPY. On 11 November 2012, Yesung and his brother Kim Jong Jin had officially opened their cafe named "Mouse Rabbit Coffee" after their franchise, "Babtols" and "Handel & Gretel". 2013-Present: debut Japanese single and military service. In November 2012, Super Junior K.R.Y. held a concert tour in Japn, Super Junior K.R.Y. Special Winter Concert. They announced that they would be releasing their first single 6 years after debut. The teaser for "Promise You" was released on November 21, 2012, followed by the single on 23 January 2013. It debuted at number two on the Oricon’s daily singles chart. On 13 February 2013, Yesung's OST "Gray Paper" for SBS melodrama "That Winter, The Wind Blows" was released. The track was composed by label mate Kangta and where he went on to performe it on SBS's music program "Inkigayo" on February 17. Yesung announced at the Seoul concert of "Super Show 5" that he will enlist for his mandatory military service in 2013. He is to serve as a public service worker after four weeks of basic training. He enlisted May 6, 2013, causing him to not takepart in the South American leg of "Super Show 5".
899798	Ornella Muti (born 9 March 1955) is an Italian actress. Early life. She was born in Rome as Francesca Romana Rivelli, to a Neapolitan father and Estonian mother Ilse Renata Krause. Her maternal grandparents immigrated from Leningrad (now Saint Petersburg), Russia, to Estonia. She has an older sister, Claudia (born 1951). Career. Muti modeled as a teenager and made her film debut in 1970 in "La moglie più bella" (aka "The Most Beautiful Wife").
582871	Yaad Rakhegi Duniya is a 1992 Bollywood romantic comedy film directed by Deepak Anand on his debut. Starring Aditya Pancholi and Rukhsar, it premiered on 1 March 1992 in Mumbai. It is a remake of Telugu film "Geethanjali". Plot. Vicky Anand (Aditya Pancholi) has just graduated from college with honors and decides to celebrate. An accident leads him to the hospital and the shocking discovery that he's suffering from a terminal illness. He decides to move to the lush, green locales of Ooty, a hill-station hoping to find peace and solitude, where he meets Naina (Rukhsar), a precocious young woman who enjoy playing pranks. Vicky finds support and encouragement befriending her and eventually falls in love with the mischievous and outgoing, Naina, who also suffers from a terminal illness. Vicky comes to know about Naina's illness, and discusses this with her doctor dad, who confirms it, saying that there is no cure. Despite of this, Vicky wants to marry her. When Vicky's mom comes to visit her son, he tells her about his love for Naina, and she is delighted. She rushes over to meet Naina for the first time, and is pleased with Vicky's choice. Then unknowingly she blurts out a truth so devastating, that it will change Naina's final remaining days forever.
1053711	Elizabeth Chase Olsen (born February 16, 1989) is an American actress and singer. She is best known for her roles in the films "Silent House", "Liberal Arts" and the critically acclaimed "Martha Marcy May Marlene", for which she was nominated for numerous awards. She is the younger sister of actresses and fashion designers Mary-Kate Olsen and Ashley Olsen. Early life and education. Olsen was born and raised in Sherman Oaks, California, the daughter of Jarnette "Jarnie" (née Jones; In 1995, Olsen's parents filed for divorce proceedings. Her father remarried McKenzie (her stepmother). Olsen has an older brother, , and from her father's second marriage to McKenzie, she has a younger half-sister, Courtney "Taylor", and half-brother, Jake. Elizabeth Olsen and her five siblings have Norwegian ancestry on their father's side. As a child, she received ballet and singing lessons. Lizzie Olsen began acting at a very young age, with appearances in her sisters' films. Before the age of eleven, Olsen had small roles in "How the West Was Fun" and the straight-to-video series "The Adventures of Mary-Kate and Ashley". Having appeared in her sisters' videos, when she was in the fourth grade, Olsen began to go on auditions for other projects. Olsen attended Campbell Hall School in North Hollywood, California from kindergarten through grade 12. After graduation, she enrolled at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts. In 2009, Olsen spent a semester studying in Moscow, Russia at the Art Theatre School. Career. Olsen began acting when she was four years of age and co-starred in six of Mary-Kate and Ashley's productions; she also auditioned for the film, "Spy Kids". Olsen appeared nude in the 2011 film "Martha Marcy May Marlene"; when asked about the nudity, she said that she felt that it added to the film. She has also acted in "Silent House", in which she played the role of Sarah, and appeared in the music video "The Queen" by Carlotta. Lizzie Olsen filmed the movie "Red Lights" during mid-2011, and the movie was released in the US on July 13, 2012. She also starred in Josh Radnor's film "Liberal Arts", which was released on January 22, 2012. She and Dakota Fanning are set to star in "Very Good Girls", planned for a 2013 release. Olsen had recently joined the cast of the American remake of the 2003 South Korean film "Oldboy". She will play Marie, a young social worker who develops a relationship with the protagonist, played by Josh Brolin. Olsen played Edie Parker, Jack Kerouac's first wife and the author of the Beat Generation memoir "You'll Be Okay" in "Kill Your Darlings". Olsen almost quit acting in 2004 due to the media frenzy surrounding Mary-Kate's eating disorder. In January 2013, she was nominated to receive the BAFTA's Rising Star Award. As of August 2013, Olsen is in talks with Marvel Studios to play the role of the Scarlet Witch in the upcoming 2015 film "". Personal life. Olsen attended New York University's Tisch School of the Arts and the Atlantic Theater Company and graduated in March 2013 after 6 years of intermittent study. Her sisters' clothing line Elizabeth and James was named after her and her older brother.
1104314	Yutaka Taniyama (Japanese: 谷山 豊 "Taniyama Yutaka"; November 12, 1927, Kisai near Tokyo – November 17, 1958, Tokyo) was a Japanese mathematician known for the Taniyama–Shimura conjecture. Contribution. Taniyama was best known for conjecturing, in modern language, automorphic properties of L-functions of elliptic curves over any number field. A partial and refined case of this conjecture for elliptic curves over rationals is called the Taniyama–Shimura conjecture or the modularity theorem whose statement he subsequently refined in collaboration with Goro Shimura. The names Taniyama, Shimura and Weil have all been attached to this conjecture, but the idea is essentially due to Taniyama. In 1986 Ribet proved that if the Taniyama–Shimura conjecture held, then so would Fermat's last theorem, which inspired Andrew Wiles to work for a number of years in secrecy on it, and to prove enough of it to prove Fermat's Last Theorem. Due to the pioneering contribution of Wiles and the efforts of a number of mathematicians the Taniyama–Shimura conjecture was finally proven in 1999. The original Taniyama conjecture for elliptic curves over arbitrary number fields remains open, and the method of Wiles and others cannot be extended to provide its proof. Depression and death. On November 17, 1958, Taniyama committed suicide.He left a note explaining how far he had got with his teaching duties, and apologizing to his colleagues for the trouble he was causing them. His mystifying suicide note read: Until yesterday I had no definite intention of killing myself. But more than a few must have noticed that lately I have been tired both physically and mentally. As to the cause of my suicide, I don't quite understand it myself, but it is not the result of a particular incident, nor of a specific matter. Merely may I say, I am in the frame of mind that I lost confidence in my future. There may be someone to whom my suicide will be troubling or a blow to a certain degree. I sincerely hope that this incident will cast no dark shadow over the future of that person. At any rate, I cannot deny that this is a kind of betrayal, but please excuse it as my last act in my own way, as I have been doing my own way all my life. Although his note is mostly enigmatic it does mention tiredness and a loss of confidence in his future. Taniyama's ideas had been criticized as unsubstantiated and his behavior had occasionally been deemed peculiar. Goro Shimura mentioned that he suffered from depression. Taniyama also mentioned in the note his concern that some might be harmed by his suicide and his hope that the act would not cast "a dark shadow over that person." About a month later, Misako Suzuki, the woman whom he was planning to marry, also committed suicide, leaving a note reading: "We promised each other that no matter where we went, we would never be separated. Now that he is gone, I must go too in order to join him." After Taniyama's death, Goro Shimura stated that: He was always kind to his colleagues, especially to his juniors, and he genuinely cared about their welfare. He was the moral support of many of those who came into mathematical contact with him, including of course myself. Probably he was never conscious of this role he was playing. But I feel his noble generosity in this respect even more strongly now than when he was alive. And yet nobody was able to give him any support when he desperately needed it. Reflecting on this, I am overwhelmed by the bitterest grief. In a 2011 TED talk by English economist Tim Harford titled, "Trial, error and the God complex," Taniyama is referenced as a mathematician who was ultimately unable to prove his conjecture during his lifetime. Reflecting on Taniyama's work, Goro Shimura stated: He was not a very careful person as a mathematician. He made a lot of mistakes. But he made mistakes in a good direction. I tried to emulate him. But I've realized that it's very difficult to make good mistakes.
1163159	Harry Clifford Keel (April 13, 1919November 7, 2004), known professionally as Howard Keel, was an American actor and singer. He starred in many film musicals of the 1950s. He is best known to modern audiences for his starring role in the CBS television series "Dallas" from 1981 to 1991, as Clayton Farlow, opposite Barbara Bel Geddes's character, but to an earlier generation, he was known as the star of some of the most famous MGM film musicals ever made, with a rich bass-baritone singing voice. Early life. Keel was born Harry Clifford Keel in Gillespie, Illinois, to Navyman-turned-coalminer Homer Keel and his wife, Grace Osterkamp Keel. (It is often erroneously stated—by the MGM publicity department of the 1950s—that Keel's birth name was Harold Leek). Young Harry spent his childhood in poverty. One of his teachers, Miss Rosa Burke, noticed one day that he was not eating his lunch. From that day forward, Miss Burke would pack two lunches – one for herself and one for Harry. When he became famous and would perform near Gillespie, Burke always received tickets to attend his performances. After his father's death in 1930, Keel and his mother moved to California, where he graduated from Fallbrook High School at age 17. He worked various odd jobs until settling at Douglas Aircraft Company as a traveling representative. Career and personal life. At the age of 20, Keel was overheard singing by his landlady, Mom Rider, and was encouraged to take vocal lessons. One of his musical heroes was the great baritone Lawrence Tibbett. Keel later remarked that learning that his own voice was a "basso cantante" was one of the greatest disappointments of his life. Nevertheless, his first public performance occurred in the summer of 1941, when he played the role of Samuel the Prophet in Handel's oratorio "Saul" (singing a duet with bass-baritone George London). In 1943, Keel met and married his first wife, actress Rosemary Cooper. In 1945, he briefly understudied for John Raitt in the Broadway hit "Carousel" before being assigned to "Oklahoma!", written by Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II. When performing this play during this period, Keel accomplished a feat that has never been duplicated; he performed the leads in both shows on the same day. In 1947, "Oklahoma!" became the first American postwar musical to travel to London, England, and Keel joined the production. On the opening night, April 30, at the Drury Lane Theatre, the capacity audience (which included the future Queen Elizabeth II) demanded fourteen encores. Keel was hailed as the next great star, becoming the toast of London's West End. During the London run, his marriage to Rosemary ended in divorce, and Keel fell in love with a young member of the show's chorus, dancer Helen Anderson. They married in January 1949 and, a year later, Harold – now called Howard – celebrated the birth of his daughter, Kaija. While living in London, Keel made his film debut as Harold Keel at the British Lion studio in Elstree, in "The Small Voice" (1948), released in the US as "Hideout." He played an escaped convict holding a playwright and his wife hostage in their English country cottage. Additional Broadway credits include "Saratoga", "No Strings", and "Ambassador". He appeared at The Muny in St. Louis, MO as General Waverly in "White Christmas" (2000), Henry Higgins in "My Fair Lady" (1996); Emile de Becque in "South Pacific" (1992), and Adam in "Seven Brides for Seven Brothers" (1954).
586336	Yathrakarude Sradhakku (Malayalam : യാത്രക്കാരുടെ ശ്രദ്ധയ്ക്ക്‌) is a 2002 Malayalam romantic drama film directed by Sathyan Anthikad, and starring Jayaram, Soundarya and Innocent in pivotal roles. The film explores the relationship that develops between two friends of the opposite sex living together for some time and then parting ways to lead separate lives. It was a criticism of the Keralite people's conservative stance toward relationships between men and women. "Yathrakarude Sradhakku" is one of Soundarya's final films before her death two years later in an aircraft accident. Plot. Ramanujan (Jayaram) meets a software engineer named Jyothi (Soundarya) on the train returning to Chennai. She has been engaged to Dr. Pradeep (Sidhique) for many years. After they arrive in Chennai, Ramanujan asks his best friend Paul (Innocent) to find Jyothi a new home. Jyothi is not married and is therefore unable to legally own a home, so when she receives a home from Paul she lies and tells the owner that she is married to Ramanujan. When she has to leave the home, she stays at Ramanujan's house. They convince the neighbors that they are a couple. Ramanujan falls in love with Jyothi, but he understands that she is already engaged. She returns to Kerala for her engagement, and Ramanujan and Paul both attend the engagement party. Paul gets drunk at the party and tells everyone that Ramanujan and Jyothi were living in a single home together in Chennai, ending Jyothi's relationship and forcing her to marry Ramanujan. Upon returning to Chennai, Jyothi stops talking to Ramanujan despite his best attempts to please her. He returns to Kerala one day and Paul tells her that Ramanujan's mother has died. Instead, Ramanujan brings Dr. Pradeep back to Chennai, saying that Dr. Pradeep and Jyothi can start a new life together if they wish. Jyothi understands Ramanujan's real love and pardons him, choosing to continue her life with him. Reception. The film mostly received positive reviews. Veena Pradeep of the "Deccan Herald" said, "A new theme, good performances, Sreenivasan’s and Innocent’s comic interludes and some good music keep the audience engaged throughout the film."
1431951	Michael Weston (born October 25, 1973) is an American television and film actor. His best-known roles are the private detective Lucas Douglas on "House", the homicidal meth addict Jake in the critically acclaimed HBO drama "Six Feet Under" and Pvt. Dancer on "Scrubs." Personal life. Weston was born Michael Rubinstein in New York City, the son of actors Judi West and John Rubinstein, the grandson of piano virtuoso Arthur Rubinstein and the great-grandson of conductor Emil Młynarski, the founding conductor of Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra and principal conductor of the Scottish Orchestra. He holds a degree in Theater and Arts from Northwestern University. In 2000 he changed his surname to "Weston" as there was already a "Michael Rubinstein" in the Screen Actors Guild. Weston has been married to musician Priscilla Ahn since 2010. Acting career. Weston is a good friend of actor Zach Braff and has appeared in two features with him, "Garden State" and "The Last Kiss", and as a guest star on Braff's television show, "Scrubs". Weston has also appeared as Simon Marsden, Olivia Benson's half-brother on "". Weston appeared in the fifth season of "House" as a private investigator named Lucas Douglas hired by Dr. Gregory House; he reappeared in season six. Series creator David Shore planned a spin-off show with Weston's character as the lead in 2008, but no such show ever aired. In 2009, Weston played a producer in the Gerard Butler action film, "Gamer". Weston also guest starred in an episode of the USA Network series "Burn Notice" whose main character's name, Michael Westen (played by Jeffrey Donovan), is, coincidentally, nearly identical. In 2012, Weston starred in the A&E television movie, "Coma" and shares screen time with Lauren Ambrose, a fellow cast member from the HBO series, "Six Feet Under".
1066168	Ronee Blakley (born August 24, 1945) is an American entertainer. Although an accomplished singer, songwriter, composer, producer and director, she is perhaps best known as an actress. Her most famous role was as the fictional country superstar Barbara Jean in Robert Altman's 1975 film "Nashville", for which she won a National Board of Review Award for Best Supporting Actress and was nominated for an Academy Award. She also had a notable role in "A Nightmare on Elm Street" (1984). Life and career. Blakley was born in Nampa, Idaho, daughter of civil engineer Ronald Blakley and his wife Carol. Blakely has three siblings, including a brother, Stephen, who is gay. Carol Blakely became a champion of gay rights after her son came out to their religious family.Blakley’s early years were spent in the Pacific Northwest where she was selected as Idaho's representative to Girl's Nation while in high school. She studied at Mills College, Stanford University, and went to New York to attend Juilliard for post-graduate work. Blakley began in New York improvising vocally with Moog synthesizers in Carnegie Hall to music by Gershon Kingsley. Her first soundtrack was composed for the 20th Century Fox film "Welcome Home Soldier Boys" and earned her a spot in "Who's Who in America." 1970s. In 1972, the folk-rock album "Ronee Blakley" debuted on Elektra Records and featured Blakley’s original songs, accompanied by herself on her piano. Blakley also made the musical arrangements. The song “Bluebird” featured a duet with Linda Ronstadt. Blakley's songs were published by her own company, Sawtooth Music. Her second album, "Welcome" was released on Warner Bros. in 1975, produced by Jerry Wexler and recorded at Muscle Shoals Sound Studio in Alabama. The Los Angeles "Herald Examiner" wrote it was a "near perfect album." That same year, Blakley appeared in what may be her most widely known performance in "Nashville." Her character Barbara Jean was purported to be modeled after country star Loretta Lynn. In "Nashville" Blakley performs her own songs in character, including "Tapedeck In His Tractor," "Dues" and "My Idaho Home." In her review for "The New Yorker", film critic Pauline Kael wrote: “This is Ronee Blakley’s first movie, and she puts most movie hysteria to shame. She achieves her gifts so simply, I wasn’t surprised when somebody sitting beside me started to cry. Perhaps, for the first time on the screen, one gets the sense of an artist being destroyed by her gifts.” Blakley was nominated for an Academy Award in the category Best Supporting Actress along with Lily Tomlin (who was also nominated in the same category). Blakley was also nominated for a Grammy, a Golden Globe and a British Academy award, and won the National Board of Review award for Best Supporting Actress. She was featured on the covers of "Newsweek", "American Cinematographer" and Andy Warhol's "Interview Magazine". She toured as backup singer to Bob Dylan in the "Rolling Thunder Revue", the caravan of a band Dylan put together to tour after his album "Desire". The band also featured Joan Baez, Joni Mitchell and Ramblin’ Jack Elliott. She appears on the live albums from that tour "Hard Rain" and "". She also recorded with Leonard Cohen and Hoyt Axton. In 1977, Blakley starred in the film "She Came to the Valley" with Dean Stockwell, Scott Glenn, and Freddy Fender. She also appeared in several TV movies including "Desperate Women", "Ladies in Waiting", "Oklahoma City Dolls" and the "Ford 75th Anniversary Special" introduced by Tennessee Williams and co-starring John Ritter in "The Glass Menagerie." Her guest starring roles in television series include "Vegas", "The Love Boat", "Highway to Heaven", "Trapper John", "Hotel", "The Runaways", "Beyond Westworld" and "Tales from the Darkside". 1980s. In 1980, Blakley starred in "The Baltimore Bullet" with James Coburn, Omar Sharif and Bruce Boxleitner. Two years later, in 1982 she appeared on Broadway in "Pump Boys and Dinettes" with Loudon Wainwright III and starred Off Broadway with Tammy Grimes in 1983. She starred in Somerset Maugham's "Rain' for the Indiana Repertory Theatre. For Wes Craven's 1984 horror film "A Nightmare on Elm Street" she played the role of the mother.
1578166	Mooz-lum is a 2010 American independent film written and directed by Qasim "Q" Basir and starring Danny Glover. "Mooz-lum" (i.e. "Muslim") tells the story of an African American Muslim family whose lives are changed by the September 11 attacks and their aftermath. The film was initially promoted primarily through social media, before opening for its limited theatrical release on February 11, 2011. Plot. Amid a strict Muslim rearing and a social life he has never had, Tariq Mahdi (Evan Ross) enters college confused. New peers, family and mentors help him find his place, but the 9/11 attacks force him to face his past and make the biggest decisions of his life. Filming. The movie was filmed in Southeastern Michigan. Although the college attended by Tariq is never explicitly identified, most of the college scenes were filmed on location on the campuses of the University of Michigan and Eastern Michigan University. The mosque scene was filmed at the Islamic Center of America in Dearborn, Michigan. Reception. In 2004, aspiring director Qasim "Q" Basir happened to cross paths with one of the best in the profession, Spike Lee, in his Detroit hometown. Basir asked him for guidance on how to succeed in the industry. Lee simply replied, "Write a good script, man." Basir, now 30, followed Lee's simple advice, which led him to eventually write, and direct his first full-feature film, "Mooz-lum", starring Nia Long, Danny Glover, Evan Ross and Roger Guenveur Smith. Partnering with AMC and Eventful, the film was released nationally in February 2011. "Mooz-lum" is based on the trials of Tariq Mahdi (Ross), a Muslim-American boy who struggles to find his identity while enduring the forces of his strict father, other Muslims, and non-Muslims who are pulling him in different directions. "I said 'yes' immediately and wanted to make sure I represented Muslim women properly," Long said. "A piece like this sheds light on an area of life that we may not really know and have never seen portrayed on the screen, and that is what really attracted me to the part."
585892	Thomas James, better known by his stage name, Manikuttan, is an Indian film and television actor. Early life. He was born Thomas James in Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala, India. He attended St. Mary's Higher Secondary School, Pattom, Trivandrum and studied commerce at Mahatma Gandhi College. Career. His debut film is Varnachirakukal(1999)-Children's film. Before that he appeared in lots of dramas in Doordarshan, as child artist. He appeared first in the television series "Kayamkulam Kochunni", which was aired on Surya TV. His first film appearance was in the Malayalam-language film "Boyy Friennd" (2005) directed by Vinayan.
1224798	Bernard Aloysius Kiernan "Barnard" Hughes (July 16, 1915 – July 11, 2006) was an American actor of theater and film. Hughes became famous for a variety of roles; his most-notable roles came after middle age, and he was often cast as a dithering authority figure or grandfatherly elder. Personal life. Hughes was born in Bedford Hills, New York, the son of Irish immigrants Madge (née Kiernan) and Owen Hughes. He attended La Salle Academy and Manhattan College in New York City. Hughes was married to actress Helen Stenborg. They married on April 19, 1950, and remained married until his death. Hughes was five days shy of his ninety-first birthday when he died. The Hugheses had two children, he theatre director Doug Hughes, and a daughter, Laura. Hughes and his wife are interred at Church of the Transfiguration in Manhattan. Career. Hughes changed the "e" in his first name to an "a" to help his acting career on the advice of a numerologist. Through high school and college, Hughes worked a series of odd jobs, including a stint as a dockworker and as a salesman at Macy's. He auditioned for the Shakespeare Fellowship Repertory company in New York City on the advice of a friend, and ended up joining the company for two years. Hughes played more than 400 theatre roles, including the one for which he was perhaps most famous, in Hugh Leonard's "Da". He won Broadway's 1978 Tony Award as Best Actor for his portrayal of the title role; in 1988 he recreated the role for the film "Da". On screen, he appeared in the film transcription of "Hamlet" (1964), "Midnight Cowboy" (1969) (the only X-rated film to win the Academy Award for Best Picture), and also appeared in such films as "Cold Turkey" (1971) "The Hospital" (1971), "Oh, God!" (1977), "First Monday in October" (1981), "Tron" (1982), "The Lost Boys" (1987), "Da" (1988) - the screen reprise of his most successful stage-role, and "Doc Hollywood" (1991). He also played the old man who gave a ride to Felix and Oscar on "The Odd Couple II" (1998) and was featured in "The Fantasticks" (1995). Hughes appeared on TV in such series as "Naked City", "The Secret Storm", "Blossom" and "". In 1973, he had a notable recurring role on "All in the Family" as a Roman Catholic priest, Father John Majeski, doing battle with Archie Bunker, and won an Emmy for his portrayal of a senile judge on "Lou Grant". Hughes made 3 appearances in "The Bob Newhart Show" as the father of Dr. Robert Hartley. He was the central character in three sitcoms: "Doc", which ran on CBS from 1975–77, where he played a physician; "Mr. Merlin", in which he played Merlin, a magician mentoring a 20th-century teenager; and "The Cavanaughs", co-starring Christine Ebersole, in which he played the family patriarch (Art Carney played his brother, and Glynis Johns made guest appearances). Hughes sang "Danny Boy" in one episode. He made a memorable appearance as The King (with Jim Dale as The Duke) in the PBS mini-series "Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Hughes also made recurring appearances on daytime dramas including "Guiding Light" and "As the World Turns" as well as a brief appearance in an early episode of "Dark Shadows". He also did voice-overs for television commercials advertising Kix cereal.
1169499	Kevin Peter Hall (May 9, 1955 – April 10, 1991) was an American actor known for his roles in "Misfits of Science", "Prophecy", "Without Warning", "Harry and the Hendersons" and most notably as the title character in the first two films in the "Predator" franchise. Early life. Hall was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. His parents were of above-average stature; his father, Charles Hall, was 6' 6", and his mother, Sylvia Hall, was 6' 2". At 7' 2" tall, he was the tallest of seven brothers, all over 6' 5". During his high school years at Penn Hills High School, he excelled at basketball and earned a scholarship to George Washington University in Washington, D.C. In college, Hall continued to play basketball and majored in Theatrical Arts. After graduation, Hall moved to Venezuela to play basketball. Career. Hall made his acting debut in the 1979 horror film "Prophecy". Due to his height, he was often cast in monster roles. He appeared as "the alien" in the 1980 horror film "Without Warning" and as "Gorvil" in the 1982 television movie "Mazes and Monsters". In 1985, he co-starred in the short-lived series "Misfits of Science". He guest starred on the sitcom "Night Court" as a huge but gentle mental patient who humorously towered over bailiff Bull Shannon (played by Richard Moll, who is 6'8"). The next year, Hall portrayed yet another monster in the horror film "Monster in the Closet", followed by the role of "Harry" in "Harry and the Hendersons". In 1986, Hall was cast as the main antagonist in "Predator", starring Arnold Schwarzenegger. During its developmental stages, the Predator was going to be played by Jean-Claude Van Damme, who played the Predator for the first few scenes but wasn't billed in the end credits. The producers decided to recast the role with Hall so that the Predator could more convincingly dominate the film's human characters with its greater size. Hall would go on to reprise the role in the 1990 sequel. Following his role in "Predator", Hall appeared in the film "Big Top Pee-wee" (1988) and had a guest spot on "" (a series for which he had once been a leading contender for two key roles, Geordi LaForge and Lt. Commander Data). From 1989 to 1990, he had a recurring role on the NBC sitcom "227". In 1990, Hall reprised his role as Harry on the television series based on the film. He died during the series' first season. Personal life and death. Hall met actress Alaina Reed while taping a guest spot on the television show "227". The couple would marry both on the show and in real life. While working on the series "Harry and the Hendersons", Hall announced that he had contracted HIV from a contaminated blood transfusion. On April 10, 1991, Hall died from AIDS-related pneumonia. He was 35 years old. Honors. Hall was posthumously inducted into the Penn Hills Hall of Fame as part of the inaugural class on May 8, 2009.
1551675	Karl John Geary (born May 31, 1972 in Dublin, Ireland), is an actor and club owner. He moved to the United States at the age of fifteen in 1987; he later got a green card in a visa lottery for Irish illegals, and ultimately became a naturalized citizen. He has seven brothers and sisters. He appeared in Madonna's "Sex" book. His television and film roles include "Sex and the City", "Hysteria – The Def Leppard Story", and 2000's "Hamlet". He wrote 2003's "Coney Island Baby". He appeared as a principal character, Coffey, in the 2008 horror film "The Burrowers". He owns a downtown Manhattan bar called "The Scratcher" [http://www.yelp.com/biz/scratcher-new-york], and previously co-owned another club, the original tiny Cafe Sin-é on St. Mark's Place in the East Village, where he waited on tables alongside Jeff Buckley. In 2003, Geary married Scottish actress Laura Fraser. They have one daughter. They live in Brooklyn.
1067107	Big Stan is a 2007 American comedy film produced, directed by and starring Rob Schneider. Although released in some overseas markets during the fall of 2008, it was released straight to DVD in the U.S. on March 24, 2009. It debuted at number 17 on the DVD rental charts of March 23–30, 2009. On the radio show "Loveline", Schneider stated that this film will be an "anti-man-raping" film — referring to prison rape. Plot. A real estate con artist named Stan Minton (Rob Schneider) panics when he learns that he is going to prison for fraud. Stan's fear of jail-house rape leads him to hire the mysterious guru known as "The Master" (David Carradine) who helps transform him into a creative martial-arts expert. During his incarceration, Stan uses his new-found skills to intimidate his fellow prisoners and prevents the prisoners from hitting or raping each other. He gains the prisoners' respect, and eventually becomes their leader, bringing peace and harmony to the prison yard. But the corrupt warden has a plan to profit by turning the prison into a war zone, forcing its closure, and selling off the property as valuable real estate. Stan helps him with the real estate aspects in exchange for early parole, however his peacemaking efforts threaten the warden's plan for a riot and he is persuaded to bring back violence. In a last minute attack of conscience he deliberately blows the parole hearing to rush back and prevent the deaths of his fellow inmates, only to discover that his message of peace has sunk in and the prisoners are dancing instead of fighting. The warden orders the guards to open fire on the dancing men and, when they refuse, grabs a gun and shoots wildly. He attempts to shoot Minton but he is stopped by Minton's wife and the Master, who had snuck in. Three years later Minton leaves the prison, which is now run by one of the more sympathetic guards, to be met outside by his wife, his young daughter and the Master.
1059400	Anton Viktorovich Yelchin (; born March 11, 1989) is an American film and television actor. He began performing in the late 1990s, appearing in several television roles and the Hollywood films "Along Came a Spider" and "Hearts in Atlantis" (both 2001). Yelchin later appeared on the television series "Huff" and starred in the films "House of D" (2005), "Alpha Dog" (2007), "Star Trek" (2009) and its sequel Star Trek Into Darkness (2013), "Terminator Salvation" (2009), "The Smurfs" (2011), "Fright Night" (2011) and "Like Crazy" (2011). Yelchin's role as Jacob Clarke in the Steven Spielberg miniseries "Taken" was significant in furthering his career as a child actor. Personal life. Yelchin was born March 11, 1989, in Leningrad, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union (modern day Saint Petersburg, Russia). His family is Jewish. His parents, Irina Korina and Viktor Yelchin, were pair figure skaters who were celebrities as stars of the Leningrad Ice Ballet for 15 years. Nationally, Yelchin's parents were the third-ranked pair team; they thus qualified for the 1972 Winter Olympics, but were not permitted to participate by the Soviet authorities (Yelchin has said the reason was unclear: "I don't exactly know what that was – because they were Jewish or because the KGB didn't want them to travel"). Yelchin's family moved to the United States in September 1989, receiving status as refugees from political oppression. As of 2007, Yelchin's mother works as a figure skating choreographer and his father as a figure skating coach, having been Sasha Cohen's first trainer. Yelchin's uncle is the children's author and painter Eugene Yelchin. Yelchin has stated that he "wasn't very good" at figure skating, his parents' profession. He once played in a punk band named The Hammerheads, though the group has since disbanded. He enjoys playing the guitar, having said that it gives him "a lot of fulfillment", and is a fan of acoustic blues music. Yelchin attended the Sherman Oaks Center for Enriched Studies, in Tarzana, Los Angeles, California, and enrolled at the University of Southern California in the fall of 2007 to study film. As of 2009, he lives in Burbank, California. Career. Yelchin began acting at the age of 9 in the independent film "A Man is Mostly Water". His earliest roles include Jackson in "A Time for Dancing", Milo in "Delivering Milo", Tommy Warshaw in "House of D", and Jacob Clarke in the miniseries "Taken". He made a guest appearance as Stewart, Cheryl David's nephew and a self-described magician (who only knows one card trick), in a season four episode of "Curb Your Enthusiasm", and starred as Byrd Huffstodt, the 14-year-old son of Dr. Craig "Huff" Huffstodt (Hank Azaria), on the television series "Huff", which ran from 2004 to 2006. In 2006, he also had a role on an episode ("Tru Love") of the series "", playing a boy who falls in love with his teacher. His biggest film recognition came for the role of Bobby Garfield in "Hearts in Atlantis" (2001), for which he won Best Performance in a Feature Film – Leading Young Actor at the 2002 "Young Artist Awards". He also appeared in the "Criminal Minds" episode "Sex, Birth & Death" as Nathan Harris, a boy who has fantasies about killing prostitutes. Yelchin starred in "Alpha Dog", a crime thriller that received an American release on January 12, 2007. In the film he played Zack Mazursky, a character based on real-life kidnap and murder victim Nicholas Markowitz. "USA Today"s review described the performance as "heartbreakingly endearing". After the premiere, Markowitz's mother praised his portrayal of her son. Yelchin subsequently headlined "Fierce People", a drama which received a limited release on September 7 of that year and co-starred Diane Lane and Donald Sutherland. In 2008 Yelchin played the title role in "Charlie Bartlett", a film about a wealthy teenager in a public high school. Also that year, Yelchin appeared alongside the Russian duo t.A.T.u. in the movie "You and I" (which was filmed in Moscow during the summer of 2007), and co-starred with Susan Sarandon and Justin Chatwin in "Middle of Nowhere". He next starred in two May 2009 releases: the eleventh "Star Trek" film, in which he portrayed 17-year old navigator Pavel Chekov, and "Terminator Salvation", in which he was cast as a teenage Kyle Reese. In 2011, Yelchin portrayed Charley Brewster in the remake of "Fright Night", directed by Craig Gillespie, starred in the romantic drama "Like Crazy", and voiced Clumsy Smurf in the film adaptation of "The Smurfs". He provided the voice for the Albino Pirate character in the animated film "The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists" (released in North America as "The Pirates! Band of Misfits") (2012). He reprised his role in "Star Trek Into Darkness" (2013) and played the lead in the thriller "Odd Thomas".
1057409	Chasers is a 1994 comedy film directed by Dennis Hopper. It is about a pair of United States Navy SPs (Tom Berenger and William McNamara) who must escort a beautiful prisoner (Erika Eleniak), and the troubles they encounter. Plot. Gruff Chief Petty Officer Rock Reilly (Tom Berenger), and a young Seaman Apprentice, Eddie Devane (William McNamara) have to escort a very seductive young woman, Seaman Apprentice Toni Johnson (Erika Eleniak). She manages to seduce Eddie and escapes to the hands of women's underwear seller Doggie (director Dennis Hopper in a cameo) and has to encounter Marine prison guard, Sgt. Vince Banger (Gary Busey).
1064233	Kimberly Williams-Paisley (born September 14, 1971) is an American actress, film director, film producer and television director who is perhaps best known for her co-starring role on "According to Jim", as well as her breakthrough performance in "Father of the Bride", for which she was nominated for several awards (along with its sequel "Father of the Bride Part II"). Throughout her acting career, she has guest-starred on TV shows including "Tales From The Crypt", "George Lopez" and "Less Than Perfect". She is also well known for her roles in made-for-television films, including "Safe House", "The Christmas Shoes", and "Lucky 7", and also her role as Laura Parker in "Shade", a short film she also wrote and directed. Williams is married to country musician Brad Paisley, with whom she has two sons; actress Ashley Williams is her sister. Early life. Kimberly Williams was born in Rye, New York, the daughter of Linda Barbara (née Payne), a fund-raiser, and Gurney Williams III, a health and science writer. She has a sister, Ashley, also an actress, and a brother, Jay. Williams has been in show business since the age of 13. In 1989 she directed the Rye High School Musical Revue. She left Northwestern University during her sophomore year to appear in the 1991 film version of "Father of the Bride" but returned to complete her degree in drama. While there she was a sister of the Alpha Phi sorority. Career. Williams-Paisley is known for her role as Annie Banks in "Father of the Bride" (1991) and "Father of the Bride Part II" (1995), with Steve Martin and Diane Keaton. She starred as Virginia in "The 10th Kingdom". She also played Dana in the ABC sitcom "According to Jim" for seven years, from 2001 to 2008. She left the show after its 7th season, but she came back for the show's final episode in 2009. Williams-Paisley replaced Arija Bareikis as Sunny in "The Last Night of Ballyhoo", written by Alfred Uhry (of "Driving Miss Daisy" fame) sometime later in the play's February 1997 to June 1998 run. As of 2012, she plays the recurring role of Peggy Kenter in the ABC drama series, "Nashville". Personal life. In March 2003, Williams married country music singer Brad Paisley. On February 22, 2007, Williams-Paisley gave birth to her and Paisley's first child, a son named William Huckleberry Paisley, also known as "Huck," in Nashville, Tennessee. On April 17, 2009, they welcomed their second son, Jasper Warren Paisley. Awards and nominations. Heartland Film Festival MTV Movie Awards Satellite Awards Sedona International Film Festival
1057878	Beverly Hills Ninja is a 1997 American action comedy film directed by Dennis Dugan, written by Mark Feldberg and Mitch Klebanoff, and starring Chris Farley. The main plot revolves around Haru (portrayed by Farley), the white orphan boy was found by a clan of ninjas as an infant in an abandoned treasure chest and was raised by them. Haru never quite conforms to their culture and never acquires the skills of a ninja, but is nonetheless good-natured and persevering in his personal ambitions. His first mission brings him to Beverly Hills to investigate a murder mystery. Plot. A clan of ninjas finds an abandoned chest that has been washed onto shore, and find a white baby inside. One of their ancient legends spoke of a foreigner who would come among the ninja and become a master. The boy, Haru (Chris Farley), is raised amongst the ninja, with the expectation that he may be the one of whom the legend speaks. As Haru grows into adulthood, doubts are quickly cast over him for being the great white ninja. Although Haru does possess some ninja traits, he is clumsy and fails to graduate a ninja with the rest of his class. Left alone to protect the temple while the clan are on a mission, Haru disguises himself as a ninja when an American woman whose actual name is Alison Page but calls herself "Sally Jones" (Nicollette Sheridan), comes to the temple to seeking assistance. Sally says she is suspicious of her boyfriend, Martin Tanley (Nathaniel Parker), and asks Haru to investigate. Haru finds out that Tanley and his bodyguard, Nobu (Keith Cooke Hirabayashi) are involved in a money counterfeiting business, but cannot find Sally to tell her. Haru leaves Tokyo and goes to Beverly Hills to search for Sally. Gobei (Robin Shou), Haru's adoptive brother is sent by the clan's sensei (Soon-Tek Oh) to watch over and protect Haru, without letting Haru know of his presence. Haru checks in at a Beverly Hills hotel, where he befriends bellboy Joey Washington (Chris Rock), and teaches him some ninja lessons. Not knowing that Gobei is helping him, Haru manages to find Sally. Haru tracks Tanley and Nobu to a night club located in Little Tokyo, where they are trying retrieve a set of counterfeiting plates from their rival gang. The gangs fight, resulting in the deaths of two of the rival gang members, which Haru finds himself the suspect for. After receiving guidance from his sensei, Haru resumes his quest to search for Sally, and tracks down Tanley's mansion. Haru also then finds Sally and realizes her actual name is Alison Page who tells him that Tanley murdered her sister, and that she is dating Tanley in a search for evidence which is why she used the false name "Sally Jones". Haru disguises himself as a Japanese restaurant chef, and finds out Tanley will be hiring ink specialist Chet Walters (William Sasso) to help counterfeit money. Haru then disguises himself as Walters to gain access to Tanley's warehouse. Haru's identity is revealed after he fails to counterfeit the money correctly, and Tanley captures him. While Tanley succeeds in getting the other half of the plates that night from the rival gang, Alison rescues Haru, however, gets herself kidnapped by Tanley. The next day Haru enlists Joey help in finding the warehouse. After they fail, Gobei intervenes without Haru's knowledge and leads them back to the warehouse. Tanley locks Alison in a room with a bomb. Haru attempts to intervene but is overwhelmed by Tanley's guards. Gobei reveals himself to Haru, and is able to distract the guards, allowing Haru to rescue Alison. Haru attempts to defuse the bomb but fails. On hearing Gobei become overwhelmed by Tanley's guards, Haru leaves Alison to help Gobei. Haru saves Gobei's life and successfully defeats several guards himself. Haru and Gobei are left facing off Nobu and two guards. Joey, attempting to enter the building, crashes through a window and knocks himself and one of the guards unconscious. Haru and Gobei defeat Nobu and the remaining guard. Tanley then confronts the Haru and Gobei. In the fight that follows Haru accidentally knocks Gobei unconscious, but forces Tanley to flee afterwards. Haru returns to attempt to rescue Alison. Using a large harpoon gun mounted on a cart, Haru shoots a harpoon through the room which inadvertently lands in the back of the truck which Tanley is trying to escape in. The harpoon drags the bomb into Tanley's truck and explodes. Haru successfully rescues Alison, then Tanley and his surviving hitmen are captured by corrupt police members of the LAPD. Sometime later back in Japan, Haru tells his sensei he will be returning to Beverly Hills to live with Alison. Haru and Alison leave together on a bus. A grappling hook tied to a rope has fallen from the bus and hooks onto Gobei's wheelchair, causing him to be thrown into the ocean. Haru shouts an apology to Gobei. Reception. "Beverly Hills Ninja" was well received by audiences, but received generally negative reviews. It holds a 14% "rotten" rating at review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, and holds a 27/100 score at Metacritic. James Berardinelli of ReelViews wrote: ""Beverly Hills Ninja" is essentially a one-joke film. That joke has to do with Chris Farley [...], who plays one of the clumsiest men on Earth, crashing into objects or having things fall on his head. There's a reason why cartoons, which often rely on similar tactics, are only a few minutes long. The first few times Farley gets hammered, there is some amusement value, but, soon after, it grows repetitious, then tedious. [...] It's rather amazing to see how agile Farley is in certain situations (he performed some of his own stunts), but his unexpected athleticism doesn't make up for the film's lack of entertaining material. [...] Farley might want to be like John Candy, but, while Candy knew how to make an audience laugh, Farley keeps missing the mark. His brand of humor, which doesn't vary significantly from film-to-film, isn't just juvenile, it's lackluster and unfunny. And, because "Beverly Hills Ninja" relies so heavily on the comic's limited talent, the movie sinks like a rock. No one, not even Jackie Chan with all of his enthralling derring-do, could have saved "Beverly Hills Ninja" from its ignominious fate." Bruce Fretts of "Entertainment Weekly" wrote: "For the first few minutes of "Beverly Hills Ninja", it looks as if Chris Farley may have finally found a movie to match the size of his talents. As an orphan raised in Japan by martial-arts masters, Farley displays a hippo-ballet grace while bonking himself on the head with various instruments of death. This chop-shtick generates a few belly-laugh-inducing quips [...]. But as soon as the action switches to L.A., a yawner plot about Farley busting up a yen-counterfeiting ring kicks in — and slowly starts to squeeze the life out of the movie. "Ninja" casts about for whale-out-of-water humor as Farley's long-sheltered Haru grapples with such newfangled inventions as metal detectors and seat belts. But when the writers run out of ideas, they simply have Farley walk into a lamppost, or cop from old "SNL" skits [...] Director Dennis Dugan has done fine TV work ("NYPD Blue", "Chicago Hope"), but with 1996's Adam Sandler stinker "Happy Gilmore" and this sad affair, he seems stuck in a lamebrained "SNL" rut." A favorable review came from Mick LaSalle of the "San Francisco Chronicle" who wrote: "This weekend moviegoers who want to laugh will sit in stone- cold silence through the new Woody Allen film. Meanwhile, there's a better option, "Beverly Hills Ninja" -- not the kind of picture that gets respect from New York critics, but it's funny. [...] This is a movie in which the audience knows half the gags in advance, but thanks to director Dennis Dugan's timing and Farley's execution, the audience doesn't just laugh anyway, but laughs harder. Knowing in advance is part of the fun. [...] "Beverly Hills Ninja" is a silly movie, with silly jokes and a silly story. But the talents at work in it are not silly. The picture has, at worst, a 10-minute sag in the middle. But the rest of it is a pleasure. [...] Perhaps it's too early to start taking Farley really seriously. But he's too good, too funny and too in control of his out-of-controlness to be a mere buffoon." Sequel. "Beverly Hills Ninja 2", a sequel written by Mitch Klebanoff and co-directed by Klebanoff and Kelly Sandefur, and starring Lucas Grabeel in a Farley role, began shooting scenes in South Korea in October 2008. During filming, the name was changed to "Dancing Ninja". Due to funding problems, the project suffered from repeated production shutdowns, leading to the eventual halting of principal filming. With 30% of the film completed, Klebanoff wished to continue production in Canada, but he was fired from the project.
1072255	Plot. Without warning, an alien spaceship attacks a Japanese moon base. Back on Earth, young Kenichi Wallace; his father, Dr. Tom Wallace; his friend Helen; and her father, Dr. Yosuke Ishikawa, witness the spaceship descending into the ocean. They go to investigate but are soon captured by a teleportation beam that brings them aboard the spaceship. Here, a human-looking woman appears to them and reveals that she is of a race called Zigra. By way of demonstrating Zigran technological prowess, she creates a gigantic earthquake that wreaks havoc on Japan. She then tells her prisoners of Zigra's history and its great scientific advances—which, unfortunately, have resulted in the destruction of the planet; but in searching for a new home, Zigra has found Earth. The woman contacts authorities on Earth and orders them to surrender or she will kill her prisoners. Tom declares that the Zigran woman is insane, and, in anger, she sends the two men into a hypnotic trance. Kenny and Helen take action, successfully using the ship's control console to escape. Enraged, the Zigran overlord—a strange, shark-like being—orders the woman to go to Earth and kill the children. She says it would be simpler to kill all the people of Japan, but the great Zigra tells her that humans must be preserved so they can be used for food. Now, Gamera, intent on discovering the identity of the alien interloper, flies in to save the day and rescues the children and their fathers. The UN authorities, after questioning Kenichi and Helen, resolve to attack Zigra. The Defense Force jets scramble, but the Zigran spaceship makes short work of them with its powerful lasers. The alien woman, disguised as a normal human, arrives on earth and begins her search for Kenny and Helen. She hitches a ride with the Sea World dolphin trainer back to the facility, which the military is now using as its center of operations. She finds the two children, but before she can catch them, they call out for Gamera, who obediently appears. Gamera begins an underwater assault on the Zigran spaceship—which, when hit with Gamera's fire-jet, transforms into the giant shark-like monster. Zigra grows larger and larger, and finally halts the heroic turtle with a ray that suspends its cell activity. Enervated, Gamera sinks into the sea. Back at Sea World, the dolphin trainer and the facility's scientists discover a way to break the alien's hypnotic control with sonic waves. Thus, they manage to disable the Zigra woman, only to learn that she is actually a woman named Lora Lee, who had been in a moon rover during the initial lunar attack and was captured and used by Zigra. Drs. Wallace and Ishikawa employ a bathyscaph in an attempt to wake Gamera, only to find that Kenichi and Helen have stowed away on board. Zigra suddenly attacks them and again demands the immediate surrender of the earth or it will destroy the bathyscaph. The UN commander reluctantly agrees to the alien's terms. An electrical storm approaches the bay, and a bolt of lightning revives Gamera, who snatches the bathyscaph from Zigra and returns it to the surface. Gamera and Zigra face off a final time, and Zigra, using its superior versatility underwater, slices Gamera's chest with its blade-like dorsal fin. Gamera takes hold of Zigra, flies into the air, and then drops at high speed, slamming the alien monster against the earth. Gamera further incapacitates Zigra by jamming a boulder over its fin, pinning it to the ground. Gamera grabs another boulder and uses it, like a hammer on a xylophone, to play the Gamera theme on Zigra's dorsal fins. Finally, Gamera ends Zigra's existence by setting its body on fire, reducing it to ash in a massive conflagration. Zigra. Zigra is a deadly opponent whose appearance is similar to that of a goblin shark, possessing a silvery gray, armor-plated hide; a pointed nose; a row of sharp fins on his back; and long, sharp pectoral fins. Unlike most kaiju, Zigra is intelligent and capable of speech, presumably by telepathic means. It is an alien from an unknown planet that landed on earth via a small spaceship shell (the ship sports the same dorsal fins). For much of the first half of the film, it uses a captured human female as an extension of its will to infiltrate human society. The agent (Lora Lee), is in a symbiotic relationship with the ship and also can put humans in a trance by eye contact and snapping her fingers. After the agent was subdued, the shell was destroyed by Gamera, revealing Zigra's full form. Due to differences in earth's environment to its native planet, Zigra grew in size to match Gamera's. Zigra's combat style, like many Gamera monsters, is geared towards melee combat. A brutal opponent, it is capable of firing a silk-like spray that can paralyze an opponent and then following with vicious slashes of its sharp fins. Despite its fish-like appearance, it can exist out of the water, albeit with some difficulty (it was immobilized on the beach until it improvised an awkward standing posture with its tail fins). Zigra invaded earth with the intention of enslaving the human race and raising them like cattle—it came from a planet where instead of people eating sea animals, its sea animals ate land animals. As Viras had attempted in its earlier film, Zigra held a pair of human children hostage in order to force the human race to conform to its plan, but Gamera engaged it in battle. In the final Showa Gamera film "", Zigra once again fought Gamera through the use of stock footage. When Gamera hits his back with the rock, rather than the Gamera theme song, a new, simple tune is played. Home media. It has been announced that a Los Angeles-based entertainment company, Shout! Factory, acquired the rights from Kadokawa Pictures for all eight of the Showa Gamera films and they will be issuing the uncut, Japanese versions on DVD for the first time, ever in North America. These "Special Edition" DVDs are being released in sequential order, starting with "Gamera: The Giant Monster" on May 18, 2010. The first sequel, "Gamera vs. Barugon" (1966) followed on July 6, 2010. The subsequent films followed shortly thereafter, with "Gamera vs. Zigra" being released on March 15, 2011 on a double-bill with .
1064598	"Cassandra's Dream" (2007) is a dramatic thriller film written and directed by Woody Allen. Filmed in the UK, it was released in 2007 in Europe and in January 2008 in the U.S. It was developed as a British-French-American co-production. The film was premiered in secret at Avilés, Spain on June 18, 2007. It was officially premiered at the Venice Film Festival on September 2, 2007 and was already in theaters in Spain by November 3. The film had its North American premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 11, 2007. Plot. Brothers Terry (Colin Farrell) and Ian (Ewan McGregor), who live in South London, were raised by a weak father (John Benfield) who runs a restaurant, and a strong mother (Clare Higgins) who taught her sons to look up to their uncle Howard (Tom Wilkinson), a successful businessman.
1075013	The Scent of Green Papaya (Vietnamese: "Mùi đu đủ xanh", French: "L'Odeur de la papaye verte") is a 1993 Vietnamese-language film produced in France by Lazennec Production, directed by Vietnamese-French director Tran Anh Hung, and starring Tran Nu Yên-Khê, Man San Lu, and Thi Loc Truong. The film won the Caméra d'Or prize at the 1993 Cannes Film Festival, a César Award for Best Debut at the French annual film award ceremony, and was nominated for the 1993 Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. "The Scent of Green Papaya" is Tran Anh Hung's first feature film and stars his wife, Tran Nu Yên-Khê. The film is also the director's first collaboration with Vietnamese composer Tôn-Thât Tiêt who would subsequently write the music for two more films: "Cyclo" and "Vertical Ray of the Sun". Although set in Vietnam, the film was shot entirely on a soundstage in Boulogne, France. Plot summary. A young girl, Mùi, becomes a servant for a rich family. Mùi is notably peaceful and curious about the world. The family consists of a frequently absent husband, a wife, an older son, two younger sons, and the husband's mother. When the husband leaves for his fourth and final time, he takes all the household's money. He returns ill and passes away shortly after.
1051333	Anything for Her () is a 2008 French thriller film starring Diane Kruger and Vincent Lindon, and is the directorial debut of Fred Cavayé. The film was remade in the United States in 2010 as "The Next Three Days". Plot. Julien (Vincent Lindon) and Lisa Aucler (Diane Kruger) are a normal couple living happily with their infant son Oscar until one day, police storm into their apartment and arrest Lisa for murder. Then a cour d'assises sentences her to 20 years in prison. Three years later, Julien continues to try to find proof that Lisa is innocent, but no new evidence has turned up, and all prior evidence continues to point her as the prime suspect. The victim was her boss, with whom she had a heated argument on the day of the murder. The scene of the crime was a parking lot outside the office and the boss was killed by a blow to the forehead caused by a fire extinguisher, which had Lisa's fingerprints. It is revealed in a flashback that an unknown woman killed the boss and took her purse before walking away and bumping into Lisa. During the exchange, the boss' blood was smeared on Lisa's coat. She saw the fire extinguisher lying on the road in front of her car, so she picked it up and put it away before driving off, unaware that her boss lay dead on the parking slot beside her. Seeing no other option, Julien turns to Henri Pasquet (Olivier Marchal), a former criminal who has escaped from prison seven times and wrote a book about his escape methods. Pasquet explains to him that no prison is airtight and every one of them has a "key" that just has to be found. He also says that getting out is easy, but staying free is difficult, as most escapees make the mistake of running to their families or friends. With this, Pasquet advises the following to Julien: sever all family ties and flee from the country within hours, take flight from a foreign country's airport, choose the right identity for fake documents, go to a country with no ties to French communication, and have enough cash to last him and his family for several years. Back at home, Julien draws a mind map on the wall, using all of the ideas recorded from his conversation with Pasquet. For the next three months, he visits the prison, observing every security routine and looking for any irregular activity that would lead him to the "key". The mind map wall in his home is filled with photos and diagrams of the prison complex. One day, he is informed by Dr. Gardes (Frédéric Maranber) that Lisa, who is a diabetic, has refused to take her insulin for the past few days; because of this, he fears that she is attempting to commit suicide through this method. When Julien talks to her about this, she explains that she does not want to see Oscar (Lancelot Roch) unhappy every time they visit. That night, Julien goes into a bad neighborhood to acquire fake documents; however, he is mugged and robbed by two men posing as the dealers. Back at home, a biker pays him a visit and offers to have fake documents done in a week, risk-free, for €2,500. The papers are exchanged a week later without a hitch. As an addition to his plan, Julien steals Lisa's medical records from a delivery van. He also sells all of his furniture as a means to raise enough money for the getaway. Julien is suddenly informed that Lisa is to be transferred to Rennes within three days. Desperate to have all of his funds ready, he makes an attempt to rob a bank, but turns away at the last minute. That night, he holds up a drug dealer, who leads him to a larger dealer named Martial Nashour (Moussa Maaskri). Julien recovers a large amount of money at the cost of Martial and the other dealer in a gunfight. The next day, Julien tears out the mind map from the wall and throws all of its contents away in a dumpster before leaving the apartment with Oscar. He then sneaks into the medical delivery van near the prison and plants an altered version of Lisa's records. He also abandons his car before renting a different car and staying at a hotel nearby with Oscar. Meanwhile, Dr. Gardes reads the medical records, forcing him to have Lisa transferred to the nearest hospital. At the same time, police investigate the scene of Martial's death and discover a piece of taillight from Julien's car. They see the connection and have officers head toward the hospital, knowing that Julien will be there. At the hospital, Julien enters Lisa's room and has the guards disarmed while he retrieves his wife. They return to the hotel room, where Lisa is reunited with Oscar. The family then leaves France and arrives at Liège Airport in Belgium. Back at a police precinct, Julien's mind map is reassembled from the garbage recovered, but detectives decide it is too late to continue their pursuit, as the Auclers have fled to San Salvador, El Salvador, Central America. Production. The filming schedule encompassed several locations in Europe. These included Liège in Belgium, Meaux a commune in the Seine-et-Marne department in the Île-de-France region, Paris as well as Spain. Reception. The film was generally well received by critics. It currently holds a 78% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes. "The Telegraph" praised the film's pace; "This French thriller hurtles along with hardly a pause...The dangers of being out of your depth in criminal dealings give Fred Cavayé's film plenty of pulse and urgency". "The Observer" described it as a "gripping" thriller and continued "The movie invites the audience to empathise with a decent man driven by despair into dangerous criminal activities and we're on his side from start to finish." Remake. An American remake, entitled "The Next Three Days", was released on November 19, 2010. It stars Russell Crowe, Elizabeth Banks and Liam Neeson, and is directed by Paul Haggis, the Oscar winning director of "Crash".
1043073	The Titfield Thunderbolt is a 1953 British comedy film about a group of villagers trying to keep their branch line operating after British Railways decided to close it. The film was written by T.E.B. Clarke and was inspired by the restoration of the narrow gauge Talyllyn Railway in Wales, the world's first heritage railway run by volunteers. It starred Stanley Holloway, George Relph and John Gregson, and was directed by Charles Crichton. Michael Truman was the producer. The film was produced by Ealing Studios. It was the first Ealing comedy shot in Technicolor and one of the first colour comedies made in the UK. There was considerable inspiration from the book "Railway Adventure" by established railway book author L. T. C. Rolt, published in 1952. Rolt had acted as honorary manager for the volunteer enthusiasts running the Talyllyn Railway for the two years 1951-2. A number of scenes in the film, such as the emergency re-supply of water to the locomotive by buckets from an adjacent stream, or passengers being asked to assist in pushing the carriages, were taken from this book. Plot. The residents of the (fictional) rural village of Titfield rely on the railway branch line to commute to work and transport their produce to market. So they are shocked when the government announces that the line is to be closed. Particularly hard hit is the local vicar, railway enthusiast Rev. Sam Weech (George Relph); he comes up with the idea to run it locally. He and the local squire, Gordon Chesterford (John Gregson), persuade wealthy Walter Valentine (Stanley Holloway) to provide the financial backing by telling him they can legally operate a bar while the train is running, so he will not have to wait all morning for the local pub to open. The branch line supporters are bitterly opposed by bus operators Alec Pearce (Ewan Roberts) and Vernon Crump (Jack MacGowran), but, despite the fears of town clerk George Blakeworth (Naunton Wayne), the supporters persuade the Ministry of Transport to grant them a month's trial period with an inspection at the end. Dan Taylor (Hugh Griffith), a retired railway worker, knows how to run an engine and joins the venture. On the maiden run, Crump and Pearce try to block a crossing, first with their lorry and then with a passing steam roller operated by Harry Hawkins (Sid James), but the steam locomotive is too powerful and pushes them off the track. The next day, Crump and Pearce persuade an irate Hawkins to shoot holes in the water tower, but the passengers form a bucket brigade and refill the engine from a nearby stream using buckets from the nearby farm. Defeated, Crump proposes a merger, but is turned down. The night before the inspection, Hawkins, Crump and Pearce use the steamroller to tow the unguarded engine and coach down the gradient. It runs off the track where the three men have removed a rail. Blakeworth is mistakenly blamed and arrested. Taylor and Valentine get drunk together and decide to "borrow" an engine from the Mallingford yards, but end up driving the engine along the main street of Mallingford and finally running the locomotive into a large oak tree. They are arrested. Weech decides to get the antique but still-functional "Thunderbolt" from the museum, and after liberating Blakeworth from the law, they persuade the mayor to support them. They also commandeer Dan Taylor's home, an old railway carriage body, which is hastily strapped to a flat wagon. With Taylor's arrest, Weech is left without a fireman/stoker. Fortunately, the vicar's friend and fellow railway devotee, Ollie Matthews (Godfrey Tearle), the Bishop of Welchester, is visiting and willingly steps in to lend a hand. Meanwhile, Pierce and Crump see "Thunderbolt" from the road and, distracted, run their bus into a police lorry and are also arrested. Weech and Chesterford also have to improvise a means of connecting the engine to the rest of the train since the coupling method had greatly changed since "Thunderbolt"s heyday. The village craftsman uses a length of rope, but warns Chesterford to be careful. As they are about to start their run, the police demand to be carried to Mallingford with their four prisoners. The Ministry inspector (John Rudling) refuses to adjust the starting time for the delay. During a braking test, the rope snaps, and "Thunderbolt" leaves the carriages behind. However, several villagers turn out and manage to quietly push the carriages to meet up again with "Thunderbolt", with the inspector none the wiser. Joan Hampton (Gabrielle Brune) has to promise to marry Hawkins to get him to lend them the chain from his roller's steering mechanism to replace the broken rope. The train pulls into Mallingford station nearly ten minutes late. The villagers worry that this will prove their downfall, but it turns out that if they had been just a bit faster, they would have exceeded the speed limit for light railways. Instead, the line passes inspection, clearing the way for the Light Railway Order to be granted. Cast. Driver Ted Burbidge, fireman Frank Green and guard Harold Alford were not actors: they were British Railways employees from the Westbury depot, provided to operate the train on location. Charles Crichton spoke with them on location and realised they "looked and sounded the part", so they were given speaking roles and duly credited. GWR 1400 Class 0-4-2T locomotives number 1401 and 1462 were hired by the producers. Locomotive number 1462 was temporarily renumbered 1401. The two were provided on location facing in opposite directions, so the film crew could shoot in any direction with a locomotive always facing forward. Production. Shooting was largely carried out near Bath, England, on the recently closed Bristol and North Somerset Railway branch line along the Cam Brook valley between Camerton and Limpley Stoke, formerly part of the Great Western Railway. Titfield station was in reality Monkton Combe station, whilst Titfield village was nearby Freshford, with other scenes being shot at the disused Dunkerton colliery. Mallingford station in the closing scene was Bristol Temple Meads. The opening scene shows Midford Viaduct on the Somerset and Dorset Joint Railway, where the branch passed under the viaduct. The scene featuring Sid James' character's traction engine, and the Squire's attempts to overtake it, was filmed in Carlingcott. The scene, where a replacement locomotive is 'stolen' was filmed in the Oxfordshire Village of Woodstock. The 'locomotive' was a wooden mock-up mounted on a lorry chassis; the rubber tyres can (just) be spotted sitting inside the driving wheels. The locomotive is an actual antique museum resident, the Liverpool and Manchester Railway locomotive "Lion", built in 1838 and so at the time it was 114 years old. "Lion" is one of the earliest British locomotives, only nine years younger than Stephenson's "Rocket", and really under steam in the film. It was repainted in a colourful red and green livery to suit the Technicolor cameras. In filming the scene in which the "Thunderbolt" is "rear-ended" by the uncoupled train, the locomotive's tender sustained some actual damage, which remains visible beneath the buffer beam to this day. The scene where "Thunderbolt" is removed at night from its museum was done with a full-size wooden prop and was filmed in the (now demolished) Imperial College building opposite the Royal Albert Hall The steam roller. The steam roller used was still in commercial service at the time of filming, and was not sold for preservation until some years later. After six years off the road for a full restoration, the roller returned to steam in 2006, and was in action as part of the road-making demonstration at the Great Dorset Steam Fair that year. Reception. The film was well received by critics upon its original release, and currently holds a respectable three and a half star rating (7.1/10) on IMDb. Home media. It was released first on VHS in 1998, and then on DVD in 2004. A release on Blu Ray in 2013 followed the restoration of the film.
1694218	William Henry "Bill" Milner (born 4 March 1995) is an English child actor, best known for his roles as Will Proudfoot in "Son of Rambow", Edward in "Is Anybody There?" and the young Magneto in "". Life and career. Milner was born in England. He lives with his family in Hampton, London, and formerly went to Teddington School, although he no longer attends that school. Milner got his start in the Hammer & Tongs film "Son of Rambow" which was released in 2008. He has since appeared in the made-for-TV films "Who Killed Mrs De Ropp?" and "My Boy Jack". He also appeared in the film adaptation of the David Almond book "Skellig" which was released in the UK in 2009. In 2009 he starred alongside Michael Caine in the film "Is Anybody There?", and also took on the role of Ian Dury's son Baxter in the biopic, "Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll" which was released in the UK on the 8 January 2010. He played the role of young Magneto in "". "It was very easy working with Bill because I don't regard him as a child actor. I regard him as an actor who's a child. The difference is you feel absolute confidence in him. You don't feel he's a child. You can depend on him. He's quite extraordinary. Of course, he'd never been in the theatre. He'd only been in an amateur dramatic society. So he didn't have any theatrical baggage to get rid of. He's a natural little boy... He was absolutely essential." – Michael Caine on Milner's performance in "Is Anybody There?", Boston Globe, 3 May 2009. Bill has said he is working on his debut mixtape which is rumoured to include features from Gucci Mane, OJ Da Juiceman, Libby, and 2 Chainz. In 2013, he plays a school boy in the video of Mind Mischief, by Tame Impala.
70922	"For other uses, see Aguirre (disambiguation)." The Wrath of God is an offbeat Western genre film released in 1972 and filmed in Mexico. It starred Robert Mitchum, Frank Langella, Rita Hayworth and Victor Buono and was directed by Ralph Nelson. It is based on the novel by Jack Higgins writing as James Graham. Plot. Van Horne (played by Mitchum), a bank robber dressed like a Roman Catholic priest, is spared from a firing squad in 1922 in an unnamed Central America nation and sent to kill a local desperado. The film marks the final screen appearance by Hayworth, whose health worsened as Alzheimer's disease took hold. Notes. Alluding to the fact that the film is untroubled by the need for any apparent consistency, film critic Roger Ebert describes it as "a simple, dashing tale told for sheer fun."
581910	Sharman Joshi (born 28 April 1979) is an Indian film and theatre actor. He has worked on various stage productions in English, Hindi, Marathi and Gujarati languages. However, he is mostly known for his work in Hindi films. He made his acting debut in Godmother (1999). He made his debut as a co-lead actor in the Hindi film "Style" (2001), this was followed by supporting roles in hit films like, "Rang De Basanti" (2006), "" (2006), "Life in a... Metro" (2007) and "3 Idiots" (2009), his next hit film as a lead was "Ferrari Ki Sawaari" (2012), which got him critical acclaim. Personal life. Joshi belongs to a Gujarati family of actors and performing artists. His father, Arvind Joshi is a veteran of Gujarati theatre, while his aunt Sarita Joshi (Bhosle), sister and cousins acted in Marathi and Gujarati theatre. His sister, Mansi Joshi has appeared in many televisual series and is married to actor, Rohit Roy. Joshi is married to Prerana Chopra, daughter of actor Prem Chopra. The couple has a daughter, Khyana, born in October 2005, and twin boys, Vaaryan and Vihaan, born in July 2009. Career. He had appeared in role of a deaf character in Gujarati version of popular play, "All the Best", which did over 550 shows in three years. He made his film debut in the 1999 art film, "Godmother". This was followed by "Style" (2001), produced by N Chandra. "Style" was followed with a sequel called "Xcuse Me" (2003), and other comedies like "Shaadi No. 1" (2005). In 2006 he starred in "Rang De Basanti". Later that year he starred in the comedy film "Golmaal". In 2007 he appeared in the films "Life in a Metro", "Dhol" and "Raqeeb". The following year saw him as the character Shyam in "Hello", the film adaptation of Chetan Bhagat's novel "One Night @ the Call Center". Joshi also played the male lead in the film "Sorry Bhai!" in 2008 and one of the three characters in the 2009 film, "3 Idiots", which was based on Chetan Bhagat's novel "Five Point Someone". In year 2009 he also hosted a game show at Real T.V. called "", which was based on a British game show called "PokerFace". He is noted for his free & naturalistic style of acting. His performances are praised as being uninhibited & extremely heartfelt. Awards and nominations. Nominated Won
357471	Gerald McBoing-Boing is an animated short film produced by United Productions of America (UPA) and given wide release by Columbia Pictures on November 2, 1950. The winner of the 1950 Academy Award for Best Animated Short, "Gerald McBoing-Boing" is the story of a little boy who speaks through sound effects instead of spoken words. It was adapted by Phil Eastman and Bill Scott from a story by Dr. Seuss, directed by Robert Cannon, and produced by John Hubley. In 1994, it was voted #9 of The 50 Greatest Cartoons of all time by members of the animation field. In 1995, it was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". Original recording, UPA film and sequels. Dr. Seuss's story had originally appeared on a children's record, scored by Billy May, issued by Capitol Records, and read by radio veteran Harold Peary. This film was the first successful theatrical cartoon produced by UPA, after their initial experiments with a short series of cartoons featuring Columbia Pictures stalwarts The Fox and the Crow. It was an artistic attempt to break away from the strict realism in animation that had been developed and perfected by Walt Disney. While Disney's animation methods produced lush and awe-inspiring images, it was felt that realism in the medium of animation was a limiting factor. Cartoons did not have to obey the rules of the real world (as the short films of Tex Avery and their cartoon physics proved), and so UPA experimented with a non-realistic style that depicted caricatures rather than lifelike representations. This was a major step in the development of limited animation—though despite the abuse of the form that would arise in the future because of cost-cutting, "Gerald McBoing-Boing" was meant as an artistic exercise rather than merely a way of producing cheap cartoons. The story describes one Gerald McCloy, who at 2 years old begins "talking" in the form of sound effects, his first word being the titular "boing boing." His panicked father calls the doctor, who informs him that there's nothing he can do about it. As the boy grows up, he picks up more sounds and is able to make communicative gestures, but is still incapable of uttering a single word of the English language. Despite this, he is admitted to a general public school, where he is chided by his peers and given the derogatory name "Gerald McBoing Boing." After startling, and angering, his father, he decides to run away and hop a train to an unknown location. However, just before he catches the train, a talent scout from the NBC Radio Network (as identified by the NBC chimes) discovers him. He is then hired as NBC's foley artist, performing shows for a division of the company labeled "XYZ" on the microphones, and becomes very famous, with the last scene showing him riding with his parents in a very expensive automobile among throngs of fans. UPA produced three follow-up "McBoing Boing" shorts: "Gerald McBoing Boing's Symphony" (1953), "How Now Boing Boing" (1954), and "Gerald McBoing! Boing! on Planet Moo" (1956), an Academy Award nominee. The second and third films maintained the Dr. Seuss-style rhyming narration, but were not based on his work. The final film abandoned this approach. All four "Gerald McBoing Boing" shorts were released in 1980 on home video under the title "Columbia Pictures Presents Cartoon Adventures Starring Gerald McBoing Boing". The shorts looked far from their best, especially "Planet Moo", which was squeezed to fit the CinemaScope frame to standard TV screen size. It was reissued in 1987 as part of RCA/Columbia Pictures Home Video's "Magic Window" series of children's videotapes and fell out of print in 1995. The first short was included as a special feature on Sony's 2001 DVD release of "The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T". All but the second were included in the special features of the two-disc special edition of the DVD "Hellboy" (released July 27, 2004), as the cartoon can be seen playing on TV monitors in the background in several scenes. In January 2006, Sony reissued the four shorts on DVD, featuring cleaned-up prints and all presented in their original aspect ratio. A revised reprint of the 1952 book adaptation of Gerald McBoing-Boing appeared in 2000 (ISBN 0-679-89140-4). A character rather similar to Gerald McBoing Boing appears as Tiny Tim in the 1962 NBC television special Mister Magoo's Christmas Carol, now as a speaking character. On the 2001 DVD release, an animated short was included that features Mr. Magoo babysitting for McBoing Boing. TV series. "The Gerald McBoing-Boing Show" (1956–1957). In 1956, CBS created a half-hour "Gerald McBoing-Boing Show", with well-known radio announcer Bill Goodwin narrating. Broadcast at 5:30 p.m. on Sunday evenings, it was a showcase for UPA's cartoons, including Dusty of the Circus, the Twirlinger Twins, and Punch and Judy. The program proved too expensive to continue and lasted only three months. The episodes were repeated on Friday nights in the summer of 1957. Thus, "The Gerald McBoing-Boing Show" apparently became the first cartoon series broadcast regularly during prime time, preceding "The Flintstones" by two seasons. The "actor" Gerald McBoing-Boing, as opposed to the "character", also appeared in the 1962 TV special "Mr. Magoo's Christmas Carol", playing the part of Tiny Tim. As Tiny Tim, he sang and spoke in a normal, childlike voice. Later, during curtain calls, he still uses the normal voice, showing that it is the "character" of Gerald that "speaks in boings and whistles", not the "real boy". There is also a Mr Magoo short in the bonus features of the Mr. Magoo's Christmas Carol DVD that features Gerald McBoing-Boing being babysat by the clumsy Magoo. The short is titled "Magoo Meets McBoing-Boing". "Gerald McBoing-Boing" (2005–2007). A series based on the original cartoon started airing on Cartoon Network (United States) on August 22, 2005, as part of their "Tickle-U" programming block, and aired on Teletoon/Télétoon (Canada) on August 29, 2005. Each eleven-minute episode features a series of vignettes with Gerald, of which the "fantasy tales" are done in Seussian rhyme. There are also sound checks, gags, and "real-life" portions of the show. Gerald still only makes sounds, but now has two speaking friends, Janine and Jacob, as well as a dog named Burp, who only burps (and someone always says "excuse me" after Burp burps) Gerald's parents (names unknown) complete the regular cast, although his mother has black hair in this series instead of blonde. The series was produced in Canada by Cookie Jar Entertainment, and directed by Robin Budd and story edited/written by John Derevlany. The animation was done by Mercury Filmworks in Ottawa.
1376511	Franklin Wendell "Frank" Welker (born March 12, 1946) is an American actor who specializes in voice acting. Due to the large number of films he is able to work on in a given year, films with Frank Welker had grossed more than those of any other actor in Hollywood from 1980 until 2011, when he was surpassed by Samuel L. Jackson. He is notable for being cast as Fred Jones across most of the animated "Scooby-Doo" franchise. Early life. Welker was born in Denver, Colorado. He then moved to California and attended Santa Monica City College in Santa Monica, California, where he majored in theatrical arts. In 1966, he received honors for his performance as the Cowardly Lion in the college's theater production of "The Wizard of Oz". During his transition between college and his voice acting career, his first voice-over role was in a commercial for Friskies dog food. The producer's girlfriend informed him of auditioning for Hanna-Barbera during the casting of "Scooby Doo", where he initially auditioned for the title character but instead got the role of Fred Jones. Career. Live-Action acting career. Welker's first on camera film role was as a bar fight participant in Stan Dragoti’s 1972 film "Dirty Little Billy". His next film role was in "The Trouble with Girls", portraying a college kid from Rutgers University who befriends Elvis Presley. He later co-starred with Don Knotts in Universal's "How to Frame a Figg." Welker also appeared in two Disney films, "The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes" and "Now You See Him, Now You Don't". His on camera television appearances included roles in "Love American Style", "The Partridge Family" and "The Don Knotts Show". He played a prosecutor in highly acclaimed ABC special "The Trial of General Yamashita" and as Captain Pace beside Richard Dreyfuss' Yossarian in Paramount television’s pilot "Catch-22". He also appeared on "Laugh In", "The Mike Douglas Show", "The Tonight Show", "Merv Griffin", "The Smothers Brothers Show", "The Burns and Schreiber Comedy Hour", "Laugh Trax", and as one of the cast members in the 1985 special of "That Was the Year That Was" with David Frost. In the latter show, he appeared alongside Jim Staahl and Howie Mandel. Frank also played an on camera role as a voice actor on an episode of "Simon & Simon", in "The Duck Factory", where he played a rival actor trying to steal the role of Dippy Duck from fellow voice actor Wally Wooster (Don Messick) and also appeared in the film "The Informant" as Matt Damon's father. In 1978, Frank Welker appeared on "The Dean Martin Roast" to George Burns. While saluting Burns, he showed his abilities as an impressionist by honoring George Burns with the voices of Walter Cronkite, Henry Kissinger, Muhammad Ali, David Frost and Jimmy Carter. Voice acting career. Welker's first voice role came in 1969, as Fred Jones in "Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!". As of 2012, Welker is the voice of both Fred Jones and Scooby-Doo. Welker is so closely connected with the character Fred, that any time the character appears in a cartoon (with the exception of "A Pup Named Scooby-Doo"), Welker provides the voice. He even provided Fred's voice for a cutaway gag in "Family Guy". His next major character voice was for Marvin White in the 1973 Hanna-Barbera series "Super Friends". He also provided the voice for Marvin's dog, Wonder Dog (which was inspired by Scooby-Doo). Welker would continue to provide voices for many cartoon characters for the Hanna-Barbera Company for several years, which include "Jabberjaw", "Dynomutt, Dog Wonder", Pudge in "Bailey's Comets" and The Shmoo in "The New Fred and Barney Show" and its spin-off "The Flintstones Comedy Show". Welker described the voice he used for The Shmoo as "a bubble voice" (one he would later use for Gogo Dodo in "Tiny Toons Adventures"). In 1978, he played the title character in "Fangface" and later in its spin-off "Fangface and Fangpuss", and also voiced Heckle & Jeckle and Quackula in "The New Adventures of Mighty Mouse and Heckle & Jeckle", and Droopy in "The Tom and Jerry Comedy Show". During the 1980s and 1990s, Welker became a very busy actor, providing the voice for many popular cartoon characters in multiple shows including the villainous Doctor Claw in "Inspector Gadget", Mister Mxyzptlk and both Darkseid and Kalibak in ', various ' heroes and villains, Ray Stantz and Slimer in "The Real Ghostbusters", the villainous Dr. Jeremiah Surd in "The Real Adventures of Jonny Quest", and Hefty Smurf in "The Smurfs". He also voices various characters on "The Simpsons" such as Santa's Little Helper and Snowball II. He also provided the voice of Fall Apart Rabbit in the 1993 Disney series "Bonkers" and other various voices for the series, as well as the voices of Mr. Plotz, Runt, Ralph the Guard and various other characters in "Animaniacs" and McWolf the main antagonist to Droopy and his nephew Dripple in "Tom and Jerry Kids" and "Droopy, Master Detective". He also provides the voice (both speaking and non-speaking) of Nibbler in "Futurama". He has voiced several characters for "Family Guy", including a parody of Fred Jones. Welker performed as voice double for Leonard Nimoy in "", and provided voices for The Thing in "The Golden Child" (1986), Sil in "Species" (1995) and Malebolgia in "Spawn" (1997). He has also created the vocal effects for different animals in films including the monkey Abu in "Aladdin", its two sequels and the television series "Aladdin", Arnold the Pig in the television film "Return to Green Acres", he was also the voice of Totoro from the English version of the Studio Ghibli film "My Neighbor Totoro", and a variety of animals from "Tiny Toon Adventures". In 2005, Welker became the new voice of Garfield, succeeding the original actor Lorenzo Music, who died in 2001 (Welker and Music had previously worked together in "The Real Ghostbusters" and the original "Garfield and Friends"). Welker voiced Garfield in "Garfield Gets Real", "Garfield's Fun Fest", "Garfield's Pet Force", and also in the new series "The Garfield Show", which has been running from 2008 to present. Welker has also provided voices for many video game characters including Oswald the Lucky Rabbit and The Shadow Blot in "Epic Mickey" and its sequel ', as well as Zurvan, also called the "Ancient One", on '. Welker provided the voice of Batman in a Scooby-Doo crossover segment of the "" episode, "Bat-mite presents: Batman's Strangest Cases!" In the same episode, he also voiced the MAD magazine counterpart of Batman, Bat Boy. Some of his most recent work is performing the voice of George in the popular children's series Curious George. He has also performed for the live action film "Mr. Popper's Penguins". He also voiced Gargamel's cat Azrael for the 2011 live action film "The Smurfs". However, Frank did not reprise his role as Hefty Smurf. "Transformers". In the 1980s, Welker voiced many recurring characters in the original "Transformers" animated series. He voiced several Decepticons, including the leader Megatron, Soundwave, Skywarp, Mixmaster, Laserbeak, Buzzsaw, Rumble, Frenzy, Ravage and Ratbat, as well as Autobots Mirage, Trailbreaker, Chromedome and Sludge. With the release of "" in 1986, he took on the role of the Autobot Wheelie and afterwards, took over the role of Galvatron (which coincidentally was voiced by his "Star Trek III" castmate Leonard Nimoy). Welker also returned to two of his "Transformers" roles when he portrayed Megatron and Soundwave as part of a spoof in the third season episode of "Robot Chicken", aired shortly after the release of the live action film. In ', he reprises the roles of Soundwave and Ravage, and also provides voices for Grindor, Devastator and Reedman. He does not voice Megatron in any of the three live action films (Hugo Weaving was chosen for the role, instead). However, Welker did voice Megatron in the two video games based on the first two films as well as the theme park attractions at Universal Studios Singapore, Universal Studios Hollywood and Universal Studios Florida, '. He is currently cast as the voice of Megatron in the series "", (retitled "Transformers: Prime – Beast Hunters" for its third season). He voiced Shockwave, Barricade and Soundwave in the film "", adding to his already large list of roles within the "Transformers" franchise.
1103412	Igor Rostislavovich Shafarevich (, born June 3, 1923) is a Russian mathematician who has contributed to algebraic number theory and algebraic geometry. He has written books and articles which criticize socialism, and was an important dissident during the Soviet regime. Work in mathematics. Shafarevich made fundamental contributions to several parts of mathematics including algebraic number theory, algebraic geometry and arithmetic algebraic geometry. In algebraic number theory the Shafarevich–Weil theorem extends the commutative reciprocity map to the case of Galois groups which are extensions of abelian groups by finite groups. Shafarevich was the first to give a completely self-contained formula for the pairing which coincides with the wild Hilbert symbol on local fields, thus initiating an important branch of the study of explicit formulas in number theory. Another famous result is the realization of every finite solvable group as the Galois group over rationals. Another fundamental result is the Golod-Shafarevich theorem on towers of unramified extensions of number fields. Shafarevich and his school greatly contributed to the study of algebraic geometry of surfaces. He initiated a Moscow seminar on classification of algebraic surfaces that updated around 1960 the treatment of birational geometry, and was largely responsible for the early introduction of the scheme theory approach to algebraic geometry in the Soviet school. His investigation in arithmetic of elliptic curves led him independently of John Tate to the introduction of the most mysterious group related to elliptic curves over number fields, the Tate-Shafarevich group (usually called 'Sha', written 'Ш', his Cyrillic initial). He introduced the Grothendieck–Ogg–Shafarevich formula and the Néron–Ogg–Shafarevich criterion. He also formulated the Shafarevich conjecture which stated the finiteness of the set of Abelian varieties over a number field having fixed dimension and prescribed set of primes of bad reduction. This conjecture was proved by Gerd Faltings as a step in his proof of the Mordell conjecture. Shafarevich was a student of Boris Delone, and his students included Yuri Manin, A. N. Parshin, I. Dolgachev, Evgeny Golod, A.I. Kostrikin, I.A. Kostrikin, S.Y. Arakelov, G. V. Belyi, V. Abrashkin, A. Tyurin and V. A. Kolyvagin. He did major work in collaboration with Ilya Piatetski-Shapiro on K3 surfaces. He is a member of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts in department of Mathematics, Physics and Earth Sciences.
589453	Makijany Mohan (24 April 1938 – 10 May 2010), popularly known as Mac Mohan, was a well-known Indian character actor in Hindi language films. Although, Mac Mohan acted in 218 films and remained popular as a rather sympathetic villain through the 1970s and 1980s with films like "Don", "Karz", "Satte Pe Satta", "Zanjeer", "Rafoo Chakkar", "Shaan" and "Khoon Pasina", he is mostly remembered for his role of Sambha, the sidekick of dacoit Gabbar Singh in Ramesh Sippy’s blockbuster "Sholay" (1975). Biography. Early life and career. Mohan was born in Karachi in British India. Mohan came to Mumbai to become a cricketer, but joined theatre and became a Bollywood actor. He learned acting in the "Filmalaya School of Acting" in Mumbai. Mac Mohan started his Hindi film career as an assistant with director Chetan Anand, before making his debut as an actor in his film, "Haqeeqat" in 1964. His last appearance was in "Atithi Tum Kab Jaoge" as guest appearance. Besides Hindi movies, he also acted in Punjabi, Bhojpuri, Haryanvi, Sindhi, Gujarati and Marathi He had delivered dialogue in almost all Indian languages except Oriya. as well as in English, Russian and Spanish films. Illness and death. In November 2009, a day before he could start the shooting for Ashwini Dheer’s "Atithi Tum Kab Jaoge?", he was admitted to the Kokilaben Dhirubhai Ambani Hospital in Andheri in Mumbai after his health detoriated. He had a tumour in the right lung, and died of lung cancer on 10 May 2010. Asian Academy of Film & Television had a special prayer meeting on 14 May at Noida Film City. There was also a prayer meeting (chautha) on the 14th of May 2010 at Ajivasan Hall for family and friends, and from the oldest of his spot boys to Amitabh Bachchan attended the prayer meeting to pay their respect. Personal life. Mac Mohan married Minny in 1986 and they had two daughters, Vinati and Manjari and a son, Vikrant. He was the maternal uncle of actress Raveena Tandon. He was Sunil Dutt's classmate in Lucknow from where he hailed. Mac Mohan’s wife Minny is an Ayurvedic Doctor. It was when Mac Mohan’s father was admitted to Arogya Nidhi Hospital in Juhu their interaction first started and later the relationship culminated into marriage. In the interview taken by professional writer Niilesh A Raje we learn that Mac Mohan had an excellent command over spoken and written English. Apart from reading newspapers at length he loved reading the Reader’s Digest magazine a lot. References. 10. Interview on Mac Mohan by Niilesh A Raje ( http://www.merinews.com/article/actor-mac-mohan-cricketer-who-became-sambha-in-sholay/15884493.shtml ) - 24 April 2013 External links. 1. http://www.merinews.com/article/actor-mac-mohan-cricketer-who-became-sambha-in-sholay/15884493.shtml at Merinews.com (April 2013)
253230	Hendrik Wade Bode (pronounced "Boh-dee" in English, "Boh-dah" in Dutch), (24 December 1905 – 21 June 1982) was an American engineer, researcher, inventor, author and scientist, of Dutch ancestry. As a pioneer of modern control theory and electronic telecommunications he revolutionized both the content and methodology of his chosen fields of research.
1066437	Purple Noon (, aka Full Sun or Blazing Sun or Lust for Evil or Talented Mr. Ripley) is a 1960 film directed by René Clément, based on the book "The Talented Mr. Ripley" by Patricia Highsmith. The film stars Alain Delon in his first major film. The film, principally in French, contains brief sequences in Italian. Romy Schneider appears briefly in an uncredited role as Freddie Miles' companion. The film's source novel was adapted again in 1999, under the original title, directed by Anthony Minghella, starring Matt Damon (as Ripley), Jude Law (as Greenleaf), and Gwyneth Paltrow (as Marge). Plot. The American Tom Ripley (Delon) has been sent to Italy to persuade his wealthy friend, Philippe Greenleaf (Maurice Ronet), to return to the United States and take over his father's business. Philippe intends to do no such thing, however, and the impoverished Tom enjoys living a life of luxury, so the two men essentially spend money all day and carouse all night. Tom is fixated on Philippe and his girlfriend Marge (Marie Laforêt), and covets the other man's life. Philippe eventually grows bored with his friend's fawning and becomes cruel and abusive to him. The final straw is when, during a yachting trip, Philippe strands Tom in the dinghy and leaves him to lie in the sun for hours. Back on board, Tom hatches a plan to kill Philippe and steal his identity. First, he leaves evidence of Philippe's philandering for an outraged Marge to find. After Marge goes ashore, Philippe confronts Tom, who admits his plan quite casually. Philippe, believing it to be a joke, plays along and asks Tom for the plan's details. Suddenly frightened, Philippe offers Tom a substantial sum to leave him and Marge alone, but Tom states that he can obtain this sum anyway, and far more. At last pretending to accept his offer, Tom stabs Philippe to death as the latter screams Marge's name. He casts the body overboard and returns to port. Upon returning to shore, Tom informs Marge that Philippe has decided to stay behind. He then goes traveling around Italy using Philippe's name and bank account, even flawlessly mimicking his voice and mannerisms; in effect, Tom has "become" Philippe, even affixing his own photo, with notary seal, in Philippe's passport. He rents a large suite in a Rome hotel. When Philippe's suspicious friend, Freddie Miles (Billy Kearns), begins to suspect the truth while staying in the same hotel, Tom murders him as well. Freddie's body is soon found and the Italian police inevitably get involved. However, Tom continues playing his charade, switching between his own identity and Philippe's, depending on what the situation demands. After carrying out an elaborate scheme to implicate Philippe in Freddie's murder, Tom forges a suicide note and a will, leaving the Greenleaf fortune to Marge. In the aftermath, Tom has survived a long string of close shaves, thrown the Italian police off his trail, and seems to have outwitted everybody. He even succeeds in seducing Marge, with whom he begins openly cohabiting. However, when Philippe's yacht is being moved into dry dock, his decomposed body is found still attached to the boat because the anchor cable used to sink his corpse had become tangled around the propeller. The film ends with Tom being unknowingly called toward the police. Reception. "Purple Noon" was lauded by critics and made Delon a star. In 1962, Clément and Paul Gégauff won an Edgar Award from the Mystery Writers of America for Best Foreign Film Screenplay. It enjoys a loyal cult following even today, with fans including film director Martin Scorsese. Roger Ebert gave "Purple Noon" three stars (compared to the four-star review he gave to the 1999 version of "The Talented Mr. Ripley"), writing that "the best thing about the film is the way the plot devises a way for Ripley to create a perfect cover-up," but criticized the "less than satisfactory ending," feeling that ""Purple Noon" ends as it does only because Clement doesn't have Highsmith's iron nerve." James Berardinelli, however, rated "Purple Noon" higher than "The Talented Mr. Ripley", giving it a four-star review (compared to two and a half stars for "The Talented Mr. Ripley"). Berardinelli praised Delon's acting, saying that "Tom is fascinating because Delon makes him so," and also complimented the film for "expert camerawork and crisp direction." Berardinelli placed "Purple Noon" on his All-Time 100 list, and compared it to the 1999 film: "The remake went back to the source material, Patricia Highsmith's "The Talented Mr. Ripley". The result, while arguably truer to the events of Highsmith's book, is vastly inferior. To say it suffers by comparison to "Purple Noon" is an understatement. Almost every aspect of Rene Clement's 1960 motion picture is superior to that of Minghella's 1999 version, from the cinematography to the acting to the screenplay. Matt Damon might make a credible Tom Ripley, but only for those who never experienced Alain Delon's portrayal." Highsmith's opinion of the film was mixed: she felt that Alain Delon was "excellent" in the role of Tom Ripley, and described the film overall as "very beautiful to the eye and interesting for the intellect." However, she criticized the ending in which Ripley is implied to be caught by the police: "t was a terrible concession to so-called public morality that the criminal had to be caught." Restoration and re-release. In 2013 StudioCanal funded a restoration of the movie by the "Immagine Ritrovata" laboratory, a restoration being all the more warranted as part of the film's atmosphere is due to the sun-drenched scenes mentioned in the film's original title. The restored version was to be shown at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival as part of a homage to Delon's career, prior to re-release in France at least.
1164755	Theodore William "Ted" Lange (; born January 5, 1948) is an American actor, director, and screenwriter best known for his role as the bartender, Isaac Washington, in the 1970s TV series "The Love Boat". Lange and Gavin MacLeod, who played his captain in the series, have remained close friends. Early life and acting career. Lange was born in Oakland, California, the son of Geraldine L., a television show host, and Ted Lange. Lange attended the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. Lange was a cast member of the musical "Hair". His first screen appearance was in the documentary film "Wattstax" in 1973. After appearing in the film "Black Belt Jones" in 1974, he portrayed Junior on the series "That's My Mama" before landing the role of the ship's bartender, Isaac on "The Love Boat" in 1977, opposite favorite idol Gavin MacLeod. After the series ended in 1986, Lange appeared in various films and guest roles on "227", "The Cleveland Show", "Glitch!", "Evening Shade", "Scrubs", "Drake & Josh", "The King of Queens", and "Psych". In addition to his film and television work, Lange has also done extensive theater work. He made his Broadway debut in 1968 in the musical "Hair". He also performed in a one-man show, "Behind the Mask: An Evening with Paul Laurence Dunbar". Directing and screenwriting. During the run of "The Love Boat", Lange also served as director and screenwriter on various episodes of the series. In 1977, he wrote the screenplay for the 1977 drama "Passing Through", starring Cora Lee Day and Marla Gibbs. In 1999, Lange directed two episodes of "", the UPN series based on "The Love Boat". He also directed episodes of "Moesha", "Dharma & Greg", and "Eve". In 2008, he directed the drama "For Love of Amy". Lange has also done extensive theater work as playwright and stage director. He has penned seventeen plays including "George Washington's Boy", a historical drama about the relationship between the first president and his favorite slave, along with the comedy "Lemon Meringue Facade". "Ask Isaac". Before the American edition of "FHM" folded in 2006, Lange wrote a sex and advice column entitled "Ask Isaac" with adult film actress Jenna Jameson. "Celebrity Fit Club". In 2006, Lange appeared in the fourth season of the VH1 reality show "Celebrity Fit Club". He lost 28 pounds during the show's run. Personal life. Lange married wife Sheryl Thompson in 1978 and divorced in 1989. The couple have two children, Ted IV and Turner Wallace Lange. Lange remarried in 2001 to Mary Ley. His mother is Geraldine Lange, who was a personal secretary to a San Francisco mayor and was public affairs director of KBHK-TV in San Francisco in the early 1970s. She also hosted television programs on KBHK-TV. Awards. For his work theater directing, Lange received the NAACP's Renaissance Man Theatre Award, the Heroes and Legends HAL Lifetime Achievement Award, and the Dramalogue Award. Lange has also been the recipient of the James Cagney Directing Fellow Scholarship Award from the American Film Institute along with the Paul Robeson Award from Oakland's Ensemble Theatre.
1267011	The Gold Rush is a 1925 silent film comedy written, produced, directed by, and starring Charlie Chaplin in his Little Tramp role. The film also stars Georgia Hale, Mack Swain, Tom Murray, Henry Bergman, and Malcolm Waite.
1034339	Fulton Mackay OBE (12 August 1922 – 6 June 1987) was a Scottish actor and playwright, known for his role as prison officer Mr. Mackay in the 1970s sitcom "Porridge". Early life. Mackay was born in Paisley, Renfrewshire, Scotland. He was brought up in Clydebank by a widowed aunt after the death of his mother. His father was in the NAAFI. On leaving school, he trained as a quantity surveyor and later volunteered for the Royal Air Force in 1941 but was not accepted due to a perforated ear drum. MacKay then enlisted with the Black Watch and he served for five years during the Second World War, which included three years spent in India. Career. Theatre work. After being demobbed, Mackay began training as an actor at RADA. His first work was with the Citizens' Theatre, Glasgow, where he performed in nine seasons between 1949 and 1958. He also worked at the Royal Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh before gaining notice at the Arts Theatre Club, London, where in 1960, he played the part of Oscar in "The Naked Island", a play about POWs in Singapore. Two years later, he appeared at the same theatre, in Russian playwright Maxim Gorki's classic "The Lower Depths" for the Royal Shakespeare Company. He then acted with the Old Vic company and the National Theatre, performing in such productions as "Peer Gynt" and "The Alchemist". Other roles for the RSC included Mr Squeers in "Nicholas Nickleby" and the drunken gaoler in "Die Fledermaus". Mackay was a director of the Scottish Actors' Company and, in 1981, he founded the Scottish Theatre Company, with whom he acted. Surprisingly, despite his status, he appeared in few films. After his screen debut in the 1952 film "I'm a Stranger", his most notable roles were those in "Gumshoe", "Britannia Hospital", "Local Hero" as the wise, old Scottish fisherman - and "Defence of the Realm". Television work. Mackay is remembered for his namesake role as the comically ferocious prison warder, Mr Mackay, in the British sitcom "Porridge" alongside the comedian and comedy actor Ronnie Barker. This characterisation made him a household name. He also appeared in the film version of the series. The ensemble playing of Mackay, Barker, Richard Beckinsale and Brian Wilde, and the writing by Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais, made "Porridge" one of the most successful comedy series of the 1970s. Mackay returned to the role of the newly retired prison officer in the first episode of "Going Straight" (1978), the sequel series to "Porridge". Appealing to a younger age group, he played the original lighthouse-keeper in the British version of the children's series, "Fraggle Rock". He also appeared as an RAF psychiatrist in an episode of "Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em", and as a doctor in "Doctor at Large" in 1971. Also, on television, before coming to prominence in "Porridge", Mackay had a regular role as DI Inman in the police series "Special Branch" between 1969 and 1971. He was also a strong character actor in series such as "Z-Cars", was misguided scientist Doctor Quinn in the 1970 "Doctor Who" story "Doctor Who and the Silurians", was later in the running to play the Doctor himself when Jon Pertwee gave up the role. He played a regular officer running a training course in the "Dad's Army" episode "We Know Our Onions", and a doctor in "The Miser's Hoard". He played the grocer Alex Webster in the 1970s dramatisation of Sunset Song and part of it was filmed in the area around Auchenblae, Aberdeenshire. On television, however, Mackay often stayed true to his Scottish roots, acting in productions such as "Three Tales of Orkney" and "The Master of Ballantrae". In one of his last performances, Mackay portrayed an art forger in the "Lovejoy" episode "Death and Venice". Playwriting. Under the pseudonym of Aeneas MacBride, he wrote plays for the BBC. Personal life. He was married to Irish actress Sheila Manahan. He did much work for the Glasgow children's charity Child and Family Trust. He was awarded an OBE in 1984 and greatly enjoyed oil painting. On occasion he would make the journey to the far north of Scotland to visit his long-time friend and relation John Mackay of Borgie. During these trips which occurred throughout the 1960s and 1970s Mackay developed a love of salmon fishing, beachcombing and hillwalking. It is said his character of "Ben" in the movie "Local Hero" was based on his friend John Mackay. Death. Mackay died in 1987 from stomach cancer. He is buried at East Sheen and Richmond Cemeteries, Surrey, England. His wife Sheila died in 1988 and is buried in the same grave.
1164254	Robert Alda (February 26, 1914–May 3, 1986) was an American theatrical and film actor and father of actors Alan and Antony Alda. A talented singer and dancer, Alda was featured in a number of Broadway productions before moving to Italy during the early 1960s. He appeared in many European films over the next two decades, occasionally returning to the U.S. for film appearances such as "The Girl Who Knew Too Much" (1969). Life and career. Alda, an Italian American, was born Alphonso Giuseppe Giovanni Roberto D'Abruzzo in New York, New York, the son of Frances (née Tumillo) and Antonio D'Abruzzo, a barber born in Sant'Agata de' Goti, Benevento, Campania, Italy. He graduated from Stuyvesant High School in New York in 1930. He began as a singer and dancer in vaudeville after winning a talent contest, and moved on to burlesque. Alda is known for portraying George Gershwin in the biopic "Rhapsody in Blue" (1945) as well as the talent agent in the Douglas Sirk classic "Imitation of Life" (1959). He was very successful on Broadway, starring in "Guys and Dolls" (1950), for which he won a Tony Award, and in "What Makes Sammy Run?" (1964). He was also the host of the short-lived DuMont TV version of the game show "What's Your Bid?" (May–June 1953). Alda's first wife, and mother of actor Alan Alda, Joan Browne, was a showgirl. Alda was married to his second wife, Flora Marino, an Italian actress whom he met in Rome, until his death. Alda made two guest appearances with his son Alan on "M*A*S*H", in the episodes "The Consultant" (January 1975) and "Lend a Hand" (February 1980). The latter episode also featured Antony Alda (1956–2009), his youngest son by his second wife. Alda died on May 3, 1986, aged 72, after a long illness following a stroke.
1163836	Frederick Cecil Bartholomew (March 28, 1924 – January 23, 1992), known for his acting work as Freddie Bartholomew, was an English-American child actor. One of the most famous child actors of all time, he became very popular in 1930s Hollywood films. His most famous starring roles are in "Captains Courageous" (1937) and "Little Lord Fauntleroy" (1936). Bartholomew was born in London, and for the title role of MGM's "David Copperfield" (1935), he immigrated to the United States at the age of 10 in 1934, living there the rest of his life. He became an American citizen in 1943 following World War II military service. Despite his great success and acclaim following "David Copperfield", Bartholomew's childhood film stardom was marred by nearly constant legal battles and payouts which eventually took a huge toll on both his finances and his career. In adulthood, after World War II service, Bartholomew's film career dwindled rapidly, and he switched from performing to directing and producing in the medium of television. Biography. Early life. Bartholomew was born Frederick Cecil Bartholomew in 1924, in Harlesden in the borough of Willesden, Middlesex, London. His parents were Cecil Llewellyn Bartholomew, a wounded World War I veteran who became a minor civil servant after the war, and Lilian May Clarke Bartholomew. By the age of three, Freddie was living in Warminster, a town west of London, in his paternal grandparents' home. He lived under the care of his aunt "Cissie", Millicent Mary Bartholomew, who raised him and became his surrogate mother. Freddie was educated at Lord Weymouth's Grammar School in Warminster, and by his aunt Cissie. Child star. From England to Hollywood. In Warminster, Bartholomew was a precocious actor and was reciting and performing from age three. By age five he was a popular Warminster celebrity, the "boy wonder elocutionist", reciting poems, prose, and selections from various plays, including Shakespeare. Bartholomew did singing and dancing as well. His first film role came by the age of six, in 1930. He also pursued acting studies at the Italia Conti Academy of Theatre Arts in London, and appeared in a total of four minor British films. American filmmakers George Cukor and David O. Selznick saw him on a 1934 scouting trip to London, and chose him for the young title role in their MGM film "David Copperfield" (1935). Bartholomew and his aunt immigrated to the U.S. in August 1934, and MGM gave him a seven-year contract. "David Copperfield", which also featured Basil Rathbone, Maureen O'Sullivan, W.C. Fields and Lionel Barrymore, was a success, and made Bartholomew an overnight star. He was subsequently cast in a succession of prestigious film productions with some of the most popular stars of the day. Among his successes of the 1930s were "Anna Karenina" (1935) with Greta Garbo and Fredric March; "Professional Soldier" (1935) with Victor McLaglen and Gloria Stuart; "Little Lord Fauntleroy" (1936) with Dolores Costello and C. Aubrey Smith; "Lloyd's of London" (1937) with Madeleine Carroll and Tyrone Power; "The Devil is a Sissy" (1936) with Mickey Rooney and Jackie Cooper; and "Captains Courageous" (1937) with Spencer Tracy. "Captains Courageous", which contains Bartholomew's most iconic performance, was the movie he most enjoyed working on. The film took an entire year to make, and much of it was shot off the coasts of Florida and of Catalina Island in California. Bartholomew said of it, "For a kid, it was like one long outing. Spencer Tracy, Lionel Barrymore, Mickey Rooney, Melvyn Douglas and I — we all grew very close toward one another in those 12 months. When the shooting was finished, we cried like a bunch of babies as we said our goodbyes." Bartholomew's superb acting skills, open and personable presence, emotional range, refined English diction and angelic looks made him a box-office favorite. He quickly became the second-highest paid child movie star after Shirley Temple. Ring Lardner, Jr. had high praise for him, saying of his performance as the star of "Little Lord Fauntleroy", "He is on the screen almost constantly, and his performance is a valid characterization, which is almost unique in a child actor, and, indeed, in three fourths of adult motion-picture stars." Of his role as the protagonist of "Captains Courageous", Frank Nugent of the "New York Times" wrote, "Young Master Bartholomew ... plays Harvey faultlessly." By April 1936, following the very popular "Little Lord Fauntleroy", Bartholomew's success and level of fame caused his long-estranged birth parents to attempt to gain custody of him and his fortune. A legal battle of nearly seven years ensued, resulting in nearly all the wealth that Bartholomew amassed being spent on attorneys' and court fees, and payouts to his birth parents and two sisters. MGM contract troubles. The extreme financial drain of his birth parents' ongoing custody battles prompted Bartholomew's aunt to demand a raise in his salary from MGM in July 1937, leveraged by the huge success of "Captains Courageous". She threatened to break his MGM contract in order to find a better-paying studio. The contract battle kept Bartholomew out of work for a year, causing among other things the postponement and eventual loss of his planned lead in a film of Rudyard Kipling's "Kim", and the loss of his planned lead in "Thoroughbreds Don't Cry" with Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney. Bartholomew eventually resumed acting through 1942, in mostly lesser-quality films and roles, only three out of eleven of which were with MGM, and after 1938 he was less popular than in his heyday. This fall in popularity was due, in addition to the quality of the roles and his conflicts with MGM, partially because by late 1938 he was a tall, nearly 6-foot teenager, and also partially because the world was focusing on the growing problems of World War II and therefore the literary classics and costume dramas Bartholomew excelled at were less in fashion. In 1938, Twentieth Century Fox hired Bartholomew for the lead in their film of Robert Louis Stevenson's "Kidnapped". MGM then re-teamed him for the fourth and fifth times with Mickey Rooney in "Lord Jeff" (1938) and "A Yank at Eton" (1942), and he co-starred with Judy Garland in the lightweight MGM musical "Listen, Darling" in 1938. In 1939 Universal re-teamed him for the third and fourth times with Jackie Cooper in "The Spirit of Culver" and "Two Bright Boys". For RKO distribution, he performed in "Swiss Family Robinson" and "Tom Brown's School Days" in 1940. And as World War II deepened, Columbia had him star in three military-related films: "Naval Academy" (1941), "Cadets on Parade" (1942), and "Junior Army" (1942). World War II and beyond. Enlistment and aftermath. World War II military service interrupted Bartholomew's career even further. He enlisted in the U.S. Army Air Force on January 13, 1943 at the age of 18, and worked in aircraft maintenance. During training he fell and injured his back, was hospitalized for seven months, and was discharged on January 12, 1944. Bartholomew had one film role in 1944, in the low-budget comedy "The Town Went Wild". The film reunited him with Jimmy Lydon, with whom he had starred in "Tom Brown's School Days", "Naval Academy", and "Cadets on Parade". This ended up being Bartholomew's penultimate film performance, and his last for seven years. Bartholomew's efforts to revive his film career were unsuccessful; and efforts performing in regional theaters and vaudeville did not spark a comeback either. After distressing experiences including a devastating auto accident and performing unsuccessfully in a play in Los Angeles, in 1946 Barthlomew married publicist Maely Daniele. Daniele, six years Bartholomew's senior, was a twice-divorced woman, and his marriage to her caused a serious and permanent rift with his aunt, who moved back to England. The marriage was not a happy one. In 1947, Bartholomew appeared as himself in a five-minute cameo in the otherwise all-black musical film "Sepia Cinderella", relating his post-war efforts to have a successful vaudeville routine and telling a few gags onscreen. He spent most of 1948 touring small American theatres, and in November 1948 left without his wife for an Australian tour as a night-club singing, patter and piano act. Switch to television and off-camera work. Upon his return to the U.S. in 1949, Bartholomew switched to the new and burgeoning medium of television. He shifted from performer to television host and director to television producer and executive. Preferring to be known as Fred C. Bartholomew, he became the television director of independent television station WPIX in New York City from 1949 through 1954. Bartholomew divorced his first wife in 1953, and in December of that year he married television chef and author Aileen Paul, whom he had met at WPIX. With Aileen he had a daughter, Kathleen Millicent Bartholomew, born in March 1956, and a son, Frederick R. Bartholomew, born in 1958. The family, including stepdaughter Celia Ann Paul, lived in Leonia, New Jersey. This was an era in which advertising firms created and produced radio and television shows. In 1954, Bartholomew began working for Benton & Bowles, a top New York advertising agency, as a television producer and director. At Benton & Bowles, Bartholomew produced shows such as "The Andy Griffith Show", and produced or directed several high-quality television soap operas including "As The World Turns", "The Edge of Night" and "Search for Tomorrow". In 1964 he was made a vice president of radio and television at the company. Bartholomew and Aileen divorced by early 1977. He eventually re-married again, and remained married to his third wife, Elizabeth, for the rest of his life. Suffering from emphysema, Bartholomew retired from television by the late 1980s. He eventually moved with his family to Bradenton, Florida. In 1991 he was filmed in several interview segments for the documentary film "MGM: When the Lion Roars" (1992). Bartholomew died from heart failure in Sarasota, Florida in January 1992, at the age of 67. Mentions in popular culture. The seven-minute Warner Bros. cartoon "The Major Lied 'Til Dawn" (1938) includes a caricature of Bartholomew as his Little Lord Fauntleroy role. A non-alcoholic drink which combines ginger ale with lime juice known as a "Freddie Bartholomew cocktail" is named for the star. Although his name isn't mentioned, Freddie Bartholomew is referred to in J. D. Salinger's "The Catcher in the Rye", as a figure whom Holden Caulfield looks like — specifically, Bartholomew's most iconic role as Harvey Cheyne in "Captains Courageous" (1937), referred to by the character Sunny as the kid in the movie "who falls off boat". References. Hoerle, Helen. "The Story of Freddie Bartholomew". Akron, Ohio: Saalfield Publishing Company, 1935.
1101087	Nikolai Ivanovich Lobachevsky (; – ) was a Russian mathematician and geometer, known primarily for his work on hyperbolic geometry, otherwise known as Lobachevskian geometry.
582488	Kunaal Roy Kapur is an Indian film actor and director, most known for films like "Delhi Belly" (2011) and "Nautanki Saala" (2013). Career. Kapur started his acting career with the Indian soap "Just Mohabbat" (2001), which aired on Sony TV. He then appeared in a cameo role in the 2007 film, "Loins of Punjab Presents" opposite Shabana Azmi and Ishita Sharma. He was also seen in "Panga Naa Lo". He is also a theatre director. In 2006 directed a comedy, "The President Is Coming". He adapted the play into film, to make his directorial debut with the mockumentary "The President Is Coming" (2009), starring Konkona Sen Sharma and Shernaz Patel, which opened to mixed reviews and was declared a "Semi-Hit". Kapur appeared in six episodes of British-Indian comedy series "Mumbai Calling" (2009) as a call centre operator. He has appeared in Aamir Khan Productions' "Delhi Belly" (2011) alongside Imran Khan and Vir Das . Thereafter, he acted in "Nautanki Saala" (2013) with Ayushman Khurana and did small role in "Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani" (2013) with an ensemble cast, including Ranbir Kapoor, Deepika Padukone, and his younger brother Aditya Roy Kapur. Personal life. His elder brother Siddharth Roy Kapur is the CEO of UTV Motion Pictures and his younger brother Aditya Roy Kapur is also an actor, who has appeared in such films as "Action Replayy","Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani" and "Aashiqui 2". Kunal can also be seen in movies like "Delhi Belly" and "Nautanki Saala" and . His sister-in-law, Vidya Balan is also a famous film actress. Kunaal is married to Shayonti, has 2 kids, a daughter Shanaz and a son Zahaan and lives with them in Mumbai.
1101006	Marcus Peter Francis du Sautoy, OBE (born 26 August 1965) is the Simonyi Professor for the Public Understanding of Science and a Professor of Mathematics at the University of Oxford. Formerly a Fellow of All Souls College, and Wadham College, he is now a Fellow of New College. He is President of the Mathematical Association. He was previously an EPSRC Senior Media Fellow and a Royal Society University Research Fellow. His academic work concerns mainly group theory and number theory. In October 2008, he was appointed to the Simonyi Professorship for the Public Understanding of Science, succeeding the inaugural holder Richard Dawkins. His surname is pronounced (). Life and career. Du Sautoy was born in London, grew up in Henley-on-Thames and was educated at local comprehensives Gillotts School and King James's College (VI Form, now Henley College) and Wadham College, Oxford, where he obtained first class honours in Mathematics. He went on to complete his DPhil in mathematics. He currently lives in London with his wife and three children and plays football (No 17 for Recreativo Hackney FC) and the trumpet. In March 2006, his article "Prime Numbers Get Hitched" was published by the online "Seed" magazine. In it he explained how the number 42, mentioned in "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" as the answer to everything, is related to the Riemann zeta function. He has also published an article in the scientific magazine "New Scientist". In December 2006, du Sautoy delivered the 2006 Royal Institution Christmas Lectures under the collective title "The Num8er My5teries". This was only the third time the subject of the lectures had been mathematics — on the first occasion in 1978, when the lecture was delivered by Erik Christopher Zeeman, du Sautoy had been a schoolboy in the audience. The venue for the 2006 Christmas Lectures was the Institution of Engineering and Technology's headquarters at Savoy Place, London. Du Sautoy is an atheist, but has stated that as holder of the Simonyi Chair for the Public Understanding of Science his focus is going to be "very much on the science and less on religion." He has described his own religion as being "Arsenal - football," as he sees religion as wanting to belong to a community. Du Sautoy is a supporter of Common Hope, an organisation that helps people in Guatemala. Popularisation of mathematics. He is known for his work popularising mathematics. He has been named by "The Independent on Sunday" as one of the UK's leading scientists. In 2001 he won the Berwick Prize of the London Mathematical Society, which is awarded every two years to reward the best mathematical research by a mathematician under forty. He writes for "The Times" and "The Guardian" and has appeared several times on BBC Radio 4 and on television. He presented the television programme, "Mind Games", on BBC Four. He has also written numerous academic articles and books on mathematics, the most recent being "The Num8er My5teries". Du Sautoy is also on the advisory board of Mangahigh.com - an online maths game website and has appeared on Channel 4 News and on BBC Radio 4's "Today" programme promoting the service and is a regular contributor to the same network's "In Our Time". He also appears on the TV series "School of Hard Sums" with Dara Ó Briain, where he sets three mathematical questions with a real world application, for Dara O'Briain and a guest to solve, using mathematical and experimentation methods respectively. Personal life. Du Sautoy was a post-doc at the Hebrew University. It was there he met his Israeli wife Shani. They have three children, a son called Tomer and adopted twin daughters Magaly and Ina, who are being raised Jewish. Awards and honours. Du Sautoy was awarded the Berwick Prize in 2001 by the London Mathematical Society for the publication of outstanding mathematical research. In 2009 he won the Michael Faraday Prize from the Royal Society of London for "excellence in communicating science to UK audiences". Du Sautoy was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2010 New Year Honours "for services to Science". In 2012 he became a fellow of the American Mathematical Society.
1053730	DeRay Davis (born Antwan DeRay Davis) is an American stand-up comedian and actor. DeRay began his career in the comedy clubs. Shortly after moving to Los Angeles, He won the Comedy Central Laugh Riots Competition and was a standout on the Cedric the Entertainer Tour. Best known for his role as Ray-Ray the Hustle Guy in "Barbershop" and "", Davis has also appeared in other films, including "Semi-Pro" and 21 Jump Street. Davis' television roles and appearances have included programs such as Reno 911,BET's "ComicView", MTV's "Nick Cannon's Wild 'N Out" and 'Short Circuitz", and HBO's "Entourage". The comedian also sounds on several skits on rapper Kanye West's albums "The College Dropout" and "Late Registration", mostly impersonating Bernie Mac, and also appeared in West's music video for "Through the Wire." Other music video appearances for Davis include Lil' Flip's "Game Over", Chris Brown's "Yo (Excuse Me Miss)," Three 6 Mafia's "Doe Boy Fresh, and Cassie's "Long way to go" Davis is the play older brother of R&B singer Steph Jones.
594677	Shelley Marie Hack (born July 6, 1947) is an American model, actress, producer, and political and media advisor. Hack is best remembered for her role as Tiffany Welles in the fourth season of the ABC television drama "Charlie's Angels" (1979–1980), replacing the departing Kate Jackson. Hack appeared in a total of 26 episodes of the series, before being replaced in season five by model-actress Tanya Roberts. Life and career. Hack was born in White Plains, New York and raised in nearby Greenwich, Connecticut. She graduated from Greenwich Academy and Smith College, the latter with a history degree. She began her career as a teen fashion model and became the face of Revlon's "Charlie" perfume from the mid-1970s until the early 1980s. "Life" proclaimed her one of the million dollar faces in the beauty industry who were able to negotiate previously unheard of lucrative and exclusive deals with giant cosmetics companies and whose names became known to the public. Shelley ranked among a handful of the seventies supermodels. Her feature film debut was in Woody Allen's award winning film "Annie Hall" (1977), as "Street Stranger." She is perhaps best known for her role as Tiffany Welles, a role intended for Michelle Pfeiffer, in the television series "Charlie's Angels" for one season (1979–80). Unfortunately, the series experienced a ratings decline during Hack's time on the show, and the actress was dismissed in early 1980. Following Hack's departure from "Charlie's Angels", the actress played a variety of supporting roles. Hack received positive reviews in Martin Scorsese's film "The King of Comedy" (1983). She starred with Annette O'Toole and Meredith Baxter Birney in the critically acclaimed "Vanities" (1981), a television production of the comedy-drama stage play about the lives, loves and friendship of three Texas cheerleaders starting from high school to post-college graduation; it aired as a part of "Standing Room Only", a series on the premium-television channel HBO. She had a well received leading role in the cult horror film "The Stepfather" and was a regular on two short-lived TV series of the 1980s: "Cutter to Houston" (1983) and "Jack and Mike" (1986–87). Both series were well received by critics. Hack was praised for her portrayal of Doctor Beth Gilbert in Cutter To Houston, and as an empathic newspaper columist Jackie Shea in Jack and Mike. She had several more notable guest appearances in film and television up until 1997. After Hack left acting in the late '90s, she entered politics. Hack became a registration and polling station supervisor in the 1997 elections in Bosnia-Herzegovina and produced the first-ever televised presidential debates there as well. She also produced the debates in Sarajevo, Mostar, and the two in Banja Luka. She established herself in a new field as a media consultant for pre- and post-conflict countries. Among her duties was to help spread independent media such as newspapers, radio and television, citing the fact that with autocratic governments, the population is often fed state television, which delivers biased content. Hack worked in the television sector for ten years. Additionally, Hack became a member of the Pacific Council on International Policy (the mission of PCIP is to give a more effective voice to West Coast perspectives on critical global policy issues). In October 2000, appearing as herself, Hack returned to the "Charlie's Angels" Townsend Agency office as guest host on A&E "Biography", which featured profiles of several "Charlie's Angels" stars during "Hello Angels Week". In January 2008, Hack made an appearance on "The Oprah Winfrey Show". The episode, "Classic Americana", featured Hack as Revlon's Charlie perfume model in a 1976 television ad with Bobby Short at the piano. "It was a time when women were changing" Hack stated to Oprah Winfrey. "Women looked at ad and said, 'I want to be like that.'" Referring to the later Revlon commercials and "Charlie's Angels", Hack stated "I was lucky. There were two things I was in that were about making women feel a little more empowered". In recent years, rumours have been circulating about Hack's possible return to acting. The recent release of Charlie's Angels Season 4 DVD Collection has resulted in fans acknowledgement of Hack's contribution to the successful TV series. Many now conclude that Hack should have remained on the series and that her character of Tiffany Welles needed to have been developed from its first episode. Hack and her husband, Harry Winer are company principals for the production company Smash Media ("Entertainment That Brings People Together") that develops and produces content for motion pictures, television and new media.
566939	"It's All About Love" is a 2003 romance-drama film written and directed by Thomas Vinterberg. Its narrative can be classified as apocalyptic science fiction, but Vinterberg prefers to call it "a dream". Unlike the director's earlier Danish-language films, "It's All About Love" is entirely in English and stars Joaquin Phoenix, Claire Danes and Sean Penn. The production was led by Denmark's Nimbus Film, but the film was largely an international co-production, with involvement of companies from nine different countries in total. It was very poorly received by film critics. Production. The film was written, directed, and produced by Thomas Vinterberg over a period of five years. It was produced through Nimbus Film. At a certain point during production Vinterberg called up Ingmar Bergman and asked him to come and help him finish the film, as he felt he could not complete it himself. Vinterberg recalled that: Reception. The film was not very successful, and critics mostly panned it. Richard Roeper called the film "like Kubrick with a talent-ectomy" and Jack Matthews of the "New York Daily News" declared that "Surely, Vinterberg was high on some inert gas when he embarked on it". Dennis Lim of the "Village Voice", however found something to like in the film:
1062963	Interiors is a 1978 drama film written and directed by Woody Allen. Featured performers are Kristin Griffith, Mary Beth Hurt, Richard Jordan, Diane Keaton, E. G. Marshall, Geraldine Page, Maureen Stapleton and Sam Waterston. Page received a BAFTA Film Award for Best Supporting Actress and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress. The film received four other Oscar nominations, two for Allen's screenplay and direction, one for Stapleton as Best Actress in a Supporting Role and another for Mel Bourne and Daniel Robert for their art direction and set decoration. It is Allen's first full-fledged film in the drama genre and, by far, his most serious film yet by showing one of his character's inconsolable urge to commit suicide. Plot. The film centers around the three children of Arthur (E. G. Marshall) and Eve (Geraldine Page), an interior decorator: Renata (Diane Keaton) is a poet whose husband Frederick, a struggling writer, feels inferior due to her intellect and his lack of success. Flyn (Kristin Griffith) is a vain actress who is away most of the time filming; the low quality of her films is an object of ridicule behind her back. Joey (Mary Beth Hurt), who is married to Mike (Sam Waterston), tries to be as creative as her family but does not have any real talent, cursing her mother for favoring her sisters more than her. One morning, Arthur unexpectedly announces that he wants a separation from his wife and would like to live alone. Eve, who is clinically depressed and mentally unstable, attempts suicide. The shock of these two events causes a rift between the emotional states of the sisters. Arthur returns from a trip to Greece with Pearl (Maureen Stapleton), a high spirited and more "normal" woman, whom he intends to marry. His daughters are disturbed that Arthur would disregard Eve's suicide attempt and find another woman, whom they refer to as "vulgarian". Arthur and Pearl marry at their summer home, with Renata, Joey and Flyn in attendance. Later in the evening, Joey lashes out at Pearl when she accidentally breaks one of Eve's vases. In the middle of the night, after Frederick had attempted to rape Flyn, Joey finds Eve in the house, and somberly explains how much she has given up for her mother, and how disdainfully she is treated. Eve walks out onto the beach and into the surf. Joey, Mike and Pearl attempt to save her, but Joey almost drowns - in a twist of fate, it is Pearl who saves Joey from drowning, but Eve is not found. The film ends with the family silently attending Eve's funeral and laying flowers on her grave. Reception. Allen's own fears about the film's reception are recounted in a biography of Allen by Eric Lax (2nd edition: ISBN 0-306-80985-0), where he quotes Ralph Rosenblum, the film's editor: Later, while watching the film with an acquaintance, Allen reportedly said "It's always been my fear. I think I'm writing "Long Day's Journey Into Night" and it turns into "Edge of Night"." Vincent Canby of "The New York Times" called the film "beautiful" and complimented Gordon Willis on his "use of cool colors that suggest civilization's precarious control of natural forces", but noted: Richard Schickel of "Time" wrote that the film's "desperate sobriety ... robs it of energy and passion"; Allen's "style is Bergmanesque, but his material is Mankiewiczian, and the discontinuity is fatal. Doubtless this was a necessary movie for Allen, but it is both unnecessary and a minor embarrassment for his well-wishers." On the other hand, Roger Ebert gave the film four stars and praised it highly, saying, "Here we have a Woody Allen film, and we're talking about O'Neill and Bergman and traditions and influences? Yes, and correctly. Allen, whose comedies have been among the cheerful tonics of recent years, is astonishingly assured in his first drama."
1042550	The Family Way is a 1966 British comedy-drama film based on Bill Naughton's play All in Good Time (1963). It began life in 1961 as a television play, Honeymoon Postponed. The film was produced and directed by John and Roy Boulting, respectively, and starred father and daughter John Mills and Hayley Mills. Naughton adapted the play himself. Plot. Following the wedding of young Jenny Piper and Arthur Fitton (Hayley Mills and Hywel Bennett), a rowdy reception is held at a local pub where the newlyweds are subjected to much well-meaning but vulgar ribaldry.
1059188	Lolita Davidovich (Serbian: Лолита Давидовић / Lolita Davidović; born July 15, 1961) is a Canada film and television actress. Early life and career. Davidovich was born in London, Ontario, the daughter of immigrants from Yugoslavia. Her father was from Belgrade, the capital of Serbia, and her mother was from Slovenia; she spoke only Serbian during her early years. She studied at the Herbert Berghof Studio in New York.
1503371	Stark Sands (born September 30, 1978) is an American film, stage and television actor. Early life and education. He was born Stark Bunker Sands in Dallas, Texas. Career. In 2002, Sands was seen as Toby, a recurring love interest to the angst-ridden teen, Claire Fischer (played by Lauren Ambrose), on the HBO television series "Six Feet Under" (2001–2005) and co-starred in "Me and Daphne" (2002), a short film directed by Rebecca Gayheart and produced by Brett Ratner. He has also co-starred in the independent film, "Pack of Dogs" (2002), directed by Ian Kessner. Sands made his feature-film debut opposite Natasha Lyonne and Jason Priestley in "Die, Mommie, Die!" (2003), an adaptation of Charles Busch's play of the same name. He also appeared in the film, "Shall We Dance" (2004), with Richard Gere and Jennifer Lopez. In 2007, he received a nomination for a Tony Award for Best Featured Actor in a Play for his role in the Broadway revival of "Journey's End". From May 2 until June 8, 2008, he performed the role of Alex in "A Seagull in the Hamptons" at the McCarter Theatre in Princeton, New Jersey. Sands also participated in the seven-episode HBO miniseries "Generation Kill" about the 2003 Iraq invasion, airing during the summer of 2008. In the miniseries he played Marine Lt. Nathaniel Fick. Sands had previously played a U.S. Marine, Walter Gust in "Flags of Our Fathers". Additional theater credits include the 2009 musical adaptation of "Bonnie & Clyde" at the La Jolla Playhouse, The Classic Stage Company's production of "The Tempest" which earned him the Actors' Equity Foundation's St. Clair Bayfield Award, which honors the best performance by an actor in a Shakespearean play in the New York metropolitan area. From June 25 until July 12, 2009, Sands joined Shakespeare in the Park's production of "Twelfth Night", featuring with Anne Hathaway, Audra McDonald and Raul Esparza. Sands played the role of Tunny in the Broadway production of "American Idiot", again playing a member of the military. He left the production on March 13, 2011; David Larsen took over the role. Sands was in the 2010 HBO pilot "The Miraculous Year", which was not picked-up by HBO. He was part of the main cast of the CBS television series "Rookies". The show was picked-up for mid-season, under the new name "NYC 22", but was canceled after airing 13 episodes due to inadequate ratings. Sands played the character of Troy Nelson in the film "Inside Llewyn Davis". Sands plays the lead character, Charlie Price in the musical "Kinky Boots" which premiered at the Bank of America Theatre in Chicago, Illinois, for a four-week run in October 2012. He reprised his role when the show made its debut on Broadway at the Al Hirschfeld Theatre on April 4, 2013, with previews beginning on March 3, 2013. For his role as Charlie, Sands was nominated for a Tony Award for Best Actor in a Musical. Personal life. On July 9, 2011, Sands married Gemma Clarke.
1039936	Douglas James Henshall (born 19 November 1965) is a Scottish actor probably best known for his role as Professor Nick Cutter in the British science fiction series "Primeval". Early life. Douglas Henshall was born in Glasgow, Scotland. His mother is a nurse and his father a salesman. He has two elder sisters. He grew up in Barrhead and attended Barrhead High School. While at school he joined the Scottish Youth Theatre based in Glasgow. After leaving school, he moved to London to train at Mountview Theatre School. While in London he received critical acclaim for his theatre work, notably "Life of Stuff" at the Donmar Warehouse (1993) and "American Buffalo" at the Young Vic (1997). He returned to Glasgow and joined the theatre company. Henshall is a fan of St Mirren Football Club. He is married to Croatian writer Tena Štivičić. Career. In 1993 he appeared in Dennis Potter's television adaptation of "Lipstick on Your Collar". He also portrayed T.E. Lawrence in a reoccurring role in the American television series "Young Indiana Jones" (1992-1996). One of his first successful film roles was as Edgar in "Angels and Insects" (1995) before going on to star in "Sharpe's Justice" (1997), "Orphans" (1998), "The Man with Rain in His Shoes" (1998), "The Lawless Heart" (2001) and "Silent Cry" (2002). He has also starred in many television series and is known for his roles in "Psychos" (1999), "Kid in the Corner" (1999) (for which he won a gold nymph as best actor in a mini-series at the Monte-Carlo TV festival in 2000), "Anna Karenina" (2000), and "Loving You" (2003). He has also performed in plays for BBC radio, including the role of Romeo in "Romeo and Juliet" (1999) and David in "The Long Farewell" (2002). In the summer of 2002, Douglas returned to the London stage where he performed the role of Michael Bakunin in Tom Stoppard's new trilogy of plays, "The Coast of Utopia", at the National Theatre. He played Marcus in the post-production British comedy film "French Film", alongside Hugh Bonneville and Anne-Marie Duff. Henshall also starred in Dorian Grey (2009) as the doctor Alan Campbell. He went on to appear in another ITV1 show, "Collision", in which he played the investigating officer of a multiple car crash. In 2010, Douglas starred in a BBC1 drama called "The Silence". He appeared in Series 5 of "Lewis" in the episode "The Mind Has Mountains" and as Cradoc in "The Eagle" (2011). In summer 2011 Henshall starred in Harold Pinter's "Betrayal" at the Comedy Theatre in London's West End playing the lover of Emma, played by Kristin Scott Thomas. Her husband was played by Ben Miles and the revival was brought to life by director Ian Rickson. In autumn 2012 he appeared as Oliver Cromwell in the premiere of the new play "55 Days". In 2012 he starred as Augustus Cribben in "The Secret of Crickley Hall", and in the ITV television film of Ian Rankin's novel "Doors Open". In 2013 Henshall played Detective Inspector Jimmy Perez in the BBC two-part drama "Shetland".The story is based on one of Ann Cleeves' Shetland crime novels, Red Bones.
1247805	Dorothy Fay (April 4, 1915 - November 5, 2003) was an American actress. Early life and career. She was born Dorothy Fay Southworth in Prescott, Arizona, the daughter of Harry T. Southworth and Harriet Fay Fox. Her father was a medical doctor. Fay attended the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, California, and studied acting at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London. She began her motion picture career in the late 1930s, performing in several B grade westerns. In 1938, she appeared opposite George Houston in "Frontier Scout" at Grand National Pictures. She also appeared with Western stars Buck Jones and William Elliott. Fay made four movies with her husband, country singer and actor Tex Ritter, at Monogram Pictures: "Song of the Buckaroo" (1938), "Sundown on the Prairie" (1939), "Rollin' Westward" (1939) and "Rainbow Over the Range" (1940). She played a heroine in "The Green Archer" (1940) and "White Eagle" (1941), both at Columbia Pictures. Fay also made a few small appearances in other genres, such as the crime drama "Missing Daughters" (1939). In 1940, she asked Monogram to give her a different part and was loaned to MGM for a small role in "The Philadelphia Story", which starred Cary Grant, Katharine Hepburn and James Stewart. She also appeared as a debutante in the MGM musical "Lady Be Good" (1941) starring Eleanor Powell, Ann Sothern, Robert Young and Lionel Barrymore. Later years. Fay married singer/actor Tex Ritter on June 14, 1941; the marriage ended at his death January 2, 1974. They had two sons, Thomas and John, a well known comedic actor. Among her grandchildren is actor Jason Ritter.
1060949	"Coal Miner's Daughter" is a 1980 biographical film which tells the story of country music legendary singer Loretta Lynn. It stars Sissy Spacek as Loretta, a role that earned her the Academy Award for Best Actress. Tommy Lee Jones as Loretta's husband Mooney Lynn, Beverly D'Angelo and Levon Helm also star. The film was directed by Michael Apted. Helm (drummer for the rock group The Band) made his screen debut as Loretta's father, Ted Webb. Ernest Tubb, Roy Acuff, and Minnie Pearl all make cameo appearances as themselves. The film was adapted from Loretta Lynn's 1976 autobiography written with George Vecsey. At the time of the film's release, Loretta was 48 years old. Background. Loretta Lynn is one of eight children born to Ted Webb (Levon Helm), a coal miner raising a family with his wife despite grinding poverty in Butcher Hollow, Kentucky (pronounced by locals as "Butcher Holler"). She marries Oliver Vanetta (Doolittle) "Mooney" Lynn (Tommy Lee Jones) when she is 15 years old and he was 22 years old. A mother of four by the time she is 19 (and a grandmother by age 29), Loretta begins singing the occasional songs at local honky-tonks on weekends as well as making the occasional radio appearance.
583450	Hathkadi is a 1995 Bollywood action film directed by Rama Rao Tatineni starring Govinda, Shilpa Shetty and Shakti Kapoor.The movie was an Average grosser at the box office Plot summary. Assistant Commissioner of Police, Suraj Chauhan (Govinda) is an honest and diligent police officer. These qualities in him are engrossed in him due to the presence of corrupt politicians and police officers like the Home Minister Bhavani Shankar (Shakti Kapoor), Suraj's Deputy Inspector General (Kiran Kumar). Suraj has a brother (Arun Chauhan), who is a crime reporter for the Indian Times. Next day, Home Minister Bhavani Shankar goes to a function held by an adoption center for only girls. There he encounters a pretty girl and instantly feels infatuated with her. He asks the DIG to ask the Mayor's wife to bring her to him since the Mayor's wife is the owner of the adoption center. At first, the Mayor's wife resists and says no but when the DIG threatens to tell the truth about her past endeavours about dealing with prostitutes to her husband, she agrees. That night, when the Mayor's wife brings the girl to Bhavani Shankar, little does he know that Arun is on an assignment for more scoop for his newspaper. Arun discovers and records a video of Bhavani Shankar raping the same girl from the adoption center. The next night, Arun goes to see the Mayor only to show him the misdeed that Home Minister Bhavani Shankar has committed. Filled with anger and disgust, the Mayor and Arun head to the police department to have Home Minister Bhavani Shankar arrested for this. But unfortunately, the Mayor's wife overhears them and informs the DIG about this. On the way to the police station, Arun and the Mayor are blocked and then ruthlessly killed by Chakku Pande (Puneet Issar), a special hired goon of Bhavani Shankar. Suraj is enraged and aggrieved at the loss of his brother and swears to avenge his death. As Suraj finally starts coming more in contact with Bhavani Shankar, he realizes his bad character and with time that Bhavani Shankar is the one behind his brother's killing. After that, Suraj goes to Chakku Pande to get him to confess the killing he did according to the order given by Bhavani Shankar. But Chakku Pande denies it and thus is beaten up by Suraj. Chakku Pande gets sent to jail by Suraj until he decides to confess his crime. Then one night, Bhavani Shankar hires a few goons to have Chakku Pande killed. But Chakku Pande survives due to Suraj and the police force and claims he will protest against Bhavani Shankar. To Suraj's surprise, when he takes Chakku Pande to a huge public function to confess this truth, Chakku Pande puts the blame on Suraj. After that, the lights go out and a gun shot is heard. When the lights come back on, Chakku Pande is dead and a possible suspect is seen running away through the crowd by Suraj. Presuming that Suraj is the killer (which he is not), the evil police officers of Bhavani Shankar arrest Suraj and send him to jail for the murder of Chakku Pande. But when he reaches jail, he is surprised to see that he has a lookalike, Rajnikant. Rajnikant is a simple man with strong positive morals who came to jail because he killed a man who tried to rape his wife. And when Rajnikant realizes that the evil politicians put Suraj in jail in the first place, he suggests that Suraj and Rajnikant can switch places so that Suraj can leave as Rajnikant's since Rajnikant's sentence is almost over. And from here onwards, starts a fun and action filled story of how Suraj and Rajnikant join forces to finally accomplish Suraj's goal of avenging his brother.
588677	Hazaar Chaurasi Ki Maa (1998) (Hindi: हज़ार चौरासी की माँ; ) is an Indian feature film that deals with the life of a woman who loses her son, a Naxalite, to the violence that is a result of his adopted ideology. The film is directed by Govind Nihalani and is based on Magsaysay and Jnanpith award recipient Mahasweta Devi's Bengali novel Hajar Churashir Maa. The screenplay is written by Nihalani and the dialogues by Tripurari Sharma. The film stars Jaya Bachchan as Sujata Chatterjee, Anupam Kher as Dibyanath Chatterjee, Milind Gunaji as Inspector Saroj Pal, Seema Biswas as Somu's mother, Joy Sengupta as Brati Chatterjee and Nandita Das as Nandini Mitra. It marks Jaya Bachchan's return to acting after a gap of 18 years. In 1998, "Hazaar Chaurasi Ki Maa" won the National Film Award for Best Feature Film in Hindi. Plot. Dibyanath Chatterji, his bank-employed wife, Sujata, and youngest son, Brati, live an affluent existence in Calcutta, West Bengal, India, circa early 1970s. Sujata is a quiet, devout Hindu, religious, and compassionate woman, and Brati has finished his school and is now attending college. His parents are proud of him, and keep track of his progress. Then their world is shattered during the early hours, when they are informed by the police that Brati has been killed. Dibyanath and Sujata go to identify Brati's body, mourn, lament inconsolably. They know now that their lives will never be the same again - for by the police they will be called the mother and father of corpse No. 1084. Sujata struggles to understand Brati's passing, meets his friends one by one, comes to know that Brati had a girlfriend, Nandini Mitra, and that's when she finds out that Brati was part of a rebel group often referred to as "Naxalbari", a militant leftist group. As she delves deeper and deeper into Brati's former life, she begins to understand her son's struggle, and decides to continue to further this. What Sujata does not know is her and Dibyanath's lives are in danger, and they well turn up dead and end up as numbered corpses in a police morgue.
1036104	Robert Guy Bathurst (born 22 February 1957) is an English actor. Bathurst was born in the Gold Coast in 1957, where his father was working as a management consultant. His family moved to Dublin, Ireland, in 1959 and Bathurst was enrolled at an Anglican boarding school. In 1966, the family moved to England, and Bathurst transferred to Worth School in Sussex, where he took up amateur dramatics. At the age of 18, he read law at the University of Cambridge and joined the Cambridge Footlights group. After graduating, he took up acting full-time. He made his professional stage debut in 1983, playing Tim Allgood in Michael Frayn's "Noises Off", which ran for a year at the Savoy Theatre. To broaden his knowledge of working on stage, he joined the National Theatre. He supplemented his stage roles in the 1980s with television roles, appearing in comedies such as the aborted pilot episode of "Blackadder", "Chelmsford 123", "The Lenny Henry Show", and the first episode of "Red Dwarf". In 1991, he won his first major television role playing Mark Taylor in Steven Moffat's semi-autobiographical BBC sitcom "Joking Apart". Although only thirteen episodes were made between 1991 and 1995, the role remains Bathurst's favourite of his whole career. After "Joking Apart" concluded, he was cast as pompous management consultant David Marsden in the ITV comedy drama "Cold Feet", which ran for five series from 1998 to 2003. Since 2003, Bathurst has played a fictional prime minister in the BBC sitcom "My Dad's the Prime Minister", Mark Thatcher in the fact-based drama "Coup!", and a man whose daughter goes missing in the ITV thriller "The Stepfather". He also made a return to theatre roles, playing Vershinin in "The Three Sisters" (2003), Adrien in the two-hander "Members Only" (2006), government whip Alistair in "Whipping it Up" (2006–07), and Alex in "Alex" (2007, 2008). In the following years he starred in the television dramas "The Pillars of the Earth" (2010), "Downton Abbey" (2010), "Hattie" (2011) and joined the cast of "Wild at Heart" (2012). Bathurst appeared in his first Noël Coward play, "Present Laughter", in 2010 and followed it with a role in "Blithe Spirit" in 2010 and 2011. He is married and has four children. Early life. Robert Guy Bathurst was born in Accra, Gold Coast (modern-day Ghana), on 22 February 1957 to Philip Bathurst and Gillian Bathurst ("née" Debenham). His father was a major in the Royal Engineers during the Second World War and was working in West Africa as a management consultant, and his mother was a physiotherapist. They had two other children; Nicholas and Charlotte. The family lived in Ghana until 1959, when they moved to Ballybrack, Dublin, Ireland. Bathurst and his brother attended two schools in Dublin—the Holy Child School in Killiney and a school in Ballsbridge—before being sent to a preparatory school in Kells, County Meath. He compared the time he and his brother, Catholics, spent at the Anglican boarding school to "Lord of the Flies"; "we were incarcerated in a huge, stinking, Georgian house, where we were treated very brutally." In 1966, the family moved to England. Bathurst transferred to the Worth Abbey boarding school in Sussex, which he much preferred to the school in Kells. At the age of 13, he began acting in minor skits and revues and read old copies of "Plays and Players" magazine, "studying floor plans of theatres and reading about new theatres being built". He had first become interested in acting when his family saw a pantomime at the Gaiety Theatre in Dublin, and he watched actors waiting for their cues in the wings. He left Worth at the age of 18 to read law at Pembroke College, Cambridge. Describing himself as "hopeless at anything academic", he spent much of his time at university performing in the Cambridge Footlights alongside Hugh Laurie, Rory McGrath and Emma Thompson. From 1977 to 1978, he was the secretary of the group, and from 1978 to 1979 the president. Among the Footlights Revues he participated in were "Stage Fright" in 1978, which he also co-wrote, and "Nightcap" in 1979. He also directed and appeared in the Footlights pantomime "Aladdin" as Widow Twankey during the 1978–79 season. He took the Bar Vocational Course in London, which allowed him to go on to become a practising barrister, but stuck to acting instead. Acting career. Early career. After graduating from Cambridge, Bathurst spent a year touring Australia in the Footlights Revue "Botham, The Musical", which he described as "a bunch of callow youths flying round doing press conferences and chat shows". Although he enjoyed his work with Footlights, he did not continue performing with the troupe, worrying that he would be "washed up at 35 having coat-tailed on their success through the early part of career". After leaving, he found that he was considered a dilettante, which resulted in it taking him longer than expected to be accepted as a serious actor. His first professional role out of university was in the BBC Radio 4 series "Injury Time", alongside fellow Footlights performers Rory McGrath and Emma Thompson. His first role for television came in 1982 when he appeared as Prince Henry in the unaired pilot episode of "Blackadder". He had already appeared in a training video by director Geoff Posner and got the role of Henry by way of thanks. The character was recast and downgraded when the series was commissioned as "The Black Adder". Bathurst's professional stage debut came the next year when he joined the second cast of Michael Frayn's "Noises Off" at the Savoy Theatre. He replaced Roger Lloyd Pack as Tim Allgood and stayed at the Savoy for a year. Between roles, he worked as a television presenter for BBC East. After declining an offer to be a presenter of "That's Life!" he joined the National Theatre in 1984, where he appeared as a background actor in "Saint Joan". He regards it as "the most demoralising" job he has ever had but was grateful for the theatre experience it gave him. "Bathurst's cure for cold feet". "Edinburgh Evening News" (The Scotsman Publications): p. 18. The following year, he appeared at The Man In The Moon, a pub theatre in Chelsea, in "Judgement", a two-hour monologue on cannibalism. The opening night audience was made up of three people but after good reviews in the national press the audience grew to an average of fifteen. He continued to make minor appearances in television throughout the 1980s; in 1987, he auditioned for the role of Dave Lister in the BBC North science fiction sitcom "Red Dwarf". The part eventually went to Craig Charles but Bathurst was given a role in the first episode of the series as Frank Todhunter, second officer on the ship, who is killed in the first ten minutes. Ten years later, Bathurst was invited to reprise the role when a storyline in the series allowed former characters to return, but filming commitments prevented him from appearing. In 1989, he appeared in Malcolm Bradbury's "Anything More Would Be Greedy" for Anglia Television, playing Dennis Medlam, MP. The programme was broadcast in 1990 to little fanfare. In 1990, he performed on "Up Yer News", a live topical programme broadcast on BSB. "Joking Apart". While working on "Up Yer News", Bathurst auditioned for a one-off television comedy called "Joking Apart". Earlier in the day, he noticed a fellow "Up Yer News" performer reading the script to prepare for his own audition. As Bathurst went into the audition room, his colleague was leaving, and told Bathurst he would "break his legs" if he got the part, a threat that seemed not to be "entirely jocular". Bathurst got the part, and the pilot of "Joking Apart" was broadcast as an installment of the BBC 2 "Comic Asides" strand. It returned for two series in 1993 and 1995. Bathurst appeared as sitcom writer Mark Taylor in the series. After the first series was broadcast, a critic called Bathurst the "Best Comedy Newcomer of 1993". The show was punctuated by fantasy sequences in which his character performed his thoughts as a stand-up routine in a small club. In the commentary and the interview on the DVD, Bathurst says that he was told that they would be reshot after filming everything else, an idea abandoned because of the expense. He has an idea of refilming the sequences 'now', as his older self, to give them a more retrospective feeling. He has also said that he believes Mark was too "designery" and wishes that he had "roughened him up a bit". The role is his favourite of his whole career; he has described it as "the most enjoyable job I will ever do" and considers several episodes of the series to be "timeless, beautifully constructed farces which will endure". Bathurst is often recognised for his appearance in this series, mentioning that "Drunks stop me on public transport and tell me details of the plot of their favourite episode". As punishment for arriving late for the series one press launch at the Café Royal in Regent Street, London, writer Steven Moffat pledged to write an episode in which Mark is naked throughout. To a large extent, this vow is realised in the second series. Between 1991 and 1995, Bathurst also appeared on television in "No Job for a Lady", "The House of Eliott" and "The Detectives", and on stage in "The Choice", George Bernard Shaw's "Getting Married" at Chichester with Dorothy Tutin and Gogol's "The Nose" adapted by Alastair Beaton, which played in Nottingham and Bucharest. He also filmed a role in "The Wind in the Willows" (Terry Jones, 1996) as St John Weasel. Wider recognition. In 1996, while appearing in "The Rover" at the Salisbury Playhouse, Bathurst got an audition for the Granada Television comedy pilot "Cold Feet". He arrived for the audition "bearded and shaggy", on account of his role in the play, and did not expect to win the role of upper-middle class management consultant David Marsden. The role in the pilot was only minor, and created at the last minute to support characters played by James Nesbitt and Helen Baxendale; the only character note in the script about David related to his high salary. Bathurst identified the character as merely a "post-Thatcherite whipping boy". Bathurst reprised the role in the "Cold Feet" series, which ran for five years from 1998 to 2003. He described the character of David as an "emotional cripple", originally with little depth. The third series features an affair between David and a political activist played by Yasmin Bannerman. Bathurst appreciated the opportunity to bring some depth a previously one-dimensional character but was more impressed with the storylines that came out of the affair, rather than the affair itself: "It was the deception, the guilt and the recrimination rather than the actual affair, which was neither interesting nor remarkable". Like other cast members, Bathurst was able to suggest storylines as the series went on; one episode features David celebrating his fortieth birthday and Bathurst suggested the character could get a Harley-Davidson motorbike. Granada paid for him to take motorbike lessons and a test. On the day before his test, the filming of a scene where David takes off on his new bike was scheduled. Bathurst "wobbled, missed the camera and crashed into the pavement" leading director Simon Delaney to exclaim it was the funniest thing he had ever seen. In another episode, David buys a racehorse—ostensibly as a birthday present for his wife—in a plot borne out of Bathurst's own love of horseracing. The role made him more widely recognisable and he often received prospective scripts that were "obvious rewrites of the character". He turned them down, preferring to play a "good person", which would be more interesting from a dramatic point of view. Between 1998 and 2003, he made television appearances in "Goodbye, Mr Steadman" (2001), starring opposite Caroline Quentin as a headmaster who has been declared dead after one of his pupils erases all computer records relating to him, and the adaptation of "White Teeth" (2002). On stage he appeared in Michael Frayn's "Alarms and Excursions" in 1998 and in "Hedda Gabler" in 1999, his last theatre role for several years. In the "Daily Telegraph", Charles Spencer described his role as Tesman as a "weird casting choice" but called his acting "a brave stab". In 2001, Bathurst appeared in the music video for Westlife's Comic Relief single "Uptown Girl". In 2002, straight after finishing "Cold Feet", Bathurst went straight into filming "My Dad's the Prime Minister", a series in which he portrays fictional British prime minister Michael Philips. The first series was broadcast in a Sunday afternoon CBBC slot in 2003. He watched debates in the House of Commons to prepare for the role but did not base his portrayal on Tony Blair. In 2003, he returned to theatre for the first time in four years to play Vershinin in "The Three Sisters", opposite Kristin Scott Thomas and Eric Sykes. He had not seen "The Three Sisters" before starring in it. Director Michael Blakemore advised him to turn this to his advantage, as he would not feel he had to live up to previous portrayals. After its run concluded, a special edition of "The Three Sisters" was filmed with the same cast for television broadcast on BBC Four. In 2005, the second series of "My Dad's the Prime Minister" was broadcast, now moved to a Friday night timeslot to take advantage of the adult humour. The same year, he starred in the ITV thriller "The Stepfather" playing Christopher Veazey, a man whose daughter goes missing. Bathurst was pleased that this white-collar worker had an emotional side, in comparison to David Marsden, whom he used as a yardstick when accepting those sorts of roles. Also in 2005, he played Mr Sesseman in an adaptation of "Heidi" and Dottore Massimo in "The Thief Lord". 2006–present. In 2006, he played Mark Thatcher in "Coup!", a dramatisation of the attempted coup in Equatorial Guinea. He also starred as Adrien opposite Nicholas Tennant in the UK premiere of "Members Only" at the Trafalgar Studios. He accepted the part because it was "funny, plausible, plausibly absurd, and cruel" and he liked that it was a translation from an original French play. He enjoyed working on it, telling "What's on Stage", "Nick is a really good actor and really good to work with in that you can have completely frank discussions about tiny issues and it's totally ego-free. We're all just discussing the point and not playing games with each other. It does make the working practice easier. If there's only two of you in a play, you are equally responsible—there's nobody else to blame if it goes wrong. So its a greater risk and there's no hiding." At the end of the year, he appeared opposite Richard Wilson in "Whipping it Up", a play about whips in a fictional David Cameron government. To research his role, he watched more Commons debates. After a season at the Bush Theatre at the end of 2006, "Whipping it Up" transferred to the New Ambassadors Theatre from March to June 2007, The tour coincided with his appearance as the titular character in "Alex", based on the comic in "The Daily Telegraph". The play ran at the Arts Theatre between October and November 2007 and featured Bathurst interacting with other characters that are projected onto a screen behind him. He was attracted to the role because of the "duplicity and guile" Alex uses to get himself out of tight situations. The role won him a nomination for Best Solo Performance at the What's on Stage Awards. He reprised the role in an international tour from September to November 2008, playing in Melbourne, Sydney, Hong Kong, Singapore and Dubai. As Alex he presented a ten-part series on Classic FM, which won a Gold Award at the Sony Radio Academy Awards in 2012. He now performs Alex as a corporate after dinner entertainment. 2007 also saw Bathurst perform as linguistician Charles in the first series of the BBC Radio 4 sitcom "Hut 33". He reprised the role for two more series in 2008 and 2009. In 2009, he made his third and final appearance as art dealer James Garrett in "My Family". He also played the role of Mr Weston in the BBC costume drama "Emma", which was broadcast on BBC One through October 2009. He previously played Weston in a two-part adaptation of "Emma" for BBC Radio 4 in 2000. Between January and April 2010, Bathurst starred as Garry Essendine in a national touring revival of Noël Coward's "Present Laughter". He had not seen "Present Laughter" before, though had seen several Coward plays in his 20s, and did not imitate Coward's speech patterns while performing. "Present Laughter" was the first time Bathurst had appeared in a Coward play, and he was cast in another, "Blithe Spirit", later in the year. He plays Charles Condomine opposite Alison Steadman and his "Cold Feet" co-star Hermione Norris. The played toured theatres around southern England in 2010 and early 2011 before beginning a three-month run at the Apollo Theatre in London. On television in 2010, Bathurst starred as Percy Hamleigh in the German-Canadian miniseries "The Pillars of the Earth" and had a recurring role as widower Sir Anthony Strallan in the period drama "Downton Abbey". In 2011 he starred as John Le Mesurier in the Hattie Jacques biopic "Hattie", and joined the cast of the long-running ITV drama "Wild at Heart". Personal life. Bathurst met artist Victoria Threlfall through mutual friends and they married in 1985. They have four daughters: Matilda, Clemency, Oriel and Honor. Written works. Cheltenham Festival: http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/racing/its-their-loss-but-our-pain-1639179.html?printService=print
1656340	Matteo Ricci, S.J. (; October 6, 1552 – May 11, 1610; ; courtesy name: ) was an Italian Jesuit priest, and one of the founding figures of the Jesuit China Mission, as it existed in the 17th–18th centuries. His current title is Servant of God. Early life. Matteo Ricci was born in 1552 in Macerata, part of the Papal States, and today a city in the Italian region of Marche. Ricci started learning theology and law in a Roman Jesuit school. He entered the order in 1571, and in 1577 he applied for a missionary expedition to India. His journey began in March 1578 in Lisbon, Portugal. He arrived in Goa, a Portuguese Colony, in September 1578. Four years later, he was dispatched to China. Ricci in China. In August 1582, Ricci arrived at Macau, a Portuguese trading post on the South China Sea. At the time, Christian missionary activity in China was almost completely limited to Macau, where some of the local Chinese people had converted to Christianity and lived in the Portuguese manner. No Christian missionary had attempted seriously to learn the Chinese language until 1579 (three years before Ricci's arrival), when Michele Ruggieri was invited from Portuguese India expressly to study Chinese, by Alessandro Valignano, founder of St. Paul Jesuit College (Macau), and to prepare for the Jesuits' mission from Macau into Mainland China.
1089593	Mitchell Jay Feigenbaum (born December 19, 1944) is a mathematical physicist whose pioneering studies in chaos theory led to the discovery of the Feigenbaum constants. Biography. Feigenbaum was born in New York City, to Polish and Ukrainian Jewish immigrants. He attended Samuel J. Tilden High School, in Brooklyn, New York, and the City College of New York. In 1964 he began his graduate studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Enrolling for graduate study in electrical engineering, he changed his area to physics. He completed his doctorate in 1970 for a thesis on dispersion relations, under the supervision of Professor Francis E. Low. After short positions at Cornell University and the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, he was offered a longer-term post at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico to study turbulence in fluids. Although that group of researchers was ultimately unable to unravel the currently intractable theory of turbulent fluids, his research led him to study chaotic maps. In 1983, he was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship, and in 1986, he was awarded the Wolf Prize in Physics "for his pioneering theoretical studies demonstrating the universal character of non-linear systems, which has made possible the systematic study of chaos". He is a member of the Board of Scientific Governors at The Scripps Research Institute. He has been Toyota Professor at Rockefeller University since 1986. Work. Some mathematical mappings involving a single linear parameter exhibit the apparently random behavior known as chaos when the parameter lies within certain ranges. As the parameter is increased towards this region, the mapping undergoes bifurcations at precise values of the parameter. At first there is one stable point, then bifurcating to an oscillation between two values, then bifurcating again to oscillate between four values and so on. In 1975, Dr. Feigenbaum, using the small HP-65 calculator he had been issued, discovered that the ratio of the difference between the values at which such successive period-doubling bifurcations occur tends to a constant of around 4.6692... He was able to provide a mathematical proof of that fact, and he then showed that the same behavior, with the same mathematical constant, would occur within a wide class of mathematical functions, prior to the onset of chaos. For the first time, this universal result enabled mathematicians to take their first steps to unraveling the apparently intractable "random" behavior of chaotic systems. This "ratio of convergence" is now known as the first Feigenbaum constant. The logistic map is a prominent example of the mappings that Feigenbaum studied in his noted 1978 article: "Quantitative Universality for a Class of Nonlinear Transformations". Feigenbaum's other contributions include important new fractal methods in cartography, starting when he was hired by Hammond to develop techniques to allow computers to assist in drawing maps. The introduction to the "Hammond Atlas" (1992) states: Using fractal geometry to describe natural forms such as coastlines, mathematical physicist Mitchell Feigenbaum developed software capable reconfiguring coastlines, borders, and mountain ranges to fit a multitude of map scales and projections. Dr. Feigenbaum also created a new computerized type placement program which places thousands of map labels in minutes, a task which previously required days of tedious labor. In another practical application of his work, he founded Numerix with Michael Goodkin in 1996. The company’s initial product was a software algorithm that dramatically reduced the time required for Monte Carlo pricing of exotic financial derivatives and structured products. Numerix remains one of the leading software providers to financial market participants. The press release made on the occasion of his receiving the Wolf Prize summed up his works: The impact of Feigenbaum's discoveries has been phenomenal. It has spanned new fields of theoretical and experimental mathematics ... It is hard to think of any other development in recent theoretical science that has had so broad an impact over so wide a range of fields, spanning both the very pure and the very applied.
1105273	The approximation error in some data is the discrepancy between an exact value and some approximation to it. An approximation error can occur because In the mathematical field of numerical analysis, the numerical stability of an algorithm in numerical analysis indicates how the error is propagated by the algorithm. Overview. One commonly distinguishes between the relative error and the absolute error. The absolute error is the magnitude of the difference between the exact value and the approximation. The relative error is the absolute error divided by the magnitude of the exact value. The percent error is the relative error expressed in terms of per 100.
584760	Mirugam (Animal) is a Tamil film starring debutant Adhi and Padmapriya, directed by Samy. Plot. The story is set in a village near Ramnad. The protagonist Ayyanar (Aadhi) is a care free villager who uses his muscle than his brains for any situation and behaves more or less like an animal. He is a terror to the whole village. He is a womanizer sleeps with sex workers and even rapes the housewives. There is no woman in the village that he hasn't had an encounter with. He beats up anyone including his mother. He makes a living through his bull which he hires out for its stud services. During one of his visits to the local brothel, he has raped the queen whore Savithri, but refuses to pay for her services. One day, Ayyanar meets Alagamma(Padmapriya) a tomboyish girl. Her beauty strikes him and he manages to marry her,but treats her like another one of his conquests. In the first night itself he brutally rapes her and continues with his sexual exploits. She hates him for what he is. But she soon chages her mind after knowing his past, she warms up to him and decides to change him and bring him on to the right path by her love and affection. Fate takes it turn-Ayyanar is hauled by the cops after a drunken fight and he is sentenced to a year in jail. In Jail he gets addicted probably also indulged in homo-sexual relationships. After coming out of the jail he starts of his own way. He wants to kill his pregnant wife whom he believes that she had an illegal relationship with her uncle. Soon he is hit by some virus according to doctors and later it becomes as he is affected with AIDS(HIV-Positive). The villagers ignore him but his loyal and devoted wife stands with him till the end. Film ends with the death of Ayyanar.A villager kills him and his wife cremates him.
584869	Naga Chaitanya is an Indian film actor who stars in Telugu films. He made his debut in the 2009 college film, "Josh". His second film was, Gautham Menon's "Ye Maaya Chesave" with his portrayal of a love-torn film director winning him critical acclaim. Early life and family. Naga Chaitanya was born on 23 November 1986 to actor Akkineni Nagarjuna and Lakshmi Daggubati, of the Naidu Family. Naga Chaitanya was born in Hyderabad, but moved to Chennai with his mother after his parents split.
1162074	Nicholle "Nicole" Tom (born March 23, 1978) is an American actress, best known for her roles as Ryce Newton in "Beethoven" (1992), "Beethoven's 2nd" (1993) and as Maggie Sheffield on "The Nanny". Early life. Tom was born in Hinsdale, Illinois, to Charles and Marie Tom. She has a twin brother, David Tom, best known for his role as Billy Abbott on "The Young and the Restless". Tom also has an older sister Heather Tom, who is best known for her role as Victoria Newman McNeil Howard on "The Young and the Restless". Career. In 1992, Tom played the small role of Scott Scanlon's sister, Sue, on "Beverly Hills, 90210". Also, in 1992 and 1993, Tom played Ryce Newton in the successful family movies "Beethoven" and "Beethoven's 2nd". She did not appear in the last three sequels as she had grown out of her specific role, although she did reprise her role as the voice of Ryce in the cartoon spinoff. From 1993 to 1999, Tom played the role of Mr. Sheffield’s eldest daughter, Maggie Sheffield in The Nanny. This is perhaps Tom’s best known work as an actress. From 1998 to 2006, she provided the voice for Supergirl in the DC Animated Universe.
1092569	Theodor Franz Eduard Kaluza (9 November 1885, Wilhelmsthal, today part of Opole – 19 January 1954, Göttingen) was a German mathematician and physicist known for the Kaluza-Klein theory involving field equations in five-dimensional space. His idea that fundamental forces can be unified by introducing additional dimensions re-emerged much later in string theory. Life. Kaluza was born to a Roman Catholic family from the town of Ratibor in the German Empire's Prussian Province of Silesia. Kaluza himself was born in Wilhelmsthal (a village that was incorporated into Oppeln (present-day Opole) in 1899). He spent his youth in Königsberg, where his father, Max Kaluza, was a professor of the English language. He entered the University of Königsberg to study mathematics and gained his doctorate with a thesis on Tschirnhaus transformations. Kaluza was primarily a mathematician but began studying relativity. In April 1919 Kaluza noticed that when he solved Albert Einstein's equations for general relativity using five dimensions, then Maxwellian equations for electromagnetism emerged spontaneously. Kaluza wrote to Einstein who, in turn, encouraged him to publish. Kaluza's theory was published in 1921 in a paper, "Zum Unitätsproblem der Physik" with Einstein's support in "Sitzungsberichte Preußische Akademie der Wissenschaften" 966-972 (1921).
1044027	The Mouse That Roared is a 1955 Cold War satirical novel by Irish-American writer Leonard Wibberley, which launched a series of satirical books about an imaginary country in Europe called the Duchy of Grand Fenwick. Wibberley went beyond the merely comic, using the premise to make still-quoted commentaries about modern politics and world situations, including the nuclear arms race, nuclear weapons in general, and the politics of the United States.
1064242	Casper Robert Van Dien, Jr. (born December 18, 1968) is an American actor. Early life. Van Dien was born and grew up in Milton, Florida, the son of Diane (née Morrow), a nursery school teacher, and Casper Robert Van Dien, Sr., a U.S. Navy Commander and fighter pilot. There is a long military tradition in Van Dien's family. Aside from his father, his grandfather was a Marine during World War II. Van Dien is descended from an old Dutch family long settled in the New York area; his other heritage includes Swedish, French, English, and Native American. The street on which Van Dien grew up in Ridgewood, New Jersey, Van Dien Avenue, was named after his great great grandfather. When Van Dien was older, his family moved to Florida, where he enrolled at the St. Petersburg campus of the Admiral Farragut Academy, graduating 3rd in command. While in the Florida prep school, Van Dien was often referred to as "Ken doll" due to his good looks, and got into many fights for that reason. Even some writers later described him as a "perfect life-sized Ken doll." After high school, Van Dien went to Florida State University in Tallahassee, where he was a member of Sigma Alpha Epsilon Fraternity. Career. Moving to Los Angeles, Van Dien landed a number of small parts in various television series and movies. Two early breaks were recurring roles as Ty Moody on the daytime soap opera "One Life to Live" and the prime time drama "Beverly Hills, 90210". Keen to expand his acting talents, Van Dien took a bit part in the video game, "Wing Commander IV". Van Dien starred in the 1997 James Dean biopic "James Dean: Race with Destiny". Soon after, he got the breakthrough role of Johnny Rico in Paul Verhoeven's 1997 science fiction action film "Starship Troopers". This directly led to his being cast as Tarzan in "Tarzan and the Lost City" (1998). Van Dien next played Brom von Brunt in Tim Burton's 1999 film "Sleepy Hollow", a reworking of the classic Washington Irving tale. In 2000 Van Dien appeared in "Cutaway" as well as Aaron Spelling's short-lived NBC prime time soap "Titans" with Yasmine Bleeth, John Barrowman, Perry King and Victoria Principal. He filmed several scenes as Patrick Bateman in 2002's "The Rules of Attraction", the character that Christian Bale had played in 2000's "American Psycho". However, the scenes wound up on the cutting room floor. In 2008 Van Dien returned to the role of Rico in "", a direct-to-video sequel to "Starship Troopers". Van Dien replaced Matt Mullins as the new Johnny Cage for the second season of the YouTube webseries "". Personal life. Van Dien was married to Carrie Mitchum (granddaughter of Robert Mitchum) from 1993 to 1997. They have two children, Casper "Cappy" Robert Van Dien III and Caroline Dorothy Grace "Gracie" Van Dien, of whom Van Dien holds full custody. Van Dien had co-starred with Robert Mitchum in "James Dean: Race with Destiny". Van Dien met actress Catherine Oxenberg, who is 7 years his senior, during the filming of the 1999 TV movie "The Collectors", and they soon worked together again in the 1999 thriller "The Omega Code". On May 8, 1999 they married in Las Vegas, Nevada. In 2005 the couple appeared in their own reality series, "I Married a Princess", which aired on the Lifetime Television channel in the United States, LIVINGtv in the United Kingdom and Lifestyle You in Australia; Oxenberg's mother is Princess Elizabeth of Yugoslavia. During the 2006-2007 TV season, Van Dien and Oxenberg co-starred in the American drama series "Watch Over Me" on MyNetworkTV. Van Dien and Oxenberg have two daughters, Maya (born September 20, 2001) and Celeste Alma (born October 3, 2003), both of whom follow their mother in the Line of Succession to the British Throne. Oxenberg and Van Dien are celebrity ambassadors for the non-profit organization Childhelp.
1163664	Ann Sothern (January 22, 1909 – March 15, 2001) was a beloved American stage, radio, film and television actress whose career spanned six decades. Sothern began her career in the late 1920s doing bit parts in films. In 1930, she made her Broadway stage debut and soon worked her way up to starring roles. In 1939, MGM cast her as Maisie Ravier, a brash yet loveable Brooklyn showgirl. The character proved to be popular and spawned a successful film series and radio show, "The Adventures of Maisie". In 1953, Sothern moved into television as the star of her own sitcom "Private Secretary". The series aired for five seasons on CBS and earned Sothern three Primetime Emmy Award nominations. In 1958, she starred in another sitcom for CBS, "The Ann Sothern Show" which aired for three seasons. From 1965 to 1966, Sothern provided the voice of Gladys Crabtree in the sitcom "My Mother the Car". She continued her career throughout the late 1960s with stage and film appearances and guest starring roles on television. Due to health issues, she worked sporadically during the 1970s and 1980s. In 1987, Sothern appeared in her final film "The Whales of August", starring Bette Davis and Lillian Gish. Sothern earned her first and only Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress for her role in the film. After filming concluded, she retired to Ketchum, Idaho where she spent her remaining years before her death from heart failure in March 2001. Early life. Born Harriet Arlene Lake in Valley City, North Dakota, she was the oldest of three daughters born to Walter J. Lake and Annette Yde-Lake. She had two younger sisters, Marion and Bonnie. Her maternal grandfather was Danish violinist Hans Nielsen, and her paternal grandfather was Simon Lake. Annette Yde-Lake was a concert singer while Sothern's father worked in importing and exporting. Sothern and her sisters were raised in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Her parents separated when she was four-years old (they would later divorce in 1927). At the age of 5, she began taking piano lessons. She later studied at McPhail School of Music where her mother also taught piano. She also began accompanying her mother on her concert tours when her school schedule permitted. By age 11, she had become an accomplished pianist and was singing solos in her church choir. At age 14, she began voice lessons and also continued to study piano and music composition. As a teen at Minneapolis Central High School, she appeared in numerous stage productions and also directed several shows. During her high school years, she entered the annual state sponsored contests for student musical composers and won three years in a row. In 1926, she graduated from high school. Her mother moved to Los Angeles where she worked as a vocal coach for Warner Bros. studios. Sothern moved with her father to Seattle where she attended the University of Washington. She dropped out after one year. Career. Early years. While visiting her mother in California, she won a role in the film "The Show of Shows". She did a screen test for MGM and signed a six-month contract. She appeared in bit parts and walk on roles but soon grew frustrated with only appearing in small roles. She then met Florenz Ziegfeld at a party. Ziegfeld offered her a role in one of his productions. When MGM decided not to pick up her option, she moved to New York City to take Ziegfeld up on his offer. On Broadway in 1931, she had leading roles in "America's Sweetheart" and in "Everybody's Welcome". Films and radio. In 1934, she signed a contract with Columbia Pictures. Harry Cohn changed her name to Ann Sothern. "Ann" was chosen in honor of her mother and "Sothern" was chosen for Shakespearean actor E. H. Sothern. While at Columbia, she mainly appeared in B-movies roles. After two years, the studio released her from her contract. In 1936, she was signed by RKO Radio Pictures and after a string of films that failed to attract a large enough audience, she left RKO. She signed with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer shortly after leaving RKO. After signing with MGM, Sothern was cast as brassy Brooklyn burlesque dancer Mary Anastasia O'Connor, known as Maisie, in the 1939 film of the same name. MGM originally acquired the "Maisie" property for Jean Harlow who had died in June 1937. After years of struggling and appearing in supporting parts, Sothern found major success with "Maisie". The film was profitable for MGM, as were the string of "Maisie" comedy sequels that followed (box office proceeds from "Maisie" pictures financed MGM's more costly dramas). From 1939 to 1947, she appeared in a total of ten "Maisie" films. A review of "Swing Shift Maisie" (1943) by "Time" magazine praised Sothern and described her as "one of the smartest comediennes in the business". The popularity of the film series led to her own radio program, "The Adventures of Maisie", broadcast on CBS from 1945 to 1947, on Mutual Broadcasting System in 1952 and in syndication from 1949 to 1953. Noted MGM producer Arthur Freed purchased the Broadway hit musical play "DuBarry Was a Lady" (1943) especially for Ann Sothern, but after Ann turned down the part the choice role was awarded to Lucille Ball, who in real life was best friend to Miss Sothern. Sothern's next film was the musical "Words and Music" in 1948. In 1949, she appeared in the Academy Award-winning film "A Letter to Three Wives". Sothern received excellent reviews for her performance but the acclaim failed to stimulate her career, which had began to wane in the late 1940s. In 1949, Sothern contracted hepatitis which she would battle for the next three years. After Sothern became ill, MGM canceled her contract. Television. By the early 1950s, Sothern was only appearing in supporting roles in films such films as "The Blue Gardenia" (1953). In need of money due to her mounting medical bills, she turned to television. In 1953, she landed the lead in the series "Private Secretary". Sothern portrayed the role of Susan Camille "Susie" MacNamara, a secretary working for New York City talent agent Peter Sands (Don Porter). The series aired on CBS on alternate weeks with "The Jack Benny Program". "Private Secretary" was a hit with audiences and Sothern was nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award for her role on the series four times. In 1957, "Private Secretary" was renewed for a fifth season, but Sothern left the series after she had a what she later described as a "violent fight" with producer Jack Chertok over profits from the series. She returned to television the following year in "The Ann Sothern Show". Sothern starred as Katy O'Connor, the assistant manager at the fictitious Bartley House hotel. The series originally co-starred Ernest Truex as Katy's timid boss Jason Macauley who was routinely out shined by Katy and bullied by his wife Flora (Reta Shaw). Ratings for the series were weak and after twenty-three episodes, the show was re-tooled. Sothern's co-star from "Private Secretary", Don Porter signed on as Katy's boss James Devery. The addition of Porter added romantic tension to the series and helped to improve ratings. In 1959, the series won a Golden Globe Award for Best Television Series – Musical or Comedy. During the series' second season, Jesse White, who also starred in "Private Secretary", joined the cast. Ratings for the series remained solid until CBS moved "The Ann Sothern Show" to Thursdays for its third season. Scheduled opposite the popular ABC series "The Untouchables", ratings dropped substantially and "The Ann Sothern Show" was canceled in 1961. Later years. After "The Ann Sothern Show" ended, she returned to films in 1964's "The Best Man", opposite Henry Fonda. She was nominated for a Best Supporting Actress Golden Globe for her work in the film. That same year, she appeared in the psychological thriller "Lady in a Cage", starring Olivia de Havilland. In 1965, she had a recurring role on "The Lucy Show", starring her friend Lucille Ball. After Ball's long-time co-star Vivian Vance announced plans to leave the show, the press speculated that Sothern would be Vance's replacement. Sothern denied the rumors and ultimately, the series continued without Vance or Sothern. From 1965 to 1966, Sothern provided the voice for Gladys Crabtree (the car) in sitcom "My Mother the Car", starring Jerry Van Dyke. She continued the rest of the 1960s working in guest roles in television. In 1972, Sothern appeared in the Sid and Marty Krofft television special "Fol-de-Rol". The next year, she played the mother of a homicidal son in psychological horror film "The Killing Kind". In 1974, she traveled to Hong Kong to shoot the martial arts film "Golden Needles". She portrayed the role of Ann, a mahjong parlor owner. Sothern's next role was in the 1975 action/comedy film "Crazy Mama". For the rest of the decade, she worked sporadically in television and in stage productions. Sothern returned to television in 1985 in the role of "Ma Finney" in the television adaptation of one of her old films "A Letter to Three Wives". Sothern's final film role was in "The Whales of August" in 1987. Her role as the neighbor of elderly sisters, played by Lillian Gish and Bette Davis, earned her the only Best Supporting Actress Academy Award nomination of her career. After filming, Sothern retired from acting and moved to Ketchum, Idaho, where she spent her remaining years. Other ventures. Over the course of her career, Sothern also managed several businesses and production companies. In the 1950s, she opened the Ann Sothern Sewing Center in Sun Valley, Idaho which sold fabric, patterns and sewing machines. She also owned a cattle ranch in Idaho named the A Bar S Cattle Company. Sothern owned Vincent Productions, Inc. (named for Sothern's patron saint Vincent de Paul) which produced her first series "Private Secretary", and Anso Productions which produced "The Ann Sothern Show". In addition to acting, Sothern also pursued a musical career. During her hiatus from "Private Secretary" in 1954, she starred in her own nightclub act featured in clubs in Reno, Las Vegas and Chicago. In the late 1950s, she formed the A Bar S Music Company and released "Southern Exposure", her first album in 1958. Personal life. Marriages and children. Sothern married actor and band leader Roger Pryor in September 1936. They separated in September 1941 and Sothern filed for divorce in April 1942 charging Pryor with mental cruelty. Their divorce became final in May 1943. Less than a week after her divorce from Pryor, she married actor Robert Sterling. The couple had one daughter, Patricia Ann, before divorcing in 1949. Patricia later became an actress using the name Tisha Sterling. Health issues. Shortly after filming "A Letter to Three Wives", Sothern contracted infectious hepatitis after getting an impure serum shot while she was in England for a stage performance. She was confined to her bed where she continued to work on the "Maisie" radio program while she recuperated. Sothern later said that her illness had restored her faith. With the help of friend Richard Egan, she converted to Roman Catholicism in 1952. In 1974, Sothern was injured while appearing in a Jacksonville, Florida stock production of "Everybody Loves Opal" when a fake tree fell on her back. The accident left her with a fractured lumbar vertebra and damaged nerves in her legs. Her injuries required hospitalizations where she was put in traction. She was also required to wear back braces. Due to her forced inactivity, Sothern gained a considerable amount of weight. In addition to her physical pain, Sothern also developed depression. Sothern credited her "optimistic belief" and Roman Catholic faith for getting her through. For the remainder of her life, Sothern suffered from numbness in her feet and required a cane to walk. Death. On March 15, 2001, Sothern died from heart failure at her home in Ketchum, Idaho at the age of 92. She was buried in Ketchum Cemetery. Ann Sothern has two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, for motion pictures (found at 1612 Vine Street) and television (found at 1634 Vine Street).
1163873	Robert Hays (born July 24, 1947) is an American actor and is arguably most well known for his role in the movie "Airplane!" and as Robert Seaver in "". Life and career. Before his time in Hollywood, Robert Hays lived in San Diego, CA (Pacific Beach) and picked up little acting gigs in San Diego's local theater scene. He had several roles at the world famous Old Globe Theatre, including the leading role as "Petruccio" in a touring production of William Shakespeare's "The Taming of the Shrew". Shortly after the Shrew gig, Hayes moved to Hollywood where he found quick success.
592673	Mugguru () is a 2011 Telugu film directed by V. N. Aditya starring Reemma Sen, Navdeep, Avasarala Srinivas and Raahul in lead roles. Produced by D. Ramanaidu's Suresh Productions, the film also stars Shraddha Das, Sanjana and Sowmya Bollapragada. Touted to be a breezy and youthful entertainer, the film was released on the 14th of August 2011. Reception. Critical response. The film received a mixed response. Super Good Movies called it a desperate attempt to make an enjoyable comedy, and rated it 1.75 out of 5. Deepa Garimella of fullhyd.com rated it 6 out of 10, and said it deserves a chance although it doesn't match up with the sheer wit of an Allari Naresh comedy. Seasoned reviewers from The Hindu and rediff gave a thumbs up and a watchable verdict respectively.
1139031	David Lee Gallagher (February 9, 1985) is an American actor. Beginning a prolific career as a child actor and model at the age of two, Gallagher is a five-time Young Artist Award nominee and Teen Choice Award winner, best known for his role as Simon Camden on the long-running television series "7th Heaven", as well as for his feature film roles; as Mikey Ubriacco in "Look Who's Talking Now", as Kevin Harper in "Angels in the Endzone" and as Richie Rich in "Richie Rich's Christmas Wish". Gallagher is also well known for the voice of Riku in the "Kingdom Hearts" video game series.
629630	Shaun Patrick Micallef (born 18 July 1962) is an Australian actor, comedian and writer. After ten years of working in insurance law as a solicitor in Adelaide, Micallef moved to Melbourne to pursue a full-time comedy career in 1993. He first gained recognition as a cast member of the sketch comedy show "Full Frontal", which in turn led to a number of television roles including his own sketch show, "The Micallef P(r)ogram(me)", the sitcom "Welcher & Welcher" and the variety show "Micallef Tonight". He also fronted the satirical news comedy series "Newstopia" on SBS, hosted the game show "Talkin' 'Bout Your Generation" on Network Ten for four seasons, and "Shaun Micallef's Mad as Hell" on the ABC. He also has a role in "Mr & Mrs Murder" on Network Ten. In addition to his television work Micallef has appeared on stage, most notably in the Australian production of "Boeing Boeing" and on radio as the co-host of Melbourne station Vega 91.5 FM's morning program. He is also a published author; his book "Smithereens" was released in 2004 and rereleased in January 2011. His other book, a novella by the name of "Preincarnate", was released in 2010. Personal life. Micallef was born in Adelaide, South Australia and is of Maltese and Irish descent. His father worked for a company that sold parts for Volvos and his mother was employed at the Adelaide Bank. As a child he lived in Clovelly Park and attended St Bernadette's School in St Marys then St Josephâs Catholic School in Mitchell Park (now Sacred Heart College Middle School) before moving on to Sacred Heart Senior College where he was the College Captain. He studied law at the University of Adelaide, where he was frequently involved in comedy revues, often involving Francis Greenslade and Gary McCaffrie, with whom he continues to work. He was a practising solicitor for ten years in the field of insurance law before making the decision to move to Melbourne and pursue a full-time career in comedy in 1993. He currently lives in Williamstown, Victoria with his wife Leandra (whom he married in 1988) and their three sons. He relates the story that while working as a solicitor, he talked so much about making a career change and becoming a comedian that his wife gave him an ultimatum. She circled a date in the near future on a calendar and told him to quit his job and become a comedian by that date or never talk about it again. Career. Early theatre. In 1972, having three younger sisters taking ballet classes, ten year old Micallef was often asked to help out when a dance routine required a boy. The following year he auditioned for the Bunyip Children's Theatre and over the next four years participated in plays that they performed in the Scott Theatre during school holidays. In 1976 he doubled for Humphrey B. Bear for personal appearances. Television and film. Following early TV appearances on "Theatre Sports" (1987) and "The Big Gig" (1989), in early 1993 Micallef was offered a job writing for the "Jimeoin" show which was soon followed by an offer to also write for the sketch comedy show "Full Frontal" where six months later he took on the role as co-producer with Gary McCaffrie. In 1994, Micallef became a full-time cast member of "Full Frontal", where he became well known for characters such as Milo Kerrigan, Nobby Doldrums and a send-up of Italian male model Fabio. Micallef recalls that the show was a good introduction to television comedy because, with an ensemble cast, its success did not hinge on his performance and he had more freedom to make and learn from mistakes. However, he was frustrated with the lack of control he had over his work in the series as well as the repetition of characters and gags. Micallef's role on "Full Frontal" led to a 1996 special "Shaun Micallef's World Around Him" and three seasons of the two-time Logie Award-winning ABC series "The Micallef Program" (1998â2001), which he co-wrote and produced with long-time writing partner Gary McCaffrie. Since the series' end he has created and starred in two short-lived television series, the sitcom "Welcher & Welcher" (2003) and the variety show "Micallef Tonight" (2003), and devised a series of telemovies, "BlackJack" (2003âpresent). Micallef has also had acting roles in the television series "SeaChange" (2000), "Through My Eyes" (2004) and "Offspring" (2010) as well as supporting roles in the films "Bad Eggs" (2003), "The Honourable Wally Norman" (2003), "The Extra" (2005), "Aquamarine" (2006) and "The King" (2007). In 2006, he was a recurring guest on the Network Ten Improvisational theatre show "Thank God You're Here". In 2007, along with partners McCaffrie and Michael Ward, Micallef developed the satirical comedy program "Newstopia", which he hosted. The show began airing on 10 October 2007 on SBS and in August 2008 it was announced that a third series had been commissioned. In 2009, Micallef joined the Ten Network and hosted "Talkin' 'Bout Your Generation", which has been a hit on Australian television screens. In 2012, Micallef began hosting ABC1's "Shaun Micallef's Mad as Hell". Other work. In September 2005, Micallef began hosting the breakfast show on Melbourne radio station Vega 91.5 FM, "Shaun, Beverley and Denise", with comedian Denise Scott and television presenter Beverley O'Connor. In July 2006, comedian Dave O'Neil took over as host and the show was renamed "Dave and Denise with Shaun Micallef". Micallef left the network on 23 November 2007. Micallef has also released a book, "Smithereens", which was published in 2004 and contains a collection of prose, poetry and plays. He describes it as a collection of "all sorts of bits and pieces I have written". Mainstream popularity. With Micallef's 2009 move to the Ten Network's "Talkin' 'Bout Your Generation", a sudden and unprecedented rise in his popularity within the Australian mainstream has been observed. His contract with the program marks his first long-term position in a commercial network and has raised his profile in commercial television. The extent of this has been demonstrated with celebrity appearances on Rove McManus's "Rove", "Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?" and on "9am with David & Kim". In 2010, he was voted most popular presenter at the annual Logie Awards.
590361	Bibar ( pronounced ) is a 2006 Bengali (Indian) film directed by Subrata Sen starring Subrata Datta, Tannishtha Chatterjee, Payel Sarkar, Sabyasachi Chakrabarty, Kunal Mitra, Shiladitya Patranabis, Pradip Mukhopadhyay, Anuradha Ray, Kanchan Mullick, Rajesh Sharma, Dulal Lahiri, Biswajit Chakraborty, Oindrilla Khan, and Rita Bhimani. Based on Samaresh Basu's 1965 controversial novel "Calcutta, Unabashed", "Bibar" deals with the angst of city youth in Calcutta, who are caught between the lures of a new, liberalized society and fast-fading traditional values. Plot. Biresh (Subrata Dutta), an investigating officer in a finance company, is at heart a bohemian with no rigid values in life. In love, he is caught in a psycho-sexual relationship with high-society call girl Nita (Tannishtha Chatterjee). In his office, his position becomes bleak as he refuses a loan to an influential person. He starts drinking heavily and starts visiting Sonagachi, the infamous red-light area of Calcutta with his painter friend Hiren (Shiladitya Patranobish). He gets attracted towards a model, Iti (Payel Sarkar). Biresh, in a bout of self-destruction, vents his anger and frustration by strangling Nita and stages his alibi through Iti. The police start investigating but are unable to establish any motive behind the killing. Promotion. After looking around for the main cast (Raima Sen and Nandana Deb Sen were considered for the leads), Subrata Sen formed a star cast with Payel Sarkar, Subrata Dutta ("Rising") and Tannistha Chatterjee. Subrata Sen said, "I saw Payel's photo and interview in Calcutta Times and decided to cast her. Tannistha has worked German director Florian Gallenberger and I have worked with Subrata Dutta before in Swapner Ferriwallah and know his potential well. Bibar might be a difficult novel to translate onto screen but Sen has worked hard on the script." Tannistha Chatterjee was recommended for "Bibar" by Nandana Deb Sen. "I am playing an upper class call girl who is straight forward and knows how she can get what she wants," says the actress, shooting in a Ballygunge house. "This has been my most difficult film. Even veteran directors haven't had the courage to adopt Bibar. Hope people like my treatment." — Subrata Sen, "The Times of India", 13 December 2006
1703293	Virgin Territory is a 2008 romantic comedy film based upon Giovanni Boccaccio's "Decameron". It has also been known under the working titles "The Decameron", "Angels and Virgins", "Guilty Pleasures" and "Chasing Temptation". The film's Italian title "Decameron Pie" pays tribute to both the title of the original source inspiration and to U.S. comedy film "American Pie". The film was released in France on December 12, 2007 under the title "Medieval Pie", and was released directly-to-DVD in the U.S. in August 2008. It was the last film produced by Dino De Laurentiis. Plot. The film is set in Tuscany during the Black Death. As in the "Decameron", ten young Florentines take refuge from the plague. But instead of telling stories, they have lusty adventures, bawdy exchanges, romance and swordplay. There are randy nuns, Saracen pirates, and a sexy cow. Pampinea is the daughter of a wealthy merchant who die moment before the start of the movie. Lorenzo is a young man in town who is exceptionally good at gambling and is charmed by her beauty. Gerbino De Ratta is the head of the local thugs who robs anyone and anything that he see rob-able. Count Dzerzhinsky is Pampinea's fiance who she has never met. Their fate intertwine with each other after Pampinea's father died and Gerbino robs Pampinea of her fortune saying her father was in debt. The only way for the merchant's daughter to retain her life was to marry him, according to Gerbino himself. Lorenzo was chasing by Gerbino after he bested him at a gamble table and took refuges in a Convent by posing as a "deaf and dumb" gardener. At this convent, he had sex with all of the nuns as they are horny and in need of a man only until Pampinea arrived. Pampinea - trying to escape from Gerbino's grasp - ran to the convent for shelter. There she saw Lorenzo who she had feeling for for a long time having sexual intercourse with the nuns and get jealous. She blindfolds Lorenzo and kiss him out of love and tells the Holy mother of the convent of him not being "deaf and dumb" out of jealousy. The Count, arrived at Florence only to be ambushed by Gerbino's men. All of his companions died, but he survived. Receiving a message from Pampinea's servant, Dzerzhinsky rode for her father mansion where he is bond to get married with her. On the way, the young Count meets Melissa - Pampinea's best friend who is on her way to the wedding - and the two subsequently fall in love. The Count was led to believed Melissa was Pampinea. Chased out of the convent, Lorenzo follows Pampinea to her father's mansion. There he confess to her that he fell in love with the nun who kissed him, the woman he never get to see her face. Later, Gerbino and his men arrive at the mansion and imprison Lorenzo. Pampinea agrees to marry Gerbino right that day to save Lorenzo and thus Lorenzo was thrown out in the wood. There he met Dzerzhinsky who is on his way to the mansion to be married to Pampinea (Melissa) and the two team up to take out Gerbino's man. Gerbino himself died falling into a large and deep well inside the mansion. Pampinea, in love with Lorenzo, refuse to get married to Count Dzerzhinsky only to realize moment later that the Count himself has now in love with Melissa who is posing as her. She then runs after Lorenzo and kiss him. Lorenzo realizes that she was the nun he is in love with and they held their wedding that day together with all of their friends'.
1043185	Albert R.N. is a 1953 British war film directed by Lewis Gilbert and starring Anthony Steel. Plot. The British inmates of a POW camp think they have an informer among them after several escape attempts fail. One of the prisoners makes a dummy which they christen "Albert" and use at roll call in order to foil the German guards. Historical background. The film is based on a true story. Albert R.N. was a dummy constructed by John Worsley (1919–2000) in Marlag O, the prisoner of war camp in northern Germany for naval officers. It was used as a stand-in for a head count while a prisoner escaped and was used on two separate occasions.
578649	Belly of the Beast is a 2003 action film starring Steven Seagal, and directed by Hong Kong action choreographer Ching Siu-tung. Seagal plays an ex-CIA agent on a quest to find his kidnapped daughter. Plot. Ten years ago, Jake Hopper (Steven Seagal) was a CIA agent who was stationed in Thailand. Then one day, things went sour, and his partner, Sunti (Byron Mann) barely escaped with his life after accidentally killing a woman. Jake called it quits and returned to the United States when his wife died, and Sunti became a Buddhist monk to atone for his sins. For the past 10 years, Jake has run a successful private security business, and has been raising his daughter Jessica (Sara Malakul Lane), who is now an adult. While hiking in Thailand, Jessica and her friend Sarah Winthorpe (Eilidh MacQueen) are kidnapped. A group of Islamic fundamentalists known as the Abu Karaf claims responsibility. Sarah is the daughter of United States senator John Winthorpe. The Abu Karaf demand the release of 20 prisoners from American custody.
1057801	"Heaven's Prisoners" is a 1996 feature film drama starring Alec Baldwin, Kelly Lynch, Mary Stuart Masterson, Teri Hatcher and Eric Roberts. It is based on a Dave Robicheaux novel of the same name by James Lee Burke. The film was directed by Phil Joanou. Harley Peyton and Scott Frank are credited with the screenplay. "In the Electric Mist" (2009) is a sequel to "Heaven's Prisoners" in which Tommy Lee Jones replaces Baldwin as Dave Robicheaux. In the sequel, Robicheaux still lives in Louisiana and has come out of retirement as an Iberia Parish sheriff's detective. Plot. A former police detective in New Orleans and a recovering alcoholic, Dave Robicheaux is living a quiet life in the swamplands of Louisiana with his wife Annie. The couple's tranquility is shattered one day when a drug smuggler's plane crashes in a lake, right before their eyes. Robicheaux succeeds in rescuing a lone survivor, a Salvadoran girl, whom he and Annie quickly adopt and name Alafair. With the arrival of a DEA officer named Dautrieve and an inherent connection to Bubba Rocque, the leading drug kingpin in the area and Robicheaux's childhood friend from New Iberia, Dave becomes involved in solving the case and consequently finds himself and his family in danger. Robicheaux is assaulted by two thugs as a warning. With help from his former girl-friend Robin, an exotic dancer who still has feelings for him, he continues to investigate. His longtime acquaintance Bubba denies any involvement, but Dave warns him and Bubba's sultry wife Claudette that he is going to find out who is behind all this and do something about it. He tracks down one of the men who attacked him, Eddie Keats, and splits his head open with a pool cue in Keat's own bar. Killers come to the Robicheaux home late one night. Robicheaux is unable to prevent his wife Annie from being killed. He falls off the wagon and neglects the young girl they adopted. Robin comes to stay with them. Clearing his head, Robicheaux seeks vengeance against the three killers. He first goes after a large man called Toot, chasing him onto a streetcar and causing his death. Bubba and Claudette reassure a local mob boss named Giancano that they will not let this vendetta get out of hand, and Bubba gets into a fistfight with Robicheaux, falsely suspecting him of an affair with Claudette. Eddie Keats is found dead before Robicheaux can get to him. Going after the last and most dangerous of the killers, Victor Romero, he knows that someone else must be giving them orders. He finds Romero and kills him. Then, going to Bubba's home, Robicheaux discovers that it is Claudette who planned the hit. Bubba shoots her, and Robicheaux calls in the crime. Reception. The film opened in fifth place grossing $2,308,797 its opening weekend playing in a total of 907 theaters at its widest point. However the film was a box office failure, grossing only $5,009,305, far below its $25,000,000 budget. The film also received generally negative reviews with a 16% "rotten" rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 19 reviews. Teri Hatcher's performance earned her a Golden Raspberry Award nomination for Worst Supporting Actress.
1253690	GoldenEye (1995) is the seventeenth spy film in the James Bond series, and the first to star Pierce Brosnan as the fictional MI6 officer James Bond. The film was directed by Martin Campbell and is the first film in the series not to take story elements from the works of novelist Ian Fleming. The story was conceived and written by Michael France, with later collaboration by other writers. In the film, Bond fights to prevent an arms syndicate from using the GoldenEye satellite weapon against London in order to cause a global financial meltdown. "GoldenEye" was released in 1995 after a six-year hiatus in the series caused by legal disputes, during which Timothy Dalton resigned from the role of James Bond and was replaced by Pierce Brosnan. M was also recast, with actress Judi Dench becoming the first woman to portray the character, replacing Robert Brown. "GoldenEye" was the first Bond film made after the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War, which provided a background for the plot. The film accumulated a worldwide gross of US$350.7 million, considerably better than Dalton's films, without taking inflation into account. Some critics viewed the film as a modernisation of the series, and felt Brosnan was a definite improvement over his predecessor. The film also received award nominations for "Best Achievement in Special Effects" and "Best Sound" from the British Academy of Film and Television Arts. The name "GoldenEye" pays homage to James Bond's creator, Ian Fleming. While working for British Naval Intelligence as a lieutenant commander, Ian Fleming liaised with the American OSS to monitor developments in Spain after the Spanish Civil War in an operation codenamed Operation Golden Eye. Fleming used the name of his operation for his estate in Oracabessa, Jamaica. Plot. In 1986 MI6 officers James Bond—agent 007—and Alec Trevelyan—agent 006—infiltrate an illicit Soviet chemical weapons facility at Arkhangelsk and plant explosive charges. Trevelyan is shot by Colonel Arkady Ourumov, but Bond steals an aeroplane and flees from the facility as it explodes. Nine years later, Bond arrives in Monte Carlo to follow Xenia Onatopp, a suspected member of the Janus crime syndicate, who has formed a suspicious relationship with a Royal Canadian Navy admiral. She murders the admiral to allow Ourumov (now a General) to steal his identity. The next day they steal a prototype Eurocopter Tiger helicopter that can withstand an electromagnetic pulse. They fly it to a bunker in Severnaya, where they massacre the staff and steal the control disk for the dual GoldenEye satellite weapons. They program one of the GoldenEye satellites to destroy the complex with an electromagnetic pulse, and escape with programmer Boris Grishenko. Natalya Simonova, the lone survivor, contacts Boris and arranges to meet him in St. Petersburg, where he betrays her to Janus. In London, M assigns Bond to investigate the attack. Bond flies to St. Petersburg to meet CIA officer Jack Wade. He suggests Bond meet Valentin Zukovsky, a Russian Mafia head and business rival of Janus. After Bond gives him a tip on a potential heist, Zukovsky arranges a meeting between Bond and Janus. Onatopp is sent to meet Bond at his hotel and attempts to kill him, but he overpowers her and she takes him to Janus. Bond meets Janus who reveals himself as none other than Alec Trevelyan, now badly scarred from the explosion at Arkhangelsk. A descendant of the Cossack clans who collaborated with the Nazi forces in World War II, Trevelyan faked his death, having vowed revenge against Britain for their involvement in his parents' deaths. Just as Bond is about to shoot Trevelyan, Bond is shot with a tranquiliser dart knocking him out. Bond awakens tied up with Simonova in the Tiger helicopter programmed to self-destruct, from which the two escape. They are immediately arrested by the Russian police and are brought to the military archives, where the Russian Minister of Defence Dimitri Mishkin interrogates them. As Simonova reveals the existence of a second satellite and Ourumov's involvement in the massacre at Severnaya, Ourumov bursts into the room and kills Mishkin. As Ourumov calls for his guards, Bond escapes into the archives with Simonova, where a firefight ensues. Simonova is captured and is dragged into a car by Ourumov. Bond steals a T-55 tank and pursues Ourumov through St. Petersburg to Janus' armoured train, where he kills Ourumov as Trevelyan escapes and locks Bond in the train with Simonova. As the train's self-destruct countdown begins, Bond cuts through the floor with his laser watch while Simonova locates Grishenko's satellite dish in Cuba. The two escape just before the train explodes. Bond and Simonova meet Jack Wade and trade Bond's car for Wade's aeroplane. While flying over a Cuban jungle in search of the satellite dish controlling the satellite, Bond and Simonova are shot down. As they stumble out of the wreckage, Onatopp rappels down from a helicopter and attacks Bond. After a struggle, Bond shoots down the helicopter, resulting in the death of Onatopp. Bond and Simonova then watch a lake being drained of water, uncovering the satellite dish. They infiltrate the control station, where Bond is captured. Trevelyan reveals his plan to steal money from the Bank of England before erasing all of its financial records with the remaining GoldenEye, concealing the theft and destroying Britain's economy. Meanwhile, Simonova programs the satellite to initiate atmospheric re-entry and destroy itself. As Trevelyan captures Simonova and orders Grishenko to save the satellite, Bond triggers an explosion with his pen grenade and escapes to the antenna cradle. Bond sabotages the antenna by jamming the gears, preventing Grishenko from regaining control of the satellite, before turning and fighting Trevelyan. The two end up on the antenna platform, five hundred feet above the dish, and Bond kicks Trevelyan off the side of the platform, but grabs him by the foot and after a brief and personal exchange, Bond lets go of Trevelyan and he falls to the bottom of the pool. The cradle blows up and kills Trevelyan and Grishenko. Meanwhile, Simonova commandeers a helicopter and flees with Bond, and the couple is then rescued by Wade and a team of Marines. Production. Prelude. "Licence to Kill" had underperformed at the box office and was, in the American market, the lowest-grossing film of the series. Also, in 1989, MGM/UA was sold to the Australian broadcasting group Qintex, which wanted to merge the company with Pathé. Danjaq, the parent company of Eon Productions, sued MGM/UA because the Bond back catalogue was being licensed to Pathé, who intended to broadcast the Bond series on television in several countries across the world without the approval of Danjaq. These legal disputes delayed the film for several years. While the legal disputes went on, Timothy Dalton was still expected to play Bond in the new film, as he had signed a three-film contract. Pre-production work began in May 1990 with a story draft written by Alfonso Ruggiero Jr. and Michael G. Wilson. Production was set to start in 1990 in Hong Kong for a release in late 1991, however the legal disputes caused these dates to pass without a film in production. In an interview in 1993, Dalton said that Michael France was writing the screenplay, due to be completed in January or February 1994. Despite France's screenplay being completed by that January, in April 1994 Dalton officially resigned from the role. To replace Dalton, the producers cast Pierce Brosnan, who had been prevented from succeeding Roger Moore in 1986 because of his contract to star in the "Remington Steele" television series. Judi Dench was cast as M, making "GoldenEye" the first film of the series featuring a female M. The decision is widely believed to be inspired by Stella Rimington becoming head of MI5 in 1992. "GoldenEye" was produced by Albert R. Broccoli's Eon Productions. With Albert Broccoli's health deteriorating (he died seven months after the film's release), his daughter Barbara Broccoli described him as taking "a bit of a back seat" in film's production. In his stead, Barbara and Michael G. Wilson took the lead roles in production while Albert Broccoli oversaw the production of "GoldenEye" as consulting producer but is credited as "presenter". Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer approached John Woo to make "GoldenEye"; Woo turned down the opportunity, but said he was honoured by the offer. The producers then chose New Zealander Martin Campbell as the director. Brosnan later described Campbell as "warrior-like in his take on the piece" and that "there was a huge passion there on both our parts". Writing. The producers had originally chosen not to use Richard Maibaum, long-time writer for the series; he died in 1991. After Michael France delivered the original screenplay, Jeffrey Caine was brought in to rewrite it. Caine kept many of France's ideas but added the prologue prior to the credits. Kevin Wade polished the script and Bruce Feirstein added the finishing touches. In the film, the writing credit was shared by Caine and Feirstein, while France was credited with only the story, an arrangement he felt was unfair, particularly as he believed the additions made were not an improvement on his original version. Wade did not receive an official credit, but was acknowledged in the naming of Jack Wade, the CIA character he created. While the story was not based on a work by Ian Fleming, the title "GoldenEye" traces its origins to the name of Fleming's Jamaican estate where he wrote the Bond novels. Fleming gave a number of origins for the name of his estate, including Carson McCullers' "Reflections in a Golden Eye" and Operation Goldeneye, a contingency plan Fleming himself developed during World War II in case of a Nazi invasion through Spain. Since the release of "Licence to Kill", the world had changed drastically. "GoldenEye" was the first James Bond film to be produced since the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Soviet Union. This cast doubt over whether James Bond was still relevant in the modern world, as many of the previous films pitted him against Soviet villains trying to take advantage of the Cold War. Much of the film industry felt that it would be "futile" for the Bond series to make a comeback, and that it was best left as "an icon of the past". However, when released, the film was viewed as a successful revitalisation and it effectively adapted the series for the 1990s. One of "GoldenEye's" innovations was the casting of a female M. In the film, the new M quickly establishes her authority, remarking that Bond is a "sexist, misogynist dinosaur" and a "relic of the Cold War". This is an early indication that Bond is portrayed as far less tempestuous than Timothy Dalton's Bond from 1989. Filming. Principal photography for the film began on 16 January 1995 and continued until 6 June. The producers were unable to film at Pinewood Studios, the usual location for Bond films, because it had been reserved for "First Knight". Instead, an old Rolls-Royce factory at the Leavesden Aerodrome in Hertfordshire was converted into a new studio. The producers later said Pinewood would have been too small. The bungee jump was filmed at the Contra Dam (also known as the Verzasca or Locarno Dam) in Ticino, Switzerland. The film's casino scenes and the Tiger helicopter's demonstration were shot in Monte Carlo. Reference footage for the tank chase was shot on location in St. Petersburg and matched to the studio at Leavesden. The climactic scenes on the satellite dish were shot at Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico. The actual MI6 headquarters were used for external views of M's office. Some of the scenes in St. Petersburg were actually shot in London – the Epsom Downs Racecourse doubled the airport – to reduce expenses and security concerns, as the second unit sent to Russia required bodyguards. The French Navy provided full use of the frigate FS "La Fayette" and their newest helicopter, the Eurocopter Tiger to the film's production team. The French government also allowed the use of Navy logos as part of the promotional campaign for the film. However, the producers had a dispute with the French Ministry of Defence over Brosnan's opposition to French nuclear weapons testing and his involvement with Greenpeace; as a result, the French premiere of the film was cancelled. The sequences involving the armoured train were filmed on the Nene Valley Railway, near Peterborough in the UK. The train was composed of a British Rail Class 20 diesel-electric locomotive and a pair of BR Mk 2 coaches, all three heavily disguised to resemble a Soviet armoured train. Effects. "GoldenEye" was the last film of special effects supervisor Derek Meddings, to whom the film was dedicated. Meddings' major contribution were miniatures. It was also the first Bond film to use computer generated imagery. Among the model effects are most external shots of Severnaya, the scene where Janus' train crashes into the tank, and the lake which hides the satellite dish, since the producers could not find a round lake in Puerto Rico. The climax in the satellite dish used scenes in Arecibo, a model built by Meddings' team and scenes shot with stuntmen in England. Stunt car coordinator Rémy Julienne described the car chase between the Aston Martin DB5 and the Ferrari F355 as between "a perfectly shaped, old and vulnerable vehicle and a racecar." The stunt had to be meticulously planned as the cars are vastly different. Nails had to be attached to the F355 tyres to make it skid, and during one take of the sliding vehicles, both cars collided. The largest stunt sequence in the film was the tank chase, which took around six weeks to film, partly on location in St. Petersburg and partly at Leavesden. A Russian T-54/55 tank, on loan from the East England Military Museum, was modified with the addition of fake explosive reactive armour panels. In order to avoid destroying the pavement on the city streets of St. Petersburg, the steel off-road tracks of the T-54/55 were replaced with the rubber-shoed tracks from a British Chieftain tank. A rectangular viewport was cut in the glacis plate and covered with tinted Perspex, allowing a trained driver to manoeuvre the tank from a prone position inside the driver's compartment while Pierce Brosnan sat in the (modified) driver's seat with his head protruding from the driver's hatch, creating the illusion he was driving the tank "unbuttoned". For the confrontation between Bond and Trevelyan inside the antenna cradle, director Campbell decided to take inspiration from Bond's fight with Red Grant in "From Russia with Love". Pierce Brosnan and Sean Bean did all the stunts themselves, except for one take where one is thrown against the wall. Brosnan injured his hand while filming the extending ladder sequence, making producers delay his scenes and film the ones in Severnaya earlier. The opening bungee jump at Archangel, shot at the Verzasca Dam in Switzerland and performed by Wayne Michaels, was voted the best movie stunt of all time in a 2002 Sky Movies poll, and set a record for the highest bungee jump off a fixed structure. The ending of the pre-credits sequence with Bond jumping after the aeroplane features Jacques 'Zoo' Malnuit riding the motorcycle to the edge and jumping, and B.J. Worth diving after the plane – which was a working aircraft, with Worth adding that part of the difficulty of the stunt was the kerosene flying on his face. The fall of communism in Russia is the main focus of the opening titles, designed by Daniel Kleinman (who took over from Maurice Binder after his death in 1991). They show the collapse and destruction of several structures associated with the Soviet Union, such as the red star, statues of Communist leaders and the hammer and sickle. In an interview, Kleinman said they were meant to be "a kind of story telling sequence" showing that "what was happening in Communist countries was Communism was falling down". According to producer Michael G. Wilson, some Communist parties protested against "Socialist symbols being destroyed not by governments, but by bikini-clad women", especially the Communist Party of India, which threatened to boycott the film. Product placement. "GoldenEye" was the first film bound by BMW's three picture deal, so the producers were offered BMW's latest roadster, the BMW Z3. It was featured in the film months before its release, and a limited edition "007 model" sold out within a day of being available to order. As part of the car's marketing strategy, several Z3's were used to drive journalists from a complimentary meal at the Rainbow Room restaurant to "GoldenEye's" premiere at Radio City Music Hall. For the film, a convertible Z3 is equipped with the usual Q refinements, including a self-destruct feature and Stinger missiles behind the headlights. The Z3 does not have much screen time and none of the gadgets are used, which Martin Campbell attributed to the deal with BMW coming in the last stages of production. The Z3's appearance in "GoldenEye" is thought to be the most successful promotion through product placement in 1995. Ten years later, "The Hollywood Reporter" listed it as one of the most successful product placements in recent years. The article quoted Mary Lou Galician, head of media analysis and criticism at Arizona State University's Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication, as saying that the news coverage of Bond's switch from Aston Martin to BMW "generated hundreds of millions of dollars of media exposure for the movie and all of its marketing partners." In addition, all computers in the film were provided by IBM, and in some scenes (such as the pen grenade scene towards the end), the OS/2 Warp splash screen can be seen on computer monitors. A modified Omega Seamaster Quartz Professional watch features as a major plot device several times in the film. It is shown to contain a remote detonator and a laser. This was the first time James Bond was shown to be wearing a watch by Omega, and the character has since worn Omega watches in every subsequent production. Music. The theme song, "GoldenEye", was written by Bono and The Edge, and was performed by Tina Turner. As the producers did not collaborate with Bono or The Edge, alternate versions of the song did not appear throughout "GoldenEye", as was the case in previous James Bond films. Swedish group Ace of Base had also written a purposed theme song, but label Arista Records pulled the band out of the project fearing the negative impact in case the film flopped. The song was then re-written as their single "The Juvenile". The soundtrack to "GoldenEye" was composed and performed by Éric Serra. Prolific Bond composer John Barry said that despite an offer by Barbara Broccoli, he turned it down. Serra's score has been heavily criticised: Richard von Busack, in "Metro", wrote that it was "more appropriate for a ride on an elevator than a ride on a roller coaster", and Filmtracks said Serra "failed completely in his attempt to tie "Goldeneye" to the franchise's past." The end credits song, Serra's "The Experience of Love", was based on a short cue Serra had originally written for Luc Besson's "Léon" one year earlier. Later, John Altman provided the music for the tank chase in St. Petersburg. Serra's original track for that sequence can still be found on the soundtrack as "A Pleasant Drive in St. Petersburg". Serra composed and performed a number of synthesiser tracks, including the version of the James Bond Theme that plays during the gun barrel sequence, while John Altman and David Arch provided the more traditional symphonic music. Release and reception. "GoldenEye" premiered on 13 November 1995, at the Radio City Music Hall in New York City, and went on general release in the USA on 17 November 1995. The UK premiere, attended by Prince Charles, followed on 22 November at the Odeon Leicester Square, with general release two days later. Brosnan boycotted the French premiere to support Greenpeace's protest against the French nuclear testing program, causing the premiere to be abrogated. The film earned over $26 million during its opening across 2,667 cinemas in the USA. Its worldwide sales were around the equivalent of $350 million. It had the fourth highest worldwide gross of all films in 1995 and was the most successful Bond film since "Moonraker", taking inflation into account. "GoldenEye" was edited in order to be guaranteed a PG-13 rating from the MPAA and a 12 rating from the BBFC. The cuts included the visible bullet impact to Trevelyan's head when he is shot in the prologue, several additional deaths during the sequence in which Onatopp guns down the workers at the Severnaya station, more explicit footage and violent behaviour in the Admiral's death, extra footage of Onatopp's death, and Bond giving her a rabbit punch in the car. In 2006, the film was re-mastered and re-edited for the James Bond Ultimate Edition DVD in which the BBFC cuts were restored, causing the rating to be changed to 15. However, the original MPAA edits still remain. Reviews. The critical reception of the film was mostly positive. Film review collection website "Rotten Tomatoes" holds it at an 82% approval rating, while a similar site, Metacritic, holds it at 65%. In the "Chicago Sun-Times", Roger Ebert gave the film 3 stars out of 4, and said Brosnan's Bond was "somehow more sensitive, more vulnerable, more psychologically complete" than the previous ones, also commenting on Bond's "loss of innocence" since previous films. James Berardinelli described Brosnan as "a decided improvement over his immediate predecessor" with a "flair for wit to go along with his natural charm", but added that "fully one-quarter of "Goldeneye" is momentum-killing padding." Several reviewers lauded M's appraisal of Bond as a "sexist, misogynist dinosaur", with Todd McCarthy in "Variety" saying "GoldenEye" "breathes fresh creative and commercial life" into the series. John Puccio of DVD Town said that "GoldenEye" was "an eye and ear-pleasing, action-packed entry in the Bond series" and that the film gave Bond "a bit of humanity, too". Ian Nathan of "Empire" said that "GoldenEye" "revamps that indomitable British spirit" and that the "Die Hard" movies "don't even come close to 007". Tom Sonne of the "Sunday Times" considered "GoldenEye" the best Bond film since "The Spy Who Loved Me". Jose Arroyo of "Sight & Sound" considered the greatest success of the film was in modernising the series. "GoldenEye" was also ranked high in Bond-related lists. IGN chose it as the fifth-best movie, while "Entertainment Weekly" ranked it eighth, and Norman Wilner of MSN as ninth. "ET" also voted Xenia Onatopp as the sixth-most memorable Bond Girl, while IGN ranked Natalya as seventh in a similar list. However, the film received several negative reviews. Richard Schickel of "Time" wrote that after "a third of a century's hard use", Bond's conventions survived on "wobbly knees", while in "Entertainment Weekly", Owen Gleiberman thought the series had "entered a near-terminal state of exhaustion." Dragan Antulov said that "GoldenEye" had a predictable series of scenes, and Kenneth Turan of the "Los Angeles Times" said that the film was "a middle-aged entity anxious to appear trendy at all costs". David Eimer of "Premiere" wrote that "the trademark humour is in short supply" and that "Goldeneye isn't classic Bond by any stretch of the imagination." Madeleine Williams said that "there are plenty of stunts and explosions to take your mind off the plot." Awards. "GoldenEye" was nominated for two BAFTAs, Best Sound and Special Effects. Éric Serra won a BMI Film Award for the soundtrack and the film also earned nominations for Best Action Film and Actor at the Saturn Awards and Best Fight Scene at the MTV Movie Awards. Appearances in other media. "GoldenEye" was the second and final Bond film to be adapted to a novel by novelist John Gardner. The book closely follows the film's storyline, but Gardner added a violent sequence prior to the opening bungee jump in which Bond kills a group of Russian guards, a change that the video game "GoldenEye 007" retained. In late 1995, Topps Comics began publishing a three-issue comic book adaptation of "GoldenEye". The script was adapted by Don McGregor with art by Rick Magyar. The first issue carried a January 1996 cover date. For unknown reasons, Topps cancelled the entire adaptation after the first issue had been published, and to date the adaptation has never been released in its entirety. The film was the basis for "GoldenEye 007", a video game for the Nintendo 64 developed by Rare (known at the time as Rareware) and published by Nintendo. The game was praised by critics and in January 2000, readers of the British video game magazine "Computer and Video Games" listed "GoldenEye 007" in first place in a list of "the hundred greatest video games". In "Edge"'s 10th anniversary issue in 2003, the game was included as one of their top ten shooters of all time. It is based upon the film, but many of the missions were extended or modified. "GoldenEye 007" was modified into a racing game intended to be released for the Virtual Boy console. However, the game was cancelled before release. In 2004, Electronic Arts released "", the first game of the James Bond series in which the player does not take on the role of Bond. Instead, the protagonist is an aspiring Double-0 agent Jonathan Hunter, known by his codename "GoldenEye" recruited by a villain of the Bond universe, Auric Goldfinger. Except for the appearance of Xenia Onatopp, the game was unrelated to the film, and was released to mediocre reviews. It was excoriated by several critics including Eric Qualls for using the name "GoldenEye" as an attempt to ride on the success of Rare's game. Nintendo announced a remake of the original "GoldenEye 007" game at their E3 press conference on 15 June 2010. The game is a modernised retelling of the original movie's story, with Daniel Craig playing the role of Bond. The theme song is a cover of the movie's theme performed by Nicole Scherzinger. The game was developed by Eurocom and published by Activision for the Wii and Nintendo DS and was released in November 2010. Both Wii and DS versions bear little to no resemblance to the locations and weapons of the original N64 release. In 2011 the game was ported to PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 under the name "GoldenEye 007: Reloaded".
587617	Subha Sankalpam is a 1995 Telugu-language Indian feature film directed by K. Vishwanath and produced by noted singer, S. P. Balasubrahmanyam. It features Kamal Haasan, Aamani and Priya Raman in the leading roles, with Vishwanath also playing a pivotal role. P. C. Sreeram handled the camera while M. M. Keeravani composed the music for the film, which released in 1995. Production. Kamal Haasan, co-producer for the film, persuaded and succeeded in getting K. Vishwanath to make his debut as an actor for the film. Kamal Haasan revealed that the character required a renowned person to play the man who he bowed to, and if it was any other person, scenes would have had to be used to establish his importance. This film was produced by acclaimed singer S.P.Balasubrahmanyam. Release. The film won five Nandi Awards in 1995 with Aamani winning the Nandi Award for Best Actress for her performance, while S. P. Sailaja won the Nandi Award for Best Female Playback Singer. Furthermore Vishwanth won the Nandi Award for Best Character Actor, Krishna Rao won the Nandi Award for Best Editor and Vaisnavi secured the Nandi Award for Best Co-actress. The film was later dubbed into Tamil-language as "Paasavalai".
1513437	"August Underground's Mordum" is a 2003 horror comedy created and distributed by Toetag Pictures. It is the sequel to 2001's "August Underground", and was followed by "August Underground's Penance" in 2007. Plot. Like its predecessor, "Mordum" is presented as a degraded home movie shot by serial killers, in this case returning character Peter, his sadomasochistic girlfriend Crusty, and her sexually depraved manchild brother Maggot (the status of the cameraman from the first film is unrevealed). After Peter walks in on Crusty and Maggot having sex, an argument erupts between him and Crusty, but it is quelled when Crusty sexually arouses Peter and herself via self-mutilation with a piece of glass. The two then break into a crack house, where Peter beats the owner to death with a hammer, while Crusty films the filth-encrusted building, and the decaying corpse of an overdosed addict. When Peter starts stripping the body of the house's owner (claiming it will be easier to dispose of without clothes) another fight breaks out between him and Crusty when the latter questions his motive for undressing the body, accusing him of being "a faggot" and "wanting to touch dick all the time". The film then switches to a scene of Crusty demonstrating her love of self-harm to Maggot and a friend, cutting her scarred arm with a knife. Crusty and Maggot are then shown removing a bound and masked woman from a box the two have been keeping her in for "a long time". Maggot rapes the woman while Crusty cheers him on, and taunts the victim. When Maggot is finished, he lets a male captive out of another box, and he and Crusty force him to perform a penectomy on himself with a pair of cuticle scissors, then seal him back up. Crusty mimics oral sex with the severed penis, then violates the female victim from earlier with it. Scenes of the three killers in town (tormenting a shopkeeper, eating fast food, and wandering around) are shown, followed by Maggot and Peter watching and masturbating to Crusty torturing two women, sexually abusing and repeatedly vomiting on them while a male body rots in the corner of the room. Eventually, the women are killed; Maggot disembowels one, chewing on her spilled innards and having sex with them, while the other is beat to death by Crusty and Peter, the latter dragging the body away to presumably have sex with it. The three then get drunk, and afterward Maggot is found in the bathroom by his sister, shaving and cutting himself to "look beautiful" for Crusty. The trio are next shown playing in the snow, attending a concert, meeting up with friends, gang raping a woman, and going to a piercing shop, where Maggot receives a nose ring, and gets into a fight with Peter over his relationship with Crusty. The group then visit another serial killer, who shows them the contents of his shed; mutilated bodies, dying victims, and a headless and maggot-covered toddler, which Maggot eats a chunk of. Later, while the others are asleep, the new killer borrows their camera, and films himself taunting and slitting the throat of one of his female captives. When next seen, the trio have attacked a family, killing the father first by hanging him. While Peter tortures the mother, Crusty watches Maggot have sex with the corpse of the young daughter in a bathtub. The three get into a fight, which ends with Maggot slitting his own throat, followed by the film cutting to static. In a post-credits scene, a cat is shown killing and eating a mouse. Reception. The exploitation film database The Worldwide Celluloid Massacre has "Mordum" ranked as the third most "vile" film viewed by the website, below "Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom" and "The Angel's Melancholy". The review of the film (which is categorized as "worthless") referred to it as "pointless hardcore depravity". Controversy. While traveling to Canada to attend the Rue Morgue Festival of Fear in Toronto, co-director and writer Fred Vogel was arrested, pending charges of transporting obscene materials into Canada, when copies of "Mordum" and its predecessor were found by customs officials among the merchandise he had intended to bring to the convention. The charges were dropped, after Vogel had spent roughly ten hours in customs prison, and his films were sent to Ottawa for further observation.
1150929	Yasmin Deliz (born June 2, 1987) is a Venezuelan American singer-songwriter, model and actress of Dominican and Colombian and Venezuelan heritage. She is best known for her starring role in "Next Day Air" and her work as co-host on mun2's music video countdown show "Vivo" and reality television show "The Chicas Project". Early life. Deliz was born in Caracas, Venezuela, to a Dominican father and a Colombian and Venezuelan mother. She grew up in the Jamaica section of Queens, New York. She currently works and resides in Los Angeles, California. Career. In 2006, Deliz was offered a deal on Mun2 for two shows Deliz started working as a VJ on the show "Vivo" for mun2, a Latin music television network. In January 2007, she teamed up with fellow VJ, Crash in mun2’s reality show "The Chicas Project". The show is based on two close friends of different styles and backgrounds that are sent out on adventures each week, where they learn new talents like how to surf, host events, or perform outrageous stunts like skydiving. Keeping with the mission of mun2, no matter what they do, the chicas always try to keep themselves and their identity rooted in their Latin background. The show is premiered its 4th season on July 9. Deja The Great then introduced Deliz to long-time friend Director Benny Boom (Next Day Air) on the set of Brooke Valentine's video shoot Dope Girl featuring Pimp C directed by Boom which Deliz featured in. She appeared in as the main girl in New Kids on the Block's 2008 music video Single, which also features Ne-Yo. She made her film debut as Chita in the 2009 action/comedy/crime film "Next Day Air" alongside Donald Faison, Mike Epps and Lauren London. Yasmin Also Appeared in Tyga's Single Far Away With Chris Richardson, She Played Tyga's Girfriend/Wife in the video Personal life. On February 13, 2010, she married Chris Tibbs. She was called 2011 "Sexiest Female" by Forbes Magazine.
1161454	Dan Haggerty (born 19 November 1941) is an American actor.
1056942	Fireflies in the Garden is a 2008 drama film starring Willem Dafoe, Ryan Reynolds, and Julia Roberts. Written and directed by Dennis Lee, the film premiered at the 2008 Berlin International Film Festival and released theatrically in the United States on October 14, 2011. "Fireflies in the Garden" is set in the present day, and revolves around three generations of a family, with flash-backs to their growing up. A major focus is on domineering father Charles and his strained relationships with son Michael, sister-in-law Jane and other family members. A terrible accident on the way to a family reunion with Charles and wife Lisa at Jane's house, and the ensuing funeral set the scene for Michael to discover/uncover much about the inner lives and affairs of this family and finding a route to reconciliation. Plot. Set in the present with extensive flash-backs to the past, this film revolves around three generations of domineering father Charles (Willem Dafoe) family, his wife Lisa (Julia Roberts), their two children: son Michael (young: Cayden Boyd; adult: Ryan Reynolds) and daughter Ryne (Shannon Lucio), as well as Lisa's (much younger) sister Jane (young: Hayden Panettiere; adult: Emily Watson), and her son Christopher (Chase Ellison) and daughter Leslie (Brooklynn Proulx) as well as Michael's ex-wife Kelly Hanson (Carrie-Anne Moss). Charles and Michael had, and still have, a strained relationship, with both pushing the other. In a flash-back to a boyhood car journey, the younger Michael claims to have lost his glasses, while knowing he simply has them in his pocket. Without knowing this deceit, Charles makes Michael walk home in the rain as a punishment. This tit-for-tat and rule-breaking continues with Charles imposing on all around him, including Jane, who is staying with them. She, too, hates Charles' domineering nature. The two form a kind of pact against Charles. When Michael embarrasses Charles in front of his colleagues by falsely claiming to have written a poem, "Fireflies in the Garden" by Robert Frost, he is punished by having to hold his weighted arms horizontal, aching so much that at the end, he cannot even take food to his mouth. Jane feeds him. As they grow older the conflicts escalate, with a growing Michael eventually intervening in a quarrel between his parents, attacking Charles and forcing him to the ground. A critical dramatic event in the film occurs with a tragic car accident as Charles and Lisa drive to a graduation celebration at Jane's house in honor of Lisa's college graduation. Driving hurriedly, Charles swerves to avoid colliding with Christopher, who crosses the road carelessly, and their car hits a tree, leaving Lisa dead, Charles injured, and both Charles and Christopher feeling guilty. Michael takes Jane's children Christopher and Leslie "fishing", attempting to cheer them up by exploding the fish with firecrackers, as he had done with Jane growing up. Concerned with what Charles and Jane will think, he encourages the children to lie to their mother about the trip. As predicted, Charles and Jane consider his behavior inappropriate. Michael's having noisy sex with ex-wife Kelly, who arrives for the funeral, does not help matters. The events of the accident and consequent guilt and anxiety see an upset Christopher running away, only to be found by Michael who assures him that he is not to blame for Lisa's death. Christopher insists on walking home alone after their talk, and Michael gives him his cell phone in case he changes his mind. Immediately discarding the phone, Christopher remains missing for several hours, Jane again blaming Michael for leaving Christopher (who is found safely). More revelations and recriminations ensue, as Michael discovers that his late mother was having an affair with her young professor Addison (Ioan Gruffudd), and had planned to leave Charles following her graduation. Jane also discovers, while she and Kelly drive around looking for Christopher, that Kelly is pregnant and that Michael doesn't know. Michael and Kelly reconcile and they announce their news to the family before they leave. While discussing baby names with Ryne and Kelly, Michael mentions that he likes the name Max for a boy, a name previously suggested by Lisa for Ryne, had she been a boy. The title of the film derives from the name of Michael's book about his childhood - taken from a scene in their lives, where Michael, Christopher and Leslie are having fun in the garden exploding fireflies with badminton rackets, in the dark. The revelations of the book concerned Charles and Jane, and in a sense the film see the history of the book told, and then re-written. This is brought home in a scene where the surviving family is watching an old home movie and, perhaps surprised by the happiness it captures, Charles and Michael begin to reconcile. Michael destroys the manuscript. Production. The film was shot in Austin (including the University of Texas), Bastrop, and Smithville, Texas. The historic T. A. Hasler House in Bastrop was used significantly in the film. Reception. The film has received mostly negative reviews from critics. It holds a 20% rating on Rotten Tomatoes with the consenus saying: "Despite boasting a stellar cast, "Fireflies in the Garden" is just tedious, dull and predictable melodrama. Instantly forgettable."
1103341	John Torrence Tate, Jr. (born March 13, 1925) is an American mathematician, distinguished for many fundamental contributions in algebraic number theory, arithmetic geometry and related areas in algebraic geometry. He is professor emeritus at Harvard University. He was awarded the Abel Prize in 2010. Biography. Tate was born in Minneapolis. His father, John Tate Sr., was a professor of physics at the University of Minnesota, and a longtime editor of Physical Review. His mother, Lois Beatrice Fossler, was a high school English teacher. Tate Jr. received his bachelor's degree in mathematics from Harvard University, and entered the doctoral program in physics at Princeton University. He later transferred to the mathematics department and received his PhD in 1950 as a student of Emil Artin. Tate taught at Harvard for 36 years before joining the University of Texas in 1990. He retired from the Texas mathematics department in 2009, and returned to Harvard as a professor emeritus. He currently resides in Cambridge, Massachusetts with his wife Carol. He has three daughters with his first wife Karin Tate. Mathematical work. Tate's thesis (1950) on Fourier analysis in number fields has become one of the ingredients for the modern theory of automorphic forms and their L-functions, notably by its use of the adele ring, its self-duality and harmonic analysis on it; independently and a little earlier, Kenkichi Iwasawa obtained a similar theory. Together with his teacher Emil Artin, Tate gave a cohomological treatment of global class field theory, using techniques of group cohomology applied to the idele class group and Galois cohomology. This treatment made more transparent some of algebraic structures in the previous approaches to class field theory which used central division algebras to compute the Brauer group of a global field. Subsequently Tate introduced what are now known as Tate cohomology groups. In the decades following that discovery he extended the reach of Galois cohomology with the PoitouâTate duality, the TateâShafarevich group, and relations with algebraic K-theory. With Jonathan Lubin, he recast local class field theory by the use of formal groups, creating the LubinâTate local theory of complex multiplication. He has also made a number of individual and important contributions to p-adic theory; for example, Tate's invention of rigid analytic spaces can be said to have spawned the entire field of rigid analytic geometry. He found a p-adic analogue of Hodge theory, now called HodgeâTate theory, which has blossomed into another central technique of modern algebraic number theory. Other innovations of his include the 'Tate curve' parametrization for certain p-adic elliptic curves and the p-divisible (TateâBarsotti) groups. Many of his results were not immediately published and some of them were written up by Serge Lang, Jean-Pierre Serre, Joseph H. Silverman and others. Tate and Serre collaborated on a paper on good reduction of abelian varieties. The classification of abelian varieties over finite fields was carried out by Taira Honda and Tate (the HondaâTate theorem). The Tate conjectures are the equivalent for ĂŠtale cohomology of the Hodge conjecture. They relate to the Galois action on the l-adic cohomology of an algebraic variety, identifying a space of 'Tate cycles' (the fixed cycles for a suitably Tate-twisted action) that conjecturally picks out the algebraic cycles. A special case of the conjectures, which are open in the general case, was involved in the proof of the Mordell conjecture by Gerd Faltings. Tate has also had a major influence on the development of number theory through his role as a Ph.D. advisor. His students include Joe Buhler, Benedict Gross, Robert Kottwitz, Stephen Lichtenbaum, James Milne, V. Kumar Murty, Carl Pomerance, Ken Ribet, Ted Chinburg, Joseph H. Silverman, Dinesh Thakur, Jeremy Teitelbaum. Awards and honors. In 1956 Tate was awarded the American Mathematical Society's Cole Prize for outstanding contributions to number theory. In 1995 he received the Leroy P. Steele Prize for Lifetime Achievement from the American Mathematical Society. He was awarded a Wolf Prize in Mathematics in 2002/03 for his creation of fundamental concepts in algebraic number theory. In 2012 he became a fellow of the American Mathematical Society. In 2010, the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters, of which he is a member, awarded him the Abel Prize, citing "his vast and lasting impact on the theory of numbers". According to a release by the Abel Prize committee "Many of the major lines of research in algebraic number theory and arithmetic geometry are only possible because of the incisive contributions and illuminating insights of John Tate. He has truly left a conspicuous imprint on modern mathematics." Tate has been described as "one of the seminal mathematicians for the past half-century" by William Beckner, Chairman of the Department of Mathematics at the University of Texas.
1163241	Angela Bethany Goethals (born May 20, 1977) is an American film, television and stage actress. Goethals made her acting debut in the Broadway production of "Coastal Disturbances" in 1987, and later became known for her role in "Home Alone" (1990) playing the sister of Macauley Culkin's character in the film. Throughout the 1990s, Goethals went on to star in several independent films and television shows, including a leading role on the sitcom "Phenom" (1993), as well as a small role in "Jerry Maguire" (1996). In 1999, Goethals graduated from Vassar college with a B.A. in French before returning to acting. In 2005, she landed a recurring guest appearance on "24", and also gained recognition and critical acclaim for her starring role in the black comedy horror mockumentary, "" (2006). Early life. Goethals was born and raised in New York City, New York, the daughter of Rosalind, a teacher and single mom who raised Angela and her sister Sara. She is a great-great-granddaughter of George Washington Goethals, the chief engineer of the Panama Canal, and namesake of New York's Goethals Bridge. Goethals was a cheerleader at Stuyvesant High School and was introduced to the acting world by actress Jeanie Hackett, a family friend, who took her to several auditions. At the age of nine she got her first professional acting job, as the understudy to Sarah Michelle Gellar in "The Widow Claire", an off-Broadway play written by Horton Foote. Two years later Goethals appeared as the daughter of Edwin Booth, portrayed by David Strathairn, in a workshop production of "Booth: A House Divided", at the Players, in New York. Career. Goethals appeared in her first movie, drama "Rocket Gibraltar", two years later. The cast included Burt Lancaster, Kevin Spacey and Macaulay Culkin. Her sister Sara also had a small part. Later that year Goethals also appeared in "Heartbreak Hotel", a film directed by Chris Columbus about the fictional kidnapping of Elvis Presley. Goethals's first starring role came in the 1993 TV series "Phenom". She played Angela Doolan, a young tennis player struggling with the challenges of life including her single mother (Judith Light), obsessive tennis coach (William Devane) and bratty younger sister (Ashley Johnson). It ran for 22 episodes before being cancelled by network ABC in May 1994. In 1990, Goethals played Linnie, the sister of main character Kevin McCallister (Macaulay Culkin), in "Home Alone". The blockbuster family comedy, directed by Chris Columbus, is about a young boy facing two inept burglars when he's left home alone. The movie made nearly $500m worldwide. Goethals was one of only three main cast members not to return in the sequel, "", two years later. Goethals's next role in a blockbuster movie came in 1996's "Jerry Maguire", a film that starred Tom Cruise, Cuba Gooding, Jr. and Renée Zellweger. Goethals played Kathy Sanders, Jerry's client who fakes tears when he calls her to inform her of his departure from the agency. In 1999, Goethals graduated from the private liberal arts college, Vassar, with a bachelor's degree in French, in which she is fluent, and she rode in the IHSA Zone II Region 1 at the Advanced Walk-Trot-Canter level. In February 2002 she moved back to Los Angeles to pursue film and television. 2002 saw Goethals star as Polly in Comedy Central's first original movie, "Porn 'n Chicken". The movie was based on the true story of the Porn 'n Chicken Club at Yale University. Its members gathered weekly to eat fried chicken and watch porn. The club made headlines in 2001 when members announced plans to make their own porn film, entitled ""The StaXXX"". Despite a trailer being released for their film, it was never finished and no further footage ever emerged. Later in 2002, Goethals also starred in the 1980s based sitcom "Do Over". The show featured Penn Badgley as 34-year-old Joel Larsen, catapulted back in time to 1981 and forced to relive his school life. Goethals played his sister, Cheryl. Between 2003 and 2004, Goethals made guest appearances on the popular TV series' "Boston Public", "Six Feet Under" and "Without a Trace", as well as playing a minor role in the Adam Sandler romantic comedy, "Spanglish". In 2005, Goethals made a recurring guest appearance on the TV show "24". She played Maya Driscoll, the mentally ill daughter of then Director of CTU Los Angeles, Erin Driscoll. Maya appeared in 6 episodes (including one uncredited) before committing suicide in a bathroom at CTU between 5pm and 6pm on Day 4. Since then, Goethals has gone on to make guest appearances on the TV series "Grey's Anatomy", "" and "Crossing Jordan". Awards and nominations. She was nominated four times to a Young Artist Award at the Young Artist Awards: in 1989 for Best Young Actress in a Motion Picture Comedy or Fantasy for "Heartbreak Hotel" (1988), in 1991 for Best Young Actress Supporting Role in a Motion Picture for "Home Alone" (1990), in 1992 for Best Young Actress Starring in a Motion Picture for "V.I. Warshawski" (1991) and in 1994 for Youth Actress Leading Role in a Television Series for "Phenom" (1993).
1104269	George Szekeres AM (; 29 May 1911 – 28 August 2005) was a Hungarian-Australian mathematician. Early years. Szekeres was born in Budapest, Hungary as Szekeres György and received his degree in chemistry at the Technical University of Budapest. He worked six years in Budapest as an analytical chemist. He married Esther Klein in 1936. Being Jewish, the family had to escape from the Nazi persecution so Szekeres took a job in Shanghai, China. There they lived through World War II, the Japanese occupation and the beginnings of the Communist revolution. Their son, Peter, was born in Shanghai. Career. In 1948, he was offered a position at the University of Adelaide, Australia that he gladly accepted. After all the troubles he had, he began flourishing as a mathematician. A few years later, his daughter Judy was born. In 1963, the family moved to Sydney, where Szekeres took a position at the University of New South Wales, and taught there until his retirement in 1975. He also devised problems for secondary school mathematical olympiads run by the university where he taught, and for a yearly undergraduate competition run by the Sydney University Mathematics Society. Szekeres worked closely with many prominent mathematicians throughout his life, including Paul Erdős, Esther Szekeres (née Esther Klein), Paul Turán, Béla Bollobás, Ronald Graham, Alf van der Poorten, Miklós Laczkovich, and John Coates. Personal life. The so-called Happy Ending problem is an example of how mathematics pervaded George's life. During 1933, George and several other students met frequently in Budapest to discuss mathematics. At one of these meetings, Esther Klein proposed the following problem: After allowing George, Paul Erdős, and the other students to scratch their heads for some time, Esther explained her proof. Subsequently, George and Paul wrote a paper (1935) that generalises this result; it is regarded as one of the foundational works in the field of combinatorial geometry. Erdős dubbed the original problem the "Happy Ending" problem because it resulted in George and Esther's marriage in 1937. George and Esther died within an hour of each other, on the same day, 28 August 2005, in Adelaide, Australia.
1075253	Zen Brant Gesner (born June 23, 1970) is an American television and movie actor. He is perhaps most recognized for his roles as "Sinbad" in the syndicated television series "The Adventures of Sinbad", and was a regular cast member on the ABC daytime drama "All My Children" as bad boy and rapist Braden Lavery. More recently he's appeared in Miller Lite's "Man Laws" commercials as one of the "Men Of The Square Table". Gesner also appeared on an episode of the popular sitcom "Friends" in which he played Rachel Green's date. A graduate of the prestigious London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art (LAMDA), Gesner has appeared in several movies since his cinematic debut as "Dale's Man #1" in the 1994 comedy Dumb & Dumber, including Osmosis Jones (as Emergency Room Doctor #1), "Me, Myself & Irene" (Agent Peterson), "Shallow Hal" (Ralph), and "There's Something About Mary" (as a bartender). In 2005, he had a small part in the romantic comedy "Fever Pitch" starring Drew Barrymore and Jimmy Fallon. Early life. Gesner was born in Van Nuys, California, the son of stage actress Nan Martin and architect Harry Gesner. His parents named him after the Japanese Buddhist sect that preaches enlightenment through meditation. He has an older half-brother, Casey Martin Dolan, from his mother's first marriage to musician Robert E. Dolan, and two older half-siblings from his father's prior marriages, Jason Gesner (Hydroelectric Manager), and Tara Tanzer-Cartwright (Teacher). Gesner was interested in music as a boy, and plays both the piano and trumpet. He became an aspiring actor while attending Santa Monica High School after landing a small part in the school's production of Hamlet, and went on to play leading roles in the school's rendition of "Nicholas Nickleby" and "The Sound of Music". Upon graduation, Gesner joined South Coast Repertory Theatre in Orange County, CA, performing in small roles and watching experienced actors ply their craft. Career. After touring the audition circuit, Gesner sought admission to LAMDA's intensive summer programme on Shakespeare and was accepted. Towards the end of the course, he was offered a position in the general three-year programme at the Academy, whose North American alumni include such actors as Alexis Denisof, John Lithgow and Donald Sutherland. As a student at LAMDA, Gesner not only performed in such plays as "Richard III", "The Cherry Orchard" and "Anything Goes", but also studied everything from poetry to archery to fire-blowing. He especially excelled in fencing and during his second year, earned an advanced certificate from The Society of British Fight Directors. Post-graduation from the Academy, the actor worked as Assistant Fight Director to the Royal Opera, London. Gesner made his feature film debut in "Dumb & Dumber" and put his real-life surfing skills to use as a surfer in the Chris Isaak music video, "Somebody's Crying". After four auditions and a screen test, Gesner won the title role in the syndicated fantasy-action series, "The Adventures of Sinbad". The series was filmed in Cape Town, South Africa, and involved heavy stuntwork and use of special effects. Between shoots, Gesner added to his physical performance skills by picking up tricks from a local circus troupe, such as tightrope walking, inverted rope-climbing, kicking/flipping up from the ground (known as "kipping"), and stunt flips. Although listed on the fall lineup for a third season, the well-rated series ended its run after the second season due to contract disputes between the production company and series distributors. Since the conclusion of "Sinbad" in 1998, Gesner has appeared on television series such as "Friends" and "All My Children". He played the role of David Patrick in the 2005 movie "The Ringer", a film about the Special Olympics. He was also the spokesperson for Chicken Of The Sea's 2005 "What Women Want" marketing campaign. Gesner and his wife Cynthia have three sons: Finn, Rory, and Tuck. Gesner is brother-in-law to the Farrelly Brothers, and has received several small roles in their movies, including "Dumb & Dumber", "Fever Pitch", "Kingpin", "Me, Myself & Irene", "Osmosis Jones", "Shallow Hal" and "There's Something About Mary". Gesner also played (Ron) a gay man in the movie "Boat Trip". He appeared in the Man Laws commercials for Miller Lite. Gesner was the "Mystery Man" in the opening of each episode of "Take the Money & Run". He hands the briefcase containing $100,000 to the two-person team of contestants and relays instructions. Personal life. Gesner moved back to the United States, where he met and married his wife Cynthia Farrelly Gesner (sister of the writer-directors Peter and Bobby Farrelly) in 1995. They moved to Hollywood, where Gesner worked part-time in construction while auditioning for television and movie roles. They have three sons: Finn Harry Gesner (b. July 24, 1997 in Cape Town, South Africa), Rory Farrelly Gesner (b. October 9, 2000 in Santa Monica, California, and Tuck John Gesner (b. July 11, 2003 in Santa Monica, California).
1070655	We Bought a Zoo is a 2011 comedy-drama/family film based on the 2008 memoir of the same name by Benjamin Mee. The film is directed by Cameron Crowe, and stars Matt Damon as the lead character. It tells the story of Mee and his family who just moved into a dilapidated zoo and took on the challenge of preparing the zoo for its reopening to the public. "We Bought a Zoo" was released in the U.S. box office on December 23, 2011. The film received mostly positive reception from film critics, and grossed a total of $120 million. Plot. Recently widowed Benjamin (Ben) Mee (Matt Damon), still grieving his loss and dealing with school behavior issues and the expulsion of his 14-year-old son Dylan (Colin Ford), decides to get a fresh start by buying a new house. After touring many houses with his daughter Rosie (Maggie Elizabeth Jones) and his realtor, and finding none to his liking, his daughter finds a paper with what seems like his perfect house. They drive up to a beautiful old large house and Ben inspects the property, telling his realtor it's the perfect home. As he tries to explain that the situation is "complicated", they hear a lion roar outside. The realtor explains that the house comes with a zoo at the back and, if they want the house, they have to buy the zoo which closed to the public several years before. Although reluctant to take on a zoo and all of its animals, he decides to give it a try when he sees how happy Rosie is playing with the peacocks. Dylan, however, hates the idea of moving away from his friends, retreating into his artwork which has grown more macabre since the death of his mother. Ben's brother Duncan (Thomas Haden Church) tries to dissuade him from purchasing the property, but Ben buys it anyway. The zoo staff, led by head keeper Kelly (Scarlett Johansson), help Ben to start renovating the zoo with the intent to reopen it to the public. When Kelly confronts Ben about why he bought a zoo, knowing nothing about how to run one, Ben thinks about it and responds "Why not?". Dylan befriends a young homeschooled girl named Lily (Elle Fanning) who works at the zoo and has a huge crush on him, to which he is completely oblivious. A strict USDA inspector, Walt Ferris (John Michael Higgins), shows up for a surprise inspection and makes a large list of repairs that would cost around $100,000. Ben runs into financial trouble with the expenses of running the zoo and does not have the money for the repairs. The zoo worker that handles the accounting gossips to the other workers that Ben is out of money and that he will probably sell the zoo; after which the workers' morale sinks, fearing the property will be sold to a buyer that will close it down. When Lily tells Dylan that she heard his family might be leaving he is overjoyed, which hurts her feelings. Ben discovers that his wife bequeathed him an investment account, with instructions to use the money wisely while listening to his heart. Ben's brother advises him to walk away and start over with the money, but Ben decides to use the money to repair the zoo. While this lifts the zoo workers' morale, Dylan is unhappy about having to stay; he confronts his father, and a heated argument ensues. They reconcile the next morning, and Dylan admits he misses Lily. Ben gives his son advice using his favorite principle, that you only need 20 seconds of courage to achieve great things to explain how Dylan can reconcile with Lily. Ben realizes that instead of trying to start over by forgetting his wife, he should accept that she will always be a part of him. Prior to the grand opening of the zoo, the facility passes a very stringent inspection from the USDA inspector, who begrudgingly wishes them good luck. Dylan, following his father's advice, confesses to Lily that he loves her and she forgives him. The evening prior to the zoo's grand opening the worst rainstorm in 100 years is predicted to wash it out and, although the weather clears in time, they are disappointed the next morning when no visitors arrive, though they soon discover that a fallen tree has blocked the access road. Scrambling over the tree, Dylan discovers a huge crowd of waiting visitors, who climb over the tree with the zoo staff's help, and pour into the zoo. So many people come to visit that they run out of tickets forcing Ben and Kelly to enter a shed to look for them, ending up face to face. Kelly admits to Ben that she has a crush on him but she "can't get a handle on it". She kisses him, telling him maybe they can do that again on New Year's eve - Ben replies by kissing her, and telling her that he is looking forward to it. Ben takes his children to where he met their mother, explaining that it was the point where they became a "possibility". He takes them through that day's encounter, where Ben worked up the nerve to talk to his future wife with "20 seconds of courage", and walks up to the table she was at, visualizes her sitting there, then asks her why such an amazing woman would talk to someone like him. His wife responds "Why not?", echoing the reason Benjamin bought the zoo in the first place. Production. Development. In May 2010, Cameron Crowe agreed to direct the 20th Century Fox adaptation of Benjamin Mee's memoir "We Bought a Zoo". He then began rewriting the film's script, which was originally written by Aline Brosh McKenna. This was the first film that was directed by Crowe since the 2005 film "Elizabethtown". The film was released on December 23, 2011. Casting. Crowe traveled to the set of the film "True Grit" to persuade actor Matt Damon to take on the role of the lead character in the film. Crowe also presented a script of the film, a CD of songs that Crowe composed himself, and a copy of the 1983 film "Local Hero", with instructions "to not just read the script and make a decision". Damon was persuaded to play the role after he was moved by Crowe's music and found that "Local Hero" was a "masterpiece". As for Crowe himself, he had already decided on Damon halfway through their meeting, though the distributor Fox still had a shortlist of candidates to play this role. Soundtrack. In August 2011, it was announced that Icelandic musician Jón Þór "Jónsi" Birgisson, the lead singer of the band Sigur Rós, would be composing the music scores for "We Bought a Zoo". Director Crowe described the choice as "only natural", since "Jónsi has been a part of the making of We Bought A Zoo from the very beginning". The song "Gathering Stories" was on the shortlist of 39 songs that have a chance of being nominated for Best Original Song Oscar at the 84th Academy Awards. This song was co-written by Jonsi Birgisson and Cameron Crowe. While the official CD release of the movie soundtrack only includes music by Jón Þór "Jónsi" Birgisson and Sigur Rós, the complete soundtrack of the film included a variety of artists. The real zoo. There are a number of differences between the story shown in the movie and the events that actually transpired. The real Benjamin Mee is British. The story was adapted for an American audience and the changes were met with Mee's approval. The actual zoo Mee bought is Dartmoor Zoological Park, located in Devon, England, while the fictional zoo in the film is called Rosemoor Wildlife Park, and is located in California. In real life, Benjamin's wife, Katherine, died after they had already bought the zoo and moved in. In the film, Benjamin bought the zoo only after her death. In real life, Benjamin and his family made a specific and informed decision to buy a zoo. In the film, it occurred as a result of finding a house they liked, which happened to have a zoo attached.
1150385	Jennette Michelle Faye McCurdy (born June 26, 1992) is an American film and television actress and country pop singer-songwriter. She is known for her role as Sam Puckett on the Nickelodeon sitcom "iCarly" and is currently reprising her role in the spin-off series "Sam & Cat". She has also appeared in a number of notable television series, including "Victorious", "Zoey 101", "True Jackson, VP", "Malcolm in the Middle", and "Lincoln Heights". Early life. McCurdy was born in Long Beach, California, and was raised in Garden Grove, California. She has three older brothers named Marcus, Scott, and Dustin. She gained interest in acting after watching Harrison Ford in "" right after her mother recovered from breast cancer. Career. Acting. McCurdy started her acting career in 2000 at the age of eight on "MADtv". Since then she appeared in television series, including "", "Malcolm in the Middle", "Lincoln Heights", "Will & Grace", "Penguins of Madagascar", "Zoey 101", "True Jackson, VP", "Law and Order SVU", "Medium", "Judging Amy", "The Inside", "Karen Sisco", "Over There" and "Close to Home". In 2003, she had the chance to act with her inspiration, Harrison Ford in the movie "Hollywood Homicide". In 2005, she was nominated for a Young Artist Award for Best Performance in a Television Series – Guest Starring Young Actress for her performance in "Strong Medicine" as Hailey Campos. She has also appeared in several commercials, such as one for Sprint and a public service announcement on crossing the road safely. From 2007 to 2012, she had a starring role in the Nickelodeon TV series "iCarly" opposite Miranda Cosgrove, Nathan Kress, Jerry Trainor, and Noah Munck, as one of Carly Shay's best friends Sam Puckett. In 2008, she was nominated for a Young Artist Award for her work on "iCarly", and for her performance as Dory Sorenson in the TV movie "The Last Day of Summer". She was nominated for a 2009 Teen Choice Award, in the "Favorite TV Sidekick" category for her work on "iCarly". She played Bertha in "", a movie based on a YouTube series about Fred Figglehorn. On December 1, 2011, she signed into United Talent Agency's cast of actors and performers for film, TV, music and other areas, to a deal starring her in a pilot vehicle. She was previously with Creative Artists Agency and Larry Galper. McCurdy currently stars alongside Ariana Grande in the Nickelodeon series "Sam and Cat", reprising her role as Sam Puckett, with Grande reprising her role as Cat Valentine. The series' plot centers on the girls becoming roommates and starting their own babysitting business. Music. In June 2008, McCurdy announced on her official website that she was working on her debut album. The first single, "So Close", was released on March 10, 2009. The second single, "Homeless Heart", was released on May 19. The song was released in honor of McCurdy's recently deceased friend Cody Waters, who died at the age of 9 from brain cancer, and 20% of the proceeds were donated to the Cody Waters Foundation. She met Waters through St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. In mid-2009, McCurdy signed with country music label Capitol Records Nashville. On April 16, 2010, samples of select songs from McCurdy's upcoming debut country album were released online. The song clips were released in order for fans to vote for which one they believed should be McCurdy's first single. "Not That Far Away" received the most votes, and was released to country radio on May 24, 2010 and iTunes shortly after on June 1. Capitol Nashville released an EP on August 17, 2010, which included "Not That Far Away" and four new songs, "Stronger", "Put Your Arms Around Someone", and "Break Your Heart". The iTunes version included "Me with You" as a bonus track. "Stronger" was later included on "Now That's What I Call Music! Vol. 35", released on August 31, 2010. McCurdy's second single, "Generation Love", was released as a digital download on March 22, 2011, followed by its release to radio April 25, 2011. Capitol Nashville released McCurdy's self-named-seven-track extended play on February 8, 2012 at clothing retailer Justice. The full-length, ten-track edition was released to iTunes on June 5, 2012 and is her first full-length album. On July 11, 2012, Fanlala released an interview with McCurdy in which she confirmed that she has since left Capitol Records Nashville, saying "I’m kind of between projects right now. I actually just left Capitol Records recently. I’m really just deciding what else I want to do next. Right now I’m working on my new show, and I’m just figuring out where I should take my music from here". On July 31, 2012, How To Rock released an interview with McCurdy, in which she talked about her acting and music careers. A follow-up interview was released on August 8, in which McCurdy reflects on her music career. Philanthropy. In addition to supporting the Cody Waters Foundation, McCurdy was active in campaigns such as stopping child soldiers (she has been involved with the Invisible Children Inc. group) and St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. McCurdy did a PSA for Safe Kids USA which is aired on Nickelodeon and TeenNick. McCurdy currently serves as a StarPower Ambassador for Starlight Children’s Foundation, encouraging other young people to commit their time, energy and resources to help other kids and working with Starlight to brighten the lives of seriously ill children. Personal life. McCurdy composed an article titled, "Off-Camera, My Mom's Fight With Cancer", that was published in the "Wall Street Journal" on June 11, 2011. It describes in detail, her mother Debra's on-going battle with cancer and how her family is coping with the situation. The article also features tips from McCurdy on living with such a situation. On September 20, 2013, her mother, Debra McCurdy, died after battling cancer for 17 years. Currently she is dating Detroit Pistons center Andre Drummond. The couple began dating after weeks of flirting on Twitter & Instagram. They both post videos of each other on vine as well. McCurdy wrote another article that was published in "The Wall Street Journal" about her relationship with Drummond and finding love on social media.
1100044	Stanislav Konstantinovich Smirnov (; born 3 September 1970) is a Russian mathematician currently working at the University of Geneva, who was awarded the Fields Medal in 2010. His research focuses on the fields of complex analysis, dynamical systems and probability theory. Career. Smirnov attended a specialist mathematics school, Saint Petersburg Lyceum 239, until 1987. Smirnov completed his undergraduate degree at Saint Petersburg State University in 1992, where he worked under Victor Havin. His PhD was conducted at Caltech under advisor Nikolai G. Makarov; his thesis was entitled "Spectral Analysis of Julia Sets" and he received his doctorate in 1996. Smirnov has held research positions at Yale University, the Max Planck Institute for Mathematics in Bonn, and the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. In 1998 he moved to the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, and took up his current position as a professor in the Analysis, Mathematical Physics and Probability group at the University of Geneva in 2003. Research. Smirnov is known best for his work on critical percolation theory, in which he proved Cardy's formula for critical site percolation on the triangular lattice, and deduced conformal invariance. The conjecture was proved in the special case of site percolation on the triangular lattice. Smirnov's theorem has led to a fairly complete theory for percolation on the triangular lattice, and to its relationship to the Schramm–Loewner evolution introduced by Oded Schramm. He has obtained corresponding results of conformality for the random-cluster model and Ising model in two dimensions. Awards. Smirnov was jointly ranked first in the 1986 and 1987 International Mathematical Olympiads, with perfect scores and gold medals on both occasions. He has been awarded the Saint Petersburg Mathematical Society Prize (1997), the Clay Research Award (2001), the Salem Prize (joint with Oded Schramm, 2001), the Göran Gustafsson Research Prize (2001), the Rollo Davidson Prize (2002), and the Prize of the European Mathematical Society (2004). In 2010 Smirnov was awarded the Fields medal for his work on the mathematical foundations of statistical physics, particularly finite lattice models. His citation read "for the proof of conformal invariance of percolation and the planar Ising model in statistical physics". In his laudation, Harry Kesten said that Smirnov "has the talent and insight to produce surprising results, and his work has been a major stimulus for the explosion in the last 15 years or so of probabilistic results about random planar curves". After receiving the award, Smirnov expressed his wish to continue making important mathematical discoveries, saying "I look forward to proving more theorems. I hope the weight of this prize doesn't slow me down." In 2012 he became a fellow of the American Mathematical Society.
1060908	Marsha Mason (born April 3, 1942) is an American actress and television director. Mason received four Academy Award nominations as Best Actress for her performances in "Cinderella Liberty", "The Goodbye Girl", "Chapter Two", and "Only When I Laugh". She is also known for starring in the 1986 film "Heartbreak Ridge". Personal life. Mason was born in St. Louis, Missouri, to James Joseph Mason, a printer, and his wife Jacqueline. She and her younger sister, Linda (b. 1943), were raised Catholic and grew up in Crestwood. Mason is a graduate of Nerinx Hall High School and Webster University, both in Webster Groves. She raced a Mazda RX-7 in SCCA events. A resident of New Mexico, she had a farm in Abiquiu that grows certified organic herbs. In the late 1990s, Mason sold herbs wholesale to companies both locally and regionally before starting a line of wellness and bath and body products called "Resting in the River". Career. Marsha Mason has had a distinguished career in film and theater. Neil Simon cast her in his Broadway play "The Good Doctor" in 1973. Shortly afterwards, Mason and Simon, a widower, fell in love and got married. That same year, Mason co-starred opposite James Caan in the 20th Century Fox film "Cinderella Liberty", which netted her an Oscar nomination for Best Actress. In 1977, Mason's performance in Simon's smash hit film, "The Goodbye Girl", won her a second Best Actress Academy Award nomination. In 1979, Simon successfully cast Mason as Jennie MacLaine in the screen adaptation of his hit play "Chapter Two", which was based on Mason's relationship with Simon up to their marriage. The film proved to be another big hit, garnering her a third Oscar nomination for Best Actress. In 1981, Mason starred along with Kristy McNichol, James Coco, and Joan Hackett, in "Only When I Laugh", Simon's film adaptation of his Broadway comedy-drama "The Gingerbread Lady;" it was another box-office success. For her performance as Georgia Hines, Mason was highly praised and earned a fourth Best Actress Oscar nomination. Mason's "Max Dugan Returns" (1983), also written by Simon, was disappointing. Despite a stellar cast led by Mason, Donald Sutherland, Jason Robards and Matthew Broderick, Simon's script was a letdown and the film failed at the box office. By this time, Mason and Simon had divorced, and her film career lost momentum. She co-starred with Clint Eastwood in the 1986 film "Heartbreak Ridge", which was fairly well received and a commercial success. Mason played in a New York production of Harold Pinter's "Old Times." She next directed the play "Juno's Swans" (1986), by E. Katherine Kerr, at the Second Stage Theatre in Los Angeles. Her stage credits include Norman Mailer's "The Deer Park," Israel Horovitz's "The Indian Wants the Bronx", Neil Simon's "The Good Doctor" and "King Richard III" at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts. Mason starred on Broadway in a revival of "Night of the Iguana" in 1996, and the following year in Michael Cristofer's "Amazing Grace". Mason reunited with "Goodbye Girl" co-star Richard Dreyfuss and writer Neil Simon in Duncan Weldon and Emanuel Azenberg's production of "The Prisoner of Second Avenue" in 1999, which was performed at the L.A. Theatre Works shortly after a revival in London's West End. She earned a Grammy nomination in comedy. She appeared in Charles L. Mee’' "Wintertime" at the Second Stage theatre in New York. In August 2005 Mason starred as Hecuba at the Chicago Shakespeare Theater and on Broadway "Steel Magnolias", with Delta Burke, Frances Sternhagen, Rebecca Gayheart, Lily Rabe and Christine Ebersole. She appeared in "A Feminine Ending" at Playwrights Horizons, and in the Shakespeare Theater Company's performance of "All's Well That Ends Well" in Washington, D.C. Mason's recent television work includes guest roles on "Seinfeld", "Lipstick Jungle", and "Army Wives". Mason starred in her own series, "Sibs", which ran from 1991-92. In 1997 and 1998, she had a recurring role on the TV show "Frasier" as Sherry Dempsey. In February 2010, she co-starred in "California Suite" at the Skirball Cultural Center in Los Angeles. As of 2010 Mason plays Patricia Heaton's mother in ABC comedy series "The Middle". In April 2010, Mason co-starred with Keir Dullea and Matt Servitto in an Off-Broadway production of "I Never Sang for My Father". For her performance as Margaret Garrison, Mason received good reviews. Marsha Mason has a star on the St. Louis Walk of Fame.
122242	Thomas L. Saaty (Arabic: توماس ساعاتي) (born 1926, Mosul, Iraq) is Distinguished University Professor at the University of Pittsburgh, where he teaches in the Joseph M. Katz Graduate School of Business. He is the inventor, architect, and primary theoretician of the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP), a decision-making framework used for large-scale, multiparty, multi-criteria decision analysis, and of the Analytic Network Process, its generalization to decisions with dependence and feedback.
1065345	Mr. Destiny is a 1990 comedy film starring James Belushi. Other actors in this film included Linda Hamilton, Jon Lovitz, Michael Caine, Courteney Cox, and Rene Russo. Plot. The story begins on "the strangest day" of Larry Burrows (James Belushi) life consisting of a series of comic and dramatic misadventures. Larry, who blames all of his life's problems on the fact that he struck out during a key moment of a high school baseball game, wishes he had done things differently. His wish is granted by a guardian angel-like figure named Mike (Michael Caine), and appears at various times as a bartender, a cab driver, and so on. Larry soon discovers that Mike has transferred Larry into an alternate reality in which he had won the pivotal high school game. He now finds himself rich and (within his company) powerful, and married to the boss's (Bill McCutcheon) sexy daughter Cindy Jo Bumpers (Rene Russo). At first, his new life seems perfect, but he soon begins to miss his best friend Clip Metzger (Jon Lovitz) and wife Ellen (Linda Hamilton) from his previous life; he also discovers that his alternate self has created many enemies, like Jewel Jagger (Courteney Cox), and as Larry's problems multiply, he finds himself wishing to be put back into his old life. The story begins with Larry's car, an old Ford LTD station wagon, stalled out in a dark alley. Suddenly the pink lights of the "Universal Joint," a bar, come on. Larry goes inside to call a tow truck, and tells bartender Mike his troubles. He reviews the day he just had, which ended with his getting fired after discovering his boss' (Niles Pender's)scheme to sell the company under the nose of its owners to a group of naive Japanese investors. He tells Mike that he wishes he'd hit that last pitch out of the park, after which Mike fixes him a drink called "Spilled Milk." Larry leaves the bar, walks home and discovers someone else living in his house, which is now fixed up (previously his yard and driveway were muddy and unfinished). Mike appears as a cab driver and drives him to his "new" home, a mansion in Forest Hills, explaining that he did in fact hit the last pitch and won the game. He soon discovers that Cindy Jo is his wife and he's the president of his company, Liberty Republic Sporting Goods. Being a classic car buff, he's shocked to find that he owns a collection of priceless antique automobiles. He soon discovers that Clip has a low-level job in the accounting department, and Ellen is shop steward (in both realities). Jewel Jagger is now Larry's mistress. Ellen hates Larry and he discovers that the union is threatening a walkout due to massive layoffs and increased production, since Niles Pender is selling the company in both realities. Seeing Ellen, he realizes how much he misses her and agrees to all the union's demands, providing Ellen agrees to dinner at his favorite restaurant. She reluctantly agrees, and Larry eventually convinces her that they were married in a previous life. Pender, after discovering that Larry has agreed to union demands, takes revenge on Larry, by telling both Cindy Jo and Jewel, of Larry's dinner date with Ellen. He then plots to kill Larry at the office that night. However, Leo Hansen, Liberty Republic's owner, comes to Larry's office to leave him a note that he is fired for cheating on Cindy Jo, and Pender, thinking it's Larry, kills him. He then calls the police, who attempt to arrest Larry for Leo's murder. Larry escapes while jealous Jewel creates pandimonium outside in her attempts to shoot him (and shoots out a number of police cars in the process), a police chase ensues, and Larry is eventually cornered in a dark alley. As he's about to turn himself in, the pink glow of the "Universal Joint" comes on, and Larry runs into the empty bar, attempting to remake the "Spilled Milk" drink that Mike made before. The flashing lights of the police cars become those of a tow truck, Mike's back behind the bar, and Larry realizes he's back in his old life. He suddenly realizes that tonight the owners of Liberty Republic are to sign the deal with the Japanese investors, rushes to the company headquarters with Duncan in the tow truck, and exposes Pender's scheme just as Leo is about to sign the deal. Jackie Earl (Sanders), company president and Cindy Jo's husband, offers Pender's job to Larry, plus a company car, a new Mercedes. Larry accepts the offer and the film ends happily with Larry's 35th birthday party at his home, glad to be back with Ellen, and in his house, which still has the muddy driveway and lawn. Filming. Portions of the film were filmed in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, using the baseball team from Richard J. Reynolds High School. The office building is the former headquarters of the R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Company.
585020	Krishnarjuna () is a 2008 Telugu language film starring Vishnu Vardhan Babu and Mamta Mohandas in the lead roles. The film, directed by P. Vasu, features prominent actor Nagarjuna in a guest role. The film was released on 1 February 2008. Plot. A mentally unstable pregnant woman runs inside a temple and closes the door. She gives birth to a boy at the feet of Lord Krishna’s idol and breathes her last. The doors of the temple are closed, as people believe that the birth of such a woman's child in 'garbhagudi' is a bad omen.
582673	Kareeb (Hindi: क़रीब, translation: "close") is a 1998 Bollywood film directed by Vidhu Vinod Chopra. It stars Bobby Deol, Amit Phalke and Shabana Raza. Plot. Bobby Deol (Birju) is a young man from an upper-middle-class family in Himachal Pradesh. His father insists on him being responsible, while Birju is interested in petty thievery, lies, and romancing a beautiful young woman named Neha. Neha is a simple, beautiful, and responsible girl from a poor family. Birju sees Neha for the first time on a river bank during a 'Sandhya Aarti' with lots of 'diyas' lit around her. Birju falls in love with Neha from that very moment. Neha also starts liking birju but she hides her feelings. Birju tries everything to impress Neha but every effort and Neha accepts that she loves Birju and can't live without him. Birju's father is not interested in getting Birju married to a poor family but Birju lies that Nehas's uncle is rich and arranges their wedding. Birju steals money from his home and pretends that the money has been sent by Neha's uncle. However on the night of the wedding, Birju's father discovers the truth and calls off the wedding. Neha's mother, unable to withstand this emotional setback, suffers a heart attack and is transferred to a hospital in Shimla. When Birju meets Neha, but she is very sad for her mother and also very angry on birju for his habit of lying. Neha takes an oath from birju that he would never show his face again. Then neha takes her mother to a shimla hospital in an ambulance. Birju follows her and eventually does find Neha and the hospital where Neha's mother is hospitalized. Birju spends that night sleeping on the footsteps of a laundry shop owned by Bhigelal (Johnny Lever). Bhigelal is an interesting character as well. He has a dream of visiting England one day and the fellow has a collection of antique coins to sell it to some diwanji. He earns hard and with the money earned by coins and his hard work, he plans to visit England (which also was his father's dream). He hires birju and birju starts working as a laundry boy. This is birju's first job and he does that to stay near neha and to earn some money to support the treatment for neha's mother. One day birju meets uncle and aunty (Shammi Kapoor and Sushma Seth). They treat Birju as their own son and tells him to meet them whenever he needs help. Once when Birju makes inquiries about neha's mother, he is told by the receptionist that neha's mother needs an immediate operation and the operation for Neha's mother will be very expensive and will cost in lakhs of rupees. On the other hand, neha tries to contact birju for help but is not able to contact him. There comes doctor Abhay in the scene. He is very fond of neha and proposes her for marriage as if she marries Dr. Abhay then her mother's operation can be done for free as doctors have their free quota for their relatives. Here Birju goes to uncle and aunty and they suggests him to buy a lottery ticket and they will make him win by corrupting some government officials and asks birju to get them some amount to bribe the officials. Birju buys the ticket, works hard day and night and gathers the amount for bribing and gives it uncle and aunty but eventually comes to know that uncle and aunty were a fraud and they took money from many other people and ran away. finally helpless birju robs the money from bhigelal to pay for the surgery. He returns to the hospital with the money and gives it to the doctor and asks the doctor to keep that secret to Neha. On the other side, birju's family realizes birju's loves for neha and decides to support their son in simla. They reach simla and handle things with bhigelal who goes mad on seeing his robbed drawer with Birju's note consisting of a promise to return the money. Neha comes to know that birju helped her in the operation money required and wants to meet him. They both meet again on staircase of hospital and times stops again to see them completely in love with each other. Soundtrack. Anu Malik wrote the film's music and Rahat Indori penned the lyrics. The pair was sued by Syed Mohammed Hasan Imam who alleged that they had used his lyrics without permission in "Haan Judai Se Darta Hai Dil".
1061938	Matthew Raymond "Matt" Dillon (born February 18, 1964) is an American actor and film director. He began acting in the late 1970s, and gained fame as a teenage idol during the 1980s. He has appeared in films such as "Little Darlings" (1980), "My Bodyguard" (1980), "Tex" (1982), "Rumble Fish" (1983), "The Outsiders" (1983), "Drugstore Cowboy" (1989), "Singles" (1992), "Beautiful Girls" (1996), "There's Something About Mary" (1998), "Wild Things" (1998), "" (2005), "Crash" (2005),"You, Me and Dupree" (2006), and "Armored" (2009). In 2013, he will appear in the comedy film "The Art of the Steal" as an art thief alongside Kurt Russell. In 1990, he won the Independent Spirit Award for Best Male Lead for "Drugstore Cowboy" and in 2006 won the Independent Spirit Award for Best Supporting Male for "Crash" and the San Sebastián International Film Festival Donostia Lifetime Archievement Award. "Crash" won the Academy Award for Best Picture in 2005. In 2011 he received the special "Tomislav Pinter Award" at Avvantura Festival Zadar (Croatia) upon his presence at the filmfestival. Early life. Matthew Raymond Dillon was born in New Rochelle, New York, to second-generation Irish American parents Mary Ellen, a homemaker, and Paul Dillon, a portrait painter and sales manager for Union Camp, a packing material manufacturer. He was raised in a close-knit Roman Catholic family, as the second of six children. Dillon's paternal grandmother was the sister of comic strip artist Alex Raymond, the creator of "Flash Gordon". Dillon has one sister and four brothers, one of whom, Kevin Dillon, is also an actor and appeared on the hit TV series "Entourage", which earned him several Emmy nominations in the supporting actor comedy category. Dillon grew up in Mamaroneck, New York, and before dropping out in junior year, he attended Mamaroneck High School. Career. In 1978, Jane Bernstein and a friend were helping director Jonathan Kaplan cast the violent teen drama "Over the Edge" when they found Dillon cutting class at Hommocks Middle School in Larchmont. Dillon auditioned for a role and made his debut in the film. The film received a regional, limited theatrical release in May 1979, and grossed only slightly over $200,000. Dillon's performance was well-received, which led to his casting in two films released the following year; the teenage sex comedy "Little Darlings", in which Kristy McNichol's character loses her virginity to a boy from the camp across the lake, played by Dillon, and the more serious teen dramedy "My Bodyguard", where he played a high-school bully opposite Chris Makepeace. The films, released in March and July 1980, respectively, were box office successes and raised Dillon's profile among teenage audiences. Another of Dillon's early roles was in the Jean Shepherd PBS special "The Great American Fourth of July and Other Disasters". The only available copies of this film are stored at UCLA, where a legal dispute makes it unavailable to the public. One of his next roles was in "Liar's Moon", where he played Jack Duncan, a poor Texas boy madly in love with a rich banker's daughter. In the early 1980s, Dillon also had prominent roles in three adaptations of S. E. Hinton novels: "Tex" (1982), "The Outsiders" (1983) and "Rumble Fish" (1983). All three films were shot in Tulsa, Oklahoma, Hinton's hometown. "The Outsiders" and "Rumble Fish" had Dillon working with Francis Ford Coppola and Diane Lane. He followed those up with "The Flamingo Kid" in 1984. He made his Broadway debut with the play "The Boys of Winter" in 1985. Dillon did voiceover work in the 1987 documentary film "Dear America: Letters Home from Vietnam". In 1989, Dillon won critical acclaim for his performance as a drug addict in Gus Van Sant's "Drugstore Cowboy". Also in 1987 Dillon appeared as a policeman in the video to The Pogues and Kirsty MacColl video Fairytale of New York. Dillon continued to work in the early 1990s with roles in movies like "Singles" (1992). He had somewhat of a career resurgence when he played Nicole Kidman's husband in "To Die For" (1995), as well as starring roles in "Wild Things" (1998) and "There's Something About Mary" (1998), for which he received an MTV Movie Award for Best Villain. In 2002, he wrote and directed the film "City of Ghosts", starring himself, James Caan and Gérard Depardieu. In 2005, he starred in "Factotum", a film adaptation of an autobiographical work by Charles Bukowski. Two years later he received critical praise and earned a Best Supporting Actor Golden Globe along with Oscar nominations for his role in "Crash", a film co-written and directed by Paul Haggis. In 2005 Dillon co-starred in Disney's "" and on March 11, 2006 hosted "Saturday Night Live", in which he impersonated Greg Anderson and Rod Serling in sketches. Dillon starred in the comedy "You, Me and Dupree", opposite Kate Hudson and Owen Wilson. The film opened on July 14, 2006. On September 29, 2006, Dillon was honored with the Premio Donostia prize in the San Sebastián International Film Festival. Dillon contributed his voice as the narrator, Sal Paradise, in an audiobook version of Jack Kerouac's novel "On the Road". In 2006, he narrated "". Dillon appeared in several music videos during his career. He made a cameo appearance as a detective in Madonna's "Bad Girl" music video which also stars Christopher Walken. Dillon appeared in 1987 in the music video for "Fairytale of New York" by the Irish folk-punk band The Pogues playing a cop who escorts lead singer Shane MacGowan into the "drunk tank". In 2007, the band Dinosaur Jr. hired Dillon to direct the video for their single "Been There All The Time" from the album "Beyond". That year, he starred in "The Simpsons" episode "Midnight Towboy". Personal life. Dillon had a three-year relationship with actress Cameron Diaz in the late 1990s.
629274	Puberty Blues is a 1981 Australian film directed by Bruce Beresford. The film is based on the 1979 novel "Puberty Blues", by Gabrielle Carey and Kathy Lette, which is a protofeminist teen novel about two 13-year-old girls from the lower middle class Sutherland Shire in Sydney, Australia. The girls attempt to create a popular social status by integrating themselves with the "Greenhill gang" of surfers. Changes from book to film. For censorship reasons, in the film their age was increased to 16. Much of the content of the novel appears in the film, with several passages of text recounted by the film's protagonist Debbie (Nell Schofield) in a voice-over narration. The film closely follows the story and character trajectory of the novel. Some of the novel's characters are composites in the film. The tone of the novel is generally darker than that of the film, and in the novel Debbie and her best friend Sue, who join the surfer gang, are shown to be much more willing participants in activities than they are in the film. Some of the darker moments of the book have been removed or softened for the film. The film adds a comedy beach brawl between the surfers and the lifeguards not present in the novel. Lette complained that "the film sanitised the plot by omitting central references to miscarriage and abortion. The movie depicts a culture in which gang rape is incidental, mindless violence is amusing and hard drug use is fatal, but it was unable to address the consequences of the brutal sexual economy in which the girls must exist." Much of the obscure surfer slang of the novel was omitted from the film. The novel features some discussion about television series "Number 96". One passage of the novel that mentions the title is recounted by the film's protagonist in a voice-over narration, but because the series had ended by the time of the 1981 film the series title is replaced by the generic term "television". Production. Television writer Margaret Kelly was working at a writing workshop at a suburban theatre were she met Kathy Lette and Gabrielle Carey, who had written a number of unpublished stories about growing up in the surfing beaches of southern Sydney. Kelly showed the stories to producer and writer Joan Long, and optioned the film rights. Carey and Lette went on to write a column in the "Sun Herald" as The Salami Sisters and the stories were published under the title "Puberty Blues". Long first approached Gillian Armstrong to direct but she turned it down. Then Bruce Beresford read the book and wrote asking to direct: I bought it novel while I was waiting for a bus in North Sydney. I went to get a chocolate or something and I saw a pile of these things sitting on the counter. I thought I'd buy one and read it on the bus going home. It was remarkable, a very well-expressed book. And the girls were only fifteen. It was a sort of insight into the way of life of those kids, which was a revelation to me... Kathy Lette was a real livewire and so was the other girl, Gabrielle Carey. The lead roles were cast after an extensive selection process. Lead actor in the film, Nell Schofield, said that "It's a very honest and realistic movie. It touches on this and it touches on that. I really like it. It's subtle and doesn't preach: 'This is the way of life.'" Schofield felt that "Different sections of the audience will perceive different levels. The parents who go and see it will come out and either believe it or it will give them a bit of a jolt. They'll start looking at their kids a different way and try to bridge the generation gap." She added that "The film is feminist in a way. I think it is also a comment on peer group pressure, male chauvinism in teenage groups, school and parent hassles." Schofield found the surfing scenes easy because she was an avid surfer in real life. "Like Debbie, I wanted to be a surfie chick. But once I was, I wanted out before it got too heavy. I hated the alcohol and the drug scene. I saw so many kids fall down on the ground after taking drugs." Of making the film Schofield said "We didn't expect any glitter, and we didn't get any. It was hard work." The movie was made with the assistance of the Australian Film Commission, who provided $413,708. Soundtrack. The theme song "Puberty Blues" was written by Tim Finn. In the film it was sung by Sharon O'Neill. It was released by Jenny Morris as a single on Mushroom Records in December 1981. Box Office. "Puberty Blues" grossed $3,918,000 at the box office in Australia. Home Media. "Puberty Blues" was released on DVD with a new print by Umbrella Entertainment in 2003. The DVD is compatible with all region codes and includes special features such as the trailer, interviews with Nell Schofield and Bruce Beresford, trivia and biographies.
583866	Poonam Bajwa (born 5 April 1989) is an Indian actress, who predominantly appears in Tamil and Telugu language films. A Punjabi by birth, she made her acting debut in the 2005 Telugu film "Modati Cinema", following which she appeared in several noted Telugu films, including "Boss" opposite superstar Nagarjuna and Bhaskar's "Parugu". She debuted in Tamil in 2008 with the Hari-directed masala film "Seval" and subsequently starred in "Thenavattu", "Kacheri Arambam", both co-starring Jeeva, and "Drohi". Most of her films are successful. She usually plays the role of a second heroine in most of her films.
1104186	Ronald (Ron) Lewis Graham (born October 31, 1935) is a mathematician credited by the American Mathematical Society as being "one of the principal architects of the rapid development worldwide of discrete mathematics in recent years". He has done important work in scheduling theory, computational geometry, Ramsey theory, and quasi-randomness. He is currently the Chief Scientist at the California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology (also known as Cal-(IT)2) and the Irwin and Joan Jacobs Professor in Computer Science and Engineering at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD). Biography. Graham was born in Taft, California. In 1962, he received his Ph.D. in mathematics from the University of California, Berkeley. His 1977 paper considered a problem in Ramsey theory, and gave a "large number" as an upper bound for its solution. This number has since become well known as the largest number ever used in a mathematical proof (is listed as such in the "Guinness Book of Records"), and is now known as Graham's number. Graham popularized the concept of the Erdős number, named after the highly prolific Hungarian mathematician Paul Erdős (1913–1996). A scientist's Erdős number is the minimum number of coauthored publications away from a publication with Erdős. Graham's Erdős number is 1. He co-authored almost 30 papers with Erdős, and was also a good friend. Erdős often stayed with Graham, and allowed him to look after his mathematical papers and even his income. Graham and Erdős visited the young mathematician Jon Folkman when he was hospitalized with brain cancer. Between 1993 and 1994 Graham served as the president of the American Mathematical Society. Graham was also featured in "Ripley's Believe It or Not" for being not only "one of the world's foremost mathematicians", but also "a highly skilled trampolinist and juggler", and past president of the International Jugglers' Association. He has published about 320 papers and five books, including "Concrete Mathematics" with Donald Knuth. He is married to Fan Chung Graham (known professionally as Fan Chung), who is the Akamai Professor in Internet Mathematics at the University of California, San Diego. He has four children; daughters Ché, Laura and Christy, and a son Marc from an earlier marriage. Awards and honors. In 2003, Graham won the American Mathematical Society's annual Steele Prize for Lifetime Achievement. The prize was awarded on January 16 that year, at the Joint Mathematics Meetings in Baltimore, Maryland. In 1999 he was inducted as a Fellow of the Association for Computing Machinery. Graham, prolific mathematician and industrious human being, has won many other prizes over the years; he was one of the laureates of the prestigious Pólya Prize the first year it was ever awarded, and among the first to win the Euler Medal. The Mathematical Association of America has also awarded him both the Lester R. Ford prize which was "...established in 1964 to recognize authors of articles of expository excellence published in "The American Mathematical Monthly"...", and the Carl Allendoerfer prize which was established in 1976 for the same reasons, however for a different magazine, the "Mathematics Magazine". In 2012 he became a fellow of the American Mathematical Society.
1057376	"Artie Lange's Beer League" is a 2006 film written, produced, and starring Artie Lange. It was released in select theaters on September 15, 2006 in the New Jersey, New York, Cleveland, and Philadelphia areas. The DVD was released on January 2, 2007.
1132642	Bentley Mitchum (born in 1967) is an American actor who has appeared in about 40 films and TV series, including Sundance grand jury prize winner "Ruby in Paradise", "Man in the Moon", "The Wonder Years", "Conviction", "Susie Q", "Meatballs 4", "Demonic Toys" and "Shark Attack". He is the writer and director of the film "Blood Moon".
582524	Khoya Khoya Chand, (translation: Lost Moon) is a Bollywood film directed by Sudhir Mishra which released on 7 December 2007. The film stars Shiney Ahuja and Soha Ali Khan in the lead roles with Rajat Kapoor, Sushmita Mukherjee, Sonya Jehan and Vinay Pathak in important roles. The film captures the lifestyle of celebrities with aplomb with the 1950s film industry as its backdrop. Music. The soundtrack of the film was released on 8 November 2007.Composed by Shantanu Moitra, lyrics by Swanand Kirkire.
1075380	Nil Gavani Sellathey is a 2010 Indian Tamil-language thriller film written, directed and produced by Anand Chakravarthy, which stars Anand himself alongside Jagan, Lakshmi Nair, Dhansika, Adithyaa Dev and Ramsyy in the lead roles. The film, which is inspired from "The Texas Chain Saw Massacre", released on 17 December 2010 with favorable reviews from the critics. It failed to succeed at the box office and was re-released on 25 March 2011. Plot. Sam (Anand Chakaravarthy), Jo (Dhaniska), Arun (Ramssy), Priya (Lakshmi Nair) and Milo (Jagan) head to a small village on a pleasure trip. And they reach the place despite a warning that it is not to going to be a nice trip. As night arrives, what arrives along with it is a series of mysterious experiences. The friends are attacked one after other by an unidentified villain. In the meantime, a police officer too arrives at the village to unravel the mystery. What is the reason behind the attacks? Will they survive? All these things are made clear in the climax, which has so much twists and turns, with some being clichéd and some quite interesting Critical reception. Rohit Ramachandran of nowrunning.com gave it 4/5 stars stating that "Nil Gavani Sellathey, inspired from "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre", is a hell of a remake. It is the most significant film that's come out this year." He went on to call it the third best movie of the year Soundtrack. "Nil Gavani Sellathey"s soundtrack is composed by Selvaganesh.
1324883	Matthew Nable (born 8 March 1972) is an Australian film and television actor, writer and former professional rugby league footballer. After playing in the Winfield Cup Premiership during the 1990s for the Manly-Warringah and South Sydney clubs, he wrote and starred in the rugby league-centred drama "The Final Winter" in 2007. Nable went on to act in films and television series. Biography. Nable grew up on the Northern Beaches of Sydney and also, as a young boy, spent two years at Portsea, Victoria when his father, a soldier, was stationed there. His father had also worked as a trainer for the Australian national rugby league team and his brother, Adam Nable, would become a professional player as well. Sporting. Matt Nable rose through the junior ranks at the Manly-Warringah club and made five appearances for the Graham Lowe coached team over 1991 and 1992. Following this he wouldn't appear in the premiership until 1995 when he played three games for the South Sydney Rabbitohs. After another season in England where he played for Carlisle before moving to the London Broncos, Nable quit football aged 23 and then tried his hand at boxing, fighting for the state light-heavyweight title as an amateur. He then worked as a beer salesman and personal trainer, but eventually decided to leave paid employment to become a writer. Writing and Acting. After encouragement from his mentor, Booker Prize-winning novelist Thomas Kenneally, Nable wrote a screenplay for "The Final Winter" based on his unpublished novel of the same name. With friends he also managed to raise $1.6m and they worked together to make the film which was released in 2007, and earned critical praise but was a box office failure. Nable went on to act in the United States as a Los Angeles detective in the 2008 television movie "S.I.S.". In 2009, his book "We Don't Live Here Anymore" was published, in 2011 he published his second book "Faces in the Clouds". Nable later collaborated with Matthew Johns in television as well. He worked as a writer on Channel 7's new rugby league comedy programme, "The Matty Johns Show". Nable appeared in the main cast of critically acclaimed and award-winning SBS drama series, "East West 101", and in the 2011 action film "Killer Elite" alongside Clive Owen, Robert De Niro, Yvonne Strahovski, Jason Statham, and Dominic Purcell. Nable starred in the 2012 Australian drama series, '. The same year he was announced as a cast member of another Australian TV series, '. He also had a role in the film 33 Postcards. Has a role in the new "Riddick" film set to be released on September 2013 for the USA
1039480	Anna Maxwell Martin (born 1977), sometimes credited as Anna Maxwell-Martin, is a twice BAFTA award-winning English actress who has won acclaim for her performances as Lyra in "His Dark Materials" at the Royal National Theatre, as Esther Summerson in the BBC's 2005 adaptation of "Bleak House", and as N in Channel 4's 2008 adaptation of "Poppy Shakespeare. Biography. Personal life. Anna Charlotte Martin was born in Beverley, near Hull, East Riding of Yorkshire, England on 10 May 1977 and attended Beverley High School where she appeared in school plays. She added the name Maxwell (her grandfather's name) to her surname to distinguish her from another member with the same name when she joined Equity. Her father was the managing director of a pharmaceutical company and her mother was a research scientist. Her mother gave up her job to bring up Anna and her elder brother Adam. After she left school Martin studied history at Liverpool University, specialising in the First World War. She joined the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art (LAMDA) after completing her studies at Liverpool. In her final year at LAMDA her father was diagnosed with cancer, although he lived long enough to see her stage performance as Alexandra in "The Little Foxes" at the Donmar Warehouse (he died when she was 24). Martin is married to director Roger Michell; she gave birth to their first child, Maggie, in April 2009. Career. Martin first came to prominence on the London stage playing the leading role of Lyra in the National Theatre's production of Philip Pullman's "His Dark Materials". She was then cast in the part of Bessie Higgins in the BBC television adaptation of the Elizabeth Gaskell novel, "North and South", in 2004, and made a guest appearance in the 2005 series of "Doctor Who". She played Esther Summerson, the central character in the 2005 BBC adaptation of Charles Dickens' "Bleak House", for which she won the Best Actress BAFTA Television Award in 2006. In January 2006 she took part in a reading of "The Entertainer" at the Royal Court Theatre, and in February and March she appeared in Laura Wade's "Other Hands", directed by Bijan Sheibani at the Soho Theatre. She is the narrator of the CD version of "The Foreshadowing", a children's book about the First World War by Marcus Sedgwick, which was published in May 2006. In the same year she worked on "I Really Hate My Job," directed by Oliver Parker and, from October 2006 to April 2007, played Sally Bowles in Bill Kenwright and Rufus Norris's West End production of "Cabaret" at the Lyric Theatre. She played Cassandra Austen in "Becoming Jane", a 2007 film about the early life of the novelist "Jane Austen" starring American actress Anne Hathaway in the title role. At the end of the year she played the gaoler's daughter in Lee Hall's adaptation of "The Wind in the Willows", a multi-million pound production by Box TV for BBC One, and was the joint narrator (with Anton Lesser) of the CD version of "Tamar", a children's book about the Second World War by Mal Peet, which was published in December 2007. In 2008 she starred in the BBC Two drama "White Girl" and with Naomie Harris in Channel 4's adaptation of "Poppy Shakespeare", for which she won her second Best Actress BAFTA Television Award in 2009. From July to October of that year, she appeared with Dame Eileen Atkins in "The Female of the Species" at the Vaudeville Theatre in London. She also appeared in a BBC Radio 4 adaptation of Agatha Christie's novel "Crooked House". In July 2009 she appeared in the BBC Two drama, "Freefall", and played Neil Armstrong's wife, Janet, in "Moonshot: The Flight of Apollo 11", an ITV1 drama documentary to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing. In February 2010 she played freedom of information campaigner Heather Brooke in "On Expenses", a BBC Four satirical drama and also played Isabella in Shakespeare's "Measure For Measure" at the Almeida Theatre. In February 2011, she played Sarah Burton in a three-part BBC adaptation of Winifred Holtby's novel, "South Riding". Also on 12 July 2011, she played Kay Langrish in a BBC Two dramatisation of "The Night Watch". From September 2012, she starred in the drama mini-series "The Bletchley Circle". On 4 September 2012, she appeared in Jimmy McGovern's "Accused", as prison officer Tina.
1165973	Stuart Margolin (born January 31, 1940) is an American film and television actor and director. Television. Margolin is best known for his role on the television show "The Rockford Files", playing Evelyn "Angel" Martin, the shifty friend and former cellmate of Jim Rockford (James Garner). Margolin won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor – Drama Series in this role, in 1979 and 1980; he is one of only five actors to win this award twice for the same role. Margolin played Rabbi David Small in the 1976 movie, "Lanigan's Rabbi", based on the series of mystery novels written by Harry Kemelman. Scheduling conflicts prevented him from continuing the role in the short-lived TV series of the same name that aired in 1977 as part of the "NBC Sunday Mystery Movie," where Small was played by Bruce Solomon. Margolin was earlier paired with James Garner in a 1971-72 TV Western series entitled "Nichols", where he played a character somewhat similar to the Angel character he played in "The Rockford Files". That show only lasted for one season. Margolin appeared in two episodes of the television series "M*A*S*H" ("Bananas, Crackers and Nuts", "Operation Noselift"),"The Partridge Family" ("A Penny for His Thoughts), "The Mary Tyler Moore Show", "Rhoda", an episode of "Land of the Giants" ("The Mechanical Man"), "Twelve O'Clock High" ("Mutiny at Ten Thousand Feet"), "The Monkees" ("Monkees Watch Their Feet"), "Love, American Style", "The Fall Guy" and "Magnum, P.I." His brother Arnold Margolin was the executive producer of the "Love, American Style" series. In May 2009, Margolin appeared on an episode of "30 Rock", opposite Alan Alda; it was the first time the two actors appeared together since "M*A*S*H" in 1974. Margolin appears in the 2009 CTV/CBS police drama series "The Bridge". Film. Margolin appeared in films such as "Kelly's Heroes", "Death Wish", "Futureworld" and "The Big Bus". He also played Sheriff in a black and white episode of "Gunsmoke". Directing. Margolin has been directing TV shows since the early 1970s, including episodes of "The Mary Tyler Moore Show", "Magnum, P.I.", "Bret Maverick", "Quantum Leap", and "Northern Exposure". He has appeared in a number of Canadian television series including some produced by Doug McLeod. He won the 1996 DGA Award for children's programming for directing the film "Salt Water Moose", and he was nominated again for the same award for directing the 1998 film "The Sweetest Gift". Margolin was also nominated for a DGA Award for drama series direction for a 1991 episode of "Northern Exposure" entitled "". He also directed, co-starred and scored "The Glitter Dome" (1984) with James Garner, Margot Kidder and John Lithgow for HBO Pictures. Other. Margolin has authored several songs for and with long time friend and singer-songwriter Jerry Riopelle that have appeared on Riopelle's albums since 1967. He was in the bands The Parade and Shango, and co-wrote Shango's 1969 novelty record "Day After Day (It's Slippin' Away)". He also released an album in 1980 entitled "And the Angel Sings". Since 2004, he has been a regular participant in the theatre program of the Chautauqua Institution. Margolin is sometimes erroneously identified as the brother of actress Janet Margolin, who played his wife in the "Lanigan's Rabbi" telefilm.
1034492	Dennis Waterman (born 24 February 1948) is an English actor and singer, best known for his tough-guy roles in television series including "The Sweeney", "Minder" and "New Tricks". His acting career spans over 50 years, starting with childhood roles in film and theatre, and including adult roles in film, television, and West End theatre. He is notable for the range of roles he has played, including for example horror ("Scars of Dracula"), adventure ("Colditz"), comedy ("Fair Exchange"), comedy-drama ("Minder"), musical ("Windy City") and sports ("The World Cup: A Captain's Tale"), as well as police TV series like "The Sweeney". He has appeared in over 25 films. He has been married four times. Early life. Waterman was born the youngest of nine children to Rose Juliana (née Saunders) and Harry Frank Waterman in Clapham, London. The family, which included siblings Ken, Peter, Stella, Norma and Myrna, lived at 2 Elms Road, Clapham Common South Side. Harry Waterman was a ticket collector for British Rail. Two older sisters, Joy and Vera had already left home by the time Dennis was born, and another brother, Allen had died as a young child. Boxing was a big part of Waterman's childhood. His father had been an amateur boxer and made all of his sons box. His older brother Ken first took Dennis boxing when he was three years old, and when he was ten Dennis joined Caius Boxing Club. Another older brother Peter was a welterweight boxing champion. Education. Waterman was educated at Granard Primary School, a state primary school on the Ashburton Estate in Roehampton, South London, followed by Corona Stage School, an independent school at Ravenscourt Park in Hammersmith in West London). Life and career. 1960s. Waterman's acting career began in childhood. His first role was in "Night Train for Inverness" (1960). In 1961, at the age of 13, he played the part of Winthrop Paroo in the Adelphi Theatre production of "The Music Man". A year later, he starred as William Brown in the BBC TV series "William" based on the "Just William" books of Richmal Crompton. Waterman played the role of Oliver Twist in the production of the Lionel Bart musical "Oliver!" staged at the Mermaid Theatre, London, in the early 1960s, and appears on the cast recording released in 1961. Waterman was a series regular in the 1962 CBS comedy "Fair Exchange", playing teenage son Neville Finch. Waterman was in the original cast of "Saved", the play written by Edward Bond, and first produced at the Royal Court Theatre in November 1965. He had a major role in the 1968 film "Up The Junction". 1970s. In the early 1970s, Waterman appeared in the BBC television series "Colditz" as a young Gestapo officer. He played the brother of a victim of Count Dracula (Christopher Lee) in the Hammer film "Scars of Dracula" (1970), and the boyfriend of Susan George in "Fright" (1971). He was a member of the company of actors who featured in "The Sextet" (1972), a BBC 2 series which included the Dennis Potter drama "Follow the Yellow Brick Road", and Waterman later appeared in the same dramatist's "Joe's Ark" ("Play for Today", 1974). Both plays were directed by Alan Bridges. He became well known and something of a pin-up as DS George Carter in "The Sweeney", during the 1970s. As well as starring in "Minder", he sang the theme song, "I Could Be So Good For You", which was a top three UK hit in 1980 and a top 10 hit in Australia, and was written by his then-wife Patricia Waterman with Gerard Kenny. Waterman recorded a song with George Cole "What Are We Gonna Get For 'Er Indoors?". In 1976, Waterman released his first album titled "Downwind of Angels", arranged and produced by Brian Bennett. A single "I Will Glide" was released from the album but did not enter the top 40. The backing singers on "I Will Glide" are the Belmont School choir, where Brian Bennett's son, Warren, was a pupil. 1980s. Waterman starred in a television film made by Tyne Tees Television entitled "" (1981). It was the true story of West Auckland F.C., a part-time side who won the Sir Thomas Lipton Trophy, sometimes described as the 'first World Cup'. Waterman played the part of Bob Jones, the club captain. It cost £1.5 million to make of which most was funded by Waterman. Shooting took place in the North East and in Turin in Italy. Scenes were shot in County Durham pit villages and in Ashington, Northumberland where goal posts and a grandstand were erected in a public park with a colliery headframe in the background. Local players took part, donning long pants and high-sided boots of the day, and even suffering "short back and sides" haircuts. The production has several comedy sequences, including a meeting of the club committee and a meeting of the Football Association Council when the suggestion of an English team participating in the new competition received a luke-warm and cynical response from the members. Also on the agenda is the F.A. Cup draw which is done in the conventional manner and immediately dispatched direct from the council chamber to the clubs – "by carrier pigeons", let out of the windows. In 1982, Waterman starred in the musical "Windy City". A relatively short lived production, the cast included Anton Rodgers, Diane Langton, Victor Spinetti and Amanda Redman, with whom Waterman had an 18 month affair during the lifetime of the musical and later went on to star with in the TV series "New Tricks". The show closed on 26 February 1983 after 250 performances. He took the lead male role in the BAFTA Award winning BBC adaptation of Fay Weldon's "The Life and Loves of a She-Devil" (1986). In an Australian television film, "The First Kangaroos" (1988) Waterman's villainous depiction of Albert Goldthorpe drew formal complaints from his granddaughter. 1990s. Waterman sang the theme tunes to three more programmes in which he appeared: the comedy drama "Stay Lucky" with Jan Francis (Yorkshire Television/ITV 1989), sitcom "On the Up" (BBC 1990) and crime drama "New Tricks" (Wall to Wall television for BBC, 2003). 2000s. He has starred in every series of "New Tricks", from 2003 to the present. He recited excerpts from the journal of Walter H. Thompson for the UK history series "Churchill's Bodyguard". He appeared on stage in "Jeffrey Bernard is Unwell" by Keith Waterhouse and as Alfred P. Doolittle in the 2001 London revival of "My Fair Lady". He narrated the reality-format television programme, "Bad Lads' Army" and appeared in the 2009 BBC2 miniseries "Moses Jones". Personal life. He has been married four times, to Penny Dixon (1967–1976); actresses Patricia Maynard (1977–1987) and Rula Lenska (1987–1998) and Pam Flint (2011-present). His marriage to Lenska ended because of his violent behaviour towards her. In March 2012 he caused controversy with some comments on this issue, "It’s not difficult for a woman to make a man hit her. She certainly wasn’t a beaten wife, she was hit and that’s different." Lenska said that she was relieved that he had now admitted beating her. The interview was broadcast in full on "Piers Morgan's Life Stories" on ITV in May 2012. He had two daughters with Maynard, one of whom, Hannah Waterman, is an actress. Hannah played Laura Beale in the BBC1 soap opera "EastEnders" and has appeared in the "New Tricks" TV series alongside Waterman as his character's daughter. Waterman is a fan of Chelsea F.C.. His love of football was reflected in his being chosen to present "Match of the Seventies" from 1995 to 1996, a nostalgic BBC show celebrating the best football action from the 1970s. "Little Britain" caricature. He has been caricatured by David Walliams in the radio and TV comedy series "Little Britain", in sketches where he visits his agent (played by Matt Lucas) looking for parts. Most of the jokes in these sketches are about Waterman being extremely small making common objects massive in comparison to him. The caricature is offered but always declines respectable parts because he is not allowed to star in, or "write the theme tune, sing the theme tune" (pronounced as "write da feem toon, sing da feem toon") of, the particular production. This joke is because Waterman sang and is believed to have written many of the themes for at least four programmes he has starred in. Waterman has sung the title tunes for "Minder", "New Tricks", "On the Up" and "Stay Lucky". In November 2006, Waterman made a guest appearance in a "Little Britain" stage show, alongside the comedy character version of himself.
1165657	Simon Oakland (August 28, 1915 – August 29, 1983) was an American actor of stage, screen, and television. Early life and career. Oakland was born in the Brooklyn borough of New York City. He began his performing arts career as a musician (he was a violinist, an avocation he would pursue during his entire career as an actor). He began his acting career in the late 1940s. He enjoyed a series of Broadway hits, including "Light Up the Sky", "The Shrike" and "Inherit the Wind", and theater was one of his lasting passions. He was a concert violinist until the 1940s. Moving to films and television. Oakland made his film debut as the "tough, but compassionate" journalist who speaks up for Susan Hayward's Barbara Graham in "I Want to Live!" in 1958. Oakland would wind up playing this type often over the course of his career. He went on to play a long series of tough guy types, usually in positions of authority, most notably in "Psycho", in which he plays the psychiatrist who explains Norman Bates's multiple personality disorder. He also appeared in "West Side Story", "Bullitt", and the science fiction television series "". He made two guest appearances on CBS's "Perry Mason", both times as the murder victim. He also appeared in the syndicated crime drama, "Decoy", starring Beverly Garland. Oakland appeared once each on the CBS western, "Dundee and the Culhane" and in another syndicated crime drama series, "Sheriff of Cochise", starring John Bromfield. Oakland played General Thomas Moore on NBC's "Baa Baa Black Sheep", starring Robert Conrad. Death. Simon Oakland died of cancer, one day after his 68th birthday (29 August 1983), in Cathedral City, California.
1056476	The Princess of Montpensier () is a 2010 French period romance film directed by Bertrand Tavernier, inspired by a short story anonymously published by Madame de La Fayette. It stars Mélanie Thierry in the title role, alongside Gaspard Ulliel, Grégoire Leprince-Ringuet, Lambert Wilson and Raphaël Personnaz. The story takes place in the French aristocracy during the Wars of Religion, and focuses on a young woman who is forced into marriage while passionately in love with another man. The film competed at the 63rd Cannes Film Festival and was released in French cinemas on 3 November 2010. Production. Unusual for a Bertrand Tavernier project, the director was not attached from the very start. When he became involved, there was already a first version of a screenplay ready, written by François-Olivier Rousseau. However, with his usual co-writer Jean Cosmos, Tavernier went back to the original source in order to adapt the script to his own vision. The screenplay was not an entirely faithful adaptation of the original short story, published anonymously in 1662. "Mme de La Fayette, who was from the 17th century, wrote about the 16th. Knowing that the 17th century had become very puritanical, while the 16th was not, we removed some filters, but never bent the feelings portrayed", Tavernier explained in "Le Figaro". The film was produced by Paradis Films. It received co-production support from StudioCanal, the television channels France 2 and France 3 and the German company Pandora. Additional funding was provided by the National Center of Cinematography and the Deutsch-Französische Förderkommission. The budget was 13.35 million euro. Costumes were made in Italy and England. An inspiration for the costume design was the 1994 film "La Reine Margot", which is set during the same period. What Tavernier liked about the film was how casual the costumes were, and not at all based on the ceremonial clothing seen in paintings from 16th century. Horses were brought to the set from Paris. Lambert Wilson and Raphaël Personnaz were the only actors with previous riding experience, and all main actors prepared for their roles by taking riding lessons. Filming started 28 September 2009 and lasted nine weeks, in the city Angers and the regions Centre and Cantal. Filming locations included the Château de Blois and Château de Messilhac, with more than 100 people working permanently on the sets. For the riding scenes, a steadicam was placed on a motorcycle or a small car in order to provide freedom of movement for the riders. Tavernier drew inspiration from old Western films, where important conversations often take place on horseback. The lighting was inspired by film noir, as the director primarily aimed to create an atmosphere of emotional tension, "not imitate paintings or pictorial reconstruction". The film was shot in Panavision and contains no artificial special effects or computer-generated imagery. Release. The film premiered on 16 May as part of the main competition of the 2010 Cannes Film Festival. StudioCanal released it in 384 French cinemas on 3 November the same year. Distribution rights for the United States were bought in Cannes by IFC Films, which releases it on 1 April 2011. The release in the United Kingdom is set to July 8, 2011, The film was released in the United States on April 14, 2011.
1057822	Shortbus is a 2006 American film written and directed by John Cameron Mitchell. The plot revolves around a sexually diverse ensemble of colorful characters trying desperately to connect in New York City. The characters converge in a weekly Brooklyn artistic/sexual salon loosely inspired by various underground NYC gatherings that took place in the early 2000s. According to Mitchell, the film attempts to "employ sex in new cinematic ways because it's too interesting to leave to porn." "Shortbus" includes a variety of explicit scenes containing non-simulated sexual intercourse with visible penetration and male ejaculation. Plot. Set in contemporary New York City, "Shortbus" revolves around Sofia Lin (Sook-Yin Lee), who is married to the handsome but unambitious Rob (Raphael Barker). She works as a couples counselor/sex therapist. She comes into contact with a couple: former child star Jamie (PJ DeBoy) and former prostitute James (Paul Dawson), the film's other lead character. At the outset, James suggests to his boyfriend that they open up their relationship to sex with others. During their first consultation, Sofia snaps, slaps Jamie, and then apologetically reveals her "pre-orgasmic" status. The couple suggests she attend a weekly social/artistic/sexual salon in Brooklyn called "Shortbus," which is hosted by drag performance artist Justin Bond (playing himself). Sofia slowly opens up to new experiences; this includes a friendship with a dominatrix who goes by the name Severin (Lindsay Beamish). Sofia's inability to achieve orgasm begins to cause conflict with Rob, who in turn begins attending Shortbus with Sofia. James and Jamie meet a young ex-model and aspiring singer named Ceth (pronounced "Seth," and portrayed by Jay Brannan) and the three begin a sexual relationship. Meanwhile, James and Jamie's life is being closely watched by their across-the-street stalker neighbor, Caleb (Peter Stickles). Caleb fears the inclusion of Ceth in James and Jamie's relationship might break them up and thus destroy his ability to live vicariously through them, so he attends Shortbus, where he confronts Ceth. Sofia begins to go daily to a spa with a sensory deprivation tank to meet with Severin, and the two begin to have intense conversations. Severin begins to help Sofia loosen up sexually; Sofia helps Severin achieve a deeper human connection than she had experienced before. One evening at Shortbus, Severin discusses with Sofia the idea of giving up sex work to pursue her dream of being an artist. The two then have an unplanned sexual experience, and once again Sofia is left unsatisfied. Throughout the film, James is seen making a film about himself and his relationship. It turns out to be a suicide note. He attempts to take his own life and is rescued by Caleb, who calls for help, but is too embarrassed to wait with James for the help to arrive. He writes his phone number and email address on James' face while he is unconscious. When James wakes in the hospital, he calls Caleb. James goes to Caleb's home to be consoled, but does not contact Jamie or Ceth, neither of whom can understand why he wouldn't call them or come home. There follows an interlocking trio of scenes showing connections between the characters' emotional problems and their sexual lives. The film ends with a song by Justin Bond at Shortbus during the blackout. Sofia arrives and finds Rob with Severin and after acknowledging him sits down by herself. James and Jamie also arrive followed by Ceth and Caleb. Justin's song starts on a wistful note, but as it progresses it becomes more energetic and positive thanks to the arrival of the Hungry March Band. This is mirrored in the actions and emotions of the actors. Jamie and James make out on the floor, and Ceth and Caleb start to hit it off. Rob seems to find a friend, and Severin progresses from nervous anxiety to happy elation upon the arrival of the band. Sofia engages in a threesome with a couple she has seen several times before and who appear to meet her prerequisite of "just beginning to experiment sexually" (Nick and Leah, played by Jan Hilmer and Shanti Carson), and finally achieves an orgasm, and the blackout affecting New York ends, as does the film. Production. The audition website elicited half a million hits and 500 audition tape submissions. 40 people were called in for improv auditions and nine actors were cast, all before there was any story in mind. The film's characters and story were created collaboratively over 2.5 years through improvisation workshops with the cast. Mitchell wrote the screenplay from the raw material generated by the workshops and rehearsals. Much of the sex in the film is unsimulated. Mitchell says: As indicated in the DVD special features, Lee and Shanti Carson each suggested they be filmed having real orgasms rather than fake them, specifically for the final scene involving Lee and the orgy sequence involving Carson. Mitchell also participated in the latter scene, performing oral sex on a woman for the first time "as a gesture of solidarity". The panoramic cityscape interspersed through the film was completely computer-generated and designed by John Bair. Inspiration. The characters all converge on a weekly underground gathering or salon called Shortbus, inspired by the short yellow school buses for "challenged" students. The Shortbus salon was loosely based on a series of New York social/artistic/sexual gatherings. One was the monthly "Shortbus Sweaty Teenage Dance Party" organized by Mitchell (2002) as "DJ Dear Tic", his Radical Faerie nickname (Mitchell was influenced by annual Radical Faerie counter-cultural gatherings in Tennessee and New Orleans). Others influences include the Lusty Loft Parties that took place at a Brooklyn art collective called DUMBA (where the film's salon was actually shot), and the weekly CineSalon film gathering, both of which were organized, in part, by Stephen Kent Jusick who plays Creamy in the film. The still-running underground Rubulad party was also an inspiration. The character of Tobias — the elderly man who claims to be an ex-Mayor of New York City — played by Alan Mandell, alludes to Mayor Ed Koch, who has long been the subject of rumors about his sexual orientation. Casting. Several members of the cast previously worked with Mitchell in "Hedwig and the Angry Inch", including: Jokes. There is a plot device involving a vibrating egg with the brand name, "In the Realm of the Senses". This is a wink to the explicit 1976 Nagisa Oshima film of the same name in which a man urges his lover to insert a hard-boiled egg in her vagina and "lay it". Justin Bond's line: "As my dear, departed friend Lotus Weinstock used to say, 'I used to want to change the world. Now I just want to leave the room with a little dignity'" refers to a stand-up line from real-life comedian Lotus Weinstock, a Los Angeles-based performer who was Lenny Bruce's last girlfriend. Mitchell was friendly with Weinstock and her daughter, singer-songwriter Lili Haydn, before Weinstock died in 1997. The film playing in the first Shortbus salon scene is, in effect, an elaborate "erotic" joke. It's entitled "Saverio" and was directed by Mitchell as a tribute to a 70's-era short film called "Calma". The score song is "Kids" by John LaMonica which appears on the film soundtrack. (Link to full version of "Saverio": [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X_6JckEWDsQ]) Release. The film was released in North America on October 13, 2006, distributed by THINKFilm, after premiering in May at the 2006 Cannes Film Festival, and it played in over 25 countries, winning multiple awards at the Athens, Zurich, and Gijon film festivals. Howard Gertler and Tim Perell received an Independent Spirit Award as Producers of the Year. Critical reception. "Shortbus" received mixed to positive reviews, currently holding a 66% "fresh' rating on Rotten Tomatoes; the consensus states: "The sex may be explicit, but Mitchell integrates it into the characters' lives and serves the whole story up with a generous dose of sweetness and wit." On Metacritic, which uses an average of critics' reviews, the film has 64/100, indicating "generally favorable reviews". Public reaction. Some have branded the film "pornographic". In response, Mitchell says that the dictionary defines porn as "material created and viewed for the primary purpose of sexual arousal," and argues that the sex in "Shortbus" is often purposefully "de-eroticized" to "remove the cloud of arousal to reveal emotions and ideas that might have been obscured by it". Sook-Yin Lee was nearly fired by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, for which she hosts a radio program, "Definitely Not the Opera", because of her participation in several unsimulated sex scenes in the film. Ultimately, she retained her job as the CBC relented in the face of support for Lee from the public, as well as from celebrities such as Francis Ford Coppola, Michael Stipe, Moby, Julianne Moore and Yoko Ono. The Korea Media Rating Board banned the film from public screenings in South Korea in 2007 for its sex scenes and gay content, although it still screened at film festivals not subject to the Board's authority. Sponge ENT, the film's South Korean distributor, filed suit and in 2009, the Supreme Court of South Korea ordered the ban lifted, declaring the national film censorship law unconstitutional for its ambiguity. Home media. The film was released to DVD in North America on March 13, 2007. The DVD features a comprehensive documentary, "Gifted and Challenged: the Making of "Shortbus"" (Director/producer M. Sean Kaminsky), the vérité-style "How to Shoot Sex: A Docu-Primer", deleted scenes (including a dropped subplot about a character who is the Bush twins' personal assistant), as well as a filmmaker/cast audio commentary. Soundtrack. The soundtrack was released on Conor Oberst's record label, Team Love. Mitchell directed the music video for Bright Eyes' "First Day of My Life" (which featured "Shortbus" cast members Bitch, Daniela Sea, and Ray Rivas). The soundtrack was released in Europe on V2 with the Anita O'Day song replaced by "What Matters To Me" by Tiebreaker (John LaMonica).
1061712	Sally Kirkland (born October 31, 1941) is an American film and television actress. Early life. Kirkland was named after her mother, Sally Kirkland, who was a fashion editor at "Vogue" and "LIFE" magazines, and was raised in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Her father, Frederic McMichael Kirkland, worked in the scrap metal business. Career. Kirkland began acting Off-Broadway in 1962. Then in 1969, she gave a widely acclaimed performance in the classic underground film "Coming Apart". In the 1970s, she had small roles in popular films such as "The Sting", "The Way We Were", "A Star Is Born" and "Private Benjamin". She was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress in 1987 for "Anna", for which she won the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Drama. Kirkland currently (as of 2010) hosts a show on the syndicated HealthyLife Radio Network. Kirkland has had frequent television roles, including "" and the soap operas "Valley of the Dolls" and "Days of Our Lives" and "Three's Company". Films in which she has appeared include: "EDtv", "JFK", "Adam and Steve" and "Coffee Date". Affiliations. Kirkland is also a health activist including advocating for women harmed by breast implants. She founded the Kirkland Institute for Implant Survival Syndrome in August 1998. Kirkland is an ordained minister in the Movement of Spiritual Inner Awareness.
1069779	George Desylla Zucco (11 January 1886 – 27 May 1960) was an English character actor who appeared, almost always in supporting roles, in 96 films during a career spanning two decades, from 1931 to 1951. In his horror film role he often played a suave villain. Early life. Zucco was born in Manchester, Lancashire, England. His mother, Marian (née Rintoul), was English and ran a dressmaking business; she was a former lady-in-waiting to Queen Victoria. His father, George De Sylla Zucco, was a Greek merchant. He debuted on the Canadian stage in 1908. He and his wife Frances toured the American vaudeville circuit during the 1910s, their satirical sketch about suffragettes earning them renown. He returned to Great Britain and served as a lieutenant in the British Army's West Yorkshire Regiment during World War I. He became a leading stage actor of the 1920s, and made his film debut in "The Dreyfus Case" (1931) as Eugène Godefroy Cavaignac, a British film dramatising the Dreyfus Affair. Career. Zucco returned to the United States in 1935 to play Benjamin Disraeli alongside Helen Hayes in "Victoria Regina", and appeared with Gary Cooper and George Raft in "Souls at Sea" (1937). His best known film role was that of Professor Moriarty in "The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes" (1939), opposite Basil Rathbone as Sherlock Holmes and Nigel Bruce as Dr. Watson.
520141	First Day High is a 2006 comedy film starring Geoff Eigenmann, Jason Abalos, Maja Salvador, Gerald Anderson and Kim Chiu released under Star Cinema. The film is the movie adaptation of the Rexona First Day High TV commercial. The original actors in the commercial were also part of the cast. Plot. The film begins when Brainy Indy (Kim Chiu), MVP MJ2 (Gerald Anderson), Sosy Pre (Maja Salvador), Rebel Gael (Geoff Eigenmann) and Nice Guy Nathan (Jason Abalos) are college freshmen who enter FDH University, until they all got involved in the biggest mystery the university has ever encountered- the Basketball Water Contamination Accident.
582297	Mirch (; ) is a 2010 Indian drama film written and directed by Vinay Shukla. The film featured Konkona Sen Sharma and Raima Sen in pivotal roles. The film began filming in Bikaner, Rajasthan. According to Shukla, the subject of the film is gender equality and woman sexuality. The film revolves around four short stories subjected on issues of women emancipation, based on a story from the Panchatantra which travels in its various versions to modern times. Konkona Sen Sharma and Raima Sen star in two of these short stories. The film premiered at the I View Film Festival on September 26, 2010. The film had the theatrical release on December 17, 2010. Plot. Maanav (Arunoday Singh) is a struggling filmmaker who will not compromise on the script he has written. His girlfriend Ruchi (Shahana Goswami), a successful film editor, arranges for him to meet film producer Nitin (Sushant Singh). Nitin likes the script but is not very sure of its box office potential. Maanav then suggests a story from the Panchtantra: A woman is caught red-handed with her lover by her husband and yet, she manages to wriggle out of it Scot-free! Nitin loves the story but finds it too short for a feature film. Maanav then creates three more stories based on the same premise: in a way, the Panchantra story travels in different versions to the modern times through the film. The four stories are woven together by a common story. Mirch itself echoes this structure, with four stories mingling with the main narrative. 1st Story. Kashi(Rajpal Yadav) is a craftsman in India in ancient time. He has a beautiful wife Manjula(Raima Sen) who loves him with passion. He receives an invitation from the king to work in the palace. He tells Maya that it is a great opportunity because if the king likes his work, they can become rich. She is upset because she does not want to be alone, but Kashi convinces her. In the afternoon Kashi's friend teases him that his wife is too pretty for him to handle and she will definitely call in another man the moment Kashi leaves for the city. Kashi furiously dismisses it but gets suspected. He hides near in his house to observe his wife. His friend comes home asking for Kashi. Maya says husband is not at home. The friend then asks for water, which Maya passes to him(without opening the door), he tries to make advances towards her but she throws water on his face and he runs away. Kashi is happy that is wife is extremely faithful to him. He sneaks under the bed to surprise her. Maya then enters the room with a hunky prince(Arunoday Singh). She suddenly realizes that her husband is hiding under the bed. She then fabricates a story of how she was told by the astrologer that her husband has bad luck on him and he shall die within a few days. To avoid this she must consummate with another man so that the bad luck is diverted towards the second man, the prince plays along saying that being a kshatriya he is born to protect others and he is "obliging to his duty". Kashi now in dilemma, whether to stop them and bear the "bad luck" or helplessly have his life make love with another man right on the bed he is hiding under. 2nd story This story is setup in medival times in Rajput Kingdom. Raja Nirgun Singh(Prem Chopra) has a young wife Lavni(Konkana Sen) at the age of 60. Lavni is not satisfied with this marriage and discusses this with her maid Kesara(Ila Arun). Kesara tells her that it is not uncommon for queens to ask for "services" from young and reliable subjects. Lavni tells her that she likes Chandresh(Arunoday Singh), who is one of a very closed subject of the King. Kesara passes on the message to Chandresh, who refuses it saying he cannot do this because this would be cheating on the king(he cannot tell the king about the queen's advances either as this would mean a death sentence). Kesara tells him that he shall be rewarded accordingly. On this Chandresh says that he has a few conditions and shall reveal them one by one. All these conditions are seemingly impossible tasks which he puts forward just to deter the Queen. But Lavni completes these tasks(from plucking the tooth of the king to getting rid of the king's pet cat). He sees the Queen's desperation and places one last task, that whatever "happens" must happen in front of the King. The Queen says yes to this one as well. One night the king and queen are sitting in the garden. Chandresh walks in and the queen asks him to fetch fruit from the tree in the garden. Chandresh climbs the tree and comes down asking for apology. The king asks him for what he saw, Chandresh replied that he saw the king and queen in sexual embrace. The queen rejects it angrily saying that this is something that has never happened(humiliating the king). Chandresh says that this can happen if the tree is possessed. Lavni bunks it as fairy tale, and provokes the king to see it himself. The old King now with mixed feeling of embarrassment and anger climbs the tree with help of Chandresh. Being old and frail he is stuck on the tree while Chandresh and Lavni get in sexual embrace. He sees them in the act but is unable to climb down. When the king does manage to get down, The queen and Chandresh dress up and sit normally. The king orders the tree to be cut down, declaring it possessed. 3rd Story Manjul(Shreyas Talpade) and Manjula(Raima Sen) are a seemingly perfect couple living in modern day Mumbai. Manjul is a prankster by nature who likes to take challenges. During a party, he claims that he can take up disguise and change his mannerism that even those close to him cannot recognize it. To prove his point he plans a prank. He tells his wife that he is working in office, and his old client shall be coming home for dinner. His career depends on this so she must treat the boss well. Manjula unaware of it welcomes the boss(manjul in disguise as an old man). Serves him food (the dishes told by Manjul which he said the boss loves). The boss makes sexual advances towards her and Manjula gets upset and locks herself in the bathroom telling the boss to leave. Manjul then reveals his prank and Manjula comes out. Manjul later asks her jokingly that she did not please the boss despite the career opportunity in return, to which Manjula jokes that who would fall for an old haggard man. This puts another plan in the mind of Manjul. After a few months he claims he is going out of town for work. He disguises himself again as Mark(this time as a dark complexioned young south Indian man) claiming to be a college time friend of Manjul. He befriends Manjula, winning her trust. He does everything Manjula complains that Manjul does not employ, while also boasting how he was better than Manjul in every aspect. Manjula unaware of it just laughs it out. This goes on for two days. Mark(Manjul) finally approaches Manjula claiming that she deserves better to which Manjula refuses saying that he might be better but he is not the one. On this Manjul reveals his identity. Manjula gets upset saying that Manul is trying to test her love, and he does not have faith in her. This causes a rift between them, and their relationship is estranged. One year later, the couple has a really strained relationship, they do not talk to each other. Manjul has become a workaholic, while Manjula tries to seek solace in Art. One day in an art gallery she meets a painter(Arunoday Singh) who praises her beauty and offers to make her the model of his paintings. After a conversation of arts Manjula accepts his offer and over the course of time they come close. Manjula now has an affair with the painter. One day when Manjul is leaving for the Airport to attend a meeting, Manjula calls the painter home. They are in bed when Manjul suddenly finds that he has forgotten his tickets, he returns home, and quietly enters the house(it was late night, not to wake her up). He is shocked to find Manjula in bed with another man to which Manjula blatantly replies "I thought it is you again in a disguise." ANOTHER INTERPRETATION:- another member states to Wikipedia that, 2nd story is written wrongly above. Manjul's boss tells him about his wife cheated him. Manjul discussed this with his Drama Theater friend, that whether his beautiful have no cheating habit. Said friend encourages him to change his appearance saying, during School days Manjul had been best in Mono-act etc. Thereafter, Manjul takes two deceptive dresses and finally when she cheats him, eventhough she could hear Manjul coming inside the flat, did not conceal her paramour; but when Manjul entered the bed room, she tells him: "I was thinking that, it is yourself and like that day we were playing the same jovial game". It is about the suspicious man how creates enmity in the mind of the wife to let her cheat on him. Similar psychology can be found in Malayalam Movie of 1965, the Chemmin, in which the character Palani was suspicious of the character Karuthamma his wife about her childhood friend which is played by film star Madhu; and in the end she tells that she want the childhood friend, in a hysteriac face. Story 4 Asu Hotmal(Boman Irani) says good bye to his wife Anita(Konkana Sen) who is not happy that her husband has to go out of town again and again for business. On the way Asu chit chats with the cab driver why is regretting that he got married and bachelors have more fun. He reaches a hotel where he asks the butler for a hooker. The hooker arrives dressed in a Burka. Asu offers her drink and food, the hooker reveals herself as Anita. She angrily says why he felt the need to seek another woman and that she saw him enter the hotel. She locks herself in the bathroom where she calls her pimp, telling him he has accidentally set her up with her own husband. Asu begs her not to tell anyone and that he will not do this again. Anita, in the bathroom puts Glycerine in her eyes to make tears and comes out crying. Asu falls to his knees begging that he made a mistake and shall do anything. Anita forgives him and they hug.
1066727	Castle Keep is a "firmly pro- and anti-war" 1969 American war film combining surrealism with tragic realism. It was directed by Sydney Pollack and starred Burt Lancaster, Patrick O'Neal, Jean-Pierre Aumont, Bruce Dern, and Peter Falk. The movie appeared in the summer of 1969, a few months before the arrival of Pollack's smash hit "They Shoot Horses, Don't They?". The film is based on a novel by William Eastlake published in 1965. Eastlake enlisted in the US Army in 1942. He served in the Infantry for four and a half years, and was wounded while leading a platoon during the Battle of the Bulge. Plot. Prior to the Battle of the Bulge, a ragtag squad of American soldiers, led by one-eyed Major Falconer (Burt Lancaster) and including Sgt. Rossi (Peter Falk), art expert Captain Beckman (Patrick O'Neal) and the narrator, Pvt. Allistair Benjamin (Al Freeman, Jr.), take shelter in an ancient castle, containing many priceless and irreplaceable art treasures. The impotent Count (Jean-Pierre Aumont) hopes the Major will impregnate the Countess (Astrid Heeren) so that his line may continue. The enlisted men seek their pleasures in the brothel of the nearby town whilst Beckman marvels in the castle's artworks. One of the soldiers falls in love with a Volkswagen Beetle. Though the men are eager to sit out the war that they feel will soon end, the experienced Major Falconer predicts that Germans will attack the thin American positions in the Ardennes and that the castle is a strategic point in the Germans advanced towards the crossroads of Bastogne. The Major's theories are confirmed when he sees German star shell signals and successfully ambushes a German reconnaissance patrol led by a German officer who was once also billeted in the castle. Captain Beckman and the Count are horrified that the Major will not abandon the castle that will lead surely lead to its destruction. Falconer prepares defensive positions around the castle and deploys his men in the town. He attempts to rally shell shocked retreating American soldiers using a band of hymn singing conscientious objectors deserters to draw them to the castle. The Count also has a scheme to let the Germans seize the castle by using an underground tunnel to gain access. Quotes. "Europe doesn't exist anymore. That's why we're here." - Major Falconer
1034125	Wanda Ventham (born 5 August 1935) is an English actress, known primarily for her role as Colonel Virginia Lake in the 1970s science-fiction television series "UFO", and for her recurring role as Pamela Parry (Cassandra's mother) in the sitcom "Only Fools and Horses" from 1989 to 1992. She also appeared in two episodes of "The Saint" alongside Sir Roger Moore. Early life. Ventham was born in Brighton, Sussex, the daughter of Gladys Frances (née Holtham) and Frederick Howard Ventham. She originally held aspirations of becoming an artist and attended art school for one year, working as a scenic painter for the Connaught Theatre during her school holidays. It was her exposure to professional theatre that prompted her to leave art school and pursue a career in acting. She trained at the Central School of Speech and Drama. Career. Ventham's first film role was in "My Teenage Daughter" (1956), with Anna Neagle and Sylvia Syms. She also appeared in "Carry On Cleo" (1964) and "Carry On Up the Khyber" (1968). Ventham's numerous TV credits include regular roles in "Heartbeat" as Fiona Weston, "Hetty Wainthropp Investigates" as Margaret Balshaw, and "The Rag Trade" as Shirley. She also played a love interest for Arthur Daley in "Minder", Susan's mother in "Coupling", and Deborah's mother in "Men Behaving Badly". She appeared in the lead role in the 15-part BBC series "The Lotus Eaters" (1972–73), opposite Ian Hendry, and made a guest appearance in "Rutland Weekend Television". She was in an episode of "Danger Man", and the series Patrick McGoohan did right after - the allegorical, spy series, "The Prisoner", the sitcoms "Executive Stress" and "Next of Kin", and the sketch show "The Two Ronnies". She has appeared in "Doctor Who" on three occasions over three decades: as Jean Rock in "The Faceless Ones" (1967), as Thea Ransome in "Image of the Fendahl" (1977) and as Faroon in "Time and the Rani" (1987). Her appearance in "Image of the Fendahl" was opposite Denis Lill. Ventham and Lill would later play Pamela and Alan Parry in the sitcom "Only Fools and Horses". Personal life. Ventham met actor Timothy Carlton in 1970 while filming sequences for the drama series "A Family At War" and they have been married since April 1976. They are the parents of actor Benedict Cumberbatch. Ventham also has a daughter, Tracy, from her first marriage, to James Tabernacle. Ventham owns a collection of barn owls.
586719	Woh Saat Din, or Woh 7 Din, is a 1983 Hindi film directed by Bapu. Produced by Surinder Kapoor, it stars his son Anil Kapoor along with Padmini Kolhapure and Naseeruddin Shah. It was Anil Kapoor's first lead role. It is a remake of the 1981 Tamil film "Antha Ezhu Naatkal", which was written and directed by the veteran filmmaker K. Bhagyaraj. Anil Kapoor's role, Naseeruddin's acting and the film's music were considered strengths of the film. The music was done by Laxmikant Pyarelal while Anand Bakshi wrote the lyrics. Synopsis. Maya (Padmini Kolhapure) attempts suicide on the day of her nuptial night. Dr. Anand (Naseeruddin Shah), Maya's husband, who is apparently a doctor, treats her, and finds out that she attempted suicide. When Maya gains conscience, she confirms her secret to Dr. Anand: she didn't want to get married and was forced. The story moves to a flashback, where a new singer, Prem (Anil Kapoor) and his sidekick (Master Raju) come to Maya's house. It is love at first sight for Maya as she falls for the naive, innocent Prem. However, Prem, aspiring to be a true musician, rejects Maya's advances. Furthermore, Prem also in love with Maya, but believes that he isn't worthy of her. They declare their love for each other, and plan to elope, but destiny has other plans in store for Maya and Prem. On the day of their elopement, the two lovers are caught by Maya's parents. As a result, Prem and his sidekick are kicked out of the house and Maya is forced to wed Dr. Anand. The movie moves to the present, where Dr. Anand confides in her that he only married her due to his ill mother. Dr. Anand promises to unite the two lovers after his mother's death. During the time of her stay, Maya gets attached to Dr. Anand's daughter. Meanwhile, Dr. Anand searches for Prem and successfully finds him. When his mother dies, Dr. Anand reunites Prem and Maya. However, his attempts remain fruitless, as Maya refuses to leave Dr. Anand. Maya realizes the strength behind their marriage and doesn't budge. Prem leaves Dr. Anand and Maya stating that this is against Indian culture.
584561	Coimbatore Mappillai (; ) is a 1996 Tamil language starring Vijay and Sanghavi in lead roles. It was directed by C.Ranganathan and released for Pongal in 1996. Plot. Vijay comes to the modern city and stays with his friend who claims that he has a job. Actually he is also unemployed. Both of them are tenants of a girl named Sanghavi. First the hero and heroine get into fights, but then their arguments and fights turn into love. Meanwhile Sanghavi's uncle Karan is also love in with her. One day Vijay witnesses a thief stealing the necklace and when he tries to catch him, the thief inserts the necklace in his pocket and Vijay is blamed for stealing it. Sanghavi starts hating Vijay. Taking advantage of this situation, Karan creates a rift between them by hiring goons to attack them and blames Vijay for that too. Vijay explains his sad story to her grandmother that he lost his mother during small age and he could not endure the torture of his stepmother because he escaped from the home. Paati believes him but Karan takes revenge by setting up wires and making Paati paralyzed. In the hospital, Sanghavi overhears that Karan and his father wants to kill Sanghavi to steal their colony. Vijay pays the medicinal bills and he attempts to commit suicide but Sanghavi saves him. Also, Karan who tried to kill him, is killed in a stampede. The film ends with the hero and heroine living happily. Soundtrack. Music : Vidyasagar.
1163589	Frederic "Fred" Willard (born September 18, 1939) is an American actor, comedian, voice actor, and writer, best known for his improvisational comedy. He is known for his roles in the Rob Reiner mockumentary film "This Is Spinal Tap", as well as the Christopher Guest mockumentary films "Waiting for Guffman", "Best in Show", "A Mighty Wind", and "For Your Consideration". He is an alumnus of The Second City. He received three Emmy nominations for his recurring role on the TV series "Everybody Loves Raymond" as Robert Barone's father-in-law, Hank MacDougall. In 2010, he received an Emmy nomination for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Comedy Series for his role on the ABC TV series "Modern Family" as Phil Dunphy's father, Frank Dunphy. He also received a Daytime Emmy Nomination for Outstanding Talk Show Host for What’s Hot, What’s Not. One of his earliest jobs was at The Second City, Chicago, where he shared the stage with Robert Klein and David Steinberg.
1172386	Brie Larson (born Brianne Sidonie Desaulniers; October 1, 1989) is an American actress, singer-songwriter and musician. She is best known for her roles in "Right on Track", "Sleepover", "Remember the Daze", "United States of Tara", "Scott Pilgrim vs. the World", "21 Jump Street", and "Short Term 12". Her album "Finally Out of P.E." was released in October 2005 and her song "Hope Has Wings" was released as a music video on the "Barbie and the Magic of Pegasus" DVD. Acting career. Larson was born in Sacramento, California. Her first job was performing in sketches on "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno". Soon after, she was cast in the television series "Schimmel", which never aired because its star, Robert Schimmel, was diagnosed with cancer shortly before filming was to begin. After it was "on hold" for ten months, FOX canceled the show. Larson later auditioned for a new show for The WB called "In Your Dreams", and landed the role of Bob Saget's character's younger daughter, Emily. The show was selected for the 2001–02 fall season, and was renamed "Raising Dad". It was then canceled after 27 episodes. Larson was also cast in the pilot for the ABC sitcom "Hope & Faith", but she and some of the other cast members were dropped after the unaired pilot. In 2003, Larson was cast as Courtney Enders in the Disney Channel Original Movie "Right on Track", a film based on a true story. In July, 2004 she co-starred with a large cast of teen actors in the film "Sleepover". She also had a small role in the movie "13 Going on 30". Larson also appeared in the film "Hoot", opposite actors Logan Lerman and Cody Linley, both of whom are very good friends of hers. The film opened on May 5, 2006. Larson's voice is also featured in the movie "Farce of the Penguins" as a teenage penguin. She played Angie in the 2007 comedy/drama "Remember the Daze".
1164853	Jay Silverheels (May 26, 1912 – March 5, 1980) was a Canadian Mohawk First Nations actor. He was well known for his role as Tonto, the faithful American Indian companion of the character, The Lone Ranger in a long-running American television series. Early life. Silverheels was born Harold J. Smith on the Six Nations of the Grand River First Nation, near Brantford, Ontario, Canada, one of 11 children of a Canadian Mohawk tribal chief and military officer, Major George Smith. Silverheels excelled in athletics and lacrosse before leaving home to travel around North America. In the 1930s, he played indoor lacrosse as "Harry Smith" with the "Iroquois" of Rochester, New York in the North American Amateur Lacrosse Association. He lived for a time in Buffalo, New York, and in 1938 placed second in the middleweight class of the Golden Gloves tournament. Career. Films. While playing in Los Angeles on a touring box lacrosse team in 1937, he impressed Joe E. Brown with his athleticism. Brown encouraged Silverheels to do a screen test, which led to his acting career. Silverheels began working in motion pictures as an extra and stunt man in 1937. He was billed variously as Harold Smith and Harry Smith, and appeared in low-budget features, westerns, and serials. He adopted his screen name from the nickname he had had as a lacrosse player. From the late 1940s, he played in major films, including "Captain from Castile" starring Tyrone Power, "I Am an American" (1944), "Key Largo" with Humphrey Bogart (1948), "Lust for Gold" with Glenn Ford (1949), "Broken Arrow" (1950) with James Stewart, "War Arrow" (1953) with Maureen O'Hara, Jeff Chandler and Noah Beery, Jr., "Drums Across the River" (1954), "Walk the Proud Land" (1956) with Audie Murphy and Anne Bancroft, "Alias Jesse James" (1959) with Bob Hope, and "Indian Paint" (1964) with Johnny Crawford. He made a brief appearance in "True Grit" (1969) as a condemned criminal about to be executed. He played a substantial role as John Crow in "Santee" (1973), starring Glenn Ford. One of his last roles was a wise white-haired chief in "The Man Who Loved Cat Dancing" (1973). Television. Silverheels achieved his greatest fame as the The Lone Ranger's friend, Tonto. Being irreplaceable, he also appeared in films: "The Lone Ranger" (1956) and "The Lone Ranger and the Lost City of Gold" (1958). When "The Lone Ranger" television series ended, Silverheels found himself firmly typecast as an American Indian. On January 6, 1960, he portrayed an Indian fireman trying to extinguish a forest fire in the episode "Leap of Life" in the syndicated series, "Rescue 8", starring Jim Davis and Lang Jeffries. Eventually, he had to go to work as a salesman to supplement his acting income. He also began to publish poetry inspired by his youth on the Six Nations Indian Reserve and recited his work on television. In 1966, he guest-starred as John Tallgrass in the short-lived ABC comedy/western series "The Rounders", with Ron Hayes, Patrick Wayne, and Chill Wills. Despite the typecasting, Silverheels in later years often poked fun at his character. In 1969, he appeared as Tonto without The Lone Ranger in a comedy sketch on "The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson". The sketch was featured on the 1973 record album "Here's Johnny: Magic Moments From The Tonight Show". "My name is Tonto. I hail from Toronto and I speak Esperanto." In 1970, he appeared in a commercial for Chevrolet as an Indian chief who rescues two lost hunters who ignored his advice in that year's Chevy Blazer. The William Tell Overture is heard in the background. Silverheels spoofed his Tonto character in a famous Stan Freberg Jeno's Pizza Rolls TV commercial opposite Clayton Moore, and in "The Phynx", opposite John Hart, both having played The Lone Ranger in the original television series. He appeared in three episodes of NBC's "Daniel Boone", starring Fess Parker as the real life frontiersman. His later appearances included an episode of ABC's "The Brady Bunch", as an Indian who befriends the Bradys in the Grand Canyon, and in an episode of the short-lived "Dusty's Trail", starring Bob Denver of "Gilligan's Island". In the early 1960s, Silverheels supported the Indian Actors Workshop, where American Indian actors refined their skills in Echo Park, California. Today the workshop is firmly established. Personal life. Silverheels raised, bred and raced Standardbred horses in his spare time. Once, when asked about possibly running Tonto's famous Paint horse Scout in a race, Jay laughed off the idea: "Heck, "I" can outrun Scout!" Married in 1945, Silverheels was the father of three girls and a boy. Death. Jay Silverheels died in 1980 from complications of a stroke age 67, in Calabasas, California. He was cremated at Chapel of the Pines Crematory and his ashes returned to the Six Nations Indian Reserve. Legacy. In 1993, Silverheels was inducted into the Hall of Great Western Performers at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. He was named to the Western New York Entertainment Hall of Fame, and his portrait hangs in Buffalo, New York's Shea's Buffalo Theatre. He has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6538 Hollywood Boulevard. First Americans in the Arts honored Jay Silverheels with their Life Achievement Award. In 1997, Silverheels was inducted, under the name Harry "Tonto" Smith, into the Canadian Lacrosse Hall of Fame in the Veteran Player category in recognition of his lacrosse career during the 1930's. References. Notes Bibliography
1376898	Snow Buddies is a 2008 direct to video in the "Air Bud" series. It was released on DVD on February 5, 2008. The movie was shot on location in Canada at Mount Seymour, North Vancouver, and the town of Ladner, British Columbia. Plot. The movie follows the story of Buddy and Molly's offspring in Washington. After saying goodbye to their owners one morning, the puppies decide to play hide-and-seek when Budderball finds an ice-cream truck. Rosebud spots her brother and follows him in an attempt to help. "Hilarity" ensues when Buddha finds them both in the truck and B-Dawg and Mud-Bud end up in the truck which is shipping to outside the town of Ferniuktuk, Alaska the Buddies meet Shasta, a young husky whose 11-year-old owner is determined to win the Alaskan sled dog race. Jean George is a very mean, irritable, cantankerous man with a bad temperament, and would readily take victory away from fellow competitors and possibly also hurt them if they try to get their victory back. The puppies take a vote to help a grateful Shasta to pursue his dreams. Unfortunately, as Shasta has no parents, this puts the puppies in a predicament as there is nobody to teach them how to become snow dogs and the local population of older puppies sneers at the thought of them learning how. Luckily, they find Talon, his father's mentor, in the mountains. Although initially reluctant, Shasta manages to persuade Talon into teaching the uncanny puppies into becoming his new protégés by reminding him that "It's not the size of the dog that counts but the heart of the team". When Shasta introduces his owner, Adam, to his new sleigh team, the child is delighted at the prospect of his dreams coming true and the team pursue vigorous training routines often to comedic effect. Adam begins building a new sleigh with his team of hard-working puppies. Talon proudly watches as the team's efforts come to fruition and it seems as though they are cooperating as a team. The older town huskies, however, are not impressed and begin to plan their downfall. They reveal to the Buddies that Shasta's parents died when the ice beneath them shattered to dishearten them. Back in Washington, Buddy and Molly find Budderball's toy American football on the back of the ice-cream truck and proceed to take the same route the puppies did to Alaska. Talon calls the puppies to the mountain lake one night to view the Northern Lights before he departs telling Shasta that he knows all he needs to know and that he can become the great leader that his father was. The following morning, the puppies enter the race with Adam, gaining the respect of every racer there except Jean George. After being reminded by how treacherous the race is by the sheriff, the puppies begin their trek. Meanwhile, Buddy and Molly go looking for the puppies in Alaska where the rescue dog Bernie informs them of their participation in the race and, without further hesitation, the trio try to find the puppies. Adam's father also begins looking for his son. The team manage to make it to the midway checkpoint without much difficulty. The sheriff finally checks his email and finds out that the puppies in his town are actually the missing puppies from Washington. The snowstorm becomes more and more dangerous as Adam's father gets snowed in and Adam's main competitor and owner of the rival snow dogs begins cheating by sabotaging the competing sleds. Adam and the team take shelter in an igloo provided by an Inuit until the storm subsides. They come head to head with their opponent, Jean George, and Adam gets injured. Adam then recovers. Jean George's dogs, the bullies from earlier get into trouble when the ice beneath them shatters. Jean George continues and abandons his dogs while Adam and the puppies begin a rescue operation despite Shasta's fears of his parents' deaths. The puppies pull the dogs out of the icy waters and Jean George continues the race without any gratitude and abandons their rescuers. Budderball can't believe that Jean George would abandon them, and he describes Jean George's actions as betrayal. Budderball angrily describes him as an obnoxious, dirty freak. Rosebud says that she and the rest of the Buddies must be betrayal-free, and that her team continue the race without giving up. Buddha confidently emphasizes their speed and endurance, and Budderball confidently emphasizes their strength. Jean George's dogs realize they owe nothing to their owner and everything to Shasta and the Buddies, and so, slow down and "go on strike" causing Jean George to lose the race. Adam is victorious and the Buddies reunite with Buddy and Molly. Jean George gives out to his dogs and they respond in kind by chasing him around the Arctic. All seven Buddies return home via airplane. They land and live happily ever after. Controversy. Disney imported 20 under-aged golden retriever puppies from New York State, into Vancouver, Canada for the filming of the movie. A second group of 8 puppies, of eight weeks of age were brought to set one week later from Washington State. Many of the puppies contracted the highly contagious parvovirus, against which puppies are usually vaccinated at 8 weeks of age. At least 15 puppies showed signs of the illness, including parasitic infections of giardia and coccidia, and all were removed from the set. Three were euthanized for intussusception before the parvo outbreak, one for suspected parvo (but not confirmed by necropsy) and one puppy who was returned to the breeder without being used reportedly died of parvo. The American Humane Association enforced the removal of the first two sets of puppies, and after a four-week delay, during which time all puppies were quarantined until they were healthy, Disney hired 8 older puppies to continue filming. These puppies were joined by puppies from the second group who did not get ill from parvovirus and filming was completed. In total, five puppies died during the making of the film. Home Media. Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment released the film on Blu-ray in January 2012.
774008	Paulo Costanzo (born September 21, 1978) is a Canadian actor, who is best known for his roles in the 2000 comedy "Road Trip", the sitcom "Joey", which ran from 2004 to 2006, and as Evan R. Lawson in the current USA Network series "Royal Pains". Costanzo was born in Brampton, Ontario. His mother is a singer-songwriter and his father an artist. Costanzo is of half-Italian ancestry.
1163136	Dan Duryea (January 23, 1907 – June 7, 1968) was an American actor, known for roles in film, stage and television. Known for portraying a vast range of character roles as a villain, he nonetheless had a long career in leading and secondary roles. Early life. Born and raised in White Plains, New York, Duryea graduated from White Plains High School in 1924 and Cornell University in 1928. While at Cornell, Duryea was elected into the prestigious Sphinx Head Society, Cornell's oldest senior honor society. He majored in English with a strong interest in drama, and in his senior year succeeded Franchot Tone as president of the college drama society.
1184726	Katheryn Elizabeth "Katy" Hudson (born October 25, 1984), better known by her stage name Katy Perry, is an American singer, songwriter, businesswoman, philanthropist, and actress. She was born and raised in Santa Barbara, California. Having had very little exposure to mainstream pop music in her childhood, she pursued a career in gospel music as a teen and released her debut studio album, "Katy Hudson", in March 2001. She also recorded a second solo album which was never released. In 2007, Perry signed a recording contract with Capitol Records and adopted her current stage name. The following year, she came to prominence with the June 2008 release of her second album, "One of the Boys", which produced the singles "I Kissed a Girl", "Hot n Cold", "Thinking of You", and "Waking Up in Vegas". The project was further promoted through the Hello Katy Tour. Perry's third record, "Teenage Dream", was released in August 2010 and spawned the "Billboard" Hot 100 chart-topping singles "California Gurls", "Teenage Dream", "Firework", "E.T.", and "Last Friday Night (T.G.I.F.)". In doing so, it became the first album recorded by a female artist in history to produce five number-one hits, and the second album overall after Michael Jackson's August 1987 album "Bad". Perry embarked on the California Dreams Tour following its release. In March 2012, it was re-released as "" and contained the number-one single "Part of Me". Her fourth album, "Prism", which contains the "Billboard" Hot 100 number 1 single "Roar", is scheduled for an October 2013 release. Perry has received numerous awards and nominations. She has also been nominated for nine Grammy Awards and was named by "Billboard" as 2012's Woman of the Year. She remains the only artist to spend 69 consecutive weeks in the top ten of the Hot 100. She has ventured into celebrity endorsement and released fragrances Purr, Meow, and Killer Queen. She made her film debut voicing Smurfette in "The Smurfs" (2011). Perry was ranked at number fourteen on "Billboards list of top moneymakers of 2011, grossing more than $11 million. She was spotlighted in her own 3D autobiographical film, ' (2012), which concentrated on her life as a touring artist and the breakdown of her one-year marriage to English comedian Russell Brand. Early life. Katheryn Elizabeth Hudson was born in Santa Barbara, California, to devout Pentecostal pastors Maurice Keith Hudson and Mary Christine Perry. She is the second of their three children. She has a younger brother named David (whose stage name is Hudson) and an older sister named Angela. Her father is of English descent while her mother is of Irish, Portuguese, English, and German descent. Through her mother, she is a half-niece of director Frank Perry. As a child, Perry attended Christian schools and camps. She was incorporated into her parents' ministry, singing in the church between the ages of nine and seventeen. She grew up listening to gospel music, and in an interview she said, "Growing up I wasn't really allowed to listen to a whole lot of what my mom would call, secular music," She learned how to dance in a recreation building in Santa Barbara. She was taught by seasoned dancers and began with swing, Lindy Hop, and jitterbug. She took her GED during her freshman year at Dos Pueblos High School and decided to leave school in the pursuit of a career in music. Perry initially started singing "because was at that point in [her childhood where was copycatting [her sister and everything she do." She took cassette tapes her sister Angela practiced with and rehearsed the songs and performed them in front of their parents. They suggested she take vocal coaching. She grabbed the opportunity and began taking lessons at the age of nine and continued until she was sixteen. Career. 1999–2006: Career beginnings and "Katy Hudson". At 15, Perry's singing in church attracted the attention of rock veterans from Nashville, Tennessee, who brought her there to polish her writing skills. In Nashville, she started recording demos and was taught by country music veterans how to craft songs and play guitar. Perry signed to the Christian music label Red Hill, under which she recorded her first album. Performing as Katy Hudson, she released a self-titled gospel rock album in 2001. She supported this album with "The Strangely Normal Tour", accompanied by Phil Joel, LaRue, Luna Halo, Earthsuit, and V*Enna. The album was unsuccessful as the label ceased operations at the end of 2001. At the age of 17, Perry left her home for Los Angeles, where she worked with Glen Ballard on an album for Island Records. Growing up listening to mostly Country Gospel, she had few references when she began recording songs. Asked by the producer with whom she would like to collaborate, Perry had no idea. That night, she went with her mother to a hotel. Inside, she turned on VH1 and saw producer Glen Ballard talking about Alanis Morissette; Ballard produced Morissette's "Jagged Little Pill", which had a "huge influence" on her. She expressed interest in working with Ballard to her initial collaborator, who arranged a meeting for her with Ballard in Los Angeles. Perry presented one of her songs to Ballard, who then helped develop her songwriting over the next few years. The album was initially planned to be released during the Fall of 2004 along with a promotional DVD, according to a promotional video on the Java Records website. The album never saw the light of day and Perry was subsequently dropped by The Island Def Jam Music Group. Some of her collaborations with Ballard, including "Box", "Diamonds", and "Long Shot", were posted on her official MySpace page. "Simple", one of the songs she recorded with Ballard, was released on the soundtrack to the 2005 film "The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants". Kelly Clarkson later used "Long Shot" (which Perry wrote with Matt Thiessen and Ballard) for her 2009 album, "All I Ever Wanted". Perry then signed to Columbia Records in 2004. However, the label was not amenable with her vision and did not put her in the "driver's seat". Instead, one of Columbia's ideas was to pair her with the record production team The Matrix, who was working on an album, to serve as its female vocalist. Although the album was later shelved, she caught the attention of the music press. Her burgeoning music career led to her being named "The Next Big Thing" in October 2004 by "Blender" magazine. With no album project ongoing, Perry began recording her own, titled "Fingerprints". Eighty percent completed, however, Columbia decided not to finish it and dropped her from the label. In 2004, Perry and Kaya Jones provided backing vocals on Mick Jagger's song "Old Habits Die Hard", which won the 2005 Golden Globe Award for Best Original Song. While waiting to find another label, she worked in an independent A&R company called Taxi Music. In 2006, she was featured in the tail-end of the video to P.O.D.'s single "Goodbye for Now" and played the love interest of Travie McCoy in the music video for Cupid's Chokehold by Gym Class Heroes (of which McCoy is the lead singer). 2007–09: Breakthrough with "One of the Boys". While in the process of being dropped by Columbia in 2006, the company's publicity executive Angelica Cob-Baehler enthusiastically recommended her to Virgin Records chairman Jason Flom. At the time Flom was leading a complete revival in fortunes at the label and looking to crown recent achievements by breaking a global pop act. Despite mixed reactions from fellow Virgin executives, Flom became convinced that Perry could be that breakthrough star and, at the start of 2007, extended discussions with Columbia resulted in her signing to the newly created Capitol Music Group, a merger between Virgin and Capitol. As part of the deal, the label secured the masters to the unfinished album, recorded while at Columbia, that would go on to form a significant part of her official mainstream debut album, "One of the Boys". The Columbia recordings were seen by Flom as being "very strong but lacking an undeniable smash or two that would work both at U.S. pop radio and internationally" and so one of the executive's first actions after completing the signing was to set up a collaboration between Perry and the writer-producer Dr. Luke. The results were the songs "I Kissed a Girl" and "Hot n Cold". Establishing her image was one of the immediate concerns of her management. A campaign was started in November 2007 with the release of the video to "Ur So Gay", aimed at introducing her to the music market. A digital EP led by "Ur So Gay" was later released to create online buzz and press story. This was a successful move that brought Perry to the attention of Madonna, who mentioned her on KISS FM and KRQ's "JohnJay & Rich" morning show in Arizona. On March 10, 2008, she appeared as herself on the ABC Family television series, "Wildfire", on the episode "". In the next step of promoting the album, Perry undertook a two-month tour of radio stations. "I Kissed a Girl", was released on May 6, 2008. Her A&R, Chris Anokute, told HitQuarters the song and its controversial theme had met with strong resistance at the label: "People said, 'This is never going to get played on the radio. How do we sell this? How’s this going to be played in the bible belt?'" Anokute said that they needed the support of one of the label's radio promoters to convince people to believe in the record; otherwise, she would have likely been dropped again. Capitol's SVP of Promotions, Dennis Reese, saw the vision and helped push the single on national radio. The first station to pick it up and take a chance was The River in Nashville, which is in the Bible Belt. After playing it for three days they were inundated with enthusiastic calls. With the song climbing atop the charts, Perry embarked on the annual Warped Tour music festival, which her management used to "establish her as a credible performer and make sure she wasn't seen as just a one-hit wonder." The single was a commercial success, peaking at number one for seven weeks on the "Billboard" Hot 100. On June 12, 2008, she appeared as herself on the daytime soap opera "The Young and the Restless", posing for the cover to the June 2008 issue of the fictional magazine "Restless Style". Perry also performed backing vocals on the song, "Another Night in the Hills" from Gavin Rossdale's 2008 solo album "Wanderlust". "One of the Boys" was released on June 17, 2008, to mixed critical reviews. The album has reached number nine on the "Billboard" 200, and has been certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America. "Hot n Cold" became her second top three single in dozens of countries around the world, including the United States where it reached number three on the "Billboard" Hot 100, as well as topping the charts in Germany, Canada, and Denmark. After Perry wrapped up her appearance at the Warped Tour, she went on tours in Europe. She later launched her first headlining tour, the Hello Katy Tour, in January 2009. "I Kissed a Girl" earned her a nomination for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance at the 2009 Grammy Awards. She was nominated in five categories at the 2008 MTV Video Music Awards, including Best New Artist and Best Female Video, but lost to Britney Spears. She won Best New Act at the 2008 MTV Europe Music Awards, which she co-hosted, and Best International Female Artist at the 2009 BRIT Awards. On February 9, 2009, both "I Kissed a Girl" and "Hot n Cold" were certified three-time platinum by Recording Industry Association of America for individual digital sales of over three million. The Guinness Book of World Records recognized her in its 2010 version as the "Best Start on the US Digital Chart by a Female Artist," for having her first two singles sell over two million digital copies. The Matrix's self-titled debut album, which features Perry, was later released via the team's label "Let's Hear It" during her solo tour. When the release date was scheduled, "I Kissed a Girl" had been charting well. Matrix member Lauren Christy spoke to Perry about the decision, but she wanted to hold the release until the fourth single of "One of the Boys" had been dispatched. Despite their communication, "The Matrix" was released on January 27, 2009 onto iTunes. In January 2009, Perry embarked on her first headlining world tour, the Hello Katy Tour, visiting North America, Europe, Asia, and Australia. Beginning on January 23, 2009, and ending on November 28, 2009, the tour consisted of 89 concerts. During that time, she also opened select concerts for the band No Doubt, on their Summer Tour 2009. In June 2009, lawyers acting for Perry opposed the then-recent trademark of Australian fashion designer Katie Perry, who uses her own name to market loungewear. Some media outlets reported this as a lawsuit, which she denied on her blog. Katie Perry reported on her blog that at a hearing with IP Australia on July 10, 2009, the singer's lawyers withdrew their opposition to the trademark. During the summer of 2009, Perry filmed a cameo appearance for "Get Him to the Greek"; her scene, in which she kisses Russell Brand was cut, and does not appear in the film. Discussing the issue with MTV, she hypothesized there may have been some fear that seeing the two make out would have taken viewers out of the experience. In 2009, she was featured on two singles: in August, a remix of Colorado-based band 3OH!3's song "Starstrukk" (the idea for the collaboration having come after Perry's tour that featured 3OH!3 as the supporting act, the song being released by iTunes on September 8, 2009); and, thereafter, in December, on "If We Ever Meet Again" from Timbaland's album "Shock Value II". In October 2009, "MTV Unplugged" revealed that Perry was one of the artists to perform for them, and that she would be releasing a live album of the performance, including two new tracks, "Brick by Brick" and a cover "Hackensack" by Fountains of Wayne. The album, released on November 17, included both a CD and a DVD, and debuted at No. 168 on the US "Billboard" 200 chart. 2010–12: "Teenage Dream", film debut, and "Part of Me". Perry appeared as a guest judge alongside Simon Cowell, Cheryl Cole, and Louis Walsh during the Dublin audition stage of the seventh series of the English television show "The X Factor" on June 28, 2010. She was one of the many celebrities chosen to fulfill the role of judge whilst Dannii Minogue was on maternity leave. Perry's third studio album "Teenage Dream" was released on August 24, 2010, in the United States. It topped the "Billboard" 200 chart, with first-week sales of 192,000 units. The album has since sold over two million copies in the US, being certified Platinum by the RIAA. It was preceded by the May release of its lead single, titled "California Gurls" featuring rapper Snoop Dogg, which picked atop the "Billboard" Hot 100 for six consecutive weeks. "Teenage Dream" was released in July as the album's second single, and also topped the Hot 100. In October, "Firework" was released as the third single from "Teenage Dream". It became the album's third consecutive number one on the Hot 100. As a result, she became the first female in eleven years to have three consecutive number-ones from a single album. In November 2010, she released her first fragrance Purr. It is packaged in a cat-shaped bottle, and is available through Nordstrom stores. In February 2011, Perry embarked on an extensive world tour in support of "Teenage Dream". It was titled the California Dreams Tour and including 124 shows in Europe, Australasia, Asia, North America and South America. It earned over $59 million. That same month, a remixed version of "E.T." featuring rapper Kanye West was released as the fourth single from "Teenage Dream". It topped the Hot 100 chart for five non-consecutive weeks. With "E.T." at number one on the chart of May 12, 2011, Perry became the first artist to spend 52 consecutive weeks in the top 10 of the "Billboard" Hot 100. In June, the album's fifth single "Last Friday Night (T.G.I.F.)" topped the Hot 100. This allowed her to achieve a record for being the first female to achieve five number one Hot 100 songs from one album, and she tied with Michael Jackson's record. Additionally, "Teenage Dream" boasted a record-breaking six number-one songs on "Billboard" Adult Pop Songs chart. In October, "The One That Got Away" was released as the sixth single from "Teenage Dream", peaking at three on the Hot 100. "Teenage Dream" became the third album in history to produce six top five hit singles, "The One That Got Away" became the album's seventh track to reach the top of the US Hot Dance Club Songs chart, the most by any album and setting a new record in the chart. In July 2011, she made her film debut in the 3D family film "The Smurfs" as Smurfette. "The Smurfs" earned $557,771,535 worldwide during its theatrical run, though received many negative reviews from critics. The week of September 17, 2011 marked Perry' 69th consecutive week in the Top 10 with single "Last Friday Night (T.G.I.F.)". On September 23, 2011, she performed, along with Elton John, Brazilian Claudia Leitte, and friend Rihanna, on the opening day of the 2011 Rock in Rio festival, which was extended to October 2. Perry hosted "Saturday Night Live" on December 10, 2011 with Robyn serving as the episode's musical guest. Perry's work on the episode received generally positive reviews from critics, who praised her comedic timing and the episode's digital short which featured Perry and Andy Samberg, however some critics noted that Perry's performance in the episode was overshadowed by cast regular Kristen Wiig. Her second fragrance Meow was released December 2011. Also in December, she was elected the "Artist of the Year" by MTV, for their performance on the charts worldwide and won the record during the year. Also that month, she revealed plans to release a Barbie doll that represents her style. On January 5, 2012, Perry was named the sixth best-selling digital artist in the United States, with sales of 37.6 million units according to Nielsen SoundScan. That month, she became the first artist to have five songs sell over 5 million digital units. Later that month, EA Games recruited her to promote their new expansion pack '. In March 2012, "Teenage Dream" was re-released under the title '. It was preceded by the February release of "Part of Me", which became the album's seventh single released and sixth single overall to top the Hot 100. "Wide Awake" was released in May as the album's eighth and final single, peaking at number two. In June, she revealed plans to launch her own record label, which would be under Capitol Records. In July, her movie "" was released to theaters under Paramount Pictures. It garnered positive critical reviews and grossed $30 million worldwide at the box office. That September, it was announced that Perry would take home the 2012 "Woman of the Year" Award at Billboard's Women in Music event, which took place on November 30, 2012 in New York City. She also supported Barack Obama during his campaign for re-election in November 2012. 2013: "Prism". Perry told "Billboard" in late 2012 about her upcoming album: "I know exactly the record I want to make next. I know the artwork, the coloring and the tone... I even know what type of tour I'm doing next. I'll be very pleased if the vision I have in my head becomes a reality". However, Perry mentioned that she does not want the album to be a "Teenage Dream 2.0", stating: "That would be silly. It's not of any interest for me to try and outdo myself at every corner. Eventually you just like pop, explode". Even though Perry initially said that the record would contain "darker" elements, departing from her previous sound, she later clarified, stating: "There's not really any darkness on the record, there's definitely some textures and colors but I think I was saying that when I was going through a different phase, but I really let that light in". She has collaborated with Sia Furler, Diplo, Klas Åhlund, Greg Kurstin, Dr. Luke, Max Martin, Greg Wells, Bloodshy, Juicy J, Bonnie McKee, Sarah Hudson, Emeli Sandé, and Cirkut on the album. In early April 2013, she worked with UNICEF to assist children in Madagascar with education and nutrition. Later that month, she appeared in a video clip for the "Chime For Change" campaign that aims to spread female empowerment. Perry reprised her role as Smurfette in "The Smurfs 2", which was released in theaters on July 31, 2013. Like its predecessor, it received many negative reviews from critics. "Killer Queen" was released as her third fragrance in August 2013 through Coty, Inc. On July 29, 2013, it was announced that her fourth studio album would be titled "Prism", and is due for release on October 22, 2013. She will begin a tour to promote the album in May 2014. "Roar" made its debut as the album's lead single on August 10, 2013. Perry recorded and co-wrote a duet with John Mayer titled "Who You Love" for his album "Paradise Valley". The album was released on August 20, 2013. She closed the 2013 MTV Video Music Awards by performing "Roar" live for the first time on August 25, 2013 in a special performance under the Brooklyn Bridge.
1749144	Miss Machiko, also known as is a manga series written by Takeshi Ebihara. It was serialized in Japan in "Shōnen Challenge" from May 1980 through February 1982. The individual chapters were collected and published in eight "tankōbon" volumes by Gakken.
583240	Manohar Singh (1938 - 14 November 2002) was a distinguished Indian theatre actor-director and a character actor in Hindi films. He is best known for his performances in films such as "Party" (1984) and "Daddy" (1989). Starting his acting career from theatre, he went on to become a theatre director and later the chief of National School of Drama Repertory Company, 1976 to 1988, before switching to cinema. As a theatre actor his most know performances were in "Tughlaq" directed by Ebrahim Alkazi, "Himmat Mai" and "Begum Barve" by Nissar and Amal Allana. He was awarded the 1982 Sangeet Natak Akademi Award for Acting (Hindi theatre) by Sangeet Natak Akademi. In 2003, a photo exhibition on his work in theatre was organized at the Art Heritage gallery, Delhi chronicling his journey in theatre starting from his first play "The Caucasian Chalk Circle" (1968) as a student at the National School of Drama to plays like, "Tughlaq", "King Lear", "Kaho Katha Khajuraho Ki", "Himmat Mai" ("Mother Courage") and "The Threepenny Opera". Biography. Born in 1938 in a small village called Kwara near Shimla in Himachal Pradesh, Manohar Singh got his first job in the state govt-run Drama Division. He graduated from National School of Drama (NSD) in 1971, and soon after started directing plays with NSD Repertory Company, starting with "Qatl Ki Hawas" in 1971. Later in 1976 he became the second chief of the NSD Repertory Company and remained so until 1988. He was awarded the 1982 Sangeet Natak Akademi Award by Sangeet Natak Akademi, India's National Academy of Music, dance and Drama. He is best known for his spectacular performance in and as "Tughlaq" directed by his mentor Ebrahim Alkazi, the founder of NSD. After quitting NSD in the late 80s, he got active on the Delhi theater scene, doing some memorable plays like "Pagla Raja" (King Lear), "Himmat Mai" (Brecht's Mother Courage), "Begum Barve" and "Nagamandalam" (Girish Karnad) with well known theater personalities, Amal and Nissar Allana. He had a long film and television career that started with the controversial film based on emergency, "Kissa Kursi Ka", that also starred Shabana Azmi. He did Govind Nihalani's "Party", Mrinal Sen's "Ek Din Achanak", "Yeh Woh Manzil to Nahin", "Rudaali", "Daddy" and went to play many powerful roles in over 27 films, including some mainstream films like "Chandni" and "Lamhe" with Yash Chopra. His last film was "Everybody Says I'm Fine!" in 2001. He appeared in many successful serials on television including Neena Gupta's "Dard" and "Pal Chhin".
1101484	Pierre de Fermat (; 17 August 1601 or 1607 – 12 January 1665) was a French lawyer at the "Parlement" of Toulouse, France, and an amateur mathematician who is given credit for early developments that led to infinitesimal calculus, including his technique of adequality. In particular, he is recognized for his discovery of an original method of finding the greatest and the smallest ordinates of curved lines, which is analogous to that of the differential calculus, then unknown, and his research into number theory. He made notable contributions to analytic geometry, probability, and optics. He is best known for Fermat's Last Theorem, which he described in a note at the margin of a copy of Diophantus' "Arithmetica". Life and work. Fermat was born in the first decade of the 17th century in Beaumont-de-Lomagne (present-day Tarn-et-Garonne), France; the late 15th century mansion where Fermat was born is now a museum. He was of Gascogne origin. Fermat's father, Dominique Fermat, was a wealthy merchant in wheat and cattle and was three times for one year one of the four consuls of Beaumont-de-Lomagne. His mother was either Françoise Cazeneuve or Claire de Long. Pierre had a brother and two sisters and was almost certainly brought up in the town of his birth. There is little evidence concerning his school education, but it was probably at the Collège de Navarre in Montauban. He attended the University of Orléans from 1623 and received a bachelor in civil law in 1626, before moving to Bordeaux. In Bordeaux he began his first serious mathematical researches and in 1629 he gave a copy of his restoration of Apollonius's "De Locis Planis" to one of the mathematicians there. Certainly in Bordeaux he was in contact with Beaugrand and during this time he produced important work on maxima and minima which he gave to Étienne d'Espagnet who clearly shared mathematical interests with Fermat. There he became much influenced by the work of François Viète. In 1630 he bought the office of a councillor at the Parlement de Toulouse, one of the High Courts of Judicature in France, and was sworn in by the Grand Chambre in May 1631. He held this office for the rest of his life. Fermat thereby became entitled to change his name from Pierre Fermat to Pierre de Fermat. Fluent in Latin, Occitan, classical Greek, Italian, and Spanish, Fermat was praised for his written verse in several languages, and his advice was eagerly sought regarding the emendation of Greek texts. He communicated most of his work in letters to friends, often with little or no proof of his theorems. This allowed him to preserve his status as an "amateur" while gaining the recognition he desired. This naturally led to priority disputes with contemporaries such as Descartes and Wallis. He developed a close relationship with Blaise Pascal. Anders Hald writes that, "The basis of Fermat's mathematics was the classical Greek treatises combined with Vieta's new algebraic methods." Work. Fermat's pioneering work in analytic geometry was circulated in manuscript form in 1636, predating the publication of Descartes' famous "La géométrie". This manuscript was published posthumously in 1679 in "Varia opera mathematica", as "Ad Locos Planos et Solidos Isagoge", ("Introduction to Plane and Solid Loci"). In "Methodus ad disquirendam maximam et minima" and in "De tangentibus linearum curvarum", Fermat developed a method (adequality) for determining maxima, minima, and tangents to various curves that was equivalent to differentiation. In these works, Fermat obtained a technique for finding the centers of gravity of various plane and solid figures, which led to his further work in quadrature. Fermat was the first person known to have evaluated the integral of general power functions. Using an ingenious trick, he was able to reduce this evaluation to the sum of geometric series. The resulting formula was helpful to Newton, and then Leibniz, when they independently developed the fundamental theorem of calculus. In number theory, Fermat studied Pell's equation, perfect numbers, amicable numbers and what would later become Fermat numbers. It was while researching perfect numbers that he discovered the little theorem. He invented a factorization method—Fermat's factorization method—as well as the proof technique of infinite descent, which he used to prove Fermat's Last Theorem for the case "n" = 4. Fermat developed the two-square theorem, and the polygonal number theorem, which states that each number is a sum of three triangular numbers, four square numbers, five pentagonal numbers, and so on. Although Fermat claimed to have proved all his arithmetic theorems, few records of his proofs have survived. Many mathematicians, including Gauss, doubted several of his claims, especially given the difficulty of some of the problems and the limited mathematical methods available to Fermat. His famous Last Theorem was first discovered by his son in the margin on his father's copy of an edition of Diophantus, and included the statement that the margin was too small to include the proof. He had not bothered to inform even Marin Mersenne of it. It was not proved until 1994 by Sir Andrew Wiles, using techniques unavailable to Fermat. Although he carefully studied, and drew inspiration from Diophantus, Fermat began a different tradition. Diophantus was content to find a single solution to his equations, even if it were an undesired fractional one. Fermat was interested only in integer solutions to his Diophantine equations, and he looked for all possible general solutions. He often proved that certain equations had no solution, which usually baffled his contemporaries. Through his correspondence with Pascal in 1654, Fermat and Pascal helped lay the fundamental groundwork for the theory of probability. From this brief but productive collaboration on the problem of points, they are now regarded as joint founders of probability theory. Fermat is credited with carrying out the first ever rigorous probability calculation. In it, he was asked by a professional gambler why if he bet on rolling at least one six in four throws of a die he won in the long term, whereas betting on throwing at least one double-six in 24 throws of two dice resulted in his losing. Fermat subsequently proved why this was the case mathematically. Fermat's principle of least time (which he used to derive Snell's law in 1657) was the first variational principle enunciated in physics since Hero of Alexandria described a principle of least distance in the first century CE. In this way, Fermat is recognized as a key figure in the historical development of the fundamental principle of least action in physics. The terms Fermat's principle and "Fermat functional" were named in recognition of this role. Death. Pierre de Fermat died at Castres, Tarn. The oldest and most prestigious high school in Toulouse is named after him: the . French sculptor Théophile Barrau made a marble statue named "Hommage à Pierre Fermat" as tribute to Fermat, now at the Capitole of Toulouse. Assessment of his work. Together with René Descartes, Fermat was one of the two leading mathematicians of the first half of the 17th century. According to Peter L. Bernstein, in his book "Against the Gods", Fermat "was a mathematician of rare power. He was an independent inventor of analytic geometry, he contributed to the early development of calculus, he did research on the weight of the earth, and he worked on light refraction and optics. In the course of what turned out to be an extended correspondence with Pascal, he made a significant contribution to the theory of probability. But Fermat's crowning achievement was in the theory of numbers." Regarding Fermat's work in analysis, Isaac Newton wrote that his own early ideas about calculus came directly from "Fermat's way of drawing tangents." Of Fermat's number theoretic work, the 20th-century mathematician André Weil wrote that "... what we possess of his methods for dealing with curves of genus 1 is remarkably coherent; it is still the foundation for the modern theory of such curves. It naturally falls into two parts; the first one ... may conveniently be termed a method of ascent, in contrast with the descent which is rightly regarded as Fermat's own." Regarding Fermat's use of ascent, Weil continued "The novelty consisted in the vastly extended use which Fermat made of it, giving him at least a partial equivalent of what we would obtain by the systematic use of the group theoretical properties of the rational points on a standard cubic." With his gift for number relations and his ability to find proofs for many of his theorems, Fermat essentially created the modern theory of numbers.
1048728	Man Push Cart is a 2005 American independent film by Ramin Bahrani that tells the story of a former Pakistani rock star who sells coffee and bagels from his pushcart on the streets of Manhattan. Synopsis. Early every morning, Ahmad (Ahmad Razvi), a Pakistani immigrant, struggles to drag his heavy cart along the streets of New York to his corner in midtown Manhattan, where he sells coffee and bagels. He encounters a wealthy Pakistani businessman who offers him some work and financial assistance—promising also to introduce him to the NY music scene. He also spends time with a young Spanish woman who works in a nearby newspaper and magazine kiosk. He is haunted by the death of his wife and is unable to spend time with his son. Just as it appears that he is making some progress improving his life, an event occurs that pushes him back down again. Music. Atif Aslam's three songs were included in the film. "Aadat" is the main track while portions of the songs "Ehsaas" and "Yakeen" are also introduced in the film From the album Jal Pari. Awards. The film had its world premiere at the 2005 Venice Film Festival. It entered the 2006 Sundance Film Festival and won the Fipresci Critic's Award at the London Film Festival. It was nominated for three Independent Spirit Awards and was on Roger Ebert's list of the top 10 movies of 2006.
629265	David Wenham (born 21 September 1965) is an Australian actor who has appeared in movies, television series and theatre productions. He is known in Hollywood for his roles as Faramir in "The Lord of the Rings" film trilogy, Carl in "Van Helsing, "Dilios in "300" and Neil Fletcher in "Australia". He is also known in his native Australia for his role as Diver Dan in "SeaChange. Early life. Wenham was born in Marrickville, Sydney, Australia, the son of Kath and Bill Wenham. He has five older sisters; Helen, Anne, Carmel, Kathryn, and Maree; and one older brother, Peter. David was raised in the Roman Catholic faith and attended Christian Brothers' High School, Lewisham. He worked as a bingo caller and an insurance clerk before becoming successful as an actor. Career. Wenham started his career as an actor after graduating from Theatre Nepean at the University of Western Sydney in 1987 where he studied under Terry Browne. Wenham's television credits include several telemovies, such as his AFI award winning role in the 1996 telemovie "Simone de Beauvoir's Babies"; and his role as the outwardly laid back but deeply enigmatic diver Dan Della Bosca in the 1998 and 1999 seasons of the highly successful ABC television series "SeaChange". His role as "Diver Dan" has made the actor something of a sex symbol, although he dislikes thinking of himself as such, and he has been voted Australia's "sexiest man alive". A portrait of Wenham by artist Adam Cullen won the Archibald Prize in 2000. Wenham is signed to Storm Model Management in London. Australian films Wenham has starred in include the critically acclaimed "The Boys" (1998) based on the play of the same name premiered at Griffin Theatre Company and in turn based on the Anita Cobby murder; "Molokai " (1999), based on the life of Father Damien; "The Bank" (2001); "Gettin' Square" (2003); "Stiff" (2004); "The Brush Off" (2004) and "Three Dollars" (2005). Wenham has periodically appeared in Hollywood films; he is known for playing Faramir, son of Denethor, in New Line Cinema's ' and '. He was also seen in "Van Helsing" playing Hugh Jackman's sidekick, Friar Carl. His character, Dilios, narrated and appeared in the movie "300". Minor roles of Wenham's in overseas films include in "The Crocodile Hunter" as a park ranger, and briefly in "Moulin Rouge!" as Audrey. Wenham stars in the music video for Alex Lloyd's single "Brand New Day". In 2008's "Australia", he reunited with Hugh Jackman playing antagonist Neil Fletcher who seeks to acquire the ranch Jackman's character is employed with. In both "Lord of the Rings: Return of the King" and "300", Wenham's character is the sole survivor returned from an ill-fated battle (the Battle at Osgiliath and the Battle of Thermopylae, respectively). He reprises his role of Dilios in the videogame for Sony PlayStation Portable, which contains a lot of new dialogue. In 2009 he again took to the stage, this time as the lead actor, Jerry Springer, in the British musical "Jerry Springer - The Opera". During its 6 day run at the Sydney Opera House he played to sold out audiences alongside ARIA award winning singer Kate Miller-Heidke. In 2010, Wenham starred as the disgraced Melbourne Lawyer Andrew Fraser in the Australian TV series "Killing Time". This 10 part series shows Fraser's fall from grace as he defends many Melbourne criminals during the 1980s and 1990s. It was shown on TV1 in late 2011. In 2011, Wenham voiced the champion, "Lee Sin", in the game League of Legends. Wenham plays New Zealand detective Al Parker alongside Elisabeth Moss in the 2013 BBC series "Top of the Lake". In 2013, Wenham returned to the stage to play the lead role of John Proctor, in the Melbourne Theatre Company's mid-year production of Arthur Miller's "The Crucible". Personal life. He has two daughters, Eliza Jane and Millie, with his longtime girlfriend, Kate Agnew. His nickname, "Daisy", originates from his childhood. Wenham read a poem by Rupert McCall at the memorial service for Steve Irwin. The poem was entitled "The Crocodiles are Crying".
1058617	Yaphet Frederick Kotto (born November 15, 1939) is an African-American actor, known for numerous film roles, as well as starring in the NBC television series "" (1993-1999) as Lieutenant Al Giardello. His films include the science-fiction/horror film "Alien" (1979), and the science-fiction/action film "The Running Man." He portrayed the main villain Dr. Kananga/Mr. Big in the James Bond movie "Live and Let Die" (1973). He appeared opposite Robert De Niro in the comedy thriller "Midnight Run" (1988) as FBI agent Alonzo Moseley. He is also a music producer who is a part of Legendary Inc., founded by Young L of The Pack. Early life. Kotto was born in New York City. His mother was Gladys Marie, a local nurse and U.S. Army officer. His father was Avraham Kotto (originally named Njoki Manga Bell), a businessman from Cameroon who immigrated to the United States in the 1920s. In his autobiography titled "Royalty", Kotto writes that his father was "the crown prince of Cameroon." Kotto said he learned that his father's family was royal in adult life while studying his family's lineage, and said he is a descendant of Queen Victoria. According to Kotto, his father was an observant Jew who spoke Hebrew, and Kotto's mother converted to Judaism before marrying his father. Kotto said that his great-grandfather, King Alexander Bell, ruled the Douala region of Cameroon in the late-19th century and was also a practicing Jew. Kotto has said that his paternal family originated from Israel many centuries ago, migrating to Egypt and then Cameroon, and have been African Jews for many generations.
1059951	Timecop is a 1994 science-fiction thriller film directed by Peter Hyams and co-written by Mike Richardson and Mark Verheiden. Richardson also served as executive producer. The film is based on "Time Cop", a story written by Verheiden and drawn by Phil Hester and Chris Warner which appeared in the anthology comic "Dark Horse Comics", published by "Dark Horse Comics". The film stars Jean-Claude Van Damme as a police officer in 1994 and a U.S. Federal agent in 2004, when time travel has been made possible. It also stars Ron Silver as a rogue politician and Mia Sara as the agent's wife. The story follows an interconnected web of episodes in the agent's life (or perhaps "lives") as he fights time-travel crime and investigates the politician's unusually successful career. "Timecop" remains Van Damme's highest grossing film (his second to break the $100,000,000 barrier for a worldwide gross) as a lead actor. It is generally regarded as one of Van Damme's better films by critics, even those who usually deride his acting. Plot. In 1863, Confederate soldiers are carrying a gold bullion as a payday for the army. Suddenly, they are cornered and shot by a highwayman using anachronistic machine pistols and futuristic tech equipment, leaving them stranded and dead before suddenly vaporizing into the mist. 131 years later, the U.S. government creates the Time Enforcement Commission (TEC) to combat the misuse of newly developed time travel technology. They have discovered that the same gold bullion was used in recent arms purchases. Senator Aaron McComb (Silver) volunteers to oversee the commission, and a short time later, police officer Max Walker (Van Damme) is offered a job as a TEC agent. Later that evening, Max is attacked in his home by intruders and his wife Melissa (Sara) is killed in an explosion. Ten years later, Walker is now a veteran TEC Agent. He is sent back to 1929, in the midst of the Wall Street crash to arrest his former partner Atwood (Jason Schombing) for taking advantage of the U.S. stock-market crash. Atwood reveals that he is working for McComb, who needs money for his presidential campaign. Terrified by McComb's threat to murder his ancestors, thereby wiping out his existence, Atwood tries to kill himself by jumping out a window. Walker catches him as he falls and takes him back to 2004, but Atwood refuses to testify against McComb and the TEC agency sends him back to 1929, right where he left off, this time falling to his death.
1503631	Norbert Leo Butz (born January 30, 1967) is an American actor and singer best known for his work in Broadway theatre. He is a two-time Tony Award winner for "Best Leading Actor in a Musical", and is one of only nine actors
1163503	Doris Roberts (née Green; born November 4, 1925) is an American character actress of film, stage, and television. She has received five Emmy Awards during her acting career, which began in 1952. She is perhaps best known for her role as Marie Barone on "Everybody Loves Raymond" (1996–2005). Early life. Doris May Green was born in St. Louis, Missouri in 1925. Her mother, Ann, who was Russian American , raised her daughter in the New York City borough of the Bronx with the assistance of her Jewish parents, after her husband deserted the family. Doris' stepfather, whose surname she took as her own, was Chester H. Roberts, whose name is included with Ann and Doris Green in the 1940 census as "lodger". Chester and Ann Roberts operated the Z.L. Rosenfield Agency, a stenographic service catering to playwrights and actors. Television and film career. Roberts' acting career began in 1952 with a role on the TV series "Studio One". She appeared in episodes of "The Naked City" (1958–63), "Way Out" (1961), "Ben Casey" (1963), and "The Defenders" (1962–63). In 1961, she made her film debut in "Something Wild". She appeared in such 1960s and 1970s cult films as "A Lovely Way to Die", "No Way to Treat a Lady", "The Honeymoon Killers", "Such Good Friends", "Little Murders", "A New Leaf", "The Taking of Pelham One Two Three" and "Hester Street". In 1978, she appeared in a film about John F. Kennedy's assassination, "Ruby and Oswald", in which she played Jack Ruby's sister. She also appeared very briefly in "The Rose", as the mother of the title character (played by Bette Midler). In an interview with the Archive of American Television, Rue McClanahan confirmed that in 1972 she was approached by Norman Lear during the taping of an "All In The Family" episode to be a late replacement for Roberts, who was originally intended for the role of Vivian in "Maude". She has usually been cast as a mother or mother-in-law on television, i.e. as Theresa Falco on "Angie". She later appeared as Mildred Krebs on "Remington Steele". After that show ended, she starred in the TV movie remake of "If It's Tuesday, It Still Must Be Belgium" (1987) and the National Lampoon's "Christmas Vacation" (1989). She appeared on "Alice", playing the mother of the title character (played by her former Broadway co-star Linda Lavin), on "Barney Miller" as the wife of a man who secretly went to a sex surrogate, and on "Full House" as Danny Tanner's mother. She played the unhinged "Flo Flotsky" on four episodes of "Soap", and played lonely Aunt Edna on "Step by Step". "Everybody Loves Raymond". Roberts achieved her widest fame for her role as Marie Barone on "Everybody Loves Raymond". She was reportedly one of 100 actresses considered for the role. For her work on the series, she was nominated for seven Emmy Awards (and won four times) for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series. She previously won an Emmy for a guest appearance on "St. Elsewhere", playing a homeless woman, and she was also nominated once for her role on "Remington Steele". She was nominated for appearances on "Perfect Strangers" and a PBS special called "The Sunset Gang". In 2003, she made a guest appearance as Gordo's grandmother in "Lizzie McGuire". The same year, Roberts received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. In 2006, she starred in "Our House" where she portrayed a wealthy woman who took homeless people in her house, and in the Adam Sandler-produced comedy "Grandma's Boy". In 2007, she made a guest appearance on "". In 2008, Roberts appeared in the romantic comedy "Play the Game" alongside Andy Griffith, who plays a lonely, widowed grandfather re-entering the dating world after a 60-year hiatus. She appeared in the 2009 film "Aliens in the Attic", which was filmed in Auckland, New Zealand. She played George Needleman's mother in Tyler Perry's "Madea's Witness Protection" (2012). On September 23, 2010, she played a schoolteacher in the second season premiere episode of "The Middle". This appearance reunited her with Patricia Heaton, her co-star from "Everybody Loves Raymond". Roberts returned in two other episodes that season, "The Math Class" and the finale, "Back to Summer". Stage career. Roberts' stage career began in the 1950s on Broadway. She has appeared in numerous Broadway shows including "The Desk Set" (with Shirley Booth), Neil Simon's "The Last of the Red Hot Lovers" (with James Coco and Linda Lavin) and Terrence McNally's "Bad Habits". She starred in McNally's "Unusual Acts of Devotion" at the LaJolla Playhouse in June 2009. Personal life. Roberts' first husband was Michael Cannata; they divorced in 1962. Their son, Michael Cannata, Jr. (born 1957) is her only child. He serves as her manager. She has three grandchildren: Kelsey, Andrew, and Devon. Her second husband was writer William Goyen. She was married to Goyen from 1963 until his death from leukemia on August 30, 1983. On September 4, 2002, she testified before a U.S. Congressional panel that age discrimination is prevalent in Hollywood, advocating that such discrimination be treated on par with biases against race and gender.
1060052	Irma la Douce is a 1963 romantic comedy starring Jack Lemmon and Shirley MacLaine, directed by Billy Wilder.
1100457	Stephen Cole Kleene (January 5, 1909 – January 25, 1994) was an American mathematician who helped lay the foundations for theoretical computer science. One of many distinguished students of Alonzo Church, Kleene, along with Alan Turing, Emil Post, and others, is best known as a founder of the branch of mathematical logic known as recursion theory. Kleene's work grounds the study of which functions are computable. A number of mathematical concepts are named after him: Kleene hierarchy, Kleene algebra, the Kleene star (Kleene closure), Kleene's recursion theorem and the Kleene fixpoint theorem. He also invented regular expressions, and was a leading American advocate of mathematical intuitionism. Kleene pronounced his last name . Commonplace mispronunciations include and . (His son, Ken Kleene, wrote: "As far as I am aware this pronunciation is incorrect in all known languages. I believe that this novel pronunciation was invented by my father.") Biography. Kleene was awarded the BA degree from Amherst College in 1930. He was awarded the Ph.D. in mathematics from Princeton University in 1934. His thesis, entitled "A Theory of Positive Integers in Formal Logic", was supervised by Alonzo Church. In the 1930s, he did important work on Church's lambda calculus. In 1935, he joined the mathematics department at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, where he spent nearly all of his career. After two years as an instructor, he was appointed assistant professor in 1937. While a visiting scholar at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, 1939–40, he laid the foundation for recursion theory, an area that would be his lifelong research interest. In 1941, he returned to Amherst College, where he spent one year as an associate professor of mathematics. During World War II, Kleene was a lieutenant commander in the United States Navy. He was an instructor of navigation at the U.S. Naval Reserve's Midshipmen's School in New York, and then a project director at the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, D.C. In 1946, Kleene returned to Wisconsin, becoming a full professor in 1948 and the Cyrus C. MacDuffee professor of mathematics in 1964. He was chair of the Department of Mathematics and Computer Science, 1962–63, and Dean of the College of Letters and Science from 1969 to 1974. The latter appointment he took on despite the considerable student unrest of the day, stemming from the Vietnam War. He retired from the University of Wisconsin in 1979. The mathematics library at the University of Wisconsin was renamed in his honour.
1166149	Robert Francis "Bobcat" Goldthwait (born May 26, 1962) is an American actor, comedian, screenwriter, and film and television director. He is commonly known for his energetic stage personality, his acerbic black comedy, and his gruff but high-pitched voice. Early life. Goldthwait was born in Syracuse, New York, the son of Kathleen, a department store employee, and Tom Goldthwait, a sheet metal worker. He was raised in a Catholic working-class family. Goldthwait decided on a career as a comedian at an early age and was performing professionally while still in high school at the age of 15. He attended St. Matthew's grammar school in East Syracuse, New York, where he met fellow comedian and voice-over actor Tom Kenny (the voice of "SpongeBob SquarePants") in first grade. He and Tom graduated together from Bishop Grimes Junior/Senior High School in East Syracuse, New York, in 1980. They formed a comedy troupe with East Syracuse native Tom Nettle, called The Generic Comics. (Although nicknamed Bobcat and Tomcat, they did not appear as a comedy team together.) Early in his career, Goldthwait also co-wrote with Boston comedy writer Martin Olson, who is listed as writer on his first two comedy specials, "Share the Warmth" and "Don't Watch This Show". Career. Stand-up. Goldthwait became recognized as a solo stand-up comedian and had two televised concert specials in the 1980s: "An Evening with Bobcat Goldthwait — Share the Warmth" and "Bob Goldthwait — Is He Like That All the Time?" He became known for his unique brand of comedy, which combines elements of political satire and often bizarre or somewhat unsettling black comedy. In 2004, Bobcat's stand up was featured in Comedy Central's animated series "Shorties Watchin' Shorties". Goldthwait announced his retirement from stand-up in 2005 and performed a "final" run in Vegas in September 2005; He briefly resumed touring in early 2008 (from January through April); He performed again in 2009, doing stand-up in Winnipeg on April 3 & 4, and again in Omaha on August 28 and 29; He returned to Winnipeg for 4 shows on April 9 and 10, 2010. Continuing his retirement from Stand-up he took the stage in Atlanta from January 27–30, 2011. Acting. Goldthwait and Robin Williams appeared on the same bill together, but not as a comedy team, using the names "Jack Cheese" and "Marty Fromage." Goldthwait used the name Jack Cheese when he appeared in the film "Tapeheads"; when Williams made a cameo as Mime Jerry in Goldthwait's "Shakes the Clown", he was billed as Marty Fromage. Goldthwait has appeared in several movies. His first major role was Zed in the "Police Academy" series. He starred in the 1986 comedy film "One Crazy Summer", which also starred John Cusack, and his other big role was in the 1987 comedy film "Burglar" with Whoopi Goldberg and John Goodman. He also starred in "Scrooged" with Bill Murray. He notably starred in "Hot to Trot" in 1988 with John Candy and Dabney Coleman. In 1992, Goldthwait wrote, directed, and starred in the movie "Shakes the Clown". He also made a cameo appearance as an insane writer in the 1994 film "Radioland Murders". In 1985, Goldthwait appeared in Twisted Sister's official video to the songs "Leader of the Pack" and "Be Chrool to Your Scuel", from the album "Come Out and Play". During the fall of 1993, Goldthwait performed stand up material as an opening act for Nirvana on what would be their final North American tour, angering audiences in Chicago after making a joke about Michael Jordan's recently murdered father. Goldthwait also appeared in a promo video for the band's album "In Utero", and once fooled an interviewer during a phone interview, impersonating Nirvana drummer Dave Grohl. An emblematic moment: a guest on one of the last episodes of "The Arsenio Hall Show", Goldthwait became demonstrably upset that the program was being cancelled. At the time it was widely believed that Paramount Studios had refused to renew Hall's contract because "Late Night with David Letterman" was now moving to CBS, and Goldthwait took his anger out on Paramount. He stood on the set's couch, spray-painted "Paramount Sucks" on a glass wall, knocked over some video equipment, then threw cushions from the couch into the audience (they cheered). The March 28, 2005 article of the "New York Post" announced that Bobcat Goldthwait was the new director of ABC's "Jimmy Kimmel Live!" (He had been directing the show since the fall season of 2004). While there, ratings for the show increased to over 2 million viewers per night, and jumped 50% with teens; however, in May 2006 Goldthwait left to pursue his film career. Goldthwait maintains contact with Kimmel (they are friends) and still directs for television and film. He returned to directing segments for "Jimmy Kimmel Live!" in the summer of 2007. Guest appearances. In 1992, Goldthwait appeared as a guest-co-host of the second episode of "The Ben Stiller Show". He also appeared as a relative of Peggy Bundy on the "Married... with Children" show where he and his wife dropped one of their numerous offspring on the Bundys. Goldthwait appeared on "Late Night with Conan O'Brien" in 1993, where he tossed furniture and ran around the set, then into the audience. He has also made several guest appearances on talk shows as well as comedy programs. On May 9, 1994, Goldthwait appeared on "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno", where he briefly lit the guest chair on fire. As a result, he was fined $2,700 plus the cost of the chair ($698); he was also required to tape several public service announcements about fire safety. The incident was later the basis of the plot for his subsequent appearance on "The Larry Sanders Show" and also inspired a pseudo-fire safety PSA on "MadTV". He was also in the 5th episode of "Space Ghost Coast to Coast", "Bobcat," "Surprise," the 37th episode, "Anniversary" and an uncredited appearance in the episode "Kentucky Nightmare." One of the most recognizable features of Goldthwait's performances is his voice. He has voiced characters on the television series "Capitol Critters" (1992), "The Moxy Show" (1995), "Unhappily Ever After" (1995–1999), "The Tick" (1995), ' (1998–1999), ' and "Buzz Lightyear of Star Command" (2000). Goldthwait has also appeared as himself hosting the comedy quiz show "Bobcat's Big Ass Show" (1998). Goldthwait was also a semi-regular guest in the later seasons of the Tom Bergeron-version of "Hollywood Squares" in 1998. Goldthwait was a featured guest on the August 20, 2009, episode of Adam Carolla's podcast. And on August 26, 2009 returned to guest on "Jimmy Kimmel Live!" with old friend Robin Williams during which he revealed a tattoo on his buttocks of an anthropomorphized cymbal with a mustache and slanted eyes (a pun on the cliched Chinese symbol tattoo). Goldthwait appeared in September 2010 on an episode of "LA Ink", where shop owner Kat Von D gave him a tattoo of a potato impaled on a fork on his upper right arm. Goldthwait chose the design to remind himself of where he came from and to tell close friends and family that he hasn't lost his sense of humor. He also displayed his older tattoo of a cymbal with a moustache on his buttocks. Goldthwait appeared on the May 4, 2012 episode of "Real Time with Bill Maher". Goldthwait was a voice guest in Season 4 of "Adventure Time". He voices Ed in the episode "Web Weirdos." Goldthwait appeared on NPR's Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me! on May 12, 2012 to talk about his movie "God Bless America" and play the game "Not My Job" (he won). He then made his debut as one of the show's panelists on the July 14, 2012. In 2012, he voiced a character, Pop Fizz, for the hit video game Skylanders: Giants. Film directing. "Sleeping Dogs Lie". Goldthwait's third feature film "Sleeping Dogs Lie" (originally titled "Stay") starring Melinda Page Hamilton was in the 2006 Sundance Film Festival and was part of the "Independent Dramatic Features" competition. "Sleeping Dogs Lie" is about a youthful, impulsive instance of oral sex performed on a dog which opens the door to a black comedy about the complexities of honesty. It was also nominated for the Grand Jury Prize in the "Dramatic Features" category. The film was bought by Roadside Attractions & Samuel Goldwyn Films at the 2006 Sundance Film Festival for the North American rights to the film, and was released on October 20, 2006. Gaumont bought the international rights to the film. It was released on February 21, 2007 by Gaumont in France, and on March 16, 2007 in the UK. On May 4, 2007, it was presented as John Waters' annual selection of a favorite film within Maryland Film Festival. "World's Greatest Dad". Goldthwait's fourth feature film, "World's Greatest Dad", was released on July 24 on video on demand providers before its limited theatrical release on August 24, 2009. It starred Robin Williams, Daryl Sabara, and Alexie Gilmore. The web site for the 2009 Sundance Film Festival described it as a ""lusciously perverse, and refreshingly original comedy that tackles love, loss, and our curious quest for infamy"". Roger Ebert of the "Chicago Sun-Times" gave "World's Greatest Dad" 3 out of 4 stars, but commented that the material could have been even darker in its satire, and he questioned whether it was the director's intention. "God Bless America". "God Bless America" premiered at the 2011 Toronto International Film Festival and screened within Maryland Film Festival 2012. "Willow Creek". "Willow Creek" premiered at the 2013 Independent Film Festival of Boston and screened within such festivals as Maryland Film Festival. The film made its debut on the West Coast at the Arcata Theater Lounge in Arcata, California, on May 31, 2013, near its filming location of Willow Creek, California. Many of the cast and crew were on hand with Goldthwait for a question and answer session after the showing.On July 20th, 2013 "Willow Creek "had its international premier at the Fantasia Festival in Montreal. After the movie Goldthwait stayed for a question and answer session.
589630	Mere Apne () is a 1971 Hindi film produced by Romu, Raj, and N. C. Sippy and written and directed by Gulzar. It was Gulzar's first directorial venture and was almost a frame by frame remake of the National Award winning Bengali film "Apanjan", which was directed by Tapan Sinha. The film stars Meena Kumari, Vinod Khanna and Shatrughan Sinha in lead roles along with Deven Verma, Paintal, Asit Sen, Asrani, Danny Denzongpa, Keshto Mukherjee, A. K. Hangal, Dinesh Thakur, Mehmood, and Yogeeta Bali. The music is composed by Salil Choudhury. "Mere Apne" was declared as "Above Average" on the box office. Plot. Anandi Devi (Meena Kumari) is an old widow who lives in a village. One day she is visited by a distant relative, Arun Gupta (Ramesh Deo), who persuades her to live in town with him, his wife Lata (Sumita Sanyal), and a small child. She later realizes that they were looking for a maid which results in her expulsion from the house and befriending a child beggar who takes her to his dilapidated home. Being good-natured and caring, she slowly earns the title of 'Nani Ma' (maternal grandmother) among groups of youths led by Shyam (Vinod Khanna) and Chaino (Shatrughan Sinha) who were in constant fight with each other. The movie ends with her death from an accidental gun fire in one such clash. Music. The film's music was composed by Salil Choudhary and lyrics were penned by Gulzar.
1099828	A radial basis function (RBF) is a real-valued function whose value depends only on the distance from the origin, so that formula_1; or alternatively on the distance from some other point "c", called a "center", so that formula_2. Any function formula_3 that satisfies the property formula_1 is a radial function. The norm is usually Euclidean distance, although other distance functions are also possible. For example, using Lukaszyk-Karmowski metric, it is possible for some radial functions to avoid problems with ill conditioning of the matrix solved to determine coefficients "w""i" (see below), since the formula_5 is always greater than zero. Sums of radial basis functions are typically used to approximate given functions. This approximation process can also be interpreted as a simple kind of neural network. RBFs are also used as a kernel in support vector classification. RBF types. Commonly used types of radial basis functions include (writing
586554	Arundhati Nag (née Rao) (Kannada: ಅರುಂಧತಿ ನಾಗ್ - ರಾವ್) is a prominent South Indian polyglot film actress and theatre personality. She has been involved with multilingual Theatre in India, for over 25 years, first in Mumbai where she got involved with Indian People's Theatre Association (IPTA), and did various productions in Gujarati, Marathi, and Hindi theatre, besides getting involved in television, director Jyoti Vyas's Gujarati TV series, "Haji Aavti Kaal Che". Later and after her marriage to Kannada actor-director Shankar Nag (1954–1990), her association with theatre continued in Bangalore, culminating in realizing the dream project of her late husband, the Ranga Shankara theatre, at J P Nagar, a suburb in Bangalore. She was awarded the 2008 Sangeet Natak Akademi Award in Theatre Acting by Sangeet Natak Akademi, India's National Academy of Music, Dance and Theatre. She was also awarded the 57th National Film Awards as best supporting actress for her role in Paa Arundathi is the founder and the Managing Trustee of the Sanket Trust, established in 1992, which has Girish Karnad as its chairman, and which runs the Ranga Shankara, a Bangalore theatre which after four years of construction was inaugurated on 28 October 2004. Now the annual Ranga Shankara Theatre Festival has become a regular feature on Bangalore's cultural calendar. Early life. She was born in Delhi, but her family moved to Mumbai when she was 10. Arundhati was passionate about theatre in her school days. She joined an amateur theatre group in Mumbai and in her teen years, she was doing as many as 42 shows a month in Marathi, Gujarati, Hindi and English. Personal life. At 17, she met Shankar Nag, also a theatre artist. Six years later, the two got married and she moved to Bangalore. Shankar became popular film actor, and later a director, most remembered for his TV adaptation of RK Narayan's "Malgudi Days" (1987). In 1990, the young couple and their daughter were travelling for the muhurat of a film, when a lorry hit their car in a head-on collision. Shankar Nag was killed instantly, Arundhati's legs were broken, her hands and face covered in bruises as also her daughter
582616	Suhasini Mulay is an Indian actress in Bollywood and Marathi films as well as television. She won National Film Award for Best Supporting Actress in 1999, for her performance in Gulzar's film "Hu Tu Tu". Early life and education. Suhasini was born in Patna where she spent the early part of her childhood. She lost her father when she was only three and was brought up by her mother, Vijaya Mulay. She was attracted toward films because of her. Career. In 1965 she was chosen by Pears Soap to be its model. It was this ad film which caught Mrinal Sen's attention and he signed her for "Bhuvan Shome" (1969).
584062	Pirivom Santhippom () is a 2008 Tamil film starring Cheran and Sneha in the lead roles and it is about the life of a young couple in a joint family with the Nattukottai Nagarathar Chettiar community located in Karaikudi, TN. This was another grape wine for Sneha as this was completely a heroine centric film. Directed by Karu Pazhaniappan, was released on the eve of Pongal was a Sleeper hit at the box office.Sneha won many awards for her excellent performance in this film. Plot. Unusually, this is not a film dominated by a male protagonist. Instead, it chooses to revolve around the life of Sala (short for Visalatchi) played by Sneha, who when the film begins is about to complete her master's degree. Though she is the only daughter of her parents, she always enjoys the company of people. While attending a relative's marriage, Sala happens to see Natesan played by Cheran who too attends the function along with all his family members, who live together as a big joint family. Both the family meet and arrange the marriage of Sala and Natesan. After getting married into a joint family of assorted uncles, aunts and children, apart from her in-laws Sala feels as if the world is under her heels. There she experiences the love and affection of each and every individual of the family and enjoys each day but Natesan often feels that he is not able to spend time with his wife adequately. One day Natesan brings a news that he is getting transferred to Attakatti with promotion. Natesan feels happy that he would be able to spend more time with her. But Sala does not want to leave the family and move out. After moving out along with her husband from a house full of relatives into a house with nobody to speak to, the loneliness begins to slowly get to her. Natesan being busy in work and day to day activities never notices his wife's abnormality. Sala slowly becomes a "psychotic", who repairs her fridge, fan and other equipments in her house and calls electrician played by Kanja Karuppu and talks with him, to overcome her loneliness. She then starts recording the various sounds that reaches her ears, like birds chirping, leaves waving in air, in to a tape recorder. This abnormality turns violent when she tries to record a child's laughter, which causes a stroke to the child and the child turns immobile, which frightens Sala. But the child regains its normal state after treatment. "Jayaram" who comes as a doctor Ramalingam, finds her abnormality and warns Natesan. But it turns too late that Sala unknowingly consumes too many sleeping pills to overcome her loneliness. Then Ramalingam advices Natesan to take Sala back to their joint family when they discover Sala is pregnant.. So does Natesan and they lead a happy life. The most talked part of the film was the fiming of the song "Iru Vizhiyo" which showed most of the rituals and formalities followed in a typical chettinad marriage. Filming. The lead role was initially given to Jyothika, who later opted out of the project because of her pregnancy Kamalini Mukherjee was also cast, but she was not able to emote well and as she was alien to Tamil tradition, she was replaced by Sneha. Reception. The film opened to highly positive reviews. This film was a "Pongal" release and compared to all other big releases, this film won the best and Sneha's acting was appreciated a lot. This did a reasonable business at the box office by completing 100 days. It was a surprise hit. Soundtrack. The film's background score and soundtracks are composed by Vidyasagar. The album gained popularity after the film's release. Accolades. Sneha won many awards for her excellent performance in this film. They are listed below: 1. "Tamil Nadu State Film Award for Best Actress"
1057840	My Summer of Love is a 2004 British drama film directed by Pawel Pawlikowski and co-written by Pawlikowski and Michael Wynne. Based on the novel of the same name by Helen Cross, the film explores the relationship between two young women from different classes and backgrounds. Working class Mona (Natalie Press), whose once-hotheaded brother Phil (Paddy Considine) became a born again Christian in prison, meets upper middle class Tamsin (Emily Blunt) who suffers from a lack of love in her family. Filmed in West Yorkshire, the film went on to win a BAFTA. Plot. The film commences on a sunny summer day in Yorkshire when Tamsin (Emily Blunt) meets Mona (Natalie Press). The former travels on horseback and chances upon Mona, who is resting in the grass. The two girls come from completely opposing background; Tamsin is from an upper-middle-class family and has recently been suspended from boarding school for being a bad influence; drinking alcohol. Mona, on the other hand, comes from a dysfunctional family, and her brother, Phil (Paddy Considine), who has recently been released from prison, is the only remaining member of her family still alive. Both of the girls seem to regard their lives as mundane. The new acquaintances head home together, one on horseback and the other on an engineless scooter. When Mona arrives home, she finds her brother in their mother's former pub, pouring all of the alcohol into the sink. He has undergone an extreme religious transformation during his stint in prison and regards his activity as part of his preparation for a rally for Christian converts, much to Mona's annoyance. That night, Mona meets her lover, Ricky. They have sex in his car, after which he breaks up with her. Mona angrily turns down Ricky's offer to drive her home. The next day, Mona arrives at Tamsin's in order to escape from the rally organised by her brother. The girls begin to bond as they spend the day drinking and smoking while talking about the problems they face in their lives. Their sharing brings to light several of Tamsin's family secrets, such as the fact that Tamsin's sister, Sadie, died as a result of anorexia nervosa.
582590	Mithya is a 2008 Indian film co-written and directed by Rajat Kapoor and produced by Planman Motion Pictures. The film stars Ranvir Shorey, Neha Dhupia, Naseeruddin Shah and Vinay Pathak in pivotal roles. The film's score and soundtrack is composed by Sagar Desai. The film which was released on 8 February 2008 opened to good reviews. Production. It was first reported in August 2006 that Arindam Chaudhuri's Planman Motion Pictures was working on a new film. Actor-director Rajat Kapoor was to direct this venture that was to have criminal underworld as its basic premise. Naseeruddin Shah, Neha Dhupia and Ranvir Shourie were reported as its cast. Shooting for this film commenced in July 2006. Sanchita Bhattyacharya, the winner of 2006 singing reality show Sa Re Ga Ma Pa L'il Champs, made her singing debut in the Hindi cinema industry through this film. Director Kapoor and music director were quite convinced about her singing abilities. The producers were hopeful of utilizing Bhattacharya's recent success while promoting the film's soundtrack. Actress Neha Dhupia immediately accepted Kapoor's offer for the film. She considered the film to be among one of her best performances. Though it was evident from the initial media reports, some found her presence in the film rather surprising. By being good friends with director Kapoor, actor Ranvir Shorey found it better to work with him in this film. Release and reception. The film was first screened at the 9th Osian's Cinefan Festival of Asian and Arab Cinema. Although the film was to feature at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival, the film was not complete by the nomination deadline. The organizers did not want to compromise on the quality of post-production by rushing through it. The film's commercial release was on February 8, 2008. Having arrived at the box office with no expectations, the film didn't have a favorable opening in the initial days. Slowly the collections showed signs of improvement based on the word of mouth. Based on this, the trade analysts felt that the film will be able to recover its shoestring budget. By the end of the first week, the film had a decent profit. Due to the film's offbeat nature, it did quite well mainly in Mumbai and New Delhi with collections exceeding Rs. 7.5 million (approximately US$167,000) and Rs. 6 million respectively. In the subsequent two weeks, huge budget films such as Jodhaa Akbar caused a corresponding drop of 65% and 50% in the film's box office collections. However by the fifth week, the film had Rs. 52.5 million as its cumulative box office earnings. Trade analysts even called the film as the dark horse of the first quarter of 2008. While rating 4 out of 5 in his review, noted critic Rajeev Masand spoke highly about Rajat Kapoor's directorial abilities. He said that the film was a "brave, mature effort by a discerning director." Masand wrote highly about Ranvir Shorey by saying that the actor's performance "merits an impromptu ovation." In her review, well-known critic Nikhat Kazmi liked Kapoor's unconventional approach to the usual storyline. Besides appreciating Shorey for his performance, she had high regard for Neha Dhupia and rest of the ensemble cast. Other movie critics such as Taran Adarsh, Anupama Chopra and Raja Sen wrote generally good reviews for the film.
1062057	Viggo Peter Mortensen, Jr. (; October 20, 1958) is an American actor, poet, musician, photographer and painter. He made his film debut in Peter Weir's 1985 thriller "Witness", and subsequently appeared in many notable films of the 1990s, including "The Indian Runner" (1991), "Carlito's Way" (1993), "Crimson Tide" (1995), "Daylight" (1996), "The Portrait of a Lady" (1996), "G.I. Jane" (1997), "A Perfect Murder" (1998), "A Walk on the Moon" (1999) and "28 Days" (2000). Mortensen's career rose to new heights in the early 2000s with his role as Aragorn in the epic film trilogy "The Lord of the Rings". In 2005, Mortensen won critical acclaim for David Cronenberg's crime thriller "A History of Violence". Two years later, another Cronenberg film "Eastern Promises" (2007) earned him an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor. A third teaming with Cronenberg in "A Dangerous Method" (2011) resulted in a Golden Globe Best Supporting Actor nomination. Other well-received films in recent years have included "Appaloosa" (2008) and the 2009 film adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's novel "The Road". Aside from acting, his other artistic pursuits include fine arts, photography, poetry, and music. In 2002, he founded the Perceval Press to publish the works of little-known artists and authors. Mortensen is politically active. He campaigned for Dennis Kucinich in the 2008 United States presidential election, and later endorsed Barack Obama for President. Early life. Mortensen was born in New York City, New York. His mother, Grace Gamble (née Atkinson), is American, and his father, Viggo Peter Mortensen, Sr., is Danish; the two met in Norway. His maternal grandfather was from Nova Scotia, Canada, and his maternal grandmother's family was from New England. The family moved to Venezuela, then Denmark, and eventually settled in Argentina, taking residency in the Argentine provinces of Córdoba, Chaco and Buenos Aires, where he attended primary school and acquired a fluent proficiency in Spanish, while his father managed chicken farms and ranches. They remained there until Mortensen was eleven, when his parents divorced. With his mother he returned to New York, where he spent the rest of his childhood, graduating from Watertown High School in Watertown, New York. He then attended St. Lawrence University in Canton, New York, earning a degree in Spanish Studies and Politics in 1980. Afterward, he went to Europe and lived in Spain, England, and Denmark, where he took various jobs such as driving trucks in Esbjerg and selling flowers in Copenhagen. After two years, he returned to the United States to pursue an acting career. Career. Acting career. After several years of experience in live theater, Mortensen made his first film appearance playing an Amish farmer in Peter Weir's "Witness." (Mortensen had actually acted in at least one prior film, "The Purple Rose of Cairo", but his scenes in the latter film were deleted from the final cuts.) Also in 1985, he was cast in the role of Bragg on "Search for Tomorrow". Mortensen's 1987 performance in "Bent" at the Coast Playhouse, Los Angeles, won him a Dramalogue Critics' Award. Coincidentally, the play, about homosexual concentration camp prisoners, was originally brought to prominence by Ian McKellen, with whom Mortensen later costarred in "The Lord of the Rings". In 1987, Mortensen guest starred as a corrupt police detective on the hit series "Miami Vice." During the 1990s, Mortensen appeared in supporting roles in a variety of films, including Jane Campion's "The Portrait of a Lady", "Young Guns II", "Prison", "", Sean Penn's "The Indian Runner", The Crew, which won the São Paulo Film Festival Audience Award, Brian de Palma's "Carlito's Way", "Crimson Tide", "G.I. Jane", "Daylight", "A Walk on the Moon", "American Yakuza", Charles Robert Carner's remake "Vanishing Point", Philip Ridley's two films "The Reflecting Skin" and "The Passion of Darkly Noon", "A Perfect Murder" and Gus Van Sant's "Psycho" (1998 remakes of two Alfred Hitchcock's movies "Dial M for Murder" and "Psycho"), "28 Days", and "The Prophecy", with Christopher Walken. Of these roles, Mortensen was probably best known for playing Master Chief John Urgayle in "G.I. Jane". Another major mainstream breakthrough came in 1999, when Peter Jackson cast him as Aragorn in "The Lord of the Rings" film trilogy. According to the Special Extended Edition DVD of ', Mortensen was a last-minute replacement for Stuart Townsend, and would not have taken the part of Aragorn had it not been for his son's enthusiasm for the J. R. R. Tolkien novel. In the ' DVD extras, the film's swordmaster, Bob Anderson, described Mortensen as "the best swordsman I've ever trained." Mortensen often spent days hiking to the film's remote locations, in costume and carrying his sword, in order to appear authentically travel-worn; he also performed all of his own stunts, and even the injuries he sustained during several of them did not dampen his enthusiasm. At one point during shooting of "The Two Towers", Mortensen, Orlando Bloom, and Brett Beattie (scale double for John Rhys-Davies) all had fairly serious injuries, and during a shoot of them, running in the mountains, Peter Jackson jokingly referred to the three as "the walking wounded."
1183950	Aaliyah Dana Haughton (January 16, 1979 – August 25, 2001), who performed under the mononym Aaliyah (), was an American recording artist, dancer, actress, and model. She was born in Brooklyn, New York, and raised in Detroit, Michigan. At the age of 10, she appeared on the television show "Star Search" and performed in concert alongside Gladys Knight. At age 12, Aaliyah signed with Jive Records and her uncle Barry Hankerson's Blackground Records. Hankerson introduced her to R. Kelly, who became her mentor, as well as lead songwriter and producer of her debut album, "Age Ain't Nothing but a Number". The album sold three million copies in the United States and was certified double platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). After facing allegations of an illegal marriage with R. Kelly, Aaliyah ended her contract with Jive and signed with Atlantic Records. Aaliyah worked with record producers Timbaland and Missy Elliott for her second album, "One in a Million"; it sold 3.7 million copies in the United States and over eight million copies worldwide. In 2000, Aaliyah appeared in her first major film, "Romeo Must Die". She contributed to the film's soundtrack, which spawned the single "Try Again". The song topped the "Billboard" Hot 100 solely on airplay, making Aaliyah the first artist in "Billboard" history to achieve this feat. "Try Again" earned Aaliyah a Grammy Award nomination for Best Female R&B Vocalist. After completing "Romeo Must Die", Aaliyah filmed her part in "Queen of the Damned". She released her third and final album, "Aaliyah", in July 2001. On August 25, 2001, Aaliyah and eight others were killed in an airplane crash in The Bahamas after filming the music video for the single "Rock the Boat". The pilot, Luis Morales III, was unlicensed at the time of the accident and had traces of cocaine and alcohol in his system. Aaliyah's family later filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Blackhawk International Airways, which was settled out of court. Aaliyah's music has continued to achieve commercial success with several posthumous releases. Aaliyah is estimated to have sold 24 to 32 million albums worldwide. She has been credited for helping redefine contemporary R&B and hip hop, earning her the nicknames "Princess of R&B" and "Queen of Urban Pop". She is listed by "Billboard" as the tenth most successful female R&B artist of the past 25 years, and 27th most successful R&B artist in history. Life and career. 1979–90: Early life and career beginnings. Aaliyah Dana Haughton was born on January 16, 1979, in Brooklyn, New York. Born of African American descent, with Native American heritage from her grandmother, she was the second and youngest child of Diane and Michael Haughton. At a young age, Aaliyah was enrolled in voice lessons by her mother, and she would perform at weddings, church choir and charity events. When she was five years old, her family moved to Detroit, Michigan, where she was raised along with her older brother, Rashad. She attended a Catholic school, Gesu Elementary, where in first grade, she received a part in the stage play "Annie". From then on, she was determined to become an entertainer. Aaliyah's mother was a vocalist, and her uncle, Barry Hankerson, was an entertainment lawyer who had been married to Gladys Knight. As a child, Aaliyah traveled with Knight and worked with an agent in New York to audition for commercials and television programs, including "Family Matters"; she went on to appear on "Star Search" at the age of nine. She then auditioned for several record labels and appeared in concerts alongside Knight at age 11. 1991–95: "Age Ain't Nothing but a Number" and marriage. After Hankerson signed a distribution deal with Jive Records, he signed Aaliyah to his Blackground Records label at the age of 12. Hankerson later introduced her to recording artist and producer R. Kelly, who became Aaliyah's mentor, as well as lead songwriter and producer of the album, which was recorded when she was 14. Aaliyah's debut album, "Age Ain't Nothing but a Number", was released under Jive and Blackground Records; the album debut at number 24 on the "Billboard" 200 chart, selling 74,000 copies in its first week. It ultimately peaked at number 18 on the "Billboard" 200 and sold over three million copies in the United States, where it was certified two times Platinum by the RIAA. In Canada, the album sold over 50,000 copies and was certified gold by the CRIA. Aaliyah's debut single, "Back & Forth", topped the "Billboard" Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart for three weeks and was certified Gold by the RIAA. The second single, a cover of The Isley Brothers' "At Your Best (You Are Love)", peaked at number six on the "Billboard" Hot 100 and was also certified Gold by the RIAA. The title track, "Age Ain't Nothing but a Number", peaked at number 75 on the Hot 100. Additionally, she released "The Thing I Like" as part of the soundtrack to the 1994 film "A Low Down Dirty Shame". "Age Ain't Nothing But a Number" received generally favorable reviews from music critics. Some writers noted that Aaliyah's "silky vocals" and "sultry voice" blended with Kelly's new jack swing helped define R&B in the 1990s. Her sound was also compared to that of female quartet En Vogue. Christopher John Farley of "Time" magazine described the album as a "beautifully restrained work", noting that Aaliyah's "girlish, breathy vocals rode calmly on R. Kelly's rough beats". Stephen Thomas Erlewine of AllMusic felt that the album had its "share of filler", but described the singles as "slyly seductive". He also claimed that the songs on the album were "frequently better" than that of Kelly's second studio album, "12 Play". With the release of "Age Ain't Nothing but a Number", rumors circulated of a relationship between Aaliyah and R. Kelly. Shortly after, there was speculation about a secret marriage with the release of "Age Ain't Nothing but a Number" and the adult content that Kelly had written for Aaliyah. "Vibe" magazine later revealed a marriage certificate that listed the couple married on August 31, 1994, in Sheraton Gateway Suites in Rosemont, Illinois. Aaliyah, who was 15 at the time, was listed as 18 on the certificate; the illegal marriage was annulled in February 1995 by her parents. The pair continued to deny marriage allegations, stating that neither was married. 1996–99: "One in a Million". In 1996, Aaliyah left Jive Records and signed with Atlantic Records. She worked with record producers Timbaland and Missy Elliott, who contributed to her second studio album, "One in a Million". The album yielded the single "If Your Girl Only Knew", which topped the "Billboard" Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs for two weeks. It also generated the singles "Hot Like Fire" and "4 Page Letter". The following year, Aaliyah was featured on Timbaland & Magoo's debut single, "Up Jumps da Boogie". "One in a Million" peaked at number 18 on the "Billboard" 200, selling over 3.7 million copies in the United States and over eight million copies worldwide. The album was certified double platinum by the RIAA on June 16, 1997, denoting shipments of two million copies. Aaliyah attended the Detroit High School for the Fine and Performing Arts, where she majored in drama and graduated in 1997. Aaliyah began her acting career that same year; she played herself in the police drama television series "New York Undercover". During this time, Aaliyah participated in the Children's Benefit Concert, a charity concert that took place at the Beacon Theatre in New York. Aaliyah also became the spokesperson for Tommy Hilfiger Corporation. She contributed on the soundtrack album for the Fox Animation Studios animated feature "Anastasia", performing a cover version of "Journey to the Past" which earned songwriters Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Original Song. Aaliyah performed the song at the 1998 Academy Awards ceremony and became the youngest singer to perform at the event. The song "Are You That Somebody?" was featured on the "Dr. Dolittle" soundtrack, which earned Aaliyah her first Grammy Award nomination. The song peaked at number 21 on the Hot 100. 2000–01: "Romeo Must Die" and eponymous album. In 2000, Aaliyah landed her first major movie role in "Romeo Must Die". Aaliyah starred opposite martial artist Jet Li, playing a couple who fall in love amid their warring families. It grossed US$18.6 million in its first weekend, ranking number two at the box office. In addition to acting, Aaliyah served as an executive producer of the film soundtrack, where she contributed four songs. "Try Again" was released as a single from the soundtrack; the song topped the "Billboard" Hot 100, making Aaliyah the first artist to top the chart based solely on airplay; this led the song to be released in a 12" vinyl and 7" single. The music video won the Best Female Video and Best Video from a Film awards at the 2000 MTV Video Music Awards. It also earned her a Grammy Award nomination for Best Female R&B Vocalist. The soundtrack went on to sell 1.5 million copies in the United States. After completing "Romeo Must Die", Aaliyah began to work on her second film, "Queen of the Damned". She played the role of an ancient vampire, Queen Akasha, which she described as a "manipulative, crazy, sexual being". She was scheduled to film for the sequels of "The Matrix" as the character Zee. Aaliyah released her eponymous album, "Aaliyah", in July 2001. It debuted at number two on the "Billboard" 200, selling 187,000 copies in its first week. The first single from the album, "We Need a Resolution", peaked at number 59 on the "Billboard" Hot 100. Aaliyah was engaged to co-founder of Roc-A-Fella Records Damon Dash at the time of her death and had plans to marry him after the premiere of "The Matrix Reloaded". Death. On August 25, 2001, at 6:45 pm (EST), Aaliyah and various members of the record company boarded a twin-engine Cessna 402B (registration N8097W) at the Marsh Harbour Airport in Abaco Islands, The Bahamas, to travel to the Opa-locka Airport in Florida, after they completed filming the music video for the single "Rock the Boat". They had a flight scheduled the following day, but with filming finishing early, Aaliyah and her entourage were eager to return to the United States and made the decision to leave immediately. The designated airplane was smaller than the Cessna 404 in which they had originally flown in on. The whole party and all of the equipment were accommodated on board. As a result, when the aircraft attempted to depart, it was over its maximum takeoff weight by and was carrying one excess passenger, according to its certification. The plane crashed shortly after takeoff, about from the runway. Aaliyah and the eight others on board, pilot Luis Morales III, hair stylist Eric Forman, Anthony Dodd, security guard Scott Gallin, video producer Douglas Kratz, stylist Christopher Maldonado, and Blackground Records employees Keith Wallace and Gina Smith, were all killed. According to findings from an inquest, conducted by the coroner's office in The Bahamas, Aaliyah suffered from "severe burns and a blow to the head", in addition to severe shock and a weak heart. The coroner theorized that she went into such a state of shock, even if Aaliyah had survived the crash, her recovery would have been virtually impossible. The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) report stated that "the airplane was seen lifting off the runway, and then nose down, impacting in a marsh on the south side of the departure end of runway 27 and then exploding in flames." It indicated that the pilot was not approved to fly the plane he was attempting to fly. Morales falsely obtained his Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) license by showing hundreds of hours never flown, and he may also have falsified how many hours he had flown in order to get a job with his employer, Blackhawk International Airways. Additionally, an autopsy performed on Morales revealed traces of cocaine and alcohol in his system. The NTSB reported that the maximum allowed gross weight of the plane was "substantially exceeded" and that the center of gravity was positioned beyond its rear limit. John Frank of the Cessna Pilots Association stated that the plane was "definitely overloaded". Funeral and wrongful death lawsuit. Aaliyah's funeral was held on August 31, 2001, at the St. Ignatius Loyola Church in New York City. Her body was set in a silver casket, which was carried in a glass hearse and was drawn by horse. An estimated 800 mourners were in attendance at the procession. Among those in attendance at the private ceremony were Missy Elliott, Timbaland, Gladys Knight, Lil' Kim and Sean Combs. After the service, 22 white doves were released to symbolize each year of Aaliyah's life. Aaliyah was buried at the Ferncliff Cemetery in Hartsdale, New York. The day of the crash was Morales' first official day with Blackhawk International Airways, an FAA Part 135 single-pilot operation. Morales was not registered with the FAA to fly for Blackhawk. As a result of the accident, Aaliyah's parents filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the company, which was settled out of court for an undisclosed amount. Barry & Sons, Inc., a corporation formed in 1992 to develop, promote and capitalize Aaliyah and to oversee the production and distribution of her records and music videos, brought an unsuccessful lawsuit in the New York Supreme Court against Instinct Productions LLC, the company that was hired in August 2001 to produce the music video for "Rock the Boat". The case was dismissed because of New York's wrongful death statute only permitting certain people to recover damages for wrongful death. Aftermath. 2001–11: "I Care 4 U", canceled film roles and "Ultimate Aaliyah". The week after Aaliyah's death, her third studio album, "Aaliyah", rose from number 19 to number one on the "Billboard" 200. "Rock the Boat" was released as a posthumous single. The music video premiered on BET's "Access Granted"; it became the most viewed and highest rated episode in the history of the show. The song peaked at number 14 on the "Billboard" Hot 100 and number two on the "Billboard" Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart. It was also included on the "Now That's What I Call Music! 8" compilation series; a portion of the album's profits was donated to the Aaliyah Memorial Fund. Promotional posters for "Aaliyah" that had been put up in major cities such as New York and Los Angeles became makeshift memorials for grieving fans. "More than a Woman" and "I Care 4 U" were released as posthumuous singles and peaked within the top 25 of the "Billboard" Hot 100. The album was certified double Platinum by the RIAA and sold 2.95 million copies in the United States. "More than a Woman" reached number one on the UK singles chart making Aaliyah the first deceased artist to reach number one on the UK singles chart. "More than a Woman" was replaced by George Harrison's "My Sweet Lord" which is the only time in the UK singles chart's history where a dead artist has replaced another dead artist at number one. She won two posthumous awards at the American Music Awards of 2002; Favorite Female R&B Artist and Favorite R&B/Soul Album for "Aaliyah". Her second and final film, "Queen of the Damned", was released in February 2002. Before its release, Aaliyah's brother, Rashad, re-dubbed some of her lines during post-production. It grossed US$15.2 million in its first weekend, ranking number one at the box office. On the first anniversary of Aaliyah's death, a candlelight vigil was held in Times Square; millions of fans observed a moment of silence; and throughout the United States, radio stations played her music in remembrance. In December 2002, a collection of previously unreleased material was released as Aaliyah's first posthumous album, "I Care 4 U". A portion of the proceeds was donated to the Aaliyah Memorial Fund, a program that benefits the Revlon UCLA Women's Cancer Research Program and Harlem's Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. It debuted at number three on the "Billboard" 200, selling 280,000 copies in its first week. The album's lead single, "Miss You", peaked at number three on the "Billboard" Hot 100 and topped the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart. In August of the following year, clothing retailer Christian Dior donated profits from sales in honor of Aaliyah. Aaliyah was signed to appear in several future films, including "Honey", a romantic film titled "Some Kind of Blue", and a Whitney Houston-produced remake of the 1976 film "Sparkle". Before her death, Aaliyah had filmed part of her role in "The Matrix Reloaded" and was scheduled to appear in "The Matrix Revolutions" as Zee. The role was subsequently recast to Nona Gaye. Aaliyah's scenes were included in the tribute section of the "Matrix Ultimate Collection" series. In 2005, Aaliyah's second compilation album, "Ultimate Aaliyah" was released in the UK by Blackground Records. "Ultimate Aaliyah" is a three disc set, which included a greatest hits audio CD and a DVD. Andy Kellman of AllMusic remarked ""Ultimate Aaliyah" adequately represents the shortened career of a tremendous talent who benefited from some of the best songwriting and production work by Timbaland, Missy Elliott, and R. Kelly." A documentary movie "Aaliyah Live in Amsterdam" was released in 2011., shortly before the tenth anniversary of Aaliyah's death. The documentary, by Pogus Caesar, contained previously unseen footage shot of her career beginnings in 1995 when she was appearing in the Netherlands. 2012–present: Posthumous releases. In March 2012, music producer Jeffrey "J-Dub" Walker announced on his Twitter account that a song "Steady Ground", which he produced for Aaliyah's third album, would be included in the forthcoming posthumous Aaliyah album. This second proposed posthumous album would feature this song using demo vocals, as Walker claims the originals were somehow lost by his sound engineer. Aaliyah's brother Rashad later refuted Walker's claim, claiming that "no official album being released and supported by the Haughton family." On August 5, 2012, a song entitled "Enough Said" was released online. The song was produced by Noah "40" Shebib and features Canadian rapper Drake. Four days later, Jomo Hankerson confirmed that a posthumous album was being produced to be released by the end of 2012. The album was reported to include 16 unreleased songs and have contributions from Aaliyah's longtime collaborators Timbaland and Missy Elliott, among others. On August 13, Timbaland and Missy Elliott dismissed rumors about being contacted or participating for the project. Elliott's manager Mona Scott-Young said in a statement to "XXL", "Although Missy and Timbaland always strive to keep the memory of their close friend alive, we have not been contacted about the project nor are there any plans at this time to participate. We've seen the reports surfacing that they have been confirmed to participate but that is not the case. Both Missy and Timbaland are very sensitive to the loss still being felt by the family so we wanted to clear up any misinformation being circulated." Elliott herself said, "Tim and I carry Aaliyah with us everyday, like so many of the people who love her. She will always live in our hearts. We have nothing but love and respect for her memory and for her loved ones left behind still grieving her loss. They are always in our prayers." In June 2013, Aaliyah was featured on a new track by Chris Brown, singing the hook for "Don't Think They Know." The video features dancing holographic versions of Aaliyah. The song is set to appear on Brown's upcoming sixth studio album, "X". Artistry. Voice and style. Aaliyah had the vocal range of a soprano. With the release of her debut single "Back & Forth", Dimitri Ehrlich of "Entertainment Weekly" expressed that Aaliyah's "silky vocals are more agile than those of self-proclaimed queen of hip-hop soul Mary J. Blige." Aaliyah described her sound as "street but sweet", which featured her "gentle" vocals over a "hard" beat. Though Aaliyah did not write any of her own material, her lyrics were described as in-depth. She incorporated R&B, pop and hip hop into her music. Her songs were often uptempo and melancholy, revolving around "matters of the heart". After her R. Kelly-produced debut album, Aaliyah worked with Timbaland and Missy Elliott, whose productions were more electronic. Sasha Frere-Jones of "The Wire" finds Aaliyah's "Are You That Somebody?" to be Timbaland's "masterpiece" and exemplary of his production's start-stop rhythms, with "big half-second pauses between beats and voices". Keith Harris of "Rolling Stone" cites "Are You That Somebody?" as "one of '90s R&B's most astounding moments". Aaliyah's songs have been said to have "crisp production" and "staccato arrangements" that "extend genre boundaries" while containing "old-school" soul music. Kelefah Sanneh of "The New York Times" called Aaliyah "a digital diva who wove a spell with ones and zeroes", and writes that her songs comprised "simple vocal riffs, repeated and refracted to echo the manipulated loops that create digital rhythm", as Timbaland's "computer-programmed beats fitted perfectly with her cool, breathy voice to create a new kind of electronic music." When she experimented with other genres on "Aaliyah", such as Latin pop and heavy metal, "Entertainment Weekly"s Craig Seymour panned the attempt. As her albums progressed, writers felt that Aaliyah matured, calling her progress a "declaration of strength and independence". Stephen Thomas Erlewine of AllMusic described her eponymous album, "Aaliyah", as "a statement of maturity and a stunning artistic leap forward" and called it one of the strongest urban soul records of its time. She portrayed "unfamiliar sounds, styles and emotions", but managed to please critics with the contemporary sound it contained. Ernest Hardy of "Rolling Stone" felt that Aaliyah reflected a stronger technique, where she gave her best vocal performance. Prior to her death, Aaliyah expressed a desire to learn about the burgeoning UK garage scene she had heard about at the time. Influences and image. As an artist, Aaliyah often voiced that she was inspired by a number of performers. These include Michael Jackson, Stevie Wonder, Sade, En Vogue, Nine Inch Nails, Korn, Prince, Naughty by Nature, Johnny Mathis and Janet Jackson. Aaliyah expressed that Michael Jackson's "Thriller" was her "favorite album" and that "nothing will ever top "Thriller"." She stated that she admired Sade because "she stays true to her style no matter what... she's an amazing artist, an amazing performer... and I absolutely love her." Aaliyah expressed she had always desired to work with Janet Jackson, whom she had drawn frequent comparison to over the course of her career, stating "I admire her a great deal. She's a total performer... I'd love to do a duet with Janet Jackson." Jackson reciprocated Aaliyah's affections, commenting "I've loved her from the beginning because she always comes out and does something different, musically." Jackson also stated she would have enjoyed collaborating with Aaliyah. Aaliyah focused on her public image throughout her career. She often wore baggy clothes and sunglasses, stating that she wanted to be herself. She described her image as being "important... to differentiate yourself from the rest of the pack". She often wore black clothing, starting a trend for similar fashion among women in United States and Japan. Aaliyah participated in fashion designer Tommy Hilfiger's All America Tour and was featured in Tommy Jean ads, which depicted her in boxer shorts, baggy jeans and a tube top. Hilfiger's brother, Andy, called it "a whole new look" that was "classy but sexy". When she changed her hairstyle, Aaliyah took her mother's advice to cover her left eye, much like Veronica Lake. In 1998, she hired a personal trainer to keep in shape, and exercised five days a week and ate diet foods. Aaliyah was praised for her "clean-cut image" and "moral values". Robert Christgau of "The Village Voice" wrote of Aaliyah's artistry and image, "she was lithe and dulcet in a way that signified neither jailbait nor hottie—an ingenue whose selling point was sincerity, not innocence and the obverse it implies." Legacy. Aaliyah has been credited for helping redefine R&B and hip hop in the 1990s, "leaving an indelible imprint on the music industry as a whole." Steve Huey of AllMusic wrote Aaliyah ranks among the "elite" artists of the R&B genre, as she "played a major role in popularizing the stuttering, futuristic production style that consumed hip-hop and urban soul in the late '90s." Described as one of "R&B's most important artists" during the 1990s, her second studio album, "One in a Million", became one of the most influential R&B albums of the decade. Music critic Simon Reynolds cited "Are You That Somebody?" as "the most radical pop single" of 1998. Kelefah Sanneh of "The New York Times" wrote that rather than being the song's focal point, Aaliyah "knew how to disappear into the music, how to match her voice to the bass line", and consequently "helped change the way popular music sounds; the twitchy, beat-driven songs of Destiny's Child owe a clear debt to 'Are You That Somebody'." Sanneh asserted that by the time of her death in 2001, Aaliyah "had recorded some of the most innovative and influential pop songs of the last five years." With sales of 8.1 million albums in the United States and an estimated 24 to 32 million albums worldwide, Aaliyah earned the nicknames "Princess of R&B" and "Queen of Urban Pop", as she "proved she was a muse in her own right". Ernest Hardy of "Rolling Stone" dubbed her as the "undisputed queen of the midtempo come-on". Japanese pop singer Hikaru Utada has said several times that "It was when I heard Aaliyah's "Age Ain't Nothing but a Number" that I got hooked on R&B.", after which Utada released her debut album "First Love" with heavy R&B influences. Aaliyah was honored at the 2001 MTV Video Music Awards by Janet Jackson, Missy Elliott, Timbaland, Ginuwine and her brother, Rashad, who all paid tribute to her. In the same year, the United States Social Security Administration ranked the name Aaliyah one of the 100 most popular names for newborn girls. Aaliyah was ranked as one of "The Top 40 Women of the Video Era" in VH1's 2003 "The Greatest" series. She was also ranked at number 18 on BET's "Top 25 Dancers of All Time". Aaliyah appeared on both 2000 and 2001 list of "Maxim" Hot 100 in position 41 and the latter at 14. In memory of Aaliyah, the Entertainment Industry Foundation created the Aaliyah Memorial Fund to donate money raised to charities she supported. In December 2009, "Billboard" magazine ranked Aaliyah at number 70 on its Top Artists of the Decade, while her eponymous album was ranked at number 181 on the magazine's Top 200 Albums of the Decade. She is listed by "Billboard" as the tenth most successful female R&B artist of the past 25 years, and 27th most successful R&B artist overall. In 2012, VH1 ranked her number 48 in "VH1's Greatest Women in Music." In 2012 British singer-songwriter Katy B released the song "Aaliyah" as a tribute to Aaliyah's legacy and lasting impression on R&B music. The song first appeared on Katy B's "Danger" EP and featured Jessie Ware on guest vocals.
1043088	The Man In The White Suit is a 1951 satirical comedy film made by Ealing Studios. It starred Alec Guinness, Joan Greenwood and Cecil Parker and was directed by Alexander Mackendrick. The film was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Writing (Screenplay) for Roger MacDougall, John Dighton and Alexander Mackendrick (who was a cousin of Roger MacDougall). It followed a common Ealing Studios theme of the "common man" against the Establishment. In this instance the hero falls foul of both trade unions and the wealthy mill owners who attempt to suppress his invention. Plot. Sidney Stratton, a brilliant young research chemist and former Cambridge scholarship recipient, has been dismissed from jobs at several textile mills in the north of England because of his demands for expensive facilities and his obsession with inventing an everlasting fibre. Whilst working as a labourer at the Birnley mill, he accidentally becomes an unpaid researcher and invents an incredibly strong fibre which repels dirt and never wears out. From this fabric, a suit is made—which is brilliant white because it cannot absorb dye and slightly luminous because it includes radioactive elements. Stratton is lauded as a genius until both management and the trade unions realise the consequence of his invention; once consumers have purchased enough cloth, demand will drop precipitously and put the textile industry out of business. The managers try to trick and bribe Stratton into signing away the rights to his invention but he refuses. Managers and workers each try to shut him away, but he escapes. The climax sees Stratton running through the streets at night in his glowing white suit, pursued by both the managers and the employees. As the crowd advances, his suit begins to fall apart as the chemical structure of the fibre breaks down with time. The mob, realising the flaw in the process, rip pieces off his suit in triumph, until he is left standing in his underwear. Only Daphne Birnley, the mill-owner's daughter, and Bertha, a works labourer, have sympathy for his disappointment. The next day, Stratton is dismissed from his job. Departing, he consults his chemistry notes. A realisation hits and he exclaims, "I see!" With that he strides off, perhaps to try again elsewhere. Cultural references. The distinctive soundtrack of the protagonist's laboratory-apparatus has a cameo appearance (as the sounds of the cider distiller) in the 2009 film "Fantastic Mr. Fox". The ChuckleVision episode "Well Suited" is primarily based on the film.
586480	Baabarr () is a 2009 gangster Hindi film directed by Ashu Trikha. The film stars Sohum Shah, Mithun Chakraborty and Urvashi Sharma. Legal issues. A PIL was filed in the Bombay High Court seeking a ban on "Baabarr" for alleged negative portrayal of Muslims. The petitioner also charged that characters in the film were based on Mulayam Singh Yadav and Mayawati. Critical reception. India. "Baabarr" is not much liked by the critics. Taran Adarsh of Bollywood Hungama gave 3.5 out of 5 stars. The Times Of India gave 2.5 out of 5 stars & stated that "The film is not much impressive as expected, "director Ashu Trikha" & "writer Ikram Akhtar" did a well job but the thing making it unimpressive is that the "director" gets only the mood right, not the scenes, though the reviewer praised the performance of Om Puri by saying that it is Om Puri as the oily, wily and crooked cop, who steals the show". Martin D'Souza of Bollywood Trade News Network gave it 1 out of 5 stars & said by calling the film a repetition that "the film is of old story with new cast & crew, Martin specially criticises the decision of making film with lead role of "Soham Shah"" Box office. India. The film was not good at the box office as it hardly netted an amount of at the end of its first week after release & getting through the cinemas across India "Baabarr" at last managed to gross & determined a "Flop". Overseas. "Baabarr" grossed £2,748 on 18 Sep 2009 & £1,439 on 11 Sep 2009 according to Bollywood hungama. Awards. Recently the cast and crew of the film visited Asian Academy Of Film & Television and they have been honoured with the life membership of International Film And Television Club.
1163695	Charles Clarence Robert Orville Cummings (June 9, 1910–December 2, 1990), mostly known professionally as Robert Cummings but sometimes as Bob Cummings, was an American film and television actor. Cummings performed mainly in comedies, but was effective in his few dramas, especially two Alfred Hitchcock films, "Saboteur" (1942) and "Dial M for Murder" (1954). Early life. Cummings was born in Joplin, Missouri, a son of Dr. Charles Clarence Cummings and the former Ruth Annabelle Kraft. His father was a surgeon, who was part of the original medical staff of St. John's Hospital in Joplin. He was the founder of the Jasper County Tuberculosis Hospital in Webb City, Missouri. Cummings's mother was an ordained minister of the Science of Mind. While attending Joplin High School, Cummings was taught to fly by his godfather, Orville Wright, the aviation pioneer. His first solo was on 3 March 1927. During high school, Cummings gave Joplin residents rides in his aircraft for $5 per person. When the government began licensing flight instructors, Cummings was issued flight instructor certificate No. 1, making him the first official flight instructor in the United States. Cummings studied briefly at Drury College in Springfield, Missouri, but his love of flying caused him to transfer to the Carnegie Institute of Technology in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He studied aeronautical engineering for a year before he dropped out because of financial reasons, his family having lost heavily in the 1929 stock market crash. Since the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York City paid its male actors $14 a week, Cummings decided to study there. Acting career. Cummings studied drama for two years before appearing on Broadway in 1931. As British actors were heavily in demand, Cummings traveled to England and learned to mimic an upper-class English accent. He had a brief career on Broadway under the name Blade Stanhope Conway, posing as an Englishman. In 1933, Cummings met and married his second wife, the actress Vivian Janis. They were both appearing in the Ziegfeld Follies, with Cummings as the male lead opposite comedian Fanny Brice. In 1934, he moved to Hollywood, where he acted at first under the name Bruce Hutchens, having assumed the persona of a wealthy Texan. He made his film debut the following year in "The Virginia Judge". Cummings then began to use his own name, acting throughout the 1930s as a contract player in a number of supporting roles. Achieving stardom. He achieved stardom in 1939 in "Three Smart Girls Grow Up", opposite Deanna Durbin. His many film comedies include: "The Devil and Miss Jones" (1941) with Jean Arthur, and "The Bride Wore Boots" (1946) with Barbara Stanwyck and "Moon Over Miami" (1941). Cummings gave memorable performances in three notable dramas. In "Kings Row" (1942), he played the lead role Parrish Mitchell alongside friend Ronald Reagan, Claude Rains, Ann Sheridan and an all-star cast. In spite of its mixed critical reaction, the film was nominated for three Academy Awards, including one for Best Picture. Cummings also starred in the spy thriller "Saboteur" (1942) with Priscilla Lane and Norman Lloyd. He played Barry Kane, an Aircraft worker wrongfully accused of murder, trying to clear his name. Cummings appeared in another Hitchcock film: "Dial M for Murder" (1954), in which he played Mark Halliday with Grace Kelly and Ray Milland. The film was a box-office smash. Cummings also starred in "You Came Along" (1945), which featured a screenplay by Ayn Rand. The Army Air Forces pilot Cummings played ("Bob Collins") died off camera, but was resurrected ten years later for his television show. Cummings was chosen by producer John Wayne as his co-star to play airline pilot Captain Sullivan in "The High and the Mighty", partly due to Cummings's flying experience. However, director William A. Wellman overruled Wayne and hired Robert Stack for the part. Cummings made his mark in the CBS Radio network's dramatic serial entitled "Those We Love", which ran from 1938 to 1945. Cummings played the role of David Adair, opposite Richard Cromwell, Francis X. Bushman, and Nan Grey. World War II. In November 1942, Cummings joined the United States Army Air Corps. During World War II, he served as a flight instructor. After the war, Cummings served as a pilot in the United States Air Force Reserve, where he achieved the rank of Captain. For a time he was the owner of a Porterfield 35-70 aircraft, named "Spinach", which is still airworthy in the USA. Television career. Cummings began a long career on television in 1952, starring in the comedy "My Hero". He received the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor for his portrayal of "Juror Number Eight," in the first televised performance of "Twelve Angry Men," a live production that aired in 1954 (Henry Fonda played the same role in the feature film adaptation). Cummings was one of the anchors on ABC's live broadcast of the opening day of Disneyland on July 17, 1955. From 1955 through 1959, Cummings starred on a successful NBC sitcom, "The Bob Cummings Show" (list of episodes) (known as "Love That Bob" in reruns), in which he played Bob Collins, an ex–World War II pilot who became a successful professional photographer. As a bachelor in 1950s Los Angeles, the character Bob Collins considered himself to be quite the ladies' man. This sitcom was noted for some very risque humor for its time. A popular feature of the program was Cummings's portrayal of his elderly grandfather. His co-stars were Rosemary DeCamp, as his sister, Margaret MacDonald, Dwayne Hickman, as his nephew, Chuck MacDonald and Ann B. Davis, in her first television success, as his assistant Charmaine "Schultzy" Schultz. Cummings also was a guest on the NBC interview program "Here's Hollywood". In 1960 Cummings starred in "King Nine Will Not Return," the opening episode of the second season of CBS's "The Twilight Zone". "The New Bob Cummings Show" (list of episodes) followed on CBS for one season, from 1961 to 1962. Cummings is depicted as the owner and pilot of Aerocar N102D and this aircraft was featured on his show. Cummings also starred in 1964–65 on another CBS sitcom, "My Living Doll" (list of episodes), which co-starred Julie Newmar as Rhoda the robot. Cummings's last significant role was the 1973 television movie "Partners in Crime", co-starring Lee Grant. He also appeared in 1979 as Elliott Smith, the father of Fred Grandy's Gopher on ABC's "The Love Boat". In 1986, Cummings hosted the televised 15th Anniversary Celebration of Walt Disney World in "Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color". Robert Cummings's last public appearance was on The 35th Anniversary Special of Disneyland in 1990. Personal life. Cummings married five times and fathered seven children. He was a staunch advocate of natural foods and a healthy diet and in 1960 authored a book, "Stay Young and Vital", which focuses upon health foods and exercise. Cummings's son, Tony Cummings, played Rick Halloway in the NBC daytime serial "Another World" in the early 1980s. Death. On December 2, 1990, Cummings died of kidney failure and complications from pneumonia at the Motion Picture & Television Country House and Hospital in Woodland Hills, California. He was interred in the Great Mausoleum at Forest Lawn Cemetery in Glendale, California. Filmography. Films. This filmography as actor is believed to be complete. Cummings also served as producer on 1948's "Let's Live a Little".
1790362	John Devon Roland "Jon" Pertwee (7 July 1919 – 20 May 1996) was an English actor. Pertwee is remembered for his 18-year stint on BBC Radio as Chief Petty Officer Pertwee in "The Navy Lark", as the third incarnation of The Doctor in the science-fiction series "Doctor Who" (1970-1974), and as the title character in the series "Worzel Gummidge" (1979-1981). Biography. Early life. Born in Chelsea, London. He had Huguenot ancestry (the name was an Anglicisation of "Perthuis"; the origins of his surname being "de Perthuis de Laillevault"). He was the son of noted screenwriter and actor Roland Pertwee and distant cousin of actor Bill Pertwee, who played Chief Warden Hodges in the comedy "Dad's Army". Pertwee’s mother Avice Scholtz separated from his father Roland, when Pertwee was young. His father remarried and his mother had a new partner with whom Pertwee did not build a relationship. Avice’s sister Daphne married Captain Philip Cecil Clowes and became the mother of Pertwee's cousin, the writer St. John Legh Clowes (1907-1951). Coincidentally, Jon Pertwee was the writers' first choice for the role of Captain George Mainwaring in "Dad's Army". The actor Henry Ainley, a close friend of his father, was his godfather and Ainley's son Anthony appeared alongside Pertwee in the 1983 Doctor Who anniversary story "The Five Doctors". Education. Pertwee was educated at Frensham Heights School, an independent school in Rowledge, near Farnham in Surrey, at Sherborne School in Sherborne in Dorset, and at some other schools from which he was expelled. After school, he went to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA), from which he was also expelled after he refused to play a Greek "wind" during one of the lessons, feeling it was a waste of both his time and his father's money. He was also accused of writing graffiti about the tutors on the lavatory walls . Early career. Pertwee was an officer in the Royal Navy, spending some time attached to the highly-secretive Naval Intelligence Division during the Second World War, working alongside James Bond author Ian Fleming and reporting directly to Prime Minister Winston Churchill. In a 1994 interview (not published until 2013) he said "I did all sorts. Teaching commandos how to use escapology equipment, compasses in brass buttons, secret maps in white cotton handkerchiefs, pipes you could smoke that also fired a .22 bullet. All sorts of incredible things." He was a crew member of HMS "Hood" and was transferred off the ship for officer training shortly before she was sunk by the German battleship "Bismarck", losing all but three men. During his time in the navy Pertwee woke up one morning after a drunken night out while in port to find a tattoo of a cobra on his right arm. After the war he made a name for himself as a comedy actor on radio in "Waterlogged Spa", alongside Eric Barker and "Puffney Post Office" in which he played a hapless old postman with the catch-phrase "It doesn't matter what you do, as long as you tears them up". From 1959 to 1977, he had a long-running role as the conniving Chief Petty Officer Pertwee in "The Navy Lark" on BBC Radio. He was known as a Danny Kaye look-alike, and his impersonation of Kaye can be seen in the film "Murder at the Windmill" (1949). On stage, he played the part of Lycus in the 1963 London production of "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum" with Frankie Howerd and appeared in the smaller role of Crassus in the 1966 film version. He appeared as Sidney Tait in the comedy film "Ladies Who Do" (1963). In 1966, Pertwee starred alongside Donald Sinden in the original West End production of the long-running comedy "There's a Girl in My Soup" and also appeared in four Carry On films: "Carry On Cleo" (1964, as the soothsayer), "Carry On Screaming" (1966, as Dr. Fettle), "Carry On Cowboy" (1965, as Sheriff Earp) and "Carry On Columbus" (1992, as the Duke of Costa Brava). On television, he started off with small parts in children's shows featuring Richard Hearne's Mr Pastry character. Later he made an appearance in "The Avengers" episode "From Venus with Love" as Brigadier Whitehead, and in the 1970s, he guest-starred as a vicar in "The Goodies"' episode "Wacky Wales". He had one of his most memorable film roles in the Amicus horror compendium "The House That Dripped Blood" (1971). Filming in the summer of 1970, between his first and second "Doctor Who" seasons, Pertwee played the lead in the last segment of the film as Paul Henderson, a deliciously arrogant horror film star who meets his quasi-comedic doom thanks to a genuine vampire cloak. He was married twice. His first marriage was in 1955, to Jean Marsh, whom he divorced in 1960; later that same year he married Ingeborg Rhoesa. Together they had two children, both of whom were to become actors: a daughter, Dariel, in 1961, and a son, Sean, in 1964. "Doctor Who" (1970–1974). In 1969, Pertwee was selected by producer Peter Bryant to take over as the Doctor from Patrick Troughton in the television series "Doctor Who". Pertwee had asked his agent to apply for the role for him and was surprised to find he was already on the shortlist. He was the second choice of the producer; Ron Moody was the first but was unavailable. In a departure from the Doctor's first two incarnations, Pertwee played the character as an active crusader with a penchant for action and fancy clothes, even while the character was exiled on Earth and serving with UNIT. He played the Doctor for five seasons from early 1970 to mid-1974, a longer stint than either of his predecessors in the role, William Hartnell and Patrick Troughton, although he appeared in fewer episodes than Hartnell. In early 1974, Pertwee announced he would step down as the Doctor in order to resume his stage career in "The Bedwinner", also citing typecasting in the role as the reason for leaving, though later he would say that the catalyst for his departure was the death of his good friend and co-star Roger Delgado and the departures of co-star Katy Manning and producer Barry Letts. His last full-time appearance in the series was in the story "Planet of the Spiders" in June 1974, and Tom Baker replaced him in the role. Pertwee later reprised the role in the 20th anniversary story "The Five Doctors", in two radio adventures and on stage in "Doctor Who – The Ultimate Adventure". On 14 April 1971, Pertwee was the subject of Thames Television's "This Is Your Life". "Worzel Gummidge". After a stint between 1974 and 1978 as the host of the Thames Television murder-mystery game show "Whodunnit?", Pertwee took the starring role in "Worzel Gummidge", based on the books written by Barbara Euphan Todd. First aired in 1979 on ITV, the series saw Pertwee as a scarecrow, as well as utilising several comedic voices. The show was an immediate hit and ran on the channel until 1981. Keen to continue beyond this, Pertwee campaigned for the series and it was picked up by a New Zealand TV network in 1987. "Worzel Gummidge Down Under" aired for the next two years and was screened in the UK on Channel 4. In 1995, Pertwee played the role one last time in a one-off special for ITV, which celebrated 40 years of the channel. Pertwee also played the character on stage and recorded an album, "Worzel Gummidge Sings", as well as a Christmas single. Other roles. In 1976, Pertwee voiced and appeared in the television advertisement which promoted the Green Cross Code by use of the mnemonic "SPLINK". He also voiced the character of "Spotty" in the 1980s cartoon series "SuperTed" and in 1985 he starred in "Do You Know The Milkyway?," a television adaptation of Karl Wittlinger's stage play in which he played Dr. Neuross and another nine characters. In 1995 Pertwee also had the key voice of Death and other voice characterisations in the PC and PlayStation renditions of "Discworld". Also in 1995, Jon Pertwee played General Von Kramer in the "Young Indiana Jones Chronicles" episode "Attack of the Hawkmen". In 1975 he played a memorable role of 'The Colonel' in the children's film 'One of our dinosaurs Is missing' . Later life. He returned to the role of the Doctor in the 1983 20th anniversary television special "The Five Doctors" and in the 1993 charity special "Dimensions in Time" for Children in Need. He also portrayed the Doctor in the stage play "Doctor Who – The Ultimate Adventure" which toured theatres in the United Kingdom from March to June 1989. During the 1990s, he made a guest appearance in the "Lords and Ladies" episode of the BBC Radio 4 comedy series "Harry Hill's Fruit Corner", playing a Time Lord and also spoofed the role in the Radio 4 comedy "The Skivers". He also presented the "Doctor Who" video releases "The Troughton Years" (showcasing selected surviving episodes of otherwise wiped stories) and "The Pertwee Years" (a look back at his time on the show, with his three selected episodes) in the early 1990s. In 1993, Pertwee was featured in the unofficial 30th anniversary VHS release of Doctor Who entitled "30 Years of Time Travel and Beyond". When asked in an interview for this documentary if the show should be brought back he simply replied with 'No...no'. Pertwee would continue to act in films and television as well as make appearances worldwide in support of "Doctor Who". Ultimately, Pertwee was successful in seeing the Third Doctor return to the airwaves with two audio productions for BBC Radio, "The Paradise of Death" and "The Ghosts of N-Space". In late 1995, he appeared in "Devious", an amateur video drama set between the second Doctor's trial at the end of "The War Games" and before the start of "Spearhead From Space", which shows an interim (between second and third) Doctor played by Tony Garner being told he was "never meant to be the Doctor" and that the third will complete him. Pertwee's scenes in that role are the only pieces of the video that have been released (on the DVD of "The War Games"). Pertwee's final film role was in a short film, "Cloud Cuckoo" for Scottish Screen, released on 18 June 1994. His last formal television appearance was on Cilla's "Surprise, Surprise", broadcast on 21 April 1996. At the date of his death, Pertwee was regularly being seen at the tail end of an enigmatic UK TV commercial for mobile phone operator Vodafone: dressed somewhat in his flamboyant 'Doctor' manner, his character walked wordlessly across an alleyway in sight of a Liverpool landmark, and entered a garage evidently containing some kind of 'time machine'. Death and legacy. Pertwee continued on the convention circuit and with his voice and television acting until his death from a heart attack in Connecticut on 20 May 1996, two months before his 77th birthday. (Some reports place the location of his death in New York.) He was cremated at Putney Vale Crematorium with a toy Worzel Gummidge affixed to the coffin, following the instructions in his will. He died only days after the American broadcast of the "Doctor Who" television film, which used in its opening credits a logo based on the one from his era of the television series. The BBC broadcast of the television film featured a dedication to Pertwee at its end. His last association with the series was posthumous. With the approval of his widow, Ingeborg, his voice was utilised as part of the plot of the Big Finish Productions' 40th Anniversary "Doctor Who" audio drama, "Zagreus", appearing as messages from the Doctor's TARDIS as it attempted to help the currently corrupted Eighth Doctor (voiced by Paul McGann). Pertwee's voice was culled from the fan-produced "Doctor Who" film "Devious", portions of which were recorded just prior to his death. Pertwee wrote two autobiographies: "Moon Boots and Dinner Suits" (published in 1984), which primarily covers his life and career prior to "Doctor Who", and the posthumously published "Doctor Who: I Am the Doctor – Jon Pertwee’s Final Memoir" (published in 1996 by Virgin Publishing Ltd. under the "Doctor Who Books" imprint and co-written with David J. Howe), which covered his life during and after the series. In 2000, "Jon Pertwee: The Biography" by Bernard Bale (ISBN 0-233-99831-4) was published by André Deutsch, and included a few chapters by Pertwee's widow Ingeborg.
1673494	Elephant White is a 2011 action-thriller film starring Djimon Hounsou and Kevin Bacon. Filming took place in Bangkok, Thailand. Plot. American assassin Curtie Church (Hounsou) is completing a job in Thailand when 14-year-old child prostitute, Mae, witnesses Church killing a group belonging to her captor Chang Cao's gang and frame the Jong Ang Gang. Church sees her, but decides to flee the scene. Word reaches Chang Cao Gang advisor, Bhun, that the Jong Ang have broken the truce. However, it seems suspicious that a bomb was used as that is unlike the Jong Ang. Church collects his payment for the job from his client, Rajahdon, whose daughter was murdered. Church then goes to a club which Jimmy the Brit (Bacon) is visiting, however upon seeing Church, Jimmy flees the premises thinking he is there to kill him. Church eventually catches Jimmy and explains that he was not the target, and he just wanted to buy some weapons. They drive to Jimmy's warehouse where Church purchases a sniper rifle.
866435	Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel (22 July 1784 – 17 March 1846) was a German mathematician, astronomer, and systematizer of the Bessel functions (which were discovered by Daniel Bernoulli). He was a contemporary of Carl Gauss, also a mathematician and physicist. The asteroid 1552 Bessel was named in his honour. Life and work. Bessel was born in Minden, administrative center of Minden-Ravensberg, as son of a civil servant. At the age of 14 Bessel was apprenticed to the import-export concern Kulenkamp. The business's reliance on cargo ships led him to turn his mathematical skills to problems in navigation. This in turn led to an interest in astronomy as a way of determining longitude. Bessel came to the attention of a major figure of German astronomy at the time, Heinrich Wilhelm Olbers, by producing a refinement on the orbital calculations for Halley's Comet in 1804. Within two years Bessel had left Kulenkamp and become an assistant at Lilienthal Observatory near Bremen. There he worked on James Bradley's stellar observations to produce precise positions for some 3,222 stars. This work attracted considerable attention, and in January 1810, at the age of 25, Bessel was appointed director of the new founded Königsberg Observatory by King Frederick William III of Prussia. There he published tables of atmospheric refraction based on Bradley's observations, which won him the Lalande Prize from the French Academy of Sciences in 1811. Bessel was able to pin down the position of over 50,000 stars during his time at Königsberg. With this work under his belt, Bessel was able to achieve the feat for which he is best remembered today: he is credited with being the first to use parallax in calculating the distance to a star. Astronomers had believed for some time that parallax would provide the first accurate measurement of interstellar distances—in fact, in the 1830s there was a fierce competition between astronomers to be the first to measure a stellar parallax accurately. In 1838 Bessel won the race, announcing that 61 Cygni had a parallax of 0.314 arcseconds; which, given the diameter of the Earth's orbit, indicated that the star is 10.3 ly away. Given the current measurement of 11.4 ly, Bessel's figure had an error of 9.6%. He narrowly beat Friedrich Georg Wilhelm Struve and Thomas Henderson, who measured the parallaxes of Vega and Alpha Centauri in the same year. As well as helping determine the parallax of 61 Cygni, Bessel's precise measurements allowed him to notice deviations in the motions of Sirius and Procyon, which he deduced must be caused by the gravitational attraction of unseen companions. His announcement of Sirius's "dark companion" in 1844 was the first correct claim of a previously unobserved companion by positional measurement, and eventually led to the discovery of Sirius B. Despite lacking a university education, Bessel was a major figure in astronomy during his lifetime. He was elected a fellow of the Royal Society, a foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in 1823, and the largest crater in the Moon's Mare Serenitatis is named Bessel after him. Bessel's work in 1840 contributed in some degree to the discovery of Neptune. In 1832, he was elected a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Bessel won the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society in 1829 and 1841. In the second decade of the 19th century while studying the dynamics of 'many-body' gravitational systems, Bessel developed what are now known as Bessel functions. Critical for the solution of certain differential equations, these functions are used throughout both classical and quantum physics. Even in the absence of any work in astronomy, Bessel's role in developing the functions which now bear his name would have, by itself, placed him among the most significant and influential mathematicians of the 19th century. Bessel is responsible for the correction to the formula for the sample variance estimator named in his honour. This is the use of the factor "n-1" in the denominator of the formula, rather than just "n". This occurs when the "sample mean" rather than the "population mean" is used to centre the data and since the sample mean is a linear combination of the data the residual to the sample mean overcounts the number of degrees of freedom by the number of constraint equations — in this case one. He died in the spring of 1846 in Königsberg from retroperitoneal fibrosis. This was several months short of the discovery of Neptune in the fall of that year, by his colleagues at Berlin Observatory.
1705597	Driven to Kill is a 2009 straight-to-DVD action film. Directed by Jeff King, the movie stars Steven Seagal. The film was released on May 19, 2009 on DVD and Blu-ray. Plot. Ruslan Drachev (Steven Seagal) is a former Russian diplomat and a current writer of hard boiled pulp fiction novels living in St. Petersburg when he gets a call from his ex-wife Catherine (Inna Korobkina) that his daughter Lanie (Laura Mennell) is getting married. Not wanting to miss the wedding, Ruslan catches the red eye to New Jersey and heads into Trenton to see Lanie, who is an attorney in the D.A.'s office in Trenton. Ruslan is somewhat concerned that Lanie is marrying Stephen Abramov (Dmitry Chepovetsky), the son of Michael Abramov (Igor Jijikine), a corrupt U.S. Senator who works with the American mafia. Ruslan finds that Catherine is now married to wealthy local defense attorney Terry Goldstein (Robert Wisden). Lanie tells Ruslan that Terry is a jerk. Ruslan pulls Stephen to the side, and Stephen assures Ruslan that he has no interest of joining the family business and just wants to love his new wife and start a new life. After everyone but Catherine and Lanie leaves to go to the church where the wedding will take place, A pair of men break in, stab Catherine to death, and then stab Lanie, leaving her in critical condition. Detective Norden (Ingrid Torrance) and Detective Lavastic (Zak Santiago) are heading the investigation. It was made to look like a robbery, but Ruslan knows full well that it was not a robbery. At East Lawn Hospital, Dr. Brown (Linda Minard) tells Ruslan that she expects Lanie to recover. Ruslan starts his own investigation and learns that Michael, who hates Ruslan, was behind the attack. Terry, who is Michael's attorney, is also in on it. Michael despised the thought of Stephan marrying a prosecuting attorney instead of following in Michael's footsteps, and Catherine was about to blow the whistle on some of Terry's corrupt activities. Ruslan is willing to do whatever it takes to make Michael and Terry pay for what they did. Production. "Driven to Kill" was shot on location in Lower Mainland, B.C., including the beach in White Rock.
1056830	Messiah of Evil (later also shown under the title Dead People) is a film made in 1973 by Willard Huyck and Gloria Katz, the husband and wife team behind the film version of "Howard the Duck" as well as the screenplay for "American Graffiti". Plot. A young woman named Arletty (Marianna Hill) drives to the beach town of Point Dune, California, to visit her estranged father, an artist. She finds his house, abandoned. He left a diary in which he addresses her specifically. In it he complains about darkness consuming the town, and horrible nightmares he is having, and implores Arletty to never, ever look for him. His letter tells her to talk to the owner of the art gallery, who sells his paintings. The gallery owner says he has none of her father's paintings, does not sell them, no one ever comes in looking to buy his works, and says he doesn't know where he went. He says Point Dune is 'an artist colony', and he only vaguely remembers her father (his paintings are eerie pop art portraits of groups of people in black, white, and gray, standing; the men are always dressed in black suits, white shirts, and black ties, like dead men at a funeral). It is never clear if these are townspeople, or figures from his visions, or both. By chance, Arletty meets a Portuguese-American aristocrat Thom (Michael Greer) and his two extremely provocative, groupie-like female companions, Toni (Joy Bang) and Laura (Anitra Ford). They are drinking, smoking, and walking around in states of undress, except for the man. He always wears an ivory three piece suit, 24 hours a day. He is fascinated by the town, and the legend that a blood moon rises above it periodically, and darkness then consumes the town. Back at his motel, he is interviewing Charlie (Elisha Cook, Jr.) a village idiot/'wino'-type character. He tape records his bizarre rants. Charlie speaks at length about 'the blood moon' and 'the dark stranger' and how he has lived through both. He says very soon it will be the 100 year anniversary of the first appearance of the 'dark stranger', he will return, the moon will turn red, and the town will be overrun with evil. He says the stranger's followers do not kill him as they think he is a harmless hobo—they let him sleep on the sidewalk undisturbed every night. Charlie warns Arletty about her father, he says he is 'one of them' now, and must be killed, but with fire, as only fire will do the job. Moments later he is murdered off screen. Thom tells Arletty he also went to the gallery, and saw one of her father's paintings in the window. The man and his women are kicked out of the motel, supposedly because the police questioned them about the wino, and it bothered the management (all the police in town are 'normal' and clueless about the vampires massing at night). They all move in together, at Arletty's father's house. Each night at the house, strange things happen, shadows crawl about on the skylights, and Arletty reads more of the diary. In it, her father reveals his body temperature is 85 degrees. This proves he is dead, but thinking and moving about, and suggests the local vampires are fully sentient and aware of what they do, and only Arletty's father feels remorse and is actively fighting his 'condition'. Meanwhile, each night, creatures gather on the beach in front of bonfires, staring straight up at the moon. The locals call it 'The Waiting'. These 'vampires' will eat anything: dead vampires, dead people, live people, live animals, etc. Each day 'order' returns to Point Dune. These vampires are especially interested in eating Arletty, Thom, Toni, and Laura. First to die is Laura, devoured inside a Ralphs supermarket, in one of the film's two semi-famous scenes. Next to die is Toni, in the other semi-famous scene, she is literally devoured in a movie theater filled with blood red seats and greenish vampire-like creatures. These 'things' act like vampires, bite their victims' necks, but then eat them like George Romero's zombies. The night Toni is eaten alive, Thom races downtown, realizing she is in danger. But he's too late. Things quickly get completely crazy as the 'blood moon' rises, every resident turns into a monster, and the titular Messiah of Evil - the dark stranger, a former minister, and a Donner Party survivor from the late 19th century turned vampire/cannibal, returns. He says he has come to lead his people up the coast and inland, to spread his 'religion'. Thom gets bitten on the neck, and then suddenly two policemen in riot gear drive up, and fire their guns into a swarm of townspeople/vampire/zombies; however one of them suddenly begins to bleed, causing his now-former partner to shoot him and flee. Undaunted, the undead cop shoots his former ally and he and the other vampire/zombies go to feast on his flesh. Thom drives to the beach house, but Arletty is half-crazed; she is cold, cannot feel pain, thinks she may be dead or un-dead...she even finds a bug crawling around in her mouth and immediately vomits up various beetles, mealworms and an anole. Startled by Thom, she stabs him with garden shears. Later bandaged up and ready to go, the two of them flee to the beach. It is swarming with the ersatz vampires. They swim out to the breakers. Thom drowns, but Arletty survives. Instead of being eaten, she is tied up, to be 'sacrificed to the Messiah'. Instead of killing her, he turns her loose, and tells her to spread word of his religious movement throughout California and the world. Of course, once she is freed Arletty tries to spread word of the menace and of his cult. This causes her to be locked up in an insane asylum. She is the woman seen dancing in the hallway at the beginning of the film. Each day, all day, she sits in the sun painting. But she says she is really waiting for, and dreading the day the Messiah and his followers come to her asylum, and she is taken away to live forever as his bride. Interpretation. Almost nothing in the entire plot is ever explained, but rather left to the viewer's interpretation. The movie's dream-like structure leads the viewer to question what is going on, and with each successive scene, the mystery becomes more obscure. For example, the symptoms that Arletty experiences at the end of the movie (the coldness, inability to feel pain, and bug crawling out of her mouth) seem to suggest that she has been dead for some time without being cognizant of it. Variations. An urban legend regarding the film exists that a key subplot regarding the true nature of Michael Greer's character "Thom" and his connection to the "Messiah of Evil", aka the "dark stranger" was cut from the final edit of the film. Greer plays the "dark stranger" in the flashback sequence and at the end of the film, Thom tells Arletty of a dream he had, placing him in a situation similar to the "Donner Party", that the "dark stranger" was present at. This leaves the question of whether or not Thom was the reincarnation of the "dark stranger" or the actual "dark stranger". In an interview with Michael Greer to promote the film "The Gay Deceivers", he states that he will be playing "the devil's son" in his upcoming film, Messiah of Evil. Criticism. It is considered by many horror critics to be one of the earliest "Nightmare" films, meaning that it portrays many dream-like, psychedelic scenes in an eerie, unsettling atmosphere. It has often been accused of borrowing liberally from the 1962 horror film "Carnival of Souls". Release. The movie was released on DVD January 1, 2003 and has been fully remastered by Code Red DVD and also available alongside "The Devil's Nightmare".
1685652	Alucarda (Spanish title: Alucarda, la hija de las tinieblas, or Alucarda, the daughter of darkness) is a 1978 Mexican horror film directed by Mexican horror filmmaker Juan López Moctezuma, starring Tina Romero in the title role. Often thought to be based on the 1872 novella "Carmilla", it revolves around two teenage orphan girls living in a Catholic convent, who unleash a demonic force and become possessed by Satan. Though it is a Mexican Spanish film, it was originally filmed in English, as evidenced by the fact that the lip movements match the dubbed English dialogue. It was released in theaters across Mexico on January 26, 1978. Plot outline. The film takes place in a Mexican convent that houses nuns and is also an orphanage. Alucarda, a fifteen-year-old orphaned girl, has lived at the convent her entire life. Justine, another orphan girl of similar age, arrives at the convent. She and Alucarda become very close friends and form a relationship that borders on being sexual. While playing in the nearby forest, the girls stumble upon a band of mysterious gypsies and subsequently unleash a demonic force after opening a casket at a nearby burial site. A bloody chain of events follows after both Alucarda and Justine become possessed by the Satanic entity and wreak havoc on the convent and its inhabitants. Themes. "Alucarda" is notorious for its extreme subject matter and themes, which includes that of Satanism, murder, demonic possession, exorcism, orgies, and lesbianism, among other things, within a religious setting. All of these things made the film controversial, especially for the time it was made. Because of its extreme violence, scenes of sacrilege, and perversely defiled religious imagery, it has gained notoriety among fans of the horror genre. Although the film continues to be situated in this genre, it is undergirded by anti-government and anticlerical sentiments that are manifest in the exaggerated idolatry, representations of clerics as tyrants and persecutors, and overt iconoclasm. The film has been often compared to Ken Russell's 1971 horror film "The Devils" and William Friedkin's 1973 film classic "The Exorcist" because "Alucarda" was released within five years of both of them and shares similar plot themes. Reception. After the film's release in January 1978 in Mexico, it never received much attention from critics nor audiences, but over the years became something of an underground film and a B-movie cult classic. While it is not widely known by horror fans, many fans who have seen it consider it an unrecognized gem. Columnist Michael Weldon of the Psychotronic Video Guide said the film was ""The strongest, most imaginative, and visual witch movie since Ken Russell's "The Devils"."" Well-known Mexican filmmaker Guillermo del Toro has also expressed his appreciation for the film and other works from director Juan López Moctezuma.
1054531	Dunston Checks In is a 1996 American comedy film starring Jason Alexander, Eric Lloyd, Faye Dunaway, Rupert Everett, Paul Reubens, Glenn Shadix, and introducing Sam the Orangutan as Dunston. It was written by John Hopkins and Bruce Graham and directed by Ken Kwapis. Plot. Lionel Spalding (Glenn Shadix) is entering the Majestic Hotel, a 5-star Hotel, only to end up accidentally hosed by Kyle (Eric Lloyd) and Brian (Graham Sack), much to the stress and annoyance of the hotel manager and the boys' father Robert Grant (Jason Alexander). Robert then grounds the both of them but are promised a holiday afterwards, only to be forced to abandon the trip for a third time by the ruthless hotel boss, Mrs. Dubrow (Faye Dunaway), due to the Crystal Ball where one of the guests is revealed to be a critic from the Le Monde Traveller Organisation who will reward them a sixth star. Just then, "Lord" Rutledge (Rupert Everett) a jewel thief (believed by Mrs. Dubrow to be the critic giving them the sixth star), arrives with an orangutan named Dunston, intending to steal the guests' jewelry. Dunston and his deceased brother Samson were trained in thievery their whole lives. Now Dunston has been wanting to escape Rutledge's poor treatment and life of crime ever since. One night, Dunston crosses the line and flees Rutledge, who then bumps into Kyle and quickly befriends him. However, neither Robert nor Brian take notice. After Dunston escapes Rutledge yet again, Robert finally encounters Dunston and calls Buck LaFarge (Paul Reubens) from the Animal Control Unit to kill Dunston. After Kyle saves Dunston, Brian also encounters Dunston, and with Kyle's help, checks him into the hotel, where the 3 of them have fun in the room. Rutledge however detects Dunston's room, ties up Kyle, and attempts to leave the hotel, attempting to punish Dunston afterwards. Dunston then escapes Rutledge once again and unties Kyle. The two of them attempt to escape the hotel, until LaFarge begins to pursue Dunston, and Rutledge eventually catches up with Dunston. However, Robert manages to confront Rutledge, and, with Brian's help, defeats him.
1099306	Bruno de Finetti (13 June 1906 – 20 July 1985) was an Italian probabilist, statistician and actuary, noted for the "operational subjective" conception of probability. The classic exposition of his distinctive theory is the 1937 "La prévision: ses lois logiques, ses sources subjectives," which discussed probability founded on the coherence of betting odds and the consequences of exchangeability. Life. De Finetti was born in Innsbruck, Austria and studied mathematics at Politecnico di Milano. He graduated in 1927 writing his thesis under the supervision of Giulio Vivanti. After graduation, he worked as an actuary and a statistician at National Institute of Statistics in Rome and, from 1931, the Trieste insurance company Assicurazioni Generali. He published extensively (17 papers in 1930 alone, according to Lindley) and acquired an international reputation in the small world of probability mathematicians. He taught mathematical analysis in Padua and then won a chair in Financial Mathematics at Trieste University (1939). In 1954 he moved to the University of Rome, first to another chair in Financial Mathematics and then, from 1961 to 1976, one in the Calculus of Probabilities. De Finetti developed his ideas on subjective probability in the 1920s independently of Frank P. Ramsey. Still, according to the preface of his Theory of Probability, he drew on ideas of Harold Jeffreys, I. J. Good and B.O. Koopman. He only became known in the Anglo-American statistical world in the 1950s when L. J. Savage, who had independently adopted subjectivism, drew him into it; another great champion was Dennis Lindley. De Finetti died in Rome. Work. De Finetti emphasized a predictive inference approach to statistics; he proposed a thought experiment along the following lines (described in greater detail at coherence (philosophical gambling strategy)): "You" must set the price of a promise to pay $1 if there was life on Mars 1 billion years ago, and $0 if there was not, and tomorrow the answer will be revealed. You know that "your opponent" will be able to choose either to buy such a promise from you at the price you have set, or require you to buy such a promise from your opponent, still at the same price. In other words: you set the odds, but your opponent decides which side of the bet will be yours. The price you set is the "operational subjective probability" that you assign to the proposition on which you are betting. This price has to obey the probability axioms if you are not to face certain loss, as you would if you set a price above $1 (or a negative price). By considering bets on more than one event de Finetti could justify additivity. Prices, or equivalently odds, that do not expose you to certain loss through a "Dutch book" are called "coherent". De Finetti is also noted for de Finetti's theorem on exchangeable sequences of random variables. De Finetti was not the first to study exchangeability but he brought the subject to greater visibility. He started publishing on exchangeability in the late 1920s but the 1937 article is his most famous treatment. In 1929, de Finetti introduced the concept of infinitely divisible probability distributions. He also introduced de Finetti diagrams for graphing genotype frequencies. The 1974 English translation of his book is credited with reviving interest in predictive inference in the Anglophone world, and bringing the idea of exchangeability to its attention. The de Finetti Award, presented annually by the European Association for Decision Making, is named after him. Bibliography. See Works on
1689820	Three And Out is a 2008 British comedy film directed by Jonathan Gershfield. It premiered in London on the 21 April 2008 and was released in the UK and Ireland on 25 April 2008. It was released in Australia under the title A Deal is a Deal. Plot. Paul Callow (Mackenzie Crook) accidentally runs a man over with his underground train, after the man is pulled on to the tracks by his dog. After a week off he kills a second passenger who falls on to the tracks after having a heart attack. Before taking time off for the second accident his colleagues tell him about a little-known 'rule' at London Underground that no-one talks about: three 'under' within a month, and you lose your job - earning yourself ten years' salary in one lump sum. But being off for the next week means that Paul needs to find someone willing to kill themselves by the following Monday. Paul sets about trying to find someone prepared to die under his train – and after hearing a report about Holborn Viaduct he comes across Tommy Cassidy (Colm Meaney) attempting to jump off. He grabs his hand and pulls him up but far from being grateful Tommy is angered by Paul's interference and moans about how "do gooders" will not just mind their own business, however upon hearing a police siren he agrees to get in Paul's car. While in a bar Paul explains to Tommy that he will pay him if he is willing to jump in front of his train. Tommy is scornful asking what good will the money do him if he has to die. Paul says that he can have one last weekend of fun. Tommy however wants to do something meaningful. Tommy agrees to his proposal and decides to spend his last weekend making amends with his estranged family. Tommy hires a car and they travel to Liverpool. While there they find that Tommy's wife Rosemary (Imelda Staunton) and daughter Frances (Gemma Arterton) have moved to the Lake District. Paul tags along to protect his investment. While in the Lake District Tommy meets with resistance from his wife and daughter. He reconciles with his wife, who reveals she has found a new man. Paul meets the daughter at a local pub and the two get drunk and sleep together. On the Sunday morning Tommy tries to talk to his daughter and sees her in bed with Paul, then chases him over some hills before having a mild cardiac attack and being taken to hospital. Tommy and Paul leave to go back to London. Paul tells Tommy he does not want to kill him and Tommy insists that he go through with it. On the Monday morning Paul is told by his colleagues that the "three and out" rule was a joke, and that there is no pay off. When the time approaches Paul sees Tommy on the tracks and stops and reports an "animal on the tracks". However, crying and recalling "a deal's a deal", Paul accelerates towards Tommy and kills him. Distraught, Paul sits at home then begins to write and changes the title of his novel to Three and Out, we see Frances receive a copy of the novel along with £10,000 which Paul had promised to Tommy. Hidden behind the cheque is the dedication "In Memory of Tommy Cassidy". Realising her Dad has died, Frankie breaks down in tears. She travels to London and meets Paul, they go deep sea diving with Great White Sharks, Tommy's last wish. Production. Although set around the London Underground, most of the action in the film takes place above ground – in North London, Liverpool, and Cumbria. A scene set in South Africa was actually filmed in Gibraltar. Controversy. The film, whose filming was carried out in close co-operation with London Underground, has been the cause of controversy due to the plot of the film involving a character seeking someone to commit suicide by diving under his train. Before the film was released, the train drivers' union, ASLEF, called the plot "insulting and foolish" despite not having seen the film and have pointed out that train drivers who experience such incidents find them "life-changing traumas". The union organized a protest at premiere of the film, handing out leaflets to the public, from whom it claims to have received strong support. The filmmakers' spokesperson stated that "difficult issues portrayed in the film have been handled sensitively." Awards. 2009 2008 Box office. Three and Out flopped, entered at number 12 in the UK box office chart with an opening weekend take of £189,454. DVD release. Contender Entertainment Group have released this film on Region 2 DVD on 15 September 2008 in The United Kingdom. The extra features included cast & crew biographies, deleted scenes, trailers and a featurette on the making of this film. It was rated as a 12 certificate and has a distinct sticker on the front saying Gemma Arterton as the new Bond Girl being in this film. Gemma appears as Agent Fields in the 22nd James Bond film "Quantum of Solace". Soundtrack. The trailer features the tracks "Dreaming of You" by The Coral, "One Way or Another" by Blondie, "Spirit in the Sky" by Norman Greenbaum and "Night Time" by N.U.M.B. There is a soundtrack of the same name accompanying this film. Novelisation. The novelisation of "Three and Out" by Tom Henry was released on 14 April 2008 by Rovinge Publishing Company Limited. It is based on the original screenplay by Steve Lewis and Tony Owen and provides a great deal of additional information on the characters' lives as well as answering a number of questions not resolved by the film.
590258	Sob Charitro Kalponik, ( "All Characters are Imaginary") also known as Afterword, is a 2009 Bengali film by Rituparno Ghosh. The film stars Bipasha Basu and Prosenjit Chatterjee. This film is selected for the 30th Durban International Film Festival and won National Film Award for Best Feature Film in Bengali. '09 Plot. Non-resident Bengali Radhika (Bipasha Basu) marries the thespian poet Indranil Mitra (Prosenjit Chatterjee) to settle in Kolkata. While Indranil continues his surveillance of the surreal world of words, rhythms, rhymes and imaginations Radhika single-handedly pulls out the private and public aspects of conjugal life. Radhika gets wholesome support from their housemaid Priyobala Das (also called Nondor ma). While the apparently irresponsible and introvert Indranil does one menace after other (like quiting his job after getting an award), Radhika stands like a rock to make the family exist materially. But all the reluctance and indifference from Indranil, makes Radhika’s heart oscillate towards Shekhar, her office colleague and Indranil’s biggest admirer. Radhika becomes attracted to Shekhar (Jisshu Sengupta) but can’t abandon the unpredictability and histrionics of her spouse.
1042373	The Man Who Haunted Himself is a 1970 British psychological thriller film directed by Basil Dearden and starring Roger Moore. It was based on the novel "The Strange Case of Mr Pelham" by Anthony Armstrong. Plot. Whilst driving his Rover P5B, uptight City worker Harold Pelham appears to become possessed and he has a serious accident at high speed. On the operating table, he briefly suffers clinical death, after which there appear to be two heartbeats on the monitor. When he awakes, Pelham finds his life has been turned upside-down: in his job as a director of a marine technology company he learns that he now supports a merger that he once opposed, and that he apparently is having an affair. Friends, colleagues and acquaintances claim to have seen him in places where he has never been, and Pelham starts being followed by a mysterious silver car (a Lamborghini Islero). Does Pelham have a "doppelgänger" - or is he actually going insane? DVD release. The film was released on DVD format in 2005 with a PG rating. The DVD includes special features which are: Release. According to Roger Moore's autobiography, "My Name Is Moore", this film was part of a series of small budgeted films featuring star actors working for substantially less than their usual fees. Moore says that the film should have been successful, but amateurish marketing made this impossible. Reception. Though initial reviews were negative, it is considered one of Roger Moore´s best non-Bond films. The film also has many positive reviews all round the internet, pointing out that this film was and still is an extremely underrated classic. The film has a cult following because of the unusual plot and its not so beautiful aging.
532618	The Double McGuffin is a 1979 film written and directed by Joe Camp. It starred Ernest Borgnine and George Kennedy, alongside a group of young actors, some of whom later became quite famous, including Lisa Whelchel, who would go on to star in the sitcom "The Facts of Life". Elke Sommer and NFL stars Ed 'Too Tall' Jones and Lyle Alzado also appear in smaller roles. The film also included a young Vincent Spano as well as Dion Pride (son of country singer Charley Pride). An opening narration is provided by Orson Welles. The cast was rounded out by Chicago native Michael Gerard, and Dallas area child actors Greg Hodges and Jeff Nicholson. At the beginning of the film, the narrator (Welles) informs the audience that a McGuffin is an object that serves as the focal point of the plot in the thriller genre. This film has two such objects (a suitcase of money and a severed hand). The plot follows a group of boarding school students who discover, in succession, a suitcase full of money, a dead body, and a dismembered hand. They are unable to convince the local police to take them seriously, because they have not secured any evidence, and because the police chief (played by Kennedy) is suspicious of them due to their past misbehavior. They follow the evidence themselves and realize that a political assassination is planned at a school event. They foil the plot themselves.
1034486	Frederick Charles "Freddie" Jones (born 12 September 1927) is an English character actor. Life and career. Jones was born in the town of Longton, Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire, the son of Ida Elizabeth (née Goodwin) and Charles Edward Jones. He became an actor after ten years of working as a laboratory assistant with a firm making ceramic products, when his hobby of acting took over. He was trained at the prestigious Rose Bruford College and became famous for his role as Claudius in the 1968 British television series "The Caesars". He tends to play eccentric characters. He narrated the award-winning video "Sexual Encounters of the Floral Kind: Pollination". He plays the character Sandy Thomas in ITV’s soap opera "Emmerdale". He also acted in the 1980s with Martin Sheen He was also something of a David Lynch regular, appearing in "The Elephant Man" (1980), "Dune" (1984), "Wild at Heart" (1990), his short-lived TV series "On The Air" (1992) and the short film "Hotel Room" (1993). Jones also created the part of Sir in the original production of "The Dresser" by Ronald Harwood. He is the father of actor Toby Jones. A plaque to Freddie Jones is in Longton town hall.
520494	Regina Carla "Rica" Bautista Peralejo-Bonifacio (née Peralejo) (born March 7, 1981) is a Filipina actress, singer, and television host. She is a member of ABS-CBN's circle of homegrown talents collectively known as Star Magic. Television career. Rica started out as child star and was part of ABS-CBN's popular youth oriented variety show Ang TV. During her early teens, she became part of the rival network's hit teen oriented drama, GMA Network's T.G.I.S.. A year later, Peralejo moved back to ABS-CBN and was cast as part of its own hit teen oriented drama, Gimik. She was also cast as part of the hit horror series !Oka Tokat. Her acting prowess was finally recognized as she became a staple in ABS-CBN's teleseryes such as Mula Sa Puso, Marinella, Kay Tagal Kang Hinintay, Sineserye Presents: "Palimos ng Pag-ibig", Sa Piling Mo and Pangarap Na Bituin. She was also part of the hit sitcoms Palibhasa Lalake, Oki Doki Doc and OK Fine Whatever. She also honed her hosting skills as a host for the showbiz oriented show Showbiz No. 1 and a segment host for Umagang Kay Ganda. Rica was also hailed as a "Dancing Queen" with her "Rated R" segment in the Philippines' longest running variety show ASAP. She has appeared in several episodes of Komiks, Star Magic Presents, Philippine TV's longest running drama anthology Maalaala Mo Kaya and her own mini-anthology via Star Drama Presents: "Rica". Recently, Rica has appeared in guest roles on 100 Days to Heaven and Ikaw Ay Pag-Ibig and became a guest judge on several occasions on It's Showtime. Movies and reinventions. Between making television shows, Rica has made several movies. During her younger years, she was a staple in teen flicks such as T.G.I.S. The Movie, Takot Ka Ba Sa Dilim? and Silaw. She also did several comedy movies such as "It's Cool Bulol" and "Banyo Queen". She later took on more daring roles in such movies as Balahibong Puso, Tatarin, and Sa Huling Paghihintay. In recent years, Rica made special appearances in the movies Caregiver and Paano Na Kaya. Other Work. Rica also embarked on a singing career and has released two solo albums
1064271	Gregory Nicotero (born March 15, 1963) is an American special effects creator, actor, and director. His first major job in special effects makeup was on the George A. Romero film "Day of the Dead" (1985), under the tutelage of Romero and Tom Savini. In 1988, along with Robert Kurtzman and Howard Berger, he formed KNB Efx Group, a special effects studio which has gone on to work on over 400 film and television projects. KNB has won numerous awards, including an Emmy Award in 2001 for their work on the 2000 Sci Fi Channel miniseries "Frank Herbert's Dune" and an Academy Award in 2006 for achievement in makeup for "". He is currently working as co-executive producer, special effects makeup artist, director and also actor on AMC's The Walking Dead. Life and career. Nicotero claims he began taking an interest in special effects after viewing the film "Jaws". He explains, "[...] I kept thinking "How the fuck did they do that? How’d they build a big giant shark that could eat people?!" So, between that movie, "The Exorcist", "Planet of the Apes", and of course all of the Universal horror movies [...] I think "Jaws" and then later "Dawn of the Dead" were pretty much the two movies that did it for me." Nicotero began his career working in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, learning the trade of special effects from Tom Savini, an award-winning special effects and makeup artist, and helping on films by director George A. Romero. While working on the 1985 Romero film "Day of the Dead", he met Howard Berger, who would become one of his partners at KNB EFX Group. Nicotero relocated to Hollywood and moved in with Berger and Bob Kurtzman. He worked as FX artist on the 2010 film Predators and created a classic predator figure for the film. He worked on the special effects, acting roles and directed for the TV series The Walking Dead and narrated the film on the San Diego Comic-Con International. In 2013 he was a guest on Talking Dead and he claimed that the March 24, 2013 death was the 'first major death' since Dale.
1103602	Peter David Lax (born 1 May 1926) is an American mathematician working in the areas of pure and applied mathematics. He has made important contributions to integrable systems, fluid dynamics and shock waves, solitonic physics, hyperbolic conservation laws, and mathematical and scientific computing, among other fields. Lax is listed as an ISI highly cited researcher. Life and education. Lax was born in Budapest, Hungary to a Jewish family. His parents Klara Kornfield and Henry Lax were both physicians, and his uncle, Albert Kornfeld (also known as Albert Korodi), was a mathematician and a friend of Leó Szilárd. Lax began displaying an interest in mathematics at age twelve, and soon his parents hired Rózsa Péter as a tutor for him. The family left Hungary on November 15, 1941, and traveled via Lisbon to the United States. As a high school student at Stuyvesant High School, Lax took no math classes, but competed on the school math team; in this time, he met with John von Neumann, Richard Courant, and Paul Erdős, who introduced him to Albert Einstein. As he was still 17 when he finished high school, he could avoid military service, and was able to study for three semesters at New York University. In a complex analysis class that he had begun in the role of a student, but ended up taking over as instructor, he met his future wife, Anneli Cahn (married to her first husband at that time). Before being able to complete his studies, Lax was drafted into the U.S. Army. After basic training, the Army sent him to Texas A&M University for more studies, then Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and soon afterwards to the Manhattan Project at Los Alamos, New Mexico. At Los Alamos, he began working as a calculator operator, but eventually moved on to higher-level mathematics. After the war ended, he remained with the Army at Los Alamos for another year, while taking courses at the University of New Mexico, then studied at Stanford University for a semester with Gábor Szegő and George Pólya. Lax returned to NYU for the 1946-1947 academic year, and by pooling credits from the four universities at which he had studied, he graduated that year. He stayed at NYU for his graduate studies, marrying Anneli in 1948 and earning a Ph.D. in 1949 under the supervision of Kurt O. Friedrichs. Work. In a 1958 paper Lax stated a conjecture about matrix representations for third order hyperbolic polynomials which remained unproven for over four decades. Interest in the "Lax conjecture" grew as mathematicians working in several different areas recognized the importance of its implications in their field, until it was finally proven to be true in 2003. Lax holds a faculty position in the Department of Mathematics, Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences, New York University. Awards and honors. He is a member of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters and the National Academy of Sciences, USA. He was awarded the National Medal of Science in 1986, the Wolf Prize in 1987 and the Abel Prize in 2005. In 2012 he became a fellow of the American Mathematical Society. The CDC 6600 Incident. In 1970, the Transcendental Students took a CDC 6600 super computer hostage at NYU's Courant Institute which he had been instrumental in acquiring. Some of the students present, possibly members of the Weathermen, threatened to destroy the computer with incendiary devices, but Lax managed to disable the devices and save the machine. The incident played a role in the resignation of Juergen Moser, director of the Courant Institute in 1967–1970.
1105105	In applied mathematics, the transfer matrix is a formulation in terms of a block-Toeplitz matrix of the two-scale equation, which characterizes refinable functions. Refinable functions play an important role in wavelet theory and finite element theory. For the mask formula_1, which is a vector with component indexes from formula_2 to formula_3, the transfer matrix of formula_1, we call it formula_5 here, is defined as More verbosely The effect of formula_5 can be expressed in terms of the downsampling operator "formula_9":
1065354	Killer of Sheep is a 1979 American film written, directed, produced and shot by Charles Burnett. It features Henry G. Sanders, Kaycee Moore, and Charles Bracy, among others. The drama depicts the culture of urban African-Americans in Los Angeles' Watts district. The film's style is often likened to Italian neorealism. At the time of its completion the film could not be released because the filmmakers had not secured rights to the music used in the film. The rights were purchased in 2007 at a cost of US $150,000 and the film was restored and transferred from a 16mm to a 35mm print. "Killer of Sheep" received a limited release 30 years after it was completed, with a DVD release in late 2007. Plot. Movie critic Dana Stevens describes the film plot as "a collection of brief vignettes which are so loosely connected that it feels at times like you're watching a non-narrative film." There are no acts, plot arcs or character development, as conventionally defined. Stan (Henry Gayle Sanders) works long hours at a slaughterhouse in Watts, Los Angeles. The monotonous slaughter affects his home life with his unnamed wife (Kaycee Moore) and two children, Stan Jr. and Angela (Jack Drummond and Burnett’s niece, Angela). Through a series of episodic events — some friends try to involve Stan in a criminal plot, a white woman propositions Stan in a store, Stan and his friend Bracy (Charles Bracy) attempt to buy a car engine — a mosaic of an austere working-class life emerges in which Stan feels unable to affect the course of his life. Production. The film was directed by Charles Burnett. It was shot in Watts on a budget of less than US$10,000 over roughly a year's worth of weekends in 1972 and 1973, with additional shooting in 1975. In 1977, Burnett submitted the film as his Master of Fine Arts thesis at the School of Film at the University of California, Los Angeles. Burnett stated that he also intended to make the film a history of African-American music and filled it with music from a variety of genres and different eras. Critical reception. Though the film won the Critics' Award at the Berlin Film Festival and was acclaimed at the Toronto International Film Festival, it never saw popular release due to complications in securing the music rights for the 22 songs on the soundtrack, which included such big names as Dinah Washington, Paul Robeson, Louis Armstrong and Earth, Wind and Fire. It remained in obscurity for nearly thirty years, garnering much critical and academic praise and earning a reputation as a lost classic. "Killer of Sheep" has been likened by a number of critics and scholars to the work of Italian neorealist directors, particularly Vittorio De Sica and Roberto Rossellini, for his documentary aesthetic and use of mostly non-professional, on-location actors. Burnett has also been compared to Yasujiro Ozu for his strong sense of composition, Stanley Kubrick for his sharp ear for juxtaposing popular music with images, John Cassavetes for his knack for coaxing natural performances from amateur actors, and Robert Altman for his interest in the minutiae of human interaction. Burnett's self-professed influences are Jean Renoir, Basil Wright, and Federico Fellini, all of whom are high examples of the tender, humane and compassionate qualities for which Burnett has been praised, qualities which are intensely present in "Killer of Sheep". Movie critic Andrew O'Hehir, noting the strong influences of Renoir, Rossellini and Satyajit Ray, said, "It's hard to overemphasize how strange and ambitious and completely out of context it was for a black urban filmmaker with no money and no reputation to make that kind of movie in 1977." The film was chosen by the National Society of Film Critics as one of the 100 Essential Films. In 1990, "Killer of Sheep" was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant." Lists. The film appeared on several critics' top ten lists of the best films of 2007. Distribution. Having previously only existed on worn 16mm prints, the film was restored and enlarged to 35mm by the UCLA Film and Television Archive and Milestone Films, thanks in part to a donation from filmmaker Steven Soderbergh. The soundtrack, which had not been licensed, was also paid for at a cost of over US$150 000. On March 30, 2007, it opened in select theaters in the United States and Canada and was released on DVD on November 13, 2007 as part of a deluxe box set with a director's cut of Burnett's sophomore feature "My Brother's Wedding" and three Burnett shorts: "Several Friends" (a 1969 aesthetic precursor to "Killer of Sheep"), "The Horse" (an "allegory of the South" in Burnett's words), and "When It Rains" (praised as one of the greatest short films of all time by critic Jonathan Rosenbaum). On January 21, 2008 (Martin Luther King, Jr. Day) Turner Classic Movies presented the world broadcast premiere of the movie as part of a night-long marathon of Burnett's movies. Burnett was interviewed before and after the movie by TCM's Prime Time host Robert Osborne.
775880	Dead Awake is a 2010 mystery film starring Nick Stahl, Rose McGowan, and Amy Smart. The film was previously titled "Dylan's Wake". Plot. Dylan (Stahl) tries to unravel the answer to a decade long mystery by staging his own funeral and examining who shows up. The problem is, Dylan might actually be dead.
1057640	The Woman in the Window is a 1944 film noir directed by Fritz Lang that tells the story of psychology professor Richard Wanley (Edward G. Robinson) who meets and becomes enamored of a young femme fatale. Based on J. H. Wallis' novel "Once Off Guard", the story features two surprise twists at the end. Scriptwriter Nunnally Johnson founded International Pictures (his own independent production company) after writing successful films such as "The Grapes of Wrath" (1940) and other John Ford films, and chose "The Woman in the Window" as its premiere project. Director Fritz Lang substituted the film's dream ending in place of the originally scripted suicide ending, to conform with the moralistic Production Code of the time. The term "film noir" originated as a genre description, in part, because of this movie. The term first was applied to American films in French film magazines in 1946, the year when "The Maltese Falcon" (1941), "Double Indemnity" (1944), "Laura" (1944), "Murder, My Sweet" (1944), and "The Woman in the Window" were released in France. Plot. After psychology professor Richard Wanley sends his wife and two children off on vacation, he goes to his club to meet friends. Next door, Wanley sees a striking oil portrait of Alice Reed (Joan Bennett) in a storefront window. He and his friends talk about the beautiful painting and its subject. Wanley stays at the club and reads Song of Songs. When he leaves, Wanley stops at the portrait and meets Reed, who is standing near the painting watching people watch it. Reed convinces Wanley to join her for drinks.
585330	Kalaignan கலைஞன் is a 1993 Tamil-language thriller film directed by G. B. Vijay and produced by Ramkumar Ganesan. The film features Kamal Haasan and Bindiya in the lead roles while Gur Dutt, Sivaranjani, Sindhuja and Nirmalamma play supporting roles. The film opened in April 1993. Plot. The movie revolves around a Tamil pop singer Inderjeet based in Bangalore who has a large female following. The movie opens with the death of a back-up dancer, Sandhya, in Inderjeet's group and soon a police detective is put in charge of the investigation. Although the police suspect Inderjeet as he is very short-tempered, they have no evidence linking him to the crime. Meanwhile Divya, Sandhya's elder sister, arrives at her aunt, Dr. Prabhavathy’s (their dad's elder sister) house to find out the truth about Sandhya's death. She goes to meet Inderjeet but is put off by his arrogance. She also talks to his manager, Dr. Harichandra Prasad, and other musicians who all have differing opinions about Sandhya. While investigating about Sandhya, Divya is attacked in a bar but coincidentally Inderjeet saves her and takes her to his concert. During the concert, Inderjeet gets flashes of his parents' and sister's deaths in an accident in his childhood and breaks down into tears. At the end of the concert, a girl, Jennifer, gets on stage and kisses him to the bemusement of all. That night, Jennifer is killed by someone wearing Inderjeet’s coat. Still with no concrete evidence, the police begin to keep a closer eye on Inderjeet and find that Divya seems to have an interest in him. To warn her, the police detective reveals to Divya that Inderjeet is the possible suspect in Sandhya's death. Divya plans to outwit Inderjeet with the help of Sandhya’s friends, who attacked her earlier in the bar mistakenly. She feigns to have fallen for Inderjeet and she stages a kidnapping to test Inderjeet’s skill with the knife (all the girls murdered were skilfully cut by the murderer). He turns out to be quite good with the knife. But the next day, Inderjeet sees Divya with the bandaged kidnapper walking out of the hospital and manages to determine that she was faking her love.
585125	Baba Sehgal popularly known as the "King of Rap" is an Indian rapper, film composer, actor and playback singer, known for his works in Indipop, Telugu cinema, Bollywood and Tamil cinema. Brought up in Lucknow, he began his career in mid-1990s. He is credited as the first Indian rapper to jump on the Indipop bandwagon, and released an album which got frequent airplay on MTV India. Since then he has dominated the Indian rap scene with hits such as 'Thanda Thanda Paani' (a remake of "Ice Ice Baby" by Vanilla Ice), 'Manjula' and 'Dil Dhadke'. Career. Sehgal's first album was "Dilruba" (1990) followed by "Alibaba" (1991), "Thanda Thanda Pani" (1992), "Main Bhi Madonna" (1993), "Double Gadbad" (1999) and many more albums. He almost always writes, composes and sings the songs in his albums himself. He was the music director of the movie "Dance Party" (1995) which had a popular song "kapurthala se aaya hoon, tere liye laaya hoon, Orange kurta peela pajama..". He has the distinction of having the first Indian music video ever to be shown on MTV Asia (which was broadcasting out of Hong Kong at the time). In 1998 he made his acting debut in "Miss 420" for which he was also the playback singer for hit songs including "Dhak Dhak Yeh Dil" and "Memsaab O' Memsaab". In 1999 he played a double role in the film "Double Gadbad" (1999). He also wrote, composed and sang all the songs for this film's soundtrack. He was also the television host of the TV show "Superhit Muqabla" which was aired on DD2 at primetime. He has also worked as a stage performer and a model. He was in New York from 2001 to 2005 and when he came home to Mumbai, he released his album 'Welcome to Mumbai', which was his 22nd and latest music album. He also directed the music for the Bollywood film "Bhoot Uncle" (2006). He is also anchoring the TV show 'Santa and Banta news unlimited' on Zoom. In 2009 he was one of the performers on the NDTV Imagine show "Dhoom Macha De". That same year he played a role in the SAB TV comedy series "Jugni Chali Jalandhar". In 2011 he appeared in "Rang Badalti Odhani" on Star One. He is featured on the Imagine Showbiz series Baba's Cross Connection. Renewed as a Playback Singer. Baba Sehgal sung many songs for Tollywood. Some of the instant hits include Rikshavodu, Jalsa, Aarya 2, Adhurs, and Don Seenu, Gabbar Singh. He was mostly hired by music director Devi Sri Prasad. It was under Devi Sri Prasad's composition that Sehgal sung the Tamil songs "Jalsa Jalsa" from "Villu", "Kadhal Vandhale" from "Singam", "Osthe Mama" from "Osthe".He has also sung the Tamil song "sokku Podi" from "Muppozhudhum Un Karpanaigal' and Kannada song "Chanagidyalle" for the movie "Lucky"," Nee oodi bandaga" for film Shiva 2012 Kannada. He Recently sang the Gabbar Singh title song from the movie 'Gabbar Singh'. It became one of his most popular songs. He admits that he likes pawan kalyan and composed a song on " PAWANISM " which is chanted by all Pawan Kalyan Fans. The song "Pawa Pawa Pawan Kalyan" is released by Aditya Music on Pawan Kalyan's Birthday 2nd Sep, 2012 and is expected to be whistled by Baba Sehgal in the audio release of Pawan Kalyan's new film "Cameraman Ganga to Rambabu". Acting Debut. Baba Sehgal also making his Debut in a Heroin centric magnum opus movie Rudhramadevi, Anushka Shetty in the lead .directed by National award winner Gunasekhar. Education. He pursued his engineering from BITS Pilani.
1165193	Wayne E. Maunder (born December 19, 1937) is a retired actor, originally from Canada, who starred in three American television series between 1967 and 1974. Three television series. From September 6 to December 27, 1968, Maunder starred as 28-year-old Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer (1839–1876), during the time that Custer was stationed in the American West. The program called simply "Custer" aired on ABC at 7:30 Eastern on Wednesday, opposite NBC's established western, "The Virginian" starring James Drury and Doug McClure. The program ended after seventeen episodes. Maunder's next series was a second western, CBS's "Lancer", with co-stars Andrew Duggan (1923–1988), James Stacy (born 1936), and Paul Brinegar (1917–1995). "Lancer" ran from 1968 to 1970, with an additional rebroadcast cycle in the summer of 1971. Maunder's last regular series, "Chase", is
1059297	Rebecca Maria Hall (born 19 May 1982) is an English actress. In 2003, she won the Ian Charleson Award for her debut stage performance in a production of "Mrs. Warren's Profession". She has appeared in the films "The Prestige", "Vicky Cristina Barcelona" (for which she was nominated for a Golden Globe), "The Town", "Frost/Nixon", and "Iron Man 3". In June 2010, Hall won the Supporting Actress BAFTA for her portrayal of Paula Garland in the 2009 Channel 4 production "Red Riding: In the Year of Our Lord 1974". She was also nominated for the Leading Actress BAFTA in 2013 for her role as Sylvia Tietjens in BBC Two's "Parade's End". Early life. Hall was born in London, UK, the daughter of Peter Hall, a stage director and founder of the Royal Shakespeare Company, and Maria Ewing, an opera singer. Her father is English. Her mother, who is American, is of Dutch, Scottish, Sioux, and African American origin. Her parents separated when she was still young, and they divorced in 1990. She has a half-brother, Edward Hall, who is a theatre director, and four other half-siblings, including theatre designer Lucy Hall, veteran TV drama producer Christopher Hall, and Jennifer Caron Hall, a writer and painter. Hall attended Roedean School, where she became head girl. She studied English Literature at St Catharine's College, Cambridge, before dropping out in 2002 just before her final year. During her time at Cambridge, she appeared in a number of plays and set up a theatre company. She was a member of the Marlowe Society and starred alongside Dan Stevens in several critically acclaimed productions. Career. Film and television. Hall's first role came in 1992, when she appeared as young Sophy in her father's television adaptation of Mary Wesley's "The Camomile Lawn". Hall's feature film debut came in 2006 as Rebecca Epstein in the film adaptation of David Nicholls's "Starter for Ten". She got her breakthrough with the role of Sarah Borden in Christopher Nolan's film "The Prestige". She then appeared in Stephen Poliakoff's "Joe's Palace" in 2007, as well as appearing in several other television films including "Wide Sargasso Sea" and "Rubberheart". Her Hollywood fame grew when she starred in the Woody Allen film "Vicky Cristina Barcelona", playing one of the title characters, Vicky. Critics praised her performance. Hall was nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Actress in a Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy. She also appeared in "Frost/Nixon" in 2008 as the girlfriend of Michael Sheen's David Frost. Hall was cast with Ben Barnes in the film "Dorian Gray" in 2009. Hall appeared in "Please Give" with Catherine Keener and Amanda Peet and "The Town" with Ben Affleck and Blake Lively. She is the female lead role in the British ghost film "The Awakening", released in September 2011. She has the role of Beth Raymer, in the 2012 film "Lay the Favourite", in which one review commented that she "plays Raymer as an endearing force of nature who somehow manages to survive in a dangerous world through sheer force of character." She played the role of Sylvia Tietjens in the BBC/HBO/VRT production of "Parade's End" in 2012 opposite Benedict Cumberbatch. She replaced Jessica Chastain as in the superhero film "Iron Man 3" (2013). She also starred as Claudia Simmons Howe in the thriller "Closed Circuit" (2013). In 2013, it was announced that she has signed on to Wally Pfister's directorial debut "Transcendence", costarring Johnny Depp. Stage. Hall's professional stage debut came in 2002 when she starred as Vivie in her father's production of "Mrs Warren's Profession" at the Strand Theatre in London. Her performance, described as "admirable" and "accomplished", earned her the Ian Charleson Award in 2003. In 2003, Hall's father celebrated fifty years as a theatre director by staging a season of five plays at the Theatre Royal in Bath, Somerset. Hall starred in two of these plays; she appeared as Rosalind in her father's production of "As You Like It", which gained her a second Charleson nomination and starred in the title role of Thea Sharrock's revival of D. H. Lawrence's "The Fight for Barbara". In 2004, Hall appeared in three plays for the Peter Hall Company at the Theatre Royal, two of which her father directed, namely "Man and Superman" in which she played Ann, and "Galileo's Daughter" in which she played Sister Maria Celeste. The third, Molière's "Don Juan", in which she played the part of Elvira, was directed by Sharrock. In 2005, Hall reprised the role of Rosalind in a touring production of "As You Like It", again under the direction of her father. This tour took in the following venues: The Rose Theatre in Kingston upon Thames; The Brooklyn Academy of Music in New York; The Curran Theatre at San Francisco; The Ahmanson Theatre in Los Angeles and venues in New Haven, Connecticut, Columbus, Ohio, and the historic Wilbur Theater in Boston. In 2008–09, she appeared in Sam Mendes's first instalment of the Bridge Project, as Hermione in "The Winter's Tale" and Varya in "The Cherry Orchard", which gave performances with the same cast in Germany, Greece, New Zealand, Singapore, Spain, the United Kingdom and the United States. In 2010–11, she played Viola in a production of "Twelfth Night" at London's National Theatre, which her father directed. In May 2013, it was announced that Hall is set to make her Broadway debut in Sophie Treadwell's expressionist play "Machinal". Roundabout's production, directed by Lyndsey Turner, will begin previews on December 20, 2013, with the official opening set for January 16, 2014 at the American Airlines Theatre in New York. Personal life. During 2003–04, Hall was in a relationship with her "As You Like It" co-star Freddie Stevenson. In November 2011, it was confirmed that Hall has been in a relationship with director Sam Mendes "for some time". Hall holds dual citizenship for the UK and America.
584543	Kaadhale Nimmadhi is a 1998 romantic film Tamil language film directed by Indiran. The film features Suriya, Jeevitha Sharma and Sangeetha in the lead roles, while Murali makes an extended guest appearance. Raadhika, Manivannan and Nassar also play significant roles in the film, while Deva composed the film's soundtrack. The film was flop at box-office. Production. After the success of "Kadhal Kottai" (1996) and "Kaalamellam Kadhal Vaazhga" (1997), 'Sivashakthi' Pandian announced he was set to make another love story "Kaadhale Nimmadhi", written and directed by newcomer Rajan, who gave himself the stagename of Indiran. The debutant lead actress, Jeevitha Sharma, a fifteen-year-old at the time, was noticed by producer 'Sivashakthi' Pandian in his search for a new heroine for the film. The producer also opened a contest in Kumudam magazine to rename Jeevitha and give her a stage name to suit Tamil tastes and traditions. She was later christened as Kavitha by the producer before the film's release. Release. A critic from Indolink.com gave the film a positive review suggesting that audiences should "treat themselves to this movie, which is completely suitable for the entire family", though the critic claims that Suriya "again shows his inability to act" but praises the performances of Manivannan and Raadhika. The film did not do well at the box-office.
766321	Touki Bouki (, Wolof for The Journey of the Hyena) is a 1973 Senegalese drama film, directed by Djibril Diop Mambéty. It was shown at the 1973 Cannes Film Festival and the 8th Moscow International Film Festival. The film was restored in 2008 at Cineteca di Bologna / L’Immagine Ritrovata Laboratory by the World Cinema Foundation. Plot. Mory, a cowherd who drives a motorcycle mounted with a cow's skull, and Anta, a student, met in Dakar. Alienated and tired of Senegal, they dream of going to Paris and come up with different schemes to raise the money. Finally, Mory steals money and clothing from a wealthy homosexual who takes him to his home. Anta and he can finally buy tickets for the ship to France. Production. Based on his own story and script, Djibril Diop Mambéty made "Touki Bouki" with a budget of $30,000 – obtained in part from the Senegalese government. Though influenced by French New Wave, Touki Bouki displays a style all its own. Its camerawork and soundtrack have a frenetic rhythm uncharacteristic of most African films – known for their often deliberately slow-paced, linearly evolving narratives. Through jump cuts, colliding montage, dissonant sonic accompaniment, and the juxtaposition of premodern, pastoral and modern sounds and visual elements, Touki Bouki conveys and grapples with the hybridization of Senegal.
1026880	The Glenn Miller Story is a 1954 American film directed by Anthony Mann and starring James Stewart in their first non-western collaboration. Universal-International's first public announcements, early in 1953, employed the soon-discarded title, "Moonlight Serenade." Plot. The film follows big band leader Glenn Miller (1904–1944) (James Stewart) from his early days in the music business in 1929 through to his 1944 death when the airplane he was flying in was lost over the English Channel during World War II. Prominent placement in the film is given to Miller's courtship and marriage to Helen Burger (June Allyson), and various cameos by actual musicians who were colleagues of Miller. Several turning points in Miller's career are depicted with varying degrees of verisimilitude, including: the success of an early jazz band arrangement; his departure from the Broadway pit and sideman work to front a band of his own; the failure of his first band on the road; and the subsequent re-forming of his successful big band and the establishment of the “Miller Sound” as typified by “Moonlight Serenade”. Also depicted is Miller’s international success touring his band in support of the Allies in World War II. There are several anachronisms in the picture. When the military band led by Miller is playing in front of General "Hap" Arnold, a B-29 bomber is in the background; highly doubtful, since they were introduced in May 1944, and the parade seemingly is in 1942, just after Miller's induction into the Army. Also, the marching troops are desegregated, which didn't happen until 1948. Release. Upon release in 1954, "The Glenn Miller Story" was massively successful at the box office. In 1954, the film was nominated for three Academy Awards, including Best Screenplay (by Valentine Davies and Oscar Brodney) and Best Score (by Henry Mancini and Joseph Gershenson). The film won the Oscar for Best Sound Recording, by Leslie I. Carey. Its soundtrack was equally successful, reaching number one on the Billboard album charts in 1954, featuring a number of Glenn Miller's most popular recordings. This is the second of three movies that paired Jimmy Stewart and June Allyson, the others being "The Stratton Story" and "Strategic Air Command". Glenn Miller Orchestra pianist John "Chummy" MacGregor was a technical advisor on the movie. Composer Henry Mancini composed the musical score with Joseph Gershenson, who conducted the Universal-International studio orchestra's recreations of Miller's arrangements on the soundtrack. Miller's band was portrayed by "The Airmen of Note", an ensemble of the United States Air Force Band originally created in 1950 to carry on the Glenn Miller tradition. The movie was reissued in 1985 with a stereo soundtrack. The film was originally recorded in stereo but was initially released in mono. It was screened out of competition at the 1985 Cannes Film Festival. Home video. The film was originally released on home video in the VHS format in 1986. On March 4, 2003, the film was released onto DVD with an anamorphic display, remastered surround sound, and subtitles. The film can also be found in a James Stewart DVD collection that was released in 2007. Music. The soundtrack included many big band pieces originally performed by Glenn Miller's orchestra. Musical cameos. The film contains songs by musicians who also make cameo appearances in the film. These cameos include: Louis Armstrong, Barney Bigard, Cozy Cole, Gene Krupa, Frances Langford, Skeets McDonald, Marty Napoleon, Ben Pollack, Babe Russin, Arvell Shaw, The Modernaires, and James Young. Billboard charts. The original soundtrack to the movie, " The Glenn Miller Story---Sound Track", Decca DL 5519 (USA)/BML 8647 (UK), was number one for 10 weeks on the "Billboard" albums chart in 1954. The 1954 album contained eight selections. The soundtrack was re-released with an expanded track list. The album "Glenn Miller Plays Selections From the Film "The Glenn Miller Story"" was number one for 11 weeks on the "Billboard" albums chart the same year, released as RCA Victor LPT 3057. The original 1954 album contained eight selections. An expanded version of the latter album was certified Gold in 1961 by the RIAA.
1075357	Kill List is a 2011 British crime horror thriller film directed by Ben Wheatley, starring Neil Maskell, Michael Smiley, and MyAnna Buring. When a British soldier returns home from Kiev, he joins an old friend as contract killers. His disturbed past surfaces as he spins out of control during jobs and ominous employers raise the stakes. It was filmed in Sheffield, South Yorkshire in England. Plot. Jay and Gal are former soldiers who have become hitmen since leaving the military. While Gal is laid back, Jay is still suffering from an unspecified disastrous mission in Kiev and, despite the urging of his wife Shel, he has not worked since and they are running out of money. Shel organises a dinner party to which she invites Gal and his latest girlfriend, a human resources manager called Fiona, and during the evening Gal reveals he has a new job for them, which Shel encourages him to take. Meanwhile, Fiona goes to the toilet, carves a symbol on the back of the bathroom mirror and takes a tissue that Jay had used to mop up his blood after a shaving accident. Jay agrees to take the gig and the two meet the shadowy client who has a list of three people he wants killed. To seal the deal, the employer unexpectedly cuts Jay's hand and then his own, leading to the contract being effectively signed in blood. Their first target, a priest, appears to recognise Jay and thanks him just before being killed. The second name on the list turns out to be a maker of child pornography who also thanks Jay before he is beaten to death. While Jay chases down some of the other paedophiles, Gal looks into their files and finds a folder on himself and Jay, including details of their problems in Kiev. Although they do not recognise it, the file includes the symbol that Fiona carved in Jay's mirror. Gal informs Jay that whilst raiding the safe in the home of the second target he took enough money to cover the total sum they would receive for the contract. The pair then decide not to complete the contract and return home. Jay tries to see a doctor about his infected hand, but his regular doctor has been replaced by another man who will only give him cryptic messages. Jay and Gal return to their client and offer to find replacements to kill the last name on the list. The client refuses, saying that both hitmen and their families will be killed if they do not complete the contract. Shel takes their son Sam to the family's cottage for safekeeping while Jay and Gal go back to work. Staking out the final mark, a Member of Parliament, the pair witness a strange ceremony in the woods, including a human sacrifice. Jay decides to intervene, and the leader of the ceremony presents himself for Jay to execute. The remaining masked cultists chase the hitmen into an underground complex, where Gal is slashed across the stomach, exposing his intestines. Jay is forced to perform a mercy killing. Emerging from the tunnels, Jay flees to the family cottage and meets with Shel. When he goes outside, he sees that their car's tires have been slashed and lit torches have been placed around the nearby field. Jay attempts to locate their attackers, but gets knocked unconscious. Inside the cottage, Shel arms herself and shoots several invaders.
1185276	Selena Marie Gomez (born July 22, 1992) is an American actress and recording artist. Gomez first made her debut appearing as Gianna in "Barney & Friends", lasting from 2002 to 2004. Following this, Gomez had cameo roles in films such as ' (2003) and ' (2005). In 2006, Gomez appeared as a guest star on an episode of the Disney Channel series "The Suite Life of Zack and Cody", as well as "Hannah Montana". Following this, Gomez starred in the Disney Channel television series "Wizards of Waverly Place". The series was a critical and commercial success, earning Gomez numerous awards and nominations. Gomez later appeared in numerous Disney Channel series and films including ' (2008) and "Disney Channel Games" (2008). In 2009, Gomez appeared in the films "Princess Protection Program" and ' before releasing her first studio album as Selena Gomez & the Scene, titled "Kiss & Tell". The album was a commercial success, peaking inside the Top 10 of the "Billboard" 200. Following this, Gomez appeared in the film "Ramona and Beezus", one of her first roles outside of Disney. Gomez & the Scene released their second studio album, "A Year Without Rain", later that year. The album entered the Top 5 of the "Billboard" 200, and spawned two Top 40 hits. In 2011, Gomez gained much publicity when it was confirmed that she was in a relationship with teenage pop star Justin Bieber. The couple was dubbed "Jelena" by the media, and were noted as being a teen power couple. Gomez began appearing in more films such as "Monte Carlo" (2011) and "The Muppets" (2011). Gomez, along with her band, later released their third studio album "When the Sun Goes Down" in 2011. The album spawned the hit single "Love You Like a Love Song", which was certified 4× Platinum by the RIAA. Following the release of the album, Gomez confirmed she would be taking a musical hiatus to focus on her acting career. She then went on to appear in the films "Hotel Transylvania" (2012) and "Spring Breakers" (2013), the latter of which saw Gomez portraying a more adult role. Despite her early comments of a musical hiatus, Gomez confirmed in October 2012 that she was working on her solo debut album. The lead single, "Come & Get It", was released in April 2013. It became her first Top 10 hit on the "Billboard" Hot 100 chart, and was certified double platinum by the RIAA. The album's second single, "Slow Down", was released in June. Gomez has since announced plans of a second musical hiatus following the release of "Stars Dance" in July. Outside of her work in the entertainment industry, Gomez is involved in philanthropic activities through charity work and various social and environmental causes. Life and career. 1992–2006: Early life and career beginnings. Gomez was born in Grand Prairie, Texas. She is the daughter of former stage actress Amanda Dawn "Mandy" Teefey (née Cornett) and Ricardo Joel Gomez. Gomez was named after Tejano singer Selena, who died almost three years after Gomez was born. Her father is of Mexican ancestry; her mother, who was adopted, has some Italian ancestry. Regarding her Hispanic heritage, Gomez has stated, "My family does have Quinceañeras, and we go to the communion church. We do everything that's Catholic, but we don't really have anything traditional except we go to the park and have barbecues on Sundays after church." Her birth parents divorced when she was five years old, and she was raised as an only child by her working mother, who had her when she was 16. This led to the family having financial troubles, with her mother struggling to provide for them. On the situation, Gomez stated "I remember my mom would run out of gas all of the time and we’d sit there and have to go through the car and get quarters and help her get gas because she never liked to ask my grandparents for money. I remember having a lot of macaroni and cheese but my mom never made it seem like it was a big deal. She was really strong around me. Having me at 16 had to have been a big responsibility. My mom gave up everything for me, had three jobs, supported me, sacrificed her life for me." Gomez later elaborated on the topic, stating "I definitely didn't appreciate it when I was little. I was frustrated that my parents weren't together, and never saw the light at the end of the tunnel where my mom was working hard to provide a better life for me. I'm terrified of what I would have become if I'd stayed Texas." In 2006, Mandy remarried Brian Teefey. Through her mother's marriage to Teefey, Gomez has a half-sister, Gracie Elliot, born on June 12, 2013. While attending school as a child, Gomez has stated on numerous occasions that she was the victim of bullying. When speaking of the situation, Gomez said "I was bullied every second of every day in elementary and middle school [...] Obviously, people are going to bring you down because of your drive. But, ultimately, it makes you a stronger person to turn your cheek and go the other way." She later added "I was never the popular kid at school. I had two friends, but I just sat at the back of the room and got on with my work. School is such an awkward time in your life. I was never confident in school." In a 2009 interview with "People", Gomez mentioned that she developed an early interest in acting from watching her mother prepare for and act in theater productions. While at an audition, Gomez met Demi Lovato, who was auditioning for the same series. The two later became best friends, and would later participate in various roles together. She earned a high school diploma through homeschooling in May 2010. Gomez officially earned her first role in 2002 when she was selected to appear on the children's television series "Barney and Friends" as the recurring character Gianna. She appeared in a total of sixteen episodes, with her final appearance being in 2004. Gomez later stated that her age had led to her departure from the show, with producers feeling she was getting too old. In 2003, Gomez made a cameo in the film ', making it her film debut. Following this, Gomez began appearing in various commercials. In 2005, she had a cameo role in the television film ' as Julie. Gomez later guest starred in an episode of the Disney Channel series "The Suite Life of Zack & Cody" in 2006. 2007–08: Breakthrough and musical beginnings. In 2007, Gomez appeared in three episodes of the Disney series "Hannah Montana". Gomez portrayed the character Mikayla, the rival of the series' title character. During this time, Gomez filmed two pilot episodes for potential Disney Channel series'; the first, titled "Arwin!", was a spin-off to the "Suite Life" series, while the second was a spin-off to the series "Lizzie McGuire". Gomez later starred in the Disney Channel series "Wizards of Waverly Place", portraying the lead role of Alex Russo. Gomez's character, along with the rest of her family, were wizards who owned a restaurant in New York; during the course of the series, the characters learn various spells and abilities that are useful to them. The series proved to be an immediate hit, giving Gomez mainstream success. "Wizards" earned Gomez numerous awards and nominations. The success of the series prompted many critics to compare Gomez to the highly successful Disney star Miley Cyrus. She was later named one of the "Eight Hot Kid Stars To Watch" by "Forbes" magazine. Gomez recorded the theme song for the series, titled "Everything Is Not What It Seems", making it her first musical release. The series aired for a total of four seasons, lasting until 2012. In October 2008, Gomez launched her own production company, July Moon Productions, and partnered with XYZ Films. As part of the agreement, Gomez had the opportunity to option articles, hire writers and create talent packages to shop to studios. As part of the deal, Gomez was announced to be working on a film titled "What Boys Want", in which her character could hear the thoughts of men. Ultimately, the film was never released. That same year, Gomez began dating fellow Disney star Nick Jonas. This led to Gomez appearing in the music video for the song "Burnin' Up", performed by Nick's band Jonas Brothers. The couple later broke up in 2009. During this time, Gomez began to focus more on music. She performed a cover of the song "Cruella de Vil" for the compilation album "DisneyMania 6". Gomez later recorded the song "Fly to Your Heart" for the soundtrack of the animated film "Tinker Bell". Gomez provided guest vocals on the Forever the Sickest Kids' single "Whoa Oh! (Me vs. Everyone)", which serves as Gomez's official debut musical release. The single failed to have much success, though it peaked at number 78 on the "Billboard" Pop 100 chart in the United States. That same year, Gomez had the lead role in the Direct-to-DVD film "Another Cinderella Story" alongside Drew Seeley. Gomez portrayed Mary Santiago, a young girl who hoped to someday become a dancer. The film was released to generally positive reviews, and won the 2010 Writers Guild of America Award for Children's script-long form or special. For the soundtrack, Gomez recorded three songs. The song "Tell Me Something I Don't Know" was released as a promotional single for the album, with Gomez filming a music video for the release. "Tell Me Something I Don't Know" became her first song to chart on the "Billboard" Hot 100 chart, peaking at number 58. Later that year, Gomez had the supporting role of Helga in the animated film "Horton Hears a Who!". The film was a commercial success, and went on to gross nearly three-hundred million dollars worldwide. She later appeared in the reality series ' and "Disney Channel Games", as well as the series '. 2009–11: Selena Gomez & the Scene. In 2009, Gomez continued to work on her acting career. She appeared in an episode of "The Suite Life on Deck", portraying the character of Alex Russo. Her appearance served as a crossover between the series, "Wizards of Waverly Place", and "Hannah Montana", with all of the series' main characters appearing in the episode. Gomez later guest starred as herself on an episode of the Disney series "Sonny With a Chance", which stars Gomez's good friend Demi Lovato. Gomez later provided the voice of Princess Selenia in the animated film "Arthur and the Revenge of Maltazard". Gomez, along with Lovato, starred in the Disney Channel film "Princess Protection Program", which aired in June 2009. The film was a critical success, and had a total of 8.5 million viewers during its premiere. For the film, Gomez and Lovato recorded the song "One and the Same", which was later released as a promotional single with a music video. The song had minor success, peaking at number 82 on the Hot 100 chart. On August 28, 2009, Gomez starred in "", a television film based on the series. The film premiered to an audience of 11.4 million viewers becoming cable's No. 1 scripted telecast of 2009 and Disney Channel's second most-viewed film premiere after "High School Musical 2". The film won the series its second consecutive Emmy for "Outstanding Children's Program" at the 62nd Primetime Emmy Awards. Gomez had been working on her debut album since signing with Hollywood Records in 2008, and later announced that she had formed a band known as Selena Gomez & the Scene. In August 2009, the band released their debut studio album "Kiss & Tell". The album proved to be an immediate hit, debuting inside the Top 10 of the "Billboard" 200 chart in the United States. "Kiss & Tell" went on to receive a Gold certification from the RIAA, and spawned the Platinum certified single "Naturally". While the band began working on their second studio album, Gomez continued to work in film. In 2009, Gomez signed on to star as one of the two female leads in "Ramona and Beezus", a film adaption of the children's novel series by Beverly Cleary. Gomez stated that she felt no pressure in taking more adult roles,saying "I think I'm fully aware of my audience and I'm still just a kid myself. I wouldn't do a role I don't feel comfortable doing or that my audience wouldn't feel comfortable seeing." The film premiered on July 23, 2010 and was met with generally positive reviews. Gomez was part of Sears' back-to-school fashion ad campaign. As part of the campaign Gomez was featured in the television commercials. In August 2009, Gomez also hosted the "Sears Arrive Air Band Casting Call" – to select five people for the first-ever "Sears Air Band", which performed at the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards. Gomez was a spokesperson for Borden Milk, and was featured in the campaign's print and television ads. She was also a spokesperson for State Farm Insurance and appeared in numerous television commercials, which air on the Disney Channel, to raise awareness of being a safe driver. Gomez later began dating film star Taylor Lautner, though the couple broke up after a few months of dating. Gomez and her band released their second studio album, "A Year Without Rain", on September 17, 2010. The album continued the success of their previous effort, becoming their first album to reach the Top 5 of the "Billboard" 200. "A Year Without Rain" spawned two singles, both of which entered the Top 40 on the Hot 100 chart. It became the band's second album to receive a Gold certification from the RIAA. In October 2009, Gomez announced her plan to launch her own fashion line, called "Dream Out Loud by Selena Gomez". The clothing line launched in the fall of 2010. The collection consisted of and featured bohemian dresses, floral tops, jeans, skirts, jackets, scarves and hats, all made from recycled or eco-friendly materials. Gomez said that the line reflected her own personal style and described the clothing as being "pretty, feminine, and bohemian". She was later quoted as saying, "With my line, I really want to give the customer options on how they can put their own looks together [...] I want the pieces that can be easy to dress up or down, and the fabrics being eco-friendly and organic is super important [...] Also, the tags will all have some of my inspirational quotes on them. I'm just looking to send a good message." Gomez teamed up with designers Tony Melillo and Sandra Campos, both who have worked with big-name fashion houses. Gomez said of the partnering, "When I met Tony and Sandra, I was instantly comfortable with them and now they are just like family to me ... They are so creative and I love how I can just call them up whenever and talk to them about everything, even if it's just about changing a button ... They've been so cool about everything." The brand was manufactured by, Melillo and Campos teamed with New York-based Adjmi Apparel and formed by Adjmi CH Brands LLC, the holding company for the brand. On February 27, 2011, Gomez attended the 2011 Vanity Fair Oscar party with Canadian singer Justin Bieber, confirming several months of media speculation about a romantic relationship between the pair. The couple quickly gained much media attention, and were labeled "Jelena" by online sites. In March 2010, "Variety" reported that Gomez was set to star as one of the three lead roles in "Monte Carlo", a film produced by Nicole Kidman, alongside Leighton Meester and Katie Cassidy. In the film, Gomez plays Grace, a girl who's "mistaken for a socialite while on a trip to Paris." To prepare for the role, Gomez learned how to play polo and also took two weeks of vocal training to learn two different British accents. The film was released on July 1, 2011. That same year, Gomez appeared in a cameo role for the film "The Muppets", and appeared in the Disney series' "So Random!" and "PrankStars". On June 28, 2011 Gomez and her band released their third and final studio album "When the Sun Goes Down". The album became their highest peaking album on the "Billboard" 200, and went on to receive a Gold certification from the RIAA. The album's second single, "Love You Like a Love Song", went on to become the band's most successful single, receiving a 4x Platinum certification from the RIAA. It was announced on July 14, 2011, that Gomez had signed a license agreement with Adrenalina, an extreme sports and adventure-themed lifestyle brand, to develop, manufacture, and distribute the actress' fragrance. Chairman and C.E.O. of Adrenalina, Ilia Lekach, said, "We are incredibly enthused to be working with Ms. Gomez and will reveal more details pertaining to the fragrance as we get closer to the launch date." Gomez later released the self-titled perfume. 2012–present: Focus on acting and "Stars Dance". In January 2012, Gomez announced that she would put her music career on hold in order to focus on her acting career, and that the band would be taking a hiatus: "my band and I are going our separate ways for a while. This year is all about films and acting and I want my band to play music wherever with whoever. We will be back but, it will be a good while." She first appeared in "Hotel Transylvania", an animated film, voicing the character of Mavis, alongside Adam Sandler and Steve Buscemi. The film premiered at the 37th annual Toronto International Film Festival and was released on September 21, 2012. Next, Gomez appeared in the Harmony Korine film "Spring Breakers", alongside James Franco. The film premiered at the 69th Venice International Film Festival. A change from her previous work Gomez 'had a bit of a meltdown on set' but praised the director with 'not many people will take the chances, not like Harmony did' by casting her in a coming-of-age film. It was announced on July 30, 2012, that Gomez would partner with Case-Mate as part of its upcoming "Right Case, Right Occasion" marketing campaign. She will be teaming up with Fergie and Common to create fashionable custom phone cases for a good cause. In early November 2012, it was widely reported that Gomez and Bieber had ended their relationship after approximately two years together. They reconciled later that month. Despite her earlier statements, Gomez confirmed in October 2012 that work had begun on an upcoming album. The album's lead single, "Come & Get It", was released on April 8, 2013. Gomez later confirmed that the album would be her solo debut album, rather than her band's fourth album. Gomez's debut album, "Stars Dance", was released on July 23, 2013. Gomez has since confirmed that she plans to take another musical hiatus following the release of the album, and hopes to focus on her acting career. Gomez had a cameo role in "Aftershock", a thriller starring Eli Roth, which premiered at the 37th Annual Toronto International Film Festival. Gomez also appeared in the thriller "Getaway", with Ethan Hawke and Jon Voight, which was released on August 30, 2013 in the United States. Next, Gomez is set to star in the film adaptation of the Ric Browde novel "While I'm Dead... Feed the Dog" opposite Dylan McDermott and Nat Wolff. The film, titled "Behaving Bad", will be directed by Tim Garrick. Gomez also reprised her role as Alex Russo in a one-hour special titled "", that began production on October 22, 2012, and finished filming on November 10, 2012. It aired on Disney Channel on March 15, 2013. In April 2013, Gomez joined William H. Macy's directorial debut "Rudderless". Filming began the same month. Artistry. Gomez names singer Bruno Mars as her major musical influence and idol, saying she is influenced in everything he does from "his style of music, his style in general, the way he performs, the way he carries himself". She admires Ella Fitzgerald, calling Fitzgerald her "favorite singer" continuing to praise her "beautiful voice" and Katy Perry whom she said "isn’t afraid to be herself onstage." Gomez also cites Rihanna as an influence saying "I think she’s very strong and classy. I look up to that. She carries herself very well." Selena's debut album Stars Dance (2013) was prominently influenced by singers Britney Spears, Taylor Swift and Skrillex. Philanthropy. Gomez was involved in the UR Votes Count campaign which encouraged teenagers to learn more about 2008 presidential candidates Barack Obama and John McCain. In October 2008, Gomez participated in St. Jude's Children's Hospital "Runway For Life" benefit. She is the ambassador of DoSomething.org after being involved with the charity Island Dog, which helps dogs in Puerto Rico. She got involved while filming "Wizards of Waverly Place: The Movie" in Puerto Rico. Gomez is also involved with the charity RAISE Hope For Congo, an initiative of the Enough Project, which helps raise awareness about conflict minerals and violence against Congolese women. Gomez is involved in Disney's Friends for Change, an organization which promotes "environmently-friendly behavior", and appears in its public service announcements. Gomez, Demi Lovato, Miley Cyrus, and the Jonas Brothers recorded "Send It On", a charity single with all of its proceeds to the Disney Worldwide Conservation Fund. It debuted on the Billboard Hot 100 at number 20. Also in 2009, Gomez made a surprise visit to a Los Angeles elementary school as part of the "A Day Made Better" program that was sponsored by OfficeMax. During her visit, Gomez gave the school an award and $1,000 worth of school supplies, and talked to students about the importance of giving back to the community. On January 22, 2010, Gomez participated in the Hope for Haiti Now Telethon with a number of other celebrities. In April 2012, Gomez was named ambassador to the Ryan Seacrest Foundation. In October 2008, Gomez was named UNICEF's spokesperson for the Trick-or-Treat for UNICEF campaign, which encouraged children to raise money on Halloween to help children around the world. She said that she was "extremely excited" to "encourage other kids to make a difference in the world." In August 2009, a 17-year-old Gomez became the youngest UNICEF ambassador ever, passing fellow songstress Hayley Westenra, who was 18 when she was chosen. In her first official field mission, Gomez traveled to Ghana on September 4, 2009 for a week to witness first-hand the stark conditions of vulnerable children that lack vital necessities including clean water, nourishment, education and healthcare. Gomez explained during an interview with Associated Press that she wanted to use her star power to bring awareness to Ghana: "That's why I feel very honored to have a voice that kids listen to and take into consideration [...] I had people on my tour asking me where IS Ghana, and they Googled it [...] and because I went there, they now know where Ghana is. So it's pretty incredible." Gomez said of her role as ambassador that: "Every day 25,000 children die from preventable causes. I stand with UNICEF in the belief that we can change that number from 25,000 to zero. I know we can achieve this because every moment, UNICEF is on the ground providing children with the lifesaving assistance needed to ensure zero becomes a reality." Gomez was named spokesperson for UNICEF's 2009 Trick-or-Treat campaign, for the second year in a row. Gomez, who raised over $700,000 for the charity in 2008, stated that she hopes to be able to raise 1 million dollars in 2009. Gomez participated in a celebrity auction and hosted a live web cast series on Facebook in support of the Trick-or-Treat for UNICEF campaign. Gomez returned as the UNICEF spokesperson for the 60th anniversary of Trick-or-Treat for UNICEF campaign in 2010. In celebration of the 60th anniversary, Gomez and her band, The Scene, held a benefit concert donating all proceeds to the campaign. In February 2011, Gomez traveled to Chile to witness and meet with the families of UNICEF's supported program, "Programa Puente" which helps families better understand and develops skills to deal effectively with early childhood education, development and other issues related to raising children. From her field trip experience, Gomez said "UNICEF is helping Chilean families get out of poverty, prevent violence within the home and promote education. To witness first hand these families' struggles, and also their hope and perseverance, was truly inspiring." In March 2011, Gomez participated in the UNICEF Tap Project's "Celebrity Tap Pack" limited-edition, custom-made water bottles featuring tap water from the homes of each celebrity advocate, in order to raise funds and increase profile for the clean water and sanitation programs. She is also featured in videos promoting the campaign.
1065348	Exit Wounds is a 2001 action film based on the book of the same name by John Westermann. The book takes place on Long Island, while the film is set in Detroit. The film was directed by Andrzej Bartkowiak, and stars Steven Seagal as an urban detective notorious for pushing the limits of the law in his quest for justice. Although the story is set in Detroit, many goofs in production make it apparent that most of the movie was filmed in Toronto, Ontario; Hamilton, Ontario and Calgary, Alberta. It is the second of three subsequent films directed by Andrzej Bartkowiak and produced by Joel Silver (preceded by "Romeo Must Die" the year before and followed by "Cradle 2 the Grave" two years later) that focus on martial-arts based action in an urban setting with a hip-hop heavy soundtrack and featuring many of the same cast (such as DMX and Anthony Anderson) As of 2013, "Exit Wounds" is the last Steven Seagal movie to be distributed by Warner Bros. Plot. Orin Boyd (Steven Seagal) is a cop in Detroit's 21st precinct, who saves the Vice President of the United States (Christopher Lawford) from a right-wing Michigan militant group trying to kill him. As Boyd saved the Vice President's life via disobeying orders and killing all the militants, Captain Frank Daniels (Bruce McGill) transfers Boyd to the 15th precinct — Detroit's worst precinct. Boyd's new captain, former internal affairs officer Annette Mulcahy (Jill Hennessy), knows of his reputation, and she tells him that she will not tolerate it. Annette sends Boyd to an anger management class where he meets Henry Wayne (Tom Arnold), the high-strung host of a local talk show called "Detroit AM". Boyd comes across local drug dealer Latrell Walker (Earl "DMX" Simmons) and his fast-talking sidekick T.K. Johnson (Anthony Anderson) doing a shady deal with a man named Matt Montini (David Vadim). After a brief fight, Boyd discovers that Montini has been working undercover trying to nail Walker and Boyd ruined the sting, and that does not sit well with Montini's musclebound partner Useldinger (Matthew G. Taylor). Sergeant Lewis Strutt (Michael Jai White) steps in to cool things down when Boyd gets in a fight with Useldinger. After Boyd stumbles upon the theft of $5,000,000 worth of heroin from evidence storage, Boyd and new partner George Clark (Isaiah Washington) begin focusing their efforts on Walker and T.K. Intrigued by what little they have on Walker, they investigate why he has been visiting Shaun Rollins (Mel Jason "Drag-On" Smalls). Henry discovers that Walker is not a drug dealer. Walker is a computer expert and billionaire whose real name is Leon Rollins — he is Shaun Rollins' brother. Boyd confronts Leon, who explains that a group of corrupt cops needed a fall guy for a deal gone bad and pinned it on Shaun. It is further revealed that Strutt is the leader of the group, which also includes Montini and Useldinger. Leon and his friend Trish (Eva Mendes) have been videotaping the activities of Strutt's gang, hoping that it might help prove Shaun's innocence and get him out of jail. Boyd meets Mulcahy at a parking lot to inform her what he has uncovered. However, Montini, Useldinger, and some other men try to kill Boyd and Annette. Mulcahy is killed in the chase and Boyd escapes. Boyd calls Frank and tells him that Strutt will be having a meeting at a warehouse in about an hour, to sell the heroin that was stolen. Strutt plans to try to sell it to Leon and T. K., not knowing that Leon is working against him. Frank promises that he will be there with some backup.
1228377	Mio in the Land of Faraway (; ) is a 1987 fantasy film directed by Vladimir Grammatikov and starring Christopher Lee, Christian Bale, Nicholas Pickard, Timothy Bottoms and Susannah York. Based on the 1954 novel "Mio, My Son" by Astrid Lindgren, it tells the story of a boy from Stockholm who travels to an otherworldly fantasy realm and frees the land from an evil knight's oppression. "Mio in the Land of Faraway" was co-produced by companies from Sweden, Norway and the Soviet Union with a budget of about fifty million Swedish kronor, making it the most expensive film adaptation of an Astrid Lindgren book during her lifetime. It featured an international cast consisting largely of British, Russian and Scandinavian actors, while its filming locations included Stockholm, Moscow, Crimea in Ukraine, and Scotland. The film was shot in English and subsequently dubbed in Swedish and Russian. Its special effects were created by Derek Meddings. The film's theme song, "Mio My Mio", was composed by two former ABBA members, Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus, and performed by the Swedish band Gemini.
589079	Raakhee Majumdar (born 15 August 1947) is an Indian film actress, who has primarily appeared in Hindi films, as well as several Bengali films. She is popularly known as Raakhee Gulzar after her marriage to lyricist-director Gulzar. In four decades of acting, Raakhee won three Filmfare Awards and a National Film Award, among others. At the Filmfare, Raakhee has been nominated 16 times (8 for Best Actress and 8 for Best Supporting Actress), making her the overall most-nominated performer in the female acting categories. Early life. Rakhee was born in Ranaghat, in the Nadia district of West Bengal, in the early hours of 15 August 1947, just hours after the declaration of independence of India. She received her early education in a local girls' school. Her father had a flourishing shoe business in his native village in East Pakistan, modern-day Bangladesh, before the partition and thereafter he settled in West Bengal. While still a teenager, Raakhee had an arranged marriage to Bengali film director Ajay Biswas, which ended shortly thereafter. Career. Raakhee won rave reviews for her first Bengali film, "Badhu Baran", 1967 in Calcutta at the age of 20, after which she was offered the lead role in her first Hindi film, Rajshri Productions' "Jeevan Mrityu" with Dharmendra in 1970. It went on to become a big hit including its song "Jhilmil sitaron ka aangan hoga..." She again shot to fame in the 1971 film "Sharmilee", in which she played a double role opposite Shashi Kapoor followed by Lal Patthar and Paras which became hits. Consequently she established herself as a popular and major Hindi lead heroine acting with the best co-stars and directors from 1972-1985, in several blockbusters like "Shehzada"(1972), "Heera Panna" (1973), Daag (1973), Hamare Tumhare (1979), Aanchal (1980), Taaqat(1982). She regards her performances in "Blackmail" (1973), though it was not a success at box-office and "Tapasya" (1976) to be her best performances. She shared good equation with Barjatyas, Yash Chopra and Dev Anand. She was paired opposite Dev Anand in 3 hit films Heera Panna, Banarasi Babu, Lootmaar and had not much successful Joshila. Rakhee worked with Shashi Kapoor in 10 released films and the pair gave 8 hits - Sharmelee(1971), Jaanwar Aur Insaan (1972), Kabhi Kabhie (1976), the critically acclaimed Trishna (1978), Baseraa (1981), Zameen Aasmaan (1984) and Pighalta Aasman (1985) and 'Doosra Aadmi' in which she played a bold character. and had 2 box-office flops - Bandhan Kuchchey Dhaagon Ka (1983), Bandh Honth (1984), Doosara Aadmi (1977). There was a film Ek Do Teen Chaar where she was paired with Shashi again but it never got released. Her films with Amitabh Bachchan include 5 hit films: "Kabhie Kabhie" (1976), "Muqaddar Ka Sikander" (1977), "Kasme Vaade" (1978), "Trishul" (1978), "Kaala Patthar" (1979) and 3 above average films - "Jurmana" (1979), "Barsaat Ki Ek Raat" (1981), and "Bemisal" (1982). With her main focus on good roles rather than star status, Raakhee raised eyebrows when she did not hesitate to play Rajesh Khanna's sister-in-law in Aanchal (1980 film) and Shashi Kapoor's and Amitabh Bachchan's sister-in-law in "Shaan" (1980) and played Amitabh's mother in "Shakti" (1982). She also played Amitabh's dead mother in "Lawaaris" (1981). She acted in other Bengali films "Paroma" (1984) which fetched her BFJA Award for Best Actress. Her last film as the lead female heroine was Pighalta Aasman in 1985 with Shahsi Kapoor which was a success. Towards the late-1980s and 1990s she played strong character roles as the elderly mother—usually a bereaved and bitter widow whose husband died at the hands of ruthless villains—or woman of principles in commercially successful films such as "Ram Lakhan" (1989), 'Saheb', Anari, "Baazigar" (1993), "Khalnayak" (1993), "Karan Arjun" (1995), "Border" (1997), "Soldier" (1998) and Ek Rishta -Bond of Love (2001). Her last film was "Shubho Mahurat" in 2003, for which she won the National Film Award for Best Supporting Actress. She has since retired from the film industry. Personal life. In her second marriage, she married film director, poet and lyricist, Gulzar. The couple had a daughter, Meghna Gulzar (Bosky); when their daughter was only one year old, they separated but never divorced. Meghna Gulzar grew up with her father and, after completing her graduation in films from New York University, went on to become a director of films like "Filhaal", "Just Married" and "Dus Kahaniyaan", and authored the biography of her father Gulzar, in 2004. At one point, Raakhee stayed in her bungalow, "Muktangan," on Sarojini Road in Khar, Mumbai, later she sold off the property and moved to an apartment two buildings away, though the new high rise is still called by the same name, as she had wished. These days she mostly stays in the Panvel farmhouse on Mumbai outskirts.
1062500	Philip Seymour Hoffman (born July 23, 1967) is an American actor and director. He won the Academy Award for Best Actor for the 2005 biographical film "Capote", and received three Academy Award nominations as Best Supporting Actor. He has also received three Tony Award nominations for his work in the theater. Hoffman began his acting career in 1991, and the following year started to appear in films. He gradually gained recognition for his supporting work in a series of notable films, including "Scent of a Woman" (1992), "Twister" (1996), "Boogie Nights" (1997), "The Big Lebowski" (1998), "Magnolia" (1999), "The Talented Mr. Ripley" (1999), "Almost Famous" (2000), "25th Hour" (2002), "Punch-Drunk Love" (2002) and "Cold Mountain" (2003). In 2005, Hoffman played the title role in "Capote", for which he won multiple acting awards including an Academy Award for Best Actor. He received another three Academy Award nominations for his supporting work in "Charlie Wilson's War" (2007), "Doubt" (2008) and "The Master" (2012). Other critically acclaimed films in recent years have included "Owning Mahowny" (2003), "Before the Devil Knows You're Dead" (2007), "The Savages" (2007), "Synecdoche, New York" (2008), "Moneyball" (2011) and "The Ides of March" (2011). In 2010, Hoffman made his feature film directorial debut with "Jack Goes Boating". Hoffman is also an accomplished theater actor and director. He joined the LAByrinth Theater Company in 1995, and has directed and performed in numerous stage productions. His performances in three Broadway plays led to three Tony Award nominations: two for Best Leading Actor in "True West" (2000) and "Death of a Salesman" (2012); one for Best Featured Actor in "Long Day's Journey into Night" (2003). Early life. Hoffman was born in Fairport, New York. His mother, Marilyn O'Connor (née Loucks), who was born in Waterloo, New York, is a family court judge, lawyer, and civil rights activist. His father, Gordon Stowell Hoffman, is a former Xerox executive. He has two sisters, Jill and Emily, and a brother, Gordy Hoffman, who scripted the 2002 film "Love Liza", in which Philip starred. He has German, English, Irish, Dutch, and remote Polish, ancestry. His father was Protestant and his mother Catholic; Hoffman was not raised with a deep commitment to either religion. Hoffman's parents divorced when he was nine years old. Hoffman attended the 1984 Theater School at the New York State Summer School of the Arts. After graduating from Fairport High School, Hoffman attended the Circle in the Square Theatre's summer program, continuing his acting training with the acting teacher Alan Langdon. He received a BFA in drama in 1989 from New York University's Tisch School of the Arts. At NYU, he was a founding member of the theater company the Bullstoi Ensemble with actor Steven Schub and director Bennett Miller. Soon after graduating, he went to rehab for drug and alcohol addiction and remained sober until May 2013, when he entered a detox facility after briefly relapsing. Career. Film and television work. Hoffman's first role was as a defendant in the 1991 "Law & Order" episode "The Violence of Summer". He made his film breakthrough in 1992 when he appeared in four feature films, with the most successful film being "Scent of a Woman", in which he played an unscrupulous classmate of Chris O'Donnell's character. He had been stocking shelves at a city grocery store at the time before landing the role and credits the film with starting his career. Hoffman has established a successful and respected film career playing diverse and idiosyncratic characters in supporting roles, working with a wide variety of noted directors, including Todd Solondz, The Coen Brothers, Spike Lee, Cameron Crowe, David Mamet, Robert Benton, Anthony Minghella and Paul Thomas Anderson; notably, he has appeared in five out of six of Anderson's feature films to date ("Hard Eight", "Boogie Nights", "Magnolia", "Punch-Drunk Love" and "The Master)". He appeared in "The Party's Over", a documentary about the 2000 US elections. Throughout his career he has rarely been given a chance to play the lead role. In 2002, however, Hoffman starred as a widower coping with his wife's suicide in "Love Liza", for which his brother, Gordy Hoffman, wrote the screenplay. In 2003, he played the lead role in "Owning Mahowny" as a bank employee who embezzles money to feed his gambling addiction. Hoffman has continued to play supporting roles in such films as "Cold Mountain", as a carnally obsessed preacher, "Along Came Polly", as Ben Stiller's crude, has-been actor buddy, and "", as villainous arms dealer Owen Davian out to kill Ethan Hunt. He received his first Primetime Emmy Award nomination for the HBO miniseries "Empire Falls", but lost to castmate and personal idol Paul Newman. One of Hoffman's earliest roles was as a police deputy who gets punched in the face by Newman in 1994's "Nobody's Fool". He received a second Emmy Award nomination for the Daytime Emmy Awards for Outstanding Performer In An Animated Program in his vocal work on Arthur. In 2005, Hoffman won widespread acclaim for his portrayal of writer Truman Capote in the film "Capote". His performance received numerous high-profile accolades and awards, including the Academy Award for Best Actor, the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor - Motion Picture Drama, the Screen Actors Guild Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture, and the BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role. In addition, he was also awarded Best Actor by at least ten film critic associations, including the National Board of Review, Toronto Film Critics, and Los Angeles Film Critics. In 2007, Hoffman was nominated for the Golden Globe for Best Actor in a Supporting Role for playing Gust Avrakotos, a CIA officer who helps Congressman Charlie Wilson support a covert war in Afghanistan in the movie "Charlie Wilson's War". In 2008, he was also nominated for Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for the same role, which he lost to Javier Bardem for "No Country for Old Men". In 2008, he appeared in "Synecdoche, New York", in which he played Caden Cotard, a man who attempts to build a scale replica of New York inside a warehouse for a play, and "Doubt", in which he played Father Brendan Flynn, a priest accused of sexually abusing a student. He received Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild nominations for the latter. He also received a second consecutive nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in "Doubt". In July 2012, he was cast as Plutarch Heavensbee in "", the sequel to "The Hunger Games". That same year, he starred in Paul Thomas Anderson's critically acclaimed drama "The Master", which featured him as the charismatic leader of a nascent movement in post-war America. For this role, he was once again nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. Theater work. Hoffman has also won acclaim for his work in the theater. He joined the LAByrinth Theater Company in 1995, and has staged and performed in numerous productions. As a director, Hoffman has received two Drama Desk Award nomination for Outstanding Director of a Play: one for "Jesus Hopped the 'A' Train" in 2001; another for "Our Lady of 121st Street" in 2003. Of the difference between acting and directing in a play, Hoffman has said that "the director’s experience is not the real experience...You are the most subjective person in the room. You have no objectivity. You have to take a couple of weeks off and then come back to watch it without telling anyone, and you will see it with different eyes." As an actor, he first gained recognition in 2000 for the Off-Broadway play "The Author's Voice", receiving a Drama Desk Award nomination for Outstanding Featured Actor in a Play. On Broadway, Hoffman starred in the 2000 revival of "True West" and the 2003 revival of "Long Day's Journey into Night", both leading to Tony Award nominations. In 2012, Hoffman starred as Willy Loman in the Broadway revival of Arthur Miller's "Death of a Salesman" at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre, prompting the "New York Times" critic to conclude that "Mr. Hoffman is one of the finest actors of his generation [...] beyond dispute." He received his third Tony Award nomination as Best Leading Actor in a Play. Personal life. Hoffman is in a relationship with costume designer Mimi O'Donnell. They met while working on the 1999 play "In Arabia We'd All Be Kings", which Hoffman directed. They have a son, Cooper Alexander, born in March 2003, and two daughters, Tallulah, born in November 2006, and Willa, born in October 2008.
629219	Alvin Purple is an 1973 Australian comedy film starring Graeme Blundell, written by Alan Hopgood and directed by Tim Burstall. It received largely negative reviews from local film critics. Despite this it was a major hit with Australian audiences. "Alvin Purple" became the most commercially successful Australian film released to that time, breaking the box office record set by Michael Powell's pioneering Anglo-Australian comedy feature "They're a Weird Mob" (1966). The score and title theme were composed by iconic Australian singer-songwriter Brian Cadd. A 1974 film sequel "Alvin Rides Again" toned-down the sex scenes and nudity, adding more camp comedy.
1039444	Thomas Anthony "Tom" Hollander (born 25 August 1967) is an English actor who has appeared in the films "Enigma", "Gosford Park", "Cambridge Spies", "Pride & Prejudice", "Pirates of the Caribbean", "In the Loop", "Valkyrie" and "Hanna". Early life. Tom Hollander was born in Bristol and brought up in Oxford, the son of teachers. His father is descended from Czech Jews who converted to Catholicism, and his mother is of English background. He attended the Dragon School and then Abingdon School where he was chief chorister. As a youngster, Hollander was a member of the National Youth Theatre and the National Youth Music Theatre (then known as the Children's Music Theatre). In 1981, at fourteen years of age, he was awarded the lead role in a BBC dramatisation of Leon Garfield's "John Diamond". He read English at Selwyn College, Cambridge. He was actively involved in stage productions as a member of the Footlights and president of the Marlowe Society. Friend and fellow student Sam Mendes directed him in several plays while they were at Cambridge, including a critically acclaimed production of "Cyrano de Bergerac" (which also featured future Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg). After finishing university and failing to secure a place at a drama school, he found work in theatre nevertheless. Career. Hollander won the 1992 Ian Charleson Award for his performance in "The Way of the World" at the Lyric Hammersmith Theatre. He had been nominated the previous year, and was again nominated for his performances in "The Government Inspector" in 1997. Hollander's film and television appearances include "Absolutely Fabulous", "Martha, Meet Frank, Daniel and Laurence", "Wives and Daughters", "Harry", "Cambridge Spies" for which he received the FIPA D'OR Grand prize for best actor, "Gosford Park", "The Lost Prince" and "Pride & Prejudice" for which he received the Evening Standard Film Awards Comedy Award, and London Critics Circle Best Supporting Actor. He has worked repeatedly with Michael Gambon and Bill Nighy and is a good friend of James Purefoy. Although highly respected as a character actor and the recipient of several awards, many of his films will still play on his height (5' 5" / 165 cm). Hollander has created several memorable comedic characters that draw more on his physical energy and intensity than his height, such as the "brilliantly foul-mouthed" Leon in BBC Two's "Freezing", described in "The Times" as a "braying swirl of ego and mania". Hollander has lent his vocal talents to a number of roles for BBC radio including Mosca in 2004's "Volpone" for Radio 3, Frank Churchill in Jane Austen's "Emma" and as Mr Gently Benevolent in the Dickensian parody "Bleak Expectations" for Radio 4. He has voiced a young Joseph Merrick, the "Elephant Man"; a disembodied head named Enzio in an urban gothic comedy and Leon Theremin, the Russian inventor famous for the electronic instrument that bears his name. He provided the vocal texture for Anthony Burgess' "A Clockwork Orange" recently with a "smooth, almost lyrical, crisp voice" that accomplished the task of rendering the extensive and unique slang of the book instantly understandable to readers. More recent readings include "The Casual Vacancy" by J.K. Rowling. Hollander portrayed Lord Cutler Beckett, the "heavy" in ' and '. He also appeared in the TNT miniseries "The Company" as Harold Adrian Russell Kim Philby, having previously played Guy Burgess in the BBC's "Cambridge Spies". He returned to the stage in 2007 with the premiere of Joe Penhall's play "Landscape with Weapon" at the Royal National Theatre. In 2008 he made a notable cameo appearance as King George III in the HBO mini-series "John Adams", and ended the year as a memorable Colonel Heinz Brandt in "Valkyrie". In 2009, Hollander played a symphonic cellist in Joe Wright's "The Soloist", his second outing for Wright, who cast him to great effedt as the fevered suitor Mr. Collins in 2005's "Pride and Prejudice". He has worked once more with Wright, portraying a memorably flamboyant and menacing villain in "Hanna" (2011). Hollander appeared in a lead role in Armando Iannucci's "In the Loop" as Secretary of State for International Development Simon Foster MP. Hollander later made a surprise appearance (in a different role) at the end of the third series of "The Thick of It", the programme on which "In the Loop" was based. In 2010 Hollander and writer James Wood co-created the TV series "Rev.", a sensitive comedy about the all-too-human vicar of an inner-city parish. Reviews called it intelligent, realistic and very funny. Hollander played the sympathetic title character, Rev. Adam Smallbone. The show garnered a BAFTA in 2011 for Best Situation Comedy, among other awards and recognition. A second series aired in the UK on BBC 2 in 2011 and a third series is planned for 2014. Recently, Hollander returned to the live stage in a demanding comedic dual role for Georges Feydeau's "A Flea in Her Ear" at the Old Vic. Playing both master and servant with "lightning physical precision and shockingly true confusion", Hollander's was called "a virtuoso performance". Personal life. Hollander is a cyclist and runner who has contributed his efforts to several charitable causes, including running to raise funds for the Childline Crisis Hotline in 2006, and in 2007, for the Teenage Cancer Trust. He is a long-time supporter of the Helen & Douglas House Hospice for Children and Young Adults in Oxford, which provides hospice care for children, and continues to support charitable organisations by contributing readings and other appearances throughout the year. He is a patron of the British Independent Film Awards, and has supported the efforts of the Old Vic's "24 Hour Plays New Voices" Gala, which forwards the cause of young writers for the British stage. Hollander lives in Notting Hill, London.
1165788	Morgan Woodward (born September 16, 1925 in Fort Worth, Texas) is an American actor. He is probably best known for his recurring role on the soap opera "Dallas" as Marvin "Punk" Anderson. He also played the silent, sunglasses-wearing "man with no eyes", Boss Godfrey (the Walking Boss) in "Cool Hand Luke", and has third-most guest appearances on "Gunsmoke", with 19, behind only Victor French (23 times), and Gregg Palmer (20 times). The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp. One of Woodward's longest television roles was in forty-two episodes between 1958 and 1961 as the deputy/sidekick "Shotgun" Gibbs in the ABC television series "The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp", starring Hugh O'Brian. On that series, Woodward played a tall, cantankerous, shotgun-toting backwoodsman who eventually became the trusted deputy of lawman Wyatt Earp in his days as a Kansas and later Arizona lawman. Several episodes have comedy scenes about Gibbs and his beloved and supposedly highly intelligent mule, Roscoe. Though often overshadowed by the cool menace of Douglas Fowley's Doc Holliday, Woodward portrayed Gibbs as a solid, trustworthy, and more pragmatic partner to Earp, making Gibbs a character who, though ostensibly rough around the edges, would gradually come to share many of the qualities demonstrated over the years by another trusted television deputy, Ken Curtis' world-weary Festus Haggen on "Gunsmoke", who like Shotgun Gibbs also rode a mule. He also made multiple guest appearances on "Wagon Train" between 1958 and 1965. TV appearances. Woodward made many other television guest appearances, including: Film work. Film credits include: Star Trek. Woodward is notable for having starred in two different episodes of the original series of "" as two different characters. In the first-season episode "Dagger of the Mind", Woodward plays Dr. Simon Van Gelder, an attending physician at a hospital for the criminally insane. After discovering that the director of the facility is engaged in illegal brain experimentation, Van Gelder himself becomes a victim of these experiments and is confined as one of the patients. Escaping the facility to the orbiting "USS Enterprise", the deranged and incoherent (due to his brain damage) Van Gelder eventually recovers enough to be able to divulge the nefarious goings-on at the hospital. (This is with the aid of Mr. Spock's "mind meld", which is revealed for the first time in this episode.) In the second-season episode, "The Omega Glory", Woodward portrays Captain Ron Tracey, the commander of the starship USS "Exeter", a sister ship to the USS "Enterprise". Convinced that he is permanently marooned on an unfamiliar planet, Tracey chooses to abandon his duty as a Starfleet officer, and in essence he "goes native", allying himself with some of the planet's natural inhabitants in their war against their competitors. Discovered by Captain Kirk, Tracey is eventually defeated and taken into custody for his violation of fundamental orders: "The Prime Directive". Dallas. Woodward was a familiar face on the television drama series "Dallas" from 1980-1989. His recurring role of Marvin "Punk" Anderson, a friend of Jock Ewing's, and a member of the "cartel" of oil barons, became popular with viewers. As the series progressed Woodward's role became that of an advisor to the Ewing boys, and a voice of reason. His character's wife Mavis was played by character actress Alice Hirson. Hirson and Woodward were written out of the show during the 1989 season for budgetary reasons although the characters were mentioned in the following last 2 seasons of the show. Additional information. Woodward attended the University of Texas at Arlington, then known as Arlington State College in Arlington, Texas. He graduated from the University of Texas at Austin. Along with two of his four brothers, he has received recognition as a Distinguished Alumnus of UT. He is a member of the Pi Kappa Alpha Fraternity. His brother, Lee Woodward, was the weatherman with a lion puppet named "King Lionel" on the television station KOTV in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
1503695	Joanna Gleason (née Hall; born June 2, 1950) is a Canadian actress and singer. She is a Tony Award-winning musical theatre actress and has also had a number of notable film and TV roles. Early life. Gleason was born in Toronto, Ontario, as the daughter of Marilyn (née Plottel), a producer, writer, and actress; and producer & television personality Monty Hall. At the time of her birth, her father was working at the Canadian Wheat Board and had changed his name from Halperin to Hall. He later started his TV career and went on to fame as host of "Let's Make a Deal". Monty Hall's brother, Robert Halperin, also changed his name to Hall.
1059674	Eagle Eye is a 2008 American action thriller film directed by D. J. Caruso and starring Shia LaBeouf and Michelle Monaghan. The two portray a young man and a single mother who are brought together and coerced by an anonymous caller (Julianne Moore) into carrying out a plan by a possible terrorist organization. The film was released in regular 35 mm theaters and IMAX theaters. Plot. Jerry Shaw (Shia LaBeouf) is a Stanford University dropout who learns that his identical twin brother Ethan, a US Air Force first lieutenant, has been killed. Following the funeral, Jerry is surprised to find $750,000 in his bank account. He later finds his apartment filled with weapons, ammonium nitrate, classified DOD documents, and forged passports. He receives a phone call from a woman who says the FBI is about to arrest him and that he needs to run. Disbelieving, Jerry is caught by the FBI and interrogated by Supervising Agent Tom Morgan (Billy Bob Thornton). While Morgan is conferring with Air Force OSI Special Agent Zoe Pérez (Rosario Dawson), the woman on the phone arranges for Jerry's escape and directs him to Rachel Holloman (Michelle Monaghan), a single mother. The woman on the phone is coercing Rachel by threatening her son Sam (Cameron Boyce), who is en route to the Kennedy Center with his school band. The woman on the phone helps the two avoid the Chicago police and FBI, with the ability to control networked devices, including traffic lights, mobile phones, automated cranes, and even power lines. Meanwhile, the woman on the phone redirects a powerful DOD crystalline explosive (hexamethylene) to a gemcutter who cuts and fits it to a necklace. Another man (Anthony Azizi) is manipulated into stealing Sam's trumpet from Chicago and fitting the crystal's sonic trigger into the tubing before forwarding it to Sam in Washington, D.C. Agent Perez is summoned by Secretary of Defense George Callister (Michael Chiklis) to be read into Ethan's job at the Pentagon. Ethan monitored the DOD's top secret intelligence-gathering supercomputer, the Autonomous Reconnaissance Intelligence Integration Analyst (ARIIA; voiced by Julianne Moore). Callister leaves Perez with Major William Bowman (Anthony Mackie) and ARIIA to sort out the Ethan Shaw investigation. Simultaneously, Rachel and Jerry learn that their mysterious woman is actually ARIIA, and she has "activated" them under the Constitution's authorization to recruit civilians for the national defense. Perez and Bowman find evidence Ethan Shaw hid in ARIIA's chamber the night he died. After they leave to brief Secretary Callister, ARIIA smuggles Jerry and Rachel into her observation theater under the Pentagon. Both groups learn that after her recommendation was ignored and a botched operation in Balochistan resulted in the deaths of American citizens, ARIIA concluded that "to prevent more bloodshed, the executive branch must be removed." Acting on behalf of "We the People", and citing the Declaration of Independence ("whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it"), ARIIA acted in compliance with of the Patriot Act which "allows us to circumvent probable cause in the face of a national security threat, in this case, the chain of command itself." Too late realized, Jerry has been brought by ARIIA to circumvent biometric locks his twin placed to prevent the system from realizing Operation Guillotine, a military simulation of how to keep the government running with the loss of all presidential successors. Because of Secretary Callister's concurrence with ARIIA's abort recommendation regarding Balochistan, he has been chosen as the designated survivor after the hexamethylene detonates at the State of the Union address (SOTU). One of ARIIA's agents (Nick Searcy) extracts Rachel from the Pentagon and gives her a dress and the hexamethylene necklace to wear to the SOTU. Sam's school band has also been redirected to the United States Capitol to play for the president, bringing the trigger in Sam's trumpet and the explosive together. Jerry is recaptured by Agent Morgan, who has become convinced of Jerry's innocence. Though Morgan sacrifices himself to stop an armed MQ-9 Reaper sent by ARIIA, he first gives Jerry his weapon and ID with which to gain entrance to the Capitol. Arriving in the House Chamber, Jerry fires the handgun in the air to disrupt the concert before being shot and wounded by the Secret Service. Days later, Secretary Callister reports that ARIIA has been decommissioned and that he recommends against building another; the Shaw twins, and Agents Perez and Morgan receive awards for their actions; and in the final scene, Jerry attends Sam's birthday party, earning thanks and a kiss from Rachel. Production. Screenwriter Dan McDermott wrote the original script for "Eagle Eye" based on an idea by Steven Spielberg who had been inspired by Isaac Asimov's short story "All the Troubles of the World." The studio DreamWorks then bought McDermott's script and set up the project to potentially be directed by Spielberg. When the director became busy with "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull", he dropped out of the project. Director D. J. Caruso, who directed the 1996 TV series "High Incident" under Spielberg's executive production, replaced the director in helming "Eagle Eye", with Spielberg remaining as executive producer. In June 2007, actor LaBeouf who was involved in Spielberg's and Caruso's 2007 film "Disturbia" and "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull", re-joined the director and executive producer to star as the lead in "Eagle Eye". McDermott's script was rewritten by screenwriters John Glenn, Travis Wright, and Hillary Seitz in preparation for production. Filming began on November 6, 2007 and wrapped in February 2008. The film's visual effects were created by Sony Pictures Imageworks. Caruso said by the time the film came to fruition twelve years later, "the technology had finally caught up to the storytelling... Everybody has a BlackBerry on their belt, and we think we're constantly being tracked. It's less science fiction than when Steven Spielberg conceived it." Caruso wanted to bring a gritty, 1970s-era sensibility to the film. Accordingly, a key chase scene in a high-tech package-processing hub on conveyor belts was shot without the use of computer-generated imagery. "It was like "Chutes and Ladders" for adults. It was pretty dangerous, and a lot of fun." While filming the scene, Monaghan suffered a welt after a cable brushed her neck and Caruso hit his head on a protruding bolt, requiring stitches. Music. The music to "Eagle Eye" was written by composer Brian Tyler, who recorded the score with an 88-piece ensemble of the Hollywood Studio Symphony at the Sony Scoring Stage. The session was interrupted by the Chino Hills earthquake on July 29, 2008—and a recording of the quake hitting the scoring stage is online. Promotion. The official movie website features an ARG type of gameplay system to promote the film. The voice previewed behind the phone in multiple trailers contacts the player, placing them in unique experiences. This has been called the "Eagle Eye Freefall Experience". While official cast listings do not list the name of the actress behind the mysterious voice featured in the film and trailers, Rosario Dawson confirmed at the Hollywood premiere that it belongs to Julianne Moore. Critical reception. "Eagle Eye" received negative reviews from critics, primarily for its implausible storyline. As of 2 May 2012, the review aggregation site Rotten Tomatoes reported that 26% of critics gave the film positive reviews based on 178 reviews, with the consensus that the film is "a preposterously-plotted thriller that borrows heavily from other superior films." Metacritic reported the film had an average score of 43 out of 100, based on 28 reviews—indicating mixed or average reviews. Roger Ebert of the "Chicago Sun-Times" gave "Eagle Eye" a score of two stars out of four, saying: "The word 'preposterous' is too moderate to describe "Eagle Eye". This film contains not a single plausible moment after the opening sequence, and that's borderline. It's not an assault on intelligence. It's an assault on consciousness." James Berardinelli of ReelViews gave the film one and a half stars out of four, saying: "This movie tests the viewing public's tolerance for enduring crass stupidity when the payoff is a series of repetitive, ADD-infected chase scenes. Director D.J. Caruso does a moderately good job of hiding how incredibly dumb this screenplay is by keeping things moving at such a whirlwind pace that a lot more seems to be happening than actually is. In reality, the chase scenes don't mean anything because they don't advance the plot—it's mice on a treadmill, running and running and not getting anywhere." "The Hollywood Reporter" called it a "slick, silly techno-thriller" and "Even those who surrender all disbelief at the door will be hard pressed not to smirk at some of wildly improbable plotting." Josh Rosenblatt of "The Austin Chronicle" enjoyed the film, calling it "good, manic fun plus a heavy dose of political intrigue adding up to two hours of clamorous, mind-numbing nonsense." Calling it "The Transporter 2 on crack." William Arnold of the "Seattle Post-Intelligencer" also gave "Eagle Eye" a positive review, remarking that it's "engrossing as an intellectual puzzle" and "a solid thriller." Mark Bell of Film Threat said: "the film isn't a complete waste of your time [...] but don't expect anything brilliant." Neely Tucker of "The Washington Post" said that "Eagle Eye" is "sometimes entertaining" but "doesn't have much to say." Robert Koehler of "Variety" felt that the film's "first 35 minutes sizzle" but "the story near-parody in the final act." Box office. In its opening weekend, "Eagle Eye" grossed $29.1 million in 3,510 theaters in the United States and Canada, reaching the first place position at the box office. As of February 15, 2009, it has grossed $178 million worldwide—$101.4 million in the United States and Canada and $76.6 million in other territories. The budget of the film was $80 million. Home media. "Eagle Eye" was released on DVD and Blu-ray only in select stores on December 26, 2008, exactly three months after its theatrical release, September 26, 2008. In the first week on the DVD sales chart, "Eagle Eye" sold 182,592 units which translated to $3.3m in revenue. In the second week, however, sales rose tremendously to 1,044,682 for that week, opening at #1 and acquiring revenue of $18,862,151 for that week. As per the latest figures, 2,181,959 units have been sold, bringing in $38,008,436 in revenue. This does not include Blu-ray sales/DVD rentals. The next day, it was released nationwide. iTunes released it a month later as a rental and buy. Mobile game. A mobile game based on the film was developed and published by Magmic Games. It was released for BlackBerry, Windows Mobile, BREW, and Java ME devices prior to the film's launch in early September. There are also two games on the film's web site.
1054870	Jordan Kerner (born February 5, 1950) is an American film producer. Life and career. Kerner was born in Los Angeles, California. He began his undergraduate studies at the University of Southern California. He subsequently transferred to Stanford University where he graduated in 1972 with distinction and honors receiving a BA in Political Science and Communications. He then earned an MBA from the University of California, Berkeley in 1976 and also, in the same year, a JD from the University of California, Hastings, serving on the Law Review and founding COMM/ENT, the Journal of Communications and Entertainment Law. Kerner started off his career at CBS-TV KPIX-SF in San Francisco in 1971. In 1976, he became an attorney at the law firm of Ball, Hunt, Hart and Baerwitz. In 1977, he left to join CBS Entertainment as a program and talent negotiator. In 1978, he then switched to Universal Television for NBC, taking the position of assistant to the senior VP. Two years later, he also took on the task of director of program development QM Productions. The following year, he changed jobs and became the director of dramatic series development at ABC Entertainment. He was promoted to vice president of dramatic development in 1983. He held this position until 1986, when he formed The Avnet/Kerner Co., an independent production company, with Jon Avnet. A year later, his first feature was produced, called "Less Than Zero". After another year, he had produced his first television movie, "Side by Side". His acting debut was in "Less Than Zero" (uncredited) and then "George of the Jungle 2" (credited), in which he played an advertising executive in the first and an airline passenger in the second. In 2001, he and Avnet started separate companies with Kerner forming The Kerner Entertainment Company. His mother is Jeannette Kerner, a stage and screen actrees, who died in 2001, at the age of 85. He is married to Nicola O'Shea, and their daughters are Haley Lelean O'Shea Kerner, Grace Ellis O'Shea Kerner, and Lily Jeannette O'Shea Kerner. In 2007, Kerner was appointed Dean of the School of Filmmaking at the prestigious University of North Carolina School of the Arts.
582682	Hamara Dil Aapke Paas Hai is an Indian Bollywood film directed by Satish Kaushik, released on 24 August 2000. The film stars Anil Kapoor, Aishwarya Rai and Sonali Bendre in lead roles. It is a remake of the Telugu film "Pellichesukundam". The song "Gham Hai Kyon" was copied from Tamil film "Avvai Shanmugi" "Kathala Kathala" song. Plot. Preeti Virat (Aishwarya Rai) is a young, vivacious and naive woman. She comes forward as a witness to heinous assault carried by Bhavani Choudhry and his men on a person who owes them money. The injured man is helped to the hospital by Preeti and a courteous man called Avinash (Anil Kapoor), who holds strong morals and values. Preeti's testimony angers the Choudhry family and, as a result, Choudhry's brother rapes her. Subsequently, she becomes a disgrace to her own family. Disowned by her family and secluded by society, she leaves her house with nowhere to go. She finds shelter with Avinash, who takes her to his home. The two live well together as friends but this act invites a social opprobrium and strong uproar over both of them, and there is no other solution but marriage. They soon fall in love, and Avinash decides to ask Preeti for her hand in marriage. She refuses as she considers herself unworthy of him, and Avinash respects her decision. When Avinash's childhood friend Khushi (Sonali Bendre) returns from America, she tries to win his heart, as she is very much in love with him. This arouses jealousy in Preeti, and she realizes the depth of her love for Avinash. After encountering several obstacles, Avinash and Preeti finally declare their love for each other and get married. Awards. Won Nominated Music. The soundtrack of the film contains eight songs. The music is conducted by the duo Sanjeev-Darshan.
590330	Meghe Dhaka Tara ( "Mēghē Ḍhākā Tārā", meaning The Cloud-Capped Star) is a 1960 film written and directed Ritwik Ghatak, based on a social novel by Shaktipada Rajguru with the same title. It stars Supriya Choudhury, Anil Chatterjee, Gita Dey, Bijan Bhattacharya, Niranjan Roy, and Gyanesh Mukherjee. It was part of the trilogy, "Meghe Dhaka Tara" (1960), "Komal Gandhar" (1961), and "Subarnarekha" (1962), all dealing with the aftermath of the Partition of Bengal during the Partition of India in 1947 and the refugees coping with it. Overview. This film was directed by alternative filmmaker Ritwik Ghatak in Kolkata (then Calcutta). In contrast to many Bollywood films made in Mumbai, India's main film center, Ghatak's films are formally elaborate and somber, and often address issues related to the Partition of India. Although Partition is never explicitly mentioned in "Meghe Dhaka Tara," it takes place in a refugee camp in the outskirts of Calcutta, and concerns an impoverished genteel Hindu bhadralok family and the problems they face because of Partition. The film is perhaps the most widely viewed film among Ghatak's works; it was his greatest commercial success at home, and coincided with an international film movement towards personal stories and innovative techniques (the so-called 'new wave'). After Ghatak's death, his work (and this film in particular) began to attract a more sizable global audience, via film festivals and the subsequent release of DVDs both in India and in Europe. In a confirmation of the popularity of "Meghe Dhaka Tara", a recent survey by a leading Indian news group reported that the concluding line of the film, "Dada, ami baachte chai" ("Brother, I want to live") was the most well-known line of any film. "Meghe Dhaka Tara" is strongly melodramatic in tone, especially as concerns the sufferings heaped on the protagonist. As in many of his other films, Ghatak also uses surrealistic sound effects, such as sounds of a lashing as the heroine suffers yet another tragic twist of fate. In 2002, "Meghe Dhaka Tara" was ranked at #231 on the "Sight & Sound" critics' and directors' poll for all-time greatest films. The movie is also listed in the book "1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die", which praises "the grace of Ghatak's mise en scène, his expressionist sound design, and the enormous sense of loss." Plot outline. The film revolves around Neeta (played by Supriya Choudhury), a beautiful young girl who lives with her family, refugees from East Pakistan, in the suburbans of Calcutta. Neeta is a self-sacrificing person who is constantly exploited by everyone around her, even her own family, who take her goodness for granted. Her elder brother (played by Anil Chatterjee) does not care for the family as he wants to be a singer, she needs to take the burden. Her life is ridden with personal tragedy: she loses first her fiancé, then her job and finally her health by contracting tuberculosis. Her mostly absent would-be singer brother is the only person who cares about her at the end. In the end, she screams out her agony, throwing herself into her brother's arms. She utters her last words: "Brother, I want to survive (দাদা, আমি বাঁচতে চাই।)."
1163324	Justine Tanya Bateman (born February 19, 1966) is an American actress, writer, and producer. She is best known for her regular role as Mallory Keaton on the sitcom "Family Ties" (from 1982 until 1989). Until recently, Bateman ran a production and consulting company, SECTION 5. In the fall of 2012, she started studying computer science at UCLA. Early life. Bateman was born in Rye, New York, to Victoria Elizabeth, a former flight attendant for Pan Am who was originally from the United Kingdom, and Kent Bateman, an American acting coach, film and television writer/director, and founder of a repertory stage in Hollywood. Her younger brother is actor Jason Bateman. She attended Taft High School in Woodland Hills, California, and graduated in 1984.
1066451	Furry Vengeance is a 2010 American comedy film directed by Roger Kumble. It stars Brendan Fraser, Matt Prokop, and Brooke Shields.
588710	Mouna Geethangal (English:Silent Music) is a 1981 Indian Tamil language film directed by K. Bhagyaraj. The film stars K. Bhagyaraj himself alongside Saritha. The film was a blockbuster and was remade into Hindi as "Ek Hi Bhool" in the same year. It was also remade in Kannada as "Mane Devru" with Ravichandran. Plot. Bhagyaraj and Saritha are a married couple. Bhagyaraj is a graduate and works as an administrator in a company. Their marriage comes to an end when Bhagyaraj betrays Saritha for her widowed friend. Bhagyaraj confesses the truth as he gets drunk, and tries to explain himself, and even her family tries to convince her to condone this one little mistake, but Saritha cannot forgive him his unfaithfulness and they break up. After their divorce, Saritha finds out that she is pregnant. She moves into her new home. Five years later, they meet each other in a bus. Coincidentally, Bhagyaraj's new house is close to Saritha's in the same neighborhood. Now when they're neighbours, Bhagyaraj tries to captivate her again and return his family and wife. He gets close to his son. Soundtrack. The music composed by Gangai Amaran.
587867	Little Soldiers is a Telugu children's movie released in February 1996, produced and directed by Gangaraju Gunnam, which won many awards, including Andhra Pradesh state government Nandi award. The film has some good children songs penned by Sirivennela Sitaramasastri and music scored by Sri. Plot. It is the story of two naughty kids who are orphaned in an accident and are forced to live with their new guardian, the strict disciplinarian and army man - their grandfather. They have never seen him before due to differences between their parents and the grandpa. They get to have a first hand experience of the reason for these differences. While the plot is sad and very sympathy evoking, the movie itself is very light hearted to a large extent, and is a continuous laugh riot. The children's performances are especially noteworthy. How the grandpa and the children eventually warm up to each other, and the various troubles that the cook and other family members go through trying to raise the children make for a very interesting and fun viewing. Music. The soundtrack of the movie is decent and more in the funny, talking mode unlike the norm.
1748253	In the mathematical field of numerical analysis, De Casteljau's algorithm is a recursive method to evaluate polynomials in Bernstein form or Bézier curves, named after its inventor Paul de Casteljau. De Casteljau's algorithm can also be used to split a single Bézier curve into two Bézier curves at an arbitrary parameter value. Although the algorithm is slower for most architectures when compared with the direct approach, it is more numerically stable. Definition. A Bézier curve "B" (of degree "n") can be written in Bernstein form as follows where "b" is a Bernstein basis polynomial The curve at point "t"0 can be evaluated with the recurrence relation Then, the evaluation of formula_5 at point formula_6 can be evaluated in formula_7 steps of the algorithm. The result formula_8 is given by : Moreover, the Bézier curve formula_5 can be split at point formula_6 into two curves with respective control points : Example implementation. Here is an example implementation of De Casteljau's algorithm in Haskell: Notes. When doing the calculation by hand it is useful to write down the coefficients in a triangle scheme as When choosing a point "t"0 to evaluate a Bernstein polynomial we can use the two diagonals of the triangle scheme to construct a division of the polynomial into
583739	Mudhalvan () is a Tamil political thriller film co-written, directed and co-produced by S. Shankar. The film features Arjun, Manisha Koirala and Raghuvaran in the lead roles with Manivannan, Vijayakumar and Hanifa portraying other significant roles. The film featured an award-winning soundtrack composed by A. R. Rahman, cinematography by K. V. Anand and dialogues by Sujatha.
1063105	Mrs. Brown (also released and advertised under the title Her Majesty, Mrs. Brown) is a 1997 British drama film starring Judi Dench, Billy Connolly, Geoffrey Palmer, Antony Sher and Gerard Butler. It was written by Jeremy Brock and directed by John Madden. The film was produced by the BBC and Ecosse Films with the intention of being shown on BBC One and on WGBH's "Masterpiece Theatre". However, it was acquired by Miramax and released to unexpected success, going on to earn more than $13,000,000 worldwide. The film was screened in the Un Certain Regard section at the 1997 Cannes Film Festival. Dench was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress, but lost to Helen Hunt for her role in "As Good as It Gets". Plot. Several screens of text giving some background are shown before a bust is shown flying over a palace wall and shattering into countless pieces. The film shows the story of a bereaved Queen Victoria (portrayed by Judi Dench) and her relationship with a Scottish servant, John Brown (played by Billy Connolly), and the subsequent uproar it provoked. Brown had been a trusted servant of Victoria's then deceased and beloved Prince Consort, Prince Albert; Victoria's chief servants thought Brown might help to ease an inconsolable Queen since the Prince Consort's death in 1861. In 1863, hoping to subtly coax the Queen toward resuming public life after years of seclusion, Mr. Brown is summoned to court. The plan succeeds a little too well for the servants' liking, especially Victoria's chief secretary Sir Henry Ponsonby (played by Geoffrey Palmer) and The Prince of Wales (played by David Westhead) as well as other members of the Royal family; the public, press and politicians soon come to resent Brown's perceived influence over the queen. Brown takes considerable liberties with court protocol, especially by addressing Her Majesty as ""woman"". He also quickly takes control over the Queen's daily activities, further aggravating the tensions between himself and the royal family and servants. The moniker ""Mrs. Brown"", used both at the time and in the film, implied an improper, and perhaps sexual, relationship. The film does not directly address the contemporary suspicions that the Queen and Brown had had a sexual relationship and perhaps had even secretly married (see the article on Brown), though cartoons from the satirical magazine "Punch" are shown as being passed around in Parliament (only one of the cartoons is revealed to the camera, showing an empty throne, with the sceptre lying unhanded across it). As a result of Victoria's virtual recluse, especially at Balmoral Castle in Scotland, something initially encouraged by Brown, her popularity is failing and there is a growing rise in republican sentiment. Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli (Antony Sher) has a weakening hold over the House of Commons and a fear of rising anti-monarchical sentiment in the country. He persuades Brown to use his influence with the Queen and persuade her to return to the performance of her public duties, especially the speech from the throne at the impending opening of Parliament. Brown is reluctant to do so, rightly fearing that Victoria will take this as a personal betrayal. When Brown urges Victoria to return to London and fulfill her public duties, an argument ensues. Feeling betrayed by Brown, the Queen becomes enraged. She can't believe what she is hearing. When Brown once again refers to her as ""woman"", she sharply rebukes him. Leaving the room, she turns to Ponsonby and Jenner requesting that they serve her needs, clearly reducing Mr. Brown's contact and influence over her. Their relationship was never to be the same again. The Queen's eventual acquiescence and her decision to return to public life eventually leads to a revitalisation of her popularity and a resurgence in public support of the monarchy. Brown continues to serve Queen Victoria, until his death in 1883. In his final years, his duties become reduced to head of security. The palace staff has become weary of Brown's dogmatic ways and they mock and rebuke his security efforts as paranoid delusions. Finally, during a public event, a gun wielding assassin appears out of the crowd leaping toward the royal family. An ever vigilant Mr. Brown successfully thwarts the assassination attempt. At dinner the next evening, the Prince of Wales retells the story, bragging to their dinner companions that he had been the one to warn Brown of the assassin. Seeing through her son's bragging, the Queen announces instead that a special medal for bravery, the "Devoted Service Medal," will be minted and awarded to Mr. Brown. Some years later, Mr. Brown becomes gravely ill with pneumonia after chasing through the woods late at night searching for a possible intruder. Hearing of Brown's illness, the Queen visits Mr. Brown's room and is visibly shaken to see her old friend so ill. Placing a cool damp cloth against Brown's fevered brow, she confesses that she has not been as good a friend as she might have been in recent years. It is clear that her apology is accepted by Brown. The pneumonia proves fatal for Brown and he passes away. During his years of service, Mr. Brown has kept a diary and upon his passing, Ponsonby and Dr. Jenner discuss its contents stating that it must never be seen by anyone. Holding the diary at his side, Ponsonby walks away and it's implied that the diary will be destroyed or will disappear. Dr. Jenner also reveals that the Prince of Wales has hurled the Queen's favourite bust of Mr. Brown up and over the ""palace wall"," referring us back to the film's opening sequence. The film's closing crawl informs us that: ""John Brown's diary was never found."" Awards and nominations. Dame Judi Dench Billy Connolly Others
583111	Vivaan Shah is an Indian actor working in the Hindi film industry, who made his film debut with "Saat Khoon Maaf" (2011) to critical acclaim. Thereafter, he signed a three-film deal with director Vishal Bhardwaj, he also got the lead role in Vishal's next film, "Dreams", with Deepika Padukone and Priyanka Chopra, his role was initially to be done by Saif Ali Khan. He is the youngest son of the actors Naseeruddin Shah and Ratna Pathak Shah. Early life and education. Born to actors, Naseeruddin Shah and Ratna Pathak Shah in Mumbai, he did his schooling from The Doon School, Dehradun. His elder brother Imaad Shah is an actor and musician and his elder sister Heeba Shah is an actor. His maternal grandmother was actress Dina Pathak. Career. Vivaan made his acting debut with the movie 7 Khoon Maaf where he play the role of Arun Kumar, a young forensic doctor who narrates the story to his wife played by Konkona Sen Sharma. During the making of the film 7 Khoon Maaf the news spread that Vivaan is playing one of Priyanka's husband but after the movie released it came out that he was playing the narrator in the movie who shares a special relationship with Priyanka's character Susanna.
1064871	Space Chimps is a 2008 CGI animated adventure sci-fi family comedy film produced by Vanguard Animation, Starz Animation, and 20th Century Fox, and it was released on July 18, 2008. The film is produced by Barry Sonnenfeld, John H. Williams, and John W. Hyde and stars the voices of Andy Samberg, Cheryl Hines, Jeff Daniels, Patrick Warburton, Kristin Chenoweth, Kenan Thompson, Carlos Alazraqui and Zack Shada. The teaser ad premiered on June 20, 2008 during a Fox broadcast of another primate/space-related film - 2001's remake of "Planet of the Apes". Plot. The film begins with Ham III, grandson of the first chimpanzee in space, being a cannonball at his circus and later being criticized by his grandfather's friend Houston. Meanwhile, an unmanned NASA space probe called the "Infinity" is dragged into an intergalactic wormhole, and crash-lands on an Earth-like planet on the other side of the galaxy. Zartog, an evil-minded inhabitant, accidentally discovers how to take manual control of the on-board machinery and uses it to enslave the population. Faced with the loss of the probe and probable loss of their budget, the scientists have to find a way to regain contact with the probe, to help retrieve the wayward craft. Technical genius chimp Comet gets the scientists to pick them as astronauts to explore the planet and get the probe back, with the help of the fearless Lt. Luna, and their bombastic commander, Titan. The Senator likes the idea, but wants something extra special to grab the attention of the media, and picks Ham. Ham is uninterested in the mission, but he falls for Luna(though he is unaware that Luna was doing the same thing for Ham). The three go in a gravitational probe, having Luna and Titan screaming, but Ham's internal structure could stand the pressure, forcing him to ask Luna to help him move next week (The makeup trailer is not seen in the second movie, making people think that she helped him move.)
1064072	Mark Strong (born Marco Giuseppe Salussolia; 5 August 1963) is an English actor. He is best known for his roles in films such as "RocknRolla", "Body of Lies", "Syriana", "The Young Victoria", "Sherlock Holmes", "Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy", "Kick-Ass", "Green Lantern", "Zero Dark Thirty", "Robin Hood", and "John Carter". He often portrays villains or antagonists. Early life. Strong was born in London, the son of an Austrian mother and an Italian father. His father left the family soon after his birth, and he was brought up by his mother, who worked as an au pair. His English name is not a stage name; when he was a child, his mother changed his name by deed poll to help him fit in with his peers. He was baptised a Catholic. He speaks fluent German and some Italian. Strong attended Wymondham College, where he sang in the punk bands The Electric Hoax and Private Party (the name of the latter was based on the idea that the band's shows would not be attended, due to prospective audiences thinking that the event was a "private party"). His original ambition was to become a lawyer, but after one year's study at university in Munich, he returned home to London, studying English and Drama at Royal Holloway and later attending Bristol Old Vic Theatre School. Career. Strong is a familiar face on British television. He appeared in two "Prime Suspect" serials for ITV as Inspector (later Detective Chief Superintendent) Larry Hall, in "Prime Suspect 3" (1993) and "Prime Suspect 6" (2003). He also had starring roles in two BBC Two drama serials, "Our Friends in the North" (1996) and "The Long Firm" (2004), for which he earned a BAFTA nomination. He also played the villainous Colonel Brand in "Sharpe's Mission" (1996). He played the romantic lead, Mr. Knightley, in the ITV adaptation of Jane Austen's novel "Emma". In feature films, Strong played Steve in the 1997 adaptation of Nick Hornby's "Fever Pitch" opposite Colin Firth At the beginning of the 2000s he appeared in "Heartlands", and in Shakespeare's "Twelfth Night" at the Donmar Warehouse, for which he was nominated for the 2003 Laurence Olivier Award for Best Performance in a Supporting Role. In 2005 he was featured in Roman Polanski's "Oliver Twist" (2005), played Mussawi in the film "Syriana", and played an assassin called Sorter in "Revolver" (2005). Strong portrayed the traitorous Wictred in "Tristan & Isolde", showing his talent with swordplay and since 2006, he has provided the narration in the BBC's genealogy series "Who Do You Think You Are?". In 2007 Strong was one of the final two actors considered for the part of Anton Chigurh in "No Country for Old Men"; despite the persistence of rumours, he claims he was never offered the part. Strong was Pinbacker, the insane captain of "Icarus I", the first ship that was sent to reignite the Sun in "Sunshine" (2007). Pinbacker was inspired by the character of Sergeant Pinback from "Dark Star". The character's disfiguring burns were influenced by the injuries suffered by F1 driver Niki Lauda. Boyle described the character of Pinbacker as a representation of fundamentalism. The director also described the potentially unrealistic presence of Pinbacker as an example of something that breaks the pattern of realism, similar to his scene in "Trainspotting" (1996) in which Ewan McGregor's character dives into a toilet. This year he played prince Septimus, the youngest of the seven Stormhold princes, in "Stardust". In 2008 he played Nick Calderelli in "Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day", Mannie Miesel in "Flashbacks of a Fool", Finn in "Babylon A.D.", Archy in "RocknRolla", Philipp Bouhler in "Good"and Hani Salaam, Jordanian intelligence chief and director of the feared GID in "Body of Lies" which Strong was nominated London Critics Circle Film Award for Best British Supporting Actor and his performance was mentioned by several critics, with Scott calling it "a marvel of exotic suavity and cool insinuation" while Ebert "particularly admired" his aura of suave control. Strong ascribed his casting to his performances in the 2005 films "Syriana" and "Oliver Twist". The character Haani Salaam was modelled after the 2000–2005 GID chief Saad Kheir (1953–2009), whose involvement, according to the original author David Ignatius, in sharply handled interrogations without use of torture, a counter with a jihadist with his mother on the phone and being called the 'fingernail boss' were near accurately featured in the film. The next year he played a lead part in the Channel 4 film "Endgame" (2009). and he played Lord Blackwood, the main villain in "Sherlock Holmes" (2009), who has somehow returned after his execution with a plot to take over the British Empire using an arsenal of dark arts and new technologies. He worked with director Ritchie for the third time and said he appreciates the director's lack of ego and how easy he is to work with. The same year he played Frank D'Amico, the head of a criminal organization in "Kick-Ass". Strong says he is drawn to playing the antagonist. He tries to "understand the purpose of the character", and then work on building a believable individual. He then played Thaal Sinestro a Green Lantern and Hal Jordan's mentor, in the superhero film "Green Lantern" (2011). Mark Strong affirmed that the film will follow the origin story, "the film closely follows the early comics. Sinestro starts out as Hal Jordan’s mentor, slightly suspicious and not sure of him because obviously Hal is the first human being who’s made into a Green Lantern. He's certainly very strict and certainly unsure of the wisdom of Hal becoming a Green Lantern". Strong said the character "is a military guy but isn't immediately bad. It's the kind of person he is that lends himself to becoming bad over the course of the comics being written, but initially he’s quite a heroic figure.” He also revealed that the outfit and other aspects of the character very closely follow the character's early days, “That widow's peak and thin mustache was for some reason originally based on David Niven... So I would like to do justice to the Sinestro that was conceived for the comic books”. In 2011 he was the voice Pod of "The Secret World of Arrietty" and the voice of the character Captain Titus of the Ultramarines Chapter in the video game "". The same year, and most notably, he played the role of Jim Prideaux in the remake of "Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy", which was earlier played by Ian Bannen in the iconic original 1979 BBC series starring Alec Guinness. The film premiered in competition at the 68th Venice International Film Festival on 5 September 2011. The film received generally positive reviews. The film holds an 83% 'Fresh' approval rating from 203 reviews collected by review aggregator site Rotten Tomatoes, with the consensus, ""Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy" is a dense puzzle of anxiety, paranoia, and espionage that director Tomas Alfredson pieces together with utmost skill". Metacritic, which assigns a normalised rating in the 0–100 range based on reviews from top mainstream critics, calculated an average score of 85 based on 42 reviews, equating to "universal acclaim". The next year he played Clive Cornell in "The Guard" which is the most successful independent Irish film of all time in terms of Irish box-office receipts, overtaking "The Wind that Shakes the Barley" (2006) which previously held this status. The film has a 95 percent positive rating according to review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes. Strong began filming the role of Jacob Sternwood in the British thriller, "Welcome to the Punch". He was Matai Shang, the leader of the Therns in "John Carter". He then starred in Kathryn Bigelow's action thriller film "Zero Dark Thirty" with co-stars Jessica Chastain, Jason Clarke, Joel Edgerton, Chris Pratt. It was independently financed by Ellison's Annapurna Pictures. The film had its premiere in Los Angeles, California on 19 December 2012 and had its wide release on 11 January 2013. The film received wide critical acclaim and was nominated for five Oscars for the 85th Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Actress (Chastain) and Best Original Screenplay. The film won one, for Best Sound Editing. "Zero Dark Thirty" earned four Golden Globe Award nominations, including Best Picture – Drama, Best Director, and Best Actress – Drama for Chastain. In November 2012, Strong and Taissa Farmiga were cast as John and Anna in "Mindscape" will mark the feature-length directorial debut of Spaniard Jorge Dorado. The story of the film, written by Guy and Martha Holmes, centres on a man with the ability to enter people's memories who is working on the case of a brilliant but problematic teenager to determine whether she is a sociopath or the victim of a trauma. The film comes to theaters in later 2013. Personal life. Strong lives in London with his wife, Liza Marshall. He is a longtime friend of actor Daniel Craig, who is the godfather of Strong's eldest son. He dubbed Craig into German, as German with an English accent was required for " Obsession" (1997). In an interview he said that his style icon is David Bowie and when he was a child he wanted to be the French actor Alain Delon: "I remember watching him in films and though I couldn't understand a word he was saying I remember thinking he looked great. Failing that, an astronaut, after watching the moon landing on a tiny, portable, black-and-white TV at my gran's house".
1040648	Philip Haywood Glenister (born 10 February 1963) is an English actor, known for his role as DCI Gene Hunt in British television series "Life on Mars" and its sequel "Ashes To Ashes". He plays Mr Gunn in the BBC One comedy "Big School".
1102023	Alexander Grothendieck (; ; born 28 March 1928) is a stateless mathematician born in Germany and raised in France, who is the central figure behind the creation of the modern theory of algebraic geometry. His research program vastly extended the scope of the field, incorporating major elements of commutative algebra, homological algebra, sheaf theory, and category theory into its foundations. This new perspective led to revolutionary advances across many areas of pure mathematics. Within algebraic geometry itself, his theory of schemes has become the universally accepted language for all further technical work. His generalization of the classical Riemann-Roch theorem launched the study of algebraic and topological K-theory. His construction of new cohomology theories has left deep consequences for algebraic number theory, algebraic topology, and representation theory. His creation of topos theory has had an impact on set theory and logic. One of his most celebrated achievements is the discovery of the first arithmetic Weil cohomology theory: the ℓ-adic étale cohomology. This key result opened the way for a proof of the Weil conjectures, ultimately completed by his student Pierre Deligne. To this day, ℓ-adic cohomology remains a fundamental tool for number theorists, with important applications to the Langlands program. Grothendieck’s way of thinking has influenced generations of mathematicians long after his departure from mathematics. His emphasis on the role of universal properties brought category theory into the mainstream as an important organizing principle. His notion of abelian category is now the basic object of study in homological algebra. His conjectural theory of motives has been a driving force behind modern developments in algebraic K-theory, motivic homotopy theory, and motivic integration. Driven by deep personal and political convictions, Grothendieck left the Institut des Hautes Études Scientifiques, where he had been appointed professor and accomplished his greatest work, after a dispute over military funding in 1970. His mathematical activity essentially ceased after this, and he devoted his energies to political causes. He formally retired in 1988 and within a few years moved to the Pyrenees, where he currently lives in isolation from human society. Life. Family and childhood. Alexander Grothendieck was born in Berlin to anarchist parents: a father from an originally Hassidic family, Alexander "Sascha" Schapiro aka Tanaroff, who had been imprisoned in Russia and moved to Germany in 1922, and a mother from a Protestant family in Hamburg, Johanna "Hanka" Grothendieck, who worked as a journalist; both of his parents had broken away from their early backgrounds in their teens. At the time of his birth Grothendieck's mother was married to the journalist Johannes Raddatz, and his birthname was initially recorded as "Alexander Raddatz". The marriage was dissolved in 1929 and Schapiro/Tanaroff acknowledged his paternity, but never married Hanka Grothendieck. Grothendieck lived with his parents until 1933 in Berlin. At the end of that year, Schapiro moved to Paris to evade the Nazis, and Hanka followed him the next year. They left Grothendieck in the care of Wilhelm Heydorn, a Lutheran Pastor and teacher in Hamburg where he went to school. During this time, his parents took part in the Spanish Civil War in supporting rather than fighting roles. Grothendieck could speak French, English and German. During WWII. In 1939 Grothendieck went to France and lived in various camps for displaced persons with his mother, first at the Camp de Rieucros, and subsequently lived for the remainder of the war in the village of Le Chambon-sur-Lignon, where he was sheltered and hidden in local boarding-houses or pensions. His father was arrested and sent via Drancy to the Auschwitz concentration camp where he died in 1942. While Grothendieck lived in Chambon, he attended the Collège Cévenol (now known as the Le Collège-Lycée Cévenol International), a unique secondary school founded in 1938 by local Protestant pacifists and anti-war activists. Many of the refugee children being hidden in Chambon attended Cévenol and it was at this school that Grothendieck apparently first became fascinated with mathematics. Studies and contact with research mathematics. After the war, the young Grothendieck studied mathematics in France, initially at the University of Montpellier where he did not initially perform well, flunking such classes as astronomy. Working on his own, he rediscovered the Lebesgue measure. After three years of increasingly independent studies there he went to continue his studies in Paris in 1948. Initially, Grothendieck attended Henri Cartan's Seminar at École Normale Supérieure, but lacked the necessary background to follow the high-powered seminar. On the advice of Cartan and Weil, he moved to the University of Nancy where he wrote his dissertation under Laurent Schwartz in functional analysis, from 1950 to 1953. At this time he was a leading expert in the theory of topological vector spaces. By 1957, he set this subject aside in order to work in algebraic geometry and homological algebra. The IHÉS years. Installed at the Institut des Hautes Études Scientifiques (IHÉS) in 1958, Grothendieck attracted attention by an intense and highly productive activity of seminars ("de facto" working groups drafting into foundational work some of the ablest French and other mathematicians of the younger generation). Grothendieck himself practically ceased publication of papers through the conventional, learned journal route. He was, however, able to play a dominant role in mathematics for around a decade, gathering a strong school. During this time he had officially as students Michel Demazure (who worked on SGA3, on group schemes), Luc Illusie (cotangent complex), Michel Raynaud, Jean-Louis Verdier (cofounder of the derived category theory) and Pierre Deligne. Collaborators on the SGA projects also included Mike Artin (étale cohomology) and Nick Katz (monodromy theory and Lefschetz pencils). Jean Giraud worked out torsor theory extensions of non-abelian cohomology. Many others were involved. The 'Golden Age'. Alexander Grothendieck's work during the `Golden Age' period at IHÉS established several unifying themes in algebraic geometry, number theory, topology, category theory and complex analysis. His first (pre-IHÉS) breakthrough in algebraic geometry was the Grothendieck–Hirzebruch–Riemann–Roch theorem, a far-reaching generalisation of the Hirzebruch–Riemann–Roch theorem proved algebraically; in this context he also introduced K-theory. Then, following the programme he outlined in his talk at the 1958 International Congress of Mathematicians, he introduced the theory of schemes, developing it in detail in his Éléments de géométrie algébrique (EGA) and providing the new more flexible and general foundations for algebraic geometry that has been adopted in the field since that time. He went on to introduce the étale cohomology theory of schemes, providing the key tools for proving the Weil conjectures, as well as crystalline cohomology and algebraic de Rham cohomology to complement it. Closely linked to these cohomology theories, he originated topos theory as a generalisation of topology (relevant also in categorical logic). He also provided an algebraic definition of fundamental groups of schemes and more generally the main structures of a categorical Galois theory. As a framework for his coherent duality theory he also introduced derived categories, which were further developed by Verdier. The results of work on these and other topics were published in the EGA and in less polished form in the notes of the Séminaire de géométrie algébrique (SGA) that he directed at IHES. Politics and retreat from scientific community. Grothendieck's political views were radical and pacifist. Thus, he strongly opposed both United States intervention in Vietnam and Soviet military expansionism. He gave lectures on category theory in the forests surrounding Hanoi while the city was being bombed, to protest against the Vietnam War ("The Life and Work of Alexander Grothendieck", "American Mathematical Monthly", vol. 113, no. 9, footnote 6). He retired from scientific life around 1970, after having discovered the partly military funding of IHÉS (see pp. xii and xiii of SGA1, Springer Lecture Notes 224). He returned to academia a few years later as a professor at the University of Montpellier, where he stayed until his retirement in 1988. His criticisms of the scientific community, and especially of several mathematics circles, are also contained in a letter, written in 1988, in which he states the reasons for his refusal of the Crafoord Prize. He declined the prize on ethical grounds in an open letter to the media. While the issue of military funding was perhaps the most obvious explanation for Grothendieck's departure from IHÉS, those who knew him say that the causes of the rupture ran deeper. Pierre Cartier, a "visiteur de longue durée" ("long-term guest") at the IHÉS, wrote a piece about Grothendieck for a special volume published on the occasion of the IHÉS's fortieth anniversary. The "Grothendieck Festschrift" was a three-volume collection of research papers to mark his sixtieth birthday (falling in 1988), and published in 1990. In it Cartier notes that, as the son of an antimilitary anarchist and one who grew up among the disenfranchised, Grothendieck always had a deep compassion for the poor and the downtrodden. As Cartier puts it, Grothendieck came to find Bures-sur-Yvette ""une cage dorée"" ("a golden cage"). While Grothendieck was at the IHÉS, opposition to the Vietnam War was heating up, and Cartier suggests that this also reinforced Grothendieck's distaste at having become a mandarin of the scientific world. In addition, after several years at the IHÉS Grothendieck seemed to cast about for new intellectual interests. By the late 1960s he had started to become interested in scientific areas outside of mathematics. David Ruelle, a physicist who joined the IHÉS faculty in 1964, said that Grothendieck came to talk to him a few times about physics. (In the 1970s Ruelle and the Dutch mathematician Floris Takens produced a new model for turbulence, and it was Ruelle who invented the concept of a strange attractor in a dynamical system.) Biology interested Grothendieck much more than physics, and he organized some seminars on biological topics. After leaving the IHÉS, Grothendieck became a temporary professor at Collège de France for two years. A permanent position became open at the end of his tenure, but the application Grothendieck submitted made it clear that he had no plans to continue his mathematical research. The position was given to Jacques Tits. He then went to Université de Montpellier, where he became increasingly estranged from the mathematical community. Around this time, he founded a group called "Survivre" ("To Survive"), which was dedicated to antimilitary and ecological issues. His mathematical career, for the most part, ended when he left the IHÉS. Manuscripts written in the 1980s. While not publishing mathematical research in conventional ways during the 1980s, he produced several influential manuscripts with limited distribution, with both mathematical and biographical content. "La Longue Marche à travers la théorie de Galois" "The Long March Through Galois Theory" is an approximately 1600-page handwritten manuscript produced by Grothendieck during the years 1980–1981, containing many of the ideas leading to the "Esquisse d'un programme" (see below, and also a more detailed entry), and in particular studying the Teichmüller theory. In 1983 he wrote an extended manuscript (about 600 pages) entitled "Pursuing Stacks", stimulated by correspondence with Ronald Brown, (see also R.Brown and Tim Porter at University of Bangor in Wales), and starting with a letter addressed to Daniel Quillen. This letter and successive parts were distributed from Bangor (see External Links below): in an informal manner, as a kind of diary, Grothendieck explained and developed his ideas on the relationship between algebraic homotopy theory and algebraic geometry and prospects for a noncommutative theory of stacks. The manuscript, which is being edited for publication by G. Maltsiniotis, later led to another of his monumental works, "Les Dérivateurs". Written in 1991, this latter opus of about 2000 pages further developed the homotopical ideas begun in "Pursuing Stacks". Much of this work anticipated the subsequent development of the motivic homotopy theory of Fabien Morel and V. Voevodsky in the mid-1990s. In 1984 he wrote a proposal to get a position through the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, which he held from 1984 to his retirement in 1988. The proposal, entitled "Esquisse d'un Programme" ("Program Sketch") describes new ideas for studying the moduli space of complex curves. Although Grothendieck himself never published his work in this area, the proposal became the inspiration for work by other mathematicians and the source of the theory of dessins d'enfants and of a new field emerging as anabelian geometry. "Esquisse d’un Programme" was published in the two-volume proceedings Geometric Galois Actions (Cambridge University Press, 1997). During this period he also released his work on Bertini type theorems contained in EGA 5, published by the Grothendieck Circle in 2004. The 1000-page autobiographical manuscript "Récoltes et semailles" (1986) is now available on the internet in the French original, and an English translation is underway (these parts of Récoltes et semailles have already been translated into Russian and published in Moscow). Some parts of "Récoltes et semailles" and the whole "La Clef des Songes" have been translated into Spanish and Russian. In the manuscript "La Clef des Songes" he explains how considering the source of dreams led him to conclude that God exists. His growing preoccupation with spiritual matters was also evident in a letter entitled "Lettre de la Bonne Nouvelle" that he sent to 250 friends in January 1990. In it, he described his encounters with a deity and announced that a "New Age" would commence on 14 October 1996. Retirement into reclusion. Grothendieck was co-awarded (but declined) the Crafoord Prize with Pierre Deligne in 1988. In 1991, Grothendieck moved to an address he did not provide to his previous contacts in the mathematical community. He is now said to live in southern France or Andorra and to be reclusive. In January 2010, Grothendieck wrote a letter to Luc Illusie. In this "Déclaration d'intention de non-publication", he states that essentially all materials that have been published in his absence have been done without his permission. He asks that none of his work should be reproduced in whole or in part, and even further that libraries containing such copies of his work remove them. Mathematical achievements. Grothendieck's early mathematical work was in functional analysis. Between 1949 and 1953 he worked on his doctoral thesis in this subject at Nancy, supervised by Jean Dieudonné and Laurent Schwartz. His key contributions include topological tensor products of topological vector spaces, the theory of nuclear spaces as foundational for Schwartz distributions, and the application of Lp spaces in studying linear maps between topological vector spaces. In a few years, he had turned himself into a leading authority on this area of functional analysis — to the extent that Dieudonné compares his impact in this field to that of Banach. It is, however, in algebraic geometry and related fields where Grothendieck did his most important and influential work. From about 1955 he started to work on sheaf theory and homological algebra, producing the influential "Tôhoku paper" ("Sur quelques points d'algèbre homologique", published in 1957) where he introduced Abelian categories and applied their theory to show that sheaf cohomology can be defined as certain derived functors in this context. Homological methods and sheaf theory had already been introduced in algebraic geometry by Jean-Pierre Serre and others, after sheaves had been defined by Jean Leray. Grothendieck took them to a higher level of abstraction and turned them into a key organising principle of his theory. He shifted attention from the study of individual varieties to the "relative point of view" (pairs of varieties related by a morphism), allowing a broad generalization of many classical theorems. The first major application was the relative version of Serre's theorem showing that the cohomology of a coherent sheaf on a complete variety is finite dimensional; Grothendieck's theorem shows that the higher direct images of coherent sheaves under a proper map are coherent; this reduces to Serre's theorem over a one-point space. In 1956, he applied the same thinking to the Riemann–Roch theorem, which had already recently been generalized to any dimension by Hirzebruch. The Grothendieck–Riemann–Roch theorem was announced by Grothendieck at the initial Mathematische Arbeitstagung in Bonn, in 1957. It appeared in print in a paper written by Armand Borel with Serre. This result was his first major achievement in algebraic geometry. He went on to plan and execute a major foundational programme for rebuilding the foundations of algebraic geometry, which were then in a state of flux and under discussion in Claude Chevalley's seminar; he outlined his programme in his talk at the 1958 International Congress of Mathematicians. His foundational work on algebraic geometry is at a higher level of abstraction than all prior versions. He adapted the use of non-closed generic points, which led to the theory of schemes. He also pioneered the systematic use of nilpotents. As 'functions' these can take only the value 0, but they carry infinitesimal information, in purely algebraic settings. His "theory of schemes" has become established as the best universal foundation for this major field, because of its great expressive power as well as technical depth. In that setting one can use birational geometry, techniques from number theory, Galois theory and commutative algebra, and close analogues of the methods of algebraic topology, all in an integrated way. He is also noted for his mastery of abstract approaches to mathematics and his perfectionism in matters of formulation and presentation. Relatively little of his work after 1960 was published by the conventional route of the learned journal, circulating initially in duplicated volumes of seminar notes; his influence was to a considerable extent personal. His influence spilled over into many other branches of mathematics, for example the contemporary theory of D-modules. (It also provoked adverse reactions, with many mathematicians seeking out more concrete areas and problems.) EGA and SGA. The bulk of Grothendieck's published work is collected in the monumental, and yet incomplete, "Éléments de géométrie algébrique" (EGA) and "Séminaire de géométrie algébrique" (SGA). The collection "Fondements de la Géometrie Algébrique" (FGA), which gathers together talks given in the Séminaire Bourbaki, also contains important material. Perhaps Grothendieck's deepest single accomplishment is the invention of the étale and l-adic cohomology theories, which explain an observation of André Weil's that there is a deep connection between the topological characteristics of a variety and its diophantine (number theoretic) properties. For example, the number of solutions of an equation over a finite field reflects the topological nature of its solutions over the complex numbers. Weil realized that to prove such a connection one needed a new cohomology theory, but neither he nor any other expert saw how to do this until such a theory was found by Grothendieck. This program culminated in the proofs of the Weil conjectures, the last of which was settled by Grothendieck's student Pierre Deligne in the early 1970s after Grothendieck had largely withdrawn from mathematics. Major mathematical topics (from "Récoltes et Semailles"). He wrote a retrospective assessment of his mathematical work (see the external link "La Vision" below). As his main mathematical achievements ("maître-thèmes"), he chose this collection of 12 topics (his chronological order): He wrote that the central theme of the topics above is that of topos theory, while the first and last were of the least importance to him. Here the term "yoga" denotes a kind of "meta-theory" that can be used heuristically; Michel Raynaud writes the other terms "Ariadne's thread" and "philosophy" as effective equivalents.
590456	Dharti is a 1970 Bollywood action film directed by C.V. Sridhar. The film stars Rajendra Kumar and Waheeda Rehman. It is a remake of the 1969 Tamil language film "Sivandha Mann" that starred Sivaji Ganesan. Plot. Vasantpur is a small princely state adjacent to India. It is ruled by a kind king (Pahari Sanyal), but his general, Diwan (Ajit), who is a cruel man, is planning to take over Vasantpur with the help of Dutch powers. Meanwhile king's inspector general Chandrashekhar (Balraj Sahní) son, Bharat(Rajendra Kumar) gets his higher education from London. There he meets king's daughter, Jwala(Waheeda Rehman) alias Chitralekha. They both fall in love. After sometime, Bharat gets the message of his fellow friends that Vasantpur is falling in the clutches of cruel Diwan and he flees to Vasantpur with Jwala. Following their adventures they take Dikky (Rajendranath) and Rosey (Kumkum) under their wing.When there two attempts to kill Diwan are ruined, they devise a plan to kill Diwan in his own palace. But the cruel Diwan has imprisoned Chandrashekhar and king and is going to become Vasantpur's king. Now what fate has in store for Bharat and the entire Vasantpur.
1061375	Maureen Stapleton (June 21, 1925 – March 13, 2006) was an American actress in film, theater and television. Early life. Stapleton was born Lois Maureen Stapleton in Troy, New York, the daughter of Irene (née Walsh) and John P. Stapleton, and grew up in a strict Irish American Catholic family. Her father was an alcoholic and her parents separated during her childhood. Career. Stapleton moved to New York City at the age of eighteen, and did modeling to pay the bills. She once said that it was her infatuation with the handsome Hollywood actor Joel McCrea which led her into acting. She made her Broadway debut in the production featuring Burgess Meredith of "The Playboy of the Western World" in 1946. That same year, she played the role of Iras in Shakespeare's "Antony and Cleopatra" in a touring production by actress and producer Katharine Cornell. Stepping in because Anna Magnani refused the role due to her limited English, Stapleton won a Tony Award for her role in Tennessee Williams' "The Rose Tattoo" in 1951. (Magnani's English improved, however, and she was able to play the role in the film version, winning an Oscar.) Stapleton played in other Williams' productions, including "Twenty-Seven Wagons Full of Cotton" and "Orpheus Descending" (and its film adaptation, "The Fugitive Kind", co-starring her friend Marlon Brando), as well as Lillian Hellman's "Toys in the Attic". She won a second Tony Award for Neil Simon's "The Gingerbread Lady", which was written especially for her, in 1971. Later Broadway roles included "Birdie" in "The Little Foxes" opposite Elizabeth Taylor and as a replacement for Jessica Tandy in "The Gin Game". Stapleton's film career, though limited, brought her immediate success, with her debut in "Lonelyhearts" (1958) earning a nomination for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. She appeared in the 1963 film version of "Bye Bye Birdie", in the role of Mama Mae Peterson, with Dick Van Dyke, Janet Leigh, Paul Lynde and Ann-Margret. Stapleton played the role of Dick Van Dyke's mother, even though she was only five months and 22 days older than Van Dyke. She was nominated again for an Oscar for "Airport" (1970) and Woody Allen's "Interiors" (1978). She won the Best Supporting Actress Oscar for "Reds" (1981), directed by Warren Beatty, in which she portrayed the Lithuanian-born anarchist, Emma Goldman. She ended her acceptance speech with the quip "I would like to thank everyone I've ever met in my entire life." Stapleton won a 1968 Emmy Award for her performance in "Among the Paths of Eden". She was nominated for the television version of "All the King's Men" (1959), "Queen of the Stardust Ballroom" (1975), and "The Gathering" (1977). Her more recent appearances included "Johnny Dangerously" (1984), "Cocoon" (1985) and its sequel "" (1988). She was inducted into the American Theatre Hall of Fame in 1981. She was an alumna of the famous Actors Studio in New York City, led by Lee Strasberg. She became friends with Marilyn Monroe, who was only one year younger than Stapleton. She was impressed with Monroe's talent, and always thought it was a shame that Monroe was rarely allowed to play roles beyond the ditzy blonde. By comparison, Stapleton thought herself lucky: "I never had that problem. People looked at me on stage and said, 'Jesus, that broad better be able to act.'" One of the most famously remembered scenes at the studio was when Stapleton and Monroe acted in Anna Christie together.
1067532	Bullet Boy was a 2004 British drama film directed by Saul Dibb, written by Saul Dibb and Catherine Johnson, and stars Ashley Walters. The film’s original music was composed and performed by Robert Del Naja of Massive Attack, who released it as an album. The film is about a family in crime ridden east London, the eldest son’s involvement in gun crime, and the effects of this on his younger brother. Filming took place in summer 2003. Plot. Upon being released from prison, Ricky (Ashley Walters) is collected by Wisdom, an eccentric and naive friend who is desperate to establish himself within their neighbourhood. Immediately after arriving back, Wisdom accidentally breaks a wing mirror off a car belonging to a local gang member. The following confrontation leads Ricky pulling away Wisdom in an attempt to keep peace. Wisdom later returns a gun to Ricky, who stores it within his bedroom, which is shared with his younger brother Curtis who finds the weapon and hides it away for his brother himself. Wisdom hunts down the gang member, named Godfrey, for spreading word that he does not want to fight, and to get revenge shoots the Staffordshire bull terrier which Godfrey used to threaten Wisdom during the earlier altercation. As a result, Godfrey and his associate destroy Wisdom’s car with a baseball bat and drive past his home shouting that he is “dead.” Knowing that Godfrey would soon kill him otherwise, Wisdom tries to kill Godfrey. However, he fails and is seen by Godfrey. As the two flee from here, Curtis accidentally shoots his friend Rio when Rio suggests they take the gun out and play with it. Their mother when she next sees Ricky, asks him to go home, pack his belongings and leave whilst they are at church to give Curtis a chance to avoid the gang lifestyle. Just before heading home, he goes to Wisdom’s house to get the money Wisdom told him to take before he left, only to find Wisdom dead, presumably at the hands of his rival, he leaves after sitting there for a long time thinking. As he packs his bags, he asks Curtis to go to the takeaway and get a kebab, and when Curtis returns, his brother has already left. As Ricky is waiting at the train station, mysterious hooded figures are appearing and closing in around Ricky. As Ricky is about to run away, Godfrey comes out and shoots him six times in the chest. His body is later identified, and the film ends with Curtis reclaiming the gun from where he hid it and throwing it in to the river.
1164151	Charles Richard Moll (born January 13, 1943) is an American actor and voice artist, best known for playing Bull Shannon, the bailiff on the NBC sitcom "Night Court" from 1984 to 1992. Moll has also done extensive work as a voice actor, typically using his deep voice to portray villainous characters in cartoons and video games. Early life. Moll was born in Pasadena, California, US, the son of Violet Anita (née Grill), a nurse, and Harry Findley Moll, a lawyer. He was remarkably tall early in his life, reaching by age 12; he kept growing until about . He attended the University of California, Berkeley and was a member of Kappa Alpha Order fraternity. Career. In the 1977 film "Brigham", Moll (credited as Charles Moll) appeared as Joseph Smith Jr., founder of the Latter Day Saint movement. Moll would go on to often portray hulking or imposing characters due to his height and deep voice. In 1981, Moll co-starred with Jan-Michael Vincent and Kim Basinger in the movie "Hard Country". In 1982, under layers of makeup, he played the sorcerer Xusia in "The Sword and the Sorcerer". He played the abominable snowman in the 1981 film "Caveman".
1086642	In numerical analysis and scientific computing, truncation error is the error made by truncating an infinite sum and approximating it by a finite sum. For instance, if we approximate the sine function by the first two non-zero term of its Taylor series, as in formula_1 for small formula_2, the resulting error is a truncation error. It is present even with infinite-precision arithmetic, because it is caused by truncation of the infinite Taylor series to form the algorithm.
68652	Francine Faure (6 December 1914 in Oran, Algeria – 24 December 1979), a pianist specializing in Bach and a noted mathematician, is perhaps best known as the second wife of Albert Camus, whom she met in 1937 in Algiers. They were married in Lyon on 3 December 1940. She came from a middle-class French family in Oran, Algeria, which was a French colony at the time. She also taught mathematics, sometimes as a substitute teacher. Personal life. Francine's father died in World War I, at the Marne, where Camus' father had also died. Her mother, Fernande, was considered by Camus biographer Olivier Todd to be domineering. Her grandfather had built part of the Oran harbor. Although Camus was indifferent if not hostile to formal marriage and was serially unfaithful to Francine, the couple had twins, Catherine and Jean Camus, in Paris in 1945 after the city's liberation. Francine had moved there from Algeria after two years' separation from Albert, who was participating in the French resistance at the time. Friends of Camus reported that Francine had something of a fiery temper, and once threw a tray of cocktail drinks at Albert during an argument. She suffered from and was hospitalized for depression, for which insulin and electroshock therapy were at various times prescribed. At one point she threw herself from a balcony, whether to escape the hospital or to kill herself is not known. Her depression was blamed in part on her husband's affairs, although she had her own affair with the actress María Casares. She and Camus are buried together in Lourmarin.
1057072	Georgina Helen "Georgie" Henley (born 9 July 1995) is an English teenage actress. She is best known for her portrayal of Lucy Pevensie in "The Chronicles of Narnia" film series, for which she won the Phoenix Film Critics' Society Award for Best Performance by a Youth Female in a Lead or Supporting Role in "" in 2005, at only ten years of age. Early life. Henley was born on 9 July 1995 to Helen and Mike Henley in Ilkley, West Yorkshire, where she attended Moorfield School for Girls before attending Bradford Grammar School (BGS) for secondary school. She has two older sisters, Rachael and Laura. Rachael played the older version of Lucy Pevensie in "". Career. Henley made her debut as Lucy Pevensie in 2005 film "", based on the C.S. Lewis novel "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe". The film grossed $745,011,272 worldwide. Henley has won the Phoenix Film Critics Society Award for Best Performance by a Youth Female in a Lead or Supporting Role and the Young Artist Award for Best Performance in a Feature. Henley reprised her role of Lucy Pevensie in "The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe", 2008 sequel ' and 2010 sequel '. Since the release of "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe", Henley has appeared as Jane in the stage play "Babes in the Wood" put on by Upstagers' Theater Group, which ran from January 27 to February 4, 2006. She starred as Scaramouche in Bradford Grammar School's production of "We Will Rock You", which ran from March 13 to March 16, 2013. She also appeared as the young Jane Eyre in the 2006 BBC adaptation of "Jane Eyre". In 2011 Henley got the role as Beth in the upcoming crime-drama "Perfect Sisters" a film that is based on the book about two Canadian teenaged sisters who killed their mother. The film is scheduled for release in 2013. In 2012, Henley also got the role of lead character Mary Warren in the upcoming drama "Sisterhood of the Night". The film is based on the Salem Witch trials. Personal life. Henley is currently living in Ilkley, West Yorkshire, where she was a member of the Ilkley Upstagers' Theatre Group, and has just finished her education at Bradford Grammar School. She will be attending Cambridge University starting Autumn of 2013 to study English. She is a supporter of SOS Children's Villages, an international orphan charity providing homes and mothers for orphaned and abandoned children.
900530	Johnny Stecchino is a 1991 Italian comedy film directed by and starring Roberto Benigni.
1163243	Julie Ann Brown (born August 31, 1958) is an American actress, comedienne, screen/television writer, singer-songwriter, television director. Brown is perhaps best known for her work in the 1980s, where she often played a quintessential valley girl character. Much of her comedy has revolved around the mocking of famous people (with a strong and frequently revisited focus on Madonna). Career. Brown began her career in the clubs of Los Angeles where rather than portraying a valley girl herself she told jokes about them. She established herself in the gay community there and often played at gay venues. Brown began experimenting in short films and made several underground movies which often played on the video screens at clubs. One of them, "5 Minutes Miss Brown ", was a fictionalized account of her rise to fame.
1069188	Let the Bullets Fly () is a 2010 action comedy film written and directed by Jiang Wen, based on a story by Ma Shitu, a famous Sichuanese writer. The film is set in Sichuan during the 1920s when the bandit Zhang (Jiang Wen) descends upon a town posing as its new mayor. The film also stars Chow Yun-fat, Carina Lau, Ge You, Chen Kun and Zhou Yun. The film's script went through over thirty drafts before Jiang Wen was happy with it. "Let the Bullets Fly" was originally to be released in September 2010 but was pushed back to December. Made in Mandarin and Sichuanese, the film broke several box office records in China, and has received critical acclaim, when it was released. "Let the Bullets Fly" grossed 674 million yuan (US$110 million) in Chinese box office. becoming the highest grossing domestic film in China until it was beaten by "" in 2012. Plot. Set in China during the warring 1920s,"Pock Mark" Zhang Mazi (Jiang Wen) leads a group of bandits (each of whom is numbered rather than named). The gang ambush a government train carrying Ma Bangde (Ge You), who is on his way to Goose Town to assume the position of governor. Ma's train is derailed, killing both his bodyguards and his counselor, Tang (Feng Xiaogang). Ma has no money, having spent it all to buy his position; to avoid being killed by Zhang's bandits he lies to them, claiming that he is actually Counselor Tang and that his wife (Carina Lau) was the dead governor's wife. He tells the bandits that, if they spare him and his wife, he will help Zhang to impersonate Ma and pilfer Goose Town's finances. At Goose Town, Zhang's appointment is opposed by local mobster Master Huang (Chow Yun Fat), who lives in a fortified citadel. Ma tells Zhang that previous governors would split taxes levied from the town residents with Huang. However, Zhang is not interested in taking money from the poor.
1066054	44 Inch Chest is a 2009 British crime drama film directed by Malcolm Venville in his directorial debut, and starring Ray Winstone, Ian McShane, John Hurt, Tom Wilkinson, Stephen Dillane and Joanne Whalley. It was written by Louis Mellis and David Scinto, who wrote another film "Sexy Beast", and produced by Richard Brown and Steve Golin ("Babel", "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind"), and cinematography by Daniel Landin, the score is a collaboration between Angelo Badalamenti and Massive Attack. It is set and filmed in Borehamwood, Hertfordshire, England, UK in late November and December 2008. Plot. Colin Diamond (Ray Winstone) is a successful car salesman who, after discovering his wife Liz is having an affair, has an emotional breakdown. His friends convince him to kidnap his wife's lover and then encourage him to torture and kill him. Diamond's partners in crime are suave homosexual gambler Meredith (Ian McShane), crotchety and bigoted Old Man Peanut (John Hurt), the down to earth Archie (Tom Wilkinson) and the combustible Mal (Stephen Dillane), who by turns encourage Colin's lust for revenge and sympathise with his situation, and conspire to emotionally and mentally torture Liz's new boyfriend, Loverboy, a "Frog" waiter, first by locking him in a cupboard and threatening him, and tying him up and subjecting him to humiliating verbal and physical assault. Parts of the story occur in flashback, with Colin discovering Liz's infidelity and the after effects of it, which then affect the present, in which he tries to come to terms with the shame and torment that this brings to him. Parts of the story also appear to happen inside Colin's mind, with him trying to reconcile with himself, using his friends as representations of his own turmoil, and his resolving of the situation. Reception. "44 Inch Chest" has received mixed to negative reviews. Review aggregate Rotten Tomatoes reports that 41% of critics have given the film a positive review based on 78 reviews, with an average score of 5.2/10. "The Daily Telegraph" gave the film 3/5 stars, calling the film "A plum actors' piece which both gains and loses points by soberly stalling its own plot." Peter Bradshaw of "The Guardian" was less enthusiastic, giving the film 2/5 saying "The film talks the talk – in fact, it talks and talks and talks the talk. But the walk isn't happening." Home media. On May 10, 2010, DVD was released by Momentum Pictures at the UK in Region 2.
586894	Shruti Seth (born 18 December 1977) is an Indian television, VJ, film actress, and an entrepreneur. Personal life. Shruti did her schooling from Ashok Academy and graduated from St. Xavier's College, Bombay with a degree in Economics and Commerce. She is married to Muslim film director Danish Aslam. Career. Seth started her career as a guest relation executive at the Taj Mahal Hotel, Bombay. According to her, her entry into the world of modeling happened by chance. A 'couple of people' had asked her if she’d like to model and, at that time, it just 'meant extra pocket money'. Over the span of her career as a model she did several commercials including Clean and Clear moisturiser, TATA Home Finance, Ponds Talc, Frooti, Lifebuoy Soap, ICICI Prudential Life Insurance, LG, Airtel, Mrs. Marino Hair Softener, Stayfree Secure, Dominos etc. Eventually, she moved to television. At the start of her career in modeling and television, Seth said that “fate was pushing me in that direction and I just followed the course.” She also said that it was her stint on Channel V “that firmly put me on the map.” For Channel V, India she hosted "First day First show" and "Junglee Jukebox". She acted in many serials such as "Kyun Hota Hai Pyarrr", "Des Mein Niklla Hoga Chand" and "Shararat (sitcom)" with actress Farida Jalal. She is also seen in "Rishta.com" on Sony Entertainment Television. On "Rishta.com", she said in an interview that, "They (the Yash Raj serials) haven’t got any TRPs at all. But it’s not for the people who are watching TV in the first place. The whole TRP game is very skewed. I don’t believe that in a population of over a billion people, 15,000 households decide what the entire country wants to watch. This lot of Yash Raj was conceptualised for those who are not watching TV". She further said in the same interview that "All our loyal audience for my serial on TV is in London, America, South Africa, Australia. It’s not that the Indians will not like it, it’s just sad that they are not aware of it, because the publicity has been disappointing. She has also hosted several seasons of Comedy Circus on Sony Channel." Film career. She has starred in a few films. On moving from television to films, she stated that, “I haven’t really moved on to anything. It’s not that I would not do TV and only do films. Yes, more avenues have started opening for me. I am game for doing something exciting on any medium – stage, celluloid or TV". She is probably best known for her role as Fatima "Fatty" in "Fanaa" (2006) with Aamir Khan and Kajol. She starred in "Tara Rum Pum", produced by Yash Raj Films and made an appearance in Prakash Jha's film "Raajneeti" in 2010. On her role in "Rajneeti", she said in an interview that "I am hoping that my hard-hitting role in "Rajneeti" will change my being typecast, because it is the most unlikely character one would expect me to play". My Company. She is an Indian entrepreneur running a company named "My Company" which provides event, marketing and promotional ideas and solutions to build business, expand clientele, generate revenue and create awareness
1169494	John Edward Melendez (born October 4, 1965), commonly known as "Stuttering John," is an American television writer and former radio personality. Prior to his work on television as a writer and announcer, Melendez was a regular on-air personality on "The Howard Stern Show". He became known for asking impertinent questions of celebrities on the red carpet and at press conferences with his stuttering. Early years. Melendez grew up in Massapequa, Long Island and attended Plainedge High School. Melendez was born to a Puerto Rican father and a Danish mother. According to Melendez, he began to stutter when he was in the second grade as a result of the psychological mistreatment from his father when he witnessed an argument between his parents. He attended Plainedge High School, where he was picked on by the neighborhood bullies because of his stuttering.
395991	Kwon Sang-woo (born August 5, 1976) is a South Korean actor. He rose to stardom in 2003 with the romantic comedy film "My Tutor Friend", the melodrama series "Stairway to Heaven" and "Daemul". Career. Kwon Sang-woo, the most visible example of the so-called "mom-zzang" (slang for "great body") movement, started his career as a fashion model in the late 1990s. His first acting experience was in the TV drama "Delicious Proposal", and for the first few years of his entertainment career he received only minor roles on television, before debuting in "Volcano High" (2001). The following year he played his first lead role in the comedy "Make It Big" together with real-life best friend Song Seung-heon. Kwon's breakthrough came in the phenomenally successful comedy "My Tutor Friend", as a troublesome high school boy who is tutored by a college student of the same age (played by actress Kim Ha-neul). In this year he also starred in "My Good Partner", the world's first movie made for mobile phones, and in the music video collection "Project X". His next film released in early 2004 was also a great hit. "Once Upon a Time in High School" portrays the authoritarian society of the 1970s through a notoriously violent high school. Simultaneously, his tearjerker "Stairway to Heaven" was winning over high ratings on TV. The drama was eventually screened throughout Asia and helped to turn him into a regional star.
1054652	Another Stakeout is a 1993 comedy film starring Richard Dreyfuss, Emilio Estevez and Rosie O'Donnell. It is a sequel to the 1987 film, "Stakeout". Unlike its predecessor, the film was neither a critical nor a commercial success. Plot. A witness against the Mafia is being secretly held until the trial when a violent attempt against her that kills several of her guards is made. She disappears and Chris Lecce (Dreyfuss) and Bill Reimers (Estevez) are called upon due to their excellent surveillance record, to stake out a lakeside home where she is believed to be. Unlike their earlier stakeout, this time they are accompanied by Gina Garrett (O'Donnell) from the DA's office and her pet rottweiler 'Archie', covered as husband, wife and son. Chris realizes his girlfriend Maria is leaving him, due to his responsibility as a policeman, and not as someone she fell in love with. Things take a turn for the worse when Bill is knocked unconscious after being mistaken for a hit man to kill the O'Hara's, whom they were ordered to protect. After coming to their senses, they realize that Bill is a cop, trying to protect them from the real hit man. Chris, Bill, and Gina decide to leave the matter for the FBI, until they get shot by an assassin named Tony, hired by his boss, and a corrupt District Attorney, whom he kills for his interference. The film ends when Tony the hitman gets shot and killed by Chris and Bill, after he falls in the pool with Gina. Both of them are congratulated as heroes by the F.B.I. The witness and Gina also thank them, as well. Chris returns to his apartment to say goodbye to Maria, but decides she wants to marry him. Bill, meanwhile, sees both of them making love from a patrol car. Reception. The film received negative reviews from critics. It currently holds a 14% rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 22 reviews. Box office. The sequel debuted at No. 9 with $5.4 million in its opening weekend. It eventually grossed just $20.2 million domestically, making it a flop at the box office.
1033777	Dominic Gerard Fe West (born 15 October 1969) is an English actor best known for his role as Detective Jimmy McNulty in the HBO drama series "The Wire". Career. Film and TV. West made his debut in 1991 in a short called "3 Joes". His other screen appearances include "True Blue", "Chicago" and "Mona Lisa Smile". His most notable television role has been Baltimore police detective Jimmy McNulty on the HBO television police drama "The Wire". West was praised for the accuracy of his character's American accent. During his stint on "The Wire", West directed the season 5 episode, "Took". In film, he portrayed the heavy metal guitarist Kirk Cuddy in the 2001 film "Rock Star". In 2006 West made a guest appearance as an actor in a sketch in "The Catherine Tate Show", alongside ""Frankie Howerd" impressionist". In 2007, he played the Spartan politician Theron in "300" and a detective in "Hannibal Rising" and then in 2010 a Roman General in "Centurion". West also starred in the 1999 film version of William Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream" as Lysander. West appeared in the role of Oliver Cromwell in the Channel 4 series "The Devil's Whore". West played the villain, Jigsaw, in the 2008 film "". He also features in "Dr. West", the opening track on Eminem's 2009 album "Relapse", as a doctor discharging Eminem from a rehab facility. West played the part over the phone in January 2009 while Eminem was recording it in a Miami studio. In December 2009, he starred as Hank in a radio adaptation of Eugene O'Neill's expressionist play "The Hairy Ape" for BBC Radio 3, was a guest presenter on the BBC show "Have I Got News for You", and ended the year alongside Joan Rivers and Sarah Jessica Parker with an appearance on "Graham Norton's New Year's Eve Show". West portrayed General Virilus in Neil Marshall's adventure thriller "Centurion" and stars in the UK Ghost film "The Awakening". In 2011, West appeared as a news presenter on the BBC-TV period drama series "The Hour". He also played serial killer Fred West in the ITV series "Appropriate Adult", giving a performance that the serial killer's daughter described as capturing the "evil essence of West - his character, his mannerisms, even his gait." In 2012, West was offered the part of Mance Rayder in the HBO fantasy series "Game of Thrones", but turned it down due to the amount of time he would have to spend away from his family. Theatre. As a theatre actor, West has appeared as Konstantin in the Peter Hall-directed "The Seagull" (1996) at the Old Vic. In 2005, he returned to the stage to play Orlando in David Lan's "As You Like It" at the Wyndham's Theatre in London. He played Edward in Harley Granville Barker's "The Voysey Inheritance" directed by Peter Gill at the Royal National Theatre in 2006. In late 2006 and early 2007, he played the lead role of Jan in Tom Stoppard's "Rock 'n' Roll" in London's West End. Continuing his theatre work, he starred at London's Donmar Warehouse as the protagonist in Pedro Calderón de la Barca’s existential drama "Life is a Dream", for which he received glowing reviews. In February 2011, it was announced that he would take on the title role in Simon Gray's classic comedy, "Butley", playing at the Duchess Theatre in London from 1 June 2011 and in the September he returned to his native Sheffield to play Iago to his former Wire co-star Clarke Peters's Othello at the Crucible Theatre. From mid December 2012 to January 2013 West starred as Professor Henry Higgins in My Fair Lady at the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield. Advertising. In 2009, West starred in a series of online films known as "The Carte Noire Readers". Made to promote French coffee brand Carte Noire, they consist of actors reading love scenes from a selection of sources. West reads extracts from "Pride and Prejudice" by Jane Austen; "Lady Chatterley's Lover" by D.H. Lawrence; "High Fidelity" by Nick Hornby; "The Age of Innocence" by Edith Wharton; "Life Class" by Pat Barker; "The Moment You Were Gone" by Nicci Gerrard; and "Something Childish But Very Natural" by Katherine Mansfield. Personal life. West was born into an Irish Catholic family in Sheffield, in the West Riding of Yorkshire, the son of George West, who owned a plastics factory, and Moya, a housewife. West attended Eton College and Trinity College, Dublin. Dominic West graduated from the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, London, in 1995. In 1998, West and Polly Astor (the daughter of Michael Astor) had a daughter named Martha, who appeared in the film "Creation" in 2009 alongside Paul Bettany and Jennifer Connelly. West and Catherine FitzGerald became engaged in 2007, and married in Glin, County Limerick, Ireland, on 26 June 2010. They have four children together: Dora, Senan, Francis, and Christabel. Catherine FitzGerald is an Anglo-Irish aristocrat, being the daughter of Desmond FitzGerald, the 29th (and last) Knight of Glin, and was formerly married to Edward Lambton, 7th Earl of Durham. In November 2010, West was awarded an honorary degree for services to the Arts by Sheffield Hallam University, and in November 2011, West was also awarded the Honorary Patronage of the Philosophical Society of Trinity College, Dublin, where he graduated from with a degree in English in previous years.
1101660	Arthur Cayley F.R.S. (; 16 August 1821 – 26 January 1895) was a British mathematician. He helped found the modern British school of pure mathematics. As a child, Cayley enjoyed solving complex maths problems for amusement. He entered Trinity College, Cambridge, where he excelled in Greek, French, German, and Italian, as well as mathematics. He worked as a lawyer for 14 years. He postulated the Cayley–Hamilton theorem—that every square matrix is a root of its own characteristic polynomial, and verified it for matrices of order 2 and 3. He was the first to define the concept of a group in the modern way—as a set with a binary operation satisfying certain laws. Formerly, when mathematicians spoke of "groups", they had meant permutation groups. See also Cayley's theorem. Early years. Arthur Cayley was born in Richmond, London, England, on 16 August 1821. His father, Henry Cayley, was a distant cousin of Sir George Cayley the aeronautics engineer innovator, and descended from an ancient Yorkshire family. He settled in Saint Petersburg, Russia, as a merchant. His mother was Maria Antonia Doughty, daughter of William Doughty. According to some writers she was Russian, but her father's name indicates an English origin. His brother was the linguist Charles Bagot Cayley. Arthur spent his first eight years in Saint Petersburg. In 1829 his parents were settled permanently at Blackheath, near London. Arthur was sent to a private school. He early showed great liking for, and aptitude in, numerical calculation. At age 14 he was sent to King's College School. The school's master observed indications of mathematical genius and advised the father to educate his son not for his own business, as he had intended, but to enter the University of Cambridge. Education. At the unusually early age of 17 Cayley began residence at Trinity College, Cambridge. The cause of the Analytical Society had now triumphed, and the "Cambridge Mathematical Journal" had been instituted by Gregory and Robert Leslie Ellis. To this journal, at the age of twenty, Cayley contributed three papers, on subjects which had been suggested by reading the "Mécanique analytique" of Lagrange and some of the works of Laplace. Cayley's tutor at Cambridge was George Peacock and his private coach was William Hopkins. He finished his undergraduate course by winning the place of Senior Wrangler, and the first Smith's prize. His next step was to take the M.A. degree, and win a Fellowship by competitive examination. He continued to reside at Cambridge University for four years; during which time he took some pupils, but his main work was the preparation of 28 memoirs to the " Mathematical Journal". As a lawyer. Because of the limited tenure of his fellowship it was necessary to choose a profession; like De Morgan, Cayley chose law, and at age 25 entered at Lincoln's Inn, London. He made a specialty of conveyancing. It was while he was a pupil at the bar examination that he went to Dublin to hear Hamilton's lectures on quaternions. His friend Sylvester, his senior by five years at Cambridge, was then an actuary, resident in London; they used to walk together round the courts of Lincoln's Inn, discussing the theory of invariants and covariants. During this period of his life, extending over fourteen years, Cayley produced between two and three hundred papers. As professor. At Cambridge University the ancient professorship of pure mathematics is denominated by the Lucasian, and is the chair which had been occupied by Isaac Newton. Around 1860, certain funds bequeathed by Lady Sadleir to the University, having become useless for their original purpose, were employed to establish another professorship of pure mathematics, called the Sadleirian. The duties of the new professor were defined to be ""to explain and teach the principles of pure mathematics and to apply himself to the advancement of that science."" To this chair Cayley was elected when 42 years old. He gave up a lucrative practice for a modest salary; but he never regretted the exchange, for the chair at Cambridge enabled him to end the divided allegiance between law and mathematics, and to devote his energies to the pursuit which he liked best. He at once married and settled down in Cambridge. More fortunate than Hamilton in his choice, his home life was one of great happiness. His friend and fellow investigator, Sylvester, once remarked that Cayley had been much more fortunate than himself; that they both lived as bachelors in London, but that Cayley had married and settled down to a quiet and peaceful life at Cambridge; whereas he had never married, and had been fighting the world all his days. At first the teaching duty of the Sadleirian professorship was limited to a course of lectures extending over one of the terms of the academic year; but when the University was reformed about 1886, and part of the college funds applied to the better endowment of the University professors, the lectures were extended over two terms. For many years the attendance was small, and came almost entirely from those who had finished their career of preparation for competitive examinations; after the reform the attendance numbered about fifteen. The subject lectured on was generally that of the memoir on which the professor was for the time engaged. The other duty of the chair — the advancement of mathematical science — was discharged in a handsome manner by the long series of memoirs which he published, ranging over every department of pure mathematics. But it was also discharged in a much less obtrusive way; he became the standing referee on the merits of mathematical papers to many societies both at home and abroad. In 1876 he published a "Treatise on Elliptic Functions", which was his only book. He took great interest in the movement for the University education of women. At Cambridge the women's colleges are Girton and Newnham. In the early days of Girton College he gave direct help in teaching, and for some years he was chairman of the council of Newnham College, in the progress of which he took the keenest interest to the last. In 1872 he was made an honorary fellow of Trinity College, and three years later an ordinary fellow, which meant stipend as well as honour. About this time his friends subscribed for a presentation portrait. Maxwell wrote an address to the committee of subscribers who had charge of the Cayley portrait fund. The verses refer to the subjects investigated in several of Cayley's most elaborate memoirs; such as, Chapters on the Analytical Geometry of formula_1 dimensions; On the theory of Determinants; Memoir on the theory of Matrices; Memoirs on skew surfaces, otherwise Scrolls; On the delineation of a Cubic Scroll, etc. In 1881 he received from the Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, where Sylvester was then professor of mathematics, an invitation to deliver a course of lectures. He accepted the invitation, and lectured at Baltimore during the first five months of 1882 on the subject of the "Abelian and Theta Functions". BMA. In 1883 Cayley was President of the British Association for the Advancement of Science. The meeting was held at Southport, in the north of England. As the President's address is one of the great popular events of the meeting, and brings out an audience of general culture, it is usually made as little technical as possible. took for his subject the Progress of Pure Mathematics. He is buried in the Mill Road cemetery, Cambridge. The "Collected Papers". In 1889 the Cambridge University Press requested him to prepare his mathematical papers for publication in a collected form—a request which he appreciated very much. They are printed in magnificent quarto volumes, of which seven appeared under his own editorship. While editing these volumes, he was suffering from a painful internal malady, to which he succumbed on 26 January 1895, in the 74th year of his age. When the funeral took place, a great assemblage met in Trinity Chapel, comprising members of the University, official representatives of Russia and America, and many of the most illustrious philosophers of Britain. The remainder of his papers were edited by Andrew Forsyth, his successor in the Sadleirian Chair. The Collected Mathematical papers number thirteen quarto volumes, and contain 967 papers. Cayley retained to the last his fondness for novel-reading and for travelling. He also took special pleasure in paintings and architecture, and he practiced water-color painting, which he found useful sometimes in making mathematical diagrams.
1162126	Robert W. Tessier (June 2, 1934 – October 11, 1990) was an American actor and stuntman who was best known for playing heavy, menacing characters on film and television. Early life. Born in Lowell, Massachusetts of Algonquian descent, Tessier served as a paratrooper in the Korean War earning both a Silver Star and Purple Heart. Performing career. Tessier was an accomplished motorcycle rider doing stunts in the circus. These skills helped him secure his first film role in "The Born Losers" directed by Tom Laughlin.
1431662	David Clayton Henrie (born July 11, 1989) is an American actor, television writer, and producer. He is noted for playing Ted Mosby's future son on "How I Met Your Mother", Justin Russo in "Wizards of Waverly Place" and Larry on "That's So Raven". Personal life. Henrie was born in Mission Viejo, California, the son of Linda (née Finocchiaro), a talent manager, and James Wilson Henrie, a producer formerly in real estate. He is the brother of actor Lorenzo Henrie. His maternal grandparents were Italian and his father has French and English ancestry. and, in a video chat, stated that he is "a Christian and always will be." He grew up in Phoenix, Arizona, and is a hockeyfan. Career. By age 13, Henrie got his first big break, landing a regular role as Petey Pitt on the Fox sitcom "The Pitts". Henrie next landed a leading role in the Hallmark movie, "Monster Makers", with Linda Blair and George Kennedy, and was asked to come back for another Hallmark movie, to play a role in "Dead Hollywood Moms Society". Due to his involvement with Disney Channel, Henrie competed in the 2008 Disney Channel Games. He was team captain of the Green Team, also known as the Cyclones. He has a role in the Disney Channel Original Movie "Dadnapped". Before his role on "Wizards of Waverly Place", he had a recurring role on "That's So Raven" as Cory's friend Larry. Henrie also has a recurring role on "How I Met Your Mother", and made a guest appearance as himself in 2 episodes of "Jonas L.A.". According to Reuters, Henrie was officially named the Grand Marshal for the 2009 Toyota Pro/Celebrity Race. Henrie is credited with writing the special, Meet The Werewolves. Henrie has also directed a short film titled "Boo!". Henrie is currently filming a movie "Little Boy" and plays the role of London Busbee. He also appeared in "Grown Ups 2" (2013), opposite Taylor Lautner and Adam Sandler. On April 6, 2012, which coincides with Good Friday, Henrie accompanied Eduardo Verástegui in a speech addressing life issues at the Church of the Most Blessed Sacrament in the city of Piura. Wizards of Waverly Place. At the age of 18, Henrie got the role of Justin Russo in the Disney Channel Original Series, "Wizards of Waverly Place". The show premiered on October 12, 2007. He was in the movie with the cast of the series. Henrie played as Justin Russo through the whole series. About a year after the finale a film, premiered on March 15, 2013 without Henrie, but his character was mentioned. Henrie is credited with writing two episodes of "Wizards of Waverly Place", Alex's Logo and Meet the Werewolves.
583865	Majaa is a 2005 Tamil film directed by Shafi, starring Vikram, Asin, Vadivelu, Pasupathy, Vijayakumar, Manivannan, Sindhu Tolani, Murali and Biju Menon. The music is composed by Vidyasagar. It tells the story of two adopted children changing from their old, mischievous ways of life. The film is a remake of Shafi's own Malayalam film "Thommanum Makkalum". Plot. Govindan (Manivannan) is a thief who has two children: Aadhi (Pasupathy) and Mathi (Vikram). Years go by and the two, Aadhi and Madhi, decide to stop stealing and mend their ways and lead a hardworking life along with their father. They migrate to neighboring village and meet a retired agricultural officer, Chidambaram (Vijayakumar) who is in deep debt and is under pressure from the village's landlord, Kalingarayar (Murali) to clear his debts. In efforts to help Chidambaran, Mathi confronts Seetha Lakshmi (Asin), Kalingarayar's daughter, who comes to collect the money Chidambaram owes her father. Seetha Lakshmi starts to acquire a liking for Mathi but keeps it hidden due to her father's atrocious temper. In an attempt to teach Kalingarayar a lesson, Mathi forcibly ties the mangalsutram around Seetha's neck. Kalingarayar, realizing his daughter's love for Mathi, comes down to arrange a grand re-marriage between the two. But things go awry when Manicka Vel (Biju Menon), Seetha Lakshmi's maternal uncle, comes to town in an effort to stop the wedding between the two as he has plans of marrying her and wiping her family fortune. Cast and crew. Cast : Crew: Production. Vikram saw Thommanum Makkalum and he asked Shafi to remake it. The film was launched at AVM Studios in 2005, a huge set of village was erected at studios. Asin selected to play heroine after Jyothika and Trisha rejected. The crew went to Australia to shoot a song. Vikram worked as an assistant director under Shafi for this film. Release. The film was released in 2 November 2005 on the eve of Diwali. Reception. Sify wrote:"The major flaw of "Majaa" is its wafer-thin story and screenplay, a mediocre subject to be remade from Malayalam, the film gives you a dreary sense of déjà vu, a feeling that one has seen it before. Box office. It was declared as an average grosser.
1057326	Straight Time is a 1978 film directed by Ulu Grosbard, starring Dustin Hoffman, Theresa Russell, Gary Busey, Harry Dean Stanton, M. Emmet Walsh, and Kathy Bates. Plot summary. Max Dembo (Dustin Hoffman), lifelong thief, is released from a six-year stint in prison and forced to report to a boorish and condescending parole officer, Earl (M. Emmet Walsh). One of the conditions of parole is that Max finds a job. At the employment agency, he meets Jenny Mercer (Theresa Russell), who helps him land scale-wage work at a can factory. Jenny accepts his invitation to dinner, where it's clear that she is smitten by this worldly and seemingly gentle ex-con. Earl pays a surprise visit to Max's room, finding a book of matches that Max's friend Willy (Gary Busey) recently used to cook heroin. Although Max clearly has no track marks or other signs of drug abuse, he is handcuffed and dragged back to jail, out of a job and a home. Jenny visits him and gives him her number to call when he gets out. After blood tests prove he's clean, Max is picked up by a smug Earl, who feels he actually gave Max a break by not pursuing the fact that someone had been using drugs in his place of residence, which would result in three more years in prison. During their car ride to a halfway house, Earl pushes Max to name the user. Max, realizing he will never get a break, decides to pummel Earl, take control of his car, and handcuff him to a highway divider fence with his pants around his ankles. This stunt makes a straight life impossible. Max returns to a life of crime, robbing a Korean grocery store and planning bigger heists with some willing old accomplices. After successfully robbing a bank together, Max and his friend Jerry (Harry Dean Stanton) decide to up the ante and clean out a Beverly Hills jewelry store. The job is botched when Max takes too long in trying to steal everything. Willy, acting as getaway driver, panics and takes off, leaving Max and Jerry to flee on foot as police convene on the store. Jerry is shot and dies, while Max shoots a police officer. Max escapes with the loot, settles the score with Willy by killing him, and escapes L.A. with a loyal Jenny by his side. Outside the city limits, though, Max has second thoughts as to their prospects on the lam. He decides to leave Jenny at a gas station for her own good, telling her he will be caught no matter what as he drives away. Production. The screenplay was written by Alvin Sargent, Edward Bunker and Jeffrey Boam, based on Bunker's novel "No Beast So Fierce". Dustin Hoffman was the director of the film when shooting began, but ultimately decided to give up that role, resulting in Grosbard being hired. This film introduced Gary Busey, Theresa Russell, and Kathy Bates. Busey would land a string of films, including the hit film "The Buddy Holly Story". Russell would land other films including "Impulse" and "Whore", and Bates would win the Academy Award for playing deranged nurse Annie Wilkes in the Rob Reiner film "Misery". Film Location. Filmed at Burbank Studio, California. (Ref: Film Credits)
1048968	"The World's Greatest Athlete" is a 1973 American feature film released by Walt Disney Productions. It starred John Amos, Roscoe Lee Browne, Tim Conway, Dayle Haddon, and Jan-Michael Vincent. It is one of the few wide-release Hollywood sports films to look at the world of track and field, as the "World's Greatest Athlete," Nanu, played by Vincent, tries to make history by winning every event at the NCAA Track & Field Championship. Synopsis. In a series of establishing shots, Sam Archer (Amos) and his assistant Milo Jackson (Conway) are depicted as coaches at the fictitious Merrivale College; their teams invariably lose. A series of plot coincidences sends the pair to Africa, where they catch sight with their Safari guide Morumba (Don Pedro Colley) of the Tarzan-like Nanu, who can outrun a cheetah in full bound. Seeing this, the coaching staff quickly whip out their recruitment pen and papers, but soon fall (literally) into the clutches of Nanu's godfather, spiritual leader Gazenga (Browne) whose assistant (Clarence Muse) remains in Africa. Nanu, it develops, is an orphan and an innocent child of the bush. Gazenga believes that throwing Nanu into the world of competitive United States college athletics would interfere with his spiritual development. Despite Gazenga's concerns, the ambitious coaches persuade Nanu to join the Merrivale College program. From this point forward, the plot is driven by a combination of slapstick and suspense, for Nanu's destiny as the "World's Greatest Athlete" will annoy several powerful people who are used to getting their way. Nanu's innocence, Archer's scheming, Jackson's ineptitude, Gazenga's outraged wisdom, and the Machiavellian plotting of the villains all play roles in the action as the movie heads toward the final track meet. The atmosphere of American competition does indeed threaten Nanu, but he is saved from disintegration by love interest Jane Douglas (Haddon). Jane and Nanu's budding relationship angers rival Leopold Maxwell (Danny Goldman), whose attempts to sabotage the budding star build toward a crescendo as the ultimate competition approaches. The climactic track meet is peppered with commentary by ABC-TV sportscaster Howard Cosell, playing himself.
581926	Rang De Basanti (; ) is a 2006 Indian drama film written and directed by Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra. It features an ensemble cast comprising Aamir Khan, Siddharth Narayan, Soha Ali Khan, Kunal Kapoor, Madhavan, Sharman Joshi, Atul Kulkarni and British actress Alice Patten in the lead roles. Made on a budget of , it was shot in and around New Delhi. The story is about a British documentary filmmaker who is determined to make a film on Indian freedom fighters based on diary entries by her grandfather, a former officer of the British Indian Army. Upon arriving in India, she asks a group of five young men to act in her film. They agree, but after they begin filming a friend of theirs is killed in a fighter aircraft crash, with government corruption appearing to be the root cause of the incident. This event radicalizes them from being carefree to passion-driven individuals who are determined to avenge his death. "Rang De Basanti"'s release faced stiff resistance from the Indian Defence Ministry and the Animal Welfare Board due to parts that depicted the use of MiG-21 fighter aircraft and a banned Indian horse race. The film was released globally on 26 January 2006, the Republic Day of India, and subsequently was nominated for Best Foreign Language Film at the 2006 BAFTA Awards. "Rang De Basanti" was chosen as India's official entry for the Golden Globe Awards and the Academy Awards in the Best Foreign Language Film category, though it did not ultimately yield a nomination for either award. A. R. Rahman's soundtrack, which earned positive reviews, had two of its tracks considered for the Academy Award nomination. The film was well received by critics and audiences for its production values and had a noticeable influence on Indian society. In India, "Rang De Basanti" did well at many of the Bollywood awards ceremonies, including a win for Best Movie at the Filmfare Awards. Plot. A young, struggling British filmmaker Sue McKinley (Alice Patten) comes across the diary of her grandfather, Mr. McKinley (Steven Mackintosh), who served as a jailer in the Imperial Police during the Indian independence movement. Through the diary, she learns about the story of five freedom fighters who were active in the movement: Chandrasekhar Azad, Bhagat Singh, Shivaram Rajguru, Ashfaqulla Khan, and Ram Prasad Bismil. McKinley, in his diary, states that he had met two type of people in his life: the first one... who died without uttering a sound and the second kind ... who died with lots of anguish.. crying over their deaths... McKinley reveals that it was then that he met with the third kind... Having decided to make a self-financed documentary film about these revolutionaries, Sue travels to India, with the help of her friend, Sonia (Soha Ali Khan), from the Institute for International Studies at the University of Delhi. After a few unsuccessful auditions in search of the actors, Sue finally casts Sonia's friends, four young men — Daljit "DJ" (Aamir Khan), Karan Singhania (Siddharth Narayan), Aslam Khan (Kunal Kapoor) and Sukhi Ram (Sharman Joshi) — to portray the revolutionaries. Though they aren't very enthusiastic at the idea of acting in a film about the independence movement, Sue eventually manages to convince them. Laxman Pandey (Atul Kulkarni), a political party activist, joins the cast later, despite initially being unpopular due to his anti-Muslim beliefs and contempt for Aslam Khan. In the process of filming, the idealism of India's revolutionary heroes seeps into the protagonists. They gradually begin to realize that their own lives are quite similar to the characters they portray in Sue's film and that the state of affairs that once plagued the revolutionaries continues to torment their generation. Meanwhile, Ajay Singh Rathod (R. Madhavan), a flight lieutenant in the Indian Air Force who is Sonia's fiancé, is killed when his jet, a MiG-21, crashes. The government proclaims that the crash was caused by pilot error and closes the investigation. Knowing that Rathod was an ace pilot, Sonia and her friends do not accept the official explanation. Instead, they claim that he sacrificed his life to save hundreds of other lives that would have been lost had he ejected from the aircraft and left it to crash into a populous city. They investigate and learn that the crash was due to a corrupt defence minister (Mohan Agashe), who had signed a contract exchanging cheap and illegal MiG-21 aircraft spare parts for a personal favour. To their surprise, they learn that the key person who was responsible for organizing the deal was Karan's father, Rajnath Singhania (Anupam Kher). Angered by the situation, the group and their supporters decide to protest peacefully at India Gate, a war memorial in New Delhi. Police forcefully break up their protest using batons; in the process, Rathod's mother (Waheeda Rehman) is severely hurt and she slips into a coma. DJ, Karan, Aslam, Sukhi, and Laxman decide that they must emulate the early freedom fighters and resort to violence to achieve justice. As a result, they kill the defence minister to avenge Rathod's death, while Karan murders his father for his corrupt actions. The minister is reported to have been killed by terrorists and is hailed as a martyr by the media. To bring forth their intentions behind the killings, the five of them attempt to reach the public through a radio station. They forcibly take over the All India Radio station premises after having evacuated its employees. Karan goes on air and reveals the truth about the defence minister and his wrongdoings. While still on the air, the police proclaim that they are dangerous terrorists who have forcefully taken over the AIR, and therefore they are to be shot on sight. The first to be shot is Daljit, who tries to get out of cover and establish that they are not terrorists, however the shot is not a fatal one. Sukhi, unable to control his anger at this gets out and is instantly shot to death. He dies with the last smile still etched on his face. As they are trying to lock the terrace doors, Aslam and Pandey are then killed due to a grenade explosion and the once archenemies die holding hands and smiling, as they have visions of Ram Prasad Bismil and Ashfaqullah. Daljit manages to crawl to the Recording Room, where Karan is still on air. When Karan understands that he has been shot, they speak amongst themselves for the last time, regarding the others, about Sue and about Daljit's love for her. It is there that they are shot to death, but not without the sound of their hearty laughter still hanging in the air like an echo of a long dead music. It is then revealed that McKinley described the third kind of people he came across as being the ones who embraced death as a friend and an equal, with a heartfelt laughter. After their death, the public reacts with outrage and expresses urge to bring Indian Politics to justice, following the motives of all the boys. The film comes to an end with Sue describing the impact of the boys on her life. As Sue and Sonia watch from the rooftop that Ajay proposed to her on, they have a vision of the boys running in the fields, singing happily and victoriously throwing their shirts in the air, acting as if they are celebrating life itself, as if the ebb of their once-there vitality still reverberates in the places where they once used to go. A wave of melancholy comes over them as the film ends. Production. Development. Rakeysh Mehra took seven years to research and develop the story, including three to write the script. While some raised doubts about his morale following the failure of his last film, "Aks", at the box office, he retorted by saying that it would not affect him at all. He added that not only did his storytelling technique improve, but past mistakes had helped him improve his filmmaking abilities. Development of "Rang De Basanti" originated with several ideas Mehra came up with early on but later dropped or greatly evolved into new directions. One of these involved a group of youngsters who worked in an automobile repair shop, while another was about the life of Bhagat Singh, an Indian freedom revolutionary. During this time, he personally conducted a survey with a group of youths in New Delhi and Mumbai about the Indian revolutionaries he was planning on depicting, which indicated that many of children did not recognize the names of some of the most prominent revolutionaries. This led Mehra to believe that the sense of "patriotism had blurred" in the young generation. Because of this, he dropped his original plans in favor of a new idea in which a British documentary filmmaker on a visit to India realizes that the local "kids are more Western than her". This new story, which eventually formed the basis for "Rang De Basanti"'s script, was influenced by Mehra's upbringing, youth and experiences over the years, including his desire to join the Indian Air Force while in school, as well as his recollections of listening to Independence Day speeches and watching patriotic films such as "Mother India". Although Mehra denies that the film is autobiographical, he confessed that the character sketches were loosely inspired by himself and his friends. Mehra approached Angad Paul after having been impressed with his production work on British films "Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels" and "Snatch". Paul, who was keen to work in India, liked Mehra's story and agreed to produce the film, bringing with him David Reid and Adam Bohling as executive producers. Despite having no prior knowledge of Hindi cinema, Reid and Bohling's belief in the script was strong enough that they each were willing to work at half their normal rate. While it was originally suggested that two language versions of the film would be made concurrently, in English (as "Paint it Yellow") and Hindi, the plans for an English version were dropped during development. Mehra believed that English-language version felt alien and that "one can tell a film in just one language". After the English version was dropped, the writer Kamlesh Pandey was brought on board to pen the first draft of "Rang De Basanti" in Hindi, marking the start of his screenwriting career. Thereafter Mehra and co-writer Rensil D'Silva took over the script, working on it for about two years. Prasoon Joshi, the film's lyricist, worked on the dialogue, marking his first venture into screenwriting. "Rang De Basanti" suffered a significant setback when one of the initial producers ultimately failed to contribute any funds towards it; the shortfall left production looking uncertain just two months away from the beginning of principal photography. However, after Aamir Khan agreed to act in the film, Mehra approached Ronnie Screwvala of UTV Motion Pictures with the script. Screwvala, who supported Mehra from the beginning of the production, had faith in the film, reasoning that in historical films, "the treatment and execution is very different from regular masala fare", and that such films "find favour with the audience owing to their elaborate sets and period costumes". The budget was reported as Rs. 250 million (approximately US$5.5 million), and, despite going a little over the initially planned budget, Mehra did not have any serious disagreements with UTV. Casting. Aamir Khan agreed to act in "Rang De Basanti" immediately after reading Mehra's script. Mehra described his character as a simple man with a strong sense of integrity and dignity. Khan, who would turn 40 during the shoot, lost about with a strict diet and exercise regime to more convincingly depict a man in his late twenties. Atul Kulkarni and Kunal Kapoor were publicly attached to the film by the time it was officially announced; Kapoor had been the assistant director to Mehra during the filming of "Aks" and was already familiar with the material Mehra had been developing. Mehra gave Kulkarni biographies of Ram Prasad Bismil as preparation, including Bismil's autobiography. Early rumors indicated that actors Arjun Rampal and Arjan Bajwa would be amongst the male leads, but these roles ultimately were filled by Sharman Joshi, Siddharth Narayan and R. Madhavan. "Rang De Basanti" marked Siddharth's Bollywood debut, following on the success of his Telugu film "Nuvvostanante Nenoddantana". Having previously worked as an assistant director, Siddharth praised Mehra as being "by far the most ambitious technical filmmaker in Indian cinema". Madhavan, despite being a well-known Tamil cinema actor, took the smaller role of a fighter aircraft pilot because he was convinced of the film's potential and wanted to be a part of it. Om Puri appears in a two-scene cameo as Aslam's staunch Muslim father. Soha Ali Khan and Alice Patten immediately became Mehra's clear favorites for each of their roles during casting, which led to Patten flying to Mumbai for a screen test with the entire cast. She was informed that she had won the documentary filmmaker role after she returned home to the United Kingdom. Soha, portraying the pilot's fiancée, was filming Rituparna Ghosh's "Antarmahal" and David Dhawan's comedy "Shaadi No. 1" concurrently with her work in "Rang De Basanti". In particular, the demands of her emotional scenes in "Antarmahal" often left her exhausted, thus requiring "a lot of personal overhauling" to ensure that her performance in "Rang De Basanti" was unaffected. During filming, reports indicated that co-stars Siddharth and Soha had become romantically involved with each other. Alongside the two lead actresses, Lakh Tandon played the role of Aamir's Grand Father and Kirron Kher played the mother of Khan's character. Filming. The film, which was shot in New Delhi, Mumbai, Rajasthan and Punjab, was officially launched at a hotel on 1 February 2005. When shooting began, Mehra made an announcement to his crew saying that they would enjoy their holiday only in July. Instead of filming at the actual locations from the script, other locations were selected for picturisation. One such scene is where Soha Ali Khan is filmed at the India Habitat Center that masquerades as the University of Delhi. On similar lines, New Delhi's Modern School at Barakhamba Road served as the location for all the scenes pertinent to All India Radio station, which is shown to be stormed by the youngsters in the film. The Delhi Tourism department was happy to encourage filming in the city if it helped promote tourism, though any filming near India Gate was prohibited due to the ensuing bureaucratic paperwork. Similar issues with bureaucracy were faced by Mehra while filming at the Jaipur Fort. To use a historical location for filming, they had to seek permissions of seven officials ranging from the local police to the Archaeological Survey of India office. Nahargarh Fort, which oversees the city of Jaipur, was another such historical location where one of the songs was filmed. Besides these locations, the filming was also done at Amritsar's Golden Temple. For Aamir Khan, a Muslim, it was for the first time that he was playing a North Indian Punjabi character and it took him some time to get the right dialect and diction. While speaking about his experience of visiting the temple for the first time, he said: It's one of the most peaceful places I've been to. As you enter the place there's a certain serenity that surrounds you. I really enjoyed being there. The first shot we took was of our feet entering the water just as you pass the doorway of the temple. The water was cold but it was great! Once the locations were finalized, the team of Lovleen Bains and Arjun Bhasin was chosen for designing the look of "Rang De Basanti". Bhasin had previously worked on "" (1996) and "Dil Chahta Hai" (2001), the latter of which featured Aamir Khan, and he was referred to Mehra by Khan due to their previous association. Since the film's plot focused on men in their late twenties, Bhasin designed their look accordingly. Although he was responsible for Khan's rebellious look, Sharman Joshi's (who played "Sukhi") lovable persona or Madhavan's dignified appearance, Bhasin credited Bains for her major contributions to the film. Khan's hair was styled by Avan Contractor, who came up with soft curls falling over Khan's forehead. This new look, which took Contractor one hour to come up with, surprised the audience at the film's launch. In post-production, the visual effects were handled by Tata Elxsi's Visual Computing Labs. The military aircraft they created was so realistic that the Indian Air Force called to check the producer's permission of using an actual MiG-21. Music. The soundtrack of "Rang De Basanti", which was released by Sony BMG, featured music composed by A. R. Rahman and lyrics penned by Prasoon Joshi and Blaaze, an India-based rapper. From the film's announcement in April 2005, Rahman was slated to compose the music. In a press conference with pop singer Nelly Furtado, he said that she was to originally have featured on the soundtrack, although this was ultimately prevented from happening due to a change in producers and other factors. Aamir Khan, with his knowledge of Hindi and Urdu, worked with Rahman and Joshi for the soundtrack. In addition, Mehra and Rahman chose him to sing for one of the songs. Joshi, one of the lyricists, was impressed with the director, Rakeysh Mehra, who was ready to adjust to his style of writing as well as his creativity. Confessing that the film's soundtrack was his favorite out of all his previous works, Joshi felt that it "was a wonderful experience getting to know the mindset of today's youth and to pen down their feelings". Speaking about one of his songs, "Luka Chuppi", in which veteran Lata Mangeshkar sang with Rahman, Joshi said that it was developed while discussing with Rahman the scene about a mother losing her son. Joshi wrote the lyrics about the mother and son playing hide-and-seek with the sad reality of the son being hidden forever. He confessed to have been in tears while Mangeshkar was singing the song. The soundtrack won the Filmfare Award for Best Music Director, and had two of its tracks, "Khalbali" and "Luka Chuppi", considered for an Academy Award for Best Original Song nomination. While discussing typical Bollywood soundtracks, Nilanjana Bhattacharjya, a professor of music at Colorado College, noted that Rahman integrated traditional Punjabi cultural elements within his music for this soundtrack. Regionally defined elements such as a woman's prayer at the Sikh Gurdwara (Golden Temple) and the bhangra harvest dance are incorporated alongside more contemporary, global styles such as hard rock and hip hop to depict the cosmopolitan lifestyle of the youngsters in the film. Release. "Rang De Basanti" received its world premiere on 26 January 2006, with high expectations that it would be a success with western audiences, though it also faced ire from several organizations because of certain controversial scenes. The film contained scenes of a MiG-21, a controversial aircraft in the Indian Air Force, which has a long history of fatal accidents in India. Promptly, the Indian Defence Ministry raised concerns, causing the Indian censor board to urge the filmmakers to seek clearance from the ministry. Accordingly, Khan and Mehra screened the film for the then Defence Minister Pranab Mukherjee along with other top officials from the armed forces. One Air Force official reportedly said that it was "not a review, but a preview". After the special screening, the defence ministry did not insist on any cuts, but on their recommendation more names were added to the slide that dedicates the film to deceased MiG pilots. After this clearance, the Animal Welfare Board raised objections on the use of animals in the film. Although the filmmakers had obtained a No Objection Certificate from the board officials, Maneka Gandhi, a well-known animal rights activist and member of the welfare board, found flaws in this certificate. Subsequently, this certificate was revoked and with only a few days left for the world premiere, Mehra personally requested Gandhi to reconsider her objection. After another viewing, the board cleared their objection stating that the use of animals in the film was natural and justified. However, after they recommended the deletion of a 20-second scene that depicted a banned horse race conducted by the Nihang Sikhs, the filmmakers deleted this scene. Mrs. Kavita Gadgil whose son, late Flight Lieutenant Abhijeet Gadgil was killed when his MiG-21 fighter crashed, objected to the film's release because she believed that the film was loosely based on her son's life and the producers should have shown her the film. In response, Kamlesh Pandey, one of the writers of the film, said that the film was not inspired by Abhijeet Gadgil. The film was screened at several international film festivals. In 2006, it premiered in France with the Lyon Asiexpo Film Festival, the Wisconsin Film Festival and the Morocco-based International Film Festival of Marrakech. As a part of the publicity, the cast, visited prominent University campuses in New Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Hyderabad and Pune with an intention of interacting with the students. After hiring international experts for the film's publicity, the marketing expenditure for the film grew to 40 percent of the total production budget of . This expenditure was unprecedented in Bollywood because usually the Indian filmmakers spend only about five percent of their production budget on marketing. Out of the marketing campaign, a fifth of it came from the producers while the rest was obtained through brand tie-ups and partnering. Since Rahman's last musical success, "Saathiya", was back in 2002, there were high expectations from the soundtrack in the media. The soundtrack, first released commercially in early December 2005, generally received above average reviews. One of the songs, "Masti Ki Paatshaala" (translation: "Classroom of Fun"), was voted as the "Song of the year" for 2006 by leading Indian television channels, while two compositions were considered for an Academy Award nomination. Before its theatrical release, the producers tied up with several top brands to help in the marketing the film. An alliance was formed with The Coca-Cola Company by releasing special edition bottles to commemorate the film's release, a first of its kind in Bollywood. Besides this, the music CDs and cassettes were co-branded with the cola company along with the launch of the sale of collectibles from the film. Provogue, a well-known clothing retail chain in India, launched a special limited edition clothing merchandise targeting the youth of India. Besides these, the producers collaborated with LG Group, Berger Paints, Bharti Airtel and Hindustan Petroleum. The producers tied up with several media partners such as MSN India, Channel V and Radio Mirchi to further enhance their marketing efforts. A video game launched by an Indian mobile content company was based on an adaptation of the film's plot. In India, "The Hindu" reported that with audiences from the metropolitan cities turning out in large numbers, "Rang De Basanti" was notching up record collections in its opening week. Accordingly, 55 percent of the film's revenues came from multiplexes in these cities. While the opening week box-office collections from Mumbai, the home of Bollywood, were reported to be over , theaters in New Delhi earned about half of Mumbai's revenue. Throughout the country, the cumulative collections in the first week was about . Overseas collections from the United States, United Kingdom and Australia were collectively put at over for the same week. Released in about 60 theaters in the United States, the film grossed in its opening weekend and earned within 10 weeks. With alone coming from the Indian territory, the film earned more than worldwide. Currently, the film holds the record for the highest-grossing film to be released in January. Within a week of the film's theatrical release, pirated copies of the film priced at were seized at an Indian airport. A report carried out by "The Times of India" highlighted piracy on the internet where movies like "Rang De Basanti" could be downloaded freely. To counter this, UTV Motion Pictures launched anti-piracy raids on local retailers in New York City, Houston and Dallas, which consist of a fairly large Indian diaspora. This was to ensure that there would be no pirated DVD sales before its intended DVD release on 15 March 2006. The DVD release sold more than 70,000 copies over six months, and as a result the film was the highest selling title at the time of its release. "Rang De Basanti" will be released on Blu-ray (plus steelbook edition) on September 5, 2013. Reception. Critical reception. Critics gave the film an overwhelmingly positive response, in particular the ensemble cast's performance and credibility. Although "The Indian Express" spoke positively of the cinematography and the film's story, it noted that "the message that the film carries with it tends to get diluted towards the climax. Praising the film's cast for their performance and the cinematography of Binod Pradhan, Taran Ardash wrote that the film would be successful with the urban audiences. The "Hindustan Times" summarized the film as being a "well-scripted, skilfully crafted thought-provoking entertainer". Saisuresh Sivaswamy of Rediff.com wrote that films like "Rang De Basanti" can easily get into "preachiness", but believed Mehra got his message across while avoiding this, also appreciating the music, cinematography, dialogues and art direction. "The Hindu" credited Kamlesh Pandey for writing a story that would have been a difficult film to make, but it added by saying that the transformation of the youngsters into heroes seemed poetic. Although the screenplay, direction and the cast were also well-appreciated, the reviewer felt that Rahman's soundtrack lacked pace. The film also received positive reviews from critics outside India. The review from the BBC gave it the highest possible five star rating and added that it was "an entertaining mix of romance, history and social commentary". Although the "San Francisco Chronicle" spoke highly of the film's production values, the music and the cast, it baulks at certain flaws in the film making such as Mehra's muddled message of political assassination and poorly developed characters and situations. Derek Elley of "Variety" praised the technical crew and although he positively reviewed A. R. Rahman's music, he said it will remain unmemorable. Despite these points, he said that "the movie remains disengaging at a personal, emotional level", thereby weakening the climax. The Bloomberg website wrote positively about "the raw energy of a young cast and A. R. Rahman's splendidly rousing soundtrack". 2007 Academy Awards Best Foreign Film submission. Since the film "reflected contemporary Indian reality and had cinematic excellence", it was chosen as India's official entry for the 79th Academy Awards despite stiff competition from films such as "Krrish", "Lage Raho Munna Bhai", "Omkara" and "Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna". While discussing if the selection committee's choice was correct, critics felt that the Academy members could have better related with "Omkara", an adaptation of Shakespeare's play "Othello". Despite these qualms and Mehra's belief that his film did not stand a chance at the Oscars, the efforts to publicize the film in the United States began earnestly. Music composer A. R. Rahman performed several concerts across the East Coast to promote the film. Besides his efforts, producer Screwvala planned to use resources and expertise from his partners in 20th Century Fox and Walt Disney Pictures for organizing its publicity efforts. When the nominations in the foreign film category did not feature this film, it sparked off debates on whether the film should have been India's entry for the Oscars. In one such debate on a television channel that involved Screwvala, the selection committee was questioned about its knowledge of the requisite artistic criteria for such award ceremonies. While one outcome of the debate was on how "Omkara" would have been a better choice, the other discussed the West-centric sensibilities of the Academy members. However, results from a simultaneously conducted SMS poll indicated that 62 percent felt that the film was the right choice for the Oscars. Awards and nominations. "Rang De Basanti" received the National Film Award for Best Popular Film Providing Wholesome Entertainment in addition to awards at a number of other ceremonies. It won several awards at the annual India-based Filmfare Awards including Filmfare Award for Best Film, Best Director, Best Music Director, Critics Best Performance - Male (Aamir Khan), Filmfare Award for Best Editing (P. S. Bharathi), Best Cinematography and RD Burman Award for New Music (Naresh Iyer) categories. It also won the 2007 International Indian Film Academy awards for IIFA Award for Best Movie, IIFA Award for Best Supporting Actress (Soha Ali Khan), Best Screenplay (Rensil D'Silva and Rakeysh Mehra) and IIFA Award for Best Music Director among other technical awards. Apart from these, the film won eight awards apiece at the 2006 Global Indian Film Awards and 2007 Star Screen Awards, and six at the 2007 Zee Cine Awards. The film was also nominated for the Best Film not in English language at the 2007 British Academy of Film and Television Arts awards. Social influence. "Rang De Basanti" had a noticeable impact on Indian society. A study of bloggers behavioral patterns during the first month of the film's release revealed a significant increase in public ire towards government and politicians for constantly being mired in corruption and bureaucracy and their inefficiency in providing basic amenities. Intense political discussions spurred on by the film's influence were observed in these patterns. While commenting on this, writer D'Silva said that the film "has struck a chord somewhere". Besides instigating political thought and discussions, it evoked social awakening for many. Some discussions rallied on how citizens should support and contribute to non-governmental organizations and exercising simple citizen duties of paying taxes and voting, while the others contemplated on how to become more responsible towards the country. Unlike other Indian films with jingoistic overtones, many young Indians could relate well to the characters of this film. While such reactions were observed on the Internet, youth activism took to streets to protest on public interest issues. A direct impact was on the 1999 Jessica Lall Murder Case, one of the high-profile murder cases in India. A month after the film's release, a court acquitted the main accused because of inefficient prosecution and hostile witnesses. This sparked intense civil protests and media campaigns that sought his re-arrest. Taking cue from the scene in which the protagonists hold a silent, candlelight vigil at New Delhi's India Gate, one such group of demonstrators carried out a similar rally to voice their protest. Shortly thereafter, a survey was conducted to assess reasons for the sudden upsurge in people's social involvements. Eighteen percent of the respondents felt that movies like "Rang De Basanti" were the main reason behind it. Another such massive youth activism was seen in the Priyadarshini Mattoo rape and murder case where similar rallies were organized in India, United States and around the world. Following the release of the film, another social outcry was against the introduction of reservations for socially backward classes in educational institutions. Young doctors and engineers joined hands in peaceful rallies in major cities across India. Though the film was not released in the neighbouring Pakistan, it evoked similar reactions there. Inspired by the film, Pakistan's national newspaper, "Jang", launched a television channel that was to focus on citizens' issues and support public awakening. Reacting to these strong social reactions, actor Kunal Kapoor thought that the film was just a catalyst that presented "patriotism in a package that the youngsters understood and empathised with". In the Indian media, frequent referencing of the film was evident, with many brands using pictorials from the movie. In addition, the media also uses the terms "RDB" (abbreviated title of the movie) and "RDB effect" while referring to instances of public activism on matters of public interest. When the 2007 University of Delhi Student Elections focused more on the important issues facing the students than in the previous years, one student referred to this as the "RDB Syndrome". On similar lines, Kamal Sunavala wrote a play titled "Under the Influence" which focuses on a young Indian expatriate whose life changes after watching this film.
899770	Sandra Milo (Elena Salvatrice Greco) (born 11 March 1933 Tunis) is an Italian actress. She is perhaps best known for her roles in Federico Fellini's "8½" and "Juliet of the Spirits", winning a Silver Ribbon best supporting actress award for each film. Career. She made her film debut alongside Alberto Sordi in "The Bachelor" (1955). Her first major role came in 1959 thanks to the producer Moris Ergas, in "Il generale della Rovere", directed by Roberto Rossellini. She appeared in his "Vanina Vanini" (1961), but Rossellini's career was cut short after the film received harsh criticism at the Venice Festival. After she got married, she retired from her acting career. Until discovered by Fellini, Milo had mostly performed in comedies and melodramas. Although she was reluctant to make a comeback, Fellini convinced her to take on the role of the sexy, lightheaded mistress opposite Marcello Mastroianni in "8½". The movie, which won universal acclaim, failed to change the public perception of her and although she was cast in "Juliet of the Spirits" (1965), most of her following endeavors were second-rate films. She retired again from acting in 1968, only to make a second comeback in 1979. Her roles have shifted from that of the temptress to more stern middle-aged women. In 2006-07 she toured Italy with the theatrical adaptation of "8 Women". She married Moris Ergas with whom she had a daughter Deborah, and later married Ottavio De Lollis with whom she had Cyrus and Riviera.
501265	Dominic Chianese (; born February 24, 1931) is an American film, television and theatre actor, perhaps best known for his role as Corrado "Junior" Soprano on the HBO TV series, "The Sopranos". Early life. Chianese was born in the borough of the Bronx in New York, the son of a bricklayer. He graduated from Bronx High School of Science in 1948. He worked as a bricklayer with his father and attended night school during the 1950s, graduating with a bachelor's degree in speech and theater from Brooklyn College in 1961. His earliest stage work occurred in 1952 with a Gilbert and Sullivan repertory company of singers, actors and musicians called The American Savoyards, under the direction of Dorothy Raedler. Career. After a decade of attending college and appearing in off-broadway theatre, Chianese attended his first professional acting class at HB Studios in Manhattan, with renowned teacher Walt Witcover. Drama and musical theater became Chianese's passion. His first Broadway show was "Oliver!" in 1965. He has continued to perform in Broadway theatre, Off Broadway, and regional theatre. To supplement income in the dry periods, he played rhythm guitar and sang in taverns and restaurants. Chianese's first television credit occurred when George C. Scott recommended him for a role in the acclaimed series "East Side/West Side". In 1974, Francis Ford Coppola cast Chianese as Johnny Ola in "The Godfather Part II", which sparked a film career, culminating in several films (and plays) with Al Pacino. Before being cast in "Godfather II", Chianese was working for the Drug Commission of New York State as a recreational worker in a rehabilitation center. He taught guitar to women who were serving time for drug-related crimes. In 2010, Chianese received the Ellis Island Medal of Honor in recognition of his humanitarian efforts.
1034367	Stanley Baxter (born 24 May 1926) is an award winning Scottish actor and impressionist, best known for his highly popular British television comedy shows. In a long career he has worked with some celebrated colleagues in a wide range of productions in radio, theatre, television and film. Early life. The son of an insurance manager, Baxter was born in Glasgow, Scotland. He was educated at Hillhead High School, Glasgow, and schooled for the stage by his mother. He began his career as a child actor in the Scottish edition of the BBC's Children's Hour. He developed his performing skills further during his national service with the Combined Services Entertainment unit, working alongside comedy actor Kenneth Williams, film director John Schlesinger and dramatist Peter Nichols, who used the experience as the basis for his play "Privates on Parade". After the war Baxter returned to Glasgow taking to the stage for three years at Glasgow’s Citizens' Theatre. Following success on the radio with Jimmy Logan, Howard & Wyndham Ltd invited him to star in pantomime at the Theatre Royal, Glasgow followed by the Half Past Eight Shows, and their successors the Five Past Eight Shows at Glasgow's Alhambra Theatre. He moved to London to work in television in 1959. In 1969 he performed in the original production of Joe Orton's then controversial farce "What The Butler Saw" at the Queen's Theatre in the West End with Sir Ralph Richardson, Coral Browne and Hayward Morse. His exacting and demanding nature gave Scotland some of its most glittering pantomimes and Baxter nurtured the stage careers of Alyson McInnes and John Ramage. Baxter remained a great favourite on the Scottish pantomime circuit, especially at The Kings Theatre, Glasgow, up until his retirement in 1992. His glorious costumes were, as in his TV shows, renowned. He starred, in pantomime, with popular Scottish stars, Jimmy Logan and Una McLean. Radio. During the 1960s, Baxter had his own show on BBC Radio Scotland. In 1994 he returned to radio, taking the role of Noël Coward in the BBC World Service Play of the Week, "Marvellous Party" directed by Neil Cargill. Written by Jon Wynne-Tyson, it also starred Dorothy Tutin as Coward's lifelong friend, Esme Wynne-Tyson (Jon's mother). Also with Cargill, he read "Whisky Galore" and "Jimmy Swan - The Joy Traveller" for BBC Radio, providing the voices of all the characters. After a lengthy spell in self-imposed retirement, he appeared in 2004 in a series of four half-hour radio sitcoms for BBC Radio 4, entitled "Stanley Baxter and Friends"; the success of this has led to further series entitled ' in 2006, , and , and ' with Richard Briers in 2008, 2009 and . In 2009 Eddie Izzard presented "The Stanley Baxter Story" on BBC Radio 2. Television. Baxter's self-titled series of comedy shows were seen by very large audiences and the later shows were memorable for the high quality of their production. He was known for his impressions of famous people, particularly the Queen (referred to in the context of the shows as 'the Duchess of Brenda') and his shows were known for their spectacular and technically demanding set pieces. The "Stanley Baxter Show" ran between 1963 and 1971 on BBC One, and the "Stanley Baxter Picture Show" from 1972 to 1975 on ITV; the six-part "Stanley Baxter Series" was made by LWT in 1981. Some eight one-hour TV specials were made by LWT and the BBC between 1973 and 1986. "Parliamo Glasgow". Perhaps Baxter's best-known series of sketches is "Parliamo Glasgow". Conceived as being written by a fictitious scholar visiting Glasgow, the sketches took the patois of the city and developed it to comic effect. The first sketch was included in one of his BBC Scotland series in the 1960s and was based on the corporation's first venture into language programmes "Parliamo Italiano" ('Let's speak Italian'). A memorable scene sees him at the local market, asking the trader "Zarra marra onna barra, Clara?", which he then translates as "Is that a marrow on your barrow, Clara?". Another introduced the Glaswegian word "sanoffy", as in "Sanoffy caul day" ("It's an awfully cold day"). Other television roles. He guest-starred in an episode of "The Goodies" and later appeared in the lead role in "Mr Majeika", developed from the books by Humphrey Carpenter, a children's show about a magic teacher, expelled from Walpurgis (the wizard land) for failing his professional examinations. He later stated that he had wanted to retire after his spectacular hour-long shows had been axed and that the move to children's television was a "purely financial" arrangement. In Bing Crosby's final Christmas special, taped for CBS in the UK just a few weeks before Crosby's death in 1977, Baxter played multiple roles, including a butler, cook, Charles Dickens and - in one skit opposite a cracking-up Crosby - the ghost of Bob Hope's court jester ancestor. Having retired in 1990, Baxter returned for a one-off Christmas 2008 special for ITV, containing a mix of archived and new material, with celebrity comedians commenting on Baxter's influence on their lives and careers. Film. Baxter appeared in a number of films, including "Geordie" (1955), "Very Important Person" (1961), "The Fast Lady" (1962), "Crooks Anonymous" (1962) and "Father Came Too!" (1963), the last three alongside James Robertson Justice, together with the animation "Arabian Knight" (1995). Books. He has written a number of books based on the language of Glasgow, as developed in his "Parliamo Glasgow" sketch as above, and on the humour of the city; "Bedside Book of Glasgow Humour" ISBN 978-0094672703, may be same as ISBN 978-1841582467 "Parliamo Glasgow Omnibus" ISBN 978-1841587745 and ISBN 978-1874744009 "Let's Parliamo Glasgow Again - Merrorapattur" ISBN 978-0862280734 "Stanley Baxter's Suburban Shocker : Featuring Rosemary Morningside and the Garrulous Glaswegian Mr. Ballhead" Personal life. Stanley was brought up in the West End of Glasgow, in the third block of a set of mansion flats. He lived there from the age of 5 until he married at 26 years of age. He later lived in Highgate, north London. Stanley Baxter was married for 46 years. His wife Moira died in 1997. DVD releases. All six of Baxter's hour-long ITV specials were released on a two-disc DVD set in 2005 as "The Stanley Baxter Collection" with a further two-disc DVD set being released in 2006 under the title "The Stanley Baxter Series & Picture Show" featuring both of his series of half-hour shows for ITV. In 2008 a five-disc DVD box set was released titled "The Stanley Baxter Television Set". The set includes both half-hour ITV series that Baxter made for ITV and six of his ITV specials. It also includes two of the feature films he made with James Robertson Justice "The Fast Lady" and "Father Came Too!".
1221680	"At Midnight I'll Take Your Soul (original title: À Meia-Noite Levarei Sua Alma") is a 1964 Brazilian horror film, by filmmaker/actor José Mojica Marins. Marins is also known by his created alter ego Coffin Joe (Zé do Caixão). It is also Brazil's first horror film, and it marks the first appearance of Marins' character Zé do Caixão (Coffin Joe). The film is the first installment of Marins' "Coffin Joe trilogy", and is followed by "This Night I'll Possess Your Corpse" (1967), and "Embodiment of Evil" (2008). Plot. The film is set in an unnamed Brazilian small town. Zé do Caixão (Coffin Joe), the local undertaker who disdains religion and emotion and who believes the only thing that matters is the "continuity of the blood" (specifically his own), is looking for the "perfect woman" to bear him a superior child who will be immortal. Since his wife Lenita has been found to be unable to bear children, Coffin Joe begins to make advances with Terezinha, the fiancée of Joe's friend Antonio. Terezinha scolds him by telling him that Antonio is the only man in her life. During a Catholic holiday, Joe kills his wife Lenita (because of her infertiliy) by tying her up and having a venomous spider bite her. The local authorities cannot find a clue to arrest him and he remains free to do whatever he wants. Some days later, Coffin Joe is invited by Antonio to visit a local gypsy who will tell the fortune of Antonio's marriage with Terezinha. The gypsy reveals, however, that there is going to be a tragic disaster, and the two will never get married. Joe, in response, calls her a fraud and states that the supernatural is a hoax. She warns him not to mock the supernatural forces, lest they make him pay. That night, Joe and Antonio go to Antonio's house, where Antonio tells Joe that he really didn't believe the witch's words, and that he expects to marry Terezinha and have a happy life together. Fulfilling the witch's prophecy, Coffin Joe brutally bludgeons and then drowns Antonio in a bathtub. Once again, the police can find no evidence to directly implicate Joe with the crime. He proceeds with his plan to seduce Terezinha by purchasing a canary for her, which she accepts. Suddenly he starts to touch her against her will. Terezinha tries to resist, and Coffin Joe savagely beats her into a helpless state and rapes her. Finally able to speak, Terezinha curses him for his brutality, saying she will kill herself, then return to take his soul to hell. Joe laughs at her, but the next day she is found hanging in her home. To his surprise, she doesn't blame him in her suicide note. Meanwhile, the village's Dr. Rudolfo begins to suspect Joe for the recent outbreak of violent deaths that has occurred. When Joe becomes aware of the doctor's suspicions, Coffin Joe appears at Dr. Rudolfo's home, gouges his eyes with his long fingernails and sets him on fire. Time passes, and Coffin Joe remains unpunished for his crimes. On the Day of the Dead he meets Marta, a young woman who is visiting her relatives, and decides to choose her as his next perfect woman. Joe escorts Marta home late at night, only to be confronted by the gypsy who predicted the doom of Antonio and Terezinha. She tells Joe that his soul shall be claimed by the ghosts of those he murdered and Satan at midnight. Joe threatens the gypsy, but after leaving Marta at her destination, he is soon visited by ghostly apparitions that test his courage. Realizing he cannot face the apparitions, Joe runs away, and coincidentally arrives at the mausoleum where Antonio and Terezinha were buried. Finally at the edge of his sanity, Joe opens the coffins to prove to himself his victims are really dead, but instead sees that their eyes are open, as if they are still alive, faces crawling with maggots. Some time later, the villagers come to the mausoleum after hearing Coffin Joe's blood-curdling screams and find him lying on his back, horribly disfigured, his eyes bulging open similar to the eyes of the two corpses. At that same time, the bells of the local church ring, announcing the stroke of midnight.
658515	Diva Muffin Zappa (born July 30, 1979) is an American artist, also known for several acting roles in film and television, as well as recording a one-off comedy single. She is the youngest child of musician Frank Zappa. Personal life. Zappa was born in Los Angeles, the daughter of Frank and Gail Zappa. She has three older siblings, Moon Unit, Dweezil, and Ahmet. According to her father Frank, she was given the name "Diva" "because of the loud quality of her voice. She's audible at 300 yards." Zappa won an award at age 12 in a poster contest to raise awareness about child abuse and neglect. Career. Zappa's first film appearance was in the 1998 film "Anarchy TV", along with her older siblings. Since then, she has also appeared in "" (1998), "National Lampoon's Pledge This!" (2006), as well as various TV shows including "Felicity", "Brothers & Sisters", and "The Mighty Boosh". In 1999, Zappa released a comedy single called "When the Ball Drops" about her "hunt for someone to make out with on the Millennium". Tipper Gore played drums on the recording and Kristen Gore sang backup vocals. Zappa runs her own website/business called "Hand Made Beauty" where she sells her own self-designed and made clothing. The clothing is primarily knitted or crocheted, and consists of hats, ponchos and skirts. A percentage of all sales are donated to the Creative Visions Foundation. She was initially taught how to knit by Laurie Metcalf. She does not plan her work, preferring to work in a spontaneous manner.
1041802	The First of the Few, known as Spitfire in the United States, is a 1942 British film directed by and starring Leslie Howard as R.J. Mitchell, the designer of the Supermarine Spitfire, alongside co-star David Niven. The film's score was composed by William Walton, who later incorporated major cues into a concert work known as "Spitfire Prelude and Fugue". The film's title alludes to Winston Churchill's speech describing Battle of Britain aircrew: "Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few." Plot. A newsreel sets the scene for summer 1940, showing Nazi advances in Europe with England facing invasion and aerial attacks on the island increasing. On 15 September 1940, during the Battle of Britain, RAF Squadron Leader Geoffrey Crisp (David Niven), the station commander of a Spitfire squadron, recounts the story of how his friend, R.J. Mitchell (Leslie Howard) designed the Spitfire fighter. His pilots listen as Crisp begins with the 1922 Schneider Trophy competition, where Mitchell began his most important work, designing high speed aircraft. While watching seagulls with his binoculars, he envisages a new shape for aircraft in the future. Crisp, an ex-First World War pilot seeking work, captivates Mitchell with his enthusiasm and the designer promises to hire him as test pilot should his design ever go into production. Facing opposition from official sources, Mitchell succeeds in creating a series of highly successful seaplane racers, eventually winning the Schneider Trophy outright for Great Britain. After a visit to Germany in the late 1930s and a chance meeting with leading German aircraft designer Willy Messerschmitt, Mitchell resolves to build the fastest and deadliest fighter aircraft. Convincing Henry Royce of Rolls-Royce that a new engine, eventually to become the famous Rolls-Royce Merlin, is needed, Mitchell gets the powerplant he requires. Faced by the devastating news that he has only one year to live and battling against failing health, Mitchell dies as the first prototype Supermarine Spitfire takes to the skies. (In fact, Mitchell died over 15 months after the first flight). Crisp ends his account when the squadron is scrambled to counter a German attack, voicing a thanks to Mitchell for creating the Spitfire. Cast. Principal cast members, in on-screen credit order: Production. "The First of the Few" was a British film produced and directed by Leslie Howard, with Howard taking the starring role of R.J. Mitchell. Leslie Howard bore little resemblance to R. J. Mitchell, however, as Mitchell was a large and athletic man. Howard portrayed Mitchell as upper class and mild-mannered. Mitchell – "the Guv'nor" – was in fact working class and had an explosive temper; apprentices were told to watch the colour of his neck and to run if it turned red. Howard himself was well aware of these deliberate artistic discrepancies, and dealt delicately with the family and Mitchell’s colleagues; Mrs. Mitchell and her son Gordon were on the set during much of the production. Because "The First of the Few" was made during the Second World War and dealt with subjects related to the conflict, it was, in effect, propaganda. Because of its value as propaganda, the RAF contributed Spitfire fighters for the production. U.S. producer Samuel Goldwyn released Niven who was still under contract to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, allowing him to appear in exchange for U.S. distribution rights. After seeing the prints, Goldwyn was furious that Niven was cast in a secondary role and personally edited out 40 minutes before reissuing the film as "Spitfire". Historical accuracy. "The First of the Few" contains several historical inaccuracies: The film contains historically significant footage that would otherwise have been lost to posterity: Leslie Howard's portrayal of Mitchell has a special significance since Howard was killed when the BOAC Flight 777 airliner in which he was a passenger was shot down by the Luftwaffe one year after the film was released. Reception. In an atmosphere of wartime frenzy, "The First of the Few" was received well by audiences and critics on both sides of the Atlantic. Later reviews noted that the film "gets the essentials correct, and is surprisingly suspenseful for a bio-pic of this type. As a result of the presence of David Niven in the cast, "The First of the Few" was picked up for distribution in the U.S. by Samuel Goldwyn, who had Niven under contract". More recently, Leonard Maltin called it a "good biographical drama".
583034	God Tussi Great Ho () is a 2008 Indian fantasy comedy film, written and directed by Rumi Jaffery and starring Salman Khan, Priyanka Chopra, Sohail Khan and Amitabh Bachchan in a friendly appearance. It was released on 15 August 2008. According to director Rohit Dhawan, the film is inspired from a village folk tale about a Brahmin, though most reviewers noted that the film's story-line has similarities with the 2003 Hollywood comedy "Bruce Almighty", starring Jim Carrey and Jennifer Aniston. Plot. Arun Prajapati (Salman Khan) has been trying to be a successful TV anchor, but success has always eluded him. He blames God (Amitabh Bachchan) for this lack of success. Arun is head over heels in love with Aaliya Khanna (Priyanka Chopra), who is a TV anchor and a well-known star working in the same channel, but he has never been able to express his love for her. When Rocky (Sohail Khan) is appointed as an anchor for the channel, Arun starts believing that Rocky will win Aaliya. Later, Arun is sacked from the channel. He has nobody to blame but God Himself, whom he later meets in person. An argument ensues between the two, at the end of which God then decides to give Arun the power over all things for ten days, wherein Arun may prove that he is a better operator of the universe. Arun uses this power to put Rocky into an uneasy spot and win Aaliya's heart. After God scolds him for only making things better for himself, Arun starts listening to people's prayers. He later realizes that considering each person's wishes individually would be too time-consuming, so to save time and effort he grants "everybody's" wishes, including the wish of criminals to be free and Rocky's wish that Aaliya marries him. He later asks God why is everything happening towards him. God explains it is his own fault and that everyone cannot blame Him for this. Arun feels bad, but God forgives him and starts his life over again. During the game show, he tricks Rocky into lying about loving Aaliya Khanna (who was present on the show, as it was the channel "Zoop"'s first game show), and Aaliya turns on him. Arun wins the heart of Aaliya. Box office. "God Tussi Great Ho" did not have a good run at the box office and was declared flop by Box Office India, apart from a few single screens. However the movie has emerged as a moderate success on the home video circuit. Soundtrack. The music of the film is composed by Sajid-Wajid, and the lyrics are penned by Jalees Sherwani, Shabbir Ahmed and Deven Shukla.
1054325	Julian Dana William McMahon (; born 27 July 1968) is an Australian actor and former fashion model. He is best known for his portrayals of Cole Turner in The WB hit series "Charmed", womanizing plastic surgeon Christian Troy on the Emmy and Golden Globe award-winning TV show "Nip/Tuck" and Doctor Doom in "Fantastic Four" and "". Early life. McMahon was born in Sydney, New South Wales. His father, William "Billy" McMahon, was an MP and a future Australian Prime Minister. His mother, Sonia McMahon (née Sonia Rachel Hopkins), was an occupational therapist and fashion icon. He has an older sister, Melinda, and a younger sister, Deborah. McMahon has Irish ancestry through his paternal grandfather. McMahon was educated at Sydney Grammar School, a private boys school. He briefly studied Law at the University of Sydney and Economics at the University of Wollongong. McMahon began to find his studies at the University to be boring, so he began a successful modeling career. He became known as a model in various fashion capitals throughout the world, such as Milan, London, New York City, Rome, and Paris. Career. In addition to a career as a fashion model, including a jeans commercial for Levi Strauss, McMahon began an acting career on Australian soap "Home and Away", playing the soldier Ben Lucini (1989–1991). McMahon was one of several "Home and Away" cast-members to star in a stage musical about the soap, which toured the UK in 1991. Adam Willits, Sharyn Hodgson (who played his on-screen wife, Carly), Mouche Phillips and Justine Clarke also starred. Shortly afterward, he moved to the United States, and took voice classes to lose his Australian accent. He then appeared in the film "Wet and Wild Summer!" (aka "Exchange Lifeguards") in 1992, and following this he appeared with his then soon-to-be wife Dannii Minogue's music videos for her 1993 hits "This Is It" and "This Is the Way". His first role on American television was on the daytime soap opera "Another World", playing Ian Rain from 1993 to 1995. He also went on to play Dr. Michael Walsh in the movie "Magenta" in 1996, Sheriff Hayes in "In Quiet Night" (aka "You Belong to Me Forever") in 1998, George Simian in the psychological thriller "Chasing Sleep" in 2000, and David Cameron in the made-for-TV movie "Another Day" in 2001. From 1996 to 2000, he starred in all four seasons of the NBC drama "Profiler" as Agent John Grant. Following this, McMahon joined the cast of the WB's supernatural hit show "Charmed", playing the conflicted half-demon/half-human Cole Turner from 2000 to 2003, and returned for one episode in 2005.
1103586	In the mathematical subfield of numerical analysis, numerical stability is a desirable property of numerical algorithms. The precise definition of stability depends on the context, but it is derived from the accuracy of the algorithm. An opposite phenomenon is instability. Typically, algorithms would approach the right solution in the limit, if there were no round-off or truncation errors, but depending on the specific computational method, errors can be magnified, instead of damped, causing the error to grow exponentially.
1377002	Thru the Mirror is a Mickey Mouse cartoon short film produced by Walt Disney Productions, released by United Artists in 1936. In this cartoon short, Mickey has a "Through the Looking-Glass"-type dream that he travels through his mirror and enter a topsy-turvy world where everything is alive. While there, he engages in a Fred Astaire-type dance number with a pair of gloves and a pack of cards, until the cards chase him out of the bizarre world. The title is written as "Thru the Mirror" on the title card, but the alternative spelling Through the Mirror is used on the poster for the film. Synopsis. Mickey falls asleep after reading one of Lewis Carroll's books. An astral projection of himself leaves his body and wanders through his mirror into an alternate version of his house. His furniture and possessions have come to life complete with faces and personalities. Mickey eats a walnut and shrinks. He is now tiny and begins to tap dance his way through his house, dancing with his possessions and eventually the queen of hearts card. The joker, on his bicycle notices and alerts the king of hearts who fights for his lady. Chaos ensues and Mickey escapes to the right side of the mirror. Eventually he is awakened by his alarm clock and it has all been a dream, and goes back to sleep.
1059617	Stephen Harold Tobolowsky (born May 30, 1951) is an American actor. He is well known for his role as Ned Ryerson in "Groundhog Day", as well as portraying Commissioner Hugo Jarry in "Deadwood" for nine episodes and Bob Bishop in "Heroes" for eleven episodes over the second and third seasons. Tobolowsky has a recurring role as Sandy Ryerson in the Fox show "Glee" and as Stu Beggs in the Showtime series "Californication". In addition to acting, Tobolowsky does an audio podcast about once a month of autobiographical stories of his acting and personal life. He has also authored "The Dangerous Animals Club" and "Cautionary Tales" based on these original stories. Career. Tobolowsky has appeared in over 200 films and at least as many television projects with mostly minor roles. In 1994's "Radioland Murders", he portrayed Max Applewhite, a gentle sound man with a dark secret. He appeared on "Seinfeld" as Tor Eckman, Kramer's holistic healer, in the second season episode, "The Heart Attack". He is also known for having played "Sammy Jankis" in 2000's "Memento", starring Guy Pearce. In 2005, he was the eponymous subject of the documentary film, "Stephen Tobolowsky's Birthday Party", that featured him preparing for, and hosting, his own birthday party, while delivering a series of anecdotes from his life. He was a member of the cast of NBC's television series "Heroes" for its second season, portraying Bob, the new boss of "The Company". Tobolowsky is well known for his role in the 1993 film "Groundhog Day", in which he played Bill Murray's annoying former high school classmate—now insurance salesman—Ned Ryerson. Tobolowsky wrote his last scene in "Groundhog Day" while filming and it was accepted by Bill Murray and the director Harold Ramis.
899655	A Special Day () is a 1977 Italian film directed by Ettore Scola and starring Sophia Loren, Marcello Mastroianni and John Vernon. Set in Rome in 1938, it follows a woman and her neighbor who stay home the day Adolf Hitler visits Benito Mussolini. The film is an Italian-Canadian co-production. It has received several nominations and awards, including a César Award for Best Foreign Film in 1978 and two Oscar nominations in 1977. Plot. On May 8, 1938, the day Hitler visited Mussolini in Rome, Antonietta (Loren) stays home doing some domestic tasks while her fascist husband and six children go to the streets to follow the great meeting and the parade. The building is empty but for a neighbor across the complex (Mastroianni), who seems repulsed by fascism (a strange attitude in those days). As this chamber drama progresses, and loneliness of each is revealed, the audience learns that this man is a radio broadcaster who has lost his job and is about to be deported to Sardinia because of his political opinions and his homosexuality. Unaware of this, the housewife flirts with him, as they meet by chance in the empty building. During their conversation, the rather naïve and mainstream woman is surprised by his opinions and is shocked when she realizes his sexual orientation. Despite their fights and arguments, they develop a friendship and eventually have sex before he is taken away by the police and her family comes back home. Special scenes. A number of unusual cinematic techniques are used in this film. A long take scene introduces Antonietta (Sophia Loren) and her family, the camera enters through the kitchen window and moves into the rooms. Deep focus is utilised in a scene in which the camera is in Antonietta's room with her in the frame and through a far distant window Gabriele (Marcello Mastroianni) can be seen moving in his house in the same frame.
581739	Plot. Mihika Mukherjee (Lara Dutta), a successful investment banker living in Mumbai, misses her flight to Delhi and needs to get there any way possible to meet her husband, Lt. Col. Vikram Rathore (Akshay Kumar). She meets Manu Gupta (Vinay Pathak) and they discover the colours of India in their journey to Delhi. They go by road and train and the audience gets a chance to see both the large urban conglomerations and the small rural areas that make up India. During the journey, Mihika experiences various difficulties which she has never encountered in her high class life. When Mihika's money is stolen while she is buying a train ticket, she is forced to travel with Manu in the ordinary class. Thus the film revolves around Mihika's and Manu's journey amidst difficulties. Critical reception. The film was given 3.5/5 stars by "The Times of India", 2.5/5 stars by "IndiaWeekly" and 1.5/5 by "rediff.com". Soundtrack. The music is composed by Gourov Dasgupta, Anand Raj Anand, Sachin Gupta, Rohit Kulkarni, and Roshan Balu. Lyrics are penned by Manthan, Anand Raj Anand, Krishika Lulla, Shabbir Ahmed, and Nisha Mascarenhas.
633814	Kristian Ayre (born November 19, 1977) is a Canadian actor best known for his portrayal of the character Radu from the Nickelodeon children's science fiction show "Space Cases". Early life. Ayre was born in England, but moved to Canada at a young age. He began acting in the early 1990s, and appeared in the 1994 movie "Andre" with Keith Carradine. After a couple of appearances in TV Movies, including "Bye Bye Birdie" (1995), he was cast (thanks in part to co-creator Peter David) in the Nickelodeon TV series "Space Cases" as Radu 386. He attended Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, BC, graduating in 2004 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Theatre. He is trained in acrobatics and gymnastics. Career. Ayre appeared in every episode of the David/Bill Mumy-created two-season "Space Cases" (1996–97), alongside co-stars Walter Emanuel Jones, Rahi Azizi, Paige Christina, Anik Matern, Cary Lawrence and Paul Boretski, which also featured early appearances from future-"Firefly" and "" actress Jewel Staite. Staite, as quoted by Peter David, described Ayre as: Ayre starred in the 1997 CBS TV series "The New Ghostwriter Mysteries", and in a regular role on the 1999–2000 TV series "Nothing Too Good for a Cowboy" alongside future-"Scrubs" star Sarah Chalke. In the 1999 movie "Running Home", Ayre co-starred with "Babylon 5" actress Claudia Christian, who is quoted as describing him as "a very good actor and very easy to work with." Ayre also has appeared in odd episodes of such notable science fiction shows as "The Outer Limits", "Stargate SG-1" and "The Dead Zone", among other TV appearances. Appearing as 'Loran' in "The Light" ("Stargate SG-1" Season 4, episode 18), Ayre was required to cry, but eschewed the usual tricks of the trade, since he can "cry on cue." Ayre has also lent his voice to a number of dubbed versions of Japanese anime series, including "Elemental Gelade", as the main character of Coud Van Giruet and Shinichiro Isumi in "Hikaru no Go", as well as Yuji Sakai in "Shakugan no Shana". His vocal talents have also been featured in the 1993 video release of ' (orig. title: "Kishin Heidan") and in the English-language version of the 2004 fourth InuYasha movie ' (orig. title: "Inuyasha - Guren no houraijima"). In addition to credits on both the big and small screen, Ayre has also appeared in stage productions, including MovEnt's "Dances for a Small Stage" XII in January 2006, and with the Genus Theatre in Vancouver. Also in 2006, he performed in ""War Lover" for the Vancouver International Folk Festival," which he also produced through his "work with the Leaky Heaven Circus." A Lieutenant Kristian Ayre appeared as a bridge officer on the Enterprise-E in Peter David's 1997 "" debut novel, "House of Cards". In 1998, Ayre appeared as Tommy McPherson in the mock-documentary "", which depicted a rural family as they were besieged by bizarre unexplained occurrences, before being abducted by extraterrestrials. The program caused a level of confusion and controversy upon its initial broadcast that echoed earlier reality-muddying incidents such as Orson Welles' "War of the Worlds" radio broadcast. Debate over the hoax nature of the program occurred on Internet chat rooms and bulletin boards, where the program's status as fiction was established by virtue of the fact that Tommy McPherson was played by Ayre, an actor.
586670	Kaala Patthar () is a 1979 Indian Bollywood action/drama film. It was produced and directed by Yash Chopra. The story was written by Salim-Javed. This film is the fourth collaboration between Amitabh Bachchan, Shashi Kapoor and director Yash Chopra after the hugely successful "Deewaar" (1975), "Kabhie Kabhie" (1976) and "Trishul" (1978). However, this film did average business at the box office. It was nominated for Filmfare awards. While Rajesh Roshan provided music for the lyrics penned by Sahir, the background score was done by Salil Chowdhary.
739135	Badja Medu Djola (April 9, 1948 – January 8, 2005) was an American actor. D’jola appeared in 47 films and TV shows during his career. His best role was as Leon Isaac Kennedy’s cellmate in the movie "Penitentiary". D’jola played the bad guy character "Half Dead." He showed exceptional acting talent in the movie, which led to more roles. He also had a supporting role in Wes Craven’s 1988 movie "The Serpent and the Rainbow". Mr. D’jola’s other film and TV credits include "Mississippi Burning", "A Rage in Harlem", "The Lonely Guy", "The Last Boy Scout", "NYPD Blue", "Rosewood", "The Hurricane", "Night Shift", "The Waterdance", "ER", "The X Files", "Millennium" and "Roc". He also had a role in "The Players Club" starring Ice Cube. Badja D’jola died of a heart attack at age 56. Interred at Inglewood Park Cemetery, Inglewood, California. External links. Birth name - Bernard Bradley
1053799	Legend of the Lost is a 1957 Italian-American adventure film produced and directed by Henry Hathaway, shot in Technirama by Jack Cardiff, and starring John Wayne, Sophia Loren, and Rossano Brazzi. The location shooting for the film took place near Tripoli, Libya. Plot. In Timbuktu, experienced guide Joe January (John Wayne) reluctantly joins a Saharan treasure hunting expedition led by Paul Bonnard (Rossano Brazzi), a man obsessed with confirming his dead father's claim to have found a lost city. Dita (Sophia Loren), a woman of dubious reputation, becomes infatuated with Paul and his willingness to overlook her past. She invites herself along, despite Joe's protests. During the tough dry ordeal, Joe and Dita become attracted to each other, raising tensions.
1056297	Army of Shadows () is a 1969 French film directed by Jean-Pierre Melville. It is a film adaptation of Joseph Kessel's 1943 book of the same name, which blends Kessel's own experiences as a member of the French Resistance with fictionalized versions of other Resistance members. "Army of Shadows" follows a small group of Resistance fighters as they move between safe houses, work with the Allied militaries, kill informers, and attempt to evade the capture and execution that they know is their most likely fate. While portraying its characters as heroic, the film presents a bleak, unromantic view of the Resistance. At the time of its initial release in France, "Army of Shadows" was not well received or widely seen. In the wake of the events of May 1968, French critics denounced the film for its perceived glorification of Charles de Gaulle. At the time American art-film programmers took their cues from "Cahiers du cinéma", which had attacked the film on this basis, and so it was not released in the United States for almost forty years. In the mid-1990s "Cahiers du cinéma" published a reappraisal of the film (and Melville's work in general), leading to its restoration and re-release in 2006. The film was greeted with critical adulation in the U.S., appearing in many critics' year-end top ten lists. Synopsis. Philippe Gerbier (Lino Ventura), the head of a Resistance network, is arrested by Vichy French police and imprisoned in a camp. He is transferred to the Nazi secret police headquarters in Paris for interrogation. Gerbier escapes to Marseille where his network is based.
583539	Lekin (English: "But..") is a Hindi drama film made in 1991, loosely based on a short story by Rabindranath Tagore, and directed by Hindi lyricist Gulzar. It stars Vinod Khanna, Dimple Kapadia, Amjad Khan, Alok Nath, and Beena Banerjee, and featured a special appearance by Hema Malini.
1038937	Lionel Blair (born Henry Lionel Ogus; 12 December 1931) is a British actor, choreographer, tap dancer and television presenter. Early life. Blair was born in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. He is the son of Myer Ogus and Deborah (Della) Greenbaum (Mother's name given as Brenner on FreeBMD). His father was a barber; he emigrated to Canada to start a new life for him and his wife, she joined him shortly afterwards. His family was Jewish, and his paternal grandparents immigrated from Russia. Blair came to Britain when he was two years old. His first public performances were with his sister Joyce (born 1932) in London Underground Station air raid shelters during World War II. He attended the Royal Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford in 1944, followed by London's University of East London, where he majored in Ethnography. Blair eventually rekindled his passion for musical theatre and joined the West End. He gave up acting for dancing in 1947 although he subsequently appeared in the fringe production, "Out of the Blue" (Chichester) and "Who Killed Agatha' Christie" (national tour) amongst other acting credits. He took his stage name around this time, later changing it by Deed Poll just before he married in 1967 (His sister also decided to use the same surname professionally). Career. Blair came to the fore in the 1960s, when, with his dance troupe, he appeared on television variety programmes. He also appeared in the films "A Hard Day's Night" and "Absolute Beginners", cameoed in an episode of "The Persuaders!" and in television comedy, including the short film, "The Plank". In addition, he choreographed films such as "Jazz Boat" (1960) and "The Magic Christian" (1969). Blair is known for being one of the team captains on the gameshow "Give Us a Clue" from 1979 until the early 1990s and for being the second presenter of the British version of "Name That Tune" in the 1980s. He published his autobiography "Stagestruck" in 1986. In 2005, he was one of the celebrities taking part in the Channel Five reality series, "The Farm". Until 2005 he appeared extensively in pantomime, for which he was earning up to £15,000 a week. Blair appeared in the 2007 Christmas special of the Ricky Gervais show "Extras", as himself, portraying the end-stages of his showbiz career by trying to keep up his profile by appearing on "Celebrity Big Brother" alongside Lisa Scott-Lee and "X Factor" contestant Chico. In July 2010, Blair appeared in the "Great British Dog Walks" feature on ITV1's "This Morning" with his dog Lola. Also in 2010, he took part in the BBC's "The Young Ones", in which six celebrities in their 70s and 80s attempt to overcome some of the problems of ageing by harking back to the 1970s. In December 2010, he appeared briefly in a sketch with Ronnie Corbett and Rob Brydon in BBC1's "The One Ronnie". Blair also appeared as the celebrity darter for charity on "Bullseye". On 24 December 2011 (Christmas Eve), he appeared on the ITV program "Text Santa" with Ant & Dec. In 2012, he was cast in the film version of Ray Cooney's farce "Run For Your Wife". Personal life. He is the elder brother of the late British actress Joyce Blair, with whom he sometimes appeared. He was in the news in 2006 when his pet dog Florence was apparently kidnapped in Surrey. The cross-breed collie disappeared when Blair's wife took her for a walk in a park in Ewell near the couple's home. On 21 September 2006, Blair and comedian Alan Carr helped save a man about to fall from a pier in Blackpool. The man was holding on by his fingers. Blair and wife Susan celebrated their 40th wedding anniversary in March 2007. They have three children and two grandchildren. "I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue". Blair's camp public persona is regularly mocked in the introduction to the game Sound Charades on BBC Radio 4's comedy show "I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue", normally by double entendre during over-the-top accounts of Blair's skills on "Give Us A Clue". In one episode the host, Humphrey Lyttelton, introduced the game: "The expert's expert was, of course, Lionel Blair. Who could ever forget opposing team captain, Una Stubbs, sitting open-mouthed as he tried to pull off "Twelve Angry Men" in under two minutes?". On 29 January 2011, during the Radio 4 show "Saturday Live", hosted by Fi Glover, Blair said of the remarks on the show "I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue" that "My wife hates it" and that he had honestly never heard the remarks on the programme himself until "now with the internet". Referring to the presenter, (the deceased Humphrey Lyttelton), he added "People say you should always speak good of the dead. He's dead – good." Blair said in the same interview that he thought that double-entendres about his sexuality were no longer made on ISIHAC (i.e. since Lyttelton's death). In fact, new presenter Jack Dee carries on the tradition with gusto.
1100803	Tom Mike Apostol (born 1923) is a Greek-American analytic number theorist and professor at the California Institute of Technology. He was born in Helper, Utah in 1923. His parents, Emmanouil Apostolopoulos and Efrosini Papathanasopoulos, originated from Greece. Mr. Apostolopoulos's name was shortened to Mike Apostol when he obtained his United States citizenship, and Tom Apostol inherited this Americanized surname. Apostol received his Bachelor of Science in chemical engineering in 1944, Master's degree in mathematics from the University of Washington in 1946, and a PhD in mathematics from the University of California, Berkeley in 1948. Apostol has since been a faculty member at UC Berkeley, MIT, and Caltech. He is the author of several influential graduate and undergraduate level textbooks. He is a well-known teacher. He is the creator and project director for Project MATHEMATICS! producing videos which explore basic topics in high school mathematics. He has helped popularize the visual calculus devised by Mamikon Mnatsakanian with whom he has also written a number of papers, many of which appeared in the "American Mathematical Monthly". Apostol also provided academic content for an acclaimed video lecture series on introductory physics, "The Mechanical Universe". In 2001, he was elected in the Academy of Athens. In 2012 he became a fellow of the American Mathematical Society.
1039737	Lesley Manville (born 12 March 1956) is an English actress of film, theatre and television. She frequently collaborates with director Mike Leigh, twice being named British Actress of the Year at the London Film Critics Circle Awards for her performances in the Mike Leigh films, "All or Nothing" and "Another Year". She is also a BAFTA and Olivier award nominee. Early life. Born in Brighton, Sussex, Manville was brought up in nearby Hove, one of three daughters of a taxicab driver. Training as a soprano singer from age 8, she twice became under-18 champion of Sussex. She began acting as a teenager, appearing in television series such as "King Cinder." As a result, at age 15, she gained a place at the Italia Conti Academy of Theatre Arts. Career. After turning down teacher Arlene Phillips' invitation to join her new dance troupe "Hot Gossip," she was taught improvisation by Italia Conti teacher Julia Carey. Her first job was in West End theatre in the musical "I and Albert" directed by John Schlesinger, which was followed by television presentation on Westward Television's version of the BBC's "Blue Peter." She paid for her first flat taking a part on "Emmerdale Farm," which lasted for 80 episodes. Manville built a career as a distinctive theatre actress, appearing in new plays at the Royal Shakespeare Company's Warehouse and Royal Court Theatre. She played Sister Croy in "The Sons of Light"; Ali in "Savage Amusement"; Isabel in "Trust Us" and Lucy in Lucy Page's "Lucy." In 1979, she met Mike Leigh, who was looking for RSC actors who could improvise. She starred in the 1980 BBC play "Grown-Ups". She subsequently appeared in Leigh's films "High Hopes", "Secrets & Lies", "Topsy-Turvy", "All or Nothing" and "Another Year". Other film appearances include: "Dance with a Stranger", "Sammy and Rosie Get Laid", "High Season" and "The Great Ecstasy of Robert Carmichael", as well as "A Christmas Carol" and "Womb". Manville has also remained active on television, with credits such as "The Gentle Touch", "Coronation Street", "Bulman", "Soldier Soldier", "Ain't Misbehavin'", "Tears Before Bedtime", "Kavanagh QC", "Holding On", "Silent Witness", "Real Women", "The Cazalets", "North and South" and "Cranford". and ""Mayday"" in 2013. As of September 2011 Manville was starring in Mike Leigh's play "Grief" at the National Theatre. Awards. For her role as Nadine in the series "Other People's Children", Manville received a nomination for Best Actress in the 2001 Royal Television Society Awards. For her role in "All or Nothing" she won the London Film Critics' Circle British Actress of the Year in 2002. For her role in "Another Year" she has been nominated for the British Independent Film Award for Best Supporting Actress and the European Film Award for Best Actress, as well as the Chicago Film Critics Award for Best Actress. She won her second London Film Critics Circle award for British Actress of the Year. She also won the National Board of Review Award for Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress from the San Diego Film Critics Society. On 18 January 2011, she received a BAFTA nomination in the Best Supporting Actress category. On 7 February 2011, former Charlie's Angels stars Jaclyn Smith and Cheryl Ladd presented the Best Actress Award to Lesley Manville for "Another Year" at the "Movies for Grownups Awards". Personal life. She met her first husband Gary Oldman while working at the Royal Court Theatre. Oldman left her in 1989, three months after their son, Alfie, was born. Her second marriage was to Joe Dixon. As of 2007, Manville lived with her son in East Grinstead, West Sussex.
1757997	Steven R. McQueen (born Steven Chadwick McQueen; July 13, 1988) is an American actor and model, best known for his role as Jeremy Gilbert in The CW show "The Vampire Diaries". Early life. McQueen was born in Los Angeles, California, the son of Stacey Toten (Stacia Robitaille) and actor/producer Chad McQueen. His paternal grandparents were actor Steve McQueen and Filipina actress Neile Adams. Neile Adams' niece is Filipino-Spanish socialite Isabel Preysler, mother of Enrique Iglesias, making McQueen and Iglesias second cousins. His stepfather, Luc Robitaille, is a retired Canadian NHL hall of famer. McQueen has two younger half siblings, Chase and Madison McQueen, from his father's remarriage, as well as a half brother, Jessarae Robitaille, from his mother's remarriage. McQueen uses the name 'Steven R. McQueen', professionally, the 'R' referring to his mother's surname of Robitaille. Career. In 2005, McQueen made his acting debut appearing in an episode of the short lived Sci-Fi CBS television series "Threshold". He has since made guest appearances on television shows such as "Without a Trace", "" and "Numb3rs". One of his most notable roles to date was a recurring role for seven episodes as Kyle Hunter on the final season of The WB television series "Everwood". In January 2008 played the villainous role of Derek Beauguard on the Disney Channel Original Movie "Minutemen" which was Steven's first film role. In February 2009, Steven was cast as the role of the rebellious Jeremy Gilbert on The CW supernatural drama television series "The Vampire Diaries" based on the book series of the same name. The series premiere proved successful with the series reaching record breaking ratings for the network and acclaim from critics as the series progressed. The role went on to be what is considered as Steven's breakout role. Steven starred as the protagonist of the 3D Horror Comedy film "Piranha 3D" as the role of Jake Forestor in the remake of the 1978 film of the same name. The film which received mixed to positive reviews from critics went on to make $83,188,165 worldwide.
1039582	Toby Stephens (born 21 April 1969) is an English stage, television and film actor who has appeared in films in both Hollywood and Bollywood. He is best known for playing megavillain Gustav Graves in the James Bond film "Die Another Day" (2002), Edward Fairfax Rochester in the BBC television adaptation of "Jane Eyre" (2006) and Philip Marlowe on the BBC Radio 4 "Saturday Play" "Classic Chandler" series (2010–11). Biography. Stephens, the younger son of actors Dame Maggie Smith and Sir Robert Stephens, was born in London. He was educated at Aldro and Seaford College and trained at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art (LAMDA). He began his film career with the role of Othello in 1992's "Orlando". He has since made regular appearances on television (including in "The Camomile Lawn") and on stage. He has gained acclaim as a stage actor of distinction, notably playing the title role in a Royal Shakespeare Company production of "Coriolanus" shortly after graduation from LAMDA; that same season he played Claudio in "Measure for Measure" for the RSC. He also played Stanley Kowalski in a West End production of Tennessee Williams' "A Streetcar Named Desire", and "Hamlet" in 2004. He has appeared on Broadway in "Ring Round the Moon". He played the lead in the film "Photographing Fairies" and played Orsino in Trevor Nunn's film of "Twelfth Night". In 2002 he took on the role for which he is most widely known, that of Gustav Graves in the James Bond film "Die Another Day". Aged 33 at the time of film's release, he remains the youngest actor to have played a Bond villain. In 2005 he played the role of a British Army captain in the Indian film, "", portraying events in the Indian rebellion of 1857. The following year he returned to India to play a renegade British East India Company officer in "Sharpe's Challenge". In late 2006 he starred as Edward Rochester in the BBC television adaptation of "Jane Eyre" (broadcast in the United States on PBS in early 2007) and "The Wild West" in February 2007 for the BBC in which he played General George Armstrong Custer in Custer's Last Stand. During mid-2007, Stephens played the role of Jerry in a revival of Harold Pinter's "Betrayal" under the direction of Roger Michell. Later that year, Stephens also starred as Horner in Jonathan Kent's revival of William Wycherley's "The Country Wife". The play was the inaugural production of the Theatre Royal Haymarket Company, which in addition to Stephens includes the actors/actresses Eileen Atkins, Patricia Hodge, David Haig and Ruthie Henshall. Various members of the company are expected to star in upcoming productions at the Haymarket Theatre with various artistic directors. The formation of the company is considered by many London theatre critics to be a bold move for West End theatre. In February 2008, Fox Broadcasting Company gave the go-ahead to cast Stephens as the lead in a potential one hour, prime time U.S. television show, "Inseparable", to be produced by Shaun Cassidy. Billed as a modern Jekyll and Hyde story, the show was to feature a partially paralysed forensic psychologist whose other personality is a charming criminal. Stephens' casting was highly unusual, because Fox had not yet approved a script nor purchased a pilot for the show. However, in mid-May 2008, The Hollywood Reporter announced that "the time the network picked up the pilot . . . [the producers' hold on Stephens had expired . . . ." In May 2008, Stephens performed the role of James Bond in a BBC Radio 4 production of Ian Fleming's "Dr. No", as part of the centenary celebration of Fleming's birth. The production was reportedly the first BBC radio dramatisation of the novel though "Moonraker" was on South African radio in 1956, with Bob Holness providing the voice of Bond. Also in May 2008, Stock-pot Productions announced that Stephens will have the lead role in a feature-length film entitled "Fly Me", co-starring Tim McInnerny. Stock-pot was also the producer of "One Day", a short 2006 film shown at international film festivals, in which Stephens played a small part as the boss of McInnerny's character. On 5 October 2008, Stephens appeared onstage at the London Palladium as part of a benefit entitled "The Story of James Bond, A Tribute to Ian Fleming." The event, organised by Fleming's niece, Lucy Fleming, featured music from various James Bond films and Bond film stars reading from Fleming's Bond novels. Stephens took the part of James Bond himself in the readings. In early December 2008, Stephens read from "Coda", the last book written by his good friend Simon Gray, for BBC Radio 4. The excerpts from which Stephens read included Gray's description of Gray's participation as godfather at the christening of Stephens' son Eli. Early in 2009, Stephens appeared as Prince John in season 3 of the BBC series "Robin Hood". The series also aired on BBC America in the United States. Stephens' more recent television appearances include two episodes of a six-part television series, "Strike Back", based on the novel by Chris Ryan. The series aired in May 2010. In the summer of 2009, Stephens returned to the London stage in the Donmar Warehouse production of Ibsen's "A Doll's House" alongside Gillian Anderson and Christopher Eccleston. In 2010, Stephens once again performed on television. First, he starred in the made-for-television film, "The Blue Geranium," a further sequel to the television series and films based on Agatha Christie's Miss Marple character. Stephens also took on a small supporting role in a short film, "The Lost Explorer," the directorial debut of photographer Tim Walker. The film is based on a short story by author Patrick McGrath. Meantime, on the London stage in the spring of 2010, Stephens received outstanding reviews for his performance as Henry in a revival of Tom Stoppard's "The Real Thing", directed by Anna Mackmin at the Old Vic Theatre in London. Stephens' most recent stage role, performed in the summer and autumn of 2010, was Georges Danton in "Danton's Death". The play was another debut for Stephens, this time at London's Royal National Theatre. Over the years, Stephens has continued to prolifically narrate audiobooks and perform in broadcast radio dramas; in the last three years, he has averaged four or five such performances per year. In January 2011, Stephens will join other stars in narrating portions of the King James Version of the Bible for BBC Radio 4 as part of a celebration of the 400th anniversary of the bible's publication. BBC Radio 4 also recently announced that Stephens will be performing the role of Raymond Chandler's Philip Marlowe in a radio serial planned schedule to start in February 2011. Stephens has also narrated another audiobook, "Paul Temple and the Geneva Mystery," also due for release in February 2011. Personal life. In May 2007, Toby Stephens and his wife of six years, New Zealand actress Anna-Louise Plowman, had their first child, son Eli Alistair. The late Simon Gray, the renowned British playwright (who penned "Japes", a stage play, and "Missing Dates", a radio drama, both of which starred Stephens), was reportedly Eli's godfather. Stephens and his wife became the parents of a second child, daughter Tallulah, in May 2009. The couple welcomed their third child, a daughter named Kura, in September 2010. Stevens and Plowman performed together as Elyot and Sibyl in Jonathan Kent's revival of "Private Lives" for the 2012 Chichester Festival, reprised at the Gielgud Theatre in 2013.
585470	Ithu Nammude Katha (, ) is a 2011 Malayalam film written and directed by Rajesh Kannankara, who debuts with this film. It stars Asif Ali, Nishan, Abhishek, Vineeth Kumar, Ananya, Amala Paul and Nimisha in the lead roles. The film is an unofficial remake of 2009 Tamil film "Nadodigal" with story credited to Samuthirakani. The story revolves around a girl with lot of problems. She enters the life of a group of three youngsters. The film released on 28 January 2011. Production. "Pooja" of the film was held in Kochi on July 2010. "Ithu Nammude Katha" began its filming on August 2010 in Kavalam near Changanassery. In addition to Kavalam, the locations for the film include Kuttanadu, Pollachi and Gundalpettu. The film features an ensemble cast consisting of many new faces. According to the director, they are planning to include all the new faces of Malayalam cinema, perhaps in cameo roles or as part of a song sequence. The lead male roles have been played by Asif Ali, Nishan and Abhishek, who previously teamed up in "Apoorvaragam" and the former two also in "Ritu". There are 3 female leads in the film played by Ananya, Nimisha and Amala Paul. Ananya's previous films were "Nadodigal", on which the film is based on, "Shikkar" and "Kandahar", Nimisha has done significant roles in "Pachakuthira" and "Mayavi" whereas Amala Paul is an upcoming star in films. Reception. The film received moderately positive reviews from critics. But it ended up as a box office flop mainly due to lack of publicity.
626838	Peter Jason (born July 22, 1944) is an American actor who performs in many plays, movies, and TV commercials, including "Desperate Housewives" and "Deadwood". Jason has appeared in 12 Walter Hill films, 7 John Carpenter films, has acted in over 100 commercials and plays, and appeared in many TV shows. He also confirmed that he played the voice of Dizzy Wallin in "Gears of War 2" and its sequel, "Gears of War 3". Fans of the Eddie Murphy film "48 Hrs." will remember him as the "Cowboy Bartender" Murphy harasses at the fictional honky-tonk bar "Torchy's". In 1990 Jason played Henry Beechwood in the horror-comedy "Arachnophobia", the first film released by Hollywood Pictures and directed by Frank Marshall.
587192	Anup Soni, also Anoop Soni, is an Indian film and television actor. He is an alumnus of the National School of Drama. Soni began his career with roles in television serials such as Sea Hawks and Saaya. He then took a break from television to work in films. He appeared in the 2002 films "Kharaashein: Scars From Riots" "Hum Pyar Tumhi Se Kar Baithe" as well as "Hathyar". In 2004 he appeared in Ashok Pandit's film "Sheen". But he returned to television to work on the serial CID - Special Bureau. He continues working both in films and television, his most recent work was the TV serial Virrudh and he is currently working in the hugely popular serial Balika Vadhu on Colors and Crime Patrol (TV series) on Sony. His performance in the serial has been appreciated a lot. Personal life. Anup Soni married actor-cum-politician Raj Babbar's daughter Juhi Babbar on March 14, 2011 in a quiet ceremony attended by family and close friends only. The two met while working in Juhi's mother Nadira Babbar's play. Anup recently divorced his first wife Ritu, with whom he has two daughters. Juhi was earlier married to director Bejoy Nambiar. His wife Juhi gave birth to a boy called Imaan on 6 September, 2012.
588221	Sandeep Kulkarni (born Sandeep Shrikanth Kulkarni on 16 November 1964) is an actor from India who is also a painter. An actor from theatre, television, and films, his work is popular among Hindi and Marathi audiences. He has acted in three National Award-winning films: "Shwaas" (2004), India's official entry to the Oscars; "Dombivali Fast" (2006); and "Traffic Signal" (2007). He won three Maharashtra State awards in the Best Actor category for "Shwaas" in 2004, "Dombivali Fast" in 2006 and "Adhantari" in 2005. He won the best actor award in the Nigerian Film Festival for his critically acclaimed performance in the film "Ek Daav Sansaracha" in 2009. His remarkable contributions were steps in the positive direction to lift Marathi movies at an international platform. Early life and background. Born in Pune, Sandeep was raised in a Maharashtrian middle-class Kayasth family by father Shrikant Kulkarni and mother Lata Kulkarni. Though an introvert during his early schooling in Mumbai, he expressed his thoughts through the power of sketches and colours. Further on towards high school, he decided to become an 'artist’ while envisioning graduation from the best arts school in Mumbai — Sir J. J. School of Art. During his journey of becoming an artist at Sir J. J. School of Art, he was blessed with the mentorship of professors such as Prabhakar Kolte and Atul Dodia, both leading Indian painters. These mentors recognized the spark in Sandeep and helped him discover the flame of visual art. This nurturing and influence evolved Sandeep as a painter which eventually saw him participate in group monsoon show — a first exhibition of his work at the Jehangir Art Gallery (1986). Staying focused, eventually Sandeep completed his graduation (Bachelor of Fine Arts) in 1986. While pursing painting, Sandeep was also exploring acting until he met Pandit Satyadev Dubey, the much-respected and admired theatre thespian. Heavily influenced and inspired by his teachings, Sandeep found himself perfectly fit to be an actor. Career. After intense theatre for four years in English, Marathi and Hindi, his career started to take shape in television. He played varied roles such as that of young Muslim lawyer Salim in love with a local Muslim woman on "9 Malabar Hill" on Zee TV, a press reporter in "Farz" on DD Metro, an underworld don who deals with drugs in "Swabhiman" on DD, a counselor in "Nyay" on DD Metro. He also played the role of a cop who solves the mystery behind an old couple refusing to accept the dead body of their son in the much-talked-about one-hour suspense thriller "First Kill" directed by Shriram Raghavan. Sandeep’s career in films began with his first role in the movie "Mammo" (1994) directed by the legendary Shyam Benegal, set in the backdrop of India Pakistan Partition (1947). He was seen playing the role of an immigration officer (Apte) who tries to help the immigrant protagonist Mammo. He played the role of a gangster, Shankar, who chases the hero throughout the plot wearing a new pair of shoes that bite and eventually hurt him in "Is Raat Ki Subaah Nahin" (1996) directed by Sudhir Mishra. His role added to the black humor of the film. He played a Naxalite who later becomes an activist, in spite of his colleagues being caught and killed in "Hazar Chaurasi Ki Maa" (1998), directed by Goving Nihalani. "Shwaas" (2004), directed by Sandip Sawant, put Sandeep’s performance under spotlight. He played the role of an oncologist who attempts to convince the grandfather of a child suffering from eye cancer to agree to a life-saving surgery although he is faced with the reality of child becoming permanently blind. Sandeep's biggest compliment of his career was earned when, after watching the film, the legendary actor Shabana Azmi asked him if he had studied medicine. "Shwass" won Sandeep numerous awards: the State Award being one of them. The film won the National Award as well and was India's official entry to the Oscars. In a 2005 film, "Hazaaron Khwaishein Aisi" directed by Sudhir Mishra, Sandeep played a Naxal leader, Probir, involved in spreading the Naxalite movement from Bengal to India. 2005 saw another success in Sandeep's career when he played a common man from downtown (Dombivali), on the edge of busy, frustrating, unimproved and deteriorating daily lifestyle who eventually starts straightening things around him in the critically acclaimed "Dombivali Fast" directed by Nishikant Kamath. In 2005 Sandeep also played the role of Sane Guruji, a biopic teacher, poet, freedom fighter, also known as Gandhiji of Maharashtra in "Sane Guruji". Sandeep’s career includes other series of films such as "Adhantari" (2005), "Maay Baap" (2006), "Rajkaran" (2007).
1163334	Victoria Principal (born January 3, 1950) is an American actress, author and businesswoman best known for her role as Pamela Barnes Ewing on the CBS nighttime soap opera "Dallas" from 1978 to 1987. Early life. Principal was born in Fukuoka, Japan, the eldest daughter of United States Air Force sergeant Victor Principal, after whom she was named and who was then stationed in Fukuoka. Her paternal grandparents were emigrants from Italy, originally surnamed Principale. Her mother, the former Bertha Ree Veal, was born in Georgia and was of English descent. Because her father was in the US military, they moved often; she grew up in London, Puerto Rico, Florida, Massachusetts, and Georgia, among other places. She attended 17 different schools, including studying at the Royal Ballet School while her family was stationed in England. She began her career in TV commercials, appearing in her first at age five. After graduating from South Dade Senior High School in 1968, she enrolled at Miami-Dade Community College, intending to study medicine. However, months before completing her first year of studies, she was seriously injured in a car crash while driving home from the library. The other driver was convicted of drunk driving and served jail time. Principal spent months in recovery and was faced with the prospect of having to take her first year of studies over again. After a period of serious introspection, she drastically changed her life by moving to New York City to pursue her acting career, and shortly thereafter to Europe. She studied at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London, and then in 1971 moved to Los Angeles. Career. Acting. In 1970, Principal moved to Hollywood. She had no money, no car, no agent, and no prior television or movie-making experiences beside the commercials she had made in her teenage years. She supported herself by teaching backgammon, which she had learned while living in London, that was becoming a popular game played by many in Hollywood. Nine months later Principal had a car, an agent, still little money but auditioned and won her first film role as Marie Elena, a Mexican mistress, in Paul Newman's "The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean" (1972), for which she earned a Golden Globe Nomination as Most Promising Newcomer. Because of the response to Principal's footage in the film, the role was enlarged on a daily basis by the writer, John Milius. Producers, agents, and other interested parties began showing up at the remote location in Benson, Arizona. For the most part they were showing up to sign Principal to her next film. During this period of time Warren Cowan flew in, introduced himself to Principal, and offered to represent her free of charge for the next year. Principal has been a client of Rogers & Cowan ever since. She flew to Arizona a complete unknown; when she returned to Los Angeles three months later, the commercial flight she was on was greeted by throngs of paparazzi. Subsequently, she appeared in "The Naked Ape" (1973) with Johnny Crawford and appeared nude in Playboy magazine to promote the film. The film's failure disappointed her. In 1974, she was cast in the disaster film "Earthquake". Although the role had been narrowed down to three actresses, Principal won the role when she showed up for the third audition having cut off her waist-length brown hair, dyed it black, and put it into an afro. The producer was stunned and impressed by Principal's risky transformation in order to look more closely like the Italian character Rosa. Principal won the part in that moment. She continued to act in lesser-known films such as "I Will, I Will... for Now" and "Vigilante Force" with Kris Kristofferson. She was given a three-picture deal with Brute Productions. However, Principal decided to stop acting and became an agent, which was her profession from 1975 to late 1977. In 1977, Aaron Spelling offered her a role in the pilot of his television series, "Fantasy Island", which she accepted. Soon after, in 1978, she landed her most famous role, playing Pamela Barnes Ewing in the evening soap opera television series "Dallas". In 1983, she earned a Golden Globe Nomination as Best Actress in a Television Series for her role in "Dallas". After nine years, Principal left "Dallas" in 1987. She went on to star in various made-for-television movies such as "Mistress", "Blind Witness", "Naked Lie", "Sparks: The Price of Passion", and "Don't Touch My Daughter", a few of which she co-produced. In 1994, she appeared in an episode of the hit sitcom "Home Improvement". Principal returned to primetime soap operas in 2000, when she appeared in another Aaron Spelling production, the short-lived NBC television series "Titans". Principal declined reviving her role on the 2012 revival of Dallas since the sudden passing of Larry Hagman - the ending of the second season reveals the mystery where she died of pancreatic cancer. Entrepreneur. When Principal signed her "Dallas" contract, she omitted the clause that would have given the network the right to consent and profit from her outside endeavors. She explained, "As a result that's why, you can only notice in hindsight, I was the only person in the cast who did commercials, who was doing movies of the week, who wrote books and these all belong to me. I retained the control and ownership of my image. No one owns me." When she left the show in 1987, she began her own production company, Victoria Principal Productions, producing mostly movies for television. In the mid-1980s, she became interested in natural beauty therapies and in 1989 she created a self-named line of skin care products, Principal Secret, which has amassed over $1 billion (USD) in sales to date.
1162877	Amanda Bearse (born August 9, 1958) is an American actress, director and comedienne best known for her role as neighbor Marcy D'Arcy (formerly Marcy Rhoades) on "Married... with Children", a sitcom that ran in the United States between 1987 and 1997, and for her performance in the 1985 horror film "Fright Night" opposite William Ragsdale. Career. Bearse studied acting at New York City's Neighborhood Playhouse under instructor Sanford Meisner. Her initial success came with the role of Amanda Cousins on the soap opera "All My Children" between 1981 and 1984. During and after that time, she appeared in a string of independent and B-movies, including "Protocol" (1984), "Fright Night" and "Fraternity Vacation" (both 1985). Her big break came in 1987 when she was cast as Marcy Rhoades (later Marcy D'Arcy) on the hit Fox TV sitcom "Married... with Children". She played the role until the show's end in 1997. In the mid-1990s, Bearse also appeared in the films "The Doom Generation" and "Here Come the Munsters". Bearse began directing television while appearing on "Married... with Children", and from 1991 and 1997, she directed over 30 episodes of the show. She also directed episodes of "Reba", "Mad TV", "", "Malcolm & Eddie", "Pauly", "The Tom Show", "The Jamie Foxx Show", "Dharma & Greg", "Veronica's Closet", "Two Guys, a Girl and a Pizza Place", "Jesse" (starring her former "Married... with Children" co-star Christina Applegate), and "Ladies Man". In 2005, she directed "The Sperm Donor", a pilot for NBC starring Maggie Wheeler and In 2006, Bearse teamed with Rosie O'Donnell to direct "The Big Gay Sketch Show", which debuted on Logo on April 24, 2007. Personal life. Bearse was born in Winter Park, Florida, and was also raised in Atlanta, Georgia. She first attended Rollins College, but later transferred to Birmingham Southern College where earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree. She has been publicly out as a lesbian since 1993.
588595	Naalaiya Theerpu ("Tomorrow's Verdict") is a Tamil film directed by S. A. Chandrasekhar and produced by his wife Shoba Chandrasekhar which marked the debut of the their son Vijay in the lead role alongside Keerthana. The film which also featured Srividya, Radharavi and Sarath Babu, had music composed by newcomer Manimekalai and editing by Gautham Raju. The film was released on 4 December 1992. Production. Vijay made his debut as a leading actor with the film, aged eighteen. The film featured lyrics written by music director Bharani. Music. The music was composed by Manimegalai
1067129	Autumn Sonata () is a 1978 Swedish drama film written and directed by Ingmar Bergman. The film stars Ingrid Bergman, Liv Ullmann and Lena Nyman. It tells the story of a celebrated classical pianist who is confronted by her neglected daughter. It was Ingrid Bergman's last performance in a major theatrical feature film, and the film won a Golden Globe for Best Foreign Language Film at the 1979 Golden Globe Awards. Plot. The plot focuses on a prominent concert pianist, Charlotte Andergast (Ingrid Bergman), who has been neglectful and dismissive of her children, whom she has not seen in over seven years. Charlotte decides to make a visit to her eldest daughter, Eva (Liv Ullmann) at her remote house, where she lives with her husband, Viktor (Halvar Björk). Upon arrival, Charlotte discovers that her other daughter, Helena (Lena Nyman), who is severely disabled and was placed in an institution by Charlotte, is living with and being taken care of by Eva. Wounded by the neglect and selfishness of her mother, Eva begins to spill all of the things she has ever wanted to say to Charlotte, and as the evening progresses, the tension culminates to a wave of harsh words and exposure of true feelings. Production. Due to his battle with the Swedish tax authorities at the time, Ingmar Bergman produced "Autumn Sonata" through his West German company, Personafilm GmbH, with main financing from Lew Grade's British ITC Film, and shot the film in an old film studio outside Oslo in Norway. Although formally a German production (with the German title, "Herbstsonate", being the official original title), the dialogue is in Swedish, most of the crew and actors were Swedish, and the world premiere was in Stockholm Production. The film was shot in Norway because of Ingmar Bergman's tax problems with the government of Sweden. Soundtrack. The piano piece played in the film is Chopin's Prelude No. 2 in A minor. Awards and nominations. The film won the 1979 Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Language Film. It was also nominated for Academy Awards for Best Actress in a Leading Role (Ingrid Bergman) and Best Original Screenplay.
1015828	The Eagle Shooting Heroes is a 1993 Hong Kong comedy film directed by Jeffrey Lau. It is a parody of Louis Cha's novel "The Legend of the Condor Heroes". Production. The film was said to be caused by the over-budgeting of Wong Kar-wai's "Ashes of Time". In order to cover up the cost of the yet unfinished film, the director decided to use the whole cast to shoot a "quick-and-dirty" film for show during the Chinese New Year, a period for Hong Kong film industry to harvest cash. Music. In addition to a score by James Wong, the film contains a song set to the overture from Gioacchino Rossini's "Guillaume Tell", as well as uncredited excerpts from "L'amour est un oiseau rebelle" from Georges Bizet's "Carmen" and "Danse des petits cygnes" from Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's "Swan Lake".
1028633	Jessica Leigh Stroup (born October 23, 1986) is an American actress and comedienne, best known for her role as Erin Silver on "90210". She is regarded as a scream queen for starring in the horror films "Prom Night", "Vampire Bats", "Left in Darkness", and "The Hills Have Eyes 2". Early life. Stroup was born in Anderson, South Carolina to Judith and Don Stroup, a senior vice president at Wachovia. She spent her childhood in Charlotte, North Carolina. She graduated from Providence High School in 2004. Stroup received a full scholarship to attended the University of Georgia, but declined in order to pursue an acting career. Career. Stroup's first acting role was a guest appearance on "Unfabulous". Stroup has since appeared in a number of TV shows, such as "Grey's Anatomy", "October Road", and "True Blood". In 2007, Stroup appeared in 4 episodes of "Reaper", in which she played the protagonist's ex-girlfriend. She appeared in a number of small independent movie productions, such as "Left in Darkness", "Pray for Morning", "Vampire Bats", and "Southern Discomfort".
400469	Paul Francis Tompkins (born c. 1967/1968), best known as Paul F. Tompkins, is an American comedian, actor and writer. He is known for his work in television on such programs as "Mr. Show with Bob and David", "Real Time with Bill Maher" and "Best Week Ever", later renamed "Best Week Ever with Paul F. Tompkins". He is also the host of "The Pod F. Tompkast", which was ranked #1 by "Rolling Stone" on their list of "The 10 Best Comedy Podcasts of the Moment" in 2011. Early life and career. A native of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, In 1986 Tompkins first performed comedy at 17 years of age at The Comedy Works in Philadelphia (a club now located in Bristol, Pennsylvania) where he performed as half of a sketch comedy duo with the late Rick Roman. Tompkins attended Temple University; however, he dropped out and left for Los Angeles, California in 1994. Tompkins met actor Jay Johnston in L.A. through their mutual friend, actor and director Adam McKay. McKay and Tompkins had become friends in Philadelphia, where they had both started to perform stand-up at around the same time. McKay later moved to Chicago and met Johnston; Johnston moved to L.A. at around the same time as Tompkins and McKay introduced the two. Tompkins and Johnston went on to create a live sketch comedy show called "The Skates" that was seen by Bob Odenkirk and David Cross and helped get them hired to work on "Mr. Show with Bob and David" in 1996. Career. Live comedic performance. Tompkins' comedy career has included stand-up, sketch comedy and a variety of other live performances. Tompkins stand-up comedy performances are of a storytelling and observationalist style. His shows often consist of extended riffs and long anecdotes. Tompkins deals topics of the bizarre and the absurd — such as a rant about peanut brittle, a discussion about cake versus pie, and smashed coins — in addition to recounting stories about his own life experiences and family. His comedic style has been described as alternative comedy; Tompkins has stated that he is not bothered by the label and that he likes the term. Tompkins is known for his style of dress during his live comedic performances, always performing in suit and tie, sometimes in pinstripes and with a bowtie; his look has been described by some in the press as "dapper". Tompkins has described his look as "foppish" and "just this side of Cedric the Entertainer." Tompkins is based in Los Angeles and performs regularly in the city. Since 2002 he has performed a monthly show called "The Paul F. Tompkins Show" at Largo, an L.A. nightclub and cabaret. His show has featured such guests such as Fiona Apple, Jack Black, Dave Foley, Zach Galifianakis, Ed Helms, Aimee Mann and Weird Al Yankovic. Since its inception in 2005, Tompkins has taken part in the "Thrilling Adventure Hour", a staged production in the style of old-time radio that is also held monthly at Largo. The show began podcasting in January 2011; in October of that same year the show's podcasts moved to the Nerdist Industries podcast network created by Chris Hardwick. Tompkins is a member of the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre (UCB) Los Angeles. His comedy album "Impersonal" was recorded live at the UCB Theatre. He also performs monthly at the "Dead Authors" show at UCB Theatre in support of the nonprofit organization 826LA; Tompkins plays the role of H.G. Wells who serves as the host of the show. Tompkins has toured in the US and Canada and prefers to perform in independent venues, rather than conventional comedy clubs. Starting in 2009 he embarked on his "Tompkins 300" tour; Tompkins had been preparing for his one-hour Comedy Central special "You Should Have Told Me" at the Laughing Skull Lounge theatre in Atlanta, Georgia — a small theatre that seats about 74 people. In order to fill the seats for the his recording of his special, Tompkins required about 280 people in the audience over the course of 4 nights for the recording of his show. Tompkins decided to announce on Twitter that he needed 300 people to fill the seats each night; Bob Kerr, a Canadian comedian, saw the Twitter post and asked if Tompkins would like to perform in Toronto. Tompkins advised Kerr that if he was able to get 300 people to state that they would definitely see his show he would come to Toronto. Kerr then started a Facebook group called “I Wanna See Paul F. Tompkins in Toronto” and managed to get 300 people to join. In October of that same year Tompkins performed at the The Rivoli theatre in Toronto, the same theatre in which the sketch comedy show "The Kids in the Hall" was filmed. Facebook groups were subsequently started in other North American cities and in 2010 he stated that he had stopped promoting his shows on the radio. In 2011 he said that the Facebook 300 groups had become his main method of booking comedy shows. Tompkins wrote and performed in his one-man show, "Driven to Drink" which aired on HBO in 1998. He appeared on 6 episodes of "Late Night with Conan O'Brien" between 1998 and 2008 as well as 2 episodes of "Conan" in 2011 and 2012. He has recorded three comedy albums: "Impersonal" in 2007, "Freak Wharf" in 2009, and "Laboring Under Delusions" in 2012. His stand-up appearances on the Comedy Central network include being featured in episodes of "Comedy Central Presents" in 2003 and 2007, hosting an episode of "Live at Gotham" in 2009, performing on "John Oliver's New York Stand Up Show" in 2010, and recording two original one-hour comedy specials — "You Should Have Told Me" which aired in 2010 and "Paul F. Tompkins: Laboring Under Delusions" in 2012. He also appeared in the RiffTrax live broadcast of "House on Haunted Hill". Acting and writing. Tompkins wrote for and performed on "Mr. Show with Bob and David" from 1995 to 1998; the show's writers, including Tompkins, were nominated for an Emmy Award in 1998 for "Outstanding Writing for a Variety or Music Program". Tompkins' work with Mr. Show's creators Bob Odenkirk and David Cross also led to his recurring role on the "Tenacious D" TV series. Tompkins played the character of a nightclub manager who is duped into reading Tenacious D’s ridiculous introductions during their open mic performances. He revived the role in the comedic band's film "Tenacious D in The Pick of Destiny" released in 2006. Longtime friend Adam McKay consulted Tompkins regarding the screenplay for "Talladega Nights". Tompkins also played the MC of a cat show in McKay's "". Tompkins has appeared on television programs including "NewsRadio", "Frasier", "Weeds", "The Sarah Silverman Program", "Pushing Daisies", "Community" and "Curb Your Enthusiasm". Tompkins played the role of Prescott in P.T. Anderson's film "There Will Be Blood" (2007); Anderson had previously cast Tompkins in a small role in the 1999 film "Magnolia" after watching Tompkins perform at Largo. Tompkins also played FBI Agent Anthony D’Angelo in Steven Soderbergh's "The Informant!" (2009). He has a recurring role in the Canadian TV series "The L.A. Complex" as a fictionalized version of himself. He also appeared in the music video for Nick Lowe's song "Stoplight Roses" and in the Ted Leo and the Pharmacists song "Bottled In Cork" Tompkins wrote for "Real Time with Bill Maher" in 2003 and 2009, in addition to being a show correspondent in the show's first season. In 2011 Tompkins was asked to write humorous recaps of "American Idol" episodes for "New York" magazine’s online blog "Vulture". Tompkins has expressed in interviews that he dislikes writing (particularly writing for others), preferring instead to perform in front of a camera. Voice acting. Tompkins has done voice work for many animated television series including "Dr. Katz, Professional Therapist", "King of the Hill" and "Bob's Burgers". He lent his voice to a character in an unaired 2007 episode of "Aqua Teen Hunger Force" titled "Boston" that was supposed to be the premiere episode of the show's fifth season, but it was pulled by Turner Broadcasting System to avoid further controversy surrounding the 2007 Boston bomb scare. Tompkins later appeared in an episode during the show's 7th season. He was also the voice of one of the thugs in Walt Disney Animation Studios' 2010 computer animated film "Tangled". Tompkins was the voice of Benton Criswell, a character in MTV series "Super Adventure Team" which featured marionettes in the style of the 1964 series "Thunderbirds"; the role was credited under the stage name Francis Mt. Pleasant. He was also the voice of a puppet in ads for the Ford Focus. Political and social commentary. Tompkins has appeared on several television programs devoted to discussing politics, popular culture and current events, however he says he does not consider himself to be a political comic. Tompkins was a contributor to the "Us People's Weekly Entertainment" segment of "The Daily Show" in 1998. In 2003 he was a writer and correspondent for "Real Time with Bill Maher" in the show's first season and wrote again for the show in 2009. He appeared on "Tough Crowd with Colin Quinn" in 2004. In 2004 he also became a pop culture analyst on VH1's "Best Week Ever"; in 2008 the show was retooled and relaunched as "Best Week Ever with Paul F. Tompkins" with Tompkins as host. From 2006 to 2008 he was a regular guest on "Countdown with Keith Olbermann". In 2008 he appeared on "Lewis Black's Root of All Evil" and took part in a panel on "Larry King Live" in an episode titled "Politics & Humor". Tompkins has appeared in documentaries such as Jamie Kennedy's "Heckler" (2007) and Doug Benson's "Super High Me" (2007). He also appeared in "The Bitter Buddha" (2013), a documentary about the career of actor and comedian Eddie Pepitone. Podcasts, webcasts and radio. In 2010 Tompkins launched his podcast called "The Pod F. Tompkast". The podcast is a mixture of Tompkins discussing various topics, clips from his live show at Largo, and segments where Tompkins voices a variety of celebrities speaking with one another. Comedian Jen Kirkman is a regular contributor on the show. The "Thrilling Adventure Hour" comedy show at Largo began podcasting in January 2011; in October of that same year the show's podcasts moved to the Nerdist Industries podcast network created by Chris Hardwick. "Dead Authors", a live show that Tompkins hosts at the UCB Theatre in Los Angeles, also began podcasting in September 2011. In May 2012 Tompkins started a weekly web series called "Speakeasy". Hosted by the Break Media site MadeMan.com, the series features Tompkins interviewing various guests in the entertainment industry, such as Ty Burrell, Nathan Fillion, Zach Galifianakis, Chris Hardwick, Oscar Nunez, Weird Al Yankovic and Alison Brie. The interviews are conducted as casual conversations between Tompkins and his guest over cocktails at various bars in the L.A. area. Tompkins has appeared several times as a guest, and twice as a guest host, on "Comedy Bang Bang" (formerly "Comedy Death-Ray Radio"), a weekly audio podcast hosted by Scott Aukerman, a comedian who also wrote for "Mr. Show with Bob and David". The show's format mixes conversation between the host and guests, occasionally including game segments and interspersed with comedy music recordings by artists like Weird Al Yankovic, The Lonely Island and Flight of the Conchords. Some guests play characters or impersonate certain celebrities, sometimes for the entirety of the episode; Paul F. Tompkins has impersonated celebrities such as rapper Ice-T, composer Andrew Lloyd Webber and Buddy Valastro from the reality television series "Cake Boss". In addition to Aukerman's "Comedy Bang Bang", Tompkins regularly appears on the podcasts of other fellow comedians such as "WTF with Marc Maron", Jimmy Pardo's "Never Not Funny", Jessica Chaffin and Jamie Denbo's "Ronna and Beverly" podcast, and the "Superego" podcast with Jeremy Carter and Matt Gourley. Tompkins has also been a regular guest on the radio show and podcast "The Best Show on WFMU with Tom Scharpling". In an interview on the podcast "The K Ohle with Kurt Braunohler", Tompkins revealed that he is in fact five raccoons who disguise themselves as a human by donning a suit. Tompkins further stated that the raccoons take turns acting as "his" voice, leading to some media speculation as to the origins of Tompkins's most popular impersonations. Podcast and radio appearances. In addition to hosting his own podcast, "The Pod F. Tompkast", since 2010, Tompkins has made regular appearances on various podcasts both as a guest and guest host. Some of these podcasts include:
898525	The Cloud Door (, ) is a 1994 short Indo-German dramatic film, directed by acclaimed Indian director Mani Kaul and featuring Hindu and Muslim erotic literary themes. The film was produced by the German producer Regina Ziegler. "The Cloud Door" was featured along with other short films such as Susan Seidelman's "The Dutch Master" and Ken Russell's "The Insatiable Mrs. Kirsch", as a part of Ziegler Film's compilation of short erotic films called "Erotic Tales". Plot. An Indian king overhears a parrot telling erotic stories to his daughter, and is angered. He desires to kill the parrot. The princess intervenes and saves the parrot's life by explaining to her father that the bird does not know what it is saying. In gratitude, the bird flies to the princess's lover and leads the lover through a labyrinth to the princess's private chambers. The princess and the lover spend the night making love. Production. "The Cloud Door" has plenty of humorous and sensual imagery and flows like a folk tale. Mani Kaul drew upon three literary sources for it: the Sanskrit play "Avimaraka", written by Bhāsa around 5th-7th century; the Sufi epic love poem "Padmavat", written by Mohammed Jayasi in the 13th century; and the erotic Indian tales "Suksapiti". Reception. In January 1995, "The Cloud Door" was screened only once for the public at the International Film Festival of India as part of the "Erotic Tales" program, due to its erotic theme. Mani Kaul, known for his aesthetic work, had never previously made an Indian erotic film, despite the country's rich history of erotic folk art and literature. The single-screening of the film caused an uproar due to its erotic nature and on-screen nudity, and resulted in the police being called in to prevent rioting. An extra screening, exclusively for the press, was held later at a different venue. The film was also screened at the Munich Film Festival, Locarno International Film Festival, New York Film Festival and the Robert Flaherty Film Seminar. Variety reviewer Todd McCarty said the film "features pictorial beauty, slow-building sensuality and surprising humor that combine to rich effect". The reviewer for the New York Times said that the film, when viewed with subtitles and deprived of its cultural context of Muslim and Hindu literature, "becomes a succession of brightly colored images that almost tell a story: a beautiful woman, perhaps a courtesan; a green, long-tailed parrot who repeats the erotic phrases he's picked up in her room; potential lovers; a fish that laughs".
1052212	Les Visiteurs (; ) is a cult French film directed by Jean-Marie Poiré and released in 1993. In this comedy, a 12th-century knight and his servant travel in time to the end of the 20th century and find themselves adrift in modern society. "Les Visiteurs" was the Number 1 box office film in France in 1993, with 13,782,846 ticket sales. The publicity for the film used the tagline "Ils ne sont pas nés d'hier" ("They weren't born yesterday"). Reno and Clavier reprised their roles in a sequel, and the American remake "Just Visiting". The castle of Ermenonville, in Oise département, served as decoration for the castle of Montmirail in the current time and the Castle of Beynac for medieval period. Story. In the year 1123, Godefroy, Count of Appremont and Papincourt, saves the life of his beloved sovereign, King Louis VI "Le Gros" (""The Fat"") from the sword of a "horribilis" Englishman. For this action of bravery, the King makes him Count of Montmirail and promises him the woman he loves, the beautiful Frénégonde de Pouille. On his way to the castle to marry Frénégonde, Godefroy's drinking flask is drugged by the witch he had earlier taken prisoner. Hallucinating, he believes the Duke of Pouille, father of his future wife, is a ferocious bear, and kills him with a crossbow bolt. During the Duke's funeral, Godefroy's servant, the disreputable Baldrick-like Jacquouille la Fripouille, steals the Duke's jewels. In an attempt to repair his mistake, Godefroy asks the wizard Eusebius to send him back in time to a moment before he shot the Duke. The old wizard muddles his magical spell, accidentally sending Godefroy and Jacquouille to the year 1993. There, they immediately run into trouble with the Gendarmerie, then Godefroy is sent to the mental hospital (the police believes that he is suffering from amnesia), and after Godefroy tries to destroy the postman's car (which they mistake for a devil's chariot with a Moor in it), they meet Béatrice de Montmirail, an aristocrat who looks exactly like Frénégonde (being her descendant). Jacquouille, meanwhile, is befriended by Ginette la Clocharde, an attractive vagrant they meet early in their adventure. Béatrice, thinking Godefroy to be her long lost cousin Hubert, takes them back to her home. There, various culture-shock comedy ensues as Godefroy and Jacquouille attempt to fathom modern household appliances. Seeing the family seal on Godefroy's hand, Beatrice assumes he stole the jewel from the castle de Montmirail, now a hotel. They go there and meet the owner of the castle, the effete Jacques-Henri Jacquard, the unwitting descendant and close likeness of Jacquouille (they react to each other with mutual disgust). The jewel on Godefroy's hand starts to burn as they get closer to the castle, where the present-day version of the seal is. The two seals explode and destroy Jacquard's brand new Range Rover. Godefroy books a room for the night and finds a secret passage known only to him. There he finds a letter telling him to go to a certain address, where an aged Monsieur Ferdinand, the last descendant of the wizard Eusebius, gives him the potion that will return him to 1123. Jacquouille, however, wants to stay, enjoying Ginette's company and having proved more adaptable than Godefroy in discovering toothpaste (curing the halitosis that made him objectionable in 1123), modern clothing and other amenities of the future. Godefroy finally brings him to the hotel room by force. While Godefroy is talking with Béatrice, Jacquouille swaps jackets with his descendant, closes the curtains, dims the lights, and puts Jacquard on the bed in his place. In the dark, Godefroy gives Jacquard the potion which then sends him back to the year 1123. Godefroy comes back just in time to stop himself from shooting Frénégonde's father, and the deflected crossbow bolt kills the witch who caused the whole misadventure by drugging Godefroy's flask. The bewildered Jacquard finds himself stranded in the past in the role of Godefroy's servant. Sequels. A sequel, "" followed in 1998, and an American remake, "Just Visiting", made with the same stars, was released in 2001. "Les Visiteurs 3" has been announced with the original cast, for a 2014 release.
1058848	Odds Against Tomorrow is a 1959 film noir produced and directed by Robert Wise for HarBel Productions, a company founded by the film's star, Harry Belafonte. Belafonte selected Abraham Polonsky to write the script, which is based on a novel by William P. McGivern. As a blacklisted writer Polonsky used a front, John O. Killens, a black novelist and friend of Belafonte's. In 1996, the Writers Guild of America restored Polonsky's credit under his real name. "Odds Against Tomorrow" is the first "noir" with a black protagonist. It was the last time Wise shot black-and-white film in the standard aspect ratio, which "gave his films the gritty realism they were known for". Plot. David Burke (Ed Begley) is a former policeman who was ruined when he refused to cooperate with state crime investigators. He has asked hard-bitten, racist, ex-con Earl Slater (Robert Ryan) to help him rob an upstate bank, promising him $50,000 if the robbery is successful. Burke also recruits Johnny Ingram (Belafonte), a nightclub entertainer who doesn’t want the job but who is addicted to gambling and is in debt. Slater, who is supported by his girlfriend, Lorry (Shelley Winters), finds out Ingram is black and refuses the job. Later, he realizes that he needs the money, and joins Ingram and Burke in the enterprise. Tensions between Ingram and Slater increase as they near completion of the crime. Burke is seen by a police officer leaving the scene of the raid, and is mortally wounded in the ensuing shootout with local police, so he commits suicide by shooting himself. Slater is cavalier about the death of Burke, which incenses Ingram. Both Slater and Ingram begin to fight each other as they try to evade capture by the police. Ingram and Slater escape and run into a nearby fuel storage depot. They chase after each other on the top of the fuel tanks. They exchange gunfire and ignite the fuel tanks and cause a large explosion. Afterwards, their corpses are indistinguishable from one another. The last scene focuses on a sign at the entrance of the fuel storage depot saying, "Stop, Dead End". Production. Principal photography began in March 1959. All outdoor scenes were shot in New York City and Hudson, New York. According to director Robert Wise: Music. Composer John Lewis of the Modern Jazz Quartet contributed the film's jazz score, played by an orchestra that included bandmates Milt Jackson on vibraphone, Percy Heath on bass and Connie Kay on drums, as well as Bill Evans on piano, and Jim Hall on guitar. One of the cues, "Skating in Central Park", became a permanent part of the MJQ's repertoire. It was also reused for a similar scene in the 1971 film "Little Murders". Reception. Critical response. Bosley Crowther called Wise's direction "tight and strong" and the film a "sharp, hard, suspenseful melodrama" with a "sheer dramatic build-up ... of an artistic caliber that is rarely achieved on the screen." "Time" magazine wrote: "The tension builds well to the climax—thanks partly to Director Robert Wise ("I Want to Live!"), partly to an able Negro scriptwriter named John O. Killens, but mostly to Actor Ryan, a menace who can look bullets and smile sulphuric acid. But the tension is released too soon—and much too trickily. The spectator is left with a feeling that is aptly expressed in the final frame of the film, when the camera focuses on a street sign that reads: STOP—DEAD END." "Variety" magazine said: "On one level, "Odds against Tomorrow" is a taut crime melodrama. On another, it is an allegory about racism, greed and man's propensity for self-destruction. Not altogether successful in the second category, it still succeeds on its first." Forty years after its release, Stephen Holden called the film "sadly overlooked". Awards. The film was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Motion Picture Promoting International Understanding, losing at the 17th Golden Globe Awards to "The Diary Of Anne Frank". Books. A screenplay book, "Odds Against Tomorrow: A Critical Edition" (ISBN 0963582348), was published in 1999 by The Center for Telecommunication Studies, a university press sponsored by the Radio-TV-Film Department at California State University, Northridge (CSUN). The book includes the film's complete script (which "blends" the shooting script and the continuity script), and critical analysis, written by CSUN professor John Schultheiss, based on interviews with Wise, Belafonte and Polonsky.
585041	Pournami () is a 2006 Telugu language film directed by choreographer-turned director Prabhu Deva. It stars Trisha Krishnan, Prabhas, Charmy Kaur, Rahul Dev, and Sindhu Tolani. The movie was released with a lot of hype because of Prabhas and Krishnan's earlier hit, Varsham. However, despite the huge cast, the film flopped miserably at the box office. The film has been dubbed into Tamil as "Pournami" and in Hindi as "Tridev - Pyaar Ki Jung". This film is a straight rip-off of the 2001 film "Behind the Sun" starring Rodrigo Santoro. Plot. Long ago, a great drought befell a village. A dancer from a traditional family came forth to dance in the Shiva temple for many days and nights. Her dedication to Lord Shiva and the village earn her the respect of Lord Shiva and Goddess Parvati. They bless the village with rains ending the drought. The dancer's dying wish was that a girl from her family must dance on pournami (full moon night) every 12 years in front of Lord Shiva temple. This brings us to present day - another 12th year when the dance will take place. Pournami (Trisha Krishnan), the elder daughter of the family goes missing. Rumors of her eloping are rampant among the villagers, much to her father's chagrin. Pournami's younger sister Chandrakala (Charmy Kaur) never learnt the dance as her father refused to teach her (after Pournami's disappearance). Chandrakala's stepmother rules the house with an iron fist. She rents out an extra room of their house to earn some money, which is taken by Shiva Keshava (Prabhas), a Western-style dance instructor. The film follows Chandrakala and Shiva's growing relationship, as they navigate family connections and a lecherous zamindar (Rahul Dev) to prepare for the next Pournami dance ritual. Music. The music and background score was composed by Devi Sri Prasad and lyrics were penned by Sirivennela Sitaramasastri.
1066687	Asa Maxwell Thornton Farr Butterfield (born 1 April 1997) is an English actor known for starring in the Holocaust film "The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas" (2008), portraying the young Mordred in the hit BBC TV Series "Merlin", playing Norman in the 2010 film "Nanny McPhee and the Big Bang", and taking the title role in Martin Scorsese's 2011 fantasy "Hugo" (a film adaptation of the book, The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick). He will also portray Ender Wiggin in the upcoming film adaptation of the science fiction novel "Ender's Game" by Orson Scott Card. Life and career. Asa Butterfield was born in Islington, London, the son of Jacqueline Farr and Sam Butterfield. Butterfield first started acting at the age of 7 on Friday afternoons after school at the Young Actors' Theatre, in his hometown. Later, he secured minor roles in the 2006 television drama "After Thomas" and the 2007 film "Son of Rambow". In 2008 he also had a guest role playing Donny in "Ashes to Ashes". In that same year, aged 10, he played the lead role in "The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas". Director Mark Herman said that they came across Butterfield early on in the audition process. He was on the first audition tape he received and he was the third hopeful he met in person. Herman thought Butterfield's performance was outstanding, but only decided to cast him after auditioning hundreds of other boys, "so no stone was left unturned". Producer David Heyman and director Mark Herman were looking for someone who was able to portray the main character's innocence, so they asked each of the children what they knew about the Holocaust. Butterfield's knowledge was slim and it was purposely kept that way throughout filming so it would be easier for him to convey his character's innocence. The final scenes of the film were shot at the end of the production period to prepare both him and Jack Scanlon for the dramatic ending of the film. He beat hundreds of boys to the role and also successfully passed the auditions for a role in "Mr. Nobody" for which he auditioned at the same time. He chose not to pursue the latter role. In 2008, at the age of 10, Butterfield appeared in the "Merlin" episode "The Beginning of the End", he plays a young druid boy sentenced to death by Uther Pendragon because he feels threatened by the boy's magic. Despite the Great Dragon's advice and the warning that Arthur cannot survive if the boy does, Merlin and Arthur, with the help of Morgana, help the boy escape to rejoin the Druids. When they are about to disappear into the forest, Arthur asks him for his name, which he says is Mordred, an important character from the Arthurian legends who is supposed to kill King Arthur. Butterfield appeared as Mordred in a number of subsequent episodes; however the role has now been recast, with Alexander Vlahos playing Mordred as an adult character. In 2010, he had a small part in "The Wolfman". He starred as Norman Green at the age of 12 in "Nanny McPhee and the Big Bang" (2010), working together with Emma Thompson. The film, and his performance, both received positive reviews. At the age of 13 he played the main and title character in Martin Scorsese's "Hugo", adapted from the novel The Invention of Hugo Cabret. Hugo was filmed from June 2010 to January 2011, it was released on 23 November 2011, and achieved critical and box-office success. Butterfield will play the title role of Andrew "Ender" Wiggin in the upcoming film adaptation of the Orson Scott Card novel Ender's Game, which completed filming in the first half of 2012, and is scheduled for theatrical release on 1 November 2013. Other Work. Butterfield enjoys making music, and released a mashup of the songs “Teenage Dirtbag” by Wheatus and “Making Plans For Nigel” by XTC in 2004. In late 2012, Butterfield co-designed a turn-based video game for iPad with his father and brother called Racing Blind. The game was released to the App Store on 7 April 2013. Awards. Butterfield was nominated in the category "Most Promising Newcomer" of the British Independent Film Awards, but he was beaten by Dev Patel from "Slumdog Millionaire". He was also nominated for the NSPCC Award (Young British Performer of the Year) in the London Critics Circle Film Awards, which was ultimately won by Thomas Turgoose for his roles in "Eden Lake" and "Somers Town". MTV Networks' NextMovie.com named him one of the 'Breakout Stars to Watch for in 2011'. He was nominated for "Best Young Actor/Actress" for the CCMAS, but the award went to Thomas Horn. Personal Life. Butterfield resides in Islington, with his parents, his older brother Morgan and his younger sister Loxie. He enjoys playing football, reading and writing music, as well as the popular online game, Dota 2.
1164283	Stephen Root (born November 17, 1951) is an American actor and voice actor. He is best known for his comedic work - as Jimmy James on the TV sitcom "NewsRadio", as Milton Waddams in the film "Office Space" and as the voices of Bill Dauterive and Buck Strickland in the animated series "King of the Hill". He has also won acclaim for his occasional dramatic and comedic roles, such as that of Captain K'Vada in the ' feature-length episode "", and as Gordon Pibb in '. Early life. Root was born in Sarasota, Florida, the son of Leona Estelle and Rolland Clair Root, a construction supervisor. He graduated from Vero Beach High School in Vero Beach, Florida. He received his AA from the University of Florida, and trained in the BFA acting program. Career. Among his most recognized television roles are eccentric billionaire Jimmy James on the sitcom "NewsRadio" and as the voice of depressed Army barber Bill Dauterive and Hank Hill's skirt-chasing boss Buck Strickland on the animated television series "King of the Hill" (Root originally auditioned for the role of Dale). He had a recurring role on the final two seasons of "The West Wing" as Republican campaign consultant Bob Mayer. His most recognizable film roles to date are as the mumbling, quirky Milton Waddams in "Office Space", as the mild-mannered gymrat Gordon Pibb in "", as Suds, a drunk sports writer, in "Leatherheads", and as the dimwitted principal in the 2008 Judd Apatow produced comedy "Drillbit Taylor". Root is a favorite of the Coen Brothers. He has appeared in "O Brother, Where Art Thou?", "The Ladykillers", and "No Country For Old Men". Kevin Smith wrote a role in "Jersey Girl" specifically for Root. Root reunited with Mike Judge in "Idiocracy" and has also portrayed NASA flight director Chris Kraft in the miniseries "From the Earth to the Moon". He took on the biographical role of Richard A. Clarke in "The Path to 9/11". He has also had many guest appearances in television programs across several genres. He was Klingon Captain K'Vada in the "" episode "Unification" in 1991. In 1992, Root appeared on the TV series "Night Court" as Mr. Willard. In the 1993–1994 television season, Root appeared as a series regular as "R.O." on the Beau Bridges/Lloyd Bridges comedy/western series "Harts of the West" on CBS. Root guest starred on "Seinfeld", playing the role of a bank manager in the episode "The Invitations", handling Kramer's hello greeting issue. He had a role in "Frasier" in the episode "Detour" as the father of the family helping Frasier when his car broke down. In the "" episode "Homebodies", he played the father of a rape victim. In addition, Root had a series regular role on the short-lived CBS series "Ladies Man", which starred Sharon Lawrence, soon after she left "NYPD Blue". He played Raymond, a hunting store owner involved in illegal gun trading, in the 1993 "In the Heat of the Night" episode "A Love Lost". Root also has an active career as a voice artist. Aside from his roles in "King of the Hill", he has played various characters in animated films, such as "Ice Age", "Finding Nemo", and "Courage the Cowardly Dog". In other animated television, series regular roles include: Commander Chode in "Tripping the Rift" and Homebase in "The X's". Additionally, he has provided guest-starring vocal talent in animated television series, like "Chowder" and "Teen Titans". He recently lent his voice to "" as Woozy Winks and The Penguin. Recently, Root has appeared in HBO's series "True Blood" as a vampire named Eddie. He also had a multi-episode arc in the second season of "Pushing Daisies" on ABC, playing the mysterious Dwight Dixon. He appeared as Johnny Forreals, inventor of the word "boo-yah" on an episode of Comedy Central's "The Sarah Silverman Program" entitled "Cangamangus". He appeared in the 2009 comedy film "The Men Who Stare at Goats" as Gus Lacey. In 2010, he appeared in a multi-episode arc in Season 8 of the Fox television series "24" as a probation officer named Bill Prady, and in the "FX" television series "Justified" as the eccentric Judge Mike "The Hammer" Reardon. In 2011, he co-starred in Robert Redford's "The Conspirator", playing John Lloyd, a key witness in the trial of alleged Lincoln conspirator Mary Surratt. In 2012 he began playing the role of Gaston Means in the HBO's acclaimed TV series "Boardwalk Empire" season 3. Personal life. Root was married to former Aslo Company Manager Laura Joan Hase. Together, they had a son, Cody Ryan Root. In 2008 he married actress Romy Rosemont. The couple appeared on screen together on an episode of "Fringe" on November 11, 2011. They both currently live in Los Angeles, California. He also appears in Matt Damon's fake press conference to raise awareness about clean water availability worldwide: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jQCqNop3CIg
630804	"Ocean's Deadliest" was a nature documentary hosted by Philippe Cousteau Jr. and Steve Irwin. It was the final documentary made by Irwin by the time of his death, which occurred during filming. Documentary. The documentary was largely filmed around Irwin's research boat, "Croc One". The pair filmed and sometimes even captured several deadly sea animals, including stonefish, sea snakes, great white sharks, cone snails, blue-ringed octopus, saltwater crocodiles and perhaps the world's deadliest venomous animal, the box jellyfish. According to Steve Irwin, one of the specimens, a Stokes' sea snake was the largest he had seen. The team of researchers harvested venom from the stonefish and some of the sea snakes. Broadcast. The documentary aired in the United States on 21 January 2007, on Animal Planet and Discovery Channel as a simulcast event. It aired on 22 January in Canada, in Australia on 29 January on the Nine Network, and in the United Kingdom on 15 April on ITV1. Impact of Irwin's death. Irwin's widow, Terri, stated in an interview with "Access Hollywood" aired on 11 January 2007 that the documentary contains no footage that was shot the day he died, and that the footage of his injury and death had been destroyed. Cousteau filmed the remainder of the documentary weeks after Irwin's death. Aside from a still image of Irwin with the text "In Memory of Steve Irwin", the documentary contains no mention of his death.
341134	Patricia Charbonneau (born April 19, 1959) is an American actress, probably best known for playing the part of Cay Rivvers in "Desert Hearts," her first film role. Early life. Patricia Charbonneau was born in Valley Stream, New York on Long Island, the youngest of 10 children. Her father, a retired businessman, is French; her mother is Austrian. She graduated in 1977 from Valley Stream Central High School, which she attended with fellow actors Steve Buscemi and Steve Hytner, as well as writer Ed Renehan. She later attended Boston University as a theater major, and left after a month to take a position with the Lexington Conservatory Theater company in the Catskills. The story of the Conservatory Theater is chronicled in the documentary The Loss of Nameless Things. Early work. In addition to work with the Lexington Conservatory Theater, Charbonneau worked on the New York stage in a production of "Revengers...A Tragedea", at Playwrights Horizons. She then became a member of the Actors Theatre of Louisville, where she originated the role of Lea in "My Sister in this House", a part that she also played off-Broadway. Desert Hearts. In 1985, Charbonneau made her film debut in Donna Deitch's film "Desert Hearts" at a time when it was still considered a risk to portray a lesbian in a romantic drama - complete with a lengthy love scene. Charbonneau told The Globe and Mail, "Kissing Helen wasn't the hard part, really. The hard part was just walking out on the set naked and just standing there." Two days before shooting began, Charbonneau found out that she was pregnant (by her rock musician husband Vincent Caggiano) with her first child, whom she once called her "Desert Hearts baby."
1415890	RFK Must Die: The Assassination of Bobby Kennedy is an investigative documentary by Irish writer and filmmaker Shane O'Sullivan released in 2007. The film expands on his earlier reports for BBC Newsnight and the Guardian and explores alternative theories of what happened the night Bobby Kennedy was shot at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles on June 5, 1968. The title comes from a page of "free writing" found in Sirhan Sirhan's notebook after the shooting, in which he wrote "R.F.K. must die - RFK must be killed Robert F. Kennedy must be assassinated… before June 5 '68." Running on an anti-war ticket, Kennedy had just won the California Democratic primary and was confident he would challenge Richard Nixon for the White House. As he walked through the hotel kitchen pantry, shots rang out and he fell to the floor, fatally wounded by a bullet to the brain, fired from an inch behind his right ear. 24-year old Palestinian Sirhan Sirhan was convicted of murder as the "lone assassin" but witnesses placed Sirhan several feet in front of Kennedy and for forty years he claims he has never been able to remember the shooting. Defense psychiatrist Bernard L. Diamond claimed Sirhan was in a hypnotic state at the time of the shooting and FBI agent William Bailey saw extra bullet holes in the pantry suggesting a second gunman may have been involved. Kennedy volunteer Sandra Serrano stated that she saw a woman in a polka-dot dress run down a fire escape exclaiming "We shot him! We shot Kennedy!". The LAPD could not find her and Serrano retracted her statement under interrogation. The LAPD concluded the girl did not exist but in her first filmed interview since the night of the shooting, Sandra Serrano still sticks to her story. In his first filmed interview for almost forty years, Sirhan's younger brother Munir - Sirhan's only surviving family member - describes Sirhan's upbringing and what he perceives as the many injustices in the case. Sirhan is one of America's last surviving political assassins, imprisoned for a crime he claims that he cannot remember. Since 9-11, some revisionist historians have cast him as "the first Arab terrorist." After a three-year investigation, "RFK Must Die" was theatrically released in the UK on May 16 2008 and in New York on June 5 2008, the fortieth anniversary of the assassination.
1067984	Jeepers Creepers 2 is a 2003 American horror film written and directed by Victor Salva, produced by American Zoetrope, Capitol Films, Myriad Pictures and distributed by United Artists, a Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer division. The film is a sequel to the 2001 horror film "Jeepers Creepers". Plot. Three days after the events of the first film Billy Taggart (Shaun Fleming) assists his father by erecting scarecrows in the corn field. After inspecting one of the scarecrows he noticed that it had clawed feet. When the scarecrow suddenly comes to life he runs back towards the farm to call for help, but is intercepted by the scarecrow. As his father, Jack Taggart Sr. (Ray Wise), and his older brother, Jack Taggart Jr. (Luke Edwards), get closer, the scarecrow leaps into the air with Billy, and flies off into the sky. The following day ("Day 23"), a school bus carrying a high school basketball team and cheerleaders back from the state championships suffers a blowout. On closer inspection, the tire has been torn apart by a hand-crafted weapon made of bone fragments. Back on the Taggart farm, Jack finds a small knife left by the Creeper with the help of their dog. When his father inspected the knife it inexplicably flew out of his hand and into a nearby lamp. As the team and the school staff wait for assistance at the roadside, Big K sees something fly through the sky overhead. His teammates dismiss this as a flock of birds and laugh at him. With the bus back on the road Minxie (Nicki Aycox), has a vision of Darry Jenner (Justin Long), the victim from the first film; as well as Billy Taggart, both warning her of The Creeper's presence. She then sees how the Creeper blew the tire which in effect strands them alongside the road for a second time. They manage to flag down a passing car, whose occupants say they will notify the authorities further along the way. As one of the coaches, Charlie Hanna, is laying flares on the road, the Creeper grabs him, and flies off with him, though nobody saw what happened. The bus driver, Betty Borman, becomes worried and says everyone needs to get back on the bus. Once everyone is back on the bus, the Creeper swoops down and flies off with Betty. When coach Dwayne Barnes comes back to the bus and asks Jake what he saw, he responds by saying "She flew away." After having an argument with one of the players coach Barnes is grabbed by the Creeper himself. The teammates tries frantically to save their coach but the Creeper manages to fly off with him anyway. Scotty comes back on the bus, with his coach's blood on his face. Back at the Taggart farm, Jack Sr. listens in on police reports and hears about two abductions. He then calls his son and decides to go out and investigate. Back on the bus, Scotty debates with the others on whether they should leave the bus or not, but ends up getting into an argument with a teammate, "Double D" Deaundre Davis. The Creeper returns to the bus, and signals which student he will attack next. After the Creeper leaves, Minxie collapses, and she sees Darry again, who says that for every 23rd spring the creeper gets to eat for 23 days. Minxie informs the group, telling them that its last visit was purely to pick which people to take. En route to the bus, the Taggarts finds the car from one of the passers-by that has crashed into a tree. The occupants are missing, with the roof having been peeled off. He radios the students, who are ecstatic that their rescue is imminent. This is short-lived as the Creeper manages to punch through the roof of the bus and grabs "Andy Buck" Bucky by the head. One of the students manages to impale the Creeper through its head but the Creepers pulls the weapon out, and in the process rips off a portion of its head. When the Creeper tries to fly away he falls back down, smashing all the windows of the bus while crash landing on top the roof. The students see the lifeless body of the Creeper on the roof and despite believing it to be dead, it wraps one of its wings around Dante and decapitates him for a head switching. Assuming it is better to leave the bus, the students step onto the road. The Creeper returns, chasing them across the field. The Creeper kills Jake by hitting him in the head with a shuriken and then pins Scotty to a tree with a knife. Scotty informs his friends that he's sorry, and they manage to finally free him only to have the Creeper swoop down and fly off with him.
1165134	Faith Domergue (June 16, 1924 – April 4, 1999) was an American television and film actress. Early life and career. Born in New Orleans, Domergue was adopted by Adabelle Wemet when she was six weeks old. When Faith was 18 months old (in 1926), Adabelle married Leo Domergue. The family moved to California in 1928 where Domergue attended Beverly Hills Catholic School and St. Monica's Convent School. While still at University High School, she was signed to a Warner Brothers contract, and made her first on-screen appearance in "Blues in the Night" (1941). After graduating in 1942, Domergue continued to pursue a career in acting, but after sustaining injuries in a near-fatal car accident, her plans were put on hold. While recuperating from the accident, she attended a party aboard Howard Hughes's yacht. Hughes was taken by her, so he bought out her contract with Warner, and signed her to a three-picture contract with RKO. After an unsuccessful, long-delayed premiere in the film "Vendetta" (1950), Domergue left Hughes. She later freelanced in a number of films, including film noir "Where Danger Lives" (as a femme fatale opposite Robert Mitchum), westerns ("Santa Fe Passage") and in 1955, three sci-fi/monster films ("It Came from Beneath the Sea", "This Island Earth" and "Cult of the Cobra"). She later made films in the United Kingdom and Italy, and a last sci-fi foray in the Russian film "Voyage to a Prehistoric Planet", in 1965. In the late 1950s and 1960s she made many appearances on popular television series, including "Have Gun Will Travel", "Bonanza", and "The Rifleman". She appeared in two episodes of "Perry Mason", starring Raymond Burr. In 1961 she played murderer Conception O'Higgins in "The Case of the Guilty Clients," and in 1963 she played murder victim Cleo Grammas in "The Case of the Greek Goddess." By the late 1960s, Domergue had lost interest in acting as a career, and her last acting appearances were mainly in low-budget 'B' horror movies. She began traveling to Rome, Italy in 1952, and lived there for extended periods of time. She moved there permanently in 1968, and remained an expatriate in Rome, Geneva, Switzerland, and Marbella, Spain until the death of her Roman husband, Paolo in 1991. She then moved to Santa Barbara where she resided until her death in 1999. Personal life and death. In 1941, Domergue began an on-off relationship with Howard Hughes. After she discovered that Hughes was also seeing Ava Gardner, Rita Hayworth, and Lana Turner, the couple broke up in 1943. She later wrote a book about her relationship with Hughes entitled "My Life with Howard Hughes" (1972). In 1946, Domergue married bandleader Teddy Stauffer. The marriage lasted six months, ending in 1947. That same year, she married director Hugo Fregonese with whom she had two children, Diana Maria and John Anthony. The couple divorced in 1958. In 1966, she married Paolo Cossa, with whom she remained until his death in 1992. On April 4, 1999, Domergue died from cancer, aged 74. In the 2004 Howard Hughes biopic film "The Aviator", Domergue was played by Kelli Garner.
1248259	Ex Drummer is a 2007 Flemish film directed by Koen Mortier. It is based on the book by Herman Brusselmans of the same name. Plot. In Ostend three handicapped musicians are looking for a drummer for their band, consisting entirely of disabled people. They want to perform only one time at a music competition. They want famous writer Dries to be their drummer and his handicap is the fact that he cannot play the drums. They only plan on mastering one song; Devo's "Mongoloid." For Dries this is an opportunity to get some inspiration for a new novel and he accepts the offer. The band members decide to call the band The Feminists, because four handicapped musicians are just as worthless as a group of feminists. In the contest they have to compete against the band Harry Mulisch, also led by a writer with the nickname Dikke Lul (fat cock in English). As the story goes on Dries becomes more and more obsessed by his new novel and he tries to manipulate the band members and tries to find their weak spot. Soundtrack. The music of The Feminists was in fact performed by Belgian band Millionaire and the Harry Mulisch song was sung by Belgian singer Flip Kowlier. Production. The real sex scenes were performed by hired porn actors. Reception. The film received mixed reviews ranging from very positive to very negative. The film currently holds a rotten rating at Rotten Tomatoes with 50% of the critics giving it positive reviews. In Belgium it caused some controversy due to the violence and explicit sex in the film.
1263811	Nosferatu the Vampyre is a 1979 West German vampire horror film written and directed by Werner Herzog. Its original German title is Nosferatu: Phantom der Nacht ("Nosferatu: Phantom of the Night"). The film is set primarily in 19th-century Wismar, Germany and Transylvania, and was conceived as a stylistic remake of the 1922 German "Dracula" adaptation, "Nosferatu, eine Symphonie des Grauens". It stars Klaus Kinski as Count Dracula, Isabelle Adjani as Lucy Harker, Bruno Ganz as Jonathan Harker, and French artist-writer Roland Topor as Renfield. Herzog's production of "Nosferatu" was very well received by critics and enjoyed a comfortable degree of commercial success. The film also marks the second of five collaborations between director Herzog and actor Kinski, immediately followed by 1979's "Woyzeck". The film had 1,000,000 Admissions in Germany and grossed ITL 53,870,000 in Italy. The film was also a modest success in Adjani's home country taking in 933,533 admissions in France. Plot. Jonathan Harker is an estate agent in Wismar, Germany. His boss, Renfield, informs him that a nobleman named Count Dracula wishes to buy a property in Wismar, and assigns Harker to visit the count and complete the lucrative deal. Leaving his young wife Lucy behind in Wismar, Harker travels for four weeks to Transylvania, to the castle of Count Dracula. He carries with him the deeds and documents needed to sell the house to the Count. On his journey, Jonathan stops at a village, where locals plead for him to stay clear of the accursed castle, providing him with details of Dracula's vampirism. Harker ignores the villagers' pleas as superstition, and continues his journey unassisted. Harker arrives at Dracula's castle, where he meets the Count, a strange, ancient, almost rodent-like man, with large ears, pale skin, sharp teeth, and long fingernails.
1060013	Nacho Libre is a 2006 American-Mexican comedy film directed by Jared Hess and written by Jared and Jerusha Hess and Mike White. It was loosely based on the story of Fray Tormenta ("Friar Storm"), aka Rev. Sergio Gutiérrez Benítez, a real-life Mexican Catholic priest who had a 23-year career as a masked luchador. He competed in order to support the orphanage he directed. The producers are Jack Black, David Klawans, Julia Pistor and Mike White. The film received mixed reviews from critics. Plot. Ignacio is the son of a Scandinavian Lutheran missionary and a Mexican deacon. They tried to convert each other but got married instead, then died while Ignacio was young. Now a cook for an orphanage, Ignacio dreams of becoming a "luchador" (lucha libre performer), but wrestling is forbidden by the monastery. Ignacio cares deeply for the orphans, but his food is terrible due to a lack of funds with which to obtain quality ingredients. One night, he is robbed of the orphans' tortilla chips in an alley and decides to make money to buy better food. He also reveals a desire to be respected by the other friars, to overcome a sanctimonious friar who mistreats him and consummate his feelings for the newly-arrived tutor, Sister Encarnación. Ignacio decides to disregard the monastery's rules and becomes a "luchador" in order to make money. He pairs up with the tortilla chip thief, Steven, and they pair as tag partners and join the local competition, with Ignacio changing his name to "Nacho" to keep his identity secret. Steven adopts the name "Esqueleto" (Skeleton); Nacho and Esqueleto are defeated in their first match, but are nevertheless paid, as every wrestler is entitled to a portion of the total revenue, and they continue to wrestle every week, with Ignacio using his pay to buy and prepare better food for the orphans. Ignacio is, however, discovered by an orphan named "Chancho" (Pig), who promises to keep it a secret and admires him for it. However, after losing many fights, Ignacio starts to look for help. Steven brings him to a gypsy-like man known as "Emperor" who tells Ignacio to climb to an eagle's nest, crack open the egg and swallow the yolk, claiming that he will gain the powers of an eagle. Ignacio completes the task, but still loses the following night's wrestling bout, along with several others. He decides to seek advice from Ramses, a champion "luchador". However, when he sneaks into a party and gets thrown out, and later when Ramses shoves him after meeting him in the street, he realizes Ramses is not in any mood to even help aspiring wrestlers, being too vain to think of anyone but himself. Ignacio's secret is revealed when his robe catches fire during a prayer, exposing his wrestling costume. He admits that he is Nacho, intends to fight at the "Battle-Jam", a battle royale between eight luchadores, for the right to take on Ramses, and for a cash prize, which he will use to make life better for the orphans. Thereafter, both Esqueleto and Nacho compete with several other popular wrestlers in order to earn the right to challenge Ramses. The wrestler Silencio ("silence") wins; Nacho, due to the actions of an already beaten wrestler, comes in second place. Feeling shunned at the monastery, Ignacio leaves to live in the nearby wilderness. In the morning, Steven comes to tell him that Silencio's bunions are swollen and therefore cannot fight Ramses; he will, therefore, have to fight instead. It is revealed that Silencio's injury was caused because Steven had driven over his foot with a tricycle. Ignacio is distrustful of Steven, as he had previously stated that he hated orphans. Steven convinces him that he no longer does. Ignacio agrees to team up again. That night, Ignacio sends a message via Steven to Encarnación, explaining his plan and confessing his love to her (as a sister). In the match, Nacho does well despite initial difficulty. With the crowd supporting Ignacio, Ramses resorts to cheating. Nacho then is nearly defeated — indeed, unmasked — by Ramses. (Although the unmasking is a very significant event in a "luchador"s career, suggesting the player's defeat and dishonor, the match continues with minimal acknowledgment of the act.) Encarnación then enters with the orphans. Elated and inspired, Nacho throws Ramses off, knocks him out of the ring and jumps onto him with a flair recalling his earlier brush with eagle eggs and their supposed power. Ramses is defeated and Ignacio uses his prize money to buy a bus for field trips for the children. The film closes with Ignacio, Steven and Sister Encarnación take the children to see an ancient city, Monte Albán, built by the Zapotec civilization. Ignacio, by now, has earned Encarnación's favor, as demonstrated by her signs of encouragement and his somewhat awkward acknowledgment thereof. Production. Music. Director Hess originally wanted musical artist Beck to be behind the soundtrack for the film. Beck, being a fan of Hess, accepted. However, Paramount Pictures didn't think Beck's style fit the movie, and decided to try to get composer Danny Elfman to replace him. Elfman then wrote a full score and recorded it in May 2006. However, only about 2/3 of Elfman's score ended up in the movie. Due to how much of Elfman's music filled the film, Elfman's representatives asked that Elfman be the only person credited for the film's score. Hess caught wind of this and would not allow the studio to remove Beck from the credits. When finding that he would not have the only music credit, Elfman told Paramount to remove his name from the film. An agreement was eventually reached where both Beck and Elfman were credited for their respective parts of the score. Release. The release date was originally set for May 2006, but was changed by Paramount to avoid competition from Fox's ' and one of Paramount's other films, '. It was then placed between the releases of Disney/Pixar's "Cars" (June 9) and Warner Bros. and Legendary Pictures' "Superman Returns" (June 28). The film was rated PG by the MPAA for "some rough action, and crude humor including dialogue". It was released on DVD and Blu-ray on October 24, 2006. It was distributed in Switzerland, Spain, and the Netherlands by Universal Pictures. Critical reception. The film received mixed reviews by critics; it was labeled as "Rotten" on the Rotten Tomatoes website, with 40% of the reviews being favorable and an average rating of 5.1/10. Rotten Tomatoes' critical consensus states: "At times hilarious, but other times offensive, director Jared Hess is unable to recapture the collective charisma of his "Napoleon Dynamite" characters, instead relying on a one-joke concept that runs out of steam. Sure to entertain the adolescents, however". According to Roger Ebert, "it takes some doing to make a Jack Black comedy that doesn't work, but "Nacho Libre" does it". Michael Medved gave the film two and a half stars (out of four) calling it "amusing, but resistable but adding that "director Jared Hess [employs the same off-beat humor that made his "Napoleon Dynamite" a cult hit". Box office performance. During its opening weekend, "Nacho Libre" grossed $28,309,599, opening at #2 behind "Cars" second weekend. The total domestic box office stands at $80,197,993 and a worldwide total of $99,255,460. Soundtrack. The track listing for the official soundtrack to "Nacho Libre". The soundtrack was released October 24, 2006 Some songs that were not included on the soundtrack, but were in the movie, are "Mucha Muchacha" by Esquivel, "Bubblegum" by Mister Loco, "Holy Man" by Beck and "Bat Macumba" by Os Mutantes. Video game. In 2006, a video game adaptation of the film was published by Majesco Entertainment and was released for the Nintendo DS. It is a cartoonish wrestling game based upon the film. Sequel. In November 2006, Jack Black revealed that a sequel was a possibility: "I sure hope so, I love working with Jared. I think it's a good bet that we'll collaborate on something again. Mike had an idea that it would be Nacho goes to Japan, we'll see though." However, Jared Hess (who directed the original movie) revealed in October 2009 that Paramount had never approached him about doing a sequel to "Nacho Libre", though he said he would "love to work with Black again".
1156606	Noel Neill (born November 25, 1920) is an American actress in motion pictures and television. She is best known as her portrayal of Lois Lane in the film serials "Superman" (1948) and "Atom Man vs. Superman" (1950), and on the 1950s television series "Adventures of Superman". Biography. Early life and career. Neill was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota; her father was a journalist, and her mother a dancer on the stage.
1063350	"Before the Devil Knows You're Dead" is a 2007 crime drama film directed by Sidney Lumet, his last feature film before he died in 2011. Written by Kelly Masterson, the film stars Philip Seymour Hoffman, Ethan Hawke, Marisa Tomei, and Albert Finney. The title comes from the Irish saying: "May you be in heaven a full half-hour before the devil knows you're dead". The film unfolds non-linearly, repeatedly going back and forth in time, with some scenes shown from various points of view. The film received critical acclaim, and was selected as one of 2007's ten most influential American films by the American Film Institute at the 2007 AFI Awards. Plot. "Note: The story is explained here in its chronological order, rather than as it is presented in the film." Andy Hanson (Philip Seymour Hoffman) is a finance executive at a real estate firm in New York City. Facing an upcoming audit he knows will reveal his having embezzled from his employer (in support of a drug habit), Andy decides to escape to Brazil, believing there to exist no extradition treaty between Brazil and the United States. To raise the necessary funds for the trip and to establish himself once there, he hatches a scheme and enlists the aid of his brother, Hank (Ethan Hawke), himself in need of money to pay three months' back child support as well as his daughter's private school tuition. Hank, meanwhile, has been having a long-standing affair with Andy's wife, Gina (Marisa Tomei), who has been unsatisfied with her marriage.
1101006	Marcus Peter Francis du Sautoy, OBE (born 26 August 1965) is the Simonyi Professor for the Public Understanding of Science and a Professor of Mathematics at the University of Oxford. Formerly a Fellow of All Souls College, and Wadham College, he is now a Fellow of New College. He is President of the Mathematical Association. He was previously an EPSRC Senior Media Fellow and a Royal Society University Research Fellow. His academic work concerns mainly group theory and number theory. In October 2008, he was appointed to the Simonyi Professorship for the Public Understanding of Science, succeeding the inaugural holder Richard Dawkins. His surname is pronounced (). Life and career. Du Sautoy was born in London, grew up in Henley-on-Thames and was educated at local comprehensives Gillotts School and King James's College (VI Form, now Henley College) and Wadham College, Oxford, where he obtained first class honours in Mathematics. He went on to complete his DPhil in mathematics. He currently lives in London with his wife and three children and plays football (No 17 for Recreativo Hackney FC) and the trumpet. In March 2006, his article "Prime Numbers Get Hitched" was published by the online "Seed" magazine. In it he explained how the number 42, mentioned in "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" as the answer to everything, is related to the Riemann zeta function. He has also published an article in the scientific magazine "New Scientist". In December 2006, du Sautoy delivered the 2006 Royal Institution Christmas Lectures under the collective title "The Num8er My5teries". This was only the third time the subject of the lectures had been mathematics — on the first occasion in 1978, when the lecture was delivered by Erik Christopher Zeeman, du Sautoy had been a schoolboy in the audience. The venue for the 2006 Christmas Lectures was the Institution of Engineering and Technology's headquarters at Savoy Place, London. Du Sautoy is an atheist, but has stated that as holder of the Simonyi Chair for the Public Understanding of Science his focus is going to be "very much on the science and less on religion." He has described his own religion as being "Arsenal - football," as he sees religion as wanting to belong to a community. Du Sautoy is a supporter of Common Hope, an organisation that helps people in Guatemala. Popularisation of mathematics. He is known for his work popularising mathematics. He has been named by "The Independent on Sunday" as one of the UK's leading scientists. In 2001 he won the Berwick Prize of the London Mathematical Society, which is awarded every two years to reward the best mathematical research by a mathematician under forty. He writes for "The Times" and "The Guardian" and has appeared several times on BBC Radio 4 and on television. He presented the television programme, "Mind Games", on BBC Four. He has also written numerous academic articles and books on mathematics, the most recent being "The Num8er My5teries". Du Sautoy is also on the advisory board of Mangahigh.com - an online maths game website and has appeared on Channel 4 News and on BBC Radio 4's "Today" programme promoting the service and is a regular contributor to the same network's "In Our Time". He also appears on the TV series "School of Hard Sums" with Dara Ó Briain, where he sets three mathematical questions with a real world application, for Dara O'Briain and a guest to solve, using mathematical and experimentation methods respectively. Personal life. Du Sautoy was a post-doc at the Hebrew University. It was there he met his Israeli wife Shani. They have three children, a son called Tomer and adopted twin daughters Magaly and Ina, who are being raised Jewish. Awards and honours. Du Sautoy was awarded the Berwick Prize in 2001 by the London Mathematical Society for the publication of outstanding mathematical research. In 2009 he won the Michael Faraday Prize from the Royal Society of London for "excellence in communicating science to UK audiences". Du Sautoy was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2010 New Year Honours "for services to Science". In 2012 he became a fellow of the American Mathematical Society.
1166143	Dane Jeffrey Cook (born March 18, 1972) is an American stand-up comedian and film actor. He has released five comedy albums: "Harmful If Swallowed"; "Retaliation"; '; '; and "Isolated Incident". In 2006, "Retaliation" became the highest charting comedy album in 28 years and went platinum. He performed an HBO special in the Fall of 2006, "Vicious Circle", a straight-to-DVD special titled "Rough Around The Edges" (which is included in the album of the same name), and a Comedy Central special in 2009 titled "Isolated Incident". He is credited as one of the first comedians to use a personal webpage and MySpace to build a large fan base and in 2006 was described as "alarmingly popular". As an actor, Cook has appeared in films since 1997, including "Mystery Men", "Waiting...", "Employee of the Month", "Good Luck Chuck", "Dan in Real Life", "Mr. Brooks", and "My Best Friend's Girl". He also provided the lead voice role in the 2013 family film "Planes". Personal life. Cook was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the second son of Donna Jean (née Ford) and George F. Cook. Cook has an older half-brother, Darryl, and five sisters. He grew up in a Roman Catholic family, and has Irish ancestry. Cook was raised in Arlington, Massachusetts, where he attended Arlington High School. Cook has described himself as being "pretty quiet, pretty introverted, shy" as a child, although he was a "wild child" at home. He overcame his shyness in his junior year of high school when he began acting and doing stand-up comedy. After graduating from high school, he studied graphic design in college as a back-up plan in case he did not achieve success in comedy. He now designs all of his merchandise, including the cover of his album "Harmful If Swallowed". Cook has stated that he does not drink nor do drugs. Cook's half-brother Darryl was Cook's business manager until 2008, when it was discovered that Darryl and his wife had embezzled millions of dollars from Dane Cook. Both Darryl and his wife have been sentenced to prison for the embezzlement. Career. Stand-up. In 1994, Cook moved to New York City and began performing. Two years later, he moved to Los Angeles, where he still lives today. His big break came in 1998 when he appeared on Comedy Central's "Premium Blend". In 2000, Cook did a half-hour special on "Comedy Central Presents". Since then his special has won the Comedy Central Stand-up showdown twice in a row. In 2003, Cook released his first CD/DVD, "Harmful If Swallowed". He signed a contract with Comedy Central Records. The album is certified platinum. He released his second CD/DVD in 2005, entitled "Retaliation". This album went double platinum and made Cook the first comic in 29 years to have an album at #4 on the Billboard charts. He performed at the MTV Video Music Awards, and then afterwards he joined Snoop Dogg in presenting the award for Best New Artist. On April 15, 2005, Cook performed his first HBO Special entitled Vicious Circle. "" was filmed "in the round" at the TD Garden. The same year, Cook shot two pilot episodes for his own sitcom, "Cooked". The sitcom never got picked up and the two pilot episodes were later released on DVD as the Lost Pilot Episodes. That same year, he embarked on a 30-day 20-show college tour called Tourgasm with his long time friends Robert Kelly, Gary Gulman, and Jay Davis. The tour was filmed and was later made into a 9-episode documentary on HBO. On December 3, 2005, Cook hosted "Saturday Night Live". He would then go on to host the premiere of season 32 of SNL a year later. In 2006, Cook headlined for Dave Attell's Insomniac Tour and hosted the 2006 Teen Choice Awards alongside Jessica Simpson. The following year he won the award for Best Comedian. On November 12, 2007, Cook became the second comic to sell out Madison Square Garden. He did two sold out shows in one night. The show was filmed and would later be put onto a DVD to be sold on Cook's third comedy album. Cook won the Big Entertainer Award at the VH1 Big in '06 Awards, and "Rolling Stone" magazine's Hot Comic of the Year. The following day, November 13, 2007, he released his third CD/DVD entitled "Rough Around The Edges", which was filmed live at Madison Square Garden in New York City. During that time, he embarked on his first arena tour. On April 10, 2007, Cook broke The Laugh Factory's endurance record (previously held by Richard Pryor) by performing on stage for 3 hours and 50 minutes. Dave Chappelle would break the record five days later. On January 1, 2008, Cook later broke Chapelle's record, by performing on stage for 7 hours. From May 23, 2008 to May 25, 2008, Cook reunited with Robert Kelly and Al Del Bene for three shows at The Coliseum in Caesars Palace. From May 29, 2008, to June 4, 2008, the trio went to Iraq to perform for the troops. Del Bene was the Emcee, Kelly was the Feature, and Cook was the Headliner.
744451	Thuy Trang (, December 14, 1973 – September 3, 2001) was a Vietnamese American actress. She was best known for her role as Trini Kwan, the original Yellow Ranger in the "Mighty Morphin Power Rangers" television series. Trang died in a car accident on September 3, 2001, near San Francisco, California. Early life. Trang's father was a soldier in the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) and was tasked to protect the capital Saigon from the Communist Vietnam People's Army during the fall of Saigon in 1975. The Communist forces overcame his battalion, which was low on ammunition and air support, during a fierce battle. He decided to return home to retrieve his family, but the route was blocked by the North Vietnamese Army. Fearing for his life, he fled South Vietnam and was given political asylum by the United States. He vowed to bring his family to the United States and contact U.S. government officials to politically pressure the Communist government of the unified Vietnam. In 1975, when Trang was two years old, the rest of the family (Thuy, her mother, an older brother, an older sister and a younger brother) were forced to flee Saigon and in 1979 they secretly boarded a cargo ship along with hundreds of other persecuted Southern Vietnamese traveling to Hong Kong, with the ultimate aim of reaching the United States. Trang herself was very ill at the time and almost perished. Upon arrival in Hong Kong, Trang's father petitioned the U.S. government for political asylum for his family. After some time living in a Hong Kong detention camp, Trang and her family were reunited in Little Saigon, California in 1980. Unfortunately her father would die of cancer in 1992. Trang began to study kung fu at her fathers request, around the age of nine. Trang graduated from Banning High School and earned a scholarship to study civil engineering at the University of California, Irvine, planning to follow her father and older siblings into engineering. However, a chance run-in with an agent in Hollywood, while hanging out with friends, in 1992, sparked an interest in acting and changed her plans. Career. The agent represented Trang, which led to a commercial for the Church of Scientology (though Trang herself was believed to have been a Buddhist) and an acting class at UCI, in turn leading to Trang being spotted for a public service announcement on racism. Trang landed her first major role in 1993 when she landed the role of Trini, the Yellow Ranger, on the original cast of the TV series "Mighty Morphin Power Rangers". Trang was on the show for about one and a half seasons. She left the show along with Austin St. John and Walter Emanuel Jones, with whom she became very good friends, Austin declaring that she was like a sister and was replaced by Karan Ashley. She went on to play Kali, one of the lead villains in the 1996 movie, "". Earlier the same year, she also appeared in "Spy Hard" as a manicurist. However, she was incorrectly credited as a masseuse, her credit being somehow switched with Tara Leon, who played a masseuse in the same short scene. Trang also appeared in a video documentary alongside Austin St. John, called "The Encyclopaedia of Martial Arts" in 1995 as an interviewee and had cameos in "Austin St John's Martial Art's Video" and "Walter Jones Hip Hop Dance Video". Trang planned to do an Aerobics video of unknown name to go alongside them, though it is unknown what happened to it. She was set to appear in "Cyberstrike" alongside Austin St. John and Walter Jones, which never entered production. Death. According to a CNN interview with Angela Rockwood Nguyen in 2005, Trang died on September 3, 2001, near San Francisco, California after a car accident. She was only 27 years old. Trang and former actress/model Angela Rockwood-Nguyen, for whom Trang was to be a bridesmaid in her then-upcoming marriage to Dustin Nguyen, were passengers in a car traveling on Interstate 5 between San Francisco and Los Angeles. They were returning late at night from visiting Rockwood-Nguyen's maid of honor when the driver (another of the bridesmaids) of the vehicle she was riding in lost control. The car swerved violently across the road before hitting the roadside rock face and flipping several times before hitting the safety rail and plunging over the bank.
1061012	The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford is a 2007 American western drama film written and directed by Andrew Dominik. Adaptated from Ron Hansen's 1983 novel of the same name, the film dramatizes the relationship between James (Brad Pitt) and his killer, Ford (Casey Affleck). Filming took place in Edmonton, Alberta, Winnipeg, Manitoba, and Grafton, Utah. Initially intended for a 2006 release, it was postponed and re-edited for a September 21, 2007 release. Plot. Robert Ford (Casey Affleck) seeks out Jesse James (Brad Pitt) when the James gang is planning a train robbery in Blue Cut, Missouri, making petty, unsuccessful attempts to join the gang with the help of his brother Charley (Sam Rockwell), already a member of the James gang. The train turns out to be carrying only a fraction of the money originally thought, and Frank James (Sam Shepard) informs Charley Ford that the robbery would be the last the James brothers would commit, and that the gang had "gave up their nightridin' for good". Jesse returns home to Kansas City, bringing the Fords, Dick Liddil (Paul Schneider) and his cousin, Wood Hite (Jeremy Renner). Jesse sends Charley, Wood and Dick away, but insists that Bob stay, leading Bob to believe Jesse has taken a shine to him. It transpires that Jesse only required Bob to stay to assist him moving his furniture to a new home. Jesse then allows him to stay with the James family for a few extra days. Bob spends these days obsessing over Jesse, before being sent away to return to his sister's farmhouse and rejoin Wood, Dick and Charley. Dick Liddil reveals to Bob that he is in cahoots with another member of the James gang, Jim Cummins, to capture Jesse for a substantial bounty. Meanwhile, Jesse visits another gang member, Ed Miller (Garret Dillahunt), who unwittingly gives away information on Cummins' plot. Jesse kills Miller, then departs with Dick Liddil to hunt down Jim Cummins. Unable to locate Jim, Jesse viciously beats Albert Ford (Jesse Frechette), a young cousin of Bob and Charley. Dick returns to the Boltons' farmhouse, and is involved in a dispute with Wood Hite, ending in Wood's death at the hands of Robert Ford. Hite's body is dumped in the woods, in an effort to conceal this from Jesse. Jesse and Charley Ford travel to St. Joseph, Missouri, and Jesse learns of Wood's disappearance, which Charley denies knowing anything about. Meanwhile, Bob approaches Kansas City police commissioner, Henry Craig (Michael Parks), revealing that he has information regarding Jesse James's whereabouts. To prove his allegiance with the James gang, Bob urges Craig to arrest Dick Liddil. Following Dick's arrest, and subsequent confession to his involvement in numerous James gang robberies, Bob brokers a deal with the Governor of Missouri, Thomas T. Crittenden (James Carville), in which he is given 10 days to capture or kill Jesse James. After being persuaded by Charley, Jesse agrees to take Bob into the gang, and the Ford brothers travel to Jesse's home in St. Joseph, to stay with him, his wife Zee (Mary-Louise Parker), and their two children. Jesse plans numerous robberies with the Fords, beginning with the Platte City bank. On the morning of 3 April 1882, Jesse and the Ford brothers prepare to depart for the Platte City robbery. After reading the morning newspaper, Jesse learns of the arrest and confessions of Dick Liddil. The Fords excuse themselves into the living room, and put on their gun holsters. Jesse removes his own gun belt, lest he look suspicious to the neighbours, and climbs a chair to clean a dusty picture. Robert Ford shoots Jesse James in the back of the head, and the Ford brothers flee the James household, sending a telegram to the Governor to announce Jesse's killing, for which they receive $10,000. After the assassination, the Fords become celebrities with a theater show in Manhattan, re-enacting the assassination with Bob playing himself, and Charley as Jesse James. Guilt-stricken, Charley pens numerous letters to Zee James asking for her forgiveness, none of which he mails. Overwhelmed with despair, Charles Ford commits suicide in May 1884. On June 8, 1892, Bob is sought out and murdered by a man named Edward O'Kelley (Michael Copeman), while working as a saloonkeeper in Creede, Colorado. O'Kelley is later pardoned for the killing. Cast. The film is narrated by Hugh Ross. Production. In March 2004, Warner Bros. and Plan B Entertainment acquired feature film rights to Hansen's 1983 novel "The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford". Andrew Dominik was hired to direct and write the film adaptation, with Pitt being eyed to portray Jesse James. The role of Ford eventually was between Affleck and Shia LaBeouf; Affleck was cast because it was felt that LaBeouf was too young. Bill Clinton's presidential campaign strategist James Carville was selected to play the Governor of Missouri. By January 2005, Pitt was cast in the role, and filming began on August 29, 2005 in Calgary. Filming also took place in other parts of Alberta, including McKinnon Flats, Heritage Park, the Fairmont Palliser Hotel, the Kananaskis area, several private ranches and the historical Fort Edmonton Park. The historical town of Creede, Colorado was recreated at a cost of $1 million near Goat Creek in Alberta. Filming also took place in Winnipeg in the city's historic Exchange District; the Burton Cummings Theatre (formerly known as The Walker Theatre) and the Pantages Playhouse Theatre, and concluded in December 2005. "The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford" was initially edited by director Dominik to be "a dark, contemplative examination of fame and infamy," similar to the style of director Terrence Malick. The studio opposed Dominik's approach, preferring less contemplation and more action. One version of the film had a running time of more than three hours. Pitt and Ridley Scott, producers of the film, and editors Dylan Tichenor (who left the production early to cut "There Will Be Blood", and was replaced with editor Curtis Clayton, who ultimately finished the production) and Michael Kahn (who was brought in for several weeks as the studio's "go to" editor), collaborated to assemble and test different versions, which did not receive strong scores from test audiences. Despite the negative response, the audiences considered the performances by Pitt and Affleck to be some of their careers' best. Brad Pitt had it written into his contract that the studio could not change the name of the film. Cinematography. One of the most well-known sequences of the film is the scene of a train robbery at night time. Cinematographer Roger Deakins used various cinematographic techniques to give the train more of a presence when it was in pitch darkness. The idea was to generate a heavy sense of atmosphere using only the lanterns held up by the outlaws and the 5K PAR light mounted on the front of the train.
751887	Shottas is a 2002 Jamaican crime film about two young men who participate in organized crime in Kingston, Jamaica and Miami, Florida. It stars Kymani Marley, Spragga Benz, Paul Campbell and Louie Rankin and was written and directed by Cess Silvera. Despite its low budget, the distribution of an unfinished bootleg made it a cult favourite long before its official limited release in the United States by Triumph Films and Destination Films in 2006. Plot. The film tells the story of two young men, Biggs (Errol) (Kymani Marley) and Wayne (Spragga Benz), who grow up together in the tough and dangerous streets of (Waterhouse)Kingston. They rob a soda truck and shoot the truck driver while they are still children.
719534	Adrianne Palicki (born May 6, 1983) is an American actress best known for her roles in "Legion" (2010), "Red Dawn" (2012) and in the TV series "Friday Night Lights" (2006–2011). In 2013, she played Lady Jaye in "". Early life. Palicki was born in Toledo, Ohio, the daughter of Nancy (née French) and Jeffrey Palicki. She has an older brother, Eric, a comic book writer, who influenced her interest in comics. Her father is of Polish and Hungarian descent. She graduated from Whitmer High School in Toledo in 2001. She ran track in high school and was named runner-up for homecoming queen. Career. Palicki appeared in The WB pilot "Aquaman" as the evil Nadia. The pilot was not picked up for series by the CW network, a result of The WB and UPN network merger, which occurred while the pilot was being filmed. She also appeared as Kara/Lindsey Harrison in the Season 3 finale of "Smallville". She was a series regular on the first three seasons of NBC's drama series "Friday Night Lights", portraying Tyra Collette. In early 2011, she returned for the final two episodes of the series. Palicki also starred in "Supernatural" as Jessica Moore, Sam Winchester's doomed girlfriend who is killed by a demon in its pilot episode. The character reappears in the "Supernatural" Season 2 episode, "What Is and What Should Never Be", and the Season 5 episode "Free To Be You and Me." Palicki also appeared as Judy Robinson in John Woo's unsold pilot, "The Robinsons: Lost in Space". Palicki starred in "Legion" opposite Lucas Black. She made an appearance in the will.i.am music video "We Are The Ones" in support of 2008 presidential hopeful Barack Obama. She was cast as Toni Mason in "Red Dawn", the 2012 remake of the 1980s film "Red Dawn". Although initially signed on to star in the Jamie Babbit horror film "Breaking the Girl", due to delays in filming and production, and then scheduling conflicts, Palicki does not appear in the film. In 2010, Palicki joined the FOX television drama "Lone Star", which was cancelled after two episodes, despite good reviews. In 2011, Palicki portrayed Wonder Woman in a 2011 pilot produced by David E. Kelley for NBC. The pilot was not picked up by NBC as a series. Palicki co-starred in the film "" (2013), in the lead female role of Lady Jaye.
1043037	Muriel Lilian Pavlow (born 27 June 1921) is a British actress. Her mother was French and her father was Russian. Film career. She began work as a child actress with John Gielgud and the Royal Shakespeare Company. During the war, she was in ENSA and also made the crossover from theatre to screen. Pavlow's roles include the Maltese girl Maria in "Malta Story" (1953), where she played alongside Alec Guinness; Joy, the girlfriend of Simon Sparrow, in "Doctor in the House" (1954); Thelma Bader, the wife of World War II fighter pilot Douglas Bader (played by fellow "Doctor in the House" cast member Kenneth More) in "Reach for the Sky" (1956); and the daughter of an irascible curmudgeon (played by fellow "Doctor in the House" cast member, James Robertson Justice) in "Murder, She Said" (1961). She made numerous TV appearances over the next 45 years, and most recently, she appeared in the television drama "The Final Cut", part 3 of the House of Cards political trilogy lobbying the Prime Minister as an Age Concern campaigner, the serial "Belonging" (2004), starring Brenda Blethyn, and was interviewed for the documentary series on BBC 2, "British Film Forever". In 2007, she guest-starred in the audio play "Sapphire and Steel: Cruel Immortality" and had a cameo in the film "Glorious 39" in 2009. Personal life. She was married to the actor Derek Farr from 1947 until his death in 1986. They met in 1941 during the shooting of "Quiet Wedding" and again at the set of "The Shop at Sly Corner" in 1947. They continued to play together on stage and in films. They had no children. Pavlow was inducted into the actors' care home and charity, Denville Hall, and was active on its management committee.
898597	The First Grader is a 2010 biographical drama film directed by Justin Chadwick, starring Naomie Harris, Oliver Litondo, and Tony Kgoroge, and based on the true story of Kimani Maruge, a Kenyan man who enrolled in elementary education at the age of 84 after the Kenyan government announced universal and free elementary education in 2003.
1161456	Connie Sellecca (born May 25, 1955) is an American actress and former model, best known for her roles on the television series "The Greatest American Hero" and "Hotel", for which she was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Television Series Drama in 1987. Early life. She was born Concetta Sellecchia in The Bronx, New York, New York to Italian parents. At age twelve, she moved to Pomona, New York and attended Pomona Junior High School. While attending Ramapo High School in Spring Valley, she first became interested in the performing arts. Although she matriculated at Boston College, she withdrew to pursue a career in acting. Career. Sellecca first worked as a fashion model before her acting debut in the film "The Bermuda Depths" in 1978, followed by "", a TV movie starring Christopher Lee and Lana Wood. She then starred in a CBS comedy "Flying High", about an airline then as lawyer Pam Davidson on "The Greatest American Hero", the girlfriend and foil to the main character. After "Hero" ended, she was released from her contract in time to audition for the part of promotions manager Christine Francis on the television drama "Hotel", opposite James Brolin. She played this role from 1983 to 1988.
1051543	Korkoro ("Alone" in the Romani language) is a 2009 French drama film written and directed by Tony Gatlif, starring French actors Marc Lavoine, Marie-Josée Croze and James Thiérrée. The film's cast were of many nationalities such as Albanian, Kosovar, Georgian, Serbian, French, Norwegian, and the nine Romanies Gatlif found in Transylvania.
393382	D.C. Sniper is a 2010 American direct-to-video drama-thriller film directed by Ulli Lommel and written by Lommel and Ken Foree. It stars Ken Foree, Christopher Kriesa and Maria Ochoa. Plot. The film tells over the Beltway sniper attacks the crimes of John Allen Muhammad and Lee Malvo. A mysterious sniper shocks the Washington D.C. district and kills ordinary people, one after the other in the night. Release. The film was released as direct-to-video project on 16 March 2010.
1064567	Candace June "Candy" Clark (born June 20, 1947 in Fort Worth, Texas where she attended Green B. Trimble Technical High School ) is an American film and television actress, well known for her role as Debbie Dunham in the 1973 film "American Graffiti", which garnered her an Academy Award nomination as Best Supporting Actress, a character she reprised in 1979 for the sequel "More American Graffiti". She was also known for her role as Francine Hewitt in "The Blob" (1988). Her other well-known films are "The Man Who Fell to Earth" (1976), "The Big Sleep" (1978), "Blue Thunder" (1983), "Cat's Eye" (1985) and "At Close Range" (1986). Clark has made guest appearances on television series including "Magnum, P.I.", "Banacek", "Simon & Simon", "Matlock", "Baywatch Nights" and "Criminal Minds". Clark was born in Fort Worth, Texas, the daughter of Ella (née Padberg) and Thomas Clark, a chef. She dated Jeff Bridges, whom she met on the set of "Fat City", for several years. She was married to Marjoe Gortner from 1978-1979. She married Jeff Wald in 1987, and divorced him in 1988. As of 2007, she attended many hot rod shows, and enjoys gardening, collecting antiques, and trading memorabilia on eBay. Clark appears in the 2009 film "The Informant!" as the mother of Mark Whitacre, played by Matt Damon. In 2011, Clark went to Berlin to work on the play "Images of Louise Brooks" directed by Sven Mundt.
1064026	Gedde Watanabe (born Gary Watanabe; June 26, 1955) is an American theatre, film, television, and video game actor and voice actor. Early life. Watanabe was born in Ogden, Utah. He was in several dramatic productions in high school, both acting and singing. After graduation, Watanabe left Ogden for San Francisco, where he hoped to make his living as a street musician while honing his acting skills. Career. In 1976, Watanabe's first role was as a member of the original Broadway cast of "Pacific Overtures," originating the roles of Priest, Girl, and The Boy. He has since appeared in a number of films and television series, the first of which was "The Long Island Four" in 1980. He had a starring role in both the film "Gung Ho" and its television spinoff. In the 1989 movie "UHF" starring "Weird Al" Yankovic, Watanabe co-starred as Kuni, a karate instructor and abusive host of a TV game show called "Wheel of Fish". He later reprised this role on the "Weird Al Show". Watanabe appeared on "Sesame Street" from 1988 to 1991 as Hiroshi and had a recurring role as gay nurse Yoshi Takata on the television drama "ER" from 1998 to 2002. During the nineties, Watanabe provided the voice for various Japanese characters on the animated television comedy "The Simpsons". In 1998 he provided the voice for Ling in the Disney animated film "Mulan". He later reprised this role for the 2004 direct-to-video sequel, "Mulan II" and the 2005 video game "Kingdom Hearts II". Many of Watanabe's characters are caricatured East Asians with heavy accents, though he does not speak Japanese himself. Jason Buchanan wrote for "Allmovie", "The character that Gedde Watanabe is most remembered for is Long Duk Dong, the clumsy foreign exchange student in "Sixteen Candles"," a role decried by some Asian-American groups as "stereotypical, racist and part of a long history of Hollywood's offensive depictions of Asian men." "I was making people laugh. I didn't realize how it was going to affect people," Watanabe said in 2008. "It took me a while to understand that. In fact, I was working at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and I was accosted a couple of times by a couple of women who were just really irate and angry. They asked, 'How could you do a role like that?' But it's funny, too, because at the same time I laugh at the character. It's an odd animal."
1061008	Jeremy Samuel Piven (born July 26, 1965) is an American film producer and actor best known for his role as Ari Gold in the television series "Entourage" for which he has won one Golden Globe Award and three consecutive Emmy Awards as well as several other nominations for Best Supporting Actor. Early years. Piven was born in Manhattan, New York City, and grew up in Evanston, Illinois, a suburb north of Chicago. He was raised in a Reconstructionist Jewish household. He graduated from Evanston Township High School, and attended Harand Theater Camp in Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin, as a teenager. He played the part of "Bernardo" in "West Side Story" there. In Illinois, he trained at Piven Theatre Workshop, founded by his parents, Byrne Piven and Joyce Hiller Piven (née Goldstein), both of whom were actors and drama teachers. He also attended Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa where he earned a degree in theatre, and is a member of the Pi Kappa Alpha Fraternity. He spent a semester at the National Theater Institute in Waterford, Connecticut. He has appeared in a number of films with John Cusack, who is also from Evanston and is a fellow alumnus of the Piven Theatre Workshop (as are Cusack's sisters Joan and Ann). Piven and Cusack once shared an apartment and have been friends since high school. Career. Piven's first important role came in 1992 when he became a regular cast member on HBO's "The Larry Sanders Show," in which he played the head writer Jerry. In 1993, he portrayed George Costanza on the show-within-a-show scene in the "Seinfeld" episode, "The Pilot". Piven has appeared in several successful films, including "Lucas", "Grosse Pointe Blank", "Singles", "Very Bad Things", "The Family Man", "Black Hawk Down", "The Kingdom", "Heat", "PCU", "Old School", "Rock N Rolla", "Serendipity", "Smokin' Aces", and "Runaway Jury". He has also made cameo appearances in "Rush Hour 2" and the US release of "Cars" and God Made Velcro's 1998 music video "Shock the Mind". Beginning in 2004, Piven scored a significant success playing a fast-talking, acerbic Hollywood agent Ari Gold in the HBO series "Entourage". He received "Emmy" nominations for best supporting actor four straight years from 2005 to 2008, and won the award in 2006, 2007, and 2008. 2009 was the first year in which he did not receive an Emmy Award nomination for his work on "Entourage". Piven was also the star and producer of the short-lived ABC dramedy series "Cupid", and was a supporting cast member on the last three seasons of the sitcom "Ellen". He played the part of Ellen's cousin, Spence. He also voiced Elongated Man in three episodes of "Justice League Unlimited". In 2007, Piven appeared in the video for "Drivin' Me Wild", the third single taken from rapper Common's seventh album "Finding Forever". The two were co-stars in "Smokin' Aces", and appeared together when Piven hosted "SNL" in January 2007. Piven appeared in the first Broadway revival of David Mamet's "Speed-the-Plow", co-starring "Mad Men" star Elisabeth Moss and three-time Tony nominee Raul Esparza. The production began preview performances on October 3, 2008, and opened on October 23, 2008; the play was due to run through February 22, 2009. After Piven missed several performances, on December 17, 2008, Piven's rep announced that due to an undisclosed illness, Piven would be ending his run in the play effective immediately. The illness was revealed to be hydrargaria, a disease caused by exposure to mercury or its compounds, though the source is unknown. Rumours have indicated that the high level of mercury could potentially have been caused by Piven's habit of consuming fish twice a day for the past 20 years. An alternative explanation is that the herbal remedies Piven was taking were responsible for his high levels of mercury. Mamet joked that Piven was leaving the play "to pursue a career as a thermometer." On September 1, 2009, Piven, in a guest appearance on "Late Show with David Letterman", explained that he had given up red meat and poultry, and had been getting all of his protein from fish for the past 20 years. William H. Macy and Norbert Leo Butz replaced Piven in the Broadway show. In August 2011, Piven stated he was interested in portraying the late drummer from The Who, Keith Moon. In 2013 he played the title role in the British television drama series "Mr Selfridge", the story of the London department store Selfridges. The show airs on the ITV network in the United Kingdom and PBS in the United States. Personal life. Piven was born to Jewish parents (of Russian origin) and considers himself a Jewish Buddhist. He starred in the Travel Channel special "Jeremy Piven's Journey of a Lifetime" detailing his journey across India. Piven resides in Malibu, California. He is also a knowledgeable fight fan and was recently ringside for Derreck Chisora's sixth round knockout over the previously unbeaten American Heavyweight Malik Scott.
1101961	Christian Felix Klein (25 April 1849 – 22 June 1925) was a German mathematician, known for his work in group theory, complex analysis, non-Euclidean geometry, and on the connections between geometry and group theory. His 1872 Erlangen Program, classifying geometries by their underlying symmetry groups, was a hugely influential synthesis of much of the mathematics of the day. Life. Klein was born in Düsseldorf, to Prussian parents; his father, Caspar Klein, was a Prussian government official's secretary stationed in the Rhine Province. Klein's mother was Sophie Elise Klein. He attended the Gymnasium in Düsseldorf, then studied mathematics and physics at the University of Bonn, 1865–1866, intending to become a physicist. At that time, Julius Plücker held Bonn's chair of mathematics and experimental physics, but by the time Klein became his assistant, in 1866, Plücker's interest was geometry. Klein received his doctorate, supervised by Plücker, from the University of Bonn in 1868. Plücker died in 1868, leaving his book on the foundations of line geometry incomplete. Klein was the obvious person to complete the second part of Plücker's "Neue Geometrie des Raumes", and thus became acquainted with Alfred Clebsch, who had moved to Göttingen in 1868. Klein visited Clebsch the following year, along with visits to Berlin and Paris. In July 1870, at the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War, he was in Paris and had to leave the country. For a short time, he served as a medical orderly in the Prussian army before being appointed lecturer at Göttingen in early 1871. Erlangen appointed Klein professor in 1872, when he was only 23. In this, he was strongly supported by Clebsch, who regarded him as likely to become the leading mathematician of his day. Klein did not build a school at Erlangen where there were few students, and so he was pleased to be offered a chair at Munich's Technische Hochschule in 1875. There he and Alexander von Brill taught advanced courses to many excellent students, including, Adolf Hurwitz, Walther von Dyck, Karl Rohn, Carl Runge, Max Planck, Luigi Bianchi, and Gregorio Ricci-Curbastro. In 1875 Klein married Anne Hegel, the granddaughter of the philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. After five years at the Technische Hochschule, Klein was appointed to a chair of geometry at Leipzig. There his colleagues included Walther von Dyck, Rohn, Eduard Study and Friedrich Engel. Klein's years at Leipzig, 1880 to 1886, fundamentally changed his life. In 1882, his health collapsed; in 1883–1884, he was plagued by depression. Nonetheless his research continued; his seminal work on hyperelliptic sigma functions dates from around this period, being published in 1886 and 1888. Klein accepted a chair at the University of Göttingen in 1886. From then until his 1913 retirement, he sought to re-establish Göttingen as the world's leading mathematics research center. Yet he never managed to transfer from Leipzig to Göttingen his own role as the leader of a school of geometry. At Göttingen, he taught a variety of courses, mainly on the interface between mathematics and physics, such as mechanics and potential theory. The research center Klein established at Göttingen served as a model for the best such centers throughout the world. He introduced weekly discussion meetings, and created a mathematical reading room and library. In 1895, Klein hired David Hilbert away from Königsberg; this appointment proved fateful, because Hilbert continued Göttingen's glory until his own retirement in 1932. Under Klein's editorship, "Mathematische Annalen" became one of the very best mathematics journals in the world. Founded by Clebsch, only under Klein's management did it first rival then surpass "Crelle's Journal" based out of the University of Berlin. Klein set up a small team of editors who met regularly, making democratic decisions. The journal specialized in complex analysis, algebraic geometry, and invariant theory (at least until Hilbert killed the subject). It also provided an important outlet for real analysis and the new group theory. Thanks in part to Klein's efforts, Göttingen began admitting women in 1893. He supervised the first Ph.D. thesis in mathematics written at Göttingen by a woman; she was Grace Chisholm Young, an English student of Arthur Cayley's, whom Klein admired. Around 1900, Klein began to take an interest in mathematical instruction in schools. In 1905, he played a decisive role in formulating a plan recommending that the rudiments of differential and integral calculus and the function concept be taught in secondary schools. This recommendation was gradually implemented in many countries around the world. In 1908, Klein was elected chairman of the International Commission on Mathematical Instruction at the Rome International Congress of Mathematicians. Under his guidance, the German branch of the Commission published many volumes on the teaching of mathematics at all levels in Germany. The London Mathematical Society awarded Klein its De Morgan Medal in 1893. He was elected a member of the Royal Society in 1885, and was awarded its Copley medal in 1912. He retired the following year due to ill health, but continued to teach mathematics at his home for some years more. Klein bore the title of Geheimrat. He died in Göttingen in 1925. Work. Klein's dissertation, on line geometry and its applications to mechanics, classified second degree line complexes using Weierstrass's theory of elementary divisors. Klein's first important mathematical discoveries were made in 1870. In collaboration with Sophus Lie, he discovered the fundamental properties of the asymptotic lines on the Kummer surface. They went on to investigate W-curves, curves invariant under a group of projective transformations. It was Lie who introduced Klein to the concept of group, which was to play a major role in his later work. Klein also learned about groups from Camille Jordan. Klein devised the bottle named after him, a one-sided closed surface which cannot be embedded in three-dimensional Euclidean space, but it may be immersed as a cylinder looped back through itself to join with its other end from the "inside". It may be embedded in Euclidean space of dimensions 4 and higher. In the 1890s, Klein turned to mathematical physics, a subject from which he had never strayed far, writing on the gyroscope with Arnold Sommerfeld. In 1894 he launched the idea of an encyclopedia of mathematics including its applications, which became the Encyklopädie der mathematischen Wissenschaften. This enterprise, which ran until 1935, provided an important standard reference of enduring value. Erlangen Program. In 1871, while at Göttingen, Klein made major discoveries in geometry. He published two papers "On the So-called Non-Euclidean Geometry" showing that Euclidean and non-Euclidean geometries could be considered special cases of a projective surface with a specific conic section adjoined. This had the remarkable corollary that non-Euclidean geometry was consistent if and only if Euclidean geometry was, putting Euclidean and non-Euclidean geometries on the same footing, and ending all controversy surrounding non-Euclidean geometry. Cayley never accepted Klein's argument, believing it to be circular. Klein's synthesis of geometry as the study of the properties of a space that is invariant under a given group of transformations, known as the "Erlangen Program" (1872), profoundly influenced the evolution of mathematics. This program was set out in Klein's inaugural lecture as professor at Erlangen, although it was not the actual speech he gave on the occasion. The "Program" proposed a unified approach to geometry that became (and remains) the accepted view. Klein showed how the essential properties of a given geometry could be represented by the group of transformations that preserve those properties. Thus the "Program"'s definition of geometry encompassed both Euclidean and non-Euclidean geometry. Today the significance of Klein's contributions to geometry is more than evident, but not because those contributions are now seen as strange or wrong. On the contrary, those contributions have become so much a part of our present mathematical thinking that it is hard for us to appreciate their novelty, and the way in which they were not immediately accepted by all his contemporaries. Function theory. Klein saw his work on function theory as his major contribution to mathematics, specifically his work on: Klein showed that the modular group moves the fundamental region of the complex plane so as to tessellate that plane. In 1879, he looked at the action of PSL(2,7), thought of as an image of the modular group, and obtained an explicit representation of a Riemann surface today called the Klein quartic. He showed that that surface was a curve in projective space, that its equation was "x"3"y" + "y"3"z" + "z"3"x" = 0, and that its group of symmetries was PSL(2,7) of order 168. His "Ueber Riemann's Theorie der algebraischen Funktionen und ihre Integrale" (1882) treats function theory in a geometric way, connecting potential theory and conformal mappings. This work drew on notions from fluid dynamics. Klein considered equations of degree > 4, and was especially interested in using transcendental methods to solve the general equation of the fifth degree. Building on the methods of Hermite and Kronecker, he produced similar results to those of Brioschi and went on to completely solve the problem by means of the icosahedral group. This work led him to write a series of papers on elliptic modular functions. In his 1884 book on the icosahedron, Klein set out a theory of automorphic functions, connecting algebra and geometry. However Poincaré published an outline of his theory of automorphic functions in 1881, which led to a friendly rivalry between the two men. Both sought to state and prove a grand uniformization theorem that would serve as a capstone to the emerging theory. Klein succeeded in formulating such a theorem and in sketching a strategy for proving it. But while doing this work his health collapsed, as mentioned above. Klein summarized his work on automorphic and elliptic modular functions in a four volume treatise, written with Robert Fricke over a period of about 20 years. Bibliography. Primary: Secondary
394178	Yoo Ji-tae (born April 13, 1976) is a South Korean actor and director. After a stint as a fashion model, Yoo launched his acting career in 1998 then rose to fame through the films "Attack the Gas Station" (1999) and "Ditto" (2000). In the succeeding years, he gained acting recognition by working with acclaimed directors such as Hur Jin-ho in "One Fine Spring Day" (2001), Park Chan-wook in "Oldboy" (2003), and Hong Sang-soo in "Woman is the Future of Man" (2004). Yoo began directing short films in 2003, which were well received in the film festival circuit. His feature directorial debut "Mai Ratima" was released in 2013. Career. Yoo Ji-tae began his career as a fashion model, and he walked the runway for the Seoul Fashion Artist Association collections in 1995. Then in 2000, with a series of hit films and widely seen TV appearances, Yoo was more constantly in the limelight than any other actor, and in a very short time, rose to become a major actor in Korean film. His first brush with fame came in the role of "Paint" in his second feature, the 1999 hit "Attack the Gas Station". His sensitive and artistic image in this film and the warm character he displayed as a guest on TV talk shows helped to propel him to stardom. With the surprise success of his third film "Ditto" in spring 2000, Yoo's star status was secured. He also appeared in the successful firefighting film "Libera Me". In this early part of his career, he was known particularly for the wild colors that he would dye his hair (white in "Attack the Gas Station", blue in "Ditto", blonde in "Libera Me"). In 2001, however, he dyed his hair black and took on a more subdued, serious role in Hur Jin-ho's "One Fine Spring Day". Although it wasn't a big hit with audiences, his performance in this film opened many critics' eyes and drew widespread praise, while officially launching the second stage of his career. For the next two years, Yoo didn't appear in any new films, because "Natural City" took an unusually long time to progress from shooting to a commercial release. He then appeared in three works in 2003: "Natural City" (which bombed, despite its big budget and special effects), the horror/suspense film "Into the Mirror", and Park Chan-wook's acclaimed "Oldboy". Yoo's memorable role in the latter film as a wealthy eccentric fixated on revenge would make his face well known to international audiences. As Yoo's career established itself he began to appear in many high-profile projects, such as in well-known arthouse director Hong Sang-soo's "Woman is the Future of Man" (which, like "Oldboy", screened at Cannes in 2004); Yim Pil-sung's big-budget "Antarctic Journal", shot in New Zealand; and the action/noir "Running Wild" with Kwon Sang-woo. He also established his own production company Yoo Movie in 2005. As soon as he finished shooting the 2007 period film "Hwang Jin-yi" about a Joseon-era gisaeng, Yoo chose to act in the play "Come to the Ghost House". A graduate of Dankook University with a major in Theater and Film, he also established a theater to put on one play a year. Almost all the money for the theatrical productions comes from his own wallet. "I work on stage because it's there that I find the challenge and the stimulus an actor needs through continuous creative work," he said.
582192	Hum Tum Aur Ghost (earlier titled as Kaun Bola?! ) is an Bollywood comedy film directed by Kabeer Kaushik and produced by Arshad Warsi, starring Arshad Warsi and Dia Mirza in the lead roles. This unofficial remake of Ghost Town (film) was Filmed in Newcastle upon Tyne, England, the film was released on 26 March 2010. Plot. In the world of Armaan (Arshad Warsi) and his girlfriend Gehna (Dia Mirza), life is truly beautiful, yet it's like walking on a tightrope. For Armaan, a debonair fashion photographer who is a charmer to the core and loved by all around him, life only gets better when he dates Gehna, a high-profile fashion magazine editor. Life is picture perfect and mash; a doting girlfriend and a job where his expertise makes him the most-wanted photographer in the London fashion world! Armaan has learnt that his chronic insomnia is, however, not a function of any sleeping disorder. The truth is that he hears voices; voices that torture him; voices that are disturbing him. More importantly, voices that nobody else can hear! Life is less than picture perfect now! While his friends sympathize with his problems, his girlfriend Gehna is irritated with his weird behavior. Add to that her father Sinha (Javed Sheikh) constantly berates him for his fondness for the bottle. No one seems to understand his predicament. What puzzles them is that he talks to himself… or, rather, he talks to people who no one can see simply because they don't live. Soon, Armaan becomes aware of his special ability to connect with the souls that haven't crossed over. Equipped with a will to fulfill the wishes of these spirits who hound him, Armaan sets out on a mission to help out two souls — an old man, Mr. Virender Kapoor (Boman Irani), and a young woman, Carol (Zehra Naqvi). In this ensuing journey, Armaan discovers the lives of his two special companions and ends up frustrating Gehna. Yet, Armaan is on a journey where he discovers a lot about his own self and his own life.
1164249	William Clement Frawley (February 26, 1887 – March 3, 1966) was an American stage entertainer, screen and television actor. Although Frawley acted in over 100 films, he is best known for his television work, playing landlord Fred Mertz in the long-running situation comedy "I Love Lucy" and "Bub" in another TV comedy series, "My Three Sons". Early life. William was born to Michael A. Frawley and Mary E. Brady in Burlington, Iowa. As a young boy, Bill (as he was commonly called) attended Roman Catholic school and sang with the St. Paul's Church choir. As he got older, he loved playing bit roles in local theater productions, as well as performing in amateur shows. However, his mother, a religious woman, discouraged the idea. William did two years of office work at Union Pacific Railroad in Omaha, Nebraska. He later relocated to Chicago and found a job as a court reporter. Soon thereafter, against his mother's wishes, Frawley obtained a singing part in the musical comedy "The Flirting Princess". To appease his mother, Bill relocated to St. Louis, Missouri, to work for another railroad company. Unhappy with his railroad job, Frawley longed to be an actor. He finally decided he couldn't resist and formed a vaudeville act with his younger brother, Paul. Six months later, Frawley's mother told Paul to return to Iowa. It was during this period that William Frawley wrote a script titled, "Fun in a Vaudeville Agency". He earned more than five hundred dollars for his efforts. After this, he decided to relocate to the West, settling in Denver, Colorado. Frawley was hired as a singer at a café and teamed with pianist Franz Rath. The two men relocated to San Francisco with their act, "A Man, a Piano, and a Nut." During his vaudeville career, Frawley introduced and helped popularize the songs, "My Mammy," "My Melancholy Baby" and "Carolina in the Morning." In 1958, he recorded many of his old stage songs on the LP, "Bill Frawley Sings the Old Ones". In 1965, he performed for the CBS-TV show "I've Got A Secret", where he sang, "My Melancholy Baby," to the panel after revealing his secret (that he first introduced this famous song). Early career. Frawley began performing in Broadway theater. His first such show was the musical comedy, "Merry, Merry", in 1925. Frawley made his first dramatic role in 1932, playing press agent Owen O’Malley in the original production of Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur's "Twentieth Century". He continued to be a dramatic actor at various locales until 1933. In 1916, Frawley had appeared in two short subject silent films. He performed subsequently in three other short films, but it wasn’t until 1933 that he decided to develop a cinematic career, beginning with short comedy films, and the feature musical "Moonlight and Pretzels" (Universal Studios, 1933). He relocated to Los Angeles and signed a seven-year contract with Paramount Pictures. Finding much work as a character actor, he had roles in many different genres of films — comedies, dramas, musicals, westerns and romances. Frawley had a notable performance in the 1947 holiday favorite, "Miracle on 34th Street", as Judge Harper's political adviser (who warns his client in great detail of the dire political consequences if he rules that there is not any Santa Claus). Some of his other memorable film roles were as the baseball manager in Joe E. Brown's "Elmer, the Great" (1933), and as the wedding host in Charlie Chaplin's "Monsieur Verdoux" (1947). Television. "I Love Lucy". By 1951 the 64-year-old Frawley had appeared in over 100 movies but was starting to find film role offers becoming fewer. When he heard that Desi Arnaz and Lucille Ball were casting a new television situation comedy, he applied eagerly to play the role of the cantankerous, miserly landlord Fred Mertz. Actress Bea Benaderet, a friend of Lucille Ball, was the first choice to play the character of Ethel Mertz. Benaderet was unavailable, however, owing to a prior commitment. One evening, Frawley telephoned Lucille Ball, asking her what his chances were. Ball was surprised to hear from him — a man she barely knew. Both Ball and Arnaz agreed that it would be great to have Frawley, a motion picture veteran, appear as Fred Mertz. Less enthusiastic were CBS executives, who warned of Bill's frequent drinking and instability. Arnaz immediately told Frawley about the network's concerns, telling him that if he was late to work, arrived drunk, or was unable to perform because of something other than legitimate illness more than once, he would be written out of the show. Contrary to the network's concerns, Frawley never arrived at work drunk, and in fact mastered his lines after only one reading. Arnaz eventually became one of the misanthropic Frawley's few close friends. "I Love Lucy" debuted October 15, 1951 on CBS and was a huge success. The series was broadcast for six years as half-hour episodes, later changing to hour-long specials from 1957 to 1960 titled "The Lucille Ball-Desi Arnaz Show" (later retitled "The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour"). Vivian Vance played Ethel Mertz, Frawley’s on-screen wife. Although the two actors worked well together, they greatly disliked each other. Most attribute their mutual hatred to Vance's vocal resentment of having to play wife to a man 22 years her senior. Frawley reportedly overheard Vance complaining; he took offense and never forgave her. "She's one of the finest girls to come out of Kansas," he once observed, "But I often wish she'd go back there." An avid New York Yankees baseball fan, Frawley had it written into his "I Love Lucy" contract that he did not have to work during the World Series if the Yankees were playing. The Yankees were in every World Series during that time except for 1954 and 1959. He did not appear in two episodes of the show as a result. For his work on the show, Frawley was Emmy-nominated five times (for 1953, 1954, 1955, 1956 and 1957) for "Outstanding Supporting Actor" in a comedy series. During 1960, Ball and Arnaz gave Frawley and Vance the opportunity to have their own "Fred and Ethel" spin-off series for Desilu Studios. Despite his animosity towards her, Frawley saw a lucrative opportunity and accepted. Vance, however, refused the offer, having no desire to work with Frawley again. Afterward, and for the remainder of Frawley's life, he and Vance had very little contact with each other. "My Three Sons". Frawley next joined the cast of the ABC (later CBS) situation comedy "My Three Sons", playing live-in grandfather/housekeeper Michael Francis "Bub" O'Casey beginning in 1960. Featuring Fred MacMurray, the series was about a widower raising his three sons. Frawley reportedly never felt comfortable with the out-of-sequence filming method used for "My Three Sons" after doing "I Love Lucy" in sequence for years. Each season's episodes were arranged so that main actor Fred MacMurray could film all of his scenes during two separate intensive blocks of filming for a total of 65 working days on the set; Frawley and the other actors worked around the absent MacMurray for the remainder of the year's production schedule.
1017589	Shaolin Wooden Men () (Shao Lin mu ren xiang) is a 1976 Hong Kong action film, directed by Chen Chi-Hwa. It was made at Lo Wei's studio at Golden Harvest, during the post-Bruce Lee era. During this time Hong Kong film producers, including Lo, tried in vain to find "the next Bruce Lee". The film was also released internationally under several alternative titles, including: Plot. Little Mute (Jackie Chan) is a new Shaolin student who is mute. He struggles to keep up with the other students and to complete the grueling tasks assigned to him by his instructor. He is haunted by the memory of his father's murder at the hands of a masked bandit who was skilled in martial arts.
1217538	Peter Stickles (born October 8, 1976) is an American actor. He is best known for his role as the voyeuristic Caleb in the John Cameron Mitchell film "Shortbus" and as Damian, leader of a gay vampire cult, in the here! original series "The Lair". Career. Stickles was cast in "Shortbus" in 2003 from amongst some 400 actors who submitted audition tapes for the film, which was initially known as "Sex Film Project." No script had been written prior to casting and the story was built out of improvisational sessions once the cast was in place. The voyeuristic aspect of Caleb's character grew in part out of Stickles's own interests at the time. "I was exploring sex clubs at the time and not necessarily participating but watching from afar. I think John Mitchell was attracted to the idea of this whole voyeuristic aspect of the character. ... How far would you go to touch somebody from afar?" Stickles, along with others in the cast, was nominated for a Gotham Award for Best Ensemble Cast. Stickles stars in "The Lair", which premiered on here! in June 2007. His character, Damian, is the leader of a gay vampire cult. The series, although not critically well-reviewed, was renewed for a second season which premiered in late 2008. Stickles has appeared in a number of low-budget and direct-to-video horror films, including such titles as "Meat Weed Madness" (2006) and its sequel "Meat Weed America" (2007), and has four films slated for release in 2008. He also appeared in the exercise video "The Bedroom Workout for Men: Better Sex Through Exercise".
1049156	Bloody Mama is a 1970 American low-budget drama film directed by Roger Corman and starring Shelley Winters in the title role. It was very loosely based on the real story of Ma Barker, who is depicted as a corrupt mother who encourages and organizes her children's criminality; in reality, Ma Barker's involvement in criminality was fairly limited. The film features an early appearance by a young Robert De Niro as Lloyd Barker. In 2008, "Bloody Mama" was nominated for AFI's Top 10 Gangster Films list. Corman says the film is one of his favourites. Plot. The film starts as young Kate Barker (Lisa Jill) is brutalized by others, including her father and older brothers. Skipping forward 35 years, the middle-aged Kate 'Ma' Barker (Shelly Winters) brutalizes innocent people and robs banks with her four sons; the pragmatic Arthur (Clint Kimbrough), the sadistic Herman (Don Stroud), the bisexual Fred (Robert Walden), and the loyal, drug-addicted Lloyd (Robert De Niro). It all begins in the late 1920s when Ma leaves her husband, George, and her Arkansas home and embarks on her own with her four sons on a robbery-murder spree to make her own fortune, while keeping them under a tight leash. When Herman and Fred are arrested and imprisoned for petty theft charges, Ma takes over the group and leads Arthur and Lloyd on a bank robbery spree to gain enough money to get her sons out of jail. The gang is joined by a gunman named Kevin (patterned after gunman Alvin Karpis, played by Bruce Dern) who was Fred's cellmate during his incarceration and his strongly implied lover. The group is also joined by a local prostitute named Mona Gibson, whom Herman frequented before his imprisonment. The gang resorts to more violent action and robberies. While hiding out at a cabin in Kentucky, Lloyd comes across a young woman swimming at a nearby lake whom he sexually assaults. Not wanting the woman to report them to the police, the Barkers hold her captive and Ma eventually kills her by drowning her despite the protests of her sons.
1058702	Fantasia 2000 is a 1999 American animated film produced by Walt Disney Feature Animation and released by Walt Disney Pictures. It is the 38th film in the Walt Disney Animated Classics series and the sequel to the 1940 film "Fantasia". As with its predecessor the film consists of animated segments set to pieces of classical music, with "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" being the only segment that is featured in both films. The soundtrack was performed by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra with conductor James Levine. A group of celebrities introduce each segment in live-action scenes including Steve Martin, Itzhak Perlman, Bette Midler, Penn & Teller, James Earl Jones, Quincy Jones, and Angela Lansbury.
1016048	Bodyguards and Assassins is a 2009 Hong Kong film directed by Teddy Chan, featuring an all-star cast, including Donnie Yen, Nicholas Tse, Tony Leung Ka-fai, Leon Lai, Wang Xueqi, Simon Yam, Hu Jun, Eric Tsang, Cung Le and Fan Bingbing. Plot. In 1905, Sun Wen intends to go abroad to Hong Kong, a British colony, to discuss his plans with fellow Tongmenghui members to overthrow China's corrupt and crumbling Qing Dynasty. Empress Dowager Cixi sends a group of assassins, led by Yan Xiaoguo, to kill Sun. Revolutionary Chen Shaobai arrives in Hong Kong a few days before Sun's arrival, to meet Li Yutang, a businessman who provides financial aid for the revolutionaries. As Sun Wen's arrival day draws near, trouble begins brewing in Hong Kong as Chen Shaobai's acquaintances are murdered and Chen himself is kidnapped by the assassins during a raid. Li Yutang decides to officially declare his support for the revolutionaries after the newspaper agency is closed by the British authorities, who do not interfere in China's political situation. Li rallies a group of men, including rickshaw pullers, hawkers and a beggar, to serve as bodyguards for Sun Wen when he arrives. Li's son Li Chongguang is chosen to act as a decoy for Sun Wen to divert the assassins away while Sun attends the meeting and leaves Hong Kong safely. Cast. Most of the characters are fictional; however, some, including Sun Wen, Chen Shaobai and Yeung Ku-wan, are based on real historical figures. Accolades. 4th Asian Film Awards 29th Hong Kong Film Awards (most number of nominations in event history) 16th Hong Kong Film Critics Society Awards 47th Golden Horse Awards
1060412	Lionel Jay Stander (January 11, 1908 – November 30, 1994) was an American actor in films, radio, theater and television. Biography. Early life and career. Lionel Stander was born in The Bronx, New York, to Russian Jewish immigrants, the first of three children. According to newspaper interviews with Stander, as a teenager he appeared in the silent film "Men of Steel" (1926), perhaps as an extra, since he is not listed in the credits. During his one year at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, he appeared in a student production of "The Muse and the Movies: A Comedy of Greenwich Village". Stander's professional acting career began in 1928, as Cop and First Fairy in "Him" by e.e. cummings, at the Provincetown Playhouse. He claimed that he got the roles because one of them required shooting craps, which he did well, and a friend in the company volunteered him. He appeared in a series of short-lived plays through the early 1930s, including "The House Beautiful", which Dorothy Parker famously derided as "the play lousy". In 1932, Stander landed his first credited film role in the Warner-Vitaphone short feature "In the Dough" (1932), with Fatty Arbuckle and Shemp Howard. He made several other shorts, the last being "The Old Grey Mayor" (1935) with Bob Hope in 1935. That same year, he was cast in a feature, Ben Hecht's "The Scoundrel" (1935), with Noël Coward. He moved to Hollywood and signed a contract with Columbia Pictures. Stander was in a string of films over the next three years, appearing most notably in Frank Capra's "Mr. Deeds Goes to Town" (1936) with Gary Cooper, playing Archie Goodwin in "Meet Neros Wolfe" (1936) and "The League of Frightened Men" (1937), and in "A Star Is Born" (1937) with Janet Gaynor and Fredric March. Stander's distinctive rumbling voice, tough-guy demeanor, and talent with accents made him a popular radio actor. In the 1930s and 1940s, he was on the "Eddie Cantor Show", Bing Crosby's KMH show, the "Lux Radio Theater" production of "A Star Is Born", "The Fred Allen Show", the "Mayor of the Town" series with Lionel Barrymore and Agnes Moorehead, "Kraft Music Hall" on NBC, "Stage Door Canteen" on CBS, the "Lincoln Highway Radio Show" on NBC, and "The Jack Paar Show", among others. In 1941, he starred in a short-lived radio show called "The Life of Riley" on CBS, no relation to the radio, film, and television character later made famous by William Bendix. Stander played the role of Spider Schultz in both Harold Lloyd's film "The Milky Way" (1936) and the remake ten years later, "The Kid from Brooklyn" (1946), starring Danny Kaye. He was a regular on Danny Kaye's zany comedy-variety radio show on CBS (1946–1947), playing himself as "just the elevator operator" amidst the antics of Kaye, future "Our Miss Brooks" star Eve Arden, and bandleader Harry James. Strongly liberal and pro-labor, Stander espoused a variety of social and political causes, and was a founding member of the Screen Actors Guild. At a SAG meeting held during a 1937 studio technicians' strike, he told the assemblage of 2000 members: "With the eyes of the whole world on this meeting, will it not give the Guild a black eye if its members continue to cross picket lines?" (The "NYT" reported: "Cheers mingled with boos greeted the question.") Stander also supported the Conference of Studio Unions in its fight against the Mob-influenced International Alliance of Stage Employees (IATSE). Also in 1937, Ivan F. Cox, a deposed officer of the San Francisco longshoremen's union, sued Stander and a host of others, including union leader Harry Bridges, actors Fredric March, Franchot Tone, Mary Astor, James Cagney, Jean Muir, and director William Dieterle. The charge, according to "Time" magazine, was "conspiring to propagate Communism on the Pacific Coast, causing Mr. Cox to lose his job". In 1938, Columbia Pictures head Harry Cohn allegedly called Stander "a Red son of a bitch" and threatened a US$100,000 fine against any studio that renewed his contract. Despite critical acclaim for his performances, Stander's film work dropped off drastically. After appearing in 15 films in 1935 and 1936, he was in only six in 1937 and 1938. This was followed by just six films from 1939 through 1943, none made by major studios, the most notable being "Guadalcanal Diary" (1943). Stander and HUAC. Stander was among the first group of Hollywood actors to be subpoenaed before the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) in 1940 for supposed Communist activities. At a grand jury hearing in Los Angeles in August 1940—the transcript of which was shortly released to the press—John R. Leech, the self-described former "chief functionary" of the Communist Party in Los Angeles, named Stander as a CP member, along with more than 15 other Hollywood notables, including Franchot Tone, Humphrey Bogart, James Cagney, Clifford Odets and Budd Schulberg. Stander subsequently forced himself into the grand jury hearing, and the district attorney cleared him of the allegations. Stander appeared in no films in 1944 and 1945. Then, with HUAC's attentions focused elsewhere due to World War II, he played in a number of mostly second-rate pictures from independent studios through the late 1940s. These include Ben Hecht's "Specter of the Rose" (1946), the Preston Sturges comedies "The Sin of Harold Diddlebock" (1947) with Harold Lloyd and "Trouble Makers" (1948) with The Bowery Boys.One classic emerged from this period of his career, the Preston Sturges comedy"Unfaithfully Yours" (1948) with Rex Harrison.
1063732	The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou is a 2004 comedy-drama film directed, written, and co-produced by Wes Anderson. It is Anderson's fourth feature length film, released in the U.S. on Christmas 2004. It was written by Anderson and Noah Baumbach and was filmed in and around Naples, Ponza, and the Italian Riviera.
1590390	Loudon Snowden Wainwright III (born September 5, 1946) is a Grammy Award-winning American songwriter, folk singer, humorist, and actor. He is the father of musicians Rufus Wainwright, Martha Wainwright and Lucy Wainwright Roche, brother of Sloan Wainwright, and the former husband of the late folk singer Kate McGarrigle. To date, Wainwright has released 22 studio albums. Reflecting upon his career, in 1999, Wainwright stated "you could characterize the catalog as somewhat checkered, although I prefer to think of it as a tapestry." Early life. Wainwright was born in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, the son of Martha Taylor, a yoga teacher, and Loudon Wainwright, Jr., a columnist and editor for "Life" magazine. His father was not a professional musician but he did play piano and wrote some songs, exposing his children to musicians such as Tom Lehrer and Stan Freberg who were later cited as influences. Wainwright grew up in Bedford, New York, in Westchester County. Among his sisters is Sloan Wainwright, also a singer. He graduated from St. Andrew's School in Delaware. He is a descendant of Peter Stuyvesant, the last Director-General of New Netherland (present-day New York State). Career. Wainwright's career began in the late 1960s. He had played the guitar while in school but later sold it for yoga lessons while living in San Francisco. Later, in Rhode Island, Wainwright's grandmother got him a job working in a boatyard. An old lobsterman named Edgar inspired him to borrow a friend's guitar and write his first song, "Edgar". Wainwright soon bought his own guitar and in about a year wrote nearly twenty songs. He went to Boston and New York City to play in folk clubs and was eventually "discovered" by Milton Kramer, who became his manager. He acquired a record deal with Atlantic Records, who released his first album in 1970. Wainwright is perhaps best known for the 1972 novelty song "Dead Skunk (in the Middle of the Road)" and for playing Captain Calvin Spalding (the "singing surgeon") on the American television show, "M*A*S*H". His appearances spanned three episodes in its third season (1974–1975), including the episode "Rainbow Bridge".
1056587	Two Brothers (Deux Frères) is a 2004 adventure family film directed by Jean-Jacques Annaud. It is about two tiger brothers, Kumal and Sangha, who are separated as cubs and then reunited years later. Plot. Set in Cambodia during the 1920s during French colonial rule, two tigers are separated as cubs after the ancient temple where they live is disturbed by Aidan McRory (Guy Pearce) who intends to steal and sell the ancient statues. Two tiger cubs are playing when the younger cub (later named Sangha) comes upon a young civet. Sangha chases the civet into its burrow and the mother civet appears and chases Sangha up a tree. The older tiger cub (later named Kumal) appears and chases the mother civet back into her burrow. Eventually, humans come across them, and the tigress arrives to protect the cubs. She picks Sangha up and runs for safety. Kumal follows, but can't keep up and falls behind. The cubs' father appears, but the men have caught up with them and he is shot dead by McRory. McRory is an unscrupulous explorer, big-game hunter and temple looter. He discovers Kumal and befriends him, but McRory is arrested for stealing from the ancient temple and Kumal is kept by the chief in the Cambodian village where McRory had been staying. The chief then sells Kumal to a circus where he is to be the star attraction. Sangha remains in the jungle with his mother, but both are soon trapped by McRory as game for a vain Khmer prince to hunt. The mother is shot in the ear and thought to be dead before she jumps up and runs off with a hole in her ear. Sangha is discovered by young Raoul, son of the French administrator, Normandin, and becomes the child's pet. However, Raoul's mother's dog, Bittsi, a schipperke, is a constant antagonist to the young tiger. Kumal is trained by cruel circus ringmaster Zerbino to do tricks, such as jumping through a flaming hoop. Sangha meanwhile dwells peacefully with Raoul until he is at last cornered by Bittsi following a prolonged chase. In self-defence, Sangha attacks Bittsi, badly wounding although not killing him. This provokes a hysterical reaction from the household, particularly Raoul's mother, who insists that the cub has now "got a taste of blood" and Sangha is given away. As a result, he is made a part of the prince's palace menagerie, where he quickly gains a reputation as a ferocious animal. Sangha and Kumal are now very close to each other. The prince then decides to hold a festival in which a battle between two great beasts - the brother tigers - will be the centerpiece. When placed in the cage before the audience during the festival, the two brothers do not immediately recognize each other, and Kumal is afraid to fight. However, when the brothers finally recognize each other they begin to play together instead of fighting, and the audience likes this but the trainers don't. The trainer attempts to antagonize the tigers into fighting, but as he opens the cage to shoot one, the tigers escape, managing to frighten the trainers and the audience into the cage themselves. The two tigers escape, and McRory is determined to hunt them down. After Kumal showing Sangha how to jump through fire to escape, McRory and Raoul find them. However, as McRory takes aim at Sangha, Kumal appears, and demonstrates that he remembers the sweets McRory used to give him. McRory puts down his gun and vows never to hunt again. The two brothers make their way back to their temple home in the jungle where they meet up with their mother (who can be identified by the hole in her ear). Just before the credits, some comments to save the tigers (as a species) are shown. Production. Around 30 tigers were used for the film, the majority from French zoos and others from Thailand.
430673	James Metcalfe "Jamie" Campbell Bower (born 22 November 1988) is an English actor, singer and former model. Bower is best known for his role as Anthony Hope in Tim Burton's ', his role as Caius in "The Twilight Saga", his role as King Arthur in the Starz original series "Camelot" and as the young Gellert Grindelwald in "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 1". In 2013, he portrayed Jace Wayland in '. Early life. Bower was born in London, England. His mother, Anne Elizabeth (née Roseberry), is a music manager, and his father, David Bower, works for the Gibson Guitar Corporation. His maternal 4th great-grandfather was Sir John Campbell, of Airds, Lieutenant Governor of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines. He attended Bedales School, a co-educational independent school in Hampshire, and is a former member of the National Youth Music Theatre and the National Youth Theatre. He began his professional career when friend Laura Michelle Kelly, who also appeared in "Sweeney Todd", recommended him to her agent. In addition to acting, he is also the lead singer in the band The Darling Buds. Bower was a part-time model with Select Model Management in London. Career. He played Rocker in the film "RocknRolla" and Jack in "Winter in Wartime" ("Oorlogswinter"). Bower starred in the 2009 remake of the series "The Prisoner" as Number 11-12. Also in 2009, he played a vampire Caius in the film "New Moon" and both Twilight: Breaking Dawn films, alongside Michael Sheen. He appeared as the younger Gellert Grindelwald, the dark wizard defeated by Albus Dumbledore, in the 2010 "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 1". He played King Arthur in the 2011 television series of "Camelot". In 2010 Jamie starred as an obsessed fan in the music video for 'Young (Belane)' by the band The Xcerts. Jamie was offered the role of Enjolras in the 2012 musical drama film, Les Misérables, but turned it down. In 2012, he appeared in the music video for "Never Let Me Go" by Florence + The Machine. He played Jace Wayland in "", the film adaption of "The Mortal Instruments" series, by Cassandra Clare. Personal life. In February 2010, Bower was confirmed to be dating fellow "Harry Potter" co-star Bonnie Wright, who played Ginny Weasley in the films. In April 2011, they confirmed their engagement. On 30 June 2012, Bower and Wright amicably called off their engagement.
930435	Ordinary Miracles is a 2005 television film directed by Michael Switzer. Plot. Kay Woodbury is a powerful and tough judge who has not spoken to her father since he tried to involve her in a scam. At her latest case, she deals with Sally Powell, a troubled and rebellious teenager who has been in several foster homes in her life. Feeling abandoned by her biological parents, she expresses her anger to anyone who tries to grow close to her. She is given up by her latest foster parents and, because there are not any replacements available, she is put in juvenile prison. Sympathizing with her, Kay decides to take Sally into her home. Sally is initially reluctant to trust Kay and steals some of Kay's jewelry. She pawns it off in the hopes of getting enough money to move to San Francisco with her boyfriend, who is a typical bad boy. However, it only earns them $200. Kay and Sally soon grow to like each other, and Kay is especially impressed with Sally's intelligence. Sally especially seems to enjoy chess. Sally tries to help Kay impress her ex-husband Davis, who is about to marry a much younger woman. Meanwhile, Kay is going through Sally's files and finds out her biological father, James, lives near her home. She contacts him for landscaping work and they soon befriend each other. Kay does not tell him about Sally. Later, when Kay tells him, he argues with her and refuses to talk to his daughter, claiming that she would not accept him. Sally, meanwhile, has found her files and feels betrayed by Kay, as she always made clear that she has no interest in meeting her biological parents. She steals more of Kay's jewelry and runs away with her boyfriend. Her boyfriend, instead of simply selling the jewelry, robs the pawn shop and involves Sally without a warning. Upset, she demands that he drop her off, and he leaves without her. Sally returns home and is welcomed back by Kay. In the end, she decides to give her father a second chance.
456782	William James Sidis (; April 1, 1898–July 17, 1944) was an American child prodigy with exceptional mathematical abilities and a claimed mastery of many languages. After his death, his sister made the unverifiable claim that his IQ was "the very highest that had ever been obtained," but any records of any IQ testing that Sidis actually took have been lost to history. He entered Harvard at age eleven and, as an adult, was claimed to be conversant in over forty languages and dialects. It was later acknowledged, however, that some of the claims made were exaggerations, with a researcher stating "I have been researching the veracity of primary sources of various subjects for about twenty-eight years, and never before have I found a topic so satiated with lies, myths, half-truths, exaggerations, and other forms of misinformation as is in the history behind William Sidis". Sidis became famous first for his precocity and later for his eccentricity and withdrawal from public life. Eventually, he avoided mathematics altogether, writing on other subjects under a number of pseudonyms. Biography. Parents and upbringing (1898–1909). William James Sidis was born to Jewish Ukrainian immigrants on April 1, 1898, in New York City. His father Boris Sidis, Ph.D., M.D., had emigrated in 1887 to escape political persecution. His mother Sarah Mandelbaum Sidis, M.D., and her family had fled the pogroms in 1889. Sarah attended Boston University and graduated from its School of Medicine in 1897.
1044365	Carol White (1 April 1943 – 16 September 1991) was a British actress. She achieved notability for her performances in the television play "Cathy Come Home" (1966) and the films "Poor Cow" (1967) and "I'll Never Forget What's'isname" (1967), but alcoholism and drug abuse damaged her career, and from the early 1970s she worked infrequently. Life and career. White, the daughter of a scrap merchant, was born in Hammersmith. She attended the Corona Stage Academy. She played minor roles in films from 1949 until the late 1950s, when she began to play more substantial supporting roles in films such as "Carry on Teacher" (1959) and "Never Let Go" (1960) in which she played the girlfriend of Peter Sellers. She continued working regularly and drew attention for her performances in the television version of Nell Dunn's "Up the Junction" (1965). She followed this success with roles in "Cathy Come Home" (1966) and the films "Poor Cow" (1967), based on another Nell Dunn book, and "I'll Never Forget What's'isname" (1967). "Cathy Come Home" and "Poor Cow" were both directed by Ken Loach. White starred opposite Alan Bates, Dirk Bogarde and Ian Holm in the film adaptation of Bernard Malamud's "The Fixer" (1968) and then travelled to Hollywood in 1968 to make "Daddy's Gone A-Hunting" (1969). She appeared in "Dulcima" in 1971, but her career went into decline soon after, largely as a result of personal problems including drug and alcohol abuse, though she had a prominent role as a hostage in "The Squeeze" (1977). After living in Hollywood for several years, White returned to London to star in Nell Dunn's play "Steaming" at the West End's Comedy Theatre, filming "Nutcracker" at the same time. Despite receiving excellent reviews for "Steaming", she often was late, missed performances, and finally was sacked. In 1981, a biography, "Carol Comes Home", by Clifford Thurlow, was published. Although White received publicity for the play and the biography, she was not able to renew her career. She returned to the United States, where she remained for the rest of her life. Personal life. During the late 1960s, White was considered one of the most promising actresses in British cinema. Her problems with alcoholism and substance abuse, as well as unhappy relationships with male stars such as Richard Burton, Frank Sinatra, Oliver Reed and (according to Julian Upton) Paul Burke, hindered her career. White died in 1991 in Florida, at the age of 48. The cause of her death is disputed, with some sources claiming she took a drug overdose and others (including Upton and the Sunday Times) suggesting she succumbed to liver disease. She had two sons from her first marriage. A television film of her life, "The Battersea Bardot", was shown in 1994 with Wendy Morgan as White.
585058	Dongala Mutha (; ) is a Telugu-language film directed by Ram Gopal Varma. The film stars Ravi Teja, Charmme Kaur, Prakash Raj, Lakshmi Manchu, Bramhanandam, Subbaraju, Supreet and Ajay. This film is the first of its kind in Indian cinema as it was shot with just 7 crew members and in a record of 5 days. Prior to filming, Varma announced that this film has no budget and that the cast and crew will not be taking remunerations until the film hits theaters. Puri Jagannadh is co-director while director S. Harish Shankar (Mirapakaya fame) is associate director. Music is by Sathyam while the Background Score has been rendered by Amar Mohile of Sarkar Raj fame. Dongala Mutha was released on March 18, 2011, which was exactly 33 days after the shooting ended. The filmmaking process was revolutionized through Canon 5D cameras, a first of its kind. Production. Development. Normally a film takes between 2-6 to shoot and more than 150 to 200 crew members will be working on it. However, the unique thing about this film is that this 2 hour long feature film will be completed in just 5 days from start to finish, with a crew of just 5 people including Ram Gopal Varma. No one in this film is going to be paid. It is being made only with those actors and technicians who are excited to be a part of the project. All the people who are working for the film will only be paid after the release, if and only if the film makes profits and those payments will be in accordance with their individual value additions. There will be no generator, no lights, no equipment of any sort including jibs, trolleys etc., as the entire film will be shot hand-held and in natural light. The pilot track for the sound will be recorded by the cameras themselves. Filming. The innovative challenge of using Canon cameras as opposed to the traditional movie cameras was first technically proved before shooting commenced by making a test print out of a few scenes shot that came out perfectly. Principal photography then started on February 9, 2011 and the entire shooting of Dongala Mutha was completed ahead of schedule. The entire film was shot hand held and in natural light with 5 Canon cameras which were used to capture every shot in 5 different angles simultaneously. No lights or equipment of any sort including jibs, trolleys etc. were used. There was no D.O.P for the film and all the individual operators chose the angles or compositions without the director or anyone guiding or coordinating them. Canon 5D cameras were used because they give excellent output with naked-eye quality without using any additional lights. It costs around 1.5 lakhs to buy each of these cameras. The film was wrapped up in a record four and a half days, earlier than the announced five days and was released on March 18. Finally, Ram Gopal Varma revealed in a press conference at the Promo Launch that the production cost of the movie is just 6,50,000, mostly for renting out a premise and other miscellaneous expenses. Plot. A couple, Sudheer (Ravi Teja) and Rani (Charmme Kaur), is traveling in a car on a deserted road for friend’s marriage. They take a short cut to reach the venue when their car conks out and they end up in an old, dilapidated and a seedy resort. They meet a weird hotel staff member, Subbaraju, who claims that he is The Receptionist. He tells them that the hotel is full. Another guy, who calls himself The Manager (Supreet), tells them that one room is vacant and they are allotted room number 8. Inside the hotel Sudheer and Rani realize that the room has not been cleaned for many days. When they order for lunch, the resort staff bring the menu but they say that nothing is available. Sudheer shouts at the hotel staff and they tell him that he can take their car and drive to a nearby village where he can get a mechanic but they tell him that he cannot take his wife along with him. Sudheer gets irritated and asks them to get out. Soon, both hear some weird sounds from the next room. But to their surprise that adjacent room is locked. Sudheer slowly starts realizing that he and Rani are getting more and more trapped in a do or die situation. When asked The Receptionist tells them that the source of the sound from the neighboring room is a Ghost. But The Manager says it is not a ghost but a thief. Frightened at their gestures, Sudheer and Rani try to get out of the resort, but the manager, receptionist and a servant (Brahmaji) hold them captive and keep Rani in room number 9 - the same room as the one with the Ghost. However, Sudheer and Rani manage to escape from them but are trapped in the same building. The three men at the resort are actually kidnappers working for a don who calls himself Munna Bhai. They have kidnapped a businessman Narayana Murthy (Brahmanandam) and locked him up in room number 9. To solve the kidnap mystery cops Shiva (Lakshmi Manchu) and Richard (Sunil) arrive at the resort feigning to convey the message that Munna Bhai has been arrested. What ensues now is a game of hide and seek as Sudheer, Rani and Narayana Murthy are now on the run. Finally, Prakash Raj arrives as a cop-on-duty to arrest "The Mutha", later revealing himself to be the don Munna Bhai, the mastermind behind the kidnap. Crew. The seven member crew on location consisted of the Director, an Assistant Director and 5 Camera operators and the unit breakup is as follows: "The Making" Video. Ram Gopal Varma's main idea for making Dongala Mutha is to explain to the world that a film need not have a whole bunch of technicians taking care of camera work but could be done with just Canon 5D cameras. He has revealed his idea at the end of the film with the ‘The Making of Dongala Mutha’ video. How the FX School students have used the hand held cameras and shot the film without using regular cranes and other machinery, how Varma himself has looked after everything instead of making use of assistant directors, associate directors, managers and make-up artistes, light boys and others, etc., forms the plot of the 2 minute 34 seconds video. He has penned the dialogues to the characters and has tried to derive comedy by repeating the same dialogues between the characters. The video also reveals the action choreography to have been handled by Varma himself. Music for the video is by 'Deyyam' fame Sathyam. Soundtrack. Composer Sathyam scored the film's title track, his second collaboration with Ram Gopal Varma after Deyyam. The music video for the song was picturised on the cast which included Ravi Teja, Charmme Kaur, Lakshmi Manchu, Sunil (actor), Subbaraju, Brahmaji, Prakash Raj, Brahmanandam and Supreet by noted director S. Harish Shankar at the deserted Aluminium Factory in Gachibowli, Hyderabad. The song was shot completely on Canon DSLR Camera in one day.
1164016	Charlotte Rae (born Charlotte Rae Lubotsky; April 22, 1926) is an American character actress of stage, comedienne, singer and dancer, who in her six decades of television is perhaps best known for her portrayal of Edna Garrett in the sitcoms "Diff'rent Strokes" and "The Facts of Life" (in which she starred from 1979 to 1986). She received a Primetime Emmy Award nomination for Best Actress in a Comedy in 1982. She also appeared in two "Facts of Life" television movies: "The Facts of Life Goes to Paris" in 1982 and "The Facts of Life Reunion" in 2001. She voiced the character of "Nanny" in "". Early life. She was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, to Russian Jewish immigrants Esther (née Ottenstein), who was a childhood friend of Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir, and Meyer Lubotsky, a retail tire business owner. She is one of three sisters, along with Miriam and the late Beverly (December 21, 1921–June 2, 1998). She graduated from Shorewood High School in 1944. For the first ten years or so of her life, Rae's family lived in Milwaukee, then moved to Shorewood, Wisconsin. She did radio work and was with the Wauwatosa Children's Theatre. At 16, she was an apprentice with the Port Players, a professional theater company that came for the summer to Milwaukee, with several established actors such as Morton DaCosta, who would eventually direct "The Music Man" on Broadway. Rae attended Northwestern University, although she did not complete her studies, where she met Cloris Leachman, who many years later succeeded Rae on "The Facts of Life" for the show's last two seasons. At Northwestern she met several unknown stars and producers, including Agnes Nixon, Charlton Heston, Paul Lynde, Gerald Freedman, Claude Akins and songwriter Sheldon Harnick. When a radio personality told her that her last name wouldn't do, she dropped it, to her father's chagrin. She moved to New York City in 1948, where she performed in the theater and nightclubs. During her early years in New York, she worked at the Village Vanguard (alongside up-and-coming talents such as singer Richard Dyer-Bennett) and at the posh Blue Angel, home to budding talents Barbra Streisand, Mike Nichols and Elaine May. She moved to Los Angeles in 1974.
583276	Bbuddah... Hoga Terra Baap (Translation: "Oldman...might be your dad") (earlier titled "Buddah") is a 2011 Bollywood action film directed by Puri Jagannath being his second Hindi film after "". The film stars Amitabh Bachchan, Hema Malini, Sonu Sood, Prakash Raj, Charmy Kaur, Sonal Chauhan and Raveena Tandon. The film released on 1 July 2011, and received positive response from critics. Plot. ACP Karan Malhotra (Sonu Sood) has declared that he will eliminate all gangsters from Mumbai within two months. Gangster Kabir bhai (Prakash Raj) decides to eliminate ACP Karan instead. So in comes Vijju (Amitabh Bachchan), a hitman who returns to Mumbai after a long exile in Paris, France in order to perform one last job. While the gangsters and Vijju try to take down ACP Karan, ACP Karan is trying to woo his old college friend Tanya (Sonal Chauhan) and Tanya's friend Amrita (Charmee Kaur) is trying to figure out the relationship between Vijju and her mother (Raveena Tandon). Vijju later reveals that he is not the contract killer and is rather trying to protect his son, ACP Karan. The story rolls on showing Vijju climbing the ladder of underworld to reach Kabir bhai and plot with him the murder of Karan. One of Kabir bhai's associate Year (Subbaraju) goes against his decision of roping in Vijju and attempts to shoot Karan. He misses narrowly and returns to base, facing mockery from Vijju. Meanwhile Vijju meets his estranged wife Sita (Hema Malini) and tries to patch the relationship. Year attempts once again and is successful to pump some bullets into Karan, failing Vijju's attempts to stop him from going to the place of shoot-out. A hurt and angry Vijju then admits Karan to a hospital and visits Kabir bhai's den. After reciting a short story and explaining three morals, Vijju informs that Karan is alive and the den is surrounded by police. A fierce shoot-out ensues in which Vijju kills all the gangsters at the den except Kabir bhai and his aide Mac (Makrand Deshpande) who roped in Vijju to the underworld don. A surprised Kabir bhai is shot in the head by Vijju but he leaves his aide. The movie ends at the hospital where Vijju asks his wife to decide if she would reveal his identity to Karan. He also says that he would come back in case either his wife or son are in trouble ever and if he does not come back, it would mean that he has passed away, given his old age. To this, Sita responds "Bbuddah... Hoga Terra Baap." Production. The director Jagannath wanted to rope in three leading heroines for the movie. Finally he zeroed down on Hema Malini, Raveena Tandon and Charmy Kaur, an actress from South India who will be making her Bollywood debut in this movie. Actress Neha Sharma was also interested in doing Kaur's role, but eventually the role went to Kaur. Tandon later said that she signed the movie to work with Bachchan and Jagannath. For another role in the movie, both Sonal Chauhan and Kangana Ranaut were in discussion, but eventually the role went to Chauhan. The 'mahurat' shot of the movie was done in March 2011 at Khoja Bungalow in Versova. While Jagannath broke the coconut, actor Sonu Sood featured in the mahurat shot. The event was also attended by Bachchan, his son Abhishek Bachchan, daughter-in-law Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, and actress Sonal Chauhan. On 26 April 2011, movie's shooting was disrupted, when Raj Thackeray led Maharashtra Navnirman Sena claimed that there were around 40 foreigners shooting in the movie without proper work permits and visas. MNS filed a police complaint in this regard and later stalled the shooting. Following day, director Jagannath apologised to the outfit stating that there were indeed few junior foreign artists in the shoot without proper documentation, and assured to be more vigilant in future. Raveena Tandon has also shot for an item song in the film, titled "Main Chandigarh Di Star". Marketing. The first 60 second promo of the movie was revealed on 20 May 2011 on eight TV channels during IPL match of Mumbai Indians and Rajasthan Royals. Critical reception. Raja Sen of Rediff gave it four out of five stars and stated "Bbuddah Hoga Tera Baap is not a particularly well-crafted film but none of that matters as Amitabh Bachchan makes it work." Behindwoods gave a score of two out of five and said "If Amitabh is all that matters, watch it." Nikhat Kazmi from the "Times Of India" gave a three and half stars and stated "Bbuddah... is a high dose entertainer when the veteran actor never stops amazing you with the range of his histrionics. Despite his age, he grabs eyeballs with his action cuts, his comic cameos, his romantic ditties (with Hema), his libidinous encounters (with Raveena), his emotional bytes, his derring-do, and his over-the top sartorial sense." Critic Taran Adarsh gave a four out of five stars and noted "On the whole, Bbuddah Hoga Terra Baap is a must-watch for Bachchan fans. Even if you're not a fan of this iconic actor, watch it for a simple reason: They don't make them like Amitabh Bachchan anymore. A masala entertainer all the way. Bachchan is truly the Baap and this film reiterates this fact yet again. His character, his attitude and the dialogue he delivers will remain etched in your memory for a long, long time. Prakash Raj is super. In fact, it's a treat to watch powerful actors like Bachchan and Prakash Raj embroiled in a confrontation." Filmfare gave a four star rating and said "Bbuddah... Hoga Terra Baap is a feast for Amitabh Bachchan buffs. The film ends with a disclaimer saying it’s a tribute to the phenomenon and that says it all." Zee News also gave four stars and stated "‘Bbuddah Hoga Terra Baap’ is a typical Bollywood masala flick with all the ingredients to make it a Box Office hit. An out-an-out Amitabh Bachchan film, ‘Bbuddah Hoga Terra Baap’ presents Big B in never before seen role, something which reminds you the exhilarating performance of the iconic star in his earlier films." Sify gave a two and half star rating and explained "Big B`s presence is so overwhelming he makes the character— a violent, unlikable one—into a somewhat charismatic one. The altercations between Bachchan and villain (Prakash Raj, fab) are to watch out for especially towards the end. Also worth savoring are the Amitabh-Hema portions where they create magic momentarily. It`s an average story with archaic storytelling. If you`re watching it, keep in mind that Big B is the only thing going for the film." Box office. "Bbuddah... Hoga Terra Baap" was made at a controlled budget of approximately Rs. 10 crores. The film had a slow start on the first day but picked up over the weekend with major patronage from family audiences and Amitabh Bachchan fans. The domestic opening weekend collection were around . In the overseas markets, the film collected from US, UK, UAE and Australia over the opening weekend. Within nearly a week post the release, the film collected net domestically and another net overseas. The film collected nett over its second weekend, bringing the two-week total to . BHTB Recovered all its production cost from theatrical revenues and additional non-theatrical earnings thus ensuring it to be a good profitable venture.The satellite rights fetched the producers approximately
584272	Thambi Ramaiah is an Indian film actor and director, who works in the Tamil film industry. He directed the Vadivelu-starrer "Indiralohathil Na Azhagappan"; his performance in "Mynaa", won a National Film Award for Best Supporting Actor. Ramaiah has also been working occasionally as a lyricist. Production. He actually came to cinema to write lyrics and compose music. Unexpectedly he became a director. He worked as an associate director to T. Rajender and P. Vasu. He directed Manu Needhi which had Murali in the lead role and also Vadivelu starrer Indralogathil Na Azhagappan which was a flop. Vadivelu is his best friend, Ramiah wrote all the comedy tracks for Vadivelu and also appeared in them. He made his debut doing a small role with Goundamani in the Sathyaraj starrer Malabar Police. Though he did character roles in Kodambakkam, Oram Po and Vetrivel Sakthivel, he did not get the expected. So he thought that acting is not suitable for him and he patiently waited. Myna has now changed his life. This film is a turning point.
1058084	Sylvia H. Miles (born September 9, c. 1932) is an American film, stage and television actress. Career. She played the role of "Sally" in the pilot episode of what would become "The Dick Van Dyke Show", which was later taken by Rose Marie for the series. She appeared in an episode of "Naked City" as a lovely barfly attempting to communicate with a psychotic Jack Warden but may be best known in "Midnight Cowboy" as a hooker on a busman's holiday, who invites Joe Buck (Jon Voight) up to her apartment for sex, seemingly unaware he is in the same line of business. The role earned her an Oscar nomination in 1969 for Best Supporting Actress, despite only appearing on screen for about 6 minutes.
775779	Manufactured Landscapes is a 2006 feature length documentary film about the work of photographer Ed Burtynsky. It was directed by Jennifer Baichwal and is distributed by Zeitgeist Films. Subject matter. The film involves the photographs and videos of photographer and visual artist Ed Burtynsky's trip through landscapes that have been altered by large-scale human activity, captured with Super-16mm film. Most of the photographs featured in the film are pieces that are exhibited all over the world are taken with a "large format field camera on large 4x5-inch sheet film and developed into high-resolution, large-dimension prints (of approximately 50x60 inches)" While some would some call the his work beautiful, his main goal was to challenge notions while raising questions about the of interplay of environmental ethics and aesthetics. The footage was compiled from a trip to China where Burtynsky visited factories which Western society has come to rely on for most of its appliances, including a factory that produces most of the world's supply of clothes irons, which is one kilometer in length and employs 23 000 workers. The film also features the Three Gorges Dam which, along with being the largest dam in the world, has uprooted more than one million people and flooded 13 cities, 140 towns and 1350 villages since the beginning of its construction in 1994. Unlike most documentaries there is very little commentary which serves to allow the viewer to take in the images and try to make sense of what they're seeing, while at the same time "it tries to shift our consciousness about the world and the way we live in it". Critical reception. Since its debut at the Toronto Film Festival in 2006, the film has received generally positive reviews. Lisa Schwarzbaum of "Entertainment Weekly" gave the film an "A" and said "The opening tracking shot through a Chinese factory where 23,000 employees make most of the world's iron is a stunner." The review that appeared in the "Boston Globe" said the film "begs to be hung on the wall, studied, absorbed, and learned from" and also "taken as a whole, "Manufactured Landscapes" is a mesmerizing work of visual oncology, a witness to a cancer that's visible only at a distance but entwined with the DNA of everything we buy and everywhere we shop." Ken Fox of "TV Guide" gave the film four stars and said, "Jennifer Baichwal's important, disquieting documentary offers the strongest reminder since "Born into Brothels" that art can serve a crucial, consciousness raising purpose." Kenneth Baker of the "San Francisco Chronicle" said "the viewer soon realizes that shares Burtynsky's astonishment and concern over the scale, tempo and irreversibility of postmodern humanity's global frenzy of production and consumption", and also that the film "leaves its audience with many troubling questions."
1170263	Yvette Nicole Brown (born August 12, 1971) is an American actress and comedian. Brown has appeared in various commercials, television shows, and films throughout her career. Currently, she appears as Shirley Bennett on the NBC comedy series "Community". Life and career. Brown was born in East Cleveland, Ohio. She is a member of Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority. She became a member as an undergrad at The University of Akron (Delta Pi chapter). Brown took two acting classes, one at the University of Akron, where she graduated, and the other in Hollywood. She appeared as "Yvette" in the music video "1-4-All-4-1" by the "East Coast Family" a Michael Bivins project, for Biv10 Records. Brown said of the experience, "It was a great run, but I guess music was just never meant to be for me." Brown first appeared on commercials before entering television shows and films a few years later. She has since played roles on television shows such as "The War At Home", "Malcolm in the Middle", "That's So Raven", and the U.S. version of "The Office". She also had a recurring role as movie theater manager Helen Dubois in the Nickelodeon TV show "Drake & Josh". Brown reprised the role in the season 2 episode of "Victorious" entitled "Helen Back Again." She also provides the voice of "Cookie" on The Hub's "Pound Puppies". Since 2009, Brown has starred on the NBC comedy "Community" as Shirley Bennett. Brown is very active with fans of the show on Twitter and in person at live events. She has appeared in television commercials for Hamburger Helper, Big Lots, Pine-Sol, Comcast, Aquapod, Shout, Fiber One, Yoplait Yogurt, DiGiorno Pizza, Dairy Queen, and Time Warner. She has appeared on episodes of "The Thrilling Adventure Hour" as "The Troubleshooter" in the "Sparks Nevada, Marshall On Mars" series. In 2012, Brown appeared as a celebrity contestant on GSN's version of "The Pyramid" with fellow "Community" cast member Danny Pudi.
1067687	Rosemary Ann Harris (born 19 September 1927) is an English actress and a member of the American Theatre Hall of Fame. She has been nominated for an Academy Award and a BAFTA Award and has won a Golden Globe, an Emmy, a Tony Award, an Obie, and five Drama Desk Awards. Early life. Harris was born in Ashby-de-la-Zouch, Leicestershire, the daughter of Enid Maude Frances (née Campion) and Stafford Berkely Harris. One of her grandmothers, born into a family of boyars in Muntenia, was Romanian. Her father was in the Royal Air Force and as a result, Harris' family lived in India during her childhood. She attended convent schools, and later studied at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art from 1951 to 1952. Career. Early in her acting career, she gained experience in English repertory theatre. In 1948, she acted in "Kiss and Tell" at Eastbourne with Tilsa Page and John Clark before training at RADA. She first appeared in New York in 1951 in Moss Hart's "Climate of Eden", and then returned to Britain for her West End debut in "The Seven Year Itch" which ran for a year at the Aldwich. She then entered a classical acting period in productions with the Bristol Old Vic and then the Old Vic. Her first film followed, "Beau Brummel" (1954) with Stewart Granger and Elizabeth Taylor, and then a touring season with the Old Vic brought her back to Broadway in Tyrone Guthrie's production of "Troilus and Cressida". She met Ellis Rabb who had plans to start his own producing company on Broadway. By 1959, the "Association of Producing Artist" (APA) was established, and she and Rabb were married in December of that year. In 1962, she returned to Britain and Chichester Festival Theatre during its opening season when the director was Laurence Olivier; she appeared as Elena in Olivier's celebrated 1962-63 Chichester production of Uncle Vanya. In 1964, she was Ophelia to Peter O'Toole's "Hamlet" in the inaugural production of the Royal National Theatre of Great Britain.
1064510	Gia is a 1998 biographical HBO film about the life of model Gia Marie Carangi starring Angelina Jolie, Faye Dunaway, Mercedes Ruehl, and Elizabeth Mitchell. It was directed by Michael Cristofer and written by Cristofer and Jay McInerney. The original music score was composed by Terence Blanchard. Plot. Gia Carangi (Angelina Jolie) is a Philadelphia native who moves to New York City to become a fashion model and immediately catches the attention of powerful agent Wilhelmina Cooper (Faye Dunaway). Gia's attitude and beauty help her rise quickly to the forefront of the modeling industry, but her persistent loneliness after the death of Wilhelmina drives her to experiment with mood-altering drugs like cocaine. She becomes entangled in a passionate affair with Linda (Elizabeth Mitchell), a make-up artist. Their love affair first starts when both pose nude and make love to each other after a photo shoot. However, after a while Linda begins to worry about Gia's drug use and gives her an ultimatum; Gia chooses the drugs. Failed attempts at reconciliation with Linda and with her mother, Kathleen (Mercedes Ruehl), drive Gia to begin abusing heroin. Although she is eventually able to break her drug habit after much effort, she has already contracted HIV from a needle containing infected blood and dies from complications of AIDS in 1986 at the age of 26.
584269	Oram Po (; ), previously titled Auto, is a Tamil comedy film starring Arya and Pooja. The film, directed by the debutant husband-wife duo, Pushkar-Gayatri, is produced by V. Palanivel and A.C. Anandan for A.P. Film Garden. G. V. Prakash Kumar of Veyyil fame is the music director. The movie was released after almost a year of waiting. Initial reviews suggest it to be highly entertaining, especially for young adults. It's setting in auto racing is a new theme. Later in 2011 was dubbed in Telugu as "Nenu Autovani". Plot. Chandru (Arya) and Bigilu (Lal) are close friends. Chandru is an expert auto driver & racer while Bigilu is a mechanic expert at customizing autos to run at the dream speed of 130 km/h. Son of Gun (John Vijay) is the chief of a rival group who wants to outsmart the duo. Chandru, the race champ tries to settle the dues for his auto through a race, which is almost a cakewalk for him. He and Bigilu challenge Son of Gun to a race, and a date is fixed. Bigilu, meanwhile, introduces Chandru to his sister who runs a Biriyani shop. Chandru is attracted to her daughter (Pooja), and woos her. The affair grows stronger and the two end up having sex. The care-free auto driver, however, is not interested in long-term commitment and tells the girl so. Shocked, Pooja curses him and moves away. On the D-day, Chandru is distracted by the memories of his love affair and loses the race. He loses his auto and, later, Bigilu, who comes to know about the affair. The sub-plot of a smuggler's search for missing pearls adds flavour to the proceedings. The unpredictable and fun filled climax puts everything in order. Production. The film was earlier titled as "Auto". When directors Pushkar and Gayathri were travelling in an auto rickshaw they met an auto driver and received information about them, director said that this film will throw light on auto race. For the role of autodriver Arya observed many auto-drivers. Pooja was selected to play a Biriyaniseller pairing with Arya for second time after "Ullam Ketkumae". Malayalam actor lal was selected to play supporting role while debutant John Vijay was selected to play negative character called "Son of Gun". For the first time ever, a song sequence with a duration of four minutes, has been filmed in a single shot. Arya done the most risky shots without a dupe ad for a scene that involves him driving the auto in mount road he did that in the peak hour traffic in high speed with a camera mounted on the windscreen of the auto. The release of 'Oram Po' starring Arya and Pooja was given an interim stay order by the Madras High Court, They somehow tried to release the film this month but there was a hurdle in the form of a financier Mohankumar Jain from whom they had borrowed 15 lakh. He got a stay order from the court that the film cannot be released till 12 October, since they had not returned the money to him. Reviews. Hindu wrote:"The strongest points of the movie are some excellent dialogues by Kumar Rajan—they’re genuinely funny and spontaneous, even when the characters are talking dirty— and the high-energy background score"and also praised the performances of lead actors "Arya is terrific as the cocky yet lovable Chandru (the combination of floppy hair, liquid brown eyes and good physique should cement his ‘heartthrob’ status). Pooja looks lovely in minimal make-up and puts in a refreshingly natural performance. John Vijay is just an absolute riot as Son of Gun". indiaglitz wrote:"The movie looks into the world of a section of Chennai auto rickshaw drivers as realistic as possible. The approach by debutant directors Pushkar and Gayatri is refreshingly new, as they do not look at them from outside. They make a sincere attempt to look at their lives from within". Rediff wrote:" film may have failed in authentically portraying the difficult street life in Chennai, but succeeds, at least most of the time, as an entertainer". Sify wrote:"Debutant director duo Pushkar and Gayathri, the husband and wife team starts their Oram Po on a promising note, but somewhere along the way it runs out of gas". Behindwoods wrote:"Oram Po is part satire, part spoof and full entertainment set in the milieu of auto drivers’ lives. It is a two-hour auto rickshaw ride with all its bumps and swerves and unexpected curves. The movie has only a wafer thin story line but what lies between the wafers makes for all the entertainment".
581233	Gowravargal is a 2010 Tamil action film directed by Sanjay Ram. The film featured Sathyaraj in the lead role. The film released to poor reviews and poor collections on October 15, 2010. Plot. Ganesan (Vignesh), is an irresponsible youth in a village. He promises his mother (Kuyili) that he would be good and start earning. He joins a job where he bashes few wrong-doers. This impresses a do-gooder and a don Thondaman (Sathyaraj). He urges him to join him for work. Thondaman is respected a lot for he provides justice to people in his own way. People in case of crisis approach him and not the police. Ganesan impressed by Thondaman's ways, develops an affinity with him and even decides to gives his life for him. Meanwhile Ganesan falls in love with one Poonkodi (Monica). Turn of events leaves a local Minister's son going crazy behind her. Enters a police officer (Ranjith) who plays spoilsport in their romance. He threatens Thondaman and hatches a conspiracy to ensure that Thondaman and Ganesan part ways. But things happen otherwise.
1705647	The Looking Glass War (1965), by John le Carré, is a spy novel about a British Intelligence agency known as 'The Department' and its attempts to infiltrate an agent into East Germany. Plot summary. A British intelligence organisation, based out of Blackfriars Road, London and referred to throughout the book as "The Department," has been largely inactive since successfully running agents against the Nazis during the Second World War, and now apparently expends most of its energies on administration. Its role is being taken over by the more experienced and professional Circus, led by "Control" and his right hand man George Smiley. The Department interprets vague and barely credible intelligence from an unreliable source as evidence that Soviet missiles are being placed at Rostock, near the West German border. The Department's chief, Leclerc, sees it as an opportunity to re-live glory days and regain ground in its turf war with The Circus. To get aerial photographs, The Department pays a civilian pilot to "accidentally" divert his flight over the area. The man sent to collect the film is killed, and the film is lost. Further blunders are made when Leclerc's assistant, Avery, tries to retrieve the body in the hope that the film is still among his effects. When Avery consults Smiley about the possibility of using a Circus courier if the film is found, the Circus is alerted to the existence of The Department's new covert activities. In spite of these compromising setbacks, The Department persuades the responsible Minister to allow them to send an agent into East Germany to discover the truth. Leclerc avoids involving The Circus directly, representing the whole operation as a training exercise. The Department reactivates one of its wartime agents, a naturalised Pole named Fred Leiser. During his preparation and training, his handlers cynically describe The Department as still the large, vital and competent organisation he remembers from the war years, hiding from him that he is now their only agent, and that his equipment is out of date. In crossing the border Leiser kills a young East German guard – which is widely published in the East German media as the work of Western "provocateurs". Leiser then makes long radio transmissions, forgetting to change frequencies. The East Germans are therefore immediately aware that security has been breached, and are easily able to locate Leiser. After informing Leclerc and his colleagues about the debacle, Smiley tactfully convinces Leclerc to abandon the operation, and to leave Leiser trapped in East Germany. Receiving no response to his further radio transmissions, Leiser continues with his mission, following the "War Rules". He is captured, immediately after having found poignant love with a young German girl. His fate is left to the imagination. Adaptations. A film of the novel was released in 1969, starring Christopher Jones as Leiser, Ralph Richardson as LeClerc ("sic"), and Anthony Hopkins as Avery. It was directed by Frank Pierson. As part of a series of dramatisation of Le Carre's work, the "Complete Smiley" series, BBC Radio produced a radio play of "The Looking Glass War" in 2009. Broadcast on Radio4, it starred Ian McDiarmid as Leclerc, Piotr Baumann as Leiser, Patrick Kennedy as Avery, and Simon Russell Beale as George Smiley. As with other plays in this series it is now available as a CD set as ISBN 978-1-4084-0086-9.
1043997	One of Our Dinosaurs is Missing is a 1975 comedy film, which is set in the early 1920s, about the theft of a dinosaur skeleton from the Natural History Museum. The film was produced by Walt Disney Productions and released by Buena Vista Distribution Company. The title is a parody of the film title "One of Our Aircraft Is Missing". The film was based on the 1970 novel "The Great Dinosaur Robbery" by David Forrest (pseudonym of David Eliades and Robert Forrest Webb). Plot. Escaping from China with a microfilm of the formula for the mysterious "Lotus X", Lord Southmere, a Queen's Messenger, is chased by a group of Chinese spies. Back in London, Lord Southmere manages to escape from a chauffeur who is trying to kidnap him, and then runs into the Natural History Museum. Chinese spies follow him, so he hides the microfilm in the bones of one of the large dinosaur skeletons. He is relieved to meet his former nanny, Hettie, in the museum, and asks her to retrieve the microfilm. Southmere then faints and is captured by the Chinese, who tell Hettie and Emily (another nanny) that they are taking him to a doctor. Hettie and Emily enlist other nannies to help them search. They hide in the mouth of the blue whale display until after closing time and then begin looking over the skeleton of an "Apatosaurus" (referred to as a Brontosaurus). They are unsuccessful, and most have to return home to care for their children, but Hettie, Emily and their friend Susan remain to continue with the search. They are captured and taken to the spies' London headquarters, underneath a Chinese restaurant in Soho. The nannies are locked up in the 'dungeon', with Lord Southmere. Fortunately, the nannies are able to outwit their captors and escape.
1775632	Wild Geese II is a 1985 British action-thriller film directed by Peter R. Hunt, based on the 1982 novel "The Square Circle" by Daniel Carney, in which a group of mercenaries are hired to spring Rudolf Hess from Spandau Prison in Berlin. The film is a sequel to the 1978 film "The Wild Geese", which was also produced by Euan Lloyd and adapted from a novel by Carney. Actor Richard Burton, who starred in the first film as Colonel Allen Faulkner, was planning to reprise his role for the sequel, but he died days before filming began. The sequel has Faulkner's brother (played by Edward Fox) as one of the mercenaries. No characters from the original are featured in the sequel. Prologue. Africa 1977 Veteran Mercenary Allen Faulkner trains and then leads a group of fifty hired soldiers in an attempt to rescue deposed President Julius Limbani. After initially being successful the mission begins to fall apart, double-crossed and caught in the open, an enemy plane strafes Faulkner's men. With what few men remain Faulkner looks to escape the country in an old Dakota aeroplane. With only his best friend Rafer Janders is left to board the plane, Janders is shot in the leg and can't catch the taxiing plane. As the hordes of ferocious Simbas are virtually upon him, Janders calls for Faulkner to kill him, which he regretfully does. Plot. London 1982 As the only surviving Nazi leader in captivity, Rudolf Hess (Laurence Olivier) has secrets that could destroy the careers of prominent political figures, secrets an international news network will pay any price to get.
1063971	Nicol Williamson (14 September 1936 â 16 December 2011) was a Scottish-born British actor once described by English playwright John Osborne as "the greatest actor since Marlon Brando". He was also described by playwright Samuel Beckett as "touched by genius" and viewed by many critics as "the Hamlet of his generation" during the late 1960s.
583931	Boss Engira Bhaskaran () is a 2010 Tamil romantic comedy film written and directed by M. Rajesh who earlier directed "Siva Manasula Sakthi" (2009). Starring Arya, Nayantara and Santhanam in lead roles, the film is produced by K. S. Sreenivasan and features music scored by Yuvan Shankar Raja and cinematography handled by Sakthi Saravanan. The film revolves around a young happy-go-lucky man, Bhaskaran, who is unemployed and lives an easygoing life, neglecting his career and future. When he meets a young girl, Chandrika, in whom he falls in love, he is bound to change his lifestyle, in order to marry her eventually. The film released on 10 September 2010 to positive reviews and also became commercially successful. The tagline "Nanbenda" turned viral after release. The film was eventually dubbed into Telugu as "Nene Ambani" which released on 17 December 2010. Plot. Bhaskaran (Arya) is a happy-go-lucky youth who is yet to complete his B. A. Degree, writing arrear examinations for years. His only friend is Nallathambi (Santhanam) who owns a Hair saloon named "Thala-Thalapathi Saloon" (named after the titles of actors Ajith and Vijay) which he received as dowry for marrying a woman who was two months pregnant. Bhaskaran, during an arrear exam, happens to meet a young lecturer Chandrika (Nayantara) and instantly gets attracted to her, though she disapproves of him because he attempted to copy during the exam. Bhaskaran lives with his mother, Sivakami (Lakshmi Ramakrishnan), brother Saravanan (Panchu Subbu) who is a successful veterinarian and sister, Nithya (Monisha). When his brother marries Nandhini (Vijayalakshmi), he finds out that Nandhini's younger sister is Chandrika, and wishes to marry her. When he approaches his family for the alliance, everyone talks of his unemployed status which rankles him and causes him to leave his house to prove himself. With the support of Nallathambi, he establishes a tutorial for Class X students. Despite early setbacks, he makes a very heavy profit on the deal, while also convincing Chandrika, who eventually reciprocates his love. However, Chandrika's father Shanmugasundaram (Chitra Lakshmanan) is against the marriage as he had once been insulted by a drunk Nallathambi, who also gave him the nickname "Mongoose Mandaiyan" (Mongoose Head). Shiva (Jiiva), a supposed "teetotaler", is introduced as Chandrika's prospective groom. Bhaskaran then confronts Shiva, explaining to him that he loves Chandrika. The two get into a fight soon after, but when Shanmugasundaram arrives at the spot, he learns the truth: Shiva was hired by Bhaskaran to fool everyone about his identity. Under Shiva and Bhaskaran's orders, a disappointed Shanmugasundaram finally is forced to unite Bhaskaran and Chandrika. Production. The film was officially launched on 19 November 2009 at the AVM Studios, with the film starting shooting in December first week. Rajesh, following his sleeper hit "Siva Manasula Sakthi", decided to make another comedy film and to cast Arya, who appeared in a cameo role in "Siva Manasula Sakthi", in the titular role, while Jiiva in return will make a cameo appearance in the film. As the film's backdrop is set to be both village as well as city, the film was shot at various location including Thanjavur, Mysore and Trichy. A major part of the film was filmed at Kumbakonam, while a few scenes were shot in Chennai as well. Shooting was also carried on in the Swiss Alps, where some song sequences were picturized. The shooting was finished on 3 August 2010 with completing the last song that was canned at a set erected at Binny Mills near Chennai. While Vasan Visual Ventures that produced Arya's "Naan Kadavul", produced this film as well, Arya purchased the rights in the midst to release it under his own production banner "The Show People". The film's distribution rights, however, were again acquired by Red Giant Movies, led by Udhayanidhi Stalin, who would enact the lead role in Rajesh's next project. Soundtrack. Following the success of "Siva Manasula Sakthi", Yuvan Shankar Raja composed the musical score and soundtrack of "Boss Engira Bhaskaran", too. The soundtrack album, which was released on 27 August 2010 at Sathyam Cinemas, contains 5 tracks, featuring lyrics penned by Na. Muthukumar. Release. Box office. "Boss Engira Bhaskaran" sold 7.3 million tickets worldwide. It released on Eid day, the end of Ramadan, opening across 240 screens in Tamil Nadu with reportedly 95.5% average theatre occupancy, which, according to trade sources, was the best ever first day opening for Arya then, which resulted in an increase of the number of shows and screens. In its opening weekend, the film was said to have earned 58 lakh in Chennai, as reported by Behindwoods, while according to Sify.com, it grossed 65 lakh. At the end of the second weekend, the film had collected 10 crore from 275 screens. Critical response. The film opened up to positive reviews. "Sify" stated that "Rajesh has pulled off the impossible, making a family comedy work a second time armed with nothing more than a few situational gaffes and couple of funny dialogues. It’s pure escapist fare and will work big time, as there is paucity of healthy entertainment for the family audiences." "Indiaglitz" wrote "Rajesh has made spoof of some contemporary Tamil films in an enjoyable manner." and ""Boss Engira Baskaran" is right there oozing with abundant energy and unlimited fun. Kudos to Udhayanidhi for choosing quality films with varied stories that leave an impression with the masses." "Chennai Online" specially pointed out the plus points of the film "The comic scenes aided by dialogues and the bonding between the two friends are a huge plus and reason enough to see the movie. The casting of each character has been aptly done with no room for excess anywhere making for one smooth ride all through. Nayan and Arya make an adequate pair though there are no great sparks of chemistry between them. However Nayan does make a pretty picture throughout." "Behindwoods" gave 2.5 out of 5 and expressed that "Director Rajesh might just pull it off this time too because he’s got everything right for a comic caper. He also efficiently camouflages the saggy little portions in both the halves of his movie with crisply written dialogues. Perfect for a weekend in which you decide not to give your brain much work." A critic from the "Times of India" gave 3 out of 5 and praised the film saying "When the director shows Boss watching 'Annamalai' on TV and getting inspired, you are not surprised. But his excuses, when facing various career options, make Boss an original. The tutorial college angle may be predictable, but soon humour is back on track, and it is enjoyable. You will also come away with some amazing performances.Specially, his lip movement was copied from a great artist named Dinesh
1104349	In numerical analysis, von Neumann stability analysis (also known as Fourier stability analysis) is a procedure used to check the stability of finite difference schemes as applied to linear partial differential equations. The analysis is based on the Fourier decomposition of numerical error and was developed at Los Alamos National Laboratory after having been briefly described in a 1947 article by British researchers Crank and Nicolson. Later, the method was given a more rigorous treatment in an article co-authored by von Neumann. Numerical stability. The stability of numerical schemes is closely associated with numerical error. A finite difference scheme is stable if the errors made at one time step of the calculation do not cause the errors to increase as the computations are continued. A "neutrally stable scheme" is one in which errors remain constant as the computations are carried forward. If the errors decay and eventually damp out, the numerical scheme is said to be stable. If, on the contrary, the errors grow with time the numerical scheme is said to be unstable. The stability of numerical schemes can be investigated by performing von Neumann stability analysis. For time-dependent problems, stability guarantees that the numerical method produces a bounded solution whenever the solution of the exact differential equation is bounded. Stability, in general, can be difficult to investigate, especially when the equation under consideration is nonlinear. In certain cases, Von Neumann stability is necessary and sufficient for stability in the sense of Lax–Richtmyer (as used in the Lax equivalence theorem): The PDE and the finite difference scheme models are linear; the PDE is constant-coefficient with periodic boundary conditions and have only two independent variables; and the scheme uses no more than two time levels. Von Neumann stability is necessary in a much wider variety of cases. It is often used in place of a more detailed stability analysis to provide a good guess at the restrictions (if any) on the step sizes used in the scheme because of its relative simplicity. Illustration of the Method. The von Neumann method is based on the decomposition of the errors into Fourier series. To illustrate the procedure, consider the one-dimensional heat equation
629374	Welcome to Woop Woop is a 1997 Australian-British comedy film, directed by Stephan Elliott starring Johnathon Schaech and Rod Taylor. The film was based on the novel "The Dead Heart" by Douglas Kennedy. "Woop Woop" is an Australian colloquialism referring to a fictional location in the middle of nowhere. Plot. Teddy (Jonathan Schaech) is a New York bird smuggler who goes to Australia to replace a flock of escaped birds after a deal goes awry. While there, he has a wild liaison with a quirky, sexually ravenous girl, Angie (Susie Porter), who after a brief courtship knocks him unconscious and kidnaps him. When he awakes he finds himself "married" to her - not legally - and stranded in Woop Woop, a desolate, dilapidated town hidden within a crater-like rock formation in Aboriginal territory. The residents are people who lived there at an asbestos mining camp before the land was handed over to the Aborigines; following a tragedy in 1979, Woop Woop was abandoned and literally "erased" from the Australian map. Not content with the deal given to them by the mining company (from Fremantle), they opted to return to their old lives in Woop Woop. At first they repopulated themselves incestuously, which caused wide mental instability. A rule was then enacted ("Rule #3") which bans residents from sleeping with their relatives. Since then, outsiders like Teddy have been occasionally kidnapped to keep Woop Woop populated. Their only export is dog food made from road-killed kangaroos. The town is run by Angie's father, Daddy-O (Rod Taylor), in an authoritarian manner that he disguises as communal (he and the other town elders keep the best luxuries for themselves in secret while doling out only the usual canned pineapple and sub-par tobacco to the others). The only entertainment available to the residents are old Rodgers & Hammerstein films and soundtracks, the latter of which they play constantly. These are presumably left over from the town's last official contact with the civilized world. After witnessing another kidnapping, 'Midget' the local hairdresser, gets shot to death by Daddy-O during an attempted escape, Teddy soon realizes he will be trapped in Woop Woop for life unless he finds a way out for himself. Initially, he repairs his VW van which had been vandalized by the locals, only to have it vandalized again by Daddy-O. The Australian Cattle Dog that he adopts is shot as part of 'Dog Day.' He befriends a couple of locals, including the scruffy, affable Duffy, and Krystal, Angie's sister, who help him to confront Daddy-O's iron-fisted reign, and to arrange an escape plan. Duffy, reprimanded by Daddy-O for breaking 'Rule #3,' nonetheless elects to stay in Woop Woop, while Teddy, Krystal, and Krystal's pet cockatoo escape. Soundtrack. A soundtrack was released by Universal Music Group. Release. Critical reception. "Welcome to Woop Woop" has an overall approval rating of 29% on Rotten Tomatoes. Long awaited as the follow-up film to Elliot's earlier film release, "The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert", the uncompleted "Welcome to Woop Woop" was screened "out of competition" at the 1997 Cannes Film Festival. Box office. "Welcome to Woop Woop" grossed $489,725 at the box office in Australia.
1087570	Ralph William Gosper, Jr. (born 1943), known as Bill Gosper, is an American mathematician and programmer from Pennsauken Township, New Jersey. Along with Richard Greenblatt, he may be considered to have founded the hacker community, and he holds a place of pride in the Lisp community.
1104810	Ingrid Daubechies ( ; born 17 August 1954) is a Belgian physicist and mathematician. She was between 2004 and 2011 the William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor in the mathematics and applied mathematics departments at Princeton University. In January 2011 she moved to Duke University as a Professor in mathematics. She is the first woman president of the International Mathematical Union (2011–2014). She is best known for her work with wavelets in image compression. Biography. Daubechies was born in Houthalen, Belgium, as the daughter of Marcel Daubechies (a civil mining engineer) and Simonne Duran (then a homemaker, later a criminologist). Ingrid remembers that when she was a small girl and could not sleep, she did not count numbers, as you would expect from a little child, but started to multiply numbers by two from memory. Thus, as a child, she already familiarized herself with the properties of exponential growth. Her parents found out that mathematical conceptions, like cone and tetrahedron, were familiar to her before she reached the age of 6. She excelled at the primary school, moved up a class after only 3 months. According to her parents she was able to derive the area of an ellipse by means of integral calculation at the age of 11. After completing the Lyceum in Turnhout she entered the Vrije Universiteit Brussel at 17. Daubechies completed her undergraduate studies in physics at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel in 1975. During the next few years, she visited the CNRS Center for Theoretical Physics in Marseille several times, where she collaborated with Alex Grossmann; this work was the basis for her doctorate in quantum mechanics. She obtained her Ph.D. in theoretical physics in 1980, and continued her research career at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel until 1987, rising through the ranks to positions roughly equivalent with research assistant-professor in 1981 and research associate-professor 1985, funded by a fellowship from the NFWO (Nationaal Fonds voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek). In 1985 Daubechies met mathematician Robert Calderbank, then on a 3-month exchange visit from AT&T Bell Laboratories, New Jersey to the Brussels-based mathematics division of Philips Research; they married in 1987, after Daubechies had spent most of 1986 as a guest-researcher at the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences. At Courant she made her best-known discovery: based on quadrature mirror filter-technology she constructed compactly supported continuous wavelets that would require only a finite amount of processing, in this way enabling wavelet theory to enter the realm of digital signal processing.
1620083	Devon Gearhart (born May 5, 1995) is an American teen actor. Gearhart was born and raised in Atlanta, Georgia, and began acting at the age of seven, landing national commercials with Burger King, PBS, Pizza Hut and the Cartoon Network. Gearhart's movie debut came in 2004 when he landed the role of Young Bobby in "". He currently lives in Los Angeles, California. Gearhart appeared in the television movies "The Brooke Ellison Story" directed by Christopher Reeve and "Warm Springs", playing the son of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Gearhart landed lead roles in two independent films, with the stories of each film being told through the eyes of his characters. The first of the films was "Canvas", in which he starred opposite Marcia Gay Harden and Joe Pantoliano. The second film was "Dog Days of Summer" in which he starred opposite Will Patton and Colin Ford. That same year Gearhart starred as Jake in the Life Is My Movie production "Little Men". Gearhart portrayed Naomi Watts' and Tim Roth's son in Michael Haneke's "Funny Games", which premiered at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival. Gearhart also appeared in Clint Eastwood's "Changeling" in 2008. In 2009, he appeared in the Robert Rodriguez film, "Shorts". In addition to films, Gearhart has appeared in television shows including "Lost" and "".
590304	Aparna Sen (née Dasgupta) (; born 25 October 1945) is a critically acclaimed Bengali Indian filmmaker, script writer, and actress. She is the winner of three National Film Awards and eight international film festival awards. Biography. Aparna Sen was born in Calcutta to a Bengali family, originally from East Bengal (now Bangladesh). Her father is the veteran critic and filmmaker Chidananda Dasgupta. Her mother Supriya Dasgupta is the cousin of renowned Bengali poet Jibanananda Das. She spent her childhood in Hazaribagh and Kolkata and had her schooling initially in South Point and later mostly in Modern High School for Girls, Kolkata. She studied her B.A. English honors in Presidency College. She met the Magnum photographer, Brian Brake, in Kolkata in 1961 when he was visiting India to photograph his Monsoon series. Brake used Sen as the model for what was to become one of his most well known photographs — a shot of a girl holding her face to the first drops of monsoon rain. The photo shoot was set up on a Kolkata rooftop with a ladder and a watering can. Sen described the shoot: He took me up to the terrace, had me wear a red sari in the way a village girl does, and asked me to wear a green stud in my nose. To be helpful, I said let me wear a red one to match, and he said no — he was so decisive, rather brusque — I think a green one. It was stuck to my nose with glue, because my nose wasn't pierced. Someone had a large watering can, and they poured water over me. It was really a very simple affair. It took maybe half an hour. Acting career. Sen made her film debut at the age of 16, when she played the role of Mrinmoyee in the Samapti portion of the 1961 film "Teen Kanya" ("Three Daughters") directed by Satyajit Ray (who was a longtime friend of her father's). She then studied at Kolkata's Presidency College. Later in life she would work with Satyajit Ray in several of his films, including the short "Pikoo" (1981) where she played the role of an adulterous wife and mother. In 1965, Sen resumed her film career in Mrinal Sen's "Akash Kusum", which was later remade into a Hindi film "Manzil" starring Amitabh Bachchan and Moushumi Chatterjee. Later she also brought out the different nuances of a widow in Mrinal Sen's "Mahaprithibi". From then until the end of the 1970s, she worked steadily in the Bengali film industry, as a leading heroine of the time. She acted in a number of Hindi films as well during this time, including "Imaan Dharam" (1977) with Bachchan, Shashi Kapoor, Sanjeev Kumar and Rekha. Sen was equally successful in mainstream Bengali films. Her chemistry with Soumitra Chatterjee in films such as "Basanta Bilap", "Baksa Badal" and "Chutir Fande" was loved as much as her work with Uttam Kumar in films like "Joy Jayanti" and "Alor Thikana". In 1969, Sen appeared in "The Guru", an English-language feature by Merchant Ivory Productions. She would make two more films with Merchant-Ivory, "Bombay Talkie" (1970), and "Hullabaloo Over Georgie and Bonnie's Pictures" (1978). In 2009, Sen appeared with Sharmila Tagore and Rahul Bose in Annirudh Roy-Chowdhary's Bengali film "Antaheen". The film went on to win four National Film Awards. Sen as director. In 1981, Sen made her debut as a film director with "36 Chowringhee Lane". She also wrote its screenplay. The film, about an aged Anglo-Indian teacher living in Calcutta, won positive reviews from critics. For her debut feature, Sen won the Best Director award at the Indian National Film Awards. "36 Chowringhee Lane" also won the Grand Prix (the Golden Eagle) at the Manila International Film Festival. She followed up this early success with several other films, notably "Paroma" (1984), "Sati" (1989) and "Yugant" (1995). These examined the feminine condition in modern-day India from different perspectives. She also starred in "Unishe April" (1994), the film by Bengali cinema's Rituparno Ghosh. Sen's next directorial effort "Paromitar Ek Din" (2000) was a critical hit and recalled the success of her first film. The film explored the relationship between a divorced woman (Rituparna Sengupta) and her mother-in-law, played by Sen herself. It won a number of awards on the international festival circuit. "Mr. and Mrs. Iyer" (2002) was a love story set against the harsh backdrop of Hindu-Muslim sectarian violence in India. The film won a National Film Award for Sen's direction, and an acting award for Konkona Sen Sharma, the director's daughter. The film won more awards at the Locarno, Hawaii and Manila film festivals. "15, Park Avenue" (2005) starred her daughter and the actors Shabana Azmi, Dhritiman Chaterji, Waheeda Rehman, Rahul Bose and Soumitra Chatterjee. The film deals with a girl (Konkona Sen Sharma) who is a schizophrenic and her relations with her elder stepsister, played by Shabana Azmi. Her next film, "The Japanese Wife" (2010), starred Raima Sen, Rahul Bose and Chigusa Takaku. This film focuses on two women and is based on a short story by West Bengal author Kunal Basu. Aparna has made selective films and in the last three decades of her career, she has made only nine films. In 2009, Sen announced her next Bengali film "Iti Mrinalini", which starred Konkona Sen Sharma, Aparna Sen, Rajat Kapoor, Kaushik Sen, and Priyanshu Chatterjee. Sen's last Bengali film was "Paromitar Ek Din" (2000). First-time screenwriter Ranjan Ghosh co-authored "Iti Mrinalini". This was the first time that Sen collaborated with any film writer or became attached to the curriculum of a film institute. The screenplay of "Iti Mrinalini" was an assignment in the Screenwriting syllabus at the Mumbai-based film school Whistling Woods International. It was also a major first in Indian screenwriting, as the first time that any screenplay from an Indian film institute was actually filmed. The film was released on July 29, 2011. Personal life. Sen has been married three times. Her first marriage, to Sanjay Sen, was when she was quite young. Her second husband was the science writer and journalist, Mukul Sharma. They later divorced amicably. Sen is presently married to Kalyan Ray, an author and professor of English who teaches at County College of Morris in Randolph, New Jersey, in the United States. She has two daughters, Kamalini and Konkona—who is also an actress—and two grandchildren zakir and haroon. Other achievements. In 2008, Sen was elected into the International Jury of the Asia Pacific Screen Awards. The highly credentialed jury, headed by a president of international distinction, determines winners from all nominations in each award category. From 1986 to 2005, Sen was the editor of the fortnightly "Sananda", a Bengali women's magazine (published by the Ananda Bazar Patrika group) that enjoys equal popularity in West Bengal and Bangladesh. From November 2005 to December 2006, she was associated with the Bengali 24x7 infotainment channel Kolkata TV as Creative Director. At present she is the editor of the magazine "Parama" of Sarada Group. In 1986, the then President of India, Giani Zail Singh bestowed the Padma Shri to Sen in recognition of her contribution to Indian cinema. Since then, she has received several lifetime achievement awards, and served on juries at film festivals around the world. In 1989 she was a member of the jury at the 16th Moscow International Film Festival.
837653	Nancy Karen Morgan (born April 1, 1949) is an American actress of film and television. Morgan is the daughter of Marjorie (née Greenfield) and Samuel A. Morgan, Jr. She is a niece of John "Red" Morgan, who was awarded the Medal of Honor for his bravery during World War II in 1943, events which were later fictionalized in the movie "Twelve O'Clock High". Morgan was married from 1977 to 1996 to actor John Ritter; they had three children: Jason (b. 1980), Carly (b. 1982), and Tyler, (b. 1985). She starred opposite Ron Howard in Howard's directorial debut, "Grand Theft Auto", as well as starring opposite Italian film star Terence Hill in a feature film and European television series based on comic-strip hero Lucky Luke. Morgan worked many years with husband, John Ritter, as co-host of the national United Cerebral Palsy Telethon, and in television movies "The Dreamer of Oz", and "Danielle Steel's Heartbeat". She played opposite Ritter in the feature film, "Americathon", and made a guest appearance in his television series, "Hooperman".
1055589	Little Manhattan is a 2005 romantic comedy film directed and written by husband and wife Mark Levin and Jennifer Flackett. Though Levin is credited as the director and Flackett as the writer, in the film's DVD commentary the two reveal that they collaborated on both tasks.
1072406	Invasion of Astro-Monster (known in Japan as ; is a Japanese Science Fiction kaiju film released in 1965. The film was co-produced between the Japanese company Toho, and Henry G. Saperstein's American company UPA, marking the only time a Godzilla film was co-produced with an American studio. Directed by Ishirō Honda, and featuring special effects by Eiji Tsuburaya, the film starred Hollywood actor Nick Adams, alongside Japanese actors Akira Takarada, Kumi Mizuno and Akira Kubo. The 6th film in the Godzilla series, this was also the first film to feature alien invaders, combining the series with outer space themes, such as civilizations on other planets and interplanetary space travel.
1236273	Seth Gabel (born Seth Cosentino; October 3, 1981) is an American actor. Gabel played the role of agent Lincoln Lee on Fox's television series "Fringe". Career. Gabel drew attention for his portrayal of Adrian Moore, the sexually confused adopted son of Ava Moore (portrayed by Famke Janssen) on the FX series "Nip/Tuck". The story arc garnered much attention for their incestuous and emotionally abusive relationship. On the big screen Gabel completed production on the Universal Pictures coming-of-age drama, "Take Me Home Tonight", starring Topher Grace. He appeared in the 2006 film version of Dan Brown’s novel, "The Da Vinci Code", directed by his father-in-law Ron Howard. Additional television credits include recurring and guest starring roles on "United States of Tara", "The Closer", ', ', "Sex and the City" and "100 Centre Street", directed by Sidney Lumet. He also starred in "Dirty Sexy Money" as Jeremy Darling, the charming, rebellious and exceedingly idiosyncratic son of the privileged and powerful Darling family, and the fraternal twin of socialite Juliet Darling, played by Samaire Armstrong. During the 2010–11 TV season, Gabel appeared on the FOX series "Fringe" as Lincoln Lee, a supporting character who is a member of the Fringe Division on the alternate universe. During the third season of the show, he began appearing in a supporting role as the two Lincoln Lees from both universes. Gabel was promoted to the main cast for the fourth season. His character was written off at the end of that season before returning briefly for the series finale. On January 30, 2013, Gabel was cast on the episode "Vertigo" of the series "Arrow" as a character based on Count Vertigo, known as the Count. He returned 7 episodes later after getting caught during his first episode. Personal life. Gabel was born in Hollywood, Florida. He is Jewish. He graduated from University School of Nova Southeastern University in Davie, Florida in 1999, and from New York University's Tisch School of the Arts. Gabel met actress Bryce Dallas Howard (daughter of actor/director Ron Howard) at New York University, and they dated for five years before marrying on June 17, 2006, in Greenwich, Connecticut. They have two children: son Theodore Norman "Theo" (born 16 February 2007) and daughter Beatrice Jean (born 19 January 2012).
1787051	Little Ashes is a 2008 Spanish-British drama film set against the backdrop of Spain during the 20s and 30s, as three of the era's most creative young talents meet at university and set off on a course to change their world. Luis Buñuel watches helplessly as the friendship between Salvador Dalí and the poet Federico García Lorca develops into a love affair. Plot. In 1922, 18-year-old Salvador Dalí (Robert Pattinson) arrives at university in Madrid. The Residencia de Estudiantes, or Students' Residence, is a modern environment which encourages Spain's brightest young minds. Salvador, who is determined to become a great artist, soon catches the attention of the Resi's social elite — poet Federico García Lorca (Javier Beltran) and aspiring filmmaker Luis Buñuel (Matthew McNulty). Together they form the nucleus of the most modern group in Madrid. Their private lives become increasingly complex as Federico ignores the advances of devoted friend and writer Magdalena (Marina Gatell), and Salvador himself feels the pull of Federico's magnetism. Luis, becoming increasingly isolated by the duo's closeness, decides to move to Paris to fulfil his own artistic ambitions. Meanwhile, Salvador and Federico leave Madrid to spend the summer at the seaside village of Cadaques, at the home of Dalí's family.
1061732	Elmore Rual "Rip" Torn (born February 6, 1931), is an American actor of stage, screen and television. Torn received an Academy Award nomination as Best Supporting Actor for his role in the 1983 film "Cross Creek". His work includes the role of Artie, the producer, on "The Larry Sanders Show", for which he was nominated for six Emmy Awards, winning in 1996. Torn also won an American Comedy Award for Funniest Supporting Male in a Series, and two CableACE Awards for his work on the show, and was nominated for a Satellite Award in 1997 as well. Early life. Torn was born Elmore Rudolph Torn Jr (his middle name was later changed) in Temple, Texas, the son of Thelma Mary (née Spacek) and Elmore Rual Torn, an agriculturalist and economist. His father was of German and possibly Austrian descent, while his mother was of Czech, German and Austrian descent. Being given the name "Rip" is a family tradition of men in the Torn family for several generations. He was a member of the Texas A&M University Corps of Cadets although he graduated from the University of Texas, and was a member of the Alpha Nu chapter of the Sigma Chi fraternity. After graduation he served in the Military Police in the U.S. Army. Film career. At Texas A&M, Torn had studied drama with Ben Iden Payne, and after relocating from his native Texas to Hollywood, he made his debut in the 1956 film "Baby Doll". Torn then headed to New York where he studied at the Actors Studio under Lee Strasberg, becoming a prolific stage actor, appearing in the original cast of Tennessee Williams' play "Sweet Bird of Youth", and reprising the role in the film and television adaptations. While in New York, Torn introduced his cousin, the Oscar-winning actress Sissy Spacek, to the entertainment business, and helped her enroll in Strasberg's Actors Studio. One of his earliest roles was in the film "Pork Chop Hill", playing the brother-in-law of Gregory Peck's character. He also played an uncredited role in "A Face in the Crowd" as Barry Mills, touted as the down-home successor to Andy Griffith's megalomaniacal TV star Lonesome Rhodes. In 1957 Torn played "Jody", a young man trying to avenge the death of his father in an early episode so titled of John Payne's NBC western television series, "The Restless Gun". He also played an arrogant young thief on "Alfred Hitchcock Presents" in the episode "Number Twenty-Two". Rip also played Judas Iscariot in MGM's "King of Kings" released in 1961. In 1963 he appeared as a graduate student with multiple degrees at fictitious Channing College in the ABC drama "Channing" starring Jason Evers and Henry Jones. That same year, he appeared as Roy Kendall in the episode "Millions of Faces" in the ABC medical drama about psychiatry, "Breaking Point" with Paul Richards. In 1964 Torn appeared as Eddie Sanderson in the episode "The Secret in the Stone" of the NBC psychiatric drama, "The Eleventh Hour" with Ralph Bellamy and Jack Ging. That same year, he appeared in the premiere of the short-lived CBS drama "The Reporter", starring Harry Guardino as a New York City journalist. In 1965 he portrayed Colonel Royce in the "The Lorelei" episode of "12 O-Clock High (TV series)". He has been a character actor in numerous films since then, including roles such as those of New Orleans blackmailer Slade opposite Steve McQueen and Karl Malden in 1965's "The Cincinnati Kid" or the gruff boss Agent Zed in 1997's "Men in Black" and 2002's "Men in Black II". The part of lawyer George Hanson in the Peter Fonda–Dennis Hopper road movie "Easy Rider" was written for Torn by Terry Southern (who was a close friend), but according to Southern's biographer Lee Hill, Torn withdrew from the project after he and co-director Dennis Hopper got into a bitter argument in a New York restaurant. On "The Tonight Show" in 1994, Hopper said that the argument ended with Torn pulling a knife—a statement that was later rescinded. As a result, Torn was replaced by Jack Nicholson, whose appearance in the film catapulted him to stardom. Torn portrayed a psychiatrist who installed a hidden camera in his New York office to record his own mental breakdown in "Coming Apart" (1969). In 1972 he won rave reviews for his portrayal of a country & western singer in the cult film "Payday". In 1976 he starred in the cult classic science fiction movie "The Man Who Fell to Earth". In 1979 Torn along with Conchata Ferrell starred in the Richard Pearce directed film "Heartland" about early homestead life in western America. He received an Academy Award nomination as Best Supporting Actor for his role in the 1983 film "Cross Creek". In 1988 he ventured into directing with the offbeat comedy "The Telephone", starring Whoopi Goldberg. The screenplay was written by Terry Southern and Harry Nilsson, and the film was produced by their company Hawkeye. The story, which focused on an unhinged, out-of-work actor, had been written with Robin Williams in mind. After he turned it down, Goldberg expressed a strong interest, but when production began Torn reportedly had to contend with Goldberg constantly digressing and improvising, and he had to plead with her to perform takes that stuck to the script. Goldberg was backed by the studio, who also allowed her to replace Torn's chosen DP, veteran cinematographer John Alonzo, with her then-husband. As a result of the power struggle, Torn, Southern and Nilsson cut their own version of the film, using the takes that adhered to the script, and this was screened at the Sundance Film Festival, but the studio put together a rival version using other takes and it was poorly reviewed when it premiered in January 1988. In 1990 he played the ultra-hawkish Colonel Fargo in the cold war drama "By Dawn's Early Light". In 1991 he portrayed Albert Brooks' defense attorney in the comedy "Defending Your Life". In 1993 Torn played the OCP CEO in the science fiction film, "Robocop 3", then opposite Tantoo Cardinal in "Where the Rivers Flow North", which featured a cameo role for Michael J. Fox. He played Gord's dad, James "Jim" Brody, in the 2001 film "Freddy Got Fingered". Stage career. Broadway. Torn has appeared in ten Broadway plays, and directed one. He made his feature Broadway debut in 1959, when he played Tom Junior in "Sweet Bird of Youth", for which he won a Theater World Award, also receiving a Tony Award nomination. He returned next in 1962 in the play "Daughter of Silence" as Carlo, following that with a role in the 1963 production of "Strange Interlude". In 1964, he played Lyle Britten in "Blues for Mister Charlie", and four years later he was Roberto in "The Cuban Thing" for its only performance on September 24, 1968. In 1971 he played Edgar in "Dance of Death", and directed his first Broadway play in 1973: "Look Away". He played The Son in the Broadway revival of "The Glass Menagerie" in 1975, and five years later played Don in "Mixed Couples". Torn was absent from Broadway for thirteen years, but returned in 1993 to play Chris Christopherson in "Anna Christie". In his last Broadway appearance he played Will Kidder in "The Young Man from Atlanta" in 1997. Off Broadway. Torn made his feature Off Broadway acting debut as Eben Cabot in the play "Desire Under the Elms", followed by Peter in "The Kitchen" at the 81st Street Theatre. His third Off Broadway role was Marion-Faye-A-Pimp in "The Deer Park", for which he won the 1967 Obie Award for Distinguished Performance. He performed at the Lucille Lortel Theatre in the play "Dream of a Blacklisted Actor", and later in the Joseph Papp Public Theater's Anspacher Theater as William McLeod in "Barbary Shore". He last acted Off Broadway at the American Place Theatre as Henry Hackamore in the play "Seduced". Torn's Off Broadway debut as director was for the Evergreen Theater with the play "The Beard"; he won the 1968 Obie for Distinguished Direction for that work. He next directed "The Honest-to-God Schnozzia" at the Gramercy Arts Theater, followed by Strindberg's "Creditors" and "The Stronger" – in which he acted beside his wife at the time, Geraldine Page and his future wife, Amy Wright – in the Anspacher Theater of the Joseph Papp Public Theater. Torn and Page also co-produced that production, and had previously presented the two plays along with "Miss Julie" at the off-off-Broadway Hudson Guild Theatre" the year before. "The Larry Sanders Show". From 1992 to 1998 Torn played veteran television producer "Artie" on the HBO series "The Larry Sanders Show", a satire about celebrity-driven Hollywood talk shows. For his work, Torn received six consecutive Emmy award nominations as Best Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series and won the award once (1996). Torn is the only actor on the show who won an Emmy Award for his work. Other than the Emmys, Torn received two American Comedy Awards nominations for Funniest Male Performance in a Series, winning once, and two CableACE Awards for his work on the show. Later career. Following "The Larry Sanders Show", Torn has appeared in many comedic roles in films such as "", "Freddy Got Fingered", "Canadian Bacon", "Rolling Kansas" and the first two "Men in Black" movies, as well as dramatic roles in films such as "The Insider" and "Marie Antoinette". Torn is also known for his voice work, and has done voice-overs for many animated films. He lent his voice to the Jerry Seinfeld film "Bee Movie". In 2007 and 2008 Torn made five guest appearances on the Emmy-award winning NBC comedy "30 Rock" as the fictional Chief Executive Officer of General Electric, Don Geiss. He was nominated for an Emmy Award in the category for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Comedy Series, but lost to Tim Conway, who also guest starred in the same sitcom. Torn's character was reportedly killed off as a direct result of his 2010 arrest, though Tina Fey denied this in a DVD commentary. Torn voiced the character of Hephaestus in the 2010 video game, "God of War III". Torn also appears in the music video for the "They Might Be Giants" song "Can't Keep Johnny Down", from their 2011 album "Join Us". Personal life. Family. Torn has been married three times and has six children: Torn was married to actress Ann Wedgeworth from 1956 to 1961 with whom he had a daughter, Danae Torn. After his divorce from Wedgeworth, he married the Oscar-winning actress Geraldine Page in 1963. Page and Torn remained married until her death in 1987. They had three children: actor Tony Torn, Jon Torn (an assistant professor of Electronic Media and Film at Northern Arizona University) and actress Angelica Torn. Torn apparently delighted in the fact that the doorbell of their New York townhouse read Torn Page. His first cousin, Sissy Spacek, lived with Torn and Page when she first moved to New York (circa 1966) to pursue a show business career. Torn helped her enroll in the Actors Studio. He currently is married to actress Amy Wright with whom he has two children, Katie and Claire. Legal troubles. In January 2004 Torn was arrested in New York City after his car collided with a taxi. A video of his arrest in which he curses at officers and angrily refuses a breathalyzer test was aired on television news outlets. In October 2004 a jury acquitted Torn of any wrongdoing. In December 2006 Torn was again arrested for drunk driving in North Salem, New York, after colliding with a tractor trailer. In April 2007 Torn pleaded guilty and had his driver's license suspended for 90 days and was required to pay a $380 fine. On December 14, 2008, Torn was again arrested on suspicion of drunk driving. A bartender at the White Hart Inn in Salisbury, Connecticut reportedly served Torn, but apparently noticed he appeared intoxicated as he was leaving the establishment, according to a police report. Torn reportedly refused a ride home and got into his vehicle with a Christmas tree tied on top and drove away. He was convicted and sentenced to probation in May 2009. On January 29, 2010, Torn was arrested after breaking into a closed Litchfield Bancorp branch office in Lakeville, Connecticut, where Torn maintains a residence. He was charged with carrying a firearm without a permit, carrying a firearm while intoxicated, first-degree burglary, second-degree criminal trespassing and third-degree criminal mischief. The Connecticut State Police said that Torn broke into the bank thinking it was his home. On February 1, 2010, Torn appeared in court where his attorney, A. Thomas Waterfall, told the judge that his client needed help with his alcohol abuse and that he could start treatment immediately in New York state. Torn was released on $100,000 bail. As a condition of his release, the judge said Torn must be evaluated for substance abuse. On August 11, 2010, Torn was denied special probation which would have allowed his name to be cleared of charges. The judge in the case cited Torn's history of alcohol abuse and the possession of a loaded weapon while intoxicated, which carries a minimum one-year sentence. On December 14, 2010, Torn pled guilty to a litany of charges: reckless endangerment, criminal trespass, criminal mischief and the illegal carrying of a firearm and was given a two-and-a-half-year suspended jail sentence and three years probation. On-set conflicts. Appearing as an interview subject in Studs Terkel's 1974 oral-history book "", Torn confessed, "I have certain flaws in my make-up. Something called irascibility. I get angry easily. I get saddened by things easily." While filming "Maidstone" (1970) Torn, apparently unhappy with the film, struck director and star of the film Norman Mailer in the head with a hammer. With the camera rolling, Mailer bit Torn's ear and they wrestled to the ground. The fight continued until it was broken up by cast and crew members as Mailer's children screamed in the background. The fight is featured in the film. Although the scene may have been planned by Torn, the blood shed by both actors is real, and Torn was reportedly truly outraged by Mailer's direction. In 1999 Torn filed a defamation lawsuit against Dennis Hopper over a story Hopper told on "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno". Hopper claimed that Torn pulled a knife on him during pre-production of the film "Easy Rider" (1969). According to Hopper, Torn was originally cast in the film but was replaced with Jack Nicholson after the incident. According to Torn's suit, it was actually Hopper who pulled the knife on him, and Torn demanded a retraction from Hopper. A trial court judge ruled in Torn's favor and Hopper was ordered to pay $475,000 in compensatory damages but denied Torn's request for punitive damages, ruling Hopper had not acted with malice. Hopper then appealed the ruling, and a California appellate court upheld the trial court's ruling for compensatory damages, and reversed the ruling for the punitive damages, requiring Hopper to pay another $475,000 to Torn.
584145	Saranya Mohan born 9 February 1989) is an Indian film actress, who has acted in Malayalam and Tamil films. She is probably best known for her performances in "Yaaradi Nee Mohini" and "Vennila Kabadi Kuzhu". Early life. Saranya was born on 9 February 1989 in Alappuzha, Kerala as the eldest daughter to Palakkad Iyer parents Mohan and Devika, and has a younger sister named Sukanya. Her mother, Devika, is a trained classical dancer, who runs a dance school in Alappuzha, where Saranya herself also learnt dancing bharatanatyam. She studied at St. Joseph's College in Alappuzha, completing her B. A. degree in English literature. Career. She was brought to light by Malayalam director Fazil, who had seen Saranya dancing at her dancing school. After approaching and persuading her parents, he cast her for a child character in the 1997 Malayalam film "Aniyathi Pravu" and its Tamil remake, "Kadhalukku Mariyadhai". Following two more roles as a child artiste, she took a break, concentrating on her studies, before enacting a supporting role in another Fazil directorial, "Oru Naal Oru Kanavu" (2005), in which she acted as a sister to the male lead character. Her subsequent release, the Dhanush-Nayantara starrer "Yaaradi Nee Mohini" (2008), brought her into limelight. Her comedic performance as the younger sister to the lead female, who has a crush on her sister's love interest, won her fame and many accolades. She subsequently appeared in a number of Tamil films, which, however, were less successful. 2009, she had six releases, four of which being Tamil projects. Out of her Tamil releases, the tragedy sports film, "Vennila Kabadi Kuzhu", directed by debutante Suseenthiran, and the supernatural thriller "Eeram" proved to be commercially as well as critically successful. Later that year, she made her Telugu debut with "Village Lo Vinayakudu" and made her comeback to Malayalam films, starring in "Chemistry". In 2011 she acted in M.Raja's Velayudham which turned out to be a huge hit. Her role as Vijay's sister won her a lot of good reviews. She also acted in another film named Dharani's Osthi in 2011. She plays the role of the lover of simbhu's (osthi velan) younger brother. Her debut bollywood film is Badlapur boys.
1067137	Scenes from a Mall is a 1991 film directed by Paul Mazursky with a screenplay by Roger L. Simon and Mazursky, starring Bette Midler and Woody Allen. In the film, Allen's character, Nick, is married to author Deborah, played by Midler. After years of a happy marriage, Nick reveals to her that he has had an affair. Deborah is shocked and requests a divorce, but later admits that she herself has been unfaithful. The film was shot at the Stamford Town Center in Stamford, Connecticut and the Beverly Center in Los Angeles, California. Reception. The film received a mixed reception, and currently rates at 33% on Rotten Tomatoes. At the time of its release, film critics Siskel & Ebert gave the film ""Two Thumbs Down"". Box office. The film was not box office success, but did manage to bring back its budget.
581744	Pehla Nasha () is a 1993 Indian film directed by Ashutosh Gowariker who made his directorial debut. The movie is a remake of Brian de Palma's 1984 thriller "Body Double". Deepak Tijori plays the lead role alongside Pooja Bhatt, Raveena Tandon and Paresh Rawal. The film also has cameo appearances by Aamir Khan, Shahrukh Khan, and Saif Ali Khan as themselves. It is the only film to feature Aamir Khan and Shahrukh Khan in a scene together. Ashutosh Gowariker recently commented that it may also be the last time the three actors share screen space together. Other upcoming actors at the time such as Sudesh Berry and Rahul Roy also appeared in the same scene. Synopsis. A down and out actor, Deepak Bakshi (Deepak Tijori), who has claustrophobia and deep fear of enclosed spaces, goes to live as a care-taker in a multi-storied apartment, belonging to his friend (Jayant Kripalani), while he is away. His friend shows him a telescope which is used for spying on a neighborhood building which houses a beautiful woman. Deepak takes to spying on a regular basis. One day while spying on the woman, Deepak sees her getting attacked. He decides to get involved, and lands himself into trouble with the police as he is now a suspect for murder. Later he is able to solve the mystery by overcoming his phobia and catching the main killer.
1603276	Louis Leithold (San Francisco, USA, 16 November 1924 – Los Angeles, 29 April 2005) was an American mathematician and teacher. He is best known for authoring "The Calculus", a classic textbook about calculus that changed the teaching methods for calculus in world high schools and universities. Known as "a legend in AP calculus circles," Leithold was the mentor of Jaime Escalante, the Los Angeles high-school teacher whose story is the subject of the 1988 movie "Stand and Deliver". Biography. Leithold attained master's and doctorate degrees from the University of California, Berkeley. He went on to teach at Phoenix College (Arizona) (which has a math scholarship in his name), California State University, Los Angeles, the University of Southern California, Pepperdine University, and The Open University (UK). In 1968, Leithold published "The Calculus", a "blockbuster best-seller" which simplified the teaching of calculus. At age 72, after his retirement from Pepperdine, he began tutoring math at Malibu High School, in Malibu, California, drilling his students for the Advanced Placement Calculus, and achieving considerable success. He regularly assigned two hours of homework per night, and had training sessions at his own house that ran Sundays from 9AM to 4PM. His teaching methods were praised for their liveliness, and his love for the topic was well-known. He also taught workshops for calculus teachers. One of the people he influenced was Jaime Escalante, who taught math to minority students at Garfield High School in East Los Angeles. Escalante's subsequent success as a teacher is portrayed in the 1988 film "Stand and Deliver". Leithold died of natural causes the day before his class (which he had been "relentlessly drilling" for eight months) was to take the AP exam; his students went on to receive top scores. A memorial service was held in Glendale, and a scholarship established in his name.
1165005	Charles William "Bill" Mumy, Jr. (; born February 1, 1954), is an American actor, musician, pitchman, instrumentalist, voice-over artist, and a figure in the science-fiction community. He is perhaps best known for his work as a child actor in film and television throughout the 1960s, then credited as Billy Mumy. The red-headed Mumy came to prominence in the 1960s as a child actor, most notably as Will Robinson, the youngest of the three children of Professor John and Dr. Maureen Robinson (played by Guy Williams and June Lockhart, respectively) and friend of the nefarious and pompous Dr. Zachary Smith (played by Jonathan Harris), in the 1960s CBS sci-fi television series "Lost in Space". He later appeared as a lonely teenager, Sterling North, in the 1969 Disney film, "Rascal", with Steve Forrest. He was cast as Teft in the 1971 film "Bless the Beasts and Children". In the 1990s, he had the role of Lennier in the syndicated sci-fi TV series "Babylon 5", and he also served as narrator of A&E Network's Emmy Award-winning series, "Biography". He is notable for his musical career, as a solo artist and as half of the duo Barnes & Barnes. Early life and career. Mumy was born in San Gabriel, the son of the former Muriel Gertrude Gould and Charles William Mumy, Sr., a cattle rancher. He began his professional career at the age of six, and has worked on more than four hundred television episodes, eighteen motion pictures, various commercials, and scores of voice over work, as well as working as a musician, songwriter, recording artist and writer. Television career. Among Mumy's earliest television roles was as 6-year-old Willy in the 1960 episode "Donald's Friend" of the NBC family drama television series, "National Velvet", starring Lori Martin as an aspiring thoroughbred rider.
1062221	Thomas Edward "Tom" Hulce (; born December 6, 1953) is an American actor and theater producer. As an actor, he is best known for his Oscar-nominated portrayal of Mozart in the movie "Amadeus", his role as "Pinto" in "National Lampoon's Animal House", and his role as Quasimodo in Disney's 'The Hunchback of Notre Dame'. Additional acting awards included a total of four Golden Globe nominations, an Emmy Award, and a Tony Award nomination. Hulce retired from acting in the mid-1990s in order to focus upon stage directing and producing. In 2007, he won a Tony Award as a lead producer of the Broadway musical "Spring Awakening". Early life. Hulce was born in Detroit, Michigan (some sources incorrectly say Whitewater, Wisconsin). The youngest of four children, he was raised in Plymouth, Michigan. His mother, Joanna (née Winkleman), sang briefly with Phil Spitalny's "All-Girl Orchestra", and his father, Raymond Albert Hulce, worked for the Ford Motor Company. Although he originally wanted to be a singer as a child, he switched to acting after his voice changed during his teenage years. He left home at the age of 15 and attended Interlochen Arts Academy and the North Carolina School of the Arts. Acting career. Hulce made his acting debut in 1975, playing opposite Anthony Perkins in "Equus" on Broadway. Throughout the rest of the 1970s and the early 1980s, he worked primarily as a theater actor, taking occasional parts in movies. His first film role was in the James Dean-influenced film "September 30, 1955" in 1977. His next movie role was as freshman student Lawrence "Pinto" Kroger in the classic comedy "National Lampoon's Animal House" (1978). In 1982, he played a gunshot victim in the television show "St. Elsewhere". In the early 1980s, Hulce was chosen over intense competition (which included David Bowie and Mikhail Baryshnikov) to play the role of Mozart in director Miloš Forman's film version of Peter Shaffer's play "Amadeus". In 1985, he was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actor for his performance, losing to his co-star, F. Murray Abraham. In 1989, he received his second Best Actor Golden Globe Award nomination for a critically acclaimed performance as an intellectually challenged garbage collector in the 1988 movie "Dominick and Eugene". He played supporting roles in "Parenthood" (1989), "Fearless" (1993) and "Mary Shelley's Frankenstein" (1994). In 1988 he played the title part in the British-Dutch movie "Shadow Man" directed by the Polish director Piotr Andrejew. In 1990, he was nominated for his first Emmy Award for his performance as the 1960s civil rights activist Michael Schwerner in the 1990 TV-movie "Murder in Mississippi". He starred as Joseph Stalin's projectionist in Russian director Andrei Konchalovsky's 1991 film "The Inner Circle". In 1996, he won an Emmy Award for his role as a pediatrician in a television-movie version of the Wendy Wasserstein play "The Heidi Chronicles", starring Jamie Lee Curtis. Also in 1996, he provided both the speaking and singing voice of the protagonist Quasimodo for the Disney animated feature "The Hunchback of Notre Dame". Although Hulce largely retired from acting in the mid-1990s, he had bit parts in the recent movies "Jumper" (2008) and "Stranger Than Fiction" (2006). Hulce remained active in theater throughout his entire acting career. In addition to "Equus", he also appeared in Broadway productions of "A Memory of Two Mondays" and "A Few Good Men", for which he was a Tony Award nominee in 1990. In the mid-1980s, he appeared in two different productions of playwright Larry Kramer's early AIDS-era drama "The Normal Heart". In 1992, he starred in a Shakespeare Theatre Company production of "Hamlet." His regional theatre credits include "Eastern Standard" at the Seattle Repertory Theatre. Career as producer. Hulce shepherded two major projects to fruition: the six-hour, two-evening stage adaptation of John Irving's "The Cider House Rules", and "Talking Heads", a festival of Alan Bennett's plays which won six Obie Awards, a Drama Desk Award, a special Outer Critics Circle Award, and a New York Drama Critics' Circle Award for Best Play. He also headed "10 Million Miles", a musical project by Keith Bunin and Grammy Award-nominated singer-songwriter Patty Griffin, that premiered in Spring 2007 at the Atlantic Theater Company. Hulce was a lead producer of the Broadway hit "Spring Awakening", which won eight Tony Awards in 2007, including one for Best Musical. He is also a lead producer of a stage adaptation of the Green Day album "American Idiot". The musical had its world premiere in Berkeley, California, at the Berkeley Repertory Theatre in 2009 and opened on Broadway in April 2010. He also produced the 2004 movie "A Home at the End of the World", based upon Michael Cunningham's novel. Personal life. Hulce said in 2008 in an interview with "The Seattle Gay News" that he is comfortable with being described as "openly gay". In the same interview he debunked as false the rumors that he had married an Italian artist named Cecilia Ermini, with whom he had a daughter, which has been repeated as fact on many websites. Awards and nominations. Theater awards: 2010 Tony Award Best Musical "American Idiot" Produced by Tom Hulce 2010 Drama Desk Award Outstanding Musical "American Idiot" Produced by Tom Hulce 2007 Tony Award Best Musical "Spring Awakening" Produced by Tom Hulce 2007 Drama Desk Award Outstanding Musical "Spring Awakening" Produced by Tom Hulce 2003 Drama Desk Award Outstanding New Play Tom Hulce (for "Talking Heads") 2000 Drama Desk Award Outstanding Director of a Play Thomas Hulce ( for "The Cider House Rules, Part One") 1993 Helen Hayes Award Outstanding Lead Actor, Resident Play (for "Hamlet", The Shakespeare Theatre) 1990 Tony Award Best Actor in Play (for "A Few Good Men") 1990 Helen Hayes Award Outstanding Lead Actor, Non-Resident Play (for "A Few Good Men") Film/Television awards: See Filmography below
585479	Yathra (Malayalam: യാത്ര, meaning "The Journey") is a 1985 Malayalam film directed by Balu Mahendra, and starring Mammootty and Shobana.It is a remake of the 1982 Telugu film Nireekshana, directed by Balu Mahendra himself, and starring Bhanu Chander and Archana. The film tells a fictional story, but built upon the human rights violations by the Police and the prison authorities in India during the nationwide emergency of 1975-1977, when the fundamental rights of the citizens were suspended. The movie is an adaptation of the 1973 song "Tie a yellow ribbon around the old oak tree". Plot. The story unfolds as Unnikrishnan (Mammootty), a convict, now free from the jail tells his tragic love story to his fellow passengers in a school bus. An orphan and a forest officer by profession, he falls in love with a local girl, Thulasi, during his stay at a forest area. They decided to get married and he sets off to inform his marriage to his best friend. On his way back the police arrests him as a suspected criminal, who has some visible similarities of Unnikrishnan. There he accidentally kills a police man and gets life imprisonment. During his early days at jail, he writes a letter to Thulasi asking to forget him. When his prison term was about to complete, he wrote a letter to light a lamp if she still waits for him. After long years of torments in the jail he goes to meet Thulasi, and does she still waits for him? That's the question of his fellow passengers too. She waits for him and they get united Awards. Mammootty won the Special Jury Award in 1985 Kerala State Film Awards and the Best Actor award in the Filmfare Award. Music. The film has music scored by 'maestro' Ilaiyaraaja. The song "Thanannam Thannanam" is inspired from "My Favorite Things" from the 1959 Rodgers and Hammerstein musical The Sound of Music.
587691	Bindu Madhavi is an Indian model and film actress, who mainly works in Tamil and Telugu films. She has made her debut in the 2008 Tamil film, "Pokkisham". Career. Madhavi was born in Chittoor, Andhra Pradesh. Her father was an deputy commissioner in commercial tax department, due to which her family moved to various places including Tirupati, Nellore, Guntur, Vijayawada and Hyderabad, before settling in Chennai, Tamil Nadu, where she did her studies and completed her degree in Biotechnology from Vellore Institute of Technology. While in college, she started modelling for Saravana Stores. Thanks to her work in a Tata Gold Tanishq advertisement, she was auditioned and selected by noted Telugu director Sekhar Kammula to act in his production, "Avakai Biryani". Her family was strictly against her entering the film industry, with Madhavi citing that her father did not speak to her for eight months and that her mother too was upset. Her single release of 2009 was "Bumper Offer", opposite Sairam Shankar, which was produced by noted director Puri Jagannadh. She later appeared in the film "Om Shanti" which released in 2010. Producer Dil Raju signed her for "Rama Rama Krishna Krishna" alongside Ram and Arjun Sarja. The movie released in May 2010. She was later signed by director Gautham Menon for his production "Veppam" that is being directed by his associate Anjana Ali Khan and became her debut Tamil film, following which she has been signed for two more Tamil productions.
774595	Les Boys is a 1997 Quebec-made comedy film directed by Louis Saia. It has spawned three sequels and by any measure (profit, box office or attendance) is the most successful Quebec made film series of all time, and one of the most successful Canadian-made film series of all time. Plot. The plot revolves around the players on a hockey team ("Les Boys") that play in a low level amateur hockey league. They are made up of a wide variety of professions and personalities, including a police officer, a barely competent doctor, a mechanic, an unemployed hockey trivia buff who has lost his confidence as a goaltender, a shifty real estate salesman and a closeted gay lawyer. The team is sponsored by a pub owner, whose son desperately wants to play hockey with the older men. The film starts at the time of the league championship, at which time the team is soundly thrashed in the final. Meanwhile, the pub owner is losing at poker to the head of the local organized crime syndicate, to the tune of $50,000. Given the opportunity to pay him back, the owner can only raise $25,000. After threatening to break his leg, the crime boss proposes another wager - a game between Les Boys and his own team. If Les Boys win, the debt is settled, but if they lose, the crime boss gets the pub. In the week leading up to the big game, a number of sub plots emerge. Chief among them is the fact that most of the partners of the hockey players are starved for affection and intimacy, including the effeminate partner of the gay lawyer. Their primary complaint is that their men are either consumed by work or hockey to the exclusion of their relationships. Meanwhile, the doctor is attempting to get the pub's attractive waitress to notice him, but she only has eyes for the teams best player, the hunky, but married, mechanic. When game day arrives, the waitress has waylaid the mechanic on the pretext that her car needs work. The rest of the players show up (including the goalie, who has previously vowed retirement) to find themselves faced with a team of ringers, including players they recognize from various minor leagues. Bewildered by the competition and handicapped by the lack of their best player, they quickly fall behind until the pub owner finally discloses the wager, and the mechanic shows up when he learns from his teammates that his wife is looking for him at the rink. Naturally, they overcome all obstacles and triumph, the gay lawyer is outed by his reunion with his lover, and the waitress finally sees the doctor without his cheap toupee and likes what she sees. English translation of title. Translating "Les Boys" to English poses obvious difficulties as the word "Boys" is borrowed directly from English. As with most examples of English words borrowed into Quebec French, it is treated grammatically as a French noun, and given the proper masculine, plural, definite article. Literally, the title could be translated as "The 'Boys'", and this is the title used for English versions on videotape or DVD. Film as part of Quebec culture. Surprisingly, this is one of very few Quebec made feature films to deal with ice hockey, a near obsession for many in Quebec since the beginning of the 20th century. Outsiders often underestimate the importance of hockey to Canadian culture, and particularly to Quebec culture. A film about aging immature men pursuing their sport on a serious amateur level is not a new one (see "The Longest Yard", "Mystery, Alaska", etc.), but it struck a responsive chord with Quebec audiences, many of whom obviously saw a piece of themselves in the characters. Box office success. Les Boys cost about $3,300,000 (Cdn). to make, and took in domestic box office of over $6,000,000 CAD and another $4,000,000 USD in the United States. Given the size of the Quebec market (the film saw limited release in English Canada), a $6 million box office is the approximate equivalent of over $250 million for a domestic U.S. release. Its three sequels were also the best performing films at the Quebec box office in the years they were released. Critical reaction. Despite its box office success, no one claims that "Les Boys" is a great film masterpiece. The film is highly formulaic. The plot of a wager or task based on a gambling debt is very common in film. The farcical sexual escapades that surround the plot are also very familiar to French cinema. The relationship between the gay lawyer and his lover could have been lifted directly from "La Cage aux Folles". However, French audiences generally enjoy the film far more than English audiences. This is no doubt partially because most English versions of the film have a badly dubbed dialogue, whereas the French dialogue is far more realistic. Sequels. Due to the success of the movie at the Quebec box office, Louis Saïa made two additional sequels, Les Boys II and Les Boys III. The fourth sequel, Les Boys IV was made by George Mihalka. The second movie is about the team playing in a tournament in Chamonix, France. During the movie, the team's equipment is stolen in Chamonix. They manage to get their equipment back and to win the tournament in a shootout. The third one is more complex, as Stan's team members are demoted to a team managed by one of Stan's friends. During a matchup between the remaining Boys members and former Boys members, it is revealed that Stan's friend wants to use land around Stan's bar to build condos. The former Boys turn against their new team and Stan takes over his friend's bar. In this movie, the Boys play a game against the Canada women's Olympic team consisting mainly of players from Quebec (Kim St-Pierre, Caroline Ouellette, Danielle Goyette, Gina Kingsbury and others). The Boys are easily defeated by the girls. The fourth movie is again a tournament in which the Boys' team ends up in a game against the French Legends Team (les "Légendes du Hockey"). Some of the legends in the movie include Guy Lafleur, Mike Bossy, Ray Bourque and Martin Brodeur. Also during the movie, after a bad game, Stan takes his Boys into a wooded location and nearly gets them lost in the area. Television series. A spin-off TV series named "Les Boys: La série" debuted on October 1, 2007 on Radio-Canada. Most of the regulars have returned to reprise their original roles, including Rémy Girard, Marc Messier, Paul Houde, Michel Charette, Yvan Ponton, Patrick Labbé and Pierre Lebeau. A second season debuted in January 2009. Pierre Verville and Patrice Belanger joined "Les Boys" as new players. Paul Houde will not be back as the Boys goalie Fernand Rivest, as he is killed off in the season premiere. The show ended its run in 2012.
775244	"Virginia's Run" is a 2002 Canadian-American independent family drama/coming of age film. The movie was filmed in Shelburne, Nova Scotia. Plot. Virginia (Letherman) is a 13 year old girl living in Nova Scotia with her older sister Caroline (Skarsten) and her father Ford (Byrne). Her mother was killed 3 years earlier in a horse riding accident. Since then Ford has sold their horse, Twister, to a neighbor and forbidden his daughters to ride. Still, Virginia sneaks out at night to see her and we see her in the beginning of the movie delivering a foal in the middle of a terrible storm. Twister dies while giving birth and Virginia names the foal Stormy. As the horse grows up, Virginia continues to sneak out to care for Stormy and ride him at night. The real owner of the horse, Blake (Robert Miranda) tries to train Stormy to race for his son Darrow (Kevin Zegers), who is also Caroline's boyfriend, but the horse doesn't get along well with him. Blake decides to sell Stormy and Virginia is heartbroken because she had always considered Stormy to be her own horse, ever since she delivered him. Eventually Ford is able to track down the person who bought Stormy and he buys him back to give to Virginia as a birthday present. Meanwhile Virginia has started working with one of Blake's trainers named Jessie (Joanne Whalley). Virginia tells her how much she loves horses and how riding them is a way for her to remember her mom. So she tries to get Ford to understand that by not letting Virginia ride he is only crushing her spirit. He reluctantly changes his mind and eventually starts riding with Virginia and giving her lessons. He mentions that there is going to be a big race on Memorial Day and tells her he thinks she's ready. One day, Virginia is out riding by herself and she comes across Darrow riding with his buddies. He challenges her to a race to the train tracks and Virginia barely makes it, missing the train by a few feet. That's when Darrow realizes that she is a better rider than he is and that he needs to do something if he's to prevent her from beating him in the big race. So, the night before the race, he and his buddies kidnap Stormy and hide him in an abandoned shack by a creek. When Virginia finds out that Stormy is missing she is distraught. Her father believes that Stormy has just escaped but she tells her sister that she believes Darrow stole him. Caroline thinks that she can find out what really happened by coming on to one of Darrow's friends. He spills the beans to her and she tells Virginia where to find Stormy. Without hesitating, she runs out the house to get him, even going as far as "borrowing" her father's old truck to get there in time. She finds Stormy and gets to the town square where the race is about to begin. At first they tell her that she can't race because she's a few minutes late but after the whole town starts chanting, "Let Virginia Ride! Let Virginia Ride!" she is allowed to participate. She starts out a little behind but quickly catches up to the crowd. Darrow had been in the lead since the beginning but when he sees Virginia on his tail he resorts to cheating. At one point he knocks her off her horse and then he hides one of the trail marker flags so she'll get lost. When she can't figure out which way to go by looking at her map, Stormy knows she is lost and he tries to tell her which way to go. He turns out to be right and she easily catches up to Darrow again. It's neck and neck along the final stretch and, although she was the last one to start, she comes in first place. Darrow's father Blake convinces the MC (who is just a pushover) to disqualify Virginia for some vague and unspecified violation and Darrow tries to accept the trophy. Virginia notices something in his pocket and tells Caroline to check it out. She sneaks up to him and pulls out in front of everybody the flag he had hid. He is summarily disqualified for cheating and Virginia accepts the trophy to a cheering crowd while two men from the audience toss the MC into a water trough. At home Virginia and her family are seen having dinner with Jessie, Blake's "former" trainer. We find out that he has just fired her and Caroline has just broken up with Darrow. However, Virginia comments that they are happier than they have been in a long time. She walks outside to feed Stormy and thinks to herself that she could never have gotten through the race if it wasn't for her cherished memories of her mother.
589244	Pyaara Dushman is a 1980 Bollywood Hindi movie. Produced by Subhash Sagar it is directed by Anand Sagar. The film stars Vidya Sinha, Yogeeta Bali, Sarika, Amjad Khan, Vinod Mehra and Rakesh Roshan. The film's music is by Bappi Lahiri who composed a couple of popular songs like 'ek dhoondho milte hain hazaaron', 'hari om hari'. This film is also known to have starred the popular singer Sonu Niigaam as a child artist.
1037363	Philip William "Phil" Daniels (born 25 October 1958 in Islington) is an English actor, most noted for film and television roles as cockneys such as Jimmy Cooper in "Quadrophenia", Richards in "Scum", Stewart in "The Class of Miss MacMichael", Danny in "Breaking Glass", Mark in "Meantime", Billy the Kid in "Billy the Kid and the Green Baize Vampire", Kevin Wicks in "EastEnders", DCS Frank Patterson in "New Tricks" and Grandad Trotter in the "Only Fools and Horses" prequel "Rock & Chips". He is also known for featuring on Blur's 1994 single "Parklife". Career. Since training at the Anna Scher Theatre School in Islington, Daniels has made appearances in many films and television series. He made his film debut in 1976, at the age of 17, as a waiter in "Bugsy Malone", That same year he had significant roles in three television series: "The Molly Wopsies", "Four Idle Hands", and "The Flockton Flyer"; however, he had enjoyed an incidental appearance (with fellow drama students) the previous year (1975) in Thames Television's "You Must Be Joking!" Over the following four years he appeared in "Quadrophenia", "Breaking Glass", and "Scum". He also appeared in the 1970s TV drama serial "Raven". In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Daniels was a member of new wave band The Cross, along with fellow actor Peter Hugo Daly, the band releasing an album ("Phil Daniels + The Cross") and single, "Kill Another Night" on RCA Records in 1979. His musical inclinations were revealed when he starred in a 1985 British snooker musical "Billy the Kid and the Green Baize Vampire". He narrated tracks "Parklife" and "Me, White Noise" on the "Parklife" and "Think Tank" albums for Blur. He contributed the voice of Fetcher, the dull-witted rat to the animated film "Chicken Run". In recent years he has turned his attention to comedy, appearing in the series "Sunnyside Farm" and alongside Al Murray in the cult sitcom "Time Gentlemen Please". Daniels also starred as Freddy Windrush in an episode of "Gimme Gimme Gimme" (Series 2, Episode 3 - ""Prison Visitor""). Daniels has performed on stage with the Royal Shakespeare Company in plays such as "The Merchant of Venice", "The Jew of Malta" and "A Clockwork Orange". In 2004 he appeared in the BBC comedy-drama "Outlaws" as a criminal solicitor. In 2006 he joined the cast of the popular BBC soap opera "EastEnders" playing Kevin Wicks. The actor temporarily left the show in early 2007, however, he returned in March 2007. On 18 August 2007, it was revealed in "the Sun" that Daniels was to leave the show. His character died in a car crash on 31 December 2007. Daniels, along with his co-stars, attended a Quadrophenia Reunion at London Film and Comic Con at Earls Court on 1 and 2 September 2007. In May 2008 Daniels ran the Flora London Marathon on behalf of the "Sparks" Charity, and in December 2008 starred in Sheffield Theatre and Evolution Pantomimes co-production of "Aladdin" as "Abanazar" at Lyceum Theatre, Sheffield. In late 2008 Daniels voiced a major character in the English language re-release of the cult 2006 Norwegian animated film "Free Jimmy", alongside Woody Harrelson and with dialogue written by Simon Pegg. Also in 2008 Daniels starred alongside Gary Stretch and Geoff Bell in the UK film "Freebird", directed by Jon Ivay, which followed three bikers across a drug-fuelled ride in the Welsh countryside. Daniels appeared as the Magic Mirror in the pantomime of "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" at the Marlowe Theatre in December 2008, which also includes a role by former "EastEnders" colleague Emma Barton. Daniels appeared in the 2008 series of "Strictly Come Dancing" with partner Flavia Cacace. He was the first to be evicted from the show on 21 September 2008. He appeared on "Celebrity Mastermind: 2008/2009", finishing on 24 points in second place. Also on 26 June 2009 he appeared on stage with Blur at the M.E.N. Arena, then on 28 June 2009 at Glastonbury 2009 on their song "Parklife", as well as on 2/3 July 2009 in their Hyde Park Concerts. Daniels portrayed Del Boy's grandfather in a prequel to the comedy series "Only Fools and Horses" called "Rock & Chips", which was screened in January 2010 and, on 13 September 2010 on BBC Radio Five Live, James Buckley confirmed that Rock & Chips would be returning for two specials, one at Christmas 2010, and the other at Easter 2011. Daniels has subsequently reprised his role as Ted Trotter in both of the "Rock & Chips" specials. 2013 saw the release of the film "Vinyl" in which Phil Daniels not only stars but also wrote and performs most of the film's music soundtrack. Directed by Sara Sugarman, "Vinyl" is the story of an aging Rock Group forced to con the music industry to gain radio play of future record releases. The film is based on true events faced by Rock Group the Alarm that took place in the U.K. in 2004. Daniels now co-hosts a weekly podcast with Ceri Levy dedicated to Chelsea Football Club, "The Chels - The Chelsea Podcast". Personal life. Daniels had a long-term relationship with Jan Stevens, who died in 2012. The couple had one daughter, Ella (born ). He is a Chelsea F.C. fan.
1163682	Jane Wyman (born Sarah Jane Mayfield; January 5, 1917 – September 10, 2007) was an American singer, dancer, and film/television actress. She began her film career in the 1930s, and was a prolific performer for two decades. She received an Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance in "Johnny Belinda" (1948), and later achieved renewed success in the 1980s as Angela Channing on "Falcon Crest". She was the first wife of Ronald Reagan; they married in 1940 and divorced on June 28, 1948; Reagan was still a Democrat and had not yet made his first run for public office. Early life. Wyman was born Sarah Jane Mayfield in St. Joseph, Missouri. Although her birthdate has been widely reported for many years as January 4, 1914, research by biographers and genealogists indicates she was born on January 5, 1917. The most likely reason for the 1914 year of birth is that she added to her age so as to be able to work and act while still a minor. She may have moved her birthday back by one day to January 4 so as to share the same birthday as her daughter, Maureen (born January 4, 1941). The 1920 census, on the other hand, has her at 3 and living in Philadelphia, Pa. After Wyman's death, a release posted on her official website confirmed these details. Her parents were Manning Jefferies Mayfield (c.1888–1922), a meal-company laborer, and Gladys Hope Christian (c.1891–1960), a doctor's stenographer and office assistant. In October 1921, her mother filed for divorce, and her father died unexpectedly the following year at age 27. After her father's death, her mother moved to Cleveland, Ohio, leaving her to be reared by foster parents, Emma (1866–1951) and Richard D. Fulks (1862–1928), the chief of detectives in Saint Joseph. She took their surname unofficially, including in her school records and, apparently, her first marriage certificate. Her unsettled family life resulted in few pleasurable memories. Wyman later said, "I was raised with such strict discipline that it was years before I could reason myself out of the bitterness I brought from my childhood. In 1928, aged 11, she moved to southern California with her foster mother, but it is not known for certain if she attempted a career in motion pictures at this time, or if the relocation was due to the fact that some of Fulks' children also lived in the area. In 1930, the two moved back to Missouri, where Sarah Jane attended Lafayette High School in Saint Joseph. That same year she began a radio singing career, calling herself "Jane Durrell" and adding years to her birthdate to work legally since she would have been under age. Career. Early career. After dropping out of Lafayette in 1932, at age 15, she returned to Hollywood, taking on odd jobs as a manicurist and a switchboard operator, before obtaining small parts in such films as "The Kid from Spain" (as a "Goldwyn Girl"; 1932), "My Man Godfrey" (1936) and "Cain and Mabel" (1936). After changing her name from Jane Durrell to Jane Wyman, she began her career as a contract player with Warner Bros. in 1936 at age 19. Her big break came the following year, when she received her first starring role in "Public Wedding".
1186055	Holly Rachel Candy (née Vukadinovic, born 11 May 1983), known professionally as Holly Valance, is an Australian actress, singer, and model. Valance began her career as Felicity "Flick" Scully on the Australian soap opera "Neighbours". In 2002 she released her first album, "Footprints", which included the single "Kiss Kiss". Early life. Valance was born to a Serb father, Rajko Vukadinović, and an English mother, Rachel (née Stephens), from Southampton. Her father was a musician, playing the piano, and also a model in his younger years in Belgrade. Her mother was also a model, in the United Kingdom, and her father was a near relative to Benny Hill. She has two sisters, Coco and Olympia, and all three have dual Australian-British citizenship. Valance grew up in Melbourne and moved to the UK when she was 18. After two years in the UK, she spent seven years in Los Angeles. Career. Acting. As a teenager, in 1999 she was cast in the long-running Australian soap "Neighbours" as Felicity "Flick" Scully. Valance left the series in 2002 to pursue a music career. In 2004, Valance returned to acting, this time in the United States, appearing in episodes of the television series ' and "Entourage". In 2005, she appeared in an episode of '. She guest-starred in "Prison Break" in 2006 as Nika Volek, a role which she continued to portray in the show's second season. In 2006, Valance appeared in the National Lampoon comedy "Pledge This!", alongside American socialite Paris Hilton. The same year, she was in ', an adaptation of the popular video game "Dead or Alive", where she played Christie. In 2007 she appeared in the TV series "Shark" and "Moonlight". In 2008 she had a role in the film "Taken" alongside Liam Neeson, and appeared in an episode of the The CW series "Valentine". In 2009 Valance played Brenda Snow for the video game '. She also appeared in Scott Caan's film "Mercy" in which she says one line at the end of the film before inexplicably they changed the actress
1056301	Bob le flambeur ("Bob the Gambler" or "Bob the High Roller") is a 1956 French gangster film directed by Jean-Pierre Melville. The film stars Roger Duchesne as Bob. It is often considered a film noir and precursor to the French New Wave because of its use of handheld camera and a single jump cut. Plot. Bob, a middle-aged gambler and ex-con living in the Montmartre district of Paris, experiences a run of bad luck that leaves him nearly broke. Bob is a gentleman with scruples, well liked in the demi-monde community. He has unsuccessfully tried to rob a bank in the past, and has spent time in prison.
1051857	Les Enfants du Paradis, released as Children of Paradise in North America, is a 1945 French film directed by Marcel Carné. It was made during the German occupation of France during World War II. Set among the Parisian theatre scene of the 1820s and 30s, it tells the story of a beautiful courtesan, Garance, and the four men who love her in their own ways: a mime artist, an actor, a criminal and an aristocrat.
394313	...ing () is a 2003 South Korean film starring Im Soo-jung, Kim Rae-won and Lee Mi-sook. The unusual title of this introspective and well-executed film refers to the present continuous tense in English. Directed with confidence and a clear-eyed perspective by Lee Eon-hee, it captures a sense of what it feels like to be on the inside of an everyday tragedy. At the same time, the film's warmth and humor help the viewer to appreciate the joy and poignancy of the present. Plot. Mina (Im Soo-jung) is a young woman who has become reserved and aloof to the world as a result of her chronic illness and deformed hand. The film quietly portrays the unconventional, yet endearing relationship between Mina and her mother Mi-sook (Lee Mi-sook), as well as Mina's development as she is befriended by the high-spirited and carefree photographer Young-jae (Kim Rae-won) who moves into their apartment complex. Remake. It was remade into a 2012 Chinese film titled "First Time" (第一次) starring Angelababy, Mark Chao and Jiang Shan.
588401	Farishtay is a Hindi film is directed by Anil Sharma. Plot. Gayetri lives with two close male friends, who she considers her brothers by the names of Veeru (Dharmendra) and Dheeru (Vinod Khanna), who are small-time thieves, and con men, and are known to the local police. When Gayatri meets and falls in love with Police Inspector Arjun Thanghe (Rajinikanth), the duo are delighted and arrange her marriage with great pomp and ceremony. Arjun is then assigned duties to a distant village, which is facing oppression at the hands of Raja Jaichand (Sadashiv Amrapurkar), who refuses to accept the Indian Government nor even acknowledge it, and rules the region like a dictator. Arjun attempts to set things right, but is killed in the process, and Gayetri loses her mind. Gayatri does find her way to contact her brothers, and is horrified to find them in the employ of the person who has killed her husband, none other than Mr. Jaichand
1066402	Waist Deep is a 2006 drama-action film directed by Vondie Curtis-Hall, starring Tyrese Gibson and Meagan Good. It is loosely based on the 1967 film "Bonnie and Clyde", including some similar subplots including the two main characters on the road, trying to avoid police, and committing bank robberies. Plot. Ex-con Otis (Tyrese Gibson), or "O2" as he was once known on account of his ability to vanish from a crime scene like oxygen, has done his time and is now determined to stay out of trouble and never leave his young son, Otis, Jr. (played by Vondie Curtis-Hall's young son, Henry Hunter Hall), ever again. When O2 shows up late to pick Junior up from school one afternoon, he swears that he will always come back for Junior. That promise is put to the test just moments later when O2's vintage 1960's Chevrolet Impala SS Lowrider convertible is stolen from him at gunpoint in the middle of a crowded Southland intersection — with Junior in the back seat. O2 chases the car and gets into a nasty gun battle with the carjackers — circumstances that then make it possible for O2 to go to the police — but to no avail. O2 does, however, catch up with Coco (Meagan Good), a woman who sells stolen suits on the streets for a thug known as P Money (Julius Denem). O2 knows she is the one who marked him for the carjacking, and he forces her to help him retrieve Junior. Lucky (Larenz Tate), Otis' unreliable cousin who works for Big Meat (Jayceon "Game" Taylor), the brutally vicious leader of the Outlaw Syndicate, also offers to help. After a few hours on the street, Lucky comes back with some bad news: Junior has fallen into Meat's hands, and Meat (the main antagonist of the film) is demanding that O2 deliver $100,000 by midnight the following night, or Junior will die. Otis claims that he has no money, but Meat thinks otherwise: Meat was once O2's partner in crime, and he thinks O2 is still holding onto the $100,000 they made off their last job together — the job that got O2 six years in prison. Desperate to raise the cash, O2 comes up with a plan: he and Coco will rob P Money's and Meat's own operations, staging it to look like the one is stealing from the other, and thereby triggering a gang war that will hopefully eliminate both and help O2 and Coco rescue Junior. After a successful robbery of one of the Big Meat's locations, O2 and Coco come across a set of safe deposit box keys belonging to numerous banks in the area. The next day with time wearing thin, they stage a number of bank robberies and are able to retrieve expensive jewellery, which Lucky offers to get rid of eager to prove his worth. When Lucky takes the jewelry to Big Meat unknowing that it belongs to Big Meat, Lucky is forced to set up a meeting between himself, O2, and Coco, with Big Meat along to end O2 once and for all. They take a car to an alley and give him the money. It is then revealed that Big Meat never intended to let Junior live, as he signals one of his men to kill Junior. Lucky sees this and tackles him as the man shoots many shots, one shooting Lucky in the side of the chest. O2 kills Meat's men, leaving only Meat. He then proceeds to shoot O2 but has no shots remaining. O2 shoots and kills him and retrieves Junior. On the road, they stop at a gas station to attend to Lucky's wound. O2 tells Lucky that they will get him to a hospital, but he realizes that Lucky has died. Swerving off the road, they are chased by the cops. O2 hides in a parking lot and tells Coco that she must take Junior and go to the Mexican border while he outruns the cops. As Junior and Coco escape, O2 is tailed by the cops. They run him to a dead end where the lake is. O2, realizing he has no choice, drives straight into the water. In Mexico, Coco and Junior are living in a house on a beach. They are walking on the beach when Junior sees something in the distance. He and Coco find that it is O2, who has escaped the ocean and come back to them, as he promised. They then reunite. Box office. "Waist Deep" grossed $9,404,180 from 1,004 theaters with a $9,366 average in its opening weekend. Altogether, the film grossed $21,353,303, making it a commercial flop.
589432	Pyar Ki Kahani (English: The Story of Love) is a 1971 Bollywood drama film directed by Ravikant Nagaich. The film stars Amitabh Bachchan, Tanuja and Mala Sinha . According to an interview given by Amitabh bachchan at Koffee with Karan, this role was initially given to Jeetendra, but because of the film industry's imposed limit of maximum of 6 films to be done as a leading role by an actor, that he got this breakthrough. Plot. Although well qualified, Ram Chand (Amitabh Bachchan) is unable to obtain suitable employment, and works as a peon in an organization. One day he meets with Ravi Chand, who is on the verge of committing suicide, he counsels him against this, as well as permits him to live with him. Ravi gets employed in the same office as Ram, albeit as a Manager, and falls in love and marries a co-worker named Lata (Farida Jalal). Ram's parents would like him to get married too, and he goes to see them and meets his bride-to-be, Kusum Sharma (Tanuja). Ram sends a photograph of Kusum for approval to Ravi and Lata, and is disappointed to learn that Ravi does not approve of Kusum. When Ram attempts to find out the reason behind his disapproval, Ravi gives very elusive responses, and Ram takes it upon himself to find out why Ravi disapproves of Kusum so much. It is then Ram will come to know of the shocking truth behind the relationship between Kusum and Ravi, and about Kusum's reputation.
1100464	Alfred Tarski (January 14, 1901 – October 26, 1983) was a Polish logician, mathematician and philosopher. Educated at the University of Warsaw and a member of the Lwów–Warsaw school of logic and the Warsaw school of mathematics and philosophy, he emigrated to the USA in 1939, and taught and carried out research in mathematics at the University of California, Berkeley, from 1942 until his death. A prolific author best known for his work on model theory, metamathematics, and algebraic logic, he also contributed to abstract algebra, topology, geometry, measure theory, mathematical logic, set theory, and analytic philosophy. His biographers Anita and Solomon Feferman state that, "Along with his contemporary, Kurt Gödel, he changed the face of logic in the twentieth century, especially through his work on the concept of truth and the theory of models." Life. Alfred Tarski was born Alfred Teitelbaum (Polish spelling: "Tajtelbaum"), to parents who were Polish Jews in comfortable circumstances. He first manifested his mathematical abilities while in secondary school, at Warsaw's "Szkoła Mazowiecka". Nevertheless, he entered the University of Warsaw in 1918 intending to study biology. After Poland regained independence in 1918, Warsaw University came under the leadership of Jan Łukasiewicz, Stanisław Leśniewski and Wacław Sierpiński and quickly became a world-leading research institution in logic, foundational mathematics, and the philosophy of mathematics. Leśniewski recognized Tarski's potential as a mathematician and encouraged him to abandon biology. Henceforth Tarski attended courses taught by Łukasiewicz, Sierpiński, Stefan Mazurkiewicz and Tadeusz Kotarbiński, and became the only person ever to complete a doctorate under Leśniewski's supervision. Tarski and Leśniewski soon grew cool to each other. However, in later life, Tarski reserved his warmest praise for Kotarbiński, as was mutual. In 1923, Alfred Teitelbaum and his brother Wacław changed their surname to "Tarski." (Years later, Alfred met another Alfred Tarski in northern California.) The Tarski brothers also converted to Roman Catholicism, Poland's dominant religion. Alfred did so even though he was an avowed atheist. Tarski was a Polish nationalist who saw himself as a Pole and wished to be fully accepted as such - later, in America, he spoke Polish at home. After becoming the youngest person ever to complete a doctorate at Warsaw University, Tarski taught logic at the Polish Pedagogical Institute, mathematics and logic at the University, and served as Łukasiewicz's assistant. Because these positions were poorly paid, Tarski also taught mathematics at a Warsaw secondary school; before World War II, it was not uncommon for European intellectuals of research caliber to teach high school. Hence between 1923 and his departure for the United States in 1939, Tarski not only wrote several textbooks and many papers, a number of them ground-breaking, but also did so while supporting himself primarily by teaching high-school mathematics. In 1929 Tarski married fellow teacher Maria Witkowska, a Pole of Catholic background. She had worked as a courier for the army in the Polish-Soviet War. They had two children; a son Jan who became a physicist, and a daughter Ina who married the mathematician Andrzej Ehrenfeucht. Tarski applied for a chair of philosophy at Lwów University, but on Bertrand Russell's recommendation it was awarded to Leon Chwistek. In 1930, Tarski visited the University of Vienna, lectured to Karl Menger's colloquium, and met Kurt Gödel. Thanks to a fellowship, he was able to return to Vienna during the first half of 1935 to work with Menger's research group. From Vienna he traveled to Paris to present his ideas on truth at the first meeting of the Unity of Science movement, an outgrowth of the Vienna Circle. In 1937, Tarski applied for a chair at Poznań University but the chair was abolished. Tarski's ties to the Unity of Science movement saved his life, because they resulted in his being invited to address the Unity of Science Congress held in September 1939 at Harvard University. Thus he left Poland in August 1939, on the last ship to sail from Poland for the United States before the German and Soviet invasion of Poland and the outbreak of World War II. Tarski left reluctantly, because Leśniewski had died a few months before, creating a vacancy which Tarski hoped to fill. Oblivious to the Nazi threat, he left his wife and children in Warsaw. He did not see them again until 1946. During the war, nearly all his extended family died at the hands of the German occupying authorities. Once in the United States, Tarski held a number of temporary teaching and research positions: Harvard University (1939), City College of New York (1940), and thanks to a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton (1942), where he again met Gödel. In 1942, Tarski joined the Mathematics Department at the University of California, Berkeley, where he spent the rest of his career. Tarski became an American citizen in 1945. Although emeritus from 1968, he taught until 1973 and supervised Ph.D. candidates until his death. At Berkeley, Tarski acquired a reputation as an awesome and demanding teacher, a fact noted by many observers: His seminars at Berkeley quickly became famous in the world of mathematical logic. His students, many of whom became distinguished mathematicians, noted the awesome energy with which he would coax and cajole their best work out of them, always demanding the highest standards of clarity and precision. Tarski was extroverted, quick-witted, strong-willed, energetic, and sharp-tongued. He preferred his research to be collaborative — sometimes working all night with a colleague — and was very fastidious about priority. A charismatic leader and teacher, known for his brilliantly precise yet suspenseful expository style, Tarski had intimidatingly high standards for students, but at the same time he could be very encouraging, and particularly so to women — in contrast to the general trend. Some students were frightened away, but a circle of disciples remained, many of whom became world-renowned leaders in the field. Tarski supervised twenty-four Ph.D. dissertations including (in chronological order) those of Andrzej Mostowski, Bjarni Jónsson, Julia Robinson, Robert Vaught, Solomon Feferman, Richard Montague, James Donald Monk, Haim Gaifman, Donald Pigozzi and Roger Maddux, as well as Chen Chung Chang and Jerome Keisler, authors of "Model Theory" (1973), a classic text in the field. He also strongly influenced the dissertations of Alfred Lindenbaum, Dana Scott, and Steven Givant. Five of Tarski's students were women, a remarkable fact given that men represented an overwhelming majority of graduate students at the time. Tarski lectured at University College, London (1950, 1966), the Institut Henri Poincaré in Paris (1955), the Miller Institute for Basic Research in Science in Berkeley (1958–1960), the University of California at Los Angeles (1967), and the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile (1974–75). Among many distinctions garnered over the course of his career, Tarski was elected to the United States National Academy of Sciences, the British Academy and the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences, received honorary degrees from the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile in 1975, from Marseilles' Paul Cézanne University in 1977 and from the University of Calgary, as well as the Berkeley Citation in 1981. Tarski presided over the Association for Symbolic Logic, 1944–46, and the International Union for the History and Philosophy of Science, 1956-57. He was also an honorary editor of "Algebra Universalis". Mathematician. Tarski's mathematical interests were exceptionally broad for a mathematical logician. His collected papers run to about 2500 pages, most of them on mathematics, not logic. For a concise survey of Tarski's mathematical and logical accomplishments by his former student Solomon Feferman, see "Interludes I-VI" in Feferman and Feferman. Tarski's first paper, published when he was 19 years old, was on set theory, a subject to which he returned throughout his life. In 1924, he and Stefan Banach proved that, if one accepts the Axiom of Choice, a ball can be cut into a finite number of pieces, and then reassembled into a ball of larger size, or alternatively it can be reassembled into two balls whose sizes each equal that of the original one. This result is now called the Banach–Tarski paradox. In "A decision method for elementary algebra and geometry", Tarski showed, by the method of quantifier elimination, that the first-order theory of the real numbers under addition and multiplication is decidable. (While this result appeared only in 1948, it dates back to 1930 and was mentioned in Tarski (1931).) This is a very curious result, because Alonzo Church proved in 1936 that Peano arithmetic (the theory of natural numbers) is "not" decidable. Peano arithmetic is also incomplete by Gödel's incompleteness theorem. In his 1953 "Undecidable theories", Tarski et al. showed that many mathematical systems, including lattice theory, abstract projective geometry, and closure algebras, are all undecidable. The theory of Abelian groups is decidable, but that of non-Abelian groups is not. In the 1920s and 30s, Tarski often taught high school geometry. Using some ideas of Mario Pieri, in 1926 Tarski devised an original axiomatization for plane Euclidean geometry, one considerably more concise than Hilbert's. Tarski's axioms form a first-order theory devoid of set theory, whose individuals are points, and having only two primitive relations. In 1930, he proved this theory decidable because it can be mapped into another theory he had already proved decidable, namely his first-order theory of the real numbers. In 1929 he showed that much of Euclidean solid geometry could be recast as a first-order theory whose individuals are "spheres" (a primitive notion), a single primitive binary relation "is contained in", and two axioms that, among other things, imply that containment partially orders the spheres. Relaxing the requirement that all individuals be spheres yields a formalization of mereology far easier to exposit than Lesniewski's variant. Near the end of his life, Tarski wrote a very long letter, published as Tarski and Givant (1999), summarizing his work on geometry. "Cardinal Algebras" studied algebras whose models include the arithmetic of cardinal numbers. "Ordinal Algebras" sets out an algebra for the additive theory of order types. Cardinal, but not ordinal, addition commutes. In 1941, Tarski published an important paper on binary relations, which began the work on relation algebra and its metamathematics that occupied Tarski and his students for much of the balance of his life. While that exploration (and the closely related work of Roger Lyndon) uncovered some important limitations of relation algebra, Tarski also showed (Tarski and Givant 1987) that relation algebra can express most axiomatic set theory and Peano arithmetic. For an introduction to relation algebra, see Maddux (2006). In the late 1940s, Tarski and his students devised cylindric algebras, which are to first-order logic what the two-element Boolean algebra is to classical sentential logic. This work culminated in the two monographs by Tarski, Henkin, and Monk (1971, 1985). Logician. Tarski's student, Vaught, has ranked Tarski as one of the four greatest logicians of all time --- along with Aristotle, Gottlob Frege, and Kurt Gödel. However, Tarski often expressed great admiration for Charles Sanders Peirce, particularly for his pioneering work in the logic of relations. Tarski produced axioms for "logical consequence", and worked on deductive systems, the algebra of logic, and the theory of definability. His semantic methods, which culminated in the model theory he and a number of his Berkeley students developed in the 1950s and 60s, radically transformed Hilbert's proof-theoretic metamathematics. Tarski's 1936 article "On the concept of logical consequence" argued that the conclusion of an argument will follow logically from its premises if and only if every model of the premises is a model of the conclusion. In 1937, he published a paper presenting clearly his views on the nature and purpose of the deductive method, and the role of logic in scientific studies. His high school and undergraduate teaching on logic and axiomatics culminated in a classic short text, published first in Polish, then in German translation, and finally in a 1941 English translation as "Introduction to Logic and to the Methodology of Deductive Sciences". Tarski's 1969 "Truth and proof" considered both Gödel's incompleteness theorems and Tarski's undefinability theorem, and mulled over their consequences for the axiomatic method in mathematics. Truth in formalized languages. In 1933, Tarski published a very long (more than 100pp) paper in Polish, titled "Pojęcie prawdy w językach nauk dedukcyjnych", setting out a mathematical definition of truth for formal languages. The 1935 German translation was titled "Der Wahrheitsbegriff in den formalisierten Sprachen", (The concept of truth in formalized languages), sometimes shortened to "Wahrheitsbegriff". An English translation had to await the 1956 first edition of the volume "Logic, Semantics, Metamathematics". This enormously cited paper is a landmark event in 20th-century analytic philosophy, an important contribution to symbolic logic, semantics, and the philosophy of language. For a brief discussion of its content, see Convention T (and also T-schema). Some recent philosophical debate examines the extent to which Tarski's theory of truth for formalized languages can be seen as a correspondence theory of truth. The debate centers on how to read Tarski's condition of material adequacy for a truth definition. That condition requires that the truth theory have the following as theorems for all sentences p of the language for which truth is being defined: The debate amounts to whether to read sentences of this form, such as as expressing merely a deflationary theory of truth or as embodying truth as a more substantial property (see Kirkham 1992). Though it is important to realize that Tarski's theory of truth is for formalized languages so giving examples in natural language has no validity according to Tarski's theory of truth. Logical consequence. In 1936, Tarski published Polish and German versions of a lecture he had given the preceding year at the International Congress of Scientific Philosophy in Paris. A new English translation of this paper, Tarski (2002), highlights the many differences between the German and Polish versions of the paper, and corrects a number of mistranslations in Tarski (1983). This publication set out the modern model-theoretic definition of (semantic) logical consequence, or at least the basis for it. Whether Tarski's notion was entirely the modern one turns on whether he intended to admit models with varying domains (and in particular, models with domains of different cardinalities). This question is a matter of some debate in the current philosophical literature. John Etchemendy stimulated much of the recent discussion about Tarski's treatment of varying domains. Tarski ends by pointing out that his definition of logical consequence depends upon a division of terms into the logical and the extra-logical and he expresses some skepticism that any such objective division will be forthcoming. "What are Logical Notions?" can thus be viewed as continuing "On the Concept of Logical Consequence". What are logical notions? Another theory of Tarski's attracting attention in the recent philosophical literature is that outlined in his "What are Logical Notions?" (Tarski 1986). This is the published version of a talk that he gave originally in 1966 in London and later in 1973 in Buffalo; it was edited without his direct involvement by John Corcoran. It became the most cited paper in the journal "History and Philosophy of Logic". In the talk, Tarski proposed a demarcation of the logical operations (which he calls "notions") from the non-logical. The suggested criteria were derived from the Erlangen programme of the German 19th century Mathematician, Felix Klein. (Mautner 1946, and possibly an article by the Portuguese mathematician Sebastiao e Silva, anticipated Tarski in applying the Erlangen Program to logic.) That program classified the various types of geometry (Euclidean geometry, affine geometry, topology, etc.) by the type of one-one transformation of space onto itself that left the objects of that geometrical theory invariant. (A one-to-one transformation is a functional map of the space onto itself so that every point of the space is associated with or mapped to one other point of the space. So, "rotate 30 degrees" and "magnify by a factor of 2" are intuitive descriptions of simple uniform one-one transformations.) Continuous transformations give rise to the objects of topology, similarity transformations to those of Euclidean geometry, and so on. As the range of permissible transformations becomes broader, the range of objects one is able to distinguish as preserved by the application of the transformations becomes narrower. Similarity transformations are fairly narrow (they preserve the relative distance between points) and thus allow us to distinguish relatively many things (e.g., equilateral triangles from non-equilateral triangles). Continuous transformations (which can intuitively be thought of as transformations which allow non-uniform stretching, compression, bending, and twisting, but no ripping or glueing) allow us to distinguish a polygon from an annulus (ring with a hole in the centre), but do not allow us to distinguish two polygons from each other. Tarski's proposal was to demarcate the logical notions by considering all possible one-to-one transformations (automorphisms) of a domain onto itself. By domain is meant the universe of discourse of a model for the semantic theory of a logic. If one identifies the truth value True with the domain set and the truth-value False with the empty set, then the following operations are counted as logical under the proposal: In some ways the present proposal is the obverse of that of Lindenbaum and Tarski (1936), who proved that all the logical operations of Russell and Whitehead's "Principia Mathematica" are invariant under one-to-one transformations of the domain onto itself. The present proposal is also employed in Tarski and Givant (1987). Solomon Feferman and Vann McGee further discussed Tarski's proposal in work published after his death. Feferman (1999) raises problems for the proposal and suggests a cure: replacing Tarski's preservation by automorphisms with preservation by arbitrary homomorphisms. In essence, this suggestion circumvents the difficulty Tarski's proposal has in dealing with sameness of logical operation across distinct domains of a given cardinality and across domains of distinct cardinalities. Feferman's proposal results in a radical restriction of logical terms as compared to Tarski's original proposal. In particular, it ends up counting as logical only those operators of standard first-order logic without identity. McGee (1996) provides a precise account of what operations are logical in the sense of Tarski's proposal in terms of expressibility in a language that extends first-order logic by allowing arbitrarily long conjunctions and disjunctions, and quantification over arbitrarily many variables. "Arbitrarily" includes a countable infinity.
584573	Thambikku Indha Ooru (; ) is a 2010 Indian Tamil-language film directed by Badri. It stars Bharath, Sana Khan, Prabhu, Vivek and Madalsa Sharma in the lead roles. The film was released on 5 March 2010 to negative reviews and was declared a box office bomb. Plot. Akil (Bharath) is a rich youth who runs a restaurant along with his buddy Cola Kumar (Vivek) in Singapore. As it happens, his dad (Nizhalgal Ravi) gets the shock of his life when Akil refuses to marry Priya (Madalasa). Akil goes against his father's wish as he is desperate behind Divya (Sana Khan). Divya is a squash champion (seemingly inspired by ace tennis star Sania Mirza). Annoyed at Akil's denial, Priya's father spells out the truth that Akil was a orphan. Shocked at the developments, Akil decides to embark on a journey and find out his biological parents, whom he comes to know stay in Chengalpet. On his trip to homeland, he starts to encounter problems in the form of Divya's dad who is against their affair. He feels that her daughter as a popular sports woman could earn more through endorsing various brands. Enters Kumaraswamy (Prabhu), who plays a crucial part in the whole story.
674843	A Time to Love and a Time to Die is a 1958 American CinemaScope drama film directed by Douglas Sirk and starring John Gavin. It is based on the book by the German author, Erich Maria Remarque, set on the Eastern Front (World War II), and in Nazi Germany. Plot. Ernst Graeber is a German soldier stationed on the Eastern Front during the war's last days. He and fellow soldiers Steinbrenner and Hirschland are ordered to kill Russian civilians, but Hirschland commits suicide instead. Given his first furlough in two years, Ernst returns home to find his village bombed and parents gone. Elizabeth Kruse, daughter of his mother's doctor, tells him that her father is being held by the Gestapo as well. Constant air raids interrupt any peaceful moments Ernst and Elizabeth enjoy. An old friend, Binding, is a wealthy Nazi now and welcomes Ernst to his home. He prepares a feast for the wedding of Ernst and Elizabeth, who are now in love. And a sympathetic professor, Pohlmann, offers his help should the newlyweds decide to flee. Ernst is ordered back to the front. He finds Steinbrenner about to shoot civilians and kills him. Ernst frees the prisoners, but one nonetheless shoots him. He dies while reading a love letter from Elizabeth.
581592	Devi Putrudu is a 2001 Telugu film directed by Kodi Ramakrishna. The film stars Daggubati Venkatesh, Anjala Zaveri, and Soundarya in important roles. The film was dubbed in Tamil as "Paapa" and in Hindi as "Aaj Ka Deviputra".It is a commercial hit at box office. Plot. The movie begins with a voice explaining the submersion of Dwaraka village in the sea cause of a huge T-Sunami .And then the story jumps to 5000 years ahead and starts with Krishna Daggubati Venkatesh, doing pranks in Mumbai and earn living with petty thefts. Satyavathi Anjala Zaveri is a foreign returned girl and she comes to know that her elder sister Karuna Soundarya got married to an archeologist when she visited to see the site of Dwaraka. Satyavathi decides to visit Dwaraka to meet her sister. As Satyavathi comes out of the airport of Bombay to go to Dwaraka, Krishna meets her as the taxi driver of Satyavathi hired thinking that she has valuable diamonds with her. On the way, he realizes that she is not the one who was supposed to have carried diamonds and decides to dump her and come back to Bombay. But the destiny has other plans to make Krishna goes to Dwaraka and Krishna arrives in Dwaraka. There he meets up with a cute little friend called Paappa. And she has mystical powers.She knows that he had fallen in love with Satyavathi and asks him to tell that to her. One day,Sathya tells Krishna about her sister .Krishna tells Sathya that he will find the mystery of her sister's missing.Things turn spooky when he enters the her sister's house . Suddenly, Paappa, the cute little girl who he met before this appears in front of him.She tells him about the history and mystery of the house.There is used to be an archeologist called Balaram Daggubati Venkatesh, who was an atheist.He believes more in the power of science than that of God. There she meets up with a damsel called Karuna (Soundarya) and they fall in love, get married and Karuna gets pregnant.There used to be a kind of catostrophy in the sea adjoining the Dwaraka every Amavasya, which generates huge amount of torque. Balaram believes that there is a mystery behind that's strange thing in the sea.With unremitting attention to his purpose and frustrated by the lack of initiative on the part of the government, he jumps into sea during one Amavasya and comes back with a huge archaic metal box that has all kinds of marks and an embossed trishulam. There is a bunch of foreigners who are after that mystical box.One day, the box opens itself . Balaram see that and he realizes that it is not an ordinary metal box but a storehouse of a mysterious force that would destroy the world if not put back in its place. But the baddies, who want to have power over the universe, will not allow him.They tortures Balaram and Karuna asking to give them the box. While that, Balaram and Karuna escapes from them and bring the box with them to put back into the sea. Accidentally the box will fall in to hole and Balaram fall from a hill and dies on the spot.The baddies tortures Karuna to tell where is the box until is comes to her baby's death.The spirit of the baby revenges them for torturing her mother . The baddies call a black magician to control the baby's spirit. Now in the present, Paappa asks Krishna to put back the box in the sea and save her mother from them. Finally, Krishna save Karuna and asks her to show the place where the box had felt. After they get the box, the baddies and black magician fights for the box until it cause the power inside the box come out with full of anger. The power inside the box was Goddess Amman who was sent by Lord Krishna to save the world.Goddess Amman will kills the baddies and black magician and return into the box. Finally, they will put back the box in the sea.At the end, Krishna and Satyavathi get married and the spirit of Paappa will reborn again to Satyavathi.
1058913	Enter the Void is a 2009 fantasy film written and directed by Gaspar Noé and starring Nathaniel Brown, Paz de la Huerta and Cyril Roy. Set in the neon-lit nightclub environments of Tokyo, the story follows Oscar, a young American drug dealer who gets shot by the police, but continues to watch succeeding events during an out-of-body experience. The film is shot from a first-person viewpoint, which often floats above the city streets, and occasionally features Oscar staring over his own shoulder as he recalls moments from his past. Noé labels the film as a "psychedelic melodrama". Noé's dream project for many years, the production was made possible after the commercial success of "Irréversible", his previous feature film. "Enter the Void" was primarily financed by Wild Bunch, while Fidélité Films led the actual production. The cast is a mix of professionals and first-timers. The film makes heavy use of imagery inspired by experimental cinema and psychedelic drug experiences. Principal photography took place on location in Tokyo, and involved many complicated crane shots. Co-producers included the visual effects studio BUF Compagnie, which also provided the computer-generated imagery. The film's soundtrack is a collage of electronic pop and experimental music. A rough cut premiered at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival, but post-production work continued, and the film was not released in France until almost a year later. A cut-down version was released in the United States and United Kingdom in September 2010. The critical response was sharply divided: positive reviews described the film as captivating and innovative, while negative critics called it tedious and puerile. The film performed poorly at the box office. Plot. Oscar lives in Tokyo and supports himself by dealing drugs, against the advice of his friend, Alex, and his sister, Linda. Alex attempts to turn Oscar's interest toward "The Tibetan Book of the Dead", a Buddhist book about the afterlife. The first act follows Oscar's nightly routine through strict point-of-view shots, including momentary blackouts that represent blinking, and extended sequences of drug-induced hallucination. Oscar and Alex leave the apartment to deliver drugs to Oscar's friend Victor. On the way, Alex explains parts of "The Tibetan Book of the Dead" to Oscar: how the spirit of a dead person sometimes stays among the living until it begins to experience nightmares, after which it attempts to reincarnate. They arrive at a bar called The Void. Oscar enters alone and sits down with a distressed Victor, who mutters "I'm sorry" before they are swarmed by police officers. Oscar seals himself in a bathroom stall and attempts to flush his drugs. When the flush is only partially successful, he foolishly hollers repeatedly through the door that he has a gun. A police officer fires and hits Oscar in the chest, and he then falls to the floor. Oscar's viewpoint rises and looks at his body from above, and then we begin to witness his life in a roughly chronological order. His loving parents were killed in a violent car crash; Oscar and Linda, devoted to each other, were sent to different foster homes; Oscar moved to Tokyo and earned money through drug dealing until he could afford to bring Linda to live with him; Linda found work as a stripper for the nightclub owner Mario, to Oscar's distress; Oscar increased the scope of his dealing operations and started using potent psychedelics—in particular, DMT—more frequently; Victor discovered that Oscar slept with Victor's mother; and finally, we again see Oscar meet Victor at The Void to sell him drugs, only to be shot in the bathroom. Next, a disembodied Oscar floats over Tokyo and witnesses the aftermath of his death. Linda becomes withdrawn and despondent, especially after getting an abortion; Oscar's dealer, Bruno, destroys his stash; Alex lives in hiding on the streets, and Linda wishes she would have been with Alex instead of Mario, as Oscar had wanted. On one occasion Linda wishes that Oscar would come back to life; Oscar then enters Linda's head, after which he wakes up at the morgue. Linda and Mario arrive and pick him up, but they are disgusted by his appearance, and he is unable to speak. Oscar is eventually convinced by Alex that he's really been "torched" or cremated, and he returns to watch his friends from a floating perspective. Victor screams at his mother because she had sex with his friend and is thrown out of his parents' home. He shows up at Linda's apartment and apologizes for having her brother killed, but he says Linda is partially to blame since she hung around with creeps. Linda's angry retort is that Victor should go kill himself. Oscar then hovers high above Tokyo and enters an airplane where he sees his mother breast-feeding a baby to whom she whispers Oscar's name. The view then drops to Linda and Alex, who take a taxi to a Tokyo love hotel and have prolonged, passionate sex. Oscar moves between hotel rooms and observes several other couples having sex in various positions. Each couple emanates a pulsating, diffuse, electrical glow from their lower torsos. Oscar enters Alex's head and witnesses the sex with Linda from Alex's point of view. He then travels down inside Linda's birth canal to witness Alex's thrusting and follows the ensuing semen into the fertilization of his sister's ovum. The final scene is shot from the perspective of a baby being born to an out-of-focus woman who is presumably Oscar's former sister. According to the director, this is a flashback to Oscar's birth in the form of a false memory. Themes. The cinematic experience itself is the main focus of the film, but there is also a central theme of emptiness. Noé describes the film's subject as "the sentimentality of mammals and the shimmering vacuity of the human experience." The dramaturgy after Oscar has been shot is loosely based on "The Tibetan Book of the Dead", and ends with the spirit's search for a way to reincarnate. The director, who opposes all religious beliefs, says that "the whole movie is a dream of someone who read "The Tibetan Book of the Dead", and heard about it before being by a gun. It's not the story of someone who dies, flies and is reincarnated, it's the story of someone who is stoned when he gets shot and who has an intonation of his own dream." Noé describes the ending of the film as Oscar's recollection of "the most traumatic moment of his life – his own birth". Alternatively, the director leaves open the possibility that Oscar's life starts over again in an endless loop, due to the human brain's perception of time. Production. Development. The idea for the film had been growing since Noé's adolescence, when he first became interested in matters of death and existence. In his early twenties—while under influence of psilocybin mushrooms—he saw Robert Montgomery's "Lady in the Lake", a 1947 film shot entirely in a first-person perspective. He then decided that if he ever made a film about the afterlife, that was the way it would be filmed. Noé had been working on different versions of the screenplay for fifteen years before the film went into production. The story had initially been more linear, and the drafts were set in different locations, including the Andes, France, and New York City. Tokyo was chosen because it could provide colourful environments required for the film's hallucinogenic aspects, and because Japan's repressive drug laws add to the drama, explaining the intensity of the main character's fear of the police. Noé first tried to get the film funded in the early 2000s. Several producers responded positively to the script, and it was briefly under development for Tom Tykwer's German company X-Filme Creative Pool. It was considered too expensive and the producers dropped out. Prospects changed when "Irréversible" (2002) became a commercial success. Noé had written and directed "Irréversible" for StudioCanal, and it was sold internationally by their subsidiary, Wild Bunch. When the producers at Wild Bunch asked Noé what he wanted to do next, he answered "Enter the Void". The project was once again considered too expensive in relation to its commercial potential, but when Wild Bunch discovered that Noé had started to develop the film for Pathé instead of them, they said they were willing to fund it. Since development went slowly at Pathé, Noé chose to not renew his contract with the studio and accepted Wild Bunch's offer. "Enter the Void" was produced under Fidélité Films, with 70% of the budget invested by Wild Bunch. French co-producers included Noé's company Les Cinémas de la Zone and the visual effects studio BUF Compagnie. It received pre-sales investment from Canal+ and funding from Eurimages. Additional co-production support was provided by Essential Filmproduktion of Germany and BIM Distribuzione of Italy. The total budget was $12.38 million. In retrospect Noé called "Irréversible" a bank robbery, a film made in order to finance "Enter the Void". He also saw it as a helpful technical exercise. Casting. The decision to use English-speaking actors was made early. Since the film would be very visual, the director wanted audiences to be able to focus on the images, and not have to rely on subtitles. He later expressed his approval of the use of dubbed voice tracks in non-English speaking countries. The role of Linda was the first to be cast. Noé found Paz de la Huerta after holding auditions in New York City. "I met Paz and I really liked her. She had the profile for the character because she likes screaming, crying, showing herself naked—all the qualities for it." Due to a desire that Linda and Oscar should be believable as siblings, Nathaniel Brown, a non-professional, was cast because of his resemblance to Huerta. Noé feared that a professional actor would be frustrated by being shown almost exclusively from behind, but he felt that Brown, an aspiring director, would find it stimulating to merely be present on the set. Auditions were held for westerners living in Japan for other Tokyo-based roles. Cyril Roy went to an audition with a friend only because he wanted to talk with the director, whose previous films he admired. Roy was cast as Alex, since Noé found his talkative personality suitable for the role. Noé said about Brown and Roy: "The thought of acting in a film had never even entered their minds. They're easy-going people, they have a good time in front of the camera and I don't think there was a single moment where either of them felt they were working. Paz, however, was definitely conscious of the fact that she was interpreting a role." Visual conception. Noé had tried various hallucinogens in his youth, and used those experiences as inspiration for the visual style. Later, when the director was already planning the film, he tried the psychoactive brew ayahuasca, in which the active substance is DMT. This was done in the Peruvian jungle, where the brew is legal due to its traditional use as an entheogen. Noé described the experience as very intense, and said he regarded it "almost like professional research." Since few on the design team ever had taken a hallucinogen, it was necessary for Noé to collect and provide visual references in the forms of paintings, photographs, music videos, and excerpts from films. One reference used was the works of biologist Ernst Haeckel, whose drawings influenced the organic patterns seen during Oscar's visions. Another important stylistic influence was the experimental oeuvre of Kenneth Anger, and in particular "Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome". Noé saw Anger's films in the early 1990s, while promoting the short film "Carne", and quickly became a fan. Other influences from experimental cinema included the works of Jordan Belson and Peter Tscherkassky. Noé's favourite film, "", was the most prominent influence among mainstream films; Noé wanted to become a filmmaker after he saw it at the age of seven. Brian De Palma's "Snake Eyes" and other films which feature hovering overhead shots inspired Noé to make a film largely from such a perspective. There were two reasons for showing Oscar's head and shoulders within the frame during the flashback scenes, rather than letting the camera be the character's eyes. The first was that this is the way Noé usually sees himself in dreams and when recalling past events. He also thought it would be easier for the viewer to care about a character who is visible, as many point-of-view films, in his opinion, look unintentionally funny. Filming. The crew filmed in Tokyo from 19 October to 15 December 2007. Flashback scenes were shot in Montreal over the course of four weeks the following spring, until 16 May 2008. The team went back to Tokyo twice for additional footage, once before the Montreal session and once when principal photography was complete. Only four persons on the Tokyo set were French; the rest of the crew was Japanese. Marc Caro worked as the supervisor of set designs in Tokyo. According to Noé, Caro had three months free after finishing "Dante 01", his first effort as a solo director, so Noé asked him to come to Japan. The 100-page screenplay detailed plot developments and many of the visual traits, but very little dialogue was scripted, so the actors were asked to improvise their lines. Noé explained this approach: "For me, directing actors is just finding the right people and putting them in the right mood on the set and letting them go. ... I think the energy has to come on the set at the very last minute." Locations were used in Kabukichō and other parts of Shinjuku. Since much of the film was set in neighbourhoods known for gambling and prostitution, the producers made agreements with the Yakuza crime syndicates before filming some of the on-location scenes. Criminal organisations were not involved in the actual production. Studio scenes set in Tokyo were filmed at Toho Studios. More scenes than originally planned had to be filmed in the studio because of the many complicated crane arrangements. Some of the overhead sequences took a full day to arrange and film. The scenes where Oscar is alive were mostly shot on location, but the crane shots were exclusively taken in the studio; this included revisits to some of the previous locations, which were replicated as large indoor sets. Other shots were taken from helicopters flying over the city. Much attention was paid to the continuity of the geography, and filming was overseen by a supervisor from the visual-effects team. The film was mainly shot on Kodak Vision3 250D film stock. Scenes where Oscar is alive were shot in the super 35 format with Arricam LT cameras, and the rest in super 16 with an Aaton XTR Prod. The cinematographer was Benoît Debie, who also shot "Irréversible". As in "Irréversible", Noé was reluctant to use artificial lighting that would destroy the illusion if the camera was turned around. Thanks to Tokyo's many neon signs, very little additional lighting was required for the exterior scenes, despite the fact that many were shot late at night. For the interior scenes Debie mainly used practical, in-frame light sources. Some exceptions were made. One was that the moods of the characters were meant to be indicated by different colours, ranging from orange to purple with occasional greens. For this Debie used a set of red, green, and blue programmable disco lights, which allowed for all different hues. The disco lights were easy to hide. They were also used for simulation of neon flashes, and to add a tint of red to the dressing-room scenes. Another exception was the use of strobe lights, which were programmed together with the coloured lights. Blue colour was avoided throughout, since the filmmakers did not associate it with dreams. Noé was the film's camera operator, except for a few shots of Oscar running in the streets, as they required a taller cameraman. In those scenes the camera was held by Debie. Post-production. "Enter the Void"'s post-production process lasted more than a year. Work on the digital effects was led by Pierre Buffin of BUF Compagnie. Every scene in the film includes computer-generated imagery (CGI)—even the flashback scenes, where the backdrops were digitally altered. Studio scenes, helicopter shots, and CGI were forged together in the hovering sequences with the intention that the viewer should be unable to determine which is which. For shots from high altitudes, the team started with helicopter footage from video, and then created computer models of the neighbourhoods with textures from photographs. Neon lights, reflections, and dark areas were consistently accentuated. Flickers were created through a mixture of motion blur, chromatic aberration, and focus effects. For scenes seen as through a fisheye lens, the team recreated the sets digitally and progressively increased the environments' reflection values along with the lens effect. Noé initially asked the Daft Punk member Thomas Bangalter, who had composed the music for "Irréversible", to create an original soundtrack for "Enter the Void". Bangalter was occupied with work on "" and had to decline. As a compromise, he provided Noé with an arrangement of ambient sounds and samples from existing experimental music, from which Noé compiled what he envisioned as "a maelstrom of sounds." Bangalter is billed in the credits as sound effects director, and the film features his track "Désaccords" originally composed for "Irréversible". One of the sources of inspiration for the soundtrack was "Revolution 9" by The Beatles, a sound collage which Noé describes as a work "where you catch the beginning of a note, or of a melody and then it's already somewhere else." The two main musical themes of the film are "Freak" by the British electro artist LFO, which is played during the opening credits, and a recording by Delia Derbyshire of Johann Sebastian Bach's "Air on the G String", which serves as the theme for Oscar's childhood and his relationship with Linda. The beginning of "ANS" by the British band Coil is heard during Oscar's first DMT trip. The Throbbing Gristle song "Hamburger Lady" plays as Oscar tries to deliver drugs to Victor at the bar. The soundtrack notably includes excerpts from nearly every part of Jean-Claude Éloy's two compositions, "Shânti" and "Gaku-no-Michi". Other songs on the soundtrack include Toshiya Tsunoda's "Music for Baby", Alvin Lucier's "Music for Gamelan Instruments, Microphones, Amplifiers and Loudspeakers", and works by Denis Smalley, Lullatone, and Zbigniew Karkowski. When the film premiered at film festivals, it was initially shown in a version without any credits. As several people at the screenings complained about the length of the film, Noé decided that if the final version would have any opening titles, they would have to be "as fast as possible and as graphic as possible". The German experimental filmmaker Thorsten Fleisch was hired to create the title logo. Noé discovered Fleisch through his 2007 film "Energie!", for which the technique of animated sparks had been developed. Release. A 163-minute version of the film competed in the main competition of the 2009 Cannes Film Festival. The Cannes cut lacked much of the finished film's sound design, and some visual effects were not fully in place. Noé said about the version: "the film was like a baby of three months. I took it out of my belly to show it, flattered by general Thierry Frémaux's invitation, but it was still in gestation. So I had to put it back into my belly, that is to say to tweak many details." Festival screenings of subsequent versions followed throughout the year, including the Toronto, Sitges, London, and Stockholm international film festivals. The final 154-minute cut premiered at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival. At the Cannes premiere, the film had alternatively been listed with the French title Soudain le vide, which means "Suddenly the void". When it was released in French cinemas, it used the English title. It premiered in France on 5 May 2010 through Wild Bunch Distribution. The Japanese release followed ten days later. Distribution rights for the United States were picked up at Sundance by IFC Films. Trinity Filmed Entertainment was the British distributor. The film was released in the United States and the United Kingdom on 24 September 2010. In both these countries, the film was distributed without the seventh of its nine reels. The running time was therefore 137 minutes at 25 frames per second, which the director had instructed that the film should be played at, or 142 minutes at the more common 24 frames per second. Noé says that none of the cut material is essential for the film. He describes it as "some astro-visions, an orgy scene with Linda and the Japanese girl, the scene where you see waking up at the morgue and he thinks he's alive but he's not, and then the camera goes down the plughole where she's tipping his ashes." The reason the shorter version was made was that Noé had promised the investors to make an alternative edit if the film ended up being longer than two hours and 20 minutes. The film was released on DVD and Blu-ray Disc in France on 1 December 2010. Each edition features both the complete version and the shorter cut. Reception. Critical response. Thomas Sotinel of "Le Monde" started his review by recalling the irritation the film caused upon its world premiere in Cannes, and compared the cut he had seen there to the final version: "In all honesty, the difference does not jump to my eyes. Of course, the film seems more consistent, but that may be because we've already traveled this maze once. While leaving, we might remain calmer, but still amazed by the mixture of exuberant invention and puerility." A positive review came from "L'Express", written by Laurent Djian, who compared the film to "2001: A Space Odyssey". He applauded how he found the strobe lights hypnotising in a way that influenced the perception of time. "In 2010, no other filmmaker France than Gaspar Noé can shoot with such mastery, nor draw us into a vortex of sensations as vertiginous." "Ouest-Frances critic, on the other hand, was immensely bored by the film, and called it "a padding of simple ideas, stereotypes and cliches in a heap of contrived and vain images who think they're technical prowess. Soporific cinema." Upon the Japanese release, the critic writing for "The Japan Times" reflected: "If "Lost in Translation" is the film you'd make when all you know about Japan are the pampered press junkets at Shinjuku 5-star hotels, then "Enter the Void" is what you would make if you never got beyond the Roppongi pub-crawl." While the review was largely negative, the author was still impressed by the visual depiction of the Japanese capital: "Visually, much of the film is stunning ... and the art design by Marc Caro ("Delicatessen") takes Tokyo's love of neon gaudiness to a surreal extreme". As of 25 January 2012, the film had an aggregated approval of 72% from 83 English-language reviews collected at Rotten Tomatoes, with an average rating of 6.7 out of ten. Peter Bradshaw of "The Guardian" gave the film the top rating of five stars, and made a comparison to "Irréversible", which he had disliked: ""Enter the Void" is, in its way, just as provocative, just as extreme, just as mad, just as much of an outrageous ordeal[.] ... But despite its querulous melodrama and crazed Freudian pedantries, it has a human purpose the previous film lacked, and its sheer deranged brilliance is magnificent. ... Love him or loathe him – and I've done both in my time – Gaspar Noé is one of the very few directors who is actually trying to do something new with the medium, battling at the boundaries of the possible." Andrew Male rated the film two out of five in "Empire". Male called it "technically stunning", but also "dreadfully acted, tediously 'profound' and painfully overlong", and accused the director of misogyny. "The Village Voice"'s Karina Longworth had several reservations about the film. She thought the characters lacked emotional depth and called the story "a lame fusion of stoner lifestyle, sexual fetish, and philosophical inquiry", but still ended the review: "I could stare at this movie for days and not get tired of the sensation. A mash-up of the sacred, the profane, and the brain-dead, "Enter the Void" is addictive." Jen Chaney of "The Washington Post" thought the film was successful as an "attempt to transport moviegoers to a hallucinatory version of the hereafter unlike anything they've ever witnessed on film", but, "The problem is that it's also the most excruciating sit in recent cinematic memory. And no, the fact that it's intentionally excruciating doesn't make it less excruciating." Box office. The film was a financial failure; according to Wild Bunch in February 2011, the film had returned 1.25% of the investment. In France, it was launched on 30 prints and sold 51,126 tickets in total. Producer Brahim Chioua said the film had been difficult to sell abroad for a reasonable price due to the late-2000s financial crisis. As of 20 July 2011, Box Office Mojo reported that the worldwide theatrical revenues corresponded to US$754,249. Accolades. "Enter the Void" won the Special Jury Award and the prize for Best Cinematography at the 2009 Sitges Film Festival. It received the main award for best film at the 2010 Neuchâtel Film Festival. This especially delighted Noé, since one of the jury members in Neuchâtel was Douglas Trumbull, the special effects supervisor of "2001: A Space Odyssey".
1101943	In mathematics, a polynomial is an expression constructed from variables (also called indeterminates) and constants (usually numbers, but not always), using only the operations of addition, subtraction, multiplication, and non-negative integer exponents (which are equivalent to several multiplications by the same value). However, the division by a constant is allowed, because the multiplicative inverse of a non-zero constant is also a constant. For example, is a polynomial, but is an algebraic expression that is not a polynomial, because its second term involves a division by the variable "x" (the term 4/x), and also because its third term contains an exponent that is not a non-negative integer (3/2).
1163574	Kathleen Mary "Kathy" Griffin (born November 4, 1960) is an American actress and comedian. Born in Oak Park, Illinois, she moved to Los Angeles in 1978, where she studied drama at the Lee Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute and became a member of the improvisational comedy troupe The Groundlings. In the 1990s, Griffin began performing as a stand-up comedian and also appeared as a guest star on several television shows. She achieved recognition in a supporting role on the NBC sitcom "Suddenly Susan" (1996–2000).
1043725	H.M.S. Defiant (released as Damn the Defiant! in the United States) is a British adventure film from 1962 starring Alec Guinness and Dirk Bogarde. It tells the story of a mutiny aboard the fictitious ship of the title at around the time of the Spithead Mutiny. It was directed by Lewis Gilbert, with a screenplay by Nigel Kneale from the novel "Mutiny" by Frank Tilsley. Plot. The humane Captain Crawford (Guinness) is in command of the warship HMS "Defiant" during the French Revolutionary Wars. He soon finds himself in a battle of wills with his first officer, the sadistic and supercilious first lieutenant, Mr. Scott-Padget (Bogarde). The Lieutenant believes that Crawford is too soft on his crew, and also disagrees with the captain's decision to proceed with orders to sail to Corsica despite word that Napoleon has overrun much of Italy. Scott-Padget has powerful family connections, which he has used in the past to "beach" two previous commanding officers with whom he disagreed. Knowing that Crawford is helpless to intervene, Scott-Padget subjects the former's son, Midshipman Harvey Crawford (David Robinson), to excessive daily punishments so as to gain leverage over the captain. Meanwhile, some of the crew, led by seaman Vizard (Anthony Quayle), are organising to strike for better conditions, in conjunction with similar efforts throughout the British fleet. They eventually pledge virtually the entire crew. In the Mediterranean, the "Defiant" encounters a French frigate escorting a merchant ship. After a sharp engagement, a boarding party from the "Defiant" captures the French frigate, and the merchantman surrenders. Crawford dispatches his son as part of the prize crew tasked to send the captured merchantman back to a British port, thereby placing him out of Scott-Padget's reach. Crawford tells Scott-Padget that bringing his son with him was a mistake, but now he's "put it right!" He further vows to take actions that will 'astound' his second-in-command. Before long, Scott-Padget is confined to quarters as punishment for insubordination. His humiliation is compounded by the requirement that he appear on deck every two hours in full dress uniform; a punishment usually reserved for young midshipmen. Soon, "Defiant" fights and captures a Venetian frigate, taking on many prisoners. Crawford is severely wounded in the action and eventually loses his arm. Discovered among the prisoners is a key aide to Napoleon, from whom the British learn important information about a planned invasion of Britain. With Crawford temporarily out of way, Scott-Padget takes command, but his brutality goads the crew into a premature mutiny. Appealing to their patriotism, Crawford convinces Vizard and the other mutineers to sail for the main British fleet blockading Rochefort to warn them of the impending invasion. Crawford promises to intercede for the crew as best he can, on the condition that none of the officers are harmed. As the "Defiant" reaches the fleet at Rochefort, they receive word that the main British fleet has already gone on strike, with the naval high command agreeing to most of the sailors' demands. The crew's jubilation at the news is cut short when the hot-headed seaman Evans murders Scott-Padget. Realising that they are now all doomed to punishment as mutineers, an enraged Vizard kills Evans. Their only course now is to try to escape with the ship. Just then, the French fleet sallies out from port, and a French fireship is sighted heading straight for the British flagship. As the only ship under sail, the "Defiant" has the unique opportunity to save the flagship. Once again, Crawford appeals to the crew's patriotism, convincing them to intercept the fireship and promising pardons to all who fight. Vizard is killed in the ensuing action, living just long enough to hear a message from the British admiral thanking "Defiant" for their gallant actions.
1437174	Charles Matthew "Charlie" Hunnam (born 10 April 1980) is an English actor and screenwriter. He is known for his roles as Nathan Maloney in the Channel 4 drama "Queer as Folk", Lloyd Haythe in the Fox comedy series "Undeclared", Pete Dunham in the film "Green Street", Jackson "Jax" Teller in the FX series "Sons of Anarchy", and Raleigh Becket in the film "Pacific Rim". On 2 September 2013, Hunnam was cast as Christian Grey in the upcoming film adaptation of E. L. James's novel "Fifty Shades of Grey". Early life. Hunnam was born in Newcastle upon Tyne, Tyne and Wear, the younger of two sons of what he has described as a "tough-guy" father and a "bohemian" mother, who split up when he was two years old. He moved to the village of Melmerby, Cumbria when he was 12, as his mother remarried. He has two younger half-brothers on his mother's side. Hunnam went to school at Queen Elizabeth Grammar School in Penrith, Cumbria which he described as a "nightmare" and “just about the worst place you could hope to live”; "they hated me from the second I got there right up until the second I left. I made one friend. It was a dead end kind of existence." Hunnam got expelled from high school and did his exams from home. He attended Cumbria College of Art and Design, where he graduated with a degree in the theory and history of film with a side in performing arts. Career. Hunnam was discovered in a shoe shop on Christmas Eve while drunkenly clowning around buying shoes for his brother. A production manager for the Newcastle-based children's show "Byker Grove "approached him and Hunnam was later cast in his first role as Jason in three episodes of the show. Aged eighteen, his first major role came when he was cast by Russell T. Davies as fifteen-year-old schoolboy Nathan Maloney in Davies' Channel 4 drama "Queer as Folk". The show was groundbreaking and scored record ratings, however some people out on the streets were not as enthused; one man cornered him on a train and told him that he should be ashamed of himself. "I was like, dude, I didn't ... kill anyone in Queer as Folk, you know? I don't gang-shoot anyone. If you think it's irresponsible to play a gay character; then I don't know what to say to that." He followed this up with his role as Daz in "Whatever Happened to Harold Smith?" and then relocated to Los Angeles. His career expanded to include a recurring role as Gregor Ryder in the WB Television Network series "Young Americans". He then appeared in the short-lived Fox series "Undeclared" as an English drama student called Lloyd Haythe. Despite critical acclaim, the series was cancelled after one season. Hunnam then appeared in "Abandon", "Nicholas Nickleby", and "Cold Mountain". Hunnam has stated that he does not wish to simply take any role that he is offered: "I have 60 years to make the money, but the choices I make in the next five years are really going to define my career." This decision resulted in his return to the UK to take the lead role of Pete Dunham in "Green Street", however his attempts at delivering a Cockney accent resulted in his inclusion in many critics' 'worst accents in movie history' lists. Hunnam played the role of Patric, a member of "The Fishes", in "Children of Men" (2006). Hunnam states that this role was the final part in his "trilogy of mad men". "I played the psycho in "Cold Mountain", my character in "Green Street" is fairly psychotic and now I've got this role." Since 2008 Hunnam stars as Jackson "Jax" Teller in "Sons of Anarchy", a show about a prominent motorcycle club in a small fictional California town. Hunnam was cast after Kurt Sutter, the creator of the show, saw him in "Green Street". Right before getting the role on "Sons of Anarchy", he sold his screenplay "Vlad" to Summit Entertainment with Brad Pitt's Plan B Studios co-producing. The film is being directed by music video director and photographer Anthony Mandler, and will focus on the real-life story of Vlad the Impaler. Hunnam learnt the story from locals in Romania while shooting "Cold Mountain". He stated that he hadn't acted in 18 months and was so broke that if he hadn't managed to sell the script he would have had to sell his house and move back to England to live with his mum. Hunnam is also developing a screenplay based on a 2011 Rolling Stone article he optioned that is about Edgar Valdez Villareal, an American drug lord who ran one of the biggest cartels in Mexico. Another project he has in development is a film about gypsy culture in England, which he hopes to direct. He stated that it's "a part of English society that’s really seldom been explored, but is one of the most colourful and interesting parts of British society." In 2013, Hunnam was featured in the men's magazine, "Man of the World" where he discussed a brief history of his career along with current and future projects including his screenplay, "Vlad." He starred as Raleigh Becket in the Guillermo del Toro directed Sci-fi movie "Pacific Rim" that opened in July 2013. He is going to reunite with del Toro in "Crimson Peak" and he has also been cast in the film "Triple Nine", directed by John Hillcoat. Both are set for releases in 2015. It was announced on 2 September 2013 that Hunnam will play the lead role of Christian Grey in the film adaptation of E. L. James's novel "Fifty Shades of Grey", which is set for release in August 2014. Personal life. Hunnam met actress Katharine Towne in 1999 when they both auditioned for roles on "Dawson's Creek". After dating for four weeks, they married in Las Vegas. The couple divorced in 2002. Hunnam was voted ninth in "Elle Girl"s top 100 sexiest men in 2005. He has been in a relationship with jewellery designer Morgana McNelis since 2007. In July 2013, Hunnam announced that he and Morgana were leaving Los Angeles, to live on a ranch just outside the city, which is much more peaceful than the party scene of Hollywood. They have two cats, Mavis and George, as well as donkeys, ducks and chickens.
1054164	Hercules in New York is a 1969 low-budget fantasy adventure film. It is notable for being the first feature film to star Arnold Schwarzenegger, who was about 22 years old when the film was produced. However, it is one of the films that Schwarzenegger admits regretting having appeared in. Overview. Playing the film's title character, Schwarzenegger, because of his long last name and to play off the name of fellow cast member comedian Arnold Stang, is credited as "Arnold Strong 'Mr. Universe'". Due to his thick Austrian accent, Schwarzenegger had all his lines dubbed, although modern showings of the film have his audio track restored. However, even these restored showings cannot change the final scene's lines that Hercules speaks to Pretzie over a small transistor radio, in a voice that is clearly not Schwarzenegger's. On October 19, 2006, the "San Francisco Chronicle" reported that Premiere Pictures was auctioning off the rights to the film on eBay for a minimum bid of $550,000. Plot. The film begins with Hercules at Olympus, berating his father Zeus for not allowing him to leave the gods' abode to adventure on earth. Eventually Zeus sends Hercules, on a beam, to the land of men. After some strange encounters in the air and at sea, Hercules arrives in New York City, where hilarity ensues in the form of interactions with various New Yorkers, who regard him as physically superior but socially awkward. He meets a skinny little guy called Pretzie (Arnold Stang). Hercules becomes a successful professional wrestler. Zeus, watching Hercules from the heights, becomes irritated with Hercules' antics, which he feels are making a mockery of the gods, and calls on Mercury to stop Hercules. After Mercury makes an unsuccessful attempt to bring Hercules home, Zeus orders Nemesis to see to it that Hercules is consigned to the infernal regions ruled over by Pluto. However, Juno instead convinces Nemesis to poison Hercules with a poison that would strip him of his divinity and then talk to Pluto. Nemesis informs Pluto of what is happening and he bets a large sum of money against Hercules in an upcoming strongman competition with Hercules' gangster manager. When Hercules loses the strongman competition his friends try to lead off Hercules' angry manager's henchmen, but Hercules follows them to save them. Meanwhile, Zeus uncovers the truth from Nemesis as to what is happening but only intervenes at the last minute to restore Hercules' divinity, not wanting any son of his to die at the hands of a mortal. Hercules defeats the gangsters and realizes that he has been disobedient and returns to the heavens shortly after, only saying good-bye to Pretzie over a radio after he leaves. In the heavens, Zeus tells Juno and Hercules that he is not going to punish Hercules for his behavior as they ask him about it and then asks to be left alone. They leave him alone, and upon their departure, Zeus sneaks out of the heavens and descends to earth, scaring a passenger jet on his way down.
1059239	Edward Albert (February 20, 1951 – September 22, 2006) was an American film and television actor. Early life. Albert was born Edward Laurence Heimberger in Los Angeles, California, to actor Eddie Albert, and Mexican actress Margo. Career. Albert made his motion picture debut in a 1965 drama, "The Fool Killer", as a runaway orphan who crossed paths with a disturbed Civil War veteran, played by Anthony Perkins. He is best known for his work in the 1972 film "Butterflies Are Free", in which he played a blind man, starring opposite Goldie Hawn. The performance earned him a Golden Globe Award as Most Promising Male Newcomer. The following year, he starred opposite Liv Ullmann in the film adaptation of the play "40 Carats". Albert appeared as a U.S. Navy fighter pilot in the epic film "Midway", portraying the son of a famous (and fictitious) naval captain (played by Charlton Heston). He also was featured in the Gene Hackman suspense film "The Domino Principle" (1977) and the drama "The Greek Tycoon" (1978) opposite Anthony Quinn and Jacqueline Bisset. He had a recurring role in the 1980s television series "Beauty and the Beast," in which he played Elliot Burch, the millionaire New York developer who loved series heroine, Catherine Chandler (played by Linda Hamilton). He also played Mr. Collins, father to Wesley Collins, the Red Ranger from "Power Rangers Time Force". Albert also voiced the blind superhero Daredevil in two episodes of "Spider-Man: The Animated Series" in the 1990s. In "The Ice Runner" (1992), he played a betrayed and threatened agent arrested in Russia, who wants to escape from his prison, and in "Guarding Tess" (1994), he played the son of kidnapped former First Lady Tess Carlisle (Shirley MacLaine). Last years and death. In his last years, Albert cared for his father who suffered from Alzheimer's. Albert died on September 22, 2006, after suffering from lung cancer for 18 months, coincidentally about 18 months after his father's death.
1059099	And When Did You Last See Your Father? is a 2007 British drama film directed by Anand Tucker. The screenplay by David Nicholls is based on the 1993 memoir of the same title by Blake Morrison. Plot. The film is a series of flashbacks to various periods in the life of Blake Morrison as he remembers moments he shared with his father Arthur while he, his mother, and younger sister Gillian tend to him on his deathbed in his Yorkshire home. Despite Blake's success as a writer, poet, and critic, his father - a rural general practitioner - never accepted his decision to pursue a literary career nor was he willing to acknowledge his achievements in his field. Bullying, blustery, and boorish, Arthur blunders his way through fatherhood, regularly calling his son a fathead and intruding into the boy's private moments with a sense of entitlement. He has a penchant for exaggeration when he's not telling outright lies, and he publicly humiliates his long-suffering but passively complacent wife Kim with his shameless flirting with various women and an affair with Beaty, a friend of the family. At other times, he seems genuinely interested in bonding with his son, taking him camping so they can test supposedly waterproof sleeping bags he has made or allowing him to drive in the family's Alvis convertible on a wide expanse of deserted beach with reckless abandon. As a result, Blake is left with mixed feelings for the man, ranging from deeply rooted anger to compassionate acceptance. Only after Arthur's death is he able to set aside his resentment and recognize him as a father whose flaws ultimately helped mold his son into the better man he is. Production. The film was shot on location in Brighton in East Sussex; Chichester, Goodwood, Petworth, and West Wittering in West Sussex; Bakewell, Cromford, Kedleston, and Snake Pass in Derbyshire; the National Liberal Club in Westminster, London; Sheffield in South Yorkshire; Flintham in Nottinghamshire; and Yorkshire Dales in North Yorkshire. Interiors were filmed at the Twickenham Film Studios in Middlesex. The film premiered at the Galway Film Festival in July 2007 and was shown at the Edinburgh Film Festival, the Telluride Film Festival, the Toronto International Film Festival, the Edmonton International Film Festival, and the Dinard Festival of British Cinema before going into theatrical release in the UK, Ireland, and Malta on 5 October 2007. It then was shown at the Rome Film Festival, the Cairo International Film Festival, the Dubai International Film Festival, the Miami International Film Festival, and the Ashland Independent Film Festival before going into limited release in the US on 6 June 2008. Critical reception. The film received generally favorable reviews. Rotten Tomatoes reported 78% of critics gave the film positive reviews, based on 32 reviews, while Metacritic reported the film had an average score of 70 out of 100, based on 8 reviews. Peter Bradshaw of "The Guardian" rated the film four out of five stars, calling it "an intelligent and heartfelt film" and one that "deserves to be seen." Philip French of "The Observer" said the film "touches movingly, enlighteningly on universal matters we can all identify with, and it does so without ever getting maudlin or sentimental." Damon Smith of the "Manchester Evening News" called the film "a bittersweet and, at times, moving account of the strained family ties which define each and every one of us." Manohla Dargis of the "New York Times" called the film "A gentle tale gently told" and "grown-up, civilized fare" and added, "If that sounds like a compliment, it is, even though the whole thing might have been improved with a bit of messiness, a little vulgarity to leaven its tastefulness and tact. This isn’t a groundbreaking work; just a smartly played story, enlivened by drama and spiked with passion, the very thing that thinking audiences pine for, especially during the summer spectacle season when theaters are clogged with sticky kids’ stuff and television reruns." Roger Ebert of the "Chicago Sun-Times" observed, "It's a sad movie, with a mournful score, romantic landscape photography and heartbreaking deathbed scenes . . . But it's not very satisfying . . . The film did not provide me with fulfillment or a catharsis . . . This is a film of regret, and judging by what we see of the characters, it deserves to be." Walter Addiego of the "San Francisco Chronicle" said, "This classy tearjerker is worth seeing more for its virtuoso acting than for its bare-bones tale of how a sensitive man copes with the death of his domineering father. The film is cleanly and intelligently made, and, excepting a few moments toward the end, it's moving without being mawkish. While you might leave the theater feeling the picture finally doesn't quite have the dramatic heft it should, it offers plenty of compensations along the way." Derek Elley of "Variety" called the film "immaculately acted, professionally helmed and saturated in period British atmosphere," "an unashamed tearjerker that’s all wrapping and no center," and "undeniably effective at a gut level despite its dramatic shortcomings." He added, "never getting to the heart of the matter, nor having even one scene where father and son "really" talk, the movie has a big black hole at its core. In the smorgasbord of father-son relationship pics, this one is very low-cal." Awards and nominations. The film was nominated for seven British Independent Film Awards, including Best British Independent Film, Best Actor (Jim Broadbent), Best Supporting Actor (Colin Firth), Most Promising Newcomer (Matthew Beard), Best Director, and Best Screenplay. Jim Broadbent was nominated for the London Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actor but lost to Daniel Day-Lewis in "There Will Be Blood".
1103048	Tullio Levi-Civita, FRS (29 March 1873 – 29 December 1941; ) was an Italian mathematician, most famous for his work on absolute differential calculus (tensor calculus) and its applications to the theory of relativity, but who also made significant contributions in other areas. He was a pupil of Gregorio Ricci-Curbastro, the inventor of tensor calculus. His work included foundational papers in both pure and applied mathematics, celestial mechanics (notably on the three-body problem), analytic mechanics (the Levi-Civita separability conditions in the Hamilton–Jacobi equation) and hydrodynamics. Biography. Born into an Italian Jewish family in Padua, Levi-Civita was the son of Giacomo Levi-Civita, a lawyer and former senator. He graduated in 1892 from the University of Padua Faculty of Mathematics. In 1894 he earned a teaching diploma after which he was appointed to the Faculty of Science teacher's college in Pavia. In 1898 he was appointed to the Padua Chair of Rational Mechanics where he met and, in 1914, married Libera Trevisani, one of his pupils. He remained in his position at Padua until 1918, when he was appointed to the Chair of Higher Analysis at the University of Rome; in another two years he was appointed to the Chair of Mechanics there. In 1900 he and Ricci-Curbastro published the theory of tensors in "Méthodes de calcul différentiel absolu et leurs applications", which Albert Einstein used as a resource to master the tensor calculus, a critical tool in the development of the theory of general relativity. Levi-Civita's series of papers on the problem of a static gravitational field were also discussed in his 1915–1917 correspondence with Einstein. The correspondence was initiated by Levi-Civita, as he found mathematical errors in Einstein's use of tensor calculus to explain theory of relativity. Levi-Civita methodically kept all of Einstein's replies to him, and even though Einstein hadn't kept Levi-Civita's, the entire correspondence could be re-constructed from Levi-Civita's archive. It's evident from these letters that, after numerous letters, the two men had grown to respect each other. In one of the letters, regarding Levi-Civita's new work, Einstein wrote "I admire the elegance of your method of computation; it must be nice to ride through these fields upon the horse of true mathematics while the like of us have to make our way laboriously on foot". In 1933 Levi-Civita contributed to Paul Dirac's equations in quantum mechanics as well. His textbook on tensor calculus, "The Absolute Differential Calculus" (originally a set of lecture notes in Italian co-authored with Ricci-Curbastro), remains one of the standard texts more than a century after its first publication, with several translations available.
1164600	Nicole Julianne Sullivan (born April 21, 1970) is an American actress, comedian, and voice artist. Sullivan is best known for her six seasons (1995–2001) on the sketch comedy series "MADtv" and five seasons (2001–2005, 2007) on the CBS sitcom "The King of Queens". She has played a recurring character on "Scrubs" and voiced the villainous Shego in Disney's "Kim Possible". She had recurring voice roles on "Family Guy" and voiced "Franny Robinson" in Disney's "Meet the Robinsons". From 2008 to 2009, Sullivan starred in and was the lead of her own Lifetime television series "Rita Rocks". Currently, she voices Marlene in the series "The Penguins of Madagascar". Sullivan also currently appears as Jules' (Courteney Cox) therapist, Lynn Mettler, on the comedy "Cougar Town". Recently, she portrayed Lyla in the Disney channel original movie "Let It Shine". She currently stars as Wilma Basset on "Wendell and Vinnie."
1169701	Paul Winchell (December 21, 1922 – June 24, 2005) was an American ventriloquist, voice actor, comedian, inventor, and humanitarian, whose entertainment career flourished in the 1950s and 1960s.
1702759	The Perfect Host is a 2010 black comedy film written and directed by Nick Tomnay, a remake of Tomnay's 2001 short film "The Host". The film stars David Hyde Pierce and Clayne Crawford. Filming took place in Los Angeles, California. It was filmed in 17 days.
651472	500 Years Later ( "") is the title of an independent documentary film directed by Owen 'Alik Shahadah, written by M. K. Asante, Jr. released in 2005. It won five international film festival awards (including UNESCO 'Breaking the Chains Award') in the category of Best Documentary. "500 Years Later" has received praise as well as controversy, both for the genre of the film (creative documentary), and the social-political impact of the film as it relates to race study. The film opened on February 28, 2005, at the Pan-African Awards (PAFF) and won Best Documentary at its premiere. The film made its American television premiere on August 23, 2008 on TV One (Radio One), and Ethiopian Television premiere on October 27, 2007, and Bounce TV February 08,2012. In 2010, the sequel "Motherland" was released. Plot. Crime, drugs, HIV/AIDS, poor education, inferiority complex, low expectation, poverty, corruption, poor health, and underdevelopment plagues people of African descent globally. 500 years later from the onset of slavery and subsequent colonialism, Africans are still struggling for basic freedom. Filmed in five continents, and over twenty countries, "500 Years Later" engages the retrospective voice, told from the African vantage-point. Music: African Classical. This soundtrack offers a glimpse into the worlds and landscapes that make up the music of the African Diaspora. The breadth of this rich cultural legacy that often has to exist within the limited confines of the genres defined and created by others outside of itself. But, it is only when we see this legacy in its entirety that we can begin to appreciate and understand its magnitude and see why it has been, and continues to be, one of the most influential forces within music and culture. Cast. The cast features key figures from the African American academic world. UNESCO Award and reception. "500 Years Later" was the first film to win a UNESCO award for documenting slavery. UNESCO subsequently funded a series of documentaries which would document slavery. When "500 Years Later" was first sent to Channel 4 the commissioning editor documentaries, Danny Cohen said "It's an interesting idea but I'm afraid, with limited slots available, it's not one I feel strongly enough about to take forward." The producers complained about the racism involved in screening African-centred content and many in the African-British community saw this as part of the racism in the United Kingdom. Even California Newsreel who applauded the approach said "While we applaud your effort to present African and African American history in a new and more favorable light, we think that your innovative techniques and broad scope are too radical for our largely academic market." Despite this the film has be internationally recognized as the hallmark film on the legacy of slavery and used in universities and academic boards (e.g., Toronto school district) in the USA, UK, Caribbean and Canada.
357235	Saturday Evening Puss is a 1950 one-reel animated cartoon and is the 48th "Tom and Jerry" short directed by William Hanna and Joseph Barbera who created the cat and mouse duo ten years earlier. The cartoon was produced by Fred Quimby, scored by Scott Bradley and animated by Ed Barge, Kenneth Muse, Irven Spence and Ray Patterson. Plot. Mammy dresses up before preparing to leave for the Lucky Seven Saturday Night Bridge Club. As she leaves, Tom was very happy and rushes to the living room window. He whistles to Butch, Lightning and Topsy to get their attention and rush in when Tom gives them the all-clear by showing them a sign reading "O.K. FOR THE PARTY" and start to play loud jazz music. Also, Tom gives sandwiches to Lightning and Topsy and pie for Butch. But the noise has disrupted Jerry from getting his beauty sleep. Unsurprisingly, his complaints to Tom fall upon unsympathetic ears and meet with no success. Jerry's being outmaneuvered by the four cats, so he attempts to disrupt the proceedings personally. Unfortunately, now the cats do not appreciate Jerry's desperate acts and go on the warpath. The party soon starts up again after Jerry flees into his mouse hole (and after Tom then turns the recorder back on) before Jerry pulls the plug on the phonograph and Topsy begins the chase again, trying to flatten Jerry but instead getting four taunting caricatures of Jerry imprinted on the trash can lid. Jerry sees the other cats approaching and flees through an open 2-section door, closing the top section such that all three cats run into it.
1049337	Under the Yum Yum Tree is a 1963 comedy movie that stars Jack Lemmon, Carol Lynley, Dean Jones, and Edie Adams, with supporting roles by Imogene Coca and Paul Lynde.
584098	Dhool () is a 2003 Tamil action film directed by Dharani. The film featured Vikram, Jyothika and Reemma Sen in the lead roles, while Vivek, Sayaji Shinde, Telangana Sakunthala and Pasupathy among others play supporting roles. The film, produced by A. M. Rathnam at a cost of 7 crore, had music composed by Vidyasagar and released in January 2003 to critical and commercial success.The film has a cult status today and is considered a timeless classic.It was dubbed into Malayalam with same title. Plot. Arumugham (Vikram) is an uneducated, good hearted, helpful village hick. Easwari (Jyothika) is his childhood enemy who argues with him about almost everything. A chemical factory in the village pollutes the local river and when all attempts to stop the factory waste from going to the drinking water falls flat, the villagers decide to send Arumugham to Chennai and meet the concerned minister who has won from their constituency. He sets out for the city with Easwari and her grandmother and they stay with Arumugham's friend (Vivek) and gang. Swapna (Reema Sen) is a model who stays in the same area and she lusts after Arumugham. They meet the Minister (Sayaji Shinde) who is extremely nice to them and promises to help them. Soon Arumugham is forced by circumstances to fight against an anti-social gang with a lady boss. An honest police officer (Manoj K Jayan) tries to collect evidence against the criminal gang. When Arumugham realizes that the bad guys are the henchmen of the same Minister who is behind all the crimes! He starts beating the Minister with his intelligence and plans. Ultimately he solves his village's problem and at the same time kills the Minister. Production. After the success of their 2001 collaboration "Dhill", Dharani and Vikram announced in February 2002 that they were to come together again for a project titled "Dhool". Initially Simran was selected to play the female lead, since with her telugu projects made her to drop the movie and eventually jyothika got the chance to play opposite vikram for the first time.The film's song were partially shot in Denmark, and plans had been earlier made to shoot fight sequences in London, though the team later opted against doing so. A huge set of a temple, a church, some houses and a shopping area, was erected at the Indian Express Office premises. Soundtrack. The music of the film was composed by Vidyasagar. Release. Upon release in January 2003, the film opened to positive reviews and box office success despite opening alongside other prominent ventures such as the Kamal Haasan-Madhavan starrer "Anbe Sivam" and Vijay's "Vaseegara". Rediff.com review praised Vikram's enactment citing that "Vikram is at his peak" and that "he seems as much at home with comedy as with action, in romance as in emotional sequences", while the critic from "The Hindu" also praised his performance. The film became a blockbuster and Vikram's fifth success in two and a half years with Vikram being dubbed as "the matinee idol of our times" by a leading Indian newspaper. The film was nominated in six different categories at the Filmfare Awards South 2003 with A. M. Rathnam, Dharani and Vidyasagar being considered for the Best Film, Best Director and Best Music Director categories respectively. Furthermore Jyothika was listed amongst the Best Actress nominees, while Reemma Sen and Vivek were also shortlisted for the Best Supporting Actress and Best Comedian awards. However the film did not win any awards with "Pithamagan" sweeping most of the categories that year, although Vivek did win for his role in "Saamy". The film succesfullyy run 25 weeks.
1163796	Frankie Avalon (born September 18, 1940) is an American actor, singer, playwright, and former teen idol. Life and career. Born, Francis Thomas Avallone on September 18, 1940. By the time he was 11, Avalon was on U.S. television playing his trumpet. Two singles showcasing Avalon's trumpet playing were issued on RCA Victor's "X" sublabel in 1954. As a teenager he played with Bobby Rydell in Rocco and the Saints. In 1959, "Venus" (5 weeks #1) and "Why" went to number one on the Billboard Hot 100. "Why" was the last #1 of the 1950s. Avalon had 31 charted U.S. "Billboard" singles from 1958 to late 1962, including "Just Ask Your Heart" (U.S. #7), "I'll Wait For You" (U.S. #15), "Bobby Sox to Stockings" (U.S. #8), and "A Boy Without a Girl" (U.S. #10). Most of his hits were written and/or produced by Bob Marcucci, head of Chancellor Records. He was less popular in the U.K., but did still manage four chart hits with "Why", "Gingerbread", "Venus" and "Don't Throw Away All Those Teardrops". Teamed frequently with Annette Funicello, Avalon starred in a number of popular "beach party" comedy films during the mid-1960s. The wholesome and romantic coupling of "Frankie and Annette" in summer movies such as "Beach Party" and "Beach Blanket Bingo" became iconic figures in American films during that era. Avalon also had straight dramatic parts in the John Wayne historical western film "The Alamo", as well as the science-fiction story "Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea" (1961) with Barbara Eden. Materializing as a character called Teen Angel, his performance of "Beauty School Dropout" in the hit 1978 film of the musical "Grease" introduced Avalon to a new generation of viewers. Avalon appeared in nearly two dozen TV episodes, including ABC's "The Bing Crosby Show" and "The Patty Duke Show", appearing often as himself. Later, he became a national television spokesperson for Sonic Drive-In. In 1965 he appeared in the "Combat!" episode "Brother, Brother" as a childhood friend of Pfc.Kirby, played by Jack Hogan. The 1980 film "The Idolmaker", written by Ed Di Lorenzo and directed by Taylor Hackford, was a thinly-disguised biography of Avalon ("Tommy Dee" in the film) as well as 1950s teenage star Fabian (called "Caesare" in the film), along with songwriter/producer Bob Marcucci (called "Vinnie Vacarri"). In the movie, Dee clashes with the record producer and younger singer Caesare, who he feels threatens his career. Eventually, Dee and Caesare quit the label, but their record careers collapse just as the British Invasion begins. The real Fabian threatened a lawsuit, despite the filmmakers' insistence that the film presented only fictional characters (though Marcucci was a paid consultant). Avalon denied most of the movie's events. Avalon married Kathryn "Kay" Diebel on January 19, 1963. She was a former beauty pageant winner, and Avalon met her while playing cards at a friend's house. He told his friend that Kay was the girl he was going to marry. His agent warned Avalon that marriage would spoil his teen idol mystique. Still together, they have eight children - Frankie Jr., Tony, Dina, Laura, Joseph, Nicolas, Kathryn and Carla. They have 10 grandchildren. Frankie Avalon Jr. is a former actor who appeared in the original "The Karate Kid" and is now a musician, and Tony, the second oldest son, plays guitar and taught at the Rock Nation School. Both sons play on tour with their father. In 1987, Avalon and Annette Funicello returned to movies with "Back to the Beach". In 1989 they also appeared as themselves in cameo roles out jogging the streets in "Troop Beverly Hills". Not long afterwards, Funicello was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis and retired. Afterwards, Avalon turned to marketing and created Frankie Avalon Products, a line of health and cosmetic aids. Avalon promotes his products on the Home Shopping Network with host Bob Circosta. He made a cameo appearance as himself with Robert De Niro in the 1995 film, "Casino". In recent years, Avalon has starred in stage productions of "Grease" in the role of Teen Angel and "Tony n' Tina's Wedding" as a caricature of himself. Additionally, in 2007, he performed "Beauty School Dropout" with the four remaining female contenders (Kathleen Monteleone, Allie Schulz, Ashley Spencer, and winner Laura Osnes) for the role of Sandy on the NBC television reality show "" On April 8, 2009, he performed on "American Idol". Legacy. He was mentioned in the System of a Down song "Old School Hollywood". The song supposedly is about Daron Malakian's experience in a celebrity baseball game, where he and Avalon were both ignored. Avalon is also mentioned in "It Takes Two", a song from the hit musical "Hairspray", sung by the character Link Larkin, and in a song by the Wu Tang Clan called "The City" which refers to his experiences of being a big part of the beach party film genre ("Ride the wave like Frankie Avalon"). One of numerous obscure cultural references present in Midway's video game "Mortal Kombat 3" was a lo-res image of Frankie Avalon's face that would dart up in the lower right-hand corner of the screen when Goro killed his opponent by knocking him into the spike pit on the Bridge level. His song "Venus" was featured in Cranium Command (1989–2005), an attraction at Epcot's Wonders of Life Pavilion (now closed) at Walt Disney World. In the attraction, a 12-year-old boy named Bobby (Scott Curtis), tries to survive the pressures of life and falls in love with a beautiful girl named Annie (Natalie Gregory) at school. He and his song "Venus" are mentioned in Wendy Wasserstein's 2005 play "Third". The main character, English professor Laurie Jameson, watches a PBS reunion show featuring Avalon singing the song, and sings a line of it to her daughter. In stage productions of the show, part of the song is played and a portion of the supposed PBS special is screened as part of the scenery. He is also mentioned in Adam Sandler's 2008 comedy, "You Don't Mess with the Zohan", for his haircut, which the Zohan (Sandler's character) thinks is the latest hairdo. He is also numerously referenced in the 1994 film, "The Stöned Age", in which he makes an ending scene cameo appearance. His song "Venus" additionally appeared in season 4 of the TV series "Dexter" in which John Lithgow's character, Arthur Mitchell, plays it to remember his deceased sister. Avalon is also mentioned in The Vaccines song 'Teenage Icon'. Where they claim they are no teenage icon, "no Frankie Avalon".
1041756	One of Our Aircraft is Missing is a 1942 British war film, the fourth collaboration between the British writer-director-producer team of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger and the first film they made under the banner of The Archers. Although considered a wartime propaganda film, and made under the authority of the Ministry of Information as part of a series of film productions specifically aimed at morale in the United Kingdom, the story and production values elevated it from the usual jingoistic fare. Today, "One of Our Aircraft is Missing" is considered one of the "best of British films of the era." A reversal of the plot of Powell and Pressburger's previous film, "49th Parallel" (1941), "One of Our Aircraft is Missing" has the British trying to escape with the help of various local people. In the "49th Parallel", the Germans stranded in Canada argued and fought amongst themselves, while the British fliers in this film work well together as a team. Plot. "B for Bertie" is a RAF Vickers Wellington bomber whose crew was forced to bail out over the Netherlands near the Zuider Zee after one of their engines was damaged during a nighttime raid on Stuttgart. Five of the six airmen find each other; the sixth goes missing. The first Dutch citizens they encounter, led by English-speaking schoolteacher Else Meertens (Pamela Brown), are suspicious at first as no aircraft is reported to have crashed in the Netherlands (the bomber actually reaches England before hitting a tower). After much debate and some questioning, the Dutch agree to help, despite their fear of German reprisals. The disguised airmen led by the pilots (Hugh Burden) and (Eric Portman) bicycle through the countryside to a football match, accompanied by many of the Dutch, where they are passed along to the local burgomeister (Hay Petrie). To their bemusement, they discover their missing crewman playing on one of the teams. Reunited, they hide in a truck carrying supplies to Jo de Vries (Googie Withers). De Vries pretends to be pro-German, blaming the British for killing her husband in a bombing raid (whereas he is actually in England working as a radio announcer). She hides them in her mansion, despite the Germans being garrisoned there. Under cover of an air raid, she leads them to a rowboat. The men row undetected to the sea, but a bridge sentry finally spots them and a shot seriously wounds the oldest man, Sir George Corbett (Godfrey Tearle). Nevertheless, they reach the North Sea. They take shelter in a German rescue buoy, where they take two shot-down enemy aviators prisoner, but not before one sends a radio message. By chance, two British boats arrive first. Because Corbett cannot be moved, they simply tow the buoy back to England. Three months later, he is fully recovered, and the crew board their new four-engine heavy bomber. The attitude of the Dutch people towards the Nazi occupation is exemplified by two Dutch women who help the airmen at great personal risk to themselves and these explain why the Dutch were willing to help Allied airmen even though those same airmen were sometimes dropping bombs on the Netherlands and killing Dutch people: Else Meertens: Do you think that we Hollanders who threw the sea out of our country will let the Germans have it? Better the sea. Jo de Vries: ["Speaking to the downed aircrew as RAF bombers approach"]You see. That's what you're doing for us. Can you hear them running for shelter? Can you understand what that means to all the occupied countries? To enslaved people, having it drummed into their ears that the Germans are masters of the Earth. Seeing those masters running for shelter. Seeing them crouching under tables. And hearing that steady hum night after night. That noise which is oil for the burning fire in our hearts. Cast. As appearing in screen credits (main roles identified): Production. The title "One of Our Aircraft Is Missing" is taken from a phrase that was often heard in contemporary news reports in the UK after a bombing raid, "one often more of our aircraft failed to return", which originally served as the working title of the screenplay but was then altered to a less-downbeat form. Although the screenplay was not completely developed by the time of production, Powell considered it "half-finished ... it remained (that way) for most of the production." One of the reasons for continual revisions to the screenplay were the constant advances in wartime technology that were occurring. The Admiralty informed the producers and directors of the use of "lobster pots," floating steel platforms, hitherto unknown to the public, that had been anchored in the North Sea to facilitate rescue of downed airmen. When Powell learned of this innovation, he pointedly rewrote the screenplay to include this refuge as the means to deliver the crew to safety. With help from the Ministry of Information, permission to use these platforms was obtained. The actors that were gathered for the film included recognised stage and screen talents as well as newcomers such as Peter Ustinov making his film debut. Although mainly centred on male roles, Powell encouraged Pressburger to create a number of significant female characters. The result were strong, credible roles for both Pamela Brown and Googie Withers as female Dutch Resistance leaders. The main leads, Hugh Burden, Eric Portman, Hugh Williams, Emry Jones, Bernard Miles, and Godfrey Tearle, formed the crew of "B for Bertie" and introduced themselves and their characters' positions on board the bomber in a progressive sequence that was filmed, like most of the aircraft interiors, in a Vickers Wellington "shell" supplied by the RAF, that nonetheless had working features such as lighting and electrically powered turrets. To maintain an aura of authenticity, actual RAF bombers on "ops" (operations) were filmed but the key aerial scenes of the bombing of Stuttgart, Germany was created using a large-scale model at Riverside Studios, Hammersmith. The giant Wellington replica actually covered the entire studio floor and was rigged with lights and fitted for effects shots including explosions. On screen, the effect was striking and realistically duplicated the flight and bombing raid carried out at the start of the film. Much of the outdoor sequences set in the Netherlands were shot at Boston in Lincolnshire, with many of the town's landmarks visible, for example, Shodfriars Quay and the railway Swing Bridge. Their route of escape (Spakenburg–Oud Loosdrecht–Vinkeveen–Leimuiden–Katwijk), however, consisted of actual locales in the occupied country. Notably, there is no scored music, Powell deliberately strove for "naturalism" relying on natural sounds that would be heard by the characters. The film was cut by 20 minutes for its original American release. Reception. The film received two Academy Award nominations, Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger for Best Writing, Original Screenplay, and Ronald Neame (photography) and C. C. Stevens (sound) for Best Effects, Special Effects. Powell's nomination was the only Academy Award nomination he ever received in his career – Pressburger won an Academy Award for "49th Parallel" and was nominated for "The Red Shoes" as well. "One of Our Aircraft Is Missing" joins other British war films as one of the most "well-remembered, accomplished and enjoyed" realist films of the period. In popular culture. The film is mentioned in the "Dad's Army" episode "The Lion Has Phones." When Lance-Corporal Jones tries to ring up GHQ, he mistakenly gets the cinema, whose operator tells him the film is on. There is a mention of Eric Portman and Googie Withers. A poster for the film is on display at the cinema. Correspondingly, in the episode of "Dad's Army", "Time on My Hands," Pike knows how to open a parachute because, he says, he's seen it done in "One of Our Aircraft is Missing". A title in the form of "One of Our X Is Missing" has been used in film and other media as homage, parody, or to invoke a mood. Many of the times it is used, it isn't clear if it's a reference to the film or to the well known wartime phrase. Examples include: a "" episode "One of Our Planets is Missing"; the final episode of the US television series "Maverick", titled "One of Our Trains Is Missing"; the episode "One of Our Assemblymen is Missing" from the US sitcom Green Acres; a 1991 text adventure game by Zenobi called "One of Our Wombats is Missing"; "Hogan's Heroes" episode "Some of Their Planes Are Missing" (and the phrase was often used in some form as a joke on the show); and a 1975 British comedy film titled "One of Our Dinosaurs Is Missing", which included Peter Ustinov and Hugh Burden in the cast. They were also both in "One of Our Aircraft Is Missing".
1165734	Felicia Farr (born October 4, 1932) is a former American actress and model. Life and career. Born Olive Dines, Felicia Farr appeared in several modeling photo shoots and advertisements during the 1950s and 1960s. Her earlist screen appearances date from the mid-fifties and included the Westerns "Jubal" (1956) and "" (1957), both starring Glenn Ford and "The Last Wagon" (1956) starring Richard Widmark.
581178	Uyir is a 2006 Tamil drama film directed by Samy. Starring Srikanth, Sangeetha and Samvrutha Sunil, the film revolves around a woman who falls in love with her brother-in-law after the demise of her husband. The film was released on June 30, 2006 and received an U/A certificate from the Central Board of Film Certification of India. The film's music was composed by Joshua Sridhar. Plot. Sundar (Srikanth) moves in with his brother's family, consisting of his brother, sister-in-law Arundathi (Sangeetha) and their daughter Aishwarya (Ramya). Sundar becomes very close to all three of them, but unbeknownst to him, Arundathi is interested in him. Sundar drops his niece off at school every day and meets his girlfriend Anandi (Samvritha) there. His brother is excited to learn about their relationship but soon afterward commits suicide. Arundathi claims that his suicide was caused by problems at work. Sundar becomes obligated to take care of his late brother's family, as Arundathi and Aishwarya have nowhere else to go. Arundathi tries her best to end Sundar's relationship with Anandi while subtly hinting to Sundar about her love for him. Anandi tries to warn Sundar about his conniving sister-in-law, but Arundathi succeeds in her plan.
581307	Namukku Parkkan Munthiri Thoppukal (; translation: Vineyards for Us to Dwell In) is a landmark 1986 Malayalam film written and directed by Padmarajan. The film is noted for its rich and detailed screenplay, expressive cinematography and flowing musical narration. It released in November 1986 and is considered as one of the seminal works of the golden age of Malayalam films that lasted from the late 1980s until the early 1990s. "Namukku Parkkan Munthiri Thoppukal" is a warm and lyrical motion picture centered around a Malayalee Syrian Christian-Nasrani ("Nazarene") family. It was based on the Malayalam novel "Nammukku Graamangalil Chennu Raappaarkkaam" ("Let us go and dwell in the villages") by K. K. Sudhakaran (1986). The title of the film and novel is based upon a passage from Biblical book of The Song of Solomon or Song of Songs, Chapter 7:12: "Let us get up early to the vineyards." The protagonist quotes this passage at one point during the film. It stars Mohanlal, Shari, Thilakan, Vineeth, and Kaviyoor Ponnamma. The film is especially noted for the brilliant performance of Thilakan and also for the flowing and warm thematic music by Johnson an important South Indian composer.
739156	Holmes Osborne (born November 7, 1947) is an American actor, best known for starring in Richard Kelly's films - "Donnie Darko" (2001), "Southland Tales" (2007) and "The Box" (2009). He has also played the father of Guy Patterson in the movie "That Thing You Do!", and starred in the movie "Bring it On". Osborne starred as the main villain in the Disney film, "Air Buddies" (2006). He has made appearances in TV shows such as "House M. D.", "Cold Case", "", "Dharma & Greg" and a recurring role in "Invasion". Participed in 2012 of "Fun Size". In 1999 he guest starred, along with Lance Henriksen (reprising his role as Frank Black), in an episode of The X-Files as a necromancer for the Millennium Group. This was X-Files series creator Chris Carter's attempt at wrapping up the story from his original show Millennium, which was canceled in 1999. He is a graduate of Odessa, Missouri, High School. Osborne is currently a resident of Bates City, Missouri.
674440	The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser () is a 1974 German drama film written and directed by Werner Herzog and starring Bruno Schleinstein and Walter Ladengast. The film follows the real story of foundling Kaspar Hauser quite closely, using the text of actual letters found with Hauser. Plot. The film follows Kaspar Hauser (Bruno Schleinstein), who lived the first seventeen years of his life chained in a tiny cellar with only a toy horse to occupy his time, devoid of all human contact except for a man, wearing a black overcoat and top hat, who feeds him. One day, in 1828, the same man takes Hauser out of his cell, teaches him a few phrases, and how to walk, before leaving him in the town of Nuremberg. Hauser becomes the subject of much curiosity, and is exhibited in a circus before being rescued by Herr Daumer (Walter Ladengast), who patiently attempts to transform him. Hauser soon learns to read and write, and develops unorthodox approaches to logic and religion; but music is what pleases him most. He attracts the attention of academics, clergy, and nobility, but is then physically attacked by the same unknown man who brought him to Nuremberg. The attack leaves him unconscious with a bleeding head. He recovers but is again mysteriously attacked, this time stabbed in the chest. Hauser rests in bed describing visions he has had of nomadic Berbers in the Sahara Desert, and then dies. An autopsy reveals an enlarged liver and cerebellum. Historical accuracy. The film follows the real story of Kaspar Hauser quite closely, using the text of actual letters found with Hauser, and following many details in the opening sequence of Hauser's confinement and release. One notable departure is with his apparent age. Although the historical Hauser was 17 when he was discovered in Nuremberg and the film implies this, the character is played by actor Bruno Schleinstein who was 41 years old at the time of filming. Production. Herzog discovered the lead actor, Bruno Schleinstein, in a documentary about street musicians. Fascinated, Herzog cast him as the lead in two of his films, "The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser" and "Stroszek", despite the fact that he had no training as an actor. Schleinstein's own life bears some similarities to Kaspar Hauser's, and his own unbalanced personality was often expressed on set. In Herzog's commentary for the English language DVD release, he recalls that Schleinstein remained in costume for the entire duration of the production, even after shooting was done for the day. Herzog once visited him in his hotel room, to find him sleeping on the floor by the door, in his costume.
930405	Saving Sarah Cain is a 2007 film based on Beverly Lewis' 2000 novel "The Redemption of Sarah Cain". The film premiered August 19, 2007 on Lifetime Television. The film is distributed by Believe Pictures and stars Lisa Pepper, Elliott Gould, Tess Harper, Soren Fulton, Danielle Chuchran, Abigail Mason, Tanner Maguire, Bailee Madison, and Jennifer O'Dell. The film was directed by Michael Landon, Jr. Plot. The film begins with Sarah Cain (Lisa Pepper), a successful columnist at the fictional "Portland Times" in Portland, Oregon. Her daily column has been rejected by her boss Bill (Elliott Gould) who claims that she once wrote about her life, and is now writing puff pieces. While out to dinner with her boyfriend Bryan (Tom Tate), Sarah's phone rings. It is Lyddie (Abigail Mason), Sarah's teen-aged niece who she has never met before. She has called to tell Sarah that her older sister, Ivy, has just died of heart failure. Sarah hurries to Lancaster County, Pennsylvania for the funeral. Her sister married a man who was a member of an Amish community, but he died several years ago when he was hit by a car. Since Sarah is the sole surviving relative, the court appoints her as the legal guardian for Ivy's five children. Members of the community protest because they do not want an outsider to raise the children. Miriam (Tess Harper) and Lyddie convince Sarah to stay the night in order for her to figure out what she wants. While there, knowing that her deadline is coming up for her column, Sarah writes about her day's events and sends them to Bill as a last resort. The next day at the hearing, Sarah receives a surprising e-mail about her piece. The readers loved it and want more. Sarah decides to take the children back to Portland. Lyddie stays at home and does the daily chores. Despite being labeled as a freaks at school, Caleb (Soren Fulton) becomes a star on the wrestling team. Anna Mae (Danielle Chuchran) gains attention from boys after borrowing Sarah's clothing to fit in. Josiah (Tanner Maguire) trully hates it there. Only Hannah (Bailee Madison), who's six years old, is accepted on her first day in kindergarten. Bill likes the attention that the articles about the Amish children have produced, but Sarah rejects further offers of having the column being solely about them. Meanwhile, Madison (Jennifer O'Dell), Sarah's rival at the paper, discovers where the children attend school and has a news team shows up during one of Caleb's wrestling matches. Later that night Sarah admits to the kids that the situation has spun out of control.
1057440	The Promotion is a 2008 American comedy film written and directed by Steven Conrad. A look at the quest for the American Dream, it focuses on two grocery store managers vying for a promotion. The film premiered at South by Southwest in March 2008. It was released by Dimension Films on June 6, 2008. Plot. Doug Stauber (Seann William Scott) is the assistant manager of a branch of Donaldson's, a supermarket chain in Chicago. He believes that he is a "shoo-in" for manager of a Donaldson's that is scheduled for construction just a few blocks away from his home. Everyday, Doug deals with the pressures of being the assistant manager. Among his ordeals are an unruly gang of black teenagers loitering around the parking lot, the overwhelming amount of negative comments on the customer survey cards he collects (nearly all of which are caused by the gang's antics), a foreigner who constantly slaps him over a box of Teddy Grahams and the rumors about him being a former Junior Olympics medalist in gymnastics. Then one day, Richard Wehlner (John C. Reilly) and his family move in from Quebec, and he becomes assistant manager alongside Doug. Over the course of the film, the two men fight for the managerial job, trying to impress the store's manager Scott (Fred Armisen) and the Donaldson's board of directors, led by Mitch (Gil Bellows). The competition causes strain on their respective marriages. Doug is under financial pressure to get the job because he has begun to buy a house that he cannot afford if he is not promoted while his wife Jen (Jenna Fischer) ponders on going to night school. Meanwhile, Richard's wife Laurie (Lili Taylor) and daughter leave him to temporarily move to her parents' home in Scotland when she sees he is losing control and reverting to previous problem behavior. Since Richard's arrival, it appears that he has replaced Doug as front-runner for the job. But it soon becomes clear that Richard has disadvantages of his own, such as a past substance abuse problem and a tendency to make inappropriate remarks. In one incident, both men are challenged by the board of directors over a sign posted on the deli section window, citing the deli clerk as Employee of the Month for "cutting the cheese". Richard admits being manager on duty when the sign was discovered, and explains that he had not realized that the phrase is derogatory to the American public (claiming that "cracking the cheese" is what Canadians say). One day, while helping a customer in the parking lot, Doug is hit on the back of the head by a bottle of Yoo-hoo thrown by one of the gang members. In retaliation, he confronts the gang and sprays one of them with mace. Further worsening the situation is an incident in the break room, where a furious Doug throws some frozen Tater Tots toward the trash can and accidentally hits Richard's hand with one; Richard fakes an injury by wearing a wrist brace at work. Days later, Doug gives an apology speech at a local community explaining his actions during the incident and wins the respect of the community, assuring them that a beautiful day should not be spoiled by a few "bad apples". After the meeting, the board of directors, the assistant managers and the community leaders have a brief meeting, wherein Richard inadvertently refers to the gang as "black apples", infuriating the head community leader (Chris Gardner). After several attempts to eliminate each other as competitors, both Doug and Richard, along with another prospect, are summoned by the board of directors for a final interview. Richard's hopes are shattered when it is revealed that a drug test is required, as he has recently smoked marijuana. Shortly after the interview, Doug is given a call by Mitch and notified that he has landed the job, as Richard failed his drug test and the other candidate is too junior-grade for the position. He celebrates by doing cartwheels and backflips while crossing the street – finally confirming the earlier rumor about himself. Meanwhile, after reuniting with his wife, Richard and his family return to Canada to his old grocery store, where he is reported to have become the store manager after singlehandedly stopping an accidental fire (which is rumored to have been started by Richard himself). Production notes. The film was shot on location in Chicago, Illinois, during the summer of 2006. It originally was slated for release in May 2007, but new scenes were added which included Masi Oka of "Heroes" as a real estate loan officer. Multi-millionaire businessman Chris Gardner, who was the inspiration for the film "The Pursuit of Happyness", made a cameo appearance in this film as a Chicago community leader. Writer/director Steven Conrad wrote the screenplay of "The Pursuit of Happyness". "Teddy Grahams", a painter who speaks only in an indecipherable foreign language and slaps Doug around because of an issue with a box of graham cracker snacks, was played by Conrad's younger brother Chris. Soundtrack. The film's soundtrack consists mainly of 1970s classic rock songs played through Richard's motivational tapes, as well as 1980s and 1990s Indie rock songs which reflect Doug's life. Featured songs include "Born to Move" by Creedence Clearwater Revival, "Harness and Wheel" by The Kingsbury Manx, "Fly Like an Eagle" by the Steve Miller Band, "Rise" by Public Image Ltd., "Don't Be Scared" by Andrew Bird and "Time for Me to Fly" by REO Speedwagon. A cover version of the Hall & Oates song "Maneater" by Clair Marlo & Her Orchestra is played as background music within the supermarket. The ending theme is "Turn It On" by The Flaming Lips. Critical reception. "The Promotion" received mixed reviews from critics. As of 2013, the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reported that 53% of critics gave the film positive reviews based on 78 reviews, with a consensus of "With a workplace-related theme worthy of satire, "The Promotion" features some sharp witticisms but ultimately disappoints." Metacritic reported the film had an average score of 51 out of 100, based on 21 reviews. Michael Phillips of the "Chicago Tribune" gave the film 2 1/2 stars out of four, saying it "may not be much, and you get to know that supermarket uncomfortably well by the end of the 85 minutes. But as I say: He’s Steven Conrad an interesting writer." James Berardinelli gave the film three out of 4 stars, saying, "What makes this film worthwhile is its willingness to display the protagonists as decent human beings despite their dog-eat-dog circumstances. There are enough laughs to justify it being labeled as a comedy but a stronger storyline than one normally associates with this kind of film." Roger Ebert gave the film two out of four stars, calling it "one of those off-balance movies that seems searching for the right tone." John Anderson of "The Washington Post" wrote an unfavorable review of the film, saying, "The portrayal of employment in America is too close for comfort. Or comedy... Not the stuff of lighthearted summer comedy."
1163902	Susan Oliver (February 13, 1932 – May 10, 1990) was an American actress, television director and aviator. Early life and family. Susan Oliver was born Charlotte Gercke, the daughter of journalist George Gercke and astrology practitioner Ruth Hale Oliver, in New York City in 1932. Her parents divorced when she was still a child. In June 1949, Oliver joined her mother in Southern California, where Ruth Hale Oliver was in the process of becoming a well-known Hollywood astrologer. Oliver made a decision to embark upon a career as an actress and chose the stage name Susan Oliver. Career. Early years. By September 1949 and using her new name, Oliver returned to the East Coast to begin drama studies at Swarthmore College, followed by professional training at the Neighborhood Playhouse in New York City. After working in summer stock, regional theater and in unbilled bits in daytime and primetime TV shows and commercials, she made her first major television appearance playing a supporting role in the July 31, 1955 episode of the live drama series "Goodyear TV Playhouse", and quickly progressed to leading parts in other shows. Oliver did numerous TV shows in 1957 and had a starring role in a movie. She began the year with an ingenue part, as the daughter of an 18th-century Manhattan family, in her first Broadway play, "Small War on Murray Hill", a Robert E. Sherwood comedy. That same year, Oliver replaced Mary Ure as the female lead in the Broadway production of John Osborne's play "Look Back in Anger". The play's short run was immediately followed by larger roles in live TV plays on "Kaiser Aluminum Hour", "The United States Steel Hour" and "Matinee Theater". Oliver then went to Hollywood, where she appeared in the November 14, 1957 episode of "Climax!", one of the few live drama series based on the West Coast, as well as in a number of filmed shows, including one of the first episodes of NBC's "Wagon Train", "Father Knows Best", "The Americans", and "Johnny Staccato". In July 1957 Oliver was chosen for the title role in her first motion picture, "The Green-Eyed Blonde", a low-budget independent melodrama released by Warner Bros. in December on the bottom half of a double bill. It is the only motion picture on which Oliver received top billing. In mid-1958 Oliver began rehearsals for a co-starring role in "Patate", her second Broadway play. Its seven-performance run was even shorter than that of "Small War on Murray Hill", but won Oliver a Theatre World Award for "Outstanding Breakout Performance."; it was her last Broadway appearance. Television and films. On April 6, 1960, the 28-year-old Oliver played a spoiled young runaway, Maggie Hamilton, in "The Maggie Hamilton Story", on NBC's "Wagon Train". Flint McCullough, played by Robert Horton, searches for her so the wagon train can proceed on schedule. Her most challenging role during this time was as the ambitious wife of doomed country music legend Hank Williams (George Hamilton, in offbeat casting) in Your Cheatin' Heart (1964). Oliver also appeared in three episodes each of "Adventures in Paradise", "Twilight Zone", "Route 66", "Dr. Kildare", "The Naked City", "The Barbara Stanwyck Show", "The Andy Griffith Show", "Burke's Law", "The Fugitive", "Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C.", "I Spy", "The Virginian", and "The Name of the Game". She made one appearance on ABC's family western series, "The Travels of Jaimie McPheeters". Oliver appeared in television films too including "Carter's Army". Oliver had a continuing role as the tragic Ann Howard on ABC's prime-time serial "Peyton Place" in 1966. Oliver also played the female lead character, "Vina", in "Star Trek's" original pilot episode, "". Footage from this episode was later incorporated into the two-part first season episode
1103120	Barry Charles Mazur (born December 19, 1937) is an American mathematician and professor at Harvard. Life. Born in New York City, Mazur attended the Bronx High School of Science and MIT, although he did not graduate from the latter on account of failing a then-present ROTC requirement. Regardless, he was accepted for graduate school and received his Ph.D. from Princeton University in 1959, becoming a Junior Fellow at Harvard from 1961 to 1964. He is currently the Gerhard Gade University Professor and a Senior Fellow at Harvard. Work. His early work was in geometric topology. In a clever, elementary fashion, he proved the generalized Schoenflies conjecture (his complete proof required an additional result by Marston Morse), around the same time as Morton Brown. Both Brown and Mazur received the Veblen Prize for this achievement. He also discovered the Mazur manifold and the Mazur swindle. His observations in the 1960s on analogies between primes and knots were taken up by others in the 1990s giving rise to the field of arithmetic topology. Coming under the influence of Alexander Grothendieck's approach to algebraic geometry, he moved into areas of diophantine geometry. Mazur's torsion theorem, which gives a complete list of the possible torsion subgroups of elliptic curves over the rational numbers, is a deep and important result in the arithmetic of elliptic curves. Mazur's first proof of this theorem depended upon a complete analysis of the rational points on certain modular curves. This proof was carried in his seminal paper "Modular curves and the Eisenstein ideal". The ideas of this paper and Mazur's notion of Galois deformations, were among the key ingredients in Wiles's proof of Fermat's Last Theorem. Mazur and Wiles had earlier worked together on the main conjecture of Iwasawa theory. In an expository paper, "Number Theory as Gadfly", Mazur describes number theory as a field which He expanded his thoughts in the 2003 book "Imagining Numbers" and "Circles Disturbed, a collection of essays on mathematics and narrative" that he edited with writer Apostolos Doxiadis. Awards and honors. In 1982 he was elected a member of the National Academy of Sciences, and in 2012 he became a fellow of the American Mathematical Society. Mazur has received the Veblen Prize in geometry, the Cole Prize in number theory, the Chauvenet Prize for exposition, and the Steele Prize for seminal contribution to research from the American Mathematical Society. In early 2013, he was presented with one of the 2011 National Medals of Science by President Barack Obama.
1103594	Spectral methods are a class of techniques used in applied mathematics and scientific computing to numerically solve certain differential equations, often involving the use of the Fast Fourier Transform. The idea is to write the solution of the differential equation as a sum of certain "basis functions" (for example, as a Fourier series which is a sum of sinusoids) and then to choose the coefficients in the sum in order to satisfy the differential equation as well as possible. Spectral methods and finite element methods are closely related and built on the same ideas; the main difference between them is that spectral methods use basis functions that are nonzero over the whole domain, while finite element methods use basis functions that are nonzero only on small subdomains. In other words, spectral methods take on a "global approach" while finite element methods use a "local approach". Partially for this reason, spectral methods have excellent error properties, with the so-called "exponential convergence" being the fastest possible, when the solution is smooth. However, there are no known three-dimensional single domain spectral shock capturing results. In the finite element community, a method where the degree of the elements is very high or increases as the grid parameter "h" decreases to zero is sometimes called a spectral element method. Spectral methods can be used to solve ordinary differential equations (ODEs), partial differential equations (PDEs) and eigenvalue problems involving differential equations. When applying spectral methods to time-dependent PDEs, the solution is typically written as a sum of basis functions with time-dependent coefficients; substituting this in the PDE yields a system of ODEs in the coefficients which can be solved using any numerical method for ODEs. Eigenvalue problems for ODEs are similarly converted to matrix eigenvalue problems . Spectral methods were developed in a long series of papers by Steven Orszag starting in 1969 including, but not limited to, Fourier series methods for periodic geometry problems, polynomial spectral methods for finite and unbounded geometry problems, pseudospectral methods for highly nonlinear problems, and spectral iteration methods for fast solution of steady state problems. The implementation of the spectral method is normally accomplished either with collocation or a Galerkin or a Tau approach. Spectral methods are computationally less expensive than finite element methods, but become less accurate for problems with complex geometries and discontinuous coefficients. This increase in error is a consequence of the Gibbs phenomenon. Examples of spectral methods. A concrete, linear example. Here we presume an understanding of basic multivariate calculus and Fourier series. If g(x,y) is a known, complex-valued function of two real variables, and g is periodic in x and y (that is, g(x,y)=g(x+2π,y)=g(x,y+2π)) then we are interested in finding a function f(x,y) so that where the expression on the left denotes the second partial derivatives of f in x and y, respectively. This is the Poisson equation, and can be physically interpreted as some sort of heat conduction problem, or a problem in potential theory, among other possibilities. If we write f and g in Fourier series: and substitute into the difference equation, we obtain this equation: We have exchanged partial differentiation with an infinite sum, which is legitimate if we assume for instance that "f" has a continuous second derivative. By the uniqueness theorem for Fourier expansions, we must then equate the Fourier coefficients term by term, giving which is an explicit formula for the Fourier coefficients "a""j","k". With periodic boundary-conditions, the Poisson equation possesses a solution only if "b""0","0" = "0". Therefore we can freely choose "a""0","0" which will be equal to the mean of the resolution. This corresponds to choosing the integration constant. To turn this into an algorithm, only finitely many frequencies are solved for. This introduces an error which can be shown to be proportional to formula_6, where formula_7 and formula_8 is the highest frequency treated. Algorithm. Since we're only interested in a finite window of frequencies (of size "n", say) this can be done using a Fast Fourier Transform algorithm. Therefore, globally the algorithm runs in time "O"("n" log "n"). A concrete, nonlinear example. We wish to solve the forced, transient, nonlinear Burgers' equation using a spectral approach. Given formula_9 on the periodic domain formula_10, find formula_11 such that where ρ is the viscosity coefficient. In weak conservative form this becomes where formula_14 following inner product notation. Integrating by parts and using periodicity grants To apply the Fourier-Galerkin method, choose both and where formula_18. This reduces the problem to finding formula_19 such that Using the orthogonality relation formula_21 where formula_22 is the Kronecker delta, we simplify the above three terms for each formula_23 to see Assemble the three terms for each formula_23 to obtain Dividing through by formula_27, we finally arrive at With Fourier transformed initial conditions formula_29 and forcing formula_30, this coupled system of ordinary differential equations may be integrated in time (using, e.g., a Runge Kutta technique) to find a solution. The nonlinear term is a convolution, and there are several transform-based techniques for evaluating it efficiently. See the references by Boyd and Canuto et al. for more details. A relationship with the spectral element method. One can show that if formula_31 is infinitely differentiable, then the numerical algorithm using Fast Fourier Transforms will converge faster than any polynomial in the grid size h. That is, for any n>0, there is a formula_32 such that the error is less than formula_33 for all sufficiently small values of formula_34. We say that the spectral method is of order formula_8, for every n>0. Because a spectral element method is a finite element method of very high order, there is a similarity in the convergence properties. However, whereas the spectral method is based on the eigendecomposition of the particular boundary value problem, the spectral element method does not use that information and works for arbitrary elliptic boundary value problems.
582331	Deewangee (, English: Madness) is a 2002 Indian Bollywood psychological thriller film directed by Anees Bazmee. This movie is loosely based on the 1996 Richard Gere's movie "Primal Fear". The film stars Ajay Devgan, Akshaye Khanna and Urmila Matondkar in leading roles. The film premiered on 25 October 2002. Plot. Raj Goyal (Akshaye Khanna), a young and successful criminal lawyer, famous for never having lost a case, is introduced to popular singer Sargam (Urmila Matondkar) by music magnate Ashwin Mehta (Vijayendra Ghatge). The following day, Ashwin is brutally murdered in his own house. The murderer, Taran Bharadwaj (Ajay Devgan), who is Sargam's childhood friend and current mentor, is caught red-handed at the crime scene. He claims he is innocent and Sargam, who believes in Taran's innocence, approaches Raj to defend him, which he accepts after meeting Taran. Raj finds out that Taran suffers from split personality disorders and wins Tarang's case by proving the same. Immediately after Taran is acquitted, Raj discovers that the split personality was an act put up by Taran. Raj wants to put Taran in prison by re-opening the case. Awards. Won Nominated Music. The soundtrack of the film contains 9 songs. The music is conducted by composer Ismail Darbar.
339798	Thomas Harriot (Oxford, "ca." 1560 – London, 2 July 1621) — or spelled Harriott, Hariot, or Heriot — was an English astronomer, mathematician, ethnographer, and translator. He is sometimes credited with the introduction of the potato to the British Isles. Harriot was the first person to make a drawing of the Moon through a telescope, on July 26, 1609, over four months before Galileo. After graduating from Oxford University, Harriot travelled to the Americas, accompanying the 1585 expedition to Roanoke island funded by Sir Walter Raleigh and led by Sir Ralph Lane. Harriot was a vital member of the venture, having translated and learned the Carolina Algonquian language from two Native Americans, Wanchese and Manteo. On his return to England he worked for the 9th Earl of Northumberland. At the Earl's house, he became a prolific mathematician and astronomer to whom the theory of refraction is attributed. Biography. Early life and education. Born in 1560 in Oxford, England, Thomas Harriot attended St Mary Hall, Oxford. His name appears in the school's registry dating from 1577. Roanoke. After his graduation from Oxford in 1580, Harriot was first hired by Sir Walter Raleigh as a mathematics tutor; he used his knowledge of astronomy/astrology to provide navigational expertise, help design Raleigh's ships, and serve as his accountant. Prior to his expedition with Raleigh, Harriot wrote a treatise on navigation. In addition, he made efforts to communicate with Manteo and Wanchese, two Native Americans who had been brought to England. Harriot deciphered a phonetic alphabet to transcribe their Carolina Algonquian language. Harriot and Manteo spent many days in one another's company; Harriot interrogated Manteo closely about life in the New World and learned much that was to the advantage of the English settlers. In addition, he recorded the sense of awe with which the Native Americans viewed European technology: He made only one expedition, around 1585-86, and spent some time in the New World visiting Roanoke Island off the coast of North Carolina, expanding his knowledge by improving his understanding of the Carolina Algonquian language. As the only Englishman who had learned Algonkin prior to the voyage, Harriot was vital to the success of the expedition. His account of the voyage was published in 1588 (probably written in 1587). The "Report" contains an early account of the Native American population encountered by the expedition; it proved very influential upon later English explorers and colonists. He wrote: "Whereby it may be hoped, if means of good government be used, that they may in short time be brought to civility and the embracing of true religion." At the same time, his views of Native Americans' industry and capacity to learn were later largely ignored in favour of the parts of the "Report" about extractable minerals and resources. As a scientific adviser during the voyage, Harriot was asked by Raleigh to find the most efficient way to stack cannonballs on the deck of the ship. His ensuing theory about the close-packing of spheres shows a striking resemblance to atomism and modern atomic theory, which he was later accused of believing. His correspondence about optics with Johannes Kepler, in which he described some of his ideas, later influenced Kepler's conjecture. Later years. He was dedicated to work for Henry Percy, 9th Earl of Northumberland with whom he also resided at Syon House, which was run by Henry Percy's cousin Thomas Percy. Harriot's sponsors began to fall from favour: Raleigh fell from favour, and Harriot's other patron Henry Percy, the Ninth Earl of Northumberland, was imprisoned in 1605 in connection with the Gunpowder Plot as he was the second cousin of one of the conspirators, Thomas Percy. Harriot himself was interrogated and briefly imprisoned but soon released. Walter Warner, Robert Hues, William Lower and other scientific peers were present around the Earl of Northumberland's mansion as they worked and lent a hand in the teaching of the family's children. Halley's Comet in 1607 turned Harriot's attention towards astronomy. In early 1609 he bought a "Dutch trunke" (telescope), invented in 1608, and his observations were amongst the first uses of a telescope for astronomy. Harriot is now credited as the first astronomer to draw an astronomical object after viewing it through a telescope: he drew a map of the Moon on July 26, 1609, preceding Galileo by several months. He also observed sunspots in December 1610. Death. In 1615 or 1616, Harriot wrote to an unknown friend with medical expertise, describing what would have been the reason for the eruption of a cancerous ulcer on his lip. This progressed until 1621, when he was living with a friend named Thomas Buckner on Threadneedle Street, where he died. Sources cited below are among several that describe his condition as a cancer of the nose. In either case, Harriot apparently died from skin cancer. He died on 2 July 1621, three days after writing his will (discovered by Henry Stevens). His executors posthumously published his "Artis Analyticae Praxis" on algebra in 1631; Nathaniel Torporley was the intended executor of Harriot's wishes, but Walter Warner in the end pulled the book into shape. It may be a compendium of some of his works but does not represent all that he left unpublished (more than 400 sheets of annotated writing). It isn't directed in a way that follows the manuscripts and it fails to give the full significance of Harriot's writings. Legacy. He also studied optics and refraction, and apparently discovered Snell's law 20 years before Snellius did, although it was previously discovered by Ibn Sahl; like so many of his works, this remained unpublished. In Virginia he learned the local Algonquian language, which may have had some effect on his mathematical thinking. He founded the "English school" of algebra. He is also credited with discovering Girard's theorem, although the formula bears Girard's name as he was the first to publish it. His algebra book "Artis Analyticae Praxis" (1631) was published posthumously in Latin. Unfortunately the editors did not understand much of his reasoning and removed the parts they did not comprehend such as the negative and complex roots of equations. Because of the dispersion of Harriot's writings the full annotated English translation of the "Praxis" was not completed until 2007. The first biography of Harriot was written in 1876 by Henry Stevens of Vermont but not published until 1900 fourteen years after his death. The publication was limited to 167 copies and so the work was not widely known until 1972 when a reprint edition appeared. John W. Shirley the editor (1908-1988) went on to publish "A Sourcebook for the Study of Thomas Harriot" (1981) The papers of John Shirley have been deposited in the University of Delaware Library. Harriot's accomplishments remain relatively obscure because he did not publish any of his results and also because many of his manuscripts have been lost; those that survive are sheltered in the British Museum and in the archives of the Percy family at Petworth House (Sussex) and Alnwick Castle (Northumberland). An event was held at Syon House, West London, to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Harriot's first observations of the moon on 26 July 2009. This event, Telescope400, included the unveiling of a plaque to commemorate Harriot by Lord Egremont. The plaque can now be seen by visitors to Syon House, the location of Harriot's historic observations. His drawing made 400 years earlier is believed to be based on the first ever observations of the moon through a telescope. The event (sponsored by the Royal Astronomical Society) was run as part of the International Year of Astronomy (IYA). The original documents showing Harriot's moon map of c. 1611, observations of Jupiter's satellites, and first observations of sunspots were on display at the Science Museum, London, from 23 July 2009 until the end of IYA. The observatory in the campus of the College of William and Mary is named in Harriot's honour. A crater on the Moon was belatedly named after him in 1970; it is on the Moon's far side and hence unobservable from Earth. The Thomas Harriot College of Arts and Sciences at East Carolina University in Greenville, NC is named in recognition of this Harriot's scientific contributions to the New World such as his work "A Briefe and True Report of the New Found Land of Virginia".
1072442	Plot. In the year 2008 all the world leaders are together at a G8 Summit meeting in Japan. A meteorite crashes into the heart of Sapporo and releases the monster Guilala. The monster rampages through Sapporo, leaving death and destruction in his wake. After levelling the city, Guilala transforms into a giant ball of fire and flies to Hokkaidō, making its way to the G8 Summit. The Prime Minister of Japan proposes cancelling the Summit for the safety of all involved, but the President of the United States convinces the other world leaders to personally stay and fight. Shortly after forming a world alliance, each leader stays to fight their own reason: The leaders soon discover the reason for Guilala's appearance on Earth was due to a Chinese satellite that fell out of orbit and was the crashed "meteorite" in Sapporo. Assisting the leaders is Dr. Sano, a Japanese scientist who discovers that Guilala is actually a cosmic spore attached to the Probe that was exposed to the Earth's atmosphere, causing it to grow into the monster. He also figures out that the crash caused Guilala to lose a lot of energy and it's searching for "high temperature" energy to recharge. The doctor doesn't think the monster will leave Japan until it finds the energy it needs. Meanwhile, Guilala arrives at the Noboribetsu Power Planet and sucks all of the energy out of the plant. Hoping to trap Guilala, the Japanese set up an earthquake generator near the fictional "Mt. Showa" to draw Guilala to a magma flow and destroy him with a super missile known as "The Vulture". Guilala arrives to feed, but he swallows the missile whole when it's fired at him. Soon, other countries are scrambling with their own "super" weapons, but each one fails in comedic fashion. In the middle of all this the Japanese Prime Minister is waylaid by diarrhea and is replaced by Junzaburo Ohizumi, a former Prime Minister and a friend of the US President. He arrives to help in the battle, but seems shifty. Ohizumi even suggests using nuclear weapons, but is stared down by the other leaders. After the Germans' super weapon fails to put him out of action, Guilala dances with the setting sun. When Guilala mind is damaged by a British brainwashing weapon, the monster begins a wild rampage. Ohizumi suddenly reveals that he is in fact the leader of the "North Country" (North Korea's Kim Jong-Il). He stole Ohizumi's identity during a state visit. He reveals that the Japanese interpreters attending the G8 Summit are all his spies and they all draw weapons, taking the world leaders hostage. His also announces that he plans on using a "limited" nuclear warhead to destroy Guilala. Meanwhile, President Sorkozy (sic) of France has finally bedded the translator, who confesses her true identity. Clad only in a towel, Sorkozy creates a distraction, which allows Japanese soldiers to rush the spies. The North Country leader is captured but not before managing to launch the nuclear missile at Guilala. Dr. Sano announces that Guilala's spores are re-energized and that if the missile strikes it will spread Guilala spores worldwide... Subplot/tie-in. Two Japanese journalists named Sumire Sumidagawa and Sanpei Toyama discover a hidden village full of worshippers. They are driven out as outsiders intruding on a sacred ceremony. Shortly afterward Guilala lands and begins searching for energy. Sumire and Sanpei are sent to get news on Guilala's rampage. However, their efforts successful as other news groups are looking for big news on Guilala. During the G8 Summit's efforts to stop Guilala, Sumire encounters a boy she saw at the village's ceremony. Believing that the village might know how to stop Guilala, Sumire and Sanpei return for answers. They find a carving of Guilala which they also notice is battling another monster. That figure is known as ""Take-Majin"," a deity the villagers worship. An ancient prophesy predicted that Guilala was going to destroy the world, but he would be stopped by Take-Majin, who would awaken to save mankind from Guilala. The little boy Sumire met earlier worshipped Take-Majin, after his father was killed in a landslide. Concerned with the planet's safety over their own, Sumire and a reluctant Sanpei participate in Take-Majin's awakening ceremony. Just when Take-Majin is about to wake up, the entire village is evacuated by the army when a nuclear missile is fired at Guilala. But Take-Majin suddenly awakens and stops the missile by catching it with his buttocks, allowing it to explode inside of him. He then confronts Guilala, preparing for battle. After a long battle Take-Majin is victorious, decapitating Guilala, saving all humanity as prophecied. Take-Majin then disappears back into his shrine to sleep once again. The G8 Summit leaders celebrate their victory by taking a bath in a hot spring (despite the leader of the North Country escaping during the fight). Reaction. When released at G-Fest, XVI the film received mostly good reviews. Fans felt the film was entertaining because it didn’t take itself seriously, since it was a comedic melodrama. However, some fans were disappointed that many sequences of Guilala in the film (Guilala's rampage on Sapporo, Guilala's attack on the power plant, and almost every scene of Guilala shooting fireballs) were nothing more than footage recycled from the original film. DVD release. "The Monster X Strikes Back: Attack the G8 Summit" was released in North American on DVD on June 30, 2009 by Media Blasters. The special features are a photo gallery and Tokyo Shock trailers.
292317	Alia Sabur (born February 22, 1989 in New York City, New York) is an American materials scientist. She holds the record for being the world's youngest professor. Early life and education. Sabur's mother, Julie Sabur (née Kessler), worked as a reporter for News12 Long Island until 1995. She married Mohammed Sabur, a Pakistani native, in 1980. Alia, born on February 22, 1989, showed early signs of giftedness. She tested "off the IQ scale," according to an educator who tested her as a first-grader. As a fourth-grader, she left public school and was admitted to State University of New York at Stony Brook at the age of 10, later graduating "summa cum laude" at 14. She also received a black belt in Tae Kwon Do at the age of 9. After Stony Brook, Sabur attended Drexel University where she received her M.S. in 2006.
1034084	Judy Parfitt (born 7 November 1935) is a BAFTA-nominated English theatre, film and television actress who began her career on stage in 1954. Life and work. Judy Parfitt was born in Sheffield, West Riding of Yorkshire, the daughter of Catherine Josephine (née Caulton) and Lawrence Hamilton Parfitt. As a teenager, she attended Notre Dame High School for Girls in Sheffield, and later trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. In 1981 she created the role of Eleanor in the Royal Shakespeare Company's production of Peter Nichols' "Passion Play". In 1984 she played Deidre in Jack Rosenthal's The Chain. In 1987, she played the mother of Clive Durham for Merchant Ivory's "Maurice". In 1995, she portrayed Kathy Bates' former, domineering employer in "Dolores Claiborne", who is dying in present-time, but is seen as a vibrant, glowing woman in flashback sequences. Two of her most notable past roles are Mildred Layton in "The Jewel in the Crown" (1984) (for which she received her first BAFTA nomination), and Lady Catherine de Bourgh in 1980's TV serial version of "Pride and Prejudice".
1103940	Vito Volterra (3 May 1860 – 11 October 1940) was an Italian mathematician and physicist, known for his contributions to mathematical biology and integral equations. Biography. Born in Ancona, then part of the Papal States, into a very poor Jewish family, Volterra showed early promise in mathematics before attending the University of Pisa, where he fell under the influence of Enrico Betti, and where he became professor of rational mechanics in 1883. He immediately started work developing his theory of functionals which led to his interest and later contributions in integral and integro-differential equations. His work is summarised in his book "Theory of functionals and of Integral and Integro-Differential Equations" (1930). In 1892, he became professor of mechanics at the University of Turin and then, in 1900, professor of mathematical physics at the University of Rome La Sapienza. Volterra had grown up during the final stages of the Risorgimento when the Papal States were finally annexed by Italy and, like his mentor Betti, he was an enthusiastic patriot, being named by the king Victor Emmanuel III as a senator of the Kingdom of Italy in 1905. In the same year, he began to develop the theory of dislocations in crystals that was later to become important in the understanding of the behaviour of ductile materials. On the outbreak of World War I, already well into his 50s, he joined the Italian Army and worked on the development of airships under Giulio Douhet. He originated the idea of using inert helium rather than flammable hydrogen and made use of his leadership abilities in organising its manufacture. After World War I, Volterra turned his attention to the application of his mathematical ideas to biology, principally reiterating and developing the work of Pierre François Verhulst. The most famous outcome of this period is the Lotka–Volterra equations. In 1922, he joined the opposition to the Fascist regime of Benito Mussolini and in 1931 he was one of only 12 out of 1,250 professors who refused to take a mandatory oath of loyalty. His political philosophy can be seen from a postcard he sent in the 1930s, on which he wrote what can be seen as an epitaph for Mussolini’s Italy: "Empires die, but Euclid’s theorems keep their youth forever". However, Volterra was no radical firebrand; he might have been equally appalled if the leftist opposition to Mussolini had come to power, since he was a lifelong royalist and nationalist. As a result of his refusal to sign the oath of allegiance to the fascist government he was compelled to resign his university post and his membership of scientific academies, and, during the following years, he lived largely abroad, returning to Rome just before his death.
1092059	Paul Adrien Maurice Dirac, OM, FRS ( ; 8 August 1902 – 20 October 1984) was an English theoretical physicist who made fundamental contributions to the early development of both quantum mechanics and quantum electrodynamics. He was the Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge, a member of the Center for Theoretical Studies, University of Miami, and spent the last decade of his life at Florida State University. Among other discoveries, he formulated the Dirac equation, which describes the behaviour of fermions and predicted the existence of antimatter. Dirac shared the Nobel Prize in Physics for 1933 with Erwin Schrödinger, "for the discovery of new productive forms of atomic theory". He also did work that forms the basis of modern attempts to reconcile general relativity with quantum mechanics. He was regarded by his friends and colleagues as unusual in character. Albert Einstein said of him "This balancing on the dizzying path between genius and madness is awful" referring to his autistic traits. His mathematical brilliance, however, means he is regarded as one of the most significant physicists of the 20th century. Personal life. Early years. Paul Adrien Maurice Dirac was born at his parents' home in Bristol, England, on 8 August 1902, and grew up in the Bishopston area of the city. His father, Charles Adrien Ladislas Dirac, was an immigrant from Saint-Maurice, Switzerland, who worked in Bristol as a French teacher. His mother, Florence Hannah Dirac, née Holten, the daughter of a ship's captain, was born in Cornwall, England and worked as a librarian at the Bristol Central Library. Paul had a younger sister, Béatrice Isabelle Marguerite, known as Betty, and an older brother, Reginald Charles Félix, known as Felix, who committed suicide in March 1925. Dirac later recalled: "My parents were terribly distressed. I didn't know they cared so much. /.../ I never knew that parents were supposed to care for their children, but from then on I knew." Charles and the children were officially Swiss nationals until they became naturalised on 22 October 1919. Dirac's father was strict and authoritarian, although he disapproved of corporal punishment. Dirac had a strained relationship with his father, so much so that after his father's death, Dirac wrote, "I feel much freer now, and I am my own man." Charles forced his children to speak to him only in French, in order that they learn the language. When Dirac found that he could not express what he wanted to say in French, he chose to remain silent. Education. Dirac was educated first at Bishop Road Primary School and then at the all-boys Merchant Venturers' Technical College (later Cotham School), where his father was a French teacher. The school was an institution attached to the University of Bristol, which shared grounds and staff. It emphasised technical subjects like bricklaying, shoemaking and metal work, and modern languages. This was unusual at a time when secondary education in Britain was still dedicated largely to the classics, and something for which Dirac would later express gratitude. Dirac studied electrical engineering on a City of Bristol University Scholarship at the University of Bristol's engineering faculty, which was co-located with the Merchant Venturers' Technical College. Shortly before he completed his degree in 1921, he sat the entrance examination for St John's College, Cambridge. He passed, and was awarded a £70 scholarship, but this fell short of the amount of money required to live and study at Cambridge. Despite his having graduated with a first class honours Bachelor of Science degree in engineering, the economic climate of the post-war depression was such that he was unable to find work as an engineer. Instead he took up an offer to study for a Bachelor of Arts degree in mathematics at the University of Bristol free of charge. He was permitted to skip the first year of the course owing to his engineering degree. In 1923, Dirac graduated, once again with first class honours, and received a £140 scholarship from the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research. Along with his £70 scholarship from St John's College, this was enough to live at Cambridge. There, Dirac pursued his interests in the theory of general relativity, an interest he had gained earlier as a student in Bristol, and in the nascent field of quantum physics, under the supervision of Ralph Fowler. He completed his Ph.D. in June 1926 with the first thesis on quantum mechanics to be submitted anywhere. Family. Dirac married Eugene Wigner's sister, Margit, in 1937. He adopted Margit's two children, Judith and Gabriel. Paul and Margit Dirac had two children together, both daughters, Mary Elizabeth and Florence Monica. Margit, known as Manci, visited her brother in 1934 in Princeton, New Jersey from her native Hungary and, while at dinner at the Annex Restaurant met the "lonely-looking man at the next table." This account from a Korean physicist, Y.S. Kim, who met and was influenced by Dirac, also says: "It is quite fortunate for the physics community that Manci took good care of our respected Paul A.M. Dirac. Dirac published eleven papers during the period 1939–46... Dirac was able to maintain his normal research productivity only because Manci was in charge of everything else." Personality. Dirac was known among his colleagues for his precise and taciturn nature. His colleagues in Cambridge jokingly defined a unit of a "dirac", which was one word per hour. When Niels Bohr complained that he did not know how to finish a sentence in a scientific article he was writing, Dirac replied, "I was taught at school never to start a sentence without knowing the end of it." He criticized the physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer's interest in poetry: "The aim of science is to make difficult things understandable in a simpler way; the aim of poetry is to state simple things in an incomprehensible way. The two are incompatible." Dirac himself wrote in his diary during his postgraduate years that he concentrated solely on his research, and stopped only on Sunday, when he took long strolls alone. An anecdote recounted in a review of the 2009 biography tells of Werner Heisenberg and Dirac sailing on an ocean liner to a conference in Japan in August 1929. "Both still in their twenties, and unmarried, they made an odd couple. Heisenberg was a ladies' man who constantly flirted and danced, while Dirac—'an Edwardian geek', as biographer Graham Farmelo puts it—suffered agonies if forced into any kind of socialising or small talk. 'Why do you dance?' Dirac asked his companion. 'When there are nice girls, it is a pleasure,' Heisenberg replied. Dirac pondered this notion, then blurted out: 'But, Heisenberg, how do you know beforehand that the girls are nice?'" According to a story told in different versions, a friend or student visited Dirac, not knowing of his marriage. Noticing the visitor's surprise at seeing an attractive woman in the house, Dirac said, "This is... this is Wigner's sister". Margit Dirac told both George Gamow and Anton Capri in the 1960s that her husband had actually said, "Allow me to present Wigner's sister, who is now my wife." Another story told of Dirac is that when he first met the young Richard Feynman at a conference, he said after a long silence "I have an equation. Do you have one too?". After he presented a lecture at a conference, one colleague raised his hand and said "I don't understand the equation on the top-right-hand corner of the blackboard". After a long silence, the moderator asked Dirac if he wanted to answer the question, to which Dirac replied "That was not a question, it was a comment." Dirac was also noted for his personal modesty. He called the equation for the time evolution of a quantum-mechanical operator, which he was the first to write down, the "Heisenberg equation of motion". Most physicists speak of Fermi-Dirac statistics for half-integer-spin particles and Bose-Einstein statistics for integer-spin particles. While lecturing later in life, Dirac always insisted on calling the former "Fermi statistics". He referred to the latter as "Einstein statistics" for reasons, he explained, of "symmetry". Religious views. Heisenberg recollected a conversation among young participants at the 1927 Solvay Conference about Einstein and Planck's views on religion between Wolfgang Pauli, Heisenberg and Dirac. Dirac's contribution was a criticism of the political purpose of religion, which was much appreciated for its lucidity by Bohr when Heisenberg reported it to him later. Among other things, Dirac said: Heisenberg's view was tolerant. Pauli, raised as a Catholic, had kept silent after some initial remarks, but when finally he was asked for his opinion, said: "Well, our friend Dirac has got a religion and its guiding principle is 'There is no God and Paul Dirac is His prophet.'" Everybody, including Dirac, burst into laughter. Later in life, Dirac's views towards the idea of God were less acerbic. As an author of an article appearing in the May 1963 edition of "Scientific American", Dirac wrote: In 1971, at a conference meeting, Dirac expressed his views on the existence of God. Dirac explained that the existence of God could only be justified if an improbable event were to have taken place in the past: Dirac did not commend himself to any definite view, but he described the possibilities for answering the question of God in a scientific manner. Honours. Dirac shared the 1933 Nobel Prize for physics with Erwin Schrödinger "for the discovery of new productive forms of atomic theory". Dirac was also awarded the Royal Medal in 1939 and both the Copley Medal and the Max Planck medal in 1952. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1930, an Honorary Fellow of the American Physical Society in 1948, and an Honorary Fellow of the Institute of Physics, London in 1971. Dirac became a member of the Order of Merit in 1973, having previously turned down a knighthood as he did not want to be addressed by his first name. Death. In 1984, Dirac died in Tallahassee, Florida and was buried at Tallahassee's Roselawn Cemetery. Dirac's childhood home in Bristol is commemorated with a blue plaque and the nearby Dirac Road is named in recognition of his links with the city. A commemorative stone was erected in a garden in Saint-Maurice, Switzerland, the town of origin of his father's family, on 1 August 1991. On 13 November 1995 a commemorative marker, made from Burlington green slate and inscribed with the Dirac equation, was unveiled in Westminster Abbey. The Dean of Westminster, Edward Carpenter had initially refused permission for the memorial, thinking Dirac to be anti-Christian, but was eventually (over a five-year period) persuaded to relent. Career. Dirac established the most general theory of quantum mechanics and discovered the relativistic equation for the electron, which now bears his name. The remarkable notion of an antiparticle to each particle - i.e. the positron as antiparticle to the electron - stems from his equation. He was the first to develop quantum field theory, which underlies all theoretical work on sub-atomic or "elementary" particles today, work that is fundamental to our understanding of the forces of nature. He proposed and investigated the concept of a magnetic monopole, an object not yet known empirically, as a means of bringing even greater symmetry to James Clark Maxwell equations of electromagnetism. Gravity. He quantized the gravitational field, and developed a general theory of quantum field theories with dynamical constraints, which forms the basis of the gauge theories and superstring theories of today. The influence and importance of his work has increased with the decades, and physicists daily use the concepts and equations that he developed. Dirac's first step into a new quantum theory was taken late in September 1925. Ralph Fowler, his research supervisor, had received a proof copy of an exploratory paper by Werner Heisenberg in the framework of the old quantum theory of Bohr and Sommerfeld, which leaned heavily on Bohr's correspondence principle but changed the equations so that they involved directly observable quantities. Fowler sent Heisenberg's paper on to Dirac, who was on vacation in Bristol, asking him to look into this paper carefully. Quantum theory. Dirac's attention was drawn to a mysterious mathematical relationship, at first sight unintelligible, that Heisenberg had reached. Several weeks later, back in Cambridge, Dirac suddenly recognized that this mathematical form had the same structure as the Poisson Brackets that occur in the classical dynamics of particle motion. From this thought he quickly developed a quantum theory that was based on non-commuting dynamical variables. This led him to a more profound and significant general formulation of quantum mechanics than was achieved by any other worker in this field. Dirac noticed an analogy between the Poisson brackets of classical mechanics and the recently proposed quantization rules in Werner Heisenberg's matrix formulation of quantum mechanics. This observation allowed Dirac to obtain the quantization rules in a novel and more illuminating manner. For this work, published in 1926, he received a Ph.D. from Cambridge. The Dirac Equation. In 1928, building on 2×2 spin matrices which he discovered independently of Wolfgang Pauli's work on non-relativistic spin systems, (Abraham Pais quoted Dirac as saying "I believe I got these (matrices) independently of Pauli and possibly Pauli got these independently of me") he proposed the Dirac equation as a relativistic equation of motion for the wavefunction of the electron. This work led Dirac to predict the existence of the positron, the electron's antiparticle, which he interpreted in terms of what came to be called the "Dirac sea". The positron was observed by Carl Anderson in 1932. Dirac's equation also contributed to explaining the origin of quantum spin as a relativistic phenomenon. The necessity of fermions (matter being created and destroyed in Enrico Fermi's 1934 theory of beta decay), however, led to a reinterpretation of Dirac's equation as a "classical" field equation for any point particle of spin "ħ"/2, itself subject to quantization conditions involving anti-commutators. Thus reinterpreted, in 1934 by Werner Heisenberg, as a (quantum) field equation accurately describing all elementary matter particles – today quarks and leptons – this Dirac field equation is as central to theoretical physics as the Maxwell, Yang–Mills and Einstein field equations. Dirac is regarded as the founder of quantum electrodynamics, being the first to use that term. He also introduced the idea of vacuum polarization in the early 1930s. This work was key to the development of quantum mechanics by the next generation of theorists, and in particular Schwinger, Feynman, Sin-Itiro Tomonaga and Dyson in their formulation of quantum electrodynamics. Dirac's "Principles of Quantum Mechanics", published in 1930, is a landmark in the history of science. It quickly became one of the standard textbooks on the subject and is still used today. In that book, Dirac incorporated the previous work of Werner Heisenberg on matrix mechanics and of Erwin Schrödinger on wave mechanics into a single mathematical formalism that associates measurable quantities to operators acting on the Hilbert space of vectors that describe the state of a physical system. The book also introduced the delta function. Following his 1939 article, he also included the bra-ket notation in the third edition of his book, thereby contributing to its universal use nowadays. Magnetic monopoles. In 1933, following his 1931 paper on magnetic monopoles, Dirac showed that the existence of a single magnetic monopole in the universe would suffice to explain the observed quantization of electrical charge. In 1975, 1982, and 2009 intriguing results suggested the possible detection of magnetic monopoles, but there is, to date, no direct evidence for their existence. Lucasian Chair. Dirac was the Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge from 1932 to 1969. In 1937, he proposed a speculative cosmological model based on the so-called large numbers hypothesis. During World War II, he conducted important theoretical and experimental research on uranium enrichment by gas centrifuge. Dirac's quantum electrodynamics (QED) made predictions that were – more often than not – infinite and therefore unacceptable. A workaround known as renormalization was developed, but Dirac never accepted this. "I must say that I am very dissatisfied with the situation," he said in 1975, "because this so-called 'good theory' does involve neglecting infinities which appear in its equations, neglecting them in an arbitrary way. This is just not sensible mathematics. Sensible mathematics involves neglecting a quantity when it is small – not neglecting it just because it is infinitely great and you do not want it!" His refusal to accept renormalization resulted in his work on the subject moving increasingly out of the mainstream. However, from his once rejected notes he managed to work on putting quantum electrodynamics on "logical foundations" based on Hamiltonian formalism that he formulated. He found a rather novel way of deriving the anomalous magnetic moment "Schwinger term" and also the Lamb shift, afresh in 1963, using the Heisenberg picture and without using the joining method used by Weisskopf and French, and by the two pioneers of modern QED, Schwinger and Feynman. That was two years before the Tomonaga–Schwinger–Feynman QED was given formal recognition by an award of the Nobel Prize for physics. Weisskopf and French (FW) were the first to obtain the correct result for the Lamb shift and the anomalous magnetic moment of the electron. At first FW results did not agree with the incorrect but independent results of Feynman and Schwinger. The 1963–1964 lectures Dirac gave on quantum field theory at Yeshiva University were published in 1966 as the Belfer Graduate School of Science, Monograph Series Number, 3. After having relocated to Florida in order to be near his elder daughter, Mary, Dirac spent his last fourteen years (of both life and physics research) at the University of Miami in Coral Gables, Florida and Florida State University in Tallahassee, Florida. In the 1950s in his search for a better QED, Paul Dirac developed the Hamiltonian theory of constraints based on lectures that he delivered at the 1949 International Mathematical Congress in Canada. Dirac had also solved the problem of putting the Tomonaga–Schwinger equation into the Schrödinger representation and given explicit expressions for the scalar meson field (spin zero pion or pseudoscalar meson), the vector meson field (spin one rho meson), and the electromagnetic field (spin one massless boson, photon). The Hamiltonian of constrained systems is one of Dirac’s many masterpieces. It is a powerful generalization of Hamiltonian theory that remains valid for curved spacetime. The equations for the Hamiltonian involve only six degrees of freedom described by formula_1,formula_2 for each point of the surface on which the state is considered. The formula_3 ("m" = 0, 1, 2, 3) appear in the theory only through the variables formula_4, formula_5 which occur as arbitrary coefficients in the equations of motion. There are four constraints or weak equations for each point of the surface formula_6 = constant. Three of them formula_7 form the four vector density in the surface. The fourth formula_8 is a 3-dimensional scalar density in the surface "H"L ≈ 0; "Hr" ≈ 0 ("r" = 1, 2, 3) In the late 1950s, he applied the Hamiltonian methods he had developed to cast Einstein’s general relativity in Hamiltonian form and to bring to a technical completion the quantization problem of gravitation and bring it also closer to the rest of physics according to Salam and DeWitt. In 1959 he also gave an invited talk on "Energy of the Gravitational Field" at the New York Meeting of the American Physical Society later published in 1959 Phys Rev Lett 2, 368. In 1964 he published his “Lectures on Quantum Mechanics” (London:Academic) which deals with constrained dynamics of nonlinear dynamical systems including quantization of curved spacetime. He also published a paper entitled “Quantization of the Gravitational Field” in the 1967 ICTP/IAEA Trieste Symposium on Contemporary Physics. Students. Amongst his many students was John Polkinghorne, who recalls that Dirac "was once asked what was his fundamental belief. He strode to a blackboard and wrote that the laws of nature should be expressed in beautiful equations." Legacy. In 1975, Dirac gave a series of five lectures at the University of New South Wales which were subsequently published as a book, "Directions in Physics" (1978). He donated the royalties from this book to the university for the establishment of the Dirac Lecture Series. The Silver Dirac Medal for the Advancement of Theoretical Physics is awarded by the University of New South Wales to commemorate the lecture. Immediately after his death, two organisations of professional physicists established annual awards in Dirac's memory. The Institute of Physics, the United Kingdom's professional body for physicists, awards the Paul Dirac Medal for "outstanding contributions to theoretical (including mathematical and computational) physics". The first three recipients were Stephen Hawking (1987), John Stewart Bell (1988), and Roger Penrose (1989). The International Centre for Theoretical Physics awards the Dirac Medal of the ICTP each year on Dirac's birthday (8 August). The Dirac-Hellman Award at Florida State University was endowed by Dr Bruce P. Hellman in 1997 to reward outstanding work in theoretical physics by FSU researchers. The Paul A.M. Dirac Science Library at Florida State University, which Manci opened in December 1989, is named in his honour, and his papers are held there. Outside is a statue of him by Gabriella Bollobás. The street on which the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory in Tallahassee, Florida, is located was named Paul Dirac Drive. As well as in his home town of Bristol, there is also a road named after him in Didcot Oxfordshire, Dirac Way. The BBC named a video codec Dirac in his honour.
1061374	James Brolin (; born July 18, 1940) is an American actor, producer and director, best known for his roles in film and television, including sitcoms and soap operas. He is the father of actor Josh Brolin and husband of singer/actress Barbra Streisand. Early life. Brolin was born Craig Kenneth Bruderlin in Los Angeles, California. The eldest of two brothers and two sisters, he was the son of Helen Sue (née Mansur), a housewife, and Henry Hurst Bruderlin, a building contractor. The family settled in Westwood after his birth. As a young child, he was apparently more interested in animals and airplanes than in acting. When Brolin was 10 in 1950, he began building and flying model airplanes. As a teenaged filmgoer in the mid-1950s he was particularly fascinated with actor James Dean. When his parents invited a director over to his family's house for dinner before auditioning, he met another fellow actor and classmate, Ryan O'Neal, who was about a year younger than Brolin. The two clicked and later enrolled in University High School located in West Los Angeles. However, Bruderlin's own acting exposed his stifling shyness. His assurance grew when O'Neal invited him to a casting agency. Brolin graduated from high school in 1958, and his family was already encouraging him to become an actor like O'Neal. Career. Early career. Prior to taking acting classes in school, Brolin started out as a character actor on an episode of "Bus Stop" in 1961. The part led to parts in other television productions such as "Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea", "Margie", "Love, American Style", "Twelve O'Clock High" and "The Long, Hot Summer". He made 3 guest appearances on the popular 1960s series "Batman", alongside Adam West and Burt Ward, as well as roles in "The Virginian", and "" alongside Arthur Hill and Lee Majors. He also had a recurring role on the short-lived television series "The Monroes". At the age of 20 he changed his last name from "Bruderlin" to "Brolin" to become James Brolin. He accepted a contract with 20th Century Fox. While in school struggling to make it big, he met actor Clint Eastwood. Brolin also had small roles in several films including "Take Her, She's Mine" (1963), "Dear Brigitte" (1965), "Von Ryan's Express" (1965), "Fantastic Voyage" (1966). The following year, his first big role was in "The Cape Town Affair" (1967), but it did not receive any success at the box office. Brolin was ultimately fired by 20th Century Fox. Film work. During the 1970s, the 6 ft 4 inch Brolin began appearing in leading roles in films, including "Skyjacked" (1972), and "Westworld" (1973). By the mid-1970s, he was a regular leading man in films, starring in "Gable and Lombard" (1976), "The Car" (1977), "Capricorn One" (1978, in which he costarred with Elliott Gould, Streisand's ex-husband), "The Amityville Horror" (1979), "Night of the Juggler" (1980), and "High Risk" (1981). When Roger Moore expressed his desire to leave the role of James Bond, Brolin screen tested for the role in the next film "Octopussy" (1983). Ultimately, however, Moore decided to continue in the series. In 1985, Brolin parodied his near-hiring as James Bond in the film "Pee-Wee's Big Adventure". In a film within the film, he merged the characters of Bond and Pee-Wee Herman, the "real" version of whom was played by Paul Reubens. He is referred to as "PW" and the role of Pee-Wee Herman's girlfriend "Dottie" is played by Morgan Fairchild. Television roles. In 1968, Brolin transferred to Universal Studios, where he auditioned for a co-starring role opposite seasoned actor Robert Young in the popular medical drama "Marcus Welby, M.D." (1969–1976). The series was one of the top-rated television shows of the day. Brolin became widely known for his portrayal of youthful, skilled assistant physician Dr. Steven Kiley. The chemistry between Young & Brolin clicked, and even came to attract young women for its medical interest throughout the show's run. In its first season in 1970, Brolin won the Emmy Award for Outstanding Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role, and was subsequently nominated three more times. He was also nominated for Golden Globes three times for Best Supporting Actor, and won twice between 1971 and 1973. Brolin also starred in the television films "Short Walk to Daylight" (1972) and "Trapped" (1973). In 1983, Brolin returned to television to star in another popular series. He teamed with producer Aaron Spelling's prime-time soap opera, "Hotel", for ABC. On this show he played Peter McDermott, a hotel manager who tried to help everyone solve their problems while letting love come into his own life at the same time. Among those co-starring on the show was a new actress, Shari Belafonte (The daughter of singer Harry Belafonte), first as a reservations clerk and then Director of Guest Relations, Julie Gillette, a familiar actress, Connie Sellecca, as Brolin's executive assistant and later General Manager, Christine Francis, and Nathan Cook as Billy Griffin, an ex-con who later became Peter's best friend. They each had a wonderful chemistry with Brolin on the set. As with "Marcus Welby", this show was a ratings winner. Brolin was nominated twice for Golden Globes between 1983 and 1984 for Best Performance By an Actor in a TV Series, but didn't win either time. He would eventually serve as a director on the show, as well. On one episode of "Hotel", he invited his future wife Jan Smithers to guest-star on the show as the writers suggested that they develop a storyline for them, as Brolin was going through a difficult divorce at the time. By 1988, after 5 seasons, "Hotel" was about to close its doors for good and the show was cancelled. That same year, his co-star, Cook had died of an allergic reaction to penicillin, and Brolin along with the rest of his cast attended his funeral. Sellecca said of Brolin's on-screen chemistry with her on "Hotel", "I remember instantly feeling comfortable with Jim, and that's the thing that Jim has as to women, most women, they need to feel safe, and Jim gets that." She also said, "To have him in a different role and have that confidence, it was a wonderful experience." After the show's cancellation, Sellecca continues to be good friends with Brolin. In 1992, her mentor was in attendance at her wedding to John Tesh. As the new decade approached, Brolin starred in both "Angel Falls" for CBS and "Extreme" for ABC, although neither matched the popularity of his earlier series. In 1997, Brolin's luck changed with the syndicated television series "". He played the role of Lt. Col. Bill "Raven" Kelly, whose job was to teach young Marines in a special unit, before being promoted to work with a group of talented Marine fighter pilots. Brolin served as an executive producer and director on the series. In 2000, however, the show was cancelled after 66 episodes due to low ratings. In 1997, he also hosted "", a television series that shows five stories which have to do with the paranormal and supernatural. Jonathan Frakes took his place after the first season of the show. In 1997, Brolin Guest Starred on TV series Roseanne (Part 1 Lanford's Elite) Roseanne & Jackie go to a luncheon at the Lanford Country Club, where they meet the son of their old boss: Edgar Wellman Jr. (James Brolin) of the Wellman Plastics factory. It appears that the factory is in need of financial help and Roseanne's money could save the factory. In Part 2 (Some Enchanted Merger) Once the Wellman Plastics buyout is completed, Roseanne is at a loss for what to do when a mutual attraction springs between herself and Edgar Wellman Jr. (James Brolin) Recent work. Brolin has had a number of supporting roles in major cinema releases since 2000. These include (amongst others) the role of General Ralph Landry, outgoing director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy in Steven Soderbergh's Oscar-winning "Traffic" (2000); as Jack Barnes in Steven Spielberg's "Catch Me If You Can" (2002); a minor role in the 2003 comedy "A Guy Thing"; as philandering husband Robert Hatch in the 2006 comedy "The Alibi" (released in the UK as "Lies and Alibis"); as Jack Jennings in the 2007 film "The American Standards"; as TV network anchor Frank Harris in Richard Shepard's "The Hunting Party" (2007); and as Brian in Joel Hopkins' 2008 film "Last Chance Harvey" with Emma Thompson and Dustin Hoffman. In 2002, Brolin played Governor Robert Ritchie of Florida, the Republican opponent of President Jed Bartlet on the TV series "The West Wing". In Bartlet's words, he had "turned being unengaged into a Zen-like thing" and seemed to enjoy it.
582575	Tulip Joshi (born 11 September 1979) is an Indian actress who has appeared in Bollywood and the Sandalwood. Early life. Joshi was born in Mumbai to a Gujarati Indian father and a Lebanese Armenian mother. She was brought up in Mumbai where she attended the Jamnabai Narsee School, and later Mithibai College from where she graduated majoring food science and chemistry. Tulip entered the Femina Miss India in 2000. She did not make it to the list of winners, but was noticed by many advertising agencies. She appeared in a number of advertising campaigns for big brands (Ponds, Pepsi, Siyaram, BPL, Smirnoff etc.). She also appeared in a video made as a tribute to Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan. Film career. Joshi entered movies quite by chance. She was a friend of the bride of Aditya Chopra, the son of director Yash Chopra. The family noticed her at their wedding and asked her to appear for an audition, following which they cast her in "Mere Yaar Ki Shaadi Hai". Not being fluent in Hindi, she trained in Hindi diction and in acting at Feroz Khan's studio. She was also advised by the film-makers to change her name to something more Indian, as audiences might have difficulty in accepting a heroine with such an unconventional name. She chose the name Sanjana, she was playing the character of Anjali in that film. The film was quite a success. Despite the good reviews and success, Tulip was heavily panned for her acting. After a two-year hiatus, she reappeared in "Matrubhoomi" - a dark film about a futuristic world with almost no women. Her performance in it was praised and established her credibility as an actress. "Dhoka" movie also gave her some recognition. Reverting to her given name, Tulip next appeared in the Telugu film "Villain". Her next Hindi movie was "Dil Maange More" with Shahid Kapoor, Ayesha Takia and Soha Ali Khan. The film got average reviews but it was not a box office success. She appeared in her first Punjabi film in 2009 called "Jag Jeondeyan De Mele" with famous Punjabi singer and actor, Harbhajan Maan. She again acted with Harbhajan Mann in 2011 in Yaara O Dildaara, the Punjabi movie. In 2010, she acted in a Kannada film directed by Upendra titled "Super". The movie was a superhit in Kannada. This movie is also being dubbed in Telugu, Tamil and Hindi. She will be seen in next Punjabi film Jatt Airways oppostie Alfaaz directed by Harjeet Ricky, releases on 30 August'13. Controversy. A case of cheating was filed at Kalamassery Police Station against Joshi in January 2011 by producers of the movie "Dam 999". Sohan Roy, director of the movie, claimed that Tulip didn't complete the shooting despite being paid 850,000. Roy is also the CEO of Aries Telecasting Limited, the parent company of Middle East based Marine BizTV, which was producing the movie. The FIR said that Joshi didn't turn up for shooting after arriving for initial first two days, and then didn't respond to producer's request to settle the matter by returning the payment. Joshi was supposed to play role of Razia, a Pakistani character in the film, and was eventually replaced by Megha Burman.
1225217	Dana Robins Ivey (born August 12, 1941) is an American character actress, who has performed on Broadway and other stage roles, in film and on television. Early life and family. Ivey was born in Atlanta, Georgia. Her mother, Mary Nell Ivey Santacroce (née McKoin), was a teacher, speech therapist, and actress who appeared in productions of "Driving Miss Daisy" and taught at Georgia State University. Her father, Hugh Daugherty Ivey, was a physicist and professor who taught at Georgia Tech and later worked at the Atomic Energy Commission. Her parents later divorced. She has a younger brother, John, and a half-brother, Eric Santacroce, from her mother's re-marriage to Dante Santacroce.
472723	Late Marriage (, "Hatuna Meuheret") is a 2001 Israeli film directed by Dover Kosashvili. The film centers on Zaza (Lior Ashkenazi, in his breakthrough role), the 31-year-old child of tradition-minded Georgian Jewish immigrants who are anxiously trying to arrange a marriage for him. Unbeknownst to them, he is secretly dating a 34-year-old divorcée, Judith (Ronit Elkabetz). When his parents discover the relationship and violently intervene, Zaza must choose between his family traditions and his love. Most of the main characters are Georgian-Israeli and the dialogue is partly in the Judaeo-Georgian language and partly in Hebrew. The film was positively reviewed and was Israel's submission for Best Foreign Language Film at the 74th Academy Awards. Synopsis. Zaza (Lior Ashkenazi) is a 31-year-old Georgian-Israeli PhD student at Tel Aviv University whose family is trying to arrange a marriage for him within the Georgian community. The film's beginning sees Zaza and his parents Yasha and Lili visiting the home of a possible match, who is still in high school. Zaza is clearly unenthusiastic and it is mentioned that he has seen dozens of prospective brides before this.
585750	Kanamarayathu is a 1984 Malayalam film written by Padmarajan and directed by I. V. Sasi. It stars Mammootty, Rahman, Lalu Alex, Shobhana and Seema. This film won 1984 Kerala State Film Awards for the Best Story (Padmarajan), Best Music Director (Shyam) and Best Female Singer (S. Janaki). The story was an adaptation of the 1912 novel "Daddy-Long-Legs" by Jean Webster. Plot. Sherly (Shobhana) is an orphan who is sponsored by an old man. On his death, the sponsorship is continued by his son Roy (Mammootty), who is a rich businessman. But Sherly does not know about him. She comes to College in the city where Roy's sister is her classmate and she meets Roy still not knowing he is her sponsor. On the other hand Alex (Lalu Alex) introduces his brother "Baby" (Rahman) to Roy, and on Roy's advice Baby starts working in his firm. At Mercy's (Sabitha Anand) birthday party, Baby meets Sherly and falls in love with her, but her mind has already gone for Roy, still without knowing that he is her sponsor, and she rejects Baby. Later Sherly finds that Roy has no feelings for her, although he is secretly in love with her but does not wish to reveal it because of the age gap between them and also because Baby confuses her by lying to her that Roy and Elsie (Seema) were in love for a long time and couldn't marry because of Roy's father. Sherly is extremely frustrated at this and in a fit of rage goes to Elsie and lies to her that she is pregnant with Roy's baby. Elsie is shocked at this and goes to his office and scolds him for his irresponsibility but Roy tells her that it was not him. He calls Sherly to his office and shouts at her thinking that she is pregnant with Baby's baby and lied to the doctor that she was pregnant with his baby but she tells him that she was lying to break them up and also to prove her love for him and tells him that she cannot live without him. However, Mother Superior tells Roy that she was going to be sent to Italy to learn music and also that she was allowed to become a nun now and on Mother Superior's (Kaviyoor Ponnamma) advice she decides to became a nun although she doesn't want to and plans to leave to Italy due to her gratitude towards Mother and her sponsor. So as a final meeting she sees Roy and tells him about this and that she cannot see him anymore. She also meets Baby and tells him everything including that she is an orphan and that she is going to be a nun. He, however, still was willing to marry her but she tells him that she is in love with someone else and he did not accept her so she decided to become a nun. He insists her on telling him who she is and she tells him that it is Roy. At this news he goes to Roy's office and shouts at him for what he did. But as a last wish she wants to see her unknown sponsor who has blessed her all her life with what she would have never had and so Roy comes to the orphanage revealing that he is the sponsor that was unknown for so long and comforts her by wanting to marry her. Remake. Kanamarayathu was remade in Hindi as "Anokha Rishta" in 1986 starring Rajesh Khanna and Smita Patil. Prominent playback singer Krishnachandran's dubbing artist debut through this movie with the special request of Padmarajan; script writer of this movie. He has given voice to Kunchakko Boban (Aniyathipravu), Vineeth (all movies), Niyas (Kshanakkathu), Riyas, Rahman etc. for their various movies.
743238	"Little" Nell Campbell (born Laura Elizabeth Campbell; 24 May 1953) is an Australian actress, club owner and singer. She is best known for her role in "The Rocky Horror Show" and "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" and her song "Do the Swim". Biography. Early life. She was born in Sydney, to Ruth and Ross Campbell, a writer, who called her "Little Nell" (after a character in Charles Dickens' "The Old Curiosity Shop") in his family life column in the "Sydney Daily Telegraph". Campbell has three siblings: Sally, Patrick and Cressida. Her older sister, Sally, was a property master, set designer and subsequently a fashion designer. Her younger sister, Cressida Campbell, an artist, and her older brother, Patrick, a Solar Engineer for the University of New South Wales. She was called Laura E. Campbell until around 17, when she went by the nickname "Sonny" (pronounced to rhyme with "Donny"), short for "Sonata". She began dancing at the age of 10, after being diagnosed with Hepatitis A, to keep healthy. She attended high school at the Abbotsleigh School for Girls in Sydney, supporting herself as a waitress. Fame. Campbell decided to use the name "Little Nell" as a stage name after her arrival in Britain in the early 1970s with her family. She sold clothes at Kensington Market; her stall was next to Freddie Mercury's. She also worked as a busker and her tap dancing is often noted as the reason why she was cast as Columbia in the original production of "The Rocky Horror Show". She reprised the role in "The Rocky Horror Picture Show", released in 1975, and starred as Nurse Ansalong in the 1981 sequel, "Shock Treatment." After "The Rocky Horror Picture Show", she signed a recording contract with A&M Records. Her debut single was "Stilettos and Lipstick" backed with "Do the Swim", released in 1975. She also created a disco version of the song "Fever" in 1976 which was again released backed with "Do the Swim". The b-side of both of these releases became better known, perhaps helped by a performance on British television in which she accidentally (and repeatedly) exposed her breasts. While edited out of the original broadcast in 1975, the unedited version was shown worldwide on bloopers shows (beginning with the British show "It'll be Alright on the Night" in 1977). Following this notoriety, another effort was made to promote the recordings made in 1975 and 1976. In 1978, a "triple B-side" titled "The Musical World of Little Nell (Aquatic Teenage Sex & Squalor)" was released which featured both "Do the Swim" and "Stillettos and Lipstick" along with the track "Dance that Cocktail Latin Way" (also known as "Tropical Isle") which originally appeared as the B-side of her second single from 1976. Following some success with the EP, the other two tracks, singles "Fever" and "See You Round like a Record", were released as a single but that was to be her last release on A&M. A final single, "Beauty Queen" from the film "The Alternative Miss World", was released on PRE Records in 1980. Campbell has also appeared in several stage productions, including the Off-Broadway play "You Should Be So Lucky" and the Broadway musical "NINE". She appeared as Sandra LeMon in the British TV series "Rock Follies of '77". From the mid-1980s to 1998, Campbell owned two nightclubs in New York: Kiosk, E&O, and most famously lent her name to Nell's. Nell's was sold in 1998 to Noel Ashman and his business partner actor Chris Noth, right before she gave birth to daughter Matilda Violet in June 1998 to ex-boyfriend and business partner Eamonn Roche. Campbell has written several magazine articles, including regular segments called "MamaTalks" and "FirstLook" in the now defunct "Talk" magazine, starting in the December 1999 issue. She returned to Australia after selling her Boerum Hill house in Brooklyn in December 2005, and is now retired and living with her daughter. The song 'Laura' by Bat for Lashes, is dedicated to Nell Campbell, who is friends with Natasha Khan. Discography. Singles / EPs Guest vocals Soundtracks & Cast Recordings
900820	"Emanuelle's Revenge" (Italian title "Emanuelle e Françoise le sorelline"), also known as Blood Vengeance, Demon Rage and Blood Rage, is a 1975 horror film directed by Joe D'Amato. It marks something of a watershed film for the director, as he made his first entry into the popular Emanuelle series, and also because he combined sex with extreme violence. The following year he began making the Black Emanuelle series with Laura Gemser.
1163821	Burl Icle Ivanhoe Ives (June 14, 1909 – April 14, 1995) was an American actor, writer and folk music singer. As an actor, Ives's work included comedies, dramas, and voice work in theater, television, and motion pictures. Music critic John Rockwell said, "Ives's voice ... had the sheen and finesse of opera without its latter-day Puccinian vulgarities and without the pretensions of operatic ritual. It was genteel in expressive impact without being genteel in social conformity. And it moved people." Life and career. Early life. Ives was born in 1909 near Hunt City, an unincorporated town in Jasper County, Illinois near Newton, Illinois, to Levi "Frank" Ives (1880–1947) and Cordelia "Dellie" (née White) (1882–1954). He had six siblings: Audry, Artie, Clarence, Argola, Lillburn, and Norma. His father was at first a farmer and then a contractor for the county and others. One day Ives was singing in the garden with his mother, and his uncle overheard them. He invited his nephew to sing at the old soldiers' reunion in Hunt City. The boy performed a rendition of the folk ballad "Barbara Allen" and impressed both his uncle and the audience. Ives had a long-standing relationship with the Boy Scouts of America. He was a Lone Scout before that group merged with the Boy Scouts of America in 1924. The collection of his papers at the New York Library for the Performing Arts includes a photograph of Ives being "inducted" into the Boy Scouts in 1966. Ives received the organization's Silver Buffalo Award, its highest honor. The certificate for the award is hanging on the wall of the Scouting Museum in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania. Ives often performed at the quadrennial Boy Scouts of America jamboree, including the 1981 jamboree at Fort A.P. Hill in Virginia, where he shared the stage with the Oak Ridge Boys. There is a 1977 sound recording of Ives being interviewed by Boy Scouts at the National Jamboree at Moraine State Park, Pennsylvania; on this tape he also sings and talks about Scouting, teaching, etc. Ives is also the narrator of a 28-minute film about the 1977 National Jamboree. In the film, which was produced by the Boy Scouts of America, Ives "shows the many ways in which Scouting provides opportunities for young people to develop character and expand their horizons." From 1927 to 1929, Ives attended Eastern Illinois State Teachers College (now Eastern Illinois University) in Charleston, Illinois, where he played football. During his junior year, he was sitting in English class, listening to a lecture on "Beowulf," when he suddenly realized he was wasting his time. As he walked out the door, the professor made a snide remark, and Ives slammed the door behind him. Sixty years later, the school named a building after its most famous dropout. Ives was also involved in Freemasonry from 1927 onward. On July 23, 1929 in Richmond, Indiana, Ives did a trial recording of "Behind the Clouds" for the Starr Piano Company's Gennett label, but the recording was rejected and destroyed a few weeks later. In later years, Ives did not recall having made the Record. 1930s–1940s. Ives traveled about the U.S. as an itinerant singer during the early 1930s, earning his way by doing odd jobs and playing his banjo. He was jailed in Mona, Utah, for vagrancy and for singing “Foggy, Foggy Dew,” which the authorities decided was a bawdy song. Around 1931 he began performing on WBOW radio in Terre Haute, Indiana. He also went back to school, attending classes at Indiana State Teachers College (now Indiana State University). During the late 1930s Ives also attended The Juilliard School in New York. In 1940 Ives began his own radio show, titled "The Wayfaring Stranger" after one of his ballads. Over the next decade, he popularized several traditional folk songs, such as “Foggy, Foggy Dew” (an English/Irish folk song), “Blue Tail Fly” (an old Civil War tune), and “Big Rock Candy Mountain” (an old hobo song). He was also associated with the 'Almanac Singers' (Almanacs), a folk singing group which at different times included Woody Guthrie, Will Geer and Pete Seeger. The Almanacs were active in the American Peace Mobilization (APM), an anti-war group opposed to American entry into World War II and Franklin Roosevelt's pro-Allied policies. They recorded such songs as 'Get Out and Stay Out of War' and 'Franklin, Oh Franklin'. In June 1941, promptly after the Germans invaded the Soviet Union, the APM re-organized itself into the pro-war American People's Mobilization. Ives and the Almanacs re-recorded several of their songs to reflect the group's new stance in favor of US entry into the war. Among them were 'Dear Mr. President' and 'Reuben James' (the name of a US destroyer sunk by the Germans before US entry into the war). In early 1942, Ives was drafted into the U.S. Army. He spent time first at Camp Dix, then at Camp Upton, where he joined the cast of Irving Berlin's "This Is the Army." He attained the rank of corporal. When the show went to Hollywood, he was transferred to the Army Air Force. He was discharged honorably, apparently for medical reasons, in September 1943. Between September and December 1943, Ives lived in California with actor Harry Morgan (who would later go on to play Officer Bill Gannon in the 1960s version of Jack Webb's TV show Dragnet, and Colonel Sherman T. Potter on "M*A*S*H"). In December 1943, Ives went to New York City to work for CBS radio for $100 a week. On December 6, 1945, Ives married 29-year-old script writer Helen Peck Ehrlich. Their son Alexander was born in 1949. In 1945 Ives was cast as a singing cowboy in the film "Smoky" (1945). In 1947, Ives recorded one of many versions of "The Blue Tail Fly (Jimmy Crack Corn)", but paired this time with the incredibly popular Andrews Sisters (Patty, Maxene, and LaVerne). Only Bing Crosby sold more Decca Records than the sisters in the 1940s. The flip side of the record would be a fast-paced "I'm Goin' Down the Road". Ives hoped that the trio's success would help the record sell well, and indeed it did, becoming both a best-selling disc and a Billboard hit. His version of the 17th century English song "Lavender Blue" became his first hit and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Song for its use in the 1949 film, "So Dear to My Heart". 1950s: Communist blacklisting. Ives was identified in the 1950 pamphlet "Red Channels" and blacklisted as an entertainer with supposed Communist ties. In 1952 he cooperated with the House Committee on Unamerican Activities (HUAC) and agreed to testify. He stated that he was not a member of the Communist Party but that he had attended various union meetings with fellow folk singer Pete Seeger simply to stay in touch with working folk. He stated: "You know who my friends are; you will have to ask them if they are Communists." Ives's statement to the HUAC ended his blacklisting, allowing him to continue acting in movies. But it also led to a bitter rift between Ives and many folk singers, including Seeger, who accused Ives of betraying them and the cause of cultural and political freedom in order to save his own career. Ives countered by saying he had simply stated what he had always believed. Forty-one years later, Ives reunited with Seeger during a benefit concert in New York City. They sang "Blue Tail Fly" together. 1950s–1960s. Ives expanded his appearances in films during this decade. His movie credits include the role of Sam the Sheriff of Salinas, CA, in "East of Eden", "Big Daddy" in "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof", "Desire Under the Elms", "Wind Across the Everglades", "The Big Country", for which he won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor; "Ensign Pulver", the sequel to "Mister Roberts"; and "Our Man in Havana", based on the Graham Greene novel. 1960s–1990s. In the 1960s Ives began singing country music with greater frequency. In 1962 he released three songs that were popular with both country music and popular music fans: "A Little Bitty Tear", "Call Me Mister In-Between", and "Funny Way of Laughing". Ives had several film and television roles during the 1960s and 1970s. In 1962 he starred with Rock Hudson in "The Spiral Road," which was based on a novel of the same name by Jan de Hartog. In 1964, he played the genie in the movie "The Brass Bottle" with Tony Randall and Barbara Eden. Ives' "A Holly Jolly Christmas" and "Silver and Gold" became Christmas standards after they were first featured in the 1964 CBS-TV presentation of the Rankin & Bass stop-motion animated family special "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer". Johnny Marks had composed the title song (originally an enormous hit for singing cowboy Gene Autry) in 1949, and producers Rankin & Bass retained him to compose the TV special's soundtrack. Ives voiced Sam the Snowman, and based the fair skinned, blonde haired girl "karen" in Frosty the Snowman on his niece Karyn E.Ives,the banjo-playing "host" and narrator of the story, explaining how Rudolph used his "nonconformity," as Sam refers to it, to save Christmas from being cancelled due to an impassable blizzard. The following year, Ives re-recorded all three of these Johnny Marks hits, which Ives had sung in the TV special, but with a more "pop" feel than in the TV special. He released them all as singles for the 1965 holiday season, capitalizing on their previous successes. Ives performed in other television productions, including "Pinocchio" and "Roots". He starred in two television series: "O.K. Crackerby!" (1965–66), which co-starred Hal Buckley, Joel Davison and Brooke Adams, and "" (1969–72). "O.K. Crackerby!", which was about the presumed richest man in the world, replaced Walter Brennan's somewhat similar "The Tycoon" on the ABC schedule from the preceding year. Ives occasionally starred in macabre-themed productions. In 1970, for example, he played the title role in ""The Man Who Wanted to Live Forever,"" in which his character attempts to harvest human organs from unwilling donors. In 1972, he appeared as old man Doubleday in the episode "The Other Way Out" of Rod Serling's "Night Gallery", in which his character seeks a gruesome revenge for the murder of his granddaughter. Ives and Helen Peck Ehrlich were divorced in February 1971. Ives then married Dorothy Koster Paul in London two months later. In their later years, Ives and Dorothy lived in a waterfront home in Anacortes, in the Puget Sound area, and in Galisteo, New Mexico, on the Turquoise Trail. In the 1960s, he had another home just south of Hope Town on Elbow Cay, a barrier island of the Abacos in the Bahamas. In honor of Ives's influence on American vocal music, on October 25, 1975, he was awarded the University of Pennsylvania Glee Club Award of Merit. This award, initiated in 1964, was "established to bring a declaration of appreciation to an individual each year who has made a significant contribution to the world of music and helped to create a climate in which our talents may find valid expression." Ives lent his name and image to the U.S. Bureau of Land Management's "This Land Is Your Land – Keep It Clean" campaign in the 1970s. He was portrayed with the program's fictional spokesman, Johnny Horizon. Burl Ives was seen regularly in television commercials for Luzianne tea for several years during the 1970s and 1980s when he was the company's commercial spokesman. Death. Ives was a renowned pipe smoker; the cover of his first album depicted a pipe and a fishing hat with the words "Burl Ives" in between. He also smoked cigars. In the summer of 1994 he was diagnosed with oral cancer after being hospitalized for back surgery. After several operations he decided against having further surgery. In April 1995 he fell into a coma. Ives died from complications of oral cancer on April 14, 1995 at the age of 85, at his home in Anacortes, Washington; he is interred in Mound Cemetery in Hunt City Township, Jasper County, Illinois. Broadway roles. Ives's Broadway career included appearances in "The Boys From Syracuse" (1938–39), "Heavenly Express" (1940), "This Is the Army" (1942), "Sing Out, Sweet Land" (1944), "Paint Your Wagon" (1951–52), and "Dr. Cook's Garden" (1967). His most notable Broadway performance (later reprised in a 1958 movie) was as "Big Daddy" Pollitt in "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" (1955–56). Author. Ives's autobiography, "The Wayfaring Stranger", was published in 1948. He also wrote or compiled several other books, including "Burl Ives' Songbook" (1953), "Tales of America" (1954), "Sea Songs of Sailing, Whaling, and Fishing" (1956), and "The Wayfaring Stranger's Notebook" (1962). Popular culture references. "The Ren & Stimpy Shows first season episode "Stimpy's Invention" featured a record, "Happy, Happy, Joy, Joy", which parodied Ives' singing style and re-created some of his crusty dialogue from "The Big Country" and "Summer Magic". Also, Ren has a little of Ives' tone in his voice, though he's mostly inspired by Kirk Douglas and Peter Lorre. Ives is known to "Star Wars" fans for his role as the narrator in the 1984 made-for-TV film "". The Christmas film "Elf", starring Will Ferrell, features a snowman resembling the character Ives voiced in "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer", voiced by Leon Redbone. In "The King of Queens" episode "Baker's Doesn't", Arthur (Jerry Stiller) is talking to Spence (Patton Oswalt) and decides not to write a new Christmas song, but a new Hanukkah song instead because "all they have is 'Dreidel, Dreidel' and that Adam Sandler song". He says that their song has nothing new to say that hasn't been said a thousand times by Burl Ives, God rest his soul. Plus I have no idea if he's dead or alive." Director Wes Anderson included a number of songs (among them "Buckeye Jim") by Ives on the soundtrack for his 2009 film "Fantastic Mr. Fox". Popular 1980s British children's album The Runaway Train featured a recording of Ives singing the eponymous song. Filmography (selected). Films. 'Estação West" (1948)
1052700	To Be and To Have (; also the UK title) is a 2002 French documentary film directed by Nicolas Philibert about a small rural school. It was nominated as an "Out of Competition" film at the 2002 Cannes Film Festival and achieved commercial success. The film became the subject of an unsuccessful legal action by the school's teacher, who said that he and the children's parents had been misled about the film's intended audience, and that he and the children had been exploited. The documentary's title translates as "to be and to have", the two auxiliary verbs in the French language. It is about a primary school in the commune of Saint-Étienne-sur-Usson, Puy-de-Dôme, France, the population of which is just over 200. The school has one small class of mixed ages (from four to twelve years), with a dedicated teacher, Mr Lopez, who shows patience and respect for the children as we follow their story through a single school year. The film won several awards, including the 2003 Sacramento French Film Festival Audience Prize. Lawsuit. Following the film's popularity in cinemas, Lopez, the principal personality in the documentary, made an unsuccessful attempt to sue the documentary's makers for a share of the €2 million profit. One of his main claims was that the film-makers had exploited his image without authorisation. French film unions warned that if Lopez had been successful it would have spelt "the death of the documentary, undermining the crucial principle that subjects should not be paid to participate". Speaking after the court case, Lopez said that he, the children and their families had been misled by the film's production company about the purpose and intended audience of the film: "We were misled. The production company told me and the children's families that they were making a small documentary about the phenomenon of the one-teacher village school and that the film would be used primarily for educational purposes. They said it would have a restricted screening, and never discussed marketing the film to make it such a commercial venture...We had no idea that it would be in cinemas all over the country, released on DVD or distributed abroad. The court ruled that Lopez's attendance at the Cannes film festival, which he attended with some of the students,and his repeated public expressions of satisfaction at its success, constituted his tacit acceptance of the use of his image. The French media had been critical of Lopez, with one newspaper carrying the headline: "To be and to have: the teacher would rather have." However Lopez said money was never his motivation: "I'm simply trying to make the film company recognise my rights." Lopez was supported in his action by the families of most of his former pupils, some of whom stated that they themselves would also sue the film company.
1019268	Ambush at Cimarron Pass is a 1958 Western film directed by Jodie Copelan, starring Scott Brady and Clint Eastwood (third billed, later first billed upon reissue). The film also features Margia Dean, Irving Bacon, Frank Gerstle, Baynes Barron, and William Vaughn. To date, it has never been released on home video, and is the only feature film ever directed by Copelan, who was primarily a film editor. Plot. Eastwood appears as a Southern cowboy Keith Williams who is upset over having to join up with a group of Yankees who have been attacked by the same group of Indians. Most film guides include in their entry for this film a quote attributed to Eastwood, "probably the lousiest Western ever made."
1103046	Gregorio Ricci-Curbastro (; 12 January 1853 – 6 August 1925) was an Italian mathematician born in Lugo di Romagna. He is most famous as the inventor of tensor calculus, although the advent of tensor calculus in dynamics goes back to Lagrange, who originated the general treatment of a dynamical system, and to Riemann, who was the first to think about geometry in an arbitrary number of dimensions. He was also influenced by the works of Christoffel and of Lipschitz on the quadratic forms. In fact, it was essentially Christoffel’s idea of covariant differentiation that allowed Ricci-Curbastro to make the greatest progress. With his former student Tullio Levi-Civita, he wrote his most famous single publication, a pioneering work on the calculus of tensors, signing it as Gregorio Ricci. This appears to be the only time that Ricci-Curbastro used the shortened form of his name in a publication, and continues to cause confusion. Ricci-Curbastro also published important works in other fields, including a book on higher algebra and infinitesimal analysis, and papers on the theory of real numbers, an area in which he extended the research begun by Dedekind. Biography. Youth. Born in lower Romagna. His family was amongst the most ancient and noble of the families of Lugo, and by tradition deeply Catholic. When Pope Pio IX made his only journey to Romagna (1857), he stayed at Lugo at the family palace. This intense religious faith was an element which strongly characterized the whole life of Gregorio. Completing privately his high school studies at only sixteen years of age he enrolled on the course of philosophy-mathematics at Rome University (1869). The following year the Papal State fell and so Gregorio was called by his father to the city of his birth, Lugo. Subsequently he attended courses at Bologna, but after only one year he enrolled at the University - Scuola Normale Superiore - of Pisa. In 1875 he graduated in Padua in Physical Sciences and mathematics with a thesis on differential equations, entitled “On Fuches’s Research Concerning Linear Differential Equations”. During his various travels he was a student of mathematicians of the calibre of Enrico Betti, Eugenio Beltrami, Ulisse Dini and Felix Klein. Studies on absolute differential calculus. In 1877 Ricci Curbastro obtained a scolarship at the Technische Hochschule of Munich, Bavaria, and he later worked as an assistant of
1485330	Fred Ewanuick (born June 23, 1971) is a Canadian actor of Ukrainian and Italian heritage, known for his role in the television series Corner Gas as Hank Yarbo. He was also a regular in a CTV anthology series, "Robson Arms". Recently, he starred in Nickelodeon's summer 2013 TV movie, Swindle (2013 film). Early life. Ewanuick was born and raised in Port Moody, British Columbia, Canada. His first job was a paper route, but he was fired for disposing of the newspapers in dumpsters as a "time saver". He later worked in a bingo hall until his high school graduation from Port Moody Secondary School, in 1989. Career. At college he enrolled in English, Women’s Studies and Theatre courses, the only courses available, subsequently failing all three. After auditioning and being accepted into the two-year theater intensive program, he was asked to leave one year into the program. He subsequently trained for four years with acting coach Shea Hampton, with whom he continues to study in Vancouver, British Columbia, also where he resides. He made his television debut on "The New Addams Family" in 1998 as a “spinning gnome”. Following guest appearances on both Canadian and American television series such as "Cold Squad", "Monk", "Dark Angel", "The Twilight Zone", "Da Vinci's Inquest" and "Tru Calling", Ewanuick became a regular on the CTV series "Corner Gas", as Hank Yarbo. The series was a hit, making Ewanuick a familiar face in Canadian households. In 2005, he began starring simultaneously in the CTV comedy/drama series "Robson Arms" with "Corner Gas" co-star Gabrielle Miller. Ewanuick has appeared in numerous films, including "The Delicate Art of Parking" (2003), which premiered at the Montreal World Film Festival. The film won the Best Canadian Feature prize. Later, Ewanuick won a Best Actor award at Spain's Peñiscola Comedy Film Festival for the same film. In the comedy "Young Triffie" (2007), Ewanuick stars as a young Newfoundland Ranger investigating a crime. Originally, Ewanuick was not cast for the part. However, the casting staff could not agree on who to choose for the part. Ewanuick was called to audition for the part after being suggested because of his work on "Corner Gas". In late 2008, CTV commissioned a half hour sitcom pilot for a new comedy titled "Dan for Mayor", starring Fred Ewanuick as Dan. "Dan For Mayor" is written by Mark Farrell, Paul Mather, and Kevin White. Ewanuick portrays Dan, a 30-something bartender who lives and works in the fictional city of Wessex, Ontario. In August 2013, Swindle came out and he starred as Mr. Swindell, the main antagonist of the movie.
586281	Yakshiyum Njaanum is a 2010 Malayalam film by Vinayan who himself has done the story and playwright for this film. The film is produced in the banner of RG Productions India Pvt. Ltd by new face multinational industrialist Rubon Gomez. Yakshiyum Njanum is a suspense horror thriller and is director Vinayan's third film of this genre after the super hits Aakasha Ganga and Vellinakshatram. Yakshiyum Njanum is the first Malayalam film to be shot in Red One camera which has immense potential for graphics. Plot. The movie Yakshiyum Njanum runs around social circumstances in our society, with horror and fantasy.Spadikam George is the lead actor of this film.The film runs around the ghost Athira played by Meghna Raj, Syam (Gautham) plays hero. Jubil Raj (son of late Veteran Actor Rajan. P. Dev) as Renjith . Thilikan enacts the role of an astrologer, Narayanji. Mala Aravidan as Vatmeki,an evil witch. Captain Raju as Athiras father, Sudeer as Menon, Parur Ramachandran as Gounder. Syam commits a crime and flee to the estate bungalow of Minister(Spadikam George),where he hides himself. There he befriends Athira(Meghna Raj) & fall in love with her. The estate bungalow where he is staying is well known for the presence of ghosts & is rumored that people who go there will never leave the bungalow alive. Later Syam learns that Athira is a ghost who is seeking vengeance against the Minister who killed her & her lover in the past & agrees to help her to accomplish her mission.In the meanwhile the Minister plan to conduct a Pooja to destroy the ghost of Athira permanently. Athira manages to kill Valmeki with the help of Syam, but could not withstand the efforts of Narayanji & is destroyed permanently. Before vanishing she expresses one last wish to kill the Minister. Syam is arrested by the Police shortly & brought to the bungalow. There he learns about the death of his sister & his mother was imprisoned. Furious he kills the Minister thereby fulfilling the last wish of Athira. Production. The shooting of the film commenced on December 2, 2009 at various locations – Marine Drive, Vaikom, Muhamma, Cherthala, Vypin Beach, Kakkanad, Athirapally, Kuttalam, Ambasamudram, Achankovil, Thenmala, Palaruvi. Soundtrack. The soundtrack for the film was scored by débutante Sajan Madhav, with lyrics penned by Kaithapram and Vinayan. The composer is the son of Music Maestro Raveendran Master. The album featured 4 songs and the karaoke of them and it got mostly positive reviews. Reception. The film received moderate to negative reviews and was branded as a masala entertainer. The only saving grace for the film was the performance of lead actress Meghana Raj who was good with her acting and created a stir with her generous skin show and sensual scenes.
1165829	Anthony Jared Zerbe (born May 20, 1936) is an American stage, film and Emmy-winning television actor. Notable film roles include the post-apocalyptic cult leader Matthias in "The Omega Man", a 1971 film adaptation of Richard Matheson's 1954 novel, "I Am Legend"; as a corrupt gambler in 1975's "Farewell, My Lovely"; as villain Milton Krest in the 1989 James Bond film "Licence to Kill"; Rosie in "The Turning Point", and more recently Councillor Hamann in "The Matrix Reloaded" and "The Matrix Revolutions". Life and career. Zerbe was born in Long Beach, California, the son of Catherine (née Scurlock; Pomona College '30) and Arthur Lee Van Zerbe (Pomona College '29). Zerbe attended Pomona College in Claremont, California, graduating in 1958. He served in the United States Air Force from 1959 to 1961. Zerbe studied at the Stella Adler Studio in New York City. In television, he has played numerous guest roles in TV series including "Naked City", "The Virginian", "The Big Valley", "Route 66", "The Wild Wild West", "Twelve O'Clock High", "Bonanza", ', "Gunsmoke", "Hawaii Five-O", "Mannix", "It Takes a Thief", "The Chisholms", "Ironside", "Cannon", "Columbo", "The Rookies", "The Streets of San Francisco", "The Rockford Files", "The Equalizer", "Kung Fu", "Little House on the Prairie", "Dynasty", "Highway to Heaven", "Murder, She Wrote" and "Frasier". He held a starring role in "The Young Riders" and co-starred on "Harry O" in that series' second and final seasons.Zerbe was also seen as Pontius Pilate in the mini-series "A.D." and as General Grant in '. He is the former artistic director of "Reflections, A New Plays Festival" at the Geva Theatre in Rochester, New York, which is currently touring the United States in "Behind the Broken Words", a performance of contemporary poetry, comedy and dramatic works with fellow actor Roscoe Lee Browne. Zerbe also continues to perform in a project, "Prelude to Lime Creek", with poet and lyricist Joe Henry. In 1976, Zerbe won an Emmy Award for Outstanding Continuing Performance By a Supporting Actor in a Drama Series for his role as Lieutenant K.C. Trench in the private detective series "Harry O". In 1981, he played eldest brother Ben in a Broadway revival of "The Little Foxes". Personal life. He married actress Arnette Jens, sister of actress Salome Jens, on October 7, 1962, and they have a daughter, Jennet Zerbe.
1163542	Natalie Schafer (November 5, 1900 – April 10, 1991) was an American actress, best known as Eunice "Lovey" Wentworth Howell on CBS's sitcom "Gilligan's Island" (1964–67). Early life and career. Born in Red Bank, New Jersey, Natalie Schafer was the eldest child of Jennie Elizabeth (née Tim) and Charles Emanual Schafer.She began her career as an actress on Broadway before moving to Los Angeles in 1941 to work in films. Schafer appeared on Broadway in seventeen plays between 1927 and 1959, often playing supporting roles. Most of these appearances were in short-run plays, with the exceptions of "Lady in the Dark" (1941–1942), "The Doughgirls" (1942–1944), and "Romanoff and Juliet" (1957–1958). She was also seen in a revival of "Six Characters in Search of an Author", directed by Sir Tyrone Guthrie (1955–1956). She also appeared in stock and regional productions of plays. Schafer appeared in many films, usually portraying beautiful sophisticates, but she is best known for the situation comedy "Gilligan's Island", playing the role of the millionaire's wife, Eunice "Lovey" Wentworth Howell. She reprised her role in the made-for-TV spin-off films that were made after the show's demise, along with the animated spinoff, "Gilligan's Planet", in 1982. Originally written as a humorless grande dame, Schafer worked with the writers to create a character not unlike the scatterbrain roles played in 1930s films by Mary Boland and Billie Burke. Schafer specifically suggested that the writers read the George S. Kaufman–Marc Connelly play "Dulcy" for its dizzy title-character. She was a guest star on many television series, including The Philco-Goodyear Television Playhouse ("The Sisters", with Grace Kelly, 1951), "I Love Lucy" (1954), Producers' Showcase ("The Petrified Forest", with Lauren Bacall, Humphrey Bogart, and Henry Fonda, 1955), "Guestward, Ho!" (1960), "The Beverly Hillbillies" (1964), "Mayberry RFD" (1970), "The Brady Bunch" (1974), and "Phyllis" (1976). In 1971–72, Schafer joined the cast of the CBS daytime-serial, "Search for Tomorrow" as Helen Collins, the mother of characters Wade and Clay Collins. Her final performance was given in 1990, in the television film "I'm Dangerous Tonight", opposite Anthony Perkins and Corey Parker. The actress also guest-starred, opposite William Shatner, on 1960's "Thriller" in its first season. Personal life. Schafer was married to actor Louis Calhern from 1934 to 1942; they had no children. Long after their divorce, the two appeared together in the 1956 film "Forever, Darling". During much of the 1940s and 1950s she was romantically linked to author and playwright George S. Kaufman. Schafer was legendarily secretive about her age, never even telling Calhern. 1912 was generally given as her birth year for many years, which few believed, yet her actual year of birth (which was not discerned until after her death) of 1900 shocked even her intimate friends. She was also a breast cancer survivor, a fact she withheld from her fans and friends. Her investments, particularly in real estate, made her a multi-millionaire. Differing sources state that most of this fortune was bequeathed to either her "Gilligan's Island" co-star Dawn Wells, or to care for her dogs (Wells has not commented). Wells did reveal on the talk show "Vicki!", starring Vicki Lawrence, that Schafer spent her last years living with her "Gilligan's Island" co-star, with Wells as her caretaker. Wells also revealed that one of Schafer's favorite things on "Gilligan's Island" was "falling through quicksand." The "Los Angeles Times" reported that Schafer bequeathed two million dollars to the Motion Picture and Television Hospital; the money was used to renovate the hospital's outpatient wing, which was renamed the "Natalie Schafer Wing." Death. Natalie Schafer died of cancer in her Beverly Hills home, at the age of 90. She was cremated; her ashes were scattered into the Pacific Ocean, off San Pedro's Point Fermin Light, in California.
1169584	Laura Marano (born November 29, 1995) is an American teen actress and singer. She has appeared in "Without a Trace" and "Back to You", in both instances playing the daughter of the main characters. She currently stars in the Disney Channel series "Austin & Ally" as Ally Dawson. Her older sister Vanessa Marano is also an actress. Life and career. Marano is the daughter of college professor Damiano Marano and former actress Ellen Marano. Her father is of Italian descent. Marano's first acting role was when she was five years old. Since then, she worked for a lot of productions at the Stage Door Theater. She appeared in numerous commercials and has small roles on "Ghost Whisperer", "Medical Investigation", "Huff" and "Joan of Arcadia". Her bigger roles in television have been in "Without a Trace" and other shows. She has also been heard in the animated movies "Finding Nemo" and "". She played child role of Keira Knightley's character in the film "The Jacket", and had a small flashback role in the film "Superbad". She was a regular cast member on the FOX game show, "Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?" and played the role of Gracie Carr on FOX's sitcom "Back to You". Marano has since appeared in several episodes of "The Sarah Silverman Program". Initially she was cast in the pilot episode, "Batteries", as the child version of Sarah Silverman, and the writers liked her so much they brought her back for a larger role as a girl Sarah coaches to win a beauty pageant ("Not Without My Daughter"). On the DVD commentary track, co-star Brian Posehn notes that Marano knew everyone else's lines better than they did. She has also appeared in "Dexter" as the child version of Debra Morgan. She has also played the child version of a character played by Diana Scarwid, Alice Shaw, sister of Angela Petrelli, on "Heroes". She currently plays "Ally Dawson" on the Disney Channel series "Austin & Ally". Marano revealed that she doesn’t go to school on the set of Disney Channel’s “Austin & Ally". Instead, she attends a regular high school: ""I go to an actual high school and my friends and everybody there have been so supportive [...] It’s nice when I’m not working to go to that school and be surrounded by really supportive friends."" Marano sings, dances and writes songs and hopes to perform in stage musicals in the future.
357326	Tom and Jerry in the Hollywood Bowl is a 1950 American one-reel animated cartoon and is the 52nd "Tom and Jerry" short directed by William Hanna and Joseph Barbera. The cartoon, as the title suggests, is set at the Hollywood Bowl in California, where Tom is conducting a large orchestra. The cartoon was animated by Kenneth Muse, Irven Spence, Ray Patterson and Ed Barge. It was released to theatres in September 16, 1950 and reissued in 1957. The music was scored by Scott Bradley, making use of Johann Strauss II's Overture of "Die Fledermaus." Plot. Tom enters the stage to rapturous applause, bows and starts conducting the cat orchestra to the overture of "Die Fledermaus." Jerry emerges from a mouse hole which has a Hollywood Bowl-like exterior. Jerry rushes to the podium to conduct the orchestra alongside Tom. Tom notices Jerry and attempts to flatten him with his baton, until he sees Jerry continuing to conduct the music, from Tom's baton. Tom stuffs him into his suit and continues to conduct the orchestra, but Jerry pops out from both of Tom's sleeves, then his dickie to conduct further. Tom grabs him and catapults Jerry from his baton, and Jerry lands safely on a harp, but as his eyes are closed while conducting, he doesn't realise where he is at first. When he does open his eyes, he glances angrily at Tom. He offers to dance the Du und du with Tom, and the cat dances innocently with the mouse, until Jerry sends Tom spinning into a cello. Tom gets his revenge on Jerry by offering "him" a chance to dance. He pummels and wallops Jerry around the stage and hurls him into a tuba, where he is "squirted" by the blowing of one of the orchestra members into the instrument. The attempts of both cat and mouse to get one up on each other continue, with Tom using his baton as a snooker cue to put Jerry off the podium. When Jerry pleads and begs Tom to let him conduct the orchestra, Tom uses Jerry's baton as a toothpick and throws it away. Jerry retaliates by snapping Tom's baton in half and then throwing that away, only for Tom to produce a spare baton from his pocket. He sticks his tongue at Jerry and continues to conduct. Jerry, fed up, hammers some wheels onto the podium and pushes the podium (with Tom still on it) out of the amphitheatre. Tom, unaware of what is going on, continues to conduct, as the podium travels out of town and into the road, where he is promptly flattened by a passing bus. By now, Tom is furious. He returns, with his suit ripped and his eyes blackened, and grabs Jerry by the coat-tails, and dangles him between two cymbals, which are bashed together, flattening Jerry. A flat and almost transparent Jerry floats down to the floor and pops back to his full size and structure. Enraged and deciding to sabotage the concert, Jerry grabs a saw and starts sawing underneath the floor of the orchestra, causing the feline members of the orchestra to suddenly disappear under the floor. Jerry disposes of the orchestra members, one by one, until only Tom is left to play all of the instruments while Jerry conducts and the concert ends. And of course, Jerry takes all applause and credit for himself, then he points to the "One-Man Orchestra" Tom, who is now very tired. Tom stands up then, nods... and falls down like the band of feline orchestra.
1060994	Meet the Parents is a 2000 American comedy film written by Jim Herzfeld and John Hamburg and directed by Jay Roach. Starring Robert De Niro and Ben Stiller, the film chronicles a series of unfortunate events that befall a good-hearted but hapless male nurse while visiting his girlfriend's parents. Teri Polo, Blythe Danner, and Owen Wilson also star. "Meet the Parents" is a remake of a 1992 film of the same name directed by Greg Glienna and produced by Jim Vincent. Glienna—who also played the original film's main protagonist—and Mary Ruth Clarke co-wrote the screenplay. Universal Studios purchased the rights to Glienna's film with the intent of creating a new version. Jim Herzfeld expanded the original script but development was halted for some time. Jay Roach read the expanded script and expressed his desire to direct the film but Universal declined him. At that time, Steven Spielberg was interested in directing the film while Jim Carrey was interested in playing the lead role. The studio only offered the film to Roach once Spielberg and Carrey left the project. Released in the United States and Canada on October 6, 2000 and distributed by Universal Studios, the film earned back its initial budget of $55 million in only eleven days. It went on to become one of the highest grossing films of 2000, earning over $160 million in North America and over $330 million worldwide. "Meet the Parents" was well received by film critics and viewers alike, winning several awards and earning additional nominations. Ben Stiller won two comedy awards for his performance and the film was chosen as the Favorite Comedy Motion Picture at the 2001 People's Choice Awards. The success of "Meet the Parents" inspired two film sequels, namely "Meet the Fockers" and "Little Fockers" released in 2004 and 2010 respectively. "Meet the Parents" also inspired a reality television show titled "Meet My Folks" and a situation comedy titled "In-Laws", both of them debuting on NBC in 2002. Plot. Gaylord "Greg" Focker (Ben Stiller) is a nurse living in Chicago. He intends to propose to his girlfriend Pam Byrnes (Teri Polo), a schoolteacher, but his plan is disrupted when Pam receives a call from her sister Debbie who has just become engaged and whose fiancé, "Dr. Bob" had asked Pam's father for permission before proposing. Greg and Pam travel to Pam's parents' house in Oyster Bay, Long Island, New York to attend Pam's sister's wedding. Greg hopes to propose to Pam in front of her family after receiving her father's permission. But this plan is put on hold when the airline loses his luggage, including the engagement ring. At the Byrnes' home, Greg meets Pam's father Jack (Robert De Niro), mother Dina (Blythe Danner) and their beloved cat Mr. Jinx. Jack, who is very protective of his family, does not trust Greg and criticizes his career as a male nurse, as well as anything he sees in him as a sign of weakness. In addition, Greg's casual remarks make Jack suspect him of being a marijuana smoker. Greg tries to impress the Byrnes family with champagne, but the cork explodes and destroys an urn which contains the ashes of Jack's beloved mother. Greg becomes even more uncomfortable after he learns that Pam was previously engaged to Kevin (Owen Wilson), a wealthy investment banker who is Bob's best man. Later, he receives an impromptu lie detector test from Jack and learns from Pam that her father is a retired CIA counterintelligence officer.
585033	Maryada Ramanna is a 2010 Telugu comedy thriller film directed by S. S. Rajamouli starring Sunil and Saloni Aswani in lead roles. The film is inspired from Buster Keaton's 1923 film, "Our Hospitality". This is the second film for Sunil as a hero. The film opened to favourable reviews by critics and turned out to become a super hit. "Maryada Ramanna" itself has been remade in Kannada as "Maryade Ramanna" starring Komal Kumar and Nisha Shah, in Bengali as "Faande Poriya Boga Kaande Re" starring Soham Chakraborty and Srabanti Chatterjee, and in Hindi as "Son of Sardaar" starring Ajay Devgn and Sonakshi Sinha.It is being remade in Tamil as Vallavanukku Pullum Aayudham starring Santhanam Plot. Faction feud in Rayalaseema results in the death of Ramineedu's (V. Nagineedu) brother and he, along with his two sons Mallasuri (Supreeth Reddy) and Baireddy (Venugopal), vow for revenge. Time turns 28 years and comes to Hyderabad. Here lives Ramu (Sunil), an innocent and somewhat unlucky guy whose parents are no more and is ousted out of his job. His life takes a turn with a correspondence that he has got five acres of land in his hometown in Rayalaseema region. He decides to sell that land and sets off to the village. In this process, he also meets Aparna (Saloni Aswani) who is the daughter of Ramineedu. However, much to Ramu's bad luck, he happens to be the son of the man who killed Ramineedu's brother and he ends up in their home itself. He takes advantage of a tradition of their house that not even one drop of blood should fall inside the house. Whether he comes alive out of their hands or not forms the rest of the story. Soundtrack. The audio was released at a function held at Shilpakala Vedika, Hyderabad. The launch of the audio release was webcast live on the internet, and it got a good response from internet viewers all over the world. Dasari Narayana Rao released the audio and handed over the first copy to K. Raghavendra Rao. The function was also attended by noted film fratenity like Junior NTR, Ravi Teja, Prakash Raj, VV Vinayak, Dil Raju, Prabhas, Sirivennela and other prominent cast and crew of the film. Meanwhile music director MM Keeravani's birthday was also celebrated at a star studded function. Reception. The film met with positive reviews. The critic Raghu Chaitanya from CNN-IBN said "The climax is perhaps the only drawback in the entire movie as the director opts to take the clichéd path of emotions and love. Sunil perfectly fits the bill as the innocent guy who comes back to sell his land and make money. This is a very good role for Saloni and she excels as the girl who falls for Ramu. Newcomer Nagineedu who plays the patriarch of the enemy camp is impressive and Brahmaji does a good job as Aparna's cousin. Overall, "Maryada Ramanna" is a whiff of fresh air that keeps the viewers engaged and offers them clean entertainment. SS Rajamouli emerges a winner showing that he can make good movies without huge budgets and big star cast." The Times of India gave a two and half stars explained "Comedian Sunil, who turned hero with "Andalaramudu" few years ago this time returns with another roaring comic flick and puts in a restrained performance. However, a well-designed set, great cinematography and mellifluous tunes by Keeravani takes this comic caper to a different plane." Sify which gave a verdict as "Worth a watch" further noted "Sunil would no longer look like a comedy hero. His dances are simply superb, Saloni is beautiful and holds natural sex appeal. It is unfortunate that her talents remained undetected for the last three years, but for Rajamouli, now. She performed with perfection all through the movie. Definitely, she awaits a bright future hereafter, it seems. "Maryada Ramanna" has a judicious mix of fun, thrill and suspense." Rediff gave a three stars, commented ""Maryada Ramanna" is thoroughly enjoyable. Rajamouli sure has a winner on his hands. Sunil is able to captivate the audience and Saloni looks pretty and is convincing too. Nagineedu portrays the role brilliantly. There are quite a few others like Brahmaji, Anuj Gurwara and Rao Ramesh who perform well." Box office. The film grossed in its first weekend of release in the United States. The film collected a share of (after tax and theatre rentals) within 7 days in India. Over all the film managed to gross about and was one among the top grossers of the year 2010.
1061255	Raging Bull is a 1980 American biographical sports drama film directed by Martin Scorsese, produced by Robert Chartoff and Irwin Winkler and adapted by Paul Schrader and Mardik Martin from Jake LaMotta's memoir "". It stars Robert De Niro as Jake LaMotta, an Italian American middleweight boxer whose self-destructive and obsessive rage, sexual jealousy, and animalistic appetite destroyed his relationship with his wife and family. Also featured in the film are Joe Pesci as Joey, La Motta's well-intentioned brother and manager who tries to help Jake battle his inner demons; and Cathy Moriarty as his abused wife. The film features supporting roles from Nicholas Colasanto, Theresa Saldana and Frank Vincent. Scorsese was initially reluctant to develop the project, though he eventually came to relate to La Motta's story. Schrader re-wrote Martin's first screenplay, and Scorsese and De Niro together made uncredited contributions thereafter. Pesci was an unknown actor prior to the film, as was Moriarty, who was suggested for her role by Pesci. During principal photography, each of the boxing scenes was choreographed for a specific visual style and De Niro gained approximately to portray La Motta in his later post-boxing years. Scorsese was exacting in the process of editing and mixing the film, expecting it to be his last major feature. After receiving mixed initial reviews (and criticism due to its violent content), it went on to garner a high critical reputation and now to a very large extent is regarded among the greatest films ever made, including by Roger Ebert of the "Chicago Sun-Times", Gene Siskel of the "Chicago Tribune", British film historian Leslie Halliwell, the American Film Institute, "Time", "The New York Times", "Variety", "Entertainment Weekly", "Empire", "Total Film", "Film 4", and BFI's "Sight and Sound." It was listed in the National Film Registry in 1990, its first year of eligibility. Plot. In a brief scene in 1964, an aging, overweight Italian American, Jake LaMotta (Robert De Niro), practices a comedy routine. The rest of the film then occurs in flashback. In 1941, LaMotta is in a major boxing match against Jimmy Reeves, where he received his first loss. Jake's brother Joey LaMotta (Joe Pesci) discusses a potential shot for the middleweight title with one of his Mafia connections, Salvy Batts (Frank Vincent). Some time thereafter, Jake spots a 15-year-old girl named Vickie (Cathy Moriarty) at an open-air swimming pool in his Bronx neighborhood. He eventually pursues a relationship with her, even though he is already married. In 1943, Jake defeats Sugar Ray Robinson, and has a rematch three weeks later. Despite the fact that Jake dominates Robinson during the bout, the judges surprisingly rule in favor of Robinson and Joey feels Robinson won only because he was enlisting into the US Army the following week. By 1947, Jake marries Vickie. Jake constantly worries about Vickie having feelings for other men, particularly when she makes an off-hand comment about Tony Janiro, Jake's opponent in his next fight. His jealousy is evident when he brutally defeats Janiro in front of the local Mob boss, Tommy Como (Nicholas Colasanto), and Vickie. As Joey discusses the victory with journalists at the Copacabana, he is distracted by seeing Vickie approach a table with Salvy and his crew. Joey speaks with Vickie, who says she is giving up on his brother. Blaming Salvy, Joey viciously attacks him in a fight that spills outside of the club. Como later orders them to apologize, and has Joey tell Jake that if he wants a chance at the championship title, which Como controls, he will have to take a dive first. In a match against Billy Fox, after briefly pummeling his opponent, Jake does not even bother to put up a fight. He is suspended shortly thereafter from the board on suspicion of throwing the fight, though he realizes the error of his judgment when it is too late. He is eventually reinstated, and in 1949, wins the middleweight championship title against Marcel Cerdan. A year later, Jake asks Joey if he fought with Salvy at the Copacabana because of Vickie. Jake then asks if Joey had an affair with her; Joey refuses to answer, insults Jake, and leaves. Jake directly asks Vickie about the affair, and when she hides from him in the bathroom, he breaks down the door, prompting her to sarcastically state that she had sex with the entire neighborhood (including his brother, Salvy, and Tommy Como). Jake angrily walks to Joey's house, with Vickie following him, and brutally beats Joey in front of his wife and children. After defending his championship belt in a brutal fifteen round bout against Laurent Dauthuille in 1950, he makes a call to his brother after the fight, but when Joey assumes Salvy is on the other end and starts insulting and cursing at him, Jake says nothing and hangs up. Estranged from Joey, Jake's career begins to decline slowly and he eventually loses his title to Sugar Ray Robinson in their final encounter in 1951.
1163781	Jane Powell (born Suzanne Lorraine Burce; April 1, 1929) is an American singer, dancer and actress. After rising to fame as a singer in her home state of Oregon, Powell was signed to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer while still in her teens. Once there, the studio utilized her vocal, dancing and acting talents, casting her in such musicals as "Royal Wedding", with Fred Astaire, "A Date with Judy", with friend Elizabeth Taylor, and "Seven Brides for Seven Brothers", with Howard Keel. In the late 1950s, her film career slowed, only to be replaced with a busy theater and television career. As of 2010, Powell lives with her fifth husband, former child star Dickie Moore, in New York City and Connecticut, and is still active in television and theater. Early years. The only child born to Paul E. Burce (a Wonder Bread employee) and Eileen Baker Burce (a housewife) in Portland, Oregon, Powell began dance lessons at the age of two. Powell was born a brunette, with straight hair. In an attempt to liken her appearance to Shirley Temple, Powell's mother took her to get her first perm the same year she began dance lessons. It wasn't until she starred in Technicolor pictures that she became a blonde. At five, she appeared on the children's radio program "Stars of Tomorrow". She also took dance lessons with Agnes Peters, and it was there that the Burce family met Scotty Weston, a talent scout and dance instructor. He convinced the family to move to Oakland for Powell to take dance lessons, in hopes of her being discovered. However, Weston's lessons were held in a large, dark, damp ballroom packed full of other starlet hopefuls, and after three months of living in a hotel room and eating meals cooked on a hot plate, the family moved back to Portland. Paul Burce had quit his job of 14 years to move to Oakland, and was unable to get it back when they returned. The family moved into an apartment building owned by friends, and Paul soon became the manager after the friends left. While there, and while helping her father take the garbage out, Powell would sing. Tenants insisted that Powell should take lessons, and after saving their money, began singing lessons for her. At 12, Powell had her career taken over by a local promoter, Carl Werner, who helped her get selected as the Oregon Victory Girl. She traveled around the state for two years, singing and selling victory bonds. It was during this time that she first met Lana Turner. Powell presented her with flowers and sang for her. Years later, when they met again at MGM, Turner did not remember her. According to Powell, even after meeting her many times, Turner never remembered who she was. During her time as the Oregon Victory Girl, Powell had two weekly radio shows. During the first, she sang with an organ accompaniment, and during the second, she sang with an orchestra and other performers. She had attended Beaumont Grade School in Portland and Grant High School. During the summer of 1943, Paul and Eileen Burce took their daughter on vacation to Hollywood. There, she appeared on Janet Gaynor's radio show "Hollywood Showcase: Stars over Hollywood". The show was a talent competition, and among the other contestants were Kathie Lee Gifford's mother, Joan Epstein. Powell won the competition, and soon auditioned with Louis B. Mayer at MGM as well as David O. Selznick. Without even taking a screen test, Powell was then signed to a seven-year contract with MGM. Within two months, Powell had been loaned out to United Artists for her first film, "Song of the Open Road". Powell's character in "Song of the Open Road" was named Jane Powell, and it was from this that her stage name was taken. In 1945, Powell sang "Because" at the wedding of Esther Williams and Ben Gage. MGM years. Within her first few years at MGM, Powell made six films, appeared on radio programs, performed in theatre productions (including "The Student Prince") and even sang at the inauguration ball for President Harry S. Truman on January 20, 1949. When not making films, Powell traveled to theaters around the country doing a vaudeville act, which she hated. Powell's charm and spunk made her stand out in her follow-up vehicle "Three Daring Daughters", originally titled "The Birds and the Bees", in which she co-starred with Jeanette MacDonald, who took the young performer under her wing. The film proved another hit and she was given top billing in a string of Joe Pasternak-produced musicals including "A Date with Judy" (1948) with schoolmate Elizabeth Taylor. She made "Luxury Liner", a 1948 romantic musical comedy film, and "Nancy Goes to Rio" (1950) with Ann Sothern. Powell worked side by side with Fred Astaire in "Royal Wedding" (1951), when she was brought in to replace June Allyson, who had become pregnant, and then Judy Garland, who dropped out due to illness. According to film historian Robert Osborne, in a six-minute scene in the movie, Powell and Astaire match witty banter, sing and dance in a performance that showcased the actress's energy and talent. "We can also see her comic ability, in that number", Osborne said. "She's hilarious—chewing gum, swinging her hips, and acting like a 'tough broad'. It's too bad MGM didn't capitalize more on her comedic side." Her best-known film is probably "Seven Brides for Seven Brothers" (1954), opposite Howard Keel, which gave her the opportunity to play a more mature character than previous films. Her other films include: "Rich, Young and Pretty" (1951), "Small Town Girl" (1953), "Three Sailors and a Girl" (1953), "Athena" (1954), "Deep in My Heart" (1954), "Hit the Deck" (1955), and "The Girl Most Likely" (1957). In 1956 Powell recorded a song, "True Love", that rose to 15 on the Billboard charts and 107 on the pop charts for that year, according to the Joel Whitburn compilation. This was her only single to make the charts. In 1956, Powell performed the song "I'll Never Stop Loving You" at the 28th Academy Awards. Stage roles. Her roles include the touring productions of "Unsinkable Molly Brown", "Most Happy Fella", "The Boy Friend", "Brigadoon", "The Sound of Music", "Oklahoma!", "My Fair Lady", "Carousel", "Meet Me in St. Louis", "Peter Pan", "The Girl Next Door and How She Grew", and "Irene", in which she made her Broadway debut, following Debbie Reynolds in the title role. She and Howard Keel also appeared on stage together in a revival of "Seven Brides for Seven Brothers", "I Do! I Do!" and "South Pacific". Powell also toured in 1964 in a musical review entitled, "Just 20 Plus Me!" It was done to a recorded track and featured Powell with 20 handsome "chorus boys". Asked after the performance if the production was going to be made available on a commercial recording, she said simply, "No." In the early 1980s she toured in the comedies "Same Time, Next Year", "The Marriage-Go-Round", and "Chapter Two". In 1996 and 1997 she appeared in the off-broadway production "After-Play". She also performed the role of the Queen in Rodgers & Hammerstein's "Cinderella" at New York City Opera. In 2000 she appeared in the off-Broadway production "Avow", for which she received great reviews for a role which showed off her excellent comedic timing. Television. During the 1950s and 1960s Powell appeared regularly on television. These credits included guest spots on nearly all the major variety shows of the period such as "The Perry Como Show", "The Andy Williams Show", "The Kraft Music Hall", Frank Sinatra, "The Ed Sullivan Show," "The Hollywood Palace," "The Red Skelton Show", Eddie Fisher, "The Dinah Shore Show", "The Dean Martin Show", The Smothers Brothers, Jonathan Winters, "This is Tom Jones", "The Garry Moore Show", "The Jerry Lewis Show" and "The Judy Garland Show". She twice appeared as one of the "What's My Line?" Mystery Guests on the popular Sunday night CBS-TV program. She also appeared as a guest panelist on "What's My Line?" and on the ABC musical quiz program, "Jukebox Jury". Her television specials included "Meet Me in St. Louis", "Young at Heart", "Feathertop", "The Danny Thomas Show 1967", "The Victor Borge Show", "Ruggles of Red Gap" on Producers' Showcase and "Hooray for Love". Dramatic guest spots included both "The Dick Powell Show" and "The June Allyson Show". She also had a failed pilot for a television sitcom called "The Jane Powell Show". Powell was a regular guest on a TV variety shows in Australia when she visited there to perform her nightclub act. She also had a one-off TV special there in 1964. In the 1970s, she appeared in three TV movies "Wheeler and Murdoch", "The Letters" and "Mayday at 40,000 Feet!". In the 1980s she again guested on "The Love Boat" and "Fantasy Island". Another guest spot was on "Murder She Wrote". In 1985 she started a 9-month run in the daytime soap "Loving" playing a tough mother and business woman. At the end of the 1980s and the beginning of the 1990s she also had a regular guest spot on "Growing Pains" (playing Alan Thicke's mother). She was a temporary replacement on "As The World Turns" for Eileen Fulton as Lisa Grimaldi in 1991, 1993, and 1994. In 2000 she appeared in two TV movies in supporting roles in "The Sandy Bottom Orchestra" and "Perfect Murder, Perfect Town". Her last major TV appearance was a guest spot on "" in 2002. She has also appeared on numerous TV Talk shows and co-hosted "The Mike Douglas Show" in 1970. Currently. Powell lives in Manhattan and (since 1985), in Wilton, Connecticut, with her fifth husband, former child actor Dick Moore. They met when Moore interviewed Powell for a book on child actors. She is a member of the Board of Trustees for the Actors' Fund of America, and still acts and performs to the present day, most recently in a 2002 episode of "". In 2003, she made a return to the stage as Mama Mizner in the Stephen Sondheim musical "Bounce". Despite Powell's great reviews in the part, "Bounce" was not critically successful and did not move to Broadway. For one evening, she returned to her hometown, Portland, Oregon, narrating Sergei Prokofiev's "Peter and the Wolf" with Pink Martini on December 31, 2007. She also appeared on March 9, 2008, with Pink Martini at Avery Fisher Hall in New York City; she sang a duet of "Aba Daba Honeymoon" with lead singer China Forbes. In March 2009 she appeared and sang "Love is Where You Find It" in a show in which Michael Feinstein celebrated Movie Musicals and MGM Musicals in particular. She performed again with Pink Martini at the Hollywood Bowl on September 10, 2010. Jane filled in as "guest host" on Turner Classic Movies for Robert Osborne while he was on medical leave July 17–23, 2011. Personal life. She has three children from her first two marriages, and has been married five times in total. Her first marriage was to former figure skater Gearhardt "Geary" Anthony Steffen. He was a former skating partner to Sonja Henie, turned insurance broker. They married on November 5, 1949, and divorced on August 6, 1953. They had two children, Gearhardt Anthony "G.A." (pronounced Jay) Steffen III (born July 21, 1951) and Suzanne "Sissy" Ilene Steffen (born November 21, 1952). Friend and fellow actress Elizabeth Taylor served as one of her bridesmaids, with Powell returning the favor during Taylor's 1950 wedding to Conrad "Nicky" Hilton. On November 8, 1954, Powell married Patrick W. Nerney, an automobile executive nine years her senior, in Ojai, California. Nerney had previously been married to actress Mona Freeman, with whom he had a daughter, also named Mona. Daughter Lindsey Averill Nerney (Powell states she named her for the California-based olive processor) was born from the union on February 1, 1956. The couple divorced in 1963. A Republican, she sang the National Anthem at the 1956 Republican National Convention.
1063645	Jason Nathaniel Behr (born December 30, 1973) is an American film and television actor. He first starred in the American television series "Roswell", for which he was twice nominated for a Saturn Award, followed by roles in the films "The Shipping News" and the American remake of the Japanese horror film "The Grudge". Behr has also had a series of guest appearances in various television shows like "Step by Step", "The Profiler", "7th Heaven", "Buffy the Vampire Slayer", "JAG" and had a recurring role in the American television series "Dawson's Creek". Early life. Behr, the second of four boys, was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on December 30, 1973, to Patricia Ann Steiner and David Behr. After his parents' divorce, Patricia moved her sons back to Richfield, where Jason attended St. Richards Elementary, a private grade school. Behr first started acting at the age of five when he participated in a school play as a sunflower. By age eight he was doing commercials for Stomper Trucks and modeling for local department stores. Behr continued to perform throughout his school years. In 1992 he graduated from Richfield Senior High School, in Richfield, Minnesota. At the age of 19, after a chance meeting with Hollywood manager Marvin Dauer in Minneapolis, Behr moved to Los Angeles. In his early acting career, he appeared in over 75 commercials, and in 1995 landed the role of Tyler Baker in the racy Showtime comedy series "Sherman Oaks". It ran for two seasons until it was cancelled in early 1997. Career. After "Sherman Oaks", Behr had a series of guest appearances in various television shows ("Step by Step", "The Profiler", "7th Heaven", "Buffy the Vampire Slayer", "JAG"). He was cast in the ABC series "Push", but the ill-fated show only aired a few times before being cancelled. Then Behr picked up a recurring role as the character Chris Wolfe in The WB's series "Dawson's Creek". While filming the show in North Carolina, Jason read the script for a pilot called "Roswell High" — later shortened to "Roswell" — and felt an immediate affinity for the lead alien, Max Evans. "Roswell" had a moderately successful run on The WB for two seasons, then moved to UPN for its third and final season. While the show never hit it big in the ratings, the series had an extremely loyal fan base. Since "Roswell", Behr has taken on a variety of roles in independent films such as: Unsu Lee's "Happily, Even After"; Jefery Levy's "Man of God", and Rebecca Cook's "Shooting Livien". In 2001 he played Dennis Buggit in Lasse Hallstrom's "The Shipping News", co-starring with Kevin Spacey, Judi Dench, Julianne Moore, and Cate Blanchett. He made a guest appearance in Buffy the Vampire Slayer in 1998, and was later reunited with leading actress Sarah Michelle Gellar in the hit Japanese/American film collaboration "The Grudge". His two most recent film appearances were in the Korean CGI dragon fantasy "D-War" and Lions Gate's reinvention of the werewolf tale, "Skinwalkers". In the spring of 2006, Behr wrapped the CBS dramatic pilot, "The Way", about a powerful New England family that uses witchcraft to further its business enterprises. Jason plays Michael Warden, the show's male lead, one of the family's children who is at the center of a sibling power rivalry. Jason is in good company with fellow castmates who include, Jane Alexander, Julia Ormond, Peter Strauss, Will Patton, and Andrew McCarthy. As of May 17, 2006, CBS announced its fall lineup — and "The Way" was not picked up. In May 2006, Behr wrapped "Senseless", filmed in and around Glasgow, Scotland, for Matador Pictures, Circle of Confusion, Shoreline Entertainment, and in association with Plum Films; a dark chiller written by Simon Hynd, based on the book of the same name by Stona Fitch. Once again, Jason takes the lead, playing Eliott Gast, an American economist who is abducted in Europe by a shadowy anti-globalization group. Behr starred in the thriller "The Tattooist", which cast him as a tattoo artist who becomes fascinated by the Samoan tatau tradition, but his desire to learn the ancient skill brings him into conflict and danger with the island mysticism and a deadly spirit is released as a result. The film was commercial director Peter Burger's feature film debut. Filming started in Auckland, New Zealand, in September 2006, and finished in early November 2006. It was released in New Zealand on 30 August 2007. In April 2007, Behr began shooting his new film project "Frost" (since renamed "The Last International Playboy"). The film made its debut at the Gen Art film festival in New York City in April 2008, with its nationwide theatrical release on June 12, 2009. Personal life. Jason previously dated his "Roswell" co-star Katherine Heigl. While shooting "The Grudge" in Japan, he met actress KaDee Strickland, whom he married November 10, 2006, in Ojai, California. On May 30, 2013, the couple announced their first child was due in the fall.
582554	Darshan Jariwala (born September 29, 1957) is a Gujarati film, television and stage actor. He won the National Film Award for Best Supporting Actor for "Gandhi, My Father". He was seen as Cheddilal Chaturvedi in the show "Saas Bina Sasural" which aired on Sony Entertainment Television (India) between October 18, 2010 to September 6, 2012. Biography. Jariwala is son of veteran Gujarati actress Leela Jariwala (a contemporary of Dina Pathak). He has acted in films as well as on Indian television. One of his most remembered Gujarati TV serials is "Narasimha Mehta", the celebrated poet and disciple of Lord Krishna. His role of Mahatma Gandhi in the 2007 film "Gandhi, My Father" put him on the international map. His Gujarati plays include "Hatheli Par Baat Baaki", "Patro Mitro", "Mulraj Mansion" and "Andhalo Pato". He acted in a Hindi play "Uncle Samjha Karo" and in English theatre "Going Solo 2". He has acted in Hindi films like "Honeymoon Travels Pvt Ltd", "Guru", and "Aap Ka Suroor". Feroz Abbas Khan (director of "Gandhi, My Father" and a veteran theatre personality) had approached him for Gandhi's role in his famous play "Mahatma v/s Gandhi". But due to date problems, the actor had to let go of the project. However, Feroz was bent on casting him as Gandhi and again approached him for "Gandhi, My Father", which finally materialized. Personal life. In 1980 he married Indian television personality Apara Mehta with whom he has one daughter. They had another marriage together in 1981 again when their parents decided to do the marriage in grand scale. They have been living separately for long time due to the personal differences but they are not officially divorced.
1105091	__NOTOC__ Cornelius (Cornel) Lanczos (, ) (until 1906: "Löwy (Lőwy) Kornél") was a Hungarian mathematician and physicist, who was born on February 2, 1893, and died on June 25, 1974. He was born in Székesfehérvár to Karl Löwy (Lőwy Károly) and Adél Hahn. Lanczos' Ph.D. thesis (1921) was on relativity theory. In 1924 he discovered an exact solution of the Einstein field equation, which represents a cylindrically symmetric rigidly rotating configuration of dust particles. This was later rediscovered by Willem Jacob van Stockum and is known today as the van Stockum dust. It is one of the simplest known exact solutions in general relativity, and is regarded as an important example, in part because it exhibits closed timelike curves. Lanczos served as assistant to Albert Einstein during the period of 1928–29. He did pioneering work along with G.C. Danielson on what is now called the fast Fourier transform (FFT, 1940), but the significance of his discovery was not appreciated at the time, and today the FFT is credited to Cooley and Tukey (1965). (As a matter of fact, similar claims can be made for several other mathematicians, including Carl Friedrich Gauss.) Working in Washington DC at the U.S. National Bureau of Standards after 1949, Lanczos developed a number of techniques for mathematical calculations using digital computers, including: In 1962, Lanczos showed that the Weyl tensor, which plays a fundamental role in general relativity, can be obtained from a tensor potential which is now called the Lanczos potential. Lanczos resampling is based on a windowed sinc function as a practical upsampling filter approximating the ideal sinc function. Lanczos resampling is widely used in video up-sampling for digital zoom applications. Lanczos was an outstanding physics teacher. Books such as "The Variational Principles of Mechanics" (1949) show his explanatory ability and enthusiasm for the subject. During the McCarthy era, Lanczos came under suspicion for possible Communist links. In 1952, he chose to leave the U.S. and move to the School of Theoretical Physics at the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies in Ireland, where he succeeded Schrödinger. When at D.I.A.S. he wrote the classic book, "Applied Analysis" (1956). According to a short speech delivered Oct 1, 2010 during Lanczos' induction to the NIST Portrait Gallery of Distinguished Staff, his daughter-in-law described his return to Hungary in 1939 from his then-position at Purdue University, when he attempted to convince his family to return to the US with him due to the anti-Jewish Nazi threat. His wife was too ill to travel, and died several weeks later from tuberculosis. He was only able to extricate his 5 year old son and return to the US just before the war began. When the Nazis purged Hungary of Jews in 1944, only his aunt and a nephew survived. That son married, moved to Seattle and raised two sons. Upon hearing of the birth of his first grandson by letter while in Ireland, he replied in his own letter that the boy "was proof that Hitler did not win."
152788	Ezra Matthew Miller (born September 30, 1992) is an American actor, known for his roles as Vincent "Vinnie" Rizzo, Jr. in "City Island" (2009), Elliot Hellman in "Another Happy Day" (2011), and the titular character of "We Need to Talk About Kevin" (2011). He starred in the 2012 teen drama "The Perks of Being a Wallflower", with Logan Lerman and Emma Watson, and has signed on to play the role of Léon Dupuis in Sophie Barthes' adaptation of the Gustave Flaubert novel "Madame Bovary". Early life. Miller was born and raised in Wyckoff, a community in Bergen County, New Jersey. His mother, Marta, is a modern dancer. His father, Robert S. Miller, was senior vice president and managing director of Walt Disney Company's adult book publishing division, Hyperion Books, and is a publisher at Workman Publishing. Miller has two older sisters, Saiya and Caitlin. He considers himself Jewish, and "spiritual" (his father is Jewish and his mother is from a Christian background). When he was six, Miller started to train as an opera singer, to help him overcome a speech impediment. He has sung with the Metropolitan Opera. He performed in the U.S. premiere of Philip Glass’s contemporary opera "White Raven". He attended Rockland Country Day School and The Hudson School, dropping out at sixteen, after the release of his film "Afterschool". Career. Miller began his film career in 2008 with the Antonio Campos’s "Afterschool", in which he played a teenager at a boarding school. After that, Miller appeared in "City Island" (2009), with Andy Garcia, Julianna Margulies, and Steven Strait, and co-starred in "Beware the Gonzo" and "Every Day", both of which premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival. Miller next appeared in the BBC Films movie "We Need to Talk About Kevin" with John C. Reilly and Tilda Swinton, which was directed and adapted by Lynne Ramsay from American author Lionel Shriver's 2003 novel of the same name. The film became a Cannes Film Festival sensation, winning critical acclaim. Miller also acted as Damien on the Showtime's hit comedy television program "Californication". He appeared on "Royal Pains" as Tucker Bryant for two seasons. His most recent role was Patrick, in the movie adaptation of the novel "The Perks of Being a Wallflower", opposite Logan Lerman and Emma Watson. The film was released on September 21, 2012. Miller is a drummer and a singer in a New York-based band called Sons of an Illustrious Father. Personal life. Miller has described himself as queer. He has stated "The way I would choose to identify myself wouldn’t be gay. I’ve been attracted mostly to ‘shes’ but I’ve been with many people and I’m open to love wherever it can be"; and that he has "a lot of really wonderful friends who are of very different sexes and genders. I am very much in love with no one in particular". He has also detailed, "I've had many, you know, 'happy ending sleepovers' in my early youth ... my period of exploration—I think that's essential. Anyone who hasn't had a gay moment is probably trying to avoid some confrontation with a reality in their life".
1068425	Michael Bacall (born Michael Stephen Buccellato; April 19, 1973) is an American screenwriter and actor, known for having co-written the films "Scott Pilgrim vs. the World", "21 Jump Street", and "Project X". Life and career. Bacall was born in Los Angeles, California, to a family of Italian descent. He acted in movies and television from an early age. Turning to writing in the 2000s, he co-wrote and co-starred in "Manic". As of 2007, Bacall has sold a number of scripts to major studios, including "Psycho Funky Chimp" and "In Search of Captain Zero".
1054445	Billy Drago (born September 18, 1946) is an American actor known for his roles as villains in television and motion pictures. Personal life. Drago was born William Eugene Burrows in Hugoton, Kansas to William and Gladys Burrows. He took his grandmother's maiden name as his stage name to keep from being confused with another actor. After high school he worked as a stuntman at Boot Hill in Dodge City, Kansas. From there he went on to the University of Kansas. After finishing college he was a radio host for a time before joining an acting company taking him first to Canada then on to New York City. Drago is the father of actor Darren E. Burrows. He was married to actress Silvana Gallardo. Career. Drago began his acting career in 1979. His early works were in such films as "No Other Love", "Windwalker" and the Jeff Bridges vehicle "Cutter's Way". He moved forward and appeared in guest starring roles in numerous television series including: "Hill Street Blues", "Moonlighting", "Walker Texas Ranger" and "Trapper John, M.D.". Drago is perhaps best known for the role of Al Capone's henchman Frank Nitti in Brian De Palma's 1987 film "The Untouchables". Since that point he has appeared in numerous films and television roles; his more recent television résumé includes "The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr." and "The X-Files". In 1999 he played the demon Barbas in the WB series "Charmed". His character was supposed to appear in only one episode, but due to popularity with fans he was brought back for six additional episodes, appearing in five of the show's eight seasons. His ongoing film resume includes ', ', and "Pale Rider" as a hired hitman. He also was featured in Michael Jackson's 2001 short film/music video "You Rock My World". Drago also played a mysterious stranger who gave a boy a special key in the Mike + The Mechanics music video for "Silent Running (On Dangerous Ground)" in 1985. Drago's latest movie roles were in Gregg Araki's 2004 film "Mysterious Skin", the horror remake of "The Hills Have Eyes", and a rare leading role in Takashi Miike's "Masters of Horror" episode "Imprint", which Showtime pulled from the air due to "disturbing content."
1371291	Nicola Pagett (born as Nicola Mary Scott, 15 June 1945) is an English actress. She is best known for her role as Elizabeth Bellamy in the 1970s TV drama series "Upstairs, Downstairs". Early life. Born in Cairo, Egypt, Nicola Pagett spent most of her childhood out of Britain — in Hong Kong, Cyprus and Japan, the family moving with her father who worked for a major oil company. She was educated at Saint Maur International School, in Yokohama, Japan, the oldest international school in Asia. In 1962 Nicola entered Britain's Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, where she studied for two years. Career. In 1964 Nicola appeared in several productions with Worthing Repertory Company. Then her performance in the television play "Girl in the Picture" caught the attention of Sir Robert Helpmann who cast her to tour with Vivien Leigh in the stage play "La Contessa". After starring in the British series "Upstairs, Downstairs", Pagett played the title role in a 1977 BBC adaptation of "Anna Karenina" and also gave a memorable performance in David Nobbs's TV series "A Bit of a Do". She has appeared in a variety of films including "The Viking Queen" (1967), ' (1973) "Anne of the Thousand Days" (1969), "Operation Daybreak" (1975) and "Oliver's Story" (1978). In 1980 she was invited to appear in a leading role (as the young Irish bride "Conor") in the Australian mini-series "The Timeless Land". Pagett also played a lead role in the 1994 to 1995 sitcom "Ain't Misbehavin. Personal life. In 1995, while appearing in "What The Butler Saw" at the National Theatre, she began behaving erratically and was ultimately diagnosed as having acute manic depression. During this time she developed an obsession with Alastair Campbell, the then Prime Minister Tony Blair's chief press secretary, and, according to Adam Boulton, Alastair Campbell used this obsession to distract attention from negative headlines about the 1998 Labour Party Conference. She subsequently chronicled her experiences with manic depression in a 1998 book entitled "Diamonds Behind My Eyes". Family. She was married to playwright Graham Swannell; the couple had a daughter, but they divorced in 1998.
583117	Anthony Kaun Hai? (, translation: "Who is Anthony?") is a Bollywood mystery film directed by Raj Kaushal and produced by Nikhil Panchamiya. It encompasses the genres of action, thriller and comedy and stars Arshad Warsi, Sanjay Dutt, Minissha Lamba and Raghuvir Yadav in the lead. It is loosely based on the Hollywood movie "Who Is Cletis Tout?" Synopsis. Small-time crook, Champak Chaudhary alias 'Champ' (Arshad Warsi) forges passports, photographs, and deeds in Thailand. He is arrested by the police, tried and sentenced to six months in jail. This is where he meets a supposedly mute and deaf inmate, Raghu Sharma (Raghuvir Yadav), serving a life sentence for stealing diamonds. Champ finds out that Raghu is not deaf nor mute and offers him a share if he springs him out of prison; Champ agrees. As soon as Champ's term is over, he gets discharged and prepares forged release documents for Raghu and gets him 'legally' out of jail.
804995	H. Igor Ansoff (December 12, 1918 – July 14, 2002) was a Russian American, applied mathematician and business manager. He is known as the father of Strategic management. Ansoff was born in Vladivostok, Russia, in 1918. He emigrated to the United States with his family and graduated from New York City's Stuyvesant High School in 1937. Ansoff studied general engineering at the Stevens Institute of Technology and continued his education there, receiving his Master of Science degree in the Dynamics of Rigid Bodies. Following Stevens Institute, he studied at Brown University where he received a Doctorate in applied mathematics with a major in Mathematical Theory of Elasticity and plasticity and a minor in Vibration. After coming to California he joined UCLA in the Senior Executive Program. He was a distinguished professor at United States International University (now Alliant International University) for 17 years, where several institutes continue his work in strategic management research. During World War II, he was a member of the U.S. Naval Reserve, and served as a liaison with the Russian Navy and as an instructor in physics at the U.S. Naval Academy. Professionally, Ansoff is known worldwide for his research in three specific areas: Marketing and MBA students are usually familiar with his Product-Market Growth Matrix, a tool he created to plot generic strategies for growing a business via existing or new products, in existing or new markets. He has consulted with hundreds of multinational corporations including, Philips, General Electric, Gulf, IBM, Sterling and Westinghouse. To honor his body of work, the prestigious Igor Ansoff Award was established in 1981 in The Netherlands. The award is given for research and management in the study of Strategic Planning and Management. The Japan Strategic Management Society has also established an annual award in his name and Vanderbilt University has established an Ansoff MBA scholarship. An applied mathematician, he shifted his emphasis in the 1950s while employed by the Rand Corporation. In 1956, he was employed as planning specialist for Lockheed Aircraft Corporation where he gained practical experience in analyzing the complexities of a business environment. At Lockheed he became Vice President of Planning and Director of Diversification. He served as Professor of Industrial Administration in the Graduate School at Carnegie Mellon University (1963–1968); Founding Dean and Professor of Management at Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee (1968–1973); professor at the European Institute for Advanced Studies in Management, Brussels, Belgium (1973–1975); Distinguished Justin Potter Professor of Free American Enterprise, Graduate School of Management, Vanderbilt University (1973–1976); Professor, Stockholm School of Economics, Stockholm, Sweden (1976–1983), and Professor, United States International University, San Diego, California (1984–2001). He died of complications from pneumonia in San Diego, California, on July 14, 2002.
627973	Chips Rafferty MBE (26 March 190927 May 1971) was an iconic Australian actor. Called "the living symbol of the typical Australian", Rafferty's career stretched from the 1940s until his death in 1971, and during this time he performed regularly in major Australian feature films as well as appearing in British and American productions. He appeared in commercials in Britain during the late 1950s, encouraging British emigration to Australia. Early life. He was born John William Pilbean Goffage in Broken Hill, New South Wales to John Goffage, an English-born stock agent, and Australian-born Violet Maude Joyce. Gaining the nickname "Chips" as a school boy, Rafferty studied at Parramatta Commercial High School before working in a variety of jobs, including opal miner, sheep shearer, drover, airman and pearl diver before making his film debut in "Ants in His Pants" in 1938. At that time he was managing a wine cellar in Bond St, Sydney. Film career. Rafferty's onscreen image as a lanky, laconic bushman struck a chord with film goers and Rafferty soon became the most popular actor in Australia, appearing in such films as "Forty Thousand Horsemen", "The Rats of Tobruk", "The Overlanders" and "Eureka Stockade". Rafferty married Ellen Kathleen "Quentin" Jameson on 28 May 1941. He enlisted in the Royal Australian Air Force the next day and entertained troops. He was discharged on 13 February 1945, having reached the rank of Flying Officer. Hollywood also beckoned, and Rafferty appeared in American fare like "The Desert Rats", opposite Richard Burton; "The Sundowners", with Robert Mitchum and Deborah Kerr; and "Mutiny on the Bounty", with Marlon Brando. The most bizarre appearance was with Elvis Presley in "Double Trouble" in 1967. Initially, Rafferty was marketed in the United States as the Australian version of Cary Grant before being allowed to resume playing variations of the leathery bushman role that had served him well thus far. Rafferty also produced and wrote films for a production company, "Southern International", which he founded in 1953, although none of these reached the same level of popularity as those he appeared in for other companies. These included producing "The Phantom Stockman", producing and writing the original screenplay for "King of the Coral Sea" (1953), producing and providing the original story for "Walk Into Paradise" (1956) and producing "Dust in the Sun" (1958) and the "Ambitious One" (1959). In addition to his film work, Rafferty also guest starred in a range of Australian and American television shows, including "Gunsmoke", "The Stranger", "Skippy the Bush Kangaroo", "Tarzan", "The Monkees" and "The Wackiest Ship in the Army" (as a different character to the role that he played in the movie version). He also participated in cinema advertisements that were part of an Australian Government campaign in 1957 called: "Bring out a Briton". The campaign was launched by the government in a bid to increase the number of British migrants settling in Australia. In 1962, he was attacked by a gang of thugs near his flat in London and was taken to hospital to be treated for his injuries. Rafferty's final film role was in 1971's "Wake in Fright", where he played an outback policeman. (The movie was filmed mainly in and around Rafferty's home town of Broken Hill.) In a review of the film, a critic praised Rafferty's performance, writing that he "exudes an unnerving intensity with a deceptively menacing and disturbing performance that ranks among the best of his career". Hours before he died, Rafferty was offered a prominent role in the film "The Day the Clown Cried" by Jerry Lewis. The film has never been completed or officially released, and is apparently unlikely ever to be. Death. Rafferty collapsed and died of a heart attack while walking down a Sydney street at the age of 62 shortly after completing his role in "Wake in Fright". His wife Quentin predeceased him in 1964 and they had no children. Honours. In the 1971 New Years' Honours, Rafferty was made a Member of the Order of British Empire (MBE) by Queen Elizabeth II for his services to the performing arts. Australia Post issued a stamp in 1974 that depicted Rafferty in recognition of his work in Australian cinema, and in March 2006, Broken Hill City Council announced that the town's Entertainment Centre would be named in honour of Rafferty. "The Oxford Companion to Australian Film" refers to Rafferty as "Australia's most prominent and significant actor of the 1940s–60s". Australian singer/songwriter Richard Davies wrote a song titled "Chips Rafferty" for his album "There's Never Been A Crowd Like This". Associations. He was also a talented artist, and as "Long John Goffage" was a leading light of the Black and White Artists' Club. He was a Freemason. Filmography. Unmade Projects. Rafferty tried to make the following projects but was unsuccessful:
572916	Darla Jean Hood (November 8, 1931 - June 13, 1979) was an American child actress, best known as the leading lady in the "Our Gang" series from 1935 to 1941. She was born in Leedey, Oklahoma, the only child of James Claude Hood and Elizabeth Davner. Her father worked in a bank and her mother was a music teacher. "Our Gang". Hood's mother introduced her to singing and dancing at an early age, taking her to lessons in Oklahoma City. Just after her third birthday, she was taken to New York City, where she was seen by Joe Rivkin, a casting director for Hal Roach Studios, who arranged a screen test. She was then taken to Culver City, California, to appear in the "Our Gang" movies. Hood played "Darla" in "Our Gang". She made her debut at age four in the 1935 film "Our Gang Follies of 1936" and was soon given a role in "The Bohemian Girl" with Laurel and Hardy. From 1935 to 1941, she continued to play in "Our Gang". She is well remembered for her coquettish character, typically the love interest of Alfalfa, Butch, or (occasionally) Waldo. One of her most memorable moments was singing "I'm in the Mood for Love" in "The Pinch Singer". Hood's final appearance in the Our Gang films is, "Wedding Worries". After "Our Gang". When she outgrew her role in "Our Gang," Hood appeared in a couple of other movies and attended school in Los Angeles. While at Fairfax High School, she organized a vocal group called the Enchanters with four boys. Shortly after graduation, the quartet was booked by producer and star Ken Murray for his famous "Blackouts", a stage variety show. The group remained with Murray's Blackouts during its long run in New York and Hollywood. Hood then went out on her own with singing engagements in nightclubs and guest appearances on TV. She was a regular on "The Ken Murray Show" from 1950 to 1951. In 1955, she was a leading lady in the act of ventriloquist Edgar Bergen. She had a hit record in 1957, "I Just Wanna Be Free", and appeared in the movie "Calypso Heat Wave" (1957) singing a duet with Johnny Desmond. She also recorded two songs with the Ray Whitaker Orchestra, "Only Yours" and "Silent Island," for RayNote Records. In January 1959, Hood released a new record, "Quiet Village." Joe Rivkin, who discovered her as a child, saw the cover and cast her in her final film role, which was also her first adult role in a movie. She played a secretary in the suspense drama "The Bat" with Vincent Price and Agnes Moorehead. Hood was a guest on such TV shows of the early 1960s as "Tell It to Groucho" and "The Jack Benny Show," where she appeared on October 30, 1962 as "Darla" in a spoof of the "Our Gang" comedies with Jack Benny (who appeared as Alfalfa), and "The" "Charlotte Peters" "Show" in St. Louis. She did singing and voice-over on TV commercials, which included Campbell Soup and Chicken of the Sea tuna. She was also featured in "The Little Rascals Christmas Special" (1979) as the voice of Spanky and Porky's Mom. She appeared in her own nightclub act at the Coconut Grove in Los Angeles, the Copacabana in New York, and the Sahara Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada. During the 1960s and 1970s, Hood attended many "Our Gang/Little Rascals" festivals and conventions, meeting and greeting various generations of fans. Death. Hood was busy organizing the 1980 "Little Rascals" reunion for the Los Angeles Chapter of The Sons of the Desert when she underwent an appendectomy at Canoga Park Hospital, Canoga Park, California. After the procedure, she died suddenly of heart failure on June 13, 1979; she was 47. An autopsy disclosed that Hood had contracted acute hepatitis from a blood transfusion given during the operation, leading to her death. Pierce Brothers Mortuary, of North Hollywood, California, handled the funeral arrangements. She was survived by her husband, Jose Granson; parents, James Claude and Elizabeth Davner Hood; a son, Brett; a daughter, Darla Jo; and a stepdaughter, Robin. The "Our Gang" community was stunned at Hood's unexpected death. Fellow "Our Gang" member Billie "Buckwheat" Thomas said, "I hate to hear it. It's a shock. She was an awfully nice person, a fine woman. We got along real good as kids." Thomas himself would die a little over a year later. During a lecture at Murray State University in 1985, George "Spanky" McFarland attributed her death to a broken heart. Hood is buried at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery in Hollywood. Personal life. Hood was married twice. Her first marriage was to insurance salesman Robert W. Decker (1949-1957). Her second was to record company executive, Jose Granson (1957-1979). She and Granson had three children. Tommy "Butch" Bond mentioned that her marriage to Granson was difficult because Granson used a wheelchair following a stroke. Darla Impostor. Vaudeville-era child actress Mollie Barron claimed to have played the character Darla in some Little Rascals films. Leonard Maltin, biographer of the Little Rascals, refuted the claim, stating that Darla Hood was the only actress to play the role of Darla.
1033879	Peter Egan (born 28 September 1946) is a British actor known for his TV roles, including the Hogarth in "Big Breadwinner Hog", the future King George IV of the United Kingdom in "Prince Regent" (1979), and smooth neighbour Paul Ryman in the sitcom "Ever Decreasing Circles" (1984–89). He is married to retired actress Myra Frances. Early life. Egan was born in London, England, the son of Doris (née Pick) and Michael Thomas Egan, who is of Irish descent. He was educated at St. George's Roman Catholic Comprehensive School, Maida Vale. He also attended the London Oratory School. Life and career. Peter Egan's first television role was as the sex-and-cinema-obsessed Seth Starkadder in a BBC serialisation of "Cold Comfort Farm" (1968). In 1969 he had come to notoriety as the acid-throwing gangster Hogarth in the controversial Granada TV series "Big Breadwinner Hog". Later he had other starring roles as John Everett Millais in the BBC serial "The Love School" (1975), and as Oscar Wilde in the serial "Lillie" (1978), starring Francesca Annis as Lillie Langtry; as Magnus Pym in the BBC dramatisation of John le Carré's "A Perfect Spy" (1987) and another BBC sitcom "Joint Account" (1989–90). He played the title role in the BBC series "Prince Regent" (1979), and was a sinister immortal Knight Templar in Michael J. Bird's BBC series "The Dark Side of the Sun" (1983). Egan also played Fothergill in the TV series "Reilly, Ace of Spies" (1983). In 1986 he had a major role in the TV series "Paradise Postponed". He also guest starred in an episode of "A Touch of Frost" ("Private Lives") in 1999. Other roles have included the character Michael Cochrane in the programme "The Ambassador" (1998), and on film as the suave secret agent Meres in TV spin-off "Callan" (1974), and the Duke of Sutherland in "Chariots of Fire" (1981). In 2007 he took the role of Victor in the film "Death at a Funeral". In 2009 Egan toured as lead Sir Hugo Latymer in Nikolai Foster's revival of Noël Coward's "A Song at Twilight". He is also the narrator for the US and UK versions of "Forza Motorsport 3" and its sequel, "Forza Motorsport 4". He also narrated the Video 125 drivers eye view 1066DC (1988), which was a cab ride in a Network Southeast class 411 4CEP EMU from Hastings to London. In 2012 he played a minor role in the Christmas special episode of ITV's "Downton Abbey", and played in Alan Bennett's "People", at the National Theatre.
467816	Cherry Crush is a 2007 drama/thriller film starring Jonathan Tucker and Nikki Reed. The film was directed and co-written by Nicholas DiBella. "Cherry Crush" premiered in Rochester, New York on February 16, 2007. The film was released on DVD on July 3, 2007. Nicholas DiBella's thriller Cherry Crush stars Jonathan Tucker as Jordan Wells, the privileged son of a successful man who gets kicked out of an exclusive prep school after his interest in photography and girls leads him to taking nude snapshots of classmates. Soon he meets a poor but attractive girl named Shay Bettencourt (Nikki Reed) who ensnares him in a web of murder and lies. Plot. Photographer Jordan Wells (Jonathan Tucker) is the son of a very wealthy family which have high expectations for him to take over his father's company. Instead, he has an infatuation with the natural beauty of a woman's naked body and engages in it by taking photos of nude models but excluding their faces for the sake of privacy, with their names known as the name of their favorite shade of lipstick. Unfortunately, the dean of his prep school finds out about his hobby and expels him. He is then transferred to a local public high school, where he then meets Shay Bettencourt, (Nikki Reed) a cello player aspiring to go to Hartley to become a cello player in a professional orchestra. When they first meet at the school library, they get into a heated intellectual argument about woman's rights concerning a book. Shay's friends are uninterested and urge her to leave, but she becomes attracted to Jordan. She mentions she knows about his past and his reasons for transferring schools and his photography hobby. They become friends and he offers to give her a ride home but when he returns to the house to visit Shay, he finds out that she does not live there at all. Jordan confronts Shay who admits to being ashamed of her low-income household which she shares with her drug addicted sister. Shay confides in Jordan that she has found a source of money for tuition at Hartley: an older married man named Wade Chandling (Frank Whaley) who frequents the country club Jordan's family attends. She says that he is going to get her a full scholarship by using some of his connections. Shay asks Jordan to photograph her and Wade in case he ever tries to back out of their deal. In exchange, Shay will allow Jordan to photograph her in any way he wants. Shay and Jordan form a sort of romantic relationship which is cut short when Shay finds out Wade is trying to back out their arrangement. Frustrated, Shay meets Wade in the woods and tries to blackmail him with the pictures Jordan took. However, Wade becomes angry and tries to attack Shay. Jordan tries to save Shay, but they both end up beating Wade to death. They then throw him into a nearby lake, attempt to cover up as much evidence as they can, and find ways to avoid implicating themselves when interviewed by detectives. Eventually, Detective Griffin (Michael O'Keefe) figures out Shay's connection to Wade's death, and tries to set up an exchange with evidence on Jordan for the money Shay stole from the dead Wade. He tries to arrest Jordan during the exchange, but Shay shoots Griffin instead. When Jordan is questioned by the police, Desiree (Julie Gonzalo), another romantic interest of Jordan, saves him by giving him an alibi. Shay tries to take the money and run away to where she'd never be found. She tries to convince Jordan to go along with her plan, but he refuses but allows Shay to have some of the money to get away. The film ends with Jordan driving away, narrating, "with a million dollars to decide what to do next."
774315	Zero Patience is a 1993 Canadian musical film written and directed by John Greyson. The film examines and refutes the urban legend of the alleged introduction of HIV to North America by a single individual, Gaëtan Dugas. Dugas, better known as Patient Zero, was tagged in the popular imagination with the blame in large measure because of Randy Shilts's history of the early days of the AIDS epidemic, "And the Band Played On". The film tells its story against the backdrop of a romance between a time-displaced Sir Richard Francis Burton and the ghost of "Zero" (the character is not identified by Dugas' name). Produced in partnership with the Canadian Film Centre, the Canada Council, Telefilm Canada and the Ontario Film Development Corporation, "Zero Patience" opened to mixed reviews but went on to win a number of prestigious Canadian film awards. The film has been the subject of critical attention in the context of both film theory and queer theory and is considered part of the informal New Queer Cinema movement. Plot summary. Victorian adventurer and sexologist Sir Richard Francis Burton (John Robinson), following an "unfortunate encounter" with the Fountain of Youth in 1892, is 170 years old and living in Toronto, Canada. Burton, now living and working as the chief taxidermist at a Museum of Natural History, is searching for a centerpiece display for an exhibit in his Hall of Contagion. He comes up with the idea of featuring AIDS and the Patient Zero hypothesis. Accepting the popular belief that Zero introduced the virus to North America, Burton sets out to collect video footage from those who knew Zero to support the hypothesis. When Zero's doctor (Brenda Kamino), mother (Charlotte Boisjoli) and former airline colleague Mary (Dianne Heatherington), who is now with ACT UP, all refuse to demonize Zero, Burton manipulates the footage to make it appear as if they do and includes doctored photographs of Zero showing signs of Kaposi's sarcoma. He presents this preliminary version to the press. The ghost of Zero (Normand Fauteux) materializes at a local gay bathhouse. No one can see or hear him, until Zero runs into Burton while Burton is spying on Zero's friend George. Zero realizes that Burton can see him, although Zero does not show up on Burton's video camera. The two strike a deal; Zero agrees to help Burton with his Patient Zero exhibit if Burton finds a way to make Zero appear. The two return to the museum where Burton makes a ridiculous attempt to seduce Zero to ensure his participation. Rejecting his advances, Zero examines some of the other exhibits (including displays on Typhoid Mary and the Tuskegee syphilis study) before finding an African green monkey, another suspected early AIDS vector. The monkey (Marla Lukofsky) angrily denounces Zero for scapegoating her just as he has been scapegoated. Zero turns to Burton and they make love. Under pressure from his director and the exhibit's drug manufacturer sponsor, Burton steals Zero's medical records in hopes of discovering new information. Zero and Burton examine an old blood sample of Zero's under a microscope and discover Miss HIV (Michael Callen), who points out that the original study that was used to label Patient Zero as the first person to bring HIV to North America did not prove any such thing, but instead helped prove that HIV was sexually transmitted, leading to the development of safer sex practices. Under this interpretation, Zero could be lauded as a hero for his candor in participating in that original study. As Burton ponders this, an unknown fluid squirts from the eye pieces of the microscope, drenching Zero and making him appear on video. He joyously declares his innocence on tape but the effect only lasts five minutes before he fades away again. Zero angrily accuses Burton of not caring for him at all and only wanting to use him for the exhibit, then storms out. Burton fails to complete the revised Patient Zero exhibit before its scheduled opening date. The museum curator substitutes the original presentation instead over Burton's protests, leading to a renewed rush of press scapegoating Zero. The night after the exhibit opens, Mary and other ACT UP members break into the Hall of Contagion and trash the exhibit. Zero returns and Burton explains that he tried to stop the exhibit. Zero forgives Burton but says he wants to disappear again completely. Zero merges with his disfigured video image and, smoking a cigarette inside the video, sets off the fire alarm. The sprinklers destroy the video player and Zero vanishes. A major subplot involves George (Richardo Keens-Douglas), a French teacher and former intimate of Zero's. George is losing his sight to cytomegalovirus and is taking a drug that is manufactured by a company that, as a member of ACT UP, George is protesting. George struggles through the film to resolve his conflicted feelings over this, his guilt over abandoning Zero during the final days of his illness and his fear that the same thing will happen to him. Cast. Real-life television journalist Ann Medina has a brief role as a television reporter. Co-producer Louise Garfield makes a cameo appearance playing a virus, co-producer Anna Stratton appears as a drug company executive and composer Glenn Schellenberg plays a bathhouse attendant. Production. John Greyson became interested in offering a counterpoint to the Patient Zero story as early as 1987, when the Patient Zero meme began entering the public consciousness following the publication of Randy Shilts's book "And the Band Played On". The book described the cluster study which led to the popular identification of flight attendant Gaëtan Dugas as the vector through which HIV was first brought to North America. It should be noted, however, that Shilts himself never claimed that Dugas was the first. In early 1991 Greyson was given a development grant for the script from the Canadian Film Centre, of which Greyson is an alumnus. Over the next year Greyson, in collaboration with Film Centre partners Louise Garfield and Anna Stratton, continued to develop the script, eventually presenting it with producer Alexandra Raffé in a workshop format. During the first half of 1992, the production team secured additional development funding from the Canada Council, Telefilm Canada and the Ontario Film Development Corporation. By June of that year the script and the songs were completed and that autumn, with funds from the Telefilm Canada and OFDC grants along with revenue from the sale of British broadcast rights to Channel 4, pre-production and casting got underway. Principal photography began in November 1992 and wrapped after five weeks. Sneak previews took place at the Seattle International Film Festival and a number of LGBT film festivals across the United States before its official debut in September 1993 at Toronto's Festival of Festivals. In dedicating the film's soundtrack album to performer and AIDS activist Michael Callen and other friends they had lost to the disease, Greyson, composer Glenn Schellenberg and producers Garfield and Stratton explained their reasons for making the film. "We wanted to explode the opportunistic myth of Patient Zero...More importantly, we wanted to celebrate the courage and sass of an international AIDS activist movement that has tirelessly fought for the rights of people living with AIDS." Critical reception. "Zero Patience" garnered mixed critical reaction. The mainstream "Austin Chronicle" cited a "murky plot, frequently weak acting and often mediocre music" while still praising the film's "spunk, humor, enthusiasm and wit." The "Washington Post" compared "Zero Patience" unfavorably to Hollywood's big-budget, big-star AIDS-themed film, "Philadelphia", claiming that the latter's protagonist, Andrew Beckett, "looked sick, dealt with his illness and allowed the audience to sympathize," unlike the "healthy hoofers" of the musical who, because they didn't look sick enough, " to deny some of the grim realities" of the disease. In a contrary favorable opinion, London's "Time Out Film Guide" praised the film for "slyly inverting popular wisdom" to "offer a sassy commentary on the epidemic of blame" and calling "Zero Patience" "a film which engages your mind as much as your heart, and leaves you laughing." Similarly, the "New York Times" lauded the film's "loopy buoyancy," praising the songs as a "bouncy stylistic hybrid of Gilbert and Sullivan, Ringo Starr, The Kinks and the Pet Shop Boys." "Zero Patience" was honored as the Best Canadian Film and Best Ontario Feature at the 1993 Cinéfest and was awarded a Special Jury Citation as Best Canadian Feature Film at the 1993 Festival of Festivals. Director Greyson and composer Glenn Schellenberg were nominated for a 1993 Genie Award for Best Original Song for the film's theme song, "Zero Patience." Queer theory. In examining the film from a queer theory perspective, author Michele Aaron cites "Zero Patience" as definitional of one of the New Queer Cinema's central attitudes, the "defof cinematic convention in terms of form, content and genre." Aaron goes on to cite the film's musical format as "further subvert[ing the ways we might expect to be 'entertained' by such serious matters as AIDS, media representation, and the legacy of moralism and sexuality." Feminist academic and AIDS video producer Alexandra Juhasz puts forth the film as "an effective critique of the silly sensationalism used in much reportage of AIDS science fights melodrama and tabloid journalism -- with melodrama and tabloid journalism." Not all such critical commentary has been positive, with openly gay film scholar Robin Wood (who saw the film when someone very close to him was in the final stages of AIDS) calling the film "misguided on the levels both of conception and execution." Soundtrack. The "Zero Patience" soundtrack was released in 1994. Produced by John Switzer, it includes all of the songs and several pieces of incidental music, along with two remixes of the film's title song.
1062074	Adrien Brody (born April 14, 1973) is an American actor and film producer. He received widespread recognition and acclaim after starring in Roman Polanski's "The Pianist" (2002), for which he won the Academy Award for Best Actor at age 29. Brody is also the only American actor to receive the French César Award. Early life. Brody was born in Woodhaven, Queens, New York, the son of Sylvia Plachy, a photojournalist, and Elliot Brody, a retired history professor and painter. Brody's father is of Polish Jewish descent; Brody's mother – who was raised as a Catholic – was born in Budapest, Hungary, the daughter of a Catholic Hungarian aristocrat father and a Czech Jewish mother. Brody was raised "without a strong connection" to Judaism or Catholicism. As a child, he performed magic shows at children's birthday parties as "The Amazing Adrien". He attended the I.S. 145 Joseph Pulitzer middle school and New York's Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts (famous as the inspiration for television's "Fame"). His parents enrolled him in acting classes to distance him from the dangerous children with whom he associated. He attended summer camp at Long Lake Camp for the Arts in the Adirondacks in upstate New York. Brody attended the Stony Brook University before transferring to Queens College for a semester. Career. Taking acting classes as a youth, by age thirteen, he appeared in an Off-Broadway play and a PBS television film. Brody hovered on the brink of stardom, receiving an Independent Spirit Award nomination for his role in the 1998 film "Restaurant" and later praise for his roles in Spike Lee's "Summer of Sam" and Terrence Malick's "The Thin Red Line". He received widespread recognition when he was cast as the lead in Roman Polanski's "The Pianist" (2002). To prepare for the role, Brody withdrew for months, gave up his apartment and his car, was left by his then-girlfriend, learned how to play Chopin on the piano, and lost 29 lbs (13 kg). The role won him an Academy Award for Best Actor, making him, at 29, the youngest actor ever to win the award, and to date the only winner under the age of 30. He also won a César Award for his performance. Brody appeared on "Saturday Night Live" on May 10, 2003, his first TV work, but he was banned from the show after giving an improvised introduction while wearing faux dreadlocks for Jamaican reggae musical guest Sean Paul (the show's producer, Lorne Michaels, is notorious for hating unscripted performances). However, the unscripted intro remains in reruns of the episode. Other TV appearances include NBC's "The Today Show" and on MTV's "Punk'd" after being tricked by Ashton Kutcher. After "The Pianist" Brody appeared in four very different films. In "Dummy" (released in 2003 but originally shot in 2000, just prior to his work in "The Pianist") he portrayed Steven Schoichet, a socially awkward aspiring ventriloquist in pursuit of a love interest (his employment counsellor). He learned ventriloquism and puppetry for the role (under the tutelage of actor/ventriloquist Alan Semok) convincingly enough to perform all of the voice stunts and puppet manipulation live on set in real time, with no subsequent post dubbing. He played Noah Percy, a mentally disabled young man, in the film "The Village", by M. Night Shyamalan, shell-shocked war veteran Jack Starks in "The Jacket", writer Jack Driscoll in the 2005 "King Kong" remake, and father-to-be Peter Whitman in "The Darjeeling Limited" by Wes Anderson. "King Kong" was both a critical and box office success; it grossed $550 million worldwide and is Brody's most successful film to date in monetary terms. Additionally, Brody played a detective in "Hollywoodland". He has also appeared in Diet Coke and Schweppes commercials as well as Tori Amos' music video for "A Sorta Fairytale". He was also in "Bullet" with Tupac Shakur and Mickey Rourke. This film was released in 1997. On January 5, 2006, Brody confirmed speculation that he was interested in playing the role of The Joker in 2008's "The Dark Knight". However, Christopher Nolan and Warner Bros. decided instead to cast Heath Ledger in the role. He was also in talks with Paramount to play Spock in J. J. Abrams "Star Trek XI", but it ultimately went to Zachary Quinto. In 2010, he starred in "Splice", a science fiction film written and directed by Vincenzo Natali. Originally a Sundance film, "Splice" was adopted by Dark Castle Entertainment and distributed by Warner Bros. Most recently, he played the star role of Royce in "Predators" (a sequel to the original "Predator"), directed by Nimród Antal and produced by Robert Rodriguez. In 2011, Brody starred in a Stella Artois beer ad called "Crying Beans," that premiered right after half-time of the Super Bowl XLV as part of Stella's "She Is a Thing of Beauty” campaign. On January 16, 2012, Brody made his runway debut as a model for Prada Men Fall/Winter 2012 show. Also in January, he was named ambassador for the Gillette Fusion ProGuide Styler which the company began marketing the following month. In December 2012, Brody attended the grand reopening of the Siam Center Shopping Mall in central Bangkok, Thailand during his tour of Angkor Wat. Personal life. In 1992, Brody was seriously hurt in a motorcycle accident in which he flew over a car and crashed head-first into a crosswalk. He spent months recuperating. He has broken his nose three times doing stunts; the most recent was during the filming of "Summer of Sam". Brody began dating Spanish actress Elsa Pataky in 2006. For Pataky's 31st birthday in July 2007, Brody purchased her a 19th-century castle in New York state. Brody and Pataky were featured at their New York home in a 35-page spread for "HELLO!" magazine in October 2008. The pair broke up in 2009. In 2010, Brody sued the "Giallo" filmmakers, alleging that they failed to pay his full salary.
1185100	Jesse McCartney (born April 9, 1987) is an American singer-songwriter, actor, and voice actor. McCartney achieved fame in the late 1990s on the daytime drama "All My Children" as JR Chandler. He later joined boy band Dream Street, and eventually branched out into a solo musical career. Additionally, McCartney has appeared on shows such as "Summerland" and "Greek." McCartney also is known for lending his voice as Theodore in "Alvin and the Chipmunks" and its sequels, as well as voicing Robin/Nightwing in "Young Justice" and Roxas and Ventus in the video games series "Kingdom Hearts" developed by Square Enix. Early life. McCartney was born on April 9 in Westchester, New York, the son of Ginger and Scott McCartney. He began performing in local community musicals at the age of seven, before joining the national tour of "The King and I" at age ten along with "Phil of the Future" star Ricky Ullman. Here he played the character of Louis. In 1998, he sang with the group Sugar Beats and can be heard on their 1998, 1999, and 2000 CD releases. Music career. 1999–2002: Dream Street. In 1999, McCartney joined the American pop boy band Dream Street, and was a member until 2002. He has described the experience as a good "stepping stone" for his solo career. The group earned a gold record with their debut CD. At fifteen, he began work on a solo career with a local band, featuring musicians Dillon Kondor (guitar), Peter Chema (bass), Katie Spencer (keyboards), Alex Russeku (drums), Karina LaGravinese (background vocals), Sharisse Francisco (background vocals), and under the management of Ginger McCartney and Sherry Goffin Kondor, who co-produced his first album, "Beautiful Soul". McCartney released his first solo EP in July 2003. The album featured three songs: "Beautiful Soul", "Don't You", "Why Don't You Kiss her". In 2004, he performed a duet with Anne Hathaway, "Don't Go Breaking My Heart", which is featured on the "Ella Enchanted" soundtrack. 2004–2006: "Beautiful Soul" and "Right Where You Want Me". McCartney's debut solo album, "Beautiful Soul", which was two years in the making, was released on September 28, 2004 in the United States and over a year later in Europe. He categorized it as a "pop record" with twists of urban. The album featured four songs that he co-wrote. "Beautiful Soul" reached number 15 on the "Billboard" 200. The album has been certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America, denoting over one million units of shipment to US retailers; it is his highest-certified album as of early 2009. As of mid-2006, the album had sold more than 1.5 million copies. The album's lead single of the same name reached number 16 on the "Billboard" Hot 100. McCartney was one of the artists to win multiple awards at the 2005 Teen Choice Awards, including Choice Crossover Artist, Choice Male Artist and Choice Breakout, Male. The following year, he won Favorite Male Singer at the Nickelodeon Kids' Choice Awards. His first headlining tour, also named Beautiful Soul, began on May 2, 2005 at the Crest Theatre in Sacramento, California. The United States portion of the tour spanned 56 stops, ending on September 10, 2005 at the Madera District County Fair in Madera, California. In the fall of 2005, McCartney toured Australia, and opened for the Backstreet Boys in Europe in the summer of 2005. His July 9 performance at California's Great America in Santa Clara, California was recorded, released as "Live: The Beautiful Soul Tour" in November 2005. After the filming of "Keith" wrapped, McCartney began working on his second album, "Right Where You Want Me", co-writing all but one of the songs featured in it. "Right Where You Want Me" is more mature than his debut, reflecting his musical and personal growth since he recorded his debut album at age 15. Released by Hollywood Records on September 19, 2006, the album reached number 14 on the "Billboard" 200. The lead single of the album, "Right Where You Want Me", began receiving airplay on July 11, 2006. Although he did not launch a full tour, he did various promotional shows in Italy and the United States. Relationship with Disney. He has contributed to numerous Disney soundtracks including "Disneymania 2", "Radio Disney Jingle Jams", "A Cinderella Story", "That's So Raven", "Stuck in the Suburbs", "Lizzie McGuire Total Party!", "Disneymania 3", "Sydney White", "Radio Disney Jams, Vol. 7", "Radio Disney Jams, Vol. 8", "DisneyMania 4", "Hannah Montana", "Radio Disney: Party Jams", "That's So Raven Too!", "Radio Disney Jams, Vol. 9", "Radio Disney Jams, Vol. 11", and "". McCartney also appeared on the Disney Channel teen sitcoms "The Suite Life of Zack & Cody" and "Hannah Montana". McCartney is also voice of Terrence in the Tinker Bell franchise. 2007–2009: Songwriting and "Departure". In the fall of 2007, McCartney co-wrote the hit song "Bleeding Love" with Ryan Tedder of OneRepublic, produced by McCartney and Tedder for McCartney's third album, but gave it away to English singer Leona Lewis for her debut album, "Spirit". The song was nominated for Record of the Year at the 2009 Grammy Awards. McCartney recorded his own version, which was released on some editions of his "Departure" album. McCartney released his third album, "Departure", on May 20, 2008 in the United States and Canada. Musically, it is a departure from his early works, showcasing more mature themes. The album has reached number 14 on the "Billboard" 200. The album's lead single, "Leavin'", was released in March 2008, and reached number 10 on the "Billboard" Hot 100, giving McCartney his highest-charting single to date. The single was certified platinum by the RIAA, selling over two million downloads on iTunes, becoming McCartney's highest-certified single as of early 2009. The second single, "It's Over", was released on August 26, 2008, and reached #62 on the Hot 100. McCartney promoted "Departure" on a co-headlining tour with Jordin Sparks, which began in August 2008 and ended in September. He also did solo shows at theaters and small venues to support the album while on tour with Sparks. McCartney's 2008 summer tourmate, "American Idol" season six winner Jordin Sparks, approached him to write some material for her. McCartney re-released "Departure" on April 7, 2009. The re-release, "Departure: Recharged", featured four new songs: "Body Language", "Oxygen", "Crash & Burn" and "In My Veins". The re-release also features a remix of "How Do You Sleep?" with rapper-actor Ludacris. The third single from the album was released from the re-release and was the remix of "How Do You Sleep?". It was much more successful than the second single, reaching #26 on the Hot 100, The fourth and final single from the album was also released from the re-release and was a new version of "Body Language" featuring T-Pain. The single reached #35 on the Hot 100. 2010–present: New album. The lead single from his fourth studio album "Have It All", "Shake", was sent to radio on September 8, 2010 and was released digitally on September 21, 2010. The song peaked at #54 on the Hot 100. On October 18, 2010, it was announced that "Have It All" would be released in January 2011. On November 30, it was announced that the album release would be pushed up to December 28, 2010, the Tuesday following Christmas. On December 3, 2010, McCartney announced through his Facebook page that he pushed the release date for the album back to early 2011. On April 7, 2011, McCartney responded to a question on his Twitter page about the delay, saying "The Release of "Have It All" has been put on hold until we hear about the outcome of Locke & Key", the television series in which he had a lead role. On November 3, McCartney said via his WhoSay page "2012 is still the magic year for the record to finally come out." On May 6, 2012, McCartney's mother said on Twitter that the replacement of the President of his label, Hollywood Records in January, 2012 is delaying the release of his album. In March 2013 issue of Glamouholic magazine that he has covered, an exclusive interview was conducted and he confirmed the release of his anticipated fourth studio album, after all the disbandments of his record label, within this year. On May 13th, it was confirmed on "On Air with Ryan Seacrest" that Jesse McCartney will be joining the Backstreet Boys & DJ Pauly D on their new tour "In a World Like This" kicking off on August 2nd, 2013. On August 13th, the singer released "Back Together " from an independent label, Eight0Eight Records. Other ventures. Acting career. McCartney appeared with The Who's Roger Daltrey in "A Christmas Carol" at Madison Square Garden. From 1998–2001, McCartney played Adam Chandler, Jr. in the ABC soap opera "All My Children", a role for which he earned two Young Artist Awards and two Daytime Emmy Award nominations. He also later starred in the short-lived series "Summerland", which aired on The WB for two seasons, playing orphaned teenager Bradin Westerly. In 2005, McCartney appeared as himself in the Disney Channel show, "The Suite Life of Zack & Cody". In 2007, he starred as himself in the Disney Channel show, "Hannah Montana". In 2008, McCartney was also featured as the voice of "Horton Hears A Who!"s JoJo McDodd. McCartney also voiced Theodore in the 2007 film "Alvin and the Chipmunks", the 2009 film ', and the 2011 film ', in addition to voicing Terence in the 2008 film "Tinker Bell". He also voices Robin in the "Young Justice" series. In 2008, McCartney co-starred along with Elisabeth Harnois in an independent teenage drama feature film, "Keith", directed by Todd Kessler. It is his movie debut, and features McCartney in the title role. "Keith" was released on September 19, 2008. According to "Entertainment Weekly" in December 2008, McCartney was negotiating to play against type in the role of the Fire Nation's Prince Zuko in M. Night Shyamalan's feature film adaptation of "". In February 2009, British actor Dev Patel replaced McCartney, whose tour dates conflicted with a boot camp scheduled for the cast to train in martial arts. McCartney has expressed an interest in directing and producing films and even considered enrolling in a film school. McCartney appeared as a recurring character in the ABC Family series "Greek" for several episodes playing a star football talent who joins Kappa Tau. His character eventually decides to depledge the fraternity after citing pressures between football and Greek life combined with Rusty stealing his girlfriend Jordan. McCartney also worked in several installments of the Square Enix video game series "Kingdom Hearts". He was featured as Roxas in "Kingdom Hearts II" in 2006, and reprised the role in 2009 in "Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days". He also provided the voice work for Ventus, a character in the video game of the same series "Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep". He reprised both roles in "", released in 2012. McCartney confirmed in early February 2011 via Twitter, and on the website Perezhilton.com that he will have a major role on the new Fox pilot "Locke and Key." In May 2011, Fox announced that it would not be picked up to the series. McCartney also starred in the horror film "Chernobyl Diaries", released on May 25, 2012. He has been added to the Season 7 (2013) cast of the Lifetime Network series "Army Wives", portraying a young soldier deployed to Afghanistan with an 18-year-old wife at home. Fragrance. In June 2011, McCartney introduced a new women's fragrance called Wanted By Jesse. Philanthropy. In 2005, McCartney participated in "Come Together Now", a charity single to benefit the victims of the 2004 Asian Tsunami and the 2005 Hurricane Katrina. Later in 2005, McCartney signed on as an official supporter of Little Kids Rock, a nonprofit organization that provides free musical instruments and instruction to children in underserved public schools throughout the U.S.A. He sits on LKR's Honorary Board of Directors. He has donated proceeds of his 2005 tour for disaster relief, recorded radio spots promoting the "Kids For A Drug-Free America" campaign, is a spokesperson for the St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, and is involved in the charity "SPACE", which was co-founded by a childhood friend of his mother's. McCartney performed at the Hope Rocks concert in 2005 to benefit the City of Hope Cancer Center. He appeared in the Concert for Hope October 25, 2009 with Miley Cyrus and Demi Lovato.
1063628	Dennis Dugan (born September 5, 1946) is an American actor, director, and comedian. He is most famous for his partnership with comedic actor Adam Sandler, with whom he directed the films "Happy Gilmore", "Big Daddy", "I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry", "You Don't Mess with the Zohan", "Grown Ups", "Just Go with It", "Jack and Jill", and "Grown Ups 2. Life and career. Dugan was born in Wheaton, Illinois on September 5, 1946, the son of Marion and Charles Dugan. He started his acting career in 1972, appearing in the 1973 made for TV movie "The Girl Most Likely to...". He has appeared in such films as the 1976 films "Harry and Walter Go to New York" and "Norman... Is That You?" In 1979, he was cast as the time-displaced hero in "Unidentified Flying Oddball", Disney's updated remake of "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court". In 1981 he appeared in Joe Dante's adaptation of "The Howling". His first notable television appearance was in the "Columbo" episode "Last Salute to the Commodore", as a young police officer. He appeared in two episodes of "M*A*S*H". Then he was the star of the short-lived 1978 series "Richie Brockelman, Private Eye", playing a character who originated in a telemovie, and then made guest appearances in the role of Brockelman on "The Rockford Files" before getting his own show. He took on a semi-regular role as an erstwhile caped-crusader who called himself "Captain Freedom" on "Hill Street Blues" and also appeared on "Empire" (1984), and "Shadow Chasers" (1984). He played Walter Bishop, briefly the husband of Maddie Hayes (Cybil Shepherd) on "Moonlighting". Dugan's other film credits of the 1980s include the 1987 romantic comedy "Can't Buy Me Love" and the 1988 film "The New Adventures of Pippi Longstocking". Dugan has also made a career as a television and film director, and appears in cameo parts in many of his films. Films directed by Dennis Dugan include the 1990 comedy "Problem Child", "Brain Donors", the 2001 comedy "Saving Silverman" (in which Dugan plays a football referee), the 2003 comedy "National Security", and the 1996 and 1999 Adam Sandler comedies "Happy Gilmore" (in which Dugan plays Doug Thompson, the golf tour supervisor) and "Big Daddy" (with Dugan as a man who reluctantly gives candy to a trick-or-treating Julian). Dugan has directed episodes of such television series as "Moonlighting" (was also a guest star in some episodes), "Ally McBeal", and "NYPD Blue". Dugan directed "The Benchwarmers", a comedy released on April 7, 2006. The film, co-produced by Adam Sandler, is about trio of men who try to make up for missed opportunities in childhood by forming a three-player baseball team to compete against standard Little League squads. Dugan himself has a bit part as Coach Bellows. Dugan directed the 2007 comedy "I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry" and "You Don't Mess with the Zohan" in 2008, both Adam Sandler vehicles. Dugan directed "Grown Ups", which follows a group of high school friends who are reunited after thirty years for the Fourth of July. The film stars Adam Sandler, Kevin James, Chris Rock, Rob Schneider, and David Spade, and was released in the summer of 2010 with major box office success, but was overwhelmingly panned by critics. Dugan's "Just Go with It" was his sixth film with Sandler; the film also starred Jennifer Aniston and Brooklyn Decker. Also in 2011, Dugan directed the film "Jack & Jill", again with Sandler.
1064561	The Flamingo Kid is a 1984 comedy film directed by Garry Marshall, written by Marshall, Neal Marshall and Bo Goldman. It stars Matt Dillon, Richard Crenna, Hector Elizondo, and Janet Jones. It is a coming-of-age movie about a working class boy who takes a summer job at a beach resort and learns valuable life lessons. It was the first movie to receive a PG-13 rating, although it was the fourth to be released with that rating, after "Red Dawn", "The Woman in Red", and "Dreamscape". Tagline: "A legend in his own neighborhood" Plot. In the summer of 1963, Jeffrey Willis (Matt Dillon) is hired on at upscale Long Island beach resort, The Flamingo. Jeffrey is a kid from a middle class Brooklyn family and his father (Elizondo) does not approve of him working at the private club. His hero and mentor at the resort is the reigning Gin rummy card game champ, Phil Brody (Crenna). Jeffrey, a winning Gin Rummy player himself, and his friends, admire Brody and how his wins at the Gin rummy table make him seem "psychic," knowing which cards to give up. Brody also takes a liking to Jeffrey, eventually showing him his car business, and gives him hopes that car sales are where he belongs as a career. Jeffrey gets further immersed in the "easy buck," defying his father's guidance. During dinner, Jeffrey notably says he "will not be needing college" and plans to pursue being a car salesman instead. Jeffrey and his co-workers at The Flamingo also venture to Yonkers Raceway together, risking cash on a horse tip but come up short when the trotter breaks stride. Eventually, Brody reveals to Jeffrey that the job opening at the car dealership is for a stock boy, not as a salesman as Jeffrey had been led to believe was his when he asked for it. Brody encourages Jeffrey to take the stock boy position so he can work his way up. Near Summer's end, Jeffrey observes that a regular onlooker, "Big Sid", is feeding signals to Brody, the true cause of Brody's winning ways. When Big Sid and a member of the gin team playing against Brody's team are overcome by the heat, Jeffrey fills in, opposing Brody, and seeking to help win back the unfair profits Brody won from his friends over the course of the Summer. Jeffrey and his team eventually win back what was unfairly lost, including a good profit besides. Realizing the mistakes he made in rejecting his father's good advice, Jeffrey makes up with his dad in a touching scene at Larry's Fish House ("Any Fish You Wish"), where his family is dining. Location. The principal location for the movie was the Silver Gull Beach Club in Breezy Point in New York City's Rockaways, inside the Gateway National Recreation Area. The club was heavily damaged by Superstorm Sandy in 2012, and the wing of the club that extends over the water is facing probable demolition. Remake. Deadline.com announced in September 2012 that Walt Disney Pictures has planned a remake of "The Flamingo Kid". Brett Ratner and Michael Phillips are producing and music video director Nzingha Stewart is scripting.
581911	Ishqiya is a 2010 Indian black comedy thriller film starring Vidya Balan, Arshad Warsi, Naseeruddin Shah, and Salman Shahid in the lead roles. It was directed by Abhishek Chaubey in his directorial debut and was produced by Raman Maroo and Vishal Bharadwaj. The film was released on 29 January 2010. Upon release, "Ishqiya" performed much better than expected at the box office. Expectations were low, and it had a below-average opening. However, due to excellent reviews and strong word-of-mouth, the film picked up in many places and sustained well. It was declared an average performer at the box office. It was also selected for screening at the 34th Cairo International Film Festival. The producers Shemaroo and Vishal Bhardwaj have announced a sequel called "Dedh Ishqiya" with the same cast and crew, sans Vidya Balan, who will be substituted by Madhuri Dixit and Huma Qureshi. Plot. "Ishqiya" starts with Krishna Verma (Vidya Balan) trying to convince her husband, Vidyadhar Verma (Adil Hussain), a local gang-lord, that he should surrender. He agrees but is soon killed in a gas explosion. Two criminals Iftikhar aka Khalujan (Naseeruddin Shah) and Razzak Hussain aka Babban (Arshad Warsi) botch up a job and escape from the clutches of their boss Mushtaq (Salman Shahid), who wants to bury them alive. They land up in Gorakhpur in Uttar Pradesh to seek refuge in the house of Vidyadhar Verma. Instead they meet his widow Krishna, who gives them shelter and tries to seduce them to achieve her own secret goal. She proposes the kidnapping of Kamalkant Kakkar aka KK (Rajesh Sharma), a small businessman. The duo reluctantly agree, since they want to escape the clutches of Mushtaq. Khalujan and Babban meantime realise that they are falling for Krishna, but they do not reveal their feelings to each other. Khalujan decides to tell his feelings to Krishna but is shocked when he sees Krishna and Babban making love. Khalujan is angry but keeps quiet. However, when the kidnapping does not go as smoothly as wanted, Khalujan and Babban start fighting. Meanwhile, Krishna tortures KK and asks him where her husband is hiding, revealing that Verma might be alive. KK finally calls Verma. Babban and Khalujan realise that Krishna was just using them. They confront her, whereupon she reveals that KK and Verma were partners in the illegal business and that Verma is still alive. The duo reach KK's factory and are shocked to find Verma. Verma's goons blindfold the duo and take them to a deserted spot. When they take out their blindfolds, Babban sees Nandu (Alok Kumar), a boy he had previously met, pointing a gun at them. Nandu leaves them alive and explains the whole story. He tells that Verma had no plans to leave his criminal life, so he faked his death in front of Krishna, so that she would think he is dead. Khalujan and Babban race back to Krishna's house, where they have left her tied to a chair. Meanwhile, Krishna succeeds in opening the tube of gas cylinder, causing a leak. Verma confronts her and she tries to kill them by igniting a lighter. Verma assaults Krishna while the duo arrives. Soon, police arrive at the scene, too. Verma's goons are killed in a shootout, while Verma is killed in a gas explosion. The duo save Krishna and soon the trio is seen walking away from the burning house. Unknown to them, Mushtaq is pointing a gun at them. Suddenly Mushtaq's wife calls. The trio are still seen through the gun hole of Mushtaq, making their fate unclear, although it can be assumed that Mushtaq left them alive. Reception. Box office. In just three days, the gross box office collections of the film in India crossed Rs.150 million on 522 screens. Friday morning shows opened with 40–60 percent in key areas like Delhi, Lucknow, Mumbai and Pune evening settled down to 65–70 percent with average occupancy cultivating first day gross box office of Rs.38.5 million. With glowing reviews ranging from 3–4 star ratings and strong word-of-mouth from audience, Saturday showed an impressive jump of 25–30 percent and settled down to Rs.50 million; Sunday showed further jump of 30 percent compared to Friday and 8–10 percent compared to Saturday, garnered a further Rs.54 million to cumulate an astounding opening gross weekend collection of more than Rs.140 million at the box office. After five weeks "Ishqiya" grossed Rs. and was declared an average performer at the box office. Critical reception. The film opened to positive critical response. Accolades were received for the performances by the three central characters, like Anupama Chopra, the "NDTV" movie critic said, ""Ishqiya" would have faltered if the performances had not matched the writing but all three leads are absolutely terrific," while giving the movie 3.5 stars out of 5. Rajeev Masand of "CNN-IBN" while giving it 3.5 on a 5-star rating, called it, "a delicious little film that teeters dangerously between saucy comedy and suspenseful noir...the film sparkles for its inspired writing and uncompromised direction." Pratim D. Gupta of "The Telegraph" called "Ishqiya" "a rollercoaster rustic ride through "ishq aaj kal"" and praised director Abhishek Chaubey calling his "one of the most assured debuts in recent Hindi cinema." Noyon Jyoti Parasara of AOL gave 4 out of 5 stars and said, ""Ishqiya" could have been an average film had it not been for the screenplay." The "Indiatimes" review also gave 3.5 stars out of 5. Taran Adarsh of "bollywood hungama" while giving the film 4 on a 5 star rating scale, said "You can't help but fall in ishq with "Ishqiya". Tired of sherbat? Try this spicy jaljeera for a change!" Awards and nominations. 12th IIFA Awards Soundtrack. The soundtrack of the film was composed by Vishal Bhardwaj and the lyrics are penned by Gulzar. The music was released on 1 January 2010. The reception to the music has been positive with "Dil To Bachcha Hai" and "Ibn-E-Batuta" being instant chartbusters. The track "Badi Dheere Jali", based on an Indian classical raaga "Lalit" and the ghazal "Ab Mujhe Koi" are sung by Rekha Bhardwaj. Sequel. A sequel named Dedh Ishqiya is under pre-production. Shooting took place in the first quarter of 2013 and the film is scheduled for release sometime in 2013. Arshad Warsi and Naseeruddin Shah are returning for the sequel. Madhuri Dixit has been roped in for the female lead.According to the director of the film Abhishek Chaubey 60% shooting of the film is completed and the rest is expected to be completed within April 2013.
1437146	Emilio Rivera (born February 24, 1961) is an American film and television actor. He usually plays Mexican criminals. Biography. Early life. Rivera was born in San Antonio, Texas of Mexican descent. He is the oldest child of four brothers and three sisters. As a young boy, he and his family moved to Elysian Valley, a neighborhood of Los Angeles, California. Acting career. Rivera's first feature role was in the TV series "Renegade" with Lorenzo Lamas. He also had a role in the feature film "Con Air", co-starring Nicolas Cage. Emilio has appeared in several commercials, television programs and feature films including "Traffic", "The Cable Guy", "NYPD Blue", "Beverly Hills, 90210", "Walker, Texas Ranger", "JAG", "ER", "A Man Apart" with Vin Diesel, John Cusack's film "Never Get Outta the Boat", "Friday After Next", "Ali G Indahouse", "Rush", Howard Stern's "Son of the Beach", "" and Michael Mann's new series "Metro". He also plays Marcus Álvarez in "Sons of Anarchy" for the past five seasons and appears as Bodega Diablo "Next Day Air". In 2013, he co-starred in the music video of rapper/singer Nicki Minaj's "High School" single. Personal life. Emilio is married to Yadi Valerio. He has three children from a previous marriage. Growing up Rivera was known for his fighting abilities, and eventually earned the moniker “”Lefty” referring to his ability to knock opponents unconscious with a single left handed punch.
1163637	Shirley Mae Jones (born March 31, 1934) is an American singer and actress of stage, film and television. In her six decades of show business, she has starred as wholesome characters in a number of well-known musical films, such as "Oklahoma!" (1955), "Carousel" (1956), and "The Music Man" (1962). She won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for playing a vengeful prostitute in "Elmer Gantry" (1960). She played Shirley Partridge, the widowed mother of five children in the situation-comedy television series "The Partridge Family" (1970–74), which co-starred her real-life stepson David Cassidy, son of Jack Cassidy. Early life. Jones was born in Charleroi, Pennsylvania, to Methodist parents Marjorie (née Williams), a homemaker, and Paul Jones, owners of the Jones Brewing Company. An only child, she was named after Shirley Temple. The family later moved to the small nearby town of Smithton, Pennsylvania. Her family arranged for her to study singing twice a week in Pittsburgh with Ralph Lawando. Afterwards, she frequently joined her father for a show at the Pittsburgh Playhouse. Jones won the "Miss Pittsburgh" contest in 1952. Early stage career. In New York City, her voice teacher convinced her to audition for a Broadway agent, Gus Sherman. Sherman was pleased to put Jones under contract, and with her parents' approval, she resettled in New York City and gave herself one year to become a Broadway performer. She only had $100 in her pocket. If she did not succeed, she would move back to Smithton and study to be a veterinarian. Her first audition was for an open bi-weekly casting call held by John Fearnley, casting director for Rodgers and Hammerstein and their various musicals. At the time, Jones had never heard of Rodgers and Hammerstein. Fearnley was so impressed that he ran across the street to fetch Richard Rodgers, who was rehearsing with an orchestra for an upcoming musical. Rodgers then called Oscar Hammerstein at home. The two saw great potential in Jones. She became the first and only singer to be put under personal contract with the songwriters. They first cast her in a minor role in "South Pacific". For her second Broadway show, "Me and Juliet", she started as a chorus girl, and then an understudy for the lead role, earning rave reviews in Chicago, Illinois. Movie actress of the 1950s and 1960s. Jones impressed Rodgers and Hammerstein with her musically trained voice and she was cast as the female lead in the film adaptation of their hit musical "Oklahoma!" in 1955. Other film musicals quickly followed, including "Carousel", "April Love" (1957) and "The Music Man", in which she was often typecast as a wholesome, kind character. However, she won a 1960 Academy Award for her performance in "Elmer Gantry" portraying a woman corrupted by the title character played by Burt Lancaster. Her character becomes a prostitute who encounters her seducer years later and takes her revenge. The director, Richard Brooks, had originally fought against her being in the movie, but after seeing her first scene told her she would win an Oscar for her performance. She was reunited with Ron Howard (who had played her brother in "The Music Man") in "The Courtship of Eddie's Father" (1963). Jones landed the role of a lady who fell in love with the professor in "Fluffy" (1965). She also has an impressive stage résumé, including playing the title character in the Broadway musical "Maggie Flynn" in 1968. "The Partridge Family". In 1970, after her film roles dwindled, and after turning down the role of Carol Brady on "The Brady Bunch", a role that ultimately went to her best friend, Florence Henderson, Jones was more than happy to be the producers' first choice to audition for the lead role of Shirley Partridge in "The Partridge Family", an ABC sitcom based loosely on the real-life musical family The Cowsills. The series focused on a young widowed mother whose five children form a pop rock group after the entire family painted its signature bus to travel. She was convinced that the combination of music and comedy would be a surefire hit. Jones realized, however, that: During its first season, it became a hit and was screened in over 70 countries. Within months, Jones and her co-stars were pop culture television icons. Her real-life twenty-year-old stepson David Cassidy, who was an unknown actor at the time, played Shirley Partridge's eldest son, Keith, and became the hottest teen idol in the country. The show itself also spawned a number of records and songs performed by David and Shirley. That same year, "I Think I Love You" reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100 music chart, making Jones the second person, after Frank Sinatra, and the first woman to win an acting Oscar and also have a No. 1 hit on that chart. By 1974, the ratings had declined and the series was dropped from the prime-time lineup after four seasons and 96 episodes. Though Jones was outraged about the series' cancellation, she held the show together. It was one of six series to be canceled that year (along with "Room 222", "The F.B.I.", "The Brady Bunch", "", and "Here's Lucy") to make room for new shows. Shirley Jones' friendship with David Cassidy's family began in the mid-to-late 1950s, when David was just six, after he learned about his father's divorce from his mother Evelyn Ward. Upon David's first meeting with Shirley before co-starring with her on "The Partridge Family", he said, "The day he tells me that they're divorced, he tells me, 'We're remarried, and let me introduce you to my new wife.' He was thrilled when her first film, "Oklahoma!" (1955), had come out; and my dad took me to see it—I just see her, and I go, uh-oh, it doesn't really quite register with me, 'cause I'm in total shock, because I wanted to hate her, but the instant that I met her, I got the essence of her. She's a very warm open, sweet, good human being. She couldn't have thawed it for me – the coldness and the ice—any more than she did." Shirley was shocked to hear her real-life stepson was going to audition for the role of Keith Partridge. David said, "At the auditions, they introduced me to the lead actress (Shirley Jones) 'cause they had no idea, they had no idea. So I said, 'What are you doing here?' She looked at me and said, 'What are you doing here?' And I said, 'Well, I'm reading for the lead guy.' I said, 'What are you doing here?' She said, 'I'm the mother!'" Cassidy discussed his relationship with his stepmother on the show: "She wasn't my mother, and I can be very open, and we can speak, and we became very close friends. She was a very good role model for me, watching the way, you know, she dealt with people on the set, and watching people revere her." After the show's cancellation, Cassidy remained very close to his half-brothers and the rest of his cast mates, especially Shirley. Cassidy appeared on many shows alongside his stepmother, including "A&E Biography", "TV Land Confidential", and "The Today Show", and he was one of the presenters of his stepmother's "Intimate Portrait" on Lifetime Television, and the reality show pilot "In Search of the Partridge Family", where he served as co-executive producer. The rest of the cast also celebrated the 25th, 30th, and the 35th anniversaries of "The Partridge Family" (although Cassidy was unavailable to attend the 25th anniversary in 1995 owing to other commitments). In addition, Jack Cassidy's death in 1976 drew Jones and Cassidy closer as Shirley's three children and stepson mourned their father. "Shirley" and other projects. In 1979, Jones tried her hand at television for the second time starring in "Shirley" which, like, "The Partridge Family", featured a family headed by a widowed mother, but failed to win ratings, and was canceled toward the middle of the season. Jones also played the "older woman" girlfriend of Drew Carey's character in several episodes of "The Drew Carey Show". She also won fans in the memorable dramatic project "There Were Times, Dear", in which she played a loyal wife whose husband is dying of Alzheimer's disease; she was nominated for an Emmy Award for this work. In February 1986, Shirley Jones unveiled her star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on Vine Street just around the corner from Hollywood Boulevard. Jones had a stellar turn in a rare revival of Noël Coward's operetta "Bitter Sweet" at the Long Beach Civic Light Opera in 1983. In 2004, Shirley returned to Broadway in a revival of "42nd Street", portraying diva "Dorothy Brock" opposite her son Patrick Cassidy—the first time a mother and son were known to star together on Broadway. In July 2005, Jones revisited the musical "Carousel" onstage in Massachusetts portraying "Cousin Nettie". She continues to appear in venues nationwide, in concerts and in speaking engagements. In July 2006, Jones received another Emmy Award nomination for her supporting performance in the television film "Hidden Places". Shirley was nominated for a Screen Actors Guild award for the same film but lost to Helen Mirren for "Elizabeth I". She also appeared in "Grandma's Boy" (2006), produced by Adam Sandler, as a nymphomaniac senior citizen. On November 16, 2007, she took the stage at the Ford Center in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, during the Oklahoma Centennial Spectacular concert which celebrated the state's 100th birthday. Jones sang the songs "Oklahoma!" and "People Will Say We're In Love" from the musical "Oklahoma!". In early 2008, it was announced that Shirley would play Colleen Brady on the long-running NBC soap opera "Days of our Lives". Jones guest starred on ABC Family's short-lived show "Ruby & The Rockits", as David & Patrick's mother. In 2008, U.K. label Stage Door Records released the retrospective collection "Then & Now" featuring twenty-four songs from Jones's musical career, including songs from the films "Oklahoma!", "Carousel" and "April Love". The album also features new recordings of songs including "Beauty and the Beast", "Memory" and a sentimental tribute to "The Music Man". Since 2011, she has had a recurring role as Burt Chance's mother in the Fox TV comedy series "Raising Hope". In the summer of 2012, Jones played the role of Mrs. Paroo, along with her son Patrick Cassidy playing the role of Harold Hill, in the California Musical Theatre production of "The Music Man". Personal life. On August 5, 1956, Jones married actor Jack Cassidy, with whom she had three sons, Shaun, Patrick, and Ryan. David Cassidy, Jack's only child from his first marriage to actress Evelyn Ward, became her stepson. Divorcing Cassidy in 1974, she later married comic/actor Marty Ingels on November 13, 1977. Despite drastically different personalities and several separations (she filed, then withdrew, a divorce petition in 2002), they remain married. Jones and Ingels wrote an autobiography based on their quirky relationship/marriage, "Shirley & Marty: An Unlikely Love Story" (William Morrow and Company, in 1990, co-written with Mickey Herskowitz, ISBN 0-688-08457-5). Jones was friends with her late co-star Gordon MacRae and his ex-wife Sheila, and he was named godfather to her first son, Shaun Cassidy. She also admitted that she had a crush on MacRae and was starstruck when she worked opposite him on "Oklahoma!" and states she is the one who convinced MacRae to take the part as Billy Bigelow in "Carousel". Frank Sinatra, who had originally been cast, suddenly dropped out during the first days of filming because each scene had to be shot twice. Once in CinemaScope 55 (a wider-than-usual, 55 millimeter, 6-track stereo system) and once in 35mm CinemaScope. Sinatra felt that he should have been paid twice because technically he was shooting two films. Three weeks after he left, they found a way to film the scene once on 55mm, then transfer it onto 35mm. On the evening of December 11, 1976, after Jones had refused an offer of reconciliation from Jack Cassidy, she received news that her ex-husband's penthouse apartment was on fire. Apparently, the fire started from his lit cigarette when he fell asleep on the couch; the following morning, firefighters found Cassidy's body inside the gutted apartment. Jack "wanted to come back (to me) right up to the day he died", Jones said in a 1983 newspaper interview. "And as I realized later, I wanted him. That's the terrible part. Much as I love Marty and have a wonderful relationship – I'd say this with Marty sitting here – I'm not sure if Jack were alive I'd be married to Marty." Jones was 20 years old when she met Cassidy, who was eight years her senior and refers to him as the most influential person in her life. Jones is a supporter of PETA. Jones is the grandmother of nine: Caitlin, Jake, Juliet, Caleb, Roan, Lila and Marian Cassidy, from son Shaun, and Cole and Jack, from son Patrick.
585053	Charmy Kaur (also spelt as Charmee or Charmi) is an Indian film actress, who has predominantly appeared in Telugu films. She acted with stars such as Dileep, Mammootty, Amitabh Bachchan, Nandamuri Balakrishna, Akkineni Nagarjuna, Venkatesh, Jr. NTR, Prabhas, Siddarth, Ravi Teja, Sumanth, Nitin and Silambarasan. She is known for her dedication to learn Telugu in a short span of time. Charmi gave her voice to Kajal Aggarwal in the film "Chandamama" (2007). She was considered to be one of the best dancers in recent years. Her dance movements in movies like "Manthra" and "Pournami" are well received by audience and critics. Early life. Charmy was born in Mumbai and her family is of Punjabi-Sikh background. She studied in Carmelite Convent English High School in Vasai. Career. She made her acting debut in the 2002 Telugu film Nee Thodu Kaavali, in which she acted as a housewife at a young age of 15. This film was a flop, but helped Charmme in getting noticed by the south Indian film industry. Her next film was "Kadhal Azhivathillai" with Silambarasan, which was also a flop. During this time she acted in a Malayalam film directed by Vinayan named "Kattuchembakam". This film also bombed in box office. After that she acted in a couple more Tamil films but they bombed at the box office. Her re-entry to Telugu films happened with Neeke Manasichhaanu a film with Sreekanth which was a failure; then in "Sri Anjaneyam", directed by ace director Krishna Vamsi which too was a failed attempt. It was followed by another failure with "Chanti", paired against Ravi Teja. She finally got a big break in Telugu with "Gowri" in which she was paired with Sumanth. She didn't have to look back afterwards. The stupendous success of "Mass" with Nagarjuna strengthened her position in Tollywood. Charmme's most critically acclaimed film so far is "Anukokunda Oka Roju". It was a heroine-oriented thriller. Her performance in the film was acclaimed by critics. In 2006 she acted in "Pournami" which was a total failure in spite of high expectations, but her performance was appreciated. Though she did not learn Indian classical dance, her Bharatanatyam and Kuchipudi dances in the film were appreciated by audiences. Later that year she was paired for the second time with Sumanth in "Chinnodu" but it was not a successful venture. Her next film, "Rakhi" (with NTR), was a hit. In 2007 "Mantra", a thriller with Charmme in the lead role, was declared as a surprise hit.This performance fetched her the Nandi Award for the best herione of 2007. Her performance in the film is appreciated by wide range of audience.The movie was a sleeper hit because of her charm & fans base in male youth.The song "maha maha" became a superhit and her dance was well received by wide range of audience. Then, she starred in several lady oriented roles, a rare thing in Tollywood. The list includes "Anukokunda Oka Roju", "Mantra", "Manorama 2009", "Kavya's Diary", "Sye Aata", "Mangala" in Telugu and "Laadam" in Tamil, out of which "Anukokunda Oka Roju" and "Mantra" were very successful.
1268105	Mildred Harris (November 29, 1901 – July 20, 1944) was a leading American film actress during the early part of 20th century. She was also the first wife of Charlie Chaplin. Harris began her career in the film industry as a popular child actress at age 11. At the age of 15, she was cast as a harem girl in D. W. Griffith's "Intolerance" (1916). She appeared as a leading lady through the 1920s but her career slowed with the advent of the "talkies". She was critically praised for "No, No Nanette" in 1930, had a few bit parts in the early 1940s, and made her last appearance in the posthumously released "Having A Wonderful Crime" of 1945. Early life. Born in Cheyenne, Wyoming, Harris made her first screen appearance at the age of 11 in the 1912 Francis Ford and Thomas H. Ince-directed Western short "The Post Telegrapher". She followed the film with various juvenile roles, often appearing opposite child actor Paul Willis. In 1914, she was hired by The Oz Film Manufacturing Company to portray Fluff in "The Magic Cloak of Oz" and Button-Bright in "His Majesty, the Scarecrow of Oz". In 1916, at the age of 15, she appeared full frontal nude as a harem girl in Griffith's epic "Intolerance".
1091787	Johannes Kepler (; December 27, 1571 – November 15, 1630) was a German mathematician, astronomer and astrologer. A key figure in the 17th century scientific revolution, he is best known for his eponymous laws of planetary motion, codified by later astronomers, based on his works "Astronomia nova", "Harmonices Mundi", and "Epitome of Copernican Astronomy". These works also provided one of the foundations for Isaac Newton's theory of universal gravitation. During his career, Kepler was a mathematics teacher at a seminary school in Graz, Austria, where he became an associate of Prince Hans Ulrich von Eggenberg. Later he became an assistant to astronomer Tycho Brahe, and eventually the imperial mathematician to Emperor Rudolf II and his two successors Matthias and Ferdinand II. He was also a mathematics teacher in Linz, Austria, and an adviser to General Wallenstein. Additionally, he did fundamental work in the field of optics, invented an improved version of the refracting telescope (the Keplerian Telescope), and mentioned the telescopic discoveries of his contemporary Galileo Galilei. Kepler lived in an era when there was no clear distinction between astronomy and astrology, but there was a strong division between astronomy (a branch of mathematics within the liberal arts) and physics (a branch of natural philosophy). Kepler also incorporated religious arguments and reasoning into his work, motivated by the religious conviction and belief that God had created the world according to an intelligible plan that is accessible through the natural light of reason. Kepler described his new astronomy as "celestial physics", as "an excursion into Aristotle's "Metaphysics"", and as "a supplement to Aristotle's "On the Heavens"", transforming the ancient tradition of physical cosmology by treating astronomy as part of a universal mathematical physics. Early years. Johannes Kepler was born on December 27, the feast day of St. John the Evangelist, 1571, at the Free Imperial City of Weil der Stadt (now part of the Stuttgart Region in the German state of Baden-Württemberg, 30 km west of Stuttgart's center). His grandfather, Sebald Kepler, had been Lord Mayor of that town but, by the time Johannes was born, he had two brothers and one sister and the Kepler family fortune was in decline. His father, Heinrich Kepler, earned a precarious living as a mercenary, and he left the family when Johannes was five years old. He was believed to have died in the Eighty Years' War in the Netherlands. His mother Katharina Guldenmann, an inn-keeper's daughter, was a healer and herbalist who was later tried for witchcraft. Born prematurely, Johannes claimed to have been weak and sickly as a child. Nevertheless, he often impressed travelers at his grandfather's inn with his phenomenal mathematical faculty.
586047	Asif Ali (born 4 February 1986) is an Indian film actor who has starred in Malayalam films. He made his debut in 2009 in the acclaimed film "Ritu". Early and personal life. Asif Ali was born in Karikkode near Thodupuzha in Idukki. His father's name is M .P .Shoukath Ali of Maravettikal House and mother's name is Molly in the year 4 February 1986. M.P. Shoukath Ali was the former Municipal Chairman of Thodupuzha Municipality. Asif also has a younger brother named Askar Ali. His initial schooling was at De Paul Public School, Thodupuzha and Rajarshi Memorial School, Vadavucode Puthencruz, Ernakulam. He got his degree in Business Administration from Marian College, Kuttikkanam. He was very much interested in acting in films. Before entering into the film industry he was working as a model, as an anchor as well as a programme producer. Asif Ali always believes that anchoring & the job of a programme producer helped him to face camera so easily. Apart from acting Asif Ali is interested in travelling. He enjoys most of the travels with his friends. One of his album song was "Aadhyamayi.." in Himamazhayil album. While pursuing a degree abroad, he modelled for ads, worked as a video jockey and was selected by Shyamaprasad to play one of the lead roles in his film "Ritu". He has since performed in critical and Block Buster hits such as "Traffic" (2011), "Salt N' Pepper" (2011), "Ordinary" (2012)and "HoneyBee" (2013). Asif Ali married Kannur-based business admninistration student Zama Mazrin on 26 May 2013. Zama Mazrin studied at Thunchathacharya Vidyalayam, Kannur.
584791	Aravaan (English:Snake) is a 2012 Indian Tamil period film directed by Vasanthabalan, based on Sahitya Academy winning Su. Venkatesan's novel "Kaaval Kottam". It stars Aadhi, Dhansika, Malayalam actress Archana Kavi and Pasupathy, with Kabir Bedi playing a prominent role, and Bharath appearing in a cameo role. The film marks noted playback singer Karthik's debut as a music director. "Aravaan" released on March 2, 2012 to mixed reviews. The film was dubbed in hindi as "Jungle The Battleground". Plot. The film set in 18th century is all about a group of people who steals from the wealthy to provide food and shelter for their tribe. Kombodhi (Pasupathy) is the gang leader and during one of his missions he meets the brave Varipuli (Aadhi). He brings Varipuli to his village and a bond develops between the two. But Varipuli has a past and his real name is Chinna. For the death of a youth Thogaimayan (Bharath) from neighbouring village, the King had in fact ordered one youth to be given as offering to the Almighty and Chinna was the choice. Sequence of events lead to Chinna escaping from the offering only to find out the mystery behind Thogaimayan's death. But that was too late as too many things happened in his village by then. Now he goes on the hiding. Cut to present, Chinna is taken to be offered to God. Where the flashback begins.
582925	Aur Pyaar Ho Gaya (English: And love happened) is a 1997 Indian Bollywood film. The film starred Bobby Deol and Aishwarya Rai. This is the first Hindi movie for Aishwarya Rai. The movie also featured two songs by the celebrated Qawwali singer, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan. The film is loosely based on the 1994 English film "Only You". Plot. This movie revolves around a progression of a love between the two main protagonists, Bobby Oberoi (Bobby Deol) and Ashi (Aishwarya Rai). Ashi is a free-spirited girl, in her early twenties, who has no plans to get married soon. Her father, Kailashnath (Anupam Kher) is a traditional man and believes important things in life, such as marriage, should adhere to the family's customs. So, he expresses his desire of marriage for Ashi and tells her he has a guy picked out for her, Rohit Malhotra. Ashi is enraged at first, and then agrees to the marriage on the condition that she be allowed to meet him anonymously and observe his character and personality. Ashi's father obliges and Ashi is soon off to Europe to meet Rohit Malhotra. Ashi pursues her search of Rohit Malhotra in Switzerland. While she is there, she meets a man who continuously teases her and happens to be staying in the room next to her. This man is no other than Bobby Oberoi. He continues to dote on her and flirt with her but she doesn't reciprocate. She becomes frustrated in her failed attempts to find Rohit Malhotra and Bobby over hears that she is searching for a man named Rohit Malhotra. In order to win Ashi's heart, Bobby lies and tells her he is Rohit Malhotra. Gradually, they fall in love and she finds out about his real identity. Upon their return to India, the families meet and agree for the marriage. Bobby's mother (Beena Banerjee) is the manager of the bank where Kailashnath, (Ashi's father), deposits their money. The police make a visit to the bank in order to investigate a recent business scandal. It turns out that Kailashnath is a part of the scandal and Bobby's mother has no option but to cooperate with the police, even though it might strain relationships with her soon to be family-in-law. Subsequently, Kailashnath is arrested. For him, that was a humiliating event and he furiously cancels Ashi's marriage to Bobby. Furthermore, he arranges Ashi's marriage to Rohit Malhotra. Will Ashi marry her soulmate or will she be coerced into following her father's demands?After a whole other twist to the film , it ends with Ashi marrying her soulmate Bobby. Awards. Star Screen Awards Box Office. Aur Pyaar Ho Gaya was not successful at the box office. In fact, it was one of the biggest flops of 1997.
588552	Ullasa Paravaigal is a Tamil language film starring Kamal Haasan in the lead role of the protagonist. The movie has evergreen songs that are murmured even today. The movie was a hit at the box office. Plot. Ravi is in denial about his mental health as a result of the death of his girlfriend. His father and friend Raju played by Suruli Rajan hatch a plan to take him overseas to get him treatment for his illness. He meets his childhood friend Nirmala Rati Agnihotri. With the help of Nirmala and Raju, Ravi gets better. The second half of the film deals with how Ravi's uncle tries to kill him to get his hands on his fortune and how Ravi overcomes his uncle. The film is famous for its songs some of which are considered Ilaiyaraaja's masterpieces including azhagu aayiram and germaniyin senthen malare.
585039	Gamyam (Telugu: గమ్యం, English: "Destination") is a 2008 Telugu film directed by Radhakrishna Jagarlamudi. The film stars Allari Naresh, Sharwanand, and Kamalinee Mukherjee in prominent roles.
1059395	John Phillip Law (September 7, 1937 – May 13, 2008) was an American film actor with over one hundred movie roles to his credit.
1063460	The Last Boy Scout is a 1991 action film starring Bruce Willis as a former Secret Service agent, now working as a private detective, and Damon Wayans as a retired professional football player. The two join forces to solve the murder of Wayans' character’s girlfriend (played by Halle Berry). The movie was produced by Warner Bros. Pictures and Geffen Pictures, written by Shane Black (of "Lethal Weapon" fame) and directed by Tony Scott. Plot. During halftime of a live-televised professional football game, L.A. Stallions star wide receiver Billy Cole (Billy Blanks) receives a phone call from someone named Milo (Taylor Negron), warning him to win the game at all costs, or "he's history". Cole ingests PCP and, in a drug-induced rage, brings a gun onto the field, shooting three opposing players to make it to the end zone. Cole then shoots himself in the head. Joe Hallenbeck (Bruce Willis), a disgraced former U.S. Secret Service agent-turned private investigator, discovers that his wife (Chelsea Field) is having an affair with his best friend and sometime business partner, Mike Matthews (Bruce McGill). Hallenbeck's indifference frustrates his wife, who only did it to get his attention. Outside Joe's house, Mike is killed by a car bomb, after giving Joe an assignment to act as bodyguard for a stripper named Cory (Halle Berry).
1058883	Spy Game is a 2001 American spy film directed by Tony Scott and starring Robert Redford and Brad Pitt. The film grossed $62 million in the United States and $143 million worldwide and received mostly positive reviews from film critics. Plot. Set in 1991, the film depicts the governments of the U.S. and China on the verge of a major trade agreement, with the President of the United States due to visit China to seal the deal. The CIA gets word that its agent Tom Bishop (Brad Pitt) has been captured trying to free an Englishwoman, Elizabeth Hadley (Catherine McCormack), from a People's Liberation Army prison in Su Chou near Shanghai. Bishop is being questioned under torture and will be executed in 24 hours unless he is claimed by the U.S. government. If the CIA claims Bishop as an agent, they risk jeopardizing the trade agreement. Exacerbating Bishop's situation is the fact that he was operating without permission from the Agency. Attempting to deal quickly with the situation, CIA executives call in Nathan Muir (Robert Redford), an aging mid-level case officer on his last day before retirement and the man who recruited Bishop. Although they tell Muir they simply need him to act as a "stop gap" to fill in some holes in their background files, the officials are hoping he will give them the pretext they need to justify letting Bishop die. The CIA higher-ups are unaware that Muir had been tipped off about Bishop's capture prior to arriving at the CIA's headquarters, by fellow CIA veteran Harry Duncan (David Hemmings) (for whom Bishop had been working an operation in Hong Kong before going rogue). Muir first attempts to save Bishop by leaking the story to CNN through a contact in Hong Kong, believing that public pressure would force the CIA to rescue Bishop. The tactic only stalls them, however, and is stymied when a phone call to the FCC from CIA Deputy Director Charles Harker (Stephen Dillane) results in CNN retracting the story. During the debriefing, Muir describes how he recruited Bishop for an operation when Bishop was a U.S. Marine scout sniper during the Vietnam War. Muir also discusses their 1976 tour of duty in Berlin, Germany, where Bishop was tasked with procuring East German assets, with Muir commanding, as well as Bishop's spy work in Beirut, Lebanon in 1985 during the War of the Camps, the latter being the last time the two saw each other. During the mission in Lebanon, Bishop met Hadley, and the two began developing romantic feelings for each other. However, it is revealed that Hadley was involved in a bombing of the Chinese embassy in the UK, causing her to flee the country. Fearing that Bishop's feelings for Hadley might compromise his cover and the mission, Muir tips off the Chinese to Hadley's location in return for freeing an arrested US diplomat. Chinese agents kidnap Hadley, and Bishop cuts all ties to Muir when he discovers his involvement. After learning Hadley was the target of Bishop's rescue attempt, Muir finally realizes that he has greatly underestimated Bishop's feelings for her.
1055403	"Malibu's Most Wanted" is a 2003 comedy film written by and starring Jamie Kennedy and co-starring Taye Diggs, Anthony Anderson, Blair Underwood, Regina Hall, Damien Dante Wayans, Ryan O'Neal and Snoop Dogg. The film is written by the creators of "MADtv", Fax Bahr and Adam Small, who also serve as producers. The character of "B-Rad" originally appeared in Jamie Kennedy's hidden camera show "The Jamie Kennedy Experiment", but started in his stand-up routine when he was starting out. The film was given a PG-13 rating by the MPAA. In order to keep the rating, the film's end-credits were edited to prevent the movie from receiving a R rating. Plot. The film centers on the family life of Bill Gluckman, a wealthy Jewish senator from Malibu, California who is running for the office of Governor of California. His son Brad is a wannabe "Eminem", preferring to go by the nickname "B-Rad" despite leading a rich, sheltered life. As a result, members of Mr. Gluckman's political campaign become concerned that Brad's idiotic, outlandish behavior will ruin his father's chances at being elected. The campaign team members hire two actors, who don't know any more about inner-city life than B-Rad, to act as gang members, kidnap him, and take him to South Central Los Angeles where they hope Brad will be "scared white" after witnessing what inner city life is really like. Unfortunately for everyone involved, the plan backfires after Brad attempts to associate himself with members of the gang community and subsequently gets himself and the actors, Sean and PJ, hired to guide him into trouble. DVD Release. Malibu's Most Wanted was released to theaters on April 18th, 2003.
1059509	Brandon Bruce Lee (February 1, 1965 – March 31, 1993) was an American actor and martial artist. He was the son of martial arts film star Bruce Lee, and the grandson of Cantonese opera singer Lee Hoi-Chuen. Starting his career with a supporting role in "" in 1986, he appeared in a handful of action films before he died in an accident while filming "The Crow". The film was released posthumously after a stunt double and special effects were used to complete the film.
586202	Makeup Man is a 2011 Malayalam film directed by Shafi. The film stars Jayaram, Sheela, Suraj Venjarammoodu and Siddique in the lead roles, with Kunchako Boban and Prithviraj appearing in guest roles. Vidyasagar composed the music, with lyrics penned by Kaithapram.The tumultuous life of a couple, after the wife becomes a heroine just by chance and the husband is forced to disguise himself as her makeup man, is being told here. Story. Balachandran (Jayaram) is arrested by police by mistaking him to be a house breaker, while entering his own home in middle of a night. He explains his pathetic financial situation to the police inspector (Shammi Thilakan), including his huge debts and love affair with Soorya (Sheela). After seeing him reluctant to take up her calls, the police inspector advises him to approach life positively by accepting her into his life. But Balu explains him that its her marriage on the next morning and he is unable to bear the pain by talking to her. upon the request of the inspector, Balu takes up her call, and comes to know that she is now waiting for him at the railway station. Balu arrives at the railway station and meets her. With the help of Kitchu Manjaly (Suraj Venjarammoodu), a production controller in film industry, Balu marries Soorya at a temple in the same morning. Kitchu arranges a room for them to spend a night in the same hotel where a film crew was residing. Paul (Janardhanan), the film producer mistakes her to be the new heroine for the film and Kitchu to play things safe makes him believe so. Paul calls up Sidharth (Siddique), the film director and cameraman to conduct a screen test on the same night. Though reluctant, Soorya and Balu has no option left. Soorya appears for the screen test and is successfully selected as the new heroine. Balu plays it safe by claiming her personal make up man and appears on the set the next day. Soorya is re christianed as Anamika. during the shoot, Siddharth develops a soft feeling towards her, and finds Balu's interference as a nuisance. He tries all ways to belittle him and asks Anamika to dump him away. Slowly, the fever of stardom catches up Anamika, who is also casted for the next film by Siddharth, which Balu objects. To make things worse, her father arrives on the set along with her fiancee to patch up things. Things get worsened between Balu and Anamika, and he quits from the set. Up on the release of the film, Anamika tries to patch up Balu, but he publicly humiliates her. Upon realizing his mistake, in a bid to sort out issues, he lands up in Hyderabad where Anamika is acting as the heroine of Prithviraj Sukumaran. There Balu is the make up man of Chandra (Kamna Jethmalani), the second heroine. Sidharth is again disturbed by seeing him and tries all ways to kick him out, but all in vain. Prithviraj understanding Balu's issues with Anamika from Kitchu decides to help him with the support of Chandra. After the pack up, on reaching back in Kochi, Balu is arrested by police for financial forgery. Siddharth, by realizing the relation between Balu and Soorya decides to play a dirty game to own her. He files a case on her behalf against her for which Balu files back another one. The legal fight and how Balu patches up with Soorya forms the rest of the story. Soundtrack. This album was composed by Vidyasagar in 2011. All lyrics were written by Kaithapram Damodaran Namboothiri.
1054892	Purple Violets is a relationship comedy written and directed by Edward Burns. It is an independent film, set in lower Manhattan, about four friends from college ready for change. It features Burns, Selma Blair, Patrick Wilson, and Debra Messing. Plot synopsis. Patti Petalson (Selma Blair) is a promising writer, but her marriage and conventional job keep her from her dream. She longs to return to her writing, especially after running into her first love Brian Callahan (Patrick Wilson), a successful crime novelist. Kate (Debra Messing) is Patti's best friend since college. She's a tough-talking schoolteacher who plays therapist to all Patti's problems, while she's got a few of her own. Despite Brian's gorgeous Tribeca loft and perfect house in the Hamptons, he longs to write works of greater literary value. Michael Murphy (Edward Burns), his lawyer and best friend from college still carries a flame for his former girlfriend Kate, even though their relationship ended badly years ago. She holds a major grudge, but he would go to any length just to win Kate back, knowing his feelings for her never went away. He tried to forget over the years but since he spotted Kate in the restaurant she was all he could think about. When Patti sells Murphy a new apartment, and Brian publishes his personal novel, these old friends reconnect in unexpected ways with surprising results. Soundtrack. Purple Violets' soundtrack includes mainly songs by the Alternative rock band "The Blue Jackets" including the ballads "Do you Remember" and "You Send Shivers" played during the final scene and credits. Distribution. Purple Violets became noteworthy for being the first feature film to debut on the iTunes Store. It was released on November 20, 2007 and costs $14.99. The movie was exclusive to Apple Inc. for one month after release. Subsequently, Purple Violets was released on DVD through the Weinstein Company.
1058768	Donald Edmond "Donnie" Wahlberg, Jr. (born August 17, 1969) is an American singer, actor and film producer. He is a member of the popular boy band New Kids on the Block. Donnie's work background includes music, feature films, and television. Wahlberg has had featured roles in the "Saw" films, "The Sixth Sense", "Dreamcatcher", and "Righteous Kill", also appearing in the award-winning World War II miniseries "Band of Brothers". From 2002-2003 he starred in the critically acclaimed but short lived crime drama "Boomtown". Currently, he is starring in the critically acclaimed drama series "Blue Bloods" with Tom Selleck and Bridget Moynahan and is an executive producer of the TNT reality television show "Boston's Finest". Wahlberg was nominated for "Choice Scream" at the 2008 Teen Choice Awards for his work on the ""Saw" films. Early life. Wahlberg was born in the Dorchester neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts, is the eighth of nine children, with older siblings Arthur, Jim, Paul, Robert, Tracey, Michelle, Debbie (died 2003) and younger brother Mark. He also has three half-siblings from his father's first marriage- Donna, Scott and Buddy. His mother, Alma Elaine (née Donnelly), was a bank clerk and nurse's aide, and his father, Donald Edmond Wahlberg, Sr. (May 8, 1930 - February 14, 2008) was a teamster who worked as a delivery driver; the couple divorced in 1982. He is of Swedish, Irish, English, and French Canadian ancestry. Career. New Kids on the Block. As a recording artist, Wahlberg is known as an original member of boy band New Kids on the Block. Acting career. Wahlberg's first film acting role was in the 1996 film "Bullet" with Mickey Rourke and Tupac Shakur. Also in 1996, he appeared as a kidnapper in "Ransom" with Mel Gibson. He went back to his home town for a starring role in the South Boston-based film "Southie". Wahlberg received attention for his role in the 1999 film "The Sixth Sense", playing the patient of Bruce Willis's character in the opening sequence. This role was originally intended for a 13-year-old boy until Wahlberg met with writer and director M. Night Shyamalan to inquire about obtaining the rights for a theatre production, and ended up getting the role. In 2001, Wahlberg co-starred as Second Lieutenant C. Carwood Lipton in the television miniseries "Band of Brothers". Wahlberg also starred in the 2002–2003 NBC drama series "Boomtown" as Joel Stevens, a Los Angeles police detective. Graham Yost, executive producer and writer of "Boomtown", had worked with Wahlberg in "Band of Brothers" and was so impressed by his performance that he wrote the role of Joel Stevens specifically for him. 2003 was the year that Wahlberg starred alongside Timothy Olyphant, Jason Lee, and his "Band of Brothers" co-star Damian Lewis as the mentally challenged Duddits in William Goldman and Lawrence Kasdan's adaptation of the Stephen King alien-invasion thriller, "Dreamcatcher". In 2005, Wahlberg starred as Detective Eric Matthews in the second installment of the "Saw" series. He reprised the role in "Saw III" in 2006 and "Saw IV" in 2007, also appearing in "Saw V" in 2008 via archive footage from the previous films. In 2006, Wahlberg also played Lieutenant Commander Burton in the military/boxing drama, "Annapolis". In September 2006, he played the lead role in the short-lived television drama "Runaway" on The CW. The show was cancelled in October 2006 due to poor ratings. In 2007, he starred alongside Jason Gedrick, Ricardo Chavira, and Nadine Velazquez in the television film "Kings of South Beach" on A&E. Also in 2007, he starred opposite John Leguizamo on the TV series "The Kill Point". In 2008, he appeared in "Righteous Kill" co-starring Robert De Niro and Al Pacino. He also co-starred in "What Doesn't Kill You" with Ethan Hawke, Mark Ruffalo and Amanda Peet. Wahlberg currently stars as a detective on CBS's "Blue Bloods", a police drama set in New York City. The show, which also stars Tom Selleck and Bridget Moynahan, airs Fridays at 10 pm EST. Currently, Wahlberg is the host of an internet radio show on Friday nights at 8 pm PST called "DDUB's R&B Back Rub" on Cherry Tree Radio. Wahlberg also appeared in the 2011 comedy The Zookeeper. Personal life. Wahlberg married Kim Fey on August 20, 1999. He and Fey have two children, Xavier Alexander Wahlberg (born March 4, 1993) and Elijah Hendrix Wahlberg (born August 20, 2001). Wahlberg and Fey filed for divorce on August 13, 2008, citing "irreconcilable differences". As of July 2013 it was reported by UsWeekly that Wahlberg is reported to be dating actress and comedienne Jenny McCarthy after meeting on her radio show in March. He is a regular player on the online poker website Hollywood Poker, which is run in conjunction with Ongame Network. Wahlberg is a passionate fan of the Boston Celtics and has been seen attending many of their games. He narrated a documentary called "The Association: Boston Celtics" about the team's 2010–11 season, which aired on ESPN between 2010 and 2011.
567513	The Olsen Gang (, , ) is a fictional Danish criminal gang in the eponymous film series. The gang's leader is the criminal genius and habitual offender Egon Olsen and his accomplices are Benny and Kjeld (Kjell in Norwegian). The gang members are harmless and never use violence. A Norwegian version of the film series were also made (a total of 14 films from 1969 to 1999), in most cases based directly on the scripts for the Danish films. Later, starting in 1981, Sweden also produced their own version: "Jönssonligan". Plot. Most of the films start with Egon coming out of jail and being enthusiastically welcomed by Benny and Kjeld. The three men will then have a beer together in the living room of Kjeld's dilapidated home in a run-down Valby neighbourhood. Egon will inform his friends of his latest plan for making them all millionaires (for example, eluding an alarm system to steal some crown jewels that happen to be on display in Copenhagen) and instruct them to provide the necessary equipment. The plans usually feature everyday artefacts such as Lego, party balloons, cigarettes etc., which are combined to work like Rube Goldberg machines, and clever social engineering. Egon often serves time with lawyers or executives who provide him with the information he needs, such as duty rosters for the national public record office. Egon's plans often bring the gang into perilously close contact with white-collar criminals from the Danish business (and political) elite. For example, in one episode some well-connected people try to make money out of the so-called "butter mountain", a huge amount of butter bought up and stored by the EEC (now the EU) to keep prices up. Egon Olsen learns about this from a lawyer who is serving prison time, and the gang interferes with the plan to secure the millions for themselves. But as always, Egon – after having succeeded with a genius plan – loses because he underestimates the power and unscrupulousness of these people. Egon is usually arrested in the end because the police cannot get to the "big fish" and have to find a scapegoat. Superintendent Jensen (Hermansen in Norwegian) tells his younger colleague, inspector Holm: "The only thing the police can do when the real big criminals come by is offer them protection!" This kind of social satire is one of the defining features of the Olsen Gang films. In the early episodes, harsh language and soft-erotica (temptingly dressed women) were more freely used than in later versions, which were censored to suit youngsters. International versions. The "Olsen Gang" have been made in Norwegian and Swedish ("Jönssonligan") versions too. The films differ a bit from each other, but they follow a generally similar formula to the Danish films. The original, Danish films were popular in the former GDR and Eastern Europe. The film series also has another character, 'Dynamite Harry', as the little brother of Benny Frandsen, which is also featured on the Norwegian rendition of the episodes – is the demolition expert (although his nerves are very easily shaken due to years of having dealt with explosives and alcohol). Harry made an appearance in six Norwegian films, played by Harald Heide-Steen Jr.. He also appeared in two early Danish Olsen Gang films, then played by Preben Kaas. In the Swedish "Jönssonligan" series Harry showed up in the second film, and became a regular member of the gang from the next installment on, since the actor who played the original member, a Finn named Rocky, was fired. In the Swedish version, Egon was replaced by Charles-Ingvar "Sickan" Jönsson, with a slightly different costume and mannerisms, and in later films when the actor Gösta Ekman got tired of the character, yet other leaders, who never became as popular as "Sickan". Benny's part was taken by "(Ragnar) Vanheden", a small-timer from Stockholm. Danish films. The first thirteen films were directed by Erik Balling, while Tom Hedegaard and Morten Arnfred directed the fourteenth and final "Olsen Gang" film. The scripts were written by Balling and Henning Bahs, who also worked as a production designer. Norwegian films. Several elements recur in the films series. You can note the main sponsor by looking at the villain's cars, the security cars, the police cars, the gang's car, and so on. Usually, Toyota has been the main sponsor of the film series, supplying the films with civilian cars parked on the sidewalks, Crowns as taxis, Toyota Cressida as police cars, Hiace as security vans and money transports, and so on. There have been exceptions, notably "Olsenbandens aller siste kupp" (The Olsen-Gangs very last coup) from 1982, which was sponsored by Datsun. Norwegian DVDs. Most of the Norwegian films have been digitally restored. The discs include English & Norwegian Subtitles, 16:9 format and Dolby Digital 1.0 surround sound. DVD Release List:
1073661	Joseph B. "Joe" Sagal (born 12 February 1957) is an American actor. He has sometimes been billed as Joey Sagal. Sagal was born in Los Angeles, California, the son of Sara Zwilling, a writer, singer, and director, and Boris Sagal, a noted producer and director. His siblings include actors Jean Sagal, Liz Sagal, and actor & singer Katey Sagal. Notable film appearances include "The Hidden", "Out for Blood", and "The Return of Swamp Thing". In Stephen King's "", where he played Elvis Presley the Mayor of RocknRoll Heaven, Redline, UnbeatableHarold, "Retrograde", Cult, and many more. He has played Elvis in three movies, one TV show, and a play that Steve Martin wrote "Piccasso at the Lapin Agile", Joe was in the original Steppenwolf Production that played at the Westwood Playhouse (now the Geffen Playhouse), he then played the same part five years later at the Laguna Beach Playhouse, both Productions he was in broke all box-office and attendance records for the theaters and companies he played in.
1062697	Harry Dean Stanton (born July 14, 1926) is an American actor, musician, and singer. Stanton's career has spanned over fifty years, which has seen him star in such films as "Paris, Texas", "Kelly's Heroes", "Dillinger", "Alien", "Repo Man", "Pretty In Pink", "The Last Temptation of Christ", "Wild at Heart", "The Green Mile" and "The Pledge". In the late 2000s, he played a recurring role in the HBO television series "Big Love".
590891	Missamma is a Telugu movie, released in the year 1955 featuring Nandamuri Taraka Rama Rao (NTR) and Akkineni Nageswara Rao (ANR). It was produced under Vijaya banner and was directed by L. V. Prasad. The title character, Missamma, was played by the actress Savitri. Missamma is the movie adaptation of Yotish Banerjee's classic Bengali comedy "Manmoyee Girls School". The dialogues and song lyrics were written by Pingali Nagendra Rao and sung by A. M. Rajah, P. Leela and P. Susheela. This film was remade in Tamil as "Missiamma" and in Hindi as "Miss Mary". The movie's undercurrent themes. NTR and Mary are foils for each other - Mary's aggressive personality and NTR meekness are frequently juxtaposed. Mary is a staunch Christian in this movie, and in many scenes complains about Hindu customs and the Hindu pantheon. NTR, on the other hand, is knowledgeble and accepting of several religions, having read the Bible, Koran, Bhagavad Gita, and Rig Veda. The undercurrent religion theme is best exemplified when Paul, Mary's father says that, "As rivers join at the sea, all the religions are paths that take the devotees to the Almighty". Soundtrack. The songs in the movie are very melodious and situational. Plot. NTR is an unemployeed lonely man. He tutors a kid of a govt officer, who is also taught by Mary (Savithri). The govt officer is transferred to another town and the two lose their jobs. NTR has no job and is worried about earning for a living and Savithri's family has debts (to Ramana Reddy) which have to be paid off. Meanwhile, SVR is a landlord in a small village who runs a charity school for village kids in the name of his missing daughter (Mahalakshmi). He has a daughter (Jamuna) and nephew (ANR). ANR aspires to be a private detective and Jamuna wants to learn traditional music and dance. SVR advertises for teachers, preferably married couple (with knowledge of music and dance to teach his daughter) for his school. NTR persuades Savithri to accept the offer - acting as a couple - as they have no other choice. They along with NTR's accomplice Relangi reach the place and get the jobs to run the school. After many a petty clashes, NTR and Savithri fall in love. Meanwhile ANR starts search for SVR's missing daughter, who is lost 16 yrs ago while she was four years old. Ramana Reddy who wants to marry Savithri (under the pretext of clearing the loan) enters the show. Though Savitri's parents keep the whereabouts of Savithri a secret, he steals the letter written by Savithri to her parents and also a pendant which has been with Savithri's family since her childhood. The pendant happens to belong to Mahalakshmi (missing daughter of SVR) when she was a 4 yr girl. In the end, ANR manages to find the truth that the Savithri is none other than the lost girl and reunites the family. Tamil version. Tamil: This film has been made in Tamil with again Savithri with Gemini Ganesan in the lead role. This movie was titled "Missiamma". Hindi version. Hindi: The film has been made in Hindi too with Meena Kumari in the lead role as "Miss Mary".
1163259	Carole Landis (January 1, 1919 – July 5, 1948) was an American film and stage actress, who worked as a contract-player for Twentieth Century-Fox in the 1940s. Her breakthrough role was as the female lead in the 1940 film "One Million B.C.", with United Artists.
520458	Victoria Lorna Aluquin-Fernandez, better known as Lorna Tolentino, sometimes known as L.T., an abbreviation of her screen name (born December 23, 1961), is a Filipina actress, host, executive producer and widow of actor Rudy Fernandez. Together, they bore two sons named Ralph and Renz. Life and career. She was born on December 23, 1961 in Concepcion, Tarlac and later moved to Manila. Her dad is from Liliw, Laguna. She is also the stepmother of actor Mark Anthony Fernandez. She is first cousin to actress Amy Perez and a niece of actor Jerry Pons. She was married to actor Rudy Fernandez from 1983 till his death in 2008. They had two children. She attended the elementary grades at St. Anthony School where she also finished high school She took up a Bachelor of Arts course at St. Paul College in Quezon City, and also at the University of Santo Tomas and Maryknoll College (now Miriam College). She started her career as a child actress. Later, she portrayed the young Susan Roces in "Divina Gracia" and has a total of at least 60 movies. She has won eight film awards and garnered 20 nominations (mostly for Best Actress in FAMAS). She's also one of the Grandslam actresses in the Philippine Cinema together with Nora Aunor, Vilma Santos and Sharon Cuneta. She won her Grandslam Best Actress for "Narito Ang Puso Ko" (1993). She went back to her original network (GMA Network) to star in the up-coming heavy drama series "Pahiram ng Sandali". Tolentino is also known for her heavy dramatic portrayals in Primetime Award Winning TV Dramas in 2002-2003 she was cast in The Phenomonal Suspense Drama Series Kay Tagal Kang Hinintay as Lorrea/Lorrinda Guinto/Red Butterfly a lead role which successfully set Primetime TV Standards and also had a Phenominal Finale. In 2009-2010 after she stopped doing TV work and mostly did films and TV Stints as a TV Host she came back to reclaim her throne as she played the role of Atty Tessa Ramirez in the Phenomonal Soap Dahil May Isang Ikaw which won her more accolades in the New York Television Awards for Best Telenovela and in 2011 she did the Action-Military Drama Minsan Lang Kita Iibigin where she played Antagonist as Alondra Sebastiano. In 2011, of the same year she left the network and did a heavy Primetime Drama Glamorosa
1551544	Goldfish Memory (2003) is a feature film about everyday relationships, set and filmed in Dublin. It was written and directed by Elizabeth Gill. Plot. The movie is set around a small group of characters experiencing relationships which build and crumble before the viewers eyes. The title of the film refers to the belief, expressed by several of characters, that the goldfish retains a memory of something for only three seconds. Tom, one of the principal characters in the film, draws comparisons between this and the human tendency to jump from one relationship to the next, "forgetting" the pain that any previous one might have caused. The film shows complexities involved in straight, gay, lesbian, and bisexual relationships. Writer/director Liz Gill says the film was influenced by the work of directors Robert Altman and Richard Linklater, particularly Linklater's film Slacker. Cast. Sean Campion, Fiona O'Shaughnessy, Fiona Glascott, Peter Gaynor, Keith McErlean, Stuart Graham, Lise Hearns, Jean Butler, Justine Mitchell, Aisling O'Neill, Demien McAdam, Tony Brown, Flora Montgomery. Soundtrack. The film's soundtrack acted as something of a showcase for the Irish alternative music scene of the time. Alongside relatively established bands like The Frames and The Walls, it also featured up and coming acts like Rodrigo y Gabriela, Nina Hynes and Messiah J and the Expert. Four songs by the legendary Brazilian Bossa Nova composer Tom Jobim were remade for the movie, three of which ('Once I Loved', 'Waters of March' and 'Desafinado') were performed by Damien Rice with Lisa Hannigan (vocals) and Vyvienne Long (cello). The other ('Lamento No Morro') was performed by Richie Buckley.
1161724	Jack Stuart Plotnick (born October 30, 1968) is an American film and television actor. Born in Worthington, Ohio, Plotnick is based in Hollywood. Plotnick is best known for performances on "Ellen", "Buffy the Vampire Slayer", as the voice of Xandir on "Drawn Together", a lost man searching for his Dog in Quentin Dupieux's "Wrong" and his drag persona, "Evie Harris" in "Girls Will Be Girls". Awards. Along with co-stars Miss Coco Peru and Varla Jean Merman, Plotnick shared the Best Actor Grand Jury Award at Outfest 2003 and "Best Actress" honors at the 2003 U.S. Comedy Arts Festival for his role in "Girls Will Be Girls". Other Work. Plotnick has also appeared in television commercials as well; the most recent (as of January 2010) being for Trix cereal, where he posed as a French waiter. Plotnick performed in the July, 2012 edition of Don't Tell My Mother! (Live Storytelling), a monthly showcase in which actors, authors, screenwriters and comedians share true stories they would never want their mothers to know.
1066381	Bitch Slap is a 2009 action and exploitation film directed by Rick Jacobson and stars Julia Voth, Erin Cummings, America Olivo and Michael Hurst, with cameos by Lucy Lawless, Kevin Sorbo, and Renée O'Connor. Plot. Three girls, a down-and-out stripper named Trixie, a drug-running killer and ex-convict named Camero, and a corporate powerbroker nicknamed Hel, arrive at a remote desert hideaway to extort massive riches from a ruthless sword-wielding killer named Pinky, who is also a notorious underworld figure. None of the three women are who they appear to be: each has an ulterior motive. They kidnap a gangster called Gage and try to force him to reveal where the treasure is buried. He refuses, believing they will kill him anyway, but Hel promises he will not be harmed. Camero shoots him, against the wishes of Hel, saying she made no such promise. His phone rings, and they believe Gage is connected to Pinky. Things become more complicated when a police officer named Deputy Fuchs arrives. Unknown to them, he was in the audience five nights ago when Trixie performed as a stripper to seduce Gage. However, the three women hide the body and are able to convince Fuchs to leave. While digging for the treasure, Camero asks the girls about the best sex each has ever had, believing the answer tells her something important about their character. She admits her best sex ever was with a circus contortionist, although she did not even know the contortionist's name.
1166112	Samuel Franklin "Samm" Levine (born March 12, 1982) is an American television and film actor. He is known for his portrayal of Neal Schweiber on NBC's short-lived "Freaks and Geeks" and PFC Hirschberg in the 2009 film "Inglourious Basterds". Levine has said that Quentin Tarantino was a fan of "Freaks and Geeks", and used it as a way of introducing himself to the director, which was instrumental in getting the role in "Inglourious Basterds". Levine is also the sidekick on the internet talk show "Kevin Pollak's Chat Show". Early life. Levine was born in Chicago, the son of Lynne, a mortgage broker, and Harris Levine, a dentist (the father of his character, Neal Schweiber, in "Freaks and Geeks", was also a dentist). Career. When Levine began his acting career, he added the extra "M" to his name because there was already a "Sam Levine" registered with the Screen Actors Guild. Levine was cast as a character in the sixth and final season of ABC's "Lost" in a small role that was written for him by "Lost" co-creator Damon Lindelof. Lindelof had frequently told Levine, "I'm going to write you something on the show". Levine played a clerk in the twelfth episode, "Everybody Loves Hugo." He also regularly appears on Doug Benson's "Doug Loves Movies" podcasts and fills in as host of the Leonard Maltin Game when not taped in front of a live studio audience so Doug can play the game as a contestant. Benson has nicknamed Levine both "Samm the Ma'am Levine" and "Lil' Wolverine". Benson referred to 2011 as "The Summer of Samm" because Levine played the game so frequently and competitively.
1420016	Bastards of the Party is a 2005 documentary film produced by Alex Demyanenko and directed by former Bloods gang-member Cle Sloan. The film explores the creation of two of Los Angeles’s most notorious gangs, the Crips and the Bloods, from the perspective of the Los Angeles community. The film also denounces gang violence and presents meaningful solutions from former gang-members to stop this problem. The documentary appeared at the 2005 Tribeca Film Festival and at the 2006 Hollywood Black Film Festival. The television premiere aired on February 6, 2007 on HBO. Over 90 percent of the documentary was shot in 1996. During a term in jail, Cle Sloan picked up a book titled, "City of Quartz" by Mike Davis. While reading the book, Sloan found his neighborhood of Athens Park on a map depicting LAPD gang hot spots of 1972. The account in Davis' book fueled Sloan to ask questions of how the gangs got started, only to receive speculation and more questions from his fellow gang-members. Sloan decided to research the subject himself. The title of the movie, "Bastards of the Party" comes from a passage in "City of Quartz" that reads: "As even "The Angeles Times" recognized, the decimation of the Panthers led directly to a recrudescence of gangs in the early 1970s. ‘Crippin,’ the most extraordinary new gang phenomenon was a bastard offspring of the Panthers’ former charisma, filling the void left by the LAPD SWAT teams." Content. "Bastards of the Party" explores various influences on California African-American gang culture. The starting point is the crisis of black leadership that marked the end of the civil rights movement, particularly the government-instigated rivalry between the Black Panther Party and the Us Organization. Movements based on collective action gave way to individualism inspired by heroes of blaxploitation films like "Super Fly". In this atmosphere, Raymond Washington created the concept of a gang of the new generation that went from "the cradle to the grave" and was joined by Stanley "Tookie" Williams and Jamel Barnes in the formation of the Crips. The collapse of domestic industry left black youth with few opportunities to escape from gang activity, which became a money-making operation based around the illegal drug traffic. Tupac Shakur's song, "So Many Tears", is played at the end portion of the documentary.
1173399	Kimberly Noel "Kim" Kardashian (born October 21, 1980) is an American television personality, fashion designer, model, and actress. Born and raised in Los Angeles, California, she first garnered media attention through her then-friend Paris Hilton. In 2007, Kardashian came to prominence after a sex tape with her then-boyfriend Ray J was leaked. Later that year, she and her family were commissioned to star in the reality television series "Keeping Up with the Kardashians". Its success has led to the creation of spin-offs including "Kourtney and Kim Take New York" and "Kourtney and Kim Take Miami". In 2010, Kardashian was named the highest-paid reality television personality, with estimated earnings of $6 million. In August 2011, Kardashian married basketball player Kris Humphries in a widely-publicized ceremony. However, following 72 days of marriage, she garnered significant criticism after filing for divorce that October, labeling their nuptials a publicity stunt. In June 2013, their divorce was finalized with an undisclosed settlement. Kardashian began a relationship with rapper Kanye West in 2012, and gave birth to their daughter North West the following year. With sisters Kourtney and Khloé, Kardashian is involved in the retail and fashion industries. They have launched several clothing collections and fragrances, and additionally released the book "Kardashian Konfidential" in 2010. Life and career. 1980–2007: Early life and sex tape. Kimberly Noel Kardashian was born in Los Angeles, California on October 21, 1980, to parents Robert and Kris (née Houghton). She has an older sister Kourtney, a younger sister Khloé, and a younger brother Rob. Their mother is of Dutch, English, and Scottish ancestry, while their father was a third-generation Armenian American. After their parents divorced in 1991, Houghton remarried to the 1976 Summer Olympics decathlon winner Bruce Jenner in 1991. Through their marriage, Kardashian gained step-brothers Burton "Burt", Brandon, and Brody; step-sister Casey; and half-sisters Kendall and Kylie. As a teenager, she attended Marymount High School, a Roman Catholic all-girls school in Los Angeles. In 1994, her father garnered public attention as the primary defense lawyer for football player O.J. Simpson during his murder trial. In 2003, Robert Kardashian was diagnosed with esophageal cancer, and died that September. In 2000, a 19-year-old Kardashian eloped to music producer Damon Thomas. Thomas filed for divorce in 2003, though Kardashian later credited their separation to physical and emotional abuse on his part. During this time, Kardashian was also close friends with socialite Paris Hilton, through whom she first garnered media attention. Prior to the finalization of her divorce, Kardashian began dating singer Ray J, the younger brother of Brandy Norwood. In February 2007, a sex tape made by Kardashian and Ray J in 2003 was leaked. Kardashian filed a lawsuit against Vivid Entertainment, who distributed the film as "Kim K Superstar", and dropped the suit and settled for $5 million. 2007–09: Career beginnings. In October 2007, Kardashian, in addition to her mother Kris; her step-father Bruce; her siblings Kourtney, Khloé, and Rob; and half-sisters Kendall and Kylie were commissioned to star in the reality television series "Keeping Up with the Kardashians". The series proved successful for E!, the network in which it is broadcast, and has led to the creations of spin-offs including "Kourtney and Kim Take New York" and "Kourtney and Kim Take Miami". That December, Kardashian posed for a nude pictorial for "Playboy". In 2008, Kardashian made her feature film debut in the disaster film spoof "Disaster Movie", in which she appeared as a character named Lisa. That year, she was announced as one of thirteen participants on the seventh season of "Dancing with the Stars", where she was partnered with Mark Ballas. Kardashian was the third contestant to be eliminated. In January 2009, Kardashian guest starred as herself during an episode of the sitcom "How I Met Your Mother" in the episode "Benefits". That March, she launched an endorsement with ShoeDazzle shopping, of which she is the co-founder and chief fashion stylist. She then endorsed multiple other projects including a vanilla cupcake mix flavor called 'Va-Va-Va-Nilla' for the Los Angeles bakery, Famous Cupcakes. In April, she released a workout DVD series, "Fit in Your Jeans by Friday," with trainers Jennifer Galardi and Patrick Goudeau. In June, it was announced that Kardashian was to star as Elle in the television series "Beyond the Break". August saw Kardashian become a guest host of WrestleMania XXIV and guest judge on "America's Next Top Model". In September, Fusion Beauty and Seven Bar Foundation launched "Kiss Away Poverty", with Kardashian as the face of the campaign. For every LipFusion lipgloss sold, $1 went to the Foundation to fund women entrepreneurs in the US. The following month, she released her first fragrance titled "Kim Kardashian". On December 16, 2009, Kardashian made a guest star appearance on CBS's "" with Vanessa Minnillo. 2010–11: International success. 2010 saw Kardashian venture into several new endorsement deals, including endorsing various food products for Carl's Jr.'s. Beginning in early 2010, Kardashian and her sisters designed and developed clothing lines for Bebe stores and 'Virgins, Saints, and Angels'. In January 2010, she starred as Summa Eve in the film "Deep in the Valley" In April, Kardashian sparked controversy over the way she held a kitten for a photograph, holding it by the scruff of its neck. Animal rights organization PETA criticized Kardashian for repeatedly wearing fur coats, and named her as one of the five worst people or organizations of 2010 when it came to animal welfare. June saw Kardashian guest star with Khloé and Kourtney as herself on the season three premiere episode of the series "90210". That same month, Kardashian was involved in a lawsuit against one of her endorsments. Sanford Siegal, the creator of the Cookie Diet, sued Kardashian, claiming she defamed him on Twitter. According to Siegal, Kardashian tweeted in October 2009 that he was "falsely promoting" that she was on the cookie diet. Siegal filed a claim in a Florida state court charging that her statements were false and defamatory. He also alleged that Kardashian was on QuickTrim's payroll when she posted the tweet. Kardashian's tweet appears to stem from an article on CookieDiet.com, that named Kardashian as one of many celebrities who saw positive results on the diet. Kardashian sent a cease-and-desist order to Siegal, demanding the link be removed. Additionally, Kardashian and her sisters released a sunless tanner "Kardashian Glamour Tan", that month. On July 1, 2010, the New York City branch of Madame Tussauds revealed a wax figure of Kardashian.
1034025	Vernon Dobtcheff (born 14 August 1934) is a Franco-British actor. Dobtcheff was born in Nîmes, France, to a family of Russian descent. He attended Ascham Preparatory School in Eastbourne, Sussex, England, in the 1940s, where he won the Acting Cup. One of his many television roles was as the Chief Scientist in the "Doctor Who" series "The War Games" in 1969, in which he became the first actor to ever mention the Time Lords by name. In his 2006 memoir "Red Carpets and Other Banana Skins", British actor Rupert Everett describes an encounter with Dobtcheff on the boat train to Paris, and reveals his extraordinary reputation as the "patron saint" of the acting profession, stating that Dobtcheff "was legendary not so much for his acting as for his magical ability to catch every first night in the country". Widely travelled and prone to pop up in the most unlikely of locales, if unable to attend an opening night, Dobtcheff will still endeavour to send the cast a card wishing the production good luck. Dobtcheff appeared in the "Doctor Who" audio drama "The Children of Seth" in which he plays the role of Shamur.
1376126	Ashley Margaret Anne Leggat (born September 26, 1986) is a Canadian actress, dancer and singer. She is known for her roles as Casey McDonald in "Life with Derek" and as Ashley Dunnfield in "The Perfect Roommate". Career. Ashley Leggat began her theatrical training with Theatre Aquarius’ Performing Arts Program under the direction of Lou Zamprogna. That same year, Leggat made her professional theatre debut playing Marta in Theatre Aquarius’ production of "The Sound of Music". She went on to perform in several of the company’s productions including "The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe", "Cinderella", "Anne of Green Gables", "Jacob Two-Two Meets the Hooded Fang", "Jekyll And Hyde" and "The Wizard of Oz". She also performed the role of Clara in "The Nutcracker" at Hamilton Place. Beginning in 2004, she appeared in the Disney feature "Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen" as Marcia, also starring Lindsay Lohan and Megan Fox, the television movie "A Very Married Christmas", with Joe Mantegna and Jean Smart and played series lead Kat Adams in "Ace Lightning". Ashley performed concurrent recurring roles on the series "I Was a Sixth Grade Alien" for Fox and YTV, and "In a Heartbeat" for Disney. She performed a guest lead role on the popular series "Real Kids, Real Adventures", and a lead role on the CBC Radio drama "Articles of Faith". As well, she appeared in the cable feature "What Girls Learn", starring Elizabeth Perkins and Scott Bakula; the Disney television movie "The Music Man", starring Matthew Broderick, the comedy series "The Blobheads", and the fantasy sci-fi series "The Zack Files". In 2005, Leggat performed in Moze Mossanen's short film "Roxana" as part of CBC's "Opening Night" series. Ashley has starred in the Toronto version of the hit play "Dirty Dancing" and has received critical acclaim for her lead role of Baby. On July 31, 2009, Ashley commented on her official Facebook page that they would begin shooting "Vacation with Derek" in September of that year. Charity. Ashley is a proud supporter of Count Me In, the largest youth-led movement of its kind. Based in Canada, the ultimate mission of Count Me In is to promote student volunteerism, and help connect young people with community service opportunities that match their interests, passions and lifestyle. Count Me In is the link between teenagers and the charitable sector, inspiring community involvement, leadership, and positive social change. Ashley hosted the 2012 "Count Me In Conference", which has been recognized as the largest youth-run empowerment event in North America. Following the event, Ashley logged onto Twitter to share her support for Count Me In saying "@ShaneFeldman You are the most inspirational person in my life! So proud of you and what was accomplished at CMIC! Thank you. XO". Count Me In was founded by teen activist, Shane Feldman. Personal life. Ashley Leggat was born in Hamilton, Ontario, and has Scottish and Irish ancestry on her mother's side. Ashley has four brothers named Rob, Brett, Todd and Bram. On August 6, 2011 Ashley married longtime boyfriend Jeremy Wiliams.
1016087	Roy Cheung Yiu-Yeung (; born 20 July 1964 in Hong Kong) is a Hong Kong-based actor, best known on-screen for his roles as Triad gangsters in a number of films. Early life and career. As a child, Cheung idolized kung-fu legend Bruce Lee but never seriously considered a career in acting. Starting out as a model, Cheung turned to acting when director Yeung Fan cast him in his 1986 film "Lost Romance" and the first of his many roles portraying a villain followed in the acclaimed director Ringo Lam's 1987 "City on Fire". In 1996, Cheung appeared in the 3rd, 4th and 6th installments of the "Young and Dangerous" series. Roles that heralded the beginning of a long working relationship with director/cinematographer Andrew Lau. Present day. Recently, Cheung has appeared in a number of Andrew Lau's films, most notably in the second installment of the internationally acclaimed "Infernal Affairs" trilogy, and in the 1998 "The Storm Riders", in which Cheung broke free of his standard villainous self altogether and portrayed a Shaolin monk.
1061103	Mary-Louise Parker (born August 2, 1964) is an American actress, best known for her lead role on Showtime's television series "Weeds" portraying Nancy Botwin, for which she has received several nominations and the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in 2006. Parker has appeared in films and series such as "RED", "RED 2," "Fried Green Tomatoes", "Boys on the Side", "The West Wing", and "Angels in America", for which she received a Golden Globe and an Emmy Award for Best Supporting Actress. Parker is also the recipient of the 2001 Tony Award for Best Actress for the Broadway play "Proof". Early life. Parker was born in Fort Jackson, South Carolina. She is the daughter of Caroline Louise (née Morell) and John Morgan Parker, a judge who served in the U.S. Army. Her ancestry includes Swedish (from her maternal grandfather), English, Scottish, Scotch-Irish, German, and Dutch. Because of her father's career, Parker spent parts of her childhood in Tennessee and Texas, as well as in Thailand, Germany, and France. Parker majored in drama at the North Carolina School of the Arts. Career. 1980s. Parker got her start in a bit part on the soap opera "Ryan's Hope". In the late 1980s, Parker moved to New York, where she got a job measuring feet at the ECCO shoe company. After a few minor roles, she made her Broadway debut in a 1990 production of Craig Lucas' "Prelude to a Kiss", playing the lead role of Rita. She moved with the production when it transferred from its origin Off-Broadway. She won the Clarence Derwent Award for her performance and was nominated for a Tony Award (although she did not play the role when the film was made). 1990s. She starred with Kevin Kline in "Grand Canyon" (1991); with Kathy Bates, Mary Stuart Masterson, and Jessica Tandy in "Fried Green Tomatoes" (1991); with Susan Sarandon and Tommy Lee Jones in "The Client" (1994); with John Cusack in "Bullets Over Broadway" (1994); and with Drew Barrymore and Whoopi Goldberg in "Boys on the Side" (1995), as a woman with AIDS. Her next role was in a movie adaptation of another Craig Lucas play, "Reckless" (1995), alongside Mia Farrow, followed by Jane Campion's "The Portrait of a Lady" (1996), which also starred Nicole Kidman, Viggo Mortensen, Christian Bale, John Malkovich and Barbara Hershey. In addition, she appeared alongside Matthew Modine in Tim Hunter's "The Maker" (1997). Parker's theater career continued when she appeared in Paula Vogel's 1997 critical smash "How I Learned to Drive", with David Morse. In the late 1990s, she appeared in several independent films, including "Let the Devil Wear Black" and "The Five Senses". 2001–2003. On December 7, 2003, HBO aired an epic six-and-a-half hour adaptation of Tony Kushner's acclaimed Broadway play "Angels in America", directed by Mike Nichols. Parker played Harper Pitt, the Mormon Valium-addicted wife of a closeted lawyer. For her performance, Parker received Golden Globe and Emmy awards for Best Supporting Actress in a Miniseries. 2004–2006. In 2004, Parker appeared in the comedy "Saved!", and a television film called "Miracle Run", based on the true story of a mother of two sons with autism, as well as appearing in Craig Lucas' "Reckless" on Broadway. Parker took the lead role that had been Mia Farrow's on screen. The production, directed by Mark Brokaw, earned Parker another nomination for a Tony Award for Best Actress in 2005. In November 2005, Parker was the subject of a career exhibition at Boston University, where memorabilia from her career were donated to the University's library. Parker received the 2006 Golden Globe Award for Best Performance by an Actress in a Television Series - Musical or Comedy, given by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, for her lead role in "Weeds". In that category, she defeated the four leads of "Desperate Housewives". She dedicated the award to the late John Spencer, known for his work as Leo McGarry on "The West Wing". After receiving the award, Parker stated: "I'm really in favor of legalizing marijuana. I don't think it's that controversial." 2007–present. In March 2007, Parker played the lead role in the television film "The Robber Bride". She then portrayed Zerelda Mimms in the Andrew Dominik film "The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford", which opened in cinemas in September 2007. Parker appeared alongside Brad Pitt, Casey Affleck, Sam Rockwell and Garret Dillahunt. In August 2007, Parker continued her role in the third season of "Weeds". In August 2007, she posed nude for an ad for the third season of "Weeds". In the ad, she appears as Eve in the Garden of Eden, with a snake draped around her body and a cannabis leaf behind her ear. Parker appeared in 2008's "The Spiderwick Chronicles" and in off-Broadway's Playwrights Horizons in the New York premiere of "Dead Man's Cell Phone", a new play by Sarah Ruhl, alongside Drama Desk Award Winner Kathleen Chalfant. She filmed the Donna Vermeer film "Les Passages" alongside Julie Delpy. Following this, she returned to work on the fifth season of "Weeds". In the spring of 2009, Parker took the lead role in the revival of the play "Hedda Gabler", which opened to garner a series of negative reviews. Parker starred opposite Bruce Willis in the film "RED", an adaptation of the comic book mini-series of the same name. The film was released on October 15, 2010. In 2011, Parker became the host for the tenth season of the PBS documentary series "Independent Lens". In 2013 she is in both "RED 2" and "R.I.P.D.". Personal life. From 1996 to November 2003, Parker dated actor Billy Crudup, with whom she had a son, William Atticus Parker, born on January 7, 2004 (Crudup had left her two months earlier). In December 2006, Parker began dating actor Jeffrey Dean Morgan, whom she met on the set of "Weeds". In March 2007, Parker stated that the relationship was "going great." The two briefly split in June 2007, but later reconciled. On February 12, 2008, Parker and Morgan announced their engagement, only to break up again in April 2008. In September 2007, Parker adopted a baby girl from Ethiopia, Caroline 'Ash' Aberash Parker.
1103192	Eric Wolfgang Weisstein (born March 18, 1969) is an encyclopedist who created and maintains "MathWorld" and "Eric Weisstein's World of Science" ("ScienceWorld"). He is the author of the CRC Concise Encyclopedia of Mathematics. He currently works for Wolfram Research, Inc. Education. Weisstein holds a Ph.D. in planetary astronomy which he obtained from the California Institute of Technology's (Caltech) Division of Geological and Planetary Sciences in 1996 as well as an M.S. in planetary astronomy in 1993 also from Caltech. Weisstein graduated Cum Laude from Cornell University with a B.A. in physics and a minor in astronomy in 1990. During his summers away from Cornell, Weisstein participated in research at the Arecibo Observatory, a radio telescope facility in Puerto Rico operated by Cornell. As a graduate student, Weisstein also participated in research at Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, MD. During his time at Goddard, Weisstein participated in the development of hurricane visualization software. In 1996 Weisstein published his doctoral thesis titled "Millimeter/Submillimeter Fourier Transform Spectroscopy of Jovian Planet Atmospheres" which was completed under faculty advisor Dewey Muhleman and in association with Eugene Serabyn, who is now a member of the Caltech Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). Career. Academic research. Upon completion of his doctorate, Weisstein became a research scientist at Caltech in January 1996 and continued work in the field of submillimeter spectroscopy. He collaborated with Eugene Serabyn and published several papers. Six months later, he moved to the University of Virginia's Department of Astronomy in Charlottesville, VA where he remained for three years to continue his research. MathWorld, ScienceWorld and Wolfram Research. In 1995, Weisstein converted a Microsoft Word document of over 200 pages to hypertext format and uploaded it to his webspace at Caltech under the title "Eric's Treasure Trove of Sciences". This document contained a compendium of information that Weisstein had obtained throughout his studies. As Weisstein transferred to the University of Virginia to continue his work in astronomy, he continued to refine his fledgling encyclopedia. In November 1998, Weisstein made a deal with the CRC Press to publish his encyclopedia in book format titled, the CRC Concise Encyclopedia of Mathematics. One year later, in 1999, Weisstein accepted the position of encyclopedist at Wolfram Research, Inc. (WRI). "MathWorld" was ready to be unveiled in December 1999. There are nearly 13,000 entries in "MathWorld", nearly all of them authored by Weisstein. These entries encompass a variety of disciplines including algebra, geometry, calculus, discrete mathematics, topology, number theory, statistics, and the foundations and "MathWorld" became involved in a legal dispute with the CRC Press in March 2000. The CRC Press claimed "MathWorld" violated the copyright on the CRC Concise Encyclopedia of Mathematics. During the dispute a court order shut down "MathWorld" for over a year starting October 23, 2000. According to Eric Weisstein’s personal site he restarted MathWorld on November 6, 2001. This ultimately led to the creation of PlanetMath. Wolfram Research, Stephen Wolfram, and Eric Weisstein settled with the CRC Press for an undisclosed financial award and several benefits. Among these benefits are the inclusion of a copyright notice of the CRC Press at the bottom of all webpages in "MathWorld" and legal rights to reproduce "MathWorld" in book format again. "ScienceWorld", or "Eric Weisstein's World of Science" as it may be known, was unveiled to the general public in January 2002. "ScienceWorld" includes more than 1,000 entries in many fields of science including: astronomy, chemistry, physics and biographies of scientists. Other encyclopedias. Eric Weisstein also has several other encyclopedias under development. Reportedly among these are encyclopedias on scientific books, the game of life in cellular automata theory, music and rocketry.
578392	Tom-Yum-Goong (Thai: ต้มยำกุ้ง, is a 2005 Thai martial arts action film starring Tony Jaa. The film was directed by Prachya Pinkaew, who also directed Jaa's prior breakout film "Ong-Bak". As with "Ong-Bak", the fights were choreographed by Jaa and his mentor, Panna Rittikrai. The film was distributed as The Warrior King in the United Kingdom, as The Protector in the United States, as Thai Dragon in Spain, and as Revenge of the Warrior in Germany. Plot. Kham is the last of a family line of guards who once watched over the King of Thailand's war elephants. Traditionally, only the most perfect elephants could successfully defend the throne, and very great care was taken in raising them. Kham grows up forming close relations to his elephant, Por Yai and his calf, Kohrn. During Songkran festival, the elephants are stolen with help from Mr. Suthep, a local MP and his son who are collaborating with elephant poachers. Kham discovers that they are in the hands of Johnny, a Vietnamese gangster who runs a Thai restaurant named Tom Yum Goong Otob in Sydney, Australia. Kham arrives in Sydney, and is stalked by the police as soon as he leaves the airport. Kham coerces a gangster to lead him to Johnny's hideout, interrupting a drug deal. Outraged, Johnny summons countless extreme sports enthusiasts, who arrive to fight Kham. Exhausted, Kham falls asleep in an alley. A prostitute brings him to her apartment. In his sleep, he dreams of an epic battle involving war elephants and the Jaturangkabart, the elephant protectors. When Pla leaves, Kham wakes up to the sound of police sirens and must escape. Two officers, Mark and Rick are taken off the case and re-assigned to provide security for the Police Commissioner's meeting with Mr. Sim. In that meeting, Pla acted as a hostess girl to the two men. During the meeting, Mr. Sim and the Commissioner are murdered. The murder is instigated by Vincent, who kills Rick and puts the blame on Mark. Mark escapes, but is later captured. Pla manages to escape, taking a camera phone that contains evidence of the murder with her. She is saved from the police by Kham. Pla reveals that she used to be a waitress at Tom Yum Goong Otob. Since Johnny and his men took over the management, it has been awful for all those who work there. She reveals a secret VIP area in the back of the restaurant. With Pla's help, Kham enters Tom Yum Goong Otob. He fights his way into the VIP area and reaches the dining hall at the top. Kham demands, "Where are my elephants?" and is met with the laughter of Johnny and his men. Johnny taunts Kham with Kohrn's bell. This enrages Kham and he fights and defeats his opponents. He enters the storage area, containing various exotic animals ready to be butchered and eaten. Kham finds and frees Mark and Kohrn, escaping minutes before the police arrive. Meanwhile, Madame Rose is made the new leader of the Chinese gang after she murders two other possible successors. Inspector Vincent initiates a search for Kham and Mark, who are hiding in a Buddhist monastery. Soon after their departure, the monastery is set on fire. But then Kham returns, and he defeats a fierce Capoeira fighter and a Wushu sword fighter. However, his third opponent, a giant wrestler, proves way too much for Kham. When the police arrive, he flees with Mark. By morning, Kham goes on his way. Mark is discovered by several policemen and sent to deal with Inspector Vincent, whom Pla has revealed to be the murderer. Kham arrives at a conference hall where Madame Rose is having a press conference. Kohrn runs in, scaring off everyone while Kham engages the gangsters. He later finds Kohrn in an elevator lobby, where Vincent threatens to shoot him. Kham finds himself with Kohrn in a huge room, and he is shown the skeleton of Por Yai, encrusted with jewels as a gift to Madame Rose. Her men then attack Kham, and he attacks them more brutally than previously seen, by breaking many of the men's arms and legs. The wrestler from the monastery is called in, along with three others. Kohrn is thrown through a glass wall, and Kham is knocked into the elephant ornament, causing two leg bones to fall off. Kham ties them around his arms and uses them as clubs to knock the wrestlers out. The two bones then splinter into two sharp fragments. Remembering something his father told him, Kham uses the splinters to sever the tendons of the wrestlers, who fall quickly. He stops Madame Rose before she can escape in a helicopter, and the two crash through the roof and land in the room. Madame Rose is knocked unconscious, while Kham's fall is cushioned by the tusks of Por Yai. Back in the lobby, Mark is shown Pla, and forgiven by his boss, Inspector Lamond. He is given a new partner who speaks Thai. Mark is then interviewed by a reporter about Kham. Finally, a narration from Mark is heard, with scenes of Kham's childhood shown. Mark explains that Thai people treat elephants like they are their brothers, and they hate people who hurt them. Thais love peace, but dislike people who take liberties. Kham is finally reunited with Kohrn. Production. Technical aspects. Compared to "", which was noted for its lack of wirework and CGI, this movie uses CGI in several scenes, from the obvious (helicopter scene, and an entirely computer-animated dream sequence), to the subtle (a glass window shattering in the four-minute steadicam long take that follows Jaa up several flights of stairs as he dispatches thug after thug in dramatic fashion).
1166181	Gail June Edwards (born September 27, 1952) is a retired American actress best known for her roles as Dot Higgins in ABC's "It's a Living", Sharon LeMeure in NBC's "Blossom", and Vicky Larson in ABC's "Full House". Early life and career. Edwards, a native Floridian, was raised in Coral Gables and caught the performing bug early in life. She had her father hang the curtain and lights while she choreographed, costumed, and starred in her own neighborhood musicals. In the sixth grade, Edwards played Little Mary in "The Women" at the Coconut Grove Playhouse where famed theater producer-playwright George Abbott came backstage to single out her performance. This appearance became her launching pad for numerous industrial films and local television commercials in South Florida. In 1975, after graduating from the University of Miami, Cum Laude, Edwards wrote, produced, and starred in the off-Broadway musical "Becoming". It won the Miami Herald Critics’ Choice award three times before the musical debuted in New York. While in New York, Edwards signed with the LeMond/Zetter Management Group. Soon afterwards, she landed the role of “Sandy” opposite Peter Gallagher in Broadway's East Coast tour of "Grease". After producing and starring in two additional productions, "The Good One" and "Vanities", both earning her the Drama-Logue Critics' Award, Edwards turned her focus toward television. Upon moving to Los Angeles in 1976, Edwards signed with the Ro Diamond Agency (later with the Gersh Agency) and immediately began landing guest-star roles on such television series as "Happy Days", "Lou Grant", "M*A*S*H" and "Taxi". In 1979, Edwards auditioned for a Witt/Thomas production, in which she landed the role of Dot Higgins on ABC’s "It’s a Living". The series ran on ABC from 1980 to 1982, and was revived in first-run syndication from 1985 to 1989. Edwards, along with Barrie Youngfellow, Paul Kreppel and the late Marian Mercer, were the only four members of the "It's a Living" cast who lasted during the network and syndicated runs. After ABC cancelled the show in 1982, Edwards' management was informed by the producers of "Happy Days" that they were offering her the role of new character K.C. Cunningham, the niece of Howard and Marion Cunningham who was moving in with the family. Without informing Edwards of the offer, her management declined the opportunity, reportedly stating that they did not want Edwards "playing a new character on an old show". Crystal Bernard was then hired for the part. Edwards did not learn of the incident until many years later. In 1985, Edwards and Bernard wound up as co-stars on "It's a Living", when the latter resumed production for first-run syndication. Edwards also appeared in many movies-of-the-week during the 1980s, along with numerous other guest-star appearances in such series as "Benson", "Buffalo Bill", "Doogie Howser, M.D.", "Knight Rider", "Night Court" and the premiere episode of "Amazing Stories", directed by Steven Spielberg.
1055683	Deborah Kara Unger (born 12 May 1964) is a Canadian actress. She is known for her roles in the films: "" (1994), "Crash" (1996), "The Game" (1997), "Payback" (1999), "The Hurricane" (1999), "White Noise" (2005), "Silent Hill" (2006), "88 Minutes" (2008), and "The Way" (2010). Early life. Deborah Kara Unger was born in Vancouver, British Columbia, to a nuclear disposal specialist mother and a gynaecologist father. She was the first Canadian to be accepted into Australia's National Institute of Dramatic Art. Unger now lives in Los Angeles. Career. Unger made her debut on the Australian television mini-series "Bangkok Hilton" with Nicole Kidman. A year later she made her film debut in the two Australian movies "Till There Was You" and "Blood Oath". In 1993 she starred in David Lynch's HBO mini-series "Hotel Room". The following year she played the lead female role in the movie with a big budget "" opposite Christopher Lambert. Unger appeared in her breakthrough role in the David Cronenberg's drama film "Crash" in 1996 about a group of people who take sexual pleasure from car accidents, a notable form of paraphilia. That year she also starred in the comedy-drama film "Keys to Tulsa" with Eric Stoltz and James Spader. In 1997 Unger starred with Michael Douglas in the critically and financially successful psychological thriller film "The Game" directed by David Fincher. The film debuted at No.1 at the box office. In 1998 she played the role Ava Gardner in HBO film "The Rat Pack". In 1999 she appeared in the films "Payback" with Mel Gibson, "The Hurricane" with Denzel Washington and award-winning ensemble cast historical movie "Sunshine". Unger starred in many independent films in the early 2000s, such as "Signs and Wonders", "Ten Tiny Love Stories", "Fear X", "Thirteen", "Stander", "Hollywood North (film)", "Emile", "Paranoia 1.0" and "A Love Song for Bobby Long". She played a leading role opposite Sophia Loren and Mira Sorvino in the 2002 independent movie "Between Strangers", about three women confront their pasts which changes their futures, for which she was nominated on Genie Award for Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role. In 2005, she starred in the financially successful supernatural horror film "White Noise" with Michael Keaton. In 2006 Unger appeared in a supernatural horror "Silent Hill" feature based on the popular video game series. From 2006 to 2010, she appeared in the movies "The Alibi", "Things That Hang from Trees", "88 Minutes", "Walled In", "Messages Deleted" and "The Way". In 2010 she won the award "Action On Film International Film Festival" for career achievements. In 2011 she received her first starring role in TV series called "Combat Hospital", which premieres in June on ABC. In 2012, Unger reprise her role as Dahlia Gillespie in a sequel to "Silent Hill", "" in 2012.
1064743	Case 39 is a 2009 American psychological horror film directed by Christian Alvart and starring Renée Zellweger, Bradley Cooper, and Ian McShane. The film was shot in Vancouver in late 2006 and was released theatrically in the UK, European and Latin American countries on August 13, 2009. The film was initially scheduled for America release in August 2008, but was delayed twice before its final release date on October 1, 2010. Plot. Social worker Emily Jenkins (Renée Zellweger) is assigned to investigate the family of ten year-old Lillith Sullivan (Jodelle Ferland), as her grades have declined and an emotional rift with her parents has emerged. Emily suspects that the parents have been mistreating Lillith. Emily's fears are confirmed when Lillith's parents try to kill her by roasting her in the oven at home. Emily saves Lillith with the help of Detective Mike Barron (Ian McShane). Lillith is originally sent to a children's home, but she begs Emily to look after her instead. With the agreement of the board, Emily is assigned to take care of Lillith until a suitable foster family comes along. In the meantime, Lillith's parents, Edward and Margaret (Callum Keith Rennie and Kerry O'Malley), are placed in a mental institution. Not too long after Lillith moves in, strange things begin to happen around Emily. Two weeks later, another of Emily's cases, a boy named Diego (Alexander Conti), suddenly murders his parents, and Barron informs Emily that somebody phoned Diego from her house the night before the crime. As she is suspected of involvement in the incident, Lillith undergoes a psychiatric evaluation by Emily's best friend, Douglas J. Ames (Bradley Cooper). During the session, however, Lillith turns the evaluation around, asking Douglas what his fears are and subtly threatening him. That night, Douglas receives a strange phone call and is panicked by a mass of hornets coming out of his body; in hysteria, he kills himself in his bathroom. Emily gradually becomes fearful of Lillith, so she heads to the mental asylum for answers from Lillith's parents. They tell her that Lillith is a demon who feeds on emotion, and that they tried to kill her in an attempt to save themselves. Lillith's father tells Emily that the only way to kill Lillith is to get her to sleep. Shortly after Emily leaves the asylum, Lillith's mother is fatally burnt and her father is stabbed in the eye after attacking a fellow inmate through whom the voice of Lillith spoke. Barron initially thinks Emily should seek psychiatric help, but is later convinced when he receives a strange phone call in his home from Lillith. He arms himself to help Emily. However, he inadvertently shoots himself in the head with a shotgun when Lilith makes him imagine he is being attacked by dogs.
1163339	Juliet Anne Prowse (September 25, 1936 – September 14, 1996) was an Anglo-Indian dancer, whose four-decade career included stage, television and film. She was raised in South Africa, to where her family emigrated after World War II. Early life. Prowse was born in Bombay, India and brought up in South Africa. She began studying dance at the age of four. In her early twenties she was dancing at a club in Paris when she was spotted by a talent agent and eventually signed to play the part of "Claudine" in the 1960 Walter Lang film, "Can-Can". Career. It was during the filming of "Can-Can" in 1959 that she captured the international spotlight. Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev visited the set of the film and after Prowse performed a rather saucy can-can for the Russian leader, he proclaimed her dance "immoral". The publicity brought Prowse considerable attention in the United States. From there, her career took off. Film and television. Prowse met Frank Sinatra on the set of "Can-Can". "Time" magazine did not care for the movie but said that Prowse was the best thing in it: "In fact, the only thing really worth seeing is Juliet Prowse, a young South African hoofer who puts some twinkle in the stub-toed choreography. And the only thing really worth hearing is the crack that Frank flips back at Juliet when she whips a redoubtable hip in his direction. "Don't point", he gasps. "It's rude." She would go on to appear with Sinatra and other notable guests such as Ella Fitzgerald, Peter Lawford, Hermione Gingold, the Hi-Lo's, Red Norvo, Nelson Riddle and his orchestra on the 1959 "Frank Sinatra Show." She at times would sing in the chorus with other guests or Sinatra would sing to her. Sinatra and Prowse announced their engagement in 1962. Soon afterwards, they broke up reportedly because Prowse wanted to concentrate on her career. Prowse later admitted, "I was as much flattered as I was in love. He (Sinatra) was a complex person, and after a few drinks he could be very difficult." Prowse co-starred in 1960 alongside Elvis Presley in "G.I. Blues". During shooting of the film they had a short and intense fling. "Elvis and I had an affair... We had a sexual attraction like two healthy young people, but he was already a victim of his fans. We always met in his room and never went out." She starred in her own NBC sitcom for one season: 1965's "Mona McCluskey", which was produced by George Burns. She also did other feature films, including "The Fiercest Heart" (1961) and "Who Killed Teddy Bear?" (1965) with Sal Mineo and Elaine Stritch. Although her film and television career did not make her as big a star as predicted, Prowse had a rather philosophical way of looking at it. "Things generally happen for the best... I never worry about what happens in my career, because I can always do something else." Prowse would later go on to headline successful Las Vegas shows, commanding a very high salary. Stating that Las Vegas was the most demanding place she ever worked, she won "Entertainer of the Year" for the Vegas run of "Sweet Charity". She would later show off her famous dancer's legs in a series of lucrative nationwide commercials for a number of advertisers, including L'eggs hosiery and Mannington flooring. Prowse was the first guest to appear on an episode of "The Muppet Show". In the late 1980s, she was mauled by an 80-pound leopard – twice. Once, while filming a scene for "Circus of the Stars" in 1987 and later that same year rehearsing a promotional stunt on "The Tonight Show", when the same leopard attacked her. The later attack was more serious, requiring upwards of twenty stitches to reattach her ear. Throughout the mid-1980s and 1990s, Prowse hosted the "Championship Ballroom Dance Competition" on PBS. Death. In 1994, Prowse was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. In 1995, she went into remission and was well enough to tour with Mickey Rooney in "Sugar Babies". The cancer subsequently returned and she died on September 14, 1996. She was survived by her son and her mother, and also her ex-husband, TV actor John McCook, who is the father of her only child, Seth.
1301557	Beloved Infidel is a 1959 biographical drama film made by 20th Century Fox and based on the life of F. Scott Fitzgerald. The film was directed by Henry King and produced by Jerry Wald from a screenplay by Sy Bartlett, based on the memoir by Sheilah Graham and Gerold Frank. The music score was by Franz Waxman, the cinematography by Leon Shamroy and the art direction by Lyle R. Wheeler and Maurice Ransford. The film stars Gregory Peck and Deborah Kerr with Eddie Albert and Philip Ober. Plot. Writer F. Scott Fitzgerald is a washed-up has-been; his wife is in a mental institution and he has turned to alcohol. His only interests in life are his affair with radio host Sheilah Graham, and his latest novel - which ultimately remains unfinished.
940239	So Dear to My Heart is a 1948 feature film produced by Walt Disney, released in Chicago on November 29, 1948, and nationwide on January 19, 1949, by RKO Radio Pictures and Buena Vista Distribution. Like 1946's "Song of the South", the film combines animation and live action. It is based on the Sterling North book "Midnight and Jeremiah". Plot. Set in early 20th century Indiana (in 1903), "So Dear to My Heart" tells the tale of Jeremiah Kincaid (Bobby Driscoll) and his determination to raise a black-wool lamb that had been rejected by its mother. Jeremiah names the lamb Danny for the famed race horse, Dan Patch (who is also portrayed in the film). Jeremiah's dream of showing Danny at the Pike County Fair must overcome the obstinate objections of his loving, yet strict, grandmother Granny (Beulah Bondi). Jeremiah's confidant, Uncle Hiram (Burl Ives), is the boy's steady ally. Inspired by the animated figures and stories, the boy perseveres. Awards. The film was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Song for Burl Ives's version of the 17th-century English folk song "Lavender Blue," but lost to "Baby, It's Cold Outside" from "Neptune's Daughter". Production. The train depot in the film was later relocated to Grizzly Flats Railroad. After the railroad closed, John Lasseter relocated it to his property. Release. The film was re-released in 1964 and earned an estimated $1.5 million in rentals in North America. "So Dear to My Heart" was not released on home video until 1986. It was then re-released 1992 and released on video in 1994 as part of the Walt Disney Masterpiece Collection. The film was originally planned for a US DVD release as part of the Walt Disney Gold Classic Collection, but was canceled, with no particular reason given. Six years after seeing a region 2 DVD release, it was released in the US on DVD in July 2008 as a Disney Movie Club Exclusive.
1268633	Lila Lee (July 25, 1901 – November 13, 1973) was a prominent screen actress of the early silent film era. Early life. Lila Lee was born Augusta Wilhelmena Fredericka Appel in Union Hill, New Jersey (now part of Union City) into a middle-class family of German immigrants who relocated to New York City when Lila was quite young. Searching for a hobby for their gregarious young daughter, the Appels enrolled Lila in Gus Edwards' kiddie review shows where she was given the nickname of "Cuddles"; a name that she would be known by for the rest of her acting career. Her stagework became so popular with the public that her parents had her educated with private tutors. Edwards would become Lee's long-term manager. Career. In 1918, she was chosen for a film contract by Hollywood film mogul Jesse Lasky for Famous Players-Lasky Corporation, which later became Paramount Pictures. Her first feature "The Cruise of the Make-Believes" garnered the seventeen-year-old starlet much public acclaim and Lasky quickly sent Lee on an arduous publicity campaign. Critics lauded Lila for her wholesome persona and sympathetic character parts. Lee quickly rose to the ranks of leading lady and often starred opposite such matinee heavies as Conrad Nagel, Gloria Swanson, Wallace Reid, Roscoe 'Fatty' Arbuckle, and Rudolph Valentino. In 1922 Lee was cast as "Carmen" in the enormously popular film "Blood and Sand", opposite matinee idol Rudolph Valentino and silent screen vamp Nita Naldi; Lee subsequently won the first WAMPAS Baby Stars award that year. Lee continued to be a highly popular leading lady throughout the 1920s and made scores of critically praised and widely watched films. As the "Roaring Twenties" drew to a close, Lee's popularity began to wane and Lee positioned herself for the transition to talkies. She is one of the few leading ladies of the silent screen whose popularity did not nosedive with the coming of sound. She went back to working with the major studios and appeared, most notably, in "The Unholy Three", in 1930, opposite Lon Chaney Sr. in his only talkie. However, a series of bad career choices and bouts of recurring tuberculosis and alcoholism hindered further projects and Lee was relegated to taking parts in mostly grade B-movies. Personal life. Lila was married and divorced three times. Her first husband was actor James Kirkwood, Sr., whom she married in 1923. The marriage ended in August 1931 on grounds of her desertion. Lee and Kirkwood had a son in 1924, James Kirkwood, Jr., whose custody was granted to his father; he became a highly regarded playwright and screenwriter whose works include "A Chorus Line" and "P.S. Your Cat Is Dead". Her second husband was broker Jack R. Peine (married 1934, divorced 1935) and her third husband was broker John E. Murphy (married 1944, divorced 1949). According to author Sean Egan in the James Kirkwood biography P"onies & Rainbows", Murphy’s will left Lee at the financial mercy of his widow (married subsequent to Lee), who consequently became the manipulative character Aunt Claire in "P.S. Your Cat Is Dead". Lee made several uneventful appearances in stage plays in the 1940s, and starred in early television soap operas in the 1950s. In 1973 Lee died of a stroke at Saranac Lake, New York. For her contribution as an actress in motion pictures, she was awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 1716 Vine Street, in Hollywood, California.
1161458	Merlin Santana (March 14, 1976November 9, 2002) was an American actor. He was best known for his roles as Rudy Huxtable's admirer Stanley on "The Cosby Show", Marcus Dixon on "Getting By", Marcus Henry in "Under One Roof" and as high school student Romeo Santana on The WB sitcom "The Steve Harvey Show". Early life. Born in New York City, New York to parents from the Dominican Republic, Santana's career in show business began with a push from his parents, who wanted to keep him off the tough streets of New York. He began his career at the age of three as an advertising model for a fast food chain. His first screen appearance was as an extra in the Woody Allen film, "The Purple Rose of Cairo". Acting Career. In 1991, Santana landed a recurring role on "The Cosby Show" as Stanley, the faithful admirer of the young Rudy Huxtable and the romantic rival of Rudy's friend Kenny (Deon Richmond). He was then cast as Marcus Dixon in the short-lived sitcom, "Getting By", starring Cindy Williams and Telma Hopkins. Deon Richmond was cast as his brother Darren, due to their interaction on "The Cosby Show".
591056	Kalathur Kannamma () is an Indian Tamil romantic drama film produced by A. V. Meiyappan and directed by A. Bhimsingh. The film stars Gemini Ganesan and Savitri in the lead, while Kamal Hassan made his debut in this film as a child artist. The film's critically acclaimed soundtrack was composed by R. Sudharsanam. It tells story is about how the daughter of a poor peasant bewitches the son of a wealthy landlord, who eventually wins her hand despite her initial reluctance. But when the young man's father finds out about their secret marriage, he is angered and forces the girl to leave his son alone, this is unknown to the latter. "Kalathur Kannamma" was critically acclaimed and became an instant success at the box office, and was the winner of several awards such as the Certificate of Merit by the Government of India, and the President's Gold Medal award. The film was also dubbed in Telugu as "Mavoori Ammayi". Bhimsingh later remade the film in Hindi as "Main Chup Rahungi", which starred Sunil Dutt and Meena Kumari in the lead roles. The film was also remade in Sinhala as "Mangalika", while the Hindi version was remade as "Udarata Menike". Plot. Rajalingam (Gemini Ganesan) is the only son of Ramalingam (T. S. Balaiah), the "zamindar" of Kalathur. Kannamma (Savithri) is the daughter of Murugan (S. V. Subbaiah), a poor farmer of the same place. On the advice of the zamindar, Murugan sends his daughter to Madras for higher education. While returning from Madras, Kannamma meets Raja in the train. Noticing her respect and awe for the zamindar, Raja calls himself an electrician visiting the zamin palace. They fall in love. A few days later Kannamma learns the truth and to reassure her, Raja marries her secretly in a temple. Two days later, Raja has to go abroad for higher studies. During his absence, Ramalingam learns of the marriage and orders Kannamma to forget his son. Moved by the Zamindar's feelings, Kannamma promises never to mention their marriage to anyone. Kannamma is now in the family way. Ramalingam arranges for the stay of Murugan and Kannamma in a nearby town, Sevalpatti. Murugan, who is ashamed of Kannamma's love affair, leaves Kannamma's newborn son in an orphanage and lies that the child was stillborn. They both decide to leave the place and settle in Bangalore. On his return from abroad, Raja learns that Kannamma had left Kalathur. His enquiries in Sevalpatti lead him to believe that Kannamma had led an immoral life. Grief stricken, he travels from place to place to forget Kannamma and takes to drinking as a last resort. In Bangalore, he encounters Kannamma in a dancer's house where she had come to teach the dancer’s daughter. Her presence in the house and reticence to Raja’s questions strengthens his belief that Kannamma is a woman of ill repute and in disgust, he returns home. Kannamma’s son Selvam grows up into an intelligent boy (Kamal Haasan) and is living in the orphanage in Sevalpatti. Murugan visits the orphanage and on meeting Selvam, decides to shift to Sevalpatti to be near him. Kannamma becomes a teacher in Selvam’s school and feels attracted to him. She invites him to stay with her but he refuses as he has to look after Mani, a lame orphan living with him. Raja is invited to Sevalpatti by Singaram, a rich merchant who wants to marry his daughter Maduram (Devika) to him, to preside over a school function. Raja takes a fascination for Selvam who acts in the school drama. He encounters Kannamma again and orders the Headmistress to dismiss her. Mani is seriously ill and Selvam turns to Raja for help. But Mani dies before medical aid is available. Raja takes Selvam with him to the Zamin. At the instance of Selvam, he stops drinking and to give him a mother, also decides to marry Maduram. A seriously ill Murugan confesses to Kannamma that her child is not dead and reveals the identity of Selvam. Kannamma tries to contact Selvam but does not find him in the orphanage. The news shocks Murugan and to soothe his nerves, they move down to their village Kalathur. In the local temple, Kannamma meets Selvam and tells him that she is his mother. On learning from him that Raja is bringing him up and is marrying shortly to find him a mother, she asks him not to mention anything about her to Raja. While preparations were going on for the marriage of Raja with Maduram, she comes to know from Selvam that he is the son of Raja. Singaram insists on a written undertaking that the properties of Raja would go to the children of Maduram only. The news of this conflict spreads in the village. On learning this, Murugan rushes to the palace to own the boy, but collapses near the palace gate. Kannamma who has followed, takes Selvam and tries to move away when she is intercepted by Raja who demands the boy back. Raja refuses to believe that Selvam is Kannamma’s son and abuses Kannamma for her shameless life. Ramalingam observes that even in such a humiliating situation, Kannamma is silent and does not breathe a word about her promise to him. He is moved and acknowledges her as his daughter-in-law. Selvam is united with his parents, and Raja’s marriage with Maduram is cancelled. Production. Originally, T. Prakash Rao was the director of the film, before being replaced by A. Bhimsingh. He had directed "nearly half the film", but because A. V. Meiyappan and he "didn't see eye to eye", the entire film was re-shot by Bhimsingh. The film was written by Javert Seetharaman, and is said to have been adapted from the Moral Rearmament Army's play "The Forgotten Factor". It is also said to have been inspired by the 1960 film "Nobody's Child". While Gemini Ganesan and Savitri were cast in the lead roles, Kamal Hassan – who was then a child, was cast in the film, making his debut in cinema. The original choice for Haasan's role was Daisy Irani, who had been already been paid 10,000 in advance. There are two versions regarding Kamal Hassan's entry into this film: One version has it that, as a little boy, he accompanied a doctor who went to treat an ill woman at the home of "movie mogul" A. V. Meyyappa Chettiar. On hearing loud shouting from a first-floor tenant of the bungalow, the doctor became uneasy. The young Kamal Haasan strode up the stairway to ask the noisemaker not to shout over the phone as someone was ill, leaving the person astonished. An impressed Meyyappa Chettiar later provided him an entry into films. However, the more accepted version states that when young boy Kamal Haasan accompanied a family doctor of Meyyappa Chettiar to his house, producer AVM Saravanan noticed Kamal as a hyperactive child. He took him over and introduced to AV Meyyappa Chettiar who was looking for a young boy to play a role in the film "Kalathur Kannamma". Soundtrack. The film's original soundtrack was composed by R. Sudharsanam. Lyrics for the songs were written by various lyricists like Kannadasan, Vaali and Kothamangalam Subbu. Reception. The soundtrack received positive response, with major praises for the number "Ammavum Neeye". A critic from "FridayMoviez" said, "Its music film's is beautiful. A melodious song in chorus by the inmates of an orphanage 'Ammaavum neeye, appaavum neeye...' (sung by M. S.Rajeswari lending voice for Kamalahasan , music composed by R.Sudarsanam) is still remembered and treasured by many all over the world." Film historian B. Vijayakumar said "One stand out sequence in "Kalathoor Kannamma" is the song pictured on Kamal. The song, ‘Ammavum neeye’... by M. S. Rajeswari and Kamal's acting made it an unforgettable experience". A report from "The Hindu" called the song's verses as "immortal". Release. "Kalathur Kannamma" was released on 12 August, although the year of release is disputed. While most sources have claimed that the film released in 1960, others have claimed the film's release year to be 1959. Critical reception. "Ananda Vikatan" (11.9.1960) praised Kamal Haasan's performance and said, "One of the best films in Tamil seen so far... Master Kamal Haasan's acting has shaken up everyone...". "FridayMoviez" said, "Besides Gemini Ganesh, K. Savithri (Mrs. Gemini Ganesh in private life), T. K. Bhagavathi, S. V. Subbiah in lead roles, Meiyappan introduced a brilliant new talent as child artiste in this movie. The boy has created film history now and has emerged as a leading personality of Indian Cinema- Kamal Haasan". The critic further wrote, "The movie is not only brilliant in terms of the story and acting, but even its music is beautiful", while calling it "A Definite must-watch for quality-cinema lovers." Kamal Haasan's elder brother Charu Haasan said, "I have watched Kamal’s first movie a 100 times, as I took him to all the theatres wherever ‘Kalathur Kannamma’ was being screened." Accolades. "Kalathur Kannamma" was the winner of the National Film Award for Best Feature Film in Tamil – Certificate of Merit for the Third Best Feature Film in 1961, as well as the Certificate of Merit by the Government of India. Kamal Haasan's performance earned him the President's Gold Medal in 1961.
1103880	Frigyes Riesz (, ; January 22, 1880 – February 28, 1956) was a Hungarian mathematician who made fundamental contributions to functional analysis. Life and career. He was born in Győr, Kingdom of Hungary, Austria-Hungary and died in Budapest, Hungary. Between 1911 and 1919 he was a professor at the Franz Joseph University in Kolozsvár, Austria-Hungary. Then, he was the rector and a professor at the University of Szeged, as well as a member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. He was the older brother of the mathematician Marcel Riesz. Riesz did some of the fundamental work in developing functional analysis and his work has had a number of important applications in physics. He established the spectral theory for bounded symmetric operators in a form very much like that now regarded as standard. He also made many contributions to other areas including ergodic theory and he gave an elementary proof of the mean ergodic theorem.
1065031	Michael Sarrazin (May 22, 1940April 17, 2011) was a French Canadian film and television actor best known for his role in the drama film "They Shoot Horses, Don't They?" (1969). Early life. He was born Jacques Michel André Sarrazin in Quebec City, Quebec, and moved to Montreal, Quebec, as a child. After acting in school plays he landed his first professional role at age 17. Career. Sarrazin worked on television productions in Toronto, Ontario, and then gained a contract with Universal Studios. His early appearances include "The Virginian" (1965), "Gunfight in Abilene" (1967), and a starring role in "The Flim-Flam Man" (1967) with George C. Scott. In 1969 he starred in 4 films, one them being the dark Great Depression drama, "They Shoot Horses, Don't They?". The Sydney Pollack-directed movie earned 9 Oscar nominations, with Sarrazin starring alongside Jane Fonda, Susannah York, Gig Young, Red Buttons, and Bruce Dern. He served as a supporting actor in "Sometimes a Great Notion" (1971). He starred in a string of successes, including the television film "" (1973), the crime caper "Harry in Your Pocket" (1973), the screwball comedy film "For Pete's Sake" (1974), and the horror film "The Reincarnation of Peter Proud" (1975), about a man doomed to die the same kind of death twice. His film career as a leading man came to a close with his role in "The Gumball Rally" (1976). He also appeared in "Joshua Then and Now" (1985), and the ' (1993–99) episode ' (1996). He hosted the April 15, 1978, episode of "Saturday Night Live". Sarrazin was originally cast to play Joe Buck in the drama film "Midnight Cowboy" (1969); however, he was unable to gain release from a prior contract and the part went to Jon Voight. Personal life. For seven years (1967-1974) he was in a relationship with actress Jacqueline Bisset, whom he met while making the drama film "The Sweet Ride" (1968). Death. Sarrazin died after falling ill with cancer. According to a family spokesman, his daughters Catherine and Michele were at his side when he died.
1056820	Straightheads is a 2007 British thriller film which follows a couple who are seeking revenge against a group of men who brutally attacked them. It is written and directed by Dan Reed, who made his directorial début. The film features Gillian Anderson as Alice Comfort and Danny Dyer as Adam. Plot. Adam, a 23-year-old self-employed security technician, is hired by a businesswoman, Alice Comfort, to set up a security system in her house. After finishing the work, Adam falls asleep on a lawnchair in her backyard. When Alice arrives home and finds him there, she impulsively asks him to accompany her to a housewarming party for her boss. He is unsure, but eventually agrees. After a drive, Alice and Adam arrive at the party. Alice leaves Adam to speak to some people at the party. Adam leaves the house, feeling out of place. Alice later finds Adam outside in the backyard, then leads him into some nearby woods and they have sex. On the way home from the party, Alice and Adam are caught behind a slow-moving vehicle, which Alice frustratedly overtakes whilst Adam shouts out obscenities at the driver. Shortly thereafter, Alice is distracted from driving and accidentally hits a deer. She brings the car to a stop, and they drag the body off the road. While they are moving the body, the car that Alice had earlier overtaken pulls up to them. Several men get out, beat Adam into submission, and then gang-rape Alice. A month passes, during which Adam and Alice physically heal - the only reminder of the attack being an eyepatch that Adam must wear to protect an eye wound he received during the beating - but both remain emotionally wounded. Upon returning to work, Alice receives notification that, while she was hospitalized following her rape, her father died. Alice drives out to his country estate to put his affairs in order, where she discovers a locked chest that she recognizes from her childhood. On the way home, she passes by a group of men on horseback, one of whom she recognizes as having raped her. She gets his name - Heffer - from one of the other men. Alice then contacts Adam, and he makes his way to Alice's father's house where she tells him that she's found one of the men responsible for attacking them. Alice shows Adam the contents of her father's locked chest: a sniper rifle and silencer that her father apparently smuggled home after being discharged from the army. Alice then tells Adam that she intends to avenge herself against Heffer. Adam and Alice move into Alice's father's home, and spend their days practising shooting with the rifle. After they have become proficient with it, they take a trip out to the edge of Heffer's land and begin plotting on the best way to kill him. During their reconnaissance, they learn that Heffer has a dog on his property, that attempts to attack them any time they near the house. Alice shoots the dog, then makes a remorseful Adam collect its corpse so that they can dispose of it. A moment later, Heffer comes outside looking for the dog; Alice prepares to shoot him when a young woman (later identified as Heffer's daughter, Sophie) comes out of the house to help find the dog. Alice and Adam, disturbed by seeing their attacker as a human being, return home. Over the next several days Alice and Adam try to determine if they should follow through with their plan; Adam, who has been impotent since the attack, steadily becomes more aggressive and committed to the idea of murdering Heffer. Alice, however, has grown reluctant to kill Heffer now that she has seen him in a human context; instead, she sends Adam to clandestinely set up security equipment in Heffer's house in an attempt to determine the identities and locations of his friends who participated in the gang-rape, so that they can kill them instead. Adam succeeds in breaking into Heffer's house, where he learns that Heffer is the submissive party in his relationship with the other attackers. In need of money, they have decided to extort Heffer with knowledge of the rape, forcing him to give them money in exchange for not anonymously tipping the police as to his identity. Adam, seeking a means of escape, ends up in Sophie's room; initially, he merely attempts to keep her quiet so that he can get out of the house, but he has a sudden fit of rage and begins raping her. In the middle of the attack, she escapes his grasp, and Adam returns home, able to maintain an erection for the first time since the attack. He and Alice begin to have sex, but when he starts to become too rough with her she throws him off. Adam leaves the house and heads out into the woods. The next day, Alice uses a laptop computer that controls the security cameras and watches Heffer in his house. She quickly realises his intention is to kill himself and after grabbing the rifle she drives over, and stops her car just in front of a garage upon hearing a car horn sounding. Alice gets inside the garage and finds Heffer, sitting in his running car, attempting to kill himself with carbon monoxide poisoning. Alice gets Heffer out of the car and into fresh air, saving his life; once he regains consciousness, she helps him back into his house. In the midst of a delirium from the carbon monoxide, Heffer—who doesn't recognize Alice—confesses that, a month ago, his friends voiced their intentions to rape his daughter, but that he convinced them to rape and beat a woman and her friend in the middle of the road instead. Just then, Alice and Heffer hear Adam calling from outside, and Heffer suddenly turns violent, grabbing her roughly but Alice hits him and frees herself. Adam then bursts into the house, beats Heffer, duct-tapes him to the kitchen table, and holds him down while Alice sodomizes him with the barrel of the rifle that she has fetched from her car; once she is finished, she prepares to kill him, but now feeling pity for him because of the circumstances surrounding the rape, she decides not to pull the trigger. Adam, infuriated, takes out a hunting knife and carves out Heffer's eye. Horrified, Alice runs away; driving back to her father's home, Alice spots Sophie hitch-hiking, and invites her into her car. When Sophie realizes she isn't being taken home, she asks Alice where they're headed; Alice replies, "Someplace safe." Back at Heffer's house, Adam taunts Heffer until he hears a car pulling up; as one of the attackers approaches the house, Adam fatally shoots him in the head before pursuing the remaining attacker through the grounds of Heffer's house. Adam shoots him in the leg as he flees, causing him to fall to the ground. Adam then approaches the wounded man and bludgeons him to death with the end of the rifle. In the final shot of the film, Adam walks away from his final victim and approaches the screen for a close up shot. He effectively breaks the fourth wall by glancing at the audience - leaving the viewer to reflect on the violent act of revenge Adam has committed. Critical reception. Rotten Tomatoes reported that 39% of 18 listed film critics gave the film a positive review, with an average rating of 4.6 out of 10.
1294438	Adi Shamir (; born July 6, 1952) is an Israeli cryptographer. He is a co-inventor of the RSA algorithm (along with Ron Rivest and Len Adleman), a co-inventor of the Feige–Fiat–Shamir identification scheme (along with Uriel Feige and Amos Fiat), one of the inventors of differential cryptanalysis and has made numerous contributions to the fields of cryptography and computer science. Education. Born in Tel Aviv, Shamir received a BSc degree in mathematics from Tel Aviv University in 1973 and obtained his MSc and PhD degrees in Computer Science from the Weizmann Institute in 1975 and 1977 respectively. His thesis was titled, "Fixed Points of Recursive Programs and their Relation in Differential Agard Calculus". After a year postdoc at University of Warwick, he did research at MIT from 1977–1980 before returning to be a member of the faculty of Mathematics and Computer Science at the Weizmann Institute. Starting from 2006, he is also an invited professor at École Normale Supérieure in Paris. Research. In addition to RSA, Shamir's other numerous inventions and contributions to cryptography include the Shamir secret sharing scheme, the breaking of the Merkle-Hellman knapsack cryptosystem, visual cryptography, and the TWIRL and TWINKLE factoring devices. Together with Eli Biham, he discovered differential cryptanalysis, a general method for attacking block ciphers. (It later emerged that differential cryptanalysis was already known — and kept a secret — by both IBM and the NSA.) Shamir has also made contributions to computer science outside of cryptography, such as finding the first linear time algorithm for 2-satisfiability and showing the equivalence of the complexity classes PSPACE and IP. Awards. Shamir has received a number of awards, including the following:
721821	Pig Hunt is a 2008 film directed by James Isaac, it was written by Robert Mailer Anderson and Zack Anderson. The film includes several original songs by Les Claypool who also plays a minor role as the preacher.
1164167	Conchata Galen Ferrell (born March 28, 1943) is an American actress. She is best known for playing Berta the housekeeper in the CBS sitcom "Two and a Half Men", for which she received two Primetime Emmy Award nominations in 2005 and 2007. Personal life. Ferrell was born in Charleston, WV, the daughter of Mescal Loraine (née George) and Luther Martin Ferrell. She attended West Virginia University, and graduated from Marshall University with a degree in social studies in education. Career. Ferrell began her career on the stage as a member of the Circle Repertory Company, appearing in the original Broadway cast of Lanford Wilson's "The Hot L Baltimore" and winning both the Drama Desk and Obie Awards for the off-Broadway "The Sea Horse." A successful character actress, her career has spanned four decades and includes supporting roles in such films as "Network", "Mystic Pizza", "Edward Scissorhands", "Erin Brockovich", "Crime and Punishment in Suburbia", "Mr. Deeds" and "K-PAX" as well as a small part in True Romance. Her other television credits include "Buffy the Vampire Slayer", "Hot l Baltimore", "Teen Angel", "B. J. and the Bear", "Good Times", "Hearts Afire", "Townies", "Night Court", and "Push, Nevada". She played Mrs. Werner in the episode of "Quincy, M.E." titled "Into the Murdering Mind" (1982). She has also made memorable appearances portraying blunt, authoritative judges (The "Jagged Sledge" episode of "Sledge Hammer!" in 1987, and on "The One With Joey's Porsche" episode of "Friends" in 1999). Conchata Ferrell portrayed the owner of "Mystic Pizza" alongside Lili Taylor, Annabeth Gish, and Julia Roberts, who portrayed pizza waitresses. She accepted a role in the Off Broadway play "Love, Loss, and What I Wore" for an April 27 through May 29, 2011 run with Minka Kelly, AnnaLynne McCord, Anne Meara, and B. Smith.
1072408	Starting in the late 1990s, Nakajima made a series of personal appearances in Chicago, New York City, New Jersey, and Hollywood (in 2000) at various Japanese monster-themed conventions. He appeared at the Monsterpalooza convention in Burbank, California on April 8–10, 2011. His Japanese-language autobiography, 『怪獣人生 元祖ゴジラ俳優・中島春雄』(Monster Life: Haruo Nakajima, The Original Godzilla Actor), published by Yosensha, was released on July 17, 2010.
1165714	Van Zandt Jarvis Williams (born February 27, 1934) is a former actor best known for his television role as Britt Reid/the Green Hornet and his earlier leading role as Kenny Madison in both Warner Bros. television detective series "Bourbon Street Beat" (1959) and its sequel, "Surfside 6" (1960). He teamed for one season with the late Bruce Lee as his partner Kato, in the television series "The Green Hornet", broadcast on ABC during the 1966–67 season.
1066965	The White Countess is a 2005 drama film directed by James Ivory. The screenplay by Kazuo Ishiguro focuses on a disparate group of displaced persons attempting to survive in Shanghai in the late 1930s. Plot. Having escaped the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia, Countess Sofia Belinskya is working as a taxi dancer in a seedy Shanghai bar to support her family of White émigrés, including her daughter Katya, her mother-in-law Olga, her sister-in-law Grushenka, and an aunt and uncle by marriage, Princess Vera and Prince Peter. Despite the fact employment is scarce and her meager income is the family's only source of revenue, Sofia's once-aristocratic relatives scorn her for her choice of profession and insist she keep it a secret from her child. Sofia eventually meets Todd Jackson, a former official of the U.S. State Department who recently lost his wife and children in separate terrorist bombings. The bombing that killed his child also left him blind. Using his substantial winnings from a well-placed bet at the racetrack, he opens an elegant nightclub catering to the cosmopolitan upper class and invites Sofia to work for him as his primary hostess, an offer she accepts, and in honor of her he calls the club "The White Countess." As time passes, the two begin to fall in love, but neither acts on their feelings until the political climate around them slowly disintegrates, leading to the outbreak of the Second Sino-Japanese War and a mass exodus from the besieged city. Production. In "The Making of The White Countess", a bonus feature on the DVD release of the film, production designer Andrew Sanders discusses the difficulties he had recreating 1930s Shanghai in a city where most pre-war remnants are surrounded by modern skyscrapers and neon lights. Many of the sets had to be constructed on soundstages. Also impeding him were restrictions on imports levied by the Chinese government, forcing him to make do with whatever materials he could find within the country. The film proved to be the last for producer Ismail Merchant, who died shortly after principal photography was completed.
583526	Aap Mujhe Achche Lagne Lage ( आप मुझे अच्छे लगने लगे ) (English: "I Started Liking You") is a 2002 romantic Bollywood film, directed by Vikram Bhatt, starring Hrithik Roshan and Amisha Patel in the lead roles. It was the second time the pair were cast alongside each other after their last blockbuster movie together Kaho Naa Pyaar Hai. Aap Mujhe Achche Lagne Lage was panned by critics and was a major box office failure. Synopsis. Brought up in a repressive, conservative household, Sapna (Amisha Patel) is terrified to experience the freedom of falling in love with Rohit (Hrithik Roshan), fearing the upheaval it will cause in her family, namely her dad, Pratap Dholakia (Kiran Kumar), who has plans for Sapna to marry his friend's son; then there is her brother, Raman Dholakia (Mukesh Tiwari), who follows in the footsteps of his dad, and will prevent Sapna from marrying Rohit. Sapna is terriffied and wants to run away with Rohit. He takes her to boys hostel where he lives and she acts as a boy. All of Rohits friends aren't comfortable with her at first, but she gains confidence to make some friends with them. However Rohit is determined to marry Sapna and no one else and this is met with resistance from the Dholakia clan, who first severely beat Sapna, and then imprison her in her room; and then lure Rohit to a secluded spot and proceed to beat him within every inch of his life, and there is no one who can even dare to think to intervene with the Dholakia family. They don't know that Sapna has taken poison and are surprised when she tells them that the only way she can live is, if she gets to be with Rohit. In order to save Sapna, they apologize to Rohit and are sorry. Both Rohit and Sapna get engaged to each other after that. Box Office. The movie failed to make an impact at the box office and was declared a flop.
1056349	The Secret of the Grain (, also released internationally as Couscous) is a 2007 Franco-Tunisian drama film directed by Abdel Kechiche. The film stars Habib Boufares as an ageing immigrant from the Maghreb whose ambition to establish a successful restaurant as an inheritance for his large and disparate family meets sceptical opposition from the French bureaucracy. The French title of the film refers to a "grain of couscous" and to mullet, a type of small fish, both popular in Tunisian cuisine. The two ingredients constitute both the staple of his extended family's diet and the menu on which he plans to establish his restaurant. Plot. Slimane Beiji (Habib Boufares) is the divorced head of a Franco-Arabic family. As he is being forced out of his job at the local shipyard, he interacts in a series of extended vignettes with various members of his extended family including his ex-wife, his sons and daughters, their husbands and wives, and his grandchildren. Determined to leave a legacy for his beloved family, and encouraged by his long-term partner's daughter, Rym, (Hafsia Herzi) he pursues his dream of converting a dilapidated boat into a family restaurant that will specialise in his ex-wife's fish couscous, a meal that she prepares for the entire family every Sunday. With Rym's enthusiastic help, Slimane applies for the relevant licences and loans, but soon finds himself knee-deep in bureaucratic red tape. Undaunted, Slimane enlists his sons to help with the renovation and arranges an opening gala of a large dinner party, to which he invites the many bureaucrats on whose decision the fate of the project rests, in an attempt to demonstrate the viability of the enterprise. On the night in question attendance is high, although notable by her absence is his long-term partner, Latifa. Insulted and threatened by the involvement of Slimane's ex-wife in the project, the restaurant's cook and creator of the pivotal fish couscous, Latifa refuses to leave her hotel. Rym pleads with her to attend, encouraging her to use the opportunity to flaunt her comparative youth and beauty in front of Slimane's ex-wife, and eventually she concedes. Having prepared the couscous, fish, vegetables and sauce in large metal cauldrons, Slimane's ex-wife sends the food to the boat with her sons and leaves her apartment to find a 'poor man' so that she can donate a plate of food that she habitually reserves for the less fortunate. At the restaurant, the sons unload the metal cauldrons and the women serve wine and appetisers to the waiting guests. The guests, talking amongst themselves, begin to speak both positively and anxiously about the likely success of the restaurant, now concerned that it may draw custom away from the other restaurants in the area. Slimane's son Majid, whilst surveying the crowd, notices a bureaucrat's wife with whom he has had several illicit sexual liaisons and decides to leave quietly. He instructs his brother to tell the rest of the family that he has gone to help a friend who has broken down on the highway. The women start to heat up the food when they notice the absence of the couscous. Panic mounts when they discover that it is definitively absent and Majid, who has taken the car that still holds the metal cauldron in the trunk, is not answering his phone. Knowing that it will take at least another hour to cook a new batch, they continue to frantically call Majid and attempt to call Souad, who is out searching for an unfortunate in need of plate of couscous. Slimane takes his motorbike out to Souad's apartment building to find her. In the dining room the guests, despite the attempts of the women to placate them with assurances and date liqueur, become extremely restless. Their comments turn nasty and they turn on the waitressing girls. When he cannot find his ex-wife, Slimane leaves the apartment building to find his motorbike stolen. The culprits, three young boys, sit atop the stolen bike on the other side of the river, mocking him. He runs after them, but every time they stop to mock him they move on before he can catch up to them. Tensions in the dining room reach a peak and Rym decides to step in. She whispers to the musicians, and suddenly the music stops and the lights go out. When they come back on, Rym stands before the assembled diners in a red belly-dancing outfit. The musicians play for her and she entrances the guests with a fervent performance, charged with youthful, sexual energy. Latifa uses the opportunity to slip off the boat and return to the hotel to start a new pot of couscous. As Rym dances and sweats, her mother walks up the gangplank with a new cauldron of couscous, whilst Slimane continues to chase the youths around the apartment building. Finally he collapses to his knees, slumped on the asphalt. Critical reception. The film appeared on several critics' top ten lists of the best films of 2008. A. O. Scott of "The New York Times" named it the 3rd best film of 2008, Andrew O'Hehir of "Salon" named it the 6th best film of 2008, and Scott Foundas of "LA Weekly" named it the 7th best film of 2008 (along with "A Christmas Tale"). Awards and nominations. César Award, 2008: Antalya Golden Orange Film Festival, 2007 Venice Film Festival, 2007: Louis Delluc Prize, 2007
581860	Tshering Phintso "Danny" Denzongpa (born 25 March 1948) is an Indian actor of Sikkimese-Bhutia descent, working in Bollywood films. He has acted in numerous Hindi films such as "Asoka" and "16 December". He has also starred in some international projects, the most famous being "Seven Years in Tibet" where he acted alongside Hollywood actor Brad Pitt. In 2003, Denzongpa was awarded the Padma Shree, India's fourth highest civilian honour. Denzongpa is noted for his villainous and character roles. Early life and education. Danny was born to a Buddhist family in the Kingdom of Sikkim (the 22nd state of India since 1975) where he had his early schooling in the erstwhile, thereafter completed his schooling from Birla Vidya Mandir, Nainital, Uttarakhand in 1964. Denzongpa's love of horses and horse riding began at an early age, as his family was into horse breeding.
63385	David John Spiegelhalter OBE, FRS (born 16 August 1953) is a distinguished British statistician. In 2007 he was elected Winton Professor of the Public Understanding of Risk in the Statistical Laboratory, University of Cambridge and a Fellow of Churchill College, Cambridge. Spiegelhalter is an ISI highly cited researcher and is the 34th most-cited mathematical scientist in the world over the last ten years . Education. Spiegelhalter studied at the University of Oxford (Bachelor of Arts 1974) and University College London. He gained his Master of Science 1975 and Doctor of Philosophy 1978, supervised by Adrian Smith. Career. Spiegelhalter was research assistant in Brunel University in 1976 and then visiting lecturer at the University of California, Berkeley, 1977–8. After his PhD, he was a research assistant for the Royal College of Physicians; he was based at the University of Nottingham, where his PhD supervisor, Adrian Smith, had been appointed a professor. From 1981 he was at the Medical Research Council Biostatistics Unit at Cambridge. He has been an honorary lecturer at the University of Hong Kong since 1991. He has also been a consultant for GlaxoSmithKline, Novartis and the World Anti-Doping Agency. He played a leading role in the public inquiries into children's heart surgery at the Bristol Royal Infirmary and the murders by Harold Shipman. Between 2007 and 2012 he divided his work between the Statistical Laboratory (three fifths) and the Medical Research Council Biostatistics Unit (two fifths). He left the MRC in March 2012 and now works full time at the Statistical Laboratory. In 2012, Spiegelhalter hosted the BBC Four documentary "Tails You Win: The Science of Chance" which described the application of probability in everyday life. He also presented a 2013 Cambridge Science Festival talk, "How to Spot a Shabby Statistic" at the Babbage Lecture Theatre in Cambridge. Research interests. Spiegelhalter's research interests are in
658035	Henry Ernest Dudeney (10 April 1857 – 23 April 1930) was an English author and mathematician who specialised in logic puzzles and mathematical games. He is known as one of the country's foremost creators of puzzles. His last name is pronounced with a long "u" and a strong accent on the first syllable, as in "scrutiny". Early life. Dudeney was born in the village of Mayfield, East Sussex, England, one of six children of Gilbert and Lucy Dudeney. His grandfather, John Dudeney, was well known as a self-taught mathematician and shepherd; his initiative was much admired by his grandson. Dudeney learned to play chess at an early age, and continued to play frequently throughout his life. This led to a marked interest in mathematics and the composition of puzzles. Chess problems in particular fascinated him during his early years. Career. Although Dudeney spent his career in the Civil Service, he continued to devise various problems and puzzles. Dudeney's first puzzle contributions were submissions to newspapers and magazines, often under the pseudonym of "Sphinx." Much of this earlier work was a collaboration with American puzzlist Sam Loyd; in 1890, they published a series of articles in the English penny weekly "Tit-Bits". Dudeney later contributed puzzles under his real name to publications such as "The Weekly Dispatch", "The Queen", "Blighty", and "Cassell's Magazine". For twenty years, he had a successful column, "Perplexities", in "The Strand Magazine", edited by the former editor of "Tit-Bits", George Newnes. Dudeney continued to exchange puzzles with fellow recreational mathematician Sam Loyd for a while, but broke off the correspondence and accused Loyd of stealing his puzzles and publishing them under his own name. Some of Dudeney's most famous innovations were his 1903 success at solving the Haberdasher's Puzzle (Cut an equilateral triangle into four pieces that can be rearranged to make a square) and publishing the first known crossnumber puzzle, in 1926. He has also been credited with discovering new applications of digital roots. Dudeney was a leading exponent of verbal arithmetic puzzles; his were always alphametic, where the letters constitute meaningful phrases or associated words. Previously, it had been claimed (though not by Dudeney himself) that he was the inventor of verbal arithmetic. This was later refuted by the counter example of a verbal arithmetic puzzle published in the USA in 1864. Omission of detailed puzzle rules in the cited farm journal, suggests they were already popular in America by 1864, when Dudeney was 7 years old. The popularity of these puzzles guarantees they'd be well known by then to Sam Loyd, an American puzzler and early Dudeney puzzle collaborator. Loyd has gained notoriety (at the expense of credibility) for his own claims of invention now exposed as false. Loyd even falsely claimed to have invented the verbal arithmetic puzzle. For another example of Loyd's pervasive deceit, see 15 puzzle. Dudeney experienced Loyd's duplicity and intellectual theft first hand, eventually publicly equating Loyd with the Devil. Personal life. In 1884 Dudeney married Alice Whiffin (1864–1945). She later became a very well known writer who published many novels as well as a number of short stories in "Harper's Magazine" under the name "Mrs. Henry Dudeney". In her day, she was compared to Thomas Hardy for her portrayals of regional life. The income generated by her books was important to the Dudeney household, and her fame gained them entry to both literary and court circles. After losing their first child at the age of four months in 1887, the Dudeneys had one daughter, Margery Janet (1890–1977). She married (John) Christopher Fulleylove, son of John Fulleylove and one of an esteemed family of English artists. The Fulleyloves emigrated to North America, first living in Canada and eventually settling first in Oakland, Michigan, and later New York. They had three sons: John Gabriel (died in infancy), James Shirley, and Julian John ("Barney"); and two daughters: Catherine and Elizabeth Ann ("Nancy"). Alice's personal diaries were edited by Diana Crook and published in 1998 under the title "A Lewes Diary: 1916–1944". They give a lively picture of her attempts to balance her literary career with her marriage to her brilliant but volatile husband. In April 1930, Dudeney died of throat cancer in Lewes, where he and his wife had moved in 1914 after a period of separation to rekindle their marriage. Alice Dudeney survived him by fourteen years and died on 21 November 1945, after a stroke. Both are buried in the Lewes town cemetery. Their grave is marked by a copy of an 18th-century Sussex sandstone obelisk, which Alice had copied after Ernest's death to serve as their mutual tombstone. In addition to puzzles, Dudeney had hobbies including billiards, bowling, and especially croquet. He was a skilled pianist and organist, interested in ancient church music and plainsong. Dudeney was a devout Anglican who regularly attended services, studied theology, and on occasion wrote tracts defending church positions.
1068386	Mobsters is a 1991 crime-drama film detailing the creation of The Commission. Set in New York City, taking place from 1917 to 1931, it is a semi-fictitious account of the rise of Charles "Lucky" Luciano, Meyer Lansky, Frank Costello, and Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel. The film stars Christian Slater as Luciano, Patrick Dempsey as Lansky, Costas Mandylor as Costello and Richard Grieco as Siegel, with Michael Gambon, Anthony Quinn, Lara Flynn Boyle and F. Murray Abraham in supporting roles. Plot. This highly dramatized film focuses primarily on Luciano and Lansky. They start as young men victimized by the current mafia. They rise from petty criminals and bootleggers to push aside the old guard of the Mafia and eventually establish The Commission, which set up the New York Mafia into five separate families. Bugsy Siegel (Richard Grieco) and Frank Costello (Costas Mandylor) control the physical elements of the operation, while Lucky Luciano (Christian Slater) and Meyer Lansky (Patrick Dempsey) bring up the business end. Facts. According to the book, The Last Testament of Lucky Luciano written in 1974 by Martin A. Gosch and Richard Hammer. The events stay fairly loyal to the historical truth. The Castellammarese War from 1928 to 1931, is never named. Mara Motes is a character of fiction based in part on Luciano's girlfriend, Gay Orlova. Two major events that are shown as incorrect, the death of Vincent "Mad Dog" Coll. In early 1932, "Dutch" Schultz killed Coll in a Manhattan telephone booth. The death of Faranzano (Maranzano), he was stabbed and shot, dying at his office desk, not falling out the window. Reception. The film was almost-universally panned by critics earning a 4% rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 28 reviews. Variety Magazine wrote that "'Mobsters' resembles a cart-before-the-horse case of putting marketing ahead of filmmaking, as the seemingly can't-miss premise of teen-heartthrob gangsters gets lost in self-important direction, a shoddy script and muddled storytelling". According to Roger Ebert, the movie's violence and bloodshed are so far over the top that "they undermine the rest of the film, and approach parody". He gave the movie two and a half out of four stars.
1165016	Michael Parks (born Harry Samuel Parks; April 24, 1940) is an American actor and singer. He has appeared in almost fifty films and has made frequent TV appearances, but is probably best known for his work in recent years with Quentin Tarantino, Robert Rodriguez, and Kevin Smith as well as the 1969 television series "Then Came Bronson". Personal life. Parks was born Harry Samuel Parks in Corona, California, the son of a truck driver father. He drifted from job to job during his teenage years. He was married at the age of 15. Career. Parks appeared opposite Bette Davis as Cal Leonard in the 1963 "Perry Mason" episode, "The Case of Constant Doyle." He gained recognition in the role of Adam in John Huston's "" (1966) featuring his concealed frontal nudity. Swedish actress Ulla Bergryd portrayed his wife, Eve. She dropped from sight shortly thereafter and was not seen in the movies again, except in "Apollo Goes on Holiday" two years later. In 1961, he portrayed the nephew of series character George MacMichael (Andy Clyde) on the ABC sitcom, "The Real McCoys", starring Walter Brennan.
585298	Tick! Tick! Tick! is a 1981 Tamil Crime thriller starring Kamal Haasan in the lead role of the protagonist, directed by P. Bharathiraja. It was Bharathiraaja's second tryst with crime thriller after "Sigappu Rojakkal", which also starred Kamal Haasan in the lead role. Plot. Sarika is a model who returns to Chennai after a modeling stint abroad. She is received by the modeling agency and is soon drugged and operated upon. Her dead body is soon found. Dileep (Kamal Haasan) is a photographer working for a newspaper run by Thengai Srinivasan. He is a photographer in a beauty pageant run by a rich industrialist, Oberoi, which was won by Madhavi, Radha and Swapna. He becomes professionally involved with Radha and Swapna while romantically involved with Madhavi. Soon Swapna’s deadbody turns up and he becomes the main suspect in the murder investigation and is on the run from police. As his face is plastered in wanted ads all over the city and police watching Madhavi’s house, he goes to meet Radha. Radha, who always considered Kamal as her brother as he was always nice to her, helps him and lets him stay in her apartment. The next morning, when Kamal wakes up and turn on the tap, the water is bloody red and he hears screaming coming from the apartment water tank. He goes to investigate when a group of people are gathered around the tank and is shocked to find Radha’s bloody body inside the tank. Soon people recognize him from the wanted ad and mistakenly think that he murdered Radha. He is once again on the run from police for the murders. He starts to investigate the murders and deduce that the only thing the two girls had in common, apart from him, was the modeling agency. When he secretively meets up with Madhavi, he finds a small incision on her body. Remembering that the other two girls had the same incision, he questions her. Although she doesn’t remember how she got it, she remembers that she didn’t have one before she left on a photo shoot abroad for the agency. She also finds it strange that she was unconscious for a few hours during the shoot but cannot remember what happened. They eventually find out that Oberoi, has a nefarious business thro’ his modeling agency. He drugs the models during the photo shoot abroad, operates them and smuggles diamonds into India using their bodies. When the models return to India, they again drug the model and take it out and kill the girl. Kamal gets captured by Oberoi’s goons but with the help of his editor and his girlfriend, he has already got the truth out. Before Oberoi can kill Kamal, they hear the police siren coming towards him. Oberoi, an obsessive diamond collector, rather than get caught and go to prison, eats his own diamonds and commits suicide. Reaction. Commenting on the did well at the box office performance. Bharathiraja commented "It makes more sense to make a film in a language not understood by your people rather than making one in your own language understood by your people!". When asked to comment on this, arasu (of 'arasu badhilgaL' fame in Kumudam): "A non- speaking Bharathiraja is (often) better than a speaking Bharathiraja!!. Considered a highly underrated thriller "Tik Tik Tik" is still remembered for Madhavi's bikini act. Remake. The film was remade in Hindi as Karishma in 1984, with Kamal Haasan repeating the same role and Reena Roy replacing Madhavi. It is also dubbed into Telugu as "Tik Tik Tik".
1093069	George Green (14 July 1793 – 31 May 1841) was a British mathematical physicist who wrote "An Essay on the Application of Mathematical Analysis to the Theories of Electricity and Magnetism" (Green, 1828). The essay introduced several important concepts, among them a theorem similar to the modern Green's theorem, the idea of potential functions as currently used in physics, and the concept of what are now called Green's functions. Green was the first person to create a mathematical theory of electricity and magnetism and his theory formed the foundation for the work of other scientists such as James Clerk Maxwell, William Thomson, and others. His work on potential theory ran parallel to that of Carl Friedrich Gauss. Green's life story is remarkable in that he was almost entirely self-taught. He received only about one year of formal schooling as a child, between the ages of 8 and 9. Early life. Green was born and lived for most of his life in the English town of Sneinton, Nottinghamshire, now part of the city of Nottingham. His father, also named George, was a baker who had built and owned a brick windmill used to grind grain. In his youth, Green was described as having a frail constitution and a dislike for doing work in his father's bakery. He had no choice in the matter, however, and as was common for the time he likely began working daily to earn his living at the age of five. Robert Goodacre's Academy. Roughly 25–50% of children in Nottingham received any schooling in this period. The majority of schools were Sunday schools, run by the Church, and children would typically attend for one or two years only. Recognizing the young Green's above average intellect, and being in a strong financial situation due to his successful bakery, his father enrolled him in March 1801 at Robert Goodacre's Academy in Upper Parliament Street. Robert Goodacre was a well-known science populariser and educator of the time. He published "Essay on the Education of Youth", in which he wrote that he did not "study the interest of the boy but the embryo Man". To a non-specialist, he would have seemed deeply knowledgeable in science and maths, but a close inspection of his essay and curriculum revealed that the extent of his mathematical teachings was limited to algebra, trigonometry and logarithms. Thus, Green's later mathematical contributions, which exhibited knowledge of very modern developments in maths, could not have resulted from his tenure at the Robert Goodacre Academy. He stayed for only four terms (one school year), and it was speculated by his contemporaries that he probably exhausted all they had to teach him. Move from Nottingham to Sneinton. In 1773 George's father moved to Nottingham, which at the time had a reputation for being a pleasant town with open spaces and wide roads. By 1831, however, the population had increased nearly five times, in part due to the budding industrial revolution, and the city became known as one of the worst slums in England. There were frequent riots by starving workers, often associated with special hostility towards bakers and millers on the suspicion that they were hiding grain to drive up food prices. For these reasons, in 1807, George Green senior bought a plot of land in Sneinton, a small town about a mile away from Nottingham. On this plot of land he built a "brick wind corn mill", now famously referred to as Green's Windmill. It was technologically impressive for its time, but required nearly twenty-four hour maintenance, which was to become George Green's burden for the next twenty years. Adult life. Miller. Just as with baking, Green found the responsibilities of operating the mill annoying and tedious. Grain from the fields was arriving continuously at the mill's doorstep, and the sails of the windmill had to be constantly adjusted to the windspeed, both to prevent damage in high winds, and to maximise rotational speed in low winds. The millstones that would continuously grind against each other, could wear down or cause a fire if they ran out of grain to grind. Every month the stones, which weighed over a ton, would have to be replaced or repaired. Family life. In 1823 Green formed a relationship with Jane Smith, the daughter of William Smith, hired by Green Senior as mill manager. Although Green and Jane Smith never married, Jane eventually became known as Jane Green and the couple had seven children together; all but the first had Green as a baptismal name. The youngest child was born 13 months before Green's death. Green provided for his common-law wife and children in his will. Nottingham Subscription Library. When Green was thirty, he became a member of the Nottingham Subscription Library. This library exists today, and was likely one of the only sources of Green's advanced mathematical knowledge. Unlike more conventional libraries, the subscription library was exclusive to a hundred or so subscribers, and the first on the list of subscribers was the Duke of Newcastle. This library catered to requests for specialised books and journals that satisfied the particular interests of their subscribers. 1828 essay. In 1828, Green published "An Essay on the Application of Mathematical Analysis to the Theories of Electricity and Magnetism", which is the essay he is most famous for today. It was published privately at the author's expense, because he thought it would be presumptuous for a person like himself, with no formal education in mathematics, to submit the paper to an established journal. When Green published his "Essay", it was sold on a subscription basis to 51 people, most of whom were friends and probably could not understand it. The wealthy landowner and mathematician Edward Bromhead bought a copy and encouraged Green to do further work in mathematics. Not believing the offer was sincere, Green did not contact Bromhead for two years. Mathematician. By 1829, the time when Green's father died, the senior Green had become one of the gentry due to his considerable accumulated wealth and land owned, roughly half of which he left to his son and the other half to his daughter. The young Green, now thirty-six years old, consequently was able to use this wealth to abandon his miller duties and pursue mathematical studies. Cambridge. Members of the Nottingham Subscription Library who knew Green repeatedly insisted that he obtain a proper University education. In particular, one of the library's most prestigious subscribers was Sir Edward Bromhead, with whom Green shared many correspondences; he insisted that Green go to Cambridge. In 1832, aged nearly forty, Green was admitted as an undergraduate at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge. He was particularly insecure about his lack of knowledge of Greek and Latin, which were prerequisites, but it turned out not to be as hard for him to learn as he believed, as the expected mastery was not as high as he had expected. In the mathematics examinations, he won the first-year mathematical prize. He graduated BA in 1838 as a 4th Wrangler (the 4th highest scoring student in his graduating class, coming after James Joseph Sylvester who scored 2nd). College fellow. Following his graduation, Green was elected a fellow of the Cambridge Philosophical Society. Even without his stellar academic standing, the Society had already read and made note of his Essay and three other publications, and so Green was warmly welcomed. The next two years provided an unparalleled opportunity for Green to read, write and discuss his scientific ideas. In this short time he published an additional six publications with applications to hydrodynamics, sound and optics. Final years and posthumous fame. In his final years at Cambridge, Green became rather ill, and in 1840 he returned to Sneinton, only to die a year later. There are rumours that at Cambridge, Green had "succumbed to alcohol", and some of his earlier supporters, such as Sir Edward Bromhead, tried to distance themselves from him. Green's work was not well known in the mathematical community during his lifetime. Besides Green himself, the first mathematician to quote his 1828 work was the Briton Robert Murphy (1806–1843) in his 1833 work. In 1845, four years after Green's death, Green's work was rediscovered by the young William Thomson (then aged 21), later known as Lord Kelvin, who popularised it for future mathematicians. According to the book "George Green" by D.M. Cannell, William Thomson noticed Murphy's citation of Green's 1828 essay but found it difficult to locate Green's 1828 work; he finally got some copies of Green's 1828 work from William Hopkins in 1845. Green's work on the motion of waves in a canal anticipates the WKB approximation of quantum mechanics, while his research on light-waves and the properties of the ether produced what is now known as the Cauchy-Green tensor. Green's theorem and functions were important tools in classical mechanics, and were revised by Schwinger's 1948 work on electrodynamics that led to his 1965 Nobel prize (shared with Feynman and Tomonaga). Green's functions later also proved useful in analysing superconductivity. On a visit to Nottingham in 1930, Albert Einstein commented that Green had been 20 years ahead of his time. The theoretical physicist, Julian Schwinger, who used Green's functions in his ground-breaking works, published a tribute, entitled "The Greening of Quantum Field Theory: George and I," in 1993. The George Green Library at the University of Nottingham is named after him, and houses the majority of the University's Science and Engineering Collection. In 1986, Green's Windmill was restored to working order. It now serves both as a working example of a 19th-century windmill and as a museum and science centre dedicated to Green. Westminster Abbey has a memorial stone for Green in the nave adjoining the graves of Sir Isaac Newton and Lord Kelvin. Source of knowledge. It is unclear to historians exactly where Green obtained information on current developments in mathematics, as Nottingham had little in the way of intellectual resources. What is even more mysterious is that Green had used "the Mathematical Analysis", a form of calculus derived from Leibniz that was virtually unheard of, or even actively discouraged, in England at the time (due to Leibniz being a contemporary of Newton who had his own methods that were thus championed in England). This form of calculus, and the developments of mathematicians such as Laplace, Lacroix and Poisson were not taught even at Cambridge, let alone Nottingham, and yet Green had not only heard of these developments, but also improved upon them. It is speculated that only one person educated in mathematics, John Toplis, headmaster of Nottingham High School 1806–1819, graduate from Cambridge and an enthusiast of French mathematics, is known to have lived in Nottingham at the time.
589409	Om Shivpuri
585012	Arya 2 () is a 2009 Telugu romance film directed by Sukumar, and is a follow-up to the actor's and the director's previous successful film, "Arya". Allu Arjun and Kajal Aggarwal play the lead roles while Navdeep and Shraddha Das play supporting roles Sukumar, who directed the original, directed this film as well. The film's music is by Devi Sri Prasad. Aditya Babu and Bhogavalli Prasad produced the film under the Aditya Arts banner. The film was dubbed in Malayalam with same title and became blockbuster in Kerala. Some scenes were recreated with malayali-based scenes for this. Allu Arjun gained huge fan base in Kerala through this film. This is the sequel to the 2004 Telugu film "Arya""The film was dubbed in Hindi as "Arya:Ek Deewana"" and it fully used the shot-ready scenes from the Telugu movie. Plot. The first scene of the film shows Arya (Allu Arjun) being carried into an operation theatre. His friend Ajay (Navdeep) narrates how Arya changed his life. In their childhood, Arya stays in an orphanage where has no friends or family. By force, he befriends Ajay who also is in that orphanage. One day, Ajay is adopted by a rich family and leaves the orphanage behind him. As time passes, he becomes a big shot business tycoon and has his own software company. but Arya becomes a drunkard and he can do anything for Ajay. Ajay feels ashamed to say that Arya is his friend and avoids him. But Arya convinces him that he would be a good boy if he' given a job in Ajay's company. Die hard friend Arya just wanted to stay close to Ajay. But Ajay has one condition that if Arya is proven as a "bad boy" in the office, he has to leave the company. Thus, Arya converts himself into a " Mr. Perfect" without any defect and joins in the company. Everyone in the company are fond of Arya especially Shanti (Shraddha Das) who is madly in love with him. One day Geetha (Kajal Aggarwal) joins the company and Ajay and Arya both immediately fall in love with her. Arya is now Geetha's Team Lead. In a lift one day, while Geetha converses with Arya, suddenly he kisses her. In many other instances also, Arya keeps confessing his love to Geetha without anyone knowing about it. Ajay now wants to get rid of Arya. So, he crashes his own (Ajay's) car and weaves a story that Arya has crashed him. He did so, so that everyone would accuse Arya and he would be fired. At this juncture, Geetha comes to know that Ajay too loves her.
1056074	Battle in Seattle is a 2007 film and the directorial debut of actor Stuart Townsend. It is based on the protest activity at the WTO Ministerial Conference of 1999. The film premiered on May 22, 2008 at the Seattle International Film Festival. Plot. The film depicts the historic protest in 1999, as thousands of activists arrive in Seattle, Washington in masses to protest the WTO Ministerial Conference of 1999. The World Trade Organization is considered by protesters to contribute to widening the socioeconomic gap between the rich and the poor while it claims to be fixing it and decreasing world hunger, disease and death.
1091022	Josiah Willard Gibbs (February 11, 1839 – April 28, 1903) was an American scientist who made important theoretical contributions to physics, chemistry, and mathematics. His work on the applications of thermodynamics was instrumental in transforming physical chemistry into a rigorous deductive science. Together with James Clerk Maxwell and Ludwig Boltzmann, he created statistical mechanics (a term that he coined), explaining the laws of thermodynamics as consequences of the statistical properties of large ensembles of particles. Gibbs also worked on the application of Maxwell's equations to problems in physical optics. As a mathematician, he invented modern vector calculus (independently of the British scientist Oliver Heaviside, who carried out similar work during the same period). In 1863, Yale awarded Gibbs the first American doctorate in engineering. After a three-year sojourn in Europe, Gibbs spent the rest of his career at Yale, where he was professor of mathematical physics from 1871 until his death. Working in relative isolation, he became the earliest theoretical scientist in the United States to earn an international reputation and was praised by Albert Einstein as "the greatest mind in American history". In 1901 Gibbs received what was then considered the highest honor awarded by the international scientific community, the Copley Medal of the Royal Society of London, "for his contributions to mathematical physics". Commentators and biographers have remarked on the contrast between Gibbs's quiet, solitary life in turn of the century New England and the great international impact of his ideas. Though his work was almost entirely theoretical, the practical value of Gibbs's contributions became evident with the development of industrial chemistry during the first half of the 20th century. According to Robert A. Millikan, in pure science Gibbs "did for statistical mechanics and for thermodynamics what Laplace did for celestial mechanics and Maxwell did for electrodynamics, namely, made his field a well-nigh finished theoretical structure." Biography. Family background. Gibbs belonged to an old Yankee family that had produced distinguished American clergymen and academics since the 17th century. He was the fourth of five children and the only son of Josiah Willard Gibbs and his wife Mary Anna, "née" Van Cleve. On his father's side, he was descended from Samuel Willard, who served as acting President of Harvard College from 1701 to 1707. On his mother's side, one of his ancestors was the Rev. Jonathan Dickinson, the first president of the College of New Jersey (later Princeton University). Gibbs's given name, which he shared with his father and several other members of his extended family, derived from his ancestor Josiah Willard, who had been Secretary of the Province of Massachusetts Bay in the 18th century. The elder Gibbs was generally known to his family and colleagues as "Josiah", while the son was called "Willard". Josiah Gibbs was a linguist and theologian who served as professor of sacred literature at Yale Divinity School from 1824 until his death in 1861. He is chiefly remembered today as the abolitionist who found an interpreter for the African passengers of the ship "Amistad", allowing them to testify during the trial that followed their rebellion against being sold as slaves. Early years. Willard Gibbs was educated at the Hopkins School and entered Yale College in 1854, aged 15. He graduated in 1858 near the top of his class, and was awarded prizes for excellence in mathematics and Latin. He remained at Yale as a graduate student at the Sheffield Scientific School. At age 19, soon after his graduation from college, Gibbs was inducted into the Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences, a scholarly institution composed primarily of members of the Yale faculty. Relatively few documents from the period survive and it is impossible to reconstruct the details of Gibbs's early career with precision. In the opinion of biographers, Gibbs's principal mentor and champion, both at Yale and in the Connecticut Academy, was probably the astronomer and mathematician Hubert Anson Newton, a leading authority on meteors, who remained Gibbs's lifelong friend and confidant. After the death of his father in 1861, Gibbs inherited enough money to make him financially independent. Recurrent pulmonary trouble ailed the young Gibbs and his doctors were concerned that he might be susceptible to tuberculosis, which had killed his mother. He also suffered from astigmatism, whose treatment was then still largely unfamiliar to oculists, so that Gibbs had to diagnose himself and grind his own lenses. (In later years, he used glasses only for reading or other close work.) His delicate health and imperfect eyesight probably explain why he did not volunteer to fight in the Civil War of 1861–65. He was not conscripted and he remained at Yale for the duration of the war. In 1863, Gibbs received the first Ph.D. degree in engineering granted in the US, for a thesis entitled "On the Form of the Teeth of Wheels in Spur Gearing", in which he used geometrical techniques to investigate the optimum design for gears. This was also the fifth Ph.D. granted in the US in any subject. After graduation, Gibbs was appointed as tutor at the College for a term of three years. During the first two years he taught Latin and during the third Natural Philosophy (i.e., physics). In 1866 he patented a design for a railway brake and read a paper before the Connecticut Academy, entitled "The Proper Magnitude of the Units of Length", in which he proposed a scheme for rationalizing the system of units of measurement used in mechanics. After his term as tutor ended, Gibbs traveled to Europe with his sisters. They spent the winter of 1866–67 in Paris, where Gibbs attended lectures at the Sorbonne and the Collège de France, dictated by such distinguished mathematical scientists as Joseph Liouville and Michel Chasles. Having undertaken a punishing regime of study, Gibbs caught a serious cold and a doctor, fearing tuberculosis, advised him to rest in the Riviera, where he and his sisters spent several months and where he made a full recovery. Moving to Berlin, Gibbs attended the lectures taught by mathematicians Karl Weierstrass and Leopold Kronecker, as well as by chemist Heinrich Gustav Magnus. In August 1867, Gibbs's sister Julia was married in Berlin to Addison Van Name, who had been Gibbs's classmate at Yale. The newly married couple returned to New Haven, leaving Gibbs and his sister Anna in Germany. In Heidelberg, Gibbs was exposed to the work of physicists Gustav Kirchhoff and Hermann von Helmholtz, and chemist Robert Bunsen. At the time, German academics were the leading authorities in the natural sciences, especially chemistry and thermodynamics. Gibbs returned to Yale in June 1869 and briefly taught French to engineering students. It was probably also around this time that he worked on a new design for a steam-engine governor, his last significant investigation in mechanical engineering. In 1871 he was appointed Professor of Mathematical Physics at Yale, the first such professorship in the United States. Gibbs, who had independent means and had yet to publish anything, was assigned to teach graduate students exclusively and was hired without salary. Unsalaried teaching positions were common in German universities, on which the system of graduate scientific instruction at Yale was then being modeled. Middle years. Gibbs published his first work in 1873, at the unusually advanced age of 34. His papers on the geometric representation of thermodynamic quantities appeared in the "Transactions of the Connecticut Academy". This journal had few readers capable of understanding Gibbs's work, but he shared reprints with his correspondents in Europe and received an enthusiastic response from James Clerk Maxwell, at the University of Cambridge. Maxwell even made, with his own hands, a clay model illustrating Gibbs's construct. He then produced three plaster casts of his model and mailed one to Gibbs. That cast is on display at the Yale physics department. Maxwell included a new chapter on Gibbs's work in the next edition of his "Theory of Heat", published in 1875. He explained the usefulness of Gibbs's graphical methods in a lecture to the Chemical Society of London and even referred to it in the article on "Diagrams" that he wrote for the "Encyclopædia Britannica". Maxwell's early death in 1879, at the age of 48, precluded further collaboration between him and Gibbs. The joke later circulated in New Haven that "only one man lived who could understand Gibbs's papers. That was Maxwell, and now he is dead." Gibbs then extended his thermodynamic analysis to multi-phase chemical systems (i.e., to systems composed of more than one kind of matter) and considered a variety of concrete applications. He described that research in a monograph titled "On the Equilibrium of Heterogeneous Substances", published by the Connecticut Academy in two parts that appeared respectively in 1875 and 1878. That work, which covers about three hundred pages and contains exactly seven hundred numbered mathematical equations, begins with a quotation from Rudolf Clausius that expresses what would later be called the first and second laws of thermodynamics: "The energy of the world is constant. The entropy of the world tends towards a maximum." Gibbs's monograph rigorously and ingeniously applied his thermodynamic techniques to the interpretation of physico-chemical phenomena, explaining and relating what had previously been a mass of isolated facts and observations. The work has been described as "the "Principia" of thermodynamics" and as a work of "practically unlimited scope". Wilhelm Ostwald, who translated Gibbs's monograph into German, referred to Gibbs as the "founder of chemical energetics". According to modern commentators, Gibbs continued to work without pay until 1880, when the new Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland offered him a position paying $3,000 per year. In response, Yale offered him an annual salary of $2,000, which he was content to accept. Later years. From 1880 to 1884, Gibbs worked on developing the exterior algebra of Hermann Grassmann into a vector calculus well-suited to the needs of physicists. With this object in mind, Gibbs distinguished between the dot and cross products of two vectors and introduced the concept of dyadics. Similar work was carried out independently, and at around the same time, by the British mathematical physicist and engineer Oliver Heaviside. Gibbs sought to convince other physicists of the convenience of the vectorial approach over the quaternionic calculus of William Rowan Hamilton, which was then widely used by British scientists. This led him, in the early 1890s, to a controversy with Peter Guthrie Tait and others in the pages of "Nature". Gibbs's lecture notes on vector calculus were privately printed in 1881 and 1884 for the use of his students, and were later adapted by Edwin Bidwell Wilson into a textbook, "Vector Analysis", published in 1901. That book helped to popularize the "del" notation that is widely used today in electrodynamics and fluid mechanics. In other mathematical work, he re-discovered the "Gibbs phenomenon" in the theory of Fourier series (which, unbeknownst to him and to later scholars, had been described fifty years before by an obscure English mathematician, Henry Wilbraham). From 1882 to 1889, Gibbs wrote five papers on physical optics, in which he investigated birefringence and other optical phenomena and defended Maxwell's electromagnetic theory of light against the mechanical theories of Lord Kelvin and others. In his work on optics just as much as in his work on thermodynamics, Gibbs deliberately avoided speculating about the microscopic structure of matter, which proved a wise course in view of the revolutionary developments in quantum mechanics that began around the time of his death. Gibbs coined the term "statistical mechanics" and introduced key concepts in the corresponding mathematical description of physical systems, including the notions of chemical potential (1876), statistical ensemble (1878), and phase space (1902). Gibbs's derivation of the phenomenological laws of thermodynamics from the statistical properties of systems with many particles was presented in his highly-influential textbook "Elementary Principles in Statistical Mechanics", published in 1902, a year before his death. Gibbs's retiring personality and intense focus on his work limited his accessibility to students. His principal protégé was Edwin Bidwell Wilson, who nonetheless explained that "except in the classroom I saw very little of Gibbs. He had a way, toward the end of the afternoon, of taking a stroll about the streets between his study in the old Sloane Laboratory and his home—a little exercise between work and dinner—and one might occasionally come across him at that time." Gibbs did supervise the doctoral thesis on mathematical economics written by Irving Fisher in 1891. After Gibbs's death, Fisher financed the publication of his "Collected Works". Another distinguished student was Lee De Forest, later a pioneer of radio technology.
1169761	Anita Louise Barone (born September 25, 1964) is an American actress. She is best known for co-starring roles in sitcoms "The Jeff Foxworthy Show", "Daddio" and "The War at Home". Life and career. Barone was born in St. Louis, Missouri. She earned her BFA from the University of Detroit Mercy, followed by an MFA from Wayne State University where she was taught by director/professor Robert T. Hazzard. Barone appeared in the fourth-season "Seinfeld" episode "The Shoes" as Gail Cunningham, a chef who wanted Elaine's shoes. In the early 1990s, she was a regular cast member of "Carol and Company" with actress Carol Burnett. Barone also played Carol Willick, Ross's ex-wife, in the character's first appearance in "Friends" but left the show as she wanted to pursue a more full time role. She starred on "The Jeff Foxworthy Show" for the first season (1995–1996) and in "The War at Home" from 2005 to 2007. In 2000, Barone also co-starred in the sitcom "Daddio". Barone's other television credits include "Curb Your Enthusiasm", "Quantum Leap", "Empty Nest", "Chicago Hope", "Castle", "Do Not Disturb", "Ally McBeal", "Caroline in the City", "Party of Five" and "The Larry Sanders Show". In 2004, she was the recipient of the 2005 Methodfest Best Supporting Actress Award for her work in feature film, "One Last Ride". In 2010, Barone began her recurring role in the Disney Channel sitcom "Shake It Up" as Officer Georgia Jones, the mother of Bella Thorne's character CeCe Jones. Barone's husband, actor Matthew Glave guest starred in two episodes of "Shake It Up" as J.J. Jones, the ex-husband of Barone's character. Personal life. Barone is married to actor Matthew Glave, with whom she has two daughters, Madeline and Roxanne. She currently lives in Los Angeles with her family.
593242	For a Lost Soldier (Dutch title: "Voor een Verloren Soldaat") is a 1992 Dutch film based upon the autobiographical novel of the same title by ballet dancer and choreographer Rudi van Dantzig. It deals with the romantic / sexual relationship between a 12-year-old boy (Van Dantzig) and a Canadian soldier during the final months leading up to the liberation of the Netherlands from Nazi occupation during World War II. Plot summary. Jeroen (Jeroen Krabbé) reminisces about the time in 1944 when he (Maarten Smit) and other boys were sent to the countryside by their parents to escape the war. The city suffers from food shortages, with more food available in the country. He stays with an eel fisher's family, but despite the abundance of food, he is plagued by homesickness. Jeroen and his friend Jan go to the ocean and see an American plane in the water; Jan tries to go under but claims there are too many eels and comes up with a big cut on his upper right thigh. Things change when the village is liberated by Canadian troops. Jeroen meets Walt Cook (Andrew Kelley), a Canadian soldier in his early 20s, who befriends him. Jeroen revels in the attention the soldier showers on him, at first treating him like a little brother but eventually their relationship becomes sexual. His foster parents are aware of the closeness between Jeroen and the soldier, but it is unclear in the film whether they are aware of the sexual nature of the relationship. After a few more days, Walt's troop are ordered to move and Walt leaves without saying goodbye to Jeroen. Jeroen hears about it from his foster sisters that they are leaving and he rushes to the soldiers home, but finds that they have already left. Jeroen is lying awake in his bed and notices that the scarecrow that posed as Walt when his foster family took pictures, and races outside to get it but when he touches it his hand is badly hurt and his taken inside by his foster dad. The next morning his hosted dad is burning the scarecrow and notices the sunglasses that Walt left on the wire. Jeroen is heartbroken, having only a photo to remind him of the soldier which turns out to be ruined in the rain. After the war is over, he returns to his family back in Amsterdam, where he decides to go to America later in his life. The film ends with grown-up Jeroen affectionately recalling the story and trying to express it as a ballet dance. While rehearsing the dance, his assistant hands him an envelope. He opens the envelope to find an enlargement of the only photo of him and the foster family and also a further enlargement of the soldier's dog tag with his identification. He realizes that he can now find his lost soldier after all this time. In the novel, Walt's name is Walter P. Narbutus.
1063535	Freddy Got Fingered is a 2001 American comedy film directed, co-written by and starring Tom Green. The film follows Green as Gordon "Gord" Brody, a 28-year-old slacker who wishes to become a professional cartoonist. The film's plot resembles Green's struggles as a young man trying to get his TV series picked up, which would later become the popular MTV show "The Tom Green Show". The film was critically panned at the time of its release, many considering it one of the worst films of all time. It won 5 Golden Raspberry Awards out of 8 nominations, as well as a Dallas-Fort Worth Film Critics Association Award for Worst Picture. The film received a cult following, and was also met with more positive praise over time, most notably from "The New York Times", Metacritic, IFC.com and Splitsider. Despite performing poorly at the box office, the film became a financial success by selling millions of copies on DVD. Plot. Throughout the film, unemployed 28-year-old cartoonist Gordon "Gord" Brody pursues his lifelong ambition to obtain a contract for an animated television series. He lives in Portland, Oregon with his parents. They give him a car, in which he heads off for Hollywood, and subsequently gets a job in a cheese sandwich factory in Los Angeles. Gord manages to speak to Dave Davidson, the CEO of a major animation studio, and shows him his drawings; despite noting that the drawings are "pretty good", Davidson disparages Gord's idea of an "X-Ray Cat", declaring it "fucking stupid". A disheartened Gord quits his job and returns home to his parents, angering his dad, Jim. Jim constantly insults and belittles Gord, and also disparages Gord's girlfriend Betty, an attractive nurse in a wheelchair with an obsessive penchant for fellatio and an ambition to create a rocket-powered wheelchair. After Jim smashes Gord's handbuilt half-pipe, Gord falsely accuses Jim of sexual molestation of Gord's younger brother, Freddy. The 25-year-old Freddy is sent to a home for sexually-molested children, while Gord's mother, Julie, leaves Jim, and ends up dating Shaq. After seeing Betty's successful experiment with a rocket-powered wheelchair, Gord returns to Hollywood, with a concept based on his relationship with his father, for a series called "Zebras in America". After Jim bursts in on Gord's proposal and trashes Davidson's office, Davidson is amused enough by Jim's antics to greenlight the series and give Gord a million dollar check. Gord kidnaps his father and takes him to Pakistan as a response to Jim's earlier insult: "If this were Pakistan, you would have been sewing soccer balls when you were four years old!". Father and son come to terms, but are soon kidnapped and held hostage. The kidnapping becomes a news item, as Gord's series is already highly popular. After four years, Gord and Jim return to America, with a huge crowd welcoming them home. Release. The theatrical release is 89 minutes and received an R rating from the Motion Picture Association of America following requested cuts to tone it down from an NC-17, a rating which Tom Green described as "like porn with murder." As an extra on the DVD release, Green also included a version which he had edited to secure a PG rating. The PG-rated cut of "Freddy Got Fingered" is a mere three minutes long with a comedic voiceover. Some footage was leaked by the Newgrounds website before release. Years later, Tom Fulp, owner of Newgrounds, confirmed that the leak was a publicity stunt. Reception. Box office. On a budget of $14 million, "Freddy" grossed $14,333,252 domestically in 59 days in North American cinemas. The film earned $24,300,000 from DVD sales, and was among the top 50 weekly DVD rentals chart. Green has stated in a few interviews in 2010 that DVD sales have been growing many years later and that there was a cult following. Green has also stated that he would like to do a "Director's Cut" DVD release of the film in 2011 to celebrate the 10 year anniversary. Critical response. Upon its original release, the film received overwhelmingly negative reviews, many critics considering it one of the worst films of all time. Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes gives the film a score of 11% based on reviews from 93 professional critics, with an average rating of 2.7 out of 10. The site's consensus reads "Unfavorably comparing it with such infamously bad titles as "Battlefield Earth", a significant number of critics are calling Tom Green's extreme gross-out comedy the worst movie they have ever seen." Metacritic, which assigns a weighted mean rating out of 100 to reviews from film critics, the film has an "Overwhelming dislike" rating score of 13% based on 25 reviews. CinemaScore polls revealed the average grades cinemagoers gave "Freddy Got Fingered" were C and D, and F from older viewers, on an A+ to F scale. "The Toronto Star" created a one-time new rating for "Freddy Got Fingered", giving it "negative one star out of five stars." CNN's Paul Clinton called it "quite simply the worst movie ever released by a major studio in Hollywood history" and listed the running time as "86 awful muinutes." Film critic Roger Ebert gave the film a rare zero-stars rating, listed it as one of his most hated films of all-time, describing the film thus: "This movie doesn't scrape the bottom of the barrel. This movie isn't the bottom of the barrel. This movie isn't below the bottom of the barrel. This movie doesn't deserve to be mentioned in the same sentence with barrels[...]. The day may come when "Freddy Got Fingered" is seen as a milestone of neo-surrealism. The day may never come when it is seen as funny." The magazine also ranked the film at #14 on its "25 Movies That Killed Careers". Richard Roeper, in the TV show At The Movies, hosted by Roeper and Ebert, called it "horrible" and expressed the view that Tom Green was a bad comedian, going so far as to say that he "should be flipping burgers somewhere". Along with Ebert, he was also offended by the numerous "gross-out" gags. Film critic Leonard Maltin shared Ebert and Roeper's views of the film: "Instantly notorious word-of-mouth debacle became the poster child for all that's wrong with movie comedy. Gags include the maiming of an innocent child and a newborn spun around in the air by its umbilical cord—compounded by the almost unimaginable ineptitude with which they're executed." Awards and nominations. The film received eight Golden Raspberry Award nominations in 2002, winning five. In acknowledgment of the critical consensus regarding the film's merits, Green appeared at the ceremony to accept his awards, making him the first to ever do so, saying: "I'd just like to say to all the other nominees in the audience: I don't think that I deserve it any more than the rest of you. I'd like to say that; I don't think that it would be true, though." In February 2010, it was announced that "Freddy Got Fingered" was nominated for "Worst Picture of the Decade" for the 30th Golden Raspberry Awards. It lost to "Battlefield Earth". Resurgence. "Freddy Got Fingered" began to see more positive praise over time. One of the few notable critics who gave it a generally positive review was A. O. Scott of "The New York Times", who compared the film to conceptual performance art. Critic Nathan Rabin of The A.V. Club gave the film a rave review in his "My Year Of Flops" column where he partially fulfilled Ebert's prediction, comparing it to the work of Jean-Luc Godard and calling the film "less as a conventional comedy than as a borderline Dadaist provocation, a $15 million prank at the studio's expense" adding "it's utterly rare and wondrous to witness the emergence of a dazzlingly original comic voice. I experienced that glorious sensation watching "Fingered"...I can honestly say that I've never seen anything remotely like it" and rated it a "Secret Success" In a later column, Rabin stated "I was a little worried that I'd catch flak for giving mad props to a film as divisive and widely reviled as "Freddy Got Fingered." So I was relieved to discover that every single comment agreed with my assessment of it... It also didn't escape my attention that my "Freddy" post was the most commented-upon post in the history of My Year Of Flops by a huge margin." Comedian Chris Rock listed "Freddy Got Fingered" as one of his favorite movies on his website. Later, in his review of the film "Stealing Harvard", a film co-starring Green, Ebert wrote: "Seeing Tom Green reminded me, as how could it not, of his movie "Freddy Got Fingered", which was so poorly received by the film critics that it received only one lonely, apologetic positive review on the Tomatometer. I gave it—let's see—zero stars. Bad movie, especially the scene where Green was whirling the newborn infant around his head by its umbilical cord. But the thing is, I remember "Freddy Got Fingered" more than a year later. I refer to it sometimes. It is a milestone. And for all its sins, it was at least an ambitious movie, a go-for-broke attempt to accomplish something. It failed, but it has not left me convinced that Tom Green doesn't have good work in him. Anyone with his nerve and total lack of taste is sooner or later going to make a movie worth seeing." The film has received a large cult following. In Tom Green's interview on "The Opie and Anthony Show, host Opie noted the film had begun to be regarded as 'one of the funniest movies ever made'. Green noted the film had sold a million units, and that he wished to make a director's cut due to a lot of footage that did not make the original cut. Green notes that he was not trying to make "The Jazz Singer" and that many fans of the movie shout out scenes from the film regularly at his stand-up performance. "Unreality Magazine" featured the movie in its list of "10 Hilarious Movies That Received Terrible Reviews", noting that critics' taste in comedies tend not to reflect the general public. Vadim Rizov for IFC.com wrote an article titled "In defense of "Freddy Got Fingered"". He calls the film one of the great underrated comedies of the decade and says the film would go on to do better if it was released today, comparing it to the successful Adult Swim series "Aqua Teen Hunger Force". Director's Cut release. On March 9, 2010, on "Loveline", Tom Green officially announced that a director's cut will be released. In an answer to a question from a fan on his website tomgreen.com in December 2010, Green said that there was no progress yet in regards to the director's cut.
1102929	Harish-Chandra FRS (Harish Chandra Mehrotra; 11 October 1923 – 16 October 1983) was an Indian American mathematician and physicist who did fundamental work in representation theory, especially harmonic analysis on semisimple Lie groups. Early life. Harish-Chandra was born in Kanpur (then Cawnpore), British India. He was educated at B.N.S.D. College, Kanpur, and at the University of Allahabad. After receiving his masters degree in Physics in 1943, he moved to the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore for further studies in theoretical physics and worked with Homi J. Bhabha. In 1945, he moved to University of Cambridge, Cambridge and worked as a research student under Paul Dirac. While at Cambridge, he attended lectures by Wolfgang Pauli, and during one of them pointed out a mistake in Pauli's work. The two were to become life long friends. During this time he became increasingly interested in mathematics. At Cambridge he obtained his PhD in 1947. When Dirac visited Institute of Advanced Study, Princeton, U.S.A. in 1947/48 he brought Harish-Chandra as his assistant. It was at this stage that Harish-Chandra decided to change over from physics to mathematics. He was a faculty member at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, New Jersey from 1963. From 1968, until his death in 1983, he was IBM von Neumann Professor in the School of Mathematics at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, New Jersey. He died of a heart attack while on an evening walk on October 16, 1983, during a conference in Princeton in honour of Armand Borel's 60th birthday. A similar conference for his 60th birthday, scheduled for the following year, instead became a memorial conference. He is survived by his wife, Lalitha (Lily), and his daughters Premala (Premi), and Devaki. Work in mathematics. He was influenced by the mathematicians Hermann Weyl and Claude Chevalley. From 1950 to 1963 he was at the Columbia University and worked on representations of semisimple Lie groups. During this period he established as his special area the study of the discrete series representations of semisimple Lie groups, which are analogues of the Peter–Weyl theory in the non-compact case. He is also known for work with Armand Borel on the theory of arithmetic groups; and for papers on finite group analogues. He enunciated a "philosophy of cusp forms", a precursor of the Langlands philosophy". Honors and awards. He was a member of the National Academy of Sciences of the U.S. and a Fellow of the Royal Society. He was the recipient of the Cole Prize of the American Mathematical Society, in 1954. The Indian National Science Academy honoured him with the Srinivasa Ramanujan Medal in 1974. In 1981, he received an honorary degree from Yale University. The mathematics department of V.S.S.D. College, Kanpur celebrates his birthday every year in different forms, which includes lectures from students and professors from various colleges, institutes and students' visit to Harish-Chandra Research Institute. The Indian Government named the Harish-Chandra Research Institute, an institute dedicated to Theoretical Physics and Mathematics, after him. Robert Langlands wrote in a biographical article of Harish-Chandra:
1618195	William West McNamara (born March 31, 1965) is an American actor. Biography. Early life. Born in Dallas, Texas, McNamara is the son of a professional race car driver for the Ford Motor Company and an interior designer. He attended Columbia University and studied at the Lee Strasberg Institute. He appeared in the feature films "Texasville", "Stella", "Copycat", "Surviving the Game", and "Stealing Home". Personal life. During the mid-1990s, McNamara was briefly the fiance of his "Chasers" and "Girl in the Cadillac" co-star Erika Eleniak. Career. On television, McNamara portrayed Montgomery Clift in ' and Ricky Nelson in ', had a regular role on the Showtime series "Beggars and Choosers", was featured in the television movies "Doing Time on Maple Drive" and "Wildflower" (CableACE Award nomination), and appeared in "NYPD Blue" and "", among others.
582929	Daulat Ki Jung is a 1992 Indian film starring Aamir Khan, Juhi Chawla, Shafi Inamdar, Paresh Rawal, Tiku Talsania, Dilip Tahil, Kader Khan and Kiran Kumar in leading roles. The film was Below average at the box office though not a flop as many people perceive it to be , an exception for the leading pair, whose most films (where they have acted as a pair) have been a commercial success. Synopsis. This film is based on a treasure hunt. Bhushan Chaudhry (Shafi Inamdar) and Mr. Agarwal (Tiku Talsania) are business rivals, and hate each other. Their children, Rajesh Chaudhry (Aamir Khan) and Asha Agarwal (Juhi Chawla) study in the same class in college, and are in love with each other. Both are terrified of what their parents will do when they find out about their romance. And when the parents do find out, all kinds of restrictions are placed on them. Unable to stay away from each other, they elope in a stolen car. On the way, they come across an injured man, and decide to take him to hospital. The young couple become mixed up with two rival groups of crooks who are after treasure in a tribal village set in a remote forest somewhere off "Mumbai". Rajesh Chaudhry (Aamir Khan) who has a photographic memory, gets hold of the treasure map, and after a quick survey eats it up in order to protect himself and his girl. They are closely followed by their irate parents who do not want them to marry each other. They get caught in the tribal village and is released in an almost miraculous manner. In the end the two lovers are united and the crooks are put to jail.
1686040	El estudiante () is a 2009 Mexican film written and directed by Roberto Girault, and starring Jorge Lavat, Norma Lazareno, José Carlos Ruiz, Jeannine Derbez, Siouzana Melikián and Cristina Obregón. The film depicts the story of a 70 year old man called Chano, who decides to go to university despite his age. Plot. The story takes place in the city of Guanajuato. The story is about a 70 year old man called Chano who decides to enroll in a university course in order to study literature. Chano tries to break the generation gap using his passion for El Quijote. He clashes with the different traditions and they all share their dreams and experiences. Production. Filming. The film was shot in well-known locations in Guanajuato city where they worked for 6 weeks. The scenes inside the university were shot at Universidad de Guanajuato. Release. The limited release of this film happened gradually in 100 locations in Mexico. It was also screened in various film festivals, including the Chicago Latino Film Festival and Latin American Film Festival of Grand Rapids, Mi Reception. The film won the mexican film critics award "Diosa de Plata", despite not being nominated in any category by the Academy.
1068167	Monique Ganderton (born August 6, 1980) is a Canadian stunt woman and actress who works in television and film. Ganderton was born in Edmonton, Alberta. She started out in modeling before moving to stunt work. She has doubled Tricia Helfer, Rachel Nichols, Leelee Sobieski, Bridget Moynahan, Daryl Hannah, Rebecca Romijn, Famke Janssen and Kristanna Loken. In 2009, she was cast as 'Alia,' a recurring role in Season 9 of Smallville.
1088199	In the field of numerical simulation methods, meshfree methods are those which do not require a mesh connecting the data points of the simulation domain. Meshfree methods enable the simulation of some otherwise difficult types of problems, at the cost of extra computing time and programming effort. Motivation. Numerical methods such as the finite difference method, finite-volume method, and finite element method were originally defined on meshes of data points. In such a mesh, each point has a fixed number of predefined neighbors, and this connectivity between neighbors can be used to define mathematical operators like the derivative. These operators are then used to construct the equations to be simulated, such as the Euler equations or the Navier–Stokes equations. But in simulations where the material being simulated can move around (as in computational fluid dynamics) or where large deformations of the material can occur (as in simulations of plastic materials), the connectivity of the mesh can be difficult to maintain without introducing error into the simulation. If the mesh becomes tangled or degenerate during simulation, the operators defined on it may no longer give correct values. The mesh may be recreated during simulation (a process called remeshing), but this can also introduce error, since all the existing data points must be mapped onto a new and different set of data points. Meshfree methods are intended to remedy these problems. Meshfree methods are also useful for: Example. In a traditional finite difference simulation, the domain of a one-dimensional simulation would be some function formula_1, represented as a mesh of data values formula_2 at points formula_3, where We can define the derivatives that occur in the equation being simulated using some finite difference formulae on this domain, for example and Then we can use these definitions of formula_10 and its spatial and temporal derivatives to write the equation being simulated in finite difference form, then simulate the equation with one of many finite difference methods. In this simple example, the spatial step size formula_11 and the temporal step size formula_12 are constant, and the left and right mesh neighbors of the data value at formula_3 are the values at formula_14 and formula_15, respectively. But if the values can move around, or can be added to or removed from the simulation, that destroys the spacing and the simple finite difference formulae for derivatives will no longer be correct. Smoothed-particle hydrodynamics (SPH), one of the oldest meshfree methods, solves this problem by treating our data points as physical particles with mass and density which can move around over time, and which carry some value formula_16 with them. SPH then defines the value of formula_10 between the particles by where formula_19 is the mass of particle formula_20, formula_21 is the density of particle formula_20, and formula_23 is a kernel function that operates on nearby data points and is chosen for smoothness and other useful qualities. By linearity, we can write the spatial derivative as Then we can use these definitions of formula_10 and its spatial derivatives to write the equation being simulated as an ordinary differential equation, and simulate the equation with one of many numerical methods. In physical terms, this means calculating the forces between the particles, then integrating these forces over time to determine their motion. The advantage of SPH in this situation is that the formulae for formula_10 and its derivatives do not depend on any adjacency information about the particles; they can use the particles in any order, so it doesn't matter if the particles move around or even exchange places. One disadvantage of SPH is that it requires extra programming to determine the nearest neighbors of a particle. Since the kernel function formula_23 only returns nonzero results for nearby particles within twice the "smoothing length" (because we typically choose kernel functions with compact support), it would be a waste of effort to calculate the summations above over every particle in a large simulation. So typically SPH simulators require some extra code to speed up this nearest neighbor calculation. History. One of the earliest meshfree methods is smoothed particle hydrodynamics, presented in 1977. Over the ensuing decades, many more methods have been developed, some of which are listed below. List of methods and acronyms. The following numerical methods are generally considered to fall within the general class of "meshfree" methods. Acronyms are provided in parentheses.
1105411	Julia Hall Bowman Robinson (December 8, 1919 – July 30, 1985) was an American mathematician best known for her work on decision problems and Hilbert's Tenth Problem. Background and education. Robinson was born in St. Louis, Missouri, the daughter of Ralph Bowers Bowman and Helen (Hall) Bowman. Her older sister was the mathematical popularizer and biographer Constance Reid. The family moved to Arizona and then to San Diego when the girls were a few years old. Julia attended San Diego High. She entered San Diego State University in 1936 and transferred as a senior to University of California, Berkeley, in 1939. She received her BA degree in 1940 and continued in graduate studies. She received the Ph.D. degree in 1948 under Alfred Tarski with a dissertation on "Definability and Decision Problems in Arithmetic". Mathematics career. In 1975 she became a full professor at Berkeley, teaching quarter-time because she still did not feel strong enough for a full-time job. Hilbert's tenth problem. Hilbert's tenth problem asks for an algorithm to determine whether a Diophantine equation has any solutions in integers. A series of results developed in the 1940s through 1970 by Robinson, Martin Davis, Hilary Putnam, and Yuri Matiyasevich resolved this problem in the negative; that is, they showed that no such algorithm can exist. George Csicsery produced and directed a one-hour documentary about Robinson titled "Julia Robinson and Hilbert's Tenth Problem", that premiered at the Joint Mathematics Meeting in San Diego on January 7, 2008. "Notices of the American Mathematical Society" printed a film review and an interview with the director. College Mathematics Journal also published a film review. Other decidability work. Her Ph.D. thesis was on "Definability and Decision Problems in Arithmetic". In it she showed that the theory of the rational numbers was undecidable by showing that elementary number theory could be defined in terms of the rationals, and elementary number theory was already known to be undecidable (this is Gödel's first Incompleteness Theorem). Other mathematical works. Robinson's work only strayed from decision problems twice. The first time was her first paper, published in 1948, on sequential analysis in statistics. The second was a 1951 paper in game theory where she proved that the fictitious play dynamics converges to the mixed strategy Nash equilibrium in two-player zero-sum games. This was posed as a prize problem at RAND with a $200 prize, but she did not receive the prize because she was a RAND employee at the time. Political work. Robinson was attracted to politics by the 1952 presidential campaign of Adlai Stevenson. (Stevenson was her husband's first cousin, but it was his ideas that attracted her and not the family connection.) In the 1950s Robinson was active in local Democratic party activities, and did less mathematics. She stuffed envelopes, rang doorbells, asked for votes, and so on. She was Alan Cranston's campaign manager in Contra Costa County when he ran for his first political office, state controller.
1063749	Dumb and Dumber is a 1994 American buddy comedy film starring Jim Carrey and Jeff Daniels. It was written and directed by the Farrelly brothers, and is their directorial debut. The film follows the cross-country trek of Lloyd Christmas and Harry Dunne, two good-natured but incredibly moronic friends who are trying to return a briefcase full of money to its owner.
1055644	Matthew Rhys Evans (born on 8 November 1974), known professionally as Matthew Rhys, is a Welsh actor, best known as Kevin Walker in the ABC family drama "Brothers & Sisters", and as Dylan Thomas in "The Edge of Love". He currently stars as Phillip Jennings in the FX drama series "The Americans". Early life. Rhys was born in Cardiff, Wales, the son of Glyn, a headmaster, and Helen Evans, a teacher. He grew up in Cardiff along with his older sister, Rachel, now a BBC broadcast journalist. Matthew Rhys was educated via the Welsh-medium schools, Ysgol Gynradd Gymraeg Melin Gruffydd (in Whitchurch, Cardiff) and Ysgol Gyfun Gymraeg Glantaf (in Llandaff North, Cardiff).
1268452	Sarah Blanche Sweet (June 18, 1896 – September 6, 1986) was an American silent film actress who began her career in the earliest days of the Hollywood motion picture film industry. Early life. Born in Chicago, Illinois into a family of stock theater and vaudeville performers, Blanche Sweet entered the entertainment industry at an early age. At age 4 she toured in a play called "The Battle of the Strong" whose star was stage luminary Maurice Barrymore. A decade later Sweet would act with Barrymore's son Lionel in a D. W. Griffith directed film. In 1909, she started work at Biograph Studios under contract to director D. W. Griffith. By 1910 she had become a rival to Mary Pickford, who had also started for Griffith the year before. Rise to stardom. Sweet is renowned for her energetic, independent roles, at variance with the 'ideal' Griffith type of vulnerable, often fragile, femininity. After many starring roles, her first real landmark film was the 1911 Griffith thriller "The Lonedale Operator". In 1913 she starred in Griffith's first feature-length movie, "Judith of Bethulia". In 1914 Sweet was initially cast by Griffith in the part of Elsie Stoneman in his epic "The Birth of a Nation" but the role was eventually given to rival actress Lillian Gish, who was Sweet's senior by three years. That same year Sweet parted ways with Griffith and joined Paramount (then Famous Players-Lasky) for the much higher pay that studio was able to afford.
944227	Pamela Colleen Springsteen (born February 8, 1962) is an American actress and photographer. She had a short acting career, and is best known for playing the role of serial killer Angela Baker in ' and '. She is now a successful photographer. Pam is the younger sister of Bruce Springsteen. Early life. Pam was born in Freehold Township, New Jersey to Adele Ann (née Zerilli), a legal secretary of Italian ancestry, and Douglas Frederick "Dutch" Springsteen, was of Dutch and Irish ancestry, and worked as a bus driver. In addition to her older brother, who Pam sometimes went on tour with, she has a sister, Virginia Springsteen Shave. Career. Acting career. Pam took up acting, and was cast in her first role as a young cheerleader in "Fast Times at Ridgemont High". She also appeared as a cheerleader in the 1984 film "Reckless". She also appeared in "Modern Girls", and "Scenes from the Goldmine". Pam's first ever lead role came in 1988 when she accepted the role as psychotic serial killer "Angela Baker" in the low budget cult horror "Sleepaway Camp II: Unhappy Campers", and in 1989, "Sleepaway Camp III: Teenage Wasteland", which has earned her a cult following among horror fans. Her final film appearance to date was in 1990's "The Gumshoe Kid". Pam has also made guest appearances on television series' such as "The Facts of Life", "Cagney & Lacey", "Hardcastle and McCormick", and "Family Ties". Springsteen left acting in order to pursue her career as a still photographer. Photography. Pam began her career as a still photographer in the film and music industry. She photographed for a number of her brother's record singles, albums and other publicity stills, and was credited with photography on his album "Lucky Town". She was also credited as the cinematographer on his music video "The Ghost of Tom Joad". She has been credited with still photography work on the films "Jack the Dog", "Manhood" and "Berkeley", the television films "The Price of a Broken Heart" and "Dancing at the Harvest Moon", and the documentary "The Making of the Crying Game". She has also been a photo consultant on the television film "The Devil's Child". Her style of photography has attracted many celebrities including Courtney Thorne-Smith, Dolly Parton, Tom Hanks, Calista Flockhart, Olivia Newton-John, and Jaclyn Smith. Other work. Pam directed the music video for the song "These Words We Said", by singer Kim Richey. Personal life. Pam was briefly engaged to Sean Penn, her co-star in "Fast Times at Ridgemont High".
582753	Ila Arun is a popular Indian actress, TV personality and Rajasthani folk/folk-pop singer with a unique, husky voice and a penchant for folk-pop fusion. Her daughter is Ishita Arun. Early life. She was born and brought up in the state capital of Jaipur. She graduated from Maharani Girls college in Jaipur, India. Ila Arun is a popular Indian actress, TV personality and a Rajasthani folk/folk-pop singer with a unique, husky voice and a penchant for folk-pop fusion. She was first seen in Lifeline (Jeevanrekha) a Hindi TV serial on life of doctors, along with Tanvi Azmi over doordarshan. Career. As Reality Shows Judge. In the Sony Entertainment Television show "Fame Gurukul", she was the headmistress of the school where the contestants of the show trained for the reality singing show. She seemed to be partial during the course of the show showering excess support to Arijit Singh. She also appeared in NDTV Imagine's reality show "Junoon - Kuchh Kar Dikhaane Ka" as a judge for the folk-singers team "Maati ke laal" Playback Singing. Arun has sung numerous film songs in Hindi and quite a few in South Indian languages like Tamil and Telugu. Her most famous film song till date has been "Choli Ke Peeche" sung along with Alka Yagnik for the film Khalnayak for which they won the Filmfare Award for Best Female Playback Singer. She also is well known for her song, "Morni baaga ma bole" accompanied with Lata, in the movie Lamhe starring Sridevi. She has also sang Tamil song "Muthu Muthu Mazhai" under the composition of A. R. Rahman for the soundtrack to the film "Mr. Romeo". Her most recent super hit song is also for A. R. Rahman composed internationally acclaimed "Slumdog Millionaire". The song she recorded is "Ringa Ringa" along with Alka Yagnik . Singles/Albums. She has produced several successful singles such as "Vote for Ghagra", which sold more than 100,000 copies had some memorable numbers as "Morni, Main ho gayi sawa lakh ki, Mera Assi Kali ka Ghagra, Darudi, Bichuda,Main Raatan Jagi" etc.. Her fans await her comeback as she left after her album "Haule Haule" protesting music piracy and remixes and sexual content in songs. She herself accepted that she is all set to return with an album which is ready.. She recently sang the promotional song "Halla Bol" for the Rajasthan Royals team in the IPL which became an instant hit. She hails from Rajasthan and sings lots of Rajasthani songs in all her albums and movies. Acting. She has delivered an electrifying performance in the 2008 hit "Jodhaa Akbar" as Maham Anga, Akbar's wet nurse, who is also like Akbar's mother. She has also acted in critically acclaimed films such as "China Gate", "Chingari", "Well Done Abba", "Welcome to Sajjanpur" and "West is West'Ghatak'. She has also been a part of the early Indian TV Industry, acting in the 1980s "Bharat ek Khoj". Her brothers Piyush Pandey and Prasoon Pandey are ad-makers while her sister Rama Pandey is a BBC journalist and a DD newsreader and Tripti Pandey is a cultural activist, a tourism expert, deputy director, Rajasthan Tourism in Rajasthan.
583284	Kuch Tum Kaho Kuch Hum Kahein is an 2002 Bollywood romance drama film directed by Ravi Sharma Shankar. The film stars Fardeen Khan opposite debutant Richa Pallod. It released worldwide on 28 June 2002, and opened to a mixed response from critics and public. The story is based on two lovers who are unable to start an relationship because of their family's feud and ancient grudge. The storyline is a remake of the Telugu movie "Kalisundam Raa", and features similarities with William Shakespeare's classical story, "Romeo and Juliet". Plot summary. The story is based on two families. Years ago, the two families who are neighbors, had a joyful friendship. The daughter from one family, was planned to marry a son from the other family. However, the son ran away with another woman, which caused the daughter to commit suicide. Since then, the two families obtained an raging feud and grudge. After many years, the son who ran away with another woman, has died leaving a son and a daughter behind. The son, Abhay (Fardeen Khan) then arrives at his family's house. He is accepted into the house, and is treated like a normal family member. Soon enough, Abhay falls in love with Mangala (Richa Pallod). She loves him back, and the two start a relationship. However,Mangala's marriage is fixed, and that the two could never be together or they would be killed. Facing the consequences, Mangala stands up on her ground and tells Abhay she still has no problem in marrying him.when he refuses is runs away from the house leaving a letter for Abhay asking him to the railway station otherwise she will suicide.When he comes to know this goes to the railway station intending to bring her back and when the two family's come to know about their relationship, the young son from Mangala's family, Rudra Pratap (Sharad Kapoor) takes on the contract of murdering Abhay and bringing back Mangala. Him and his gang find Abhay at a train station, where he is pursuing for Mangala to come back, but Rudra Pratap misunderstands. Rudra and his gang attack Abhay and as Abhay tries to fight back, Rudra stabs him. Abhay's family arrives and tries to stop Rudra but are unsuccessful. Soon, Mangala and her family also arrive and manage to stop Rudra, whilst Abhay's stab wound won't stop bleeding. Abhay is rushed to the hospital. Seeing what the family feud has done to poor Abhay who had committed no crime but love, the two family's forget the past and once again approach friendship. Abhay survives, recovers and is allowed to marry Mangala. Rudra apologizes to Abhay, who forgives him and the two become good friends. Box-Office. It didn't do well at the box office and declared an Average though to do well
584465	Kadhalukku Mariyadhai () () is a 1997 Tamil romance film directed by Fazil. It starred Vijay and Shalini in the lead roles with Sivakumar, Srividya and Manivannan playing other supporting roles. The film became a blockbuster soon after release and was dubbed by critics as a "classic", with the lead pair in the film profiting from the widespread success. Plot. Jeevanandhan (Vijay) meets Mini (Shalini) in a book shop and their eyes meet leading to sparks of love in their hearts. Mini has a loving mother (K.P.A.C.Lalitha) and three brothers, James (Radha Ravi), Thomas (Thalaivaasal Vijay) and Stephen (newcomer Shaji Khan) and she is the apple of their eye. Mini is hesitant to reciprocate her love for Jeeva who steadily makes an inroad into her heart, the love affair incensing her family members who give him a thrashing each time he meets her. Jeeva's parents are under the impression that their son is pursuing his MBA studies until his father receives an SOS from Jeeva, injured in one such beatings. His father Chandrasekhar (Sivakumar) is stunned by the developments and Jeeva's mother (Srividya) is also shocked. Jeeva refuses to part company with Mini when his father arrives with his henchmen to take him back. The Christian family wants Jeeva dead. The developments till this juncture might have found expression in earlier movies but these events have been treated with a mature head along with some comic element by Charlie and Dhamu, as the friends of the hero. Realising that the lovers' existence is in danger, Kesavan (Charlie) suggests that they find refuge in his father's (Manivannan's) fishermen hamlet and the couple elope followed by the brothers. Manivannan refuses to give them away and the brothers swear bloodshed. A registrar wedding is quickly arranged and on the eve of the wedding, the lovers learn of the unlimited love, affection and care their respective family members have for them and decide not to hurt their sentiments. They agree to part company. The fisherfolk leader is shocked first at their decision, and later understands their feelings and sends them back safely, an appreciable twist in the movie. Jeeva and Mini go back to their respective homes to the excitement and relief of their families. However, their mothers realize how heartbroken the couple are without each other and reunite them. Production. The film was a remake of Fazil's successful Malayalam film, "Aniathipravu", which featured Kunchacko Boban and Shalini in the lead roles. Initially Fazil was keen on casting a debutant in the lead female role, but Shalini inisted that she should also star in the Tamil version. Release. The film opened in December 1997 to unanimously positive reviews. A reviewer from The Hindu mentioned that "Vijay brings to surface the soft nature of the love", while adding that the rest of the cast make "fine contributions", and praising the director's work. Another critic from Indolink.com recommending the film and citing that "Shalini returns in this film with a good performance" and that Illayaraaja's music is "Unbelievable". He also goes on to praise the performance of the other lead actors and Fazil's direction. The film saw Vijay win the Tamil Nadu State Film Award for Best Actor alongside Parthiban in 1997, while Pazhani Bharathi also picked up the Tamil Nadu State Film Award for Best Lyricist for his work in the film. Another remake was soon made in Hindi as "Doli Saja Ke Rakhna" with Akshaye Khanna and Jyothika in the lead roles. The success of the film prompted the director to make another film with the lead pair in 2000, "Kannukkul Nilavu", however the film became a box office failure despite positive reviews. In 2010, Vijay reunited with producer Sangili Murugan to star in his 50th film as a leading actor, "Sura", though yet again, the film became a financial failure. Soundtrack. The soundtrack has been scored by Ilaiyaraaja. The lead actor, Vijay, sung the song "Oh Baby" for this movie.
572970	Charley Chase (October 20, 1893 – June 20, 1940) was an American comedian, actor, screenwriter and film director, best known for his work in Hal Roach short film comedies. He was the older brother of comedian/director James Parrott. Life and career. Born Charles Joseph Parrott in Baltimore, Maryland, Chase began performing in vaudeville as a teenager and started his career in films by working at the Christie Film Company in 1912. He then moved to Keystone Studios, where he began appearing in bit parts in the Mack Sennett films, including those of Charlie Chaplin. By 1915 he was playing juvenile leads in the Keystones, and directing some of the films as Charles Parrott. His Keystone credentials were good enough to get him steady work as a comedy director with other companies; he directed many of Chaplin imitator Billy West's comedies, which featured a young Oliver Hardy as villain. He worked at L-KO Kompany during its final months of existence. Then in 1920, Chase began working as a film director for Hal Roach Studios. Among his notable early works for Roach was supervising the first entries in the "Our Gang" series, as well as directing several films starring Lloyd Hamilton; like many other silent comedians, Chase is reported to have regarded Hamilton's work as a major influence on that of his own. Chase became director-general of the Hal Roach studio in late 1921, supervising the production of all the Roach series except the Harold Lloyd comedies. Following Lloyd's departure from the studio in 1923, Chase moved back in front of the camera with his own series of shorts, adopting the screen name Charley Chase.
583713	Sangamam () is a 1999 Tamil musical romance film directed by Suresh Krishna and produced by V. Natarajan of Pyramid Films. The film featured Rahman and newcomer Vindhya in the lead roles with Manivannan, Vijayakumar and Radharavi essaying other important roles. The film's music was composed by A. R. Rahman, while Saravanan handled the cinematography. The film opened in 1999 and though the soundtrack won awards and rave reviews, the film became a financial failure. Plot. This film depicts the disputes between two forms of the dance styles and music, Classical Indian (in particular Carnatic music and Bharathanatyam danceform) against rural Tamil folk music and dance. The film depicts the misunderstanding and mutual ignorance of the two factions in the movie. The parallel plot in the movie is of the children and intended successors of the respective dance doyens falling in love with each other. The climax ends with a joining of both the music genres as well as the young couple, hence the name Sangamam (Tamil for fusion)... Production. V. Natarajan launched a film to be directed by Suresh Krishna and A. R. Rahman was signed on to compose the music for the film in early 1998, while he was also working with the producer Natarajan in "Rhythm" and "Udhaya". In an interview in August 1998, A. R. Rahman revealed that he was working on " a very small budget movie called "Sangamam" which is based on classical and folk dance". The film would feature his namesake and brother-in-law, Malayalam actor Rahman in the lead role with newcomer Vindhya roped in to play the lead female role. During production it was reported that the film would be a remake of the 1968 film "Thillaanaa Mohanambal" which starred Sivaji Ganesan and Padmini, but this was subsequently found to be untrue. The film was briefly delayed in 1999 as A. R. Rahman was too busy to complete the background score for the film, with producer V. Natarajan initially refusing to pay him, causing further delays for the producer's next venture, "Rhythm". Release. The film opened to mixed reviews with a critic citing that "Sangamam is a credible movie with good music by A.R.Rahman and superlative performance by Manivannan". The critic added that "Rahman does justice to his role and has brought a certain dignity and understatement to his character" but that "Vindhya, the heroine is the only weak link". Sandya of Indolink.com mentioned to "see it for the songs, like it for the songs, forget the movie", labelling that Vindhya "couldn't act for nuts". The film was also set to be dubbed and released in Telugu under the same name, but the financial losses suffered had deterred the version.
1063816	Julie Hagerty (born June 15, 1955) is an American actress and former model. Early life. Hagerty was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, the daughter of Harriet Yuellig, a model and singer and Jerry Hagerty, a musician. Her brother Michael Hagerty (1951–1991) was also an actor. Her parents later divorced. Hagerty attended Indian Hill High School. She was signed as a model for Ford Models at 15 and spent summers modeling in New York City. She moved there in 1972 and worked at her brother's theater group; she also studied with actor William Hickey. Career. Hagerty made her off-Broadway debut in 1979, starring in "Mutual Benefit Life" at her brother's theater, "The Production Company". She continued appearing on stage, including starring in a Broadway version of "The House of Blue Leaves". Her first film role was in "All That Jazz", but her small part was cut out of the finished film. She was subsequently cast in the parody film, "Airplane!". It was released in June 1980 and became the third highest-grossing comedy in box office history at that time, behind "National Lampoon's Animal House" (1978) and "Smokey and the Bandit" (1977). "Airplane!" was considered the first of the modern parody genre and established Hagerty as a noted comedic actress. Hagerty spent the 1980s starring in a number of theatrical films, ranging from the well-reviewed "Lost In America" and Woody Allen's "A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy" to the badly received "Beyond Therapy". Her roles often involved a naive or spaced-out character who seems to be unaware of whatever chaos was surrounding her, as exemplified in "Airplane!" and its sequel, '. Throughout the 1990s and 2000s, Hagerty mostly appeared in made-for-television movies or supporting roles in Hollywood films, including a part in the 2005 film, "Just Friends" and 2006 film, "She's The Man". She was also cast in the 1994 "Designing Women" spin-off "Women of the House", but she was committed to another project when filming began, so Valerie Mahaffey substituted for her in several episodes. She eventually joined the cast, filmed two episodes and resigned, handing the reins back to Mahaffey, who bowed out after one final appearance. In 2002, she appeared in the Broadway revival of "Mornings at Seven". In 2007, she appeared in the ' episode "Leapin' Lizards"; in 2011, she voiced Carol, Lois' sister, in the "Family Guy" episode "Brothers & Sisters". Her most recent film appearance was as Hazel Bergeron in "2081", the film adaptation of Kurt Vonnegut's short story Harrison Bergeron. In 2013, she has appeared in a series of Old Navy commercials as a winking flight attendant, a nod to her most famous role in Airplane!. Personal life. Hagerty married Peter Burki in 1986; the couple began divorce proceedings in 1991. In 1999, she married Hollywood life insurance magnate and theater producer Richard Kagan.
775148	Terry Chen (born February 3, 1975) is a Canadian film and television actor. Life and career. Chen was born to ethnic Chinese parents originating from Taiwan (father) and mainland China (mother), in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. After an education at schools in Edmonton and Vancouver, British Columbia, he attended college in Calgary and studied at the University of Calgary. He traveled for two years before returning to Vancouver to pursue acting. He currently lives in Vancouver and Los Angeles, performing film and television work. Chen's breakout role was as real-life "Rolling Stone" editor Ben Fong-Torres in the 2000 Cameron Crowe film, "Almost Famous". He has since appeared in several television shows, including Steven Spielberg's Emmy Award-winning science fiction TV miniseries "Taken", and was a series regular on "Combat Hospital". Chen has also appeared in feature films "I, Robot", "The Chronicles of Riddick", "Snakes on a Plane" and a leading role in the horror/thriller "They Wait". Chen currently plays a recurring role in the Canadian science fiction series Continuum, which premiered on Showcase on May 27, 2012.
629799	Yahoo Serious (born 27 July 1953), born Greg Pead (name-change by deed poll in 1980), is an Australian film actor, director and score composer. He is best known for his 1988 comedy "Young Einstein". He also created "Reckless Kelly" in 1993 and "Mr. Accident" in 2000. Serious writes, directs, produces, stars in, and has composed the scores for his movies. Early life and career. Yahoo Serious was born in Cardiff, City of Lake Macquarie in the Hunter Region, New South Wales, Australia. He went to Glendale East Public School and Cardiff High School, then worked as a tyre fitter to pay for his tuition at the National Art School in Sydney. After being expelled, Serious co-wrote, co-produced, and directed his first film at age 21, a documentary called "Coaltown" which explored the social and political history of coal mining. The following year, his television series "Lifestyle" won the Australian Penguin Award for Best Educational Documentary. In 1988, Serious co-wrote, produced, and directed "Young Einstein", an intentionally inaccurate movie portraying Albert Einstein as a young farmer in Tasmania who derives the formula E=mc² while trying to discover a means of creating beer bubbles, splitting the lager atom in the process. After leaving the apple isle for Sydney on the mainland to patent his discovery, he goes on to develop rock music and surfing, romances Marie Curie, and saves Paris from an atomic bomb. The movie was an international hit, propelling Serious to stardom. In 1993, Serious released his next film, "Reckless Kelly", a satire about a modern descendant of the notorious Australian bank robber Ned Kelly who also becomes a movie star in Hollywood. While "Reckless Kelly" was a hit in Australia, it failed outside of the country and ended Serious's bid for mainstream international popularity. In 2000, Yahoo Serious released his third film "Mr. Accident", about the most accident-prone man in the world. Like "Reckless Kelly", the film was not a commercial success. Yahoo Serious received an honorary doctorate from the University of Newcastle in 1996. Serious was also one of the guest stars at the opening ceremony of the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games. He is also a director of The Kokoda Track Foundation, and has trekked the Kokoda Track a number of times. As of December 2008 he is working on his 4th feature, a war movie about the Kokoda Track campaign. Personal life. Shortly after the production of "Young Einstein", Yahoo Serious married Lulu Pinkus. Their relationship ended in 2007. Lawsuit against Yahoo! In August 2000, Yahoo Serious tried to sue the search engine Yahoo! for trademark infringement. The case was thrown out because Serious could not prove that he sells products or services under the name "Yahoo" and therefore could not prove that he suffered harm or confusion due to the search engine.
1529494	Sidney Luxton Loney, M.A. (16 March 1860, Chevithorne, Devon – 16 May 1939, Richmond) was sometime Professor of Mathematics at the Royal Holloway College, Egham, Surrey. (University of London), and a fellow of Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge. He authored a number of mathematics texts, some of which have been reprinted numerous times. He is known as an early influence on Srinivasa Ramanujan. Loney was educated at Maidstone Grammar School, in Tonbridge and at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, where he graduated BA as 3rd Wrangler in 1882. He has authored numerous books on mathematics. His book "The elements of statics and dynamics", published in 1897, still (2012) happens to be the only reference book on the subject used across various universities in south India.
1066536	The Education of Charlie Banks is a 2007 drama film directed by Limp Bizkit frontman Fred Durst, produced by Straight Up Film's Marisa Polvino and starring Jesse Eisenberg, Jason Ritter, Eva Amurri, Gloria Votsis, and Chris Marquette. It had its world premiere at the 2007 Tribeca Film Festival, where it won the Made in NY Narrative Award given to the best narrative film made in New York. It is Durst's directorial debut.
1066861	Roy Jenson (February 9, 1927 – April 24, 2007) was a Canadian American actor. Life and career. Born in Calgary, Alberta, he moved to Los Angeles with his family as a child. He joined the U.S. Navy and then graduated from UCLA where he was a member of Delta Tau Delta International Fraternity. He then became a professional Canadian football player for the Calgary Stampeders and the BC Lions from 1951 through 1957. He guest starred on NBC's television series "Daniel Boone" during the fourth season (1968–1969); however, he is remembered by many as the first man beaten up by Caine on the television show Kung Fu (1972), for his appearance in the "" episode "The Omega Glory" and as the villain Puddler in "The Moving Target", he worked frequently in television in the '70s and '80s. A prolific character actor, he appeared in such films as "The Missouri Traveler", "Warlock", "13 Ghosts", "How the West Was Won", "Waterhole No. 3", "Our Man Flint", "Big Jake", "Harper", "Bustin' Loose", "Soylent Green", "The Getaway", "The Way We Were", "The Outfit" and "Chinatown". He also worked frequently with directors John Milius ("Dillinger", "The Wind and the Lion", "Red Dawn") and Clint Eastwood ("Thunderbolt and Lightfoot", "The Gauntlet", "Every Which Way but Loose", "Any Which Way You Can", "Honkytonk Man"), as well as actor Geoffrey Lewis. Jenson died of cancer in Los Angeles, California, aged 80. His son is actor Sasha Jenson.
582053	Zayed Abbas Khan (born 5 July 1980) is an Indian actor and producer who appears in Hindi films. He is known for his performance in "Main Hoon Na". Early life. Khan's parents are former Bollywood actor Sanjay Khan and interior designer Zarine Khan. Khan is the youngest of four children. His older sisters are Simone Khan (wife of Ajay Arora), Sussanne Roshan (married to actor Hrithik Roshan), and Farah Khan Ali (wife of DJ Aqeel). Khan is related as first cousin to yet another Bollywood actor, Fardeen Khan, whose father is actor Feroz Khan, who was Khan's father's brother. Khan attended Welham Boys' School, Dehradun, and later Kodaikanal International School, Kodaikanal, with childhood friend Esha Deol and Mallaika Parekh. He studied Business Management at the University of Washington and Film Making at London Film Academy. Career. Khan made his screen debut in 2003 in the film "Chura Liyaa Hai Tumne". In 2004, he starred in "Main Hoon Na", which was one of the biggest hits in his career. It was the second highest-grossing film of 2004 behind "Veer-Zaara" and was declared a hit. Khan was subsequently nominated for the Filmfare Award for Best Supporting Actor in 2005. Khan had 4 releases in 2005, which is his highest number to date. He played an obsessive lover in "Vaada" alongside Arjun Rampal and Ameesha Patel, but the film proved unsuccessful and was a flop at the box office. He then starred in "Shabd" as a photography professor, which he was very excited about because he had always wanted to do a film with Aishwarya Rai. However, it failed at the box office. His third release, Anubhav Sinha's action thriller "Dus", where he played a cop, did well. It was an above-average grosser and was the third highest-grossing film of 2005. Khan's final release of the year, "Shaadi No. 1" flopped at the box office. He then starred in Sohail Khan's action multi-starrer, "Fight Club - Members Only" in 2006. Next, he appeared in "". Khan revealed that he had ghost-written some scenes in the film. He had first begun script-writing when he was studying in London. Both of his films in 2007 were action multi-starrers. Anubhav Sinha's "Cash" was originally meant to be the sequel to Dus, but ended up differently. Due to this, some of the cast of Dus also star in Cash. It performed reasonably well in its first week, but was unable to replicate the success of Dus and was eventually declared a flop. "Speed" also failed. In 2008, Khan co-starred in the Bollywood remake of Rain Man, "Yuvvraaj" with Salman Khan, Katrina Kaif and Anil Kapoor. It was a disaster at the box office. He then had the leading role as a news reporter in Apoorva Lakhia's "Mission Istaanbul" opposite Vivek Oberoi but it failed at the box office. Khan was recommended by Sanjay Dutt for 2009's "Blue". At the time of its release, Blue broke the record for having the highest budget for a Bollywood film. It had an excellent opening weekend, collecting 480 million but was a below-average grosser. He also filmed Sharafat Gayi Tel Lene which is a comic thriller film. However, it ran into some production hassles and is yet to be released. Khan also had a special appearance as an infidel fiancé in the Ranbir Kapoor-Priyanka Chopra starrer "Anjaana Anjaani". From 2011 on, the actor has also ventured into production with his co-owned production house, Born Free Entertainment along with good friend "Dia Mirza" and her fiancé Sahil Sanga. Their first film, "Love Breakups Zindagi" was released on 7 October 2011, but was met with a lukewarm response. In 2012, Khan played a supporting role in "Tezz" which stars Anil Kapoor and Ajay Devgan in the lead. His next film, Ameesha Patel's maiden production, Desi Magic began principal photography on 2 August 2013 and is slated to release on 28 February 2014. Controversy. According to reports in the media, Khan was driving a Mercedes when he hit a woman on a scooter. The reports quoted eyewitnesses as saying that Zayed Khan was driving the vehicle but he quickly switched places with a passenger in his car when the accident happened. The media claimed that by the time the police arrived, there was confusion all around about who was actually driving the car. The reports also added that Khan and the group he was traveling with were prompt in caring for the injured woman to a local hospital for treatment. Personal life. Khan married his childhood sweetheart Mallaika Parekh on 20 November 2005. They have a son, Zidaan, who was born on 18 January 2008, and welcomed a second son named Aariz on 22 September 2011. Fashion. Khan is known for his hairstyle, clothes and choices of shoes. He often wears sleeveless baniyans. He chooses to wear white shoes more than chappals.
592121	Mussanjemaatu () is a 2008 Romantic film starring Sudeep and Ramya. The film was directed by Mahesh. The movie is produced by Suresh Jain. The music of the film was launched on 4 April 2008. The movie was released on 16 May 2008. Mussanje Maatu has been remade in Bengali with the name Achena Prem which was released on 8 July 2011. Plot. The film revolves around the life of a Radio Jockey, Pradeep (Sudeep), who runs a radio programme called "Mussange Maathu" for depressed people. Tanu (Ramya) is a depressed girl who comes to Bangalore to live with her friend (Anu) and to find a new life. One day she calls Pradeep's radio programme and becomes very impressed by his suggestion. Meanwhile, Pradeep and his team go to the streets of Bangalore to raise funds, to help a diseased person. There, He comes across Tanu and both become good friends, as days pass by.
1270536	Shoulder Arms is Charlie Chaplin's second film for First National Pictures. Released in 1918, it is a silent comedy set in France during World War I. The main part of the film actually occurs in a dream. It co-starred Edna Purviance and Sydney Chaplin, Chaplin's brother. It is Chaplin's shortest feature film. Goofs. In the scene where Chaplin (in his tree costume) is being pursued through the forest, cars can be seen traveling on a highway in the background. Although highways in the United States existed when this film was made, they did not exist in Germany. Germany's first highway was built in 1921. Of course, the Western Front was in France, not Germany. Reception. "Shoulder Arms" proved to be Chaplin's most popular film, critically and commercially, up to that point. A review in the October 21, 1918 "New York Times" was typical: "'The fool's funny,' was the chuckling observation of one of those who saw Charlie Chaplin's new film. "Shoulder Arms", at the Strand yesterday—and, apparently, that's the way everybody felt. There have been learned discussions as to whether Chaplin's comedy is low or high, artistic or crude, but no one can deny that when he impersonates a screen fool he is funny. Most of those who go to find fault with him remain to laugh. They may still find fault, but they will keep on laughing."
1032886	Michael Angelis (born 18 January 1952) is an English actor and voice artist. Career. He trained at the College of Dramatic Art, Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama, Glasgow, where, "inter alia", he played roles in Brendan Behan's "The Hostage" and "The Zykovs" by Maxim Gorky. Michael Angelis featured in the BBC drama serial "Boys from the Black Stuff" (1982) and another Alan Bleasedale drama "G.B.H.". He has also appeared in comedies such as "The Liver Birds" (1975–78), as Lucien Boswell, and much later in "Luv" (1993–94). In 1983, he appeared at the Manchester Royal Exchange in Harold Pinter's 'The Caretaker'. He was a villain in the revived television series "Auf Wiedersehen, Pet" (2002), alongside former fellow Black Stuff star Alan Igbon. Angelis narrated the "Thomas & Friends" TV series from 1991 to 2012, when he took over from Ringo Starr. He also narrated John Peel's autobiography, "Margrave of the Marshes", which also broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2005. In 2006, he starred in the film "Fated", set in his hometown of Liverpool, as well as in episodes of "Midsomer Murders" and "The Bill" in 2007. Angelis was married to the "Coronation Street" actress Helen Worth, but the couple divorced in 2001. In September 2011, he participated in the BBC Radio 4 programme "The Reunion" talking with others cast members about his roles in the "Boys from the Blackstuff". He is the younger brother of fellow actor Paul Angelis.
1064668	John Irving Bloom (born January 27, 1953), who uses the pseudonym Joe Bob Briggs, is a syndicated American film critic, writer and comic performer. Early years. Bloom was born in Dallas, Texas, the son of Thelma Louise (née Berry) and Rudolph Lewis Bloom. He was raised in Little Rock, Arkansas, and attended Vanderbilt University on a sports-writing scholarship. He began his writing career at "Texas Monthly" and "Dallas Times Herald". While a movie reviewer at the Herald, he created the humorous persona of "Joe Bob Briggs" to review exploitation films and other genre films. Persona. Briggs's acting persona is that of an unapologetic redneck Texan with an avowed love of the drive-in theatre. He specializes in humorous but appreciative reviews of b-movies and cult films, which he calls "drive-in movies" (as distinguished from "indoor bullstuff"). In addition to his usual parody of urbane, high-brow movie criticism, his columns characteristically include colorful tales of woman-troubles and high-spirited brushes with the law, tales which inevitably conclude with his rush to catch a movie at a local drive-in, usually with female companionship. The reviews typically end with a brief rating of the "high points" of the movie in question, including the types of action (represented by nouns naming objects used in fight scenes suffixed with "-fu"), the number of bodies, number of female breasts bared, the notional number of pints of blood spilled, and for appropriately untoward movies a "vomit meter". A typical such concluding paragraph would be, "No dead bodies. One hundred seventeen breasts. Multiple aardvarking. Lap dancing. Cage dancing. Convenience-store dancing. Blindfold aardvarking. Blind-MAN aardvarking. Lesbo Fu. Pool cue-fu. Drive-In Academy Award nominations for Tane McClure. Joe Bob says check it out." ("Aardvarking" is one of many euphemisms Briggs employs in reference to sexual intercourse.) Originally, Brigg's film reviews were limited to pictures shown at local drive-ins. Later, after a tongue-in-cheek 'battle' with his own convictions, he also began reviewing films released on VHS and DVD. Reaction to redevelopment of 42nd Street. During the early 1980s when the City of New York was in the planning stages of renovating and restoring its run-down 42nd Street district, which included closing many grindhouses showing B-movies on double and triple bills around the clock, Joe Bob expressed great opposition. He encouraged a "Postcard Fu" campaign, i.e., encouraging film fans to write to officials and pressure them into saving "the one place in New York City you could see a decent drive-in movie." He felt that 42nd Street movie houses rightfully belonged to all Americans and should be preserved as places where "Charles Bronson can be seen thirty feet high, as God intended". One man show. "An Evening with Joe Bob Briggs", Joe Bob's one-man show, debuted in Cleveland in July 1985. Later re-titled "Joe Bob Dead in Concert", it evolved into a theatrical piece involving story- telling, comedy and music that was performed in more than fifty venues over the next two years, including Caroline's in New York, convention centers, theaters, music clubs, comedy clubs, and regular engagements at Wolfgang's and the Great American Music Hall in San Francisco. Television. In 1986, as a result of the stage show, Joe Bob was asked to be a guest host on "Drive-In Theater", a late- night B-movie show on The Movie Channel (TMC), sister network of Showtime. Briggs went over so well that he was eventually signed to a long-term contract. "Joe Bob's Drive-In Theater" became the network's highest-rated show and ran for almost ten years, and was twice nominated for the industry's Cable ACE Award. He appeared on some 50 talk shows, including "The Tonight Show" (twice) and "Larry King Live". He was also a commentator for a Fox TV news magazine for two seasons. "Joe Bob's Drive-In Theater" ended when TMC changed its format in early 1996. He was off the air for only four months before joining the TNT network, where he hosted "MonsterVision" for four years. That show ended in July 2000, when TNT likewise changed format. In 2011, the most definitive account of the "MonsterVision" series (including interviews with Briggs and series mailgirl Honey Gregory) appeared on the cult movie website, Mondo Video. In the late '90s he also spent two seasons as a commentator on Comedy Central's "The Daily Show" (under his given name John Bloom), with a recurring segment called "God stuff" beginning on the 2nd ever episode in 1996. He starred in Frank Henenlotter's documentary "Herschell Gordon Lewis - Godfather of Gore". Writing. During these TV years, Briggs remained active as a writer, working as a contributing editor to the "National Lampoon", freelancing for "Rolling Stone", "Playboy", the "Village Voice", and "Interview". He was the regular humor columnist and theater critic at the "National Review", and he published five books of satire--"Joe Bob Goes to the Drive-In", "A Guide to Western Civilization, or My Story", "Joe Bob Goes Back to the Drive-In", "The Cosmic Wisdom of Joe Bob Briggs", and "Iron Joe Bob", his parody of the men's movement. He also wrote and performed in special shows for Fox and Showtime, and collaborated with veteran comedy writer Norman Steinberg on an NBC sitcom that remains unproduced. His two syndicated newspaper columns--"Joe Bob Goes to the Drive-In" and "Joe Bob's America"-- were picked up by the "New York Times" Syndicate in the '90s, and he continued to write both until putting the columns on hiatus in 1998. For one year he wrote a humorous sex advice column in "Penthouse". In November 2000 he started writing the "Drive-In" column again, this time for United Press International, along with a second column, "The Vegas Guy", which chronicles Joe Bob's weekly forays into the casinos of America. In 2003, Briggs delivered "Profoundly Disturbing: Shocking Movies That Changed History". In 1998, Bloom retired from writing newspaper reviews, only to return two years later due to popular demand and continue his column as Joe Bob with UPI. Bloom has also appeared on television as a host of TNT's "MonsterVision" horror movie marathons, and has an internet website, The Joe Bob Report, with collections of movie reviews and other articles.
1068290	Dr. Jekyll and Ms. Hyde is a 1995 British-American comedy film starring Tim Daly, Sean Young and Lysette Anthony. The film is based on Robert Louis Stevenson's classic horror novel "Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde". The story takes place in modern times and concerns a bumbling, young chemist who tampers with his great-grandfather's formula, accidentally transforming himself into a beautiful businesswoman who is hellbent on taking over his life. Plot. Richard Jacks (Tim Daly) is a perfumer fed up working at a major fragrance company, where he is the butt of jokes with many employees. His projects are failures and the feminist chief executive (Polly Bergen) is thinking of replacing him with a woman. After his great-grandfather dies, Jacks attends the will reading. Whilst everyone else receives houses, money and boats, Jacks receives nothing but notes from scientific experiments. He discovers that his ancestor was Dr. Henry Jekyll. Jacks becomes fascinated about the duality of man. He attempts to refine Jekyll's formula that separates good and evil. Realizing that his ancestor's formula increased male aggression, Jacks decides to add more estrogen to the mixture in the hope that it will prove less dangerous. Monitoring his vital stats after ingesting the formula, he gives up and attends a job interview. Although everything appears normal at first, Jacks' voice begins to change, his nails grow longer, and the hairs on his arms recede into his skin. Jacks then feels a strange sensation in his groin area and watches in horror as his manhood has disappeared. Embarrassed, Jacks flees back to the lab, leaving his interviewer speechless. Back in his office, the final stages of the transformation into a woman take place. The new female alter-ego names herself Helen Hyde (Sean Young) and introduces herself as Jacks's new assistant. Ms. Hyde quickly develops a personality independent of her creator (embracing womanhood to its fullest) and is actually quite likeable: she rewrites Jacks's reports, is kind to his secretary, and lovingly flirts with his superiors. Over the next few days she rewards herself with a shopping spree and befriends Jacks' fiancee, Sarah (Lysette Anthony), but has Sarah move out of Jacks' apartment so she can have it for herself. Hyde is happy with her new identity but soon transforms back into Jacks. The next day, after several comments from colleagues, Jacks realizes that Hyde was real but is unable to access any of her memories. Nonetheless, he feels invigorated and invites Sarah to his place for a romantic meal in order to make up for past transgressions. Everything appears to be going well until he realizes he is again transforming into Hyde, causing Sarah to flee. His great-grandfather's formula has caused his genes to become unstable. Hyde becomes resentful at having to share a body. She starts taking advantage of her creator's absence by sleeping around the office in order to gain the upper hand -- even going as far as to have sex with a man. Just when Hyde is about to have sex with Jacks' boss, she starts changing back into Jacks and hides in the bathroom. A horrified Jacks escapes via a nearby window. Hyde is named his superior at work, disfiguring a colleague (Jeremy Piven), and stealing his ideas. As Hyde grows in influence and power, she sets her sights on displacing the CEO of the company, becoming the first woman there ever to rise through the ranks. Jacks tries to retaliate by subverting Hyde's authority, which causes her to declare war on her creator. To stop her, Jacks handcuffs himself to the bed, only to be horrified as Sarah walks in and finds his closet to be full of lingerie. This leads Sarah to believe that he and Hyde are having an affair. It is only after Sarah leaves that Jacks transforms into Hyde once again. Angered at Jacks' attempt to expose the truth, Hyde proceeds to burn all of his grandfather's documents. She warns Jacks via a video of her intentions to take over completely. He then realizes that he is actually starting to spend more time as Hyde than himself and that he has to come up with a plan before he disappears completely. Jacks tries to humiliate Hyde in front of her superiors by stripping naked and writing obscenities all over his body, hoping that they will walk in on her after she takes over. Hyde manages to outsmart him by delaying the change, causing his plan to backfire and Jacks to be fired. He turns to Sarah for help, but is rejected because of his supposed affair with Hyde. Sarah is convinced by seeing CCTV footage from the initial transformation. Jacks comes up with a formula that would effectively destroy the Hyde part of himself, but he must consume it as Hyde within a certain time frame before Hyde's DNA can fuse forever. After he transforms, Sarah attempts to inject her with the formula but fails--injecting only about 20% of it, causing random body parts to spontaneously transform between male and female. A fire breaks out in the apartment and Hyde escapes. At the launch of a perfume she "invented" (it was exactly the same as a scent Jacks had come up with but was initially rejected by the feminist executive), Hyde realizes that she's still in Jack's clothing. Hyde takes a guest's dress. As she mingles, the effects of the formula cause her to temporarily grow stubble; her breasts also disappear and reappear. Sarah, who sneaked into the party, hides in a podium and waits until the promotion video starts before injecting the rest of the formula into Hyde, who begins transforming back into Jacks for good. A relieved Jacks realises it's over but sees that he's now standing in a room full of colleagues wearing a dress. He makes a speech about the only way he could understand a woman was to become one. One of those Helen slept with subtly asks him to keep it quiet as he removes the undergarments Helen also stole from the guest, commenting "Helen and her damn thongs". Reception. Reviews of the film were generally negative. The storyline was heavily criticized as being unrealistic, predictable, and relying too much on crude and sexual humour to get its point across. The transformation sequences were also viewed as unconvincing and laughable. However, the film did garner a small cult following upon being released on home video. At the time of writing, the film has a below-average rating of 4.2 on the IMDB, and a 14% "rotten" rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Despite some favorable feedback, the film was nominated for three Razzie Awards including Worst Actress for Sean Young, Worst Remake or Sequel and Worst Screen Couple for Daly and Young, despite the obvious fact that they don't appear on screen at the same time. "At an age when she should be hitting her stride," wrote film critic Mick LaSalle, "she is already parodying herself -- parodying her public image, of all things, not her screen image...It's just possible that schlock is Young's natural element and roles like this her true calling". A review from The Austin Chronicle summarized the film by saying, "Overall, this PG-13 bore is neither crass enough nor intelligent enough to hold anyone's attention."
1062377	Ryan Rodney Reynolds (born October 23, 1976) is a Canadian film and television actor. Reynolds is known for playing Michael Bergen on the ABC sitcom "Two Guys and a Girl" (1998–2001), Billy Simpson in the YTV Canadian teen soap opera "Hillside" (1991-1993), as well as Marvel Comics characters Hannibal King in ' (2004) and Wade Wilson/Deadpool in ' (2009). He has starred in films such as "", "National Lampoon's Van Wilder", "Finder's Fee", "Just Friends", "Definitely, Maybe", "The Proposal", "The Amityville Horror", "The Change-Up", "Smokin' Aces", "Adventureland", "Buried", and "Safe House". He also portrayed the DC Comics superhero Hal Jordan/Green Lantern in "Green Lantern" (2011) and made cameos in the well known films "Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle" and "Ted". Early life. Reynolds was born in Vancouver, British Columbia. His father, Jim, is a food wholesaler, and his mother, Tammy, is a retail salesperson. He is of Irish ancestry and was raised as a Roman Catholic. The youngest of four brothers, he graduated from Kitsilano Secondary School in Vancouver in 1994. He later attended Kwantlen Polytechnic University, also in Vancouver, until dropping out. Two of his elder brothers work as police officers in British Columbia, one of whom is a Royal Canadian Mounted Police member. Career. Reynolds' career began in 1990 when he starred as "Billy" in the Canadian-produced teen soap "Hillside", distributed in the United States by Nickelodeon as "Fifteen". In 1996 he co-starred with Melissa Joan Hart in the TV movie "Sabrina the Teenage Witch". As an adult, Reynolds starred in the National Lampoon movie "Van Wilder" and the American television series "Two Guys, A Girl and a Pizza Place", playing medical student Michael "Berg" Bergen. In 1993–94 he had a recurring role in "The Odyssey" as Macro. He also cameoed in "Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle" as a nurse, appeared in "The In-Laws" with Michael Douglas and Albert Brooks, as well as the Canadian production "Foolproof". In 2005 he played a waiter named Monty in "Waiting...", and as music executive Chris Brander in the romantic comedy "Just Friends" alongside Amy Smart and Anna Faris. Reynolds played the protagonist in the 2008 film "Definitely, Maybe". He has also appeared in the second season finale of the television series "Scrubs". In 2007, Reynolds guest-starred as Brendan's friend Hams in the episode "" of the TBS sitcom "My Boys". In 2009, he portrayed Andrew Paxton, starring opposite Sandra Bullock, in "The Proposal", and Mike Connell in "Adventureland". Although he has performed primarily in comedies, Reynolds underwent intense physical training to play an action role as the character of Hannibal King in the 2004 film "". Reynolds played George Lutz in the 2005 remake of the 1979 horror film "The Amityville Horror". Additionally, he played an FBI agent alongside Ray Liotta in the 2006 crime action film "Smokin' Aces". In a March 2005 interview, Reynolds spoke of his interest and involvement in a possible film adaptation of "Deadpool" with screenwriter David S. Goyer, as well as the possibility of playing the incarnation of The Flash known as Wally West in an adaption of the popular DC Comics character in the upcoming movie project. Reynolds portrayed Deadpool in the X-Men spinoff "" and was announced to portray him again in a spin-off, "Deadpool". It was later confirmed that the "Deadpool" film will be a reboot, ignoring the events that took place in "X-Men Origins" and establishing a new backstory for the character. He also starred in the Spanish and American thriller "Buried", which screened at the Sundance film festival. In June 2010, Reynolds was invited to join the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Reynolds portrayed superhero Hal Jordan/Green Lantern in Warner Bros.' film "Green Lantern", released June 17, 2011 in 3D; this made him one of the few actors to headline in movies based on both Marvel and DC characters. In 2012, he portrayed an agent in "Safe House", alongside Denzel Washington. Reynolds portrayed Nick Walker in the Universal Pictures film adaptation of Dark Horse Comics' "R.I.P.D." ("Rest in Peace Department"), which was released in 2013. Personal life. Relationships. In 2002, Reynolds began dating Canadian artist Alanis Morissette. The two announced their engagement in June 2004. In February 2007, representatives for Morissette and Reynolds announced they had mutually decided to end their engagement. Morissette said her album "Flavors of Entanglement" was created out of her grief after the breakup. The song "Torch" was written about Reynolds. Soon after the end of his relationship with Morissette in 2007, Reynolds began dating American actress Scarlett Johansson. The couple announced their engagement in May 2008, and married on September 27, 2008 in a quiet ceremony near Tofino, British Columbia. On December 14, 2010, Reynolds and Johansson announced that they had separated. Reynolds filed for divorce in Los Angeles on December 23, 2010; Johansson filed her response simultaneously. The divorce was finalized on July 1, 2011. In October 2011, it was reported that Reynolds had begun dating his "Green Lantern" co-star Blake Lively. In June 2012, Reynolds and Lively purchased a home in Bedford, New York. The couple married on September 9, 2012, at Boone Hall Plantation in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina. In the media. In October 2008, Reynolds wrote for "The Huffington Post" regarding his plan to run the New York City Marathon for his father, who suffers from Parkinson's disease. Reynolds appeared in "People"s Sexiest Man Alive lists in 2008 and 2009, and was awarded the top honor in 2010. In April 2011, he was ranked #15 on "People"'s Most Beautiful 2011 list. On February 12, 2012, Reynolds appeared on the BBC's "Top Gear" as the Star In a Reasonably-Priced Car. He posted a time of 1.43:7. Beliefs. Reynolds was raised Catholic.
583558	Dayavan: Truth is Power (English: "The Compassionate") is a 1988 Hindi remake of the Tamil film "Nayagan" (1987). The movie was directed by Feroz Khan, and starred Vinod Khanna, Feroz Khan and Madhuri Dixit in lead roles. Plot. After having witnessed his dad being killed by ratan singh, the local police, and being orphaned and homeless, Shakti Velu develops a hatred and distrust of the police in India. He is befriended by another homeless boy named Shanker, who asks him to accompany him to Bombay's slums, where they live with a kind-hearted Muslim named Karim Baba, and his daughter, Shama. This is where Shakti and Shankar spend their childhood. When they mature, they take to petty crime. Here too, Shakti witnesses police brutality and atrocities, especially at the hands of sadistic, alcoholic, and womanizing Police Inspector Ratan Singh. When Karim Baba is arrested, jailed, and found hanging by his neck in police custody, Shakti hunts down Ratan Singh, and kills him in broad daylight in front of the several hundred people. An investigation is launched, but no one comes forward as a witness. Thus Shakti gets his reputation as a Don with a good heart i.e., Dayavan. Shakti marries local prostitute, Neelu, and has two children, Suraj and Sarita. He becomes even more powerful and influential all over Bombay, and his working partners are powerful criminal dons who have ruled over Bombay for eons. Shakti eventually replaces these dons, and becomes Bombay's only Don. This creates enemies for him and his family, but he believes since he has not really done any harm to anyone, he and his family will be safe. It is this belief that will take a heavy toll on his life and that of his family, when the truth dawns that he, himself, is responsible for being kind to a man, who will ultimately bring forward ruin to the Velu family. Soundtrack. Soundtrack available on T-Series, and composed by veteran music directors Laxmikant-Pyarelal.
581630	Neha Oberoi (born 15 September 1985) is an Indian actress who has acted in Tollywood & Bollywood films. Personal life. Neha is the daughter of film producer Dharam Oberoi and niece of director Sanjay Gupta. She married Indian diamond merchant Vishal Shah on 14 December 2010. Career. She has appeared in the Bollywood films Dus Kahaniyaan, EMI & Woodstock Villa. She is currently shooting for an untitled film with Imran Khan. Her foray into films started with the Telugu blockbuster Balu ABCDEFG and was followed by a role in one of the short films in Dus Kahaniyaan. Her role in Woodstock Villa won her much critical acclaim, yet the film failed to perform at the Box office. Neha is a member of International Film And Television Club of Asian Academy Of Film & Television, Noida.
1055070	Modern Problems is a 1981 comedy film written and directed by Ken Shapiro and starring Chevy Chase, Patti D'Arbanville and Dabney Coleman. The film grossed $26,154,211 in the United States. A DVD release of the film was issued in 2005. Plot. Max Fielder (Chevy Chase) is an air traffic controller at New York's Kennedy Intl. Airport whose life is slowly going down the drain. His girlfriend, Darcy (Patti D'Arbanville), has just left him because of his jealousy. Now, everywhere he goes he seems to run into her with another man, driving him nuts. One night while he's driving home from a party, a tanker truck spills nuclear waste onto his car and through his open sunroof, covering him with glowing green goo. The next day, he notices that he has developed telekinetic powers. With this newfound discovery, Max decides to put his powers to use by striking back at his tormentors to win back the love of Darcy.
1592481	Kristoffer "Kris" Kristofferson (born June 22, 1936) is an American country music singer, songwriter, musician, and film actor. He is known
583308	Silsiilay (Hindi: सिलसिले) is a Hindi romance film written and directed by Khalid Mohammed. The film stars Tabu, Bhoomika Chawla, Riya Sen, Celina Jaitley, Natassha, Divya Dutta, Rahul Bose, Jimmy Shergill, Ashmit Patel and Kay Kay Menon, while an extended appearance is played by Shahrukh Khan. It was released on 17 June 2005. Plot. The film revolves around the story of three women.
585719	Mannar Mathai Speaking (Malayalam: മാന്നാര്‍ മത്തായി സ്പീക്കിംഗ്) is a 1995 Malayalam comedy film written by Siddique-Lal, produced and directed by Mani. C. Kappan, and starring Mukesh, Saikumar, Innocent, Vani Viswanath, and Biju Menon in the main roles. It is the sequel to "Ramji Rao Speaking" (1989). The main plotline has been borrowed from the Alfred Hitchcock classic "Vertigo". Priyadarshan adapted certain subplots of the film for his Hindi film, "Bhagam Bhag" (2006). Writer Siddique later reused the story and tweaks it for his Tamil movie "Sadhu Miranda". Production notes. In the opening credits for the movie, nobody's name is shown as the director. Instead, a statement by producer Mani C. Kappan, saying thanks to Siddique-Lal for helping him out in directing the movie, is shown. However, in the closing credits of the movie, Mani C. Kappan is credited as the director. Actually, the film was directed by Siddique alone, as Lal was not interested in a sequel for their evergreen film. After completing the film, Siddique did not agree to credit his name alone as the director. He suggested producer Kappan to credit himself as the director. Plot. Mannar Mathai (Innocent) is now running a drama group under "Urvashi Theatres". The lead actors in this troupe, Gopalakrishnan (Mukesh) and Balakrishnan (Saikumar), always fights with each other for the lead role in the drama. During "Urvashi Theatre's" first stage show, Gopalakrishnan was supposed to act like slapping the heroine, but he ends up slapping her for real, and hard. The hurt heroine leaves the troupe accepting the invitation to act in a movie. The drama troupe soon faces trouble without a lead actress. Since Gopalakrishnan was the guy who created all the trouble, he took up the responsibility to find an actress. All his efforts to find a lead actress goes in vain. During the course of his search, while he was travelling in a taxi, a girl named "Meera" (Vani Viswanath) jumps in front of the car to commit suicide. Gopalakrishnan rescues and brings her to the drama camp. When she regains consciousness, they make her the lead actress of the troupe. To get the role of the hero, Gopalakrishnan mocks her as his cousin, and she will only act if they make him the hero. Balakrishnan however does nor readily believe in this and he brings Gopalakrishnan's mom (Sukumari) to the camp to clarify. When the truth was about to come out, Gopalakrishnan tells his mom that he told everyone that she is his cousin because he is in love with her. His mom asks him to marry her. With no way out they try to mock their marriage in front of all. After the marriage, Meera tries to commit suicide again by jumping into the well. Gopalakrishnan slaps her and she loses consciousness. They all takes her to the doctor where she gains consciousness. She then says that she does not remember anyone from the troupe and she is the wife of a wealthy businessman called Mahendra Varma (Biju Menon). They inform this news to Mahendra Varma, and he comes and take her to his home. Later she calls Gopalakrishnan and says that she is going to commit suicide, and they all rush to their home. By that time she had lit herself, and they all could only watch her die. After 6 months, when the troupe was in Mangalore, Balakrishnan happens to see Meera on the roadside. She reappears in their home later and tells them the truth. She said that her real name is Stella, and Meera was the name of Mahendra Varma's real wife played by Geetha Vijayan. It was his real wife who died that day. He had hired an actress to act as if she was Meera and to provide proof that she had suicidal tendencies. They try to take revenge against Mahendra Varma and put him behind the bars. Mahendra Varma kidnaps Gopalakrishnan's mother and bargains with Gopalakrishnan to bring Stella to them. In the mean time, the villain of the first movie Ramji Rao Speaking, Ramji Rao (Vijayaraghavan) also surfaces. He kidnaps Meera and bargains money. Now Gopalakrishnan is trapped in between two kidnapping attempts, and he has to rescue both his mom and his wife. In the hilarious situations that follow, using their clever tactics, Gopalakrishnan and his gang rescue them both. Mahendra Varma falls off from the top of a building and dies, while his dead body falls in the truck driven by Ramji Rao, and he drives off.
1065630	Martin Klebba (born June 23, 1969) is an American actor and stunt performer. Klebba has a form of dwarfism called acromicric dysplasia; he is 4'1" tall. Personal life. Klebba was born and grew up in Troy, Michigan, graduating from Athens High School. Martin was wed to Michelle Dilgard in 2011 and in a 2011 interview with Kale Slade, Martin revealed that in his free time, he likes to play video games with his son and spend time with his wife. Martin is the father of son, Alec Klebba, and daughter, Makenzie Rae Klebba, born September 26, 2012. Klebba runs a nonprofit foundation called Coalition for Dwarf Advocacy, which gives 100% of its donations to the cause of helping little people. Career. Early Career. Klebba was an occasional guest on The Howard Stern Show in the 1990s, and was given the nickname "Marty the Midget".
1057468	America, America (British title The Anatolian Smile—a reference to an on-going acknowledgment of Stavros's captivating smile) is a 1963 American dramatic film directed, produced and written by Elia Kazan, from his own book. Plot. In this tale, loosely based upon the life of Kazan's uncle, the director uses little-known cast members, with the entire storyline revolving around the central performance of Greek actor Stathis Giallelis (born 1941), twenty-two years old at the time of production, who is in virtually every scene of the nearly three-hour movie. The film begins in the late 1890s, as young Greek Stavros Topouzoglou (Giallelis), living in an impoverished village in Turkish Anatolia witnesses brutal oppression by the Turkish authorities of the Greek and Armenian minorities. He is entrusted by his father with the family's financial resources in a mission of hope to the Turkish capital Constantinople (renamed Istanbul in 1930), where he would work in the carpet business of his father's cousin (Harry Davis), although his own dream is to reach the faraway land of opportunity, America. His odyssey begins with a long voyage on a donkey and on foot through the impoverished towns and villages on the way to Constantinople. Due to his kind nature and naivete, he allows himself to be deprived of all his money and arrives at the cousin's home penniless. The older man is deeply disappointed at this turn of events since he was counting on the infusion of funds to rescue his failing enterprise. Nevertheless, he attempts to salvage the situation by proposing that Stavros marry a wealthy merchant's (Paul Mann) young daughter (Linda Marsh). Stavros realizes that such a marriage would mean the end of his American dream and adamantly refuses, abruptly leaving the angry cousin. Now homeless on the streets of the capital, Stavros survives by eating discarded food and working at backbreaking and hazardous jobs. After nearly a year of scrimping and self-denial, he has some savings, but an encounter with an enticing beauty (Joanna Frank) leaves him, once again, bereft of income. Sinking even lower, he now finds himself living in an overcrowded subterranean hovel, which becomes a scene of chaos and bloodshed when it is attacked with gunfire by authorities purportedly searching for anarchists and revolutionaries. Severely injured in the mayhem, the unconscious Stavros is thrown among piles of dead bodies slated for disposal into the sea. He subsequently topples from the cart transporting the bodies and painfully makes his way to the cousin's residence. The relative takes pity on the young man and allows him to recover at his home. Deprived now of all resistance, Stavros agrees to marry his intended bride. Upon being questioned by her regarding his moodiness, however, he admits that he still plans to emigrate to America, using the dowry money to pay for his passage. She then entreats him to take her along, admitting that she feels no hope in her present situation. At this point Stavros becomes reacquainted with Hohannes (Gregory Rozakis), a young Armenian, whom Stavros aided with food and clothing during his original voyage to Istanbul. Hohannes informs him that he is being sponsored to America by an employer seeking labor. The offer is also extended to Stavros and his dream now seemed within reach. He tells his intended that he could not marry her, and subsequently embarks on the voyage. There is, however, another major impediment—an affair with the young wife (Katherine Balfour) of an older businessman (Robert H. Harris), well-known to his former prospective father-in-law. The older man lodges a criminal charge against Stavros, which would result in deportation back to Turkey. As everything looks bleak, however, the tubercular Hohannes exchanges documents with Stavros, allowing him to enter America in Hohannes' place. With the climactic image of the Statue of Liberty as the boatload of immigrants docks in New York Harbor, Stavros puts his tribulations behind him, starting out as a shoeshine boy and gathering the pennies and dollars that will eventually bring his family to the land where their descendants, including Elia Kazan, will have the chance to fulfill their potential. Awards and nominations. The film won the Academy Award for Best Art Direction, Black-and-White (Gene Callahan). The film was nominated for three other Oscars in: In 2001, "America, America" was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". Technical details, premiere dates and DVD release. "America, America" was filmed in 1.66:1 aspect ratio on 35-millimeter film and had its New York premiere on December 15, 1963. Kazan makes a voice-only introduction during the opening scenes, a short voice-only epilogue in the closing scene, and a voice-over recitation of the lead actors and technical personnel of the film. It was filmed on location at the Alfa Studios in Athens, Greece, as well in rural Greece, Istanbul, New York City, and at the Warner Bros. Studios in Hollywood. Between summer 1964 and spring 1965, it was seen in virtually every major Western European city. Its VHS release came on November 28, 1994 and a French (region 2) DVD boxed set (with Kazan's "Baby Doll" and "A Face in the Crowd" was released on December 3, 2002). The film was finally released by Warner Bros. on DVD in the US on February 8, 2011.
1060057	Piranha 3D is a 2010 American 3D comedy horror film inspired by and a remake of the 1978 film "Piranha". It was directed by Alexandre Aja and sports an ensemble cast featuring Steven R. McQueen, Jessica Szohr, Jerry O'Connell, Richard Dreyfuss, Christopher Lloyd, Elisabeth Shue, Adam Scott, Kelly Brook, Riley Steele, Ving Rhames and Eli Roth. Well received by critics, the film grossed over $83 million worldwide. Plot. Fisherman Matt Boyd (Richard Dreyfuss) is fishing in Lake Victoria, Arizona when a small earthquake hits, splitting the lake floor and causing a whirlpool. Boyd falls in and is ripped apart by a school of piranhas that emerge from the chasm and ascend the vortex. Jake Forester (Steven R. McQueen) is admiring attractive tourists as spring break begins. He reunites with his old crush, Kelly (Jessica Szohr) and meets Derrick Jones (Jerry O'Connell), an eccentric pornographer, as well as Danni Arslow (Kelly Brook), one of his actresses. Derrick convinces Jake to show him good spots on the lake for filming a pornographic movie. That night, Jake's mother, Sheriff Julie Forester (Elisabeth Shue), searches for the missing Matt Boyd with Deputy Fallon (Ving Rhames). They find his mutilated body and contemplate closing the lake, however, this is made difficult by two thousand partying college students on spring break who are important for bringing revenue to the small town. The next morning, a lone cliff diver is attacked and consumed by the marauding fish. Jake bribes his sister and brother, Laura (Brooklynn Proulx) and Zane (Sage Ryan), to stay home alone so that he can show Derrick around the lake. After Jake leaves, Zane drafts Laura to go fishing on a small sandbar island. They forget to tie the boat down and are stranded in the middle of the lake. Meanwhile, Jake goes to meet with Derrick and runs into Kelly, who invites herself onto Derrick’s boat, "The Barracuda". Jake meets Crystal Shepard (Riley Steele), another of Derrick’s actresses, and cameraman Andrew Cunningham (Paul Scheer). Julie takes a team of seismologist divers — Novak (Adam Scott), Sam (Ricardo Chavira), and Paula (Dina Meyer) — to the fissure. Novak speculates that the rift leads to a buried prehistoric lake. Paula and Sam scuba dive to the bottom and discover a large cavern filled with large piranha egg stocks. Both are killed by the piranhas before they can alert the others to the discovery. Novak and Julie find Paula's corpse and pull it onto the boat, capturing a lone piranha, which they take to Carl Goodman (Christopher Lloyd), a marine biologist who works as a pet store owner. He explains that it is a super-aggressive prehistoric species, long believed to be extinct. Julie, Novak, Fallon, and Deputy Taylor Roberts (Jason Spisak) try to evacuate the lake, but their warnings are ignored until the piranhas begin to attack the tourists. Novak boards a jet-ski with a shotgun to help while Fallon drags people to shore and Julie and Taylor try to get swimmers into the police boat. A floating stage capsizes from the weight of the panicking guests, pulling an electric wire which mutilates few tourists. Almost everyone in the lake is either wounded or killed by the piranhas or panicking guests who were recklessly driving their speed boats and accidentally causing the deaths of others. Meanwhile, Jake spots Laura and Zane on the island, and forces Derrick to rescue them. Derrick crashes the boat into some rocks, flooding the rooms below deck. Kelly is trapped in the kitchen while Derrick, Crystal and Drew fall overboard from to the impact of the collision. Crystal is devoured and Drew is presumably killed. Meanwhile, Danni manages to get a partially eaten Derrick back on board. Deputy Fallon makes a last stand, taking a boat motor and using its propellor to shred and kill many piranhas though it is implied he is devoured by the piranhas. After the chaos settles, Julie receives a call from Jake pleading for help. Julie and Novak steal a speed boat and head off towards the kids. Julie and Novak reach Jake and attach a rope to his boat. Julie, Danni, Laura, and Zane start crossing the rope, but the piranhas latch onto Danni's hair and ultimately devour her. The others make it to safety, but the rope comes loose. Using Derrick's corpse as a distraction, Jake ties the line to himself and goes to save Kelly. He ties Kelly to him and lights a flare after releasing the gas in a pair of stored propane tanks. Novak starts the boat and speeds away just as the piranhas surround Kelly and Jake. They are dragged to safety and the propane tanks explode, destroying the boat and killing most of the piranhas. Mr. Goodman calls Julie on the radio, and Julie tells him that they seem to have killed the majority of the piranhas. Terrified, Goodman tells her that the reproductive glands on the piranha they obtained were not mature, which means that the fish they were fighting were only the babies. As Novak wonders aloud where the parents are, a human sized piranha leaps out and knocks him into the water. Cast. Richard Dreyfuss said that he accepted the role with after Bob Weinstein persuaded him by offering the actor a larger salary, which Dreyfuss later donated to charity. Dreyfuss also stated that the ill-fated character he plays is a parody and a near-reincarnation of Matt Hooper, the character he portrayed in the 1975 film "Jaws". "Jaws" later served as inspiration for the parody film entitled "Piranha". The song the character in "Piranha 3D" listens to on the radio on his boat is "Show Me the Way to Go Home", which Richard Dreyfuss, Roy Scheider and Robert Shaw sing together in "Jaws". Former pornographic actress Ashlynn Brooke, and pornographic actress Gianna Michaels make cameos in the movie as partygoers who meet extremely gruesome, piranha-related demises. Production. Chuck Russell was originally scheduled to direct the film, and made uncredited rewrites to the script by Josh Stolberg and Peter Goldfinger, as well as incorporating the original John Sayles script that Joe Dante directed the first time around. Alexandre Aja was selected to direct the film instead. Production on the film was scheduled to begin late 2008, but was delayed until March 2009. In October 2008, Aja stated filming would begin in the spring. He further stated "it's such a difficult movie, not only because of the technicality of it and the CGI fish, but also because it all happens in a lake. We were supposed to start shooting now, but the longer to leave it the colder the water gets. The movie takes place during Spring Break and, of course, the studio wanted it ready for the summer, but if you've got 1,000 people who need to get murdered in the water, you have to wait for the right temperature for the water, for the weather, for everything." Shooting took place in June 2009 at Bridgewater Channel in Lake Havasu, located in Lake Havasu City, Arizona. The water was also dyed red for the shooting. Citing constraints with 3D camera rigs, Aja shot "Piranha" in 2D and converted to 3D in post production using a 3D conversion process developed by Michael Roderick and used by the company, Inner-D. Unlike some other 3D converted films released in 2010, "Piranha"'s conversion was not done as an afterthought, and it represents one of the first post-conversion processes to be well received by critics. Release. "Piranha 3D"s theatrical release date had been set for April 16, 2010, but was delayed. The film was planned to premiere on August 27, 2010, but in June 2010 was moved to August 20, 2010. The film's first trailer debuted with "Avatar". A second trailer was shown in prints of "A Nightmare on Elm Street" and "Inception". It was set to have a panel on 24 July 2010 as part of the San Diego Comic-Con International but was cancelled after convention organizers decided the footage that was planned to be shown was not appropriate. Nine minutes of footage, with some unfinished effects, were leaked onto websites. The clip used in promotional TV ads and the trailer that shows Jessica Szohr's character, Kelly, face to face with a pack of piranhas was not used in the movie, and was used for promotion only. The official poster was released June 22, 2010. Box office. "Piranha 3D" grossed $10,106,872 in its first 3 days, opening at #6 in the United States box office. In the United Kingdom, "Piranha 3D" opened at #4 at the box office, earning £1,487,119. As of May 16, 2011, Piranha 3D has made $83,188,165 worldwide. Reception. "Piranha 3D" has received generally positive reviews, having received a 73% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, based on 113 reviews, with a "certified fresh" score of 6.2 out of 10.ref name="tomatoes">
1067533	Fear of a Black Hat is a 1994 American mockumentary film on the evolution and state of American hip hop music. The film's title is derived from the 1990 Public Enemy album "Fear of a Black Planet". Released on June 3, 1994, "Fear of a Black Hat" was written, produced and directed by, and co-stars, Rusty Cundieff. Plot. This film is a comedic mockumentary depicting the perspective of a filmmaker as she trails a hard-core gangsta rap group called N.W.H. ("Niggaz With Hats"), a play on the name of the popular group, N.W.A. In many ways, "Fear of a Black Hat" is similar to the satirical film about early 1980s heavy metal, "This is Spinal Tap".
589302	Hindustan Ki Kasam () is a 1973 war movie based on Operation Cactus Lilly in the Indo-Pakistani War of 1971 directed by Chetan Anand, who has previously made popular war film, "Haqeeqat" (1964) on Indo-China war., the film however didn't perform well commercially. Synopsis. The movie is different from other war movies in Indian cinema as it vividly describes the IAF's role in 1971 Indo-Pakistani war in the western sector.
1067771	Chandler Canterbury (born December 15, 1998) is an American child actor and producer. Life and career. Chandler Canterbury was born in Houston, Texas, to Kristine and Russell Canterbury. He has an older brother, Colby, who is also an actor, and a younger sister named Shelby, an actress. He starred in Summit Entertainment's thriller "Knowing" (2009), and won a 2008 Young Artist Award for his chilling performance as a sociopathic child following his father's murderous example on "Criminal Minds" (2005). He was seen in "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" (2008), playing the title character at the age of eight, who has the dementia of an old man. Canterbury recently appeared in a lead role in the psychological thriller "After Life" opposite Liam Neeson and Christina Ricci. He appeared in Universal's "Repo Men" (2010) and in Timothy Linh Bui's "Powder Blue" (2009). He appeared as a young Peter Bishop in the "Fringe" episode "Subject 13" (2011).
675981	Sophie Charlene Akland Monk (born 14 December 1979) is a London-born Australian singer, model and actress. Monk was a member of the girl group Bardot and released a solo album called "Calendar Girl". She appeared in films such as "Date Movie", "Click", and "Spring Breakdown". Early life. Monk was born in England, but her parents moved to Australia's Gold Coast in Queensland. She also spent time at A. B. Paterson College and MacGregor State High School, where she was a School Captain in her senior year (graduating in 1997) and was enlisted in the school's CAD (Centre of Artistic Development) Program. She trained in classical opera when she was growing up. Music. Bardot. Monk's professional music career began in 1999 when she responded to an advertisement at the recommendation of her mother which requested girls with vocal and dance experience. The advertisement was for an Australian reality television series, "Popstars", a TV talent show which aimed to create a successful new girl group. In one audition, she performed a rendition of Marilyn Monroe's famous "Happy Birthday, Mr. President", working on her previous experience as a Monroe impersonator at Warner Bros. Movie World. After numerous rounds of singing and dancing workshops, Monk was selected as a member of the group, which was named Bardot. Bardot became the first Australian act to debut at the No. 1 position with both its debut single, "Poison", and self-titled debut album. Further singles "I Should've Never Let You Go" and "These Days" followed and in August, the group embarked on its first national tour. Bardot performed at the 2000 ARIA Awards at which they were nominated in three categories. In July 2001, the group released "ASAP", the first single from their second album. Bardot now had more control over their music and image. The single peaked Top 5, as did follow-up single, "I Need Somebody", their most successful single since "Poison". The second album, "Play It Like That" debuted at No. 16, achieving gold status. Monk co-wrote the album track "Feel Right" with bandmate Sally Polihronas. In 2002, final single, "Love Will Find A Way" completed Bardot's string of consecutive Top 20 hits and the group embarked on its second national tour. In May, the group disbanded. Solo album. In 2002, Monk signed a recording contract with Warner Music Australia and started working on a solo album. The first single "Inside Outside" was released in October 2002 and was produced by Grammy Award winning music producer Rob Davis. Monk performed the song at the 2002 "The Footy Show" Grand Finale to promote the single. The track peaked at No. 5 on the ARIA Singles Chart and went on to sell over 35,000 copies worldwide. Her next single, "Get the Music On", peaked at No. 10 on the ARIA Singles Chart. On 5 May 2003 Monk released her debut album "Calendar Girl" which peaked at No. 35 on the ARIA Albums Chart. The album received mixed reviews from critics with Monk co-writing four of the albums tracks. Following the release of the album Monk released her third and final single, "One Breath Away", which peaked at No. 23 on the ARIA Singles Chart. In 2004 Monk parted ways with Warner Music. In June 2007, Monk recorded a cover of "Push It" by Hip-Hop trio Salt-n-Pepa. The cover was recorded to promote Biofit Bra by Pleasure State which she is a spokeswoman for and was produced by her then boyfriend Benji Madden. Monk performed the song at a Biofit Bra launch in Catalina, Rose Bay. A promotional video was filmed and premiered as part of the add campaign. Acting. In 2004, Monk made her acting debut in a bit role on the Nine Network made-for-television film "The Mystery of Natalie Wood" portraying the role of Marilyn Monroe. That same year Monk appeared in the music video "Always" by Punk Rock band Blink-182. Monk has had small roles in films such as "Click", "Murder World" and "Spring Break '83". In 2005, Monk relocated to Los Angeles, California to pursue a career in acting. Monk quickly landed her break-out role in the spoof comedy film "Date Movie". In July 2007, Monk made her American television debut in the HBO Comedy series "Entourage". That same year she appeared in the dark comedy "Sex and Death 101". Monk starred in the Warner Premiere comedy film "Spring Breakdown" alongside Parker Posey and Amy Poehler. Filming took place in South Padre in 2006. Monk portrayed the role of the films antagonist a bimbo sorority girl named Mason. The film underwent a long post-production period suffering distribution problems. The film premiered at the Sundance Film Festival to negative reviews. The film was released straight-to-DVD in June 2009. In September 2008, Dark Castle Entertainment announced Monk was cast in the slasher horror film "The Hills Run Red". Filming began at the start of 2009 in Sofia, Bulgaria and premiered at UK Frightfest. The film was released straight-to-DVD in September 2009 to mixed reviews from critics with some praising Monk's performance. In September 2008, Monk announced she was developing her own reality television series titled "Bigger Than Paris". Monk filmed the pilot in January 2010 in Los Angeles, California. In April 2010, Nine Network announced Monk would be a special guest presenter on the travel television program "Getaway". Following her first appearance Nine announced Monk would continue appearing on the series in a recurring form from then on. As part of her role Monk has visited Hawaii, Las Vegas, Mexico. In May 2012, Monk was announced to be one of the celebrities to have signed up for the FOX dating-show "The Choice". The series is a spin-off to ""The Voice" (TV series)" and sees celebrity judges sitting with their backs turned to a pool of "sexy singles" hoping to score a date with a celebrity. Celebrities such as Carmen Electra, Joe Jonas and Pauly D have appeared in the show. The series premiered on 7 June 2012. In April 2013, Monk was working on a sitcom with actor Sam Worthington. Monk talked about her struggles as an actress and revealed that she has produced five television pilots for major networks, but they haven't been picked up. "Shows that were meant to get the green light, didn’t, and movies that were meant to be massive, weren’t, but I just keep going and going," she said. Personal life. Monk started dating Benji Madden in 2006, but in January 2008, media outlets reported that the couple had split up. Monk had returned to Australia alone, almost a year to the day since Madden proposed. On 12 February 2008, it was announced by Monk's Sydney agent, Yoon Kim, that "Sophie and Benji have officially split. The decision was mutual and they remain amicable." In January 2011, Monk announced her engagement to Jimmy Esebag. A few months later Monk announced on "Chelsea Lately" that she had separated from Esebag. In 2013, Monk revealed she recently had a stalker who wanted to kill her. “He thought he could hear me screaming in the corner of his hospital room and thought I wanted to die. So I wrote to him and told him I was fine," she said. In February 2010, Monk was photographed in a wheelchair following a car crash in Los Angeles. Image. Monk is often spotlighted for her looks. In October 2012, Monk was ranked No. 7 on Maxim Australia's Hot 100. She ranked at No. 96 in the Maxim Hot 100 List of 2011. She was No. 2 in "FHM"'s Sexiest Women List in 2003. In August 2008, Monk was offered $1 million to pose for Playboy, which she declined. She has appeared on the cover of several men's magazines, including "Maxim", "FHM", "Stuff" and "Ralph". In October 2007, Sophie began appearing in a campaign for PETA to promote people becoming vegetarian. "There's no doubt in my mind that going vegetarian has made me feel better not only physically but also because I learned about the suffering of animals who are raised and killed for food. I feel good knowing that I'm not contributing to that," Monk says.
1066104	Original Gangstas is a 1996 action movie set in urban Gary, Indiana starring Blaxploitation film stars such as Fred Williamson, Pam Grier, Jim Brown, and Richard Roundtree. The film details the deteriorating state of an impoverished Gary neighborhood terrorized by a street gang called the Rebels. When the gang murders a local boy, it prompts the emergence of several individuals who grew up in the neighborhood: the "original" Rebels. Plot. The movie opens to a narration detailing the poor economic state of a gang-ridden Gary. The narrator explains to the audience of how the city came into such a state. After the opening narrative, the scene switches to the base of operations for the "Rebels", a local street gang, and a one-on-one basketball game between a Rebel gang member and a local boy named Kenny Thompson. Kenny humiliates the Rebel by winning and taking the gambled winnings for his own. After he leaves, Spyro, the current co-leader of the Rebels (opposite Damien) is under the impression that Kenny's skills are something more than "something he picked up." He instructs his lieutenant, Kayo, to exact retribution on Kenny for being hustled. While Kenny and his friend Marcus are relaxing at a diner, Kenny decides to call his girlfriend. He enters a phone booth to make the call, but is subsequently shot by Kayo in a drive-by shooting; his mother, Laurie Thompson, alarmed by the gunshots, steps outside her home to discover her son murdered. One of the owners of the grocery store, Marvin Bookman, a well-respected member of the community by both the Rebels and local citizens, feels that justice should be brought to Kenny's murderer and discloses the license plate number of the shooter's vehicle. When the Rebels discover this, Spyro orders Kayo to dispose of the vehicle. Spyro and Damien then proceed to confront Marvin about his assistance to the investigators of Kenny's death; Marvin argues that Kenny was a good person and did not deserve to be shot. The co-leaders of the Rebels describe how they respected the Bookmans' store and, while others around it were robbed and ransacked, their store was left alone; the fact that Marvin would "sell them out" expresses a high amount of disrespect to the Rebels, who then immediately seek revenge on Marvin. Eventually, Kayo and Bobby, with a group of fellow Rebels, attacks the grocery store, resulting in the near-fatal shooting of Marvin by Bobby. The attack on Marvin's life prompts his son, pro football coach and ex-Rebel John Bookman, to return to the impoverished Gary neighborhood to find Bobby the shooter. After seeing his father, John goes to save his father's shop and kicked all the Rebels fellows out of there. Then he goes to a local barbershop, where Kayo eventually turns up; trouble immediately brews, and John and the gang members fight. John has the upper hand, but is overpowered. Jake Trevor, another original Rebel, enters the fray and saves John. After the fight, the two converse, and it is revealed that Jake is here to bury his illegitimate son, Kenny Thompson. The next day, John and Jake attend Kenny's funeral, where a distraught Laurie Thompson is reunited with her ex-husband. While talking, Laurie implores Jake to reconsider seeking vengeance upon his son's murderers, expressing her disdain by stating that he always wishes to resolve such issues by fighting, which "only makes things worse". Jake goes to visit "Slick", who reveals to Jake that his son was killed because he hustled the Rebels; Jake is astounded and enraged that his son was killed over money. After failed treaty negotiations, deception, and the rising of neighborhood gang violence, all of the original Rebels - John Bookman, Laurie, Jake, Slick and Bubba - with the help of Kenny's friend Marcus, decide to take justice into their own hands and attack the Rebels. They devise a plan to "lose" a trunk of weapons to the Rebels; when the Rebels tried to use said weapons, the guns malfunctioned and "exploded" in their faces, stunning many Rebels. In another area, Rebels are attempting to escape the battle, but are stopped by a group of community members, armed with bats and other improvised weapons. Eventually, Spyro and Damien fear they may lose the fight, and escape to the old steel mill; Jake and John follow. After an intense hand-to-hand fight between Jake and Spyro, Spyro is killed. After Spyro is taken down, the leader of a rival gang, Blood, along with a few cohorts, shoots a battered Damien; the leadership of the Rebels is destroyed. When Jake and John exit the steel mill, the police arrive; John states how "they always show up late." Jake retorts, "I know what you mean." Reception. The film had mixed reviews. The film holds a 50% rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 14 reviews. Box office. The movie debuted at the US box office at No.9. Soundtrack. A soundtrack containing hip hop and R&B music was released on April 30, 1996 by Noo Trybe Records. It peaked at #41 on the Billboard 200 and #8 on the Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums.
1294320	Daniel Julius Bernstein (sometimes known simply as djb; born October 29, 1971) is a mathematician, cryptologist, programmer, and research professor of computer science at the University of Illinois at Chicago. He is the author of the computer software programs qmail, publicfile, and djbdns. Early life. He attended Bellport High School, a public high school on Long Island, and graduated at 15 in 1987. The same year, he ranked fifth place in the Westinghouse Science Talent Search. In 1987 (at the age of 16), he achieved a Top 10 ranking in the William Lowell Putnam Mathematical Competition. Bernstein earned his bachelor's degree in mathematics from New York University (1991) and has a PhD in mathematics from the University of California, Berkeley (1995), where he studied under Hendrik Lenstra. Bernstein v. United States. Bernstein brought the court case "Bernstein v. United States". The ruling in the case declared software as protected speech under the First Amendment, and national restrictions on encryption software were overturned. Bernstein was originally represented by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, but he later represented himself despite having no formal training as a lawyer. Software security. In the autumn of 2004, Bernstein taught a course about computer software security, titled "UNIX Security Holes". The sixteen members of the class discovered 91 new UNIX security holes. Bernstein, long a promoter of the idea that full disclosure is the best method to promote software security and founder of the securesoftware mailing list, publicly announced 44 of them with sample exploit code.
1063681	Inside Man is a 2006 American crime drama film directed by Spike Lee, and written by Russell Gewirtz. The film centers on an elaborate bank heist in Manhattan, New York during a 24-hour period. It stars Denzel Washington as Detective Keith Frazier, the NYPD's hostage negotiator; Clive Owen as Dalton Russell, the mastermind who orchestrates the heist; and Jodie Foster as Madeleine White, a Manhattan power broker who is hired to act as a "fixer" in response to the heist; Christopher Plummer, Willem Dafoe and Chiwetel Ejiofor are also featured. Gewirtz spent five years developing the film's premise before working on his first original screenplay. After he completed the script in 2002, Imagine Entertainment purchased it to be made by Universal Studios, with Imagine co-founder Ron Howard attached to direct. After Howard stepped down, his Imagine partner Brian Grazer began looking for a new director to helm the project. After Menno Meyjes turned down the chance to direct, Grazer hired Lee to helm the film. Principal photography for "Inside Man" began in June 2005 and concluded in August of that year; filming took place on location in New York City. The film premiered in New York on March 20, 2006 before being released in North America on March 24, 2006. Upon release, "Inside Man" received a generally positive critical response and was a commercial success, grossing over $184 million worldwide. Plot. A man named Dalton Russell (Clive Owen) sits in an unidentified cell and narrates a story of how he will commit the perfect robbery. In New York, masked robbers, dressed as painters and using variants of the name "Steve" as aliases, seize control of a Manhattan bank and take the patrons and employees hostage. They divide the hostages into groups and hold them in different rooms, forcing them to don painters clothes identical to their own. The robbers rotate the hostages among various rooms and occasionally insert themselves covertly into the groups. They also take turns working on an unspecified project involving demolishing a wall in one of the bank's storage rooms. Police surround the bank and Detectives Keith Frazier (Denzel Washington) and Bill Mitchell (Chiwitel Ejiofor) take charge of the negotiations. Russell, the leader of the robbers, demands food and the police supply them with pizzas whose boxes include listening devices. The bugs pick up a language which the police identify as Albanian. They discover, however, that the conversations are in fact propaganda recordings of deceased Albanian communist leader Enver Hoxha, implying that the robbers anticipated the attempted surveillance. After being informed of the robbery in progress, Arthur Case (Christopher Plummer), chairman of the board of directors and founder of the bank, hires "fixer" Madeleine White (Jodie Foster) to try to protect the contents of his safe deposit box within the bank. White arranges a conversation with Russell, who allows her to enter the bank and inspect the contents of the box, which include documents from Nazi Germany. Russell implies that Case started his bank with money which he received from the Nazis for unspecified services, resulting in the deaths of many Jewish people during World War II. White tells Russell that Case will pay him a substantial sum if he destroys the contents of the box. Frazier demands to inspect the hostages before allowing the robbers to leave and Russell takes him on a tour of the bank. As he is being shown out, Frazier attacks Russell, but is restrained by another of the robbers. Afterwards he explains that he deliberately tried to provoke Russell and judges that the man is not a killer. However, this seems disproven when the robbers execute one of the hostages. The execution prompts the ESU team into action. They plan to storm the bank and use rubber bullets to knock out those inside. However, Frazier discovers that the robbers have planted a listening device; aware of the police plans, the robbers detonate smoke grenades and release all the hostages. The police detain and question everyone but are unable to distinguish the identically dressed hostages from the robbers. A search of the bank deepens the mystery, as the robbers' weapons turn out to be plastic replicas. There is no body of a dead hostage, and no money or valuables appear to have been stolen. With no way to identify the suspects and unsure if a crime has even been committed, Frazier's superior orders him to drop the case. Frazier, however, searches the bank's records and finds that safe deposit box #392 has never appeared on any records since the bank's founding in 1948. He obtains a search warrant to open it. He is then confronted by White, who informs him of Case's Nazi dealings. She attempts to persuade Frazier to drop his investigation, but Frazier refuses, playing a recording of an incriminating conversation which she earlier had with him. White confronts Case who admits that the box contained diamonds which he had taken from a Jewish friend who he had betrayed to the Nazis. Russell repeats his opening monologue, but with the revelation that he is in fact hiding behind a fake wall the robbers had constructed inside the bank's supply room. He emerges a week after the robbery with the contents of Case's safe deposit box, including incriminating documents and several bags of diamonds. On his way out, he bumps into Frazier, who does not recognize him. When Frazier opens the safe deposit box, he finds a ring and a note from Russell. Frazier confronts Case and urges White to contact the Office of War Crimes Issues at the U.S. State Department about Case's war crimes. Frazier goes home and finds a loose multi-carat diamond in his pocket, realizing it must have been slipped to him by Russell in the bank. It is implied that Frazier will use the diamond to propose to his girlfriend. Cast. Appearing as Dalton Russell's masked accomplices are Carlos Andrés Gómez as Steve (Kenneth Damerjian); Kim Director as Stevie (Valerie Keepsake); and James Ransone as Steve-O. Appearing as the hostages are Ken Leung as Wing; Waris Ahluwalia as Vikram Walia, a Sikh bank clerk; Peter Frechette as Peter Hammond, a bank employee; Samantha Ivers as Nancy Mann; Bernie Rachelle as Chaim, an elderly Jewish man; Amir Ali Said as Brian Robinson, an 8-year-old boy; Ed Onipede Blunt as Ray Robinson, Brian's father; Gerry Vichi as Herman Gluck, a 73-year-old man; Frank Composto as Eric Dodge; Patrick Illig as Brad Stone; and Lily Agosto as Gladys Perez. Actress Marcia Jean Kurtz, who portrayed a hostage named Miriam in "Dog Day Afternoon", plays a hostage named Miriam Douglas. Lionel Pina, who also appeared in "Dog Day Afternoon" as a pizza delivery man, appears as a policeman who delivers pizzas at the bank's front doors. Other roles include Cassandra Freeman as Sylvia, Frazier's girlfriend; Peter Gerety as Captain Coughlin, Frazier and Mitchell's superior; Victor Colicchio as Sergeant Collins, the first officer to respond to the bank robbery; Jason Manuel Olazabal as ESU Officer Hernandez; Florina Petcu as Ilina Miritiam, an Albanian woman; Blerim Destani as an Albanian mobster; Peter Kybart as the Mayor of New York City; Anthony Mangano as an ESU officer; Daryl Mitchell as Mobile Command Officer Rourke; and Lemon Andersen as Paul Guitierez. Production. Development. "Inside Man" was Russell Gewirtz's debut film as a screenwriter. A former lawyer, Gewirtz conceived the idea while vacationing in several countries and spent five years developing the film's premise. Inexperienced at screenwriting, Gewirtz studied a number of screenplays before working on his own, which he titled "The Inside Man". His friend, Daniel M. Rosenberg, assisted in developing the script. After it was completed in 2002, the screenplay was passed around several times. Rosenberg shopped the script to a number of Los Angeles agencies, until Universal Studios executives Scott Stuber and Donna Langley persuaded Gewirtz to take the script to Universal and Imagine Entertainment. Imagine purchased Gewirtz's screenplay in 2002, and the project began development at Universal, who retitled the film "Inside Man". Imagine co-founder Ron Howard was attached to direct the film, but turned down the opportunity after being asked by Russell Crowe to helm "Cinderella Man" (2004). Howard's Imagine partner Brian Grazer began looking for a new director to helm the project. After Howard stepped down, Menno Meyjes contributed to Gewirtz's screenplay, and Terry George incorporated the Nazi Germany and diamond ring elements to the script. Meyjes was in negotiations to direct the film, but after he stepped down, Grazer saw "Inside Man" as a long-awaited opportunity to work with Spike Lee, who had already learned of Gewirtz's script. Lee said of the screenplay, "I liked the script and really wanted to do it. "Dog Day Afternoon", directed by Sidney Lumet, is one of my favorite films, and this story was a contemporary take on that kind of a movie." After being cast, Denzel Washington and Chiwetel Ejiofor worked together on studying their lines and understanding their characters. Lee helped prepare his actors by screening a number of heist films including "Dog Day Afternoon" (1975) and "Serpico" (1973). Washington, Ejiofor, Willem Dafoe and other actors met and worked with members of the New York City Police Department, who shared their experiences and stories involving civilians and hostage situations. Filming. Principal photography. Principal photography for "Inside Man" took place on location in New York City; filming began in June 2005 and concluded in August after 43 days of filming. Universal Pictures provided a budget of $45 million. By filming in New York, the production was eligible for the city's "Made in NY" incentives program. Interior sets were created at the New York-based Steiner Studios, making "Inside Man" the second film (after 2005's "The Producers") to be shot inside the 15-acre facility.
1084173	Warrior of the Lost World (also known as Mad Rider) is a 1983 Italian post-apocalyptic science fiction film written and directed by David Worth, starring Robert Ginty, Persis Khambatta, and Donald Pleasence. It was created and first released in Italy under the title Il Giustiziere della terra perduta ("The Executioner of the Lost Earth") in 1983 during the wide popularity of the "Mad Max" films, and many subsequently created post-apocalyptic films of the 1980s. Later the film was given another Italian title for VHS and television markets, "I predatori dell'anno Omega" ("Raiders of the Omega year"). Plot. The Rider arrives on his advanced motorcycle with its artificial intelligence computer Einstein. He crashes but manages to pass through the 'wall of illusion' and is found and brought back to health by the Enlightened Elders. They have chosen him to lead their fight against the evil Omega, an Orwellian state run by the evil Prossor. The Elders are allied with the resistance movement, the Outsiders. The Rider first helps Nastasia and the other Outsiders by rescuing McWayne, Nastasia's father and leader of the Outsiders. While the Rider and McWayne successfully escape, Nastasia is captured and tortured by Prossor. The Rider gains acceptance from various Marginals (amazons, martial artists, truckers, punks, soldiers, Omega defectors) by winning in the ritual brawl which determines who is the strongest. The Rider and the Outsiders launch their final attack on Prossor's regime, but are intercepted by the Omegas and a giant armored truck, called Megaweapon. As the rebels destroy the Omega patrols with their cars (Ford Taunus TCs), helicopters and tankers, the Rider manages to destroy the Megaweapon by short circuiting it, but not before his speedcycle is crushed under the truck's wheels. The Rider and McWayne storm Prossor's headquarters where they face the dictator and a brainwashed Nastasia. She wounds the Rider, but when ordered to kill her father, she rebels, turning on Prossor and shooting him instead. The Omega has been overthrown, and the Outsiders and Marginals celebrate, as the Rider prepares to move on with his repaired speedcycle.
65565	Pierre-Louis Moreau de Maupertuis (; 28 September 1698 – 27 July 1759) was a French mathematician, philosopher and man of letters. He became the Director of the Académie des Sciences, and the first President of the Prussian Academy of Science, at the invitation of Frederick the Great. Maupertuis made an expedition to Lapland to determine the shape of the Earth. He is often credited with having invented the principle of least action; a version is known as Maupertuis' principle – an integral equation that determines the path followed by a physical system. His work in natural history has its interesting points, since he touched on aspects of heredity and the struggle for life. Biography. Maupertuis was born at Saint-Malo, France, to a moderately wealthy family of merchant-corsairs. He was educated in mathematics by a private tutor, and upon completing his formal education his father secured him a largely honorific cavalry commission. After three years in the cavalry, during which time he became acquainted with fashionable social and mathematical circles, he moved to Paris and began building his reputation as a mathematician and literary wit. In 1723 he was admitted to the Académie des Sciences. His early mathematical work revolved around the vis viva controversy, for which Maupertuis developed and extended the work of Isaac Newton (whose theories were not yet widely accepted outside England) and argued against the waning Cartesian mechanics. In the 1730s, the shape of the Earth became a flashpoint in the battle among rival systems of mechanics. Maupertuis, based on his exposition of Newton (with the help of his mentor Johan Bernoulli) predicted that the Earth should be oblate, while his rival Jacques Cassini measured it astronomically to be prolate. In 1736 Maupertuis acted as chief of the French Geodesic Mission sent by King Louis XV to Lapland to measure the length of a degree of arc of the meridian. His results, which he published in a book detailing his procedures, essentially settled the controversy in his favor. The book included an adventure narrative of the expedition, and an account of the Käymäjärvi Inscriptions. On his return home he became a member of almost all the scientific societies of Europe. After the Lapland expedition, Maupertuis set about generalizing his earlier mathematical work, proposing the principle of least action as a metaphysical principle that underlies all the laws of mechanics. He also expanded into the biological realm, anonymously publishing a book that was part popular science, part philosophy, and part erotica: "Vénus physique". In that work, Maupertuis proposed a theory of generation (i.e., reproduction) in which organic matter possessed a self-organizing “intelligence” that was analogous to the contemporary chemical concept of affinities, which was widely read and commented upon favorably by Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon. He later developed his views on living things further in a more formal pseudonymous work that explored heredity, collecting evidence that confirmed the contributions of both sexes and treated variations as statistical phenomena. In 1740 Maupertuis went to Berlin at the invitation of Frederick II of Prussia, and took part in the Battle of Mollwitz, where he was taken prisoner by the Austrians. On his release he returned to Berlin, and thence to Paris, where he was elected director of the Academy of Sciences in 1742, and in the following year was admitted into the Académie française. Returning to Berlin in 1744, again at the desire of Frederick II, he was chosen president of the Prussian Royal Academy of Sciences in 1746, which he controlled with the help of Leonhard Euler until his death. His position became extremely awkward with the outbreak of the Seven Years' War between his home country and his patron's, and his reputation suffered in both Paris and Berlin. Finding his health declining, he retired in 1757 to the south of France, but went in 1758 to Basel, where he died a year later. Maupertuis' difficult disposition involved him in constant quarrels, of which his controversies with Samuel König and Voltaire during the latter part of his life are examples. Evolution. Some historians of science point to his work in biology as a significant precursor to the development of evolutionary theory, specifically the theory of natural selection. Other writers contend that his remarks are cursory, vague, or incidental to that particular argument. Mayr's verdict was "He was neither an evolutionist, nor one of the founders of the theory of natural selection he was one of the pioneers of genetics". Maupertuis espoused a theory of pangenesis, postulating particles from both mother and father as responsible for the characters of the child. Bowler credits him with studies on heredity, with the natural origin of human races, and with the idea that forms of life may have changed with time. Maupertuis was a strong critic of the natural theologians, pointing to phenomena incompatible with a concept of a good and wise Creator. He was also one of the first to consider animals in terms of variable populations, in opposition to the natural history tradition that emphasized description of individual specimens. The difficulty of interpreting Maupertius can be gauged by reading the original works. Below is a translation from "Vénus Physique", followed by the original French passage: Ne pourrait-on pas dire que, dans la combinaison fortuite des productions de la nature, comme il n'y avait que celles où se trouvaient certain rapport de convenance qui puissent subsister, il n'est pas marveilleux que cette convenance se trouve dans toutes les espèces qui existent actuellement? Le hasard, dirait-on, avait produit une multitude innombrable d'individus; un petit nombre se trouvait construit de manière que les parties de l'animal pouvaient satisfaire à ses besoins; dans un autre infiniment plus grand, il n'y avait ni convenance, ni ordre: tous ces derniers ont péri; des animaux sans bouche ne pouvaient pas vivre, d'autres qui manquaient d'organes pour la génération ne pouvaient se perpétuer... les espèces que nous voyons aujourd'hui ne sont que la plus petite partie de ce qu'un destin aveugle avait produit... A nearly identical argument may be found in Maupertuis' 1746 work (translation: ). King-Hele (1963) points to similar, though not identical, ideas of thirty years later by David Hume in his Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion (1777). The chief debate that Maupertuis was engaged in was one that treated the competing theories of generation (i.e. preformationism and epigenesis). His account of life involved spontaneous generation of new kinds of animals and plants, together with massive elimination of deficient forms. These ideas avoid the need for a Creator, but are not part of modern thinking on evolution. The date of these speculations, 1745, is concurrent with Carolus Linnaeus's own work, and so predates any firm notion of species. Also, the work on genealogy, coupled with the tracing of phenotypic characters through lineages, foreshadows later work done in genetics. Least Action Principle. The principle of least action states that in all natural phenomena a quantity called ‘action’ tends to be minimized. Maupertuis developed such a principle over two decades. For him, action could be expressed mathematically as the product of the mass of the body involved, the distance it had traveled and the velocity at which it was traveling. In 1741, he gave a paper to the Paris Academy of Sciences, "Loi du repos des corps", ("Law of bodies at rest"). In it he showed that a system of bodies at rest tends to reach a position in which any change would create the smallest possible change in a quantity that he argued could be assimilated to action. In 1744, in another paper to the Paris Academy, he gave his "Accord de plusieurs lois naturelles qui avaient paru jusqu’ici incompatibles" ("Agreement of several natural laws that had hitherto seemed to be incompatible") to show that the behaviour of light during refraction – when it bends on entering a new medium – was such that the total path it followed, from a point in the first medium to a point in the second, minimised a quantity which he again assimilated to action.
693327	The Big I Am is a British gangster film starring Michael Madsen and Leo Gregory which was released straight to DVD on 8 April 2010.
1162748	Joel Murray (born April 17, 1963) is an American actor who has had prominent roles in television series including "Grand", "Love & War", and "Dharma and Greg", and has performed in films, including "God Bless America" and "Monsters University". Early life. One of nine children, Murray was born and raised in Wilmette, Illinois (suburban Chicago), the son of Lucille (née Collins), a mail room clerk, and Edward Joseph Murray II, a lumber salesman. He grew up in an Irish Catholic family. He is the brother of actors Bill Murray, Brian Doyle-Murray, and John Murray. His sister Nancy is an Adrian Dominican Sister in Michigan, who travels around the country portraying St. Catherine of Siena. In high school at Loyola Academy in Wilmette, Illinois, he was a captain of the football team as well as lead in the musical. His entertainment career began in Chicago, where he performed at various improvisational theaters, including the Improv Olympic, the Improv Institute, and The Second City. Work. Murray starred in the 1990 television series "Grand", the 1991 comedy series "Pacific Station", the 1992 comedy series "Love & War" as Ray Litvak, and the ABC series "Dharma & Greg" as Pete Cavanaugh. Murray also was featured in commercials for First Chicago NBD. He provided his voice for the short-lived 1994 series "Beethoven" and the TV series "3-South". He played the supporting character "Fitz" on CBS's sitcom "Still Standing". He appeared as Eddie Jackson on Showtime's series "Shameless" in 2011. Murray's first film role was in the 1986 comedy film "One Crazy Summer" as George Calamari. His other roles include the 1988 comedy film "Scrooged", with his brothers Bill, Brian, and John. He starred in the 1992 movie "Shakes the Clown" with "One Crazy Summer" co-stars Bob Goldthwait and Tom Villard. In the first, second, and fourth seasons of the Emmy-winning AMC TV series "Mad Men", Murray appeared in 12 episodes as copywriter Freddy Rumsen. He has made guest appearances on television shows such as "The Nanny", "Joan of Arcadia", "Two and a Half Men", "Malcolm in the Middle", "Criminal Minds", and "Blossom". In the 2012 film "God Bless America" he portrays Frank, a man whose contempt for superficiality and meanness in American society sends him over the edge and into a killing spree. In the 2013 Pixar film "Monsters University" he provides the voice of Don Carlton, a middle-aged monster who is a college student and salesman. Personal life. Murray is married to Eliza Coyle and has four children. He and his brothers run a restaurant, "Caddyshack", named after the 1980 comedy film "Caddyshack" which starred his brothers Bill and Brian.
1083564	He married actress and model Yu Yamada on March 14, 2012. Career. Born to a theater director father, Tetsuya Oguri, and having an actor brother, Ryo Oguri, Shun Oguri started his acting career quite early in his life. At the age 12, he started as a kid actor.
1104269	George Szekeres AM (; 29 May 1911 – 28 August 2005) was a Hungarian-Australian mathematician. Early years. Szekeres was born in Budapest, Hungary as Szekeres György and received his degree in chemistry at the Technical University of Budapest. He worked six years in Budapest as an analytical chemist. He married Esther Klein in 1936. Being Jewish, the family had to escape from the Nazi persecution so Szekeres took a job in Shanghai, China. There they lived through World War II, the Japanese occupation and the beginnings of the Communist revolution. Their son, Peter, was born in Shanghai. Career. In 1948, he was offered a position at the University of Adelaide, Australia that he gladly accepted. After all the troubles he had, he began flourishing as a mathematician. A few years later, his daughter Judy was born. In 1963, the family moved to Sydney, where Szekeres took a position at the University of New South Wales, and taught there until his retirement in 1975. He also devised problems for secondary school mathematical olympiads run by the university where he taught, and for a yearly undergraduate competition run by the Sydney University Mathematics Society. Szekeres worked closely with many prominent mathematicians throughout his life, including Paul Erdős, Esther Szekeres (née Esther Klein), Paul Turán, Béla Bollobás, Ronald Graham, Alf van der Poorten, Miklós Laczkovich, and John Coates. Personal life. The so-called Happy Ending problem is an example of how mathematics pervaded George's life. During 1933, George and several other students met frequently in Budapest to discuss mathematics. At one of these meetings, Esther Klein proposed the following problem: After allowing George, Paul Erdős, and the other students to scratch their heads for some time, Esther explained her proof. Subsequently, George and Paul wrote a paper (1935) that generalises this result; it is regarded as one of the foundational works in the field of combinatorial geometry. Erdős dubbed the original problem the "Happy Ending" problem because it resulted in George and Esther's marriage in 1937. George and Esther died within an hour of each other, on the same day, 28 August 2005, in Adelaide, Australia.
585730	Chinthavishtayaya Shyamala (English: "Shyamala lost in thought") is a 1998 Malayalam black comedy film written and directed by Sreenivasan, starring Sangita, Sreenivasan, Thilakan, Innocent, Nedumudi Venu, Sudheesh, and Siddique.The film is about an irresponsible husband and his neglected family. It won the National Film Award for Best Film on Other Social Issues. The film was remade in Tamil as Chidambarathil Oru Appasamy Plot. Vijayan, the village school teacher, believes that his degree in economics is sufficient for him to succeed in the business ventures he undertakes. Taking long leaves of absence from work, he roams around with his schemes, all of which turn out to be downright failures. The movie opens with a light portrayal of the misery of his wife Shyamala and their two daughters, with Vijayan away on his latest venture — an attempt to shoot a short ad film. It ends, predictably, with Vijayan taking to his heels when it is apparent that he has never seen a film being shot in his life before. Karunan "Mash," Vijayan's father, as a last resort to reform his son, suggests that Vijayan undertake the annual pilgrimage to the Hindu hilltop temple Sabarimala. Despite his initial protests, Vijayan undertakes his pilgrimage, by observing the customary 41-day fasting and abstinence. Sabarimala changes him. On his return from his pilgrimage, his family discovers to their dismay that matters have swung to the other extreme. Vijayan takes faith to his heart, embraces vegetarianism and adopts a life of prayer, frugality and abstinence, eventually forsaking his debt-ridden family for a life at an ashram. His version of ashram life is one of round-the-clock prayer and an escape from daily responsibilities and work — which doesn't go well the other residents. He soon finds himself unwelcome there and returns to his home, to discover his family now reasonably well-off from a small business his wife started soon after he left. Title. The title and plot of the film are inspired by "Chinthavishtayaaya Sita", a celebrated work by Malayalam poet and social reformer Kumaran Asan. The poem describes the philosophic musings of Sita and her confrontation with her husband Rama, towards the end of the "Ramayana" epic. As in the poem, the film portrays the silent struggle, sacrifice, and finally the emancipation of the character Shyamala. This film was later remade into tamil as Chidambarathil Oru Appasamy by Thangar Bachan in the year 2005. Reception. This was Sreenivasan's second directorial effort and won critical and commercial success and further established his position in Malayalam cinema as a gifted comedian and screenwriter. The film won the National Film Award for Best Film on Other Social Issues in 1999. It won the Kerala State Film Award for Best Popular Film in 1998.
1246927	Al St. John (September 10, 1892 – January 21, 1963) in his persona of "Fuzzy Q. Jones" basically defined the role and concept of "comical sidekick" to cowboy heroes from 1930 to 1951. St. John also created a character, "Stoney," in the first of a continuing Western film series, "The Three Mesquiteers," that was later played (at a low point in his own career) by John Wayne. Born in Santa Ana, California, St. John entered silent films around 1912 and soon rose to co-starring and starring roles in short comic films from a variety of studios. His uncle, Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle, may have helped him in his early days at Mack Sennett Studios, but talent kept him working. He was slender, sandy-haired, handsome and a remarkable acrobat.
1601607	Owain Sebastian Yeoman (born July 2, 1978) is a Welsh actor. His credits include "The Nine", "Kitchen Confidential" and the HBO series, "Generation Kill". He currently appears as Agent Wayne Rigsby in "The Mentalist". Early life. Yeoman was born and raised in Chepstow, Monmouthshire, Wales, where his parents still live. He graduated from Brasenose College, Oxford, earning a MA in English Literature and was a member of the OUDS and Oxford Revue. He had planned to continue doctoral studies but was not able to secure a grant. Instead he worked at a bank in Canary Wharf, London before enrolling at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art to study acting. Career. Yeoman made his film debut as Lysander in the Oscar nominated film "Troy". He also had a small part in Broken Lizard's film, "Beerfest", and made a guest appearance on an episode of "Midsomer Murders".
1164025	Isabel Sanford (August 29, 1917 – July 9, 2004) was an American stage, film and television actress best known for her role as Louise "Weezy" Jefferson on the CBS sitcoms "All in the Family" (1971–1975) and "The Jeffersons" (1975–1985). In 1981, she became the first African-American actress to win a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series. Early life. Sanford was born Eloise Gwendolyn Sanford in Harlem, New York, to James Edward and Josephine Sanford (née Perry). She was the youngest of seven children, but was the only one to survive beyond infancy. Josephine Sanford was devoutly religious and insisted that her daughter attend church every Sunday and occasionally made her attend on weeknights. As a teen, Sanford aspired to be an actress but her mother discouraged her dream as she felt that show business was "the road to degradation". Sanford disobeyed her mother and began performing at local clubs behind her mother's back. She also performed at amateur night at the Apollo Theater. After graduating from high school, Sanford joined Harlem's American Negro Theater and the Star Players. She made her professional stage debut in 1946 in "On Strivers Row" and appeared in several off-Broadway productions while also working as a keypunch operator at IBM. Sanford married house painter William Edward "Sonny" Richmond with whom she had three children. Their marriage was tumultuous and they later separated. Career. After separating from her husband, Sanford and her three children relocated to California in 1960, where Sanford continued acting in stage productions, television and film. Soon after her arrival, she was asked to join the national production of "Here Today" by actress Tallulah Bankhead. In 1965, she made her Broadway debut in James Baldwin's "The Amen Corner". The role led to her being cast in the 1967 film "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner". In the film, Sanford portrayed the role of the maid Tillie Binks, which earned her good reviews. She caught the attention of major Hollywood players, including Norman Lear, who cast Sanford in the role of Louise Jefferson in "All in the Family". Sanford and her TV husband, Sherman Hemsley, were so popular that Norman Lear decided to spin the characters off into their own weekly series, "'The Jeffersons". Sanford was initially reluctant to commit to working on a weekly series as she was already working steadily, but decided to accept the offer.
582883	Khuddar is 1994 Hindi movie directed by Iqbal Durrani and starring Govinda, Karishma Kapoor, Kader Khan. Other cast include Shakti Kapoor, Shreeram Lagoo, Anjana Mumtaz, Raju Shrestha, Mahesh Anand, Vikas Anand, Anil Dhawan. It includes the controversial number "Sexy Sexy Mujhe Log Bole", which was censored to "Baby Baby Mujhe Log Bole".
1059556	Robin Jessica Tunney (born June 19, 1972) is an American actress. She is known for her role as Teresa Lisbon in the television series "The Mentalist", as well as starring in "Prison Break" and the movies "The Craft", "End of Days", and "Vertical Limit". Early life. Tunney was born in Chicago, Illinois to a car salesman father, and a bartender mother. Tunney is Irish American; her father was born in Straide, County Mayo, Ireland, while her maternal grandparents were from Clare Island. Tunney grew up in Orland Park, Illinois, a southwest suburb of Chicago. She was raised Roman Catholic, attended Carl Sandburg High School in Orland Park and the Chicago Academy for the Arts in Chicago, and resided in Palos Heights, Illinois, also in the Chicago area. She is a cousin of Chicago Alderman Tom Tunney. Career. At the age of 19, Tunney moved to Los Angeles, California and obtained several recurring TV roles on "Class of '96", "Law & Order", "Dream On", and "Life Goes On". She gave her breakthrough performance as a suicidal teenager in "Empire Records" and attracted further attention by playing a witch in "The Craft".
583046	Mumbai Cutting is a 2010 anthology Indian film comprising eleven short films, telling eleven different stories based on life in Mumbai, which are directed by a host of eleven directors: Anurag Kashyap, Sudhir Mishra, Rahul Dholakia, Kundan Shah, Revathy, Jahnu Barua, Rituparno Ghosh, Shashanka Ghosh, Ruchi Narain, Ayush Raina and Manish Jha. The film is produced by Sahara One and is a Whitecloud production. Release. "Mumbai Cutting" had its world premier on April 27, 2008 at ArcLight Hollywood as the closing film of 2008 Indian Film Festival of Los Angeles, thereafter it was also the closing film of the 10th Osian Film Festival in July 2008, though it was commercially unreleased.
1060429	The Day the Earth Stood Still is a 1951 American science fiction film directed by Robert Wise. It was written by Edmund H. North, based on the short story "Farewell to the Master" (1940) by Harry Bates. The film stars Michael Rennie, Patricia Neal, Sam Jaffe, and Hugh Marlowe. In the film a humanoid alien visitor comes to Earth, accompanied by a powerful robot, to deliver a message of utmost importance to humanity. Plot. An extraterrestrial flying saucer is tracked by radar flying at high altitude around the Earth until it lands on the President's Park Ellipse in Washington, D.C. The military quickly encircles the spaceship. An alien figure, Klaatu (Michael Rennie), emerges from the ship, announcing that he has come in peace and is on a goodwill mission. From inside his flight suit he takes out a small cylindrical device, opening it as he approaches the military; suddenly, Klaatu is wounded by a deflected bullet, fired by a nervous soldier shooting at the alien device. In response Gort, a large, dull silver humanoid robot, who has suddenly emerged from the spaceship, begins disintegrating all the military weapons present, using a bright ray coming from the robot's now opened head visor. Gort continues until Klaatu orders a halt to the destruction. The wounded Klaatu explains to the military that the destroyed object was a viewing device, a gift for the president, which he could have used to view life on other planets. Klaatu is taken to an Army hospital, where tests and X-rays show he is physically human. He stuns his Army doctors with the quickness of his healing ability. Meanwhile, the military attempts to enter Klaatu's spaceship, finding its alien metal impregnable to their diamond drills and cutting torches; Gort stands by, mute and unmoving. Klaatu reveals to the president's secretary, Harley (Frank Conroy), that he bears a message so momentous and urgent that it must be revealed to all the world's leaders simultaneously. Harley tells him that it would be impossible to get all of the world leaders to agree to meet. Klaatu wants to get to know the ordinary people. Harley forbids it and leaves Klaatu locked up under guard. Klaatu escapes and lodges at a boarding house, assuming the alias "Mr. Carpenter", the name he finds on the cleaners tag on the suit he "borrowed". Among the residents are Helen Benson (Patricia Neal), a World War II widow, and her son Bobby (Billy Gray). At breakfast the next morning, during alarming radio reports, Klaatu takes in his fellow boarders' suspicions and speculations about the alien visit. While Helen and her boyfriend Tom Stephens (Hugh Marlowe) go on a day trip, Klaatu babysits Bobby. The boy takes Klaatu on a tour of the city, including a visit to his father's grave in Arlington National Cemetery, where Klaatu is dismayed to learn that most of those buried there were killed in wars. The two visit the heavily guarded spaceship and the Lincoln Memorial. Klaatu, impressed by the Gettysburg Address inscription, queries Bobby for the greatest person living in the world. Bobby suggests a leading American scientist, professor Jacob Barnhardt (Sam Jaffe), who lives in Washington, D.C. Bobby takes Klaatu to Barnhardt's home, but the professor is absent. Klaatu enters and adds a key mathematical equation to an advanced problem on the professor's blackboard, and then leaves his contact information with the suspicious housekeeper who attempts to rub out the equation with an eraser, but is told not to by Klaatu. Later, government agents escort Klaatu to see Barnhardt. Klaatu introduces himself and warns the professor that the people of the other planets have become concerned for their own safety after human beings developed atomic power. Klaatu declares that, if his message goes unheeded, "planet Earth will be eliminated". Barnhardt agrees to arrange a meeting of scientists at Klaatu's ship and suggests that Klaatu give a demonstration of his power. Klaatu returns to his spaceship the next evening to implement the idea, unaware that Bobby has followed him. Bobby tells the unbelieving Helen and Tom what has transpired, but not until Tom finds a diamond on the floor of Klaatu's room do they begin to accept his story. When Tom takes the diamond for appraisal, the jeweller informs him it is unlike any other on Earth. Klaatu finds Helen at her workplace. She leads him to an unoccupied elevator which mysteriously stops at noon, trapping them together. Klaatu admits he is responsible, tells Helen his true identity, and asks for her help. A montage sequence shows that Klaatu has neutralized all electric power everywhere around the planet except in situations that would compromise human safety, such as hospitals and aeroplanes. After the thirty-minute blackout ends, the manhunt for Klaatu intensifies and Tom informs authorities of his suspicions. Helen is very upset by Tom's betrayal of Klaatu and breaks off their relationship. Helen and Klaatu take a taxi to Barnhardt's home; en route, Klaatu instructs Helen that, should anything happen to him, she must tell Gort "Klaatu barada nikto". When they are spotted, Klaatu is shot by military personnel. Helen heads to the spaceship. Gort awakens and kills two guards before Helen can relay Klaatu's message. Gort gently deposits her in the spaceship, then goes to fetch Klaatu's corpse. Gort then revives Klaatu while the amazed Helen watches. Klaatu explains that his revival is only temporary; even with their advanced technology, they cannot truly overcome death, that power being reserved for the "Almighty Spirit". Klaatu steps out of the spaceship and addresses the assembled scientists, explaining that humanity's penchant for violence and first steps into space have caused concern among other inhabitants of the universe who have created and empowered a race of robot enforcers including Gort to deter such aggression. He warns that, if the people of Earth threaten to extend their violence into space, the robots will destroy Earth, adding: "The decision rests with you." He enters the spaceship and departs. Cast. Well-known broadcast journalists of their time, H. V. Kaltenborn, Elmer Davis, Drew Pearson and Gabriel Heatter, appeared and/or were heard as themselves. Spencer Tracy and Claude Rains were originally considered for the part of Klaatu. Themes. In a 1995 interview, producer Julian Blaustein explained that Joseph Breen, the film censor installed by the Motion Picture Association of America at the Twentieth Century Fox studios, balked at the portrayal of Klaatu's resurrection and limitless power. At the behest of the MPAA, a line was inserted into the film; when Helen asks Klaatu whether Gort has unlimited power over life and death, Klaatu explains that he has only been revived temporarily and "that power is reserved to the Almighty Spirit." Of the elements that he added to Klaatu's character, screenwriter Edmund North said, "It was my private little joke. I never discussed this angle with Blaustein or Wise because I didn't want it expressed. I had originally hoped that the Christ comparison would be subliminal." The fact that the question even came up in an interview is proof enough that such comparisons did not remain subliminal, but they are subtle enough that it is not immediately obvious to all viewers which elements were intended to compare Klaatu to Christ. For example, when Klaatu escapes from the hospital, he steals the clothing of a "Maj. Carpenter," carpentry being the profession Jesus learned from his father Joseph. At the end he rises from the dead and ascends into the sky. Other similarities include his apprehension at night, a friend to children, having wisdom and knowledge far beyond any human being, and the people wanting a sign. Production. Development. Producer Julian Blaustein set out to make a film that illustrated the fear and suspicion that characterized the early Cold War and Atomic Age. He reviewed over 200 science fiction short stories and novels in search of a storyline that could be used, since this film genre was well suited for a metaphorical discussion of such grave issues. Studio head Darryl F. Zanuck gave the go-ahead for this project, and Blaustein hired Edmund North to write the screenplay based on elements from Harry Bates's short story "Farewell to the Master". The revised final screenplay was completed on February 21, 1951. Raymond F. Jones worked as an uncredited adviser. Pre-production. The set was designed by Thomas Little and Claude Carpenter. They collaborated with the noted architect Frank Lloyd Wright for the design of the spacecraft. Paul Laffoley has suggested that the futuristic interior was inspired by Wright's Johnson Wax Headquarters, completed in 1936. Laffoley quotes Wright and his attempt in designing the exterior: "... to imitate an experimental substance that I have heard about which acts like living tissue. If cut, the rift would appear to heal like a wound, leaving a continuous surface with no scar." Filming. Principal outdoor photography for "The Day the Earth Stood Still" was shot on the 20th Century Fox sound stages and on its studio back lot (now located in Century City, California), with a second unit shooting background plates and other scenes in Washington DC and at Fort George G. Meade in Maryland. The primary actors never traveled to Washington for the making of the film. The 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment, then stationed at Ft. Meade, provided the soldiers and armored vehicles for the movie. The robot Gort, who serves Klaatu, was played by the naturally tall Lock Martin, who worked as an usher at Graumann's Chinese Theater and stood seven feet tall. He worked carefully with the metallic suit, for he was not used to being in such a costume. The costume also had wires for the robot's other parts. Wise decided that Martin's segments would be filmed at half hour intervals, so Martin would not face discomfort. The segments, in turn, went into the film's final print. In a commentary track on DVD, interviewed by fellow director Nicholas Meyer, the director Robert Wise stated that he wanted the film to appear as realistic and believable as possible, in order to drive home the motion picture's core message against armed conflict in the real world. Also mentioned in the DVD's documentary interview was the original title for the movie, "The Day the World Stops". Blaustein said his aim with the film was to promote a "strong United Nations". Post-production. The music score was composed by Bernard Herrmann in August 1951, and was his first score after he moved from New York to Hollywood. Herrmann chose unusual instrumentation for the film: violin, cello, and bass (all three electric), two theremin electronic instruments (played by Dr. Samuel Hoffman and Paul Shure), two Hammond organs, a large studio electric organ, three vibraphones, two glockenspiels, marimba, tam-tam, 2 bass drums, 3 sets of timpani, two pianos, celesta, two harps, 1 horn, three trumpets, three trombones, and four tubas. Unusual overdubbing and tape-reversal techniques were used, as well. Later, after release, Michael Rennie combined with actress Jean Peters to do a radio production on Hollywood Radio Theater.
1179384	William Michael Albert Broad (born 30 November 1955), known professionally as Billy Idol, is an English rock musician. A member of the Bromley Contingent of Sex Pistols fans, Idol first achieved fame in the punk rock era as a member of the band Generation X. He then embarked on a successful solo career, and was a member of the MTV-driven "Second British Invasion" of the United States. A series of music videos for songs such as "White Wedding", "Rebel Yell" and "Eyes Without a Face" made him one of the first MTV stars. Idol continues to tour with guitarist Steve Stevens. Life and career. Early life and Generation X. Idol was born in Stanmore, Middlesex, England. The name "Billy Idol" was inspired by a schoolteacher's description of Broad as "idle". In an interview on 21 November 1983 Idol also tells us that the name "was a bit of a goof, but also part of the old English school of rock. Billy Fury and all that. It was a 'double thing' not just a poke at the superstar-like people. It was the whole sort of – everyone was doing it too – it was fun, you know?" He goes on to say the name "didn't really ever backfire, only with the stupid people who took it seriously" In 1958, when Idol was two years old, his parents moved to Patchogue, on Long Island, New York, United States. The family returned to the UK four years later with Idol and a younger child Jane (who had been born in the United States), settling in Dorking, Surrey. In 1971 the family moved to Bromley, southeastern London, where Idol attended Ravensbourne School for Boys. Idol (rather William Broad) also attended Worthing High School for Boys in West Sussex. In October 1975, Idol went to Sussex University, to pursue an English degree and lived on campus (East Slope) but left after year one (1976). He then went on to join the Bromley Contingent of Sex Pistols fans, a loose gang that travelled into town when the band played. Idol first joined the punk rock band Siouxsie and the Banshees (before the band had decided on that name) in 1976, but soon quit and joined Chelsea in 1977 as a guitarist. However, he and Chelsea bandmate Tony James soon left that group and co-founded Generation X, with Idol switching from guitarist to lead singer. Generation X were one of the first punk bands to appear on the BBC Television music programme "Top of the Pops". Although a punk rock band, they were inspired by mid-1960s British pop, in sharp contrast to their more militant peers, with Idol stating; "We were saying the opposite to the Clash and the Pistols. They were singing 'No Elvis, Beatles or the Rolling Stones', but we were honest about what we liked. The truth was, we were all building our music on the Beatles and the Stones". Generation X signed to Chrysalis Records and released three albums and performed in the 1980 film, "D.O.A.", before disbanding. Early solo success. Idol moved to New York City in 1981, and became a solo artist working with ex-Kiss manager, Bill Aucoin. Idol's 'bad boy' image was recognised and this worked well with the flashy glam rock style of his new partner on guitar, Steve Stevens. Together they worked with bassist Phil Feit and drummer Gregg Gerson. Idol's solo career began with the Chrysalis Records EP titled "Don't Stop" in 1981, which included the Generation X song "Dancing with Myself", originally recorded for their last album "Kiss Me Deadly", and a cover of Tommy James & the Shondells' song "Mony Mony". Idol's debut solo album, "Billy Idol", was released in July 1982. Part of the MTV-driven "Second British Invasion" of the United States, that year Idol became an MTV staple with "White Wedding" and "Dancing with Myself". In 1983, in an effort to introduce Idol to American audiences not yet as familiar with him as those in the UK, Idol's label released "Dancing with Myself" in the United States in conjunction with a music video directed by Tobe Hooper, which played on MTV for six months. "Rebel Yell" and superstar years. Idol's second LP, "Rebel Yell" (1983) was a major success and established Idol in the United States with hits like "Eyes Without a Face," "Flesh For Fantasy", and the title cut. Tracks from the album featured in the 1988 Hollywood comedy film "Big", which starred Tom Hanks. "Eyes Without a Face" peaked at number four on the United States "Billboard" Hot 100, and "Rebel Yell" reached number six in the UK Singles Chart. This album and its singles saw Idol become very popular in other countries such as Germany, Italy, Switzerland and New Zealand. "Whiplash Smile". Idol released "Whiplash Smile" in 1986, which sold well. The album included the hits "To Be a Lover," "Don't Need a Gun" and "Sweet Sixteen". Idol filmed a video featuring "Sweet Sixteen" (which he also wrote) in Florida's Coral Castle. The song was inspired by the story of Edward Leedskalnin's former love, Agnes Scuffs, who was the main reason Leedskalnin built the structure over a period of decades, starting years after she jilted him the day before their scheduled wedding in their native Latvia. In 1986, Stevens appeared with Harold Faltermeyer on the "Top Gun" soundtrack. Their contribution was the Grammy winning instrumental, "Top Gun Anthem". Harold was producer Keith Forsey's partner when Keith was working with Donna Summer and Giorgio Moroder. Steve was working on Billy Idol album Whiplash Smile, and when it came time for keyboards, Harold came in to play. Harold got Stevens to play with him on the Top Gun score. After the success Steve had received, the partnership between Idol and Stevens fell apart. Besides playing an acoustic show for KROQ in 1993, Stevens and Idol would not tour again until early 1999. Stevens and Idol collaborated in the mid-1990s, playing with Gun N Roses members Duff McKagan and Matt Sorum in 1995. Billy, Steve, Duff and Matt can be seen performing, "Christmas in the USA" on Jay leno in 1995. In 1987, Billy was walking in a park in New York with a woman called Grace Hattersley when they were stopped by police. The police found cocaine on Hattersley. Billy said the drugs were not his and was released. Hattersley held a press conference saying that she was Billy Idol's girlfriend. Billy's longtime girlfriend, Perri Lister decided to hold a press conference of her own, telling the world that she was, and had always been Idol's girlfriend. A remix album was released in 1987 called, "Vital Idol". The album featured a live rendition of his cover of Tommy James' "Mony Mony". In 1987 the single topped the United States chart, and reached number 7 in the UK. The album had already been available in the UK for two years. Billy and his girlfriend Perri Lister moved from New York to Los Angeles. Lister became pregnant with Billy's son Willem Wolfe, and Billy was trying to get a movie called, "King Death" made. The movie was based on a book by Nik Cohn. The book is about a man that commits assassinations on television. Idol did not stay loyal to Perry Lister, and started seeing Linda Mathis, who was thirteen years younger than Idol. At the age of 19, Mathis became pregnant and chose to move in with her mother to have her child. Mathis had a child, a girl named Bonnie Blue Broad, born 21 August 1989. In 1989, Idol appeared on stage with the Who as Cousin Kevin as part of the live version of "Tommy", which was aired as an HBO special and released on home video and later as a DVD. In later years, Idol also stood in as a guest performer with the Who on "Bell Boy", a hit from their rock opera album "Quadrophenia", and provided the lead vocals that were originally sung by the band's late drummer Keith Moon. On these brief appearances, Idol dressed in a bell boy's uniform to reflect upon Moon's eccentricity on stage. After his break-up with Perry, Idol travelled to Bangkok and had to be forcibly removed from the country. Idol had been in Bangkok for several weeks, and was staying at different hotels and causing a lot of damage to the rooms. After refusing to vacate a hotel penthouse where a three-week drug-and-sex spree had racked up a bill of about US$250,000. It was reported that an important dignitary wanted the room and Idol refused to give it up. Idol was strapped to a gurney and was escorted to the airport by soldiers. Idol was given the choice of either going to jail, or leaving the country. Idol was involved in a serious motorbike accident which nearly cost him a leg on 6 February 1990 at the corner of Gordon Avenue and Fountain Avenue in Hollywood. He was hit by a car when he ran a stop sign while riding home from the studio one night, requiring a steel rod to be placed in his leg. Shortly prior to this, film director James Cameron had chosen Idol to play the T-1000 character in "" and had drawn storyboards to resemble him, but the accident prevented Idol from accepting. Charmed life. "Charmed Life" was released in 1990, and a video for the single "Cradle of Love" had to be shot. The song had been featured in the Andrew Dice Clay film, "The Adventures of Ford Fairlane". Since Idol was unable to walk, he was shot from the waist up. The video featured video footage of him singing in large frames throughout an apartment, while Betsy Lynn George was trying to seduce a businessman. The video was placed in rotation on MTV. "Cradle of Love" earned Idol a third Grammy Award nomination for Best Male Rock Vocal Performance. Against his doctors' advice, he also managed to make appearances to promote "Charmed Life". Idol made a cameo appearance as himself in the 1998 film The Wedding Singer with Adam Sandler, in which Idol ultimately saved the relationship between characters Robbie Hart (Sandler) and Julia Sullivan (played by Drew Barrymore). Idol also had a small part in the film "The Doors", directed by Oliver Stone. Idol played Jim Morrison's drinking pal, Cat. In 1990, Idol performed at Roger Waters' concert "The Wall - Live in Berlin". Cyberpunk. In 1993, Idol released "Cyberpunk". Regarded as experimental, it was recorded in a home studio using a Macintosh computer, which was a new concept at the time. Idol used Studiovision and Pro-Tools to record the album. The album took ten months to make. Idol recorded the album with guitarist Mark Younger-Smith and producer Robin Hancock. Special editions of the album were issued with a floppy disc which contained a screensaver. It was the first album which listed the e-mail address of the artist (idol@well.sf.ca.us, now inactive) in its booklet. In 1996, Idol appeared in a live version of The Who's "Quadrophenia". Billy got the idea for the album during his stay in the hospital after his motorcycle accident. Punk rock journalists Legs McNeil interviewed Idol and called him a "Cyberpunk" because of the muscle stimulator on his leg. It looked like man merging with machine. Idol was now sporting a new look. Billy played a Generation X reunion show in 1993. Idol shot a concept video for "Shock to the System". The video would feature Idol being attacked by several police for trying to videotape them beating up someone on the street. The idea of went back to the LA riots. Idol would then turn into a cyborg that scared away the police. A video EP was released to retail stores. Idol had a lot of grand ideas for "Cyberpunk" and the short tour that followed. He changed his look during this period, growing a set of dreadlocks, and had a lot of ideas about using 'Blendo' video footage during his show. Colorful footage and images would be edited live on a computer to fit the music. In 1994 Idol collapsed outside a Los Angeles nightclub due to an overdose on a drug called GHB. GHB happened to be a legal drug at the time, which was mainly used by weight-lifters. The drug would slow one's system down, putting the body into a relaxed, comatose-like state. Drugs like this are often used to alter the effects of other drugs, such as cocaine, which speed the system up. Idol admitted to being hooked on a lot of heavier drugs at that time. After the incident, Idol realised that his children would never forgive him for dying of a drug overdose, and he began to focus more on fatherhood. Idol has never admitted that he is totally off drugs, just that he has his habit under control. He claims to have first smoked marijuana at the age of 12, and also says he took acid at the age of thirteen. "Cyberpunk" pays tribute to Lou Reed with Idol's cover of "Heroin". Idol didn't want to release an album during this period because he was having a lot of problems with his record label. It was decided that he would wind up owing the record company money if he produced anything. EMI hired producer, Glenn Ballard to work with him on a new project, but Idol battled the label over creative differences and the album was put on hold. In 1994 Idol and Steve Stevens contributed a song called "Speed"to the soundtrack of the hit movie "Speed" starring Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock. Even though Idol and Stevens worked together on this track, a reunion was not in the works. Idol was a performer three times during the 1990s at Neil Young's Bridge School Benefit Concert, which is still held each October. Reunion With Steve Stevens. He returned to the public eye in 1998, when he played himself in "The Wedding Singer", a film that also featured "White Wedding" on its soundtrack. He was also considered for the role of the villain, Jacob Kell, in "", although ultimately Bruce Payne was cast. VH1 aired "Billy Idol – Behind the Music" on 16 April 2001. Idol and Stevens took part in a "VH1 Storytellers" show three days later. The reunited duo set out to play a series of acoustic/storytellers shows before recording the VH1 special. Another "Greatest Hits" CD was issued in 2001, with Keith Forsey and Simple Minds' "Don't You (Forget About Me)" appearing on the compilation. Forsey and Schiff had originally written it with Idol in mind, but the singer turned it down and eventually the song was given to Simple Minds, who made it a hit in 1985. The LP also includes a live acoustic version of "Rebel Yell", taken from a performance at Los Angeles station KROQ's 1993 Acoustic Christmas concert. In 2000, Idol was invited to be a guest vocalist on Tony Iommi's album. His contribution was on the song "Into The Night", which he also co-wrote. That year he voice acted the role of Odin, a mysterious alien character, in the animated fantasy film "Heavy Metal 2000". In the 2002 NRL Grand Final in Sydney, Idol entered the playing field for the pre-match entertainment on a hovercraft-type stage to the intro of "White Wedding", when he managed to sing only two words before a power failure ended the performance. "White Wedding" appeared on popular video game "", playing on fictional Classic rock radio station, K-DST. "Devil's Playground" and beyond. "Devil's Playground", which came out in March 2005, was Idol's first new studio album in nearly 12 years. Idol reunited with guitarist Steve Stevens and producer Keith Forsey to record the album. It was after a concert at the Hammerstein Ballroom that Sanctuary Records approached Idol about making new music in his older style. Idol claims that seeing people like Slash making hit records again gave him hope that there was life after death. The album was recorded with the entire band playing in one room, rather that each person recording their part separately. Idol's drummer, Brian Tichy, collaborated with Idol and Stevens and co-wrote some of the tracks on the album. The first single and video to be released was 'Scream.' Idol had been playing a batch of new songs in concert that never made the final release of the album. These songs include 'Monster', 'Stranger in My Skin', 'Walk the Line', 'Man in the Killbox', 'Beautiful Life' and 'Big World' (written for his daughter). It reached No. 46 on the Billboard 200. The album included a cover of "Plastic Jesus". Idol played a handful of dates on the 2005 Vans Warped Tour and also appeared at the Download Festival at Donington Park, the Voodoo Music Experience in New Orleans and Rock am Ring. Guitarist Steve Stevens broke his ulna while taking a few bags into his hotel in New Orleans. The guitarist had to perform most of the tour in a two piece removable cast. In 2006, as his only UK live date, he appeared headlining the Sunday night of GuilFest. That same year he made an appearance on "Viva La Bam" where he helped Bam Margera succeed in "creating" a sunroof for his Lamborghini Gallardo and performed live for April Margera for her birthday. In 2006, Idol guested on his keyboardist Derek Sherinian's solo album "Blood of the Snake", covering the 1970 Mungo Jerry hit "In the Summertime". A video was made featuring Idol and guitarist Slash. In November 2006, Idol released a Christmas album called "Happy Holidays". In 2008, "Rebel Yell" appeared as a playable track on the video game, "Guitar Hero World Tour", and "White Wedding" on "Rock Band 2". The "Rock Band 2" platform later gaining "Mony Mony" and "Rebel Yell" as downloadable tracks. On 24 June 2008, Idol released a new greatest hits album, "". The compilation featured two previously unreleased tracks, "John Wayne" and "New Future Weapon". A third track, "Fractured", was available for download on iTunes. He embarked on a worldwide tour, co-headlining with Def Leppard. In July 2009, Idol performed at the Congress Theater, Chicago for the United States television series "Soundstage". This performance was recorded and was released on DVD as "In Super Overdrive Live", on 17 November 2009. Recent events. On 16 February 2010, Idol was announced as one of the acts to play the Download Festival in Donington Park. He stated, "With all of these great heavyweight and cool bands playing Download this year, I'm going to have to come armed with my punk rock attitude, Steve Stevens, and all of my classic songs plus a couple of way out covers. Should be fun!" In March 2010, Idol added Camp Freddy guitarist, Billy Morrison and drummer Jeremy Colson to his touring line-up. On 20 July 2012 Idol performed at Marés Vivas festival, in Vila Nova de Gaia, Portugal, alongside such names as the Cult, Garbage, Kaiser Chiefs, Franz Ferdinand and Gogol Bordello. The following day, Idol was the main act at the Concentração Motard de Faro, in Faro, Portugal. On 15 May 2013, Idol was the main act for the Google I/O 2013 after party. He performed many of his hits in front of 6000 Google I/O attendees. Live band. Billy Idol's current band consists of: List of awards and nominations. MTV Video Music Awards. The MTV Video Music Awards is an annual awards ceremony established in 1984 by MTV. BRIT Awards. The BRIT Awards are the British Phonographic Industry's annual pop music awards.
584810	Herova? Zerova? () is a 2008 Tamil short docudrama, produced by Suriya in an effort to eliminate children who drop out of school at an early age. Made in association with Vishnuvardhan Induri and the Ministry of Education of Tamil Nadu, the video highlighted the importance of children gaining education at an early age and point out statistics children dropping out of school in Tamil Nadu. Along with Surya Sivakumar, actors R. Madhavan, Jyothika and Vijay are a part of the video.
586757	15 Park Avenue is a 2005 National Film Award winning English-language Indian film directed by Aparna Sen. Plot. 30-something Mitali aka Meethi (Konkona Sen Sharma) suffers from Schizophrenia and is taken care of by her much older, divorced sister Anjali aka Anu (Shabana Azmi) and an ageing mother (Waheeda Rehman). Although she was never married in real life, Meethi has created her own alternate reality in her mind in which she got married to her ex-fiancé Joydeep (Rahul Bose) and has five children. While Anu has dedicated her life to taking care of Meethi and her mother, even putting her own relationship with a fellow professor (Kanwaljeet Singh) on hold, in Meethi's imaginary world both the older women are holding her in the house and away from her kids against her will. She imagines her family to be living at the non-existent 15 Park Avenue in (Kolkata). After Meethi has a severe seizure, her case is taken up by a new doctor Kunal Barua (Dhritiman Chatterjee). While discussing her sister's case with the new doctor, Anu reveals that though Meethi had dormant schizophrenic traits since childhood, she led a very normal life till her early 20s, before a traumatic experience in the course of her job as a journalist made her withdraw from the outer world. Her fiancé, unable to deal with the emotional upheaval caused by the incidence, broke off the engagement. On the doctor's advice, Anu takes both women on a vacation to Bhutan, where they are spotted by Joydeep, now married with two kids. In her present state, Meethi does not recognize Joydeep as the same man she is married to in her imagination, and befriends him. When Joydeep learns of Meethi's worsened condition and her imaginary world, he offers to help her locate the elusive family home - 15 Park Avenue. Back in Kolkata, Joydeep drives her down to the part of the city where she believes her house and her family are. In a surrealistic climax, Meethi finally locates the house and finds her husband Jojo (as she fondly calls him) and her five children waiting for her return. She walks into the house, reunited with her 'real' family and is never seen again. Themes. The film is the story of the relationship between a woman, Meethi, (Konkona Sen Sharma) who suffers from schizophrenia, and her sister Anjali (Shabana Azmi). Meethi (short for Mitali) hails from an upper-middle-class family, fraught with a complex relationship structure. She is the child through the second marriage of her mother, and this is not explored in much detail in the movie since it focuses on other issues. Anu, her older sister, is a professor of physics at a university, who is shown to be intellectual and practical; however, the paradox in her character becomes obvious when she decides to forsake her personal life for her ailing younger sister. This shows her in a different light, and the viewer sees the contradiction throughout the movie. Meethi is shown to have dormant schizophrenic traits since childhood, as depicted in the scene where Anu tells her doctor Kunal Barua (Dhritiman Chatterjee) that Meethi had always been a loner. Meethi felt everyone could hear her swallowing or gulping and so was embarrassed to go to school. Anu believes that a traumatic gang rape by political goons during Meethi's work assignment has pushed her over the edge and has led to the onset of full-blown schizophrenia. Meethi lapses into incoherent delusions about a happy family and children which have been her erstwhile dreams. (In reality, her fiance Jojo (Rahul Bose) backed out from the relationship.) Clutching on to these straws, she desperately looks for her home 15 Park Avenue, where she feels she will be at peace. A chance meeting with her Jojo, 11 years after they broke up, gives Meethi a further impetus into her delusional world, as she touchingly trusts him to look for her home since now he is an outsider whom she does not recognise. For Meethi, the world is divided into her imaginary home and the outsiders, who keep her from going to her "family." Guilt is a predominant colour in the landscape of this movie, depicted in the persona of every character, be it Anu, Joydeep or Mrs. Mathur (Waheeda Rehman). Iit is in the background of this tale of reality, illusion and the thin line between the two.
633296	Jonathan Scott Frakes (born August 19, 1952) is an American actor, author and director. Frakes is best known for his portrayal of Commander William T. Riker in the television series ' and subsequent films. Frakes also hosted the television series ', challenging viewers to discern his stories of fact-based phenomena and fabricated tales. In June 2011, Frakes narrated the History Channel documentary "Lee and Grant". He was also the voice actor of David Xanatos in the Disney television series "Gargoyles". Frakes directed and also starred in ' as well as '. He is also the author of a book called "The Abductors: Conspiracy". Personal life. Frakes was born in Bellefonte, Pennsylvania, the son of Doris J. (née Yingling) and James R. Frakes. He is of mostly German, and some English, descent. He grew up in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, in the Lehigh Valley region of the state. A 1970 graduate of Bethlehem's Liberty High School, he ran track and played with the Liberty High School Grenadier Band. Frakes received a Bachelors of Fine Arts in Theater Arts at Penn State University in the early 1970s, where he was a member of the Thespians. His father was a critic for the "New York Times Book Review", a book editor, and professor of English literature at Lehigh University from 1958–2001, where he was the Edmund W. Fairchild Professor in American Studies. He died in early 2002. Frakes had a younger brother, Daniel, who died in 1997 from pancreatic cancer. Frakes married soap opera actress Genie Francis on May 28, 1988. They live in California with their two children, Elizabeth and Jameson. Career. For a time in the 1970s, Frakes worked for Marvel Comics, appearing at conventions in costume as Captain America. Frakes moved to New York City and became a member of "The Impossible Ragtime Theater". In that company, Frakes did his first off-Broadway acting in Eugene O'Neill's "The Hairy Ape" directed by George Ferencz. His first Broadway appearance was in "Shenandoah". At the same time, he landed a role in the NBC soap opera "The Doctors". When his character was dismissed from the soap, Frakes moved to Los Angeles, California and played guest spots in many of the top television series of the 1970s and 1980s, including "The Waltons", "Eight Is Enough", "The Dukes of Hazzard", "Matlock" and Steven Bochco's "Hill Street Blues". He played the part of Charles Lindbergh in a 1983 episode of "Voyagers!" titled "An Arrow Pointing East". In 1983, he had a role in the short-lived NBC prime time soap opera "Bare Essence" (which also starred his future wife Genie Francis), and a supporting role in the equally short-lived primetime soap "Paper Dolls" in 1984. He also had recurring roles in "Falcon Crest" and the miniseries "North and South" before signing for the role of Commander William T. Riker on "". Jonathan appeared in the 1986 miniseries "Dream West". He has done animation voice acting, most notably voicing the recurring role of David Xanatos in the animated series "Gargoyles", and he provided the voice of his own head in a jar in the "Futurama" episode "Where No Fan Has Gone Before". He had a small, uncredited role in the 1994 movie "Camp Nowhere". He also reprised his role of Riker for a "Next Generation" cutaway on an episode of "Family Guy" that also featured his co-stars Patrick Stewart and Michael Dorn as their respective roles of Picard and Worf. Later, he again played himself on another "Family Guy" episode, where all seven main TNG (plus Denise Crosby and Wil Wheaton) actors made voice appearances. He is also one of six Star Trek actors (the other actors being Kate Mulgrew, Michael Dorn, George Takei, Avery Brooks and Majel Barrett) to lend their voices to the video game "Star Trek: Captain's Chair" reprising his role as Commander William T. Riker when users visit the Enterprise-D bridge featured in the game. Frakes is one of only two "Star Trek" regulars to appear on four different "Star Trek" series (', ', ' and '). (The only other regular to match or exceed that number is Majel Barrett-Roddenberry who appeared in all five television series.) He has also directed episodes in three of them ("TNG", "DS9" and "VOY") and was a popular and innovative director on the Star Trek set, often finding completely new ways to shoot the show's familiar sets. His directing career has included the films ' and '. Additionally, Frakes was an executive producer for the WB series "Roswell", directed several episodes and guest-starred in three episodes. His relationship with Star Trek is made light of in the episode "Secrets and Lies", in which the alien character Max auditions for a guest role as an alien for "Star Trek: Enterprise". Frakes appeared on the 1994 Phish album "Hoist", playing trombone on the track titled "Riker's Mailbox". Frakes would occasionally perform on the trombone during his tenure as Commander Riker, drawing on his college marching band experience. He was also a member of "The Sunspots", a vocal backup group of "Star Trek" cast members that appeared on Brent Spiner's 1991 album "Ol' Yellow Eyes Is Back". Frakes hosted "The Paranormal Borderline", a television series at Fox, which dealt with the paranormal and mysterious happenings and creatures. In one episode, Frakes presented an interview of reporter Yolanda Gaskins with veteran astronaut Gordon Cooper, where they discussed the possibility of aliens having visited the Earth in the past. Overall, the show was criticized and pulled off the air after it was found out that footage showing a yeti from the Himalayas was purposely faked by the show and its producers. The "Snowwalker" footage, as it is known, purportedly shows a yeti as it is crossing through a valley in the Himalayas, walking in front of a Belgian couple who are traversing the area on skis. The network finally admitted the hoax, and Frakes distanced himself from the show. He hosted "" which also dealt in the paranormal world. Frakes and Francis appeared together in "Lois & Clark" in the episode "Don't Tug on Superman's Cape" as a creepily too-good-to-be-true couple. He narrated the History Channel's "That's Impossible".
582009	Arshad Warsi (born 19 April 1968 in Mumbai, Maharashtra) is an Indian film actor who made his debut in 1996 with "Tere Mere Sapne" which managed to succeed at the box office. He is best known for his role as "Circuit" in the comedy series "Munnabhai M.B.B.S." (2003) and "Lage Raho Munnabhai" (2006). He is also recognized for his role as Babban in "Ishqiya" (2010) and "Jolly LLB" (2013) which both won him acclaim and also with the latter he has been able to score his first solo hit. Early life and education. Warsi was born into a Muslim family in Mumbai, India, and did his schooling at a boarding school, Barnes School, Deolali in Nashik district, Maharashtra. He was orphaned at the age of 14 and struggled for a living in Mumbai during his early days. Early career. Financial circumstances forced Warsi to start work as a door-to-door cosmetics salesman at age 17. Later he worked in a photo lab. Meanwhile he had a keen interest in dancing and received an offer to join Akbar Sami's Dance group in Mumbai, which started his dancing and choreographing career. He also assisted Mahesh Bhatt in "Thikana" (1987) and "Kaash" (1987). Then in 1991, he won the Indian dance competition, followed by the fourth prize in the Modern Jazz category in 1992 World Dance championship, London, at the age of 21. Soon, he started his own dance studio, 'Awesome' with that money and also formed a dance troupe. It was here, his future wife, Maria Goretti, a St. Andrew's College student joined him, before she became a VJ. He was also associated with English theater group in Mumbai, choreographing shows for Bharat Dabholkar and got an opportunity to choreograph the title track for the film, "Roop Ki Rani Choron Ka Raja" (1993). Film career. As an actor. He got his first offer to act in Amitabh Bachchan's production company, ABCL's first production "Tere Mere Sapne" in 1996. After its success, he acted in several other films over the next six years, but most of which failed to do well at the box office. In 2003, he rose to fame when he starred as a pivotal supporting character in the comedy film "Munnabhai MBBS" opposite Sanjay Dutt, which turned out to be a huge box office success and gained him much critical acclaim and a nomination at the Filmfare Award for Best Supporting Actor. He has since appeared in several successful films as an supporting actor including "Maine Pyaar Kyun Kiya" (2005), "Salaam Namaste" (2005), "Golmaal" (2006), "Kabul Express" (2006) and "Lage Raho Munnabhai" (2006) which also won him his first Filmfare Award under the category of Best Comedian. From 2007 to 2010, Warsi appeared in non-stop box office successes, including "Dhamaal" (2007), "Golmaal Returns" (2008), "Ishqiya" (2010) and "Golmaal 3" (2010). His 2011 releases include the comedies "F.A.L.T.U" and "Double Dhamaal", which were both above average grossers. His first release of 2013 was "Zila Ghaziabad" in which he played an negative role. His latest film is "Jolly LLB", Warsi's first official solo hit. The film released on 15th March 2013, and received critical acclaim, and turned out to be the first Hit in India of the year 2013. He is currently working on the third "Munnabhai" sequel, "Munnabhai Chale Delhi" which is expected to go on floors late 2013 hopefully. As a producer. His first film as a producer, "Hum Tum Aur Ghost" was released in 2010. and in 2013 Hungame pe Hungama is releasing Television career. Warsi has made a mark for himself on the small screen as well. He hosted a popular award show "Sabse Favourite Kaun" for STAR Gold. He was the host of "Bigg Boss, Season 1", the Indian version of the reality television series "Big Brother" which was aired on Sony. He was also the co-host of a dance show Razzmatazz on Zee TV. He has also done a small cameo in a television show, "Ishaan". Personal life. Warsi married Maria Goretti on 14 February 1999. They have a son named Zeke Warsi, born on 10 August 2004. Both Maria and Zeke made a special appearance in "Salaam Namaste". On 2 May 2007, the couple had a baby girl named Zene Zoe Warsi. During his school days, Warsi was a national level gymnast. Filmography. Producer. Under the banner "Shooting Star Films", he has produced the following films.
1063492	This Film is Not Yet Rated is a 2006 independent documentary film about the Motion Picture Association of America's rating system and its effect on American culture, directed by Kirby Dick and produced by Eddie Schmidt. It premiered at the 2006 Sundance Film Festival and was released limited on September 1, 2006. The Independent Film Channel, the film's producer, aired the film later that year. It was rated TV-MA in the United States. The MPAA gave the original cut of the film an NC-17 rating for "some graphic sexual content" – scenes that illustrated the content a film could include to garner an NC-17 rating. Kirby Dick appealed, and descriptions of the ratings deliberations and appeal were included in the documentary. The new version of the film is not rated. The film discusses disparities the filmmaker sees in ratings and feedback: between Hollywood and independent films, between homosexual and heterosexual sexual situations, between male and female sexual depictions, and between violence and sexual content. Themes and discussion. Much of the film's press coverage was devoted to Dick and his crew's use of a private investigator, Becky Altringer, to unmask the identities of the ratings and appeals board members. Other revelations in the film include: the discovery that many ratings board members either have children 18 and over or have no children at all (typically, the MPAA has suggested it hires only parents with children between the ages of 5 and 17); that the board seems to treat homosexual material much more harshly than heterosexual material (this assertion is supported by an MPAA spokesperson’s statement in "USA Today" that "We don't create standards; we just follow them"); that the board's raters receive no training and are deliberately chosen because of their lack of expertise in media literacy or child development; that senior raters have direct contact in the form of required meetings with studio personnel after movie screenings; and that the MPAA's appeals board is just as secretive as the ratings board, its members being mostly movie theater chain and studio executives. Also included on the appeals board are two members of the clergy (one Catholic and one Protestant, who may or may not have voting power). Prior to Sundance, the film sparked initial press interest when it was handed an NC-17 rating by the MPAA for "some graphic sexual content." When it premiered at Sundance, the film's ratings deliberations, along with Kirby Dick’s appeal, were included in the documentary. Since the film had changed dramatically from the time of the NC-17 rating, the film cannot be released with an MPAA rating without the film being resubmitted for review. The film went on to draw crowds at many other festivals, including South by Southwest and the Seattle International Film Festival, and was slated for theatrical release in fall 2006. Interviews. People interviewed in the documentary include: MPAA board, 2005. According to the investigation done within the film, the following people (as of 2006) have been named as members of the MPAA review board, also known as CARA. Included is their age, marital status, and the age of their children as of 2005 when the film was shot. These details play a huge part in the film, as the MPAA states (according to the film) that the board is composed of real, average American parents (with children between the ages of 5 and 17) who serve fewer than 5 years. Head of the Board: Joan Graves (the only member of the board whose information the MPAA makes public) MPAA appeals. According to the investigation done within the film, the following people (as of 2006) have been named as members of the MPAA appeals board: Fair use. "This Film Is Not Yet Rated" uses clips from several films to illustrate its criticisms of the MPAA ratings board. Dick had originally planned to license these clips from their studio owners but discovered that studio licensing agreements would have prohibited him from using this material to criticize the entertainment industry. This prompted him to invoke the fair use doctrine, which permits limited use of copyrighted material to provide analysis and criticism of published works.
688149	Behind the Green Door is a 1972 American feature-length pornographic film, widely considered one of the genre's "classic" pictures and one of the films that ushered in The Golden Age of Porn. Featuring Marilyn Chambers, who became a mainstream celebrity, it was one of the first hardcore films widely released in the United States and the first feature-length film directed by the Mitchell brothers. It was adapted from an anonymous short story of the same title, which was circulated by means of numerous carbon copies. The story's title makes reference to the 1956 hit song "Green Door". Plot. Chambers plays the role of Gloria. The story begins in a cafe, where a cook asks two truck drivers to tell the story of the green door. Gloria is then shown being kidnapped and taken to a sex theater, where she is placed on a stage and forced to perform various sexual acts with multiple partners in front of a masked audience. The Mitchell brothers appear in the film as her kidnappers. First she is fondled by several women wearing robes. Her first heterosexual scene in the film is with Johnny Keyes, accompanied by a jazz soundtrack. (This possibly makes "Behind the Green Door" the first U.S. feature-length hardcore film to include an interracial sex scene.)
582122	Main Hoon Na (translation: "I am Here") is a Bollywood action thriller comedy drama masala film written and directed by Farah Khan. It is the first film of Shah Rukh Khan's production company Red Chillies Entertainment and Farah Khan's directorial debut film. It was released on 30 April 2004 and was declared a hit in India by Box Office India. It stars Shah Rukh Khan, Sunil Shetty, Sushmita Sen, Zayed Khan, & Amrita Rao in the main cast. Many visual effects were also used in the movie according to the action sequences which were shown. Plot. The Indian army is working on "Project Milaap" – a project designed to end the long-lasting conflict between India and Pakistan. Indian prisoners will be released from Pakistan and Pakistani prisoners will be released from India, culminating in a friendship between the two countries. General Amar Singh Bakshi (Kabir Bedi) and Brigadier Shekhar Sharma (Naseeruddin Shah) both wish to see "Project Milaap" turn into a reality. However, dreaded terrorist Raghavan (Sunil Shetty), an ex-army member who lost his place in the army for killing innocent Pakistanis, will do anything to stop this project – he has a grudge against Pakistan ever since his son was murdered in Kashmir. When Raghavan and his men attack the General, they are stopped by Major Ram Prasad Sharma (Shah Rukh Khan), the son of Shekhar Sharma. Shekhar is shot while saving the General. On his deathbed, he tells Ram that he has another son named Lakshman (Zayed Khan), Ram's half-brother, and a wife Madhu (Kirron Kher), both of whom left him when he committed adultery 20 years ago, the result of which was Ram. Shekhar's last wish is for Ram to unite the family and bury his ashes with Lakshman and Madhu.
1034347	Julian Wyatt Glover (born 27 March 1935) is an English actor best known for film roles such as General Maximilian Veers in "", the James Bond villain Aristotle Kristatos in "For Your Eyes Only", Walter Donovan in "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade" and Brian Harcourt-Smith in "The Fourth Protocol". More recently, in January 2013, he has appeared as General Beauvilliers in the BBC drama, "Spies of Warsaw" and he has played the recurring role of Grand Maester Pycelle on HBO's "Game of Thrones" since 2011. Personal life. Glover was born in Hampstead, London, the son of Honor Ellen Morgan (née Wyatt), a BBC journalist and a close friend of novelist Barbara Pym, and Claude Gordon Glover, a BBC radio producer. His younger half-brother is the musician Robert Wyatt. Glover has been twice married to actresses: Eileen Atkins and Isla Blair, with whom he has a son, actor Jamie Glover. Career. Glover attended Bristol Grammar Schoolwhere he was in the same class as actors Timothy West and Darth Vader actor David Prowseand also Alleyn's School in Dulwich, London. He then trained at the National Youth Theatre and performed with the Royal Shakespeare Company. In the early 1950s, he appeared in several shows at Unity Theatre, London before regularly appearing in British television series during the 1960s and 1970s such as "The Avengers", "The Saint", "Strange Report" and "Blake's 7". In 1967, Glover featured as Professor Quatermass' nemesis Colonel Breen in the Hammer Films production of "Quatermass and the Pit", an adaptation of Nigel Kneale's 1950s BBC TV original. He has also appeared twice in "Doctor Who": as Richard the Lionheart in the 1965 serial "The Crusade"; and, in 1979, as the villain Scaroth, last of the Jagaroth, in one of the original run's most popular serials, "City of Death". Glover later recorded DVD commentaries for the recently rediscovered "The Crusade" episode "The Wheel of Fortune" (from the "Lost in Time" DVD set) and for "City of Death". In the 1980s, Glover made some of his most notable appearances, such as the Imperial General Maximilian Veers in "" (1980), the ruthless Greek villain Aristotle Kristatos in the James Bond film "For Your Eyes Only" (1981) and the deceptive American Nazi Walter Donavan in "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade" (1989). On television, he played the leading role of Sir Martin Lacey in the BBC English Civil War drama series "By the Sword Divided"., and played the guest role of surgeon Arnold Richardson in a 1989 episode of the BBC medical drama Casualty (he made a second guest appearance as a different character in 2011, and also appeared as a different character again in the sister series Holby City in 2000). In the 2002 film version of "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets", Glover voiced the giant spider Aragog. Glover has been associated with the Anglo-Saxon epic poem "Beowulf" since the 1980s, delivering various forms of staged interpretation. Taking the role of an Anglo-Saxon gleeman or traveller poet, he delivers an abridged version of the tale while stood around a mead hall hearth. This Old English text, set in the dark Nordic–Germanic world of the Geats, examines Anglo-Saxon concepts of honour and comitatus. The performance is interspersed with Glover rendering selected passages in the original Old English. This adaptation has been shown in documentaries on both the English language and Anglo-Saxon England. It was shown in Michael Wood's documentary "Beowulf", broadcast during the BBC Poetry Season on BBC Four and BBC Two in 2009. Glover recently played the role of Mr. Brownlow in the West End revival of the musical "Oliver!" at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane. In the short film "Battle for Britain" (2010), Glover played a 101 year-old Polish veteran Royal Air Force pilot. Since 2011, Glover has portrayed the character of Grand Maester Pycelle in HBO's "Game of Thrones", the television adaptation of the first three volumes of George R. R. Martin's fantasy novel series "A Song of Ice and Fire". Glover is an Associate Member of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. Glover played the role of General Beauvilliers in the BBC Four drama series "The Spies of Warsaw" in 2013. Awards. He was awarded the Laurence Olivier Award in 1993 (1992 season) for Best Supporting Actor for "Henry V" at the Royal Shakespeare Company. In the Queen's Birthday Honours 2013 Glover was appointed a Commander of The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire "for services to drama".
1071964	Vampire Girl vs. Frankenstein Girl (吸血少女対少女フランケン, Kyūketsu Shōjo tai Shōjo Furanken) is a 2009 Japanese gore film. It was directed by Yoshihiro Nishimura and Naoyuki Tomomatsu and premiered at the New York Asian Film Festival in June 2009. It is based on a manga of the same name by Shungiku Uchida. Plot. In a typical Tokyo High School a perpetually teenage vampire named Monami (Yukie Kawamura) falls for her classmate, Mizushima (Takumi Saito), who happens to already be the reluctant boyfriend to the vice-principal/science professor's daughter, Keiko (Eri Otoguro), a leader of a Sweet Lolita gang. The ensuing love triangle leads Keiko to seek the assistance of her father who, unbeknown to his daughter, moonlights as a Kabuki-clad mad scientist with the school nurse as his assistant. The pair experiment on students in the school basement hoping to discover the secret of reanimating corpses (akin to the work of Victor Frankenstein). Their hopes are answered when they discover a solution of Monami's blood holds the properties to bring life to dead body parts and inanimate objects. The story begins to unfold after Mizushima carelessly accepts a honmei choco spiked with Monami's blood, causing him to become a half vampire. When Keiko discovers their secret, she attacks Monami but accidentally throws herself off the school roof in the process. Her premature death leads to her father using the blood solution to transform her into a vicious Frankenstein's monster determined to get revenge against Monami. From then on Monami and Keiko battle each other in the pursuit of winning Mizushima's heart, regardless of his feelings towards either of them. Monami ultimately kills Keiko by using her powers to turn droplets of her blood into spikes that rip the flesh off the latter's body and leaves her skeleton impaled at the top of Tokyo Tower. At the end Keiko's father turns himself in a Franken Advanced Composite Life Form with use of Monami's blood. Subculture references. The film parodies subcultures prevalent in Japan, including Ganguro and Lolita. Wrist cutting is a theme that returns from Nishimura's 2008 film, Tokyo Gore Police. Release. In the United States, the film was released on 26 June 2009 from American Film Market.
1104206	Kenneth Ira Appel (October 8, 1932 – April 19, 2013) was an American mathematician who in 1976, with colleague Wolfgang Haken at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, solved one of the most famous problems in mathematics, the four-color theorem. They proved that any two-dimensional map, with certain limitations, can be filled in with four colors without any adjacent "countries" sharing the same color. Biography. Appel was born in Brooklyn, New York, on October 8, 1932, and he died in Dover, New Hampshire, on April 19, 2013, after contracting esophageal cancer in October 2012. He grew up in Queens, New York, and was the son of Irwin Appel and Lillian Sender Appel. He worked as an actuary for a brief time and then served in the U.S. Army for two years at Fort Benning, Georgia, and in Baumholder, Germany. In 1959, he finished his doctoral program at the University of Michigan, and he also married Carole S. Stein in Philadelphia. After getting married, the couple moved to Princeton, New Jersey, where Kenneth worked for the Institute for Defense Analyses from 1959 to 1961. His main work at the Institute of Defense Analysis was doing research in cryptography. Towards the end of his life, in 2012, he was elected a Fellow of the American Mathematical Society. Kenneth Appel was also the treasurer of the Strafford County Democratic Committee. He played tennis through his early 50s, he was a lifelong stamp collector, a player of the game of Go and a baker of bread. He and Carole had two sons, Andrew W. Appel, a noted computer scientist, and Peter H. Appel, and a daughter, Laurel F. Appel, who died on March 4, 2013. Appel also has five grandchildren named Avi and Joseph Appel, Rebecca and Nathaniel Weir, and Carmen Appel. He was also a member of the Dover school board from 2010 until his death. Schooling and teaching. Kenneth Appel received his bachelor's degree from Queens College in 1953. After serving the army he attended the University of Michigan where he earned his M.A. in 1956, and then later his Ph.D. in 1959. Roger Lyndon was his doctoral advisor and is a mathematician whose main mathematical focus was in group theory. After working for the Institute for Defense Analyses, in 1969 he joined the Mathematics Department faculty at the University of Illinois as an Assistant Professor. While here Kenneth researched on group theory and computability theory. In 1967 he became an Associate Professor and in 1977 obtained the title of Professor. It was while he was at this school that he and Wolfgang Haken proved the four color theorem. From their work and proof of this theorem they were later awarded the Delbert Ray Fulkerson prize, in 1979, by the American Mathematical Society and the Mathematical Programming Society. While at the University of Illinois Kenneth took on five students during their doctoral program. Each student helped contribute to the work on the Mathematics Genealogy Project. In 1993 he moved to New Hampshire where he earned the position of the Chairman of the Mathematics Department at the University of New Hampshire. In 2003 Kenneth Appel's teaching career came to an end as he retired as professor emeritus. During his retirement he would volunteer in mathematics enrichment programs in Dover and southern Maine public schools. His belief was "that students should be afforded the opportunity to study mathematics at the level of their ability, even if it is well above their grade level." Contributions to mathematics. The four color theorem. Kenneth Appel is known for his work in topology, which is the branch of mathematics that explores certain properties of geometric figures. Mainly his biggest accomplishment was proving the four color theorem in 1976 with Wolfgang Haken. The New York Times wrote in 1976, "Now the four-color conjecture has been proved by two University of Illinois mathematicians, Kenneth Appel and Wolfgang Haken. They had an invaluable tool that earlier mathematicians lacked—modern computers. Their present proof rests in part on 1,200 hours of computer calculation during which about ten billion logical decisions had to be made. The proof of the four-color conjecture is unlikely to be of applied significance. Nevertheless, what has been accomplished is a major intellectual feat. It gives us an important new insight into the nature of two-dimensional space and of the ways in which such space can be broken into discrete portions." At first, most mathematicians were against the fact that Appel and Haken were using computers, since this was new at the time, and even Appel said, "Most mathematicians, even as late as the 1970s, had no real interest in learning about computers. It was almost as if those of us who enjoyed playing with computers were doing something nonmathematical or suspect." The actual proof was described in an article as long as a typical book titled "Every Planar Map is Four Colorable", Contemporary Mathematics, vol. 98, American Mathematical Society, 1989. The proof has been one of the most controversial of modern mathematics because of its heavy dependence on computer "number-crunching" to sort through possibilities, which drew criticism from many in the mathematical community for its inelegance: "a good mathematical proof is like a poem—this is a telephone directory!" Appel and Haken agreed in a 1977 interview that it was not "elegant, concise, and completely comprehensible by a human mathematical mind". Nevertheless, the proof was the start of a change in mathematicians' attitudes toward computers—which they had largely disdained as a tool for engineers rather than for theoreticians—leading to the creation of what is sometimes called "experimental mathematics". Group theory. Kenneth Appel also cowrote an article with P.E. Schupp titled "Artin Groups and Infinite Coxeter Groups". In this article Appel and Schupp introduced four theorems that are true about Coxeter groups and then proved them to be true for Artin groups. The proofs of these four theorems used "the results and methods of small cancellation theory."
1103527	In the field of numerical analysis, the condition number of a function with respect to an argument measures how much the output value of the function can change for a small change in the input argument. This is used to measure how sensitive a function is to changes or errors in the input, and how much error in the output results from an error in the input. Very frequently, one is solving the inverse problem – given formula_1 one is solving for "x," and thus the condition number of the (local) inverse must be used. The condition number is an application of the derivative, and is formally defined as the value of the asymptotic worst-case relative change in output for a relative change in input. The "function" is the solution of a problem and the "arguments" are the data in the problem. The condition number is frequently applied to questions in linear algebra, in which case the derivative is straightforward but the error could be in many different directions, and is thus computed from the geometry of the matrix. More generally, condition numbers can be defined for non-linear functions in several variables. A problem with a low condition number is said to be well-conditioned, while a problem with a high condition number is said to be ill-conditioned. The condition number is a property of the problem. Paired with the problem are any number of algorithms that can be used to solve the problem, that is, to calculate the solution. Some algorithms have a property called backward stability. In general, a backward stable algorithm can be expected to accurately solve well-conditioned problems. Numerical analysis textbooks give formulas for the condition numbers of problems and identify the backward stable algorithms. As a general rule of thumb, if the condition number formula_2, then you may lose up to formula_3 digits of accuracy on top of what would be lost to the numerical method due to loss of precision from arithmetic methods. However, the condition number does not give the exact value of the maximum inaccuracy that may occur in the algorithm. It generally just bounds it with an estimate (whose computed value depends on the choice of the norm to measure the inaccuracy). Matrices. For example, the condition number associated with the linear equation "Ax" = "b" gives a bound on how inaccurate the solution "x" will be after approximation. Note that this is before the effects of round-off error are taken into account; conditioning is a property of the matrix, not the algorithm or floating point accuracy of the computer used to solve the corresponding system. In particular, one should think of the condition number as being (very roughly) the rate at which the solution, "x", will change with respect to a change in "b". Thus, if the condition number is large, even a small error in "b" may cause a large error in "x". On the other hand, if the condition number is small then the error in "x" will not be much bigger than the error in "b". The condition number is defined more precisely to be the maximum ratio of the relative error in "x" divided by the relative error in "b". Let "e" be the error in "b". Assuming that "A" is a square matrix, the error in the solution "A"−1"b" is "A"−1"e". The ratio of the relative error in the solution to the relative error in "b" is This is easily transformed to The maximum value (for nonzero "b" and "e") is easily seen to be the product of the two operator norms: The same definition is used for any consistent norm, i.e. one that satisfies When the condition number is exactly one, then the algorithm may find an approximation of the solution with an arbitrary precision. However it does not mean that the algorithm will converge rapidly to this solution, just that it won't diverge arbitrarily because of inaccuracy on the source data (backward error), provided that the forward error introduced by the algorithm does not diverge as well because of accumulating intermediate rounding errors. The condition number may also be infinite, in which case the algorithm will not reliably find a solution to the problem, not even a weak approximation of it (and not even its order of magnitude) with any reasonable and provable accuracy. Of course, this definition depends on the choice of norm: If the condition number is close to one, the matrix is well conditioned which means its inverse can be computed with good accuracy. If the condition number is large, then the matrix is said to be ill-conditioned. Practically, such a matrix is almost singular, and the computation of its inverse, or solution of a linear system of equations is prone to large numerical errors. A matrix that is not invertible has the condition number equal to infinity. Non-linear. Condition numbers can also defined for nonlinear functions, and can be computed using calculus. The condition number varies with the point; in some cases one can use the maximum (or supremum) condition number over the domain of the function or domain of the question as an overall condition number, while in other cases the condition number at a particular point is of more interest. One variable. The condition number of a differentiable function "f" in one variable as a function is formula_26 Evaluated at a point "x" this is: Most elegantly, this can be understood as (the absolute value of) the ratio of the logarithmic derivative of "f," which is formula_28 and the logarithmic derivative of "x," which is formula_29 yielding a ratio of formula_26 This is because the logarithmic derivative is the infinitesimal rate of relative change in a function: it is the derivative formula_31 scaled by the value of "f." Note that if a function has a zero at a point, its condition number at the point is infinite, as infinitesimal changes in the input can change the output from zero to positive or negative, yielding a ratio with zero in the denominator, hence infinite relative change. More directly, given a small change formula_32 in "x," the relative change in "x" is formula_33 while the relative change in formula_34 is formula_35 Taking the ratio yields: The last term is the difference quotient (the slope of the secant line), and taking the limit yields the derivative. Condition numbers of common elementary functions are particularly important in computing significant figures, and can be computed immediately from the derivative; see significance arithmetic of transcendental functions. A few important ones are given below: Several variables. Condition numbers can be defined for any function "ƒ" mapping its data from some domain (e.g. an "m"-tuple of real numbers "x") into some codomain an "n"-tuple of real numbers "ƒ"("x"), where both the domain and codomain are Banach spaces. They express how sensitive that function is to small changes (or small errors) in its arguments. This is crucial in assessing the sensitivity and potential accuracy difficulties of numerous computational problems, for example polynomial root finding or computing eigenvalues.
1039467	Jennifer Anne Ehle (; born December 29, 1969) is an American-English actress of stage and screen. She is well known for her BAFTA winning role as Elizabeth Bennet in the successful 1995 miniseries "Pride and Prejudice". She has also appeared in supporting roles in such films as "Wilde" (1997), "Sunshine" (1999), "The King's Speech" (2010), "Contagion" (2011), "Zero Dark Thirty" (2012) and the upcoming "RoboCop" (2014). Ehle starred in the short-lived American television series "A Gifted Man." She is the daughter of actress Rosemary Harris and author John Ehle. Early life. Ehle was born in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, to English actress Rosemary Harris and American author John Ehle. Her ancestry includes Romanian (from a maternal great-grandmother), English, and German. Ehle made her stage debut as a toddler in a 1973 Broadway revival of "A Streetcar Named Desire", in which her mother played Blanche DuBois. She spent her childhood in both the UK and the US, attending 18 different schools, including Interlochen Arts Academy. She was raised largely in Asheville, North Carolina. Her drama training was split between the North Carolina School of the Arts and the Central School of Speech and Drama in London. Career. In 1992, Peter Hall cast her as Calypso in a television adaptation of Mary Wesley's novel "The Camomile Lawn", in which she and her mother played the same character at different ages. This story, produced by UK's Channel 4, was a five part miniseries about the lives and loves of a family of cousins from 1939 to the present. The two would later reprise this different age portrayal of a character as Valerie in István Szabó's 1999 movie "Sunshine". Her performance as Elizabeth Bennet in the BBC 1995 television adaptation of Jane Austen's classic "Pride and Prejudice" earned her a British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) award. After a stint with the Royal Shakespeare Company, she gained her first major feature film role in "Paradise Road". She continued her career on both stage and screen. In 2000, she received further critical acclaim for her Broadway debut as Annie in Tom Stoppard's "The Real Thing," winning both a Theatre World Award and the Tony Award for Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a Play. Her mother was also nominated for the same award that year for "Waiting in the Wings". After a hiatus, Ehle returned to the stage in 2005 in "The Philadelphia Story" at the Old Vic opposite Kevin Spacey. The following year, she played Lady Macbeth in "Macbeth" as part of the Shakespeare in the Park, and won her second Tony award for portraying three characters in Stoppard's "The Coast of Utopia" triptych, which ran from October 2006 until May 2007. Her more recent film work includes "Before the Rains", an Indian-US co-production directed by Santosh Sivan, and "Pride and Glory" with Edward Norton and Colin Farrell. In 2008, she was featured in the CBS telefilm "The Russell Girl". In August 2009, it was announced that Ehle would play the character of Catelyn Stark in the pilot of HBO's "Game of Thrones", an adaptation of George R.R. Martin's "A Song Of Ice And Fire" fantasy book series. Ehle filmed the pilot episode, but when HBO ordered the series, it was announced that she would be replaced by Northern Irish actress Michelle Fairley. Much of the pilot was reshot, with Fairley replacing Ehle in all scenes involving Catelyn Stark. Ehle gave up the role for personal reasons, but remains an avid fan of the series. In 2010, Ehle starred alongside John Lithgow in the production of "Mr. & Mrs. Fitch" presented by Second Stage Theatre. She played Myrtle Logue, wife of King George VI's speech therapist Lionel Logue, in "The King's Speech". George was played by her "Pride and Prejudice" costar Colin Firth. In 2011, Ehle played Dr. Ally Hextall in Steven Soderbergh's critically acclaimed "Contagion". In the autumn of 2011, Ehle began a costarring role in the American television series "A Gifted Man." Her character is a ghost who visits with her ex-husband and asks him to assist with her low-income clinic. In 2012, Ehle played CIA officer Jessica in "Zero Dark Thirty". Personal life. During the filming of "Pride and Prejudice", Ehle began a brief relationship with costar Colin Firth. She married writer Michael Ryan on November 29, 2001, and they have two children: a son, George, born on February 6, 2003, and a daughter, Talulah, born on March 4, 2009.
1067649	Three to Tango is a 1999 romantic comedy film starring Matthew Perry, Neve Campbell, Dylan McDermott and Oliver Platt. Plot. Set amidst Chicago's swing music revival of the late 1990s, Oscar Novak (Perry), an aspiring architect and his business partner, Peter Steinberg (Platt), have just landed a career-making opportunity with a Chicago tycoon Charles Newman (McDermott) who has chosen them to compete for the design of a multimillion dollar cultural center. In a ploy for publicity, Newman has pitched Oscar and Peter in a neck-and-neck competition with their archrivals and former colleagues, the hugely successful (and equally ruthless) Decker and Strauss. In a comic twist Oscar is mistaken for a gay man when meeting with Charles Newman (made even more humorous by the fact that Peter is genuinely gay, with Oscar's comments leading Newman to think that Peter's the straight one). Under the mistaken impression that Oscar is homosexual, and therefore a safe companion for his girlfriend Amy (Campbell), he asks Oscar to keep an eye on her for him and make sure that she doesn't talk to his wife. Oscar falls for Amy virtually on sight, but she thinks he's gay. He is forced to maintain the charade to avoid getting into trouble with Newman, and losing the commission. Matters become complicated when a news article about Oscar and Peter's homosexual status is published in the Business paper, leaving Oscar in the increasingly frustrating position of having to fend off advances from various gay men while convincing his friends and family that he is simply "pretending" to be gay; Amy even sets him up on a date with her ex-boyfriend, football player Kevin Cartwright, but Oscar manages to defuse the situation by saying that he's in love with someone else. Despite the embarrassing misconceptions, Oscar forms a close bond with Amy as they continue to spend time together-to the extent that Amy moves in with him after she is kicked out of her apartment-Amy sharing various personal stories with Oscar. At the final presentation for the cultural center, Oscar and Peter receive the commission, but Oscar is simultaneously told that he has won the award for Gay Professional Man of the Year, with Newman deciding that he will reveal his decision after the ceremony. After an awkward meeting between Amy and Newman's wife at the party, she and Oscar go to a bar, but Amy leaves in frustration after she nearly kisses him, prompting a brief argument between her and Oscar where Oscar states that her relationship with Newman has no future, with the only reason they haven't argued after over a year being that Newman doesn't care enough to fight with her, while Amy counters that Oscar is hardly in a position to give her advice on romance, having simply been playing it safe by spending time with her as he hasn't been on a date since she met him. After spending the day alone, Oscar attends the award ceremony for Gay Professional Man of the Year. Although he initially continues his charade, while looking out at the people before him, he instead makes a passionate speech about how he admires all the men and women here who were able to tell the truth to their families about how they feel, ending the speech by "coming out of the closet" as he admits that he's straight and in love with Amy; even if he simultaneously destroys any hope of being with her by doing so, he felt that everyone in the room deserves the same kind of honesty that they have given their own families. As he is applauded for having the courage to admit the truth, he runs after Amy, only for her to punch him and Newman before walking out of the theatre in a rage, leaving Peter to accept a date with Kevin. However, as Oscar sits in a restaurant where he and Amy ate together on the night they met, Amy comes to see him, admitting that she loves him too, followed by their first kiss. In a post-credit sequence, Newman's wife convinces him to go with Oscar and Peter's design despite his own claims to go with the other firm, revealing that she knew about him and Amy and informing him bluntly that Oscar and Peter did the better job. Reception. Rotten Tomatoes gives the film a rating of 29% based on 63 reviews. Trivia. The idea of Perry playing a straight character who is mistaken for a homosexual is used as a joke in his role as Chandler Bing in "Friends", although in Chandler's case the assumption was never taken to the extreme that it was in this film. When watching a football game featuring the character Kevin Cartwright, real life University of Michigan football play-by-play announcer Frank Beckmann can be heard saying the name of former kicker Pete Elezovick.
1376236	Elizabeth Ann Guttman (born September 11, 1961), better known by her stage names of Elizabeth Daily and E.G. Daily, is an American voice actress, actress, and singer-songwriter.
400491	Paul Robert Rust (born April 12, 1981) is an American actor, comedian and writer. Life and career. Rust was born in Le Mars, Iowa, to Jeanne and Bob Rust. He was raised Catholic and attended Gehlen Catholic High School, subsequently graduating from the University of Iowa in May 2004. Rust is best known as a stand-up and sketch comedian at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theater (UCBT) in Los Angeles. At UCBT, he is currently a member of the sketch comedy groups "A Kiss From Daddy" and "Last Day of School". He has been a guest on the "Battleship Pretension" podcast, discussing the films of Steven Spielberg and made appearances in the films "Paper Heart" and "Inglourious Basterds". He made his most high profile acting role in the summer of 2009, playing the male lead in the film "I Love You, Beth Cooper". Rust has written for television programs such as "Human Giant" and "Moral Orel". Rust and comedienne Charlyne Yi formed the band "The Glass Beef" in 2006. The two appeared together in a video for 'Song Away' by Hockey. He is also the lead singer and bass player in the comedy rock trio "Don't Stop or We'll Die", with fellow comedians Michael Cassady and Harris Wittels. In November 2010, Rust appeared in the Comedy Central sketch comedy special ""This Show Will Get You High"", created by and starring Matt Besser. He is currently working with Paul Ruebens on writing an upcoming Pee-Wee Herman film, that will be produced by Judd Apatow. Rust appears as a frequent guest on the "Comedy Bang Bang" podcast, where he is best known for his "New No Nos" segment. Rust currently writes for IFC's "Comedy Bang Bang" and also worked as a writer and story editor on the revived for Netflix 4th season of "Arrested Development" in 2013.
1068379	Rory Cochrane (born February 28, 1972) is an American actor. He is known for playing Ron Slater in "Dazed and Confused", Lucas in "Empire Records", and Tim Speedle in "". Life and career. Cochrane was born in Syracuse, New York. Cochrane's first roles included a part in a docudrama about drugs on "Saturday Night with Connie Chung" (1989) and an appearance in an episode of "H.E.L.P." (1990). He then made his film debut (with about fifteen seconds' screen time) in "A Kiss Before Dying", followed by his first substantial role as Jeff Goldblum's son in "Fathers & Sons". Cochrane played major roles in the films "Empire Records" and "Dazed and Confused", with Jason London and Ben Affleck, and appeared in "Hart's War" starring Bruce Willis & Colin Farrell. He also appeared in the Richard Linklater film "A Scanner Darkly" (2006). Cochrane reprised his role as Tim Speedle on "CSI: Miami" in the episode "Bang, Bang, Your Debt", as a hallucination to Det. Eric Delko.
1712291	The Dollars Trilogy (), also known as the Man with No Name Trilogy, refers to the three Spaghetti Westerns starring Clint Eastwood and directed by Sergio Leone: "A Fistful of Dollars" (1964), "For a Few Dollars More" (1965), and "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly" (1966).
586052	Irupatham Noottandu (English: "Twentieth Century") is a 1987 Malayalam film directed by K. Madhu and featuring Mohanlal, Suresh Gopi, Ambika, and Jagathy Sreekumar. It became one of the biggest blockbusters in Malayalam film history. The film grossed more than Rs. 4.5 crores at the box office. The script was writtern by S. N. Swamy. The film also has an unofficial sequel in 2009 "Sagar Alias Jacky Reloaded". Plot. The story is about Sagar Alias Jacky (Mohanlal) & his accomplice Sekharankutty (Suresh Gopi). Ashwathy (Ambika) is a reporter for a newsmagazine looking to investigate the connection between politics and crime in Kerala. She is drawn to the life of Sagar alias Jacky who runs a clandestine gold smuggling business for Sekharankutty, son of the State Chief Minister. Jacky is an enigmatic character who stops the smuggling business from growing because of ethical issues with narcotics, and spends his personal time Ashwathy publishes a sensational article connecting Jacky to the Chief Minister, and pushes the uneasy relationship between Sekharankutty and Jacky into an open confrontation. Srinath & Jagathy also play important roles.Indian Revenue Service officials have been shown in good light in this film.
1057967	The Boat That Rocked (retitled Pirate Radio in North America) is a 2009 British comedy film written and directed by Richard Curtis, with pirate radio in the United Kingdom during the 1960s as its setting. The film has an ensemble cast featuring Philip Seymour Hoffman, Bill Nighy, Rhys Ifans, Nick Frost, and Kenneth Branagh. Set in 1966, it tells the story of the fictitious pirate radio station "Radio Rock" and its crew of eclectic disc jockeys, who broadcast rock and pop music to the United Kingdom from a ship anchored in the North Sea while the British government endeavours to shut them down. It was produced by Working Title Films for Universal Pictures, and was filmed on the Isle of Portland and at Shepperton Studios. The film opened 1 April 2009 and was a commercial failure at the British box office, making only £6.1 million in its first twelve weeks, less than a quarter of its over £30 million production cost. It received mixed reviews, with most criticism directed at its muddled storyline and 2¼-hour length. For its North American release it was re-edited to trim its running time by twenty minutes, and retitled "Pirate Radio". Opening 13 November 2009, "Pirate Radio" was still commercially unsuccessful, earning only about (approximately £5 million). Plot. In 1966, numerous pirate radio stations broadcast to the United Kingdom from ships anchored in international waters, specializing in rock and pop music that is not played on BBC Radio. Seventeen year-old Carl (Tom Sturridge), recently expelled from school, is sent to stay with his godfather Quentin (Bill Nighy), who runs the station "Radio Rock" anchored in the North Sea. The eclectic crew of disc jockeys and staffers, led by the brash American DJ "The Count" (Philip Seymour Hoffman), quickly accept Carl as one of their own.
1001188	"Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog" is a 2008 musical tragicomedy miniseries in three acts, produced exclusively for Internet distribution. Filmed and set in Los Angeles, the show tells the story of Dr. Horrible (played by Neil Patrick Harris), an aspiring supervillain; Captain Hammer (Nathan Fillion), his nemesis; and Penny (Felicia Day), their shared love interest. The movie was written by writer/director Joss Whedon, his brothers Zack Whedon (a television writer) and Jed Whedon (a composer), and writer/actress Maurissa Tancharoen. The team wrote the musical during the 2007–2008 Writers Guild of America strike. The idea was to create something small and inexpensive, yet professionally done, in a way that would circumvent the issues that were being protested during the strike. Reception has been overwhelmingly positive. On October 31, 2008, "Time" magazine named it #15 in "Times Top 50 Inventions of 2008. It also won the People's Choice Award for "Favorite Online Sensation", and the 2009 Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form. In the inaugural 2009 Streamy Awards for web television, "Dr. Horrible" won seven awards: Audience Choice Award for Best Web Series, Best Directing for a Comedy Web Series, Best Writing for a Comedy Web Series, Best Male Actor in a Comedy Web Series (Harris), Best Editing, Best Cinematography, and Best Original Music. It also won a 2009 Creative Arts Emmy Award for Outstanding Special Class – Short-format Live-Action Entertainment Programs. Plot. "Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog" consists of three acts of approximately 14 minutes each. They were first released online in July 2008 as individual episodes, with two-day intervals between each release. Act I. Dr. Horrible is filming an entry for his video blog, giving updates on his schemes and responding to various emails from his viewers. Asked about the "her" that he often mentions, he launches into a song about Penny, the girl he likes from the laundromat ("My Freeze Ray"). The song is cut short by his "evil moisture buddy" Moist, who brings up a letter from Bad Horse, the leader of the Evil League of Evil. The letter informs Dr. Horrible that his application for entry into the League will be evaluated, and that they will be watching for his next heinous crime ("Bad Horse Chorus"). The following day, Horrible prepares to steal a case of wonderflonium for his time-stopping Freeze Ray by commandeering the courier van using a remote control device. Penny happens to be on the same street ("Caring Hands"), and appears asking him to sign a petition to turn a condemned city building into a homeless shelter. However, the remote requires his attention, and he appears uninterested in her and her cause. As Penny leaves, Horrible is conflicted, but opts to steal the wonderflonium, telling himself that 'A man's gotta do what a man's gotta do' ("A Man's Gotta Do"). When Horrible remotely drives the van away, Captain Hammer appears and takes over Horrible's song, smashing the remote control receiver and inadvertently causing the van to veer towards Penny. Hammer pushes her out of the way (into a pile of garbage) just as Horrible regains control of the van and stops it, making it appear that Captain Hammer stopped the van with his bare hands. The two confront each other, with Hammer slamming Horrible's head on the van's hood, but Penny emerges to thank Hammer, making him forget about beating up Dr. Horrible. As Hammer and Penny serenade each other, Horrible makes off with the wonderflonium. Act II. Dr. Horrible stalks Penny and Captain Hammer on their dates; Horrible sings of the misery of the human condition, and Penny sings of hope and the possibility of redemption ("My Eyes"). Penny and Horrible, known to her as Billy, begin to talk openly as friends. On his blog, Horrible reveals that his Freeze Ray has been completed, and that he plans to use it the next day. The following post reveals that he has failed, as Hammer and the LAPD watch his blog, and they were ready for him. He then receives a phone call from Bad Horse and is reprimanded, saying that the only way to be inducted now is to commit an assassination ("Bad Horse Chorus (Reprise)"). Horrible is conflicted and can't decide on a victim, or even if he wants to commit a murder at all, even though the League will deny his application if he doesn't. Billy chats with Penny over frozen yogurt, at the laundromat, about his problems ("Penny's Song"). As they grow closer, Penny mentions that Captain Hammer is planning to drop by. Billy panics and tries to leave, only to run into Hammer as he walks in. They feign ignorance on recognizing each other, but when Penny leaves them alone, Hammer taunts Horrible about his crush on Penny, happy to be taking the thing that Dr. Horrible wants most. It becomes obvious that Hammer doesn't really care about Penny but just wants to sleep with her to spite Horrible. Horrible decides to kill Hammer as his heinous crime for admission to Bad Horse's Evil League of Evil ("Brand New Day"). Act III. The city is abuzz with Captain Hammer's crusade to help the homeless and he is considered the city's new hero; Penny ponders her relationship with Captain Hammer, waiting at the laundromat to share frozen yogurt with an absent Billy; and Dr. Horrible goes into seclusion while obsessively constructing a Death Ray to kill Captain Hammer once and for all ("So They Say"). At the opening for the new homeless shelter, where a statue of Captain Hammer will be unveiled, Captain Hammer begins a speech of encouragement to the homeless, but it degenerates into selfish, condescending praise of his own excellence and relationship with Penny ("Everyone's a Hero"). Penny, embarrassed and disillusioned, quietly tries to leave as the crowd joins in singing Hammer's song, but they are interrupted by the appearance of Dr. Horrible, who uses the Freeze Ray on Captain Hammer, cutting his song short. Dr. Horrible taunts the shocked crowd and declares that they cannot recognize that Hammer's disguise is "slipping", and he reveals a second, more lethal laser gun: his completed Death Ray ("Slipping"). At last, Horrible aims the lethal weapon at the frozen form of Captain Hammer, but hesitates. At that moment the Freeze Ray unexpectedly fails, and a suddenly revived Hammer punches Horrible across the room. The Death Ray falls from his hands, damaging it. Hammer then picks up the Death Ray, turns it on Horrible, and triumphantly completes the final note of his prior song. However, ignoring Dr. Horrible's warnings, Hammer pulls the trigger and the damaged Death Ray misfires. The weapon explodes in Hammer's hands, injuring him and causing him to feel pain, apparently for the first time in his life. He flees, a wailing wreck, asking for "someone maternal." Dr. Horrible realizes suddenly that he has succeeded in vanquishing his nemesis, but still having not committed the murder required by the League. Unfortunately, he discovers Penny slumped against a wall, gored by shrapnel from the exploding gun. Tragically, she dies in Horrible's arms, deliriously reassuring him that Captain Hammer will save them. Dr. Horrible declares a Pyrrhic victory, with "the world wanted, at [his feet," seeing that her death is ironically the murder he required. In the aftermath, Horrible gains infamy and is free to commit additional crimes unfettered by Captain Hammer. Horrible becomes a member of the League, striding into a party in celebration of his induction, attended by Moist and the villains Pink Pummeller and Purple Pimp. Meanwhile, Captain Hammer is seen on a psychiatric couch sobbing to his therapist. Dr. Horrible, donning a new outfitred coat, black gloves and his goggles covering his eyestakes his seat at the League, composed of fellow super-villains Tie-Die, Snake Bite, Professor Normal, Dead Bowie, Fake Thomas Jefferson, Fury Leika, and Bad Horse (an actual horse). He addresses the camera, saying, "now the nightmare's real," and in working "to make the whole world kneel," that " won't feel...". He completes the line "...a thing," in a final blog post as Billy, out of costume, looking numb and lost in the midst of his lab. ("Everything You Ever") Soundtrack. The musical contains 14 songs, including credits and reprises, but at the time of broadcast the song titles were not identified. The soundtrack was released through the iTunes Store on September 1, 2008 and was released on CD in the US on December 15, 2008. "Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog" Soundtrack made the top 40 Album list on release, despite being a digital exclusive only available on iTunes. Cast. Several colleagues of Joss Whedon have cameo roles in the series. Marti Noxon, an executive producer on "Buffy the Vampire Slayer", portrays a newsreader alongside "Buffy" and "Angel" writer David Fury. "Buffy" and "Angel" writers Doug Petrie and Drew Goddard cameo as supervillains Professor Normal and Fake Thomas Jefferson, respectively. Jed, Joss, and Zack Whedon all provide the singing voices of Bad Horse Chorus. Zack also plays the man who rolls the gurney with Penny on it out of frame, and Jed Whedon also appears as the supervillain Dead Bowie, while Maurissa Tancharoen plays a superhero/supervillain groupie as well as the background voice on "Everything You Ever." Production. Joss Whedon funded the project himself (at just over $200,000) and enjoyed the independence of acting as his own studio. "Freedom is glorious," he comments. "And the fact is, I've had very good relationships with studios, and I've worked with a lot of smart executives. But there is a difference when you can just go ahead and do something." As a web show, there were fewer constraints imposed on the project, and Whedon had the "freedom to just let the dictates of the story say how long it's gonna be. We didn't have to cram everything in—there is a lot in there—but we put in the amount of story that we wanted to and let the time work around that. We aimed for thirty minutes, we came out at forty two, and that's not a problem." Some of the music was influenced by Stephen Sondheim. The production of the DVD included a contest, announced at Comic-Con, in which fans submitted a three-minute video explaining why they should be inducted into the Evil League of Evil. Ten winning submissions have been added to the DVD release. Recording locations. "Dr. Horrible" was recorded at a number of Los Angeles area locations: Distribution. Whedon has said that the plan was to find a venue for the series that would enable it to earn its money back and pay the crew. This plan was to release the show onto the Internet, with an iTunes release to follow. If the Internet and iTunes releases were successful enough, Whedon planned to greenlight an official DVD, which would include some "amazing extras". The musical's fansite launched in March 2008 (despite the official site containing nothing more than a poster at the time) and was the first place to publicly release the teaser trailer three months later on June 25, 2008. Online. The episodes first aired at the Official "Dr. Horrible" website, hosted on Hulu, accessible internationally (unusual for the US-based service whose videos are typically not accessible to Internet users who reside outside the US) and free to watch (ad-supported). Act I premiered on Tuesday, July 15, 2008Act II followed two days later on July 17, and Act III surfaced on July 19. The episodes were taken offline on July 20 as planned, but became available again on July 28. The show was later (date unknown) restricted to the United States only.
1067246	Summer Rental is a 1985 comedy film, directed by Carl Reiner and starring John Candy. The film's screenplay was written by Mark Reisman and Jeremy Stevens. An original music score was composed for the film by Alan Silvestri. Plot summary. Overworked air-traffic controller Jack Chester takes his wife Sandy and children Jennifer, Bobby and Laurie on a summer vacation from the Atlanta area to fictitious Citrus Cove, Florida, during which they are constantly beset by a never-ending barrage of problems. First they move into the wrong house by mistake, then Jack receives a leg injury that prevents him from being able to spend time with his family. The family ends up in a fairly decrepit shack on a public beach in Florida, with a constant stream of vacationers tromping through. Jack locks horns with pompous local sailing champion Al Pellet, the owner of this dubious piece of real estate. About to be evicted early, Jack proposes a wager—if he can win this year's regatta, Al must allow the Chesters to stay rent-free. The trouble is, Jack hasn't sailed for many years and he doesn't even have a boat. Scully, a local saloon keeper with a pirate's mentality, befriends Jack and volunteers to help him on both counts.
1100868	Jacob Alexander Lurie (born 7 December 1977) is an American mathematician, who is a professor at Harvard University. Life. In seventh grade, Lurie participated in Johns Hopkins University's Center for Talented Youth. While in high school, Lurie took part in the International Mathematical Olympiad, where he won a gold medal with a perfect score in 1994. He performed slightly worse in 1995, but still managed to win a silver medal. In 1996 he took first place in the Westinghouse Science Talent Search and was featured in a front-page story in "Washington Times". He graduated from the Science, Mathematics, and Computer Science Magnet Program at Montgomery Blair High School. Lurie earned his Bachelor's degree in mathematics from Harvard College in 2000 and was awarded in the same year the Morgan Prize for his undergraduate thesis on Lie algebras. He earned his Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology under supervision of Michael J. Hopkins, in 2004 with a thesis on derived algebraic geometry. In 2007, he became associate professor at MIT, and in 2009 he became professor at Harvard. Mathematical work. Lurie's research interests started with logic and the theory of surreal numbers, while he was still in school. He is especially known for his work, starting with his thesis, on infinity-categories and derived algebraic geometry. Derived algebraic geometry is a way of infusing homotopical methods into algebraic geometry both to get deeper insight into algebraic geometry (e.g. into intersection theory) and to use methods of algebraic geometry in stable homotopy theory. The latter is the topic of Lurie's work on elliptic cohomology. Infinity categories (in the form of Joyal's quasi-categories) are a convenient framework to do homotopy theory in abstract settings. They are the main topic of his book "Higher Topos Theory". Another part of Lurie's work, is his article on topological field theories, where he sketches a classification of extended field theories using the language of infinity-categories.
1062660	Young Frankenstein is a 1974 American comedy film directed by Mel Brooks and starring Gene Wilder as the title character, a descendant of the infamous Dr. Victor Frankenstein. The supporting cast includes Teri Garr, Cloris Leachman, Marty Feldman, Peter Boyle, Madeline Kahn, Kenneth Mars, Richard Haydn and Gene Hackman. The screenplay was written by Wilder and Brooks. The film is an affectionate parody of the classical horror film genre, in particular the various film adaptations of Mary Shelley's novel "Frankenstein" produced by Universal in the 1930s. Most of the lab equipment used as props were created by Kenneth Strickfaden for the 1931 film "Frankenstein". To further reflect the atmosphere of the earlier films, Brooks shot the picture entirely in black-and-white, a rarity in the 1970s, and employed 1930s-style opening credits and scene transitions such as iris outs, wipes, and fades to black. The film also features a notable period score by Brooks' longtime composer John Morris. A critical favorite and box office smash, "Young Frankenstein" ranks No. 28 on "Total Film" magazine's "List of the 50 Greatest Comedy Films of All Time", number 56 on Bravo TV's list of the "100 Funniest Movies", and number 13 on the American Film Institute's list of the 100 funniest American movies. In 2003, it was deemed "culturally, historically or aesthetically significant" by the United States National Film Preservation Board, and selected for preservation in the Library of Congress National Film Registry. Plot. Dr. Frederick Frankenstein (Gene Wilder) is a physician lecturer at an American medical school and engaged to the tightly wound actress Elizabeth (Madeline Kahn). He becomes exasperated when anyone brings up the subject of his grandfather, the infamous mad scientist. To disassociate himself from his legacy, Frederick insists that his surname be pronounced "Fronk-en-steen". When a solicitor informs him that he has inherited his family's estate in Transylvania after the death of his great grandfather, the Baron Alphonse von Frankenstein, Frederick travels to Europe to inspect the property. At the Transylvania train station, he is met by a hunchbacked, bulging-eyed servant named Igor, pronounced as "eye-gore" (Marty Feldman), and a lovely young personal assistant named Inga (Teri Garr). Upon arrival at the estate, Frederick meets the forbidding housekeeper Frau Blücher (Cloris Leachman), whose name causes horses to rear up and neigh madly in fright. Though his family legacy has brought shame and ridicule, Frederick becomes increasingly intrigued about his grandfather's work, especially after Inga assists him in discovering the secret entrance to his grandfather's laboratory. Upon reading his grandfather's private journals, Frederick is so transformed that he decides to resume his grandfather's experiments in re-animating the dead. He and Igor resort to robbing the grave of a recently executed criminal, and Frederick sets to work experimenting on the large corpse. Matters go awry, however, when Igor is sent to steal the brain of a deceased revered scientist, Hans Delbruck; startled by lightning, he drops and ruins Delbruck's brain. Taking a second brain, Igor returns with a brain labeled "Do Not Use This Brain! Abnormal" (which he subsequently refers to as "A-b (Abby) Normal"), which Frederick unknowingly transplants into the corpse. Soon, Frederick is ready to re-animate his creature (Peter Boyle), who is elevated on a platform to the roof of the laboratory during a lightning storm. Eventually, electrical charges bring the creature to life. The creature makes its first halting steps, but, frightened by Igor lighting a match, attacks Frederick and must be sedated. Upon being asked whose brain was obtained, Igor confesses that he supplied "Abby Normal's" (abnormal) brain, unknowingly creating the Monster. The townspeople are uneasy at the possibility of Frederick continuing his grandfather's work. Most concerned is Inspector Kemp (Kenneth Mars), a police official who sports an eyepatch and monocle over the same eye, a creaky, disjointed wooden arm, and an accent so comically thick even his own countrymen cannot understand him. Kemp visits the doctor and subsequently demands assurance that he will not create another monster. Upon returning to the lab, Frederick discovers that Frau Blücher is setting the creature free. After she reveals the Monster's love of violin music, and her own romantic relationship with Frederick's grandfather, the creature is enraged by sparks from a thrown switch, and escapes from the Frankenstein castle. While roaming the countryside, the Monster has frustrating encounters with a young girl and a blind hermit (Gene Hackman); these scenes directly parody the original Frankenstein movies. Frederick recaptures the Monster and locks the two of them in a room, where he calms the Monster's homicidal tendencies with flattery and fully acknowledges his own heritage, shouting out emphatically, "My name is Frankenstein!" (with the normal pronunciation). Frederick offers the sight of "The Creature" following simple commands to a theater full of illustrious guests. The demonstration continues with Frederick and the Monster launching into the musical number "Puttin' on the Ritz", complete with top hats and tails. Although the Monster can only shout his song lines in painfully high-pitched monotones, he dances impressively with almost perfect timing. The routine ends disastrously, however, when a stage light explodes and frightens the Monster, who becomes enraged, pushes Frederick, and charges into the audience, where he is captured and chained by police. The Monster escapes, then kidnaps and ravishes the not unwilling Elizabeth when she arrives unexpectedly for a visit. Elizabeth falls in love with the creature due to his inhuman stamina and his enormous penis (referred to as "Schwanstuker" or "Schwanzstück" — a Yiddish word from "Schwanz", "tail", which also is German slang for "penis", and "Stück", "piece"). The townspeople hunt for the Monster. Desperate to get the creature back, Frederick plays the violin to lure his creation back to the castle. Just as the Kemp-led mob storms the laboratory, Frankenstein transfers some of his stabilizing intellect to the creature who, as a result, is able to reason with and placate the mob. The film ends happily, with Elizabeth married to the now erudite and sophisticated Monster, while Inga joyfully learns what her new husband Frederick got in return during the transfer procedure (the Monster's "Schwanzstück"). Production. Origins. In a 2010 interview with the "Los Angeles Times", Mel Brooks discussed how the film came about: I was in the middle of shooting the last few weeks of "Blazing Saddles" somewhere in the Antelope Valley, and Gene Wilder and I were having a cup of coffee and he said, I have this idea that there could be another Frankenstein. I said not another — we've had the son of, the cousin of, the brother-in-law, we don't need another Frankenstein. His idea was very simple: What if the grandson of Dr. Frankenstein wanted nothing to do with the family whatsoever. He was ashamed of those wackos. I said, "That's funny." Unlike his previous and subsequent films, Brooks did not appear onscreen as himself in "Young Frankenstein", though he recorded several voice parts and portrayed a German villager in one short scene. In 2012, Brooks explained why: Color scheme. Columbia Pictures was very keen on shooting the picture in color, mostly for color television. However, Mel Brooks and the producers held their ground and said it should be filmed in black and white. After seeing a few dailies, the company wholeheartedly agreed with their decision. Filming. Disagreements over the budget led to switching from Columbia Pictures to 20th Century Fox. Mel Brooks wanted at least $2.3 million dedicated to the budget, whereas Columbia Pictures decided that $1.7 million had to be enough. They instead went to 20th Century Fox, who agreed to a higher budget. While shooting, the cast ad-libbed several jokes used in the film. Cloris Leachman improvised a scene in which Frau Blücher offers "varm milk" and Ovaltine to Dr. Frankenstein, while Marty Feldman surreptitiously moved his character's hump from shoulder to shoulder until someone noticed it, and the gag was added to the film ("Didn't you used to have that on the other side?", "What hump?"). Brooks has declared "Young Frankenstein" his favorite among his own films. Deleted scenes. The following deleted scenes can be found as bonus material on the DVD: Soundtrack. ABC Records released the soundtrack on LP in 1974. On April 29, 1997, One Way Records reissued it on CD. There are pieces of dialogue by the actors as well as background and incidental music on the disc. The LP and disc are now out of print and command a very high price on Internet auction sites when available. Track listing Cultural legacy. When the film was in theaters, the band Aerosmith was working on its third studio album, "Toys in the Attic". The members of the band had written the music for a song but couldn't come up with any lyrics to go with it. After a while, they decided to take a break and see a late night showing of "Young Frankenstein", where the "walk this way" gag provided the basis (or phrase) for the Aerosmith hit "Walk This Way". Musical adaptation. Brooks adapted the film into a musical of the same name which premiered in Seattle at the Paramount Theatre and ran from August 7 to September 1, 2007. The musical opened on Broadway at the Foxwoods Theatre (then the Hilton Theatre) on November 8, 2007 and closed on January 4, 2009. Awards. Nominations Cloris Leachman was nominated as a lead despite Madeline Kahn having far more screen time. Wins Other honors. American Film Institute recognition In 2011, ABC aired a primetime special, "", that counted down the best movies chosen by fans based on results of a poll conducted by ABC and "People". "Young Frankenstein" was selected as the #4 Best Comedy.
1063545	"See also Cannonball Baker Sea-To-Shining-Sea Memorial Trophy Dash" Cannonball Run II (1984) is a comedy film featuring Burt Reynolds and an all-star cast, released by Warner Bros. and Golden Harvest. Like the original "Cannonball Run", it is a set around an illegal cross-country race. The film received eight Golden Raspberry Award nominations at the 1984 Golden Raspberry Awards, including Worst Picture, Worst Actor, and Worst Actress, but no wins. This was the last of the "formula" comedies for Reynolds. It is also marked the final feature film appearances of Dean Martin and Frank Sinatra. Their appearances, coupled with those of Sammy Davis, Jr. and Shirley MacLaine, marked the final on-screen appearance of the old Rat Pack team. Plot. Having lost the first Cannonball Run race, Sheik Abdul ben Falafel (Jamie Farr) is ordered by his father (Ricardo Montalban) to go back to America and win another Cannonball Run in order to "emblazon the Falafel name as the fastest in the world." When Sheik Abdul points out that there is no Cannonball Run that year, his father simply tells him to "buy one." To make sure his ulcer does not prevent him from winning, the Sheik hires Doctor Nikolas Van Helsing (Jack Elam), who teamed with JJ (Burt Reynolds) and Victor (Dom DeLuise) in the first race as his in-car physician. He brings along a blond-haired servant (Doug McClure), who receives numerous slaps in the face from both the sheik and his father. Most of the participants from the first race are lured back, including JJ and Victor, who have taken jobs working with a flying stunt crew. In a subplot, Blake (Dean Martin) and Fenderbaum (Sammy Davis Jr.) are in financial trouble with Don Don Canneloni (Charles Nelson Reilly), who in turn is in financial trouble with mob enforcer Hymie Kaplan (Telly Savalas). After the Sheik manages to bail out Blake and Fenderbaum by handing one of Don Don's thugs a stack of cash, Don Don hatches a plot to kidnap the Sheik in an attempt to extort money from him. The race begins with JJ and Victor dressed as a US Army general and his driver, a private. They catch the attention of Betty (Marilu Henner) and Veronica (Shirley MacLaine), who are dressed as nuns for a musical, but remain in character and hitch a ride with JJ and Victor when they think the guys could become overnight millionaires. They do not lose their habits until later. Other racers include Mitsubishi engineer Jackie Chan, teamed with a giant behind the wheel (Richard Kiel) in a car able to go under water. In a red Lamborghini (white at first) with "two great-looking chicks in it" (as the cops chasing them continually say) is the duo of Susan Anton and Catherine Bach. Another team (Mel Tillis and Tony Danza) is accompanied by an orangutan, who at times appears to be the driver. They are pulled over at one point by traffic cops Tim Conway and Don Knotts. JJ and Victor stop along the way to help a stranded soldier, Homer Lyle (Jim Nabors). They also get much better acquainted with their passengers, Betty and Veronica, who change into something a little more comfortable. Don Don's enforcers (including "Godfather" film actors Alex Rocco, Abe Vigoda and Michael V. Gazzo) continue to blunder along the way, with disastrous and slapstick results. The racers band together to invade a bordello. JJ, Victor, and Fenderbaum infiltrate it in drag, dressed as belly dancers. Others barrel in by car and rescue the Sheik, who is reluctant to leave, since he has his pick of women there. The three "dancers" and Blake go to their Leader (Frank Sinatra) to seek help, only to have him jump into the race himself. In the end, the Sheik bankrolls Don Don's bordello and then declares that he is upping the stakes to $2 million for the winner. All jump into their vehicles and make a dash for the finish line, avoiding traffic patrollers on the way. The Sheik, as it turns out, loses yet again, this time blaming the doctor who rode with him for injecting him with an unknown substance. But he convinces his father that he will win the return-trip race, having hired the winner of this one. It turns out to be an orangutan with a penchant for destructive behavior and giving elderly ladies the middle finger. Reception. "Cannonball Run II" was met with harsher reviews than its predecessor, with an 11% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Roger Ebert gave the film half a star out of four, calling it "one of the laziest insults to the intelligence of moviegoers that I can remember. Sheer arrogance made this picture." Ebert's colleague and co-host of their program "At the Movies" Gene Siskel also detested the film, and he later would refer to it as his least favorite film. Siskel had a habit of being offended by films that were lazy in tone and gave off the impression that the filmmakers didn't try to make the film any good. Siskel described this film as such, and he also called it "a movie that gives movies a bad name".
1063778	Patricia "Pat" Hitchcock O'Connell (born 7 July 1928) is a British-born actress and producer. Early life. Hitchcock was born in London as the only child of film director Alfred Hitchcock and film editor Alma Reville. The family moved to Los Angeles, California, in 1939. Once there, Hitchcock's father soon made his mark in Hollywood. As a child, Hitchcock knew she wanted to be an actress. In the early 1940s, she began acting on the stage and doing summer stock. Her father helped her gain a role in the Broadway production of "Solitaire" (1942). She also acted in "Violet" (1944). After graduating from Marymount High School in Los Angeles in 1947, she attended the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London and also appeared on the London stage. Career. In early 1949, her parents arrived in London to make "Stage Fright", Hitchcock's first British-made feature film since emigrating to Hollywood. Pat did not know she would have a walk-on part in the film until her parents arrived. Because she bore a resemblance to the star, Jane Wyman, her father asked if she would mind also doubling for Wyman in the scenes that required "danger driving". She had small roles in three of her father's films: "Stage Fright" (1950), in which she played a jolly acting student named Chubby Bannister, one of Wyman's school chums; "Strangers on a Train" (1951), playing Barbara Morton, future sister-in-law of Guy Haines (Farley Granger); and "Psycho" (1960), playing Janet Leigh's plain-Jane office mate, Caroline, who generously offers to share tranquilizers that her mother gave her for her wedding night. Hitchcock also worked for Jean Negulesco on "The Mudlark" (1950), which starred Irene Dunne and Alec Guinness, playing a palace maid, and she had a bit-part in DeMille's "The Ten Commandments". As well as appearing in ten episodes of her father's half-hour television programme, "Alfred Hitchcock Presents", Hitchcock worked on a few others, including "Playhouse 90", which was live, directed by John Frankenheimer. Acting for her father, however, remained the high point of her acting career, which she interrupted to bring up her children. (Hitchcock has a small joke with her first appearance on his show – after saying good night and exiting the screen, he sticks his head back into the picture and remarks: "I thought the little leading lady was rather good, didn't you?") She also served as executive producer of the documentary "The Man on Lincoln's Nose" (2000), which is about Robert F. Boyle and his contribution to films. Personal life. She married Joseph E. O'Connell, Jr., 17 January 1952, at Our Lady Chapel in St. Patrick's Cathedral, New York. They decided to have their wedding there because Pat had many friends on the East Coast and Joe had relatives in Boston. They have three daughters, Mary Alma Stone (born 17 April 1953), Teresa "Tere" Carrubba (born 2 July 1954), and Kathleen "Katie" Fiala (born 27 February 1959), and currently live in Solvang, California. She supplied family photos and wrote the foreword of the book "Footsteps in the Fog: Alfred Hitchcock's San Francisco" by Jeff Kraft and Aaron Leventhal, which was published in 2002. In 2003, she published "Alma Hitchcock: The Woman Behind the Man", co-written with Laurent Bouzereau. She is an annual major sponsor of the Menlo Charity Horse Show.
715092	John Denis Martin Nunn (born 25 April 1955 in London) is one of England's strongest chess players and once was in the world's top ten. He is also a three-time world champion in chess problem solving, a chess writer and publisher, and a mathematician. Career. As a junior, he showed a prodigious talent for the game and in 1967, at twelve years of age, he won the British under-14 Championship. At fourteen, he was London Under-18 Champion for the 1969/70 season and less than a year later, at just fifteen years of age, he proceeded to Oriel College, Oxford, to study mathematics. At the time, he was Oxford's youngest undergraduate since Cardinal Wolsey in 1520. Graduating in 1973, he went on to gain his doctorate in 1978 with a thesis on finite H-spaces, and remained at Oxford University as a mathematics lecturer until 1981, when he became a professional chess player.
585756	Casanovva (theatrical release name: Confident Casanovva) is a 2012 romantic action thriller Malayalam film directed by Rosshan Andrrews. The film stars Mohanlal and Shriya Saran in the lead with Lakshmi Rai, Sanjana, Roma, Jagathy Sreekumar, Lalu Alex, Riyaz Khan, Nova Krishan and Shankar forms an ensemble cast along with five debutantes, Abhishek, Shamsi, Arjun, Vikram and Midlaj. The film's songs were composed by Gopi Sundar, Alphons Joseph and Gowri Lakshmi and the background score was done by Gopi Sundar. It is director Rosshan Andrrews's third film with Mohanlal after "Udayananu Tharam" and "Evidam Swargamanu". The film was released on 26 January 2012 in India. The Hindi remake rights of the film was bought by Ketan Shah for . Before the release Cassanova was marketed with a tag of The Costliest Malayalam film to be ever made.Casanovva met with overwhelming negative reviews from the common man to the critics, Cassanova ended up being the biggest flop in the history of the industry. Sify and Rediff.com have rated the movie No. 1 in their lists of "Disappointing films of 2012". Plot. The film is about Casanovva, a serial womaniser. Casanovva is the owner of Casanovvaâs Eternal Spring, an international chain of flower boutiques. He has at his beck and call a faithful array of female followers including his staff, friends and former girlfriends, who will do anything for him. The film starts with a robbery carried out by the four criminals and they decided their next target in a wedding hall. They entered the wedding place as Casonnovva's (Mohanlal) quests. Cassonovva recognises them but allows them to attend the marriage function keeping some plan in his mind. The young criminals ( Alexi, Salim, Arjun, Kiran ) took some photos of their targeted rich persons and collect their details. Casanovva watches this all and does not respond at the spot. The next day was the wedding ceremony. Casanovva, with the aid of his friend in a TV channel (without revealing his plan), planned for a live telecast program to capture the young criminal's robbery. But unfortunately, the wedding was postponed due to some unexpected reasons. Thus the robbers pulled off from their plan. But within this time the TV channel peoples came and ready for the telecast. Suddenly Casanovva got an idea and announced a new live romance reality show through the channel named "FALL IN LOVE". Then he created some plans to made the two peoples in the robbery gang to fall in love with Hanna (Lakshmi Rai) and Ann Mary (Roma) and telecast their love scenes using hidden cameras through the live reality show "FALL IN LOVE". Hanna loves one of the young robber by hearing the words of Casonovva, who was her boss. The four robbers tried to steal a sword, but casanovva (wearing a mask in face) interrupts them and took the sword from them. By this time, the TV show became popular and cause some problems to Ann Mary, the robbers and even Hanna. Hanna asks his boss, Casanovva what his plan was. At the moment, Casanovva reveals his flashback to Hanna. Some years back, cassanova came to Dubai and enjoyed with some girls. Zacariah (Lalu Alex) was a magazine reporter who publish the stories of Casanovva and his mingle with girls. Sameera Zacharia (Shriya Saran), daughter of Zacharia helped Casanovva from a danger and eventually they became friends. But gradually Casanovva understands that he has some different feeling to Zameera than other women. He realities that he is in love with her. She also has love interest in Casanovva. But her father requests Cassanovva to leave his daughter. He replied that he was in real love with his daughter. Casanovva called Sameera for a meeting to reveal his love to her. She was also been ready to tell her love. She put a mask in her face to make some surprise to Casanovva. But suddenly four robbers rushed to the road with the same mask which Zameera have. The police tried to capture them. The four robbers escaped and Zameera was caught by the police. Suddenly one of the robber shoots Sameera and she dies at the spot. Casanova waited for her and return to his room so depressed. On the way, he saw the four robbers escaping in a car. But at that time he didn't get any idea about the incident happened. He knew the death of Zameera by watching TV news at his room. He suddenly rushes to the police to inform about the robbers. But they didn't spend time to hear what Casanovva had to tell. Here end the Flashback. He said to Hanna that the aim of the reality show was to understand the robbers about the feeling of love. He then captured the robbers and made them to explain that Sameera was not their gang member to public through the TV show. Thus Casanovva succeed in showing the innocence of his lover Zameera to the public and police. Then he asked the robbers that who killed Sameera. At the end, Casanovva kills the one who shoots his lover and surrenders to the police. Production. The film's production was launched at Confident Cascade in Bangalore on 24 January 2009. The event was attended by film personalities including Mohanlal, Vishnuvardhan, Jagathy Sreekumar, Lalu Alex, Arya, Arshad Warsi, Lakshmi Rai, Priyanka, Priyadarshan, Sibi Malayil, Suresh Kumar, P. V. Gangadharan, Antony Perumbavoor, and the film unit members. Filming. "Casanovva" started its shooting on 27 September 2010 and was scheduled to release in February 2011. However, the film has faced delays and its release date might be postponed. The first schedule was scheduled to finish in Dubai by 12 December 2010. It has been reported that Mohanlal is giving prime importance to another film, "China Town", which is leading "Casanovva" to a delayed release. The second schedule has started from the last week of April 2011 in Dubai. The shooting at Dubai has ended by the first week of May 2011 and the next location is Bangkok will start shooting from 14 September, Fourth schedule Start shooting from 20 October at Bangalore, The remaining song was shot in the Last schedule that commenced from 12 December at Cape Town, South Africa. Release. Casanovva released in 202 theatres in India on 26 January 2012; 138 theatres in Kerala and 64 theatres outside Kerala making it the widest release for a Malayalam film, with simultaneous opening in Mumbai, Chennai, Bangalore and other Indian cities. The film released overseas in February 2012. Reception. Critical response. The film received mixed to negative reviews from critics. Box office. The film had a large opening, collecting 2.50Â crore, thanks to the 1,000 first-day shows, the highest ever for a Malayalam movie. However, as word of mouth spread, the collections suffered a huge drop in the subsequent days. The gross collection was no match for the huge budget of the film. Soundtrack. The soundtrack features four songs composed by Gopi Sundar, Alphons Joseph and Gowri Lakshmi, with lyrics by Gireesh Puthenchery, Vayalar Sarath Chandra Varma, Gowri Lakshmi, Rosshan and Sanjay. The background score of the film has been composed by Gopi Sundar. The audio rights were acquired by Satyam Audio on a price of .
1058080	Lauren Hutton (born November 17, 1943) is an American model and actress. Early life. Hutton was born Mary Laurence Hutton in Charleston, South Carolina. Her parents divorced when she was young, her mother remarried, and Mary's last name was changed to her step-father's name, Hall, although he never formally adopted her. She graduated from Chamberlain High School in Tampa, Florida in 1961. She was among the first students to attend the University of South Florida in Tampa in 1960. She later moved with former Tampa disc jockey Pat Chamburs, 19 years her senior, to New York City where she worked at the Playboy Club. They later moved to New Orleans, where she attended Tulane University, graduating with a bachelor of arts degree in 1964. Modelling. Hutton returned to New York, changed her name to Lauren Hutton, and became a top fashion model, cover girl (appearing on the cover of American "Vogue" a record 26 times), and commercial spokesperson. She was advised to correct the slight gap in her teeth and tried using morticians' wax to cover the gap, cutting a line in the middle of it. Then she used a cap, which she would often swallow, laugh out, or misplace. She retained this 'imperfection,' which gave her on-camera persona a down-home sensibility that other, "more ethereal models lacked." In her heyday, Hutton was known as "the fresh American face of fashion."
588451	Sankham is a Telugu feature film, starring Gopichand, Trisha Krishnan, Sathyaraj amongst others, directed by Siva. Produced by J Bhagavan, J Pulla Rao, and music composed by Taman. It was an average grosser in 2009. The film was dubbed in Hindi as "Phir Ek Most Wanted" and in Tamil as "Sivappu Saamy". Plot. Chandu (Gopichand) is brought up by his uncle (Chandra Mohan) in Australia. Mahalakshmi (Trisha) stays in Australia along with her uncle. Chandu is fond of martial arts and he never gets a chance to exhibit them in real situations. Mahalakshmi is another martial arts freak. After a few misunderstandings they fall in love. Mahalakshmi is forced to come back to her home town in Rayalaseema. Chandu comes in search of her. Meanwhile Sivaiah (Satyaraj) and his opponent Pasupathi (Kota Srinivasa Rao) belong to two neighboring villages. They have longtime enmity. The crux of the movie is how Chandu and Mahalakshmi are related to Siavaiah and Pasupathi.
401929	Amber Smith (born March 2, 1971) is an American actress and former model. Early life. Smith is the daughter of professional American football player Russ Smith and Carol Smith.
520840	Petrang Kabayo (lit. "Petra the Horse") is a 2010 Filipino remake comedy-drama film produced and released by Viva Films. Synopsis. Peter is a boy who is always maltreated by his father because of his homosexuality. He decided to run away and was found by a wealthy lady, Doña Biday, and is adopted by her. But he becomes abusive of his newfound wealth, and after the death of Doña Biday he becomes more abusive of his wealth and mistreated most of his housemaids, employees, and friends. Because of that, he was given a curse that transforms him into a horse every time he gets angry, or does/says anything bad to others. Other Appearances of the Cast/s. Ericson(Luis Manzano) and the Horse Petra appeared in The Unkabogable Praybeyt Benjamin where Vice Ganda is also the lead role. Home video release. Viva Video released DVD and VCD formats on December 15, 2010.
743785	Steven Hill (born February 24, 1922) is an American film and television actor. His two better-known roles are District Attorney Adam Schiff on the NBC TV drama series "Law & Order", whom he portrayed for ten seasons (1990–2000), and , the original team leader of the Impossible Missions Force on CBS's television series "", whom he portrayed only in the initial season of the show (1966–67). Early life and career. Hill was born Solomon Krakovsky in Seattle, Washington. After serving four years in the Naval Reserve, Hill made his first Broadway stage appearance in Ben Hecht's "A Flag Is Born" in 1946, which also featured a young Marlon Brando. Hill says his big break came when he landed a small part in the hit Broadway show "Mister Roberts". "The director, Joshua Logan, thought I had some ability, and he let me create one of the scenes," says Hill. "So, I improvised dialog and it went in the show. That was my first endorsement. It gave me tremendous encouragement to stay in the business." Hill said this was a thrilling time in his life when, fresh out of the service, he played the hapless sailor Stefanowski. "You could almost smell it from the very first reading that took place; this is going to be an overwhelming hit," said Hill. "We all felt it and experienced it and were convinced of it, and we were riding the crest of a wave from the very first day of rehearsals." In 1947, Hill joined such other actors as Marlon Brando, Montgomery Clift, and Julie Harris, as one of the 50 fortunate applicants (out of approximately 700, interviewed) to be accepted by the newly created Actors Studio. Hill made his film debut in 1950 in "Lady Without a Passport". He then re-enlisted in the Navy in 1952 for two years and, when he completed his service, resumed his acting in earnest. Strasberg later said, "Steven Hill is considered one of the finest actors America has ever produced". When he was starting out as an actor, Hill sought out roles that had a social purpose. "Later, I learned that show business is about entertaining," he says. "So, I've had to reconcile my idealistic feelings with reality". Hill was particularly busy in the so-called "Golden Age" of live TV drama, appearing in such prestigious video offerings as "The Trial of Sacco and Vanzetti" in 1960, where he portrayed Bartolomeo Vanzetti. "When I first became an actor, there were two young actors in New York: Marlon Brando and Steven Hill," said Martin Landau. "A lot of people said that Steven would have been the one, not Marlon. He was legendary. Nuts, volatile, mad, and his work was exciting". In 1961, Hill had an unusual experience when he appeared as Sigmund Freud on Broadway in Henry Denker's "A Far Country", portraying Freud at the age of 35. On April 12, 1961, Hill was stricken with a virus the night of a sold-out performance for the Masters Children's Center of Dobbs Ferry. As a result, the producers decided to cancel the performance just as the curtain was about to go up. Among the notables in the audience were Joseph P. Kennedy, Jack Benny, and Richard Rodgers. The audience was invited to exchange its ticket stubs for other performances. The understudy was not ready to replace Hill, so Alfred Ryder, the play's director, stepped into the role of Freud for one performance. In 1961, he was cast as B.E. Langard in the episode "Act of Piracy" of the ABC series, "Adventures in Paradise", starring Gardner McKay. He appeared in the original Robert Stack ABC/Desilu crime drama, "The Untouchables" episode: 'Jack 'Legs' Diamond' as the title gangster character giving a compelling cold evil performance, and a similar sinister role as a confined to bed (following an accident) ruthless manipulative millionaire in 'The White Knight' a 1966 black-and-white third season episode of "The Fugitive", starring David Janssen. Hill's early screen credits include "The Goddess" and "A Child Is Waiting". "Mission: Impossible". Hill was the original leader of the Impossible Missions Force, in the series "" beginning in 1966. The phrase "Good morning, Mr. Briggs..." was a fixture early in each episode as it began a tape recording he retrieved which detailed the task he must accomplish, however he left the show in 1967 after the end of the first season. As one of the few Orthodox Jewish actors working in Hollywood, he made it clear in advance of production that he was not able to work on the Sabbath (i.e., sundown Friday to dusk Saturday), and that he would leave the set every Friday before sundown. However, despite Hill's advance warnings, the show's producers were unprepared for his rigid adherence to the Sabbath, and on at least one occasion Hill left the set while an episode was still in the midst of filming. The producers used a number of ways of reducing the role of Hill's character Dan Briggs whereby his character would only obtain and hand out the mission details at the start of certain episodes being unable to take further part as he was 'known' to people they would encounter (used at least three times), or Briggs would need to don a disguise and another actor would then play his role incognito until the conclusion of the mission (and episode) when Briggs peeled off a face mask. On other occasions Briggs would be waiting to pick up the team at the end; usually Martin Landau's character 'Rollin Hand' would take over as the team leader for missions in Briggs' absence (Martin Landau being initially a 'special guest star' for the first season, not even included in the show's original opening credits). According to Desilu executive Herb Solow, once William Shatner burst into his office, claiming "Steve asked me how many Jews worked on "Star Trek". He was recruiting a prayer group of ten guys to worship together on top of the studio's highest building and only had six Jews so far from "Mission". He asked if I would come and bring Nimoy and Justman and you." Hill was briefly suspended from the show near the end of the season, during the production of episode no. 23 (entitled 'Action!' — where for the only time Barbara Bain's character 'Cinnamon Carter' obtained the mission via the taped instructions, though Landau's 'Rollin Hand' then led the team). The suspension was imposed after he refused to climb the rafters via a soundstage staircase, as was called for in the script. This incident was unrelated to any religious observances of Hill's. Consequently, Hill was written out of that episode, and when he returned to "Mission: Impossible" for the five remaining episodes of the season, his role was severely reduced. Hill was not asked to return for season 2, and was replaced as the show's star by Peter Graves. No onscreen explanation was ever given regarding Dan Briggs' later absence from the series. Steven Hill was however featured prominently as Dan Briggs in around 17 or so of the first season episodes. Hiatus and return to acting. After appearing in "Mission: Impossible," Hill did no acting work for the following ten years. Hill had what he calls "tremendous periods of unemployment" in his career. "What we have here is a story of profound instability and impermanence," he said of his own career. "This is what you learn at the beginning in show business; then it gets planted in you forever". Hill left acting in 1967 and moved to a Jewish community in Rockland County, New York where he worked in writing and real estate. Patrick J. White, in "The Complete "Mission: Impossible" Dossier," quoted Hill as having said later, "I don't think an actor should act every single day. I don't think it's good for the so-called creative process. You must have periods when you leave the land fallow, let it revitalize itself." After ten years, he was ready to begin acting again. "They say you can't quit show business," he said in 1977. "It took ten years, but I couldn't get it out of my system. So I called an agent and put him to work." Hill returned to work in the 1980s and 1990s, playing parental and authority-figure roles in such films as "Yentl" (1983), "Garbo Talks" (1984), Neil Simon's "Brighton Beach Memoirs", "Heartburn" (1986), Running on Empty (1988), and "Billy Bathgate" (1991). Hill also appeared as a mob kingpin in "Raw Deal" (1986), an action vehicle for Arnold Schwarzenegger. "Law & Order". Hill is best known as Adam Schiff in the NBC TV drama series "Law & Order", a part that he played for ten seasons (1990–2000). Hill's character is loosely modeled after the real former district attorney of New York, Robert Morgenthau and it is reported that Morgenthau was a fan of the character. Hill says playing Adam Schiff is the hardest role he's ever had because of all the legal jargon he has to learn. "It's like acting in a second language," says Hill. Hill adds that he agrees with the show's philosophy. "There's a certain positive statement in this show," Hill says. "So much is negative today. The positive must be stated to rescue us from pandemonium. To me it lies in that principle: law and order." Hill earned another Emmy nomination for Best Supporting Actor In a Dramatic Series in 1997. At the time of his departure, Hill was the longest-serving cast member. Along with "Law & Order" castmate Sam Waterston, Hill has also appeared in commercials for T.D. Waterhouse, an investment brokerage. Personal life. Hill and his first wife, Selma Stern, were married in 1951 and had four children before divorcing in 1964. Hill married his second wife, Rachel, in 1967 and they have five children. His Orthodox Judaism. Appearing in the play "A Far Country" in 1961 had a profound effect on Hill's later life. In one scene, a patient screams at Freud, "You are a Jew!" This caused Hill to think about his religion. "In the pause that followed I would think, 'What about this?' I slowly became aware that there was something more profound going on in the world than just plays and movies and TV shows. I was provoked to explore my religion." He was inspired by Rabbi Yakov Yosef Twersky (1899–1968), the late Skverrer Rebbe, to adhere to strict Orthodox Judaism, observing a kosher diet, praying three times a day, wearing a four-cornered fringed garment beneath his clothes, and strictly observing Shabbat. This made Hill unavailable for Friday night or Saturday matinee performances, effectively ending his stage career and closing many roles to him in the movies, most notably "The Sand Pebbles."
1055981	Post Grad is a 2009 romantic comedy film directed by Vicky Jenson and starring Alexis Bledel, about a recent college graduate who moves back in with her family while she figures out what she wants to do next. Originally under the working titles of "Ticket to Ride" and then "The Post-Grad Survival Guide", the film was released on August 21, 2009. Plot. Ryden Malby graduates from college in the middle of the late-2000s recession and is forced to move back in with her parents, because her dream job has been given to her arrogant college nemesis Jessica Bard. Ryden and her best friend Adam, who has had a longtime crush on her, must find a job for Ryden before she loses hope for her future dream as an editor of a big publishing company. But will sudden feelings for her longtime friend interfere with her dreams? Production. Amanda Bynes was originally set to star, but was replaced by Alexis Bledel. Reception. "Post Grad" was panned by film critics and filmgoers alike. The film stands with a 7% "rotten" rating by 93 critics at Rotten Tomatoes; the consensus states: "A lightweight, unambitious comedy, "Post Grad" features fine actors that can do little with its middling, uninspiring script." It scores 35 at Metacritic, based on 25 reviews, which also represents "generally unfavorable reviews". Roger Ebert, however, awarded it three out of four stars, stating, "If you're cynical or jaded, it might not get past you. But here is the first movie in a long time that had me actually admitting I wouldn't mind seeing a sequel." Box office. During opening weekend the film opened at #11, grossing $2,651,996.
1057026	Day of the Woman (better known by its re-release title, I Spit on Your Grave) is a controversial 1978 rape and revenge film. The film received a limited release, with a wider release in 1980. Prominent film critics condemned the film for its graphic violence and lengthy depictions of gang rape, and the motion picture remains controversial to this day. The film was named in 2010 one of "Time"'s Top 10 Ridiculously Violent Movies. Plot. New York short story writer Jennifer Hills rents an isolated cottage by a lake in the countryside to write her first novel. The arrival in town of the attractive and independent young woman attracts the attention of Johnny, the gas station manager, and Stanley and Andy, two unemployed youths who hang around the gas station. Jennifer receives a grocery delivery from Matthew, who is mildly mentally challenged, and befriends him. Matthew is friends with the other three men and reports back to them about the beautiful woman he met, claiming he saw her breasts. Stanley and Andy start cruising by the cottage in their boat and prowl around the house at night. One day, while Jennifer is relaxing in her canoe, they surprise her in their speedboat and tow her to shore. As she tries to escape, she is met by Johnny, while Matthew hides in bushes nearby. She realizes they planned her abduction so Matthew can lose his virginity. Jennifer fights but is chased by the men through the forest. Matthew refuses to have sex with her, so Johnny rapes her. They allow her to escape but track her down shortly afterward. Andy proceeds to anally rape her; after she crawls back to her house, they attack her again. Matthew finally rapes her after drinking alcohol, but he says that he can not reach orgasm with the other men watching. The other men ridicule her book and rip up the manuscript, and Stanley sexually assaults her. She passes out, but after the men leave, Johnny realizes she is a witness to their crimes and orders Matthew to stab her to death. Matthew cannot bring himself to do this, so he dabs the knife in her blood and returns to the other men claiming he has killed her. In the following days, a traumatized Jennifer pieces both herself and her manuscript back together. She goes to church and asks for forgiveness for what she plans to do. The men learn Jennifer has survived and beat Matthew up for deceiving them. Jennifer calls in a grocery order, knowing Matthew will deliver it. He takes the groceries, and a knife. At the cabin Jennifer entices him to have sex with her under a tree. As he becomes oblivious to his surroundings, she strings a noose around his neck and hangs him, then cuts the rope and drops the body in the river. Jennifer seductively collects Johnny from the gas station in her car. She stops halfway to her house and turns a gun on him and orders him to remove all his clothing. Johnny insists the rapes were her fault because she enticed the men by parading around in revealing clothing. She pretends to believe this, lowers her gun, and invites him back to her cottage for a hot bath, where she manually stimulates him. When Johnny says that Matthew has been reported missing, Jennifer states that she killed Matthew, and as he nears orgasm, Jennifer takes the knife Matthew brought with him from its hiding place under the bathmat and severs Johnny's genitals, letting him bleed to death. She later dumps the body in the basement and burns his clothes in the fireplace. Stanley and Andy learn that Johnny is missing and take their boat to Jennifer's cabin. Andy goes ashore with an axe. Jennifer swims out to the boat and climbs aboard before Stanley realizes what she is doing and pushes him overboard. Andy tries to attack her when she speeds past him in the boat, but she escapes with the axe. Andy swims out to rescue Stanley, but Jennifer plunges the axe into Andy's back and backs the boat up to Stanley, who grabs hold of the motor to climb aboard, begging Jennifer not to kill him. She repeats his own words he used against Jennifer while assaulting her: "Suck it, bitch!", starts the engine, disemboweling him, and speeds away in the boat. Production. The house that Jennifer rents and its grounds, the river and the gas station, were all located in Kent, Connecticut. The waterway is a section of the Housatonic River. The house in real life was owned by Zarchi's friend Nouri Haviv, who photographed this film. Most of the house interior scenes were also shot inside this house. Zarchi first visited the house while developing the script and its ambience and location influenced the development of the story. Title. The film's original title was "Day of the Woman". It was also shown under the title "I Hate Your Guts" and "The Rape and Revenge of Jennifer Hill". The title was changed to "I Spit on Your Grave" for the 1980 re-release. Release. Zarchi was unable to find a distributor, so he distributed the film himself. It played a number of engagements in rural drive-in theaters, but only for brief runs each time, and Zarchi barely made back what he spent in advertising. In 1980, it was picked up for distribution by the Jerry Gross Organization. A condition of this re-release was that they could change the title to anything they wished. It was at this time the film was retitled "I Spit on Your Grave". Critical reception. "I Spit on Your Grave" received a mixed reception from critics. Film critic Roger Ebert gave the film no stars, referring to it as "a vile bag of garbage...without a shred of artistic distinction," adding that "Attending it was one of the most depressing experiences of my life." He mentioned in his review a female member of the audience (one of many people who randomly talked aloud) who had "feminist solidarity for the movie's heroine". He wrote, "I wanted to ask if she'd been appalled by the movie's hour of rape scenes". Ebert was also one of many to cite the movie's poor production quality as a weakness in addition to the scenes he found offensive, stating "The story of 'I Spit on Your Grave' is told with moronic simplicity. These horrible events are shown with an absolute minimum of dialogue, which is so poorly recorded that it often cannot be heard. There is no attempt to develop the personalities of the characters - they are, simply, a girl and four men, one of them mentally retarded. The movie is nothing more or less than a series of attacks on the girl and then her attacks on the men, interrupted only by an unbelievably grotesque and inappropriate scene in which she enters a church and asks forgiveness for the murders she plans to commit". Both Ebert and fellow critic Gene Siskel blasted the movie on their television program "Sneak Previews". "Encyclopedia of Horror" notes that the film attracted much debate for and against, frequently involving people who clearly had not actually seen the film. "The men are so grossly unattractive and the rapes so harrowing, long-drawn-out and starkly presented it is hard to imagine most male spectators identifying with the perpretrators, especially as the film's narrative structure and "mise-en-scene" force the spectator to view the action from Keaton's point of view. Further, there is no suggestion that she 'asked for it' or enjoyed it, except, of course, in the rapists' own perceptions, from which the film is careful to distance itself." The book continues that the scenes of revenge were "grotesquely misread by some critics" as Jennifer only "pretends to have enjoyed the rape so as to lure the men to their destruction", and that in these scenes the film is critiquing "familiar male arguments about women 'bringing it on themselves'" as "simply sexist, self-excusing rhetoric and are quite clearly presented as such". The initial criticism was followed by reappraisals of the film. Michael Kaminski's 2007 article for the website "Obsessed with Film", titled "Is 'I Spit on Your Grave' Really a Misunderstood Feminist Film?" argues that, when understood within the context in which director Zarchi was inspired to make it, the movie may be equally appropriate to analyze as "feminist wish-fulfillment" and a vehicle of personal expression reacting to violence against women. A reappraisal was made by Carol J. Clover in the third chapter of her 1992 book "Men, Women, and Chainsaws". Clover notes that she and others like her "appreciate, however grudgingly, the way in which movie's brutal simplicity exposes a mainspring of popular culture." Clover further argues that the film's sympathies are entirely with Jennifer, that the male audience is meant to identify with her, and not with the attackers, and that the point of the film is a masochistic identification with pain used to justify the bloody catharsis of revenge. Clover wrote that in her opinion the film owes a debt to "Deliverance". The British feminist Julie Bindel, who was involved in pickets outside cinemas in Leeds when the film was released, has said that she was wrong about the film and that it is a feminist film. Critic Luke Y. Thompson of "The New Times" stated that "defenders of the film have argued that it's actually pro-woman, due to the fact that the female lead wins in the end, which is sort of like saying that cockfights are pro-rooster because there's always one left standing". Film critic Mark Kermode has opined that it is "deeply, deeply problematic at the very best of times" and is not as interesting as earlier exploitation films such as "The Last House on the Left". Censorship and film bans. Many nations, such as Ireland, Norway, Iceland, and West Germany, banned the film altogether, claiming that it "glorified violence against women". Canada initially banned the film, but in the 1990s decided to allow its individual provinces to decide whether to permit its release. Since 1998, some provinces (such as Manitoba, Nova Scotia, and Quebec) have released the film, with a rating that reflects its content. The censored American version of the film was released in Australia in 1982 with an R 18+ rating. In 1987, the film survived an appeal to ban it. It continued to be sold until 1997, when another reclassification caused its ban in Australia. In 2004, the full uncut version was awarded an R 18+, lifting the seven-year ban. The Office of Film and Literature Classification justified this decision by reasoning that castration is not sexual violence (Australian censorship law forbids the release of films that depict scenes of sexual violence as acceptable or justified). In the United Kingdom, the film was branded a "video nasty". It appeared on the Director of Public Prosecutions's list of prosecutable films until 2001, when a heavily-cut version of was released with an 18 certificate.
1463216	Pingala (Devanagari: पिङ्गल "") is the traditional name of the author of the ' (also '), the earliest known Sanskrit treatise on prosody. Little is known about Piṅgala himself. In Indian literary tradition, he is variously identified either as the younger brother of Pāṇini (4th century BCE), or as Patañjali, the author of the Mahabhashya (2nd century BCE). The is a work of eight chapters in the late Sūtra style, not fully comprehensible without a commentary. It has been dated to either the final centuries BCE or the early centuries CE, at the transition between Vedic meter and the classical meter of the Sanskrit epics. This would place it close to the beginning of the Common Era, likely post-dating Mauryan times. The 10th century mathematician Halayudha wrote a commentary on the and expanded it. Combinatorics. The presents the first known description of a binary numeral system in connection with the systematic enumeration of meters with fixed patterns of short and long syllables. The discussion of the combinatorics of meter corresponds to the binomial theorem. Halāyudha's commentary includes a presentation of the Pascal's triangle (called '). Pingala's work also contains the Fibonacci number, called ', and now known as the Gopala–Hemachandra number. Use of zero is sometimes mistakenly ascribed to Pingala due to his discussion of binary numbers, usually represented using 0 and 1 in modern discussion, while Pingala used short and long syllables. As Pingala's system ranks binary patterns starting at one (four short syllables—binary "0000"—is the first pattern), the nth pattern corresponds to the binary representation of n-1, written backwards. Positional use of zero dates from later centuries and would have been known to Halāyudha but not to Pingala.
940288	Adventures of Mowgli (; also spelled "Maugli") is an animated feature-length story originally released as five animated shorts of about 20 minutes each between 1967 and 1971 in the Soviet Union. They were directed by Roman Davydov. In 1973, the five films were combined into a single 96-minute feature film. The Russian DVD release of the restored footage, distributed by "Krupnyy Plan" and "Lizard", separates the animation into the original five parts. An English-language version made by Films by Jove was released direct-to-video in 1996 under the name "Adventures of Mowgli". Charlton Heston is the narrator in the English version. Style. This is the second film adaptation of Rudyard Kipling's work released in 1967. Even though the movie was not conceived as a reaction to the Disney adaptation, it proves an interesting contrast, being more faithful to the epic and primal content of Kipling's original work. The Soviet adaptation features sequences of fighting and occasionally shows blood. Except the first two episodes, Mowgli is portrayed as an adolescent warrior rather than a child. Plot. Episode 1 - "Raksha". The story starts with a golden jackal named Tabaqui walking towards his master, the dreaded tiger known as Shere Khan, who stretches himself, and then walks to the spot of a camp with Tabaqui guiding him. Out of cruelty and hatred, Shere Khan leaps towards the campsite. Whilst doing so, he accidentally burns his right forepaw, forcing a young child, Mowgli, to wander into a wolf cave in the jungle. At that point, Shere Khan (accompanied by his servant Tabaqui) appears at the entrance and demands that the wolves give him his prey, but the wolf mother Raksha refuses. He taunts them and says that the wolf pack will decide. Meanwhile, Tabaqui runs around the whole jungle and tells all the animals that a wolf pack has adopted a human. A moment later, Bagheera, the melanistic Indian Leopard, is minding her business when Tabaqui appears to tell her the news. Bagheera scolds him for spreading malicious falsehoods, then puts up quite a display that causes Shere Khan to walk away with hatred. The elders of the wolf pack watch a performance of the wolf cubs and Maugli, with Maugli matching the cubs' every step. The elders are evenly split about whether or not they should allow him to stay until they see Maugli pinch the nose of Tabaqui, who came up to taunt him. At this point, however, Shere Khan appears and demands that he be given his prey. Akela, also known as "The Lone Wolf" and patriarch of the pack, refuses to listen, so Raksha and Baloo (the bear who instructs the young wolf cubs) come to his defence, but Shere Khan is undeterred until Bagheera also appears and offers the wolf pack a freshly killed bull in return for keeping Maugli alive. Shere Khan is forced to admit defeat, but vows that he will still eat Maugli one day. Episode 2 - "The Kidnapping". Maugli and Raksha's cubs are being taught to hunt by Baloo, who also teaches them the call of the jungle: "We be of one blood, thou and I". Then Bagheera appears and teaches Maugli to climb and jump between trees. The Bandar-logs in the trees watch Maugli perform and decide that he's just like them but without a tail. A short while later, they kidnap him while he's sleeping and take him to their city. Baloo and Bagheera run after him but decide that they need the help of the python Kaa. They don't know where to look until Chil the Kite, flying above them, tells them that he saw him being taken to the abandoned city; Maugli had used the call of the jungle as he was being carried away and asked him to help. Baloo and Bagheera arrive first and are both overwhelmed by the monkeys. Once Kaa arrives, the monkeys go still and sit quietly on the city ruins around him. Kaa begins a hypnotizing dance, and every so often tells the monkeys to come one step closer. Bagheera and Baloo are nearly caught in the trap as well until they are pulled away by Maugli, after which they leave the scene. Episode 4 - "The Fight". It is the day where Mowgli seeks revenge on Shere Khan for his recent killing. As Mowgli finally faces Shere Khan, he fights him and overpowers Shere Khan's jaws with the use of a stick, before having him fall to his death.
1059304	Dame Wendy Margaret Hiller DBE (15 August 1912 – 14 May 2003) was an Academy Award-winning English film and stage actress, who enjoyed a varied acting career that spanned nearly sixty years. The writer Joel Hirschorn, in his 1984 compilation "Rating the Movie Stars", described her as "a no-nonsense actress who literally took command of the screen whenever she appeared on film". Despite many notable film performances, she chose to remain primarily a stage actress.
1034464	Anthony John "Tony" Hancock (12 May 1924 â 24 June 1968) was an English comedian and actor. Popular during the 1950s and early 1960s, he had a major success with his BBC series "Hancock's Half Hour", first on radio from 1954, then on television from 1956, in which he soon formed a strong professional and personal bond with comic actor Sid James. Although Hancock's decision to cease working with James around 1960 disappointed many of his fans at the time, his last BBC series in 1961 contains some of his best remembered work ("The Blood Donor"). After breaking with his scriptwriters Ray Galton and Alan Simpson later that year, his career took a downward course because of his increasing dependence on alcohol. Early life and career. Hancock was born in Southam Road, Hall Green, Birmingham, Warwickshire (some sources incorrectly say Small Heath, a different Birmingham district) but from the age of three was brought up in Bournemouth, where his father, John Hancock, who ran the Railway Hotel in Holdenhurst Road, worked as a comedian and entertainer. After his father's death in 1934, Hancock and his brothers lived with their mother and stepfather at a small hotel then called the Durlston Court (now renamed Hotel Celebrity). He attended Durlston Court Preparatory School, a boarding school at Durlston in Swanage (moved during World War II and now located in Barton-on-Sea, Hampshire) and Bradfield College in Reading, Berkshire, but left school at the age of fifteen. In 1942, during World War II, Hancock joined the RAF Regiment. Following a failed audition for the Entertainments National Service Association (ENSA), he ended up on the "Ralph Reader Gang Show". After the war, he returned to the stage and eventually worked as resident comedian at the Windmill Theatre, a venue which helped to launch the careers of many comedians at the time, and worked on radio shows such as "Workers' Playtime" and "Variety Bandbox". Over 1951â52, for one series, Hancock was a cast member of "Educating Archie", in which he mainly played the tutor (or foil) to the nominal star, a ventriloquist's dummy. His appearance in this show brought him national recognition, and a catchphrase he used frequently in the show, "Flippin' kids!", became popular parlance. The same year, he made regular appearances on BBC Television's popular light entertainment show "Kaleidoscope". In 1954, he was given his own eponymous BBC radio show, "Hancock's Half Hour". Peak years. Working with scripts from Ray Galton and Alan Simpson, "Hancock's Half Hour" lasted for seven years and over a hundred episodes in its radio form, and from 1956 ran concurrently with an equally successful BBC television series with the same name. The show starred Hancock as Anthony Aloysius St John Hancock living in the shabby "23 Railway Cuttings" in East Cheam. Most episodes portrayed his everyday life as a struggling comedian with aspirations toward straight acting. Some episodes, however, changed this to show him as being a successful actor and/or comedian, or occasionally as having a different career completely such as a struggling (and incompetent) barrister. Radio episodes were prone to more surreal storylines, which would have been impractical on television, such as Hancock buying a puppy that grows to be as tall as himself. Sidney James featured heavily in both the radio and TV versions, while the radio version also included regulars Bill Kerr, Kenneth Williams and over the years Moira Lister, AndrĂŠe Melly and Hattie Jacques. The series rejected the variety format then dominant in British radio comedy and instead used a form drawn more from everyday life: the situation comedy, with the humour coming from the characters and the circumstances in which they find themselves. Owing to a contractual wrangle with producer Jack Hylton, Hancock had an ITV series, "The Tony Hancock Show", during this period, which ran in 1956 and 1957 either side of the first BBC television series. During the run of his BBC radio and television series, Hancock became an enormous star in Britain. Like few others, he was able to clear the streets while families gathered together to listen to the eagerly awaited episodes. His character changed slightly over the series, but even in the earliest episodes the key facets of 'the lad himself' were evident. "Sunday Afternoon at Home" and "The Wild Man of the Woods" were top-rating shows and were later released as an LP. As an actor with considerable experience in films, Sidney James became more important to the show when the television version began. The regular cast was reduced to just the two men, allowing the humour to come from the interaction between them. James's character was the realist of the two, puncturing Hancock's pretensions. His character would often be dishonest and exploit Hancock's apparent gullibility during the radio series, but in the television version there appeared to be a more genuine friendship between them. Up until the Hancock series, every British television comedy show had been performed live owing to the technical limitations of the time. Hancock's highly strung personality made the demands of live broadcasts a constant worry, with the result that, starting from the Autumn 1959 series, all episodes of the programmes were recorded before transmission. He was also the first performer to receive a ÂŁ1,000 fee for his performances in a half-hour show. Hancock became anxious that his work with James was turning them into a double act and the last BBC series in 1961, retitled simply "Hancock", was without James. Two episodes are among his best-remembered: "The Blood Donor", in which he goes to a clinic to give blood, contains famous lines such as, "A pint? Why, that's very nearly an armful!" Another well-known instalment is "The Radio Ham", in which Hancock plays an amateur radio enthusiast who receives a mayday call from a yachtsman in distress, but his incompetence prevents him from taking his position. Both of these programmes were later re-recorded for a commercial 1961 LP in the style of radio episodes, and these versions have been continuously available. Returning home with his wife from recording "The Bowmans" episode, based around a parody of "The Archers", Hancock was involved in a minor car accident and was thrown through the windscreen. He was not badly hurt, but suffered concussion and was unable to learn his lines for "The Blood Donor", the next show due to be recorded. The result was that Hancock had to perform by reading from teleprompters, and could be seen looking at camera or away from other actors when delivering lines. From this time onwards, Hancock came to rely on teleprompters instead of learning scripts whenever he had career difficulties. Introspection. In early 1960, Hancock appeared on the BBC's "Face to Face", a half-hour in-depth interview programme conducted by former Labour MP John Freeman. Freeman asked Hancock many searching questions about his life and work. Hancock, who deeply admired his interviewer, often appeared uncomfortable with the questions, but answered them frankly and honestly. Hancock had always been highly self-critical, and it is often argued that this interview heightened this tendency, contributing to his later difficulties. According to Roger, his brother, "It was the biggest mistake he ever made. I think it all started from that really. ...Self-analysis - that was his killer." The usual argument is that Hancockâs mixture of egotism and self-doubt led to a spiral of self-destructiveness. Cited as evidence is his gradual ostracism of those who contributed to his success: Bill Kerr, Kenneth Williams, Hattie Jacques and Sidney James, and finally his scriptwriters, Galton and Simpson. His reasoning was that to refine his craft, he had to ditch his catch-phrases and become realistic. He argued, for example, that whenever an ad-hoc character was needed, such as a policeman, it would be played by someone like Kenneth Williams, who would appear with his well -known oily catchphrase 'Good evening'. Hancock believed the comedy suffered because people did not believe in the policeman, they knew it was just Williams doing a funny voice. Hancock read widely and avidly in an attempt to discover the meaning of life, including large numbers of philosophers, classic novels and political books. He was a supporter of the Labour Party, and admired Michael Foot above any other politician. The break with Galton and Simpson. Hancock starred in the 1960 film "The Rebel", where he plays the role of an office worker-turned-artist who finds himself successful after a move to Paris, but only as the result of mistaken identity. Although a success in Britain the film was not well received in the United States: owing to the existence of a contemporary television series of the same name, the film had to be renamed, and the new title, "Call Me Genius", inflamed American critics. Bosley Crowther in "The New York Times" thought Hancock "even less comical" than Norman Wisdom. His break with Galton and Simpson took place at a meeting held in October 1961, where he also broke with his long-term agent Beryl Vertue. During the previous six months, the writers had developed - without payment and in consultation with the comedian - three scripts for Hancock's second starring film vehicle. Worried that the projects were wrong for him, the first two had been abandoned incomplete; the third was written to completion at the writers' insistence, only for Hancock to reject it. Hancock is thought not to have read any of the screenplays. The result of the break was that Hancock chose to separately develop something previously discussed and the writers were ultimately commissioned to write a "Comedy Playhouse" series for the BBC, one of which, "The Offer", emerged as the pilot for "Steptoe and Son". To write that "something previously discussed", which became "The Punch and Judy Man", Hancock hired writer Philip Oakes, who moved in with the comedian to co-write the screenplay. In "The Punch and Judy Man" (1962), Hancock plays a struggling seaside entertainer who dreams of a better life; Sylvia Syms plays his nagging social climber of a wife, and John Le Mesurier a sand sculptor. The depth to which the character played by Hancock had merged with that of the actor is clear in the film. When Hancock first read the script, he looked at Phillip Oakes, and his only comment was "You bastard..." Hancock knew that the film was going to be about him, and the film owes much to Hancockâs memories of his childhood in Bournemouth. Later years. He moved to ATV in 1962 with different writers, though Oakes, retained as an advisor, did not value their work, and the two men severed their professional relationship. The principal writer of Hancock's ATV series, Godfrey Harrison, had scripted the successful George Cole radio and television series "A Life Of Bliss", and also Hancock's first regular television appearances on "Fools Rush In" (a segment of "Kaleidoscope") more than a decade earlier. Harrison had trouble meeting deadlines, so other writers were commissioned, including Terry Nation. Coincidentally, the transmission of the series clashed in the early months of 1963 with the second series of "Steptoe and Son" written by Hancock's former writers, Galton and Simpson. Critical comparisons did not favour Hancock's series. Around 1965 Hancock made a series of 11 TV adverts for the Egg Marketing Board. Hancock starred in the adverts with Patricia Hayes as Mrs Cravatte in an attempt to revive the Galton and Simpson style of scripts. Slightly earlier, in 1963, he featured in a spoof "Hancock Report" - hired by Lord Beeching to promote his plan to reduce railway mileage in advertisements. Hancock reportedly wanted to be paid what Beeching was paid annually - ÂŁ34,000; he was offered half that amount for his services. Hancock continued to make regular appearances on British television until 1967, but by then alcoholism had affected his performances. After hosting two unsuccessful variety series for ABC Television, "The Blackpool Show" and "Hancock's", he was contracted to make a 13-part series called "Hancock Down Under" for the Seven Network of Australian television. This was to be his first and only television series filmed in colour; however, after arriving in Australia in March 1968 he only completed three programmes, which remained unaired for several years. Personal life. In June 1950, he married Cicely Romanis, a Lanvin model, after a brief courtship. The situation became more complicated as Freddie Ross (who worked as his publicist from 1954) became more involved in his life, eventually becoming his mistress. He divorced his first wife in 1965, and married Freddie in December of that year. This second marriage was short-lived. During these years Hancock was also involved with Joan Le Mesurier (nĂŠe Malin), the new wife of actor John Le Mesurier, Hancock's best friend and a regular supporting character-actor from his television series. Joan was later to describe the relationship in her book "Lady Don't Fall Backwards", including the claim that her husband readily forgave the affair. If it had been anyone else, he said, he wouldn't have understood it, but with Tony Hancock, it made sense. In July 1966, Freddie took an overdose, but survived. Arriving in Blackpool to record an edition of his variety series, Hancock was met by pressmen asking about his wife's attempted suicide. The final dissolution of the marriage took place a few days ahead of Hancock's own suicide. Cicely developed her own problems with alcohol and died from a fall in 1969, the year after the death of her former husband. Freddie Hancock survived her broken marriage and resumed her career as a prominent publicist and agent in the film and television industry. She has been based in New York City for many years. She was the founder and prominent member of the East Coast chapter of BAFTA, the British Academy of Film and Television Arts. Death. Hancock committed suicide, by overdose, in Sydney, on 24 June 1968. He was found dead in his Bellevue Hill flat with an empty vodka bottle and a scattering of amylo-barbitone tablets. In one of his suicide notes he wrote: "Things just seemed to go too wrong too many times". His ashes were brought back to the UK by satirist Willie Rushton in an Air France hold-all, and in deference to his fame and love of cricket, his ashes travelled back in the first class cabin. Spike Milligan commented in 1989: "Very difficult man to get on with. He used to drink excessively. You felt sorry for him. He ended up on his own. I thought, he's got rid of everybody else, he's going to get rid of himself and he did." Legacy. There is a sculpture by Bruce Williams (1996) in his honour in Old Square, Corporation Street, Birmingham, a plaque on the house where he was born in Hall Green, Birmingham, and a plaque on the wall of the hotel in Bournemouth where he spent some of his early life. There is also a plaque, placed by the Dead Comics Society, at 10 Grey Close, Hampstead Garden Suburb, London, where he lived in 1947 and 1948. In a 2002 poll, BBC radio listeners voted Hancock their favourite British comedian. Commenting on this poll, Ray Galton and Alan Simpson observed that modern-day creations such as Alan Partridge and David Brent owed much of their success to mimicking dominant features of Tony Hancock's character. "The thing they've all got in common is self-delusion," they remarked in a statement issued by the BBC. "They all think they're more intelligent than everyone else, more cultured, that people don't recognise their true greatness â self-delusion in every sense. And there's nothing people like better than failure." Mary Kalemkerian, Head of Programmes for BBC 7, commented "Classic comedians such as Tony Hancock and the Goons are obviously still firm favourites with BBC radio listeners. Age doesn't seem to matter â if it's funny, it's funny." Dan Peat of the Tony Hancock Appreciation Society said of the poll: "It's fantastic news. If he was alive he would have taken it one of two ways. He would probably have made some kind of dry crack, but in truth he would have been chuffed." In a 2005 poll to find the "Comedians' Comedian" Hancock was voted the twelfth greatest comedian by fellow comics and 'comedy insiders'. The last eight or so years of Tony Hancock's life were the subject of a BBC 'Screen One' television film, called "Hancock" (1991), starring Alfred Molina. Another BBC drama - "" (2006) - saw Martin Trenaman play the role of Hancock with Michael Sheen as Williams. Hancock's affair with Joan Le Mesurier was also dramatised in "Hancock and Joan" on BBC Four and transmitted on 26 March 2008 as part of the Curse of Comedy season. Hancock was portrayed by Ken Stott and Joan by Maxine Peake. Musician Pete Doherty is a fan of Hancock and entitled the first album by his band the Libertines "Up the Bracket" after one of Hancock's catch phrases. He also wrote a song called "Lady Don't Fall Backwards" after the book at the centre of the "Hancock's Half Hour" episode "The Missing Page". Galton and Simpson were involved around 1973 in an unbroadcast television pilot for a series called "Bunclarke With an E", starring Arthur Lowe and James Beck in the Hancock and James roles. "The Economy Drive" was the "Hancock's Half Hour" episode selected, but Beck died shortly afterwards. Paul Merton in 1996 appeared in remakes of six of the writer's Hancock scripts, which were not critically well received. Since then Galton and Simpson have adapted the best known of the Hancock scripts to the stage with David Pibworth. Recordings. Episodes (and anthologies) from the radio series were released on vinyl LP in the 1960s, as well as four re-makes of television scripts; an annual LP was issued of radio episodes (without the incidental music) between 1980 and 1984. Much of this material was also available on cassette in later years. The BBC issued CDs of the surviving seventy-four radio episodes in six box sets, one per series, with the sixth box containing several out-of-series specials. This was followed by the release of one large boxed set containing all the others in a special presentation case; while it includes no extra material, the larger box alone (without any CDs) still fetches high prices on online marketplaces like eBay, where Hancock memorabilia remains a thriving industry. There have also been VHS video releases of the BBC TV series. While five separate Region 2 DVDs were previously issued, some of the surviving episodes were unavailable until "The Tony Hancock BBC Collection" (8Â DVDs) surfaced in 2007. Episodes of the radio series are often broadcast on the digital radio station BBC Radio 4Extra.
1161162	Guy Harry Stockwell (November 16, 1934 – February 6, 2002) was an American actor who appeared in nearly 30 movies and 250 television series episodes. Stockwell was born in Hollywood, California, the son of Nina Olivette (née Elizabeth Margaret Veronica), an actress and dancer, and Harry Bayless Stockwell, or Harry Stockwell, an actor and singer. His younger brother is the actor Dean Stockwell. Guy Stockwell held the recurring role of Chris Parker from 1961 to 1962 in twenty-six episodes of the ABC series, "Adventures in Paradise", starring Gardner McKay as the skipper of a sailing vessel set in the South Pacific. Stockwell also was cast in episodes of "The Roaring 20s", "Simon & Simon", "Knight Rider", "Tales of the Gold Monkey", "Magnum, P.I.", "Murder, She Wrote", Columbo, "Quantum Leap", "Bonanza", "Tombstone Territory"," Combat!" "The Richard Boone Show", "Gunsmoke," and "Return to Peyton Place", He had important roles in several major motion pictures including "The War Lord" (1965), "Blindfold" (1965), "Beau Geste" (1966), "Tobruk" (1967), and "Santa Sangre" (1989). Guy suffered from diabetes in later years and died of its complications. He was married and divorced three times and was survived by his three children Kerry, Doug, and Victoria, his brother Dean, and his nephew and niece, Austin and Sophia.
1162977	William Sanderson (born January 10, 1948) is an American character actor. Early life. Sanderson was born in Memphis, Tennessee to an elementary school teacher mother and a landscape designer father. He holds business (B.B.A., 1968) and law (J.D., 1971) degrees from the University of Memphis (then known as Memphis State University). Career. Sanderson has appeared in many movies, and is known for his role in the 1982 classic science fiction film "Blade Runner" as J. F. Sebastian. Sanderson appeared as one of the mechanics, regulars of the diner in The Rocketeer, who defies Nazi agents looking for the top secret rocket pack. He also portrayed a character named "Deuce" in an episode of the science fiction television series "Babylon 5", and later reprised the role in the television movie '. He is also the basis and the voice for the recurring character Dr. Karl Rossum in '. Sanderson starred in the controversial film "Fight for Your Life", which has a strict ban in the United Kingdom. As a guest, he has made appearances in television shows, and his credits include "The X-Files", "Knight Rider", "Married... with Children", "Babylon 5", "ER", "Walker, Texas Ranger", and "Coach". He plays a key role in an audio dramatization of Ursula K. Le Guin's "Vaster than Empires and More Slow" in NPR's 2000X series. In 2001, Sanderson played a courageous bartender named Dewey in the TNT film "Crossfire Trail". He played Larry in "Newhart" from 1982 to 1990, famous for the catchphrase, "Hi. I'm Larry. This is my brother Darryl... This is my other brother Darryl." Sanderson returned to television playing E. B. Farnum in the HBO television series "Deadwood" from 2004 to 2006. His role is a tragicomic hotelier and first mayor of Deadwood. In 2008, Sanderson joined the cast of "True Blood" playing town Sheriff Bud Dearborne. Sanderson portrayed "Oldham", the resident interrogation expert of the "DHARMA Initiative" in the 10th episode of the fifth season of ABC's series "Lost". He appears in the Current TV series "Bar Karma" as a bartender.
586688	Namkeen (Devanāgarī: नमकीन, English: Salty), 1982 Hindi film, directed by Gulzar, with Sharmila Tagore, Sanjeev Kumar, Shabana Azmi and Waheeda Rehman as leads. It was yet another movie by Gulzar made on some very sensitive but untouched aspects of Indian society especially in rural areas. The story "Akal Basant" was by Samaresh Basu on whose story, Gulzar had previously made "Kitaab" (1977). The film won the National Film Awards in 1983 for Best Audiography for Essabhai M. Suratwala, while Samresh Basu won the Filmfare Award for Best Story. Waheeda Rehman and Kiran Vairale received Filmfare Award nominations for Best Supporting Actress, which they lost to Supriya Pathak in "Bazaar". Plot. Three unmarried sisters live in a remote village in Himachal Pradesh with their old mother, Jugni (Waheeda Rehman), a former "nautanki" (folk theatre) dancer, who sells spices and takes in boarders to make a living. The three daughters are named like flavors in food. The 'salty' eldest daughter Nimki (Sharmila Tagore), is a reserved spinster, quietly but firmly holding the household together. The 'sweet' middle sister is Mitthu (Shabana Azmi) who cannot speak, but is revealed to be an intelligent and romantic girl. The 'tangy' youngest one is Chinki (Kiran Vairale), a bold and vibrant teenager, who turns out to be more perceptive than one would credit her to be. Their quiet little haven is occasionally threatened by the alcoholic father Kishanlal (Rammohan), a sarangi player who was on the travelling troupe with Jugni, and keeps attempting to reclaim his daughters. She left him years ago to protect her daughters from the life of a nautanki dancer which she always struggled to escape. All four live in a very old house outside the village. Gerulal (Sanjeev Kumar) is a truck driver who joins this peculiar household for a brief time as a tenant. Initially stunned by their less than friendly ways and unsocial demeanor, he grows to respect the women as he watches the difficulties they struggle with every day. He finds that even among the crisis of money and facilities, all the sisters are capable of maintaining moral values and diginified behavior towards the outer world. He begins to like Nimki. But somehow Mitthu, whom he sympathizes and befriends, seems to have feelings for Gerulal. When Gerulal needs to move on from that region because of work, he proposes to Nimki. But she turns down his proposal citing the responsibility of her sisters and her mother, and asks him to marry Mithu instead - a request he cannot comply with. Some years later, Gerulal is shocked to find Chinki performing at a village nautanki. From her he learns how drastically things changed after he left - Mitthu lost her mental balance and committed suicide, Jugni died of the shock and Chinki, with not much left to choose from, joined her father's troupe. Gerulal rushes back to Jugni's crumbling old house to find Nimki, alone and aged beyond her years, almost a reflection of her mother. This time, he takes her away with him. Themes. The main characters of the movie are Gerulal and Nimki. Gerulal was depicted as a thread who brought together all the sporadic pearls of that family. Nimki is a person who is always ready to sacrifice and she always puts her interests after her sisters and mother. This is why she refuses to marry Gerulal. Production. Originally Rekha was cast in the role of Nimki, which was later played by Sharmila Tagore. Release. The film was released on Doordarshan, India's National TV network in 1982 as it did not find any distributors, as did another film of the decade "Libaas" (1988), which never had a commercial release. Film's DVD version was released in 1998, and had a different ending, with ending of the original cut, where Girulal comes back to find an almost empty home, edited out. Soundtrack. The soundtrack was composed R. D. Burman and lyrics by Gulzar, and featured songs by playback singers Kishore Kumar and Asha Bhonsle. Though "Raah Pe Rahte Hai" sung by Kishore Kumar got noticed, and stood out for its lyrics being based on the life for truck drivers, it was "Baankee Chalee Zhaankee Chalee" and "Phir Se Aaiyo Badaraa Bidesee", both sung by Asha Bhonsle that remained film's memorable songs.
584230	Chithiram Pesuthadi () is a 2006 Indian Tamil romantic drama film written and directed by Mysskin. The film stars Narain and Bhavana, both making their debuts in Tamil cinema. The film's score and soundtrack are composed by Sundar C Babu. Produced by Dreambridge Productions on a budget of 1.25 crores, the film faced publicity issues but later aascar took the film and re released it and was a massive hit of that year. The film was re-released four weeks later, after noted film producer Aascar Ravichandran acquired the film's rights and promoted it heavily, emerging very successful eventually and becoming a sleeper hit of the year. The film was later remade to Telugu as Raju Bhai and in Kannada as Kichha Huchha. Plot. Thiru (Narain) works as a henchman with Annachi (Dandapandi). Annachi adores him and sees in him his own bravery and extraordinary fighting abilities. One day, Thiru stumbles upon Charu (Bhavana), a local NGO, who fights injustice. A quarrel ensues between them. They soon realize that it was a meeting of heart and soon start to admire each other. Charu works towards transforming Thiru from an emotionless henchman to a lovable, kind-hearted guy. As a result, he and some of his gang members abandon their incorrigible life of gun culture and take up sales at the roadside hoping to lead a socially respectable life. Charu sees a changed personality in Thiru and decides to marry him, with the consent of her father. But her hopes shatters after seeing Thiru clumped away in a police van from a brothel. She gives up her plans to become Thiru's life partner. Notwithstanding the failure, Charu's father commits suicide. Charu blames Thiru for ruining her life and for her father's death. Thiru goes back to Annachi. Charu decided to wed her own relative. Meanwhile, Annachi's son falls in love with Charu and wants to marry her. Annachi deputes Thiru to bring Charu. Thiru devices his own plans in an attempt to thwart Annachi's nefarious plans and save Charu. How Thiru saves Charu from Annachi and ultimately re-unite with her forms the remaining part of the story. Inspiration. Mysskin expressed in a book release function that he himself got to realize that this movie is an accidental inspiration of Beauty and the Beast (1991 film) while the shooting was progressing. He questioned the critics why they failed to criticize about this accidental inspiration whereas they criticized Nandalala, his other movie to be a copy of Kikujiro. He expressed this irrelevant to the book release function. Soundtrack. The film's score and soundtrack were composed by Sundar C Babu, who made his debut in film scoring through this film. The album features 12 tracks overall, including four instrumental tracks. The lyrics were penned by Kabilan and director Mysskin himself, while Gana Ulaganathan had written and sung the song "Vazha Meenu", which is considered as having contributed immensely to the film's success. Release. The film was released by Dreambride Productions on 10 February 2006 and initially failed to attract audience due to a low-profile release, lacking publicity, becoming removed from almost all theatres within two weeks after its release. Aascar Ravichandran who watched the film at a theatre in Chennai, clinched a deal with the producing studio and purchased the film outright for 1.75 crores. He began promoting the heavily, particularly on the basis of the song "Vazha Meenukkum" from the film's soundtrack, spending 1 crores on publicity and marketing, and re-released it with his large network another two weeks later, helping the film to get wide publicity. The film eventually went on to collect 8 crores and became declared a financial success.
1040395	Glorious 39 is a 2009 British thriller film written and directed by Stephen Poliakoff and starring Romola Garai, Bill Nighy, Julie Christie, Jeremy Northam, Christopher Lee, David Tennant and Jenny Agutter. Filming began in late October 2008 and concluded in December 2008. Much of the filming took place in Norfolk where the film is set. It was released on November 20, 2009. On the eve of World War II, as the formidable Keyes family tries to uphold its traditional way of life, daughter Anne (Garai) sees her life dramatically unravel when she stumbles upon secret recordings of the pro-appeasement movement. Plot. In present-day London, Michael Walton (Toby Regbo) visits his cousins, Walter and Oliver Page (Christopher Lee and Corin Redgrave). Michael, interested in family history, asks them about his great aunt, Anne Keyes (Romola Garai), the sister of his grandmother, Celia (Juno Temple). Anne, an actress, was the eldest of the three Keyes children; desperate for children, her father, Member of the House of Commons, Alexander (Bill Nighy) and mother, Maud (Jenny Agutter) had adopted her, however, Maud then gave birth to Ralph (Eddie Redmayne) and Celia. Michael is curious to learn what happened to Anne, which leads Walter to reminisce of the summer of 1939, at the Keyes estate in Norfolk. On the day of Alexander's birthday, Anne has prepared a table in the garden to celebrate. Anne's friend, the outspoken MP Hector (David Tennant) and lover, the reserved Lawrence (Charlie Cox) are present for the festivities. When Alexander arrives that night, he also brings a guest, the quiet government employee, Joseph Balcombe, (Jeremy Northam). During dinner, Hector rants about Britain's lack of action against Nazi Germany, noting that while his view is unpopular, he feels that it needs to be said. It is later revealed that he has been one of those calling out for a new prime minister. The next day, while looking for a missing cat, Anne finds her in one of the property's sheds, which had been off-limits due to them containing Alexander's manuscript papers. She finds gramophone records labelled "Foxtrot," which upon listening, actually contain recorded meetings and telephone conversations. Alexander reveals that he has allowed Balcombe to store government documents in the shed. Two weeks later, Anne is notified that Hector has been found dead, of an apparent suicide. Anne wonders if Balcombe had anything to do with Hector's death. Alexander brushes off the idea, but does offer to ask Balcombe to remove the records from the shed, something he promises to do the next day during a picnic. While there, the picnic-goers take off for a walk, including Aunt Elizabeth (Julie Christie), leaving Anne to watch over baby Oliver. Anne awakens to find Oliver and his pushchair missing. She follows his cries to no avail, and when the family returns, they search, too, until they find him in his pushchair on a lane. Anne vehemently denies moving the baby, but the incident plants roots of doubt about Anne's word. Balcombe removes the records that night, but Anne has secretly kept two of them. The family then returns to London because Parliament has been recalled. While there, Anne listens to the records. One contains a recording of a distressed Hector pleading with Balcombe to cease calling him and also his parents. However, the maid bursts into the room, which causes the gramophone to fall, and the record to break into pieces. On September 1, Anne gives a second record to her fellow actor and friend, Gilbert (Hugh Bonneville), who is subsequently found dead from an apparent suicide. Anne travels back to Norfolk to keep Aunt Elizabeth company, where she listens to the second recording. On it, she recognizes Balcombe's voice, along with another, her brother, Ralph. Ralph is heard suggesting the name "thin man dancing" for a covert operation. The name he suggested is a reference to a childhood toy with which the siblings played. This confirmed to Anne that Ralph is not to be trusted. At a party in London, Anne attempts to tell Lawrence of Ralph's involvement, but he already knows. Lawrence convinces Anne to bring him the recording at a rendezvous at a suburban veterinary surgery. After Anne finds Lawrence's body in a shed filled with euthanised pets, she is drugged by her father and taken prisoner in Aunt Elizabeth's house which is close to St Paul's Cathedral. Balcombe pays her a visit, and brings with him the second recording, which was intercepted by him. He informs her that the recording had been made for her father, and that was why they were stored at the house in Norfolk. He also informs her that their house in London is being used for series of pro-appeasement meetings which her father is chairing. Alexander later admits to her that he believes that Britain will be completely destroyed unless it secures a peace treaty with Germany, and that nothing should disturb that. Alexander tells her that she is the only member of the family that does not share his beliefs, which is why they are keeping her locked away and sedated. After some time, Maud unlocks the door to release her while the rest of the family is at the park. She goes past them, and when they act as though nothing wrong had happened, Anne runs away. Back in the present, Walter tells Michael that Anne died in Canada 20 years ago, and that he was just doing what his family and Balcombe had wanted. It is then revealed that Balcombe convinced Walter to move Oliver's pushchair into the lane. Michael asks Oliver and Walter to accompany him to meet his mother. They travel to the same park where Anne had last seen her family. A woman, Michael's mother, wheels an elderly woman towards them. That elderly woman is revealed to be Anne, and Michael tells them that that he knew the truth all along but wanted to hear it from them. Location. The film is set in Norfolk and was filmed there. The ruins of Castle Acre Priory and Walsingham Abbey are featured prominently as a favourite haunt of the Keyes siblings. Other locations used include the Cley Marshes, Holkham Hall and Houghton Hall.
1713458	Mitti is a 2010 Punjabi film directed by Jatinder Mauhar with story, screenplay & dialogues by Jatinder himself, produced by Kamalpreet Singh Bains & Rubina Baig, and starring Mika Singh, Lakhwinder Singh Kandola, Vaquuar Shaikkh, Victor John "Mitti" released on 8 January 2010 globally. Upon release, the film underperformed at the box office but was loved by the Punjabi audiences. Plot. "Mitti" is a film about Punjab's youth today and their political disputes. It’s a story about four youth who are best of friends and how their life changes after an incident takes place. Jeet Brar who is a farmer and a local kisaan leader represents the motivated and charged group of people, But on the other hand there is the Young blood of Punjab who is unaware about the danger their state is facing and these young people do not have any mission in their life, most of them want to become a singer or want to go to foreign, and some are behind to find the way how to make fast money and some of them are slaves to the corrupt politicians of the state, such type of young group of people represent the four central characters of the film namely Rabbi Sidhu, Gaazi Dhillon, Lalli Brar and Tunda. All these four youngsters work for the corrupt politician Sardar Harmail Singh. They are prone to alcohol and are walking on the way of crime. They are not all concerned about their future and about themselves, among them Laali Brar is the brother of Jeet Brar but Laali is not at all ready to listen to his brother. Beside This there is a character of a girl called Neeru daughter of Sharma NRI who has also studied with these guys in University, and Gaazi loves Neeru But Neeru Loves Rabbi and this Love Triangle of these three creates problem within the friendship of Rabbi and Gaazi, and among all the father of Neeru does not agree her daughter to talk to these criminals, from here a different angle comes to the life of these characters, and the fourth character Tunda is from very poor family but his friends never let him realize that he is from poor family, Tunda's father always scolded him that he will get nothing being with these rich people, he have to work one day but he never listened to his father. Among all this scenario there is a character of journalist called Sarabjit who just wants to show the truth of the people of state and wants to expose the corrupt leader Sardar Harmail Singh, he also manages to make the MMS of Sardar, but with the help of these four guys Sardar manages to take back the cd & DV from journalist Sarabjit while doing so all the four friends kill journalist accidentally. The film revolves around the current scenario of Punjab and its problems. Release. The film released on January 8th, 2010.
1067681	Kelly Reilly (born 18 July 1977) is an English actress. Her performance in "After Miss Julie" at the Donmar Warehouse made her a star of the London stage and earned her a nomination for a Laurence Olivier Theatre Award for Best Actress of 2003. Reilly's performance in the 2005 British comedy film, "Mrs Henderson Presents", won her the Empire Award for Best Newcomer in 2006. Her first lead role came in 2008 in the critically acclaimed British horror film, "Eden Lake", and in 2009, she had a high-profile role on prime time British television in the three-part police drama "Above Suspicion". That year she also appeared in three major films, "Sherlock Holmes", "Triage", and "Me and Orson Welles". In 2011, she reprised her role as Mary Watson in "". In 2012, Reilly starred opposite Denzel Washington in the Robert Zemeckis film "Flight", and in 2013, she will star in the John Michael McDonagh film "Calvary". Early life. Reilly was born and brought up in Surrey, England, the daughter of a hospital receptionist mother, and Jack Reilly, a police officer. Her grandparents were Irish. Career. Inspired to seek acting work beyond school, she wrote to the producers of the television drama "Prime Suspect" and six months later was granted and won the audition, for a role in an episode "Prime Suspect 4: Inner Circle", which aired on ITV on 7 May 7, 1995. Six years later, she once again appeared alongside Helen Mirren in the film "Last Orders". Her first professional role was followed by a series of parts on the English stage. She worked with Terry Johnson in four productions, "Elton John’s Glasses" (1997), "The London Cuckolds" (1998), "The Graduate" (2000) and "Piano/Forte" (2006). Johnson wrote "Piano/Forte" for her and said "Kelly is possibly the most natural, dyed-in-the-wool, deep-in-the-bone actress I've ever worked with." Reilly has stated that she learned the most as an actor from Karel Reisz, who directed her in "The Yalta Game" in Dublin in 2001. She said, "He was my masterclass. There is no way I would have been able to do "Miss Julie" if I hadn't done that play." By 2000, Reilly felt she was being typecast in comedy roles and she actively sought out a role as the young Amy in "Last Orders", directed by Fred Schepisi. This was followed by a role in the Royal Court's 2001 re-run of Sarah Kane's "Blasted". "The Times" called her "theatrical Viagra". In 2002, she starred alongside Audrey Tautou and Romain Duris as Wendy, an English Erasmus student, in the French comedy "L'Auberge espagnole" ("The Spanish Apartment"). She resumed her role in the 2005 sequel, "Les Poupées russes" ("The Russian Dolls"). Also in 2005, she had a series of roles in such films as "Mrs. Henderson Presents" and "Pride & Prejudice". Her first lead role came in 2008 in the horror film "Eden Lake" and, in 2009, she had a high-profile role on prime time British television in the three-part police drama "Above Suspicion". That year she was also in three major films. In 2012, she appeared opposite Sam Rockwell in "A Single Shot", played Brendan Gleeson's character's daughter in John Michael McDonagh's "Calvary", and had a leading role in Robert Zemeckis' "Flight", opposite Denzel Washington. Awards and nominations. Reilly's performance in "After Miss Julie" at the Donmar Warehouse made her a star of the London stage and earned her a nomination for a Laurence Olivier Theatre Award for Best Actress of 2003. Aged 26, she was the youngest person ever nominated for that award. In 2005, she won Best Newcomer Award at the Cannes Film Festival for her role as Wendy in "The Russian Dolls" ("Les Poupées Russes"). In 2006, Reilly won the Empire Award for Best Newcomer for her role in the British comedy film, "Mrs Henderson Presents". She was nominated once again for an Olivier award for her performance as Desdemona in the acclaimed production of Othello at The Donmar Warehouse in 2009. Reilly was nominated for Best Supporting actress at the British Independent film awards for Eden Lake in 2010. She won the Spotlight award at the 2012 Hollywood Film festival, for her performance as Nicole in "Flight". Personal life. Reilly married Kyle Baugher in 2012.
1247435	Thomas Neal (January 28, 1914 – August 7, 1972) was an American actor best known for appearing in the critically lauded film "Detour", a tryst with Barbara Payton and later committing manslaughter. Career. Born in Evanston, Illinois, Neal debuted on Broadway in 1935. In 1938 he first appeared in film in "Out West with the Hardys", part of the Mickey Rooney "Hardy family" movie series. That same year, he received a law degree from Harvard University. While in college at Northwestern and Harvard Universities, Neal was a stand-out on the schools' boxing teams. He compiled a 44-3 (41 knockouts) ring record, and Neal was coached by Henry Lamar. Neal appeared in many low budget B-movies in the 1940s/1950s. In 1941 he starred with Frances Gifford in the Republic Pictures 15 episode serial, "Jungle Girl." Perhaps his most memorable role was that of Al Roberts in the classic film noir "Detour" alongside Ann Savage. They went on to make five movies together. Personal life and death. In 1951, he fought fellow actor Franchot Tone over their mutual girlfriend, actress Barbara Payton. Neal inflicted upon Tone a smashed cheekbone, a broken nose and a brain concussion. After the incident, Tone and Payton married, and Neal had a difficult time finding work. He ended up supporting himself landscaping and gardening. Payton left Tone after only seven weeks and returned to the troubled Neal. Their relationship lasted four years. Neal remarried almost immediately and in 1957 fathered a son, Tom Neal, Jr. His wife died the following year from cancer. In 1961, Neal married for the third time, to Gale Bennett. Four years later, he shot her in the back of the head with a .45-caliber gun, killing her instantly. He was arrested and, although prosecutors sought the death penalty, he was convicted of involuntary manslaughter and sentenced to ten years in prison, of which he served six years. On December 6, 1971, he was released on parole. Less than a year later, Neal died of heart failure in North Hollywood, California at the age of 58 on August 7, 1972. He was cremated, and his ashes stored in the vault at the Chapel of the Pines Crematory in Los Angeles. His son appeared in one film: playing the role of Al Roberts in a 1992 independent remake of "Detour."
592065	Amrithadhare () is a Kannada film directed and produced by Nagathihalli Chandrashekhar. The film was released on 7 October 2005 starring Dhyan and Ramya in lead roles. The music was composed by Mano Murthy. Bollywood actor Amitabh Bachchan has made a guest appearance as himself in this movie. The movie was remade in Telugu as Amrutha Varsham. Plot. Puru (Dhyan) and Amritha (Ramya) are a married couple but they behave like lovers. They like each other but quarrel sometimes. She is a spendthrift and he is a miser. She wants a child to build a family, while he wants to build a house. The film follows their trials and tribulations as they navigate the difficult world of marriage in the modern age. The film also has a strong social message and speaks to the emptiness of a large home without a large family inside it. Amitabh Bachchan makes a guest appearance. Music. The official soundtrack contains six songs.music was composed by Mano Murthy and lyrics by Nagathihalli Chandrashekhar.
519926	Paul Patrick Rodil Gruenberg or simply called Polo Ravales, born June 27, 1982 in Manila, Philippines, is a Filipino actor and model with German descent. Career. Ravales' first TV appearance came in 1995 as one of second batch members in the Philippine teen show TGIS. He is a former VIVA contract star along with fellow GMA stars Sunshine Dizon, Dingdong Dantes and among others. A year later, he got a small role in the drama series "Anna Karenina" as Vincent. Then followed by a few more soap series, "Click", "Ang Iibigin ay Ikaw", and "Hanggang Kailan." In 2005, Ravales landed his first big role in the hit telefantasya series Encantadia as Hitano, which followed by another successful telefantasya series Majika. He played a brave warrior and then a scheming lover, ably displaying manliness and machismo that heated the television screens. Ravales has also starred in a number of successful movies in the Philippines, including Room Boy, Blue Moon, and most recently, Super Noypi, about six childhood friends discover that their parents are the legendary Super Noypi-the most powerful superheroes in the land. Aside from his acting career, Ravales is also a model. He's done print ad campaigns and TV commercials for Bench clothing, Ginebra, Coca-Cola, Colgate, and even made it to Cosmopolitan Philippines' 2006 & 2008 Hottest Bachelor List. When asked what he wants to achieve in his career, Ravales replied, "I want to win the Best Actor Award." He added that his goal in life is to have his own restaurant business someday. In 2008, he is Patrick Garcia's replacement for the role of Andy Abrigo in Sine Novela: Maging Akin Ka Lamang opposite Nadine Samonte. The role he reprised was originally portrayed by Christopher De Leon and was his biggest break in TV. After this, he joins the casts of Gagambino where he works once again with Dennis Trillo, Nadine Samonte, and Katrina Halili. In 2009, after Gagambino, Ravales is playing Shiro in Darna where she works with Marian Rivera, who plays the title role, for the first time. Polo is also formerly part of GMA Dramedy show, "Adik Sa'Yo" with his co-stars Jolina Magdangal and Marvin Agustin. In 2010, Ravales will play as a hero in the comics adaptation of "Panday Kids" which stars Jolina Magdangal, JC de Vera, Lovi Poe, Jackie Rice and Robert Villar, he also seen in other GMA shows like "Sine Novela Presents: Basahang Ginto" which he plays Anton, he also guested in "Claudine Presents: Love Thy Neighbor" which he plays a rich driver with his co-stars Claudine Barreto, and former love team and now long-time friend Sunshine Dizon, and also recently seen on "Grazilda" which he plays as Matthew Dominguez with his co-stars Geoff Eigenmann & Glaiza De Castro. And in 2011, he's formerly seen on GMA's drama fantaserye, "Machete" (wwhich originally came from Actor-Director Cesar Montano) with his co-stars Bella Padilla, Ryza Cenon and Aljur Abrenica. He also joined a former Drama series "Sinner Or Saint", with his co-star and returning Kapuso star Alessandra Del Rossi. This 2012, Polo has a new show called "Hiram Na Puso" which sometimes airs this March 2012 on Channel 7.
1104609	Paul Albert Gordan (27 April 1837 – 21 December 1912) was a German mathematician, a student of Carl Jacobi at the University of Königsberg before obtaining his Ph.D. at the University of Breslau (1862), and a professor at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg. He was known as "the king of invariant theory". His most famous result is that the ring of invariants of binary forms of fixed degree is finitely generated. He and Alfred Clebsch gave their name to Clebsch-Gordan coefficients. Gordan also served as the thesis advisor for Emmy Noether. A famous quote attributed to Gordan about David Hilbert's proof of the Hilbert Basis Theorem, a result which vastly generalized his result on invariants, is "This is not mathematics; this is theology." The proof in question was the (non-constructive) existence of a finite basis for invariants. It is not clear if Gordan really said this since the earliest reference to it is 25 years after the events and after his death, and nor is it clear whether the quote was intended as criticism, or praise, or a subtle joke. Gordan himself encouraged Hilbert and used Hilbert's results and methods, and the widespread story that he opposed Hilbert's work on invariant theory is a myth (though he did correctly point out in a referee's report that some of the reasoning in Hilbert's paper was incomplete). He was born in Breslau, Germany (now Wrocław, Poland), and died in Erlangen, Germany.
1194003	Laura Prepon (; born March 7, 1980) is an American actress, known for her role as Donna Pinciotti in the long-running Fox sitcom "That '70s Show", for all eight seasons. She is also known for the role of Hannah Daniels on the ABC drama "October Road". She has voiced characters in animated TV series such as "American Dad!" and "King of the Hill", as well as a character in the video game "Halo 2".
584687	Thiruvidaimarudur Sambamoorthi Ganapathigal Balakrishna Sastrigal Moulee is an Indian stage and film actor, director and playwright. He is the son of noted "Harikatha" exponent T. S. Balakrishna Sastrigal. B.Chandra Mouli, popularly known as Mouli, has stamped his authority on different facets of the film industry viz. Drama, Script Writing, Acting and Direction. He has directed films in Tamil and Telugu with great success. Early life. Moulee was interested in acting and played parts in stage plays right from his school days. As a school-going kid, he was fascinated by the plays of T. K. Shanmugam and Singanallur Venkataramana Iyer Sahasranamam, both noted personalities in producing stage plays at that time.
1161227	Henry Cho (born December 30, 1961 in Knoxville, Tennessee) is an American stand-up comedian. His work can be heard nationwide several times weekly on XM Radio's Channel 151, Laugh USA and Sirius Radio's Blue Collar Radio channel 103, Pandora Radio's PG Comedy Radio channel.
1166032	Audrey Meadows (February 8, 1922 — February 3, 1996) was an American actress best known for her role as the deadpan housewife Alice Kramden on the 1950s American television comedy "The Honeymooners". Early life. Born as Audrey Cotter in New York City in 1922, the youngest of four siblings. Her parents, the Rev. Francis James Meadows Cotter and his wife, the former Ida Miller Taylor, had been Episcopal missionaries in Wu-ch'ang, China, where her three elder siblings were born. The family returned to live in New York in 1921. Her older sister is actress Jayne Meadows. She attended high school at the Barrington School for Girls in Great Barrington, Massachusetts. Career. After high school, she sang in the Broadway musical "Top Banana" before becoming a regular on television in "The Bob and Ray Show". She was then hired to play Alice on "The Jackie Gleason Show" after the actress who originated the role, Pert Kelton, was forced to leave the show due to the blacklisting, although the official reason given was that Kelton was suffering from a health problem. When "The Honeymooners" became a half-hour situation comedy on CBS, Meadows continued in the role. She then returned to play Alice after a long hiatus, when Gleason produced occasional "Honeymooners" specials in the 1970s. Meadows had auditioned for Gleason and was initially turned down for being too chic and pretty to play Alice. Meadows submitted a far different photo of herself, looking much plainer, the next day and won the role of Alice. She also appeared in a 1960 episode of "Alfred Hitchcock Presents", entitled "Mrs. Bixby and the Colonel's Coat". Later years. Meadows appeared in a number of films, worked with Dean Martin on his television variety shows and celebrity roasts, and then returned to situation comedy in the 1980s playing the mother-in-law on "Too Close for Comfort" (1982-1985). She guest-starred on "The Red Skelton Show" show, made an appearance in an episode of "Murder, She Wrote" ("If The Frame Fits") and made an appearance in an episode of "The Simpsons" ("Old Money"), wherein she voiced the role of Bea Simmons, Grandpa Simpson's girlfriend. Her last work was on the sitcom "Dave's World", in which she played the mother of Kenny (played by Shadoe Stevens).
584644	Nenjirukkum Varai is a 2006 Tamil film directed by S. A. Chandrasekhar. The film stars Narain and newcomer Deepa, with Mahadevan, Nassar, Livingston and Thalaivasal Vijay in supporting roles. The music was composed by Srikanth Deva. Plot. Ganesh (Narain) is the slum boy who drives an auto to support his family. Bhuvana is the neglected daughter of a rich man and is in search of true love. Bhuvana (Deepa) is drawn to Ganesh's honesty and good heart. She confesses her love to him but he turns her away saying that a rich girl like her would never be able to live a life of poverty with him. Bhuvana tells him that she will show him she can do it and comes to Ganesh's house with just the clothes on her self. As Bhuvana and Ganesh share a happy love and understanding, life is all roses till a storm disrupts their happiness. Bhuvana meets with an accident and fights for her life. Doctors say nothing but a heart transplant could save her. The hero has neither heart nor money for the operation. Ganesh is unable to bear the thought of a life without Bhuvana.
582068	Dimple Chunnibhai Kapadia (born 8 June 1957) is an Indian film actress. Kapadia made her acting debut at the age of 16, playing the title role in Raj Kapoor's teen romance "Bobby" (1973). In that same year she married Indian actor Rajesh Khanna, and retired from acting. She is the mother of Twinkle Khanna and Rinke Khanna, both former actresses. Kapadia returned to the film industry in 1984 after her separation from Khanna. One of her films of that period was the drama "Saagar" (1985). Both "Bobby" and "Saagar" won her the Filmfare Award for Best Actress. She became one of the leading actresses of Hindi cinema in the 1980s. A national sex symbol, Kapadia was keen to avoid being stereotyped and expand her range of acting roles. She subsequently took on more serious parts in parallel films and received acclaim for her performances in such films as "Kaash" (1987), "Drishti" (1990), "Lekin..." (1990), and "Rudaali" (1993), which earned her a National Film Award for Best Actress and a Filmfare Critics Award for Best Actress. She followed with supporting roles in "Gardish" (1993) and "Krantiveer" (1994), the latter of which garnered her a fourth Filmfare Award. Kapadia continued working infrequently through the 1990s and the 2000s. She played a minor part in "Dil Chahta Hai" (2001) and was noted for her portrayal of the title role in the American production "Leela" (2002). Some of her later film credits include leading roles in "Hum Kaun Hai?" (2004), "Pyaar Mein Twist" (2005), "Phir Kabhi" (2008) and "Tum Milo Toh Sahi" (2010), and supporting roles in "Being Cyrus" (2005), "Luck by Chance" (2009), "Dabangg" (2010), "Patiala House" (2011) and "Cocktail" (2012). Career. Debut (1973). Kapadia once said she had always had aspirations to become an actress when she was a child, calling herself "film-crazy". She was discovered at age 13 by Raj Kapoor, who later introduced her in his 1973 teen romance "Bobby". While the film was to be Kapoor's son Rishi Kapoor's first leading role, Kapadia was given the title role of Bobby Braganza, a middle-class Goan Christian girl. The story follows how Bobby falls in love with Raj (Rishi), the son of a wealthy businessman, and how the two face the disapproval of their parents. "Bobby" was a major mainstream and critical success, and Kapadia was lauded for her performance, which won her the Filmfare Award for Best Actress (tied with Jaya Bhaduri for "Abhimaan"). In later years Kapadia would credit Raj Kapoor for her development as an actress: "the sum total of me today as an actress, whatever I am, is Raj Kapoor." Several of her lines in the film became popular, particularly, "Mujhse dosti karoge?" ("Will you be my friend?"). In 2008, Rediff.com ranked her performance in the film as the fourth-best female debut of all-time in Hindi cinema: "An elfin little girl with big, lovely eyes, nobody quite portrayed innocence as memorably as Dimple in her first outing. She was candid, striking, and a true natural ... here was a girl who would redefine glamour and grace, and make it look very, very easy indeed." Following the success of the film, Kapadia's modern wardrobe and hairstyle in "Bobby", consisting of "knotted polka-dotted blouse and earphone hairstyle", made her a youth fashion icon of the times in India. Consequently polka-dotted dresses were often referred to as 'Bobby Print'. Bhawana Somaaya of "The Hindu" credits Kapadia as starting film memorabilia merchandising in India. Mukesh Khosla of "The Tribune" reported that "Bobby" established her as a "cult figure" as she led the fashion trends. By the time "Bobby" released, Kapadia had married actor Rajesh Khanna in March 1973 at the age of 16, and left the film industry to raise her children. Comeback and work in the 1980s. After Kapadia's separation from Khanna in 1982, she was keen on returning to acting, which she ultimately did in 1984. Along with Rekha and Sridevi, she would go on to become one of three leading commercial actresses in India in the 1980s. Kapadia accredited the reason for her return was because of a personal need to prove to herself her own capabilities. The first film she worked on was "Saagar", directed by Ramesh Sippy, after a mutual friend had notified Sippy about her willingness to return to acting. She first performed a screen test, which according to her was very unsuccessful as she was extremely nervous and "literally shivering" while making it. To her surprise, Sippy ultimately signed her on to play the lead part opposite her "Bobby" co-star Rishi Kapoor. Scripted with her in mind, the film was intended to be her comeback vehicle, but its one-year delay meant that several of her proceeding projects would be released before, the first of which was "Zakhmi Sher" (1984). "Saagar" eventually premiered in August 1985 and was controversial for several scenes featuring Kapadia, including one scene in which she was seen topless for a split second. The film was a critical success and was eventually chosen as India's official entry to the Oscars that year. Kapadia's performance as Mona D'Silva, a young woman from Goa who is torn between her friend (Kamal Haasan) and the man she loves (Kapoor), won her a second Best Actress award at the Filmfare Awards. A review by "Asiaweek" labelled her "a delight". Rediff.com noted, "Dimple, caught between a friend and lover, performed solidly and memorably, grounding the two male leads and making the film work." A 1993 issue of "India Today" wrote, "Saagar was in many ways a paean to her incredible beauty. She looked ravishing: auburn hair, classical face, deep eyes, an aura of sensuality. It was clear she was back." In 1984 she had a role opposite Sunny Deol in "Manzil Manzil", a drama directed by Nasir Hussain. She later said making the film was "one big picnic", though she expressed her lack of comfort performing the "routine song-and-dance" nature of the part. Kapadia's first film of 1985 was Mukul Anand's "Aitbaar", a Hitchcockian thriller for which she received positive reviews. Speaking of her performance, she said that during shooting she was "a bag of nerves", which eventually ended up working "to my advantage as it lent my performance the right shade of tautness, without my realising it." Among other films released that year, Kapadia was paired up with Sunny Deol in "Arjun", an action film directed by Rahul Rawail and scripted by Javed Akhtar. Feroz Khan's "Janbaaz" (1986) told the story of a man fighting the drug menace. The film became known for its steamy love scene involving Kapadia and male lead Anil Kapoor, in which the two also shared a full on kiss, something Hindi movie-goers were not accustomed to in those days. In that same year she acted opposite "Saagar" co-star Kamal Haasan in her first regional film, "Vikram", a Tamil-language sci-fi feature. She played the minor part of Inimaasi, a young princess who falls for the title character, played by Haasan. At that time, she also worked in numerous Hindi films made by producers from the South, including "Pataal Bhairavi", which she detested. She has confessed to accepting these roles for financial gain rather than artistic merit during this period, noting, "I shudder even now when I think of those films. As an artiste I got totally corrupted." In 1987, Kapadia starred in Mahesh Bhatt's drama "Kaash". Kapadia and Jackie Shroff starred as an estranged couple who, during a relentless legal battle over the custody of their only son, learn that the boy is suffering from leukaemia, which makes them reunite to spend together the last months of his life. Before shooting began, she called it "the most serious artistic challenge I have ever faced in my career." Bhatt said he decided to cast her in the role because he was aware of her own marital experience, and he noted that during the making of the film she "came closer and closer to the naked truth," so much that "after a certain point, mentally I couldn't differentiate between Dimple and Pooja. She became the character." Kapadia's performance as Pooja was highly praised by critics. In an article discussing her career's best roles, "The Times of India" wrote, "As ... long-suffering wife who tries making a living for herself and her young son by working odd jobs, Dimple showed immense strength as a performer. This has to be one of her best and most unrecognised performances." Sukanya Verma from Rediff.com noted, "She rendered her Pooja with stoic determination and touching vulnerability making her character extremely believable and sympathetic at once." In 1988, she played the main protagonist in "Zakhmi Aurat", that of a female police officer who gets gang-raped and, after the judicial system fails to convict the criminals, abandons the legal course and joins forces with other rape victims to get revenge by castrating the rapists. "The Times of India" labelled the film a "B-grade movie", but further noted that "Dimple nonetheless did a very convincing job of portraying her anguish and bitterness at being denied justice." M.L. Dhawan from "The Tribune", while documenting the famous Hindi films of 1988, praised Kapadia for "proving her mettle as an actress of intensity and passion." Subhash K. Jha, however, in an article discussing Indian actresses who have played policewomen, wrote that the film "turned into quite an embarrassment for its leading lady." The three final years of the decade saw the release of several other films featuring Kapadia, but few did well. In 1987, she appeared in two action movies: Rajkumar Kohli's "Insaniyat Ke Dushman" and Mukul Anand's "Insaaf", in which she played a dual role of a dancer and a physician. She worked with Kohli in two more movies in 1988, the horror film "Bees Saal Baad" and the action drama "Saazish". In that same year Mahesh Bhatt cast her again in his action thriller "Kabzaa", a critical failure. "Ram Lakhan" (1989), directed by Subhash Ghai, was a success with both critics and audiences, but Kapadia's role was considered small with one critic saying it did not do "justice to her talent" and another reporting that she "pales into insignificance in the film." Other films of this period include Babbar Subhash's "Pyar Ke Naam Qurbaan", opposite Mithun Chakraborty, and J.P. Dutta's action picture "Batwara", opposite Dharmendra and Vinod Khanna. 1990s. In the 1990s, Kapadia started venturing more into arthouse films, later citing an "inner yearning to exhibit my best potential." Those films include "Drishti" (1990), "Lekin..." (1990), "Rudaali" (1993) and "Antareen" (1995). "Drishti", a marital drama directed by Govind Nihalani, starred Kapadia and Shekhar Kapur as a married urban couple from an intellectual milieu in Mumbai and followed their trials and tribulations, extramarital affairs, divorce, and ultimate reconciliation after years of separation. Kapadia's part was that of career-woman Sandhya, and for her portrayal she was named the Best Actress (Hindi) of the year by the Bengal Film Journalists' Association. The film was acknowledged as the Best Hindi Film of that year at the annual National Film Awards. In 1993. "Frontline" suggested that Kapadia's performance in the film should have earned her the Best Actress award at the same function. In Gulzar's "Lekin...", she played a restless sprite named Reva, a role she has often cited as a personal favourite and wished would have had more screen time in the film. Referring to it once as "the most fantastic" part of her career, she recalled the working relationship with Gulzar as "a wonderful experience". In order to make her character more truthful, Gulzar did not let Kapadia blink even once during filming, trying to capture an "endless, fixed gaze" which would give her "a feeling of being surreal." "Lekin..." was popular with critics and Kapadia's performance earned her a third Filmfare nomination.
1251724	London River is a 2009 British drama film, written and produced by Franco-Algerian film director Rachid Bouchareb. Starring Brenda Blethyn and Sotigui Kouyaté, it centres on the journey of two people searching for their children after the 7 July 2005 London bombings. Plot. In July 2005, British Protestant war widow Elisabeth Sommers (Blethyn), who is a Guernsey farmer, and Francophone African Muslim Ousmane (Kouyaté) are strangers who meet in London. She is searching for her daughter, and he for his son, following the London bombings. Neither is close to their missing child. They fear that the daughter and son were killed in the bombings. They discover that they were a couple who lived together in a flat in London who planned to travel to France, but were killed by Hasib Hussain when the bus they were travelling on exploded in Tavistock Square. It was shot in the UK and France. London locations include Harringay and Finsbury Park, in particular Blackstock Road. Critical reception. The film premiered at the 59th Berlin International Film Festival on February 10, 2009.
218057	Night Crossing is a 1982 Disney film starring John Hurt, Jane Alexander and Beau Bridges. The film is based on the true story of the Strelzyk and Wetzel families, who on September 16, 1979 escaped from East Germany to West Germany in a homemade hot air balloon during the days of the Berlin Wall when emigration to West Germany was strictly prohibited by the East German government. It was directed by Delbert Mann. Plot synopsis. The film opens with a brief summary of the then-current conditions in East Germany and nature of the border zone, featuring stock footage such as Conrad Schumann's jump over barbed wire in Berlin. In April 1978, in the small town of Pößneck, Thuringia, a teenager, Lukas Keller, attempts to escape East Germany by riding a bulldozer through the Inner German Border Zone. However, he is shot by automatic machine guns and is left for dead by the guards; his family is informed while having a picnic with their friends, the Strelzyks and the Wetzels. The Keller family are taken by the police. Finally fed up with his life under the GDR regime, Peter Strelzyk (Hurt) proposes a daring plan to his friend Günter Wetzel (Bridges): they will build a balloon to carry themselves and their families (eight people total) over the border to West Germany. They purchase 1,250 square yards of taffeta (claiming it is for a camping club); Günter sews the fabric together with a sewing machine in his attic and Peter experiments for months to construct a burner. Of course, they face setbacks: fires while trying to inflate the balloon, struggles to build a burner with sufficient power, extremely suspicious neighbors, and doubts about the plan's workability from Günter's wife, Petra. Eventually, Petra convinces Günter to not go through with the plan. Peter and Günter then stop seeing each other, to avoid suspicion for when the Strelzyks escape. Peter and his eldest son, Frank, complete the burner and, after extensive testing, manage to inflate the balloon. On July 3, 1979, the four members of the Strelzyk family attempt to fly out. They successfully take off, though they are spotted by the border guard (who do not know what to make of it); however, a cloud dampens the balloon and the burner, and they crash within the border zone, only a few hundred feet from the fences, and the balloon floats away. Miraculously, they escape the zone, return to their car and drive home. Meanwhile, the border guard finds the balloon and the Stasi, led by Major Koerner (played by Günter Meisner), begins an investigation to find whoever built it, so they can prevent them from trying again. Initially distraught over his failure, Peter is convinced by his sons to try again, as they did fly and no one was hurt, and now the Stasi will stop at nothing to find them. Peter convinces Günter to help him and both families begin work on a larger balloon to carry them all out. Petra agrees to go with the plan, especially since her mother in West Berlin is very sick. Having identified the initial launch area, the Stasi begins closing in on Pößneck. The Strelzyks and Wetzels purchase smaller quantities of taffeta from various stores to avoid suspicion, but they are running out of time. In one scene, Peter tries to buy taffeta, claiming it is for his group of Young Pioneers; the manager leaves him to notify the Stasi, prompting Peter to leave the store. They eventually finish the balloon, but have no time to test it. On September 15, 1979, the families prepare to move out while the Stasi finds blood pressure medicine belonging to Peter's wife, Doris, at the place where the first balloon initially landed. They contact the pharmacy and run through all the people whom the medicine is prescribed to, eventually coming to Doris. Their neighbor (a member of the Stasi) identifies them as acting suspiciously; the families leave only minutes before the Stasi arrives at their homes. They reach their launch point while the border is placed on emergency alert. The balloon is inflated and the burner is lit. Both families climb into the balloon's basket and cut their ropes. A fire is started in the cloth, but it is quickly put out by Günter. As they fly over, the balloon is spotted and Koerner pursues them in a helicopter. Eventually, the burner runs out of propane and they descend; the border guard is mobilized to find them. The balloon lands in a clearing, with all eight people unharmed. Peter and Günter scout to find out where they are. They are found by a police car. Peter asks if they are in the West; puzzled, the police officer says "Of course you are". Overjoyed, Peter and Günter light their signal flare. The families all then happily embrace each other over the amazing success of their journey.
1101116	Stephen Smale (born July 15, 1930) is an American mathematician from Flint, Michigan. He was awarded the Fields Medal in 1966, and spent more than three decades on the mathematics faculty of the University of California, Berkeley (1960–61 and 1964–1995). Education and career. Smale entered the University of Michigan in 1948. Initially, he was a good student, placing into an honors calculus sequence taught by Bob Thrall and earning himself A's. However, his sophomore and junior years were marred with mediocre grades, mostly Bs, Cs and even an F in nuclear physics. However, with some luck, Smale was accepted as a graduate student at the University of Michigan's mathematics department. Yet again, Smale performed poorly his first years, earning a C average as a graduate student. It was only when the department chair, Hildebrandt, threatened to kick out Smale, that he began to work hard. Smale finally earned his Ph.D. in 1957, under Raoul Bott. Smale began his career as an instructor at the college at the University of Chicago. In 1958, he astounded the mathematical world with a proof of a sphere eversion. He then cemented his reputation with a proof of the Poincaré conjecture for all dimensions greater than or equal to 5, published in 1961; in 1962 he generalized the ideas in a 107 page paper that established the h-cobordism theorem. After having made great strides in topology, he then turned to the study of dynamical systems, where he made significant advances as well. His first contribution is the Smale horseshoe that jumpstarted significant research in dynamical systems. He also outlined a research program carried out by many others. Smale is also known for injecting Morse theory into mathematical economics, as well as recent explorations of various theories of computation. In 1998 he compiled a list of 18 problems in mathematics to be solved in the 21st century, known as Smale's problems. This list was compiled in the spirit of Hilbert's famous list of problems produced in 1900. In fact, Smale's list contains some of the original Hilbert problems, including the Riemann hypothesis and the second half of Hilbert's sixteenth problem, both of which are still unsolved. Other famous problems on his list include the Poincaré conjecture, the P = NP problem, and the Navier–Stokes equations, all of which have been designated Millennium Prize Problems by the Clay Mathematics Institute. Earlier in his career, Smale was involved in controversy over remarks he made regarding his work habits while proving the higher dimensional Poincaré conjecture. He said that his best work had been done "on the beaches of Rio". This led to the withholding of his grant money from the NSF. He has been politically active in various movements in the past, such as the Free Speech movement. At one time he was subpoenaed by the House Un-American Activities Committee. In 1960 Smale was appointed an associate professor of mathematics at the University of California, Berkeley, moving to a professorship at Columbia University the following year. In 1964 he returned to a professorship at UC Berkeley where he has spent the main part of his career. He retired from UC Berkeley in 1995 and took up a post as professor at the City University of Hong Kong. He also amassed over the years one of the finest private mineral collections in existence. Many of Smale's mineral specimens can be seen in the book—"The Smale Collection: Beauty in Natural Crystals". Since 2002 Smale is a Professor at the Toyota Technological Institute at Chicago; starting August 1, 2009, he is also a Distinguished University Professor at the City University of Hong Kong. In 2007, Smale was awarded the Wolf Prize in mathematics.
1059394	Meet Dave is a 2008 American family comedy science-fiction film directed by Brian Robbins and starring Eddie Murphy. The film was written by Bill Corbett and Rob Greenberg. The film was released by 20th Century Fox and Regency Enterprises on July 11, 2008. Plot. In his New York City apartment, a young boy named Josh Morrison (Austyn Lind Myers) stares through his telescope at an object falling from the sky. It is a golf-ball-sized metal ball which flies through the window and lands in his fishbowl, quickly draining the water. He decides to show it at his school's science class presentation.
1058202	Dallas Mark Roberts (born May 10, 1970) is an American stage and screen actor. He is most recently known for playing Milton Mamet in season three of AMC's post-apocalyptic horror television series, "The Walking Dead" (2012–2013). He is also a regular on Season 2 of "Unforgettable", where he plays Eliot Delson. Early life and education. Roberts was born and raised in Houston, Texas, where he attended Paul Revere Middle School and Robert E. Lee High School. He then moved to Sarasota, Florida, where he graduated from Sarasota High School in 1988 and attended Manatee Community College. In 1990, Roberts was accepted to the Juilliard School in New York City, where he graduated in 1994 as a member of the Drama Division's "Group 23". Career. Roberts is primarily based in New York City, where he regularly appears in theatrical productions. Off-Broadway he has appeared in a revival of Lanford Wilson's "Burn This", opposite Edward Norton and Catherine Keener; in Adam Rapp's "Nocturne", for which he was nominated for a Drama Desk Award; and in Caryl Churchill's "A Number", opposite Sam Shepard and later Arliss Howard, among others. He was slated to make his Broadway debut as Tom Wingfield in a revival of Tennessee Williams' "The Glass Menagerie" opposite Jessica Lange and Josh Lucas, but was replaced by Christian Slater during rehearsals. Roberts' film work includes the screen adaptation of Michael Cunningham's "A Home at the End of the World", opposite Colin Farrell and Robin Wright Penn, and supporting roles in "Walk the Line" and "The Notorious Bettie Page", among others. He also had a regular role on the Showtime drama "The L Word". He starred in the AMC original series "Rubicon" as Miles Fiedler, a genius intelligence analyst at a national think tank. He has guest starred in four episodes of the CBS series "The Good Wife" as the brother of the character Alicia Florrick, played by Julianna Margulies. From 21 August 2012 through 31 March 2013, Roberts has been included in the cast of the hit AMC television show "The Walking Dead", playing scientist Milton Mamet, who studies "walkers" (zombies). Personal life. Roberts is married to scenic designer Christine Jones. They have two sons, Pilot (age ) and Ever (age ).
586541	Nazar Ke Samne is an Indian film directed by Jagdish A. Sharma and released in 1994. It stars Akshay Kumar, Farheen. Plot. Umesh, a photographer is arrested for the murder of his newspaper editor. The fact that they had an altercation earlier and that he was found at the murder scene with the murder weapon (a knife) in his hands lead to his arrest. However, in court the lawyer- Sahni(Kiran Kumar), almost wins the case for Umesh. Enters an eye witness- Jai (Akshay Kumar) whose statement results in a sentence to be hanged until death for Umesh. Jai Kumar is a fraud who can be paid to become an eye witness. Sarita- Umesh's sister comes to know about her brothers predicament and that Jai is a liar. She makes Jai realise how his lies can destroy families. He has a change of heart, falls in love with Sarita and promises to save Umesh. However, the court rejects Sahnis request to re-open the case. They come across a photograph which was taken accidentally at the murder scene. However, only the murderer's shoes are seen. Jai tries to find the man who had paid him to lie and to find the owner of the shoes. Turns out that the lawyer is not such a nice man after all. He murdered the editor who was blackmailing him. Now as Jai is trying to find him, he has to make sure there is no proof or witnesses (Badshah Khan Sharbatwala) to prove he is the murderer. Who succeeds and how is the rest of the story.
581180	Sindhu Samaveli is a 2010 Tamil drama film directed by Samy. The film featured debutants Anaka (Amala Paul), Harish Kalyan and Ghajini in the lead roles. The story revolves around an illicit relationship between a girl and her father-in-law. The film became Samy's third controversial film in succession, achieving an "A" certificate upon censor following "Uyir" and "Mirugam". The film released on September 3, 2010 and did poor at the box office. Plot. Anbu (Harish Kalyan) is a brilliant student in a village school, somewhere in Kanyakumari area. His mother teaches in the same school and his dad Veerasami (Ghajini) is a CRPF soldier in Assam. His classmate is Sundari (Amala Paul), who is a failed student and elder to him by three years falls for him. One day, his father gets injured in a militant attack and takes voluntary retirement and comes back to the village. The father dotes on his family especially his son, but tragedy strikes as his wife dies due to a snake bite. Both father and son are heartbroken. Anbu decides to fulfil his mother’s dream of becoming a teacher. Around this time, his father and other relatives pressure him to marry Sundari. The love birds live together for hardly a month, before they are separated as Anbu has to go to the teacher’s training school. Sundari is left in the house to look after his dad, and soon due to certain incidents and circumstances they enter into a “forbidden relationship”. One day Anbu comes back and finds out the bitter truth leading to a taut nerve wracking climax on the high seas.
343140	The Attack of the Giant Moussaka ( ) (1999), also spelt Mousaka and translated to Gigantic Moussaka, is a Greek science fiction parody film, produced, written and directed by Panos H. Koutras. It has been released theatrically in France, with French subtitles, and Japan, with Japanese subtitles. It has been screened at several festivals, including specialised LGBT film festivals, and has achieved cult status. Plot. The city of Athens is at war with a terrifying gigantic moussaka accidentally produced when an ordinary serving is hit by a ray from an alien space ship. Japan. This movie has been distributed as The Attack of the Giant cake by film distributors in Japan.
1067570	Cradle 2 the Grave is a 2003 American action film directed by Andrzej Bartkowiak featuring actor Jet Li and rapper DMX. Plot. The film opens with a group of thieves—led by Anthony Fait—attempting to steal diamonds for a Frenchman named Christophe, who serves as the middleman for a mysterious employer. When Fait contacts Christophe, a Taiwanese Intelligence Agent named Su intercepts the conversation and attempts to identify the criminals. While the crew gathers up as many diamonds as they can, including a bag of black diamonds, Agent Su calls Fait and demands that he and his crew leave the diamonds in the vault, warning him that the police are on the way. Fait, however, ignores this warning, and the criminals attempt a daring escape past a SWAT-team blockade. While Fait, Daria, and Tommy all manage to escape, Agent Su captures Miles and recovers Miles' share of the diamonds. Su is disappointed to find that Miles does not have the black diamonds though. Fait, meanwhile, asks his friend Archie to appraise the black diamonds he had stolen. Arriving at the San Francisco International Airport, Christophe's mysterious employer, Ling, is informed, by his assistant Sona, that Christophe has been attacked and that Fait and his gang have taken the black diamonds. Later that night, Fait runs into Su. During this inadvertent meeting, Fait receives a phone call from Ling, who demands that Fait hand over the black diamonds. Fait refuses and is subsequently attacked by two of Ling's henchman. With Su's help, he defeats them and escapes. Soon after the fight, Archie tells Fait that some gangsters came to his workshop and demanded the black diamonds as well. After some hesitation, Archie admits that he gave the stones to the gangsters to spare his own life. Fait also receives another call from Ling, who has kidnapped Fait's daughter, Vanessa, to persuade Fait to give up the diamonds. Now with a common enemy, Fait and Su team up to recover the diamonds from the gangsters and rescue Vanessa from Ling. Fait visits jailed crime lord "Jump" Chambers, most likely the employer of the gangsters who had robbed Archie. When Chambers refuses to cooperate, Fait goes to Chambers' night club, hoping to find the stones somewhere in his office. The plan goes awry, and Fait and the gang have to leave empty-handed. Meanwhile, Su and Archie go to an underground club to try to find the gangsters who attacked Archie. Because the club does not allow guests, Su is forced to enter as a fighter in the club's fighting ring. During Su's fight, Archie sees the man they are looking for, recognizing the man's ring. Through this informant, they learn that the diamonds are hidden in the bubble bath in Chamber's office. When they return to the nightclub to retrieve the diamonds, they find that Ling's men have already taken the stones. Meanwhile, while locked in a van, the bound and gagged Vanessa frees herself, and finds a cell phone to call her father. Just before the phone's battery runs out, Vanessa gives some clues as to her location. With these clues, the gang surmises that Vanessa is being held in an airport hangar. Realizing that Ling will want to auction off the stones, which are actually weapons of mass destruction, the group searches flight schedules to find an airport where a large number of private flights will be landing that night. Finding the right airport, the group races to the hangar, where Ling's auction is already starting. A fight ensues, and Fait and his crew take out members of Ling's team. Vanessa is rescued and Ling is killed by one of the stones. When the police arrive, Fait promises to end his criminal career in order to lead a safe and happy life with Vanessa. In a bonus scene during the credits, Tommy and Archie plan to make a movie with their story, using famous actors, such as Denzel Washington. They plan to get the director of the movies "Exit Wounds" and "Romeo Must Die" (both directed by Andrzej Bartkowiak). Cast. This film reunites actors Jet Li, DMX, and Anthony Anderson with director Andrzej Bartkowiak, who they first worked together with on "Romeo Must Die". Reception. The movie received mostly negative reviews. According to Roger Ebert, both stars deserved better scripts, but the film filled a need for some action-film fans. Box office. The film debuted at number one at the North American box office, grossing $16,521,468 in its opening weekend. However, this accounted for a hefty 47.6% of its total $34,712,347 gross. The film's worldwide gross stands at $56,489,558.
1164745	Jonathan Gregory Brandis (April 13, 1976 – November 12, 2003) was an American actor, director, and screenwriter. Beginning his career as a child model, Brandis moved on to acting in commercials and eventually won television and film roles. At the age of 17, he landed his best-known role, as Lucas Wolenczak, a teen prodigy on the NBC series "seaQuest DSV". The character was popular among teenage female viewers, and Brandis regularly appeared in teen magazines. In November 2003, Brandis died of injuries he sustained after hanging himself at the age of 27. Early life. Brandis was born in Danbury, Connecticut. He was the only child of Mary, a teacher and personal manager, and Gregory Brandis, a food distributor and firefighter. He began his career as a child model at the age of 4, and began acting in television commercials. Career. At the age of six, Brandis won the role of Kevin Buchanan on the soap opera "One Life to Live". He moved to Los Angeles with his family at age nine, and made guest appearances on shows such as "L.A. Law", "Who's the Boss?", "Murder, She Wrote", "The Wonder Years", "Full House" and "Kate & Allie".
780702	Johan de Witt or Jan de Witt, "heer van Zuid- en Noord-Linschoten, Snelrewaard, Hekendorp and IJsselveere" (24 September 1625 – 20 August 1672) was a key figure in Dutch politics in the mid-17th century, when its flourishing sea trade in a period of globalization made the United Provinces a leading European power during the Dutch Golden Age. De Witt controlled the Netherlands political system from around 1650 until shortly before his death in 1672 working with various factions from nearly all the major cities, especially his hometown, Dordrecht, and the city of birth of his wife, Amsterdam. As a republican he opposed the House of Orange and, along with his brother Cornelis de Witt, was murdered by Orangists. Biography. Early life. Johan de Witt was a member of the old Dutch patrician family De Witt. His father was Jacob de Witt, an influential "regent" and burgher from the patrician class in the city of Dordrecht, which in the seventeenth century, was one of the most important cities of the dominating province of Holland. Johan and his older brother, Cornelis de Witt, grew up in a privileged social environment in terms of education, his father having as good acquaintances important scholars and scientists, such as Isaac Beeckman, Jacob Cats, Gerhard Vossius and Andreas Colvius. Johan and Cornelis both attended the Latin school in Dordrecht, which imbued both brothers with the values of the Roman Republic. Private life. Johan de Witt married on 16 February 1655 Wendela Bicker (1635–1668), the daughter of Jan Bicker (1591–1653), an influential patrician from Amsterdam, and Agneta de Graeff van Polsbroek (1603–1656). Jan Bicker served as mayor of Amsterdam in 1653. De Witt became a relative to the strong republican-minded brothers Cornelis and Andries de Graeff, and to Andries Bicker. The couple had four children, three daughters and one son: After De Witt's death, his brother in law Pieter de Graeff became a guardian over his children. Career. After having attended the Latin school in Dordrecht, he studied at the University of Leiden, where he excelled at mathematics and law. He received his doctorate from the University of Angers in 1645. He practiced law as an attorney in The Hague as an associate with the firm of Frans van Schooten. In 1650 (the year that stadtholder William II of Orange died) he was appointed leader of the deputation of Dordrecht to the States of Holland. In 1653 De Graeff made De Witt 'Grand Pensionary' of the States of Holland. Since Holland was the Republic's most powerful province, he was effectively the political leader of the United Provinces as a whole. That is why the "raadpensionaris" of Holland was also referred to as the Grand Pensionary — in many way similar to a modern Prime Minister. As the first Statesman of the Dutch Republic. Together with De Graeff, De Witt brought about peace with England after the First Anglo-Dutch War with the Treaty of Westminster in the year 1654. The peace treaty had a secret annex, the Act of Seclusion, forbidding the Dutch ever to appoint William II's posthumous son as stadtholder. This annex had been attached on instigation of Cromwell, who felt that since William III was a grandson of the executed Charles I, it was not in the interests of his own republican regime to see William ever gain political power. On 25 September 1660 the States of Holland under the prime movers of De Witt, De Graeff, his younger brother Andries de Graeff and Gillis Valckenier resolved to take charge of William's education to ensure he would acquire the skills to serve in a future—though undetermined—state function. Influenced by the values of the Roman republic, De Witt did his utmost anyway to prevent any member of the House of Orange from gaining power, convincing many provinces to abolish the stadtholderate entirely. He bolstered his policy by publicly endorsing the theory of republicanism. He is supposed to have contributed personally to the "Interest of Holland", a radical republican textbook published in 1662 by his supporter Pieter de la Court. De Witt's power base was the wealthy merchant class into which he was born. This class broadly coincided politically with the "States faction", stressing Protestant religious moderation and pragmatic foreign policy defending commercial interests. The "Orange faction", consisting of the middle class, preferred a strong leader from the House of Orange as a counterweight against the rich upper-classes in economic and religious matters alike, although leaders that did emerge from the House of Orange rarely were strict Calvinists themselves. In the period following the Treaty of Westminster, the Republic grew in wealth and influence under De Witt's leadership. De Witt created a strong navy, appointing one of his political allies, Lieutenant-Admiral Jacob van Wassenaer Obdam, as supreme commander of the confederate fleet. Later De Witt became a personal friend of Lieutenant-Admiral Michiel de Ruyter. The Second Anglo-Dutch War began in 1665, lasting until 1667 when it ended with the Treaty of Breda, in which De Witt negotiated very favorable agreements for the Republic after the partial destruction of the British fleet in the Raid on the Medway, initiated by De Witt himself and executed in 1666 by De Ruyter. At about the time the Treaty of Breda was concluded, De Witt made another attempt at pacification of the quarrel between States Party and Orangists over the position of the Prince of Orange. He proposed to have William appointed captain-general of the Union on reaching the age of majority (23); on condition, however, that this office would be declared incompatible with that of stadtholder in all of the provinces. For good measure the stadtholderate was abolished in Holland itself. This Perpetual Edict (1667) was enacted by the States of Holland on August 5, 1667, and recognized by the States-General on a four-to-three vote in January, 1668. This edict was added by Gaspar Fagel, then Pensionary of Haarlem, Gillis Valckenier and Free Imperial Knight Andries de Graeff, two prominent Amsterdam regents, which abolished the stadtholderate in Holland "for ever". Death. During 1672, which the Dutch refer to as the "year of disaster" or "rampjaar", France and England attacked the Republic during the Franco-Dutch War and the Orangists took power by force and deposed de Witt. Recovering from an earlier attempt on his life in June, he was lynched by an organized mob after visiting his brother Cornelis in prison.
1071957	Story. "Azumi" focuses upon the life of the titular young female assassin. The manga begins an indeterminate number of years after the Battle of Sekigahara. As Azumi begins her duty, the manga introduces its characters into mainstream history. Many of the early missions that Azumi undertakes are the assassinations of the prominent supporters and generals of the Toyotomi Clan, against whom Tokugawa Ieyasu expected to again go to war. The manga 'reveals' that many of the Toyotomi leaders who conveniently died of diseases or accidents prior to the final confrontation between the Toyotomi and Tokugawa were actually victims of assassinations by Azumi and her comrades, thus indicating to the reader when the events were taking place. Azumi is raised by an old man known as Jiji (Grandfather), whose name is later revealed to be Gensai Obata, as the only girl among ten students. They are secluded from the society in a tiny valley called Kiridani (Fog Valley) to such an extent that they do not know the difference between men and women, what a baby is, or customs like marriage. Early in the manga, as part of their training, Azumi and her comrades are ordered to go to Shimotani, a hidden community of ninja who became farmers, to learn the basics of ninjutsu. The manga sets a very chilling tone early on. The 10 "erabareta senshi" (chosen warriors), who are all young children (Azumi has her first period well after her first missions, so she appears to be somewhere between 10–12 years of age at the onset of the manga) are told by Jiji that they have completed their training. For their first mission, they are to form a pair with whomever among the 10 that they feel the closest. Azumi pairs with Nachi, and all others pair with their closest friends. Having formed the pairs, Jiji tells them their first mission is to kill their partner—whoever is too weak to kill their partner is too weak to fulfill their life's missions, and will not be allowed to survive. The ten children each fight their respective duels, and Azumi slays Nachi, an event which appears to deeply traumatize Azumi, but she hides her feelings, as do the others. Then, their second mission was to massacre all 53 residents of the peaceful ninja village, including their teacher, women and children, as they know of the group's existence. Azumi slays three men and four teenagers but is unable to kill a woman with baby, a task which one of her comrades quickly accomplishes. The remaining five warriors proceed to go on assassination missions of the various important supporters of the Toyotomi faction. As the manga proceeds, it evokes various moral concepts such as the morality of assassinations (and killing in general), the dehumanization effect of politics, as well as leading the reader to question basic assumptions of right and wrong. For example, throughout much of the middle volumes of the manga (Vol. 8-19), Azumi frequently fights and kills many bandits—many of whom are depicted robbing, murdering, and raping innocent victims. Azumi does not question that her killing such bandits is right, and few readers probably question her righteousness. Later on in the manga, the political background to the reason for the banditry is revealed. The Tokugawa ruling family deposed and ended many previously prominent daimyo feudal lords who opposed them leaving the samurai and mercenaries in their employ without work or any means to live—therefore they resorted to banditry. Azumi questions whether it was right for her to have killed so many men who had been driven to banditry not by their own choice. A consistent recurring theme is the contrast between Azumi and other prominent characters. Azumi is compared to a bodhisattva—a kind of enlightened being. This is indicative of the theme in Azumi where characters around Azumi are motivated by a variety of obsessions. Some are motivated by a kind of blind idealism, others by religion, others by a lust for battle, greed, or even normally sanctified motivations like honor. Not all the forces (particularly those motivated by more noble incentives, like a pair of ninja assassins whom Azumi kills, who are participating in the planning of a revolt as the only way for a ninja community to survive) are depicted as if their single-minded drive towards their goals are somehow evil. However, nonetheless, in each case, those who are attached intensely to something in the world are killed by Azumi, while she, who seemingly has little attachment to the earthly world and few personal desires, survives. Adaptations. "Azumi" was loosely adapted into an action film directed by Ryuhei Kitamura in 2003. A sequel, "", directed by Shusuke Kaneko, followed in 2005. Film. The film version was co-written and produced by Mataichiro Yamamoto, and has been distributed to the U.S. by his company, Urban Vision, on their label AsiaVision. It gained its first international exposure when it was aired on the WOWOW satellite television network. The film was given a limited U.S. nationwide theatrical release beginning in July 2006, with a DVD home release on November 21, 2006. Plot. As in the manga, Jiji is tasked by the Tokugawa shogunate to raise a band of assassins. Their task is to finish off Toyotomi Hideyoshi's three allies: Nagamasa Asano, Kiyomasa Kato and Masayuki Sanada, to prevent an outbreak of the new civil war. Azumi (Aya Ueto) is discovered as a little girl kneeling without visible emotion next to the body of her dead mother by Gessai (Yoshio Harada) and his entourage of young students. She is then raised by him in the martial skills of sword fighting and the art of assassination. Azumi and her classmates, now at young adult age, are constantly being told about a "mission" they must accomplish, though they have no idea what this mission is yet. Prior to setting out on their mission, their master orders his students to "pair up" with each other's best friend and proceed to kill each other, thus out of ten students only five will remain to proceed with the mission: Azumi pairs with and is forced to kill Nachi, played by Shun Oguri. More questions and internal conflicts begin to arise amongst Azumi and her comrades as it seems their mission even prevents them from saving a village of mostly women and children from being massacred at the hands of a group of bandits, as they need to keep a low profile in order to achieve their primary mission. The first leg in their mission, assassinating Nagamasa Asano (Masatō Ibu), goes well. Upon hearing about Asano's death, Kato (Naoto Takenaka) tasks his general Kanbei Inoue (Kazuki Kitamura) with his safety. Kanbei assesses the threat with a convoy containing a body double of Kato, in which his company fails to keep the double alive. The group of young assassins is given leave to see a small traveling circus troupe, where Hyuga (Kenji Kohashi) falls in love with Yae (Aya Okamoto), one of the troupe's actresses. After his assessment, Kanbei enlists help from three rogueish brothers who, eventually confuse Yae's circus troupe for the assassins, slaughtering them all until Hyuga, Azumi, and Naraga (Yuma Ishigaki) arrive. By the time the three dispatch the rogues, only Yae is left alive. Kanbei then sends his monkey-like henchman, Saru (Minoru Matsumoto) to make a deal with the insidious and narcissistic mercenary named Bijomaru Mogami (Joe Odagiri), previously imprisoned and under constant guard. Kanbei promises Bijomaro that should he successfully kill the assassins, his past crimes will be forgotten. Bijomaru agrees and quickly gets to work hunting down the five assassins, with Saru as his guide. Bijomaru's bloodlust, much to the chagrin of Saru, is such that he often kills allies in battle along with his enemy. As Hyuga walks his beloved Yae back to the main road after saving her from the three brothers, he is confronted by Saru and Bijomaru, and a battle between the assassin and the mercenary ensues. During the battle, Bijomaru uses psychological warfare in addition to swordplay as he explains to a frightened Hyuga that his sword does not contain a hand-guard since he has never had to defend another's blow. As Hyuga lays bleeding and defeated, Bijomaru forces Yae to watch him toy with the dying boy. Saru, uncomfortable with this lack of respect for another warrior, finishes Hyuga off as an act of mercy, and gives Yae leave to bury him. Azumi soon finds Yae by Hyuga's body, and Yae manages to convince her that the violent lifestyle must be left behind. Together they begin a journey over the mountains and out of the valley to go and live in peace with Yae's kin in Tangou. Yae socializes Azumi during the journey, dressing her in a kimono and adorning her with make-up, perfume and hair treatment. Just as they begin to get comfortable during their journey, a band of brigands finds them as they sleep, and attempts to gang rape the young women. Azumi, who has not slept beside her sword as her training normally dictated, is caught off guard, but eventually steals the sword of a would-be captor, killing all of the brigands and saving Yae. The experience leaves Azumi understanding that she must obey her training, and complete her mission. She sets off to find her master and comrades, and tells Yae that she will meet her later, in Tangou. Meanwhile, the master, Nagara and Ukiha (Hiroki Narimiya) attempt to strike another target. The plan is foiled when it is revealed that the enemy has sprung a trap, reinforcing his samurai with common mercenaries. The master is captured and placed on a cross in anticipation of Azumi's arrival. She finds Kato's compound and starts her attack by turning some cannon on the area. She then proceeds through the compound, wreaking havoc enough to attract and impress Bijomaru, who decides to warm up by attacking the common mercenaries while Kanbei and Kato escape to sea. The mercenaries then attack Saru's men, and Azumi's task is made easier by the infighting. A final battle takes place between Azumi and Bijomaru, where he claims he is forced to defend for the first time. Upon Bijomaru's defeat, Azumi releases her dying master from the cross and he uses his last breath to tell her to abandon their mission and go live her life. Later, Kanbei and Kato are on their boat, congratulating each other about overcoming the assassin threat and plotting their next move against Tokugawa Ieyasu. Azumi appears as if from nowhere, and finishes the warlord in one blow, diving into the sea immediately afterwards. Kanbei is stricken with disbelief and frustration and lashes out at his men. Azumi then returns to the scene of her epic battle with Bijomaru to find that Nagara had indeed survived and has just made his way out from the rubble he was buried under during the battle. The two resolve that, having killed Nagamasa Asano and Kiyomasa Kato, they will complete their mission, and pursue Masayuki Sanada. Reception. The film received mixed reviews from critics. The review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reported that 43% of critics gave "Azumi" positive reviews, based on 28 reviews, with the consensus that "this adaptation of the popular manga series offers exquisitely choreographed violence—and little else." Metacritic reported the film had an average score of 49 out of 100, based on 14 reviews. Sequel. Immediately after the final events of the first film, Azumi and her remaining partner Nagara are stalked by the men of a warlord she recently assassinated. Upon escaping, they are forced to join forces with a local resistance and a group of bandits in order to kill the last remaining warlord and bring lasting peace to Japan. To make things even more complicated for Azumi, she must also confront her emotions in regards to a fighter who bears a scary resemblance to Nachi. Video game. An action game for PlayStation 2, based on manga's original story, was developed by Gargoyle Mechanics and released in Japan only by Entertainment Software Publishing in 2005. The game was also re-released as part of the budget-range Simple series (Vol. 32). Stage play. The theatrical version, directed by Okamura Toshikazu, premiered on April 3, 2005, starring Meisa Kuroki as Azumi. Merchandise. "Azumi Original Soundtrack" containg music from the film was released by For Life Music in 2003. Azumi figure line based on the manga version was released by figuAX in 2006.
1048126	Essential Killing is a 2010 Polish political thriller film directed by Jerzy Skolimowski, starring Vincent Gallo and Emmanuelle Seigner. Plot. A man is captured in the desert by United States forces after attacking three soldiers, and is soon tortured and brutalized in a secret detention center. He finds himself transported to Poland, along with other prisoners. He manages to escape into the vast frozen woodland, a world away from the home he knew. In order to survive he kills some of those who stray into his path and forages for food both from nature and from those he encounters. A woman gives him shelter, treats his wounds and feeds him before sending him back out into the wilderness. He departs on a white horse and, as the first shoots of spring are seen through the snow, appears to die. Production. "Essential Killing" was shot in Israel, Poland and Norway from December 2009 through to February 2010. The film saw Jerzy Skolimowski reunite with Jeremy Thomas, who previously produced his feature "The Shout" in 1978, which went on to win the Grand Prix du Jury at the Cannes Film Festival. Skolimowski had been searching to replicate the conditions of his previous film, "Four Nights with Anna", most of which was filmed near his home in the Polish Masurian forests. He had heard of rumored (and later revealed) CIA use of the nearby Szymany Airfield for flights carrying prisoners from the Mid-East. Subsequently, Skolimowski skidded off the road during winter while driving a 4-wheel drive vehicle. Noticing he was two kilometers from Szymany, it occurred to him that the same could easily happen to a prisoner transport and, from this, he found the initial inspiration for the "Essential Killing" scenario. He shared a draft script with Jeremy Thomas who encouraged him to think beyond the modest local production Skolimowski had initially envisioned and the project grew, with Thomas as an executive producer, into a multi-national coproduction made under challenging circumstances: "In general, the working conditions were very difficult. Most of the movie was filmed at -35 ° in the high mountains, where you can not get even with a Snowcat. We had to practically climb to the set: the entire crew has suffered much about the situation, it was certainly the most difficult film I ever did. Vincent Gallo has had the most thankless task of all, having to run barefoot in the snow at those temperatures." Aware of the potential political overtones of the film, Skolimowski initially nearly dismissed the project as being "too political", he strove to make it non-political: "The political aspects of the situation didn’t interest me: to me politics is a dirty game and I don’t want to voice my opinions. What is important is that the man who runs away is returning to the state of a wild animal, who has to kill in order to survive. " The film is deliberately non-specific as to locations: "I don't even say whether the film starts in Afghanistan, Iraq or maybe some other place, whether it's an American military base, where the prisoners are kept, whether it's situated in any of those countries. I don't say whether the plane which is landing somewhere in Europe is really landing in Szymany, in Poland." As was also true with his protagonist's identity: "In the facial features of Vincent Gallo there is something that is difficult to identify. Nobody knows where he is. I was hoping that even if Vincent will not be received as a native Arab or Muslim, and so it will always be different, neither here nor there. Besides, it could be someone like John Walker Lindh, the famous Californian who was Taleb and joined Osama bin Laden affiliates." This enigmatic quality is furthered in that the protagonist utters not a single word in the course of the movie. An extension of this is that, while some characters are named in the credits, no names are used in the film itself. Festivals and awards. "Essential Killing" received its world premiere In Competition on September 6, 2010 at the 67th Venice International Film Festival. At the closing ceremony on 11 September 2010, the film won the Special Jury Prize, and Best Actor (the Volpi Cup), for Vincent Gallo's wordless performance as a Muslim insurgent, in addition to the CinemAvvenire Award for Best Film In Competition (voted by a non-statutory youth jury). Gallo was not present to receive his award, which was accepted on his behalf by Skolimowski, who urged the actor to come out of hiding in the audience and take the stage. It was the first time in the Festival's history that two major awards had been bestowed on a single film. At a press conference, Jury President Quentin Tarantino revealed that he had asked Festival head Marco Mueller to break the rules in order to honor the film, a change that will carry on into future editions of the Festival. The film went on to win the Golden Astor for Best Film and Best Actor, and the Argentine Film Critics Association Critic's Prize at the Mar del Plata International Film Festival in Argentina (Latin America's most relevant competitive festival) and to screen in Official Selection at the Toronto International Film Festival, Festival do Rio, Tokyo International Film Festival, London International Film Festival and was selected as the closing film of both the Seville Festival of European Cinema and the 22nd edition of the Polish Film Festival in America in 2010. The film took the top prizes at the 2010 Polish Film Awards in Warsaw and swept the top awards at the 2011 Polish Film Festival in Gdynia. It was also nominated for the Grand Prix of the Belgian Syndicate of Cinema Critics. Wins
1040396	Amelia Warner (born 4 June 1982) is an English actress, singer, and songwriter. Previously appearing mainly in film and television, Warner is now a signed as an artist to Island Records and performs under the name Slow Moving Millie. Early life. Warner was born Amelia Catherine Bennett in Liverpool, the only child of actors Annette Ekblom and Alun Lewis. Her paternal uncle is actor Hywel Bennett. When her parents divorced, Warner, then four years old, and her mother moved to London. Warner studied at the Royal Masonic School for Girls and, at 16, the Fine Arts College, London. She studied the history of art at Goldsmiths' College in London. Career. Warner got her start in acting as a member of the Royal Court's youth theatre group. She also starred in a 2000 BBC adaptation of "Lorna Doone" and has had supporting roles in recent films such as "Æon Flux" and "Stoned". Personal life. Amelia is married to Northern Irish actor, model and musician Jamie Dornan. The two are expecting their first child. Slow Moving Millie. Amelia began her music career in July 2009 when she wrote and performed the song "Beasts" under the name Slow Moving Millie for a Virgin Media television commercial. The track was then released on 17 August 2009. Her second single, "Rewind City" was also used for another advertisement, for Orange UK, and was directed by Ringan Ledwidge. In October 2011, Warner signed a record deal with Island Records. Her cover version of The Smiths' 1984 B-Side "Please, Please, Please, Let Me Get What I Want" was released on 11 November 2011 was selected as the soundtrack to the John Lewis 2011 Christmas advertisement.
589031	Vyjayanthimala Bali (born on 13 August 1936), also known by the mononym Vyjayanthimala, is an Indian film actress, Bharathanatyam dancer, Carnatic singer, dance choreographer, golfer and Parliamentarian. Vyjayanthimala was one of the biggest Bollywood stars in a career lasting almost two decades. She was also the first South Indian actress to become a national star and "paved way" for the other South Indian actresses to foray into Bollywood. Vyjayanthimala is also an accomplished dancer and was one of those who introduced semi-classical dance to Bollywood. Her subsequent dance numbers in her films had earned her the title of "twinkle toes". She was also referred to as one of the first female Superstars of Hindi cinema and was known as "Numero Uno actress" along with Hema Malini, Rekha, Sridevi and Madhuri Dixit for her "illustrious career in 1950s and 1960s". Born in an orthodox Tamil Brahmin family, Vyjayanthimala made her screen debut at the age of 13 through the Tamil film "Vazhkai" (1949) and acted in Bollywood films "Bahar" and "Ladki". Following the success of "Nagin", Vyjayanthimala established herself as one of the Bollywood's leading actresses and a successful actress of Tamil descent. She left the industry after shooting for the historical Hindi film "Amrapali" which was based on the life of "Nagarvadhu" (royal courtesan) of Vaishali, "Amrapali", though director Baldev Raj Chopra felt that she could have easily continued for another decade in lead roles. Besides films, Vyjayanthimala's main concentration was in Bharata Natyam a form of Indian classical dance. After quitting movies Vyjayanthimala Bali continued with her dance career. In addition, Vyjayanthimala was conferred with the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award, the highest Indian recognition given to practising artists. The award was presented to Vyjayanthimala in 1982 for her contribution in Bharata Natyam field. Moreover, Vyjayanthimala is also an avid golfer and is one of the oldest golfers in Chennai. She has also served as chairperson of 48th National Film Awards. Early life. She was born in Triplicane situated near Parthasarathy Temple in an orthodox and religious Tamil Brahmin family to M. D. Raman and Vasundhara Devi. Her mother was a leading actress in Tamil Cinema in 1940s where her film "Mangama Sabatham" was the first ever Tamil film to be declared a "colossal" hit at the box office. She used to call her mother by her name as her mother was 16 years older to her when she was born. Similarly, she also called her father "Anna", meaning elder brother, as her father happened to be the eldest in their family and everyone called him "Anna" which is common among Brahmin joint family. During her childhood, she was raised primarily by her maternal grandmother, Yadugiri Devi, and her father, M.D. Raman. She was also known as mononym "Papakutty", which means little child. Her ancestors were from Mysore (now Karnataka). In 1938, her grandfather Gopalacharya, the late Mandayam Dhati, started a nursing home on Narayan Shastri Road, Mysore. At the age of 5, Vyjayanthimala was chosen to perform a classical Indian dance for Pope Pius XII while her mother was an audience in 1940 at Vatican City. Vyjayanthi did her schooling from Sacred Heart Higher Secondary School, Presentation Convent, Church Park, Chennai. She learned Bharata Natyam from Guru Vazhuvoor Ramiah Pillai and Carnatic music from Manakkal Sivaraja Iyer. She had her arangetram at the age of 13 and started performing all over Tamil Nadu later. Acting career. Early career: Debut and breakthrough, (1949-1953). When director M. V. Raman was looking for a new face to cast in AVM Productions's "Vazhkai", he saw Vyjayanthimala performing Bharata Natyam in Chennai's Gokhale Hall. He tried to convince her grandmother, who was apprehensive about Vyjayanthimala joining films as she felt it would come in the way of her education and dance. Vyjayanthimala played a college girl named Mohana Shivashankaralingam and acted along with senior actors S. V. Sahasranamam, M. S. Draupadi, T. R. Ramachandran and K. Sankarapani. The movie was a big success and was remade in Telugu after one year as "Jeevitham" with a slightly different cast, namely C. H. Narayana Rao, S. Varalakshmi and C. S. R. Anjaneyulu. This film also enjoyed great success upon release. For the Telugu version, Vyjayanthimala did her own voice dubbing with a little assistance from her father who knew Telugu well and coached her during the filming process. Vyjayanthimala also did a guest appearance in the 1950 film "Vijayakumari" which had actress T. R. Rajakumari in dual role. She danced for the song "laalu...laalu...laalu" which was choreographed by Vedantam Raghavaiah. Though the film was not a commercial success but her western-style of dance became popular and was considered as one of the major highlights of the film. The success of her Tamil film "Vazhkai" in South India inspired AVM Productions to remake it in Hindi as "Bahar" in 1951. In their first Hindi venture, they decided to cast Vyjayanthimala again in the lead role with Karan Dewan, Om Prakash and Pandari Bai (who was credited as Padmini in the film). She learned Hindi at the Hindi Prachar Sabha to dub her own voice for her character in the film. Upperstall.com in their review, wrote that "She does bring the film to life with her dances though, something which was new then for the North Indian audience". The film became sixth highest grossing film of 1951 with a verdict of box-office hit. After the success of all her debut films in all three languages, Vyjayanthimala again acted in multilingual film which was produced by Avichi Meiyappa Chettiar of AVM Productions. The first version was in Tamil as "Penn" where she co-starred with actor Gemini Ganesan, S. Balachandran and Anjali Devi. The song "Kalyanam...venum" sung by J. P. Chandrababu for S. Balachandran became an instant hit. The second version was in Telugu titled "Sangham" which was released in the same year with N. T. Rama Rao, Vyjayanthimala, S. Balachandran and Anjali Devi in the lead. The Tamil and the Telugu films were big successes across South India. The film was once again remade in Hindi as "Ladki" starring Bharat Bhushan, Kishore Kumar while Vyjayanthimala along with Anjali Devi reprised her role from the original film. Her performance was described by Upperstall.com as, "Vyjayanthimala's dances are the film's saving grace although it is unintentionally funny now to see how deliberate and obviously tacky the sequences are which lead into her dances[...]Ladki too makes no real demands on 'feminist' tomboy Vyjayanthimala histrionically". The movie became second highest grossing film of 1953. 1954-1956. In 1954, Vyjayanthimala acted in magnum opus film "Nagin" with Pradeep Kumar. The film got favourable responses from the audience and became the highest grossing movie of 1954 where it was labelled as blockbuster. Her performance as the Nagi tribe's chief, Mala got her favourable reviews from the critics, where in 1955 a critic from Filmfare magazine had said that "Vyjayanthimala in the title role puts over a commendable performance besides looking ravishingly beautiful as the belle of the hills. Her dancing, too, is very graceful, specially in those eye-filling colour sequences and delightful ballets towards the finish" while in The Hindu review Vijay Lokapally similarly praised her portrayal "The ethereal Vyjayanthimala, barely 18, illuminates the screen with her stunning beauty, moving around daintily from one song to the other[...]The close-up shots of Vyjayanthimala highlight her ability to convey so much with so little effort[...]Nagin was a precursor to her rise in Hindi cinema as an iconic actor, who combined her talents, performing and dancing, to rule the screen on her terms[...]biggest recall values of Nagin are Vyjayanthimala". Post "Nagin" Vyjayanthimala had established herself as one of the leading actresses in Bollywood because of the film's nationwide success. Hemant Kumar's music and her dance on the song, "Man Dole, Mera tan dole", rendered by Lata Mangeshkar was one of the highlights of the film. In the same year she also acted in "Miss Mala" with Kishore Kumar. Vyjayanthimala also debuted in Kannada cinema through a film called "Asha Nirasha" which was produced by G. D. Venkatram. The film also had Lata Mangeshkar, Asha Bhosle and Mohammed Rafi as the playback singers, but the movie was unreleased though the producer's son Srikant Venkatram claimed that the film was released and flopped miserably at box office which made the film obscure. In 1955, Vyjayanthimala acted in around 4 films in Bollywood. The first one was by Pakistani director Abdur Rashid Kardar's "Yasmin" alongside Pakistani actor Suresh which won the Filmfare Best Cinematographer for Dwarka Divecha. Besides that, she also starred in three other films namely "Pehli Jhalak" with Kishore Kumar, "Sitara" with Pradeep Kumar and "Jashan" with Karan Dewan. Eventually all the films failed at box office. The same year, Bimal Roy cast her as Chandramukhi opposite Dilip Kumar in the critically acclaimed "Devdas" which was the adaptation of the novel with same title by Sharat Chandra Chatterji. The industry initially was not in favour of this choice when they heard about Vyjayanthimala being cast in Bimal Roy's film, the response being: "Why don't you take comedian Kishore Kumar as Devdas?". Initially Nargis was selected for Chandramukhi's role, but she refused to accept the role. The role was later offered to Bina Rai and Suraiya but they too turned it down as they wanted to essay the lead role of Paro, which was earlier offered to Meena Kumari. Subsequently, the film unit suffered with financial crisis and at this point Vyjayanthimala offered to do the role of Chandramukhi where she said to Bimal Roy, "I am ready if you think I can do it". On the other hand, Nabendu Ghosh, the script writer of Devdas, said that, "I did not approve of Vyjayanthimala Chandramukhi, but we had no option – no one wanted to play Chandramukhi, and we were committed to our distributors[...]She was, of course, a very good actress, but she was too young for Chandramukhi, as envisioned by Saratbabu". On her performance, Rediff wrote, "Vyjayanthimala imbues Chandramukhi with true sympathy. Who better than Chandramukhi would know the pain of a hopeless love?[...]Vyjayanthimala, a star after the blockbuster Nagin, still had to establish her acting credentials when Roy went against the tide and cast her in the role of Chandramukhi". While Upperstall.com describes her performance as, "Vyjayantimala's Chandramukhi is embellished with her graceful dance style that evolves with the evolution in her character within the film from a popular dancing woman to a woman, who, in love with Devdas, has unconsciously mutated to reflect the mainstream woman. For Vyjayantimala, the character marked a turning point from glamour to pure histrionics, offering her scope to explore her potential as a dramatic actress without taking away from her, the most outstanding gift she brought to cinema – her dance". Subsequently, she won Filmfare Award for Best Supporting Actress but refused to accept it, stating that her role was a leading one and in equal importance to the role essayed by Suchitra Sen and not supporting. In 2006, a poll conducted by Rediff ranked her role of Chandramukhi as one of the best Tawaif character in Bollywood. Subsequently, the same role was listed in The Times of India's "10 Celluloid Hookers You Loved" at number six by Nikhat Kazmi. Though the film was critically successful but it did not garner much support at the box office and ended up as 10th highest grossing movie of 1955 with an average verdict . After being recognised as a capable actress with "Devdas", Vyjayanthimala acted in various movies in 1956, namely "Taj", "Patrani" and "Anjaan: Somewhere in Dehli" with Pradeep Kumar and "Kismet Ka Khel" with Sunil Dutt. In the same year, she also acted in swashbuckler film "Devta" which was a remake of a hugely successful Tamil film "Kanavaney Kankanda Deivam". Surprisingly though, she accepted a supporting role as a vamp which was originally done by Lalitha in the Tamil version. However according to Upperstall.com, her role was very crucial in the film and her portrayal as the Naag Rani accompanied by her dance is the main attraction of the film. Also starring in the movie, reprising their lead roles from the original, were Gemini Ganesan and Anjali Devi. Meanwhile, she was also signed by Sohrab Modi for his film "Rajhath" opposite Pradeep Kumar. However due to her schedule problem she was replaced by Madhubala. Vyjayanthimala then acted with Kishore Kumar again in the comedy film "New Delhi" which became the fifth highest grossing film of 1956 a box-office hit. The film showcases a love that sprouts between a Punjabi boy, played Kishore Kumar, and Tamil girl, played by Vyjayanthimala. Her performance was applauded by fans and critics alike; a review on Upperstall.com regarding her performance in this movie states that, "Vyjayanthimala proves to be the perfect foil for Kishore Kumar[...]has always had the mandatory dance sequence in practically every film of hers evoking 'classical art' associations. She excels in the two main dances in New Delhi — the solo Bharatnatayam Aliruppu number and the Bhangra folk dance in her Punjabi avtaar and she is absolutely brilliant in the Bhangra folk dance[...]in her second avtar. Even Vyjayanthimala played a Punjabi girl and most successfully too". Subsequently, she also did a Tamil film called "Marma Veeran" along with Sriram, Rajasulochana, M. N. Rajam, J. P. Chandrababu and Chittor V. Nagaiah. The film had some of the South Indian established actors such as N. T. Rama Rao, Sivaji Ganesan and Gemini Ganesan in guest appearance. 1957-58: Success and Stardom in Bollywood. In 1957, director B. R. Chopra planned to make "Naya Daur" with Ashok Kumar in the lead. However, the actor refused to accept this role and it later went to Dilip Kumar. For the female lead, the first choice of the director was the star-actress of those days, Madhubala. But, as fate would have it, after 15 days of initial shooting at Mumbai, the director wanted the unit to travel to Bhopal for an extended outdoor shooting. However, Ataullah Khan, the father of Madhubala, objected to this and the role went to Vyjayanthimala. Chopra later sued Madhubala for the cash advance she received from him for the film, saying that she accepted the sum and now had no intention of completing it. Vyjyanthimala had previously acted with Dilip Kumar in Devdas and the duo shared an easy chemistry on-screen. The new film, Naya Daur, had a theme of "man vs. machine" and Vyjanthi's portrayal of a village belle Rajni received positive reviews from critics. A review from Rediff says that, "Vyjayanthimala too is not your average petulant "gaon ki gori". She ably projects a hands-on worker who comes up with ideas on how to ford a stream and risks her life to save the bridge[...]wonderful scene between two stars whose chemistry is undeniable" while reviewer Taran Adarsh from Bollywood Hungama mentions that, "Commendable performances come in from Vyjayantimala relationships [Dilip Kumar-Vyjayantimala are so human and believable". At the end of its theatrical run, the film had collected around , thus becoming the second highest grossing film of 1957, second only to the critically acclaimed Mother India which became the highest grossing Bollywood film ever at the time. Following that, Vyjayanthimala almost signed for the lead role in Filmistan's "Tumsa Nahin Dekha" opposite Dev Anand in 1957, but due to the producer Sashadhar Mukherjee's promise to actor Shammi Kapoor, he replaced Dev Anand with Shammi Kapoor. However the director, Nasir Hussain was in a quandary as he had already read the script to Dev Anand and Vyjayanthimala but Mukerji prevailed and he also replaced Vyjayanthimala with Ameeta, who was the protégée of Filmistan Studios owner Tolaram Jalan. Vyjayanthimala's next release was "Kathputli" in which she co-starred with actor Balraj Sahni for the first time. This film was about a young girl named Pushpa who, on account of being a good dancer and singer, assists puppeteer Shivraj in his puppet show. This film was director Amiya Chakravarty's last film. He died during the filming of "Kathputli" and the remaining project was completed by director Nitin Bose. "Kathputli" remains as one of the memorable film of Vyjayanthimala which has an offbeat theme with a Pygmalion touch. Vyjayanthimala then acted in "Ek Jhalak" with Rajendra Kumar and Pradeep Kumar which was produced by the latter with his home production company "Deep & Pradeep Productions". She returned to the screen again with Kishore Kumar in the 1957 partially colour-made film "Aasha" which became a hit at the box office. The story revolves around the central character Kishore, played by Kishore Kumar, who, despite being a Zamindaar, believes in helping the needy. Vyjayanthimala, as Nirmala, plays the lover of Kishore. The story suddenly goes from being light-hearted and humorous to a court-drama when Kishore is falsely accused for murder. The rest of the movie sees both the protagonists trying to prove Kishore's innocence. The movie is best known for its song "Eena Meena Dekha" sung by Kishore Kumar and Asha Bhosle, in two different versions "Aasha" also introduced actress Asha Parekh, to the silver screen, in a song alongside Vyjayanthimala, whom Parekh described as her matinee idol. The following year proved to be very successful for Vyjayanthimala where she signed opposite Dilip Kumar in Bimal Roy's "Madhumati" in the title role. Originally supposed to essay four roles, the director finally scaled it down to three, Madhumati, Madhavi and Radha. The film was launched in front of the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival Theatre in Czechoslovakia. During the filming at the hills of Nainital, Vyjayanthimala was required to dance with barefoot where she tripped on a stone and fell while hurting herself badly causing damage to her fibre tissues in the sole of her foot. Roy who was terrified and in a quandary over the incident as the shooting could not be stopped insisted on her wearing sandals which made it difficult for her during running sequences. Even after the completion of Madhumati, she still encountered the pain from the injury which always reminded her of Madhumati's shooting experience. Written by Ritwik Ghatak, the film is about Devendra, played by Dilip Kumar, who takes shelter during a storm in an abandoned house. Here he discovers a painting of the owner of the house Raja Ugranarayan painted by him in his previous life when was Anand, also played by Dilip Kumar, and worked as a foreman on a plantation of Raja Ugranarayan. Devendra had been in love with Madhumati, played by Vyjayanthimala. She had committed suicide while trying to save herself from Ugranarayan’s advances. Madhumati’s ghost finally takes revenge on Ugranarayan. The film was well received by critics and audience where it became highest grossing Bollywood film of 1958 and was labelled as blockbuster at box office and ended up as fifth highest grossing film of the decade with its adjusted inflation net gross to about 586.4 million. Her performance as Madhavi, Radha and the ghost Madhumati earned her accoladates from critics. Shahid Khan from Planetbollywood.com said "Vyjayantimala has never been one of my most favourite actresses but this is one of the few performances where I am completely bowled over by her. Her expressions while playing both the main characters are perfect. With Madhumati, she brings the wonder, surprise and innocence needed in the person. With Madhavi, she brings the poise, the curiosity and pity for the grief that Anand is going through" and Karan Bali from Upperstall.com wrote that "For Vyjayanthimala, the film showcases both her acting as well as dancing abilities and the dizzying success of "Madhumati" took Vyjayanthimala to the highest rungs of stardom[...]to cap off an extremely successful year for her. Both, as an actress of considerable dramatic merit and as a star". "Madhumati" came to be known as the first film which dealt with the theme of reincarnation and had a gothic noir feel to it. The film later inspired films such as "Milan" (1967), "The Reincarnation of Peter Proud" (1975), "Mehbooba" (1976), "Kudrat" (1980), "Karz" (1980), "Karan Arjun" (1995) and particularly "Om Shanti Om" (2007) which had also lifted the films climax which led to Rinki Bhattacharya, the late Roy's daughter accusing the film of plagiarism and threatening legal action against its producers. The same month she had another release, B. R. Chopra's "Sadhna" alongside Sunil Dutt. Vyjayanthimala was the second choice for the role of Champabai, the prostitute, after actress Nimmi who hesitated to play the role of a prostitute which arguably led to her career decline. The Filmfare award winning story by Mukhram Sharma revolves around Rajini, enacted by Vyjayanthimala, a prostitute's love affair with a professor, played by Sunil Dutt. Chopra who previously directed Vyjayanthimala in Naya Daur, had adapted the theme on the rehabilitation of prostitutes which was then a controversial topic in India. Along with the film her performance received universal acclaim, as told by Vijay Lokapally from The Hindu, "Among the great movies made on the subject of helpless women versus society, Sadhna holds its own for its realistic portrayal and treatment of a subject, so aesthetically documented by Chopra and Vyjayanthimala" and praised the latter "gorgeous when she entertains the clients at her kotha[...]stunningly restrained when she assumes the character of a prospective wife". Similarly, the Rediff's critic Dinesh Raheja has commented that "But finally, the show belongs to Vyjayanthimala. Fetchingly frivolous in the first half, she is suitably serious in the second. She makes her need for acceptance palpable; her eyes emit twin lasers of anger and condemnation at those that exploit women". "Sadhna" also performed well at the box office where it became fifth highest grossing film of 1958 with trade pundits declaring the film a box-office hit. Subsequently, Vyjayanthimala received two Filmfare nominations in Best actress category for "Madhumati" and "Sadhna", where she won her first ever Filmfare trophy for the latter after refusing to accept the Best Supporting Actress Award trophy for "Devdas" (1955) earlier. Her next release was "Amar Deep" where she was paired against Dev Anand for the first time. A production of Sivaji Ganesan's Sivaji Productions, the film was a remake of 1956 Tamil film "Amara Deepam" which had Ganesan himself in the lead. Along with Padmini who reprised her role from the original, Vyjayanthimala plays the role of Aruna which was originally performed by actress Savitri in Tamil. In 2011, in conjunction with actor Dev Anand's death, Vyjayanthimala recollected her memories during the filming in Madras where she remembers the actor calling her "Papa", the Tamil termed that was used by her family and friends, and he would search for her throughout the sets while yelling "where is Papa, where is my heroine". According to Subhash Chheda, when "Amar Deep" was released, the long-awaited airing of Vyjayanthimala and Dev Anand was compared to the Madhubala and Dev Anand pair, where the public verdicted that ""If Madhubala brooks no equality, Vyjayanthimala admits no superiority". Unfortunately, the film failed to turn Vyjayanthimala and Dev Anand team into a hit pair. The same year Vyjayanthimala was booked by M. G. Ramachandran for his second directorial venture "Ponniyin Selvan". One of the first screen adaptation of Kalki Krishnamurthy's "Ponniyin Selvan" the film had a huge ensemble cast consisting of Gemini Ganesan, Padmini, Savitri, Saroja Devi, M. N. Rajam and Nagesh along with Ramachandran and Vyjayanthimala. In the film, she was given the role of Kundavai, the elder sister of Raja Raja Chola I, played by Ganesan and the wife of Vallavaraiyan Vandiyadevan, played by Ramachandran. However, in the mid of 1958 the film was shelved for unknown reasons. The same year she did another Tamil film Gemini Pictures's Magnum opus "Vanjikottai Valiban" along with Gemini Ganesan and Padmini. Written by Gemini Story Department which was headed by Kothamangalam Subbu, the Black-and-white epic film was produced and directed by S. S. Vasan. She played the role of Princess Mandakini, the beautiful princess of Ratna Island Kingdom. As a stubborn princess, she always wanted to achieve her ambition in any deed which lead to her ultimate death and formed the climax. The film had a great theatrical run where the film completed 100 days run at cinemas and was labelled as blockbuster at box office. The film is still remembered for the dance of Vyjayanthimala and Padmini in the "Kannum Kannum Kalanthu" song which was choreographed by Hiralal and was well received by critics and audience alike wherein the popularity of the song surpassed the popularity garnered by the film. The song is still regarded as one of the best dance sequences in Indian cinema. "Vanjikottai Valiban" was followed by its Hindi version titled "Raj Tilak". Screenplay of the film was by Ramanand Sagar. The film was directed by S. S. Vasan with Ganesan, Vyjayanthimala and Padmini in the lead. Within a week, the film sank at box office and was unable to achieve the same box office success made by the Tamil version. By the end of the year, The Indian Express named Vyjayanthimala as the most successful female star of 1958. Similarly, Boxofficeindia.com also ranked Vyjayanthimala at the top spot in their list of "Top Three Successful Box Office Actress of 1958". 1959-60: Return to Tamil films. In 1959, Vyjayanthimala reunited with Dilip Kumar for the fourth time in bilingual "Paigham". Produced and directed by S. S. Vasan, the film featured the lead actors along with Raaj Kumar, B. Saroja Devi, Pandari Bai and Motilal. Besides them, Vyjayanthimala's real life mother Vasunthara Devi also acted in a small role where she played the role of mother to her own daughter who died in vain. Upon release "Paigham" became second highest grossing film of 1959 with a verdict of a box-office hit. The same year she also did a Tamil film, "Athisaya Penn" where she co-starred with Telugu actor Akkineni Nageswara Rao for the first time. "Athisaya Penn" was a remake of "Aasha" which again was directed by M. V. Raman. In 1960, Vyjayanthimala mostly concentrated on Tamil films to keep in touch with the industry. Her first release in 1960 was S. S. Vasan's "Irumbu Thirai", the Tamil version of "Paigham". She starred opposite Sivaji Ganesan for the second time after the latter's cameo appearance in "Marma Veeran" (1956). Along with Vyjayanthimala, all the female cast including B. Saroja Devi, Pandari Bai and Vasunthara Devi reprised their role from the original with S. V. Ranga Rao in Motilal's role and K. A. Thangavelu in Raaj Kumar's character. The film was followed by "Raja Bakthi" again with Sivaji Ganesan. "Raja Bakthi" had huge ensemble cast featuring P. Bhanumathi, Padmini, T. S. Balaiah and E. V. Saroja. Her subsequent release was D. Yoganand's magnum opus Parthiban Kanavu. Co-starring Gemini Ganesan for the third time and B. Saroja Devi for the second time, the film was based on Kalki Krishnamurthy's 1942 novel with the same name. Apart from Tamil, the film was produced in Telugu and Sinhala languages. Upon release the film met with positive response from the critics and was awarded the National Film Award for Best Feature Film in Tamil at the 8th National Film Awards. However the film did not fare well at box office but Vyjayanthimala's performance was appreciated by critics. She also acted opposite M. G. Ramachandran for the first time in Baghdad Thirudan. Meanwhile, she also did a Hindi film titled "College Girl" opposite Shammi Kapoor which fared average at box office and was declared as eighteenth highest grossing film of the year. 1961-63: Reigns Supreme in Hindi. Following successful re-entry in Tamil cinema, Vyjayanthimala then signed Dilip Kumar's home production film "Gunga Jumna". Having inspired by 1934 "Manhattan Melodrama", the film was one of the first Bollywood films to deal with the theme based on two brothers on the opposite sides of law. Directed by Nitin Bose, she co-starred Kumar for the fifth time after "Devdas", "Naya Daur", "Madhumati", "Paigham". In this dacoit drama, she enacted the role of Dhanno, a washerwoman who falls for childhood friend Gunga, played by Kumar and eventually killed during a gun fight. To prepare herself for that role, Vyjayanthimala had to learn the Bhojpuri, a Hindi language dialect spoken by people in East India region. She was assisted by Kumar who also chose the shade of saree that Vyjayanthimala would wear in every scene. Upon release the film opened to widespread critical acclaim from the critics. Her performance earned her rave reviews. Dinesh Raheja from "Rediff" said that "Ganga Jamuna deployed several crowd-pleasing elements[...]most of all, an enchanting relationship between Dilip Kumar and Vyjayanthimala[...] Their characterisation ran so deep, which helped Dilip Kumar and Vyjayanthimala give magnetic performances. Dilip is of course a thespian but Vyjayanthimala is a revelation" while K. K. Rai from "Stardust" applauded her performance by adding "Vyjayanthimala played the village woman with such simplicity and grace; you’d forget she was one of the most glamorous stars of her time. She also spoke the Bhojpuri dialect like a native". Critics also praised Vyjayanthimala for her ability to master the Bhojpuri dialect despite her South Indian upbringing. Subsequently, the film also enjoyed huge success at box office across India. At the end of its theatrical run, the film grossed around with net gross of and a verdict of a blockbuster. The film was the Highest grossing film of 1961 and was third highest grossing Hindi film of the decade behind "Mughal-e-Azam" and "Sangam", another Kumar and Vyjayanthimala starer respectively. The film was also ranked second by Boxofficeindia.co.in behind "Mughal-e-Azam" in their list of "Top 50 Film of Last 50 Years" which features all-time highest grossing Bollywood films by using the relative price of gold in different years to arrive at a hypothetical current value of box-office collections of past films with its adjustment to inflation rate. . For her performance Vyjayanthimala was awarded with the Filmfare Award for Best Actress trophy at the 9th Filmfare Awards. In addition to that, she also bagged her first ever Bengal Film Journalists' Association Awards in the Best Actress category. In the same year, she starred in C. V. Sridhar's Nazrana. Remake of highly successful 1959 Tamil film "Kalyana Parisu", again directed by Sridhar, she acted alongside Raj Kapoor for the first time. She played the role of Vasanthi wherein she replaced actress B. Saroja Devi who did not reprise her role from "Kadhal Parisu" and its Telugu remake "Pelli Kanuka". The triangular love story received average run at the cinemas and ended as twelfth highest grossing film of that year. The same year she did another film with Sridhar. Being the first Tamil film to be shot in Jammu and Kashmir, she acted alongside Gemini Ganesan after a long gap in "Then Nilavu". The film and the soundtrack was widely appreciated by the audience where it was a huge success. The film was followed by J. Om Prakash's "Aas Ka Panchhi" with Rajendra Kumar. For her portrayal Vyjayanthimala got some negative feedback from the critics, "The Hindu" review said that "Even the otherwise powerhouse of talent, Vyjayantimala, with many a sterling performance under her belt, barely passes muster, despite the usual dance and song sequence to showcase her formidable prowess as an accomplished dancer thrown in". Despite some mixed reviews, the film was labelled as hit at box office and was declared as the fourth highest grossing film of 1961 where it had a silver jubilee run at the theatres. Her career then struggled again with some box office duds in the following year. In 1962 she co-starred Manoj Kumar in "Dr. Vidya" which performed average at box office. "Dr. Vidya" was followed by two more box office disappointments, "Rungoli" with Kishore Kumar and "Jhoola" with Sunil Dutt. 1963 also saw a steady decline in her film career where she co-starred Sivaji Ganesan in Historical fiction "Chittoor Rani Padmini". Written by C. V. Sridhar and directed by Chitrapu Narayana Rao, the film also proved to be a box office failure and marked the end of Vyjayanthimala's career in Tamil cinema. The same year Bimal Roy who earlier worked with her in "Devdas" and "Madhumati" offered her the lead role in "Bandini" opposite Ashok Kumar and Dharmendra. However Vyjayanthimala could not accept the role due to her busy schedule. The Boxofficeindia.com ranked Vyjayanthimala at Top spot in their list of "Top Three Successful Box Office Actress" of 1962 and 1963 respectively despite her box office failures. 1964-66: Commercial successes and critical acclaim. Following two years sabbatical, Vyjayanthimala re-attained her success in Bollywood through Raj Kapoor's first technicolor film "Sangam". Termed as Kapoor's magnum opus, the film was produced at lavish budget by his production company R. K. Films. Earlier in 1940s, Kapoor planned to launch "Sangam" in the title of "Gharonda" with Dilip Kumar and Nargis and himself in the lead, however the film was delayed for several times until 1962. Following Kumar and Dev Anand's refusal to be a part of the film, Kapoor then fixed Rajendra Kumar and himself as the male leads. "Sangam" was the first Indian film shot in Europe and outside of Asia. It was also the longest running film in India when it was released at 238 minutes. The film also created a record by being the first film to have two cinema intervals. Cinematography by Radhu Kamarkar, the European filming locations include Venice, Paris, Switzerland and London while the Indian locations include Ooty and Kashmir Valley. Upon release the film was well received by critics and was considered as Bollywood's greatest love triangle. Vyjayanthimala's performance too was praised by critics. Dinesh Raheja of "Rediff" said that "to put it simply, radiant[...]the maturity with which she tackles her character, the insouciance as well as the agony" and call it as "one of commercial cinema's most unforgettable performances". Similarly, the film was commercially successful throughout India and other country as well. On its overall theatrical run, Boxofficeindia.com reported that the film had grossed 8,00,00,000 and netted around with its adjusted to inflation nett gross is about . Subsequently, the film was labelled as blockbuster where it was ranked as highest grossing film of 1964 and second highest grossing film of the decade. The film was also ranked at fourth by Boxofficeindia.co.in in their list of "Top 50 Film of Last 50 Years" which feature all-time highest grossing Bollywood film with its adjust to inflation gross is about . "Sangam" also had great box office run outside of India where it was well received in countries such In 1965, Vyjayanthimala starred in two box office disappointing films "Naya Kanoon" with Ashok Kumar and Bharat Bhushan, "Nam Iruvar" with T. R. Mahalingam. In 1966, Vyjayanthimala starred in "Do Dilon Ki Dastaan" which also becomes failure at box office. After some box office flops, Vyjayanthimala soon signed alongside Rajendra Kumar in the swashbuckler ruritanian romance "Suraj". Directed by T. Prakash Rao, the film also had Mumtaz, Bharathi Vishnuvardhan and Neetu Singh. "Suraj" was huge box office success and was one of the popular costume drama in Bollywood. Suraj was the last successful film of Rajendra Kumar and Shankar Jaikishan who introduced singer Sharda through this film. According to Boxofficeindia.com, the film grossed around 50,000,000 with nett gross of 25,000,000 and becomes second highest grossing film of 1966 with verdict 1967-70: Lost Interest in Films Post Amrapali. After "Amrapali" which was the biggest flop in her career and some personal issues with co-stars, Vyjayanthimala lost interest in films. In 1967, she was signed in Tapi Chanakya's "Ram Aur Shyam" which was a remake of 1964 Telugu film "Ramudu Bheemudu". She co-starred Dilip Kumar for the seventh time who previously had made some memorable films with her. However due to some misunderstanding between Kumar and Vyjayanthimala, Vyjayanthimala was replaced by Waheeda Rehman. The same year she starred in Vijay Anand's "Jewel Thief" after Saira Banu backed out of the project due to her marriage with Dilip Kumar. The crime thriller reunited Vyjayanthimala after a decade with her co-star Dev Anand after "Amar Deep". "Jewel Thief" also had Ashok Kumar as the main antagonist with four more female leads Tanuja, Helen, Anju Mahendru and Faryal. For the first time she worked under Dev Anand's production house, the Navketan Films after being rejected by Tad Danielewski for the lead role in 1965 Hindi film "Guide". The success of "Jewel Thief" made Vyjayanthimala and Dev Anand a hit pair. Three decades later, Vyjayanthimala was approached by Dev Anand for a role in the sequel of "Jewel Thief", "Return of Jewel Thief" (1996), but she refused to act in the film as she did not planned to make a comeback. Subsequently, Vyjayanthimala's dance number in "Hothon Pe Aisi Baat Main" sung by Lata Mangeshkar becomes huge hit where it was considered as one of the best dance number in Indian cinema while being influential for the rises of other dance numbers such as "Chamma Chamma" and "Sheila Ki Jawani" from "China Gate" and "Tees Maar Khan" respectively. The same year she did the magnum opus "Chhoti Si Mulaqat" produced by Bengali actor Uttam Kumar. Remake of 1954 Bengali film "Agni Pariksha" which had Uttam Kumar who reprises his role in the Hindi version and Suchitra Sen in the lead. Unlike the original version, "Chhoti Si Mulaqat" failed to create any box office record and was declared as box office disaster. Her last release in the year is "Hatey Bazarey" with Ashok Kumar. Inspired by Banaphool's novel with the same, the film was directed by acclaimed director Tapan Sinha where Vyjayanthimala made her Bengali cinema debut through the film. She played the role of widowed young women - Chhipli - who falls for a civil surgeon Doctor Anandi Mukheerjee. Upon release the film received unanimously positive reviews where it was awarded with the Best Feature Film Award at the 15th National Film Awards while Vyjayanthimala's performance also appreciated by critics alike. A review from "Upperstall" had mentioned that, "Vyjayantimala, in her debut in Bengali films is extremely convincing as the independent and vivacious tribal widow". Similarly her singing in the song "Shyam Tor Tore Tamal Tolay Boshe Thaki" along with singer Hemanta Mukherjee received her praises where it was described as "pleasant surprise" in the same review. "Hatey Bazarey" was also received well commercially and was one of the successful Bengali film of 1960s. In 1968, Vyjayanthimala appeared in three big budget film with high profile actors such as Dilip Kumar, Dev Anand and Rajendra Kumar. Her first release in the year was "Sunghursh", directed by "Mere Mehboob" (1963) fame Harnam Singh Rawail. She co-starred Dilip Kumar for the seventh and last time in her career with Balraj Sahni and Sanjeev Kumar in key roles. Originally offered to actress Sadhana, the role later went to Vyjayanthimala as the former suffers with her thyroid problem. Reportedly she did not exchange a word with Kumar while filming following their relationship broke up. Vyjayanthimala's enactment of a courtesan Laila-e-Aasma, she received positive feedback from the critics. Anuj Kumar form "The Hindu" said that "Vyjayanthimala is graceful as ever. In a film dominated by men, Rawail made sure she had a substantial role. Her dances and Naushad’s lilting tunes come as a welcome break to the sinewy tone imparted by Abrar Alvi and Gulzar’s dialogues". The role fetched her Best Hindi Actress Award at 25th Bengal Film Journalists' Association Awards. "Sunghursh" was followed by "Saathi" directed by C. V. Sridhar. Remake of highly acclaimed Tamil film of 1961, "Palum Pazhamum", the film had Rajendra Kumar and Simi Garewal replacing Sivaji Ganesan and Sowcar Janaki respectively from the Tamil version with Vyjyanthimala enacting the role originally portrayed by B. Saroja Devi. The same year she also co-starred with Dev Anand for the third time and last time in T. Prakash Rao's "Duniya". All her releases in 1968 did not enjoy success at the box office. "Duniya", "Saathi" and "Sunghursh" was named as tenth, eleventh and twelfth highest grossing film of 1968 respectively, with the first two was labelled as average while the latter only managed to do above average business at box office. On the other hand, "Duniya" is considered as a hit film by some critics and often included in the hit film list of Dev Anand. Films Refused. Post her retirement in films, Vyjayanthimala was offered with many roles by big banners opposite leading actors of that time. But she refused all those offers as she does not want to make a comeback. In 1968, she was signed opposite Raj Kapoor in Mahesh Kaul's "Sapno Ka Saudagar", she refused the role which went to the debutante Hema Malini, who become one of the biggest actress in Bollywood later. However in 1975, Vyjayanthimala was almost signed in Gulzar's "Aandhi" with Sanjeev Kumar but she backed out from the project as the role resemble Indira Gandhi's personal life. Perhaps the most famous role that Vyjayanthimala ever turned down was the 1975 crime-drama film "Deewar". Inspired by 1961 film "Ganga Jumna", a Vyjayanthimala starer, the film was directed by Yash Chopra and features Amitabh Bachchan and Shashi Kapoor in the lead roles. She turned down the role of a mother for the lead actors which later went to Nirupa Roy who attained popularity through success of the film and later cast in similar roles. Following that, she refused the multi-starrer 1981 blockbuster film "Kranti" opposite Dilip Kumar with Manoj Kumar, Shashi Kapoor, Hema Malini, Shatrughan Sinha, Parveen Babi, Sarika as the ensemble cast which was directed and produced by Manoj Kumar himself. Apart from Hindi films, she have also refused the 1989 Tamil film "Mappillai" starring Rajinikanth. As said by Rajinikanth who played the lead role in the film, "actor Vyjayanthimala was first offered the role of mother-in-law in "Maapilai" which was a pivotal role, but she refused the film even though the producer of the film Chiranjeevi come forward to give her huge salary, she said that she does not want to play the role of antagonist opposite me and will never agree to be part of fighting scene against me". Following many films refused by Vyjayanthimala, Dinesh Raheja from "Rediff" commented that "good money and pivotal roles notwithstanding[...]did not seem alluring enough". Political career. Vyjayanthimala's political career was initiated in 1984 when she contested in 1984 Tamil Nadu general election for the South Chennai constituency as the nominee of the Indian National Congress opposite Era Sezhiyan, the leader of Janata Party and seasoned parliamentarian. During the campaign, Sezhiyan took provoking quotes such as "Send me to the Lok Sabha. Send her to R.R. Sabha (an organisation promoting fine arts)" to defeat Vyjayanthimala, ironically she won the election with margin of about 48,000 votes where she gained 313,848 with percentage of 51.92%. Subsequently, she debuted in the Lok Sabha, the directly elected lower house of the Parliament of India by the end of January 1985 with Amitabh Bachchan. In 1989, Vyjayanthimala again had to face the 1989 Tamil Nadu general election, this time she was opposed by Aladi Aruna of the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam. She again beat her opposition by nearly 12584.4 million votes. Later on 1993, she was nominated to the Rajya Sabha, the upper house of the Parliament of India for a six-year term. In 1999, she has resigned from the primary membership of the Indian National Congress party. In her letter to the party's president Sonia Gandhi, she included the reason for her resignation where she said that, "painfully watching the party drifting from its avowed principles after the death of Rajiv Gandhi. The party has lost touch with its grassroots and one can see day in and day out that sincere party workers are being steadily ignored", she adds more, "increasingly difficult to justify ourselves to the public and my conscience does not allow me to stay in the party any longer". Later she joined the Bharatiya Janata Party on 6 September 1999. Personal life. Relationships. In her hey-days, Vyjayanthimala was speculated with many controversies without her knowledge. Particularly her relationship with her co-stars was often the subject in topic. In the early 1960s, Vyjayanthimala was linked with Dilip Kumar, who has acted with her the most compared to any other actress which resulted great on-screen chemistry between them. While working for his home production "Gunga Jumna" (1961), it is said that Kumar will even handpicked the shade of sari that Vyjayanthimala would wear in every scene. In addition to that, film historians Bunny Reuben and Sanjit Narwekar have confirmed the Kumar-Vyjayanthimala's affair where they had said that Vyjayanthimala was Kumar's third love after Kamini Kaushal and Madhubala. In early 1960s, actor Raj Kapoor had commenced the filming of "Sangam" with Vyjayanthimala playing the female lead along with Rajendra Kumar and Kapoor himself as male lead. The filming took four years to finish, during this time Vyjayanthimala is said had romantically involved with Kapoor and almost get married to him. Initially, she was so vexed with him and kept him at a distance during the filming however Kapoor did not give up over her attitude. This incident had made Kapoor's wife Krishna to move out of her husband’s house with her sons and daughters where they checked into Natraj Hotel in Mumbai and stayed there for four and a half months after being disgusted over the affair. She is married Chamanlal Bali. After marriage, she terminated her acting career and moved to Chennai. They have a son, Suchindra Bali. In 2007, she published her autobiography, titled "Bonding", with Jyoti Sabarwal as co-writer. Religious views. Vyjayanthimala is a Vaishnavite and a vegetarian. She is a religious person and grew up listening to holy chants and devotional songs. She is a devotee of Aandaal, one of the 12 Alvar saints of South India. She used to invoke Aandaal before any public performance to gain her blessing.
402414	Cameron Richardson (born September 11, 1979) is an American actress and model, who portrayed Chloe Carter on the CBS television series "Harper's Island". Early life. Born in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, Cameron grew up in New Jersey.
1099124	The Newton fractal is a boundary set in the complex plane which is characterized by Newton's method applied to a fixed polynomial formula_1. It is the Julia set of the meromorphic function formula_2 which is given by Newton's method. When there are no attractive cycles (of order greater than 1), it divides the complex plane into regions formula_3, each of which is associated with a root formula_4 of the polynomial, formula_5. In this way the Newton fractal is similar to the Mandelbrot set, and like other fractals it exhibits an intricate appearance arising from a simple description. It is relevant to numerical analysis because it shows that (outside the region of quadratic convergence) the Newton method can be very sensitive to its choice of start point. Many points of the complex plane are associated with one of the formula_6 roots of the polynomial in the following way: the point is used as starting value formula_7 for Newton's iteration formula_8, yielding a sequence of points formula_9, formula_10, ... If the sequence converges to the root formula_4, then formula_7 was an element of the region formula_3. However, for every polynomial of degree at least 2 there are points for which the Newton iteration does not converge to any root: examples are the boundaries of the basins of attraction of the various roots. There are even polynomials for which open sets of starting points fail to converge to any root: a simple example is formula_14, where some points are attracted by the cycle 0, 1, 0, 1 ... rather than by a root. An open set for which the iterations converge towards a given root or cycle (that is not a fixed point), is a Fatou set for the iteration. The complementary set to the union of all these, is the Julia set. The Fatou sets have common boundary, namely the Julia set. Therefore each point of the Julia set is a point of accumulation for each of the Fatou sets. It is this property that causes the fractal structure of the Julia set (when the degree of the polynomial is larger than 2). To plot interesting pictures, one may first choose a specified number formula_15 of complex points formula_16 and compute the coefficients formula_17 of the polynomial Then for a rectangular lattice formula_19, formula_20, ..., formula_21, formula_22, ..., formula_23 of points in formula_24, one finds the index formula_25 of the corresponding root formula_26 and uses this to fill an formula_27×formula_28 raster grid by assigning to each point formula_29 a colour formula_30. Additionally or alternatively the colours may be dependent on the distance formula_31, which is defined to be the first value formula_32 such that formula_33 for some previously fixed small formula_34. Generalization of Newton fractals. A generalization of Newton's iteration is where formula_36 is any complex number. The special choice formula_37 corresponds to the Newton fractal.
1039774	Keith Michell (born 1 December 1926) is an Australian actor, particularly noted for his television and film performances as King Henry VIII of England. Early life. He was born in Adelaide and brought up in Warnertown, near Port Pirie. The theatre in Port Pirie is named after him. Career. Michell taught art until he made his theatre debut in Adelaide in 1947 and he first appeared in London in 1951. He has starred in several musicals, including the first London production of "Man of La Mancha", in which he played the dual role of Miguel de Cervantes and his fictional creation, Don Quixote. (An album set was also made of this performance.) In 1964 he starred as Robert Browning in the musical "Robert And Elizabeth", opposite Australian soprano June Bronhill. Michell has acted with the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre Company, as well as appearing extensively in film and television, notably as King Henry VIII in "The Six Wives of Henry VIII" in 1970, and as Heathcliff in BBC Television's 1962 adaptation of "Wuthering Heights". He was the artistic director of the Chichester Festival Theatre from 1974 to 1977. On American television, Michell has made appearances on the mystery series "Murder, She Wrote", playing Dennis Stanton, a former jewel thief turned insurance claims investigator who always solved his cases with unusual methods and sent a copy of the story to his friend Jessica Fletcher afterwards. As well as acting, Michell pursues other interests: he wrote the musical "Pete McGynty and the Dreamtime", an Australian rendering of Henrik Ibsen's "Peer Gynt", the performance of which used Michell's own paintings as backdrops; he is a painter and has illustrated a limited edition run of William Shakespeare's sonnets, for which he also did the calligraphy; and he has written and illustrated a number of macrobiotic cookbooks. Michell himself is a proponent of the macrobiotic diet and philosophy. Michell was also the illustrator of "Captain Beaky", a collection of Jeremy Lloyd's poems. The Captain Beaky character enjoyed success in the UK in the early 1980s, among both children and adults. The song "Captain Beaky" peaked at #5 in the UK Singles Chart in 1980. Personal life. He is married to the actress Jeanette Sterke and they have a son, Paul, and a daughter, Helena, who appeared in the films "Prick Up Your Ears" and "Maurice".
1056245	Transporter 3 is a 2008 French action film, and is the third and final installment in the "Transporter trilogy". Both Jason Statham and François Berléand reprised their roles, as Frank Martin and Tarconi, respectively. This is the first film in the series to be directed by Olivier Megaton. The film continues the story of Frank Martin, a professional "transporter" who has returned to France to continue his low-key business of delivering packages without questions. The story continues after the film in "". Plot. Frank Martin and Inspector Tarconi are spending the day fishing in Marseilles when Tarconi receives a call from police about a black Audi A8 speeding past French customs. Tarconi then takes the boat back to assure the police that Frank is not behind the car chase. Meanwhile, in Odessa, Ukraine, Environmental Agency Minister Leonid Tomilenko receives a threat from Ecocorp boss Johnson that his daughter Valentina's life is at stake if he does not approve clearance for Ecocorp to ship toxic chemicals into the country within 24 hours. Later that night, the Audi suddenly crashes into Frank's home, with a wounded transporter named Malcolm Manvill behind the wheel. Malcolm had taken a delivery job from Johnson that Frank had previously declined. As paramedics quickly move Malcolm into the ambulance, Frank discovers a drugged Valentina in the backseat of the Audi. She warns him not to take her out of the car when he notices that both her and Malcolm are wearing metal bracelets on their wrists. Frank rushes to stop the ambulance from leaving, but it explodes. Before he can piece together the situation, he is knocked out by an unknown assailant. Frank wakes up in an empty room, discovering that Johnson has clamped a metal bracelet on his wrist. He is ordered by Johnson to do a delivery job with Valentina and is warned that if he walks 75 feet away from his Audi A8 6.0 W12, the bracelet will explode and kill him. On their way to Budapest, Frank deviates from the course and heads to a garage in Germany to see if his friend Otto can remove the bracelet. While Frank fends off Johnson's men, Otto discovers the transmitter inside the Audi, but he cannot disarm it without the risk of blowing up the car. Upon their arrival in Budapest, Frank picks up a call from Johnson on a public phone when one of Johnson's men steals the Audi, resulting in Frank chasing for his life across town until he manages to reach the car and continue their journey to Bucharest. Frank and Valentina are then chased by a black Mercedes-Benz E-Class driven by hitmen hired by Tomilenko; the chase ends when Frank sends the assailants' car off a cliff. After the ordeal, Frank realizes that Valentina is the package that is to be delivered to the final destination. Valentina explains to Frank that she was in Ibiza when she was drugged by Johnson's men and transported by Malcolm, who allowed her to call her father before being chased off by a black Hummer H1 and eventually crashing into Frank's home. Upon re-establishing Frank's location, Johnson orders him to travel to Odessa, where they are surrounded on a bridge by Johnson and his men. Valentina approaches Johnson, who removes her bracelet before ordering his men to gun down Frank. Frank drives the Audi off the bridge and sinks into the lake below. As Johnson and his men drive off to the nearest train station, Frank informs Tarconi of his location before he uses a floatation device to raise his Audi back to shore. Aboard the train, Valentina calls her father, telling him not to sign the contracts, but Johnson tells him he has 15 minutes to fulfill the deal. After Tarconi and some Ukrainian police officers help get the Audi back in running condition, Frank continues his chase and jumps the car on the train. He takes out Johnson's men and obtains the bracelet key from Johnson, unlocking it and placing it on Johnson's wrist while setting the Audi on reverse. Johnson explodes when the Audi exits the train car. Upon hearing from Tarconi that Valentina is safe, Tomilenko tears up the Ecocorp contracts before heading for his business conference, and the cargo ships are raided by police and sent away from Ukrainian shores. Frank and Tarconi return to fishing in Marseilles, but Valentina suggests for them to go out to dinner instead. Production. Natalya Rudakova was spotted by Luc Besson on the street as she hurried to her job at a New York City hair salon. He paid for 25 acting lessons over a six-month period in Paris before she received the role. Roger Ebert noted the rarity of leading ladies who are heavily freckled. Shooting was initially expected to last for 16 weeks, in France. It was also filmed in Odessa, Ukraine. Home media. "Transporter 3" was released on DVD and Blu-Ray disc on March 10, 2009 in the United States. The single disc DVD contains both fullscreen and widescreen versions of the film. The "2 Disc Fully Loaded Edition" DVD will contain a digital copy that the single disc will not have. A Blu-ray two-disc will also be released, which will contain the digital copy. 1,108,030 units were sold, bringing in $19,707,976 in revenue. Box office and reception. "Transporter 3" was released by Lionsgate in the United States. On its opening weekend, the film opened at number 7 with $12 million. , the film has grossed $31.7 million in the United States and in Canada and $74.6 million in foreign countries, with a total gross of $106,288,215 worldwide, making it the highest-grossing film in the "Transporter" trilogy. The film has received mixed reviews. On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has a freshness score of 36% based on reviews from 110 critics and reports a rating average of 4.8 out of 10, with the reported consensus: "This middling installment in the "Transporter" franchise is a few steps down from its predecessors, featuring generic stunts and a lack of energy." At Metacritic, which assigns a weighted average score out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the film received an average score of 51 based on 26 reviews, indicating "mixed or average reviews".
745969	Natalie Suzanne Canerday (born March 9, 1962) is an American actress. Canerday is a native of Russellville, Arkansas. After earning a Bachelor of the Arts degree in Theatre in 1985 from Hendrix College (where she performed in plays with "Herman's Head" star William Ragsdale), she began her motion picture career as a production secretary for the television feature "The Tuskegee Airmen", then made minor appearances in films such as "Biloxi Blues" and "Walk the Line". Her most famous roles have been as protagonists' harried mothers in "Sling Blade" and "October Sky". In 1996, she and others in Billy Bob Thornton's "Sling Blade" cast were collectively nominated for the Screen Actors Guild Award for Best Cast in a Motion Picture. Canerday served as a judge for the 2006 George Lindsey/UNA Film Festival, and in 2007 was cast in a national radio commercial. In October 2009 she worked in the Oak Ridge Secret City Film Festival which was known as the 7 day shoot-out because the contestants had only 7 days to make a 2–7 minute short-film. She played the part of a bartender in the short film "Third Rate Romance" directed by Chase Hartsook.
480039	Juliet Rose Landau (born March 30, 1965) is an American actress best known for her role as Drusilla on "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" and its spinoff show "Angel", the latter appearance earning her a Saturn Award nomination. She is also known for co-starring as Loretta King Hadler in Tim Burton's "Ed Wood. She has appeared in a diverse range of roles. She is active in film, television and theater. Early life. Landau was born in Los Angeles to actor parents Martin Landau and Barbara Bain. Her older sister is film producer Susan Landau Finch, born Susan Meredeth Landau, and the sisters spent their early childhood in a Tudor style house in West Los Angeles. Her family is Jewish. When Juliet was a toddler, both of her parents were regulars on the original "" TV series. Landau was a professional ballerina, and her mentor was the late actress, Susan Peretz. Career. Landau co-starred in "Ed Wood" – a film which also featured her father, Martin – as Loretta King and starred opposite Whoopi Goldberg in New Line Cinema's "Theodore Rex". She played the role of Drusilla on "Buffy the Vampire Slayer", appearing on "Buffy" and its spinoff show "Angel" over the course of six seasons. Steve Vineberg of "The New York Times" hailed, "The wildly gifted Juliet Landau... plays Dru like an acid-addled cross between Ophelia and Cassandra." Lead roles in independent films include: "The Yellow Wallpaper", "Darkness Visible", "Hack", "Toolbox Murders", "Repossessed", "Carlo's Wake", "Life Among the Cannibals", "Ravager", "Direct Hit", "Citizens" and a co-starring turn in Henry Jaglom's "Going Shopping". TV guest appearances include: "Millennium", "La Femme Nikita", "Strong Medicine" and a starring role in the Lifetime movie "Fatal Reunion". She just completed a project for HBO directed by Jake Scott. She used her skill with dialects by lending her voice to various characters on the popular animated series "Justice League Unlimited" and "Ben 10" as well as the animated movie "". She has also provided her voice for both BioShock video games. Landau has received outstanding reviews for her work in the theater. Lead roles include "Awake and Sing" at The Pittsburgh Public Theater, the world premiere of "Failure of Nerve", "Uncommon Women and Others", "The Pushcart Peddlers", "Billy Irish", "We're Talking Today Here", the musical "How To Steal An Election", the West Coast premiere of "Irish Coffee" and the world premiere of Murray Shisgal's musical "The Songs Of War". She played Natasha in a reading of "The Three Sisters" that Al Pacino put together at The Actors Studio. Her first work as director was 2008's "Take Flight", a short documentary film about Gary Oldman. It is about Oldman's creative process. He has said, "Juliet Landau is an exceptional talent! I entrusted Juliet to make a documentary film about me and I am thrilled with the results! "Take Flight" is a special film that shows me in a very different light. I will work with Juliet again without hesitation." She has written the short film, "It's Raining Cats and Cats" and adapted Andrew Prine's play "Cissy" into a short as well. She will helm these projects. She portrayed Claire in the British horror film Haunted Echoes, who was directed by Harry Bromley Davenport. In 2009 Juliet Landau co-wrote two issues of the "" comic book series for IDW Publishing, in collaboration with Brian Lynch. The issues (#24 and #25 of the series, appearing in August and September 2009) feature Drusilla, the character she played on "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" and "Angel". In addition to writing, she contributed numerous ideas and references for both the cover and interior art of the issues. She has stated that she would like to write more comics set in the Buffyverse. She will be writing a 5 part Drusilla miniseries from Dark Horse Comics this year, which is now delayed. In 2012-13, she starred in the play "Danny and the Deep Blue Sea" directed by John McNaughton at the Crown City Theater in North Hollywood. In July 2013 it was announced that she will play a new incarnation of the Time Lord Romana (previous incarnations having been played by Mary Tamm and Lalla Ward) in the Big Finish Productions audio dramas "Gallifrey VI" and "Luna Romana", both of which are spin-offs from the TV series "Doctor Who". Personal life. Landau is a member of The Actors Studio and as recently as of 2008 was being mentored by Mike Medavoy.
143648	Eriq La Salle (born Erik Ki La Salle, July 23, 1962) is an American actor, director, writer and producer known for his portrayals of Darryl in the 1988 comedy film "Coming to America" and Dr. Peter Benton on the NBC drama series "ER". Early life and education. La Salle, one of four children, was born and raised in Hartford, Connecticut, by his mother, Ada Haynes. He is an alumnus of the Artists Collective, Inc. in Hartford. He attended the Juilliard School's Drama Division for two years as a member of "Group 13" (1980–84), then attended New York University's Tisch School of the Arts, where he earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in 1984. Career. At the time of his graduation from NYU, La Salle was cast in Joseph Papp's Shakespeare in the Park production of "Henry V". Soon after, he found continuous acting work on Broadway, off-Broadway and in several daytime TV dramas including "One Life to Live", where he played the reporter Mike Rivers. In 1988, La Salle starred alongside Eddie Murphy in the movie "Coming to America".
587416	4 the People is a 2004 Malayalam film directed by Jayaraj. It is the first of a trilogy of films, followed by "By the People" and ending with "Of The People". Bharath, Gopika, Benny Dayal, Kishore, PadmaKumar, Narain, and Pranathi played the lead roles. It was later dubbed with minor alterations in Tamil as "4 Students" and Telugu as "Yuvasena- 4 the people". The music of the film was trendsetting and most of the songs were chartbusters. Plot. Aravind (Arun) Vivek (Bharath), Eshwar (Arjun Bose) and Shafeek (Padma Kumar) are four angry engineering students who cannot stand the corruption in the society. They take the law into their hand and they form the secretive clique called 4 The People (their dress code is black and everything about them is black) that takes out corrupt officials. They have a website where the public can lodge their complaints. Soon the police are on their track. A young cop (Narain) is in hot pursuit of the gang. In a racy climax the foursome attempt to kill the Minister but fail. Seeing the brutality of the police the students come to the support of the foursome. One of the students kill the minister and he is joined by three more students. They escape due to the support of students. The revolution continues. Songs. The music for the movie has been given by Jassie Gift.
520414	Snooky Serna (born Maria Milagros Sumayao Serna on April 4, 1966) is a Filipina film and television actress. Early life. Being the daughter of actors Von Serna and Mila Ocampo, she started acting early in life via her 1970 landmark debut "Wanted: Perfect Mother", where she immediately captured the hearts of Filipino audience as a cute, sweet and smart-talking four-year old. That same year she earned her first acting nomination from FAMAS Awards as Best Child Performer for the film "My Little Angel".
1063310	Connie Inge-Lise Nielsen (born 3 July 1965) is a Danish actress. She got her first major role in an English language film with a supporting role in "The Devil's Advocate" (1997), and later gained international attention in for her role in Ridley Scott's "Gladiator" (2000). She has appeared in films such as "Mission to Mars" (2000), "One Hour Photo" (2002), "Basic" (2003), "The Hunted" (2003) and "The Ice Harvest" (2005). She starred as Meredith Kane on the Starz TV series "Boss" (2011-2012). Early life. Nielsen was born in Frederikshavn, Denmark. Her father, Bent Nielsen, was a bus driver, and her mother was an insurance clerk, who also acted and wrote musical reviews. She was raised a Mormon and grew up in a village named Elling. She began her acting career working alongside her mother on the local revue and variety scene. At 18, she traveled to Paris, France, where she worked as an actress and model, which led to further work and study in Italy — at drama school in Rome and in master classes with Lydia Styx, a teacher at "Piccolo Teatro di Milano" in Milan. She lived in Italy for many years, before moving to the United States, where she still resides. Career. Nielsen's feature film debut was the Jerry Lewis French film "Par où t'es rentré ? On t'a pas vu sortir" in 1984, followed by a role in the Italian mini-series "Colletti Bianchi" in 1988. She appeared in the Italian film "Vacanze di Natale '91" (1991) and the French film "Le Paradis Absolument" (1993). She moved to the United States in 1996 and made her first appearance in a major English-language film in 1997 as Christabella Andreoli in "The Devil's Advocate", starring opposite Al Pacino and Keanu Reeves. This first minor breakthrough led to roles in the films "Permanent Midnight" (1998), "Rushmore" (1998), and "Soldier" (1998). In 2000, Nielsen became known to worldwide audiences as Lucilla in Ridley Scott's internationally acclaimed Academy Award–winning epic "Gladiator", starring opposite Russell Crowe and Joaquin Phoenix. Since then, she has starred in American films including "Mission to Mars" (2000), "One Hour Photo" (2002), "The Hunted" (2003), and "Basic" (2003), for which she had to cut off most of her hair. She also starred in the acclaimed French thriller "Demonlover" (2002), directed by Olivier Assayas. She played the Irish mother to an orphan in "A Shine of Rainbows" (2009). In 2004, Nielsen made her Danish film debut in the drama, "Brødre" (also known as "Brothers"), for which she won the Danish Best Actress Award, the Bodil, as well as Best Actress at the San Sebastian International Film Festival. She was also nominated for Best Actress at the European Film Awards. In 2006, Nielsen appeared in several episodes of "" as Detective Dani Beck. She filled in for Mariska Hargitay, who was on maternity leave at the time of filming. Personal life. From 2004 to 2012, Nielsen dated Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich. They have one son together, Bryce Thadeus Ulrich-Nielsen, (b. 21 May 2007) in San Francisco. She has a son, Sebastian (born 2 June 1990), from a previous relationship. Nielsen speaks eight languages: Danish, English, French, German, Italian, Norwegian, Swedish and a little Spanish.
589267	Jurmana is a 1979 Hindi film. It was produced by Debesh Gosh and directed by Hrishikesh Mukherjee. The film stars Amitabh Bachchan, Raakhee, Vinod Mehra, Shreeram Lagoo, A. K. Hangal, Asrani, Farida Jalal, Keshto Mukherjee and Asit Sen. The lyrics were written by Anand Bakshi and the music was composed by R. D. Burman. Plot. Inder Saxena is a building contractor from Delhi with an attitude that money is the foremost thing in the world. His maternal uncle persuades a reluctant Inder to visit and supervise a project's progress at Pratapgadh. Once there, he meets his college mate Prakash (Vinod Mehra), his professor Daya Shankar Sharma (Shreeram Lagoo) & his daughter Rama (Raakhee). Inder sets his eyes on Rama but Prakash, secretly admiring Rama, tells Inder (Amitabh Bachchan) that she is the kind of girl who can't be lured with the power of money. But, Inder has firm perception that women want only money, bets Prakash that he will lure Rama with his money. After each of his bag of tricks fail, he publishes a book of her poems and gifts it to her. This gesture surprises Rama and is very delighted. One day Inder asks Rama to accompany him. Rama promises him and lies to her father about seeing off Laila (Farida Jalal). Upon learning the truth, Daya Shankar unexpectedly drops in with Prakash at Inder's house, finds Rama in his bedroom and scorns her for lying. Rama leaves the house forever and while heading towards Delhi, is robbed for which she has to get down the train. Distressed Rama gets the help of Station Master Nandalal (Asrani), who shelters her in his house. Coincidentally, the same train meets with an accident. Assuming an unrecognizable damaged body to be Rama, the police sends a letter to Daya Shankar about her death, shocking everyone. Inder, feeling guilty for the incident, believes that Rama is alive and searches for her. Meanwhile, Rama learns singing to forget her sorrows & becomes a renowned singer. One day Inder hears her singing on radio, finds her out & informs Prakash. Eventually with all misunderstadings & differences settled, Rama & Inder come together.
1163544	Lauren Elizabeth "Laurie" Metcalf (born June 16, 1955) is an American actress. She is perhaps most widely known for her performance as Jackie Harris on the ABC sitcom "Roseanne" and has also had series television roles as Carolyn Bigsby on "Desperate Housewives" and Mary Cooper on "The Big Bang Theory". Her motion picture roles include the voice of Mrs. Davis in the "Toy Story" film series and the character Debbie Loomis/Debbie Salt in "Scream 2", as well as roles in such critically acclaimed films as "Making Mr. Right", "JFK", and "Mistress". Metcalf frequently works in Chicago theater, where she is well known for her performance in the 1983 revival of Lanford Wilson's play "Balm in Gilead". She has also appeared in commercials for Plan USA, a humanitarian organization which helps children in need around the world. She is a three-time Emmy Award winner, and has been nominated four other times, as well as having been nominated for two Golden Globe Awards, two Tony Awards, a Satellite Award, and a Screen Actors Guild Award. Metcalf has won both a Theatre World Award and an Obie Award for her work on the stage, and recently starred as Mary Tyrone in Eugene O'Neill's "Long Day's Journey into Night", with David Suchet, Kyle Soller and Trevor White. This production was performed at London's Apollo Theatre until August 18, 2012. She is currently appearing as Juliana Smithton in Sharr White's "The Other Place" on Broadway, a role she originated off-Broadway in 2011. Early life. Metcalf was born in Carbondale, Illinois, the eldest of three children, and was raised in Edwardsville, Illinois. Her father, James, was the budget director at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville at the time of his death in 1984, and her mother, Libby, was a librarian. Her great-aunt was the Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Zoë Akins. Metcalf is an alumna of Illinois State University, class of 1976. Career. Stage. Metcalf attended Illinois State University and obtained her Bachelor of Arts in Theater in 1977. While at ISU, she met fellow theater students, among them John Malkovich, Glenne Headly, Joan Allen, Terry Kinney, and Jeff Perry, the latter two of whom, along with Perry's high school classmate Gary Sinise, went on to establish Chicago's famed Steppenwolf Theatre Company. Metcalf began her professional career at Steppenwolf, of which she was a charter member. In 1983, Metcalf went to New York to appear in a Steppenwolf production of "Balm in Gilead", for which she received the 1984 Obie Award for Best Actress and a 1984-1985 Theatre World Award (for best debut in a Broadway or Off-Broadway performance). Metcalf was showered with praise for her performance as "Darlene", and was specifically singled out for her tour de force twenty-minute Act Two monologue. Thereafter, Metcalf relocated to Manhattan and began to work in both film and theater, including such productions as David Mamet's "November". Through the end of June 2009, Metcalf starred with French Stewart in Justin Tanner's play, "Voice Lessons", in Hollywood before beginning rehearsals to play Kate Jerome in the Broadway revival of Neil Simon's semi-autobiographical plays "Brighton Beach Memoirs" and "Broadway Bound", directed by David Cromer. The former production's run, however, lasted but one week, while the latter was canceled prior to opening. "Voice Lessons", however, with its original cast intact, went on to two more runs - one Off-Broadway in May 2010, and another in Hollywood in May 2011. In September 2010, Metcalf returned to Steppenwolf and starred in Lisa D'Amour's play, "Detroit". In the Spring of 2011, she began work on an Off-Broadway play, "The Other Place" by Sharr White. In 2012, Metcalf joined British actor David Suchet in a British stage production of Eugene O'Neill's "Long Day's Journey into Night". Television and film. Metcalf has performed in roles that range from very large to very small in many films, including "Desperately Seeking Susan", "Making Mr. Right", "Miles from Home", "Internal Affairs", "Stars and Bars", "Beer League", "Mistress", "A Dangerous Woman", "Uncle Buck", "Blink", "The Secret Life of Houses", "Treasure Planet", "Toy Story", "Runaway Bride", "Bulworth", "Meet the Robinsons", "Georgia Rule", "Fun with Dick and Jane", "Leaving Las Vegas", "Scream 2", "Stop Loss", and "Hop". Metcalf has often appeared against type in both film and television; in "JFK", she played a dramatic role as one of Jim Garrison's chief investigators. She appeared as the murderous mother of Billy Loomis in the horror film "Scream 2", and portrayed real-life Carolyn McCarthy in the television movie "The Long Island Incident". Metcalf has appeared in several television series, including being a cast member for a single episode of "Saturday Night Live" – the final episode of the show's tumultuous 1980-1981 season. In 1981, she appeared as a feature player on the first Dick Ebersol-produced episode of "Saturday Night Live" following the firing of Jean Doumanian and her cast (save for Eddie Murphy, Joe Piscopo, Denny Dillon, and Gail Matthius). She appeared in a "Weekend Update" segment about taking a bullet for the President of the United States. Because of the sketch show's severe decline in quality at the time and the 1981 Writers Guild of America strike, the show was put on hiatus for retooling. Metcalf was never asked back to be a cast member. Metcalf is perhaps best known for her role as "Jackie", the police-officer sister of the title character in the hit series "Roseanne". Her performance garnered her three consecutive Emmy Awards. "Roseanne" ran from 1988 to 1997, and Laurie appeared as Jackie over the show's entire run. She subsequently appeared with Norm Macdonald on "The Norm Show" (or "Norm"), which ran for three seasons, and was also a regular character on the 2003 Nathan Lane series "Charlie Lawrence", which was cancelled after the airing of two episodes. Metcalf has made guest appearances on "Absolutely Fabulous", "Malcolm in the Middle", "My Boys", "Dharma & Greg", "Frasier", "Without a Trace", "3rd Rock from the Sun", and "Monk"; she was nominated for the Emmy Award as "Outstanding Guest Actress In A Comedy Series" for both of the latter two listed roles. She took a recurring role on "Desperate Housewives" – for which she received an Emmy (also in the category "Outstanding Guest Actress In A Comedy Series") and a Satellite Award nomination – and also appeared alongside her ex-husband Jeff Perry in an episode of "Grey's Anatomy". In fall 2008, Metcalf starred in the CW dramedy "Easy Money", as the matriarch of a family of loan sharks. The series was canceled after three episodes. Personal life. Metcalf married Steppenwolf Theatre Company co-founding member Jeff Perry in 1983. They had a daughter, Zoe in 1984, and later divorced, in 1992. Metcalf later began a relationship with Matt Roth, the "Roseanne" co-star who played her abusive boyfriend, Fisher. By November 1993 they had a son, Will, and eventually married. They also worked together on occasion, as in the 1994 feature film thriller "Blink" and the 1998 drama "Chicago Cab"; they also appeared together in an episode of "Desperate Housewives". Their daughter Mae was born in 2005 via surrogate. In September 2011, Roth filed for divorce, citing irreconcilable differences. They separated on November 26, 2008.
585856	Sumalatha born 27 August 1963) is a popular Indian film actress. She has acted in more than 200 films in Telugu, Malayalam, Kannada, Tamil and Hindi. Early life. Born and raised in a Telugu family in Chennai, Tamil Nadu, She gained popularity in Malayalam cinema and later married Kannada actor Ambarish and settled in Bangalore. Career. Sumalatha began acting at age 15, after winning an Andhra Pradesh beauty contest in 1979. She made her debut entry through Kannada film Ravichandra opposite to Dr. Rajkumar. She appeared in many Kannada, Tamil and Telugu films early in her career. She was Rajinikanth's second heroine besides Rati Agnihotri in films like "Murattu Kaalai" and "Kazhugu". Most of her Telugu films are with Chiranjeevi. Her most memorable Malayalam films include "Thazhvaram, " "Isabella", "Nirakkoottu", "Thoovanathumbikal", "Parampara" and "New Delhi". She has acted in many Kannada movies like "Aahuti", "Avatara Purusha", "Tayi Kanasu", "Karna", "Tayiya Hone", "Kallarali Hoovagi", "Ravichandra" in which she acted with legendary actor Dr. Rajkumar. She has also acted in many Telugu films.
146788	Reiko M. Aylesworth (born December 9, 1972) is an American film, television and stage actress, best known for her role on the television series "24" as Michelle Dessler. Life and career. Early life. Aylesworth was born in Evanston, Illinois and is of Dutch, Welsh, and Japanese ancestry. She lived in Springfield, Illinois, from 1987 to 1988 where she first became interested in acting. After understudying in several productions at the Springfield Theatre Centre, Aylesworth was cast in the role of Consuelo in "West Side Story", while her family was preparing to move to Seattle, Washington. When her family left for Seattle, she remained in Springfield with family friends for the duration of the play's run. Early career. After joining her family in Seattle, Aylesworth attended the University of Washington and studied neuroscience with the intention of becoming a neurosurgeon. While attending the University of Washington, Aylesworth participated in several local theatre productions including "Invisible Friends" at the Seattle Children's Theatre and the Intiman Theatre Company's production of Peter Pan where she played Wendy. Aylesworth's performance in "Peter Pan" brought her to the attention of talent scouts at ABC, leading to the beginning of her television and film career as Rebecca Lewis on the soap opera "One Life to Live". After her character was written out of "One Life to Live", she appeared in the independent film "Childhood's End" and the final episode of the HBO series "". During this time Aylesworth also appeared in at least three Off Broadway productions. Following a guest appearance on "Law & Order" and a supporting role in the miniseries "A Will of Their Own", Aylesworth had minor appearances in the movies "Random Hearts" and "You've Got Mail" followed by a guest star role in the CBS series "Now and Again". Soon after NBC cast Aylesworth as Becca Coltrane in the pilot for the series "Sherman's March," however, it was not picked up and aired as a standalone television movie. Aylesworth continued her work on television with guest appearances in "The West Wing", "", and "Ed" as well as being cast in a lead role in the supernatural hospital drama "All Souls". When "All Souls" failed to be continued, Aylesworth joined the cast of "The American Embassy" in the second episode, although she was also credited in the pilot. Most Notable Role. Following the cancellation of "The American Embassy", Aylesworth auditioned for the part of Nina Myers on Fox Network's "24" but the role went to Sarah Clarke. When casting began for 24's second season, Aylesworth again auditioned, this time for the part of Kate Warner, but the role went to Sarah Wynter. However, the producers were impressed with her and asked her to join the cast for a ten episode recurring role as Michelle Dessler, a CTU agent. Despite being credited as a guest star for the entire season, she appeared in all 24 episodes. Director Jon Cassar quickly noticed the "chemistry" between Aylesworth and her costar Carlos Bernard, which led to a decision allowing the actors to develop their characters' onscreen relationship. The relationship between Tony Almeida and Michelle quickly became popular with many fans and later would resurface as one of the driving forces in "24"'s seventh season. While on hiatus from "24" after season two, Aylesworth filmed an episode for the second season of The Dead Zone, playing a love interest for Anthony Michael Hall's Johnny Smith. By 24's third season, Aylesworth had become a main cast member with Tony and Michelle now married and holding leadership positions at CTU. However, when the season concluded, the writers announced only the characters of Jack Bauer, Chloe O'Brian and John Keeler would return, with the remainder of the cast being dropped. Upon being released from "24", Aylesworth was cast as Chandra Moore in "", the lab's new DNA analyst, and while the role was intended to be recurring, it only lasted for the first episode of CSI's fifth season. During "24" season 4, it was decided some of the cast from previous seasons would return including Carlos Bernard, Dennis Haysbert, and Reiko Aylesworth. In the twelfth episode, Aylesworth returned, with Michelle Dessler now a high level bureaucrat within the CTU hierarchy. Michelle served as CTU Director for the remainder of the season and resigned shortly thereafter in order to remarry Tony Almeida. Aylesworth's time on "24" came to a conclusion in the opening episode of the fifth season when Michelle was killed by a car bomb. Post 24 Roles. Following her departure from "24," Aylesworth has remained active in both television and movies as well as theatre. Her first leading role in a feature film was in the independent, romantic drama "Crazylove" where she worked alongside Bruno Campos and former "24" costar Paul Schulze. "Crazylove" tells the story of Letty Mayer, a school teacher who suffers a nervous breakdown and while institutionalized, meets Michael (Campos) and the two begin a dangerous and unpredictable romance. She partnered with her former "24" costar Xander Berkeley in the Sci Fi Channel made for television movie, . In a guest start role on the short-lived series "Conviction", she played a renowned attorney who killed her husband and then defended herself at the murder trial. When the cast was selected for the series 3 lbs, Aylesworth was chosen for the role of Dr. Adrienne Holland, but the pilot was rejected by CBS. The following season, CBS decided to buy the series for a late fall 2006 premiere, but the lead roles were recast, including Aylesworth's. It is unknown whether she declined the "3 lbs" role or she was not offered it again. Soon after the conclusion of 24's fifth season, Aylesworth and her "24" costar D. B. Woodside filmed the short, "First" which was also written, produced, and directed by Woodside. Aylesworth's character, Angelina Marveau, was "a fallen French nun" who was fighting to choose between her religious beliefs and first love, a nihilistic, American professor, who was portrayed by Woodside. Years 2006 - 2007. In 2006 Aylesworth filmed roles for two feature movie along with an independent production. In the Kevin Costner movie, "Mr. Brooks," Aylesworth portrayed a divorce lawyer, Sheila, who was representing the husband of Demi Moore's character, Detective Tracy Atwood. Departing from her previous type of characters, Aylesworth played the femme fatale Audrey Levine in the Gideon Raff independent thriller, The Killing Floor. On 25 September 2006, it was announced that Aylesworth was chosen for one of the two lead roles in "". Her character, Kelly O'Brien, an Army pilot and soldier returning home after being deployed overseas, arrives in Gunnison, Colorado the day before the Aliens and Predator invade the town. In January 2007, Aylesworth had a guest role in two episodes of the ABC comedy, "The Knights of Prosperity", where she played the head of Mick Jagger's security company, Simone Cashwell. The Knights attempt to seduce her character in order to obtain the necessary security codes to access Mick Jagger's apartment and later trick Simone in order to get her thumbprint which is also needed to open the door. Soon after she filmed a supporting role in Hannah Davis and David Conolly's "The Understudy" where she played Police Chief Kinsky. While it has appeared at numerous film festivals, a DVD release date for "The Understudy" has not been announced. Roles of 2008. Aylesworth continued her work in independent productions, filming a small part for Steven Kampmann's independent movie, "Buzzkill". It is not known when "Buzzkill" will be released as it has not been shown at any film festivals and the movie's website has not been updated since April, 2008. A month later, Aylesworth was cast in a recurring role on "ER", playing hospital chaplain Julia Dupree. Originally, Dupree was to appear in 5 episodes with the purpose of attracting the lecherous attention of Dr. Gates (John Stamos). Her role was extended for two additional episodes, but concluded due to the suspension of filming resulting from the 2007-2008 WGA Strike. In May, 2008 Aylesworth filmed a supporting role in the Steve Morris, independent, comedy "The Assistants,", which tells the story of a group of Hollywood assistants who are scheming to have their script turned into a feature film. Aylesworth has often said independent productions like these and past films such as "No Deposit, No Return", are her preferred types of film. The Next Big Role. Since filming "The Assistants," Aylesworth has focused on television work starting with a recurring role on the ABC series "Lost". The character, Amy, was originally described as "a smart and successful professional woman with a love for the outdoors who is looking for the right man" and would appear in at least four episodes. However, the character would only be in three episodes, and was a married member of the Dharma Initiative, not a woman looking for a husband. Soon after her role on "Lost" concluded, it was announced that Aylesworth had joined the cast of Jerry Bruckheimer's new ABC crime drama, "The Forgotten". When first made public, "The Forgotten" was to focus on a group of amateur detectives, The Identity Network, who are led by Linda Manning (Aylesworth), and focused on identifying murder victims after the police were unable to do so. After the official network upfronts, as well as previews and promotional pictures had been released by ABC, it was announced for reasons as yet unknown that ABC had decided to recast the series and replace the two lead characters, portrayed respectively by Rupert Penry-Jones and Aylesworth. Current Life. Aylesworth has resided in New York City since 1993 and when not appearing on screen, she is often involved in Off Broadway productions. Her most recent was the 2006 production of Etan Frankel's "The Fearless" at the Summer Play Festival and The New Group (naked)'s 2007 production of Heather Lynn MacDonald's "Expats". Reiko Aylesworth appeared in a recurring role in the third season of Damages and on "Stargate Universe". Most Recent Roles. Aylesworth is most recently known for her portrayal of the recurring character Dr. Malia Waincroft in CBS' "Hawaii Five-0" in 2011. She has also appeared in Elementary as Miranda Molinari and in Person of Interest as Agent Vickers in 2012.
571141	Marianne Muellerleile (born November 26, 1948) is an American actress. Life and career. Muellerleile was born in St. Louis, Missouri, the daughter of Margaret (née Keany) and Cecil E. Muellerleile, an oil company executive. She played the role of Sophie, a waitress, in the movie "Return to Me" which was directed by and also starred Bonnie Hunt and then later appeared on Bonnie's comedy series, "Life with Bonnie" as "Gloria", the housekeeper, for two seasons until the show ended. She also appeared in The WB television series "Charmed" episode "Primrose Empath". She also has a recurring role on the soap opera "Passions", playing the disturbed character of Norma Bates. She also played the nanny in "Melrose Place". She guest-starred in one episode of "Will and Grace". In 1991, Muellerleile appeared on the situation comedy "Night Court" as Miss Gilly. In the 1984 film "The Terminator", she had a minor role as a woman named Sarah Connor, whom the Terminator mistakes as the woman he is after. Also in 1984, she appeared in the hit comedy film "Revenge of the Nerds" as the woman who answers the door where Harold Wormser goes to ask about the room for rent. Muellerleile recently had a guest role as a nun-teacher "Sister Dominique" at the school of the characters Madeline Fitzpatrick and London Tipton in "The Suite Life of Zack & Cody" episodes, "Forever Plaid" and "Books & Birdhouses".
583130	Sanjay Mishra, stage-name Sanjai Mishra (born 6 October 1963 in Patna, Bihar) is an Indian comedian and film actor who is best known for his character of Apple Singh, an "icon" used by ESPN Star Sports during the 1999 Cricket World Cup. He made his film debut in the 1995 Indian musical film "Oh Darling! Yeh Hai India!". Then he followed on by "Rajkumar" (1996) and "Satya" (1998). Career. Sanjay was born on 6 October 1963 into a Hindu family in Bihar. His father was a journalist named Shambhu Nath Mishra. He Joined National School of Drama after completing 12th. He passed out in 1989 from there. He did many commercials and small movie roles before he got the opportunity to stand with Amitabh Bachchan in a Mirinda commercial. Mishra's releases like "Zameen", "" and "Plan". Though he kidnaps Bipasha Basu in "Zameen" and acts as a companion of don in "Satya", yet he is typecast as a comedian. He makes a mention of himself in other TV serials too like "Office Office", "Ram Lakhawan" and "Public Sub Jaanti Hai". "Phas Gaye Re Obama" was a serious comedy based on the recession. He is currently directing a movie named "Pranaam Walekum", to be released in January 2012, as well as "Dhama Choukdhi", which also stars Sanjay Mishra, Dipraj Rana and controversial model Rozlyn Khan. Filmography. Awarded in star screen awards 2011. -Sanjay Mishra ("Phas Gaye Re Obama") Awarded In Indian TV Honours Golden Globe awards 2011. -Sanjay Mishra (Phas gaye Re Obama)
1065451	The Hallelujah Trail is a 1965 Western mockumentary spoof directed by John Sturges and starring Burt Lancaster, Lee Remick, Jim Hutton, Brian Keith, Donald Pleasence, and Martin Landau, amongst others. The film was one of several large-scale widescreen, long-form "epic" comedies produced in the 1960s, much like "The Great Race" or "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World", combined with the epic grandeur of the Western genre. The movie is technically outstanding, having been filmed in Ultra Panavision 70 and presented in 70 mm Cinerama in premiere engagements, projected onto the Cinerama curved screen with a single lens. Plot synopsis. The film is presented in a pseudo-documentary style, with a tongue-in-cheek narrator (John Dehner) providing historical background and context, and periodically interrupting the story to point out animated charts illustrating strategic positions of various groups. "Buffalo were feeding ravenously. Beaver were damming and storing with strange vigor. Horses and dogs were becoming shaggy-haired as never before. And it could be sensed in the booming, bustling mining town of Denver. Most historians agree that the events leading to the Battle of Whiskey Hills and the subsequent 'disaster' at Quicksand Bottoms began here in Denver at a miners' meeting..." In the year 1867, signs that the approaching winter will be a hard one produce agitation in the burgeoning mining town of Denver, Colorado, as the hard-drinking citizenry fear a shortage of whiskey. Taking advice from Oracle Jones (Donald Pleasence), a local guide and seer (but only when under the influence of alcohol), the populace arrange for a mass shipment, forty wagons full of whiskey, from the Wallingham Freighting Company. The wagon train heads out, under the direction of company owner Frank Wallingham (Brian Keith), regarded as a "taxpayer and a good Republican."
587606	Sitaara (Telugu: సితార) is a 1984 Telugu film directed by Vamsy. The film introduced Bhanupriya to the Telugu film industry. The movie was adapted from his own novel "Mahal lo Kokila" (The Nightingale in the Palace). Plot. Devdas (Subhalekha Sudhakar) is a professional photographer. On a train he meets a melancholy woman (Bhanupriya) who boards the train without a proper ticket. He helps her with the money and tries to strike up a conversation. She only tells him that her name is "Sitaara" and that she has nowhere to go in the big city. The reticent Sitara intrigues Devdas, who takes pity on her position and offers her shelter at his home. Devdas sees the photogenic face of Sitaara and helps her become a model and film star. Eventually, as he manages her dates and schedules, he develops a liking for her. When Sitaara vehemently refuses to go to a certain village for shooting, he gets insulted by the producer. An upset Devdas demands an explanation and forces her to reveal her traumatic past. Sitaara is the innocent sister of a protective and proud zamindar (Sarath Babu). She is kept indoors and restrained by her brother, as is the custom of rich landlords of the time. The zamindar has heavy debts and conceals this fact from the people of the village and hides the misfortune behind the walls of his palace, hoping to win a case in the court that will restore the ancestral wealth and hence the glory of his family. During Dasara, a group of drama artists come to the village to perform and make their living. Every day, they start their performance first at the zamindar's home per the custom. The zamindar is away and there is no one to watch or reward them. The youngest artist of the troupe (Suman) is irritated by this, but others in the troupe convince him to perform in front of the zamindar's closed doors. One day, Sitaara watches Suman's performance through a broken window and takes a liking for him. He sees her watching him, and the next day performs with even more vigour, surprising his colleagues.
1105254	Claude Elwood Shannon (April 30, 1916 – February 24, 2001) was an American mathematician, electronic engineer, and cryptographer known as "the father of information theory". Shannon is famous for having founded information theory with a landmark paper that he published in 1948. However, he is also credited with founding both digital computer and digital circuit design theory in 1937, when, as a 21-year-old master's degree student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), he wrote his thesis demonstrating that electrical applications of boolean algebra could construct and resolve any logical, numerical relationship. It has been claimed that this was the most important master's thesis of all time. Shannon contributed to the field of cryptanalysis for national defense during World War II, including his basic work on codebreaking and secure telecommunications. Biography. Shannon was born in Petoskey, Michigan. His father, Claude, Sr. (1862 – 1934), a descendant of early settlers of New Jersey, was a self-made businessman, and for a while, a Judge of Probate. Shannon's mother, Mabel Wolf Shannon (1890 – 1945), was a language teacher, and for a number of years she was the principal of Gaylord High School. Most of the first 16 years of Shannon's life were spent in Gaylord, Michigan, where he attended public school, graduating from Gaylord High School in 1932. Shannon showed an inclination towards mechanical and electrical things. His best subjects were science and mathematics, and at home he constructed such devices as models of planes, a radio-controlled model boat and a wireless telegraph system to a friend's house a half-mile away. While growing up, he also worked as a messenger for the Western Union company. His childhood hero was Thomas Edison, whom he later learned was a distant cousin. Both were descendants of John Ogden, a colonial leader and an ancestor of many distinguished people. On his political and religious views, Shannon was apolitical and an atheist.
1165390	Ruta Lee (born May 30, 1936) is a Canadian actress and dancer who appeared as one of the brides in the film "Seven Brides for Seven Brothers". She is remembered for her guest appearance in a 1963 episode of Rod Serling's "The Twilight Zone" and as a semi-regular on a number of game shows, including the "Hollywood Squares", "What's My Line?", and as Alex Trebek's co-host on "High Rollers". She is of Lithuanian descent. Early life. Ruta Lee was born Ruta Mary Kilmonis in Montreal, Quebec, and she was the only child of two Lithuanian immigrants. Her father was a tailor; her mother, a homemaker. In 1948, her family moved to Los Angeles, California, where she graduated in 1954 from Hollywood High School and began studying acting and appearing in school plays. She attended both Los Angeles City College and the University of California at Los Angeles. Lee worked as a cashier, an usherette, and a candy girl at Grauman's Chinese Theater, but when she was $40 short in her cash account at the end of her shift one night, she was fired. Career. Lee then got a break as a guest on two episodes of CBS's "The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show". She soon found an agent, who landed her a job in an episode of the "The Roy Rogers Show", followed by a spot in 1953 on the series "Adventures of Superman". That same year, while acting in a small theater production of "On the Town", she landed a role in the Academy Award-nominated musical "Seven Brides for Seven Brothers". After "Seven Brides", Lee appeared in several films including "Anything Goes" (1956), "Funny Face", "Witness for the Prosecution" (1957), and "Marjorie Morningstar" (1958) with Natalie Wood. In 1962, Lee appeared in the comedy/western film "Sergeants 3" along with Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis, Jr., and Peter Lawford. In addition to films, Lee has appeared in many guest starring roles on television. For a number of years, she seemed to be everywhere on the screen. From 1957 to 1959, she was cast in different roles in eight episodes of the CBS crime drama television series, "The Lineup". In 1959 and 1960, she was cast in four episodes of John Bromfield's syndicated crime drama, "U.S. Marshal". Lee appeared as Ellen Barton in the 1960 episode "Grant of Land" of the ABC western series, "The Rebel", starring Nick Adams. She also made five guest appearances on the CBS courtroom drama series "Perry Mason" between 1958-1965, including murderer Connie Cooper in "The Case of the Screaming Woman" (1958), and defendant Millie Crest in "The Case of the Foot-Loose Doll" (1959). Lee was further cast on "Richard Diamond, Private Detective", "Alfred Hitchcock Presents", "Maverick", "Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer", "Sugarfoot", "M Squad", "Gunsmoke", "77 Sunset Strip", "The Alaskans", "Colt .45", "Wagon Train", "Hawaiian Eye", "Rawhide", "The Wild Wild West", and "Hogan's Heroes". Lee appeared in two guest spots of "The Andy Griffith Show" in 1962 and 1965. In 1963, she was cast in CBS's "Twilight Zone" in the episode "A Short Drink From a Certain Fountain". Lee also began appearing regularly on game shows such as "Hollywood Squares", "You Don't Say" and "Match Game". In the early 1970s, Lee continued to perform in both films and television roles on "Love, American Style", "The Mod Squad", and a role in the 1972 film "The Doomsday Machine". By 1974, Lee grew frustrated by an increasing lack of roles, and took a job co-hosting the daytime game show "High Rollers". She remained with the show until 1976. During the 1980s, she lent her voice to episodes of "The Flintstones Comedy Show" and "The Smurfs", in addition to guest roles on "CHiPs", "The Love Boat", and "Charles in Charge". From 1988 to 1989, Lee had a recurring role on the CBS sitcom, "Coming of Age". In 1989, she played the role of Sally Powers in the TV movie "Sweet Bird of Youth" with Elizabeth Taylor. In the 1990s, Lee continued to appear in episodic television, most notably in the series "Roseanne". Lee appeared as the girlfriend of Bev Harris (Estelle Parsons) whose character disclosed she was gay. In 2006, Lee received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for her contributions to the television industry. In 1995, a Golden Palm Star on the Palm Springs Walk of Stars was dedicated to Lee. In February 2008, Lee appeared as Clairee in a production of "Steel Magnolias" with Sally Struthers at the Casa Mañana Theatre in Fort Worth, Texas. In October 2010, Lee played the role of Miss Mona in "The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas", also at the Casa Mañana Theatre. She had previously played the role there in 1982. She appeared in 2012 in a small guest appearance on the long-running NBC soap opera "Days of Our Lives". Personal life. In 1976, Lee married Texas restaurant executive Webster B. "Webb" Lowe, Jr. They divide their time between their homes in Hollywood, Palm Springs, Fort Worth and Mexico. She has no children. Off-camera. In 1964, Lee called then-Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev, asking him to pardon her grandmother Ludvise Kamandulis, who had been in an internment camp in Siberia since World War II. The pardon was granted, and Lee's grandmother came to live with her in California in 1966. Kamandulis died two years later. Lee again rescued a relative from the former Soviet Union when she secured custody of her 18-year-old cousin, Maryte Kaseta, from Lithuania in 1987. Lee has been involved with the charitable organization "The Thalians" for over fifty years. In addition to raising money and providing services for troubled youth and mental health organizations, Lee, who is also the board chairman, has co-produced the annual Ball of the Thalians with Debbie Reynolds throughout those five decades. In 2011, She stepped down after 55 years of involvement with the Thalians, and is now an emeritus member. Filmography. In 2009 She played a 'straight' role as herself in the hilarious British hidden camera comedy La La Land. A series about the stupidity of people trying to make it in Hollywood and those trying to help them.
1059812	Loretta Devine (born August 21, 1949) is an American stage, film and television actress. She has appeared in such films as "Waiting to Exhale", "The Preacher's Wife", "I Am Sam", "Urban Legend", "Crash", "Woman Thou Art Loosed", "For Colored Girls", "This Christmas" and "Jumping the Broom". She is currently part of the main cast of the Lifetime drama "The Client List" in the role of Georgia Cummings and as the voice of Hallie on the Disney Junior show "Doc McStuffins". Early life. Devine was born in Houston, Texas. Her mother, Eunice O'Neal (née Toliver), was a beautician, and her father, James Devine, worked as a laborer. She grew up in the Acres Homes area of Houston. She was very active on the pep squad, and performed in talent shows at George Washington Carver High School. Devine graduated from the University of Houston in 1971 with a Bachelor of Arts in Speech and Drama and Brandeis University in 1976 with a MFA in Theater. Devine was initiated into Alpha Kappa Alpha the Epsilon Lambda Chapter. Career. Devine appeared in the 1978 flop "A Broadway Musical", which closed after one performance. She captured attention in "Dreamgirls", a Broadway musical loosely based on the history of The Supremes, in which she originated the role of Lorrell Robinson (a fictional character based on Mary Wilson). It premiered on December 20, 1981 and ran for over 1500 performances; it eventually won six Tony awards. Minor roles for Devine followed in films such as "Little Nikita" and "Stanley & Iris". She has a cameo performance in the film version of "Dreamgirls". She was a repertory character in the play "The Colored Museum" with Vickilyn Reynolds. Devine and Reynolds both went on to play sisters in the short-lived TV series "Sugar and Spice". During the period between the play and the series, Devine appeared in the first season of the TV series "A Different World" as Stevie Rallen, dormitory director at fictional Hillman College. In 1995, she landed a high-profile role as Gloria Matthews in "Waiting to Exhale", joined in the cast by Whitney Houston, Gregory Hines, and Angela Bassett, among others. The role earned her an NAACP Image Award for Best Supporting Actress, as did her next movie, "The Preacher's Wife", her second movie with Houston and Hines. In 2000, Devine took on the role of impassioned high school teacher Marla Hendricks on the Fox TV drama "Boston Public". Devine won three more Image Awards for her work in the series. She also continued to work in film, playing prominent roles in "Urban Legend", "", and "I Am Sam". Devine earned yet another Image Award nomination and an Independent Spirit Award nomination for her work in the 2004 film "Woman Thou Art Loosed". She also appeared in the 2005 Academy Awards Best Picture winning film "Crash". She also played Rochelle's mother, Maxine, who's always picking on her, on the sitcom, "Everybody Hates Chris". In 2007, she appeared in "This Christmas", a Screen Gems production co-starring Delroy Lindo, Mekhi Phifer, and Regina King. in 2008, Devine joined the cast of the ABC series "Eli Stone". While the series received positive reviews, it was cancelled in July 2009 after two seasons. In 2009, Devine played the character of Jeanette in the rejected pilot for the David E. Kelley television series that was supposed to air on NBC, "Legally Mad". Devine later that year made guest appearance on "Cold Case". Devine was part of the ensemble casts of two Tyler Perry-directed films "For Colored Girls" and "Madea's Big Happy Family". Devine also appeared in the ABC medical drama "Grey's Anatomy" as Dr. Richard Webber's wife, Adele, and in 2011 she won a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Drama Series for her performance. She was nominated for a second time for her performance in 2012. In 2011, she had played the role of Aunt Honey on ABC Family's original comedy "State of Georgia" alongside Raven-Symoné and Majandra Delfino. The series was cancelled after one season. In 2012, she played Hallie, a nurse, on Playhouse Disney's "Doc McStuffins". Later that year she joined Lifetime series "The Client List", playing the role of Georgia Cummings, the owner of the massage parlor where the lead character Riley Parks works. Devine won "Outstanding Female Actor in a Feature Role" for "Grey's Anatomy" at the 2012 Gracie Allen Award. Devine was awarded the Distinguished Alumni Award from her alma mater, the University of Houston, on April 27, 2013. This is the highest honor given by UHAA to a UH graduate.
394307	Love Me Not (; literally "Love and Such Is Not Necessary") is a 2006 South Korean romance film directed by Lee Cheol-ha and starring Moon Geun-young and Kim Joo-hyuk.
1043595	Robert Rietti, usually credited as Robert Rietty (born 8 February 1923), is an English actor and director of Italian heritage. Biography. Born of Italian heritage, Rietti was “discovered” at the age of 8 by his father Vittorio, veteran actor of the stage and screen, who noticed the boy had completely memorised a copy of a script he had given Lucio, having wanted help from his son while rehearsing his lines for a play. Vittorio had Lucio join his own acting school (which turned out students such as Ida Lupino). Hollywood mogul David O. Selznick, having seen the boy perform, tried to sign him to an extended contract with his studio but, being so young, strict schooling laws of the time forced him to decline the offer. He was handpicked by Alfred Hitchcock for the role of Stevie in "Sabotage" (1936), but again was forced to turn down the part. Eventually his father managed to work around these laws, and, under the name Bobby Rietti, made over 22 films before the age of 10. In the theatre he scored his first success starring as Poor Jo in Dickens' "Bleak House" sharing the billing with Gracie Fields, after which he starred as Jonathan opposite Elizebeth Bergner in "The Boy David". He was 15 years old when World War II broke out and, being of Italian family, was placed in a detention camp with his father and brother Ronaldo (later a film director and producer). After eight months he was released upon special request to organise an army unit made up of professional actors to entertain the troops. It was during this time that his stage name was altered to Robert Rietty in an attempt to make it sound less Italian and more Irish (who were neutral during the war). It was under the name Robert Rietty that he would come to be known best by the public. After 5½ years of army service Rietty returned to public attention, picking up where he had left off. Over the next several years he participated in every form of entertainment: radio, stage, films and the early days of television. In radio Rietty teamed up with Orson Welles twice for "The Third Man" (1951) (a.k.a. Harry Lime), based on the hit film and the crime drama series "The Black Museum" (1952) broadcast to the United States armed forces. This proved to be the beginning of a lifelong friendship between the two and Orson used Rietty in many of his films. Rietty was also a regular on the radio series "Horatio Hornblower" (1952), "Scarlet Pimpernel" (1952) and "Theatre Royal" (1954), the last with Sir Laurence Olivier, as well as frequent guest appearances on other radio shows. In films Rietty continued to work mostly in character parts with the exception of his performances in "Call of the Blood" (1948), "Prelude to Fame" (1950) and "Stock Car" (1955). Also during this time he was heavily involved in the theatre starring in dozens of plays, even writing quite a few, and was editor of the drama quarterly Gambit. Rietty once found the script of the Italian play "To Live in Peace", which his father had translated to English, but had no luck convincing anyone to produce it. Despite the fact the story was rejected countless times, he rewrote the script and found a producer willing to back the project with his father in the lead role as Don Geronimo and himself as Maso. The play became an instant success, winning many awards, and toured in Europe, eventually being made twice as films made for television in 1951 and 1952. Rietty and his father were knighted by the Italian Government for their contribution to the Italian entertainment industry, in particular from translating Italian plays into English. Robert's knighthood was then upgraded. Early television took up much of Rietty's time, guest-starring repeatedly in over 100 TV shows, many of them being shot live. In television he often got the chance to work with his father again, most notably in "The Jack Benny Program" episode "Jack Falls Into Canal in Venice" (1957) and in the pilot for the series "Harry's Girls" (1960). During the next 15 years most of Robert's acting was confined to TV and film with his most memorable performances in "The Crooked Road" (1965) with Robert Ryan and Stewart Granger, "Hell Is Empty" (1967) produced by his brother Ronald and co-starring French actress Martine Carol (who died before the end of shooting the film), "The Italian Job" (1969) and "The Omen" (1976) with Gregory Peck. During this time Rietty made the change from actor to director (although he continued acting), becoming heavily involved in post-production work, directing and revoicing, and became sought-after director in Hollywood and Europe, known as the "King Of Dubbers" and "Man of a Thousand Voices". His direction was used for almost every film in the James Bond series (and he acted in several) and hundreds of pictures. Rietty has been an active actor for over 80 years. His son, Jonathan, is an Orthodox rabbi who lives in the United States and lectures extensively for Gateways, a Jewish outreach organisation.
1179783	Katharine Hope McPhee (born March 25, 1984) is an American pop singer, songwriter, and actress. She gained fame as a contestant on the fifth season of the Fox reality show "American Idol" in 2006, eventually finishing as the runner-up. Since 2012, McPhee was one of the lead actors on "Smash", but the show was canceled after its second season. Her self-titled debut album was released on RCA Records on January 30, 2007 and debuted at number two on the "Billboard" 200, selling 381,000 copies (as of December 2010). The album's first single, "Over It", was a Pop Top 30 hit and was certified gold in 2008.
1059805	Robert John Davi (born June 26, 1953) is an American actor and jazz singer. He has played such roles as Vietnam veteran and Special Agent Johnson in "Die Hard", the villainous Jake Fratelli in "The Goonies", and Al Torres in "Showgirls". However, Davi is perhaps best known for playing the main villain and drug lord Franz Sanchez in the 1989 James Bond film "Licence to Kill" as well as FBI Special Agent Bailey Malone in the NBC television series "Profiler". Classically trained as a singer, Davi launched his professional singing career in 2011 performing Frank Sinatra classics. He opened as a headliner at The Venetian, in Las Vegas, Nevada, on February 23, 2012. Early life. Davi was born in Astoria, Queens, New York, the son of Maria (née Rulli) and Sal Davi. His mother was an Italian American and his father was a native of Southern Italy; Davi spoke Italian during his childhood. He attended Seton Hall, a Catholic high school in Patchogue (Long Island), New York. He has two sisters, Yvonne Davi (deceased), and Michelle (Davi) Queal. He graduated from Hofstra University, the same alma mater as fellow James Bond villain Christopher Walken. Davi was drawn to Hofstra because of the school's Shakespearean "round" theatre. Acting career. Davi made his motion picture debut in "Contract On Cherry Street", in which he shared the screen with, Frank Sinatra. Since then he's continued to work with the biggest names in Hollywood – Marlon Brando, Clint Eastwood, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Benicio del Toro, James Franco, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Bruce Willis, and Roberto Benigni, among others. He's been in such movies as "The Goonies", "Die Hard", "Showgirls", "Son of the Pink Panther", and in the 1989 Bond film "Licence to Kill" as the villain Franz Sanchez, a South American drug lord and murderer. On TV, he starred as Commander Acastus Kolya on "Stargate Atlantis", appeared in two-part episodes of "Criminal Minds", and played Supervisory Special Agent Bailey Malone of the FBI Violent Criminal Apprehesion Program / VICAP in 88 episodes of his own NBC series, "Profiler". In 1989 Davi appeared as Mafia Albert Cerrico in the television series "Wiseguy", in the 10 episode Mafia arc titled Garbage Wars. He also sang in the first installment of the arc, called "Le Lacrime de Amore Pt I". In 2011, Davi appeared alongside Val Kilmer and Christopher Walken in the gangster movie "Kill the Irishman". The film, in which Davi played Mafia hitman Ray Ferritto, is a biopic of Danny Greene, an Irish-American mob boss who warred with the Cleveland crime family during the 1970s. Currently, Davi can be seen in "Game of Death" with Wesley Snipes. Directing career. In 2007, Davi made his directorial debut with "The Dukes", a parable for today about how the current economic crisis is affecting the everyman. The story follows the members of a once successful Doo Wop group who, like most of the world, have fallen on hard times. The film is about chasing the American Dream, even when the reality of that dream is changing faster than you can run. It stars Chazz Palminteri, Robert Davi, and Peter Bogdanovich. The "Dukes" was acclaimed and was selected for the premiere section at the Rome Film Festival, along with other filmmakers such as Francis Ford Coppola, Sean Penn, Robert Redford, Sidney Lumet, and Gavin Hood. Davi was the only first-time director in the premiere section. The film was then invited to the Monte Carlo Comedy Film Festival, where it received awards for best first-time director and best screenplay. Following this, The Dukes was invited to the Alpe d'Huez International Comedy Film Festival in France, amongst others. Recording career. Even as far back as high school, Davi received acclaim for his singing, being awarded first place in the prestigious New York State School Music Association’s — Solo Competition, singing Vincent Youmans' "Without A Song". As a young man, Davi studied classically under several of the top vocal teachers, Samuel Margolis and Danial Ferro of Juilliard and later, opera great Tito Gobbi. Davi did in fact damage his voice, claiming he was baritone with the heart of a tenor and had pushed too hard, too early. However, it isn't until recently that he has become successful as a singer. With a thirty-piece orchestra, Davi recorded his first album at the famous Capitol Records Building in Hollywood (where Frank Sinatra recorded on many occasions). The album contains all-new arrangements by composer Nic. tenBroek; it was produced by Phil Ramone, engineered by Dan Wallin, and mixed by Al Schmitt. The album, "Davi Sings Sinatra — On The Road To Romance", was released October 24, 2011. In December 2012 Davi appeared along with Roger Cicero in the French/German Arte TV program "Durch die Nacht mit..." The episode was shot in the Little Italy area of New York City and featured conversation between Cicero and Davi and solos of Sinatra standards by both performers. Personal life. Davi is an outspoken conservative and often speaks at Republican gatherings. He has been invited to comment on numerous political shows and backed John McCain during his presidential campaign. He narrated several film montages that aired during the 2008 Republican National Convention. Davi also spoke at the 2009 Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington, D.C. Davi is a devout Roman Catholic and regularly speaks of God or relates passages from the Bible in speaking. He is a frequent guest on Fox News's late-night satire program "Red Eye w/ Greg Gutfeld". Davi's children are Sean Christian Davi (born 1981), with Jeri McBride, and Ariana Marie Davi (born April 3, 1990), Frances Davi (born 1992), and Isabella Davi and Nicholas Edward Davi (twins, born on January 11, 2001), with Christine Bolster. Davi is an avid cigar smoker, having started in early adulthood. He also has been seen in public and in films and television programs smoking cigarettes, but not as often as cigars.
1067267	The Yakuza is a 1974 neo-noir gangster film directed by Sydney Pollack, written by Leonard Schrader, Paul Schrader, and Robert Towne. "The Yakuza" portrays the clash of traditional Japanese values during Japan's transition from the US occupation to economic success in the early 1970s. The story's themes include moral indebtedness and obligation, loyalty to family and friends, and sacrifice. The film contrasts Eastern and Western cultural values, and classical Japanese tradition with the modern, Westernized, trends of contemporary Japan. It also broke with the then Hollywood aversion to giving full roles to nonwhite actors by casting Ken Takakura as a pivotal character. Following a lacklustre initial release, the film gained a cult following.
219904	A Zed & Two Noughts is a 1985 film written and directed by Peter Greenaway. This film was Greenaway's first with cinematography by Sacha Vierny, who went on to shoot virtually all of Greenaway's work in the 1980s and 1990s, until Vierny's death; Vierny was referred to by Greenaway as his "most important collaborator". Plot. Twin zoologists Oswald and Oliver Deuce (Brian Deacon and Eric Deacon) are at work studying the behaviour of animals at a zoo, when their wives are killed in a car accident involving a large swan. The woman who was driving the car, Alba Bewick (Andréa Ferréol), is not killed, but has a leg amputated. Venus de Milo (Frances Barber), a woman associated with the zoo, attempts to forge a relationship with the twins, ostensibly to help them recover from their loss. Meanwhile, Oswald and Oliver gradually become obsessed with images of growth and decay, watching videos on the origins of life and creating time-lapse video of decomposing life forms. They begin this latter task with a green apple, bitten into and rotting before their camera lens. The twins' descent sees them become romantically involved with Alba, and increasingly attached to one another. Venus de Milo remains involved with them enough to observe their obsessions grow: they take to video-taping the decomposition of prawns, and they take a personal interest in Alba's childhood, going so far as to ask her to show them a field seen in a photograph on her bedside table. They become obsessed with snails, and they take advantage of their contacts at the zoo to create decomposition videos of more and more complex animals, moving gradually up the food chain. Some sections of the film are narrated by David Attenborough, whose involvement makes the film resemble a wildlife documentary. Alba becomes a subject for the experiments of her surgeon, who eventually amputates her other leg, claiming it is putting stress on her spine. His true motive is to fashion Alba into a subject of his recreations of Johannes Vermeer paintings; Venus de Milo participates in this process, as well. Ultimately, the Deuce brothers' obsession with decay leads them to the top of the food chain, and to a complex life-and-death negotiation with Alba herself. The brothers' project seems the only possible emotional investment for either of them, so Alba offers herself as the final specimen to be photographed in its decay. However, her family intervenes before the brothers can claim her, so they are forced to find another way to create their final time-lapse video. They do so by returning to the field of Alba's childhood and setting up the necessary equipment to facilitate and capture their own decomposition. Reception. The film gained a mixed reaction. Soundtrack. Elements of Michael Nyman's score invoke the "Dies Irae" section from Heinrich Ignaz Biber's "Requiem ex F con terza minore". The Angelfish Decay/Swan Rot/L'Escargot theme was originally written for "Childs Play", a dance work commissioned by Lucinda Childs. Performance of the soundtrack is credited to Nyman, Alexander Balanescu, Elisabeth Perry, Sarah Leonard and "The Zoo Orchestra". While the score is in the Michael Nyman Band's repertoire, particularly "Time Lapse" and "Prawn Watching", they do not perform on the soundtrack. Track listing. The album was issued on compact disc in the United States 4 June 1991, with a new cover featuring Ferreol in-between the Deacons in bed, and the title spelled "A Zed And Two Noughts". The original LP cover showed a zebra in a cage, as does the UK CD. A digitally remastered edition was released in the United States with the 1991 cover on 29 March 2004.
1068410	Josh and S.A.M. is a 1993 American drama-comedy film revolving around two brothers who hate each other and how they react to their parents' divorce. It stars Noah Fleiss, Jacob Tierney, Martha Plimpton, and a young Jake Gyllenhaal. The MPAA rating system rated this film PG-13. Plot. The film is a road-trip themed dark comedy about two young brothers who run away from home due to emotional conflict over the divorce of their parents. Jacob Tierney plays older brother Josh who unintentionally brainwashes his younger brother Sam (Noah Fleiss) making him believe that he was a genetically designed child warrior. Josh says that Sam is actually an acronym, and that he is a "Strategically Altered Mutant" that was designed by the government to fight in a secret war in Africa. After a series of various suspicious coincidences in Josh's lies, Sam eventually believes that he is a S.A.M. Josh says that he can be safely deactivated and turned back into a human if he reaches Canada. After a thunderstorm grounds their flight in Dallas forcing them to stay in hotel, Josh grows impatient with his mother and decides to abandon Sam and his life. Blocked at all exits by hotel officials, he heads into a high school reunion to seek refuge. He later lies that his mother was a graduate, and he finds Derek Baxter (Chris Penn), a drunken man claiming to be his father. Before Josh has time to clear his lie, Sam appears and, shortly thereafter, Derek drives them to their "grandparents'" house to tell the good news. Upon entering the house Derek overreacts to a picture of the real family and goes after Josh. After Sam hits him with a cueball, Josh reacts defensively and hits Derek on the head with a pool cue, supposedly killing him. In panic, the two brothers steal his rental car and begin their trek to Canada. After a day of Josh and Sam driving they encounter Alison (Martha Plimpton), who is an older teen runaway from Hannibal, Missouri. They pick her up due to a resemblance to another lie of Josh's, the Liberty Maid. According to the Liberty Maid's description she aids fleeing S.A.M.'s to Canada, in the similar way of Harriet Tubman. Alison travels with them as their driver and during the run develops a bond with Josh. After a run-in with a cop outside of Salt Lake City, Sam flees, causing a chase through the desert that nearly kills Sam as he crawls under a train. After Josh and Allison reach the car, they dash to the road to continue their journey. During a night stop in a motel, Sam decides to leave Josh and Alison as he steals the car. Later that day, Josh and Alison part ways after she fails to convince him to live in Seattle with her. After a long walk, he discovers the car on the side of the road. Unfortunately, Sam is not there, but he discovers a bus stop nearby and rides it the rest of the way to Canada. On the bus, he sees Sam riding on the back of a semi-truck and, after he and Sam reunite, they walk across the border into Canada. In Calgary, Canada, Josh tries several attempts to un-brainwash him back to normal. Among these, is a trip to a tanning booth, saying that will deactivate him. After that, Sam is sent back home to Orlando on a plane. Feeling unwanted at home and considering himself a fugitive, Josh stays behind. He soon finds out that Derek is alive and is given a reason to return home. Among one of the advancements of the film was learning to trust and love one another in the face of the emotional turmoil of their new family situation.
1064258	The Ninth Gate is a 1999 French-Spanish-American thriller film directed, produced, and co-written by Roman Polanski. The film is loosely based upon Arturo Pérez-Reverte's 1993 novel "The Club Dumas". The plot involves the search for a rare ancient book that purportedly contains the secret to magically summoning the Devil. The premiere showing was at San Sebastián, Spain, on 25 August 1999, a month before the 47th San Sebastian International Film Festival. It failed critically and commercially in North America; reviewers claimed it was a lesser effort than "Rosemary's Baby" (1968), Polanski's most well known supernatural film. Nonetheless, "The Ninth Gate" earned a worldwide gross of $58.4 million against a $38 million budget. Plot. Dean Corso is a New York City rare book dealer motivated solely by financial gain. Wealthy book collector Boris Balkan has recently acquired a copy of "The Nine Gates of the Kingdom of Shadows" by seventeenth-century author Aristide Torchia, one of only three copies known to exist. According to legend, the book is Torchia's adaptation of an older book written by the Devil himself and purportedly contains the means to magically summon the Devil. Balkan believes two of the copies are forgeries. He hires Corso to authenticate all three copies, and acquire the legitimate copy by any means necessary. Balkan's copy of "The Nine Gates" had previously belonged to bibliophile Andrew Telfer, who committed suicide soon after selling the book to Balkan. Telfer's widow Liana wants the book back, as Telfer originally bought the book for her. Liana seduces Corso, but she fails to re-acquire her book. Meanwhile, Corso's business partner, Bernie, with whom Corso had hidden the book, is murdered; his corpse is posed in imitation of an engraving in "The Nine Gates". Corso travels to Toledo, Spain, where the Ceniza brothers, book restorers, show him that three of the book's engravings are signed "LCF", which Corso understands to mean that Lucifer himself designed and cut them. Corso goes by train to Sintra, Portugal, to compare Victor Fargas' copy of "The Nine Gates" to Balkan's. To his surprise, Corso discovers that the signature "LCF" is found in three different engravings in the Fargas copy, which vary in detail from their counterparts in the Balkan copy. The next morning a mysterious young woman, who appears to have been shadowing Corso since Balkan hired him, awakens Corso and leads him to Fargas' house where he finds the old man murdered and the engravings ripped out of his copy of "The Nine Gates". In Paris, Corso visits the Baroness Kessler, the owner of the third copy of the book. The Baroness initially refuses any contact with Corso once she realizes who his employer is, but Corso returns and intrigues Kessler with evidence that the engravings differ among the three copies. Gaining access to Kessler's copy, he finds the "LCF" on three different engravings, which are also slightly different from their counterparts in the two other copies. Later, Kessler is killed, and the Girl rescues Corso from Liana's bodyguard. Corso believes that each copy of "The Nine Gates" is genuine but that each contains deliberately falsified images, requiring possession of all three copies to make sense of the ritual. Liana steals Balkan's copy from Corso's hotel room. He follows her to a mansion and witnesses her using the book in a Satanist ceremony. Balkan suddenly interrupts the ceremony, kills Liana, takes the engraving pages and his own intact copy, and then flees. Corso pursues Balkan to a remote castle, which was depicted in one of the engravings, and in a postcard that Corso found in Kessler's copy, and finds Balkan preparing to open the Nine Gates. After a struggle, Balkan traps Corso in a hole in the floor, immobilizing him and allowing Balkan to perform his summoning ritual unmolested but with Corso as a 'witness'. Balkan recites a series of phrases related to each of the nine engravings, then douses the floor and himself with gasoline and sets it alight, believing himself to be immune to the flames. Balkan's invocation appears to fail, and Balkan begins screaming in agony as his body burns. Corso frees himself and spares Balkan the agony by shooting him dead. He then escapes the fire. Outside the building, the Girl appears to Corso, and they consummate their attraction by the light of the flames. She tells him that Balkan failed because the ninth engraving Balkan had used was a forgery. Corso, following her directions, returns to the Ceniza brothers' shop. Upon arriving, he finds the store gone and the last piece of furniture being removed, from the top of which falls the authentic ninth engraving, which includes a likeness of the mystery girl. With the last engraving in hand, Corso returns to the castle it depicts, and crosses the threshold of the Ninth Gate. Production. Roman Polanski read the screenplay by Enrique Urbizu, an adaptation of the Spanish novel "El Club Dumas" ("The Club Dumas", 1993), by Arturo Pérez-Reverte. Impressed with the script, Polanski read the novel, liking it because he "saw so many elements that seemed good for a movie. It was suspenseful, funny, and there were a great number of secondary characters that are tremendously cinematic". Pérez-Reverte's novel, "El Club Dumas" features intertwined plots, so Polanski wrote his own adaptation with his usual partner, John Brownjohn ("Tess", "Pirates" and "Bitter Moon"). They deleted the novel's literary references and a sub-plot about Corso's investigation of an original manuscript of a chapter of "The Three Musketeers" and concentrated upon Dean Corso's pursuing the authentic copy of "The Nine Gates". Polanski approached the subject skeptically, saying, "I don't believe in the occult. I don't believe. Period"; yet he enjoyed the genre, "There a great number of clichés of this type in "The Ninth Gate", which I tried to turn around a bit. You can make them appear serious on the surface, but you cannot help but laugh at them". The appeal of the film was that it featured "a mystery in which a book is the leading character" and its engravings "are also essential clues". In reading "El Club Dumas", Polanski pictured Johnny Depp as "Dean Corso", who joined the production as early as 1997, when he met Polanski at the Cannes Film Festival, while promoting "The Brave", his directorial debut, then in festival competition. Initially, he did not think Depp right as "Corso", because the character was forty years old (Depp at the time was only 34). He considered an older actor, but Depp persisted; he wanted to work with Roman Polanski. The film press reported, around the time of the North American release of "The Ninth Gate", creative friction between Depp and Polanski. Depp said, "It's the director's job to push, to provoke things out of an actor". Polanski said of Depp, "He decided to play it rather flat, which wasn't how I envisioned it; and I didn't tell him it wasn't how I saw it". Visually, in the neo-noir genre style, rare-book dealer Dean Corso's disheveled grooming derives from Philip Marlowe, Raymond Chandler's quintessential literary private investigator. Polanski cast Frank Langella as Boris Balkan based upon his performance as Clare Quilty in "Lolita" (1997), directed by Adrian Lyne. Barbara Jefford was a last-minute replacement for the German actress originally cast as the Baroness Frida Kessler, who fell sick with pneumonia, and after a second actress proved unable to learn the character's dialogue; with only days' notice, Barbara Jefford learned her part, spoken with a German accent. Depp met his long-time partner Vanessa Paradis during the shooting. Filming locations. "The Ninth Gate" was photographed in France, Portugal, and Spain in the summer of 1998. Selected prominent buildings in the film are Soundtrack. The main theme of "The Ninth Gate" is based upon Havanaise, for violin and orchestra, by Camille Saint-Saëns; some of the score is a vocalise by Korean soprano Sumi Jo. Reception. The premiere screening of "The Ninth Gate" was in San Sebastián, Spain, on 25 August 1999; in North America, it appeared in 1,586 cinemas during the March 10th, 2000 weekend, earning a gross income of $6.6 million, and $18.6 million in total. Worldwide, it earned $58.4 million against a $38 million production budget. The majority of reviews in the United States for the film were mixed to negative, with objections to the film citing a slow pace, trivial subject matter, and an uneven tone. Most movie reviewers said that the suspense in "The Ninth Gate" was less than that of "Rosemary's Baby" (1968), director Polanski's famous supernatural-themed film. "The Ninth Gate" holds a 40% rating at Rotten Tomatoes and a metascore of 44 on Metacritic. Roger Ebert said the ending was lackluster, "while at the end, I didn't yearn for spectacular special effects, I did wish for spectacular information — something awesome, not just a fade-to-white". In his review for "The New York Times", Elvis Mitchell said the movie was "about as scary as a sock-puppet re-enactment of "The Blair Witch Project", and not nearly as funny". "Entertainment Weekly" rated the film "D+", and Lisa Schwarzbaum said it had an "aroma of middle-brow, art-house Euro-rot, a whiff of decay and "hauteur" in a film not even a star as foxed, and foxy, as Johnny Depp, himself, could save". In the "Los Angeles Times", Kenneth Turan said the film was "too laid-back, and unconcerned about the pacing of its story to be satisfying", because "a thriller that's not high-powered, is an intriguing concept, in reality it can hold our attention for only so long". In the "Village Voice", J. Hoberman said the film was "barely releasable hokum, stuffed with cheesy blah-blah". European reviews were generally more attentive and praised the film's fine pace and irony. In "Sight and Sound" magazine, Phillip Strick said it was "not particularly liked at first outing — partly because Johnny Depp, in fake grey temples, personifies the odious Corso of the book a little too accurately — the film is intricately well-made, deserves a second chance, despite its disintegrations, and, in time, will undoubtedly acquire its own coven of heretical fans". In "Time" magazine, Richard Corliss said that "The Ninth Gate" was Polanski's most accessible effort "since fleeing the U.S. soon after "Chinatown"". In the "San Francisco Chronicle", Bob Graham said that "Depp is the best reason to see Polanski's satanic thriller" and "Polanski's sly sense of "film-noir" conventions pokes fun at the genre, while, at the same time, honoring it". On his website Groucho Reviews, web critic Peter Canavese called the film "an insinuating trip into devilish darkness" and a "sorely underrated occult mystery". After the release of "The Ninth Gate", Artisan sued Polanski for taking more than $1 million from the budget, refunds of France's value-added tax that he did not give to the completion bond company guaranteeing Artisan Entertainment a completed film.
1422877	Walking Tall Part 2 is the sequel to the crime/action film, "Walking Tall". "Walking Tall Part 2" was directed by Earl Bellamy, and produced by Charles A. Pratt. the film starred Bo Svenson as Pusser, replacing Joe Don Baker who played Pusser in the first Walking Tall film. The on-screen title of the movie is Part 2 Walking Tall: The Legend of Buford Pusser. Plot. Buford Pusser's two deputies, Obra (Robert DoQui) and Grady (Bruce Glover) meet with Buford's father and some of the town's citizens to discuss if Buford will seek re-election. Obra and Grady both agree that there is no way Buford resigns until he either catches or kills everyone who was involved in the ambush that killed his wife . Buford's mother (Lurene Tuttle) and his children visit Buford who is still in the hospital recovering from plastic surgery to restore his face. Buford's mother confesses that she wishes he would retire. Buford is re-elected and his first order of business is to bust up a still operating on the river bank. Buford and his deputies surprise the moonshiners and round them all up, except for Pinky Dobson (Luke Askew) who gets away in a boat. John Witter (Logan Ramsey) is angry when Dobson brings Ray Henry (John Davis Chandler) to a meeting at his mansion. Witter and Dobson talk about what to do about Buford. Witter grumbles about how Buford has cost him a lot of money by shutting down his operations. He puts pressure on Dobson to take Buford out. Dobson promises he will. Dobson goes to a race to talk to a driver named Stud Pardee (Richard Jaeckel) about helping him to get rid of Buford. Pardee removes three lug nuts from the front wheel of Buford's car, then entices him into a high-speed car chase. Buford's wheel comes off during the chase but he survives unhurt. Meanwhile, the only participant in the ambush that Buford recognized from police photos turns up dead. Witter brings in a beautiful woman named Marganne Stilson (Angel Tompkins) to win Buford's confidence and eventually kill him.
900574	Facing Windows (Italian: "La finestra di fronte") is a 2003 Italian movie directed by Ferzan Özpetek. Tagline: "Desire knows no bounds". Plot. Giovanna (played by Giovanna Mezzogiorno) and her husband Filippo (Filippo Nigro) have settled into life with unfulfilling jobs.
901786	Jake Lloyd (born March 5, 1989) is an American former actor who gained worldwide fame when he was chosen by George Lucas to play the young Anakin Skywalker in "", the first film in the "Star Wars" prequel trilogy. He reprised this role in five subsequent "Star Wars" video games. Life and career. Lloyd was born in Fort Collins, Colorado, the son of Bill Lloyd, an E.M.T. set medic, and Lisa Riley, an entertainment agent. Lloyd is best known for his performances in the films "Jingle All the Way" and "". Lloyd is also known for his recurring roles as Jimmy Sweet in "ER", and Young Angelo in "The Pretender". He previously guest-starred in the show as a character named Ronny Collins. He also appeared in the 1998 TV film "Host" and he also appeared in the 1996 film "Jingle All the Way", playing the son Jamie Langston with his father Howard Langston (Arnold Schwarzenegger)." After portraying Anakin in a chain of related video games, Lloyd retired from acting, cited bullying on the part of classmates and the stress of doing up to 60 interviews a day as his reasons for doing so. He left Hollywood for Chicago, where by 2012, he had finished studying film and video at Columbia College Chicago. He destroyed his "Star Wars" memorabilia, and does not watch the films because he says they are too "creepy." He continues to make appearances, however, at sci-fi and comic book festivals. However, there was a rumor that Jake auditioned for the role of Ender Wiggin in the film Ender's Game, but it was feared that fans of Ender's Game would judge him for his role in the Star Wars film.
156392	Willebrord Snellius (born Willebrord Snel van Royen) (1580 – 30 October 1626, Leiden) was a Dutch astronomer and mathematician. In the west, especially the English speaking countries, his name has been attached to the law of refraction of light for several centuries, but it is now known that this law was first discovered by Ibn Sahl in 984. The same law was also investigated by Ptolemy and in the Middle Ages by Witelo, but due to lack of adequate mathematical instruments (trigonometric functions) their results were saved as tables, not functions. The lunar crater Snellius is named after Willebrord Snellius.
1161637	Michael Christopher Landes (born September 18, 1972) is an American actor. He is known for his roles of Jimmy Olsen in the first season of "", Detective Nicholas O'Malley in "Special Unit 2", and Officer Thomas Burke in "Final Destination 2". Career. Landes' first major role was as Jimmy Olsen in "" in 1993. Landes was able to bring the role of Jimmy more up to date and more modern than he had previously been depicted in other "Superman" media. Landes was not invited to continue the role of Jimmy Olsen after the first season. The creator of the series explained in the DVD commentary that this was because the producers perceived him to resemble lead actor Dean Cain too much. Justin Whalin took over the role for the remaining three seasons of the program. He is also known for his roles as Detective Nicholas O'Malley in "Special Unit 2", Officer Thomas Burke in "Final Destination 2", and David Conlon in "The Wedding Bells". He also guest stared in the British comedy TV program "Miranda" as Danny, the new chef and Miranda's date for an episode. Personal life. Landes was born in the Bronx, New York, the son of Patricia, an interior decorator, and Bernard Landes, a marketing consultant. He married actress Wendy Benson on October 21, 2000. Together, the couple have two children, Mimi Landes and Dominic Landes. Filmography. As a film producer:
1068207	Moving Violations is a 1985 comedy film starring John Murray, Jennifer Tilly, Brian Backer, Sally Kellerman, Nedra Volz, Clara Peller, Wendie Jo Sperber and Fred Willard. It was directed by Neal Israel. It is notable for starring the lesser-known siblings of many famous actors, and being the film debut of Don Cheadle. Synopsis. The film follows a group of people in Birch County, California, a fictionalized city/county which is very similar to real-life Los Angeles, who after being ticketed for numerous traffic violations and as a result lose their licenses and driving privileges (and their vehicles impounded), are ordered by Judge Nedra Henderson (Sally Kellerman) to attend a driving course program in order to get their licenses and their vehicles back. However, the assigned teacher for this course, Deputy Henry "Hank" Halik (James Keach), is also conspiring with the judge in a plan to make sure these offenders fail miserably, and at any cost, making one of the offended individuals, landscaper Dana Cannon (John Murray), very suspicious of their scheme and enlisting his fellow students to expose their plot to sell their impounded vehicles. Trailer. The trailer contains several scenes and lines of dialogue that were not in the final film, including the traffic school classroom scene with the offending drivers, in which the classroom is much smaller than the one featured in the actual film. Production. Writer and director Israel himself attended traffic school. Reception. The film was reviewed poorly by Janet Maslin at "The New York Times", who described it as an "especially weak teen-age comedy even by today's none-too-high standards." In a later appraisal, David Nusair of Reelfilm.com wrote that "Moving Violations" contains "enough laughs to be had here to warrant a mild recommendation."
1658053	The Bourne Trilogy is a series of three novels by Robert Ludlum, which have been adapted to a series of three films starring Matt Damon. The series has since been further extended by Eric Van Lustbader after the death of Robert Ludlum. Novels. The original three Jason Bourne novels are: The new Jason Bourne novels: Films. The Jason Bourne film trilogy starring Matt Damon: Other productions: The new Bourne series films:
1163349	Colleen Rose Dewhurst (June 3, 1924 – August 22, 1991) was a Canadian-American actress known most for theatre roles , and for a while as "the Queen of Off-Broadway." In her autobiography, Dewhurst wrote: "I had moved so quickly from one Off-Broadway production to the next that I was known, at one point, as the 'Queen of Off-Broadway'. This title was not due to my brilliance but rather because most of the plays I was in closed after a run of anywhere from one night to two weeks. I would then move immediately into another." She was a renowned interpreter of the works of Eugene O’Neill on the stage, and her career also encompassed film, early dramas on live television, and Joseph Papp's New York Shakespeare Festival. She was also renowned for her television work playing Marilla Cuthbert in the Kevin Sullivan TV movie adaptations of the Anne of Green Gables series and her reprisal of the role in the subsequent TV series "Road to Avonlea" (marketed as just "Avonlea" in the US). Early life. Dewhurst was born in Montreal, Quebec, the only child of Ferdinand Augustus "Fred" Dewhurst, owner of a chain of confectionery stores, and his wife, Frances Marie (née Woods) Dewhurst, a homemaker. Frances Woods' father had been a "well-known athlete in Canada, where he had played football with the Ottawa Rough Riders". However, he and his wife and daughter naturalized as U.S. citizens before 1940. Colleen's mother was a practitioner of Christian Science, which her daughter would also adopt.
1033096	Prunella Gee (born 17 February 1950) is an English actress, best known for her work in the 1970s and 1980s. Early Years. Gee was privately educated at Benenden School, and was in the year below Princess Anne. Wanting to become an actress, she studied at the prestigious London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art, where she won the Spotlight Award for Best Actress in 1972; she then spent six months in repertory playing Priestly, Shaw, Shakespeare, Feydeau and Orton. Her first television role was as Anna Fitzgerald in Granada's 1930s drama serial "Shabby Tiger" in 1974, in which she rose to overnight notoriety by becoming the first model to show full frontal nudity on British television. She was quickly hailed as Britain's answer to Brigitte Bardot or Sophia Loren. In a 2002 interview, Gee recalled: "I was working in serious theatre, but got a reputation of being a sex symbol. I was too young to know any better so I tended to go with the flow."
1244016	Suing the Devil is a 2010 Christian thriller film which was released in 2011. It was written and directed by Tim Chey, starring Malcolm McDowell and Tom Sizemore. Plot. Luke O'Brien (Bart Bronson), a washed-up salesman turned night law student, decides to sue Satan for 8 trillion dollars. On the last day before Luke files a default judgment, Satan (Malcolm McDowell) appears to defend himself. On Satan's legal team are ten of the country's best trial lawyers. The entire world watches on Legal TV to see who will win the Trial of the Century.
457598	Error analysis is the study of kind and quantity of error that occurs, particularly in the fields of applied mathematics (particularly numerical analysis), applied linguistics and statistics. Error analysis in numerical modeling. In numerical simulation or modeling of real systems, error analysis is concerned with the changes in the output of the model as the parameters to the model vary about a mean. For instance, in a system modeled as a function of two variables formula_1. Error analysis deals with the propagation of the numerical errors in formula_2 and formula_3 (around mean values formula_4 and formula_5) to error in formula_6 (around a mean formula_7). In numerical analysis, error analysis comprises both forward error analysis and backward error analysis. Forward error analysis involves the analysis of a function formula_8 which is an approximation (usually a finite polynomial) to a function formula_9 to determine the bounds on the error in the approximation; i.e., to find formula_10 such that formula_11. Backward error analysis involves the analysis of the approximation function formula_12, to determine the bounds on the parameters formula_13 such that the result formula_14. Error analysis in second language acquisition. In second language acquisition, error analysis studies the types and causes of language errors. Errors are classified according to: Error analysis in SLA was established in the 1960s by Stephen Pit Corder and colleagues. Error analysis was an alternative to contrastive analysis, an approach influenced by behaviorism through which applied linguists sought to use the formal distinctions between the learners' first and second languages to predict errors. Error analysis showed that contrastive analysis was unable to predict a great majority of errors, although its more valuable aspects have been incorporated into the study of language transfer. A key finding of error analysis has been that many learner errors are produced by learners making faulty inferences about the rules of the new language. Error analysis in molecular dynamics simulation. In molecular dynamics (MD) simulations, there are errors due to inadequate sampling of the phase space or infrequently occurring events, these lead to the statistical error due to random fluctuation in the measurements. For a series of "M" measurements of a fluctuating property "A", the mean value is: When these "M" measurements are independent, the variance of the mean
1102700	Raoul Bott, ForMemRS (September 24, 1923 – December 20, 2005) was a Hungarian mathematician known for numerous basic contributions to geometry in its broad sense. He is best known for his Bott periodicity theorem, the Morse–Bott functions which he used in this context, and the Borel–Bott–Weil theorem. Early life. Bott was born in Budapest, Hungary, the son of Margit Kovacs and Rudolph Bott. His father was of Austrian descent, and his mother was of Hungarian descent; Bott was raised a Catholic by his mother and stepfather. Bott grew up in Slovakia and spent his working life in the United States. His family emigrated to Canada in 1938, and subsequently he served in the Canadian Army in Europe during World War II. Career. Bott later went to college at McGill University in Montreal, where he studied electrical engineering. He then earned a Ph.D. in mathematics from Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh in 1949. His thesis, titled "Electrical Network Theory", was written under the direction of Richard Duffin. Afterward, he began teaching at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. Bott continued his study at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. He was a professor at Harvard University from 1959 to 1999. In 2005, Dr. Bott died in San Diego after a battle with cancer. With Richard Duffin at Carnegie Mellon, Bott studied existence of electronic filters corresponding to given positive rational functions . In 1949 they proved a fundamental theorem of filter synthesis. Duffin and Bott extended earlier work by Otto Brune that requisite functions of complex frequency "s" could be realized by a passive network of inductors and capacitors. The proof, relying on induction on the sum of the degrees of the polynomials in the numerator and denominator of the rational function, was published in Journal of Applied Physics, volume 20, page 816. In his 2000 interview with Allyn Jackson of the American Mathematical Society, he explained that he sees "networks as discrete versions of harmonic theory", so his experience with network synthesis and electronic filter topology introduced him to algebraic topology. Bott met Arnold S. Shapiro at the IAS and they worked together. He studied the homotopy theory of Lie groups, using methods from Morse theory, leading to the Bott periodicity theorem (1956). In the course of this work, he introduced Morse–Bott functions, an important generalization of Morse functions. This led to his role as collaborator over many years with Michael Atiyah, initially via the part played by periodicity in K-theory. Bott made important contributions towards the index theorem, especially in formulating related fixed-point theorems, in particular the so-called 'Woods Hole fixed-point theorem', a combination of the Riemann–Roch theorem and Lefschetz fixed-point theorem (it is named after Woods Hole, Massachusetts, the site of a conference at which collective discussion formulated it). The major Atiyah–Bott papers on what is now the Atiyah–Bott fixed-point theorem were written in the years up to 1968; they collaborated further in recovering in contemporary language Ivan Petrovsky on Petrovsky lacunas of hyperbolic partial differential equations, prompted by Lars Gårding. In the 1980s, Atiyah and Bott investigated gauge theory, using the Yang–Mills equations on a Riemann surface to obtain topological information about the moduli spaces of stable bundles on Riemann surfaces. He is also well known in connection with the Borel–Bott–Weil theorem on representation theory of Lie groups via holomorphic sheaves and their cohomology groups; and for work on foliations. He introduced Bott–Samelson varieties and the Bott residue formula for complex manifolds and the Bott cannibalistic class. Awards. In 1964, he was awarded the Oswald Veblen Prize in Geometry by the American Mathematical Society. In 1983, he was awarded the Jeffery–Williams Prize by the Canadian Mathematical Society. In 1987, he was awarded the National Medal of Science. In 2000, he received the Wolf Prize. In 2005, he was elected an Overseas Fellow of the Royal Society of London. Students. Bott had 20 Ph.D. students, including Stephen Smale, Lawrence Conlon, Daniel Quillen, Peter Landweber, Robert MacPherson, Robert W. Brooks, Robin Forman and Kevin Corlette.
1268108	Antonio "Tony" Moreno (September 26, 1887 – February 15, 1967) was a Spanish-born American actor and film director of the silent film era and through the 1950s. Biography. Born Antonio Garrido Monteagudo in Madrid, Spain, he emigrated to the United States at the age of fourteen and settled in Massachusetts, where he completed his education. Although he claimed to have attended Williston Seminary in Easthampton, Massachusetts, the Archives of the school, now the Williston Northampton School, have no record of his having done so. He became a stage actor in regional theater productions. In 1912, he moved to Hollywood, California and he was signed to Vitagraph Studios and began his career in bit parts and as a movie extra. In 1914, Moreno began co-starring in a series of highly successful serials opposite the enormously publicly popular silent film actress Pearl White. These appearances helped to increase Moreno's popularity with the nation's nascent film-goers. By 1915, Antonio Moreno was a highly regarded matinee idol and appearing opposite such successful actors as Tyrone Power, Sr., Gloria Swanson, Blanche Sweet, Pola Negri and Dorothy Gish. Moreno was often typecast in his earliest films as the "Latin Lover", as were other actors of the era with Latin roots, such as Ramón Novarro and Rudolph Valentino. By the early 1920s, Antonio Moreno joined film mogul Jesse Lasky's Famous Players and became one of the company's most highly paid performers. In 1926 Moreno starred opposite Swedish acting legend Greta Garbo in "The Temptress" and the following year followed up with a starring role in the enormous box-office hit Clara Bow vehicle "It". Moreno married American heiress Daisy Canfield Danziger, in 1923, and the couple moved to an estate known as Crestmount, now known as the Canfield-Moreno Estate. The union lasted ten years and ended shortly before Canfield Danziger was killed in an automobile accident on February 23, 1933. With the advent of talkies in the late 1920s and early 1930s, Moreno's career began to falter, in part because of his heavy Spanish accent. While still acting in English language films, Moreno also began taking parts in Mexican films. During the early 1930s, Moreno directed several well-received Mexican films, among them is the 1932 drama "Santa", which has been hailed by film critics as one of the best Mexican films of the era. By the mid-1930s, Antonio Moreno began rebuilding his faltering Hollywood career by taking notable roles as a character actor. By the mid-1940s and throughout the 1950s, Moreno appeared in a number of well received roles, most notably, his 1954 role in the classic horror film "Creature from the Black Lagoon" and his 1955 role as Emilio Figueroa in film director John Ford's influential western epic "The Searchers" opposite John Wayne and Natalie Wood. Moreno retired from film in the late 1950s and died of heart failure in Beverly Hills, California, in 1967; he was laid to rest in the Forest Lawn Memorial Park cemetery in Glendale, California. His film career spanned more than four decades. In 1994, the Mexican magazine "Somos" published their list of "The 100 best movies of the cinema of Mexico" in its 100th edition and named the 1931 Moreno directed "Santa" its 67th choice. For his contribution to the motion picture industry, Antonio Moreno was given a star on the legendary Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6651 Hollywood Blvd., Hollywood, California, USA. Of note is that Moreno was the half-brother of Alfred Moreno Monteagudo, who took over management of the Los Angeles Biltmore Hotel in the 1940s. Antonio Moreno is the granduncle of horror/fantasy author Nicholas Grabowsky, to which a related biography is slated for late 2009/early 2010 in conjunction with the release of the Creature From the Black Lagoon remake by Universal Pictures.
1165724	William Henry Rorke (October 23, 1910 – August 19, 1987) was an American actor best known for playing Col. Dr. Alfred E. Bellows on the hit 1960s American sitcom "I Dream of Jeannie". Biography. Career. Born William Henry Rorke in Brooklyn, New York in 1910, he was the son of screen and stage actress Margaret Rorke (née Hayden), and he took his stage forename from her maiden name. He attended Brooklyn Preparatory School, where he was president of the Dramatics Society and the Student Government and a member of the Omega Gamma Delta Fraternity. He continued his education at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts and began his stage career in the 1930s with the Hampden Theatrical Company. During World War II, he enlisted in the army, where he made his film debut in the musical "This is the Army" starring Ronald W. Reagan, for which he was uncredited as the stage manager and as a soldier in the background.
593145	Sahi Dhandhe Galat Bande (), also known by the abbreviated form SDGB, is an Indian feature film that marks the directing debut of Parvin Dabas and stars Anupam Kher and Sharat Saxena.Produced by Very Fishy Films, the film belongs to the genre of action comedy. It released on 19 August 2011. As per some news websites Parvin Dabas got the title of the film from Twitter. Plot. "Sahi Dhandhe Galat Bande" is the story of a gang composed of four friends: Rajbir (Parvin Dabas), Sexy (Vansh Bharadwaj), Ambani (Ashish Nayyar) and Doctor (Kuldeep Ruhil), who are given a job which will give them enough money to make all their dreams come true, but to achieve the same they will have to go against their conscience and the village, Kanjhawla, to which they belong. Goading them on to make this job successful is their boss, Fauji (Sharat Saxena), who stands to gain the most from the job’s success and realize his dreams of becoming a politician. On the road to completing this mission they come across a multitude of crazy characters which includes a guru and his wrestlers, a bunch of smart ass kids, a raging Chief Minister (Kiran Juneja), a Scheming Businessman (Anupam Kher), the Leader of the villagers (Yashpal_Sharma_(actor)), an angry Aunt (Neena Kulkarni), a college going Athlete (Udit Khurana) and a photographer Girlfriend (Tena Desae) who wants to move on with her life, while dealing with a boss who wants them to break his opponents legs and make mobile videos of it for evidence! Production. This movie has a couple of scenes which, were shot in Hansraj College, where Parvin Dabbas (the director) and the new actor, Udit Khurana have studied. The Director also had a special screening of the film at Hans Raj College. Reception. Critical response. The film has received mostly positive reviews reviews. Daily Bhaskar gave it 3 stars. Aniruddha Guha from DNA gave it 3 stars saying that it is like a pocket dynamite. Movie talkies also gave 3 stars to the movie appreciating the efforts of actor turned director Parvin Dabas. nikhat kazmi from the times of India gave it three stars saying it was a serious and sensible debut from director parvin dabas.moviezadda.com gave it four stars and supergoodmovies gave it three and a half stars.sify.com called it 'relevant and great fun'.DNA after hrs gave it three stars with a 'sahi hain yeh bande'.critic subash k jha called it 'unique cinema' and the mumbai mirror's karan anshuman called it 'engaging cinema with soul' and gave it three stars. There were also some negative reviews. Shaikh Ayaz of rediff.com was highly critical of the film, saying that it turns a serious issue into a high school joke within minutes. koimoi.com also gave it a negative review though they did state 'watch it because it is an honest attempt'. wogma.com states that the average of 19 reviews is 3.4/5,with 9 yays,2nays and 8 so-so. the theatrical run of SDGB was hugely affected by the anti-corruption dharna by Anna Hazare who was released from jail the same day as the film's release,aug19th.quite a few publications noted that that week's movie releases were hampered by the mood of the country when people were not in the mood to go to the theatres but were rather engaged in or following the anti-corruption movement as it unfolded.http://www.hindustantimes.com/No-movies-everyone-s-watching-Anna/H1-Article1-735110.aspx AWARDS. The movie was awarded a Bronze Palm in The Feature Film Category in the 2011 Mexico International Film Festival. It was selected for the Indian Panorama section of the International Film Festival of India 2011, held in Goa from 23 November to 3 December. It also received a Silver Remi Award For First Feature Film for director Parvin dabas at the Worldfest Houston 2011 (Houston International Film Festival).
898976	The Flowers of St. Francis (in Italian, Francesco, giullare di Dio, or "Francis, God's Jester") is a 1950 film directed by Roberto Rossellini and co-written by Federico Fellini. The film is based on two books, the 14th-century novel "Fioretti Di San Francesco" "Little Flowers of St. Francis" and "La Vita di Frate Ginepro" (The Life of Brother Juniper), both of which relate the life and work of St. Francis and the early Franciscans. "I Fioretti" is composed of 78 small chapters. The novel as a whole is less biographical and is instead more focused on relating extravagant tales of the life of St. Francis and his followers. The movie follows the same premise, though rather than relating all 78 chapters, it focuses instead on nine of them. Each chapter is composed in the style of a parable, and, like parables, contains a moral theme. Every new scene transitions with a chapter marker, a device that directly relates the film to the novel. When the movie initially debuted in America, where the novel was much less known, on October 6, 1952, the chapter markers were removed. Included in the acting cast is Gianfranco Bellini as the narrator, who has voice-dubbed several American films for the Italian cinema. Monks from the Nocere Inferiore Monastery played the roles of St. Francis and the friars. Playing the role of St Francis is a Franciscan brother who is not credited, Brother Nazario Gerardi. The only professional actor in the film is the prominent Aldo Fabrizi, who had worked with Rossellini before, notably in the neorealistic work, "Roma, Città Aperta." Rome, Open City. The film garnered international acclaim for Fabrizi. He began his film career scene in 1942, and is noted for both writing and directing his own vehicles. In this film, Fabrizi plays the role of Nicolaio, the tyrant of Viterbo.
1073930	Multiple Maniacs is a 1970 comedy film by American cult filmmaker John Waters; his second feature film. The film features several actors who were part of the Dreamland acting troupe for Waters' films, including Divine, Mary Vivian Pearce, David Lochary, Mink Stole, Edith Massey, and Cookie Mueller. The title pays tribute to Herschell Gordon Lewis's "2000 Maniacs", as John Waters states in his book "Shock Value". Plot. Lady Divine (Divine) is the owner and operator of a show called "The Cavalcade of Perversion", a free exhibit of various perversions and fetish acts and obscenities such as the "Puke Eater". The show is free, although the various performers must persuade and even physically drag reluctant passers-by to attend.
585035	Kotha Bangaru Lokam () is a 2008 Telugu movie directed by debutant Srikanth Addala and produced by Dil Raju. The film stars Varun Sandesh and Shweta Prasad in the lead roles, and Prakash Raj, Jaya Sudha and Brahmanandam in supporting roles. Released on 9 October 2008 amidst the Vijayadashami celebrations, the film became one of the biggest blockbusters of the year in Telugu cinema and successfully completed 100 days, bagging several accolades. The movie was dubbed into Malayalam with the title "Ithu Njangalude Lokam", becoming a big success. The movie was also dubbed in Hindi as "Pavitra Bandhan". The movie was remade in Kannada by S.Narayan and cast his son Pankaj and Roopika in the lead roles. The Television rights of the film was sold to Zee Telugu Plot. Balu (Varun Sandesh) is son of lovable middle-class couple (Prakash Raj & Jayasudha). Swapna (Shweta Basu Prasad) is the daughter of a strict and rich father. Both of them study in a residential college located at Visakhapatnam. Balu and Swapna fall in love. Swapna is taken away from the college after a picture of them gets published in the newspaper. Balu is told that in order to write his exam he has to bring his father to the college. He goes home and tells his parents a completely different story. While his parents keep thinking that he is studying for his exam, he is busy daydreaming about Swapna and looking for her. At last he brings his father to the college, not to write the exam but to see Swapna. His father is clueless what is happening and still believes Balu. Balu meets Swapna and her parents. Swapna's parents arrange another marriage for her. When Balu's father comes to know what is actually happening he thinks his child should be dealt with love rather than fear. While leaving in a train, Balu's father dies in an accident. On the same day Swapna runs away from her house to live with Balu, but Balu doesn't show up because of his father's death. Balu thinks that Swapna is with her father and her father thinks that she is with Balu. Four years later, when Balu and her father meet, Balu's mother tells Balu that she hid Swapna with one of his lecturers who helped him realize the meaning of life. It's a Telugu version Romeo & Juliet actual version written by William Shakespeare in 1591 and 1595, but the movie ends happily that suits to current youth. Soundtrack. The soundtrack of the film was released on 23 August 2008. It had music scored by composer, Mickey J Meyer. The music was launched on the evening of 23 August 2008 at State Art Gallery, Hyderabad by Jr. NTR, Prabhas and Allu Arjun. Accolades and reception. The film released on 9 October to a very good response all over the state of Andhra Pradesh and was declared one of the biggest hits of the year 2008. It was after almost three years that a film received a rating of 4/5 on popular Telugu Cinema site, Idlebrain.com. Shwetha Prasad and Varun Sandesh were a delight to watch and made a good pair. The film won several awards and accolades:
1042745	No Highway in the Sky is a 1951 British disaster film (aka: "No Highway") directed by Henry Koster and starring James Stewart and Marlene Dietrich. The film is based on the novel "No Highway" by Nevil Shute, and was one of the first films that involved a potential aircraft crash. Themes. Although the film follows Shute's original novel closely, the film notably omits references to the supernatural that had been contained in the original novel, including the use of automatic writing to resolve a key element in the original novel's story. Plot. The film follows Theodore Honey (James Stewart), a highly eccentric "boffin" with the Royal Aircraft Establishment. A widower with a precocious young daughter, Elspeth (Janette Scott), Honey is sent from Farnborough to investigate the crash of a "Reindeer" airliner in Labrador, which he theorizes occurred because of a structural failure in the tail caused by sudden metal fatigue. To test his theory in his laboratory, an airframe is continuously shaken in eight-hour daily cycles. It isn't until Honey is aboard a Reindeer that he realizes he himself is flying on one such aircraft and that it may be close to the number of hours his theory projects for the fatal failure. Despite the fact that his theory is not yet proven, Honey decides to warn the passengers and crew, including actress Monica Teasdale (Marlene Dietrich). After the Reindeer lands at Gander Airport an inspection clears it to continue on. He takes drastic action to stop the flight by raising the undercarriage while the aircraft is still on the ground, lowering the aircraft to its belly and damaging it. Shocked by the act, some people demand that he be declared insane to discredit his theory. Teasdale and flight attendant Marjorie Corder (Glynis Johns) both take a liking for Honey and Elspeth, who is lonely and isolated from her schoolmates. Teasdale speaks on his behalf to his superiors, while Corder, seeing that he is decent but disorganized, decides to marry him. During a hearing in which his sanity is questioned, Honey resigns but continues trying to prove that his mathematics are sound. In the laboratory, the time he predicted for failure passes without failure. The Reindeer he disabled is repaired, but after landing from a test flight the tail falls off. Shortly afterward, the same thing happens to the test frame in the lab, and Honey discovers that he failed to include temperature as a factor in his calculations. Production. The working title was "No Highway" which was also the British release title. As noted in contemporary sources, the picture was filmed in 1950 at Denham Studios with location shooting at Blackbushe Airport, Hampshire, England, although a scene with a Gloster E.1/44 prototype was possibly staged at Boscombe Down. The November 1950 "Hollywood Reporter" news items noted while the film was in production, Stewart underwent an emergency appendectomy in London. Reception. Bosley Crowther of the "New York Times" voiced a favorable review, noting the film's "...sly construction of an unusual plot and wry suspense." Life imitating the movies. Three years after the film and six years after Nevil Shute's original novel ("No Highway") there were two fatal crashes of the world's first jet passenger airliner, the de Havilland Comet. Investigation found that metal fatigue was the most likely cause of both accidents, albeit in the fuselage and not the tail. It has been noted that the selection of the name "REINDEER" for the aircraft in the film was a direct comment on the upcoming COMET airliner. For COMET is one of Santa Claus's Reindeer. Adaptations in other media. Stewart and Dietrich, along with a full cast, reprised their roles on the CBS "Lux Radio Theatre"’s adaptation of the film on 21 April 1952, before a live studio audience. Its theme, of a concerned airline passenger having unique knowledge of an imminent danger; taking drastic action to eliminate it; then being regarded as insane, is comparable to that of "The Twilight Zone" episode Nightmare at 20,000 Feet. An additional similarity to the 1983 "Twilight Zone" movie is that the character of John Lithgow, like that of James Stewart, is portrayed as an engineering expert.
1376545	Jess Harnell (born December 23, 1963) is an American voice actor. (Named by Variety Magazine as one of the Top Ten in the business) and singer, best known for voicing Wakko Warner on "Animaniacs" and Ironhide in the Transformers film series. Harnell has been the announcer for "America's Funniest Home Videos" since 1998. Early life. Harnell is originally from Teaneck, New Jersey. Harnell's parents are Big Band singer Margaret "Frankie" Crockett and acclaimed musician and composer Joe Harnell. Career. Harnell started his career with minimal experience and has gone on to become one of the top voice actors in the industry, in addition to a successful career as a rock and session singer. A small sampling of his credits: In 1989, he provided the voices of Br'er Rabbit and Br'er Fox in the then-new Splash Mountain attraction at Disneyland Park, reviving the roles last played in 1946 by Johnny Lee and James Baskett, respectively, in the film "Song of the South". Harnell also recorded some new character dialogue for the subsequent Walt Disney World version of the attraction. He was later called in to reprise these roles once again for the 2011 video game "Kinect Disneyland Adventures". In 1992, he went on to voice two of his most popular roles, Wakko Warner on "Animaniacs" and Secret Squirrel on "2 Stupid Dogs". From 1994 to 1996, he supplied the voices of Sewer Urchin, The Human Bullet and Chief Louder in the animated series "The Tick". Also in 1996, he was Hunter on Road Rovers. One of Harnell's next appearances was as the principal stormtrooper in the 1997 Star Wars fan film "Troops", a parody of the Cops TV series set in the Star Wars universe. Harnell voiced Joe Tabootie on the Nickelodeon show "ChalkZone", Petrol on "Firehouse Tales", Crash Bandicoot in "Crash Tag Team Racing", "Crash of the Titans", and ', Lo-Lo in ', Spyro the Dragon in ' and ', Marlin in Finding Nemo (video game) Jerry in "Totally Spies", Linguni in "Pucca", and Doctor Finklestein in "The Nightmare Before Christmas" video game spin-offs, as well as in the "Kingdom Hearts" series replacing the late William Hickey who voiced him in the film. In 2005 he voiced Buzz Blister in Tom & Jerry: Blast off to Mars and numerous other characters in subsequent Tom & Jerry features. He also voiced wild and energetic Cro Magnon Doubledome from the Longhair and Doubledome cartoon shorts for Cartoon Network's Big Pick (also starring Daniel Davis as Longhair). In 2001, he was the singing voice of Buster on '. He also voiced Captain Hero on Comedy Central's animated comedy "Drawn Together" and he also does the voices of Wooton Bassett, and Bennett Charles on the radio drama "Adventures in Odyssey", as well as playing the lead role of Finnian Jones for the "Lamplighter Theatre" Radio Drama. He also made appearances on "Superhuman Samurai Syber-Squad". His voice also made an appearance in "NASCAR Rumble", and is credited for in-game commentary in the follow-up game "Rumble Racing". Jess also replaced Brad Garrett as the voice of Fatso during season 3 of "The Spooktacular New Adventures of Casper". He also played a role in "Samurai Jack" as he voiced Ringo and a waitress in the episode "Jack Under the Sea". In 2007 he replaced Neil Flynn as the voice of The Plumber in ' and "". He also voiced the Smuggler in that popular series. In that same year, he voiced the characters of Ironhide and Barricade in the Michael Bay-directed "Transformers", making him the only voice actor to play both an Autobot (Ironhide) and a Decepticon (Barricade) in that film. He returned to voice Ironhide once again in ' and '. He voiced a character in the popular animated film "Up and" replaced Brad Garrett as the voice of Professor Buffo in "Special Agent Oso". For a more complete representation of Harnell's extensive v=credits, please see his IMDB page. Music career. As a musician, Harnell released his only solo album in 1995 called The Sound Of Your Voice. He is the lead vocalist in the highly acclaimed world's first Pop/Metal mashup rock band, Rock Sugar, which evolved from his previous band, Loud & Clear. With Loud & Clear or Rock Sugar, Harnell released four albums: 2003's Disc-Connected, 2007's self-titled demo album, 2008's Festival Of Fire, and 2010's Reimaginator. Rock Sugar has played on some of the biggest bills in the world, opening for such rock luminaries as AC/DC, Def Leppard, Linkin Park and Aerosmith.
585224	Mr. Bharath is a Tamil film is directed by SP. Muthuraman. The film stars Rajnikant, Sathyaraj, Ambika, Goundamani, S. V. Shekhar and others. The plot is about a son's revenge against his father. It is a remake of the 1978 Hindi film "Trishul" which starred Amitabh Bachchan and Sanjeev Kumar The movie had a very good opening but could not sustain at the box office and was a failure. A string of failures like Mr. Bharat, Naan Adimai Illai and Viduthalai forced Rajini to produce Maaveeran under his own banner. Plot synopsis. Bharath (Rajnikanth) a young man who is unknown who is his father. Shanti (Sharada) mother of Bharath tells him about his father at her deathbed. Gopinath (Sathyaraj) is a rich young man,who comes for Paapampatti village for his construction work. He sees Shanti an innocent village girl and tries to impress her by pretending innocent. She trusts him fully and allows to him cross the ultimate limit. Gopinath leaves the village promising that he would return soon to marry her. Shanti finds that she is pregnant and also hears that Gopinath is about to get married to another woman. She visits Gopinath but he insults her badly. Shanti challenges him saying that one day her son will question him and make him confess the truth about himself to whole world and leaves the place. Shanti requests Bharath to fulfill her challenge and dies. Bharath accepts the challenge of making Gopinath to confess the truth by next year August 31 the death day of his mother. Bharath leaves for the city and finds out his father. He meets Gopinath as a some strange man and uses Gopinath's money to start his own venture in the construction field. Both Bharath and Gopinath become enemies and both of them try to overtake each other in illegitimate way. Bharath once helps a girl from goons and takes to to her home and finds that the girl is Pushpa,daughter of Gopinath and is his sister. Bharath wins the affection of Mrs.Gopinath as her son. He arranges for marriage of Pushpa with the son of a wealthy man Kumeresa Gounder who helps him to fulfill the challenge which he have against Gopinath. Bharath also uses the love relationship between his brother and his friend's sister to corner Gopinath. Bharath uses every possible ways to blackmail and torture Gopinath to make him realise his mistake but Gopinath does not reciprocate instead becomes more anger. Bharath invites him to inaugurate his orphanage on August 31, the date when he planned to fulfill his mother's wish. Gopinath is very anger on Bharath and hires a local goon who once was his enemy and now to Bharath to kill him in the inaugural function. Bharath reveals his mother's identity in the function and waits for Gopinath to accept his mistake. Did Gopinath recognized who is Bharath and did he accept him as his son forms the rest of the story. Music. The most memorable song of this movie was the track "Ennama Kannu". The song was later remixed in the film "Thiruvilayadal Arambam", which starred Rajnikanth's son-in-law Dhanush, Shriya Saran & Prakash Raj. The film however has a different story. Track listing. The music composed by Ilaiyaraaja while lyrics written by Vaali, Pulamaipithan, Vairamuthu and Gangai Amaran.
1101661	David Hilbert, ForMemRS (; January 23, 1862 – February 14, 1943) was a German mathematician. He is recognized as one of the most influential and universal mathematicians of the 19th and early 20th centuries. Hilbert discovered and developed a broad range of fundamental ideas in many areas, including invariant theory and the axiomatization of geometry. He also formulated the theory of Hilbert spaces, one of the foundations of functional analysis. Hilbert adopted and warmly defended Georg Cantor's set theory and transfinite numbers. A famous example of his leadership in mathematics is his 1900 presentation of a collection of problems that set the course for much of the mathematical research of the 20th century. Hilbert and his students contributed significantly to establishing rigor and developed important tools used in modern mathematical physics. Hilbert is known as one of the founders of proof theory and mathematical logic, as well as for being among the first to distinguish between mathematics and metamathematics. Life. Hilbert, the first of two children of Otto and Maria Therese (Erdtmann) Hilbert, was born in the Province of Prussia - either in Königsberg (according to Hilbert's own statement) or in Wehlau (known since 1946 as Znamensk) near Königsberg where his father worked at the time of his birth. In the fall of 1872, he entered the Friedrichskolleg Gymnasium ("Collegium fridericianum", the same school that Immanuel Kant had attended 140 years before), but after an unhappy period he transferred to (fall 1879) and graduated from (spring 1880) the more science-oriented Wilhelm Gymnasium. Upon graduation he enrolled (autumn 1880) at the University of Königsberg, the "Albertina". In the spring of 1882, Hermann Minkowski (two years younger than Hilbert and also a native of Königsberg but so talented he had graduated early from his gymnasium and gone to Berlin for three semesters), returned to Königsberg and entered the university. "Hilbert knew his luck when he saw it. In spite of his father's disapproval, he soon became friends with the shy, gifted Minkowski." In 1884, Adolf Hurwitz arrived from Göttingen as an Extraordinarius, i.e. an associate professor. An intense and fruitful scientific exchange among the three began, and Minkowski and Hilbert especially would exercise a reciprocal influence over each other at various times in their scientific careers. Hilbert obtained his doctorate in 1885, with a dissertation, written under Ferdinand von Lindemann, titled "Über invariante Eigenschaften spezieller binärer Formen, insbesondere der Kugelfunktionen" ("On the invariant properties of special binary forms, in particular the spherical harmonic functions"). Hilbert remained at the University of Königsberg as a "Privatdozent" (senior lecturer) from 1886 to 1895. In 1892, Hilbert married Käthe Jerosch (1864–1945), "the daughter of a Konigsberg merchant, an outspoken young lady with an independence of mind that matched his own". While at Königsberg they had their one child, Franz Hilbert (1893–1969). In 1895, as a result of intervention on his behalf by Felix Klein, he obtained the position of Professor of Mathematics at the University of Göttingen, at that time the best research center for mathematics in the world. He remained there for the rest of his life. His son Franz suffered throughout his life from an undiagnosed mental illness: his inferior intellect was a terrible disappointment to his father and this misfortune was a matter of distress to the mathematicians and students at Göttingen. Minkowski — Hilbert's "best and truest friend" — died prematurely of a ruptured appendix in 1909. The Göttingen school. Among the students of Hilbert were Hermann Weyl, chess champion Emanuel Lasker, Ernst Zermelo, and Carl Gustav Hempel. John von Neumann was his assistant. At the University of Göttingen, Hilbert was surrounded by a social circle of some of the most important mathematicians of the 20th century, such as Emmy Noether and Alonzo Church. Among his 69 Ph.D. students in Göttingen were many who later became famous mathematicians, including (with date of thesis): Otto Blumenthal (1898), Felix Bernstein (1901), Hermann Weyl (1908), Richard Courant (1910), Erich Hecke (1910), Hugo Steinhaus (1911), and Wilhelm Ackermann (1925). Between 1902 and 1939 Hilbert was editor of the "Mathematische Annalen", the leading mathematical journal of the time. Later years. Hilbert lived to see the Nazis purge many of the prominent faculty members at University of Göttingen in 1933. Those forced out included Hermann Weyl (who had taken Hilbert's chair when he retired in 1930), Emmy Noether and Edmund Landau. One who had to leave Germany, Paul Bernays, had collaborated with Hilbert in mathematical logic, and co-authored with him the important book "Grundlagen der Mathematik" (which eventually appeared in two volumes, in 1934 and 1939). This was a sequel to the Hilbert-Ackermann book "Principles of Mathematical Logic" from 1928. About a year later, Hilbert attended a banquet and was seated next to the new Minister of Education, Bernhard Rust. Rust asked, "How is mathematics in Göttingen now that it has been freed of the Jewish influence?" Hilbert replied, "Mathematics in Göttingen? There is really none any more." By the time Hilbert died in 1943, the Nazis had nearly completely restaffed the university, in as much as many of the former faculty had either been Jewish or married to Jews. Hilbert's funeral was attended by fewer than a dozen people, only two of whom were fellow academics, among them Arnold Sommerfeld, a theoretical physicist and also a native of Königsberg. News of his death only became known to the wider world six months after he had died. Hilbert was baptized and raised in the Reformed Protestant Church. He later on left the Church and became an agnostic. He also argued that mathematical truth was independent of the existence of God or other "a priori" assumptions. The epitaph on his tombstone in Göttingen consists of the famous lines he spoke at the conclusion of his retirement address to the Society of German Scientists and Physicians in the fall of 1930. The words were given in response to the Latin maxim: "Ignoramus et ignorabimus" or "We do not know, we shall not know": In English: The day before Hilbert pronounced these phrases at the 1930 annual meeting of the Society of German Scientists and Physicians, Kurt Gödel—in a roundtable discussion during the Conference on Epistemology held jointly with the Society meetings—tentatively announced the first expression of his incompleteness theorem. Hilbert solves Gordan's Problem. Hilbert's first work on invariant functions led him to the demonstration in 1888 of his famous "finiteness theorem". Twenty years earlier, Paul Gordan had demonstrated the theorem of the finiteness of generators for binary forms using a complex computational approach. Attempts to generalize his method to functions with more than two variables failed because of the enormous difficulty of the calculations involved. In order to solve what had become known in some circles as "Gordan's Problem", Hilbert realized that it was necessary to take a completely different path. As a result, he demonstrated "Hilbert's basis theorem", showing the existence of a finite set of generators, for the invariants of quantics in any number of variables, but in an abstract form. That is, while demonstrating the existence of such a set, it was not a constructive proof — it did not display "an object" — but rather, it was an existence proof and relied on use of the Law of Excluded Middle in an infinite extension. Hilbert sent his results to the "Mathematische Annalen". Gordan, the house expert on the theory of invariants for the "Mathematische Annalen", could not appreciate the revolutionary nature of Hilbert's theorem and rejected the article, criticizing the exposition because it was insufficiently comprehensive. His comment was: Klein, on the other hand, recognized the importance of the work, and guaranteed that it would be published without any alterations. Encouraged by Klein, Hilbert in a second article extended his method, providing estimations on the maximum degree of the minimum set of generators, and he sent it once more to the "Annalen". After having read the manuscript, Klein wrote to him, saying: Later, after the usefulness of Hilbert's method was universally recognized, Gordan himself would say: For all his successes, the nature of his proof stirred up more trouble than Hilbert could have imagined at the time. Although Kronecker had conceded, Hilbert would later respond to others' similar criticisms that "many different constructions are subsumed under one fundamental idea" — in other words (to quote Reid): "Through a proof of existence, Hilbert had been able to obtain a construction"; "the proof" (i.e. the symbols on the page) "was" "the object". Not all were convinced. While Kronecker would die soon afterwards, his constructivist philosophy would continue with the young Brouwer and his developing intuitionist "school", much to Hilbert's torment in his later years. Indeed Hilbert would lose his "gifted pupil" Weyl to intuitionism — "Hilbert was disturbed by his former student's fascination with the ideas of Brouwer, which aroused in Hilbert the memory of Kronecker". Brouwer the intuitionist in particular opposed the use of the Law of Excluded Middle over infinite sets (as Hilbert had used it). Hilbert would respond: Axiomatization of geometry. The text "Grundlagen der Geometrie" (tr.: "Foundations of Geometry") published by Hilbert in 1899 proposes a formal set, the Hilbert's axioms, substituting the traditional axioms of Euclid. They avoid weaknesses identified in those of Euclid, whose works at the time were still used textbook-fashion. Independently and contemporaneously, a 19-year-old American student named Robert Lee Moore published an equivalent set of axioms. Some of the axioms coincide, while some of the axioms in Moore's system are theorems in Hilbert's and vice-versa. Hilbert's approach signaled the shift to the modern axiomatic method. In this, Hilbert was anticipated by Peano's work from 1889. Axioms are not taken as self-evident truths. Geometry may treat "things", about which we have powerful intuitions, but it is not necessary to assign any explicit meaning to the undefined concepts. The elements, such as point, line, plane, and others, could be substituted, as Hilbert says, by tables, chairs, glasses of beer and other such objects. It is their defined relationships that are discussed. Hilbert first enumerates the undefined concepts: point, line, plane, lying on (a relation between points and planes), betweenness, congruence of pairs of points, and congruence of angles. The axioms unify both the plane geometry and solid geometry of Euclid in a single system. The 23 Problems. Hilbert put forth a most influential list of 23 unsolved problems at the International Congress of Mathematicians in Paris in 1900. This is generally reckoned the most successful and deeply considered compilation of open problems ever to be produced by an individual mathematician. After re-working the foundations of classical geometry, Hilbert could have extrapolated to the rest of mathematics. His approach differed, however, from the later 'foundationalist' Russell-Whitehead or 'encyclopedist' Nicolas Bourbaki, and from his contemporary Giuseppe Peano. The mathematical community as a whole could enlist in problems, which he had identified as crucial aspects of the areas of mathematics he took to be key. The problem set was launched as a talk "The Problems of Mathematics" presented during the course of the Second International Congress of Mathematicians held in Paris. Here is the introduction of the speech that Hilbert gave: He presented fewer than half the problems at the Congress, which were published in the acts of the Congress. In a subsequent publication, he extended the panorama, and arrived at the formulation of the now-canonical 23 Problems of Hilbert. The full text is important, since the exegesis of the questions still can be a matter of inevitable debate, whenever it is asked how many have been solved. Some of these were solved within a short time. Others have been discussed throughout the 20th century, with a few now taken to be unsuitably open-ended to come to closure. Some even continue to this day to remain a challenge for mathematicians. Formalism. In an account that had become standard by the mid-century, Hilbert's problem set was also a kind of manifesto, that opened the way for the development of the formalist school, one of three major schools of mathematics of the 20th century. According to the formalist, mathematics is manipulation of symbols according to agreed upon formal rules. It is therefore an autonomous activity of thought. There is, however, room to doubt whether Hilbert's own views were simplistically formalist in this sense. Hilbert's program. In 1920 he proposed explicitly a research project (in "metamathematics", as it was then termed) that became known as Hilbert's program. He wanted mathematics to be formulated on a solid and complete logical foundation. He believed that in principle this could be done, by showing that: He seems to have had both technical and philosophical reasons for formulating this proposal. It affirmed his dislike of what had become known as the "ignorabimus", still an active issue in his time in German thought, and traced back in that formulation to Emil du Bois-Reymond. This program is still recognizable in the most popular philosophy of mathematics, where it is usually called "formalism". For example, the Bourbaki group adopted a watered-down and selective version of it as adequate to the requirements of their twin projects of (a) writing encyclopedic foundational works, and (b) supporting the axiomatic method as a research tool. This approach has been successful and influential in relation with Hilbert's work in algebra and functional analysis, but has failed to engage in the same way with his interests in physics and logic. Hilbert wrote in 1919: Hilbert published his views on the foundations of mathematics in the 2-volume work Grundlagen der Mathematik. Gödel's work. Hilbert and the mathematicians who worked with him in his enterprise were committed to the project. His attempt to support axiomatized mathematics with definitive principles, which could banish theoretical uncertainties, was however to end in failure. Gödel demonstrated that any non-contradictory formal system, which was comprehensive enough to include at least arithmetic, cannot demonstrate its completeness by way of its own axioms. In 1931 his incompleteness theorem showed that Hilbert's grand plan was impossible as stated. The second point cannot in any reasonable way be combined with the first point, as long as the axiom system is genuinely finitary. Nevertheless, the subsequent achievements of proof theory at the very least "clarified" consistency as it relates to theories of central concern to mathematicians. Hilbert's work had started logic on this course of clarification; the need to understand Gödel's work then led to the development of recursion theory and then mathematical logic as an autonomous discipline in the 1930s. The basis for later theoretical computer science, in Alonzo Church and Alan Turing also grew directly out of this 'debate'. Functional analysis. Around 1909, Hilbert dedicated himself to the study of differential and integral equations; his work had direct consequences for important parts of modern functional analysis. In order to carry out these studies, Hilbert introduced the concept of an infinite dimensional Euclidean space, later called Hilbert space. His work in this part of analysis provided the basis for important contributions to the mathematics of physics in the next two decades, though from an unanticipated direction. Later on, Stefan Banach amplified the concept, defining Banach spaces. Hilbert spaces are an important class of objects in the area of functional analysis, particularly of the spectral theory of self-adjoint linear operators, that grew up around it during the 20th century. Physics. Until 1912, Hilbert was almost exclusively a "pure" mathematician. When planning a visit from Bonn, where he was immersed in studying physics, his fellow mathematician and friend Hermann Minkowski joked he had to spend 10 days in quarantine before being able to visit Hilbert. In fact, Minkowski seems responsible for most of Hilbert's physics investigations prior to 1912, including their joint seminar in the subject in 1905. In 1912, three years after his friend's death, Hilbert turned his focus to the subject almost exclusively. He arranged to have a "physics tutor" for himself. He started studying kinetic gas theory and moved on to elementary radiation theory and the molecular theory of matter. Even after the war started in 1914, he continued seminars and classes where the works of Albert Einstein and others were followed closely. By 1907 Einstein had framed the fundamentals of the theory of gravity, but then struggled for nearly 8 years with a confounding problem of putting the theory into final form. By early summer 1915, Hilbert's interest in physics had focused on general relativity, and he invited Einstein to Göttingen to deliver a week of lectures on the subject. Einstein received an enthusiastic reception at Göttingen. Over the summer Einstein learned that Hilbert was also working on the field equations and redoubled his own efforts. During November 1915 Einstein published several papers culminating in "The Field Equations of Gravitation" (see Einstein field equations). Nearly simultaneously David Hilbert published "The Foundations of Physics", an axiomatic derivation of the field equations (see Einstein–Hilbert action). Hilbert fully credited Einstein as the originator of the theory, and no public priority dispute concerning the field equations ever arose between the two men during their lives. See more at priority. Additionally, Hilbert's work anticipated and assisted several advances in the mathematical formulation of quantum mechanics. His work was a key aspect of Hermann Weyl and John von Neumann's work on the mathematical equivalence of Werner Heisenberg's matrix mechanics and Erwin Schrödinger's wave equation and his namesake Hilbert space plays an important part in quantum theory. In 1926 von Neumann showed that if atomic states were understood as vectors in Hilbert space, then they would correspond with both Schrödinger's wave function theory and Heisenberg's matrices. Throughout this immersion in physics, Hilbert worked on putting rigor into the mathematics of physics. While highly dependent on higher math, physicists tended to be "sloppy" with it. To a "pure" mathematician like Hilbert, this was both "ugly" and difficult to understand. As he began to understand physics and how physicists were using mathematics, he developed a coherent mathematical theory for what he found, most importantly in the area of integral equations. When his colleague Richard Courant wrote the now classic Methods of Mathematical Physics including some of Hilbert's ideas, he added Hilbert's name as author even though Hilbert had not directly contributed to the writing. Hilbert said "Physics is too hard for physicists", implying that the necessary mathematics was generally beyond them; the Courant-Hilbert book made it easier for them. Number theory. Hilbert unified the field of algebraic number theory with his 1897 treatise "Zahlbericht" (literally "report on numbers"). He also resolved a significant number-theory problem formulated by Waring in 1770. As with the finiteness theorem, he used an existence proof that shows there must be solutions for the problem rather than providing a mechanism to produce the answers. He then had little more to publish on the subject; but the emergence of Hilbert modular forms in the dissertation of a student means his name is further attached to a major area. He made a series of conjectures on class field theory. The concepts were highly influential, and his own contribution lives on in the names of the Hilbert class field and of the Hilbert symbol of local class field theory. Results were mostly proved by 1930, after work by Teiji Takagi. Hilbert did not work in the central areas of analytic number theory, but his name has become known for the Hilbert–Pólya conjecture, for reasons that are anecdotal.
35850	Species III is a 2004 science fiction film. Directed by Brad Turner, it is the third installment of the "Species" series and stars Robert Knepper, Sunny Mabrey, Robin Dunne, Amelia Cooke, and John Paul Pitoc. Natasha Henstridge, who was contracted to a trilogy commencing with the first "Species" film, briefly reprises the role of Eve in the opening scene. Its American broadcast premiere was on the Sci Fi Channel. It was then released to video in both a standard and an unrated version. The film was shot in high-definition video. Plot. The film begins immediately where "Species II" left off. Hours after the events of the previous film, the medical van transporting the lifeless Eve has lost its way but when the co-driver tries to radio their superiors, the driver stops and holds him at gun-point. Both are surprised by the alien child (now called "half-breed") appearing in the back window and killing the co-driver with his tongue. In the back the driver finds the half-breed and a reviving Eve, who goes into labor and gives birth to a newborn alien. While the half-breed strangles Eve with his tongue, the driver wraps the newborn into his jacket and runs off through the forest as a military helicopter finds the deserted van. Government agent Wasach orders an autopsy and afterwards the burning of Eve's body. The driver is revealed as Dr. Abbot, teaching biochemistry at university who believes it is wrong to decide whether a species should live or die. In his home, he keeps Eve's offspring who within a few months has grown into a young girl named Sara. The half-breed that killed Eve, also aged, visits Dr. Abbot in his office, asking to see "it" (Eve's offspring) but then partly decays and dies in his chair. The shocked Doctor asks Dean, a student whose funding is in jeopardy, to assist him in his research to create a perfect alien DNA, promising him funding and future awards.
1073920	Mondo Trasho is a 1969 16mm mondo black comedy film by John Waters. The film stars Divine, Mary Vivian Pearce, David Lochary and Mink Stole. It contains very little dialogue, the story being told mostly through musical cues. Plot. After an introductory sequence during which chickens are beheaded on a chopping block, the main action begins. Platinum blond bombshell Mary Vivian Pearce begins her day by riding the bus and reading Kenneth Anger's "Hollywood Babylon". Bombshell is later seduced by Danny Mills, a hippie degenerate "shrimper" (foot fetishist), who starts molesting her feet while she fantasizes about being Cinderella. She is then hit by a car driven by Divine, a portly blonde who was trying to pick up an attractive hitchhiker whom she imagines naked. Divine places her in the car and drives distractedly around Baltimore experiencing bizarre situations, such as repeated visits by the Mother Mary (Margie Skidmore) - during which Divine exclaims, "Oh Mary ... teach me to be Divine". Divine finally takes the unconscious Bombshell to Dr. Coathanger (David Lochary), who amputates her feet and replaces them with bird-like monster feet which she can tap together to transport herself around Baltimore. Production. Depending on versions of the story; either Waters or the whole crew (except Divine) was either arrested or nearly arrested during production for illegally shooting a scene involving a nude hitchhiker on the campus of Johns Hopkins University. Title. The film's title refers to a series of semi-related quasi-documentary films that were popular during the 1960s: "Mondo Cane", "Mondo Freudo", "Mondo Bizarro", etc. The title also pays tribute to "Mondo Topless", a film by one of Waters' favorite directors, Russ Meyer. Music. Waters, in a 2008 interview, stated that the songs used in the film were taken right out of his own record collection. Waters says he did not pay the proper licensing fees to use these songs because he could not afford to. It is because of this, Waters says, that "Mondo Trasho" remains unreleased, as the still unsecured music rights would be too prohibitively expensive to clear. Reception. "Mondo Trasho" currently holds a 50% 'Fresh' rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Waters himself has stated that he does not care for this movie, and claims it should have been a short-film instead of a feature.
589588	Piya Ka Ghar (Devanagari: पिया का घर, Nastaliq: پیا کا گھر, translation: "My Beloved's House", 1972) is a Hindi comedy set (mainly) in Mumbai in the 1970s. It is a remake of Raja Thakur's Marathi film "Mumbaicha Javai". It portrays the difficulties of life in India's biggest city during the 70s in the form of a comic family drama. Plot. The two main characters are Ram and Malti (Jaya Bhaduri). Ram lives in an apartment in Mumbai. Malti initially lives in a relatively comfortable home in an unidentified village. Ram and Malti are hooked up through a matchmaker that their parents have hired. We first see the matchmaker visiting Malti's house; he then visits Ram and his family (parents, two brothers, one sister-in-law, three uncles, and two aunts), who live together in a one-room apartment. Ram and Malti fall in love, and Ram's family visits her in her village. Soon, they are married, and Malti moves to Ram's apartment, not knowing what to expect. Since there is very little room left in the apartment, the newlyweds are forced to sleep in the kitchen. They make several comical, but failed, attempts to have some privacy. At last, Malti can bear it no longer, and her uncle arrives to take her back to the village. But when they see all her in-laws offering to move out on her account, they change their minds, saying that such love overcomes the difficulties of living in Mumbai. In the end, the couple finally finds the privacy they sought. Songs. The following songs, listed in the order in which they appear, are from "Piya Ka Ghar":
589535	Chupke Chupke (translation: "Hush-Hush") is a 1975 Indian comedy film starring Dharmendra, Sharmila Tagore, Amitabh Bachchan, Jaya Bachchan, Om Prakash, Usha Kiran, David Abraham Cheulkar, Asrani and Keshto Mukherjee. The movie, a remake of the Bengali movie "Chhadmabeshi", was directed by Hrishikesh Mukherjee based on Upendranath Ganguly's Bengali story "Chhadobeshi". with music composed by S.D. Burman. Plot. Professor Parimal Tripathi (Dharmendra) is a botany professor who falls in love with Sulekha Chaturvedi (Sharmila Tagore) during a women's college botany excursion. Prof. Parimal Tripathi helps the bungalow watchman to get to his village downhill to enable him to see his grandson who's fallen ill. Meanwhile he disguises himself as the bungalow watchman to protect the old man's job. Sulekha finds out one day about the cover-up and is charmed on seeing Parimal's real personality. They both get married. Parimal loves playing pranks and is the antithesis of regular professors. Sulekha, on the other hand is in awe of her jijaji (brother-in-law) Raghavendra (Om Prakash). She considers her jijaji to be highly intellectual and looks upon him as her idol. Parimal develops an inferiority complex thanks to Sulekha's excessive praise of her jijaji and decides to prove that he is in no way a lesser mortal. Jijaji, meanwhile, has written a letter to Haripad bhaiyya (David Abraham Cheulkar) asking him to send a driver who can speak good Hindi because his present driver James D'costa (Keshto Mukherjee) uses improper grammar. This provides the perfect opportunity for Parimal to get to see and interact with jijaji. Parimal becomes Pyaremohan Ilahabadi, a motor-mouth driver who pretends to hate the English language and so speaks only Hindi. So begins the comedy of errors, as Parimal and Sulekha play prank after prank on the unsuspecting jijaji. First they pretend that Sulekha is not happy with her new marriage, then they put across the impression that Sulekha is having an affair with Pyaremohan, and if that was not enough, they get Parimal’s long-time friend Sukumar Sinha (Amitabh Bachchan), a Professor of English literature, to temporarily act as Parimal and portray him as a serious and boring lecturer, the complete opposite of Parimal's character. Pyaremohan's excessively refined Hindi, his habit of correcting jijaji's usage of the language and his persistence in getting jijaji to teach him English all serve to irk jijaji to no end and provide for many laughs. Parimal's long-time friend P K Srivastava (Asrani) is also party to the prank. His sister-in-law Vasudha (Jaya Bachchan) suspects fake 'Parimal' - Sukumar Sinha - of infidelity to his wife 'Sulekha' when he tries to get close to her. Sukumar falls in love with Vasudha who at first believed he was Parimal, but Sukumar reveals to her the real drama behind all this mix-up of situations. Lata Srivastava (Lily Chakravarty), P K Srivastava's wife, is also angered over the latest 'extra marital' love affair. But toward the end, Sukumar and Vasudha end up marrying in a temple where Haripat bhaiyya coerces Pyaremohan to 'kill' himself so that Parimal could surface. Thus jijaji comes to comprehend the whole enactment, finally admitting that he was truly fooled. The film revolves around the resolution of these funny mishaps. Music. The music for the film was given by S. D. Burman, with lyrics by Anand Bakshi. The movie has the following songs: Degrees of separation. This film is one of two released in 1975 to cast Dharmendra and Amitabh together, the other being "Sholay". Apart from these, "Ram Balram" was the only other film that the two starred in together, if one does not count Dharmendra's guest appearances in "Andha Kanoon" and "Naseeb", and Amitabh's cameo in "Guddi "and "Dost". They had a guest appearance in the 2003 movie "Hum Kaun Hai?", also dubbed in Bengali.
178031	Johann Philipp Gustav von Jolly (26 September 1809 – 24 December 1884) was a German physicist and mathematician. Born in Mannheim as the son of merchant Louis Jolly and Marie Eleonore Jolly, he studied science in Heidelberg, Vienna and Berlin. After his studies, he was appointed professor of mathematics in Heidelberg in 1839 and in physics in 1846. He moved to Munich in 1854 where he took the position once held by Georg Simon Ohm. In 1854 he was knighted (and henceforth referred to as von Jolly). Jolly was first and foremost an experimental physicist. He measured the acceleration due to gravity with precision weights and also worked on osmosis. One of his students at the University of Munich was Max Planck, whom he advised in 1878 not to go into physics, saying, "in this field, almost everything is already discovered, and all that remains is to fill a few unimportant holes." Planck replied that he didn't wish to discover new things, only to understand the known fundamentals of the field. Nevertheless, Planck's work opened up the field of quantum physics. Jolly died in Munich.
583413	Acid Factory is a paranoid thriller Hindi film directed by Suparn Verma under the banner of White Feather Films. The film released on 9 October 2009. Plot. "Acid Factory" is about a group of characters whose sense of past has vanished in a haze of coma like sleep they have woken up from only to discover that reality could be a figment of their imagination. Their sense of right or wrong is clouded by this state of complete distrust and self-righteousness. As the story reveals through the hazy mist of confusion confounded by loss off memory, the audience is just shown the tip of the iceberg. Five men wake up inside the stolid confines of a factory to find themselves locked in this claustrophobic nowhere land. As the plot unfolds we gradually learn that two of the people who are trapped have been kidnapped and held hostage by the rest of the three for a heist. But the irony is they themselves do not know who the hostages are and who the kidnappers are. The plot is like a Rubik cube that acquires the contours of solid colours on each side as the narrative unfolds. Their fears are heightened by a phone call from the leader of the gang of goons who informs them that he is on his way with the heist and plans to knock off the two hostages as soon as he arrives. Every one fears for their lives as they are unaware about the fact which two of them are the hostages. They plan escape, fail and end lunging at each other in despair as the clock ticks away. Individual foibles and shortcomings surface in this final hour of despair. Like caged animals they alternately bicker among themselves and then jointly plan means of escape but to no avail. The Big Boss eventually arrives. It is revealed in the end that Sarthak and J.D. are business partners and Sarthak was going to sell their company and in order to avenge that, J.D. plans Sarthak's kidnapping. Romeo is an undercover cop who becomes a part of this plan to get close to the gang headed by Kaiser. In the end, the gang goes to jail and Romeo and Sarthak get back to their lives. Music. The album has 9 tracks, composed by various composers such as Bappa Lahiri, Mansi Scott and Shamir Tandon. Critical reception. Acid factory got positive reviews from the critics and was declared a semi-hit. Taran Adarsh (indiafm) and Rediff.com gave it 3/5 stars while PlanetBollywood and Glamsham.com give it 9/10 and 5/5 stars respectively.
1060074	They Live is a 1988 American science fiction film written and directed by John Carpenter. It follows a nameless drifter referred to as "Nada", who discovers the ruling class are in fact aliens managing human social affairs through the use of a signal on top of the TV broadcast, concealing their appearance and subliminal messages in mass media. The film stars Keith David, Meg Foster and professional wrestler Roddy Piper. Plot. An unemployed drifter named "Nada" (Roddy Piper) finds construction work in Los Angeles, and befriends fellow worker Frank Armitage (Keith David), who leads him to a local shantytown soup kitchen. There, Nada notices strange activity around the church; a blind preacher loudly chastising others to wake up, a police helicopter scouts them overhead, and a drifter (George Buck Flower) complains that his TV signal is continually interrupted by a man warning everyone about those in power. Nada discovers the nearby church is a front: the choir is actually an audio recording and the building is filled with scientific equipment and cardboard boxes. Nada finds a box hidden in the wall but escapes when the preacher catches him. At night, police bulldoze the shantytown. Nada returns in the morning to find the church empty, but with the hidden box still there. In an alley, he opens the box and finds dozens of sunglasses. Taking one, he hides the box of remaining sunglasses in a garbage can.
589289	Yeh Vaada Raha is a 1982 Hindi film starring Shammi Kapoor, Poonam Dhillon, Tina Munim and Rishi Kapoor. Plot summary. Vikram Rai Bahadur is the only son of Mrs. Sharda, and sole heir to a vast business and estate. While vacationing with his artiste friend, Raja in Kashmir he meets a beautiful girl named Sunita and falls head over heels in love with her. Sunita was a great singer and had also got a contract to sing on Radio, she tells Vikram and also asked him to sing with her but he continuously denied her. Soon he proposes marriage to her, and she accepts. They go to the temple where they had first laid eyes on each other and seek God blessings as well as vow to never part till death, even tying the symbol of their love, a necklace vicky had won for Sunita in a fair, around a wishing pole. Vikram goes back to Delhi, to ask his mother's permission and blessings to marry Sunita, but she refuses telling VIcky about Sunita's parents and past. Also saying that if her name is joined to theirs, their business will suffer as Sunita's presence is inauspicious. His mother's words anger Vikram and he goes back to Kashmir and tells Sunita they will have a quiet temple wedding. On their way to the temple their vehicle meets with an accident against a truck. While Raja sustains minor injuries, Vikram is badly hurt and hospitalized, and Sunita's face is severely disfigured. Mrs. Sharda goes to see Sunita and offers her money to stay away from Vikram. She tells Sunita about her disfigurement and emotionally blackmails her by saying "think how Vikram would live with an ugly and disfigured girl like her. Hearing this Sunita agrees to stay away from Vikram but says she doesn't want Sharda's money. Sunita is transferred to a hospital in Delhi, where Sunita's local doctor, Dr. Sahni together with a doctor in the Delhi hospital, Dr. Mehra restore her disfigurement by plastic surgery. On the day that she leaves, Vikram regains consciousness and asks for Sunita, But his mother tells him that Sunita is dead. Months pass and Vikram longs for Sunita, not eating properly, not living his life, not looking after himself. Meanwhile in these months Dr Mehra is doing his job beautifully, he fixes Sunita's disfigured face and gives her a new face. She quickly recovers, and cannot wait to give the good news to Vikram. Tho she believes that with her new face Vikram won't be able to recognise her, but Dr. Mehra, who now sees Sunita as his daughter, reassures her that in love one's face is no matter, the heart and the soul remains the same and that is what brings two lovers together, not their face or outer beauty. Sunita and Dr. Mehra turn up to Vikram's house only to find out that she is getting engaged to another beautiful, but wealthy young woman named Rita. Vikram is unable to recognise Sunita and she believes that he has forgotten her. She returns home with her new father (Mehra) and decides to change her name to Kusum Mehra, to begin life anew. After the engagement party it is reviled that Vikram is making an orphanage in the memory of Sunita in Kashmir. It will be called "Srimati Sunita Rai Bahadur Anathalay" which means Mrs. Sunita Rai Bahadur orphanage, hence giving Sunita the proper respect of his name as she would have been had she been alive. Upon being asked by Raja why he agreed to marry Rita he tells of how his mother advertised it in the newspaper without even asking him and how when he confronted her she told him about the millions of rupees they would get through the marriage in order to fund and re-establish their failing business. Vikram decides that he will fund his Orphanage with his own funds and does not wish to let his mother's money play any role in its building or running. To earn money he decides to sing in stage performances as Sunita used to always ask him to sing with her. On one such performance Sunita aka Kusum and Dr. Mehra come to the show not knowing that Vikram is the artist performing. Kusum hears him singing a song dedicated to love but feels insulted that someone who has forgetting his love would sing a song for love. So she begins to sing against him despite promising herself that she would never sing again. Hearing her voice reminds Vikram of Sunita's voice and he continuously re-listens to her voice's recordings in order to figure out whether it is Sunita's or not. The next day he arrives at Kusum's house and asks her to sing with him on stage. She refuses. He offers her money to sing with him, again she refuses and angrily tells him to leave the house. Assuring her that he will return in the evening in case she has changed her mind, she leaves. As he had promised he returns in the evening, Dr. Mehra meets hims and asks why he wants Kusum's voice only, but before Vicky could reply the servant comes and tells then that Kusum is not at home. Vikram leaves once again. Dr. Mehra gets angry with Kusum and asks her why she is doing what she is doing. Why would she not confront Vikram and why still is she looking after him through the window. The next day when Kusum leaves the house Vikram is waiting outside in the car for her. He gives her a lift and on the way once again they are faced with a similar situation to accident that had taken away Sunita's identity. She screams and loses consciousness... A few days later when Vikram goes to see how Kusum is, he find out that Kusum had previously gone through a similar accident as the day when she had fainted. Kusum also asks about an injury on Vikram's forehead, one that he had received during his accident. Vikram tells her about his accident and about how he has forgotten everything. This angers Kusum further as she believes that Vikram has forgotten her and she accidentally spills every detail she knows about the accident itself. Some time later Vikram's mother finds out that he wants to do a show with some girl called Kusum and he won't marry until the is done. Therefore Sharda goes to Kusum's house and asks her to sing with Vicky and also telling her everything about how she had lied to Vicky about Sunita's death and why Vikram had decided to marry Rita. Kusum is happy to hear that Vicky has not forgotten her and that he still loves her and is making an orphanage in her memory. She is satisfied with this, agrees to sing with Vikram and will not get in the way of Vikram and Rita's wedding. Dr. Mehra calls Sharda to his hospital and explains to her how he had given Sunita a new face after her disfigurement. He tells her how Sunita is Kusum and Kusum is Sunita and how Kusum is satisfied only by the fact that Vikram stills loves her. Mehra tells Sharda there is still time, she can still reunite the two lovers. Sharda doesn't listen to him. Kusum sings with vikram and also reminds him of Sunita by doing the dance which both used to do while singing their song Yeh Vaada Raha. All of her things, her dance, her voice, everything reminds Vikram of Sunita and at the end of the performance her he holds her and calls her Sunita at which Kusum runs away. back home she packs her bags and leaves for Kashmir asking her father not to tell Vikram anything. Vikram comes seeking Sunita and confronts Mehra. Mehra tells him to ask his mother for answers. Vicky goes to Sharda and asks her whether Kusum is Sunita. His mother tells Vikram everything about how she lied to him about Sunita being dead because she wanted to protect him and make his future better, etc. Vikram goes to Kashmir to find Sunita and he does right outside her house. When she sees him she runs to the temple where they made their vows. At the temple they repeat their vows again and embrace each other.
1044134	Judith Amanda "Judy" Geeson (born 10 September 1948) is an English actress. Early life. Geeson was born in Arundel, Sussex. She came from a middle-class family; her father edited the National Coal Board magazine. Her sister, Sally Geeson, also an actress, is known for her roles in British television sitcoms of the 1970s. Geeson attended Corona Stage Academy, making her stage debut in 1957. Career. Geeson's first major film appearances came in 1967 with "To Sir, with Love" (alongside Sidney Poitier and pop singer Lulu), and the comedy "Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush". The following year, she appeared in "Berserk!", co-starring Joan Crawford. Geeson became well known as a result of a regular role in the BBC early-evening soap opera, "The Newcomers". She also had a major role in the 1970s costume drama "Poldark", as Caroline Penvenen Enys. Her other notable films include "Prudence and the Pill" (1968), "Three Into Two Won't Go" (1969), "10 Rillington Place" (1970), "Doomwatch" (1972), "Brannigan" (1975; co-starring John Wayne, with whom she enjoyed working) and "The Eagle Has Landed" (1976). In the TV series "Danger UXB", she played the female lead, Susan Mount, opposite Anthony Andrews. She also had the lead role of Fulvia in the science-fiction series "Star Maidens". In 1984, Geeson left London for Los Angeles, California, where she decided to stay. Among other roles, she appeared regularly in the American sitcom "Mad About You" as the hostile neighbour, Maggie Conway. She also played the role of Sandrine in the "" episodes "" and "". Having always been interested in antiques, Geeson managed an antique store, Blanche & Co, on West 3rd Street in Beverly Hills, in addition performing in occasional acting roles. After ten years of business, the store closed in December 2009. Having appeared in a number of horror films during the 1970s and 1980s, including "It Happened at Nightmare Inn" (1973), "Dominique" (1978) and "Inseminoid" (1981), Geeson returned to the horror genre in "The Lords of Salem" (2012), directed by Rob Zombie. The film marked a return to acting following a nine-year absence. Personal life. In the 1970s, Geeson lived with set designer Sean Kenny, until his death in 1973. Geeson was married to actor Kristoffer Tabori from 1985 until their divorce in 1989.
1163379	Robert Hegyes (pronounced "Hedges"; May 7, 1951 – January 26, 2012) was an American actor best known for his portrayal of high school student Juan Epstein on the 1970s American sitcom "Welcome Back, Kotter". Early life. Hegyes was born in Perth Amboy, New Jersey, to a Hungarian-American father, Stephen, and an Italian-American mother, Marie Dominica Cocozza. Hegyes had three siblings (Mark, Stephanie and Elizabeth).
1058041	This Is the Army is a 1943 American wartime motion picture produced by Hal B. Wallis and Jack L. Warner, and directed by Michael Curtiz, adapted from a wartime stage musical with the same name, designed to boost morale in the U.S. during World War II, directed by Ezra Stone. The screenplay by Casey Robinson and Claude Binyon was based on the 1942 Broadway musical by Irving Berlin, who also composed the film's 19 songs and broke screen protocol by singing one of them. The movie features a large ensemble cast, including George Murphy, Joan Leslie, Alan Hale, Sr., Rosemary DeCamp, and Ronald Reagan, while both the stage play and film included soldiers of the U.S. Army who were actors and performers in civilian life. Plot. The storyline was added for the film; the stage version was simply a plotless revue. In World War I, the musical "Yip Yip Yaphank" is a rousing success. During the show, it is learned that the troop has received its orders to ship off to France, and thus the end number is changed so that the soldiers march through the theater with their rifles and gear and out into the waiting convoy of trucks. Jones kisses his new bride on the way down the aisle. In the war, several of the soldiers in the production are killed. Jerry Jones is wounded in France, by shrapnel during a German artillery barrage. He loses the full use of one of his legs, ending his career as a dancer and must walk with a cane. Nevertheless he is resolved to find something useful to do. Sgt. McGee and Pvt. Eddie Dibble,the bugler also survive. Twenty-five years later, with World War II raging in Europe, Jones' son Johnny enlists in the Army shortly after Pearl Harbor is attacked. He tells his sweetheart that they cannot marry until he returns, since he doesn't want to make her a widow. He grudgingly accepts the order to stage another musical, just as his father did. The show goes on tour around the United States and eventually plays in front of President Roosevelt (Jack Young) in Washington, D.C.. During the show, it is announced that the Washington, D.C. performance will be the last night, and that afterwards the soldiers in the production will be ordered back to their combat units. Johnny's erstwhile fiancée, who has since joined the Red Cross auxiliary, appears at the show. During a break in the show, she brings a minister and convinces them that they should marry - which they do, in the alley behind the theater, with their fathers as witnesses. Cast. As Themselves: Broadway musical. In May 1941, ex-Sergeant Irving Berlin was on tour at Camp Upton, his old Army base in Yaphank, New York during World War I. There he spoke with the commanding officers, including Capt. A.H. Rankin of Special Services, about restaging his original 1917 Army play, "Yip! Yip! Yaphank". Gen. George Marshall approved a Broadway production of a wartime musical for the army, allowing Berlin to conduct the arrangements and rehearsals at Camp Upton much like he had done during World War I. Sgt. Ezra Stone was selected as director for the new contemporary play, and the two set up on base during the weekdays to put together the story and crew. Insisting on integration, Berlin was granted the chance to add African Americans into this play, which he was not allowed to do in "Yip, Yip Yaphank." This would not be unconventional for Berlin, but it would be for the United States Army—no whites and African Americans would appear on stage simultaneously. Though progressive in that regard, Berlin was still planning on opening with a minstrel skit. Ezra Stone told his civilian boss that it would be impossible to get 110 men out of blackface in time for the next number. Casting aside his minstrel show, Berlin instead wrote a "new" "Puttin' on the Ritz", calling it "That's What the Well-Dressed Man in Harlem Will Wear". The retooled play ran on Broadway, at the Broadway Theatre from July 4, 1942 to September 26, 1942. The show was directed by Sgt. Ezra Stone, choreographed by Cpl. Nelson Barclift and Sgt. Robert Sidney. The show was such a success that it went on the road. The national tour of the revue ended in San Francisco, CA on February 13, 1943. By that time, it had earned $2 million ($23 million in 2006 dollars) for the Army Emergency Relief Fund. The company of men that staged the play were the only Army outfit to be fully integrated, but only so off-stage. Production. The title of the movie is the same as the title of the stage version of the show. The movie features star appearances by Irving Berlin, Kate Smith, Frances Langford and Joe Louis as themselves. If Washington, D.C. officials did not like the idea of a musical/revue about the Army, playwright Irving Berlin was ready to call it "This Is the Navy", or "This Is the Air Corps". Smith's full-length rendition of Berlin's "God Bless America" is arguably the most famous cinematic rendition of the piece. Louis appears in a revue piece called "What the Well-Dressed Man in Harlem Will Wear", with James Cross (lead singer and dancer), William Wycoff (dancer in drag), Marion Brown (heavyset dancer), and a chorus of perhaps a dozen, the only spoken/sung scene that includes African-Americans. Louis also appears in two other scenes, one in a boxing match, and the second being the stage door canteen number (he did not speak in either scene).
1165426	James Best (born July 26, 1926) is an American actor, who in his six decades of television is best known for his starring role as bumbling Sheriff Rosco P. Coltrane in the CBS television series "The Dukes of Hazzard". He has also worked as an acting coach, artist, college professor, and musician. Early years. Best was born as Jules Guy in Powderly in Muhlenberg County in Western Kentucky, in 1926. His mother was the sister of Ike Everly, the father of the pop duo the Everly Brothers. After his mother died in 1929, the three-year-old was sent to live in an orphanage. He was later adopted by Armen (1897-1984) and Essa Best (1896-1988) and went to live with them in Corydon in Harrison County in southern Indiana. Career. He began his acting career with an uncredited role in the 1950 film, "One Way Street" .Best portrayed a variety of characters in a wide spectrum of film genres. Some of his more notable roles include Jason Brown in the 1955 historical drama about the abolitionist John Brown entitled "Seven Angry Men" and as Kit Caswell in the 1958 western "Cole Younger, Gunfighter", based on the infamous outlaw. He was further cast as Private Rhidges in the 1958 film adaptation of Norman Mailer's "The Naked and the Dead". He played the outlaw Billy John in "Ride Lonesome" (1959), Dr. Ben Mizer in the 1966 comedy "Three on a Couch", the cross-dressing Dewey Barksdale in the 1976 drama "Ode to Billy Joe," and the gunfighter Drew in "Firecreek" (1968), with James Stewart and Henry Fonda. Best has guest starred more than 280 times on numerous television series. In 1954, he played the outlaw Dave Ridley, opposite Gloria Winters as the female bandit Little Britches in an episode of the syndicated "Stories of the Century", starring and narrated by Jim Davis. In 1954, Best appeared twice in on the syndicated "Annie Oakley" series, starring Gail Davis and Brad Johnson. He was cast in the religion anthology series, "Crossroads", in the 1956 episode "The White Carnation", along with Elinor Donahue, Ann Doran, and J. Carrol Naish. He was also cast on an episode of Jackie Cooper's early NBC sitcom, "The People's Choice" and in the David Janssen crime drama, "Richard Diamond, Private Detective". In 1960, Best appeared in the episode "Love on Credit" of CBS's anthology series, "The DuPont Show with June Allyson". In 1963, he was cast as the courageous Wisconsin game warden, Ernie Swift, in the episode "Open Season" of another CBS anthology series, "GE True", hosted by Jack Webb. In the story line, Swift faces the reprisal of organized crime after he tickets gangster Frank MacErlane (David McLean) for illegal fishing. Best made two guest appearances on Perry Mason. In 1963 he played title character Martin Potter in "The Case of the Surplus Suitor," and in 1966 he played defendant and oilman Allan Winford in "The Case of the Unwelcome Well." He appeared on a long list of other television series including "Wagon Train" (three times), "The Adventures of Kit Carson" (twice as Henry Jordan), the western anthology series "Frontier" (twice), "Sheriff of Cochise", "Pony Express", "Rescue 8", "Behind Closed Doors", "The Texan", "The Rebel", "Bonanza," "Gunsmoke", "Have Gun – Will Travel","Trackdown", "The Barbara Stanwyck Show", "Tombstone Territory", "Whispering Smith", "Stagecoach West", "The Twilight Zone" ("The Grave", "The Last Rites of Jeff Myrtlebank," and "Jess-Belle"), "", "Overland Trail", "Bat Masterson", "Alfred Hitchcock Presents", "The Man and the Challenge", "Combat!", "The Mod Squad", "I Spy", "The Fugitive" ("Terror At High Point"), and "In the Heat of the Night". Fans of CBS's "The Andy Griffith Show" will remember Best for his portrayal of the young guitar player Jim Lindsey in two episodes. "The Dukes of Hazzard". Best played Sheriff Rosco P. Coltrane on CBS's "The Dukes of Hazzard" from the debut of the program in 1979 until the series ended in 1985. This role was Best's most visible success. He later revealed that the caricature-like persona of Sheriff Coltrane was developed from a voice that he used when playing with his young children. In the very early episodes, Sheriff Coltrane was a more serious, aggressive, and more competent police officer than he would be by the end of the first season, even shooting one person in an early show. After the show became a hit among children and moved production from Georgia to California, the role of Sheriff Coltrane was toned down and made into the more familiar bumbling and comical character that is best remembered today. On the set, Best was particularly close to Sorrell Booke, who played the character of Boss Hogg, who was both the boss and the brother-in-law of Rosco. The two actors became close friends and according to interviews by the series creators, the two would often improvise their scenes together, making up their own dialogue as they went along. The character of Rosco was best known for his love of "hot pursuit," chasing Bo and Luke Duke in car chases that usually ended badly, with Rosco losing them, a horrendous crash, or some other problem (such as "scuffing his vehicle" or ending up in Hazzard Pond or stuck in a tree). Rosco was a bachelor and childless, so he was also known for his love of his pet basset hound, Flash (introduced at the start of the third season, at the suggestion of Best), whom he loved and treated as it was his child. Rosco was also known for insulting and yelling at his deputies, Enos Strate (played by Sonny Shroyer) and Cletus Hogg (played by Rick Hurst), most often calling them "dipstick" and he also often lied to them about the crooked plans that he and Boss Hogg were working on. Later career. In 1991, in contrast to the comic Coltrane of "Dukes of Hazzard", Best appeared in an episode of the NBC crime drama "In the Heat of the Night". He won the Crystal Reel Award for "Best Actor" for his portrayal of Nathan Bedford in the episode '"Sweet, Sweet Blues", directed by Vincent McEveety and written by William James Royce, Best plays a repentant killer who has to come to terms with his crime. He later moved to Florida and taught at the University of Central Florida in Orlando. Now semi-retired, Best runs a production company and takes occasional acting roles. He has also earned a name for himself as an artist and painter. Best formerly resided in Hickory, North Carolina, before moving once again, this time to Lake Murray, South Carolina. A highly respected acting coach, Best taught drama and acting techniques for more than twenty-five years in Los Angeles. His acting school listed some of the top names in Hollywood as pupils. He also served as artist-in-residence and taught drama at the University of Mississippi in Oxford, Mississippi, for two years prior to his stint on "The Dukes of Hazzard". In 2009, James Best completed his autobiography, "Best In Hollywood: The Good, The Bad and The Beautiful". The book, published in 2009 through Bear Manor Media, premiered at the Mid Atlantic Nostalgia Convention in Aberdeen, Maryland. Personal life and family. In 1959, Best married the former Jobee Ayers, and the couple had two daughters, Janeen and Jojami. They divorced in 1977. Best also has a son, Gary, from a previous marriage. He married his third (and current) wife, Dorothy Best, in 1986. Best is the uncle of actress and model Jennifer Lyons and the father-in-law of actor-singer Michael Damian. Further reading. "Best in Hollywood: The Good, The Bad, And The Beautiful," by James Best with Jim Clark. Albany, 2009. BearManor Media. ISBN # 1-59393-460-2.
582902	Hum Tumhare Hain Snam (English: "I am yours, darling") is a Hindi film released on 24 May 2002. Film features Salman Khan, Shahrukh Khan and Madhuri Dixit. This is the second film to feature Salman Khan and Shahrukh Khan where both of them are protagonists after "Karan Arjun" (1995). Shahrukh Khan and Madhuri Dixit were paired up for the fourth time, followed by Devdas. The movie is K. S. Adhiyaman's first in Hindi, a remake of his own film in Tamil, "Thotta Chinungi". The film took years to make, with huge sabbaticals in between shoots due to unending production problems. Plot. Dev Narayan (Alok Nath) lives with his widowed daughter Laxmi (Aruna Irani) and her children Radha and Prashant. Dev also looks after two orphaned children, Gopal and Nita. Laxmi believes that Dev is taking more care of Gopal and Nita, so leaves the house taking her children with her. Laxmi soon spots an orphaned boy on the streets and takes him in. Radha forms a sisterly bond with him and names him Suraj. Suraj has a particular passion for singing. Years pass and Suraj (Salman Khan) is now a famous and popular singer. Radha (Maduri Dixit) is particularly fond of him – in turn Suraj is grateful to Radha for contributing to his success. Meanwhile, Gopal (Shahrukh Khan) has become a wealthy Business tycoon. When Laxmi is killed in an accident, Radha and Prashant (Atul Agnihotri) are taken to live in Gopal’s house. Also living with them is Nita (Suman Raganathan). Gopal asks Radha to marry him and she agrees. Before their wedding, Gopal meets Suraj – Suraj asks Gopal to watch over Radha (as Suraj loves her like a sister). On their wedding night, Gopal asks Radha who she loves most in the world, she answers her mother and Prashant – Gopal is hurt that she did not mention him. As time goes on, Gopal starts to disapprove of two things. Firstly, he does not like the fact that he and Radha are supporting Prashant financially and secondly, he does not like that Radha is always on the phone with Suraj. After a misunderstanding, Gopal loses his temper with Prashant and throws him out of the house. Gopal soon suspects that Suraj and Radha are secretly seeing one another and consequently throws her out of his house. Radha goes to live with her relatives, where Prashant is also staying. Everybody thinks that Radha has simply moved out for a few days. However, when Gopal sends Radha a divorce note, Suraj realizes the situation. He and Prashant tell Radha they wish to speak to Gopal but Radha does not want them to do so. Suraj secretly holds a meeting with Gopal. Gopal arrives and angrily confronts Suraj. Eventually, Gopal pulls out a loaded gun and asks Suraj to shoot him. After an argument, Gopal leaves. Suraj now believes that he is the reason for Radha’s divorce and feels extremely guilty. He is now determined to set things right. Radha has now realised that Gopal was angry about her friendship with Suraj – she and Suraj agree never to meet again. Suraj explains the situation to his girlfriend Suman (Aishwarya Rai). Suman talks to Gopal and explains where he went wrong. Gopal now realises that he misunderstood Radha and Suraj’s friendship for adultery. Just as Radha is about to commit suicide, Gopal arrives and stops her – they reconcile. They visit Suraj at his show. Gopal and Suraj apologise to one another and things end well. Soundtrack. The music were composed by Nadeem-Shravan, Nikhil-Vinay, Dabboo Malik, Bappi Lahiri, Bali Brahmabhatt, and Sajid-Wajid. Lyrics were penned by Sameer, Praveen Bhardwaj, Maya Govind, Kartik Avasthi, and Jalees Sherwani. Background score was composed by Uttam Singh. Reception. Hum Tumhare Hain Sanam received mixed reviews upon release. The film became the sixth highest grossing movie of 2002, grossing at 1,37,50,000 and was given the verdict of a semi hit at the Box Office.
583002	Divya Shakti is a 1993 Bollywood action film directed and written by Sameer Malkan. The film stars Ajay Devgan, Raveena Tandon and Satyendra Kapoor. Plot. An idealistic journalist (Devgan) gets weary & tired of witnessing the reign of crime, police corruption & injustice in his city & decides to wage a one man war against the psychotic king maker 'Tau' played by the legendary Amrish Puri. His journey costs him his limbs & loved ones as he goes on a vigilante style brute fest right into the lair & dark world of the two faced Tau & his cronies. Death & Destruction follow the war path.
1164512	Scott Stewart Bakula (; born October 9, 1954) is an American actor known for his role as Sam Beckett in the television series "Quantum Leap" (for which he was nominated for four Emmy Awards and, in 1991, won the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Television Series Drama) and for the role of Captain Jonathan Archer in "". Bakula also starred in the comedy drama series "Men of a Certain Age" and guest-starred in seasons two and three of NBC's "Chuck" as the title character's father Stephen Bartowski. Early life. Bakula was born in St. Louis, Missouri, the son of Sally (née Zumwinkel) and J. Stewart Bakula, a lawyer. His surname comes from partial Czech ancestry. He attended college for a time, but left, he said, Career. Bakula moved to New York City in 1976. There he made his Broadway debut playing baseball legend Joe DiMaggio in "", and appeared in the well-received Off-Broadway production "Three Guys Naked from the Waist Down"; he would later in its Pasadena Playhouse production. The success of "Three Guys" Off-Broadway brought him attention, and when his next show, the musical "Nightclub Confidential", moved to Los Angeles, he moved there at the urging of his California agent, Maggie Henderson, and his New York agent, Jerry Hogan. As Bakula recalled in 2000, In 1995, Bakula appeared on the cover of "Playgirl". In 1997, he voiced Danny Cat in the animated film, "Cats Don't Dance", singing in one number with Natalie Cole. In 1998, Bakula played the aging veteran pitcher Gus Cantrell in ', the final movie in the "Major League" trilogy. He also played Jim Olmeyer, same-sex partner of Sam Robards' Jim Berkley, in the 1999 film "American Beauty". As Jonathan Archer in ', Bakula played the captain of Earth's first long-range interstellar ship. In 2006, he reprised the role of Archer for the "Star Trek Legacy" PC and Xbox 360 video games as a voiceover. Bakula starred in the musical "Shenandoah", a play which also provided his first professional theatrical role in 1976, at Ford's Theatre, in 2006. Bakula is heard singing "Pig Island" on Sandra Boynton's children's CD "Philadelphia Chickens", which is labeled as being "For all ages except 43." Some of Bakula's other musical appearances include the Hollywood Bowl in 1996 and 2004, Carnegie Hall, a benefit performance of Stephen Sondheim's "Anyone Can Whistle" in 1995, and the Kennedy Center Honors in 1993 and 2003, in honor of Sondheim and Carol Burnett, respectively. Scott Bakula said that he might be starring as Sam in a "Quantum Leap" film as stated in "TV Guide Magazine" along with Dean Stockwell. At Comic Con 2010, he announced that a script was being worked on and that while he would be in the movie, he would not be in the main role. Bakula performed various songs from his career for a one-night-only performance entitled "An Evening with Scott Bakula" at Sidney Harman Hall on January 18, 2008, as a benefit for the restoration of the historic Ford's Theater. Bakula had three appearances in 2008. He appeared as Atty. Jack Ross in an episode of "Boston Legal", "Glow in the Dark", which aired on February 12, 2008 on the ABC network. From March 4 - April 20 he starred as Tony Hunter in the world premiere of "Dancing in the Dark" at The Old Globe in San Diego, California. "Dancing in the Dark" is based on the 1950s movie "The Band Wagon", which starred Fred Astaire and Cyd Charisse. Bakula appeared as the character Chris Fulbright in the five episode run of the Tracey Ullman sketch comedy series "State of the Union" on Showtime. Bakula appeared in the 2009 dark comedy film "The Informant!" as Brian Shepard, an FBI agent working with the title character, Mark Whitacre, (played by Matt Damon). In April 2009, he began a recurring role on the television series "Chuck" as Stephen Bartowski, the eponymous character's long lost father. From July 31 to August 2, 2009, he starred as Nathan Detroit in three performances of "Guys and Dolls" at Hollywood Bowl. Beginning in December 2009, Bakula began appearing as Terry, one of the three lead characters, along with Ray Romano (Joe) and Andre Braugher (Owen), in TNT's hour long comedy/drama "Men of a Certain Age". In 2011, he performed a voice cameo in the film "Source Code" as a slight nod to his character on Quantum Leap, with his catchphrase of "Oh, boy." and appeared in the feature length documentary "The Captains", in which was written and directed by William Shatner, Bakula is interviewed by the original Star Trek captain about his life and career leading up to his performances as Captain Jonathan Archer in Star Trek: Enterprise. In the movie Shatner interviews Bakula at his ranch in California where the pair ride horses and discuss the pitfalls that come with a career in television. In September 2011, Bakula starred in "Terrible Advice" by Saul Rubinek at the Menier Chocolate Factory. In April to May 2012, he guest starred in the last five episodes of "Desperate Housewives" as Bree Van de Kamp's criminal defense lawyer and third husband. In April 2013 he made a guest appearance on "Two and a Half Men" as a car dealer. Personal life. Bakula married Krista Neumann in 1981; they divorced in 1995. The couple have two children: Chelsy or Chelsea (sources differ as per spelling) and Cody. He and actress Chelsea Field have been companions since 1996 and have two children, Wil Botfield and Owen Barrett.
1151941	Malese Jow (born February 18, 1991) is an American actress, singer and songwriter. She is best known for her role as Anna, a teenage vampire on The CW television teen drama "The Vampire Diaries" and Lucy Stone in hit Nickelodeon show "Big Time Rush". Personal life. Born as Elizabeth Malese Jow in Tulsa, Oklahoma, Jow moved to California with her mother and siblings when she was 9 years old. Jow is half Chinese American and part Cherokee.
899061	La Strada ("The Road") is a 1954 Italian neo-realist drama directed by Federico Fellini from his own screenplay co-written with Tullio Pinelli and Ennio Flaiano. The film portrays the journey of its two main characters: the brutish strongman played by Anthony Quinn and a naïve young woman (Giulietta Masina) whom he buys from her mother and takes with him to see the world; their encounters with his old rival the Fool (Richard Basehart) are their road to destruction. It won the inaugural Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 1956. It was placed fourth in the 1992 British Film Institute directors' list of cinema's top 10 films. Plot. Gelsomina (Giulietta Masina), a credulous young woman, learns that her sister Rosa has died since going on the road with the strongman Zampanò (Anthony Quinn). Now the same man has returned a year later to ask her mother if Gelsomina will take Rosa's place. The mother accepts 10,000 lire and her daughter departs the same day. Zampanò makes his living as an itinerant street performer, entertaining crowds by breaking an iron chain bound tightly across his chest, then passing the hat for tips. In short order, Gelsomina's naïve and antic nature emerges, with Zampanò's brutish methods presenting a callous foil. He teaches her to play the snare drum and trumpet, dance a bit, and clown for the audience. Despite her willingness to please, he relies on intimidation and even cruelty at times to maintain his dominion. Finally, she rebels and leaves, making her way into town. There she watches the act of another street entertainer, Il Matto ("The Fool"), a talented high wire artist and clown (Richard Basehart). When Zampanò finds her there, he forcibly takes her back. They join a ragtag travelling circus where Il Matto already works. Il Matto teases the strongman at every opportunity, though he cannot explain what motivates him to do so. On being drenched by a pail of water, Zampanò chases after his tormentor with his knife drawn; as a result, both men are briefly jailed and eventually fired. Gelsomina's difficulties with her forced partnership are the subject of frequent soul searching. After Il Matto's release from prison, he proposes that there are alternatives to her servitude, and imparts his philosophy that everything and everyone has a purpose—even a pebble, even her. A nun suggests that Gelsomina's purpose in life is comparable to her own. But when Gelsomina offers the possibility of marriage, Zampanò brushes her off.
582848	Kyo Kii... Main Jhuth Nahin Bolta (translation: "Because I don't lie") is a 2001 Bollywood comedy film, starring Govinda, Sushmita Sen, Rambha, Anupam Kher, Satish Kaushik, Mohnish Bahl and Ashish Vidyarthi. It is directed by David Dhawan. This movie is inspired by the Hollywood film "Liar Liar" (1997), starring Jim Carrey. The movie shares certain elements with Liar Liar, such as Govinda being a compulsive liar like Carrey's character and his son wishing that his dad would stop lying. Plot. Coming from small-town Chiaroscuro to big city Bombay, conman and compulsive liar, Raj Malhotra (Govinda), a lawyer by profession, sets up shop with fellow lawyer, Mohan. He falls in love with Sonam (Sushmita Sen), daughter of a wealthy lawyer Tejpal. He devises a scheme to marry into this wealthy family, and he succeeds. Years later, he has a son, who wishes that his dad would stop lying; and a mistress, Tara. The son's wish comes true, and all utterances from Raj's mouth are truthful. This creates a crisis in his personal life, as he confesses about his mistress; as well as his professional life, when he starts telling the truth in court, especially with his underworld clients, who are now out to kill him.
1123831	Subhash Kak (; "Subhāṣ Kāk") (born March 26, 1947 in Srinagar, Kashmir) is an Indian American computer scientist. He is Regents Professor and Head of Computer Science Department at Oklahoma State University in Stillwater who has made contributions to cryptography, neural networks, and quantum information. He is also notable for his Indological publications on history, the philosophy of science, ancient astronomy, and the history of mathematics. Subhash Kak completed his BE from NIT Srinagar and Ph.D. at the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi in 1970. He taught there. During 1975-1976, he was a visiting faculty at Imperial College, London, and a guest researcher at Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill. In 1977, he was a visiting researcher at Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Bombay. In 1979 joined Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge where he was the Donald C. and Elaine T. Delaune Distinguished Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering. In 2007, he joined the Computer Science department at Oklahoma State University. His research in the fields of cryptography, random sequences, artificial intelligence, and information theory have been published in peer-reviewed journals. He proposed a test of algorithmic randomness and a type of instantaneously trained neural networks (INNs) (which he and his students have called "CC4 network" and others have called "Kak neural networks"). He claims to be amongst the first to apply information metrics to quantum systems. He was featured as one of the pioneers of quantum learning in the journal Neuroquantology edited by Cheryl Fricasso and Stanley Krippner. Kak has argued that there are limits to the intelligence machines can have and it cannot equal biological intelligence. He asserts that: Kak has proposed the use of recurring decimals for error correction coding, cryptography and as random sequences. Kak neural network. The Kak neural network, also called the CC4 network is an instantaneously trained neural network that creates a new "hidden neuron" for each training sample, achieving immediate training for binary data. The training algorithm for binary data creates links to the new hidden node that simply reflects the binary values in the training vector. Hence, no computation is involved. Kak's three-stage protocol. Kak's three-stage protocol is a protocol for quantum cryptography suggested by Kak. This protocol was recently implemented in free space using optics. Indological publications. Kak's writings concerning the astronomy of the Vedic period in his book "The Astronomical Code of the Rigveda" (1994) back "Indigenous Aryans" ideology, questioning conventional views on the Indo-Aryan migration and the nature of early Indian science. His chronology and astronomical calculations have been opposed by several Indologists (such as Michael Witzel) and Western historians. Kak's interpretation has been included in recent overviews of astronomy in the Vedic period in India and the West. "The Astronomical Code of the Rigveda" and Archaeoastronomy. "The Astronomical Code of the Rigveda" (New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan, 1994; revised and enlarged edition, New Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal, 2000) claims regularities in the organization of the Rigveda, connecting the structure to certain numbers in the astronomy-based ritual of the five-layered brick altars of the Vedic times. Kak's archaeoastronomical claims have the effect of significantly extending the Vedic period, postulating the arrival of ethnic Indo-Aryans to the 7th millennium BC. This claim is in contradiction with mainstream Indology and historical linguistics and science historians Kak arranges the number of hymns in each book of the Rigveda as follows, and compares the arrangement to a Vedic fire altar: He then computes various sums and subtractions within the diagram, finding numbers related to the distance between the Earth and the Sun, and the sidereal periods of various planets. According to Klaus Klostermaier, "Subhash Kak, with his 'decoding of the Rgveda' has opened up an entirely new approach to the study of Vedic cosmology from an empirical astronomical/mathematical viewpoint." Kak's method depends on the structure of the Rigveda as redacted by Shakalya in the late Brahmana period as opposed to the intrinsic content in the oldest portions of the text. Specifically, Witzel (2001) believes that Kak's approach relates to the organizations of the Rigveda into mandalas ("books"), a process of redaction undertaken by the shakhas long after the composition of the individual hymns (the "samhita prose" period, dating to well within the Indian Iron Age), rendering the attempt to date the text in this flawed. Other scholars have discredited Kak's claims and methods. Nanda has said that Kak's "method is breathtakingly ad hoc and reads like numerology 101." Kak prepared the section on archaeoastronomical sites in India for the thematic study on "Heritage Sites of Astronomy and Archaeoastronomy in the context of the UNESCO World Heritage Convention" prepared for UNESCO by the International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS) and the International Astronomical Union (IAU). "In Search of the Cradle of Civilization". Kak co-authored "In Search of the Cradle of Civilization" (1995) participating in the controversy in Indian politics surrounding Indigenous Aryans and the Out of India theory. "Ashvamedha". Kak's book "The Asvamedha: The Rite and Its Logic" (2002) provides an interpretation of the Vedic Ashvamedha (horse sacrifice) rite. Indian politics. Kak takes a conservative stance politically, supporting Indian "nuclear deterrence" against China, opposing what he calls "socialist ideas" in the Indian constitution, the "Soviet-style ideas of the Congress party" and "terrorists from across the border". Alan Sokal labeled Kak "one of the leading intellectual luminaries of the Hindu-nationalist diaspora." Philosophy. Kak claimed to be the first to have used the term "quantum neural computing", taking a Quantum mind position not unlike that notably proposed by Roger Penrose in "The Emperor's New Mind" which was published in 1989. He sees the brain as a machine that reduces the infinite possibilities of a "quantum-like universal consciousness", which is a consequence of the "recursive nature of reality". Kak's "philosophy of recursionism" is expounded in his books "The Gods Within", "The Architecture of Knowledge", and "The Prajna Sutra". Kak contributes to the Project of History of Indian Science, Philosophy and Culture. In "The Architecture of Knowledge", Kak talks about quantum mechanics, neuroscience, computers, and consciousness. The book is one of the twenty planned monographs in the multi-volume series on the Project of History of Indian Science, Philosophy and Culture under the general editorship of Professor D. P. Chattopadhyaya. The book provides philosophical connections to contemporary science that reach back not only to the Greek but also to the Indian tradition.
1165986	Edward Paul "Ed" Flanders (December 29, 1934 – February 22, 1995) was an American actor best known for his role as Dr. Donald Westphall in the television series "St. Elsewhere". Life and career. Flanders was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, the son of Bernice (née Brown) and Francis Michael Grey Flanders. Flanders began his acting career on Broadway before moving on to guest parts in television series. From 1967 through 1975, Flanders appeared in more than a dozen American TV shows, including six appearances on "Hawaii Five-O" (as six different characters). During this time, he was also prolific in TV movies. He also married actress Ellen Geer, with whom he had a son, Ian Flanders (born 1966) before they divorced. In the late 1970s, Flanders moved away from small TV roles to take major credits in both TV and feature films, while continuing his stage career. In 1974, Flanders won a Tony Award for Best Supporting or Featured Actor in a Dramatic Presentation for "A Moon for the Misbegotten" by Eugene O'Neill on Broadway, He also won an Emmy award in 1976 for the TV movie adaptation of "A Moon for the Misbegotten". "St. Elsewhere". In 1982, he began his role in "St. Elsewhere" which was to earn him four Emmy Award nominations as Outstanding Lead Actor in a TV Series, winning the award in 1983. After a stormy departure from the series in 1987, he returned for two more episodes including the 1988 series finale. During a scene in which Westphall addressed the staff, Flanders began speaking extemporaneously about the quality of art and had to be edited for broadcast. His exit on "St. Elsewhere" as a regular cast member was titled "Moon for the Misbegotten" after the play that won him a Tony Award. The episode gained much publicity as Westphall left the hospital after "mooning" his new boss, Dr. Gideon (played by Ronny Cox). Flanders continued his working relationship with executive producer Bruce Paltrow in the short-lived 1994 CBS series, "The Road Home". Notable roles. In addition to his six-year role as Dr. Donald Westphall, Flanders is noted as the actor who has played President Harry Truman more times, and in more separate productions, than any other. He portrayed Truman, who was President from April 1945 until January 1953, across the end of World War II and most of the Korean War in "Truman at Potsdam", "Harry S Truman: Plain Speaking", and "MacArthur". In the last, Flanders, once again portraying Harry Truman, had second billing to Gregory Peck's lead as General Douglas MacArthur. Flanders is one of a very short list of actors, including Jason Robards and Anthony Hopkins, who have portrayed two "different" Presidents. See also this list of actors who played Presidents. In feature films, Flanders performed major roles in two dark movies based on novels by William Peter Blatty. In the first, "The Ninth Configuration" (1980), he plays Col. Richard Fell, a self-effacing medic at a secret U.S. army psychiatric facility who assists Marine psychiatrist Col. Vincent Kane (Stacy Keach). The film was based on Blatty's darkly satirical novel "Twinkle, Twinkle, "Killer" Kane". Then in 1990, Flanders played the avuncular Father Dyer alongside star George C. Scott in Blatty's "The Exorcist III" based on the novel "Legion". One of Flanders' best-remembered TV guest roles was in the first season "M*A*S*H" episode "Yankee Doodle Doctor", playing film director Duane William Bricker. Bricker, commissioned as a Lieutenant in the Special Services, is making a documentary about M*A*S*H units and comes to the 4077th on the recommendation of General Clayton. When Hawkeye and Trapper react to Bricker's filmmaking by destroying the negatives, Bricker abandons the project and leaves. Hawkeye takes over the making of the film which, instead of a serious documentary, becomes a farce in the style of the Marx Brothers but maintaining a somber ending which Bricker applauds. Flanders also played nationally known journalist William Allen White in the 1977 made for TV movie "Mary White". This movie was based on the famous eulogy White wrote about his daughter after her death in 1922 from being hit in the head while riding her horse. He also appeared in the 1979 made-for-TV-horror-mini-series "Salem's Lot" as Dr. Bill Norton. He also played news anchor John Woodley in the 1983 made-for-TV suspense drama "Special Bulletin", about a group of environmentalists who threaten to detonate a nuclear weapon in Charleston, South Carolina. Later life and death. A father of four, Flanders continued working in telemovies in the early 1990s, but was suffering from depression, particularly after his 1992 divorce from his second wife, health issues with back pain from a road accident and financial problems with his ranch in northern California. He took his own life by a self-inflicted gunshot wound on February 22, 1995 in Denny, California. Awards and nominations. Tony Award. 1974 – Tony Award for Best Supporting or Featured Actor in a Dramatic Presentation for "A Moon for the Misbegotten" by Eugene O'Neill.
1555154	Ariel Winter Workman (born January 28, 1998), known professionally as Ariel Winter, is an American teen actress and singer. She is best known as Alex Dunphy in the TV series "Modern Family" for which she, along with the rest of the show's cast, won three Screen Actors Guild Awards for Best Ensemble in a Comedy Series. Career. Winter obtained her first entertainment industry job in a Cool Whip commercial at age six. She had her first television role at age 7, in an episode of "Listen Up!", and followed it with appearances in a variety of shows such as "Tickle U", "Freddie", "Monk", "Bones" and "ER". In the animated children's show "Phineas and Ferb", she voiced the character of Gretchen before winning the regular role of Alex Dunphy in the series "Modern Family", which premiered in 2009. She has continued to work in TV animation, including providing the voice of Marina the Mermaid on Disney Junior's "Jake and the Never Land Pirates" and "Sofia the First". Winter has appeared in feature films, most notably in "Kiss Kiss Bang Bang" and also "Speed Racer", "Duress", "Opposite Day" and Fred 2. For her leading role in the film "The Chaperone", she was nominated at the Young Artist Awards 2012 as Best Actress in a Motion Picture. She also lent her voice to characters in the animated films "Bambi II" and "".
586531	Malaamal Weekly is a 2006 Bollywood comedy film starring Paresh Rawal and Om Puri and written and directed by Priyadarshan. The storyline has similarities with "Waking Ned Devine". The film was rated poorly by most critics in India but was a surprise hit among cinema-goers.
1051372	The Little Soldier () is a 1960 French film, written and directed by French filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard, but not released until 1963. It was Godard's first film with Anna Karina, who starred as Véronica Dreyer alongside Michel Subor (as Bruno Forestier). Plot. During the Algerian War, Bruno Forestier lives in Geneva to escape the enlistment in France. Working for French intelligence, he is ordered to kill Palivoda, who is pro-FLN (National Liberation Front of Algeria), to prove he is not a double agent. Refusal and hesitation keep him from carrying out the assassination.
1044079	Carry On Again Doctor is the eighteenth in the series of "Carry On" films to be made. It was released in 1969 and was the third to feature a medical theme. The film features series regulars Sid James, Kenneth Williams, Charles Hawtrey, Joan Sims, Barbara Windsor and Hattie Jacques. This was Jim Dale's last "Carry On" appearance for 23 years before his return in "Carry On Columbus". Plot. A disgraced doctor is sent to a remote clinic on an inhospitable tropical island where he learns of a native slimming potion. He flies back to England to cash in on the potion, soon finding success running a lavish slimming clinic. However his former professional rivals who had been instrumental in sending him away in the first place now want a slice of the profits, as does the real discoverer of the slimming potion. Production notes. The original script for "Carry On Again Doctor" raised problems with Rank's legal adviser, who felt it was too similar to an unfilmed 'Doctor' script that Talbot Rothwell, writer of "Carry On Again Doctor", had previously submitted to producer Betty Box. Most notably, both scenarios featured the medical mission/slimming potion idea. As Box had not taken up the option on Rothwell's 'Doctor' script, however, it was felt there were no legal problems with the use of those ideas in this film. Filming and locations. Interiors: Exteriors:
1225623	Nobu McCarthy (November 13, 1934 – April 6, 2002) was a Japanese Canadian actress, stage director, and fashion model. Biography. Early life. McCarthy was born Nobu Atsumi in Ottawa, Ontario, the daughter of Yuki (née Kano) and Masaji Atsumi, a Japanese fashion designer and diplomatic attache stationed in Canada at the time. She was raised in Japan, where she studied ballet. A modeling career eventually led to a beauty pageant where she won the title of "Miss Tokyo". She married Army Sgt David McCarthy in 1955 and moved to the United States of America. Career. While shopping in the Little Tokyo district in Los Angeles, she was discovered by talent agent Fred Ishimoto, which led to her film debut in "The Geisha Boy" (1958) starring Jerry Lewis. She starred with Lloyd Bridges in a 1959 "Sea Hunt" television episode as an Hawaiian woman fighting to protect pearl-beds from poachers. For the next decade, McCarthy continued acting, appearing in smaller roles in a number of films as well as guest spots on television, including the title role in the 1960 episode "Princess of Crazy Creek" of the syndicated western series, "Pony Express", starring Grant Sullivan. She also appeared in the ABC adventure dramas, "Adventures in Paradise" and "The Islanders", both set in the South Pacific. During this time she made two guest appearances on "Perry Mason": in 1959 she played defendant Mitsuo Kamuri in "The Case of the Blushing Pearls," and in 1965 she played Sally Choshi in "The Case of the Wrongful Writ." She also guest starred on ABC's "The Bing Crosby Show" in the 1964-1965 season. In 1970, the McCarthys divorced; they had two children. In 1971, McCarthy joined East West Players, an Asian American theatre group in Los Angeles. In 1976, she appeared in an episode of Barney Miller as prostitute/robbery victim Dorothy Murakami. She then starred in the television movie, "Farewell to Manzanar", based on the novel of the same title. That year she also married attorney, William J. Cuthbert, though she kept McCarthy as her stage name. In 1986 she had a supporting role opposite Pat Morita in the film "The Karate Kid, Part II". Her starring role in the indie feature "The Wash", opposite Mako, earned her an Independent Spirit Award nomination in 1989. That same year she replaced Mako as artistic director of East West Players, a position she held until 1993. During this time, McCarthy also taught theatre at California State University, Los Angeles and UCLA. In 1996 East West Players presented McCarthy with a lifetime achievement award. McCarthy also did the voice-overs at the beginning and end of "Picture Bride". She died from an aortic aneurysm in 2002 while on location in Brazil, filming "Gaijin - Ama-me Como Sou", starring Tamlyn Tomita.
1164657	William Rukard Hurd Hatfield (December 7, 1917December 26, 1998) was an American actor. Biography. Hatfield was born in New York City to William Henry Hatfield (died 1954), an attorney who served as deputy attorney general for New York, and his wife, Adele (née Steele). He was educated at Columbia University before traveling to London, England where he studied drama and began acting in theater. Career. He returned to America for his film debut in "Dragon Seed" (1944), in which he and his co-stars (Katharine Hepburn, Akim Tamiroff, Aline MacMahon, Turhan Bey) portrayed Chinese peasants. It was Hatfield's second film, "The Picture of Dorian Gray" (1945), that made him a star. As Oscar Wilde's ageless anti-hero, Hatfield received widespread acclaim for his good looks as much as for his acting ability. However, the actor was ambivalent about the role and his performance. "The film didn't make me popular in Hollywood," he commented later. "It was too odd, too avant-garde, too ahead of its time. The decadence, the hints of bisexuality and so on, made me a leper! Nobody knew I had a sense of humour, and people wouldn't even have lunch with me." His subsequent films, "The Diary of a Chambermaid" (1946), "The Beginning or the End" (1947), and "The Unsuspected" (1947) were successful, but Hatfield's career began to lose momentum very quickly. Other films include "Tarzan and the Slave Girl" (1950), "King of Kings" (as Pontius Pilate) (1961), "El Cid" (1961), "Harlow" (1965), "The Boston Strangler" (1968), "King David" (1985), "Crimes of the Heart" (1986), and "Her Alibi" (1989).
1163842	Ann Marie Blyth (born August 16, 1928) is an American actress and singer, often cast in Hollywood musicals, but also successful in dramatic roles. Her performance as Veda Pierce in the 1945 film "Mildred Pierce" was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. Life and career. Blyth was born to parents who divorced shortly after her birth. She has been a devout Catholic her whole life. Blyth began her acting career initially as "Anne Blyth," but changed the spelling of her first name back to "Ann" at the beginning of her film career. Her first acting role was on Broadway in "Watch on the Rhine" (from 1941 until 1942). She was signed to a contract with Universal Studios, and made her film debut in "Chip Off the Old Block" in 1944. In musical films such as "Babes on Swing Street," and "Bowery to Broadway" (both 1944), she played the part of the sweet and demure teenager. On loan to Warner Brothers Blyth was cast "against type" as Veda Pierce, the scheming, ungrateful daughter of Joan Crawford in the 1945 film "Mildred Pierce." Her dramatic portrayal won her outstanding reviews and she received a nomination for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. (Crawford won the Best Actress award for that film.) Having injured her back after "Mildred Pierce", Blyth was not able to capitalize on its success completely, although she was still able to make a few films. She played the part of Regina Hubbard in "Another Part of the Forest" (a 1948 prequel to "The Little Foxes"), and achieved success playing a mermaid in "Mr. Peabody and the Mermaid". Her other films include: "Our Very Own" (with Farley Granger), "The Great Caruso" (with Mario Lanza), "One Minute to Zero" (with Robert Mitchum), "The World in His Arms" (with Gregory Peck), "Rose Marie", "The Student Prince", "Kismet", "The Buster Keaton Story", and "The Helen Morgan Story" (with Paul Newman). Even though her voice was more like the original Helen Morgan, her vocals were dubbed by Gogi Grant, a popular singer at the time. That soundtrack was much more successful than the film itself. It also turned out to be Blyth's final film role. During the late 1950s and 1960s Blyth worked in musical theater, summer stock, and television, including a starring role in a 1960 adaptation of A. J. Cronin's "The Citadel." She guest-starred on October 8, 1958, on NBC "The Ford Show, Starring Tennessee Ernie Ford," the episode in which the 1959 Ford vehicles were introduced to the public. She appeared as Martha in "Suspected" in December 1959 in the CBS anthology series, "The DuPont Show with June Allyson." Blyth also became the spokesperson for Hostess Cupcakes. Her last television appearances were in episodes of "Quincy, M.E." in 1983 and "Murder, She Wrote" in 1985. Blyth has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6733 Hollywood Boulevard for her contribution to motion pictures. Blyth married James McNulty, brother of singer Dennis Day, in 1953; the couple had five children. She is known as one of the more famous residents of the celebrity enclave of Toluca Lake, California. In 1973, she and McNulty, both of whom were Catholic, received the rank of Lady and Knight of the Holy Sepulchre by Cardinal Cook. McNulty died May 13, 2007 in La Jolla. In the December 1952 edition of "Motion Picture and Television Magazine" Ann Blyth stated in an interview that she endorsed Dwight D. Eisenhower for president the month before in the 1952 presidential election.
1179875	Diana Ernestine Earle Ross (born March 26, 1944) is an American singer, music artist, and actress. Ross first rose to fame as a founding member and lead singer of the Motown group The Supremes during the 1960s. After leaving the group in 1970, Ross began a solo career that has included successful ventures into film and Broadway. She received a Best Actress Academy Award nomination for her role as Billie Holiday in "Lady Sings the Blues" (1972), for which she won a Golden Globe award for most promising female newcomer. She has won seven American Music Awards, and won a Special Tony Award for her one-woman show, "An Evening with Diana Ross", in 1977. In 1976, "Billboard" magazine named her the "Female Entertainer of the Century." In 1993, the "Guinness Book of World Records" declared Diana Ross the most successful female music artist in history due to her success in the United States and United Kingdom for having more hits than any female artist in the charts with a career total of 70 hit singles with her work with the Supremes and as a solo artist. Diana Ross has sold more than 100 million records worldwide when her releases with the Supremes and as a solo artist are tallied. In 1988, Ross was inducted to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as member of the Supremes alongside Florence Ballard and Mary Wilson. Ross is one of the few recording artists to have two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame—one as a solo artist and the other as a member of The Supremes. In December 2007, she received the Kennedy Center Honors. In 2012, Diana was honored by NARAS with a Lifetime Achievement Grammy Award in her 50th year in the music business. Early life. Diana Ross was born at Hutzel Women's Hospital in Detroit, Michigan on March 26, 1944. The second-eldest child of Ernestine (née Moten) (January 27, 1916October 9, 1984), a schoolteacher, and Fred Ross, Sr. (July 4, 1920November 21, 2007), a former United States Army soldier, Ross would later say that she didn't see much of her father until he had returned from service following World War II. Much has been made of whether her first name ends in an "a" or an "e". According to Ross, her mother actually named her "Diane" but a clerical error resulted in her name being recorded as "Diana" on her birth certificate. She always went by "Diane" at home and at school. Her high school yearbook listed her as "Diana" and as early as 1963, when The Supremes released their first album, she was listed in the liner notes as "Diana". At The Supremes' first Copacabana engagement in 1965, she introduced herself to the audience as "Diane", but later that year she started introducing herself as "Diana", but all her intimates still call her "Diane". Ross' grandfather John E. Ross, a native of Gloucester County, Virginia, was born to Washington Ross and Virginia Baytop. The relatives of the Ross family of Gloucester County were considered mulatto for many generations, which suggests some European ancestry. Virginia Baytop's mother Francis "Frankey" Baytop was a former slave who had become a midwife after the American Civil War. Ross and her family originally lived at Belmont Road in the North End section of Detroit, near Highland Park, Michigan, where she was neighbors with Smokey Robinson, who first met Ross when she was eight. On Diana's 14th birthday in 1958, the Ross family relocated to the Brewster-Douglass housing projects settling at St. Antoine Street. Unlike what would later be written about in Supremes and Diana Ross biographies, Ross and her family grew up comfortably among the street's working-class residents. By Ross' teenage years, she had aspirations of being a fashion designer, studying design, millinery, pattern-making and seamstress skills while attending Cass Technical High School, a four-year college preparatory magnet school, in downtown Detroit. Ross eventually worked at Hudson's Department Store where, it was claimed in biographies, that she was the first black employee "allowed outside the kitchen". Ross graduated in January 1962, one semester earlier than her classmates. Career. The Supremes: 1959–1970. At fifteen, Ross was brought to the attention of music impresario Milton Jenkins, manager of the local doo-wop group the Primes, by Mary Wilson. Paul Williams, then member of The Primes, convinced Jenkins to include Ross in the Primettes, considered a "sister group" of the Primes. Ross was part of a lineup that included Wilson, Florence Ballard and Betty McGlown, who completed the lineup. In 1960, following their win at a singing contest in Windsor, Ontario, Canada, the group auditioned for a spot on Motown Records after Smokey Robinson introduced the young group to Berry Gordy. Upon learning of their ages, Gordy advised them to come back after graduation. Undeterred, the quartet stayed around Motown's Hitsville U.S.A. headquarters, offering to provide extra help for Motown's recordings, often including hand-claps and background vocals. That same year, the Primettes made their first recordings for Lu Pine Records, with Ross singing lead on her and Ballard's composition, "Tears of Sorrow". During the group's early years, Ross served as the group's main hair stylist, make-up artist, seamstress and costume designer. In January 1961, after having replaced McGlown with Barbara Martin, Berry Gordy agreed to sign the young act under the condition they change their name. Each member picked out various names from friends. Eventually they settled on "The Supremes", though Ross initially had apprehensions toward the name – she felt the name would mistake them for a male vocal group. But Gordy agreed with the new name and signed them on January 15 of that year. Following Martin's exit in 1962, the group remained a trio. During the group's early years, there was no designated lead vocalist for the group as they had agreed to split lead vocals between their choice of song material; Ross favoring the uptempo pop songs. That changed in 1963 when Gordy assigned Ross, who had already sung lead on the majority of their early singles, as the main lead vocalist, considering that her vocals had potential to reach Gordy's dreams of crossover success. Following this, they recorded their first hit single, "When the Lovelight Starts Shining Through His Eyes", later that year, where it peaked at #23 on the Billboard Hot 100. Before this song, the Supremes were unfavorably pinned as the "no-hit Supremes". Following this, the group reached number-one with "Where Did Our Love Go" and reached unprecedented success: between August 1964 and May 1967, Ross, Wilson and Ballard sang on ten number-one hit singles, all of which also made the UK top forty. The group had also become a hit with audiences both domestically and abroad, going on to become Motown's most successful vocal act throughout the sixties. After a period of tension, Florence Ballard was removed from the Supremes by Gordy in July 1967 and he chose Cindy Birdsong to take her place. Gordy's decision to rename the group, "Diana Ross & The Supremes", hinted that he had plans on making Ross a future solo star. Gordy initially thought of Ross leaving the Supremes for a solo career in 1966 but changed his mind when he figured the group's success was still too massive for Ross to pursue solo obligations. Ross would remain with the group until early 1970. Between their early 1968 single "Forever Came Today" and their final single, "Someday We'll Be Together", Ross would be the only Supremes member to be prominently featured on the recordings, further dissolving the group's former rapport. Gordy worked Ross diligently throughout this period and Ross chose to not eat much as the group went on countless rehearsals and recording sessions. By the time the group performed at places like The Copacabana and Coconut Grove, there were rumors that Ross had been suffering from anorexia nervosa due to her extremely skinny frame. After some performances, Ross would collapse from exhaustion, forcing Gordy to cancel or postpone several concerts until Ross felt well enough to perform again. In 1968, Ross started performing as a solo artist mainly on television specials, including The Supremes' own specials such as "TCB" and "G.I.T. on Broadway". In mid-1969, Gordy decided to have Ross leave the group by the end of the year and Ross began sessions for her own solo work that July. One of the first plans for Ross to establish her own solo career was to bring in a new Motown recording act. Though she herself didn't claim discovery, Motown pinned Ross as having discovered The Jackson 5. Ross would introduce the group to several public events including "The Hollywood Palace" though she added in "Michael Jackson and the Jackson 5", which didn't sit well with the Jacksons' father, Joseph Jackson and Gordy. In November, Ross confirmed a split from the Supremes on "Billboard". Ross' presumed first solo recording, "Someday We'll Be Together", was eventually released as a Supremes recording and became the group's final number-one hit on the Hot 100. Ross made her final appearance with the Supremes at the Frontier Hotel in Las Vegas on January 14, 1970. Early solo career: 1970–1981. After her obligations with the Supremes were fulfilled with Jean Terrell set as the Supremes' new lead vocalist, Ross signed a new contract as a solo artist in March 1970. Two months later, Motown released her eponymous solo debut, which included the hits, "Reach Out and Touch (Somebody's Hand)" and "Ain't No Mountain High Enough," the latter song becoming her first number-one single as a solo artist on the pop and R&B charts, also becoming an international hit reaching the UK top ten, and winning Ross her first Grammy nomination. Ross followed this with a second solo album, "Everything Is Everything," which was also released in 1970, and included the number-one UK ballad, "I'm Still Waiting." The album, however, failed to reach the same success as Ross' debut. Reunited with Ashford & Simpson, Ross fared better with her third album, "Surrender," released in 1971, which included her hit cover of the Four Tops' "Reach Out, I'll Be There" and "Remember Me." To continue that album's momentum, Ross performed in her first solo TV special, "Diana!", which was a ratings success. Due to her commitments to working on her first major film and her duet recording with Marvin Gaye, Ross only released one solo recording in 1972. She reemerged in 1973 with "Touch Me in the Morning," which became her first single to reach number-one in three years. The album of the same name became Ross's first non-soundtrack studio album to reach the top ten, peaking at #5. Later that year, the "Diana & Marvin" album, her duet album with Gaye, was released, and spawned five hit singles, including three released in the United States and two in Europe, gaining an international hit with their cover of The Stylistics' "You Are Everything." In 1973, Ross began giving out concerts overseas where she immediately sold out at every concert venue she performed at. That year, Ross became the first entertainer in Japan's history to receive an invitation to the Imperial Palace for a private audience with the Empress Nagako, wife of Emperor Hirohito. Ross's next solo album, 1974's "Last Time I Saw Him" featured the successful title track, but it was not as successful as "Touch Me in the Morning." Ross didn't have an album release in 1975, but was at work on the film "Mahogany". She had an incident with Gordy on the set of the film when she struck him after the two had engaged in an argument. Ross returned on the musical scene in 1976 with another eponymous album, which saw her gain a dance audience after the release of the disco-tinged song, "Love Hangover," which returned her to number-one. Will Smith later sampled the hook of "Love Hangover" for his song "Freakin' It". Ross's 1977 album "Baby It's Me" faltered on the charts. Ross decided to try her hand at Broadway and in 1977 she starred in her own one-woman show entitled "An Evening with Diana Ross". Her performance resulted in her winning a Tony Award, and a television special of the Broadway show was later aired on TV. 1978 saw the release of the album "Ross" which didn't fare well on the charts. In 1979, Ross achieved her first gold-selling album in three years with "The Boss," the first album since "Surrender" to be formally produced by Ashford & Simpson, who had by then left Motown to have a successful singing career. Initially, Ross had been set to work on an album with Rick James; James would later confirm that the song, "I'm a Sucker for Your Love" was originally a duet between himelf and Ross, but James changed his mind after Motown only wanted him to produce a couple of songs on her album instead of the whole project. James passed on the song and some others on Teena Marie's debut album. The recording of "The Boss" somewhat further deteriorated Ross's relationship with Gordy as he was not completely happy with the finished product and refused to receive credit as executive producer. After catching the group Chic at a concert where she attended with her daughters, Ross requested from band members Nile Rodgers and Bernard Edwards to work with them in New York for her next album. They agreed and in 1980 Motown released Ross's album "Diana". It became her highest-charting solo album and her most successful of all her solo albums. It featured the hits "Upside Down," her first song to reach number-one in four years. Other successful singles included "I'm Coming Out", its hook would later be sampled for "Mo' Money, Mo' Problems"; and "It's My Turn". This would be Ross's final studio album under her Motown contract. She would later work on four songs to complete her contractual obligations for the compilation album, "To Love Again," which would be released in May 1981. Though Ross had sought to leave Motown in 1980 shortly after the release of "Diana," she discovered, just as she was planning to leave Motown, that she only had up to $150,000 in her name despite helping Motown to earn millions of dollars with her recordings in the twenty years she had been signed to the label. Upon learning she was a free agent, several labels offered deals. Eventually, Ross would settle on a $20 million deal with RCA Records. Before signing, however, Berry Gordy called her begging her to not leave Motown. Ross asked if Gordy could match the $20 million that RCA had offered her. When Gordy told her that he could "not" match it, Ross told him she was planning to leave the company. Ross signed with RCA on May 20, 1981, and her $20 million deal in 1981 became then the most lucrative contract of any recording artist at the time. After leaving, Ross achieved her sixth and final number-one hit with Lionel Richie on the ballad "Endless Love" around the same time Ross left the label. Film career: 1972–1999. In 1971, Diana Ross began working on her first film, "Lady Sings the Blues," which was a loosely based biography on music legend Billie Holiday. Some critics lambasted the idea of the singer playing Holiday considering how "miles apart" their styles were. At one point, Ross began talking with several of Holiday's acquaintances and listened to her recordings to get into character. During an audition to acquire the role, Ross would act on cue to the film's producers's commands, helping Ross to win her part. When Berry Gordy heard Ross perform covers of Holiday's material, he felt Ross had put "a little too much" Holiday in her vocal range, advising Ross to "put a little Diana back into it." Ross also talked with doctors at drug clinics in research of the film, as Holiday had been a known drug addict. Ross would later make a crucial decision when it came to interpreting Holiday's music: instead of flatly imitating Holiday, she only focused on Holiday's vocal phrasing. "Lady Sings the Blues" opened in theaters in October 1972, becoming a major success in Ross's career. Jazz critic Leonard Feather, a friend of Billie Holiday, praised Ross for "expertly capturing the essence of Lady Day." Ross's role in the film won her Golden Globe Award and Academy Award nominations for Best Actress. Alongside Cicely Tyson, who was nominated for her role in the film, "Sounder," they were the first Black actresses to be nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress since Dorothy Dandridge. The soundtrack to "Lady Sings the Blues" became just as successful, reaching #1 on the Billboard 200 staying there for two weeks and breaking then-industry records by shipping 300,000 copies during the first eight days of its release. At nearly two million in sales, it is one of Ross's best-selling albums to date. After the film, Ross returned to her music career, reemerging with another film in 1975 with "Mahogany," her second film, in which she starred alongside Billy Dee Williams and whose costumes she designed. The story of an aspiring fashion designer who becomes a runway model and the toast of the industry, "Mahogany" was a troubled production from its inception. The film's original director, Tony Richardson, was fired during production, and Berry Gordy assumed the director's chair himself. In addition, Gordy and Ross clashed during filming, with Ross leaving the production before shooting was completed, forcing Gordy to use secretary Edna Anderson as a body double for Ross. While a box office success, the film was not well received by the critics: "Time" magazine's review of the film chastised Gordy for "squandering one of America's most natural resources: Diana Ross." Diana did win the coveted French Cesar, the French equivalent for the Oscars, for her performance in "Mahogany" which gave her another global hit. In 1977, Motown acquired the film rights to the Broadway play "The Wiz," an African-American reinterpretation of L. Frank Baum's "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz." The film initially was to include the stage actors who had performed on the play. However, the role of Dorothy, which had been performed onstage by Stephanie Mills, would be given to Ross after she convinced film producer Rob Cohen to cast her in the role of Dorothy. This decision eventually led to a change in the film's script in which Dorothy went from a schoolgirl to a schoolteacher. The role of the Scarecrow, also performed by someone else onstage, was eventually given to Ross's former Motown label mate, Michael Jackson. The film adaptation of "The Wiz" had been a $24 million production, but upon its October 1978 release, it earned only $21,049,053 at the box office. Though pre-release television broadcast rights had been sold to CBS for over $10 million, the film produced a net loss of $10.4 million for Motown and Universal. At the time, it was the most expensive film musical ever made. The film's failure ended Ross's short career on the big screen and contributed to the Hollywood studios's reluctance to produce the all-black film projects which had become popular during the blaxploitation era of the early to mid-1970s for several years. "The Wiz" was Ross's final film for Motown. Ross had success with movie-themed songs. While her version of Holiday's "Good Morning Heartache" only performed modestly well in early 1973, her recording of "Theme from Mahogany (Do You Know Where You're Going To)" gave Ross her third number-one hit, in late 1975. Three years later, Ross and Michael Jackson had a modest dance hit with their recording of "Ease on Down the Road." Their second duet, actually as part of the ensemble of "The Wiz," "Brand New Day," found some success overseas. Ross scored a Top 10 hit in late 1980 with the theme song to the 1980 film "It's My Turn." The following year, she collaborated with former Commodores singer-songwriter Lionel Richie on the theme song for the film "Endless Love." The Academy Award-nominated title single became her final hit on Motown Records, and the number one record of the year. Several years later, in 1988, Ross recorded the theme song to "The Land Before Time." "If We Hold On Together" became an international hit, reaching number-one in Japan. Ross would be given movie offers over the years, which she reportedly rejected because of either contractual obligations or fears of typecasting. Ross had campaigned to portray pioneering entertainer Josephine Baker in a feature film even during her later years in Motown. However, in 1991, the feature film turned into a TV film with Lynn Whitfield playing Baker instead of Ross. Ross was also offered a role in an early adaptation of "The Bodyguard" with Ryan O'Neal. However, plans for this film fell through and it was never made. Years later, the script began circulation around Hollywood again and this time a film studio gave it the green light. Whitney Houston and Kevin Costner assumed the lead roles in the 1992 film. In 1993, Ross returned to acting with a dramatic role in the television film, "Out of Darkness." Ross won acclaim for her role in the TV movie and earned her third Golden Globe nomination, although she did not win. In 1999, she and Brandy Norwood co-starred in the television movie, "Double Platinum," which was aired prior to the release of Ross's album, "Every Day Is a New Day." Continued solo career and development: 1981–1999. In October 1981, Ross released her first RCA album, "Why Do Fools Fall in Love." The album sold over a million copies and featured hit singles such as her remake of the classic hit of the same name and "Mirror Mirror." At this same approximate time, Ross established her own production company, which she named Anaid Productions (the "Anaid" being "Diana" backwards), and also started investing in real estate, while also touring extensively in the United States and abroad. Before the release of "Why Do Fools Fall in Love," Ross hosted her first TV special in four years, featuring Michael Jackson in the special. In early 1982, Ross sang the "Star-Spangled Banner" at Super Bowl XVI and appeared on the dance show "Soul Train." The program devoted a full episode to her and Ross performed several songs from the "Why Do Fools Fall in Love" album. In 1982, she followed up the success of "Why Do Fools Fall in Love" with "Silk Electric," which featured a selection of Michael Jackson's authorship, composition, and music production, "Muscles," resulting in another top ten success for Ross. The album eventually went gold under the strength of that song. In 1983, Ross ventured further out of her earlier soul-based sound for a more pop rock oriented sound following the release of the "Ross" album. Though the album featured the hit single, "Pieces of Ice," which music video garnered heavy rotation on video channel stations, except on MTV, the "Ross" album failed to generate any more hits and failed to go gold, dropping out of the charts as quickly as it entered. On July 21, 1983, Ross performed a concert in Central Park for a taped Showtime special. Proceeds of the concert would be donated to build a playground in the singer's name. Midway through the beginning of the show, a torrential downpour occurred. Ross tried to keep on performing, but the severe weather required that the show be stopped. Ross urged the large crowd to exit the venue safely, promising to perform the next day. The second concert held the very next day was without rain. The funds for the playground were to be derived from sales of different items at the concert; however, all profits earned from the first concert were spent on the second. When the mainstream media discovered the exorbitant costs of the two concerts, Ross faced criticism and poor publicity. Although her representatives originally refused to pay anything for the proposed playground, Ross herself later paid, out of pocket, the $250,000 required to build the park. The Diana Ross Playground was finally built three years later. The Diana Ross Playground at 83rd and Central Park West is a beautiful assortment of wood structures and classic outdoor children's gym obstacles making it a lovely addition to the park. In 1984, Ross's career spiked yet again with the release of the million-selling "Swept Away." This featured a duet with Julio Iglesias, "All of You," which was featured on both the albums they had then released—his "1100 Bel Air Place" as well as her "Swept Away." It and the title selection both became international hits, as did the chart-topping ballad, "Missing You," which was a tribute to Marvin Gaye, who had died earlier that year. Her 1985 album, "Eaten Alive," found major success overseas with the title track and "Chain Reaction," although neither of the songs became the best-sellers she was once accustomed to in America. Earlier in 1985, she appeared as part of the supergroup USA for Africa on the '"We Are the World"' charity single, which sold over 20 million copies worldwide. Ross's 1987 follow up to "Eaten Alive," "Red Hot Rhythm & Blues," found less success than the prior album. In 1988, Ross chose to not renew her RCA contract. Around this same time, Ross had been in talks with her former mentor Berry Gordy to return to Motown. When she learned of Gordy's plans to sell Motown, Ross tried advising him against the decision though he sold it to MCA Records in 1988. Following this decision, Gordy offered Ross a new contract to return to Motown with the condition that she have shares in the company as a part-owner. Ross accepted the offer. Despite its heavy promotion, Diana's next album, "Workin' Overtime," was a critical and commercial failure. Subsequent follow-ups such as "The Force Behind the Power" (1991), "Take Me Higher" (1995), and "Every Day Is a New Day" (1999) produced similarly disappointing sales. Ross had more success overseas with the albums than she did in America. "the Force Behind the Power" sparked an international comeback of sorts, when the album went double platinum in the U.K. led by the #2 U.K. Hit single, "When You Tell Me That You Love Me". Ross would see the album perform successfully across Europe to Japan as "The Force Behind the Power" went gold there. That single would be a lucky charm when a duet version with Irish group, Westlife also hit #2 in the U.K. In 2005. Ross had success in international markets through 1994, when "One Woman", a career retrospective compilation, would become #1 in the U.K., selling quadruple platinum in the U.K. That album did well across Europe and in the anglosphere. She would aggressively in international markets from 1991-94. On January 28, 1996, Ross performed the Halftime Show at Super Bowl XXX. In 1999, she was named the most successful female singer in the history of the United Kingdom charts, based upon a tally of her career hits. Madonna would eventually succeed Ross as the most successful female artist in the UK. Later that year, Ross presented at the 1999 MTV Video Music Awards in September of the year and shocked the audience by touching rapper Lil' Kim's exposed breast, pasty-covered nipple, amazed at the young rapper's brashness. Supremes reunions, Return to Love, 2002 Solo Tour. Ross reunited with Mary Wilson first in 1976 to attend the funeral service of Florence Ballard, who had died in February of that year. In March 1983, Ross agreed to reunite with Wilson and Cindy Birdsong for the television special "." Before the special was taped later that evening, Wilson allegedly planned with Birdsong to take a step forward every time Ross did the same. This appeared to frustrate Ross, causing her to push Wilson's shoulder. Later, Wilson was not aware of the script set by producer Suzanne DePasse, in which Ross was to introduce Berry Gordy. Wilson took it upon herself to do so, at which point Ross pushed down Wilson's hand-held microphone, stating "It's been taken care of." Ross, then, introduced Gordy. These incidents were excised from the final edit of the taped special, but still made their way into the news media; "People" magazine reported that "Ross some elbowing to get Wilson out of the spotlight." In 1999, Ross and mega-tour promoter SFX (which later became LiveNation) began negotiations regarding a Supremes tour in which all living former Supremes would participate. Due to personal matters, neither Jean Terrell nor late 1970s member Susaye Greene (who was then living in London with her then-husband) participated. Lynda Laurence and Scherrie Payne were then touring as members of the Former Ladies of the Supremes. Mary Wilson agreed to begin negotiations, as did Cindy Birdsong. Negotiations however to have the 1967–1970 lineup of the group perform together for the first time in a concert tour since 1970 died down after Wilson failed to come to terms with SFX's offer of $4 million, while Ross had been offered, as co-producer of the tour, to split a percentage of its profits with SFX; Birdsong accepted a $1 million deal, the amount offered to all of the group's former members. Wilson eventually decided against the tour and Birdsong reluctantly dropped out, causing SFX to hire Payne and Laurence to sing with Ross on the tour. Both had scored highly on SFX's Supremes name-recognition poll. Wilson came in fourth. While Ross, Payne and Laurence had never performed together during their Supremes' tenures, Laurence and Payne would later say they got on well with Ross. The "Return to Love" tour launched in June, 2000, to a capacity audience in Philadelphia, PA.
590792	Akkineni Nageswara Rao (born 20 September 1923) is a prominent Indian film actor and producer, predominantly in the Telugu language. From paddy fields, he strode into the field of fine arts through theatre. He became a famous stage artiste, specialising, surprisingly, in playing female characters, because women at that time were prohibited from acting. Some of the famous plays he acted in were Harishchandra, Kanakatara, Vipranarayana, Telugu Talli, Aasajyoti and Satyanveshanam. Subsequently, he was discovered, by chance, by the then prominent film producer, Ghantasala Balaramaiah, at the Vijayawada railway station. He was then cast in the film, Dharmapatni. Since then, Nageswara Rao has starred in several films of various genres during his unparalleled 71-year acting career. He was honored with the Padma Vibhushan, India's second highest civilian honour for his contribution to Indian cinema, and is the recipient of the Dada Saheb Phalke Award, the highest individual lifetime achievement award for films in India. Early life and background. Akkineni Nageswara Rao was the youngest of 5 brothers born into a poor family on 20 September 1924 at Ramapuram, Krishna District. His parents, Akkineni Venkatratnam and Akkineni Punnamma were from the farming community. His formal education was limited to primary schooling due to his parents' poor economic conditions. The farm boy, who never imagined that he would cross the borders of his village or district, toured all over the world as an ambassador of art and culture. Dr. Nageswara Rao was invited as a State Guest by the United States of America, England, France and Germany in 1964 and USSR in 1972 besides some other countries in the continent to study the Film Craft and Theatre Arts in the respective countries. He had visited Australia in 1967 leading the delegates for the Indian Entry Film, Antasthulu, at the Sydney Film Festival. He also led a high level Film Delegation to Mauritius. All through the world, the people felicitated Dr. Akkineni with love and honour. Film career. It was in 1941, at the age of 17, that he made his debut in the Telugu film, Dharmapatni, in which he played the role of the protagonist's friend. ANR, as he's fondly referred to, was discovered by chance at the Vijayawada railway station by the noted film producer, Ghantasala Balaramaiah, a popular film producer of that time, and was immediately offered the lead role in his upcoming movie Seeta Rama Jananam. He played the role of Lord Rama in that film. Before that, he predominantly acted in theater, many times donning female roles since women weren't allowed on stage at that time. His most popular stage plays were Asha Jyothy, Sathyanveshana, and Telugu Thalli. He has since acted in over 255 films, spanning the Telugu, Tamil and Hindi languages. A majority of his films were both commercial and critical successes. Among other things, Nageswara Rao is credited for influencing Telugu film producers and creating a base for Telugu films in Hyderabad. The Telugu film industry in its early days was based out of Madras (now Chennai) in Tamil Nadu. The new state of Andhra Pradesh was carved out from the Madras Presidency on 1 November 1956 and several leaders opined that in order to create a separate identity for the Telugu film industry, it had to be based out of Hyderabad, the capital of Andhra Pradesh. ANR was one of the first actors of that period who insisted on moving the Telugu film center from Chennai to Hyderabad. He established his own 22 acre production studio/house, Annapurna Studios in the heart of Hyderabad, to facilitate this. Prominent films. ANR played a variety of roles ranging from a charming prince to a frustrated alcoholic lover, from a valiant soldier to a holy saint, and from a college student to a composed government official. He excelled in mythological roles too as Abhimanyu in Maya Bazaar, as Lord Vishnu in Chenchu Lakshmi; as Narada in Bhookailash; and Arjuna in Sri Krishnarjuna Yuddham. In rural oriented films like Balaraju, Rojulu Maraayi, and Namminabantu, he attained the status of Telugu cinema's first superstar. Surprisingly in comedy films too like Missamma, Chakrapani, and Preminchi Choodu, he made a striking mark. ANR is fondly called the "Tragedy King" of Telugu cinema, through his milestone performances in romantic dramas such as Laila Majnu, Anarkali, Batasari, Prem Nagar, Premabhishekam, and Meghasandesham. The film Premabhishekam directed by Dasari Narayana Rao is one of the biggest hits in Tollywood. It had an amazing 533 days run in Hyderabad City, which is still the highest run in a city for any Telugu movie. Premabhishekam is the only Telugu film to have run for 365+ days continuously. He was the first to don a double role in Telugu films, and even played nine roles in the film Navarathri. ANR's portrayal of an alcoholic jilted lover in Devadasu erected an everlasting monument to Sarath Chandra's famous Bengali character. Although that role was reprised by many in later years in several different languages, it prompted the famous Hindi actor Dilip Kumar to say, "there is only one Devadasu, and that is Nageswara Rao." A majority of ANR's social films like Samsaram, Bratuku Teruvu, Aradhana, Donga Ramudu, Dr. Chakravarthi, Ardhaangi, Mangalya Balam, Illarikam, Shantinivasam, Velugu Needalu, Dasara Bullodu, Bharya Bhartalu, Dharmadata, Batasari, and College Bullodu were commercially successful films. Sitaramayyagari Manavaralu was released in 1991, exactly 50 years after his debut, and was a huge success at the box office, despite the influx of newer and younger stars. A unique feature that won ANR acclaim from critics and art lovers was that he enacted the roles of literary and cultural icons of different regions in India, thereby making them instruments of national integration.--as the great Sanskrit poet, Mahakavi Kalidas of Ujjain; as the celebrated musician saint, Bhakta Jayadeva of Odisha; as the temple sculptor, Amarasilpi Jakkanna of Karnataka; as the devotee saint, Vipranarayana of Tamil Nadu; and as the singer Bhakta Tukaram. Literary works. Apart from being a movie star, ANR was a prolific writer. Some of his prominent books being are his autobiographical work, Nenu Na Jeevitham, the memoirs of his first visit to the USA, Nenu Choosina America, and the expression of his thoughts in his book, A Aalu. His most recent, contemplative, self-reflective work is the book Manasuloni Maata. He was awarded an honorary doctorate from several Indian universities. Cultural Ambassador. ANR was invited as a guest of the State by the USA, Russia, UK, France, Germany, Denmark, Malaysia, and Japan. He toured all these countries as a cultural ambassador representing India. He visited Australia in 1967, leading a delegation representing the Indian film, Anthasthulu. Dr. Akkineni Nageswara Rao had also served as a Director on the Board of the National Film Development Corporation of India. The Akkineni Nageswara Rao college. In 1957, he donated a considerable sum of money to the Andhra University. He was the Chief Donor and President of a College at Gudivada, which was subsequently named after him. Being a strong advocate of education, he created scholarships in the Universities of Andhra, Madras, Sri Venkateswara, and Osmania. Apart from being a Life Member in the Senate of the Andhra University, he is also Adviser to its Department of Dramatics and Theatre Arts. ANR National Award. When Dr. Akkineni Nageswara Rao was honoured with the prestigious DADA SAHEB PHALKE AWARD in 1991, a desire rose in him to create a similar award in his lifetime. The Akkineni International Foundation is the charitable arm of Annapurna Studios. The ANR National Award was instituted by the foundation in the honor of Akkineni Nageswara Rao in 2005. The award is given annually to recognize people for their lifetime achievements and contributions to the Indian film industry.
1484615	David E. Paetkau (born November 10, 1978) is a Canadian actor, known for his roles as Evan Lewis in "Final Destination 2" (2003), Beck McKaye in "Whistler" (2006–2008), Ira Glatt in "Goon" (2011), and Sam Braddock in the CTV television series "Flashpoint" (2008–2012). Paetkau has appeared in "I'll Always Know What You Did Last Summer" (2006), "" (2007), "So Weird" (as Brent on the episode "Vampire"; May 20, 2000), "For Heaven's Sake", and a one episode appearance on "Dexter", as Lumen's fiance, Owen. He appeared uncredited in "Final Destination 5", as Evan Lewis, in archived footage. Paetkau has also lent his voice to Canadian commercials for Chevrolet automobiles. Paetkau is an avid ice hockey fan who supports his hometown team, the Vancouver Canucks.
1017816	Maria Yi (also known as Yi Yi and Maria Yi Dut, born 29th July 1953) is a retired Chinese actress from Shanghai. She appeared in films by Hong Kong's Golden Harvest Productions in the 1970s, most notably in The Big Boss and Fist of Fury, both starring Bruce Lee. Career. Yi began acting as a teenager, and though she made only a handful of films, she received top billing in most of them. After appearing in The Chase with James Tien in 1971, both she and Tien were cast in Bruce Lee's film The Big Boss. She also had a small role as a martial arts student in Lee's next film, Fist of Fury. Yi would co-star in two more films directed by Lo Wei, appearing with another star of the time, Jimmy Wang Yu.
1095589	__notoc__ The fast multipole method (FMM) is a mathematical technique that was developed to speed up the calculation of long-ranged forces in the n-body problem. It does this by expanding the system Green's function using a multipole expansion, which allows one to group sources that lie close together and treat them as if they are a single source. The FMM has also been applied in accelerating the iterative solver in the method of moments (MOM) as applied to computational electromagnetics problems. The FMM was first introduced in this manner by Greengard and Rokhlin and is based on the multipole expansion of the vector Helmholtz equation. By treating the interactions between far-away basis functions using the FMM, the corresponding matrix elements do not need to be explicitly stored, resulting in a significant reduction in required memory. If the FMM is then applied in a hierarchical manner, it can improve the complexity of matrix-vector products in an iterative solver from O("N" 2) to O("N"). This has expanded the area of applicability of the MOM to far greater problems than were previously possible. The FMM, introduced by Rokhlin and Greengard, has been acclaimed as one of the top ten algorithms of the 20th century. The FMM algorithm dramatically reduces the complexity of matrix-vector multiplication involving a certain type of dense matrix which can arise out of many physical systems. The FMM has also been applied for efficiently treating the Coulomb interaction in Hartree–Fock and density functional theory calculations in quantum chemistry.
586507	Tera Kya Hoga Johny (; ) is a 2008 Bollywood film directed by director Sudhir Mishra, starring child actor Sikander in the lead role. Actors Neil Nitin Mukesh, Kay Kay Menon, Soha Ali Khan and Karan Nath are also part of the film. It also stars two filmmakers, Anurag Kashyap and Aditya Bhattacharya.
1629233	Boy Culture is a 2006 film adaptation of the 1995 novel of the same name by Matthew Rettenmund. It made its world premiere in the United Kingdom at the London Lesbian and Gay Film Festival on April 1, 2006, and made its debut in the United States at the Tribeca Film Festival on April 26, 2006. It subsequently received a theatrical release in France on January 31, 2007, a very limited theatrical release in the United States on March 23, 2007, and in Spain on June 8, 2007. It was released on DVD-Video on August 14, 2007. Plot. A successful escort describes in a series of confessions his tangled romantic relationships with his two roommates and an older, enigmatic client. The story remains the same as the novel, about a man (Derek Magyar) who goes by only the letter "X" to maintain his anonymity and relationships between his two roommates (Stephens and Trent) - one of whom he's in love with - and an enigmatic older client (Patrick Bauchau) who challenges him to find his heart before he will consent to sex. The movie's differences from the novel include Andrew's character (now an African-American) and the location of the story in Seattle, Washington instead of Chicago, Illinois. Film festivals. "Boy Culture" was shown at the following film festivals: Reception. Critical. "Boy Culture" earned a 70 percent fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes, the consensus stating that the film is "Sharper than the typical gay indie flick". Most reviews cited Bauchau and Magyar's performances and Brocka's direction. DVD. The DVD of "Boy Culture" was released on August 14, 2007, courtesy of TLA Video. It includes an audio commentary from writer/director Q. Allan Brocka and writing partner Philip Pierce, interviews with Brocka and the four stars, deleted scenes, premiere footage from the Tribeca Film Festival and the film's trailer.
1163296	Gina Torres (born April 25, 1969) is an American television and movie actress. She has appeared in many television series, including ' (as Nebula), ' (as Cleopatra), the short-lived "Cleopatra 2525", as well as "Alias" (as Anna Espinosa), "Firefly" (as series regular Zoe Washburne), "Angel" (as Jasmine), "24" (as Julia Miliken), "The Matrix" sequels in a supporting role, and "The Shield". She also starred in the independent film "South of Pico" as the fragile waitress Carla. Currently, she has a main role on the USA Network show "Suits" as Jessica Pearson. Early life. Torres was born at the Flower Fifth Avenue Hospital in Manhattan, New York City, the youngest of three children. Her family lived briefly in Washington Heights before moving to The Bronx. Her parents were both of multiracial Cuban descent, and her father worked as a typesetter for "La Prensa" and the New York "Daily News". Torres, a mezzo-soprano, began singing at an early age and attended Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts in New York City. She also trained in opera and jazz, and performed in a gospel choir. Torres applied and was accepted to several colleges but could not afford to attend. She chose instead to pursue her dream of being a performer. Career. In 2001, she won the ALMA Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Syndicated Drama Series for her role in "Cleopatra 2525". In 2004, she was nominated for the International Press Academy's Golden Satellite Award for Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role in a Series, Drama, for her role as Jasmine in "Angel". Her film appearances include "The Matrix Reloaded" and "The Matrix Revolutions".
1041474	The Black Rose is a 1950 20th Century-Fox film starring Tyrone Power and Orson Welles, loosely based on Thomas B. Costain's book. It was filmed partly on location in England and Morocco which substitutes for the Gobi Desert of China. The film was partly conceived as a follow-up to the movie "Prince of Foxes", and reunited the earlier film's two stars. Talbot Jennings' screenplay was based on a popular novel of the same name by Canadian author Thomas B. Costain, published in 1945. Plot. The story concerns 13th-century Saxon nobleman Walter of Gurnie (Tyrone Power), who, after sparking an unsuccessful rebellion against the Norman conquerors of his homeland, sets out to seek his fortune in the Far East. His friend, an archer, Tristam (Jack Hawkins) goes with him, since they are both outlaws now. Walter and Tristam seek the acquaintance of Mongol warlord Bayan (Orson Welles) and agree to fight for him. The "Black Rose" of the title is the beauteous Maryam (Cécile Aubry), a half-English girl who has escaped from Bayan's harem and is harbored by Walter and Tristam while Walter and Tristram are in service to Bayan. Maryam loves Walter but he is too interested in his adventure to pay her any attention. Tristam doesn't like all the killing and decides to get away. He takes Maryam with him, because she wants to go to England. Bayan sends Walter on a mission to see the Empress of China. When he arrives he is told that he must stay in China as their 'guest' for the rest of his life. Then he finds Tristam and Maryam were also captured and imprisoned. During this time, Walter realizes he loves Maryam. The three of them decide to escape. Tristam dies. The small boat Maryam,(The Black Rose), is in, while waiting for Walter, drifts away before Walter can catch her. Walter returns to his native country alone.
1061466	Susan Hayward (June 30, 1917 – March 14, 1975) was an American actress. After working as a fashion model in New York, Hayward traveled to Hollywood in 1937 when open auditions were held for the leading role in "Gone with the Wind" (1939). Although she was not selected, she secured a film contract, and played several small supporting roles over the next few years. By the late 1940s, the quality of her film roles had improved, and she achieved recognition for her dramatic abilities with the first of five Academy Award nominations for Best Actress for her performance as an alcoholic in "Smash-Up, the Story of a Woman" (1947). Her career continued successfully through the 1950s and she won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her portrayal of death row inmate Barbara Graham in "I Want to Live!" (1958). After Hayward's second marriage and subsequent move to Georgia, her film appearances became infrequent, although she continued acting in film and television until 1972. She died in 1975 of brain cancer. Early life. Hayward was born Edythe Marrenner in Brooklyn, New York, the youngest of three children born to Ellen (née Pearson) and Walter Marrenner. Her paternal grandmother was an actress, Kate Harrigan, from County Cork, Ireland. Her mother was of Swedish descent. She had an older sister Florence (born May 1910) and an older brother Walter, Jr. (born December 1911). Hayward was educated at Public School 181, and later attended The Girls' Commercial High School (later renamed Prospect Heights High School). During her high school years, she acted in various school plays and was named "Most Dramatic" by her class. She graduated in June 1935. Career. Hayward began her career as a photographer's model, going to Hollywood in 1937, aiming to secure the role of Scarlett O'Hara in "Gone with the Wind". Although she did not win the role, Hayward found employment playing bit parts until she was cast in "Beau Geste" (1939) opposite Gary Cooper. During the war years, she acted with John Wayne twice, as a second lead in "Reap the Wild Wind" (1942) and as his leading lady in "The Fighting Seabees" (1944). She also starred in the film version of "The Hairy Ape" (1944). Later, in 1955, she was cast by Howard Hughes to play Bortai in the historical epic "The Conqueror", again opposite John Wayne. After the war, she established herself as one of Hollywood's most popular leading ladies in films such as "Tap Roots" (1948), "My Foolish Heart" (1949), "David and Bathsheba" (1951), and "With a Song in My Heart" (1952). In 1947, she received the first of five Academy Award nominations for her role as an alcoholic nightclub singer in "Smash-Up, the Story of a Woman". During the 1950s she won acclaim for her dramatic performances as President Andrew Jackson's melancholic wife in "The President's Lady" (1953); the alcoholic actress Lillian Roth in "I'll Cry Tomorrow" (1955), based on Roth's best-selling autobiography of the same name, for which she received a Cannes award; and the real-life California murderer Barbara Graham in "I Want to Live!" (1958). Hayward's portrayal of Graham won her the Academy Award for Best Actress. In 1959, she played the lead, Mary Sharron, in "Woman Obsessed". In 1961, Hayward starred as a working girl who becomes the wife of the state's next governor (Dean Martin) and ultimately takes over that office herself in "Ada". The same year, she played Rae Smith in Ross Hunter's lavish remake of "Back Street", which also starred John Gavin and Vera Miles. In 1967, Hayward replaced Judy Garland as Helen Lawson in the film adaptation of Jacqueline Susann's "Valley of the Dolls". She received good reviews for her performance in a Las Vegas production of "Mame", but left the production. She was replaced by Celeste Holm. She continued to act into the early 1970s, when she was diagnosed with brain cancer. Her final film role was as Dr. Maggie Cole in the 1972 made-for-TV drama "Say Goodbye, Maggie Cole". (The film was intended to be a pilot episode for a weekly television series, but because of Hayward's cancer diagnosis and failing health the series was never produced.) Her last public appearance was at the Academy Awards telecast in 1974 to present the Best Actress award despite being very ill. With Charlton Heston's support she was able to present the award. Personal life. Hayward was married to actor Jess Barker for ten years and they had two children, fraternal twin sons, born February 19, 1945. The marriage was described in Hollywood gossip columns as turbulent. They divorced in 1954. Hayward survived a subsequent suicide attempt after the divorce. During the contentious divorce proceedings, Hayward felt it necessary to stay in the United States and not join the Hong Kong location shooting for the film "Soldier of Fortune." She shot her scenes with co-star Clark Gable indoors in Hollywood. A few brief, distant scenes of Gable and a Hayward double walking near landmarks in Hong Kong were combined with the indoor shots.
63478	Alexander Craig "Alec" Aitken FRSNZ FRSE FRS (1895-1967) was one of New Zealand's greatest mathematicians. Life and work. Aitken was born on 1 April 1895 in Dunedin, the eldest of the 7 children of William Aitken and Elizabeth Towers. He was educated at Otago Boys' High School in Dunedin (1908–13) and won the Thomas Baker Calculus Scholarship in his last year at school. He saw active service during World War I with the New Zealand Expeditionary Force, at Gallipoli, in Egypt, and at the Western Front. He was wounded at the Somme.
586188	Ennennum Kannettante () is 1986 Malayalam romance film written and directed by Fazil, starring newcomers Sangeeth and Sonia in the lead roles. The film won the Kerala State Film Award for Best Popular Film for the year 1986. Srividya won the Kerala State Film Award for Second Best Actress also for this film. Despite all the critical acclaim, the film was a box office failure. Was remade in Tamil by the same director as Varusham Padhinaaru starring Karthick and Kushboo and was a huge hit at the Box-office. Plot. "Ennennum Kannettante" is a teenage love story. It tells of the incomplete love of 19-year-old Kannan (Sangeeth) and 16-year-old Radhika (Sonia). Kannan comes from Trivandrum to his ValiyaKoikkal "tharavdu" (ancestral house) with his mother (Srividya) to spend vacation and to attend the festival in their family temple, the Pookkulangara Devi temple. There are his relatives like grandfather Parameswara Kuruppu (Thilakan), grandmother (Sukumari), head of the family (Nedumudi Venu) and his aunt Vijayalakshmi (Jalaja) and her children. Everybody likes Kannan very much, and he has a good time along with his friend Gopu (Appa Haja).
629798	Young Einstein is an Australian comedy film directed by and starring Yahoo Serious, released in 1988. It was based loosely on the life of Albert Einstein, but relocated the theoretical physicist to Australia and had him splitting the atom with a chisel, and inventing rock and roll and surfing. Although the film was highly successful in Australia, and won an award from the Australian Film Institute Awards, it was poorly received by critics in America. Plot. Albert Einstein, the son of an apple farmer in Tasmania in the early 1900s, splits a beer atom with a chisel in order to add bubbles to beer, discovers the theory of relativity and travels to Sydney to patent it. While there, he invents the electric guitar and surfing while romancing Marie Curie. He invents rock and roll and uses it to save the world from being destroyed due to misuse of a nuclear reactor under the watchful eye of Charles Darwin. Production. Serious first became interested in Albert Einstein when he was travelling down the Amazon river and saw a local wearing a t-shirt with a picture of a physicist on it. The image was that of Einstein sticking out his tongue, taken by photographer Arthur Sasse.
1479147	My Friend Ganesha is a 2007 Bollywood film written and directed by Rajiv S. Ruia and Produced by Manish Ruparel, Raman Trikha, Mitesh Mehta, and Ronak Bhagat. Star Casts were Ahsaas Channa, Kiran Janjani, Sheetal Shah and Upasana Singh. The film went fair in the box office, grossing up to 64 lakh Rupees. Plot. My Friend Ganesha is a story about an eight year old boy who feels lonely since his parents don't have time for him and he doesn't have any friends. As story moves on 'Ganesha' becomes his friend and together they resolve so many problems around and have a lot of fun. Ashu (8 year old son)and the parents of the boy are too involved in their daily lives and hence cannot give much time to the boy who always feels lonely. He would only get to be with the maid. On one rainy day the boy saves a drowning mouse and saves his life. He brings the small mouse home and tells the maid about it. She is very happy and tells the boy that he has saved Lord Ganesha's pet ride. Gangubai explains to him the full episode of Lord Ganesha & Mushakraj and also that he is his friend. Ashu gets sad and tells Gangubai that he is also alone and needs a friend on which she tells him that Ganesha can be his friend. The boy gets excited at this thought. It was a period where the family was going through crisis & was coinciding with the forthcoming Ganesha Festival. Gangubai somehow convinces everyone to bring Ganesha home this festival. Ashu is very excited, Ganesha comes in their home and things start turning around in their family. Ganesha becomes Ashu's friend and together with him solves various problems of their family and have a lot of fun these 11 days.
584913	Bhanu Priya is an Indian actress who has appeared in Telugu, Tamil, Kannada and Malayalam films. She also acted in few Bollywood films in the 1990s. Early life. She was born in Rangampeta village, near Rajamundry, Andhra Pradesh, on 15 January 1966 into a Telugu family. Her family settled in Chennai, Tamil Nadu. Personal Life. She is married to a Cinematographer Adarsh Kaushal who is an Indian American. Currently, she lives in Chennai with her husband and her daughter, Abhinaya. Film Career. Bhanupriya has acted in around 150 films as a heroine in various languages. Bhanupriya began her film acting career when she was just 17 years old. Her first film was "Mella Pesungal" (1983) in Tamil. She made her Telugu debut with "Sitaara", directed by veteran Vamsy. She has acted in over 80 Telugu films, about 40 Tamil films, 15 Hindi films and a few Malayalam and Kannada films. Trained in classical dance, all her critically acclaimed movies were based on the subject of classical dance, like Vamsy's "Sitara" and veteran K. Vishwanath's "Swarnakamalam" in 1988 Telugu and Sathyan Anthikkad's "Kochu Kochu Santhoshangal" in Malayalam. She is also part of Mani Ratnam's stage show "Netru, Indru, Naalai". She has also had rhinoplasty to alter the appearance of her nose early in her film career in 1989. Her performances were well appreciated by her senior artist and her co-stars. Tamil Cinema's ace actor, Sivaji Ganesan had mentioned in one of his interviews that Bhanupriya is the only actress from the younger generation with matchable acting ability as Savithri and Padmini. Telugu Superstar Chiranjeevi mentioned that he enjoyed the chemistry with other actresses while dancing but with Bhanupriya he missed out on that as she always concentrated on the technical aspects of her footwork and treated him as a competitor instead of a co-star. Khushboo had mentioned in an interview that one role that she would not be able to do justice would be the role Bhanupriya enacted in "Aararo Ariraro". S.P.Balasubramaniam, in the Telugu show "Paadutha Theeyaga", named her as one of the graceful dancers of Cinema, apart from Kamalhassan, Chiranjeevi, Prabhudeva, L.Vijayalakshmi and Vyjayanthimala. Actor Prabhu, in the TV Show "Album", named her as one of the best heroines from the 80s. Bhanupriya is now based in Chennai. She had also acted in a television serial, "Shakthi", shown over in Sun Network channels. She is famous for her expressions using her eyes, which led her to a career in modelling. Her most famous ad was of Eyetex, a popular eyeliner. Cinematographer and director P.C.Sriram once described her as having the most beautiful and photogenic face among south Indian movie actresses.
582779	Ek Ladka Ek Ladki (Hindi: एक लड़का एक लड़की, translation: "A boy and a girl") is an Indian Bollywood film directed by Vijay Sadanah, starring Salman Khan and Neelam Kothari. The film was released on 18 July 1992. It is a loose adaptation of the American film "Overboard" starring Kurt Russell and Goldie Hawn. Plot. Bhagwati Prasad (Anupam Kher) looks after the vast estate of his deceased brother, assisted by his wife, and brother-in-law, Markutey. Bhagwati has got into debt and has been embezzling money in order to pay his debtors. His spoiled and rude niece, Renu (Neelam), who resides in the United States decides to pay them a visit. Bhagwati welcomes her and makes her feel at home, but Renu is not easily satisfied until she gets a speed boat so that she can be on her own. Alerted by her lawyer, she starts to scrutinize recent transactions and finds 15 lakh rupees missing. She asks Bhagwati to provide her with an explanation within 2 days. Then she gets into her speed boat, only to get involved in an accident, planned by Bhagwati,and disappears. Bhagwati is all set to take over the estate, when the estate's lawyer gets a Court Order freezing all the cash, bank, and assets until such time Renu is found or her body is located. The months go by, Bhagwati hires men to look for Renu, and they soon find her and lead him to her. Bhagwati finds out that she has lost her memory, and is living with a man named Raja(Salman Khan) and three children. This time Bhagwati will make sure that she will not escape alive, even if it means to kill Raja and the three children as well.
1026519	Charles Eugene "Pat" Boone (born June 1, 1934) is an American singer, actor, and writer. He was a successful pop singer in the United States during the 1950s and early 1960s. Several of his hit songs were cover versions of black R&B artists' hit songs, when parts of the country were racially segregated and black musical artists were not played on white radio stations. He sold over 45 million albums, had 38 Top 40 hits and appeared in more than 12 Hollywood movies. Boone's talent as a singer and actor, combined with his old-fashioned values, contributed to his popularity in the early rock and roll era. According to "Billboard", Boone was the second biggest charting artist of the late 1950s, behind only Elvis Presley but ahead of Ricky Nelson and The Platters, and was ranked at No. 9—behind The Rolling Stones and Paul McCartney but ahead of artists such as Aretha Franklin and The Beach Boys—in its listing of the Top 100 Top 40 Artists 1955–1995. Boone still holds the "Billboard" record for spending 220 consecutive weeks on the charts with one or more songs each week. At the age of twenty-three, he began hosting a half-hour ABC variety television series, "The Pat Boone Chevy Showroom," which aired for 115 episodes (1957–1960). Many musical performers, including Edie Adams, Andy Williams, Pearl Bailey and Johnny Mathis made appearances on the show. His cover versions of rhythm and blues hits had a noticeable effect on the development of the broad popularity of rock and roll. During his tours in the 1950s, Elvis Presley was one of his opening acts. As an author, Boone had a No. 1 bestseller in the 1950s ("Twixt Twelve and Twenty", Prentice-Hall). In the 1960s, he focused on gospel music and is a member of the Gospel Music Hall of Fame. He continues to perform, and speak as a motivational speaker, a television personality, and a conservative political commentator. Biography. Early life. Born in Jacksonville, Florida, Boone was reared primarily in Nashville, Tennessee, a place he still visits. His family moved to Nashville from Florida when Boone was two years old. He attended and graduated in 1952 from David Lipscomb High School in Nashville. His younger brother, whose professional name is Nick Todd, was also a pop singer in the 1950s and is now a church music leader. In a 2007 interview on "The 700 Club", Boone claimed that he is the great-great-great-great grandson of the American pioneer Daniel Boone. He is a cousin of two stars of western television series: Richard Boone of CBS's "Have Gun, Will Travel" and Randy Boone, of NBC's "The Virginian" and CBS's "Cimarron Strip". In 1953, shortly before he turned 19, Boone married Shirley Lee Foley (b. April 24, 1934), daughter of country music great Red Foley and his wife, singer Judy Martin. They had four daughters: Cheryl Lynn, Linda Lee, Deborah Ann (better known as Debby), and Laura Gene. Starting in the late 1950s, Boone and his family were residents of Leonia, New Jersey. In college, he primarily attended David Lipscomb College, later Lipscomb University, in Nashville. He graduated in 1958 from Columbia University School of General Studies magna cum laude and also attended North Texas State University, now known as the University of North Texas, in Denton, Texas. During his college career, he was a member of Kappa Alpha Order.
589055	Yaadon Ki Baaraat () is a 1973 Bollywood drama film directed by Nasir Hussain. It starred Dharmendra, Zeenat Aman, Ajit Khan, Vijay Arora, Tariq, and Neetu Singh. The film became a box office hit. It is still remembered fondly for its soundtrack composed by music director R.D. Burman. The track, "Chura Liya Hai" sung by Asha Bhosle and Mohammed Rafi, is particularly well-known. It was later remade in Tamil as "Naalai Namadhe", in Telugu as "Annadammula Anubandham" and in Malayalam as "Himam". Synopsis. The film uses the familiar Bollywood theme of "siblings separated by fate". Gangland killers assassinate an honest man who defied them, killing his wife as well. The couple's three sons flee the massacre and lose contact with each other. They grow up in entirely different circumstances and are re-united only when one of the sons, played by Tariq, sings the song that their mother taught them at their father's birthday at the hotel. Shankar (Dharmendra), Vijay (Vijay Arora), and Ratan (Tariq) are three brothers. On their father's birthday, their mother taught them a song titled "Yaadon Ki Baaraat" which they held dearly to their hearts. As fate may have it, one day, the boys' father witnessed a robbery by Shakaal and his henchmen. To protect their identity, Shakaal decided to kill the boys' father before he could go to the police. So one night, he and his men storm into the boys' father's room and kill both their mother and father. Shankar and Vijay witness the act and flee. They make their way to a passing train, where Shankar is separated from Vijay. Several years pass by and the boys have grown up. Shankar is haunted by the memory of his parents' murder and is now joined by his friend Usman on a crime spree around the city. Vijay was adopted by a fairly wealthy man who is the groundskeeper to the love of his life, Sunita (Zeenat Aman) and Ratan, was raised by the boys' maid, and changed his name to Monto. With his new identity, Monto started a band and does gigs at hotels for a living and is also in love with a co-singer (Neetu Singh). The brothers meet several times, yet do not recognize each other. however, when they finally do, they cannot contact each other. Shankar will be caught by his boss, who is the real murderer of his parents. As the movie progresses, Shankar finds out and kills the villain. Soundtrack. The music and soundtrack of the film was by Rahul Dev Burman, with lyrics by Majrooh Sultanpuri. The hit song, "Chura Liya Hai Tumne" was inspired by the English song, "If It's Tuesday, This Must Be Belgium" from the soundtrack of the 1969 film by the same name.
1163252	Jean Hagen (August 3, 1923 – August 29, 1977) was an American film actress. Early life. Hagen was born as Jean Shirley Verhagen in Chicago, to Christian Verhagen (born August 10, 1890 – died April 1983), a Dutch immigrant, and his Chicago-born wife, Marie. The family moved to Elkhart, Indiana when she was 12, and she subsequently graduated from Elkhart High School. She studied drama at Northwestern University and worked as a theater usherette before making her Broadway theatre debut in "Another Part of the Forest" in 1946. On Broadway, she was understudy for Judy Holliday in "Born Yesterday". Career. Her film debut was as a femme fatale in "Adam's Rib" in 1949. "The Asphalt Jungle" (1950) provided Hagen with her first starring role beside Sterling Hayden and excellent reviews. She appeared in the film noir "Side Street" (1950) playing a gangster's sincere, but none-too-bright, gun moll. She is arguably best remembered for her comic performance in "Singin' in the Rain" as the vain and talentless silent movie star Lina Lamont; Hagen received an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress. By 1953, she had joined the cast of the television sitcom "Make Room for Daddy". As the first wife of Danny Thomas, Hagen received three Emmy Award nominations, but after three seasons she grew dissatisfied and left the series. Thomas, who also produced the show, reportedly didn't appreciate Jean's departing the successful series, and her character was killed off rather than recast. This was the first TV character to be killed off in a family sitcom. Marjorie Lord was cast a year later as Danny's second wife and played opposite Thomas successfully for several seasons. Hagen starred in the 1957 Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Season 3, Episode 7, entitled "Enough Rope for Two". She appeared as Frida Daniels in "The Shaggy Dog" starring with Fred MacMurray. In 1960, she appeared as "Elizabeth" in the episode "Once Upon a Knight" of CBS's anthology series "The DuPont Show with June Allyson". Although she made frequent guest appearances in various television series, she was unable to successfully resume her film career, and for the remainder of her career she played supporting roles, such as Marguerite LeHand, personal secretary to Franklin Delano Roosevelt in "Sunrise at Campobello" (1960), as the title character in season 2, episode 3 of The Andy Griffith Show titled "Andy and the Woman Speeder" (1961), and the friend of Bette Davis in "Dead Ringer" (1964). In the 1960s, Hagen's health began to decline and she spent many years hospitalised or under medical care. In 1976, she made a comeback of sorts playing character roles in episodes of the television series "Starsky and Hutch" and "The Streets of San Francisco" and made her final film appearance in the 1977 television movie "". Personal life and death. Jean Hagen married Tom Seidel on June 12, 1947, in Brentwood, and proceeded to have two children, Christine Patricia (born August 26, 1950) and Aric Phillip (August 19, 1952-September 9, 2012). After a marriage full of domestic violence, she divorced Seidel on November 1, 1965, in Los Angeles. Hagen died of esophageal cancer on August 29, 1977, and was buried in Chapel of the Pines Crematory. Jean Hagen has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 1502 Vine Street for her contributions to television. References. TV, 1957, Madge Griffin, "Enough Rope for Two",
586434	Thanks Maa is a Hindi film, the directorial debut of Irfan Kamal, distributed by Sony Pictures Entertainment(SPE), India. The film focuses on Child abandonment Issue in India. It has been officially selected to be screened at Edinburgh International Film Festival, Pusan International Film Festival, Montreal World Film Festival, Cannes Film Festival, International Film Festival of India and Palm Springs International Film Festival. The debut child actor Master Shams Patel has also won the Best Child Artist for the film, in the 56th National Film Awards. Plot. A 12-year-old street kid named Municipality, while on the run from the reformatory, finds and saves a two day old abandoned child from being prey to a ferocious street dog. Failing to find any takers among the people he deemed responsible & respectable, Municipality takes up the onus of finding the child's mother himself. Here onwards ensues his struggle in the urban jungle of Mumbai with just four of his friends from the streets - Soda (15), Sursuri (10), Cutting (8), & Dhed-shaana (6). Municipality's rock steady determination ultimately helps him emerge a winner against all odds as he reaches the child's mother. Though in the bargain, he loses his 'God like' & flawless image of a mother he used to anticipate in his dreams. A mother, who he hoped, would come searching for him someday at the Municipality Hospital, where he was abandoned 12 years back. The film ends showcasing some of the real-life issues of abandoned children and the misery they face in their day to day lives.
724733	Logan Marshall-Green (born November 1, 1976) is an American actor. He is best known for his roles in "Dark Blue", "The O.C.", "24", "Traveler", and as Charlie Holloway in the 2012 Ridley Scott film "Prometheus". Early life. Marshall-Green was born in Charleston, South Carolina and raised by his mother, Lowry Marshall, in Cranston, Rhode Island. He has a twin brother named Taylor. They both attended Barrington High School (Barrington, Rhode Island) for a period of time in the early 1990s.
1054500	Separate Lies is a 2005 British drama film directed by Julian Fellowes who also wrote the screenplay, updating the 1951 novel "A Way Through the Wood" by Nigel Balchin that had already been turned into a stage play under the title "Waiting for Gillian" in 1957. The film stars Tom Wilkinson, Emily Watson and Rupert Everett. "Separate Lies" marked the directorial debut of Julian Fellowes, who has worked mostly as an actor and won an Academy Award with his screenplay for Robert Altman's "Gosford Park". Plot. "No life is perfect - even if it seems to be," says James Manning, a wealthy London solicitor. When it comes to matters of right and wrong, he likes to think of himself as inflexible. Anne, his much younger wife, is accommodating and dutiful and likes the life they lead, the house in London, the Buckinghamshire hideaway. The couple seems to have it all, yet events soon will prove them wrong. In the village, a neighbour has reappeared: William Bule, son of a leading local family. He has recently returned from America, a bad marriage, and two children whose ages he cannot bother to remember. Bill is indolent and insinuating and at the village cricket match he catches Anne's eye. Because of him, she suggests to her reluctant husband that they should have neighbours over for drinks. However, that evening, James has to work late in the city. Before the party is set to begin, a speeding car sideswipes a man bicycling along a village lane. The man is hurled to the ground and dies a few days later. He was the husband of Maggie, the Mannings’ housekeeper.
584027	Karthik Sivakumar (born on 25 May 1977), known by his stage name Karthi, is an Indian film actor, who works in the Tamil film industry. The younger son of actor Sivakumar, Karthi holds a Bachelor's degree in Mechanical Engineering and a Master's degree in Industrial Engineering. Since he had always wanted to become a film director, he returned to India and joined Mani Ratnam as an assistant director. He was offered acting roles and made his acting debut in "Paruthiveeran" in 2007 as the titular character, a careless village rowdy, winning critical acclaim and several accolades including the Filmfare Award for Best Actor and a Tamil Nadu State Film Award. His next role was that of a coolie in "Aayirathil Oruvan" (2010), a fantasy-adventure film directed by Selvaraghavan. He achieved consecutive commercial successes with his subsequent releases – "Paiyaa" (2010), "Naan Mahaan Alla" (2010) and "Siruthai" (2011), which established him in the Tamil film industry. Apart from his film career, Karthi has also been involved in social welfare activities, encouraging fans to do likewise through the "Makkal Nala Mandram", a social welfare club that he inaugurated. In 2011, he became a cause ambassador to promote awareness of lysosomal storage disease. Early life. Karthi was born on 25 May 1977 in Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India. He was educated at Padma Seshadri Bala Bhavan, and later at St. Bede's Anglo Indian Higher Secondary School, Chennai. He gained a Bachelor of Engineering in Mechanical Engineering from the Crescent Engineering College, Chennai. After graduating, he worked as an Engineering consultant in Chennai and considered higher studies abroad. "I was earning about 5000, per month and found the work monotonous. That was when I thought, I should do something more", he recalls. Karthi got a scholarship for his higher studies in the United States, and enrolled at Binghamton University, New York, where he earned his Master of Science in Industrial Engineering. While pursuing his masters, he also attended lectures on filmmaking. He worked part–time as a graphic designer in New York for a short period, then decided to pursue a career in film–making. He attended two courses in basic film–making at State University of New York before entering films. He stated, "I always knew I wanted to be in films but I did not know exactly what I wanted to do. I loved movies and watched a lot of them. But my father insisted that I get a good education before I joined the film industry". Career. 2007: Debut success. When Karthi returned to India, he met director Mani Ratnam, who offered him the role of Arjun (later played by Siddharth) in the film "Aayutha Ezhuthu". He declined the offer and worked as an assistant director on the same film and its Hindi version "Yuva" because he wanted to become a film director and preferred directing to acting. He continued to receive acting offers and his father convinced him to take up acting, telling him " ... one can always direct films but one will not get a chance to act once you grow older". He accepted his first acting assignment in April 2005. When Ameer Sultan approached him to play the titular character in the film "Paruthiveeran", he accepted the offer because the film was " ... so compelling". The film was released in July 2005 and experienced financial difficulties, and was almost abandoned by mid–2006. It was released in January 2007, to critical acclaim and became commercially successful. Critics unanimously praised Karthi's portrayal of a careless village rowdy. "Behindwoods" said: "He has done away with every trace of sophistication in his body language and even handles the sickle with consummate ease. He looks every inch a hot blooded youngster from some rural part of Tamil Nadu appears seasoned in the romantic scenes ... Uninformed people might not believe that this is the young man’s big screen debut. Look out for this guy ... ". "Sify" said: "It’s hard to believe that it is Karthi’s debut film as he is just spectacular. His expressions, anger, laughter and anguish are all so realistic that you can feel the fire in him." "Rediff" called his performance "excellent", and " ... one of the top performances of 2007". Karthi received several accolades for his performance, including the Filmfare Award for Best Actor in Tamil. 2010–present: Break after "Paruthiveeran". In October 2006, Karthi signed his second project under Selvaraghavan's direction, "Idhu Maalai Nerathu Mayakkam", which was supposed to be a romance film, featuring Sandhya as the female lead. Karthi's character was a " ... sophisticated upmarket stylish guy ... ". Selvaraghavan abandoned that project and in July 2007, he announced the production of a fantasy adventure called "Aayirathil Oruvan" with Karthi in the lead role. Filming began later that year and was expected to be completed by February 2008. The producers planned to release it in mid-2008, but production was delayed and filming continued until early 2009. He had agreed to play the lead character in Linguswamy's next film, "Paiyaa", in September 2007. Because of the slow progress of "Aayirathil Oruvan", "Paiyaa" was postponed several times. He later said that he became anxious because he received several film offers but could not work on them because he needed to maintain the continuity of his looks. During the filming of "Aayirathil Oruvan", producer Ravindran complained that Karthi was trying to change his look and move on to "Paiyaa" before finishing his commitments. "Aayirathil Oruvan" was released in early 2010. Karthi's portrayal of a chief coolie was often compared to that in his debut film. "Sify" called Karthi's performance " ... a scream.", and said, "Right from his introduction scene till the end, he is lovable and provides humour.", and that he had " ... made a sensational comeback ... ". In April 2010, Linguswamy's "Paiyaa" released. A romantic road–trip film, featuring a blockbuster album by Yuvan Shankar Raja, it was very successful. For the first time, he enacted a character that lives in an urban area. He said that he accepted the film because he desperately wanted to play a cool dude on screen. Karthi's performances in "Aayirathil Oruvan" and "Paiyaa" earned him further nominations at the 58th Filmfare Awards South in the Best Actor category. Both films were dubbed into Telugu as "Yuganiki Okkadu" and "Aawara", respectively, and were successful. Karthi's third 2010 film was Suseenthiran's thriller "Naan Mahaan Alla", in which he played a middle class young person from Chennai whose life is disrupted when his father is killed. It received good reviews, was very popular, and Karthi's performances was praised by critics. Sreedhar Pillai of "Sify" wrote: " nails the character to perfection" ... He is one good reason to see the film." Bhama Devi Ravi of "Times of India" wrote: " ... what a pleasure to see Karthi deliver his best performance to date ... ". "Rediff" wrote that "Karthi has simply had a ball ... " and "It's been a long time since you saw an actor who can be as convincing in sadness and rage, as in happiness." "Naan Mahaan Alla" was dubbed into Telugu and released as "Naa Peru Shiva" in 2011; it was very successful and earned Karthi some Telugu film offers. Karthi's next film was the action–masala film "Siruthai" (2011), a remake of the 2006 Telugu film "Vikramarkudu". He played two roles; a thief and a police officer. Karthi's performances received favourable reviews. Malathi Rangarajan of "The Hindu" wrote: "Karthi looks and performs better with every film. "Siruthai" exemplifies the observation". Pavithra Srinivasan of "Rediff" wrote: "But the film belongs to Rocket Raja (Karthi), the sort of adorable ruffian Tamil cinema has been missing for a while. He picks pockets, slices off handbags, charms women and even bashes (!) them up without a single jolt to his conscience." Despite gaining mixed critical response, the film achieved financial success, becoming one of the highest-grossing Tamil films of 2011. In 2011, "Siruthai" became Karthi's biggest commercial success, cementing his position in the Tamil film industry. "Sify" said that Karthi had become " ... one of the hottest stars in Kollywood". He made a special appearance in a song in K. V. Anand's "Ko" (2011), alongside other prominent actors from Tamil cinema. In May 2011, Karthi began working on a political comedy film, "Saguni", directed by Shankar Dayal and featuring him amongst an ensemble cast of supporting actors. He played Kamalakannan in the film, a villager who comes to the city to save his palatial house in Karaikudi from being destroyed for a politician's personal gain and unknowingly transforms to become a kingmaker in Tamil Nadu politics. The film opened to negative reviews from critics, and became a box-office failure. He later appeared in the 2013 Pongal release "Alex Pandian", opposite Anushka Shetty, which also opened to negative critical response upon release. Karthi's upcoming films include Rajesh M's "All in All Azhagu Raja" which is due for a Diwali 2013 release, and Venkat Prabhu's "Biriyani" which will be released on Pongal 2014. He will also feature opposite Catherine Tresa in the Tamil-Telugu bilingual film "Kaali", which will be directed by Pa Ranjith. Personal life. Karthi was born to Sivakumar and his wife Lakshmi. Sivakumar is a veteran Tamil actor who has appeared in approximately 200 films. He has two siblings; an elder brother, Suriya, also a leading actor in the Tamil film industry, and a younger sister named Brindha. Former leading Tamil film actress, Jyothika Sadanah is Karthi's sister–in–law. On 3 July 2011, Karthi married Ranjani Chinnasamy, who graduated with a Masters degree in English literature from Stella Maris College, Chennai. They were engaged on 29 April 2011 at Ranjani's native village, Goundampalayam in Erode District, and the wedding was held at the CODISSIA trade fair complex in Coimbatore. The wedding was arranged by the elders of the family. They have a daughter named Umayaal, born on 11 January, 2013. Other work. Karthi has been involved in several charities and social service activities. On his 31st birthday, he inaugurated the "Makkal Nala Mandram", in order to encourage his fans to become involved in welfare activities. During the event, Karthi donated blood, donated bicycles to handicapped people, sewing machines to women and schoolbags to children. He presented a cheque of 50,000 to YRG Care Centre, which helps AIDS affected children. In 2011, Karthi became a cause ambassador for promoting awareness of lysosomal storage disease. He had also adopted a white tiger cub at Vandalur Zoo and contributed 72,000 to protect and preserve the animal. He told Indiaglitz; "When I see people in need, I make sure I go and help. If I am going on birthdays to reach out to kids in orphanages, it is for my own satisfaction. I feel happier to be with them and it's nice to make them smile on that particular day."
1060744	Southland Tales is a 2006 thriller and comedy-drama film and the second film written and directed by Richard Kelly. The title refers to the Southland, a name used by locals to refer to Southern California and Greater Los Angeles. Set in the then near future of an alternate history, the film is a portrait of Los Angeles, and a satiric commentary on the military–industrial complex and the infotainment industry. The film features an ensemble cast including Dwayne Johnson, Seann William Scott, Sarah Michelle Gellar and Justin Timberlake. Original music for the film was provided by Moby. The film is an international co-production of the United States and Germany. The film premiered May 21, 2006 at the 2006 Cannes Film Festival, where it received a largely negative reception. After significant edits, the final version premiered at Fantastic Fest on September 22, 2007. It opened in limited release in California on November 14, 2007 and in Canada as well as nationwide in United States, in just 63 theaters, on November 16, 2007. The film opened in the United Kingdom on December 7, 2007. Plot. El Paso and Abilene, Texas have fallen victim to twin nuclear attacks on July 4, 2005—a catastrophe of unimaginable proportions which has sent America into World War III. The PATRIOT Act has extended authority to a new agency known as US-IDent, which keeps constant tabs on citizens—even to the extent of censoring the Internet and using fingerprints in order to access computers and bank accounts. In order to be able to respond to a newfound fuel shortage in the wake of global warfare, the German company Treer designs a generator of inexhaustible energy which is propelled by ocean currents, called "Fluid Karma". Unbeknownst to anyone but its inventor Baron von Westphalen and his closest associates, the generators alter the currents and cause the Earth to slow its rotation, and the transmission of the energy to portable receivers (via quantum entanglement) is ripping holes in the fabric of space and time. In Los Angeles, a city on the brink of chaos overshadowed by the growth of the underground neo-Marxist movement, the film follows the criss-crossed destinies of Boxer Santaros, an action film actor stricken with amnesia; Krysta Now, ex-porn star in the midst of creating a reality TV show; and twin brothers Roland and Ronald Taverner, whose destinies, on one evening—become intertwined with that of all mankind. The twins are announced to be the same person by the engineers of Treer. Boxer becomes the most wanted man in the world with political ties. The future seems to be put in his hands. Production. Richard Kelly wrote "Southland Tales" shortly before the September 11 attacks. The original script involved blackmail, a porn star, and two cops. After the attacks, Kelly revised the script. He said, "original script was more about making fun of Hollywood. But now it's about, I hope, creating a piece of science fiction that's about a really important problem we're facing, about civil liberties and homeland security and needing to sustain both those things and balance them." He described the film as a "tapestry of ideas all related to some of the biggest issues that I think we're facing right now . . . alternative fuel or the increasing obsession with celebrity and how celebrity now intertwines with politics". With the film's premise of a nuclear attack on Texas, Kelly wanted to take a look at how the United States would respond and survive while constructing a "great black comedy." Kelly said: "["Southland Tales"] will only be a musical in a post-modern sense of the word in that it is a hybrid of several genres. There will be some dancing and singing, but it will be incorporated into the story in very logical scenarios as well as fantasy dream environments." Kelly said the film's biggest influences are "Kiss Me Deadly", "Pulp Fiction", "Brazil", and "Dr. Strangelove". He called it a "strange hybrid of the sensibilities of Andy Warhol and Philip K. Dick". The film often references religious and literary works; a policeman says, "Flow my tears," in reference to a Philip K. Dick novel of that name. ("Taverner" is the name of the main character in the same book and suffers identity problems of his own.) Pilot Abilene (Justin Timberlake) quotes Biblical scripture from the Book of Revelation in narrating the film and allusion is made both to Robert Frost's "The Road Not Taken", "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" and an altered version of T. S. Eliot's "The Hollow Men". Casting. In March 2004, Kelly and Cherry Road Films began development of "Southland Tales". Filmmakers entered negotiations with actors Seann William Scott, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Jason Lee, Janeane Garofalo, Tim Blake Nelson, Amy Poehler, Kevin Smith, and Ali Larter. Musician Moby was approached on composing and performing the film's score. Kelly consciously sought out actors that he felt had been pigeonholed and wanted to showcase their "undiscovered talents." Filming. Filming was slated to begin in July 2004, but after a year, it had not begun. Dwayne Johnson joined the cast in April 2005, and principal photography was slated to begin August 1, 2005 in Los Angeles. Filming began on August 15, 2005, with a budget of around US$15–17 million. Post-production. Kelly sent the organizers of the 2006 Cannes Film Festival a rough cut of "Southland Tales" on DVD assuming that it would not be accepted. Much to his surprise, they loved it and wanted the film entered in competition for the Palme d'Or. He stopped editing the film and was also unable to complete all of the visual effects in time for the screening. Kelly's film premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in May 2006 with a length of 160 minutes. Kelly describes the negative reaction at Cannes as a "very painful experience on a lot of levels" but ultimately felt that the film "was better off because of it". After the film's festival release, "Southland Tales" was purchased by Sony Pictures. Universal Studios had originally optioned the U.S. rights, but after the Cannes screening, it was sold to Sony, although Universal still retained some international rights. Kelly sought more financing to finish visual effects for the film, and he negotiated a deal with Sony to cut down on the film's length in exchange for funds to complete the visual effects. Kelly edited the film down to the basic storylines of the characters portrayed by Scott, Gellar, and Johnson. The director also sought to keep the musical number performed by Timberlake, based on "All These Things That I've Done" by The Killers which he felt was the heart and soul of the film. Editorial changes were made to restructure the order of the film's scenes, including re-recording all of Timberlake's voice-over. The director also added 90 new visual effects shots to the film and removed 20 to 25 minutes of footage from his initial cut. Soundtrack. The soundtrack for "Southland Tales" was released in stores and online on November 6, 2007. Amongst the songs not available on the soundtrack but featured in the film are Muse's "Blackout", The Killers' "All These Things That I've Done", and Blur's "Tender". Additionally, tracks from Radiohead, Louis Armstrong, Beethoven, Kris Kristofferson, and several tracks from Moby's "Hotel:Ambient" are likewise absent from the album. The reason for the exclusion of some of these tracks, like the song by The Killers was as a result of a dispute with the record label. The track "Memory Gospel" is used from time to time by the CBC Radio One program Q in the background of an opening monologue given by host Jian Ghomeshi. Release. Marketing. "Southland Tales" was initially planned to be a nine-part "interactive experience", with the first six parts published in six 100-page graphic novels that would be released in a six-month period up to the film's release. The feature film comprises the final three parts of the experience. A website was also developed to intertwine with the graphic novels and the film itself. The idea of six graphic novels was later narrowed down to three. The novels were written by Kelly and illustrated by Brett Weldele. Kelly wrote them while making the film and found it very difficult as it pushed him "to the edge of my own sanity", as he remarked in an interview. They have been collected together into one single volume: The titles of the parts in the film are: Theatrical release. "Southland Tales" was originally scheduled to be released in the United States on November 9, 2007 in partnership with Destination Films and Samuel Goldwyn Films. The release of the film, in just 63 theaters, was pushed back five days to November 14, 2007. The film was released in the UK on December 7, 2007 exclusively to UK cinema chain Cineworld in only very few locations.
1063585	William Denison "Bill" McKinney (September 12, 1931 – December 1, 2011) was an American character actor whose most famous role was the sadistic mountain man in John Boorman's 1972 film "Deliverance". McKinney was also recognizable for his performances in seven Clint Eastwood films, most notably as Union cavalry commander Captain "Redlegs" Terrill in "The Outlaw Josey Wales". Early life. McKinney was born in Chattanooga, Tennessee. He had an unsettled life as a child, moving twelve times. Once when his family moved from Tennessee to Georgia, he was beaten by a gang and thrown into a creek. At the age of 19, he joined the Navy during the Korean War. He served two years on a mine sweeper in Korean waters, as well as being stationed at Port Hueneme in Ventura County, California.
582916	Ram-Avtar is a 1988 movie starting Sunny Deol, Anil Kapoor, Sridevi and Shakti Kapoor. It was directed by Sunil Hingorani, written by Khalid, and produced by Sunil Hingorani. Plot. Ram and Avtar are both childhood best friends. The difference between the two friends is that Ram would willingly make priceless sacrifice for his friend; the time when both are separated is when Ram goes abroad to further his studies. In the mean while Avtar takes up employment in an organization run by Sangeeta. Avtar is romantically attracted to Sangeeta but Sangeeta falls in love with Ram; when Ram gets to know that Avtar is in love with Sangeeta he decides to sacrifice his love for his friend sake by getting Avtar married to Sangeeta. But one of Sangeeta's enemies Gundappaswami is willing to expose Ram and Sangeeta's relationship to Avtar. While dying, he tells Avtar that his wife is a woman of questionable character. Avtar starts suspecting his wife, and his wife calls upon Ram for help. How will Ram's arrival assist their marriage?
1075220	That Sinking Feeling is a 1980 comedy film written and directed by Bill Forsyth, his first film as a director. The film is set in his home city, Glasgow, Scotland. The young actors in film were members of the Glasgow Youth Theatre. The film also features Richard Demarco, the Edinburgh gallery owner, playing himself. The four main actors went on to feature in Forsyth's following film "Gregory's Girl". Plot. Ronnie (Robert Buchanan), Wal (Billy Greenlees), Andy (John Gordon Sinclair) and Vic (John Hughes) are four bored, unemployed teenagers from Glasgow. One day Ronnie comes up with the idea of stealing stainless steel sinks from a warehouse and selling them. Their plan involves dressing up as girls and using a chemical 'stop-motion' potion. Locations. Filming took place on location around the city of Glasgow; scenes featured locations such as Kelvingrove Park, Dennistoun, Springburn and Bishopbriggs railway stations, Cowcaddens, Sighthill and the "Butney" in Maryhill. Dubbed soundtrack. The film was released in the USA four years after the UK, following the success of "Gregory's Girl" and "Local Hero". For the American market, (MGM) the soundtrack was re-dubbed using more mainstream accents. The MGM version cost more to re-dub than the entire budget for the film itself. In September 2009, a restored copy of the film was re-released on DVD by 2 Entertain. This has generated controversy however due to the use of the re-dubbed soundtrack, which had the effect of impinging upon the delivery of the dialogue and character of the film.
1163510	Gerald Isaac "Jerry" Stiller (born June 8, 1927) is an American comedian and actor. He spent many years in the comedy team Stiller and Meara with his wife, Anne Meara. Stiller and Meara are the parents of actor Ben Stiller (with whom he co-starred in the movies "Zoolander", "Heavyweights", "Hot Pursuit" and "The Heartbreak Kid") and actress Amy Stiller. Jerry is best known for his recurring role as Frank Costanza on the television series "Seinfeld", and his supporting role as Arthur Spooner on the television series "The King of Queens". Personal life. The eldest of four children, Stiller was born in Brooklyn, New York City, the son of Bella (née Citrin) and William Stiller, a bus driver. His family was Jewish - his paternal grandparents immigrated from Galicia, and his mother was born in Poland. He lived in the Williamsburg and East New York neighborhoods before his family moved to the Lower East Side, where he attended Seward Park High School. A drama major at Syracuse University, he gained a Bachelor's degree in Speech and Drama in 1950. In the 1953 Phoenix Theater production of Coriolanus (produced by John Houseman), Jerry Stiller (along with Gene Saks and Jack Klugman) formed "the best trio of Shakespearian clowns that had ever seen on any stage."
1350789	The 9th Company () is a 2005 Russian–Finnish–Ukrainian film directed by Fyodor Bondarchuk and set during the Soviet War in Afghanistan. The film is loosely based on a real-life battle that took place at Hill 3234 in early 1988, during the last large-scale Soviet military operation (Magistral) in Afghanistan. Plot. The film starts with a farewell ceremony in Krasnoyarsk, where a band of young recruits is preparing for their departure to their place of military service. On arrival at their bootcamp in the Fergana Valley of Uzbekistan they meet their drill instructor, 1st Lt. Dygalo, a seasoned veteran of several tours in Afghanistan and a brutal trainer who treats the recruits very harshly and forces them to take part in extreme physical exercises everyday. During their harsh and brutal training, the recruits overcome their differences and build bonds. Between the harsh training sessions they receive lessons in operating dangerous plastic explosives and how to conduct themselves in Afghanistan. After passing training they are sent to Afghanistan.
1068651	"She's Out of Control" is an independent American 1989 coming of age comedy film starring Tony Danza, Ami Dolenz and Catherine Hicks. The original music score was composed by Alan Silvestri. The film was marketed with the tagline ". . . girls go wild, guys go crazy and Dads go nuts." The film was shot with the working title "Daddy's Little Girl". Plot. Widower Doug Simpson (Danza) is a radio producer from California who lives with his two daughters, Katie (Dolenz) and Bonnie (Laura Mooney). When his oldest daughter (Katie) turns 15, she suggests to her father that's it's time for her to start looking more grown-up. For the last 14 years, Katie had been wearing dowdy clothes, braces, and thick glasses and hanging around with Richard, her next-door neighbor and long-time boyfriend (who had won Doug's approval); but when Doug leaves on a business trip, Katie transforms herself, along with the help of Doug's fiancée Janet Pearson (Hicks), into a knockout beauty.
1067319	Up in Smoke, directed by Lou Adler, is Cheech and Chong's first feature-length film, released in 1978 by Paramount Pictures. It stars Cheech Marin, Tommy Chong, Edie Adams, Strother Martin, Stacy Keach, and Tom Skerritt.
1044199	Arthur Ernest Mullard, original surname Mullord (c. 19 September 1910 – 11 December 1995), was an English comedy actor. Early life. Mullard was born in a humble background in Islington, London, started work at 14 as a butcher's assistant, and joined the Army at 18. It was in the army that he began boxing, becoming champion of his regiment. When he left the army after three years he had a short stint at boxing professionally. This ended after 20 fights over three years, following a knock-out from which he lost his memory. Acting career. Following the end of the Second World War in 1945 he sought work as a stuntman at Pinewood and Ealing film studios, from which he drifted into uncredited bit-parts in British films such as "Oliver Twist" (1948), "The Lavender Hill Mob" (1951) and "The Ladykillers" (1955). Mullard's face and cockney accent lent itself to a certain character, and he graduated to more visible roles in comedy films and on television. It was on television that Mullard made a name for himself, first as a straight man for Tony Hancock, Frankie Howerd and Benny Hill, then in "The Arthur Askey Show". It was the London Weekend Television series "Romany Jones", first aired in 1973, which give Mullard his highest profile, playing Wally Briggs, a crafty caravan-dweller. So popular was Mullard's character that a sequel — "Yus, My Dear" — was broadcast in 1976, in which Wally and his wife Lily (Queenie Watts) had moved out of their caravan into a council house. "Yus, My Dear" was a popular success and Arthur (or "Arfur" as he was widely known) was regularly a guest in other programmes and television commercials. Mullard and Watts also appeared as a married couple in the film "Holiday on the Buses" (1973), the last feature-length version of the popular "On the Buses" comedy series of the time. He also appeared in "Ladies Who Do" (1963), "Morgan!" (1966), "The Great St Trinian's Train Robbery" (1966), "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang" (1968), and "Adventures of a Plumber's Mate" (1978). In 1986, invited by producer Victor Lewis-Smith, Mullard hosted an edition of "Midweek" on BBC Radio 4 to replace regular host Libby Purves during her temporary absence; the resulting programme was a unique hour of radio. Pop songs. In 1967, Mullard recorded "I Love You, You Love Me"/"Was It Something I Said" on the Masquerade label (MA5001). This was followed the same year by an album "Arthur Mullard of London" (MQ 2003) The LP included Mullard's cover of the Beatles' "Yesterday", jokes and philosophy. More singles followed in the 1970s, including 1974's "Not Now Arthur"/"If I Only Had My Time Again" (BASFBA 1012), and in 1975 "I Only Have Eyes for You"/"One 'Fing 'N' Annuver" (RCA 2610) with "Yus My Dear"/"Arthur" (RCA Z639A) released in 1976. He entered the UK Singles Chart in 1978 with "You're the One That I Want" (Pye 7N 46121) (from the film, "Grease)" with Hylda Baker, who was in her seventies. The single was taken from the album, "Band On The Trot" (Pye PKL 5576). A live performance on the BBC TV show "Top Of The Pops" was a disaster. Mullard and Baker fluffed the lyrics and seemed confused.
1098	Jason Gray-Stanford (born May 19, 1970) is a Canadian film and television actor. He is best known for having played the hapless Lieutenant Randy Disher in the TV program "Monk". He is currently (May 9, 2013) appearing as hospital staff attorney Scott Henderson on the TNT medical drama, "Monday Mornings". Career. Gray-Stanford earned a BFA degree from the University of British Columbia in theatre. He has done extensive dubbing work for various Japanese anime movies and series, and also contributed background vocals to Russell Crowe's 30 Odd Foot of Grunts album "Gaslight". He played Deputy Bobby Michan in the 1999 movie "Mystery Alaska" and appeared in the 2001 movie "A Beautiful Mind", both starring Crowe. He appeared in the 2006 Clint Eastwood film, "Flags of our Fathers" as Lieutenant Schrier.
1043163	Joyce Irene Grenfell, OBE (née Phipps; 10 February 1910 – 30 November 1979) was an English actress, comedienne, monologist and singer-songwriter. Early life. Born in London, Joyce was the daughter of architect Paul Phipps (1880–1953), the grandson of Charles Paul Phipps and a second cousin of Ruth Draper, and an eccentric American mother, Nora Langhorne (1889–1955), the daughter of Chiswell Langhorne, an American railway millionaire. Nancy Astor, née Nancy Langhorne, was her mother's sister and Grenfell often visited her at Astor's home, Cliveden. Joyce Phipps experienced an upper-class London childhood. She attended the Francis Holland School in Central London, and the Christian Science School, Claremont, in Esher, Surrey, and then she was "finished" in Paris where she attended Mlle Ozanne's finishing school at the age of seventeen. In 1927, she met Reginald Pascoe Grenfell (1903–1993); they were married two years later at St. Margaret's, Westminster; they remained married for 50 years (until her death). She made her stage debut in 1939 in the "Little Revue". In 1942 she wrote what became her signature song, "I'm Going to See You Today." Career. During World War II, Grenfell toured North Africa, Southern Italy, the Middle East and India with her pianist Viola Tunnard performing for British troops. In 1989, her wartime journals were published under the title "The Time of My Life: Entertaining the Troops". Her singing and comedic talents on stage led to offers to appear in film comedies. Although she performed in a number of films, she continued with her musical recording career, producing a number of humorous albums as well as books. As a writer at the BBC during and just after the war, she collaborated with Stephen Potter in writing the "How" series of 30 satirical programmes from "How to Talk to Children" to "How to Listen". During the 1950s she made her name as a sidekick to such comedy greats as Alastair Sim and Margaret Rutherford in films such as "The Happiest Days of Your Life" (1950) and the St Trinian's series. She was also a member of the influential Pilkington Committee on Broadcasting from 1960 to 1962. Her fame reached as far as the U.S.A. and she appeared on "The Ed Sullivan Show" alongside Elvis Presley. Grenfell is now best remembered for her one-woman shows and monologues, in which she invented roles including a harassed nursery teacher ("George – don't do that"). She gained additional popularity as a result of her frequent appearances on the BBC's classical music quiz show, "Face the Music". Although her humour appeared light and frilly on the surface, there was often a serious point to be made: the song "Three Brothers", for example, appears to recount the happy, busy life of a spinster in lightweight terms, but it essentially describes her willing slavery to her male siblings and their families. Much of the music for Grenfell's revues and shows was the result of a collaboration with the composers and pianists Richard Addinsell and William Blezard. From 1954 to 1974, Blezard composed Grenfell's songs and spoof operettas such as Freda and Eric. They performed on stage and television all over Britain, America and Australia. Grenfell was a member of the Church of Christ, Scientist, a religious organisation based on Christianity and spiritual healing. Death and legacy. She was taken ill in 1973 with an eye infection, which was subsequently diagnosed as cancer although she was not told. The eye was removed and replaced with an artificial one. No one except those close to her were ever advised of this. She kept on performing and appearing on the BBC2 programme "Face The Music". In October 1979 she became seriously ill and died a month later, just before her golden wedding anniversary. She was cremated and her ashes are at Golders Green Crematorium. In February 1980, a memorial service was held at Westminster Abbey, the first time such an honour had been granted to a comedian. Only Les Dawson and Ronnie Barker have been similarly honoured since. Grenfell was created an Officer of the British Empire (OBE) in 1946. It was confirmed after her death that she would have been made a Dame Commander (DBE) in the 1980 New Year Honours List. In 1998, the Royal Mail memorialised Grenfell with her image on a postage stamp as part of a series of stamps celebrating "Heroes of Comedy". Her widower, Reggie Grenfell, died in Kensington and Chelsea, London, in 1993, aged 89. In 2002, her friend and author Janie Hampton published the book "Joyce Grenfell". In a 2005 poll to find the "Comedians' Comedian", she was voted amongst the top 50 comedy acts ever by fellow comedians and comedy insiders. Maureen Lipman has often toured with the one-woman show "Re: Joyce!", which she co-wrote with James Roose-Evans. In it she recreates some of Grenfell's best-known sketches. This performance is available on DVD. Roose-Evans also edited "Darling Ma", a 1997 collection of Grenfell's letters to her mother.
1183948	Brandy Rayana Norwood (born February 11, 1979), also known as Brandy or Bran'Nu, is an American recording artist and entertainer. Born into a musical family in McComb, Mississippi raised in Carson, California, she enrolled in performing arts schools as a child and performed as a backing vocalist for teen groups. In 1993, Norwood appeared in a supporting role on the short-lived ABC sitcom "Thea" and signed with Atlantic Records. The following year, she released her self-titled debut album; singles "I Wanna Be Down" and "Baby" peaked atop the "Billboard" Hot R&B Singles chart. Norwood starred in the UPN sitcom "Moesha" as the title character, which lasted six seasons and resulted in roles in the 1998 horror sequel, "I Still Know What You Did Last Summer", and the TV films "Cinderella" (1997) and "Double Platinum" (1999). She resumed her music career in 1998 with the widely successful duet with Monica, "The Boy Is Mine", and her second album, "Never Say Never". Throughout the 2000s, Norwood experienced career and commercial turbulence. In 2002, she starred in the reality series '. Her third and fourth albums, "Full Moon" (2002) and "Afrodisiac" (2004), were released to critical success. She served as a judge on the first season of "America's Got Talent" before being involved in a widely-publicized car accident in 2006. After several lawsuits stemming from the accident, Norwood's fifth album "Human" was released in 2008. In 2010, she returned to television as a contestant on the eleventh season of "Dancing with the Stars" and starred in the reality series ' with younger brother Ray J. In 2011, She began a recurring role on "Drop Dead Diva" and released her sixth album, "Two Eleven", the following year. Within pop music, Norwood has become known for her distinctive sound, characterised by her peculiar timbre, voice-layering, throaty riffs, and beat-driven R&B. She has since been signed to both Epic Records and RCA Records, where she has acquired a catalogue of hits with singles such as "What About Us?," "Full Moon," and "Put It Down" being her most successful. She has sold over 8.62 million copies of her first five studio albums in the United States, and over 30 million records worldwide. Her work has earned her numerous awards and accolades, including a Grammy Award, three American Music Awards, and seven "Billboard" Music Awards. Life and career. 1979–94: Early life and career beginnings. Norwood was born on February 11, 1979, in McComb, Mississippi, the daughter of Willie Norwood, a former gospel singer and choir director, and his wife, Sonja Norwood (née Bates), a former district manager for H&R Block. She is the elder sister of entertainer Ray J, as well as a first cousin of rapper Snoop Dogg. Raised in a Christian home, Norwood started singing through her father's work as part of the local church choir, performing her first gospel solo at the age of two. In 1983, her parents relocated to Los Angeles, California, where Norwood was schooled at the Hollywood High Performing Arts Center. Norwood's interest in music and performing increased after becoming a fan of singer Whitney Houston at the age of seven, but at school, she experienced trouble with persuading teachers to send her on auditions as she found no support among the staff. Norwood began entering talent shows by the time she was eleven, and, as part of a youth singing group, performed at several public functions. In 1990, her talent led to a contract with Teaspoon Productions, headed by Chris Stokes and Earl Harris, who gave her work as a backing vocalist for their R&B boy band Immature, and arranged the production of a demo tape. In 1993, amid ongoing negotiations with East West Records, Norwood's parents organized a recording contract with the Atlantic Recording Corporation after auditioning for the company's director of A&R Darryl Williams. To manage her daughter, Norwood's mother soon resigned from her job, while Norwood herself dropped out of Hollywood High School later, and was tutored privately from tenth grade on. During the early production stages of her debut album, Norwood was selected for a role in the ABC sitcom "Thea", portraying the 12-year-old daughter of a single mother played by comedienne Thea Vidale. Broadcast to low ratings, the series ran for only one season, but earned her a Young Artists Award nomination for Outstanding Youth Ensemble alongside her co-stars. Norwood recalled that she appreciated the cancellation of the show as she was unenthusiastic about acting at the time, and the taping caused scheduling conflicts with the recording of her album. She stated, "I felt bad for everybody else but me. It was a good thing, because I could do what I had to do, because I wanted to sing." 1994–96: "Brandy" and "Moesha". Williams hired producer Keith Crouch and R&B band Somethin' for the People to work with Norwood, and within eight months the team crafted "Brandy". A collection of street-oriented rhythm-and-blues with a hip-hop edge, whose lyrical content embraced her youthful and innocent image in public, Norwood later summed up the songs on the album as young and vulnerable, stating, "I didn’t really know a lot—all I wanted to do was basically sing. You can just tell that it’s a person singing from a genuine place, and also a place of basically no experience. I was singing about being attracted to the opposite sex, but I had no experience behind it." Released in September 1994, the album peaked at number twenty on the U.S. "Billboard" 200. Critical reaction to "Brandy" was generally positive, with Allmusic writer Eddie Huffman declaring Brandy "a lower-key Janet Jackson or a more stripped-down Mary J. Blige [...] with good songs and crisp production." Anderson Jones of "Entertainment Weekly" asserted, "Teen actress Norwood acts her age. A premature effort at best, that seems based on the philosophy 'If Aaliyah can do it, why can't I?'." "Brandy" went on to sell over six million copies worldwide, and produced three top ten hits on the "Billboard" Hot 100, including "I Wanna Be Down" and "Baby," both of which reached the top of the Hot R&B Singles chart and were certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America. "Brokenhearted," a duet with Wanya Morris of Boyz II Men, became a number-two hit on the charts. The album earned Norwood two Grammy Award nominations for Best New Artist and Best Female R&B Vocal Performance the following year, and won her four Soul Train Music Awards, two Billboard Awards, and the New York Children's Choice Award. In 1995, she finished a two month stint as the opening act on Boyz II Men's national tour, and contributed songs to the soundtracks of the films "Batman Forever" and "Waiting to Exhale", with the single "Sittin' Up in My Room" becoming another top-two success. In 1996, Norwood also collaborated with Tamia, Chaka Khan, and Gladys Knight on the single "Missing You," released from the soundtrack of the F. Gary Gray film "Set It Off". The single won her a third Grammy nomination in the Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals category. In 1996, her short-lived engagement on "Thea" led Norwood to star in her own show, the UPN-produced sitcom "Moesha". Appearing alongside William Allen Young and Sheryl Lee Ralph, she played the title role of Moesha Mitchell, a Los Angeles girl coping with a stepmother as well as the pressures and demands of becoming an adult. Originally bought by CBS, the program debuted on UPN in January 1996, and soon became their most-watched show. While the sitcom managed to increase its audience every new season and spawned a spin-off titled "The Parkers", the network decided to cancel the show after six seasons on the air, leaving it ending with a cliffhanger for a scrapped seventh season. Norwood was awarded an NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Youth Actor/Actress for her performance. Norwood attended Hollywood High Performing Arts Center, but studied with a private tutor from 10th grade on. In 1996, she became a freshman at Pepperdine University in Malibu, California. In 1996, she shared a short relationship with Los Angeles Lakers player Kobe Bryant, whom she accompanied to his prom at Lower Merion High School in Ardmore, Pennsylvania. Between February 1997 and February 1998, she dated Boyz II Men lead singer Wanya Morris, whom she cited as her "first love." Morris, her elder by five years, reportedly ended their relationship a month before her nineteenth birthday. Also during their work on the "Never Say Never" album, she briefly dated rapper Mase. 1997–2000: "Never Say Never" and film career. In 1997, Norwood was hand-picked by producer Whitney Houston to play the title character in Rodgers and Hammerstein’s television version of "Cinderella" featuring a multicultural cast that also included Jason Alexander, Whoopi Goldberg, and Houston. The two-hour "Wonderful World of Disney" special garnered an estimated 60 million viewers, giving the network its highest ratings in the time period in 16 years, and won an Emmy Award for Outstanding Art Direction for a Variety or Music Program the following year. Fledgling producer Rodney "Darkchild" Jerkins was consulted to contribute to Norwood's second album "Never Say Never", which was released in June 1998. Norwood co-wrote and produced six songs on the album which yielded her first number-one song on the U.S. "Billboard" Hot 100, "The Boy Is Mine," a duet with singer Monica that has become the most successful song by a female duo in music history. Exploiting the media's presumption of a rivalry between the two young singers, the song was one of the most successful records in United States of all time, spending a record-breaking thirteen weeks atop the "Billboard" charts, and eventually garnering the pair a Grammy Award for "Best R&B Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal." The album's success was equally widespread, and after extensive radio play of the single overseas, the label released it globally during the summer. "Never Say Never" eventually became Norwood’s biggest-selling album, selling over sixteen million copies worldwide. Critics rated the album highly, with "Allmusic"`s Stephen Thomas Erlewine praising Norwood and her team for wisely finding "a middle ground between Mariah Carey and Mary J. Blige—it's adult contemporary with a slight streetwise edge." Altogether, the album spawned seven singles, including Norwood's second number-one song, the Diane Warren-penned "Have You Ever?" After backing out of a role in F. Gary Gray's 1996 drama "Set It Off", Norwood made her big screen debut in the supporting role of sassy Karla Wilson in the franchise-flick "I Still Know What You Did Last Summer". The movie outperformed the original with a total of $16.5 million at its opening weekend, but critical reaction to the film was largely disappointing, with film review site Rotten Tomatoes calculating a poor rating of 7% based on 46 reviews. Norwood, however, earned positive reviews for her "bouncy" performance, which garnered her both a Blockbuster Entertainment Award and an MTV Movie Award nomination for Best Breakthrough Female Performance. In 1999, she co-starred with Diana Ross in the telefilm drama "Double Platinum" about an intense, strained relationship between a mother and daughter. Shot in only twenty days in New York City, both Norwood and Ross served as executive producers of the movie which features original songs from their respective albums "Never Say Never" (1998) and "Every Day Is a New Day" (1999), as well as previously unreleased duets. 2001–04: "Full Moon" and motherhood. After a lengthy hiatus that saw the end of "Moesha", and a flurry of tabloid headlines discussing her long-term battle with dehydration, Norwood returned to music in 2001, when she and brother Ray-J were asked to record a cover version of Phil Collins' 1990 hit "Another Day in Paradise" for the tribute album "Urban Renewal: A Tribute to Phil Collins". Released as the album's first single in Europe and Oceania, the song became an instant international success overseas, scoring top-ten entries on the majority of all charts it appeared on. "Full Moon", Norwood's third studio album, was released in February 2002. It was composed of a slew of R&B and pop-oriented songs, many of them co-created with Jerkins, Warryn Campbell and Mike City. While its lead single "What About Us?" became a worldwide top-ten hit, the album's title track failed to chart or sell noticeably outside the United States and the United Kingdom, where it managed to enter the Top 20 chart. Media reception was generally lukewarm, with "Rolling Stone" describing the album as "frantic, faceless, fake-sexy R&B." Within the coming year, Norwood and Robert "Big Bert" Smith began writing and producing for other artists such as Toni Braxton, Kelly Rowland, and Kiley Dean. Norwood's foray into reality television began in 2002 with the MTV series "Diary Presents Brandy: Special Delivery"; the show documented the final months of Norwood's pregnancy with her daughter Sy'rai. During the production of the "Full Moon" album, Norwood became involved romantically with producer Robert "Big Bert" Smith. The couple quietly began a relationship during the summer of 2001, but their union did not become known until February 2002, the same month Norwood revealed that she was expecting her first child. However, a year after the birth of their daughter Sy'rai Iman Smith on June 16, 2002—an event tracked by the four-part MTV reality series ""—Norwood and Smith officially announced their separation. It was not until 2004 that Smith revealed that the pair had never been legally wed, but that they had only portrayed the notion of nuptials to preserve Norwood's public image. Norwood later stated that she regarded her relationship with Smith as a "spiritual union and true commitment to each other." By the following year, Norwood had begun a relationship with NBA guard Quentin Richardson, who was then playing for the Los Angeles Clippers. The couple soon became engaged in July 2004 but Norwood eventually ended their 15-month engagement in October 2005. It was reported that Norwood had to get a tattoo of Richardson's face on her back transformed into a cat. In 2010, she briefly dated rapper Flo Rida, though their mild flirtation did not lead to a romance. 2004–06: "Afrodisiac" and "America's Got Talent". Returning from yet another hiatus, Norwood's fourth album "Afrodisiac" was released in June 2004, amid the well-publicized termination of her short-lived business relationship with entertainment manager Benny Medina. Norwood ended her contract with his Los Angeles-based Handprint Entertainment after less than a year of representation following controversies surrounding Medina's handling of the lead single "Talk About Our Love," and failed negotiations of a purported co-headlining tour with R&B singer Usher. Despite the negative publicity, "Afrodisiac" became Norwood's most critically acclaimed album then, with some highlighting the "more consistently mature and challenging" effect of Timbaland on Norwood's music, and others calling it "listenable and emotionally resonant," comparing it to "Janet Jackson at her best." A moderate seller, the album debuted at number three on the "Billboard" 200, but generally failed to chart or sell noticeably outside the United States. "Talk About Our Love" reached number six in the United Kingdom, but subsequent singles failed to score successfully on the popular music charts. Later that year, she guest-starred as Gladys Knight in the third season premiere of "American Dreams", in which she performed "I Heard It Through the Grapevine". After eleven years with the company, Norwood asked for and received an unconditional release from Atlantic Records at the end of 2004, citing her wish to "to move on" as the main reason for her decision. Completing her contract with the label, a compilation album titled "The Best of Brandy" was released in March 2005. Released without any promotional single, it reached the top 30 in Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States, where the collection was appreciated by contemporary critics who noted the creativity of Norwood's back catalogue. Andy Kellman of Allmusic expressed, "This set, unlike so many other anthologies from her contemporaries, hardly confirms dwindling creativity or popularity." Thereupon she reportedly began shopping a new record deal under the auspices of Knockout Entertainment, her brother's vanity label. In February 2006, Norwood began appearing in a recurring role on UPN sitcom "One on One", playing the sister to brother Ray-J's character D-Mack. In June, she was cast as one of three talent judges on the first season of "America's Got Talent", an amateur talent contest on NBC executive-produced by Simon Cowell and hosted by Regis Philbin. The broadcast was one of the most-watched programs of the summer, and concluded on August 17, 2006 with the win of 11-year-old singer Bianca Ryan. Norwood was originally slated to return for a second season in summer 2007, but eventually decided not to, feeling that she "couldn't give the new season the attention and commitment it deserved," following the fatal 2006 car accident in which she was involved. She was replaced by reality TV star Sharon Osbourne. 2006–09: Car accident and "Human". Driving home on December 30, 2006, Norwood was involved in a fatal automobile accident on Los Angeles' San Diego (405) Freeway. The accident claimed the life of 38-year-old Awatef Aboudihaj, the driver of the Toyota that was struck by Norwood's Range Rover. She succumbed to her injuries at the L.A. Holy Cross Hospital the following day. Norwood was neither arrested nor charged with vehicular manslaughter due to insufficient evidence. Law enforcement officials reported that Norwood was driving her car at 65 miles per hour, and did not notice that vehicles ahead of her had slowed considerably. Her vehicle then collided with rear of Aboudihaj's, causing the Toyota to strike another vehicle before sliding sideways and impacting the center divider. As the Toyota came to a stop, it was hit by yet another vehicle. A well-placed source in the California Highway Patrol, however, later reported that Aboudihaj actually struck the car in front of her and then slammed on her brakes before Norwood made contact. The sudden stop caused Norwood to hit Aboudihaj's car. As confirmed, toxicology reports showed that Aboudihaj had "slight traces" of marijuana in her system at the time of the crash. In December 2007, Norwood's attorney Blair Berk stated that "after a more thorough and extensive investigation by authorities, the Los Angeles City Attorney has determined that Brandy Norwood should not be charged with any crime whatsoever relating to the accident back in 2006." She continued, "These past 12 months have posed an extraordinary hardship for Brandy and her family, who have been unfairly forced to live under a cloud of suspicion initially caused by the ill-advised and premature press release sent out by the California Highway Patrol accusing Brandy of wrongdoing before the police investigation was even finished. However, Brandy continues to be mindful that she was so fortunate to be uninjured in this accident and there was a life lost that should be remembered." Meanwhile, speaking in May 2009, Norwood herself stated, "The whole experience did completely change my life, and I can say that I think I'm a better person from it. You know, I still don't understand all of it and why all of it happened, but I definitely have a heart, and my heart goes out to everyone involved. I pray about it every single day, and that's all I can really say on the subject." Nevertheless, there have been multiple lawsuits filed against Norwood. Aboudihaj's parents filed a $50 million wrongful death lawsuit against Norwood. Filed on January 30, 2007, the lawsuit was initially set to go to trial in April 2009, but was eventually canceled as Norwood had settled extrajudicially with Aboudihaj's parents. Aboudihaj's husband also filed a lawsuit against Norwood, suing her for an undisclosed amount of financial relief to cover medical and funeral expenses, as well as legal costs and other damages. He rejected his part of a $1.2 million settlement offer in February 2009, but did settle in November of that year. The couple's two children, who also filed a lawsuit against Norwood, received $300,000 each, according to court documents filed in L.A. County Superior Court on June 2, 2009. Two other drivers who were involved and injured in the accident also filed a lawsuit against Norwood. They settled with Norwood for undisclosed amounts. Norwood's fifth studio album "Human" was released in December 2008, produced by Toby Gad, Brian Kennedy, and RedOne. Distributed by Koch Records and Sony Music, the album marked Norwood's debut on the Epic Records label, and her reunion with long-time contributor and mentor Rodney Jerkins, who wrote and executive produced most of the album. Generally well received by critics, "Human" debuted at number fifteen on the U.S. "Billboard" 200 with opening week sales of 73,000 copies. With a domestic sales total of 214,000 copies, it failed to match the success of its predecessors. While lead-off single "Right Here (Departed)" scored Norwood her biggest chart success since 2002's "Full Moon," the album failed to impact elsewhere, resulting in lackluster sales in general and the end of her contract with the label, following the controversial appointment of Amanda Ghost as president of Epic Records, and Norwood's split with rapper Jay-Z's Roc Nation management. In December 2009, she officially introduced her rapping alter-ego Bran'Nu with two credits on Timbaland's album "Timbaland Presents Shock Value 2", and was cast in the pilot episode for the ABC series "This Little Piggy", also starring Rebecca Creskoff and Kevin Rahm, which was recast the following year. 2010–present: Return to acting and "Two Eleven". In April 2010, Norwood and Ray J debuted in the VH1 reality series "" along with their parents. The show chronicled the backstage lives of both siblings, while taking on larger roles in their family's management and production company, R&B Productions. Executive produced by the Norwood family, the season concluded after eleven episodes, and was renewed for a second season, which began broadcasting in fall 2010. "A Family Business", a compilation album with previously unreleased content from the entire cast was released on Saguaro Road Records in June 2011. Critics such as "The Washington Post" declared it an "awkward and adorable and really, really wholesome collection." While the album failed to chart, it produced three promotional singles, including the joint track "Talk to Me." In fall 2010, Norwood appeared as a contestant on season 11 of the ABC reality show "Dancing with the Stars", partnered with Maksim Chmerkovskiy. She ultimately placed fourth in the competition, which was a shock to the judges, viewers, studio audience, and other contestants that considered her one of the show's frontrunners throughout the entire competition. In August 2011, it was confirmed that Norwood had signed a joint record deal with RCA Records and producer Breyon Prescott's Chameleon Records. In September, a new talent show, "Majors & Minors", created by musician Evan Bogart, premiered on The Hub. It followed a group of young performers age 10–16 and their chance to be mentored by some established artists such as Norwood, Ryan Tedder and Leona Lewis. Later that same year, Norwood returned to acting roles with recurring appearances on The CW's teen drama series "90210", and in the fourth season of the Lifetime's comedy series "Drop Dead Diva", in which she played the role of Elisa Shayne. In 2012, Norwood joined the cast of the BET comedy series "The Game", playing the recurring role of Chardonnay, a bartender. With her role extended, she became a regular cast member by the next season. In February, Norwood reteamed with Monica on "It All Belongs to Me", which was released as a single from the latter's album "New Life". Norwood's own comeback single "Put It Down" featuring singer Chris Brown was released later that year. The song reached number three on "Billboard"s Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart, becoming her first top ten entry in ten years. Her sixth album "Two Eleven", which was released in October, saw a return to her authentic R&B sound, but with what Norwood described a "progressive edge." A moderate commercial success, it was viewed as a humble comeback from Norwood, reaching number three on the US "Billboard" 200, and the top of the "Billboard" US Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart. Over the holidays 2012, Norwood got engaged to music executive Ryan Press. In March 2013, Norwood returned to the big screen starring alongside an ensemble cast consisting of Jurnee Smollett-Bell, Lance Gross and Vanessa L. Williams in Tyler Perry's dramatic film "". Norwood plays Melinda, a woman with a few secrets running from her past. The film received generally negative reviews from film critics. In June 2013, it was reported that Norwood has signed with Creative Artists Agency, a prominent entertainment agency headquartered in Los Angeles. Artistry. Themes and genres. Stylistically, Norwood's music has evolved since she debuted in 1994 at the age of 15. With her mother as manager and stylist, she developed a “good girl” image with a “hip-yet-wholesome” appeal. At the beginning of her career, she often cited Whitney Houston, Janet Jackson, and Mariah Carey as her biggest musical inspirations, with Houston being her most prominent and personal influence. Her current vocal influences are Sade, Kim Burrell, Enya, and her father Willie Norwood. Norwood’s initial sound was contemporary R&B, heavily rooted in gospel and soul music. Her lyrics spoke of various types of love, from casual and friendly love to romantic and spiritual affairs. Influenced by Houston and Carey, she incorporated a ballad-heavy style and an adult contemporary feel into her urban-pop sound for her second studio album "Never Say Never". Her third studio album "Full Moon" saw Norwood abandon her teenage appeal for a more adult and sensual edginess. Along with her image, her voice had gone through a major change, trading her girlish rasp for a now deeper and warmer voice that had acquired a somewhat throatier, provocative edge. The music also reflected the change, as songs like "When You Touch Me" and "Like This" explored more adult, sexual topics, and a sound that blended her previous urban-pop sound with heavy influences of UK garage, funktronica, and progressively futuristic tones. In 2004, her recent motherhood, life experiences, and growing affinity for British rock band Coldplay, caused her to shift toward a more mature outlook and raw nature with her fourth studio album "Afrodisiac", a venture into the organic sounds of soul blues, ambient music, and the nostalgic street-wise sound of 1990s hip-hop. A four-year hiatus and a few life-changing occurrences caused Norwood to return to the music scene in late 2008 with "Human", her fifth studio album, which discussed topics of spiritual love, genuine heartache and universal honesty, and musically explored combining her urban pop sound with elements of country and inspirational pop. Experiencing a career and personal rejuvenation, Norwood was eager to scale back her previous pop venture and return to authentic R&B sound on her sixth studio album "Two Eleven". The album was a melding of both Norwood's now-classic urban pop template and the bass-heavy trends of post-2000's contemporary hip-hop. Voice and timbre. Norwood is a contralto with a voice that has often been described as soft, raspy, and husky by music critics and Norwood herself. Music critic and Slant Magazine writer Andrew Chan describes Norwood's vocal tone as having "an unusual mix of warmth and cold, hard edges." He further describes her vocal quality, saying, "Like little else in pop-music singing, Brandy's subtle manipulation of timbre and texture rewards close listening. [...] Her main claim of technical virtuosity has always been her long, cascading riffs, a skill many R&B die-hards revere her for." Norwood is also noted for her use of multitrack recording to create intricate vocal arrangements and layering. Terry Sawyer of Pop Matters Online writes on this skill, remarking, "While it's been said that Brandy's voice isn't exactly a barn burner, it's not mentioned enough that she does more than enough with what she's got. She never leaves her voice hanging in spotlit scarcity, folding its variegated terracing, whispering out the lead track, shouting in the back-up, and piling each song with enough interlocking sounds to create the tightly packed illusion of vocal massiveness." Legacy. Since her 1994 debut album, Norwood has won over 100 awards as a recording artist. In 1999, "Billboard" ranked Norwood among the top 20 of the Top Pop Artists of the 1990s. In 2010, "Billboard" included Norwood in their Top 50 R&B and Hip Hop Artists list of the past 25 years. Brandy was one of the youngest artists nominated for the Grammy Award for Best New Artist. Her second album "Never Say Never" appeared in the "Top 100 Certified Albums" list by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). Norwood's vocal stylings have had a significant impact on the music industry, most notably with Contemporary R&B, pop and gospel genres, where she is often subjectively referred to as the "Vocal Bible." Many of Norwood’s peers also cite her as their single most favorite singer and vocal inspiration. Barbadian singer Rihanna revealed in an interview with "Entertainment Weekly" that her 2007 album "Good Girl Gone Bad" was primarily influenced by Norwood, stating, “really helped inspire that album. I listened to ["Afrodisiac" every day in the studio." Canadian songstress Melanie Fiona lauded her as a vocal inspiration and influence, and hails her as the "Queen of Harmonies," and mentioned that only Prince and Norwood would cause her to be starstruck. Kelly Rowland cited Norwood, who also wrote and produced for Rowland's debut album, as one of the inspirations for her second studio album "Ms. Kelly" (2007). Rock musician John Frusciante, former guitarist of legendary rock group Red Hot Chili Peppers, praises Norwood, calling her voice “multidimensional” and “inspiring.” In describing her voice and signature sound, he said, “You can't hear elaborate harmonies with your conscious; you have to hear her voice with your subconscious.” He also mentioned that Norwood was the “main inspiration” behind the guitar work on Red Hot Chili Peppers' 2006 album, "Stadium Arcadium". Roc Nation artist Bridget Kelly named Norwood, next to pop and R&B singers Whitney Houston and Mariah Carey, as her biggest musical inspiration. Additionally, on many occasions, Norwood has been thought of as a talented muse that music producers and songwriters have used to enhance their own artistic and creative energies.
585814	Rasathanthram (Malayalam : രസതന്ത്രം, English : "Chemistry") is a 2006 Malayalam drama film written and directed by Sathyan Anthikkad, starring Mohanlal and Meera Jasmine in lead roles. Other actors include Bharath Gopi, KPAC Lalitha, Innocent, Oduvil Unnikrishnan and Mamukkoya. Director Sathyan Anthikkad got the "Mathrubhumi" Best Director award for this film. Music director Ilayaraja scored the music. On release, the film became a hit . It completed 150 days run in various centres it released. Plot. Premachandran (Mohanlal) is a carpenter who lives along with his father, Balan Master (Bharath Gopi), and works along with his friend, Manikandan (Innocent). They are now working on a house near the house of a rich landlord. Kanmani (Meera Jasmine), who was sold by her mother, works in that house as a servant and is ill-treated. Seethamma (KPAC Lalitha) lives along with her daughter, Kumari (Muthumani), who has a liking towards Premachandran. One night, Premachandran goes to his workplace to take his tools. He sees Kanmani leaving the house and is puzzled. He follows her. She was on the verge of committing suicide when Premachandran rescues her. He gives her shelter in one room in a building owned by Chettiyar (Oduvil Unnikrishnan), telling Chettiyar that his friend did not get the bus to go back home. Kanmani dresses up as a boy by the name of Velayuthan Kutty and soon starts working with Manikandan and Premachandran. Balan Master starts liking the disguised boy. One day, Premachandran tells Kanmani that he has planned to rescue her by sending her to Tamil Nadu to work in a banian company where Premachandran's friend is working. Kanmani refueses to go. Premachandran accidentally confesses to Manikandan that Velayuthan Kutty is actually the missing Kanmani. Manikandan has no peace and shouts out the truth in the middle of the night. Two policemen, accidentally hear this and take Premachandran and Kanmani into custody. Kanmani tells the court that she and Premachandran are in love and intended to elope. She said this, to avoid imprisonment. Soon, Kanmani develops an affection towards Premachandran. Premachandran tells her that she doesn't know anything about him and that he is an ex-convict in a murder case. Actually, Premachandran's friend Sivan (Mukesh) murdered a hooligan who abused Premachandran's sister. Kanmani now agrees to go to Tamil Nadu, but Premachandran doesn't let her go and admits her in a hostel. Premachandran's brother, Siddique, comes to the fray and asks Balan Master to attend his daughter's marriage. He asks that Premachandran not come. Actually, Balan Master & Premachandran are living far away from home because of the bad nature shown by Premachandran's brother and sister. Balan Master is not willing to go without Premachandran. Premachandran who loves his niece as his daughter changes Balan Master's mind, by going with him without anybody knowing he is there. On returning, they see their rented house being destroyed. Balan Master takes shelter in an old age home headed by a retired Colonel until a new house can be rented. Premachandran goes to Kochi to meet Sivan - who is now a business tycoon, but Sivan doesn't meet Premachandran's needs. On returning, Premachandran finds out that Balan Master is dead. He performs the ceremonial rites and goes to Kanmani. Meanwhile, Kanmani's so called uncle (Jagathty Sreekumar) - who wants to marry Kanmani - and his sister have court orders to take Kanmani back to Tamil Nadu. But, Premachandran grabs the "thali mala" from Jagathy's character, ties the knot on Kanmani and subsequently marries her. Production. The film was mainly shot at various locations in Thodupuzha, Moolamattom, and nearby places. Soundtrack. The songs were composed by Ilayaraaja and lyrics were penned by Gireesh Puthenchery.
1523975	Kevin Kilner (born May 3, 1958) is an American television and film actor. Life and career. Kilner was born in Baltimore, Maryland, the son of Dorothea, a kindergarten teacher, and Edward Kilner, who worked in advertising sales and insurance. He made his first television appearance on an episode of "The Cosby Show" in 1989. He is perhaps best known for playing the main protagonist in the first season of "". In 1995-96, Kilner starred in "Almost Perfect" as the romantic interest of Nancy Travis, who played a screenwriter, but Kilner was written out of the show in the second season premiere. In 2009, he appeared on a few episodes of the Joss Whedon show "Dollhouse". Kilner is an alumnus of Dulaney High School and the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. While attending Johns Hopkins he was a member of the National Champion lacrosse team. From June 30 to July 16, 2006, he appeared on stage in the Alley Theatre production of "Wait Until Dark".
582864	Haan Maine Bhi Pyaar Kiya ("Yes I Have Loved As Well") is a 2002 Bollywood film starring Akshay Kumar, Karisma Kapoor and Abhishek Bachchan. At the time the film was made, Kapoor and Bachchan were dating. The movie is a remake of the 1981 film "Mouna Geethangal". The film's music was composed by duo Nadeem-Shravan. Synopsis. The plot begins with Shiv (Abhishek Bachchan) and Pooja (Karisma Kapoor) who are looking for a job. They happen to be interviewed the same day in the same company and both are equally qualified for the job. At the interview venue, when Pooja sees that it will be difficult for her to get the job, she fools Shiv and gets the job. But later on, when Shiv too gets a job in that company, he comes to know that Pooja fooled him. After a lot of pranks and fun they fall in love and happily get married to each other but sometimes they get into the most petty arguments coming from the way they approach life. Shiv takes each day as it comes whilst Pooja's imagination sometimes gets the best of her. Pooja gives up her career for him and settles down as a housewife. They go on their honeymoon to Switzerland and there they meet Meghna (Simone Singh), who happens to be Shiv's college friend. One day when Shiv returns from a conference, he finds that Meghna is stuck on the road since her car is damaged. So Shiv decides to give a lift to Meghna since they happen to be staying in the same hotel. On account of the weather getting worse, they are unable to return to the hotel on time, so they have to stay in a hotel midway. The indifference between Shiv and Pooja gets worse when Shiv ends up spending the night with Meghna. Pooja overhears them talking about how they should put their one-night stand behind them. Shocked and disturbed, she asks for a divorce straight away and leaves him. Pooja then moves to Mumbai where she gets a job as the secretary of Raj (Akshay Kumar) who is a film star. Raj has everything anyone could ask for: money, fame, but not love. She happily works as his secretary and Raj falls in love with Pooja and she also likes him. One day they go for shooting in Naini Hills and Pooja finds that Shiv happens to be the manager of the hotel where they stay. Pooja tells Shiv that she can still not forgive Shiv for what happened in the past. Raj asks Shiv to be the best man at his wedding. So Shiv decides that he will not interfere in Pooja's life anymore. But on the day of the wedding, Pooja realizes that she is still in love with Shiv and should have forgiven him. Raj overhears this and decides to reunite Pooja and Shiv. They both get married again and live happily ever after. Soundtrack. The soundtrack of the movie was composed by the duo of Nadeem-Shravan with lyrics by Sameer.
1105202	Edward B. Burger (born 1964) is the 15th President of Southwestern University in Georgetown, Texas, elected on February 20, 2013. Previously he was the Francis Christopher Oakley Third Century Professor of Mathematics at Williams College, the Robert Foster Cherry Professor for Great Teaching at Baylor University and named Vice Provost of Strategic Educational Initiatives at Baylor University in February 2011.
1034061	Doris Hare, MBE (1 March 1905 – 30 May 2000) was a Welsh born actress, best known for her role as Mrs Butler in the popular sitcom "On the Buses" alongside Reg Varney. Biography. Hare was born in Bargoed, Glamorgan. Her parents had a portable theatre in South Wales and it seemed inevitable that she would become a part of it, making her debut at the age of three in "Current Cash" and appearing in juvenile troupes all over Britain as a child, before going solo as 'Little Doris Hare', appearing in music hall, variety, cabaret, revues and pantomimes. In 1930, the actress toured in "The Show's the Thing", taking the part made famous by Gracie Fields. In 1932 she appeared in the West End in Noël Coward's show "Words and Music", alongside John Mills. In 1936 she made her Broadway debut in "Night Must Fall". During the war, Hare joined Evelyn Laye to put on a revue for the troops and compered "Shipmates Ashore", the BBC's programme for the Merchant Navy, earning her the MBE in 1941. In 1963 she joined the Royal Shakespeare Company and in 1965 joined the National Theatre at the Old Vic. She acted in plays by Shakespeare, Shaw, Pinero and Harold Pinter. Having turned down the role of Ena Sharples in "Coronation Street" in 1960, Hare did play Alice Pickens in the series during 1969. She was due to marry Albert Tatlock, but the wedding never took place. That same year Hare came to national attention in the role of Mrs Butler in "On the Buses", taking over the part from Cicely Courtneidge in the second series of the ITV comedy. The series ran until 1973 and spawned three spin-off films "On the Buses" (1971), "Mutiny on the Buses" (1972) and "Holiday on the Buses" (1973) in which Hare recreated her small-screen role. The cast also performed a stage version of the popular series in Vancouver, Canada, in 1988. In 1974 Hare spent a year in the West End farce "No Sex Please, We're British" and made her final stage appearance, aged 87, at the London Palladium alongside John Mills in a tribute to Evelyn Laye. Hare won a Variety Club of Great Britain Special Award for her contributions to show business in 1982.
1104186	Ronald (Ron) Lewis Graham (born October 31, 1935) is a mathematician credited by the American Mathematical Society as being "one of the principal architects of the rapid development worldwide of discrete mathematics in recent years". He has done important work in scheduling theory, computational geometry, Ramsey theory, and quasi-randomness. He is currently the Chief Scientist at the California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology (also known as Cal-(IT)2) and the Irwin and Joan Jacobs Professor in Computer Science and Engineering at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD). Biography. Graham was born in Taft, California. In 1962, he received his Ph.D. in mathematics from the University of California, Berkeley. His 1977 paper considered a problem in Ramsey theory, and gave a "large number" as an upper bound for its solution. This number has since become well known as the largest number ever used in a mathematical proof (is listed as such in the "Guinness Book of Records"), and is now known as Graham's number. Graham popularized the concept of the Erdős number, named after the highly prolific Hungarian mathematician Paul Erdős (1913–1996). A scientist's Erdős number is the minimum number of coauthored publications away from a publication with Erdős. Graham's Erdős number is 1. He co-authored almost 30 papers with Erdős, and was also a good friend. Erdős often stayed with Graham, and allowed him to look after his mathematical papers and even his income. Graham and Erdős visited the young mathematician Jon Folkman when he was hospitalized with brain cancer. Between 1993 and 1994 Graham served as the president of the American Mathematical Society. Graham was also featured in "Ripley's Believe It or Not" for being not only "one of the world's foremost mathematicians", but also "a highly skilled trampolinist and juggler", and past president of the International Jugglers' Association. He has published about 320 papers and five books, including "Concrete Mathematics" with Donald Knuth. He is married to Fan Chung Graham (known professionally as Fan Chung), who is the Akamai Professor in Internet Mathematics at the University of California, San Diego. He has four children; daughters Ché, Laura and Christy, and a son Marc from an earlier marriage. Awards and honors. In 2003, Graham won the American Mathematical Society's annual Steele Prize for Lifetime Achievement. The prize was awarded on January 16 that year, at the Joint Mathematics Meetings in Baltimore, Maryland. In 1999 he was inducted as a Fellow of the Association for Computing Machinery. Graham, prolific mathematician and industrious human being, has won many other prizes over the years; he was one of the laureates of the prestigious Pólya Prize the first year it was ever awarded, and among the first to win the Euler Medal. The Mathematical Association of America has also awarded him both the Lester R. Ford prize which was "...established in 1964 to recognize authors of articles of expository excellence published in "The American Mathematical Monthly"...", and the Carl Allendoerfer prize which was established in 1976 for the same reasons, however for a different magazine, the "Mathematics Magazine". In 2012 he became a fellow of the American Mathematical Society.
1247405	Renault Renaldo Duncan (April 23, 1904 – September 3, 1980), better known as Duncan Renaldo, was a Romanian-born American actor best remembered for his portrayal of The Cisco Kid in films and on the 1950-1956 American TV series, "The Cisco Kid".
676772	The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus is a film released in 1996 of an 11 December 1968 event put together by The Rolling Stones. The event comprised two concerts on a circus stage and included such acts as The Who, Taj Mahal, Marianne Faithfull, and Jethro Tull. John Lennon and his fiancee Yoko Ono performed as part of a supergroup called The Dirty Mac, along with Eric Clapton, Mitch Mitchell, and Keith Richards. It was originally meant to be aired on the BBC, but the Rolling Stones withheld it. The Stones contended they did so due to their substandard performance, because they had taken the stage early in the morning and were clearly exhausted. Many others believe that the true reason for not releasing the video was that The Who, who were fresh off a concert tour, upstaged the Stones on their own production. Concept and performance. The project was originally conceived by Mick Jagger as a way of branching out from conventional records and concert performances. Jagger approached Michael Lindsay-Hogg, who had directed two promos for Stones songs, to make a full-length TV show for them. According to Lindsay-Hogg, the idea of combining rock music and a circus setting came to him when he was trying to come up with ideas; he drew a circle on a piece of paper and free-associated. The Stones and their guests performed in a replica of a seedy big top on a British sound stage - the Intertel (V.T.R. Services) Studio, Wycombe Road, Wembley - in front of an invited audience. The performances began at around 2 pm on 11 December 1968, but setting up between acts took longer than planned and the cameras kept breaking down, which meant that the final performances took place at almost 5 o'clock the next morning. By that time the audience and most of the Stones were exhausted; Jagger's sheer stamina managed to keep them going until the end. Jagger was reportedly so disappointed with his and the band's performance that he cancelled the airing of the film, and kept it from public view. This was the last public performance of Brian Jones with The Rolling Stones, and for much of the Stones performance he is inaudible, although his slide guitar on "No Expectations" remains clear.. The last song, Salt of the earth, was sung live by Keith Richards and Mick Jagger to the pre-recorded tape from the Beggars Banquet studio album where the song had been released.
1073082	Plot summary. The film opens up with Ginko, a stripper, trying to escape a horde of zombies inside an abandoned spa resort. As soon as she is cornered by a horde of zombies, fellow stripper Lena Jodo (played by Sola Aoi ) arrives to kill the zombies with a chainsaw. During the attack, the chainsaw stops working and Lena is about to be killed by the zombies, only to be saved after Ginko fends them off with a katana. Lena is eventually successful at getting the chainsaw to work and begins to fend off the remaining zombies.
1016001	Shaolin Soccer is a 2001 Hong Kong comedy film co-written, directed by Stephen Chow, who also stars in the lead role. A former Shaolin monk reunites his five brothers, years after their master's death, to apply their superhuman martial arts skills to play soccer and bring Shaolin kung fu to the masses. In 2008 a sequel, produced by, but not starring Stephen Chow, was released entitled "Shaolin Girl". Very few of the cast from the original film made an appearance. Plot. Sing (Stephen Chow) is a master of Shaolin kung fu, whose goal in life is to promote the spiritual and practical benefits of the art to modern society. He experiments with various methods, but none bear positive results. He then meets "Golden Leg" Fung (Ng Man Tat), a legendary Hong Kong soccer star in his day, who is now walking with a limp, following the treachery of a former teammate Hung, now a rich businessman. Sing explains his desires to Fung who offers his services to coach Sing in soccer. Sing is compelled by the idea of promoting kung fu through soccer and agrees to enlist his former Shaolin brothers to form a team under Fung's management. Sing and Fung attempt to put together an unbeatable soccer team. Fung invites a vicious team (some of which Sing previously encountered) to play against them and the thugs proceed to give the Shaolin team a brutal beating. When all seems lost, the Shaolin disciples reawaken and utilize their special powers, dismantling the other team's rough play easily. The thugs then give up, and ask to join Sing's team. Sing meets Mui (Vicki Zhao), a baker with severe acne who uses T'ai chi to bake and even takes her to look at very expensive dresses at a high-end department store after hours. She soon forms an attachment to Sing and even gets a makeover in an attempt to impress Sing. However, this backfires and when Mui reveals her feelings to him, he tells her he only wants to be her friend. This revelation, coupled with the constant bullying from her overbearing boss, leads Mui to disappear. "Team Shaolin" enters the open cup competition in Hong Kong, where they chalk up successive and often ridiculous one-sided victories. They end up meeting 'Team Evil in the final. "Team Evil", helmed by none other than Fung's old nemesis, Hung, who assembled a squad of players who have been injected with an American drug, granting them superhuman strength and speed, making them practically invincible. Team Shaolin, which had steamrolled their earlier opponents, are brought back to reality when Team Evil's amazing capabilities prove more than a match for them. At a critical moment, Mui, who has shaved her hair and gotten rid of her acne, reappears to keep goal for Team Shaolin. In his final attack, Team Evil's striker leaps into the sky and turns the ball into a glowing orb. When he kicks the fiery ball towards Mui, she and Sing combine their martial skills and rocket the ball down field, which tears the ground and sucks up everything in its path. The ball plows through Team Evil's goal post and destroys half of the stadium. Sing is then thrown into the air in celebration as the trophy is presented to him and his team. A newspaper article then shows Hung being stripped of his title of soccer chairman and sent to jail for five years, while Team Evil players are permanently banned from playing soccer professionally. With people all over the world practicing kung fu in their daily lives, Sing's dream is finally fulfilled. Production. Inspiration. According to an interview with "Premiere Magazine", Chow stated, Casting. Apart from several veteran actors, Chow stated in an interview with "Premiere" magazine that he cast several people in his entourage who had no prior acting experience before "Shaolin Soccer". For example, Lam Chi Chung (Light Weight) had worked as Chow’s screenwriter and Danny Chan Kwok Kwan (Empty Hand) was the dance choreographer hired to design the "Michael Jackson dance number" that followed Sing and Mui’s first meeting early in the film. Chow comments he made Chan wear Bruce Lee’s yellow-and-black tracksuit because only the goalkeeper "can wear a special uniform." Tin Kai Man (Iron Shirt) had been Chow’s production manager on several movies, but had acted in numerous minor roles in previous films. For instance, he played a young wanna-be Triad member in Chow’s preceding movie, King of Comedy. Cecilia Cheung and Karen Mok, who briefly appear as Team Dragon Players 7 & 11 in "Shaolin Soccer", had major roles in King of Comedy. Chow defends his decision to hire non-actors, saying, "In terms of finding talent, I try to bring out the funniest thing I notice about them during casting, if it made us laugh at the casting, it will also do on the big screen." Vicki Zhao, who played the Mandarin-speaking Mui, said it was a different step for her to star in a Hong Kong production. However, Zhao admitted that she was not impressed with her look with less makeup because she is easily recognizable for her beautiful appearance. Three of the principal cast members appeared in Chow's "Kung Fu Hustle": Danny Chan Kwok Kwan (Empty Hand) portrayed "Brother Sum", boss of the "Axe Gang"; Tin Kai Man (Iron Shirt) portrayed the loud-mouthed "advisor" of Brother Sum; and Lam Chi Chung (Light Weight) portrayed "Bone", Chow’s sidekick and partner in petty crime. Fung Min Hun (Team Rebellion Captain) briefly appeared as Cecilia Cheung's abusive boyfriend in "King of Comedy" and the "Four Eyes Clerk" who beats up both Sing and Bone when they make fun of him on the bus in "Kung Fu Hustle". Home video releases. Hong Kong. In Hong Kong, the film was released on DVD and Video CD in September 14, 2001. The DVD release was shortened by 10 minutes, with the option for viewers to access the deleted scenes in the middle of the film. The scenes deleted from the DVD version are the dance sequence in front of Mui's bakery, much of the conversation over Mui's makeover and the blooper reel before the end credits. Viewers can also access the making of key special effects scenes as well. The film was also released in UMD format for the Sony PSP on December 23, 2005. United States. The 2004 U.S. DVD release by Miramax Films deleted 23 minutes of footage from the original cut; the omitted footage includes "Golden Leg" Fung's flashback opening sequence and Sing's interactions with Mui. This version features an English dub with Chow dubbing his own voice and Bai Ling as the voice of Mui. In addition, the DVD gives viewers the option to play the original Hong Kong version. United Kingdom. In the UK, the film was released on Blu-ray disc by Optimum Releasing in January 26, 2010. Japan. The Japanese version of the film was released by Pioneer LDC on November 22, 2002. It was reissued by The Clockworks Group in December 21, 2003. Italy. The Italian dub of the film features the voices of professional footballers Damiano Tommasi, Vincent Candela, Marco Delvecchio, Giuseppe Pancaro and Angelo Peruzzi. Box office and reception. "Shaolin Soccer" did well at Hong Kong box office eventually grossing HK$60,739,847, making it the highest grossing film in the region's history at the time. It held the record until 2004 when it was topped by Stephen Chow's next feature "Kung Fu Hustle". "Shaolin Soccer" earned a worldwide gross of US$$42,776,760. "Shaolin Soccer" received highly positive reviews from film critics; review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reported that 91% of critics had given the film positive reviews based on 86 reviews. China ban. China's State Administration of Radio, Film and TV rejected "Shaolin Soccer" from theatrical and DVD/VCD release, because Stephen Chow did not apply for Chinese permission for public screenings in Hong Kong. Awards. 21st Annual Hong Kong Film Awards 7th Golden Bauhinia Awards Media adaptations. Comic books. Chinese. The first of a four volume "Shaolin Soccer" manhua was published in Hong Kong roughly nine months after the film originally premiered in 2001. The characters were drawn with large manga-like eyes and cartoonish bodies, but the artists were careful to retain the likenesses of each actor who portrayed them. American. ComicsOne approached noted comic book artist Andy Seto with the idea of creating a two volume manhua-style graphic novel adaptation of the feature film. Seto attached himself to the project because the film was very popular and, therefore, had "a certain level of marketing value". The project was officially announced on June 30, 2003 and the release of vol. 1 was scheduled to coincide with the film’s US premiere in August, but the film was pushed back. The Miramax film corporation bought the American film rights to "Shaolin Soccer" before its release in China, so they helped publish the comic book along with two Chinese film companies who originally produced the film. Volumes 1 (ISBN 1-58899-318-3) and 2 (ISBN ISBN 1-58899-319-1) were released in August and November 2003 and sold for US$13.95 each. Their suggested reading level was age 13 and above. Seto worked to make the novel as faithful to the film as possible but he admits that Stephen Chow's brand of Mo lei tau comedy does not translate well into illustrations. He stated in an interview that "the "Shaolin Soccer" comic is 80% movie adaptation with 20% new content." This new content includes a backstory about Steel Leg's training in Shaolin before the death of his master, as well as completely rewriting entire sections of the movie. For example, in the film a group of bar thugs beat up Sing and Iron Head after listening to their lounge-style tribute to Shaolin kung fu. The following day, Sing seeks out the group and uses his Shaolin skills to beat the thugs using a soccer ball. Fung sees the brawl and comes up with the idea of fusing kung fu and soccer. However, in the comic book, Sing is meditating in the park when he gets hit in the head with a soccer ball. The cocky players mock him and destroy a stone statue of his deceased master. Sing proceeds to use the soccer ball as a weapon. Another example is the fact the characters are visually different from the film. All of their comic book personas look to be in their twenties to thirties, with highly toned athletic physiques (with the exception of Light Weight); even Iron Head, who was the eldest of the six brothers, appears younger than he should. Reception. Several online reviews have criticized the American adaptation for its apparent lack of story line coherence, mixture of realistic and cartoonish drawing styles, and bad Chinese-to-English translation, among other issues. In regards to the translation, one reviewer stated, "It's almost as if the book was translated with a first-year English student referencing a Chinese-to-English dictionary, with strangely assembled sentences and strange bursts of dialogue peppering the pages." Another common complaint was that the comics seemed to be geared towards those people who had previously seen the movie. Without this familiarity, a newcomer would lose track of the storyline because of the overcrowded pages and rapidly shifting plot. In popular culture. Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko, co-creators of the "" animated television series, stated in an interview that ""Shaolin Soccer" is one of our favorite movies. It has tons of fantastic action and lots of funny moments. Some of the effects provided inspiration for how bending (the art of controlling the elements) might look on the show." The Chinese website xiaoyouxi.com has eight flash animations devoted to "Shaolin Soccer". They range from non-playable 16 bit video games where the characters reenact the soccer games from the film to animations highlighting Sing and Mui’s strained relationship (one of which is accompanied by the song "Hazard" by Richard Marx). One episode of "Keroro Gunso" had a soccer theme which parodied this movie. The music video for the American R&B singer-songwriter and rapper Lumidee song "Dance" launched for the 2006 FIFA World Cup album soundtrack has scenes of the movie.
1066715	Gunnar Milton Hansen (born March 4, 1947) is an Icelandic-born American actor and author best known for playing the mentally impaired cannibal Leatherface in "The Texas Chain Saw Massacre" (1974). Early life. Hansen was born in Reykjavík, Iceland, and moved to the United States when he was five. He lived in Maine until age eleven, when his family moved to Texas, where he attended both Austin High School and the University of Texas at Austin. He majored in English and mathematics as an undergraduate, and then went to graduate school in Scandinavian Studies and English. Career. His first job out of high school was as a computer operator, before he began theater work during college. He was also a football player during high school, and for a while a bar bouncer. In 1973, just after finishing graduate school, Hansen heard that "The Texas Chain Saw Massacre" was being filmed in Austin and decided to try out. He got the part of Leatherface, the masked killer in the movie. Hansen apparently visited and studied special needs kids to determine mannerisms for Leatherface. After the success of the movie, Hansen co-starred in Demon Lover, but after the experience he decided not to continue acting, instead pursuing a writing career. In 1975, after one extra year of graduate school, Hansen moved back to Maine and started writing. During this time he rejected a part he was offered in the cult horror film "The Hills Have Eyes". After writing (and occasionally editing) for magazines and writing books, Hansen returned to acting in 1988, appearing in the horror spoof "Hollywood Chainsaw Hookers", and has appeared in 20 films since. He considers his recent acting as a side project and has continued to write books. He has also written film scripts, and writes and directs documentary films. Hansen is also an author; his nonfiction travel memoir, "Islands at the Edge of Time, A journey to America's Barrier Islands", was published in 1993. In addition, he has taught college as an adjunct instructor.
1069747	Elyse Knox (December 14, 1917 – February 16, 2012) was an American actress, model and fashion designer.
1067788	Accepted is a 2006 American comedy film directed by Steve Pink and written by Adam Cooper, Bill Collage, and Mark Perez. The main plot centers around a group of would-be college freshmen who create their own "college" after being rejected from all the public colleges and universities for which they had already applied. Plot. Bartleby Gaines (Justin Long) is a persuasive high-school senior who, among other pranks, creates fake IDs. His gifts do not extend to grades, however, and he receives rejection letters from all of the universities and colleges to which he applies, including those with high acceptance rates. In an attempt to seek approval from his strict father (Mark Derwin), Bartleby creates a fake college, the South Harmon Institute of Technology (S.H.I.T.). He is aided by his best friend, Sherman Schrader III (Jonah Hill), who has been accepted into the prestigious Harmon College, and fellow rejects Rory Thayer (Maria Thayer), a hard-working girl who, due to prevalence of Legacy preferences, failed to get in to Yale University, the only school she applied to, Hands Holloway (Columbus Short), who lost his athletic scholarship after an injury, and Glen (Adam Herschman), who got a "0" on the SAT when he neglected to sign his name. To make the "college" seem legitimate, Bartleby convinces Sherman to create a fully functional Web site for the school. When his domineering father insists on meeting the dean, Bartleby hires Schrader's uncle, Ben Lewis (Lewis Black), a former educator, to play that role, and he also leases an abandoned psychiatric hospital adjacent to Harmon College and renovates it to look like a college campus. The seemingly innocent ploy quickly spins out of control when the website, which automatically accepts any applicant, enrolls hundreds of other rejected students. Bartleby realizes that these people have nowhere else to go, so he lets them believe that the school is real, a place where they will finally feel accepted. After a visit to Harmon disenchants him with traditional college life, he has the students make up their own classes and be their own teachers. Students write down what they want to learn on a giant whiteboard, with classes ranging from the culinary arts and sculpting to "Taking a Walk and Thinking about Stuff," "Foreign Affairs: Hooking Up Overseas," "Rock Our Faces Off 222," and the invention of one freaky kid (Jeremy Howard) who wants to learn how to "blow shit up...with my mind." Bartleby even goes so far as to create a school newspaper (the "S.H.I.T. Rag") and a mascot (the S.H.I.T. Sandwiches). Meanwhile, the dean of nearby Harmon College, Richard Van Horne (Anthony Heald), makes plans to construct the Van Horne Gateway, an adjacent park-like "verdant buffer zone" by which the dean hopes "to keep knowledge in, and ignorance out." He dispatches Hoyt Ambrose (Travis Van Winkle) to free up the nearby properties, but when Bartleby refuses to relinquish the lease for the South Harmon property, Hoyt sets to work trying to reveal the college as a fake. The dispute turns personal, since Bartleby has been vying for the affections of Hoyt's ex-girlfriend, Monica Moreland (Blake Lively). Hoyt exposes South Harmon as a fake institution through Sherman, who is attempting to join Hoyt's fraternity as a legacy, but is treated with humiliation and abuse by his fraternity brothers. After having Sherman beaten up, Hoyt forces him to hand over all the files he has created for South Harmon. He then contacts all the students' parents to expose the school as a fake. Soon after, the institute is shut down, but Sherman's having taken the initiative to file for accreditation gives Bartleby a chance to make his school legitimate. At the State of Ohio educational accreditation hearing, Bartleby makes an impassioned speech about the failures of conventional education and the importance of following one's own passions instead of being dictated on what to do, convincing the board to grant his school a one-year probation to test his new system. The institute reopens, with more students enrolling, including Sherman and Monica. Also, Bartleby finally earns the approval of his father, who is proud that his son actually owns a college. As the film closes, Van Horne is seen walking to his car in the Harmon College parking lot, only to watch it suddenly explode. Bartleby watches in astonishment as the freaky guy from earlier tells him "I told you I could do it", in that he made his psychokinetic explosions reality. Release. Critical response. "Accepted" was released to mixed reviews with an average score of 37% from Rotten Tomatoes based on reviews from 111 critics. The Rotten Tomatoes consensus states "like its characters who aren’t able to meet their potential, "Accepted"'s inconsistent and ridiculous plot gets annoying, despite a few laughs."
340314	Robert Earl Buckley (born May 2, 1981) is an American actor, best known for his roles on the television series "Lipstick Jungle" and "One Tree Hill". In 2012, he joined the case of the ABC supernatural drama series "666 Park Avenue" as Brian Leonard. A native of West Covina, California in Los Angeles County, Buckley earned an economics degree from the University of California, San Diego. As a college student, Buckley appeared as a contestant on "The Price is Right". One of his bids was for $1 less than another contestant. After working a year as an economic consultant he moved back to Los Angeles to pursue a career in acting. Career. Television career. In 2006, Buckley made his acting debut as a series regular playing the role of Michael Bauer on the television series "Fashion House", which premiered on September 5, 2006, to 1.3 million viewers. The series dipped in ratings dramatically and ended on December 5, 2006, as per the MyNetwork 13-week format. In 2006, he signed a deal with MyNetworkTV to again appear in another television series. He portrayed the role of Matthew Wakefield in the series "American Heiress". The series, which consisted of 65 episodes, premiered on March 13, 2007, in two-hour installments. It switched to one-hour slots in further broadcasting and was cancelled on July 18, 2007. 39 episodes remained unaired in America but were broadcast worldwide. 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment has no plans to release the series on DVD. In 2007, Buckley also appeared on an episode of "Ghost Whisperer.
1066493	Clifton Powell (born March 16, 1956) is an American actor and comedian. Biography. Movie career. Powell is known for playing the role of Pinky in the 2000 comedy film, "Next Friday", and its 2002 sequel, "Friday After Next". Powell stars also in the Indie thriller Chain Letter and the early movie Menace II Society (1993) as Chauncy. In 2009 he played "Bowman" in the film "Just Another Day". The film is about a poor young rapper, Young Eastie, and his opposite, successful older rapper, A-Maze and their trials and tribulations over the course of a day. People also say he looks like Otis Redding.
1165691	Donald John DeFore (August 25, 1913–December 22, 1993) was an American film, radio, and television actor. Career. He was born in 1913 in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, to Joseph Ervin DeFore (1878–1942), a railroad engineer, and Albina Sylvia Nezerka (1883–1975), one of seven children and the only one to pursue an acting career. After graduating from Washington High School in Cedar Rapids, he attended Iowa University. He showed great promise in basketball, track, and baseball, but showed no interest in dramatics. Later he joined the Cedar Rapids Community Players. Since acting was not a major study at the university, he left and enrolled at the Pasadena Playhouse, where he won a scholarship and stayed for three years. During this time he and four fellow students wrote a play called “Where Do We Go From Here.” It was presented in a little theater in Hollywood with Don in the cast. As a young man, DeFore toured the country in stock companies for several years before making his Broadway debut in 1938, when Oscar Hammerstein II offered to take it to Broadway and Don and five of the original cast members went along. The show ran for four weeks, and Don was soon recognized as a member of legitimate theater. He remained in New York and won a key role in “The Male Animal,” which ran for almost a year on Broadway and eight months on the road.
1165321	Patrick Douglas Conway, known as Pat Conway (January 9, 1931—April 24, 1981), was an American actor best known for his role as young but tough Sheriff Clay Hollister on the ABC and then syndicated western television series "Tombstone Territory" (1957–1960). He was a maternal grandson of silent film star Francis X. Bushman (1883–1966). Conway was born in Los Angeles, California, to director Jack Conway (1887–1952) and the former Virginia Bushman (born 1908 - deceased). He was a maternal nephew of actor Ralph Bushman (1903–1978), sometimes cited as Francis X. Bushman, Jr., and the art director Bruce Bushman (1911–1972). His role in Westerns. As Sheriff Hollister in the pre-statehood boom town of Tombstone, located south of Tucson in Arizona Territory and known by the sobriquet, "The town too tough to die", Conway co-starred with Richard Eastham as Harris Claibourne, the editor of the actual newspaper, "The Tombstone Epitaph". The series ran on ABC in the 1957-1958 season opposite the sitcom "Father Knows Best", then on NBC, returned to the ABC schedule for the second half of the 1959 season, and was then placed in syndication before it ceased production in June 1960. Conway, as did Eastham, appeared in all ninety-three episodes. Quintin Sondergaard played Quint in eleven episodes of the two later seasons. Gilman Rankin starred as Deputy Charlie Riggs in seven episodes, and Dennis Moore (1908–1964) appeared as "Deputy" in five segments. Robert J. Wilke, John Doucette, and Warren Oates all appeared three times, respectively, as Burt Foster, Chief Geronimo, and Bob Pickett. Among the episodes are "Gunslinger from Galeville" (the series premiere), "A Bullet for an Editor", "Guns of Silver", "Postmarked for Death", "The Epitaph", "Geronimo", "The Outcasts" (about a religious sect), "The Lady Gambler", "The Black Marshal from Deadwood", and "Doc Holliday in Durango". Conway guest-starred in numerous other westerns too: (1) Rory Calhoun's CBS series, "The Texan" in role of Mike Kaler in the 1958 episode "The Troubled Town" (2) NBC's "Laramie" as Tom Wade in the episode "The Killer Legend" (December 12, 1961). Wade is a framed ex-convict who returns to Laramie, Wyoming, with the mistaken belief that Sheriff Mort Corey, played by Stuart Randall, had planted evidence against him. While Corey is away, series character Jess Harper (Robert Fuller) is the acting deputy. The plot reveals that Wade was framed, and the culprit was not Corey but Milt Lane, played by Dick Foran, Wade's former employer. Joan Evans plays Wade's wife, Julie, who never stopped believing in him. Kevin Hagen and Harry Lauter play the brothers Roy and Joe Bartell, Lane's henchmen. (3) NBC's modern-day western "Empire" as Dan Bishop in the 1963 episode "Season of Growth" (4) CBS's "Rawhide" as Reed McCuller in the 1965 episode "Moment in the Sun" (5) NBC's Chuck Connors series "Branded" as Johnny Dolan in the 1965 segment "The Bounty" (6) ABC's "The Iron Horse" as Brill in the 1966 episode "Big Deal" (7) ABC's "Hondo" as Redell in "Hondo and the Singing Wire"; "Hondo" star Ralph Taeger (born 1936) had also appeared twice with Conway on "Tombstone Territory". (9) CBS's "Gunsmoke" as Quade in "Obie Tater" (1955), as Billy Gunter in "Kitty Caught" (1958), as Toque Morlan in "How to Kill a Friend" (also 1958), and as Varnum in "Shadler" (1973). He appeared in two western films: (1) as Captain William Maynard in "Geronimo" (1962), starring Chuck Connors in the title role, and (2) as the villain Jake Irons in "Brighty of the Grand Canyon" (1967), with co-stars Joseph Cotten and Karl Swenson, a story of a canyon mule filmed in Grand Canyon National Park, Arizona. Dramatic roles. Conway's first on-screen appearance was at the age of twenty in 1951 in the episode "Brief Music" of NBC's "Kraft Television Theatre". That same year, he had the uncredited part of Sid Cutler in the film "Westward the Women". In 1952, he had the uncredited part of the projectionist in "Singin' in the Rain". In 1955 and 1956, Conway was cast in two historic roles on Walter Cronkite's CBS series "You Are There", first as young boxer James J. Corbett, fighting the champion John L. Sullivan, in the segment "The Birth of Modern Boxing: John L. Sullivan—James J. Corbett Battle (September 7, 1892)" and then in the American Revolution segment "Benedict Arnold's Plot Against West Point (September 23, 1780)". Conway appeared as Mel in the 1955 episode "Radioactive" of Broderick Crawford's syndicated series "Highway Patrol". About this time, he appeared in the religion anthology series, "Crossroads". In 1956, he portrayed "Joe" in the episode "Woman Afraid" of "Four Star Playhouse". In 1957, Conway appeared as Joshua McCabe in the episode "Start Running" of ABC's "The West Point Story", a drama about cadets at the United States Military Academy. In 1957, he appeared as Saunders in the episode "Rodeo Rough House" of Rod Cameron's syndicated "State Trooper" series. Conway also appeared in two films in 1957, as Sergeant Pete Allen in "The Deadly Mantis" (science fiction) and as United States Navy Lieutenant Brad Chase in "Undersea Girl". While on "Tombstone Territory", Conway appeared in the title role of the 1959 episode "The William Courtney Story" of CBS's "The Millionaire" fantasy drama. Other dramatic roles were in 1962 as Johnny Bicker in the episode "Devil's Canyon" of the syndicated adventure series "Ripcord", starring Larry Pennell and Ken Curtis, and as Lieutenant Bert Evans in "Squadron" of NBC's "The Dick Powell Show". He appeared as Colonel Stone in the 1968 episode "The Professional" of the revived NBC series "Tarzan", starring Ron Ely. His last roles were as Sheriff Townsend in the television movie, "The Abduction of Saint Anne", and on Karl Malden's ABC series "The Streets of San Francisco", as Victor A. Coyle in "The Bullet" (1972), and as Al Doylen in "Endgame" (1975). Conway passed away at age fifty in Santa Barbara County, California. His ashes were scattered into the Pacific Ocean.
1059882	Red Dawn is a 1984 American war film directed by John Milius and co-written by Milius and Kevin Reynolds. It stars Patrick Swayze, C. Thomas Howell, Lea Thompson, Charlie Sheen, and Jennifer Grey. The film is set in an alternate 1980s in which the United States is invaded by the Soviet Union and its Cuban and Nicaraguan allies. However, the onset of World War III is in the background and not fully elaborated. The story follows a group of American high school students who resist the occupation with guerrilla warfare, calling themselves Wolverines, after their high school mascot. Plot. An introductory text explains how the United States has gradually become strategically isolated after several European nations, excluding the United Kingdom, withdraw their membership in NATO. At the same time, the Soviet Union and its Warsaw Pact partners aggressively expand their sphere of influence. In addition, the Ukrainian wheat harvest fails while a communist "coup d'etat" occurs in Mexico. On a September morning, in the small town of Calumet, Colorado, a local high school teacher pauses mid sentence when he sees Russian paratroopers landing in a nearby field. The paratroopers open fire when the teacher confronts them. Pandemonium follows as students flee amid heavy gunfire. In downtown Calumet, Cuban and Soviet troops are trying to impose order after a hasty occupation. Shortly thereafter, the Cuban Colonel Bella instructs the KGB to go to a local sporting goods store and obtain the records of the store's gun sales on the ATF's Form 4473, which includes the names of citizens who have purchased firearms. Brothers Jed and Matt Eckert, along with their friends Robert, Danny, Daryl, and Aardvark, flee into the wilderness after hastily equipping themselves at the sporting goods store, which is owned by Robert's father. While on the way to the mountains, the teens run into a Russian roadblock, but are saved by an attacking U.S. Army helicopter gunship. After several weeks in the forest, they sneak back into town; Jed and Matt learn that their father has been captured and is being held in a re-education camp. They visit the site and speak to him through the fence; Mr. Eckert orders his sons to abandon him, and to "avenge" his inevitable death. The kids then visit the Masons, neighbors of the Eckerts, and learn that they are behind enemy lines in "Occupied America". Robert's father is revealed to have been executed because of the missing inventory from his store. The Masons charge Jed and Matt with taking care of their two granddaughters, Toni and Erica. After killing Soviet soldiers in the woods, the youths begin an armed resistance against the occupation forces, calling themselves the "Wolverines." The occupation forces initially try reprisal tactics, executing groups of civilians following every Wolverine attack, in hopes of intimidating the local population and compelling the Wolverines to surrender or desist. During one of these mass executions, the fathers of Jed, Matt, and Aardvark are killed. Daryl's father, Mayor Bates, acts as collaborator and tries to appease the occupation authorities. The Wolverines find a downed F-15 and its pilot, Lt. Col. Andrew Tanner, played by Powers Boothe, who informs them about the current state of the war: several American cities, including Washington, D.C., were obliterated by nuclear strikes; America's Strategic Air Command was crippled in a surprise attack by Cuban saboteurs who had posed as illegal immigrants from Mexico; and the paratroopers the youths encountered were dropped from fake commercial airliners to seize key positions in preparation for subsequent massive assaults via Mexico and Alaska. The middle third of the US has been taken over, but American counterattacks have halted Soviet advances and the lines have stabilized. Concerned about nuclear fallout, both sides refrain from the further uses of nuclear weapons. Tanner assists the Wolverines in organizing raids against the Soviets. Soon after, in a visit to the front line, Tanner and Aardvark are killed in the crossfire of a tank battle. As a result of the escalating attacks, Soviet commanders now view the Wolverines as a serious threat. Using threats of torture, KGB officers force Daryl to swallow a tracking device, then release him to rejoin the guerrillas. Spetsnaz are sent into the mountains following signals from Daryl, but are ambushed and killed by the Wolverines. The group discovers that their pursuers are carrying portable radio triangulation equipment and trace the source of the signal to their friend. Daryl confesses and pleads for mercy, but is coldly executed by Robert after Jed executes a Soviet soldier captured during the battle. The Wolverines' morale erodes as the war of attrition takes its toll. The remaining members are ambushed by three helicopter gunships after being baited by a truck dropping supplies on the road. Robert and Toni are killed in the attack, leaving the group reduced to four. Determined to save at least some of their number, Jed and Matt attack the Soviet headquarters in Calumet to distract the troops while Danny and Erica escape to liberated territory. The plan works as Danny and Erica escape, while Jed and Matt are wounded. Though Colonel Bella encounters the brothers, he cannot bring himself to kill them and lets them go. Still, it is implied that the brothers die in the park where the two spent time as kids. The film's epilogue is narrated by Erica and suggests that the United States repelled the Soviet invasion some time later. A plaque is displayed with "Partisan Rock" in the background, which has been a recurring motif throughout the film as each dead comrade's name has been inscribed upon it. The plaque reads: Development. The script for "Red Dawn" was written by John Milius and Kevin Reynolds from a story by Reynolds. The original story, called "Ten Soldiers", was more akin to "Lord of the Flies", the classic novel about the aggressive nature of man, than to the action film it eventually became. Some of the changes included a shift in focus from conflict within the group to conflict between the teens and their oppressors, and the acceleration of the ages of some of the characters from early teens to high school age and beyond. The movie was filmed in and around the town of Las Vegas, New Mexico. Many of the buildings and structures which appeared in the film, including a historic Fred Harvey Company hotel adjacent to the train depot, the train yard, and a building near downtown, which was repainted with the name of "Calumet, Colorado", are still there today. An old Safeway grocery store was converted to a sound stage and used for several scenes in the movie. Before starting work on the movie, the cast underwent a realistic, intensive eight-week military training course. During that time, production crews designed and built special combat vehicles in Newhall, California. "Soldier of Fortune" reported that the movie's T-72 tank was such a precise replica that "while it was being carted around Los Angeles, two CIA officers followed it to the studio and wanted to know where it had come from". It was the first film to be released with the MPAA rating of PG-13. Reception. "Red Dawn" was the 20th highest grossing film of 1984, opening on 10 August 1984 in 1,822 theatres and taking in $8,230,381 on its first weekend. Its box office gross is $38,376,497. It was the first film to be released in the US with a Motion Picture Association of America PG-13 rating. "Red Dawn" received mixed reviews, receiving a score of 53% on Rotten Tomatoes. At the time it was released, "Red Dawn" was considered the most violent film by the "Guinness Book of Records" and The National Coalition on Television Violence, with a rate of 134 acts of violence per hour, or 2.23 per minute. The DVD Special Edition (2007) includes an on-screen "Carnage Counter" in a nod to this. "National Review Online" has named the film #15 in its list of "The Best Conservative Movies." Adam Arseneau at the website DVD Verdict opined that the film "often feels like a Republican wet dream manifested into a surrealistic Orwellian nightmare". According to Jesse Walker of "Reason": Libertarian theorist Murray Rothbard argued that the film was "not so much pro-war as it is anti-State." Rothbard gave the film a generally positive review, while expressing some reservations with the story: The film has gained a cult following over the years. Operation "Red Dawn". The operation to capture former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein was named Operation "Red Dawn" and its targets were dubbed "Wolverine 1" and "Wolverine 2". Army Captain Geoffrey McMurray, who named the mission, said the naming "was so fitting because it was a patriotic, pro-American movie." Milius approved of the naming: "I was deeply flattered and honored. It's nice to have a lasting legacy." Remake. The remake takes place in the modern day (c. 2010), with North Korea invading the United States.
587744	Ammoru () is a 1995 Telugu film produced by Shyam Prasad Reddy and directed by Kodi Ramakrishna. Beginning with an idiom resembling the mythological, the film transforms into a domestic family drama while maintaining its allegiance to folk legends about female village deities. The big-budget hit was a major box office succes and was noted for its special effects and its soundtrack, which used folk tunes and established the newcomer Soundarya as a major star. The Tamil dubbed version entitled "Amman" was also a hit. Ramya Krishna played the role of village Goddess Ammoru, while Soundarya portrayed Bhavani, her devotee. The plot. Bhavani (Soundarya), a lower-caste orphan and devotee of Goddess Ammoru, is responsible for the arrest of the evil Gorakh (Rami Reddy). Gorakh is released from prison, vowing to revenge. Bhavani is married to a doctor (Suresh) who happens to be related to Gorakh. The doctor goes abroad to study, leaving his wife unprotected. When Gorakh's mother Leelamma (Vadivukkarasi) tries to kill Bhavani, the Goddess Ammoru (Ramya Krishna) descends to earth and the takes the form of Bhavani's maid servant in order to protect her. Gorakh finds a way for the servant to be dismissed, kills Bhavani's infant daughter and tortures her husband, with the help of evil spirit Chenda. Eventually, the Goddess returns, and in a spectacular finale featuring the special effects, kills Gorakh.
582722	Aa Ab Laut Chalen (translation: "Come, Let's Go Back") is a 1999 Bollywood romantic drama musical directed by Rishi Kapoor and written by Sachin Bhowmick. The film premiered in India and the United States on 22 January 1999. It starred Rajesh Khanna, Akshaye Khanna and Aishwarya Rai and was the last production of R. K. Films. "Box Office India" declared it a below-average performer at the box office. Plot. Rohan Khanna (Akshaye Khanna) is a jobless graduate living with his grandfather (Alok Nath) and his mother (Moushumi Chatterjee). Rohan has been tirelessly looking for a decent job without success. One day, Rohan's neighbor, Ranjit arrives to bring his parents to America. Ranjit lives in America, owns a motel, a home, a car, and is married to an American woman. He wishes to keep his parents in America to live in peace. After listening to Rohan's desire for a job, he suggests that Rohan should move to America. Ranjit promises Rohan success and Rohan is immediately persuaded. He tells his mother and grandfather of his wish and they are abruptly reminded of Rohan's late father, Balraj Khanna (Rajesh Khanna) who left his wife and son for America after a bitter argument with his father. In a bus accident, Balraj was killed leaving Rohan orphaned and his mother widowed. To avoid the same fate of his son, Rohan's grandfather prepares Rohan's visa for America. Rohan arrives in America and immediately meets Sardar Khan (Kader Khan), a Pakistani man who drives a taxi. Rohan's good manners and friendly personality wins Sardar over as he drives Rohan to Ranjit's hotel. Rohan does not have any spare cash to pay Sardar so he asks Sardar to stay while he asks Ranjit for the taxi fare. He is shocked when Ranjit does not give him money or a place to stay saying that Rohan has to be able to help himself. Sardar overhears the two arguing. Rohan looks and sees that Ranjit's father and mother are working at the hotel and facing verbal abuse from Ranjit's wife. This is not the peace that Ranjit had promised his parents. Sardar offers Rohan a place to stay much to the dismay of his roommate, Iqbal Singh (Jaspal Bhatti), a Punjabi man from India. Rohan is allowed to stay with Iqbal and Sardar with the persuasion of Chaurasia (Satish Kaushik. Chaurasia runs an Indian restaurant and betel leaf shop. Rohan is given a job as a taxi driver. One day, while making routes near the airport, he picks up a young Indian woman named Pooja (Aishwarya Rai). Pooja has just arrived in America to live with her older brother and his wife. Much to the shock of Pooja, her brother only brought her here because his boss had seen a picture her and had fallen in love. Pooja's brother insists that she marry his boss. In anger, she leaves his home without money and nowhere to go. Rohan sees Pooja crying and offers her a place to stay with Iqbal and Sardar.
1060449	Amber Rose Tamblyn (born May 14, 1983) is an American actress and poet. She first came to national attention in her role on the soap opera "General Hospital" as Emily Quartermaine, followed by a starring role on the prime-time series "Joan of Arcadia", portraying the title character. Her feature film work includes roles in "The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants", "The Grudge 2", "The Ring", and "127 Hours"; she had an extended arc as Martha M. Masters on the main cast of the medical drama "House". Early life. Tamblyn was born in Santa Monica, California, the daughter of Russ Tamblyn, an actor, dancer, and singer who starred in the 1961 film of "West Side Story", and Bonnie Murray, a singer, teacher, and artist. Her paternal grandfather, Eddie Tamblyn, was a vaudeville performer. She attended the Santa Monica Alternative School House, which, in her words, was "very unorthodox, no letter grades". At the age of ten, she played Pippi Longstocking in a school play; her father's agent, Sharon Debord, was attending as a family friend and ended up convincing her father to allow Tamblyn to go on auditions.
1037111	Erika S.L "Kika" Markham (born 1940) is an English actress. Markham was born in Macclesfield, Cheshire. She is a daughter of actor David Markham and writer Olive Dehn (1914–2007). She has led a long career in the cinema, television and theatre as an actress. Among her television appearances are roles in "Minder", "The Life and Times of David Lloyd George", "Van der Valk", "Cracker", and "Agatha Christie's Poirot". Markham married actor Corin Redgrave in Wandsworth, London in 1985. The couple had two sons, Harvey (born 1979) and Arden (born 1983). Markham and Redgrave appeared together twice on screen: first in Lynda La Plante's "Trial and Retribution" (2000) as a judge and barrister respectively; and later in the BBC's "Waking The Dead" (episode "Special Relationship: Part 1") as lovers suspected of the murder of a government advisor.They also appeared on stage together in an acclaimed revival of Noël Coward's "A Song at Twilight", along with sister in law Vanessa Redgrave . Her sisters are the actress Petra Markham, the poet and dramatist Jehane Markham, wife of actor Roger Lloyd-Pack, and Sonia. She was directed by François Truffaut in Les Deux Anglaises et le Continent (1971) and has appeared in other films such as Outland (1981) and Killing Me Softly (2002).
1162554	Shannon Whirry (born November 7, 1964) is an American actress who was born in Green Lake, Wisconsin. Career. Shannon Whirry trained at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in the 1980s, appearing onstage in "Butterflies Are Free" and "Mrs. Warren's Profession".  She began to work primarily in erotic B movies in the early 1990s along with other scream queens of that era, such as Tanya Roberts, Maria Ford, and Shannon Tweed. Director Gregory Hippolyte's productions of "Animal Instincts I" and "II", "Body of Influence", and "Mirror Images II" featured Whirry in various stages of undress in repeated scenes. Other films were "Private Obsession" and "Playback", a "Playboy" production. In the late 1990s, she moved from softcore movies into a series of roles on mainstream network television and films, including action, sci-fi and horror genres. She had a recurring role as Mike Hammer's secretary Velda in the television series "Mike Hammer, Private Eye" and made guest appearances on such shows as "ER", "Felicity", "Seinfeld", "V.I.P.", "Murphy Brown", "Malcolm in the Middle" and "Nash Bridges". In 2007 she appeared on a BBC TV mini-series, "Nuclear Secrets", playing Kitty Oppenheimer, the wife of Robert Oppenheimer. She also had a small role in the Jim Carrey film "Me, Myself & Irene" (2000).
582439	Milenge Milenge (; "We Will Meet, We Will Meet") is a 2010 Bollywood romantic drama film. Largely based on the 2001 film "Serendipity", the movie is directed by Satish Kaushik and stars Shahid Kapoor and Kareena Kapoor in their fifth film together after Imtiaz Ali's "Jab We Met" (2007). Other members from the cast include Satish Shah, Aarti Chhabria, and Delnaaz Paul. Plot. Priya Malhotra (Kareena Kapoor) is an orphan who hopes to have a family of her own and keeps a diary outlining her dreams and the type of man she wants to meet – someone who does not drink, smoke or tell lies. She is skeptical when her friend Honey's (Delnaaz Paul) aunt, a card reader, Sunita Rao (Kirron Kher), predicts that she will go to a foreign land and find the love of her life in seven days. She is pleasantly surprised when she is selected to go to a Youth Festival in Bangkok.
1043836	Reginald "Leo" McKern, AO (16 March 192023 July 2002) was an Australian actor who appeared in numerous British and Australian television programmes and films, and in more than 200 stage roles. Early life. He was born Reginald McKern in Sydney, New South Wales, the son of Vera (née Martin) and Norman Walton McKern. He attended Sydney Technical High School. After an accident at the age of 15, he lost his left eye. He first worked as an engineering apprentice, then as an artist, followed by service in the Australian Army during World War II. In 1944, in Sydney, he performed in his first stage role. Career. Theatre. Having fallen in love with actress Jane Holland, McKern moved to the United Kingdom to be with her; they married in 1946. He soon became a regular performer at London's Old Vic theatre and the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre (now the Royal Shakespeare Theatre) in Stratford-upon-Avon, despite the difficulties posed by his glass eye and Australian accent. In 1949, he played Forester in "Love's Labour's Lost" at the Old Vic. McKern's most notable Shakespearean role was as Iago in "Othello", in 1952. He originated the role of Common Man in Robert Bolt's "A Man for All Seasons" in the West End in 1960, but for the show's Broadway production appeared as Thomas Cromwell, 1st Earl of Essex—a role that he would reprise for the 1966 film version. He also portrayed Subtle in Ben Jonson's "The Alchemist" in 1962. In 1965, he played the eponymous villain in Bolt's "The Thwarting of Baron Bolligrew", and Disson in Harold Pinter's "Tea Party". Film. McKern's film debut was in "Murder in the Cathedral" (1952). His other notable film appearances included the science-fiction classic "The Day the Earth Caught Fire" (1961), the Beatles' film "Help!" (1965), the Academy Award-winning adaptation of "A Man for All Seasons" (1966), "The Shoes of the Fisherman" (1968), "Ryan's Daughter" (1970), "Massacre in Rome" (1973), "The Adventure of Sherlock Holmes' Smarter Brother" (1975),"The Omen" (1976), "The Blue Lagoon" (1980), "The French Lieutenant's Woman" (1981) and "Ladyhawke" (1985). He was presented with the Australian Film Institute Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role for "Travelling North" (1987). In "Monsignor Quixote" (1985), he co-starred as Sancho Zancas opposite Alec Guinness as Father Quixote. Television. One of McKern's earliest television roles was in the 1950s black-and-white series "The Adventures of Robin Hood" (as Sir Roger DeLisle, usurper of the Locksley manor and lands, and Herbert of Doncaster, a corrupt moneylender). During the 1960s, he was one of several Number Twos in the cult TV series "The Prisoner". Along with Colin Gordon, McKern was one of only two actors to play Number Two more than once. He first played the character in the episodes "The Chimes of Big Ben" and "Once Upon a Time", and later reprised the role in the final episode, "Fall Out". The filming of "Once Upon a Time" proved to be a particularly intense experience for McKern; according to one biographer, the stress caused him to suffer either a nervous breakdown or a heart attack (accounts differ), forcing production to stop for a time. In 1976 McKern narrated and presented "The Battle of the Somme" a BBC documentary marking the 60th anniversary of the WWI battle. "Rumpole of the Bailey". In 1975, McKern made his first appearance in the role that would make him a household name as an actor, Horace Rumpole, whom he played in "Rumpole of the Bailey", a BBC Play for Today. A series of the same name, comprising 44 episodes, was produced for ITV between 1978 and 1992. John Mortimer, series creator and writer, wrote the part with actor Alastair Sim in mind, but changed his mind after watching McKern in the part. According to Mortimer, "he not only played the character Rumpole—he added to it, brightened it and brought it fully to life." Although he enjoyed the role McKern expressed doubts about its popularity and the extent to which his life was becoming intertwined with Rumpole's. "McKern was often unhappy, decrying his television fame as an 'insatiable monster'. He stressed that his Peer Gynt was a greater performance and lamented: 'If I get an obit in any paper, they will say, "... of course, known to millions as Rumpole"'." In the later series, his daughter Abigail McKern joined the cast as Liz Probert. Commercial Work. In 1987, investment firm Smith Barney selected McKern to succeed John Houseman as its spokesman. At the same time, Smith Barney's corporate advertising department decided to change the format of its TV advertisements, the first of which featuring McKern airing in September 1987. McKern's advertisements were not as popular with the viewing public as Houseman's, and in 1989, Smith Barney switched to a campaign featuring the voice of American actor George C. Scott. In the 1990s, McKern appeared in a series of advertisements for Lloyds Bank, widely shown on British television, in which he portrayed a character reminiscent of Rumpole. Radio. McKern provided the voice of Captain Haddock in the 1992 and 1993 BBC Radio adaptation of "Hergé's The Adventures of Tintin". Personal life. In 1983, McKern was appointed an Officer of the Order of Australia for his services to the performing arts. McKern informed his daughter Abigail that he suffered from stage fright, which became harder to control with age. He also worried that his stout frame would not appeal to audiences. Suffering from diabetes and other health problems, he moved to a nursing home near Bath in Somerset in 2002. He died a few weeks later at the age of 82. His body was cremated at Haycombe Cemetery in Bath. McKern was survived by his wife Jane, his daughters Abigail and Harriet, and a grandchild.
1016199	Chinese Odyssey () is a 2002 Hong Kong mo lei tau film written and directed by Jeffrey Lau and produced by Wong Kar-wai. It stars Tony Leung Chiu-Wai, Faye Wong, Zhao Wei and Chang Chen.
1103568	In the mathematical field of numerical analysis, a Bernstein polynomial, named after Sergei Natanovich Bernstein, is a polynomial in the Bernstein form, that is a linear combination of Bernstein basis polynomials. A numerically stable way to evaluate polynomials in Bernstein form is de Casteljau's algorithm. Polynomials in Bernstein form were first used by Bernstein in a constructive proof for the Stone–Weierstrass approximation theorem. With the advent of computer graphics, Bernstein polynomials, restricted to the interval "x" ∈ [0, 1], became important in the form of Bézier curves. Definition. The "n" + 1 Bernstein basis polynomials of degree "n" are defined as where formula_2 is a binomial coefficient. The Bernstein basis polynomials of degree "n" form a basis for the vector space Π"n" of polynomials of degree at most "n".
590215	Ek Din Achanak (Hindi: एक दिन अचानक, English: "Suddenly, One Day") is a 1989 art film directed by Mrinal Sen, based on a Bengali novel, "Beej" by Ramapada Chowdhury. Synopsis. One evening, in the midst of torrential rains, a professor (Shreeram Lagoo) goes out for a walk and fails to return. As the evening stretches into days and the days into weeks with no sign of him, the member of his family struggle both to regain their footing and to understand what might have caused him to leave. Slowly they return to their quotidian activities. The professor's son Amit (Arjun Chakraborty) establishes his fledgling business; his younger daughter Sima (Roopa Ganguly) resumes her studies at college; and his elder daughter, Neeta (Shabana Azmi), the backbone of the family, returns to her office job.
1236544	Marsha Lisa Thomason (born 19 January 1976) is a British television and film actress who is known in the United States for playing Nessa Holt in the first two seasons of the NBC series "Las Vegas", for her recurring role on ABC's "Lost" as Naomi Dorrit, and for playing FBI agent Diana Berrigan on USA Network's "White Collar". Early life. Thomason was born in Moston, Manchester, the daughter of Phyllis (née McCrae), a Jamaican electronics company employee and Peter Thomason, who worked in politics. She attended Holy Trinity Primary School in Blackley and North Manchester High School for Girls, before attending Oldham Sixth Form College to study for A levels in Media Studies, Theatre Studies and Performing Arts. Thomason attended the Manchester Metropolitan University, receiving a Bachelor of Arts degree in English.
1034213	Michael Anthony Robbins (14 November 1930 – 11 December 1992) was an English actor known for his television work, including his role as Arthur Rudge in sitcom "On the Buses" (1969–72). Career. Born in London, Robbins was a bank clerk who became an actor after appearing in amateur dramatic performances in Hitchin, Hertfordshire, where he and his family lived at the time. Robbins made his television debut as the cockney soldier in "Roll-on Bloomin' Death". Primarily a comedy actor, he is best remembered for the role of Arthur Rudge, the persistently sarcastic husband of Olive (Anna Karen), in the popular sitcom "On the Buses" (1969–73). Robbins and Karen provided the secondary comic storyline to Reg Varney's comedy capers at the bus depot. Robbins also appeared in the series film spin-offs, "On the Buses", "Mutiny on the Buses", and "Holiday on the Buses". His other comedy credits include non-recurring roles in "Man About the House", "The Good Life", "One Foot in the Grave", "The New Statesman", "George and Mildred", "Hi-De-Hi", "The Pink Panther Strikes Again" and "You Rang, M'Lord?". He appeared as a rather humorously portrayed police sergeant in the TV adaptation of "Brendon Chase". As well as these comic roles, he assumed various straight roles in some of the major British television shows of the 1960s and 1970s: including "Minder", "The Sweeney", "Z-Cars"," Return of the Saint", "Murder Most English", "The Avengers", "Dixon of Dock Green" and the 1982 "Doctor Who" story "The Visitation". Robbins's film credits included "The Whisperers", "Up The Junction", "The Looking Glass War", "Zeppelin" and Blake Edwards' film "Victor/Victoria" and "Just Ask For Diamond". Robbins was an indefatigable worker for charity. He was active in the Grand Order of Water Rats (being elected 'Rat of the Year' in 1978) and the Catholic Stage Guild; and received a Papal Award for his services in 1987. In one of his last television appearances, in "A Little Bit of Heaven" Robbins recalled his childhood visits to Norfolk and spoke of his faith and love of the Shrine of Our Lady at Walsingham. In the mid-1970s he also directed a film: "How Are You?". Personal. Robbins was married to actress Hal Dyer until he died from cancer in Caterham, Surrey, aged 62. Dyer died in 2011 from a brain haemorrhage. Robbins is survived by his 2 children, Ben and Sarah and his 4 grandchildren Daniel, Max, Lucy and Joe.
1163786	Anna Marie "Patty" Duke (born December 14, 1946) is an American actress of stage, film, and television. First becoming famous as a child star, winning an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress at age 16, and later starring in her eponymous sitcom for three years, she progressed to more mature roles upon playing Neely O'Hara in the 1967 film "Valley of the Dolls". She was later elected president of the Screen Actors Guild from 1985 to 1988. Duke was diagnosed with bipolar disorder in 1982; since then she has devoted much of her time to advocating and educating the public on mental health issues. In 1996, Patty Duke was ranked #40 on TV Guide's 50 Greatest TV Stars of All Time. Early life. Duke was born in Elmhurst, Queens, New York, the youngest of three children born to Frances (née McMahon), a cashier, and John Patrick Duke, a handyman and cab driver. Her father was Irish American and her maternal grandmother was German. Her paternal grandparents, James and Catherine (O'Hara) Duke immigrated to New York from County Longford, Ireland. Duke and her older brother, Raymond, and their older sister Carol experienced a childhood of hard times. Her father was an alcoholic, and her mother suffered from clinical depression and was prone to violence. When Duke was six, her mother threw her father out; when she was eight, her mother turned Duke's care over to John and Ethel Ross, who became her managers. The Rosses recognized her talent and promoted her as a child actress. The Rosses' methods of managing Duke's career were often unscrupulous and exploitative; they consistently billed Duke as being two years younger than she actually was, and padded her resume with some false credits. It was Ethel Ross who gave the sweeping name-change order, "Anna Marie is dead; you're Patty now." This was in hopes that the change in her first name would allow her to duplicate the success of child actress Patty McCormack. This act would have painful repercussions for Duke in the decades to come. Career. Acting. 1950s - 1990s. One of Duke's first acting jobs was on the soap opera "The Brighter Day," in the late 1950s. She also appeared in print ads and in television commercials. At the age of 12, Duke appeared on "The $64,000 Question" and won $32,000. Three years later, it was revealed that the game show was rigged and she was called to testify before a congressional panel. Duke's first major starring role was playing Helen Keller (with Anne Bancroft as Annie Sullivan) in the Broadway play "The Miracle Worker", which ran for nearly two years (October 1959 – July 1961). Midway through the production-run, her name was placed above the title on the marquee. The play was subsequently made into a 1962 film, for which Duke received the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. At 16, Duke was the youngest person at that time to receive an Academy Award in a competitive category. In 1961, Duke returned to television, starring with Laurence Olivier and George C. Scott in a television production of "The Power and the Glory." Two years later, in 1963, Duke was given her own series, titled "The Patty Duke Show," created specifically for her by Sidney Sheldon, in which she acted out both of the two main characters: Patricia "Patty" Lane, an American teenager occasionally getting into minor trouble in school and at home, and her 'prim and proper' "identical cousin" from Scotland, Catherine "Cathy" Lane. The show featured co-stars William Schallert as Patty Lane's father, Jean Byron as her mother, Paul O'Keefe as her brother, and Eddie Applegate as her boyfriend Richard, as well as featuring such high-profile guest stars as Sammy Davis, Jr., Peter Lawford, Paul Lynde, and Sal Mineo. The series lasted for three seasons and earned Duke an Emmy Award nomination. In 1999, the program's characters were revisited and updated in "The Patty Duke Show: Still Rockin' In Brooklyn Heights," in which supporting cast member Cindy Williams's role was that of the villain. Despite the success of her career, Duke was deeply miserable during her teenage years. Efforts were taken by the Rosses to portray her as a normal teenager, but Duke later indicated in "Call Me Anna," her memoirs, which she dictated to Kenneth Turan, that she was the virtual prisoner of the Rosses, and that she had little control over her own life and earnings. The Rosses kept control over Duke and her mother by allowing them only a small amount of money to survive on. The Rosses also began providing Duke with alcohol and prescription drugs when she was 13, which, along with her undiagnosed bipolar disorder, contributed to substance abuse problems that she experienced throughout her young adult life. As an adult, Duke accused both John and Ethel Ross of sexual abuse. Upon turning 18, Duke became legally free of the Rosses, only to find that they had squandered most of her earnings in violation of the Coogan Act. In 1967, with "The Patty Duke Show" cancelled, Duke attempted to leave her childhood success behind and begin her adult acting career by playing Neely O'Hara in "Valley of the Dolls." The film was a box office success, but audiences and critics had a difficult time accepting all-American-teenager Duke as an alcoholic, drug-addicted singing star. While the film has since become a camp classic—thanks, in large part, to Duke's over-the-top performance—it almost ruined her career at the time. Duke starred in "Me, Natalie," a 1969 film in which she played an "ugly duckling" Brooklyn teenager struggling to make a life for herself in the Bohemian world in Greenwich Village. One of her co-stars was a young actor making his screen debut, Al Pacino. The film was a failure at the box office, but Duke won the Golden Globe for Best Actress (Musical or Comedy) for the role. Duke returned to television in 1970, starring in a made-for-TV movie, "My Sweet Charlie." Her sensitive portrayal of a pregnant teenager on the run won Duke her first Emmy Award, but her acceptance speech was rambling, angry, and disjointed, and led many in the industry to believe she was using drugs. In fact, Duke was in the throes of a manic phase as part of her then-undiagnosed bipolar disorder, which would remain undiagnosed until 1982. Duke worked primarily in television from the mid-1970s to the early 2000s. She received her second Emmy for the TV miniseries "Captains and the Kings" in 1977, and her third in 1980 for a TV version of her 1979 stage revival of "The Miracle Worker", this time playing Anne Sullivan to Melissa Gilbert's Helen Keller. Her turns in the made-for-TV movies "The Women's Room" (1980) and "George Washington" (1984) both garnered her Emmy nominations.
589054	Namak Haraam (Devanagari: नमक हराम, Nastaliq: نمک ہرام; translation: traitor), is a 1973 Indian Hindi film directed by Hrishikesh Mukherjee. The music is by R.D. Burman, the screenplay by Gulzar, and lyrics by Anand Bakshi. The film stars Rajesh Khanna and Amitabh Bachchan. It also stars Rekha, Asrani, Raza Murad, A.K. Hangal, Simi Garewal and Om Shivpuri. Rajesh Khanna received his third BFJA Awards for Best Actor (Hindi) in 1974 for this film. This was the second Hrishikesh film with Rajesh Khanna and Amitabh after "Anand". "Diye Jalte Hai, Phool Khilte Hai", "Nadiya se dariya, Dariye se sagar" and "Main Shayar Badnaam" are the most memorable melodies, all rendered powerfully by Kishore Kumar and picturised on Rajesh Khanna. The film was a hit at the box office. Plot. The film focused on two friends (Somu and Vicky) and how Somu tries to infiltrate the trade union of his friends. Amitabh Bachchan plays a rich man's son, Vicky, who has a fight with a union leader and later sends his best friend Somu (Rajesh Khanna) to grow bigger than the previous union leader. Rajesh starts getting influenced by the ideals of workers which leads to the confrontation between two friends. This story concentrates on the rise of unions with the backdrop of Mumbai's textile mills and inflation in the early '70s.
520571	Hazel Pascual Reyes ("born" on May 9, 1979 in Manila, Philippines), better known by her screen name, Ara Mina, is a Filipina actress, fashion model and singer. She won the Golden Screen Award in 2004 for Best Actress in a drama in the Philippines for her role as Luna in "Minsan Pa". "The Filipino Express" said "Ara Mina's role in this Jeffrey Jeturian film actually lies in the borderline of lead and supporting actress. Although she is the leading lady of Jomari Yllana and is, in fact, billed alongside his name, her character is basically secondary to the flow of the story (her first scene, in fact, comes much later in the movie). But whether lead or support, Ara Mina had already proven her worth as an actress in films like "Mano Po 2" and "Huling Birhen sa Lupa"--the two films that had already given her acting trophies in the past. In Minsan Pa, she delivers another fine performance that is worth of more acting awards. She is the daughter of Chuck Mathay, a former Philippine congressman from Quezon City. Her half-sister Cristine Reyes is also an actress with ABS-CBN. Mina has appeared on the TV shows "Bubble Gang", "Prinsesa ng Banyera" and "Totoy Bato". She also played the role of Glacilda Bautista in "Dapat Ka Bang Mahalin?". In 2012-2013 After Hiatus on TV Dramas Mina, starred in the top-rated Afternoon Drama Yesterday's Bride which aired on GMA-7 and Internationally through GMA Pinoy TV which aired for 5 months as she played one of the latters antagonist. In 2013 she has appeared in both networks ABS CBN and GMA in Drama Anthologies such as MMK and Magpakailanman(2012-Present Revival of the TV Series) and also made guest appearances on Wanasapanatym and Showbiz Featured Talk Show Startalk
1056043	Max Dugan Returns is a 1983 American comedy-drama film starring Jason Robards as the titular Max Dugan, Marsha Mason as his daughter Nora, Donald Sutherland, Kiefer Sutherland, and Matthew Broderick as grandson Michael (in his first movie appearance as well as a first appearance for Kiefer). This would be the last Neil Simon film to be directed by Herbert Ross, as well as the last of his films starring Mason (Simon's wife at the time). Plot. Max Dugan (Jason Robards), the long-lost father of Nora McPhee (Marsha Mason), drops in on her as various trials and tribulations have befallen her. With him, he brings some promises and the news of his impending death. He also meets and befriends his grandson Michael (Matthew Broderick). Donald Sutherland plays the police officer who helps Nora after her car is stolen and becomes her boyfriend in the process. Former professional baseball player Charley Lau appears as himself having been hired by Dugan to coach Michael to hit better for his little league team. At the time of the movie, Lau was the hitting coach for the Chicago White Sox. Production notes. This movie marks the first of only two times (as of October 2006) that Donald Sutherland and his son Kiefer have appeared together in a dramatic film project; the other is "A Time to Kill". (source: IMDB). Kiefer Sutherland has a bit part, playing one of Michael's friends hanging around outside his high school. Kiefer shares no scene with his father. Matthew Broderick was cast in this film and Simon's play "Brighton Beach Memoirs" simultaneously.
834691	Pocket Money is a 1972 film directed by Stuart Rosenberg, from a screenplay written by Terrence Malick and based on the novel "Jim Kane" (1970) by Joseph P. Brown. The movie stars Paul Newman and Lee Marvin and takes place in 1970s Arizona and northern Mexico. The song "Pocket Money" is composed and performed by Carole King. Portions of the film were shot at Southwestern Studios in Carefree, Arizona, a facility originally built by cast member Fred Graham. Plot. Broke and in debt, an otherwise honest cowboy known as Jim Kane (Newman) gets mixed up in some shady dealings with Stretch Russell (Rogers) and Bill Garrett (Martin), a crooked rancher. Russell tells Kane to escort 200 head of cattle from Mexico to the United States for a good sum of money. Kane agrees and brings along his friend Leonard (Marvin) to aid him. Unfortunately, the two come upon many unexpected events that often deter them from completing their job. Cast. Paul Newman ... Jim Kane
588973	Sulakshana Pratap Narain Pandit is a Filmfare Award winning playback singer and actor. Her brothers are the composing duo Jatin Lalit and her younger sister is Vijeta Pandit who achieved fame with her debut movie "Love Story". Her uncle is the accomplished classical vocalist Pandit Jasraj. Career. Sulakshana's career as heroine spanned the 1970s and early '80s. As a leading lady she worked with Jeetendra, Sanjeev Kumar, Shammi Kapoor, Amitabh Bachchan, Rajesh Khanna, Vinod Khanna, Rishi Kapoor, Raj Babbar and Rakesh Roshan. Her acting career began with the suspense thriller "Uljhan" in 1975 opposite Sanjeev Kumar. In Anil Ganguly's "Sankoch" (1976) which was based on the novel "Parineeta" she portrayed Lolita. Some of her popular hit films are "Uljhan", "Hera Pheri", "Apnapan", "Sankoch", "Khandaan", "Raaz", "Thief of Baghdad", "Chehre Pe Chehra", "Dharam Kanta" and "Waqt Ki Deewar". She acted in a Bangali movie, "Bondie", where she was paired opposite Uttam Kumar. Sulakshana had a singing career alongside her acting one. She began her as a child singer singing the popular song "Saat Samundar Paar se" with Lata Mangeshkar in the 1967 film "Taqdeer". Thereafter, she recorded with famed musicians like Hemant Kumar and Kishore Kumar. She sang in Hindi, Bengali, Marathi, Oriya and Gujarati. Some of her popular songs are listed in the Filmography section below. In 1980 she released an album titled "Jazbaat" (HMV), wherein she rendered ghazals. She sang duets with accomplished singers like Lata Mangeshkar, Mohd. Rafi, Kishore Kumar, Shailender Singh, Yesudas, Mahendra Kapoor and Udit Narayan. She sang under music directors like Shankar Jaikishan, Laxmikant Pyarelal, Kalyanji Anandji, Kanu Roy, Bappi Lahiri, Usha Khanna, Rajesh Roshan, Khayyam, Rajkamal and several others. In 1986 Sulakshana was one of the singers to perform at the Royal Albert Hall in London to celebrate the "Festival of Indian Music" Concert along with acclaimed Music Directors Laxmikant Pyarelal and singers Manhar, Shabbir Kumar, Nitin Mukesh and Anuradha Paudwal. Her voice was last heard in an alaap in the song "Saagar kinare bhi do dil" from the movie "Khamoshi the musical"(1996) which was composed by her brothers Jatin and Lalit. Personal life. Sulakshana comes from a musical family originating from Pili Mandori Village in Hissar (now Fatehabad) district of Haryana state. Pandit Jasraj is her uncle. She started singing at the age of 9. Her elder brother Mandheer Pandit (who was earlier a music composer in the 1980s with Jatin Pandit, better known as Mandheer - Jatin) was her constant companion in Mumbai; they performed and sang on stage until Sulakshana became a leading playback singer through many of their live concerts with legends like Kishore Kumar and Mohammad Rafi. She has three brothers (Mandheer, Jatin and Lalit Pandit) and three sisters (Maya, Sandhya and Vijeta Pandit). Her father Pratap Narain Pandit was an accomplished classical vocalist. Her nephew Yash Pandit is an Indian television actor. Nieces Shradha Pandit and Shweta Pandit are playback singers. Sulakshana has never been married. Actor Sanjeev Kumar turned down her marriage proposal, because he never got over his heartbreak after actress Hema Malini rejected him to marry her frequent co-star Dharmendra.
1078553	Diana Love Dill (born January 22, 1923) is a Bermudian actress, active in the United States, who has also appeared professionally under the names Diana Douglas and Diana Douglas Darrid. Personal life. Dill was born in Bermuda. Her mother was Ruth Rapalje (née Neilson), with roots in New Jersey, and her father, Lieutenant-Colonel Thomas Melville Dill (also the name of her great-grandfather, a mariner), was a former Attorney General of Bermuda, and former Commanding Officer of the Bermuda Militia Artillery. Her father was from a prominent Bermudian family, present on the island since the very early 17th century. Her ancestry includes English, Scottish, and Dutch. Her brother Bayard was a prominent lawyer and politician. Her sister Ruth was married to John Seward Johnson I, heir to the Johnson & Johnson fortune. Dill was brought up in the Church of England. Marriage. Dill was married to Kirk Douglas, with whom she had studied acting before World War II. During the war, Douglas was serving in the U.S. Navy when he saw the May 3, 1943, issue of "Life" magazine, which featured a photograph of Dill on the cover. He showed the cover to his shipmates and said that he would marry her. The two were married on November 2, 1943. They had two sons, Michael and Joel, before divorcing in 1951. Dill married actor Bill Darrid, and the couple lived with her sons on the U.S. East Coast until his death in 1992. In 2002, Dill married Donald Webster in the old Devonshire Parish Church in Bermuda. Career. Dill continued to appear in films with Kirk Douglas, most recently in 2003, when he played her husband in "It Runs in the Family", in which son Michael and grandson Cameron also acted. Joel Douglas was an associate producer of the film. As Diana Douglas Darrid, she published her memoirs, "In the Wings: A Memoir" (1999) (ISBN 1-56980-151-7), with a preface by her son, Michael. The book received a favorable nod from "Publishers Weekly".
1073756	John Dukakis (born John A. Chaffetz; June 9, 1958) has had a varied career in politics and entertainment. Early life and acting career. Dukakis was born John A. Chaffetz in San Jose, California but reared in the Boston area. He is the son of Kitty Dukakis and John Chaffetz, a businessman, and the adopted son of former Massachusetts Governor and 1988 Democratic presidential nominee Michael Dukakis, whom his mother married when he was five. His half-brother, through his biological father, is Jason Chaffetz, the U.S. Representative (R) for Utah's 3rd district. While attending Brown University in the 1970s, Dukakis was cast in Universal's "Jaws 2". He relocated to Hollywood and continued to work as an actor for the next 6 years. He had substantial roles in the films "Making Love", "Delusion" and "Split Image" and on television in "Family Ties", "Little House on the Prairie", "Taxi" and the Jim Jones docudrama, "". He finished his career in New York working on the Broadway and Off-Broadway stage. Political career. After retiring from acting, he secured to a job in Washington, D.C. as a legislative assistant to U.S. Senator John F. Kerry in Kerry's first two years in office. In 1987, when Michael Dukakis announced his intention to run for President of the United States. John left Washington and moved to Atlanta, Georgia to run the Southern campaign for the months prior to the Super Tuesday primaries. Later, as the Democratic National Political Director, he campaigned nationally on behalf of the unsuccessful Dukakis-Bentsen ticket. Music industry. With the 1988 campaign over, John began work with an attorney in Boston named Bob Woolf who had built a significant international practice representing professional athletes. John ran the music business management department and spent most of his time on a developing local act: New Kids on the Block. Within several years the company grew and he was sent to Los Angeles to open an office there with an emphasis on working with other established and developing acts. When he left the company in 1992, the company was also working with Boyz II Men and Marky Mark & the Funky Bunch. Dukakis left Bob Woolf to become the general manager of Paisley Park Records, a joint venture between the artist Prince and Warner Bros. Records. During his tenure, the company released a Prince album as well as projects from George Clinton and Mavis Staples. In 1994, he formed a new venture with his partner, Qadree El-Amin. Southpaw Entertainment was a full service management company. In its early years it primarily focused on the management of Boyz II Men. But after the record-setting success of the 12X platinum "II" album, the company took on new clients. Over the years, Southpaw also handled the careers of Janet Jackson, Vanessa Williams, Brownstone and Blackstreet. In early 2002, Dukakis left Southpaw to take a position as an Executive Vice President of Overbrook Music, a music label as well as a full service management company owned and operated by Will Smith and his partner, James Lassiter. The company released the multi-platinum-certified soundtrack for the film Wild Wild West as well as the gold-certified soundtrack for the film Love and Basketball. In addition to Will, the company also manages Christina Vidal (MCA Records, Nickelodeon's Taina), Jordan Knight (Interscope Records), Deborah Cox (J Records), singer/songwriter Javier (Capitol Records), Singer/songwriter Maria (DreamWorks Records) and Samantha Mumba (Polydor/Interscope records. In December 2007, Dukakis returned to Boston to serve as Senior Vice President heading up Hill Holliday's emerging branded-entertainment division. Personal life. Dukakis lives in Newton, Massachusetts with his wife, and his daughter, Alexandra Jane Dukakis.
582725	Sharat Saxena is an Indian actor working in Bollywood films. He has acted in nearly 160 Bollywood films. Saxena started his career in the early 70s and has mainly played either supporting roles of a father, uncle or villainous roles. He has starred in some of the most successful films of Bollywood like "Mr. India", "Tridev", "Ghayal", "Khiladi", "Ghulam", "", "Soldier", "Baghban", "Fanaa", "Krrish", "Ek Hi Raasta" (1993) and many more. His performances in these films have established him as one of the finest supporting actors in Bollywood. He has also appeared in many Telugu, Malayalam and Tamil films. He played the role of Kichaka in the popular television serial "Mahabharat". He was also nominated for Filmfare Best Villain Award for "Ghulam" (1998). He currently lives in Madh Island, a colony on the outskirts of Mumbai. He lives with his wife Shobha and two children, Veera and Vishal and dog Razor. Early life. Sharat hails from Jabalpur city of Madhya Pradesh, India. He did his schooling from St.Joseph's Convent School,Bhopal. After doing Engineering in Electronics & Telecommunication from Jabalpur Engineering College, he wanted to become an actor. So, in 1972, he came to Mumbai. The going was tough because of his build, but eventually he got the role of a henchman. Benaam, was his first release. Then followed Dil Dewana, Agent Vinod, Kaala Pathar and others.
590319	Madhabi Mukherjee née Chakraborty (born 10 February 1942) is a National Film Award for Best Actress winning reputed Bengali actress who has acted in some of the most critically acclaimed films in Bengali cinema. Her major role was the title role of Charu in Satyajit Ray's masterpiece "Charulata". Her impact was such that Madhabi Mukherjee is still considered among the all time greats of Bengali cinema. Early life. Madhabi Mukherjee was born in 1942, originally Madhuri Mukherjee. She was raised with her sister Manjari by their mother in Kolkata, in what was then Bengal, India. As a young girl, she became involved in the theater.
1102720	Solomon Lefschetz (; 3 September 1884 – 5 October 1972) was an American mathematician who did fundamental work on algebraic topology, its applications to algebraic geometry, and the theory of non-linear ordinary differential equations. Life. He was born in Moscow into a Mizrahi Jewish family (his parents were Ottoman citizens) who moved shortly after that to Paris. He was educated there in engineering at the École Centrale Paris, but emigrated to the USA in 1905. He was badly injured in an industrial accident in 1907, losing both hands. He moved towards mathematics, receiving a Ph.D. in algebraic geometry from Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts in 1911. He then took positions in University of Nebraska and University of Kansas, moving to Princeton University in 1924, where he was soon given a permanent position. He remained there until 1953. In the application of topology to algebraic geometry, he followed the work of Charles Émile Picard, whom he had heard lecture in Paris at the École Centrale Paris. He proved theorems on the topology of hyperplane sections of algebraic varieties, which provide a basic inductive tool (these are now seen as allied to Morse theory, though a Lefschetz pencil of hyperplane sections is a more subtle system than a Morse function because hyperplanes intersect each other). The Picard-Lefschetz formula in the theory of vanishing cycles is a basic tool relating the degeneration of families of varieties with 'loss' of topology, to monodromy. His book "L'analysis situs et la géométrie algébrique" from 1924, though opaque foundationally given the current technical state of homology theory, was in the long term very influential (one could say that it was one of the sources for the eventual proof of the Weil conjectures, through SGA7). In 1924 he was awarded the Bôcher Memorial Prize for his work in mathematical analysis. The Lefschetz fixed point theorem, now a basic result of topology, he developed in papers from 1923 to 1927, initially for manifolds. Later, with the rise of cohomology theory in the 1930s, he contributed to the intersection number approach (that is, in cohomological terms, the ring structure) via the cup product and duality on manifolds. His work on topology was summed up in his monograph "Algebraic Topology" (1942). From 1944 he worked on differential equations. He was editor of "the Annals of Mathematics" from 1928 to 1958. During this time, "Annals" became an increasingly well-known and respected journal, and Lefschetz played an important role in this. The rise of "Annals", in turn, stimulated American mathematics. Lefschetz came out of retirement in 1958, because of the launch of Sputnik, to augment the mathematical component of Glenn L. Martin Company’s Research Institute for Advanced Studies (RIAS) in Baltimore, Maryland. His team became the world's largest group of mathematicians devoted to research in nonlinear differential equations. The RIAS mathematics group stimulated the growth of nonlinear differential equations through conferences and publications. He left RIAS in 1964 to form the Lefschetz Center for Dynamical Systems at Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island.
1598520	Planet of Dinosaurs (also known as "Dinossauros: Planet of dinosaurs") is a 1978 science fiction film. Set in an unspecified future, the film follows the journey of Captain Lee and his crew after they crash land on a planet with similar life conditions as Earth, but millions of years behind in time. Encountering a wide variety of dangerous dinosaurs, the crew decides that its best chance for survival lies on finding higher ground and setting up a defensive perimeter on a higher plateau for refuge to wait for when or if their rescuers arrive. They soon encounter a deadly "Tyrannosaurus" and must figure out a way to defeat the creature and survive on the planet. The film was a low budget endeavor with no major stars; James Whitworth and Max Thayer have the most film experience amongst the actors. Director James K. Shea instructed most of the budget to be spent on the special effects for the film, which included an array of award-winning stop motion dinosaurs, leaving little money for props or even to pay the main actors. Modern reviews have generally been negative, although there is agreement that the stop motion dinosaurs were the most notable and enjoyable aspect of the film. Plot. After a mechanical failure aboard the spaceship "Odyssey", Captain Lee Norsythe (Louie Lawless) is forced to crash land on a planet with atmosphere and conditions much like that of Earth, although it is many light-years away. As the ship sinks into the lake that it landed in, communications officer Cindy (Mary Appleseth) realizes that she forgot the radio in the ship and attempts to retrieve it, with the assistance of fellow crew-member Chuck (Chuck Pennington). En route, Cindy is attacked and killed by an unidentified aquatic creature, prompting Chuck to return to shore without the radio.
629471	The Plumber is a 1979 Australian film. Written and directed by Peter Weir, "The Plumber" was originally made and broadcast as a television film in Australia in 1979 but was subsequently released to theaters in several countries beginning with the United States in 1981. The film was made shortly after Weir's critically acclaimed "Picnic at Hanging Rock" became one of the first Australian films to appeal to an international audience. The film stars Judy Morris, Ivar Kants, and Robert Coleby, all of them being most notable as actors in Australian soap operas. Plot. Max (Ivar Kants) is a plumber working in the apartment building complex into which anthropologist Jill Cowper (Judy Morris) and her husband doctor Brian (Robert Coleby) have recently moved. Max appears uninvited at the Cowper apartment claiming their plumbing needs repair, even though the couple has noticed no irregularities. Convincing them that the problems with their plumbing are not easily noticed, he begins work in their bathroom by dismantling some pipes. Max's work on the bathroom drags on for days and it becomes increasingly obvious that he is only doing more damage by tearing out walls and pipes and rendering the bathroom useless. Over time, Max begins to frighten Jill by taking the liberty to use their shower without permission and playing guitar and singing songs in the bathroom while he was supposed to be working. He also makes his way into the apartment through the roof when the door is not opened for him. The damage he caused to the bathroom eventually leads to a serious injury to a house guest who happens to be an official from the World Health Organization. The Cowpers are able to rectify the situation but Max, a self-declared "rock-and-roll rebel", is unrelenting. Production. The film was one of three movies the South Australian Film Corporation had contracted to make for Channel Nine. It was shot on 16mm over three weeks. Reception. While the Rotten Tomatoes approval rating is currently N/A, the Want-to-see score is currently 28%.
584199	Chennai 600028 is a 2007 Tamil sports comedy film written and directed by Venkat Prabhu, making his directorial debut. The film stars Jai, Shiva, Premji Amaran, Aravind Akash, Nithin Sathya and newcomers Ajay Raj, Ranjith, Vijay Vasanth, Prasanna, Inigo, Karthik and Arun in the lead along with Vijayalakshmi, daughter of National Film Award-winning director Agathiyan, and Kristine Zedek, making their acting debut as well. The film was produced by S. P. B. Charan along with J. K. Saravana, a Singapore-based award-winning producer. The film's score and soundtrack were composed by Premji Amaran and Yuvan Shankar Raja, respectively. The film is based on street cricket played in India, focussing on various themes as friendship, love and rivalry in a suburban area. Following its theatrical release on 27 April 2007, it received critical acclaim and emerged a surprise sleeper hit, going on to achieve cult status in the subsequent years. The film's title is derived from the pincode for Mandaveli, a suburb of Chennai, where the story takes place. The success of the film gained the relatively unknown actors — Shiva, Premji Amaren, Jai and Nithin Sathya, newcomers Vijayalakshmi, Vijay Vasanth and the director Venkat Prabhu popularity. Upon release, the film was dubbed into Telugu and released as "Kodithe Kottalira". This film was also remade in Sri Lanka as "Super Six" and it is the highest budgeted film made so far in the Cinema of Sri Lanka and in Bengali as "Le Chakka". Plot. The story revolves around two local cricket league teams that compete against each other in local matches and consider each other as sworn enemies. Royapuram Rockers are on top of the chain and keep bashing Sharks year after year. The heroes of the movie are the Sharks team. The story begins when Raghu's parents move from Royapuram to Visalakshi Thottam, Chennai 600 028. Raghu, (member of the Royapuram Rockers Cricket team) and a college student living with his parents has no choice but to move with them although he detests the area. He is not very excited at the prospect of living in the same area as his sworn enemies. Raghu is faithful to his old team Rockers but his team mates ignore him because of the distance. Angered at being replaced by a new guy in the team in one of the matches, Raghu estranges himself from cricket and Rockers. Raghu informs of Pazhani's sister Selvi's love for Karthick to him. This incident initiates the Raghu's friendship with a few Sharks team players and eventually gets induced into the team. Raghu practices with Sharks to play against Rockers in the upcoming Radio Mirchi trophy. Pazhani, who soon comes to know of his sister's and Karthick's love affair is disappointed and then there is a tiff amongst the friends. The team splits up for a while. But Karthick apologises to Pazhani and they make up. The team is united again and they start practicing for the trophy once again. Unfortunately, Karthick gets stabbed by his brother's enemies and is rendered unfit to play the match. Pazhani replaces Karthick as the captain and the team heads for the match. Under tight pressure and with a nail biting finish Sharks finally defeat Rockers in the semi-finals of the tournament. In the finals they meet their nemesis, a bunch of school kids named Bad Boys-II who practice by bunking school to play cricket on the beach. The kids are really good and the Sharks know it because they have lost to them once before and that too very badly...the movie ends with the team really struggling to keep it up in the game. Soundtrack. The film's score was composed by Venkat Prabhu's brother, Premji Amaran, while his cousin, Yuvan Shankar Raja composed the soundtrack, which also featured two tracks that were rearranged by Premji. The soundtrack album, featuring 9 tracks in all, was released on 22 February 2007 in India and three days later in Singapore and Malaysia. The audio was launched at the radio station Radio Mirchi, broadcasting all the songs live, which was said to be the first time in India. The lyrics were written by 'Kavignar' Vaali and Gangai Amaran, father of Venkat Prabhu. Also, composer Yuvan Shankar Raja penned the lyrics for the song "Natpukullae", besides singing it. 19 singers had rendered their voice for the songs, including Yogi B, DJ Funky Sathiya and SilveStar, two Singaporean rappers, actor Karunas, director Venkat Prabhu and producer S. P. B. Charan. The album was both critically acclaimed and gained immense popularity upon its release, being described as, "excellent", a "rocking album" and one of the "aesthetic highlights" of the film. The songs were said to be a big hit as reportedly 25000 CDs were sold on the very first day, "ruling the charts" worldwide. The songs "Jalsa" and "Saroja Saman Nikalo" were "rocking the dance floors". Sequel. Plans of making a sequel to "Chennai 600028" have been reported several times in the media, first in 2007 shortly after the film's release. In 2009, Indiaglitz.com reported that Venkat Prabhu and producer S. P. B. Charan would join together in 2010 to start the second part with a "top slot mass hero", while Charan reiterated the same in an interview later. In 2011, sources said that a sequel to "Chennai 28" had been planned earlier but was not "on cards as of now". In 2012, Venkat Prabhu again expressed interest in making a sequel, stating "I personally love to do Chennai- 28 with the tagline Second Innings".
726181	Boys in the Sand is a landmark American gay pornographic film. The 1971 film was directed by Wakefield Poole and stars Casey Donovan. "Boys in the Sand" was the first gay porn film to achieve crossover success and one of the earliest porn films of any genre to gain mainstream credibility, preceding 1972's "Deep Throat" by nearly a year. Produced on a budget of $8,000, the film is a loose collection of three segments depicting Donovan's sexual adventures at a gay beach resort community. Promoted by Poole with an advertising campaign unprecedented for a pornographic feature, "Boys in the Sand" premiered in New York City in 1971 and was an immediate critical and commercial success. The film brought star Donovan international recognition. A sequel, "Boys in the Sand II", was released in 1986 but was unable to match the success of the original. The film's title is a parodic reference to the Mart Crowley play and film "The Boys in the Band". Plot. "Boys in the Sand" is composed of three segments set on Fire Island. Production. Poole was inspired to make the film after he went with some friends to see a film called "Highway Hustler". After watching the film, he said to a friend, "This is the worst, ugliest movie I've ever seen! Somebody oughta be able to do something better than this." Poole was convinced that he was that somebody; "I wanted make a film that gay people could look at and say, 'I don't mind being gay - it's beautiful to see those people do what they're doing.'" Having enlisted the help of his lover, Peter Fisk, and another man, Poole first shot a ten-minute segment entitled "Bayside". The success of that initial shoot convinced Poole to plan two more segments and seek theatrical distribution for the completed work. He hired Tommy Moore and Casey Donovan for the third segment, "Inside". When Fisk's scene partner from "Bayside" heard about the potential distribution deal, he refused to sign release forms until he was guaranteed 20% of the profits. Instead, Poole decided to scrap the segment and re-shoot with Fisk and Donovan. The resulting footage was so good that Poole decided to use Donovan for the second segment as well, entitled "Poolside", and construct the loose storyline around him. The three segments were filmed on a budget of $8,000 over three successive weekends in August 1971 in the gay resort area of Fire Island, New York. Popular and critical reception. "Boys in the Sand" had its theatrical debut on December 29, 1971, at the 55th Street Playhouse in New York City. Poole engaged in an unprecedented pre-release publicity campaign, including screening parties and full-page ads in "The New York Times" and "Variety". The film made back most of its production and promotions budget the day it opened, grossing close to $6,000 in the first "hour", and nearly $25,000 during its first week, landing it on "Variety"'s list of the week's 50 top grossing films. Positive word of mouth spread and the film was favorably reviewed in "Variety" ("There are no more closets!"), "The Advocate" ("Everyone will fall in love with this philandering fellator.") and other outlets, which previously had completely ignored the genre. While some critics were less impressed, others saw the film as akin to the avant-garde work of directors like Kenneth Anger and Andy Warhol. Within six months the film had grossed $140,000 and was continuing to open in theatres across the United States and around the world. The film's mainstream popularity helped usher in the era of "porno chic," a brief period of mainstream cultural acceptability afforded hardcore pornographic film, having been cited as "very much a precursor" to the following year's crossover success of "Deep Throat". The film would continue to attract critical and scholarly attention from pornography historians and researchers for years after its release. The film is credited with beginning the trend of giving pornographic films titles that spoof the names of non-porn films. With the success of "Boys in the Sand", Casey Donovan became an underground celebrity. While he never achieved the mainstream film career for which he had hoped, he continued his career in pornography and translated his fame into some appearances on the legitimate stage, including a successful national tour in the gay-themed play "Tubstrip" and an unsuccessful attempt to produce a revival of "The Ritz". His fame also allowed him success as a high-priced escort. He remained a bankable commodity in the adult industry, making films for the next fifteen years until his death from AIDS-related illness in 1987. Legacy. Poole and Donovan had long wanted to make a sequel to "Boys in the Sand". In 1984, they finally shot "Boys in the Sand II". Also filmed on Fire Island, the film featured Donovan, the only cast member from the original to return. The original opening sequence, "Bayside", was recreated for the sequel, with Pat Allen performing the run from the water. Litigation tied up the release of "Boys in the Sand II" until 1986 and with the advent of the home video market, there was a glut of gay porn titles available. "Boys in the Sand II" did not distinguish itself from the competition and was not particularly successful. In 2002, TLA Releasing released "The Wakefield Poole Collection". The two-DVD set includes "Boys in the Sand" and "Boys in the Sand II" along with a third Poole/Donovan collaboration, "Bijou" (1972), and other shorts and material shot by Poole. The collection won a 2003 GayVN Award for "Best Classic Gay DVD."
1066712	The Odd Life of Timothy Green is a 2012 American fantasy comedy-drama film co-written and directed by Peter Hedges and produced by Walt Disney Pictures. Based on a concept by Ahmet Zappa, the film is about a magical pre-adolescent boy whose personality and naïveté have profound effects on the people in his town. It received mixed reviews from critics and had modest ticket sales in its debut weekend. Plot. The film is told from the perspective of Cindy (Jennifer Garner) and Jim Green (Joel Edgerton), as they explain their experience with Timothy (CJ Adams) in an effort to persuade an adoption agency to allow the couple to adopt a child. Cindy, who works in the town's local museum, and Jim, who is employed at the town's historic pencil factory, reside in the drought-stricken town of Stanleyville, North Carolina. The Greens are informed by doctors that they are unable to conceive. Distraught by the news, Jim convinces Cindy to dream up their ideal child and write the child's characteristics and life events on slips of notepad paper. The couple places the notes inside a box and buries it in the backyard garden. After a thunderstorm, which seemingly affects only their property, a ten-year-old arrives at their home claiming the Greens as his parents. After finding the box they buried smashed to pieces around a large hole in the ground where they originally buried it, and finding the boy inside their house, covered in mud, they realize that the boy, named Timothy, is actually a culmination of all their wishes of what their child would be. The Greens also discover that Timothy has a startling feature: he has leaves growing on his legs. The next day, at a family picnic, Timothy is introduced to members of his family: Brenda Best (Rosemarie DeWitt), Cindy's pompous sister; James Green Sr. (David Morse), Jim's estranged father; and Mel (Lois Smith) and Bub (M. Emmet Walsh), Cindy's paternal aunt and uncle. The parents take Timothy to their friend and town botanist, Reggie (Lin-Manuel Miranda), where they learn that Timothy's leaves cannot be removed. Timothy begins to attend school, where he meets Joni Jerome (Odeya Rush), a girl he meets during a bullying incident, with whom he begins a friendly relationship. Meanwhile, the town's pencil factory, the largest employer in Stanleyville, begins laying off its employees. Timothy convinces Cindy and Jim to design a prototype for a new pencil in an effort to keep the pencil-producing business viable. Unbeknownst to the parents, one of Timothy's leaves falls off each time he fulfills one of the qualities listed on the original slips of paper. Timothy eventually reveals to Cindy and Jim that his time of existence is short and that he will eventually disappear. The Greens' meeting with the adoption counselor concludes with Cindy presenting a letter that Timothy left them before leaving. In the letter, he explains to them what he did with each of his leaves that fell off, with a montage sequence showing each person whose life Timothy touched. After an unspecified amount of time, the adoption counselor is shown pulling up to the Greens' house in a car with the little girl who is to become the Greens' daughter. Production. In June 2009, Peter Hedges was signed to write and direct "The Odd Life of Timothy Green", a film that stemmed from an idea brought about by Ahmet Zappa. The film is one of the first films produced by Scott Sanders Productions after a deal with the Walt Disney Studios was made in 2007. Soundtrack. Walt Disney Records released Geoff Zanelli's score from the soundtrack on August 14, 2012, the day before the film's release. Release. Critical response. "The Odd Life of Timothy Green" was met with a mixed to negative reception. Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reports that 34% of 120 critics have given the film a positive review, with a rating average of 5.2 out of 10, offering the consensus: "It means well, but "The Odd Life of Timothy Green" is ultimately too cloyingly sentimental—and thinly scripted—to satisfy all but the least demanding viewers." Mary Pols of "Time" wrote, "This is a movie about old-time values, a movie with Frank Capra aspirations. But Timothy’s life, his very conception by Zappa and Hedges, is definitely more odd than wonderful." Michael Phillips of the "Chicago Tribune", praised the film's art direction and cast, "It's an elegant, honeyed production, photographed (in Georgia) by cinematographer John Toll, and it's full of interesting actors." However, he differed on the script saying, "this fable of the gifted child doesn't go for the throat as it goes about its odd business." Roger Ebert of the "Chicago Sun-Times" was more enthusiastic in his 3-1/2 star review, calling it "a warm and lovely fantasy... on a picture-postcard farm in the middle of endlessly rolling hills where it is always Indian Summer." Box office. The film had a $2.3 million debut on August 15. It made $7.68 million in three days and finished the weekend off with $16,377,472 domestically. As of December 10, the film has grossed $51.6 million in North America. Home media. "The Odd Life of Timothy Green" was released by Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment on Blu-ray and DVD on December 4, 2012.
1151702	Q'orianka Waira Qoiana Kilcher (born February 11, 1990) is an American actress, singer, and activist. She is best known for her role as Pocahontas in the 2005 film "The New World", directed by Terrence Malick. Her second memorable film role is Kaʻiulani in "Princess Kaiulani". Early life. Kilcher was born in Schweigmatt, Germany. Her name "Q'orianka" means "Golden Eagle" in Quechua. She speaks English and some German. She learned some words of the extinct Powhatan language, an Algonquian speech, for her part in the film "The New World". Her father is of Quechua-Huachipaeri descent from Peru. Her mother, Saskia Kilcher, is a human-rights activist of Swiss descent, born in Alaska and raised in Switzerland. Q'orianka has two brothers, Kainoa Kilcher and Xihuaru Kilcher, who both work as actors and stunt performers. Kilcher's maternal grandfather was Ray 'Pirate' Genet, a famous Alaskan-born mountaineer, and her mother's cousin is Grammy-nominated singer Jewel Kilcher. When Kilcher was two years old, she and her mother moved to Kapaa, Hawaii, where her brother Kainoa was born. Her father, from whom she is estranged, was absent for much of her life. Growing up in Hawaii, Kilcher was inspired by the local culture and started hula dancing at the age of five years. She also trained in Tahitian dance and West African, as well as ballet, Hip Hop and Modern Dance. In 1997 Kilcher won Ballet Hawaii's Young Choreographer Award at the age of seven years. She was selected to compete at the international Tahitian Dance Competition in San Jose, California in 1996 and 1997. She performed in over fifty professional dance performances island wide. As member of the Waikiki Singers, she was chosen to be the Soprano Soloist, performing Schubert's "Mass in G" and "Amahl and the Night Visitors" by Gian Carlo Menotti. At the age of six years, Kilcher was the first child to study classical voice at the University of Hawaii with Laurance Paxton. She also studied Drama with Bill Ogilvie at the Diamond Head Theater. At six years, her mother booked her at venues as featured singer and opening act to some of Hawaii's greats, such as Willie K. (Kahaiali'i) among others. In 1999, her mother moved the family to California. Kilcher started to showcase her talent busking on the Third Street Promenade in Santa Monica. Career. At the age of nine, Kilcher was cast as "Choire Who" in Ron Howard's "How the Grinch Stole Christmas". She was 12 when she received a full scholarship to the Hollywood Musician Institute, where she studied vocal performance, music theory and song-writing. She accomplished Blackbelt in Wushu, Kung Fu and Stunt performer and has trained at the National Wushu Training Center and Impact Stunts. At 14, Q'orianka emerged into the front ranks of young actors with her portrayal of Pocahontas opposite Colin Farrell and Christian Bale in director Terrence Malick Academy Award-nominated motion picture, "The New World" (2005). Her performance won her the National Board of Review's best breakthrough performance of 2006, the 2006 Alma Award for best Latin American actress in a feature film, numerous other award nominations. The film was released in December 2005 to mixed reviews. The film was a critical success, receiving several positive reviews and award nominations, but it was shown in only 811 theatres worldwide. It yielded a relatively low box office gross. In the summer of 2006, Kilcher began filming the independent film "The Power of Few", which she produced through her own production company, Entertainment On-Q. She played the title role in the feature film "Princess Kaiulani". The film, about the United States' overthrow of the Hawaiian monarchy, was released in May 2010. In 2009, Kilcher performed in "The People Speak", a documentary feature film that uses dramatic and musical performances of the letters, diaries, and speeches of common people in the U.S., based on historian Howard Zinn's "A People's History of the United States". In 2010, Kilcher played Pinti in the family drama "Shouting Secrets", a feature film by Korinna Sehringer, starring Chaske Spencer, Tyler Christopher, Tonantzin Carmelo, Gil Birmingham, Tantoo Cardinal and Rodney A. Grant. The film won Best Film at the 36th American Indian Film Festival in San Francisco and got Kilcher a nomination for best supporting actress. In 2010, Kilcher portrayed Kerrianne Larkin, daughter of Chibs Telford and Fiona Larkin in the television series "Sons of Anarchy". In 2011, Kilcher played Tiger Lily in "Neverland", a version of the Peter Pan story that aired on the Syfy Channel. Activism. Kilcher has made a commitment to human rights and environmental activism. She speaks on behalf of causes to achieve what she regards as environmental justice and basic human rights. Traveling frequently to speak at youth events, colleges and universities, Kilcher has been a featured keynote speaker for organizations such as Amnesty International, the International Forum on Globalization, Amazon Watch IFIP and the United Nations panel discussions titled "Indigenous Peoples: Human Rights, Dignity and Development with Identity," in collaboration with the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. She lends her celebrity, voice and energy as spokeswoman, collaborator and supporter to several international and national NGOs and organizations such as Youth Ambassador Amnesty International (Global Youth Ambassador for Woman's Rights), AIDESEP (spokesperson and voice), Interethnic Association for the Development of the Peruvian Rainforest Federations, the Community School for the Arts foundation (volunteer/spokesperson) and Thursdays Child (youth counselor) Turning The Tides ((volunteer/spokesperson), Save Americas Forests, IDEM (South Dakota Youth Project) and is a spokesperson for the American Literacy Campaign. Working with the National Endowment For the Arts on their "The Big Read" campaign, she will record a book review. Kilcher has read Howard Zinn's "The People Speak" in staged readings. She joined the cast for the first "People Speak" film series. Kilcher recently launched her own youth-driven human rights and environmental organization "On-q Initiative", to connect young Hollywood with youth activist leaders and projects from around the world in support of environmental sustainability, corporate accountability, and basic human rights. Through her production company, IQ-Films, Kilcher is producing several cause-driven documentaries and youth-programming projects.
589270	Mahaan (meaning "great" or "famous" in Hindi) is a 1983 Hindi film produced by Satyanarayana and directed by S. Ramanathan. The film stars Amitabh Bachchan in a triple role alongside Waheeda Rehman, Parveen Babi, Zeenat Aman, Ashok Kumar, Amjad Khan, Kader Khan, Aruna Irani, Sujit Kumar and Shakti Kapoor . The music is by R.D. Burman. This movie is a remake of hit Kannada movie "Shankar Guru" starring Dr. Rajkumar. Amitabh Bachchan was playing a triple role in the film after playing double roles in several of his earlier films. The concept of a 'triple role' was unusual. The song 'Pyaar mein dil pe maar de goli' which featured in the movie was also popular. Amitabh plays all the three characters
1161335	Jonathan Daniel "Jon" Glaser (born June 20, 1968) is an American actor, comedian and television writer based out of New York City. He is best known for his work as a writer and sketch performer for many years on "Late Night with Conan O'Brien", as well as for creating and starring in the Adult Swim series "Delocated". Life and career. Glaser was born in Chicago, Illinois on June 20, 1968, but was raised in Southfield, Michigan. Glaser is a graduate of the University of Michigan, where he performed in the sketch comedy troupes Comedy Company and Just Kidding with Jon Hein, he is a five-time Emmy nominee with the writing staff of "Late Night with Conan O'Brien". He has appeared in the movies "Pootie Tang", "School for Scoundrels", and "Be Kind Rewind", and he has guest-starred on comedy programs such as "Curb Your Enthusiasm", "Wonder Showzen", "Bob's Burgers" and "Aqua Teen Hunger Force". He was also a lead voice actor in several animated comedy programs such as "Stroker and Hoop", "Freak Show", and "Lucy the Daughter of The Devil". In 2012, he started appearing with the recurring role as Councilman Jeremy Jamm in the fifth season of "Parks and Recreation". Glaser is the creator and star of the live-action Adult Swim series "Delocated", about "Jon", a man in the witness protection program with his own reality show. The show aired its final episode on March 7, 2013. Glaser's Delocated character, "Jon" was also featured as a DJ on an Adult Swim-themed radio station in the video game "". In February 2012, Glaser appeared as the spokesman in a series of Subway commercials playing his Delocated character. Glaser was a member of the mainstage cast of "The Second City" during the mid-1990s, performing alongside future "Saturday Night Live" head writer Adam McKay and cast member Rachel Dratch, as well as future "Mr. Show" and "30 Rock" cast member Scott Adsit. In Second City's award-winning revue "Pinata Full of Bees," which was directed by Tom Gianas, Glaser sang about the importance of not betraying a friendship by pretending not to have legs in order to play in a wheelchair basketball league. He also provided musical accompaniment for the show's climax by drumming in a demonic pig mask, and appeared onstage throughout the show to pass judgement on audience members for laughing at jokes he considered socially irresponsible. Early in his television career, Glaser wrote and occasionally performed on the short-lived sketch comedy programs "The Jenny McCarthy Show" on MTV and "The Dana Carvey Show". He also made one appearance as a correspondent on "The Daily Show" in 2004. Glaser is also known for his comedic partnership with H. Jon Benjamin. For a number of years they hosted a live sketch show together in New York City called "Midnight Pajama Jam", and have also performed stand-up comedy together for many years, often playing characters who bicker and argue with each other while on stage. Glaser created and starred in the Comedy Central web-series "Tiny Hands", which has been shown on the channel's short film series "Atom TV" a number of times. More recently Glaser worked as a contributing writer and occasional performer on the sketch comedy programs "Human Giant", "Jon Benjamin Has a Van" and "Nick Swardson's Pretend Time", as well as providing voices in the animated film "Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film for Theaters". In 2009, Glaser worked as the head writer and segment producer on the HBO sports program "Joe Buck Live". Glaser also appeared on the ESPN classic show "Cheap Seats", providing such roles as "Beamy" and the "Score Settler". Jon was considered for the voice of the etrade baby but lost out to Pete Holmes. Glaser is currently a voice actor for the animated version of the cartoon strip "Get Your War On" and appearing as "Video Cowboy" in ESPN's "Mayne Street" starring Kenny Mayne. Glaser was also the lead singer in the New York City-based comedy band "Detroit Octane", they performed their song "Barack Obama-sistible" (sung to the tune of the Robert Palmer song "Simply Irresistible") on "Late Night with Conan O'Brien" on June 17, 2008. He was also the bass player in "A Matter of Trust", another comedy music project he was involved in with comedians H. Jon Benjamin, Todd Barry and Tom Shillue. The band's gimmick was that they only played the Billy Joel song "A Matter of Trust" over and over again, and refused to play any other songs. They performed as an opening act for The New Pornographers in 2006. He also appeared in season 2 of HBO's Girls. Glaser's first published book "My Dead Dad Was in ZZ Top", was released on February 8, 2011.
583514	Janasheen("Heir") is a 2003 Hindi-language film. It was directed by Feroz Khan who stars along with his son, Fardeen Khan, and Celina Jaitley. It was first planned to shoot part of the film in Afghanistan. Plot. Lucky Kapoor (Fardeen Khan) lives in Australia and has no interest in taking over his father Virendra Kapoor's (Harsh Chhaya) business in India. Meanwhile Saba Karim Khan (Feroz Khan) has a great interest in the property, but Mr. Kapoor has no interest in selling him the business. Khan thus has Mr. Kapoor killed, making it look like an accident. Jessica Periera (Celina Jaitley), a childhood sweetheart of Lucky, has proof that Mr. Kapoor's death was not an accident—but she keeps it to herself. When Karim Khan meets with Lucky to renegotiate, he finds that Lucky is willing to sell—but he also discovers that Lucky bears a striking resemblance to his own dead son. Although Karim Khan will do anything to make Lucky heir to his own wealth and properties, Lucky remains unwilling. Box office. "Janasheen" was released on November 28, 2003, the same day as the hit Shah Rukh Khan-starrer, "Kal Ho Naa Ho". Despite a good opening week, the film fell in the second week but was a hit in UP-Delhi, Nizam and Mumbai territories while was break even in other areas. Feroz Khan won some awards for his negative role. Awards. Winner: Nominated:
1169268	Geoffrey Manton "Geoff" Stults (born December 15, 1977) is an American actor. He is known for his regular roles on "7th Heaven," "October Road" and "Happy Town". He most recently starred as Major Walter Sherman in "The Finder". Early life. Stults was born in Detroit, Michigan, but raised in Green Mountain Falls, Colorado. He graduated from Manitou Springs High School. He moved to Los Angeles and began to perform in the college theatre productions while attending Whittier College, in Whittier, California. Career. Football career. He played professional football in Austria as a wide receiver for the Klosterneuburg Mercenaries (now known as the Danube Dragons). Acting career. Geoff Stults started his acting career at the age of seven by doing commercials alongside his brother George. He appeared on "Everybody Loves Raymond" as a mailman in the episode "What's with Robert?". Stults landed his first major role in 2002 as Ben Kinkirk, a fireman at the department in which Mary Camden was training and Mary's soon-to-be new love interest, on the show "7th Heaven". The role of Ben's brother, Kevin Kinkirk, was portrayed by George Stults, his real life brother. Geoff Stults also portrayed Eddie Latekka for two seasons on the popular ABC drama series "October Road". His first major film role came in 2004, when he played the male lead in the female action-comedy "D.E.B.S.", where he met his future co-star on "The Finder", Michael Clarke Duncan. Since then, Stults has had small but memorable roles in "Wedding Crashers" and "The Break-Up", as well as larger roles in "The Express", "She's Out Of My League" and "L!fe Happens". In 2010, Stults played Dan (an amalgamation of the book's popular characters El Bingeroso/PWJ/GoldenBoy) in the film adaptation of "I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell". He starred in the short-lived ABC television series "Happy Town" and had a recurring role on "How I Met Your Mother". At the 2011 network upfronts, Fox announced that it picked-up the "Bones" spin-off, "The Finder", starring Stults in the lead role of Walter Sherman (a.k.a. The Finder), an Iraq war veteran who, after a brain injury from an exploding IED, was left with the extraordinary skill of finding anybody or anything. The show co-starred Duncan, Mercedes Masohn, and Maddie Hasson. It premiered January 12, 2012, as a mid-season replacement for "Bones". The show was canceled and the final episode aired on May 11, 2012. Personal life. In June 2005, Stults was reported to be in a relationship with actress and former WWE Diva Stacy Keibler. The pair appeared together on MTV's "Punk'd", with Keibler as the recipient of the prank. Keibler and Stults are part-owners of the Hollywood Fame, a 2006 expansion franchise of the American Basketball Association. Stults and Keibler split in 2010.
1104110	Maria Chudnovsky (born January 6, 1977) is an Israeli-American mathematician. She is a 2012 MacArthur Fellow.
1062673	Steven James "Steve" Zahn (; born November 13, 1967) is an American actor and comedian. Early life. Zahn was born in Marshall, Minnesota, the son of Zelda, who worked for the YMCA, and Carleton Edward Zahn, a retired Missouri Synod Lutheran pastor. His father is of German and Swedish descent, and his mother is of German ancestry. Zahn spent part of his childhood in Mankato, Minnesota, attending Kennedy Elementary School, and later moved to the suburbs of Minneapolis. After attending Robbinsdale Cooper High School, Gustavus Adolphus College, and the Institute for Advanced Theater Training at American Repertory Theater at Harvard University, his first professional acting role was in "Biloxi Blues", a Minnesota production at the Old Log Theater; but his first big break came in 1994, when he was noticed by actor/director Ben Stiller, who cast him in his picture, "Reality Bites". Career. Zahn's early roles were split between movies, touring companies of Broadway shows, and TV shows. From 1992 to 1993, he toured as Hugo with the Barry Weissler production of "Bye Bye Birdie" with Tommy Tune, Ann Reinking, and Marc Kudisch. He played Phoebe Buffay's husband Duncan in a 1995 episode of "Friends". Zahn appeared in several films in the mid-1990s, including Tom Hanks' "That Thing You Do!" and Nora Ephron's You've Got Mail. These films garnered him enough respect that he was offered the starring role in the critically acclaimed indie film "Happy, Texas" (1999). Some of Zahn's most popular movies have been his later ones, including "National Security" (2003), "Daddy Day Care" (2003) and "Sahara" (2005). Zahn received his strongest critical acclaim for his performance in "Riding in Cars with Boys", in which he co-starred with Drew Barrymore as her dim-witted, drug addicted husband. Roger Ebert, Richard Roeper and the BBC stated that the performance was deserving of an Oscar nomination. He also voiced Runt of the Litter in "Chicken Little". He also gave dramatic performances in "Rescue Dawn" and the television mini-series Comanche Moon. Typically typecast into comic relief sidekick roles, Zahn was asked if he minded, his reply was that it was a "pleasure" and a "privilege", saying: "to be typecast and make money and make people happy and people dig what you do, what a great thing, man." Zahn also plays the character of Davis McAlary in HBO's "Treme". Davis is a New Orleans native and local music lover, as well as one of Treme's biggest partiers, and advocates. Zahn also recorded a song for the show, and is featured on the show's soundtrack. The track, "Shame, Shame, Shame", criticizes George W. Bush and the American government's response to the disastrous aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in the city of New Orleans. Personal life. Zahn is married to Robyn Peterman, an actress and the daughter of entrepreneur John Peterman, whom Zahn met on a touring production of "Bye Bye Birdie". They have a son, Henry James Zahn, born on April 3, 2000, and a daughter, Audrey Clair Zahn, born on April 25, 2002. Zahn is also a University of Kentucky sports fan, often seen at games and events.
1054399	The 51st State (also known as Formula 51) is a 2001 Canadian-British action comedy film. The film stars Samuel L. Jackson, Robert Carlyle, Emily Mortimer, Ricky Tomlinson, Sean Pertwee, Rhys Ifans and Meat Loaf. The film follows the story of an American master chemist (Jackson) who heads to England to sell his formula for a powerful new drug. All does not go as planned and Jackson soon becomes entangled in a web of deceit. Premiering in the United Kingdom on 7 December 2001, the film grossed £913,239 in its opening week and made worldwide profits of $14.4 million. It received mixed reviews from critics. "The 51st State" was ranked 171st on the list of highest grossing films of 2002. Plot. In the year 1971, Elmo McElroy (Samuel L. Jackson), a new college graduate with a degree in pharmacology, is caught smoking marijuana when a patrolman pulls over his car. Because of his arrest and conviction, he is unable to find work as a pharmacologist. Back in the present day a drug lord called "the Lizard" (Meat Loaf) calls a meeting with his organization, hoping to sell a brand new substance invented by Elmo. The meeting goes awry when Elmo, in a bid to escape from the Lizard's control, blows up the building, killing everyone but the Lizard, who falls through the floor. With revenge on his mind, the Lizard contacts Dakota (Emily Mortimer), a contract killer, who previously killed the only witness in a case against the Lizard. Dakota initially refuses to chase down and kill Elmo, but when the Lizard offers to clear her gambling debts and give her a $250,000 bonus to complete the hit, Dakota takes the job. Elmo heads for Liverpool where he has a deal arranged. At the airport he is met by Felix DeSouza (Robert Carlyle), a local "Fixer" who has been sent by his boss Leopold Durant (Ricky Tomlinson), head of a local criminal organization, in exchange for two football tickets to the sold-out Liverpool versus Manchester United game. At the meeting, Elmo makes his pitch, claiming that his product, POS 51, a synthetic drug that can be produced with minimal facilities, is 51 times as potent as ecstasy, opiates, amphetamines, and cocaine. A second opinion from a local chemist confirms Elmo's claims and Durant gives him over a million dollars in bonds. Since it is 18 million dollars short of the agreed payment, Elmo threatens to leave. Meanwhile, in a room across the street, Dakota is watching through a rifle scope, waiting for her chance to kill McElroy, but Felix keeps unknowingly standing in the way. As she is about to pull the trigger, the Lizard calls, now being concerned about keeping Elmo alive until he can get the formula. Instead of killing Elmo, she is to kill anyone who is meeting with him. She switches rifles to an automatic weapon and kills everyone in the room except Felix and Elmo. Escaping with Elmo, Felix is shot in the rear by Dakota, who remarks, "Told you to get out the way, Felix". As Elmo and Felix leave the hotel, the two are attacked by a gang of skinheads, who are also out to get the drug. Elmo protects himself and Felix with a golf club. Detective Virgil Kane (Sean Pertwee) arrives on the scene and gives a chase. He is soon lured into a game of chicken by Elmo, who escapes. Kane returns to the crime scene and strings up Durant on the bottom of a large cargo container. He demands 50 percent of Durant's deal with McElroy. A miscommunication leads to the cargo container being dropped, rather than being lowered slowly, crushing and killing Durant in the process. Elmo asks Felix to contact the next drug lord in town, who is a gun dealing club owner and drug distributor named Iki (Rhys Ifans), promising him his formula for £20 million. Elmo and Felix make their way to a chemist (drug store) to get the ingredients for POS 51. One of the drug's defining attributes is that it can be made with over-the-counter products, none of which yet appear on any government's banned substance list. They are followed by the skinheads, who are armed this time. Elmo isn't that dismayed at being captured, as the skinheads claim they have a lab to produce the drug. The lab turns out to be an Animal Testing Facility that the skinheads have broken into. Elmo makes two batches of the drug; one blue and one red. He claims that the red pill is the stronger version, and after he takes one, the skinheads try it. While they are partying, waiting for the effect of the drug, in the next room Elmo spits out his red pill. He relates to Felix that its primary effect is that of a powerful laxative, which should take effect any moment. Elmo and Felix leave after throwing some rolls of toilet paper to the screaming skinheads, who are writhing on the floor. The two visit Iki's rave club, where Elmo initiates his deal with the raver king and delivers the drug to the waiting crowd. The distribution is interrupted by Kane and a police raid, Felix is surrounded by police and arrested. Dakota appears, and it is revealed that her real name is Dawn and that she and Felix were romantically involved. She captures Elmo and attempts to leave with him via the roof and the escape ladder. Elmo gets the upper hand, suspending her over the edge of the roof. Having no choice, she strikes a deal with him and they escape from Kane. Meanwhile, Felix is in police custody, being interrogated by Kane. The corrupt cop wants in on their deal with Iki or he will get Felix on charges of possession of a firearm. He arranges the time and the place, letting Kane in on the deal. Meeting back up with Elmo and Dawn, they contact Iki. The venue is the Liverpool vs. Manchester United game, in a private viewing box, at Anfield. This time the deal is interrupted by the Lizard, who shoots Iki and demands the formula to POS 51. The Lizard celebrates with a drink, as Elmo reveals the true nature of the drug-it's a placebo and the ingredients cancel each other out, making it the "most expensive candy" in the world. Elmo tells the Lizard that POS stands for Power of Suggestion. Kane interrupts the moment, just as Elmo's cocktail, ingested by the Lizard, takes effect. The cocktail contains a chemical that becomes explosive when it reaches a certain temperature; this is the same chemical Elmo used in his earlier attempt to leave his employment with the Lizard. Pulling an umbrella from his golf bag, Elmo, Felix and Dawn take cover behind it. Police arrive and arrest Kane, who is lying unconscious on the floor, covered in bloody bits of the Lizard. Having made their escape, the three divide the money, Dawn and Felix agree to give their relationship a second chance. During the credits, a putt falls in a hole. Elmo is playing golf in front of the castle (filmed at Cholmondeley, Cheshire) seen on the card pinned to the Lizard's lab wall in the beginning of the film (the same card with the formula burned by Elmo in the skybox). The castle is the home of the McElroy clan. Elmo finishes a round of golf with Hector Dougal McElroy, who Elmo reveals is a descendant of the same family that once owned Elmo's ancestors. Elmo now owns the McElroy castle, and as he walks towards it, he strips naked and says "Elmo is in the house!" Cast. Rest of cast in order of appearance: Casting. The DVD commentary reveals that the script was originally written with Laurence Fishburne in mind, sometime before Samuel L. Jackson became a star. Production. Development. Screenwriter Stel Pavlou came up with the idea for "The 51st State" in 1994 while studying at college in Liverpool, loosely basing some of the characters on his friends. Pavlou described the idea of the movie being based on Liverpool's history in the slave trade and transferring it to modern day in the form of the drug trade. Pavlou and his business partner Mark Aldridge showcased their idea at the Cannes Film Festival in France which lead to film development company Focus Films offering funding for development. Soon the movie caught the eye of Samuel L. Jackson, who eventually came on board as both a producer and star of the film. Originally Pavlou budgeted at around £1 million and intended to direct it himself. Due to difficulty getting funding Pavlou stepped aside and took a co-producer credit while the matter was being resolved. After five years "The 51st State" was finally budgeted at $28 million, with financing coming from Canada and the UK via Alliance Atlantis and The Film Consortium. Pre-production. Movie star and film producer Samuel L. Jackson recommended Hong Kong director Ronny Yu to direct the film with belief that the movie's overall style was suited to that of Yu's previous movie credits, such as his 1998 film "Bride of Chucky". With the roles of Elmo McElroy (Samuel L. Jackson) and Felix DeSouza (Robert Carlyle) both secured, producer Andras Hamori suggested Meat Loaf to play the bad guy, which was approved by director Yu who called the idea a "truly inspired piece of casting". Filming. Locations. Almost all of the movie was filmed on location in Liverpool apart from the opening scene which was shot in Los Angeles, a driving scene which was filmed outside of Liverpool in the city of Manchester, and another scene which was filmed at Cholmondeley Castle in Cheshire. Major locations used in Liverpool included the River Mersey and docks, Pier Head, the India Building, Water Street as well as Liverpool Football Club's stadium Anfield. Other famous Liverpool landmarks can be seen throughout the movie in the background such as St George's Hall and the Liver Building. Production designer Alan Macdonald used the film's production base in Boundary Street to build various sets for interior scenes, as well as a vast disused warehouse space in Blackstock Street. Release. Home media. The movie was released on both VHS and DVD. The DVD version was released on 7 October 2002, with special features including an audio commentary, making-of and production featurettes, a photo gallery, trailer and cast and crew interviews. Reception. For its US release, the film was renamed Formula 51. Both names reference the drug — POS 51, which the film centres around — that is apparently "fifty-one times more powerful than cocaine, fifty-one times more hallucinogenic than acid, fifty-one times more explosive than ecstasy." Critical reception. The film received a rating of 25% based on 102 reviews on Rotten Tomatoes, as well as a score of 23 out of 100 at Metacritic representing "generally unfavorable reviews". Roger Ebert of the "Chicago Sun-Times" newspaper called the movie "a farce", giving the film one out of four stars, and particularly negative comments on the film's content and script.
1221833	The House of Sand () is a 2005 Brazilian film directed by Andrucha Waddington. It stars real life mother and daughter Fernanda Montenegro and Fernanda Torres. "The House of Sand" was filmed entirely on the coast of northern Brazil, inside Lençóis Maranhenses National Park. Plot. In 1910, pregnant Áurea (Torres) along with her mother, Maria (Montenegro) arrive at a remote, desert-like part of the Brazilian state of Maranhão—called the Lençóis Maranhenses—where her fanatical husband Vasco de Sá (Ruy Guerra) has relocated the family from the state's capital, São Luís, to start a farm. Soon the white settlers realize that they are not alone: a group of descendants of runaway slaves live in the area, in a settlement—generally known as a "quilombo"—they call "The Island" because it is the only permanently fertile spot in a sea of sand where it rains only during the rainy season. Due to the madness of Vasco, Maria seeks to bribe the black settlers to take her and her daughter away, but they, while taking her money (it is basically useless in the local barter economy), do no such thing. However, soon enough Vasco's workers abandon the farm. Vasco, enraged over this betrayal, dies when he accidentally buries himself under a heap of construction material for the half-finished house. This leaves the two women with no way of returning to the city. Left to their own devices, they venture out to explore the area. They find a fishing hut on the shores of the ocean and notice that Massu (Seu Jorge), the fisherman, has salt which he regularly obtains from his father on the nearby Island. Massu takes them there, as they seek to follow the salt trail out of the desert. However, Massu's father does not know where the salt comes from since he is the grandson of a runaway slave; he already had been born in the sanctuary; he does not know the world beyond the Island. Yet soon they establish contact with the itinerant trader who brings the salt (fittingly called Chico do Sal), but he too does not offer any viable connection back to the civilization.
1016709	Family background. Hui comes from an influential family in Canton. His great-grandfather was a godson of Empress Dowager Cixi and served as an imperial official during the late Qing Dynasty. Hui's grandaunt, Xu Guangping (Cantonese: Hui Kwong-ping), was married to the writer Lu Xun. His granduncle Xu Chongzhi (Cantonese: Hui Chung-chi) was a founder of the Whampoa Military Academy, while his another granduncle Xu Chongqing (Cantonese: Hui Chung-ching) once served as an education minister of Canton. His name "Benz" was inspired by "Mercedes-Benz", as he was the first ATV actor to drive a Mercedes-Benz to work. Career. Hui became an actor in the 1970s, appearing mainly in supporting roles of various television series. He also joined the presentation of films in 1974. Hui has starred in many notable roles, including the part of Inspector Wong in "Running Out of Time" in 1999. That year he got the nomination of best supporting actor in the 19th Annual Hong Kong Film Awards. He sometimes plays ugly characters similar to Yu.
1694311	"My Mom's New Boyfriend is a 2008 romantic comedy film starring Colin Hanks, Antonio Banderas, Selma Blair, and Meg Ryan. It is rated PG-13 for "sexual content, language, some violence and drug material". The film received a limited theatrical release worldwide. However it was released straight-to-DVD in the United States on June 17, 2008. It was released under the title My Spy" in the UK and Australia. Synopsis. The film begins with Tommy Lucero (Antonio Banderas) being caught by French police following a foiled robbery at a museum. Tommy seems confident he will not remain in police custody very long. The film then shifts its focus to Henry Durand (Colin Hanks). Henry had to care for his mother, Marty (Meg Ryan), when his father died in jail. Now a grown man and an FBI agent, Henry leaves his overweight mother to go work on a case. Upon returning three years later, he finds his mother has lost a considerable amount of weight and is dating several men, one half her age, having turned over a new leaf after a passerby dropped a coin in her coffee cup, mistaking her for a homeless person. Henry announces to his mother that he has recently become engaged to another FBI agent, Emily (Selma Blair). Henry finds himself in a very uneasy state with his newly transformed mother and begins to be extremely protective about her. He confides his worries in his fiancée who does not find anything unusual in Marty's behavior. While taking a walk with Henry and Emily, Marty is hit in the head by a toy helicopter being flown by Tommy. Tommy asks to take the trio to dinner at an old Albanian restaurant as an apology. Henry, who is still protective of his mother, grudgingly concedes to go when he notices how much his mother and Emily want to. Romance sparks between Marty and Tommy. Henry, meanwhile, is informed by his FBI superiors that they expect Tommy and two accomplices are going to attempt to steal a sculpture currently on display at a local museum. Along with his fellow agents, Henry spies on his mother around the clock, albeit reluctantly, after the FBI chief implied that he may be shipped to Alaska if he doesn't cooperate. Many uncomfortable situations arise for Henry as he has to listen into the conversations his mother has with Tommy. While stealing the sculpture, Tommy is betrayed by his gang members and shot twice in the chest. He survives due to wearing a ballistic vest, but is later caught by Henry and Emily. Tommy reveals to them that his real name is Tomas Martinez and he is with the CIA. He has been working undercover trying to apprehend a gang of thieves who are stealing art to fund terrorism. He is concerned the gang will attempt to kill Marty as they know he has been romantically involved with her and she may know about their operation. The trio reaches the Durand house in time to rescue Marty from the gang. The film ends with the gang members being taken into custody while Tommy kisses Marty and Henry kisses Emily.
1199674	Jayma Suzette Mays (born July 16, 1979) is an American actress and singer. She is best known for playing Emma Pillsbury on the Fox musical series "Glee". She also played roles in the films "", "Epic Movie", and "The Smurfs". Early life. Mays was born in Bristol, Tennessee, and raised in Grundy, Virginia, the daughter of Paulette (née Norris) and James Mays, a high school teacher who also worked in the coal mining industry. Mays' interests as a child ranged from singing to mathematics. At the age of 15, Mays was offered a job working on the local radio station reading the obituaries. After graduating from Grundy High School, she earned an associate's degree from Southwest Virginia Community College. Mays then attended Virginia Tech for a year before transferring to Radford University, graduating in 2001 with a degree in theatre. Career. In 2004, she made her first television appearance on "Joey". The following year, she made her feature film debut with a supporting role in "Red Eye". Mays's other credits include "Six Feet Under", "The Comeback", "Entourage", "Stacked", "How I Met Your Mother", "Heroes", "Pushing Daisies" where she played both Elsita and her mother Elsa in episode four, "Ghost Whisperer", and "Ugly Betty". Mays was in other movies, such as "Bar Starz", "Flags of Our Fathers" and "Blind Guy Driving". She starred in the spoof film "Epic Movie" and as Amy in "". She was a patient on "House" in the episode "Sleeping Dogs Lie" in 2006. She stars in the 2007 music video for the song "Awakening" by Switchfoot alongside her husband Adam Campbell.
1059524	Last Chance Harvey is a 2008 British-American romantic drama film written and directed by Joel Hopkins. The screenplay focuses on two lonely people who tentatively forge a relationship over the course of three days. Dustin Hoffman plays an American composer who loses his job and his position of father of the bride in the course of a single day overseas while Emma Thompson plays an airport worker with a jaundiced view of relationships. Plot. Divorced American Harvey Shine writes jingles for television commercials, a job not in keeping with his one-time aspiration to be a jazz composer and pianist. His position at work is tenuous as he departs for London to attend his daughter Susan's wedding. Upon arrival at Heathrow Airport, he encounters Kate Walker, a single Londoner who collects statistics from passengers as they pass through the terminals. Tired and anxious to get to his hotel, Harvey brusquely dismisses her when she approaches him to ask questions. Harvey is upset to discover his ex-wife Jean rented a house to accommodate family and friends from the States but failed to include him. At the rehearsal dinner on the night preceding the wedding, it becomes increasingly clear Harvey is systematically being excluded from the clan around his ex-wife's new husband Brian and is treated as a mere guest. They fake their politeness towards him and make him feel embarrassed and uncomfortable. When Harvey tells Susan, with whom he has shared a strained relationship since his divorce, that he will be attending the ceremony but not the subsequent reception because he needs to return to the States for an important meeting, she informs him she has asked her stepfather Brian to give her away. Meanwhile, Kate is on a blind date that is not going well. When she returns to the table after taking yet another call from her neurotic mother Maggie, who is certain her Polish neighbor is burying bodies in a shed in his yard, she discovers her date has invited friends to join them. Feeling unwanted and excluded from the conversation, she eventually excuses herself and goes home. The following morning Harvey attends the wedding but quickly leaves for the airport without congratulating the married couple. But due to heavy traffic delays he misses his flight at Heathrow. When he calls his boss Marvin to advise him he will be returning a day later than planned, he is fired. Determined to drown his sorrows, Harvey goes to an airport bar and sees Kate. Recognizing her from the day before, he apologizes for his rude behavior. She initially resists the attention he is paying her but soon they're both glad to finally have an honest conversation about what they're feeling and thinking. Harvey follows Kate to the Heathrow Express and, upon arrival at Paddington station, asks if he can walk her to her writing class on the South Bank. She accepts his offer and is pleased when he offers to meet her after class. As they stroll along the River Thames, Harvey mentions he is missing Susan's wedding reception, and Kate urges him to go. He finally relents, but only if she will accompany him. When Kate insists she is not properly dressed for such an occasion, Harvey buys her a dress and the two head to the Grosvenor House Hotel, where they are welcomed coolly by Susan and get two places at the children's table. When the father of the bride is called upon to make a toast, Brian rises and begins to speak until Harvey interrupts. He then delivers an eloquent speech that redeems him with his daughter and endears him to Kate. Immediately following the first dance of the bride and groom, the groom calls Harvey up to dance with his daughter for the Father-Daughter Dance. He happily does so, and then all the guests join them on the floor for the rumba, tango and other dances, with Harvey enjoying himself on the dance floor, alone. Kate is left at the table, once again in the same position as when she was on her blind date. Her smile becomes more strained as she looks about and sees herself alone at the table in a room of strangers for several dances, Harvey having apparently forgotten she was there. When she surmises he will not be coming to ask her to dance, her smile disappears and she quietly leaves the room and stands in front of the elevator, preparing to leave. Harvey, now looking for Kate, goes into the corridor and seeing her waiting for the elevator, he disappears into a side annex with a piano and begins to softly play one of his own jazz compositions for her. She hears the music and follows it, finding Harvey smiling and waiting for her. He asks her to return to the reception to dance and stay with him. She smiles and agrees.
1057929	Reign Over Me is a 2007 American drama film written and directed by Mike Binder, and produced by Jack Binder. The film stars Adam Sandler, Don Cheadle, Jada Pinkett Smith, Liv Tyler, Donald Sutherland, Saffron Burrows and Mike Binder himself. Distributed by Columbia Pictures, the film was released on March 23, 2007. The film was released to DVD, and Blu-ray on October 9, 2007.
1079956	Lisa Eilbacher (born May 5, 1956) is an American television and motion picture actress. Biography. Personal life. Eilbacher was born in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, the daughter of an American oil company executive. She was raised in France. Her sister Cindy is also an actress, best known for portraying Jerry Van Dyke's long-suffering daughter on the short-lived TV series "My Mother the Car". Eilbacher is married to Brad May, whose work in photography and other behind the scenes areas of television and film has been considerable since the late 1970s. He directed her in 1986's "New Twilight Zone" episode "Nightsong" with a recent DVD release of the series including a commentary on it by him. Career. Eilbacher started acting as a child appearing on such popular shows as "My Three Sons" and "Gunsmoke". She later made a transition into adult roles. Ms. Eilbacher is best remembered for her roles in two popular films of the 1980s: "An Officer and a Gentleman" and "Beverly Hills Cop". In "An Officer and a Gentleman", she played a Navy Aviation Officer Candidate who couldn't complete the obstacle course. An avid body builder in real life, Eilbacher said the hardest aspect of this role was "pretending" to be out of shape. In "Beverly Hills Cop", she played Jenny Summers, a childhood friend of Eddie Murphy's character Axel Foley whom Foley visits following the murder of another mutual childhood friend and subsequently helps him solve the murder. Eilbacher was also featured in the 1983 epic miniseries "The Winds of War" playing Madeleine Henry. Eilbacher starred as Callie Shaw in "The Hardy Boys Mysteries" in 1977. The same year she appeared as "Lisa" in the episode "The Innocent" of the short-lived "Logan's Run" TV series. She also appeared in the 1974 television movie "Bad Ronald", 1981's "This House Possessed", and several other motion and television films, and episodes of series (memorably, the episode of "The New Twilight Zone", 1986's "Nightsong".)
1166889	Beverley Ann Mitchell (born January 22, 1981) is an American actress and country music singer. She is best known for her role as Lucy Camden-Kinkirk on the television series "7th Heaven". Early life and family. Her parents are Sharon Mitchell (née Weisz), an office manager, and David Mitchell, an auto racing promoter. Her parents have since divorced and remarried and she has a half-brother Giuseppe Tomasino from her father's second marriage. She shares one thing in common with her former "7th Heaven" co-star Catherine Hicks: both are former cheerleaders in high school. After graduating from Chaminade College Preparatory School in 1999, she enrolled at Loyola Marymount University where she majored in film production. Career. Mitchell's first major film role was in "", playing teenaged drug-addict Grace. During the filming of "The Crow", in 1996, she auditioned for the role of Mary Camden in a new family drama, "7th Heaven". Producers initially turned her down as they did not think she was suitable to play Mary. However, when she read for the part of sister Lucy, she was instantly cast. She is actually 2 months older than Jessica Biel, who played her older sister. "7th Heaven" was very popular, lasting for 11 seasons.
1063404	Rebecca De Mornay (born August 29, 1959) is an American film and television actress. Her breakthrough film role came in 1983, when she played Lana in "Risky Business". Her other notable film roles include Sara in "Runaway Train" in 1985, Thelma in The Trip to Bountiful, Helen McCaffrey in the thriller "Backdraft" in 1991 and her portrayal of the chillingly twisted nanny Peyton Flanders in the popular 1992 thriller "The Hand That Rocks the Cradle". Personal life. She was born Rebecca Jane Pearch on August 29, 1959, in Santa Rosa, California. Her father was Wally George (née Pearch), a disc jockey at the time. When she was two, her parents divorced and, at the age of five, she became known by her stepfather's surname, De Mornay. She has two step-brothers: Jonathan, a businessman, and Peter, a guitarist. She attended the independent Summerhill School in Leiston, Suffolk, England, but her high-school degree was awarded in St. Johann, near Kitzbühel, Austria. She trained as an actress in New York at the Lee Strasberg Institute. DeMornay was engaged to singer Leonard Cohen. She married writer Bruce Wagner on December 16, 1986, but they divorced in 1990. Her second marriage was to Ryan O'Neal's son, sportscaster Patrick O'Neal, from 1995 to 2002; the union produced two daughters: Sophia (born November 16, 1997) and Veronica (born March 31, 2001). Career. Her film debut was a small part in Francis Ford Coppola's 1982 film "One from the Heart". Soon thereafter came her star-making role as a call girl who seduces a high-school student played by Tom Cruise in "Risky Business". In 1985, she appeared with Starship's Mickey Thomas in the music video for the song "Sara". The song reached #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart on March 15, 1986. One of De Mornay's most commercially successful films came in the thriller "The Hand That Rocks the Cradle". She also appeared in a 1988 remake of Roger Vadim's provocative "And God Created Woman", Ron Howard's "Backdraft" (1991) and in 1993, starred as a defense lawyer in Sidney Lumet's murder drama "Guilty as Sin". Then she appeared in the 1995 drama film "Never Talk to Strangers" opposite Antonio Banderas; in which she was also the executive producer. In 2003, she guest-starred as primary antagonist in the first two episodes of season 2 of "Boomtown". In 2004, she guest-starred as attorney Hannah Rose for the last few episodes of "The Practice" and the following year, had a brief role alongside Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn in "Wedding Crashers". De Mornay also starred in the 2007 drama "American Venus". In June 2007, she appeared in the HBO series "John From Cincinnati" with a starring role as matriarch of a troubled Imperial Beach, California surfing family and the grandmother/guardian of a teen surfer on the brink of greatness. She appeared in Darren Lynn Bousman's "Mother's Day" (2010). In 2012, De Mornay played the role of Finch's mom in the movie "American Reunion" where she portrayed an attractive older woman and a love interest of Stifler. Cultural references. The name "Rebecca De Mornay" is used for a character (played by African-American actress Sonya Eddy) in two episodes of "Seinfeld": "The Muffin Tops" and "The Bookstore". Rebecca De Mornay has also been referenced in an episode of "The Ricky Gervais Show" co-starring with "Clive Warren" (Clive Owen) as part of a movie pitch by Karl Pilkington.
1167308	Essence Uhura Atkins (born February 7, 1972) is an American actress. She is best known for the roles of Dee Dee Thorne on the UPN sitcom "Half & Half" and as Yvette Henderson on the The WB sitcom "Smart Guy". She is currently starring in the TV series "Are We There Yet?" as Suzanne Kingston-Persons. Career. Atkins has appeared in a variety of movies and TV shows, including "How High", "Deliver Us from Eva", "Family Matters", "Sister Sister","Moesha", and "The Cosby Show". One of her television roles was in the "Saved by the Bell" spin-off, "". She appeared in the pilot, but when Tiffani-Amber Thiessen, a regular from the original, opted to return, Atkins's character was written out. She also had a main role in "Smart Guy" as the older sister Tasha Yvette Henderson, as well as the starring role of Dee Dee Thorne in the series "Half & Half", playing half-sister to Rachel True's character.
903912	Tristan Paul Mack Wilds (born July 15, 1989) is an American actor and singer. He is best known for his roles as Michael Lee on the HBO original drama series "The Wire" and as Dixon Wilson on the CW drama series "90210". Early life. Wilds was born in Staten Island, New York, to Monique Moncion and Paul Wilds. He is of African American (father) and Irish, and Dominican (mother) descent. He attended Michael J. Petrides School. He started acting at age seven, following in the foot steps of his older brother. Acting career. In 2005 Wilds made his acting debut in The N Drama Mini-Series "Miracle's Boys" Wilds has since guest appeared on television shows such as "Cold Case" and "Law & Order". The following year Wilds made his film debut in a bit-role in the Independent Drama film "Half Nelson" alongside Academy Award Nominee Ryan Gosling. Wilds has dominantly appeared in a number of music videos for Jay-Z, Lil Flip, Wale, Wynter Gordon and Alicia Keys. Most recently he made a cameo in the music video for "How To Love" by American Hip-Hop Rapper Lil Wayne. In 2008 Wilds appeared alongside Jessica Alba and Hayden Panettiere in a promotional-clip titled "The Muzzler" encouraging young people to vote. In 2006 Wilds joined the HBO Drama television series "The Wire" in a major recurring role. Wilds portrayed the role of Michael Lee, a troubled middle school student who is living in poverty and caring for his younger brother. "The Wire" cast mate Jermaine Crawford is his second cousin. Wilds appeared over the course of 23-episodes. Shortly after "The Wire" ended Wilds attended an acting workshop at the Roundabout Theatre Company, in which he worked with Actress Phylicia Rashād and played the role of Brice in a stage production of "Stockholm Brooklyn" at the Cherry Lane Theatre. In 2007 Wilds was cast in the Fox Searchlight Pictures Drama film "The Secret Life of Bees" an adaptation of the novel of the same name. Production began in January 2008 in Lumberton, North Carolina with Queen Latifah, Alicia Keys and Dakota Fanning confirmed to star. Wilds portrays the role of Zach Taylor the romantic interest to the Fanning's character. The film was screen in September 2008 at the 33rd Annual Toronto International Film Festival and was released in the United States the following month. The film received mixed reviews and grossed over $39 million worldwide. In July 2008 Wilds was cast in The CW Teen Drama television series "90210" a spin-off to "Beverly Hills, 90210". Wilds portrays the role of Dixon Wilson a teenage boy who is adopted whom moves with his family to Beverly Hills. The series premiered in September that same year to 4.65 million viewers and mixed reviews from critics. On May 3, 2012 The CW renewed the series for a fifth season. In March 2009 Wilds was confirmed to star in the George Lucas War film "Red Tails" which follows the Tuskegee Airmen a group of African American United States Army Air Force (USAAF) servicemen during World War II. Ne-Yo, Terrence Howard and Cuba Gooding, Jr. were announced to star also. Production began that same month on a $58 million budget. Eventually the film was released after numerous push-backs in January 2012. The film was a failure, both critically and financially. In July 2011 Wilds announced he had joined the Independent Drama film "Indelible". The film was planned to begin filming in Upstate New York sometime in October that same year but plans never materialized. In April 2009 a trailer was filmed to promote awareness of the yet-to-be filmed film. Music. In 2010 Wilds signed a recording contract with Independent Record Label Ten2one. Two tracks have leaked, the Rico Love-written track "Fall 4 Her" and "Runaround". Both songs were produced by Dre & Vidal. Another track titled "2 Girls" was featured in the fourth season of "90210" and "Kim". In October 2011 Wilds released an Extended play titled "Remember Remember". In summer 2013, Tristan revisited the music scene and released the hit single "Own It". His debut album, "" will be released on September 30, 2013.
589792	Insaaf Main Karoonga is a 1985 Hindi film directed by Shibu Mitra and produced by S.K.Kapur. This film has Rajesh Khanna in the lead opposite Tina Munim and Padmini Kolhapure. The songs are sung by Kishore Kumar for Rajesh Khanna. Synopsis. "INSAAF MAIN KAROONGA" (meaning "I will deliver justice") became an obsessive point of directive in the mind of Captain Ravi Khanna, when his young, beautiful and loving wife committed suicide. Seema was an orphan whom Khanna fell in love with. One night when Ravi goes out of city for one of his assignments, his wife Seema is raped and commits suicide. After the suicide takes place he manages to trace the person and becomes vindictive and shoots the culprit point blank and surrenders to military court. At this juncture the whole scene changes. As the proceedings of the court were about to start, the news of culprits having survived gets broken to him. This makes the Captain more ferocious and gets provoked to become free, so that on an appropriate opportunity he could fulfill his urge to kill him. Ravi flees from the army force and on the way he meets his friend Khan who gives him shelter. On one night Ravi and Khan decide to go to the Hospital, where the culprit was convalescing his wounds so that they could kill him. But Captain is not able to shoot him as some of the army officers see him and try him to capture him. Accidentally the culprit’s daughter comes in the way. Ravi then takes hold of her so that he can escape from that place comfortably. Captain then decides that he will keep Pinky with him and make it look like a kidnap and will drive the culprit that mad that he will himself surrender to police and accept that he was the person who drove his wife to commit suicide. Rest of the story is how Ravi is able to catch the culprits and how relation develops between Pinky and Ravi and what all problems Ravi has to face on his way to attain justice for his beloved late wife.
1044305	How I Won the War is a black comedy film directed and produced by Richard Lester, released in 1967, based on a novel of the same name by Patrick Ryan. The film stars Michael Crawford as bungling British Army Officer Lieutenant Earnest Goodbody, with John Lennon (in his only non-musical role, as Musketeer Gripweed), Jack MacGowran (Musketeer Juniper), Roy Kinnear (Musketeer Clapper) and Lee Montague (Sergeant Transom) as soldiers under his command. The film uses an inconsistent variety of styles—vignette, straight–to–camera, and, extensively, parody of the war film genre, docu-drama, and popular war literature—to tell the story of 3rd Troop, the 4th Musketeers (a fictional regiment reminiscent of the Royal Fusiliers) and their misadventures in the Second World War. This is told in the comic/absurdist vein throughout, a central plot being the setting-up of an “Advanced Area Cricket Pitch” behind enemy lines in Tunisia, but it is all broadly based on the Allied landings in North Africa in 1942 to the crossing of the last intact bridge on the Rhine at Remagen in 1945. The film itself has never been critically well received. Principal character and plot. The main character, Lieutenant Goodbody, is an inept, idealistic, naïve, and almost relentlessly jingoistic wartime-commissioned (not regular) officer. One of the main subversive themes in the film is the platoon’s repeated attempts or temptations to kill or otherwise rid themselves of their complete liability of a commander. In fact, with dead-weight heavy irony, while Lieutenant Goodbody’s ineptitude and attempts at derring-do lead to the gradual demise of his entire unit, Goodbody survives, together with one of his charges who finishes the film confined to psychiatric care, and the unit’s persistent deserter. In a heavy macabre device, each deceased soldier is replaced by a plastic model toy soldier, played by an actor in World War II uniform whose face is obscured by netting, underscoring Goodbody's lack of adult connection with his duties. Production. Filming took place at the Bergen-Hohne Training Area, in Verden an der Aller, in Achim and in Spain in Almería Province in the autumn of 1966. Lennon, taking a break from the Beatles after nearly four years of constant touring, was asked by Lester to play Musketeer Gripweed. To prepare for the role, Lennon had his hair trimmed down, contrasting sharply with his mop-top image. During filming, he started wearing round "granny-like" glasses, which soon became his sartorial trademark. A photo of Lennon in character as Gripweed found its way into many print publications, including the front page of the first issue of "Rolling Stone Magazine" released in November 1967. During his stay in Spain, Lennon had rented a villa called Santa Isabel, whose wrought-iron gates and surrounding lush vegetation bore a resemblance to Strawberry Field, a Salvation Army garden near Lennon's childhood home; it was this observation that inspired Lennon to write "Strawberry Fields Forever" while filming.
1266047	Ladies They Talk About is a 1933 Pre-Code women in prison film about a woman sent to San Quentin. Based on the play "Women in Prison" by Dorothy Mackaye and Carlton Miles, the film stars Barbara Stanwyck, Preston Foster, and Lillian Roth. Plot. Nan Taylor (Stanwyck) is accused of helping her friends rob a bank. Reform-minded David Slade (Foster) falls in love with her and gets her released. However, when she confesses that she is guilty, he has her imprisoned. Inside, she meets fellow inmates Linda (Roth), "Sister Susie" (Dorothy Burgess) and Aunt Maggie (Maude Eburne), and prison matron Noonan (Ruth Donnelly). Unlike most films of the women in prison genre, her fellow inmates are criminals, rather than innocents in prison by mistake. Taylor gets involved in a prison escape, has a year added to her sentence, and goes gunning for revenge when she is released. Reception. The "New York Times" said "When a reformer and a dashing female bank bandit fall in love, their home life may be somewhat as illustrated in the lingering finale of 'Ladies They Talk About,' [...] After a torrid argument in which Nan, the gun-girl, accuses her beloved of frustrating a jail-break in which two of her pals were killed, she loses her temper, draws a gun from her handbag and shoots him. 'I didn't mean to do that,' Nan remarks a moment later as David Slade falls to the floor with a bullet in his shoulder. 'Why, that's all right, Nan,' responds her husband-to-be. 'It's nothing.'" [...] "It is in the prison scenes that the film provides some interesting drama. 'Ladies They Talk About' is effective when it is describing the behavior of the prisoners, the variety of their misdemeanors, their positions in the social whirl outside, their ingenuity in giving an intimate domestic touch to the prison, and their frequently picturesque way of exhibiting pride, jealousy, vanity and other untrammeled feminine emotions." Remake. The film was remade in 1942 under the title "Lady Gangster", starring Faye Emerson.
1034929	When Louis Met... is a series of documentary films made by BAFTA award-winning film-maker Louis Theroux. The series was originally aired on BBC2 from 2000 to 2002. In the series, Theroux accompanied a different British celebrity in each programme as they went about their day-to-day business, interviewing them about their lives and experiences as he did so. His episode about the DJ, charity fund-raiser Sir Jimmy Savile "(When Louis Met...Jimmy)" was voted one of the top fifty documentaries of all time in a survey by Britain's Channel Four. In another episode "("When Louis Met...The Hamiltons")", the disgraced Tory MP Neil Hamilton and his wife Christine were arrested following false allegations of indecent assault during the course of filming. The show did not return for a third series, Theroux admitted that he had difficulty in finding people to appear. Awards. Winner - 2002 BAFTA TV Award - Richard Dimbleby Award for the Best Presenter (Factual, Features and News) - "For the "When Louis Met..." series of films." Nominated - 2002 Flaherty Documentary Award - "For "When Louis Met...The Hamiltons"" ""When Louis Met... Jimmy" was voted number 50 in Channel 4's 2005 poll of the 50 greatest documentaries." DVD releases. When Louis Met... has been released on PAL DVD in a number of best-of sets. Originally, Vol.1/Vol.2 and Vol.3/Vol.4 were released as two disc sets, before being split. Later the 4 volumes were released as a limited edition box set.
899719	Sylva Koscina (born Silva Košćina on 22 August 1933, Zagreb, Kingdom of Yugoslavia — died 26 December 1994, Rome, Italy) was a Croatian born Italian actress. Biography. Koscina was born to parents from Split and Trogir ("Košćina" in čakavian Croatian means "a great bone"; Košćina was a family name of the owner of the first greater shipyard in Split, established 1831). Her publicity agents invented that she was born "Sylva Koskinon" of a Greek father and a Polish mother. She may be best-remembered for her role as Iole, the bride of Hercules (Steve Reeves) in "Hercules" (1958) and "Hercules Unchained" (1960). She also played Paul Newman's romantic interest in "The Secret War of Harry Frigg" (1968). During the Second World War when she was a teenager, she moved to Italy to live with her sister, who had married an Italian citizen.
1068808	Mozart and the Whale (released as "Crazy in Love" in some parts of Europe) is a 2005 romantic comedy-drama film starring Josh Hartnett and Radha Mitchell, and directed by Petter Næss. Synopsis. The film tells the story of two people with Asperger syndrome (a form of autism). Donald (Josh Hartnett) runs a small self-help group for people on the autism spectrum who are more affected by their autism than he is. Isabelle (Radha Mitchell) is referred to the group by her therapist. "Mozart and the Whale" is a fictional account, using characters loosely based on the real-life relationship of Jerry Newport and Mary Meinel (now Mary Newport). Plot. Donald Morton is a taxi driver and drives two Japanese passengers and his pet cockatiel around Spokane, Washington. Distracted, he bumps into the back of a florist's van and damaging his stock. Unfazed, Donald and his budgie take their groceries and leave, abandoning his taxi cab and passengers. He takes his groceries to the self-help group for autistic adults. Before they head to the park to meet another autistic group, he tells one member, Gracie, to gather the women and he'll gather the guys to practice telling personal stories, but keeps getting distracted by performing mathematical sums of the microwaves depleting numbers. He notices that Isabelle Sorenson, a new name, has signed up and tells Gracie to let her go first. At the park, Isabelle tells of a childhood memory to the women: she saw that her parents were happy that an Olympian had broken a record, so in order to please her parents, and taking what she heard literally, she broke their music records. Donald tells his story to the men about his ability to do complex sums but couldn't make friends. Isabelle goes on to tell of when she was raped when she went hitch-hiking. This causes Gracie to laugh manically. Heard by Donald, he tries to calm an angry Isabelle down and they find that they have much in common and take a liking to each other. In the self-help group, after Isabelle talks to Gregory about Donald, he calls Donald over to ask her to escort him to the Halloween party. Before Donald can, Isabelle asks Donald out for lunch. They go to the zoo the following day, and in response to Donald asking on behalf of Gregory, Isabelle asks Donald to escort her. They agree to meet with their costumes on in the evening. Donald dresses as a whale but is hesitant about going and leaves Isabelle, dressed as Mozart, waiting. She goes to his apartment and they both walk around the town talking until the final bus is due, and they share their first kiss. Unsure when to call, Donald leaves multiple messages on her phone until she finally answers and they go to the amusement park. In the ring toss, the clanging of the metal rings hitting the bottles and the bell ringing cause her to scream and collapse on the floor. He takes her back to his filthy apartment and they agree to sleep together. The following day at the self-help group, Gregory accuses Donald of exploiting his position for sexual favours. Isabelle makes herself liked by going with Bronwin, who learns that her father has blood cancer, to wait for her parents to pick her up. Isabelle takes the liberty of cleaning his apartment while he goes shopping. When he returns, he's horrified to see that everything is different; the piles of newspaper are stacked neatly, rotting food from the fridge is thrown away and has a new shower curtain. He gets angry at Isabelle for changing everything. He later leaves a number of apologetic messages on Isabelle's phone. The next day, he goes to the hair salon where Isabelle works as a hair stylist to apologize in person, and Isabelle forgives him, introducing him as her boyfriend to the staff. Isabelle shows Donald an abandoned rooftop, calling this a place where people who don't know where they belong can belong. She suggests that they can buy a house and her therapist has organised a job interview for a statistic analyst post at a university. He gets the job and they move into their new house, making it their own. Donald tells Isabelle that he wants everything to be "nice" for when his boss comes for dinner. Believing that he thinks that she doesn't keep the house "nice," Isabelle spites Donald by keeping the pets uncaged, much to Donald's shock when he returns, and she maintains extroverted behaviour and tells of her off-the-wall plans for the house. Donald explodes, but when Isabelle says that they are both crazy, he retaliates by telling her that she is crazier, which leads to her throwing him out. He stays with Gregory in his house, and after listing to an answer message that Isabelle's rabbit, Bongo, has died, he runs to comfort her. Isabelle suggests that they should just be friends. Donald invites Isabelle to a restaurant, where he proposes to her, much to Isabelle's dismay. She leaves abruptly back home and overdoses. Donald returns just in time to take her to hospital, where Isabelle's psychiatrist advises him to leave her alone, testing his willpower to refrain from calling her. Donald sees Isabelle leaving the university and follows her to the abandoned rooftop, where he expresses that the only nice thing he had left to give her was not to call, to find that Isabelle was waiting for his call and she missed him. They express their true love with a embrace and kiss. The movie ends with the happy couple in their home, enjoying Thanksgiving dinner with the self-help group. Production. The screenplay was written by Ron Bass, who also wrote "Rain Man", a film about an individual with autism. Bass is said to have been inspired by a 1995 article in the "Los Angeles Times". The film was previously a DreamWorks vehicle and was to have been directed by Steven Spielberg with Robin Williams and Téa Leoni as stars. But other work commitments meant that Spielberg could not film it in the available time slots. North By Northwest picked up the film finishing it for its release in 2005. Parts of this film were shot on the campus of Gonzaga University, and Cat Tales, a large-cat preserve in Spokane, Washington. Distribution. The film struggled to find a theatrical distributor in the USA. The major reason for this was a lack of public support by prominent cast members who did not like the final version. The studio tried to distribute it in the USA in April 2004 but it did not go farther than a month in Spokane, Washington, where the film was made. The film is available on DVD in a number of countries and became available in the USA in that form on December 12, 2006. Reception. The film has been criticized for perpetuating the common and incorrect media stereotype that people on the autism spectrum typically have savant skills.
672325	Eel Girl is a 2008 horror science fiction short film written and directed by Paul Campion, in which what appears to be a sort of human-eel hybrid woman, being studied by scientists in a Naval research facility, takes revenge on one of the scientists who are studying her. The film was produced by Elisabeth Pinto and Jennifer Scheer, and was shot in Wellington, New Zealand. The special makeup effects were created by New Zealand based company Weta Workshop. Plot. Deep in a secret navy research facility, an armed security officer enters a secure observation room, filled with electronic monitoring equipment and shelves full of dissected fish specimens. The officer requests one of the scientists accompany her immediately. He protests, quoting navy protocols that require two people to remain in the room at all times, but the officer makes sure he knows he has no choice.
1084300	Bikini Beach is a 1964 American teen film directed by William Asher and starring Frankie Avalon and Annette Funicello. The film belongs to the beach party genre of movies, popular in the 1960s. This is the third in the series of seven films produced by American International Pictures (AIP).
590297	Padma Nadir Majhi (, English: "Boatman of the River Padma" or "The Padma Boatman") (1993) is an award-winning Indian Bengali feature film directed by Goutom Ghosh from the novel of the same name, Manik Banerjee's "Padma Nadir Majhi". Plot. Hossian Miya (Utpal Dutta) is a Bengali Muslim trader who offers his community an idealistic vision: He wants to establish a little utopia on an island (Moynadeep) in the Padma delta and offer them a better life there. It is apparent that Hossian Miya has a flourishing business there, because he has recently purchased a huge boat because of expanding business. He doesn't care if the people who populate it are Hindu or Muslim. It is 1947, just before the partition of India, and the Hindu fisherman Kuber briefly accepts an offer by Hossain to ferry some of the community's cargo from the island. He would be fishing, except that the fish he usually catches have been driven away by a big storm.
1266254	Mystery of the Wax Museum is a 1933 American mystery horror-thriller film released by Warner Bros. in two-color Technicolor and directed by Michael Curtiz. The film stars Lionel Atwill, Fay Wray, Glenda Farrell, and Frank McHugh.
631092	Attack Force Z (alternatively titled The Z Men) is a 1982 Australian World War II film, directed by Tim Burstall. It is loosely based on an actual event that took place during World War II, and was shot in Taiwan in 1980. It was screened at the Cannes Film Festival on 18 May 1981. The film is noted for starring Mel Gibson and Sam Neill, who were relatively unknown (in the U.S) at the time but who went on to become international stars. Background. Captain P.G. Kelly (Gibson) leads a team from the elite Z Special Unit. Z Special Unit often known as Z Force, was a joint Australian, British and New Zealand commando unit, which saw action against the Empire of Japan during World War II. Its main brief was for reconnaissance and sabotage, today its role is taken by the Special Air Service Squadrons of Australia and New Zealand respectively. Plot. In the Straits of Sembaleng, five men are dispatched by submarine in kayaks to rescue survivors of a shot-down plane on a nearby island which is occupied by the Imperial Japanese Army. Led by Paul Kelly (Gibson), an inexperienced commando officer, the team secretly lands on the island and hides their kayaks. As they venture in land, Ted 'Kingo' King is hit by fire from an unseen machine gun post, the team quickly eliminates the Japanese defenders and return to their wounded comrade. King has been hit on the leg, the bullet smashing his kneecap. King cannot be allowed to fall into enemy hands and compromise the mission under interrogation, and after sharing a cigarette with him, Costello shoots him. The four remaining men return to their search, coming across a rice farmer they learn of the area in which the plane crashed. The rice farmer is also killed in order to preserve secrecy. But as they near their destination they come across a Japanese squad at a local house, after the Japanese leave they enter the house and meet the local resistance leader Lin, his grown up daughter Chien Hua and her younger brothers and sisters. With a guide to lead them to the plane, they head off to the plane but are attacked by Japanese soldiers at a Buddhist Temple. Separated from the rest interpreter Jan Veitch ends up returning to Lin's house only for him to be hidden by Chien Hua from the returning Japanese. After the deaths of their soldiers the Japanese officers Watanabe and Imanaka torture Chien for telling them the location of her father, but Chien Hua refuses. Only for Lin's son Shaw Hu tell the Japanese that Lin, the Z men and the planes survivors are heading for the islands capital (but it is false information). All the Japanese leave except for two soldiers guarding Chien Hua which Veitch kills with help of Shaw Hu. Meanwhile within sight of the plane Kelly watches as locals blow up the wreckage. Lin is evasive and after quizzing the inhabitants of a village between the plane and them, the team head on to the plane. Kelly manages to get Lin to tell them that the two survivors are being taken to his home, so they turn around and head back. In the capital Veitch is led to the survivors. One of them is a defecting Japanese government official Imoguchi, and he is believed to hold a secret that could end the war faster. Only Kelly knows he must be rescued at any cost or killed. As the pieces of the puzzle begin to fall together, Kelly must persuade his own men that Imoguchi is worth rescuing and the local resistance that it is worth fighting against their Japanese enemies. Main cast. "Z Special Unit" "Islanders" Production. The script was based on a real-life commando rescue raid, Project Opossum, where a team of commandos rescued the local sultan on the Japanese-held island of Ternate near Borneo. The film was originally entitled "The Z Men" and was to be directed by Phillip Noyce. Pre production commenced in Taiwan where for six weeks Noyce worked on the script with writer Michael Cove. However Noyce clashed with the producers - McCallum later claimed in particular that Noyce refused to use one of the Chinese actors who had been cast in a small role - and was fired the night before shooting was meant to start. He was replaced by Tim Burstall in November 1979. Filming was further delayed by constant rain and re-writing of the script. Among the changes made were adding a fifth character to the team - a soldier played by John Waters who would be killed within the opening ten minutes by one of their own men. Reception. "Attack Force Z" was only released theatrically in Australia in Melbourne, where it took $88,000 at the box office, which is equivalent to $256,080 in 2009 dollars. After the film's release, Tim Burstall was quoted as saying; John McCallum later said he and Robinson wanted to make another film in Asia, about drug running in Thailand "starting from the poppies and the hill factories where they distil the damned suff and send it down to Bangkok" but were not allowed to make it because of the dangers involved in filming in Thailand.
1059896	Nine Months is a 1995 romantic comedy film directed by Chris Columbus. It stars Hugh Grant, Julianne Moore, Tom Arnold, Joan Cusack, Jeff Goldblum, and Robin Williams. The movie is a US remake of the French movie "Neuf mois" and served as Grant's first US starring role. It was filmed on location in the San Francisco Bay Area. The original music score was composed by Hans Zimmer. Plot. Child psychologist Samuel Faulkner's (Hugh Grant) ideal romance with ballet teacher Rebecca Taylor (Julianne Moore) is turned upside-down when Rebecca gets pregnant. His fears mount due to his encounters with overbearing couple Marty (Tom Arnold) & Gail (Joan Cusack) and their unruly daughters, as well as the confusing advice he gets from his perpetually single artist friend (Jeff Goldblum). Too uninvolved with Rebecca's needs, Samuel parts company with her and takes a last stab at playing the field, but when he sees an ultrasound of his soon-to-be-born son, he decides that it's time to take responsibility before it's too late. Robin Williams, as Rebecca's Russian OB-GYN, adds much of the comic relief in the film. Reception. The film was poorly received by critics. Rotten Tomatoes gives the film a score of 28% based on 25 reviews.
584555	Nilaave Vaa is a 1998 Tamil film which released directed by A. Venkatesh and produced by K. T. Kunjumon. The film stars Vijay and Suvalakshmi in the main lead roles, while Sanghavi, Raghuvaran and Manivannan play other supporting roles. The film opened in August 1998 and met with an unfavourable response critically and commercially. Plot. Siluvai (Vijay) is the son of Cruz (Vinu Chakravarthy). They are Christians living in a fishing village. In another town, Perumaal (Jaiganesh) is the father to Sangeetha (Suvalakshmi) and Gauri. Sangheeta comes to the small fishing village. Raghuvaran is proposed (and later engaged) to marry her. However, Gauri, falls in love with Siluvai's friend and after hearing that their father Jaiganesh doesn't want to accept the Hindu-Christian marriage, she decides to elope with her lover. This leads to the breakup of Sangeetha and Siluvai's love affair. However Raghuvaran, upon hearing Siluvai's story, gives a great speech to the villagers and unites Siluvai and Sangeetha. Production. This low-budget production was jointly produced on Vijay's home banner and K. T. Kunjumon who was still reeling under the failure of "Ratchagan". Initially Rakshana was signed on as heroine but was subsequently replaced by Suvalakshmi. Mansoor Ali Khan had signed to be the villain in "Nilaave Vaa", but the actor later returned the advance of 50,000 and took back his 40 days of call sheets, with Anantharaj consequently replacing him. Release. A critic from Indolink.com concluded that the film was "not impressive", while mentioning that "Vijay is his usual self" and that Raghuvaran "has given a good performance as usual". Vijay mentioned that he had expected the film to do good business but was disappointed by its box office failure. Soundtrack. The film score and the soundtrack were composed by film composer Vidyasagar. The lyrics were written by Vairamuthu.
1063616	Nancy Ann Travis (born September 21, 1961) is an American actress. She is known for her roles in films "Three Men and a Baby" (1987) and its sequel, "Three Men and a Little Lady" (1990), "Air America" (1990), "Internal Affairs" (1990), "So I Married an Axe Murderer" (1993), "Greedy" (1994), and "Fluke" (1995). She currently stars as Vanessa Baxter in the ABC comedy series "Last Man Standing". Early life. Travis was born in New York City, the daughter of Theresa, a social worker, and Gordon Travis, a sales executive. Travis was raised in Boston, Massachusetts, and Baltimore, Maryland. Career. Travis' first job after graduating from high school was in a play, "It's Hard to be a Jew", at The American Jewish Theatre in NYC. After that, Travis appeared in a stage version of Neil Simon's "Brighton Beach Memoirs" and was a founding member of the Off-Broadway theater company "Naked Angels". She appeared in their Frank Pugliese play "Aven U-Boys", as well as in "King of Connecticut". She made her Broadway debut in "I'm Not Rappaport". She starred in Athol Fugard's "My Children, My Africa". Travis has had leading lady roles in many films, including "Three Men and a Baby" and its sequel, "Three Men and a Little Lady", plus "Air America" and "Internal Affairs" (as the wife of Andy García), "So I Married an Axe Murderer" as the bride of Mike Myers, thriller "The Vanishing" with Kiefer Sutherland, "Greedy" with Michael J. Fox, and in the action-comedy "Destiny Turns on the Radio" with Dylan McDermott. Others notable films include the 1995 box office bomb "Fluke", 1996 Whoopi Goldberg's comedy "Bogus", political comedy/drama "Running Mates" with "Three Men and a Baby" co-star Tom Selleck, 2001 drama film "Auggie Rose", 2005 comedy "The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants" and 2007 ensemble cast romantic drama "The Jane Austen Book Club" adapted from the 2004 novel of the same name by Karen Joy Fowler. She was featured in "Chaplin" opposite Robert Downey, Jr., portraying Joan Barry, the woman who filed a paternity suit against Chaplin.
584879	Athadu (English: He) is a 2005 Telugu film directed by Trivikram Srinivas. The movie stars Mahesh Babu, Trisha Krishnan, Sonu Sood, Nassar and Prakash Raj. The movie's soundtrack was scored by Mani Sharma. The film went on to become one of the highest grossing films in Tollywood. The movie was dubbed into Tamil and Malayalam languages as "Nandhu" and "Target" respectively. Athadu has also been remade in Hindi as "" and in Bengali as "Wanted". The script for this movie was loosely based on the book "Point of Impact" and Hollywood film "Assassins". The film was also dubbed in Hindi as "Cheetah - The Power Of One" and released on February 11, 2013. Plot. Nanda Gopal /Nandu (Mahesh Babu) is a professional assassin, and Malli (Sonu Sood) is his partner. A party leader, Shiva Reddy (Sayaji Shinde), wants someone to attempt an assassination on him so that he can get more Sympathy votes in the upcoming election. Shiva Reddy's colleague Baji Reddy(Kota Srinivasa Rao) hooks him up with Nandu for a deal. However, before Nandu can shoot Shiva Reddy, someone else fatally shoots him. Within minutes, police surround the building. Just before the exit of the building, a big car accident occurs on the street with Nandu's car. Nandu assumes that Malli got trapped and died in the accident. So Nandu goes to the top of the skyscraper. With the police behind him and in front of him, he is helpless. Suddenly a train comes and Nandu uses a rope to jump from the skyscraper to the train. On the train, Nandu meets Pardhu (Rajiv Kanakala). Pardhu reveals that he ran away from his village in his childhood, Basarlapudi, when he was young. Pardhu explains that he is finally returning to his village. Later that same evening, while aiming for Nandu, the police accidentally shoot Pardhu and Pardhu dies on spot. Nandu escapes and decided to go to Basarlapudi. Thinking that Nandu is Pardhu, Pardhu's family accepts Nandu into their family. A girl relative to Pardhu's grandfather falls in love with Nandu, Nandu loves that girl too. Nandu solves many problems that Pardhu's family is facing. Meanwhile, a CBI officer, Anjaneya Prasad (Prakash Raj), investigating the murder of Shiva Reddy comes across Nandu alias Pardhu with the help of Railway reserved ticket for train in which Pardhu died on that day. He suspects Nandu of Shiva Reddy's murder. He tries taking Nandu's fingerprints unconventionally but Nandu outsmarts him. Soon clues lead to Malli but it is known that he is dead in car accident. Anjaneya Prasad meets an old prisoner to get new clues if any. That person tells that Malli would generally accompany in escaping along with another guy who does the actual murder. He tells Anjaneya Prasad that person name is Nandu. After the marriage of the granddaughter of Pardhu's grandfather was over, the CBI come because they find out that Nandu is not Pardhu and suspect that Nandu is the killer. Nandu learns of the situation and flees. After the CBI leave, Nandu returns to explain everything: who is he and how the real Pardhu was killed. At first the family shows no interest in helping Nandu to find the real assassin as they are all shocked but the grandfather (Nassar) helps Nandu by giving him a gun. Nandu calls Baji Reddy and demands to know who killed Shiva Reddy. At first, Baji Reddy refuses but after Nandu tells him that he recorded their first conversation on the phone, Baji Reddy reveals everything. It was Malli who killed Shiva Reddy for Rs. 75 Lakhs. He faked his death by sending a drunkard in the car at the time of the accident. Nandu records this conversation and immediately leaves for the old church, where Malli is. Nandu and Malli meet and Nandu has the gun loaded before Malli. But the same policemen who killed Pardhu barge in. Nandu manages to kill all of them, Malli kills himself in trying to kill Nandu(because of a Goli(glass ball marble) presence in the gun(which is brought by Nandu), which makes bullet travel backwards after hitting it). Nandu hands over the recorded cassette to the CBI officer. The CBI officer goes directly to Baji Reddy's office and tells him that he will hand him over to the police. Baji Reddy tells him that he has no concrete evidence. The CBI officer tells him that the tape is evidence enough for Siva Reddy's hot headed son,who has vowed vengeance for his father's death.Trapped without any recourse,Baji Reddy commits suicide. In the last scene, Nandu immerses Pardhu's ashes and the CBI officer lets him go to Pardhu's real family, where he plans to stay forever. Soundtrack. Audio of Athadu was released by Superstar Krishna on June 29, 2005 at the house set of the film constructed at Nanakramguda. This album consists of six melodies composed by Mani Sharma. Maruthi Music has bought the rights of this audio. This simple function was attended by Krishna, Mahesh Babu, Trisha, D Kishore, Murali Mohan and Pawan (Maruthi Music). Release. The film was released with 6 prints in U.S.A. and in 3 screens in Chennai. The DVD version of the movie was released by Aditya Music under its Aditya Video Brand, and won the best DVD award for its quality and is considered to be one of the highest sold DVDs in Tollywood history.
1162329	Jolyn Christine Heutmaker, known professionally as Josie Bissett (born October 5, 1970), is an American actress best known for her role as Jane Mancini on the television series "Melrose Place". Early life. A native of Seattle, Washington, Bissett began her career in front of the camera at the age of 12 as a model in print advertisements and television commercials. Career. At age 16, she left home and moved to Japan to further her career. At age 17, she headed to Hollywood, California. In early 1990, Bissett played a recurring role on the sitcom "The Hogan Family" for two seasons. In 1992, she was cast as fashion designer Jane Andrews-Mancini on the prime time soap opera "Melrose Place". Bissett remained with the series for four and a half seasons until halfway through the 1996-97 season when she suffered a real-life miscarriage. She then took some time off from the series, but returned to the show in 1998 for its final season. In 2009-10, Bissett made guest appearances in two episodes of The CW's updated version of "Melrose Place", reprising her role as Jane Andrews-Mancini. She has made appearances in such projects as the telefilms "The Fire Above" and "Dare to Love" on ABC, "Deadly Vows" on FOX, "Baby Monitor: Sound of Fear" on USA, and "I Do, They Don't" on ABC Family. She has also made numerous guest-starring appearances, such as a 2003 appearance on NBC's "". In 2008, she began a recurring role on the ABC Family TV series "The Secret Life of the American Teenager". She starred in the Lifetime Television original film "The Other Woman", based on the novel by Joy Fielding and directed by Jason Priestley. It debuted on June 28, 2008. Bissett's feature film debut was in 1991, in Oliver Stone's "The Doors", as the girlfriend of Doors' guitarist Robby Krieger. Her subsequent films include the coming-of-age comedy "Book of Love" and the psychological thriller "Mikey". Bissett has hosted television series on the topic of parenting, including "Parenting & Beyond", which offered parents creative solutions to everyday problems. She also hosted the PBS educational special "Teach More, Love More" which follows four families, each with a child in a stage of early childhood development. She has appeared on several magazine covers, including "TV Guide", "Rolling Stone", "Entertainment Weekly", "Shape's Fit Pregnancy" and "New Woman". Bissett has been the face of several national commercial campaigns, including Neutrogena's skin care line, Dr. Scholl's Pedicure Essentials, and Murad Skin Care. She has co-edited two books, "Little Bits Of Wisdom" and "Making Memories," which compile parenting stories and advice from parents around the world. She also authored a children's book, "Tickle Monster", released in April 2008. Personal life. Bissett and actor Rob Estes (who also starred on "Melrose Place") were married in 1992, and divorced in 2006. Bissett suffered a miscarriage in 1996, but the couple later had two children together — Mason Tru (born 21 July 1999) and Maya Rose (born 14 April 2002). Bissett resides in Seattle with her mother Linda.
583792	Mayakkam Enna (; ) is a 2011 Tamil romantic drama film written directed by Selvaraghavan. It stars his brother Dhanush, along with newcomer Richa Gangopadhyay, and features music scored by G. V. Prakash Kumar while the cinematography was handled by Ramji. "Mayakkam Enna" depicts the story of an aspiring wildlife photographer and his struggles in life. The film, produced and distributed by Gemini Film Circuit, was released on 25 November 2011. The film received generally positive reviews from critics and danush's performances has been praised well. Plot. Karthik Swaminathan (Dhanush), referred to as 'Genius' by his friends, is a freelance photographer who aspires to become a Wildlife Photographer like Madhesh Krishnasamy (Raviprakash). His close friends Sundar (Sunder Ramu), Shankar (Mathivanan Rajendran), Padmini (Pooja Balu) and Vindhya (Shilpi Kiran) support him and his sister after the death of their parents. One day, Sundar introduces Yamini (Richa Gangopadhyay) as his girlfriend to Karthik and his friends. On their first meeting, Karthik and Yamini have a bitter experience but they slowly develop a special bond. Karthik tries to stay away from the girl since he does not want to break his friend's heart, but a sequence of events brings them closer. Eventually, Sunder's dad arranges for Karthik and Yamini to be married. After their wedding, Karthik learns that Madhesh had used a photograph that Karthik had taken to win a national award. After this incident he turns into an alcoholic and people start doubting his sanity. But Yamini does not give up on him and supports him hoping that he'll succeed one day. One day, Karthik's drunken fit leads to Yamini's miscarriage after which she stops talking to him. This makes him come to terms with reality and he mends his ways. He finally gets a break and becomes a Professional Wildlife Photographer and one of his photographs gets nominated for an International Photography award, which he finally wins. On this occasion, Karthik thanks his friends Sundar and others for their support and Yamini for her faith in him and reveals his love for her. Yamini finally relents and talks to Karthik as the film ends. Production. After his "Aayirathil Oruvan" starring Karthik Sivakumar and Andrea Jeremiah ran into trouble after the latter had pulled out of the film, citing differences with the director, Selvaraghavan began a new film featuring Dhanush and Richa Gangopadhyay, who had initially been signed to do another film with the director. Richa began shooting for the film in Kannur in May 2011, and the film was wrapped up within three months. The title was finally changed to "Mayakkam Enna" in August 2011, with reports suggesting that Dhanush would sport four different looks in the film. Selvaraghavan has since made it clear that the film has a totally different script from the film that had been shelved. It was said that Dhanush would be seen in various stages, as a boy just out of his teenage to an old man. Yuvan Shankar Raja replaced Prakash Kumar as music composer in the film, with the latter reporting it was due to "money and time issues". However, in a sensational turn, Prakash Kumar was assigned again as composer after Yuvan Shankar Raja moved out of the project as he was busy with other commitments and could not give priority to Selvaraghavan, who was in rush to complete the film and move over to his next project, "Vishwaroopam". On 24 May 2011, it was announced that Selvaraghavan was ousted from the project. Television actress Deepa Venkat dubbed the voice of the female lead. Soundtrack. The soundtrack, composed by G. V. Prakash Kumar, was released on 19 September 2011 at Radio Mirchi's Chennai station. The soundtrack has received generally positive reviews. Behindwoods commented it was "intoxicating enough", giving 3.5 out of 5.
1055678	Wendy Jane Crewson (born May 9, 1956) is a Canadian actress and producer. Career. Crewson appeared in many Canadian TV shows in 1980's, and moved to a number big feature films in the early 1990s, like "Night Heat", "Hard Copy", "Tanner '88" and "Street Legal". In 1991, Crewson appeared in her first breakthrough role in the feature film ' and in later years appeared in films, such as "The Good Son" (1993) as Macaulay Culkin's mother, "The Santa Clause" (1994) and its two sequels "The Santa Clause 2" (2002) and ' (2006) as Tim Allen's ex-wife, "To Gillian on Her 37th Birthday" (1996) as Peter Gallagher's unfortunate blind date, and "Air Force One" (1997) as Harrison Ford's First Lady Grace Marshall.
1061293	"Schindler's List" is a 1993 American epic historical drama film directed and co-produced by Steven Spielberg and scripted by Steven Zaillian. It is based on the novel "Schindler's Ark" by Thomas Keneally, an Australian novelist. The film tells the story of Oskar Schindler, a German businessman who saved the lives of more than a thousand mostly Polish-Jewish refugees during the Holocaust by employing them in his factories. It stars Liam Neeson as Schindler, Ralph Fiennes as Schutzstaffel (SS)-officer Amon Göth, and Ben Kingsley as Schindler's Jewish accountant Itzhak Stern. John Williams composed the score. Ideas for a film about the Schindlerjuden were proposed as early as 1963. Poldek Pfefferberg, one of the Schindlerjuden, made it his life's mission to tell the story of Schindler. When executive Sid Sheinberg sent a review of "Schindler's Ark" to Spielberg, the director was fascinated by the book. He eventually expressed enough interest for Universal Pictures to buy the rights to the novel. However, he was unsure about his own maturity about making a film about the Holocaust. Spielberg tried to pass on the projects to several other directors before finally deciding to direct the film himself after hearing of the various Holocaust denials. Filming took place in Poland over the course of 72 days, in Kraków. Spielberg shot the film like a documentary, and decided not to use storyboards while shooting "Schindler's List". Cinematographer Janusz Kamiński wanted to give a timeless sense to the film. Production designer Allan Starski made the sets darker or lighter than the people in the scenes, so they would not blend. The costumes had to be distinguished from skin tones or colors being used for the sets. In composing the score to "Schindler's List", Williams hired violinist Itzhak Perlman to perform the film's main theme. "Schindler's List" premiered on November 30, 1993 in Washington, D.C. and it was released on December 15, 1993 in the United States. Regarded as one of the greatest films ever made, it was a box office success and recipient of seven Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Original Score, as well as numerous other awards (seven BAFTAs, three Golden Globes). In 2007, the American Film Institute ranked the film 8th on its list of the 100 best American films of all time (up one position from its 9th place listing on the 1998 list). Plot. In 1939, the Germans move Polish Jews to the Kraków Ghetto as World War II begins. Oskar Schindler, an ethnic German businessman from Moravia, arrives in the city hoping to make a fortune as a war profiteer. Schindler, a member of the Nazi Party, lavishes bribes upon Wehrmacht and SS officials. Sponsored by the military, Schindler acquires a factory for the production of army mess kits. Not knowing much about how to run such an enterprise, he gains a collaborator, Itzhak Stern, an official of Krakow's "Judenrat" (Jewish Council) who has contacts with the Jewish business community and the black marketers inside the ghetto. The Jewish businessmen lend Schindler money in return for a share of products produced. Opening the factory, Schindler pleases the Nazis and enjoys newfound wealth and status as "Herr Direktor", while Stern handles administration. Schindler hires Jewish Poles instead of Catholic Poles because they cost less. Workers in Schindler's factory are allowed outside the ghetto, and Stern ensures that as many people as possible are deemed "essential" to the German war effort, saving them from being transported to concentration camps or killed. SS-Lieutenant (Untersturmführer) Amon Goeth arrives in Kraków to oversee construction of the Płaszów concentration camp. Once the camp is completed, he orders the liquidation of the ghetto and Operation Reinhard in Kraków begins, with hundreds of troops emptying the cramped rooms and arbitrarily murdering anyone who is uncooperative, elderly or infirm. Schindler watches the massacre and is profoundly affected. He nevertheless is careful to befriend Goeth and, through Stern's attention to bribery, Schindler continues enjoying SS support. Schindler bribes Goeth into allowing him to build a sub-camp for his workers, so that he can keep his factory running smoothly and protect them. As time passes, Schindler tries to save as many lives as he can. As the war shifts, Goeth is ordered to ship the remaining Jews to the Auschwitz concentration camp. Schindler prepares to leave Kraków with his fortune. He finds himself unable to do so, however, and prevails upon Goeth to allow him to keep his workers so he can move them to a factory in his old home of Zwittau-Brinnlitz, away from the Final Solution. Goeth charges a massive bribe for each worker. Schindler and Stern assemble a list of workers to be kept off the trains to Auschwitz. "Schindler's List" comprises these "skilled" inmates, and for many of those in Płaszów, being included means the difference between life and death. Almost all of the people on Schindler's list arrive safely at the new site. The train carrying the women is accidentally redirected to Auschwitz. Schindler bribes the camp commander, Rudolf Höß, with a cache of diamonds in exchange for releasing the women to Brinnlitz. Once the women arrive, Schindler institutes firm controls on the SS guards assigned to the factory, forbidding them to enter the production areas. He encourages the Jews to observe the Sabbath. To keep his workers alive, he spends much of his fortune bribing Nazi officials and buying shells from other companies; he never produces working shells during the seven months his factory operates. He runs out of money just as the Wehrmacht surrenders, ending the war in Europe. May 8, 1945: The workers and Germans listen to British Prime Minister Winston Churchill's speech of the Unconditional Surrender of Germany to the Allies. As a Nazi Party member and a self-described "profiteer of slave labor", in 1945, Schindler must flee the advancing Red Army. Although the SS guards have been ordered to kill the Jews, Schindler persuades them to return to their families as men, not murderers. In the aftermath, he packs a car in the night and bids farewell to his workers. They give him a letter explaining he is not a criminal to them, together with a ring secretly made from a worker's gold dental bridge and engraved with a Talmudic quotation, "Whoever saves one life saves the world entire". Schindler is touched but deeply ashamed as he leaves, feeling he could have done more to save lives, such as selling his car and Golden Party Badge. The Schindler Jews are awakened by sunlight the next morning. A Soviet dragoon announces that they have been liberated by the Red Army. The Jews walk to a nearby town in search of food. After a few scenes depicting post-war events such as the execution of Amon Goeth and a summary of what happened to Schindler in his later years, the Jews are shown walking to the nearby town. The black-and-white frame changes to one in color of present-day Schindler Jews at Schindler's grave site in Jerusalem, where he wanted to be interred. A procession of now-elderly Jews who worked in Schindler's factory set stones on his grave—a traditional Jewish custom denoting gratitude to the deceased. The actors portraying the major characters walk with them. Ben Kingsley is accompanied by the widow of Itzhak Stern, who died in 1969. A title card reveals that at the time of the film's release, there were fewer than 4,000 Jews left alive in Poland, but more than 6,000 descendants of the Schindler Jews throughout the world. In the final scene, Liam Neeson places a pair of roses on the grave and stands over it. Production. Development. Poldek Pfefferberg was one of the "Schindlerjuden", and made it his life's mission to tell the story of his savior. Pfefferberg attempted to produce a biopic of Oskar Schindler with MGM in 1963, with Howard Koch writing, but the deal fell through. In 1982, Thomas Keneally published "Schindler's Ark", which he wrote after he met Pfefferberg. MCA president Sid Sheinberg sent director Steven Spielberg a "New York Times" review of the book. Spielberg was astounded by the story of Oskar Schindler, jokingly asking if it was true. Spielberg "was drawn to the paradoxical nature of ... It was about a Nazi saving Jews... What would drive a man like this to suddenly take everything he had earned and put it all in the service of saving these lives?" Spielberg expressed enough interest for Universal Pictures to buy the rights to the novel, and in early 1983 Spielberg met with Pfefferberg. Pfefferberg asked Spielberg, "Please, when are you starting?" Spielberg replied, "Ten years from now." (In the end credits of the film, Pfefferberg is credited as an adviser, under the name "Leopold Page.") Spielberg was unsure of his own maturity in making a film about the Holocaust, and the project remained "on guilty conscience". Spielberg tried to pass the project to director Roman Polanski, who turned it down. Polanski's mother was killed at Auschwitz, and he had lived in and survived the Kraków Ghetto. Polanski eventually directed his own Holocaust drama, "The Pianist", in 2002. Spielberg also offered the film to Sydney Pollack, and Martin Scorsese, who was attached to direct "Schindler's List" in 1988. However, Spielberg was unsure of letting Scorsese direct the film, as "I'd given away a chance to do something for my children and family about the Holocaust." Spielberg offered him the chance to direct the 1991 remake of "Cape Fear" instead. Billy Wilder expressed interest in directing the film "as a memorial to most of [his family, who went to Auschwitz." Spielberg finally decided to direct the film after hearing of the various Holocaust deniers. With the rise of neo-Nazism after the fall of the Berlin Wall, he worried that people were too accepting of intolerance, as they were in the 1930s. In addition, Spielberg was becoming more involved with his Jewish heritage while raising his children. Sid Sheinberg greenlit the film on one condition: that Spielberg make "Jurassic Park" first. Spielberg later said, "He knew that once I had directed "Schindler" I wouldn't be able to do "Jurassic Park"." In 1983, Keneally was hired to adapt his book, and he turned in a 220-page script. During adaptation, he focused on Schindler's numerous relationships, and admitted he did not compress the story enough. Spielberg hired Kurt Luedtke, who had adapted the screenplay of "Out of Africa", to write the next draft. Luedtke gave up almost four years later, as he found Schindler's change of heart too unbelievable. During his time as director, Scorsese hired Steven Zaillian to write the script. When he was handed back the project, Spielberg found Zaillian's 115-page draft too short, and asked him to extend it to 195 pages. Spielberg wanted to focus on the Jews in the story. He extended the ghetto liquidation sequence, as he "felt very strongly that the sequence had to be almost unwatchable." He wanted Schindler's transition to be gradual and ambiguous, and not "some kind of explosive catharsis that would turn this into "The Great Escape"." Casting. Liam Neeson auditioned as Oskar Schindler early in the casting process and was cast in December 1992, after Spielberg saw him perform in "Anna Christie" on Broadway. Warren Beatty participated in a script reading, but Spielberg was concerned that he could not disguise his accent and that he would bring "movie star baggage". Kevin Costner and Mel Gibson expressed interest in portraying Schindler. Neeson felt " enjoyed fookin' with the Nazis. In Keneally's book it says he was regarded as a kind of a buffoon by them... if the Nazis were New Yorkers, he was from Arkansas. They don't quite take him seriously, and he used that to full effect." To prepare for the role, Neeson was sent tapes of Time Warner CEO Steve Ross, who had a charisma that Spielberg compared to Schindler's. Ralph Fiennes was cast as Amon Goeth after Spielberg viewed his performances in "" and "Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights". Spielberg said of Fiennes' audition that "I saw sexual evil. It is all about subtlety: there were moments of kindness that would move across his eyes and then instantly run cold." Fiennes put on 28 lbs to play the role. He watched historic newsreels and talked to Holocaust survivors who knew Amon Göth. In portraying him, Fiennes said "I got close to his pain. Inside him is a fractured, miserable human being. I feel split about him, sorry for him. He's like some dirty, battered doll I was given and that I came to feel peculiarly attached to." Fiennes looked so much like Amon Göth in costume that when Mila Pfefferberg, a survivor of the events, met him she trembled with fear. Overall, there are 126 speaking parts in the film. Thirty thousand extras were hired during filming. Spielberg cast children of the "Schindlerjuden" for key Hebrew-speaking roles and hired Catholic Poles for the survivors. Often, German actors playing the SS would come to Spielberg and say, "Thank you for letting me resolve my secrets by playing in your movie." Halfway during the shoot, Spielberg conceived the epilogue where 128 "Schindlerjuden" pay their respects to Schindler's grave in Jerusalem. The producers scrambled to find the people portrayed in the film. Filming. Principal photography began on March 1, 1993 in Kraków, Poland, and continued for seventy-one days. The crew shot at the real life locations, though the Płaszów camp had to be reconstructed in a pit adjacent to the original site, due to post-war changes to the original camp. The crew was forbidden to enter Auschwitz, so they shot at a replica outside the camp. The Polish locals welcomed the filmmakers. There were some antisemitic incidents; anti-Semitic symbols scrawled on local billboards near shooting locations. An elderly woman mistook Fiennes for a Nazi and told him "the Germans were charming people. They didn't kill anybody who didn't deserve it", while Kingsley nearly entered a brawl with an elderly German-speaking businessman who insulted Israeli actor Michael Schneider. Nonetheless, Spielberg stated that at Passover, "all the German actors showed up. They put on yarmulkes and opened up Haggadas, and the Israeli actors moved right next to them and began explaining it to them. And this family of actors sat around and race and culture were just left behind." Shooting "Schindler's List" was deeply emotional for Spielberg, the subject matter forcing him to confront elements of his childhood, such as the antisemitism he faced. He was furious with himself when he did not "cry buckets" while visiting Auschwitz, and was one of many crew members who did not look on during shooting of the scene where aging Jews are forced to run naked while being selected by Nazi doctors to go to Auschwitz. Several actresses broke down when filming the shower scene, including one who was born in a concentration camp. Kate Capshaw and Spielberg's five children accompanied Spielberg on set, and he later thanked his wife "for rescuing me ninety-two days in a row...when things just got too unbearable." Spielberg's parents and his rabbi visited him on set. Robin Williams called Spielberg every two weeks to cheer him up with various jokes, because there was very little humor on set. Spielberg also ordered various episodes of "Seinfeld" on VHS to watch in his hotel room after shooting each day. Coincidentally, Jerry Seinfeld's watching of "Schindler's List" in a theater became the plot of a later "Seinfeld" episode. Spielberg forewent a salary for the film, calling it "blood money", and believed the film would flop. Spielberg used German and Polish language in scenes to recreate the feeling of being present in the past, and used English to emphasize dramatic points. The director was interested in making the film entirely in German and Polish, but decided "there's too much safety in reading. It would have been an excuse to take their eyes off the screen and watch something else." Cinematography. Spielberg decided not to plan the film with storyboards, and to shoot the film like a documentary, looking to the documentaries "The Twisted Cross" (1956) and "Shoah" (1985) for inspiration. Forty percent of the film was shot with handheld cameras, and the modest budget of $25 million meant the film was shot quickly over seventy-two days. Spielberg felt that this gave the film "a spontaneity, an edge, and it also serves the subject." Spielberg said that he "got rid of the crane, got rid of the Steadicam, got rid of the zoom lenses, got rid of everything that for me might be considered a safety net." Such a style made Spielberg feel like an artist, as he limited his tools for a film he felt didn't have to be commercially successful. This matured Spielberg, who felt that in the past he had always been paying tribute to directors such as Cecil B. DeMille or David Lean. On this film, his shooting style was purely his own. He proudly noted that in this film, there were no crane shots. The decision to shoot the film mainly in black and white lent to the documentary-style of cinematography, which cinematographer Janusz Kamiński compared to German Expressionism and Italian neorealism. Kamiński said that he wanted to give a timeless sense to the film, so the audience would "not have a sense of when it was made." Spielberg was following suit with "irtually everything I've seen on the Holocaust... which have largely been stark, black and white images." Universal chairman Tom Pollock asked Spielberg to shoot the film in a color negative, to allow color VHS copies of the film to be sold, but Spielberg did not want "to beautify events." Black and white did present challenges to the color-familiar crew. Allan Starski, the production designer, had to make the sets darker or lighter than the people in the scenes, so they would not blend. The costumes had to be distinguished from skin tones or colors being used for the sets. Music. John Williams composed the score for "Schindler's List". The composer was amazed by the film, and felt it would be too challenging. He said to Spielberg, "You need a better composer than I am for this film." Spielberg responded, "I know. But they're all dead!" Williams played the main theme on piano, and following Spielberg's suggestion, he hired Itzhak Perlman to perform it on the violin. In an interview with Perlman on "Schindler's List", he said: Perlman: "I couldn't believe how authentic he Williams got everything to sound, and I said, 'John, where did it come from?' and he said, 'Well I had some practice with "Fiddler on the Roof" and so on, and everything just came very naturally' and that's the way it sounds." Interviewer: "When you were first approached to play for "Schindler's List", did you give it a second thought, did you agree at once, or did you say 'I'm not sure I want to play for movie music'? Perlman: "No, that never occurred to me, because in that particular case the subject of the movie was so important to me, and I felt that I could contribute simply by just knowing the history, and feeling the history, and indirectly actually being a victim of that history." In the scene where the ghetto is being liquidated by the Nazis, the folk song Oyfn Pripetshik (or "Afn Pripetshek") ()" is sung by a children's choir. The song was often sung by Spielberg's grandmother, Becky, to her grandchildren. The clarinet solos heard in the film were recorded by Klezmer virtuoso Giora Feidman. Williams won an Academy Award for Best Original Score for "Schindler's List", his fifth win. Symbols. Girl in red. While the film is shot primarily in black-and-white, red is used to distinguish a little girl in a coat (portrayed by Oliwia Dabrowska). Later in the film, the girl appears to be one of the dead Jewish people, recognizable only by the red coat she is still wearing. Although it was unintentional, this character is coincidentally very similar to Roma Ligocka, who was known in the Kraków Ghetto for her red coat. Ligocka, unlike her fictional counterpart, survived the Holocaust. After the film was released, she wrote and published her own story, "The Girl in the Red Coat: A Memoir" (2002, in translation). The scene, however, was constructed on the memories of Zelig Burkhut, survivor of Plaszow (and other work camps). When interviewed by Spielberg before the film was made, Burkhut told of a young girl wearing a pink coat, no older than four, who was shot by a Nazi officer right before his eyes. When being interviewed by "The Courier-Mail", he said "it is something that stays with you forever." According to Andy Patrizio of IGN, the girl in the red coat is used to indicate that Schindler has changed: "Spielberg put a twist on her [Ligocka's] story, turning her into one more pile on the cart of corpses to be incinerated. The look on Schindler's face is unmistakable. Minutes earlier, he saw the ash and soot of burning corpses piling up on his car as just an annoyance." Andre Caron wondered whether it was done "to symbolize innocence, hope or the red blood of the Jewish people being sacrificed in the horror of the Holocaust?" Spielberg himself has explained that he only followed the novel, and his interpretation was that Although she has no speaking part, the little girl is noted on the Internet Movie Database as the "Red Genia". Her portrayer was Oliwia Dabrowska, 3 years old at the time of filming. Spielberg asked Dabrowska not to watch the film until she was 18 years of age, but she watched it at 11 years, and she said she was "horrified." As a university student she said she was proud of the role she played in the film. Candles. The beginning features a family observing the Shabbat. Spielberg said, "to start the film with the candles being lit...would be a rich bookend, to start the film with a normal "Shabbat" service before the juggernaut against the Jews begins." When the color fades out in the film's opening moments, it gives way to a film in which smoke comes to symbolize bodies being burnt at Auschwitz. Only at the end do the images of candle fire regain their warmth when Schindler allows his workers to hold Shabbat services. For Spielberg, they represented "just a glint of color, and a glimmer of hope." Release. The film opened in New York, Los Angeles and Toronto on December 15, 1993. The film grossed $96.1 million in the United States and over $321.2 million worldwide. In Germany, over 5.8 million admission tickets were sold. "Schindler's List" made its US network television premiere on NBC on Sunday February 23, 1997. The film was shown without commercials, and fully sponsored by Ford Motor Company. It gained the highest Nielsen rating (to that date) for any film since NBC's broadcast of "Jurassic Park" (also directed by Spielberg) on Sunday May 7, 1995. (For further information on the telecast, see the "Controversies" section below.) The film was released to DVD on March 9, 2004. The DVD was available in widescreen and fullscreen editions, both being a double-sided disc with the feature film beginning on side A and continuing on side B, along with the special features, which include a documentary introduced by Steven Spielberg. Also released for both formats was a limited edition gift set. The laserdisc gift set was a limited one, with only 10,000 copies manufactured. Besides the DVD, the set included the film's soundtrack, the original novel, and an exclusive photo booklet. Similar to the Laserdisc set, the DVD gift set included the widescreen version of the film, the original novel, the film's soundtrack on CD, a senitype, and a photo booklet titled "Schindler's List: Images of the Steven Spielberg Film", all housed in a plexiglass case. The set has since been discontinued. The film was released on Blu-ray Disc on March 5, 2013 as part of the film's 20th anniversary. The film is aired on public television in Israel every year on Holocaust Memorial Day, unedited, uncensored and without commercial breaks. Following the success of the film, Spielberg founded the Survivors of the Shoah Visual History Foundation, a non-profit organisation with the goal of providing an archive for the filmed testimony of as many survivors of the Holocaust as possible, to save their stories. He continues to finance that work. Spielberg used the money from the film to finance several related documentaries, including "The Lost Children of Berlin" (1996), "Anne Frank Remembered" (1995), and "The Last Days" (1998). Reception. Critical response. Reviewing "Schindler’s List" for "The New York Review of Books", the leading British critic John Gross wrote: “Suppose the Disney organization announced that it was planning a film about the Holocaust. Spielberg’s films up until now have mostly been fairy tales or adventure stories, or a mixture of both, so I can’t pretend, then, that I approached the film without apprehension. My fears were altogether misplaced. Spielberg shows a firm moral and emotional grasp of his material. The film is an outstanding achievement.”
1056823	Scott Edward Adkins (born 17 June 1976) is an English actor and martial artist who is best known for playing Yuri Boyka in ' and ', Bradley Hume in "Holby City", Ed Russell in Mile High and as Hector in "The Expendables 2". Adkins has also appeared in Dangerfield, Hollyoaks, The Tournament TV series and many others, as well as many films. Life and career. Scott Adkins was born in Sutton Coldfield, England, on June 17, 1976. His first break came when he was offered a role in a Hong Kong martial arts film called Dei Seung Chui Keung (2001) (aka Extreme Challenge). Spotted by Head of The Hong Kong Stuntmen Association and director Wei Tung and English-born Hong Kong movie expert Bey Logan, Adkins found himself in the East for the first time. Scott got the chance to work with some of Hong Kong cinema's leading action directors including Woo-ping Yuen, Corey Yuen, Sammo Hung Kam-Bo and the legendary Jackie Chan. Acting roles started to come in and he was offered a guest role in BBC's "Doctors" (2000) filmed at Birmingham's Pebble Mill. A few episodes in BBC's "EastEnders" (1985) and "City Central" (1998), and a lead role in Sky One comedy drama Mile High (2003) followed by a regular role in BBC's "Holby City" (1999) as Bradley Hume, the assistant General Manager of Holby General. Starring roles in feature films soon followed with his portrayal of Talbot in Special Forces (2003) and Yuri Boyka in Undisputed II: Last Man Standing (2006). It was this film that broke him into the mainstream with his villainous portrayal of a Russian MMA underground fighter Boyka. After this Scott had guest starring roles in bigger budget films like The Bourne Ultimatum (2007) and The Tournament (2009), and played Jean-Claude Van Damme's main adversary in Sony Pictures (2008). Adkins has been cast in the role of King Amphitryon in .
1484685	Lynda Boyd (born January 28, 1965) is a Canadian actress, singer, dancer, musician, and writer. She is perhaps best known for her roles in the Hollywood films "Final Destination 2" (2003), "An Unfinished Life" (2005), "She's the Man" (2006), and "On Thin Ice", with Diane Keaton. She had minor roles in "I Spy" (2002), "About A Girl" (2007/08), "" (2006), and "Intern Academy" (2004). She was also the voice of Cologne in "Ranma 1/2", and the voice of Viv the bunny on the Fox cartoon series "Littlest Pet Shop". She played the lead role for four seasons in WTN's "You, Me, and the Kids". Boyd also wrote three of the episodes. Boyd has garnered Gemini Award nominations for ABC Family Channel's "Falcon Beach" and "Republic of Doyle". A singer for many years, Boyd has starred in such musicals as "The Rocky Horror Show", "Guys and Dolls", and "Little Shop of Horrors". She also sang and toured with The Blenders band in the 1980s. Boyd is currently starring in the Canadian drama/comedy series "Republic of Doyle" as the character Rose Miller. In 2010, she was nominated for a Gemini Award in the category of Best Performance by an Actress in a Continuing Leading Dramatic Role for her role on the show. On August 3, 2011, Boyd rowed in the legendary Royal St. John's Regatta for the Republic of Doyle sponsored women's crew. They came in second. Boyd said she rowed on a Vancouver team in the spring in order to prepare for the race.
584087	Namitha (born Namita Mukesh Vankawala) (born 10 May 1981) is an Indian actress, who has appeared in Indian regional movies, such as Telugu, Tamil, Kannada, Hindi and Malayalam films. Career. She was crowned Miss Surat during the year 1998. She was a contestant in the 2001 Miss India pageant. She appeared in a number of TV commercials such as Himani cream and hand soap, Arun Ice Cream, Manikchand Gutka, and Nyle herbal shampoo. . She made her acting debut in the Telugu film "Sontham" directed by Sreenu Vitla. Subsequent to that, she starred in the Tamil film "Aai". In 2006 she made her Bollywood debut in the Hindi film Love Ke Chakkar Mein . On 26 October 2010, there was an attempt to kidnap her by a fan at Trichy in Tamil Nadu. On 17 April 2011, she inaugurated the Nungambakkam ("Chennai") branch of the sports cafe Blitzz. Namitha has been an advocate of safe driving. In June 2012, she partnered with Tamil actor Bharat to promote awareness of safe driving. She recently had her breast size reduced cause it gave her back problem for a long time. There have been false story about the beauty going to sucide
1172764	"Who's the Man?" is a 1993 comedy film, directed by Ted Demme, in his feature film directing debut. The film stars "Yo! MTV Raps" hosts Doctor Dré and Ed Lover as its two main protagonists., it features dozens of cameo appearances from some of the top rap/hip-hop acts of the time, including (though not limited to) Busta Rhymes, Eric B., House of Pain, Ice-T, Kris Kross, Queen Latifah, KRS-One and Run-D.M.C.. This film is also the feature film debut of Terrence Howard. Plot. Doctor Dré and Ed Lover are two bumbling barbers at a Harlem barbershop. Knowing full well that cutting hair is not their calling, their boss, friend, and mentor Nick (Jim Moody) tells the two maybe they should try out for the police academy. Crazily enough, it works out for the two, and they are accepted on the New York police force. Things seem to be going well for them, when tragedy suddenly strikes, and they lose Nick. Now enforcers of the law, the tag team decides to investigate the incident, which they believe to be a murder. Ed and Dre find out through the streets that a crooked land developer named Demetrius (Richard Bright) might have had something to do with their friend's death, and proceed to attempt to dig up as much dirt on him as possible. This proves to be difficult, however, when they've got a nutty Sergeant (Denis Leary), a moody detective (Rozwill Young), and a bunch of unwilling street hoods (Guru, Ice-T) to go through to get the information they need. Though there aren't any certain clues to be found, strange happenings are certainly going on, as Demetrius' company seems to be digging for something rather than looking to build on all the property he's buying up in their Harlem neighborhood, and the bodies slowly continue to pile up around them. Tagline: "The first hip-hop whodunnit!" Cast. Cameo appearances: Reception. Rotten Tomatoes gives the film a score of 43% based on reviews from 7 critics. Roger Ebert gives a favorable review, with a score of 3 stars out of 4. Soundtrack. A soundtrack containing hip hop music was released on April 20, 1993 through MCA Records. It peaked at #32 on the Billboard 200 and #8 on the Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums.
1101480	Marius Sophus Lie ( ; ; 17 December 1842 – 18 February 1899) was a Norwegian mathematician. He largely created the theory of continuous symmetry and applied it to the study of geometry and differential equations. Biography. His first mathematical work, "Repräsentation der Imaginären der Plangeometrie", was published, in 1869, by the Academy of Sciences in Christiania and also by "Crelle's Journal". That same year he received a scholarship and traveled to Berlin, where he stayed from September to February 1870. There, he met Felix Klein and they became close friends. When he left Berlin, Lie traveled to Paris, where he was joined by Klein two months later. There, they met Camille Jordan and Gaston Darboux. But on 19 July 1870 the Franco-Prussian War began and Klein (who was Prussian) had to leave France very quickly. Lie decided then to visit Luigi Cremona in Milan but he was arrested at Fontainebleau under suspicion of being a German spy, an event which made him famous in Norway. He was released from prison after a month, thanks to the intervention of Darboux. Lie obtained his PhD at the University of Christiania (present day Oslo) in 1871 with a thesis entitled "On a class of geometric transformations". It would be described by Darboux as “one of the most handsome discoveries of modern Geometry”. The next year, the Norwegian Parliament established an extraordinary professorship for him. That same year, Lie visited Klein, who was then at Erlangen and working on the Erlangen program. At the end of 1872, Sophus Lie proposed to Anna Birch, then eighteen years old, and they were married in 1874. The couple had three children: Marie (b. 1877), Dagny (b. 1880) and Herman (b. 1884). In 1884, Friedrich Engel arrived at Christiania to help him, with the support of Klein and Adolph Mayer (who were both professors at Leipzig, by then). Engel would help Lie to write his most important treatise, "Theorie der Transformationsgruppen", published in Leipzig in three volumes from 1888 to 1893. Decades later, Engel would also be one of the two editors of Lie's collected works. In 1886 Lie became professor at Leipzig, replacing Klein, who had moved to Göttingen. In November 1889 he suffered a mental breakdown and had to be hospitalized until June 1890. Lie resigned from his post in May 1898 and returned to Norway in September of that year. He was made Honorary Member of the London Mathematical Society in 1878, Member of the French Academy of Sciences in 1892, Foreign Member of the Royal Society of London in 1895 and foreign associate of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America in 1895. Sophus Lie died at the age of 56, due to pernicious anemia, a disease caused by impaired absorption of vitamin B12. Legacy. Lie's principal tool, and one of his greatest achievements, was the discovery that continuous transformation groups (now called, after him, Lie groups) could be better understood by "linearizing" them, and studying the corresponding generating vector fields (the so-called infinitesimal generators). The generators are subject to a linearized version of the group law, now called the commutator bracket, and have the structure of what is today called a Lie algebra. Hermann Weyl used Lie's work on group theory in his papers from 1922 and 1923, and Lie groups today play a role in quantum mechanics. However, the subject of Lie groups as it is studied today is vastly different from what the research by Sophus Lie was about and “among the 19th century masters, Lie's work is "in detail" certainly the least known today”.
1014386	LolliLove is a mockumentary co-written by, directed by and starring Jenna Fischer. The film satirizes a hip, misguided Southern California couple who decide to make a difference in the lives of the homeless by giving them lollipops with a cheery slogan on the wrapper.
1044645	The Satanic Rites of Dracula is a 1973 horror film directed by Alan Gibson and produced by Hammer Film Productions. It is the eighth film in Hammer's "Dracula" series, and the seventh and final to feature Christopher Lee as Dracula. The film was also the third to unite Peter Cushing as Van Helsing with Lee, following "Dracula" (1958) and "Dracula A.D. 1972" (1972). Plot. A Secret Service agent (Maurice O'Connell) barely escapes from an English country house, in which satanic rituals are celebrated. Before he dies of his wounds, he reveals to his superiors that four prominent members of society – a government minister, a peer, a general and a famous scientist – are involved in the cult, led by Chin Yang (Barbara Yu Ling). In order to avoid any reprisals by the minister, the secret service call in Scotland Yard's Inspector Murray (Michael Coles) to work on the case independently. Murray (who had appeared in the preceding Dracula film) suggests consulting noted occult expert Professor Lorrimar Van Helsing (Cushing). The cult kidnaps the Secret Service secretary Jane (Valerie Van Ost), who is later bitten by Dracula (Lee). Murray, Secret Service agent Torrence (William Franklyn) and Van Helsing's granddaughter Jessica (Joanna Lumley) arrive at the country house. They split up with the former two investigating inside where they meet Chin Yang, the head of the house. Jesscia goes in through the cellar where she finds Jane, chained to a wall, and revealed to be a vampire. The ensuing commotion awakens other female vampires who are likewise chained down there and they attempt feed on Jesscia. Her screams are heard by her fellow agents who come to her rescue. In the process, Murray kills Jane with a stake and the three escape the grounds. Meanwhile, Van Helsing pays a visit to his scientist friend Julian Keeley (Freddie Jones), whom he had recognized among the four conspirators, and finds him mentally unstable and involved on bacteriological research aiming at creating a virulent strain of the bubonic plague. Van Helsing is shot unconscious by a guard. As he comes to, Keeley's dead body hangs from the ceiling while the petri dishes containing the bacteria are gone. Keeley had referred to the 23rd of the month, which Van Helsing reveals to be the "Sabbath of the Undead". Keeley's research notes lead Van Helsing to the reclusive property developer D. D. Denham, who had funded Keeley's research. Van Helsing also suspects a reincarnated Dracula behind the plot, suggests that Dracula wants to exact revenge on humanity and speculates about a secret death wish on the Count's part. Van Helsing visits Denham in his headquarters (built on top of the church yard where Dracula died in the previous film) and finds out his true identity: Count Dracula. He tries to shoot Dracula with a silver bullet but is beaten by the Count's conspirators. Dracula decides that killing Van Helsing would be too simple and has him transferred to the country house. Meanwhile, Jessica, Murray and Torrence, while observing the country house, are attacked by snipers. Torrence is killed, while Murray and Jessica are captured. Murray awakes in the cellar and escapes the clutches of the female vampires, and later Chin Yang, revealed to be a vampire herself, just as Dracula arrives with Van Helsing. Dracula announces to Van Helsing and the ministers that Jessica, who is laid out on the satanic altar, will be his consort, uncorrupted by the plague that his "four horsemen" – including Van Helsing – would carry out into the world. The conspirators, who had considered the plague a mere deterrent not to be used, begin to question their master, but Dracula's hypnotic command stops them and causes the minister John Porter (Richard Mathews) to break the vial, releasing the bacteria and immediately infecting the minister, causing him horrible suffering. Murray runs into a guard in the computer room, but overpowers him after a fight scene. The guard's metal baton smashes a computer panel and the ensuing explosion starts a fire and breaks open the ritual room. The two uninfected conspirators escape, Murray rescues Jessica, while the infected minister – and the plague bacteria – burns in the fire. Dracula attacks Van Helsing, who escapes through a window into the woods. He lures Dracula into a hawthorn bush – a symbol of good as it provided Christ with his crown of thorns – where he is entangled until Van Helsing grabs a fence post and drives it through his heart. Dracula is killed and Van Helsing looks down onto the ashes and notices his ring. He picks it up and the film ends. Production. The film included much of the original cast and characters of "Dracula A. D. 1972", the main change being Joanna Lumley playing a more mature version of Jessica Van Helsing, as compared to Stephanie Beacham. Work began on what was tentatively titled "Dracula is Dead... and Well and Living in London" in November 1972. The title was a parody of the stage and film musical revue "Jacques Brel is Alive and Well and Living in Paris", but Lee was not amused. Speaking at a press conference in 1973 to announce the film, Lee said: I'm doing it under protest... [...] I think it is fatuous. I can think of twenty adjectives – fatuous, pointless, absurd. It's not a comedy, but it's got a comic title. I don't see the point. The film was eventually retitled as "The Satanic Rites of Dracula". It is a mixture of horror, science fiction and a spy thriller, with a screenplay by Don Houghton, a veteran of BBC's "Doctor Who". The original score was composed by television composer John Cacavas. It wrapped on 3 January 1973 – 15 years to the day since the original Hammer "Dracula". This was the final Hammer film Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing would make together. Lee was offered the role of Dracula opposite Cushing in The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires but declined it. The two stars would eventually reunite one more time in House of the Long Shadows 10 years later. In the United States, the film was distributed as "Count Dracula and His Vampire Brides". Critical reception. AllMovie called it the "least interesting" film in the Hammer Dracula series. Time Out wrote, "a lot of weak action scenes and weaker lines, but still a vast improvement on "Dracula A.D."" Popular culture. The doom metal band Electric Wizard frequently references horror films in their work, and on the album Witchcult Today named the third track "Satanic Rites of Drugula"
1059807	Katherine Marie Heigl (; born November 24, 1978) is an American actress and film producer. She is possibly best known for her role as Dr. Isobel "Izzie" Stevens on ABC's medical drama "Grey's Anatomy" from 2005 to 2012, for which she won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series in 2007. She has also starred in films such as "", "Knocked Up", "27 Dresses", "The Ugly Truth", "Killers", "Life As We Know It" and "New Year's Eve", among others. Heigl started her career as a child model with Wilhelmina Models before she turned her attention to acting. She made her debut in the coming-of-age film "That Night". Heigl co-starred as Isabel Evans in the television series "Roswell" and movies including "My Father the Hero" before landing her break-out role in "Grey's Anatomy". Heigl has established herself as a cover model appearing on numerous publications including "Maxim", "Vanity Fair" and "Cosmopolitan". Heigl is married to singer Josh Kelley, with whom she has two adopted daughters. Early life. Heigl was born in West End, Washington, D.C., at Columbia Hospital for Women. She is the youngest of four children of Nancy (née Engelhardt), a personnel manager, and Paul Heigl, a financial executive and accountant. Her father is of German (including Swiss-German) and Irish descent, and her mother is of German ancestry. Heigl was raised in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Her siblings are Meg, Jason (deceased), and Holt. Heigl lived in Virginia and then Denver, before her family settled in Connecticut; there, they moved into a large, old Victorian-style farmhouse in the wealthy town of New Canaan, where she spent most of her childhood. In 1986, her older brother Jason died of injuries suffered in a car accident, after being thrown from the back of a pickup truck while out for lunch with some of his high school classmates. Following his death, the family decided to donate his organs. Heigl was unnerved by this at the time, but later became a strong proponent of organ donation, working as a spokesperson for Donate Life America. Career. 1986–1998: Early work. When Heigl was nine, an aunt visiting the family decided to take a number of photographs of her. After returning to her home in New York, her aunt sent the photos to a number of modeling agencies, with the permission of Heigl's parents. Within a few weeks, Heigl was signed with Wilhelmina Models as a child model. Soon after signing with the agency, a client slated Heigl for use in a magazine advertisement where she made her debut. At the time, she was earning $75 an hour posing for Sears and Lord & Taylor catalogs. Heigl appeared in her first national television spot for Cheerios cereal. She made her acting debut in the 1992 film "That Night". Heigl appeared as Christina Sebastian in Steven Soderbergh's Depression-era drama "King of the Hill" before being cast in her first leading role in the 1994 comedy "My Father the Hero". During this time, Heigl continued to attend New Canaan High School, balancing her film and modeling work with her academic studies. Heigl dropped out of New Canaan High School after her sophomore year to pursue her career in Hollywood. In 1995, she starred in the Steven Seagal action thriller "". Heigl portrayed a 16-year-old travelling on a train across a mountain pass to visit the grave of her deceased father with uncle Casey Ryback (Seagal), an ex-SEAL counter-terrorist expert. The main plotline has the train hijacked by mercenaries in Colorado, keeping her as a hostage. Much of her work in the film was opposite Morris Chestnut, Sandra Taylor and Everett McGill. Despite an increased focus on acting, she still modeled extensively, appearing regularly in magazines such as "Seventeen". She landed the lead role in Disney's made-for-television film "Wish Upon a Star" in 1996, portraying two body-swapping characters along with Danielle Harris. Also in 1996, Heigl's parents divorced and her mother was diagnosed with cancer. After her high school graduation in 1997, she moved into a four-bedroom house in Malibu Canyon, Los Angeles, with her mother, who also became her manager. In 1998, she co-starred with Peter Fonda in a re-working of the classic Shakespearean play "The Tempest", set during the American Civil War. Later that year, she starred in the horror film "Bride of Chucky". 1999–2004: Rise to fame. In 1999, Heigl turned her attention to television when she accepted the role of Isabel Evans on the science fiction TV drama "Roswell", a role that was expanded in the show's second and third seasons. Heigl had auditioned for all three of the show's female leads (the other two roles eventually went to Shiri Appleby and Majandra Delfino) before she was finally cast as Isabel, an alien human hybrid. Heigl was frequently featured in photo essays in magazines such as "Life", "TV Guide", and "Teen" as well as "FHM". She appeared in the "FHM" and "Maxim" calendars, "FHM"'s annual "100 Sexiest Women in the World", and was featured in the Girls of Maxim Gallery. In May 2006, "Maxim" awarded her #12 on their annual Hot 100List as well as voted the 19th "Sexiest Woman in the World" by readers of "FHM" magazine. While "Roswell" was in production, Heigl worked on several films, including "100 Girls", an independent 2001 film, and "Valentine", a horror film starring David Boreanaz and Denise Richards. Heigl accepted a role in "Ground Zero", a television thriller scheduled to be telecast that fall which was based on the bestselling James Mills novel "The Seventh Power", in the spring of 2001. She co-starred as a brilliant and politically-concerned college student who helps to build a nuclear device to illustrate the need for a change in national priorities. The device ends up in the hands of a terrorist following betrayal by a fellow student. However, after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, the film was shelved when its plot was considered inappropriate. It reemerged in 2003 under the title "Critical Assembly". After the attacks, Heigl recorded a public service announcement for the American Red Cross in an effort to help raise money for victims. In 2003, Heigl appeared in three television movies. She returned to the horror genre with "Evil Never Dies", a modern-day variation on the "Frankenstein" story co-starring Thomas Gibson. "Love Comes Softly", for Hallmark Entertainment, found Heigl starring as Marty Claridge, a young, pregnant newlywed traveling west. (She reprised the role of Marty in the sequel "Love's Enduring Promise" the next year.) Heigl played Isabella Linton in MTV's modern revamp of Emily Brontë's "Wuthering Heights". In October 2003, Heigl was cast opposite Johnny Knoxville in "The Ringer", a Farrelly brothers comedy that was released in December 2005. Heigl starred as Romy in the 2005 television movie "", a prequel to the 1997 film "Romy and Michele's High School Reunion". 2005–2012: "Grey's Anatomy" and transition to film. In 2005, Heigl was cast in what would become her most high-profile role to date, as medical intern Dr. Isobel "Izzie" Stevens on "Grey's Anatomy", an ABC medical drama. The show, originally introduced as a mid-season replacement, became a huge ratings success and is still one of the highest-rated television series on broadcast television. The same year, Heigl landed the starring role in the independent film, "Side Effects", a romantic comedy about marketing and the pharmaceutical industry, where she was also executive producer. In late 2006, Heigl was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress – Series, Miniseries, or Television Film for her work on "Grey's Anatomy". Also in 2006, she filmed "Knocked Up", a comedy from writer/director Judd Apatow, starring opposite Seth Rogen, Paul Rudd, and Apatow's real life wife, Leslie Mann. Upon its June 2007 theatrical release, the film received largely positive reviews from critics, and proved to be a box office success. The fees Heigl could command increased after the film's success. The movie grossed $148,761,765 in the U.S., for which she earned a salary of $300,000 USD. In a highly-publicized "Vanity Fair" Heigl admitted that though she enjoyed working with Apatow and Rogen when she starred in "Knocked Up", she had a hard time enjoying the film itself. She called the movie "a little sexist", claiming that the film "paints the women as shrews, as humorless and uptight, and it paints the men as lovable, goofy, fun-loving guys". In his review for "The Guardian", humorist Joe Queenan called "Knocked Up" "the latest in a new genre of romantic comedies in which an unappealing hero gets together with a gorgeous, successful woman". Heigl's comments spurred widespread reaction in the media, primarily consisting of personal attacks in which she was called "an ungrateful traitor", "hypocrite", and "assertive, impatient go-getter who quickly tired of waiting for her boyfriend to propose", in some cases deriding her religious beliefs and criticizing her private relationships. Heigl clarified her remarks to "People" magazine, stating that, "My motive was to encourage other women like myself to not take that element of the movie too seriously and to remember that it's a broad comedy", adding that, "Although I stand behind my opinion, I'm disheartened that it has become the focus of my experience with the movie". Despite her run of success, she also starred in the box office bomb "Zyzzyx Road" which despite being filmed in 2004, was not released until 2006. It has been cited as the lowest grossing film of all time. She has been on "FHM"'s "100 Sexiest Women in the World" list twice as of 2007. On September 16, 2007, Heigl won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series for her role as Izzie Stevens. In her acceptance speech she acknowledged that even her mother did not believe she would win, and when her name was called, she had to be censored vocally by the telecast's producers, due to her saying "Shit!" when she reacted to the win. Earlier, she had corrected telecast announcer Rebecca Riedy, who had been given an incorrect phonetic spelling of Heigl's name, when she mispronounced her name as "Hi-jell" before the presentation of the award with Kyle Chandler for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Miniseries or Movie. In January 2008 she starred in the film, "27 Dresses", for which she was paid $6 million USD, and appeared alongside James Marsden. Following the release of "27 Dresses", the "New York Post" expressed some disappointment with the mismatch of Heigl's talent with the "chick-flick" triviality of the film, suggesting that Heigl might be more compatible "with female directors such as Kimberly Peirce ("Boys Don't Cry") or Tamara Jenkins ("The Savages")...". Heigl was announced the "Most Desirable Woman of 2008", according to AskMen.com. There was some speculation that Heigl might be leaving "Grey's Anatomy" after the end of the 2008–2009 season. This speculation revolved around her refusal to put her name in for Emmy consideration and the time she had devoted to producing a film version of Carolyn Jessop's book "Escape". "Grey's" showrunner Shonda Rhimes said she was not insulted by Heigl's Emmy withdrawal, but also noted that Heigl's character Izzie had less to do during the season because Heigl asked for a light work schedule. However, despite Heigl's reported displeasure with the previous season as well as suggestions that her character had died, Heigl's return for the sixth season of "Grey's" was confirmed by ABC. In 2009, Heigl starred opposite Gerard Butler in "The Ugly Truth", which opened July 24. Upon release, the film, which was made on a budget of $38 million, earned $205 million at the worldwide box office.
1104710	John Machin (bapt. 1686? – June 9, 1751), a professor of astronomy at Gresham College, London, is best known for developing a quickly converging series for Pi in 1706 and using it to compute Pi to 100 decimal places. Machin's formula is:
1059566	Taking Woodstock is a 2009 American comedy-drama film about the Woodstock Festival of 1969, directed by Ang Lee. The screenplay by James Schamus is based on the memoir "Taking Woodstock: A True Story of a Riot, a Concert, and a Life" by Elliot Tiber and Tom Monte. The film premiered at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival, and opened in New York and Los Angeles on August 26, 2009, before its wide theatrical release two days later. Plot. Set in 1969, the film follows the true story of Elliot Tiber (Demetri Martin), an aspiring Greenwich Village interior designer whose parents, Jake (Henry Goodman) and Sonia (Imelda Staunton), own the small dilapidated El Monaco Motel in White Lake, in the town of Bethel, New York. A hippie theater troupe, The Earthlight Players, rents the barn, but can hardly pay any rent. Due to financial trouble, the motel may have to be closed, but Elliot pleads with the local bank not to foreclose on the mortgage and Sonia delivers a tirade about her struggles as a Russian refugee. The family is given until the end of the summer to pay up. Elliot plans to hold a small musical festival, and has, for $1, obtained a permit from the town's chamber of commerce (of which he is also the president). When he hears that the organizers of the Woodstock Festival face opposition against the originally planned location, he offers his permit and the motel accommodations to organizer Michael Lang (Jonathan Groff). A neighbor, Max Yasgur (Eugene Levy), provides his nearby farm land; first they agree on a fee of $5,000, but after realizing how many people will come, Yasgur demands $75,000, which the organizers reluctantly accept. Elliot comes to agreement about the fee for the motel more smoothly. Initial objections by his mother quickly disappear when she sees the cash paid in advance. A cross-dressing veteran, Vilma (Liev Schreiber), is hired as a security guard. Elliot and Yasgur encounter a little bit of expected opposition. The local diner refuses to serve Elliot anymore, inspectors target the motel (and only his) for building code violations, and some local boys paint a swastika and hate words on the hotel. However, resistance quickly dissolves in the tidal wave of peace and love (and commerce) brought to the area. The Tiber family works hard serving the massive influx of visitors and become wealthy in the process. Elliot also struggles with hiding his homosexuality from his family, when he connects romantically with one of the event organizers staying at the motel. On the first day of the concert, Elliot, his father, and Vilma hear the music begin in the distance. Elliot's father, transformed and enlivened by all the new life in town, tells Elliot to go and see the concert. Elliot hitches a ride through the peaceful traffic jam on the back of a benevolent state trooper's motorcycle and arrives at the event. There, he meets a hippie couple (Paul Dano and Kelli Garner), who invite him to join them on an LSD trip in their VW Bus a short distance from the crowd. Elliot has trouble relaxing at first, but gradually melts into a psychedelic union with them. When they finally emerge after sundown, Elliot watches the vast crowd and brilliant lights of the distant concert ripple with harmonious hallucinatory visuals that swell into serene white light. Elliot returns home from his liberating experience and has breakfast with his parents. He suggests to his mother that they now have enough money to replace him, but she cannot bear to let him have his freedom. Elliot storms out, facetiously suggesting his mom eat the hash brownies Vilma has just offered. After another beautiful day at the festival, during which his friend the Vietnam veteran, Billy (Emile Hirsch), appears to overcome his Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, Elliot returns home to find his parents laughing and cavorting hysterically, having eaten Vilma's hash brownies. The once-brittle family (particularly Sonia) are united in joy and delirious affection. The next morning, however, Sonia inadvertently reveals that she has secretly saved $97,000 in cash in the floorboards of her closet. Elliot is upset that his mother hid this from him while he put his own savings into helping his parents. After the final day of the concert, Elliot packs up his life and says farewell to his father, after his father encourages him to strike out on his own. As Elliot pays one last visit to the concert and looks out over the muddy desolation of the Yasgur farm, Lang rides up on horseback and they marvel at how despite the obstacles, the event was a success. Lang mentions his next big project: staging a truly free concert in San Francisco with the Rolling Stones – the infamous Altamont Free Concert. Production. Filming took place from August–October 2008 in New Lebanon, New York and East Chatham, New York, located in Columbia County, and New York City. Factual accuracy. Michael Lang has disputed Tiber's account of the initial meeting with Max Yasgur, and said that he was introduced to Yasgur by a real estate salesman. Lang says that the salesman drove him, without Tiber, to Yasgur's farm. Sam Yasgur, son of Max, agrees with Lang's version, and says that his mother, who is still alive, says Max did not know Tiber. Artie Kornfeld, a Woodstock organizer, has said he found out about Yasgur’s farm from his own sources. Release and reception. Critical reaction. The film maintains a 48% average on Rotten Tomatoes and a 55% on Metacritic. Roger Ebert at the "Chicago Sun-Times" wrote, "[...] Lee and writer James Schamus aren’t making a historical pastiche. This is a comedy with some sweet interludes and others that are cheerfully over the top, such as a nude theatrical troupe living in Elliot’s barn, and Vilma, his volunteer head of motel security, a transvestite ex-Marine played by Liev Schreiber. How does Schreiber, looking just as he usually does except for a blond wig and a dress, play a transvestite? Completely straight. It works." Michael Phillips at the "Chicago Tribune" gave it 3 out 4 stars saying "Screenwriter James Schamus doesn’t do anything as stupid as shove Elliot back in the closet, but this is no “Brokeback Catskills Mountain.” It’s a mosaic—many characters, drifting in and out of focus—stitching the story of how the peace-and-music bash fell together as it bounced in the haphazard planning stages from its originally scheduled Wallkill, N.Y., location to a cow pasture in White Lake. (Eugene Levy, working hard to restrain his natural comic ebullience, plays the dairy farmer, Max Yasgur.) Stephen Holden at the "New York Times" wrote, ""Taking Woodstock" pointedly shies away from spectacle, the better to focus on how the lives of individuals caught up by history are transformed...the movie explicitly connects Woodstock to the gay-liberation movement and the Stonewall riots, which took place two months earlier that summer. Lou Lumeneck at the "New York Post" gave it 1.5 stars. "It turns the fabled music festival, a key cultural moment of the late 20th century, into an exceedingly lame, heavily clichéd, thumb-sucking bore. There are two main problems with "Taking Woodstock." One is the central nonperformance by the stand-up comedian Demetri Martin, who is pretty much an emotional black hole as Elliot...the movie doesn't make much of an issue of the character's gayness—which is utterly untrue to the period, 1969, even in enlightened circles." Melissa Anderson in the "Village Voice" wrote, "Ang Lee’s facile "Taking Woodstock" proves that the decade is still prone to the laziest, wide-eyed oversimplifications...little music from the concert itself is heard. On display instead are inane, occasionally borderline offensive portrayals of Jews, performance artists, trannies, Vietnam vets, squares, and freaks. "Slate" wrote, "After the long middle section building up to the actual Woodstock, the movie's treatment of the event is maddeningly indirect. No one's asking for a song-by-song re-enactment of the concert, but Lee's refusal to focus even for a moment on the musical aspect of the festival starts to feel almost perverse, as if he's deliberately frustrating the audience's desire." Box office. "Taking Woodstock" grossed $3,457,760 during its opening weekend, opening at #9. After five and a half weeks in theaters, on October 1, 2009, the film's total worldwide box office gross was $8,695,829. Awards and nominations. "Taking Woodstock" was nominated for a GLAAD Media Award for "Outstanding Film – Wide Release" during the 21st GLAAD Media Awards. Home release. The DVD and Blu-ray were released on December 15, 2009. Special features include: The Blu-ray features:
1042986	Kay Kendall (21 May 1927 – 6 September 1959) was an English actress.
1059787	Kate & Leopold is a 2001 romantic-comedy fantasy that tells a story of a duke who travels through time from New York in 1876 to the present and falls in love with a career woman in modern New York. The film is directed by James Mangold and stars Meg Ryan, Hugh Jackman and Liev Schreiber. Plot. In 1876, Leopold Alexis Elijah Walker Thomas Gareth Mountbatten, Duke of Albany, is a stifled dreamer. Strict Uncle Millard (Paxton Whitehead) has no patience for Leopold's disrespect for the monarchy, chastising him and telling him he must marry a rich American, as the Mountbatten family finances are depleted. His uncle has told him that on his "thirtieth birthday he had become a blemish to the family name". The Duke finds Stuart Besser (Liev Schreiber), an amateur physicist (and descendant of Leopold) perusing his schematic diagrams and taking photographs of them. He had seen him earlier at Roebling's speech about the Brooklyn Bridge. Leopold follows Stuart and tries to save him from falling off the unfinished bridge; only to fall with him into a temporal portal between centuries. Leopold awakens in 21st century New York. He is at first confused and thinks that he has been kidnapped. Stuart says that he has created formulae to forecast portals in the temporal universe and that Leopold must stay inside his apartment until the portal opens again a week later. As Stuart takes his dog out, he is injured by falling into the elevator shaft, and is eventually institutionalized for speaking about his scientific discovery. (According to Stuart's books, Leopold's unintentional time travel to the 21st century has caused a disruption of all elevators, him leaving the 19th century before he could register for a patent.) Leopold is intrigued by the cynical and ambitious Kate McKay (Meg Ryan), Stuart's ex-girlfriend, who comes to the apartment for her Palm Pilot stylus. He observes that she is a "career woman" and that her field, market research, is a fine avocation for a woman and states that he once dated a librarian from Sussex. Kate dismisses him and demands that he take Stuart's dog for a walk. Leopold is overwhelmed to see that Roebling's bridge is still standing. Back at the apartment, he befriends Charlie (Breckin Meyer), Kate's brother and an actor between gigs, who believes him to be an actor as well, steadfast to his character. Kate and Leopold become romantically involved, as they dine and tour New York.
394141	The Vengeance Trilogy () is a series of three films, "Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance" (2002), "Oldboy" (2003), and "Sympathy for Lady Vengeance" (2005), directed by South Korean filmmaker Park Chan-wook. Each deals with the themes of revenge, violence and salvation. The films are not narratively connected and were dubbed a trilogy by international critics because of their thematic links. In the United Kingdom, Tartan Films released the box set of the three films on DVD. In the United States, Vivendi Entertainment released the same set. Films. "Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance" (2002). The first installment in Park's trilogy was the 2002 film, "Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance", a bleak and violent tale of revenge gone wrong. It tells the story of a deaf-mute man who kidnaps a young girl to pay for his sister's much-needed kidney transplant. When the young girl accidentally dies, her bereaved father goes on a search for answers and vengeance. The film did relatively poor at the box office in South Korea finishing 30th in ticket rank. It covered less than half its production costs in both domestic and foreign box office gates. However, it was named the best film of 2002 by Texas internet blogger Harry Knowles., where in the U.S. it garnered gross revenues of $45,243. "Oldboy" (2003). Park's next film in the trilogy was the hugely successful 2003 film, "Oldboy". It told the story of a man who is imprisoned for fifteen years and then released with no explanation as to why he was confined and released. Now, he has been given five days to learn his captor's true identity and find out why he was imprisoned, or his new love interest will be killed. The film was very well received at film festivals and at the box office in South Korea. It won the Grand Prix award at the 2004 Cannes Film Festival and received great reviews from critics. The film has gained a cult following in the years following its release and is considered a modern classic. "Sympathy for Lady Vengeance" (2005). The third and final installment in the trilogy was the 2005 film, "Sympathy for Lady Vengeance" (or "Lady Vengeance"). The film tells the tale of an innocent young woman released from prison after doing time for a child-killer still at large. Once freed, she seeks out her long-lost daughter and unveils her plan for revenge against the ghastly man for whom she served time. This film was also well received by critics and South Korean audiences alike. It grossed $7,382,034 in its opening week and competed for the Golden Lion at the 62nd Venice International Film Festival in September 2005. Use of same actors. Numerous actors and actresses feature throughout the trilogy, sometimes only as cameos.
1103986	Tian Gang (; born November 1958) is a Chinese mathematician and an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. He is known for his contributions to geometric analysis and quantum cohomology, among other fields. He was born in Nanjing, China, was a professor of mathematics at MIT from 1995–2006 (holding the chair of Simons Professor of Mathematics from 1996), but now divides his time between Princeton University and Peking University. His employment at Princeton started from 2003, and now he is entitled Higgins Professor of Mathematics; starting 2005, he has been the director of Beijing International Center for Mathematical Research (BICMR). Biography. Tian graduated from Nanjing University in 1982, and received a master's degree from Peking University in 1984. In 1988, he received a Ph.D. in mathematics from Harvard University, after having studied under Shing-Tung Yau. This work was so exceptional he was invited to present it at the Geometry Festival that year. In 1998, he was appointed as a Cheung Kong Scholar professor at the School of Mathematical Sciences at Peking University, under the "Cheung Kong Scholars Programme" (长江计划) of the Ministry of Education. Later his appointment was changed to Cheung Kong Scholar chair professorship. He was awarded the Alan T. Waterman Award in 1994, and the Veblen Prize in 1996. In 2004 Tian was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Mathematical contributions. Much of Tian's earlier work was about the existence of Kähler–Einstein metrics on complex manifolds under the direction of Yau. In particular he solved the existence question for Kähler–Einstein metrics on compact complex surfaces with positive first Chern class, and showed that hypersurfaces with a Kähler–Einstein metric are stable in the sense of geometric invariant theory. He proved that a Kähler manifold with trivial canonical bundle has trivial obstruction space, known as the Bogomolov–Tian–Todorov theorem.
589099	Pakeezah (Urdu: پاکیزہ "Pākīzah", meaning "Pure") is a 1972 Indian film, written and directed by Kamal Amrohi who was known for his perfectionism. The music is by Ghulam Mohammed and Naushad Ali. The film tells the story of a Lucknow tawaif played by actress Meena Kumari who died shortly after the film was completed. Plot. This movie is about the tawaif Sahibjaan, (Meena Kumari), who is born to a courtesan, Nargis (also Meena Kumari). After being spurned by her lover Shahabuddin's (Ashok Kumar) family, Nargis is driven to a graveyard where she gives birth to Sahibjaan secretly. Nargis dies during childbirth and her sister, Nawabjaan, takes the child as her own. Sahibjaan was brought up by brothel madame Nawabjaan (Veena). Unable to break away from the vicious circle, Sahibjaan grows up and becomes a beautiful and popular dancer/singer. Forest ranger Salim Ahmed Khan (Raaj Kumar) is enthralled by Sahibjaan's beauty and innocence, and eventually convinces her to elope with him, which she does. But trials and tribulations await Sahibjaan as she is recognized by men wherever she goes in the company of Salim. When Salim renames her Pakeezah (pure of heart) and takes her to a priest to be legally married, she refuses, and returns to the brothel. Salim eventually decides to marry someone else, and invites Sahibjaan to dance at his wedding Sahibjaan agrees to this. During this event, the story reveals an exciting turn: Nawab recognises Shahabuddin and calls him to witness the irony of the situation. His own daughter employed to dance and entertain his own family without his knowing. Production. Pakeezah took nearly 14 years to shoot because of a change in relationship between Meena Kumari and the director. Meena Kumari and Kamal Amrohi were married when "Pakeezah" was first conceived. Ashok Kumar was to have played the part of Salim, but the part was later played by Raaj Kumar. The character was changed from a businessman to a forest ranger to suit Raaj Kumar's more muscular physique. Both the film's composer Ghulam Mohammed and cinematographer Josef Wirsching died during the period. Later composer Naushad Ali stepped in and composed the film's background music as well as its title track. Over a dozen of Bombay's top cinematographers pitched in when they had time; they however managed to maintain its uniform look. Due to a variety of different factors Meena Kumari and Kamal Amrohi parted ways and the film remained incomplete. It was only when Nargis and Sunil Dutt saw the rushes of the film that they convinced Meena Kumari to complete it. It was mostly shot in Kamal Amrohi Studios, Mumbai. Meena Kumari was very ill when filming resumed and one can note the difference in the portions shot earlier in the earlier sixties and the ones shot during her illness. All the kathak dance sequences were performed by Meena Kumari herself except for the last dance sequence of the movie wherein a body double was used in the long-shots. Meena Kumari died weeks after the film was released. The film, which had been declared a flop when first released, became a success. "Pakeezah" made news during the Filmfare Awards in 1972 when Pran refused to accept his award for "Be-Imaan" because he felt that Ghulam Mohammed deserved a posthumous Filmfare award for his songs in "Pakeezah". Soundtrack. The soundtrack for the film was composed by Ghulam Mohammed and Naushad Ali with lyrics by Kaifi Azmi, Majrooh Sultanpuri, Kamal Amrohi and Kaif Bhopali. Due to the demise of the composer before the completion of the film, Naushad Ali was signed to compose the background score for the film. He also composed the songs, "Nazaria Ki Maari", "Title Music - Alap", "Mora Saajan Sauten Ghar Jaye" and "Kaun Gali Gayo Shyam". These renderings are presented in the voices of the veteran singer Rajkumari, Parveen Sultana, Vani Jairam and Naseem Bano Chopra.
1164225	Dean George Cain (born Dean George Tanaka; July 31, 1966) is an American actor. He is most widely known for his role as Clark Kent / Superman in the popular American television series "". Early life. Cain was born as Dean George Tanaka in Mount Clemens, Michigan, the son of Sharon Thomas, an actress, and Roger Tanaka. He is of French Canadian, Irish, Welsh, and Japanese (from his paternal grandfather) descent. In 1969, Cain's mother married film director Christopher Cain, who adopted Dean and his brother (musician Roger Cain), and the family moved to Malibu, California. The couple later had a daughter, Dean's half sister, actress Krisinda Cain. Both attended Santa Monica High School, where he excelled in sports. He played baseball as a child, and Chad and Rob Lowe and Charlie Sheen – who played on the same team – were among his schoolmates. Cain graduated from high school in 1984 and was offered athletic scholarships to 17 universities, but decided to attend Princeton University. At Princeton he was also a member of the Zeta Psi fraternity and the Cap & Gown eating club. He dated actress Brooke Shields while at Princeton. Cain graduated from Princeton in 1988 with a BA degree in History; his senior thesis was titled "The History and Development of the Functions of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences." Career. Immediately after graduating, Cain signed on as a free agent with the Buffalo Bills, an NFL football team, but a knee injury during training camp ended his football career before it began. With little hope of returning to sports, he turned to screenwriting and then acting, shooting dozens of commercials including a volleyball-themed spot for Kellogg's Frosties and appearing on popular television shows like "Grapevine", "A Different World" and "Beverly Hills, 90210". In 1993, Cain took on his biggest role to date as Superman in the television series "". At the height of its popularity, it would bring in an average of at least 15 million viewers per episode. The series ran for four seasons, ending in 1997. In 1998, Cain started the Angry Dragon Entertainment production company, which produced the TBS Superstation television series "Ripley's Believe It or Not!". He has also starred in several films, including "The Broken Hearts Club" (2000), "Out of Time" (2003) and "Bailey's Billion$" (2004) (co-starred Laurie Holden, Jennifer Tilly, and Tim Curry). In 2004, he portrayed Scott Peterson in the fact-based made for television movie "". He appeared in a recurring role as Casey Manning in the television series "Las Vegas". Cain made a return to the Superman franchise, with a special guest role in a seventh season episode of "Smallville" as the immortal Dr. Curtis Knox, a character based upon the DC Comics villain Vandal Savage. He's #33 on VH1's "40 Hottest Hotties of the '90s". Cain has also made an appearance in Internet Explorer 8 commercials. Cain was also a contestant in a NBC celebrity reality competition series called "Stars Earn Stripes". He won 4 out of 6 missions on the show, though came only 3rd in the final. In 2012, he participated in Fox's dating game show "The Choice". He also stars In Hit The Floor Personal life. In 1997, Cain became engaged to singer Mindy McCready. The couple broke up the following year. Cain has a son named Christopher Dean Cain (born June 11, 2000) with former girlfriend and "Playboy" Playmate Samantha Torres. His son is named after his father, film director Christopher Cain. While promoting the television show, "Ripley's Believe It or Not", on the "Howard Stern Show" on January 10, 2001, Cain said that his biological father lied to the "National Enquirer" when he stated that Cain's mother left him while he was serving in the Vietnam War. Cain stated his father never served in the war but instead cheated on his mother, which was the real reason they divorced. Dean Cain supported Rick Perry for President in the 2012 election.
584112	Kaavalan (English: "Bodyguard") is a 2011 Tamil romantic action drama written and directed by Siddique, starring Vijay and Asin in the lead roles. The film is a remake of Siddique's previous Malayalam film "Bodyguard". It features Rajkiran, Mithra Kurian, Roja and Vadivelu in supporting roles with musical score composed by Vidyasagar. The film's principal shoot commenced in April 2010 and was completed by November 2010. Following several hurdles, "Kaavalan" released on 15 January 2011 to generally positive reviews and was declared as a box-office success. It was selected to be screened at the Shanghai International Film Festival out of many projects submitted by India. Plot. Bhoominathan (Vijay) idolises Muthuramalingam (Rajkiran) and at the request of his parents, accepts to work for the latter as his bodyguard. There enters Muthuramalingam's rival, who has lost his daughter since she committed suicide, the reason being rejection by Muthuramalingam's son. While Bhoominathan protects Muthuramalingam, his rival threatens the life of his daughter Meera (Asin). Bhoominathan is sent to college along with Meera and her friend Madhu (Mithra Kurian) to protect them from the threat. Meera tries to distance herself from Bhoominathan by calling him from a private number; Bhoominathan falls in love with the girl without knowing that it is Meera herself. At one point, Meera too feels herself becoming attracted to Bhoominathan and expresses her desire to meet him in person. However due to circumstances they are not able to accomplish this until at the climax when she tells Bhoominathan to run away with her and to meet at a railway station. Bhoominathan agrees, unaware it is Meera. However through certain means,Muthuramalingam comes to think that Bhoominathan and Meera are going to run away. In order to save Bhoominathan's life from the anger of Muthuramalingam, Meera lies that the lover is not her and that Bhoominathan is meeting another girl at the train station. Muthuramalingam lets Bhoominathan leave as he is desperate, but tells his henchmen to kill Bhoominathan if a girl does not come there at the station (which implies that Meera loves Bhoomi). Terrified, Meera sends her friend, Madhu, to the station and tells her to tell Bhoominathan that she is the lover and that she won't be able to make it to the station. Madhu, seeing Bhoominathan, tries to tell him that it was Meera but, Muthuramalingam's henchman arrived there. Madhu sacrifices her life to save Meera's life by claiming, and pretending that she is the lover. Meera calls her, but Madhu throws the cellphone away, hoping to erase Meera out of their life completely so, the henchman does not find out the real girl. Many years later, after Bhoominathan and Madhu's marriage, they have a son. Madhu passes away shortly after however before her death, she leaves a diary for her son that outlines the whole story between the phone calls of Bhoomi and Meera and their love. The son later goes to Meera's house with Bhoominathan to visit an old Muthuramalingam. Bhoominathan is shocked that Meera isn't married. The son asks Meera to come with him and become his mother and Bhoominathan is angry at his son for saying something so blunt and rude. But Muthuramalingam begs Bhoominathan to take Meera as his wife. So they go onto the train together but the son runs away before leaving and throws the diary into a trashcan nearby. Bhoominathan finds the diary and realises soon that his real lover, the girl who had waited for him for so many years faithfully, was Meera. And in the train he shows that he has accepted her full-heartedly. Character map of remakes. The original Malayalam film "Bodyguard" is being remade in Hindi and Telugu. The Telugu version is being directed by Gopichand Malineli while all the other three versions are directed by Siddique himself. Below is a character map of the lead characters in the story of "Bodyguard" and its remakes. Along with Remake, this movie was also dubbed in Hindi as Main Hoon Bodyguard. Production. Development. Siddique had first narrated the script of bodyguard to Vijay,As Vijay had prior commitments then,He suggested him to make this movie first in Malayalam as Bodyguard.Bodyguard became an average grosser in Malayalam.He later announced his decision to remake the film with enhancements in the script to better suite the Tamil audience. The film was initially referred to as "Kaavalkaaran", which transliterally means "bodyguard" in Tamil. After rumours of the title being changed to "Kaaval Kaadhal",' the film was officially confirmed to be titled as "Kaavalan" in August 2010. The reason for the name confusion and its eventual permanent change was due to the complications in obtaining the rights to the title of "Kavalkaran" from M. G. Ramachandran's producers. They refused to sell the title to Vijay, leading to the rechristening of the title to "Kaavalan". Casting. With the announcement of the remake, Siddique had finalised Vijay to play the lead role, reminiscent to their previous venture "Friends" (2001), which was also a remake of Siddique's own Malayalam film. Asin Thottumkal was signed up to pair with Vijay for the third time after their previous pairings in "Sivakasi" (2005) and "Pokkiri" (2007), also giving Asin a comeback in Tamil cinema after her last appearance in "Dasavathaaram" (2008). Vadivelu, Rajkiran, and Roja Selvamani were also signed up for supporting characters. The film's principal shoot began in April at Kumbakonam. Filming. An incident occurred on sets in April, where Asin, her father, and her make up assistants had fainted in their caravan after being exposed to a gas leak. They were treated in hospital the same day and were eventually discharged. The second shoot schedule occurred in Vellore. Vijay and Asin, along with director Siddique and rest of crew had taken part in the shooting at the Vellore Institute of Technology. A song was shot at Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Soundtrack. "Kaavalan"s audio launch was held on 8 December 2010. The soundtrack consists 5 tracks composed by Vidyasagar. Release. After the failure of Vijay's 2010 film "Sura", the TN Film Exhibitors Association (TFEA) distributed a circular advising theatres not to screen the actor's future films until he compensated for the losses his movies had incurred. Vijay was asked to pay 30% of an estimated 9 crore loss suffered by theaters, or about 30 million. "Kaavalan" ran into turmoil as the Theatre Owners’ Association threatened not to release the film. The film's release was postponed from 17 December to 15 January, citing the lack of theatres available for the release. The actor shelled out his salary and four additional crores to release the movie with the help of producer Aascar Ravichandran. The film released a week later in Canada after initial expectations to have the film released on the same day as its worldwide release. The trailer was world premiered on 16 December in the Bay Area, California, notably the first time for a Vijay film's trailer was launched outside India. Speaking at the event, Vijay made a request to his USA fans to provide support for the growth of Tamil Nadu. The film was selected at the 14th Shanghai International Film Festival in the panorama section. SIFF had issued an invitation to actor Vijay as guest of honour. The satellite rights of the film were bagged by Sun TV for a record price. The film was given a clean "U" certificate by the Indian Censor Board. Romesh Babu has filed a police case against Shakti Chidambaram for posing a death threat to him. Reception. Critical response. Sify.com gave the film a positive verdict, describing the film as "super fun" and a "perfect Pongal family entertainer". The reviewer particularly praised Vijay's performance, observing that the film works "purely on his star charisma and larger-than-life image" and that "he carries the film on his shoulders and is one good reason to watch the film". A critic from Rediff.com, while giving the film 2.5 out of 5 stars, credited Vijay "for shedding his action/political persona and digging his toes in and choosing a script that focuses on comedy and emotions", going on to claim that "it's Vijay [...] who knits together the rather lackluster screenplay and keeps the laughs coming. For a nostalgic return to the Vijay of old, comic interludes and lack of double-edged dialogues and future plans, "Kavalan" works." Behindwoods rated the film 2.5 out of 5 stars and called it "a relatable love story shot in a cute and simple manner, rich with emotions, but on the slow side of narration". The reviewer noted that "Kaavalan" "is a throwback to the "Thulladha Manamum Thullum" days of Vijay" and that he has "lived the character", while Asin "convinces us with her portrayal." Chennai Online stated that the film had" "the potential to be another "Kathalukku Mariyathai" but it loses its edge thanks to a loose and redundant script", complimeting Vijay's "brave effort to come out of the beaten path of mindless action movies". Oneindia commented, "After years Vijay has come out of his masala formula; "Kaavalan" is a family entertainer... is not an extraordinary one but is watchable." Box office. Kaavalan was supposed to be released on 12 January 2010, but the actual producer of the Malayalam version "Bodyguard" filed a case on the highcourt that the remake rights were not purchased from him. Following this Vijay was asked to pay a sum of to the producer. Which made Vijay to shell his entire salary and it was the producer Aascar Ravichandran who helped Vijay to release the film, as he was working under his film Velayudham. Kaavalan also had the trouble in the release with its number of screenings as it coincided with Danush's Aadukalam and Karthi's Siruthai. Kaavalan got only 70 screens across the state and so the producer changed its hands to Cinema Paradise and thereafter the movie was managed to release in 350 screens. Following all the hurdles Kaavalan released to generally positive reviews from critics. Though it was Vijay as the bodyguard of Asin truly it was siddique who was the real bodyguard of Vijay's career. The film collected 8.8 million in Chennai at its opening weekend. By the end of seven weeks it grossed around at the Chennai box office. And it managed to collect worldwide. The film had a successful 100-day theatrical run. Awards. Won Nominated
394291	Wonderful Days (also known as Sky Blue) is a South Korean animated science fiction film, released in 2003, written and directed by Kim Moon-saeng. It features backdrops rendered using photo-realistic computer-generated imagery, comparable to those in the film "", along with the use of highly detailed models for some of the backdrops into which the cel animated characters were then animated. However, convincing CGI animation of humans (especially human movement) was not attempted. The backgrounds in the film were shot with traditional motion control techniques, then processed to look like CG. The vehicles were all rendered, and the characters were cel animated. Releases. The film has been released in numerous Western countries such as the U.S. and Great Britain under the title Sky Blue. These versions have been slightly distorted, with the loss of two minutes' running time compared to an original Korean cut. Other Western countries such as France and Finland have kept its original title—which is a Hangul transliteration of the English phrase "Wonderful Days" (it would be rendered in Revised Romanization as "Wondeopul Deijeu"). The film was scheduled for release in the US on Blu-ray disc on June 28, 2008. As that date neared, it was re-scheduled for June 23, 2009, however the financial situation of Palisades Tartan in America has thrown a U.S. domestic release into doubt. In Japan, the film was adapted by Gainax. According to adaptation director Hiroshi Yamaga, Gainax changed the direction of the film to make the dialogue less "alien" to Japanese viewers. Plot. Wonderful Days is set in 2142. Environmental pollution has led to a breakdown of human civilization. A technologically advanced city named Ecoban was built and it harvests energy from the DELOS System, which uses pollution in a carbonite catalyzed reaction to generate power. Carbonite extraction is carried out by people who live outside the city in the surrounding wasteland. Among them is an enigmatic young man known as Shua (Marc Worden). He ends up in a love triangle with his childhood friend, Jay (Cathy Cavadini), and her superior, Ecoban security commander Cade (Kirk Thornton). Jay chooses Shua over Cade and destroys the thick clouds over Ecoban, allowing blue sky to show through over the city. The movie deals with environmental destruction, pollution and class struggle. Technical Issue. Along with CG effects, a set of miniatures for buildings, mechanics, and characters were built and filmed with HDW-F900 which was codeveloped by Sony and Lucasfilm and one of two prototype Frazier lens (the other was used for Star Wars by Lucasfilm). Festivals. Wonderful Days was screened at the following Film Festivals:
584008	Suchitra Karthik Kumar (born 14 April 1979) is an Indian Tamil Radio Jockey and Tamil, Malayalam and Telugu playback singer. Early life. Born and brought up in Chennai, She is a graduate from Mar Ivanios College (Trivandrum). Later on she moved to Coimbatore for her MBA (PSG Institute of Management). She was then engaged with Sify for a while. This is when she responded to an ad for the post of an RJ in Radio Mirchi. From then on, she never had to look back in her career. Career. She has appeared in a few Kollywood films, but her main priority is singing and anchoring radio shows. Prior to embarking on a singing career, she excelled as a radio jockey on Mirchi FM, and hosted their 4-hour breakfast show for over 6 years. Suchitra won the Excellence in Radio Award (ERA) for the "RJ of the year (Tamil)" category in 2008. Her show is a high energy, no nonsense, full of humor, reflecting social issues, tell-it-like-it-is, kind of show. The format includes interactions with listeners on issues that are fresh and on people's minds, game shows, plus a look at what’s on in the city of Chennai, all with Suchi's unique take on things. She had also anchored several TV shows. What also adds extra zing to the show is Suchi's immense love for music that is apparent in her great success as a Tamil playback singer as well. Suchitra sang her first Tamil movie song under the music director Harris Jeyaraj for the movie "Leysa Leysa" in 2003. Her voice in "Uyirin Uyire" for the movie "Khaaka Khaaka (2003)" was like a first minute opening goal in her career. Her two solos "Dole Dole" & "En Chella" under music director Mani Sharma for the movie "Pokiri(2006)" marked her position in Telugu and Tamil film industry. Her duets with Tamil movie lead actor Sillambarasan were huge hits. Her songs "Vechikkava" and "Chinna Thamarai" were voted as people's favorite songs in their related categories in 2008 and 2009 respectively. All her songs will be of different styles and tones. That's her specialty. Today she has sung more than 85 songs in Tamil. She had given many stage performances all over Tamil Nadu and in other countries also. Apart from contributing to the Tamil cinema industry as a playback singer, she has dubbed for various female artists in Tamil movies also. She has won the Commonwealth Short Story Competition for kids for her story "The Runaway Peppercorn" in 2003. This story also got sponsorship for translation in other languages. She got married on November 27, 2005 to noted theatre and film actor Karthik Kumar. The song "Sir Osthara" that she sang with Thaman for the Telugu movie "Businessman" has catapulted her to new heights. Her latest achievement is the solo album "Suchi - Music I LIke" which was released by Virgin Records in September 2012. A collection of 8 Bharatiyaar songs, set to contemporary music, the album has been favourably reviewed by critics and made popular by music lovers. The songs "Aassi Mugam" and "Kaakkai Chiraginile" in the album are public favourites. There is a video as well, for the song "Vande Mataram" from the album, on YouTube. Filmography. Complete List of Songs. row span"1" 2013 || "Kurrayeedu"||Ramayya vastavayya || Telugu ||Thaman References. Suchitra : I can sound sweet, sexy, bold or sensual Interview with RJ Suchitra Off the air with RJ Suchi
582861	Aunty No 1 is a 1998 Bollywood film directed by Kirti Kumar and written by Kader Khan and Sachin Bhowmik.It is adapted from famous Marathi play 'Moruchi Mavshi' written by Acharya Atre. It stars Govinda, Raveena Tandon, Kader Khan and Harish. Plot. Sandhya is in search of her prince charming and when Gopi comes to know about this he pretends to be a rich prince and Sandhya starts dating him. But soon she comes to know that Gopi is a poor man but nevertheless they start loving each other. Meanwhile Gopi's friend request Gopi to become an Aunty for a big favour. He does so with hilarious results, as two men (Kader Khan and Saeed Jaffrey) start loving him. What will he do now? Box office. Although a comic film, it received only below average collections at the box office.
1104737	George Bernard Dantzig (November 8, 1914 – May 13, 2005) was an American mathematical scientist who made important contributions to operations research, computer science, economics, and statistics.
1042562	The War Lover is a 1962 British black-and-white war film directed by Philip Leacock and written by Howard Koch loosely based on the 1959 novel, "The War Lover" by John Hersey, altering the names of characters and events but retaining its basic framework. It stars Steve McQueen, Robert Wagner, Shirley Anne Field, Ed Bishop and features a young Michael Crawford. The war itself is not the most important element of the film. Instead it focuses on the character of Captain Buzz Rickson (McQueen) and his determination to serve himself and get what he wants – in the process antagonising everyone. Plot. In 1943, Captain Buzz Rickson (Steve McQueen) is an arrogant pilot in command of a Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress bomber nicknamed "The Body". While stationed in England during World War II, on of the bombing missions is aborted because clouds obscure all potential targets, but Rickson ignores the order to turn around, dives under the clouds. He completes the mission, at the cost of one of the bombers in his squadron and its entire crew. Rickson revels in the fighting and destruction; when he is assigned to drop propaganda leaflets, he makes his displeasure felt by buzzing the airfield. His commanding officer tolerates his repeated insubordination because he is the best pilot in the bomber group. Even so, when he asks the flight surgeon his opinion, the latter is uncertain whether Rickson is a hero or a psychopath. However, Rickson's crew trusts his great flying skill, especially his co-pilot, Lieutenant Ed Bolland (Robert Wagner). Between missions, Rickson and Bolland meet a young English woman, Daphne Caldwell (Shirley Anne Field). Although she is attracted to both pilots, she quickly finds out what kind of man Rickson is and chooses Bolland. They soon begin sleeping together. She falls in love with him, although she suspects he will leave her behind and return to America at the end of his tour of duty. Meanwhile, Bolland becomes increasingly disillusioned with Rickson, his arrogance and his callousness. Rickson pressures his navigator, 2nd Lieutenant Marty Lynch (Gary Cockrell), into transferring to another aircraft because he questions his orders and behaviour. Soon afterwards, family man Lynch is killed in action. His friend Bolland takes it hard and blames Rickson. Then, when the crew is near the end of the required 25 missions to complete a tour and rotate back home, Rickson makes a move on Daphne, visiting her in her flat after Bolland heads back to the base. Rickson plans to embark on a second tour of duty, while his rival goes home. Daphne rejects his forceful advances, telling him she loves Bolland, but Rickson tries to make Bolland think otherwise. Finally, on a long-range bombing mission to Leipzig, Rickson's B-17, is badly shot up and one crew member, the ball turret gunner, Sergeant Sailen (Michael Crawford) – known as "Junior" – dies of his wounds. The B-17 limps back over the English Channel, its bomb bay stuck in the open position and one armed bomb still partially stuck on its rack in the bomb bay. Approaching the British coastline near Dover, the air-sea rescue is contacted and the rest of the crew bails out. As the last two crew members bail out, Bolland is waiting to jump out of the open bomb bay with Rickson, when he notices that Rickson isn't wearing his parachute. Rickson then pushes the unsuspecting Bolland out of the B-17's bomb bay, returns to the cockpit and tries to nurse the bomber back to base by himself, only to crash into the white cliffs on the Kent coast. Bolland reports Rickson's death to Daphne in Cambridge, who says: "It's what he always wanted." The pair of lovers walk away together. Cast. Actor Warren Beatty turned down the role of Rickson, possibly because he had recently caused the divorce between Natalie Wood and Robert Wagner, and the two men were not on speaking terms. Production. "The War Lover" was filmed in England at RAF Bovingdon in Hertfordshire, RAF Manston in Kent, around Cambridgeshire (including in the grounds of King's College, Cambridge), and at Shepperton Studios in Surrey.
589680	Khandan is a 1965 Hindi film. Produced by Vasu Menon and directed by A. Bhimsingh. The film stars Sunil Dutt, Nutan, Pran, Om Prakash, Lalita Pawar, Helen and Mumtaz. The films music is by Ravi. A box-office success, the film became the seventh highest earning film of 1965, earning an approximate gross of Rs. 2,80,00,000 and a net gross of Rs. 1,40,00,000 . Plot. This a  remake of the Tamil film ‘Bhaaga Pirivinai’ starring Sivaji Ganesan and Saroja Devi, that ran for more than 25 Weeks in many centers and in 1959 won the President's Silver Medal for Best Feature Film in Tamil. Two young men Jeevandas and Shankar inherit a substantial area of farmland on their late father Ramswaroop Lal's passing. Jeevandas marries Bhagvanti but are childless, while Shankar marries Parvati and they have two sons, Govind and Shyam. Govind becomes paralysed in his right hand due to an accident (electric shock). Many years in the future, Shyam leaves to become educated in the city but on returning finds the family split in two by disagreement and bitterness; Jeevandas, Bhagvanti, Shyam, Navrangi, and Neelima on one side, and Govind, his wife, Radha, Shankar, and Parvati on the other. Navrangi loans money from Bhagvanti and invests it in a Carnival, but most of his earnings are stolen by two dancers, Jati and Sati. He then borrows more money, this time from Shyam, to purchase an elephant. Govind and Radha soon celebrate the birth of a completely healthy baby boy, Navjeevandas Lal. Later, Navrangi intends to begin staging a show using the elephant at the carnival where a boy is thrown from the trunk, and he intends using Govind's son. Later, Navjeevandas is abducted by Navrangi. Govind and Radha get to the carnival, save Navjeevandas. Navrangi attacks Govind, but surprisingly, Govind is snapped out of paralysis and fights Navrangi. Moments when Navrangi is about to kill Govind and Shyam, Jeevandas and the rest of the famiy intervene and discover that he started the division of their home. Later, Navrangi is arrested and Govind and Shyam tear down the wall that separated the house. In the end, Jeevandas recites a prayer with the rest of the family united.
1059660	Jonathan Taylor Thomas or JTT (born Jonathan Taylor Weiss on September 8, 1981) is an American actor, voice actor, former child star, and teen idol. He is best known for his role as the middle child Randy Taylor on the sitcom "Home Improvement", as Pinocchio in New Line Cinema's "The Adventures of Pinocchio", and as the voice of the young Simba in Disney's "The Lion King". Career. Television. In 1990, Thomas garnered the role of Kevin Brady, the son of Greg Brady, on "The Bradys", a spin-off of the 1970s TV show "The Brady Bunch". In 1991, at the age of 10, he won the role of Randall William "Randy" Taylor on the television show "Home Improvement". He remained with "Home Improvement" well into his teenage years, but left the show in 1998 to focus on academics. Thomas also appeared in three episodes of the sketch comedy series "In Living Color", notably portraying Macaulay Culkin. He had a guest role on the ABC
578450	999-9999 () is a 2002 Thai horror film directed by Peter Manus and starring Sririta Jensen and Julachak Jakrapong. The story, about the deadly consequences of receiving a telephone call from the number 999-9999, is similar in premise to "Final Destination" or "976-EVIL". Plot. A young woman who was given the nickname Rainbow is a new transfer student to an international school in Phuket from Chiang Mai. She joins a clique led by Sun, and Rainbow's new friends are curious about the mysterious, violent death that took place in her old school. According to Rainbow, the victim, just before his death, had received a call on his cell phone from the number 999-9999, in which recipients are supposed to have their wishes fulfilled. One by one, Rainbow's new friends try to call the number and die, until Rainbow is the only one left.
832054	Matir Moina (; also spelled Matir Moyna and known in English as The Clay Bird) is a Bengali film directed by Tareque Masud, a Bangladeshi film director. The film was released in 2002. It was awarded the FIPRESCI Prize in section Directors' Fortnight outside competition at the 2002 Cannes Film Festival, and became Bangladesh's first film to compete for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. "Matir Moina" deals with Masud's own experiences studying at a madrasah against the increasing tensions in East Pakistan culminating in the Bangladesh War of Liberation. Throughout the film there are references to historical occurrences in agitated times, and the film portrays these episodes through the human experiences of the young protagonist, his family, and his teachers and peers at the madrasah. "Matir Moina" won a number of awards internationally but was initially banned in Bangladesh on the grounds that it dealt with issues sensitive to the religious. The ban was repealed and the DVD version was released on April 16, 2005. Credits. According to the Masuds, the film was shot almost entirely with non-professionals in local settings often using local sounds. The cinematography attempted to capture the seasons in rustic appeal and the festivals and holidays of Bangladesh. Synopsis. The film is set against the backdrop of unrest in East Pakistan in the late 1960s leading up to the Bangladesh War of Liberation. In this setting, a small family must come to grips with its culture, its faith, and the brutal political changes entering its small-town world. Anu, a young boy, is sent off to a madrasah by his unbendingly devout father Kazi. Anu's younger sister falls ill and dies because of Kazi's refusal to use conventional medicine. While at the madrasah, Anu befriends Rokon, an eccentric misfit in the rigorous religious school, who is forced by the teachers to undergo an exorcism by ducking in the freezing river to cure himself. Personal tragedies beset the family and tests its loyalty to the obdurate patriarch Kazi, who still believes in the religious unity of Pakistan, in the face of cruel, contradictory events. A shattering political development then changes their town, their life, and the inner dynamics of the family, including the patriarch's role. Awards. Wins Nominations Controversy and censorship. "Matir Moina" became the first full-length feature film from Bangladesh to be selected for the Cannes Film Festival and was the opening film of the Directors' Fortnight section. At about the same time, the Bangladesh Film Censor Board felt the film was too sensitive to be screened in Bangladesh due to some religious overtones. The Masuds took their case to the Appeal Board and were able to get the decision of the government reversed. Thus, the film was finally shown in the country of its creation in late 2002. Reception. The film currently holds 89% of critics rating at Rotten tomatoes. DVD. The DVD of "Matir Moina" was released on 16 April 2005 by Laser Vision. It includes a two-hour documentary that includes shootings, interviews, and opinion from the audience. It is thought to be the first interactive DVD in Bangladesh.
775200	Fifty Dead Men Walking is a 2008 English-language crime thriller film written and directed by Kari Skogland. It is a loose adaptation of Martin McGartland's 1997 autobiography of the same name. It premiered in September 2008, and stars Jim Sturgess as Martin McGartland, an agent within the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA), and Ben Kingsley as Fergus, his British handler. The film is set from 1988 until 1991, the time in which McGartland acted as an undercover agent within the IRA during The Troubles. In 1991, his cover was blown and he was kidnapped by the IRA, although he later escaped from an interrogation and execution, and went into hiding.
590250	Parambrata Chatterjee (Bengali:পরমব্রত চট্টোপাধ্যায়; pôrombroto chôttopaddhae) is a Bengali Indian male actor and director of television and films, who came to limelight after starring in the film "Kahaani"; starring along with Vidya Balan. His performance was greatly appreciated in the film. Parambrata also acted in Bhalo Theko which is Vidya Balan's debut film. Personal life. He was born in Kolkata, West Bengal to a film critic parents. He is the grandson of filmmaker Ritwik Ghatak Education. He went to Dolna Day School and then Patha Bhavan, Kolkata for schooling and Jadavpur University for bachelor and master's degree in English literature. Career. His directorial debut feature film is "Jiyo Kaka" starred by Raima Sen and Rudranil Ghosh. Seven months after the success of Kahaani he has been signed by Oscar-winning director Jeffrey D. Brown for his upcoming film Sold'". Workshop Productions Pvt. Ltd.. On May 30, 2011 Parambrata became producer along with his acting colleague Rudranil Ghosh by launching their own production house Workshop in association with Dipak Raha of Sambandh Group.
1073358	So Undercover is a 2012 American action-comedy film directed by Tom Vaughan and written by Allan Loeb and Steven Pearl. Starring Miley Cyrus, Jeremy Piven, and Mike O'Malley, the film was released for the first time in the United Arab Emirates on December 6, 2012 and released direct-to-video in the United States on February 5, 2013. The film has been released in theatres of only 12 countries worldwide. Plot. Molly Morris (Cyrus), a private investigator based in Dallas, takes photos of cheating men. During one of her investigations, F.B.I. Agent Armon Ranford (Piven), offers her a job with the F.B.I., to watch over Alex Patrone (McKnight), the daughter of a Senator, who was involved in an organized crime case. Morris is reluctant at first, but ultimately decides to accept Ranford's offer. She goes undercover as a sorority student named Brook Stonebridge. She meets Sasha Stolezinsky (Mumford), the head of the sorority and other members, including Becky, Cotton, Hunter, and Alex, whom she has been hired to protect. At first, she suspects that Stolezinsky may be hiding something, but as it turns out, she only changed her identity from Suzy Walters, so she start a new life, rather than be an outcast. Morris also meets her love interest, Nicholas Dexter (Bowman), another student at the college. Morris begins to suspect that one of her professors, Professor Talloway (Settle), when she discovers that Patrone secretly goes off to his home on a lake. She continuously reports back to Ranford, who at one point tells her that Nicholas Dexter is not his real name. She does not believe him, and soon figures out that Ranford is not who he says he is. One night she follows Patrone to Talloway's home, only to discover that her professor is actually a federal agent. She encounters a gunman, who doesn't kill her. She figures out that Ranford is behind the mask, who drives off with a kidnapped Patrone and soon finds Talloway injured from a gunshot wound outside his home. When she returns to the sorority house, she encounters two federal agents working on the case. They are hesitant at first, but Morris convinces them to help her solve the case, with the help of her sorority sisters. They execute the plan, rescue Patrone, and corner Redford, who is arrested. Patrone hands Morris over a SD card with evidence in her father's case, to which she hands over to the F.B.I. Morris' father, Sam Morris, who helped her with the case, greets her and meets Dexter. The F.B.I. is pleased with Morris' work, and she is offered to work for them. She declines, and instead wants to continue at college. Two months pass, and she is taking photos of a guy Roberts is dating. Dexter comes up to her, revealing they are dating. The film ends when they kiss. Production. Casting. In 2010, it was announced that Miley Cyrus would portray Molly Morris, Mike O'Malley would portray Molly's father, Jeremy Piven would portray Armon, Kelly Osbourne would portray Becky, Josh Bowman would portray Nicholas, Eloise Mumford, Lauren McKnight, and Matthew Settle, among others were announced. Filming. Principal photography began in December 13, 2010 in New Orleans, Louisiana and at Tulane University. The filming finished in January 2011. On August 15, 2011, new scenes were filmed at University of California in Los Angeles and finished days after. Filming was supposed to be held in Sydney, Australia, but this was canceled for undisclosed reasons. Release. Shooting for the film began in late 2010 and ended in early 2011. In March 2011, Exclusive Media Group, the film's studio announced that The Weinstein Company acquired the U.S. distribution rights for the film, and said that "the film will be released in October 2011 when schools are back in session." However, the film was not released in October 2011. In October 2012, the U.K. theatrical trailer was released, which announced a release date of December 7, 2012. Later, distributor Millennium Films announced they had acquired the U.S. distribution rights for the film, and said that the film would have a direct-to-video release in the United States on February 5, 2013. The film has been released in theatres of nine countries worldwide; six European markets and three Asian ones. "So Undercover" was released in Australia on April 10 as a direct-to-video release as it was in the U.S. Critical reception. The film has received largely negative reviews. Review aggregate Rotten Tomatoes reports that 6% of critics have given the film a positive review based on 16 reviews with a rating average of 3.8/10. Tim Evans from Sky Movies wrote that "Its target audience will lap it up...but the rest of us will be searching for deep cover." DVD. "So Undercover" was released on February 5 in the U.S. on DVD and Blu-ray.
1165262	Lyle Talbot (February 8, 1902 – March 2, 1996) was an American actor on stage and screen, best known for his long career in film from 1931 to 1960 and for his frequent appearances on television in the 1950s and 1960s. He also played Joe Randolph for ten years in the ABC situation comedy, "The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet". He began his movie career under contract with Warner Brothers in the early days of "talking pictures." He appeared in more than 150 films, first as a young matinée idol and later as a character actor and star of many B movies. He was a founding member of the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) and later served on its board. Talbot's long career as an actor is recounted in a book by his youngest daughter, "The New Yorker" writer Margaret Talbot, entitled "The Entertainer: Movies, Magic and My Father's Twentieth Century" (Riverhead Books 2012). Background. Born Lisle Henderson in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Talbot was reared in Brainard, Nebraska. He left home at 17, and began his career as a magician's assistant, becoming a leading actor in traveling tent shows in the American Midwest. He briefly established his own theater company in Memphis, Tennessee. He went to Hollywood in 1931, when the film industry began producing movies with sound and needed "actors who could talk". His screen test was watched and appreciated by studio head Darryl F. Zanuck and, even more so, by director William Wellman who immediately wanted to cast Talbot. Film and stage. Most notable among Talbot's film work was his appearances in "Three on a Match" and "20,000 Years in Sing Sing" (both 1932). He romanced opera singer Grace Moore in "One Night of Love" in 1934, pursued Mae West in "Go West, Young Man" (1936). He would appear opposite Ann Dvorak, Carole Lombard, Barbara Stanwyck, Mary Astor, Ginger Rogers, and Shirley Temple during his career. Talbot's activism in SAG union affairs severely impacted his career path. Warner Bros. dropped him from its roster, and Talbot seldom received starring roles again. He became a capable character actor, playing affable neighbors or crafty villains with equal finesse. Talbot's supporting roles spanned the gamut, playing cowboys, pirates, detectives, cops, surgeons, psychiatrists, soldiers, judges, newspaper editors, storekeepers, and boxers.
393976	Haunters (; lit. "Psychic") is a 2010 South Korean film written and directed by Kim Min-seok. It depicts the struggle between a psychic named Cho-in (Kang Dong-won) who can control people with his mind and a man named Kyu-nam (Go Soo) who is immune to the psychic's supernatural power.
1065352	American Wedding (known as American Pie 3: The Wedding, in some countries) is a 2003 American romantic comedy film and a sequel to "American Pie" and "American Pie 2" as part of the "American Pie" theatrical series. It was written by Adam Herz and directed by Jesse Dylan. Another sequel, "American Reunion", was released nine years later. This also stands as the last film in the series to be written by Herz, who conceptualized the franchise.
1068739	The Legend of 1900 (, The Legend of the Pianist on the Ocean) is a 1998 Italian drama film directed by Giuseppe Tornatore and starring Tim Roth, Pruitt Taylor Vince and Mélanie Thierry. It was Tornatore's first English-language film. The film is inspired by a theater monologue, "Novecento", by Alessandro Baricco. The film was nominated for a variety of awards worldwide, winning several for its soundtrack. Plot. The story is told in medias res as a series of flashbacks. Max Tooney, a musician, enters a secondhand music shop just before closing time, broke and badly in need of money. He has only a Conn trumpet, which he sells for less than he had hoped. Clearly torn at parting from his prized possession, he asks to play it one last time. The shopkeeper agrees, and as the musician plays, the shopkeeper immediately recognizes the song from a broken record matrix he found inside a recently acquired secondhand piano. He asks who the piece is by, and Max tells him the story of 1900. 1900 was found abandoned on the four stacker SS "Virginian", a baby in a box, and likely the son of poor immigrants from steerage. Danny, a coal-man from the boiler room, is determined to raise the boy as his own. He names the boy Danny Boodman T. D. Lemon 1900 (a combination of his own name, the year he was born and an advertisement found on the box) and hides him from the ship's officers. During the early years of his life, 1900 comes across an advertisement for a man with the initials of T.D; however, on seeing the advertisement and possibly 1900's biological father, Danny decides not to tell 1900 the truth. Sadly, a few years later, Danny is killed in a workplace accident, and 1900 is forced to survive aboard the "Virginian" as an orphan. For many years, he travels back and forth across the Atlantic, keeping a low profile and apparently learning the languages spoken by the immigrants in Third Class. The boy shows a particular gift for music and eventually grows up and joins the ship's orchestra. He befriends Max in 1927, but never leaves the vessel. Apparently, the outside world is too "big" for his imagination at this point. But he stays current with outside musical trends as passengers explain to him a new music trend or style, and he immediately picks it up and starts playing it for them. His reputation as a pianist is so renowned that Jelly Roll Morton, of New Orleans jazz fame, on hearing of 1900's skill comes aboard to challenge him to a piano duel. After hearing Jelly Roll Morton's first tune 1900 plays a piece so simple and well known ("Silent Night") that the self-proclaimed inventor of jazz feels mocked. As Morton becomes more determined to display his talent, he plays an impressive improvised tune ("The Crave") that brings tears to 1900's eyes. 1900 calmly sits down at the piano and plays from memory the entire tune that Morton had just improvised. 1900's playing fails to impress the crowd until he plays an original piece ("Enduring Movement") of such virtuosity that the metal piano strings become hot enough for 1900 to light a cigarette. He hands it to Morton, who has lost the duel. A record producer, having heard of 1900's prowess, brings a primitive recording apparatus aboard and cuts a demo record of a 1900 original composition. The recorded music is created by 1900 as he gazes at a woman (The Girl) who has just boarded and whom he finds attractive. When 1900 hears the recording, he takes the master, offended at the prospect of anyone hearing the music without his having performed it live. He then tries to give the master to The Girl who inspired it, but is unable to and breaks the matrix into pieces. The story flashes back to the mid-1940s periodically, as we see Max (who leaves the ship's orchestra in 1933) trying to lure 1900 out of the now-deserted hull of the ship. Having served as a hospital ship and transport in World War II, she is scheduled to be scuttled and sunk far offshore. Max manages to get aboard the ship with the recording 1900 made long ago and plays it, hoping to attract 1900's attention. When it does, Max attempts to convince 1900 to leave the ship. But he is too daunted by the size of the world. And feeling that his fate is tied to the ship, 1900 cannot bring himself to leave the only home he has known. In the end, the "Virginian" blows up and sinks, with 1900 still aboard. Max feels useless that he couldn't save his friend. The shopkeeper asks Max how the record got into the secondhand piano. Max indicates that he put it there, and the shopkeeper tells him that he wasn't so useless after all. Then, as Max is leaving the store, the shopkeeper gives him the trumpet and says, "A good story is worth more than an old trumpet," and Max walks out as another customer walks in.
1484446	Neil Crone (born May 29, 1960) is a Canadian actor, voice actor and comedian. Career. He did the voices of Gordon the Big Blue Engine, Splatter and Diesel 10 from the film "Thomas and the Magic Railroad". He does Phillip the Concierge in the "My Secret Identity" episode "Sour Grapes". He has also starred in "I Love Mummy", "The Red Green Show", the CTV series "Power Play" and "". He is also known for being a panelist on the Vancouver-based game show "The Next Line" and was the host of a children's game show called "Wild Guess". Crone portrayed radio host Fred Tupper on the CBC Television situation comedy series "Little Mosque on the Prairie". He also voices Robert on the animated series "Iggy Arbuckle" and Reverend McRee in "Bob and Doug". Crone is a sought after radio guest and has been on international and syndicated shows such as Get Focused Radio with Kate Hennessy. Writes regular articles for the Durham Region's "This Week" newspaper.
739697	Christopher Charles Collins (August 30, 1949 – June 12, 1994), also known as Chris Latta, was an American actor, voice artist and comedian, perhaps best known as the voice of Cobra Commander on the ' animated series and Starscream in the first "Transformers" animated series. He is also noted among "Star Trek" fans for his guest roles on ' and "", along with many other television series and a number of films. In addition, he had a successful stand-up comedy career. Early life and career. Collins was born Christopher Lawrence Latta in Orange, New Jersey, and grew up in the Morningside Heights section of Manhattan, New York City. His legal name became Christopher Charles Collins when his stepfather adopted him. Collins' biological father, Robert Latta, was a New York stage actor. His mother, Jane Morin, worked as an advertising executive. In his stand-up routine, he claimed to have grown up in Harlem and said his ultra-liberal parents had moved the family there "so he could meet some Negroes". (Morningside Heights is sometimes called "West Harlem".) After a year at New York University, he studied acting, dance, voice and mime. In the mid-1970s, he acted on the New York and Boston stage and did voice-over work for Boston radio station WBCN. He made his animation voice acting debut as one of the English dubbers of the 1979 anime series "Space Battleship Yamato" (also called Star Blazers). He was most recognizable in that series as the voice of space marine Sgt. Knox during the Comet Empire installment. Voice work. One of Collins' earlier voice works was in "Star Blazers" second series broadcast in the United States "The Comet Empire". His most notable role in the series was that of space marine Sergent Webb Knox (Saito in the Japanese version). In 1983, Collins started voicing Cobra Commander for a five-part "G.I. Joe" animated miniseries. In 1984, he reprised the role for a second five-part animated mini-series, which became a regular series in 1985. Also in 1984, Collins voiced a new character, Starscream, for a three-part "Transformers" animated miniseries. By 1985, he was voicing other G.I. Joe and Transformers characters in toy commercials, carrying on in those roles when the two television series made their debut. When he began doing regular voice work, he adopted the stage name Chris Latta because another Screen Actors Guild actor was performing as "Chris Collins". Cobra Commander was the original leader of Cobra, usually portrayed (in the cartoon version) alongside the steel-faced Destro. Starscream was played as a megalomaniacal offsider to the chief antagonist (Megatron performed by Frank Welker), and was more concerned with usurping his superior than with following orders. After the Serpentor character was created in 1986, drawing power away from Cobra Commander, that role became very similar to Starscream's role. However, most striking was the high-pitched, rasping voice Collins employed for both roles, which made the characters always seem duplicitous and conniving regardless of what they were saying, as well as adding an element of a running gag when they inevitably threw a tantrum or when they were humiliated by their superiors (Starscream getting slapped around by Megatron for his disobedience and Cobra Commander getting himself routinely countermanded by Serpentor). He also provided the voice for Wheeljack, a heroic Autobot scientist, the Autobots' human friend Sparkplug Witwicky, and Gung Ho, a burly, rough and tumble G.I. Joe Marine characterized by his mustache and bald head. Gung Ho was very much the antithesis of Cobra Commander; while Cobra Commander was a cowardly egomaniac and a weakling, Gung Ho was a brave, steadfast hero who was strong enough to withstand a punch in the jaw without flinching. Collins' success led to work on many other animated programs, including "Inhumanoids", where he voiced D'Compose and Tendril, "", where he voiced Darkstorm, and "The Simpsons", where he originated the voice of Mr. Burns in the first season episode "Homer's Odyssey", and recorded lines (but was dubbed over) as Moe the bartender for "Some Enchanted Evening". Along with several other early "Simpsons" voice actors, he left during the first season. Hank Azaria took over the voice of Moe, while Harry Shearer assumed the role of Mr. Burns. Other film and television work. Later in the 1980s, Collins began working as Christopher Collins and acted in many live-action television series and motion pictures. He played Klingon Captain Kargan and Pakled Captain Grebnedlog in "". Collins went on to portray two different Markalians on "Deep Space Nine": first Durg, and then an unnamed assistant to . In "Married... with Children", he played Roger, one of Al Bundy's bowling buddies and a member of NO MA'AM (National Organization of Men Against Amazonian Masterhood). He also portrayed a mugger on an episode of "Seinfeld" entitled "The Subway". His character known only as "The Thug" and demands Kramer to "Gimme da money!" before being apprehended by an undercover NYPD officer. In this episode, he is credited as "Christopher Collins". He appears as "Mr. Forbes" in a first-season episode of "NYPD Blue" titled "Abandando Abandoned". He provided some voices in "The Real Ghostbusters" and is credited as Chris Collins. From 1989 to 1990 he played King Koopa (aka Bowser) in King Koopa's Kool Kartoons. Collins' first live-action feature film appearance was a bit part as the sharing husband in the Patrick Swayze film "Road House". He also appeared in "True Identity", "Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot", "Blue Desert" and "A Stranger Among Us". On April 28, 2012, Chris Latta was inducted into the Transformers Hall of Fame. His daughter Abigail accepted on his behalf, to a standing ovation. Stand-up comedy career. Collins' stand-up career peaked in the late 1980s and early 1990s, when he performed in most of the major comedy venues in the United States and Canada. In 1990, he won the prestigious San Francisco International Stand-Up Comedy Competition. At the beginning of his act, he would enter in a black trench coat and order the audience to applaud the person who introduced him. Afterwards, he would pick out an audience member who failed to applaud and tell him he had to "clap alone". He later told the audience he was not a comedian, but a "psychotic who learned to market his problem." Collins' comic persona was a loud, angry, mentally unstable man who liked to intimidate the audience. This image suited him well in his many bit roles in films and television, where he often played mobsters and hit men. He was a frequent featured performer on "An Evening at the Improv" and "Caroline's Comedy Hour". Personal life. Collins married twice and had three children. Early in his career, he divided his time between New York, Boston, and Los Angeles before settling in L.A. in 1983. In 1991, he moved to Ventura, California. Christopher Collins died on June 12, 1994, his cause of death officially recorded as a cerebral hemorrhage following a long illness. Although his contemporaries have spoken fondly of Latta, some have made cryptically suggestive comments on the nature of his death, including Peter Cullen (who remarked that he was a victim of Hollywood's tendency to "devour its young"), Susan Blu (who said that Latta was "a sweet guy who had his demons"), and Flint Dille (who noted on the commentary track for the 20th anniversary DVD release of "" that he and other members of the production staff "never really found out" how he died). In another interview, Dille recalled: "There was one summer when I had to bail Chris Latta (Starscream, Cobra Commander) out of the Hollywood jail in order to get him to the recording on time. Never figured out what he was in for, but he said it was jaywalking. Chris was a wild, interesting guy. I liked him and was very sorry to hear that he died."
1040804	Michael Sheard (18 June 1938 – 31 August 2005) was a Scottish actor who featured in a large number of films and television programmes. Early life. Sheard was born in Aberdeen, Scotland; the son of a church minister, and was trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London. During his national service, Sheard was a Royal Air Force aircraftman. Career. Sheard is most known for playing villains. His most prominent television role was as strict deputy headmaster Maurice Bronson in the British children's series "Grange Hill" which he played from 1985-89. His most prominent film role was that of Admiral Ozzel in "" (1980). In addition to his "Star Wars" role, Sheard had a lengthy affiliation with science fiction, and appeared in six stories of the BBC science fiction television series "Doctor Who", appearing with the First, Third, Fourth, Fifth and Seventh Doctors. He provided a DVD commentary for the 1975 Doctor Who adventure "Pyramids of Mars", in which he appeared, and he also worked with Eighth Doctor Paul McGann, in "The Stones of Venice", a "Doctor Who" audio drama produced by Big Finish Productions. He was a regular guest at both "Doctor Who" and "Star Wars" conventions over the years in the UK and the US. Further to this, he had guest roles in "Colditz" (1972), "On The Buses" (1973), "" (1975), and "The Tomorrow People" (1978). Sheard portrayed Adolf Hitler five times throughout his career, including in "The Tomorrow People" (1978) and "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade" (1989), and "Rogue Male" (1976). He has also portrayed Heinrich Himmler three times. In 1983, he played "Herr Grunwald", the German manager of a building site in the first series of "Auf Wiedersehen, Pet". In 1980, he had a major supporting role in Stephen Poliakoff's acclaimed BBC television play "Caught on a Train". In February 2005 he played a small cameo role as the narrator in Star Wars fan film "Order of the Sith: Vengeance" and its sequel "Downfall - Order of the Sith" - alongside Jeremy Bulloch and David Prowse. These fan films were made in England in support of Save the Children. Personal life. Sheard died on 31 August 2005 (aged 67) at his home on the Isle of Wight. He had been suffering from cancer. A few weeks previously on 9 August he appeared via telephone on the Iain Lee show on LBC and talked about his career in film and television.
1264882	Harry Philmore Langdon (June 15, 1884 – December 22, 1944) was an American comedian who appeared in vaudeville, silent films (where he had his greatest fame), and talkies. He was briefly partnered with Oliver Hardy. Life and career. Born in Council Bluffs, Iowa, Langdon began working in medicine shows and stock companies while in his teens. In 1906, he entered vaudeville with his first wife, Rose Langdon. By 1915, he had developed a sketch named "Johnny's New Car," on which he would do variations in the years that followed. In 1923, he joined Principal Pictures Corporation, a company headed by producer Sol Lesser. He eventually went over to Keystone Studios where he became a major star. At the height of his film career he was considered one of the four best comics of the silent film era. His screen character was that of a wide-eyed, childlike man with an innocent's understanding of the world and the people in it. He was a first-class pantomimist.
1163705	Dorothy Lamour (December 10, 1914 – September 22, 1996) was an American actress and singer. She is best remembered for appearing in the "Road to..." movies, a series of successful comedies starring Bing Crosby and Bob Hope. Lamour began her career in the 1930s as a big band singer. In 1936, she moved to Hollywood where she signed with Paramount Pictures. Her appearance as "Ulah" in "The Jungle Princess" (1936) brought her fame and also marked the beginning of her image as the "Sarong Queen." In 1940, Lamour made her first "Road to..." comedy film, "Road to Singapore". The "Road to..." films were popular during the 1940s. The sixth film in the series, "Road to Bali", was released in 1952. By that time, Lamour's screen career began to wane and she focused on stage and television work. In 1961, Crosby and Hope teamed up for one more, "The Road to Hong Kong", but actress Joan Collins was cast as the female lead. Lamour made a brief appearance and sang a song near the end of that film. In the 1970s, Lamour revived her nightclub act and, in 1980, released her autobiography "My Side of the Road". She made her final onscreen appearance in 1987. Lamour married her second husband, William Ross Howard III, in 1943. They had two sons and remained married until Howard's death in 1978. Lamour died at her home in 1996 at the age of 81. Early life. Born Mary Leta Dorothy Slaton in New Orleans, the daughter of Carmen Louise (née LaPorte) and John Watson Slaton, both of whom were waiters. Lamour was of French Louisianan, Spanish, and Irish descent. Her parents' marriage lasted only a few years. Her mother married for the second time to Clarence Lambour, whose surname Dorothy later adopted and modified as her stage name. That marriage also ended in divorce when Dorothy was a teenager. Lamour quit school at the age of 14 and, after taking a business course, worked as a secretary to support herself and her mother. She began entering beauty pageants and was crowned "Miss New Orleans" in 1931. Lamour used the prize money to support herself while she worked in a stock theatre company. She and her mother later moved to Chicago where Lamour found a job working at Marshall Field's department store. She was discovered by orchestra leader Herbie Kay when he spotted her in performance at a Chicago talent show held at the Hotel Morrison. Kay hired her as a singer for his orchestra and, in 1935, Lamour went on tour with Kay. Her work with Kay eventually led Lamour to vaudeville and work in radio. In 1935, she had her own fifteen-minute weekly musical program on NBC Radio. Lamour also sang on the popular Rudy Vallee radio show and "The Chase and Sanborn Hour". Career. In 1936, Lamour moved to Hollywood. That same year, she did a screen test for Paramount Pictures and signed a contract with them. Lamour began appearing regularly in films for Paramount Pictures. She made her first film for Paramount, "College Holiday", in which she has a bit part as an uncredited dancer. Her second film for Paramount, "The Jungle Princess" (1936), solidified her fame. In the film, Lamour plays the role of "Ulah", a jungle native who wore an Edith Head-designed sarong throughout the film. "The Jungle Princess" was a big hit for the studio and Lamour would be associated with sarongs for the rest of her career. From 1937 to 1939, Lamour appeared in John Ford's "The Hurricane" (1937), "Spawn of the North" (1938; with George Raft, Henry Fonda, and John Barrymore), and "Disputed Passage" (1939). In 1940, Lamour co-starred in the first of several "Road to..." films with Bing Crosby and Bob Hope. The movies were enormously popular during the 1940s, and they regularly placed among the top moneymaking films each year. While the films centered more on Hope and Crosby, Lamour held her own as their "straight man", and sang some of her most popular songs. The series essentially ended with the release of "Road to Bali" in 1952. During World War II, Lamour was among the most popular pinup girls among American servicemen, along with Betty Grable, Rita Hayworth, Lana Turner, and Veronica Lake. Lamour was also known for her volunteer working selling war bonds during tours in which movie stars would travel the country selling U.S. government bonds to the public. Lamour reportedly sold $300 million worth of bonds earning her the nickname "The Bombshell of Bombs". She also volunteered at the Hollywood Canteen where she would dance and talk to soldiers. In 1965, Lamour was awarded a belated citation from the United States Department of the Treasury for her war bond sales. Some of Lamour's other notable films include "Johnny Apollo" (1940; with Tyrone Power), "Aloma of the South Seas" (1941), "Beyond the Blue Horizon" (1942), "Dixie" (1943; with Bing Crosby), "A Medal for Benny" (1945), "My Favorite Brunette" (1947; with Bob Hope), "On Our Merry Way" (1948) and a supporting role in the best picture Oscar-winner "The Greatest Show on Earth" (1952; with Charlton Heston). Her other leading men included William Holden, Ray Milland, James Stewart, Jack Benny, and Fred MacMurray. Lamour starred in a number of movie musicals and sang in many of her comedies and dramatic films as well. She introduced a number of standards, including "The Moon of Manakoora", "I Remember You", "It Could Happen to You", "Personality", and "But Beautiful". Lamour's film career declined in the early 1950s, and she began a new career as a nightclub entertainer and occasional stage actress. In the 1960s, she returned to the screen for secondary roles in three films, including John Ford's "Donovan's Reef" (1963) with John Wayne and Lee Marvin, and became more active in the legitimate theater, headlining a road company of "Hello Dolly!" for over a year near the end of the decade. Later years. In the 1970s, Lamour was a popular draw on the dinner theatre circuit.
403468	The Song of Sparrows ("Âvâz-e gonjeshk-hâ") () is a 2008 Iranian movie directed by Majid Majidi. It tells the story of Karim, a man who works at an ostrich farm until he is fired because one of the ostriches fled. He finds a new job in Tehran, but he faces new problems in his personal life. This film opened to critical acclaim. Plot. Karim works at an ostrich farm outside of Tehran, Iran. He leads a simple and contented life with his wife Narges, and three children in his small house. He loves his wife and children and tries hard to make them happy. One day when he is in farm, he was told to return home early as his elder daughter, Haniyeh's hearing aid is lost. When he reaches home he finds that his son Hussein and neighborhood children are searching the hearing aid in place for water storage which is a sludge now. Karim scolds his son and others for coming there, but joins them in searching. During the search his son Hussein and his friends reveals their idea of cleaning sludge and growing gold fish in it and to become millionaires. Karim rejects the idea and discourages them. However they get the hearing aid from there. But he finds that it's not working properly. He approaches the hospital and learns that he has to wait three four months to get the aid freely or otherwise he has to go to Tehran city to get it immediately. As his daughter's exam is approaching nearly he is worried about getting the hearing aid. After that incident, one day when they are moving new ostriches into farm, one of the ostriches runs away. Karim is blamed for the loss and is fired from the farm. However soon after this, he travels to the city in order to repair Haniyeh's, hearing aid and knows that it costs 350,000 tomans. but finds himself mistaken for a motorcycle taxi driver. Thus begins his new profession: ferrying people and goods through heavy traffic. However, the people and goods he is dealing with every day start to change Karim's generous and honest nature, much to the distress of his wife and daughters. Every day he brings second hand items to his home and becomes more greedy and begins to forget about his daughter’s hearing aid. It is up to those closest to him to restore the values that he once cherished. One day when he tries to arrange the second hand items accidentally it falls upon him. While he can't go to work his son goes to work and to satusy the needs of the familay and he also saves some money to buy some gold fish which he already talked about. While delivering some plants to a local farm along with his uncle , the bucket which contains the gold fish get leak. As he tries to fix it, the bucket bursts and all the gold fish drop on land. Instead of watching them die, his son Hussein pick the fish and releases them in the nearby water. Karim watches this and feels proud of his son. While Karim is getting healthier he got a message from his ex-co worker that the ostrich which run away earlier was returned. Karim goes to the farm and watches that ostrich with tears in his eyes.
1060524	Eva Mendes (born March 5, 1974) is an American actress, model, singer, and homeware and clothing designer. She began acting in the late 1990s, and after a series of roles in B movies such as ' (1998) and ' (2000), she broke into the Hollywood mainstream with an appearance in "Training Day" (2001). She has since starred in many films, including "All About The Benjamins" (2002); "2 Fast 2 Furious", "Once Upon a Time in Mexico", "Out of Time" and "Stuck on You" (all 2003); "Hitch" (2005); "Ghost Rider" and "We Own the Night" (both 2007); "The Spirit" (2008); "" (2009); "The Other Guys" and "Last Night" (both 2010); "Holy Motors" and "Girl in Progress" (both 2012) and "The Place Beyond the Pines" (2013). Mendes has worked as a spokesmodel for Cocio chocolate milk, Magnum ice cream, Revlon make-up, Calvin Klein underwear and perfume, Cartier jewellery, Thierry Mugler perfume, Reebok trainers, Campari apéritif, Pantene shampoo, Morgan clothes and Peek & Cloppenburg clothes. Mendes is the creator of a home decor line, Vida, sold exclusively at Macy's. She launched a bedding collection in 2008 and a dinnerware collection in 2010. Mendes is a singer: she has recorded a version of "The Windmills of Your Mind" and has collaborated with Cee Lo Green on a song entitled "Pimps Don't Cry". She lives in the Los Feliz neighborhood of Los Angeles. Early life. Mendes was born in Miami, Florida, to Cuban parents, and was raised in the Los Angeles suburb of Glendale, by her mother, after her parents' divorce. Mendes has said that her mother (who was a stay-at-home mom until she became an accountant when Eva went to school) "suffered so much to make my life OK" during Mendes' early years. Her mother worked for an aerospace company and her father ran a meat distribution business. Mendes was raised a Roman Catholic and aspired to be a nun. She attended Hoover High School in Glendale and later attended California State University, Northridge to study marketing, but dropped out after wanting to begin an acting career. She studied acting under Ivana Chubbuck. Before Mendes got her big break, she sold ‘Hot Dog on a Stick’ at Glendale Galleria Mall in California. Growing up, Eva's role model was Cindy Crawford.
1103987	Shiing-Shen Chern (; October 26, 1911 – December 3, 2004) was a Chinese-born American mathematician. He was regarded as one of the leaders in differential geometry of the twentieth century. Biography. Early years in China. Chern was born in Xiushui County (秀水縣), Jiaxing, in Zhejiang province. The year after his birth, China changed its regime from the Qing Dynasty to the Republic of China. He graduated from Xiushui Middle School (秀水中學) and subsequently moved to Tianjin in 1922 to accompany his father. In 1926 after spending four years, Chern graduated from Fulun High School (扶輪中學) in Tianjin. At age 15, Chern entered the Faculty of Sciences of the Nankai University in Tianjin, studied mathematics there, and graduated with BSc in 1930. At Nankai, Chern's mentor was Li-Fu Chiang (姜立夫), a Harvard-trained geometer who was also from Zhejiang. At Nankai, Chern was also heavily influenced by physicist Hu Guoding (胡國定) who was also from Zhejiang. Hu now is considered as one of founding fathers of modern Chinese informatics. Chern went to Beiping (now Beijing) to teach at the Tsinghua University Department of Mathematics as a teaching assistant. At the same time he also registered at Tsinghua Graduate School as a master student. He studied projective differential geometry under Prof. Sun Guangyuan, a Chicago-trained geometer and logician who was also from Zhejiang. Sun was a notable founder of modern Chinese mathematics. In 1932, Chern published his first research article in Tsinghua University Journal. In summer 1934, Chern graduated from Tsinghua with a master's degree, the first ever masters degree in mathematics issued by China. C.N. Yang's father — Yang Ko-Chuen, also a Chicago-trained professor at Tsinghua but algebraist, also taught Chern. At the same time, Chern was C.N. Yang's teacher of undergraduate math at Tsinghua. At Tsinghua, Hua Luogeng, also a mathematician, was Chern's colleague and room mate. In 1932, Wilhelm Blaschke from the University of Hamburg visited Tsinghua and was impressed by Chern and his research. In Europe. In 1934, co-funded by Tsinghua and the Chinese Foundation of Culture and Education, Chern went to continue his study in mathematics in Germany with a scholarship. Chern studied at the University of Hamburg and worked under Blaschke's guidance first on the geometry of webs then on the Cartan-Kähler theory. He obtained his "Dr. rer.nat." ("Doctor of Science", which is equivalent to PhD) degree in February, 1936. Blaschke recommended Chern to study in Paris. In August 1936, Chern watched summer Olympics in Berlin together with Hua Luogeng who paid Chern a brief visit. During that time, Hua was studying at the University of Cambridge in Britain. In September 1936, Chern went to Paris and worked with Élie Cartan. Chern spent one year at the Sorbonne in Paris. In 1937, Chern accepted Tsinghua's invitation and was promoted to professor of mathematics at Tsinghua. However, at the same time the Marco Polo Bridge Incident (near Beijing) happened and the Second Sino-Japanese War started, Tsinghua was forced to move away from Beijing to west China. Three universities including Peking University, Tsinghua, and Nankai formed the National Southwestern Associated University (NSAU), and was relocated in Kunming, Yunnan province. Chern never reached Beijing. In the same year, Hua Luogeng was promoted to professor of mathematics at Tsinghua. Short stay in USA. In July 1943, Chern went to the United States, and worked at the Institute for Advanced Study (IAS) in Princeton on characteristic classes in differential geometry. Shortly afterwards, he was invited by Solomon Lefschetz to be an editor of "Annals of Mathematics". First return to China. Chern returned to Shanghai in 1946 to help found the Institute of Mathematics of the Academia Sinica, which was later moved to Nanking (then-capital of the Republic of China). Chern was the acting president of the institute. Wu Wenjun was Chern's graduate student at the institute. In 1948, Chern was elected one of the first academicians of the Academia Sinica. He was the youngest academician elected (at age 37). USA. In 1949, Chern returned to the United States, again worked at the IAS. In 1949, Chern became professor of mathematics at the University of Chicago. Coincidently, Ernest Preston Lane, former Chair at UChicago Department of Mathematics, was the doctoral advisor of Chern's undergraduate mentor at Tsinghua — Sun Guangyuan. Chern moved to the University of California, Berkeley, in 1960, where he worked and stayed until his retirement. In 1961, Chern became a naturalized citizen of the United States. In the same year, he was elected member of the United States National Academy of Sciences. In 1964, Chern was a vice-president of American Mathematical Society (AMS). Chern retired from Berkeley in 1981. He founded the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute (MSRI) in 1981 and served as the director until 1984. Afterward he became the honorary director of the institute. MSRI now is one of the largest and most prominent mathematical institutes in the world. Shing-Tung Yau was one of his PhD students during this period. Short visits to China. The Shanghai Communiqué was issued by the United States and the People's Republic of China on February 27, 1972. The relationship between these two nations started normalizing, and American citizens were allowed to visit P.R.China. In September 1972, Chern with his wife visited Beijing. During this period of time, Chern visited China for 25 times, with 14 times to his hometown Zhejiang. Chern founded the Nankai Institute for Mathematics (NKIM) at his alma mater Nankai in Tianjin. The institute was formally established in 1984 and fully opened on October 17, 1985. NKIM was renamed as the Chern Institute of Mathematics in 2004 after Chern's death. Final years. Based on Chern's advice, a mathematical research center was established in Taipei, Taiwan, whose co-operational partners are National Taiwan University, National Tsing Hua University and the Sinica Academia Institute of Mathematics. Chern was also a director and advisor of the Center of Mathematical Sciences at Zhejiang University in Hangzhou, Zhejiang. From 2000 to his death, Chern lived in Tianjin, China. Chern died of heart failure at his home in Tianjin in 2004 at age 93. Research. Chern's work extends over all the classic fields of differential geometry. It includes areas currently fashionable (the Chern-Simons theory arising from a 1974 paper written jointly with Jim Simons), perennial (the Chern-Weil theory linking curvature invariants to characteristic classes from 1944, after the Allendoerfer-Weil paper of 1943 on the Gauss-Bonnet theorem), the foundational (Chern classes), and some areas such as projective differential geometry and webs that have a lower profile. He published results in integral geometry, value distribution theory of holomorphic functions, and minimal submanifolds. He was a follower of Élie Cartan, working on the 'theory of equivalence' in his time in China from 1937 to 1943, in relative isolation. In 1954 he published his own treatment of the pseudogroup problem that is in effect the touchstone of Cartan's geometric theory. He used the moving frame method with success only matched by its inventor; he preferred in complex manifold theory to stay with the geometry, rather than follow the potential theory. Indeed, one of his books is entitled, "Complex Manifolds without Potential Theory". In the last years of his life, he advocated the study of Finsler geometry, writing several books and articles on the subject. Honours and awards. Chern received numerous honors and awards in his life, including: Chern was given a number of honorary degrees, including from The Chinese University of Hong Kong (LL.D. 1969), University of Chicago (D.Sc. 1969), ETH Zurich (Dr.Math. 1982), SUNY Stony Brook (D.Sc. 1985), TU Berlin (Dr.Math. 1986), his alma mater Hamburg (D.Sc. 1971) and Nankai (honorary doctorate, 1985), etc. Chern was also granted numerous honorary professorships, including at Peking University (Beijing, 1978), his alma mater Nankai (Tianjin, 1978), Chinese Academy of Sciences Institute of Systems Science (Beijing, 1980), Jinan University (Guangzhou, 1980), Chinese Academy of Sciences Graduate School (1984), Nanjing University (Nanjing, 1985), East China Normal University (Shanghai, 1985), USTC (Hefei, 1985), Beijing Normal University (1985), Zhejiang University (Hangzhou, 1985), Hangzhou University (1986, the university was merged into Zhejiang University in 1998), Fudan University (Shanghai, 1986), Shanghai University of Technology (1986, the university was merged to establish Shanghai University in 1994), Tianjin University (1987), Tohoku University (Sendai, Japan, 1987), etc. Family. His wife, Shih-ning Cheng(), whom he married in 1939, died in 2000. He also had a daughter, May Chu (), wife of the physicist Chu Ching-wu, and a son named Paul (). Transliteration and pronunciation. Chern's surname is a common Chinese surname which is now usually spelt Chen. The unusual spelling "Chern" is a transliteration in the old Gwoyeu Romatzyh (GR) romanization for Mandarin Chinese used in the early twentieth century China. It uses special spelling rules to indicate different tones of Mandarin, which is a tonal language with four tones. The silent "r" in "Chern" indicates a second-tone syllable, written "Chén" in pinyin but in practice often written by non-Chinese without the tonal mark. In GR the spelling of his given name "Shiing-Shen" indicates a third tone for "Shiing" and a first tone for "Shen", which are equivalent to the syllables "Xǐngshēn" in pinyin. In English, Chern pronounced his name "Churn," and this pronunciation is now universally accepted among English-speaking mathematicians and physicists.
1091781	Sir Isaac Newton (25 December 164220 March 1727) was an English physicist and mathematician who is widely regarded as one of the most influential scientists of all time and as a key figure in the scientific revolution. His book "Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica" ("Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy"), first published in 1687, laid the foundations for most of classical mechanics. Newton also made seminal contributions to optics and shares credit with Gottfried Leibniz for the invention of the infinitesimal calculus. Newton's "Principia" formulated the laws of motion and universal gravitation that dominated scientists' view of the physical universe for the next three centuries. It also demonstrated that the motion of objects on the Earth and that of celestial bodies could be described by the same principles. By deriving Kepler's laws of planetary motion from his mathematical description of gravity, Newton removed the last doubts about the validity of the heliocentric model of the cosmos. Newton built the first practical reflecting telescope and developed a theory of colour based on the observation that a prism decomposes white light into the many colours of the visible spectrum. He also formulated an empirical law of cooling and studied the speed of sound. In addition to his work on the calculus, as a mathematician Newton contributed to the study of power series, generalised the binomial theorem to non-integer exponents, and developed Newton's method for approximating the roots of a function. Newton was a fellow of Trinity College and the second Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge. He was a devout but unorthodox Christian and, unusually for a member of the Cambridge faculty, he refused to take holy orders in the Church of England, perhaps because he privately rejected the doctrine of trinitarianism. In addition to his work on the mathematical sciences, Newton also dedicated much of his time to the study of alchemy and biblical chronology, but most of his work in those areas remained unpublished until long after his death. In his later life, Newton became president of the Royal Society. He also served the British government as Warden and Master of the Royal Mint. Life. Early life. Isaac Newton was born (according to the Julian calendar in use in England at the time) on Christmas Day, 25 December 1642, (NS 4 January 1643.) at Woolsthorpe Manor in Woolsthorpe-by-Colsterworth, a hamlet in the county of Lincolnshire. He was born three months after the death of his father, a prosperous farmer also named Isaac Newton. Born prematurely, he was a small child; his mother Hannah Ayscough reportedly said that he could have fit inside a quart mug (≈ 1.1 litres). When Newton was three, his mother remarried and went to live with her new husband, the Reverend Barnabus Smith, leaving her son in the care of his maternal grandmother, Margery Ayscough. The young Isaac disliked his stepfather and maintained some enmity towards his mother for marrying him, as revealed by this entry in a list of sins committed up to the age of 19: "Threatening my father and mother Smith to burn them and the house over them." Although it was claimed that he was once engaged, Newton never married. From the age of about twelve until he was seventeen, Newton was educated at The King's School, Grantham. He was removed from school, and by October 1659, he was to be found at Woolsthorpe-by-Colsterworth, where his mother, widowed by now for a second time, attempted to make a farmer of him. He hated farming. Henry Stokes, master at the King's School, persuaded his mother to send him back to school so that he might complete his education. Motivated partly by a desire for revenge against a schoolyard bully, he became the top-ranked student. The Cambridge psychologist Simon Baron-Cohen considers it "fairly certain" that Newton had Asperger syndrome. In June 1661, he was admitted to Trinity College, Cambridge as a sizar – a sort of work-study role. At that time, the college's teachings were based on those of Aristotle, whom Newton supplemented with modern philosophers, such as Descartes, and astronomers such as Copernicus, Galileo, and Kepler. In 1665, he discovered the generalised binomial theorem and began to develop a mathematical theory that later became infinitesimal calculus. Soon after Newton had obtained his degree in August 1665, the university temporarily closed as a precaution against the Great Plague. Although he had been undistinguished as a Cambridge student, Newton's private studies at his home in Woolsthorpe over the subsequent two years saw the development of his theories on calculus, optics and the law of gravitation. In 1667, he returned to Cambridge as a fellow of Trinity. Fellows were required to become ordained priests, something Newton desired to avoid due to his unorthodox views. Luckily for Newton, there was no specific deadline for ordination, and it could be postponed indefinitely. The problem became more severe later when Newton was elected for the prestigious Lucasian Chair. For such a significant appointment, ordaining normally could not be dodged. Nevertheless, Newton managed to avoid it by means of a special permission from Charles II (see "Middle years" section below). Middle years. Mathematics. Newton's work has been said "to distinctly advance every branch of mathematics then studied". His work on the subject usually referred to as fluxions or calculus, seen in a manuscript of October 1666, is now published among Newton's mathematical papers. The author of the manuscript "De analysi per aequationes numero terminorum infinitas", sent by Isaac Barrow to John Collins in June 1669, was identified by Barrow in a letter sent to Collins in August of that year as:
1100652	Life and work. Brook Taylor was born in Edmonton (at that time in Middlesex) to John Taylor of Bifrons House, Kent, and Olivia Tempest, daughter of Sir Nicholas Tempest, Bart., of Durham. He entered St John's College, Cambridge, as a fellow-commoner in 1701, and took degrees of LL.B. and LL.D. in 1709 and 1714, respectively. Having studied mathematics under John Machin and John Keill, in 1708 he obtained a remarkable solution of the problem of the "centre of oscillation," which, however, remained unpublished until May 1714, when his claim to priority was disputed by Johann Bernoulli. Taylor's "Methodus Incrementorum Directa et Inversa" (1715) added a new branch to higher mathematics, now called the "calculus of finite differences". Among other ingenious applications, he used it to determine the form of movement of a vibrating string, by him first successfully reduced to mechanical principles. The same work contained the celebrated formula known as Taylor's formula, the importance of which remained unrecognized until 1772, when J. L. Lagrange realized its powers and termed it "the main foundation of differential calculus". In his 1715 essay "Linear Perspective", Taylor set forth the true principles of the art in an original and more general form than any of his predecessors; but the work suffered from the brevity and obscurity which affected most of his writings, and needed the elucidation bestowed on it in the treatises of John Joshua Kirby (1754) and Daniel Fournier (1761). Taylor was elected a fellow of the Royal Society early in 1712, and in the same year sat on the committee for adjudicating the claims of Sir Isaac Newton and Gottfried Leibniz, and acted as secretary to the society from 13 January 1714 to 21 October 1718. From 1715 his studies took a philosophical and religious bent. He corresponded in that year with the Comte de Montmort on the subject of Nicolas Malebranche's tenets. Unfinished treatises, "On the Jewish Sacrifices" and "On the Lawfulness of Eating Blood", written on his return from Aix-la-Chapelle in 1719, were afterwards found among his papers. His marriage in 1721 with Miss Brydges of Wallington, Surrey, led to an estrangement from his father, which ended in 1723 after her death in giving birth to a son, who also died. The next two years were spent by him with his family at Bifrons, and in 1725 he married—this time with his father's approval—Sabetta Sawbridge of Olantigh, Kent, who also died in childbirth in 1730 ; in this case, however, his daughter, Elizabeth, survived. By the date of his father's death in 1729 he had inherited the Bifrons estate. As a mathematician, he was the only Englishman after Sir Isaac Newton and Roger Cotes capable of holding his own with the Bernoullis, but a great part of the effect of his demonstrations was lost through his failure to express his ideas fully and clearly. Taylor's fragile health gave way; he fell into a decline, and died aged 46, on 30 November 1731 at Somerset House, London. He was buried in London on 2 December 1731, near his first wife, in the churchyard of St Anne's, Soho. Selected writings. A posthumous work entitled "Contemplatio Philosophica" was printed for private circulation in 1793 by Taylor's grandson, Sir William Young, 2nd Bart., (d 10 January 1815) prefaced by a life of the author, and with an appendix containing letters addressed to him by Bolingbroke, Bossuet, and others. Several short papers by Taylor were published in "Phil. Trans.," vols. xxvii to xxxii, including accounts of some interesting experiments in magnetism and capillary attraction. In 1719 he issued an improved version of his work on perspective, with the title "New Principles of Linear Perspective", revised by John Colson in 1749, and printed again, with portrait and life of the author, in 1811. A French translation was published in 1757. In "Methodus Incrementorum", Taylor gave the first satisfactory investigation of astronomical refraction.
776059	A Jewish Girl in Shanghai () is a 2010 Chinese animated family film written by Wu Lin and based on his graphic novel of the same name. It is directed by Wang Genfa and Zhang Zhenhui, and voiced by Cui Jie, Zhao Jing and Ma Shaohua. Set mainly in and around the Shanghai Ghetto in Japanese-occupied Shanghai during the Second World War, the film tells the story of three children. Rina and her younger brother Mishalli are Jewish refugees who escaped Europe but are without their parents. A-Gen is a Chinese boy who meets Rina and helps her and her brother to survive. The children form strong friendships and have adventures as they try and fend off the Japanese army occupying the city, and their allies, the Nazis. In the background, the Second Sino-Japanese War takes place, while the children must face the uncertainty that concerns the fate of Rina and Mishalli's parents in Europe. Well received in China and internationally, "A Jewish Girl in Shanghai" has been heralded as the first animated Chinese film to address the Holocaust, and has been described as "China’s first homegrown Jewish film". The film has been nominated for awards in China and Israel, and has been considered an important step towards improving China's relations with Israel and intercultural relations between the Chinese and Jewish peoples. Historical background. During the Second World War, approximately 20,000 Jewish refugees fleeing German-occupied Europe were given an area of approximately one square mile in the Hongkou District of Shanghai by the Japanese Empire, designated the Restricted Sector for Stateless Refugees, one of the poorest and most overcrowded areas of the city. Shanghai had previously had a small population of Baghdadi Jews and Russian Jews, the latter mostly having fled the Russian Empire as a result of anti-Jewish pogroms. The new Ashkenazi Jews that immigrated to Shanghai began arriving from 1933, firstly German Jews following the Nazi Party's rise to power. Despite the cultural differences they faced, and restrictions imposed by the Japanese under Nazi pressure, the Jews of Shanghai survived the war unharmed, as the Japanese refused to hand them over to the Germans. Following the end of the Second World War, many Jews who had sought refuge in Shanghai returned to Europe or decided to settle in countries with much larger Jewish populations, such as the United States and Palestine. Most of the Jews that chose to stay in Shanghai left shortly afterwards as a result of the resumption of the Chinese Civil War, and by the late 1950s very few Jews remained in Shanghai. As a result of Chinese economic growth in recent years, however, the city's Jewish population has grown to around 1,500 in 2010. This compares to a Jewish population of fewer than 100 around 20 years before. Production. Wu, a former history teacher, first become interested in the history of Shanghai's Jews, obscure to both Jews and Chinese alike, in 2005, when many newspapers and magazines in Shanghai published the stories of Jewish refugees to mark the 60th anniversary of the end of the Second World War, seeing parallels between the Jewish and Chinese peoples' oppression by the Germans and Japanese respectively, and their struggles against fascism. Wu had previously lived in Los Angeles, and he based the character of Mishalli on Jerry Moses, a Jewish American friend who was originally from Breslau (now Wrocław, Poland) who, like the characters of Rina and Mishalli, was offered a safe haven in Shanghai. Moses and other Jewish friends helped Wu to learn about Jewish religious practices. Wu has stated that his main reason for making the film was to let children know about what really happened, and to promote the story and the history so that people all over the world can learn from it. The story was originally conceived for adults, but Wu decided to aim the film at children in the hope that the film could influence the future generation. Glenn Timmermans, the organiser of the Macau Jewish Film Festival, has stated that he believes the film's intended age group is between around eight and fourteen years, though he notes its wider appeal. One of the film's characters, a talking monkey, has been noted as one of the more child-orientated features of the film. Wu first created a "A Jewish Girl in Shanghai" as a graphic novel, published in 2008 by East China Normal University Press. The graphic novel has been described as a "great success" by Wu, selling 4,000 copies in the first six months since its release, though, as it was only published in English, its Chinese market was naturally limited. Wu has stated that a Hebrew version of the graphic novel is under consideration. In 2009, Wu began work on a film adaptation to bring the work to a broader audience in China. The film, produced using using 35 mm film, is, unlike the graphic novel, in Mandarin Chinese, and was developed by the Shanghai Film Group Corporation and the Shanghai Animation Film Studio. The film score was composed by Shi Jiayang. Release. "A Jewish Girl in Shanghai" made its world premiere in Shanghai in May 2010. The film began showing across China from 28 May. After a month following the film's general release, it was being shown in 200 Chinese cinemas. When it was first shown in China, it was in front of 700 school pupils, who, according to Wu, "laughed and cried several times". He described the emotional impact of the film as "very rare for an animated film". The film subsequently made its premiere in Macau on 14 November 2010 at the Cultural Centre of the University of Macau, as part of the 1st Macau Jewish Film Festival. The Hong Kong premiere took place a week later, on 21 November, at the Jewish Community Centre on Robinson Road, as part of the 11th Hong Kong Jewish Film Festival. The film's Israeli premiere took place in July 2010, when it was shown as part of the 27th Jerusalem Film Festival on 13 and 14 July. The film was well received by the Israeli audience. The British premiere took place in November 2010, when it was shown at the Tricycle Theatre in Kilburn, London. The film was first shown on 20 November as part of the 14th UK Jewish Film Festival. The film's subtitles in English were noted as containg a few mistranslations and mistakes, including the anachronistic use of the word "badass". Reception. The critical reception to "A Jewish Girl in Shanghai" has been generally positive. The film was nominated for the Jewish Experience Award at the Jerusalem Film Festival, becoming the first Chinese film nominated for that award. At the China International Animation and Digital Arts Festival in Changzhou, Jiangsu, China, the film received the Golden Cartoon Award Best Chinese Film Prize. The film's animation has been widely praised, being described as "beautifully drawn" with "breathtaking traditional animation" and as being "artfully created with traditional animated imagery". The sensitive treatment of the Holocaust has also been commended: "The fresh perspective of the main characters means that the events of the times are freed from cliched depictions of the Holocaust and the viewer is able to draw their own conclusions." Some criticism has been directed towards the historical grounding of the film. One flashback scene of the film, set in 1936, sees Rina and Michaili, in what appears to be an alpine setting in Europe, escaping being bombed by Nazi planes, despite the date preceding the aerial warfare of the Second World War. Wu himself has said that the film is "both true and untrue" in that it is a composition of fiction and history; "the main characters were all based on real prototypes…I can’t promise it’s 100% accurate, but I think it fits the background of the time." Intercultural relations. "A Jewish Girl in Shanghai" has been praised by commentators for being a positive step towards improving Chinese–Jewish and Chinese–Israeli relations at a time where there is growing interest in China about Jewish life. Wu has stated that only by remembering the past can friendship for the future be built, declaring that while "the friendship between the Jewish people and the Chinese people is only a spray in the long river of world history", it is "extremely meaningful because it took place in the hard times of anti-Fascism." Sequel. In an interview with "Asian Jewish Life", Wu revealed he was planning to write a sequel to "A Jewish Girl in Shanghai", stating his intentions that the second animated work would tell the as-yet unseen story of Rina and Mishalli's father. Wu explained the reason for this on the basis that he wrote "the front of the face and now need to write from the back."
1064599	Love and Death is a 1975 comedy film by Woody Allen. It is a satire on Russian literature starring Allen and Diane Keaton as Boris and Sonja, respectively, Russians living during the Napoleonic Era who engage in mock-serious philosophical debates. Allen considered it the funniest film he had made to that time. Plot. When Napoleon Bonaparte (James Tolkan) invades Austria during the Napoleonic Wars, Boris Grushenko (Woody Allen), a coward and pacifist scholar, is forced to enlist in the Russian Army. Desperate and disappointed after hearing the news that Sonja (Diane Keaton), his cousin twice removed, is to wed a herring merchant, he inadvertently becomes a war hero. He returns and marries the recently widowed Sonja, who does not want to marry Boris, but promises him that she will when she thinks that he is about to be killed in a duel. Their marriage is filled with philosophical debates, and no money. Their life together is interrupted when Napoleon invades the Russian Empire. Boris wants to flee but his narcissistic wife, angered that the invasion will interfere with their plans to start a family that year, conceives a plot to assassinate Napoleon at his headquarters in Moscow. Boris and Sonja debate the matter with some degree of philosophical double-talk, and Boris reluctantly goes along with it. They fail to kill Napoleon and Sonja escapes arrest while Boris is executed, despite being told by a vision that he will be pardoned. Production. Allen shot the film outside of the United States, in France and Hungary, and the problems he encountered – bad weather, multi-lingual crews and extras who had difficulty communicating with each other and Allen, spoiled negatives, food poisoning and physical injuries – made him swear never to do so again, although he did in fact for "Everyone Says I Love You" in 1996. Style. Coming between Allen's "Sleeper" and "Annie Hall", it is in many respects an artistic transition between the two. Allen pays tribute to the humor of The Marx Brothers, Bob Hope and Charlie Chaplin throughout this film. The dialogue and scenarios parody Russian novels, particularly those by Dostoyevsky and Tolstoy, such as "The Brothers Karamazov", "Crime and Punishment", "The Gambler", "The Idiot", and "War and Peace". This includes a dialogue between Boris and his father with each line alluding to or being composed entirely of Dostoevsky titles. The use of Prokofiev for the soundtrack adds to the Russian flavor of the film. Prokofiev's "Troika" from the "Lieutenant Kijé Suite" is featured prominently, for the film's opening and closing credits, and in selected scenes in the film when a "bouncy" theme is required. The battle scene is accompanied with the music from Sergei Eisenstein’s film "Alexander Nevsky", Prokofiev's cantata for Alexander Nevsky. Boris is marched to his execution to the "March" from Prokofiev's "The Love for Three Oranges". Some of the humor is straightforward; other jokes rely on the viewer's awareness of classic literature or contemporary European cinema. For example, the final shot of Keaton is a reference to Ingmar Bergman's "Persona". The sequence with the stone lions is a parody of Sergei Eisenstein's "Battleship Potemkin", while the Russian battle against Napoleon's army heavily parodies the same film's "Odessa steps" sequence. Bergman's "The Seventh Seal" is parodied during the climax. Reception. The film grossed over $20 million in North America, making it the 18th highest grossing picture of 1975. At Rotten Tomatoes, 18 critics—including three of the site's "top critics"—consider the film "fresh", with an average 8.1/10 rating. In September 2008, in a poll held by "Empire" magazine, the film was voted as the 301st greatest film out of a list of 500. At the 25th Berlin International Film Festival in 1975, the film won the Silver Bear for an outstanding artistic contribution. Roger Ebert gave it three and a half stars: Miss Keaton is very good in "Love and Death", perhaps because here she gets to establish and develop a character, instead of just providing a foil, as she's often done in other Allen films ... There are dozens of little moments when their looks have to be exactly right, and they almost always are. There are shadings of comic meaning that could have gotten lost if all we had were the words, and there are whole scenes that play off facial expressions. It's a good movie to watch just for that reason, because it's been done with such care, love and lunacy. Anachronisms. The film is full of humorous anachronisms:
1502409	Gertrude Lawrence (July 4, 1898 – September 6, 1952) was an English actress, singer, dancer and musical comedy performer known for her stage appearances in London's West End and on New York's Broadway. Early life. Lawrence was born Gertrude Alice Dagmar Klasen, of English and Danish extraction, in the Newington area of London Borough of Southwark. Her father was a basso profundo who performed under the name Arthur Lawrence. His heavy drinking led her mother Alice to leave him soon after Gertrude's birth. In 1904, her stepfather took the family to Bognor on the Sussex coast for the August bank holiday. While there, they attended a concert where audience members were invited to entertain. At her mother's urging, young Gertrude sang a song and was rewarded with a gold sovereign for her effort. It was her first public performance. In 1908, in order to augment the family's meager income, Alice accepted a job in the chorus of the Christmas pantomime at Brixton Theatre. A child who could sing and dance was needed to round out the troupe, and Alice volunteered her daughter. While working in the production Alice heard of Italia Conti, who taught dance, elocution and the rudiments of acting. Gertrude auditioned for Conti, who thought the child was talented enough to warrant free lessons. Her training led to appearances in Max Reinhardt's "The Miracle" in London and "Fifinella", directed by Basil Dean, for the Liverpool Repertory Theatre. At some point during this period, the child decided to adopt her father's professional surname as her own. Dean then cast her in his next production, Gerhart Hauptmann's "Hannele", where she first met Noël Coward. Their meeting was the start of a close and sometimes tempestuous friendship and the most important professional relationship in both their lives. Early stage career. Following "Hannele", Lawrence reconnected with her father, who was living with a chorus girl. They agreed to let her tour with them in two successive revues, after which Arthur announced he had signed a year-long contract with a variety show in South Africa, leaving the two young women to fend for themselves. Lawrence, now aged sixteen, opted to live at the Theatrical Girls' Club in Soho rather than return to her mother and stepfather. She worked steadily with various touring companies until 1916, when she was hired by famed impresario André Charlot to understudy Beatrice Lillie and appear in the chorus of his latest production in London's West End. When it closed, she assumed Lillie's role on tour, then returned to London once again to understudy the star in another Charlot production, where she met dance director Francis Gordon-Howley. Although he was twenty years her senior, the two wed and soon after had a daughter Pamela, Lawrence's only child. The marriage was not a success, and Lawrence took Pamela with her to her mother's home in Clapham. The couple remained separated but did not divorce until ten years later. In 1918, Lawrence contracted lumbago and was given a fortnight to recuperate by Charlot, who then saw her at an opening night party at Ivor Novello's invitation two days before she was cleared to return to work by her doctor, and immediately sacked her. When the apparent reason for her dismissal became common knowledge among other West End producers, she was unable to find work, and in early 1919 she accepted a job singing in the show at Murray's, a popular London nightclub, where she remained for the better part of the next two years. While performing there she met Captain Philip Astley, a member of the Household Cavalry. He became her friend, escort, and ultimately lover, and taught her how to dress and behave in high society. When Lawrence became involved with Wall Street banker Bert Taylor in 1927, Astley proposed marriage, an offer Lawrence refused because she knew Astley would expect her to leave the stage and settle in rural England. The two remained close until he married actress Madeleine Carroll in 1931. When Lawrence divorced Gordon-Howley, she and Taylor became engaged and remained so for two years, with each free to enjoy a social life separate from the other. At the end of 1920, Lawrence left Murray's and began to ease her way back into legitimate theatre while touring in a music hall act as the partner of popular singer Walter Williams. In October 1921, Charlot asked her to replace an ailing Beatrice Lillie as star of his latest production, "A to Z", opposite Jack Buchanan. In it the two introduced the song "Limehouse Blues," which went on to become one of Lawrence's signature tunes. In 1923, Noël Coward developed his first musical revue, "London Calling!", specifically for Lawrence. Charlot agreed to produce it, but brought in more experienced writers and composers to work on the book and score. One of Coward's surviving songs was "Parisian Pierrot", a tune that would be identified closely with Lawrence throughout her career. The show's success led its producer to create "André Charlot's London Revue of 1924", which he took to Broadway with Lawrence, Lillie, Buchanan and Constance Carpenter. It was so successful it moved to a larger theatre to accommodate the demand for tickets and extended its run. After it closed, the show toured the US and Canada, although Lawrence was forced to leave the cast when she contracted double pneumonia and pleurisy and was forced to spend fourteen weeks in a Toronto hospital recuperating. "Charlot's Revue of 1926", starring Lawrence, Lillie, and Buchanan, opened on Broadway in late 1925. In his review, Alexander Woollcott singled out Lawrence, calling her "the personification of style and sophistication" and "the ideal star." Like its predecessor, it toured following the Broadway run. It proved to be Lawrence's last project with Charlot. In November 1926, she became the first British performer to star in an American musical on Broadway when she opened in "Oh, Kay!", with music by George Gershwin, lyrics by Ira Gershwin, and a book by Guy Bolton and P.G. Wodehouse. Following a run of 256 performances, the musical opened in the West End, where it ran for 213 performances. In 1928, Lawrence returned to Broadway opposite Clifton Webb in "Treasure Girl", a Gershwin work she was confident would be a huge hit. Anticipating a long run, she arrived in New York with her daughter Pamela, a personal maid and two cars, and settled into a flat on Park Avenue. Her instincts about the musical were wrong; audiences had difficulty accepting her as an avaricious woman who double-crosses her lover, and it ran for only 68 performances. She starred opposite Leslie Howard in "Candle Light", an Austrian play adapted by Wodehouse, in 1929, and in 1931 she and Noël Coward triumphed in his play "Private Lives", first in the UK, and later on Broadway. Later stage career. In 1936, Lawrence and Coward starred in "", a cycle of ten one-act plays he had written specifically for the two of them. In 1937, she appeared in the Rachel Crothers drama "Susan and God", and in 1939 starred in "Skylark", a comedy by Samson Raphaelson. Lawrence felt the play needed work prior to opening on Broadway, and a run at the Cape Playhouse in Dennis, Massachusetts was arranged. The theatre was run by Harvard University graduate Richard Aldrich, and he and the actress became involved in a romantic relationship. The two wed on her birthday in 1940 and remained married until her death in 1952. They had homes in Dennis and in Turtle Bay. Manhattan. In 1941 Lawrence's daughter Pamela married a New York doctor named Bill Cahan. Lawrence was friendly with her son-in-law but lost contact with him after he and Pamela divorced. Lawrence did not have any grandchildren during her lifetime. Lawrence returned to the musical stage in "Lady in the Dark" in 1941. It originally had been planned as a play with recurrent musical themes for Katharine Cornell by Moss Hart, Kurt Weill and Ira Gershwin, but by the time the first act was completed it was clear it was very much a musical Cornell agreed was beyond her capability as a performer. Soon after Hart met Lawrence at a rehearsal for a revue designed to raise funds for British War Relief, and he offered her the role of Liza Elliott, a magazine editor undergoing psychoanalysis to better understand why both her professional and personal lives are filled with indecision. The show was very ambitious and stretched the star's talents for singing, dancing and acting. Her performance prompted Richard Watts of the "New York Herald Tribune" to call her "the greatest feminine performer in the American theatre," and Brooks Atkinson described her as "a goddess" in his review in the "New York Times". She remained with the show throughout its Broadway run and its subsequent national tour over the next three years. Decades later, Ira Gershwin told American songwriting historian Sheila Davis about a contribution Lawrence made to honing the lyrics of the song "My Ship" in "Lady in the Dark". "During a "Lady in the Dark" rehearsal," Davis wrote, "Gertrude Lawrence suddenly stopped singing midline and called out to Gershwin, who was monitoring from the orchestra, 'Why does she say 'I could wait "four" years' – why not five or six?' Of course, the line was 'I could wait "for" years.' The painstaking lyricist immediately substituted "the" to clarify the aural ambiguity." In 1945, Lawrence starred as Eliza Doolittle opposite Raymond Massey as Henry Higgins in a revival of "Pygmalion" by George Bernard Shaw, who initially resisted the idea of Lawrence playing the role. Following the Broadway run, she toured the United States (including a stint in Washington, D.C.) and Canada in the play until May 1947. Autobiography. In 1945, Lawrence published the autobiography "A Star Danced". Her longtime friend Noël Coward later suggested it was a romanticised and less than wholly factual account of her life. Although Lawrence claimed the work was solely hers, many suspected her business manager and attorney Fanny Holtzmann had written much of it. The author embarked on a cross-country tour of the United States to publicise her book, the first person ever to engage in such a promotion. World War II. Lawrence's second husband Richard Aldrich became a lieutenant in the United States Navy during World War II, during which time Lawrence had a standing invitation to perform for British troops from the head of the UK's Entertainments National Service Association. Her chief obstacle was getting from her home in Massachusetts to Britain. Aldrich was overseas at the time. In her 1945 memoir "A Star Danced", she recalled, "After weeks of more or less patient waiting, repeated timid, pleading, urgent and finally importunate requests to the authorities who rule such matters in Washington and London, and a rapid-fire barrage of telegrams, cables and telephone calls, it had happened. At last I had permission to do what I had been wanting desperately to do for four years—go to England and do my bit on a tour for E.N.S.A." Lawrence's attorney booked the actress on a British Airways charter flight from Washington, D.C. to an airfield near London that lasted 36 hours, including two refuelling stops. When Lawrence boarded the plane, she discovered that she, Ernest Hemingway and Beatrice Lillie were among the few passengers without diplomatic passports. Lawrence and Lillie were the only female passengers. Hours after landing near London, she performed with E.N.S.A. for British and American troops who, it turned out, had been deployed for the imminent D-Day landings in Normandy. Aldrich was in one of the squadrons of the U.S. Navy. Aldrich wrote in his 1954 biography of his recently deceased wife: She went over with the first E.N.S.A. unit to go into France, making the crossing in an LST (Landing Ship, Tank). Others in the party included Ivor Novello, Margaret Rutherford, Diana Wynyard and Bobbie Andrews. In her autobiography, "A Star Danced", she has given a graphic account of their landing on a Normandy beach and of the progress of her unit through the wrecked towns, where there was still no water or electricity. Shows were given in shell-torn cinemas and hastily lighted casinos. The physical discomforts – the sleeping in attics, the total lack of sanitation, the scanty and poor food – Gertrude could and did take as fortunes of war. What bothered her more was the breakdown in communications with me. Always dependent upon getting frequent letters from those she loved, she chafed and worried because no mail reached her. As Allied forces scored more victories in the South Pacific later that year, Lawrence endured long plane rides and dangerous conditions to perform for troops there. The Aldrich book includes a photograph of Lawrence and two unidentified performers standing next to a military plane in Angaur that had just transported them there from Ulithi. Professional and personal connection to Daphne du Maurier. In 1948, Lawrence returned to Britain to star in "September Tide", a play written specifically for her by Daphne du Maurier. Her role was that of a middle-aged Cornish woman whose son-in-law, a bohemian artist, falls in love with her. The playwright had intended her to open the play on Broadway, but Lawrence's husband thought it was too British for the American market. The London press paid scant attention to her return, and Lawrence was distressed to discover that in a country struggling to recover from the effects of World War II, the public no longer was as interested in the private lives of stage stars as it once had been. Prior to opening in the West End, the play toured Blackpool, Leeds, Liverpool and Manchester, where the frequently sparse audiences consisted primarily of elderly people who remembered Lawrence from her heyday. While on the road, she underwent erratic mood swings and frequently clashed with her fellow cast members, including actors Michael Gough and Bryan Forbes, and the crew. The play opened in London in mid-December 1948. Writing in "Punch", Eric Keown called her return "an occasion for rejoicing" but dismissed the play as "an artificial piece of conventional sentiment which leaves the actress's talents unused." She remained with the play until July 1949, then returned to the United States, where she performed her role for one week at her husband's theatre in Dennis. According to an authorised 1993 biography of the author and playwright by Margaret Forster, Lawrence and du Maurier became close friends during the London production of "September Tide". The nature of their relationship remained unclear following the 1989 death of du Maurier. Forster quotes du Maurier as saying the following about Lawrence circa 1949, "To be blatantly vulgar, anyone with a spice of imagination would prefer a divan with Gertrude to a double-bed with her." Lawrence biographer Sheridan Morley interviewed du Maurier for his 1981 book "Gertrude Lawrence". Du Maurier was quoted as saying she called Lawrence by the nickname "Cinders," short for Cinderella. Either while negotiating to appear in "September Tide" or rehearsing it, Lawrence stayed in "a flat in London somewhere," according to what du Maurier told Morley decades later. Boiling water in her tea kettle for a visitor was stressful for Lawrence. Du Maurier also told the biographer that she had forgotten all the dialogue she had written for "September Tide" and that shortly before her interview with Morley she had "been searching my shelves for a copy of the play. ... I cannot remember how Cinders looked, what she wore, far less what she said." Du Maurier's contribution to the Morley biography of Lawrence consists of little more than that. Nothing about a personal connection between Gertrude Lawrence and Daphne du Maurier was published during Lawrence's lifetime. Two years after Lawrence's death, her widower Richard Aldrich had this to say in a best-selling biography of his late wife, "Gertrude Lawrence as Mrs. A.":All her ingenuous traits, which could be annoying as well as endearing, would be swept away by her courage, her clear perception of truth, and the divine compassion which could flood her heart and lift her to the heights of nobility. I am sure that she was frequently bewildered by the rapidity and mutability of her own impulses. Possessed, as she was, of an intuitive rather than an analytical intelligence, I doubt that she really understood herself clearly, any more than did most of those who thought they knew her intimately. An exception in this regard was Daphne du Maurier. During those months in England "September Tide" was in production, Gertrude and Daphne formed a warm friendship, which continued unbroken after Gertrude's return to America. Daphne later returned the visit by being Gertrude's guest in New York. Daphne's subsequent best-selling novel "Mary Anne" was originally planned as a possible starring vehicle for Gertrude. It was chiefly from comments made later by Daphne that I was able to reconstruct the full picture of Gertrude's inner conflict during her stay in London. Daphne spoke of Gertrude's moodiness, her variability, her sense of vague self-dissatisfaction. To other English friends, Gertrude talked wistfully of wanting to remain in England, "where I belong." The King and I. In 1950, Lawrence's business manager and attorney Fanny Holtzmann was looking for a new property for her client when the 1944 Margaret Landon book "Anna and the King of Siam" was sent to her by the William Morris agent who represented Landon. He thought a stage adaptation of the book would be an ideal vehicle for the actress. Holtzmann agreed, but proposed a musical version would be better. Lawrence wanted Cole Porter to write the score, but when he proved to be unenthused by the suggestion, Holtzmann sent the book to Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II. Rodgers initially demurred because he felt Lawrence's vocal range was limited and she had a tendency to sing flat. But he realised the story had strong potential, and the two men agreed to write what ultimately became "The King and I". It opened on Broadway in March 1951, and Lawrence won the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical for her performance. Her triumph was short-lived; her health deteriorated rapidly, forcing her to miss numerous performances until she finally was hospitalised. While bedridden in NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital, on Friday afternoon, September 5, 1952, less than 24 hours before her death, she instructed Holtzmann to arrange for co-star Yul Brynner's name to be added to the marquee of the St. James Theatre, which included only Lawrence's name at the time. Film career. Over the course of twenty-one years, Lawrence appeared in only nine films. She made her screen debut in 1929 in "The Battle of Paris", which featured two songs by Cole Porter. Paramount Pictures offered her the film shortly after the Broadway production of "Treasure Girl" unexpectedly closed and, with no prospects of stage work in the immediate future, she accepted the offer. The film, co-starring Arthur Treacher and Charles Ruggles, was shot in Paramount's Astoria Studio complex in Astoria, Queens. Lawrence was cast as Georgie, an artist living in pre-World War I Paris, who becomes a cabaret singer and falls in love with an American soldier. Publicity for the film emphasised Lawrence's songs and costumes rather than the story, which was so weak that director Robert Florey had threatened to resign midway through filming. Described by one critic as a "floperetta," it was not a success. In 1932, she appeared in three features: an adaptation of the Frederick Lonsdale play "Aren't We All?" directed by Harry Lachman; "Lord Camber's Ladies", produced by Alfred Hitchcock, directed by Benn W. Levy, and co-starring Gerald du Maurier; and "No Funny Business" with Laurence Olivier. In 1935, she appeared in "Mimi", based on "La Vie de Bohème". The following year she was cast opposite Charles Laughton and Elsa Lanchester in "Rembrandt" and co-starred with Rex Harrison in "Men are Not Gods", both produced by Alexander Korda. In 1943, she filmed a short musical number for "Stage Door Canteen", a wartime film featuring dozens of stars entertaining Allied soldiers on leave. Lawrence's best-known American film role was that of Amanda Wingfield, the overbearing mother in "The Glass Menagerie" (1950), which both Bette Davis and Tallulah Bankhead had sought. The role required her to wear padding and affect a Southern American accent and friends and critics questioned her decision to accept it. Tennessee Williams, who had written the play, thought casting Lawrence was "a dismal error" and, after the film's release, called it the worst adaptation of his work he had seen thus far. Bosley Crowther of the "New York Times" called her Amanda "a farcically exaggerated shrew with the zeal of a burlesque comedienne" and "a perfect imitation of a nervous Mama in domestic comedy". Writing about her performance in "Saturday Review", Richard Griffith was generous in his praise, saying "Not since Garbo has there been anything like the naked eloquence of her face, with its amazing play of thought and emotion." Television and radio. In 1938, Lawrence took a night off from "Susan and God" to perform the play for NBC's emerging television audience, which then consisted mostly of customers at bars, hotels, pedestrians in other public places in New York City and NBC employees. Probably less than 100 – 200 receivers could pick up the telecast. Photos of the 1938 live broadcast are featured in a major article in Life (magazine) published a week later, as it was one of the first full-length plays done on live television. In 1943, Lawrence hosted a weekly series of American radio shows, some of them featuring discussions with guests and others adaptations of Hollywood hit films. In 1947, she returned to NBC for a production of the 1913 Shaw play "The Great Catherine". In order to promote "The King and I", she appeared on various television programmes, including the Ed Sullivan-hosted "Toast of the Town", with Rodgers and Hammerstein joining her to perform selections from the show. Additionally, she appeared on several BBC Radio interview and variety shows before and after World War II. Financial difficulties. Throughout her adult life, except during World War II, Lawrence spent far more than she earned. Philip Astley had persuaded her to place £1,000 in a trust fund for her daughter, but aside from that she had no savings of her own. During her engagement to Bert Taylor he managed her finances and encouraged her to invest in the productions in which she starred, but although she earned a considerable amount of money from "Private Lives", she still was deeply in debt, at one point owing fashion entrepreneur Hattie Carnegie more than $10,000. She opened accounts with dozens of shop owners but assumed she had unlimited credit and paid little attention to the invoices they sent. Finally two London laundry owners, whose bills totalled just under £50, filed a writ demanding she declare bankruptcy if she was unable to settle her accounts, and Lawrence's financial affairs came under the scrutiny of the Official Receiver. On February 26, 1935, the "Daily Mirror" reported her assets were valued at £1,879 but her liabilities were nearly £35,000, with an additional £10,000 owed to the Inland Revenue on her earnings in the United States. It was later discovered Lawrence had never paid American taxes either. Her flat, cars, clothing, and jewellery were seized by the court, and Lawrence, her maid and her dog were forced to move into a flat owned by her agent at the time. On November 8, 1935, accused of "gross extravagance," she was ordered to pay £50 per week to pay off her debts. (Holtzmann worked out an agreement whereby $150 would be deducted from her salary each week she worked in the States until her American tax debt was settled). Refusing to lower her standard of living, she decided to take film work during the day, appear on stage at night, and perform in late-night cabarets in order to support her spending habits and, much to the distress of her agent, she purchased a country house and farm in Buckinghamshire, then left it vacant while she remained in the US for a lengthy stay. When her agent questioned the wisdom of such a move, she reportedly asked him to investigate the cost of a swimming pool installation on the property. Columbia University. "Early in September ", wrote Lawrence's widower, "she calmly announced that she had accepted an appointment to the Faculty of Columbia University, in the School of Dramatic Arts, of which Dr. Milton Smith was Director. Her particular post was to conduct Class 107 in the Study of Roles and Scenes. The class met on Thursday afternoons in the Brander Matthews Theatre on Morningside Heights." "I shall be teaching an advanced, not an elementary course," Aldrich quoted her as saying in 1951. "Dr. Smith and I have screened all the students. They've had preliminary work in voice, speech and pantomime. Many of them are already working professionally in radio and television. But, more than that, if I can find one person of real talent and encourage and train him, I'll feel that I've done something worthwhile." "The New York Times" reported on September 28, 1951 that Lawrence "suffered an attack of stage fright yesterday and refused to let reporters observe her in her new role of teacher at Columbia University." She taught the class again in the spring 1952 semester at Columbia, this time allowing a "The New York Times" reporter and photographer to attend and take pictures. Death and funeral. On August 16, 1952, Lawrence fainted backstage immediately after finishing a Saturday matinee of "The King and I". After "a few days at home," wrote Aldrich, she was admitted to New York-Presbyterian Hospital for tests. Doctors said she was suffering from hepatitis, and she was admitted to a room on the 16th floor. Her former son-in-law, Dr. Bill Cahan, suspected liver cancer might be a more accurate diagnosis, and early on the morning of September 6, doctors performed a biopsy of her liver. Lawrence slipped into a coma, and her husband phoned Cahan, who rushed to the hospital. Lawrence, who had not seen Cahan in years, briefly opened her eyes, seemed puzzled by his presence, and then died. A subsequent autopsy confirmed that she did have cancer. Doctors performing the autopsy did not agree on whether the cancer had originated in the liver, but they did determine that she had cancer, not hepatitis. According to the "New York Times", 5,000 people crowded the intersection of East 55th Street and Fifth Avenue in Manhattan, while 1,800 others, including Yul Brynner, Connecticut Governor John Davis Lodge, Marlene Dietrich, Phil Silvers, Luise Rainer, Moss Hart and his wife Kitty Carlisle filled Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church for Lawrence's funeral. In his eulogy, Oscar Hammerstein II quoted from an essay on death written by poet and novelist Rabindranath Tagore. Lawrence was buried in the champagne-coloured gown worn for the "Shall We Dance?" number in the second act of "The King and I", and she was interred in the Aldrich family plot in Lakeview Cemetery in Upton, Massachusetts. Legacy. In early 1953, Lawrence's name was included on a list of Columbia University professors who had died the previous year and were honoured with a memorial service and flags on the campus lowered to half-mast. Richard Aldrich's biography of his late wife became a best-seller in late 1954 and 1955 and was purchased by Marilyn Monroe during a period when she stayed exclusively in New York and Connecticut, not California. Lawrence's biographer Sheridan Morley wrote in 1981 that throughout the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, "...most traces of Gertrude Lawrence ... disappeared; she died before television had begun to immortalise its artists on (video)tape, before radio shows were regularly recorded, and though she made half a dozen films, her appearances in them are mostly undistinguished and give no clear impression of a radiance which could hold theatre audiences spellbound." In 1968, Julie Andrews portrayed Lawrence in the musical biographical film "Star!", loosely based on the period of her life from her days as an unknown aspiring performer until her wedding to Richard Aldrich. Richard Crenna appeared as Aldrich. The real Aldrich, who in the 1960s no longer worked in the entertainment business, was a consultant on the film. Noël Coward was portrayed by Daniel Massey. Released at a time when the popularity of musical films was on the wane, it was a commercial failure; however, it was critically well received, and nominated for seven Academy Awards.
1674341	John Allen Paulos (born July 4, 1945) is an American professor of mathematics at Temple University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania who has gained fame as a writer and speaker on mathematics and the importance of mathematical literacy. Early life. Paulos grew up in Chicago, Illinois and Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He received his Ph.D. in mathematics from the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Career. His academic work is mainly in mathematical logic and probability theory. His book "Innumeracy: Mathematical Illiteracy and its Consequences" (1988) was an influential bestseller and "A Mathematician Reads the Newspaper" (1995) extended the critique.
582080	Aftab Shivadasani (, born 25 June 1978) is an Indian actor who appears in Bollywood films. He started as a child actor in commercials and has performed in over 40 films. He also co-wrote and helped produce the film "Aao Wish Karein". He started his career as a child artist in the movie Mr. India. Early life and background. Shivdasani was born in Mumbai to Prem and Putli Shivdasani. His father is a Hindu Sindhi while his mother is a Parsi. He has an older sister named Afsana Shivdasani. He studied at St. Xavier's High School, (Fort) located at Lokamanya Tilak Marg in Mumbai. He then graduated from H. R.College of Commerce in Mumbai. Career. 1987–1994: Child roles. Shivdasani was selected as the Farex baby (Baby food brand) at age 14 months and from that point on he appeared in many TV commercials. He made his Bollywood debut as a child actor in "Mr. India" (1987), then appearing in films such as "Shahenshah", "ChaalBaaz" and "Insaniyat". 1999–2008: Switch to adult roles and breakthrough. Shivdasani continued appearing in commercials till the age of 19 when he was offered a lead role in director Ram Gopal Varma's "Mast" opposite Urmila Matondkar while still studying at H.R. College. Shivdasani made his debut as an adult opposite Matondkar in "Mast". The film became an instant hit. In 2000, Shivdasani won the Zee Cine Award for Best Male Debut and the Star Screen Award for Most Promising Newcomer – Male for his performance in "Mast". He earned critical acclaim for his performance. Mohammad Ali Ikram of Planet Bollywood praised his performance and wrote "Newcomer Aftab Shivdasani comes across as a bit young and aimless when the movie opens, but as you watch the proceedings, you'll learn that this bit of casting makes perfect sense considering Kittu's immaturity and innocence." In 2001, Shivdasani made his comeback to acting with his second film, Vikram Bhatt’s "Kasoor" opposite the debutant Lisa Ray. Shivdasani played a negative role and shot to instant fame with his portrayal of Shekhar Saxena, a well-known journalist, who murders his wife. His performance in the film earned him a nomination for the Filmfare Best Villain Award and a Zee Cine Award for Best Actor in a Negative Role. Taran Adarsh of Bollywood Hungama noticed the improvement in his acting and praised his performance. "Aftab, as the suave publishing magnate, catches you unaware with a performance that is first-rate. His characterisation is dissimilar from the one he essayed in his debut-making venture "Mast". His work should catapult him to the league of genteel artists." His next release of that year saw him paired with Ram Gopal Varma again after "Mast" in "Love Ke Liye Kuch Bhi Karega", in which Shivdasani starred in a supporting role opposite Saif Ali Khan, Fardeen Khan, Twinkle Khanna and Sonali Bendre. Shivdasani's performance was applauded by Taran Adarsh and considered to be better than the other two heroes. Taran Adarsh wrote "Aftab plays to the gallery and gives a good account of himself. Aftab has an edge over the other two heroes because his character is mass appealing. His scenes with Johny Lever are simply superb." However, the film failed at the box office. His last release of the year was Rajiv Rai's "Pyaar Ishq Aur Mohabbat", in which Shivdasani played Taj Bharadwaj, one of the three lead roles with the debutant Arjun Rampal and Suniel Shetty opposite Kirti Reddy. Shivdasani was praised by Taran Adarsh. "Aftab Shivdasani has an edge thanks to his lovable characterisation. He is natural." Pankaj Shukla of SmasHits wrote "Aftab is impressive as usual and is fast maturing as an actor." In 2002, Shivdasani's first two films "Koi Mere Dil Se Poochhe" opposite debutant Esha Deol and "Kya Yehi Pyaar Hai" opposite Ameesha Patel were failures at the box office. His third release of that year was Rajkumar Kohli's multi-starrer supernatural horror "" that was his third consecutive flop. His fourth film of 2002 was the multi-starrer action comedy "Awara Paagal Deewana", that proved to be a successful movie and became the seventh highest grosser movie of that year. It was his only hit movie of 2002. His final release of that year was "Pyaasa". After an unsuccessful year of 2002, Shivdasani had some success in 2003 with the multi-starrer "Darna Mana Hai", which was a critical success. His role of Purab, a young college student who has the ability to stop and move people, was critically praised. His next release was Priyadarshan's comedy film "Hungama" opposite Akshaye Khanna and the debutant Rimi Sen, which was his second success of that year. His third and final release of that year was "Footpath" opposite Bipasha Basu, Rahul Dev and debutant Emraan Hashmi, which failed to do well at the box office. Shivdasani's first two releases of 2004 were "Suno Sasurjee" opposite Ameesha Patel, and "Muskaan" opposite Gracy Singh. Both films flopped at the box office. His third release of that year was Indra Kumar's comedy film ', in which he starred opposite Vivek Oberoi, Ritesh Deshmukh, Amrita Rao, Genelia D'Souza, Tara Sharma, Lara Dutta and Ajay Devgan. The film became a semi-hit. His last release of that year ' opposite Anupam Kher and Shriya Saran, which failed at the box office. In 2005, Shivdasani's films "Mr Ya Miss" opposite Antara Mali and "Koi Aap Sa" opposite Natassha flopped at the box office. All of Shivdasani's films were failures in 2006. Shivdasani found some success with multi-starrer films in 2007 and 2008. In 2009, Shivdasani appeared in "Acid Factory". Shivdasani's last release was 2012 super-hit 1920 Evil Returns in which he played the lead role opposite Twinkle Bajpai he is currently filming for the Grand Masti, a sequel to the 2003 blockbuster Masti. 2009–present: "Aao Wish Karein" and recent projects. In 2009, Shivdasani acted in "Aao Wish Karein", the first film produced under his production company, Rising Sun Entertainment. He helped co-write the script and also played the lead character, Mickey. In 2011, Shivdasani played the lead role in the comedy film "Bin Bulaye Baraati" opposite Priyanka Kothari. Awards and nominations. Wins Nominations
1099734	Herbert Ellis Robbins (January 12, 1915 – February 12, 2001) was one of the most prominent American mathematicians and statisticians of the 20th century. He did research in topology, measure theory, statistics, and a variety of other fields.
589181	Aan (Hindi: आन, Urdu: آن, translation: pride), also known as The Savage Princess in the U.S.A, is a 1952 Hindi film produced and directed by Mehboob Khan, which was India's first technicolour film, as it was shot in 16mm Gevacolour and was blown up in Technicolor. It stars Dilip Kumar, Premnath, Nimmi and marked the debut of Nadira who replaced the original choice which was actress Nargis. It was the highest grosser of 1952 [http://www.boxofficeindia.com/topactors.htm] and was the first to gross over Rs.15 million. This record was beaten 3 years later by "Shree 420" in 1955.
1048961	Toby Tyler is a film produced by Walt Disney Productions and distributed by Buena Vista Distribution Company on January 21, 1960. It is based on the 1880 children's book "Toby Tyler, or Ten Weeks with a Circus" by James Otis Kaler. It stars several actors best known for their work on the two pioneering Disney television shows of the late 1950s: Kevin Corcoran (better known as Moochie) from the Spin and Marty serials on "Mickey Mouse Club", and "Zorro" co-stars Henry Calvin and Gene Sheldon, who speaks in this movie. This was shot at Golden Oak Ranch in Newhall, California.
1181951	Ashley Allyn Roberts (born September 14, 1981) is an American singer, songwriter, dancer, choreographer, actress and television personality best known as a former member of the modern burlesque group the Pussycat Dolls. She left the Pussycat Dolls in 2010 to pursue a solo singing and acting career. She joined the judging panel of British reality television competition "Dancing on Ice" for series eight in January 2013, alongside Robin Cousins, Karen Barber, and Jason Gardiner. Roberts was a contestant in British reality television show "I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here!" in 2012, finishing as the runner-up, in one of the closest ever reality show finales where she received 49.44% against 50.56% of the final vote. Roberts tweeted of recording a debut solo album on June 16, 2012 and cites Goldie Hawn as one of her inspirations alongside Kate Moss, Sienna Miller and Gwen Stefani. Early life and career beginnings. Roberts was born in Phoenix, Arizona and attended Shadow Mountain High School. She is of Welsh descent. began dancing at the age of three and singing at eight. Her father was a drummer who played for The Mamas & the Papas, later becoming an auto dealer. Her mother was a Pilates instructor and they both inspired her to be a part of the entertainment industry. Her hair was brunette during her teenage years, as shown in Aaron Carter's "Oh Aaron" and "Not Too Young, Not Too Old" music video. During high school summer breaks she had traveled to California to study modern dance. After high school, she moved permanently to Los Angeles. She has appeared in television commercials and music videos such as Counting Crows "Accidentally in Love", Josh Groban's "You Raise Me Up", Jane's Addiction's "True Nature", Aaron Carter's "Oh Aaron" and "Not Too Young, Not Too Old" and Pink's "Trouble". She has also appeared in the game show "Rock and a Hard Place", hosted by Meatloaf, with fellow PCD members, Melody Thornton and Carmit Bachar. 2003–2010: The Pussycat Dolls and acting. Within six months of her move she had joined the Pussycat Dolls along with members Nicole Scherzinger, Melody Thornton, Carmit Bachar, Jessica Sutta and Kimberly Wyatt. She sang co-lead along with Carmit Bachar and Jessica Sutta in the "Stickwitu" single B-side, "Santa Baby". She also recorded a song called "Played" for the "Doll Domination Deluxe Edition". As with the other group members she is a salaried employee of Interscope Records.
1060400	Sir Ian Murray McKellen, CH, CBE (born 25 May 1939) is an English actor. Considered one of the greatest actors of his generation and one of the greatest British actors of all time, he is the recipient of six Laurence Olivier Awards, a Tony Award, a Golden Globe Award, two Academy Award nominations, four BAFTA nominations and five Emmy Award nominations, McKellen's work spans genres ranging from Shakespearean and modern theatre to popular fantasy and science fiction. Some of his most notable film roles include Gandalf in "The Lord of the Rings" and "The Hobbit" trilogies, Magneto in the "X-Men" films, and Sir Leigh Teabing in "The Da Vinci Code". McKellen was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1979, was knighted in 1991 for services to the performing arts, and was made a Companion of Honour for services to drama and to equality, in the 2008 New Year Honours. Early life. McKellen was born in Burnley, Lancashire, and was raised in Wigan, when his family moved there when he was 4 months old. Some modern day reports suggest he was brought up in Bolton, yet he lived there only from the age of 13. Born shortly before the outbreak of World War II, the experience had some lasting impact on him. In response to an interview question when an interviewer remarked that he seemed quite calm in the aftermath of the 11 September attacks, he said: "Well, darling, you forget—I slept under a steel plate until I was four years old." McKellen's father, Denis Murray McKellen, a civil engineer, was a lay preacher, and both of his grandfathers were preachers. His great-great-grandfather, James McKellen, was a "strict, evangelical Protestant minister" in Ballymena, County Antrim. At the time of Ian's birth, his parents already had a five-year-old daughter, Jean. His home environment was strongly Christian, but non-orthodox. "My upbringing was of low nonconformist Christians who felt that you led the Christian life in part by behaving in a Christian manner to everybody you met." When he was 12, his mother, Margery Lois ("née" Sutcliffe), died; his father died when he was 24. Of his coming out of the closet to his stepmother, Gladys McKellen, who was a member of the Religious Society of Friends, he said, "Not only was she not fazed, but as a member of a society which declared its indifference to people's sexuality years back, I think she was just glad for my sake that I wasn't lying anymore." McKellen attended Bolton School (Boys' Division), of which he is still a supporter, attending regularly to talk to pupils. McKellen's acting career started at Bolton Little Theatre, of which he is now the patron. An early fascination with the theatre was encouraged by his parents, who took him on a family outing to "Peter Pan" at the Opera House in Manchester when he was three. When he was nine, his main Christmas present was a wood and bakelite, fold-away Victorian theatre from Pollocks Toy Theatres, with cardboard scenery and wires to push on the cut-outs of Cinderella and of Laurence Olivier's Hamlet.
1047643	Roundhay Garden Scene is an 1888 short film directed by French inventor Louis Le Prince. It was recorded at 12 frames per second and runs for 2.11 seconds. It is the oldest surviving film in existence, noted by the Guinness Book of Records. Overview. According to Le Prince's son, Adolphe, it was filmed at "Oakwood Grange", the home of Joseph and Sarah Whitley, in Roundhay, Leeds, West Riding of Yorkshire, United Kingdom on October 14, 1888. It features Adolphe Le Prince, Sarah Whitley, Joseph Whitley and Harriet Hartley in the garden, walking around. Note that Sarah is walking backwards as she turns around, and that Joseph's coat tails are flying as he also is turning. Sarah Whitley was Le Prince's mother-in-law being the mother of John Whitley and Le Prince's wife Elizabeth Whitley LePrince. Sarah Whitley died ten days after the scene was taken. Remastered footage. In 1930 the National Science Museum (NSM), London, produced photographic copies of remaining parts from the 1888 filmstrip. This sequence was recorded on an 1885 Eastman Kodak paper base photographic film through Le Prince's single-lens combi camera-projector. Le Prince's son, Adolphe, stated that the Roundhay Garden movie was shot at 12 frames/s (and the second movie, "Traffic Crossing Leeds Bridge", at 20 frames/s), however the later digital remastered version of Roundhay Garden produced by the National Media Museum, Bradford, comprises 52 frames and is only 2.11 seconds long, as the film runs at 24.64 frames/s, the modern cinematographic frame-rate. The National Science Museum copy has 20 frames; at 12 frames/s, this would produce a run time of 1.66 seconds.
1064374	The White Ribbon is a 2009 black-and-white German-language drama film written and directed by Michael Haneke. Das weiße Band, Eine deutsche Kindergeschichte (literally, "The White Ribbon, a German Children's Story") darkly depicts society and family in a northern German village just before World War I and, according to Haneke, "is about the roots of evil. Whether it’s religious or political terrorism, it’s the same thing." The film premiered at the 62nd Cannes Film Festival in May 2009 where it won the Palme d'Or, followed by positive reviews and several other major awards, including the 2010 Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Language Film. The film also received two nominations at the 82nd Academy Awards in 2009: Best Foreign Language Film (representing Germany) and Best Cinematography (Christian Berger). Plot. The memories of an unnamed elderly tailor form a parable from the distant year he worked as a village schoolteacher and met his fiancée Eva, who served as nanny to the twins of a local baron. The setting is the fictitious Protestant village of Eichwald, Germany, from July 1913 through August 1914, where the local pastor, the doctor and the baron rule the roost over the area's women, children and peasant farmers.
1064536	Maddie Corman (born August 15, 1970) is an American television actress. She has appeared in the films "Seven Minutes in Heaven", "Some Kind of Wonderful" and "The Adventures of Ford Fairlane". Career. Born Madeleine Cornman in Manhattan, New York, she began her career as a child actress in the 1980s. Corman's first television appearance was in the 1985 "ABC Afterschool Special" episode "I Want to Go Home" opposite John Getz, Seth Green and Marge Redmond. That same year she was cast in the Linda Feferman-directed teen comedy-drama motion picture "Seven Minutes in Heaven". Corman starred opposite actress Jennifer Connelly as 'Polly Franklin', Connelly's characters intervening and overzealous best friend who is in love with a Major League baseball player named Zoo Knudsen (Billy Wirth). In 1987, Corman appeared in the John Hughes-penned teen film "Some Kind of Wonderful" opposite Eric Stoltz, Mary Stuart Masterson, Lea Thompson, Elias Koteas, Craig Sheffer, Candace Cameron and Chynna Phillips. Maddie Corman played the character of 'Laura Nelson', the irritating and trouble-making little sister to Keith Nelson (Stoltz). Her follow up film was the 1990 Renny Harlin-directed comedy "The Adventures of Ford Fairlane" opposite Andrew "Dice" Clay, Priscilla Presley, Wayne Newton, Lauren Holly and Gilbert Gottfried. Throughout the 1990s and 2000s, Corman has frequently appeared on numerous popular American television series. She has made several appearances as various characters on the television drama "Law & Order" and the HBO comedy "Tracey Takes On..." opposite comedienne Tracey Ullman. She had a recurring role as Ruthie on the ABC comedy series "All American Girl" (1994–1995) starring Margaret Cho. She has also appeared small roles in such films as "Swingers" (1996), "Mickey Blue Eyes" (1999) and "Maid in Manhattan" (2002). Personal life. Corman wed Jason "Jace" Alexander, a television and stage director on September 6, 1998, in Carmel, New York. She counts actor Eric Stoltz, with whom she appeared in "Some Kind of Wonderful", as a personal friend. Jace and Maddie have three children.
629377	Swimming Upstream is a 2003 Australian film written by Tony Fingleton and directed by Russell Mulcahy. It stars Jesse Spencer, Geoffrey Rush, and Judy Davis. It shows the life of Fingleton (Spencer) from childhood to adulthood, and dealing with a topsy-turvy family. It is based on Fingleton's autobiography of the same name. The film also stars "Good Game" host Steven O'Donnell in a minor role as a lifeguard. Box Office. "Swimming Upstream" grossed $896,785 at the box office in Australia.
1166193	William Remington Moses (born November 17, 1959) is an American actor. Life and career. Early life. Moses was born in Los Angeles, California. He is the son of the late actress Marian McCargo (1932–2004) and advertising executive Richard Cantrell Moses, Sr., who divorced in 1963. Marian remarried in 1970 to the former Republican Congressman Alphonzo Bell, Jr. (1914–2004). Alphonso adopted Billy and his brothers Rick and Harry. William briefly attended Wesleyan University. Career. Moses is probably best known for playing Cole Gioberti in the 1980s prime-time soap opera "Falcon Crest", from 1981 to 1987. Following six seasons on "Falcon Crest", he co-starred in the early Julia Roberts film "Mystic Pizza" in 1988. He then co-starred with Raymond Burr as private investigator Ken Malansky in the various "Perry Mason" television movies from 1989 to 1995. Moses returned to soap opera in 1992–93 when he played the recurring role of Keith Gray on "Melrose Place". He made appearances in two "Adventures of Mary-Kate and Ashley" short films, "The Case of the Mystery Cruise" and "The Case of the Sea World Adventure", both in 1995. In 1997, he played David Graysmark in the short-lived series "Fame L.A." He also appeared in various television movies including "Alone With a Stranger" (2000), and "Christmas Child" (2004). Since 2005, he has appeared as Jack Davis in nine of the "Jane Doe" movies on the Hallmark Channel.
583409	Luv Ka The End ("The End of Luv") is a 2011 Hindi film directed by Bumpy, starring Shraddha Kapoor and Taaha Shah in the lead roles. The film was the first production of Y-Films, a subsidiary of Yash Raj Films and released to mostly positive reviews on 6 May 2011. The film is also loosely based on 2009 American film Wild Cherry. It was a below average at the box office. This movie was inspired by 2006 Hollywood movie "John Tucker Must Die". Plot. Rhea (Shraddha Kapoor) has just done her JC (Junior College) and she already fancies herself marrying her charming, rich boyfriend Luv Nanda (Taaha Shah) who in turn, fancies winning this contest called BBC (Billionaire Boys Club), which is a rage amongst billionaire boys. It is seen that the boys upload videos of themselves with girls, while making out and stuff, on the website, and the more you do so more you get the points. Luv Nanda was going to become the highest scorer that year. This was shown to Rhea by the brother of a friend of Rhea. The only way for Luv to win this contest was to get Rhea into bed with him on her 18th birthday eve as, this would've provided him another 1,000 points, which would've propelled his profile to untouchable heights for that year. She goes along naively until she realises that it's not love but points that Luv wants to score. Now out to get him by the balls, she has a plan up her sleeve with her gal pals. Rhea makes a pact with Minty (her sister) and then goes to take everything from Luv Nanda by which he attracts girls (who now wants to have Natasha in place of Rhea). She breaks his car, screws his date with Natasha as she accidentally eats the cupcake which was meant for Luv and she is forced to go to toilet in public road, spikes his drink with a kind of drug after which, comes the famous Mutton Song where, Luv dances in a bar, dressed up like a girl. Then, at Golu's party, where Freddy Kapoor (Ali Zafar) came to play, she takes Luv to a room where hidden cameras were put to shoot the whole proceeding. Luv, who's found out about Rhea's plan, ties Rhea's hands. But, she unties herself and sprays pepper-spray on Luv and proceeds to tell him that, though girls don't have balls, they sure do know how to kick them after which, she kicks Luv's balls. When she comes out of the room, she finds everyone cheering for her. The film proceeds to have Freddie Kapoor drop Rhea at her home and asking Rhea for a date to which Rhea replies by telling him to call her. In a semi post-credits scene, we see Timmy telling Luv that he (Timmy) is gay and he knows that so is Luv (part of the plan of the girls) and jumps on him after lowering his pants. Soundtrack. The music is composed by Ram Sampath. Lyrics are penned by Amitabh Bhattacharya.The Music got mixed review from the critics. Bollywood Hungama gave the music 2.5 stars, stating that it was an album for people looking from a break from the usual Bollywood flare. Production. Development. On 1 April 2011 the film was unveiled publicly as the first production venture of Y-Films and the cast of the film met the press along with the actors from Y-Films' other two ventures, "Mujhse Fraaandship Karoge" and "Virus Diwan". Reception. Critical reception. "Luv Ka The End" opened to positive reviews across India. Taaha Shah and Shraddha Kapoor managed to get rave reviews from most critics. The rest of the characters also were highly praised for their performance. The newcomers showed tremendous confidence and were bang on in their portrayal of the different characters that they played. Pushtiie Shakti who played Jugs in the film was highly praised. Errol Peter Marks who plays gollu was praised by Taran Adarsh. Meherzan Mazda of Seven fame was also appreciated for his portrayal of a Gym Freak. Taran Adarsh of Bollywood Hungama gave the film 3.5 out of 5 stars. VJ Archana gave the film 4 on 5 stars calling it a crazy fun ride. RJ Jeeturaj praised the film for its freshness, execution and approach. Yahoo movies gave the film 3 out of 5 stars. Nikhat Kazmi of Times of India rated it 2 out of 5 and wrote – "The film scores only in some of its performances (Shraddha Kapoor's gang) and might appeal to young collegiates who want to miss a few boring tutorials". Entertainment portal FilmiTadka stated – "Luv Ka The End" is like what Rock music (not in the good sense) is to a Jazz lover, instead of a solid script, the director has tried to fill in voids with noise. Song 'Mutton' to me will the most vulgar song of this year, we at FilmiTadka give it 1.5 out of 5 stars. Anupama Chopra of NDTV said – "Sensibility of this film is not youthful, it's juvenile. And that's before you get to the part where Luv, under the influence of some pill, dresses in drag and breaks into a song that goes: Mera jism, jism, mera badan, badan, main hun taza mutton mutton, khol dilon ke button button. I’m not sure what demographic that is aimed at but it definitely not for me. I’m going with one and a half star".
583936	Madrasapattinam () () is a 2010 Indian Tamil period drama film, written and directed by A. L. Vijay. The film stars Arya and Amy Jackson, while Nassar, Cochin Hanifa and Alexx O'Nell play other prominent roles. The film released on July 9, 2010. It received critical acclaim and became commercially successful as well. It was later dubbed into Telugu and released in Andhra Pradesh as "1947: A Love Story". Plot. An elderly English woman Amy Wilkinson (Carole Trangmar-Palmer), almost at her deathbed in London, wants to come down to Madras in search of a young man Ilam Parithi (Arya) whom she last saw on 15 August 1947 to return a "thali" (traditional wedding threads) of his mother, which he gave her as a sign of stating that she belongs to India and nobody can separate them. However, after a turn of events, she had married another man from her hometown and thus felt that the "thali" was no longer her property. Amy Wilkinson arrives in Madras with her granddaughter Catherine (Lisa Lazarus), equipped only with a picture of Parithi that was taken sixty years ago. Wilkinson interrogates various people about Parithi's whereabouts. In the process, she recalls the events when she had first visited Chennai, and the chain of events that took place: A young Amy (Amy Jackson), the daughter of the Madras Presidency Governor, visits Chennai (then called Madrasapattinam) along with her translator Nambi (Cochin Hanifa) and encounters Parithi, whom she calls "brave man". Parithi, a member of the dhobi (launderer) clan is also an experienced wrestler who trains under Ayyakanu (Nassar). He openly opposes the British officials who attempt to build a golf course in the dhobi clan's dwelling place. He challenges a cruel racist officer named Robert Ellis (Alexx O'Nell), who is also Amy's suitor, to a wrestling match to decide the fate of his clan's home. Parithi is successful, and Ellis vows revenge. Following a series of secret meetings between Parithi and Amy, love blossoms between them, and Parithi affectionately calls her "Duraiyamma", a polite term of addressing British women. However a major threat comes in the form of independence for India on August 15, 1947, which means that all White officials and their families, including Amy, would have to leave India. On the eve of independence, all of India is celebrating. However Amy and Parithi, determined to be together, run away and are hunted by an angry Ellis and his force. An Indian policeman helps the two of them by hiding them in a clock tower on top of the Madras Central Railway Station, but they are discovered by Ellis. After a fierce fight, Ellis is killed and Parithi is badly wounded. Amy helps Parithi to escape by casting him with a life-raft into the Coovum river, before she is captured and taken back to London. She had never known if Parithi survived, or what his fate was. Back in the present, Wilkinson is urgently called back to London to have a life-saving operation. But she is determined to find Parithi and, by chance, encounters a taxi driver who assumes that she would want to visit a charitable trust named Duraiyamma Foundation. The driver shows her around the foundation, which has organisations providing free housing, education and medical care (which were all promised to the dhobi children by the young Amy several years ago). She realizes that the Duraiyamma Foundation was established by Ilam Parithi, and named after her. Then When she asks the driver what became of Parithi, he leads her to his tomb, and reveals that he died twelve years ago. She kneels before the tomb and claims the "thali" (nuptial threads) as her own. She declares "It's mine!" before quietly passing away on Parithi's tomb. Her granddaughter mourns for her, and the taxi driver is dumbfounded to learn that the old woman was "Duraiyamma" herself. The epilogue shows Parithi and Amy (as they were in their younger days) in the afterlife, depicted as a 1940's-style Madrasapattinam. As the credits roll, a series of montage images are shown, illustrating the transformation of Madrasapattinam of the 1940s to modern-day Chennai. Production. Development. Vijay revealed that "Madrasapattinam" was supposed to happen later in his career, but the intervention of producer Kalpathi S. Aghoram helped realise the viability of the film earlier. Vijay had first explored the script in his college days and drew inspiration from an English professor who used to talk to us about the freedom movement a lot, furthering Vijay's interest in history. He visualizes about the people who lived in the pre-independence period of India and explored the concept of how it would have been if an English girl fell in love with an Indian boy, laying the foundations for the script. The script took six months to write, with leading Tamil writer Prabanjan and visits to see independence veterans being helpful in understanding the history of the city of Madras between 1945 and 1947. Casting. Arya was finalised to play the lead role and English Miss Teen World winner Amy Jackson was selected after Vijay found a picture of her on the internet and tracked her down. Filming. Despite being a period film, the film was finished in eight months and released in July 2010. Soundtrack. The soundtrack of "Madrasapattinam" was composed by G. V. Prakash Kumar and was released on April 4, 2010 by Kamal Haasan. Lyrics were penned by Na. Muthukumar. The songs received positive reviews and became a hit. Tamil Tracklist Telugu Tracklist Reception. Critical response. "Madarasapattinam" received generally positive reviews in Tamil Nadu. "Indiaglitz" wrote: "Away from the madding crowd of commercial cliches, "Madarasapattinam" is a film that would send positive vibes among those who love meaningful films." "Galatta.com" wrote: "With a brilliant crew consisting of talents from India and abroad, "Madrasapattinam" transcends the language boundaries and takes Tamil cinema to the world arena!" "Sify" stated that the film was a "brave attempt on the part of its makers". The film's Telugu dubbed version "1947 A Love Story" has received positive reviews from critics, who have added that it might not do well at the box office. Fullhyd.com rated it 5.5 out of 10, calling it a film that looks as beautiful as the erstwhile Madras town in which it is set, but also said that despite being a near-perfect concoction of romance, action, drama and comedy, it is a little too slow and sober for the festive season (during which it was released). 123telugu.com rated the movie 3 out of 5, appreciating its art direction, but saying that it doesn't aim too high in terms of its content. Haricharan item Pudipeddi of nowrunning.com gave it 3 stars out of 5, and said that succeeds in painting one of the cutest love stories of the recent past. Box office. "Madharasapattinam" sold 6.4 million tickets worldwide. The film opened and stayed at No.1 in Chennai box office charts for 3 weeks.
1016172	Raped by an Angel a.k.a. "Naked Killer 2" (香港奇案之強姦; pinyin: Xiang Gang qi an zhi qiang jian) is a 1993 Category III Hong Kong film directed by Andrew Lau, with a scenario by Wong Jing. Prequel and sequel. Alternatively titled "Naked Killer 2" a.k.a. "Legal Rape" a.k.a. "Super Rape", the movie is a semi-sequel of the 1992 "Naked Killer", directed by Clarence Fok Yiu-leung. In fact, the main link between the two films is the reunion of Simon Yam and Chingmy Yau, who play different roles. It was followed by four other movies: "Raped by an Angel" 1, 3 and 4 are rated in Category III, while 2 and 5 are rated in Category IIB.
1102288	Sir William Rowan Hamilton (midnight, 3-4 August 1805 – 2 September 1865) was an Irish physicist, astronomer, and mathematician, who made important contributions to classical mechanics, optics, and algebra. His studies of mechanical and optical systems led him to discover new mathematical concepts and techniques. His greatest contribution is perhaps the reformulation of Newtonian mechanics, now called Hamiltonian mechanics. This work has proven central to the modern study of classical field theories such as electromagnetism, and to the development of quantum mechanics. In mathematics, he is perhaps best known as the inventor of quaternions. Hamilton is said to have shown immense talent at a very early age. Astronomer Bishop Dr. John Brinkley remarked of the 18-year-old Hamilton, 'This young man, I do not say "will be", but "is", the first mathematician of his age.' Life. William Rowan Hamilton's scientific career included the study of geometrical optics, classical mechanics, adaptation of dynamic methods in optical systems, applying quaternion and vector methods to problems in mechanics and in geometry, development of theories of conjugate algebraic couple functions (in which complex numbers are constructed as ordered pairs of real numbers), solvability of polynomial equations and general quintic polynomial solvable by radicals, the analysis on Fluctuating Functions (and the ideas from Fourier analysis), linear operators on quaternions and proving a result for linear operators on the space of quaternions (which is a special case of the general theorem which today is known as the "Cayley–Hamilton theorem"). Hamilton also invented ""icosian calculus"", which he used to investigate closed edge paths on a dodecahedron that visit each vertex exactly once. Early life. Hamilton was the fourth of nine children born to Sarah Hutton (1780–1817) and Archibald Hamilton (1778–1819), who lived in Dublin at 38 Dominick Street. Hamilton's father, who was from Dunboyne, worked as a solicitor. By the age of three, Hamilton had been sent to live with his uncle James Hamilton, a graduate of Trinity College who ran a school in Talbots Castle. His uncle soon discovered that Hamilton had a remarkable ability to learn languages.
591996	Pallavi Anupallavi is a Kannada film released in 1983, in which Indian director Mani Ratnam made his directorial debut. The movie starred Anil Kapoor in his first leading role. The film deals with an unconventional plot of a male in love with an older female played by the popular actress Lakshmi. Another South Indian director, Balu Mahendra, was the cinematographer for this movie. The soundtrack was composed by Ilaiyaraaja.The film was not a commercial success but was critically acclaimed. Plot. Having pledged his love for Madhu (Kiran Vairale), Vijay (Anil Kapoor) finds himself entwined in a close friendship with Anu (Lakshmi), a married woman separated from her husband. Vijay grapples with the definition of love, treading the fine line between trust and attraction, amidst tremendous societal pressures. He is confused whether he loves Anu, an older woman, yet knows that Madhu is ready to accept him as a husband. Amid all this is his youthful streak of rebellion, ready to take on the world despite the taboos attached.
1100680	CORDIC (for COordinate Rotation DIgital Computer), also known as the digit-by-digit method and Volder's algorithm, is a simple and efficient algorithm to calculate hyperbolic and trigonometric functions. It is commonly used when no hardware multiplier is available (e.g., simple microcontrollers and FPGAs) as the only operations it requires are addition, subtraction, bitshift and table lookup. Origins. The modern CORDIC algorithm was first described in 1959 by Jack E. Volder. It was developed at the aeroelectronics department of Convair to replace the analog resolver in the B-58 bomber's navigation computer. Although CORDIC is similar to mathematical techniques published by Henry Briggs as early as 1624, it is optimized for low complexity finite state CPUs. John Stephen Walther at Hewlett-Packard further generalized the algorithm, allowing it to calculate hyperbolic and exponential functions, logarithms, multiplications, divisions, and square roots. Originally, CORDIC was implemented using the binary numeral system. In the 1970s, decimal CORDIC became widely used in pocket calculators, most of which operate in binary-coded-decimal (BCD) rather than binary. CORDIC is particularly well-suited for handheld calculators, an application for which cost is much more important than speed (e.g., chip gate count has to be minimized). Also the CORDIC subroutines for trigonometric and hyperbolic functions can share most of their code. Applications. The beauty of CORDIC lies in the fact that by simple shift-add operations, it can perform several computing tasks such as the calculation of trigonometric, hyperbolic and logarithmic functions, real and complex multiplications, division, square-root calculation, solution of linear systems, eigenvalue estimation, singular value decomposition, QR factorization and many others. As a consequence, CORDIC has been utilized for applications in diverse areas such as signal and image processing, communication systems, robotics and 3-D graphics apart from general scientific and technical computation. Hardware. CORDIC is generally faster than other approaches when a hardware multiplier is not available (e.g.,a microcontroller), or when the number of gates required to implement the functions it supports should be minimized (e.g., in an FPGA). On the other hand, when a hardware multiplier is available (e.g., in a DSP microprocessor), table-lookup methods and power series are generally faster than CORDIC. In recent years, the CORDIC algorithm has been used extensively for various biomedical applications, especially in FPGA implementations. Software. Many older systems with integer-only CPUs have implemented CORDIC to varying extents as part of their IEEE Floating Point libraries. As most modern general-purpose CPUs have floating-point registers with common operations such as add, subtract, multiply, divide, sin, cos, square root, log10, natural log, the need to implement CORDIC in them with software is nearly non-existent. Only microcontroller or special safety and time-constrained software applications would need to consider using CORDIC. Mode of operation: rotation mode. CORDIC can be used to calculate a number of different functions. This explanation shows how to use CORDIC in "rotation mode" to calculate the sine and cosine of an angle, and assumes the desired angle is given in radians and represented in a fixed point format. To determine the sine or cosine for an angle formula_1, the "y" or "x" coordinate of a point on the unit circle corresponding to the desired angle must be found. Using CORDIC, we would start with the vector formula_2: In the first iteration, this vector is rotated 45° counterclockwise to get the vector formula_4. Successive iterations rotate the vector in one or the other direction by size-decreasing steps, until the desired angle has been achieved. Step "i" size is arctan(1/(2"i"−1)) for "i" = 1, 2, 3, …. More formally, every iteration calculates a rotation, which is performed by multiplying the vector formula_5 with the rotation matrix formula_6: The rotation matrix is given by: Using the following two trigonometric identities: the rotation matrix becomes: The expression for the rotated vector formula_11 then becomes: where formula_13 and formula_14 are the components of formula_5. Restricting the angles formula_16 so that formula_17 takes on the values formula_18, the multiplication with the tangent can be replaced by a division by a power of two, which is efficiently done in digital computer hardware using a bit shift. The expression then becomes: where and formula_21 can have the values of −1 or 1, and is used to determine the direction of the rotation; if the angle formula_22 is positive then formula_21 is +1, otherwise it is −1. formula_24 can be ignored in the iterative process and then applied afterward with a scaling factor: which is calculated in advance and stored in a table, or as a single constant if the number of iterations is fixed. This correction could also be made in advance, by scaling formula_2 and hence saving a multiplication. Additionally it can be noted that: to allow further reduction of the algorithm's complexity. After a sufficient number of iterations, the vector's angle will be close to the wanted angle formula_28. For most ordinary purposes, 40 iterations ("n" = 40) is sufficient to obtain the correct result to the 10th decimal place. The only task left is to determine if the rotation should be clockwise or counterclockwise at each iteration (choosing the value of formula_29). This is done by keeping track of how much the angle was rotated at each iteration and subtracting that from the wanted angle; then in order to get closer to the wanted angle formula_28, if formula_31 is positive, the rotation is clockwise, otherwise it is negative and the rotation is counterclockwise. The values of formula_33 must also be precomputed and stored. But for small angles, formula_34 in fixed point representation, reducing table size. As can be seen in the illustration above, the sine of the angle formula_28 is the "y" coordinate of the final vector formula_36, while the "x" coordinate is the cosine value. Mode of operation: vectoring mode. The rotation-mode algorithm described above can rotate any vector (not only a unit vector aligned along the x axis) by an angle between –90° and +90°. Decisions on the direction of the rotation depend on formula_22 being positive or negative. The vectoring-mode of operation requires a slight modification of the algorithm. It starts with a vector the x coordinate of which is positive and the y coordinate is arbitrary. Successive rotations have the goal of rotating the vector to the x axis (and therefore reducing the y coordinate to zero). At each step, the value of "y" determines the direction of the rotation. The final value of formula_22 contains the total angle of rotation. The final value of "x" will be the magnitude of the original vector scaled by "K". So, an obvious use of the vectoring mode is the transformation from rectangular to polar coordinates. Software implementation. The following is a MATLAB/GNU Octave implementation of CORDIC that does not rely on any transcendental functions except in the precomputation of tables. If the number of iterations "n" is predetermined, then the second table can be replaced by a single constant. The two-by-two matrix multiplication represents a pair of simple shifts and adds. With MATLAB's standard double-precision arithmetic and "format long" printout, the results increase in accuracy for "n" up to about 48.
520520	Sharmaine Ruffa Rama Gutierrez (born June 24, 1974) is a Filipina model, beauty queen and actress. She was the 1992 Look of the Year-Philippines, Binibining Pilipinas World 1993 and second runner-up to Miss World 1993. Early life. Gutierrez began acting as a teen in the 1980s, under BMG Films. She became part of German Moreno's "That's Entertainment" in the early 1990s before becoming a beauty queen in 1993. As the official representative of her country to the 1993 Miss World pageant held in Sun City, South Africa on November 27, Gutierrez won the title of Miss World Asia & Oceania and placed second runner-up to winner, Lisa Hanna of Jamaica. Her wardrobe, costume, accessories and travel expenses were funded by the Crown Prince of Brunei. Personal life. She is the daughter of actor, Eddie Gutierrez and talent manager, Annabelle Rama. She has two half-brothers (Tonton Gutierrez and Ramon Christopher) from her father's previous relationships. She has five siblings: Elvis Gutierrez, Rocky, Ritchie Paul, and twin brothers Raymond Gutierrez and Richard Gutierrez. Gutierrez was secretly married to Richard Daloia on January 19, 1999. In 2003, she married Turkish businessman Yilmaz Bektas. They had two children, Lorin Gabriella and Venice. They announced their separation through a joint statement on May 8, 2007.
744525	Manu Bennett (born 10 October 1969), also known as John Bennett or Jon Bennett, is an actor from New Zealand who has appeared in television series and movies. He is best known for his role as Crixus, the Undefeated Gaul in the American Starz television series "Spartacus", about the uprising started by the gladiator Spartacus in the Roman Republic. He also had roles playing the villain Azog in "The Hobbit" and as Slade Wilson in "Arrow", a series about the superhero Green Arrow. Early life. Born in New Zealand, Bennett's mother was an Australian bikini model, his father a New Zealand singer. The family moved to Australia when Bennett was a few months old. On his father's side, Bennett is of Māori (specifically Te Arawa and Ngāti Kahungunu) and Irish descent. His mother is of Scottish and Spanish ancestry. He was raised mostly between Sydney and Newcastle, Australia. In 1986, Bennett returned to New Zealand to attend Te Aute College, where he played for the 1st XV. Upon returning to Australia, Bennett was chosen in the New South Wales Schoolboys Rugby Union Team. Interested in modern dancing, classical ballet and piano, Bennett quit rugby to attend university to study dance and drama, then travelled to Los Angeles on a scholarship to attend the Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute. Career. Bennett's professional acting career began in 1993 in the teen soap "Paradise Beach". He then played guest roles in other Australian TV dramas, including "Water Rats", "All Saints", and "Beastmaster". Bennett then starred alongside Claudia Karvan in the mini series "The Violent Earth", produced by French company Gaumont. In 1996, Bennett participated in theater. In an open air production of " Lady Chatterley's Lover", based on D. H. Lawrence's novel, directed by Australian film/theatre director Robert Chuter, he played the title role, the gamekeeper Oliver Mellors. In 1999, Bennett landed his first leading role in a feature film named "Tomoko", shot on location in Tokyo, starring opposite Rumiko Koyanagi. In 2000, Bennett starred in "" as Marc Antony, then scored a role opposite Without A Trace star Anthony La Paglia, where Bennett displayed his dancing skills as a salsa dance teacher in the award-winning Australian film, "Lantana". Bennett returned to New Zealand in 2000 to appear in the popular television drama, "Shortland Street", then went on to play a cop turned lawyer in "Street Legal" before working with his director cousin Michael Bennett on the Māori Twilight Zone styled series "Mataku" before working with Richard Taylor from the Academy Award winning firm Weta Workshop on "Creature Quest". In 2003, Bennett hosted Going Straight, a New Zealand reality show. In 2006, Bennett was cast in "The Marine" alongside WWE wrestling star John Cena and Robert Patrick. In 2007, Bennett was cast as one of ten convicts alongside Stone Cold Steve Austin and Vinnie Jones in "The Condemned". In 2006, Bennett was cast opposite Josh Hartnett to play Deputy Billy Kitka in the US film "30 Days of Night". In 2010, Bennett co-starred in the new American television series "", about the defiant gladiator Spartacus. Bennett played the key role of Crixus, Champion of Capua. He was the only cast member of the show, starring on all three seasons, and the prequel . In 2012, he played the villain Azog the Defiler in "". In November 2012, Bennett was cast in the first season of "Arrow" as Slade Wilson, and in March 2013, he was promoted to series regular for the second season. Personal life. Bennett and long-time fiancee, Israeli socialite Karin Horen have three daughters: 7 year old Huia, 2 year old Mokoia and 1 year old Pania as of 2013.
582157	Kay Kay Menon (; K. K. Menon) is an Indian film actor who works in Hindi cinema. Early life. Menon was raised in Ambarnath and Pune, Maharashtra. His early life was in "H" type Rangehills, Khadki which were factory quarters for those working in the ammunition and high explosives factories. His father was popularly known as "Cashier Menon". His parents moved from Kerala to Mumbai when he was very young. Kichu, as Menon was known among friends, studied at the St. Josephs Boys' High School in Khadki. He passed his 10th grade in 1981. He did his Bachelors (Physics) from Mumbai University and his MBA from the Department of Management Sciences(PUMBA) at the University of Pune, graduating in 1988 with a major in marketing. He was popular in his class as a singer of ghazals. Career. Menon's initial focus was working in the advertising industry. He was involved in the first Kinetic Honda and Marlboro cigarette advertisements in India. He started his career in theatre productions where he met his wife, Nivedita Bhattacharya. He gradually moved to television acting and finally film acting. He made his film debut with "Naseem" (1995), followed by "Bhopal Express". During his struggling days, he was a regular feature at the Lunar Cafe, a small restaurant near the Santa-Cruz (East) bus stand. In the early years of his career, Menon worked in TV shows such as "Pradhan Mantri" and TV movies like "Zebra 2" and "Last Train To Mahakali". Menon was first noticed in "Hazaaron Khwaishein Aisi", where he was greatly appreciated with fellow newcomer Shiney Ahuja, and received much acclaim for his performance. His performance as the anguished DCP Rakesh Maria in the movie "Black Friday" has been widely appreciated and acclaimed. The movie, based on the book by journalist S. Hussain Zaidi on the 1993 Bombay bombings, awaited an Indian release for almost two years before its final release on 9 February 2007. It was featured at the Locarno International Film Festival and received widespread praise. The Sunday edition of the "Indian Express" described his performance, "Excellent as always". In 2007, he acted in the commercially and critically successful "Life in a... Metro", as the adulterous husband of Shilpa Shetty's character. In 2008, he was highly appreciated for his performance in the film "Shaurya". He played the role of the antagonist in the critical and commercial failure, "Drona", starring alongside Abhishek Bachchan. In 2009, he starred in "The Stoneman Murders" where he played a police officer on the hunt for the Stoneman serial killer. Kay Kay will now be seen in "Dream Man", a new film by Makrand Deshpande. The film is a spoof on Bollywood. The versatile actor will be seen in 13 roles against Bollywood actors Afzaal Khan, Vasudha of (Aasma band) and Amit Mistry.
1067860	Humpday is a 2009 American comedy film starring Mark Duplass, Joshua Leonard, and Alycia Delmore; and directed, produced, and written by Lynn Shelton. It premiered at the 2009 Sundance film festival. International distribution rights have been purchased by Magnolia Pictures for a mid-six figure sum. The film opened in New York City on a limited released on July 10, 2009. Much of the dialogue for the film was improvised. Plot. Two heterosexual male friends Ben (Duplass) and Andrew (Leonard) meet after having not seen each other for 10 years. During a party, they find themselves locked in a "mutual dare" situation engaging to make a gay pornography film, including anal sex, as an "art project" between two straight guys and submit it to the HUMP! film festival. They do not decide yet who will penetrate whom. Ben tells Andrew that he will discuss the project with his wife Anna (Delmore). However, as Ben begins to describe the project to Anna, she reacts skeptically at the mere mention of amateur pornography. Ben finds himself lying to Anna; he talks about the project with only vague detail, telling her that he will likely act as a behind-the-scenes assistant to the hypothetical film crew. Later, Anna finds herself alone with Andrew and suggests that they have a drink together in an effort to get to know one another. Now drunk, the two begin discussing Ben and Andrew's art project, Andrew assuming that Ben has completely informed Anna of their intentions. After Andrew bluntly reveals that Ben will potentially have a gay experience, Anna becomes upset and confused, confronting Ben personally. The next morning, Ben insists that he still wants to go through with the project, and Anna consents. Ben and Andrew meet in a hotel, bringing a video camera. Their attempts to have sex are prolonged by lengthy discussions and frequent analyzing of how to approach the experience. Although they film themselves kissing each other on the mouth, and hugging each other in their underpants, neither Ben nor Andrew appear comfortable becoming completely naked, let alone having sex. The two continue to talk, not sure if either one will be able to achieve an erection, and begin to question the validity of their experiment as a work of art. Ben finally suggests that they call off the project, and the two laugh at the ridiculousness of the situation. Ben leaves the hotel, intending to apologize to Anna. Andrew prepares to leave shortly afterward, but not before reviewing the footage that the two have recorded. Reception and awards. It has been categorized by some reviewers as part of the mumblecore movement in indie cinema. It was an award winner at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival, receiving a "Special Jury Prize for Spirit of Independence". In 2009, The New York Times' Stephen Holden selected the movie as a "NYT Critics' Pick" and New York Magazine also selected it as a "Critics' Pick". The film won both "Best Director" for Shelton and "Best Actor" for both Duplass and Leonard at the 2009 Gijón International Film Festival. Delmore was nominated for "Best Supporting Actress" at the Chlotrudis Awards. The film won the "John Cassavetes Award". The film currently holds a 79% (positive) on Rotten Tomatoes, out of 121 reviews.
583081	Salim Ghouse is a film, television and theater actor, theater director and martial artist. He has acted in several Indian languages including Hindi, Tamil and Malayalam. Early life. Salim Ghouse was born in Chennai. He studied at the Christchurch School and the Presidency College in Chennai. He is also a graduate of Film and Television Institute of India, Pune. Career. Salim Ghouse became popular with TV series, Subah. He is also known for playing Rama, Krishna, Tipu Sultan in Shyam Benegal's TV Series Bharat Ek Khoj In 1990, he made a superb performance by portraying the villain in the classic Malayalam film, "Thazhvaram", directed by Bharathan as the rival to Mohan Lal. He starred alongside Madhuri Dixit and Shahrukh Khan in the 1997 film, "Koyla", 1989 Kamal Haasan film, "Vetri Vizha", 1993 Mani Ratnam film, "Thiruda Thiruda" and 2009 film "Vettaikaran". Currently, he lives in Mumbai, Maharashtra, India. Trivia. He is a 7th degree Black Belt in Okinawan Goju-ryu karate with the title of “Kyoshi – Shihan”, a grandmaster in Reiki and other healing traditions, the only master in India practicing and researching the major styles of Taichichuan and a gourmet cook.
430462	Racing for Time is a 2008 Lifetime Original Movie, starring Charles S. Dutton, and Elizabeth Peña. The movie is based on the accomplishment of real life coach and prison guard Sergeant Noel Chestnut (later promoted to lieutenant) and the Ventura Youth Correctional Facility's track team he started. The real story took place in California in the 1990's when California's Youth Authority's correction's officer Noel Chesnut started a track team for female inmates throughout the Camarillo area facilities where many of the female offenders had been convicted of murder and robbery. Noel sacrificed a lot to encourage these girls and several of them went on to lead successful lives due to his program. Plot. Cleveland "Stack" Stackhouse (Charles S. Dutton) is a guard with the Texas Correctional Youth Authority who witnesses the cycle of destructive choices and racial tensions among female teen offenders and decides to do something about it. He gathers African-American, Latina and Caucasian teens, and organizes a multi-racial track team behind the bars of the prison. Participation in Stack's track team not only breaks down the racial divides between the girls, but puts them on a path to turn their lives around. External links. Team-Provo
590162	Jagte Raho (meaning "Stay Awake" or "Stay Alert") is a 1956 film directed by Amit Maitra and Sombhu Mitra, produced by and starring Raj Kapoor. The film centers on the trials of a poor villager (Kapoor) who comes to a city in search of a better life. However, the naive man soon becomes trapped in a web of middle-class greed and corruption. The film also features a cameo by Nargis in the final scene. Plot summary. A poor peasant (Kapoor) from the village, who comes to the city in search of work, is looking for some water to quench his thirst. He unwittingly enters an apartment building, whose residents take him for a thief and chase him. He runs from one flat to the other trying to escape his predicament. Along the way, he witnesses many shady undertakings in the flats where he hides. Ironically, these crimes are being committed by the so-called "respectable" citizens of the city, who by day, lead a life totally in contrast to their nighttime deeds behind closed doors. He is shocked by these events, and tries to escape by evading the search parties, that are patrolling the apartment building in search of the elusive thief. He is unfortunately seen, and people chase him to the roof of the building. He puts up a brave resistance, and then descends by the water pipes onto the porch of a flat. He goes in to find a young girl (Daisy Irani). She talks to him and kindles a self belief in the peasant, who determinedly tries to face the adversity waiting outside. But when he ventures out of the flat, he is surprised to find that nobody takes notice of him. He eventually leaves the apartment building, his thirst still unquenched. He hears a beautiful song and searching for its source arrives at the doorstep of a woman (Nargis) drawing water from a well. His thirst is finally assuaged. Music. Other than the acting, the music is the highlight of the film. Lyrics are by Shailendra and Prem Dhawan and music is by Salil Choudhary. The songs "Zindagi Khwaab Hai", "Main Koi Jhoot Boleya" and "Jaago Mohan Pyaare" are still remembered by people as classics. Awards. A shortened version of the film won the Crystal Globe Grand Prix at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival in Czechoslovakia in 1957. At the fourth annual National Film Awards, the film won the Certificate of Merit.
711703	TerrorVision is an American horror-comedy film released in 1986.
501317	Tony Darrow (born December 23, 1938) is an American actor. Darrow was born Anthony Borgese and grew up in the East New York section of Brooklyn. Darrow had plenty of opportunity to observe would be mobsters and their attitudes while growing up in his neighborhood in Brooklyn. As a child, Tony was gifted with a great singing voice. As a teenager, he gravitated towards show business, entering and winning talent shows while working odd jobs. After ten years of singing in nightclubs, Tony received an offer to appear in what turned out to be a cult film, "Street Trash". He played a mobster in the film. Several months after "Street Trash", Darrow was contacted by the famous film director Martin Scorsese. It turned out that Scorsese had seen "Street Trash" and wanted him to audition for a role in Goodfellas. The audition proved to be good, earning Tony a small part in the film as the owner of the Bamboo Lounge, Sonny. Tony was also in the Woody Allen films "Bullets Over Broadway", "Mighty Aphrodite", "Deconstructing Harry", "Small Time Crooks" and "Sweet and Lowdown". In 1999, Darrow got a big role in "Analyze This" with Robert De Niro and Billy Crystal. The following year, he appeared in "Mickey Blue Eyes" with Hugh Grant, and got another big role as mobster Larry Barese in the HBO hit series "The Sopranos", which he was on for the entire series run (1999–2007). More recently, Darrow starred in the independent film "Lynch Mob". In June 2009, Darrow was charged with extortion in a 2004 incident. Along with Gambino crime family soldier Joseph "Joey Boy" Orlando and associate Giovanni "Johnny" Monteleone, Darrow was accused of ordering the maiming of a man in Monticello, New York who owed money to a loan shark. Darrow pleaded guilty in Federal Court to these charges in February, 2011 in exchange for a sentence of up to 33 months.
725181	Glynnis O'Connor (born November 19, 1956) is an American actress, perhaps best known for her work in the mid-1970s, including her lead actress roles in the TV version of "Our Town", the short-lived TV series "Sons and Daughters", and the films "Ode to Billy Joe" and "Jeremy", all of which co-starred Robby Benson She also co-starred in "Baby Blue Marine" with Jan-Michael Vincent.
1058200	Susan Anspach (born November 23, 1942) is an American stage and film actress. Private life. Anspach was born in New York City and was raised in Queens, New York. She graduated from William Cullen Bryant High School in Long Island City in 1960. Paul Simon was a neighbor. She enrolled in the music department at the Catholic University of America. For her sophomore year she transferred to the drama department, where she appeared in the annual musical, "All Systems Are Go".
773953	Holly Palance (born August 5, 1950) is an American actress. Palance was born in Los Angeles, California, the daughter of the actor Jack Palance and his wife Virginia Baker. Holly was the first of three children born to the couple, followed by Brooke Palance in 1952 and Cody Palance in 1955. She married "Tomorrow Never Dies" director Roger Spottiswoode; they divorced in 1997. Palance played Lois Lane opposite Christopher Reeve in his screen test for the title role in "Superman" (1978). The tests included scenes from the balcony interview in "Superman" and the Niagara Falls hotel room scene from "Superman 2" (1980), where Reeve played Clark Kent; this footage was released to the public as an extra feature on a special edition DVD release of the film in the early 2000s. Palance is notable for her role as an ill-destined young nanny in "The Omen" (1976), alongside Gregory Peck and Lee Remick.
480043	Thomas Loren "Tom" Lenk (born June 16, 1976) is an American stage and television actor best known for his recurring role as Andrew Wells in the television series "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" and its spin-off "Angel". Early life. Lenk was born in Camarillo, California, the son of Pam, a teacher, and Fred Lenk, a tuba player, high school music teacher, and school district computer network administrator. He attended Adolfo Camarillo High School. He graduated from UCLA with a Bachelor of Arts. Career. Lenk has appeared in episodes of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" (27 episodes), "Angel", NBC's "Joey", "House", "Six Feet Under", "Eli Stone" and "How I Met Your Mother". He has also had small parts in the films "Date Movie", "The Number 23", and "Transformers". Lenk appeared in the Web series "Border Patrol", which premiered in June 2008 on Atom.com. In 2009 Lenk appeared as a guest star on "Nip/Tuck." Besides acting, Lenk is a singer and playwright. He has toured with the European cast of "Grease" and has written three plays. Lenk took over the role of Franz in the Broadway musical "Rock of Ages" as of September 14, 2009, having originated the role in the Las Vegas and Los Angeles productions in 2006. Lenk frequently posts video blogs of himself on YouTube summing up his latest experiences on Broadway, which are usually called "Tom's Broadway Blogs". He appeared in commercials for Pepsi Max and, in late 2012, in television ads for QuickBooks. Lenk also appeared in an episode of "Psych" that poked fun at "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" (original Buffy actress Kristy Swanson appears in the episode). Lenk performed in the June 2012 edition of Don't Tell My Mother! (Live Storytelling), a monthly showcase in which authors, screenwriters, actors and comedians share true stories they would never want their mothers to know. In 2013, Lenk joined the upcoming Lifetime series "Witches of East End" as Hudson Rafferty. Personal life. Lenk is openly gay. Trivia. Tom Lenk was a member of Tangent, an improv group, with slam poet Steve Connell.
430122	Sexy Evil Genius is a 2013 American dark comedy film written by Scott Lew and directed by Shawn Piller. Plot. "Sexy Evil Genius" centers on a group of strangers brought together in a downtown Los Angeles bar by their mutual ex-girlfriend Nikki Franklyn (Katee Sackhoff), a maddeningly sexy, unpredictable and possibly insane young woman who has recently been released from prison for murdering her last ex-boyfriend. The party really gets started when Nikki herself arrives, hauling her latest lover and fiancee, the morally challenged lawyer who'd been handling her case. She is mysterious about her intentions and her current and former lovers soon realize they are all caught in one of her brilliant, mischievous mind-games with possible deadly consequences. By the night's end, revenge will be had, new romance will bloom, and Nikki will have delivered on her reputation as the sexy evil genius.
1061019	Chariots of Fire is a 1981 British historical drama film. It tells the fact-based story of two athletes in the 1924 Olympics: Eric Liddell, a devout Scottish Christian who runs for the glory of God, and Harold Abrahams, an English Jew who runs to overcome prejudice. The film was conceived and produced by David Puttnam, written by Colin Welland, and directed by Hugh Hudson. It was nominated for seven Academy Awards and won four, including Best Picture and Best Screenplay. It is ranked 19th in the British Film Institute's list of Top 100 British films. The film is also notable for its memorable instrumental theme tune by Vangelis, who won the Academy Award for Best Original Score. The film's title was inspired by the line, "Bring me my chariot of fire," from the William Blake poem adapted into the popular British hymn "Jerusalem"; the hymn is heard at the end of the film. The original phrase "chariot(s) of fire" is from 2 Kings and in the Bible.
1071958	The film won a Special Jury Prize for its director at the 2004 Gérardmer Film Festival. Plot. The Katakuris are a four-generation family of failures: patriarch Masao Katakuri (Kenji Sawada), his wife Terue (Keiko Matsuzaka), his father Jinpei (Tetsuro Tamba), his formerly criminal son Masayuki (Shinji Takeda), his divorced daughter Shizue (Naomi Nishida), her child Yurie (Tamaki Miyazaki, who narrates the film), and their dog, Pochi. The family uses the father's redundancy pay to purchase a large old home situated on a former garbage dump near Mount Fuji that they have named the ‘White Lover's Inn'. They have the intention of converting it into a bed & breakfast, since the road running nearby is supposed to be expanded up to the house, which would bring many guests and tourists. However, the road hasn't been expanded yet and the Katakuris subsequently have no guests. When one finally shows up, a TV personality, sans clothes, he subsequently commits suicide during the night, and the Katakuris make the decision to save their business by burying the body and concealing the death. The second guest, a Sumo wrestler, also dies of a heart attack during a tryst with his underage girlfriend, who also dies. Somehow, each of their guests ends up dead— by suicide, accident or murder— and pretty soon the bodies in the back yard begin to pile up. The Katakuris soon find themselves sucked into a nightmare of lies and fear (not helped by the arrival of the daughter's con-man boyfriend, an escaped murderer with police in hot pursuit, and an erupting volcano). Meanwhile, the recently divorced daughter falls in love with Richard Sagawa (Kiyoshiro Imawano), a mysterious U.S. naval officer who looks suspiciously Japanese but claims to be the nephew of Queen Elizabeth II herself. Just when Richard bungles onto a clue that might lead him to uncover the string of disappearing guests, a nearby volcano begins rumbling to life.
1071879	Originally shot as a series of short films for the 30th anniversary of Kit Kat in Japan, it was later expanded into a feature film by Iwai and received theatrical release in Japan in 2004. It moved into theaters in other Asian territories later in 2004 and 2005, and into western film festivals, such as New York Asian Film Festival and Seattle International Film Festival. Plot. When Alice develops a crush on a stranger at the train station, she offers her best friend, Hana, the stranger's "half brother," Masashi. Hana declines, but after watching Masashi from a distance, she develops feelings for him. She stalks him by travelling on his regular train throughout the winter.
581802	Ravi Baswani (September 29, 1946 – July 27, 2010) was a well known Indian film actor, most famous for his role in Sai Paranjpe's "Chashme Buddoor" (1981) and Kundan Shah's cult comedy "Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro" (1983), for which he won Filmfare Best Comedian Award in 1984. He was noted for his comic timing and underplaying a character in the true sense of the word. In a career spanning 30 years he acted in some 30 films. He died in Haldwani, on his way to Delhi from hill station Nainital, to where he had traveled to scout for locations for his upcoming directorial feature which was also to be his debut in that role. Early life and education. Ravi Baswani was born and brought up in Delhi, where he later did his graduation from Kirori Mal College (KMC), Delhi University, he was also part of the KMC dramatic society at the college. Career. He started his career in 1981 with "Chashme Buddoor" and did many successful films as a comedian and/or as a character artist. He also appeared very many times on Indian television. He went on to work in films like the cult "Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro", "Kabhi Haan Kabhi Naa", "Chhota Chetan", "Ab Aayega Maza" and Naseeruddin Shah's first directorial venture, "Yun Hota Toh Kya Hota". As a television actor, he acted in numerous TV serials, including, the popular comedy serial, "Idhar Udhar" on Doordarshan in the 1980s, wherein he acted alongside Pathak sisters, Supriya Pathak and Ratna Pathak. More recently he was seen in character roles in films like "Bunty Aur Babli" and "Pyar Tune Kya Kiya". In 2004, when Film and Television Institute of India, Pune revived its acting course after 26 years, he became its coordinator and a teacher, along with Naseeruddin Shah, who also redesigned the course, Baswani however resigned the next year. Death. Baswani died following a massive heart attack on July 27, 2010 in Haldwani (Distt. Nainital). He was returning from Nainital to Delhi, where he had to hunt for location for his directorial debut film, set in the hills. He was unmarried.
581952	Begum Ayesha Sultana, born as Amrita Singh (born February 9, 1958) is an Indian film and television actress. Early life. Amrita was born to a Sikh-Muslim family. She is the daughter of Rukhsana Sultana, who was a political activist and Shavinder Singh, who was an army officer. Her maternal grandmother Zarina, was the elder sister of actor Begum Para, mother of actor Ayub Khan. She was also the daughter of Mian Ehsan Ul Haque, who came from a landowning family. He was a judge and the Chief Justice of the highest court in the princely state of Bikaner, northern Rajasthan. Through her father, she is a relative of novelist Khushwant Singh and businessman Sir Sobha Singh of New Delhi. She attended Modern School in New Delhi and is fluent in the English, Punjabi and Hindi languages.
582711	Haseena Maan Jaayegi is a 1999 Indian Bollywood comedy film, starring Govinda, Sanjay Dutt, Karishma Kapoor, Pooja Batra, Anupam Kher, Kader Khan, Aruna Irani and Paresh Rawal. It was directed by David Dhawan. The film was inspired by the movie Pyar Kiye Ja. Plot. Amirchand (Kader Khan) is the ill-fated father of two mischievous sons - Sonu (Sanjay Dutt) and Monu (Govinda). Both of them are always up with one prank or the other, most of them aimed at stealing money from Amirchand. In the opening scene, they call up their father, acting as gangsters, and ask for a huge sum if he wants to live. The plan fails as Amirchand turns out to be the driver of the taxi in which they were escaping. Later, they fix up the marriage of their father with Shakuntala (Bindu) and take one lakh ruppees as advance dowry from her brother Jamnadas (Asrani). This plan also fails as Amirchand refuses to entertain Jamnadas and his sister. Amirchand warns their sons to become serious towards life if they want to live in his home. He asks Monu to join office and Sonu to go to Goa for claiming some money he had lent to someone. Whereas Monu plays another prank by calling up a girls hostel and flirting with Ritu (Karishma Kapoor),Sonu mistakenly goes to one Gulzarilal Verma (Anupam Kher) for claiming the money, where he meets Pooja (Pooja Batra). Both Ritu and Pooja are Gulzarilal's daughters. Sonu and Monu fall in love with Pooja and Ritu, respectively. Sonu calls up Monu to come to Goa, disguised as his Uncle for fixing up his and Pooja's marriage. This leads to a series of confusions as Gulzarilal's sister Santho (Aruna Irani) also falls in love with Monu (disguised as Uncle). To get rid of the problem, Sonu and Monu throw a dummy of the Uncle from top of a cliff, only to land up getting arrested for killing the non-existent uncle. Amirchand comes to know of this and reaches Goa with his assistant Kunj Biharilal (Satish Kaushik). As they along with Gulzarilal are on their way to police station, they are kidnapped by a Bhai (Ashish Vidyarthi). Sonu and Monu escape from the lockup with Bhootnath's (Paresh Rawal) help and rescue their father and to-be father-in-law, thus proving to be worthy sons.
589106	Suraiya Jamaal Sheikh (15 June 1929 – 31 January 2004) was a singer and actress of the Indian films in the 40s and 50s, and was popularly known by her first name Suraiya. Early life. Suraiya was born in Gujranwala, Punjab, (which is in modern day Pakistan), and was the only child of her parents. She was not formally trained in music; yet she went on to become a successful singing actress.
1064075	Be Cool is a 2005 crime-comedy film adapted from Elmore Leonard's 1999 novel of the same name and the sequel to Leonard's 1990 novel "Get Shorty" (itself adapted into a hit 1995 film of the same name) about mobster Chili Palmer's entrance into the film industry. The film adaptation of "Be Cool" began production in 2003. It was directed by F. Gary Gray, produced by Danny DeVito (who produced and co-starred in the first film), and starred John Travolta, reprising his role from the first film. The movie opened in March 2005 to generally mixed reviews, and was released to video and DVD distribution on June 7, 2005. This was Robert Pastorelli's final film, as he died one year before its theatrical release. Plot. Chili Palmer (John Travolta) helps Edie Athens (Uma Thurman), the widow of an executed friend, Tommy Athens (James Woods), to resurrect a record company using the talents of young and talented female vocalist and songwriter, Linda Moon (Christina Milian). The plot is complicated by several facts: Chili Palmer, after years of filmmaking, enters the music industry after witnessing the execution, by the head of the Russian mob, of his friend Tommy Athens, owner of a record company. Chili uses the opportunity to help his friend's widow, Edie Athens, manage the failing business, which owes $300,000 to the hip hop producer Sin LaSalle. Chili enters the music industry on the talents of a female entertainer, Linda Moon. Moon convinces Chili to take on her cause, getting out of contractual obligations to Nick Carr (Harvey Keitel) and Raji (Vince Vaughn), who has a gay Samoan bodyguard named Elliott (Dwayne 'the rock' Johnson), an aspiring actor and the butt of Carr and Raji's homophobic jokes. Carr and Raji take exception to Chili's intervention, and hire a hitman, Joe "Loop" Lupino (Robert Pastorelli) to kill Chili. In the meantime, Chili convinces Edie to produce Moon, hoping to resurrect Athens' failing record company through a live performance with Aerosmith and Steven Tyler. LaSalle threatens Chili and Edie for payment of the $300,000, but they convince him to give them a few days to get the money plus the vig. When the Russians attempt to kill Chili, Joe Loop mistakenly kills Ivan Argianiyev (George Fisher), the Russian Mob hitman. Raji then kills Loop with a bat after Loop "disrespects" him. After Chili talks Linda into leaving Carr and his girl group, Carr tries to trick Chili by handing him a pawn ticket, claiming that Linda's contract was at the pawn shop owned by the Russians. This is actually a set-up by Carr to get Chili killed.
582295	Double Dhamaal (also known as Dhamaal 2) (meaning 'Double Enjoyment') is a Bollywood comedy film and a sequel to the 2007 hit film "Dhamaal". The film is directed by Indra Kumar and produced by Ashok Thakeria. It features the lead roles from the original, with Mallika Sherawat and Kangna Ranaut as new additions. The theatrical trailer of the film was revealed on 20 May 2011 along with the film "Haunted". The film released on 24 June 2011.
584120	Ravi Krishna (born 2 March 1983) is an Indian actor who works in the Tamil and Telugu film industries. Son of noted producer A. M. Rathnam, he made his acting debut in Selvaraghavan's critically acclaimed "7G Rainbow Colony". Early life. After his schooling, Ravi Krishna went to London where he pursued a BA degree in Multimedia. He completed his diploma in Interactive communication at Pentamedia, while also conentrating on his career in multimedia with non-linear film editing at Sam Media. He disclosed that he never intended to become an actor, but was "roped in" when he visited India for Easter. Career. Ravi Krishna's debut film "7G Rainbow Colony", directed by Selvaraghavan and produced by his father, was a high critical as well as commercial success, with his performance fetching him the South Filmfare Award for Best Male Debut of that year, amongst other minor awards. Its dubbed Telugu version "7G Brindavan Colony" was equally successful, being declared a "super hit". Ravi Krishna, before starting to shoot for the film, took a one month-training in acting at the Film Institute in King's College London. Following that, he acted in S. A. Chandrasekhar's "Sukran", sharing screen space with fellow actor Vijay, the Radha Mohan-directed family drama "Ponniyin Selvan", and the action-masala flick "Kedi", under his brother Jyothi Krishna's direction. The films, all notably produced by his father, received mixed reviews and did average business at the box office. His first direct Telugu venture "Brahmanandam Drama Company", too, was a box office bomb, with Ravi Krishna lamenting that the film failed to succeed due to poor budgeting and publicity. His next release was the bilingual "Netru Indru Naalai" / "Ninna Nedu Repu" that was critically acclaimed. In 2009, he starred in "Kadhalna Summa Illai", a remake of the Telugu film "Gamyam" got him success in box office again. The film and his performance were highly appreciated by the critics. "Aaranya Kaandam", which had been in making for over two years, is his most recent release. Termed as the first neo-noir film in Tamil cinema, the film opened to high critical praise.
1044740	Dr. Phibes Rises Again! (1972) is a sequel to "The Abominable Dr. Phibes". It was directed by Robert Fuest, and stars Vincent Price as Dr. Anton Phibes. Plot. Dr. Phibes awakens in 1928, three years after the events of the previous movie. His primary goal is the awakening of his dead wife, Victoria. He finds that his house has been demolished, and that the papyrus scrolls he needs to find the Pharaoh's tomb, where the River of Life flows, have been stolen. With the source of the papyrus theft identified, he and his assistant, Vulnavia, leave for Egypt. Vulnavia's face displays no effects from the acid shower she received at the end of the previous film, although she is played by a different actress, Australian model Valli Kemp. The thieves die off as Inspectors Trout and Waverly chase Phibes across the world. The thieving party is led by the several-hundred-years-old Biederbeck (Robert Quarry), who wants to find the River of Life in order that he and his lover Diana (Fiona Lewis) can live forever. Phibes' murders now have an Egyptian theme; one character is sand-blasted to death, another is stung to death by scorpions. At the climax, Beiderbeck sacrifices his life to save Diana. The film ends as Phibes rafts down the River of Life with Victoria, while singing "Over the Rainbow". It is left ambiguous whether Victoria is resurrected. Production and reception. The movie was filmed in London and on location in a desert in Spain in December 1971 through January 1972, and released in July 1972. The original Vulnavia, Virginia North, was pregnant and was replaced by model Valli Kemp, who had been Miss Australia of 1970. The film was rushed into production after the success of the first. The Fuest-penned script suffered from budget restraints and studio meddling. Studio executives mandated that Vulnavia return instead of Phibes getting a new assistant, and caused many parts and plot points to be edited out, which resulted in viewer confusion. Phibes' over-the-top murders seem to be done as much for demented glee as for revenge, the original film's motive. Vincent Price and Robert Quarry did not get along well behind the scenes, as Quarry accused Price of overacting, and Price viewed his costar as an AIP-sanctioned Eve Harrington. Some actors from the original film, such as Terry-Thomas, appeared in different roles. Due to copyright difficulties, the original VHS release substituted Price's rendition of "Over the Rainbow" with background music lifted from the end credits of "The Abominable Dr. Phibes". The original ending remains intact in prints shown in theatres and on television, and is restored on the DVD edition. Phibes' performance of "Over the Rainbow" is an anachronism: the film is set in 1928, while the song was written in 1938. Opinion on this film is divided, but it is generally considered as good as the first "Phibes" outing. It has developed a cult following over the years, as has the first film. Unfilmed screenplays and proposed sequels. 1971: The Bride of Dr. Phibes. Proposed to AIP by William Goldstein and James Whiton as a sequel to the first film. Set in the year 1934, it details a battle of wits between Phibes and a strange man named Emil Salveus, a member of a secret Satanic society called the Institute for Psychic Phenomena. We learn that Salveus is actually Lem Vesalius, the son of Joseph Cotten's "The Abominable Dr. Phibes" character, Henri Vesalius. Salveus steals Victoria's body, and Phibes kills the members of the IPP in a quest to recover her. The group's leader, Colonel Trenchard, is encased in amber and shattered into a million pieces. This is carried out at the IPP offices, where Phibes gets the names and addresses of the other members. Charles Carruthers is sucked dry by leeches in his bathtub. Orchestra conductor Sir Mastin Mateland finds himself covered with melted butter and eaten by a lobster. Lady Peune has a helium balloon tied to her wheelchair and ascends to the heavens. Arch Vicar Wren has his organs sucked out by a vacuum device. Sir Judah Ido Adibo of the Abyssinian Embassy is left with a clutch of cobras in his bed. Salveus himself falls into an acid pit he'd previously prepared for Phibes. Phibes recovers and revives Victoria in a scene recalling "The Bride of Frankenstein" (1935). As Scotland Yard invades Phibes' manor, the doctor and his bride enter a freezing chamber that will preserve them for a future date. A perplexed Inspector Trout remarks, "Commissioner, we could search hell and damnation, scour the very bowels of this earth...but he'll never be found. (pause) Perhaps he was never meant to exist". Producer Louis Heyward rejected "The Bride of Dr. Phibes", and tapped longtime friend Robert Blees to script something entirely different. Blees' first idea, which never progressed beyond one-page conjecture, was tentatively titled Phibes II and would have pit Phibes against Robert Quarry's Count Yorga. Blees ousted this in favour of the Egyptian scenario that would become "Dr. Phibes Rises Again" after Fuest's re-write. The idea of casting Quarry remained, but as Phibes' counterpart Darius Biederbeck rather than Yorga. 197?: Dr. Phibes in the Holy Land. Mentioned by Vincent Price in a number of interviews. Copies of the screenplay remain elusive. 197?: The Son of Dr. Phibes by Robert Fuest. Unknown how far along this got in scripting. Phibes and son (to have been played by a young Vincent Price look-alike) join to wage war on environmental polluters. The modus operandi would involve natural-geologic phenomenon such as tidal waves and earthquakes. 1977: Phibes Resurrectus. This is "The Bride of Dr. Phibes" with minor alterations. Goldstein and Whiton sold it to Roger Corman's New World Pictures. Corman planned to cast Forrest J Ackerman, the self-described "poor man's Vincent Price", as a mechanical Phibes doppelganger that fools Inspector Trout during a sequence set in a soccer stadium. 1981: Dr. Phibes. Exists in the form of a brief outline/sales pitch by Goldstein and Whiton, but it is unknown whether the idea progressed to scripting stages. Phibes is revived in 1981 and sets sail for New York aboard his 98-foot yacht. The city's diseased squalor is contrasted with Phibes' seafaring Art Deco idyll, replete with clockwork wizards, Vulnavia and the dearly departed Victoria. Ensconced in a resplendent penthouse apartment, Phibes plans to resurrect his bride and build a new life in America. His activities rouse the interest of the Wormwood Institute, an elite "think tank of glorious eggheads" led by the 80-year-old Hector Seneca Cicero Wormwood. Each of the six Institute members, we learn, leads a "strange private life". Astrophysicist Bulwark Stanton, the most devious of the group, is obsessed with little girls and keeps a mechanical effigy of one at home. Lester is threatening to disprove Einstein's theory of general relativity at the age of 12. He is chomping at the bit to match wits with Phibes. The Smith Brothers, experts in economics and nuclear weaponry, are identical twin transvestites. Wormwood himself wet nurses directly from the tap, labouring under the illusion that such is the key to eternal life. When the old man smashes Victoria's glass coffin, she dries out and decomposes. Phibes is enraged and vows revenge. He kills each of the Institute members according to their greatest love; for instance, the chocolate-loving germ warfare expert Mr. Nim is transformed into a chocolate statue. Phibes concurrently conducts an urgent search for the essential salts to restore Victora's vitality. 1984: Phibes Resurrectus, prepared by Goldstein and Whiton for Richard P. Rubinstein's and George A. Romero's Laurel Entertainment banner. It is "The Bride of Dr. Phibes" with a re-written first act, in which he first appears flying over the white cliffs of Dover, in a hot air balloon that bears the motto "NON OMNIS MORIAR" ("I shall not wholly die", Horace, Carmina 3.30). This he lands in a cemetery, and proceeds into Victoria's tomb. It includes a list of proposed stars: PHIBES – David Carradine EMIL – Paul Williams STEUBEN – Orson Welles WREN – Roddy McDowall LADY PEUNE – Coral Browne WOMBER – Donald Pleasence PROBY – John Carradine ADIBO – Sam Jaffe 198? The Seven Fates of Dr. Phibes. A treatment by Paul Clemens and Ron Magid. It was submitted to Vincent Price, who heartily approved and agreed to recreate his role one more time. It begins where "Dr. Phibes Rises Again" leaves off, with Phibes and a revived Victoria departing their Egyptian abode on a quest to recover seven ivory statues that depict figures out of Greek mythology. These statues will allow the pair to join with the gods in the heavens. Upon returning to London, Phibes discovers that his house has been demolished and the statues sold off to various individuals. Phibes murders each of them in a manner befitting the particular mythological character they possess. Dekker has a statue of Cyclops; his eye is poked out. Thundershaft has a Cerberus; Phibes presents him with a large Cerberus figure, one head of which shoots string to tie him up, followed by the second head which spouts gasoline, and the third which issues fire. Azzared has an Arachne; her room is filled with spiders. Halifax has a Medusa; he is cased in cement, effectively turning him into stone. The murder spree continues, and Trout and Waverley of Scotland Yard again find themselves dogged at every turn by the deadly doctor. The final statue, the Minotaur, is owned by Phibes' archenemy Prof. Norquist. He has found the River of Death, Styx, the waters from which have the capability to end Phibes' eternal life. Norquist is killed by Phibes and the statues are joined, opening the heavens to him. Vulnavia's true identity is revealed to be the goddess Athena. She says, "Come children of Zeus", as Phibes and Victoria ascend to the heavens through an opening in the mountain top. Waverley, who with Trout has followed Phibes to his mountain hideaway in Crete, believes it all to be a trick and says, "Strike me dead if it's not a hoax"; he is promptly struck by a lightning bolt and turns into a puff of smoke. "Over the Rainbow" plays while the credits roll. Louis Heyward also tried to interest NBC in a "Phibes" television series, with a Goldstein-written pilot, that would have recast the doctor as a benevolent crimefighter who uses his makeup and technological wizardry to ensnare criminals. Soundtrack. The film score by John Gale was released on Perseverance Records 20 March 2003.
1163455	William Conrad (born John William Cann Jr.; September 27, 1920 – February 11, 1994) was an American actor, producer and director whose career spanned five decades in radio, film and television. A radio writer and actor, he moved to Hollywood, California, after his World War II service and played a series of character roles in films beginning with the quintessential "film noir", "The Killers" (1946). He created the role of Marshal Matt Dillon for the popular radio series "Gunsmoke" (1952–1961), and narrated the television adventures of "Rocky and Bullwinkle" (1959–1964) and "The Fugitive" (1963–1967). Finding fewer on-screen roles in the 1950s, he changed from actor to producer-director with television work, narration, and a series of Warner Bros. films in the 1960s. Conrad found stardom as a detective in the TV series "Cannon" (1971–1976) and "Nero Wolfe" (1981), and as a district attorney in the legal drama "Jake and the Fatman" (1987–1992). Early life. William Conrad (also known as John William Conrad) was born John William Cann Jr. on September 27, 1920, in Lexington, Kentucky. His parents, John William Cann and Ida Mae Upchurch Cann, owned a movie theatre, and Conrad grew up watching movies. The family moved to southern California when Conrad was in high school. He majored in drama and literature at Fullerton College, near Los Angeles, and began his career as an announcer, writer, and director for Los Angeles radio station KMPC.
1035463	Bernard Hepton (born 19 October 1925) is a British actor of stage, film and television. Biography and career. Hepton, born in Bradford, West Riding of Yorkshire, is known as a particularly versatile character actor. He trained at Bradford Civic Theatre school under Esme Church along with actors such as Robert Stephens. He has extensive stage experience as an actor, under Sir Barry Jackson in addition to a spell as Artistic Director of Birmingham Rep and Liverpool Playhouse. On television, he played Caiaphas in the 1969 Dennis Potter play Son of Man, Toby Esterhase in the BBC Television adaptations of "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy" and "Smiley's People", and George Smiley in the radio adaptations. He also played the Kommandant in "Colditz" (1972–74), and later appeared for the same production team as Albert Foiret in three seasons of "Secret Army" (1977–79) as well as appearing at Pallas in "I Claudius". Before that he made a guest appearance in an episode of the first series of "Catweazle" in 1970 where he played a naturalist. Other notable performances included Thomas Cranmer in both "The Six Wives of Henry VIII" (1970) and "Elizabeth R" (1971). He played Sam Toovey in the 1989 television adaptation of Susan Hill's ghost story "The Woman in Black". On radio Hepton played the role of Albert, in "Stranger in the Home" by Alan Dapre, also the role of The Old Man in the Corner, the Baroness Orczy amateur, and mostly sedentary, sleuth in the BBC dramatizations called "The Teahouse Detective" (1998–2000). His appearances in feature film have been less frequent. He made a brief appearance as Thorpey, a gangster in the classic British film "Get Carter" (1971), and another small role, as Milton Goldsmith, in "Voyage of the Damned" (1976). Bernard Hepton was married to actress Nancie Jackson who died in 1977. He married Hilary Joyce Liddell in 1979.
1246596	Jean Parker (August 11, 1915 – November 30, 2005) was an American film and stage actress. She landed her first screen test while still in high school. She acted in motion pictures with well-known actors including Robert Donat, Edward G. Robinson, and Lionel Barrymore. She was married four times and had one son, Robert Lowery Hanks. Career. Born as Lois Mae Green in Deer Lodge, Montana, to Lewis Andrew Green, and his wife Pearl Mildred. She appeared in 70 movies from 1932 through 1966. In 1932 Parker posed as a flower girl and living poster in a float in the Tournament of Roses Parade, where she was seen by Ida Koverman, secretary to MGM mogul Louis B. Mayer. The following day the studio called her on the phone and invited her for a screen test. She attended Pasadena schools and graduated from John Muir High School. Her original aspirations were in the fine arts and illustration. She had a successful career at MGM, RKO and Columbia including important roles such as the tragic Beth in the original "Little Women", among many other film appearances including Frank Capra's "Lady for a Day" and "Gabriel Over the White House"; "Sequoia"; "Limehouse Blues" with George Raft and Anna May Wong; "The Ghost Goes West", opposite Robert Donat; and "Rasputin and the Empress", with the Barrymore siblings (John, Ethel, and Lionel) in the only movie they all made together. In 1939, she starred opposite Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy in RKO's "The Flying Deuces". Parker auditioned unsuccessfully for the role of Melanie in the film "Gone with the Wind". On November 9, 1939 she opened the Downtown Theatre in Oakland, California, and in December 1941, the Orinda Theater in Contra Costa County. Parker remained active in film throughout the 1940s, playing opposite Lon Chaney in "Dead Man's Eyes", and a variety of other films. Parker managed her own airport and flying service with then-husband Doug Dawson in Palm Springs, California until shortly after the start of World War II. During the war, she toured many of the veteran hospitals throughout the U.S. and performed on radio. In the 1950s, Parker co-starred opposite Edward G. Robinson in "Black Tuesday"; had a small but effective role in "The Gunfighter" which starred Gregory Peck and appeared with Randolph Scott and Angela Lansbury in the western "A Lawless Street" (1955). Her last film appearance was "Apache Uprising" (1966), directed by A. C. Lyles. Parker also appeared on Broadway. In 1949, she replaced Judy Holliday in "Born Yesterday" on Broadway and enjoyed a successful run in this classic. Parker also appeared on Broadway opposite Bert Lahr in the play "Burlesque", did summer stock in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, was on tour in the play "Candlelight and Loco", and performed on stage in other professional productions. In 1954, Parker played the role of Cattle Kate Watson of Wyoming in an episode of the syndicated television series "Stories of the Century", the first western program to win an Emmy Award. The series starred and was narrated by Jim Davis. Later in her career and life, Parker continued a successful stint on the West Coast theatre circuit and worked as an acting coach. Personal life. Utilizing her artistic talents, she contracted in June 1935 to make eight original sketches a month for a Beverly Hills shop. In December 1935, she became engaged to New York socialite newspaperman George E. McDonald, and eloped with him to Las Vegas on March 21, 1936. McDonald continued his business affairs on the East Coast, and after less than four years of marriage, Parker was granted an interlocutory decree of divorce on January 23, 1940. On February 14, 1941, she married Los Angeles radio commentator Henry Dawson Sanders, known professionally as Doug Dawson. Both she and Dawson operated a flying service from Palm Springs Airport in California, which was shuttered with the outbreak of World War II. In July 1942, her husband joined the Coast Guard and in September 1942 they separated and were divorced in July 1943. A month after she was granted her final divorce decree on July 29, 1944, she married Dr. Kurt "Curtis" Arthur Grotter, a Hollywood insurance broker and former correspondent for a group of Czechoslovakian newspapers and active with the Braille Institute in Los Angeles, as he had a substantial loss of vision. They were separated on June 19, 1949 and divorced on December 29, 1949. On May 19, 1951, she secretly married actor Robert Lowery, at the home of a friend in Hialeah, Florida. Lowery had played Batman in 1949; he was featured in over seventy films in his own career. While appearing at a nightclub in Sydney, Australia during 1951, Parker made international headlines when she was escorted off Bondi Beach when swimsuit inspector Abe Laidlaw measured her bikini and determined it was too skimpy. In 1952, Parker gave birth to a son, Robert Lowery Hanks, who works as an executive for the city of Los Angeles. She and Lowery filed for divorce in September 1957 but it was never finalized. At age 83, she moved into the Motion Picture and Television Country House and Hospital in Woodland Hills, California, where she died of a stroke on November 30, 2005, at the age of 90. She was survived by her son, Robert, and granddaughters Katie and Nora Hanks.
1716278	Lloyd Stowell Shapley (born June 2, 1923) is a distinguished American mathematician and economist. He is a Professor Emeritus at University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), affiliated with departments of Mathematics and Economics. He has contributed to the fields of mathematical economics and especially game theory. Since the work of von Neumann and Morgenstern in 1940s, Shapley has been regarded by many experts as the very personification of game theory. With Alvin E. Roth, Shapley won the 2012 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences "for the theory of stable allocations and the practice of market design." Life and career. Lloyd Shapley was born on June 2, 1923, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, one of the sons of Martha (Betz) and the distinguished astronomer Harlow Shapley, both from Missouri. He attended Phillips Exeter Academy and was a student at Harvard when he was drafted in 1943. He served in the Army Air Corps in Chengdu, China and received the Bronze Star decoration for breaking the Soviet weather code. After the war, he returned to Harvard and graduated with an A.B. in mathematics in 1948. After working for one year at the RAND Corporation, he went to Princeton University where he received a Ph.D. in 1953. His thesis and post-doctoral work introduced the Shapley value and the core solution in game theory. After graduating, he remained at Princeton for a short time before going back to the RAND corporation from 1954 to 1981. Since 1981 he has been a professor at UCLA. He is still dashing about, doing Game Theory related activities, like RISK. Contribution. Along with the Shapley value, stochastic games, the Bondareva-Shapley theorem (which implies that convex games have non-empty cores), the Shapley–Shubik power index (for weighted- or block voting power), the Gale–Shapley algorithm (for the stable marriage problem), the concept of a potential game (with Dov Monderer), the Aumann–Shapley pricing, the Harsanyi–Shapley solution, the Snow-Shapley theorem for matrix games, and the Shapley–Folkman lemma & theorem bear his name. Besides, his early work with R.N.Snow and Samuel Karlin on matrix games was so complete that little has been added since. He has been instrumental in the development of utility theory, and it was he who laid much of the groundwork for the solution of the problem of the existence of Von Neumann-Morgenstern stable sets. His work with M.Maschler and B.Peleg on the kernel and the nucleolus, and his work with Robert Aumann on non-atomic games and on long-term competition have all had a tremendous impact in economic theory. In his 80s, Shapley continues publishing in the areas of specialization he created or advanced, such as multi-person utility (with Manel Baucells) and authority distribution (a generalization to the Shapley–Shubik power index and useful in ranking, planning and group decision-making). Trivia. In 1950, Shapley invented the board game So Long Sucker, along with Mel Hausner, John Forbes Nash, and Martin Shubik.
1065467	Radha Rani Amber Indigo Ananda Mitchell (born 12 November 1973) is an Australian actress. She rose to prominence appearing in such films as "Pitch Black", "Finding Neverland", "Phone Booth", "Man on Fire", "Silent Hill", and "The Crazies". Early life. Mitchell was born in Melbourne. Her mother is a model turned designer, and her father is a filmmaker. She had a spiritually inclined upbringing, drawing from Hindu culture by her parents. Her first name, "Radha", is of Hindu origin and is the name of the soulmate to Lord Krishna. The other parts of her name coming from an Indian origin are "Rani" ("Queen") and "Ananda" ("Bliss"). She attended the private St Michael's Grammar School. Career. Mitchell began her career starring on ABC TV's "Sugar and Spice" in 1988. Progressing to "Neighbours" in 1994, Mitchell played two separate characters over her three-year stint on the show. In 1997 she starred in two films, "High Art" and "Everything Put Together", both Independent Spirit Award winners. Other films—including "Pitch Black" opposite Vin Diesel, "Phone Booth" opposite Colin Farrell, and "Man on Fire" opposite Denzel Washington—soon followed.
783274	Meredith Dawn Salenger (born 14 March 1970) is an American actress identified by her performances while a teenager. Her best known role was the title role in the 1985 Disney film "The Journey of Natty Gann". She currently portrays Lisa Sanders in the series "Hollywood Heights". Early life and career. Salenger was born and raised in Malibu, California, the daughter of Dorathy, an interior designer, and Gary Salenger, a dentist. As a child, she enjoyed performing in front of her family and friends. Her mother took her to her first acting class when she was eight years old. Her first role was a small part as a 'singing and dancing orphan' in the feature film "Annie" directed by John Huston. Salenger also did a number of television advertisements. Salenger's first starring role was in the Disney film "The Journey of Natty Gann" co-starring John Cusack and Ray Wise, the first US movie to win the gold award at the Moscow Film Festival. The film also garnered her "Best Actress in a Drama" at the Youth in Film Awards for her portrayal of the tomboyish Natty Gann. After starring in four more films by the time she was eighteen years old, including "A Night in the Life of Jimmy Reardon", she left Hollywood for Harvard to further her education. Education. Salenger attended Harvard University 1988-1992 and graduated cum laude with a degree in psychology. In 2009, she graduated from the Pepperdine University School of Law and currently works as a mediator for the Agency for Dispute Resolution (ADR) in Beverly Hills, California. Return to Hollywood. Salenger resumed her acting career upon her return to Hollywood. Recent credits include "Lake Placid", "The Third Wheel", and the upcoming independent film "Grownups". Salenger has appeared in several independent films including "Quality Time" and "Sparkle & Charm". Other major roles include "The Kiss" and "Dream a Little Dream" (1989). Salenger appeared in an episode of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" in 1998. She also recorded a song entitled "Flow Through Me" with Koishii & Hush; she also appeared as a background member of the Counting Crows video for "Hanging Around". Salenger appeared in two episodes of "Dawson's Creek" in 2002 as film critic Amy Lloyd and guest-starred on "Cold Case" playing victim Sloane Easton on the episode "Ravaged". Salenger had a cameo in the Disney film "Race to Witch Mountain" in 2009 in which she played a television reporter named Natalie Gann. Recently, Salenger had done the voices of several characters in Cartoon Network's "": Jedi Padawan Barriss Offee as well as Ione Marcy (during Season 2), Che Amanwe Papanoida (during Season 3), and Pluma Sodi (during Season 4). She also stars as Lisa Sanders in the Nick at Nite series "Hollywood Heights" as well as several characters in "MAD" and "Robot Chicken".
192284	Adam Ries (1492 – March 30, 1559) was a German mathematician. He is also known by the name Adam Riese.
586707	Karan Kapoor, Indian actor and model of the 1980s, is a member of the famous Kapoor family, an influential film dynasty in India's Bollywood cinema. He is the son of the famous actor Shashi Kapoor and actress Jennifer Kendal. Career. He started his film career with minor parts in his father's productions "Junoon" (1978) and "36 Chowringhee Lane" (1981). He appeared in the British television series "The Jewel in the Crown" in 1984. He made his debut in mainstream Bollywood films with "Sultanat" (1986) alongside Dharmendra, Sunny Deol and Juhi Chawla. He later acted in "Loha" (1987) and "Afsar" in 1988 but did not have any success as an actor. He also modeled major Indian brands including Bombay Dyeing. He has since become a photographer and lives in London with his wife, daughter, and son.
1101661	David Hilbert, ForMemRS (; January 23, 1862 – February 14, 1943) was a German mathematician. He is recognized as one of the most influential and universal mathematicians of the 19th and early 20th centuries. Hilbert discovered and developed a broad range of fundamental ideas in many areas, including invariant theory and the axiomatization of geometry. He also formulated the theory of Hilbert spaces, one of the foundations of functional analysis. Hilbert adopted and warmly defended Georg Cantor's set theory and transfinite numbers. A famous example of his leadership in mathematics is his 1900 presentation of a collection of problems that set the course for much of the mathematical research of the 20th century. Hilbert and his students contributed significantly to establishing rigor and developed important tools used in modern mathematical physics. Hilbert is known as one of the founders of proof theory and mathematical logic, as well as for being among the first to distinguish between mathematics and metamathematics. Life. Hilbert, the first of two children of Otto and Maria Therese (Erdtmann) Hilbert, was born in the Province of Prussia - either in Königsberg (according to Hilbert's own statement) or in Wehlau (known since 1946 as Znamensk) near Königsberg where his father worked at the time of his birth. In the fall of 1872, he entered the Friedrichskolleg Gymnasium ("Collegium fridericianum", the same school that Immanuel Kant had attended 140 years before), but after an unhappy period he transferred to (fall 1879) and graduated from (spring 1880) the more science-oriented Wilhelm Gymnasium. Upon graduation he enrolled (autumn 1880) at the University of Königsberg, the "Albertina". In the spring of 1882, Hermann Minkowski (two years younger than Hilbert and also a native of Königsberg but so talented he had graduated early from his gymnasium and gone to Berlin for three semesters), returned to Königsberg and entered the university. "Hilbert knew his luck when he saw it. In spite of his father's disapproval, he soon became friends with the shy, gifted Minkowski." In 1884, Adolf Hurwitz arrived from Göttingen as an Extraordinarius, i.e. an associate professor. An intense and fruitful scientific exchange among the three began, and Minkowski and Hilbert especially would exercise a reciprocal influence over each other at various times in their scientific careers. Hilbert obtained his doctorate in 1885, with a dissertation, written under Ferdinand von Lindemann, titled "Über invariante Eigenschaften spezieller binärer Formen, insbesondere der Kugelfunktionen" ("On the invariant properties of special binary forms, in particular the spherical harmonic functions"). Hilbert remained at the University of Königsberg as a "Privatdozent" (senior lecturer) from 1886 to 1895. In 1892, Hilbert married Käthe Jerosch (1864–1945), "the daughter of a Konigsberg merchant, an outspoken young lady with an independence of mind that matched his own". While at Königsberg they had their one child, Franz Hilbert (1893–1969). In 1895, as a result of intervention on his behalf by Felix Klein, he obtained the position of Professor of Mathematics at the University of Göttingen, at that time the best research center for mathematics in the world. He remained there for the rest of his life. His son Franz suffered throughout his life from an undiagnosed mental illness: his inferior intellect was a terrible disappointment to his father and this misfortune was a matter of distress to the mathematicians and students at Göttingen. Minkowski — Hilbert's "best and truest friend" — died prematurely of a ruptured appendix in 1909. The Göttingen school. Among the students of Hilbert were Hermann Weyl, chess champion Emanuel Lasker, Ernst Zermelo, and Carl Gustav Hempel. John von Neumann was his assistant. At the University of Göttingen, Hilbert was surrounded by a social circle of some of the most important mathematicians of the 20th century, such as Emmy Noether and Alonzo Church. Among his 69 Ph.D. students in Göttingen were many who later became famous mathematicians, including (with date of thesis): Otto Blumenthal (1898), Felix Bernstein (1901), Hermann Weyl (1908), Richard Courant (1910), Erich Hecke (1910), Hugo Steinhaus (1911), and Wilhelm Ackermann (1925). Between 1902 and 1939 Hilbert was editor of the "Mathematische Annalen", the leading mathematical journal of the time. Later years. Hilbert lived to see the Nazis purge many of the prominent faculty members at University of Göttingen in 1933. Those forced out included Hermann Weyl (who had taken Hilbert's chair when he retired in 1930), Emmy Noether and Edmund Landau. One who had to leave Germany, Paul Bernays, had collaborated with Hilbert in mathematical logic, and co-authored with him the important book "Grundlagen der Mathematik" (which eventually appeared in two volumes, in 1934 and 1939). This was a sequel to the Hilbert-Ackermann book "Principles of Mathematical Logic" from 1928. About a year later, Hilbert attended a banquet and was seated next to the new Minister of Education, Bernhard Rust. Rust asked, "How is mathematics in Göttingen now that it has been freed of the Jewish influence?" Hilbert replied, "Mathematics in Göttingen? There is really none any more." By the time Hilbert died in 1943, the Nazis had nearly completely restaffed the university, in as much as many of the former faculty had either been Jewish or married to Jews. Hilbert's funeral was attended by fewer than a dozen people, only two of whom were fellow academics, among them Arnold Sommerfeld, a theoretical physicist and also a native of Königsberg. News of his death only became known to the wider world six months after he had died. Hilbert was baptized and raised in the Reformed Protestant Church. He later on left the Church and became an agnostic. He also argued that mathematical truth was independent of the existence of God or other "a priori" assumptions. The epitaph on his tombstone in Göttingen consists of the famous lines he spoke at the conclusion of his retirement address to the Society of German Scientists and Physicians in the fall of 1930. The words were given in response to the Latin maxim: "Ignoramus et ignorabimus" or "We do not know, we shall not know": In English: The day before Hilbert pronounced these phrases at the 1930 annual meeting of the Society of German Scientists and Physicians, Kurt Gödel—in a roundtable discussion during the Conference on Epistemology held jointly with the Society meetings—tentatively announced the first expression of his incompleteness theorem. Hilbert solves Gordan's Problem. Hilbert's first work on invariant functions led him to the demonstration in 1888 of his famous "finiteness theorem". Twenty years earlier, Paul Gordan had demonstrated the theorem of the finiteness of generators for binary forms using a complex computational approach. Attempts to generalize his method to functions with more than two variables failed because of the enormous difficulty of the calculations involved. In order to solve what had become known in some circles as "Gordan's Problem", Hilbert realized that it was necessary to take a completely different path. As a result, he demonstrated "Hilbert's basis theorem", showing the existence of a finite set of generators, for the invariants of quantics in any number of variables, but in an abstract form. That is, while demonstrating the existence of such a set, it was not a constructive proof — it did not display "an object" — but rather, it was an existence proof and relied on use of the Law of Excluded Middle in an infinite extension. Hilbert sent his results to the "Mathematische Annalen". Gordan, the house expert on the theory of invariants for the "Mathematische Annalen", could not appreciate the revolutionary nature of Hilbert's theorem and rejected the article, criticizing the exposition because it was insufficiently comprehensive. His comment was: Klein, on the other hand, recognized the importance of the work, and guaranteed that it would be published without any alterations. Encouraged by Klein, Hilbert in a second article extended his method, providing estimations on the maximum degree of the minimum set of generators, and he sent it once more to the "Annalen". After having read the manuscript, Klein wrote to him, saying: Later, after the usefulness of Hilbert's method was universally recognized, Gordan himself would say: For all his successes, the nature of his proof stirred up more trouble than Hilbert could have imagined at the time. Although Kronecker had conceded, Hilbert would later respond to others' similar criticisms that "many different constructions are subsumed under one fundamental idea" — in other words (to quote Reid): "Through a proof of existence, Hilbert had been able to obtain a construction"; "the proof" (i.e. the symbols on the page) "was" "the object". Not all were convinced. While Kronecker would die soon afterwards, his constructivist philosophy would continue with the young Brouwer and his developing intuitionist "school", much to Hilbert's torment in his later years. Indeed Hilbert would lose his "gifted pupil" Weyl to intuitionism — "Hilbert was disturbed by his former student's fascination with the ideas of Brouwer, which aroused in Hilbert the memory of Kronecker". Brouwer the intuitionist in particular opposed the use of the Law of Excluded Middle over infinite sets (as Hilbert had used it). Hilbert would respond: Axiomatization of geometry. The text "Grundlagen der Geometrie" (tr.: "Foundations of Geometry") published by Hilbert in 1899 proposes a formal set, the Hilbert's axioms, substituting the traditional axioms of Euclid. They avoid weaknesses identified in those of Euclid, whose works at the time were still used textbook-fashion. Independently and contemporaneously, a 19-year-old American student named Robert Lee Moore published an equivalent set of axioms. Some of the axioms coincide, while some of the axioms in Moore's system are theorems in Hilbert's and vice-versa. Hilbert's approach signaled the shift to the modern axiomatic method. In this, Hilbert was anticipated by Peano's work from 1889. Axioms are not taken as self-evident truths. Geometry may treat "things", about which we have powerful intuitions, but it is not necessary to assign any explicit meaning to the undefined concepts. The elements, such as point, line, plane, and others, could be substituted, as Hilbert says, by tables, chairs, glasses of beer and other such objects. It is their defined relationships that are discussed. Hilbert first enumerates the undefined concepts: point, line, plane, lying on (a relation between points and planes), betweenness, congruence of pairs of points, and congruence of angles. The axioms unify both the plane geometry and solid geometry of Euclid in a single system. The 23 Problems. Hilbert put forth a most influential list of 23 unsolved problems at the International Congress of Mathematicians in Paris in 1900. This is generally reckoned the most successful and deeply considered compilation of open problems ever to be produced by an individual mathematician. After re-working the foundations of classical geometry, Hilbert could have extrapolated to the rest of mathematics. His approach differed, however, from the later 'foundationalist' Russell-Whitehead or 'encyclopedist' Nicolas Bourbaki, and from his contemporary Giuseppe Peano. The mathematical community as a whole could enlist in problems, which he had identified as crucial aspects of the areas of mathematics he took to be key. The problem set was launched as a talk "The Problems of Mathematics" presented during the course of the Second International Congress of Mathematicians held in Paris. Here is the introduction of the speech that Hilbert gave: He presented fewer than half the problems at the Congress, which were published in the acts of the Congress. In a subsequent publication, he extended the panorama, and arrived at the formulation of the now-canonical 23 Problems of Hilbert. The full text is important, since the exegesis of the questions still can be a matter of inevitable debate, whenever it is asked how many have been solved. Some of these were solved within a short time. Others have been discussed throughout the 20th century, with a few now taken to be unsuitably open-ended to come to closure. Some even continue to this day to remain a challenge for mathematicians. Formalism. In an account that had become standard by the mid-century, Hilbert's problem set was also a kind of manifesto, that opened the way for the development of the formalist school, one of three major schools of mathematics of the 20th century. According to the formalist, mathematics is manipulation of symbols according to agreed upon formal rules. It is therefore an autonomous activity of thought. There is, however, room to doubt whether Hilbert's own views were simplistically formalist in this sense. Hilbert's program. In 1920 he proposed explicitly a research project (in "metamathematics", as it was then termed) that became known as Hilbert's program. He wanted mathematics to be formulated on a solid and complete logical foundation. He believed that in principle this could be done, by showing that: He seems to have had both technical and philosophical reasons for formulating this proposal. It affirmed his dislike of what had become known as the "ignorabimus", still an active issue in his time in German thought, and traced back in that formulation to Emil du Bois-Reymond. This program is still recognizable in the most popular philosophy of mathematics, where it is usually called "formalism". For example, the Bourbaki group adopted a watered-down and selective version of it as adequate to the requirements of their twin projects of (a) writing encyclopedic foundational works, and (b) supporting the axiomatic method as a research tool. This approach has been successful and influential in relation with Hilbert's work in algebra and functional analysis, but has failed to engage in the same way with his interests in physics and logic. Hilbert wrote in 1919: Hilbert published his views on the foundations of mathematics in the 2-volume work Grundlagen der Mathematik. Gödel's work. Hilbert and the mathematicians who worked with him in his enterprise were committed to the project. His attempt to support axiomatized mathematics with definitive principles, which could banish theoretical uncertainties, was however to end in failure. Gödel demonstrated that any non-contradictory formal system, which was comprehensive enough to include at least arithmetic, cannot demonstrate its completeness by way of its own axioms. In 1931 his incompleteness theorem showed that Hilbert's grand plan was impossible as stated. The second point cannot in any reasonable way be combined with the first point, as long as the axiom system is genuinely finitary. Nevertheless, the subsequent achievements of proof theory at the very least "clarified" consistency as it relates to theories of central concern to mathematicians. Hilbert's work had started logic on this course of clarification; the need to understand Gödel's work then led to the development of recursion theory and then mathematical logic as an autonomous discipline in the 1930s. The basis for later theoretical computer science, in Alonzo Church and Alan Turing also grew directly out of this 'debate'. Functional analysis. Around 1909, Hilbert dedicated himself to the study of differential and integral equations; his work had direct consequences for important parts of modern functional analysis. In order to carry out these studies, Hilbert introduced the concept of an infinite dimensional Euclidean space, later called Hilbert space. His work in this part of analysis provided the basis for important contributions to the mathematics of physics in the next two decades, though from an unanticipated direction. Later on, Stefan Banach amplified the concept, defining Banach spaces. Hilbert spaces are an important class of objects in the area of functional analysis, particularly of the spectral theory of self-adjoint linear operators, that grew up around it during the 20th century. Physics. Until 1912, Hilbert was almost exclusively a "pure" mathematician. When planning a visit from Bonn, where he was immersed in studying physics, his fellow mathematician and friend Hermann Minkowski joked he had to spend 10 days in quarantine before being able to visit Hilbert. In fact, Minkowski seems responsible for most of Hilbert's physics investigations prior to 1912, including their joint seminar in the subject in 1905. In 1912, three years after his friend's death, Hilbert turned his focus to the subject almost exclusively. He arranged to have a "physics tutor" for himself. He started studying kinetic gas theory and moved on to elementary radiation theory and the molecular theory of matter. Even after the war started in 1914, he continued seminars and classes where the works of Albert Einstein and others were followed closely. By 1907 Einstein had framed the fundamentals of the theory of gravity, but then struggled for nearly 8 years with a confounding problem of putting the theory into final form. By early summer 1915, Hilbert's interest in physics had focused on general relativity, and he invited Einstein to Göttingen to deliver a week of lectures on the subject. Einstein received an enthusiastic reception at Göttingen. Over the summer Einstein learned that Hilbert was also working on the field equations and redoubled his own efforts. During November 1915 Einstein published several papers culminating in "The Field Equations of Gravitation" (see Einstein field equations). Nearly simultaneously David Hilbert published "The Foundations of Physics", an axiomatic derivation of the field equations (see Einstein–Hilbert action). Hilbert fully credited Einstein as the originator of the theory, and no public priority dispute concerning the field equations ever arose between the two men during their lives. See more at priority. Additionally, Hilbert's work anticipated and assisted several advances in the mathematical formulation of quantum mechanics. His work was a key aspect of Hermann Weyl and John von Neumann's work on the mathematical equivalence of Werner Heisenberg's matrix mechanics and Erwin Schrödinger's wave equation and his namesake Hilbert space plays an important part in quantum theory. In 1926 von Neumann showed that if atomic states were understood as vectors in Hilbert space, then they would correspond with both Schrödinger's wave function theory and Heisenberg's matrices. Throughout this immersion in physics, Hilbert worked on putting rigor into the mathematics of physics. While highly dependent on higher math, physicists tended to be "sloppy" with it. To a "pure" mathematician like Hilbert, this was both "ugly" and difficult to understand. As he began to understand physics and how physicists were using mathematics, he developed a coherent mathematical theory for what he found, most importantly in the area of integral equations. When his colleague Richard Courant wrote the now classic Methods of Mathematical Physics including some of Hilbert's ideas, he added Hilbert's name as author even though Hilbert had not directly contributed to the writing. Hilbert said "Physics is too hard for physicists", implying that the necessary mathematics was generally beyond them; the Courant-Hilbert book made it easier for them. Number theory. Hilbert unified the field of algebraic number theory with his 1897 treatise "Zahlbericht" (literally "report on numbers"). He also resolved a significant number-theory problem formulated by Waring in 1770. As with the finiteness theorem, he used an existence proof that shows there must be solutions for the problem rather than providing a mechanism to produce the answers. He then had little more to publish on the subject; but the emergence of Hilbert modular forms in the dissertation of a student means his name is further attached to a major area. He made a series of conjectures on class field theory. The concepts were highly influential, and his own contribution lives on in the names of the Hilbert class field and of the Hilbert symbol of local class field theory. Results were mostly proved by 1930, after work by Teiji Takagi. Hilbert did not work in the central areas of analytic number theory, but his name has become known for the Hilbert–Pólya conjecture, for reasons that are anecdotal.
1730675	Truth in 24 is a 2008 documentary film directed by Keith Cossrow and Bennett Visltear detailing Audi's preparation for the 2008 24 Hours of Le Mans. The team is followed through several races prior to Le Mans, including the 12 Hours of Sebring and the 1000km of Monza. Neither race results in victory for Audi (although they did win class at Sebring) heading into Le Mans. The focus shifts to Le Mans itself, documenting the buildup to the race and the ultimate result of the race. Numerous Audi officials and drivers are interviewed through the film, including the eventual winning team of Allan McNish, Dindo Capello, and Tom Kristensen. Release. "Truth in 24" had its television premiere on March 20, 2009, airing on ESPN. The release was the day prior to the 2009 12 Hours of Sebring. The film was released as a free download on iTunes on March 24, 2009.
1057334	Women in Trouble is a 2009 American comedy film, written and directed by Sebastian Gutierrez, and starring a cast consisting of Carla Gugino, Adrianne Palicki, Marley Shelton, Connie Britton and Emmanuelle Chriqui. It was shot in 10 days for $50,000. Plot. The film focuses on six women in Los Angeles as their lives become intertwined in the course of 24 hours.
1098833	Michel Rolle (April 21, 1652 – November 8, 1719) was a French mathematician. He is best known for Rolle's theorem (1691). He is also the co-inventor in Europe of Gaussian elimination (1690). Life. Rolle was born in Ambert, Basse-Auvergne. He moved from Ambert to Paris in 1675, and he was admitted to the Académie Royale des Sciences in 1685. Rolle was promoted to a salaried position in the Academy, a "pensionnaire géometre," in 1699. This was a distinguished post because of the 70 members of the Academy, only 20 were paid. He had then already been given a pension by Jean-Baptiste Colbert after he solved one of Jacques Ozanam's problems. Rolle died in Paris. No portrait of him is known. Work. Rolle was an early critic of infinitesimal calculus, arguing that it was inaccurate, based upon unsound reasoning, and was a collection of ingenious fallacies, but later changed his opinion. In 1690, Rolle published "Traité d'Algebre." It contains the first "published" description in Europe of the Gaussian elimination algorithm, which Rolle called the method of substitution. Some examples of the method had previously appeared in algebra books, and Isaac Newton had previously described the method in his lecture notes, but Newton's lesson was not published until 1707. Rolle's statement of the method seems not to have been noticed in so far as the lesson for Gaussian elimination that was taught in 18 and 19th century algebra textbooks owes more to Newton than to Rolle. Rolle is best known for Rolle's theorem in differential calculus. Rolle had used the result in 1690, and he proved it (by the standards of the time) in 1691. Given his animosity to infinitesimals it is fitting that the result was couched in terms of algebra rather than analysis. Only in the 18th century was the theorem interpreted as a fundamental result in differential calculus. Indeed, it is needed to prove both the mean value theorem and the existence of Taylor series. As the importance of the theorem grew, so did the interest in identifying the origin, and it was finally named "Rolle's theorem" in the 19th century. Barrow-Green remarks that the theorem might well have been named for someone else had not a few copies of Rolle's 1691 publication survived. Critique of infinitesimal calculus. In a criticism of infinitesimal calculus that predated George Berkeley's, Rolle presented a series of papers at the French academy, alleging that the use of the methods of infinitesimal calculus leads to errors. Specifically, he presented an explicit algebraic curve, and alleged that some of its local minima are missed when one applies the methods of infinitesimal calculus. Pierre Varignon responded by pointing out that Rolle had misrepresented the curve, and that the alleged local minima are in fact singular points with a vertical tangent.
1058198	The Way of the Gun is a 2000 American action crime drama film produced by Kenneth Kokin, written and directed by Christopher McQuarrie and starring Ryan Phillippe, Benicio del Toro, Juliette Lewis, Taye Diggs, Nicky Katt, and James Caan. It is considered a cult film. Plot. Parker (Ryan Phillippe) and Longbaugh (Benicio del Toro) are two born troublemakers who steal money any way they can. While at a sperm donation facility, they overhear a telephone conversation detailing a $1,000,000 payment to a surrogate mother for bearing the unborn baby of Hal Chidduck (Scott Wilson). Parker and Longbaugh resolve to kidnap the pregnant surrogate, Robin (Juliette Lewis). Their attempts to kidnap Robin at her pregnancy clinic escalate into a shootout with her bodyguards, Jeffers (Taye Diggs) and Obecks (Nicky Katt). After the shootout, the kidnappers escape with Robin and elude Jeffers and Obecks, who are arrested.
780702	Johan de Witt or Jan de Witt, "heer van Zuid- en Noord-Linschoten, Snelrewaard, Hekendorp and IJsselveere" (24 September 1625 – 20 August 1672) was a key figure in Dutch politics in the mid-17th century, when its flourishing sea trade in a period of globalization made the United Provinces a leading European power during the Dutch Golden Age. De Witt controlled the Netherlands political system from around 1650 until shortly before his death in 1672 working with various factions from nearly all the major cities, especially his hometown, Dordrecht, and the city of birth of his wife, Amsterdam. As a republican he opposed the House of Orange and, along with his brother Cornelis de Witt, was murdered by Orangists. Biography. Early life. Johan de Witt was a member of the old Dutch patrician family De Witt. His father was Jacob de Witt, an influential "regent" and burgher from the patrician class in the city of Dordrecht, which in the seventeenth century, was one of the most important cities of the dominating province of Holland. Johan and his older brother, Cornelis de Witt, grew up in a privileged social environment in terms of education, his father having as good acquaintances important scholars and scientists, such as Isaac Beeckman, Jacob Cats, Gerhard Vossius and Andreas Colvius. Johan and Cornelis both attended the Latin school in Dordrecht, which imbued both brothers with the values of the Roman Republic. Private life. Johan de Witt married on 16 February 1655 Wendela Bicker (1635–1668), the daughter of Jan Bicker (1591–1653), an influential patrician from Amsterdam, and Agneta de Graeff van Polsbroek (1603–1656). Jan Bicker served as mayor of Amsterdam in 1653. De Witt became a relative to the strong republican-minded brothers Cornelis and Andries de Graeff, and to Andries Bicker. The couple had four children, three daughters and one son: After De Witt's death, his brother in law Pieter de Graeff became a guardian over his children. Career. After having attended the Latin school in Dordrecht, he studied at the University of Leiden, where he excelled at mathematics and law. He received his doctorate from the University of Angers in 1645. He practiced law as an attorney in The Hague as an associate with the firm of Frans van Schooten. In 1650 (the year that stadtholder William II of Orange died) he was appointed leader of the deputation of Dordrecht to the States of Holland. In 1653 De Graeff made De Witt 'Grand Pensionary' of the States of Holland. Since Holland was the Republic's most powerful province, he was effectively the political leader of the United Provinces as a whole. That is why the "raadpensionaris" of Holland was also referred to as the Grand Pensionary — in many way similar to a modern Prime Minister. As the first Statesman of the Dutch Republic. Together with De Graeff, De Witt brought about peace with England after the First Anglo-Dutch War with the Treaty of Westminster in the year 1654. The peace treaty had a secret annex, the Act of Seclusion, forbidding the Dutch ever to appoint William II's posthumous son as stadtholder. This annex had been attached on instigation of Cromwell, who felt that since William III was a grandson of the executed Charles I, it was not in the interests of his own republican regime to see William ever gain political power. On 25 September 1660 the States of Holland under the prime movers of De Witt, De Graeff, his younger brother Andries de Graeff and Gillis Valckenier resolved to take charge of William's education to ensure he would acquire the skills to serve in a future—though undetermined—state function. Influenced by the values of the Roman republic, De Witt did his utmost anyway to prevent any member of the House of Orange from gaining power, convincing many provinces to abolish the stadtholderate entirely. He bolstered his policy by publicly endorsing the theory of republicanism. He is supposed to have contributed personally to the "Interest of Holland", a radical republican textbook published in 1662 by his supporter Pieter de la Court. De Witt's power base was the wealthy merchant class into which he was born. This class broadly coincided politically with the "States faction", stressing Protestant religious moderation and pragmatic foreign policy defending commercial interests. The "Orange faction", consisting of the middle class, preferred a strong leader from the House of Orange as a counterweight against the rich upper-classes in economic and religious matters alike, although leaders that did emerge from the House of Orange rarely were strict Calvinists themselves. In the period following the Treaty of Westminster, the Republic grew in wealth and influence under De Witt's leadership. De Witt created a strong navy, appointing one of his political allies, Lieutenant-Admiral Jacob van Wassenaer Obdam, as supreme commander of the confederate fleet. Later De Witt became a personal friend of Lieutenant-Admiral Michiel de Ruyter. The Second Anglo-Dutch War began in 1665, lasting until 1667 when it ended with the Treaty of Breda, in which De Witt negotiated very favorable agreements for the Republic after the partial destruction of the British fleet in the Raid on the Medway, initiated by De Witt himself and executed in 1666 by De Ruyter. At about the time the Treaty of Breda was concluded, De Witt made another attempt at pacification of the quarrel between States Party and Orangists over the position of the Prince of Orange. He proposed to have William appointed captain-general of the Union on reaching the age of majority (23); on condition, however, that this office would be declared incompatible with that of stadtholder in all of the provinces. For good measure the stadtholderate was abolished in Holland itself. This Perpetual Edict (1667) was enacted by the States of Holland on August 5, 1667, and recognized by the States-General on a four-to-three vote in January, 1668. This edict was added by Gaspar Fagel, then Pensionary of Haarlem, Gillis Valckenier and Free Imperial Knight Andries de Graeff, two prominent Amsterdam regents, which abolished the stadtholderate in Holland "for ever". Death. During 1672, which the Dutch refer to as the "year of disaster" or "rampjaar", France and England attacked the Republic during the Franco-Dutch War and the Orangists took power by force and deposed de Witt. Recovering from an earlier attempt on his life in June, he was lynched by an organized mob after visiting his brother Cornelis in prison.
1247042	Buck Jones (December 12, 1891 – November 30, 1942) was an American motion picture star of the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s, best known for his work starring in many popular western movies. In his early film appearances, he was billed as Charles Jones. Early life, military service. Charles Frederick Gebhart was born on the outskirts of Vincennes, Indiana on December 12, 1891. (Some sources erroneously indicate December 4, 1889, but Jones's marriage license and his military records confirm the 1891 date.) In 1907, Jones joined the US Army a month after his sixteenth birthday: his mother had signed a consent form that gave his age as eighteen. He was assigned to Troop G, 6th Cavalry Regiment, and was deployed to the Philippine islands in October, 1907, where he served in combat and was wounded during the Moro Rebellion. Upon his return to the U.S. in December, 1909, he was honorably discharged at Fort McDowell, California. Jones had an affection for racecars and the racing industry, and became close friends with early racecar driver Harry Stillman. Through his association with Stillman, he began working extensively as a test driver for the Marmon Motor Car Company. Yet by October 1910, he had re-enlisted in the US Army. Because he wanted to learn to fly, he requested a transfer to the Aeronautical Division, U.S. Signal Corps in 1913, without knowing that only an officer could become a pilot. He received his second honorable discharge from the Army in October 1913. Cowboy, stuntman, beginning of film career. Following his military service, he began working as a cowboy on the 101 Ranch near Bliss, Oklahoma. While attending equestrian shows he met Odille "Dell" Osborne, who rode horses professionally. The two became involved, and married in 1915. Both had very little money, so the producers of a Wild West Show they were working on at the time offered to allow them to marry in an actual show performance, in public, which they accepted. While in Los Angeles, and with his wife pregnant, Jones decided to leave the cowboy life behind and get a job in the film industry. He was hired by Universal Pictures for $5 per day as a bit player and stuntman. He later worked for Canyon Pictures, then Fox Film Corporation, eventually earning $40 per week as a stuntman. With Fox his salary increased to $150 per week, and company executive William Fox decided to use him as a backup to Tom Mix. This led to his first starring role, "The Last Straw", released in 1920. Stardom. In 1925 Jones made three films with the then very young Carole Lombard. Jones had more than 160 film credits to his name,and by the 1920s, Jones joined Hoot Gibson, Tom Mix, and Ken Maynard as the top cowboy actors of the day. By 1928 he started his own company, but his independently produced film "The Big Hop" (a non-Western) failed. He then organized a touring Wild West show, with himself as a featured attraction, but this expensive venture also failed due to the faltering economy of late 1929. With the new talking pictures replacing silent films as a national pastime, outdoor Westerns fell out of favor briefly. The major studios weren't interested in hiring Buck Jones. He signed with the then-humble Columbia Pictures, starring in Westerns for $300 a week, a fraction of his top salary in the silent-film days. His voice, a rugged baritone, recorded well and the films were very successful, re-establishing him as a major movie name. During the 1930s he starred in Western features and serials for Columbia and Universal Pictures. His star waned in the late 1930s when singing cowboys became the rage and Jones, then in his late forties, was uncomfortably cast in conventional leading-man roles. He rejoined Columbia in the fall of 1940, starring in the serial "White Eagle" (an expansion of his 1932 feature of the same name). The new serial was a hit, and Jones was again re-established. His final series of Western features, co-produced by Jones and his friend Scott R. Dunlap of Monogram Pictures, featured "The Rough Riders" trio: Buck Jones, Tim McCoy, and Raymond Hatton. In 1997, a Golden Palm Star on the Palm Springs, California, Walk of Stars was dedicated to him. Merchandising. Buck Jones lent his name and likeness to various product endorsements, including Post Grape-Nuts Flakes (his radio sponsor), and Daisy Outdoor Products. Jones was also a consultant for Daisy, which issued a Daisy "Buck Jones" model pump action air rifle. Incorporating a compass and a "sundial" into the stock, it was one of Daisy's top-end air rifles, and sold well for several years. This led to some confusion decades later with the release of the well-known holiday film "A Christmas Story", based on author Jean Shepherd's erroneous recollection that the Daisy Red Ryder BB Gun had a compass and sundial in the stock. The latter gun never did at any time during its production, save the two specially made examples for the film. Death. Buck Jones was one of the 492 victims of the 1942 Cocoanut Grove fire in Boston, Massachusetts, dying two days after the November 28 blaze. For years, legend held that Jones's fatal injuries were the result of his going back into the burning building to save victims, but it is now known that he was trapped in the fire. Family. Buck Jones's daughter, Maxine Jones (born 1918) was married to Noah Beery, Jr. from 1940 to 1966. References in popular media. On his album "When I Was a Kid", Bill Cosby has a routine called "Buck Jones," in which he talks about seeing Buck Jones movies as a kid. He says that Buck Jones had a horse named Silver, like the Lone Ranger, and that he would chew gum to signal that he was getting angry. Cosby mentions a specific movie in which a saloon tough picks a fight by pouring "redeye" liquor over Jones.
1502327	Cyril Ritchard (1 December 1897 – 18 December 1977) was an Australian stage, screen and television actor, and director. He is probably best remembered today for his performance as Captain Hook in the Mary Martin musical production of "Peter Pan". In 1945, he played Gabriele Eisenstein in Gay Rosalinda at the Palace theatre in London, a version of Strauss's Die Fledermaus by Erich Wolfgang Korngold in which he appeared with Peter Graves, Irene Ambrus and Ruth Naylor. The show was conducted by Richard Tauber and ran for almost a year.
804995	H. Igor Ansoff (December 12, 1918 – July 14, 2002) was a Russian American, applied mathematician and business manager. He is known as the father of Strategic management. Ansoff was born in Vladivostok, Russia, in 1918. He emigrated to the United States with his family and graduated from New York City's Stuyvesant High School in 1937. Ansoff studied general engineering at the Stevens Institute of Technology and continued his education there, receiving his Master of Science degree in the Dynamics of Rigid Bodies. Following Stevens Institute, he studied at Brown University where he received a Doctorate in applied mathematics with a major in Mathematical Theory of Elasticity and plasticity and a minor in Vibration. After coming to California he joined UCLA in the Senior Executive Program. He was a distinguished professor at United States International University (now Alliant International University) for 17 years, where several institutes continue his work in strategic management research. During World War II, he was a member of the U.S. Naval Reserve, and served as a liaison with the Russian Navy and as an instructor in physics at the U.S. Naval Academy. Professionally, Ansoff is known worldwide for his research in three specific areas: Marketing and MBA students are usually familiar with his Product-Market Growth Matrix, a tool he created to plot generic strategies for growing a business via existing or new products, in existing or new markets. He has consulted with hundreds of multinational corporations including, Philips, General Electric, Gulf, IBM, Sterling and Westinghouse. To honor his body of work, the prestigious Igor Ansoff Award was established in 1981 in The Netherlands. The award is given for research and management in the study of Strategic Planning and Management. The Japan Strategic Management Society has also established an annual award in his name and Vanderbilt University has established an Ansoff MBA scholarship. An applied mathematician, he shifted his emphasis in the 1950s while employed by the Rand Corporation. In 1956, he was employed as planning specialist for Lockheed Aircraft Corporation where he gained practical experience in analyzing the complexities of a business environment. At Lockheed he became Vice President of Planning and Director of Diversification. He served as Professor of Industrial Administration in the Graduate School at Carnegie Mellon University (1963–1968); Founding Dean and Professor of Management at Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee (1968–1973); professor at the European Institute for Advanced Studies in Management, Brussels, Belgium (1973–1975); Distinguished Justin Potter Professor of Free American Enterprise, Graduate School of Management, Vanderbilt University (1973–1976); Professor, Stockholm School of Economics, Stockholm, Sweden (1976–1983), and Professor, United States International University, San Diego, California (1984–2001). He died of complications from pneumonia in San Diego, California, on July 14, 2002.
589499	Jugnu (English: "firefly") is a 1973 Indian Hindi movie produced and directed by Pramod Chakravorty. The story is about an extremely Intelligent crook with a "Golden" Heart (Dharmendra) who has the remarkable ability to steal from the most protected setups. The movie also stars Hema Malini, Lalita Pawar, Mehmood, Prem Chopra, Nasir Hussain, Ajit and Pran.The music is by S. D. Burman and the lyrics by Anand Bakshi. . It went on to become a Boxoffice "Superhit" becoming the second highest grossing film of 1973. It had great songs, most notably the Diwali song picturised beautifully on Dharmendra and Sung by Kishore Kumar, "Deep Diwali ke Jhute". The song became a Runaway Hit going on to become an all-time a Chart-Buster of its time. Another notable feature of the film is the Popular dialogue written by Sachin Bhowmick, "Baap ka sarahe amjhe, Kaamsoor rothe hai", Meaning: "Only the weak seek to be known by their fathers" which was said on two occasions by Dharmendra and Pran. It went on to become one of the most loved and famous dialogues of all-time in Hindi cinema. Jugnu Remains a cult classic of Hindi cinema and represents one of Dharmendra's Finest performances. Songs from the Film 01.Deep Diwali ke Jhute By (Kishore Kumar) Picturised on Dharmendra
1099137	Aleksandr Mikhailovich Lyapunov (, ; – November 3, 1918) was a Russian mathematician, mechanician and physicist. His surname is sometimes romanized as Ljapunov, Liapunov or Ljapunow. Lyapunov is known for his development of the stability theory of a dynamical system, as well as for his many contributions to mathematical physics and probability theory. Biography. Early life. Lyapunov was born in Yaroslavl, Russian Empire. His father Mikhail Vasilyevich Lyapunov (1820–1868) was an astronomer and a head of the Demidovski lyceum. His brother, Sergei Lyapunov, was a gifted composer and pianist. In 1863, M. V. Lyapunov retired from his scientific career and relocated his family to his wife's estate at Bolobonov, in the Simbirsk province (now Ulyanovsk Oblast). After the death of his father in 1868, Aleksandr Lyapunov was educated by his uncle R. M. Sechenov, brother of the physiologist Ivan Mikhailovich Sechenov. At his uncle's family, Lyapunov studied with his distant cousin Natalia Rafailovna, who became his wife in 1886. In 1870, his mother moved with her sons to Nizhny Novgorod, where he started the third class of the gymnasium. He graduated from the gymnasium with distinction in 1876. Education. In 1876, Lyapunov entered the Physico-Mathematical department at the University of Saint Petersburg, but after one month he transferred to the Mathematics department of the university. Among the Saint Petersburg professors of mathematics were Chebyshev and his students Aleksandr Nikolaevich Korkin and Yegor Ivanovich Zolotarev. Lyapunov wrote his first independent scientific works under the guidance of the professor of mechanics, D. K. Bobylev. In 1880 Lyapunov received a gold medal for a work on hydrostatics. This was the basis for his first published scientific works "On the equilibrium of a heavy body in a heavy fluid contained in a vessel of a fixed form" and "On the potential of hydrostatic pressure". Lyapunov completed his university course in 1880, two years after Andrey Markov who had also graduated at Saint Petersburg University. Lyapunov would maintain a scientific contact with Markov during all his life. In 1884, Lyapunov defended his Master's thesis "On the stability of ellipsoidal forms of equilibrium of rotating fluids". This theme was suggested to him by Chebyshev, who had already suggested it to other students of his, such as Zolotarev and Sofia Vasilyevna Kovalevskaya. The thesis was publicized in 1885 in the "Bulletin Astronomique". It was fully translated in French in 1904 and attracted the attention of mathematicians, physicists and astronomers in Europe. Teaching and research. In 1892, Lyapunov defended his doctoral thesis "The general problem of the stability of motion". The thesis was defended in Moscow University on September 12, 1892, with Nikolai Zhukovsky and V. B. Mlodzeevski as opponents. This dissertation was, as with the master's, also translated into French. The next year Lyapunov became a full professor at Kharkiv University. In 1895, Lyapunov became privatdozent and was proposed to accept the chair of mechanics at Kharkiv University, where he went the same year. About the initial stay at Kharkiv, Lyapunov writes in his autobiography: His student and collaborator, Vladimir Steklov, recalled his first lecture in the following way: "A handsome young man, almost of the age of the other students, came before the audience, where there was also the old Dean, professor Levakovsky, who was respected by all students. After the Dean had left, the young man with a trembled voice started to lecture a course on the dynamics of material points, instead of a course on dynamical systems. This subject was already known to the students from the lectures of professor Delarue. But what Lyapunov taught us was new to me and I had never seen this material in any textbook. All antipathy to the course was immediately blown to dust. From that day students would show Lyapunov a special respect." Later years. Lyapunov returned to Saint Petersburg in 1902, after being elected acting member of the Academy of Science as well as ordinary professor in the Faculty of Applied Mathematics of the university. The position had been left vacant by the death of his former teacher, Chebyshev. Not having any teaching obligations, this allowed Lyapunov to focus on his studies and in particular he was able to bring to a conclusion the work on the problem of Chebyshev with which he started his scientific career. In 1908, he took part to the Fourth International Mathematical Congress in Rome. He also participated in the publication of Euler's selected works: he was an editor of the volumes 18 and 19. By the end of June 1917, Lyapunov traveled with his wife to his brother's place in Odessa. Lyapunov's wife was suffering from tuberculosis so they moved following her doctor's orders. She died on October 31, 1918. The same day, Lyapunov shot himself in the head, and three days later he died. Work. Lyapunov contributed to several fields, including differential equations, potential theory, dynamical systems and probability theory. His main preoccupations were the stability of equilibria and the motion of mechanical systems, the model theory for the stability of uniform turbulent liquid, and the study of particles under the influence of gravity. His work in the field of mathematical physics regarded the boundary value problem of the equation of Laplace. In the theory of potential, his work from 1897 "On some questions connected with Dirichlet's problem" clarified several important aspects of the theory. His work in this field is in close connection with the work of Steklov. Lyapunov developed many important approximation methods. His methods, which he developed in 1899, make it possible to define the stability of sets of ordinary differential equations. He created the modern theory of the stability of a dynamic system. In the theory of probability, he generalised the works of Chebyshev and Markov, and proved the Central Limit Theorem under more general conditions than his predecessors. The method he used for the proof found later widespread use in probability theory. Like many mathematicians, Lyapunov preferred to work alone and communicated mainly with few colleagues and close relatives. He usually worked late, four to five hours at night, sometimes the whole night. Once or twice a year he visited the theatre, or went to some concert. He had many students. He was an honorary member of many universities, an honorary member of the Academy in Rome and a corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences in Paris.
1049244	Carmine Caridi (born January 23, 1934) is an American television and film actor. He has appeared in a wide variety of roles over the past 30 years. He lives in West Hollywood. Career. His most notable film roles are Albert Volpe in "The Godfather Part III" and Carmine Rosato in "The Godfather Part II". He is one of three actors to play two different roles in the "Godfather" films (the others being Frank Sivero, who played a young Genco Abbandando in "Godfather Part II", and a bystander to the fight between Sonny Corleone and Carlo Rizzi in "The Godfather", and Sofia Coppola, who played Mary Corleone in "Godfather Part III", and the infant son of Carlo and Connie baptized in the final scenes of "The Godfather"). According to studio executive Robert Evans in his 1994 memoir "The Kid Stays in the Picture", Caridi was director Francis Ford Coppola's first choice for the role of Sonny Corleone, but Evans insisted on James Caan because Caridi was too tall to play opposite Al Pacino.
1082959	Boy on a Dolphin is a 1957 20th Century Fox romantic film set in Greece and shot in CinemaScope. It was directed by Jean Negulesco and produced by Samuel G. Engel from a screenplay by Ivan Moffat and Dwight Taylor, based on the novel by David Divine. The film is noteworthy as Sophia Loren's English language debut, although it is also notable for her singing "T'in'afto pou to lene agapi" (What is this they call love) in Modern Greek. Opposite Loren were stars Alan Ladd and Clifton Webb, with Alexis Minotis and Laurence Naismith in support. Hugo Friedhofer's score was nominated for a Best Music Academy Award in 1958. Cinematography was by Milton R. Krasner. Plot. Sophia Loren (Phaedra) plays a poor Greek sponge diver who accidentally finds an ancient Greek statue of a boy riding a dolphin on the bottom of the Aegean Sea. Her efforts to sell it to the highest bidder lead her to two competing individuals - Alan Ladd, an honest archaeologist with an academic's bankroll, and Clifton Webb, a wealthy but unscrupulous art collector. Ladd (museum curator Dr. James Calder) is committed to seeing the statue handed over to the rightful Greek authorities. Webb (millionaire Victor Parmalee) seeks to outwit him and add the treasure to his private collection. Loren throws in with Parmalee, but ends up romantically involved with Ladd, with predictable complications all round. Production notes. Much of the film was shot on location on the Greek Saronic Islands, notably Hydra. Establishing shots of Athens, Rhodes and Delos add to the verite, while matte shots and some interiors were done at Cinecittà in Rome. One scene utilizes the Eastern Orthodox monastery complex at Meteora later used as a location in the James Bond film "For Your Eyes Only". The disparity in heights between the Loren and Ladd led to complications in filming. Some of their scenes together required him to stand on a box, while another forced a trench to be dug for Loren when the pair walked along the beach. Title song. The sultry theme song often attributed to Julie London (though she did record her own version accompanied only by a guitar) is actually sung by Mary Kaye in the movie and is performed over the stunning underwater title sequence.: Sophia Loren sings "What is this thing they call love" ("Tι΄ναι αυτό που το λένε αγάπη" by Tony Maroudas ) in a duet with a local performer (Tony himself) at an "al fresco" café.
1100091	Gabriel Cramer (; 31 July 1704 – 4 January 1752) was a Swiss mathematician, born in Geneva. He was the son of physician Jean Cramer and Anne Mallet Cramer. Biography. Cramer showed promise in mathematics from an early age. At 18 he received his doctorate and at 20 he was co-chair of mathematics. In 1728 he proposed a solution to the St. Petersburg Paradox that came very close to the concept of expected utility theory given ten years later by Daniel Bernoulli. He published his best-known work in his forties. This was his treatise on algebraic curves (1750). It contains the earliest demonstration that a curve of the "n"-th degree is determined by on it, in general position. He edited the works of the two elder Bernoullis; and wrote on the physical cause of the spheroidal shape of the planets and the motion of their apsides (1730), and on Newton's treatment of cubic curves (1746). He died at Bagnols-sur-Cèze while traveling in southern France to restore his health. He did extensive travel throughout Europe in the late 1730s, which greatly influenced his works in mathematics.
1165171	James Gordon MacArthur (December 8, 1937October 28, 2010) was an American actor best known for the role of Danny "Danno" Williams, the reliable second-in-command of the fictional Hawaiian State Police squad "Hawaii Five-O". Early life. Born in DC, see 1940 US Census, Adopted in Los AngelesCalifornia, MacArthur was the son of playwright Charles MacArthur and a woman with whom he had an affair; he was adopted by actress Helen Hayes, who was married to his father. He grew up in Nyack, New York, along with the MacArthurs' biological daughter, Mary. He was educated at Allen-Stevenson School in New York, and later at the Solebury School in New Hope, Pennsylvania, where he starred in basketball, football, and baseball. In his final year at Solebury, MacArthur played guard on the football team; captained the basketball team; was president of his class, the student government, and the Drama Club; rewrote the school's constitution; edited the school paper, "The Scribe"; and played Scrooge in a local presentation of "A Christmas Carol". He also started dating a fellow student, Joyce Bulifant; they were married in November 1958 and divorced nine years later. MacArthur grew up around the greatest literary and theatrical talent of the time. Lillian Gish was his godmother, and his family guests included Ben Hecht, Harpo Marx, Robert Benchley, Beatrice Lillie, John Barrymore, and John Steinbeck. His first radio role was on the "Theatre Guild on the Air", in 1948. "Theatre Guild on the Air" was the premier radio program of its day, producing one-hour plays that were performed in front of a live audience of 800. Helen Hayes accepted a role in one of the plays, which also had a small part for a child. Her son was asked if he would like to do it, and agreed. Acting career. MacArthur made his stage debut at Olney, Maryland, in 1949, with a two-week stint in "The Corn Is Green". His sister Mary was in the play and telephoned their mother to request that James go to Olney to be in it with her. The following summer, he repeated the role at Dennis, Massachusetts, and his theatrical career was underway. In 1954, he played John Day in "Life with Father" with Howard Lindsay and Dorothy Stickney. He became involved in important Broadway productions only after receiving his training in summer stock. MacArthur also worked as a set painter, lighting director and chief of the parking lot. During a Helen Hayes festival at the Falmouth Playhouse on Cape Cod, he had a few walk-on parts. He also helped the theatre electrician and grew so interested that he was allowed to stay on after his mother's plays had ended. As a result, he lighted the show for Barbara Bel Geddes in "The Little Hut" and for Gloria Vanderbilt in "The Swan". When he visited Paris with his mother as a member of "The Skin of Our Teeth" company, he was in charge of making thunder backstage with a sheet of metal. At the age of 18, he played Hal Ditmar in the television play, "Deal a Blow", directed by John Frankenheimer and starring Macdonald Carey, Phyllis Thaxter and Edward Arnold. In 1956, Frankenheimer directed the movie version of the play, which was renamed "The Young Stranger", with MacArthur again in the starring role. Again his performance was critically acclaimed, earning him a nomination for Most Promising Newcomer at the 1958 BAFTA awards. He made "The Light in the Forest" and "Third Man on the Mountain", for Walt Disney, during summer breaks from Harvard University, where he was studying history. Deciding to make acting his full-time career, he left Harvard in his sophomore year to make two more Disney movies, "Kidnapped" and "Swiss Family Robinson". In February 2003, Conrad Richter's novel "The Light in the Forest" was one of the books selected for Ohio's "One Book, Two Counties" project. MacArthur was a guest speaker, and talked of how the book was turned into the film and of his experiences making the movie. MacArthur made his Broadway debut in 1960, playing opposite Jane Fonda in "Invitation to a March", for which he received a Theater World Award. Although he never returned to Broadway, he remained active in theatre, appearing in such productions as "Under the Yum Yum Tree", "The Moon Is Blue", "John Loves Mary" (with his then wife, Joyce Bulifant), "Barefoot in the Park" and "Murder at the Howard Johnson's". He then went on to star in such movies as "The Interns", "Spencer's Mountain", "The Truth About Spring" and "Cry of Battle", as well as "The Love-Ins" and "The Angry Breed". On the set of "The Angry Breed", in 1968, MacArthur met Melody Patterson, who was to become his second wife. They were married on the Hawaiian Island of Kauai, in July 1970 and divorced five years later. In 1963, he was nominated for the "Top New Male Personality" category of the Golden Laurel Awards. Between movie and theatre roles, MacArthur was also in demand for television guest appearances, which included parts in "Studio One", "G.E. Theatre", "Bus Stop" the play, "Bus Stop" the television series, "Bonanza", "Gunsmoke", "Wagon Train", "The Eleventh Hour", "The Great Adventure", "The Alfred Hitchcock Hour", "Combat!", "The Virginian". In 1966 he guest-starred as Lt. Harley Wilson in the "The Outsider", episode 20 in the second season of "12 O-Clock High (TV series)". He co-starred with his mother Helen Hayes in the 1968 episode "The Pride of the Lioness" on the "Tarzan" television series. MacArthur also gave a particularly chilling performance as baby-faced opium dealer "Johnny Lubin" in "The Untouchables" episode, "Death For Sale". Though not all his movie parts were starring roles, and some were quite brief, they were usually pivotal to the plot. His role in "The Bedford Incident" was that of a young ensign who becomes so rattled by the needling of his Captain (Richard Widmark) that he accidentally fires an ASROC at a Soviet submarine, thus (we are given to understand) starting World War III. In "Battle of the Bulge" he again played the role of a young and inexperienced officer. This time, however, the officer finds courage and a sense of responsibility. His brief but memorable appearance in the Clint Eastwood movie, "Hang 'Em High" eventually led to his role as Dan Williams in "Hawaii Five-O", popularizing the catch phrase "Book 'em Danno." "Hawaii Five-O". In 1967, Leonard Freeman, the producer and co-writer of "Hang 'Em High", made the pilot for a new television cop show, "Hawaii Five-O". Before it went to air, the pilot was well received by test audiences, except for some dislike of the actor playing Dan Williams. Freeman remembered MacArthur's portrayal of the traveling preacher in "Hang 'Em High": He had come on the set and done the scene in one take. He called MacArthur and offered him the role of Dan Williams. "Hawaii Five-O" ran for twelve years—eleven with MacArthur. Leaving "Hawaii Five-O" at the end of its eleventh season, MacArthur returned to the theatre, appearing in "The Lunch Hour" with Cybill Shepherd. Post- "Hawaii Five-O". He appeared in "A Bedfull of Foreigners" in Chicago in 1984, and in Michigan in 1985. He followed this with "The Hasty Heart", before taking a year out of show business. In 1987, he returned to the stage in "The Foreigner", then played Mortimer in the national tour of "Arsenic and Old Lace" with Jean Stapleton, Marion Ross and Larry Storch. In 1989, he followed another stint in "The Foreigner" with "Love Letters" and, in 1990–1991, "A Bedfull of Foreigners", this time in Las Vegas. After leaving "Hawaii Five-O", McArthur guest-starred on such television shows as "Murder, She Wrote", "The Love Boat", "Fantasy Island" and "Vega$", as well as in the mini series "Alcatraz: The Whole Shocking Story" and "The Night the Bridge Fell Down", and in the 1998 television movie "Stormchasers: Revenge of the Twister", with Kelly McGillis. Semi-retirement. Throughout his career, MacArthur had also found time for various other ventures. From 1959–60, he partnered with actor James Franciscus and Alan Ladd, Jr. in a Beverly Hills telephone answering service; in June 1972, he directed The Honolulu Community Theatre in a production of his father's play "The Front Page", and, for a period in the 1990s he was part-owner of Senior World publication, as well as writing the occasional celebrity interview. He continued to appear at conventions, collectors' shows, and celebrity sporting events. A keen golfer, he was the winner of the 2002 Frank Sinatra Invitational Charity Golf Tournament. He also appeared in television and radio specials and interview programs. His latest appearances included spots on "Entertainment Tonight", "Christopher's Closeup" and the BBC Radio 5 Live obituary program "Brief Lives", in which he paid tribute to his "Hawaii Five-O" castmate, the late Kam Fong. In 1997, MacArthur returned without Jack Lord (who was in declining health) to reprise his character, who had become Hawaii's Governor in the plot, in the 1997 unaired pilot of "Hawaii Five-O" which starred actor Gary Busey. In April 2003, he traveled to Honolulu's historic Hawaii Theatre for a cameo role in Joe Moore's play "Dirty Laundry". Negotiations were underway in summer 2010 for MacArthur to make a cameo appearance in the new CBS prime time remake of "Hawaii Five-0" at the time of his death, a role that eventually was given to Al Harrington. On the November 1, 2010 episode, MacArthur's death was mentioned in a short tribute that played before the start of that episode. In 2001, a Golden Palm Star on the Palm Springs, California, Walk of Stars was dedicated to him. Death. MacArthur died of natural causes on October 28, 2010, at the age of 72, at the Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, Florida. He was survived by his third wife, H.B. Duntz, and his four children and six grandchildren. The episode "Ho'apono" from the 2010 version of "Hawaii Five-0" was dedicated to MacArthur. He is interred in Nyack, New York's Oak Hill Cemetery.
1062534	Viola Davis (born August 11, 1965) is an American actress. Beginning her career on the stage, Davis won a Tony and a Drama Desk Award for her role in August Wilson's "King Hedley II" (2001). She won a second Drama Desk Award for "Intimate Apparel" (2004), followed by a second Tony and a third Drama Desk Award for her role in "Fences" (2010). Among her most notable films are "Traffic" (2000), "Antwone Fisher" (2002), "Solaris" (2002) and "The Help" (2011). Her eleven-minute-long performance in the film adaptation of John Patrick Shanley's "Doubt" (2008) earned several honors, including an Academy Award nomination. Her role in the film "The Help" has garnered two Screen Actors Guild Awards (one for Lead Actress and one for Best Ensemble in a motion picture), a BAFTA Award nomination, another Academy Award nomination, and a Golden Globe nomination. In addition to her success, she was listed in "Time's 100 Most Influential People in the World" in 2012. Early life. Davis was born on her grandmother's farm, on the former Singleton Plantation, in St. Matthews, South Carolina. She is the second youngest of six children. Her father, Dan Davis, was a horse trainer; her mother, Mary Alice, was a maid, factory worker, and homemaker, as well as a civil rights activist. Her family moved to Central Falls, Rhode Island a few months after she was born. Davis has described herself as having "lived in abject poverty and dysfunction" during her childhood. Davis partially credits her love of stage acting with her involvement in the arts at her alma mater, Central Falls High School. Davis majored in theatre at Rhode Island College, graduating in 1988; in 2002 she received an honorary doctorate in Fine Arts from the college. She was involved in the federal TRIO Upward Bound and TRIO Student Support Services programs. While Davis was a teenager, her talent was recognized by Bernard Masterson when, as director of Young People's School for the Performing Arts in West Warwick, Rhode Island, he awarded Davis a scholarship into that program. She also attended the Juilliard School for four years, as a member of the Drama Division's "Group 22" (1989–1993). Career. In 2001, she won the Tony Award and a Drama Desk Award for her portrayal of Tonya in "King Hedley II", a "35-year-old mother fighting eloquently for the right to abort a pregnancy." She has also won another Drama Desk Award for her work in a 2004 off-Broadway production of "Intimate Apparel" by Lynn Nottage. Davis appeared in numerous films, including three films directed by Steven Soderbergh - "Out of Sight", "Solaris" and "Traffic", as well as "Syriana", which Soderbergh produced. Viola was also the uncredited voice of the parole board interrogator who questions Danny Ocean (George Clooney) in the first scene in "Ocean's Eleven". She also gave brief performances in the films "Kate & Leopold" and "Antwone Fisher". Her television work includes a recurring role in '; starring roles in two short-lived series, "Traveler" and "Century City"; and a special guest appearance in "", a ' episode. In 2008, Davis played Mrs. Miller in the film adaptation to the Broadway play "Doubt", with Meryl Streep, Philip Seymour Hoffman, and Amy Adams. Davis was nominated for several awards for this performance, including a Golden Globe and an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. On June 30, 2009, Davis was inducted into The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. On June 13, 2010, Davis won her second Tony Award for her role as Rose Maxson in a revival of August Wilson's "Fences". She is the second African-American woman to win the award, after Phylicia Rashād. Davis played the role of Dr. Minerva in "It's Kind of a Funny Story" (2010), a coming-of-age film written and directed by Anna Boden with Ryan Fleck, adapted from the 2006 novel by Ned Vizzini. In August 2011, Davis played the role of Aibileen Clark in the screen adaptation of Kathryn Stockett's novel "The Help", directed by Tate Taylor. For her performance, Davis garnered great critical acclaim, and eventually received two Screen Actors Guild Awards, as well as her second Academy Award nomination, which she ultimately lost to her good friend Meryl Streep. She also received Golden Globe Award and BAFTA nominations for the same performance. In 2012, "Time" magazine listed Davis as one of the most influential people in the world. Also in 2012, "Glamour" magazine named Davis Glamour's Film Actress of the year. On June 12, 2012, Davis was presented with the Women in Film's Crystal Award by her friend and Oscar rival that year Meryl Streep. On June 25, 2012, The Walk of Fame Committee of the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce announced that Davis was part of the new group of entertainment professionals who have been selected to receive stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2013. In April 2013 it was reported that Davis is in talks to play a starring role in the untitled Michael Mann directed film that will star Chris Hemsworth and Maggie Casey as his love interest. Legendary Pictures is producing the thriller. Personal life. Davis has been married to actor Julius Tennon since June 2003. They have a daughter, Genesis, whom they adopted as a newborn in October 2011. Davis is stepmother to Tennon's two sons from previous relationships.
1103880	Frigyes Riesz (, ; January 22, 1880 – February 28, 1956) was a Hungarian mathematician who made fundamental contributions to functional analysis. Life and career. He was born in Győr, Kingdom of Hungary, Austria-Hungary and died in Budapest, Hungary. Between 1911 and 1919 he was a professor at the Franz Joseph University in Kolozsvár, Austria-Hungary. Then, he was the rector and a professor at the University of Szeged, as well as a member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. He was the older brother of the mathematician Marcel Riesz. Riesz did some of the fundamental work in developing functional analysis and his work has had a number of important applications in physics. He established the spectral theory for bounded symmetric operators in a form very much like that now regarded as standard. He also made many contributions to other areas including ergodic theory and he gave an elementary proof of the mean ergodic theorem.
1068559	Holy Rollers is a 2010 independent film written by Antonio Macia, directed by Kevin Asch, and starring Jesse Eisenberg, Justin Bartha, Ari Graynor, Danny Abeckaser, Q-Tip and Jason Fuchs. "Holy Rollers" is inspired by actual events in the late nineties when Hasidic Jews were recruited as mules to smuggle ecstasy from Europe into the United States. Plot. Sam Gold (Jesse Eisenberg), is a mild-mannered 20-year old Orthodox Jewish man who lives with his large family in the Borough Park section of Brooklyn. Sam works in his father's fabric store while studying to be a rabbi. He and his family hope to arrange a marriage for him with Zeldy Lazar. However, Sam's family is much poorer than the Lazars, and he worries he will be unable to provide for them.
1062298	Roberto Remigio Benigni, Cavaliere di Gran Croce OMRI (; born 27 October 1952) is an Italian actor, comedian, screenwriter and director of film, theatre and television.
1062794	Heather Joan Graham (born January 29, 1970) is an American actress. After starring in various commercials, her first high-profile starring role came in 1988 with the teen comedy "License to Drive", followed by her breakout role in Gus Van Sant's critically acclaimed 1989 film "Drugstore Cowboy". She then took a number of supporting roles in films such as "Shout" (1991), "Six Degrees of Separation" (1993), "Swingers" (1996) and in TV series "Twin Peaks" (1991) and its prequel film ' (1992) before gaining critical praise as porn starlet Brandi/Rollergirl in Paul Thomas Anderson's "Boogie Nights" (1997). In 1999, she co-starred in "Bowfinger" and '. In the 2000s, Graham starred in a number of films ranging from studio films to smaller indies like "Committed" (2000), "Say It Isn't So" (2001), "Anger Management" (2003), "Mary" (2005), "Gray Matters" (2007), "The Hangover" (2009) and "The Hangover Part III" (2013). She also had a brief stint on the TV series "Scrubs" in 2004, before starring as the title character in the short-lived "Emily's Reasons Why Not" in 2006. Widely regarded a sex symbol, she often appears in magazines' 'Most Beautiful' and 'Sexiest' lists
1064085	Benjamin Shenkman (born September 26, 1968) is an American television, film and stage actor, who is best known for his role as one of HankMed's concierge doctors, Dr. Jeremiah Sacani, in USA Network's hit TV series, "Royal Pains". Personal life. Shenkman was born Benjamin Sheinkman in New York City, the son of Katherine, who was an associate at a law firm, and Shepard A. Sheinkman, who worked for a consulting company. Shenkman raised in what he described as "the secular Eastern European Jewish tradition". He was not raised as an observant Jew and did not have a bar mitzvah service, although he has stated that his Jewish identity is important to him. He graduated from Brown University, and obtained a Masters of Fine Arts in 1993 from New York University's Graduate Acting Program at the Tisch School of the Arts. Shenkman's sister is married to British publisher Jamie Byng. Career. He began his professional acting career with a small role in the 1994 film "Quiz Show" directed by Robert Redford and a guest-starring role on "Law & Order," his first of seven appearances throughout the run of the show. He also began working in theatre, portraying Louis Ironson in Tony Kushner's play "" at San Francisco's American Conservatory Theatre. The production wasn't the first or last time Shenkman took part in this award-winning piece: while still at New York University, Shenkman played the role of Roy Cohn in a workshop production of the play, and he would reprise the role of Louis eight years later in the HBO miniseries adaptation, earning Emmy and Golden Globe nominations. Throughout the 1990s Shenkman combined work in Off-Broadway productions in NY with small roles in films such as "Eraser" (1996), "The Siege" (1998), "π" (1998), and "Jesus' Son" (1999), "Chasing Sleep" (2000), and "Requiem for a Dream" (2000). In 2000 Shenkman gained success in the theatre, co-starring with Mary-Louise Parker in the Manhattan Theatre Club production of "Proof", for which he received a 2001 Tony nomination. After the release of HBO's "Angels in America" miniseries, he returned to Manhattan Theatre club in 2004 in "Sight Unseen" opposite Laura Linney. As his career continued Shenkman moved between studio films such as "Must Love Dogs" (2005) and "Just Like Heaven" (2005), and indies like "Then She Found Me" (2008), "Brief Interviews with Hideous Men" (2008), and "Breakfast with Scot" (2008) a gay-themed film made in Canada for which the NHL notably endorsed the use of a team's logo and uniforms. 2010 saw him with Michael Douglas in "Solitary Man" and the Sundance premiere "Blue Valentine". He also kept busy in TV, as a series regular in the 2008 Julianna Margulies legal drama "Canterbury's Law" on Fox, and in recurring roles on "Grey's Anatomy", "Burn Notice", "Damages", "Drop Dead Diva" and FX's "Lights Out". Shenkman co-starred in the short-lived NBC sitcom "The Paul Reiser Show", which was a midseason replacement for the 2010-11 television season. Shenkman currently plays Dr. Jeremiah Sacani in the USA Network show "Royal Pains"
1034528	Richard Arthur Beckinsale (6 July 1947 – 19 March 1979) was an English actor, best known for his roles as Lennie Godber in the popular BBC sitcom "Porridge" (along with its sequel series "Going Straight") and Alan Moore in the British sitcom "Rising Damp". He is the father of actresses Samantha Beckinsale and Kate Beckinsale. Early life. Beckinsale was born in Carlton, Nottinghamshire, to a half Burmese father, Arthur John Beckinsale, and an English mother, Margaret Barlow. He left Alderman White Secondary Modern School at 15 with ambitions to become an actor, so while working in numerous manual jobs he enrolled at a Nottingham adult drama class. As a consequence, he won a place at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, turning professional in 1968. He then moved to Crewe to begin in repertory theatre, like most newly-graduated actors at the time, and then made his television debut in 1969 as a police officer in "Coronation Street", in which he had to arrest veteran character Ena Sharples. Career. Beckinsale acquired his first starring role in 1970 as Geoffrey in the sitcom "The Lovers", opposite fellow newcomer Paula Wilcox. The show was a success without being a runaway triumph, and did enough to put both lead performers in the public eye. It also, like many sitcoms of the time, spawned a film version. There followed a purple patch when he was appearing in two of British TV's most successful sitcoms at the same time. On ITV, he was playing naive medical student Alan Moore in "Rising Damp" (voted ITV's best-ever sitcom in the "Britain's Best Sitcom" survey of 2004) while also starring in BBC's "Porridge" as Lennie Godber alongside Ronnie Barker. In 1975 he appeared in the comedy film "Three for All" and in 1976 appeared against type as a car thief in the ITV Playhouse episode "Last Summer". Shortly after his 30th birthday, Beckinsale was surprised by Eamonn Andrews with the famed 'big red book' for an appearance on "This Is Your Life". Beckinsale quit "Rising Damp" in 1977, the same year that "Porridge" was brought to a natural end after his character of Godber was released from his prison sentence in the final episode. He subsequently starred alongside Barker in "Going Straight", a spin-off of "Porridge" in which the two criminal characters are seen on the outside rebuilding their lives. At the beginning of 1979, Beckinsale made a film version of "Porridge". It was to be his last and only completed work of the year. In October 1980, Frederick Muller Ltd published a volume of Beckinsale's poetry entitled "With Love" (ISBN 0584103875). Death. With filming completed on the film version of "Porridge", Beckinsale started work on a sitcom for the BBC called "Bloomers", and also prepared to start work on the film "Bloody Kids". According to his "Bloomers" co-star Anna Calder-Marshall, during the recording of the first episode, Becksinsale told her he had suffered some kind of black-out, and had also had some dizzy spells. This concerned him enough to make an appointment to see a doctor, but the doctor could not find anything wrong apart from an overactive stomach lining, and slightly high cholesterol. As filming on the show progressed, Beckinsale appeared increasingly tired, and "greyer and greyer", according to co-star David Swift, and towards the end of filming he was complaining of pains in his arms. On what was to be his last day of filming on the show, he gave Anna Calder-Marshall a lift home after filming. To her surprise, he began to talk about his fear of dying, and of being alone in the house. A week before he died, Beckinsale complained to his wife Judy Loe of feeling unwell and said he was unable to take her to hospital. At the time, they both put it down to nerves; she was due to have an operation to increase the couple's chances of having another child. The day before he died, he and his five-year-old daughter Kate visited Loe in hospital. Upon leaving the hospital, Beckinsale dropped his daughter off with relatives to spend the night. He then attended a farewell party for the Two Ronnies, who were about to leave for Australia. Afterward, he returned to his house in Sunningdale, Berkshire. At some point that day, he had also called his elder daughter Samantha, and made plans to spend some time with her the following weekend. After arriving home late on the evening of Sunday 18 March, he telephoned friends. During the conversation he repeated that he had been feeling unwell, and also said that he had some pain in his chest and arms. He seemed in good humour though, and made a joke out of it. When he did not show up for rehearsal for the sixth and final episode of "Bloomers" the next morning, a member of the production team called his house, and the phone was answered by family friend Rosana Bradley, who had been staying at the house to help take care of Kate, but who had not been there the previous night. She said Beckinsale was still sleeping, and she left the phone to go and wake him up. When she returned, she said that she was unable to wake him, and was advised to call a doctor. Shortly after, it was confirmed that he had died during the night, of what appeared to be a massive heart attack. This was confirmed during a post-mortem, which also revealed that he had a congenital heart defect. Beckinsale had expressed worries about his cholesterol to friend Stephen Frears over dinner just days earlier, but he seemed healthy and fit and had no cardiac problems in his medical records. According to Frears, Beckinsale's high cholesterol may have been a factor in his early death. "Porridge" co-star Ronnie Barker commented on Beckinsale's premature death, saying: "He was so loved. He hadn't done much but he was so loved that there was a universal sort of grief that went on." When asked to comment on his death years later, Kate Beckinsale said, "It was so sudden. He just went to sleep one night, and didn't wake up again." Beckinsale was cremated at Mortlake Crematorium. Unfinished work. At the time of his death, Beckinsale had almost completed "Bloomers"—writer James Saunders's original script reveals that Beckinsale was due to attend the sixth and last rehearsal for the final episode of the series on the day he died, with the show to be recorded the following day. The five completed "Bloomers" episodes were aired later in the year. He was also making a film, "Bloody Kids", which then had to be re-cast. This role marked a change in direction for Beckinsale, being a more hard-nosed character than those he had played before. Three days after his death, "Going Straight" won a BAFTA award. A clearly distressed Barker delivered a brief but emotional acceptance speech in tribute to his co-star. Plans had been drawn up to make a film of "Rising Damp"—Beckinsale's other big sitcom success—and ultimately the film was made in 1980. Christopher Strauli was recruited to replace Beckinsale, playing a different character. Personal life and legacy. In 2000, 21 years after his death, a documentary was broadcast on ITV in tribute, called "The Unforgettable Richard Beckinsale". It featured interviews with his widow, the actress Judy Loe, as well as his father, sister, closest schoolfriend and two daughters. Also contributing were his co-stars, Barker and "Rising Damp"'s Don Warrington.
1068385	Find Me Guilty is a 2006 American legal drama crime film directed by Sidney Lumet, based on the true story of the longest Mafia trial in American history. Mobster Giacomo "Jackie" DiNorscio (played by Vin Diesel) faces a series of charges even though he has a prior 30-year conviction, but he decides to stand trial instead of ratting out his family and associates. A wrench is thrown into the system when DiNorscio attempts to defend himself and act as his own lawyer at trial. The film also stars Peter Dinklage, Linus Roache, Alex Rocco and Ron Silver. Much of the courtroom testimony was taken from the original court transcripts. Plot. It's the late 1980s and low-level mobster Giacomo "Jackie Dee" DiNorscio (Vin Diesel) has just been shot by his junkie cousin Tony Compagna, but refuses to press charges against him to police. Jackie soon gets arrested and is sentenced to thirty years on an unrelated drug bust. Tony, afraid of reprisals from the extended mob family run by Nick Calabrese, agrees to be a government witness for district attorney Sean Kierney (Linus Roache), who intends to bring down dozens of organized crime figures all at once. Kierney tries to bribe Jackie to be a government witness as well, but it's not in the gregarious Jackie's nature to be a rat. That sets in motion a massive court case where Jackie, Nick and dozens of other mobsters are tried together for a countless number of crimes in front of presiding Judge Sidney Finestein. Upset with his current lawyer, who couldn't even keep him from doing a 30-year stretch, Jackie turns down an offer to be represented by lead defense attorney Ben Klandis (Peter Dinklage) and decides to represent himself in court, despite having no legal background or any real knowledge of how to proceed. Jackie's mischievous and vulgar manner amuses the jury on occasions but persistently irritates the judge, lawyers, witnesses and defendants, including his friends from the mob.
1054887	Sweet Liberty (1986) is an American comedy film written and directed by Alan Alda, and starring Alda in the lead role, alongside Michael Caine and Michelle Pfeiffer, with support from Bob Hoskins, Lois Chiles, Lise Hilboldt, Lillian Gish, and Larry Shue. It was the next-to-last film for Gish, whose first appearance on screen came in 1912. Plot. College history professor Michael Burgess (Alan Alda) is about to have his fact-based historical novel about The American Revolution turned into a Hollywood motion picture being filmed in the North Carolina town where he lives.
1063851	Daniel Ronald "Ronny" Cox (born July 23, 1938) is an American character actor, singer-songwriter and guitarist. Personal life. Cox, the third of five children, was born in Cloudcroft, New Mexico, the son of Lounette (née Rucker) and Bob P. Cox, a carpenter who also worked at a dairy. He grew up in Portales, New Mexico. Cox graduated from Eastern New Mexico University in 1963 with a double major in Theater and Speech Correction. On September 10, 1960, he married Mary Cox. They had two children; she died in 2006. Cox tours regularly with a band, performing at theatres and folk music festivals. Acting career. As an actor, he made his debut in the acclaimed 1972 film "Deliverance", in a scene wherein he plays the instrumental "Dueling Banjos" on his guitar with a banjo-playing mountain boy, played by child actor Billy Redden. He was hired for the role because he could play the guitar. Cox released a book which recounts his experiences making the film in 2012. In the period 1974-1975, Cox starred in the short-lived CBS family-oriented dramatic series entitled "Apple's Way", created by Earl Hamner, who created "The Waltons". He also appeared as Mr. Webb in a television production of "Our Town". In 1984, 12 years after the movie "Deliverance", Cox once again played a member of a small group of men who are, this time, lost in the Nevada desert and being chased by bloodthirsty locals in the low-budget film "Courage".
134713	Damodar Dharmananda Kosambi () (31 July 1907 – 29 June 1966) was an Indian mathematician, statistician, Marxist historian, and polymath who contributed to genetics by introducing "Kosambi's map function". He is well known for his work in numismatics and for compiling critical editions of ancient Sanskrit texts. His father, Dharmananda Damodar Kosambi, had studied ancient Indian texts with a particular emphasis on Buddhism and its literature in the Pali language. Damodar Kosambi emulated him by developing a keen interest in his country's ancient history. Kosambi was also a Marxist historian specialising in ancient India who employed the historical materialist approach in his work. He is described as "the patriarch of the Marxist school of Indian historiography". Kosambi was critical of the policies of then prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru, which, according to him, promoted capitalism in the guise of democratic socialism. He was an enthusiast of the Chinese revolution and its ideals, and, in addition, a leading activist in the World Peace Movement. In the opinion of the historian Irfan Habib, "D. D. Kosambi and R.S. Sharma, together with Daniel Thorner, brought peasants into the study of Indian history for the first time." Early life. After a few years of schooling in India, in 1918 D.D. Kosambi and his elder sister, Manik Kosambi, travelled to Cambridge, Massachusetts with his father; the latter was tasked by Professor Charles Rockwell Lanman of Harvard University to complete compiling a critical edition of Visuddhimagga, a book on Buddhist philosophy, which was originally started by Henry Clarke Warren. There he spent a year in the Grammar school and then was admitted to the Cambridge High and Latin School in 1920. He became a member of the Cambridge branch of American Boy Scouts. It was here in Cambridge that he befriended another prodigy of the time, Norbert Wiener, whose father Leo Wiener was the elder Kosambi's colleague at Harvard University. Kosambi excelled in his final school examination and was one of the few candidates who was exempt on the basis of merit from necessarily passing an entrance examination essential at the time to gain admission to Harvard University. He enrolled in Harvard in 1924, but eventually postponed his studies, and returned to India. He stayed with his father who was now working in the Gujarat University, and was in the close circles of Mahatma Gandhi. In January 1926, Kosambi returned to the US with his father, who once again studied at Harvard University for a year and half. Kosambi studied mathematics under George David Birkhoff, who wanted him to concentrate on mathematics, but the ambitious Kosambi instead took many diverse courses excelling in each of them. In 1929, Harvard awarded him the Bachelor of Arts degree with a . He was also granted membership to the esteemed Phi Beta Kappa Society, the oldest undergraduate honours organisation in the United States. He returned to India soon after. He was technical consultant to the Chinese government. Banaras and Aligarh. He obtained the post of professor at the Banaras Hindu University (BHU), teaching German alongside mathematics. He struggled to pursue his research on his own, and published his first research paper, "Precessions of an Elliptic Orbit" in the Indian Journal of Physics in 1930. In 1931, Kosambi married Nalini, daughter of a very wealthy and distinguished member of the Madgaonkar family. It was in this year that he was hired by mathematician André Weil, then Professor of Mathematics at Aligarh Muslim University, to the post of lecturership in mathematics at Aligarh. His other colleagues at Aligarh included Vijayraghavan. During his two years stay in Aligarh, he produced eight research papers in the general area of Differential Geometry and Path Spaces. His fluency in several European languages allowed him to publish some of his early papers in French, Italian and German journals in their respective languages. Fergusson College, Pune. In 1933, he joined the Deccan Education Society's Fergusson College in Pune, where he taught mathematics for the next 12 years. In 1935, his eldest daughter, Maya was born, while in 1939, the youngest, Meera, a well-known sociologist and feminist was born. In Pune, while teaching mathematics and conducting research in the field, he started his interdisciplinary pursuit. In 1944 he published a small article of 4 pages titled 'The Estimation of Map Distance from Recombination Values' in "Annals of Eugenics", in which he introduced what later came to be known as Kosambi's map function. One of the most important contributions of Kosambi to statistics is the widely known technique called proper orthogonal decomposition (POD). Although it was originally developed by Kosambi in 1943, it is now referred to as the Karhunen–Loève expansion. In the 1943 paper entitled 'Statistics in Function Space' presented in the "Journal of the Indian Mathematical Society", Kosambi presented the Proper Orthogonal Decomposition some years before Karhunen (1945) and Loeve (1948). This tool has found application to such diverse fields as image processing, signal processing, data compression, oceanography, chemical engineering and fluid mechanics. Unfortunately this most important contribution of his is barely acknowledged in most papers that utilise the POD method. In recent years though, it is heartening to note that some authors have indeed referred to it as the Kosambi-Karhunen-Loeve decomposition. It was his studies in numismatics that initiated him into the field of historical research. He made a thorough study of Sanskrit and ancient literature, and he started his classic work on the ancient poet Bhartṛhari. He published his critical editions of Bhartrihari's Shatakatrayee and Subhashitas during 1945–1948. It was during this period that he started his political activism, coming close to the radical streams in the ongoing Independence movement, especially the Communist Party of India. He became an outspoken Marxist and wrote some political articles. Tata Institute of Fundamental Research. In 1945, Homi J. Bhabha invited Kosambi to join the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR) as Professor of Mathematics, which he accepted. After independence, in 1948–49 he was sent to England and the US as a UNESCO Fellow to study the theoretical and technical aspects of the computer. During this time, he was a visiting professor of geometry at the University of Chicago. He spent some time at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey. In London, he started his long-lasting friendship with indologist and historian A.L. Basham. After his return to India, in the Cold War circumstances, he was increasingly drawn into the World Peace Movement and served as a Member of the World Peace Council. He became a tireless crusader for peace, campaigning against the nuclearisation of the world. Kosambi's solution to India's energy needs was in sharp conflict with the ambitions of the Indian ruling class. He proposed alternative energy sources, like solar power. His activism in the peace movement took him to Beijing, Helsinki and Moscow. However, during this period he relentlessly pursued his diverse research interests, too. Most importantly, he worked on his Marxist rewriting of ancient Indian history, which culminated in his book, "An Introduction to the Study of Indian History" (1956). He visited China many times during 1952–62 and was able to watch the Chinese revolution very closely, making him critical of the way modernisation and development were envisaged and pursued by the Indian ruling classes. All these contributed to straining his relationship with the Indian government and Bhabha, eventually leading to Kosambi's exit from the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research in 1962. Post-TIFR days. His exit from the TIFR gave Kosambi the opportunity to concentrate on his research in ancient Indian history culminating into his book, "The Culture and Civilisation of Ancient India", which was published in 1965 by Routledge, Kegan & Paul. The book was translated into German, French and Japanese and was widely acclaimed. He also utilised his time in archaeological studies, and contributed in the field of statistics and number theory. His article on numismatics was published in February 1965 in Scientific American. Due to the efforts of his friends and colleagues, in June 1964, Kosambi was appointed as a Scientist Emeritus of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) affiliated with the Maharashtra "Vidnyanvardhini" in Pune. He pursued many historical, scientific and archaeological projects (even writing stories for children). But most works he produced in this period could not be published during his lifetime. On 29 June 1966, he died in Pune. He was posthumously decorated with the "Hari Om Ashram Award" by the government of India's University Grant Commission in 1980. His friend A.L. Basham, a well-known indologist, wrote in his obituary: Kosambi's historiography. As a historian, Kosambi revolutionised Indian historiography with his Marxist approach, crucially diverting from the mainstream nationalist and imperialist schools. He understood history in terms of the dynamics of socio-economic formations rather than just a chronological narration of "episodes" or the feats of a few great men – kings, warriors or saints. In the very first paragraph of his classic work, "An Introduction to the Study of Indian History", he gives an insight into his methodology as a prelude to his life work on ancient Indian history: According to A. L. Basham, ""An Introduction to the Study of Indian History" is in many respects an epoch making work, containing brilliantly original ideas on almost every page; if it contains errors and misrepresentations, if now and then its author attempts to force his data into a rather doctrinaire pattern, this does not appreciably lessen the significance of this very exciting book, which has stimulated the thought of thousands of students throughout the world." Professor Sumit Sarkar says: ""Indian Historiography, starting with D.D. Kosambi in the 1950s, is acknowledged the world over – wherever South Asian history is taught or studied – as quite on a par with or even superior to all that is produced abroad. And that is why Irfan Habib or Romila Thapar or R.S. Sharma are figures respected even in the most diehard anti-Communist American universities. They cannot be ignored if you are studying South Asian history."" In his obituary to Kosambi published in the "Nature", J. D. Bernal had summed up Kosambi's talent as follows: "Kosambi introduced a new method into historical scholarship, essentially by application of modern mathematics. By statistical study of the weights of the coins, Kosambi was able to establish the amount of time that had elapsed while they were in circulation and so set them in order to give some idea of their respective ages." D. D. Kosambi's Mathematical and Scientific publications. In addition to the papers listed below, Kosambi wrote two books in mathematics, the manuscripts of which have not been traced. The first was a book on path geometry that was submitted to Marston Morse in the mid-1940s and the second was on prime numbers, submitted shortly before his death. Unfortunately neither book was published. The list of articles below is complete but does not include his essays on science and scientists, some of which have appeared in the collection Science, Society, and Peace (People's Publishing House, 1995). Four articles (between 1962 and 1965) are written under the pseudonym S. Ducray. External links. Homage to Prof. D.D. Kosambi: http://ddkosambi.hpage.com
355747	Mayo Methot (March 3, 1904 – June 9, 1951), also known as Mayo Methot Bogart, was an American film and theater actress. She appeared in over 30 films, as well as on Broadway. She suffered from alcoholism, the effects of which she ultimately succumbed to in 1951. Biography. Methot was born in Portland, Oregon. She started performing on stage at the age of four or five. A little more than five feet tall, she was nicknamed, "The Portland Rosebud." She performed with the Baker Stock Company in Portland, Oregon until 1922 when she left for New York, where she met George M. Cohan and worked in "Great Day", "All the King's Men", "The Song and Dance Man", and "The Medicine Man", as well as others, totaling some ten shows between 1923 and 1930. She became a popular actress on Broadway during the 1920s where she was admired for both her acting and singing ability. While on Broadway she originated a role in the Vincent Youmans/Billy Rose musical "Great Day" (1929), introducing the standard "More Than You Know" and several others. She moved to Hollywood in the early 1930s and began an association with Warner Brothers Studios. She was usually cast as unsympathetic second leads and tough-talking "dames" of Warner's contemporary crime melodramas such as "Jimmy the Gent" and "Marked Woman", where she met Humphrey Bogart. Personal life. After the death of her father, Captain Jack Methot, on December 20, 1929, she came to Hollywood in 1930 and soon married Percy T. Morgan (the co-owner, with his brother, of the well-known Cock n' Bull restaurant on Hollywood's Sunset Boulevard). They divorced shortly after she met Bogart, in 1936. She married Humphrey Bogart in 1938. It was her third marriage, as she had first been wed at age 19 to Cosmopolitan Productions cameraman Jack La Mond, whom she divorced in 1927. Methot and Bogart became a couple of high-profile Hollywood celebrities, but it was not a smooth marriage. Both drank heavily, and Methot gained a reputation for her violent excesses when under the influence. They became known as "The Battling Bogarts," with Methot widely known, due to her combativeness, as "Sluggy." Bogart later named his motor yacht "Sluggy" in her honor. During World War II, the Bogarts traveled Europe, entertaining the troops. But the troops weren't the only ones who were entertained. Usually they stayed in officers' quarters. They had no trouble borrowing guns, and many times were caught "shooting up the place" in the middle of the night. Afterwards, the US Army banned married couples from entertaining the troops for the remainder of the war. At one point in their travels during the war, the Bogarts linked up with director John Huston in Italy. During a night of heavy drinking, Methot insisted that everyone listen to her perform a song. Though they told her no, she sang anyway. The performance was so bad and embarrassing that Huston and Bogart remembered it years later and based a scene in "Key Largo" on the incident. It is the scene in which the alcoholic girlfriend (Claire Trevor) of the mobster (played by Edward G. Robinson) sings a number off key and while intoxicated. The performance won Trevor an Oscar. Numerous battles took place at the Hollywood residence of the famous couple - nicknamed Sluggy Hollow - including one in which Methot actually stabbed Bogart in the shoulder. The incident was kept out of the press by the publicity department of Warner Brothers Studios. Actress Gloria Stuart recalled in her later years a dinner party at which Methot produced a pistol and threatened to shoot Bogart. Methot's career went into a rapid decline as a result of her drinking, and her marriage to Bogart ended in 1945, when he left her to marry Lauren Bacall. Final years and death. Methot was unable to renew her career and became locked into a pattern of alcoholism and depression. Following her divorce from Bogart in May 1945 (Bogart married actress Lauren Bacall two weeks later), she moved back to Oregon where her mother helped take care of her.
1170287	"Tequan Richmond ("Tuh-kwon"; born October 30, 1992), also known by his stage name, T-Rich"', is an American actor and musician. Tequan is best known for his role as Drew Rock on the UPN/CW sitcom Everybody Hates Chris. Richmond played Ray Charles, Jr. (son of singer/musician Ray Charles) in the motion picture "Ray". and played T. J. Ashford on the long-running ABC soap opera "General Hospital" and was pre-nominated for a Daytime Emmy for Outstanding Young Actor in 2013 for the soap opera. Career. Modeling. Richmond moved to Los Angeles, California in 2001, not intending to become an actor. He appeared in magazine ads such as "Sports Illustrated", "Reader's Digest", "Newsweek", and "National Geographic", as well as a national Nestlé print ad. Acting. Richmond made his 2013 Sundance Film Festival debut with a performance as Beltway sniper Lee Boyd Malvo in "Blue Caprice." The film sold to Sundance Select/IFC Films and opened New Directors/New Films Festival at MoMA in 2013. The film has a fall 2013 theater release. Richmond also was one of six l hosts for kids' TV shows on "Toon Disney" and has had guest-starring roles on CBS's "Cold Case", "", "Private Practice", "Detroit 1-8-7", "Memphis Beat", "Love That Girl" and "Numb3rs" as well as Lifetime's "Strong Medicine" and FX's "The Shield". He has co-starred on NBC's "ER", Showtime's "Weeds", and Fox's "MadTV". Richmond appears in the hip hop music video "Hate It Or Love It" by 50 Cent and Game as young Game. Music. Richmond has been performing musically as T-Rich.
1102637	William Vallance Douglas Hodge FRS (17 June 1903 – 7 July 1975) was a Scottish mathematician, specifically a geometer. His discovery of far-reaching topological relations between algebraic geometry and differential geometry—an area now called Hodge theory and pertaining more generally to Kähler manifolds—has been a major influence on subsequent work in geometry. Life and career. He was born in Edinburgh, attended George Watson's College, and studied at Edinburgh University, graduating in 1923. With help from E. T. Whittaker, whose son J. M. Whittaker was a college friend, he then took the Cambridge Mathematical Tripos. At Cambridge he fell under the influence of the geometer H. F. Baker. In 1926 he took up a teaching position at the University of Bristol, and began work on the interface between the Italian school of algebraic geometry, particularly problems posed by Francesco Severi, and the topological methods of Solomon Lefschetz. This made his reputation, but led to some initial scepticism on the part of Lefschetz. According to Atiyah's memoir, Lefschetz and Hodge in 1931 had a meeting in Max Newman's rooms in Cambridge, to try to resolve issues. In the end Lefschetz was convinced. In 1930 Hodge was awarded a Research Fellowship at St. John's College, Cambridge. He spent a year 1931–2 at Princeton University, where Lefschetz was, visiting also Oscar Zariski at Johns Hopkins University. At this time he was also assimilating de Rham's theorem, and defining the Hodge star operation. It would allow him to define harmonic forms and so refine the de Rham theory. On his return to Cambridge, he was offered a University Lecturer position in 1933. He became the Lowndean Professor of Astronomy and Geometry at Cambridge, a position he held from 1936 to 1970. He was the first head of DPMMS. He was the Master of Pembroke College, Cambridge from 1958 to 1970, and vice-president of the Royal Society from 1959 to 1965. He was knighted in 1959. Amongst other honours, he received the Adams Prize in 1937 and the Copley Medal of the Royal Society in 1974. Work. The Hodge index theorem was a result on the intersection number theory for curves on an algebraic surface: it determines the signature of the corresponding quadratic form. This result was sought by the Italian school of algebraic geometry, but was proved by the topological methods of Lefschetz. "The Theory and Applications of Harmonic Integrals" summed up Hodge's development during the 1930s of his general theory. This starts with the existence for any Kähler metric of a theory of Laplacians — it applies to an algebraic variety V (assumed complex, projective and non-singular) because projective space itself carries such a metric. In de Rham cohomology terms, a cohomology class of degree "k" is represented by a "k"-form α on V(C). There is no unique representative; but by introducing the idea of "harmonic form" (Hodge still called them 'integrals'), which are solutions of Laplace's equation, one can get unique α. This has the important, immediate consequence of splitting up
1100464	Alfred Tarski (January 14, 1901 – October 26, 1983) was a Polish logician, mathematician and philosopher. Educated at the University of Warsaw and a member of the Lwów–Warsaw school of logic and the Warsaw school of mathematics and philosophy, he emigrated to the USA in 1939, and taught and carried out research in mathematics at the University of California, Berkeley, from 1942 until his death. A prolific author best known for his work on model theory, metamathematics, and algebraic logic, he also contributed to abstract algebra, topology, geometry, measure theory, mathematical logic, set theory, and analytic philosophy. His biographers Anita and Solomon Feferman state that, "Along with his contemporary, Kurt Gödel, he changed the face of logic in the twentieth century, especially through his work on the concept of truth and the theory of models." Life. Alfred Tarski was born Alfred Teitelbaum (Polish spelling: "Tajtelbaum"), to parents who were Polish Jews in comfortable circumstances. He first manifested his mathematical abilities while in secondary school, at Warsaw's "Szkoła Mazowiecka". Nevertheless, he entered the University of Warsaw in 1918 intending to study biology. After Poland regained independence in 1918, Warsaw University came under the leadership of Jan Łukasiewicz, Stanisław Leśniewski and Wacław Sierpiński and quickly became a world-leading research institution in logic, foundational mathematics, and the philosophy of mathematics. Leśniewski recognized Tarski's potential as a mathematician and encouraged him to abandon biology. Henceforth Tarski attended courses taught by Łukasiewicz, Sierpiński, Stefan Mazurkiewicz and Tadeusz Kotarbiński, and became the only person ever to complete a doctorate under Leśniewski's supervision. Tarski and Leśniewski soon grew cool to each other. However, in later life, Tarski reserved his warmest praise for Kotarbiński, as was mutual. In 1923, Alfred Teitelbaum and his brother Wacław changed their surname to "Tarski." (Years later, Alfred met another Alfred Tarski in northern California.) The Tarski brothers also converted to Roman Catholicism, Poland's dominant religion. Alfred did so even though he was an avowed atheist. Tarski was a Polish nationalist who saw himself as a Pole and wished to be fully accepted as such - later, in America, he spoke Polish at home. After becoming the youngest person ever to complete a doctorate at Warsaw University, Tarski taught logic at the Polish Pedagogical Institute, mathematics and logic at the University, and served as Łukasiewicz's assistant. Because these positions were poorly paid, Tarski also taught mathematics at a Warsaw secondary school; before World War II, it was not uncommon for European intellectuals of research caliber to teach high school. Hence between 1923 and his departure for the United States in 1939, Tarski not only wrote several textbooks and many papers, a number of them ground-breaking, but also did so while supporting himself primarily by teaching high-school mathematics. In 1929 Tarski married fellow teacher Maria Witkowska, a Pole of Catholic background. She had worked as a courier for the army in the Polish-Soviet War. They had two children; a son Jan who became a physicist, and a daughter Ina who married the mathematician Andrzej Ehrenfeucht. Tarski applied for a chair of philosophy at Lwów University, but on Bertrand Russell's recommendation it was awarded to Leon Chwistek. In 1930, Tarski visited the University of Vienna, lectured to Karl Menger's colloquium, and met Kurt Gödel. Thanks to a fellowship, he was able to return to Vienna during the first half of 1935 to work with Menger's research group. From Vienna he traveled to Paris to present his ideas on truth at the first meeting of the Unity of Science movement, an outgrowth of the Vienna Circle. In 1937, Tarski applied for a chair at Poznań University but the chair was abolished. Tarski's ties to the Unity of Science movement saved his life, because they resulted in his being invited to address the Unity of Science Congress held in September 1939 at Harvard University. Thus he left Poland in August 1939, on the last ship to sail from Poland for the United States before the German and Soviet invasion of Poland and the outbreak of World War II. Tarski left reluctantly, because Leśniewski had died a few months before, creating a vacancy which Tarski hoped to fill. Oblivious to the Nazi threat, he left his wife and children in Warsaw. He did not see them again until 1946. During the war, nearly all his extended family died at the hands of the German occupying authorities. Once in the United States, Tarski held a number of temporary teaching and research positions: Harvard University (1939), City College of New York (1940), and thanks to a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton (1942), where he again met Gödel. In 1942, Tarski joined the Mathematics Department at the University of California, Berkeley, where he spent the rest of his career. Tarski became an American citizen in 1945. Although emeritus from 1968, he taught until 1973 and supervised Ph.D. candidates until his death. At Berkeley, Tarski acquired a reputation as an awesome and demanding teacher, a fact noted by many observers: His seminars at Berkeley quickly became famous in the world of mathematical logic. His students, many of whom became distinguished mathematicians, noted the awesome energy with which he would coax and cajole their best work out of them, always demanding the highest standards of clarity and precision. Tarski was extroverted, quick-witted, strong-willed, energetic, and sharp-tongued. He preferred his research to be collaborative — sometimes working all night with a colleague — and was very fastidious about priority. A charismatic leader and teacher, known for his brilliantly precise yet suspenseful expository style, Tarski had intimidatingly high standards for students, but at the same time he could be very encouraging, and particularly so to women — in contrast to the general trend. Some students were frightened away, but a circle of disciples remained, many of whom became world-renowned leaders in the field. Tarski supervised twenty-four Ph.D. dissertations including (in chronological order) those of Andrzej Mostowski, Bjarni Jónsson, Julia Robinson, Robert Vaught, Solomon Feferman, Richard Montague, James Donald Monk, Haim Gaifman, Donald Pigozzi and Roger Maddux, as well as Chen Chung Chang and Jerome Keisler, authors of "Model Theory" (1973), a classic text in the field. He also strongly influenced the dissertations of Alfred Lindenbaum, Dana Scott, and Steven Givant. Five of Tarski's students were women, a remarkable fact given that men represented an overwhelming majority of graduate students at the time. Tarski lectured at University College, London (1950, 1966), the Institut Henri Poincaré in Paris (1955), the Miller Institute for Basic Research in Science in Berkeley (1958–1960), the University of California at Los Angeles (1967), and the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile (1974–75). Among many distinctions garnered over the course of his career, Tarski was elected to the United States National Academy of Sciences, the British Academy and the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences, received honorary degrees from the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile in 1975, from Marseilles' Paul Cézanne University in 1977 and from the University of Calgary, as well as the Berkeley Citation in 1981. Tarski presided over the Association for Symbolic Logic, 1944–46, and the International Union for the History and Philosophy of Science, 1956-57. He was also an honorary editor of "Algebra Universalis". Mathematician. Tarski's mathematical interests were exceptionally broad for a mathematical logician. His collected papers run to about 2500 pages, most of them on mathematics, not logic. For a concise survey of Tarski's mathematical and logical accomplishments by his former student Solomon Feferman, see "Interludes I-VI" in Feferman and Feferman. Tarski's first paper, published when he was 19 years old, was on set theory, a subject to which he returned throughout his life. In 1924, he and Stefan Banach proved that, if one accepts the Axiom of Choice, a ball can be cut into a finite number of pieces, and then reassembled into a ball of larger size, or alternatively it can be reassembled into two balls whose sizes each equal that of the original one. This result is now called the Banach–Tarski paradox. In "A decision method for elementary algebra and geometry", Tarski showed, by the method of quantifier elimination, that the first-order theory of the real numbers under addition and multiplication is decidable. (While this result appeared only in 1948, it dates back to 1930 and was mentioned in Tarski (1931).) This is a very curious result, because Alonzo Church proved in 1936 that Peano arithmetic (the theory of natural numbers) is "not" decidable. Peano arithmetic is also incomplete by Gödel's incompleteness theorem. In his 1953 "Undecidable theories", Tarski et al. showed that many mathematical systems, including lattice theory, abstract projective geometry, and closure algebras, are all undecidable. The theory of Abelian groups is decidable, but that of non-Abelian groups is not. In the 1920s and 30s, Tarski often taught high school geometry. Using some ideas of Mario Pieri, in 1926 Tarski devised an original axiomatization for plane Euclidean geometry, one considerably more concise than Hilbert's. Tarski's axioms form a first-order theory devoid of set theory, whose individuals are points, and having only two primitive relations. In 1930, he proved this theory decidable because it can be mapped into another theory he had already proved decidable, namely his first-order theory of the real numbers. In 1929 he showed that much of Euclidean solid geometry could be recast as a first-order theory whose individuals are "spheres" (a primitive notion), a single primitive binary relation "is contained in", and two axioms that, among other things, imply that containment partially orders the spheres. Relaxing the requirement that all individuals be spheres yields a formalization of mereology far easier to exposit than Lesniewski's variant. Near the end of his life, Tarski wrote a very long letter, published as Tarski and Givant (1999), summarizing his work on geometry. "Cardinal Algebras" studied algebras whose models include the arithmetic of cardinal numbers. "Ordinal Algebras" sets out an algebra for the additive theory of order types. Cardinal, but not ordinal, addition commutes. In 1941, Tarski published an important paper on binary relations, which began the work on relation algebra and its metamathematics that occupied Tarski and his students for much of the balance of his life. While that exploration (and the closely related work of Roger Lyndon) uncovered some important limitations of relation algebra, Tarski also showed (Tarski and Givant 1987) that relation algebra can express most axiomatic set theory and Peano arithmetic. For an introduction to relation algebra, see Maddux (2006). In the late 1940s, Tarski and his students devised cylindric algebras, which are to first-order logic what the two-element Boolean algebra is to classical sentential logic. This work culminated in the two monographs by Tarski, Henkin, and Monk (1971, 1985). Logician. Tarski's student, Vaught, has ranked Tarski as one of the four greatest logicians of all time --- along with Aristotle, Gottlob Frege, and Kurt Gödel. However, Tarski often expressed great admiration for Charles Sanders Peirce, particularly for his pioneering work in the logic of relations. Tarski produced axioms for "logical consequence", and worked on deductive systems, the algebra of logic, and the theory of definability. His semantic methods, which culminated in the model theory he and a number of his Berkeley students developed in the 1950s and 60s, radically transformed Hilbert's proof-theoretic metamathematics. Tarski's 1936 article "On the concept of logical consequence" argued that the conclusion of an argument will follow logically from its premises if and only if every model of the premises is a model of the conclusion. In 1937, he published a paper presenting clearly his views on the nature and purpose of the deductive method, and the role of logic in scientific studies. His high school and undergraduate teaching on logic and axiomatics culminated in a classic short text, published first in Polish, then in German translation, and finally in a 1941 English translation as "Introduction to Logic and to the Methodology of Deductive Sciences". Tarski's 1969 "Truth and proof" considered both Gödel's incompleteness theorems and Tarski's undefinability theorem, and mulled over their consequences for the axiomatic method in mathematics. Truth in formalized languages. In 1933, Tarski published a very long (more than 100pp) paper in Polish, titled "Pojęcie prawdy w językach nauk dedukcyjnych", setting out a mathematical definition of truth for formal languages. The 1935 German translation was titled "Der Wahrheitsbegriff in den formalisierten Sprachen", (The concept of truth in formalized languages), sometimes shortened to "Wahrheitsbegriff". An English translation had to await the 1956 first edition of the volume "Logic, Semantics, Metamathematics". This enormously cited paper is a landmark event in 20th-century analytic philosophy, an important contribution to symbolic logic, semantics, and the philosophy of language. For a brief discussion of its content, see Convention T (and also T-schema). Some recent philosophical debate examines the extent to which Tarski's theory of truth for formalized languages can be seen as a correspondence theory of truth. The debate centers on how to read Tarski's condition of material adequacy for a truth definition. That condition requires that the truth theory have the following as theorems for all sentences p of the language for which truth is being defined: The debate amounts to whether to read sentences of this form, such as as expressing merely a deflationary theory of truth or as embodying truth as a more substantial property (see Kirkham 1992). Though it is important to realize that Tarski's theory of truth is for formalized languages so giving examples in natural language has no validity according to Tarski's theory of truth. Logical consequence. In 1936, Tarski published Polish and German versions of a lecture he had given the preceding year at the International Congress of Scientific Philosophy in Paris. A new English translation of this paper, Tarski (2002), highlights the many differences between the German and Polish versions of the paper, and corrects a number of mistranslations in Tarski (1983). This publication set out the modern model-theoretic definition of (semantic) logical consequence, or at least the basis for it. Whether Tarski's notion was entirely the modern one turns on whether he intended to admit models with varying domains (and in particular, models with domains of different cardinalities). This question is a matter of some debate in the current philosophical literature. John Etchemendy stimulated much of the recent discussion about Tarski's treatment of varying domains. Tarski ends by pointing out that his definition of logical consequence depends upon a division of terms into the logical and the extra-logical and he expresses some skepticism that any such objective division will be forthcoming. "What are Logical Notions?" can thus be viewed as continuing "On the Concept of Logical Consequence". What are logical notions? Another theory of Tarski's attracting attention in the recent philosophical literature is that outlined in his "What are Logical Notions?" (Tarski 1986). This is the published version of a talk that he gave originally in 1966 in London and later in 1973 in Buffalo; it was edited without his direct involvement by John Corcoran. It became the most cited paper in the journal "History and Philosophy of Logic". In the talk, Tarski proposed a demarcation of the logical operations (which he calls "notions") from the non-logical. The suggested criteria were derived from the Erlangen programme of the German 19th century Mathematician, Felix Klein. (Mautner 1946, and possibly an article by the Portuguese mathematician Sebastiao e Silva, anticipated Tarski in applying the Erlangen Program to logic.) That program classified the various types of geometry (Euclidean geometry, affine geometry, topology, etc.) by the type of one-one transformation of space onto itself that left the objects of that geometrical theory invariant. (A one-to-one transformation is a functional map of the space onto itself so that every point of the space is associated with or mapped to one other point of the space. So, "rotate 30 degrees" and "magnify by a factor of 2" are intuitive descriptions of simple uniform one-one transformations.) Continuous transformations give rise to the objects of topology, similarity transformations to those of Euclidean geometry, and so on. As the range of permissible transformations becomes broader, the range of objects one is able to distinguish as preserved by the application of the transformations becomes narrower. Similarity transformations are fairly narrow (they preserve the relative distance between points) and thus allow us to distinguish relatively many things (e.g., equilateral triangles from non-equilateral triangles). Continuous transformations (which can intuitively be thought of as transformations which allow non-uniform stretching, compression, bending, and twisting, but no ripping or glueing) allow us to distinguish a polygon from an annulus (ring with a hole in the centre), but do not allow us to distinguish two polygons from each other. Tarski's proposal was to demarcate the logical notions by considering all possible one-to-one transformations (automorphisms) of a domain onto itself. By domain is meant the universe of discourse of a model for the semantic theory of a logic. If one identifies the truth value True with the domain set and the truth-value False with the empty set, then the following operations are counted as logical under the proposal: In some ways the present proposal is the obverse of that of Lindenbaum and Tarski (1936), who proved that all the logical operations of Russell and Whitehead's "Principia Mathematica" are invariant under one-to-one transformations of the domain onto itself. The present proposal is also employed in Tarski and Givant (1987). Solomon Feferman and Vann McGee further discussed Tarski's proposal in work published after his death. Feferman (1999) raises problems for the proposal and suggests a cure: replacing Tarski's preservation by automorphisms with preservation by arbitrary homomorphisms. In essence, this suggestion circumvents the difficulty Tarski's proposal has in dealing with sameness of logical operation across distinct domains of a given cardinality and across domains of distinct cardinalities. Feferman's proposal results in a radical restriction of logical terms as compared to Tarski's original proposal. In particular, it ends up counting as logical only those operators of standard first-order logic without identity. McGee (1996) provides a precise account of what operations are logical in the sense of Tarski's proposal in terms of expressibility in a language that extends first-order logic by allowing arbitrarily long conjunctions and disjunctions, and quantification over arbitrarily many variables. "Arbitrarily" includes a countable infinity.
695648	Salma Aagha (born October 25, 1966 Karachi) is a British Pakistani singer and actress who sang as well as acted in Indian films in the 1980s and the early 1990s. Her first film was B.R Chopra's "Nikaah" for which she won the Filmfare Best Female Playback Award for the ghazal "Dil Ke Armaan Aasooome Beh Gaye". Early life. Agha was born into a Pakistani Muslim family in London, England. She is a granddaughter of 30's/40's famous actor Jugal Kishore Mehra and Punjabi actress Anwari Begum who played the roles of the first ever made Heer Ranjha (1932). Salma Aagha's Mother Nasreen Aagha being born to a star pair bagged the lead with K.L. Saigal in A.K. Kardar's Shahjahan A prized role of those times (1946) and Ek Roz (1947). Salma's entire family was settled in London. Salma studied in London and for further studies went to Switzerland where her father Liaquat Gul Aagha ran a Persian carpet business. Career. Salma along with sister Sabina produced and sang for a record called "ABBA AND AGHA" – Salma and Sabina Aagha sang ABBA hits in Urdu. The record made a few waves and was applauded by critics.
1016038	Inner Senses (original title "Yee do hung gain") is a 2002 Hong Kong psychological horror film directed by Law Chi-leung and starring Leslie Cheung and Karena Lam. The film explores themes on hallucination, clinical depression, psychological trauma and suicide. It is also the last film Leslie Cheung acted in before he committed suicide on April 1, 2003. Summary. Psychiatrist Dr. Jim Law tries to treat his patient, Cheung Yan, a woman who believes that she sees ghosts. Law does not believe in the supernatural and thinks that she is repressing her past. Law reads Yan's diaries to better understand her psyche and learns that her parents are divorced and do not care for her. Yan's condition improves gradually and they develop a romantic relationship at the same time. However, Law feels that he cannot become too close to Yan because she is his patient and tries to convey the message to her indirectly. Yan understands his words and feels hurt, as she thinks that he is dumping her in the same way as her ex-boyfriend did. She starts having hallucinations again and sees the spirits of her landlord's deceased wife and son, after which she attempts suicide by overdosing on antidepressants and slitting her wrist, but survives. Law travels to Yan's apartment later and hears strange noises in the bathroom and thinks that her neighbour upstairs is responsible. Once, Law sees a female ghost while looking out of his window, and sees her again on another two occasions while driving and swimming. He starts taking antidepressants as well and tries to electrocute himself, but is rescued in time and recovers. Law eventually helps Yan recover from her mental illness by reuniting her with her parents. Following that, he starts dating Yan as she is no longer his patient. While in a restaurant one day, Law is attacked by a woman, whom he remembers to be the mother of the ghost he saw. He starts having nightmares and begins sleepwalking, behaving erratically and reacting violently when Yan and his colleagues ask him. The ghost that Law sees is actually Siu-yu, his ex-girlfriend in high school, who committed suicide after Law broke up with her. Law has visions of Siu-yu following him wherever he goes and flees in horror until he finally reaches the top of a building. He is confronted by Siu-yu's ghost, who wants to force him to jump off. Law shows remorse for causing Siu-yu's death and the ghost disappears. After that, he sees Yan walking towards him and embraces her, and the film ends with both of them sitting together on the top of the building.
113277	Lucy Lawless, MNZM (born Lucille Frances Ryan; 29 March 1968) is a New Zealand actress, activist and musician best known for playing the title character of the internationally successful television series "". She is also widely known for her role as Number Three on the re-imagined "Battlestar Galactica" series, and for the role of Lucretia on the television series ', its prequel ', and its sequel "". Early life. Lawless was born in the Auckland suburb of Mount Albert in New Zealand, the daughter of Julie Ryan, a teacher, and Frank Ryan, who was a banker and Mount Albert mayor. Lawless was the fifth of seven children, and has five brothers and one sister, and has described her parents and siblings as "this big, sprawling Irish Catholic family." While filming in Ireland for the Discovery Channel in 2004, Lawless told Ireland on Sunday that her father's family originated in Quilty, County Clare, and her great grandfather arrived in New Zealand as a convict. Lawless appeared in her first musical at the age of 10, and began acting in secondary school. She later said she "used to quite like bulimia", but was able to overcome the illness. Lawless attended The University of Auckland and studied foreign languages for a year, including German, Italian and French, and she also studied opera for three years. After learning that opera required changes in her lifestyle she was not ready to make, she gave up on both and studied violin and jazz instead, and considered becoming a singer. But university studies in opera and languages were abandoned after she decided that opera would mean compromising her own mantra of being the best she could at everything she tried. At 18, like many young New Zealanders she went on her "overseas experience", traveling through Europe and Australia – where she met future husband Garth Lawless. Personal life. At 19, Lawless became pregnant with Garth Lawless' child. The couple married in Kalgoorlie, Australia in 1988. They returned to New Zealand and had a daughter, Daisy Lawless (born 15 July 1988). The couple divorced in 1995. On 28 March 1998, Lawless married Robert Tapert. They have two sons, Julius Robert Bay Tapert (born 16 October 1999) and Judah Miro Tapert (born 7 May 2002). Acting career. Her debut on television was two and a half seasons as a cast member of the New Zealand sketch comedy series "Funny Business" – after which she studied drama at the William Davis Centre for Actors Study in Vancouver. In 1994, Lawless appeared in "Hercules and the Amazon Women," a Pacific Renaissance Pictures made-for-television film that became the television pilot for "." In that , she played a man-hating Amazon named Lysia. She went on to play another character, Lyla, in the first season episode "As Darkness Falls." She received her best-known role when she was asked to play a villainous warrior woman named Xena in the episode "The Warrior Princess", which aired in March 1995 (R. J. Stewart, one of Pacific Renaissance Pictures' in-house writers, dramatised the teleplay from a story that Robert G. "Rob" Tapert commissioned John Schulian to write). Vanessa Angel was originally cast in the role, but fell ill and was unable to travel to New Zealand for shooting. To differentiate between Xena and the similar Lysia, Lawless' hair, previously ash blonde, was coloured black. Xena subsequently returned in two more episodes of the first season of "Hercules", which portrayed her turn from villainess to a good, heroic character. The character was popular enough that a spin-off series was created. "" debuted on 4 September 1995 (Lawless appeared as Lyla once again in the second season "Hercules" episode "" – aired in October 1995). "Xena: Warrior Princess," like its parent program, was a hit, lasting six seasons, and Lawless became an international celebrity. While taping an appearance on "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno" in October 1996, Lawless suffered a fractured pelvis when the horse she was riding lost its footing in the studio parking lot. She made a complete recovery, and her absence from the "Xena" set had minimal impact on the show. In 1997, Lawless was named one of the "50 Most Beautiful People in the World" by "People Weekly" Magazine. Days earlier, on 6 May 1997, Lawless had inadvertently exposed her breasts as she concluded a performance of the US national anthem at an NHL hockey game in Anaheim, California between the Mighty Ducks and Detroit Red Wings. Lawless was quoted in "Newsweek" as saying, "Obviously, I was mortified...It was quite a bit more exposure than I want." Lawless first appeared on Broadway in September 1997 in the "Grease" revival, as the "bad girl" character, Betty Rizzo. She wanted to play the lead role of Sandy, and later stated her belief that the producers typecast her to play "bad girls" following her success as Xena. She said the Sandy character was very similar to her sheltered childhood, growing up in New Zealand with many protective older brothers. Lawless married "Xena's" executive producer, Pacific Renaissance Pictures CEO Robert G. "Rob" Tapert, on 28 March 1998. They have two sons: Julius Robert Bay Tapert (born 16 October 1999) and Judah Miro Tapert (born 7 May 2002), who were both born in Auckland, New Zealand. Lawless became a 'lesbian icon' because of Xena's ambiguous relationship with traveling companion Gabrielle. This reputation has become cemented after her "graphic lesbian sex scenes" in "". Although Lawless is heterosexual, she has appeared at gay pride events such as the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras. In a 2003 interview with "Lesbian News" magazine, she said that she had come to see Xena and Gabrielle's relationship as gay after viewing the series finale, though she has also stated on several occasions that she was undecided on the nature of the relationship while playing the role. Lawless became a member of the New Zealand Order of Merit in the 2004 Queen's Birthday Honours List, which entitled her to use the postnominal letters MNZM. From 2005 to 2009, she had a recurring role in the television series "Battlestar Galactica." Lawless appeared as D'Anna Biers, a reporter with the Fleet News Service who worked on a critical documentary about the crew of the "Galactica" and was later revealed to be a Cylon (Number Three). She competed as one of the celebrity singers on the reality TV show "Celebrity Duets" in 2006, finishing as the runner-up to winner Alfonso Ribeiro. Lawless has also performed as a voice actor in several animated features. In 2007, Lawless guest-starred as herself in the cult HBO comedy series "Curb Your Enthusiasm". In a sub-plot of an episode entitled "The TiVo Guy", she met and flirted with Larry David. The dialogue included the subject of David being Jewish, and Lawless commented: "we don't have them where I'm from". (This may have been a satirical swipe at widespread ignorance regarding both New Zealand "and" Jews; many New Zealanders of Jewish descent have been prominent in public life, even though they comprise less than 0.2% of New Zealand's population.) The story concluded with Lawless going on a date with David and leaving in disgust, after he mentioned suffering a groin injury and pointed out, presumptuously, that this would preclude them from having sex. Lawless was to appear as one of the leads in the ensemble cast of the ABC television series, "Football Wives," based on the popular British series "Footballers' Wives," in 2007. The series did not continue past the pilot episode, though the network did extend the options on its contracts with Lawless and the other actors slated to star in the series: (Gabrielle Union, Kiele Sanchez, Ving Rhames and James Van Der Beek). Lawless returned to television on 10 November 2008 in a guest-starring role on the hit CBS television series, "," playing a madam with connections to a murder. She appeared in two episodes of the final season of "The L Word," and also had a role in the Adam Sandler movie, "Bedtime Stories," released Christmas 2008. Also in 2008, Lawless appeared with her former "Xena" stuntwoman Zoë Bell in Sony (Crackle)'s new web series "Angel of Death" written by Ed Brubaker, which debuted online in early 2009. In 2009 Lawless guest-starred in the HBO series, "Flight of the Conchords" as Paula, assistant to the Prime Minister of New Zealand. Lawless co-starred in the Starz original series "." The show was based on the life of Spartacus, the famous gladiator, and the slave revolt he led, and was produced by long-time "Xena" producers Sam Raimi and "Rob" Tapert (her husband). Lawless played the role of Lucretia, the wife of Lentulus Batiatus, who were both the owners of a gladiator ludus. Lawless reprised her role as Lucretia in "", which chronicled life in the Ludus before Spartacus' arrival. Despite her character's ambiguous status in the season one finale, Lawless was set to return in Spartacus Season 2. Lawless won the 2011 Saturn Award as Best Supporting Actress for her role as Lucretia in "Spartacus: Blood and Sand". Lawless provided the voice of Goldmoon for "," a direct-to-DVD animated movie based on the novel of the same name, as well as Wonder Woman in the direct-to-video animated movie "." Other appearances include: Charity. Lawless is a member of the board of trustees of the "StarShip Foundation," the charity arm of the Starship Children's Health (hospital) which is part of the Auckland District Health Board. It is set up to provide additional equipment, support and help to staff, patients and families. She devotes much time and energy to fundraising for the organisation. She recently sat for the New Zealand television series "The Sitting," an arts series where celebrity portraits are produced during an interview session with the portraits later auctioned for charity. Lucy attended the auction where her portrait fetched the top price, with the whole event raising $39,000 for Starship. Lawless has often raised money for concerts and events, donates part of her salary in favour of the institution, and has sold some Xena costumes to contribute funds. In mid February 2012, Lucy sang at New Zealander Of The Year donating her appearance fee to the Starship Foundation. Friday 21 September is "Lucy Lawless Feel the Love Day." The day, organised by the Official Lucy Lawless Fan Club, begins a week of charitable acts and donations by fans in honour and support of Lucy. In May 2009, Lucy Lawless became a "climate ambassador" for the Greenpeace "Sign On" campaign. In February 2012, Lawless and five other Greenpeace activists boarded an oil drilling ship at Port Taranaki, New Zealand, and remained on it for 77 hours to stop it leaving for the Arctic where it was going to take part in oil exploration. She was subsequently arrested and charged with burglary, which carries an imprisonment term of up to 10 years if convicted. She pleaded guilty on 14 June 2012 to trespass charges regarding the February incident. Lawless said she intends for now to remain involved with Greenpeace. In February 2013, she and the other six activists were each sentenced to pay a fine of NZ$651 (about US$547) and 120 hours of community service. The judge denied the $545,000 in reparations that Shell Todd Oil Services had sought from the activists. Following the sentencing, Lawless said: "I consider it a great victory that the court has struck down the reparation demand from Shell, which I think was absolutely ludicrous." Astronomy. Astronomer Mike Brown nicknamed his newly discovered dwarf planet "Xena"—finding this name more convenient to use than the then-official designation, 2003 UB313. When this object was determined to be larger than Pluto, it gained international attention and forced a year-long debate among astronomers as to the definition of a planet. The object's nickname "Xena" was used in the press. "New Scientist" magazine polled the public on their preferred final name for the so-called tenth planet; "Xena" ranked no. 4. Lawless rang Mike Brown in December 2005 to thank him for his "senseless act of beauty," and claimed that she "never dared hope name would stick." Eventually, both it and Pluto were deemed not to be planets, and were instead classified as dwarf planets. Although "Xena" is now officially known as Eris, Brown made an indirect tribute to Lawless by naming Eris' moon Dysnomia after the Greek goddess of lawlessness. Singing career. Lawless has a background in musical theatre and she played Betty Rizzo on Broadway in a production of "Grease" in 1997. She has continued to pursue a career in singing after being a contestant on "Celebrity Duets". She made her onstage debut at the Roxy in Hollywood on 13 January 2007, with a sold-out crowd for back-to-back concerts.
1504465	Peggy Fears (June 1, 1903 - August 24, 1994) was an American actress, who appeared in Broadway musical comedies during the 1920s and 1930s before becoming a Broadway producer. Theater. Leaving New Orleans at the age of 16, she attended the Semple School. Yale University student Jock Whitney took her to the Richman Club where vocalist Helen Morgan heard her singing and encouraged her to attend auditions being conducted by Florenz Ziegfeld.
585299	Meendum Kokila is a 1981 Tamil film directed by G. N. Rangarajan, starring Sridevi—in the titular character— , Kamal Hassan and Deepa in lead roles. The story is about a married lawyer's infatuation towards an actress and the trouble he faces with his wife. Through the film Sridevi established herself as one of the top actresses and her portrayal as a Brahmin woman fetched her a Filmfare Award. The film's soundtrack and background score were composed by Ilayaraja and received critical acclaim. The film became a success at the box-office. Plot. Subramaniam, a lawyer is married to Kokila and has a daughter. Things go well until he meets Kamini, a movie star in a party. He gets attracted towards Kamini and becomes ready to sacrifice his own family for her. Kokila's efforts in bringing back her husband forms the rest of the story. Production. The film was originally directed by J. Mahendran with Kamal Haasan, Sridevi and Rekha—in her Tamil cinema debut—playing prominent roles. Rekha was the original choice for actress' role, and scenes featuring her were shot till 3000 feet. Initially Mahendran opted out of the film after a song sequence was shot. Later as the film progressed Rekha pulled out citing no reason. It was Kamal Haasan who requested G. Rangarajan to take over the film as director. Rekha was replaced by Deepa. Soundtrack. The music composed by Ilaiyaraaja while lyrics written by Kannadasan and Panju Arunachalam. Reception and accolades. The film was a box-office success. Sridevi's portrayal as a Brahmin woman trying to get back her husband fetched her a Filmfare Award in the Best Actress category; the first of her four Filmfare Awards. The film established Sridevi as one of the top actress in South India.
587674	Manmadhudu () is a 2002 romantic comedy Telugu film directed by K. Vijaya Bhaskar and has Akkineni Nagarjuna in the lead role. Sonali Bendre and Anshu play female leads. The film was later remade as Aishwarya in Kannada, marking the debut of Deepika Padukone. Plot. Abhiram (Nagarjuna) is a manager in his ad agency. He despises women and feels that all women are traitors. Abhiram's uncle (Tanikella Bharani), who is the chairman of the ad agency, appoints Harika (Sonali Bendre) as the assistant manager. Though Abhiram does not like a girl joining his company, he has to live with it as the appointment is made by his uncle. He starts mistreating her. Harika, vexed by Abhiram's acts, submits her resignation to his uncle, who then narrates Abhiram's past to Harika. Abhi was born with a golden spoon. He was raised by his grandfather (Balayya) as his parents died soon after the Abhi's birth. Abhi falls in love with Maheswari (Anshu), who is the niece of an employee (Chandra Mohan) in Abhi's grandfather's company. Alarmed by this, Maheshwari's uncle takes her away to his home town and arranges her engagement with another man. Abhi travels all the way to the venue and takes Maheswari away. While returning, they meet with an accident. After 10 days, when Abhi comes out of coma, he is told that Maheswari is about to marry some other guy. Shocked by this news, Abhi develops hatred towards women. After narrating the flashback, Abhi's uncle promotes Harika as the Manager and demotes Abhi to the post of Assistant Manager. Although Abhi resents this, he travels to Paris with Harika for a business venture. While there, he falls in love with her. Problems soon arise, and when they return, Harika is arranged to marry another man. However, Abhi realizes his true feelings for her at last, and they end up together. Soundtrack. The soundtrack of the film was composed by Devi Sri Prasad, with lyrics written by Sirivennela Sitaramasastri and Bhuvanachandra. Remakes. The film was remade in kannada as "Aishwarya" with Upendra and in Bengali "Priyotoma" with Jeet. Notes. The film's theme in the first half was inspired by Mel Gibson's "What Women Want". In "Manmadhudu", Abhi installs microphones to spy on his employees' conversations. In "What Women Want", Nick gets the ability to hear women's thoughts after a mishap. In both films, the hero saves a woman in the office who tries to commit suicide. Nick tries on women's lipstick at home — Abhi does the same thing.
1067776	Doctor Detroit is a 1983 comedy film, written by Bruce Jay Friedman, Robert Boris and Carl Gottlieb. The film stars Dan Aykroyd, Howard Hesseman, Lynn Whitfield, Fran Drescher, and Donna Dixon, with a special appearance by James Brown. The film was directed by Michael Pressman. James Brown performed the theme song "Get Up Offa That Thing/Dr. Detroit". Devo performed the "Theme From Doctor Detroit" and had another track in the film, "Luv-Luv". There was an EP with the "Theme from Doctor Detroit", "Luv-Luv", and a remix of the theme released, as well as a music video incorporating footage from the film. Plot. A shy, gentle man named Clifford Skridlow (Dan Aykroyd) is a professor of comparative literature at the financially strapped (fictional) Monroe College in Chicago. A chance encounter with four beautiful high class prostitutes at a restaurant changes his life forever. Smooth Walker (Howard Hesseman), their pimp, is in danger due to his enormous debt to the gruff "Mom" (Kate Murtagh), a Chicago mob boss. Smooth invents a fictitious business partner, the flamboyant "Doctor Detroit", in an attempt to save himself from Mom's wrath. Through a series of comical misunderstandings, Cliff is conned into becoming Smooth Walker's patsy. He transforms himself into Doctor Detroit, embarking on a dangerous mission to protect the girls from Mom. He also must keep this secret from his straight-laced parents while simultaneously attempting to secure a large endowment for the struggling university. Cliff becomes a hero to the four women, but puts his life at grave risk. Soundtrack. A soundtrack album for the film was released on Backstreet Records. The track listing is as follows. Reaction and sequel. In her autobiography, "Enter Whining", Fran Drescher comments that this film was expected to be a major hit, but that it fell short of that expectation; by the time the film ended its run in theatres, it had only managed to make US$10.8 million, on a budget of US$8 million. The end titles promise the release of Doctor Detroit II: The Wrath of Mom, meant as a gag based on the title of , released eleven months previous. Aykroyd was said to have been writing the script, however, the project became unfulfilled due to poor box office results.
1017689	Big and Little Wong Tin Bar () also known as Seven Little Valiant Fighters ()/Two of a Kind is a 1962 Hong Kong film. The film is notable for being Jackie Chan's film debut. The film is now considered a lost film, with no known complete copies remaining. The only footage that survived is a 9 minute opening clip and a short 5 minute clip of dialogue.
1731279	'"Aliana Taylor (born December 22, 1993) is an American fashion model, former singer. Early life. Lohan was born on December 22, 1993 and was raised on Long Island where her family lived in Cold Spring Harbor before later moving to Merrick. Lohan is the third of four children born to Donata "Dina" (née Sullivan) and Michael Lohan. Lohan is of Irish and Italian heritage, and she was raised in the Catholic religion. Career. Modeling. Lohan began modeling at age 3, working through the Ford Model agency and appearing in print campaigns for magazines such as "Teen Vogue" and Vogue Bambini. In 2011 she signed a multi-year modeling contract with NEXT models, later appearing on the cover of FAULT Magazine. She recently signed with huge modeling agency Wilhelmina. Acting. Lohan has largely appeared in uncredited roles in her sister's films, with her 2008 role of Traci Walker in a film adaptation of the R.L. Stine horror/fantasy novel "" being her only credited role to date. Music. Aliana Lohan's musical career began when she released a Christmas album, "Lohan Holiday", in late 2006 under YMC Records. In 2012, Ali Lohan released a compilation album under Interscope Records, initially stating that this album would be the long-awaited second studio album. Her announcement through her Facebook page that she would release a compilation album shortly before Christmas in 2012 only in digital download. The album is called 'Christmas with Ali Lohan'. She stated this would include new versions of their songs, remixes of her debut album, and include the song 'All The Way Around'. The album was poorly received.
742055	The Blue Max is a 1966 British war film about a German fighter pilot on the Western Front during World War I. It was directed by John Guillermin, stars George Peppard, James Mason and Ursula Andress, and features Karl Michael Vogler and Jeremy Kemp. The screenplay was written by David Pursall, Jack Seddon, and Gerald Hanley, based on the novel of the same name by Jack D. Hunter as adapted by Ben Barzman and Basilio Franchina. Plot. German Corporal Bruno Stachel (George Peppard) leaves the fighting in the trenches to become an officer and fighter pilot in the German Army Air Service. Joining a squadron in spring 1918, he sets his sights on winning Imperial Germany's highest military decoration for valor, the "Pour le Mérite", nicknamed the "Blue Max", for which he must shoot down 20 aircraft. Of humble origins, Lieutenant Stachel is driven to prove himself better than the aristocratic pilots in his new fighter squadron, especially Willi von Klugermann (Jeremy Kemp). Their commanding officer, Hauptmann Otto Heidemann (Karl Michael Vogler) is an upper-class officer whose notions of chivalry conflict with Stachel's ruthless determination. On his first mission, Stachel, in a Pfalz D.III, shoots down a British S.E.5, but does not receive credit for his "kill" because there were no witnesses. Stachel searches the French countryside for hours in a pouring rain for the wreckage, giving the impression that he cares more about scoring kills than the death of the man with whom he flew. Soon afterward, he attacks an Allied two-man observation aircraft, incapacitating the rear gunner. Instead of downing the defenceless aircraft, he signals the pilot to fly to the German base. As they near the airfield, the wounded rear gunner revives and reaches for his machine gun, unseen by the admiring observers on the ground. Stachel is forced to shoot the aircraft down, but Heidemann believes Stachel simply murdered a helpless enemy crew to gain a confirmed kill. The incident brings Stachel to the attention of General Count von Klugermann (James Mason), Willi's uncle. When the general comes to the base to award his nephew the Blue Max, he meets Stachel. The general sees great propaganda potential in Stachel, one of the masses. Kaeti (Ursula Andress), the general's wife, is carrying on a discreet affair with her nephew by marriage. Soon afterward, Stachel is shot down after rescuing a red Fokker Dr.I attacked by two British fighters. When he returns to the airfield, he is stunned when he is introduced to the man he saved: Manfred von Richthofen (Carl Schell), the Red Baron. Von Richthofen offers Stachel a place in his squadron, which Stachel declines, explaining his desire to "prove himself" with his current squadron. With Stachel temporarily grounded owing to a minor injury, General von Klugermann orders him to Berlin to help shore up crumbling public morale. Kaeti takes the opportunity to sleep with her latest hero. When Stachel returns to duty, he and Willi von Klugermann volunteer to escort a reconnaissance aircraft. British fighters attack their Fokker Dr. 1 triplanes. Stachel's guns jam, but Willi downs two of the enemy on his first pass, then a third on Stachel's tail, and the rest disengage. As the two are returning to their base, Willi challenges Stachel. Spotting a bridge, Willi dives under the wide middle span, but Stachel tops him by flying under a much narrower side one. Seething, Willi does the same, but clips the top of a tower afterward and crashes. When Stachel reports his death, Heidemann assumes that the two verified victories were Willi's. Insulted, Stachel impulsively claims them, even though it is discovered that he only fired 40 bullets before his guns jammed. Outraged, Heidemann reports Stachel to his superiors, but is told that Stachel's victories will be confirmed. Later, alone with Kaeti, Stachel admits he lied. During a strafing mission covering the retreat of the German army, Stachel disobeys Heidemann's order not to engage enemy fighters; one by one, the rest of the squadron follow him. Afterward, Heidemann has Stachel arrested, furious that nearly half the pilots were killed in the ensuing dogfight. Stachel cares only that he has shot down enough aircraft, even without Willi's kills, to qualify for the Blue Max. The two men are ordered to Berlin. There, von Klugermann tells Heidemann privately that Stachel is to receive the Blue Max, explaining that the people need a hero. Heidemann resigns his command when the general orders him to withdraw his report; he accepts a desk job. Later that evening, the countess visits Stachel and suggests that they run away to Switzerland since Germany's defeat is inevitable. She storms out when he refuses to give up flying. The next day, Stachel is awarded the Blue Max by the Crown Prince (Roger Ostime) in a well-publicized ceremony. However, a field marshal telephones von Klugermann to inform him of an impending investigation into Stachel's false claim. The general asks how the field marshal found out. While listening on the phone, he turns to his wife. When Heidemann reports that the new monoplane he has just test-flown is a "death trap", as its struts are dangerously weak, von Klugermann sees a way to avoid scandal. He orders Stachel to fly the aircraft and tells him, "Let's see some real flying." The stress of Stachel's aerobatics causes the aircraft to crash, killing him instantly. Afterwards, von Klugermann brands Stachel a hero and departs with Kaeti. Cast. Cast notes: The casting of George Peppard in the mainly international ensemble cast was considered a "safe" choice, as he was establishing a reputation for leading roles in action films. Although youthful looking, at 37 years of age, he was much older than the Stachel depicted in the novel. Peppard wanted to create an "authentic" performance and learned to fly, earned a private pilot's license and did some of his own flying in the film, although stunt pilot Derek Pigott was at the controls for the under-the-bridge scene. Film versus novel. The film differs from the book on which it is based both in the plot and the portrayal of the characters. Some of the differences are: Stachel: The movie portrays Stachel initially as an idealistic, humble, and naive man who evolves into someone willing to do whatever it takes to get his way. He is also depicted as being insecure about his lower class background and desires to prove himself an equal aviator and man to the aristocrats by earning the Blue Max. The vain attempt by Stachel to confirm his first kill is only found in the film. There is also no confrontation with Heidemann who takes a swift dislike to Stachel over claiming aircraft that Willi had shot down.
583231	Deepa Sahi is an Indian actress and producer. Early life. Deepa Sahi was born in India in Dehradun. Her family later shifted to Canada but she continued to stay in India. Early career. An alumnus of National School of Drama, Delhi, Sahi started off with a theater career, with strong Leftist leanings and social activism a core value of the productions she was involved with. In her early film career she collaborated with noted auteur Govind Nihalani and made her debut with the 1984 film "Party". This was well received, and she subsequently acted in "Aghaat" (1985). Her thespian achievement, however, will always remain her role as the independent-minded and empowered lower-caste Punjabi woman she played in the highly acclaimed television film "Tamas" (1986). Commercial cinema. After marrying film director Ketan Mehta — also was a rising light of alternate Hindi cinema — she acted in several of his films including "Hero Hiralal" (1988), "Maya Memsaab" (1992) and "Oh Darling! Yeh Hai India" (1995). She wrote the screenplay for "Oh Darling! Yeh Hai India".
1036479	Kevin Bishop (born 18 June 1980) is an English actor and comedian, best known for his own programme, "The Kevin Bishop Show", which he co-wrote with Lee Hupfield, "Star Stories" and the role of Jim Hawkins in "Muppet Treasure Island". Life and career. Bishop's first role was in "Grange Hill". He gained his second television role aged 16 playing young London ruffian Ben Quayle in the hit crime/forensic drama "Silent Witness". He also played Stupid Brian in "My Family"; he appeared in 3 episodes. He starred in "Muppet Treasure Island" as Jim Hawkins. In 2002 he played "Dick" in the pantomime "Dick Whittington". In 2005 he portrayed the late comedian Dudley Moore onstage in "", a drama charting Moore's turbulent relationship with Peter Cook, which debuted at the Assembly Rooms as part of the Edinburgh Fringe before transferring to The Venue in London's West End in March 2006.
1061349	"Prizzi's Honor" is a 1985 American film directed by John Huston. It stars Jack Nicholson, Kathleen Turner, Robert Loggia and, in an Academy Award-winning performance, Anjelica Huston. The film was adapted by Richard Condon and Janet Roach from Condon's 1982 novel of the same name. Its score, composed by Alex North, adapts the music of Giacomo Puccini and Gioachino Rossini. Plot. Charley Partanna is a hit man for a New York crime organization headed by the elderly Don Corrado Prizzi, whose business is generally handled by his sons Dominic and Eduardo and by his longtime right-hand man, Angelo, who is Charley's father. At a family wedding, Charley is quickly infatuated with a beautiful woman he doesn't recognize. He asks Maerose Prizzi, estranged daughter of Dominic, if she recognizes the woman, oblivious to the fact that Maerose still has feelings for Charley, having once been his lover. Maerose is in disfavor with her father for running off with another man after the end of her romance with Charley.
1066673	Brewster McCloud is a 1970 movie, directed by Robert Altman, about a young recluse (Bud Cort, as the titular character) who lives in a fallout shelter of the Houston Astrodome, where he is building a pair of wings so he can fly. He is helped by his comely and enigmatic "fairy godmother", played by Sally Kellerman. The film was shot on location in Houston, Texas. During the opening credits, shots of the downtown Houston skyline (with the One Shell Plaza building under construction) zoom toward the Houston Astrodome and Astrohall, with the emerging Texas Medical Center in the background. It was the first film shot inside the Astrodome. Plot. The film opens with The Lecturer (René Auberjonois) regaling his (unseen) students with a wealth of knowledge of the habits of birds. Owlish Brewster (Bud Cort), living hidden and alone under the Houston Astrodome, dreams of creating wings that will help him fly like a bird. His only assistance comes from Louise (Sally Kellerman), a beautiful woman committed to helping Brewster realize his dream. Wearing only a trench coat, Louise has unexplained scars on her shoulder blades. She warns him against having sexual intercourse, as this could kill his instinct to fly. While Brewster works to complete his wings and condition himself for flight, Houston itself suffers a string of unexplained murders, the work of a serial killer whose victims are found strangled and covered in bird droppings. Haskell Weeks (William Windom) a prominent figure in Houston, pulls strings to have the Houston Police call "San Francisco super cop" Frank Shaft (Michael Murphy) to investigate. Shaft immediately fixates on the bird droppings, and soon finds a link to Brewster. Brewster eludes the police with the apparent help of Louise. However, he eventually drives her away - and dooms himself - when he defies Louise's edict against sex by hooking up with Astrodome usher Suzanne (Shelley Duvall). Suzanne also saves Brewster by out-driving Shaft in her Plymouth Road Runner. Severely injured after losing Brewster, Shaft kills himself. Despite her sweetness, Suzanne will not give up her comfortable home to fly with Brewster. Sensing something very wrong with Brewster, Suzanne betrays him to the police. In the climactic scene, a small army of policemen enter the Astrodome, but fail to nab Brewster before he takes flight using his completed wings. Although Brewster escapes the police, he cannot escape the human being's inherent unsuitability for flight. Exhausted by the effort, he falls out of the air, crashing in a heap on the floor of the Astrodome. The film ends with a Circus entering the Astrodome, its members being the cast of the film now costumed as clowns, strongmen and other circus performers. The Ringmaster (played William Windom) announces the names of each cast member, finishing with Bud Cort, who still remains crumpled on the floor. Cast. Opening quirk. The film opens with the MGM logo, as usual, but with the voice of Rene Auberjonois saying, "I forgot the opening line," replacing the lion roar. Cultural references. The film has references to other films, Altman's own work, and other places. Altman refers to "Bullitt" (1969) by including a character named Frank Shaft, who is a detective from San Francisco. Homages to "The Wizard of Oz" (1939) have been noted in the film, as Margaret Hamilton, who played the Wicked Witch of the West, is the music conductor seen during the opening credits. She is seen wearing ruby slippers in the film. Hope (Jennifer Salt) who supplies Brewster with health food, resembles Dorothy, as she wears a distinctive gingham dress, has pigtails and carries a basket. At the end of the film, she is shown in the cast as Dorothy carrying Toto. Production. This film marks the first feature produced by Altman's Lions' Gate Films. The film records landmarks and streetscapes that later were demolished or radically changed. The hotel Frank Shaft checks into was part of the AstroDomain complex; it has gone through several changes.
1066473	The Longshots is a 2008 biopic family comedy-drama film sports movie based on the real life events of Jasmine Plummer, the first female to participate in the Pop Warner football tournament. The film stars Ice Cube and Keke Palmer, their second movie together after "". It is directed by Limp Bizkit frontman Fred Durst. Plot. Minden, Illinois, is a former factory town with no money and a pathetic football team. Curtis Plummer, a down-and-out former football player is going nowhere, until he meets his niece Jasmine, the daughter of his no-good brother. Jasmine has worn her father's watch ever since he left five years ago, in the hopes that he will return. Her mother Claire asks Curtis to take care of Jasmine after school, because Claire has to work at the town diner. Curtis realizes Jasmine has a talent for throwing a football, which he nurtures into a passion for the game. He then persuades her to try out for the town's Pop Warner football team, the Minden Browns, because he thinks it would be good for her and the team. The team, including the coach, are against it, but her abilities gain her a spot on the team. However, the coach keeps her on the bench. In the fourth game, after much prodding from Curtis, the coach puts Jasmine in the game, and although they lose, everyone said they could have won if she had played from the beginning. Jasmine becomes the starting quarterback and the Minden Browns become a winning team. Everything is going great, until Coach Fisher has a heart attack, and the assistant coach asks Curtis to help coach the team through the last two games. He hesitates at first, but is eventually talked into it. They win the two games and are able to go to the Pop Warner Super Bowl in Miami Beach. Jasmine's father, Roy, suddenly shows up after he sees her on TV. Claire and Curtis are both unhappy about his returning, but Jasmine is ecstatic. The Browns are able to go to the Super Bowl after raising the money for the trip, including Curtis' donation of his life savings. Jasmine plays poorly in the first half when her father does not show up. Curtis talks her through her feelings for her father and Minden rallies for the second half. They lose the game after a teammate drops the ball on the last play. They are glad that they did their best. After they get back, Jasmine gives Roy back his watch, cutting him out of her life. She then accepts her uncle Curtis as a father figure. Release. Critical response. "The Longshots" received mixed reviews. Review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes gives the film a score of 40% based on reviews from 72 critics. The site's consensus is: ""The Longshots" means well, but it's a largely formulaic affair, rarely deviating from the inspirational sports movie playbook." Box office. "The Longshots" opened on August 22, 2008 and grossed $4,080,687 in its opening week. It flopped at the box office, grossing $11,767,866 worldwide, on a $23 million budget. Home media. "The Longshots" was released on DVD on December 2, 2008. It opened at #18 at the DVD sales chart, selling 143,000 units for revenue of $2,858,950. As per the latest figures,471,000 DVD units have been sold, translating to $9,179,131 in revenue. Filming locations. The movie was filmed mostly in northwestern Louisiana with the majority in the small town of Minden. It was filmed at Minden High School and the Webster Parish Alternative School. The "Super Bowl" was filmed in Shreveport, Louisiana at Calvary Baptist Academy.
688719	Julie Strain (born February 18, 1962) is an American actress and model who was "Penthouse" Pet of the Month in June 1991 and later chosen as the magazine's Pet of the Year in 1993. Biography. Early life. Strain was born in Concord, California. A graduate of Diablo Valley College, she had an extensive athletic background. Much of her youth was wiped from her memory, however, when she was left with a case of retrograde amnesia due to a severe head injury suffered in a fall from a horse. She eventually made her way to Las Vegas and later Hollywood, California and her career took off. Career. With over 100 films to her credit, Strain has come to be known as the "Queen of the B-movies". In addition, she was "Penthouse" Pet of the Month for June 1991, and "Penthouse" Pet of the Year for 1993. She has also had her likeness attached to numerous comic book characters and animation items. For example, she did the voice acting for the main character in the animated movie "Heavy Metal 2000" and was the basis for the third person shooter "". Strain, who stands , was married to "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" co-creator and "Heavy Metal" magazine Editor in Chief Kevin Eastman. According to Eastman's blog and Strain's MySpace page, they separated several years prior but maintained a relationship in public for undisclosed reasons. They have since undergone a "friendly divorce". She has also retired from show business. Strain often appears in the magazine in photos or pictures painted by her close friends Olivia De Berardinis, Simon Bisley, and Luis Royo. She also became very popular for performing in the program "Sex Court" on Playboy TV. Autobiography. In 1997, Heavy Metal published Strain's autobiography, "Six Foot One and Worth the Climb". It was heavily illustrated with stills from her film and modeling career, plus paintings by Boris Vallejo, Julie Bell and Olivia De Berardinis.
68944	John Horton Conway (born 26 December 1937) is a British mathematician active in the theory of finite groups, knot theory, number theory, combinatorial game theory and coding theory. He has also contributed to many branches of recreational mathematics, notably the invention of the cellular automaton called the Game of Life. Conway is currently Professor of Mathematics and John Von Neumann Professor in Applied and Computational Mathematics at Princeton University. He has also begun lecturing a class on Number Theory at CUNY's Queens College. He studied at Cambridge, where he started research under Harold Davenport. He received the Berwick Prize (1971), was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (1981), was the first recipient of the Pólya Prize (LMS) (1987), won the Nemmers Prize in Mathematics (1998) and received the Leroy P. Steele Prize for Mathematical Exposition (2000) of the American Mathematical Society. He has an Erdős number of one. Biography. Conway's parents were Agnes Boyce and Cyril Horton Conway. He was born in Liverpool. He became interested in mathematics at a very early age and his mother recalled that he could recite the powers of two when he was four years old. At the age of eleven his ambition was to become a mathematician. After leaving secondary school, Conway entered Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge to study mathematics. He was awarded his BA in 1959 and began to undertake research in number theory supervised by Harold Davenport. Having solved the open problem posed by Davenport on writing numbers as the sums of fifth powers, Conway began to become interested in infinite ordinals. It appears that his interest in games began during his years studying at Cambridge, where he became an avid backgammon player, spending hours playing the game in the common room. He was awarded his doctorate in 1964 and was appointed as College Fellow and Lecturer in Mathematics at the University of Cambridge. He left Cambridge in 1986 to take up the appointment to the John von Neumann Chair of Mathematics at Princeton University. Conway resides in Princeton, New Jersey. He has seven children by various marriages, three grandchildren and four great-grand children. He has been married three times; his first wife was Eileen, and his second wife was Larissa. He has been married to his third wife, Diana, since 2001. Achievements. Combinatorial game theory. Among amateur mathematicians, he is perhaps most widely known for his contributions to combinatorial game theory (CGT), a theory of partisan games. This he developed with Elwyn Berlekamp and Richard Guy, and with them also co-authored the book "Winning Ways for your Mathematical Plays". He also wrote the book "On Numbers and Games" ("ONAG") which lays out the mathematical foundations of CGT. He is also one of the inventors of sprouts, as well as philosopher's football. He developed detailed analyses of many other games and puzzles, such as the Soma cube, peg solitaire, and Conway's soldiers. He came up with the angel problem, which was solved in 2006. He invented a new system of numbers, the surreal numbers, which are closely related to certain games and have been the subject of a mathematical novel by Donald Knuth. He also invented a nomenclature for exceedingly large numbers, the Conway chained arrow notation. Much of this is discussed in the 0th part of "ONAG". He is also known for the invention of the Game of Life, one of the early and still celebrated examples of a cellular automaton. His early experiments in that field were done with pen and paper, long before personal computers existed. Geometry. In the mid-1960s with Michael Guy, son of Richard Guy, he established that there are sixty-four convex uniform polychora excluding two infinite sets of prismatic forms. They discovered the grand antiprism in the process, the only non-Wythoffian uniform polychoron. Conway has also suggested a system of notation dedicated to describing polyhedra called Conway polyhedron notation. He extensively investigated lattices in higher dimensions, and determined the symmetry group of the Leech lattice. Geometric topology. Conway's approach to computing the Alexander polynomial of knot theory involved skein relations, by a variant now called the Alexander-Conway polynomial. After lying dormant for more than a decade, this concept became central to work in the 1980s on the novel knot polynomials. Conway further developed tangle theory and invented a system of notation for tabulating knots, nowadays known as Conway notation, while completing the knot tables up to 10 crossings. Group theory. He worked on the classification of finite simple groups and discovered the Conway groups. He was the primary author of the "ATLAS of Finite Groups" giving properties of many finite simple groups. He, along with collaborators, constructed the first concrete representations of some of the sporadic groups. More specifically, he discovered three sporadic groups based on the symmetry of the Leech lattice, which have been designated the Conway groups. With Simon P. Norton he formulated the complex of conjectures relating the monster group with modular functions, which was named monstrous moonshine by them. He introduced the Mathieu groupoid, an extension of the Mathieu group M12 to 13 points. Number theory. As a graduate student, he proved the conjecture by Edward Waring that every integer could be written as the sum of 37 numbers, each raised to the fifth power, though Chen Jingrun solved the problem independently before the work could be published. Algebra. He has also done work in algebra, particularly with quaternions. Together with Neil James Alexander Sloane, he invented the system of icosian. Algorithmics. For calculating the day of the week, he invented the Doomsday algorithm. The algorithm is simple enough for anyone with basic arithmetic ability to do the calculations mentally. Conway can usually give the correct answer in under two seconds. To improve his speed, he practices his calendrical calculations on his computer, which is programmed to quiz him with random dates every time he logs on. One of his early books was on finite state machines. Theoretical physics. In 2004, Conway and Simon B. Kochen, another Princeton mathematician, proved the Free will theorem, a startling version of the No Hidden Variables principle of Quantum Mechanics. It states that given certain conditions, if an experimenter can freely decide what quantities to measure in a particular experiment, then elementary particles must be free to choose their spins in order to make the measurements consistent with physical law. In Conway's provocative wording: "if experimenters have free will, then so do elementary particles." Books. He has (co-)written several books including the "ATLAS of Finite Groups", "Regular Algebra and Finite Machines", "Sphere Packings, Lattices and Groups", "The Sensual (Quadratic) Form", "On Numbers and Games", "Winning Ways for your Mathematical Plays", "The Book of Numbers", and "On Quaternions and Octonions". He is currently finishing "The Triangle Book" written with Steve Sigur, math teacher at Paideia School in Atlanta, Georgia, and in summer 2008 published "The Symmetries of Things" with Chaim Goodman-Strauss and Heidi Burgiel.
393825	My Scary Girl (; lit. "Sweet, Bloodthirsty Lover") is a 2006 South Korean film, written and directed by Son Jae-gon.
1099149	Benoit B. Mandelbrot (20 November 1924Â â 14 October 2010) was a Polish-born, French and American mathematician, noted for developing a "theory of roughness" in nature and the field of fractal geometry to help prove it, which included coining the word "fractal". He later discovered the Mandelbrot set of intricate, never-ending fractal shapes, named in his honor. As a child, his family fled to France in 1936 to escape the growing Nazi persecution of Jews. After World War II ended in 1945, Mandelbrot studied mathematics, graduating from universities in Paris and the U.S., receiving a masters degree in aeronautics from Caltech. He spent most of his career in both the U.S. and France, having dual French and American citizenship. In 1958 he began working for IBM, where he stayed for 35 years and was an IBM Fellow. Because of his access to IBM's computers, Mandelbrot was one of the first to use computer graphics to create and display fractal geometric images, leading to his discovering the Mandelbrot set in 1979. In so doing, he was able to show how visual complexity can be created from simple rules. He said that things typically considered to be "rough", a "mess" or "chaotic", like clouds or shorelines, actually had a "degree of order". His research career included contributions to fields including geology, medicine, cosmology, engineering and the social sciences. Science writer Arthur C. Clarke credits the Mandelbrot set as being "one of the most astonishing discoveries in the entire history of mathematics". Toward the end of his career, he was Sterling Professor of Mathematical Sciences at Yale University, where he was the oldest professor in Yale's history to receive tenure. Mandelbrot also held positions at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, UniversitĂŠ Lille Nord de France, Institute for Advanced Study and Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique. During his career, he received over 15 honorary doctorates and served on many science journals, along with winning numerous awards. His autobiography, "The Fractalist", was published in 2012. Early years. Mandelbrot was born in Warsaw into a Jewish family from Lithuania. His family had a strong academic traditionÂ â his mother was a dental surgeon, although his father made his living trading clothing. He was first introduced to mathematics by two of his uncles, one of whom, Szolem Mandelbrojt, was a mathematician who resided in Paris. "The love of his mind was mathematics," writes Mandelbrot, in his autobiography. Anticipating the threat posed by Nazi Germany, the family fled from Poland to France in 1936 when he was 11. "The fact that my parents, as economic and political refugees, joined Szolem in France saved our lives," he writes. Mandelbrot attended the LycĂŠe Rolin in Paris until the start of World War II, when his family then moved to Tulle, France. He was helped by Rabbi David Feuerwerker, the Rabbi of Brive-la-Gaillarde, to continue his studies. Much of France was occupied by the Nazis at the time, and Mandelbrot recalls this period: In 1944, Mandelbrot returned to Paris, studied at the LycĂŠe du Parc in Lyon, and in 1945 to 1947 attended the Ăcole Polytechnique, where he studied under Gaston Julia and Paul LĂŠvy. From 1947 to 1949 he studied at California Institute of Technology, where he earned a master's degree in aeronautics. Returning to France, he obtained his PhD degree in Mathematical Sciences at the University of Paris in 1952. Research career. From 1949 to 1958, Mandelbrot was a staff member at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique. During this time he spent a year at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey, where he was sponsored by John von Neumann. In 1955 he married Aliette Kagan and moved to Geneva, Switzerland, and later to the UniversitĂŠ Lille Nord de France. In 1958 the couple moved to the United States where Mandelbrot joined the research staff at the IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center in Yorktown Heights, New York. He remained at IBM for 35 years, becoming an IBM Fellow, and later Fellow Emeritus. From 1951 onward, Mandelbrot worked on problems and published papers not only in mathematics but in applied fields such as information theory, economics, and fluid dynamics. Mandelbrot found that price changes in financial markets did not follow a Gaussian distribution, but rather LĂŠvy stable distributions having theoretically infinite variance. He found, for example, that cotton prices followed a LĂŠvy stable distribution with parameter Îą equal to 1.7 rather than 2 as in a Gaussian distribution. "Stable" distributions have the property that the sum of many instances of a random variable follows the same distribution but with a larger scale parameter. As a visiting professor at Harvard University, Mandelbrot began to study fractals called Julia sets that were invariant under certain transformations of the complex plane. Building on previous work by Gaston Julia and Pierre Fatou, Mandelbrot used a computer to plot images of the Julia sets. While investigating the topology of these Julia sets, he studied the Mandelbrot set fractal that is now named after him. In 1982, Mandelbrot expanded and updated his ideas in "The Fractal Geometry of Nature". This influential work brought fractals into the mainstream of professional and popular mathematics, as well as silencing critics, who had dismissed fractals as "program artifacts". Mandelbrot left IBM in 1987, after 35 years and 12 days, when IBM decided to end pure research in his division. He joined the Department of Mathematics at Yale, and obtained his first tenured post in 1999, at the age of 75. At the time of his retirement in 2005, he was Sterling Professor of Mathematical Sciences. Developing "fractal geometry" and the Mandelbrot set. In 1975, Mandelbrot coined the term "fractal" to describe these structures and first published his ideas in 1975, and later translated, "Fractals: Form, Chance and Dimension". According to mathematics scientist Stephen Wolfram, the book was a "breakthrough" for Mandelbrot, who until then would typically "apply fairly straightforward mathematics ... to areas that had barely seen the light of serious mathematics before." Wolfram adds that as a result of this new research, he was no longer a "wandering scientist", and later called him "the father of fractals": Wolfram briefly describes fractals as a form of geometric repetition, "in which smaller and smaller copies of a pattern are successively nested inside each other, so that the same intricate shapes appear no matter how much you zoom in to the whole. Fern leaves and Romanesco broccoli are two examples from nature." He points out an unexpected conclusion: Mandelbrot used the term "fractal" as it derived from the Latin word "fractus", defined as broken or shattered glass. Using the newly developed IBM computers at his disposal, Mandelbrot was able to create fractal images using graphic computer code, images that an interviewer described as looking like "the delirious exuberance of the 1960s psychedelic art with forms hauntingly reminiscent of nature and the human body." He also saw himself as a "would-be Kepler", after the 17th-century scientist Johannes Kepler, who calculated and described the orbits of the planets. Mandelbrot, however, never felt he was inventing a new idea. He describes his feelings in a documentary with science writer Arthur C. Clarke: According to Clarke, "the Mandelbrot set is indeed one of the most astonishing discoveries in the entire history of mathematics. Who could have dreamed that such an incredibly simple equation could have generated images of literally "infinite" complexity?" Clarke also notes an "odd coincidence:" "the name Mandelbrot, and the word "mandala"âfor a religious symbolâwhich I'm sure is a pure coincidence, but indeed the Mandelbrot set does seem to contain an enormous number of mandalas." Fractals and the "theory of roughness". Mandelbrot created the first-ever "theory of roughness", and he saw "roughness" in the shapes of mountains, coastlines and river basins; the structures of plants, blood vessels and lungs; the clustering of galaxies. His personal quest was to create some mathematical formula to measure the overall "roughness" of such objects in nature. He began by asking himself various kinds of questions related to nature: Mandelbrot emphasized the use of fractals as realistic and useful models for describing many "rough" phenomena in the real world. He concluded that "real roughness is often fractal and can be measured." Although Mandelbrot coined the term "fractal", some of the mathematical objects he presented in "The Fractal Geometry of Nature" had been previously described by other mathematicians. Before Mandelbrot, however, they were regarded as isolated curiosities with unnatural and non-intuitive properties. Mandelbrot brought these objects together for the first time and turned them into essential tools for the long-stalled effort to extend the scope of science to explaining non-smooth, "rough" objects in the real world. His methods of research were both old and new: Fractals are also found in human pursuits, such as music, painting, architecture, and stock market prices. Mandelbrot believed that fractals, far from being unnatural, were in many ways more intuitive and natural than the artificially smooth objects of traditional Euclidean geometry: Clouds are not spheres, mountains are not cones, coastlines are not circles, and bark is not smooth, nor does lightning travel in a straight line.Â Â âMandelbrot, in his introduction to "The Fractal Geometry of Nature" Mandelbrot has been called a visionary and a maverick. His informal and passionate style of writing and his emphasis on visual and geometric intuition (supported by the inclusion of numerous illustrations) made "The Fractal Geometry of Nature" accessible to non-specialists. The book sparked widespread popular interest in fractals and contributed to chaos theory and other fields of science and mathematics. Mandelbrot also put his ideas to work in cosmology. He offered in 1974 a new explanation of Olbers' paradox (the "dark night sky" riddle), demonstrating the consequences of fractal theory as a sufficient, but not necessary, resolution of the paradox. He postulated that if the stars in the universe were fractally distributed (for example, like Cantor dust), it would not be necessary to rely on the Big Bang theory to explain the paradox. His model would not rule out a Big Bang, but would allow for a dark sky even if the Big Bang had not occurred. Awards and honors. Mandelbrot's awards include the Wolf Prize for Physics in 1993, the Lewis Fry Richardson Prize of the European Geophysical Society in 2000, the Japan Prize in 2003, and the Einstein Lectureship of the American Mathematical Society in 2006. The small asteroid 27500 Mandelbrot was named in his honor. In November 1990, he was made a Knight in the French Legion of Honour. In December 2005, Mandelbrot was appointed to the position of Battelle Fellow at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. Mandelbrot was promoted to Officer of the Legion of Honour in January 2006. An honorary degree from Johns Hopkins University was bestowed on Mandelbrot in the May 2010 commencement exercises. Death and legacy. Mandelbrot died in a hospice in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on 14 October 2010 from pancreatic cancer, at the age of 85. Reacting to news of his death, mathematician Heinz-Otto Peitgen said "if we talk about impact inside mathematics, and applications in the sciences, he is one of the most important figures of the last 50 years." Lebanese author and professor Nassim Nicholas Taleb states that Mandelbrot "had perhaps more cumulative influence than any other single scientist in history, with the only close second, Isaac Newton." Taleb adds, "He was the only teacher I ever had, the only person for whom I have had intellectual respect. But there was something else that made him magnetic: he was a raconteur with a profound sense of historical context..." James Gleick, author of the best-selling book, "", explains further: Chris Anderson, curator of TED conferences, described Mandelbrot as "an icon who changed how we see the world". The President of France at the time of Mandelbrot's death, Nicolas Sarkozy, said Mandelbrot had "a powerful, original mind that never shied away from innovating and shattering preconceived notions". Sarkozy also added, "His work, developed entirely outside mainstream research, led to modern information theory." Mandelbrot's obituary in "The Economist" points out his fame as "celebrity beyond the academy" and lauds him as the "father of fractal geometry." Honors and awards. A partial list of awards received by Mandelbrot:
1086120	Chad Tyler Lindberg (born November 1, 1976) is an American actor. He is best known for his film role as Jesse in "The Fast and the Furious". Life and career. Lindberg attended Mount Vernon High School in his hometown of Mount Vernon, Washington. He began his acting career to critical acclaim as Rory in "Black Circle Boys" at the 1997 Sundance Film Festival. From there, he made several guest appearances on popular television shows, such as "ER", "Buffy the Vampire Slayer", and "The X-Files". He continued pursuing films roles, particularly as Sherman O'Dell in "October Sky" and Jesse, a stuttering mechanic, in "The Fast and the Furious".
1356191	Absolon is a 2003 post-apocalyptic science fiction thriller film. The plot concerns a future society where the only hope for survival from a deadly virus is a drug called Absolon. The film was directed by David Barto, and stars Christopher Lambert, Lou Diamond Phillips, and Kelly Brook. Plot. In the year 2010, a virus infected everyone on the planet, wiping out half the population. Absolon is a drug regimen everyone must now take to stay alive. One corporation controls the drug and Murchison (Ron Perlman) is its leader. A corporate scientist, who was researching the virus, is found murdered. Norman Scott (Christopher Lambert) is the policeman assigned to investigate the crime. He eventually uncovers a conspiracy involving the scientist. He is given a partial dosage of the cure the scientist had been working on, but soon realizes he is in over his head as he is being hunted by an assassination team. Scott goes on the run with Claire (Kelly Brook), one of the murdered scientist's colleagues. They find out the assassins are employed by Murchison. Scott discovers he is being chased down for the cure in his bloodstream. He is also able to kill the assassins chasing them. In the end, Scott finds out the cure he was carrying wasn't for the original virus, which had died out years ago, but a cure for the worldwide dependence on the addictive Absolon drug itself.
1073605	Ken Kirzinger (born November 4, 1959) is a Canadian stuntman and actor best known for his portrayal of Jason Voorhees in "Freddy vs. Jason" (2003) and of Pa in "" (2007). He also played "Mason" Jason Voorhees character spoof in the horror film parody, "Stan Helsing". Career. Role as Jason Voorhees. At he is one of the tallest men to have played Jason Voorhees. "Freddy vs. Jason" director Ronny Yu tried to limit Kirzinger's stunts on the film as much as possible. Stuntman Glenn Ennis was called in to perform a series of stunts, including a stunt showing Jason walking through a field killing teenagers while on fire. Early career. Long before Kirzinger took over the role of Jason Voorhees from Kane Hodder, he had ties to "Friday the 13th". He appeared in 1989's "" as a New York cook who gets in Jason's way while pursuing Rennie Wickham (Jensen Daggett) and Sean Robertson (Scott Reeves). Jason, played by Kane Hodder, threw Kirzinger over the counter. In addition to his role as the cook, Kirzinger also served as a stunt coordinator for the film. Kirzinger is only the second person besides Hodder to play Jason more than once as he doubled for the latter in the same movie in a few short scenes. Stunt scenes. According to Kirzinger, the hardest thing he went through for performing as Jason in "Freddy vs. Jason" (2003), was sinking into the lake. They shot the scene in a tank which was highly chlorinated and had debris to make it look like lake water. Director Ronny Yu wanted the close-up of Ken's eye and wanted him to sink into the water keeping his eye open. Then also he cannot breathe because it would be visible on film. He was lying on top of the water and had to let himself sink down to the bottom of the tank without breathing keeping his eye open. Kirzinger really held his breath, and the chlorine in the water burned his eyes. Appearances. Kirzinger has performed stunts, or worked on the following: Stunts Canada. Ken Kirzinger is a member of Stunts Canada. Personal life. His brother, Dave Kirzinger, played for the Calgary Stampeders of the Canadian Football League from 1978 to 1986. His known friends are Brad Loree, another member of Stunts Canada who notably played horror icon Michael Myers in , Robert Englund, who co-starred with him in "Freddy vs Jason" as Freddy Krueger, and Kane Hodder, the actor who played Jason Voorhees before him. Even though Hodder will sometimes state his disappointment at not being chosen to play Jason for the fifth time in "Freddy vs. Jason", he and Kirzinger are very good friends and Kirzinger stated they enjoy seeing each other at conventions.
1058939	Over Her Dead Body is a romantic comedy film starring Eva Longoria, Paul Rudd, Lake Bell, Jason Biggs, Lindsay Sloane, Ali Hillis, Colin Fickes and Stephen Root. It was written and directed by Jeff Lowell. The film is about Kate (Eva Longoria), who dies on the day of her wedding to fiancé Henry (Paul Rudd). He subsequently begins a relationship with psychic Ashley (Lake Bell) who becomes haunted by Kate trying to sabotage their relationship. The film was released in the United States and Canada on February 1, 2008. Plot. Kate and Henry are a happy couple. Henry proposed to Kate and they are about to be married, but on the day of their wedding, Kate is accidentally killed by an ice sculpture angel, because of the actions of the drunken ice sculptor (Stephen Root). Unaware that she has died and her soul left her body, Kate awakens in Purgatory, and wastes precious time arguing with an angel who finally leaves before she can explain to Kate what she must do to move on. A year later, Henry's sister Chloe (Lindsay Sloane) hopes that he will find closure by consulting Ashley (Lake Bell), a psychic who also runs a catering business with her gay best friend Dan (Jason Biggs). After an unsuccessful first meeting, Chloe gives Kate's diary to Ashley so that she can pretend to communicate with Kate and convince Henry to move on with his life. In the process, Henry and Ashley fall for each other... much to the consternation of Kate, who has been watching over Henry. When Kate voices her displeasure, Ashley hears her, unaware of what it means.
583242	K. K. Raina is an Indian film, television and theatre character actor, and award-winning script writer, who is best known for his roles as Juror #8 in the 1986 film Ek Ruka Hua Faisla, a remake of 12 Angry Men, and the Dr. Watson-like side-kick Ajit in the 1993 Doordarshan detective series Byomkesh Bakshi. Raina won the Filmfare Award for Best Dialogue in 1998 for the Rajkumar Santoshi film China Gate. Raina is an alumnus of the National School of Drama, graduating in 1976.
1051609	Anna Karina (born Hanne Karin Bayer; 22 September 1940) is a Danish, now French citizen, film actress, director, and screenwriter who has spent most of her working life in France. She is known as a muse of the director Jean-Luc Godard, one of the pioneers of the French New Wave. Her notable collaborations with Godard include "The Little Soldier" (1960), "A Woman Is a Woman" (1961), "Vivre sa vie" (1962), and "Alphaville" (1965). With "A Woman Is a Woman", Karina won the Best Actress award at the Berlin Film Festival. Early life. Karina's mother was a dress shop owner and her father was a ship's captain who left the family a year after she was born. She lived with her maternal grandparents for three years, until she was four. She spent the next four years in foster care when she returned to live with her mother. She has described her childhood as "terribly wanting to be loved", and as a child made numerous attempts to run away from home. She began her career in Denmark, where she sang in cabarets and worked as a model playing in commercials. At age 14, she appeared in a Danish short film by Ib Schedes, which won a prize at Cannes. She studied dance and painting in Denmark and for a while made a living selling her paintings. In 1958, after a row with her mother, she hitch-hiked to Paris. Career. Modeling and meeting with Godard. Karina was 17 when she arrived in Paris—indigent and unable to speak French. Living off the streets, she got a break while sitting at the cafe Les Deux Magots. She was approached by a woman from an advertisement agency who asked her to do some photos. She became a successful fashion model, meeting Pierre Cardin and Coco Chanel. Chanel helped her devise her professional name, Anna Karina. Karina's first film appearance, although uncredited, dates from 1959, when a soap advertisement in which she appeared as a model was included near the end of Guy Debord's "On the Passage of a Few Persons Through a Rather Brief Unity of Time". The image was accompanied by Debord's voice-over: "The advertisements during intermissions are the truest reflection of an intermission from life." Jean-Luc Godard, then a film critic for "Cahiers du cinéma", first saw Karina in a series of Palmolive ads in a bathtub covered in soapsuds. He was casting his debut feature film, "Breathless". He offered her a small part in the film, but she refused when he mentioned that there would be a nude scene. When Godard queried her refusal, referring to the supposed nudity in the Palmolive ads, she is said to have replied "Are you mad? I was wearing a bathing suit in those ads — the soapsuds went up to my neck. It was in your mind that I was undressed." In the end, the character Godard reserved for Karina did not appear in the film. The next year, however, Godard offered her a role in "Le Petit Soldat" (1960). Karina, who was still under 21, had to persuade her estranged mother to sign the contract for her. Film. Karina won the Best Actress Award at the Berlin Film Festival in 1961 for her interpretation of the character Angela in the film "A Woman Is a Woman". She also appeared in Godard's "Bande à part" (1964). Her acting career was not, however, limited to Godard's films, and she went on to a successful collaboration with other well-known directors. Her role in "The Nun" (1966), directed by Jacques Rivette, is considered by some as her best performance. She also acted in Luchino Visconti's "The Stranger". Other notable films include: George Cukor's "Justine" (1969), Tony Richardson's "Laughter in the Dark" (1969), Christian de Chalonge's "L'Alliance" (1970), Andre Delvaux's "Rendezvous a Bray" (1971), "The Salzburg Connection" (1972), Franco Brusati's "Bread and Chocolate" (1973) and Rainer Werner Fassbinder's "Chinese Roulette" (1976). In 1972, she set up a production company named Raska for her film-directing debut "Vivre Ensemble", in which she also acted and which was released in 1973. She wrote and acted in "Last Song" in 1987. She has since appeared in "Haut, Bas, Fragile" (1995) by Jacques Rivette and sang in "The Truth About Charlie". Theatre. Karina has also appeared on stage, in Rivette's adaptation of "La Religieuse", "Pour Lucrece", "Toi et Tes Nuages", Françoise Sagan's "Il Fait Beau Jour et Nuit" and Ingmar Bergman's "Efter repetitionen". Singing career. Karina has also maintained an important singing career. At the end of the 1960s, she scored a major hit with "Sous le soleil exactement" and "Roller Girl" by Serge Gainsbourg. Both songs are taken from the TV musical comedy "Anna" (1967), by the film director Pierre Koralnik, in which she sings seven songs alongside Gainsbourg and Jean-Claude Brialy. She subsequently recorded an album, "Une histoire d'amour", with Philippe Katerine, which was followed up by a concert tour. Karina has also made several appearances on television. In 2005, she released "Chansons de films", a collection of songs sung in movies. Karina wrote, directed and starred in "Victoria", a musical road movie filmed in Montreal, Quebec and Saguenay-Lac-St-Jean in 2007. A review by Richard Kuipers in "Variety" praised it as "a pleasant gambol through the backwoods of Quebec...Given plenty of room to work off each other, the members of this fine ensemble keep pic on track...Big plus is the music and heartfelt songs by Philippe Katerine." Books. Karina has written four novels: "Vivre ensemble" (1973); "Golden City" (1983); "On n'achète pas le soleil" (1988); and "Jusqu'au bout du hasard" (1998). Personal life. Karina and Godard married on 3 March 1961, during the shooting of "A Woman Is a Woman", and divorced in 1965. Their relationship is said to have been rocky for most of its course, with Anna left emotionally unstimulated by Godard's obsession with work. By 1967, they were barely on speaking terms. After Godard, she was married to scriptwriter-actor Pierre Fabre (1968–1973), actor-director Daniel Duval (1978–1981) and director Dennis Berry (1982–1994).
1226994	I Drink Your Blood (also known as "Hydro-Phobia") is a cult horror film originally released in 1970. The film was written and directed by David E. Durston, produced by Jerry Gross, and starred Bhaskar Roy Chowdhury and Lynn Lowry (who is uncredited in the film). Like many B-movies of its time, "I Drink Your Blood" was a Times Square exploitation film and drive-in theater staple. Plot. Loosely inspired by Charles Manson's "family", The film opens on a bizarre Satanic ritual being conducted by a long-haired hippie type named Horace Bones. Nude and freaked out on LSD, Horace and his small group of cohorts are oblivious to the fact that they're being watched by Sylvia, a young girl observing them from the trees. One of the hippies is pregnant and is not taking part in the ritual; she sees Sylvia and drags her into the clearing, where Horace freaks out over the fact that their ritual has been observed. A more recent member of the group, Andy, admits that he met Sylvia in town and invited her along, prompting Horace to violently hit him. Sylvia becomes frightened and runs away, but two other members of the group chase after her and catch her in the woods, where they brutalize her. The next morning, Sylvia emerges from the woods beaten and apparently raped. She is found by Mildred, the woman who runs the small town's bakery. With Mildred is Pete, Sylvia's younger brother who appears to be about 12 or 13. Together, they take Sylvia back home to where she lives with Pete and their grandfather, Banner. Mildred is sure her boyfriend will know who victimized Sylvia--with the town deserted, the only other people in the area are the construction crew working on a dam near the town. Mildred drives to the dam and informs her boyfriend, who works at the site. He tells her he will look into it. Meanwhile, Horace and his group have discovered that their van is now broken down and useless. They abandon it in the woods and walk to the town on foot. The first thing they see is the bakery, and Mildred sells them meat pies, throwing in a few extra things as a kindness for them. Horace tells them that he and his friends are rock musicians stranded there, and he asks where they can seek shelter. Mildred explains that Valley Hills only has a few residents, most of them long gone. Only she and a few others remain, awaiting the demolition of the town in the near future. Upon hearing this, Horace and the others move into one of the abandoned houses, smashing things and hunting the many rats inside of it for food. Pete follows them to the house and witnesses their bizarre behavior. When he returns home, Sylvia has come out of her shock and informed Banner about what happened to her. Pete overhears and reveals that he knows where the hippies are staying. Banner takes a shotgun and sets out for revenge. When Banner encounters the hippies at the house, they disarm him and brutalize him, forcing LSD into his mouth. Pete, who has followed Banner, overhears the incident from outside. Horace apparently wants to kill Banner, as well as Pete, but a female member named Sue-Lin convinces Horace to let them go, fearing intervention by the police. Banner is tripping when he gets home, and Pete is distressed. Sylvia explains that the hippies dosed him with LSD, and Pete becomes angry. Taking the shotgun, he goes outside the house, but the first thing he encounters is a wild dog that is apparently rabid. Pete kills it and returns later with some of his father's equipment. Using a syringe, he takes infected blood from the dog. The next day, he injects the rabid blood into the meat pies in Mildred's bakery, as a means of getting back at the hippies. Just as Pete planned, the hippies return to the bakery and purchase the meat pies. Back at their house, Horace and the others eat the meat pies. Andy is the only one who does not partake--he is uneasy about the violence he has witnessed and he wants to disassociate himself from the group, leaving the house. The others begin to show signs of being sick, and eventually they lapse into animalistic behavior. Rollo, a member of the group, takes a dagger and stabs another group member named Roger to death with it. In a feral rage, he rushes out into the yard and finds an axe, returning to chop off Roger's leg with it. Horace also turns violent, grabbing a sword and threatening other members of the group with it. A female hippie named Molly becomes terrified and rushes off into the night. Construction workers sent there by Mildred's boyfriend find Molly and take her with them. Molly uses her sex appeal to insinuate herself into their group, and she spends the rest of the night having sex with all of them. Finally, Molly begins to freak out, biting one of the men. Two other construction workers are killed when they venture into the house of the hippies and encounter a now-crazed Horace, who hangs one of them and guts the other. Banner discovers what is going on when Horace attacks Mildred's car and leaves bloody handprints behind. Andy returns to the Banner house and hides out in their barn; after making peace with Sylvia, they are discovered in the barn by Pete, who admits what he's done. Andy explains that he didn't eat the pies, so he is not infected. Banner has informed others about the potential rabies epidemic, and the next day they are joined by Dr. Oakes. Banner, Oakes, and Mildred's boyfriend all discover that the entire construction crew are now rabid maniacs; the entire town is engulfed by them and the hippies, all of them homicidally crazy and prone to mindless acts of violence. Even two seemingly gentle hippie girls, one of them pregnant, happen upon a woman's home. When she takes them in, they wind up cutting off her hand with an electric carving knife. Oakes and the others discover that water terrifies the rabids, and they are nearly killed by a large group of them before they reach a water-filled quarry, which frightens them off. Andy helps Sylvia and Pete escape after they discover Banner dead in the barn, impaled by a pitchfork. While running through the woods, they happen upon the pregnant hippie, who impales herself on a wooden stake after she learns she has rabies. When they emerge from the woods, they discover Rollo and Horace lurking near the bakery; fortunately they become interested in each other, allowing the normals to escape. Rollo and Horace clash, each of them armed, until Rollo impales Horace with a sword. Andy, Sylvia and Pete discover Mildred barricaded inside the bakery, but she is too afraid to let them inside. When she finally manages to undo the barricade, Andy has been beheaded by a machete-wielding madman. Sylvia and Pete retreat with her to the basement of the bakery, but unfortunately they cannot lock the basement door. A rabid gets inside, and Mildred shoots him in the head. They rush out of the bakery and try to drive away in Mildred's car, but it won't start; the crowd of brawling rabids converge on them and overturn the car. Just then, Oakes arrives with a slew of policemen and medics, and soon all of the rabids have been shot dead. Mildred, Sylvia, and Pete all emerge from the car, shaken but otherwise unharmed.. Censorship. The film was one of the first movies to receive an X-rating from the Motion Picture Association of America based on violence rather than nudity. Several scenes needed to be altered to qualify the film for an "R" so the producer distributed the original film asking that each projectionist censor the film as seen fit for their market. There were 280 prints made and countless differently censored versions were in circulation. The prints for the Los Angeles and New York City runs were censored by the film's director. The "Encyclopedia of Horror" said that "as the film now stands what looks like it might have been a raw, ferocious thriller has become a frustrating exercise in splicing, incessantly building up to scenes of bone-crushing horror and violence which never actually happen."
1297475	Gayniggers from Outer Space is a 1992 short film, directed by Danish filmmaker Morten Lindberg. The movie is a satire of the blaxploitation and science fiction genre. It is also famous for being the namesake of the Gay Nigger Association of America troll group. Plot. The film follows a group of intergalactic homosexual black men from the planet Anus, who discover the presence of female creatures on planet Earth. Using rayguns, they proceed to eliminate females one by one from Earth, eliciting gratitude from the previously oppressed male population. Before leaving the planet, they leave behind a "Gay Ambassador" to educate the Earthlings about their new way of life. Cultural references. The film begins in black-and-white, but later turns to color in a similar way to "The Wizard of Oz". According to director Morten Lindberg, this was a "dramatic special effect" to illustrate "the world being freed from vicious women."
589164	Muqabla is 1993 Hindi film directed by T. Rama Rao and starring Karishma Kapoor, Govinda, Paresh Rawal. Other cast include Shakti Kapoor, Aditya Pancholi, Asrani, Aruna Irani, and Farha Naaz. Plot. Suraj and Deepak live a poor lifestyle in a village along with their widowed father, who has always taught them to be honest. Both re-locate to the city and find employment with the Police Force, while Suraj is a Havaldar, Deepak is a Traffic Constable. Suraj does his job honestly and diligently and is often reprimanded by Inspector Waghmare. Then differences arise between Suraj and Deepak when the later comes to testy in favor of an accused, Narendra Khanna, who was arrested by Suraj for killing a man. Things come to a boil when Soni's husband is brutally murdered in broad daylight, and when officers of both Shaitaan Chowki and Kala Chowki refuse to investigate nor even register this homicide, she decides to take matters into her own hands
324407	Gordon Tootoosis CM (October 25, 1941 – July 5, 2011) was a First Nations actor. He was of Cree and Stoney descent. Tootoosis was a descendant of Yellow Mud Blanket, brother of the famous Cree leader Pitikwahanapiwiyin. He was acclaimed for his commitment to preserving his culture and to telling his people's stories. He served as a founding member of the board of directors of the Saskatchewan Native Theatre Company. Tootoosis offered encouragement, support and training to aspiring Aboriginal actors. He served as a leading Cree activist both as a social worker and as a band chief. In "Open Season" and "Boog and Elliot's Midnight Bun Run", Tootoosis was the voice of Sheriff Gordy. He was awarded membership in the Order of Canada on October 29, 2004. The investiture ceremony took place on September 9, 2005. His citation recognizes him as an inspirational role model for Aboriginal youth. It notes that as a veteran actor, he portrayed memorable characters in movie and television productions in Canada and the United States. Biography. Tootoosis was raised with his 13 siblings in the Plains Cree tradition until he was taken from his home (placing First Nations children into residential schools was Canadian federal government policy at the time) and placed in a Catholic residential school, where he was treated harshly and forbidden to speak his own language. His father, John Tootoosis, was an activist for aboriginal rights, which got the younger Tootoosis into trouble at school. After his traumatic school years, Tootoosis went into social work, specializing in work with children and young offenders. His interest in his own cultural traditions led him to become an accomplished native dancer and rodeo roper, and he toured with the Plains InterTribal Dance Troupe in the 1960s and 1970s throughout Canada, Europe and South America, becoming one of North America's most popular powwow announcers. His father was one of the founders of the National Indian Brotherhood and former head of the Federation of Saskatchewan Indian Nations (FSIN). Gordon himself served as the chief of his band and as a vice-president of FSIN. Tootoosis was married to Irene Seseequasis since 1965. They have three daughters and two adopted sons. After their daughter Glynnis died of cancer in 1997, they took the responsibility of raising her four children in Saskatoon. Career. Acting. His first acting role was in the film "Alien Thunder" (1974), with Chief Dan George and Donald Sutherland. He portrayed Albert Golo in 52 episodes of "North of 60" in the 1990s. He is best known to British audiences for playing the Native American Joe Saugus, who negotiates the purchase of the Middlesbrough Transporter Bridge in "Auf Wiedersehen, Pet" series 3 (2002). Gordon appeared in the CBC Television mini-series "By Way of the Stars" with Eric Schweig as Black Thunder and Tantoo Cardinal as Franoise. He appeared in award winning movie 'Legends of the Fall' (1994), Tootoosis starred with Russell Means in Disney's "Pocahontas" (1995) and "Song of Hiawatha" (1997). In 1999, he and Tantoo Cardinal became founding members of the board of directors of the Saskatchewan Native Theatre Company. In 2011, he appeared in "Gordon Winter" at the Persephone Theatre in Saskatoon and Prairie Scene in Ottawa, his first stage role in 15 years. Tootoosis won a Gemini Award for his work on the animated show "" and was nominated twice for his work on "North of 60". Death. Tootoosis died on July 5, 2011 at the age of 69 after being hospitalized for pneumonia at St. Paul's Hospital in Saskatoon. His funeral and interment were held on the Poundmaker Cree Nation Reserve in Cut Knife.
1036389	Nicholas John "Nick" Frost (born 28 March 1972) is an English actor, comedian and screenwriter. He is best known for his work with Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright in the role of Mike Watt in the television comedy "Spaced", as well as Ed in "Shaun of the Dead", Danny Butterman in "Hot Fuzz", Andrew Knightley in "The World's End", Clive Gollings in "Paul", and drug dealer Ron in "Attack the Block". He is also well known for his various roles in the sketch show "Man Stroke Woman". Early life and career. Frost was born in Dagenham, East London, the son of office furniture designers. He attended Beal High School in Ilford. He worked as a waiter and appeared in corporate training video clips such as "Chris Carter and the Coverplan Challenge", a Dixons sales video, before gaining fame as Tim's army-obsessed best friend Mike in the British comedy series "Spaced", which was written by Simon Pegg and Jessica Hynes and aired on Channel 4 for two series. In 2001, Frost played a small role in a one-off episode of Victoria Wood's "Acorn Antiques". This was a specially written episode shown during the series called "The Sketch Show Story" that Victoria narrated, in which Frost played an armed robber who shot dead Acorn Antiques' most lovable character, Mrs Overall. In 2002, Frost wrote and presented the show "Danger! 50,000 Volts!", a spoof of the outdoors survival genre in which SAS experts or the like demonstrated how to improvise solutions to dangerous problems. In the same year, Frost co-wrote and starred in "The Sofa of Time" with Matt King. In 2004, he appeared in "Shaun of the Dead", a "romantic zombie comedy", written by Simon Pegg and "Spaced" director Edgar Wright. In late 2005, Frost starred in the comedy sketch show "Man Stroke Woman" on BBC Three. A second series of "Man Stroke Woman" aired on BBC Three in early 2007. In early 2006, Frost played Commander Henderson in two series of the BBC Two science fiction sitcom, "Hyperdrive". Also in 2006, he acted in "Kinky Boots". Frost had a small appearance in the British comedy "Look Around You", a parody of 1970s/1980s technology parodying the format of shows like "Tomorrow's World". Frost and Pegg appeared in a second Pegg-Wright feature film called "Hot Fuzz", an action and cop genre homage, set in Gloucestershire. Frost plays bumbling Constable Danny Butterman, who partners up with Pegg's dynamic Nicholas Angel after the latter is transferred from the Metropolitan Police in London. The pair teamed up again for the 2011 sci-fi film "Paul", whose storyline concerned a fugitive alien. The two also starred in Steven Spielberg's "" as Thomson and Thompson. Frost narrates the Channel 4 reality show "Supernanny". He has made fleeting appearances in the Channel 4 surreal medical comedy series "Green Wing" as "just a man" in pub scenes (when Boyce asks who he is, he responds, "just a man"). Personal life. Frost is best friends with fellow actor Simon Pegg. He currently resides with his half-Swedish wife, production executive Christina in St Margarets, London. He previously lived in Finsbury Park, which was also the filming location for "Shaun of the Dead". In a 2005 interview, Frost stated that he was brought up as a Catholic and is now an atheist. He is a supporter of West Ham United, as well as being a rugby player, formerly playing for Barking RFC. On 22 June 2011, Frost's wife gave birth to a son.
1099041	In mathematics, a low-discrepancy sequence is a sequence with the property that for all values of "N", its subsequence "x"1, ..., "x""N" has a low discrepancy. Roughly speaking, the discrepancy of a sequence is low if the proportion of points in the sequence falling into an arbitrary set "B" is close to proportional to the measure of "B", as would happen on average (but not for particular samples) in the case of an equidistributed sequence. Specific definitions of discrepancy differ regarding the choice of "B" (hyperspheres, hypercubes, etc.) and how the discrepancy for every B is computed (usually normalized) and combined (usually by taking the worst value). Low-discrepancy sequences are also called quasi-random or sub-random sequences, due to their common use as a replacement of uniformly distributed random numbers. The "quasi" modifier is used to denote more clearly that the values of a low-discrepancy sequence are neither random nor pseudorandom, but such sequences share some properties of random variables and in certain applications such as the quasi-Monte Carlo method their lower discrepancy is an important advantage. At least three methods of numerical integration can be phrased as follows. Given a set {"x"1, ..., "x""N"} in the interval [0,1], approximate the integral of a function "f" as the average of the function evaluated at those points: If the points are chosen as "x""i" = "i"/"N", this is the "rectangle rule". If the points are chosen to be randomly (or pseudorandomly) distributed, this is the "Monte Carlo method". If the points are chosen as elements of a low-discrepancy sequence, this is the "quasi-Monte Carlo method". A remarkable result, the Koksma–Hlawka inequality (stated below), shows that the error of such a method can be bounded by the product of two terms, one of which depends only on "f", and the other one is the discrepancy of the set {"x"1, ..., "x""N"}. It is convenient to construct the set {"x"1, ..., "x""N"} in such a way that if a set with "N"+1 elements is constructed, the previous "N" elements need not be recomputed. The rectangle rule uses points set which have low discrepancy, but in general the elements must be recomputed if "N" is increased. Elements need not be recomputed in the Monte Carlo method if "N" is increased, but the point sets do not have minimal discrepancy. By using low-discrepancy sequences, the quasi-Monte Carlo method has the desirable features of the other two methods. Definition of discrepancy. The "discrepancy" of a set P = {"x"1, ..., "x""N"} is defined, using Niederreiter's notation, as where λ"s" is the "s"-dimensional Lebesgue measure, "A"("B";"P") is the number of points in "P" that fall into "B", and "J" is the set of "s"-dimensional intervals or boxes of the form where formula_4. The "star-discrepancy" "D"*"N"("P") is defined similarly, except that the supremum is taken over the set "J"* of intervals of the form where "u""i" is in the half-open interval [0, 1). The two are related by Graphical examples. The points plotted below are the first 100, 1000, and 10000 elements in a sequence of the Sobol' type. For comparison, 10000 elements of a sequence of pseudorandom points are also shown. The low-discrepancy sequence was generated by TOMS algorithm 659. An implementation of the algorithm in Fortran is available from Netlib. The Koksma–Hlawka inequality. Let Ī"s" be the "s"-dimensional unit cube, Ī"s" = 1 × ... × 1. Let "f" have bounded variation "V(f)" on Ī"s" in the sense of Hardy and Krause. Then for any "x"1, ..., "x""N" in "I""s" = [0, 1) × ... × [0, 1), The Koksma-Hlawka inequality is sharp in the following sense: For any point set {"x"1...,"x"N} in "I"s and any formula_8, there is a function "f" with bounded variation and "V(f)=1" such that Therefore, the quality of a numerical integration rule depends only on the discrepancy D*N("x"1...,"x"N). The formula of Hlawka-Zaremba. Let formula_10. For formula_11 we write and denote by formula_13 the point obtained from "x" by replacing the coordinates not in "u" by formula_14. Then The formula_16 version of the Koksma–Hlawka inequality. Applying the Cauchy-Schwarz inequality for integrals and sums to the Hlawka-Zaremba identity, we obtain an formula_16 version of the Koksma–Hlawka inequality: where and The Erdős–Turán–Koksma inequality. It is computationally hard to find the exact value of the discrepancy of large point sets. The Erdős–Turán–Koksma inequality provides an upper bound. Let "x"1...,"x"N be points in "I"s and "H" be an arbitrary positive integer. Then where The main conjectures. Conjecture 1. There is a constant "c"s depending only on the dimension "s", such that for any finite point set {"x"1...,"x"N}. Conjecture 2. There is a constant "c"'s depending only on "s", such that for at least one "N" for any infinite sequence "x"1,"x"2,"x"3... These conjectures are equivalent. They have been proved for "s" ≤ 2 by W. M. Schmidt. In higher dimensions, the corresponding problem is still open. The best-known lower bounds are due to K. F. Roth. The best-known sequences. Constructions of sequences are known such that where "C" is a certain constant, depending on the sequence. After Conjecture 2, these sequences are believed to have the best possible order of convergence. See also: van der Corput sequence, Halton sequences, Sobol sequences. Lower bounds. Let "s" = 1. Then for any finite point set {"x"1, ..., "x""N"}. Let "s" = 2. W. M. Schmidt proved that for any finite point set {"x"1, ..., "x""N"}, where For arbitrary dimensions "s" > 1, K.F. Roth proved that for any finite point set {"x"1, ..., "x""N"}. This bound is the best known for "s" > 3.
251887	F.I.S.T. is a 1978 film directed by Norman Jewison and starring Sylvester Stallone. Stallone plays Johnny Kovak, a Cleveland warehouse worker who becomes involved in the labor union leadership of the fictional "Federation of Inter State Truckers". He finds that he must sacrifice his principles as he moves up through the union and attempts to expand its influence. The movie is loosely based on the Teamsters union and their former President Jimmy Hoffa. Many well-known actors and actresses appear in "F.I.S.T.", including Kevin Conway, Brian Dennehy, Rod Steiger, Melinda Dillon, Richard Herd and Peter Boyle. Plot. At a loading dock in Cleveland, Ohio in 1937, a supervisor Mr. Gant welcomes a new worker, Lincoln Dombrowsky (Frank McRae). Gant tells him the job requirements and pay rules. He'll be paid for working 8 hours and if he has to work overtime, he still gets paid only for 8 hours. If he drops any of the merchandise, the cost comes directly out of his pay. These are examples of unfair working practices faced by the laborers. Later Dombrowsky drops a few carts of tomatoes, which is taken out of his pay; another worker is fired for helping him collect the fallen merchandise. Johnny Kovak (Sylvester Stallone), another worker resentful of mistreatment, leads a riot. Afterward, the workers go to the office of Boss Andrews. Kovak believes he negotiates a deal for the workers, but the next day he and his friend Abe Belkin (David Huffman) are told they are fired. While commiserating in bars, Kovak and Belkin are approached by Mike Monahan, who saw Kovak's leadership. He offers them positions in the Federation of Interstate Truckers (F.I.S.T.). They will be paid according to how many members they can recruit, and they reluctantly join. Given a car for recruiting, Kovak tries to meet a woman, Anna Zarinka (Melinda Dillon). They begin to see each other. At the same time, he starts to gain some members, which attracts attention from business owners. They offer him a deal to join them and be a voice in helping bring more workers to trucking. After rejecting the offer, Kovak is physically attacked. He continues to work on union recruiting. Another leader of F.I.S.T., Max Graham (Peter Boyle), is known by many workers as a hothead. He and Kovak compete for superiority. Soon Monahan, Kovak and Abe begin working to get the F.I.S.T. members at Consolidated Trucking covered by a labor agreement. When management refuses to deal with them, the F.I.S.T. workers strike. They set up camp outside Consolidated Trucking's gates, but are pushed out by strikebreakers and hired security. Monahan tries to ram the gates in a truck, but is shot and killed. At his funeral, Kovak decides to "get some muscle" and accepts help from Vince Doyle (Kevin Conway), a local gangster. Doyle's men attack trucks trying to make deliveries. Local mobsters and the members of F.I.S.T. join forces to storm the gates of Consolidated Trucking. In the end the President of Consolidated Trucking signs a labor agreement. After the strike, Kovak and Abe travel throughout the Midwest to recruit more workers. Kovak becomes wealthier and marries Anna. A new crime figure, Babe Milano (Tony Lo Bianco), comes on the scene and wants some piece of the action. Kovak meets Milano with Doyle and, although reluctant to involve him in his business, decides it will be best for now. Twenty years later 1957, F.I.S.T. has become a large and important union, with about two million members and fancy headquarters. When Kovak visits Max Graham at the headquarters, he is displeased to see how luxurious the building and Graham's offices are. Located on the west coast, Belkin is still important in the union. As Kovak visits with Belkin, the latter tells him that Graham has made money unethically off the union. In his investigation, Kovak finds that Graham used his influence to steer union businesses and funds to shell companies owned by him or his wife. The violent ways of the union are shown by a physical assault against the wife of a trucking company owner who resisted union organizing of his workers. At the F.I.S.T. convention, a new union president is to be elected, with Graham a strong favorite. At a private meeting, Kovak tells Belkin of Graham's criminal deeds. Belkin encourages turning the man in to the authorities. Disagreeing, Kovak is worried about the effects of a scandal on the union, which he wants to protect. Meeting with Graham, Kovak confronts him and suggests he quit his run for union president to support Kovak. Elected president of F.I.S.T., Kovak is investigated by Senator Madison (Rod Steiger), who suspects the labor leader of ties with the Mafia. When Belkin visits Kovak again, he urges the president to cut off Milano and make the union "clean again". Kovak ignores his request. Doyle later tells Kovak that Belkin will testify against him, Milano and everyone else, but Kovak insists that Abe be protected. Called in to testify in a hearing led by Senator Madison, Kovak is told that Abe Belkin has been killed and the senator believes Kovak is responsible. Shocked, Kovak has an emotional outburst and storms out of the hearing. That night when he returns home, he finds Anna and his children are missing. He gets his pistol but is shot and killed in the house by Milano's men. They feared that Kovak would cut the mob out and testify against Milano. The movie ends with a shot of a bumper sticker on a truck, which reads, "Where's Johnny?" Locations. Most of the filming was done in Dubuque, Iowa. Dubuque was chosen firstly because the older sections of the town looked more like Cleveland of the 1930s than Cleveland did at the time, and secondly because of the absence of roof-mounted television antennas due to most of the homes having cable television. Because of the large bluffs, over-the-air television signals had problems reaching homes in the low-lying areas, so a cable system was developed in the mid-1950s, which was considerably earlier than many other municipalities. Some locations used in filming included St. Raphael's Cathedral, Sacred Heart Church, the Fourth Street Elevator, E.J. Voggenthaler Co. and Dubuque Star Brewery. Filming was also done at the former Caradco manufacturing company in Dubuque. Portions of the Caradco building were fitted with new windows which were then purposely smashed for filming. The windows were replaced by the end of filming. Other Dubuque locations that were also visible in the finished film were the Dubuque County Courthouse and Saint Mary's Catholic Church. Some filming was also done in the English city of Sheffield.
1050770	Vivre sa vie : film en douze tableaux is a 1962 French film directed by Jean-Luc Godard. The title means "To Live Her Life: A Film in Twelve Scenes", but in the English-speaking world it was released as My Life to Live (North America) or as "It's My Life" (UK). The most recent DVD releases use the original French title. Plot. The film stars Anna Karina, as Nana, a beautiful Parisian in her early twenties who deliberately leaves her husband and her infant son hoping to become an actress. Without money, beyond what she earns as a shopgirl, and unable to enter acting, she elects to earn better money as a prostitute. Soon she has a pimp, Raoul, who after an unspecified period agrees to sell Nana to another pimp. During the exchange the pimps argue and in a gun battle Nana is killed. Nana's short life on film is told in 12 brief episodes each preceded by a written resume. Godard introduces other idiosyncrasies to focus the viewer's attention. The twelve tableaux. The divisions of this film are displayed as intertitles on the screen. These are: Style. In "Vivre sa vie", Godard borrowed the aesthetics of the "cinéma vérité" approach to documentary film-making that was then becoming fashionable. However, this film differed from other films of the French New Wave by being photographed with a heavy Mitchell camera, as opposed to the light weight cameras used for earlier films. The cinematographer was Raoul Coutard, a frequent collaborator of Godard. Influences. One of the film's original sources is a study of contemporary prostitution, "Où en est la prostitution" by Marcel Sacotte, an examining magistrate. "Vivre sa vie" was released shortly after "Cahiers du cinéma" (the film magazine for which Godard occasionally wrote) published an issue devoted to Bertolt Brecht and his theory of 'epic theatre'. Godard may have been influenced by it, as "Vivre sa vie" uses several alienation effects: twelve intertitles appear before the film's 'chapters' explaining what will happen next; jump cuts disrupt the editing flow; characters are shot from behind when they are talking; they are strongly backlit; they talk directly to the camera; the statistical results derived from official questionnaires are given in a voice-over; and so on. The film also draws from the writings of Montaigne, Baudelaire, Zola and Edgar Allan Poe, to the cinema of Robert Bresson, Jean Renoir and Carl Dreyer. And Jean Douchet, the French critic, has written that Godard's film ' would have been impossible without Street of Shame, Kenji Mizoguchi's last and most sublime film.' Nana gets into an earnest discussion with a philosopher (played by Brice Parain, Godard's former philosophy tutor), about the limits of speech and written language. In the next scene, as if to illustrate this point, the sound track ceases and the images are overlaid by Godard's personal narration. This formal playfulness is typical of the way in which the director was working with sound and vision during this period. The film depicts the consumerist culture of Godard's Paris; a shiny new world of cinemas, coffee bars, neon-lit pool halls, pop records, photographs, wall posters, pin-ups, pinball machines, juke boxes, foreign cars, the latest hairstyles, typewriters, advertising, gangsters and Americana. It also features allusions to popular culture; for example, the scene where a melancholy young man walks into a cafe, puts on a juke box disc, and then sits down to listen. The unnamed actor is in fact the well known singer-songwriter Jean Ferrat, who is performing his own hit tune "Ma Môme" on the track that he has just selected. Nana's bobbed haircut replicates that made famous by Louise Brooks in the 1928 film Pandora's Box, where the doomed heroine also falls into a life of prostitution and violent death. In one sequence we are shown a queue outside a Paris cinema waiting to see "Jules et Jim", the new wave film directed by François Truffaut, at the time both a close friend and sometime rival of Godard. Responses. While not being one of Godard's best-known films, "Vivre sa Vie" enjoys an extremely positive critical reputation. Susan Sontag, author and cultural critic, has described Godard's achievement in "Vivre sa vie" as "a perfect film" and "one of the most extraordinary, beautiful, and original works of art that I know of." According to critic Roger Ebert, "The effect of the film is astonishing. It is clear, astringent, unsentimental, abrupt."
1059726	Stuart Bruce Greenwood (born August 12, 1956) is a Canadian actor and musician. He is generally known for his roles as U.S. presidents in "Thirteen Days" and ' and for his role as Captain Christopher Pike in the 2009 "Star Trek" film and its sequel, "Star Trek Into Darkness". He has appeared in several supporting roles, such as "Hollywood Homicide", "Double Jeopardy", "Déjà Vu", "I, Robot", "Dinner for Schmucks", "Capote", and as the motion capture alien dubbed "Cooper" in "Super 8". He has also dabbled in voice acting, contributing to the Canadian animated series "Class of the Titans" as Chiron and the voice of Bruce Wayne/Batman in ' and "Young Justice". Personal life. Greenwood was born in Noranda, Quebec, the son of Mary Sylvia (née Ledingham), a nurse who worked in an extended care unit, and Hugh John Greenwood, a Vancouver-born geophysicist and teacher who taught at Princeton University. He is married to Susan Devlin and lives in Los Angeles. Career. Greenwood is known in the United States for his appearances in "Star Trek", "I, Robot", "Double Jeopardy", "The Core", "Thirteen Days" (in which he played president John F. Kennedy), "Capote" (in which he played Jack Dunphy, Truman Capote's lover), "Eight Below" (in which he played Professor Davis McClaren) and "Firehouse Dog". He had prominent roles in the award winning Atom Egoyan films "Exotica", "The Sweet Hereafter", and "Ararat". He appeared in the 1980s teen cult film "The Malibu Bikini Shop" and starred in "". He played a role in "The World's Fastest Indian" and also featured in the Bob Dylan biographical film "I'm Not There". He recently appeared in "Dinner for Schmucks" as a cruel finance executive who hosts a dinner for "idiots". On television, Greenwood had roles on "St. Elsewhere" (Dr. Seth Griffin, 1986–1988), "Knots Landing" (Pierce Lawton, 1991–1992) and a starring role in the UPN series "Nowhere Man" (Thomas Veil, 1995–1996). He also guest starred on the popular Canadian show "Road to Avonlea" for one episode. He won a Gemini Award for this role as "Best Guest Performance in a Series by an Actor". On June 10, 2007, HBO's "John from Cincinnati" premiered, starring Greenwood. Greenwood also appears as the President of the United States in "". He played the Beach Boys drummer, Dennis Wilson, in "Summer Dreams: Story of the Beach Boys". In 2009, he worked with Australian director Bruce Beresford he played the part of Ben Stevenson (Artistic Director of Houston Ballet) in the critically acclaimed film "Mao's Last Dancer". Greenwood voiced Batman in the animated film "". He also voices the character in the "Young Justice" animated series.
602012	Yeardley Smith (; born Martha Maria Yeardley Smith; July 3, 1964) is a French-born American actress, voice actress, writer, and painter. She is best known for her long-running role as Lisa Simpson on the animated television series "The Simpsons". She was born in Paris and moved with her family to Washington, D.C. in 1966. As a child, Smith was often teased because of her voice. She became a professional actress in 1982 after graduating from drama school and moved to New York City in 1984 where she appeared in the Broadway production of "The Real Thing". She made her film debut in 1985's "Heaven Help Us", followed by roles in "The Legend of Billie Jean" and "Maximum Overdrive". She moved to Los Angeles, California in 1986 and received a recurring role in the television series "Brothers". In 1987, she auditioned for a role in a series of animated shorts about the Simpson family on "The Tracey Ullman Show". Smith intended to audition for the role of Bart Simpson, but the casting director felt her voice was too high, so she was assigned the role of Lisa instead. She voiced Lisa for three seasons on "The Tracey Ullman Show", and in 1989, the shorts were spun off into their own half-hour show, "The Simpsons". For her work as the character, Smith received a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Voice-Over Performance in 1992. Alongside "The Simpsons", Smith appeared in the sitcom "Herman's Head" as Louise, and had recurring appearances as Marlene on "Dharma & Greg" and Penny in two episodes of "Dead Like Me". She has appeared in several films, including "City Slickers", "Just Write", "Toys" and "As Good as It Gets". In 2004 Smith performed her own off-Broadway one-woman show entitled "More" at the Union Square Theatre in New York City. Aside from "The Simpsons", Smith has recorded few voice over parts, only commercials and the film "We're Back! A Dinosaur's Story". Smith starred in and served as executive producer for the independent romantic comedy "Waiting For Ophelia", which had its world premiere at the Phoenix Film Festival in April 2009. Smith was married to actor Christopher Grove from 1990 to 1992 and Daniel Erickson from 2002 to 2008. She enjoys writing and painting. During the first season of "Herman's Head", Smith taught herself to paint by copying other artists. She released a children's book titled "I, Lorelei" in 2009 and her story "The Race" was included in the book "Just Humor Me". Early life. Smith was born Martha Maria Yeardley Smith on July 3, 1964 in Paris, France. Her father, Joseph Smith, worked for United Press International in Paris and moved to Washington, D.C., United States, in 1966, where he became "The Washington Post"'s first official obituary editor. Her mother, Martha Mayor, was a paper conservator for the Freer and Sackler Galleries at the Smithsonian Institution. Smith's parents later divorced. Smith labeled her family "upper crust and reserved". As a child, Smith was often mocked because of her unusual voice. Smith has stated: "I've sounded pretty much the same way since I was six. Maybe voice is a little deeper now." She made her acting debut in a sixth grade play. Career. Early career. Smith became a professional actress in 1982 after graduating from drama school. After appearances in a number of school plays she joined the local Arena Stage theater group on an apprenticeship, featuring in their production of "Peter Pan". She went on to star in several other plays in Washington. She moved to New York City in 1984 and appeared in the Broadway production of "The Real Thing" alongside Jeremy Irons and Glenn Close. Her first film role came in 1985's "Heaven Help Us". She then played Putter in "The Legend of Billie Jean". The film was a box office bomb and critically panned, although Smith "thought it would be the movie that launched my career. And then it was out at the box office about 10 days before it died." When filming was over, she rejoined "The Real Thing" before being out of work for six months and worried her career was over. However, the following year she played Connie in Stephen King's "Maximum Overdrive", noting it was "truly a dreadful film but I had a great part in it." She moved to Los Angeles, California in 1986 on the "semi-promise" of a part in a TV film. After the audition the role was given to another actress. Smith realized "that people don't mean what they say. It's not malicious. They just don't realize how much impact they have on an impressionable actor — and all actors are impressionable." From then on, she decided to "just sort of build a wall around myself," to cope with the disappointment of not getting a part. In Los Angeles, Smith appeared in theatrical productions of "Living On Salvation Street", for which she was paid $14 for each performance, "Boys and Girls/Men and Women" and "How the Other Half Loves", and played the recurring role of Louella Waters on the Showtime series "Brothers". She appeared in the films "The Legend of Billie Jean" and "Ginger Ale Afternoon" as "trailer-park girls." She later spoke of her regrets of appearing in the latter in her one-woman show "More". "The Simpsons". Smith's longest-running role is voicing Lisa Simpson on "The Simpsons". She has voiced Lisa since 1987, beginning with "The Simpsons shorts" on "The Tracey Ullman Show". Smith had initially been asked to audition for the role of Lisa's brother Bart, but casting director Bonita Pietila thought her voice was too high. Smith later recalled "I always sounded too much like a girl, I read two lines as Bart and they said, 'Thanks for coming!'" Smith was given the role of Lisa instead. She denies rumours that she almost turned down the role, though admits she had never planned a career in voiceover work. Pietila stated that, having seen her in "Living on Salvation Street", Smith was always her preferred choice. In order to perform the voice, Smith lifts her voice up a little. Lisa is the only regular character voiced by Smith, although in some earlier episodes she provided some of Maggie's squeaks and occasional speaking parts. Smith has only voiced characters other than Lisa on very rare occasions, with those characters usually being some derivative of Lisa, such as Lisa Bella in "Last Tap Dance in Springfield" and Lisa, Jr. in "" (both from season 11 in 2000). Smith spends two days a week recording the show. Until 1998, Smith was paid $30,000 per episode. During a pay dispute in 1998, Fox threatened to replace the six main voice actors with new actors, going as far as preparing to cast new voices. However, the dispute was soon resolved and she received $125,000 per episode until 2004, when the voice actors demanded that they be paid $360,000 an episode. The issue was resolved a month later, and Smith earned $250,000 per episode. After salary renegotiations in 2008, the voice actors received approximately $400,000 per episode. Three years later, with Fox threatening to cancel the series unless production costs were cut, Smith and the other cast members accepted a 25 percent pay cut, down to just over $300,000 per episode. Despite her world famous role, Smith is rarely recognized in public, which she does not mind, saying "it's wonderful to be in the midst of all this hype about the show, and people enjoying the show so much, and to be totally a fly on the wall; people never recognise me solely from my voice." In a 2009 interview with "The Guardian" she commented: "It's the best job ever. I have nothing but gratitude for the amount of freedom "The Simpsons" has bought me in my life." Smith received a Primetime Emmy Award in 1992 but felt it was not worth anything, saying "there’s part of me that feels it wasn’t even a real Emmy." The Emmy for Outstanding Voice-Over Performance is a Creative Arts and not handed out during the primetime telecast and, prior to 2009, was a juried award without nominations. However, Smith says "if I had to be associated with one character in fiction, I will always be thrilled that it was Lisa Simpson." The show's creator Matt Groening has called Smith very similar to Lisa: "Yeardley has strong moral views about her character. There are lines that are written for Lisa that Yeardley reads and says, 'No, I wouldn't say that. Writer Jay Kogen praised her performance on the show, particularly in the episode "Lisa's Substitute", as able "to move past comedy to something really strong and serious and dramatic." Further career. From 1991–1994, alongside "The Simpsons", Smith was one of the lead cast members in the sitcom "Herman's Head" as Louise. Her other television roles include recurring appearances as Marelene on "Dharma & Greg", and Penny in two episodes of "Dead Like Me". Smith has also appeared in "Phil of the Future" and "Teen Angel". Her one scene role as pregnant checkout girl Nancy in 1991's "City Slickers" earned her "more attention than all previous roles combined," and taught her that "that it's far better to have small parts in big movies that everyone sees." In 1997, she appeared as Lulu the palm reader in the independent film "Just Write". Her other roles include parts in Barry Levinson's "Toys" and James L. Brooks' "As Good as It Gets". Brooks, who is also executive producer of "The Simpsons", had cast Smith in his 1994 film "I'll Do Anything" (in one of the film's musical numbers) but her part was cut. Aside from "The Simpsons", Smith has recorded few voice over parts, only commercials and the film "We're Back! A Dinosaur's Story". She "had a voice over agent for about two years, and I used to go out [on auditions all the time, but it never really came to anything. Everybody said, 'Oh Yeardley, you'll clean up,' and that was definitely not the case." In 2004 Smith performed her own Off-Broadway one-woman show entitled "More" at the Union Square Theatre in New York City. Directed by Judith Ivey, the play is about her mixed feelings over the success of "The Simpsons", her parents, her relationships and her struggles with bulimia. "The New York Times" critic Margo Jefferson called it an "appealing if overlong show", adding that "The career narrative needed shortening. This would involve some editing and revising but wouldn't taint the best parts of "More." It is refreshing to hear a celebrity talk cleanly about being fame-driven and about not getting the degree or the kind of fame you craved. It's fun to watch a skilled actress use her craft to the full." She would later perform the play for three weeks in Los Angeles the following year. Smith starred in and served as executive producer for the independent romantic comedy "Waiting for Ophelia", which was released in 2009. She funded the film, which was written by Adam Carl and based on a stage play he wrote in 2003. She said: "I loved it. I never get to play parts like that. I always play the friend of a friend, never the lead. And the script surprised me." Carl stated it was very unlikely she would recoup her money, but Smith decided she "believe in this project, and my expectations have already been fulfilled by making the movie", and added: "You can support art even if it's not going to make a zillion dollars." It premiered on April 4, 2009 at the Phoenix Film Festival. In 2011 Smith starred as Ms. Miller in the movie "The Chaperone" alongside Triple H and Ariel Winter. Personal life. Smith married English-Canadian actor Christopher Grove in 1990. They were divorced in 1992, citing irreconcilable differences. She married Daniel Erickson in 2002; the marriage lasted for six years and Smith filed for divorce on May 21, 2008, citing once again irreconcilable differences. In a 1997 interview with "The Daily Targum", Smith stated "I am shy, but I have an extroverted persona which I can draw on when I need to," and that she is a "private" actress. In 2009 she commented that "People have said to me that I'm unassuming. It's true, I'm the worst celebrity ever. But I'm trying to become better." Smith had bulimia since she was a teenager. She noted "It would make me high, I would feel endorphins and this great sense of victory." She enjoys writing and painting. During the first season of "Herman's Head", Smith taught herself to paint by copying other artists. The book "Just Humor Me" includes a story, "The Race", written by Smith. She has written a children's book, "I, Lorelei", which was published by HarperCollins in February 2009. In 2011, she launched a women's shoe line called Marchez Vous.
587492	Dil Ka Kya Kasoor is a 1992 Bollywood film starring Divya Bharti and Prithvi. The film din't do well at the box office, but the music from duo Nadeem-Shravan was an instant hit due to its catchy melody. Plot. Arun Kumar (Prithvi) is an orphan who studies in a college in India. Encouraged by the college principal, Arun excels in his studies and takes up singing for important occasions. He has a secret admirer by the name of Seema (Divya Bharti), who writes songs for him but prefers to remain unknown. Through her songs he becomes popular and wealthy virtually overnight. He marries the principal's daughter, Meena (Sanam), and together they are all set to live their lives harmoniously.
1065667	Loren Dean (born July 31, 1969) is an American actor. He has appeared onstage and in feature films. Early life. Loren Dean Jovicic was born in Las Vegas, Nevada. His mother worked as a family and marriage counselor and his father was in the clothing business. His parents divorced when he was a small child. His mother won custody of Loren, and the family moved to Los Angeles, California. When visiting his father, the two often went to the movies—which Dean says led to his love of film. His childhood was a difficult one, and he ran away from home when he was 16 years old. He graduated from Santa Monica High School in Santa Monica, California in 1986. Dean moved to New York City to pursue an acting career. After two years a friend introduced him to an agent, and he began appearing in stage plays in New York. He won a Theatre World Award in 1989 for his Off Broadway debut in the play "Amulets Against the Dragon Forces" at the Circle Repertory Company. He is a playwright and one of Academy Award-winning screenwriter John Patrick Shanley's favorite actors, having appeared in many of the author's plays, notably "4 Dogs and a Bone" and "Beggars in the House of Plenty". During his time in New York, Dean became an animal lover. After his income rose, he also developed a love of shopping. Film career. Dean's first film was 1988's "Plain Clothes". He made his big break a year later, cast as a bad ex-boyfriend in "Say Anything..." starring John Cusack. His third film, the 1991 crime drama "Billy Bathgate," cast him opposite Nicole Kidman, Dustin Hoffman and Bruce Willis. Although the film did not do well at the box office, Dean won positive reviews for his performance. Dean was also lauded for his role as a cocaine-addicted, has-been movie star who is accidentally re-launched on the road to fame and fortune by a fan in "Starstruck". "Variety" noted that Dean "nails his role with precision". He was also lauded for his performance as a mysterious small-town psychologist in "Mumford" (1999). Dean's performance was considered "plausible and generous," and he was favorably compared to a "young Charles Grodin." Much of his acting career, however, has been in supporting roles. His films include "Apollo 13" (1995), "How to Make an American Quilt" (1995), "Gattaca" (1997), "Enemy of the State" (1998) and "Space Cowboys" (2000). In the last half-decade, Dean has appeared in a number of independent films (most notably, "The War Bride") and several well-received television miniseries (such as "The Bronx Is Burning"). He has also played Russ, the brother of Temperance "Bones" Brennan on the TV series "Bones".
1195790	"Thank God It's Friday" is a 1978 film directed by Robert Klane and produced by Motown Productions and Casablanca Filmworks for Columbia Pictures (whose torch-holding mascot, in a specially produced logo, dances to disco music before the opening credits). Produced at the height of the disco craze, the film features The Commodores performing "Too Hot to Trot," and Donna Summer performing "Last Dance" which won the Academy Award for Best Song in 1979. The film features an early performance by Jeff Goldblum and the first major screen appearance by Debra Winger. Summary. "Thank God It's Friday" tells several intertwining stories of the patrons and staff of the fictional Los Angeles club The Zoo. These include: Sue insists her uptight accountant husband Dave take her to the disco. On a bet with Bobby, Tony tries to pick up Sue. Dave is drugged and renamed "Babbakazoo" by Jackie, and makes a fool of himself. Carl and Ken are repeatedly thwarted in their attempts to meet girls. Frannie and Jeannie trick Marv into helping them sneak into the disco after several failed attempts at gaining entry. Jennifer tries to meet a guy, but Maddy vetoes each of the guys Jennifer is attracted to. Nicole repeatedly attempts to slip into the DJ booth to get Bobby to play her single. Crude garbage collector Gus is horrified that the dating service has matched him with a prim college educated woman, and one who is taller than he is. Floyd gets stopped repeatedly by the police on suspicion of stealing The Commodores' instruments. Marv teaches the uptight Ken how to dance. Maddy ditches Jennifer to attend a hot tub party (with the same sleazy guys who came on to Jennifer). Gus and Shirley decide to give it a try. Carl finally meets a girl, but is locked in the stairwell before they can leave together. Floyd makes it to the club in time for the Commodores to play but before they go on, Nicole sneaks up on stage and scores a huge triumph singing "Last Dance". Frannie, after tricking Marv's dance partner into the locked stairwell, enters the dance contest with Marv. Carl and Marv's dance partner hook up in the stairwell. Jennifer and Ken share a romantic dance, as do Nicole and Bobby. Dave comes down and Sue ditches Tony. Tony's parked car, having taken innumerable hits from pretty much every other character's car, falls apart in the parking lot. Marv and Frannie win the big dance contest. Deciding that the KISS concert is "kid stuff," Frannie and Jeannie, now self-proclaimed "disco queens," go with Marv to hit another disco for the 1 AM dance contest. Soundtrack. The film contains many popular disco songs, with many key performers featured, including Donna Summer, Diana Ross, Thelma Houston, The Commodores. A triple album containing many of the tracks heard in the film was a commercial success. Several songs heard in the film were not included on the soundtrack album, including Alec R. Costandinos' "Romeo and Juliet", Giorgio Moroder's "From Here to Eternity", The Originals' "Down to Love Town", D.C. LaRue's "You Can Always Tell a Lady (By the Company She Keeps)", The Commodores' "Brick House", and the Village People tracks, Go West and I Am What I Am. The biggest hit single on the album was Donna Summer's "Last Dance", which won an Academy Award as well as a Golden Globe for Best Original Song and also made it to #3 on the US singles chart. The song was written by Paul Jabara, who the following year would go on to compose Summer's duet with Barbra Streisand, "No More Tears (Enough Is Enough)". Jabara himself performed two of the songs on the "Thank God It's Friday" soundtrack, and appeared in the film as well. Album information. The soundtrack album was originally issued as a 3 record set in 1978, of which the 3rd disc was a single side 12 inch single of the 15:47 minutes Donna Summer, "Je t'aime... moi non plus" track. An edited CD came out in 1995 on the budget label Rebound Records. A digitally remastered version of the full soundtrack on a 2 disc set was released on PolyGram Records on March 25, 1997. The company that holds the rights to the album is as of 1998 the Universal Music Group. Cameo's "Find My Way" was originally issued as a 7" single in 1975. Giorgio Moroder and Donna Summer's cover version of Serge Gainsbourg and Jane Birkin's 1969 hit single "Je t'aime... moi non plus" was also recorded a few years earlier, but had its debut on the soundtrack and was subsequently issued as an edited 7" single in a few countries in 1978. "Too Hot Ta Trot" was from The Commodores' 1977 album "Commodores Live!" – on certain editions of the "Thank God It's Friday" album replaced by a studio recording. Other titles on the soundtrack, including "Last Dance", were especially recorded for the film.
589050	Mehmood Ali (29 September 1932 – 23 July 2004), popularly known simply as Mehmood, was an Indian actor, director and producer best known for playing comic roles in Hindi films. During his career of more than four decades, he worked in over 300 Hindi films. Early life. Mehmood was one of eight children born to Latifunnisa and film and stage actor-cum-dancer Mumtaz Ali, who was a huge star of the 40's and 50's cinema, in Mumbai, India. Mehmood had an elder sister and six younger siblings. His sister, Minoo Mumtaz, was also a successful dancer and character actress in Bollywood movies. His youngest brother, Anwar Ali too is an actor and a producer of movies like Khud-daar and Kaash. He started acting reluctantly as a child in Bombay talkie films like "Kismet". Some of his early jobs before he concentrated only on acting were driving, doing odd jobs, and selling poultry. He worked as driver of director P. L. Santoshi. Later, Santoshi's son Rajkumar Santoshi cast Mehmood in his venture "Andaz Apna Apna". He was hired to teach table tennis to Meena Kumari. He later married her sister Madhu. Career. Early career. After getting married and becoming a father, he decided to act to earn a better living. He got a small break as a killer in the film "C.I.D." He started off by doing small, unnoticed roles in films like the peanut seller in "Do Bigha Zameen" and "Pyaasa". He later went on to act in lead roles, but he was appreciated for his comedy, some of which was in the Hyderabad region's Urdu accent. Critical and commercial success. His first break as both a director and an actor was "Bhoot Bangla" with actress Tanuja. The movie paved the way for Mehmood to succeed Johnny Walker as the most successful Bollywood comedian. He followed his successes with superhit comic roles in films like "Padosan" (as a Tamil Brahmin music teacher — one of his greatest roles), "Love in Tokyo", "Aankhen", "Johar-Mehmood in Goa", "Bombay to Goa" and "Pyaar Kiye Jaa". He became a sterling director of Hindi films — "Kunwara Baap" being a prime example. Mehmood was riding on his success from 1965 to 1975 when he was considered one of the more successful movie artists. In the early 60s, he formed a popular pair with actor Dhumal and actress Shubha Khote. Amitabh Bachchan was a tenant at the Mehmood Home from 1967 to 1968 (11 months) and again from 1972 to 1973 (4 months). In 1972, Mehmood directed the movie "Bombay to Goa" in which Bachchan got his break as a lead actor for the first time while Mehmood played a key role of the bus conductor. Later career. Towards the end of the 70s, Mehmood's popularity began to decline as other comedy actors like Jagdeep, Asrani, Paintal and Kader Khan shot to prominence. Between 1989 to 1999, he made a handful of movies, but most of them were either shelved or made no impression. He acted as Johnny in Rajkumar Santoshi's "Andaz Apna Apna" — his last hit film as an actor. On 23 July 2004, Mehmood died in his sleep in Pennsylvania, US, where he had gone for treatment of heart disease after suffering poor health for several years. His fans were able to pay homage to him at Mehboob Studio in Bandra, Mumbai, India. Legacy. One of his sons, Lucky Ali (Maqsood Ali) is a singer and composer who has acted in films. The Ali Family in the Movies. He was famous as a dancer and character-artist in films from the 40's era. He even had his own dance troupe "Mumtaz Ali Nites" which performed all over India. His career slumped due to his excessive drinking & his family fell into hard times, leading to his son Mehmood to work as a child artist & daughter Meenu Mumtaz to work as dancer in his stage shows & later movies. He was last seen in the 1974 Hindi movie "Kunwara Baap" directed/ starred by Mehmood himself in the song "Saj Rahi Gali Meri Maa". She was re-christened as Meenu by none other than Meena Kumari who was the sister-in-law of Mehmood.She started off as a stage dancer and later as dancer many films of the 50s and 60s with her first film "Sakhi Hatim". She also played the lead role opposite Balraj Sahni in "Black Cat" (1959). She can be seen in the song "Boojh Mera Kya Naam Re" from the movie "C.I.D.". He made his debut in the movie "Sadhu Aur Shaitaan". His first major role was in the movie "Saat Hindustani" which was also the debut movie for Amitabh Bacchan. He also played the memorable role of Driver "Rajesh" in movie "Bombay to Goa" where Mehmood played the role of conductor "Khanna". The eldest born played a role in the movie "Ek Baap Chhe Bete" & also "Hamare Tumhare" which was also the debut movie for Anil Kapoor. He started his movie career as adult in "Yehi Hai Zindagi". Today he has ventured out to be a famous singer songwriter, composer. He played the role of a disabled child in Mehmood's 1974 movie "Kunwara Baap" as he was in real life affected by polio. He too acted in the movie "Ek Baap Chhe Bete". He later made a music album enacted by Macky himself in the music video Yaaron sab dua karo and later in Tirchi topiwale, sung by Altaf Raja. Produced the movie "Dushman Duniya Ka". He too had acted in the movie "Ek Baap Chhe Bete". Had played the role of the American wife in the movie "Ek Baap Chhe Bete". He had acted in the movie "Ek Baap Chhe Bete".
1162561	Edmund Anthony Cutlar Purdom (19 December 19241 January 2009) was a British actor. Early life. Purdom was born in Welwyn Garden City, Hertfordshire, England and educated at St. Augustine's Abbey School, Ramsgate, Kent, then by the Jesuits at St. Ignatius Grammar School and Welwyn Garden City Grammar School. He began his acting career in 1946 by joining the Northampton Repertory Company, appearing in productions which included "Romeo and Juliet" and Molière's "The Imaginary Invalid". Followed by two years of military service where he joined the Army Pool of Artists. He then joined the Royal Shakespeare Theatre at Stratford-upon-Avon. Career. In 1951–52, Purdom appeared in small roles with the Laurence Olivier/Vivien Leigh company on Broadway in Shakespeare's "Antony and Cleopatra" and Shaw's "Caesar and Cleopatra" when his good looks brought him to the attention of Hollywood. His appearance in small roles in "Titanic" and "Julius Caesar" led to his being cast in the leading role opposite Ann Blyth in the MGM musical "The Student Prince" in 1954, a part originally intended for Mario Lanza, whose disagreement with director Curtis Bernhardt over the way a certain song was to be sung had led to his dismissal by MGM. (The film was subsequently directed by Richard Thorpe.) Purdom lip-synched to Lanza's singing voice.
580523	Saint Jack is a 1973 novel by Paul Theroux and a 1979 film of the same name. It tells the life of Jack Flowers, a pimp in Singapore. Feeling hopeless and undervalued, Jack tries to make money by setting up his own bordello, and clashes with Chinese triad members in the process. Film. Cybill Shepherd had sued Playboy magazine after they published photos of her from "The Last Picture Show". As part of the settlement, she got the rights to the novel "Saint Jack" which she had wanted to make into a film ever since Orson Welles gave her a copy. Ben Gazzara stars as Flowers in the film, directed by Peter Bogdanovich. Controversy about the film. "Saint Jack" was shot entirely on location in various places in Singapore in May and June 1978. , it is the only Hollywood film to have been shot on location in Singapore. Places featured in the film include the former Empress Place hawker centre (now demolished) and Bugis Street. The local authorities knew about the book, hence the foreign production crew did not tell them that they were adapting it, fearing that they would not be permitted to shoot the film. Instead, they created a fake synopsis for a film called ""Jack Of Hearts"", (what the director called "a cross between "Love is a Many Splendored Thing" and "Pal Joey"") and most of the Singaporeans involved in the production believed this was what they were making. The film was banned in Singapore and Malaysia on 17 January 1980. Singapore banned it "largely due to concerns that there would be excessive edits required to the scenes of nudity and some coarse language before it could be shown to a general audience," and lifted the ban only in March 2006. It is now an M18-rated film. "Saint Jack" was re-released in North America on DVD in 2001. In an interview with "The New York Times" on 15 March 2006, Bogdanovich said, ""Saint Jack" and "They All Laughed" were two of my best films but never received the kind of distribution they should have."
394052	A Dirty Carnival () is a South Korean neo-noir mob film directed by Yoo Ha. It is Yoo Ha's fourth feature film, his previous work being the 2004 drama, "Once Upon a Time in High School". Plot. "A Dirty Carnival" is the story of Kim Byung-doo (), a small-time gangster in his late 20s. Unable to acquire the money necessary to save his family from eviction, Byung-Doo subverts his boss, Sang-chul (), and takes a job directly from President Hwang (), Sang-chul's boss, to eliminate the public attorney Park who has been bothersome to President Hwang. On this job's completion, Byung-Doo receives the money he was hoping for in addition to President Hwang's respect and a spot at his side. Byung-Doo and President Hwang swear never to speak of the hit to anyone so that they, nor the organization, will not be implicated. While these events unfold, Byung-doo is reunited with his high school friend, Min-ho (), who has become a movie director. Min-ho's current project is a gangster film, although prospective scripts are continuously shot down by his higher-ups for being too fake. In an attempt to improve the film's authenticity, Min-ho sets out to interview Byung-doo who he sees as "a real gangster". Meanwhile, Min-ho manages to reunite Byung-doo with his high school love interest, Hyun-joo (). Byung-doo finds that he still has an interest in her and attempts to rekindle their relationship. Sang-chul becomes aware of the attorney Park murder and feels threatened by Byung-doo's subversion of his authority and lack of consideration for the organization. He sets up a hit to take out Byung-doo, but Byung-doo learns of this before it occurs and stabs Sang-chul to death, guaranteeing his safety in the short term. These murders don't leave Byung-doo without heavy emotional baggage, however. When Byung-doo's gangster tendencies frighten Hyun-joo away, Min-ho attempts to console Byung-doo who reveals to Min-ho his darkest secrets, including the hits on both Attorney Park and his former boss, Sang-chul. Missing Hyun-joo deeply, Byung-doo tries to hide his gangster tendencies to revive their relationship. However, despite his words to Hyun-joo otherwise, Byung-doo is unable to truly escape the gangster occupation. In fact, as his rank within the gang escalates, his actions become more violent and cruel, juxtaposing his ever growing affection for Hyun-joo. Soon Byung-doo discovers that Min-ho's gangster film reenacts many of the events from Byung-doo's past, including the hit on Attorney Park. Realizing the dangers of the organization being implicated, Byung-doo confronts Min-ho and threatens him never to tell anyone, choosing to spare his life despite pleas from his underlings that he do otherwise. These underlings later decide to take matters into their own hands and threaten Min-ho more seriously than Byung-doo was willing to do, but still sparing his life. It is then that Min-ho, deeply disturbed, goes to the police and informs them of the potential threats on his life. The police attempt to arrest Byung-doo but fail. It is then that Byung-doo believes that the proper solution is to eliminate Min-ho once and for all. As Min-ho (and his film) have become quite popular, it will not be an easy job - Byung-doo intends to perform the hit and fly out of the country, escaping the consequences of his actions. Byung-doo moves to assassinate Min-ho at an after-party for his film. Min-ho manages to escape outside where he is captured by Byung-doo's underlings who are supposed to take Min-ho to a planned location for Byung-doo to meet them at. Upon arrival, Byung-doo is attacked by unknown thugs. Despite being outnumbered, Byung-doo manages to stumble away from his attackers, heavily wounded. He appears to be saved as his underlings arrive on the scene, however, they betray Byung-doo and kill him. Notably, Jong-soo (), Byung-doo's former right-hand man and his lone accomplice in the President Hwang murder, is present and appears to be leading the betrayal. The scene shifts to a meeting with President Hwang and Min-ho, who appears to be alive and well despite being captured by Byung-doo's men. President Hwang discusses potential movie ideas with Min-ho, saying he can draw inspiration from the stories of his past, though they shouldn't be too close to the truth for as he says, "a fiction should remain a fiction", referencing Min-ho's first movie and its connection to Byung-doo's untimely fate. Soon Jong-soo joins the meeting, taking Byung-doo's position at President Hwang's side, showcasing his subversion much in the same way that Byung-doo subverted his own boss, Sang-chul. The final scene is a repetition from earlier in the film, where Byung-doo visits Min-ho on his movie set to give him advice. Byung-doo encourages Min-ho with the friendly words, "Make something with a real gangster spirit," reinforcing the strength of the friendship and gangster themes running throughout the film. Awards and Nominations. 2007 Asian Film Awards 2006 Blue Dragon Film Awards 2007 Grand Bell Award 2006 Korean Film Awards 2007 Paeksang Arts Awards
1064773	The Hot Spot is a 1990 American drama film directed by Dennis Hopper and based on the 1952 book "Hell Hath No Fury" by Charles Williams. It stars Don Johnson, Virginia Madsen, and Jennifer Connelly, and features a score by Jack Nitzsche played by John Lee Hooker, Miles Davis, Taj Mahal, Roy Rogers and drummer Earl Palmer. Plot. Drifter Harry Madox takes a job as a used car salesman in a small Texas town. In the summer heat, he develops an interest in two women, one who works at the car dealership and another who is married to its owner. Gloria Harper is a young, 19 year old girl with a secret. It somehow involves a sleazy local man named Frank Sutton who appears to have some hold on her. Dolly Harshaw is a seductive, anything-goes femme fatale married to George Harshaw, the car dealer. She keeps a gun handy and likes to have sex in unusual, dangerous ways. Harry carries on with both while looking for an opportunity to rob the local bank. It ultimately is revealed that Sutton has nude photographs of Gloria, taken from a distance at a remote lakeside setting. Harry lies in wait for Sutton one night and viciously beats him. Dolly begins to see Harry as her ticket to better things. When she coaxes her husband into bed, it is only to bring George's weak heart to a fatal end. A sheriff arrests Harry, suspecting him in the bank job, but cannot prove it. Harry decides to leave town with Gloria by his side, but Dolly puts an end to that by revealing to Gloria everything else Harry has been doing in town, including her. Production. Charles Williams wrote a screenplay version of his own novel with Nona Tyson in 1962. It was intended for Robert Mitchum. Many years later, Dennis Hopper found the script and updated it. The director described the film as ""Last Tango in Texas". Real hot, steamy stuff". A bedroom scene originally called for Madsen to appear naked, but she decided to put on a negligee because she felt that, "Not only was the nudity weak storywise, but it didn't let the audience undress her". Hopper later admitted that Madsen was right. The director gave his impressions of working with Johnson: "He wasn't that bad. He has a lot of people with him. He came on to this film with two bodyguards, a cook, a trainer, ah let's see, a helicopter pilot he comes to and from the set in a helicopter, very glamorous let's see, two drivers, a secretary, and, oh yes, his own hair person, his own make-up person, his own wardrobe person. So when he walks to the set he has five people with him". Johnson found Hopper's approach to filmmaking "a little disappointing, I gotta tell you".
585022	Swati Reddy, better known as Colours Swathi, is an Indian film actress and television presenter. Her nickname and fame comes from her stint in the television show "Colours", which was telecast on Maa TV. After essaying supporting roles, she made her debut as a leading actress in the Tamil film "Subramaniapuram" (2008). Her role in the Telugu film "Ashta Chamma" earned her the Filmfare Award and Nandi Award for Best Actress. Early Life. Swati was born in Vladivostok, Russia (earlier Soviet Union). She was named as Svetlana but later the name was changed to Swati . Her father, who was an officer in the Indian Navy, was working as a submariner in Soviet Union. She has one elder brother named Siddharth. Her family moved to Mumbai and later to Visakhapatnam, where she spent most of her childhood. She later moved to Hyderabad and graduated in biotechnology from St. Mary’s College, Hyderabad. Film Career. She ventured into television at age 17 by hosting a program called "Colors". Due to a positive response, the show was further extended and moved to primetime slot. She went on to present over 150 episodes. After completing the first year of her graduation, she made her debut in feature films in supporting roles. Later, she debuted as a female lead in Tamil film "Subramaniapuram" in 2008. As voice actor and play back singer. Swati has been working as a voice actor and playback singer as well. In 2008, she had dubbed for actress Ileana D'Cruz in the film "Jalsa". In 2010, she gave her voice to an HIV/AIDS education animated software tutorial created by the nonprofit organization TeachAIDS. In 2011, she turned playback singer, rendering her voice for two songs, "Unbelievable" and "A Square B Square", for the soundtrack albums of her own film "Katha Screenplay Darshakatvam Appalaraju" and "100% Love", respectively.
1039730	Corin William Redgrave (16 July 19396 April 2010) was an English actor and political activist. Early life. Redgrave was born 16 July 1939 in Marylebone, London, the only son and middle child of actors Michael Redgrave and Rachel Kempson. He was educated at the independent Westminster School and at King's College, Cambridge. Career. Redgrave played a wide range of character roles on film, television and stage. On stage, he was noted for performances by Shakespeare (such as "Much Ado About Nothing", "Henry IV, Part 1"," Antony and Cleopatra", and "The Tempest") and Noël Coward (notably a highly successful revival of "A Song At Twilight" co-starring his sister Vanessa Redgrave and his second wife, Kika Markham). For his role as the prison warden Boss Whalen in the Royal National Theatre production of Tennessee Williams's "Not About Nightingales", Redgrave was nominated for an Evening Standard Award, and after a successful transfer of the production to New York, his performance garnered him a Tony Award nomination for Best Actor in a Play, in 1999. Two years later he starred in the original London production of "The General from America" as Benedict Arnold. When the play transferred to Broadway the following season Redgrave switched roles and portrayed George Washington . In 2005, Redgrave had just finished an engagement playing the lead in "King Lear" with the Royal Shakespeare Company in London when he suffered a severe heart attack. In 2008, he returned to the stage a highly praised portrayal of Oscar Wilde in the one-man-play De Profundis. In 2009, he starred in "Trumbo", which opened only hours after the death of his niece, Natasha Richardson. On screen he is best known for his roles in such acclaimed and diverse films as "A Man for All Seasons" (1966) as Thomas More's son-in-law; William Roper, "Excalibur" (1981) as the doomed Cornwall, "In the Name of the Father" (1993) as the corrupt lead police investigator, "Persuasion" and "Four Weddings and a Funeral" (1994) as Hamish, the fiancee of Andie MacDowell's character. Redgrave appeared in British television programmes such as "Ultraviolet", "The Vice", "Trial & Retribution", "Shameless", "Foyle's War", "The Relief of Belsen" and the Emmy Award-winning telefilm "The Girl in the Cafe", in which he played the prime minister. He took the lead part of Sir George Grey in the 1977 New Zealand TV miniseries The Governor. He wrote a play called "Blunt Speaking", in which he performed at the Minerva Theatre (part of the Chichester Festival Theatre) between 23 July - 10 August 2002. (review "The Mail on Sunday", July 28, 2002) Politics. Redgrave was a lifelong activist in left-wing politics. With his elder sister Vanessa, he was a prominent member of the Workers' Revolutionary Party and wrote articles for the official journal of the Marxist Party. He was also a defender of the interests of the Romani people. Both Redgrave and his second wife, Kika Markham, expressed support for Viva Palestina, a humanitarian convoy, led by British MP George Galloway, attempting to break what they asserted to be the siege of the Gaza Strip. Family. Corin Redgrave was part of the third generation of a theatrical dynasty spanning four generations. He wrote a memoir about his strained relationship with his father entitled "Michael Redgrave - My Father", which incorporates passages from Michael's diaries. It was also noted for revealing his father's bisexuality. Health problems and death. Redgrave was diagnosed with prostate cancer in 2000, which affected him until his death in 2010. In June 2005, he was described by his family as being in a critical but stable condition in hospital following a severe heart attack at a public meeting in Basildon, Essex. In March 2009, Redgrave returned to the London stage playing the title role in "Trumbo", based on the life of the blacklisted Hollywood screenwriter Dalton Trumbo. On the opening night, Redgrave dedicated his performance to the memory of his niece Natasha Richardson who had died earlier that week in a skiing accident. He died on 6 April 2010 in St George's Hospital, Tooting, South West London. His funeral was held on 12 April 2010 at St Paul's, Covent Garden, London. His ex-wife Deirdre died of cancer in 1997. His sister Lynn died of breast cancer on 2 May 2010, less than a month after his death.
1048713	The Man from Earth is a 2007 science fiction film written by Jerome Bixby and directed by Richard Schenkman. The film stars David Lee Smith as John Oldman, the protagonist of the story. The screenplay for this movie was conceived by Jerome Bixby in the early 1960s and was completed on his death bed in April 1998, making it his final piece of work. The movie gained recognition in part for being widely distributed through Internet peer-to-peer networks and its producer publicly thanked users of these networks for this. The film was later adapted by Schenkman into a stage play of the same name. The plot focuses on John Oldman, a departing university professor who claims to be a Cro-Magnon (or Magdalenian caveman) who has somehow survived for over 14,000 years. The only setting is in and around Oldman's house during his farewell party, with the plot advancing through intellectual arguments between Oldman and his fellow faculty members. The movie is composed almost entirely of dialogue. Plot. The movie begins with Professor John Oldman (David Lee Smith) packing his belongings onto his truck, preparing to move to a new home. His colleagues show up to give him an impromptu farewell party: Harry (John Billingsley), a biologist; Edith (Ellen Crawford), an art history professor and devout Christian; Dan (Tony Todd), an anthropologist; Sandy (Annika Peterson), a historian who is in love with John; Dr. Will Gruber (Richard Riehle), a psychiatrist; Art (William Katt), an archaeologist; and his student Linda (Alexis Thorpe). As John's colleagues continue to pressure him for the reason for his departure, John slowly, and somewhat reluctantly, reveals that he is a prehistoric "caveman" who has lived for more than 14 millennia and that he relocates every 10 years to keep others from realizing that he does not age. He begins his story under the guise of a possible science-fiction story, but he eventually stops speaking in hypotheticals and begins answering questions from a first-person perspective. His colleagues refuse to believe his story. John continues his tale, stating that he was once a Sumerian for 2000 years, then a Babylonian under Hammurabi, then a disciple of Gautama Buddha. He claims to have known Christopher Columbus, Van Gogh (from whom he apparently owns a painting as a gift from the artist himself), and other famous historical figures. During the course of the conversation, John's colleagues question his story according to their specialties. For instance, Harry, the biologist, discusses the possibility of a human living for so long. Art, the archaeologist, questions John about events in prehistory; he exclaims that John's answers, though correct, could have come from any textbook, to which John points out the nature of knowledge, as he can only put his memories together with modern science "after" he learnt the new ideas "with the rest" of humanity. The discussion turns to the topic of religion. John mentions that he is not a follower of a particular religion; though he does not necessarily believe in an omnipotent God, he does not discount the possibility of such a being's existence. John then reluctantly reveals that in trying to bring Buddha's teachings to the west, he became the inspiration for the Jesus story and "the one called Jesus". After this shocking revelation, emotions in the room run high. Edith begins crying, and Gruber sternly demands that John end his tale and give closure by admitting it was all a hoax, and further threatens him with commitment to a psychiatric hospital for observation. John appears to ruminate over his response before finally apologizing to everyone for leading them on. John's friends begin to leave. John apologizes to Harry and Edith, while Art and Linda depart without many parting words. When it is Dan's turn to say goodbye, his words hint that he believes John's story. After everyone but Dr. Gruber and Sandy has left, Dr. Gruber overhears John and Sandy's conversation, which suggests that the story was true after all. John mentions some of the pun pseudonyms he had used over the years, such as John Paley (as in Paleolithic) and John Savage. He also mentions another pseudonym, used over sixty years ago while a chemistry professor at Harvard: John Thomas Partee (as in John T. Party of Boston). This was the name of Gruber's father; upon hearing this, Gruber, shocked and over-excited at the sight of his ageless father, suffers a heart attack and dies. After Gruber's body is taken away, Sandy notes that John seems especially struck by his death. John promises to come back for his son's funeral. Sandy realizes that it is the first time he has seen one of his grown children die. John wordlessly gets in his truck and drives away, as though to leave forever. Then he stops and looks at Sandy, apparently deciding to spend some time with her. The movie ends with Sandy getting into the truck. Cast. In order of appearance: Production. The story is Jerome Bixby's last work, which he completed on his deathbed in April 1998. Bixby dictated the last of his screenplay to his son, screenwriter Emerson Bixby. After Jerome Bixby's death the script was given to Richard Schenkman to direct on a $200,000 budget. Release and marketing. The film screened at the San Diego Comic-Con Film Festival in July 2007, and premiered theatrically in Hemet, California and Pitman, New Jersey in October 2007. It was released on DVD in North America by Anchor Bay Entertainment on November 13, 2007 and became available for digital rental and sale at iTunes on September 22, 2009. It won the grand prize for Best Screenplay and first place for Best Feature at the Rhode Island Film Festival in August 2007. Publicity through filesharing. Producer Eric D. Wilkinson has publicly thanked users of BitTorrent who have distributed the movie without express permission, saying that it has lifted the profile of the film far beyond the financier's expectations, while encouraging fans to purchase the DVD or donate. Reception. Rotten Tomatoes does not have enough reviews for a consensus. IGN gave it an 8 out of 10, calling it "intellectual sci-fi". DVD Verdict criticized the heavy-handed ending, saying that one's opinion of the film would be shaped by views on religion.
1163828	Brenda Buell Vaccaro (born November 18, 1939) is an American stage, television, and film actress. Early life. Vaccaro was born in Brooklyn, New York, to Italian American parents Christine M. (née Pavia) and Mario A. Vaccaro (originally a lawyer), both of whom were pioneers in Italian cuisine. She was raised in Texas, where her parents co-founded Mario's Restaurant (a nationally recognized restaurant) and where Vaccaro graduated from Thomas Jefferson High School in Dallas in 1958. She returned to New York City to study at the Neighborhood Playhouse, and made her Broadway debut in the short-lived 1961 comedy "Everybody Loves Opal", for which she won the Theatre World Award. Personal Life. Brenda dated and lived with actor Michael Douglas in the 1970's. Career. Vaccaro's Broadway credits include "The Affair" (1962), "Cactus Flower" (1965), "How Now, Dow Jones" (1967), "The Goodbye People" (1968), the female version of "The Odd Couple", (1985), and "Jake's Women" (1992). The husky-voiced actress is a three-time Tony Award nominee, for Best Featured Actress in a Play ("Cactus Flower"), Best Actress in a Musical ("Dow Jones"), and Best Actress in a Play ("The Goodbye People"). Vaccaro appeared with Dustin Hoffman and Jon Voight in the 1969 film "Midnight Cowboy", for which she was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress. For her performance in the 1975 film adaptation of Jacqueline Susann's "Once Is Not Enough" she gained an Academy Award nomination and won the Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actress. Additional screen credits include "Airport '77", "Capricorn One", "The Pride of Jesse Hallam", "Supergirl", "The Mirror Has Two Faces", "Heart of Midnight", "" and "House by the Lake", also known as "Death Weekend". Vaccaro's television credits include the title role in the 1976 series "Sara", a number of television movies, and a regular role in the short-lived 1984 series "Paper Dolls", in addition to guest appearances on "Banacek", "The Fugitive", "The Defenders", "Coronet Blue", "The Name of the Game", "Marcus Welby, M.D.", "McCloud", "The Streets of San Francisco", "The Love Boat", "St. Elsewhere", "Murder, She Wrote", "The Golden Girls", "Columbo", "Touched by an Angel", "Friends", "The King of Queens", and "Nip/Tuck". She has been nominated for an Emmy Award three times and won for Best Supporting Actress in Comedy-Variety, Variety or Music for "The Shape of Things" in 1974. She also starred in a series of commercials for Playtex deodorant and regular tampons. She supplied the voice for "Johnny Bravo"'s mother Bunny Bravo in the animated cartoon series. She also made an appearance on "The Smurfs" as Scruple, an apprentice of Gargamel, opposite Paul Winchell.
1209305	Here Comes Peter Cottontail is a 1971 Easter television special made by Rankin-Bass, based on a 1957 novel by Priscilla and Otto Friedrich entitled "The Easter Bunny That Overslept". The title of the special is from the Easter song "Here Comes Peter Cottontail", which is also heard in the special. The name "Peter Cottontail" comes from a series of books by Thornton W. Burgess (1874–1965), although the special is not based directly on his books.
586724	Aag Hi Aag (; translation: Fire Everywhere) is a 1987 Bollywood film directed by Shibu Mitra and starring Dharmendra, Shatrughan Sinha, Moushumi Chatterjee, Chunky Pandey, Neelam and Vinod Mehra. The year 1987 turned out to be a remarkable year for Dharmendra. He had eight film releases which were all successful at the box office, one of which was Aag Hi Aag. The film surfaced as one of the biggest hits of the year becoming the fourth highest grossing film of 1987 Plot. Army officer Bahadur Singh is recalled to duty on very day his wife gives birth to son Vijay. While way back on duty, Bahadur Singh's village is attacked by decoites, his sister raped and killed. He goes to police to file complaint but shunned by police. Enraged Bahadur Singh takes law in his hand, join gang of bandits led by Daulat Singh and changes his name to Sher Singh. One day Sher Singh is shot by police. Doctor Raghuveer Singh comes to treat him. But Sher Singh think that Raghuveer Singh is policeman and kill Raghuveer Singh. When he realise his mistake, he repents and surrender to police. Years pass by. Sher Singh's son Vijay grows up and fall in love with Aarti. Aarti is daughter of Mr Chaudhary, alias of decoit Daulat Singh. Son of Doctor Raghuveer Singh becomes police inspector. Suraj has only one mission. Find Sher Singh and kill him to take revenge of his father's murder by Sher Singh. This gives more twists and turns in the story which leads to a dead end with many people to repent. Bahadur Singh is an army officer, is married to Ganga, and lives in a small village. Ganga gives birth to a baby boy on the very day that Bahadur is recalled to duty. While on his way, his village is attacked, his sister raped and killed, together with his parents. He goes to file a police complaint, and is shunned and ignored. Enraged, he decides to take the law into his own hands, and soon is on the run from the police. Bahadur meets with a gang of bandits, lead by Daulat Singh, and is invited to join them, which he does. He changes his name to Sher Singh, and soon acquires a tough reputation. One day Sher is shot at by the police and is wounded. A doctor, Raghuveer Singh, comes to assist him, but Sher thinks he is a disguised policeman, and kills him. When Sher realizes what he has done, he repents, is alienated by the bandits, and surrenders to the police, and is sentenced to life imprisonment. Years pass by, Ganga's son, Vijay, has grown up, and is in love with Aarti Choudhury, who is the daughter of Mr. Choudhury, whose alias was Daku Daulat Singh. The son of Dr. Raghuveer Singh, Suraj, who is now a police inspector, and has one agenda in mind: find and kill Sher Singh at any cost.
649666	Shiyali Ramamrita Ranganathan (; 12 August 1892 – 27 September 1972) was a mathematician and librarian from India. His most notable contributions to the field were his five laws of library science and the development of the first major analytico-synthetic classification system, the colon classification. He is considered to be the father of library science, documentation, and information science in India and is widely known throughout the rest of the world for his fundamental thinking in the field. His birthday is observed every year as the National Library Day in India. He was a university librarian and professor of library science at Benares Hindu University (1945–47) and professor of library science at the University of Delhi (1947–55). The last appointment made him director of the first Indian school of librarianship to offer higher degrees. He was president of the Indian Library Association from 1944 to 1953. In 1957 he was elected an honorary member of the International Federation for Information and Documentation (FID) and was made a vice president for life of the Library Association of Great Britain. Early life and education. Ranganathan, born on 12 August 1892 to Ramamrita, in Tanjore in British-ruled India. He was born in the small town of Shiyali (now known as Sirkazhi), in the state of Tamil Nadu in southern India. Ranganathan began his professional life as a mathematician; he earned B.A. and M.A. degrees in mathematics from Madras Christian College in his home province, and then went on to earn a teaching license. His lifelong goal was to teach mathematics, and he was successively a member of the mathematics faculties at universities in Mangalore, Coimbatore and Madras (all within the span of five years). As a mathematics professor, he published a handful of papers, mostly on the history of mathematics. His career as an educator was somewhat hindered by a handicap of stammering (a difficulty Ranganathan gradually overcame in his professional life). The Government of India awarded Padmashri to Dr. S.R. Ranganathan in 1957 for valuable contributions to Library Science. Early career. In 1923, the University of Madras created the post of University Librarian to oversee their poorly organized collection. Among the 900 applicants for the position, none had any formal training in librarianship, and Ranganathan's' handful of papers satisfied the search committee's requirement that the candidate should have a research background. His sole knowledge of librarianship came from an "Encyclopædia Britannica" article he read days before the interview. Ranganathan was initially reluctant to pursue the position (he had forgotten about his application by the time he was called for an interview there). To his own surprise, he received the appointment and accepted the position in January 1924. At first, Ranganathan found the solitude of the position was intolerable. After a matter of weeks, complaining of total boredom, he went back to the university administration to beg for his teaching position back. A deal was struck that Ranganthan would travel to London to study contemporary Western practices in librarianship, and that, if he returned and still rejected librarianship as a career, the mathematics lectureship would be his again. Ranganathan travelled to University College London, which at that time housed the only graduate degree program in library science in Britain. At University College, he earned marks only slightly above average, but his mathematical mind latched onto the problem of classification, a subject typically taught by rote in library programs of the time. As an outsider, he focused on what he perceived to be flaws with the popular decimal classification, and began to explore new possibilities on his own. He also devised the Acknowledgment of Duplication, which states that any system of classification of information necessarily implies at least two different classifications for any given datum. He anecdotally proved this with the Dewey Decimal Classification (DDC) by taking several books and showing how each might be classified with two totally different resultant DDC numbers. (For example, a book on "warfare in India" could be classified under "warfare" or "India". Even a general book on warfare could be classified under "warfare," "history," "social organisation," "Indian essays," or many other headings, depending upon the viewpoint, needs, and prejudices of the classifier.) To a mind such as Ranganathan's, a structured, step-by-step system acknowledging each facet of the topic of the work was immensely preferable to the anarchy and "intellectual laziness" (as he termed it) of the DDC. "The importance of this concept, given the poor technology for information retrieval available at that time, cannot be overestimated." Even in modern terms the concept is attractive for its simplicity, predictability, and depth in comparison to classification on a linguistic level, such as is used by search engines such as Google. He began drafting the system that was ultimately to become the Colon Classification while in England, and refined it as he returned home, even going so far as to reorder the ship's library on the voyage back to India. He initially got the idea for the system from seeing a set of Meccano in a toy store in London. Ranganathan returned with great interest for libraries and librarianship and a vision of its importance for the Indian nation. He returned to and held the position of University Librarian at the University of Madras for twenty years. During that time, he helped to found the Madras Library Association, and lobbied actively for the establishment of free public libraries throughout India and for the creation of a comprehensive national library. Ranganathan was considered by many to be a workaholic. During his two decades in Madras, he consistently worked 13-hour days, seven days a week, without taking a vacation for the entire time. Although he married in November 1928, he returned to work the afternoon following the marriage ceremony. A few years later, he and his wife Sarada had a son. The couple remained married until Ranganathan's death. The first few years of Ranganathan's tenure at Madras were years of deliberation and analysis as he addressed the problems of library administration and classification. It was during this period that he produced what have come to be known as his two greatest legacies: his five laws of library science (1931) and the colon classification system (1933). Regarding the political climate at the time, Ranganathan took his position at the University of Madras in 1924. Gandhi had been imprisoned in 1922 and was released around the time that Ranganathan was taking that job. Ranganathan sought to institute massive changes to the library system and to write about such things as open access and education for all which essentially had the potential to enable the masses and encourage civil discourse (and disobedience). Although there's no evidence that Ranganthan did any of this for political reasons, his changes to the library had the result of educating more people, making information available to all, and even aiding women and minorities in the information-seeking process. The Northern Ireland crisis got an unexpected metaphorical reference in a book by S. R. Ranganathan, as "making an Ulster of the ... law of parsimony", complaining about the harmful effects of low budget on the good functioning of a library. Later career. After two decades of serving as librarian at Madras – a post he had intended to keep until his retirement, Ranganathan retired from his position after conflicts with a new university vice-chancellor became intolerable. At the age of 54, he submitted his resignation and, after a brief bout with depression, accepted a professorship in library science at Banaras Hindu University in Varanasi, his last formal academic position, in August 1945. There, he cataloged the university's collection; by the time he left four years later, he had classified over 100,000 items personally. Ranganathan headed the Indian Library Association from 1944 to 1953, but was never a particularly adept administrator, and left amid controversy when the Delhi Public Library chose to use the Dewey Decimal Classification system instead of his own Colon Classification. He held an honorary professorship at Delhi University from 1949 to 1955 and helped build that institution's library science programs with S. Dasgupta, a former student of his. In 1951, Ranganathan released an album on Folkways Records entitled, "Readings from the Ramayana: In Sanskrit Bhagavad Gita." Ranganathan briefly moved to Zurich, Switzerland, from 1955 to 1957, when his son married a European girl; the unorthodox relationship did not sit well with Ranganathan, although his time in Zurich allowed him to expand his contacts within the European library community, where he gained a significant following. However, he soon returned to India and settled in the city of Bangalore, where he would spend the rest of his life. While in Zurich, though, he endowed a professorship at Madras University in honor of his wife of thirty years, largely as an ironic gesture in retaliation for the persecution he suffered for many years at the hands of that university's administration. Ranganathan's final major achievement was the establishment of the Documentation Research and Training Centre as a department and research center in the Indian Statistical Institute in Bangalore in 1962, where he served as honorary director for five years. In 1965, the Indian government honored him for his contributions to the field with a rare title of "National Research Professor." In the final years of his life, Ranganathan finally succumbed to ill health, and was largely confined to his bed. On September 27, 1972, he died of complications from bronchitis. Upon the centenary of his birth in 1992, several biographical volumes and collections of essays on Ranganathan's influence were published in his honor. Ranganathan's autobiography, published serially during his life, is titled "A Librarian Looks Back".
1376077	The Barbie Diaries is a 2006 motion capture film featuring popular Mattel character Barbie. It is part of the "Barbie" film series. Plot. In "The Barbie Diaries," Barbie is portrayed as a typical American teenager who is a sophomore in high school who encounters the problems that real-life teens often encounter: making new friends, dating, gossip, and getting involved in school. She always gets beaten in everything by Raquelle, a snobby girl who used to be her best friend in fifth grade. On the first day of school, she attempts to become anchorwoman for the school TV station but Raquelle beats her to it. Instead, she becomes Raquelle's personal assistant, buying her drinks and doing her work. When Raquelle dumps Todd he and Barbie began hanging out together and soon become a couple. Todd asks Barbie to the Fall Formal. Thrilled, Barbie as well as her best friends Tia and Courtney rush to buy a dress when they discover that Raquelle and Todd are together again. The mysterious woman at the counter, whose name is Stephanie, gives them advice and offers them some charm bracelets for free. Barbie's happens to come with a diary which she writes her hopes in. Soon after, what she wrote starts to mysteriously come true. Someone leaves her love notes and her band, Charmz, gets a gig at the school dance that Barbie was previously invited to. Next, Barbie decides to do a piece on popular kids and "What Makes Them Popular." She soon starts to neglect her friends and the story is quite mean. She even skips Tia's class-president election to hang out with Dawn and Reagan. She starts skipping band practice, and spends hours talking to them on the phone and hanging out with them. Barbie realizes that her hopes written in the diary came true and rushes to the mall to ask Stephanie about it. To her shock, it is revealed that the woman never worked there and apparently does not exist. Tia and Courtney discover that it is Kevin that has been leaving Barbie the love notes not Todd. They pressure him to tell her but he refuses. Dawn and Reagan find out that Barbie only befriended them because of her story and stop hanging out with her. They tell Raquelle. Soon, Raquelle steals Barbie's magic bracelet. Tia and Courtney watch footage of the story, and they discover that Barbie has told them a secret about Tia. They confront her and let her know that they no longer want to be friends with her. The night of the story, Barbie apologizes to her friends and chooses to instead showcase Kevin's film clips depicting a paperclip chain attacking his eBook. Out of shame Barbie refuses to go to the dance. On the night of the dance her friends arrive and tell her that she has to perform with them, giving her the dress that they put on hold for her at the mall. Still worried as she has no bracelet, Kevin takes one of his guitar strings and loops it around her wrist. Barbie points out that it is a "stupid piece of bent metal" until she realizes that is what her bracelet was. The girls rock the concert with Courtey finally able to do a drum stick maneuver that she couldn't do before. Barbie and Todd dance. Confused, she thinks back to other people who were in the places the notes had said. Realizing that it was Kevin all along, Barbie leaves in the middle of the dance and goes over to Kevin. Kevin gives her back the charm bracelet that he found on the ground. She apologizes for never realizing, but points out that the bizarre rhyming in the notes was a giveaway. The two dance together and become a couple. At the end, Barbie and Kevin watch a movie while eating ziti as Kevin asked for food beginning with "z". Songs. 01. Ke$ha - Invisible 02. Girl Most Likely To 03. Feels Like Love 04. Real Life 05. Elanya - Fate Finds a Way 06. Skye Sweetnam - This Is Me 07. Skye Sweetnam - Real Life 09. Skye Sweetnam - Note to Self 10. Huckapoo - Where You Belong 11. Deanna DellaCioppa - I Don't Wanna Sleep
774666	Wilby Wonderful is a 2004 film by Daniel MacIvor. The film is a comedic drama about 24 hours in the life of the small town of Wilby, where the municipal festival is in preparation. It focuses on the changes occurring in the lives of several different inhabitants as development comes to the island and threatens to change the world around them. The title comes from a sign created to promote the town; comically, it has been painted wrong, and says "Wilby Wonderful," as opposed to "Wonderful Wilby." "Wilby Wonderful" received a 71% rating from Rotten Tomatoes (5 "fresh" and 2 "rotten" reviews). Plot. The small Maritime island town of Wilby is preparing for its annual fair as a scandal threatens to rock its very foundation: the local newspaper is about to publish details and names of men caught during a police raid at Wilby Watch, the one remaining undeveloped area on the island. In the midst of it, Wilby's inhabitants attempt to maintain business as usual. Overbusy realtor Carol French is trying to sell the mayor her late mother-in-law’s house while supervising the festival and generally trying to achieve her social ambitions. Her police officer husband, good-natured Buddy, investigating the rumors of gay sex and drugs at the Watch with his partner Stan, is distracted by his burgeoning love affair with former high school classmate Sandra Anderson. Sandra just got back to the island and re-opened a coffee shop, her bad reputation as a promiscuous woman intact. Sandra’s teenaged daughter Emily resentfully observes her mother's doings; she's hoping for a romantic relationship of her own but her boyfriend may have more basic intentions. After his wife has left him in the wake of the scandal, the new-to-town depressive video store owner Dan Jarvis keeps trying to kill himself and Duck MacDonald, the town’s handyman, keeps interrupting his attempts. Duck remains stoic in front of the turmoil, impassively coping with Carol's hysteric instructions and his impending outing while persistently seeking Dan's company. And the town's mayor is busy trying to conclude a deal to turn the Watch into a golf course. The scandal will force the characters to reevaluate their lives and come to terms with their own secrets and lies. Filming. "Wilby Wonderful" was filmed from 21 July to 25 August 2003 in Shelburne, Nova Scotia. It was largely shot at a decommissioned Canadian Forces station, dubbed "Camp Wilby" by cast and crew. While Wilby is never explicitly located in the film, Daniel MacIvor has acknowledged its similarities to his birthplace of Cape Breton. The original title was "Honey" and the town was named after that, but when a movie of the same name came out, Daniel MacIvor decided for "Wilby" instead as a reference to hope and to the future. Soundtrack. "Give me the chance to fall" and "Statement", performed by Gentleman Reg "All about you", performed by Young Ideas "What went wrong" and "Save me too", performed by Scott B. Sympathy "Shoelace easy", performed by Stratochief "Strangest dream", performed and written by Kate Maki "Something's coming" performed and written by Rebecca Jenkins "Measure me", performed by Nathan "A lighthearted lovesong", performed by The Pets "Find another fool", performed by The Swiftys "Tempest", Piano Sonata No.17 in D Major, Op.31, No.2, performed by Ethella Chuprik "Whatever will be", performed by Fiona Highet, Andrew Scott and Patrick Pentland Awards. Ellen Page won an Atlantic Canadian Award in 2004 at the Atlantic Film Festival for Outstanding Performance by an Actor - Female. Rebecca Jenkins won a Vancouver Film Critics Circle Award in 2004 for Best Supporting Actress - Canadian Film. The film was nominated in 2005 for two Genie Awards: Rebecca Jenkins's "Something's Coming" for Best Achievement in Music - Original Song and Ellen Page for Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role. The film was also nominated for three Chlotrudis Awards in 2006: Best Ensemble Cast, Best Original Screenplay (Daniel MacIvor) and Best Supporting Actress (Sandra Oh).
634054	Stephen Furst (born Steven Nelson Feuerstein; May 8, 1955) is an American actor and film and television director. Furst was a regular in the science fiction series "Babylon 5" playing Centauri diplomatic attaché Vir Cotto and as Dr. Elliot Axelrod on "St. Elsewhere", and Kent "Flounder" Dorfman in the film "National Lampoon's Animal House". Biography. Stephen Furst was born in Norfolk, Virginia. He is a graduate of Virginia Commonwealth University's theater program. In 1972, Furst's father died from diabetes complications. Years later, Furst was diagnosed with type II diabetes. After almost needing to have his left foot amputated due to diabetes complications in 1996, Furst reduced his weight from 260 lbs to 175 lbs. When filming started for the fourth season of "Babylon 5", the show's producers found that all of the costumes were now too large for him. He wrote the book "Confessions of a Couch Potato" about his weight loss and diabetes, and co-wrote and directed a video called "Diabetes for Guys", an attempt to educate about diabetes management through humor. Furst has two sons, both in the entertainment business. His older son, Nathan Furst (b. 1978), is a television and film composer. His younger son, Griff Furst (b. 1981), is an actor, director and musician. His wife, Lorraine, is an entertainment lawyer. Career. Furst is best known for his roles as Flounder in "Animal House", as 'Junior' Keller in "The Unseen", as Gonzer in the feature film "Up the Creek" (1984), as Dr. Elliot Axelrod in the television series "St. Elsewhere" (1983–1988), and as Vir Cotto in the science fiction television series "Babylon 5" (1994–1998). In 1979 he reprised the Flounder character in the ABC sitcom "Delta House". He also reprised the character and repeated his famous line "Oh boy, is this great!" in the Twisted Sister music video for "I Wanna Rock".. In 1980, he played the character of Harold in the cult classic movie, "Midnight Madness," he also played the character of "Junior" Keller (the unseen) in the horror movie The Unseen. In 1983, he also appeared in a supporting role as Aldo in the provocative ABC TV movie "The Day After". In 1989, he played the character of Albert Ianuzzi in the film, "The Dream Team". Furst has also appeared in an episode of "CHiPs" in 1983, "Fun House" alongside Erick Estrada, Tom Reily and Heather O'rourke in which Furst played the part of a college fraternity "DDT" student. Although not a regular, he also appeared in the short-lived 1992 TV series "The Amazing Live Sea Monkeys". In the 1995 animated TV series "Freakazoid", he voiced the character Fanboy. Also in 1995, he took a hiatus from "Babylon 5" to star in a short-lived TV series, "Misery Loves Company". In 1997, he played Derby Ferris in "Little Bigfoot 2: The Journey Home". He also voiced a young Colonel Hathi in Season 2 of Disney's "Jungle Cubs". He had a starring voice role as Booster in the 2000 series "Buzz Lightyear of Star Command", and also played a hulky walrus named Dash in the 2000 Disney movie "". In 2002, he guest starred in an episode of "Scrubs". Furst has directed many independent and/or low-budget movies, including the low-budget movie "Title to Murder" starring Christopher Atkins and Maureen McCormick in 2001 and the direct to video children's movie "Baby Huey's Great Easter Adventure". Furst directed three low-budget movies for the Sci Fi Channel, "Dragon Storm" in 2004; and "Path of Destruction" and "Basilisk" in 2005. He also co-starred in "Path of Destruction" and "Basilisk". Since June 2006 Furst has co-hosted the Renal Support Network's webcast KidneyTalk with Lori Hartwell.
674817	"The Noah's Ark Principle" () is a 1984 West German science fiction film written and directed by Roland Emmerich as his thesis at the Hochschule für Fernsehen und Film München (HFF). While his fellow students typically raised and spent 20,000 Deutsche Mark for their final work, Emmerich managed to collect a budget of 1,200,000 DM (around US$600,000). This film, shot in color with mono sound, received a rating of 12 in West Germany, and was sold to 20 countries. It was submitted to the 34th Berlin International Film Festival and received some acclaim for technical skill and special effects, but won no prizes. Plot. The year is 1997, and World Peace seems to have come, with most classic weapons of mass destruction having been abandoned. However, orbiting the Earth there is the European/American space station FLORIDA ARKLAB, capable of controlling the weather at any location on the planet underneath. A civil project by nature, it might be abused as an offensive weapon, since it could deliver devastation to any potential adversary simply by creating natural disasters such as storms and floods. No wonder the space station soon becomes the central point in rising political tensions between East and West, next stop World War 3 (as indicated by the tagline "The end of our future has already begun"). We follow the main protagonist Billy Hayes, an astronaut aboard the station, as he wades through a plot of secrecy and sabotage trying to tell friend from foe in the process.
1064606	Whatever Works is a 2009 American comedy film directed and written by Woody Allen, starring Larry David, Evan Rachel Wood, Patricia Clarkson, Ed Begley, Jr., Michael McKean, and Henry Cavill. Plot. Boris Yelnikoff (Larry David) is a misanthropic chess teacher and former Columbia professor. Divorced, he eschews human contact except for his friends (Michael McKean, Adam Brooks, Lyle Kanouse) and students, criticizing everyone he meets for not matching him intellectually. Boris comes home one night to find Melodie (Evan Rachel Wood), a simpleminded 21-year-old, lying on his doorstep. He reluctantly lets her in for a meal and soon she tells him her story. She turns out to be of a distinctly southern background, having been born to fundamentalist parents in Mississippi and ran away from them. She asks if she can stay the night, which Boris eventually allows, and she stays with him while she's looking for a job. Melodie develops a crush on Boris despite their age difference and their varying cultures and intelligence. Melodie finds a job as a dog walker while still living with Boris. Out on the job, she meets Perry (John Gallagher, Jr.) and they arrange a date. When she comes back home, she explains to Boris that she didn't like Perry because he loved everything in the world too much. Boris realizes that he loves her and they get married. After a year passes, her mother Marietta (Patricia Clarkson) finds Melodie, explaining that she and her husband John (Ed Begley, Jr.) thought Melodie had been kidnapped. She goes on to tell her that John left her and sold their house after John lost money in the stock market. She meets Boris and is disappointed with him, so she tries to convince Melodie to end her marriage. The three go for lunch at a restaurant and meet Boris' friend, Leo (Conleth Hill). As Marietta goes to use the restroom, Randy James (Henry Cavill) inquires about Melodie. Marietta slyly decides to recruit him to end Melodie's marriage. Later that evening, Leo, who had taken an interest in Marietta, asks her over for dinner. They spend the evening together, and they both discover that she is a wonderful photographer and he even makes plans to contract her professionally. Boris explains to the audience that the next few weeks, Marietta changed and started experimenting in artistic photography, exotic new habits, and having a polyamorous relationship with Leo and his business partner, Morgenstern (Olek Krupa). Marietta still hates Boris and continues to arrange for Melodie to marry Randy. She takes her to an outdoor craft market and "accidentally" runs into Randy, who questions her about her marriage. Later shopping for clothes, Melodie meets Randy in another planned encounter with her and gets her to admit that her relationship with Boris is not entirely satisfying. He invites her to the boat he lives on, and the two end up kissing and beginning an affair. John arrives at Boris and Melodie's home full of regret and hopes to get the family back together. They all go to Marietta's photography exhibit opening together, and he sees how his ex-wife has changed since she moved to New York. Distraught, he retreats to a bar, drinking away his misery. While there, he meets a recently divorced gay man named Howard (Christopher Evan Welch), and realizes that he is also gay. Melodie tells Boris she is in love with Randy. Boris is disheartened by this and jumps out a window again, but this time lands on Helena (Jessica Hecht) breaking her arm and leg. As he visits her in the hospital, he asks her if there is anything he can do to make up with her, and Helena says she would like to go to dinner with Boris. Finally, Boris hosts a New Year's Eve party, at which everyone is seen in their new relationships: Marietta with Leo and Morgenstern, John with Howard, Melodie with Randy, and finally Boris with Helena. Melodie and her parents had, each one separately, completely shed their former southern conservative mindsets and wholeheartedly adopted the liberal New York way of life and values. (John tells that his former membership in the National Rifle Association had been but a sublimation of his repressed homosexuality). They are now all the best of friends, and at midnight heralding a new year they kiss and Boris tells the audience that you just have to find all the enjoyment that you can, that you have to find "whatever works." Release. On February 2, 2009, "Variety" reported that Sony Pictures Classics had purchased U.S. distribution rights to "Whatever Works". It premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York City, on April 22, 2009. Sony gave the film a limited US release on June 19, 2009. Maple Pictures released the film in Canada theatrically and released the DVD in October 2009. The film had its UK release on June 25, 2010. Production. The film was shot in New York City, marking Allen's return to his native city after shooting four films in Europe. David was hesitant to take the role, pointing out to Allen that his work on "Curb Your Enthusiasm" was improvisation, but Allen encouraged him to take the role anyway. In part to counter assertions that the film is autobiographical, Allen points out that the script was written in the early '70s, with Zero Mostel in mind for Boris; it was shelved after the actor's death in 1977. Thirty years later, Allen revisited the script in an attempt to create a film before a potential threat of a Screen Actors Guild strike. According to Allen, the only significant changes to the script involved updating the topical references. Reception. The film received mixed or average reviews from critics. Rotten Tomatoes reported that 50% of critics gave positive reviews based on 159 reviews with an average score of 5.4/10. According to another review aggretator, Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 top reviews from mainstream critics, the film has an average score of 45% based on 30 reviews. Upon the film's US release, A. O. Scott of "The New York Times" wrote: Patricia Clarkson and Evan Rachel Wood, as a mother out of Tennessee Williams and a daughter out of "The Dukes of Hazzard", bring not only feminine sparkle but also acting discipline to what feels, all too often, like a run-through of an unfinished play. The scenes, shot by the excellent Harris Savides, Gus Van Sant’s longtime director of photography, have a static, blocky feel. Their deliberate pacing and the decorous rhythms of the dialogue might charitably be described as classical, given the picture’s occasional evocation of a Broadway-to-Hollywood adaptation from the 1930s. A less generous word might be sloppy, given the near-total absence of the kind of Lubitschean verve of which Mr. Allen, when he’s on his comic game, is capable. To be sure there is a measure of vigor in Larry David’s performance in the central role of existential kvetcher, a formerly eminent physicist named Boris Yelnikoff. Mr. David does a lot of shouting and some antic gesticulating, and even throws himself out a window. But frantic action is not the same as acting, and there is barely a moment in "Whatever Works" in which Mr. David rises even to the level of credible impersonation.
1103200	Isaac Barrow (October 1630 – 4 May 1677) was an English Christian theologian, and mathematician who is generally given credit for his early role in the development of infinitesimal calculus; in particular, for the discovery of the fundamental theorem of calculus. His work centered on the properties of the tangent; Barrow was the first to calculate the tangents of the kappa curve. Isaac Newton was a student of Barrow's, and Newton went on to develop calculus in a modern form. The lunar crater Barrow is named after him. Biography. Barrow was born in London. He was the son of Thomas Barrow, a linen draper by trade. In 1624, Thomas married Ann, daughter of William Buggin of North Cray, Kent and their son Isaac was born in 1630. It appears that Barrow was the only child of his union - certainly the only child to survive infancy. Ann died c. 1634, and the widowed father sent the lad to his grandfather, Isaac, the Cambridgeshire J.P., who resided at Spinney Abbey. Within two years, however, Thomas remarried, the new wife was Katherine Oxinden, sister of Henry Oxinden of Maydekin, Kent. Of this marriage, at least one daughter, Elizabeth (born 1641), in known to have survived. Isaac went to school first at Charterhouse (where he was so turbulent and pugnacious that his father was heard to pray that if it pleased God to take any of his children he could best spare Isaac), and subsequently to Felsted School, where he settled and learned under the brilliant puritan Headmaster Martin Holbeach who ten years previously had educated John Wallis. Having learnt Greek, Hebrew, Latin and logic at Felsted, in preparation for university studies, he continued his education at Trinity College, Cambridge; his uncle and namesake Isaac Barrow, afterwards Bishop of St Asaph, was a Fellow of Peterhouse. He took to hard study, distinguishing himself in classics and mathematics; after taking his degree in 1648, he was elected to a fellowship in 1649. Barrow received an MA from Cambridge in 1652 as a student of James Duport; he then resided for a few years in college, and became candidate for the Greek Professorship at Cambridge, but in 1655 he was driven out by the persecution of the Independents. He spent the next four years travelling across France, Italy and even Constantinople, and after many adventures returned to England in 1659. He is described as "low in stature, lean, and of a pale complexion, "slovenly in his dress, and having a committed and long-standing habit of tobacco use (an " smoker "). He was otherwise known for his courageousness, particularly noted is the occasion of whilst journeying in the East, his having saved the ship to which he were upon by the merits of his own prowess, from capture by pirates. In respect to his courtly activities his aptitude to wit earned him favour with Charles II, and the respect of his fellow courtiers, in his writings one might find accordingly, a sustained and somewhat stately eloquence. An altogether impressive personage of the time, having lived a blameless life into which he exercised conduct with due care and conscientiousness . Career. In 1660, he was ordained and appointed to the Regius Professorship of Greek at Cambridge. In 1662 he was made professor of geometry at Gresham College, and in 1663 was selected as the first occupier of the Lucasian chair at Cambridge. During his tenure of this chair he published two mathematical works of great learning and elegance, the first on geometry and the second on optics. In 1669 he resigned his professorship in favour of Isaac Newton. About this time, Barrow composed his "Expositions of the Creed, The Lord's Prayer, Decalogue, and Sacraments". For the remainder of his life he devoted himself to the study of divinity. He was made a D.D. by Royal mandate in 1670, and two years later Master of Trinity College (1672), where he founded the library, and held the post until his death. Besides the works above mentioned, he wrote other important treatises on mathematics, but in literature his place is chiefly supported by his sermons, which are masterpieces of argumentative eloquence, while his treatise on the "Pope's Supremacy" is regarded as one of the most perfect specimens of controversy in existence. Barrow's character as a man was in all respects worthy of his great talents, though he had a strong vein of eccentricity. He died unmarried in London at the early age of 47, and was buried at Westminster Abbey. His earliest work was a complete edition of the "Elements" of Euclid, which he issued in Latin in 1655, and in English in 1660; in 1657 he published an edition of the "Data". His lectures, delivered in 1664, 1665, and 1666, were published in 1683 under the title "Lectiones Mathematicae"; these are mostly on the metaphysical basis for mathematical truths. His lectures for 1667 were published in the same year, and suggest the analysis by which Archimedes was led to his chief results. In 1669 he issued his "Lectiones Opticae et Geometricae". It is said in the preface that Newton revised and corrected these lectures, adding matter of his own, but it seems probable from Newton's remarks in the fluxional controversy that the additions were confined to the parts which dealt with optics. This, which is his most important work in mathematics, was republished with a few minor alterations in 1674. In 1675 he published an edition with numerous comments of the first four books of the "On Conic Sections" of Apollonius of Perga, and of the extant works of Archimedes and Theodosius of Bithynia. In the optical lectures many problems connected with the reflection and refraction of light are treated with ingenuity. The geometrical focus of a point seen by reflection or refraction is defined; and it is explained that the image of an object is the locus of the geometrical foci of every point on it. Barrow also worked out a few of the easier properties of thin lenses, and considerably simplified the Cartesian explanation of the rainbow. Barrow was the first to find the integral of the secant function in closed form, thereby proving a conjecture that was well-known at the time. Calculating tangents. The geometrical lectures contain some new ways of determining the areas and tangents of curves. The most celebrated of these is the method given for the determination of tangents to curves, and this is sufficiently important to require a detailed notice, because it illustrates the way in which Barrow, Hudde and Sluze were working on the lines suggested by Fermat towards the methods of the differential calculus. Fermat had observed that the tangent at a point "P" on a curve was determined if one other point besides "P" on it were known; hence, if the length of the subtangent "MT' could be found (thus determining the point "T"), then the line "TP" would be the required tangent. Now Barrow remarked that if the abscissa and ordinate at a point "Q" adjacent to "P" were drawn, he got a small triangle "PQR" (which he called the differential triangle, because its sides "PR" and "PQ" were the differences of the abscissae and ordinates of "P" and "Q"), so that To find "QR" : "RP" he supposed that "x", "y" were the co-ordinates of "P", and "x" − "e", "y" − "a" those of "Q" (Barrow actually used "p" for "x" and "m" for "y", but this article uses the standard modern notation). Substituting the co-ordinates of "Q" in the equation of the curve, and neglecting the squares and higher powers of "e" and "a" as compared with their first powers, he obtained "e" : "a". The ratio "a"/"e" was subsequently (in accordance with a suggestion made by Sluze) termed the angular coefficient of the tangent at the point. Barrow applied this method to the curves It will be sufficient here to take as an illustration the simpler case of the parabola "y"2 = "px".
1513711	Victoria Sellers (born 20 January 1965) is an English model, actress, comedienne and jewellery designer. Early life. Born in London, Sellers attended Lycée Français de Los Angeles in West Los Angeles, a private school run by French immigrants that now has a number of campuses.
1162783	Edward Francis 'Ed' Gardner (June 29, 1901 – August 17, 1963) was an American comic actor, writer and director, best remembered as the creator and star of the radio's popular "Duffy's Tavern" comedy series. Born in Astoria, New York, Gardner was a representative for the J. Walter Thompson advertising agency before going into show business. He began producing for the stage in the early 1930s. He produced the drama play "Coastwise" on Broadway (1931) and wrote and directed the Broadway comedy "After Such Pleasures" (1934). Radio. He found fame on radio with "Duffy's Tavern", portraying the wisecracking, malaprop-prone barkeep Archie. The successful radio program aired on CBS from 1941 to 1942, on the NBC Blue Network from 1942 to 1944 and NBC from 1944 to 1952. Speaking in a nasal Brooklyn accent, and sounding like just about every working class New Yorker his creator had ever known, Gardner as Archie invariably began each week's show by answering the telephone and saying, "Duffy's Tavern, where the elite meet to eat, Archie the manager speaking, Duffy ain't here—oh, hello, Duffy."
1101117	Eric Temple Bell (February 7, 1883 – December 21, 1960) was a mathematician and science fiction author born in Scotland who lived in the U.S. for most of his life. He published his non-fiction under his given name and his fiction as John Taine. Biography. He was born in Peterhead, Scotland, but his father, a fish-factor, moved to San Jose, California in 1884, when he was fifteen months old. The family returned to Bedford, England after his father's death, on January 4, 1896. Bell returned to the United States, by way of Montreal in 1902. Bell attended Stanford University, the University of Washington, and Columbia University (where he was a student of Cassius Jackson Keyser). He was on the faculty first at the University of Washington and later at the California Institute of Technology.
1039979	Geoffrey Hutchings (8 June 1939 – 1 July 2010) was an English stage, film and television actor. Early life and career. Hutchings was born in Dorchester, Dorset, England. After attending Hardye's School, he studied French and Physical Education at Birmingham University before he became a member of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1968. He played Bosola in the 1971 RSC production of John Webster's "The Duchess of Malfi". Career. In 1982, Hutchings won a Laurence Olivier Award for Best Comedy Performance for his role in the musical "Poppy". In 1998, he played Carry On actor Sid James in the Royal National Theatre's production of Terry Johnson's stage play "Cleo, Camping, Emmanuelle and Dick", a behind-the-scenes look of the love affair between Sid James and his co-star Barbara Windsor, which was subsequently made into an ITV drama called "Cor, Blimey!" in 2000. In 2004, he played Nagg in Samuel Beckett's "Endgame" at the Albery Theatre alongside Sir Michael Gambon, Lee Evans and Liz Smith. From October 2006 to April 2007, he played Herr Schultz in the West End production of "Cabaret". His final stage role was in 2009 in the West End production of "The Shawshank Redemption". A first collaboration with David Leland for the film "Made in Britain" (directed by Alan Clarke and starring Tim Roth) in 1981 has led to his notable role as Hubert Mansell, the embittered father of Emily Lloyd in "Wish You Were Here" in 1987. His other film successes included "White Hunter, Black Heart" (with Clint Eastwood), "Henry V" (with Kenneth Branagh), "Topsy-Turvy" (with Jim Broadbent), "Clockwise" (with John Cleese), "The Thief Lord" (as Conte) and "The Affair of the Necklace" (with Hilary Swank). On television, his most notable production has probably been "Our Friends in the North" (1996), in which he played corrupt building contractor John Edwards, a character closely based on the real-life figure of John Poulson. He also had a semi-regular role as Bobby Hollamby in the ITV prison drama "Bad Girls" from 2000 to 2003. In December 2006, he made an appearance in the Sky One television adaptation of "Terry Pratchett's Hogfather". In 2008, he appeared in the ITV comedy series "Benidorm" as Mel Harvey and had a small role in the second Terry Pratchett adaptation "Terry Pratchett's The Colour of Magic". In February 2009, he appeared in "EastEnders" as Roger Clarke, Jane and Christian's father and in the BBC film "Nativity!". In 2010 he appeared in the BBC medical drama "Casualty" and the sitcom "Grandma's House", both of which were screened after his death. Personal life. Hutchings died suddenly, in hospital, on the morning of 1 July 2010 following a suspected viral infection. He was surrounded by his family; second wife Andi Godfrey, and the three children of his first marriage: one son and two daughters. He was cremated at Kensal Green Cemetery, Kensal Green, west London.
628212	Paul Joseph Mercurio (born 31 March 1963) is an Australian actor, dancer, and TV presenter. Mercurio is best known for his lead role in Baz Luhrmann's "Strictly Ballroom" (1992). His father was the character actor Gus Mercurio. Biography. Mercurio was born in Swan Hill, Victoria in 1963 and began ballet at nine. By the age of 19 in 1982, he was Principal Dancer with the Sydney Dance Company – a position he held for 10 years. During this time, he was commissioned to choreograph six works performed by the company. Mercurio left the Sydney Dance Company to found the Australian Choreographic Ensemble which danced from 1992 to 1998, where he was the Director, Principal Dancer and Principal Choreographer. Mercurio made his film debut in "Strictly Ballroom", receiving an Australian Film Institute Award nomination in 1993. His film credits have included: "Exit to Eden", "Back of Beyond", "Cosi", "Red Ribbon Blues", "Welcome to Woop Woop", "The Dark Planet", "The First 9½ Weeks", "Kick" and "". He starred, wrote, choreographed, produced and directed the short film "Spilt Milk". Mercurio made his TV debut in a documentary on his life called "Life's Burning Desire" in 1992. He starred in the lead role of Joseph in the Emmy award–winning US TV mini-series "The Bible: Joseph" in 1995. Mercurio has appeared in popular Australian shows such as, "Blue Heelers", "All Saints", "Murder Call", "Medivac", "Heartbreak High," "Water Rats", and "The Day of the Roses". Mercurio continues to dance and choreograph professionally. He was a movement consultant on the Will Smith movie "I, Robot", and has choreographed an American TV campaign for Coca Cola, the Harry M Miller production of "Jesus Christ Superstar" and "Annie Get Your Gun". In January 2004, he appeared on stage in "The Full Monty". Mercurio teaches full-time students at Dance World Studios in Melbourne, Australia. Mercurio was a judge on both the Australian and New Zealand versions of "Dancing with the Stars" until August 2008, when he was dropped from the judging panel of the Australian version. Dancing with the Stars Australia was broadcast on Channel Seven from 2004 to 2007. He has been a judge in the New Zealand version since 2006. In 2008, he began hosting a series called "Mercurio's Menu" where he travels Australia, cooking in different locations.
1164482	Spencer Garrett (born September 19, 1963) is an American actor who has appeared in television programs, television films, films, and in minor roles in blockbuster productions like "", "Public Enemies", and "Air Force One". He was born in Los Angeles, California, to talent agent Richard Heckenkamp and actress Kathleen Nolan. He is a third-generation actor. Filmography. According to IMDB he has been an actor in 153 titles.
1034437	Max Bygraves, OBE (born Walter William Bygraves; 16 October 1922 – 31 August 2012) was an English comedian, singer, actor and variety performer. He appeared on his own television shows, sometimes performing comedy sketches between songs. He made twenty "Royal Variety Performance" appearances and presented numerous programmes, including "Family Fortunes". Early life. Bygraves was born to Henry and Lillian (née McDonnell) Bygraves (who wed in 1919) in London, where he grew up in poverty in a two-room council flat with his five siblings, his parents and a grandparent. His father was a professional flyweight boxer, known as Battling Tom Smith, and a casual dockworker. Raised Catholic, he attended St Joseph's School, Paradise Street, Rotherhithe, and sang with his school choir at Westminster Cathedral. He left school at 14, working at the Savoy Hotel in London as a pageboy, but was sacked for being too tall. He then became a messenger for an advertising agency in Fleet Street, before serving as a fitter in the RAF in World War II and working as a carpenter. He changed his name to Max Bygraves in honour of comedian Max Miller. Career. Bygraves' catchphrase was "I wanna tell you a story". He portrayed the title character in the 1956 film "Charley Moon". It was revealed that Bygraves had bought the past and future rights to the Lionel Bart musical "Oliver!" for £350 to help Bart out of his severe financial difficulties. Bygraves later sold them for £250,000. In the 1950s and 60s, Bygraves appeared as a guest on several television variety programs both in the UK and United States. These included Ed Sullivan, Jack Benny, and Jackie Gleason, in America, but his place as a broadcasting icon was founded, along with several fellow artists, by appearing as guest 'tutor', to Peter Brough's ventriloquist dummy, Archie Andrews, in the long running BBC radio show "Educating Archie". He was the subject of "This Is Your Life" in 1961 when he was surprised by Eamonn Andrews while rehearsing his new show, Do Re Mi, at London’s Prince of Wales Theatre. From 1983 to 1985, Bygraves hosted "Family Fortunes", taking over from his friend and fellow comedian Bob Monkhouse. He would later be succeeded as host in 1987 by Les Dennis.
1163888	Robert Smigel (born February 7, 1960) is an American actor, humorist, comedian and writer known for his "Saturday Night Live" "TV Funhouse" cartoon shorts and as the puppeteer and voice behind Triumph, the Insult Comic Dog. Early life. Smigel was born in New York City. His father is Dr. Irwin Smigel, DDS, "The Father of Cosmetic Dentistry", and the founder and president of the American Society for Dental Aesthetics. He is Jewish and frequently went to Jewish summer camp. He attended Cornell University, studying pre-dental and graduated from New York University in 1983 with a degree in communications. Smigel began developing his comedic talent at The Players Workshop in Chicago, where he studied improvisation with Josephine Forsberg. Fellow students included Bob Odenkirk. Smigel was also a member of the Chicago comedy troupe "All You Can Eat" in the early 1980s. Career. Smigel first established himself as a writer on "Saturday Night Live" by joining the writing staff when Lorne Michaels returned as executive producer for the 1985-1986 season. Smigel was hired after then-"SNL" producers Al Franken and Tom Davis saw Smigel in a Chicago sketch show. After the 1985-1986 season proved to be a disappointment with critics, in the ratings, and with Brandon Tartikoff (who was planning to have "SNL" canceled by the last episode of season 11 due to its sliding ratings), Michaels fired most of the cast and writers, retained the cast and writers who were standouts during the otherwise dismal season (Smigel being one of them), and hired new ones for the 1986-1987 season. This is when Smigel began to write more memorable sketches, including one where host William Shatner urged worshipful attendees at a "Star Trek" convention to "get a life." Smigel rarely appeared on screen; although, he was credited as a feature player in the early 1990s and has played a recurring character in the "Bill Swerski's Superfans" sketches. While on a writers' strike from "Saturday Night Live" following the 1987–88 season, Smigel wrote for an improvisational comedy revue in Chicago with fellow "SNL" writers Bob Odenkirk and Conan O'Brien called "Happy Happy Good Show". Smigel co-wrote "Lookwell" with Conan O'Brien for NBC. The pilot never went to series, but it has become a cult hit and has screened live at "The Other Network", a festival of un-aired TV pilots produced by Un-Cabaret, featuring live and taped intros by Smigel. Smigel later became the first head writer at "Late Night with Conan O'Brien", where he created numerous successful comedy bits, including one where Smigel performed only the lips of public figures which were superimposed on photos of the actual people. (This technique was pioneered on the "Clutch Cargo" cartoon series as a cost-saving measure, and was known as Syncro-Vox.) In 1996, Smigel wrote and performed on the short-lived "Dana Carvey Show", a primetime sketch comedy program on ABC. Despite its premature end, the show provided Smigel the opportunity to debut his first cartoon, "The Ambiguously Gay Duo". Upon the show's cancellation, Smigel continued developing more cartoon ideas the following summer and would begin airing them on "Saturday Night Live" under the "TV Funhouse" banner. Smigel would later claim, "My whole career came out of the impulse to do cartoons on "The Dana Carvey Show"." Smigel's most famous creation, however, would be the foul-mouthed puppet Triumph, the Insult Comic Dog, who mercilessly mocks celebrities and others in the style of a Borscht Belt comedian. This character debuted on "Late Night with Conan O'Brien" in February 1997 and would continue to make appearances on the show, as well as others, for many years to come. Smigel continued to establish himself on "Saturday Night Live" by producing infamous, provocative, short animated segments under the title "TV Funhouse", which usually satirizes public figures and popular culture. It spawned a TV show on Comedy Central featuring a mix of puppets, animation, and short sketches, although only eight episodes were aired (during the winter of 2000 - 2001). Smigel occasionally appears in films (usually alongside "SNL" veterans such as Adam Sandler). According to interviews, Smigel helped punch up the scripts for "Little Nicky" and the "Wedding Singer". Smigel acted alongside fellow "SNL" writer Bob Odenkirk in "Wayne's World 2" as a nerd backstage at an Aerosmith concert. His contributions were uncredited. No "TV Funhouse" segments were produced for the 2009-10 season of "SNL", and his future with the show is unknown. Currently Smigel is working on an animated sitcom for Fox called "Animals". Fox has not made any official statement regarding the show. Additionally, Smigel played a gay mailman in the Adam Sandler film "I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry" and Yari the Mechanic in the "Mister Softee" episode of "Curb Your Enthusiasm". Smigel, along with Adam Sandler and Judd Apatow, wrote the script for the film "You Don't Mess with the Zohan". In the film he played Yosi, an Israeli electronics salesman. The film was released June 6, 2008. Smigel is also one of the executive producers of the film which is a first for him despite his frequent collaborations with Sandler. Presently living in New York, he is the co-writer and executive producer of the new film "Hotel Transylvania". Smigel has a wife, Michelle, and has a child with autism. They serve on the board of New York Collaborates for Autism (NYCA), a non-profit organization founded in 2003 to address the needs of individuals and families who are living with autism.
944546	Jenna Lee Dewan-Tatum ( Dewan; born December 3, 1980) is an American actress and dancer. She appeared in the movies "Step Up" and "The Playboy Club" and has been a background dancer for artists including Missy Elliott, Janet Jackson, and Christina Aguilera. Dewan-Tatum is the co-founder of 33andOut Productions and Iron Horse Entertainment. Early life. Dewan-Tatum was born in Hartford, Connecticut, the daughter of Nancy Bursch Smith (née Bursch) and Darryll Dewan, who was a running back on the 1972 Notre Dame football team. Her father is of Lebanese and Polish descent and her mother is of German and English ancestry. Her parents divorced when Jenna was young and her mother remarried Claude Brooks Smith. During high school at Grapevine High School in Grapevine, Texas, Dewan-Tatum was a varsity cheerleader. She graduated in 1999 and was voted prom queen her senior year. She went to University of Southern California and was a member of the California Gamma Chapter of Pi Beta Phi. Career. Dancing. Prior to her acting career, Dewan-Tatum was a background dancer, working with singers such as Janet Jackson, 'N Sync, Sean Combs, Toni Braxton, Celine Dion, Pink, Missy Elliott, Ricky Martin and Billy Crawford. In 2001 she appeared in Janet Jackson's music video "All for You" and toured with Jackson on her All for You Tour. Dewan-Tatum appeared in a bit role as a backup dancer in the film "The Hot Chick". Dewan-Tatum was also featured in Christina Aguilera's music video for the single "Not Myself Tonight" in 2010. Acting. In 2004, Dewan-Tatum made her acting debut on the Fox sitcom television series "Quintuplets". Dewan-Tatum has guest-appeared on "The Young and the Restless", "Joey" and "Melrose Place". In 2005, Dewan-Tatum portrayed the protagonist in the independent medium-budget supernatural horror film "Tamara". In 2006, Dewan made appearances in "The Grudge 2" and "Take the Lead". That same year Dewan-Tatum starred as the female lead in the dance drama "Step Up" as Nora Clark, a dance student partnered with a troubled student who is sent to spend his community service as a janitor. The film made $119 million worldwide. In August 2008, Dewan-Tatum starred in the Lifetime made-for-television film "" which follows five rule-breaking teens. Dewan-Tatum portrayed the role of disciplinarian Coach Emma Carr. In November 2009, Dewan-Tatum appeared in the straight-to-DVD comedy "American Virgin" alongside Rob Schneider. In August 2010, Dewan-Tatum was cast in the ensemble crime heist film "Setup". Production began in November 2010 in Grand Rapids, Michigan. The film was to be released theatrically in July 2011 but was released straight to DVD in September 2011. In March 2011, Dewan-Tatum was cast in the NBC pilot of "The Playboy Club". In May 2011, NBC picked up the series for a full season. Dewan-Tatum portrayed the role of Bunny Janie, a provocative Playboy bunny who works at a Playboy Club in Chicago in 1961. The series premiered on September 19 to 5.2 million viewers with mixed reviews from critics. Due to low ratings, NBC cancelled the series after just three episodes in October 2011. In November 2011, Dewan-Tatum, starred in the movie "The Jerk Theory." This was first released in Germany in 2009. It was later released in the USA in November 2011. Dewan-Tatum appeared in the romantic-comedy film "10 Years", produced by her husband Channing Tatum. The film was released on September 14, 2012. Dewan-Tatum will star in upcoming Lifetime series "Witches of East End". In 2012, Dewan-Tatum appeared in "", the second season of the horror television series, as Teresa Morrison. 33andOut Productions. Along with friends Reid Carolin, Adam Martingano, Brett Rodriguez and husband Channing Tatum, Dewan-Tatum started a production company called 33andOut Productions. Their first production is a documentary called; "Earth Made of Glass", that follows Rwandan President Paul Kagame and genocide survivor Jean-Pierre Sagahutu. It premiered at the 2010 Tribeca Film Festival. Personal life. In 2006, Dewan-Tatum met actor Channing Tatum on the set of their movie "Step Up". They began dating shortly after filming had finished. The couple became engaged in early September 2008 in Maui, and married on July 11, 2009, at Church Estates Vineyards in Malibu, California. Their daughter, Everly Elizabeth Maiselle was born on May 31, 2013 in London, England. Dewan-Tatum is an animal rights activist and a vegan.
1057533	Portrait of Jennie is a 1948 fantasy film based on the novel by Robert Nathan. The film was directed by William Dieterle and produced by David O. Selznick. It stars Jennifer Jones and Joseph Cotten. Plot. In 1934, impoverished painter Eben Adams (Joseph Cotten) meets a fey little girl named Jennie Appleton (Jennifer Jones) in Central Park, New York. She is wearing old-fashioned clothing. He makes a sketch of her from memory which involves him with art dealer Miss Spinney (Ethel Barrymore), who sees potential in him. This inspires him to paint a "Portrait Of Jennie".
1163799	Jayne Meadows (born September 27, 1919 in Wuchang, China) is an American stage, film and television actress, as well as an author and lecturer. Early life. Jayne Meadows was born as Jane Meadows Cotter in 1919 in Wu-ch'ang, Heilongjiang, China, to Episcopal missionary parents, the Rev. Francis James Meadows Cotter and his wife, the former Ida Miller Taylor, who had married in 1915. Meadows is the older sister of the actress Audrey Meadows. She also had two brothers (both deceased). The family later returned to their home in Sharon, Connecticut. Career. Meadows' most famous movies include: "Undercurrent" (with Katharine Hepburn), "Song of the Thin Man" (with William Powell and Myrna Loy), "David and Bathsheba" (with Gregory Peck, Susan Hayward and Raymond Massey), "Lady in the Lake" (with Robert Montgomery and Audrey Totter), "Enchantment" (with David Niven and Teresa Wright), and "City Slickers" (as the voice of Billy Crystal's oversolicitous mother). Among her earliest television appearances, Meadows played reporter Helen Brady in a 1953 episode of "Suspense" opposite Walter Matthau entitled, "F.O.B. Vienna." She was a regular panelist on the original version of "I've Got a Secret" and an occasional panelist on "What's My Line?", the latter alongside husband Steve Allen. She also appeared on the NBC interview program "Here's Hollywood". During the early days of the burgeoning live entertainment scene in Las Vegas, the Allens occasionally worked together as an act. Prior to Allen's death in 2000, the couple made several TV appearances together - in 1998 they played an argumentative elderly couple in an episode of the TV series ' (based on the hypothetical Ronald Opus case) in which Allen's character accidentally shoots a suiciding man as he is plunging from the roof of their building. In 1999 they made their last joint TV appearance (again playing a couple) in the all-star episode of the Dick Van Dyke series ', entitled "The Roast", which marked Allen's final screen appearance during his lifetime. Meadows has also been active in Republican affairs although Steve Allen was a Democrat. She is the recipient of several Doctor of Humane Letters degrees from various universities. Ms. Meadows remained an active member of the social scene until the summer of 2009 when she had suffered a bad fall and fractured her hip. Her last public appearance to date was in August 2009 at the Early TV Memories First-Class Commemorative Stamp Dedication Ceremony. She still grants an occasional interview. Marriage. She was married to Steve Allen from 1954 until his death in 2000. They had one son, Bill. Allen's three children from his first marriage (Stephen Jr., Brian and David) are her stepchildren. She was credited as Jayne Meadows Allen for much of her marriage.
1037443	Archie Panjabi (born 31 May 1972) is an English actress best known for her role as Pinky Bhamra in "Bend it Like Beckham". Panjabi's portrayal of Kalinda in The Good Wife earned her a Primetime Emmy Award in 2010 and an NAACP Image Award in 2012, as well as two further Emmy nominations, one Golden Globe nomination, and three Screen Actors Guild Award nominations. Her other notable roles include Asra Nomani in "A Mighty Heart". Early life. Panjabi was born Archana Punjabi in London, to Govind and Padma Punjabi, both Sindhi Hindu immigrants from India. She graduated from Brunel University with a degree in management studies in 1996. She is also classically trained in ballet. Career. Panjabi has taken acting roles in both film and television, from early appearances in the 1999 comedy film "East is East" to the recent BBC television series "Life on Mars". Her first Hollywood role, as a British diplomat, was in the Oscar winning "The Constant Gardener", released in 2005. One of her highest profile film roles was in the 2002 comedy release "Bend It Like Beckham". In 2007, Panjabi appeared with Angelina Jolie in the movie adaptation of "A Mighty Heart", a book by Mariane Pearl, wife of the journalist Daniel Pearl, playing the role of former "Wall Street Journal" reporter Asra Nomani. Panjabi has also provided the voices for several characters in the British children's television animation "Postman Pat". Panjabi lent her voice to the video game "". Panjabi appeared on the BBC Four "World Cinema Award" show in February 2008, arguing the merits of five international hits such as "The Lives of Others" and "Pan's Labyrinth" with Jonathan Ross and Christopher Eccleston. In 2009 she portrayed an MI5 agent in the French movie "Espion(s)", and in the same year she joined the cast of the new CBS television series "The Good Wife" as Kalinda Sharma. In 2010 she played Saamiya Nasir in the British comedy "The Infidel". On May 28, 2012, she was cast as Paula Reed Smith, a pathologist, in BBC Two drama series "The Fall". Philanthropy. Panjabi was appointed the first Pratham USA Ambassador representing the largest educational movement in India. She is a celebrity participant in the Rotary International's "This Close" public service campaign to end polio. In support of women's rights, she has partnered with Amnesty International to head their Stop Violence Against Women campaign to change the "no recourse to public funds" rule that traps women in a cycle of violence. Panjabi walked in The Heart Truth's Red Dress Collection Fashion Show on February 9, 2011, to increase awareness of the danger of heart disease, the number one killer of women. Harvard University invited Panjabi to participate in their Artist in Residence Program in Cambridge, Massachusetts, to share her creative process as an actress. Awards. Panjabi's awards include an NAACP Image Award for "Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series" (2012), Emmy Award for "Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series" (2010), 'Best Actress Award' at the Reims Festival (2005), the 'Shooting Star Award' at the Berlin International Film Festival (2005), the 'Best Actress Award' at the Mons International Festival (2005) and The Chopard Trophy at The 2007 Cannes Film Festival. She was named one of the "Top 10 Faces on TV to Watch" by Variety (2009), one of the 'Breakout TV Stars of the Year' by Entertainment Weekly (2010), one of the 'Top Young Power Women Under 40' by Verve Magazine (2011), one of GG2’s Power 101 as Britain’s "19th Most Influential and Powerful Asian" (2011), one of the 'Best TV Characters of the Year' by MTV (2011), one of the year’s 'Greatest Scene Stealers' by the New York Post (2011) and celebrated as one of 'eight Master Performers Who Turn Television into Art' by The "New York Times Magazine". Personal life. At the age of 26, she married Rajesh Nihalani, a tailor.
582805	Kishen Kanhaiya is an Indian Bollywood film directed by Rakesh Roshan, released on 9 March 1990. The film stars Anil Kapoor, Madhuri Dixit, Shilpa Shirodkar in lead roles. Plot. Leela and Bholaram are a childless couple. Leela works as a midwife, and one day assists Sunderdas' wife to give birth to twin boys. She decides to keep one baby for herself, and tells Sunderdas that his wife has given birth to one child. There are complications for the mother, and she passes away without seeing her children. Leela and Bholaram bring up Kanhaiya, while Sunderdas attempts to bring up Kishen, but is unable to do a good job. So he marries Kamini, who comes along with her brother, Ghendamal, to live at the estate. She has an illegitimate child named Ramesh from another man, and when Sunderdas comes to know of this, he is threatened and attacked, and as a result of which he is paralyzed, unable to move. Kishen is brought by Kamini and Ghendamal with lot of abuse, and intimidation, and is kept illiterate, so that he can blindly sign away whatever documents he is asked to sign. Kishen likes Radha, a servant, and is married, but the atrocities do not stop, and then Kishen runs away. Ghendamal captures Kanhaiya, who also looks like Kishen, and brings him back, not realizing that the tables are now turned against him. Music. The soundtrack of the film contains 6 songs. The music is composed by Rajesh Roshan, with lyrics authored by Indeevar and Payam Sayeedi.
1057294	Breast Men is a 1997 United States semibiographical, dark comedy film written by John Stockwell and directed by Lawrence O'Neil for HBO. Plot. The film tells the tale of the doctors who pioneered the usage of silicone breast implants. The two men gain immense financial success but follow different life paths thereafter, with David Schwimmer becoming the narcissistic 'big-as-you-can-get' type popular with strippers and pornographic actresses, and former mentor Chris Cooper continuing the initial team effort of the everyday woman. The story loosely tracks the history of the real-life breast implant industry phenomenon, from its radical introduction through its incredible popularity through the controversial silicone link to various types of illness and cancer, following which the industry switched to saline. The story is interspersed with interview snippets of women from the 1970s who have received breast augmentation with varying degrees of success, including their pleasure and displeasure. The interviews are marked by the fact that they show only the interviewees' nude breasts and torso. Production. Much of the filming was done in Galveston, Texas, and includes numerous interior and exterior shots of historic Star Drug, a drug store and soda fountain with a distinctive vintage ceramic Coca-Cola sign displayed over its front door. Star Drug burned in 1998 but has since been rebuilt. Limited footage is shown, as well, of the University of Texas Medical Branch campus. The film received an MPAA rating of R due to sexuality, nudity, coarse language, and the use of illicit drugs. Reception. The film was released to mixed reviews.
1055714	Rae Dawn Chong (born February 28, 1961) is a Canadian actress. She is best known for her roles in the films "Quest for Fire" (1981), "The Color Purple" (1985), and "Commando" (1985). Life and career. Chong was born in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, the daughter of Maxine Sneed and Tommy Chong. Chong's father is of Chinese, Scotch-Irish, and French descent, and her mother is of Afro-Canadian and Cherokee descent. Her sister Robbi Chong is a model and actress. After a few television roles, Chong's second feature film was "Quest for Fire" (1981), for which she won the Genie Award for Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role in 1983. Other of her notable roles have been in the films "Choose Me" (1984), "Beat Street" (1984), "The Color Purple" (1985), "Commando" (1985), "Cheech & Chong's The Corsican Brothers" (1984), and "Far Out Man" (1990), in the latter two appearing with her father. Chong saw her most active period in films during the late 1980s and throughout the 1990s. However, she continues working in television and film. Chong also played the love interest in Mick Jagger's video "Just Another Night". Chong has been married three times and has one son named Morgan. Her second husband was actor C. Thomas Howell, her co-star in the feature film "Soul Man". They divorced in 1990. She was considered for the role of Anne Lindsey in "".
1078488	Forced Vengeance is a 1982 motion picture action drama. When the owner and proprietor of the Lucky Dragon casino in Hong Kong refuses to let mobsters take over his business he and his family are hit. Dragon's chief of security, Josh Randall (Chuck Norris) goes looking the head of the syndicate to exact revenge for the murder of his employer, friend and mentor. Plot. Josh Randall is the head of security for the Lucky Dragon casino in Hong Kong. As the movie begins, Randall is visiting Los Angeles to collect $114,000 owed by a rich gambler to his employer, David Pascal (Liu). After a few threats and some fighting he collects the debt. He dozes during a jet flight back to Hong Kong and the viewer sees in flash back how he got in a fight in the Casino when he was on leave from the US Army and ended up befriending David’s father, Sam (Opatoshu).
1068264	The Battle of Shaker Heights is a 2003 American comedy-drama film co-directed by Efram Potelle and Kyle Rankin. It starred Shia La Beouf, Elden Henson, Kathleen Quinlan, Amy Smart, and Shiri Appleby. The film was the winning script for the second season of "Project Greenlight". Plot. Kelly Ernswiler, a young war reenactment enthusiast, works at his local store with love interest Sarah and Bart Bowland. Kelly's father, Abe, works with drug addicts, being clean himself for over 5 years. His mother, Eve, is a commercial artist.
1040132	Alice Sophia Eve (born 6 February 1982) is an English actress best known for her roles in the films "Starter for 10" (2006), "Crossing Over" (2009), "She's Out of My League" (2010), "Sex and the City 2" (2010), "The Raven" (2012), "Men in Black 3" (2012) and "Star Trek Into Darkness" (2013). Early life. Eve was born in London, the daughter of actors Trevor Eve and Sharon Maughan. She has two younger brothers, Jack and George. Eve is of English, Welsh, and Irish descent. She attended Bedales School and then took her A-Levels at Westminster School in London. During her gap year, she studied at the Beverly Hills Playhouse and then read English at St Catherine's College, Oxford. While at Oxford, she appeared in student productions of "The Importance of Being Earnest", "Animal Crackers" (which toured to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival), "Scenes from an Execution" and "The Colour of Justice". Career. Eve has appeared in television dramas such as the BBC's "The Rotters' Club", "Agatha Christie's Poirot" and "Hawking" and starred in the film "Stage Beauty" (2004). In 2006, she starred in two comedy films: "Starter for 10" and "Big Nothing" (in which she and co-star Simon Pegg put on American accents). She spent the early part of 2006 in India working on a drama mini-series "Losing Gemma" about backpackers. On the stage, Eve has appeared in two plays directed by Trevor Nunn. In 2006, she played the young Esme in the new Tom Stoppard play "Rock 'n' Roll", at the Royal Court Theatre, later reprising her role for the 2007 Broadway transfer. For this performance, she was nominated for the best supporting actress award at the Whatsonstage.com Theatregoers' Choice Awards. In 2009, she played Roxane in a production of "Cyrano de Bergerac" at the Chichester Festival Theatre. In 2010, Eve played the female lead in the American romantic comedy "She's Out of My League", in which her parents play the roles of her character's parents. She also played the role of Erin, Charlotte's Irish nanny, in "Sex and the City 2". During 2011, Eve had a recurring guest role in season 8 of the HBO series "Entourage", as Sophia, a journalist and love interest to Vincent Chase. She played the role of Dr. Carol Marcus in "Star Trek Into Darkness", released 17 May 2013. Eve took part in the opening session of the 2013 Consumer Electronics Show. Personal life. Eve lives in London and Los Angeles. She has heterochromia; her left eye is blue, and her right eye is green.
689125	H.O.T.S. is a 1979 sex comedy. The film stars three Playboy Playmates — Susan Kiger (January 1977), Pamela Bryant (April, 1978) and Sandy Johnson (June, 1974) — as well as former Miss USA of 1972, Lindsay Bloom, sexploitation actress Angela Aames and B-movie veteran Lisa London. Danny Bonaduce appears in a supporting role. The cast frequently appear in tight white T-shirts with the H.O.T.S. logo and red-orange shorts. Some reviewers believe this wardrobe inspired the Hooters uniforms. Plot. Honey Shayne (Kiger) is a freshman at Fairenville University (known, according to a title card, as "Good old F.U."). After unsuccessfully pledging the Pi sorority, and being publicly ridiculed by sorority president Melody Ragmore (Bloom), Honey joins with three other unsuccessful pledges (O'Hara, Terri and Samantha) to form a new sorority (to be known as H.O.T.S. after their initials ) with the goal of stealing all of the rival sorority's boyfriends. The movie includes a number of competitions intended to accomplish that goal, including a fundraiser (a kissing booth), a dance and a climactic game of strip football. Both groups play pranks on the others and attempt to avoid disciplinary actions from the F.U. administration. A subplot deals with the attempts of two bungling gangsters to recover money hidden in the renovated building housing the sorority. A running gag during the movie is the source of the name "H.O.T.S." While the closing credits reveal that the name is an anagram of the first names of the four founders, other characters in the film believe it to stand for Hands Off Those Suckers and Hold On To Sex. At one point, the girls claim it stands for Help Out The Seals.
1377372	Bridgit Claire Mendler (born December 18, 1992) is an American singer-songwriter, musician, producer and actress. She plays Teddy Duncan in the Disney Channel Original Series "Good Luck Charlie" and appeared in the 2009 made for television film "Labor Pains". In 2009, she became a recurring character for the Disney Channel Original Series "Wizards of Waverly Place". In December of that year, she made her theatrical debut in the film "", released on December 23, 2009. Following the positive reception to her character on "Wizards of Waverly Place", she became the star of the Disney series "Good Luck Charlie", which premiered in April 2010. In 2011, she appeared in the film "Good Luck Charlie, It's Christmas". She starred in the Disney Channel Original Movie "Lemonade Mouth", in which her character Olivia performs numerous songs. Two singles were released from the soundtrack featuring her vocals, with both charting on the US "Billboard" Hot 100. In 2012, Mendler released her debut album "Hello My Name Is...", which featured a pop sound. It debuted at number 30 on the US "Billboard" 200, and has sold over 173,000 copies as of 2013. Her debut single off the album "Ready or Not", became an international Top 40 hit, the song was certified gold in Norway, and platinum in New Zealand, United States and Canada and peaked at number 49 on the "Billboard" Hot 100. It was announced that her second single will be "Hurricane". The video premiered on April 12, 2013 and was shot in London. Early life. Bridgit Claire Mendler was born in Washington, D.C. on December 18, 1992. She moved with her family to the San Francisco area town of Mill Valley at age eight. It was there where she first expressed interest in acting and began working in plays. On the decision, Mendler stated "I was 11 when I did a play out in Northern California and I really enjoyed it and I decided that I wanted to pursue a career and so I got an agent and did commercials and voice-overs and that sort of thing." When she was only eight years old, Mendler began taking part in local roles in both dramatic and musical theatre, and became the youngest performer in the San Francisco Fringe Festival. When she was 11 years old, she hired an agent to help her get acting jobs. Career. 2004–09: Beginning and films. In 2004, Mendler got her first acting role in the animated Indian film "The Legend of Buddha", in which she portrayed Lucy. When she was only 13 years old, she got an acting role as a guest star on the soap opera "General Hospital". She portrayed the dream child of character Lulu Spencer, in which the two have an argument on Mendler's character's birthday. The scene, lasting just under a minute, is later revealed to be a dream. That same year, Mendler was the voice of the character Thorn in the video game "Bone: The Great Cow Race", which was based on the Bone comic series. In 2007, Mendler made her film debut in the film adaption of the "Alice" series, titled "Alice Upside Down". Mendler starred alongside Disney Channel actress Alyson Stoner and Lucas Grabeel. Bridgit portrayed the antagonistic role of Pamela, who is the rival of Stoner's character, Alice. For the film's soundtrack, Mendler provided backing vocals on the song "Free Spirit", performed by Stoner. The film was released straight to DVD on October 6, 2007. In 2008, it was announced that Mendler would portray the role of Kristen Gregory in the film adaption of the popular teen novel series "The Clique "by Lisi Harrison. Mendler had the role of Kristen, a girl who attends OCD on a scholarship, and works hard to keep her good grades. "The Clique" was released straight to DVD in Fall of 2008, her second film to be released in this format. In 2007, Mendler had begun working on a film with actress and singer Lindsay Lohan titled "Labor Pains", which kept being pushed back due to various conflicts and problems. Though initially slated for a theatrical release, the film did not receive one in the US and was instead released as a TV film on ABC Family on 2009. The film did, however, receive a theatrical release in countries such as Russia, Romania, Spain, the U.A.E., Ecuador, and Mexico. The film drew 2.1 million viewers, a better-than-average prime-time audience for ABC Family, and per the network, was the week's top cable film among coveted female demographic groups. She had a supporting role in the film "". Beginning in 2009, Mendler became a recurring character in the Disney Channel series "Wizards of Waverly Place", alongside Selena Gomez and David Henrie. Mendler portrayed the role of Juliet Van Heusen, a vampire who later forms a romance with David Henrie's character Justin Russo. This lasts till the series finale. Mendler would go on to appear in eleven episodes total for the series, spanning from 2009 to 2012 when the series officially ended. Also in 2009 Mendler auditioned for "Sonny with a Chance "for the role of Sonny Munroe, Demi Lovato was chosen for the role. 2010–13: Television work and "Hello My Name Is...". In 2010, Mendler became the star of the Disney Channel Original Series "Good Luck Charlie", centering around a teenage girl who makes videos for her baby sister to watch as she gets older.(Copy of original) The series premiered on April 4, 2010, and has since been met with a positive critical reception and viewership. In 2011, she starred as Olivia White, the lead role in the Disney Channel Original Movie, "Lemonade Mouth", watched by 5.7 million viewers on its premiere night. Bridgit performed numerous songs for the film's soundtrack, which was released on April 12, 2011 by Walt Disney Records. The first single released from the soundtrack, titled "Somebody", was released on March 4, and peaked at number 89 on the US "Billboard" Hot 100 chart. The second single, "Determinate", charted in numerous other countries and peaked at number 51 on the "Billboard" Hot 100. In an interview with Kidzworld Media, Mendler confirmed that there will not be a sequel to "Lemonade Mouth", commenting: "There’s not to be a sequel to "Lemonade Mouth" unfortunately. We had such a great experience working on the movie, and they tried to figure something out for a sequel, but everyone at Disney felt like the movie had completed its story in the first movie. It was a great experience, and I loved working with the cast members and still see them frequently." In 2011, Mendler had the supporting role of Appoline in the straight to DVD film "Beverly Hills Chihuahua 2". Mendler recorded the song "This Is My Paradise" for the film, which was released as a promotional single on January 11, 2011 with a music video directed by Alex Zamm. On March 31, 2011, it was confirmed that Mendler had signed with Hollywood Records, and had begun working on her debut album. Also in 2011 Mendler also starred the Disney Channel Original Movie "Good Luck Charlie, It's Christmas!", which premiered on December 2, 2011. The song "I'm Gonna Run to You" was co-written and performed by Mendler, and was also featured in the film and released as promotional single on November 12, 2011. Mendler later co-wrote and sang the "Disney's Friends for Change Games" anthem called "We Can Change the World", released as her third promotional single on June 11, 2011. In 2012, she guest starred in the television series "House" as Callie Rogers, a homeless runaway teenager with a mysterious illness. She voiced the lead role of Arrietty in the American English dub of "The Secret World of Arrietty" and recorded a song "Summertime" for the movie, released as promotional single on February 2. In the Summer of 2012, Mendler confirmed that the title of her official debut single was "Ready or Not", written by Mendler herself, Emanuel "Eman" Kiriakou and Evan "Kidd" Bogart. The song was released for digital download on August 7 and for radio airplay on August 21, 2012. "Ready or Not" peaked only 49 in United States and 53 in Australia, but became a top 15 hit in United Kingdom, Belgium, Scottish, New Zealand and Ireland. The song was platinum certification on United States and Canada and Gold in Denmark, New Zealand and Norway. Mendler ventured on her first headlining tour, , supported her first studio album. The tour primarily reached only the North America and she playing at state fairs, music festivals and Jingle Ball's concerts series. Mendler's debut album, "Hello My Name Is...", was released on October 22 by Hollywood Records and all the songs were written by Mendler with collaborators. The album peaked at number 30 on the "Billboard" 200 and sold less than 200,000 copies in the country. Internationally "Hello My Name Is .." debuted in a few countries as Poland, Australia, United Kingdom, France and Spain. Mendler's vocals have been compared to Lily Allen, Cher Lloyd, Jessie J and Karmin. She release two promotional single on the album: "Forgot to Laugh" and "Top of the World". On February 12, 2013, her second single, "Hurricane", was released for radio airplay. The song peaked at number 1 "Billboard" Bubbling Under Hot 100, in United States, and sold over 300,000 digital copies in. In April 2 Mendler released a remix single version and, in June 21, a EP remixed. Also in June Mendler debuted her second tour, the Summer Tour, reached only the United States. In April 30 she released the extended play, "Live in London", by Universal Music, recorded in a special performance in the United Kingdom. 2013–present: Second album. On August 9, 2013 Mendler confirmed in an interview to Billboard that she is working on her second album, but she had to start writing songs again, because she lost all the songs already written when her laptop broke. On September 9, Mendler revealed on her Twitter some snippets of a new song, unofficially called "Afternoon for You". On September 25, she confirmed that was she was back recording in the studio. According to Mendler, she is working to release something new in the fall. Personal life. On March 27, 2012, Shane Harper said in an interview to Akash Sharma of "Officially The Hottest" for the first time that he was dating Mendler. Harper told they became friends early in Good Luck Charlie and began dating in 2011, but they decided not to reveal so far. In an interview with Cambio in September 2012, Mendler stated that it took two years between her meeting Harper and beginning to date him. She said "It wasn't one of those... 'you meet on a set and you wind up dating instantly,' it took like two years". In March 2013, Mendler said in an interview to Sarah Bull of "Daily Mail" that the fact her boyfriend in real-life is also her boyfriend on hit show Good Luck Charlie doesn't disturb the relationship: "I think it makes it easier, especially when it’s a person who you’ve worked with for a long time". In 2012 she began classes at the University of Southern California of the Liberal Arts course. In 2013 Mendler chose classes of jazz history to specialize. Other ventures. Philanthropy. In 2010, Mendler became ambassador to First Book, a campaign to encourage reading and gives books to children in need. In 2011 it becomes part of Disney's Friends for Change, a pro-social "green" initiative of charity for environmental issues encouraging fans to take action. As campaign theme that year Mendler released a promotional single on June 11, "We Can Change the World", raising $250,000 to the Disney Worldwide Conservation Fund. She also participated of the Disney's Friends for Change Games, a Olympic-based televised games aired on the Disney Channel, getting $125,000 donation to UNICEF as Yellow Team captain and also competing for $100,000. But her team lost to the World Wide Fund for Nature. In 2012 Mendler won the honorary award Common Sense Media as "Role Model of the Year" for his work against bullyng. Mendler was the third young artist to win the award, which usually honors environmentalists and scholars. Also attended the annual UNICEF acoustic concert in New York to raise donations for charity in January 2013. Was featured in a March 2013 public campaign Delete Digital Drama with the Seventeen Magazine to end cyberbullying. About the campaign she said "Being bullied is something I experienced in school and it is not fun...I love working to end cyberbullying. People don't have to push back as much as they would in real life. People need to realize bullying has just as much of an impact online because words are so cutting and difficult to deal with". In May 2013 Mendler traveled to the United Kingdom to fundraise for Comic Relief, given the aim of making her laugh with their jokes for a £1 donation. The campaign aimed to raising £100,000 and give families hope. About this work, she said: 'I love supporting something that is so positive and fun for people to get involved in and where people can really do something to help out." She also worked with Acuvue being a mentor to help Katie, a winner of the 2013 "Acuvue 1-Day Contest", get closer to her dream of making a difference. In July 2012 Bridgit became ambassador of the campaign "Give With Target" with Target Corporation to raise funds to reform schools in the United States. The campaign aims to get $1 billion by 2015. To start the Target campaign, they invested $5 million and distributes $25,000 grants to 100 in-need schools for the school year. Mendler told about the incentive: “I’m excited to partner with Target on their Give With Target campaign and celebrate the start of a new school year with kids across the country. It's so important for all kids to have everything they need for a successful school year”. In August she got $5 million donated by The Walt Disney Company and more $2 million donated by people at Facebook. Fashion line. In 2012 Mendler signs for Target Corporation to release an exclusive herself line of clothing inspired by her character Teddy Duncan of Good Luck Charlie. The "D-Signed by Teddy Duncan" fashion collection includes clothing, accessories, hats, scarves and souvenirs for girls of 4–18 years old. In March 2013 it released a spring version. Artistry. Influences. Bridgit has cited Bob Dylan as her biggest musical influence. To Taylor Trudon of "Huffington Post" she said : "He was the first musician I got into where I paid attention to songwriting. He has a way of writing songs that's really playful with lyrics, but at the same time he's saying something that people feel is important and that they relate to. He spoke for a whole generation.". Also to Trudon, Mendler cited Etta James, B.B. King, Lily Allen and Billie Holiday, and talked about these artists: "I love that they have soul in their voices. I think that's something important is having.". Other musical influences include Fugees, Elvis Costello, The Delfonics, and Van Morrison. Among the pop music artists, Mendler cited Natasha Bedingfield, No Doubt, Destiny's Child, Justin Timberlake, Beyoncé Knowles and Bruno Mars. On USA Today in December 2, 2012 Mendler said that she is influenced by British neo-soul and listed Ellie Goulding, Florence and the Machine, Marina Diamandis and Lianne La Havas as her biggest British influences. On Disney Channel UK Mendler cited Adele as influence: "I admire the career of Adele, because she has her own musical style. She does things her way and writes about things she is passionate about. It is really working out well for her." She also mentioned Ed Sheeran and said she would love to write songs with him.
1033708	Kevin Whately (born 6 February 1951) is an English actor. Whately is primarily known for his role as Robert "Robbie" Lewis in the crime dramas "Inspector Morse" and "Lewis", his role as Neville Hope in the British television comedy "Auf Wiedersehen, Pet," and his role as Dr Jack Kerruish in the drama series "Peak Practice", although he has appeared in numerous other roles. Early life. Whately is from Humshaugh, near Hexham, Northumberland. His mother, Mary (née Pickering-), was a teacher and his father, Richard, was a Commander in the Royal Navy. His maternal grandmother, Doris Phillips, was a professional concert singer and his great-great-grandfather, Richard Whately, was Anglican Archbishop of Dublin. The BBC documentary "Who Do You Think You Are?", broadcast on 2 March 2009, also revealed that Whately is a descendant, on his paternal side, of Thomas Whately of Nonsuch Park, a leading London merchant, English politician and writer who became a director of the Bank of England, and of Major Robert Thompson, a pioneer tobacco plantation owner in Virginia who was a staunch supporter of the Parliamentarian cause at the time of the English Commonwealth. Whately was educated at Barnard Castle School, and studied drama at the Central School of Speech and Drama in 1975, and was the patron for the school's Full House Theatre Company for 2011. His brother, Frank, is a drama lecturer at a London university. Before going professional, Whately was an amateur actor at the People's Theatre in Newcastle upon Tyne during the 1970s. Career. Before turning to professional acting Whately began his working life as a folk singer, and still plays guitar, performing for charity concerts. Along with other "Auf Wiedersehen, Pet" stars, he makes an appearance at the biennial benefit concert "Sunday for Sammy" in Newcastle. Before becoming an actor, he started training as an accountant. His acting career includes several stage plays, among them an adaptation of "Twelve Angry Men" and film appearances in "The Return of the Soldier", "The English Patient", "Paranoid" and "Purely Belter". Whately's television appearances include episodes of "Shoestring", "Angels", "Juliet Bravo", "Strangers", "Coronation Street", "Shackleton", "Auf Wiedersehen, Pet", "Inspector Morse", "Alas Smith and Jones", "Look and Read", "You Must Be The Husband", "B&B", "Peak Practice", "Skallagrigg", "The Broker's Man", "Murder in Mind", 2003 Comic Relief "Auf Wiedersehen, Pet", "Lewis", "New Tricks", "Who Gets the Dog?", "The Children" and "Silent Cry". Whately provided one of the voices for the English-language version of the 1999 claymation Children's television series "Hilltop Hospital". He has also appeared in an advert for Water Aid doing a voice over. In both an episode of "Miss Marple" ("A Murder Is Announced" - 1985) and in an episode of "The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes", (starring Jeremy Brett), Whately played a police Detective Sergeant, as he was later to do in "Inspector Morse". Perhaps his most memorable television appearances were as Detective Sergeant Lewis, the down-to-earth complement to the cranky intellectual "Inspector Morse". He reprised the role in the spin-off series "Lewis", in which Lewis returns to Oxford as a full Inspector. With his new partner, the Cambridge-educated Detective Sergeant James Hathaway (Laurence Fox), Inspector Lewis solves murder mysteries while trying to rebuild his life after his wife's sudden death in a hit-and-run accident, and to gain recognition from his sceptical new boss. Richard Marson's book celebrating fifty years of "Blue Peter" comments that Whately auditioned as a presenter for the show in 1980 but lost out to Peter Duncan. Following the filming of the seventh series of "Lewis", at the end of 2012, Kevin Whately and Laurence Fox announced that they would take a hiatus of at least a year before filming more episodes; ITV indicated a continuing commitment to the series and that they wish to produce additional episodes of the program. On 4 November 2012, Kevin Whately performed in a radio drama on BBC3 called "The Torchbearers" which follows the circumstances of several UK citizens whose lives are changed through contact with the Olympic Torch. In 2013, Newcastle upon Tyne's Live Theatre produced a series of performances of the unique, acclaimed one-person play, "White Rabbit, Red Rabbit", which is enacted as a cold reading with no sets or costumes by a different performer each night. Kevin Whately was the actor for the sold-out performance of 10 March 2013. Personal life. Whately lives close to Milton Keynes, with his wife actress Madelaine Newton, who starred in the 1970s BBC drama "When the Boat Comes In". She also played Inspector Morse's love interest in the 1990 episode "Masonic Mysteries," in which she becomes a murder victim. The couple, who have been together since 1980, have two children: Catherine "Kitty" Whately, born in 1983, who appeared as Kevin's on-screen daughter in the series "Auf Wiedersehen, Pet" for the first two seasons, now an operatic mezzo soprano and winner of the Kathleen Ferrier Award 2011; and Kieran, born in 1984. Whately enjoys rock music and plays guitar; he has cited Pink Floyd and Dire Straits as bands he has particularly enjoyed, although he says he listens to classical music more now. He is a fan of Newcastle United and Burnley on the football field, but says that he likes rugby league better, and as a cricketer admitted to "Inspector Morse" writer Colin Dexter that he would like to have played cricket professionally for England. Dexter devised the storyline for the "Inspector Morse" episode "Deceived by Flight" (1989; season 3, episode 3) in which Sergeant Lewis had to go undercover in a cricket team to investigate drug smuggling.
1161984	Diana Blache Barrymore Blythe (March 3, 1921 – January 25, 1960), known professionally as Diana Barrymore, was an American film and stage actress. Early life. Born Diana Blanche Barrymore Blythe in New York City, she was the daughter of renowned actor John Barrymore and his second wife, poet Blanche Oelrichs. She was stepdaughter of Dolores Costello, half-sister of actor John Drew Barrymore, and aunt of actress Drew Barrymore. Her parents' tumultuous marriage lasted only a few years and they divorced when she was four. Educated in Paris, France and at schools in New York City, she had little contact with her estranged father, a situation exacerbated by her mother's bitterness towards him. Her parenting was left to boarding schools and nannies. Career. While in her teens, Barrymore decided to study acting and enrolled at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. Because of the prominence of the Barrymore name in the world of theatre, her move onto the stage began with much publicity including a 1939 cover of "Life". At age 19, Barrymore made her Broadway debut and the following year made her first appearance in motion pictures with a small role in a Warner Bros. production. In 1942, she signed a contract with Universal Studios who capitalized on her Barrymore name with a major promotion campaign billing her as "1942's Most Sensational New Screen Personality." However, alcohol and drug problems soon emerged and negative publicity from major media sources dampened her prospects with widely read magazines such as "Collier's Weekly", writing about her conduct in an October 1942 article titled "The Barrymore Brat". After less than three years in Hollywood, and six significant film roles at Universal, Barrymore's personal problems ended her film career. Her father died in 1942 from cirrhosis of the liver after years of alcoholism. Barrymore's life became a series of alcohol and drug related disasters marked by bouts of severe depression that resulted in several suicide attempts and extended sanitarium stays. She squandered her movie earnings and her inheritance from her father's estate, and when her mother died in 1950 she was left with virtually nothing from a once-vast family fortune. In 1949 she was offered her own television talk show "The Diana Barrymore Show". The show was all set to broadcast but Barrymore didn't show up and the program was immediately canceled. Had she gone through with the show it would have been the first TV talk show in television history predating Joe Franklin by two years. After three bad marriages to addicted and sometimes abusive men, in 1955 Barrymore had herself hospitalized for nearly a full year of treatment. In 1957, she published her autobiography, "Too Much, Too Soon" which included her portrait painted by Spurgeon Tucker. In July 1957 she further promoted the book by appearing on Mike Wallace's TV show The Mike Wallace Interview and the following year Warner Bros. made a film with the same title starring Dorothy Malone as Barrymore and Errol Flynn as her father. Personal life and death. Barrymore was married three times. Her first to actor Bramwell Fletcher, who was seventeen years her senior. Then she married John Howard, a tennis player. Her last marriage was to actor Robert Wilcox. Diana might have found Wilcox to be the love of her life, but he nearly beat her to death in one of his assaults. The marriage to Wilcox ended when he died of a heart attack while traveling by train in June 1955, at the age of 45.
901077	Adriano Celentano (; born 6 January 1938) is an Italian singer, songwriter, comedian, actor, film director and TV host. He is the best-selling male Italian singer. Biography. Celentano was born in Milan at 14 Via Gluck, about which he later wrote the famous song "Il ragazzo della via Gluck" ("The boy from Gluck Street"). His parents were from Foggia, in Apulia, and had moved north for work. According to urban legend, before beginning his singing career, Celentano was a student of Ghigo Agosti during Agosti's 1955-1956 Northern Italian tour, which was also guitarist Giorgio Gaber's debut. Heavily influenced by his idol Elvis Presley and the 1950s rock revolution and by the American actor Jerry Lewis, he has retained his popularity in Italy for over 50 years, selling millions of records and appearing in numerous TV shows and movies. In the latter respect, he has also been a creator of a comic genre, with his characteristic walking and his facial expressions. For the most part, his films were commercially successful; indeed in the 1970s and part of the 1980s, he was the king of the Italian box office in low budget movies. As an actor, critics point to "Serafino" (1968), directed by Pietro Germi, as his best performance. As a director he frequently casts Ornella Muti, Eleonora Giorgi and his wife Claudia Mori. He and Claudia have three children; Rosita, Giacomo and Rosalinda Celentano, most notable to worldwide audiences for playing Satan in Mel Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ". He also often works as a host on several Italian television shows. He has released forty albums, comprising twenty nine studio albums, three live albums, and eight compilations. His most famous songs are "La coppia piu' bella del mondo", which sold over one million copies, and was awarded a gold disc; "Azzurro" (1968), written by Paolo Conte; and "Prisencolinensinainciusol" (1972), which was written to mimic the way English sounds to non-English speakers. Celentano was referenced in the 1979 Ian Dury and the Blockheads song and single, "Reasons to be Cheerful, Part 3", as one of the aforementioned "reasons to be cheerful," and in Fellini's 1986 film "Ginger and Fred". Adriano Celentano has been a vegetarian since 2005 and defends animal rights. His last concert-event, after 18 years without live performances, was transmitted on Mediaset channel Canale 5, with over 9 million viewers both evenings.
584809	Indralohathil Na Azhagappan () is a periodical comedy film directed by Thambi Ramiah, who directs his second feature film after "Manuneethi". After the success of Vadivelu's debut film as the protagonist in "Imsai Arasan 23am Pulikesi", Ramiah signed him up for the project. Apart from Vadivelu, the rest of the cast had been announced after the launch. Despite several indications that two prominent actress, would portray the lead female roles; a debutant, Yamini Sharma and Suja were selected. Nassar, Sumithra and the director himself, play supporting roles, while prominent heroine, Shriya Saran, was roped in to act as a ghost buster and dance in a single song. The film released on 1 February 2008 to largely negative reviews. Plot. Azhagappan (Vadivelu) is a member of a theatre group. One fine day an unlikely visitor from the heavens stumbles upon him and almost falls for him. The beautiful trio of the heaven – Ramba, Thilothama, and Urvashi – comes to the earth to enjoy its “beauty”. While the others get back to where they belong to at the right time, Ramba (plays by Suja) loses her track and gets into trouble. Vadivelu accidentally helps her to go back to the heaven. She gets him to the heaven during the night and sends him back to the earth early in the morning. Frequenting to the heaven and the hell gives Azhagappan an idea of what is happening in the other world. He is not serious about his rare opportunity to see the Devendran (king of all deities – played by Vadivelu) and the deities but the death of a neighboring child changes everything. He takes thing seriously and wants to teach a lesson to the deity of death (Yama Dharma Raja – played by Vadivelu again). Vexed with the death and the ways human beings are treated with in the hell, Azhagappan decides to tamper with the process of life and death. He wants to tamper with the laws of the gods. The gods get angry and Azhagappan pays the price. Comedy turns into tragedy, as he is transformed into a 90 year old whom even his mother (Sumithra) cannot recognize and Rambha is cursed to become a formless soul. Naradha (Nasser), as usual, makes amends to bring up the climax. Devendran seeks Brihaspathi's counsel and a way to relieve both Azhagappan and Rambha from their curses is born. How this happens even though Yama tries his best to stop it from happening forms the rest of the climax. Development. "Indiralohathil Na Azhagappan" carried great expectations after success of Vadivelu's previous film, which was a blockbuster. Early reports indicated that Vadivelu was set to play 9 different roles, but soon after, Ramiah, confirmed Vadivel will portray three roles as the characters of Gods: Indra, Yamaraja and the role of a normal man, Na. Azhagappan. Unlike the male lead's role, the female lead's role took longer to confirm. Prominent actresses Shilpa Shetty became heavily linked to the project, however, after joing the Celebrity Big Brother household, she refused the role. Simran Bagga, a leading actress in the early 2000s, attempting a comeback was also considered as well as Vadivelu's previous heroine Tejashree. Eventually the roles went to Yamini Sharma and Suja. Other members of the cast announced at the time were Nassar, Sumithra, the director himself Thambi Ramiah and another prominent director, Raj Kapoor. Furthermore, surprisingly Shriya Saran, a top actress in South India was roped in to play the role of a ghost buster named Pidiaratha in a cameo role as well as feature in a single song titled, "Mallika Sherawata? Marilyn Monroea?". Release and Reception. The movie released on 1st February 2008 and the hype around the movie slowly started as this was Vadivelu's second film in which he starred as the hero. After a few days this movie was declared a flop mainly.
520511	Anne Ojales Curtis-Smith , also known as Anne Curtis-Smith or simply Anne Curtis (born on 17 February 1985 in Wangaratta, Victoria, Australia) is a Filipino-Australian actress, model, television host, singer, fashion icon, recording artist and VJ, currently active in the Philippines. She is working under ABS-CBN. She was discovered while on vacation in the Philippines at the age of 12 which made her visit permanent. Career. 1997–2003: Career beginnings Anne Curtis was born in Wangaratta, Australia. Annually, her family visited the Philippines to see her relatives. In 1997, her visit became permanent when she was discovered while eating in a fast-food restaurant, acquiring her first modelling job in the Philippines. Within a week or so, Curtis had bagged
774429	Hard Core Logo is a 1996 Canadian mockumentary adapted by Noel Baker from the novel of the same name by author Michael Turner. Director Bruce McDonald illustrates the self-destruction of punk rock. Released in 1996, the film documents a once-popular punk band, Hard Core Logo, which is composed of lead singer Joe Dick (Hugh Dillon), fame-tempted guitarist Billy Tallent (Callum Keith Rennie), schizophrenic bass player John Oxenberger (John Pyper-Ferguson), and drummer Pipefitter (Bernie Coulson). Julian Richings plays Bucky Haight, Dick's idol. Several notable punk musicians, including Art Bergmann, Joey Shithead and Joey Ramone, play themselves in cameos. Canadian television personality Terry David Mulligan also has a cameo, playing a fictionalized version of himself. The film has been frequently ranked amongst the greatest movies ever to come out of Canada. In a 2001 poll of 200 industry voters, performed by Playback, "Hard Core Logo" was named the second best Canadian film of the last 15 years. In 2002, readers of "Playback" voted it the 4th greatest Canadian film ever made. In August 2008, McDonald stated that sequels were in the works. Plot. The movie is about a documentary team that follows the reunion of Hard Core Logo. Joe Dick gets the band back together ostensibly for an anti-gun benefit after hearing Canadian punk rock legend Bucky Haight, and personal mentor, is shot. They begin the tour in Vancouver and travel to Edmonton, via Winnipeg. On the way the band's dark secrets are revealed. John Oxenberger loses his schizophrenia medication and slowly loses his sanity. Billy Tallent finds out that by going on tour he loses his position in main stream rock band Jenifur and with that his one shot at stardom. The band stops by Bucky Haight's reclusive estate only to find he was never shot and that Joe Dick fabricated the lie in order to get the band together. The band and documentary crew drop acid and experience hallucinations. Bucky admonishes Joe Dick for using him to get the band together. At Edmonton, Billy Tallent finds out he has another opportunity to permanently join Jenifur. Joe Dick finds out from the film crew and later attacks Billy on stage. Joe Dick destroys Billy Tallent's Fender Stratocaster, which was a gift from Bucky Haight, and the band parts ways. In the final scene Joe Dick drinks with the documentary crew members and shoots himself. Production. McDonald grew up in the Vancouver punk rock scene in the late 1970s and early 1980s and was drawn to Michael Turner's book about aging musicians. McDonald commented in an interview, "what I thought was really interesting is where it is 15 years later, and what are these guys doing now". He had just come off the critically acclaimed "Dance Me Outside" and friends warned him not to repeat himself by making another road movie. However, McDonald did not see "Logo" as a repeat of previous films. "On the other films, they (the anti-heroes of "Roadkill" and "Highway 61") go down the road and meet a nutty person and things happened. Here you're with the same people throughout – and they are the nutty people!" McDonald had to persuade Dillon to do the film. "He was going 'Wow, what if the movie is shit, then I'd lose all my fans from the band, I'd lose all my credibility!'" The director auditioned 200 actors for the role but kept coming back to the musician. Dillon remembers, "as soon as he gave me freedom to make the screenplay more believable, I became interested. Bruce allowed me creative input and that's what made it a special piece for me." Dillon drew a lot on his own real life experiences of being in a band. "Hard Core Logo" screened at the Cannes Film Festival. McDonald remembers, "Cannes was very humbling. You're in the same arena as Bernardo Bertolucci and Czechoslovakian pornographers. It's such a bizarre spectrum." The film went on to be nominated for six Genie Awards, including Best Picture and Director. Quentin Tarantino saw "Logo" at a film festival and liked it so much that he bought the U.S. distribution rights under his Rolling Thunder label and even toyed with casting Dillon in "Jackie Brown". Reaction. "Hard Core Logo" was well received by Canadian film critics. In his review for the "Toronto Sun", Bruce Kirkland praised the cast: "They're all so convincing it is impossible to believe they're not all the real thing". John Griffin, in his review for the "Montreal Gazette", called it "a masterful exercise in edgy virtuoso film craft, subversive propaganda and exhilarating entertainment". In his review for the "Toronto Star", Peter Goddard praised Noel Baker's screenplay for providing "some of the funniest and deftest writing Canadian moviemaking has heard in years but it can't hide the bitter-sweetness just below the surface". However, Liam Lacey in his review for the "Globe and Mail", wrote, "Though the jumpy, parodic, disruptive style suits rock music, the same techniques prevent viewers from investing deeply in the characters and the story. The ride is fun, but it doesn't quite reach a destination". The film received general favorable review from American film critics. "Entertainment Weekly" gave it a "B-" rating and Owen Gleiberman wrote, "Most of the characters are too goofy to register. Still, there are times when Dillon's performance lays bare why, for sheer style, burning out will always have the edge over fading away". In his review for the "San Francisco Chronicle", Peter Stack wrote, "Director Bruce McDonald ("Dance Me Outside") has turned out a tight, fascinating on-the-road rock movie, a delicious study in mean-spiritedness as well as the gut imperatives that make punk music the unsettling, hostile experience it is". However, Stephen Holden, in his review for "The New York Times" felt that "unlike "Spinal Tap", which cast a comically jaundiced eye on every nuance of the heavy-metal life style, this clever mock documentary … blends satire and sentiment in a way that keeps you emotionally off balance". Awards. The film won the Genie Award for 'Best Achievement in Music – Original Song' for the track "Who the Hell Do You Think You Are?" and was nominated for 5 other awards including Best Film and Best Direction. It took the Best Canadian Feature at the Sudbury Cinéfest. At the Vancouver International Film Festival it received the $10,000 CITY-TV award for Best Canadian Film and Noel Baker won the Rogers prize for Best Canadian Screenplay. Legacy. The film has been frequently ranked amongst the greatest movies ever to come out of Canada. In a 2001 poll of 200 industry voters, performed by Playback, "Hard Core Logo" was named the second best Canadian film of the last 15 years. In 2002, readers of "Playback" voted it the 4th greatest Canadian film ever made. This was also the inspiration behind the name of the Canadian band Billy Talent. Soundtrack. Although music figures heavily in the film, a conventional soundtrack album was not initially released; instead, McDonald had several notable Canadian bands record covers of the songs in the film, and packaged them as if they were a tribute album to a real band. That album, "A Tribute to Hard Core Logo", was also released in 1996. (A proper soundtrack album was released later in 1998 on Velvel Records.) Sequels. In 2008, McDonald announced plans to make sequel to "Hard Core Logo" that will begin shooting early 2009 with a third instalment to follow shortly thereafter. The director said, ""You look at "Planet of the Apes" – they squeezed five (films) out of that. And "Saw" is up to five now and "Rocky" is probably up to seven, so we're thinking, `Well, why not build our own little army?'" Filming on "Hard Core Logo 2" is set to begin on February 22, 2010. The bulk of it will be done in the Saskatchewan communities of Watrous and Manitou Beach. It features Toronto band Die Mannequin, fronted by Care Failure. It is confirmed to debut at the Whistler Film Festival in December 2010. McDonald asked Daniel MacIvor to write a "My Dinner with Andre"-style screenplay that would be a sequel to "Hard Core Logo", with Hugh Dillon and Callum Keith Rennie playing the roles. However, scheduling (among other reasons) kept it from moving forward. After some discussion, McDonald and MacIvor decided to rewrite the screenplay for two women, with Molly Parker and Tracy Wright in mind. The film was released in 2010 as "Trigger". Rennie has a cameo in the film, reprising his role as Billy Tallent.
1165882	Monte Markham (born June 21, 1935) is an American actor. During his career, Markham has appeared in film, in television, and on Broadway. Life and career. Markham was born in Manatee County, Florida, the son of Millie Content (née Willbur) and Jesse Edward Markham, Sr., who was a merchant. Of his television roles, Markham is perhaps most famous for playing the role of racing-car-driver-turned-cyborg Barney Miller in the second-season episode of "The Six Million Dollar Man" entitled "The Seven Million Dollar Man," which first aired November 1, 1974. (Markham reprised the role—albeit with a character name change to Barney Hiller—in the third-season episode "The Bionic Criminal," which first aired just over a year later, on November 9, 1975.) He also played Rue McClanahan's gay brother Clayton on the NBC sitcom, "The Golden Girls", and the title character in "The New Perry Mason". Markham made his Broadway debut in 1973 in "Irene", for which he won the Theatre World Award. He also appeared on stage in "Same Time, Next Year". Markham's film work includes "Hour of the Gun", "Guns of the Magnificent Seven", "Midway" and "Airport 77". He has served as a consultant, director, producer, and narrator for A&E's "Classroom" and "The Great Ships" series. His most recent role is a role of doctor in upcoming American silent movie "Silent Life".
588429	Samsaram Adhu Minsaram () is a 1986 Tamil family drama film directed by Visu dealing about the day-to-day travesty and triumph in an ordinary joint family in Tamil Nadu. Starring Visu himself along with Lakshmi and Raghuvaran, the film released on 18 July 1986 and won the National Film Award for Best Popular Film Providing Wholesome Entertainment and Filmfare Best Film Award in 1987. The film is made in Hindi as "Sansar", in Telugu as "Samsaram Oka Chadarangam" and also in Malayalam as "Kudumbapuranam". Plot. The film opens into the life of Ammaiyappan Mudaliar (Visu), an ordinary middle-class man who makes a simple living as a Central Government clerk. His family, a typical South Indian joint family, includes his dutiful wife Godavari, his oldest son Chidambaram (Raghuvaran), a junior officer at Indian Oil, and his wife Uma (Lakshmi), his second son Siva (Chandrasekhar), a factory worker, his youngest son Bharathi (a never do good fellow who has failed his high school exams twice) and his daughter Sarojini (Ilavarasi). The modest income from his government job barely provides for his family's needs. His sons contribute some amounts in proportion to their incomes. The family gets by, but Ammaiyappan worries for the future. Siva and Sarojini are not yet married, and Bharathi has a bleak future if he does not graduate high school. Sarojini is a particular worry; her beauty and charm are matched by her arrogance and contempt. She summarily rejects any marriage proposal, and her obstinate demeanor causes great concern to Ammaiyappan. Ammaiyappan nonetheless plows on through life hoping for solutions to his difficulties. The community matchmaker brings Ammaiyappan a promising alliance. It is a good family. The groom is a junior officer at BHEL and his father owns a garment shop in the city. The meeting starts off well. But Sarojini, true to form, rejects the alliance and the groom's party abruptly leaves. Ammaiyappan visits them to apologize for the incident. The groom's father turns out to be an understanding and forward thinking man. Looking past Sarojini's immaturity and recognizing Ammaiyappan to be a good and honest man, he offers his daughter Vasantha as a prospective partner for Siva. He declares, as a veiled insult, that his obedient daughter Vasantha will accept his decision. Not outdone, Ammaiyappan quickly accepts with the claim that his son is similarly respectful of his wishes. When Ammaiyappan returns home, Sarojini informs him that she has found her own partner in Peter Fernandes, a Catholic colleague from her work place — an unthinkable notion for Ammaiyappan and Godavari. But when Ammaiyappan visits Peter's father Albert Fernandes, he is surprised. Albert Fernandes turns out to be compassionate, tolerant and accepting of Sarojini's belligerence. Ammaiyappan agrees to the alliance. Chidambaram remains opposed to Sarojini's choice, but nonetheless obtains a loan to finance her wedding. Sarojini and Peter are married, and Siva and Vasantha are married. After an initial period of honeymoon bliss, the troubles start again. Sarojini returns home late one evening after an office party. When Peter's father questions her, she brashly cites her independence and refuses to answer him. Peter tries to talk to her, but she adamantly turns him off too. After a big fight, she walks out. Back at Ammaiyappan's home, Vasantha is frustrated because her time is increasingly devoted to tutoring Bharathi (so he can clear his exams). She is unable to have any quiet time with Siva, and this is further complicated by the joint family arrangement where personal space is limited anyway. She ends up in a big fight with Siva, and she ultimately walks out. Vasantha returns to an unwelcome reception at her own home. Her father initially tries to reason with her, but when she remains indignant, he firmly instructs her to return to her husband and work out their problems. She finally understands the message and returns home. Siva, who had followed her, reinforces her father's message. However, he clearly prioritizes Bharathi's education over her need for quiet time. She accepts this as a temporary necessity, but remains unhappy nonetheless. There is an unintended side-effect in that Sarojini, having seen how Siva went to fetch his wife, reaffirms her stand to remain away from Peter until Peter crawls back to get her. There is a greater crisis when Chidambaram reduces his monthly contribution to the family fund. He cites reasons of reduced consumption (his wife is away at her parent's house due to pregnancy), excess burden (Sarojini, the troublemaker, has returned) and limited income (he has to plan for his own family). Ammaiyappan advises him that the fund is not designed as a mathematical fraction but rather as a communal fund to ensure the family runs smoothly. He reminds Chidambaram that he had spent the largest fractions of his income, without regard to return or reward, on Chidambaram's upbringing and education. Chidambaram disputes these claims. The argument erupts into a terrible fight. Ammaiyappan disowns Chidambaram and kicks him out. Chidambaram refuses to leave until his loans are paid off. Ammaiyappan orders a line to be drawn midway through the house. He banishes Chidambaram to one side of the line and forbids everyone from speaking to Chidambaram. Ammaiyappan declares that Chidambaram must leave when his loans have been repaid. When Uma returns with her new baby, she is shocked to find so many problems. She works with Kannamma (Manorama), the longtime household maid and Godavari (Ammaiyappan's wife) to fix these troubles and restore harmony. She starts by visiting Albert Fernandes. On her suggestion, Mr. Fernandes returns to Ammaiyappan's house and starts a loud squabble with Kannamma. Mr. Fernandes brings divorce papers. Sarojini is shaken. Kannamma and Godavari compel her, in the heat of the fight with Mr. Fernandes, to sign the papers. Mr. Fernandes completes the charade by handing her an invitation to Peter's upcoming wedding with another girl. Sarojini finally realizes the gravity of the situation. She returns to Peter and his father. They forgive her and warmly accept her again. Uma's second task is to reconcile Siva and Vasantha. She calls Siva at work and gently rebukes him for not attending to his wife's needs. Siva plans a vacation where he and Vasantha are able to revive their relationship, reaffirm their priorities and return to a new life together. Vasantha continues tutoring Bharathi. Bharathi finally passes his exams. Uma has mixed feelings: she is glad that the troubles have been resolved, but she is sad that Siva and Bharathi, still in compliance with Ammaiyappan's orders, have not spoken a word with her. Finally, Uma tackles the raging conflict between Chidambaram and Ammaiyappan. She scans his expenses and reminds him that costs are actually reduced when items are obtained in larger quantities. She also reminds him that Ammaiyappan does not charge rent. She also reminds him of his filial responsibilities. In the meantime, Kannamma reminds Ammaiyappan that his family is all he has, and that he should think of his children and grandchildren as his legacy and not his adversaries. Chidambaram and Ammaiyappan are finally reconciled. Uma makes her final move when Chidambaram is about to step across the line. She reminds everyone that what started as small arguments ended up as a huge conflict that nearly broke up the family. She suggests that it is best for her and Chidambaram to move out. The house is probably too cramped for two couples (in addition to Ammaiyappan and Godavari) to be comfortable. She promises to visit every weekend and spend time with the family. The film ends with Chidambaram and Uma making regular visits to see everyone.
1163375	Mariska Hargitay ( ; born Mariska Magdolna Hargitay; January 23, 1964) is an American actress, best known for her role as New York City sex crimes Detective Olivia Benson on the NBC television drama "", a role that has earned her multiple awards and nominations, including an Emmy and Golden Globe.
1163744	Joan Geraldine Bennett (February 27, 1910 – December 7, 1990) was an American stage, film and television actress. Besides acting on the stage, Bennett appeared in more than 70 motion pictures from the era of silent movies well into the sound era. She is possibly best-remembered for her film noir femme fatale roles in director Fritz Lang's movies such as "The Woman in the Window" (1944) and "Scarlet Street" (1945). Bennett had three distinct phases to her long and successful career, first as a winsome blonde ingenue, then as a sensuous brunette femme fatale (with looks that movie magazines often compared to those of Hedy Lamarr), and finally as a warmhearted wife/mother figure.
1062247	Orlando Jonathan Blanchard Bloom (born 13 January 1977) is an English actor. He had his break-through roles in 2001 as the elf-prince Legolas in "The Lord of the Rings" and in 2003 as blacksmith Will Turner in the "Pirates of the Caribbean" film series. He subsequently established himself as a lead in Hollywood films, including "Elizabethtown" and "Kingdom of Heaven". He appeared in the ensemble films "Troy"; "New York, I Love You"; "Sympathy for Delicious"; and "Main Street". Bloom made his professional stage debut in West End's "In Celebration" at the Duke of York's Theatre, St. Martin's Lane, which ended its run on 15 September 2007. On 12 October 2009, Bloom was named a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador. Bloom is married to Australian model Miranda Kerr. Early life. Orlando Bloom was born in Canterbury, Kent, England, and has one sister, Samantha Bloom, who was born in 1975. His mother, Sonia Constance Josephine (née Copeland), was born in the British section of Kolkata, India, the daughter of Betty Constance Josephine (Walker) and Francis John Copeland, who was a physician and surgeon. Through her, Bloom is a cousin of photographer Sebastian Copeland. Bloom's maternal grandmother's family lived in Tasmania, Australia, Japan, and India, and were of English descent, some of them having originally come from Kent. During his childhood, Bloom was told that his father was his mother's husband, Jewish South African-born anti-Apartheid novelist Harry Saul Bloom; however, when he was thirteen (nine years after Harry's death), Bloom's mother revealed to him that his biological father was actually Colin Stone, his mother's partner and family friend. Stone, the principal of the Concorde International language school, was made Orlando Bloom's legal guardian after Harry Bloom's death. Bloom is named after the 16th century composer Orlando Gibbons. Bloom was raised in the Church of England. He attended The King's School Canterbury and St Edmund's School in Canterbury, and is dyslexic. He was encouraged by his mother to take art and drama classes. In 1993, he moved to London to follow a two year A Level course in Drama, Photography and Sculpture at Fine Arts College, Hampstead. He then joined the National Isa Youth Theatre, spending two seasons there and earning a scholarship to train at the British American Drama Academy. Bloom began acting professionally with television roles in episodes of "Casualty" and "Midsomer Murders", and subsequently made his film debut in "Wilde" (1997), opposite Stephen Fry, before entering the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London, where he studied acting. Career. Bloom's first appearance on the screen was in a small part, as a rent boy, in the 1997 film "Wilde". Two days after graduating from Guildhall in 1999, he was cast in his first major role, playing Legolas in "The Lord of the Rings" film trilogy (2001–2003). He had originally auditioned for the part of Faramir, who does not appear until the second movie, but the director, Peter Jackson, cast him as Legolas instead. While shooting a scene, he broke a rib after falling off a horse, but eventually recovered and continued shooting. At the same time, Bloom also played a brief role in the war film "Black Hawk Down" as PFC. Todd Blackburn. In 2002, he was chosen as one of the "Teen People" "25 Hottest Stars Under 25" and was named "People"'s hottest Hollywood bachelor in the magazine's 2004 list. All members of the cast of the Rings films were nominated for Best Ensemble Acting at the Screen Actors Guild Awards for three years in a row, finally winning in 2003 for the third film, . Bloom has also won other awards, including European Film Awards, Hollywood Festival Award, Empire Awards and Teen Choice Awards, and has been nominated for many others. Most of Bloom's box office successes have been as part of an ensemble cast. Bloom next starred opposite Keira Knightley and Johnny Depp in ', which was a blockbuster hit during the summer of 2003. After the success of "Pirates", Bloom next took to the screen as Paris, the man who effectively started the Trojan War, in the 2004 Spring blockbuster, "Troy" opposite Brad Pitt, Eric Bana and Peter O'Toole. He subsequently played the lead roles in "Kingdom of Heaven" and "Elizabethtown" (both 2005). In 2006, Bloom starred in sequel ' and in the independently made "Haven", of which he was also executive producer. In the same year he was one of the guest stars in the sitcom "Extras", in which he portrayed an exaggeratedly arrogant, narcissistic version of himself who had a great loathing for Johnny Depp (his co-star in "Pirates of the Caribbean"); Bloom pushed for "Extras" to go further by making his part unlikeable, and contributed to the gag about him admiring Depp out of sheer jealously, that Depp was far more talented than he was, not to mention rated higher than him on the 'top hottest' charts. Also in 2006, Bloom was the most searched male on Google News. As of May 2007, Bloom has appeared in four of the top 15 highest grossing films of all time. Bloom then again portrayed Will Turner in "", released on 24 May 2007. Bloom, who had intended to become a stage actor after graduating from the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, had stated that he would like to leave films for a time and instead appear in stage roles, and is "avidly looking for the right sort of material that can do something with" and go "back to basics". During the summer of 2007, he appeared in a London revival of "In Celebration", a play by David Storey. His character was one of three brothers returning home for their parents' 40th wedding anniversary. On 24 August 2007, he made his first ever TV commercial appearance on late-night Japanese TV, promoting the Uno brand of cosmetics maker Shiseido. A "one night only", 2-minute version of the Sci-Fi themed commercial kicked off the product's marketing campaign. In 2008 he signed on to play a small role in the British film "An Education" but dropped out to take the lead in Johnny To's film "Red Circle". Also in 2009, he was one of many stars to appear in "New York, I Love You", which contained twelve short films in one. His most recent film role is in "The Three Musketeers" opposite Milla Jovovich, Logan Lerman, Matthew Macfadyen, Ray Stevenson, Luke Evans, Juno Temple and Christoph Waltz, released in 2011. In October 2011, Orlando Bloom stated that he would like to return for a fifth Pirates of the Caribbean film if he was offered. Bloom will reprise his role as Legolas in "The Hobbit", Peter Jackson's three-part prequel to "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy. Bloom will make his Broadway stage debut in "Romeo and Juliet" this August at the Richard Rodgers Theatre. Personal life. Relationships. Bloom met American actress Kate Bosworth outside a coffee shop in 2002, where he was introduced to her by a mutual friend. He met her again at the premiere of "The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers" later that year. The two had an "on-and-off relationship" from 2002 until splitting up in September 2006. In late 2007, Bloom began dating Australian model Miranda Kerr. The couple's engagement was announced on 21 June 2010. Kerr released a statement on 22 July 2010 announcing that she and Bloom had married in "an intimate ceremony." On 19 August 2010, Kerr announced that she was four months pregnant with the couple's first baby, later revealed to be a boy. Their son Flynn Christopher Blanchard Copeland Bloom was born on 6 January 2011 in Los Angeles. Other interests. Bloom has said that he tries "not to exclude from real life as much as possible". During filming in Morocco for "Kingdom of Heaven", Bloom rescued and adopted a dog, Sidi (a black Saluki mix with a white mark on his chest). Bloom is a practicing Buddhist. In 2004, he became a full member of Soka Gakkai International, a lay Buddhist association affiliated with the teachings of Nichiren. Bloom has also been a part of Global Green, an environmental company, since the early 2000s. As part of his environmental involvement, he has renovated his London home to use solar panels, incorporate recycled materials, and utilise energy efficient lightbulbs. Bloom has been approached by UNICEF to act as an international ambassador. Bloom has a tattoo of the English word "nine" on his right wrist, written in letters of the fictional Tengwar Elvish script, a reference to his involvement in the "Lord of the Rings" and the fact that his character was one of the nine members of the Fellowship of the Ring. The other actors of "The Fellowship" (Sean Astin, Sean Bean, Billy Boyd, Ian McKellen, Dominic Monaghan, Viggo Mortensen, and Elijah Wood) got the same tattoo with the exception of John Rhys-Davies whose stunt double got the tattoo instead. Bloom also has a tattoo of a sun on his lower, left abdomen, which he got at the age of 15 just before moving to London. Bloom has sustained several injuries: he broke his left arm and cracked his skull three times, broke his nose while playing rugby union, broke his right leg skiing in Switzerland, broke his left leg in a motorbike crash, broke his right wrist while snowboarding. He also broke his back when he slipped trying to reach a roof terrace of a friend's house and fell three floors. He also broke some ribs while shooting The Lord of the Rings. On 15 November 2008, Bloom participated in a test drive in Moscow celebrating the 60th anniversary of Land Rover. On 12 February 2009, Bloom actively participated in the 'Australia Unites' fundraiser to raise support for the victims of the Australian bushfires on 7 February 2009. On 13 July 2009, four hooded teenagers broke into the Hollywood Hills home of Orlando Bloom and stole nearly half a million dollars worth of possessions. The burglars, dubbed the "Bling Ring", targeted the homes of young celebrities. Most of Bloom's stolen items have been retrieved. On 12 October 2009, Bloom was named a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador. He has been involved in the organisation since 2007 and has visited schools and villages in Nepal in support of sanitation and education programmes. Accolades. On 13 July 2010, Bloom was presented with an Honorary Degree from the University of Kent at Canterbury Cathedral.
220629	Sick Girl is a 2007 American independent horror film written and directed by Eben McGarr. Plot. "Sick Girl" is the story of Izzy Shea (Leslie Andrews), a girl who wants to protect her younger brother, have sex with her older brother and torture everyone else out in the barn. Izzy is raising her younger brother, Kevin, by herself. Their parents are deceased and her older brother, Rusty, is away in the Marines. When Izzy learns that her little brother is being bullied at school, she does what any unstable, psychopathic, homicidal sister would do. The movie starts out with Izzy waiting for the school bus. In the back are two popular girls who make several snide remarks about her. One of the girl's boyfriend is following the bus route in his car with his friend. The girls drop a pair of panties out the window, and if her boyfriend finds them, he'll be rewarded. After Izzy attacks one of the nuns on the bus for seemingly no reason, she's kicked off and begins to walk back along the road. She runs into the two boys, and lures the friend out of the car. She kills him, and the other boy quickly discovers the scene. Izzy chases him across a field and tackles him. The scene ends, and now we see Izzy cleaning herself up in a bathroom. She is covered in blood and is completely unfazed by this. Clips are shown of Izzy finding a gun in the boys' car, and her holding the school bus hostage, seemingly killing everyone. She chases the two popular girls off the bus, and with the gun and a can of gasoline, she quickly catches one of the girls. The other watches in horror as Izzy kills her friend. Izzy returns home, and we see a flashback sequence of Rusty training Izzy how to fight in their garage. The two share a moment of sibling fondness, but it is cut short by the arrival of Rusty's girlfriend. The flashback sequence ends, and Izzy finds their family friend, Barnie, teaching Kevin how to throw a punch. Izzy soon learns the motives behind the lesson: Barn saw some school bullies hassling Kevin after school. Izzy decides she'll try to help defend her brother, but Kevin brushes her off, saying he can handle it himself. He then asks why Rusty hasn't called, pointing out that another kid's father is stationed where Rusty is, and he calls all the time. Izzy gets really mad and screams at Kevin, saying that Rusty is the greatest Marine to ever live. Kevin is shocked by her reaction, but quickly recovers. With another flashback, we see Rusty informing Izzy he's joining the Marines, leaving her to watch Kevin. Izzy kisses him, and Rusty walks away, shocked. Back in present times, she opens the trunk of the car she stole from the two boys. In the back are the boyfriend and the other school girl. Both are bound and gagged (and the girl with her panties that she had dropped from the bus), but the boy looks unconscious or dead. The girl begs for release, but Izzy only taunts her, showing no remorse. Kevin and Barn talk in a restaurant, and Kevin reveals that his teacher's rat, Edward, has gone missing. The teacher asks his students to please return the rat, no questions asked. After school, Tommy—the bully—and his two minions corner Kevin. They have been starving Edward, and plan on letting Edward feed on Kevin—whether their motives are real or not is interrupted by Izzy. The three bullies run off, and Izzy promises to take Edward back to the teacher. Kevin thanks her, and hurries off to his ride home with Barn. Izzy does not return the rat, but goes to the teacher anyway. There, she threatens him, saying that he better take better care of Kevin than he did the rat. As one of Tommy's friends is walking home, Izzy drives up alongside him and begins to question him. It is revealed that Tommy is in the trunk of the car, and Izzy kidnaps Rudi after her interrogation. The other friend, Corey, is kidnapped by Izzy from his house, and the three are taken to the shore of a nearby lake. She torments Tommy, saying that he'll only beat up those who are weaker than he is, which is only okay if you also take on things bigger than you. That being said, Tommy drowns Rudi in the lake after Izzy's encouragement. After Rudi dies, Tommy is then told to kill Corey by slitting his throat. Corey protests, and Tommy stabs him in the back. Izzy is holding her three hostages—the school girl and her boyfriend, and Tommy—in the barn, as well as Edward the rat. After toying with them a little, Izzy puts a sack over Tommy’s head, knocks him out with a shovel, and lets Edward feast on him. Later, she leaves Edward on the teacher’s porch. Because Kevin has a passion for Bonsai trees, Izzy breaks several of Tommy’s limbs with a hammer, and using Christmas lights, ties him up in a gruesome fashion. Kevin, Barnie, and Izzy open their Christmas presents. Kevin opens a package from Izzy and finds the gun that she had stolen from the two boys. Barnie thinks it’s fake, but Izzy tells him it’s real. Barnie questions her motives, angry that she’d give a young kid such a gift. On the evening news, Izzy discovers that the police think that the boyfriend, Michael, along with the other schoolgirl, were involved in the ‘school bus massacre’, and the disappearance of the school bullies. The police disclose information about the last sightings of them, which includes a description of Michael’s car. Izzy burns it, and as she walks back along the road, and a guy driving by gives her a lift. Izzy remains wary of him, but he doesn’t try to harm her. The subject of family comes up, and Izzy tells him she’s already married—to a Marine—and has one child, but wants another one when her husband returns from the war. Back at home, Izzy is tormented by a flashback of Rusty just before he left kissing his girlfriend goodbye. The flashback enrages her, and she quickly goes to the girlfriend’s house and suffocates her. The following morning, Izzy goes to the barn to her two remaining hostages. She cuts off the penis of Michael, and puts together a makeshift strap-on with a large spike attached to a piece of wood. Meanwhile, Barnie and Kevin return home from grocery shopping. As Izzy begins to rape Stephanie with the strap-on, Barnie enters the barn, and is shocked to find Izzy’s sick experiments. She impales him with an axe, and as Barnie falls to the ground, Kevin is revealed standing behind him, and he too sees the torture. He runs inside the house, and Izzy follows him. She tries to calm him, but he takes the gun and shoots himself in the head before her eyes. She becomes hysterical, and burns down the barn. In a flashback to an undetermined previous time, two Marines go to her house. Although there is no sound in this scene, it’s obvious they are there to tell her that Rusty died in the war. She lashes out at them, and the movie ends. Soundtrack. "Family Tree" by Dennis Versteeg and Aaron Moreland
583432	Akayla () is a 1991 Bollywood film directed by Ramesh Sippy and produced by the Mushir - Riaz duo. It was the fourth film collaboration of Ramesh Sippy and Amitabh Bachchan after "Sholay" (1975), "Shaan" (1980) and "Shakti" (1982). Although their previous films were successful at the box office, "Akayla" did not do as well as expected.[http://www.boxofficeindia.com/1991.htm] The story was written by Salim Khan. The film had the famous fictional "Ram Pyari" car, originally a customized Volkswagen Beetle. Synopsis. Inspector Vijay Verma (Amitabh Bachchan) is a very lonely cop whose only family is a younger brother Ajay Verma (Aditya Pancholi) who is studying abroad. He also has two good friends Shekhar (Jackie Shroff) and Seema (Meenakshi Seshadri). One day when he arrests the criminal mastermind Tony Briganza (Keith Stevenson), he is shocked when Tony is released from police custody because his corrupt lawyer shows the court a videotape showing him at a completely different place so therefore he couldn't have committed the crime. From this day on they become enemies and Vijay is hot on Tony's trail every time he commits a crime.
1059795	Lauren Michael Holly (born October 28, 1963) is an American-born Canadian actress. She is known for her roles as Deputy Sheriff Maxine Stewart in the TV series "Picket Fences", as Mary Swanson in the 1994 film "Dumb & Dumber", and as Jenny Shepard on the TV series "NCIS". She was married to comic actor Jim Carrey from 1996 to 1997. Personal life. Holly was born in Bristol, Pennsylvania. Her mother, Michael Ann Holly, is an art historian and the Starr Director of Research and Academic Program at The Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, and former professor at Hobart and William Smith Colleges. Her father, Grant Holly, is a screenwriter and professor of literature at Hobart and William Smith Colleges. She has two younger brothers: Nick and Alexander Innes Holly (1978-1992). Holly was raised in Geneva, New York, and is a 1981 graduate of Geneva High School, where she was a cheerleader. In 1985, Holly earned an undergraduate degree in English from Sarah Lawrence College in New York. Holly, who now lives primarily in Canada with her husband and their three children, became a Canadian citizen in 2008. In 1992, Holly, her father Grant, and their families established the 'A' Fund at Hobart and William Smith Colleges in memory of her brother, Alexander Holly, whom Holly said "was a boy filled with dreams, hopes, and plans. Although he was only fourteen when he died, he had traveled extensively in Europe and Central America, lived in New York City and Los Angeles, and these experiences produced in him a fascination for architecture and archaeology." Career. Her acting career began at the age of 20 when she appeared in "Hill Street Blues" as Carla Walicki for two episodes. At age 23, Holly joined the cast of the ABC television soap opera "All My Children" as Julie Rand Chandler (1986–1989). She portrayed the comic book character Betty on television's "Archie: To Riverdale and Back Again" in 1990. She appeared as Mary Swanson, Lloyd Christmas's love interest in the 1994 Jim Carrey comedy "Dumb & Dumber". She portrayed Linda Lee Cadwell, the wife of martial artist and actor Bruce Lee, in 1993's ""; a doctor in Sydney Pollack's 1995 remake of "Sabrina"; and Lieutenant Emily Lake in the 1996 comedy "Down Periscope" with Kelsey Grammer. She starred in the movie "Any Given Sunday" (1999) along with Jamie Foxx and Dennis Quaid. She appeared in the music video for Dixie Chicks' single "Goodbye Earl" (2000), along with Jane Krakowski, Dennis Franz, Adrian Pasdar, Michael DeLuise and Evan Bernard. Holly starred as small-town Deputy Sheriff Maxine Stewart in David E. Kelley's TV series "Picket Fences" (1992–1996). She was a member of the cast of "NCIS" as Director Jenny Shepard from 2005–2008, reuniting with her former "Chicago Hope" co-stars Mark Harmon and Rocky Carroll.
327403	Brian Baumgartner (born November 29, 1972) is an Emmy Award-winning American film and television actor who played Kevin Malone in "The Office". Biography. Born in Atlanta, Georgia, Baumgartner attended Holy Innocents' Episcopal School, he attended and graduated high school at The Westminster Schools (before future "Office" co-star Ed Helms in 1992). He then attended SMU before moving to Los Angeles and served as Artistic Director of Hidden Theatre in Minneapolis, Minnesota, where he received multiple awards for artistic and acting excellence. In addition, Baumgartner performed regionally at the Guthrie Theater, Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Children's Theater Company, and Theatre de la Jeune Lune. Baumgartner studied acting at the Meadows School of the Arts at Southern Methodist University. His television roles are in "Jake in Progress", "Arrested Development" and "Everwood". He also acted as a talent scout on "Last Comic Standing" with his "Office" co-star Kate Flannery. He appears in the romantic comedy feature film "License to Wed" opposite Robin Williams, Mandy Moore, and "Office" co-star John Krasinski. In June 2007, Baumgartner won a Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Broadband Program - Comedy, for his work on "" webisodes. His co-stars Angela Kinsey and Oscar Nunez also shared the award. He was also featured in NBA 2K13 on the all star celebrity team.
1059150	"What's the Worst That Could Happen?" is a 2001 American comedy film directed by Sam Weisman and starring Martin Lawrence and Danny DeVito. Loosely based on the book of the same name by Donald E. Westlake, the film's supporting cast includes John Leguizamo, Bernie Mac, Larry Miller, Nora Dunn, GQ, and William Fichtner. The film was released in June 2001 and was a commercial and critical failure, only grossing $30 million at the North American box office from a budget of $45 million. Plot. Kevin Caffrey, a thief and connoisseur is at a local auction looking for things worth stealing. He meets Amber Belhaven who is auctioning off her father's painting to pay a hotel bill. When Kevin asks Amber about her hotel room which leads to Amber asking if he was trying to sleep with her, Kevin blinks rapidly and lies while also telling her that when he blinks he lies. When Kevin asks Amber if he could see her sometime Amber pretends to have the same thing Kevin has and says yes. While knowing what hotel she was staying in, he shows up to her room with the painting she auctioned off, having stolen it. Kevin tells Amber about his stealing business which shocks Amber at first but she accepts it in order to be with Kevin, and she later gives Kevin her father's lucky ring. Elsewhere, Max Fairbanks, a snarky businessman whose company, TUI, is going into bankruptcy, is going over with his lawyer Walter Greenbaum on how to save his company. He tells his wife Lutetia Fairbanks that his company is in a technical procedure to disguise what his company is really going into. Kevin goes to a local bar in which his Uncle Jack owns to see Amber. Whilst inside he also runs into his friend Berger, who is also a thief and happens to know what places to hit. While having Kevin going outside to tell him about Max Fairbanks, he shows him an article about Max's current situation with his company, as well as what he couldn't access due to the critical condition of the chapter 11 bankruptcy code which includes going into his Beachfront mansion. Kevin & Berger goes to the house to rob it, but Max captures Kevin. Before the cops take Kevin away, Max spots Amber's ring and tells the cops that the ring was also stolen. Kevin is forced to hand over the ring. After escaping from the cops, Kevin returns to the beach house to get his ring back from Max but fails to find him. Kevin, angry at Max finishes off what he started by robbing Max of the valuables inside the house and one of Max's three cars outside. Kevin tells Amber that the ring was stolen from him. Kevin and Berger hire Shelly Nix, a computer hacker, to track Max's whereabouts by e-mails. During an airplane flight, Max talks to his associate Gloria, a psychic, about the ring. Gloria consults her cards, and draws a king with 5 daggers on his head. Shocked at the result, Gloria doesn't tell Max what she drew and pretends that she breaking up. Max meets a judge that he thought he paid off to keep his house, but his insults lead to the judge ordering him to sell his house & his contents at a public auction. Upon knowing Max's plan to go to a cocktail party and then head to his beachhouse for one final visit, Kevin and Berger with the help of his partners Windham and Edwina rob Max's house. The next morning Max found out that his house have been robbed and meets with Detective Alex Tardio of the Robbery Division. Having enough of Kevin stealing from him, he calls his Head of Security, Earl Redburn. Kevin finds out from Shelly that Max is going to Washington for a Senate hearing and has an apartment there. Kevin and Berger go to Washington to Max's apartment. There, Kevin learns that Max intends to secretly bribe the senators, and replaces the bribe money with insulting notes in Max's name. Max and Earl later storm into the apartment, having deduced Kevin's presence there. In the ensuing scuffle, Kevin tries to steal back the ring, but instead steals Max's wedding ring. Amber decides that Kevin's feud with Max has gone too far and no longer cares about the ring. While Max later addresses the Senate Committee he gets a call from Kevin who tells him that if Max will give him his ring back he will give him back his. Max refuses and proceeds to repeatedly curse at Kevin. To the senators, and other viewers, it appears he is speaking to them, with the result being that the hearing ends very badly for Max. While going back to his apartment back in Philadelphia, Walter quits being his Lawyer and Earl tells him that he was hacked, Max tells Earl his plan to get Kevin once and for all. Kevin goes to Jack to find out where Amber is, Jack tells Kevin to stop robbing Max out of personal conflict and to forget about the ring. But when Berger tells Kevin about Max's bankruptcy auction and for how much his auction full of valuables is worth, Jack wants in on it too. Max gets a call from Lutetia about Max's behavior on TV, and tells him not to come home, while Amber breaks up with Kevin due to his obsession with Max and the ring. Lutetia finds Amber at Jack's bar wearing a jacket of hers that Kevin stole from their house and confronts her, Amber tells her that Max stole the ring she gave to Kevin. Knowing that they now have the same situation, they come up with a plan. Gloria, who is thinking about Max still draws the same card and decides to come clean. Noticing how bad it is, she tells him to put an end to it but Max still refuses to give up Kevin's ring. Realizing Max's arrogant determination to keep the ring, she quits being his associate, and goes to Tardio to give him Max's Company's records. At the bankruptcy auction, Lutetia tells Max that she wishes him well and sends him a masseuse. While Earl keeps looking out for Kevin through his monitors, Berger, Jack, Windham, and Edwina start the plan. Edwina and Windham are disguised as waiters, Berger is disguised as the auctioneer while Jack is his associate, and Shelly hacks into Max's security system. The crooks steal as much as they can, and later flee. Windham plants smoke bombs to cloud their escape and calls the fire brigade. At 2:00 Shelly plants a video of Kevin delivering a message to Max that he was being robbed without him being there on Earl's monitors. Max, angry and enraged goes out into the smoke to find Kevin, but a firefighter, actually Kevin in disguise, drags him out of the smoke, stealing the ring in the process. Kevin steals Max's boat to escape, but Max jumps onto the boat and struggles with Kevin to get back the ring. While hitting a buoy causing the boat to sink, Kevin and Max find out that the ring is a fake, the ring having an inscription inside it that said: "Grow up." a message that they both got from their lovers. Max realises that Lutetia had got the masseuse to steal the ring during his massage. When Tardio finds Max and Kevin, Kevin tells Tardio that he was saving Max, while Max tells Tardio that he never met Kevin. Kevin thanks Max and tells him that he owes him one. While going back to the hotel where Amber used to be before she moved in with Kevin, she shows him the ring revealing that she was the masseuse. She tells Kevin that the ring had bad luck and that he should throw it away. Kevin agrees and flings the ring out of sight and gets back together with Amber. Max and Kevin, who is pretending to be his lawyer, fixes the Senate hearing and went into the press conference victorious. When it is over Max and Kevin part ways, but as they do so, Kevin steals Max's watch. Soundtrack. A soundtrack containing hip hop and R&B music was released on May 21, 2001 by Interscope Records. It peaked at 38 on the Billboard 200 and 6 on the Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums. Marc Shaiman, who wrote the score, told "Playbill" magazine that the "worst job" he ever had was "scoring a hideous movie called "What's the Worst That Could Happen?" I'm not kidding."
1061074	Margaret Ruth "Margot" Kidder (born October 17, 1948) is a Canadian-American actress. She appeared in a wide range of films during the 1970s and 1980s such as "Sisters", "Black Christmas", "The Great Waldo Pepper", "The Amityville Horror" and "Heartaches". She is best known for her role as Lois Lane in four "Superman" movies opposite Christopher Reeve, beginning with "Superman" in 1978. Early life. Kidder, one of five children, was born in Yellowknife, Northwest Territories, Canada, the daughter of Jocelyn Mary "Jill" (née Wilson), a history teacher, and Kendall Kidder, an explosives expert and mining engineer. Her mother was from British Columbia and her father was from New Mexico, United States. She was born in Yellowknife because of her father's job, which required the family to live in remote locations. She has a sister, Annie, and three brothers, John, Michael and Peter. Kidder's niece, Janet Kidder, is also an actress.
1044840	Sir Ralph David Richardson, Kt (19 December 1902 – 10 October 1983) was an English actor, one of a group of theatrical knights of the mid-20th century who, though more closely associated with the stage, also appeared in several classic films. Richardson first became known for his work on stage in the 1930s. In the 1940s, together with Laurence Olivier, he ran the Old Vic Company. He continued on stage and in films into the early 1980s and was especially praised for his comedic roles. In his later years he was celebrated for his theatre work with his old friend John Gielgud. Among his most famous roles were Peer Gynt, Falstaff, John Gabriel Borkman and Hirst in Pinter's "No Man's Land". Early life. Richardson was born in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, England, the third son and youngest child of Arthur Richardson, a master at the Ladies' College, and his wife Lydia (née Russell). When he was a baby, his mother left his father and took him with her to Gloucester, where he was brought up in the Roman Catholic faith of his mother (his father and brothers were Quakers). His father supported them with a small allowance. Lydia Richardson wished Ralph to become a priest. He was an altar boy in Brighton, and was sent to the Xavierian College, but he ran away from it. Stage career. Early days. After working as an office boy for an insurance company, and later studying art, Richardson opted for a theatrical career. Aided by a small legacy from his grandmother, he paid a local theatrical manager ten shillings (50p) a week to be taught about acting. He toured with Charles Doran's company for five seasons, gradually being promoted to larger parts including Macduff in "Macbeth" and Mark Antony in "Julius Caesar". In 1925 he joined Sir Barry Jackson's Birmingham Repertory Company, where many eminent British actors, from Edith Evans and Cedric Hardwicke to Derek Jacobi, learned their craft, and Richardson under the veteran taskmaster H.K. Ayliff "absorbed the influence of older contemporaries like Gerald du Maurier, Charles Hawtrey and Mrs. Patrick Campbell." Richardson made his London début in July 1926 as the stranger in "Oedipus at Colonus" at a small theatre, followed by his West End début as Arthur Varwell in "Yellow Sands" which ran for 610 performances and from then to 1929 played in supporting roles in London productions. After touring in South Africa in 1929, he played two seasons at the Old Vic and two seasons at the Malvern summer theatre. His Old Vic roles included Caliban to the Prospero of John Gielgud, and Prince Hal to Gielgud's Hotspur, beginning a professional association and friendship that lasted for five decades. Richardson's other parts in the Old Vic seasons included Enobarbus in "Antony and Cleopatra," Toby Belch in "Twelfth Night," Bottom in "A Midsummer Night's Dream", Petruchio in "The Taming of the Shrew", Henry V, Brutus in "Julius Caesar", and Iago in "Othello". At Malvern in 1932, he played Face in Ben Jonson's "The Alchemist". In 1933 he played the title role in W. Somerset Maugham's final play "Sheppey" at Wyndham's Theatre. He became an undisputed West End star as Clitterhouse in Barré Lyndon's comedy melodrama, "The Amazing Dr. Clitterhouse" which ran for 492 performances from August 1936, and most of all as Johnson in J.B. Priestley's "Johnson Over Jordan" directed by Basil Dean, with music by Benjamin Britten. Richardson was engaged to play the role of Mercutio, replacing Orson Welles, in the 1934 Broadway production of Romeo and Juliet. This production was produced and directed by the husband and wife team of Katharine Cornell and Guthrie McClintic. The Old Vic. During World War II he served in the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve, where he rose to the rank of Lieutenant-Commander despite being nicknamed "Pranger" Richardson "on account of the large number of planes which seemed to fall to pieces under his control". Richardson and Laurence Olivier were released from the armed forces in 1944 to run the Old Vic Company as a triumvirate with the stage director John Burrell. The Old Vic theatre was out of use because of bomb damage, and the company moved to the New Theatre in St. Martin's Lane. During this period, Richardson gave some of his most noted performances, including not only "the definitive Falstaff and Peer Gynt of the century" but also Bluntschli in "Arms and the Man", the title roles in "Cyrano de Bergerac" and "Uncle Vanya" and Inspector Goole in "An Inspector Calls". He also directed Alec Guinness as "Richard II," taking on the role of John of Gaunt in the production when the Old Vic governors insisted that either Richardson or Olivier must act in every production. In 1945 Richardson and Olivier led the company in a tour of Germany, where they were seen by many thousands of servicemen; they also appeared at the Comédie Française in Paris. The triumphs of Richardson and Olivier (the latter famously as Richard III and Oedipus), described by "The Times" as the greatest in the Old Vic's history and by Kenneth Tynan as "matchless", led the governors of the Old Vic to fear that the two stars overshadowed the company. As "The Guardian" put it, the governors "summarily sacked the pair in the interests of a more... mediocre company spirit." Later years. After leaving the Old Vic, Richardson appeared in the West End as Dr Sloper in a Henry James adaptation, "The Heiress", in 1949; David Preston in "Home at Seven", in 1950; and Vershinin in "Three Sisters" in 1951. In 1952 he appeared at the Stratford-upon-Avon Festival at the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre (forerunner of the Royal Shakespeare Company) but had mixed reviews: his Prospero in '"The Tempest" was judged too prosaic, and his Macbeth, directed by Gielgud, was thought unconvincingly villainous ("Richardson's playing of Macbeth suggests a fatal disparity between his temperament and the part"). Tynan professed himself "unmoved to the point of paralysis," though blaming Gielgud more than Richardson. Richardson's third Stratford role in the season, Volpone in Ben Jonson's play, received much better, but not ecstatic, notices. Back in the West End, Richardson starred in "The White Carnation" by R.C. Sherriff in 1953, and in November of the same year he and Gielgud starred together in N.C. Hunter's "A Day by the Sea". In 1954 he toured Australia in a company which included his wife, Meriel Forbes, together with Sybil Thorndike and her husband, Lewis Casson, playing Terence Rattigan's plays "The Sleeping Prince" and "Separate Tables". Richardson turned down the role of Estragon in Peter Hall's premiere of the English language version of "Waiting for Godot" and later reproached himself for missing the chance to be in "the greatest play of my generation". Richardson's "Timon of Athens" in his 1956 return to the Old Vic was well received, as was his Broadway appearance in "The Waltz of the Toreadors" for which he was nominated for a Tony Award in 1957. In the 1960s, Richardson appeared successfully as Sir Peter Teazle in Gielgud's production of "The School for Scandal", as the Father in "Six Characters in Search of an Author" (1963), a return to Bottom in "A Midsummer Night's Dream" (1964) and the original production of Joe Orton's controversial farce "What the Butler Saw" in the West End at the Queen's Theatre in 1969 with Stanley Baxter, Coral Browne and Hayward Morse. In the 1970s, he appeared in the West End (for example in William Douglas-Home's play "Lloyd George Knew My Father", with Peggy Ashcroft), and with the National Theatre under Peter Hall's direction, where among the classics he played Firs in "The Cherry Orchard" and the title role in Ibsen's "John Gabriel Borkman", with Wendy Hiller and Peggy Ashcroft. He continued his long stage association with John Gielgud, appearing together in two new works, David Storey's "Home" and Harold Pinter's "No Man's Land". His last appearance was at the National in the lead role in Eduardo De Filippo's "Inner Voices" in June 1983, in which both "Punch" and "the New York Times" found his performance "mesmerising". After his brief illness and subsequent death his part was taken over by Robert Stephens. Radio, television and film. In 1954 and 1955 Richardson played Dr. Watson in an American/BBC radio co-production of Sherlock Holmes stories, with Gielgud as Holmes and Orson Welles as the villainous Professor Moriarty. In the 1960s Richardson played Lord Emsworth on BBC television in dramatisations of P.G. Wodehouse's Blandings Castle stories, with his real-life wife Meriel Forbes playing his domineering sister Connie, and his friend Stanley Holloway as his butler Beach. He was the voice of the famous general Haig in The Great War in 1964 a BBC Series on the 1st World War. In totally different vein, he appeared in the 1981 Morecambe and Wise Christmas Show, having been offered the part of Benjamin Disraeli in a play ""what Ernie Wise had written"". Richardson's film appearances include "Things to Come" (1936), "The Citadel" (1938), "The Fallen Idol" (1948), "The Heiress" (1949; his first nomination for an Academy Award), "Richard III" (1955; playing Buckingham to Olivier's Richard), "Our Man in Havana" (1959; with Alec Guinness and Noël Coward), "Long Day's Journey Into Night" (1962; with Katharine Hepburn, Jason Robards, Jr., and Dean Stockwell), "Doctor Zhivago" (1965), and "Oh! What a Lovely War" (1969). He portrayed Simeon in "Jesus of Nazareth" (1977). In 1981, he portrayed the Supreme Being in a cameo appearance near the end of the Terry Gilliam film "Time Bandits". Also that same year, he appeared as Ulrich of Craggenmoor, the aging sorcerer who takes on an ancient dragon in the fantasy epic "Dragonslayer". He played the barrister Sir Wilfrid Robarts in the television adaptation of the Agatha Christie play, "Witness for the Prosecution", starring alongside a young Beau Bridges. Richardson played the sixth Earl of Greystoke in the 1984 film "", for which he was again nominated for an Academy Award. His last film appearance was in "Give My Regards to Broad Street" (1984), starring Paul McCartney. In 1939 British exhibitors voted him the 9th most popular local star at the box office. Recordings. Richardson made several spoken word recordings for the Caedmon Audio label in the 1960s. He re-created his role as "Cyrano de Bergerac" opposite Anna Massey as Roxane, and played the title role in a complete recording of Shakespeare's "Julius Caesar", with a cast that included Anthony Quayle as Brutus, John Mills as Cassius and Alan Bates as Antony. Richardson also recorded some English Romantic poetry, such as "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner", for the label. Richardson recorded the narration for Prokofiev's "Peter and the Wolf", and the superscriptions for Vaughan Williams' "Sinfonia antartica" - both with the London Symphony Orchestra, the Prokofiev conducted by Sir Malcolm Sargent and the Vaughan Williams by André Previn. Personal life. In September 1924, Richardson married the 17-year-old student actress Muriel ("Kit") Hewitt (1907–1942); the marriage was childless but devoted. Kit contracted sleeping sickness ("encephalitis lethargica") and died in 1942 after a long illness. In 1944 Richardson married the actress Meriel ("Mu") Forbes, a member of the theatrical Forbes-Robertson family. They had one son, Charles David (1945–1998). Richardson died of a stroke, aged 80, and was interred at Highgate Cemetery, London. Criticism and awards. Critical opinion. In his early days at the Old Vic, Richardson was the target of the sometimes waspish reviews of leading critic, James Agate, who thought that Richardson could not play villains; Agate said of Richardson's Iago, "he could not hurt a fly, which was very good Richardson, but indifferent Shakespeare". This view persisted in a later critical generation. In 1952, Kenneth Tynan, blaming the director for a badly-received "Macbeth" said he "seems to have imagined that Ralph Richardson, with his comic, Robeyesque cheese face, was equipped to play Macbeth." By contrast, the same critics held Richardson up as peerless in classic comic roles. Tynan judged any Falstaff against Richardson's, which he considered "matchless", and Gielgud judged "definitive". But though later critics did not wholly dissent from this view, they also discerned the mystical vein in Richardson: "he was ideally equipped to make an ordinary character seem extraordinary or an extraordinary one seem ordinary". Peter Hall said of him, "I do not think any other actor could fill Hirst "No Man's Land" with such a sense of loneliness and creativity as Ralph does." "The Guardian" judged him "indisputably our most poetic actor". Richardson himself perhaps confirmed this dichotomy in his variously reported comments that acting was "merely the art of keeping a large group of people from coughing" or, alternatively, "dreaming to order". Caitlin Clarke, who worked with Richardson in "Dragonslayer", stated on interview that he had taught her more on acting than any acting class. Honours. Richardson was knighted as a Knight Bachelor in 1947, the first of his generation of actors to receive the accolade. He was soon followed by Olivier and Gielgud. In 1963, Richardson won the Best Actor Award at the Cannes Film Festival for "Long Day's Journey into Night". He won the BAFTA Award for Best British Actor for "The Sound Barrier" (1952), and was nominated on another three occasions (his last being for ""). He also received Best Supporting Actor Oscar nominations for "The Heiress" and "Greystoke", as well as New York Film Critics Circle and National Board of Review Awards for "Best Actor" for "The Sound Barrier" and another NYFCC Award for "Best Supporting Actor" for "Greystoke". His Oscar nomination, BAFTA nomination and NYFCC Award for "Greystoke" were all posthumous. Richardson was also nominated for three Tony Awards for his work on the New York stage, for his performances in "The Waltz of the Toreadors", "Home" and "No Man's Land". Sir John Gielgud's autobiography, "An Actor and His Time" is dedicated "To Ralph and Mu Richardson, with gratitude and affection".
1374486	Flesh Gordon Meets the Cosmic Cheerleaders (aka Flesh Gordon 2: Flesh Gordon Meets the Cosmic Cheerleaders) is the 1989 sequel to the sex comedy "Flesh Gordon". Like the original, it spoofs the "Flash Gordon" serials, though the humor is more scatological than the original. Plot. Flesh (Vince Murdocco) is kidnapped by cheerleaders from a world known only as The Strange Planet, after the men on their planet are rendered impotent thanks to the villain known only as the Evil Presence (William Dennis Hunt). The Evil Presence, who is in an unhappy relationship with Queen Frigid (Maureen Webb), soon learns of Flesh's arrival on the planet, and wishes to transfer Flesh's penis to himself, in order to make up for his own poor endowment. Reception. This movie was rated an NC-17 by The MPAA, due to it scatological, nonsensical humor. It is often cited as being one of the worst movies of all time.
585009	Katha Screenplay Darshakatvam Appalaraju () () is a 2011 Indian Telugu language comedy film written and directed by Ram Gopal Varma. It stars comical actor Sunil and Swati Reddy in the lead roles alongside Brahmanandam and Kota Srinivasa Rao. Sudhakar Reddy has handled the camera and Koti has composed the music. Plot. Appalraju ("Sunil") from "Amalapuram" is a movie buff. He spends most of his day at Rambha theatre in Amalapuram watching films. When his father (Chalapati Rao) chides his for the same, he swears to come back to Amalapuram only after becoming a big director in Tollywood and heads to Hyderabad. In the city, he has a friend Subbulu (Rajesh) who has left Amalapuram years ago to become a hero in Telugu films but in vain. Through him, he attends an audio launch of a film where Appalraju makes contact with Raakhi (Raghu Babu), a producer who reads his script 'Nayaki' and decides to help him. Appalraju also manages to get the dates of heroine Kanishka (Saakshi) for the film. However, the manager at the firm which has to finance this film agrees to fund the project only if a big hero like 'Babu' stars in the movie. Though Babu and Kanishka are fall in love with each other, they break up once the project is set to take off. Later he directs the Nayaki movie starring KT (Ajay) and Kanishka which has a competition from Babu's Pranam Theestha. Both films Clash at the box office and Nayaki turns a Blockbuster while Pranam Theestha was a Disaster. In the climax, a frustrated (as the film was changed by everyone's views and ideals) Appalaraju wins the Gurram Award for Best Director for providing a Comedy film like Nayaki, which is quite contrast to what Appalaraju imagined to win for a tragedy film. But in joy he also dances with all his crew and celebrates his success. Production. The film was launched at Annapoorna Studios, Hyderabad by Ram Gopal Varma who makes a comeback to Tollywood after 12 years. Akkineni Nagarjuna, Sridevi and K. Raghavendra Rao were the guests at the launch. Reception. The film received poor reviews,but was acclaimed by some critics for it's depiction of how film industry works. Soundtrack. The music of the film is composed by Koti. Ram Gopal Varma has penned lyrics for a song.
501302	Frank Vincent Gattuso (born August 4, 1939), known professionally as Frank Vincent, is an American actor, musician, author and entrepreneur. He is a favorite performer of director Martin Scorsese, having played important roles in three of Scorsese's most acclaimed films: "Raging Bull" (1980), "Goodfellas" (1990) and "Casino" (1995). He has also lent his voice talents to video games. He played the New York City Boss Phil Leotardo in the HBO series "The Sopranos". Early life. Vincent, an Italian American, was born in North Adams, Massachusetts and raised in Jersey City, New Jersey. His father, Frank Vincent Gattuso, Sr., was at one time an iron worker. but in later life a businessman. Vincent has two brothers: Nick and Jimmy, and a half sister, Fran Fernandez. His father was one of six children Lucy/Lucille (Lucia), Phillip (Filippo), Tony (Antonio), Frank, James and Cecilia [Ceil). All the boys were born in North Adams, Massachusetts and the girls in New York to Italian immigrants Nicolò Gattuso and Francesca Di Peri. He is of Sicilian (paternal grandfather) and Neapolitan descent. Career. As an accomplished player of the drums, trumpet and piano, Vincent originally aspired to a career in music, but turned to acting in 1976, when he co-starred in the low-budget gangster movie "The Death Collector" along with Joe Pesci, where they were spotted by Robert De Niro. De Niro told Martin Scorsese about both Vincent and Pesci; Scorsese was impressed by their performances and hired Vincent to appear in a major supporting role in "Raging Bull" (1980), in which he once again appeared with Pesci. The two would go on to appear together in several other movies. Vincent had small roles in two Spike Lee films in 1989 and 1991 respectively: "Do the Right Thing" and "Jungle Fever". Vincent is usually cast as a gangster. He appeared in Scorsese's 1990 film "Goodfellas", where he played Billy Batts, a made man in the Gambino crime family. He also played a prominent role in Scorsese's 1995 film "Casino" as Frank Marino (based on real-life gangster Frank Cullotta), the sidekick of Pesci's character. In 1996, Vincent appeared in the music video for rap artist Nas' song "Street Dreams" as his character Frankie Marino from "Casino". In the television movie "Gotti", Vincent played Robert "DiB" DiBernardo, an associate of Mafia boss John Gotti, whose life the film chronicled. In the HBO TV series "The Sopranos", he had his most prominent role yet, as Phil Leotardo, a ruthless New York gangster who, as boss of the show's fictional Lupertazzi crime family, becomes the show's chief antagonist in the final season. Vincent also had a leading role in the heist movie "This Thing of Ours" in 2003. One of his more light-hearted roles was in a British television commercial for Peugeot cars. In early 2005, Frank Vincent appeared on Irish television in a series of television commercials for Irish bank Permanent TSB. In 1999, he won the Italian American Entertainer of the Year Award. Another noted performance is his appearance in the 2003 film "Remedy". In 2001, Vincent voiced the character of Mafia boss Salvatore Leone in the controversial computer and video game "Grand Theft Auto III". He later reprised that role in ' (2004) and ' (2005). In 2006, he released his first book, "A Guy's Guide to Being a Man's Man" to positive reviews. His idol is Dean Martin. He has also released a line of hand-rolled cigars which have his picture prominently displayed on the band. In the summer of 2008, he played Lieutenant Marino in the independent film "The Tested", directed by Russell Costanzo. In 2009, he made a cameo appearance alongside fellow "Sopranos" actor Steve Schirripa in the "Stargate Atlantis" episode "Vegas". He starred in "Chicago Overcoat" in 2010 as the main protagonist.
587125	Shekhar Suman is an Indian film actor and a television personality. He has also been featured as a singer on a music album. Suman married Alka Kapur on May 4, 1984, and has a son, Adhyayan Suman a Bollywood film actor. On television, he was featured in the shows "Dekh Bhai Dekh", "Reporter", "Kabhi Idhar Kabhi Udhar", "Wah janab", "Chote Babu", "Andaz", "Amar Prem" 'Aaha', "Vilayati Babu", "Movers n Shakers", "Simply Shekhar" and "Carry On Shekhar". The last three were primarily modelled on and adapted from "The Tonight Show" with Jay Leno. He hosted "Film Deewane" "The Great Indian Comedy Show" on Star One until February 2006 and appeared in some episodes of "Dial One aur Jeeto" on Sahara TV. He also did quiz shows including "Nilaam Ghar" on Zee TV and "He-Man" on Star One. He also hosted the "Poll Khol" show on Star News for five years, which was a satire on Indian politics. He was one of the judges of "The Great Indian Laughter Challenge" along with Navjot Singh Sidhu. This programme, a stand-up comedy contest, was the first of its kind on Indian television. However, Shekhar quit after the end of the third season due to differences with Sidhu. He became the judge of a rival comedy program "Comedy Circus". He also hosted the show "Jab Khelo SAB Khelo" on SAB TV. He can be seen on Sony TV as a participant in Jhalak Dikhlaja. He made his singing debut with a music album named "Kuch Khwaab Aise", a collection of eight love ballads whose music was composed by Aadesh Shrivastava and lyrics written by Shyam Raj. In December 2009, he appeared as a participant on a reality TV series, "Raaz Pichhle Janam Ka" based on past life regression. He has also appeared as a judge in the reality TV show "Lux Perfect Bride".
1225371	No Exit () is a 1944 existentialist French play by Jean-Paul Sartre. The original title is the French equivalent of the legal term "in camera", referring to a private discussion behind closed doors; English translations have also been performed under the titles In Camera, No Way Out, Vicious Circle, Behind Closed Doors, and Dead End. The play was first performed at the Théâtre du Vieux-Colombier in May 1944. It is a depiction of the afterlife in which three deceased characters are punished by being locked into a room together for eternity, and is the source of one of Sartre's most famous and most often misinterpreted quotations, "l'enfer, c'est les autres" ("Hell is other people"), a reference to Sartre's ideas about the , and the constant ontological struggle of being caused to see oneself as an object in the world of another consciousness. Plot synopsis. Three damned souls, Garcin, Inès, and Estelle are brought to the same room in hell by a mysterious Valet. They had all expected medieval torture devices to punish them for eternity, but instead find a plain room furnished in the style of the Second French Empire. None of them will admit the reason for their damnation: Garcin says that he was executed for being a pacifist, while Estelle insists that a mistake has been made. Inès, however, demands that they all stop lying to themselves and confess to their crimes. She refuses to believe that they all ended up in the room by accident and soon realizes that they have been placed together to make each other miserable. Garcin suggests that they try to leave each other alone, but Inès starts to sing about an execution and Estelle wants to find a mirror. Inès tries to seduce Estelle by offering to be her "mirror" and tell her everything she sees, but ends up frightening her instead. After arguing they decide to confess to their crimes so they know what to expect from each other. Garcin cheated and mistreated his wife; Inès seduced her cousin's wife while living with them; and Estelle had an affair and then killed the resulting child. Despite their revelations they continue to get on each other's nerves. Garcin finally gives in to Estelle's attempts to seduce him, which drives Inès crazy. Garcin begs Estelle to tell him he is not a coward for attempting to flee his country during wartime. While she complies, Inès tells him that Estelle is just agreeing with him so she can be with a man. This causes Garcin to attempt an escape. After trying to open the door repeatedly, it suddenly opens wildly, but he is unable to leave. He says that he will not be saved until Inès has faith in him. She refuses, saying it's obvious he's a coward, and promising to make him miserable forever. Estelle, infuriated by her treatment of Garcin, tries to kill Inès, stabbing her repeatedly. As they are all already dead, this attack does nothing - bemused, Inès even stabs herself. Shocked at the absurdity of his fate, Garcin concludes, "hell is other people" - not torture devices or physical punishment, but the torment of those he can't escape. The play ends with the three joining in prolonged laughter before resigning themselves to spending the rest of eternity together. Characters. Joseph Garcin – His sins are cowardice and callousness (which caused his young wife to die "of grief" after his execution). He deserted the army during World War II, and he blatantly cheated on his wife – he even brings his affairs home and gets her to make them coffee in bed, without any sympathy. Initially, he hates Inès because she understands his weakness, and lusts after Estelle because he feels that if she treats him as a man he will become manly. However, by the end of the play he understands that because Inès understands the meaning of cowardice and wickedness, only absolution at her hands can redeem him (if indeed redemption is possible).
1100345	Raymond Merrill Smullyan (born May 25, 1919) is an American mathematician, concert pianist, logician, Taoist philosopher, and magician. Born in Far Rockaway, New York, his first career (like Persi Diaconis a generation later) was stage magic. He then earned a BSc from the University of Chicago in 1955 and his Ph.D. from Princeton University in 1959. He is one of many logicians to have studied under Alonzo Church. Life. Born in Far Rockaway, New York, he showed musical talent, winning a gold medal in a piano competition when he was aged 12. The following year, his family moved to Manhattan and he attended Theodore Roosevelt High School in The Bronx as this school offered courses suited to his musical talents, but he left to study on his own as the school did not offer similar courses in mathematics. He attended several colleges, studying mathematics and music. While a Ph.D. student, Smullyan published a paper in the 1957 "Journal of Symbolic Logic" showing that Gödelian incompleteness held for formal systems considerably more elementary than that of Gödel's 1931 landmark paper. The contemporary understanding of Gödel's theorem dates from this paper. Smullyan later made a compelling case that much of the fascination with Gödel's theorem should be directed at Tarski's theorem, which is much easier to prove and equally disturbing philosophically. The culmination of Smullyan's lifelong reflection on the classic limitative theorems of mathematical logic is quite readable: Smullyan is the author of many books on recreational mathematics, recreational logic, etc. Most notably, one is titled "". He was a professor of philosophy at City College in New York. He is also an amateur astronomer, using a six inch reflecting telescope for which he ground the mirror. Logic problems. Many of his logic problems are extensions of classic puzzles. Knights and Knaves involves knights (who always tell the truth) and knaves (who always lie). This is based on a story of two doors and two guards, one who lies and one who doesn't. One door leads to heaven and one to hell, and the puzzle is to find out which door leads to heaven by asking one of the guards a question. One way to do this is to ask "Which door would the other guard say leads to hell?". This idea was famously used in the 1986 film "Labyrinth". In more complex puzzles, he introduces characters who may lie or tell the truth (referred to as "normals"), and furthermore instead of answering "yes" or "no", use words which mean "yes" or "no", but the reader does not know which word means which. The puzzle known as "the hardest logic puzzle ever" is based on these characters and themes. In his Transylvania puzzles, half of the inhabitants are insane, and believe only false things, whereas the other half are sane and believe only true things. In addition, humans always tell the truth, and vampires always lie. For example, an insane vampire will believe a false thing (2 + 2 is not 4) but will then lie about it, and say that it is. A sane vampire knows 2 + 2 is 4, but will lie and say it isn't. And "mutatis mutandis" for humans. Thus everything said by a sane human or an insane vampire is true, while everything said by an insane human or a sane vampire is false. His book "Forever Undecided" popularizes Gödel's incompleteness theorems by phrasing them in terms of reasoners and their beliefs, rather than formal systems and what can be proved in them. For example, if a native of a knight/knave island says to a sufficiently self-aware reasoner, "You will never believe that I am a knight", the reasoner cannot believe either that the native is a knight or that he is a knave without becoming inconsistent (i.e., holding two contradictory beliefs). The equivalent theorem is that for any formal system S, there exists a mathematical statement that can be interpreted as "This statement is not provable in formal system S". If the system S is consistent, neither the statement nor its opposite will be provable in it. See also Doxastic logic. Inspector Craig is a frequent character in Smullyan's "puzzle-novellas." He is generally called into a scene of a crime that has a solution that is mathematical in nature. Then, through a series of increasingly harder challenges, he (and the reader) begin to understand the principles in question. Finally the novella culminates in Inspector Craig (and the reader) solving the crime, utilizing the mathematical and logical principles learned. Inspector Craig generally does not learn the formal theory in question, and Smullyan usually reserves a few chapters after the Inspector Craig adventure to illuminate the analogy for the reader. Inspector Craig gets his name from William Craig. His book "To Mock a Mockingbird" (1985) is a recreational introduction to the subject of combinatory logic. Apart from writing about and teaching logic, Smullyan has recently released a recording of his favorite classical piano pieces by composers such as Bach, Scarlatti, and Schubert. Some recordings are available on the Piano Society website, along with the video "Rambles, Reflections, Music and Readings". He has also written an autobiography titled "Some Interesting Memories: A Paradoxical Life" (ISBN 1-888710-10-1). In 2001, documentary filmmaker Tao Ruspoli made a film about Smullyan called "". Philosophy. Smullyan has written several books about Taoist philosophy, which he believes neatly solves most or all traditional philosophical problems as well as integrating mathematics, logic, and philosophy into a cohesive whole.
1177975	The Last Waltz was a concert by the rock group The Band, held on American Thanksgiving Day, November 25, 1976, at Winterland Ballroom in San Francisco. "The Last Waltz" was advertised as The Band's "farewell concert appearance", and the concert saw The Band joined by more than a dozen special guests, including Paul Butterfield, Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Emmylou Harris, Ringo Starr,
1058576	The Dark Crystal is a 1982 American–British fantasy film directed by Jim Henson and Frank Oz. The plot revolves around Jen, an elflike 'Gelfling' on a quest to restore balance to his alien world by returning a lost shard to a powerful but broken gem. Although marketed as a family film, it was notably darker than the creators' previous material. The animatronics used in the film were considered groundbreaking. The primary concept artist was the fantasy illustrator Brian Froud, famous for his distinctive faerie and dwarf designs. Froud also collaborated with Henson and Oz for their next project, the 1986 film "Labyrinth", which was notably more light-hearted than "The Dark Crystal". The film stars the voices of Stephen Garlick, Lisa Maxwell and Billie Whitelaw. "The Dark Crystal" was produced by Gary Kurtz, whose list of credits includes "American Graffiti", ', ', "Return to Oz", and "Slipstream." The screenplay was written by David Odell, who had previously worked with Henson as a staff writer on "The Muppet Show". The film's score was composed by Trevor Jones. The film was produced by ITC Entertainment, the British production company responsible for producing "The Muppet Show". Plot. A thousand years ago on "another world", a magical crystal cracked, and two new races appeared: the tyrannical, reptilian Skeksis, who use the power of the "Dark Crystal" to continually replenish themselves, and hunchbacked natural wizards called Mystics. Jen, an elf-like Gelfling taken in by the Mystics after his clan was killed, is told by his Mystic master that he must find the crystal shard, and that it can be found in the home of Aughra. If he fails to do so before the three suns meet, the Skeksis will rule forever. The Skeksis' emperor and Jen's master die simultaneously. A duel ensues between the Skeksis Chamberlain and General, who both desire the throne. The General becomes emperor and the Chamberlain is exiled. Learning of Jen's existence, the Skeksis send large crab-like creatures called Garthim to track him. Jen reaches Aughra and is taken to her home, which contains an enormous orrery she uses to predict the motions of the heavens. Jen discovers the crystal shard by playing music on his flute to which it resonates. Jen is told of the upcoming Great Conjunction when the three suns will align, but he learns little of its connection to the shard. The Garthim destroy Aughra's home and take her prisoner as Jen flees. Hearing the calls of the crystal, the Mystics leave their valley to travel to the Skeksis' castle. Jen meets Kira, another surviving Gelfling who can communicate with animals, and her pet Fizzgig. They discover that they have a telepathic connection, which Kira calls "dreamfasting". They stay for a night with the Podlings who raised Kira after the death of her parents. However, the Garthim attack the village and Kira, Jen, and Fizzgig flee when the Chamberlain prevents one of the Garthim from attacking them. Most of the Podlings are enslaved. Jen and Kira discover a ruined Gelfling city. Finding a relief with prophetic writing, Jen discovers that the shard, a part of the Dark Crystal, must be reinserted to restore the Crystal's integrity. The Chamberlain tells Jen and Kira that he wishes to bring them to the Skeksis to make peace, but they refuse. Riding on Landstriders, the Gelflings arrive at the Castle of the Crystal, where they see the Garthim that attacked Kira's village. Kira and Jen unsuccessfully attempt to free the captured Podlings. Kira, Jen and Fizzgig infiltrate the lower parts of the Castle. The Chamberlain confronts them again and tries to convince them to make peace; however, the Chamberlain wounds Jen and takes Kira to the Castle. The General restores the Chamberlain to his former position. On the suggestion of the Skeksis' resident scientist, the General decides to regain his youth by draining Kira's life essence, recalling that its potency allows a Skeksis emperor to maintain his youth for longer periods than that of the Podlings on whom they have been forced to rely since the Gelfling genocide. Kira maintains a telepathic connection with Jen, who tells her to call out to the animals imprisoned in the laboratory. They break free from their cages and the Skeksis scientist falls to his death, upon which his Mystic counterpart simultaneously vanishes. The three suns begin to align as the two Gelflings reconvene in the Crystal chamber. The Skeksis arrive to prepare for the immortality that they will gain from the Conjunction if the Crystal is not restored. Jen is discovered and drops the shard, but Kira throws it back to him and is stabbed to death by the Skeksis' high priest. Jen inserts the shard into the Crystal, unifying it as the Mystics enter the chamber. As Aughra, Jen and Fizzgig watch, the Mystics and Skeksis merge into tall glowing beings, one of whom says "we are again one", speaks to Jen of their history, and revives Kira. After leaving the Crystal for the two Gelflings to "make world in its light," the beings depart, and the land is shown rejuvenated and the Castle transformed into a palace of crystal. Production. Development. Henson's inspiration for the visual aspects of the film came around 1975-76, after he saw an illustration by Leonard B. Lubin in a 1975 edition of Lewis Carroll’s poetry showing crocodiles living in a palace and wearing elaborate robes and jewelry. The film's conceptual roots lay in Henson's short-lived "The Land of Gorch", which also took place in an alien world with no human characters. According to co-director Frank Oz, Henson's intention was to "get back to the darkness of the original Grimms' Fairy Tales", as he believed that it was unhealthy for children to never be afraid. Henson formulated his ideas into a 25-page story he entitled "The Crystal", which he wrote whilst snowed in at an airport hotel. Henson's original concept was set in a world called Mithra, a wooded land with talking mountains, walking boulders and animal-plant hybrids. The original plot involved a malevolent race called the Reptus group, which took power in a coup against the peaceful Eunaze, lead by Malcolm the Wise. The last survivor of the Eunaze was Malcolm's son Brian, who was adopted by the Bada, Mithra's mystical wizards. This draft contained elements in the final product, including the three races, the two funerals, the quest, a female secondary character, the crystal, and the reunification of the two races during the Great Conjunction. "Mithra" was later abbreviated to "Thra", due to similarities the original name had with an ancient Persian deity. The character Kira was also at that point called Dee. Most of the philosophical undertones of the film were inspired from Jane Roberts' "Seth Material". Henson kept multiple copies of the book "Seth Speaks", and insisted that Froud and screenwriter David Odell read it prior to collaborating for the film. Odell later wrote that Aughra's line "He could be anywhere then," upon being told by Jen that his Master was dead, couldn't have been written without having first read Roberts' material. The Bada were renamed "Ooo-urrrs", which Henson would pronounce "very slowly and with a deep resonant voice". Odell simplified the spelling to urRu, though they were ultimately named Mystics in the theatrical cut. The word "Skeksis" was initially meant to be the plural, with "Skesis" being singular, though this was dropped early in the filming process. Originally, Henson wanted the Skeksis to speak their own constructed language, with the dialogue subtitled in English. Accounts differ as to who constructed the language, and what it was based on. Gary Kurtz stated that the Skeksis language was conceived by author Alan Garner, who based it on Ancient Egyptian, while Odell stated it was he who created it, and that it was formed from Indo-European roots. This idea was dropped after test screening audiences found the captions too distracting, but the original effect can be observed in selected scenes on the various DVD releases. The language of the Podlings was based on Serbo-Croatian, with Kurtz noting that audience members fluent in Polish, Russian and other Slavic languages could understand individual words, but not whole sentences. The film was shot at Elstree Studios, and exterior scenes were shot in the Scottish Highlands; Gordale Scar, North Yorkshire, England; and Twycross, Leicestershire, England. Once filming was completed, the film's release was delayed after Lew Grade sold ITC Entertainment to Robert Holmes à Court, who was skeptical of the film's potential, due to the bad reactions at the preview and the need to revoice the film's soundtrack. The film was afforded minimal advertisement and release, until Henson bought it off Holmes à Court, and funded its release with his own money. Design. Brian Froud was chosen as concept artist after Henson saw one of his paintings in the book "Once upon a time". The characters in the film are elaborate puppets, and none are based on humans or any other specific Earth creature. Before its release, "The Dark Crystal" was billed as the first live-action film without any human beings on screen, and "a showcase for cutting-edge animatronics". The hands and facial features of the groundbreaking animatronic puppets in the film were controlled with relatively primitive rods and cables, although radio control later took over many of the subtler movements. Human performers inside the puppets supplied basic movement for the larger creatures, which in some cases was dangerous or exhausting; for example, the Garthim costumes were so heavy that the performers had to be hung up on a rack every few minutes to rest while still inside the costumes. A mime from Switzerland was hired to help choreograph the movements of the puppeteers. When conceptualizing the Skeksis, Henson had in mind the Seven Deadly Sins, though because there were 10 Skeksis, some sins had to be invented or used twice. Froud originally designed them to resemble deep sea fish, but later designed them as "part reptile, part predatory bird, part dragon", with an emphasis on giving them a "penetrating stare." Each Skeksis was conceived as having a different "job" or function, thus each puppet was draped in multicolored robes meant to reflect their personalities and thought processes. Each Skeksis suit required a main performer, whose arm would be extended over his/her head in order to operate the creature's facial movements, while the other arm operated its left hand. Another performer would operate the Skeksis' right arm. The Skeksis performers compensated for their lack of vision by having a monitor tied to their chests. In designing the Mystics, Froud portrayed them as being more connected to the natural world than their Skeksis counterparts. Henson intended to convey the idea that they were purged of all materialistic urges, yet were incapable of acting in the real world. Froud also incorporated geometric symbolism throughout the film in order to hint at the implied unity of the two races. The Mystics were the hardest creatures to perform, as the actors had to walk on their haunches with their right arm extended forward, with the full weight of the head on it. Henson himself could only hold a position in a Mystic costume for only 5–10 seconds. The Gelflings were difficult to perform, as they were meant to be the most human creatures in the film, and thus their movements, particularly their gait, had to be as realistic as possible. During scenes when the Gelflings' legs were off-camera, the performers walked on their knees in order to make the character's movements more lifelike. According to Odell, the character Jen was Henson's way of projecting himself into the film. Jen was originally meant to be blue, in homage to the Hindu deity Rama, but this idea was scrapped early on. Aughra was originally envisioned as a "busy, curious little creature" called Habeetabat, though the name was rejected by Froud, who found the name too similar to Habitat, a retailer he despised. The character was re-envisioned as a seer or prophetess, and renamed Aughra. In selecting a voice actor for Aughra, Henson was inspired by Zero Mostel's performance as a "kind of insane bird trying to overcome Tourettes syndrome" on "Watership Down". Although originally voiced by Frank Oz, Henson wanted a female voice, and subsequently selected Billie Whitelaw. The character Fizzgig was invented by Frank Oz, who wanted a character who served the same function as the Muppet poodle Foo-Foo, feeling that, like Miss Piggy, the character Kira needed an outlet for her caring, nurturing side. The character's design was meant to convey the idea of a "boyfriend-repellant", to contrast the popular idea that it is easier to form a bond with a member of the opposite sex with the assistance of a cute dog. The Podlings were envisioned as people in complete harmony with their natural surroundings, thus Froud based their design on that of potatoes. Their village was modeled on the Henson family home. In designing the Garthim, Froud took inspiration from the discarded carapaces of his and Henson's lobster dinners. The Garthim were first designed three years into the making of the film, and were made largely of fiberglass. Each costume weighed around 70 lbs, thus Garthim performers still in costume had to frequently be suspended on racks in order to recuperate. "The Dark Crystal" was the last film in which cinematographer Oswald Morris involved himself in before retiring. He shot all the footage with a 'light flex', a unit placed in front of the camera which gave a faint colour tint to each scene in order to give the film a more fairy tale atmosphere similar to Froud's original paintings. Music. The film's soundtrack was composed by Trevor Jones, who became involved before shooting had started. Jones initially wanted to compose a score which reflected the settings' oddness by using acoustical instruments, electronics and building structures. This was scrapped in favor of an orchestral score once Gary Kurtz became involved, as it was felt that an unusual score would alienate audiences. The main theme of the film is a composite of the Skeksis' and Mystic's themes. Jones wrote the baby Landstrider theme in honour of his newly born daughter. Release. Box office. "The Dark Crystal" was released in 858 theaters in North America on December 17, 1982. In its initial weekends, it had a limited appeal with audiences for various reasons including parental concerns about its dark nature, creative connections with Henson's family-friendly Muppet franchise and because it was overshadowed by the film's competition over the Christmas of that year, including "Tootsie" and the already massively successful "E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial". By the end of its box office run, it made $40,577,001 and became the 16th highest grossing film of 1982 within North America. Critical response. The film received a mixed response upon its original release though has gained more positive notices in later years. It currently holds a 71% rating on "Rotten Tomatoes". Vincent Canby of "The New York Times" negatively reviewed the film in the "New York Times", describing it as a "watered down J. R. R. Tolkien ... without charm as well as interest." Kevin Thomas gave it a more positive assessment in the "Los Angeles Times": "Unlike many screen fantasies, "The Dark Crystal" casts its spell from its very first frames and proceeds so briskly that it's over before you realize it. You're left with the feeling that you have just awakened from a dream." The film won a Saturn Award for Best Fantasy Film and earned the grand prize at the Avoriaz Fantastic Film Festival, along with being nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation and a BAFTA Award for Best Special Visual Effects. The film was banned in Iran for its ceremonial imagery, which was deemed "blasphemous". Home media release. "The Dark Crystal" was first released by Sony Pictures Home Entertainment on DVD on October 5, 1999, and has had multiple re-releases since including a Collector's Edition on November 25, 2003, and a 25th Anniversary Edition on August 14, 2007. It was released on Blu-ray on September 29, 2009. Reviews following these releases have been mostly positive, with the film holding a 71% rating at Rotten Tomatoes. Sequel. During the development phase of "The Dark Crystal", director Jim Henson and writer David Odell discussed ideas for a possible sequel. Almost 25 years later, Odell and his wife Annette Duffy pieced together what Odell could recall from these discussions to draft a script for "The Power of the Dark Crystal". Genndy Tartakovsky was initially hired in January 2006 to direct and produce the film through The Orphanage animation studios in California. However, faced with considerable delays, the Jim Henson Company announced a number of significant changes in a May 2010 press release: It was going to partner with Australia-based Omnilab Media to produce the sequel, screenwriter Craig Pearce had reworked Odell and Duffy's script, and directing team Michael and Peter Spierig were replacing Tartakovsky. In addition, the film would be released in stereoscopic 3D. During a panel held at the Museum of the Moving Image on September 18, 2011 to commemorate the legacy of Jim Henson, his daughter Cheryl revealed that the project was yet again on hiatus. More recently, it was reported in February 2012 that Omnilab Media and the Spierig brothers had parted ways with the Henson Company due to budgetary concerns; production on the film has been suspended indefinitely. On July 1, 2013, an announcement was made by The Jim Henson Company, in association with Grosset and Dunlap (a publishing division of Penguin Group USA) are hosting a Dark Crystal Author Quest Contest to write a new Dark Crystal novel, as a prequel for the original film, set in the Dark Crystal world during a 'Gelfling Gathering.' The winning author will be awarded a publishing contract with Penguin worth $10,000 (US).
1105215	Caspar Wessel (June 8, 1745, Vestby – March 25, 1818, Copenhagen) was a Norwegian-Danish mathematician and cartographer. In 1799, Wessel was the first person to describe the geometrical interpretation of complex numbers as points in the complex plane. He was the younger brother of poet and playwright Johan Herman Wessel. Biography. Wessel was born in Jonsrud, Vestby, Akershus, Norway. In 1763, having completed secondary school, he went to Denmark for further studies. He attended the University of Copenhagen and acquired the degree of "candidatus juris" in 1778. From 1794, however, he was employed as a surveyor (from 1798 as Royal inspector of Surveying). It was the mathematical aspect of surveying that led him to exploring the geometrical significance of complex numbers. His fundamental paper, "Om directionens analytiske betegning," was published in 1799 by the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters. Since it was in Danish, it passed almost unnoticed, and the same results were later independently rediscovered by Argand in 1806 and Gauss in 1831. One of the more prominent ideas presented in "On the Analytical Representation of Direction" was that of vectors. Even though this was not Wessel's main intention with the publication, he felt that a geometrical concept of numbers, with length and direction, was needed. Wessel's approach on addition was: "Two straight lines are added if we unite them in such a way that the second line begins where the first one ends and then pass a straight line from the first to the last point of the united lines. This line is the sum of the united lines". This is the same idea as used today when summing vectors.
581903	Bunty Aur Babli (Hindi: बंटी और बबली, translation: Bunty and Babli), released in 2005, is an Indian Bollywood crime-comedy filmdirected by Shaad Ali and starring Rani Mukerji and Abhishek Bachchan in the lead roles. Amitabh Bachchan stars in a supporting role. It was the first film to feature both Amitabh Bachchan and his son Abhishek Bachchan, and featured guest appearances by Aishwarya Rai and Tania Zaetta. It was one of the biggest hits of the year. Plot. Rakesh Trivedi (Abhishek Bachchan) comes from a small village. His father is a ticket collector on the train, and wants him to get into a similar occupation as well. However, Rakesh has big dreams; he is forever coming up with new business plans and is convinced he will make it big one day. He adamantly refuses any notion that he will one day work in a 9-to-5 environment. Vimmi Saluja (Rani Mukerji) is the daughter of a Punjabi family in another small village; she spends her hours watching films and studying supermodels, and dreams of becoming Miss India one day. One day Vimmi's parents tell her they have arranged her marriage to a young man with a decent job. At the same time Rakesh's father gives him an ultimatum – go to the interview for the job his father has arranged for him, or get out of the house. Rakesh and Vimmi both pack their bags in their respective homes and sneak out in the dark of the night. They bump into each other at a train station, and become friends after realising their stories are similar. Both support and encourage each other to achieve their dreams: Vimmi tries to enter herself in the Miss India contest but gets thrown out after an argument, and Rakesh tries to sell his ideas for an investment scheme, but a businessman turns him away. In fact, a man he had met at a restaurant stole ideas from Rakesh's presentation file and when he enters the office, the interviewer states someone before him came in with the same idea. After finding out that the businessman who Rakesh had approached has used his idea to make money for himself, he and Vimmi con him and take money they believe is rightly theirs. Once they realise how easy it is to con people, they decide to run some more scams to raise money to make it to Bombay. Unfortunately for India, they find the lifestyle too exciting to give up. Adopting the fake names of 'Bunty' and 'Babli', they successfully pull off scam after scam, looting and conning rich people dressed as local guides, religious priests, health inspectors, business partners, etc. Their flamboyant antics make them famous in newspapers nationwide. Soon their friendship leads to romance and they decide to continue scamming the rich as husband and wife. Little do Rakesh and Vimmi know that ACP Dashrath Singh (Amitabh Bachchan) is catching up with their scams and pranks, getting closer each time. He relentlessly pursues them across India in the hopes of putting them behind bars. To complicate matters, Rakesh and Vimmi have a child, and after a very close call eluding Dashrath they decide to quit conning for their child's sake. Ironically, this decision leads to their capture by Dashrath. While in custody, their heartfelt confessions and conversation soften the detective's heart and he lets them go, certain he has destroyed Bunty and Babli's career as criminals. Years later, Dashrath rescues them from their mundane and domestic lives to work for the nation thwarting the activities of other scammers. The plot, although it draws on the idea of two rather lovable crooks, does not contain much violence. In fact each of the adventures of Bunty and Babli are thoroughly Indianised, like the fake selling of the Taj Mahal. It draws comparisons to the American classic "Bonnie and Clyde", however there are no dark elements to the film. In fact, as stated above, there is minimal violence and the characters do not die a bloody death, unlike their American counterparts. The robberies done were usually to teach a lesson or exact revenge for some previous altercation. Reception. The film was a critical and commercial success becoming one of the biggest hits of 2005. Designer Aki Narula dressed Rani Mukerji a new look Patiala salwars and kurtis, which became quite popular. Soundtrack. The soundtrack of the film includes six tracks composed by the musical trio Shankar Ehsaan Loy and was released on 13 April 2005 by Yash Raj Music. The lead actors Abhishek Bachchan and Rani Mukherji danced to the tunes of the album. The lyrics are penned by Gulzar and Blaaze. Reception. The music of Bunty Aur Babli received favourable review from almost all critics. Sukanya Verma of "Rediff", said in her review, "On the whole, the music of Bunty Aur Babli, with its over the top, uninhibited, rustic and teasing spices, makes for one helluva musical masala." "Planet Bollywood's" review concluded, "Overall, Shakhar-Ehsaan-Loy do an excellent job of getting different singers for each track, trying to infuse different beats together and creating an album worth buying. It’ll take a few listens to pick your favourites, but its fresh and an above average album to own. Enjoy!" "Bunty Aur Babli does not contain your routine Yash Chopra genre of music that are choreographed around the meadows and Swiss alps. They are more of situational rhythmic tracks that take a story forward.", Joginder Tuteja of "Bollywood Hungama" said in his review. The Glamsham was full of praise for the lyrics by Gulzar, "Throughout this zany zingy and zippy album the 70-year old Gulzar imbues a youthfulness that comes from being young at heart. Indeed that's the quality, which flows freely out of this album. You can't miss its zest for life… or its lunge towards a luscious nirvana obtained from looking at life through rose-tinted glasses." Legacy. Kajra Re was voted as the best of 2005 overwhelmingly by listeners of three radio stations catering for South African Indians. "Himaruya Hidekaz", the manga artist who created Hetalia, embeded the video of "Dhadak Dhadak" on his blog around Christmas time, which caused a sudden influx of Himaruya fans commenting on the video.
394216	Cha Seung-won (born June 7, 1970) is a South Korean actor and former fashion model.
1153423	Michael Owen Rosenbaum (born July 11, 1972) is an American film and TV actor, director, producer and writer. He is best known for his performance in Sorority Boys and for portraying Lex Luthor on the Superman television series "Smallville", a role that "TV Guide" included in their 2013 list of The 60 Nastiest Villains of All Time.
1060731	Sean Bean (born Shaun Mark Bean; 17 April 1959) is an English actor. He is best known for portraying Boromir in "The Lord of the Rings" film trilogy, Lord Eddard Stark in the HBO television series "Game of Thrones", and Richard Sharpe in the ITV series "Sharpe". Other notable works include Alec Trevelyan in the James Bond film "GoldenEye", Odysseus in "Troy", Dr. Merrick in "The Island", Ian Howe in "National Treasure", Zeus in ', and Ulric in "Black Death'. "He played Robert Aske in "Henry VIII", and has also performed voice work for video games, including Martin Septim in "" and the trailer for Train Simulator 2014 (TS2014) "#WeAreRailFans" Early life. Bean was born in the Handsworth district of Sheffield, Yorkshire, England, the son of Rita (née Tuckwood) and Brian Bean. His father owned a fabrication shop which employed 50 people, including Bean's mother, who worked as a secretary. Despite becoming relatively wealthy (his father owned a Rolls-Royce Silver Shadow), the family never moved away from the council estate as they preferred to remain close to friends and family. As a child, Bean smashed a glass door during an argument over a pair of scissors. It left a piece of glass embedded in his leg that briefly impeded his walking and left a large scar. This prevented him from pursuing his dream of playing football professionally. In 1975, he left Brook Comprehensive School with O Levels in Art and English. After a job at a supermarket and another for the local council, he started working for his father's firm with a day release at Rotherham College of Arts and Technology to take a welding course. While there, he stumbled into an art class and decided to pursue his interest in art. After attending courses at two other colleges, one for half a day and the other for less than a week, he returned to Rotherham College, where he came across a drama course for which he subsequently enrolled. After some college plays and one at Rotherham Civic Theatre, he applied for and received a scholarship to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, starting a seven-term course in January 1981. Career. Bean graduated from RADA in 1983, making his professional acting debut later that year as Tybalt in "Romeo and Juliet" at the Watermill Theatre in Newbury. His early work involved a mixture of stage and screen work. As an actor, he adopted the Irish spelling of his first name. His first national exposure came in an advert for non-alcoholic lager. Between 1986 and 1988, he was a member of the Royal Shakespeare Company, appearing in productions of "Romeo and Juliet", "The Fair Maid of the West", and "A Midsummer Night's Dream". He appeared in his first film, Derek Jarman's "Caravaggio" (1986), playing Ranuccio Tomassoni, followed in the same director's "War Requiem" (1988). In 1989, he starred as the evil Dominic O'Brien in "The Fifteen Streets", where he gained a dedicated following. During the late 1980s and early 1990s, Bean became an established actor on British television. He had notable performances in the BBC productions "Clarissa" and "Lady Chatterley", and his role in the latter became noted for his sex scenes with Joely Richardson. In 1990, Bean starred in Jim Sheridan's adaption of the John B. Keane play "The Field". Also in 1990, his role as the journalist Anton in "Windprints" examined the difficult problems of apartheid in South Africa. In 1996, Bean appeared in what became a famous Sky Sports commercial for the Premier League. Later that year, he combined his love of football with his career to finally achieve his childhood dream of playing for Sheffield United, as Jimmy Muir in the film "When Saturday Comes". Although the film was not critically acclaimed, Bean received credit for a good performance. His critical successes in "Caravaggio" and "Lady Chatterley" contributed to his emerging image as a sex symbol, but he became most closely associated with the character of Richard Sharpe, the maverick Napoleonic Wars rifleman in the ITV television series "Sharpe". The series was based on Bernard Cornwell's novels about the Peninsular War, and the fictional experiences of a band of soldiers in the famed 95th Rifles. Starting with "Sharpe's Rifles", the series followed the fortunes and misfortunes of Richard Sharpe as he rose from the ranks as a Sergeant, promoted to Lieutenant in Portugal, to Lieutenant Colonel by the time of the Battle of Waterloo. Bean was not the first actor to be chosen to play Sharpe. As Paul McGann was injured while playing football two days into filming, the producers initially tried to work around his injury, but it proved impossible and Bean replaced him. The series ran continuously from 1993 to 1997, with three episodes produced each year. It was filmed under challenging conditions, first in Ukraine and later in Portugal. After several years of rumours, more episodes were produced: "Sharpe's Challenge", which aired in April 2006, and "Sharpe's Peril", which aired in autumn 2008 and was later released on DVD. Both of these were released as two cinema-length 90 minute episodes per series. With a role as enigmatic Lord Richard Fenton in the TV miniseries "Scarlett", Bean made the transition to Hollywood feature films. His first notable Hollywood appearance was that of an Irish republican terrorist in the 1992 film adaptation of "Patriot Games". While filming his death scene, Harrison Ford hit him with a boat hook, giving him a permanent scar. Bean's rough-cut looks made him a patent choice for a villain, and his role in "Patriot Games" was the first of several villains that he would portray, all of whom die in gruesome ways. In the 1995 film "GoldenEye", Bean portrayed James Bond's nemesis Alec Trevelyan (MI6's 006). He played the weak-stomached in "Ronin" (1998), a wife-beating ex-con in "Essex Boys" (2000), and a malevolent kidnapper/jewel thief in "Don't Say a Word" (2001). He was also widely recognised as villainous treasure hunter Ian Howe in "National Treasure", and played a villainous scientist in "The Island" (2005). In the independent film "Far North", he plays a Russian mercenary who gets lost in the tundra and is rescued by an Inuit woman and her daughter, whom he later pits against one another. Bean's most prominent role was as Boromir in Peter Jackson's "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy. His major screen time occurs in the first installment, '. He appears briefly in flashbacks in ' and "", as well as in a scene from the extended edition of "The Two Towers". Before casting finished, rumours circulated that Jackson had considered Bean for the role of Aragorn, but neither Bean nor Jackson confirmed this in subsequent interviews. Bean's fear of flying with helicopters caused him difficulties in mountainous New Zealand, where the trilogy was filmed. After a particularly rough ride, he vowed not to fly to a location again; in one instance, he chose to take a ski lift into the mountains while wearing his full costume (complete with shield, armour, and sword) and then hike the final few miles. Other roles gave more scope for his acting abilities. In 1999's "Extremely Dangerous", his character walked a fine line between villain and hero, reminiscent of the 1960s American TV series, "The Fugitive". He became a repentant, poetry-reading Grammaton cleric who succumbs to his emotions in 2002's "Equilibrium"; a quirky alien cowboy in 2003's "The Big Empty", and a sympathetic and cunning Odysseus in the 2004 film "Troy". He cameoed with other Hollywood stars in Moby's music video "We Are All Made of Stars" in February 2002. In the same year, he returned to the stage in London performing in "Macbeth" alongside Samantha Bond. Due to popular demand, the production ran until March 2003. Bean has done voice-over work, mostly in the British advertising industry. He has featured in television adverts for O2, Morrisons and Barnardos as well as for Acuvue and the Sci-Fi Channel in the United States. He also does the voice over for the National Blood Service's television and radio campaign. For the role playing video game, "", he voiced Martin Septim. In 1998, Bean narrated "The Official Film of the 1998 FIFA World Cup". Bean's distinctive voice has also been used in the intro and outro segments of the BBC Formula 1 racing coverage for the 2011 and 2012 seasons. Bean has completed a one hour pilot, "Faceless", for US television. He has also appeared in "Outlaw", an independent British production, and a remake of 1986 horror film, "The Hitcher" (released in January 2007); here he used an American accent again. In 2009, he appeared in the "Red Riding" trilogy as the malevolent John Dawson. He also appeared in "" (2010), playing the role of Zeus, the king of Mount Olympus and God of Lightning. Also that year, Bean starred in "CASH (CA$H)", playing the lead role of Pyke Kubic, a dangerous man determined to recover his wealth in a bad economy. "CASH (CA$H)", which co-starred Chris Hemsworth, explored the role money plays in today's hard economic times. Bean also played the villain's twin brother, Reese. The film was directed and written by Stephen Milburn Anderson ("South Central"). Bean starred in the first season of "Game of Thrones", HBO's adaptation of the "A Song of Ice and Fire" novels by George R.R. Martin, playing the part of Lord Eddard Stark. Bean and Peter Dinklage were the two actors whose inclusion show runners David Benioff and Dan Weiss considered necessary for the show to become a success, and for whose roles no other actors were considered. His nuanced portrayal of what could have been a stereotypical "noble leader" character won him critical praise; as the "A.V. Club"'s reviewer put it, he "portrayed Ned as a man who knew he lived in the muck but hoped for better and assumed everyone else would come along for the ride." HBO's promotional efforts focused on Bean as the show's leading man and best-known actor. The photograph of him as Ned sitting on the Iron Throne holding his greatsword was used for promotional posters and on the cover of the first season's DVD box set as well as the cover of a tie-in reedition of the novel "A Game of Thrones". In August 2012, Bean appeared as cross-dressing teacher Simon in the opening episode of the second season of UK television series "Accused", a role which would earn him a Royal Television Society best actor award. Bean starred in "Soldiers of Fortune" alongside Ving Rhames and Christian Slater. Bean filmed "Cleanskin", in which he plays a secret service agent faced with the task of pursuing and eliminating a suicide bomber and his terrorist cell. The film stars Charlotte Rampling, James Fox, Abhin Galeya, Tuppence Middleton and Michelle Ryan. The film was written, produced and directed by Hadi Hajaig and was released by Warner Brothers in UK cinemas on 9 March 2012. He appeared in Tarsem Singh's Snow White film, "Mirror Mirror", which was released in the U.S. in March 2012. Bean reprised his role as Christopher Da Silva in the "Silent Hill" film sequel "". He co-starred with Ashley Judd in the ABC drama series "Missing", which premiered in early 2012. Bean is slated to star with Aaron Eckhart, AnnaSophia Robb and Terence Stamp in "Pan", a modern-day spin on J.M. Barrie's tale of "Peter Pan", where Pan is a villain being hunted by a police captain named Hook. Image. Often described as down to earth, Sean Bean has retained his Yorkshire accent, despite now living in London. Partly because of his role as Sharpe, he is also described as a sex symbol. He was voted the UK's second sexiest man in 2004; placing just behind his "Lord of the Rings" co-star Orlando Bloom. He admits he does not mind being considered as a "bit of rough" by women. Bean's first love was football and he has been a passionate Sheffield United supporter from a young age; he has a tattoo on his left shoulder that reads 100% Blade. He was a director of the club until December 2007, but decided to "go back to the terraces, where (he) truly belong(s)". He had some issues with Neil Warnock, former manager of Sheffield United, after Warnock claimed that Bean stormed into his office and shouted at him in front of his wife and daughter after the final game of the 2006–07 season, when the club had just been relegated from the Premier League. Bean denies it, calling Warnock "bitter" and "hypocritical". He also wrote the foreword and helped to promote a book of anecdotes called "Sheffield United: The Biography". He also follows Yorkshire County Cricket Club. In addition to his image as a sex symbol and an admitted "bit of rough", Bean has developed a reputation as a loner, a label he considers unfair. He has described himself instead as quiet, and interviewers confirm that he is a "man of few words"; one interviewer called him "surprisingly shy". Although he admits he can be a workaholic, he relaxes with a book or listens to music in his spare time, and is a talented pianist. He is also a keen gardener, welder, and sketcher. Acting style. Despite being professionally trained, Sean Bean adopts an instinctive style of acting that some say makes him especially well-suited to portraying his characters' depths. He has said in interviews that the most difficult part is at the start of filming when trying to understand the character. After achieving this he can snap in and out of character instantly. This ability to go from the quiet man on set to the warrior Boromir "amazed" Sean Astin during filming of "The Fellowship of the Ring". Other fans include the directors Mike Figgis ("Stormy Monday") and Wolfgang Petersen ("Troy"), who described working with Bean as a "beautiful thing". Personal life. Bean has a younger sister named Lorraine. He has a tattoo of the English number nine, written using Tengwar, on his shoulder in reference to his involvement in the "Lord of the Rings" and the fact that his character was one of the original nine companions of the Fellowship of the Ring. The other actors of "The Fellowship" (Elijah Wood, Sean Astin, Orlando Bloom, Billy Boyd, Ian McKellen, Dominic Monaghan, and Viggo Mortensen) have the same tattoo. John Rhys-Davies, whose character was also one of the original nine companions, arranged for his stunt double to get the tattoo instead. Bean has been married and divorced four times. He married his secondary school sweetheart Debra James on 11 April 1981. The marriage ended in divorce in 1988. He met actress Melanie Hill at RADA, and they married on 27 February 1990. The couple's first daughter, Lorna, was born in October 1987; their second, Molly, was born in September 1991. Bean and Hill's marriage ended in divorce in August 1997. During the filming of "Sharpe", Bean met actress Abigail Cruttenden, and they married on 22 November 1997. Their daughter, Evie Natasha, was born in November 1998. Bean and Cruttenden divorced in July 2000. Bean began dating actress Georgina Sutcliffe in 2006. After cancelling their planned January 2008 wedding on the eve of the ceremony for "personal reasons", Bean married Sutcliffe at the Marylebone Register Office in London on 19 February 2008. Amid allegations that Bean physically abused Sutcliffe in 2009, domestic disturbances resulted in the police being called to their home in Belsize Park on three occasions. Bean and Sutcliffe's separation was announced on 6 August 2010, and the divorce was finalised on 21 December 2010. On 9 May 2012, Bean was arrested over claims he made harassing phone calls and sent abusive text messages to Sutcliffe and was later released on bail. All charges were subsequently dropped. Bean has been a fan of Sheffield United since he was eight years old. He opened their hall of fame in 2001 and, after making a six-figure contribution to the club's finances, was on their board of directors between 2002 and 2007 to help raise the profile of the club. He stepped down in 2007 to return to, as he put it, go back to being an ordinary supporter where he feels at home. In 1990, he was reportedly so elated at the team's promotion to the top division of domestic football that he had '100% Blades' tattooed on his upper left arm. Awards and honours. In 2013, Bean was named best actor at the Royal Television Society awards for his role in "Accused". He has also received three separate awards as part of the ensemble cast in "": from the Screen Actors Guild, the National Board of Review and the Broadcast Film Critics Association, all in 2004. In his home city of Sheffield, he has received several honours and acclaims, including: an honorary doctorate from Sheffield Hallam University in 1997; a second doctorate a Doctor of Letters in English Literature from the University of Sheffield in July 2007; he was selected as one of the inaugural members of Sheffield Legends (the Sheffield equivalent of the Hollywood Walk of Fame); and a plaque in his honour has been placed in front of Sheffield Town Hall. Bean later commented, "I did get a doctorate from Sheffield Hallam University about 11 or 12 years ago so now I'm a double doctor. But this was wonderful, especially from my home city."
1103801	William Paul Thurston (October 30, 1946 – August 21, 2012) was an American mathematician. He was a pioneer in the field of low-dimensional topology. In 1982, he was awarded the Fields Medal for his contributions to the study of 3-manifolds. From 2003 until his death he was a professor of mathematics and computer science at Cornell University. Mathematical contributions. Foliations. His early work, in the early 1970s, was mainly in foliation theory, where he had a dramatic impact. His more significant results include: In fact, Thurston resolved so many outstanding problems in foliation theory in such a short period of time that it led to a kind of exodus from the field, where advisors counselled students against going into foliation theory because Thurston was "cleaning out the subject" (see "On Proof and Progress in Mathematics", especially section 6 ). The geometrization conjecture. His later work, starting around the mid-1970s, revealed that hyperbolic geometry played a far more important role in the general theory of 3-manifolds than was previously realised. Prior to Thurston, there were only a handful of known examples of hyperbolic 3-manifolds of finite volume, such as the Seifert–Weber space. The independent and distinct approaches of Robert Riley and Troels Jørgensen in the mid-to-late 1970s showed that such examples were less atypical than previously believed; in particular their work showed that the figure eight knot complement was hyperbolic. This was the first example of a hyperbolic knot. Inspired by their work, Thurston took a different, more explicit means of exhibiting the hyperbolic structure of the figure eight knot complement. He showed that the figure eight knot complement could be decomposed as the union of two regular ideal hyperbolic tetrahedra whose hyperbolic structures matched up correctly and gave the hyperbolic structure on the figure eight knot complement. By utilizing Haken's normal surface techniques, he classified the incompressible surfaces in the knot complement. Together with his analysis of deformations of hyperbolic structures, he concluded that all but 10 Dehn surgeries on the figure eight knot resulted in irreducible, non-Haken non-Seifert-fibered 3-manifolds. These were the first such examples; previously it had been believed that except for certain Seifert fiber spaces, all irreducible 3-manifolds were Haken. These examples were actually hyperbolic and motivated his next revolutionary theorem. Thurston proved that in fact most Dehn fillings on a cusped hyperbolic 3-manifold resulted in hyperbolic 3-manifolds. This is his celebrated hyperbolic Dehn surgery theorem.
592055	Anatharu is a 2007 Kannada film directed by Sadhu Kokila. The film stars Upendra, Darshan, Radhika and Sanghavi. The film is a remake of the 2003 Tamil film "Pithamagan". Box Office. The film was moderately successful at the box office and completed 9 weeks of run. The film was successful mainly due to Upendra's powerful performance which was critically acclaimed. Anatharu was a platform for Upendra to prove his mettle as an actor. Unlike his previous films where he impressed the audience with his unique dilogue delivery, in this film he had to play a character who doesn't utter a word and conveys everything through his expressions and body language.
674421	Kings of the Road () is a 1976 German road movie directed by Wim Wenders. It was the third part of Wenders' "Road Movie Trilogy" which included "Alice in the Cities" (1974) and "The Wrong Move" (1975). It was the unanimous winner of the FIPRESCI Prize at the 1976 Cannes Film Festival. Plot. The film is about a projection-equipment repair mechanic named Bruno Winter (Rüdiger Vogler) and a depressed hitchhiker Robert Lander (Hanns Zischler) who has just been through a break-up with his wife and a half-hearted suicide attempt. They travel along the Western side of the East-German border in a repair truck, visiting worn-out movie theaters. The movie contains many long shots without dialogue, and it was filmed in black and white by long-time Wenders collaborator Robby Müller. Reception. Critical. Film Critic Derek Malcolm ranked "Kings of the Road" 89 on his list of his 100 favourite movies. Malcolm says that Wenders "achieves a palpable sense of time, place and atmosphere, and of how everybody is affected by their tiny spot in history."
1059516	Kyle Merritt MacLachlan (; born February 22, 1959) is an American actor. MacLachlan is best known for his roles in cult films "Blue Velvet" as Jeffrey Beaumont, "Showgirls" as Zack Carey, as Paul Atreides in "Dune", and Ray Manzarek in the Oliver Stone film "The Doors". His television series roles include Orson Hodge on ABC's "Desperate Housewives" from 2006 to 2012, Trey MacDougal on HBO's "Sex and the City", Special Agent Dale Cooper in "Twin Peaks" and as the mayor of Portland in "Portlandia". MacLachlan is a Golden Globe Award-winning and two-time Emmy Award-nominated actor. Early life. MacLachlan was born in Yakima, Washington. His mother was a public relations director and his father was a stockbroker and lawyer. He is of Scottish, Cornish and Irish descent. He has two younger brothers named Craig and Kent, both of whom live in the Pacific Northwest. MacLachlan graduated from Eisenhower High School in 1977. He graduated from the University of Washington in 1982 and, shortly afterward, moved to Hollywood, California to pursue his career. Career. MacLachlan has worked extensively with David Lynch, with whom he has been friends for many years. He first appeared as Paul Atreides in the film "Dune" (1984), Lynch's adaptation of Frank Herbert's novel, and as Jeffrey Beaumont in "Blue Velvet" (1986). Later he played Special Agent Dale Cooper in Lynch's ABC television series "Twin Peaks" (1990–1991), reprising that role for Lynch's 1992 prequel "". Lynch commented on those roles in a "GQ" story about MacLachlan: "Kyle plays innocents who are interested in the mysteries of life. He's the person you trust enough to go into a strange world with." In 1995, MacLachlan starred in Paul Verhoeven's "Showgirls". The movie was heavily panned by critics and it collected seven Golden Raspberry Awards (from a record 13 nominations). MacLachlan himself was deeply embarrassed with his involvement; although some entertainment writers alleged that he walked out of the film's premiere, he personally contradicted these claims with the comment that he "suffered through the whole two hours" of the premiere. MacLachlan has appeared in several plays, including John Kolvenbach's "On an Average Day" with Woody Harrelson, on Broadway in "The Caretaker" with Patrick Stewart, as well as in "Romeo and Juliet" and "Henry V". In recent years, MacLachlan continues to play dark or morally ambiguous characters. This included a guest role on ', in which he played a father who shot and killed a sociopathic child who had murdered his son. MacLachlan later had another guest role on ' in 2011 as a different character. This time he portrayed the father of a boy who is murdered by his illegitimate half-brother. In the 1990s, MacLachlan was offered by NBC to be one of the lead actors on the then-new soap opera "Passions" as a powerful, wealthy villain and head of a multi-million dollar company, but MacLachlan turned it down. MacLachlan also lent his voice to the nefarious media mogul Donald Love in the video game "Grand Theft Auto III". After starring in the short-lived "In Justice", MacLachlan has become a regular on "Desperate Housewives". His character, the mysterious dentist Orson Hodge, first appeared during the show's second season, and MacLachlan became a full-time cast member at the start of season three. On July 7, 2007, MacLachlan was one of the presenters at the London leg of Live Earth. MacLachlan appeared in the 2008 movie "The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2". In the 2008 English language DVD re-release of the cult 2006 Norwegian animated film "Free Jimmy", MacLachlan voiced the character of "Marius", a militant animal rights activist. After four years of playing Orson Hodge, MacLachlan decided to quit "Desperate Housewives". He decided to leave the show because after having children, he found the commute from his home in New York City to the "Desperate Housewives" set in Los Angeles very difficult. However, MacLachlan returned to "Desperate Housewives" in season eight, the final season, to make one last appearance as a guest star. MacLachlan guest starred in season 6 and 8 of "How I Met Your Mother". MacLachlan plays the Mayor of Portland, Oregon in the IFC comedy "Portlandia". Personal life. In 1993, Kyle met model Linda Evangelista on a fashion shoot for Barney's and the two began dating. Evangelista separated from her husband, Gerard Marie. The two appeared in further fashion spreads in "Vogue" magazine. Around 1998 or 1999, the two were supposedly engaged. The couple split up however, when Evangelista met French soccer star Fabien Barthez and she became pregnant by him. MacLachlan later married in 2002. MacLachlan lives in Manhattan with his wife, Desiree Gruber, an executive producer of "Project Runway", and their son, Callum Lyon MacLachlan, born July 26, 2008, in Los Angeles. The couple have two small dogs (a Jack Russell terrier and a Yorkie/Chihuahua mixed breed) and out of "probably too much affection" have created a website about their dogs as well as a TV series popular on YouTube. A dedicated wine lover, Kyle is partners with vintner Eric Dunham in "Pursued by Bear", a winery in Washington's Columbia Valley. The name, suggested over dinner by Fred Savage, comes from a stage direction ("Exit, pursued by a bear") in Shakespeare's "The Winter's Tale".
419855	Troian Avery Bellisario (born October 28, 1985) is an American actress. She stars as Spencer Hastings in the ABC Family series "Pretty Little Liars". Early life. Bellisario was born and raised in Los Angeles. Her parents are producers Donald P. Bellisario and Deborah Pratt. Donald P. Bellisario created "Magnum, P.I.", "Quantum Leap", and "NCIS", among other TV series. She has a younger brother, Nick Bellisario, three half-sisters, two half-brothers and is a step-sister of actor Sean Murray. Bellisario graduated from the University of Southern California. She is of African-American, Italian, French, and English descent. Career. Bellisario made her acting debut in the 1988 film "Last Rites" at the age of three. From 1990 to 2007, she guest starred on "Quantum Leap", "Tequila and Bonetti", "JAG", "First Monday" and "NCIS", television series that were produced by her father Donald P. Bellisario. In "NCIS" she played Sarah McGee, sister of Special Agent Timothy McGee, portrayed by her stepbrother Sean Murray.
581814	Raj Babbar is a Hindi and Punjabi film actor since 1977 and politician belonging to Indian National Congress party and current Member of Parliament from Firozabad. Early life. Babbar was born in Tundla, Uttar Pradesh on 23 June 1952. He is an alumnus of the 1975 batch of National School of Drama and graduated from Agra College. Career. He trained in the Method school of acting at NSD, which is involved in Street Theatre. After his training in New Delhi he moved to Mumbai and started his film career with Reena Roy, one of the well known actresses of that time. He gained fame for the movie 'Insaaf Ka Taraazu', in which his was a portrayal of a rapist, who assaults the heroine and later his sister, and in the end, gets shot for his deeds. He became a consistent feature of the B. R. Chopra banner; "Nikaah" with Deepak Parashar and Salma Agha, "Aaj Ki Aawaz" with Smita Patil, with whom he married, despite being married with two children at the time. He also achieved success in Punjabi cinema as he gave remarkable performances in "Chann Pardesi" (1980) and "Long Da Lishkara" (1986) - two art house movies with serious themes treated in a realistic manner and this was an innovation for Punjabi films field. He also acted in the hit Punjabi films "Aasra Pyar Da" (1983), "Marhi Da Diva" (1989), "Mahaul Theek Hai" (1999), "Shaheed Uddham Singh" (2000), "Yaaran Naal Baharan" (2005), and "Ek Jind Ek Jaan" (2006). He also acted in Television and appeared in the introductory episode of the famous Indian TV series "Mahabharat", as king Bharat. Political life. He joined Indian National Congress and successively elected for fourth term as Member of Parliament and he won his fourth term by defeating Dimple Yadav wife of Akhilesh Yadav and daughter-in-law of Mulayam Singh Yadav. Controversy. Raj Babbar, in the capacity of Congress spokesman, created controversy in 2013, by stating that Rs.12 is sufficient to get a full meal for common man in Mumbai, which drew severe criticism. He also said that a poor person in India can get full meals two times a day, within Rs.28 to 32 and opposition parties termed Raj Babbar's statement as laughable. Later, he regretted his comments. In July 2013, he compared Narendra Modi to Adolf Hitler which also created controversy. Personal life. Raj Babbar married Nadira Zaheer, daughter of noted theatre personality Sajjad Zaheer. Arya Babbar and Juhi Babbar are his children from Nadira. He then married actress Smita Patil who gave birth to their son Prateik Babbar. He had two younger brothers, Kishen and Vinod and four younger sisters.
1063099	Angela Evelyn Bassett (born August 16, 1958) is an American actress. She has become well known for her biographical film roles portraying real-life women in African-American culture, including Tina Turner in "What's Love Got to Do with It", as well as Betty Shabazz in "Malcolm X" and "Panther", Rosa Parks in "The Rosa Parks Story", Katherine Jackson in "", and Voletta Wallace in "Notorious". Early life. Bassett was born in Harlem, New York on August 16, 1958, the daughter of Betty Jane and Daniel Benjamin Bassett. After her parents' separation, she relocated from Winston Salem, North Carolina to St. Petersburg, Florida, where she and her sister D'nette were raised by their social worker/civil servant mother. As her interest in entertainment developed, Angela and her sister would often put on shows, reading poems or performing popular music for their family. At Boca Ciega High School, Bassett was a cheerleader and a member of the Upward Bound college prep program, the debate team, student government, drama club and choir. Bassett attended Yale University and received her B.A. degree in African-American studies in 1980. In 1983, she earned a Master of Fine Arts degree from the Yale School of Drama. At Yale, Bassett met her future husband Courtney B. Vance, a 1986 graduate of the drama school. After graduation, Bassett worked as a receptionist for a beauty salon and as a photo researcher. Bassett soon looked for acting work in the New York theater. One of her first New York performances came in 1985 when she appeared in J. E. Franklin's "Black Girl" at Second Stage Theatre. She appeared in two August Wilson plays at the Yale Repertory Theatre under the direction of her long-time instructor Lloyd Richards. The Wilson plays featuring Bassett were "Ma Rainey's Black Bottom" (1984) and "Joe Turner's Come and Gone" (1986). In 2006, she had the opportunity to work on the Wilson canon again, starring in Fences alongside longtime collaborator Laurence Fishburne at the Pasadena Playhouse in California. Career. Television and film career. In 1985, Bassett made her first television appearance as a prostitute in the TV movie "Doubletake". However, she made her official film debut as a news reporter in "F/X" (1986). Bassett moved to Los Angeles and gained recognition in the films "Boyz n the Hood" (1991) and "Malcolm X" (1992). For her portrayal of Betty Shabazz, she earned an Image Award. In 1992, Bassett played Katherine Jackson in "". Later that year, Bassett was cast as Tina Turner in "What's Love Got to Do with It" (1993). Bassett won a Golden Globe and earned an Academy Award nomination for her portrayal of Turner. She was the first African-American to win the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy. Bassett starred in three movies in 1995, which were released with varied reactions from critics: "Vampire in Brooklyn", "Strange Days", and "Waiting to Exhale" (where she worked with author Terry McMillan). In "Strange Days", Bassett played Lornette "Mace" Mason, a chauffeur and bodyguard. In "Vampire in Brooklyn", she played Rita Veder, a tortured cop with a dark secret. Bassett's character in "Waiting to Exhale", Bernadine Harris, was betrayed by her husband and in revenge she set fire to his entire wardrobe and vehicle, then sold what was left for one dollar. In 1998, Bassett starred in "How Stella Got Her Groove Back", once again collaborating with McMillan. She played Stella, a 40-year-old American professional woman who falls in love with a 20-year-old Jamaican man. In 1999, Bassett starred in "Music of the Heart", once collaborating with the horror icon Wes Craven. In 2000, Bassett turned down the lead role in "Monster's Ball" because of the script's sexual content; the role earned Halle Berry the Academy Award for Best Actress.
1558144	Khwahish (English: "Desire") is a 2003 Indian Bollywood film directed by Govind Menon. The film stars Himanshu Malik and Mallika Sherawat in leading roles. Sherawat made her acting debut in the film. Although the film was quite racy by Indian standards, it was known for its naturalistic and realistic topic, being a serious film with a tragic end. This is a Hindi remake of "Love Story". Plot. Amar (Malik), rich, stubborn, and serious, meets Lekha (Sherawat) in a shop. While Lekha is poor, (the daughter of chicken farmer), she is a happy, frank, and straightforward girl. When Amar and Lekha study in college, they spend time together and finally fall in love. After the exams, Amar cannot take the separation and proposes to her. Her father Ulas befriends with Amar and accepts the marriage. However, Amar's father does not as he wants him to complete his studies first before getting married. Amar breaks contact with his father and marries Lekha. The married couple move into their new little home but after days of happiness and good times, medical reports indicate Lekha has leukemia. The rest of the plot follows their coping with this cruel reality.
584002	Ganja Karuppu, born Karuppu Raja, is an Indian film actor who plays comedy roles in Tamil cinema. He has appeared in many well-known Tamil films like "Raam" (2005), "Paruthiveeran" (2007), "Subramaniyapuram" (2008), and "Naadodig"(2009, "Kalavani" (2010). Career. Ganja Karuppu made his film debut in a small supporting role in Bala's "Pithamagan" in 2003. He received critical acclaim for his performance as Vazhavandhaan in the 2005 thriller film "Raam" directed by Ameer Sultan. Subsequently, he was signed up in a number of Tamil films to provide comic relief, the most notable being "Thaamirabharani", "Paruthiveeran", "Subramaniapuram", "Naadodigal" and "Kalavani". He also played a lead role, along with Santhanam, in the 2008 comedy film "Arai En 305-il Kadavul" by Chimbudevan. Personal life. He is married to Sangeetha, a physiotherapist in 2010.
1059492	Be Kind Rewind is a 2008 comedy film with dramatic elements from New Line Cinema, written and directed by Michel Gondry and starring Jack Black, Mos Def, Melonie Diaz, Danny Glover and Mia Farrow. The film first appeared on January 20, 2008 at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival. It was later shown at the Berlin International Film Festival. The film opened on February 22, 2008 in the United Kingdom and in North America. The title is inspired by a phrase that was commonly displayed on VHS rental tapes during the medium's heyday. Plot. In Passaic, New Jersey, the declining "Be Kind Rewind" VHS rental store owned by Mr. Fletcher (Danny Glover) is due to be demolished to make way for high-end development (due in large part to the refusal of Mr. Fletcher to rent out DVDs) unless he can find the money to renovate his building, despite his claims that jazz pianist Fats Waller was born in that building (Waller was actually born in Harlem on May 21, 1904). Mr. Fletcher leaves on a trip for several days to join friends and memorialize Waller, leaving his only employee, Mike (Mos Def), to tend to the store. Before leaving Mr. Fletcher cautions Mike to keep his paranoid and klutzy friend, Jerry (Jack Black), away from the store. After attempting to sabotage a nearby electrical substation, believing its energy to be melting his brain, Jerry becomes magnetized, and when he enters the store the next day, he inadvertently erases all the VHS tapes in the store (as well as making the camera go out of focus, whenever he walks past it). Mike quickly discovers the disaster, and is further pressed when Miss Falewicz (Mia Farrow), Mr. Fletcher's friend, wants to rent "Ghostbusters". To prevent her from reporting a problem to Mr. Fletcher, Mike comes up with an idea: as Miss Falewicz has never seen the movie, he proposes to recreate the film using himself and Jerry as the actors and cheap special effects hoping to fool her. They complete the movie just in time when another customer asks for "Rush Hour 2". Mike and Jerry repeat their filming, enlisting the help of Alma (Melonie Diaz), a local woman, for some of the parts. Word of mouth spreads through Miss Falewicz's nephew (Chandler Parker) of the inadvertently hilarious results of Mike and Jerry's filming, and soon the store is seeing more requests for such movies. Mike, Jerry, and Alma quickly pass off the movies as being "sweded", insisting the films came from Sweden and thus able to demand long wait times and higher costs for the rental. Soon, to meet demand, Mike and Jerry enlist the locals to help out in making the movies, using them as starring roles in their films. When Mr. Fletcher returns, intent on converting the store to a DVD rental outlet, he quickly recognizes that they are making more money from the sweded films than from normal rentals, and joins in with the process. However, the success is put to a halt when two court bailiffs (Sigourney Weaver and Paul Dinello) arrive, insisting the sweded films are copyright violations, and seize the tapes and the store's assets, crushing the tapes with a steamroller. Without any money to renovate the building, Mr. Fletcher gives up hope, and is forced to reveal to Mike that he made up the connection of Fats Waller to their building. Mr. Fletcher is given a week to evacuate the building before it will be razed. Jerry, with the help of the local townspeople, convinces Mr. Fletcher and Mike to give one last hurrah and put together a documentary dedicated to the fake life of Fats Waller, and the two quickly warm up to the idea. On the day the building is scheduled for demolition, Mr. Fletcher invites all the locals to watch the final film. In his eagerness to start the show due to the presence of the demolition crew waiting to start the job, Jerry accidentally breaks the only TV the store has, but a nearby DVD store owner loans them his video projector, allowing them to show the movie on a white cloth placed in the store's window. As their film ends, Mr. Fletcher, Mike and Jerry exit the store to find a crowd has gathered in the street to watch the film through the window, including the city official and wrecking crew, and they are given a rousing applause by the gathered crowd. The final fate of the store is left ambiguous. "Sweded". Films that were erased and recreated are referred to as having been "sweded". These remakes are unedited with only a single take per scene. The tapes are described as having come from Sweden as an excuse for higher rental fees and longer wait times. Jerry fabricated the word "sweded" while arguing with Craig (Chandler Parker) and his gang. In light of the theme of sweding, director Michel Gondry sweded a version of the trailer of the film, starring himself. On the official website, users can engage in sweding, which puts their faces on the VHS cover of a movie. The "Be Kind Rewind" YouTube channel also encourages filmmakers to create sweded versions of popular movies. The theme of sweding also relates to film history, in that the collectively made remakes represent social memories of films, and memories that arise through films. The term "sweded" has been adopted as a slang term for a cheap spoof remake of any film or film trailer. Production. Filming of "Be Kind Rewind" took place over several weeks in autumn of 2006 largely in and around Passaic, New Jersey. The famed former location of the Video Room of the Upper East Side of New York City was used for one of the many video stores in the film. Critical reception. The film has received mostly positive reviews, with review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reporting that 65% of critics gave the film positive reviews, based on 121 reviews. The site's critical consensus of the film: "Slighter and less disciplined than Gondry's previous mind-benders." Metacritic reported the film had an average score of 52 out of 100, based on 35 reviews. Writing in "The New York Times", reviewer A. O. Scott called the film "inviting, undemanding and altogether wonderful" and added that "you’ll want to see it again, or at least Swede it yourself." Box office performance. In its opening weekend, the film earned $4 million in 808 theaters in the United States and Canada, ranking #9 at the box office, and averaging $5,013 per theater. As of September 21, 2008, the film has grossed $30.4 million worldwide — an estimated $11 million in the United States and Canada and $19 million in other territories. DVD sales. "Be Kind Rewind" was released on DVD on June 17, 2008 and opened at #8 in the US DVD sales charts.
1034391	Martin Alan "Marty" Feldman (8 July 1934 – 2 December 1982) was an English comedy writer, comedian and actor, easily identified by his bulbous and crooked eyes. He starred in several British television comedy series, including "At Last the 1948 Show" and "Marty", the latter of which won two BAFTA awards. He was the first Saturn Award winner for Best Supporting Actor for his role in "Young Frankenstein". Early life. Feldman was born in the East End of London, the son of Jewish immigrants from Kiev. He recalled his childhood as "solitary". A BBC documentary explained that a botched operation for his Graves' disease resulted in his eyes being more protruded and misaligned (strabismus). Leaving school at 15, he worked at the Dreamland funfair in Margate. By the age of 20 he had decided to pursue a career as a comedian. Career. In 1954, Feldman formed a writing partnership with Barry Took. They wrote a few episodes of "The Army Game" and the bulk of "Bootsie and Snudge", both comedies for the ITV network, and the BBC radio show "Round the Horne", which starred Kenneth Horne and Kenneth Williams. This work placed Feldman and Took "in the front rank of comedy writers" according to Denis Norden. The television sketch comedy series "At Last the 1948 Show" featured Feldman's first screen performances. The other three performers - future Pythons Graham Chapman and John Cleese and future Goodie Tim Brooke-Taylor needed a fourth and had Feldman in mind. In one sketch on 1 March 1967, Feldman's character harassed a patient shop assistant (played by Cleese) for a series of fictitious books, achieving success with "Ethel the Aardvark Goes Quantity Surveying". The sketch was revived as part of the Monty Python stage show and on "Monty Python's Contractual Obligation Album" (both without Feldman). Feldman was co-author, along with Cleese, Chapman and Brooke-Taylor of the "Four Yorkshiremen" sketch, which was also written for "At Last the 1948 Show". The "Four Yorkshiremen" sketch was performed during Amnesty International concerts (by members of Monty Python — once including Rowan Atkinson in place of Python member Eric Idle), as well as during "Monty Python Live at the Hollywood Bowl" and other Monty Python shows and recordings. This association has led to the common misconception that the "Four Yorkshiremen" sketch was a Python sketch, with the origin and co-authorship by non-Python writers Marty Feldman and Tim Brooke-Taylor overlooked or forgotten. Feldman was also script editor on "The Frost Report" with future members of Monty Python. He co-wrote the much-repeated "Class sketch" with John Law, in which Cleese, Ronnie Barker and Ronnie Corbett faced the audience, with their descending order of height suggesting their relative social status as upper class (Cleese), middle class (Barker) and working class (Corbett). Following his "At Last the 1948 Show", Feldman was given his own series on the BBC called "Marty" (1968); it featured Brooke-Taylor, John Junkin and Roland MacLeod, with Cleese as one of the writers. Feldman won two BAFTA awards. The second series in 1969 was renamed "It's Marty" (the second title being retained for the DVD of the show); in 1971 he was signed to a series co-produced by ATV and ABC TV entitled "The Marty Feldman Comedy Machine"; this show lasted one season. In 1974, Dennis Main Wilson (producer for the UK television show "Till Death Us Do Part") produced a short sketch series for Feldman on the BBC entitled "Marty Back Together Again" — a reference to reports about the star's health. But this never captured the impact of the earlier series. The "Marty" series proved popular enough with an international audience (the first series won the Golden Rose Award at Montreux) to launch a film career. His first feature role was in "Every Home Should Have One" (1970). Feldman spent time in Soho jazz clubs. He found a parallel between "riffing" in a comedy partnership and the improvisation of jazz. In 1971, Feldman gave evidence in favour of the defendants in the "Oz" trial. He would not swear on the Bible, choosing to affirm. Throughout his testimony he was disrespectful to the judge after it was implied that he had no religion for not being Christian. Feldman's performances on American television included "The Dean Martin Show" and "Marty Feldman's Comedy Machine". On film, he was Igor (pronounced "EYE-gore" - an comic response to Wilder's claim that "it's pronounced FRONK-EN-STEEN") in "Young Frankenstein" (1974) where many lines were improvised. Gene Wilder says he had Feldman in mind when he wrote the part. At one point, Dr Frankenstein (Wilder) scolds Igor with the phrase, "Damn your eyes!" Feldman turns to the camera, points to his misaligned eyes, grins and says, "Too late!" Feldman met American comedy writer Alan Spencer on the set of "Young Frankenstein" when Spencer was a teenager. Spencer was a fan of Feldman as a writer and performer. Feldman offered Spencer guidance that led him to create the television show "Sledge Hammer!" He also made one LP, "I Feel a Song Going Off" (1969), re-released as "The Crazy World of Marty Feldman". The songs were written by Denis King, John Junkin and Bill Solly (a writer for Max Bygraves and "The Two Ronnies"). It was re-released as a CD in 2007. In 1976, Feldman ventured into Italian cinema, starring with Barbara Bouchet in "40 gradi all'ombra del lenzuolo" "(Sex with a Smile"), a sex comedy. He appeared in "The Adventure of Sherlock Holmes' Smarter Brother" and Mel Brooks' "Silent Movie", as well as directing and starring in "The Last Remake of Beau Geste". He guest-starred in the "Arabian Nights" episode of "The Muppet Show" with several Sesame Street characters, especially Cookie Monster with whom he shared a playful cameo comparing their eyes side by side. . Personal life. Feldman was married to Lauretta Sullivan (29 September 1935 – 12 March 2010) from January 1959 until his death in 1982. She died at age 74 in Studio City, California. Marty Feldman had a younger sister, Pamela. Death. Feldman died from a heart attack in a hotel room in Mexico City on 2 December 1982, during the making of the film "Yellowbeard". On the DVD commentary of "Young Frankenstein", Mel Brooks cites factors that may have contributed to Feldman's death: "He smoked sometimes six packs of cigarettes daily, drank copious amounts of black coffee, and ate a diet rich in eggs and dairy products". Plus, the high altitude of Mexico City (over 7,000 feet/2 100 m above sea level, where the air is about 20% thinner) probably added more stress on Feldman by forcing his heart and lungs to work harder. Michael Mileham, who made the behind-the-scenes movie "Group Madness" about the making of "Yellowbeard", said he and Feldman swam to an island where a local was selling lobster and coconuts. Mileham and Feldman used the same knife on their lobsters; Mileham claimed he got shellfish poisoning the next day, and theorised that this could also have contributed to Feldman's death. In an anecdotal story, cartoonist Sergio Aragonés was also filming nearby in a different production. While dressed for his role as an armed policeman, Aragonés abruptly encountered Feldman and, in introducing himself, frightened Feldman. Aragonés speculates that this possibly induced Feldman's fatal heart attack later in the evening. Aragonés has recounted the story with the punchline, "I killed Marty Feldman". The story was converted into a strip in Aragonés's issue of DC Comics' "Solo". He is buried in Forest Lawn – Hollywood Hills Cemetery near his idol, Buster Keaton, in the Garden of Heritage.
1055140	Lord of War is a 2005 crime war film written, produced and directed by Andrew Niccol, co-produced by and starring Nicolas Cage. It was released in the United States on September 16, 2005, with the DVD following on January 17, 2006 and the Blu-ray Disc on July 27, 2006. Cage plays an illegal arms dealer with similarities to post-Soviet arms dealer Viktor Bout. The film was officially endorsed by the human rights group Amnesty International for highlighting the arms trafficking by the international arms industry. Plot details. The film begins with a voice-over introduction by Yuri Orlov (Nicolas Cage), a Ukrainian-American gunrunner: Over 550 million firearms worldwide means one firearm per twelve people on the planet; he wonders how to arm the other eleven. Opening credits are set to the Buffalo Springfield song "For What It's Worth", and depict the life of a 7.62×39mm bullet from construction in a Soviet Union weapons factory, to being shipped across the world to an African warzone, loaded into the magazine of an AK-47, and fired into the head of a child soldier. In the early 1980s, Yuri is visiting a Brighton Beach restaurant, where a Russian mobster kills two would-be assassins. He is inspired to go into the arms trade, comparing the constant need for weapons to the similar human need for food. At his father's synagogue, he contacts an Israeli to obtain an illegal Uzi. After completing the first sale, Yuri convinces his brother Vitaly (Jared Leto) to become his partner, and they leave their jobs at the family restaurant behind. Yuri's first big break comes in the 1982 Lebanon War, when he sells guns to all sides of the conflict, despite witnessing war crimes and atrocities. As Yuri becomes more successful in the war's aftermath, his business comes to the attention of Interpol, and in particular idealistic agent Jack Valentine (Ethan Hawke). Valentine is after glory rather than money, making it impossible for Yuri to bribe him as he does other government agents within Interpol and elsewhere. During a sale in Colombia, a drug lord pays with six kilos of cocaine instead of cash, and shoots Yuri with one of his own pistols when the two argue; Yuri had wanted cash instead of drugs. Yuri relents, later finding the sale of the cocaine paid better than money would have. After sampling their profits, Vitaly becomes heavily addicted and eventually burns through an entire kilo. After several months, Yuri checks Vitaly into rehab, and continues alone. He lures childhood crush Ava Fontaine (Bridget Moynahan) to a false photo shoot and subsequently marries her. They later have a son, Nikolai (Nicky). Yuri's second big break is the dissolution of the Soviet Union. After Mikhail Gorbachev resigns on Christmas Day 1991, Yuri flies to Ukraine and illegally buys tanks and weapons through his uncle, a former Soviet General. Expansion to Africa leads to Andre Baptiste Sr. (Eamonn Walker), a ruthless dictator waging a never-ending civil war in Liberia. During one flight into Africa, Yuri's cargo plane is intercepted and forced to land by a fighter jet commandeered by Jack Valentine and Interpol. He escapes arrest by landing outside of the nearby city, and by simply handing out the cargo to locals, he ensures no weapons are on the plane by the time Valentine arrives. Surveillance of Yuri and his activities continues at his home in the United States, however. Unable to charge Yuri, Valentine tells Ava he is an arms dealer, prompting her to confront him and demand he stop his illegal business. Yuri agrees, but is soon enticed back into arms trading by Andre Baptiste Sr., who offers him even greater payments in return for his exceptional skills as an arms dealer. Yuri soon goes to complete a sale in Africa, where a militia force allied with Andre Baptiste Sr. is visibly preparing to destroy a refugee camp. When Vitaly sees the militia hack an escaping woman and child to death with a machete, he pleads with Yuri to walk away. Yuri refuses; if he backs out, the militia will simply kill the Orlov brothers along with the refugees. Taking matters into his own hands, Vitaly steals a pair of grenades and destroys one of the two trucks carrying the weapons being sold. Before he reaches the other truck, RUF soldiers shoot him. Yuri approaches his dying brother, and restores a grenade pin and tosses the inactivated grenade to one of the killers responsible. The diamond payment is halved for the remaining weapons. At home, Ava follows Yuri to his secret shipping container of supplies. She leaves with son Nick, and Yuri's parents disown him after learning the truth. When the U.S. Customs finds a bullet in Vitaly's corpse, Valentine arrests Yuri, who predicts, correctly, that a knock at the door will signal his release as a "necessary evil" who distributes weapons so major governments can deny involvement. Despite his losses, Yuri returns to arms dealing. Yuri remarks that it's what he does best, and that arms dealers are most likely to inherit the world one day "because everyone else is too busy killing each other." His final advice to the viewer is, "Never go to war, especially with yourself." An onscreen postscript states that private dealers conduct less business than the five largest arms exporters—the United States, United Kingdom, Russia, France, and China—ironically, the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council. Historical accuracy. Plot details on the illegal arms market, particularly regarding purchases for West Africa in early 1990s, are closely based on real stories and people originating from the former Soviet Union. The conflicts portrayed in the film are all real conflicts in real countries, particularly those in Lebanon, Sudan, Cambodia, Afghanistan, Liberia, Colombia and Sierra Leone. On the other side, the image of the Interpol as an acting security agency is entirely fictional. Production. Some of the Russian language dialogs in the film (mostly those by Eugene Lazarev as Gen. Orlov) contain very obscene Russian mat wording, translated by far softer expressions in the original English subtitles. It is unclear whether these pieces were part of the script, or Lazarev's improvisation. A scene in the film featured 50 tanks, which were provided by a Czech source. The tanks were only available until December of the year of filming, as the dealer needed them to sell in Libya. The production team rented 3000 real SA Vz. 58 rifles to stand in for AK 47s because they were cheaper than prop guns. Release. Critical reception. "Lord of War" received fairly positive reviews from critics; the film received a 61% rating on Rotten Tomatoes; the consensus states: "While "Lord of War" is an intelligent examination of the gun trade, it is too scattershot in its plotting to connect." The film also received a special mention for excellence in filmmaking from the National Board of Review. It received a 62/100 score from Metacritic. Box office. The film grossed $9,390,144 on its opening weekend, ranking #3 at the North American box office behind "Just Like Heaven" and "The Exorcism of Emily Rose". After the film's 7 weeks of release it grossed a total of $24,149,632 on the domestic market in the US, and $48,467,436 overseas, for a worldwide total of $72,617,068. Home media. The UK DVD release of "Lord of War" includes, prior to the film, an advert for Amnesty International, showing the AK-47 being sold on a shopping channel of the style popular on cable networks. The American DVD release includes a bonus feature that shows the various weapons used in the film, allowing viewers to click on each weapon to get statistics about their physical dimensions and histories. The DVD bonus section also contains a public service announcement from Nicolas Cage, addressing the issue of illicit arms sales.
1246051	Teenage Paparazzo is a 2010 documentary film about the life and times of a 14-year-old Paparazzi photographer named Austin Visschedyk. It was directed by actor Adrian Grenier. Produced by Bert Marcus, Adrian Grenier and Matthew Cooke. Film premise. Teenage Paparazzo chronicles the relationship of a 14-year-old paparazzo Austin Visschedyk and actor Adrian Grenier. Grenier encountered Visschedyk one night and decided to follow him while searching for celebrities. Grenier had set himself a mission in getting to understand the world of the paparazzi. Austin has to be tutored and stays up late at night taking pictures and surfing the internet. During the day he is often called away to photograph celebrities, which he is successful at doing due to his young age and appearance. As the film progresses Grenier realizes his rather negative influence on Visschedyk's life. A year after initial production of the film ended, Austin's attitude and behavior has changed for the better. Grenier offers Austin a relationship stronger than the pap-celebrity one they have had. The film concludes with Austin telling Adrian to turn the camera off, which he subsequently does. Critical reaction. "Teenage Paparazzo" received Critical Acclaim. Jeniffer Merin of About.com gave the film four out of five stars, saying "Grenier not only does a very good job of considering the many nuances of the relationship between paparazzi and celebrities, his presentation is thoroughly entertaining."
680375	Giovanni Alfonso Borelli (28 January 1608 – 31 December 1679) was a Renaissance Italian physiologist, physicist, and mathematician. He contributed to the modern principle of scientific investigation by continuing Galileo's custom of testing hypotheses against observation. Trained in mathematics, Borelli also made extensive studies of Jupiter's moons, the mechanics of animal locomotion and, in microscopy, of the constituents of blood. He also used microscopy to investigate the stomatal movement of plants, and undertook studies in medicine and geology. During his career, he enjoyed the patronage of Queen Christina of Sweden. Biography. Giovanni Borelli was born on 28 January 1608 in the district of Castel Nuovo, in Naples. He was the son of Spanish infantryman Miguel Alonso and a local woman named Laura Porello (alternately "Porelli" or "Borelli".) Borelli eventually traveled to Rome where he studied under Benedetto Castelli, matriculating in mathematics. Sometime before 1640 he was appointed Professor of Mathematics at Messina. In the early 1640s, he met Galileo Galilei in Florence. While it is likely that they remained acquaintances, Galileo rejected considerations to nominate Borelli as head of Mathematics at the University of Pisa when he left the post himself. Borelli would attain this post in 1656. It was there that he first met the Italian anatomist Marcello Malpighi. Borelli and Malpighi were both founder-members of the short-lived Accademia del Cimento, an Italian scientific academy founded in 1657. It was here that Borelli, piqued by Malpighi's own studies, began his first investigations into the science of animal movement, or biomechanics. This began an interest that would continue for the rest of his life, eventually earning him the title of the Father of Biomechanics. Borelli's involvement in the Accademia was temporary and the organization itself disbanded shortly after he left. Borelli returned to Messina in 1668 but was quickly forced into exile for suspected involvement in political conspiracies. Here he first became acquainted with ex-Queen Christina of Sweden who had also been exiled to Rome for converting to Catholicism. Borelli lived the rest of his years in poverty, teaching basic mathematics at the school of the convent where he had been allowed to live. He never saw the publication of his masterwork, "De Motu Animalium (On the Movement of Animals)" as it was published posthumously, financed by Christina and his benefactors at the convent. Sociopolitical climate. In 1542, the Congregation of the Holy Office (now known as the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith) was created by Pope Paul III to facilitate in the inquisition of heresy. This institution had influence in philosophy, mathematics, and science. The Holy Office was designed to protect the Catholic faith from ideas that were viewed as damaging to the Church. Its effects continued through the time of Borelli and on to modern times. The office was a well-structured, localized system that targeted new ideas considered to be dangerous by the Church. In addition to containing these ideas, the Holy Office could also punish the offending parties who brought the ideas into the public domain. This institution was one of many ways in which the Catholic Church responded to the Protestant Reformation of the sixteenth century. Although Borelli lived and worked within this climate, the Holy Office did not hinder his work, perhaps because the Church did not find his work to be damaging to the faith. His work, and the work of many others, however, may still have been influenced by the Holy Office’s treatment of his contemporary Galileo Galilei. His work resembled that of many of his contemporaries in that he started to adhere to the rules of scientific exploration that are used in modern times, that is, building hypotheses and theories based on observations in the natural world, and then testing them. Scientific achievements. Borelli’s major scientific achievements are focused around his investigation into biomechanics. This work originated with his studies of animals. His publications, "De Motu Animalium I" and "De Motu Animalium II", borrowing their title from the Aristotelian treatise, relate animals to machines and utilize mathematics to prove his theories. The anatomists of the 17th century were the first to suggest the contractile movement of muscles. Borelli, however, first suggested that ‘muscles do not exercise vital movement otherwise than by contracting.’ He was also the first to deny corpuscular influence on the movements of muscles. This was proven through his scientific experiments demonstrating that living muscle did not release corpuscles into water when cut. Borelli also recognized that forward motion entailed movement of a body’s center of gravity forward, which was then followed by the swinging of its limbs in order to maintain balance. His studies also extended beyond muscle and locomotion. In particular he likened the action of the heart to that of a piston. For this to work properly he derived the idea that the arteries have to be elastic. For these discoveries, Borelli is labeled as the father of modern biomechanics and the American Society of Biomechanics uses the Borelli Award as its highest honour for research in the area. Along with his work on biomechanics, Borelli also had interests in physics, specifically the orbits of the planets. Borelli believed that the planets were revolving as a result of three forces. The first force involved the planets' desire to approach the sun. The second force dictated that the planets were propelled to the side by impulses from sunlight, which is corporeal. Finally, the third force impelled the planets outward due to the sun’s revolution. The result of these forces is similar to a stone’s orbit when tied on a string. Borelli's measurements of the orbits of satellites of Jupiter are mentioned in Volume 3 of Newton's Principia. Borelli is also considered to be the first man to consider a self-contained underwater breathing apparatus along with his early submarine design. The exhaled gas was cooled by sea water after passing through copper tubing. The helmet was brass with a glass window and 0.6 m (2 ft) in diameter. The apparatus was never likely to be used or tested. Borelli also wrote:
1065236	A New Leaf (1971) is a dark comedy film based on the short story "The Green Heart" by Jack Ritchie, starring Elaine May, Walter Matthau, George Rose and James Coco. Better known for her collaboration as a stage comedienne with "The Graduate" director Mike Nichols, May also wrote and directed (in her debut). For this film May consulted Dr. Dominick Basile, a botany professor at Columbia University. Dr. Basile wrote botanically accurate lines into the script and supplied the botanical equipment seen in the film. May also modeled Henrietta's office after his. The film was a critical success upon its initial release and is now considered a cult classic. However, despite several accolades, award nominations, and a Radio City Music Hall run, "A New Leaf" fared poorly at the box office and remains little known by the general public. For his performance as Henry, Matthau affected an accent and mannerisms reminiscent of Cary Grant. Plot. Henry Graham has run through his entire inheritance and is completely unequipped to provide for himself. His childhood guardian, Uncle Harry, refuses to give him a dime. Henry is unwilling to exercise the only solution he can think of—suicide. At the suggestion of his valet Harold, Henry decides the only other viable option open to him: marrying into wealth. With a loan from Uncle Harry to tide him over, Henry has just six weeks to find a rich bride and repay the money, otherwise he must forfeit all of his property to his uncle. Desperation sets in as Henry's attempts to meet a suitable mate comically fail. With only days remaining, Henry meets clumsy, painfully shy, heiress Henrietta Lowell, a botany professor. She is the answer to his prayers; wealthy and with no family. However, Henrietta's suspicious (and crooked) lawyer is a problem for Henry, as his Uncle Harry plots with the shyster to prove to Henretta that Henry only wants her for her money. They fail, and Henrietta marries Henry. On their honeymoon, Henrietta discovers what may be an undiscovered species of fern. Murder never far from his mind, Henry takes charge of his wife's life. He reorganizes her household staff, who had been taking full advantage of her timidity and naivete--and sharing their profits with her former lawyer. He also learns how to manage accounts and a vast estate. Henrietta is completely disorganized and welcomes Henry's guidance. When Henrietta's fern is confirmed as an entirely new species, she names it after Henry. He is unexpectedly touched. She invites him to join her on her canoe trip to the Adirondacks for her annual field trip. Henry sees this as an opportunity to rid himself of Henrietta forever in a remote area with no witnesses.
1044129	Ed Devereaux (27 August 192517 December 2003) was an Australian actor, who lived in the UK for many years. He was best known for playing the part of "Matt Hammond" in the Australian children's television series "Skippy". He was also involved in the series behind the scenes: Devereaux directed "The Veteran" (1969), for which he received much critical acclaim. He also wrote the script. Devereaux based the story of "Double Trouble" on an idea conceived by his children, wrote the screenplay of "Summer Storm" and wrote the script of "The Mine". Devereaux appeared as Mr. Gubbins in the 1963 British comedy movie "Ladies Who Do" and in several "Carry On" films including "Carry On Sergeant", "Carry On Nurse", "Carry On Regardless", "Carry On Cruising" and "Carry On Jack". He also appeared as Thomas Macaulay in series 5 of "The Onedin Line" and as Mac in the British comedy series "Absolutely Fabulous" and in "The Professionals" (episode "Runner") and "The Sweeney" ("Jackpot"). In 1964 he appeared in "The Saint" episode "The Loving Brothers". Devereaux's first wife was Irene Champion. Together they had four children: John (b. 1954), Steven (b. 1955), Timothy (b. 1956) and Matthew (b. 1962). Champion wrote the song for the "Skippy" spin-off movie "The Intruders" in 1969. She and Devereaux separated in 1986. Three months after he was diagnosed with cancer of the oesophagus, Devereaux died in his sleep of renal failure at his Hampstead home, at the age of 78, on 17 December 2003. He had insisted on being released from Royal Free Hospital to be at home with Julie, his second wife of 17 years. He was cremated at the Golders Green Crematorium, where his ashes remain.
1063080	Lara Flynn Boyle (born March 24, 1970) is an American film and television actress best known for her performances as Laura Palmer's best friend Donna Hayward in "Twin Peaks" and Assistant District Attorney Helen Gamble in "The Practice". She has also appeared in a number of feature films, such as "Happiness" and "Men in Black II". Early life. Boyle was born in Davenport, Iowa, the daughter of Sally Boyle, a clerical worker, assistant, and manager, and Michael L. Boyle. Her father was of Irish descent and her mother was of one quarter Irish, half German, and one quarter Italian ancestry. She is named after a character in Boris Pasternak's novel "Doctor Zhivago". She was raised in Chicago, Illinois and Wisconsin. Boyle studied at and graduated from The Chicago Academy for the Arts. Career. Boyle's first film role was a bit part in "Ferris Bueller's Day Off" (1986), which earned her a SAG card, though her scenes were deleted from the final cut of the film. She then appeared in the mini-series "Amerika" (1987) and feature film "Poltergeist III" (1988). Although she was cast in "Dead Poets Society" (1989), her scenes were deleted. Her first major role was as Donna Hayward in the critically acclaimed television series "Twin Peaks". When the series ended in 1991, creator David Lynch produced a movie, "", but Boyle did not return. Moira Kelly took over the role of Donna for the film. Some of Boyle's most notable roles during the 1990s were: In 1997, Boyle auditioned for the title role in David E. Kelley's "Ally McBeal". Although she lost out to Calista Flockhart, the actress impressed Kelley enough to create the role of Assistant District Attorney Helen Gamble in his other 1997 series, "The Practice", specifically for her. She starred on that show until 2003, when, in a dramatic attempt to revamp the show and cut costs, she was dismissed along with most of the cast. For her performance as Helen Gamble, she received an Emmy nomination as well as several Screen Actors Guild ensemble cast nominations. Boyle also made a crossover appearance in the role of Helen Gamble in an episode of "Ally McBeal", and an uncredited guest appearance on the same show in its final season. In 2002, Boyle played a lead role in the blockbuster feature film "Men in Black II" as the villainous shapeshifting alien Serleena. She also guest-starred on one of the last episodes of "Ally McBeal", this time as Tally Cupp. Recently, she had a recurring role on several episodes of "Huff", playing Melody Coatar, an unstable patient with borderline personality disorder and bipolar disorder. In 2005, Boyle joined the cast of "Las Vegas" for a seven-episode stint as Monica Mancuso, a new hotel owner. She played Barbara Amiel in the TV true story "Shades of Black", about Amiel's controversial husband, Lord Conrad Black. Boyle also guest-starred as an ambitious reporter involved with the suspects in a possible murder in the "Law & Order" 2008 episode "Submission". Personal life. Boyle was in a two-year relationship with "Twin Peaks" partner Kyle MacLachlan. Boyle also dated Jack Nicholson. They went public with their romance at the 1999 Emmys, and remained together until the end of 2000. Boyle has been married twice. Her first husband was John Patrick Dee III, whom she married on August 11, 1996 and divorced two years later. Her current husband is Donald Ray Thomas II, a real-estate investor, whom she married on December 18, 2006 in San Antonio, Texas. She is dyslexic.
1052230	Get Out Your Handkerchiefs () is a 1978 French romantic comedy film directed by Bertrand Blier. The film won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film at the 51st Academy Awards. Plot. Raoul (Gérard Depardieu) and his wife Solange (Carole Laure) are eating in a restaurant when Raoul expresses concern with Solange's apparent depression, as she eats little, suffers migraines and insomnia and also sometimes faints. He finds another man in the room, Stéphane (Patrick Dewaere), to be her lover and hopefully enliven her again. Stéphane is puzzled by Raoul's plan but gives in to his desperate appeals for help. The two men take turns sleeping with Solange, and both try to impregnate her without success, believing a lack of a child to be the source of her depression. Raoul, Solange and Stéphane work at a boys' camp in the summer, where they meet a 13-year-old math prodigy named Christian Belœil (Riton), who is bullied by the other boys. Solange becomes protective of Christian and one night lets him sleep in her bed. She awakes to find Christian exploring her body and scolds them. They make up and have sex, despite a drastic age difference. Afterwards, Solange becomes dependent on the boy, to the point were she, Raoul and Stéphane kidnap him from his boarding school. Christian eventually impregnates her, and the film ends with Raoul and Stéphane walking away after serving six months in prison. Production. Director Bertrand Blier wrote the screenplay "from the middle," starting by writing the scene where Raoul and Stéphane fantasize about meeting composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. While writing the script, he was planning to use Dewaere and Depardieu in the leads, having previously worked with them on "Going Places" (1974). The familiarity meant the men were comfortable together. David Denby of "New York" believed the film was made in the spirit of the French New Wave. Reception. The film had a total of 1,321,087 admissions in France. The film has received positive reviews, with Rotten Tomatoes counting nine favourable reviews out of ten. "New York" claims the audience clapped and hissed at the New York Film Festival and that "Get Out Your Handkerchiefs" was "courageous and enjoyable." "Time Out" called it "an erratic, often hilarious movie." In his "2002 Movie & Video Guide", Leonard Maltin gives the film three and a half stars and calls it "disarming" and "highly unconventional." Arion Berger writes that "to experience "Get Out Your Handkerchiefs" is to watch a master at the peak of his powers." An "Epinions" critic wrote ""Get Out Your Handkerchiefs" is good for some laughs while flaunting somewhat outrageous disregard for standard sexual mores." The film won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film and was named the best film of 1978 by the National Society of Film Critics. Not all reviews were favourable, as "People" wrote the humour could be "downright incomprehensible" and "so airy it floats right off the screen." "Variety" wrote that "a rather bizarre mixture of gritty comedy, satire and delving into female status makes this a literary film. There is a lot of talk, sometimes good, but often edgy and too often pointless in lieu of a more robust visual dynamism and life."
1062842	Paul Franklin Dano (born June 19, 1984) is an American actor and producer. He has had lead or ensemble roles in independently produced films such as "L.I.E." (2001), "Little Miss Sunshine" (2006), "Gigantic" (2008), "Meek's Cutoff" (2010), "Being Flynn" (2012), and "Ruby Sparks" (2012); and supporting roles in studio-produced films like "The Girl Next Door" (2004), "There Will Be Blood" (2007), "Cowboys & Aliens" (2011), and "Looper" (2012). Early life. Dano was born in New York City, the son of Gladys (née Pipp) and Paul Dano, a retired attorney. Dano has a younger sister, Sarah. He spent the first few years of his childhood in New York City and initially attended the Browning School, while his father worked as a businessman in New York. While he was still a child, Dano's family moved to New Canaan, Connecticut, finally settling in Wilton, Connecticut. There, Dano continued his education, at Wilton High School, graduating in 2002 to further attend Eugene Lang College in New York, NY. He was involved in community theatre, and while performing in New Canaan his parents were encouraged to take him to New York City. Career. At age 10, Dano was scouted for roles in plays on Broadway, making his debut at age 12 in a revival of "Inherit the Wind" along with George C. Scott and Charles Durning. He appeared in an episode of the sitcom "Smart Guy" and a minor role in the 2000 family drama "The Newcomers". Dano acted in his first major film role when he was 17, playing the character of Howie Blitzer, a teenage boy who becomes involved with a middle-aged pedophile, played by Brian Cox, in "L.I.E." (2001). He then appeared in the TV movie "Too Young to Be a Dad" as a high school student whose life is disrupted when his girlfriend becomes pregnant. In 2004 he played a small role as young Martin Asher in Taking Lives with Angelina Jolie and Ethan Hawke. In 2005, he played supporting roles in "The King" with Gael Garcia Bernal, and "The Ballad of Jack and Rose" with Daniel Day-Lewis. He came to greater attention in 2006, when he played a voluntarily mute teenager as part of an ensemble in the comedic drama "Little Miss Sunshine", which received critical acclaim and collective awards for its cast. Dano's work with Daniel Day-Lewis led to a dual role opposite him in his next film, Paul Thomas Anderson's "There Will Be Blood", playing identical twin brothers Eli and Paul Sunday. This earned him a BAFTA nomination for Best Supporting Actor, and brought him positive reviews, with "Texas Monthly" saying that his performance was "so electric that the movie sags whenever he's not around." and Peter Travers remarking "All praise to the baby-faced Dano...for bringing sly cunning and unexpected ferocity to Plainview's most formidable opponent." "Rolling Stone" magazine included Dano in its Hot List for 2007, calling his performance style "Daniel Day-Lewis + Billy Crudup × Johnny Depp." Dano appeared in several additional Broadway productions including "A Month in the Country", "A Thousand Clowns" at the Roundabout Theatre, and in the Ethan Hawke directorial debut "Things We Want" during its 2007 Off-Broadway run. In 2008 he starred in "Gigantic", a poorly-reviewed film about a man seeking to adopt a Chinese baby, co-starring Zooey Deschanel. He reunited with Brian Cox in 2009's "The Good Heart", a low-budget English-language Icelandic film. He provided the voice of one of the creatures in the film adaptation of "Where the Wild Things Are". He played a genius inventor in 2010's "Knight and Day", an action thriller starring Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz. The same year he appeared in "Meek's Cutoff", a well-reviewed historical drama. In 2011, he had a supporting role in the big-budget science fiction film "Cowboys and Aliens". Dano appeared in three feature films in 2012: "Ruby Sparks", as a writer whose fictional character (played by Zoe Kazan, the film's writer and Dano's girlfriend) inexplicably appears as a real person; time-travel thriller "Looper", in a supporting role with Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Bruce Willis; and with Robert De Niro in "Being Flynn" as the film's writer Nick Flynn, about his relationship with his father. Dano will play a younger version of the Beach Boys founder, Brian Wilson with John Cusack set to play an older version of Wilson in the upcoming biopic "Love and Mercy". Personal life. Dano is in a relationship with actress Zoe Kazan, whom he has known since 2007. Dano is also a vocalist and lead guitar player in his band Mook.
1185055	Toni Michelle Braxton (born October 7, 1967) is an American R&B singer-songwriter, pianist, musician, record producer, actress, television personality, and philanthropist. Braxton has won 6 Grammy Awards, 7 American Music Awards, and 9 Billboard Music Awards. Throughout the years, she has sold over 66 million records worldwide. Braxton topped the "Billboard" 200 with her 1993 self-titled debut album and its hit singles "Love Shoulda Brought You Home", "Another Sad Love Song", "Breathe Again" and "You Mean the World to Me". She continued that streak with her second studio album, "Secrets", which spawned the number-one hits "You're Makin' Me High" and "Unbreak My Heart" in 1996. Although she had successful albums and singles, Braxton filed for bankruptcy in 1998, but then returned with her chart-topping third album, "The Heat" in 2000, which included the international hit single "He Wasn't Man Enough". In 2009, she returned to the spotlight with "Yesterday", a #12 R&B hit which served as the first single from her new album "Pulse", released on May 4, 2010, which debuted at #1 on "Billboard" R&B Album Chart. Braxton was involved in the 7th season of the reality show "Dancing with the Stars". Her professional partner was Alec Mazo. She was voted off in week five of the competition. It was announced on October 6, 2010 that Braxton had once again had filed for bankruptcy and was reporting somewhere between $1–$50 million in debts. A reality series entitled "Braxton Family Values", starring Toni and her sisters, debuted April 12, 2011 on WE tv. WE tv ordered a 13-episode second season of the show after the third episode of the first season. On September 18, 2011, Braxton was inducted into the Georgia Music Hall of Fame. Early life. Braxton was born in Severn, Maryland. Her father, Michael Conrad Braxton, Sr., was a Methodist clergyman and power company worker, and her mother, Evelyn Jackson, a native of South Carolina, was a former opera singer and cosmetologist, as well as a pastor. Braxton's maternal grandfather was also a pastor. The Braxton children were raised in a strict religious household. Braxton's first performing experience was singing in her church choir. Braxton is the eldest of six siblings. She has a younger brother Michael Jr. (born in 1968) and four younger sisters Traci (born in 1972), Towanda (born in 1973), Trina (born in 1974), and Tamar (born in 1977). Braxton attended Bowie State University to obtain a teaching degree but decided to sing professionally after she was discovered by William E. Pettaway Jr., who heard her singing to herself while pumping gas. Career. 1990–95: "The Braxtons" and album debut "Toni Braxton". Braxton and her four sisters (Traci, Towanda, Trina, and Tamar) began performing as "The Braxtons" in the late 1980s and were signed to Arista Records in 1989. Their first single, "Good Life", was released in 1990. Though the song was not successful, it attracted the attention of Antonio "L.A." Reid and Kenneth "Babyface" Edmonds. With Braxton's low register sounding similar to that of Anita Baker, Reid and Babyface recruited her to record a demo of "Love Shoulda Brought You Home", a song that they had written for Anita Baker for the soundtrack of Eddie Murphy's film, "Boomerang". Baker, who was pregnant at the time, did not record the song but suggested, that Braxton record it. Her recording was later included on the soundtrack along with "Give U My Heart", a duet by Braxton and Babyface. Braxton, meanwhile, was signed to Reid and Edmonds' Arista-distributed imprint, LaFace Records, and immediately began recording her solo debut album. On July 13, 1993, LaFace Records released Braxton's self-titled debut album, "Toni Braxton". The album, which was primarily produced by Reid, Babyface, and Daryl Simmons, peaked at number one on the U.S. "Billboard" 200 albums chart. The first single, "Another Sad Love Song", peaked at number seven and number two on the "Billboard" Hot 100 and R&B Singles charts respectively. The album's second single, "Breathe Again" peaked in the top five of both the Hot 100 and R&B singles charts and no 2 in the UK. More singles from "Toni Braxton" were released in 1994, including "You Mean the World to Me", "Seven Whole Days", "I Belong to You", and "How Many Ways". Braxton's debut album won her several awards, including three Grammy Awards (for Best New Artist and two consecutive awards for Best Female R&B Vocal Performance in 1994 and 1995). She also won two American Music Awards (for Favorite Soul/R&B New Artist and Favorite New Adult Contemporary Artist) in 1994 and another one in 1995 (for Favorite Soul/R&B Album). "Toni Braxton" was certified 8x platinum in USA and has sales of over 10 million worldwide. 1996–99: "Secrets" and Broadway. In June 1996, Braxton released her second and most successful album, "Secrets". Braxton has said about the album: "The motivation for this album was to include a little bit of everything. Our aim was to come up with material, that would have a familiar 'feel' to the people, who bought the first album without being musically redundant." Along with Babyface, Braxton also worked with R. Kelly, Tony Rich, and David Foster on the album. Braxton was the co-executive producer of the album and co-wrote two of its songs, including the 1997 single "How Could an Angel Break My Heart", which was also later included on "Diana Princess of Wales Tribute", a Princess Diana memorial album. With help from the album's first single, "You're Makin' Me High" (which became Braxton's first number-one hit on the Hot 100 singles chart), the album peaked at number two on the "Billboard" 200 albums chart. "You're Makin' Me High" also topped the R&B singles chart for two weeks and saw similar success in Europe and Asia. The album's second single, "Un-Break My Heart" (written by Diane Warren) — which would later become the singer's signature song — became the biggest hit of her career spending eleven weeks at number one on the Hot 100 and also topping the Hot Dance Singles Sales chart for eleven weeks and the Hot Dance Music/Club Play chart for four weeks as well as reaching no 2 in the UK The song is the second biggest selling single by a female singer in "Billboard" history behind Whitney Houston's, "I Will Always Love You". Other singles from the album included the double A-side "I Don't Want To"/"I Love Me Some Him" (which peaked at number one on the Hot Dance Music/Club Play chart) and "How Could an Angel Break My Heart", which featured Kenny G, with whom Braxton later toured. After 92 weeks in the charts, "Secrets" is certified 8x platinum, becoming Braxton's second straight 8 million seller. Internationally, "Secrets" sold more than 15 million copies, thus cementing Braxton's superstar status. Braxton topped the "Billboard" Year-End Charts as the Top Hot 100 Singles Artist — Female, Top R&B Artist — Female (singles and albums), Top Hot R&B Singles Artist — Female, Top Hot Dance Club Play Artist, and Top Hot Adult Contemporary Artist, while "Un-Break My Heart" became the Top Hot Dance Club Play Single and the Top Hot Adult Contemporary Track of the year. She won two Grammy Awards; one for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance and Best Female R&B Vocal Performance and two American Music Awards for Favorite Female Soul/R&B Artist and Favorite Soul/R&B Album. By 1996, Braxton had sold more than 20 million records. But she was still waiting on her financial rewards, and sued Arista and LaFace Records. But they would not give her any money. Her business manager recommended filing for bankruptcy. She was forced to file chapter 7. When the news of her bankruptcy reached the press, Braxton was portrayed as a star who had overspent on her lavish lifestyle. And it would come to a head on an appearance on the "Oprah Winfrey Show". Within weeks of declaring bankcruptcy, Braxton's prized possessions were seized by repo men. Her clothes, her electronics, Grammys and American Music Awards were taken. After being one of the biggest-selling artists of the 1990s, Braxton was left with nothing. Braxton has appeared on two Disney Broadway shows: She made her Broadway debut as Belle in "Beauty and the Beast" beginning September 9, 1998 when she replaced Kim Huber. During her run in the show Alan Menken wrote a new song for the musical called "A Change in Me", which was specially written for Braxton and was used in the musical ever since. She left the production on February 28, 1999 and was succeeded by Andrea McArdle. Her role in "Beauty and the Beast" marked the first (and only) time a black woman commanded the leading role of Belle on Broadway (in the UK, Michelle Gayle played the role in the West End). It also marked the first time a black woman would star in a Disney musical on Broadway. In 1999, the lawsuit against LaFace Records was settled and Toni was given back all her possessions. Giving her time to record her first album in 4 years: The Heat. 2000-01: "The Heat". In March 2000, LaFace Records released "He Wasn't Man Enough", the first single from Braxton's third studio album, "The Heat". By June 2000, the song peaked at number two on the Hot 100 chart. Braxton's music video for "He Wasn't Man Enough", which also featured actress Robin Givens, was nominated for two MTV Video Music Awards including Best Female Video and Best R&B Video and a "Billboard" Music Video Award for Best R&B Clip of the Year. "The Heat" was released on April 25, 2000. Debuting at number two on the "Billboard" 200 albums chart with first week sales of 194,448 copies sold, it remained in the top 20 for fifteen consecutive weeks. Braxton again worked with producers Babyface and Foster; also included in the staple were Rodney Jerkins, and new beau musician Keri Lewis. Braxton herself also took a more hands-on approach, co-writing and co-producing a handful of the tracks. "Gimme Some", a track on "The Heat", featured a rap verse from TLC star Lisa "Left Eye" Lopes. The album's second single, "Just Be a Man About It", peaked at number 32 on the Hot 100 and number six on the R&B Charts. The third single, "Spanish Guitar", peaked at number 98 on the Hot 100 and number one on the Hot Dance & Club charts. The fourth single, "Maybe", peaked at 74 on the R&B charts. "The Heat" was certified double platinum in the US with over three million copies sold worldwide. In February 2000, Braxton performed alongside Enrique Iglesias and Christina Aguilera during the Super Bowl Halftime show. Braxton topped the "Billboard" Year-End Charts as the Top R&B/Hip-Hop Artist — Female, Top R&B/Hip-Hop Album Artist — Female, and Top Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Singles & Tracks Artist — Female. She also received the 2000 Aretha Franklin Award for Entertainer of the Year at the Soul Train Lady of Soul Awards. Braxton also picked up her sixth Grammy Award for "He Wasn't Man Enough", which won the 2001 Grammy Award for Best Female R&B Vocal Performance and the album was nominated for Best R&B Album. It won Best R&B/Soul Album at the 2001 American Music Awards, her third win in a row. In 2002, while gearing up for the release of her fourth studio album, Braxton discovered she was pregnant with her second child. Knowing that she wouldn't be able to promote the album properly, she unsuccessfully lobbied Arista Records to get the label to postpone its release until after she was to give birth. Arista Records refused and the album was released as planned in November 2002. It received very little promotion from Arista and Braxton herself, due to a complicated pregnancy, that confined her to bed rest. Braxton accused the company of being unwilling to compromise and punishing her from not putting her career over family. On the show "VH1 Inside Out — Family Comes First", she documented the hardships of being pregnant with her second child at the same time as promoting an album.
1059414	Get Him to the Greek is a 2010 American comedy film written, produced, and directed by Nicholas Stoller and starring Jonah Hill and Russell Brand. The film was released on June 4, 2010. "Get Him to the Greek" is a spin-off sequel of Stoller's 2008 film "Forgetting Sarah Marshall", reuniting director Stoller with stars Hill and Brand. Brand reprises his role as character Aldous Snow from "Forgetting Sarah Marshall", while Hill plays an entirely new character. The film also stars Elisabeth Moss, Rose Byrne, Colm Meaney and Sean Combs. Plot. In 2009, British rock star Aldous Snow (Russell Brand) releases an album and a titular single—"African Child", which is a commercial and critical failure. Despite having been free of alcohol and other drugs for seven years, along with his pop-star girlfriend Jackie Q (Rose Byrne), when, in an interview, she drunkenly declares they have a boring life, he relapses—which effectively ends his relationship with her, makes him lose custody of their son, Naples, and sabotages his career. Meanwhile, in Los Angeles, Aaron Green (Jonah Hill) works as a talent scout at Pinnacle Records, a successful record company. He lives with his girlfriend, Daphne (Elisabeth Moss), a doctor. Pinnacle Records is performing badly as a result of poor record sales, and the head of the company, Sergio Roma (Sean Combs), asks for ideas. Green proposes that Aldous Snow play at the Greek Theatre in Los Angeles on the tenth anniversary of his legendary performance there in 1999.
519944	Bianca Charlotte King (born March 18, 1985) is Filipino actress, model, and music video director. She is best known for playing the role as Noemi Manansala in the thriller drama series "Sinner or Saint" (2011), as Aviona in the hit "fantaserye" "Mulawin" (2004), as well as her first lead prime time soap, "Luna Blanca" (2012), wherein she played the title role of black-skinned Luna. Prior in becoming a lead actress, King is also known in portraying antagonist roles most notably in "MariMar" (2007), "My Only Love" (2007-2008), Dyesebel (2008), and The Last Prince" (2010). Bianca King currently stars in the afternoon drama of GMA Network via "Maghihintay Pa Rin" with Rafael Rosell and Dion Ignacio. She went to San Beda College Alabang during her grade school and high school years. She proceeded to take up AB Digital Filmmaking in De La Salle - College of St. Benilde and is a music video director. Biography. Early life and career beginnings. King's career started at the age of 13, when she began modeling for print ads and TV commercials. She did ads for a deodorant, beverage and hotdogs brands, to name a few. 2004-2009: "Mulawin" and supporting roles. In 2004, Bianca King was first cast as part of the last batch of "Click", where she played the role of a golden-hearted balikbayan, Marnie. Her on-screen partner was Warren Austria, whose claim to fame is his shampoo commercial. Bianca was joined by then the winners of first season of StarStruck who were Mark Herras, Jennylyn Mercado, Yasmien Kurdi and Rainier Castillo. After her role on "Click", King was cast as part of one of the "Fantaseryes" of the network which was "Mulawin" led by Richard Gutierrez as Mulawin and Angel Locsin as Alwina. King played the role of Aviona, a female warrior who was secretly in love to Mulawin. Before landing a lead role in 2011, Mulawin was considered to be her biggest break as she was one of the lead casts together with Gutierrez, Locsin and Dennis Trillo. According to her, she consider that moment the "turning point" of her career because she was "able to show off her talent purely in acting". In 2005, Bianca King also tried her hosting skills via the gender-sensitive magazine show "3R" together with Iza Calzado, Bettina Carlos and Chynna Ortaleza. Bianca was also part of the sixth season of the youth-oriented romance-based show, Love to Love, entitled "Wish Upon a Jar" starring Yasmien Kurdi and Rainier Castillo. She also got her break in the silver screen via the independent film, "Birhen ng Manaoag" led by Jodi Sta. Maria. She played the role of Marie, the daughter of the character of Cherrie Pie Picache. She also got a role in the movie "Hari ng Sablay" led by Bearwin Meily as Monica. In December 2005, King was part of 2 of the 8 film entries in the 2005 Metro Manila Film Festival. She reprise her role of Aviona in the of "Mulawin" wherein the film stood as the television series' sequel. Aside from her role as Aviona, Bianca was also part in the fourth installment of one of Regal Films' most successful movie franchises, "". Aside from her "Mano Po" appearance, Regal Films also made Bianca to be part of "I Will Always Love You" starred by Richard Gutierrez and Angel Locsin. She was also hand picked by Mark Meily to star in the short film, "The Sugar Affair". In 2006, Bianca was signed up by Herbench to endorse their summer line. One of the leading men’s magazine in the Philippines featured Bianca twice on their cover, the first through their September 2005 and again on the June 2006 issue. Bianca was voted as one of FHM’s 100 sexiest women several times. Bianca was also chosen by Bench to be one of the main endorsers of the "Bench Fever: Underwear Fashion Show 2006". Her billboards were scattered all over the metropolis and she wowed the crowd onstage that day at the Big Dome. She had a cameo role in Ruffa Mae Quinto’s "Oh My Ghost!" under OctoArts Films and was part of GMA Network's multi-million underwater fantasy series, "Atlantika". Bianca was once again became a part of "Love 2 Love" opposite "StarStruck" winner, Mark Herras, in the series entitled "My Darling Mermaid" as Patty and in the last installment entitled "Jass Got Lucky" led by Lovi Poe and Cogie Domingo. In 2007, she was part of the success of the phenomenal television hit, "MariMar", where she played Natalia Montenegro. After her "MariMar" role, she landed a role in one of the casts of "Sine Novela": "My Only Love" as the main antagonist that was previously played by Jackie Lou Blanco. The said remake was led by Rhian Ramos and Mark Herras. Bianca King also became an antagonist in GMA Network's telefantasya, "Dyesebel", which she worked with Marian Rivera for the third time since "MariMar" and "Super Twins". 2009-2010: Directorial debut and further projects. In early 2009, Bianca was cast as one of the leading ladies of Richard Gutierrez's character in the Philippine adaptation of "Zorro" together with Rhian Ramos and Michelle Madrigal. She was also part in the first story under SRO Cinemaserye series, "Ganti". She co-starred with Marvin Agustin, Sheryl Cruz and Geoff Eigenmann. For the 2009 Metro Manila Film Festival, King was part of the film entry "Wapakman" led by the boxing champ, Manny Paquiao. The year 2009 marked Bianca King's directorial debut through Hale's first single in their fourth album, "Bahay Kubo". GMA Network also gave Bianca the director's job for Frencheska Farr's debut single, "Today I'll See The Sun". Both songs directed by King were able to be in the hit charts in the local music scenes. During the first quarter of 2010, Bianca was cast as one the main antagonist in Aljur Abrenica's and Kris Bernal's first prime time soap as the lead characters, "The Last Prince". She portrayed the role of Bawana, the one who loved Prinsipe Almiro/Haring Almiro (Abrenica) but the latter chose to love Lara Fernandez (Bernal).
673185	The Little Polar Bear () is a franchise about a Polar Bear cub named Lars who first starred in a number of books written by Dutch author, Hans de Beer.
590471	The Householder (Hindi title: "Gharbar") (1963) is a film by Merchant Ivory Productions, with a screenplay by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala and James Ivory, and direction of James Ivory. It is based upon the 1960 novel of the same name by Jhabvala.
1060587	The Madness of King George is a 1994 film directed by Nicholas Hytner and adapted by Alan Bennett from his own play, "The Madness of George III". It tells the true story of George III's deteriorating mental health, and his equally declining relationship with his son, the Prince of Wales, particularly focusing on the period around the Regency Crisis of 1788. Modern medicine has suggested the King's symptoms were the result of acute intermittent porphyria. Filming of the movie took place on 11 July to 9 September 1994. Plot. The film depicts the relatively primitive medical practices of the time and the suppositions that physicians made in their efforts to understand the human body. After King George III begins to go mad, his doctors attempt cures such as blistering and purges, led on particularly by the Prince of Wales' personal physician, Dr Warren. Meanwhile, another of the King's physicians, Dr. Pepys, analyses the King's stool and urine believing that body wastes may contain some clue to the Royal malady; of course, none of these attempts to cure the King actually works. Finally, Lady Pembroke, attendant to the Queen, recommends Dr. Willis, an ex-minister who attempts to cure the insane through behaviour modification, and who begins his restoration of the King's mental state by enforcing a strict regime of strapping the King into a waistcoat and restraining him whenever he misbehaves. Meanwhile, the Prince of Wales has been scheming to have himself made Prince Regent, at which point he will effectively be King. He allies with the opposition, led by Charles Fox, to Prime Minister William Pitt's increasingly unpopular government. Tensions rise as the day of the Prince's appointment as Regent draws near, but Dr Willis is making good progress with the King, managing to bring him from his raving and violent state of mind back to a level of normality. As he improves, the King becomes less eccentric, and even manages to recite Shakespeare. Once the Lord Chancellor, Baron Thurlow, hears of the King's rapid recovery, the race begins to get the King to Parliament in time to stop the Prince of Wales being appointed Regent. They arrive just in time, the Prince's plans are thwarted, and King George returns to the loving company of his wife the Queen. Background and production. Title change. In adapting the play to film, the title was changed from "The Madness of George III" to "The Madness of King George". An urban myth has developed that the title change derives from the fear that American audiences would think the film was a sequel, because of the use of Roman numerals in its title. However, Hytner has stated that the principal reason was to clarify that this was a film about a king, particularly in America as it is a country that has always been without royalty. The film's star, Nigel Hawthorne, confirmed this in interviews. Filming locations. The film was shot at Shepperton Studios and on location at: Awards and honours. The film won the Academy Award for Best Art Direction (Ken Adam, Carolyn Scott), and was nominated for Best Actor in a Leading Role (Nigel Hawthorne), Best Actress in a Supporting Role (Helen Mirren) and Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium. The film was nominated for a total of 14 BAFTA Awards and won three: the Alexander Korda Award for Best British Film, the Best Actor (Nigel Hawthorne) and the Award for Best Make Up/Hair (Lisa Westcott). Helen Mirren won the Best Actress Award and Nicholas Hytner was nominated for the Golden Palm at the 1995 festival. Box office. The film debuted strongly at the box office.
1504147	Jenny Galloway (born 1949) is a British actress, and singer best known for her stage career. Theatre credits include: She has received numerous awards and nominations, winning the 1999 Olivier Award for Best Supporting Actress in a Musical for her performance in "Mamma Mia!". She had previously won the award seven years earlier for her portrayal of the character Luce in George Abbott's "The Boys from Syracuse". Galloway can be heard on the cast recordings of "Les Misérables 10th Anniversary Concert","Les Misérables 25th Anniversary Concert", "Oliver!", "Mamma Mia!" and "Mary Poppins". Film credits include "In Transit", "About a Boy", "Fierce Creatures" and the role of the Foreign Secretary in "Johnny English". She appeared in "Madame de Sade" alongside Judi Dench and Deborah Findlay as Charlotte in 2008. In what was probably her largest television role, Galloway had a principal role in the fifth series episode of "Marple" "The Pale Horse" alongside Julia McKenzie. Her role was Bella Ellis - the town's local witch and cook to Thyrza Grey, (played by Pauline Collins) - who are considered prime suspects at many points during the episode. The episode aired as the first part of the fifth series in the UK in August 2010, for some reason before the fourth series had finished airing. She also reprised her role as Madame Thénardier in the 2010 25th anniversary concert of "Les Misérables" at the O2 arena, London in October 2010. This concert is now available on DVD and Blu-ray. She was briefly reunited with her former co-star Alun Armstrong at the end of the performance when he appeared alongside the rest of the original cast of the musical for the finale. She and Armstrong had appeared as the Thénardiers in the 10th Anniversary Concert at the Royal Albert Hall. Galloway also played the character in 2006 Broadway Revival of the show. Jenny worked at the Watermill Theatre, Bekshire in 1982, returning periodically, to assist stage management, drive the van, and lead sing-alongs. In 2013 she appeared as Sister Thomas in the "Father Brown" episode "The Bride of Christ".
1103185	Grigori Yakovlevich Perelman ( ; ; born 13 June 1966) is a Russian mathematician who has made landmark contributions to Riemannian geometry and geometric topology. In 1994, Perelman proved the soul conjecture. In 2003, he proved Thurston's geometrization conjecture. This consequently solved in the affirmative the Poincaré conjecture, posed in 1904, which before its solution was viewed as one of the most important and difficult open problems in topology. In August 2006, Perelman was awarded the Fields Medal for "his contributions to geometry and his revolutionary insights into the analytical and geometric structure of the Ricci flow." Perelman declined to accept the award or to appear at the congress, stating: "I'm not interested in money or fame, I don't want to be on display like an animal in a zoo." On 22 December 2006, the journal "Science" recognized Perelman's proof of the Poincaré conjecture as the scientific "Breakthrough of the Year", the first such recognition in the area of mathematics. On 18 March 2010, it was announced that he had met the criteria to receive the first Clay Millennium Prize for resolution of the Poincaré conjecture. On 1 July 2010, he turned down the prize of one million dollars, saying that he considers his contribution to proving the Poincaré conjecture to be no greater than that of Richard Hamilton, who introduced the theory of Ricci flow with the aim of attacking the geometrization conjecture. Early life and education. Grigori Perelman was born in Leningrad, Soviet Union (now Saint Petersburg, Russia) on 13 June 1966, to Jewish parents Yakov (who now lives in Israel) and Lyubov. Grigori's mother Lyubov gave up graduate work in mathematics to raise him. Grigori's mathematical talent became apparent at the age of ten, and his mother enrolled him in Sergei Rukshin's after-school math training program. His mathematical education continued at the Leningrad Secondary School #239, a specialized school with advanced mathematics and physics programs. Grigori excelled in all subjects except physical education. In 1982, as a member of the Soviet Union team competing in the International Mathematical Olympiad, an international competition for high school students, he won a gold medal, achieving a perfect score. In 1990, Perelman went on to earn a Candidate of Sciences degree (the Soviet equivalent to the Ph.D.) at the School of Mathematics and Mechanics of the Leningrad State University, one of the leading universities in the former Soviet Union. His dissertation was titled "Saddle surfaces in Euclidean spaces." After graduation, Perelman began work at the renowned Leningrad Department of Steklov Institute of Mathematics of the USSR Academy of Sciences, where his advisors were Aleksandr Aleksandrov and Yuri Burago. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Perelman held research positions at several universities in the United States. In 1991 Perelman won the Young Mathematician Prize of the St. Petersburg Mathematical Society for his work on Aleksandrov's spaces of curvature bounded from below. In 1992, he was invited to spend a semester each at the Courant Institute in New York University and State University of New York at Stony Brook where he began work on manifolds with lower bounds on Ricci curvature. From there, he accepted a two-year Miller Research Fellowship at the University of California, Berkeley in 1993. After having proved the Soul conjecture in 1994, he was offered jobs at several top universities in the US, including Princeton and Stanford, but he rejected them all and returned to the Steklov Institute in Saint Petersburg in the summer of 1995 for a research-only position. He has a younger sister, Elena, who is also a scientist. She received a Ph.D. from Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel and is a biostatistician at Karolinska Institutet, in Stockholm, Sweden. Geometrization and Poincaré conjectures. Until the autumn of 2002, Perelman was best known for his work in comparison theorems in Riemannian geometry. Among his notable achievements was a short and elegant proof of the soul conjecture. The problem. The Poincaré conjecture, proposed by French mathematician Henri Poincaré in 1904, was the most famous open problem in topology. Any loop on a 3-sphere—as exemplified by the set of points at a distance of 1 from the origin in four-dimensional Euclidean space—can be contracted to a point. The Poincaré conjecture asserts that any closed three-dimensional manifold such that any loop can be contracted to a point is topologically a 3-sphere. The analogous result has been known to be true in dimensions greater than or equal to five since 1960 as in the work of Stephen Smale. The four-dimensional case resisted longer, finally being solved in 1982 by Michael Freedman. But the case of three-manifolds turned out to be the hardest of them all. Roughly speaking, this is because in topologically manipulating a three-manifold, there are too few dimensions to move "problematic regions" out of the way without interfering with something else. In 1999, the Clay Mathematics Institute announced the "Millennium Prize Problems": $1,000,000 prizes for the proof of any of seven conjectures, including the Poincaré conjecture. There was a wide agreement that a successful proof of any of these would constitute a landmark event in the history of mathematics. Perelman's proof. In November 2002, Perelman posted the first of a series of eprints to the arXiv, in which he claimed to have outlined a proof of the geometrization conjecture, of which the Poincaré conjecture is a particular case. Perelman modified Richard Hamilton's program for a proof of the conjecture, in which the central idea is the notion of the Ricci flow. Hamilton's basic idea is to formulate a "dynamical process" in which a given three-manifold is geometrically distorted, such that this distortion process is governed by a differential equation analogous to the heat equation. The heat equation describes the behavior of scalar quantities such as temperature; it ensures that concentrations of elevated temperature will spread out until a uniform temperature is achieved throughout an object. Similarly, the Ricci flow describes the behavior of a tensorial quantity, the Ricci curvature tensor. Hamilton's hope was that under the Ricci flow, concentrations of large curvature will spread out until a uniform curvature is achieved over the entire three-manifold. If so, if one starts with any three-manifold and lets the Ricci flow occur, eventually one should in principle obtain a kind of "normal form". According to William Thurston, this normal form must take one of a small number of possibilities, each having a different kind of geometry, called Thurston model geometries. This is similar to formulating a dynamical process that gradually "perturbs" a given square matrix, and that is guaranteed to result after a finite time in its rational canonical form. Hamilton's idea attracted a great deal of attention, but no one could prove that the process would not be impeded by developing "singularities", until Perelman's eprints sketched a program for overcoming these obstacles. According to Perelman, a modification of the standard Ricci flow, called "Ricci flow with surgery", can systematically excise singular regions as they develop, in a controlled way. It was known that singularities (including those that, roughly speaking, occur after the flow has continued for an infinite amount of time) must occur in many cases. However, any singularity that develops in a finite time is essentially a "pinching" along certain spheres corresponding to the prime decomposition of the 3-manifold. Furthermore, any "infinite time" singularities result from certain collapsing pieces of the JSJ decomposition. Perelman's work proves this claim and thus proves the geometrization conjecture. Verification. Since 2003, Perelman's program has attracted increasing attention from the mathematical community. In April 2003, he accepted an invitation to visit Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Princeton University, State University of New York at Stony Brook, Columbia University and New York University, where he gave a series of talks on his work. Three independent groups of scholars have verified that Perelman's papers contain all the essentials for a complete proof of the geometrization conjecture: The Fields Medal and Millennium Prize. In May 2006, a committee of nine mathematicians voted to award Perelman a Fields Medal for his work on the Poincaré conjecture. However, Perelman declined to accept the prize. Sir John Ball, president of the International Mathematical Union, approached Perelman in Saint Petersburg in June 2006 to persuade him to accept the prize. After 10 hours of persuasion over two days, Ball gave up. Two weeks later, Perelman summed up the conversation as follows: "He proposed to me three alternatives: accept and come; accept and don't come, and we will send you the medal later; third, I don't accept the prize. From the very beginning, I told him I have chosen the third one... prize was completely irrelevant for me. Everybody understood that if the proof is correct, then no other recognition is needed." I'm not interested in money or fame,' he is quoted to have said at the time. 'I don't want to be on display like an animal in a zoo. I'm not a hero of mathematics. I'm not even that successful; that is why I don't want to have everybody looking at me. Nevertheless, on 22 August 2006, Perelman was publicly offered the medal at the International Congress of Mathematicians in Madrid "for his contributions to geometry and his revolutionary insights into the analytical and geometric structure of the Ricci flow." He did not attend the ceremony, and declined to accept the medal, making him the first and only person to decline this prestigious prize. He had previously turned down a prestigious prize from the European Mathematical Society, allegedly saying that he felt the prize committee was unqualified to assess his work, even positively. On 18 March 2010, Perelman was awarded a Millennium Prize for solving the problem. On June 8, 2010, he did not attend a ceremony in his honor at the Institut Océanographique, Paris to accept his $1 million prize. According to Interfax, Perelman refused to accept the Millennium prize in July 2010. He considered the decision of Clay Institute unfair for not sharing the prize with Richard Hamilton, and stated that "the main reason is my disagreement with the organized mathematical community. I don't like their decisions, I consider them unjust." Perelman's proof was rated one of the top cited articles in Math-Physics in 2008. Possible withdrawal from mathematics. As of the spring of 2003, Perelman no longer worked at the Steklov Institute. His friends are said to have stated that he currently finds mathematics a painful topic to discuss; some even say that he has abandoned mathematics entirely. According to a 2006 interview, Perelman was then unemployed, living with his mother in Saint Petersburg. Perelman is quoted in an article in "The New Yorker" saying that he is disappointed with the ethical standards of the field of mathematics. The article implies that Perelman refers particularly to the efforts of Fields medalist Shing-Tung Yau to downplay Perelman's role in the proof and play up the work of Cao and Zhu. Perelman added, "I can't say I'm outraged. Other people do worse. Of course, there are many mathematicians who are more or less honest. But almost all of them are conformists. They are more or less honest, but they tolerate those who are not honest." He has also said that "It is not people who break ethical standards who are regarded as aliens. It is people like me who are isolated." This, combined with the possibility of being awarded a Fields medal, led him to quit professional mathematics. He has said that "As long as I was not conspicuous, I had a choice. Either to make some ugly thing or, if I didn't do this kind of thing, to be treated as a pet. Now, when I become a very conspicuous person, I cannot stay a pet and say nothing. That is why I had to quit." (The "New Yorker" authors explained Perelman's reference to "some ugly thing" as "a fuss" on Perelman's part about the ethical breaches he perceived). It is uncertain whether his resignation from Steklov and subsequent seclusion mean that he has ceased to practise mathematics. Fellow countryman and mathematician Yakov Eliashberg said that, in 2007, Perelman confided to him that he was working on other things but it was too premature to talk about it. He is said to have been interested in the past in the Navier–Stokes equations and the set of problems related to them that also constitutes a Millennium Prize, and there has been speculation that he may be working on them now. Perelman and media. Perelman has avoided journalists and other members of the media. Masha Gessen, the author of "Perfect Rigor: A Genius and the Mathematical Breakthrough of the Century", a book about him, was unable to meet him. A recent Russian documentary about Perelman in which his work is discussed by several leading mathematicians including Mikhail Gromov was released in 2011 under the title "Иноходец. Урок Перельмана", "A man following a different path. A lesson from Perelman". In April 2011, Aleksandr Zabrovsky, producer of "President-Film" studio, claimed to have held an interview with Perelman and agreed to shoot a film about him, under the tentative title "The Formula of the Universe". Zabrovsky says that in the interview, Perelman explained why he rejected the one million dollar prize. A number of journalists believe that Zabrovky's interview is most likely a fake, pointing to contradictions in statements supposedly made by Perelman. The writer Brett Forrest briefly interacted with Perelman in 2012.
64810	Alfred North Whitehead, OM FRS (15 February 1861 – 30 December 1947) was an English mathematician and philosopher. He has been called the “greatest speculative mind of this century.” He wrote on algebra, logic, foundations of mathematics, religion, philosophy of science, physics, metaphysics, and education; all of which were integrated into his comprehensive worldview known today as process philosophy. Whitehead's philosophy challenges over 2000 years of popular philosophical assumptions. Namely, he rejects those philosophies that value static notions of being over dynamic notions of becoming, that emphasize independence over relatedness, and "things" over events in process. Process philosophy argues that “there is urgency in coming to see the world as a web of interrelated processes of which are integral parts, so that all of our choices and actions have consequences for the world around us.” For this reason, one of the most promising applications of Whitehead's thought in recent years has been in the area of ecological civilization and environmental ethics. Life. Alfred North Whitehead was born in Ramsgate, Kent, England in 1861. Although his grandfather, Thomas Whitehead, was known for having founded Chatham House Academy, a fairly successful school for boys, Alfred North was educated at Sherborne School, Dorset, then considered one of the best public schools in the country. His childhood was described as over-protected, but when at school he excelled in sports and mathematics and was head prefect of his class. In 1880, Whitehead graduated from Trinity College, Cambridge, where he was fourth wrangler and earned his BA in 1884. Elected a fellow of Trinity in 1884, Whitehead would teach and write mathematics at the college until 1910, spending the 1890s writing his "Treatise on Universal Algebra" (1898), and the 1900s collaborating with his former pupil, Bertrand Russell, on the first edition of "Principia Mathematica". In 1890, Alfred North married Evelyn Wade, an Irish woman raised in France; they had a daughter and two sons. One son died in action while serving in the Royal Flying Corps during World War I. In 1910, due to a Cambridge byelaw limiting the term of a Senior Lecturer to 25 years, Whitehead was forced to retire. The period between 1910 and 1926 was spent mostly at University College London and Imperial College London, where he taught and wrote on physics, the philosophy of science, and the theory and practice of education. He was a Fellow of the Royal Society since 1903 and was elected to the British Academy in 1931. Whitehead developed a keen interest in physics. His fellowship dissertation examined James Clerk Maxwell's views on electricity and magnetism. His outlook on mathematics and physics was more philosophical than purely scientific; he was more concerned about their scope and nature than about particular tenets and theories. Toward the end of his time in England, Whitehead turned his attention toward philosophy. He was president of the Aristotelian Society from 1922 to 1923. Already by 1924, Whitehead's work in philosophy became highly regarded, which inspired Henry Osborn Taylor to invite the 63 year old Whitehead to join the faculty at Harvard University, as a professor of philosophy. In 1924, he accepted an invitation to join the faculty at Harvard University, where he continued his work in philosophy. During this time, he produced his most important philosophical contributions. In his first year at Harvard, Whitehead wrote "Science and the Modern World". It was immediately hailed as an alternative to the Cartesian dualism that plagued popular science. A few years later, he published his seminal work "Process and Reality", which has been compared (both in importance and difficulty) to Kant's Critique of Pure Reason. Whitehead supervised the doctoral dissertations of many prestigious philosophers, including Bertrand Russell and Willard Van Orman Quine, thus influencing logic and virtually all of analytic philosophy. As a mathematician and logician, he is known best for his collaboration with former student Bertrand Russell on the epochal "Principia Mathematica". Whitehead had opinions about a vast range of human endeavors. These opinions pepper the many essays and speeches he gave on various topics between 1915 and his death (1917, 1925a, 1927, 1929a, 1929b, 1933, 1938). His Harvard lectures (1924–37) are studded with quotations from his favorite poets, Wordsworth and Shelley. Most Sunday afternoons when they were in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the Whiteheads hosted an open house to which all Harvard students were welcome, and during which talk flowed freely. Some of the "obiter dicta" Whitehead spoke on these occasions were recorded by Lucien Price, a Boston journalist, who published them in 1954. That book also includes a remarkable picture of Whitehead as the aged sage holding court. It was at one of these open houses that the young Harvard student B.F. Skinner credits a discussion with Whitehead as providing the inspiration for his work "Verbal Behavior" in which language is analyzed from a behaviorist perspective. Another student influenced by Whitehead was Charles Malik, the drafter of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights's preamble, and later president of the UN General Assembly. Malik wrote his PhD dissertation about Whitehead, in which Malik compared Whitehead's Metaphysics of Time to that of Martin Heidegger. The Whiteheads spent the rest of their lives in the United States. Alfred North retired (again) from teaching in 1937. He remained in Cambridge, MA until his death in 1947. The two volume biography of Whitehead by Victor Lowe and Lowe and Schneewind (1990); is the most definite presentation of the Life and Thought of Whitehead. Lowe studied under Whitehead at Harvard. However, a comprehensive appraisal of Whitehead's work is difficult because Whitehead left no "Nachlass"; his family carried out his instructions that all of his papers be destroyed after his death. Currently, there is also no critical edition of Whitehead's writings, though the Whitehead Research Project of the Center for Process Studies is currently working on one such edition. Thought and works. A.N. Whitehead is one of the most important philosophers of the 20th century. Victor Lowe calls Whitehead the “most powerful systematic thinker philosophy had seen since Hegel.” Gertrude Stein, in "The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas, "refers to Whitehead as one of the three geniuses Toklas has met in her lifetime (the other two being Gertrude Stein and Pablo Picasso). As mentioned above, Whitehead wrote on a wide variety of topics. His more prominent work was in the area of: mathematics and logic, philosophy of science, education, religion, and metaphysics. Mathematics and logic. As a mathematician, Whitehead's ""A Treatise on Universal Algebra" (1898) gained election to the Royal Society, while his work on the "Principia Mathematica" (1910-13) with Bertrand Russell (his former student) is widely regarded as the first truly groundbreaking work in modern symbolic logic.” In "Principia Mathematica" Whitehead and Russell attempted to “describe a set of axioms and inference rules in symbolic logic from which all mathematical truths could in principle be proven. As such, this ambitious project is of great importance in the history of mathematics and philosophy, being one of the foremost products of the belief that such an undertaking may have been achievable.” Philosophy of science. "The Concept of Nature" is a development of Whitehead's Tarner Lectures given in 1919. It is one of his “most important contributions to natural philosophy. His first concern is with the fundamental problems of substance, space, and time; and the most interesting part of his discussion is, perhaps, his criticism of Einstein's method of interpreting results, and the alternative development of his own well-known theory of the four-dimensional 'Space-Time manifold.'” "An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Natural Knowledge" begins “with a discussion of the traditions of science, including the foundations of dynamical physics, scientific relativity and congruence... to a penetrating analysis of the data of science, and explores such topics as the nature of events and objects. Subsequent chapters offer extensive and illuminating treatment of the method of extensive abstraction: durations, moments and time-systems, finite abstractive elements, points and straight lines, normality and congruence, and motion. The final five chapters deal with the theory of objects: location, material objects, causal components, figures and rhythms.” "Science and the Modern World", originally published in 1925, redefines the concept of modern science...Taking readers through the history of modern science, Whitehead shows how cultural history has affected science over the ages in relation to such major intellectual themes as romanticism, relativity, quantum theory, religion, and movements for social progress.” In "Science and the Modern World", Whitehead argues “that the way out of the difficulties posed by relativity and quantum mechanics lay in the acceptance of a “philosophy of organism”; and he also indicated that such a philosophy, unlike the traditional scientific point of view, would be able to heal the divided conscience of mankind and reconcile scientific thought with our religious and esthetic intuitions.” Education. The most complete outline of Whitehead's thought on education can be found in his book, "The Aims of Education". He describes the main idea of that book as follows: “The students are alive, and the purpose of education is to stimulate and guide their self-development. It follows as a corollary from this premiss, that the teachers also should be alive with living thoughts. The whole book is a protest against dead knowledge, that is to say, against inert ideas.” Whitehead's Presidential address in 1916 to the Mathematical Association of England, "The Aims of Education" (not to be confused with his book of the same name published in 1929), pointedly criticized the formalist approach of modern British education with seemingly little regard for the foundations of culture and the self-education of the whole person. He writes, "Culture is activity of thought, and receptiveness to beauty and humane feeling. Scraps of information have nothing to do with it." Here are some of A.N. Whitehead more famous quotes on the topic of education: Religion. Whitehead's most comprehensive work in the area of religion is his book: "Religion in the Making. "The aim of "Religion in the Making" “was to give a concise analysis of the various factors in human nature which go to form a religion, to exhibit the inevitable transformation of religion with the transformation of knowledge, and more especially to direct attention to the foundation of religion on our apprehension of those permanent elements by reason of which there is a stable order in the world, permanent elements apart from which there could be no changing world.” In other words, for Whitehead, religion is a matter of "individuality in community.” Like all things, religion should be seen as relational, dynamic, and in process. Additionally, with his description of religion as “world-loyalty,” Whitehead's thought played a significant role in the formation of environmental ethics in the late 1960s. Metaphysics. While Whitehead wrote on a great many subjects, none were more influential, challenging, or original than his work on cosmology and metaphysics. Whiteheadian metaphysics became the foundation for a school of philosophy known as process philosophy. In 1927, Whitehead was asked to give the Gifford Lectures at the University of Edinburgh. These lectures were published in 1929 as "Process and Reality", typically referred to as Whitehead's "magnum opus". As the most developed, detailed, and rigorous summary of his metaphysical scheme, it is difficult to overstate the significance of Whitehead's "Process and Reality". According to Axtin Clark, it surpasses “Aristotle’s "Metaphysics" and Kant’s "Critique of Pure Reason" for intrinsic importance, though naturally not as yet for historical standing or influence.” "Process and Reality" is known for its refutation of classical views on substance, being, and reality. For Whitehead, reality is a process of occasions and events. This perspective encourages a shift away from static notions of being, to more dynamic notions of becoming. For Whitehead, reality is not to be understood in terms of material things, but a process of events - interdependent and deeply related. Put another way, “The interwoven, relational character of our world and our lives is glaringly obvious to thoughtful people today...Equally glaring is the fact that these relationships are dynamic processes...Some things change very slowly, but all things change. Or, to put it better, the world is not finally made of 'things' at all, if a 'thing' is something that exists over time without changing. The world is composed of events and processes. Peter Simons describes Whitehead's metaphysics as follows: While "Process and Reality" is certainly Whitehead's most comprehensive account of his metaphysics, the main tenets were later summarized in his more accessible work, "Adventures of Ideas" (1933). In addition to his metaphysics, "Adventure of Ideas" also includes Whitehead's thoughts on conceptions of beauty, truth, art, adventure, and peace. Whitehead believed that "there are no whole truths; all truths are half-truths. It is trying to treat them as whole truths that plays the devil." Furthermore, he contends that, “in the real world it is more important that a proposition be interesting than that it be true. The importance of truth is that it adds to interest.” Influence and legacy. Process philosophy. As the central figure of the movement known as “process philosophy,” Whitehead's legacy has quickly expanded internationally. According to an article published by Tang Yijie (Professor of Philosophy and Director of Cultural Research at Pecking University, China) process philosophy – reframed by David Ray Griffin as “Constructive Postmodernism” – is one of two intellectual trends competing for dominance in China (the other being Nationalism). Proponents of process philosophy include such influential thinkers as John B. Cobb Jr., Charles Hartshorne, David Ray Griffin, Nicholas Rescher, Marjorie Suchocki, Thomas Jay Oord, Catherine Keller, Daniel Day Williams, and Joseph A. Bracken. Whitehead's ideas have also been taken up by French philosophers Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Gilles Deleuze. In poetry, the work and thought of American Charles Olson was strongly influenced by Whitehead's concepts. Olson referred to Whitehead variously as "the cosmologist" and as the "constant companion of my poem." According to C. Robert Mesle, “Process-relational thought has enormous potential for integrating and unifying the richly different perspective of people in the world today.” As such, Whitehead's philosophy has been the inspiration for work in a variety of fields, including ecological relations and the scholarship of John B. Cobb, Jr. The breadth of significance and application of Whitehead's thought is evidenced by the SUNY Press 32 book series on Constructive Postmodern Thought. Or, see "Handbook of Whiteheadian Process Thought" Vol 1-2, edited by Michel Weber and Will Desmond, for examples of the universal applicability of Whiteheadian thought. Whitehead's philosophical influence can certainly “be felt in all three of the main areas in which he worked (i.e., logic and the foundations of mathematics, the philosophy of science, and metaphysics)” though his influence expands through all of the major philosophical schools including pragmatism, analytical, continental, and postmodern thought, on topics ranging from “ontology, phenomenology, personalism, philosophical anthropology, ethics, political theory, economics,” to education, religion, theology, psychology, ecology, biology, physics, and beyond. Whitehead's work is intentionally transdisciplinary. As Whitehead himself states, “Philosophy frees itself from the taint of ineffectiveness by its close relations with religion and with science, natural and sociological.” Process theology. Though Whitehead was more of a philosopher than a theologian, he is not without significant influence in the realm of religion. He famously described religion as “the last refuge of human savagery,” “solitariness,” and “world-loyality.” Perhaps the most prominent developments out of Whitehead's philosophy occurred in Process Theology - influenced by the Whiteheadian metaphysics, and further developed by others. Whitehead's Philosophy of Organism (the original name for his process metaphysic) gave rise to process theology, due to the work of Charles Hartshorne, John B. Cobb, Jr., David Ray Griffin, and others. Since then, adherents of many faith traditions have identified with the process perspective, including Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, and Chinese thinkers. Process theology emerged toward the end of the 20th century as an important movement in contemporary theology. It is widely known for its direct challenge to the classical theistic notions of a static immutable and impassible God – derived from Platonic perfect-being metaphysics. “Process theologians, such as John B. Cobb Jr., Marjorie Suchocki, and David Ray Griffin, argue that even God is best understood in terms of relatedness and process rather than as an unchanging, static Being unaffected by the world." Unlike classical theism, which describes the omnipotence of God in terms of coercive and unilateral power; process theology conceives of divine power as both cooperative and persuasive. As such, “The God of process theology tends to be far more personal and much more of a co-participant in the creative process of the universe than that which one often finds in orthodox religions.” From process theism arises a unique response to the logical problem of evil (theodicy). The problem of evil is roughly this: 1) If God is all powerful then God would have the power to prevent evil and innocent suffering; 2) If God is all loving then God would desire to prevent evil and innocent suffering; 3)Suffering and evil is a reality. Process notions of divine power, arising out of a Whiteheadian metaphysic, are used to emphasize the relational character of God, which in the case of theodicy means that because God is not endowed with coercive power, God is no more culpable for evil than we are. Science. In recent years, Whiteheadian thought has become a stimulating voice in scientific research. Timothy E. Eastman and Hank Keeton's book, "Physics and Whitehead" (2009) and Michael Epperson's, "Quantum Mechanics and the Philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead" (2012) are recent examples of Whiteheadian approaches to Physics, whereas Brian G. Henning, Adam Scarfe, and Dorion Sagan's, "Beyond Mechanism" (2013) and Rupert Sheldrake's, "Science Set Free" (2012) are recent examples of Whiteheadian approaches to Biology. In physics particularly, Whitehead's thought has been influential, articulating a rival doctrine to Einstein's general relativity. Whitehead's theory of gravitation continues to be controversial. Even Tanaka, who suggests that the gravitational constant disagrees with experimental findings, admits that his work does not actually refute Whitehead's formulation. Constructive postmodern education. Today, Whitehead is widely known for his influence in educational theory. This has led to the formation of new modes of learning and new models of teaching. In China, in particular, constructive postmodern forms of education have been implemented with great success. This work is in part the product of cooperation between Chinese government organizations and the Institute for the Postmodern Development of China. Other examples of Whitehead's influence on contemporary education theory include: "Modes of Learning: Whitehead's Metaphysics and the Stages of Education", by George Allan; and "The Adventure of Education: Process Philosophers on Learning, Teaching, and Research", by Adam Scarfe. Ecology, economy, and sustainability. One of the most promising applications of Whitehead's thought in recent years has been in the area of ecological civilization, sustainability, and environmental ethics. “Because Whitehead's holistic metaphysics of value lends itself so readily to an ecological point of view, many see his work as a promising alternative to the traditional mechanistic world view, providing a detailed metaphysical picture of a world constituted by a web of interdependent relations.” This work has been pioneered by John B. Cobb, Jr., whose book "Is It Too Late? A Theology of Ecology" (1971) was the first single-authored book in environmental ethics. Cobb also co-authored a book with economist Herman Daly entitled "For the Common Good: Redirecting the Economy toward Community, the Environment, and a Sustainable Future" (1989), which applied Whitehead's thought to economics, and received the Grawemeyer Award for Ideas Improving World Order. Cobb followed this with a second book, "Sustaining the Common Good: A Christian Perspective on the Global Economy" (1994), which aimed to challenge “economists' zealous faith in the great god of growth.” Further reading. '"For the most comprehensive list of resources related to Whitehead, see the thematic bibliography of the Center for Process Studies.
1163399	James Timothy "Tim" Daly (born March 1, 1956) is an American stage, screen and voice actor, director and producer. He is best known for his television role as Joe Hackett on the NBC sitcom "Wings" and for his voice role as Superman/Clark Kent in "", as well as his recurring role of the drug-addicted screenwriter J.T. Dolan on "The Sopranos" for which he was nominated for an Emmy Award. He starred as Pete Wilder on "Private Practice" until his character was subsequently written out due to budgetary cuts. Early life. Daly was born in New York City, New York, the only son and youngest child of actors James Daly and Mary Hope Newell. He is the younger brother of actress Tyne Daly, who is 10 years his senior, and is a brother-in-law of television and film composer Mark Snow. He has two other sisters, Mary Glynn (Snow's wife) and Pegeen Michael. He is of part Irish ancestry. Daly attended The Putney School, where he started to study acting. Daly began his professional career while a student at Vermont's Bennington College, where he studied theatre and literature, in which he now holds a Bachelor of Arts, and acted in summer stock. He graduated from college in 1979 and returned to New York to continue studying acting and singing. Career. Daly debuted on stage when he was seven years old in "Jenny Kissed Me" by Jean Kerr, together with his parents and two sisters. He appeared for the first time on TV when he was 10 years old in an American Playhouse adaptation of "An Enemy of the People" by Henrik Ibsen, which starred his father James Daly. He dreamed about a sports or music career and also considered becoming a doctor or a lawyer, but finally decided to become an actor. Daly started his professional acting career when he appeared in a 1978 adaptation of Peter Schaffer's play "Equus". His first leading film role was in the film "Diner", directed by Barry Levinson, in which he shared screen time with actors including Kevin Bacon and Mickey Rourke. Starring roles soon followed in Alan Rudolph's feature, "Made in Heaven", the American Playhouse production of "The Rise & Rise of Daniel Rocket", and the CBS dramatic series, "Almost Grown" created by David Chase. In theatre he has starred in the Broadway production of "Coastal Disturbances" by playwright Tina Howe opposite Annette Bening and received a 1987 Theatre World Award for his performance. He has also starred in "Oliver, Oliver" at the Manhattan Theatre Club, "Mass Appeal" by Bill C. Davis and "Bus Stop" by William Inge at Trinity Square Repertory, "The Glass Menagerie" by Tennessee Williams at the Santa Fe Festival Theatre, "A Knife in the Heart" and "A Study in Scarlet" at the Williamstown Playhouse, and "Paris Bound" at the Berkshire Theatre Festival. During this time, Daly also starred in the CBS television miniseries "I'll Take Manhattan" as Toby Amberville. Daly describes himself as being highly self-critical in regards to his career. In an interview with New Zealand 'ZM' radio personality Polly Gillespie Tim was quoted to say "I think part of it (his self critical nature) is passed down to me from my parents who are actors. The theatre was our temple... When you entered you were expected to live up to the example of this glorious place." 1990s. "Wings" is an American sitcom that ran on NBC from April 19, 1990 to May 14, 1997. It starred Daly and Steven Weber as brothers Joe and Brian Hackett. The show was set at the fictional Tom Nevers Field, a small airport in Nantucket, Massachusetts, where the Hackett brothers operated the one-plane airline, Sandpiper Air. In 1997, he and J. Todd Harris formed Daly-Harris Productions, through which he produced such movies as: "Execution of Justice" (1999) (TV), "Urbania" (2000) and "Tick Tock" (2000). In 1998, Daly appeared in several episodes of the Emmy award-winning, Tom Hanks-produced HBO mini-series "From the Earth to the Moon" playing astronaut Jim Lovell, whom Hanks himself had portrayed in the film "Apollo 13". 2000s. In 2002, Daly guest-starred as himself in the TV series "Monk" in the episode "Mr. Monk and the Airplane", briefly reuniting him with his "Wings" castmate Tony Shalhoub. In 2006, Daly returned to Broadway when he appeared on stage opposite David Schwimmer and Željko Ivanek in the Broadway revival of "The Caine Mutiny Court Martial". Daly made several appearances on "The Sopranos" as J.T. Dolan, an AA buddy of Christopher Moltisanti (Michael Imperioli). Daly received a 2007 Emmy nomination for his work on the series. He appeared on the midseason ABC crime series "Eyes", which got good reviews but was canceled after only five episodes. As a voice-actor, Daly portrayed superhero Superman and his alter ego Clark Kent in ' (1996–2000), but was unable to return as Superman (thus being replaced by Christopher McDonald in "Batman Beyond" and George Newbern in "Justice League"), as he was already under contract to star in a remake of the 1960s TV drama "The Fugitive", which aired for only one season (2000–2001). He reprised his role as Superman in the video game ' and the direct-to-video releases ', ', ' and '. Although Daly did not reprise his role in "," his son Sam, follows his footsteps to voice Superman in the 2013 direct-to-video animated feature. Tim Daly also reprised his role as Superman in an animated remake of the trailer for the 2013 film "Man of Steel" by the hub network to celebrate the release of the film and to promote the network's upcoming marathon of Superman episodes. In 2006, Daly played the role of Nick Cavanaugh on the new ABC drama "The Nine". Starting May 3, 2007, Daly began playing a new love interest for Kate Walsh's character on "Private Practice", a spinoff of "Grey's Anatomy". Daly heads Red House Entertainment. Movies produced through the company include Peabody Award and Humanitas Prize winning "Edge of America" and Daly's directing debut, the independent film "Bereft".
1031463	"The Devil's Rain" is a 1975 low-budget horror film, directed by Robert Fuest. It was one of several B-films in which William Shatner starred in between the original ' television series and '. Other familiar names in the cast included Tom Skerritt, Ernest Borgnine, Eddie Albert, Ida Lupino, and Keenan Wynn. John Travolta also appeared in an early minor role. Satanist Anton LaVey is credited as the movie's technical advisor, and appeared in the film playing a minor role. Plot summary. A curse hovers over the Preston family, caused by their betrayal of the Satanic priest Johnathan Corbis (Ernest Borgnine). Corbis has followed the Preston family for generations, in pursuit of a Satanic book through which he obtains great power. Corbis first captures the father, Steve Preston, who is allowed to escape home to warn his wife and younger son about Corbis's wrath, and to tell them to give the book to Corbis; at which point Steve Preston then melts into a waxy substance, apparently melting in the rain. Mark Preston (Shatner) takes the book, hoping to meet with Corbis and defeat him. The two eventually meet in a ghost town in the desert, where Corbis gives Preston a drink of water from an old hand-pumped well; Preston drinks and then spits it out, proclaiming the water to be bitter. Corbis smiles and replies, "Sweet way to end a thirst, though." Following that, Preston challenges Corbis to a battle of faith, which ends with Preston pulling a 1911 .45 pistol on Corbis. Corbis asks, "Is THAT your faith?" at which point Preston tries to escape. Surrounded by satanists, Preston pulls out his cross, which then appears to transform into a snake, and he discards. He is promptly captured by the Satanic followers of Corbis. Corbis later begins a ceremony which wipes Mark's memory clean with the "water of forgetfulness" in preparation for a ceremony later that evening. Meanwhile Preston's older brother, Tom (Tom Skerritt), and his wife Julie, have gone to look for Mark; they are accompanied
1063755	Lady in the Water is a 2006 American fantasy thriller written and directed by M. Night Shyamalan and starring Paul Giamatti and Bryce Dallas Howard. The film follows a Philadelphia maintenance man who discovers a young woman in the swimming pool of his apartment complex. Gradually, he and his neighbors learn that she is a water nymph whose life is in danger from a vicious, wolf-like, mystical creature that tries to keep her from returning to her watery "blue world".
586663	Padmini Kolhapure ( मराठी : पद्मिनी कोल्हापुरे ) (born November 1, 1965) is an Indian actress who appeared primarily in Bollywood films during the 1980s. Early life. Padmini Kolhapure is from a Maharashtrian family. Her father, Pandharinath Kolhapure, is a classical singer whose family was from Kolhapur and Goa. Her mother, whose family hailed from Mangalore, held a job working for the airlines. Her father's first cousin is Dinanath Mangeshkar, father of singers Lata Mangeshkar and Asha Bhosle. Career. As a child, she sang in the chorus for songs in films like "Yaadon Ki Baaraat", "Kitab" and "Dushman Dost" with her sister Shivangi (married to Shakti Kapoor). Padmini later sang for her own films like "Vidhaata" ("Saat Saheliyan"), "Hum Intezaar Karenge" and "Sadak Chaap" (with Kishore Kumar). She released an album with Bhappi Lahri called "Music Lovers". She performed for the Greater London Council at the Royal Albert Hall in London with Baapi Lahiri and his troupe in 1986. Asha Bhosle suggested Padmini's name to Dev Anand, who then cast her in "Ishq Ishq Ishq" (1975). This led to other films, such as "Dreamgirl" (1978), "Zindagi" (1976), and "Saajan Bina Suhagan" (1978). She also gave a very commendable performance of a school girl inflicted by black magic in "Gehrayee" (1980). Her mother quit her airlines job to be a full-time chaperone as Padmini picked up more roles. Her most famous child role was playing a child in Raj Kapoor's 1977 film "Satyam Shivam Sundaram". Her success led to her most controversial role in "Insaaf Ka Tarazu" (1980), a remake of "Lipstick" (1976), where she played the rape victim that was originally played by Mariel Hemingway. She earned the Filmfare Best Supporting Actress Award for her performance. She graduated to heroine roles at the age of 15 in Nasir Hussain's "Zamane Ko Dikhana Hai" opposite Rishi Kapoor. The film flopped, but she reunited with Rishi Kapoor for his father Raj Kapoor's film "Prem Rog" in 1982. The film earned her a Filmfare Best Actress Award. She earned a special acting award for "Ahista Ahista". Padmini was known for her professionalism and diligence. She even worked when she had fever on "Do Dilon Ki Dastaan". She had more box office hits, such as "Vidhaata" (1982) and "Souten" (1983). She had a huge hit with "Pyar Jhukta Nahin" (1985) with Mithun Chakraborty, and they were paired together in several more films. She agreed to work with Anil Kapoor when he was a newcomer in his first film, "Woh Saat Din" (1983). The movie was a hit and helped cement his name in the Indian film industry; Anil Kapoor attributes his eventual success in the film industry to her 'luck factor'. Kolhapure married producer Pradeep Sharma, alias Tutu Sharma, after he cast her in "Aisa Pyar Kahan". She has a son named Priyank. After her son grew up, she returned to acting in 2004, such as for the Marathi films "Manthan" and "Chimnee Pakhra", which was a huge hit and earned her a Screen Award in the Best Marathi Actress category. She appeared in the 2006 horror film "Eight Shani". In 2011, she made her foray into Malayalam cinema with V. K. Prakash's "Karmayogi", an adaptation of Shakespeare's "Hamlet". She was considered to play the role of Tulsi Virani in "Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi" after Smriti Irani left the project, but the role was ultimately offered to Gautami Kapoor. She appeared in "Mera Bachpan" with Helen in 2008. She has also acted on stage in "Kaash", followed by "Abhi To Mein Jawan Hoon" and "Aasman Se Gire Khajoor Pe Atke ", with her brother-in-law Shakti Kapoor. Padmini's younger sister Tejaswini Kolhapure is also an actress. Her other sister, Shivangi Kapoor (née Kohlapure), is married to Indian actor Shakti Kapoor. Personal life. She is married to Pradeep Sharma and lives in Mumbai. They have a son together. She created a sort of media scandal in the 80s when she kissed Prince Charles.
629393	The Adventures of Barry McKenzie is a 1972 Australian film starring Barry Crocker, telling the story of an Australian 'yobbo' on his travels to the United Kingdom. Barry McKenzie was originally a character created by Barry Humphries for a cartoon strip in Private Eye. The movie was the first Australian film to earn a million dollars, and a sequel "Barry McKenzie Holds His Own" was made. Barry Humphries appears in several roles, including: a hippie, Barry McKenzie's psychiatrist Doctor De Lamphrey, and as Aunt Edna Everage (later Dame Edna Everage). Humphries would later achieve fame with the character of Dame Edna in the UK and USA. The film was produced by Phillip Adams, who became a prominent op-ed journalist and broadcaster, and directed by Bruce Beresford. Plot summary. Barry 'Bazza' McKenzie (Barry Crocker) travels to England with his aunt Edna Everage (Barry Humphries) to advance his cultural education. Bazza is a young Aussie fond of beer, Bondi and beautiful 'sheilas'. He settles in Earl's Court, where his old friend Curly (Paul Bertram) has a flat. He gets drunk, is ripped off, insulted by pretentious Englishmen and exploited by record producers, religious charlatans and a BBC television producer (Peter Cook). He reluctantly leaves England under the orders of his aunt, after exposing himself on television. His final words on the plane home are, "I was just starting to like the Poms!". Production. Bruce Beresford was living in London and knew Barry Humphries socially when he heard about government funding being given to Australian films. I said to Barry Humphries that we should do a script from the comic strip because they had money available to make films but it hadn't occurred to them that they had no one to make them. I said, 'I don't think they've thought about that but if we whip back to Australia with a script, with you starring in it and we're all set to go, we have a good chance of getting the money. There wouldn't be all that many going for it'. And that's more or less what happened.
584381	Thalaivasal Vijay (Born A. R. Vijaykumar) is a Tamil film actor. He is noted for his character roles, especially in R. Sukumaran's 2010 Malayalam film "Yugapurushan" as Narayana Guru. He has also acted in Telugu films and some television advertisements. Before entering films, he acted in a TV serial called Neelamala on Doordarshan. His debut film was Thalaivaasal which was also a debut film of Director Selva. It was from that film that he got his screen name. Thalaivasal Vijay has a daughter named Jayaveena. She has to her credit, the youngest medal winner of India in swimming. She had won the Bronze in Breaststroke swimming at National Games.He got a Special Jury Award form kerala state film awards in 2011 for yugapurushan Awards. Kerala State Film Awards:
400616	Demetri Evan Martin (born May 25, 1973) is an American comedian, actor, artist, musician, writer and humorist. Martin is best known for his work as a stand-up comedian, being a contributor on "The Daily Show" and for his Comedy Central show "Important Things with Demetri Martin". Early life. Demetri Martin was born to a Greek American family in New York City, New York, and grew up in Toms River, New Jersey. He is the son of Lillian, a nutritionist, and Dean C. Martin, now deceased, a Greek Orthodox priest. Martin graduated from Yale University in 1995. Although he was accepted into Harvard Law School, he went to New York University School of Law after he received a full scholarship. Career. In 2001, Martin caught his first big break in stand-up comedy when he appeared on Comedy Central's stand-up showcase "Premium Blend". At the 2003 Edinburgh Festival Fringe he won the Perrier award with his show "If I...". The show was turned into a British television special in 2004. From 2003 to 2004, Martin wrote for "Late Night with Conan O'Brien". In 2004, Martin had his own "Comedy Central Presents" stand-up special. His special was divided into three parts. In the first, he performed in traditional stand-up comedy fashion. In the second segment, he used humorous drawings as visual aids, which would serve either as the punchline or a background. During the third segment, he played a guitar and put on a pseudo-play where he would strum his guitar while alternating between playing harmonica and talking; some of his comedian friends dressed as fairies and dragons acted according to the story he was telling, detailing the magical land from where his jokes came. Martin's mother and grandmother also appeared. Since late 2005, he has been credited as a contributor on "The Daily Show", on which he has appeared as the named "Senior Youth Correspondent" and on which he hosts a segment called "Trendspotting". He has used this segment to talk about so-called hip trends among youth such as hookahs, wine, guerilla marketing and Xbox 360. A piece about social networking featured his profile on MySpace. On March 22, 2007, Demetri made another appearance on "The Daily Show", talking about the Viacom lawsuit against Google and YouTube. He has recorded a comedy CD/DVD titled "These Are Jokes", which was released on September 26, 2006. This album also features "Saturday Night Live" member Will Forte and stand-up comedian Leo Allen. Martin returned to "The Daily Show" on March 22, 2006, as the new Youth Correspondent, calling his segment "Professional Important News with Demetri Martin". In 2007, he starred in a Fountains of Wayne music video for "Someone to Love" as Seth Shapiro, a character in the song. He also starred in the video for the Travis single "Selfish Jean", in which he wears multiple t-shirts with lyrics written on them. On September 2, 2007, Martin appeared on the season finale of the HBO series "Flight of the Conchords". He appeared as a keytar player named Demetri. He also had a part in the movie "The Rocker" (2008) starring Rainn Wilson. Martin played the part of the videographer when the band in the movie was making their first music video. In 2009, he hosted and starred in his own television show called Important Things With Demetri Martin on Comedy Central. Later in June, it was announced his show had been renewed for a second season. The second season premiered, again on Comedy Central, on February 4, 2010. Martin has stated that "Important Things" will not return for a third season. Prior to completing work on his second season, Martin starred in the comedy-drama film "Taking Woodstock" (2009), directed by Ang Lee, which premiered at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival. In the film Martin plays Elliot Tiber, a closeted gay artist who has given up his ambitions in the city to move upstate and help his old-world Jewish family run their Catskill Mountains motel. The film is based on the book written by Tiber. On April 25, 2011, Martin released his first book, titled "This Is a Book".
582852	Smita Jaykar is an Indian actress known in her native country for frequently playing supporting roles in Bollywood movies and TV shows.
586811	Veerta is an Indian film directed by Shibu Mitra and released in 1993. The movie stars Prosenjit Chatterjee, Sunny Deol, Jayaprada, Shanti Priya, Shakti Kapoor, Prem Chopra and Neena Gupta. Plot. Balwant Roy (Pradeep Kumar) is a big industrialist. His daughter Uma (Neena Gupta) is married to Sunderlal's (Prem Chopra's) elder son Raghuveer (Shakti Kapoor). Sunderlal is the managing director of Roy Group of Industries. Balwant Roy's only son, Amar—nickname Munna (Prosenjit) loves his sister very much. Sunderlal is a greedy character whose intends to hush up the property of Balwant Roy and kill Munna. He plots a consiracy to finish off Munna. But a village boy, Mangal (Sunny Deol) saves Munna's life. Now bothe are living together and Mangal's mother (Seema Deo) feels happy because they love her very much. However, some people recognise Munna and take him back again to his father. Balwant Roy realises that his son's life is in danger and sends Munna to a foreign country along with his trusted employee-friend, Laxman Chacha (Ram Mohan). After many years Sunderlal and Raghuveer become restless and desperate to kill Balwant Roy. They lock up Uma (Neena Gupta) in a cell. Now young Munna returns home and takes charge of the entire business. Sunderlal informs Munna that his sister Uma is very much ailing and has gone to U.S.A for treatment. Munna calls his childhood friend Mangal and appoints him as the new managing director of his business. Here Mangal meets Shalu (Jaya Prada) who is daughter of another industrialist. Jay Prakash (Satyen Kappu) in her childhood, Shalu's marriage was fixed with Munna. But now Shalu falls in love with Mangal and he too accepts her love. Munna does not mind it, because he himself is in love with a village girl Maina (Shanti Priya) from his childhood days. Sunderlal and Raghuveer plot many ideas to finish off Mangal and Munna. Once with the help of Munna's secretary Lili (Aruna Irani) they almost succeed in framing Mangal in a false rape and murder case. A misunderstandig, thus develops between Mangal and Shalu who even agrees to marry Sunderlal's younger son Ranveer (Tej Sapru). Finally Mangal and Munna secceed in identifying the real culprits.
1052901	Rizwan "Riz" Ahmed (born 1 December 1982), also known as Riz MC is a British actor and rapper from Wembley, London, of Pakistani heritage. He has starred in "The Road to Guantanamo", "Shifty", "Britz", "Four Lions", "Ill Manors" and "The Reluctant Fundamentalist". Biography. Ahmed was born into a Muslim family in Wembley, London, England. He is of British Pakistani heritage. Ahmed's parents moved from Karachi, Pakistan to the UK during the 1970s which is where Ahmed was born and raised. Ahmed attended Merchant Taylors' School, Northwood, through a scholarship programme. He graduated from Christ Church, Oxford, with a degree in PPE and studied acting at the Central School of Speech and Drama at the University of London. Acting career. Television and film. Ahmed's film career began in the Michael Winterbottom film "The Road to Guantanamo" in which he played the part of Shafiq Rasul, a member of the Tipton Three. Coincidentally, he and another actor involved in the film as well as two of the Tipton Three were detained at Luton Airport upon their return from the Berlin Film Festival where the film won a Silver Bear Award. Across his years as an actor he has also featured in various TV roles. He has played Sohail Waheed in the 2007 Channel 4 drama, "Britz". 2008 saw him perform as both Riq in the five-part horror thriller for E4, "Dead Set" and Manesh Kunzru in ITV1's finance fraud drama "Wired". In July 2009 in appeared in "Freefall" alongside Sarah Harding. Most notably, he featured in the title role of the 2009 independent film "Shifty", directed by Eran Creevy. Ahmed plays the charismatic young drug dealer in the film which sees a life in the day of this character. He was nominated for Best Actor at the 2008 British Independent Film Awards for this role, alongside Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson. Continuing his film career, he featured in the 2009 Sally Potter production of "Rage" and in 2010, in Chris Morris' satire on terrorism, "Four Lions" and Neil Marshall's historical thriller "Centurion". He recently starred as one of the leading roles in the London based film Ill Manors (released in 2012), directed by Plan B as "Aaron", and in the lead role in Mira Nair's adaptation of the best selling novel by Mohsin Hamid, The Reluctant Fundamentalist, alongside Kate Hudson, Kiefer Sutherland, Om Puri, Shabana Azmi, and Liev Schreiber. Stage. Ahmed played a role in the Asian Dub Foundation opera "Gaddafi" and a starring role as psychotic serial-killer-turned-born-again-Christian Lucius in the Lighthouse Theatre's acclaimed production of Stephen Adly Guirgis's "Jesus Hopped the 'A' Train" (directed by Jack William Clift and Thomas Sweatman) as well as in Shan Khan's "Prayer Room". Music career. In 2006, he released a satirical social-commentary rap track entitled "Post 9/11 Blues". The song was initially banned from British airplay because the lyrics were deemed ‘politically sensitive’. Other tracks he has released include "Sour Times" which was accompanied by a video featuring Scroobius Pip, Plan B and Jim Sturgess. He was selected as a BBC Introducing artist in 2007, playing the Glastonbury Festival and the BBC Electric Proms. He opened the Meltdown Festival with Bristol-based trip-hop group Massive Attack at the Royal Festival Hall in 2008, and was appointed 'Emerging Artist in Residence' at the Southbank Centre in London. He played at the London Camp for Climate Action in August 2009. Rizwan also co-founded the Hit & Run night in Oxford, which has since moved to Manchester. Hit & Run has gone on to become one of Manchester's leading underground music events. He released his debut album "MICroscope" in 2011. On 1 December 2011 it was announced that Riz MC had signed to Tru Thoughts, a independent label in Brighton
1091999	Eugene Paul "E. P." Wigner (; November 17, 1902 – January 1, 1995), was a Hungarian American theoretical physicist and mathematician. He received a share of the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1963 "for his contributions to the theory of the atomic nucleus and the elementary particles, particularly through the discovery and application of fundamental symmetry principles"; the other half of the award was shared between Maria Goeppert-Mayer and J. Hans D. Jensen. Wigner is notable for having laid the foundation for the theory of symmetries in quantum mechanics as well as for his research into the structure of the atomic nucleus. It was Eugene Wigner who first identified Xe-135 "poisoning" in nuclear reactors, and for this reason it is sometimes referred to as "Wigner poisoning". Wigner is also important for his work in pure mathematics, having authored a number of theorems. In particular, Wigner's theorem is a cornerstone in the mathematical formulation of quantum mechanics. Early life. Wigner Jenő Pál was born in Budapest, Austria-Hungary on November 17, 1902, to middle class Jewish parents, Elisabeth (Einhorn) and Anthony Wigner, a leather tanner. He had an older sister, Bertha, known as Biri, and a younger sister Margit, known as Manci, who later married British theoretical physicist Paul Dirac. He was home schooled by a professional teacher until the age of 9, when he started school at the third grade. During this period, Wigner developed an interest in mathematical problems. At the age of 11, Wigner contracted what his doctors believed to be tuberculosis. His parents sent him to live for six weeks in a sanatorium in the Austrian mountains, before the doctors concluded that the diagnosis was mistaken.
1789634	The Da Vinci Treasure is a 2006 mystery film produced by American studio The Asylum, and directed by Peter Mervis.
584932	Anandam () is a 2001 Telugu romance film, directed by Srinu Vaitla and starred Jai Akash and Rekha Vedavyas in lead roles. The music of the film is composed by Devi Sri Prasad. The blockbuster film was remade into Tamil as "Inidhu Inidhu Kaadhal Inidhu" and Kannada as "Ananda", all the three versions being produced by Ramoji Rao. Plot. Kiran (Akaash) and Aishwarya (Rekha Vedavyas) have been neighbors for 20 years in Hyderabad. They study in the same college and immensely hate each other. Rekha's parents shift to Ooty. There, Aishwarya finds an unopened greeting card addressed to Deepika (Tanu Roy). Aishwarya comes to know that Deepika is the girl who stayed in that room in the past. Deepika committed suicide because her lover Vamsi (Venkat) did not return from Hyderabad and she was being forced to marry someone she did not like. Aishwarya opens the letter and realizes that Vamsi wrote it. In it, Vamsi explains his feelings for her. Aishwarya does not want to disappoint Vamsi that Deepika is no more. She starts writing letters on behalf of Deepika. Interestingly, on the other side Kiran replies to all these mails on behalf of Vamsi who died in an accident in Hyderabad. The rest of the film is about how the two learn the truth and turn their hatred into love. Soundtrack. The soundtrack is composed by Devi Sri Prasad. The soundtrack of the movie is released through Mayuri Audio.
520807	Keanna Reeves (born Janet Derecho Duterte February 23, 1967) is a Filipina actress who first gained national attention and notoriety in the Philippines for exposing a private escort girl service in December 2004, and confessing that lawmakers were among her clients. Biography. Early Life and Career. Duterte adopted the stage name Keanna Reeves as a feminine version of the Hollywood actor Keanu Reeves. "Pinoy Big Brother". In 2005, she appeared on "Extra Challenge", where she won the challenges with her teammate and then enemy Tita Swarding. Continuing her stints on reality shows, in February 2006, she was selected to be one of the 14 housemates in "". She won the competition, winning P4 million worth of cash and prizes. Her chosen charity, women's rights advocate "Gabriella" (the sister party of Bayan Muna), received P1 million. She did one movie, "Binibining K" with Troy Montero in 2006.
1048858	The North Avenue Irregulars is a 1979 film produced by Walt Disney Productions, distributed by Buena Vista Distribution Company, and starring Edward Hermann, Barbara Harris, Karen Valentine and Susan Clark. It was based on original work by Albert Fay Hill, as adapted by Don Tait. The film was released as "Hill's Angels" in the United Kingdom. Plot. Reverend Michael Hill (Edward Herrmann) and his two children arrive in a mid-sized city as the new minister at North Avenue Presbyterian Church. The secretary/music director for the church, Anne (Susan Clark), is wary of the changes Hill intends to implement. Hill wants to get people involved, and asks Mrs. Rose Rafferty (Patsy Kelly, in her final movie role) to handle the church's sinking fund. On his first Sunday, Hill learns from Mrs. Rafferty that her husband Delaney (Douglas Fowley) bet all the sinking fund money on a horse race. Hill delivers a sermon less than 15 seconds long, then rapidly escorts Mrs. Rafferty out the church as astonished worshipers watch. She leads him to the bookie, hidden behind a dry-cleaning shop, and meets Harry the Hat (Alan Hale, Jr.), who recommends that Hill let the bet ride. Hill's horse loses and he is thrown out of the betting parlor. Hill summons the police, but the booking joint has been skillfully removed. That evening, Hill delivers a tirade against the organized crime in the city during a local television broadcast. He is chastised by his presbytery superiors for the tirade, and is urged to go out and build church membership in the area. His only success is with a rock band called Strawberry Shortcake, who he recruits to "jazz up" the music at church; Anne resigns as music director. Then, two treasury agents for the US government arrive: Marvin Fogleman (Michael Constantine) and Tom Voohries (Steve Franken). They want Hill to help them close down the gambling racket by recruiting some men from the church to place bets that the agents will watch. Hill cannot find any men to help, but hits upon the idea of using women. Five women from his congregation (and Delany, whose wife does not drive) attempt to place bets in the company of the Treasury agents, but with disastrous clumsiness. The team changes tactics to try to go after the "bank" that the gangsters use, tailing the mob's deliverymen through town while Hill coordinates using a map at the church office. Two gangsters subsequently appear at the church during services and identify the women. Anne discovers the operation, even as Hill defends the Irregulars as keeping the gangsters off balance. Anne resigns from the secretary position, and soon after, the gangsters bomb the church. Hill is shocked at the gangsters' act, and seems ready to give in, but to his surprise, Anne wants to join the fight. They do so, and continue to hammer the gangsters' movements around town. Meanwhile, Hill receives word that the pulpit has been declared vacant and North Avenue will be discontinued as a church entity.
1064188	David Stephen Caruso (born January 7, 1956) is an American actor and producer. His most prominent role is the portrayal of Lieutenant Horatio Caine on the TV series "". He has also appeared as Detective John Kelly on the ABC crime drama "NYPD Blue". Early life. Caruso was born in Forest Hills Gardens, Queens, New York, New York, the son of Joan, a librarian, and Charles Caruso, a magazine and newspaper editor. He is of Irish and Italian (Sicilian) descent. His father left when he was two years of age, forcing him to "end up fathering myself", as he put it. Raised as a Roman Catholic, Caruso attended Our Lady Queen of Martyrs Catholic School in Forest Hills. He later attended Archbishop Molloy High School in nearby Briarwood, graduating in 1974. Caruso worked as a cinema usher, where he would see up to eighty movies a week. Caruso's first major role was in 1993 as Detective John Kelly on the series "NYPD Blue", for which Caruso won a Golden Globe Award. "TV Guide" named Caruso as one of the six new stars to watch in the 1993–94 season. He made news by leaving the highly rated show the following year (only four episodes into the second season) after failing to obtain the raise he wanted. He was unable to establish himself as a leading-man in films despite starring in the crime thriller "Kiss of Death", which was critically well-received but did not perform well financially. He also appeared in "Jade" (1995), which flopped critically and at the box office. In a 2010 issue of "TV Guide", Caruso's decision to leave "NYPD Blue" was ranked #6 on a list of TV's 10 biggest "blunders". In the first episode of "South Park", ("Cartman Gets an Anal Probe") Kyle tells his brother Ike to "do your impersonation of David Caruso's career" to get Ike to jump out of a spaceship. In 1997, Caruso returned to television as a New York City-based federal prosecutor in the short-lived CBS law drama series, "Michael Hayes", which aired for one season. 2000s. Caruso returned to film with a supporting role as Russell Crowe's mercenary associate in the film "Proof of Life" in 2000. In 2001, he had a lead role in the cult psychological horror film "Session 9". From 2002 to 2012, he has starred as Lieutenant Horatio Caine in the popular ' spin-off series '. He was the first actor in the franchise to appear as the same character on all three "CSI" programs. On "CSI: Miami", Caruso is known for frequently using one-liners at the beginning of each episode. Many of these include him putting on his trademark sunglasses mid-sentence, then walking off-screen just as the main theme starts (finishing move). On an episode of the "Late Show with David Letterman" that aired on March 8, 2007, comedian Jim Carrey professed to being a fan of the show and went on to satirically impersonate Caruso. Carrey asked for an "intense close-up" from the camera, spoke in a deep voice and put sunglasses on. Caruso later said in an interview with CBS that he was impressed with the impersonation. Personal life. Caruso is founder of DavidCarusoTelevision.tv and LexiconDigital.tv, as well as co-owner of Steam on Sunset, a clothing store in South Miami. Caruso has a daughter, Greta with his second wife, Rachel Ticotin. He and former girlfriend Liza Marquez have two children together: a son and a daughter. In April 2009, Marquez filed papers against Caruso for fraud, breach of their settlement agreement and emotional distress. In March 2009, an Austrian woman was placed in custody in Tyrol, Austria, on charges of stalking Caruso; she had twice failed to appear in court to answer the charges before fleeing to Mexico; following her deportation from Mexico, Austrian officials took her into custody to await trial on the stalking charges.
1557989	Jerome Lester "Jerry" Horwitz (October 22, 1903 – January 18, 1952), better known by his stage name Curly Howard, was an American comedian and vaudevillian actor. He was best known as the most outrageous member of the American slapstick comedy team The Three Stooges, which also featured his older brothers Moe Howard and Shemp Howard and actor Larry Fine. Curly was generally considered the most popular and recognizable of the Stooges. He was well known for his high-pitched voice and vocal expressions ("nyuk-nyuk-nyuk!", "woob-woob-woob!", "soitenly!" and barking like a dog) as well as his physical comedy, improvisations, and athleticism. An untrained actor, Curly borrowed (and significantly exaggerated) the "woob woob" from "nervous" and soft-spoken comedian Hugh Herbert. Curly's unique version of "woob-woob-woob" was firmly established by the time of the Stooges' second film, "Punch Drunks", in 1934. Early life. Curly Howard was born Jerome Lester Horwitz in the Bensonhurst section of the Brooklyn borough of New York City. He was the fifth of the five Horwitz brothers and of Lithuanian Jewish ancestry. Because he was the youngest, his brothers called him "Babe" to tease him. The nickname stuck with him all his life, although when his older brother Shemp married Gertrude Frank, who was also nicknamed "Babe," the brothers started calling him "Curly" to avoid confusion. His full formal Hebrew name was "Yehudah Lev ben Shlomo Natan ha Levi." A quiet child, Curly rarely caused problems for his parents (something older brothers Moe and Shemp excelled in). He was a mediocre student but excelled as an athlete on the school basketball team. He didn't graduate from high school but kept himself busy with odd jobs and constantly followed his older brothers, whom he idolized. He was also an accomplished ballroom dancer and singer and regularly turned up at the Triangle Ballroom in Brooklyn, occasionally bumping into George Raft. When Curly was 12, he accidentally shot himself in the left ankle while cleaning a rifle. Moe rushed him to the hospital and saved his life. The wound resulted in a noticeably thinner left leg and a slight limp. He was so frightened of surgery that he never had the limp corrected. While with the Stooges, he developed his famous exaggerated walk to mask the limp on screen. Curly was interested in music and comedy and would watch his brothers Shemp and Moe perform as stooges in Ted Healy's vaudeville act. He also liked to hang around backstage, although he never participated in any of the routines. Career. Early career and the Three Stooges. From an early age, Curly was always "in demand socially," as brother Moe put it. He married his first wife, Julia Rosenthal, on August 5, 1930, but the couple had their marriage annulled shortly afterwards.
1103198	James Joseph Sylvester FRS (3 September 1814 – 15 March 1897) was an English mathematician. He made fundamental contributions to matrix theory, invariant theory, number theory, partition theory and combinatorics. He played a leadership role in American mathematics in the later half of the 19th century as a professor at the Johns Hopkins University and as founder of the American Journal of Mathematics. At his death, he was professor at Oxford. Biography. Sylvester was born James Joseph in London, England. His father, Abraham Joseph, was a merchant. James adopted the surname Sylvester when his older brother did so upon emigration to the United States—a country which at that time required all immigrants to have a given name, a middle name, and a surname. At the age of 14, Sylvester started attending the University of London, where he was a student of Augustus De Morgan. His family withdrew him from the University after he was accused of stabbing a fellow student with a knife. Following this, he attended the Liverpool Royal Institution. Sylvester began his study of mathematics at St John's College, Cambridge in 1831, where his tutor was John Hymers. Although his studies were interrupted for almost two years due to a prolonged illness, he nevertheless ranked second in Cambridge's famous mathematical examination, the tripos, for which he sat in 1837. However, Sylvester was not issued a degree, because graduates at that time were required to state their acceptance of the Thirty-Nine Articles of the Church of England, and Sylvester - who was of Jewish origin - refused to do so. For the same reason, he was unable to compete for a Fellowship or obtain a Smith's prize. In 1838 Sylvester became professor of natural philosophy at University College London. In 1841, he was awarded a BA and an MA by Trinity College, Dublin. In the same year he moved to the United States to become a professor at the University of Virginia for about six months, and returned to England in November 1843. On his return to England he studied law, alongside fellow British lawyer/mathematician Arthur Cayley, with whom he made significant contributions to matrix theory while working as an actuary. One of his private pupils was Florence Nightingale. He did not obtain a position teaching university mathematics until 1855, when he was appointed professor of mathematics at the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich, from which he retired in 1869, because the compulsory retirement age was 55. The Woolwich academy initially refused to pay Sylvester his full pension, and only relented after a prolonged public controversy, during which Sylvester took his case to the letters page of "The Times". One of Sylvester's lifelong passions was for poetry; he read and translated works from the original French, German, Italian, Latin and Greek, and many of his mathematical papers contain illustrative quotes from classical poetry. Following his early retirement, published a book entitled "The Laws of Verse" in which he attempted to codify a set of laws for prosody in poetry. In 1877 Sylvester again crossed the Atlantic Ocean to become the inaugural professor of mathematics at the new Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland. His salary was $5,000 (quite generous for the time), which he demanded be paid in gold. In 1878 he founded the "American Journal of Mathematics". The only other mathematical journal in the U.S. at that time was the "Analyst", which eventually became the "Annals of Mathematics". In 1883, he returned to England to take up the Savilian Professor of Geometry at Oxford University. He held this chair until his death, although in 1892 the University appointed a deputy professor to the same chair. Sylvester invented a great number of mathematical terms such as "graph" (combinatorics) and discriminant. He coined the term "totient" for Euler's totient function φ("n"). His collected scientific work fills four volumes. In 1880, the Royal Society of London awarded Sylvester the Copley Medal, its highest award for scientific achievement; in 1901, it instituted the Sylvester Medal in his memory, to encourage mathematical research after his death in Oxford, Oxfordshire, England. In Discrete geometry he is remembered for Sylvester's Problem and a result on the orchard problem. Sylvester House, a portion of an undergraduate dormitory at Johns Hopkins University, is named in his honor. Several professorships there are named in his honor also.
828015	The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders (commonly known simply as Moll Flanders) is a novel by Daniel Defoe, first published in 1722. It purports to be the true account of the life of the eponymous Moll, detailing her exploits from birth until old age. By 1721, Defoe had become a recognised novelist, with the success of "Robinson Crusoe" in 1719. His political work was tapering off at this point, due to the fall of both Whig and Tory party leaders with whom he had been associated; Robert Walpole was beginning his rise, and Defoe was never fully at home with the Walpole group. Defoe's Whig views are nevertheless evident in the story of Moll, and the novel's full title gives some insight into this and the outline of the plot: Plot summary. Moll's mother is a convict in Newgate Prison in London who is given a reprieve by "pleading her belly," a reference to the custom of staying the executions of pregnant criminals. Her mother is eventually transported to America, and Moll Flanders (not her birth name, she emphasises, taking care not to reveal it) is raised until adolescence by a goodly foster mother, and then gets attached to a household as a servant where she is loved by both sons, the elder of whom convinces her to "act like they were married" in bed, yet eventually unwilling to marry her, he persuades her to marry his younger brother. After five years of marriage, she then is widowed, leaves her children in the care of in-laws, and begins honing the skill of passing herself off as a fortuned widow to attract a man who will marry her and provide her with security. The first time she does this, her "gentleman-tradesman" spendthrift husband goes bankrupt and flees to the Continent, leaving her on her own with his blessing to do the best she can to forget him. (They had one child together, but it died.) The second time, she makes a match that leads her to Virginia with a kindly man who introduces her to his mother. After three children (one dies), Moll learns that her mother-in-law is actually her biological mother, which makes her husband her half-brother. She dissolves their marriage and after continuing to live with her brother for three years, travels back to England, leaving her two children behind, and goes to live in Bath to seek a new husband. Again she returns to her con skills and develops a relationship with a man in Bath whose wife is elsewhere confined due to insanity. Their relationship is at first platonic, but eventually develops into Moll becoming something of a "kept woman" in Hammersmith, London. They have three children (one lives), but after a severe illness he repents, breaks off the arrangement, and commits to his wife. Moll, now 42, resorts to another beau, a banker, who while still married to an adulterous wife (a "whore"), proposes to Moll after she entrusts him with her money. While waiting for the banker to divorce, Moll pretends to have a great fortune to attract another wealthy husband. She becomes involved with some Roman Catholics in Lancashire that try to convert her, and she marries one of them, a supposedly rich man. She soon realises he expected to receive a great dowry which she denies having, leading him to admit that he has cheated her into marriage, having himself lied about having money that he does not possess. He is in fact a ruined gentleman and discharges her from the marriage, telling her nevertheless that she should inherit any money he might ever get (finally, she mentions his name). Although now pregnant again, Moll lets the banker believe she is available, hoping he returns. She gives birth and the midwife gives a tripartite scale of the costs of bearing a child, with one value level per social class. Moll's son is born when the banker's wife commits suicide following their divorce, and Moll leaves her newborn in the care of a countrywoman in exchange for the sum of £5 a year. Moll marries the banker now, but realises "what an abominable creature I am! and how this innocent gentleman is going to be abused by me!" They live in happiness for five years before he becomes bankrupt and dies of despair, the fate of their two children left unstated. Truly desperate now, Moll begins a career of artful thievery, which, by employing her wits, beauty, charm, and femininity, as well as hard-heartedness and wickedness, brings her the financial security she has always sought. She assumes the name Moll Flanders and is known thereby. During this time she briefly becomes the mistress of a man she robbed, and is finally caught by two maids whilst trying to steal from a house. In Newgate she is led to her repentance. At the same time, she reunites with her soulmate, her "Lancashire husband", who is also jailed for his robberies (before and after they first met, he acknowledges). Moll is found guilty of felony, but not burglary, the second charge; still, the sentence is death in any case. Yet Moll convinces a minister of her repentance, and together with her Lancashire husband is sent to the Colonies to avoid hanging, where they live happily together (she even talks the ship's captain into not being with the convicts sold upon arrival, but instead in the captain's quarters). Once in the colonies, Moll learns her mother has left her a plantation and that her own son (by her brother) is alive, as is her brother/husband. Moll carefully introduces herself to her brother and their son, in disguise. With the help of a Quaker, the two found a farm with 50 servants in Maryland. Moll reveals herself now to her son in Virginia and he gives her her mother's inheritance, a farm for which he will now be her steward, providing £100 a year income for her. In turn, she makes him her heir and gives him a (stolen) gold watch. At last, her life of conniving and desperation seems to be over. When her brother/husband is dead, Moll tells her (Lancashire) husband the entire story and he is "perfectly easy on that account... For, said he, it was no fault of yours, nor of his; it was a mistake impossible to be prevented". Aged 69 (in 1683), the two return to England to live "in sincere penitence for the wicked lives we have lived". Selected quotations. "...and let any one judge what must be the anguish of my mind, when I came to reflect that this was certainly no more or less than my own mother, and I had now had two children, and was big with another by my own brother, and lay with him still every night." "I was now the most unhappy of all women in the world. Oh! had the story never been told me, all had been well; it had been no crime to have lain with my husband, since as to his being my relation I had known nothing of it."
1061595	Harold Allen Ramis (born November 21, 1944) is an American actor, director, and writer, specializing in comedy. His best-known film acting roles are as Egon Spengler in "Ghostbusters" (1984) and Russell Ziskey in "Stripes" (1981), both of which he co-wrote. As a writer/director, his films include the comedies "Caddyshack" (1980), "Groundhog Day" (1993), and "Analyze This" (1999). Ramis was the original head writer of the television series "SCTV" (in which he also performed), and one of three screenwriters for the film "National Lampoon's Animal House" (1978). Early life and career. Ramis was born in Chicago, Illinois, the son of Ruth (née Cokee) and Nathan Ramis, shopkeepers who owned the store Ace Food & Liquor Mart on the city's far North Side. He had a Jewish upbringing, although in his adult life he does not practice any organized religion. He graduated from Stephen K. Hayt Elementary School and Nicholas Senn High School in Chicago, and, in 1966, from Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, where he was a member of the Alpha Xi chapter of Zeta Beta Tau fraternity. Afterward, Ramis worked in a mental institution in St. Louis for seven months. He later said his time working there He had begun writing parodic plays in college, saying years later, "In my heart, I felt I was a combination of Groucho and , of Groucho using his wit as a weapon against the upper classes, and of Harpo’s antic charm and the fact that he was oddly sexy — he grabs women, pulls their skirts off, and gets away with it". Avoiding the Vietnam War military draft by ingestion of methamphetamine to fail his draft physical, he married San Francisco, California artist Anne Plotkin, with whom he would have a daughter, Violet, and eventually, years later, divorce. Following his work in St. Louis, Ramis returned to Chicago, where by 1968, he was a substitute teacher at the inner-city Robert Taylor Homes. He also became associated with the guerrilla television collective TVTV, headed by his college friend Michael Shamberg, and wrote freelance for the "Chicago Daily News". "Michael Shamberg right out of college had started freelancing for newspapers and got on as a stringer for a local paper, and I thought, 'Well, if Michael can do that, I can do that'. I wrote a spec piece and submitted it to the "Chicago Daily News", the Arts & Leisure section, and they started giving me assignments entertainment features." Additionally, he had begun studying and performing with Chicago's Second City improvisational comedy troupe. Ramis's newspaper writing led to his becoming joke editor at "Playboy". "I called a guy named Michael Lawrence just cold and said I had written several pieces freelance and did they have any openings. And they happened to have their entry-level job, party jokes editor, open. He liked my stuff and he gave me a stack of jokes that readers had sent in and asked me to rewrite them. I had been in Second City in the workshops already and Michael Shamberg and I had written comedy shows in college". National Lampoon and SCTV. After leaving Second City for a time and returning in 1972, having been replaced in the main cast by John Belushi, Ramis worked his way back as Belushi's deadpan foil. In 1974, Belushi brought Ramis and other Second City performers, including Ramis's frequent future collaborator, Bill Murray, to New York City to work together on the radio program "The National Lampoon Radio Hour" (which ran November 1973 to December 1974). During this time, Ramis, Belushi, Murray, Joe Flaherty, Christopher Guest, and Gilda Radner starred in the revue "The National Lampoon Show", the successor to "National Lampoon's Lemmings". Later, Ramis became a performer on, and head writer of, the late-night sketch-comedy television series "SCTV" during its first three years (1976–1979). Characterizations by Ramis on "SCTV" include corrupt "Dialing for Dollars" host/SCTV station manager Maurice "Moe" Green, amiable cop Officer Friendly, exercise guru Swami Bananananda, board chairman Allan "Crazy Legs" Hirschman, and home dentist Mort Finkel. His celebrity impressions on "SCTV" include Kenneth Clark and Leonard Nimoy. Film success. Ramis left "SCTV" to pursue a film career and wrote a script with "National Lampoon" magazine's Douglas Kenney which would eventually become "National Lampoon's Animal House". They were later joined by a third collaborator on the script, Chris Miller. The 1978 film followed the struggle between a rowdy college fraternity house and the college dean. The film's humor was raunchy for its time. "Animal House" "broke all box-office records for comedies" and earned $141 million. Ramis next co-wrote the comedy "Meatballs", starring Bill Murray. The movie was a commercial success and became the first of six film collaborations between Murray and Ramis. His third film and his directorial debut was "Caddyshack", which he wrote with Kenney and Brian Doyle-Murray. The film starred Chevy Chase, Rodney Dangerfield, Ted Knight, and Bill Murray. Like Ramis's previous two films, "Caddyshack" was also a commercial success. In 1982, Ramis was attached to direct the film adaptation of the Pulitzer Prize-winning book "A Confederacy of Dunces" by John Kennedy Toole. The film was to star John Belushi and Richard Pryor, but the project was aborted. In 1984, Ramis collaborated with Dan Aykroyd on the screenplay for "Ghostbusters", which became one of the biggest comedy hits of the summer, in which he also starred as Dr. Egon Spengler, a role he reprised for the 1989 sequel, "Ghostbusters II" (which he also co-wrote with Aykroyd) and solidified plans to reprise his role in the proposed Ghostbusters III. His later film "Groundhog Day" has been called "Ramis' masterpiece”. His films were noted for attacking "the smugness of institutional life ... with an impish good that is unmistakably American". They are also noted for "Ramis's signature tongue-in-cheek pep talks”. Sloppiness and improv are also important aspects of his work. Ramis frequently depicts the qualities of "anger, curiosity, laziness, and woolly idealism" in "a hyper-articulate voice". In 2004, he turned down the opportunity to direct the Bernie Mac-Ashton Kutcher film "Guess Who", then under the working title "The Dinner Party", because he considered it to be poorly written. That same year, Ramis began filming the low-budget "The Ice Harvest", "his first attempt to make a comic film noir". Ramis spent six weeks trying to get the film greenlit because he had difficulty reaching an agreement about stars John Cusack and Billy Bob Thornton's salaries. The film received a mixed reaction. His typical directing fee, as of 2004, is $5 million. He reportedly took a greatly reduced salary of $1 million to make "The Ice Harvest". In an interview in the documentary 'American Storytellers,' Ramis said he hoped to make a film about Emma Goldman (even pitching Disney with the idea of having Bette Midler star) but that none of the movie studios are interested and that it would be difficult to raise the funding. Personal life. Ramis has three children. His daughter Violet was born in 1977 with his first wife, Anne, and sons Julian Arthur (born May 10, 1990) and Daniel Hayes (born August 10, 1994) with his second wife, Erica Mann (the daughter of director Daniel Mann and actress Mary Kathleen Williams). Actor and "Ghostbusters" co-star Bill Murray is Violet Ramis's godfather. Ramis is an avid Chicago Cubs fan and goes to games every year to conduct the Seventh-inning stretch at Wrigley Field. Awards and honors. In 2004, Ramis was inducted into the St. Louis Walk of Fame. In 2005, Ramis was the recipient of the Austin Film Festival's Distinguished Screenwriter Award. Legacy. Ramis's films have had an impact on subsequent generations of comedians and comedy writers. Filmmakers Jay Roach, Jake Kasdan, Adam Sandler, and Peter and Bobby Farrelly have cited his films as amongst their favorites.
139530	Katherine Dunham (June 22, 1909 – May 21, 2006) was an American dancer, choreographer, author, educator, and social activist. Dunham had one of the most successful dance careers in American and European theater of the 20th century, and directed her own dance company for many years. She has been called the "matriarch and queen mother of black dance". During her heyday in the 1940s and 1950s, Dunham was renowned throughout Europe and Latin America and was widely popular in the United States, where the "Washington Post" called her "dancer Katherine the Great". For almost thirty years she maintained the Katherine Dunham Dance Company, the only self-supported American black dance troupe at that time, and over her long career she choreographed more than ninety individual dances. Dunham was an innovator in African-American modern dance as well as a leader in the field of dance anthropology, or ethnochoreology. Early Years. Katherine Mary Dunham was born in June, 1909 in a Chicago hospital and taken as an infant to her parents' home in Glen Ellyn, Illinois, a village about fifteen miles west of Chicago. Her father, Albert Millard Dunham, was a descendant of slaves from West Africa and Madagascar. Her mother, Fanny June Dunham (née Taylor), who was of mixed French-Canadian and Native American heritage, died when Katherine was three years old. After her father's remarriage a few years later, the family moved to a predominately white neighborhood in Joliet, Illinois, where Mr. Dunham ran a dry cleaning business. Katherine became interested in both writing and dance at a young age. In high school she joined the Terpsichorean Club and began to learn a kind of modern dance based on ideas of Jaques-Dalcroze and Rudolf von Laban. At the age of 15, she organized the Blue Moon Café, a fund-raising cabaret for Brown's Methodist Church in Joliet, where she gave her first public performance. While still a high-school student, she opened a private dance school for young black children. Academic Anthropologist. Upon completing her studies at Joliet Junior College, Katharine Dunham moved to Chicago to join her brother Albert, who was attending the University of Chicago as a student of philosophy. In a lecture by Robert Redfield, a professor of anthropology, she learned that much of black culture in modern America had begun in Africa. She consequently decided to major in anthropology and to focus on dances of the African diaspora. Besides Redfield, she studied under some of the great anthropologists of the day, including A.R. Radcliffe-Brown, Edward Sapir, and Bronisław Malinowski. Under their tutelage, she showed great promise in her ethnographic studies of dance. In 1935, Dunham was awarded travel fellowships from the Julius Rosenwald and Guggenheim foundations to conduct ethnographic study of the dance forms of the Caribbean, especially as manifested in the Vodun of Haiti, a path also followed by fellow anthropology student Zora Neale Hurston. She also received a grant to work with Professor Melville Herskovits of Northwestern University, whose ideas of African retention would serve as a platform for her research in the Caribbean. Her stay in the Caribbean began in Jamaica, where she went to live several months in the remote Maroon village of Accompong, deep in the mountains of Cockpit Country. (She later wrote a book, "Journey to Accompong," describing her experiences there.) Then she traveled on to Martinique and to Trinidad and Tobago for short stays, primarily to do an investigation of Shango, the African god who remained an important presence in West Indian heritage. Early in 1936 she arrived at last in Haiti, where she remained for several months, the first of her many extended stays in that country throughout the rest of her life. While in Haiti, Dunham investigated Vodun rituals and made extensive notes on her research, particularly on the dance movements of the participants. Years later, after extensive studies and initiations, she became a mambo in the Vodun religion. She also became friends with, among others, Dumarsais Estimé, then a high-level politician, who became president of Haiti in 1949. Somewhat later, she assisted him, at considerable risk to her life, when he was persecuted for his progressive policies and sent in exile to Jamaica after a coup d'état. Dunham returned to Chicago in late spring of 1936 and in August was awarded a bachelor's degree, a Ph.B. (bachelor of philosophy), with her principal area of study named as "social anthropology." In 1938, using materials collected during her research tour of the Caribbean, Dunham submitted a thesis, "The Dances of Haiti: A Study of Their Material Aspect, Organization, Form, and Function," to the Department of Anthropology at the University of Chicago in partial fulfillment of the requirements for a master's degree, but she never completed her course work or took examinations to qualify for the degree. Devoted to dance performance as well as to anthropological research, she realized that she had to choose between them. Although she was offered another grant from the Rockefeller Foundation to pursue her academic studies, she chose dance, gave up her graduate studies, and departed for the bright lights of Broadway and Hollywood. Dancer and Choreographer. In 1928, while still an undergraduate, Dunham began to study ballet with Ludmilla Speranzeva, a Russian dancer who had settled in Chicago, having come to the United States with the Franco-Russian vaudeville troupe Le Théâtre de la Chauve-Souris directed by impresario Nikita Balieff. She also studied ballet with Mark Turbyfill and Ruth Page, who became prima ballerina of the Chicago Opera. Through her ballet teachers, she was also exposed to Spanish, East Indian, Javanese, and Balinese dance forms. In 1931, when she was only 21, Dunham formed a group called Ballets Nègres, one of the first black ballet companies in the United States. After a single, well-received performance in 1931, the group was disbanded. Encouraged by Speranzeva to focus on modern dance instead of ballet, Dunham opened her first real dance school in 1933 called the Negro Dance Group. It was a venue for Dunham to teach young black dancers about their African heritage.
1165682	Janet Blair (April 23, 1921 – February 19, 2007) was an American film and television actress. Background. Born as Martha Jane Lafferty (she took her acting surname from Blair County, Pennsylvania) in Altoona, Pennsylvania, she began her acting career on film in 1942, being placed under contract to Columbia Pictures. During World War II, she made a string of successful pictures, although she is today best remembered for playing Rosalind Russell's sister in "My Sister Eileen" (1942) and Rita Hayworth's best friend in "Tonight and Every Night" (1945). In the late 1940s, she was dropped by Columbia and did not return to pictures for several years. Instead, she took the lead role of Nellie Forbush in a production of the stage musical "South Pacific", making more than 1,200 performances in three years. " never missed a performance", she noted proudly. During the tour, she also got married to second husband, producer-director Nick Mayo, and they became parents of Amanda and Andrew. She appeared on television on various variety shows and was also a summer replacement for Dinah Shore. She recorded an album entitled "Flame Out" for the Dico label. It was a collection of ballads like "Don't Explain" and "Then You've Never Been Blue". She made a rare dramatic appearance in the 1962 British horror film "Night of the Eagle". Her last performance was on television in a 1991 episode of "Murder, She Wrote", starring Angela Lansbury. Personal life. Blair was married twice. Her first marriage was to Louis Ferdinand Busch from 1943 to March 1950. She married television producer Nick Mayo in 1952 with whom she had two children: Andrew and Amanda. They divorced in 1971. Death. On February 19, 2007, Blair died of complications from pneumonia, aged 85, at St. John's Health Center in Santa Monica, California.
1059129	Emily Lloyd (born Emily Lloyd Pack; London, 29 September 1970) is an English actress. Early life. She is the daughter of Sheila (née Laden), now known as Sheila Hughes, a theatrical agent who was a longtime secretary at Harold Pinter's stage agency, and Roger Lloyd-Pack, a stage actor, well known as Trigger in the British hit sitcom "Only Fools and Horses". Her grandfather, Charles Lloyd Pack, was also a stage and film actor. Her parents divorced when she was two years old. She and her younger sister Charlotte grew up with their mother. Career. Early roles. At the age of 15, Lloyd was taking acting lessons at the Italia Conti School in London. In 1986, director David Leland cast her for the leading role in his film "Wish You Were Here". The film was based loosely on the memoirs of British madam Cynthia Payne. Lloyd's younger sister played the 11-year-old Lynda in a flashback sequence. "Wish You Were Here" was a success at the 1987 Cannes Film Festival and Lloyd was celebrated as new and fresh talent. She received the Evening Standard Film Award and the Award of the National Society of Film Critics in 1987. She was also nominated for a BAFTA award. In 1988, she appeared in "Cookie" by Susan Seidelman and "In Country" by Norman Jewison, but both films were box office flops. Her next film was "Chicago Joe and the Showgirl". It was directed by Bernard Rose and David Yallop's screenplay based on the well-known "cleft chin murder". In 1989 she received an offer for the film "Mermaids" by Richard Benjamin. Due to problems with the film's star, Cher, who thought that Lloyd didn't fit as her onscreen daughter, she lost the role to Winona Ryder. Lloyd sued Orion Pictures and received $175,000 in damages. Later in 1992 she appeared in her most successful film to date, "A River Runs Through It". In 1997, she appeared in a supporting role in the critically acclaimed film "Welcome to Sarajevo" by Michael Winterbottom. Later roles. Her first attempt as a stage actress was as Eliza, opposite Roy Marsden as Higgins, in the 1997 West End production of "Pygmalion" (Albery Theatre), produced by Bill Kenwright. On the 18 June, only ten days after rehearsals began, the original director walked out. The next day Lloyd left the production, amid rumours of her having been "asked to leave" (a highly unusual step in the theatre-world) and stories of threatened resignations from the rest of the cast if she had stayed. Her part was taken by Carli Norris (which made her name) and Ray Cooney took over as director. Her next theatre work was as Bella Kooling in David Farr's "Max Klapper - a Life in Pictures", presented at the Electric Cinema as "a play with film".
1040632	Gregor Fisher (born 22 December 1953) is a Scottish comedian and actor. Early life. Fisher was born in Glasgow and following the death of his parents was brought up in Edinburgh, Langholm and Neilston and attended Barrhead High School. He attended the Royal School of Music and Drama in Glasgow, at which he did not complete his studies. Career. He is best known for his portrayal of his character Rab C. Nesbitt in the sitcom of the same name. He starred in the TV show "Naked Video", where the Nesbitt character originated, along with the Baldy Man who also obtained a spin-off series. Baldy Man is also particularly associated with the Hamlet advert in which he cannot get a satisfactory passport photo from a photobooth and lights up a cigar to calm himself down. Fisher also worked with the late Scottish comedian Rikki Fulton on the hit sketch show "Scotch and Wry". Another Scottish comedian he worked with was Hector Nicol in the 1979 BBC drama "Just a Boys' Game". He appeared in Michael Radford's 1984 film "Nineteen Eighty-Four" as Winston Smith's neighbour Parsons. In 1988, he had a leading role in a dramatised television documentary telling the story of the creation of the Christmas carol "Silent Night", called "Silent Mouse". In the same year he had a cameo (as a Victorian policeman) in the Caine/Kingsley vehicle, "Without a Clue". In 2004, he played the role of Solanio in another Michael Radford film, "The Merchant of Venice." In 1994/95, he played the title role in the BBC series "The Tales of Para Handy". In 2003, he appeared in the romantic comedy film "Love Actually", where he played the role of the manager to fading music star, Billy Mack (Bill Nighy). Fisher had also appeared in the 1999 sitcom "Brotherly Love" and in the 2002 sitcom "Snoddy". He also appeared with Iain Glenn in the BBC Masterpiece theatre version of "Kidnapped". He also appeared in the 2000 BBC adaptation of "Gormenghast". Fisher starred as a main character in the drama "Missing", made by SMG Productions in 2006. However, the two-part thriller was not broadcast on STV until November 2008. In November 2006, he starred as Grandpa Potts in "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang", in a three-month run of the show in Edinburgh. Most recently he has starred in the BBC's adaption of "Oliver Twist", in the role of Mr Bumble. In an interview in "The Metro" on 20 February 2008 he stated that he is no longer recognised as Rab C. Nesbitt and rather is more likely to be stopped by fans of "Oliver Twist" for his recent role as Mr Bumble. "Empty", a comedy series starring Fisher, began on BBC 2 on 28 February 2008. On BBC 2 on 23 December 2008, he reprised his role as "Rab C Nesbitt" in a Christmas special. 2010 Rab C Nesbitt: Series 9: Heal He has a small, uncredited role in Shaun of the Dead. Personal life. Fisher is married to actress Vicki Burton; they have three children, Alexander (born 1986), Jamie (born 1988) and Cissie (born 1989). Together they have moved house many times, they have lived in Brixton, Stewarton, Ayrshire and the Scottish Borders but most recently they have lived in a Georgian house in Spalding, Lincolnshire after selling a farmhouse in Langholm, Dumfriesshire. They are selling their property in Lincolnshire. The couple are now planning to buy property in France.
585205	En Jeevan Paduthu is a 1988 Tamil-language Indian feature film directed by R. Sundarrajan starring Karthik and Saranya in lead roles, supported by Sudha, Captain Raju and Kapil. Summary. Narmada ( Saranya ) joins a new college as she feels so bored sitting alone in her house. Her father is a businessman. In college, she happens to see the paintings and books written by Surendran. She is very much fascinated by him, but unable to find him in college. She is shocked to know that, Surendran ( Karthik ) has already committed suicide. Narmada frequently visits his grave and now the ghost Surendran appears in front of Narmada and advice her to stop visiting his grave, but soon they become friends and people around Narmada suspects that, she is having mental issues as Narmada only can see Surendran. He tells his story to her. He was duped to love by his colleague Philomina ( Sudha ). He loved her genuinely and even gets converted to Christianity and his shocked father died. Philomina cheats Surendran and marry Dr.Vijay ( Prathap Pothen ). So Surendran committed suicide. Later it has been revealed that, Philomina dies during delivery. Anand ( Kapil ), a rich businessman gets attracted to Narmada and wanted to marry her. Father's of Narmada and Anand approves this marriage proposal, but Narmada is against this alliance as she loves Ghost Surendran. Narmada's father forcefully announces the marriage, but she escapes from marriage hall and commits suicide to join with Ghost Surendran. Soundtrack. The Lyrics are written by Ilaiyaraaja and Panju Arunachalam.
1265366	Ronald Charles Colman (9 February 1891 – 19 May 1958) was an English actor. Early years. He was born in Richmond, Surrey, England, as Ronald Charles Colman, the second son and fourth child of Charles Colman and his wife Marjory Read Fraser. His siblings included Eric, Edith, and Marjorie. He was educated at boarding school in Littlehampton, where he discovered he enjoyed acting. He intended to study engineering at Cambridge University, but his father's sudden death from pneumonia in 1907 made this financially impossible. He became a well-known amateur actor and was a member of the West Middlesex Dramatic Society in 1908–09. He made his first appearance on the professional stage in 1914. World War I. While working as a clerk at the British Steamship Company in the City of London, he joined the London Scottish Regiment in 1909 as a Territorial Army soldier, and on being mobilised on the outbreak of World War I, crossed the English Channel in September 1914 to France to take part in the fighting on the Western Front. On 31 October 1914, at the Battle of Messines, Colman was seriously wounded by shrapnel in his ankle, which gave him a limp that he would attempt to hide throughout the rest of his acting career. He was invalided out of the British Army in 1915 in consequence.
582093	Jaane Tu... Ya Jaane Na (translation: "Whether you know... or not") is a 2008 Indian romantic comedy film, written and directed by Abbas Tyrewala. The film stars Imran Khan and Genelia D'Souza in pivotal roles. Produced by Mansoor Khan, Aamir Khan and Ritesh Sidhwani, it marks the directional debut of Abbas Tyrewala, the debut of Imran Khan (Aamir Khan's nephew) and Prateik Babbar as actors, and the re-appearance of D'Souza in Hindi cinema. Released on 4 July 2008, the film received positive reviews, and went on to become a Super Hit at the box office. The music is by A. R. Rahman. Plot. The story begins at an airport, when Rotlu, Jiggy, Bombs and Shaleen offer to tell Mala, Jiggy's friend & crush, the tale of Jai and Aditi, a love story with joys and sorrows, happiness and heartbreaks, laughter, songs and fights, and...a climax at the airport. Mala is initially uninterested in the story, and hates loves stories in general, but still agrees to listen as the flight carrying the friends they have come to receive is late.
582712	Deewana Mastana is a 1997 Bollywood romantic comedy directed by David Dhawan. The film stars Govinda, Anil Kapoor and Juhi Chawla in pivotal roles. Johnny Lever, Anupam Kher, Reema Lagoo, Shakti Kapoor, Saeed Jaffrey, Kader Khan have supporting roles, while Salman Khan makes a special appearance. This film borrows some elements from the 1991 Hollywood comedy, "What About Bob?". Johnny Lever received the Filmfare award for Best Comedian for his performance on this film. Synopsis. Raja is a minor league crook who sells railway tickets on the black market at Amirpur Station. Tired of his job he looks for new ways to make a quick buck. One day, along with his friend Ghafoor (Johny Lever) and a police inspector (Avtar Gill), he robs Rs 2.5 million from the railway treasury. Later, Raja and Ghafoor bump off the inspector and run away with the loot to Bombay. At Bombay airport, Raja sets eyes on psychiatrist Dr Neha (Juhi Chawla) and promptly falls in love with her. Raja and Ghafoor quickly find out where she lives. Ghafoor pretends to be a psychiatric patient while Raja takes on the name Raj Kumar and befriends her, telling her he has just returned from the U.S. However, Ghafoor cautions Raja not to hurry and be patient in matters of love. The trouble begins when Bunnu (Govinda), the son of a wealthy businessman (Anupam Kher), is sent to Neha for treatment. He is crazy, and terrified of fire, heights, running, and water. Soon, he too falls for Neha and discovers he has a rival who is Raja. Suddenly, Neha has to leave for Ooty with her father (Saeed Jaffrey) to attend her uncle's (Shakti Kapoor) wedding. She does not leave behind a forwarding address. Both Raja and Bunnu impersonate policemen and intimidate her secretary into revealing where she is. Dr Neha is thrilled to see them in Ooty but is drawn closer to the ill Bunnu rather than Raja. Things take an ugly turn when Ghafoor tries to kill Bunnu, who escapes. Bunnu contacts contract killer Pappu Pager (Satish Kaushik) to bump off Raja. However, that plan too comes a cropper. Armed with a gold ring and garland, Neha calls Bunnu and Raja to court, ostensibly with the purpose of marriage. Both are surprised to see the other there. Then they find out, Neha was getting married to someone else, Prem (Salman Khan). Raveena Tandon makes a special appearance in the end.
1039989	Ronald Alfred Pickup (born 7 June 1940) is an English actor who has been active in television and film since 1964. Early life and training. Pickup was born in Chester, Cheshire, the son of Daisy (née Williams) and Eric Pickup, who was a lecturer. Pickup was educated at the King's School, Chester, trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) in London, and became an Associate Member of RADA. Acting roles. Television. His television work began with an episode during the first series of "Doctor Who" in 1964, for which he was paid £30.
1725413	Mr. Boogedy is a 1986 family film, directed by Oz Scott and written by New York City native Michael Janover, which originally aired as an episode of "The Disney Sunday Movie". It tells the story of a gag gift salesman and his family moving into a new house in New England which they soon find to be haunted by ghosts from the colonial period. It stars John Astin who is best known for his role as Gomez on the 1960s sitcom The Addams Family. The film's sequel, "Bride of Boogedy", aired in 1987. Plot. Thrilled to finally be moving into a full-sized house in a Lucifer Falls, New England, Carlton and Eloise Davis along with their children Jennifer, Corwin, and Aurie arrive at the location on a dark, gloomy night. They enter the house and begin to search for a light switch, only to be spooked by an old man named Neil Witherspoon who warns them about the house's tragic history and tells them to beware of the Boogedy Man. After Mr. Witherspoon leaves, the family begins to check out their new home. While Corwin and Aurie inspect the ground floor, Jennifer looks around upstairs. She hears someone sneezing and sees a blue light emanating from behind the door at the end of the hallway, but when she opens the door the room is empty. Meanwhile, the boys have made their way to the house's eerie basement, where Aurie finds a toy rocking chair that fits his fuzzy teddy bear perfectly. Just when it seems that they might find something supernatural, Carlton flips on the lights, which show nothing but old furniture and other clutter. The boys grudgingly return upstairs, but on his way up, Aurie notices that his fuzzy teddy bear has mysteriously disappeared. The next morning, the family gathers for a breakfast filled with gags: funny glasses and rubber eggs that squirt water. Jennifer complains about the strange sneezing, but Carlton reassures her that ghosts aren't real. That night, Jennifer walks down the hallway, drawn by the sneezing and the strange glow (now green) from the door at the end of the hallway. She gingerly opens the door, only to be blasted with bright light and a strange wind. She faints as maniacal laughter is heard. Later that night, her family wakes her, and she informs them that she saw the Boogedy Man, describing him as having a yucky, grilled-cheese sandwich face. Upon opening the door, Carlton discovers unusual green footprints running right up the wall of the room. He peels a few off the wall, and is able to stick them to himself, prompting him to quip "Honey, look, the Boogedy Man walked all over me!" He assumes that it's all part of a gag set up by Mr. Witherspoon. After Corwin and Aurie witness the kitchen cabinets and appliances move on their own, they go into town with Jennifer to look for answers. They find the Lucifer Falls Historical Society, which is run by Mr. Witherspoon. Amused by the children's curiosity, he produces an old pop-up book and tells them the tale of William Hanover, a grouchy old pilgrim man who fell in love with the beautiful widow Marion three hundred years ago. Marion did not reciprocate his feelings, so Hanover struck a deal with the Devil selling his soul for a magic cloak which granted him mystical powers. He kidnapped Marion's son Jonathan and, casting his first spell, accidentally destroyed his own house (located on the same spot as the Davises' current home), killing himself, Jonathan, and Marion. All three remained as ghosts; Boogedy and Jonathan (who had a cold when he died) are trapped inside the house, and Marion is unable to enter and get her child back. The children return home and try to tell their parents about the situation, but Carlton and Eloise are more interested in showing off their new gags, such as a vacuum cleaner that shoots little plastic balls, and a life-size fake mummy. Just as Carlton begins to assure the children that the house is not haunted, paranormal activity peaks: the harpsichord plays on its own, the lights flicker and flash, and the mummy appears to come to life, dancing wildly, prompting Eloise to exclaim "That's it, time to call a realtor." Eloise and the children are scared enough to leave, but Carlton convinces them to stay for the night, camped out together in the living room. Eloise wakes up for a midnight snack, and encounters the ghost of the Widow Marion, who relates her story from outside the back door. Eloise wakes the rest of the family, and explains to them that Marion told her the only way to get rid of Boogedy is to take away his magic cloak. The Davises arm themselves with household items and head upstairs to search for Boogedy. Aurie hears a noise, and goes off on his own, towards the basement; Corwin notices his absence and follows. Carlton, Eloise, and Jennifer hesitantly approach the door at the end of the hallway, but discover that the glowing green light is this time nothing more than a green light bulb—Boogedy tricked them. In the basement, Corwin finds Aurie struggling to recover his fuzzy teddy bear from the thief, who turns out to be young Jonathan's ghost, who still has a cold after all these years. He explains that he borrowed it only because he was lonely. Feeling sorry for him, Aurie lets him continue to borrow the teddy bear, and Jonathan tells them stories about the previous families that Boogedy chased away. They're interrupted by heavy, ominous breathing; Mr. Boogedy is coming. The boys run upstairs, reuniting with the rest of their family in the living room as Mr. Boogedy appears with a bright flash of green light. The Davises run for cover behind boxes of gag items, with Boogedy shocking anyone who nears him with bolts of electricity from his fingers. Corwin attempts to attack Boogedy, but he uses his magic to turn his assault against him. Boogedy likewise uses magic to disable Carlton, Jennifer, and Eloise. Aurie grabs the vacuum cleaner and sneaks behind Mr. Boogedy, shooting the plastic balls at him. Boogedy, not deterred, takes control of the vacuum, making it chase Aurie around the room. Aurie hides behind Boogedy, and the vacuum takes hold of Boogedy's cloak, sucking it right off of his back. Without his cloak, Mr. Boogedy is evidently powerless, and disappears. The cloak itself pops out of the vacuum cleaner, and Corwin tosses it into the air and, saying "Boogedy boogedy boo!" makes it disappear in a flash of green light. Widow Marion and Jonathan appear, and the Davises look on as the ghosts embrace and then disappear in a dance of light. The house is supposedly no longer haunted, but the Davises hear Boogedy's voice grimly intoning "Wanna bet?", leaving open the possibility of his return.
1170294	Candace Kita (born December 1980 in Los Angeles) real name Candace Bender, is a Japanese-American actress and former fashion model, who has appeared in roles in TV shows such as "Complete Savages", "Two and a Half Men", "According to Jim", and "Ugly Betty". Career. Acting. Kita's first television appearance was in Fox's "Masked Rider", from 1995 to 1996. She appeared as a series regular lead in all 40 episodes. Kita also portrayed a frantic stewardess in a music video directed by Mark Pellington for the British group, Catherine Wheel, titled, "Waydown" in 1995. Kita's character in it was spoofed by MTV's "Beavis and Butthead" in the episode "Womyn". In 1996, Kita also appeared in the film "Barb Wire" (1996) and guest starred on "The Wayans Bros.". She also guest starred in "Miriam Teitelbaum: Homicide" with "Saturday Night Live" alumni Nora Dunn, "Wall To Wall Records" with Jordan Bridges, "Stealing Time", "Even Stevens", "Felicity" with Keri Russell, "V.I.P." with Pamela Anderson, "Girlfriends", "The Sweet Spot" with Bill Murray, and "Movies at Our House". She also had recurring roles on the FX spoof, "Son of the Beach" from 2001 to 2002, ABC-Family's "Dance Fever" and Oxygen Network's "Running with Scissors". Kita also appeared in the films "Little Heroes" (2002) and "Rennie's Landing" (2001). During this time, Kita guest starred on "Method and Red" and "Quintuplets" in 2004 and "Two and a Half Men" in 2005. She is most known for her breakthrough series recurring role as Mel Gibson's girlfriend in ABC-TV's "Complete Savages" from 2004 to 2005. Mel Gibson was executive producer and would cameo as Officer Steve Cox. Whenever he appeared, Kita would appear as Misty, his girlfriend doomed to die a horrible death at the end of every episode like Kenny in "South Park", a comparison made by series director Mel Gibson during an appearance on "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno". These deaths included death by hot tub, death by eating too much turkey on Thanksgiving and death on a motorcycle without a helmet. She held the title of Miss Hawaiian Tropic Japan in 2004. She also appeared in "Bad News Bears" (2005) with Billy Bob Thornton and Greg Kinnear. In 2005 to 2007, Kita continued work on "Complete Savages". She also appeared in the independent films, "Faith Happens" (2006) and "Falling" (2008). In 2006, she was in the pilot for the television series "Smith", with Ray Liotta and played a prison inmate in "Pepper Dennis" with Rebecca Romijn. Kita also shot a pilot with Tim Stack called The Probe (2006). In 2007, she appeared in an episode of "Ugly Betty" with Vanessa Williams. And she appeared with Adam Sandler and Kevin James in "I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry". In 2008, Kita guest starred opposite James Belushi in "According to Jim" and played herself on an episode of "The Jace Hall Show". She currently has two films in development, "Something in the Night" and "Last Stop", and is a guest star in the 100th episode and series finale of "Nip/Tuck". Other work. Candace had a weekly radio program, "Hottie Help with Candace Kita", which brought together models, actresses, celebrities, authors and threat management specialists to discuss safety issues pertaining to women. Among the topics are car safety, travel, campus safety, identity theft, internet safety, dating, and safety at home and in the workplace. "Hottie Help" was broadcast on LA Talk Radio every Sunday between 2-3 pm (PST). Guests included Nicole Pulliam, Lisa Gleave, Alana Curry, Katie Lohmann, and Genevieve Chappell. Candace has also appeared as Tecmo's E3 model for Lei Fang from "Dead or Alive II" Candace's likeness is the model for Kyu-Shin, the lead character in the "Kyu-Shin" comic book from Scare Tactix Graphix. Modeling. Credited as Candace Camille for her earliest appearance, on the cover of "No, No, No, Cha Cha Cha," the 1993 release by Brave Combo. Kita was represented for 5 years by the prestigious modeling agency, Wilhelmina, in Los Angeles before focusing on acting. She appeared in campaigns and walked the catwalk for clients such as Diesel, XOXO, Chinese Laundry, West Cigarettes, Neiman Marcus, Nordstrom, Marshall Field's, and Brighton among others before focusing on acting. She appeared in over a dozen national commercials including: Hyundai, MSN, IBM, Bacardi and Cola, and Coca-Cola. She starred in a commercial for Harvard Medical HMO that was featured on "America's Funniest Commercials". Kita was also an official spokesperson in several voice over and commercial spots for the Food Network, HGTV and DIY Network. Writing. Kita is the author of The Hottie Handbook: A Girl’s Guide to Safety. This book is a safety primer for women of all ages. Topics include: travel safety, dorm room safety, campus safety, dating, work place safety, among others. (www.hottiehandbook.com) Kita is a contributing writer to Asiance Magazine (www.asiancemagazine.com), a lifestyle magazine for today’s Asian woman. And she is currently the beauty editor for the Celebrity Style section of Viva Glam Magazine (www.vivaglammagazine.com). Charitable work and activism. Candace publicly supports a variety of causes and is a women's safety advocate. She has campaigned to make the anti-stalking laws in the state of California more stringent. Kita is lobbying to create an anti-harassment law in the state of California. She is also the founder of Hotties With a Heart Foundation. This is an organization of models and actresses who donate their time to charitable events. Events have included: The Salvation Army's Shopping Spree at Sears, Read Across America, Toys for Tots, The Frank Jordan Mission, The Burbank Animal Shelter, The Los Angeles Mission, Animal Avengers, In Defense of Animals, Urban Tails, Canine for Cuties, and the USO. At the Bob Hope USO at LAX, the Hotties with a Heart models took pictures and signed autographs for hundreds of outgoing troops on March 23, 2009. Kita said, "Someone called me the Ann-Margaret of today's generation for supporting the troops. I wear that title proudly."
583382	Meenakshi Seshadri (born November 16, 1963) is an Indian film actress and dancer who has worked in Tamil, Telugu and Hindi films. Meenakshi has appeared in range of movies from comedy, drama, and action to romance. She won the Miss India contest in 1981 at age 17, the youngest woman to be crowned Miss India. Sheshadri made her film debut in "Painter Babu" (1983) and received wider public recognition with the film "Hero" (1983), which was followed by a number of films in the 1980s and 1990s. She was noted for her performances in films, including "Meri Jung" (1985), "Dacait" (1987), "Inaam Dus Hazaar" (1987), "Shahenshah" (1988), "Jurm" (1990), "Ghayal" (1990), "Damini" (1993) and "Ghatak" (1996) among others. Whereas she received immense critical acclaim for her films like "Swati" (1986), "Dahleez" (1986), "Awaargi" (1990) and "Damini" (1993), the role that became her identity.She went on to establish herself as one of Hindi cinema's leading actresses in the 80's and the 90's, acknowledged for several of her performances, her beauty, and her accomplished dancing. She is often cited as one of the most beautiful actresses to have ever appeared in Indian cinema. After the release of her film "Ghatak", she left the film industry to raise her children, since then she has been out of the limelight and does not appear on television and films anymore. She resides in the US, with her husband and children. However she has been partially active in the US where she runs her dance school "Cherish Dance School". Recently a documentary was also made on her life called "Meenakshi Accept Her Wings", the documentary depicted the transitional lifestyle of dancer, actress to a homemaker.
1061024	Pamela Suzette "Pam" Grier (born May 26, 1949) is an American actress. She became famous in the early 1970s after starring in a string of moderately successful women in prison and blaxploitation films such as "The Big Bird Cage" (1972), "Coffy" (1973) and "Foxy Brown" (1974). Her career was revitalized in 1997 after her appearance in Quentin Tarantino's film "Jackie Brown", for which she received a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actress. She has also been nominated for a SAG Award as well as a Satellite Award for her performance in "Jackie Brown". She received an Emmy Award nomination for her work in an Animated Program "Happily Ever After: Fairy Tales for Every Child". Rotten Tomatoes has ranked her as the second Greatest Female Action Heroine in film history. Director Quentin Tarantino remarked that she may have been cinema's first female action star. Early life. Pam Grier was born in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, the daughter of Gwendolyn Sylvia (née Samuels), a homemaker and nurse, and Clarence Ransom Grier, Jr., who worked as a mechanic and Technical Sergeant in the United States Air Force. She has one sister and one brother. Grier has stated that her multiracial ancestry includes African American, Native American (viz. Cheyenne), Hispanic American, Filipino American. At age 6, Grier was raped by two boys when she was left unattended at her aunt's house. "It took so long to deal with the pain of that," she says, "You try to deal with it, but you never really get over it," she adds. "And not just me; my family endured so much guilt and anger that something like that happened to me." Because of her father's military career, her family moved frequently during her childhood, to various places such as England, and eventually settled in Denver, Colorado, where she attended East High School. While in Denver, Colorado she appeared in a number of stage productions, and participated in beauty contests to raise money for college tuition at Metropolitan State College. Contrary to previous reports, she states that she is not the cousin of National Football League great Roosevelt Grier or to National Hockey League player Mike Grier. Career. Grier moved to Los Angeles, California, in 1967, where she was initially hired as a receptionist at the American International Pictures (AIP) company. It is believed that she was discovered by director Jack Hill, who cast her in his women in prison films "The Big Doll House" (1971), and "The Big Bird Cage" (1972). However, according to the Director's Commentary of "Coffy", Hill says that it's not true. He states "Grier was already in various films located in Taiwan and the Philippines prior to meeting her." While under contract at AIP, she became a staple of early 1970s blaxploitation movies, playing big, bold, assertive women, beginning with Jack Hill's "Coffy" (1973), in which she plays a nurse who seeks revenge on drug dealers; her character was advertised in the trailer as the "baddest one-chick hit-squad that ever hit town!" The film, which was filled with sexual and violent elements typical of the genre, was a box-office hit, and Grier was noted as the first African-American female to headline an action film, as protagonists of previous blaxploitation films were males. In his review of "Coffy", film critic Roger Ebert praised the film for its believable female lead and noted that Grier was an actress of "beautiful face and astonishing form" and that she possessed a kind of "physical life" missing from many other attractive actresses. Grier subsequently played similar characters in the AIP films "Foxy Brown" (1974), "Friday Foster", and "Sheba, Baby" (both 1975). With the demise of blaxploitation, Grier appeared in smaller roles for many years. She acquired progressively larger character roles in the 1980s, including a prostitute in "Fort Apache the Bronx" (1981), a witch in "Something Wicked this Way Comes" (1983), and Steven Seagal's detective partner in "Above the Law" (1988). She had a recurring role on "Miami Vice" from 1985–1989, and has made guest appearances on "Martin", "Night Court" and "The Fresh Prince of Bel Air", and also had a recurring role in the TV series "Crime Story" between 1986 and 1988. Her role in "Rocket Gibraltar" (1988) was cut due to fears by the film's director, Daniel Petrie, of "repercussions from interracial love scenes.". She also appeared on "Sinbad", "Preston Chronicles", "The Cosby Show", "The Wayans Brothers Show", and "Mad TV". In 1994, Grier appeared in Snoop Dogg's video for "Doggy Dogg World". In the late 1990s, Grier was a cast member of the Showtime series "Linc's". She appeared in 1996 in John Carpenter's "Escape from L.A", and 1997 with the title role in Quentin Tarantino's "Jackie Brown", both films that partly paid homage to her '70s blaxploitation movies. She was nominated for numerous awards for her work in the Tarantino film.
1656340	Matteo Ricci, S.J. (; October 6, 1552 – May 11, 1610; ; courtesy name: ) was an Italian Jesuit priest, and one of the founding figures of the Jesuit China Mission, as it existed in the 17th–18th centuries. His current title is Servant of God. Early life. Matteo Ricci was born in 1552 in Macerata, part of the Papal States, and today a city in the Italian region of Marche. Ricci started learning theology and law in a Roman Jesuit school. He entered the order in 1571, and in 1577 he applied for a missionary expedition to India. His journey began in March 1578 in Lisbon, Portugal. He arrived in Goa, a Portuguese Colony, in September 1578. Four years later, he was dispatched to China. Ricci in China. In August 1582, Ricci arrived at Macau, a Portuguese trading post on the South China Sea. At the time, Christian missionary activity in China was almost completely limited to Macau, where some of the local Chinese people had converted to Christianity and lived in the Portuguese manner. No Christian missionary had attempted seriously to learn the Chinese language until 1579 (three years before Ricci's arrival), when Michele Ruggieri was invited from Portuguese India expressly to study Chinese, by Alessandro Valignano, founder of St. Paul Jesuit College (Macau), and to prepare for the Jesuits' mission from Macau into Mainland China.
1064133	John Getz (born October 15, 1946) is a stage-trained American actor. Personal life. Getz, one of four children, was born in Davenport, Iowa, and grew up in the Mississippi River Valley. He began acting while attending the University of Iowa, where he helped found the Center for New Performing Arts. He has a daughter, Hannah, from his marriage to playwright Grace McKeaney. Career. Getz dropped out of college to attend the respected American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco. While working in a winery, he helped found the Napa Valley Theater Company. His location in the grape-growing Napa Valley led to Getz' television debut as an Attendant in a made-for-television horror film. "Killer Bees" (1974) starred icon of silent film Gloria Swanson, as well as Craig Stevens ("Peter Gunn"), Kate Jackson ("Charlie's Angels"), and Edward Albert ("Butterflies Are Free"). Getz moved on to New York City, where he became active in local theater while doing an 18-month stint as "Neil Johnson" on the daytime drama "Another World". Getz appeared in "The Happy Hooker" (1975) and followed up with several other roles before starring in the Coen Brothers' neo-noir thriller "Blood Simple" (1984). He plays the doomed lover of a married woman (Frances McDormand), who woefully misinterprets his increasingly complex circumstances.
589449	Alaap is a 1977 Indian film produced by Hrishikesh Mukerjee and N.C Sippy and directed by Hrishikesh Mukherjee. The film stars Amitabh Bachchan, Rekha, Asrani, Farida Jalal, Om Prakash and A. K. Hangal. The music is by Jaidev. Plot. Widowed Advocate Triloki Prasad (Om Prakash) lives a wealthy lifestyle in a small town in India with two sons, Advocate Ashok (Vijay Sharma) married to Geeta (Lily Chakravarty) and Alok (Amitabh Bachchan) who has yet to settle down in their law firm. Alok is fond of music and does enroll in classes run by Pandit Jamuna Prasad (A. K. Hangal). On his return, his father asks him to accompany Ashok to their law firm and start learning to practice, which he agrees to do. Then one day Triloki finds out that Alok has not been at the firm but is instead spending time in the local slums with a former courtesan named Sarju Bai Banaraswali (Chhaya Devi). He cautions Alok about this, but Alok continues to visit Sarju Bai. When Mr. Gupta (Yunus Parvez) approaches Triloki about taking possession & demolishing the slum area, Triloki readily agrees and with his expertise manages to sway the Court's decision in Gupta's favor. As a result, Sarju Bai and others are rendered homeless. With the fee he receives from Gupta, he asks Alok to purchase a used car for himself. But Alok purchases a horse-carriage and decides to drive it himself to make a living. His enraged father asks him to leave the house. When Triloki finds out that Alok is doing well in his work, he decides to hire motor coaches to transport people at a much cheaper price, thus cutting off Alok's earnings and perhaps forcing him to reconsider his decision, apologize, and return home to his father. The question remains, will these actions force Alok to return home, or will the misunderstandings between father and son continue indefinitely Soundtrack. The music of the film was composed by Jaidev with lyrics by Rahi Masoom Raza.
581812	Paheli (Devanagari: पहेली, ) is a Bollywood fantasy film, which released in India on 24 June 2005. It is a remake of the 1973 Hindi movie Duvidha. It was directed by Amol Palekar and produced by Juhi Chawla, Aziz Mirza, Sanjiv Chawla and Shahrukh Khan, who also plays the male lead. "Paheli" is based on the short story written by Vijayadan Detha and tells the story of a wife (Rani Mukerji) who is left by her husband (Shahrukh Khan) and visited by a ghost, disguised as her husband, who is in love with her and takes her husband's place. Sunil Shetty, Juhi Chawla, Rajpal Yadav and Amitabh Bachchan have supporting roles in the film. The story has been previously adapted into film, "Duvidha" (1973) by Mani Kaul. The movie opened the ninth Zimbabwe International Film Festival at the Libertie Cinema Complex in Harare. It was also screened at both the Sundance Film Festival and the Palm Springs International Film Festival. The working title of the movie was "Ghost Ka Dost" (translates to "Friend of a Ghost"). Synopsis. The movie is narrated by two puppets, voiced by Naseeruddin Shah and his real-life wife Ratna Pathak Shah. Enthusiastic young Lachchi (Rani Mukerji) is to be married to Kishen (Shahrukh Khan), the son of the rich merchant Banwarlal (Anupam Kher). Kishen is a dutiful son who honors his father's wish to start a new, far-away business on a predetermined auspicious date, which happens to be the day after the wedding ceremony. On the wedding night, Kishen turns away from his wife to finish his bookkeeping, and in the early morning hours sets off on a business trip that is to last five years. Lachchi is devastated; Gajrobai (Juhi Chawla), her husband's sister-in-law, consoles her, empathizing on the grounds that Gajrobai's husband Sunderlal (Sunil Shetty) has also disappeared. The next day, a ghost appears, having taken Kishen's shape and voice because of his own attachment to Lachchi. Lachchi is thus presented a riddle (hence the title "paheli") between the representation of all of her desires in the form of the ghost and her real husband. She takes this new, fond, sexual, magical, social, self-confident version of Kishen as hers. As Kishen, the ghost befriends all of the real Kishen's family and keeps Bhanwarlal happy by providing him with magical, possibly illusory, gold coins. His only blunder is in his treatment of the messenger Bhoja, who is perplexed by the idea that Kishen has sent a letter from his business trip only to receive it himself in his own house and offended when the ghost (who appears as Kishen) does not offer him a drink of water. Lachchi's bliss goes on until four years later, when she is pregnant and the real Kishen returns to see if the rumors about his wife's pregnancy are true. He returns to find the ghost in his (Kishen's) own form. Kishen's family is unable to determine which of the doppelgangers is the real Kishen (the ghost refusing to confess). They decide to visit the king so that he can arbitrate. On the way to the king they meet an old shepherd Gadariya (Amitabh Bachchan) who helps them out. He asks the real son of Bhanwarlal to pick up hot coals, asks the real husband to gather the sheep, and asks Lachchi's real paramour to enter a water-bottle. The real Kishen is found out and everyone returns home. Lachchi is devastated over the loss of the ghost. In the very end it is revealed that the ghost has escaped the bottle and taken control of Kishen's body in order to live with her. By now Lachchi has given birth to a daughter, Looni Ma, by whose identification the ghost exposes his identity to Lachchi. The puppets close the film, remarking that the film's plot is "an old story". Production. "Paheli" was shot entirely in Rajasthan in a period of 45 days. In 2004, Amol Palekar went to Shahrukh Khan with a request for a hearing. After listening to the script, Khan asked Palekar if he could produce it as well as star in it. According to Khan, "Paheli" is a woman's liberation film that deals with the issues of marriage and asks whether a woman must stay with a man only due to marriage and not because of love . Reception. Critical reception. "Paheli" was nominated as India's official entry to the 79th Academy Awards. "Paheli" was critically acclaimed. Taran Adarsh from Bollywood Hungama gave it 4/5 stars and said: "On the whole, Paheli is one of the finest films produced in the recent times. A film like this proves yet again that we don't need to seek inspiration from outsiders Hollywood, when the Indian literature is rich enough to provide us with captivating stories." He also praised the acting of the two leads stating: "Paheli would be incomplete without SRK and Rani. The two actors are in terrific form yet again. If you ever had an iota of doubt about SRK's versatility, it would evaporate the moment you watch Paheli. This is amongst SRK's most accomplished performances ever. He is fabulous as the ghost and equally convincing as the bewildered husband. Rani proves yet again why she's the rani(Queen) today! The actor, who has already proved her mettle in two diametrically opposite films this year ("Black", "Bunty Aur Babli)", delivers yet another performance that is sure to dominate the next year award ceremonies as well." Raja Sen from Rediff.com called it "A breathtaking dream", and said: "First things first, this is the best-looking Indian film in a very long time, and ranks up there with the finest ever. Amol Palekar has crafted a delectable fairytale that is incredibly well-shot. Ravi K Chandran's cinematography is spellbinding as he casts us into the fabulous sandscapes of Rajasthan with fluid harmony. Each frame of the film is picture-perfect, marinated in intoxicating colour. Watching Paheli is quite an experience, and it's from the very opening shot of the film that its sheer, magical palette overwhelms us." It was eventually featured in The ten best Indian films of 2005 list by Rediff.com, ranked third. Box office. "Paheli" had good opening and saw 90% occupancy, however the collections of the film quickly dropped. The film had a total net gross of 18.75 crore in India and an additional $3.63 million in the overseas market. It was declared a "Flop" in India but a "Hit" abroad. Still, it proved to be a safe and profitable venture for its distributors specially after the good multiplex start. Soundtrack. The film's score and soundtrack were composed by the National Award-winning music composer M. M. Kreem with lyrics by Gulzar. The soundtrack for the film released on May 9, 2005. Awards. "Paheli" received many awards and nominations. The awards it won are highlighted in bold:
1101616	Henri Léon Lebesgue ForMemRS (; June 28, 1875 – July 26, 1941) was a French mathematician most famous for his theory of integration, which was a generalization of the 17th century concept of integration—summing the area between an axis and the curve of a function defined for that axis. His theory was published originally in his dissertation "Intégrale, longueur, aire" ("Integral, length, area") at the University of Nancy during 1902. Personal life. Henri Lebesgue was born on 28 June 1875 in Beauvais, Oise. Lebesgue's father was a typesetter and his mother was a school teacher. His parents assembled at home a library that the young Henri was able to use. Unfortunately his father died of tuberculosis when Lebesgue was still very young and his mother had to support him by herself. As he showed a remarkable talent for mathematics in primary school, one of his instructors arranged for community support to continue his education at the Collège de Beauvais and then at Lycée Saint-Louis and Lycée Louis-le-Grand in Paris. In 1894 Lebesgue was accepted at the École Normale Supérieure, where he continued to focus his energy on the study of mathematics, graduating in 1897. After graduation he remained at the École Normale Supérieure for two years, working in the library, where he became aware of the research on discontinuity done at that time by René-Louis Baire, a recent graduate of the school. At the same time he started his graduate studies at the Sorbonne, where he learned about Émile Borel's work on the incipient measure theory and Camille Jordan's work on the Jordan measure. In 1899 he moved to a teaching position at the Lycée Central in Nancy, while continuing work on his doctorate. In 1902 he earned his Ph.D. from the Sorbonne with the seminal thesis on "Integral, Length, Area", submitted with Borel, four years older, as advisor. Lebesgue married the sister of one of his fellow students, and he and his wife had two children, Suzanne and Jacques. After publishing his thesis, Lebesgue was offered in 1902 a position at the University of Rennes, lecturing there until 1906, when he moved to the Faculty of Sciences of the University of Poitiers. In 1910 Lebesgue moved to the Sorbonne as a maître de conférences, being promoted to professor starting with 1919. In 1921 he left the Sorbonne to become professor of mathematics at the Collège de France, where he lectured and did research for the rest of his life. In 1922 he was elected a member of the Académie française. Henri Lebesgue died on 26 July 1941 in Paris. Mathematical career. Lebesgue's first paper was published in 1898 and was titled "Sur l'approximation des fonctions". It dealt with Weierstrass' theorem on approximation to continuous functions by polynomials. Between March 1899 and April 1901 Lebesgue published six notes in "Comptes Rendus." The first of these, unrelated to his development of Lebesgue integration, dealt with the extension of Baire's theorem to functions of two variables. The next five dealt with surfaces applicable to a plane, the area of skew polygons, surface integrals of minimum area with a given bound, and the final note gave the definition of Lebesgue integration for some function f(x). Lebesgue's great thesis, "Intégrale, longueur, aire", with the full account of this work, appeared in the Annali di Matematica in 1902. The first chapter develops the theory of measure (see Borel measure). In the second chapter he defines the integral both geometrically and analytically. The next chapters expand the "Comptes Rendus" notes dealing with length, area and applicable surfaces. The final chapter deals mainly with Plateau's problem. This dissertation is considered to be one of the finest ever written by a mathematician. His lectures from 1902 to 1903 were collected into a "Borel tract" "Leçons sur l'intégration et la recherche des fonctions primitives". The problem of integration regarded as the search for a primitive function is the keynote of the book. Lebesgue presents the problem of integration in its historical context, addressing Augustin-Louis Cauchy, Peter Gustav Lejeune Dirichlet, and Bernhard Riemann. Lebesgue presents six conditions which it is desirable that the integral should satisfy, the last of which is "If the sequence fn(x) increases to the limit f(x), the integral of fn(x) tends to the integral of f(x)." Lebesgue shows that his conditions lead to the theory of measure and measurable functions and the analytical and geometrical definitions of the integral. He turned next to trigonometric functions with his 1903 paper "Sur les séries trigonométriques". He presented three major theorems in this work: that a trigonometrical series representing a bounded function is a Fourier series, that the nth Fourier coefficient tends to zero (the Riemann–Lebesgue lemma), and that a Fourier series is integrable term by term. In 1904-1905 Lebesgue lectured once again at the Collège de France, this time on trigonometrical series and he went on to publish his lectures in another of the "Borel tracts". In this tract he once again treats the subject in its historical context. He expounds on Fourier series, Cantor-Riemann theory, the Poisson integral and the Dirichlet problem. In a 1910 paper, "Représentation trigonométrique approchée des fonctions satisfaisant a une condition de Lipschitz" deals with the Fourier series of functions satisfying a Lipschitz condition, with an evaluation of the order of magnitude of the remainder term. He also proves that the Riemann–Lebesgue lemma is a best possible result for continuous functions, and gives some treatment to Lebesgue constants. Lebesgue once wrote, "Réduites à des théories générales, les mathématiques seraient une belle forme sans contenu." ("Reduced to general theories, mathematics would be a beautiful form without content.") In measure-theoretic analysis and related branches of mathematics, the Lebesgue–Stieltjes integral generalizes Riemann–Stieltjes and Lebesgue integration, preserving the many advantages of the latter in a more general measure-theoretic framework. During the course of his career, Lebesgue also made forays into the realms of complex analysis and topology. He also had a disagreement with Borel (called "teilweise heftig") with regards to effective calculation. However, these minor forays pale in comparison to his contributions to real analysis; his contributions to this field had a tremendous impact on the shape of the field today and his methods have become an essential part of modern analysis. Additionally, he is claimed to be the last of the mathematicians to consider one to be a prime number. Lebesgue's theory of integration. This is a non-technical treatment from a historical point of view; see the article "Lebesgue integration" for a technical treatment from a mathematical point of view. Integration is a mathematical operation that corresponds to the informal idea of finding the area under the graph of a function. The first theory of integration was developed by Archimedes in the 3rd century BC with his method of quadratures, but this could be applied only in limited circumstances with a high degree of geometric symmetry. In the 17th century, Isaac Newton and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz discovered the idea that integration was intrinsically linked to differentiation, the latter being a way of measuring how quickly a function changed at any given point on the graph. This surprising relationship between two major geometric operations in calculus, differentiation and integration, is now known as the Fundamental Theorem of Calculus. It has allowed mathematicians to calculate a broad class of integrals for the first time. However, unlike Archimedes' method, which was based on Euclidean geometry, mathematicians felt that Newton's and Leibniz's integral calculus did not have a rigorous foundation. In the 19th century, Augustin Cauchy developed epsilon-delta limits, and Bernhard Riemann followed up on this by formalizing what is now called the Riemann integral. To define this integral, one fills the area under the graph with smaller and smaller rectangles and takes the limit of the sums of the areas of the rectangles at each stage. For some functions, however, the total area of these rectangles does not approach a single number. As such, they have no Riemann integral. Lebesgue invented a new method of integration to solve this problem. Instead of using the areas of rectangles, which put the focus on the domain of the function, Lebesgue looked at the codomain of the function for his fundamental unit of area. Lebesgue's idea was to first define measure, for both sets and functions on those sets. He then proceeded to build the integral for what he called simple functions; measurable functions that take only finitely many values. Then he defined it for more complicated functions as the least upper bound of all the integrals of simple functions smaller than the function in question. Lebesgue integration has the property that every function defined over a bounded interval with a Riemann integral also has a Lebesgue integral, and for those functions the two integrals agree. Furthermore, every bounded function on a closed bounded interval has a Lebesgue integral and there are many functions with a Lebesgue integral that have no Riemann integral. As part of the development of Lebesgue integration, Lebesgue invented the concept of measure, which extends the idea of length from intervals to a very large class of sets, called measurable sets (so, more precisely, simple functions are functions that take a finite number of values, and each value is taken on a measurable set). Lebesgue's technique for turning a measure into an integral generalises easily to many other situations, leading to the modern field of measure theory. The Lebesgue integral is deficient in one respect. The Riemann integral generalises to the improper Riemann integral to measure functions whose domain of definition is not a closed interval. The Lebesgue integral integrates many of these functions (always reproducing the same answer when it did), but not all of them. For functions on the real line, the Henstock integral is an even more general notion of integral (based on Riemann's theory rather than Lebesgue's) that subsumes both Lebesgue integration and improper Riemann integration. However, the Henstock integral depends on specific ordering features of the real line and so does not generalise to allow integration in more general spaces (say, manifolds), while the Lebesgue integral extends to such spaces quite naturally.
1162289	Thomas Louis "Tom" Villard (November 19, 1953 – November 14, 1994) was an American actor. He is best known for his leading role in the 1980s series "We Got it Made" as Jay Bostwick, as well as roles in feature films "One Crazy Summer", "Heartbreak Ridge", "My Girl", and "Popcorn". Early life. Villard was born in Waipahu, Hawaii and grew up in Spencerport, New York. He attended Allegheny College in Meadville, Pennsylvania, before moving to New York City to attend the Lee Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute and the American Musical and Dramatic Academy in the early 1970s. In 1980 Villard moved to Los Angeles and soon started landing roles on television and in movies. He also continued performing on stage until the end of his career. Career. Villard appeared throughout his career on television, in feature films, and on stage around the country. He was featured in situation comedies, episodic TV series, and had leading roles in lower and mid-range budgeted features. At the peak of his career Villard was given featured supporting roles in big-budget studio fare, such as Clint Eastwood's "Heartbreak Ridge", and "My Girl" (with Dan Aykroyd and Jamie Lee Curtis). One of his final roles was playing a bajoran on "". Personal life and illness. Toward the end of his life, Villard became one of the few actors in Hollywood in the early 1990s who chose to be open about his homosexuality, and the challenge of living with HIV and AIDS. In February 1994, Villard made an unprecedented appearance on "Entertainment Tonight", acknowledging to "...more than 13 million viewers that he was gay, that he had AIDS, and that he needed some help." According to a "POZ magazine" profile in December of that year Villard said, "An awful lot of people suddenly wouldn't let me in the door for auditions. I started speaking a couple of months ago about living with AIDS and having hope." he said. "It feels a little more useful than things (I've done) in the past." He went on to explain that since his appearance on "E.T.", a whole other group of people had come forward to welcome him. Bill Melamed, Villard's manager added: "I'm particularly proud of him. The reality is, acting is a lousy business... He made a decision that was courageous in any walk of life, but it doesn't surprise me. He has one of the most open spirits." Death. On November 14, 1994, Villard died of AIDS related pneumonia. He was survived by his parents, Ron and Diane Villard, twin brothers Timothy and Terry, sister Susan, and his partner Scott Chambliss. As a tribute to him, a non-profit foundation was created by his partner Chambliss, close friend Karen Kaye, and his friend and chiropractor Cheryl Revkin. The "Tom Villard Foundation" was a Silver Lake community-based effort which engaged local businesses to provide free goods and services for community members living with AIDS. The beneficiaries were the client base of the former Silver Lake AIDS support organization, "Being Alive". The Tom Villard Foundation no longer exists; "Being Alive" is now headquartered in West Hollywood.
394201	A Bittersweet Life (; lit. "The Sweet Life") is a 2005 South Korean film written and directed by Kim Ji-woon and starring Lee Byung-hun. Ruthlessly violent, it illustrates the ethical codes in the Korean mob and how they clash with personal morality. Plot. Kim Sun-woo (Lee Byung-hun) is a high ranking mobster and enforcer for Kang (Kim Yeong-cheol), a cold and calculating crime boss to whom he is unquestionably loyal. The two share concerns over business tensions with Baek Jr. (Hwang Jung-min), a son from a rival family, which is when Kang assigns Sun-woo what is perceived to be a simple errand while he is away on a business trip — to shadow his young mistress, Hee-soo (Shin Min-ah), whom he fears is having an "affair" with another man, giving Sun-woo the mandate to kill her (and her paramour) if he manages to discover it. As he performs his duty — following Hee-soo, and escorting her to a music recital one day — he becomes quietly enthralled by the girl's beauty and innocence as glimpses into his lonely, empty personal life become more prevalent. When he does come to discover Hee-soo's lover directly in her home, he fiercely beats him and prepares to inform Kang, but his attraction to her causes him to hesitate. He thus spares the two on the condition that they no longer see each other again, earning him Hee-soo's enmity.
1043152	"The Belles of St Trinian's" is a comedy film set in the fictional St Trinian's School, released in 1954. It and its sequels were inspired by British cartoonist Ronald Searle. Directed by Frank Launder and written by him and Sidney Gilliat, it was the first of a series of five. Alastair Sim stars in a dual role. Plot. A new term opens at St Trinian's School for Young Ladies, striking terror into the local residents and police. Headmistress Millicent Fritton (Alastair Sim) has an unorthodox teaching philosophy, letting her students run wild. The school is heavily in debt. The teachers have not been paid for months, but they stay on, as no other school would touch them. To add to her woes, Miss Fritton is blackmailed by her brother Clarence (also played by Sim) into admitting his daughter, Arabella. There is but one ray of hope: the wealthy, westernised Sultan of Makyad (Eric Pohlmann) has decided to send one of his daughters, Fatima, to the school at the recommendation of his English secretary. Miss Fritton quickly takes charge of the girl's one hundred pounds pocket money. Appalled by the thought of another term of mayhem, Police Superintendent Kemp Bird (Lloyd Lamble) goes to see Ministry of Education official Manton Bassett (Richard Wattis), but he wants nothing to do with the school. Sometime in the past, Bassett sent his best inspector to investigate; when he did not return, Bassett dispatched another, only to have the same thing happen. Bird decides to plant an undercover officer, his girlfriend Sergeant Ruby Gates (Joyce Grenfell), as the school's new games mistress. She uncovers all sorts of illegal and dangerous activities, including a gin still in the chemistry laboratory. Flash Harry (George Cole), a former school employee, handles the sale of the bootleg gin, as well as the girls' sports bets. When the students discover that the Sultan's racehorse, "Arab Boy", is entered for the upcoming Cheltenham Gold Cup race, they use Fatima's influence to watch the horse work out. Impressed by what they see, the Fourth Formers bet on Arab Boy to win. When Miss Fritton learns of it, she also reluctantly bets the school's remaining funds on the horse to save her beloved St. Trinian's. Her brother, however, has bet a very large sum on another horse. His daughter tells him about Arab Boy's performance, then suggests she and her Sixth Form cohorts kidnap the horse. Clarence resists the idea, but in the end has no choice but to agree. The Fourth Form find out and steal the horse from the thieves, hiding Arab Boy at the school. The situation pits the Sixth and Fourth Forms against each other in a wild mêlée over the horse. Also getting embroiled are the school staff, visiting former pupils and Clarence's men. In the end, the horse makes it to the race just in time and wins, enabling the headmistress to get the school out of debt. Cast. Ronald Searle appeared in a cameo role as a visiting parent. Roger Delgado plays the Sultan's aide. It was also the first film appearance for a 17-year-old Barbara Windsor. Production. The opening scenes of the girls returning to school were filmed at All Nations Christian College. This includes the entrance gate of Holycross Road and the outside shots of the school. Reception. The film was the third most popular movie at the British box office in 1954.
592638	Sathyam Sivam Sundaram is a Malayalam language film. It was released in 2000. The movie had Kunchacko Boban and Aswathi in the lead roles and Balachandra Menon, Harisree Ashokan, Cochin Haneefa, Machan Varghese, Jagathi Sreekumar etc. in the supporting roles. The movie marked the debut of cinematographer Ravivarman. The movie was produced By Siyad Kokker under the banner of Kokkers films and was distributed by Kokers Films and Anupama Release. Songs. The songs in the movie were composed by Vidyasagar and were penned by Kaithapram Damodaran Namboothiri. The music was distributed by Sagarika music. Box Office. The movie was a superhit in the Box office and ran for 100 days.This movie was the first superhit of 2000.
633362	Walter Marvin Koenig (; born September 14, 1936) is an American actor, writer, teacher and director, known for his roles as Pavel Chekov in "" and Alfred Bester in "Babylon 5". He wrote the script for the 2008 science fiction legal thriller "InAlienable". Early life. Koenig was born in Chicago, Illinois, the son of businessman Isadore Koenig and his wife Sarah (née Strauss). They moved to Manhattan when Walter was a child, where he went to school. Koenig's parents were Russian Jewish immigrants from the Soviet Union; his family lived in Lithuania when they emigrated, and shortened their surname from "Königsberg" to "Koenig". Koenig's father was a communist who was investigated by the FBI during the McCarthy era. Koenig attended Grinnell College in Grinnell, Iowa with a pre-med major. He transferred to UCLA and received a BA in psychology. After a professor encouraged Koenig to become an actor, he attended the Neighborhood Playhouse with fellow students Dabney Coleman, Christopher Lloyd, and James Caan. Career. "Star Trek". Koenig played Ensign Pavel Chekov, navigator on the USS "Enterprise", in the television series (starting in Season 2) and in all of the movies featuring the original cast (including "Star Trek Generations"). One of only two actors to audition, he was cast as Chekov almost immediately primarily because of his resemblance to British actor/musician Davy Jones of the Monkees; show creator Gene Roddenberry hoped that Koenig would increase the show's appeal to young people. As the 30-year old's hair was already receding, costume designers fashioned a Davy Jones-style "moptop" hairpiece for him. In later episodes, his own hair grew out enough to accomplish the look with a comb-over. (The studio's publicity department, however, falsely ascribed the inclusion of Chekov to an article in "Pravda" that complained about the lack of Russians in "Star Trek".) Roddenberry asked him to "ham up" his Russian accent to add a note of comic relief to the series. Chekov's accent has been criticized as inauthentic, in particular Koenig's substituting the "w" sound in place of a "v" sound (e.g., "wodka" for "vodka"); Koenig has said the accent was inspired by his father, who had the same difficulty with the "v" sound. Most of Koenig's fan mail indeed came from children, and the high volume of letters contributed to him soon receiving a contract as a regular cast member; this surprised Koenig, who had been told that Chekov would be a recurring role. When the early Season 2 episodes of "Star Trek" were shot, George Takei (who played Sulu) was delayed completing the movie "The Green Berets", so Chekov is joined at the "Enterprise" helm by a different character. When Takei returned, the two had to share a dressing room and a single episode script. This reportedly angered Takei to the point where he nearly left the show. But the two actors have since become good friends, and the image of their two characters manning the helm of the "Enterprise" became iconic. Koenig's Chekov character never appeared in due to budget reasons, however, he is credited with writing an episode of that series titled "The Infinite Vulcan", making him the first "original cast" member to write a "Star Trek" story for television. He received Saturn Award nominations for Best Supporting Actor in a Film for both ' and '. Koenig reprised his role of Pavel Chekov for the fan webseries ', "To Serve All My Days" and the independent Sky Conway/Tim Russ film ', both in 2006, and "", due out in 2014. Later work. After Chekov, Koenig had a starring role as Psi Cop Alfred Bester on the television series "Babylon 5". Koenig was the "Special Guest Star" in twelve episodes and, at the end of the third season, the production company applied for an Emmy nomination on his behalf. He was slated to play Bester on the spin-off series "Crusade", but the series was cancelled before his episode was filmed. He also played "Oro" in two episodes of the Canadian science fiction television series "The Starlost", which aired in 1973 on Canada's CTV television network. He also filmed a few FMV sequences for a re-released copy of the game "Star Trek Starfleet Academy" for PCs. Koenig's film, stage and TV roles span fifty years. He has played everything from a teenage gang leader ("Alfred Hitchcock Presents") to Scandinavian fiance Gunnar ("Gidget") to a Las Vegas entertainer ("I Spy"). He also had a short role in the 1976 Columbo episode "Fade in to Murder". He returned to space with a starring role in "Moontrap" and played a futuristic dictator in the video game "Maximum Surge". The game was cancelled late in development, but considerable footage from it was recycled for the film "Game Over", with Koenig's dialogue dubbed over in order to retrofit his performance into the role of a computer hard drive. In addition to acting, he has written several films ("Actor", "I Wish I May", "You're Never Alone When You're a Schizophrenic"), one-act plays, and a handful of episodes for TV shows: ', "Land of the Lost", "Family" and "The Powers of Matthew Star". He has also written several books, including "Warped Factors: A Neurotic's Guide to the Universe" (an autobiography), "Chekov's Enterprise" (a journal kept during the filming of ') and "Buck Alice and the Actor-Robot" (a science fiction novel), which was re-released in 2006. He created his own comic book series called "Raver", which was published by Malibu Comics in the early 1990s, and appeared as a "special guest star" in an issue of the comic book "Eternity Smith", which features him prominently on its cover. Koenig has taught classes in acting and directing at UCLA, the Sherwood Oaks Experiment Film College, the Actor's Alley Repertory Company in Los Angeles, and the California School of Professional Psychology at Alliant International University. In 2002, Koenig directed stage versions of two of the original "Twilight Zone" episodes for Letter Entertainment. In 1987, Koenig directed his original one-act play "The Secret Life of Lily Langtree" — with his wife Judy Levitt directing her two one-acts, "Tech Night: Hands on Demo" and "Encore: Long Distance Lady" — all under the umbrella title "Public Moments" at the Theatre of N.O.T.E. in Los Angeles.
1178782	Rick Springfield (born Richard Lewis Springthorpe; 23 August 1949) is an Australian musician, singer-songwriter, and actor. He was a member of pop rock group Zoot from 1969 to 1971 and then started his solo career with his début single "Speak to the Sky" reaching the top 10 in Australia. In mid-1972, he relocated to the United States. He had a No. 1 hit with "Jessie's Girl" in 1981 in both Australia and the US. He received the Grammy Award for Best Male Rock Vocal Performance for "Jessie's Girl". He followed with four more top 10 US hits, "I've Done Everything for You", "Don't Talk to Strangers", "Affair of the Heart" and "Love Somebody". His two US top 10 albums are "Working Class Dog" (1981) and "Success Hasn't Spoiled Me Yet" (1982). As an actor, he portrayed Dr. Noah Drake on the daytime drama "General Hospital", from 1981 to 1983 and during 2005 to 2008 and 2012, returning in 2013 for the shows 50th anniversary with son and actor Liam Springthorpe. In 2010, Springfield published his autobiography, "Late, Late at Night: A Memoir". Early life. Richard Lewis Springthorpe (later known as Rick Springfield) was born in South Wentworthville, a western suburb of Sydney, on 23 August 1949. Springfield is the son of Norman Springthorpe, an Australian Army career-officer, and Eileen. He has an older brother, Mike Springthorpe. His father's army career brought the Springthorpe family to London, where they lived from 1960 to 1962. The family moved back to Australia in June 1962, where they settled in the Melbourne suburb of Ormond. Music career. Rick Springfield was 13 when he first played guitar, and formed a band, Icy Blues, while still in high school. Springfield left school in his late teens. In 1964, he joined Moppa Blues as a guitarist alongside fellow guitarist Mike Elliott. They changed their name, first to Group X and then to Daniel Jones Ensemble by 1967. Other members of that group included Daniel Jones, Dennis Magee, and John Morgan. In 1968, Springfield was approached by Pete Watson (ex-MPD Ltd, bass guitarist) to join his group Rockhouse and he was first referred to as "Rick Springfield". Later in the year, Watson changed the band's name to MPD Ltd, and in Octoberwhen Springfield was 19 years oldthey toured South Vietnam to entertain Australian troops. Another member of MPD Ltd was Danny Finley (drummer). Upon returning to Australia, with Springfield, they formed Wickedy Wak. They were joined by Phil Blackmore on keyboards and Dick Howard. "Go-Set" journalist, Ian "Molly" Meldrum, produced Wickedy Wak's single, "Billie's Bikie Boys" with Beeb Birtles of pop rock group Zoot as a backing vocalist. In September 1969, Springfield replaced Roger Hicks as lead guitarist and vocalist in Zoot, with Birtles on bass guitar and vocals, Darryl Cotton on lead vocals and guitar, and Rick Brewer on drums. Upon joining Zoot, Springfield adopted the Think PinkThink Zoot theme that had the band members dressed head to toe in pink satin. The publicity gimmick brought attention to the group and attracted significant numbers of teenage girl fans; however it caused problems in establishing their credibility as serious rock musicians. Zoot's fifth single, "Hey Pinky", was written by Springfield. The group attempted to shake off their teeny-bopper image. They followed with a hard rock cover version of The Beatles' hit "Eleanor Rigby", which peaked at No. 4 on "Go-Set"'s Top 40 in March 1971. Despite another hit single with "Freak" in April, which was written by Springfield, the band broke-up in May. Springfield signed with Sparmac Records and issued his début solo single, "Speak to the Sky" in October, which peaked at No. 5 on the "Go-Set" singles chart. Sparmac label owner, Robie Porter, was also producer and manager for Springfield. After recording his début album, "Beginnings" in London, Springfield moved to the United States in mid-1972. For the album, Springfield provided all the songwriting, lead vocals, guitar, keyboard and banjo. "Speak to the Sky" was issued in the US by Capitol Records and peaked at No. 14 on the "Billboard" Hot 100 in September. His début album "Beginnings" was the first of seven top 40 albums on the related "Billboard" 200. However, follow-up success was hampered by rumours that Capitol Records paid people to purchase Springfield's albums, which led to some radio stations boycotting his music. In 1973, Springfield signed to Columbia Records and recorded his second album, "Comic Book Heroes", which was also produced by Porter. In Australia, it was released on Porter's new label, Wizard Records, the album and its two singles failed to chart. Springfield was promoted as a teeny pop idol similar to David Cassidy and Donny Osmond. He spoke of the teenybopper image in Circus Magazine in 1973. He said he wasn't sure how it happened. "Someone saw my photo and that was it." Around this time, he took a brief hiatus from recording. In 1995, Springfield formed a side-project, Sahara Snow, with Tim Pierce on guitar and Bob Marlette on keyboards and percussion, which released an eponymous album in 1997. Springfield was a judge for the eighth annual Independent Music Awards to support independent artists. Acting career. In 1978, he played the character of Zac in "Saga of a Star World", which was, with some differences, the pilot episode of the original "Battlestar Galactica" TV series. He also co-starred as "Keith Stewart" in episode 17, season 4 ("Dwarf in a Helium Hat") of "The Rockford Files". In 1981, Springfield became a soap opera star on "General Hospital". He had signed a contract with RCA Records and already recorded the album "Working Class Dog", which neither he nor his agent had expected would do very well, which is why Springfield took the soap role. But the song "Jessie's Girl" went to No. 1, and Springfield ended up both playing the role of Dr. Noah Drake from 1981 through 1983, while simultaneously going on tour with his band. The success of the song boosted the ratings of the show, which according to Springfield "became the biggest show on TV for that summer," and the fame from the show likewise boosted the sale of the song. In 1984, Springfield made one full length feature film, "Hard to Hold", and in 1998, he played in the film "Legion". Springfield also wrote the soundtrack for "Hard To Hold". In 1992, he played the title role in the short-lived ABC series "Human Target", based on the DC Comics character of the same name. In 1989, Springfield starred in the film "Nick Knight ", in which he played an 800 year old vampire seeking a cure for his condition. The film was later remade as the first 2 episodes of the series "Forever Knight". In 1991, Springfield appeared in the made for television movie "Dying to Dance". In addition to the roles on television and in film, Springfield also acted in musical theatre. In 1995, he was a member of the original Broadway cast of the musical "Smokey Joe's Cafe". This Tony Award-nominated musical featured the songs of rock & roll songwriters Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller. From February 2000 through December 2002, Springfield performed in "EFX Alive!" at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada. Springfield starred in several episodes of the third season of Showtime's "Californication". His first appearance was in episode 3 on 11 October 2009, in which he plays a "twisted version of himself"; a "hedonistic Rick Springfield" from the past. Springfield starred in "Ho'ohuli Na'au", an episode of "Hawaii Five-0". He played the role of photographer Renny Sinclair. Springfield also starred in "Everything Goes Better With Vampires", an episode of "Hot in Cleveland". He played the role of toll booth worker that pretended to be the famous singer/musician Rick Springfield in an attempt to impress women. "General Hospital". In December 2005, Springfield was asked by the "General Hospital" producers to return to the show, and he returned to his role as Dr. Noah Drake after a 23-year absence. His run was subsequently extended, although as of 2007 he remains a guest star on recurring status, and not a full contract cast member. Springfield returned to General Hospital as Dr. Noah Drake in April, 2013. Personal life. In October 1984, Springfield married his longtime girlfriend, Barbara Porter, in his family's church in Australia. When being interviewed about his autobiography "Late, Late at Night", Springfield admitted that he dated while married, and that it was a problem that he has overcome. He mentioned dating Linda Blair, Demi Moore, Connie Hamzy, Morgana Welch and Geraldine Edwards, the inspiration for Penny Lane in "Almost Famous", as well as others. In 1985, when his first son was born and after the release of his "Tao" album, Springfield took a break from his musical career to spend more time with his family, and to deal with the depression that had affected him since his adolescence. Springfield had also battled depression in the 1970s, when the serious illness of his father (who died on 24 April 1981) and career troubles caused him to "hit the wall" and contemplate suicide. An award-winning feature documentary produced by Yellow Rick Road Productions titled ""An Affair of the Heart"" was filmed throughout 2010 and started on the film festival circuit in the spring of 2012 [http://www.rickspringfielddoc.com] followed by a theatrical opening in October that same year. It was broadcast on EPIX in May 2013 and is now available on DVD & BluRay at www.rickspringfielddoc.com. Bibliography. In October 2010, "Late, Late at Night" peaked at No. 13 on the New York Times Best Sellers List In August 2012, "Late, Late at Night" was named No. 23 of The 25 Great Rock Memoirs of All time by Rolling Stone Magazine Awards and nominations. Grammy Awards Springfield is also set to be honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, for his contributions to music.
1103587	In mathematics, in the area of numerical analysis, Galerkin methods are a class of methods for converting a continuous operator problem (such as a differential equation) to a discrete problem. In principle, it is the equivalent of applying the method of variation of parameters to a function space, by converting the equation to a weak formulation. Typically one then applies some constraints on the function space to characterize the space with a finite set of basis functions. Often when referring to a Galerkin method, one also gives the name along with typical approximation methods used, such as Bubnov-Galerkin method (after Ivan Bubnov), Petrov–Galerkin method (after Alexander G. Petrov) or Ritz–Galerkin method (after Walther Ritz). The approach is credited to the Russian mathematician Boris Galerkin. Examples of calculating the global stiffness matrix in the finite element method, Introduction with an abstract problem. A problem in weak formulation. Let us introduce Galerkin's method with an abstract problem posed as a weak formulation on a Hilbert space, formula_1, namely, Here, formula_4 is a bilinear form (the exact requirements on formula_4 will be specified later) and formula_6 is a bounded linear functional on formula_1. Galerkin Dimension Reduction. Choose a subspace formula_8 of dimension "n" and solve the projected problem: We call this the Galerkin equation. Notice that the equation has remained unchanged and only the spaces have changed. Reducing the problem to a finite dimensional vector subspace allows us to numerically compute formula_11 as a finite linear combination of the basis vectors in formula_12. Galerkin orthogonality. The key property of the Galerkin approach is that the error is orthogonal to the chosen subspaces. Since formula_8, we can use formula_14 as a test vector in the original equation. Subtracting the two, we get the Galerkin orthogonality relation for the error, formula_15 which is the error between the solution of the original problem, formula_16, and the solution of the Galerkin equation, formula_17 Matrix form. Since the aim of Galerkin's method is the production of a linear system of equations, we build its matrix form, which can be used to compute the solution by a computer program. Let formula_19 be a basis for formula_20. Then, it is sufficient to use these in turn for testing the Galerkin equation, i.e.: find formula_21 such that We expand formula_17 with respect to this basis, formula_24 and insert it into the equation above, to obtain This previous equation is actually a linear system of equations formula_26, where Symmetry of the matrix. Due to the definition of the matrix entries, the matrix of the Galerkin equation is symmetric if and only if the bilinear form formula_4 is symmetric. Analysis of Galerkin methods. Here, we will restrict ourselves to symmetric bilinear forms, that is While this is not really a restriction of Galerkin methods, the application of the standard theory becomes much simpler. Furthermore, a Petrov–Galerkin method may be required in the nonsymmetric case. The analysis of these methods proceeds in two steps. First, we will show that the Galerkin equation is a well-posed problem in the sense of Hadamard and therefore admits a unique solution. In the second step, we study the quality of approximation of the Galerkin solution formula_17. The analysis will mostly rest on two properties of the bilinear form, namely By the Lax-Milgram theorem (see weak formulation), these two conditions imply well-posedness of the original problem in weak formulation. All norms in the following sections will be norms for which the above inequalities hold (these norms are often called an energy norm). Well-posedness of the Galerkin equation. Since formula_8, boundedness and ellipticity of the bilinear form apply to formula_20. Therefore, the well-posedness of the Galerkin problem is actually inherited from the well-posedness of the original problem. Quasi-best approximation (Céa's lemma). The error formula_39 between the original and the Galerkin solution admits the estimate This means, that up to the constant formula_41, the Galerkin solution formula_17 is as close to the original solution formula_16 as any other vector in formula_20. In particular, it will be sufficient to study approximation by spaces formula_20, completely forgetting about the equation being solved. Proof. Since the proof is very simple and the basic principle behind all Galerkin methods, we include it here: by ellipticity and boundedness of the bilinear form (inequalities) and Galerkin orthogonality (equals sign in the middle), we have for arbitrary formula_46: Dividing by formula_48 and taking the infimum over all possible formula_14 yields the lemma.
1059311	The Santa Clause is a 1994 American fantasy family comedy film directed by John Pasquin. It stars Tim Allen as Scott Calvin, an ordinary man who accidentally causes Santa Claus to fall to his death from his roof on Christmas Eve. When he and his young son, Charlie, finish St. Nick's trip and deliveries, they go to the North Pole where Scott learns he must become the new Santa and convince those he loves that he is indeed Father Christmas. This was Pasquin and Allen's first movie collaboration after they both worked together on the TV series "Home Improvement". Pasquin and Allen would later work again on the films "Jungle 2 Jungle" and "Joe Somebody", and on the TV show "Last Man Standing". The film was followed by two sequels, "The Santa Clause 2: The Mrs. Clause" (2002) and "" (2006). In comparison to the original, the former received mixed critical response whilst the latter was panned by most critics. Plot. Scott Calvin (Tim Allen) is a 38-year-old divorced father and advertising executive for a toy company in Chicago with a young son, Charlie (Eric Lloyd). On Christmas Eve, Charlie comes to spend the night with Scott before going to his mother and stepfather's for Christmas Day. Scott assures Charlie of Santa Claus' existence, despite not believing himself. That night, they are awakened by a clatter on the roof, and when Scott calls out to the trespasser, he falls into the snow on Scott's front yard and vanishes, leaving his clothing behind. Scott and Charlie discover a sleigh with eight reindeer on the roof, and deduce the man was Santa Claus. They find a card in the clothing instructing that if something should happen to Santa, whoever finds the clothes should put them on and get in the sleigh. Charlie convinces Scott to follow these instructions, and the reindeer take Scott around to children's houses to finish Santa's deliveries. As morning arrives, the reindeer return to the North Pole, where elves take the two inside. The head elf, Bernard (David Krumholtz), shows Scott a tiny inscription on the card which says that upon the disappearance of the previous occupant, whoever wears the suit accepts the contract of "the Santa Clause", agreeing to assume the identity of Santa Claus and all the responsibilities that go with it. Bernard tells Scott he will have eleven months to get his affairs in order before he returns at Thanksgiving to assume the role of Santa Claus full-time. Scott goes to bed in Santa's room and awakens at home, dismissing it as a dream. Charlie however is enthusiastic about the adventure and is proud his father is the new Santa. Over the next year, Scott begins gaining weight, his hair whitens, and his facial hair regrows instantly when shaven. He also subconsciously begins behaving like Santa, craving Christmas-type foods, noting which children misbehave, and wearing red and green clothing. Scott also becomes outraged at a board meeting over an ad campaign that features Santa riding in an army tank. His rapid transformation worries his ex-wife Laura (Wendy Crewson) and her new husband, psychiatrist Dr. Neal Miller (Judge Reinhold), who are concerned about Charlie as he continues to insist Scott is Santa, and that Scott's behaviour is encouraging Charlie's delusions. Subsequently, Scott's visitation rights to Charlie are suspended, and upon seeing Charlie on Thanksgiving, Charlie's insistence that Scott is indeed Santa and a reminder of the adventure they shared wins Scott over to accepting his role, and Bernard arrives to take them both to the North Pole. Laura and Neal fear Scott has kidnapped Charlie and call the police, who start a massive investigation. Scott, Charlie, Bernard and the elves prepare for Christmas as the police are on the lookout for Charlie and set up a trap at Laura and Neal's home to capture Scott should he return. On Christmas Eve, Scott makes his deliveries, but he is caught and arrested when stopping at Laura and Neil's home. Charlie, still in the sleigh on the roof, remains undiscovered. Four elfs with E.L.F.S. (Elite Liberating Flight Squad) rescue Scott and Charlie and return them to Laura and Neal, where the two finally accept Scott's new identity as Bernard speaks to them; and Scott delivers to them the presents they always wanted as children, but never received. Scott then takes flight in full view of the police and neighborhood citizens, but he returns when Charlie calls him using a magic snow globe and takes him for a ride in the sleigh. The two then wave goodbye as they head for Cleveland. Production. The film was mostly shot in Oakville, a town in the Greater Toronto Area, which also served as the fictional town of Lakeside, Illinois in it. The reindeer used in the film were all from the Toronto Zoo. The trains used in the North Pole scene and the start of the film are all LGB. Reception. Box office. "The Santa Clause" grossed over USD $144 million in the United States and Canada, and over $189 million worldwide, making it a box-office hit. Critical reception. The film was generally well received by critics, and maintains a "fresh" rating of 80% on Rotten Tomatoes, with 31 positive reviews from 39 counted and an average rating of 6.1/10. The consensus from the site is ""The Santa Clause" is utterly undemanding, but it's firmly rooted in the sort of good old-fashioned holiday spirit missing from too many modern yuletide films." Soundtrack. Note that songs listed here (and in the movie credits) cannot always be found on CD soundtracks. The film's soundtrack was released on November 11, 1994 in the United States. Soundtrack CD is The Santa Clause 3D (1994)
584577	Thaka Thimi Tha is a South Indian Tamil film released in 2005. Plot. Ankitha ( Gayu ) and Yuva Krishna fall in love with each other in college. But when Yuva tells his friends about being close to Gayu and describes her, she gets angry and they split apart. After finishing college, Gayu's family stays in a house opposite to that of Yuva. Their families get to know about their earlier love and try to rejoin them . The rest of the story is how Gayu gets convinced.
585964	Mamta Mohandas is an Indian film actress and playback singer. She has mainly acted in Malayalam films, besides few Telugu and Tamil productions and one Kannada film. She has won two Filmfare Awards, for Best Female Playback Singer in Telugu in 2006 and for Best Actress in Malalayam in 2010. Early life. Mamta was born on 14 November 1984 in Kannur into a well off Malayali family which originally hails from Kannur. She attended the Indian School, Bahrain until 2002. She pursued a Bachelor's degree at Mount Carmel College Bangalore. She modeled for print ads for companies such as IBM and Kalyan Kendra and modeled on the ramp for the Mysore Maharajah and Raymonds. Mamta is trained in Carnatic and Hindustani music. Career. Acting. Mamta débuted in the 2005 Malayalam film "Mayookham", directed by Hariharan. Although the film did not do well at the box office, Mamta attracted attention for her sensitive portrayal of Indira. Subsequently, she acted alongside Mammootty in "Bus Conductor", with Suresh Gopi in the films "Adbutham" (2006) and "Lanka" (2006), and alongside Jayaram in "Madhuchandralekha" (2006). She also played the female lead in "Baba Kalyani" with Mohanlal. Later that year, she débuted in the Tamil film industry, starring in the Karu Pazhaniappan-directed film "Sivappathigaram" opposite Vishal Krishna, which turned out to be an average grosser. In 2007 she acted with Mammootty in the blockbuster film "Big B". She eventually stepped into the Telugu film industry as well, when she appeared in a supporting role in the film "Yamadonga", directed by SS Rajamouli. The film became one of the biggest hits of the year. She had lent her voice for a couple of songs in this film too. In 2008, she appeared in 7 films, predominantly in Telugu-language films. Her first release was her début Kannada film "Gooli". She then starred in the film "Krishnarjuna", essaying the lead female role, which did not do well at the box office. "Victory was her next assignment as lead actress, but that film also failed at the box office, following which she appeared in a cameo role in her only Tamil release that year, "Kuselan", alongside Tamil superstar Rajinikanth. Three more Telugu releases featured Mamta, including "Homam", directed by JD Chakravarthy and Srinu Vaitla's "King" opposite Nagarjuna. In both these films she also performed as a playback singer in several songs. In 2009, she starred in the comedy film "Guru En Aalu" alongside Madhavan, and the thriller "Passenger", sharing screen space with Dileep and Sreenivasan, respectively. While the former had an average run at the box office, the latter was declared a surprise sleeper hit in Malayalam. The film 'Passenger' in which she played the role of a television reporter 'Anuradha', became a turning point in mamta's career. In 2010, she worked with Jayaram in the critically acclaimed "Kadha Thudarunnu" directed by Sathyan Anthikkad, for which she won her first Best Actress Award from Filmfare. This film also won her the 'Vanitha award for best actress - Malayalam', the 'Mathrubhumi award for best actress - Malayalam' and the 'Asianet award for the best actress- Malayalam '. Other projects in 2010 included "Musafir" with Rahman, "Anwar" with Prithiviraj, and "Kedi" with Nagarjuna. Mamta's first film in 2011 was the Malayalam film "Race", in which she played the role of Niya, wife of a cardio surgeon Abey (Kunchacko Boban). The film failed to do well at the box office. Her next release in malayalam was "Naayika". Mamta has completed work on her third Tamil film, "Thadaiyara Thaakka" directed by Magizh Thirumeni. Singing. Mamta is as an acclaimed playback singer in Indian films as well. Mamta, who is trained in Carnatic and Hindustani music, first sang playback in the Telugu film "Rakhi", singing the title song under Devi Sri Prasad's direction, making her début in the Telugu film industry as a singer before making her acting début in Telugu. She went on to win the 2006 Filmfare Best Female Playback Singer Award for that song. Subsequently, she was asked to sing several songs for composer Devi Sri Prasad, including the chartbuster "Akalesthe Annam Pedtha" for the Chiranjeevi-starrer "Shankardada Zindabad" (later dubbed as "Daddy Mummy" in the Tamil film "Villu"), "36-24-36" for the film "Jagadam", "Mia" for "Tulasi", and "Ghanana (Funny)" and the title song for the film "King". Other music directors she has worked with include M. M. Keeravani (for her own films "Yamadonga" and "Krishnarjuna", also "Chandamama"), R. P. Patnaik (for "Andamaina Mansulo"), Chakri (for "Victory"), Nithin Raikwar (for her own film "Homam") and Thaman (for "Jayeebhava"). In Tamil, she sang "Kaalai Kaalai" in the film "Kaalai", which starred Silambarasan in the lead role. She sang "Idai Vazhi" for the comedy film "Goa" under noted composer Yuvan Shankar Raja's direction. Both songs featured her singing alongside Benny Dayal. She was heard for the first time in her mother tongue, Malayalam, in the 2010 film "Anwar". She has also recorded a song for her recent film "Thriller". In the film 'Mohabath', she sang a duet with Hariharan. She sang "Iravil Viriyum" in her 2012 film "Arike". Other work. In 2012, Mamta starting working in television too, hosting the quiz show "Kayyil Oru Kodi" on Surya TV. But, later it was stopped. Mamta was the brand ambassador of Kochi International Fashion Week (KIWF) which was held from August 4 to 7. She is the brand ambassador along with actress Bhavana for team Kerala Strikers for the Celebrity Cricket League (CCL) held in 2013, captained by Mohanlal, who is also one of the owners of the team, and vice-captain Indrajith. Personal life. Mamta is a cancer survivor. She battled Hodgkin's lymphoma with positive energy and confidence. She had to cut her hair off for chemotherapy sessions. In some parts of her film "Anwar", she managed to conceal the difference with wigs. Not many were aware of this situation until late 2010. Mamta got engaged on November 11, 2011 to Prajith Padmanabhan, a Bahrain based businessman, also her childhood friend. She got married on December 28, 2011 at Kozhikode. On December 12, 2012, the couple applied for a divorce. In April 2013, she had a relapse of the cancer and underwent treatment.
820619	Eli Kenneth Marienthal (born March 6, 1986) is an American former child actor. Personal life. Marienthal was born in Santa Monica, California, the son of Penny Marienthal and Joseph Cross. He has two siblings, actors Harley Cross and Flora Cross. In addition to acting, Marienthal has written and performed his own work as a poet, dancer, and playrite. Marienthal graduated from the private East Bay French-American School in Berkeley, where all students learn to speak fluent French and attend classes in two languages, and from Berkeley High School (Berkeley, California) in 2004. He graduated Brown University Magna Cum Laude in 2008 with a double major in Comparative Literature and International Development Studies. He also holds a Masters degree in Development Studies from Brown. He is currently a doctoral candidate in the Geography Department at the University of California, Berkeley. Career. Marienthal's career started in Bay Area stage theater work, performing in "Missing Persons", "The Cryptogram", "Hecuba", "A Midsummer Night's Dream", "Every 17 Minutes the Crowd Goes Crazy", and "The Life of Galileo". Marienthal is known for the role of Robin (Tim Drake) in the "" animated movie, and in an episode of "Static Shock". He replaced the previous voice actor, Mathew Valencia, because in these appearances, Robin was supposed to sound older than he had on the animated series. He played the title role of "Tucker Pierce" in the "Tucker" television series. He is also the voice of Hogarth Hughes in the 1999 film "The Iron Giant" and plays Steve Stifler's younger brother in the 1999 film "American Pie" and its 2001 sequel, "American Pie 2". His last film role to date was in the teenage-oriented comedy, "Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen", opposite Lindsay Lohan, as Sam. After a brief hiatus, Marienthal returned to television by making a cameo appearance on a 2009 episode of the television sitcom, "The Big Bang Theory", but the following year, Marienthal retired from acting yet again.
1163886	Timothy "Tim" Meadows (born February 5, 1961) is an American actor and comedian best known as one of the longest running cast members on "Saturday Night Live".
1042797	Hazel Court (10 February 1926 – 15 April 2008) was an English actress best known for her roles in horror films during the 1950s and early '60s. Early life. Court was born in Sutton Coldfield, Warwickshire, lived in the Boldmere area and attended Boldmere School and Highclare College. Her father was G.W. Court, a notable cricketer who played for Durham CCC. At the age of fourteen, she studied drama at the Birmingham Repertory Theatre and the Alexandra Theatre, also in Birmingham, England. Career. At the age of sixteen Court met director Anthony Asquith in London, which won her a brief part in the 1944 film "Champagne Charlie". Court won a British Critics Award for her role as a crippled girl in "Carnival" (1946). She also appeared in "Holiday Camp" (1947) and "Bond Street" (1948). Her first role in a fantasy film was in "Ghost Ship" (1952). One of Court's most remembered films is the cult classic "Devil Girl from Mars" (1954). She trained at the Rank Organisation's "charm school". Court wanted to act in comedy films but she also continued to appear in horror films and, in 1957, had what was to become a career-defining role in the first colour Hammer Horror film "The Curse of Frankenstein", where she gained the status of a "cult siren," partly due to her display of cleavage. In the 1957–58 television season, she appeared in a CBS sitcom filmed in England, "Dick and the Duchess", in the role of Jane Starrett, a patrician Englishwoman married to an American insurance claims investigator living in London, a role played by Patrick O'Neal. Court travelled back and forth between Hollywood and England, appearing in four episodes of "Alfred Hitchcock Presents". She had parts in "A Woman of Mystery" (1958), "The Man Who Could Cheat Death" (1959) and "Doctor Blood's Coffin" (1961) among others. By the early 1960s, Court had permanently moved to the United States. She was featured in the Edgar Allan Poe horror films "The Premature Burial" (1962), "The Raven" (1963) and "The Masque of the Red Death" (1964), the last two with Vincent Price. In 1981 Court appeared briefly in the third "Omen" film, ', although she was uncredited. She also appeared in episodes of several TV series, including "Adventures in Paradise", ', "Bonanza", "Dr. Kildare", "Danger Man", "Twelve O'Clock High", "Burke's Law", "Sam Benedict", "Gidget", "Mannix", "The Wild Wild West", and in "The Fear", the penultimate episode of the original 1960's "The Twilight Zone". Personal life. Court was married to Irish actor Dermot Walsh from 1949 until their divorce in 1963. They had a daughter, Sally Walsh, who appeared with her mother in "The Curse of Frankenstein". From 1964 until his death in 1998, she was married to American actor Don Taylor, who was divorced in 1955 from actress Phyllis Avery. Court retired from the film acting business in 1964 to concentrate on being a wife and mother. Court and Taylor met while they were shooting an episode of "Alfred Hitchcock Presents". They had a son, Jonathan, and a daughter, Courtney. In addition to acting, she was also a painter and sculptress, and studied sculpting in Italy. Court wrote her autobiography, "Hazel Court – Horror Queen", which was published by Tomahawk Press in the UK (April 2008) and in the US (June 2008). Death. Court died of a heart attack at her home near Lake Tahoe, California, on 15 April 2008, aged 82. She is survived by daughters Sally Walsh and Courtney Taylor, son Jonathon Taylor and two stepdaughters, Anne Taylor Fleming and Avery Taylor. She was cremated and her ashes scattered at sea. Hazel Court once said in an interview "Just in case I should pop off to heaven in the night, I always remember to wash up, plump-up the cushions and straighten up after a dinner party. I wouldn't want everyone to come in and find it a mess. It's very English of me." References. Interviews: Van Helsing's Journal, June, 2010 no.11 "Hazel Court, Horror's Class Act" interview by Lawrence Fultz Jr.
1507823	Days of Wrath is a 2008 drama film starring Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Laurence Fishburne and Wilmer Valderrama. The film is directed by Celia Fox, and written by Mitchell Kapner and Michael Markee. Plot. In the Los Angeles streets, Danny Boy (Wilmer Valderrama) is a gangster without compassion or regret. His sends his gang out to carjack a rapper (Faizon Love). However, in the process, his gang ends up killing the former girlfriend of Byron (Jeffrey Dean Morgan), a local TV station manager. The victim also happens to be the mother of Mario (Jesse Garcia), who is the leader of Danny Boy's own gang. Byron's ambitious young reporter, Samantha (Ana Claudia Talancón), used to be involved with the local gangs, but has now cleaned up her act and lectures high school kids about the ills of gangs.
582838	Papa Kehte Hain is a 1996 Hindi film directed by Mahesh Bhatt. The film starred Jugal Hansraj, Mayuri Kango in lead roles and Tiku Talsania, Anupam Kher, Alok Nath, Shuhasni Mule and Reema Laago in supporting roles. Rajesh Roshan provided the music for the film, which became popular overnight. The songs of the movie reached the top of the music charts and were there for the first half of 1996. Mahesh Bhatt, who in the late 1980s turned towards the commercial cinema with some of the biggest blockbusters of the 1990s, like "Aashiqui", "Dil Hai Ki Manta Nahin", "Sadak" and "Hum Hain Rahi Pyar Ke", was again involved in a romantic movie whose music was already a big hit, so there were lots of expectations with the movie. Plot. Sweety (Mayuri Kango) lives with her mother (Navni Parihar), maternal grandmother (Suhas Joshi) and grandfather (Tiku Talsania). She is very rebellious, emotional and high-strung, and does not get along well with her classmates in school. All she knows is that she is not permitted to talk about her dad at home. She finds out that he is in Seychelles and runs away there.
1067204	Iron Eagle is a 1986 action film directed by Sidney J. Furie and starring Jason Gedrick and Louis Gossett, Jr. While it received mixed reviews, the film earned US$24,159,872 at the U.S. box office. "Iron Eagle" was followed by three sequels: "Iron Eagle II", "" and "Iron Eagle on the Attack", with Gossett, Jr. being the only actor to have appeared in all four films. The basis of the fictional story in the film relates to real life attacks by the United States against Libya over the Gulf of Sidra, which involved U.S. bombings in both 1981 (see Gulf of Sidra incident), and 1986 (see Action in the Gulf of Sidra). Plot. Doug Masters (Jason Gedrick), son of veteran U.S. Air Force pilot Col. Ted Masters (Tim Thomerson), is a hotshot civilian pilot, hoping to follow in his father's footsteps. Then, his hopes are dashed when he receives a notice of rejection from the Air Force Academy. Making matters worse is the news of his father being shot down and captured by the fictional Arab state of Bilya while patrolling over the Mediterranean Sea. Despite the incident occurring over international waters, the Arab state's court finds Col. Masters guilty of trespassing over their territory and sentences him to hang in three days. Seeing that the U.S. government will do nothing to save his father's life, Doug decides to take matters into his own hands and come up with his own rescue mission. He requests the help of Col. Charles "Chappy" Sinclair (Louis Gossett, Jr.), a Vietnam veteran pilot currently in the Air Force Reserve, who has known Col. Masters for only a couple of years. Chappy is skeptical at first, but Doug convinces him that with his friends, he has full access to the airbase's intelligence and resources and he can give him an F-16 fighter for the mission. To Doug's surprise, he learns that Chappy had already begun planning the rescue operation himself after he learned the outcome of Col. Masters' trial. The combined efforts of Chappy and Doug's team result in a meticulously planned mission and the procurement of two heavily armed F-16 planes, with Doug flying the second unit. On the day of Col. Masters' execution, Doug and Chappy fly their planes to the Mediterranean Sea and cross into the enemy state's airspace. In the ensuing battle, they take out three MiG-23 fighters and destroy an airfield, but Chappy's plane is damaged by an anti-aircraft gun. He tells Doug to climb to a high altitude and play the tape he made him the night before, then his engine fails and Doug listens as Chappy's fighter goes down. Chappy's recorded voice gives Doug encouragement and details that help him complete the mission and rescue his father. Making the enemy believe he is leading a squadron, Doug threatens the enemy state into releasing his father from prison and moving him to the base's northernmost runway for pickup. Before Doug lands his plane, Col. Masters is shot by an Arab sniper, causing Doug to destroy the airbase and engulf the runway with napalm to keep the army at bay while he lands and picks up his wounded father. Just as they take off, Doug and his father encounter another group of MiGs led by Col. Akir Nakesh (David Suchet) - himself an ace pilot. The lone F-16 and Nakesh's MiG engage in a long dogfight until a missile from Doug finishes off Nakesh. Low on fuel and ammunition, the F-16 is being pursued by the other enemy MiGs when a squadron of U.S. Air Force F-16s appear, warding off the MiGs before escorting Doug and his father to Ramstein Air Base in Germany. While Col. Masters is being treated for his wounds, Doug is reunited with Chappy, who had ejected from his plane and was picked up by a fishing trawler. The two are summoned by an Air Force judiciary panel for their reckless actions. Seeing that any form of punishment for the duo would expose an embarrassing lapse in Air Force security, the panel forgoes prosecution as long as Doug and Chappy never speak of their operation to anyone. In addition, Chappy convinces the panel to grant Doug admission to the Air Force Academy. A plane assigned by the President returns to the U.S., reuniting Doug, Chappy and Col. Masters with family and friends. Production. According to writer/director Sidney J. Furie, the film's working title was "Junior Eagle". The script was turned down by every studio before it was picked up by Joe Wizan, former head of 20th Century Fox. Wizan then handed the script to producer Ron Samuels, who likened it to the old John Wayne westerns. The United States Air Force has a long-standing policy about not cooperating on any film involving the theft of an aircraft. Consequently, the filmmakers turned to the Israeli Air Force for the necessary aerial sequences. The filming in Israel took six weeks, with the flight sequences choreographed by Jim Gavin, whose earlier works include "Blue Thunder". Soundtrack. The soundtrack album was issued by Capitol Records on LP and cassette, and later on compact disc. It features songs by Queen, King Kobra, Eric Martin, Dio and more. In 2008, Varèse Sarabande released the original musical score by Basil Poledouris as part of their CD Club. Box office and reception. "Iron Eagle" earned US$24,159,872 at the U.S. box office. Although the movie was not a major success at the cinema, it generated US$11 million in home video sales, enough to justify a sequel. The film has received mostly negative reviews, with a 40% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Kevin Thomas of the "Los Angeles Times" called the film "a total waste of time", saying it "achieves a kind of perfection of awfulness that only earnest effort can produce." "Variety" magazine commented that the film has "breakneck action and some dandy dogfights", but the dialogue is simply laughable. Home video. "Iron Eagle" was released on VHS by CBS/FOX Video in 1986. On October 1, 2002, it was released on DVD. On February 3, 2009, it was reissued on DVD by Sony Pictures Home Entertainment in a double-feature set with the 1993 film "Last Action Hero".
584935	Shraddha Das (born March 4, 1987) is an Indian film actress who has mainly appeared in Telugu films. Early life. Shraddha Das was born in Mumbai, Maharashtra to Bengali parents. Her father is a businessman, who hails from Purulia, her mother is a housewife. She was brought up in Mumbai, where she completed her studies. Shraddha graduated from University of Mumbai at SIES College of Commerce and Economics with a Bachelor of Mass Media degree in journalism. Career. Shraddha Das made her acting debut in 2008 with the Telugu film "Sidhu from Srikakulam". She thereafter starred in a number of Telugu films, including "Target", "18, 20 Love Story", "Diary" and "Adhineta", which all proved to be critically and commercially unsuccessful. She played the female lead in "Adhineta", her sixth film in Telugu with hero Jagapati Babu and director Samudra. She played the other female lead in the remake of "Maro Charitra" produced by Dil Raju, opposite Varun Sandesh. She then landed a lead role in Sai Om Films' maiden venture "Lahore", directed by Sanjay Puran Singh Chauhan. Shraddha played a Pakistani character in the film, cast opposite Aanaahad, and received critical acclaim for her performance. The film was released in March 2010 and won awards at the 42nd WorldFest-Houston International Film Festival. Due to her appearances in the sequels of "Arya" ("Arya 2"), "Mantra" ("Diary") and "Chandramukhi" ("Nagavalli"), Shraddha Das has acquired the nickname "sequel queen". In her upcoming venture, "Rey", she plays an American pop singer.
1065277	Siobhan Fallon Hogan (born May 13, 1961) is an American actress. She appeared in films such as "Men in Black", "Forrest Gump", "The Negotiator", and "Daddy Day Care". Career. Siobhan Fallon was born in Syracuse, New York. She was raised Catholic. She graduated from Le Moyne College in 1983. She made her television debut in an episode of "The Golden Girls" in 1990. She appeared in 20 episodes on "Saturday Night Live" from 1991 to 1992 (and is not related to Jimmy Fallon despite her last name and her stint on "SNL"). She also appeared in three episodes on "Seinfeld" as Elaine Benes' annoying roommate Tina. Thereafter, she began to appear in feature films. In 2003, she appeared as Mrs. Yelnats in the film "Holes" with Sigourney Weaver and Shia LaBeouf. She appeared in "New in Town", released on January 30, 2009, with Renée Zellweger and Harry Connick, Jr. Personal life. Siobhan Fallon is a member of the Atlantic Theater Company. She currently resides in Middletown Township, New Jersey and also has a summer home in Cazenovia, NY, a town outside Syracuse, where she grew up. Fallon is married to commodities trader Peter Hogan and they have three children: Bernadette, Peter and Sinead.
1033820	Dame Gracie Fields, DBE (born Grace Stansfield, 9 January 189827 September 1979), was an English-born, later Italian-based actress, singer and comedienne and star of both cinema and music hall. Life and work. Early life. Grace Stansfield was born over a fish and chip shop owned by her grandmother, Sarah Bamford, in Molesworth Street, Rochdale, Lancashire. She made her first stage appearance as a child in 1905, joining children's repertory theatre groups such as 'Haley's Garden of Girls' and the 'Nine Dainty Dots'. Her two sisters, Edith and Betty and brother, Tommy, all went on to appear on stage, but Gracie was the most successful. Her professional debut in variety took place at the Rochdale Hippodrome theatre in 1910 and she soon gave up her job in the local cotton mill, where she was a half-timer, spending half a week in the mill and the other half at school. She met comedian and impresario Archie Pitt and they began working together. Pitt gave Fields champagne on her 18th birthday, and wrote in an autograph book to her that he would make her a star. Pitt would come to serve as her manager and the two married in 1923 at Clapham Register Office. Their first revue in 1915 was called "Yes I Think So" and the two continued to tour Britain together until 1924 in the revue "Mr Tower of London", with other reviews including "By Request", "It's A Bargain" and "The Show's The Thing". Archie Pitt was the brother of Bert Aza, founder of the Aza agency, who were responsible for many talents of the day including the actor and comedian Stanley Holloway, who was introduced to Aza by Fields. Fields and Holloway first worked together on her film "Sing As We Go" in 1934 and the two remained close friends for the rest of their lives. Fame. Fields came to major public notice when "Mr Tower of London" came to the West End. Her career rapidly accelerated from this point with straight dramatic performances and the beginning of a recording career. One of her most successful productions was at the Alhambra Theatre, London, in 1925. The show, booked by Sir Oswald Stoll, was a major success and toured for ten years, throughout the UK. She later said "One day I was in Plymouth's Palace Theatre and the next playing Blackpool!". She made the first of ten appearances in Royal Variety Performances in 1928, following a premiere stint at the London Palladium, gaining a devoted following with a mixture of self-deprecating jokes, comic songs and monologues, as well as cheerful "depression-era" songs all presented in a "no-airs-and-graces" Northern, working class style. She recorded her first record for HMV "Because I Love You" and "My Blue Heaven" in 1928. At one point, Fields was playing three shows a night in London's West End. She appeared in the Pitt production she was working on, with Gerald Du Maurier in the straight play "SOS" at the St James's Theatre, with also a cabaret spot at the Cafe de Paris following this. Fields had a great rapport with her audience, which helped her become one of Britain's highest paid performers, playing to sold out theatres across the country. Her most famous song, which became her theme, "Sally," was worked into the title of her first film, "Sally in Our Alley" (1931), which was a major box office hit. She went on to make several films initially in Britain and later in the United States (for which she was paid a record fee of £200,000 for four films). Regardless, she never enjoyed the process of performing without a live audience, and found the process of film-making boring. She tried to opt out of filming, before director Monty Banks persuaded her otherwise, landing her the lucrative Hollywood deal. Fields demanded that the four films were to be filmed in Britain and not Hollywood, and this was the case. Ironically, the final few lines of the song "Sally" were written by her husband's mistress, Annie Lipman, and Fields sang this song at nearly every performance she made from 1931 onwards – claiming in later life that she wanted to "Drown blasted Sally with Walter with the aspidistra on top!" Charity work. The late 1930s saw her popularity peak and she was given many honours: the Officer of the Venerable Order of St. John (for charity work), the Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) (for services to entertainment) in 1938 and the Freedom of the Borough of Rochdale in 1937. She donated her house, The Towers, 53 The Bishops Avenue, London, N2 0BJ (which she had not much cared for and which she had shared with her husband Archie Pitt and his mistress) to a maternity hospital after the marriage broke down. In 1939, she became seriously ill with cervical cancer. The public sent over 250,000 goodwill messages and she retired to her villa on Capri. After she recovered, she recorded a very special 78rpm record simply called "Gracie's Thanks", in which she thanks the public for the many cards and letters she received while in hospital. During World War II, she paid for all servicemen/women to travel free on public transport within the boundaries of Rochdale. Fields also helped Rochdale F.C. in the 1930s when they were struggling to pay fees and buy sports equipment. In 1933 she set up the Gracie Fields Children's Home and Orphanage at Peacehaven, Sussex for children of those in the theatre profession who could not look after their children. She kept this until 1967, when the home was no longer needed. This was near her own home in Peacehaven, and Fields often visited, with the children all calling her 'Aunty Grace'. World War II. World War II was declared while she was recovering in Capri, and Fields - still very ill after her cancer surgery, threw herself into her work and signed up for ENSA headed by her old film producer, Basil Dean. Fields travelled to France to entertain the troops in the midst of air-raids, performing on the backs of open lorries and in war-torn areas. She was the first artist to play behind enemy lines in Berlin. Following her divorce from Archie Pitt, she married Italian-born film director Monty Banks in March 1940. However, because Banks remained an Italian citizen and would have been interned in the United Kingdom, she was forced to leave Britain for North America during the war, at the instruction of Winston Churchill, who told her to "Make American Dollars, not British Pounds," which she did, in aid of the Navy League and the Spitfire Fund. She and Banks moved to their home in Santa Monica, California. She did, occasionally, return to Britain, to show she was not, indeed, a traitor, performing in factories and army camps around the country. After their initial argument, Parliament offered her an official apology. She is mentioned several times in Spike Milligan's war memoirs during the years 1943 to 1945 with both respect and appreciation for her personability and her wartime efforts, as well as affectionate criticism of her comedy and performance style. Although she continued to spend much of her time entertaining troops and otherwise supporting the war effort outside Britain, this, inevitably, led to a fall-off in her popularity at home. She performed many times for Allied troops, travelling as far as New Guinea, where she received an enthusiastic response from Australian personnel. Late 1945 saw her tour the South Pacific Islands. Post World War II. After the war, Fields continued her career less actively. She began performing in Britain again in 1948 headlining the London Palladium over Eartha Kitt who was also on the bill. The BBC gave her her own radio show in 1947 dubbed "Our Gracie's Working Party" in which 12 towns were visited by Fields, and a live show of music and entertainment was broadcast weekly with Fields compering and performing, and local talents also on the bill. This tour commenced in Rochdale. Like so many BBC shows at the time this show transferred to Radio Luxembourg in 1950, sponsored by Wisk soap powder. Billy Ternent and his Orchestra accompanied her. In 1951, Fields opened the Festival of Britain celebrations. She proved popular once more, though never regaining the status she enjoyed in the 1930s. She continued recording, but made no more films, moving more towards light classical music as popular tastes changed, often adopting a religious theme. She continued into the new medium of LP records, and recorded new takes of her old favourite songs, as well as new and recent tracks to 'liven things up a bit'. Monty Banks died in 1950 of a heart attack while travelling on the Orient Express. Two years later Fields married Boris Alperovici, a Romanian radio repairman. She claimed that he was the love of her life, and that she couldn't wait to propose to him. She proposed on Christmas Day in front of friends and family. They married at the Church of S. Stefano on Capri in a quiet ceremony before honeymooning in Rome. She lived on her beloved Isle of Capri for the remainder of her life, at her home "La Canzone Del Mare", a swimming and restaurant complex which Fields' home overlooked. It was favoured by many Hollywood stars during the 1950s, with regular guests including Richard Burton, Elizabeth Taylor, Greta Garbo and Noël Coward. Later years. She began to work less, but still toured the UK under the management of Harold Fielding, manager of top artists of the day such as Tommy Steele and Max Bygraves. Her UK tours proved popular, and in the mid-1960s she performed farewell tours in Australia, Canada and America - the last performance was recorded and released years later. In 1956, Fields played Miss Marple in a US TV production of Agatha Christie's "A Murder is Announced". The production featured Jessica Tandy and Roger Moore, and predates the Margaret Rutherford films by some five years. She also starred in television productions of "A Tale of Two Cities", "The Old Lady Shows Her Medals" – for which she won a TV Award – and "Mrs 'Arris Goes to Paris", which was remade years later with Angela Lansbury as Mrs Harris, a charwoman in search of a fur coat. (A Christian Dior gown in Lansbury's case.) In 1957, her single, "Around the World" peaked at No.8 in the UK Singles Chart, with her recording of "Little Donkey" reaching No.20 in November 1959. She was the subject of "This Is Your Life" in 1960 when she was surprised by Eamonn Andrews at the BBC Television Theatre. Fields regularly performed in TV appearances, being the first entertainer to perform on Val Parnell's "Sunday Night at the London Palladium". Fields had two Christmas TV specials in 1960 and 1961, singing her old favourites and new songs in front of a studio audience. 1971 saw "A Gift For Gracie," another TV special presented by Fields and Bruce Forsyth. This followed on from her popularity on "Stars on Sunday", a religious programme on Britain's ITV, in which well known performers sang hymns or read extracts from the Bible. Fields was the most requested artist on the show. In 1968, Fields headlined a two week Christmas stint at Yorkshire's prestigious Batley Variety Club. "I was born over a fish and chip shop – I never thought I'd be singing in one!" claimed Fields during the performance recorded by the BBC. In 1975, her album, "The Golden Years", reached No.48 in the UK Albums Chart. In 1978, she opened the Gracie Fields Theatre, located next to Oulder Hill Community School, in her native Rochdale, performing a concert there recorded by the BBC to open the show. Fields appeared in ten Royal Variety Performances from 1928 onwards, her last being in 1978 at the age of 80 when she appeared as a surprise guest in the finale, in which she appeared and sang her theme song, "Sally". Her final TV appearance came in January 1979 when she appeared in a special octogenarian edition of "The Merv Griffin Show" in America, in which she sang the song she popularised in America, ""The Biggest Aspidistra In The World"". Fields was notified by her confidante John Taylor while she was in America that she had the invitation to become a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire, to which she replied: "Yes I'll accept, yes I can kneel – but I might need help getting back up, and yes I'll attend – as long as they don't call Boris 'Buttons'." Fields' health declined in July 1979, when she contracted pneumonia after performing an open air concert on the Royal Yacht which was docked in Capri's harbour. After a spell in hospital, she seemed to be recovering, but died on 27 September 1979. The press reported she died holding her husband's hand, but in reality he was at their Anacapri home at the time, while Gracie was home with the housekeeper, Irena. She is buried in the non-Catholic cemetery on Capri; the Protestant Cemetery. in a white marble tomb. Her coffin was carried by staff from her restaurant. Her husband Boris died in 1984. Honours. In February 1979, she was invested as a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire seven months before her death at her home on Capri, aged 81. On 3 October 2009 the final train to run on the Oldham Loop before it closed to be converted to a tramway, a Class 156, was named in her honour. Fields was granted the Freedom of Rochdale. The local theater in Rochdale, the Gracie Fields Theatre, was opened by her in 1978. Miscellaneous. The Rochdale Boroughwide Cultural Trust holds the 'Gracie Fields Archive'. In 2009, Jane Horrocks took the lead in the BBC TV production "Gracie!", a drama portraying the life of Fields just before and during World War II and her relationship with Monty Banks (played by Tom Hollander). Jewish jazz pianist Irving Fields was born Isadore Schwartz, taking the name Fields from his sister Peppy, who had borrowed the name in tribute to Gracie Fields. Filmography. Box office ranking. For a number of years, British film exhibitors voted her among the top ten stars in Britain at the box office via an annual poll in the "Motion Picture Herald".
1064282	James Harvey "Jamie" Kennedy (born May 25, 1970) is an American comedian, television producer, screenwriter, and actor. Early life. The youngest of six children, Kennedy was born in Upper Darby Township, a suburb of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Kennedy was raised Roman Catholic. He attended and graduated from Monsignor Bonner High School in 1988. After high school, Kennedy began his career as a Hollywood extra. Meanwhile, he worked on voice impersonations. Career. When Kennedy first arrived in Los Angeles, he become a professional Hollywood extra. His first night in L.A., he was reading a Joan Rivers autobiography in a diner when the waiter explained to him that he has been in a dozen movies as an extra. Kennedy asked "If you've been in so many movies, why are you a waiter?" the waiter responded "I have to keep my day job." Kennedy then decided that he did not want to be an extra, he was going to become a star. After a few years of struggling, Kennedy was unable to find an agent and had to work as a host at Red Lobster. He auditioned for over 80 commercials and could not book one. He then took a job as a telemarketer and learned that he was really good at selling things. Kennedy then thought that if he could sell anything, "why not sell myself?" becoming his own agent. Kennedy created a false persona, screen agent "Marty Power," to attract the attention of real agents and managers over the phone, who would later book his performances. He came to prominence in the late 1990s for playing Randy Meeks in the "Scream" film series. His lead role as Tim Avery in "Son of the Mask" earned him a Golden Raspberry Award nomination for Worst Actor. Kennedy formed a production company called Wannabe Producers, alongside Josh Etting, through which he has produced the shows "The Jamie Kennedy Experiment", "Blowin' Up", "The Starlet", and "Living with Fran". Following "Malibu's Most Wanted", which he both wrote and starred in, Kennedy co-wrote the MTV show "Blowin' Up" (2006) featuring his friend Stu Stone.
582535	Atul Kulkarni (born 10 September 1965) is a National Award winning Indian film actor who has acted in multiple language films. Kulkarni won the National Award for the best supporting actor for the films Hey Ram and Chandni Bar. Kulkarni is also the president of Quest, a research action organization concentrating on enhancing quality of education. Early life. Kulkarni was born on 10 September 1965 in Belgaum, Karnataka, India. He completed his secondary education from Haribhai Deokaran High School, Solapur, Maharashtra. He completed his Junior College from Belgaum and completed his graduation in English literature at D. A. V. College, Solapur. He is married to theater actress Geetanjali Kulkarni, whom he met at National School of Drama. Acting Career. Kulkarni's first stint with stage was during his high school days. Later during his college days he actively participated in cultural gatherings. While studying, Atul joined Natya Aradhana, an amateur theatre group from Solapur. Atul Kulkarni holds a postgraduate diploma in dramatic arts from National School of Drama, New Delhi.
1071881	Plot. "All About Lily Chou-Chou" follows two boys, Shuusuke Hoshino and Yuichi Hasumi, from the start of junior middle school when they first meet, and into second grade. The film has a discontinuous storyline, starting midway through the story, just after the second term of junior high school begins, then flashes back to the first term and summer vacation, and then skips back to the present. In elementary school, Hoshino was one of the best students in school, but was picked on by his classmates. Hoshino and Hasumi meet and become friends when they join the kendo club, and Hoshino invites Hasumi to stay over at his house. Hoshino's family is wealthy in comparison to Hasumi's family. Hasumi mistakes Hoshino's attractive young mother for his sister.
674402	Eva Mattes (born 14 December 1954, Tegernsee, Germany) is a German-Austrian actress.
1161909	Grace Lee Whitney (born Mary Ann Chase; April 1, 1930) is an American actress and entertainer. She is best known as Janice Rand on the "Star Trek" television series and subsequent films and as the original mermaid for Chicken of the Sea tuna ad campaign. Early life. Whitney was born as Mary Ann Chase in Ann Arbor, Michigan. She was adopted by the Whitney family who named her Grace Elaine Whitney. After she moved out, she began to call herself Lee Whitney, and eventually, she became known as Grace Lee Whitney. Whitney started her entertainment career as a "girl singer" on Detroit's WJR radio at the age of fourteen. In her late teens, she moved to Chicago and started to open in nightclubs for such luminaries as Billie Holiday and Buddy Rich, and toured with the Spike Jones and Fred Waring Bands. "Star Trek". "Star Trek" television show. "" creator Gene Roddenberry cast Whitney in the role of Yeoman Janice Rand, the personal assistant to Captain James T. Kirk, in 1966. Whitney said: "I was on diet pills trying to stay thin – and I was very thin. They wanted you to fit into the uniforms and I couldn't quite so I went on amphetamines." Whitney appeared in eight of the first thirteen episodes; then was released from contract. She had reported that, while still under contract, she was sexually assaulted by an executive associated with the series, and, later, in a public interview, she stated that Leonard Nimoy had been her main source of support during that time. She details the assault in her book "The Longest Trek" and refuses to name the executive. In a later interview, she said of her termination from the series: "Star Trek" films. After DeForest Kelley saw Whitney on the unemployment line and told her that Trekkies had been asking for her at fan conventions, Whitney returned to the " Star Trek" franchise. Whitney reprised her role as Janice Rand, who had received a promotion to Chief Petty Officer (CPO), in ' (1979). She appeared again in ' (1984), ' (1986), and ' (1991), with another promotion, as Lieutenant (JG) Janice Rand. Five years later, to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the franchise, she returned to "Star Trek" in 1996 in the "" episode "" along with George Takei. She has filmed roles in two Internet "Star Trek" episodes: "" and "" (reprising her role as Janice Rand in both). "New Voyages" premiered on August 24, 2007. "Of Gods and Men" made its debut in late 2007. Career. Theater. Whitney debuted on Broadway in "Top Banana" with Phil Silvers and Kaye Ballard where she played Miss Holland. Following the successful run of the show, she joined the cast in Hollywood where she recreated the role in the 1954 movie of the same name. While in Los Angeles, Whitney auditioned and was cast in the starring role of Lucy Brown in the national tour of "The Threepenny Opera", taking over the role from Bea Arthur who played the part in New York off-Broadway. Film highlights. Whitney was cast as a member of the all-female band in Billy Wilder's classic comedy "Some Like It Hot", released in 1959. She shared several scenes with Jack Lemmon, Tony Curtis, and Marilyn Monroe, including the famed "upper berth" sequence. In her memoir, "The Longest Trek: My Tour of the Galaxy", she maintains that as one of the few girls in the band with a speaking role, Billy Wilder hired her specifically for the role of Rosella. Various credit sources have listed another actress in the role, even though she is directly addressed by the name Rosella in two different scenes in the film; the first by band leader Sweet Sue (Joan Shawlee), and the second by a fellow band member. Whitney had uncredited roles in "House of Wax" with Vincent Price, "The Naked and the Dead" with Cliff Robertson, "Pocketful of Miracles" with Bette Davis and Glenn Ford, and "Critic's Choice" with Bob Hope and Lucille Ball. Whitney appeared in the credited role of Tracey Phillips in the 1962 drama "A Public Affair". Billy Wilder subsequently gave her the featured role of "Kiki the Cossack" in the 1963 film "Irma la Douce" with Shirley MacLaine and Jack Lemmon. Television. Whitney has made more than a hundred television appearances since her television debut in "Cowboy G-Men" in 1953. She appeared on episodes of "The Real McCoys", "Wagon Train", "The Islanders", "Hennesey", "The Roaring 20s", "Gunsmoke", "Bat Masterson", "The Rifleman", "77 Sunset Strip", "Bewitched", "Mike Hammer", "Batman", "The Untouchables", and "Hawaiian Eye". She appeared in an episode of "The Outer Limits", "Controlled Experiment", co-starring Barry Morse and Carroll O'Connor. In the late 1960s, Whitney appeared as guest star on "Mannix", "Death Valley Days", "The Big Valley", and "The Virginian". In 1962 she appeared in "The Rifleman" in the episode "The Tin Horn" as Rose Keeler. Also in 1964 she played the Marilyn Monroe lookalike character Babs Livingston on "Bewitched" in the episode "It Shouldn't Happen to a Dog". 1970s roles included "The Bold Ones", "Cannon", and "Hart to Hart". In 1983, she had a small part in the television film, "The Kid with the 200 IQ" with Gary Coleman. In 1998, she appeared on an episode of "", which reunited her with her old "Star Trek" cast-mates George Takei, Walter Koenig and Majel Barrett Roddenberry. Music. In the 1960s and 1970s, Whitney sang with a number of orchestras and bands, including the Keith Williams Orchestra. Later, she concentrated on jazz/pop vocalizing while fronting for the band "Star". In the 1970s, with her then-husband, Jack Dale, she wrote a number of "Star Trek"-related songs. A 45 rpm record was released in 1976 with the songs "Disco Trekkin’" (A side) and "Star Child" (B side). She recorded such tunes as "Charlie X", "Miri", "Enemy Within", and USS "Enterprise". Many of these songs were released in the 1990s in cassette tape format: "Light at the End of the Tunnel" in 1996 and "Yeoman Rand Sings!" in 1999. Writing. Whitney's autobiography, "The Longest Trek: My Tour of the Galaxy", was released in 1998 (ISBN 1-884956-05-X). The book delves into her hiring and firing from "Star Trek", her fight and eventual victory over alcohol and substance dependence, particularly marijuana. The book also recounts Whitney's hiring as the first Chicken of the Sea Mermaid.
1061666	Alan Alda (born Alphonso Joseph D'Abruzzo; January 28, 1936) is an American actor, director, screenwriter, and author. A six-time Emmy Award and Golden Globe Award winner, he is best known for his starring roles as Hawkeye Pierce in the TV series "M*A*S*H" and Arnold Vinick in "The West Wing", and his supporting role in the 2004 film "The Aviator", for which he was nominated for an Academy Award. He is currently a Visiting Professor at the State University of New York at Stony Brook School of Journalism and a member of the advisory board of The Center for Communicating Science. He serves on the board of the World Science Festival and is a judge for Math-O-Vision. Family and early life. Alda was born Alphonso Joseph D'Abruzzo in New York City and had a peripatetic childhood as his parents traveled around the United States in support of his father's job as a performer in burlesque theatres. His father, Robert Alda (born Alphonso Giuseppe Giovanni Roberto D'Abruzzo), was an actor and singer, and his mother, Joan Browne, a former showgirl. His father was of Italian descent and his mother was of Irish ancestry. His adopted surname, "Alda," is a portmanteau of "AL"phonso and "D'A"bruzzo. When Alda was seven years old, he contracted poliomyelitis. To combat the disease, his parents administered a painful treatment regimen developed by Sister Elizabeth Kenny that consisted of applying hot woollen blankets to his limbs and stretching his muscles. Alda attended Archbishop Stepinac High School in White Plains, New York. In 1956, he received his Bachelor of Arts degree in English from Fordham College of Fordham University in the Bronx, where he was a student staff member of its FM radio station, WFUV. Alda's half-brother, Antony Alda, was born that same year and would also become an actor. During Alda's junior year, he studied in Paris, acted in a play in Rome, and performed with his father on television in Amsterdam. In college, he was a member of the ROTC, and after graduation, he served for a year at Fort Benning, and then six months in the U.S. Army Reserve. A year after graduation, he married Arlene Weiss, with whom he has three daughters: Eve, Elizabeth, and Beatrice. Two of his 7 grandchildren are aspiring actors. The Aldas have been longtime residents of Leonia, New Jersey. Alda frequented Sol & Sol Deli on Palisade Avenue in the nearby town of Englewood, New Jersey—a fact mirrored in his character's daydream about eating whitefish from the establishment, in an episode of "M*A*S*H" in which Hawkeye sustains a head injury. Career. Early acting. Alda began his career in the 1950s, as a member of the Compass Players comedy revue. In 1966, he starred in the musical "The Apple Tree" on Broadway; he was nominated for the Tony Award as Best Actor in a Musical for that role. Alda made his Hollywood acting debut as a supporting player in "Gone are the Days!" – a film version of the highly successful Broadway play "Purlie Victorious", which co-starred veteran actors Ruby Dee and her husband, Ossie Davis. Other film roles would follow, such as his portrayal of author, humorist, and actor George Plimpton in the film "Paper Lion" (1968), as well as "The Extraordinary Seaman" (1969), and the occult-murder-suspense thriller "The Mephisto Waltz", with actress Jacqueline Bisset. During this time, Alda frequently appeared as a panelist on the 1968 revival of "What's My Line?". He also appeared as a panelist on "I've Got a Secret" during its 1972 syndication revival. "M*A*S*H" series (1972–83). In early 1972, Alda auditioned for and was selected to play the role of "Hawkeye Pierce" in the TV adaptation of the 1970 film "MASH". He was nominated for 21 Emmy Awards, and won five. He took part in writing 19 episodes, including the finale, and directed 32. When he won his first Emmy Award for writing, he was so happy that he performed a cartwheel before running up to the stage to accept the award. He was also the first person to win Emmy Awards for acting, writing, and directing for the same series. Richard Hooker, who wrote the novel on which "M*A*S*H" was based, did not like Alda's portrayal of Hawkeye Pierce (Hooker, a Republican, had based Hawkeye on himself, whereas Alda and the show's writers took the character in a more liberal direction). Alda also directed the show's 1983 2½-hour series finale "Goodbye, Farewell and Amen", which remains the single most-watched episode of any television series. Alda is the only series regular to appear in all 251 episodes. Alda commuted from Los Angeles to his home in New Jersey every weekend for 11 years while starring in "M*A*S*H". His wife and daughters lived in New Jersey, and he did not want to move his family to Los Angeles, especially because he did not know how long the show would last. Alan Alda, father Robert Alda, and half-brother Antony Alda appeared together in an episode of "M*A*S*H", "Lend a Hand", during Season 8. Robert had previously appeared in "The Consultant" in Season 3. During the first five seasons of the series, the tone of "M*A*S*H" was largely that of a traditional "service comedy", in the vein of shows like "McHale's Navy". However, as the original writers gradually left the series, Alda gained increasing control, and by the final seasons had become a producer and creative consultant. Under his watch, "M*A*S*H" retained its comedic foundation, but gradually assumed a somewhat more serious tone, openly addressing political issues. As a result, the 11 years of "M*A*S*H" are generally split into two eras: the Larry Gelbart/Gene Reynolds "comedy" years (1972–1979), and the Alan Alda "dramatic" years (1979–1983). For the first three seasons, Alda and his co-stars Wayne Rogers and McLean Stevenson worked well together, but later, tensions increased, particularly as Alda's role grew in popularity. They both left the show at the end of the third season. At the beginning of the fourth season, Alda and the producers decided to find a replacement actor to play the surrogate parent role formerly taken by Colonel Blake. They eventually found veteran actor and fan of the series, Harry Morgan, who would star as Colonel Sherman T. Potter, who became a protagonist of the show, behind him. Mike Farrell was also introduced as Alda's co-star BJ Hunnicutt. In his 1981 autobiography, Jackie Cooper (who directed several early episodes) wrote that Alda concealed a lot of hostility beneath the surface, and that the two of them barely spoke to each other by the time Cooper’s directing of "M*A*S*H" ended. During his "M*A*S*H" years, Alda made several game-show appearances, most notably in "The $10,000 Pyramid" and as a frequent panelist on "To Tell the Truth". His favorite episodes of "M*A*S*H" are "Dear Sigmund" and "In Love and War". In 1996, Alda was ranked #41 on "TV Guide"'s "50 Greatest TV Stars of All Time". Writing and Directing Credits. The following is a list of "M*A*S*H" episodes written and/or directed by Alda. Post-"M*A*S*H". Alda's prominence in the enormously successful "M*A*S*H" gave him a platform to speak out on political topics, and he has been a strong and vocal supporter of women's rights and the feminist movement. He co-chaired, with former First Lady Betty Ford, the Equal Rights Amendment Countdown campaign. In 1976, "The Boston Globe" dubbed him "the quintessential Honorary Woman: a feminist icon" for his activism on behalf of the Equal Rights Amendment. As a liberal and often progressive activist, he has been a target for some political and social conservatives. Alda played Nobel Prize-winning physicist Richard Feynman in the play "QED", which had only one other character. Although Peter Parnell wrote the play, Alda both produced and inspired it. Alda has also appeared frequently in the films of Woody Allen, and was a guest star five times on "ER", playing Dr. Kerry Weaver's mentor, Gabriel Lawrence. During the later episodes, it was revealed that Dr. Lawrence was suffering from the early stages of Alzheimer's disease. Alda also had a co-starring role as Dr. Robert Gallo in the 1993 TV movie "And the Band Played On". During "M*A*S*H"'s run and continuing through the 1980s, Alda embarked on a successful career as a writer and director, with the ensemble dramedy "The Four Seasons" being perhaps his most notable hit. "Betsy's Wedding" is his last directing credit to date. After "M*A*S*H", Alda took on a series of roles that either parodied or directly contradicted his "nice guy" image. His role as a pompous celebrity television producer in "Crimes and Misdemeanors" was widely seen as a self-parody, although Alda has denied this. Later work. In 1993, he co-starred with Woody Allen (also the director), Diane Keaton, and Anjelica Huston in the comedy/mystery "Manhattan Murder Mystery". The four play a quartet of amateur crime solvers who become entangled in a murder plot possibly perpetrated by Keaton and Allen's neighbor. Alda's character is Ted, a playwright secretly in love with Keaton's character Carol, but who eventually falls for Huston's character Marcia. From the fall season of 1993 until the show ended in 2005, Alda was the host for Scientific American Frontiers, which began on PBS in 1990. In 1995, he starred as the President of the United States in Michael Moore's political satire/comedy film "Canadian Bacon". Around this time, rumors circulated that Alda was considering running for the United States Senate in New Jersey, but he denied this. In 1996, Alda played Henry Ford in "Camping With Henry and Tom", based on the book by Mark St. Germain and Jerry Stiller in the comedy film "Flirting with Disaster". Beginning in 2004, Alda was a regular cast member on the NBC program "The West Wing", portraying Republican U.S. Senator and presidential candidate Arnold Vinick, until the show's conclusion in May 2006. He made his premiere in the sixth season's eighth episode, "In The Room," and was added to the opening credits with the thirteenth episode, "King Corn." In August 2006, Alda won an Emmy for his portrayal of Arnold Vinick in the final season of "The West Wing". Alda had been a serious candidate, along with Sidney Poitier, for the role of President Josiah Bartlet before Martin Sheen was ultimately cast in the role. In 2004, Alda portrayed conservative Maine Senator Owen Brewster in Martin Scorsese's Academy-Award winning film "The Aviator", in which he co-starred with Leonardo DiCaprio. Throughout his career, Alda has received 31 Emmy Award nominations and two Tony Award nominations, and has won seven People's Choice Awards, six Golden Globe Awards, and three Directors Guild of America awards. However, it was not until 2005, after a long acting career, that Alda received his first Academy Award nomination, for his role in "The Aviator". Alda also wrote several of the stories and poems that appeared in Marlo Thomas's television show "Free to Be... You and Me". Alda starred in the original Broadway production of the play Art, which opened on March 1, 1998, at the Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre. The play won the Tony Award for best original play. Alda also had a part in the 2000 romantic comedy "What Women Want", as the CEO of the advertising firm where the main characters worked. In the spring of 2005, Alda starred as Shelly Levene in the Tony Award-winning Broadway revival of David Mamet's "Glengarry Glen Ross", for which he received a Tony Award nomination for Best Featured Actor in a Play. Throughout 2009 and 2010, he appeared in three episodes of "30 Rock" as Milton Greene, the biological father of Jack Donaghy (Alec Baldwin). In January 2010, Alda hosted "The Human Spark," a three-part series originally broadcast on PBS discussing the nature of human uniqueness and recent studies on the human brain. In 2011, Alda was scheduled to guest star on "", portraying former police and naval officer John Winters, the father of the former main character . It is unknown whether he filmed his role before the series was redesigned and Rex Winters written off. After the release of the movie "Tower Heist", Alda was devastated when on December 7, 2011, he lost his idol and decades-long friend Harry Morgan on "M*A*S*H". Upon Morgan's death, Alda released a statement: "We had just a wonderful time reminiscing. That was the last time I saw Harry." Charitable work and other interests. Alda has done extensive charity work. He helped narrate a 2005 St. Jude's Children's Hospital produced one-hour special TV show "Fighting for Life". He and his wife, Arlene, are also close friends of Marlo Thomas, who is very active in fund-raising for the hospital her father founded. The special featured Ben Bowen as one of six patients being treated for childhood cancer at Saint Jude. Alda and Marlo Thomas had also worked together in the early 70s on a critically acclaimed children's album entitled "Free to Be You and Me", which featured Alda, Thomas and a number of other well-known character actors. This project remains one of the earliest public signs of his support of women's rights. In 2005, Alda published his first round of memoirs, "Never Have Your Dog Stuffed: and Other Things I've Learned". Among other stories, he recalls his intestines becoming strangulated while on location in La Serena, Chile for his PBS show "Scientific American Frontiers", during which he mildly surprised a young doctor with his understanding of medical procedures, which he had learned from "M*A*S*H". He also talks about his mother's battle with schizophrenia. The title comes from an incident in his childhood, when Alda was distraught about his dog dying and his well-meaning father had the animal stuffed. Alda was horrified by the results, and took from this that sometimes we have to accept things as they are, rather than desperately and fruitlessly trying to change them. In 2006, Alda contributed his voice to a part in the audio book of Max Brooks' "World War Z". In this book, he voiced Arthur Sinclair Jr., the director of the United States Government's fictional "Department of Strategic Resources (DeStRes)". His second memoir, "Things I Overheard While Talking to Myself", weaves together advice from public speeches he has given with personal recollections about his life and beliefs. Alda also has an avid interest in cosmology, and participated in BBC coverage of the opening of the Large Hadron Collider, at CERN, Geneva, in September 2008. After years of interviews, Alda helped inspire the creation of the Center for Communicating Science at Stony Brook University in 2009. He remains on the advisory board as of 2012. Alda has been a feminist activist for many years. He co-chaired, with former First Lady Betty Ford, the Equal Rights Amendment Countdown campaign. In 1976, "The Boston Globe" dubbed him "the quintessential Honorary Woman: a feminist icon" for his activism on behalf of the Equal Rights Amendment. Religious views. In "Things I Overheard While Talking to Myself", Alda describes how as a teen he was raised as a Roman Catholic and eventually he realized he had begun thinking like an agnostic or atheist: For a while in my teens, I was sure I had it. It was about getting to heaven. If heaven existed and lasted forever, then a mere lifetime spent scrupulously following orders was a small investment for an infinite payoff. One day, though, I realized I was no longer a believer, and realizing that, I couldn’t go back. Not that I lost the urge to pray. Occasionally, even after I stopped believing, I might send off a quick memo to the Master of the Universe, usually on a matter needing urgent attention, like Oh, God, don’t let us crash. These were automatic expulsions of words, brief SOS messages from the base of my brain. They were similar to the short prayers that were admired by the church in my Catholic boyhood, which they called “ejaculations.” I always liked the idea that you could shorten your time in purgatory with each ejaculation; what boy wouldn’t find that a comforting idea? But my effort to keep the plane in the air by talking to God didn’t mean I suddenly was overcome with belief, only that I was scared. Whether I’d wake up in heaven someday or not, whatever meaning I found would have to occur first on this end of eternity. Speaking further on agnosticism, Alda goes on to say:I still don't like the word agnostic. It's too fancy. I'm simply not a believer. But, as simple as this notion is, it confuses some people. Someone wrote a "Wikipedia" entry about me, identifying me as an atheist because I'd said in a book I wrote that I wasn't a believer. I guess in a world uncomfortable with uncertainty, an unbeliever must be an atheist, and possibly an infidel. This gets us back to that most pressing of human questions: why do people worry so much about other people's holding beliefs other than their own? Alda made these comments in an interview for the 2008 question section of the Edge Foundation website. Awards and nominations. Nominations
1062777	Alexandra Elizabeth "Ally" Sheedy (born June 13, 1962) is an American film and stage actress, as well as the author of two books. Following her film debut in 1983's "Bad Boys" she became known as one of the Brat Pack group of actors in the films "The Breakfast Club" and "St. Elmo's Fire". She is also known for her roles in "WarGames", "Short Circuit" and "High Art", for which she received critical acclaim. Early life. Sheedy was born in New York City and has two siblings, brother Patrick and sister Meghan. Her mother, Charlotte (née Baum), is a writer and press agent who was involved in women's and civil rights movements, and her father, John J. Sheedy, Jr., is a Manhattan advertising executive. Her mother is Jewish and her father is of Irish Catholic background. Her maternal grandmother was from Odessa. Her parents divorced in 1971. Sheedy attended Columbia Grammar and Preparatory School in New York City, graduating in 1980. She started dancing with the American Ballet Theatre at age six and was planning to make it a full-time career. However, she gave up dance in favor of acting full-time. At age 12 she wrote a children's book, "She Was Nice to Mice"; the book was published by McGraw-Hill and became a best-seller. On June 19, 1975, she appeared on the game show "To Tell the Truth" in her role as a young writer. Career. Sheedy started acting in local stage productions as a teenager. After appearing in several made-for-television films in 1981, as well as three episodes of the television series "Hill Street Blues", she made her feature film debut in "Bad Boys" (1983), starring Sean Penn, where she played Penn's humiliated girlfriend. The 1980s were her most active period, with roles in popular films such as "WarGames", "The Breakfast Club", "St. Elmo's Fire", "Short Circuit", and "Maid to Order". Throughout most of the 1990s, Sheedy appeared in a number of television films. Her most notable film performance during this time was in "High Art", a well-reviewed independent film released in 1998 about a romance between two women and the power of art. She identified with the character of photographer "Lucy Berliner" so much that she flew, at her own expense, to participate in an audition and has said that this character is the closest one to herself she has played. Her performance in "High Art" was recognized with awards from the Independent Spirit Awards, Los Angeles Film Critics Association, and National Society of Film Critics. In 1999, Sheedy took over the lead role in the off Broadway production of "Hedwig and the Angry Inch." She was the first female to play the part of the German transsexual "Hedwig," but her run ended early amid bad reviews. That same year, she was cast as a lead actress in "Sugar Town", an independent film, which featured an ensemble cast of actors and musicians. She was reunited with "Breakfast Club" co-star Anthony Michael Hall when she became a special guest star on his television show "The Dead Zone", in the second-season episode "Playing God," from 2003. Sheedy has also appeared in the episode "Leapin' Lizards" of "" in which she played a woman who murdered her boyfriend's wife while mixed up in a cult. On March 3, 2008, Sheedy was introduced as the character Sarah, in the ABC Family show "Kyle XY". In 2009, she played the role of Mr. Yang on the USA Network television show "Psych" (in the third season finale), a role that she reprised in the fourth season finale and fifth season finale. Personal life. Sheedy dated Bon Jovi guitarist Richie Sambora for less than a year in the 1980s. She stated in "The Los Angeles Times" that the relationship caused her drug abuse, a claim Sambora denied. In 1985, Sheedy was admitted to Hazelden Foundation and in the 1990s was treated for a sleeping pill addiction, an experience which she drew on for her role as a drug-addicted photographer in "High Art". On April 12, 1992, Sheedy married actor David Lansbury, the nephew of actress Angela Lansbury and son of Edgar Lansbury, the producer of the original production of "Godspell". The couple have a daughter, Rebecca, born in 1994. In May 2008, Sheedy announced that she and Lansbury had filed for divorce.
1017609	Fantasy Mission Force ()("Min ne te gong-dui") is a 1983 Hong Kong action-comedy film directed by Chu Yin-Ping and starring Jackie Chan (who got top billing) in a supporting role, Brigitte Lin, Jimmy Wang Yu. Although often marketed as a Jackie Chan film, Chan only appears in a few scenes. He reportedly starred in it as a favor for Jimmy Wang Yu, who sheltered him from the Triads earlier in his career. Despite low , the film has attained a small cult following, mainly due to its strange combination of film genres, a convoluted narrative and a deliberately anachronistic mix of plot elements. The film includes elements of a comedic style common in Hong Kong films known as "Mo lei tau." This comedic style (which is commonly, but not exclusively, associated with actor Stephen Chow) frequently involves non sequiturs and anachronistic gags similar to those found in "Fantasy Mission Force". A number of reviews consider "Fantasy Mission Force" a movie that is "so bad it's good." Plot. Nominally set during World War II, the film begins with a Japanese attack on an Allied military camp, which a map reveals to be somewhere in Canada. After four Allied Generals, including one who introduces himself as Abraham Lincoln, are taken hostage by the Japanese troops, Lieutenant Don Wen (Jimmy Wang Yu) is called in to organize a rescue effort (rejected candidates for the job include Roger Moore's James Bond, Snake Plissken, Rocky Balboa and Karl Maka from the Hong Kong film "Aces Go Places").
1164552	Jay Ferguson Cox Mohr (born Jon Ferguson Mohr; August 23, 1970) is an American actor, stand up comedian, and radio host. He is known for his role as Professor Rick Payne in the TV series "Ghost Whisperer", the title role in the CBS sitcom "Gary Unmarried", which ran from 2008 to 2010, as a featured player for two seasons on the long running sketch comedy show "Saturday Night Live", and the back-stabbing sports agent Bob Sugar in "Jerry Maguire". As of January 2, 2013, Mohr is the host of "Jay Mohr Sports", a daily midday sports radio talk show on Fox Sports Radio. Early life. Mohr was born in Verona, New Jersey. His mother, Jean (née Ferguson), is a nurse, and his father, Jon Wood Mohr, is a marketing executive. He has two sisters, Julia and Virginia. He is of Scottish and German ancestry. Mohr was raised Presbyterian, but he converted to Roman Catholicism. Career. Acting career. Mohr appeared as a featured player for the 1993-94 and 1994-95 seasons of "Saturday Night Live". His 2004 memoir, "" (ISBN 1-4013-0006-5), details this tumultuous period of his life, including his battle with chronic panic attacks. Though his potential was appreciated by "SNL" creator/producer Lorne Michaels, Mohr was impatient with his progression to full cast member, and left the show on bad terms. He has since reconciled with Michaels. Mohr had a recurring role in the first season of "The Jeff Foxworthy Show" as Jeff Foxworthy's brother, Wayne. Mohr's first major film role was in 1996 when he played the conniving Bob Sugar, a sleazy sports agent in "Jerry Maguire", followed in 1997 by a starring role in "Picture Perfect". In 1999, Mohr starred in the television series "Action", in which he played sleazy film producer Peter Dragon. He was also the voice-over artist for Fox Sports Net's "Beyond the Glory". Mohr has also appeared in movies such as "Suicide Kings", "Are We There Yet?", "Small Soldiers", "Go", "Pay It Forward", and "The Groomsmen". Mohr was offered a late night talk show job by Michael Eisner but he declined. Mohr managed to convince Eisner to let him host a talk show on ESPN entitled "Mohr Sports" which ran briefly in 2001 before being cancelled. The talk show job Mohr passed was then offered to Jimmy Kimmel and became "Jimmy Kimmel Live!". In 2003 and 2004, Mohr created, hosted, and was executive producer of NBC's "Last Comic Standing" reality television program. The show aired for three seasons, but was cancelled near the end of the third season due to poor ratings, only to be renewed later. Mohr was very vocal toward NBC concerning its cancellation and did not return for the show's fourth season in 2006. Mohr was replaced with new host Anthony Clark, but he is credited as a consultant. On the season finale of "Last Comic Standing 4", Jay performed as a guest comedian. He had a recurring role on the TV series "Ghost Whisperer", which had developed into a regular role. Mohr also appeared in an episode of the hit sitcom "Scrubs" - "My Own Private Practice Guy" in 2003 and in an episode of "The West Wing" in 2004. Parts of Mohr's stand up was featured in Comedy Central's animated series "Shorties Watchin' Shorties". Mohr starred as newly divorced dad Gary Brooks for two seasons on the CBS sitcom "Gary Unmarried". Paula Marshall played his ex-wife. In January 2010 he took the role as Billy in Clint Eastwood's thriller film "Hereafter". He also guest-starred on NBC's "Outlaw" in 2010. Radio. Mohr has contributed frequently to "The Jim Rome Show" and often guest-hosts the program. His nickname on the show is "Slam Man", and, more recently, the derisive "Weigh More" and "Ham Man," "Salami Man" and—when feeling particularly fancy -- "Prosciutto Man." Mohr finished in 7th place in the 2007 Smack-Off, 6th place in the 2008 Smack-Off, 10th place in the 2009 Smack-Off, 6th place in the 2010 Smack-Off, and 6th place in the 2011 Smack-Off. Jay is also known to do "drive-by" call-in's to the show to usually promote one of his stand-up shows or live events.
400641	Robert Ben Garant (born 14 September 1970) is an American actor, comedian, writer, director and producer. Life and career. Garant was born in Cookeville, Tennessee, and grew up in Farragut, Tennessee. He lived in New York City for several years and attended the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University. He currently resides in Los Angeles, California. He is known for his work on "Reno 911!", in which he plays Deputy Travis Junior, and for being a cast member on the MTV sketch comedy series "The State". Garant and writing partner Thomas Lennon have written several successful screenplays together, including the "Night at the Museum" films. Their films have earned over $1.4 billion in box office revenue alone. Garant and Lennon created and starred in a 2010 sitcom pilot for NBC called "The Strip". However, in May 2010 it was announced that NBC had decided not to order it as a series. Later in 2010, Garant and Lennon created a pilot for FX called "USS Alabama", a sci-fi/comedy set a thousand years in the future, aboard a United Nations Peacekeeping spaceship, the U.S.S. Alabama. In 2011, Garant and Lennon released a book about their careers called "Writing Movies for Fun and Profit: How We Made a Billion Dollars at The Box Office and You Can Too!"
1166240	Talia Balsam (born March 5, 1959) is an American TV and film actress. She is the daughter of film actor Martin Balsam and actress Joyce Van Patten. She is also the former spouse of George Clooney and the current wife of John Slattery. Biography. Early life. Balsam was born in New York City to actor Martin Balsam and actress Joyce Van Patten. She is the niece of actor Dick Van Patten and actress Pat Van Patten and half-niece of actor Timothy Van Patten. She is also the cousin of her uncle and aunt's sons, James Van Patten, Vincent Van Patten, and Nels Van Patten. She attended a boarding school in Tucson, Arizona in her adolescence years. She then attended the Treehaven School in the same city in Arizona in her young adult years, somewhere in her twenties'. Personal life. Balsam married actor George Clooney in Las Vegas in 1989. They were divorced in 1993. Clooney stated, "I probably – definitely – wasn't someone who should have been married at that point." Clooney told Vanity Fair, "I just don't feel like I gave Talia a fair shot.". Since 1998, Balsam has been married to John Slattery, with whom she has a son, Harry Slattery. They married at the county of Kauai. Together, they played husband and wife Roger and Mona Sterling in "Mad Men". Career. Filmography. "Note that this table is arranged by year.
581735	I Love New Year is a romantic comedy film directed by Radhika Rao and Vinay Sapru starring Sunny Deol and Kangana Ranaut. The film is produced by Bhushan Kumar and Krishan Kumar under the banner of Super Cassettes Industries Ltd. The planned release date of the film is December 30, 2013. The film is extensively shot in Mumbai, New York City and Bangkok. Synopsis. "I Love New Year" is an upcoming romantic comedy film starring Sunny Deol and Kangana Ranaut in the lead. It's a story on what happens between two people in a span of two days over the New Year's Eve. The movie follows two strangers, a beautiful musician (Kangana Ranaut) and a serious Wall Street banker (Sunny Deol), that have a chance encounter on New Year's Eve that the banker can't seem to remember and the events that come about as a result of the two meeting. Production. In 2011 directors Radhika Rao and Vinay Sapru announced their intent to begin work on "I Love New Year". The film originally had the working title of "Happy New Year", but had to change the title due to Shahrukh Khan who also was using the title for a film he was working on during the same time period. Actors Sunny Deol and Kangana Ranaut are starring in the film, with Ranaut stating that she trained over a month in order to gain the correct expressions and body language of a musician. Filming commenced in summer of 2011 at Filmalaya Studios in Mumbai, with the final scenes having to be filmed in New York City. The film was due to be released on 26 April 2013 this date was changed.
1055860	Unthinkable is a 2010 American suspense thriller film directed by Gregor Jordan and starring Samuel L. Jackson, Michael Sheen and Carrie-Anne Moss. It was released direct-to-video on June 14, 2010. The film is noteworthy for the controversy it generated around its subject matter, the torture of a man who threatens to detonate three nuclear bombs in separate U.S. cities. Plot. The film begins with an American Muslim man and former Delta Force operator named Yusuf (Sheen), formerly named Younger, making a videotape. When FBI Special Agent Helen Brody (Moss) and her team see news bulletins looking for Yusuf, they launch an investigation, which is curtailed when they are summoned to a high school, which has been converted into a black site under military command. They are shown Yusuf's complete tape, where he threatens to detonate three nuclear bombs in separate U.S. cities if his demands are not met. A special interrogator, "H" (Samuel L. Jackson), is brought in to force Yusuf to reveal the locations of the nuclear bombs. H quickly shows his capability and cruelty by chopping off one of Yusuf's fingers with a small hatchet. Horrified, Special Agent Brody attempts to put a stop to the measures. Her superiors make it clear that the potentially disastrous consequences necessitate these extreme measures. As the plot unfolds, H escalates his methods (with Brody as the "good cop"). Brody realizes that Yusuf anticipated that he would be tortured. Yusuf then makes his demands: he would like the President of the United States to announce a cessation of support for "puppet governments" and dictatorships in Muslim countries and a withdrawal of American troops from all Muslim countries. The group immediately dismisses the possibility of his demands being met, citing the United States' declared policy of not negotiating with terrorists. When Brody accuses Yusuf of faking the bomb threat in order to make a point about the moral character of the United States government, he breaks down and agrees that it was all a ruse. He gives her an address to prove it. They find a room that matches the scene in the video tape and find evidence on the roof. A soldier removes a picture from an electrical switch which triggers a tremendous C-4 explosion at a nearby shopping mall visible from the roof. The explosion kills 53 people. Angry at the senseless deaths, Brody returns to Yusef and cuts his chest with a scalpel. Yusuf is unafraid and demands she cut him. He justifies the deaths in the shopping mall, stating that the Americans kill that many people every day. Yusuf says he allowed himself to be caught so he could face his oppressors. H questions whether Yusef will reveal the bombs' location unless Yusuf's wife is found. When she is detained, H brings her in front of her husband and threatens to mutilate her in front of him. Brody and the others begin to take her away from the room in disgust. Out of desperation, H slashes her throat and she bleeds to death in front of Yusuf. Still without cooperation, H tells the soldiers to bring in Yusuf's two children, a young boy and a girl. Outside of Yusuf's hearing, he assures everyone that he will not harm the children. Yusef's children are brought in and H makes it clear that he will torture them if the locations of the bombs are not divulged. Yusuf breaks and gives three addresses (in New York, Los Angeles and Dallas), but H does not stop, forcing the others to intervene. Citing the amount of missing nuclear material Yusuf potentially had at his disposal (some 15–18 lbs. were reported missing, with about 4½ lbs. needed per device), H insists that Yusuf has not admitted anything about a hence-unreferenced "fourth" bomb. H points out that everything Yusuf has done so far has been planned meticulously. He knew the torture would most likely break him, and he would have been certain to plant a fourth bomb, just in case.
586641	Ab Tak Chhappan (English: "So Far Fifty Six ") is a 2004 Hindi crime film directed by Shimit Amin, written by Sandeep Srivastava, produced by Ram Gopal Varma, and starring Nana Patekar in the lead role. It also stars Revathi, Yashpal Sharma, Mohan Agashe, Nakul Vaid, and Hrishitaa Bhatt in supporting roles. The story revolves around Inspector Sadhu Agashe (Nana Patekar) from the Mumbai Encounter Squad famous for having killed 56 people in police encounters. It is inspired by the life of Police sub-Inspector with Mumbai Police force Daya Nayak. The film's themes of police morality and different introspections on the 'law' and 'justice' are similar to that of Antoine Fuqua's "Training Day", and many of the decisions and though processes of the character Sadhu Agashe are comparable to those of Alonzo Miller (played by Denzel Washington). In 2012 Ram Gopal Varma announced a sequel to the film, to be directed by Nana Patekar. Plot. The section of the Mumbai Police Department responsible for handling the underworld is headed by Sadhu Agashe (Nana Patekar). Sadhu is the city’s best inspector, with an enviable reputation and record of encounter shootings. Though tough, he is a loving husband to his wife (Revathi) and father and also helps his informers and other poor people in times of need. His immediate junior, Imtiyaz Siddiqui (Yashpal Sharma) despises Sadhu to no end; he feels Sadhu intentionally belittles him. Also Imtiyaz is more concerned about adding to his encounter score and therefore ends up killing more than the primary target which is the main reason Sadhu dislikes him. To add to his woes, Imtiyaz is unable to surpass Sadhu’s encounter "score". Enter Jatin (Nakul Vaid), a rookie to this line of policing who manages to impress Sadhu. The inspector takes the newcomer under his wing, further antagonising Imtiyaz. All of them report to the Commissioner Pradhan (Mohan Agashe) who is a fair and honest police officer. During these events, Sadhu establishes a love-hate friendship on the phone with Zameer (Prasad Purandare), a notorious underworld leader based abroad, who grudgingly admires Sadhu for his no-nonsense attitude. Zameer and rival don, Rajashekhar run the Mumbai underworld. Sadhu Agashe’s world begins to turn upside down as Pradhan retires and with the entrance of the new commissioner, Suchek (Jeeva) who has a strong link to the Don, Rajashekhar. Suchek takes a liking towards Imtiyaz who is willing to do encounters primarily of Zameer's men mainly on Rajashekhar's orders. Suchek starts undermining and belittling Sadhu. Sadhu continues on his honest path. Eventually, the pressures of his career take a toll on his personal life as some men kill his wife. During his personal investigation into this matter, Sadhu kills Feroz, right-hand man of Rajashekhar. Sadhu is compelled to resign from the force and Suchek (on Rajashekhar's orders) sends Imtiyaz to kill Sadhu. Sadhu manages to kill him and in a peculiar chain of events, Sadhu Agashe, a once famed inspector, becomes a fugitive of the law. Suchek announces shoot at sight orders against Sadhu despite Pradhan's advice to the contrary and Sadhu is forced to ask Zameer for help in escaping from India. Meanwhile Jatin, who has been growing increasingly disenchanted by Suchek's behaviour, resigns and calls for a press conference and exposes Suchek's connection to Rajashekhar. Suchek disputes this but is suspended pending investigation. Sadhu goes to Zameer's HQ and thanks him for releasing him and tells him that he is now Zameer's man. As Zameer and Sadhu are drinking alone celebrating this, Sadhu breaks a glass and uses the sharp edge to kill Zameer and escape. Then the scene rolls forward to a location abroad where Sadhu and Pradhan are having coffee. When Pradhan asks Sadhu about why he has run away thereby proving the allegations against him, Sadhu tells him that it is part of his plan. He was able to kill Zameer as a fugitive which he never could have as a cop. He says that he will now go to Rajashekhar since Rajashekhar is thrilled at Zameer's death and kill him too. Sadhu says that he doesn't care what the world thinks of him and he will always be a cop and will continue his work of eliminating crime until he dies. He requests Pradhan to look after his son who is with his aunt in Pune and Pradhan contemplatively agrees. The end credits roll as Sadhu gets up and walks off after saying good bye to Pradhan. Sequel. After several difference between the original director and the producer RGV, the director walked out of the project. Then Sahil Saple was chosen in his place, but the film is now going to be directed by Aejaz Gulab.
1044091	Follow That Camel is the fourteenth in the series of "Carry On" films to be made, released in 1967. Like its predecessor "Don't Lose Your Head", it does not have the words "Carry On" in its original title (although for screenings outside the United Kingdom it was known as "Carry On In The Legion", and is alternatively titled "Carry On ... Follow That Camel"). It parodies the much-filmed 1924 book "Beau Geste", by P. C. Wren, and other French Foreign Legion films. This film was producer Peter Rogers's attempt to break into the American market; Phil Silvers (in his only Carry On) is heavily featured in a Sergeant Bilko-esque role. He appears alongside Carry On regulars Kenneth Williams, Jim Dale, Charles Hawtrey, Joan Sims, Peter Butterworth and Bernard Bresslaw. Angela Douglas makes the third of her four "Carry On" appearances. Anita Harris makes the first of her two "Carry On" appearances. Plot. His reputation brought into disrepute by Captain Bagshaw, a competitor for the affections of Lady Jane Ponsonby, Bertram Oliphant West a.k.a. "Bo" decides to leave England and join the French Foreign Legion, followed by his faithful manservant Simpson. Originally mistaken for enemy combatants at Sidi Bel Abbès, the pair eventually enlist and are helped in surviving Legion life by Sergeant Knocker, although only after they discover that when he is "on patrol" he is actually at the local cafe with the female owner, ZigZig. Meanwhile Lady Jane, having learnt that Bo was really innocent, heads out to the Sahara to bring him back to England. Along the way she meets Sheikh Abdul Abulbul and ends up becoming a part of his harem and planned 13th wife. Knocker and Bo are kidnapped by Abulbul after being lured to the home of a belly dancer. Simpson follows them to the Oasis El Nooki but is also captured. After entering Abulbul’s harem and discovering Lady Jane, Bo and Simpson give themselves up while Knocker escapes (or rather is allowed to by Abulbul) back to Sidi Bel Abbes to warn Commandant Burger of Abulbul’s plans to attack Fort Zuassantneuf. However during this time ZigZig has told the Commandant about Knocker's true destination when on patrol and therefore upon his return his story is not believed. It is only when Knocker mentions Lady Jane (the Commandant was previously her fencing teacher and they met again while she was looking for Bo) that they realise he was telling the truth and the Commandant organises a force to head to the fort. Along the way they discover Bo and Simpson staked to the ground at the now abandoned oasis. The force marches on towards the Fort but heat, lack of water and a sand castle building competition gone wrong decimates the force to a handful. The remaining members reach the Fort to find that they are too late; the attack has already occurred and the stationed garrison wiped out. After learning that Abulbul's celebration of the successful attack includes marrying Lady Jane, Bo, Burger, Knocker and Simpson rescue her from his tent, leaving Simpson behind dressed as a decoy. When Abulbul discovers the deception he chases Simpson back to the fort where, through the imaginative use of gum arabic, coconuts, gunpowder and a cricket bat, the group holds off Abulbul’s army until a relief force arrives. Back in England the group reunites for a game of cricket. Bo is batting but when he hits the ball it explodes. The bowler is then shown to be Abulbul who exclaims "Howzat!" to which Bo, with a broken bat and burnt clothes, responds "Not out!" Filming. Location work was shot during the early months of 1967 when scenes set in the Saharan Desert were filmed at Camber Sands near Rye, in East Sussex, England. Shooting had to be halted several times because there was snow on the sands. Some of the elaborate town sets were reused the year after in the production of "Carry On Up The Khyber". Dates and locations. Interiors: Exteriors: Production notes. The character named "Corktip" is a parody of "Cigarette" in the 1936 film "Under Two Flags", a movie about the French Foreign Legion in the Sahara desert. The name refers to cigarettes, such as the Craven A brand, which had a cork tip. Phil Silvers was paid a great deal more than any other cast member, which provoked a great deal of animosity among the regular "Carry On" team. Despite Talbot Rothwell writing in January 1967 that the part "simply yells for Phil Silvers all the way along. I just can't get this Bilko image out of my mind", the central role of the fast-talking Foreign Legion Sergeant had originally been earmarked for Sid James. However, with a commitment to the ITV sitcom "George and the Dragon", Sid's part was recast. Sid suffered a heart attack on 13 May 1967, less than two weeks into the filming schedule. The song used by Bo and the others to trick Abdul into thinking there are reinforcements coming is "Durch die grüne Heide", a marching song used by the German Army during World War II.
774958	Daniel Joshua Kash (born April 25, 1959) is a Canadian actor and film director. Life and career. Kash was born in Montreal, Quebec, the son of Canadian opera singer Maureen Forrester and Toronto-born violinist and conductor Eugene Kash (May 1, 1912March 6, 2004). He is the brother of actress Linda Kash. His father's family was Jewish, while his mother converted to Judaism. He studied acting at the Drama Centre in London, England, and has appeared in both film and television. His first film role was Private Spunkmeyer in "Aliens" (1986). He has also directed three short films: "Germgirl", "Flip Phone" and "For Lease" (released in 2007). Filmography. Kash has appeared in the films ', ' (as Axel Turner), "The Hunt for the BTK Killer", "Crown Heights", "Gross Misconduct", "Mr. Rock 'n' Roll: The Alan Freed Story", "The Path to 9/11" and "The Last Days of Patton". He has appeared in the TV series "Nikita", "The Event", "The Line", "A Taste of Shakespeare", "Relic Hunter", "Goosebumps", "Due South", "Law & Order", "", "Street Legal", "The Hitchhiker", "Lifetime's MISSING," "Angela's Eyes, "and "Orphan Black". Personal life. Kash resides in Toronto, Ontario and Los Angeles, California with his wife and their two sons.
1060907	Dominick "Dom" DeLuise (August 1, 1933 – May 4, 2009) was an American actor, comedian, film director, television producer, chef, and author. He was the husband of actress Carol Arthur from 1965 until his death and the father of actor, director, pianist, and writer Peter DeLuise, actor David DeLuise, and actor Michael DeLuise. He starred in a number of movies directed by Mel Brooks, in a series of films with career-long best friend Burt Reynolds, and as a voice actor in various animated films by Don Bluth. Early life. DeLuise was born in Brooklyn, New York, to Italian American parents Vincenza "Jennie" (née DeStefano), a homemaker, and John DeLuise, a public employee (garbage collector). He was the youngest of three children, having an older brother, Nicholas "Nick" DeLuise, and an older sister, Antoinette DeLuise-Daurio. DeLuise graduated from Manhattan's High School of Performing Arts and later attended Tufts University in Medford, Massachusetts. DeLuise was Roman Catholic and had a particular affinity for the Virgin Mary. Career. In 1961 DeLuise played in the Off Broadway musical revue "Another Evening with Harry Stoons" that lasted nine previews and one performance. Another member of the cast was 19 year old Barbra Streisand. DeLuise generally appeared in comedic parts, although an early appearance in the movie "Fail-Safe" as a nervous USAF technical sergeant showed a possible broader range. His first acting credit was as a regular performer in the television show "The Entertainers" in 1964. He gained early notice for his supporting turn in the Doris Day film "The Glass Bottom Boat" (1966). In his "New York Times" review, Vincent Canby panned the film but singled out the actor, stating, "he best of the lot, however, is a newcomer, Dom DeLuise, as a portly, bird-brained spy." In the 1970s and '80s he often co-starred with Burt Reynolds. Together they appeared in the films "The Cannonball Run" and "Cannonball Run II", "Smokey and the Bandit II", "The End", "All Dogs Go to Heaven" and "The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas". DeLuise was the host of the television show "Candid Camera" from 1991-92. DeLuise also lent his distinct voice to various animated films and was a particular staple of Don Bluth's features, playing major roles in "The Secret of NIMH", "An American Tail", "A Troll in Central Park" and "All Dogs Go to Heaven". "All Dogs Go to Heaven" also featured Reynolds' voice as Charlie B. Barkin, the at-first reluctant hero, and DeLuise voiced Itchy Itchiford, Charlie's best friend, sidekick and later partner in business. Unlike DeLuise, however, Reynolds did not voice Charlie in any of the eventual film sequels, TV episodes, TV-episode sequels, or TV series. DeLuise also voiced the legendary character of Charles Dickens' Fagin in the Walt Disney film "Oliver & Company" and made voice guest appearances on several animated TV series. TV producer Greg Garrison hired DeLuise to appear as a specialty act on "The Dean Martin Show". DeLuise ran through his "Dominick the Great" routine, a riotous example of a magic act gone wrong, with host Martin as a bemused volunteer from the audience. Dom's catch phrase, with an Italian accent, was ""No Applause Please, Save-a to the End."" The show went so well that DeLuise was soon a regular on Martin's program, participating in both songs and sketches. Garrison also featured DeLuise in his own hour-long comedy specials for ABC. (Martin was often just off-camera when these were taped, and his distinctive laugh can be heard loud and clear.) DeLuise was probably best known as a regular in Mel Brooks' films. He appeared in "The Twelve Chairs", "Blazing Saddles", "Silent Movie", "History of the World, Part I", "Spaceballs", and "". Brooks' late wife, actress Anne Bancroft, directed Dom in "Fatso" (1980). He also had a cameo in "Johnny Dangerously" as the Pope and in Jim Henson's "The Muppet Movie" as a wayward Hollywood talent agent who comes across Kermit the Frog singing "The Rainbow Connection" in the film's opening scene. He also appeared with fellow Brooks regulars Gene Wilder (who directed the film as well), Marty Feldman, and Madeline Kahn in "The Adventure of Sherlock Holmes' Smarter Brother", as well as alongside Wilder and Gilda Radner in a later Gene Wilder-directed film, "Haunted Honeymoon". He also appeared in "Stargate SG-1" as Urgo. DeLuise exhibited his comedic talents while playing the speaking part of the jailer Frosch in the comedic operetta "Die Fledermaus" at the Metropolitan Opera, playing the role in four separate revivals of the work at the Met between December 1989 and January 1996. In the production, while the singing was in German, the spoken parts were in English. A lifelong opera fan, he also portrayed the role of L'Opinion Publique in drag for the Los Angeles Opera's production of Offenbach's "Orpheus in the Underworld". An avid cook and author of several books on cooking, he appeared as a regular contributor to a syndicated home improvement radio show, "On The House with The Carey Brothers", giving listeners tips on culinary topics. He was also a friend and self-proclaimed "look-alike" of famous Cajun chef Paul Prudhomme and author of seven children's books. Personal life. In 1964, while working in summer theater in Provincetown, Massachusetts, Dom met his wife, actress Carol Arthur. Death. DeLuise died on May 4, 2009, at Saint John's Health Center in Santa Monica, California. He was hospitalized at the time, suffering from kidney failure and respiratory problems due to complications from diabetes and high blood pressure. He suffered from cancer for more than a year prior to his death. His family was by his side at the time of his death. His good friend Burt Reynolds made a statement to the "Los Angeles Times", saying: "As you get older and start to lose people you love, you think about it more, and I was dreading this moment. Dom always made you feel better when he was around, and there will never be another like him." Mel Brooks also made a statement to the same paper, telling them that DeLuise "created so much joy and laughter on the set that you couldn’t get your work done. So every time I made a movie with Dom, I would plan another two days on the schedule just for laughter. It's a sad day. It's hard to think of this life and this world without him."
1038246	David Mark Morrissey (born 21 June 1964) is an English actor and film director. Born in Liverpool, Morrissey grew up in the Kensington and Knotty Ash areas of the city, and learned to act at the city's Everyman Youth Theatre. At the age of 18, he was cast in the television series "One Summer" (1983), which won him recognition throughout the country. After making "One Summer", Morrissey attended the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, then acted with the Royal Shakespeare Company and the National Theatre for four years. Throughout the 1990s, he often portrayed policemen and soldiers, though he took other defining roles such as Bradley Headstone in "Our Mutual Friend" (1998) and Christopher Finzi in "Hilary and Jackie" (1998). More film parts followed, including roles in "Some Voices" (2000) and "Captain Corelli's Mandolin" (2001), before he played the critically acclaimed roles of Stephen Collins in "State of Play" (2003) and Gordon Brown in "The Deal" (2003). The former earned him a Best Actor nomination at the British Academy Television Awards and the latter won him a Best Actor award from the Royal Television Society. In the years following those films, he has had leading roles in "Sense and Sensibility" (2008), "Red Riding" (2009), "Nowhere Boy" (2009) and "Centurion" (2010), and produced and starred in the crime drama "Thorne" (2010). He returned to the stage in 2008 for a run of Neil LaBute's "In a Dark Dark House" and played the title role in the Liverpool Everyman's production of "Macbeth" in 2011. He then starred in the British crime film "Blitz", playing a morally dubious reporter in contact with the eponymous cop killer. The following year, he signed on for the role of The Governor in the third season of the AMC television series "The Walking Dead", which is likely his most well-known part in the United States. As a director, David Morrissey has helmed short films and the television dramas "Sweet Revenge" (2001) and "Passer By" (2004). His feature debut, "Don't Worry About Me", premiered at the 2009 London Film Festival and was broadcast on BBC television in March 2010. The British Film Institute describes Morrissey as being considered "one of the most versatile British actors of his generation", and he is noted for his meticulous preparation for and research into the roles he plays. Early life. Morrissey was born in Liverpool, the son of Joe, a cobbler, and Joan, who worked for Littlewoods. He was their fourth child, following brothers Tony and Paul, and sister Karen Lane. The family lived at 45 Seldon Street, in the Kensington district of Liverpool. For National Museums Liverpool's Eight Hundred Lives project, Morrissey wrote that the house had been in his family since around the turn of the 20th century. His grandmother had been married there and his mother was born there. In 1971, the family moved to a larger, modern house on the new estates at Knotty Ash, and Seldon Street was later demolished. As a child, Morrissey was greatly interested in film, television, and Gene Kelly musicals. After seeing a broadcast of "Kes" on television, he decided to become an actor. At his primary school, St Margaret Mary's School, he was encouraged by a teacher named Miss Keller, who cast him as the Scarecrow in a school production adapted from "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz" when he was 11 years old. Keller left the school soon after, leaving Morrissey without encouragement. His secondary school, De La Salle School, had no drama classes and was the sort of place where Morrissey thought the fear of bullying dissuaded pupils from participating in lessons. On the advice of a cousin, Morrissey joined the Everyman Youth Theatre. For the first couple of weeks, he was quite shy and did not join in the workshops. When he eventually participated, he appeared in the youth theatre's production of "Fighting Chance", a play about the riots in Liverpool. He went to the theatre on Tuesday and Wednesday nights. By the age of 14, Morrissey was one of two youth theatre members who sat on the board of the Everyman Theatre. Ian Hart, with whom he had been friends since the age of five, was one of his contemporaries, as were Mark and Stephen McGann and Cathy Tyson. Morrissey became friends with the McGann brothers, who introduced him to their brother Paul when Paul was on a break from studies at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA). When Morrissey was 15 years old, his father developed a terminal blood disorder. He was ill for some time and eventually died of a haemorrhage at the age of 54 in the family home. After leaving school at the age of 16, Morrissey joined a Wolverhampton theatre company, where he worked on sets and costumes. Acting career. "One Summer" and RADA. In 1982, Morrissey auditioned for "One Summer", a television series by Willy Russell for Yorkshire Television and Channel 4 about two Liverpool boys who run away to Wales one summer. Russell had been attached to the Everyman for many years, and Morrissey had seen him while he was working behind the bar downstairs from the theatre, though the two had never been introduced. Morrissey went to at least eight auditions, and in one read for the part of Icky opposite Paul McGann, who was reading for Billy. McGann, five years older than Morrissey, believed that he was too old to be playing the part of 16-year-old Billy, and stepped back from the production, leaving the role to go to Morrissey. Spencer Leigh got the part of Icky and Ian Hart played the supporting role of Rabbit. Russell had a professional disagreement with the director Gordon Flemyng and producer Keith Richardson over the casting of 18-year-old Morrissey and Leigh; he believed that the sympathy of 16-year-olds running away was lost by casting older actors. Russell subsequently had his name removed from the credits of the original broadcast. After filming "One Summer" for five months, Morrissey went travelling in Kenya with his cousins. When he returned to Britain, "One Summer" was being broadcast, and he dealt with the new experience of being recognised in public. Morrissey had planned to study at RADA in London, but his colleagues at the Everyman encouraged him not to as he already had his Equity card. His "One Summer" co-star James Hazeldine convinced him otherwise, and he went to London for a year. He became homesick while there and did not enjoy the way RADA was turning him into a "bland actor". On a visit back to Liverpool he told Paul McGann's mother that he was considering leaving the college. Back in London, McGann met with him and reassured him that he had been through the same homesickness phase when he first went to RADA. Morrissey continued his studies at RADA and graduated on 1 December 1985. Theatre and early television work. After a year at RADA, Morrissey went back to Liverpool to perform in "WCPC" at the Liverpool Playhouse. He then did "Le Cid" and "Twelfth Night" with Cheek by Jowl, and spent two years with the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC), principally with director Deborah Warner for whom he played the Bastard in "King John" in 1988. He saw the role as a learning opportunity, as he had often wondered at RADA if he would ever have the chance to act in classical theatre. His performance has been described as "the most contentious characterisation of the production"; he received negative critical reaction from "Daily Telegraph" and "Independent" critics, but a positive opinion from the "Financial Times". In "The Guardian", Nicholas de Jongh wrote, "The Bastard, who has the most complex syntax in early Shakespeare, half defeats David Morrissey. His slurred, sometimes unintelligible diction helps to deflate the Bastard, but his bawling rhetoric strikes as mere sham rather than fierce plain speaking." Morrissey also spent time with the National, where he played the title role in "Peer Gynt" (Declan Donnellan, 1990). Michael Billington praised the unkempt energy of his performance. During this time, he lived on the housing estate in White City, where he and his flatmates were the frequent victims of burglars. Morrissey's second television role came in 1987 when he played the 18-year old chauffeur George Bowman, whose obsession with his employer and lover Alma Rattenbury (Helen Mirren) leads him to murder her husband, in an Anglia Television adaptation of Terence Rattigan's play "Cause Célèbre". At the end of the 1980s, Morrissey met director John Madden for the first time. Madden was looking for an actor who could portray an ordinary man who turns out to be a mass murderer, in his film "The Widowmaker" (1990). He knew Morrissey was right for the part in his first audition. The next year, Morrissey appeared as Theseus in an episode of "The Storyteller" directed by Madden ("Theseus and the Minotaur", 1991), and as Little John in "Robin Hood" (John Irvin, 1991). "Robin Hood"s cinema release clashed with that of "" (Kevin Reynolds, 1991). The latter, starring Kevin Costner in the title role, was a box office hit and left the Irvin version forgotten. Morrissey was out of work in film and television for eight months after it was released. Eventually, he was cast in a leading role as a CID officer in the BBC television drama "Clubland" (Laura Sims, 1991). He almost lost the role a week into rehearsals when his appendix ruptured. In order to keep the part, and a flat in Crouch End he had just bought, Morrissey performed while still in stitches. At this early stage in his career, he tried to avoid being typecast as policemen and soldiers on television, but his role in "The Widowmaker" lead to him being offered and taking many obsessive character roles; he played police officers in "Black and Blue", "Framed", "Between the Lines" and "Out of the Blue", and soldier Andy McNab in "The One That Got Away" (Paul Greengrass, 1996). Morrissey first met screenwriter Peter Bowker when he played Detective Sergeant Jim Llewyn in the second series of Bowker's "Out of the Blue". In 1994, he played customs officer Gerry Birch in the first series of "The Knock", and Stephen Finney in the six-part ITV series "Finney". In "Finney", Morrissey assumed the role originated by Sting in "Stormy Monday" (Mike Figgis, 1988). He was the first choice for the part and had to learn to play the double bass. Leading roles in the 1990s. As the 1990s moved on, Morrissey began to assert himself as a leading actor. He made his first appearance in a Tony Marchant drama playing Michael Ride in "Into the Fire" (1996), and the following year played the lead role of Shaun Southerns in Marchant's BBC series "Holding On" (Adrian Shergold, 1997). Southerns, a crooked tax inspector, was the first of many "men in turmoil" roles for Morrissey, and it earned him a nomination for the Royal Television Society (RTS) Programme Award for Best Male Actor the next year. In 1998, he appeared in "Our Mutual Friend" alongside Paul McGann. As he was a fan of the book, Morrissey asked director Julian Farino if he could play Eugene Wrayburn, but the role went to McGann. Farino had Morrissey in mind to play schoolmaster Bradley Headstone, a part Morrissey was reluctant to take until he read the script. He studied the role and decided to take it on the basis that the character was unloved and that his motivation by social class causes his mental health problems. His performance was described by a "Guardian" writer as bringing "unprecedented depth to a character [...] who is more commonly portrayed as just another horrible Dickens git." In the same year, he played Christopher "Kiffer" Finzi in Anand Tucker's "Hilary and Jackie". His roles in "Our Mutual Friend" and "Hilary and Jackie" were described as his breakthrough roles by Zoe Williams of "The Guardian". In 1999, Morrissey returned to the theatre for the first and last time in nine years to play Pip and Theo in "Three Days of Rain" (Robin Lefevre, Donmar Warehouse). He continued to take in offers for stage roles, but turned them down because he did not want to be away from his family for long periods. Writing in "Time Out", Jane Edwardes suggested that his role as Kiffer in "Hilary and Jackie" had inspired his casting as Pip in "Three Days of Rain" as the characters have similarities with each other. Morrissey was attracted to the role because the play began with a long speech and the cast and crew had only two weeks' rehearsal time. Next, he starred with Daniel Craig and Kelly Macdonald in "Some Voices" (Simon Cellan Jones, 2000) playing Pete, the brother of schizophrenic Ray (Craig). Morrissey researched the character of Pete, a chef, by shadowing the head chef at the Terrace Restaurant in Kensington, London and chopping vegetables in the kitchen for two hours a day. An "Independent" critic called him "an instinctive actor who can use his whole body to convey an inner turbulence". For his next film role as Nazi Captain Weber in "Captain Corelli's Mandolin" (John Madden, 2001), Morrissey researched the Hitler Youth and read Gitta Sereny's biography of Albert Speer, "Albert Speer: His Battle with Truth". Like for all of his roles, Morrissey created an extensive back story for Weber to build up the character. Morrissey returned to television in 2002 playing Franny Rothwell, a factory canteen worker who wants to adopt his dead sister's son, in an episode of Paul Abbott's "Clocking Off". His performance was described as characteristically powerful in "The Independent". He also played tabloid journalist Dave Dewston in the four-part BBC serial "Murder", and prison officer Mike in the part-improvised single drama "Out of Control". He researched the latter part by shadowing prison officers in a young offenders' institution for a week. At the beginning of 2003, he played the role of Richie MacGregor in "This Little Life", a television drama about a mother (played by Kate Ashfield) who has to cope with her 16-week-premature baby. Though Morrissey's character, the husband and father, was not the focus of the film, he researched premature births by speaking to paediatricians at the Royal Free Hospital in Hampstead. Critical success in dramatic roles. Morrissey's next major leading role was as Member of Parliament (MP) Stephen Collins in Paul Abbott's BBC serial "State of Play" (David Yates, 2003). Morrissey received the scripts for the first three episodes and was keen to read the last three. They had not been completed when he originally requested them but Abbott told him how Collins' story concludes. Unsure how to approach the role, Morrissey was advised by his friend, director Paul Greengrass, to get Collins' job as politician right. Morrissey contacted "State of Play" producer Hilary Bevan Jones, who set up meetings between Morrissey and select committee members Kevin Barron and Fabian Hamilton. Both politicians educated Morrissey on how difficult it is to commute to London from a constituency outside the capital. Morrissey was also able to shadow Peter Mandelson around the House of Commons for a fortnight. He questioned Mandelson about his job as a cabinet minister but did not ask about his personal life. Mandelson told him about how politics can quickly "seduce" MPs who have worked hard to get into Parliament. That same year, he played Gordon Brown in Peter Morgan's single drama "The Deal" (Stephen Frears, 2003), about a pact made between Brown and Tony Blair (Michael Sheen) in 1994. Unlike his research for the fictional "State of Play", Morrissey discovered that no politicians wanted to talk to him for this fact-based drama, so he turned to journalists Jon Snow and Simon Hoggart. He also travelled to Brown's hometown of Kirkcaldy and immersed himself in numerous biographies of the man, including Ross Wilson's documentary films on New Labour in the year surrounding the 1997 election. When speaking to many of Brown's friends to gain insight into his "private persona", Morrissey discovered that Brown was funny, approachable and charming, which were characteristics he did not see in his "public persona". To look like Brown, Morrissey had his hair dyed and permed, and put on 2 stone (28 lb/13 kg) in body weight in six weeks. The director Stephen Frears originally wanted to cast a Scottish actor as Brown but was persuaded by other production staff to cast Morrissey. His acting in "State of Play" and "The Deal" won him considerable acclaim; he was nominated for the British Academy Television Award for Best Actor for his role as Collins but lost to his co-star Bill Nighy. His performance in "The Deal" was acclaimed by Charlie Whelan, Gordon Brown's former spin doctor, and Tim Allan, a deputy press secretary of Tony Blair. A BBC News Online writer praised Morrissey's grasp of Brown's physical tics in a review that criticised the rest of the film. Morrissey's performance won the RTS Programme Award for Best Male Actor the next year, this time beating Nighy. The RTS jury wrote of Morrissey, "The strength of this performance brought to the screen, and to life, all of the characteristics and traits of the man he portrayed in a way that was both credible and convincing." In 2009, Morrissey declined the opportunity to play Brown again in "The Special Relationship", Morgan's third Blair film, as he did not want to get into the mindset of playing Brown for just one scene. Morrissey was eager to play a comic role after starring in these dramas. He subsequently reunited with Peter Bowker for the BBC One musical serial "Blackpool", in which he plays Blackpool arcade owner Ripley Holden. Bowker remembered Morrissey from "Out of the Blue" and wanted to build off the actor's sense of humour and to cast him against type. Before filming began, Morrissey spent four days in Blackpool talking to the locals and finding out how the arcades worked. His performance was described in the "Daily Telegraph" as "a powerful mixture of barely suppressed danger and vulnerable, boyish charm." A public poll on bbc.co.uk ranked him the second best actor of 2004. Morrissey reprised the role in 2006 in the one-off sequel "Viva Blackpool!". He was pleased to revive Ripley after filming dramatic roles since the original serial. Mainstream films and period roles. The following years saw Morrissey cast in two high-profile feature films; while filming the Brian Jones biopic "Stoned" (Stephen Woolley, 2005), he got an audition for psychiatrist Dr Michael Glass, the male lead in "Basic Instinct 2" (Michael Caton-Jones, 2006). He was flown out to Los Angeles for a one-hour screen test with Sharon Stone. Their immediate rapport led to the screen test being extended by another hour and Morrissey's casting in the role. Morrissey had enjoyed the first film and liked the script for the sequel. He read up on psychiatry and worked out in a gym for the nudity scenes. The film was a box office and critical failure. The "Washington Post" criticised the film's focus on Morrissey's character and called the actor "overmatched by Stone" and "a sad sack", and the "Seattle Post-Intelligencer" called him "a charisma-challenged non-entity". The same "Washington Post" critic later wrote in the "Los Angeles Times" that because Morrissey was not a film star, the chemistry between him and Stone had been spoiled. Nathan Rabin of "The A.V. Club" wrote that Morrissey had "the charisma of beige wallpaper" and that "the producers could have replaced him halfway through shooting with a handsome mahogany coat rack and nobody would be able to tell the difference". The bad reviews depressed Morrissey, and he briefly considered giving up acting, but instead saw the role as a chance to learn. Immediately after filming "Basic Instinct 2", he began work on "The Reaping" (Stephen Hopkins, 2007) in Louisiana, in which he played science teacher Doug Blackwell opposite Hilary Swank. The role had been offered to him quite late in pre-production, and he flew to Baton Rouge the Monday after "Basic Instinct 2" wrapped. He took the role because he was a fan of Swank, and Hopkins' film "The Life and Death of Peter Sellers" (2004), and he preferred the thriller aspect of the "Reaping" script above the horror aspect. After a week of filming, production had to be suspended when Hurricane Katrina hit the state. He found the filming schedule quite demanding, particularly the three weeks of night filming and a scene in which his character is attacked by a plague of locusts, most of which were computer-generated in post-production but some were real on camera. "The Reaping" was released in 2007 and performed badly in cinemas. Despite the failures of both films, Morrissey was grateful that they opened him up to more film offers from Hollywood. In March 2006, Morrissey filmed a role in "" (Jay Russell, 2007) in New Zealand. While there, he was offered the role of father Danny Brogan in "Cape Wrath", an Ecosse Films series about a family being moved on a witness protection scheme to a mysterious village. He signed on to the seven-part series in September 2006 and filmed the series until the end of the year. He relished working on the character's back story as it confounded the expectations of both him and the audience. The series was broadcast in Britain and America in 2007. The following year, he played the part of Colonel Brandon in Andrew Davies' serial "Sense and Sensibility". When he first got the script in 2007, he was unsure if British television needed another Jane Austen adaptation but he took the role when he saw how Davies had given more screen time to the male characters than they get in the 1995 film adaptation. He also appeared as Thomas Howard, Duke of Norfolk in "The Other Boleyn Girl" (Justin Chadwick, 2008). He compared Norfolk to bassist Lemmy from Motörhead and researched the role by reading history books and literature from the 16th century. Stage return, "Doctor Who", crime dramas. From November 2008 to January 2009, Morrissey returned to the theatre for the first time in nine years to appear in the Almeida Theatre's British premiere of Neil LaBute's "In a Dark Dark House". He played Terry, one of two brothers who had been abused as a child, opposite Steven Mackintosh and Kira Sternbach. He took the role because he liked LaBute's previous play, "The Mercy Seat" (2002). After accepting the part, he researched the character by reading case studies of adults who were abused when they were children. He learned about how they coped with the shame of their abuse, and incorporated those feelings into his acting. He was also able to consult LaBute during rehearsals but avoided asking him exactly how to play Terry. In a "Daily Telegraph" review that criticised the play, Charles Spencer wrote that Morrissey's was the best performance "as the blue-collar older brother who reveals extraordinary depths of grief, damage and forgiveness that finally light up this dark, flawed play." Benedict Nightingale of "The Times" initially believed that Morrissey's acting was "a bit stiff, almost as if he was waiting for his cues rather than reacting instantaneously to their content" but found him more impressive as the play went on. In December 2008 he appeared alongside his "Blackpool" co-star David Tennant in "The Next Doctor", the 2008 Christmas special of "Doctor Who", playing Jackson Lake—a man who believes he is the Doctor after his mind is affected by alien technology. Morrissey had been asked to appear in the series before but had to turn down the offers due to other commitments. He approached the character like any other dramatic part, and was influenced in his performance by previous Doctor actors William Hartnell, Patrick Troughton and Tom Baker. Secrecy surrounded the exact details of Morrissey's role in the episode; until the day of broadcast his character was referred to only as "the other Doctor". This prompted media speculation that Morrissey would be taking over the lead role after Tennant quit, and in October 2008 he was reported as a favourite of bookmakers. He was pleased that the episode was a "decoy" for the truth that actor Matt Smith had actually been chosen for the part of the Eleventh Doctor. In September 2009, he told entertainment website Digital Spy that he would gladly return to the show if asked. In March 2009, Morrissey appeared as corrupt police detective Maurice Jobson in "Red Riding", the Channel 4 adaptation of David Peace's "Red Riding" novels. Morrissey already knew the directors of the films, enjoyed reading the script and had either worked with his co-stars on other projects, or wanted to work with them. He liked the flaws in the Jobson character and that he differs from typical vigilante police officers portrayed on television. Morrissey said of Jobson, "I think he sets out to be a good cop, he tries to do his job well but he gets involved in some corruption and realises that being a 'bit' corrupt is like being a 'bit' pregnant. You either are or you're not." He received a Best Actor nomination from the Broadcasting Press Guild for the role. At the end of the year, Morrissey played Bobby Dykins in the John Lennon biopic "Nowhere Boy" (Sam Taylor-Wood, 2009). As a self-confessed "Beatles geek", Morrissey relished the opportunity to star in the film about Lennon's childhood. Morrissey was active on screen throughout 2010. He starred as Theunis Swanepoel, the interrogator of Winnie Madikizela-Mandela (played by Sophie Okonedo), in the BBC single drama "Mrs Mandela". His performance was praised by "Guardian" and "Independent" critics. The following months saw him star as British Transport Police officer Mal Craig in the second series of BBC One's "Five Days", Roman soldier Bothos in Neil Marshall's feature "Centurion", stalking victim Jan Falkowski in "U Be Dead", and Colonel John Arbuthnot in the "Agatha Christie's Poirot" adaptation of "Murder on the Orient Express". "Thorne", Shakespeare, The Governor. Morrissey returned to a weekly television role at the end of 2010 playing police detective Tom Thorne in "Thorne", a six-part television series for Sky1 that was adapted from Mark Billingham's novels "Sleepyhead" and "Scaredy Cat". After reading "Lifeless" during his time filming "The Water Horse" in New Zealand, Morrissey searched the Internet for more information. He found an interview in which Billingham stated his preference for Morrissey to play Thorne should a screen adaptation ever be made. When he returned to England, Morrissey arranged a meeting with Billingham and the two began developing the TV series. Morrissey shadowed officers in the Metropolitan Police's murder unit during their duties to learn about their jobs. He discovered that the officers felt undervalued in their jobs, and he incorporated these feelings into the series. Sky first broadcast the series on 10 October. Morrissey received approval for the role; Andrea Mullaney wrote in "The Scotsman", "Morrissey is never less than watchable and he brings a brooding presence to the role of Thorne." and Adam Sweeting for The Arts Desk called him "authentic as the phlegmatic, low-key Thorne." In 2011, Morrissey starred as Robert Carne in "South Riding", and played Dunlop in the Lionsgate crime drama feature "Blitz". In May 2011, he returned to the Everyman Theatre to play the eponymous king in "Macbeth". The production reunited him with Julia Ford (as Lady Macbeth), who he acted alongside at the RSC and in "Red Riding". Morrissey talked about the role to criminologists, to draw parallels with real-life serial killers, and focused on Macbeth's status as a war hero and his childless relationship with Lady Macbeth. Morrissey's performance was commended by Laura Davis in the "Liverpool Daily Post", who highlighted his delivery of his lines and portrayal of Macbeth "from straight-spined statesman to a fervent slayer". Clare Brenan of "The Observer" offered similar praise but noted that Morrissey's vocal inflections were sometimes "flat and rushed". Continuing his roles in Shakespeare productions, Morrissey played Northumberland in a BBC Two production of "Richard II", broadcast in July 2012. Morrissey joined the cast of "The Walking Dead" for its third season in 2012. He portrays The Governor, a major villain from the graphic novel upon which the series is based. Morrissey read the prequel novel "" to gain insight into the character and his motivations. He also worked with an accent coach and listened to politicians with Southern accents, including Bill Clinton. Morrissey is due to return for the fourth season in 2013. Morrissey will also return to British television in the David Nicholls drama "The 7:39". Filmmaking career. In the early 1980s, Morrissey developed a filmmaking craft at the Rathbone Theatre Workshop, a Youth Opportunities Programme that taught school-leavers skills for a year. With the workshop, Morrissey shot short silent films on Super 8, and watched foreign films for the first time. Although the scheme paid £23.50 a week and took young people off unemployment benefits, Morrissey reflected in 2009 that many of the participants were just used as lackeys. After his acting career escalated, he started directing because he was aware that, as an actor, he was coming into a project quite late into development and then leaving before post-production, and he wanted to see a film through to the end. Morrissey has said that he prefers to keep acting and directing separate, and would not direct anything he is acting in. His first major project was "Something for the Weekend" (1996), which he wrote and produced. Initially called "The Barber Shop", the title was changed to avoid a clash with another film. His directorial debut, the short "A Secret Audience", centres on a meeting between Napoleon Bonaparte and Pope Pius VII. His second short, "Bring Me Your Love", was based on the short story by Charles Bukowski, and stars Ian Hart as a journalist bringing flowers to his wife in a mental hospital. It was screened in front of "Some Voices". An "Independent" critic wrote that "Bring Me Your Love" "holds out great promise" for Morrissey and an "Observer" reviewer wrote that it was worth seeing but was not as impressive as "A Secret Audience". "Bring Me Your Love" was produced by Tubedale Films, a studio Morrissey formed with his brother Paul and wife Esther Freud. In 2001, Morrissey directed "Sweet Revenge", a two-part BBC television film starring Paul McGann that got him a BAFTA nomination for Best New Director (Fiction). In 2004, Morrissey reunited with Tony Marchant to direct the two-part television film "Passer By", about a man (James Nesbitt) who witnesses an attack on a woman (Emily Bruni) but does nothing to stop it. Morrissey was brought onto the project after reading the first draft of Marchant's script. The script went through five more drafts before being filmed over 30 days. Morrissey developed his directing techniques by watching the directors on films and television series that he acted in; he took the minor role of Tom Keylock in "Stoned" so that he could watch Stephen Woolley at work. On 20 July 2007, Morrissey was given an Honorary Fellowship from Liverpool John Moores University for contributions to performing arts. In the same year, he made his feature debut directing "Don't Worry About Me", a film about a London boy falling in love with a Liverpool girl. The film was shot on a budget of £100,000 on location in Liverpool in September and October 2007 and had its world premiere at the 2009 London Film Festival. Joseph Galliano wrote in "The Times" that "Don't Worry About Me" is "a very understated film and feels more like European Art Cinema." The film was broadcast on BBC Two on 7 March 2010 and released on DVD the next day. In 2009, Morrissey and Mark Billingham launched the production company Sleepyhead, which produced the "Thorne" television series. The company was a part of Stagereel, a production house previously set up by Morrissey's brother Paul. The company bought the rights to adapt the "Thorne" novels and Morrissey was already developing it to pitch to television channels when Sky made an offer to broadcast it. As of 2010, Morrissey and Tubedale Films were developing two feature films with financing from the UK Film Council. Morrissey was critical of the Coalition government's decision to close the UK Film Council, as he believed it was an asset to first-time filmmakers. The organisation's funding role was taken over by the British Film Institute in 2011. Personal life. Morrissey married his partner of over 13 years, novelist Esther Freud, on 12 August 2006 in a ceremony on Southwold Pier. They met when they were set up at a dinner party held by Morrissey's "Robin Hood" co-star Danny Webb, and have since had three children; Albie, Anna and Gene. His sisters-in-law are Bella Freud and Susie Boyt and his father-in-law was the painter Lucian Freud. In 2009, Morrissey and a team of filmmakers ran a series of drama workshops for Palestinian refugee children in Beirut, Lebanon, in conjunction with the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA). On his return to Britain, Morrissey set up the Creative Arts School Trust (CAST), a charity for the purpose of training teachers and continuing the workshops in Lebanon and elsewhere. Since 2010, he has been a patron of The SMA Trust, a UK-based charity that funds medical research into the children's disease spinal muscular atrophy, and the Unity Theatre, Liverpool. Morrissey is a lifelong Liverpool F.C fan, having grown up in the city. External links. Video
1058469	Marcia Jean Kurtz is an American film, stage, and television actress and director. She has appeared in such films as "The Panic in Needle Park", "In Her Shoes", "Dog Day Afternoon" and "Big Fan". Kurtz won an Obie Award for her performance as Doris in Donald Margulies' "The Loman Family Picnic". She was also nominated for both an Obie and a Drama Desk Award for her role in Martin Sherman's "When She Danced". Kurtz also directed Matty Selman's "Uncle Phillip's Coat" and Evan Handler's "Time of Fire". She has appeared several times on the television series "Law & Order". Kurtz is a 1964 graduate of the Juilliard School, where she earned a B.S. degree in dance.
808731	Louis Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Bachelier (March 11, 1870 – April 28, 1946) was a French mathematician at the turn of the 20th century. He is credited with being the first person to model the stochastic process now called Brownian motion, which was part of his PhD thesis "The Theory of Speculation", (published 1900). His thesis, which discussed the use of Brownian motion to evaluate stock options, is historically the first paper to use advanced mathematics in the study of finance. Thus, Bachelier is considered a pioneer in the study of financial mathematics and stochastic processes. Early years. Bachelier was born in Le Havre. His father was a wine merchant and amateur scientist, and the vice-consul of Venezuela at Le Havre. His mother was the daughter of an important banker (who was also a writer of poetry books). Both of Louis' parents died just after he completed his high school diploma ("baccalauréat" in French), forcing him to take care of his sister and three-year-old brother and to assume the family business, which effectively put his graduate studies on hold. During this time Bachelier gained a practical acquaintance with the financial markets. His studies were further delayed by military service. Bachelier arrived in Paris in 1892 to study at the Sorbonne, where his grades were less than ideal. The Thesis. Historians argue Bachelier's thesis was not appropriately received, resulting in Academia blackballing. However, his instructor, Henri Poincaré, is recorded to have given some positive feedback (though socially insufficient for finding an immediate teaching position in France at that time). For example, Poincaré called his approach to deriving Gauss' law of errors The thesis received a grade of "honorable," and was accepted for publication in the prestigious "Annales Scientifiques de l’École Normale Supérieure". While it did not receive a mark of "très honorable", despite its ultimate importance, the grade assigned is still interpreted as an appreciation for his contribution. Jean-Michel Courtault et al. point out in "On the Centenary of "Theorie de la Speculation"" that "honorable" was "the highest note which could be awarded for a thesis that was essentially outside mathematics and that had a number of arguments far from being rigorous." The positive feedback from Poincaré can be attributed to his interest in mathematical ideas, not just rigorous proof. Academic career. For several years following the successful defense of his thesis, Bachelier further developed the theory of diffusion processes, and was published in prestigious journals. In 1909 he became a "free professor" at the Sorbonne. In 1914, he published a book, "Le Jeu, la Chance, et le Hasard" (Games, Chance, and Randomness), that sold over six thousand copies. With the support of the Council of the University of Paris, Bachelier was given a permanent professorship at the Sorbonne, but World War I intervened and Bachelier was drafted into the French army as a private. After the war, he found a position in Besançon, replacing a regular professor on leave. When the professor returned in 1922, Bachelier replaced another professor at Dijon. He moved to Rennes in 1925, but was finally awarded a permanent professorship in 1927 at Besançon, where he worked for 10 years. Besides the setback that the war had caused him, Bachelier was blackballed in 1926 when he attempted to receive a permanent position at Dijon. This was due to a "misinterpretation" of one of Bachelier's papers by Professor Paul Lévy, who—to Bachelier's understandable fury—knew nothing of Bachelier's work, nor of the candidate that Lévy recommended above him. Lévy later learned of his error, and reconciled himself with Bachelier in 1931. Also notable is that Bachelier's work on random walks was more mathematical and predated Einstein's celebrated study of Brownian motion by five years.
1043290	David Kossoff (24 November 1919 – 23 March 2005) was a British actor. Following the death of his son Paul, a rock musician, he became an anti-drug campaigner. In 1971 he was also actively involved in the Nationwide Festival of Light, an organisation protesting against the commercial exploitation of sex and violence, and advocating the teaching of Christ as the key to re-establishing moral stability in Britain. Life and career. Kossoff was born in London, the youngest of three children, to poor Russian Jewish immigrant parents. His father, Louis Kossoff (1883–1943), was a tailor, while another son, the eldest named Alec, changed his surname to Keith; the middle sister was named Sarah Rebecca (Sadie). In its obituary of David Kossoff, "The Scotsman" wrote how he was "a man of deep convictions and proud of his Jewish origins". Kossoff started working in light entertainment on British television in the years following World War II. His first stage appearance was at the Unity Theatre in 1942 at the age of 23. He took part in numerous plays and films. He was a Member of the Society of Artists and Designers. In addition to this, he was a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. His best known television roles were the hen-pecked husband Alf Larkin in "The Larkins", first broadcast in 1958, and a Jewish furniture maker in "A Little Big Business". Film credits included "The Young Lovers" (1954 - for which he won a British Academy Film Award as "Most Promising Newcomer to Film"), "A Kid for Two Farthings" (1955), his role as Morry in the Oscar-winning "The Bespoke Overcoat" (1956), Professor Kokintz in "The Mouse that Roared" (1959) and its sequel "The Mouse on the Moon" (1963) with Bernard Cribbins. He played Sigmund Freud's father in "" (1962) with Montgomery Clift in the lead, He was also well known for his story-telling skills, particularly with regard to reinterpreting the Bible. His best known book, also a television series, is "The Book of Witnesses" (1971), in which he turned the Gospels into a series of monologues. He also retold dozens of Old Testament and Apocrypha stories in "Bible Stories" (1968). In 1953, he played the character Lemuel "Lemmy" Barnet in the British sci-fi radio series, "Journey Into Space". He died in 2005 of liver cancer at age 85. He was cremated and interred at the Golders Green Crematorium. He married Jennie and had two sons, Paul and Simon. Following the death in 1976 of his son Paul, guitarist with the band Free, Kossoff established the Paul Kossoff Foundation which aimed to present the realities of drug addiction to children. Kossoff spent the remainder of his life campaigning against drugs. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, he toured with a one-man stage performance about the death of his son and its effect on the family.
584893	Sakshi Shivanand is an Indian actress, who has appeared in Telugu, Tamil, Kannada, Malayalam and Hindi films. Career. Sakshi Shivanand was a female sensation of late 90s. In the year 1996 she made her debut in Bollywood. She later shot to fame within a short span of time in Tollywood. She acted with many big heroes in Telugu cinema. Her debut in Telugu was with Chiranjeevi in a movie "Master". The film turned out to be a block buster and this helped her to garner more films. She later on acted with Nagarjuna Akkineni in the film "Seetharamaraju". The film did average business. She also acted with Nandamuri Balakrishna in the film "Vamsoddarakudu". She was roped in by A.B.C.L for the Telugu film "Rajahamsha" opposite Abbas. She also starred in the socio-fantasy film "Yamajathakudu" along with Mohan Babu. In the year 2000, she featured in the film "Yuvaraju" along with Mahesh Babu and Simran Bagga. She performed an item song in the 2008 released film "Homam" which was directed by J.D. Chakravarthy. Her sister is Shilpa Shivanand.
1164532	Brian Keith Tochihara (born May 2, 1963), better known as Brian Tochi, is an American actor, screenwriter, film director and producer. He was widely recognized as the most popular East Asian child actor working in U.S. television during the late 1960s through much of the 1970s having appeared in various T.V. series and nearly a hundred televisual advertisements. He is best known for his more famous characters Takashi from the "Revenge of the Nerds" film franchise, as Cadet (later Officer) Tomoko Nogata from the third and fourth films in the "Police Academy" film series, and as the voice of Leonardo in the first three live-action "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" movies. Early life. Tochi was born in Los Angeles, California, the son of Joe Isao Tochihara (A.K.A. ‘Tochi’), a well known Beverly Hills celebrity hair salon owner, and Jane Yaeko (née Harada), both Japanese, and former detainees (along with thousands of other Japanese immigrants and U.S.-born Japanese people) of Japanese Internment camps during World War II. While Tochi was still young, the family moved from Los Angeles to Orange County, California, where he divided his education between local public schools and studio tutors (for child actors) on movie studio lots. After graduation from high school, Tochi also attended U.S.C., UCLA, and U.C.I. Career. Being of Japanese descent, Tochi frequently plays characters who are Japanese, Chinese, or of other East Asian genes, adopting the appropriate accent as needed. (His primary language is English, and his off-stage speech is "fluent American".) Early in his professional life, being one of the only East Asian faces in television, many credit him with breaking the barriers and opening doors for East Asian people in entertainment in the U.S., and advancing the perception that “Oriental” actors have the ability to portray more “mainstream” roles. Tochi’s introduction into the entertainment industry came as a toddler. His father’s beauty salon, Tochi Coiffure of Beverly Hills, was a popular haunt for many famous clients, including Lana Turner, Hedy Lamarr, Lucille Ball, Judy Garland, Petula Clark and Patty Duke. One of his father’s customers, a top child agent, spotted the young Tochi running around the salon, and quickly signed to represent him. A beginning role for Tochi was a guest-starring appearance in the short-lived television series "He & She" (1967–68, with real married couple Richard Benjamin and Paula Prentiss) as their newly adopted son. Produced by Leonard Stern and cowritten by Chris Hayward and Allan Burns, it also starred Jack Cassidy as an egomaniacal actor, Kenneth Mars and Hamilton Camp. That same year saw Tochi appearing in "And the Children Shall Lead", a classic third-season episode of "". Other roles followed, including guest appearances on such popular shows as "The Brady Bunch", "The Partridge Family" and "Adam-12". Tochi’s debut as a T.V. series regular was as Yul Brynner’s oldest son and heir, Crown Prince Chulalongkorn, in "Anna and the King" on CBS, it was based on the film version of Rodgers and Hammerstein's "The King and I" and also starred Samantha Eggar and Keye Luke. Although the series was short lived, Tochi and Brynner remained friends until his death in 1985. Concurrent with the series, Tochi was cast with fellow actor Luke in his first animated television series "The Amazing Chan and the Chan Clan", also in the series was a young Jodie Foster, who played his sister. After both series ended, guest-starring roles followed, including "The Streets of San Francisco" with Karl Malden and Michael Douglas; and "Kung Fu", with David Carradine, who made his directing debut on the episode, “The Demon God” (which was Tochi's largest guest role of three "Kung Fu" episodes he appeared in). Tochi also played an undercover informant, and was ultimately beaten and killed in a gritty two-part episode of "Police Story" on NBC; and nearly died on the Robert Young medical drama "Marcus Welby, M.D." until the show's heroic James Brolin and new best friend Vincent Van Patten came to his rescue. During the mid-1970s, Tochi spent time in the theatre, this time reprising his role as Crown Prince Chulalongkorn in the Los Angeles Civic Light Opera’s revival of the musical "The King and I" at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. There he co-starred with the renowned Latin Lover, Ricardo Montalbán, as the King of Siam, to which they would later accompany the show as it went on tour. When the show ended its run, the two remained dear to one another, with Tochi and Montalbán rendezvousing regularly for lunch during the run of "Fantasy Island". Tochi returned to star in another TV series "Space Academy" (1977-1979) with veteran actor Jonathan Harris (best remembered as Dr. Smith from "Lost in Space"). This Academy brought together the world’s best young minds, and those with special skills, to learn and prepare for the unknown, as Earth people continued to branch out into space. His character, Tee Gar Soom, had super-strength and continued the martial arts traditions of his Asian ancestors. During hiatus of the show, Tochi was asked to shoot a 20 minute promotional “behind-the-scenes” visit to the Space Academy for a popular daytime series, "Razzmatazz", on CBS. Razzmatazz was a highly regarded news magazine show produced by Don Hewitt and the same production team as CBS's primetime news show, "60 Minutes". It starred Barry Bostwick, who opted to leave the show for a career in features, to capitalize on his recently released cult classic "The Rocky Horror Picture Show". Searching for a new host, the television network persuaded Tochi to accept their offer of his own daytime show, which aired on the network for 4 more years into the early 1980s. Other appearances include a guest stint on "Wonder Woman", a recurring character in the tropically set "Hawaii Five-O", starring actor Jack Lord, a 2 hour TV movie “We’re Fighting Back” (with Ellen Barkin and Stephen Lang), and regular television roles in the TV dramas "St. Elsewhere" and "Santa Barbara". He later played featured characters in episodes of "" (making him one of only a handful of living actors to ever have appeared in the Original "Star Trek" series and a subsequent spin-off), and "Wong's Lost and Found Emporium," the ninth episode from the first season of the television series "The New Twilight Zone". The episode is based on the short story "Wong's Lost and Found Emporium", by William F. Wu, first published in Amazing Stories. This episode was stretched into a half-hour run time for syndication, as recently shown on the Chiller TV network. In the short lived ABC TV series "The Renegades", he starred with his friend, Patrick Swayze, as the martial arts expert and former gang leader known as Dragon. Then, exercising his journalistic prowess, Tochi later became part of the core team that created and developed the cutting edge educational news program "Channel One News". During his two-and-a-half-year association, his responsibilities grew to include Hosting and Narrating duties, utilizing his talents as a writer, producer and segment director. He was later named Chief Foreign correspondent for the show. Other work. In 2004, Tochi co-wrote, produced and directed "Tales of a Fly on the Wall", a live action comedy casting several of his friends in lead roles, it included fellow actors Roscoe Lee Browne, Revenge of the Nerds co-star Curtis Armstrong and "" co-star Leslie Easterbrook. In 2005, he was one of the winners of the Hollywood Film Festival’s Hollywood Screenplay Awards, taking home top honors for co-writing the screenplay, “In the Heat of the Light.” He continues with his directing, producing, and screenwriting careers. Voice acting. As a voice actor, Tochi has provided voices for numerous animated films, computer games and animated cartoon series, including the "Bionic Six" (all 65 episodes), "Challenge of the GoBots", "Scooby-Doo and Scrappy-Doo", "What's New, Scooby-Doo?", "The Real Adventures of Jonny Quest", and ' (as its main star Liu Kang). He performed the voice of Leonardo in the first three "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" series of movies in the early 1990s, he also is the voice of the Chinese soldier who runs the Great Wall in Disney's "Mulan", and more recently had recurring roles in "Batman Beyond", "As Told by Ginger", "Kim Possible", "Johnny Bravo", "Static Shock", "Family Guy" and ' on Nickelodeon. Personal life. For decades, Tochi has dedicated much of his time helping to facilitate and support humanitarian and charitable endeavors predominantly aimed at various children’s causes. Like so many in the film industry, he had been a victim of a fraudulent investment fund manager. He spent years in court attempting to recover some of his losses. He is a devoted environmental advocate, pursuing projects meant to benefit the needs of the planet and the world around us. He is diligently working toward solutions for third world countries to sustain and preserve life.
583072	Bhaag Bhola Bhaag is an unreleased Bollywood comedy film directed and written by Neeraj Vora, with a star cast of Govinda, Tusshar Kapoor, Upen Patel, Ameesha Patel and Celina Jaitley in lead roles. Produced by Dhilin Mehta under Shree Ashtavinayak Cine Vision Ltd, the theatrical trailer of the film was released alongside Rohit Shetty's "Golmaal 3". Release date is not finalized yet. The film will focus on two convicts who have just escaped jail, and are on the run from some dirty-handed police officers. Production. Pre-production and casting. In December 2007, Sharman Joshi and Soha Ali Khan were offered positions in the film, but both of them dropped out after initially agreeing to it. Tanushree Dutta was to play Celina Jaitley's part, but dropped out soon after principal photography started due to scheduling conflicts. Principal photography took place in Film City on 27 December 2007. Filming was scheduled to end by October 2008, but some portions were left over and were wrapped up in 2009. Filming and post-production. Several titles were considered for the film such as "Run Bhola Run", "Lucky 2" and "Do Lucky" but the first one was selected. The media often wrote reports about Govinda disrupting the film's shoot by delivering crazy antics but he denied them all. A controversy brewed during the rehearsal of a song sequence, where Celina Jaitley claimed that she was manhandled by Tusshar Kapoor causing bruises on her hands but he objected to her accusation. Following an argument both were not on speaking terms for three days until Kapoor made peace and apologized for grabbing her arms tightly. The film was set for a mid-2008 release, but the multiplex strike caused further delays in the film's shooting and release dates. Soundtrack. The soundtrack of "Run Bhola Run" is composed by Pritam and Monty Sharma while the lyrics were penned by Sameer. Cassettes and CD's will be distributed by, T-Series.
1092064	Freeman John Dyson FRS (born December 15, 1923) is a British-American theoretical physicist and mathematician, famous for his work in quantum electrodynamics, solid-state physics, astronomy and nuclear engineering. Dyson is a member of the Board of Sponsors of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. Dyson has lived in Princeton, New Jersey, for over fifty years. Biography. Early life. Born at Crowthorne in Berkshire, Dyson was the son of the English composer George Dyson, who was later knighted. His mother had a law degree, but after Dyson was born she worked as a social worker. Although not known to be related to the early 20th century astronomer Frank Watson Dyson, as a small boy Dyson was aware of him and has credited the popularity of an astronomer sharing his surname as having helped to spark his own interest in science. From 1936 to 1941, Dyson was a Scholar at Winchester College, a leading boys' boarding school in Hampshire where his father was a schoolmaster teaching music. On 4 May 2011 he was received as one of twenty distinguished Old Wykehamists at the "Ad Portas" celebration, the highest honour that the College bestows. After Winchester he joined the operational research section of RAF Bomber Command, where he remained for the rest of the Second World War. He then proceeded to the University of Cambridge, where he obtained a Bachelor of Arts degree in mathematics. From 1946 to 1949 he was a Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, occupying rooms just below those of the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein, who would resign his professorship in 1947. Career in the United States. In 1947 Dyson moved to the US, as Commonwealth Fellow at Cornell University (1947-1948) and Institute for Advanced Study (1948–1949). Between 1949 and 1951, he was a teaching fellow at the University of Birmingham.
1044124	Dilys Laye (11 March 1934 – 13 February 2009) was an English actress and screenwriter, best known for comedy roles. She died of cancer aged 74. Early life. Dilys Laye was born in Muswell Hill, London, the daughter of Edward Laye and his wife Margaret (née Hewitt) Her father was a musician who left the family when she was aged eight to work as a musician in South Africa and never came back. During World War II Laye and her brother were evacuated to Devon, where they were unhappy and endured physical abuse. Laye returned home to a new stepfather and a mother who was keen to transfer her thwarted ambitions to her daughter. After education at St. Dominic's Covent, Middlesex and training at the Aida Foster School, Laye made her stage debut aged 14 as a boy in a play called "The Burning Bush" at the New Lindsey Theatre and her film debut a year later as a younger version of Jean Kent in "Trottie True". Career. From 1950, Laye appeared in numerous West End revues, including "And So to Bed", "Intimacy at 8.30", "For Amusement Only" and "High Spirits". In 1954, she played the first Dulcie in "The Boy Friend" on Broadway alongside Julie Andrews, with whom she shared a Manhattan flat during the run. At this time she was dated by a young actor called James Garner. In 1957, she began appearing in films more regularly, including one of the dreadful schoolgirls in "Blue Murder at St. Trinian's" and a married vamp trying to seduce Dirk Bogarde in "Doctor at Large". She also appeared with Ian Carmichael in the West End comedy "The Tunnel of Love" and was directed by Joan Littlewood in "Make Me An Offer". In 1962, Laye made her first appearance in the "Carry On" films, replacing an unwell Joan Sims in "Carry On Cruising" at four days' notice. She returned as a Bond-girl parody in "Carry On Spying" (1964), a hospital patient who falls in love with Bernard Bresslaw in "Carry On Doctor" (1967) and as his permanently car-sick companion, on holiday with Sid James and Sims in "Carry On Camping" (1969), her fourth and last in the series. In 1965, she starred with her good friend Sheila Hancock in the sitcom "The Bed-Sit Girl" and appeared in the West End comedy "Say Who You Are". In 1975, she co-starred with Reg Varney in a failed sitcom called "Down the Gate" and, in 1981, appeared in and co-wrote, the ITV comedy series "Chintz". In 1985, she played Nurse in "Romeo and Juliet" with the Royal Shakespeare Company and her other credits with the RSC in the mid to late-1980s included Maria in "Twelfth Night", First Witch in "Macbeth", Glinda/Aunt Em in "The Wizard of Oz" and Parthy Ann in an Opera North version of "Show Boat". In 2001 she returned to the RSC to play Mrs Medlock in its musical of the Secret Garden, directed by Adrian Noble. In the early 1990s she toured the country in "The Phantom of the Opera" and "42nd Street", among others. Her later West End credits included the musicals "Nine" and "Into the Woods" at the Donmar Warehouse in 1997 and a superb Mrs Pearce in Trevor Nunn's revival of "My Fair Lady" at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane in 2002. She also starred in a revival of Christopher Hampton's "Les Liasions Dangereuses" at the Playhouse Theatre in 2003. The production was not admired but Laye's performance (as Madame de Rosemond) was and she received the Clarence Derwent Award for Best Female in a Supporting Role. In 2005, she toured Britain as the Grandmother in Roald Dahl's "The Witches". Later years. Her final stage work came in 2006 in the three roles of Miss La Creevy, Mrs Gudden and Peg Sliderskew in the Chichester Festival Theatre's revival of the RSC's epic "Nicholas Nickleby". During rehearsals, she was diagnosed with cancer and kept her illness secret from the rest of the cast but was far too ill to transfer with the production to London. Her later television work included character roles in "EastEnders", "Coronation Street", "Holby City", "Midsomer Murders", "Doctors", "The Amazing Mrs Pritchard" and "The Commander". Personal life. She was married first, briefly, to stunt man Frank Maher and secondly, to actor Garfield Morgan. In 1972, she married her third husband, Alan Downer, who wrote scripts for "Coronation Street" and "Emmerdale Farm" on television and "Waggoner's Walk" on radio. He died in 1995 after years of ill-health following a stroke. They had a son, Andrew, who was an agent for film crews. She outlived her doctors' predictions by six months, having ensured she would be alive to see her son get married. Filmography. In the 1980s she appeared in, and co-wrote, the ITV comedy series "Chintz". In 2008 she appeared in 'Frankie Howerd: Rather You Than Me' References. The Amazing Mrs Pritchard (2006) - Queen Elizabeth II
590362	Dosar (; translation:"Emotional companion") is a Bengali film released in 2006. Produced by Arindam Chaudhuri (Planman Motion Pictures) and directed by Rituparno Ghosh, the black-and-white film won the National Film Award - Special Jury Award / Special Mention (Feature Film) for the lead role portrayal by Prosenjit Chatterjee. The movie additionally stars Konkona Sen Sharma, who for her part won the Best Actress Award at the New York Film Festival in 2007. This movie is selected for the 60th Cannes Film Festival in the Les Cinema Du Monde section. Synopsis. Kaberi often threatens divorce but ultimately is overpowered by the wife in her and cannot resist fulfilling her duties towards her husband at the time of crisis.On the other hand, Kaushik is also caught in his own predicament. The physical and mental trauma caused by the accident are portrayed with great skill and subtlety by Prosenjit. He has to not only come to terms with the loss of a loved one but is faced with the daunting task of winning back his wife's trust. Tidbits. Director Rituparno Ghosh says no connection should be made between the content and black-and-white theme. It was just his fascination to do a black-and-white film. In his own words at the inauguration of the Tel-Aviv Indian film festival:
584220	Eeram () is a 2009 Tamil-language thriller film written and directed by newcomer Arivazhagan Venkatachalam. Starring Aadhi, and Sindhu Menon in the lead roles, with Saranya Mohan and Nandha in supporting roles, the film was produced by S. Shankar and was released on 11 September 2009. A Telugu dubbed version soon followed suit named Vaishali. Plot. The plot opens with water over flowing from a flat in 'E-block' which is seen by the apartment watchman. When he goes to the flat to stop water he witnesses a young woman Ramya (Sindhu Menon), who had drowned in the water. Eventually the investigation of the death is taking place which is done by an officer Vasudevan (Aadhi), who also happens to be the ex-lover of Ramya. Though the circumstantial evidence claims it as a suicide, Vasu doubts it is not a suicide and starts to investigate it in another angle. Ramya was known to be in an illegal affair with an unknown person and his frequent visit to her flat is confirmed by the neighbors in the apartment during the investigation. But Vasu is not convinced and he is sure that there is someone behind Ramya’s death and names him Mr.X. He also remembers his days of love during their college time. Vasu is denied of marriage with Ramya by her father as he is not willing to give hands of his daughter to Vasu who is ambitious about becoming a police officer. But true reason is Vasu-Ramya’s love is not accepted by her father. When Vasu asks her to marry without the consent of her father, she does not accept and both part away. Ramya in turn marries the groom Bala (Nandha), a businessman. From then on the relationship is entirely cut between Vasu and Ramya. Vasu then becomes a police officer. Meanwhile a series of deaths take place in the apartment- a woman who resides in the flat opposite to Ramya’s dies by an electric shock, a man dies by the piercing of umbrella tip in his neck, the watch man of the flat. Vasu could relate the deaths with Ramya but he does find how. He appoints a few assistants to live in the flat and inform him if there is any suspected person comes there. The assistants point out a young man who came there to meet his girl friend and chases him and also inform Vasu. Vasu doubts him to be X and follows him to a movie theatre, but before he tried to catch him, he sees the ‘X’ dashing himself in a mirror and dies in the theatre rest room. Vasu could also see human foot prints walking on the water. Subtle symbols keep appearing to Vasu and he begins to receive premonitions of the killings about to take place. The red color and water when appearing together are premonitions and signals to Vasu that a murder is about to take place. Vasu is not able to convince his superiors about the deaths. He investigates in the angle of life after death and finds that a life can contact this world in any medium after the death. It may be also through water. Vasu now understands that Ramya kills everyone. She possesses her sister Divya’s (Saranya Mohan) body and reveals the truth of her life after their separation to Vasu. Ramya married Bala and lived happily with her husband. Bala is a person who dislikes anything second hand in his life. He cannot digest his wife’s past relation with her lover and starts torturing her. Ramya’s maid servant complaints of the master in another flat who is harassing her sexually.Ramya warns the master if he would repeat this she would inform it to his wife. Ramya advises a girl to stop having a boy friend as it will spoil her life and this earns her the dislike of that girl. Ramya’s opposite apartment woman wants the flat where Ramya lives, for her daughter. The boy friend creates an impression that he has come to visit Ramya to the woman in the opposite flat. She spins false story against Ramya and the master also confirms it to Bala for taking revenge on her. So Bala kills Ramya and drowns her in water to make it look like a suicide. Ramya kills the woman by electric shock, the master by umbrella tip and the watch man who supported the false statement against Ramya, the X by dashing him in the mirror and then she scares the girl and makes her mentally unstable. Vasu warns Bala that he will soon catch him with evidence. Bala’s friend misguides right from the beginning about the women tendency of varieties and also against Ramya. He is killed by Bala himself as he threatened to reveal the truth about the murder. Bala is clear that he can be caught only if he himself admit the crime. But he is caught by Vasu and Bala reveals the truth that he killed his wife. Actually Ramya possessed him and made him speak the truth. She leaves him after his arrest and after she left, Bala defends that he has not killed his wife. Vasu then understands what happened. Soundtrack. The music was composed by newcomer S. Thaman and were received well.
1049865	Last Summer is a 1969 coming-of-age movie about adolescent sexuality. Director Frank Perry filmed at Fire Island locations. The stars of the film are Catherine Burns, Barbara Hershey, Bruce Davison and Richard Thomas. The memorable performance by Burns brought her an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress, and she won a Kansas City Film Critics Circle Award.
1061767	Holly Hunter (born March 20, 1958) is an American actress. Hunter starred in "The Piano" for which she won the BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role and Academy Award for Best Actress, among other awards. She has also been nominated for Oscars for her roles in "Broadcast News", "The Firm", and "Thirteen". Hunter has also won two Emmy Awards with seven nominations and has won a Golden Globe Award with another six nominations. She has earned 25 awards and 61 nominations in total. Early life and career. Holly Hunter was born in Conyers, Georgia, the daughter of Opal Marguerite (née Catledge), a housewife, and Charles Edwin Hunter, a farmer and sporting-goods manufacturer's representative. Hunter earned a degree in drama from Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, and for a while performed in the theatre scene there, playing ingenue roles at City Theatre, then named the City Players. She eventually moved to New York City and roomed with fellow actress Frances McDormand. Hunter, in 2008, described living in The Bronx "at the end of the D train, just off 205th Street, on Bainbridge Avenue and Hull Avenue. It was very Irish, and then you could go just a few blocks away and hit major Italian". A chance encounter with playwright Beth Henley, when the two were trapped alone in an elevator, led to Hunter's being cast in Henley's plays "Crimes of the Heart" (succeeding Mary Beth Hurt on Broadway), and Off-Broadway's "The Miss Firecracker Contest". "It was like the beginning of 1982. It was on 49th Street between Broadway and Eighth [... on the south side of the street", Hunter recalled in an interview. "were trapped 10 minutes; not long. We actually had a nice conversation. It was just the two of us". Stage and film. Hunter made her screen debut in the 1981 horror movie "The Burning". After moving to Los Angeles in 1982, Hunter appeared in TV movies before being cast in a supporting role in 1984's "Swing Shift". That year, she had her first collaboration with the writing-directing-producing team of brothers Ethan Coen and Joel Coen, in "Blood Simple", making an uncredited appearance as a voice on an answering-machine recording. More film and television work followed until 1987, when thanks to a starring role in the Coens' "Raising Arizona" and her Academy Award-nominated turn in "Broadcast News", Hunter became a critically acclaimed star. She went on to the screen adaptation of Henley's "Miss Firecracker"; Steven Spielberg's "Always", a romantic drama with Richard Dreyfuss; and the made-for-TV 1989 docudrama about the Supreme Court case "Roe v. Wade". Following her second collaboration with Dreyfuss, in "Once Around", Hunter garnered critical attention for her work in two 1993 films, resulting in her being nominated for two Academy Awards the same year: Hunter's performance in "The Firm" won her a nomination as Best Supporting Actress, while her portrayal of a mute Scottish woman entangled in an adulterous affair with Harvey Keitel in Jane Campion's "The Piano" won her the Best Actress award. Hunter went on to appear in films such as the comedy-drama "Home for the Holidays" and the thriller "Copycat". She also appreared in David Cronenberg's "Crash" and as a sardonic angel in "A Life Less Ordinary". The following year, she played a recently divorced New Yorker in Richard LaGravenese's "Living Out Loud"; starring alongside Danny DeVito, Queen Latifah, and Martin Donovan. Hunter rounded out the 1990s with a minor role in the independent drama "Jesus' Son" and as a housekeeper torn between a grieving widower and his son in Kiefer Sutherland's drama "Woman Wanted". Following a supporting role in the Coens' "O Brother, Where Art Thou?", Hunter took top billing in the same year's television movie "Harlan County War", an account of labor struggles among Kentucky coal-mine workers. Hunter would continue her small screen streak with a role in "When Billie Beat Bobby", playing tennis pro Billie Jean King in the fact-based story of King's famed exhibition match with Bobby Riggs; and as narrator of "Eco Challenge New Zealand" before returning to film work with a minor role in the 2002 drama "Moonlight Mile". The following year found Hunter in the redemption drama "Levity". Also in 2003, Hunter had the role of a mother named Melanie Freeland, whose daughter is troubled and going through the perils of being a teenager in the film "Thirteen". The film was critically acclaimed along with Hunter and her co-stars and earned her an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress nomination. In 2004, Hunter starred alongside Brittany Murphy in the romantic satire "Little Black Book", and the same year lent her voice to the animated film "The Incredibles" as the voice of Helen Parr, a.k.a. the superheroine Elastigirl. In 2005, Hunter starred alongside Robin Williams in the black comedy-drama "The Big White". Hunter became an executive producer, and helped develop a starring vehicle for herself with the TNT cable-network drama "Saving Grace", which premiered in July 2007. For her acting, she received a Golden Globe Award nomination, two Screen Actors Guild Award nominations, and an Emmy Award nomination. On May 30, 2008, Hunter received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. In 2009, she was awarded the Women in Film Lucy Award. Personal life. Hunter is deaf in her left ear, which sometimes leads to complications at work. Some scenes have to be altered from the script for her to use her healthy right ear. Holly Hunter was married to "Schindler's List" and "Saving Private Ryan" cinematographer Janusz Kamiński from 1995 until 2001. Hunter has been in a relationship with British actor Gordon MacDonald since 2001. The couple met in San Jose Repertory Theatre's production of playwright Marina Carr's "By the Bog of Cats", in which she played a woman abandoned by her lover of 14 years, played by MacDonald. In January 2006, Hunter's publicist announced that Hunter had given birth to the couple's twin boysClaude and Press. In a 2009 interview, Hunter said to "TV Guide" that she does not discuss her children with the media.
1015865	Josephine "Josie" HO Chiu-yi (), born 26 December 1974) is a singer and actress from Hong Kong. She is the daughter of Macao casino magnate Stanley Ho. Movie career. She has played many roles, including a few as prostitutes, which contrasted strongly with her own wealthy upbringing as a billionaire's daughter. For the film "Exiled", Ho did not work with a script. Recalling the experience in a recent interview, she said of director Johnnie To, "basically tells actors what to do ... Johnnie wants us to come to the set with our mind completely clean, like a white piece of paper. That way, he can draw whatever he wishes on us." She did not find this method of improvisational acting difficult. Ho stars alongside Anthony Wong Chau Sang and Eason Chan in the Ho-Cheung Pang directed slasher film Dream Home. Personal life. Ho is the daughter of businessman Stanley Ho and wife of musician and actor Conroy Chan Chi-chung. She credits elder sister Patsy with supporting her early efforts to establish a singing career over the objections of their father.
1056665	Salvation Boulevard is a 2011 comedy-thriller film with religious satire undertones. It is based on the novel of the same name by Larry Beinhart. Plot. While discussing a new book idea, a modern-day evangelical Pastor, Dan Day (Brosnan), accidentally shoots atheist Dr. Paul Blaylock (Harris) in the head. Pastor Day tries to make it look like a suicide, fearing the damage to his reputation if word were to get out. However, reborn church-goer and ex-deadhead Carl (Kinnear) witnesses the act. Carl has to endure attacks by fellow church-goers at Day's request (although under false pretense), his own family's skepticism about his story, and a Mexican crime lord who kidnaps him looking to blackmail both Carl and Pastor Day with footage of the accident. Synopsis. Carl Vandermeer is a former Deadhead turned evangelical. He, his wife Gwen and his stepdaughter Angie attend a megachurch, the Church of the Third Millenium, run by the charismatic Pastor Dan Day, who is planning to expand his church into a large Christian community, "City on a Hill". At the start of the film, the Vandermeers attend a debate between Pastor Dan and Professor Paul Blaylock, an outspoken atheist. At the end of the debate, Pastor Dan is invited to Blaylock's college for a nightcap. He brings along Carl. At Blaylock's office, he reveals that he invited Pastor Dan over to propose that the two of them, both bestselling authors, collaborate on a book about their opposing worldviews and views on religion. During a discussion about morality without religion, Pastor Dan picks up an antique pistol and pulls the trigger on Blaylock, unaware that the gun is loaded and functional. The bullet hits Blaylock in the skull, apparently killing him. In a state of shock, Pastor Dan places the gun in Blaylock's hand to make it look like a suicide. He and Carl then drive home in silence, neither of them telling anyone what happened. After getting a call from an stranger claiming to be his "friend", Pastor Dan approaches Carl's neighbor, videographer Jerry Hobson, and appears to confess to what happened. At the sermon the next day, Pastor Dan informs the congregation that Blaylock survived his "suicide", the bullet was removed and he is in a coma. After the sermon, Jerry takes Carl aside and gets into his car. During thew drive, Jerry turns out to have been told by Pastor Dan that Carl was the one who pulled the trigger and tried to cover it up. Jerry drives Carl to a quarry and tries to execute him. He is distracted when Angie, who was asleep in the backseat of the car, interrupts the act, allowing Carl to knock Jim out with a rock. Carl then meets with Gwen and her father, Jim Hunt, and tells them what happened with Pastor Dan and Jerry, but neither believes him, thinking it was a dream or an "acid flashback". Realizing they will tell Pastor Dan, Carl goes to Blaylock's college, where he runs into Honey Foster, a friend from his Deadhead days who became campus security and met him at the debate. He asks her to turn in the footage from a security camera that would have seen him and Pastor Day enter, buts finds that the footage has been altered to erase them - apparently by Jerry, who worked at the campus as a video technician. Meeting with Gwen and Jim, Pastor Day convinces them that Carl may be unstable and will react violently if he is caught by the police. Meanwhile, since most of the police is loyal to Pastor Dan, Honey lets Carl hide at her house until things blow over. While they are out driving, Carl's car is stopped by a group of armed men who kidnap him. He wakes up in the house of Jorge Guzman de Vaca, a Mexican crime lord who claims he is in Mexico. Guzman shows that he has a secret recording of Pastor Dan shooting Professor Blaylock. He makes Carl write down and sign two confessions. One tells the truth of what happened, but in the other Carl backs up Pastor Dan's story. Guzman, who has a large business in construction, plans to use the recording to blackmail Pastor Dan into giving him the contract to build City on a Hill, promising to keep Carl in the house until the project is done. The next morning, when Guzman, revealed to be Pastor Day's mysterious "friend", leaves to make the deal, Carl escapes the house, which turns out to be in the same state as the church, with a DVD containing the footage hidden in a bible. He calls Gwen, asking her not to tell Pastor Dan and to call the police, and later sees a news report revealing that Professor Blaylock has woken up and can tell the truth. Carl is picked up by a detective, who turns out to be in liege with Pastor Dan and Jerry, whom Gwen called instead. Jerry and the detective take a handcuffed Carl to an abandoned warehouse to burn him with gasoline, but discover that none of them have any matches or a lighter. When they try to light the gasoline with a stun gun, they bungle it and get set on fire themselves, allowing Carl to escape. Meanwhile, Pastor Dan meets with Guzman at the construction site of City on a Hill. Guzman tries to play the DVD of the shooting, but instead plays a sex tape he made with his wife. Offended, Pastor Dan starts hitting him, but is stopped when Guzman stabs him in the abdomen and leaves him in the trunk of a car. After a while, Carl arrives by foot and finds the bleeding Pastor Dan, who is hallucinating because of the blood loss and thinks he is at the Pearly Gates, and calls for help on a cell phone. Thinking Carl is an angel, Pastor Dan asks him if he is going to heaven. Out of sympathy, Carl tells him he is. As Carl waits for help to arrive, a bolt of lightning strikes the ground behind him, severing his handcuffs. The credits reveal that Pastor Day survived, spent two years in jail, where he founded a new ministry inspired by his near-death experience, and became a real-estate broker in Arizona. Gwen divorced Carl citing irreconcilable differences, though Carl still has a good relationship with Angie. Jim started his own private investigation firm and went back to his old Episcopal church. Professor Blaylock continued his teachings against religion. Carl, on the other hand, left the church, began a relationship with Honey and became an "ex-ex-Deadhead." Production. Filming took place in Michigan, particularly Ann Arbor and Dearborn in April and June 2010. "Salvation Boulevard" premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January 2011, and was given a limited release theatrically by IFC Films on July 15, 2011 in the United States. Reception. The film was only released in a small number of theaters and quickly released to video on demand. It was released on DVD on September 18, 2012. It received poor reviews with the "New York Times" saying "there is the inkling of a strong, interesting idea here, about how some versions of modern religion are predicated on the systematic denial of reality, but "Salvation Boulevard" is itself too loosely tethered to the actual world to make the point with the necessary vigor or acuity". Rotten Tomatoes reported only a 21% favorable rating.[http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/salvation_boulevard/]
1163618	George Robert "Bob" Newhart (born September 5, 1929) is an American stand-up comedian and actor. Noted for his deadpan and slightly stammering delivery, Newhart came to prominence in the 1960s when his album of comedic monologues "The Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart" was a worldwide bestseller and reached number one on the "Billboard" pop album chart—it remains the 20th best-selling comedy album in history. The follow-up album, "The Button-Down Mind Strikes Back!" was also a massive success, and the two albums held the "Billboard" number one and number two spots simultaneously, a feat unequaled until the 1991 release of "Use Your Illusion I" and "Use Your Illusion II" by hard rock band Guns N' Roses. Newhart later went into acting, starring in two long-running and prize-winning situation comedies, first as psychologist Dr. Robert "Bob" Hartley on the 1970s sitcom "The Bob Newhart Show" and then as innkeeper Dick Loudon on the 1980s sitcom "Newhart". He also had two short-lived sitcoms in the nineties titled "Bob" and "George and Leo". Newhart also appeared in film roles such as Major Major in "Catch-22" and Papa Elf in "Elf". He provided the voice of Bernard in the Walt Disney animated films "The Rescuers" and "The Rescuers Down Under". One of his most recent roles is the library head Judson in "The Librarian". In 2011, Newhart made a cameo in the film "Horrible Bosses", and in 2013 he guest starred in an episode of "The Big Bang Theory", for which he won his first Primetime Emmy Award on September 15, 2013. Early life. Newhart was born and raised in Austin, Chicago, Illinois, USA. His parents were Julia Pauline (née Burns; 1900–1993), a housewife, and George David Newhart (1900–1985), a part-owner of a plumbing and heating-supply business. His mother was of Irish descent and his father had Irish, German, and English ancestry. One of his grandmothers was from St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada. Newhart has three sisters, Virginia, Mary Joan (a nun, who taught at the all-girls Carmel High School in Mundelein, IL), and Pauline. He was educated at Roman Catholic schools in the Chicago area, including St. Catherine of Siena grammar school in Oak Park, and attended St. Ignatius College Prep (high school), where he graduated in 1947. He then enrolled at Loyola University of Chicago where he graduated in 1952 with a bachelor's degree in business management. He was drafted into the U.S. Army and served stateside during the Korean War as a personnel manager until discharged in 1954. Newhart briefly attended Loyola Law School but did not complete a degree, in part, he says, because he was asked to behave unethically during an internship. Career. After the war he got a job as an accountant for United States Gypsum. He later claimed that his motto, "That's close enough," and his habit of adjusting petty cash imbalances with his own money shows he didn't have the temperament to be an accountant. He also claimed to have been a clerk in the unemployment office who made $55 a week but who quit upon learning weekly unemployment benefits were $45 a week and he "only had to come in to the office one day a week to collect it." Comedy albums. In 1958, Newhart became an advertising copywriter for Fred A. Niles, a major independent film and television producer in Chicago. It was here that he and a co-worker would entertain each other with long telephone calls about absurd scenarios, which they would later record and send to radio stations as audition tapes. When his co-worker ended his participation, Newhart continued the recordings alone, developing the shtick which was to serve him well for decades. In addition to his various stand-up bits, he incorporated that shtick into his television series at appropriate times. The auditions led to his break-through recording contract. A disc jockey at a radio station - Dan Sorkin, who later became the announcer-sidekick on his NBC series — introduced Newhart to the head of talent at Warner Bros. Records, which signed him in 1959 — only a year after the label was formed — based solely on those recordings. He expanded his material into a stand-up routine which he began to perform at nightclubs. Newhart became famous mostly on the strength of his audio releases, in which he became the world's first solo "straight man". This is a seeming contradiction in terms: by definition, a straight man is the counterpart to a more loony comedic partner. Newhart's routine, however, was simply to portray one end of a conversation (usually a phone call), playing the straightest of comedic straight men and implying what the other person was saying. Newhart told a 2005 interviewer for PBS's "American Masters" that his favorite stand-up routine is "Abe Lincoln vs. Madison Avenue," in which a slick promoter has to deal with the reluctance of the eccentric President to agree to efforts to boost his image. The routine was suggested to Newhart by a Chicago TV director and future comedian - Bill Daily, who would be Newhart's castmate on the 1970s "The Bob Newhart Show" for CBS. Newhart became known for using an intentional stammer, in service to his unique combination of politeness and disbelief at what he was supposedly hearing. Newhart has used the delivery throughout his career. In his 2006 book "I Shouldn't Even Be Doing This," he included the following anecdote: His 1960 comedy album, "The Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart", went straight to number one on the charts, beating Elvis Presley and the cast album of "The Sound of Music". It was the first comedy album to make #1 on the Billboard charts. "Button Down Mind" received the 1961 Grammy Award for Album of the Year. The album peaked at #2 in the UK Albums Chart. Newhart also won Best New Artist, and his quickly released follow-up album, "The Button-Down Mind Strikes Back", won Best Comedy Performance - Spoken Word that same year. Subsequent comedy albums include "Behind the Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart" (1961), "The Button-Down Mind on TV" (1962), "Bob Newhart Faces Bob Newhart" (1964), "The Windmills Are Weakening" (1965), "This Is It" (1967), "Best of Bob Newhart" (1971), and "Very Funny Bob Newhart" (1973). Years later he released "Bob Newhart Off the Record" (1992), "The Button-Down Concert" (1997) and "Something Like This" (2001), an anthology of his 1960s Warner Bros. albums. Television. Newhart's success in stand-up led to his own NBC variety show in 1961, "The Bob Newhart Show". The show lasted only a single season, but earned Newhart a Primetime Emmy Award nomination and a Peabody Award. The Peabody Board cited him as: In the mid-1960s, Newhart appeared on "The Dean Martin Show" 24 times, and on "The Ed Sullivan Show" eight times. He appeared in a 1963 episode of "The Alfred Hitchcock Hour" and on "The Judy Garland Show". Newhart guest-hosted "The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson" 87 times, and hosted "Saturday Night Live" twice, 15 years apart (1980 and 1995). In addition to stand-up comedy, Newhart became a dedicated character actor, including a guest role on an episode of "The Alfred Hitchcock Hour". That led to other series such as: "Bob Hope Presents the Chrysler Theatre", "Captain Nice", 2 episodes of "Insight", and "It's Garry Shandling's Show". He reprised his role as Dr. Bob Hartley on "Murphy Brown" and appeared as himself on "The Simpsons", and as a retired forensic pathologist on "NCIS". Newhart guest-starred on three episodes of "ER", for which he was nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award, as well as on "Desperate Housewives" (see below in "Other Appearances"). In 2013 he also appeared on "Committed" and appeared in an episode of the sixth season of "The Big Bang Theory", for which he was awarded a Primetime Emmy Award. Films. Primarily a television star, Newhart has been in a number of popular films, beginning with the 1962 war story "Hell Is for Heroes" starring Steve McQueen. His films have ranged from 1970's Barbra Streisand musical "On a Clear Day You Can See Forever", the 1971 Norman Lear comedy "Cold Turkey", the Mike Nichols-directed war satire "Catch 22", to the 2003 Will Ferrell holiday comedy "Elf". Newhart played the President of the United States in a 1980 comedy, "First Family". He appeared as a beleaguered school principal in 1997's "In & Out", starring Kevin Kline. His most recent film appearance was a cameo appearance as a sadistic CEO at the end of the 2011 film "Horrible Bosses". Sitcoms. "The Bob Newhart Show". Newhart's most notable exposure on television came from two long-running programs that centered on him. In 1972, soon after Newhart guest-starred on The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour, he was approached by his agent and his managers, producer Grant Tinker and actress Mary Tyler Moore (the husband/wife team who founded MTM Enterprises), to work on a pilot series called "The Bob Newhart Show", to be written by Davis and Music. He was very interested in the starring role of dry psychologist Bob Hartley, with Suzanne Pleshette playing his wryly loving wife, Emily, and Bill Daily as neighbor and friend Howard Borden. "The Bob Newhart Show" faced heavy competition from the beginning, launching at the same time as the popular shows "M*A*S*H", "Maude", "Sanford And Son", and "The Waltons". Nevertheless, it was an immediate hit. The show eventually referenced what made Newhart's name in the first place—apart from the first few episodes, it used an opening-credits sequence featuring Newhart answering a telephone in his office. According to co-star Marcia Wallace, the entire cast got along well, and Newhart became close friends with both Wallace and co-star Suzanne Pleshette. The cast also included unfamiliar actors. Marcia Wallace as Bob's wisecracking, man-chasing receptionist, Carol Kester; Peter Bonerz as orthodontist Jerry Robinson, whose offices were on the same floor as Newhart's Hartley; Jack Riley as Elliot Carlin, the most misanthropic among members of Dr. Hartley's most frequently seen group therapy sessions; legendary character actor and voice artist, John Fiedler (the voice of Piglet); Florida Friebus (once the mother on "The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis") as another group member; and, scattered over two seasons, Pat Finley as Hartley's sister, Ellen, a love interest for Howard Borden. Future "Newhart" regular Tom Poston had a briefly recurring role as Cliff Murdock; veteran stage actor Barnard Hughes appeared as Hartley's father for three episodes spread over two seasons, and studio film veteran Martha Scott appeared in several episodes as Hartley's mother. Actress Teri Garr appeared twice in the 1973-74 season. By 1977, the show was suffering lackluster ratings and Newhart wanted to end it, but was under contract to do one more season. The show's writers tried to rework the sitcom by adding a pregnancy, but Newhart objected: "I told the creators I didn't want any children, because I didn't want it to be a show about 'How stupid Daddy is, but we love him so much, let's get him out of the trouble he's gotten himself into'." Nevertheless, the staff wrote an episode that they hoped would change Newhart's mind. Newhart read the script and he agreed it was very funny. He then asked, "Who are you going to get to play Bob?" Ironically, Newhart's wife gave birth to their daughter Jenny late in the year, which caused him to miss several episodes. Marcia Wallace spoke of Newhart's amiable nature on set: "He's very low key, and he didn't want to cause trouble. I had a dog that I used to bring to the set by the name of Maggie. And whenever there was a line that Bob didn't like—he didn't want to complain too much—so, he'd go over, get down on his hands and knees, and repeat the line to the dog, who invariably yawned; and he'd say, 'See, I told you it's not funny!'" Wallace has also commented on the show's lack of Emmy recognition: "People think we were nominated for many an Emmy, people presume we won Emmys, all of us, and certainly Bob, and certainly the show. Nope, never!" Newhart finally pulled the plug on his own sitcom in 1978 after six seasons and 142 episodes. Wallace said of its ending, "It was much crying and sobbing. It was so sad. We really did get along. We really had great times together." Of Newhart's other long-running sitcom, "Newhart", Wallace said, "But some of the other great comedic talents who had a brilliant show, when they tried to do it twice, it didn't always work. And that's what... but like Bob, as far as I'm concerned, Bob is like the Fred Astaire of comics. He just makes it look so easy, and he's not as in-your-face as some might be. And so, you just kind of take it for granted, how extraordinarily funny and how he wears well." She was later reunited with Newhart twice, once in a reprise of her role as Carol on "Murphy Brown" in 1994, and on an episode of Newhart's short-lived sitcom, "George & Leo", in 1997. "Newhart". By 1982, Newhart was interested in a new sitcom. After he had discussions with Barry Kemp and CBS, the show "Newhart" was created, in which Newhart played Vermont innkeeper Dick Loudon. Inexperienced, struggling actress Mary Frann was cast as his wife, Joanna Loudon, and another unfamiliar prime-time actress and soap star (who had been a fan of Newhart's since she was 21), Julia Duffy joined the cast as Dick's inn maid and spoiled rich girl, Stephanie Vanderkellen. A struggling actor (who had been a fan of Newhart's since he was 17), Peter Scolari was also cast as Dick's manipulative TV producer, Michael Harris. Well known actor Tom Poston played the role of handyman George Utley on "Newhart" and received three Primetime Emmy Award nominations for his role in "Newhart" as Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series, 1984, 1986 and 1987. Like "The Bob Newhart Show", "Newhart" was an immediate hit, and like the show before that, it was also nominated for Primetime Emmy Awards, but it didn't win any of them. During the time Newhart was working on this show, in 1985, his smoking habits finally caught up to him, and he was taken to the emergency room for polycythemia. The doctors ordered him to stop smoking. Newhart himself "warmed up" the studio audience with a five-to-eight-minute routine before the filming of every episode. In 1987, ratings began to drop. "Newhart" ended in 1990 after eight seasons and 182 episodes. The last episode ended with a scene in which Newhart wakes up in bed with Suzanne Pleshette, who had played Emily, his wife from "The Bob Newhart Show". He realizes (in a satire of a famous plot element in the television series "Dallas" a few years earlier) that the entire eight-year "Newhart" series had been a single nightmare of Dr. Bob Hartley's, provoked by "eating too much Japanese food before going to bed." Recalling Mary Frann's buxom figure, Bob closes the segment and the series by telling Emily, "You really should wear more sweaters" before the typical closing notes of the old "Bob Newhart Show" theme played over the fadeout. The twist ending was later chosen by TV Guide as the best finale in television history. Peter Scolari, who played conniving, hyperactive TV producer, Michael Harris, for six of the eight seasons, said of his idol/future TV producer and friend, about looking for another woman to follow Suzanne Pleshette: "I think Bob was right to find a woman, who was, you know, a completely different kind of woman. I mean, I hate to say it, but demographically, you don't have this. You get the sense that Suzanne Pleshette, you know, had played some poker in her time, maybe knocked back a couple of cigarettes, in her life, and you'd be right to assume that Mary Frann did none of those things. Mary Frann was such a dedicated actor that this one, I don't think she missed a mark or screwed up a line in like 60 or 70 performances of her own, that were flawless." When Newhart's co-star had found out Newhart (himself) was trying to stop smoking was, "And the Pepsi was gone and the cigarettes were finally gone. And he did a great... you know, he would do a five- to eight-minute routine in front of our live audience, every single show night; every Friday night for eight years, he did excerpts and new material. And he did the smoking, and he would start playing the spotlight. The follow spot was on him. 'And I haven't had any of the problems that people usually talk about having with the... with the smoking—impatience, outbursts of anger, appetite. I haven't really... look, put it on me or get it off me! Just make up your mind!' And he'd freaked out on the follow spot guy. So, he did this for about eight to ten weeks." The last thing Peter also said despite of Mr. Newhart's second show not winning any Primetime Emmy Awards, it also gained recognition for the eight seasons that stayed on the air, "I think Julia Duffy and I (at the Emmys), lost Bob and Tom, I think in 8 years, would collectively lost 15 Emmys, lost by 4 cast members, and we just couldn't get arrested, no matter how great a year, we had, it's great to be nominated, to lose again." After the series' cancellation, Scolari is still good friends with Newhart, who also plays golf with him. Other TV series. In 1992, Newhart returned to television with a series called "Bob", about a cartoonist. An ensemble cast included a pre-"Friends" Lisa Kudrow, but the show did not develop a strong audience and was canceled shortly after the start of its second season, despite good critical reviews. (On "The Tonight Show" following the cancellation, Newhart famously joked he had now done shows called "The Bob Newhart Show", "Newhart" and "Bob" so his next show was going to be called "The".) In 1997, Newhart returned again with "George and Leo" on CBS with Judd Hirsch and Jason Bateman; the show was canceled during its first season. Other TV appearances. In 2001, Newhart made an appearance on "MADtv" (Season 6), playing a psychiatrist who yells "Stop it!" in a skit. Other television work includes: In 1995, a 64-year-old Newhart was approached by the Showtime cable network to do his very first comedy special in his 35 year career. His special "Off The Record" consisted of him doing material from his first and second albums in front of a live audience in Pasedena, California. In 2003, Newhart guest-starred on three episodes of "ER" in a rare dramatic role that earned him an Primetime Emmy Award nomination, his first in nearly 20 years. In 2005, he began a recurring role in "Desperate Housewives" as Morty, the on-again/off-again boyfriend of Sophie (Lesley Ann Warren), Susan Mayer's (Teri Hatcher) mother. In 2009, he received another Primetime Emmy Award nomination for reprising his role as Judson in "". On the August 27, 2006, at the 58th Primetime Emmy Awards, hosted by Conan O'Brien, Newhart was placed in a supposedly airtight glass prison that contained three hours of air. If the Emmys went over the time of three hours, he would die. This gag was an acknowledgment of the common frustration that award shows usually run on past their allotted time (which is usually three hours). Newhart "survived" his containment to help O'Brien present the award for Outstanding Comedy Series (which went to "The Office"). During an episode of "Jimmy Kimmel Live!", Newhart made a comedic cameo with members of ABC's show "Lost" lampooning an alternate ending to the series finale. In 2011, Newhart appeared in a small but pivotal role as a doctor in Lifetime's anthology film on breast cancer "Five". And, in 2013, he made a guest appearance on "The Big Bang Theory "as the aged Professor Proton (Arthur Jeffries), a former science TV show host turned children's party entertainer, for which he won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Comedy Series, his first Emmy Award. Personal comedic style. Newhart is known for his deadpan delivery and a slight stammer which early on he incorporated into the persona around which he built a successful career. On his TV shows, although he got his share of funny lines, often he worked in the Jack Benny tradition of being the "straight man" while the sometimes somewhat bizarre cast members surrounding him got the laughs. Several of his routines involve hearing one half of a conversation as he speaks to someone over the phone. In a bit called "King Kong", a rookie security guard at the Empire State Building seeks guidance as to how to deal with an ape who is "18 to 19 stories high, depending on whether we have a 13th floor or not". He assures his boss he has looked in the guards manual "under 'ape' and 'ape's toes'". Other famous routines include "The Driving Instructor," "The Mrs. Grace L. Ferguson Airline (and Storm Door Company)", "Introducing Tobacco To Civilization", "Abe Lincoln vs. Madison Avenue," "Defusing a Bomb" (in which an uneasy security division commander tries to walk a new and nervous security guard through defusing a live shell discovered on a California beach), "The Retirement Party," "A Neighbour's Dog," "Ledge Psychology," and "The Khrushchev Landing Rehearsal." In a 2012 podcast interview with Marc Maron, comedian Shelley Berman accused Newhart of ripping off his improvisational telephone routine style, describing it as a "very special technique that couldn't really be imitated. It could be stolen. And it was." When asked by Maron if it was done maliciously, Berman replied, "Maliciously? He wouldn't do it maliciously. Nobody does that. But he did it to make a living. And he became a star." Berman later added, "I thought it was a rotten thing to do. I thought the agents who sold him - I thought they were just as guilty as everybody else. But, my God, to go into a town and do my show, and the critics saying that I borrowed some stuff from Newhart..." When asked in interviews about the telephone issue Newhart noted that: and And and Writings. On September 20, 2006, Hyperion Books released Newhart's first book, "I Shouldn't Even Be Doing This". The book is primarily a memoir, but features comic bits by Newhart as well. Transcripts of many of Newhart's classic routines are woven in with the rest of the text. As comedic actor David Hyde Pierce notes, "The only difference between Bob Newhart on stage and Bob Newhart offstage – is that there is no stage." Honors. In addition to his Peabody Award and several Primetime Emmy Award nominations, Newhart's recognitions include: Personal life. Newhart was introduced by Buddy Hackett to Virginia "Ginnie" Quinn, the daughter of character actor Bill Quinn (who died in 1994). They were married on January 12, 1963. The couple has four children (Robert, Timothy, Jennifer and Courtney), and several grandchildren. They are Catholic and raised their children as such, but Ginnie said they did not want them to have "the fears" that came from their upbringing. He is a member of the Good Shepherd Parish and the Catholic Motion Picture Guild in Beverly Hills, California. His son Rob (who portrayed his father in 1993's "Heart & Souls", with Robert Downey Jr.) maintains his father's official website.
1082936	Mr. Arkadin (first released Spain, 1955), known in Britain as Confidential Report, is a French-Spanish-Swiss coproduction film, written and directed by Orson Welles and shot in several Spanish locations, including Costa Brava, Segovia, Valladolid and Madrid. Filming took place throughout Europe in 1954, and scenes shot outside Spain include locations in London, Munich, Paris, the French Riviera, and the Château de Chillon in Switzerland. Plot. Guy Van Stratten, a small-time American smuggler working in Europe, is at the scene of the murder of a man named Bracco. The dying man whispers two names that he claims are very valuable, one of which is Gregory Arkadin. Using this small bit of information and lots of bluffing, Van Stratten manages to meet the apparent multi-millionaire business magnate and socialite Arkadin, and Arkadin then hires Van Stratten to research his own past, of which he claims to have no memory before 1927. Traveling across the world, Van Stratten pieces together Arkadin's past from the few remaining people who knew Arkadin as a gangster in post-World War I Europe, but in each case the individuals he speaks to end up dead. Van Stratten ultimately discovers the truth about Arkadin's past, leading to a climactic race to Spain between the two, with disastrous consequences. Production. Its history is convoluted. The story was based on several episodes of the radio series "The Lives of Harry Lime", which in turn was based on the character Welles portrayed in "The Third Man". The main inspiration for the plot was the episode "Man of Mystery". Most of the key elements for Arkadin's character come from real life arms dealer, Basil Zaharoff, the mysterious birthplace, the French Riviera property and the Spanish castle for example. In addition, several different versions of the film were released. Welles missed an editing deadline, and so Producer Louis Dovilet took the film out of his hands and released several edits of the film, none of which were approved by Welles. Jonathan Rosenbaum's essay "The Seven Arkadins" is an attempt to detail the different versions including the novel and radio play. Adding to the confusion is a novel of the same title that was credited to Welles; Welles claimed that he was unaware of the book's existence until he saw a copy in a bookshop. In 1982 Welles described "Mr. Arkadin" as the "biggest disaster" of his life, due to his loss of creative control, not released in the United States until 1962. Some compensation for Welles came in the form of Paola Mori who played the role of his daughter. In private life Countess Paola Di Girfalco, she would become his third wife. In addition the shooting started Welles's longtime relationship with Spain, where he lived for several periods in his life. Released in some parts of Europe as "Confidential Report", this film shares themes and stylistic devices with "The Third Man". Like many of Welles's other films, "Mr. Arkadin" was heavily edited without his input. The Criterion Collection produced a three-DVD box set that includes three separate versions of "Mr. Arkadin" including a comprehensive re-edit that combines material taken from all the known versions of the film. Though even the creators of this "restored" version express their doubts as to the "correctness" of altering another artist's work, this new version is far and away the most comprehensible and easy to follow of the known versions. Also included are three of the Harry Lime radio plays reported to have been written by Welles and which he certainly based the Arkadin screenplay on. A copy of the Arkadin novelization — which may have been adapted by Welles or a ghost writer — is also included. The Criterion release also includes commentary tracks from Welles film scholars Jonathan Rosenbaum and James Naremore. Multiple versions of "Mr. Arkadin". In his 1991 essay, "The Seven Arkadins", film historian Jonathan Rosenbaum identified seven different versions of the story, and since its initial publication, a further two versions have emerged. Pre-film versions. 1. Three episodes of the radio series "The Lives of Harry Lime", written, directed by and starring Welles. The basic plot of a wealthy Mr. Arkadian (spelt with three As in this version) commissioning a confidential report on his former life can be found in the episode ""Man of Mystery"" (first broadcast 11 April 1952), while the episode ""Murder on the Riviera"" (first broadcast 23 May 1952) and the final episode ""Greek Meets Greek"" (first broadcast 25 July 1952) both contain plot elements repeated in the film. Note that in the film, the popular Harry Lime character from "The Third Man" is replaced by the less sympathetic Guy Van Stratten, since Welles did not own the copyright to the Lime character (who was a creation of Graham Greene's). 2. "Masquerade", an early version of the screenplay of what would eventually become Mr. Arkadin, has substantial differences from the film versions. The screenplay follows a strictly chronological structure rather than the back-and-forth structure of the film. Many of the scenes in the film are set in different countries, and a lengthy sequence in Mexico is entirely missing from the final film. Different edits of the film released in Welles' lifetime. Crucially, none of the versions available before 2006 contained all the footage found in the others; each had some elements missing from other versions, and each has substantial editing differences from the others. 3. The main Spanish-language version of "Mr. Arkadin". (93 mins) This was filmed back-to-back with the English-language version and was the first to be released, premiering in Madrid in March 1955. Although the cast and crew were largely the same, at least two characters were played by Spanish actors - Amparo Rivelles plays Baroness Nagel, and Irene Lopez Heredia plays Sophie Radzweickz Martinez. (Additionally, Robert Arden is credited as "Bob Harden.") Some scenes had Spanish dubbing over English dialogue, although most were performed in Spanish. 4. There is a second Spanish-language cut of "Mr. Arkadin", which was unknown to Rosenbaum at the time he wrote "The Seven Arkadins". (He confessed in the essay to having seen only brief clips of one version.) This one credits Robert Arden as "Mark Sharpe". 5. ""Confidential Report"" (98 mins) - the most common European release print of "Mr. Arkadin", which premiered in London in August 1955. Differences to this version include the presence of off-screen narration from Van Stratten. Rosenbaum speculates that the editing of this version was based on an early draft of Welles, screenplay, since its exposition is far simpler than the "Corinth" version. 6. The "Corinth" version of "Mr. Arkadin". (99 mins) Until the 2006 re-edit, it was believed to be the closest version to Welles' conception. Peter Bogdanovich discovered its existence in 1961, and secured its first US release in 1962, seven years after alternative versions of the film came out in Europe. 7. The most widely seen version of "Mr. Arkadin", which was made for television/ home video release and is now in the public domain. (95 mins) It entirely removes the film's flashback structure and presents a simpler, linear narrative. Rosenbaum describes it as "the least satisfactory version", which is a "clumsily truncated" edit of the "Corinth" version, often editing out half-sentences, making some dialogue incomprehensible. As this version is in the public domain, the vast majority of DVD releases are of this version, often in poor-quality prints. The novelisation. 8. The novel "Mr. Arkadin" was first published in French, in Paris in 1955; and then in English in 1956, both in London and New York. Welles was credited as author, and the book's dustjacket boasted "It is perhaps surprising that Orson Welles … has not written a novel before." "I didn't write one word of that novel. Nor have I ever read it," Welles told Peter Bogdanovich. "Somebody wrote it in French to be published in serial form in the newspapers. You know — to promote the picture. I don't know "how" it got under hardcovers, or who got paid for that." Welles always denied authorship of the book, and French actor-writer Maurice Bessy was long rumoured to be the author. Rosenbaum suggested that the book was written in French and then translated into English, since lines from the script were approximations that seemed to have been translated from English to French to English again. Research by film scholar François Thomas in the papers of Louis Dolivet has uncovered documentary proof that Bessy was indeed the author. The Criterion edit (2006). 9. Whilst no version of the film can claim to be definitive as Welles never finished editing the film, this is likely to remain the closest version to Welles' original vision. It was compiled in 2006 by Stefan Drössler of the Munich Film Museum and Claude Bertemes of the Cinémathèchque municipale de Luxembourg, with both Peter Bogdanovich and Jonathan Rosenbaum giving technical assistance. It uses all available English-language footage, and attempts to follow Welles' planned structure and editing style as closely as possible, incorporating his comments over the years on where the other edits went wrong. "The Criterion edit" (106 mins) was released in a 3-disc DVD set which included: Reception. Japanese film director Shinji Aoyama listed "Confidential Report" as one of the Greatest Films of All Time in 2012. He said, "No other movie is destructive as "Confidential Report", which gives me different emotions every time I see it. Achieving this kind of indetermination in a film is the highest goal that I always hope for, but can never achieve."
694464	"Rock 'n' Roll High School" is a 1979 musical comedy film produced by Roger Corman, directed by Allan Arkush, and featuring the Ramones.
589412	Phir Wohi Raat (; transliteration: Same night again) is a 1980 suspense film of horror genre starring Rajesh Khanna in the lead role as a psychologist doctor opposite Kim Yashpal. Danny later on married Kim Yashpal. The music is by R.D.Burman. This is the first and the only film directed by Danny Denzongpa. It fetched 2.4 crore in 1980 and became a hit. Suresh Oberoi, who played the investigating police officer in this film, was noticed by filmgoers only with this film. Synopsis. A woman in her early twenties named Asha lives in a hostel where she gets tortured by nightmares and thereby leaves the hostel after she realises that neither she is happy nor her the hostel authorities and her friends from hostel due to her behaviour. Later on she goes to a doctor Dr. Vijay for treatment. Her dreams are of her insane aunt who tried to strangle her years ago after killing her mother. Dr. Vijay after understanding her case decides to take her outside the city, far away from the city, to a remote hilly area which is the ancestral mansion, where she spent her childhood and is a replica of ancestral mansion which she fantasies about. Shoba, a close friend of Asha, also decides to accompany Asha to the mansion. Asha and Vijay gradually start liking each other and fall in love with each other. There, in the big old mansion, Asha witnesses lots of things which makes her more scared, but Vijay does not agree with her. Vijay starts suspecting the daughter of Vishwanath to be the person, who is playing some prank on Asha. Later Ashok, a cousin of Asha, comes to India to meet her all alone. Asha is angry at Ashok, for he has married a Christian woman, without disclosing to her. Later, on the eve of Asha's birthday, Ashok's wife gets murdered, and this further changes the life of Asha. The rest of the story is full of suspense till the end.
965889	Kevin Grevioux is an American actor, screenwriter, and comic book writer. He is most known for his role as "Raze" in the "Underworld" movies. Biography. Grevioux was born in Chicago, Illinois and spent most of his childhood in Minnesota, Boston, and New Jersey. He is a graduate of Howard University in Washington, D.C. having earned a degree in microbiology and pledged Alpha Phi Alpha, Beta Chapter. He also attended graduate school at Howard, studying for his master's degree in genetic engineering. However, he did not complete this master's program. As an actor, he has been seen in such films as "The Mask", "Steel", "Congo", Tim Burton's "Planet of the Apes" remake, and the 2003 vampire vs. werewolf film, "Underworld". He has also worked as a stuntman on occasion. "Underworld" was Grevioux's first produced writing credit. He came up with the original concept/premise and wrote the original screenplay along with director Len Wiseman, launching the "Underworld" franchise. He appears in the film himself as a lycan, Raze, and returned as the character in the Underworld prequel "", which he will also be adapting into a comic book mini-series. He also expressed an interest in telling more Underworld stories in comic form if this proves successful.
1056066	Angels & Insects is a 1995 romance drama film directed by Philip Haas. It was written by Philip and Belinda Haas with A. S. Byatt after her novella "Morpho Eugenia". Plot. William Adamson (Mark Rylance), a poor naturalist, returns home to Victorian England after having spent years along the Amazon River studying all kinds of animals, mainly insects. William is penniless, having lost all his possessions during a shipwreck. Nevertheless he manages to befriend Sir Harald Alabaster (Jeremy Kemp), an amateur insect collector and botanist. Sir Harald hires William to catalog his specimen collection and teach his younger children the natural sciences, assisting their governess, Matty (Kristin Scott Thomas). He becomes enamored of Sir Harald's daughter, Eugenia (Patsy Kensit), who is still mourning the suicide of her fiance. William and Eugenia quickly fall in love and lust and decide to marry. Their ceremony is shown as concluding in the marriage bed with the happy couple having enthusiastic sex. Sir Harald and his wife Lady Alabaster eagerly grant their approval of this match, but Eugenia's older brother Edgar (Douglas Henshall) takes an intense dislike to William, never passing up the opportunity to pick fights with him or to remind him of his humble working class background: "You're not one of us." After the marriage, Eugenia produces five children in quick succession. She insists on naming the first boy "Edgar", after her brother. William never warms to the children, instead spending his time studying a colony of red ants with Matty and various children of the house. He writes a book about their observations, which is quickly accepted by a publisher.
655471	Charlotte Ayanna (née Lopez; born September 25, 1976) is an American actress and former Miss Teen USA. Early life. Ayanna was born in San Juan, Puerto Rico, but moved to Vermont at an early age. She had a troubled childhood, spending sixteen years in foster homes after her mother, Emma, was judged to be mentally unfit to look after her children. In 1994, at age 17, she was adopted into a foster home. She has since become a spokeswoman for foster children. Career. Her first national exposure was in 1993, when she became Miss Teen USA. Charlotte co-authored a book titled "Lost in the System", published in 1996, detailing her childhood and subsequent rise to Miss Teen USA. She later changed her last name to "Ayanna", meaning "blessed" in Cherokee. Following her pageant victory, she made guest appearances on television shows including "Weird Science" and "Entourage". She also appeared in the music video for fellow Puerto Rican Ricky Martín's hit "She's All I Ever Had". She also starred opposite Martin Freeman from The Office in the Parisian band, Ilya's music video, Bellissima. Her film roles include "Jawbreaker" (1999), "" (1999), "Dancing at the Blue Iguana" (2000), "Kate & Leopold" (2001), "Training Day" (as Ethan Hawke's wife), and "Love the Hard Way" (2003) with Adrien Brody. She also starred with Sean Patrick Flanery as the sexy vampiress in the horror-made-for-DVD movie "The Insatiable" (2007). Awards and nominations. In 2002 she won the Best Actress award at the Valenciennes International Festival of Action and Adventure Films for "Love the Hard Way" (2001) tied with Kajol for Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham... (2001). Won best actress of the season, at The Equity Dorset Summer Theater Festival for her role as Brook Ashton in the farce, Noises Off. References. Diane Sawyer Turning Point Documentary, The Charlotte Lopez Story "Can Dreams Come True" for ABC. Aug 1993 USA Today Good Morning America with Joan Lunden, August 1993 Today Show, August 1993
1101756	Emmy Noether (; official name Amalie Emmy Noether; 23 March 1882 – 14 April 1935), was an influential German mathematician known for her groundbreaking contributions to abstract algebra and theoretical physics. Described by Pavel Alexandrov, Albert Einstein, Jean Dieudonné, Hermann Weyl, Norbert Wiener and others as the most important woman in the history of mathematics, she revolutionized the theories of rings, fields, and algebras. In physics, Noether's theorem explains the fundamental connection between symmetry and conservation laws. She was born to a Jewish family in the Bavarian town of Erlangen; her father was mathematician Max Noether. Emmy originally planned to teach French and English after passing the required examinations, but instead studied mathematics at the University of Erlangen, where her father lectured. After completing her dissertation in 1907 under the supervision of Paul Gordan, she worked at the Mathematical Institute of Erlangen without pay for seven years (at the time women were largely excluded from academic positions). In 1915, she was invited by David Hilbert and Felix Klein to join the mathematics department at the University of Göttingen, a world-renowned center of mathematical research. The philosophical faculty objected, however, and she spent four years lecturing under Hilbert's name. Her "habilitation" was approved in 1919, allowing her to obtain the rank of "Privatdozent". Noether remained a leading member of the Göttingen mathematics department until 1933; her students were sometimes called the "Noether boys". In 1924, Dutch mathematician B. L. van der Waerden joined her circle and soon became the leading expositor of Noether's ideas: her work was the foundation for the second volume of his influential 1931 textbook, "Moderne Algebra". By the time of her plenary address at the 1932 International Congress of Mathematicians in Zürich, her algebraic acumen was recognized around the world. The following year, Germany's Nazi government dismissed Jews from university positions, and Noether moved to the United States to take up a position at Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania. In 1935 she underwent surgery for an ovarian cyst and, despite signs of a recovery, died four days later at the age of 53. Noether's mathematical work has been divided into three "epochs". In the first (1908–19), she made significant contributions to the theories of algebraic invariants and number fields. Her work on differential invariants in the calculus of variations, "Noether's theorem", has been called "one of the most important mathematical theorems ever proved in guiding the development of modern physics". In the second epoch (1920–26), she began work that "changed the face of algebra". In her classic paper "Idealtheorie in Ringbereichen" ("Theory of Ideals in Ring Domains", 1921) Noether developed the theory of ideals in commutative rings into a powerful tool with wide-ranging applications. She made elegant use of the ascending chain condition, and objects satisfying it are named "Noetherian" in her honor. In the third epoch (1927–35), she published major works on noncommutative algebras and hypercomplex numbers and united the representation theory of groups with the theory of modules and ideals. In addition to her own publications, Noether was generous with her ideas and is credited with several lines of research published by other mathematicians, even in fields far removed from her main work, such as algebraic topology. Biography. Emmy's father, Max Noether, was descended from a family of wholesale traders in Germany. He had been paralyzed by poliomyelitis at the age of fourteen. He regained mobility, but one leg remained affected. Largely self-taught, he was awarded a doctorate from the University of Heidelberg in 1868. After teaching there for seven years, he took a position in the Bavarian city of Erlangen, where he met and married Ida Amalia Kaufmann, the daughter of a prosperous merchant. Max Noether's mathematical contributions were to algebraic geometry mainly, following in the footsteps of Alfred Clebsch. His best known results are the "Brill–Noether theorem" and the residue, or "AF+BG theorem"; several other theorems are associated with him, including "Max Noether's theorem". Emmy Noether was born on 23 March 1882, the first of four children. Her first name was "Amalie", after her mother and paternal grandmother, but she began using her middle name at a young age. As a girl, she was well liked. She did not stand out academically although she was known for being clever and friendly. Emmy was near-sighted and talked with a minor lisp during childhood. A family friend recounted a story years later about young Emmy quickly solving a brain teaser at a children's party, showing logical acumen at that early age. Emmy was taught to cook and clean, as were most girls of the time, and she took piano lessons. She pursued none of these activities with passion, although she loved to dance. She had three younger brothers. The eldest, Alfred, was born in 1883, was awarded a doctorate in chemistry from Erlangen in 1909, but died nine years later. Fritz Noether, born in 1884, is remembered for his academic accomplishments: after studying in Munich he made a reputation for himself in applied mathematics. The youngest, Gustav Robert, was born in 1889. Very little is known about his life; he suffered from chronic illness and died in 1928. University of Erlangen. Emmy Noether showed early proficiency in French and English. In the spring of 1900 she took the examination for teachers of these languages and received an overall score of "sehr gut" (very good). Her performance qualified her to teach languages at schools reserved for girls, but she chose instead to continue her studies at the University of Erlangen. This was an unconventional decision; two years earlier, the Academic Senate of the university had declared that allowing mixed-sex education would "overthrow all academic order". One of only two women students in a university of 986, Noether was only allowed to audit classes rather than participate fully, and required the permission of individual professors whose lectures she wished to attend. Despite the obstacles, on 14 July 1903 she passed the graduation exam at a "Realgymnasium" in Nuremberg. During the 1903–04 winter semester, she studied at the University of Göttingen, attending lectures given by astronomer Karl Schwarzschild and mathematicians Hermann Minkowski, Otto Blumenthal, Felix Klein, and David Hilbert. Soon thereafter, restrictions on women's participation in that university were rescinded. Noether returned to Erlangen. She officially reentered the university on 24 October 1904, and declared her intention to focus solely on mathematics. Under the supervision of Paul Gordan she wrote her dissertation, "Über die Bildung des Formensystems der ternären biquadratischen Form" ("On Complete Systems of Invariants for Ternary Biquadratic Forms", 1907). Although it had been well received, Noether later described her thesis as "crap". For the next seven years (1908–15) she taught at the University of Erlangen's Mathematical Institute without pay, occasionally substituting for her father when he was too ill to lecture. In 1910 and 1911 she published an extension of her thesis work from three variables to "n" variables. Gordan retired in the spring of 1910, but continued to teach occasionally with his successor, Erhard Schmidt, who left shortly afterward for a position in Breslau. Gordan retired from teaching altogether in 1911 with the arrival of Schmidt's successor Ernst Fischer, and died in December 1912. According to Hermann Weyl, Fischer was an important influence on Noether, in particular by introducing her to the work of David Hilbert. From 1913 to 1916 Noether published several papers extending and applying Hilbert's methods to mathematical objects such as fields of rational functions and the invariants of finite groups. This phase marks the beginning of her engagement with abstract algebra, the field of mathematics to which she would make groundbreaking contributions. Noether and Fischer shared lively enjoyment of mathematics and would often discuss lectures long after they were over; Noether is known to have sent postcards to Fischer continuing her train of mathematical thoughts. University of Göttingen. In the spring of 1915, Noether was invited to return to the University of Göttingen by David Hilbert and Felix Klein. Their effort to recruit her, however, was blocked by the philologists and historians among the philosophical faculty: women, they insisted, should not become "privatdozent". One faculty member protested: "What will our soldiers think when they return to the university and find that they are required to learn at the feet of a woman?" Hilbert responded with indignation, stating, "I do not see that the sex of the candidate is an argument against her admission as "privatdozent". After all, we are a university, not a bath house." Noether left for Göttingen in late April; two weeks later her mother died suddenly in Erlangen. She had previously received medical care for an eye condition, but its nature and impact on her death is unknown. At about the same time Noether's father retired and her brother joined the German Army to serve in World War I. She returned to Erlangen for several weeks, mostly to care for her aging father. During her first years teaching at Göttingen she did not have an official position and was not paid; her family paid for her room and board and supported her academic work. Her lectures often were advertised under Hilbert's name, and Noether would provide "assistance". Soon after arriving at Göttingen, however, she demonstrated her capabilities by proving the theorem now known as Noether's theorem, which shows that a conservation law is associated with any differentiable symmetry of a physical system. American physicists Leon M. Lederman and Christopher T. Hill argue in their book "Symmetry and the Beautiful Universe" that Noether's theorem is "certainly one of the most important mathematical theorems ever proved in guiding the development of modern physics, possibly on a par with the Pythagorean theorem". When World War I ended, the German Revolution of 1918–19 brought a significant change in social attitudes, including more rights for women. In 1919 the University of Göttingen allowed Noether to proceed with her "habilitation" (eligibility for tenure). Her oral examination was held in late May, and she successfully delivered her "habilitation" lecture in June. Three years later she received a letter from the Prussian Minister for Science, Art, and Public Education, in which he conferred on her the title of "nicht beamteter ausserordentlicher Professor" (an untenured professor with limited internal administrative rights and functions). This was an unpaid "extraordinary" professorship, not the higher "ordinary" professorship, which was a civil-service position. Although it recognized the importance of her work, the position still provided no salary. Noether was not paid for her lectures until she was appointed to the special position of "Lehrbeauftragte für Algebra" a year later. Seminal work in abstract algebra. Although Noether's theorem had a profound effect upon physics, among mathematicians she is best remembered for her seminal contributions to abstract algebra. As Nathan Jacobson says in his Introduction to Noether's "Collected Papers", Noether's groundbreaking work in algebra began in 1920. In collaboration with W. Schmeidler, she then published a paper about the theory of ideals in which they defined left and right ideals in a ring. The following year she published a landmark paper called "Idealtheorie in Ringbereichen", analyzing ascending chain conditions with regard to (mathematical) ideals. Noted algebraist Irving Kaplansky called this work "revolutionary"; the publication gave rise to the term "Noetherian ring", and several other mathematical objects being called "Noetherian". In 1924 a young Dutch mathematician, B. L. van der Waerden, arrived at the University of Göttingen. He immediately began working with Noether, who provided invaluable methods of abstract conceptualization. Van der Waerden later said that her originality was "absolute beyond comparison". In 1931 he published "Moderne Algebra", a central text in the field; its second volume borrowed heavily from Noether's work. Although Emmy Noether did not seek recognition, he included as a note in the seventh edition "based in part on lectures by E. Artin and E. Noether". She sometimes allowed her colleagues and students to receive credit for her ideas, helping them develop their careers at the expense of her own. Van der Waerden's visit was part of a convergence of mathematicians from all over the world to Göttingen, which became a major hub of mathematical and physical research. From 1926 to 1930 Russian topologist Pavel Alexandrov lectured at the university, and he and Noether quickly became good friends. He began referring to her as "der Noether", using the masculine German article as a term of endearment to show his respect. She tried to arrange for him to obtain a position at Göttingen as a regular professor, but was only able to help him secure a scholarship from the Rockefeller Foundation. They met regularly and enjoyed discussions about the intersections of algebra and topology. In his 1935 memorial address, Alexandrov named Emmy Noether "the greatest woman mathematician of all time". Lecturing and students. In Göttingen, Noether supervised more than a dozen doctoral students; her first was Grete Hermann, who defended her dissertation in February 1925. She later spoke reverently of her "dissertation-mother".. Noether also supervised Max Deuring, who distinguished himself as an undergraduate and went on to contribute significantly to the field of arithmetic geometry; Hans Fitting, remembered for Fitting's theorem and the Fitting lemma; and Zeng Jiongzhi (also rendered "Chiungtze C. Tsen" in English), who proved Tsen's theorem. She also worked closely with Wolfgang Krull, who greatly advanced commutative algebra with his "Hauptidealsatz" and his dimension theory for commutative rings. In addition to her mathematical insight, Noether was respected for her consideration of others. Although she sometimes acted rudely toward those who disagreed with her, she nevertheless gained a reputation for constant helpfulness and patient guidance of new students. Her loyalty to mathematical precision caused one colleague to name her "a severe critic", but she combined this demand for accuracy with a nurturing attitude. A colleague later described her this way: "Completely unegotistical and free of vanity, she never claimed anything for herself, but promoted the works of her students above all." Her frugal lifestyle at first was due to being denied pay for her work; however, even after the university began paying her a small salary in 1923, she continued to live a simple and modest life. She was paid more generously later in her life, but saved half of her salary to bequeath to her nephew, Gottfried E. Noether. Mostly unconcerned about appearance and manners, she focused on her studies to the exclusion of romance and fashion. A distinguished algebraist Olga Taussky-Todd described a luncheon, during which Noether, wholly engrossed in a discussion of mathematics, "gesticulated wildly" as she ate and "spilled her food constantly and wiped it off from her dress, completely unperturbed". Appearance-conscious students cringed as she retrieved the handkerchief from her blouse and ignored the increasing disarray of her hair during a lecture. Two female students once approached her during a break in a two-hour class to express their concern, but they were unable to break through the energetic mathematics discussion she was having with other students. According to Van der Waerden's obituary of Emmy Noether, she did not follow a lesson plan for her lectures, which frustrated some students. Instead, she used her lectures as a spontaneous discussion time with her students, to think through and clarify important cutting-edge problems in mathematics. Some of her most important results were developed in these lectures, and the lecture notes of her students formed the basis for several important textbooks, such as those of Van der Waerden and Deuring. Several of her colleagues attended her lectures, and she allowed some of her ideas, such as the crossed product ("verschränktes Produkt" in German) of associative algebras, to be published by others. Noether was recorded as having given at least five semester-long courses at Göttingen: These courses often preceded major publications in these areas. Noether spoke quickly—reflecting the speed of her thoughts, many said—and demanded great concentration from her students. Students who disliked her style often felt alienated. Some pupils felt that she relied too much on spontaneous discussions. Her most dedicated students, however, relished the enthusiasm with which she approached mathematics, especially since her lectures often built on earlier work they had done together. She developed a close circle of colleagues and students who thought along similar lines and tended to exclude those who did not. "Outsiders" who occasionally visited Noether's lectures usually spent only 30 minutes in the room before leaving in frustration or confusion. A regular student said of one such instance: "The enemy has been defeated; he has cleared out." Noether showed a devotion to her subject and her students that extended beyond the academic day. Once, when the building was closed for a state holiday, she gathered the class on the steps outside, led them through the woods, and lectured at a local coffee house. Later, after she had been dismissed by the Third Reich, she invited students into her home to discuss their future plans and mathematical concepts. Moscow. In the winter of 1928–29 Noether accepted an invitation to Moscow State University, where she continued working with P. S. Alexandrov. In addition to carrying on with her research, she taught classes in abstract algebra and algebraic geometry. She worked with the topologists, Lev Pontryagin and Nikolai Chebotaryov, who later praised her contributions to the development of "Galois theory". Although politics was not central to her life, Noether took a keen interest in political matters and, according to Alexandrov, showed considerable support for the Russian Revolution (1917). She was especially happy to see Soviet advancements in the fields of science and mathematics, which she considered indicative of new opportunities made possible by the Bolshevik project. This attitude caused her problems in Germany, culminating in her eviction from a pension lodging building, after student leaders complained of living with "a Marxist-leaning Jewess". Noether planned to return to Moscow, an effort for which she received support from Alexandrov. After she left Germany in 1933 he tried to help her gain a chair at Moscow State University through the Soviet Education Ministry. Although this effort proved unsuccessful, they corresponded frequently during the 1930s, and in 1935 she made plans for a return to the Soviet Union. Meanwhile her brother, Fritz accepted a position at the Research Institute for Mathematics and Mechanics in Tomsk, in the Siberian Federal District of Russia, after losing his job in Germany. Recognition. In 1932 Emmy Noether and Emil Artin received the Ackermann–Teubner Memorial Award for their contributions to mathematics. The prize carried a monetary reward of 500 Reichsmarks and was seen as a long-overdue official recognition of her considerable work in the field. Nevertheless, her colleagues expressed frustration at the fact that she was not elected to the Göttingen "Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften" (academy of sciences) and was never promoted to the position of "Ordentlicher Professor" (full professor). Noether's colleagues celebrated her fiftieth birthday in 1932, in typical mathematicians' style. Helmut Hasse dedicated an article to her in the "Mathematische Annalen", wherein he confirmed her suspicion that some aspects of noncommutative algebra are simpler than those of commutative algebra, by proving a noncommutative reciprocity law. This pleased her immensely. He also sent her a mathematical riddle, the "mμν-riddle of syllables", which she solved immediately; the riddle has been lost. In November of the same year, Noether delivered a plenary address ("großer Vortrag") on "Hyper-complex systems in their relations to commutative algebra and to number theory" at the International Congress of Mathematicians in Zürich. The congress was attended by 800 people, including Noether's colleagues Hermann Weyl, Edmund Landau, and Wolfgang Krull. There were 420 official participants and twenty-one plenary addresses presented. Apparently, Noether's prominent speaking position was a recognition of the importance of her contributions to mathematics. The 1932 congress is sometimes described as the high point of her career. Expulsion from Göttingen. When Adolf Hitler became the German "Reichskanzler" in January 1933, Nazi activity around the country increased dramatically. At the University of Göttingen the German Student Association led the attack on the "un-German spirit" attributed to Jews and was aided by a privatdozent named Werner Weber, a former student of Emmy Noether. Antisemitic attitudes created a climate hostile to Jewish professors. One young protester reportedly demanded: "Aryan students want Aryan mathematics and not Jewish mathematics." One of the first actions of Hitler's administration was the Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service which removed Jews and politically suspect government employees (including university professors) from their jobs unless they had "demonstrated their loyalty to Germany" by serving in World War I. In April 1933 Noether received a notice from the Prussian Ministry for Sciences, Art, and Public Education which read: "On the basis of paragraph 3 of the Civil Service Code of 7 April 1933, I hereby withdraw from you the right to teach at the University of Göttingen." Several of Noether's colleagues, including Max Born and Richard Courant, also had their positions revoked. Noether accepted the decision calmly, providing support for others during this difficult time. Hermann Weyl later wrote that "Emmy Noether—her courage, her frankness, her unconcern about her own fate, her conciliatory spirit—was in the midst of all the hatred and meanness, despair and sorrow surrounding us, a moral solace." Typically, Noether remained focused on mathematics, gathering students in her apartment to discuss class field theory. When one of her students appeared in the uniform of the Nazi paramilitary organization "Sturmabteilung" (SA), she showed no sign of agitation and, reportedly, even laughed about it later. Bryn Mawr. As dozens of newly unemployed professors began searching for positions outside of Germany, their colleagues in the United States sought to provide assistance and job opportunities for them. Albert Einstein and Hermann Weyl were appointed by the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, while others worked to find a sponsor required for legal immigration. Noether was contacted by representatives of two educational institutions, Bryn Mawr College in the United States and Somerville College at the University of Oxford in England. After a series of negotiations with the Rockefeller Foundation, a grant to Bryn Mawr was approved for Noether and she took a position there, starting in late 1933. At Bryn Mawr, Noether met and befriended Anna Wheeler, who had studied at Göttingen just before Noether arrived there. Another source of support at the college was the Bryn Mawr president, Marion Edwards Park, who enthusiastically invited mathematicians in the area to "see Dr. Noether in action!" Noether and a small team of students worked quickly through Van der Waerden's 1930 book "Moderne Algebra I" and parts of Erich Hecke's "Theorie der algebraischen Zahlen" ("Theory of algebraic numbers", 1908). In 1934, Noether began lecturing at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton upon the invitation of Abraham Flexner and Oswald Veblen. She also worked with and supervised Abraham Albert and Harry Vandiver. However, she remarked about Princeton University that she was not welcome at the "men's university, where nothing female is admitted". Her time in the United States was pleasant, surrounded as she was by supportive colleagues and absorbed in her favorite subjects. In the summer of 1934 she briefly returned to Germany to see Emil Artin and her brother Fritz before he left for Tomsk. Although many of her former colleagues had been forced out of the universities, she was able to use the library as a "foreign scholar". Death. In April 1935 doctors discovered a tumor in Noether's pelvis. Worried about complications from surgery, they ordered two days of bed rest first. During the operation they discovered an ovarian cyst "the size of a large cantaloupe". Two smaller tumors in her uterus appeared to be benign and were not removed, to avoid prolonging surgery. For three days she appeared to convalesce normally, and she recovered quickly from a circulatory collapse on the fourth. On 14 April she fell unconscious, her temperature soared to , and she died. "t is not easy to say what had occurred in Dr. Noether", one of the physicians wrote. "It is possible that there was some form of unusual and virulent infection, which struck the base of the brain where the heat centers are supposed to be located." A few days after Noether's death her friends and associates at Bryn Mawr held a small memorial service at College President Park's house. Hermann Weyl and Richard Brauer traveled from Princeton and spoke with Wheeler and Taussky about their departed colleague. In the months which followed, written tributes began to appear around the globe: Albert Einstein joined Van der Waerden, Weyl, and Pavel Alexandrov in paying their respects. Her body was cremated and the ashes interred under the walkway around the cloisters of the M. Carey Thomas Library at Bryn Mawr. Contributions to mathematics and physics. First and foremost Noether is remembered by mathematicians as an algebraist and for her work in topology. Physicists appreciate her best for her famous theorem because of its far-ranging consequences for theoretical physics and dynamic systems. She showed an acute propensity for abstract thought, which allowed her to approach problems of mathematics in fresh and original ways. Her friend and colleague Hermann Weyl described her scholarly output in three epochs: In the first epoch (1907–19), Noether dealt primarily with differential and algebraic invariants, beginning with her dissertation under Paul Gordan. Her mathematical horizons broadened, and her work became more general and abstract, as she became acquainted with the work of David Hilbert, through close interactions with a successor to Gordan, Ernst Sigismund Fischer. After moving to Göttingen in 1915, she produced her seminal work for physics, the two Noether's theorems. In the second epoch (1920–26), Noether devoted herself to developing the theory of mathematical rings. In the third epoch (1927–35), Noether focused on noncommutative algebra, linear transformations, and commutative number fields. Historical context. In the century from 1832 to Noether's death in 1935, the field of mathematics—specifically algebra—underwent a profound revolution, whose reverberations are still being felt. Mathematicians of previous centuries had worked on practical methods for solving specific types of equations, e.g., cubic, quartic, and quintic equations, as well as on the related problem of constructing regular polygons using compass and straightedge. Beginning with Carl Friedrich Gauss's 1832 proof that prime numbers such as five can be factored in Gaussian integers, Évariste Galois's introduction of permutation groups in 1832 (although, because of his death, his papers were only published in 1846 by Liouville), William Rowan Hamilton's discovery of quaternions in 1843, and Arthur Cayley's more modern definition of groups in 1854, research turned to determining the properties of ever-more-abstract systems defined by ever-more-universal rules. Noether's most important contributions to mathematics were to the development of this new field, abstract algebra. Abstract algebra and "begriffliche Mathematik" (conceptual mathematics). Two of the most basic objects in abstract algebra are groups and rings. A "group" consists of a set of elements and a single operation which combines a first and a second element and returns a third. The operation must satisfy certain constraints for it to determine a group: It must be closed (when applied to any pair of elements of the associated set, the generated element must also be a member of that set), it must be associative, there must be an identity element (an element which, when combined with another element using the operation, results in the original element, such as adding zero to a number or multiplying it by one), and for every element there must be an inverse element. A "ring" likewise, has a set of elements, but now has "two" operations. The first operation must make the set a group, and the second operation is associative and distributive with respect to the first operation. It may or may not be commutative; this means that the result of applying the operation to a first and a second element is the same as to the second and first—the order of the elements does not matter. If every non-zero element has a multiplicative inverse (an element x such that ax = xa = 1), the ring is called a division ring. A field is defined as a commutative division ring. Groups are frequently studied through "group representations". In their most general form, these consist of a choice of group, a set, and an "action" of the group on the set, that is, an operation which takes an element of the group and an element of the set and returns an element of the set. Most often, the set is a vector space, and the group represents symmetries of the vector space. For example, there is a group which represents the rigid rotations of space. This is a type of symmetry of space, because space itself does not change when it is rotated even though the positions of objects in it do. Noether used these sorts of symmetries in her work on invariants in physics. A powerful way of studying rings is through their "modules". A module consists of a choice of ring, another set, usually distinct from the underlying set of the ring and called the underlying set of the module, an operation on pairs of elements of the underlying set of the module, and an operation which takes an element of the ring and an element of the module and returns an element of the module. The underlying set of the module and its operation must form a group. A module is a ring-theoretic version of a group representation: Ignoring the second ring operation and the operation on pairs of module elements determines a group representation. The real utility of modules is that the kinds of modules that exist and their interactions, reveal the structure of the ring in ways that are not apparent from the ring itself. An important special case of this is an "algebra". (The word algebra means both a subject within mathematics as well as an object studied in the subject of algebra.) An algebra consists of a choice of two rings and an operation which takes an element from each ring and returns an element of the second ring. This operation makes the second ring into a module over the first. Often the first ring is a field. Words such as "element" and "combining operation" are very general, and can be applied to many real-world and abstract situations. Any set of things that obeys all the rules for one (or two) operation(s) is, by definition, a group (or ring), and obeys all theorems about groups (or rings). Integer numbers, and the operations of addition and multiplication, are just one example. For example, the elements might be computer data words, where the first combining operation is exclusive or and the second is logical conjunction. Theorems of abstract algebra are powerful because they are general; they govern many systems. It might be imagined that little could be concluded about objects defined with so few properties, but precisely therein lay Noether's gift: "to discover the maximum that could be concluded from a given set of properties, or conversely, to identify the minimum set, the essential properties responsible for a particular observation". Unlike most mathematicians, she did not make abstractions by generalizing from known examples; rather, she worked directly with the abstractions. As van der Waerden recalled in his obituary of her, This is the "begriffliche Mathematik" (purely conceptual mathematics) that was characteristic of Noether. This style of mathematics was adopted by other mathematicians and, after her death, flowered into new forms, such as category theory. Integers as an example of a ring. The integers form a commutative ring whose elements are the integers, and the combining operations are addition and multiplication. Any pair of integers can be added or multiplied, always resulting in another integer, and the first operation, addition, is commutative, i.e., for any elements a and b in the ring, "a" + "b" = "b" + "a". The second operation, multiplication, also is commutative, but that need not be true for other rings, meaning that "a" combined with "b" might be different from "b" combined with "a". Examples of noncommutative rings include matrices and quaternions. The integers do not form a division ring, because the second operation cannot always be inverted; there is no integer "a" such that 3 × "a" = 1. The integers have additional properties which do not generalize to all commutative rings. An important example is the fundamental theorem of arithmetic, which says that every positive integer can be factored uniquely into prime numbers. Unique factorizations do not always exist in other rings, but Noether found a unique factorization theorem, now called the "Lasker–Noether theorem", for the ideals of many rings. Much of Noether's work lay in determining what properties "do" hold for all rings, in devising novel analogs of the old integer theorems, and in determining the minimal set of assumptions required to yield certain properties of rings. First epoch (1908–19). Algebraic invariant theory. Much of Noether's work in the first epoch of her career was associated with invariant theory, principally algebraic invariant theory. Invariant theory is concerned with expressions that remain constant (invariant) under a group of transformations. As an everyday example, if a rigid yardstick is rotated, the coordinates ("x", "y", "z") of its endpoints change, but its length "L" given by the formula remains the same. Invariant theory was an active area of research in the later nineteenth century, prompted in part by Felix Klein's Erlangen program, according to which different types of geometry should be characterized by their invariants under transformations, e.g., the cross-ratio of projective geometry. The archetypal example of an invariant is the discriminant "B"2 − 4"AC" of a binary quadratic form "Ax"2 + "Bxy" + "Cy"2. This is called an invariant because it is unchanged by linear substitutions "x"→"ax" + "by", "y"→"cx" + "dy" with determinant "ad" − "bc" = 1. These substitutions form the special linear group "SL"2. (There are no invariants under the general linear group of all invertible linear transformations because these transformations can be multiplication by a scaling factor. To remedy this, classical invariant theory also considered "relative invariants", which were forms invariant up to a scale factor.) One can ask for all polynomials in "A", "B", and "C" that are unchanged by the action of "SL"2; these are called the invariants of binary quadratic forms, and turn out to be the polynomials in the discriminant. More generally, one can ask for the invariants of homogeneous polynomials "A"0x"r""y"0 + ... + "A""r"x0"y""r" of higher degree, which will be certain polynomials in the coefficients "A"0, ..., "A""r", and more generally still, one can ask the similar question for homogeneous polynomials in more than two variables. One of the main goals of invariant theory was to solve the "finite basis problem". The sum or product of any two invariants is invariant, and the finite basis problem asked whether it was possible to get all the invariants by starting with a finite list of invariants, called "generators", and then, adding or multiplying the generators together. For example, the discriminant gives a finite basis (with one element) for the invariants of binary quadratic forms. Noether's advisor, Paul Gordan, was known as the "king of invariant theory", and his chief contribution to mathematics was his 1870 solution of the finite basis problem for invariants of homogeneous polynomials in two variables. He proved this by giving a constructive method for finding all of the invariants and their generators, but was not able to carry out this constructive approach for invariants in three or more variables. In 1890, David Hilbert proved a similar statement for the invariants of homogeneous polynomials in any number of variables. Furthermore, his method worked, not only for the special linear group, but also for some of its subgroups such as the special orthogonal group. His first proof caused some controversy because it did not give a method for constructing the generators, although in later work he made his method constructive. For her thesis, Noether extended Gordan's computational proof to homogeneous polynomials in three variables. Noether's constructive approach made it possible to study the relationships among the invariants. Later, after she had turned to more abstract methods, Noether called her thesis "Mist" (crap) and "Formelngestrüpp" (a jungle of equations). Galois theory. Galois theory concerns transformations of number fields that permute the roots of an equation. Consider a polynomial equation of a variable "x" of degree "n", in which the coefficients are drawn from some ground field, which might be, for example, the field of real numbers, rational numbers, or the integers modulo 7. There may or may not be choices of "x", which make this polynomial evaluate to zero. Such choices, if they exist, are called roots. If the polynomial is "x"2 + 1 and the field is the real numbers, then the polynomial has no roots, because any choice of "x" makes the polynomial greater than or equal to one. If the field is extended, however, then the polynomial may gain roots, and if it is extended enough, then it always has a number of roots equal to its degree. Continuing the previous example, if the field is enlarged to the complex numbers, then the polynomial gains two roots, "i" and −"i", where "i" is the imaginary unit, that is, . More generally, the extension field in which a polynomial can be factored into its roots is known as the splitting field of the polynomial. The Galois group of a polynomial is the set of all ways of transforming the splitting field, while preserving the ground field and the roots of the polynomial. (In mathematical jargon, these transformations are called automorphisms.) The Galois group of consists of two elements: The identity transformation, which sends every complex number to itself, and complex conjugation, which sends "i" to −"i". Since the Galois group does not change the ground field, it leaves the coefficients of the polynomial unchanged, so it must leave the set of all roots unchanged. Each root can move to another root, however, so transformation determines a permutation of the "n" roots among themselves. The significance of the Galois group derives from the fundamental theorem of Galois theory, which proves that the fields lying between the ground field and the splitting field are in one-to-one correspondence with the subgroups of the Galois group. In 1918, Noether published a seminal paper on the inverse Galois problem. Instead of determining the Galois group of transformations of a given field and its extension, Noether asked whether, given a field and a group, it always is possible to find an extension of the field that has the given group as its Galois group. She reduced this to "Noether's problem", which asks whether the fixed field of a subgroup "G" of the permutation group "S""n" acting on the field always is a pure transcendental extension of the field "k". (She first mentioned this problem in a 1913 paper, where she attributed the problem to her colleague Fischer.) She showed this was true for , 3, or 4. In 1969, R. G. Swan found a counter-example to Noether's problem, with and "G" a cyclic group of order 47 (although this group can be realized as a Galois group over the rationals in other ways). The inverse Galois problem remains unsolved. Physics. Noether was brought to Göttingen in 1915 by David Hilbert and Felix Klein, who wanted her expertise in invariant theory to help them in understanding general relativity, a geometrical theory of gravitation developed mainly by Albert Einstein. Hilbert had observed that the conservation of energy seemed to be violated in general relativity, due to the fact that gravitational energy could itself gravitate. Noether provided the resolution of this paradox, and a fundamental tool of modern theoretical physics, with Noether's first theorem, which she proved in 1915, but did not publish until 1918. She not only solved the problem for general relativity, but also determined the conserved quantities for "every" system of physical laws that possesses some continuous symmetry. Upon receiving her work, Einstein wrote to Hilbert: "Yesterday I received from Miss Noether a very interesting paper on invariants. I'm impressed that such things can be understood in such a general way. The old guard at Göttingen should take some lessons from Miss Noether! She seems to know her stuff." For illustration, if a physical system behaves the same, regardless of how it is oriented in space, the physical laws that govern it are rotationally symmetric; from this symmetry, Noether's theorem shows the angular momentum of the system must be conserved. The physical system itself need not be symmetric; a jagged asteroid tumbling in space conserves angular momentum despite its asymmetry. Rather, the symmetry of the "physical laws" governing the system is responsible for the conservation law. As another example, if a physical experiment has the same outcome at any place and at any time, then its laws are symmetric under continuous translations in space and time; by Noether's theorem, these symmetries account for the conservation laws of linear momentum and energy within this system, respectively. Noether's theorem has become a fundamental tool of modern theoretical physics, both because of the insight it gives into conservation laws, and also, as a practical calculation tool. Her theorem allows researchers to determine the conserved quantities from the observed symmetries of a physical system. Conversely, it facilitates the description of a physical system based on classes of hypothetical physical laws. For illustration, suppose that a new physical phenomenon is discovered. Noether's theorem provides a test for theoretical models of the phenomenon: if the theory has a continuous symmetry, then Noether's theorem guarantees that the theory has a conserved quantity, and for the theory to be correct, this conservation must be observable in experiments. Second epoch (1920–26). Although the results of Noether's first epoch were impressive and useful, her fame as a mathematician rests more on the groundbreaking work she did in her second and third epochs, as noted by Hermann Weyl and B. L. van der Waerden in their obituaries of her. In these epochs, she was not merely applying ideas and methods of earlier mathematicians; rather, she was crafting new systems of mathematical definitions that would be used by future mathematicians. In particular, she developed a completely new theory of ideals in rings, generalizing earlier work of Richard Dedekind. She is also renowned for developing ascending chain conditions, a simple finiteness condition that yielded powerful results in her hands. Such conditions and the theory of ideals enabled Noether to generalize many older results and to treat old problems from a new perspective, such as elimination theory and the algebraic varieties that had been studied by her father. Ascending and descending chain conditions. In this epoch, Noether became famous for her deft use of ascending ("Teilerkettensatz") or descending ("Vielfachenkettensatz") chain conditions. A sequence of non-empty subsets "A"1, "A"2, "A"3, etc. of a set "S" is usually said to be "ascending", if each is a subset of the next Conversely, a sequence of subsets of "S" is called "descending" if each contains the next subset: A chain "becomes constant after a finite number of steps" if there is an "n" such that formula_3 for all "m" ≥ "n". A collection of subsets of a given set satisfies the ascending chain condition if any ascending sequence becomes constant after a finite number of steps. It satisfies the descending chain condition if any descending sequence becomes constant after a finite number of steps. Ascending and descending chain conditions are general, meaning that they can be applied to many types of mathematical objects—and, on the surface, they might not seem very powerful. Noether showed how to exploit such conditions, however, to maximum advantage: for example, how to use them to show that every set of sub-objects has a maximal/minimal element or that a complex object can be generated by a smaller number of elements. These conclusions often are crucial steps in a proof. Many types of objects in abstract algebra can satisfy chain conditions, and usually if they satisfy an ascending chain condition, they are called "Noetherian" in her honor. By definition, a Noetherian ring satisfies an ascending chain condition on its left and right ideals, whereas a Noetherian group is defined as a group in which every strictly ascending chain of subgroups is finite. A Noetherian module is a module in which every strictly ascending chain of submodules breaks off after a finite number. A Noetherian space is a topological space in which every strictly increasing chain of open subspaces breaks off after a finite number of terms; this definition is made so that the spectrum of a Noetherian ring is a Noetherian topological space. The chain condition often is "inherited" by sub-objects. For example, all subspaces of a Noetherian space, are Noetherian themselves; all subgroups and quotient groups of a Noetherian group are likewise, Noetherian; and, "mutatis mutandis", the same holds for submodules and quotient modules of a Noetherian module. All quotient rings of a Noetherian ring are Noetherian, but that does not necessarily hold for its subrings. The chain condition also may be inherited by combinations or extensions of a Noetherian object. For example, finite direct sums of Noetherian rings are Noetherian, as is the ring of formal power series over a Noetherian ring. Another application of such chain conditions is in Noetherian induction—also known as well-founded induction—which is a generalization of mathematical induction. It frequently is used to reduce general statements about collections of objects to statements about specific objects in that collection. Suppose that "S" is a partially ordered set. One way of proving a statement about the objects of "S" is to assume the existence of a counterexample and deduce a contradiction, thereby proving the contrapositive of the original statement. The basic premise of Noetherian induction is that every non-empty subset of "S" contains a minimal element. In particular, the set of all counterexamples contains a minimal element, the "minimal counterexample". In order to prove the original statement, therefore, it suffices to prove something seemingly much weaker: For any counterexample, there is a smaller counterexample. Commutative rings, ideals, and modules. Noether's paper, "Idealtheorie in Ringbereichen" ("Theory of Ideals in Ring Domains", 1921), is the foundation of general commutative ring theory, and gives one of the first general definitions of a commutative ring. Before her paper, most results in commutative algebra were restricted to special examples of commutative rings, such as polynomial rings over fields or rings of algebraic integers. Noether proved that in a ring which satisfies the ascending chain condition on ideals, every ideal is finitely generated. In 1943, French mathematician Claude Chevalley coined the term, "Noetherian ring", to describe this property. A major result in Noether's 1921 paper is the Lasker–Noether theorem, which extends Lasker's theorem on the primary decomposition of ideals of polynomial rings to all Noetherian rings. The Lasker–Noether theorem can be viewed as a generalization of the fundamental theorem of arithmetic which states that any positive integer can be expressed as a product of prime numbers, and that this decomposition is unique. Noether's work "Abstrakter Aufbau der Idealtheorie in algebraischen Zahl- und Funktionenkörpern" ("Abstract Structure of the Theory of Ideals in Algebraic Number and Function Fields", 1927) characterized the rings in which the ideals have unique factorization into prime ideals as the Dedekind domains: integral domains that are Noetherian, 0 or 1-dimensional, and integrally closed in their quotient fields. This paper also contains what now are called the isomorphism theorems, which describe some fundamental natural isomorphisms, and some other basic results on Noetherian and Artinian modules. Elimination theory. In 1923–24, Noether applied her ideal theory to elimination theory—in a formulation that she attributed to her student, Kurt Hentzelt—showing that fundamental theorems about the factorization of polynomials could be carried over directly. Traditionally, elimination theory is concerned with eliminating one or more variables from a system of polynomial equations, usually by the method of resultants. For illustration, the system of equations often can be written in the form of a matrix "M" (missing the variable "x") times a vector "v" (having only different powers of "x") equaling the zero vector, . Hence, the determinant of the matrix "M" must be zero, providing a new equation in which the variable "x" has been eliminated. Invariant theory of finite groups. Techniques such as Hilbert's original non-constructive solution to the finite basis problem could not be used to get quantitative information about the invariants of a group action, and furthermore, they did not apply to all group actions. In her 1915 paper, Noether found a solution to the finite basis problem for a finite group of transformations "G" acting on a finite dimensional vector space over a field of characteristic zero. Her solution shows that the ring of invariants is generated by homogenous invariants whose degree is less than, or equal to, the order of the finite group; this is called, Noether's bound. Her paper gave two proofs of Noether's bound, both of which also work when the characteristic of the field is coprime to |"G"|!, the factorial of the order |"G"| of the group "G". The number of generators need not satisfy Noether's bound when the characteristic of the field divides the |"G"|, but Noether was not able to determine whether the bound was correct when the characteristic of the field divides |"G"|! but not |"G"|. For many years, determining the truth or falsity of the bound in this case was an open problem called "Noether's gap". It finally was resolved independently by Fleischmann in 2000 and Fogarty in 2001, who both showed that the bound remains true. In her 1926 paper, Noether extended Hilbert's theorem to representations of a finite group over any field; the new case that did not follow from Hilbert's work, is when the characteristic of the field divides the order of the group. Noether's result was later extended by William Haboush to all reductive groups by his proof of the Mumford conjecture. In this paper Noether also introduced the "Noether normalization lemma", showing that a finitely generated domain "A" over a field "k" has a set of algebraically independent elements such that "A" is integral over . Contributions to topology. As noted by Pavel Alexandrov and Hermann Weyl in their obituaries, Noether's contributions to topology illustrate her generosity with ideas and how her insights could transform entire fields of mathematics. In topology, mathematicians study the properties of objects that remain invariant even under deformation, properties such as their connectedness. A common joke is that a topologist cannot distinguish a donut from a coffee mug, since they can be continuously deformed into one another. Noether is credited with the fundamental ideas that led to the development of algebraic topology from the earlier combinatorial topology, specifically, the idea of homology groups. According to the account of Alexandrov, Noether attended lectures given by Heinz Hopf and him in the summers of 1926 and 1927, where "she continually made observations, which were often deep and subtle" and he continues that, Noether's suggestion that topology be studied algebraically, was adopted immediately by Hopf, Alexandrov, and others, and it became a frequent topic of discussion among the mathematicians of Göttingen. Noether observed that her idea of a Betti group makes the Euler–Poincaré formula simpler to understand, and Hopf's own work on this subject "bears the imprint of these remarks of Emmy Noether". Noether mentions her own topology ideas only as an aside in one 1926 publication, where she cites it as an application of group theory. The algebraic approach to topology was developed independently in Austria. In a 1926–27 course given in Vienna, Leopold Vietoris defined a homology group, which was developed by Walther Mayer, into an axiomatic definition in 1928. Third epoch (1927–35). Hypercomplex numbers and representation theory. Much work on hypercomplex numbers and group representations was carried out in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, but remained disparate. Noether united the results and gave the first general representation theory of groups and algebras. Briefly, Noether subsumed the structure theory of associative algebras and the representation theory of groups into a single arithmetic theory of modules and ideals in rings satisfying ascending chain conditions. This single work by Noether was of fundamental importance for the development of modern algebra. Noncommutative algebra. Noether also was responsible for a number of other advancements in the field of algebra. With Emil Artin, Richard Brauer, and Helmut Hasse, she founded the theory of central simple algebras. A seminal paper by Noether, Helmut Hasse, and Richard Brauer pertains to division algebras, which are algebraic systems in which division is possible. They proved two important theorems: a local-global theorem stating that if a finite dimensional central division algebra over a number field splits locally everywhere then it splits globally (so is trivial), and from this, deduced their "Hauptsatz" ("main theorem"): "every finite dimensional central division algebra over an algebraic number field F splits over a cyclic cyclotomic extension". These theorems allow one to classify all finite dimensional central division algebras over a given number field. A subsequent paper by Noether showed, as a special case of a more general theorem, that all maximal subfields of a division algebra "D" are splitting fields. This paper also contains the Skolem–Noether theorem which states that any two embeddings of an extension of a field "k" into a finite dimensional central simple algebra over "k", are conjugate. The Brauer–Noether theorem gives a characterization of the splitting fields of a central division algebra over a field. Assessment, recognition, and memorials. Noether's work continues to be relevant for the development of theoretical physics and mathematics and she is consistently ranked as one of the greatest mathematicians of the twentieth century. In his obituary, fellow algebraist BL van der Waerden says that her mathematical originality was "absolute beyond comparison", and Hermann Weyl said that Noether "changed the face of algebra by her work". During her lifetime and even until today, Noether has been characterized as the greatest woman mathematician in recorded history by mathematicians such as Pavel Alexandrov, Hermann Weyl, and Jean Dieudonné. In a letter to "The New York Times", Albert Einstein wrote: On 2 January 1935, a few months before her death, mathematician Norbert Wiener wrote that
1036670	John Henshaw (born 1951, Ancoats, Manchester, Lancashire) is a British actor, best known for his roles as Ken the landlord in "Early Doors", Wilf Bradshaw in "Born and Bred" and PC Roy Bramwell in "The Cops." He is often associated with playing "hard men". He played John Prescott in ITV drama "Confessions of a Diary Secretary". One of 12 siblings, he grew up in Ancoats, Manchester's "Little Italy" community. He was a binman (refuse collector) for ten years before deciding to become an actor at the age of 40. His first big break in acting was as a minder to Robert Lindsay's character Michael Murray in the acclaimed Channel 4 series, "G.B.H.". He had roles in the Steve Coogan film, "The Parole Officer" and in the BBC Three sitcom "The Visit", which was first shown 15 July 2007. In 2002, he appeared in a Scottish Gaelic drama, "Anna Bheag" ("Wee Anna"), although he does not play a Gaelic-speaking character. Other credits include "Nice Guy Eddie", "When Saturday Comes" and appearances in "The Royle Family", "Last of the Summer Wine" and "Life on Mars". In September 2007 at the Lowry in Salford he starred in the world premier of "King Cotton". He played the role of Ken, the deputy manager in the Post Office adverts (2007–08). March 2008 saw Henshaw return to the Manchester area playing the lead in Jim Cartwright's play Road at the Octagon Theatre in Bolton. Summer 2009 saw Henshaw play Meatballs in the Ken Loach-directed and Eric Cantona-starring film Looking for Eric. Meatballs was a workmate and friend of the lead character Eric Bishop (Steve Evets). In 2010 he played Mr. Pony in "Terry Pratchett's Going Postal" and in 2011 he portrayed the character of John Holt, one of the original founding fathers of the Co-operative movement, in a feature film "The Rochdale Pioneers" set for release in 2012. In 2013 played Arthur Potts in Series 15 Episode 5 ( The Sicilian Defence ) of Midsomer Murders. He also played the role of Harry in Scottish feel good film 'Angels Share' in 2012. In 2013, he played Stan Bond in "By Any Means". Henshaw is chairman of the 24:7 Theatre Festival, an annual festival of new writing for theatre based in Manchester. He is a lifelong fan of Manchester City F.C. and regularly attends their matches.
1356132	Lucas Daniel "Luke" Edwards (born March 24, 1980) is an American actor. He began taking acting lessons for fun on his mother's suggestion and landed his first television role in 1988 on an "ABC Afterschool Special" episode. He had roles in the films "The Wizard", "Guilty By Suspicion", "Newsies", "Mother's Boys", "Little Big League", "American Pie 2", "Jeepers Creepers 2", "Debating Robert Lee", "Graphic", "Turn Me On, Dead Man", and "Disarmed". He wrapped up filming "Little Odessa" in 2009. He has had varied success with television, with guest appearances on "Roseanne", "21 Jump Street", "Molloy" (with Mayim Bialik), "Parker Lewis Can't Lose", "Not of This World", "Davis Rules", "Human Target", "Strange World", "Undressed", "Night Visions", "Without a Trace", "Close to Home", and "Privileged". He was also in made-for-television movies "I Know My First Name is Steven", "The Yarn Princess", "The Little Riders", "Cheaters", "Shadow Realm", and "Devil's Run" (straight to video). He continues to act professionally, and is set to film "Jeepers Creepers 3", due out sometime around 2013.
1164735	Catherine Oxenberg (, born September 22, 1961) is an American actress best known for her performance as Amanda Carrington on the 1980s prime time soap opera "Dynasty". The daughter of Princess Elizabeth of Yugoslavia, Oxenberg, though not noble or royal herself, is a descendant of the Serbian House of Karađorđević. She has dual citizenship, American and Serbian. Early life. Though born in New York City, Oxenberg grew up in London. She is the eldest daughter of Princess Elizabeth of Yugoslavia (born 1936) and her first husband Howard Oxenberg (1919–2010), a Jewish dress manufacturer and close friend of the Kennedy family. Princess Elizabeth is the only daughter of Prince Paul of Yugoslavia (who served as regent for his cousin's eldest son King Peter II of Yugoslavia) and Princess Olga of Greece and Denmark. Elizabeth is a first cousin of the current Duke of Kent and also a second cousin of Queen Sofía of Spain and Charles, Prince of Wales, making Catherine a third cousin of Felipe, Prince of Asturias and Prince William, Duke of Cambridge. Catherine is also a great-great-great-granddaughter of Karađorđe, who started the First Serbian Uprising against the Turks in 1804. Catherine Oxenberg's maternal grandmother Princess Olga was the daughter of Grand Duchess Elena Vladimirovna of Russia and Prince Nicholas of Greece and Denmark, himself the son of another Romanov grand duchess, Queen Olga Konstantinovna of the Hellenes and her Danish-born husband King George of Greece, brother of Queen Alexandra of the United Kingdom and Empress Maria Fyodorovna. Princess Olga was the sister of Princess Marina, who married the Duke of Kent (uncle of Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom); and also a first cousin of the Duke of Edinburgh (husband of Queen Elizabeth II) through their respective fathers Prince Nicholas of Greece and Denmark and Prince Andrew of Greece and Denmark who were brothers. Oxenberg was educated at St. Paul's School, Harvard University and Columbia University. Acting career. Oxenberg made her acting debut in the 1982 made-for-television film "The Royal Romance of Charles and Diana", in which she played Diana, Princess of Wales. In 1984 Oxenberg joined the hit ABC prime time soap opera "Dynasty" — then at its height of popularity — in the role of Amanda Carrington, the second daughter of Blake Carrington (John Forsythe) and Alexis Colby (Joan Collins). Oxenberg was the guest host on the NBC late-night sketch comedy series "Saturday Night Live" on May 10, 1986 (making her the only descendant of a royal family to host the show). She left "Dynasty" in 1986 and the role was recast. Oxenberg starred as Princess Elysa in the 1987 television film "Roman Holiday". She also appeared in "The Lair of the White Worm" in 1988, and reprised the role of Diana, Princess of Wales in the TV film "Charles and Diana: Unhappily Ever After" in 1992. From 1993 to 1994 she starred in the short-lived series "Acapulco H.E.A.T.". Oxenberg was portrayed by Rachael Taylor in the 2005 telemovie "", a fictionalized retelling of the behind the scenes goings-on during the production of "Dynasty". In 2006, Oxenberg appeared in the TV special, "Dynasty Reunion: Catfights & Caviar", in which she reunited with her former "Dynasty" castmates to reminisce about the series. Personal life. Conan O'Brien mentioned in a 2000 commencement speech that Oxenberg is listed directly ahead of him in the Class of 1985 Harvard freshman Facebook. A contemporary Harvard Crimson piece, however, indicates that she was at least initially in the Class of 1983, dubbing her "queen of the Facebook". Oxenberg's first marriage was to the producer Robert Evans, in Beverly Hills, California on July 12, 1998, but the marriage was annulled nine days later. Oxenberg met actor Casper Van Dien during the filming of the 1999 TV movie "The Collectors", and they worked together again in the 1999 Evangelical Christian thriller "The Omega Code". On May 8, 1999 they married in Las Vegas, Nevada. In 2005 the couple appeared in their own reality series, "I Married a Princess", which aired on the Lifetime Television channel in the United States and on LIVINGtv in the United Kingdom. During the 2006-2007 TV season, Oxenberg and Van Dien co-starred in the American drama series "Watch Over Me" on MyNetworkTV. Oxenberg is the mother of India Riven Oxenberg (born June 7, 1991), whose father has never been publicly identified, and of two children with Van Dien: Maya (born September 20, 2001) and Celeste Alma (born October 3, 2003). Maya and Celeste follow their mother in the Line of Succession to the British Throne, although India is excluded, being illegitimate. Van Dien has two children from his previous marriage that he holds full custody of (Casper "Cappy" Robert Mitchum Van Dien and Caroline "Gracie" Dorothy Grace Van Dien). Oxenberg and Van Dien are celebrity ambassadors for the non-profit organization Childhelp.
1033922	Jeremy Hawk (20 May 1918 - 15 January 2002) was a character actor with a long career in music halls and on London's West End stage. Early life. Hawk was born in Johannesburg, South Africa. His real name was Cedric Lange, but changed it when he entered RADA. He was already nicknamed "Hawk" because of the shape of his nose. His first marriage was to Tuli Hawk and they had a daughter, Berenice Hawk. He subsequently married actress Joan Heal, with whom he had a daughter, the actress Belinda Lang. Career. Hawk appeared on television as straight man to Benny Hill, Arthur Askey, Norman Wisdom and Sid Caesar as well as hosting the ITV programme "Criss Cross Quiz" and the junior version for children's television from 1957 to 1962. He later presented the improvisation comedy show "Impromptu". He also appeared in several films, including "Lucky Jim" (1957). He found little other work though is remembered for a long running famous Cadbury's chocolate tropical style advert in the 1970s: "Nuts, who-le ha-zelnuts. Cadbury's take 'em and they cover 'em in chocolate". He died, aged 83, in Reading, Berkshire.
327512	Evan Thomas Peters (born January 20, 1987) is an American film and television actor, best known for his roles on the FX television anthology series "American Horror Story".
1059572	Harold and Maude is a 1971 American black comedy romantic film directed by Hal Ashby and released by Paramount Pictures. It incorporates elements of dark humor and existentialist drama, with a plot that revolves around the exploits of a young man named Harold (played by Bud Cort) intrigued with death. Harold drifts away from the life that his detached mother (Vivian Pickles) prescribes for him, and slowly develops quite a strong and close friendship and eventually a romantic relationship with a 79-year-old woman named Maude (Ruth Gordon) who teaches Harold about living life to its fullest and that life is the most precious gift of all. The film was based on a screenplay written by Colin Higgins and published as a novel in 1971. The movie was shot in the San Francisco Bay Area. "Harold and Maude" was also a play on Broadway that closed after four performances. A French adaptation for television, translated and written by Jean-Claude Carrière, appeared in 1978. It was adapted for the stage and performed in Québec, starring Roy Dupuis. The film was critically and commercially unsuccessful on original release, but subsequently received critical and commercial success. The movie ultimately developed a cult following and in 1983 began making a profit. The film is ranked number 45 on the American Film Institute's list of 100 Funniest Movies of all Time, and was selected for preservation in the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress in 1997 for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". The Criterion Collection released a special edition version of the film on Blu-ray and DVD on June 12, 2012. Plot. Harold Chasen (Bud Cort) is a young man obsessed with death. He regularly stages elaborate fake suicides, attends funerals, and drives a hearse, all to the chagrin of his mother, socialite Mrs. Chasen (Vivian Pickles). At a funeral service for a total stranger, Harold meets Maude (Ruth Gordon), a 79-year-old woman who shares Harold's hobby of attending funerals. He is entranced by her quirky outlook on life, which is bright and excessively carefree in contrast with his own morbidity. The pair form a bond, and Maude slowly shows Harold the pleasures of art and music (Harold is taught to play banjo), and teaches him how to " the most of his time on earth". Meanwhile, Harold's mother determines, much against Harold's wishes, to find him a wife to settle down with. One by one, Harold frightens and horrifies each of his appointed dates by appearing to commit gruesome acts such as self-immolation, self-mutilation, and seppuku. As they become even more closer their friendship soon blossoms into genuine and strong romance, Harold announces that he will marry Maude, resulting in disgusted outbursts from his family, psychiatrist, and priest. Maude's 80th birthday arrives, and Harold throws a surprise party for her. As the couple dances, Maude tells Harold that she "couldn't imagine a lovelier farewell". He immediately questions Maude as to her meaning, and she reveals that she has purposely taken an overdose of sleeping pills and will be dead by midnight. She restates her firm belief that eighty is the proper age to die. Harold rushes Maude to the hospital, where she is treated unsuccessfully and dies. In the final sequence, Harold's car is seen going off a seaside cliff, but after the crash, the final shot reveals Harold standing calmly atop the cliff, holding his banjo. After gazing down at the wreckage, he dances away, picking out on his banjo Cat Stevens' "If You Want to Sing Out, Sing Out". Production. Colin Higgins says he originally thought of the story as a play. It then became a 20 minute thesis while at film school. After the film came out, the script was subsequently turned into a novel then a play, which ran for several years in Paris. Anne Brebner, the film's casting director, was almost cast as Harold's mother when Vivian Pickles was briefly unable to do the role. Themes. Hal Ashby, the film's director, shared certain ideals with the era’s youth culture, and in this film he contrasts the doomed outlook of the alienated youth of the time with the hard-won optimism of those who endured the horrors of the early 20th century, contrasting nihilism with purpose. Maude's past is revealed in a glimpse of the Auschwitz ID number tattooed on her arm as well as her talk with Harold about using an umbrella to defend herself from thugs at political meetings before moving to America. Harold is part of a society in which he is of no importance; existentially, he is without meaning. Maude has survived and lives a life rich with meaning and deliberate choice. It is in this existential crisis, shown against the backdrop of the Vietnam War, that we see the differences between one culture, personified by Harold, handling a meaningless war, while another has experienced and lived beyond a war that produced a crisis of meaning. Harold's "deaths". Harold tells Maude when they are talking candidly at her house that he has "died a few times". He describes how, when he was at boarding school, he set his chemistry lab on fire and, escaping through a hole in the floor, went home, believing his school career to be at an end. When the police came to his house, Harold watched as they told his mother that he had died in the fire, and saw her collapse into the policemen's arms. As he reaches this part of the story, Harold bursts into tears and declares, "I decided then I enjoyed being dead." Throughout the movie, Harold appears to "die" a total of seven to eight times. He tells his psychologist at one early juncture that he has made similar attempts in all fifteen times now, which he calls a rough estimate. Reception. Awards. "Harold and Maude" is #45 on the American Film Institute’s list of 100 Years... 100 Laughs, the list of the top 100 films in American comedy. The list was released in 2000. Two years later, AFI released the list AFI's 100 Years... 100 Passions honoring the most romantic films for the past 100 years, "Harold and Maude" ranked #69. "Entertainment Weekly" ranked the film #4 on their list of “The Top 50 Cult Films.” In June 2008, AFI revealed its "Ten Top Ten"—the best ten films in ten "classic" American film genres—after polling over 1,500 people from the creative community. "Harold and Maude" was acknowledged as the ninth best film in the romantic comedy genre. At the 29th Golden Globe Awards, Bud Cort and Ruth Gordon received a nomination for Best Actor and Best Actress in a Musical or Comedy film, respectively. Critical response. "Harold and Maude" received mixed reviews at the time of its release, with several critics being offended by the film's dark humor. Critic Roger Ebert, in a review dated January 1, 1972, did not care for the film. He wrote, "And so what we get, finally, is a movie of attitudes. Harold is death, Maude life, and they manage to make the two seem so similar that life's hardly worth the extra bother. The visual style makes everyone look fresh from the Wax Museum, and all the movie lacks is a lot of day-old gardenias and lilies and roses in the lobby, filling the place with a cloying sweet smell. Nothing more to report today. Harold doesn't even make pallbearer." Vincent Canby also panned the film, stating that the actors "are so aggressive, so creepy and off-putting, that Harold and Maude are obviously made for each other, a point the movie itself refuses to recognize with a twist ending that betrays, I think, its life-affirming pretensions." The film did garner praise over time. Rotten Tomatoes, which labeled the film as "Certified Fresh", gave it a score of 86% based on 41 reviews, with an average score of 7.6/10. A consensus on the site read, "Hal Ashby's comedy is too dark and twisted for some, and occasionally oversteps its bounds, but there's no denying the film's warm humor and big heart." In 2005, the Writers Guild of America ranked the screenplay #86 on its list of 101 Greatest Screenplays ever written. Music. The music in "Harold and Maude" was composed and performed by Cat Stevens. He composed two original songs for the film, "Don't Be Shy" and "If You Want to Sing Out, Sing Out," and performed instrumental and alternate versions of others songs from his catalog. 1972 Soundtrack. The first soundtrack was released in Japan in 1972 on both vinyl record albums and cassette tapes (A&M Records GP-216). It omitted the two original songs and all instrumental and alternate versions of songs, and was generally composed of re-released material that was in the film. From the FAQ section of CatStevens.com on 5 April, 2005: "Q: IS THERE A SOUNDTRACK FOR THE FILM "HAROLD AND MAUDE?": Yes and No. A soundtrack was released for Harold And Maude, only in Japan, but did not include the two original songs from the film. Apparently they wanted to both boost sales of Cat's actual albums and also encourage fans to go see the movie to hear the new songs.
1102705	Sir Michael Francis Atiyah, (born 22 April 1929) is a British mathematician specialising in geometry. Atiyah grew up in Sudan and Egypt and spent most of his academic life in the United Kingdom at Oxford and Cambridge, and in the United States at the Institute for Advanced Study. He has been president of the Royal Society (1990–1995), master of Trinity College, Cambridge (1990–1997), chancellor of the University of Leicester (1995–2005), and president of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (2005–2008). Since 1997, he has been an honorary professor at the University of Edinburgh. Atiyah's mathematical collaborators include Raoul Bott, Friedrich Hirzebruch and Isadore Singer, and his students include Graeme Segal, Nigel Hitchin and Simon Donaldson. Together with Hirzebruch, he laid the foundations for topological K-theory, an important tool in algebraic topology, which, informally speaking, describes ways in which spaces can be twisted. His best known result, the Atiyah–Singer index theorem, was proved with Singer in 1963 and is widely used in counting the number of independent solutions to differential equations. Some of his more recent work was inspired by theoretical physics, in particular instantons and monopoles, which are responsible for some subtle corrections in quantum field theory. He was awarded the Fields Medal in 1966, the Copley Medal in 1988, and the Abel Prize in 2004. Biography. Atiyah was born in Hampstead, London, to Greek Orthodox Lebanese academic Edward Atiyah and Scot Jean Atiyah (née Levens). Patrick Atiyah is his brother; he has one other brother, Joe, and a sister, Selma. He went to primary school at the Diocesan school in Khartoum, Sudan (1934–1941) and to secondary school at Victoria College in Cairo and Alexandria (1941–1945); the school was also attended by European nobility displaced by the Second World War and some future leaders of Arab nations. He returned to England and Manchester Grammar School for his HSC studies (1945–1947) and did his national service with the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers (1947–1949). His undergraduate and postgraduate studies took place at Trinity College, Cambridge (1949–1955). He was a doctoral student of William V. D. Hodge and was awarded a doctorate in 1955 for a thesis entitled "Some Applications of Topological Methods in Algebraic Geometry". Atiyah married Lily Brown on 30 July 1955, with whom he has three sons. He spent the academic year 1955–1956 at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, then returned to Cambridge University, where he was a research fellow and assistant lecturer (1957–1958), then a university lecturer and tutorial fellow at Pembroke College (1958–1961). In 1961, he moved to the University of Oxford, where he was a reader and professorial fellow at St Catherine's College (1961–1963). He became Savilian Professor of Geometry and a professorial fellow of New College, Oxford, from 1963 to 1969. He then took up a three-year professorship at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton after which he returned to Oxford as a Royal Society Research Professor and professorial fellow of St Catherine's College. He was president of the London Mathematical Society from 1974 to 1976. Atiyah has been active on the international scene, for instance as president of the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs from 1997 to 2002. He also contributed to the foundation of the InterAcademy Panel on International Issues, the Association of European Academies (ALLEA), and the European Mathematical Society (EMS). Within the United Kingdom, he was involved in the creation of the Isaac Newton Institute for Mathematical Sciences in Cambridge and was its first director (1990–1996). He was President of the Royal Society (1990–1995), Master of Trinity College, Cambridge (1990–1997), Chancellor of the University of Leicester (1995–2005), and president of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (2005–2008). Since 1997, he has been an honorary professor at the University of Edinburgh. Atiyah is a distinguished supporter and member of the British Humanist Association. Collaborations. Atiyah has collaborated with many other mathematicians. His three main collaborations were with Raoul Bott on the Atiyah–Bott fixed-point theorem and many other topics, with Isadore M. Singer on the Atiyah–Singer index theorem, and with Friedrich Hirzebruch on topological K-theory, all of whom he met at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton in 1955. His other collaborators include J. Frank Adams (Hopf invariant problem), Jürgen Berndt (projective planes), Roger Bielawski (Berry–Robbins problem), Howard Donnelly (L-functions), Vladimir G. Drinfeld (instantons), Johan L. Dupont (singularities of vector fields), Lars Gårding (hyperbolic differential equations), Nigel J. Hitchin (monopoles), William V. D. Hodge (Integrals of the second kind), Michael Hopkins (K-theory), Lisa Jeffrey (topological Lagrangians), John D. S. Jones (Yang–Mills theory), Juan Maldacena (M-theory), Yuri I. Manin (instantons), Nick S. Manton (Skyrmions), Vijay K. Patodi (Spectral asymmetry), A. N. Pressley (convexity), Elmer Rees (vector bundles), Wilfried Schmid (discrete series representations), Graeme Segal (equivariant K-theory), Alexander Shapiro (Clifford algebras), L. Smith (homotopy groups of spheres), Paul Sutcliffe (polyhedra), David O. Tall (lambda rings), John A. Todd (Stiefel manifolds), Cumrun Vafa (M-theory), Richard S. Ward (instantons) and Edward Witten (M-theory, topological quantum field theories). His later research on gauge field theories, particularly Yang–Mills theory, stimulated important interactions between geometry and physics, most notably in the work of Edward Witten. Atiyah's many students include Peter Braam 1987, Simon Donaldson 1983, K. David Elworthy 1967, Howard Fegan 1977, Eric Grunwald 1977, Nigel Hitchin 1972, Lisa Jeffrey 1991, Frances Kirwan 1984, Peter Kronheimer 1986, Ruth Lawrence 1989, George Lusztig 1971, Jack Morava 1968, Michael Murray 1983, Peter Newstead 1966, Ian R. Porteous 1961, John Roe 1985, Brian Sanderson 1963, Rolph Schwarzenberger 1960, Graeme Segal 1967, David Tall 1966, and Graham White 1982. Other contemporary mathematicians who influenced Atiyah include Roger Penrose, Lars Hörmander, Alain Connes and Jean-Michel Bismut. Atiyah said that the mathematician he most admired was Hermann Weyl, and that his favorite mathematicians from before the 20th century were Bernhard Riemann and William Rowan Hamilton. Mathematical work. The six volumes of Atiyah's collected papers include most of his work, except for his commutative algebra textbook and a few works written since 2004. Algebraic geometry (1952–1958). Atiyah's early papers on algebraic geometry (and some general papers) are reprinted in the first volume of his collected works. As an undergraduate Atiyah was interested in classical projective geometry, and wrote his first paper: a short note on twisted cubics. He started research under W. V. D. Hodge and won the Smith's prize for 1954 for a sheaf-theoretic approach to ruled surfaces, which encouraged Atiyah to continue in mathematics, rather than switch to his other interests—architecture and archaeology. His PhD thesis with Hodge was on a sheaf-theoretic approach to Solomon Lefschetz's theory of integrals of the second kind on algebraic varieties, and resulted in an invitation to visit the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton for a year. While in Princeton he classified vector bundles on an elliptic curve (extending Grothendieck's classification of vector bundles on a genus 0 curve), by showing that any vector bundle is a sum of (essentially unique) indecomposable vector bundles, and then showing that the space of indecomposable vector bundles of given degree and positive dimension can be identified with the elliptic curve. He also studied double points on surfaces, giving the first example of a flop, a special birational transformation of 3-folds that was later heavily used in Mori's work on minimal models for 3-folds. Atiyah's flop can also be used to show that the universal marked family of K3 surfaces is non-Hausdorff. K theory (1959–1974). Atiyah's works on K-theory, including his book on K-theory are reprinted in volume 2 of his collected works. The simplest example of a vector bundle is the Möbius band (pictured on the right): a strip of paper with a twist in it, which represents a rank 1 vector bundle over a circle (the circle in question being the centerline of the Möbius band). K-theory is a tool for working with higher dimensional analogues of this example, or in other words for describing higher dimensional twistings: elements of the K-group of a space are represented by vector bundles over it, so the Möbius band represents an element of the K-group of a circle. Topological K-theory was discovered by Atiyah and Friedrich Hirzebruch who were inspired by Grothendieck's proof of the Grothendieck–Riemann–Roch theorem and Bott's work on the periodicity theorem. This paper only discussed the zeroth K-group; they shortly after extended it to K-groups of all degrees, giving the first (nontrivial) example of a generalized cohomology theory. Several results showed that the newly introduced K-theory was in some ways more powerful than ordinary cohomology theory. Atiyah and Todd used K-theory to improve the lower bounds found using ordinary cohomology by Borel and Serre for the James number, describing when a map from a complex Stiefel manifold to a sphere has a cross section. (Adams and Grant-Walker later showed that the bound found by Atiyah and Todd was best possible.) Atiyah and Hirzebruch used K-theory to explain some relations between Steenrod operations and Todd classes that Hirzebruch had noticed a few years before. The original solution of the Hopf invariant one problem operations by J. F. Adams was very long and complicated, using secondary cohomology operations. Atiyah showed how primary operations in K-theory could be used to give a short solution taking only a few lines, and in joint work with Adams also proved analogues of the result at odd primes. The Atiyah–Hirzebruch spectral sequence relates the ordinary cohomology of a space to its generalized cohomology theory. (Atiyah and Hirzebruch used the case of K-theory, but their method works for all cohomology theories). Atiyah showed that for a finite group "G", the K-theory of its classifying space, "BG", is isomorphic to the completion of its character ring: The same year they proved the result for "G" any compact connected Lie group. Although soon the result could be extended to "all" compact Lie groups by incorporating results from Graeme Segal's thesis, that extension was complicated. However a simpler and more general proof was produced by introducing equivariant K-theory, "i.e." equivalence classes of "G"-vector bundles over a compact "G"-space "X". It was shown that under suitable conditions the completion of the equivariant K-theory of "X" is isomorphic to the ordinary K-theory of a space, formula_2, which fibred over "BG" with fibre "X": The original result then followed as a corollary by taking "X" to be a point: the left hand side reduced to the completion of "R(G)" and the right to "K(BG)". See Atiyah–Segal completion theorem for more details. He defined new generalized homology and cohomology theories called bordism and cobordism, and pointed out that many of the deep results on cobordism of manifolds found by R. Thom, C. T. C. Wall, and others could be naturally reinterpreted as statements about these cohomology theories. Some of these cohomology theories, in particular complex cobordism, turned out to be some of the most powerful cohomology theories known. He introduced the J-group "J"("X") of a finite complex "X", defined as the group of stable fiber homotopy equivalence classes of sphere bundles; this was later studied in detail by J. F. Adams in a series of papers, leading to the Adams conjecture. With Hirzebruch he extended the Grothendieck–Riemann–Roch theorem to complex analytic embeddings, and in a related paper they showed that the Hodge conjecture for integral cohomology is false. The Hodge conjecture for rational cohomology is, as of 2008, a major unsolved problem. The Bott periodicity theorem was a central theme in Atiyah's work on K-theory, and he repeatedly returned to it, reworking the proof several times to understand it better. With Bott he worked out an elementary proof, and gave another version of it in his book. With Bott and Shapiro he analysed the relation of Bott periodicity to the periodicity of Clifford algebras; although this paper did not have a proof of the periodicity theorem, a proof along similar lines was shortly afterwards found by R. Wood. In he found a proof of several generalizations using elliptic operators; this new proof used an idea that he used to give a particularly short and easy proof of Bott's original periodicity theorem. Index theory (1963–1984). Atiyah's work on index theory is reprinted in volumes 3 and 4 of his collected works. The index of a differential operator is closely related to the number of independent solutions (more precisely, it is the differences of the numbers of independent solutions of the differential operator and its adjoint). There are many hard and fundamental problems in mathematics that can easily be reduced to the problem of finding the number of independent solutions of some differential operator, so if one has some means of finding the index of a differential operator these problems can often be solved. This is what the Atiyah–Singer index theorem does: it gives a formula for the index of certain differential operators, in terms of topological invariants that look quite complicated but are in practice usually straightforward to calculate. Several deep theorems, such as the Hirzebruch–Riemann–Roch theorem, are special cases of the Atiyah–Singer index theorem. In fact the index theorem gave a more powerful result, because its proof applied to all compact complex manifolds, while Hirzebruch's proof only worked for projective manifolds. There were also many new applications: a typical one is calculating the dimensions of the moduli spaces of instantons. The index theorem can also be run "in reverse": the index is obviously an integer, so the formula for it must also give an integer, which sometimes gives subtle integrality conditions on invariants of manifolds. A typical example of this is Rochlin's theorem, which follows from the index theorem. The index problem for elliptic differential operators was posed in 1959 by Gel'fand. He noticed the homotopy invariance of the index, and asked for a formula for it by means of topological invariants. Some of the motivating examples included the Riemann–Roch theorem and its generalization the Hirzebruch–Riemann–Roch theorem, and the Hirzebruch signature theorem. Hirzebruch and Borel had proved the integrality of the Â genus of a spin manifold, and Atiyah suggested that this integrality could be explained if it were the index of the Dirac operator (which was rediscovered by Atiyah and Singer in 1961). The first announcement of the Atiyah–Singer theorem was their 1963 paper. The proof sketched in this announcement was inspired by Hirzebruch's proof of the Hirzebruch–Riemann–Roch theorem and was never published by them, though it is described in the book by Palais. Their first published proof was more similar to Grothendieck's proof of the Grothendieck–Riemann–Roch theorem, replacing the cobordism theory of the first proof with K-theory, and they used this approach to give proofs of various generalizations in a sequence of papers from 1968 to 1971. Instead of just one elliptic operator, one can consider a family of elliptic operators parameterized by some space "Y". In this case the index is an element of the K-theory of "Y", rather than an integer. If the operators in the family are real, then the index lies in the real K-theory of "Y". This gives a little extra information, as the map from the real K theory of "Y" to the complex K theory is not always injective. With Bott, Atiyah found an analogue of the Lefschetz fixed-point formula for elliptic operators, giving the Lefschetz number of an endomorphism of an elliptic complex in terms of a sum over the fixed points of the endomorphism. As special cases their formula included the Weyl character formula, and several new results about elliptic curves with complex multiplication, some of which were initially disbelieved by experts. Atiyah and Segal combined this fixed point theorem with the index theorem as follows. If there is a compact group action of a group "G" on the compact manifold "X", commuting with the elliptic operator, then one can replace ordinary K theory in the index theorem with equivariant K-theory. For trivial groups "G" this gives the index theorem, and for a finite group "G" acting with isolated fixed points it gives the Atiyah–Bott fixed point theorem. In general it gives the index as a sum over fixed point submanifolds of the group "G". Atiyah solved a problem asked independently by Hörmander and Gel'fand, about whether complex powers of analytic functions define distributions. Atiyah used Hironaka's resolution of singularities to answer this affirmatively. An ingenious and elementary solution was found at about the same time by J. Bernstein, and discussed by Atiyah. As an application of the equivariant index theorem, Atiyah and Hirzeburch showed that manifolds with effective circle actions have vanishing Â-genus. (Lichnerowicz showed that if a manifold has a metric of positive scalar curvature then the Â-genus vanishes.) With Elmer Rees, Atiyah studied the problem of the relation between topological and holomorphic vector bundles on projective space. They solved the simplest unknown case, by showing that all rank 2 vector bundles over projective 3-space have a holomorphic structure. Horrocks had previously found some non-trivial examples of such vector bundles, which were later used by Atiyah in his study of instantons on the 4-sphere. Atiyah, Bott and Vijay K. Patodi gave a new proof of the index theorem using the heat equation. If the manifold is allowed to have boundary, then some restrictions must be put on the domain of the elliptic operator in order to ensure a finite index. These conditions can be local (like demanding that the sections in the domain vanish at the boundary) or more complicated global conditions (like requiring that the sections in the domain solve some differential equation). The local case was worked out by Atiyah and Bott, but they showed that many interesting operators (e.g., the signature operator) do not admit local boundary conditions. To handle these operators, Atiyah, Patodi and Singer introduced global boundary conditions equivalent to attaching a cylinder to the manifold along the boundary and then restricting the domain to those sections that are square integrable along the cylinder, and also introduced the Atiyah–Patodi–Singer eta invariant. This resulted in a series of papers on spectral asymmetry, which were later unexpectedly used in theoretical physics, in particular in Witten's work on anomalies. The fundamental solutions of linear hyperbolic partial differential equations often have Petrovsky lacunas: regions where they vanish identically. These were studied in 1945 by I. G. Petrovsky, who found topological conditions describing which regions were lacunas. In collaboration with Bott and Lars Gårding, Atiyah wrote three papers updating and generalizing Petrovsky's work. Atiyah showed how to extend the index theorem to some non-compact manifolds, acted on by a discrete group with compact quotient. The kernel of the elliptic operator is in general infinite dimensional in this case, but it is possible to get a finite index using the dimension of a module over a von Neumann algebra; this index is in general real rather than integer valued. This version is called the "L2 index theorem," and was used by Atiyah and Schmid to give a geometric construction, using square integrable harmonic spinors, of Harish-Chandra's discrete series representations of semisimple Lie groups. In the course of this work they found a more elementary proof of Harish-Chandra's fundamental theorem on the local integrability of characters of Lie groups. With H. Donnelly and I. Singer, he extended Hirzebruch's formula (relating the signature defect at cusps of Hilbert modular surfaces to values of L-functions) from real quadratic fields to all totally real fields. Gauge theory (1977–1985). Many of his papers on gauge theory and related topics are reprinted in volume 5 of his collected works. A common theme of these papers is the study of moduli spaces of solutions to certain non-linear partial differential equations, in particular the equations for instantons and monopoles. This often involves finding a subtle correspondence between solutions of two seemingly quite different equations. An early example of this which Atiyah used repeatedly is the Penrose transform, which can sometimes convert solutions of a non-linear equation over some real manifold into solutions of some linear holomorphic equations over a different complex manifold. In a series of papers with several authors, Atiyah classified all instantons on 4 dimensional Euclidean space. It is more convenient to classify instantons on a sphere as this is compact, and this is essentially equivalent to classifing instantons on Euclidean space as this is conformally equivalent to a sphere and the equations for instantons are conformally invariant. With Hitchin and Singer he calculated the dimension of the moduli space of irreducible self-dual connections (instantons) for any principle bundle over a compact 4-dimensional Riemannian manifold. For example, the dimension of the space of SU2 instantons of rank "k">0 is 8"k"−3. To do this they used the Atiyah–Singer index theorem to calculate the dimension of the tangent space of the moduli space at a point; the tangent space is essentially the space of solutions of an elliptic differential operator, given by the linearization of the non-linear Yang–Mills equations. These moduli spaces were later used by Donaldson to construct his invariants of 4-manifolds. Atiyah and Ward used the Penrose correspondence to reduce the classification of all instantons on the 4-sphere to a problem in algebraic geometry. With Hitchin he used ideas of Horrocks to solve this problem, giving the ADHM construction of all instantons on a sphere; Manin and Drinfeld found the same construction at the same time, leading to a joint paper by all four authors. Atiyah reformulated this construction using quaternions and wrote up a leisurely account of this classification of instantons on Euclidean space as a book. Atiyah's work on instanton moduli spaces was used in Donaldson's work on Donaldson theory. Donaldson showed that the moduli space of (degree 1) instantons over a compact simply connected 4-manifold with positive definite intersection form can be compactified to give a cobordism between the manifold and a sum of copies of complex projective space. He deduced from this that the intersection form must be a sum of one dimensional ones, which led to several spectacular applications to smooth 4-manifolds, such as the existence of non-equivalent smooth structures on 4 dimensional Euclidean space. Donaldson went on to use the other moduli spaces studied by Atiyah to define Donaldson invariants, which revolutionized the study of smooth 4-manifolds, and showed that they were more subtle than smooth manifolds in any other dimension, and also quite different from topological 4-manifolds. Atiyah described some of these results in a survey talk. Green's functions for linear partial differential equations can often be found by using the Fourier transform to convert this into an algebraic problem. Atiyah used a non-linear version of this idea. He used the Penrose transform to convert the Green's function for the conformally invariant Laplacian into a complex analytic object, which turned out to be essentially the diagonal embedding of the Penrose twistor space into its square. This allowed him to find an explicit formula for the conformally invariant Green's function on a 4-manifold. In his paper with Jones, he studied the topology of the moduli space of SU(2) instantons over a 4-sphere. They showed that the natural map from this moduli space to the space of all connections induces epimorphisms of homology groups in a certain range of dimensions, and suggested that it might induce isomorphisms of homology groups in the same range of dimensions. This became known as the Atiyah–Jones conjecture, and was later proved by several mathematicians. Harder and M. S. Narasimhan described the cohomology of the moduli spaces of stable vector bundles over Riemann surfaces by counting the number of points of the moduli spaces over finite fields, and then using the Weil conjectures to recover the cohomology over the complex numbers. Atiyah and R. Bott used Morse theory and the Yang–Mills equations over a Riemann surface to reproduce and extending the results of Harder and Narasimhan. An old result due to Schur and Horn states that the set of possible diagonal vectors of an Hermitian matrix with given eigenvalues is the convex hull of all the permutations of the eigenvalues. Atiyah proved a generalization of this that applies to all compact symplectic manifolds acted on by a torus, showing that the image of the manifold under the moment map is a convex polyhedron, and with Pressley gave a related generalization to infinite dimensional loop groups. Duistermaat and Heckman found a striking formula, saying that the push-forward of the Liouville measure of a moment map for a torus action is given exactly by the stationary phase approximation (which is in general just an asymptotic expansion rather than exact). Atiyah and Bott showed that this could be deduced from a more general formula in equivariant cohomology, which was a consequence of well-known localization theorems. Atiyah showed that the moment map was closely related to geometric invariant theory, and this idea was later developed much further by his student F. Kirwan. Witten shortly after applied the Duistermaat–Heckman formula to loop spaces and showed that this formally gave the Atiyah–Singer index theorem for the Dirac operator; this idea was lectured on by Atiyah. With Hitchin he worked on magnetic monopoles, and studied their scattering using an idea of Nick Manton. His book with Hitchin gives a detailed description of their work on magnetic monopoles. The main theme of the book is a study of a moduli space of magnetic monopoles; this has a natural Riemannian metric, and a key point is that this metric is complete and hyperkahler. The metric is then used to study the scattering of two monopoles, using a suggestion of N. Manton that the geodesic flow on the moduli space is the low energy approximation to the scattering. For example, they show that a head-on collision between two monopoles results in 90-degree scattering, with the direction of scattering depending on the relative phases of the two monopoles. He also studied monopoles on hyperbolic space. Atiyah showed that instantons in 4 dimensions can be identified with instantons in 2 dimensions, which are much easier to handle. There is of course a catch: in going from 4 to 2 dimensions the structure group of the gauge theory changes from a finite dimensional group to an infinite dimensional loop group. This gives another example where the moduli spaces of solutions of two apparently unrelated nonlinear partial differential equations turn out to be essentially the same. Atiyah and Singer found that anomalies in quantum field theory could be interpreted in terms of index theory of the Dirac operator; this idea later became widely used by physicists. Later work (1986 onwards). Many of the papers in the 6th volume of his collected works are surveys, obituaries, and general talks. Since its publication, Atiyah has continued to publish, including several surveys, a popular book, and another paper with Segal on twisted K-theory. One paper is a detailed study of the Dedekind eta function from the point of view of topology and the index theorem. Several of his papers from around this time study the connections between quantum field theory, knots, and Donaldson theory. He introduced the concept of a topological quantum field theory, inspired by Witten's work and Segal's definition of a conformal field theory. His book describes the new knot invariants found by Vaughan Jones and Edward Witten in terms of topological quantum field theories, and his paper with L. Jeffrey explains Witten's Lagrangian giving the Donaldson invariants. He studied skyrmions with Nick Manton, finding a relation with magnetic monopoles and instantons, and giving a conjecture for the structure of the moduli space of two skyrmions as a certain subquotient of complex projective 3-space. Several papers were inspired by a question of M. Berry (called the Berry–Robbins problem), who asked if there is a map from the configuration space of "n" points in 3-space to the flag manifold of the unitary group. Atiyah gave an affirmative answer to this question, but felt his solution was too computational and studied a conjecture that would give a more natural solution. He also related the question to Nahm's equation, and introduced the Atiyah conjecture on configurations. With Juan Maldacena and Cumrun Vafa, and E. Witten he described the dynamics of M-theory on manifolds with G2 holonomy. These papers seem to be the first time that Atiyah has worked on exceptional Lie groups. In his papers with M. Hopkins and G. Segal he returned to his earlier interest of K-theory, describing some twisted forms of K-theory with applications in theoretical physics. Awards and honours. In 1966, when he was thirty-seven years old, he was awarded the Fields Medal, for his work in developing K-theory, a generalized Lefschetz fixed-point theorem and the Atiyah–Singer theorem, for which he also won the Abel Prize jointly with Isadore Singer in 2004. Among other prizes he has received are the Royal Medal of the Royal Society in 1968, the De Morgan Medal of the London Mathematical Society in 1980, the Antonio Feltrinelli Prize from the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei in 1981, the King Faisal International Prize for Science in 1987, the Copley Medal of the Royal Society in 1988, the Benjamin Franklin Medal for Distinguished Achievement in the Sciences of the American Philosophical Society in 1993, the Jawaharlal Nehru Birth Centenary Medal of the Indian National Science Academy in 1993, the President's Medal from the Institute of Physics in 2008, the Grande Médaille of the French Academy of Sciences in 2010 and the Grand Officier of the French Légion d'honneur in 2011. He was elected a foreign member of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1969), the Academie des Sciences, the Akademie Leopoldina, the Royal Swedish Academy, the Royal Irish Academy, the Royal Society of Edinburgh, the American Philosophical Society, the Indian National Science Academy, the Chinese Academy of Science, the Australian Academy of Science, the Russian Academy of Science, the Ukrainian Academy of Science, the Georgian Academy of Science, the Venezuela Academy of Science, the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters, the Royal Spanish Academy of Science, the Accademia dei Lincei and the Moscow Mathematical Society. In 2012 he became a fellow of the American Mathematical Society. Atiyah has been awarded honorary degrees by the universities of Bonn, Warwick, Durham, St. Andrews, Dublin, Chicago, Cambridge, Edinburgh, Essex, London, Sussex, Ghent, Reading, Helsinki, Salamanca, Montreal, Wales, Lebanon, Queen's (Canada), Keele, Birmingham, UMIST, Brown, Heriot–Watt, Mexico, Oxford, Hong Kong (Chinese University), The Open University, American University of Beirut, the Technical University of Catalonia and Leicester. Atiyah was made a Knight Bachelor in 1983 and made a member of the Order of Merit in 1992. The Michael Atiyah building at the University of Leicester and the Michael Atiyah Chair in Mathematical Sciences at the American University of Beirut were named after him. References. Books by Atiyah. This subsection lists all books written by Atiyah; it omits a few books that he edited.
1066666	Mortal Thoughts is a 1991 mystery thriller, about a woman who is interrogated by the police regarding the death of her friend's husband. It was directed by Alan Rudolph and stars Demi Moore, Glenne Headly, Bruce Willis, and Harvey Keitel. Willis plays James Urbanski, the violent, drug-addicted husband of Joyce (Headly), who is murdered one horrible evening at a nearby Feast of Saint Rocco festival. Plot. The film revolves mainly around a scene in which Cynthia Kellogg (Demi Moore) is interrogated by two investigators at the police station. The deposition given by Cynthia is supported by detailed flashbacks throughout the film. The interrogation arouses particular suspicion about whether Cynthia's own husband could have informed the police about the incident and anything which his wife could have confided in him. Cover. The cover has a Ferris wheel, which happens to be the one at Bowcraft Amusement Park.
1002558	The Heart of the Game is a 2005 sports documentary film about the Roosevelt Roughriders girls basketball team. The movie is centered around their star player Darnellia Russell and the Roughriders new coach Bill Resler. Plot. The film begins two years before the African-American Darnellia Russell attends the predominantly white and upper-class Roosevelt High School. Bill Resler, a tax law professor at the University of Washington, becomes their new girls basketball coach. Resler, a coach who uses animal and nature themes to motivate his team, believes they can win the Washington State championship but they fall short in the first game of the state tournament. A couple of years later, Darnellia attends Roosevelt High School where she makes the junior-varsity team. Learning of her natural talent, Resler recruits her for the varsity squad. In the following years, the talented Roosevelt team falls short of winning the state championship in close games. Darnellia receives letters of interest from several major universities. However, after her junior year, Darnellia becomes pregnant by her longtime boyfriend and drops out of school. After giving birth to a daughter, Darnellia returns to Roosevelt for her fifth year. The WIAA (Washington Interscholastic Activities Association) bans Russell from playing basketball due to a rule that states that high school students can only play on their teams for four years, unless a hardship is involved. Darnellia, believing that having an unplanned child constitutes a hardship, appeals the decision. Attorney Ken Luce represents Darnellia in court and a judge rules in Darnellia's favor. The WIAA takes the matter to court again, and for the second time the judge grants Darnellia the right to continue playing. However, the WIAA files a lawsuit against Darnellia and Roosevelt High School. In defiance of the WIAA, the Roughriders continue to play with Darnellia on the team.
1188392	Give My Regards to Broad Street is the soundtrack album to the 1984 film of the same name. Unlike the film, the album was successful, achieving number 1 in the UK chart and its lead single "No More Lonely Nights" was BAFTA and Golden Globe Award nominated. Songs. The majority of the album—which is sequenced in the order of the songs' appearance in the film—features re-interpretations of many of Paul McCartney's past classics of The Beatles and Wings: "Good Day Sunshine", "Yesterday", "Here, There and Everywhere", "Silly Love Songs" (the only Wings song included), "For No One", "Eleanor Rigby" and "The Long and Winding Road". There were also interpretations of songs from McCartney's more recent albums; "Ballroom Dancing" and "Wanderlust" from "Tug of War" and "So Bad" from "Pipes of Peace". Besides "No More Lonely Nights" (also heard in a dance version), the only previously-unheard tracks were "Not Such a Bad Boy", "No Values" and a symphonic extension of "Eleanor Rigby" entitled "Eleanor's Dream". The scope of the album was so immense that when it saw release that October, its vinyl issue had specially edited versions of its songs. The cassette and the later CD edition preserved the tracks' full lengths, while the CD went one further by including a bonus 1940's-styled piece called "Goodnight Princess". Release and charts. Preceded by "No More Lonely Nights (Ballad)", a worldwide top 10 hit featuring guitar work by David Gilmour, "Give My Regards to Broad Street" entered the UK charts at number 1 while going gold with a number 21 peak in the United States (selling under expectations there). It would also mark the end of McCartney's brief alliance with Columbia Records in the US which had started with the final Wings album "Back to the Egg" in 1979. McCartney would re-sign with EMI worldwide (where he remained until 2007) with his Columbia output reverting to his new – and original – label in the US. Simultaneously with the film's premiere in November McCartney's Rupert Bear recording "We All Stand Together", started back in 1980 and credited to 'Paul McCartney and the Frog Chorus', was released and became a hit single in the UK, reaching number 3. The accompanying animated film was shown in cinemas immediately preceding the main Give My Regards to Broad Street feature. The soundtrack's original release was on Columbia Records in 1984 in North America. It was remastered in 1993 and reissued on CD as part of 'The Paul McCartney Collection' series with two extended dance mixes of "No More Lonely Nights (playout version)" as bonus tracks. Track listing. All songs by Paul McCartney, except where noted. LP version. Due to the length of the recording, the 1984 LP omits "So Bad" and "Goodnight Princess", edits out about six minutes of "Eleanor's Dream", and also sections of "Good Day Sunshine", "Wanderlust" and "No More Lonely Nights (playout version)". On the LP cover a remark alerts the listener: Track lengths on album notes do not include spoken sections between songs and so do not match CD timings. On the list above these sections are included at the beginning of each track, as on the 1984 release, while on the remastered 1993 CD (listed above) they are mostly included at the end of the tracks.
1164507	Gloria Mildred DeHaven (born July 23, 1925) is an American actress, singer and a former contract star for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Early life and career. DeHaven was born in Los Angeles, California, the daughter of actor-director, Carter DeHaven, and actress, Flora Parker DeHaven, both former vaudeville performers.
1245093	The Gleaners and I (, "The gleaners and the female gleaner") is a French documentary by Agnès Varda that features various kinds of gleaning. It was entered into competition at the 2000 Cannes Film Festival ("Official Selection 2000"), and later went on to earn awards around the world. The Subjects. The film tracks a series of gleaners as they hunt for food, knicknacks, and personal connection. Varda travels French countryside and city to find and film not only field gleaners, but also urban gleaners and those connected to gleaners, including a wealthy restaurant owner whose ancestors were gleaners. The film spends time capturing the many aspects of gleaning and the many people who glean to survive. One such person is the teacher named Alain, an urban gleaner with a master's degree who teaches French to immigrants. Varda's other subjects include artists who incorporate recycled materials into their work, symbols she discovers during her filming (including a clock without hands and a heart-shaped potato), and the French law regarding gleaning. Varda also spends time with Louis Pons, who explains how junk is a "cluster of possibilities". This film has an unexpected brief interview with the psychoanalyst Jean Laplanche. Production. Varda describes her filming and writing process as cinecriture: the process of writing narration, choosing shots, encountering subjects, editing, choosing music is “all chance working with me, all this is the film writing that I often talk about.” She describes in the press kit for the film that she and her team would travel and shoot for roughly two weeks at a time and immediately proceed to edit while scouting for additional locations. "Gleaners" was filmed throughout France, in Beauce, Jura, Provence, the Pyrenees and in the suburbs of Paris. She says the entire process took place between September 1999 and April 2000. Varda traveled alone to get most of her “gleaned” shots, scouting markets between 2 and 4 p.m. Most of the abandoned objects and shots she found, including the “dancing lens cap” and the heart-shaped potato, were “ of luck—and we immediately filmed it.”
396409	Go Soo (born October 4, 1978) is a South Korean actor. He has appeared in television series such as "Piano", "Green Rose" and "Will It Snow For Christmas?", as well as the films "Some", "White Night", "Haunters", "The Front Line", and "Love 911". Biography. 1998-2005: Debut and breakout fame. Go Soo first appeared in a soft drink TV commercial in which he waits for his girlfriend at curfew, and in 1998, he appeared as an extra in the music video "Last Promise" by the band Position. He made his television debut in 1999 through the MBC sitcoms "My Funky Family" and "Jump". Go drew critical praise for his performance in the drama "Piano" in 2001, with one review describing him as an "actor with precision." "Piano" was his first TV series produced by SBS; he signed an exclusivity contract with the broadcast network, and thereafter all of his dramas have been SBS-produced. Go made his big screen debut as a drug crime officer in 2004's "Some", in which he also performed his own stunts. He was later awarded Best New Actor at the Grand Bell Awards. In 2005, he starred in the revenge drama "Green Rose", which was shot on location in China and Korea. He played a simple man who falls in love with a rich woman and gets accused of a crime he did not commit. In the 2005 romantic comedy "Marrying a Millionaire", Go played a delivery man who is asked by a TV producer to act like a rich bachelor to attract several women on a televised reality dating show.
1102288	Sir William Rowan Hamilton (midnight, 3-4 August 1805 – 2 September 1865) was an Irish physicist, astronomer, and mathematician, who made important contributions to classical mechanics, optics, and algebra. His studies of mechanical and optical systems led him to discover new mathematical concepts and techniques. His greatest contribution is perhaps the reformulation of Newtonian mechanics, now called Hamiltonian mechanics. This work has proven central to the modern study of classical field theories such as electromagnetism, and to the development of quantum mechanics. In mathematics, he is perhaps best known as the inventor of quaternions. Hamilton is said to have shown immense talent at a very early age. Astronomer Bishop Dr. John Brinkley remarked of the 18-year-old Hamilton, 'This young man, I do not say "will be", but "is", the first mathematician of his age.' Life. William Rowan Hamilton's scientific career included the study of geometrical optics, classical mechanics, adaptation of dynamic methods in optical systems, applying quaternion and vector methods to problems in mechanics and in geometry, development of theories of conjugate algebraic couple functions (in which complex numbers are constructed as ordered pairs of real numbers), solvability of polynomial equations and general quintic polynomial solvable by radicals, the analysis on Fluctuating Functions (and the ideas from Fourier analysis), linear operators on quaternions and proving a result for linear operators on the space of quaternions (which is a special case of the general theorem which today is known as the "Cayley–Hamilton theorem"). Hamilton also invented ""icosian calculus"", which he used to investigate closed edge paths on a dodecahedron that visit each vertex exactly once. Early life. Hamilton was the fourth of nine children born to Sarah Hutton (1780–1817) and Archibald Hamilton (1778–1819), who lived in Dublin at 38 Dominick Street. Hamilton's father, who was from Dunboyne, worked as a solicitor. By the age of three, Hamilton had been sent to live with his uncle James Hamilton, a graduate of Trinity College who ran a school in Talbots Castle. His uncle soon discovered that Hamilton had a remarkable ability to learn languages.
1055540	Past Midnight is a 1991 Neo-noir thriller film (with slasher connections) starring Paul Giamatti, Tom Wright and Clancy Brown alongside leads Rutger Hauer and Natasha Richardson. Synopsis. Parolee Ben Jordan has spent the past fifteen years behind bars for his pregnant wife's murder. He is monitored by his parole officer Lee Samuels and social worker Laura Mathews after he is released. Mathews begins looking into his case and becomes convinced that he was convicted under circumstantial evidence and starts becoming convinced of his innocence in the crime. Before long she starts falling for him, but this is far from wise, since even if he is innocent, Mrs Jordan's real murderer may soon come a calling. Trivia. After Quentin Tarantino significantly re-wrote the script, Catalaine Knell shared her associate producer credit with him on the film (his first official screen credit). The film features a number of Tarantino's trademark pop cultural references. For example, in reference to a Peeping Tom-like recording of a murder, Tom Wright's character says "It makes Nightmare on Elm Street look like Charlotte's Web." Release. Originally intended for a theatrical release, the film aired on the USA Network on December 16, 1992. Before, the film was shown at the American Film Market and at the Vancouver International Film Festival in October of the previous year. The movie was released on videocassette and laserdisc on April 21, 1993 by Columbia TriStar Home Video, and was released on DVD by the same company on August 17, 2004, in widescreen.
1165254	James King Arness (May 26, 1923 – June 3, 2011) was an American actor, best known for portraying Marshal Matt Dillon in the television series "Gunsmoke" for 20 years. Arness has the distinction of having played the role of Dillon in five separate decades: 1955 to 1975 in the weekly series, then in "" (1987) and four more made-for-TV "Gunsmoke" movies in the 1990s. In Europe Arness reached cult status for his role as Zeb Macahan in the western series "How the West Was Won". His younger brother was actor Peter Graves. Early life. Arness was born James Aurness in Minneapolis; in 1923; he dropped the "u" when he started acting. His parents were Rolf Cirkler Aurness, a businessman, and his wife Ruth Duesler, a journalist. His father’s ancestry was Norwegian; his mother's was German. The family name had been Aursnes, but when Rolf's father, Peter Aursnes, emigrated from Norway in 1887, he changed it to Aurness. Arness and his family were Methodists. Arness' younger brother was actor Peter Graves (1926–2010). Peter used the stage name "Graves", a maternal family name. Arness attended John Burroughs Grade School, Washburn High School and West High School in Minneapolis. During this time, Arness worked as a courier for a jewelry wholesaler, loading and unloading railway boxcars at the Burlington freight yards in Minneapolis, and logging in Pierce, Idaho. Despite "being a poor student and skipping many classes", he graduated from high school in June 1942. Military service in World War II. Arness wanted to be a naval fighter pilot, but he felt his poor eyesight would bar him. His height of 6 feet 7 inches (2.01 m) ended his hopes, since 6 feet 2 inches (1.88 m) was the limit for aviators. Instead, he was called for the Army and reported to Fort Snelling, Minnesota in March 1943. Arness served as a rifleman with the U.S. 3rd Infantry Division, and was severely wounded during Operation "Shingle", at Anzio, Italy. According to "James Arness – An Autobiography", he landed on Anzio Beachhead on January 22, 1944 as a rifleman with 2nd Platoon, E Company, 2nd Battalion, 7th Infantry Regiment of the 3rd Infantry Division. Because of his height, he was the first ordered off his landing craft to determine the depth of the water; it came up to his waist. On January 29, 1945, having undergone surgery several times, Arness was honorably discharged. His wounds continued to bother him, and in later years Arness suffered from chronic leg pain, which sometimes hurt when mounting a horse. His decorations include the Bronze Star Medal, the Purple Heart, the European-African-Middle Eastern Campaign Medal with three bronze battle stars, the World War II Victory Medal and the Combat Infantryman Badge. Acting career. After his discharge, Arness entered Beloit College in Wisconsin. He began his performing career as a radio announcer at Minneapolis station WLOL in 1945. Arness came to Hollywood by hitchhiking and soon began acting and appearing in films. He began with RKO, which immediately changed his name from "Aurness". His film debut was as Loretta Young's (Katie Holstrom) brother, Peter Holstrom, in "The Farmer's Daughter" He was credited in The Farmer's Daughter as AURNESS.(1947). Though identified with westerns, Arness also appeared in two science fiction films, "The Thing from Another World" (in which he portrayed the title character) and "Them!". He was a close friend of John Wayne and co-starred with him in "Big Jim McLain", "Hondo", "Island in the Sky", and "The Sea Chase", and starred in "Gun the Man Down" for Wayne's company. An urban legend has it that John Wayne was offered the leading role of Matt Dillon in the longtime favorite television show "Gunsmoke", but he turned it down, recommending instead James Arness for the role. The only part of this story that is true is that Wayne did indeed recommend Arness for the part. Wayne introduced Arness in a prologue to the first episode of "Gunsmoke", in 1955. The Norwegian-German Arness had to dye his naturally blond hair darker for the role. "Gunsmoke" made Arness world-famous and would run for two decades, becoming the longest running drama series in U.S. television history by the end of its run in 1975. The series' season record was tied only in 2010 with the final season of "Law & Order". Unlike the latter show, "Gunsmoke" featured its lead character in each of its twenty seasons; "Gunsmoke" also aired 179 more episodes, and was in the top 10 in the ratings for eleven more seasons, for a total of thirteen, including four consecutive seasons at number one.
1163934	Ruth Roman (born Norma Roman, Rūta Ramanauskaitė December 22, 1922 – September 9, 1999) was a Lithuanian-American actress. One of her most memorable roles was in the Alfred Hitchcock 1951 thriller "Strangers on a Train." Personal life. She was born in the Boston suburb of Lynn, Massachusetts, and was of Lithuanian descent. As a girl, she pursued her desire to become an actress by enrolling in the prestigious Bishop Lee Dramatic School in Boston. Following completion of her studies Roman headed to Hollywood where she obtained bit parts in several films before being cast in the title role in the thirteen-episode serial "Jungle Queen" (1945). Married three times, she had one son, Richard, with her first husband, Mortimer Hall. She died at the age of 76 in her sleep at her Laguna Beach, California home. "Andrea Doria" Sinking. In July 1956, Ruth was just finishing a trip to Europe with Richard, or "Dickie" as he was called as a child, who was three years old at the time. At the port of Cannes, they boarded the Italian passenger liner SS "Andrea Doria" as First Class passengers for their return trip home to the United States. On the night of July 25, the "Andrea Doria" collided with the Swedish passenger liner MS "Stockholm". Ruth was in the Belvedere Lounge when the collision happened and immediately took off her high heels and scrambled back to her cabin barefoot to retrieve her sleeping son. Several hours later she and the other passengers were being evacuated from the sinking liner. Dickie was lowered first into a waiting lifeboat, and before she could follow the lifeboat departed. Ruth stepped into the next boat and was eventually rescued along with 750 other survivors from the "Andrea Doria" by the French passenger liner SS "Ile de France". Dickie was rescued by the "Stockholm" and was reunited with his mother in New York. Career. She played an important role in the 1949 film, "Champion." In one of her most memorable roles, Roman co-starred with Farley Granger and Robert Walker in the Alfred Hitchcock thriller "Strangers on a Train" (1951). In the 1950 film "Three Secrets," she played a distraught mother waiting to learn whether or not her child survived an airplane crash. Roman was a notable presence and love interest to James Stewart in the Anthony Mann-directed western "The Far Country" in 1955. In 1959, she won the Sarah Siddons Award for her work in Chicago theatre. Although, she never achieved the level of success as a leading lady that many predicted, Roman did work regularly in film well into the 1960s, where she began making appearances on television shows. These included a recurring role in NBC's 1965-1966 "The Long, Hot Summer," the 1986 season of "Knots Landing" and "Murder, She Wrote", both on CBS. She also guest starred in NBC's "Sam Benedict" featuring Edmond O'Brien, ABC's "The Bing Crosby Show" sitcom and its circus drama, "The Greatest Show on Earth" starring Jack Palance, "I-Spy" featuring Robert Culp and Bill Cosby, and others. She also appeared in the early 1960s in both the NBC medical drama "The Eleventh Hour" and its ABC counterpart, "Breaking Point." She also starred in "" season 3, 1968 titled *The Elixir" as Riva Santel. Roman was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6672 Hollywood Boulevard for her contribution to television.
1064541	William Michael "Billy" Zabka (born October 21, 1965) is an American actor, screenwriter, director and producer. Zabka is best known for his villain roles in several iconic 80s films, such as his role as Johnny Lawrence in 1984's "The Karate Kid". In 2004, he was nominated for an Academy Award for co-writing and producing the film "Most". Life and career. Zabka was born in New York City to Nancy and Stanley Zabka. The latter has worked as production manager on a number of motion pictures, including the Chuck Norris vehicle "Forced Vengeance." Young William grew up with two siblings: sister Judy; brother Guy. Both brothers share a fondness for writing and performing music; together, they own and operate Big Island Music, Incorporated.
1062295	Bulworth is a 1998 American comedy-drama film co-written, co-produced, and directed by Warren Beatty. It co-stars Halle Berry, Oliver Platt, Don Cheadle, Paul Sorvino, Jack Warden, and Isaiah Washington. The film follows the title character, California Senator Jay Billington Bulworth (Beatty), as he runs for re-election while trying to avoid a hired assassin. Plot. A veteran Democratic Senator, Bulworth is losing his bid for re-election to a fiery young populist. Bulworth's socialist views, formed in the 1960s and 1970s, has lost favor with voters, so he has conceded to more conservative politics and to accepting donations from big corporations. In addition, though he and his wife have been having affairs openly for years, they must still present a happy façade in the interest of maintaining a good public image. Tired of politics and his life in general and planning to commit suicide, Bulworth negotiates a $10 million life insurance policy with his daughter as the beneficiary in exchange for a favorable vote from the insurance industry. Knowing that a suicide will void his daughter's inheritance, he contracts to have himself assassinated within two days' time. Turning up in California for his campaign extremely drunk, Bulworth begins speaking his mind freely at public events and in the presence of the C-SPAN film crew following his campaign. After ending up in a night club and smoking marijuana, he even starts rapping in public. His frank, potentially offensive remarks make him an instant media darling and re-energize his campaign. Becoming romantically involved with young campaigner Nina, Bulworth hides out in her family's home. He is pursued by the paparazzi, his insurance company, his campaign managers, Nina's protective drug-dealing brother, and an increasingly adoring public, all before his impending assassination. Nina reveals she is the assassin he indirectly hired and will now not carry out the job. Bulworth happily accepts a new campaign for the presidency right before he is shot in front of a crowd of reporters and supporters by an insurance representative fearful of Bulworth's push for single-payer health care. Production. Warren Beatty assembled a team of three writers: Aaron Sorkin, Jeremy Pikser, and James Toback. Due to family issues, Pikser contributed to the writing process remotely, communicating by phone and fax. Beatty also sought guidance from the writer Elaine May, but she was committed to working on the film "Primary Colors" with her former comedy partner, the director Mike Nichols. "Bulworth" was made in complete stealth and released by 20th Century Fox only after protracted contractual wrangling, only for a brief period of time, and practically without any publicity. As Peter Swirski reports in his award-winning study of this film, "after 20th Century Fox backed out of producing "Dick Tracy", Beatty used the leverage of a lawsuit to wangle unprecedented artistic freedom," disclosing only the barest outline of the story and essentially duping Fox into bankrolling the project. Soundtrack. The soundtrack was released on April 21, 1998 by Interscope Records. Reception. The film generated a great deal of controversy but received a positive reception from film critics. It currently holds a 75% approval rating at Rotten Tomatoes. In 2013, the New York Times reported that President Barack Obama had, in private, "talked longingly of 'going Bulworth,'" in reference to the film. Box office. The Los Angeles Times commented that "Bulworth" did "extremely well" on a limited release. The film grossed $29,202,884 worldwide at the box office.
393963	Volcano High (), the original version, is a 2001 South Korean martial arts action comedy film in the same vein as "Tenjho Tenge". It revolves around a troublemaking high school student named Kim Kyung-soo (portrayed by Jang Hyuk) who finds himself transferred to the last school that will take him, the prestigious Volcano High, an institution whose students display an incredible talent in martial arts, with a few demonstrating even more mysterious psychic powers; most notably Song Hak-rim (portrayed by Kwon Sang-woo). Kyung-Soo is drawn into fights between different clubs, a Manual that is told to hold great power, and a group of teachers that will do whatever possible to keep the students in line. The film proved to be a commercial success in South Korea gaining 1,687,800 admissions nationwide becoming the 9th highest grossing Korean film of 2001. Prologue. "17 years of feuding, sparked by the Great Teacher's Battle, has stripped authorities of their power, as self-indulgence, disguised as self-control, grips the student body. The schools have fallen into disarray. However, there is a legend. The one who acquires the Secret Manuscript will end the chaos. It is a legend that disrupts the Martial Court of Volcano High. Now, in the 108th year of Volcano..." Soundtrack. The movie had different soundtracks in Korea, in Japan and in the US. The original Korean soundtrack was scored by Yeong Park and features two songs from Korean nu metal band R.F. Children. It is mostly rock music. The Japanese soundtrack was written by Daita (former guitarist of Siam Shade), it's similar in style, mostly rock music. The US version is a completely altered version from the original featuring hip hop music. American version. The American version of the film released in late 2003 was done by MTV and featured hip-hop artists Snoop Dogg, Method Man, Lil' Jon, Big Boi, and Mýa. This Kung Faux parody version of the film aired only on MTV Manhwa / comics. There is also a manhwa set before the movie called "Volcano High Prelude". It was distributed in the United States by Media Blasters.
581913	Taare Zameen Par, reissued as Like Stars on Earth for Disney's international DVD, is a 2007 Indian drama film directed by Aamir Khan. Creative Director and writer Amole Gupte initially developed the idea with his wife Deepa Bhatia, who served as the film's editor. Visual effects were created by Tata Elxsi's Visual Computing Labs, and the title animation—the first use of claymation in a Bollywood film—was created by Dhimant Vyas. Shankar–Ehsaan–Loy composed the film's score, and Prasoon Joshi wrote the lyrics for many of the songs. Principal photography took place in Mumbai and in Panchgani's New Era High School, and some of the school's students make appearances. The film explores the life and imagination of eight-year-old Ishaan (Darsheel Safary). Although he excels in art, his poor academic performance leads his parents to send him to a boarding school. Ishaan's new art teacher (Aamir Khan) suspects that he is dyslexic, and helps him to overcome his disability. The film made its theatrical debut in India on 21 December 2007, and UTV Home Entertainment released a DVD for Indian audiences in 2008. Disney's release of the international edition DVD in 2010 marked the first purchase of distribution rights for an Indian film by a global company. "Taare Zameen Par" has received numerous awards, including the Filmfare Best Film Award for 2008 and the 2008 National Film Award for Best Film on Family Welfare. It was India's official entry for the 2009 Academy Awards Best Foreign Film, and the film's failure to progress to the nominations short list sparked a debate about why no Indian film has ever won an Oscar. Media outlets made comparisons between "Taare Zameen Par" and the British drama "Slumdog Millionaire", which won several Oscars that same year. Plot. Ishaan Nandkishore Awasthi (Darsheel Safary) is an eight-year-old boy who dislikes school and fails every test or exam. He finds all subjects difficult, and is belittled by his teachers and classmates. But Ishaan's internal world is rich with wonders that he is unable to convey to others, magical lands filled with colour and animated animals. He is an artist whose talent is unrecognised. Ishaan's father, Nandkishore Awasthi (Vipin Sharma), is a successful executive who expects his children to excel. His mother, housewife Maya Awasthi (Tisca Chopra), is frustrated by her inability to educate her son. Ishaan's elder brother, Yohaan (Sachet Engineer), is an exemplary scholar and athlete, which Ishaan is frequently reminded of. After receiving a particularly poor academic report, Ishaan's parents send him to a boarding school. There he sinks into a state of fear and depression, despite being befriended by Rajan (Tanay Chheda), physically disabled and one of the top students in his class. Ishaan's situation changes when a new art teacher, Ram Shankar Nikumbh (Aamir Khan), joins the school's faculty. An instructor at the Tulips School for young children with developmental disabilities, Nikumbh's teaching style is markedly different from that of his strict predecessor, and he quickly observes that Ishaan is unhappy and contributes little to class activities. He reviews Ishaan's work and concludes that his academic shortcomings are indicative of dyslexia. On his day off, Nikumbh visits Ishaan's parents and asks if he can see more of their son's work. He is stunned by the sophistication of one of Ishaan's paintings, and tells his parents that Ishaan is a bright child who processes information differently from other children in his class, but Ishaan's father is suspicious that the explanation is simply an excuse for his son's poor performance. Nikumbh demands that he read some Japanese text on a box and berates him when he cannot, giving him a glimpse into Ishaan's experience of school. Nikumbh describes dyslexia to them and explains that it is not a sign of low intelligence. He tells them he can provide extra tutoring that will help Ishaan, highlighting the boy's artistic ability evident in his many paintings and other creative works. Nikumbh subsequently brings up the topic of dyslexia in class, and offers a list of famous people who are considered dyslexic. As the students are leaving the classroom, Nikumbh asks Ishaan to remain behind and reveals to him that he too experienced the same difficulties with dyslexia. Nikumbh then visits the school's principal and obtains his permission to become Ishaan's tutor. He attempts to improve Ishaan's reading and writing by using remedial techniques developed by dyslexia specialists; Ishaan soon develops an interest in language and mathematics, and his grades improve. Towards the end of the school year Nikumbh organises an art fair for the staff and students. The competition is judged by artist Lalita Lajmi. Ishaan, with his strikingly creative style, is declared the winner and Nikumbh, who paints Ishaan's portrait, the runner-up. The principal announces that Nikumbh has been hired as the school's permanent art teacher. When Ishaan's parents meet his teachers on the last day of school they are left speechless by the transformation they see in him. Overcome with emotion, Ishaan's father thanks Nikumbh. As Ishaan is getting into the car to leave with his parents, he turns around and runs toward Nikumbh. The film ends with a freeze frame shot of Nikumbh tossing Ishaan into the air. Production. Development. The husband and wife team of Amole Gupte and Deepa Bhatia developed the story that would eventually become "Taare Zameen Par" as a way of understanding why some children cannot conform to a conventional educational system. Their initial work began as a short story that evolved into a screenplay over seven years. Deepa Bhatia later stated in an interview with "The Hindu" that her original inspiration was not dyslexia but rather the childhood of Japanese filmmaker Akira Kurosawa, who performed poorly in school. Her goal was thus to explore the story of "a child who did not fit into the school stream." She referenced a specific moment in Kurosawa's biography where he began to excel after meeting an attentive art teacher, and noted that this scene "became the inspiration for how a teacher could transform the life of a student". In developing the character of a young boy based on Kurosawa, Bhatia and Gupte explored some possible reasons why he failed in school. Their research led them to groups such as the Maharashtra Dyslexia Association and Parents for a Better Curriculum for the Child (PACE). Dyslexia eventually became the central topic and theme of the film. The pair worked with dyslexic children to research and develop the screenplay, basing characters and situations on their observations. Bhatia and Gupte carefully concealed the children's identities in the final version of the script. Khan and Gupte first met in college. Khan has said that he admired Gupte's abilities as an actor, writer, and painter. Three years before the film's release Gupte brought Khan to the project as a producer and actor. Gupte himself was to direct, but the first week's dailies were a great disappointment to Khan, who "lost faith in Amol and his capability of translating on screen what he had so beautifully written on paper". Khan was on the verge of withdrawing his participation in the film because of these "creative differences", but Gupte kept him onboard by stepping down as director. Had it been necessary to hire a third party, production would have been postponed for 6–8 months as the new director prepared for the film. Keen to keep Safary as Ishaan—the actor might have aged too much for the part had production been delayed—Khan took over the role of director. "Taare Zameen Par" was Khan's first experience in the dual role of actor and director. He has admitted that the transition was challenging, stating that while he had always wanted to direct a film, it was unknown territory for him. Gupte remained on set, "guiding and, at times, even correcting [him". Title and translation. Initially the film was to retain the short story's title of "High Jump", because of Ishaan's inability to achieve the high jump in gym class. This subplot—filmed but later cut—tied into the original ending for the movie. In this rendition, a "ghost image" separates from Ishaan after the art competition and runs to the sports field; the film would end on a freeze frame of Ishaan successfully making the leap. Khan, however, was unhappy with that proposed ending and convinced Gupte to rewrite it.
581907	Munna Bhai M.B.B.S. is a 2003 Indian comedy directed by Rajkumar Hirani and produced by Vidhu Vinod Chopra. The story involves protagonist Munna Bhai (Sanjay Dutt), a goon, going to medical school. He is helped by his sidekick, Circuit (Arshad Warsi). It stars Sanjay Dutt, Arshad Warsi, Jimmy Shergill, Sunil Dutt, Gracy Singh and Boman Irani and was later followed by a second film, "Lage Raho Munna Bhai". It went on to win the 2004 National Film Award for Best Popular Film, and several Filmfare awards, including the Critics Award for Best Movie and Best Screenplay. It was declared a 'Hit' at the Indian Box office. Plot. Murli Prasad Sharma, nicknamed "Munna Bhai" (literally "Brother Munna") is a "bhai" or "gunda": a crime don in the Mumbai underworld. Given that his father had wished him to be a medical doctor, he creates the faux Sri Hari Prasad Sharma Charitable Hospital (named after his father) and pretends to live in accordance with this wish whenever his father (Sunil Dutt) and mother (Rohini Hattangadi) visit him in Mumbai. One year, however, Munna's plan goes awry when his father meets an old acquaintance, Dr. Asthana (Boman Irani) and the two older men decide to marry Munna to Asthana's daughter, Dr. Suman "Chinki" (Gracy Singh). At this point the truth about Munna is revealed. Asthana insults Munna's parents and calls them "fools" for being ignorant of Munna's real life. Munna's father and mother, aghast and later heartbroken, leave for their village. Munna, in grief and despair, decides that the only way to redeem himself and to gain revenge for the humiliation suffered by his father at the hands of the spiteful Ashthana is to become a doctor. He decides to go to a medical college to obtain an M.B.B.S. degree. With the help of his right-hand man Circuit and others, Munna "gains admission" to a medical college, where he again encounters Dr. Asthana, who is the dean. His success there becomes dependent upon the (coerced) help of faculty member Dr. Rustam Pavri (Kurush Deboo). While Munna Bhai's skills as a medical doctor are minimal, he transforms those around him with the "Jadoo Ki Jhappi" ("magical hug") — a method of comfort taught to Munna by his mother — and the compassion he shows towards those in need. Despite the school's emphasis on mechanical, Cartesian, impersonal, often bureaucratic relationships between doctors and patients, Munna constantly seeks to impose a more empathetic, almost holistic, regimen. To this end, he defies all convention by treating a brain-dead man called "Anand bhai" as if the man were able to perceive and understand normally; interacts on familiar but autocratic terms with patients; humiliates school bullies; effusively thanks a hitherto-underappreciated janitor; and encourages the patients themselves to make changes in their lives, so that they do not need drugs or surgery. Dr. Asthana, who perceives all this as symptoms of chaos, is unable to prevent it from expanding and gaining ground at his college. He becomes increasingly irrational, almost to the point of insanity. Repeatedly, this near-dementia is shown when he receives unwelcome tidings and he begins laughing in a way that implies that he has gone mad. This behavior is explained early on as an attempt to practice laughter therapy, an attempt that seems to have backfired — Asthana's laughing serves more to convey his anger than diffuse it. Meanwhile, his daughter becomes increasingly fond of Munna, who in his turn becomes unreservedly infatuated with her. Some comedy appears here, because Munna is unaware that Dr. Suman and his childhood friend "Chinki" are one and the same; an ignorance that Suman hilariously exploits. Asthana tries several times to expel Munna but is often thwarted by Munna's wit or the affection with which the others at the college regard Munna, having gained superior self-esteem by his methods. Asthana keeps a challenge that Munna can stay in colleg only if he passes the exam under his supervision. Munna & other mates accept it. Meanwhile Zaheer is in dying state seeking help from Munna. But unfortunately he dies in Munna's arms Eventually, Munna is shamed into leaving the college: His guilt for not being able to help a dying friend Zaheer (Jimmy Shergill) gets the better of him. In the moments immediately following Munna's departure, Anand miraculously awakens from his vegetative state; at this point Suman gives a heartfelt speech wherein she criticizes her father for having banished Munna, saying that to do so is to banish hope, compassion, love, and happiness, etc. from the college. Asthana eventually realizes his folly. Munna later marries Dr. Suman, learning for the first time that she is "Chinki". The medical college — under Rustam Pavri's management since Asthana's retirement — begins to imitate Munna's radical methods of treatment. Munna and Suman open a hospital in Munna's home village, where they implement Munna's ideas daily. This, in addition to the birth of their offspring, earns Munna the nickname "Munnabhai – M.B.B.S. - Miya Biwi Bachhon Samet" (literally "Husband Wife with Children"). Munna's parents reconcile with him. His sidekick Circuit marries and has a son, who is nicknamed "Short Circuit". As the film concludes, Anand, restored to normal mental health, narrates the story to children. Production. The scenes of the Medical College were shot at the Agriculture College of Pune. Music. The music is composed by Anu Malik. Lyrics are penned by Abbas Tyrewala and Rahat Indori. Awards. "Munna Bhai M.B.B.S." was the recipient of a number of awards. At the 2004 Filmfare awards, it received the Filmfare Critics Award for Best Movie, the Filmfare Best Screenplay Award, the Filmfare Best Dialogue Award, and the Filmfare Best Comedian Award in addition to four other nominations. It won a number of awards at the 2004 Zee Cine Awards including Best Debuting Director, Zee Cine Award for Best Actor in a Comic Role, Best Cinematography, and Best Dialogue. Other ceremonies include the 2004 National Film Awards where it won the National Film Award for Best Popular Film and the 2004 International Indian Film Academy Awards where it won the IIFA Best Comedian Award. Sequel. A Sequel named "Lage Raho Munna Bhai" released on 2006 which was a Blockbuster, The film featured Vidya Balan and Sanjay Dutt in leads.
1062394	Patricia Davies Clarkson (born December 29, 1959) is an American actress. After studying drama on the East Coast, Clarkson launched her acting career in 1985 (a guest spot on "" being one of her first acting jobs), and has worked steadily in both film and television since. She has starred in many leading and supporting roles in numerous well-known films such as "The Untouchables", "The Green Mile", "Far From Heaven", "Shutter Island", "Good Night, and Good Luck", "Vicky Cristina Barcelona", and "Cairo Time", and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in "Pieces of April" (2003). She twice won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Drama Series for her recurring role in "Six Feet Under" and starred in the popular and highly-rated television miniseries "Queen". Early life. Clarkson was born in New Orleans, Louisiana, the daughter of Jacquelyn (née Brechtel), a local New Orleans politician and councilwoman, and Arthur, a school administrator who worked at the Department of Medicine of Louisiana State University. Clarkson's great-grandfather was from Barcelona, Spain, and her great-grandmother was from Lithuania. Clarkson studied drama at Fordham University, where she graduated summa cum laude, and earned her MFA at the Yale School of Drama before making her film debut in "The Untouchables" in 1987. Career. Clarkson's Broadway theatre credits include "The House of Blue Leaves" and "Eastern Standard". Clarkson had supporting roles in a series of high-profile films in her early career. Her first movie role, at age 27, was as the wife of Elliot Ness (Kevin Costner) in "The Untouchables". She was also featured in "The Dead Pool", "Rocket Gibraltar" and "Everybody's All-American". She starred in the short-run television series "Davis Rules", and in the miniseries "Alex Haley's Queen". More often a character actor than a leading woman, she has also appeared in such major films as "The Green Mile" (1999), "Far from Heaven" (2002), "Good Night, and Good Luck" (2005) and "Lars and the Real Girl" (2007). Her breakthrough role was in "High Art" (1998) where her portrayal of Greta, a German, drug-addicted lesbian former model, gained rave reviews. She has said about acting, "I’m deeply invested in everything I do, and it’s a good thing, because acting is the only thing I know how to do." In 2002, she originated her role as Sarah O'Connor (a.k.a. "Aunt Sarah") in HBO's "Six Feet Under". She went on to win the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Drama Series that year for her performance, a feat she repeated for the same role in 2006. In 2003, she gained critical acclaim and a Special Jury Prize for her work in four films that debuted at the Sundance Film Festival: "All the Real Girls", "The Baroness and the Pig", "The Station Agent" and "Pieces of April". Later in the year, she was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for "Pieces of April", in which she plays an acerbic mother dying of cancer.
1102817	Leonardo Pisano Bigollo (c. 1170 – c. 1250)known as Fibonacci, and also Leonardo of Pisa, Leonardo Pisano, Leonardo Bonacci, Leonardo Fibonacciwas an Italian mathematician, considered by some "the most talented western mathematician of the Middle Ages." Fibonacci is best known to the modern world for the spreading of the Hindu–Arabic numeral system in Europe, primarily through his composition in 1202 of "Liber Abaci" ("Book of Calculation"), and for a number sequence named the Fibonacci numbers after him, which he did not discover but used as an example in the "Liber Abaci". Life. Fibonacci was born around 1170 to Guglielmo Bonacci, a wealthy Italian merchant. Guglielmo directed a trading post (by some accounts he was the consul for Pisa) in Bugia, a port east of Algiers in the Almohad dynasty's sultanate in North Africa (now Béjaïa, Algeria). As a young boy, Fibonacci traveled with him to help; it was there he learned about the Hindu–Arabic numeral system. Recognizing that arithmetic with Hindu–Arabic numerals is simpler and more efficient than with Roman numerals, Fibonacci travelled throughout the Mediterranean world to study under the leading Arab mathematicians of the time. Leonardo returned from his travels around 1200. In 1202, at the age of 32, he recorded what he had learned in "Liber Abaci" ("Book of Abacus" or "Book of Calculation"), and thereby popularized Hindu–Arabic numerals in Europe. Fibonacci became an amicable guest of the Emperor Frederick II, who enjoyed mathematics and science. In 1240 the Republic of Pisa honored Fibonacci, referred to as Leonardo Bigollo, by granting him a salary. Fibonacci died in Pisa, but the date of his death is unknown, with estimates ranging from 1240 to 1250. "Liber Abaci". In the "Liber Abaci" (1202), Fibonacci introduced the so-called "modus Indorum" (method of the Indians), today known as Arabic numerals (Sigler 2003; Grimm 1973). The book advocated numeration with the digits 0–9 and place value. The book showed the practical importance of the new numeral system by applying it to commercial bookkeeping, conversion of weights and measures, the calculation of interest, money-changing, and other applications. The book was well received throughout educated Europe and had a profound impact on European thought. Fibonacci sequence. "Liber Abaci" also posed, and solved, a problem involving the growth of a population of rabbits based on idealized assumptions. The solution, generation by generation, was a sequence of numbers later known as Fibonacci numbers. The number sequence was known to Indian mathematicians as early as the 6th century, but it was Fibonacci's "Liber Abaci" that introduced it to the West. In the Fibonacci sequence of numbers, each number is the sum of the previous two numbers. Fibonacci began the sequence not with 0, 1, 1, 2, as modern mathematicians do but with 1, 2, etc. He carried the calculation up to the twelfth place (fourteenth in modern counting), that is 233, though another manuscript carries it to the next place: 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89, 144, 233, 377. Fibonacci did not speak about the golden ratio as the limit of the ratio of consecutive numbers in this sequence. Legacy. In the 19th century, a statue of Fibonacci was constructed and erected in Pisa. Today it is located in the western gallery of the Camposanto, historical cemetery on the Piazza dei Miracoli. Fibonacci is also a character in the children's book "Crusade in Jeans" by Thea Beckman. There are many mathematical concepts named after Fibonacci, for instance because of a connection to the Fibonacci numbers. Examples include the Brahmagupta–Fibonacci identity, the Fibonacci search technique, and the Pisano period. Beyond mathematics, namesakes of Fibonacci include the asteroid 6765 Fibonacci and the art rock band The Fibonaccis.
394073	Miracle on 1st Street is a 2007 South Korean comedy-drama film. Written and directed by Yoon Je-kyoon, it reunited him with actors Im Chang-jung and Ha Ji-won, the stars of his earlier film "Sex Is Zero". With 2,750,457 admissions, "Miracle on 1st Street" was the 5th most popular Korean film of 2007. Plot. Pil-je is a gangster who has been sent by his bosses to evict the residents of a poor neighbourhood on the edge of Seoul, so that their homes can make way for some new luxury apartments. But after he befriends some of the locals, including female boxer Myung-ran and a group of young children, he starts to have a change of heart.
1163486	Ray Walston (born Herman Raymond Walston; November 2, 1914 – January 1, 2001) was an American stage, television and film actor best known as the title character on the 1960s CBS situation comedy "My Favorite Martian". He is also remembered for such iconic stage, film and television roles as Luther Billis ("South Pacific"); Mr. Applegate ("Damn Yankees"); J.J. Singleton ("The Sting"), Mr. Hand ("Fast Times at Ridgemont High") and Judge Henry Bone ("Picket Fences").
1123831	Subhash Kak (; "Subhāṣ Kāk") (born March 26, 1947 in Srinagar, Kashmir) is an Indian American computer scientist. He is Regents Professor and Head of Computer Science Department at Oklahoma State University in Stillwater who has made contributions to cryptography, neural networks, and quantum information. He is also notable for his Indological publications on history, the philosophy of science, ancient astronomy, and the history of mathematics. Subhash Kak completed his BE from NIT Srinagar and Ph.D. at the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi in 1970. He taught there. During 1975-1976, he was a visiting faculty at Imperial College, London, and a guest researcher at Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill. In 1977, he was a visiting researcher at Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Bombay. In 1979 joined Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge where he was the Donald C. and Elaine T. Delaune Distinguished Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering. In 2007, he joined the Computer Science department at Oklahoma State University. His research in the fields of cryptography, random sequences, artificial intelligence, and information theory have been published in peer-reviewed journals. He proposed a test of algorithmic randomness and a type of instantaneously trained neural networks (INNs) (which he and his students have called "CC4 network" and others have called "Kak neural networks"). He claims to be amongst the first to apply information metrics to quantum systems. He was featured as one of the pioneers of quantum learning in the journal Neuroquantology edited by Cheryl Fricasso and Stanley Krippner. Kak has argued that there are limits to the intelligence machines can have and it cannot equal biological intelligence. He asserts that: Kak has proposed the use of recurring decimals for error correction coding, cryptography and as random sequences. Kak neural network. The Kak neural network, also called the CC4 network is an instantaneously trained neural network that creates a new "hidden neuron" for each training sample, achieving immediate training for binary data. The training algorithm for binary data creates links to the new hidden node that simply reflects the binary values in the training vector. Hence, no computation is involved. Kak's three-stage protocol. Kak's three-stage protocol is a protocol for quantum cryptography suggested by Kak. This protocol was recently implemented in free space using optics. Indological publications. Kak's writings concerning the astronomy of the Vedic period in his book "The Astronomical Code of the Rigveda" (1994) back "Indigenous Aryans" ideology, questioning conventional views on the Indo-Aryan migration and the nature of early Indian science. His chronology and astronomical calculations have been opposed by several Indologists (such as Michael Witzel) and Western historians. Kak's interpretation has been included in recent overviews of astronomy in the Vedic period in India and the West. "The Astronomical Code of the Rigveda" and Archaeoastronomy. "The Astronomical Code of the Rigveda" (New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan, 1994; revised and enlarged edition, New Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal, 2000) claims regularities in the organization of the Rigveda, connecting the structure to certain numbers in the astronomy-based ritual of the five-layered brick altars of the Vedic times. Kak's archaeoastronomical claims have the effect of significantly extending the Vedic period, postulating the arrival of ethnic Indo-Aryans to the 7th millennium BC. This claim is in contradiction with mainstream Indology and historical linguistics and science historians Kak arranges the number of hymns in each book of the Rigveda as follows, and compares the arrangement to a Vedic fire altar: He then computes various sums and subtractions within the diagram, finding numbers related to the distance between the Earth and the Sun, and the sidereal periods of various planets. According to Klaus Klostermaier, "Subhash Kak, with his 'decoding of the Rgveda' has opened up an entirely new approach to the study of Vedic cosmology from an empirical astronomical/mathematical viewpoint." Kak's method depends on the structure of the Rigveda as redacted by Shakalya in the late Brahmana period as opposed to the intrinsic content in the oldest portions of the text. Specifically, Witzel (2001) believes that Kak's approach relates to the organizations of the Rigveda into mandalas ("books"), a process of redaction undertaken by the shakhas long after the composition of the individual hymns (the "samhita prose" period, dating to well within the Indian Iron Age), rendering the attempt to date the text in this flawed. Other scholars have discredited Kak's claims and methods. Nanda has said that Kak's "method is breathtakingly ad hoc and reads like numerology 101." Kak prepared the section on archaeoastronomical sites in India for the thematic study on "Heritage Sites of Astronomy and Archaeoastronomy in the context of the UNESCO World Heritage Convention" prepared for UNESCO by the International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS) and the International Astronomical Union (IAU). "In Search of the Cradle of Civilization". Kak co-authored "In Search of the Cradle of Civilization" (1995) participating in the controversy in Indian politics surrounding Indigenous Aryans and the Out of India theory. "Ashvamedha". Kak's book "The Asvamedha: The Rite and Its Logic" (2002) provides an interpretation of the Vedic Ashvamedha (horse sacrifice) rite. Indian politics. Kak takes a conservative stance politically, supporting Indian "nuclear deterrence" against China, opposing what he calls "socialist ideas" in the Indian constitution, the "Soviet-style ideas of the Congress party" and "terrorists from across the border". Alan Sokal labeled Kak "one of the leading intellectual luminaries of the Hindu-nationalist diaspora." Philosophy. Kak claimed to be the first to have used the term "quantum neural computing", taking a Quantum mind position not unlike that notably proposed by Roger Penrose in "The Emperor's New Mind" which was published in 1989. He sees the brain as a machine that reduces the infinite possibilities of a "quantum-like universal consciousness", which is a consequence of the "recursive nature of reality". Kak's "philosophy of recursionism" is expounded in his books "The Gods Within", "The Architecture of Knowledge", and "The Prajna Sutra". Kak contributes to the Project of History of Indian Science, Philosophy and Culture. In "The Architecture of Knowledge", Kak talks about quantum mechanics, neuroscience, computers, and consciousness. The book is one of the twenty planned monographs in the multi-volume series on the Project of History of Indian Science, Philosophy and Culture under the general editorship of Professor D. P. Chattopadhyaya. The book provides philosophical connections to contemporary science that reach back not only to the Greek but also to the Indian tradition.
1046885	The Invisible Boy (1957) is a science fiction film, directed by Herman Hoffman, and starring Richard Eyer and Philip Abbott. It is the second film appearance of Robby the Robot, the science fiction character who "stole the show" in "Forbidden Planet" (1956). Released by Metro-Goldwyn Mayer, this film's earlier title was "S.O.S Spaceship". According to a subtle backstory, the robot in "The Invisible Boy" is the same character as that in "Forbidden Planet," which is set in the 23rd century. He is brought back to the era of the film through time travel. Plot. "The Invisible Boy" is a curious mixture of lighthearted playfulness and menacing evil. As it begins, ten-year-old Timmie Merinoe (Eyer) seems only to want a playmate. After he is mysteriously invested with superior intelligence, he reassembles a robot that his father and other scientists have been ready to discard as unrepairable junk. No one pays much attention to the robot after Timmie gets it going, until Timmie's mother becomes angry when Timmie is taken aloft by a huge kite that the robot builds. When Timmie expresses a wish to be able to play without being observed by his parents, the robot – with the aid of an evil supercomputer – makes him invisible. At first Timmie uses his invisibility to play simple pranks on his parents and others, but the mood of the film soon changes, when it becomes clear that the super computer intends to take over the world through a military satellite. Home video. The entire feature film appears as an extra on the "Forbidden Planet" 50th Anniversary DVD released in 2006 and on the Blu-ray released in 2010.
711337	The Story of the Weeping Camel (, "", "Tears of the Camel") is a 2003 German docudrama distributed by ThinkFilm. It was released internationally in 2004. The movie was directed and written by Byambasuren Davaa and Luigi Falorni. The plot is about a family of nomadic shepherds in the Gobi Desert trying to save the life of a rare white bactrian camel ("Camelus bactrianus") after it was rejected by its mother. The documentary was nominated for an Oscar in the category Best Documentary at the 77th Academy Awards. Plot. During Spring, a family of nomadic shepherds assists the births of their camel herd. The last camel to calve this season has a protracted labor that persists for two days. With the assistance and intervention of the family, a rare white calf is born. This is the mother camel's first calving. Despite the efforts of the shepherds, the mother rejects the newborn, refusing it her milk and failing to establish a care-bond with it. To restore harmony between the mother and calf, the nomadic family call upon the services of group of lamas who perform a ritual with bread or dough 'effigies' () of the mother, the calf and the individual members of the family. The rite opens with the sound of a sacred conchshell horn followed by bells in the hands of lamas, some of whom wield "vajra". The rite takes place with members of the extended nomadic community and a number of lama at a sacred place that consists of one end of a log, or wooden pole, set in the earth, with the other end raised to the sky: a stylized 'victory banner' () with a piece of blue fabric entwined around it, functioning as a prayer flag (darchor-style). The log is supported by a cairn of rocks at its base as foundation. The ritual, however, does not re-establish harmony between the mother and calf. The family then resolve to secure the services of an indigenous 'violinist' to play the music for a Mongolian 'Hoos' ritual. They send their two young boys on a journey through the desert to the community marketplace to locate a musician. The 'violinist' —who plays more precisely a morin khuur — is summoned to the camp and a ritual of folk music and chanting is enacted. The musician first drapes the morin khuur on the first hump of the camel to establish a sympathetic magical linkage between the mother and the state of harmony represented by the instrument. Once this is done he removes the instrument and commences playing. As the musician sounds the Mongolian 'violin', the female family member who lulled her child to sleep with a lullaby earlier in the documentary, repeatedly intones the calming sounds and beautiful melody of the 'hoos'. At this point, the mother camel starts to weep, tears visibly streaming from her eyes. Immediately after the rite the mother and calf are reconciled and the calf draws milk from her teat. Reception. "The Story of the Weeping Camel" received generally positive reviews; on Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds a 94% 'fresh' rating, with the consensus "Delightful and strangely moving"; on Metacritic, which uses an average of all critics' reviews, the film has an 81/100, indicating "universal acclaim". It won the International Film Critics Award at the 2004 San Francisco International Film Festival
1035796	Paul Mackenzie Crook (born 29 September 1971) is an English actor and comedian. He is best known for playing Gareth Keenan in "The Office", Ragetti in the "Pirates of the Caribbean" films, and Orell in "Game of Thrones". Early life. Paul Mackenzie Crook was born in Maidstone, Kent, and grew up in Dartford. His father, Michael Crook, worked for British Airways, and his mother, Sheila, was a hospital manager. He has two sisters. As a child he was put on a course of hormone therapy for three years due to a growth hormone deficiency. In the summers he spent time with his uncle at his tobacco farm in northern Zimbabwe, where he developed his love for painting. He was educated at the Wilmington Grammar School for Boys, where he was the illustrator and cartoonist for the school magazine, Orion. He joined the Orchard Youth Theatre in Dartford when he was about 15 years old. Career. Early work. Wanting to be a graphic artist, aged 18 he applied and was turned down three times for courses at the Kent Institute of Art & Design. He spent a while doing part-time jobs in a publisher's, a hospital, Halford's and Pizza Hut. Persuaded to join a local theatre company by its manager, he was guided to turn to comedic arts, resulting in Crook writing comedy sketches and the theatre manager becoming his agent. He then became a standup comedian alongside Iain Lee for about eight years, in the guise of Charlie Cheese, "the cheeky chirpy chappy from Chorley". He has also performed, both on stage and in the Channel 4 sketch show Barking, as a grotesque schoolteacher called Mr. Bagshaw who is said to be based on a variety of obnoxious, overbearing science teachers he was taught by while in school. Film and television career. In 1996 Crook appeared in his first short film: "The Man who Fell in Love with a Traffic Cone." Having been seen by Bob Mortimer in his one-man show in Edinburgh, alongside others including Sacha Baron Cohen they were offered their first major television roles as comedy sketch contributors on Channel 4's "The Eleven O'Clock Show" in 1998, from which Crook was quietly dropped. He was later a member of the main cast of the BBC sketch show "TV to Go" in 2001. In late 1999 he hosted the short-lived ITV1 show "Comedy Café" in the guise of his Charlie Cheese character. The show made by Channel X for ITV1 had Charlie Cheese interviewing various celebrities about their latest live tour, book, album or film release.
1063592	Match Point is a 2005 thriller film written and directed by Woody Allen which stars Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Scarlett Johansson, Emily Mortimer, Matthew Goode, Brian Cox and Penelope Wilton. Rhys Meyers' character marries into a wealthy family, but his social position is threatened by an affair and the subsequent pregnancy of his brother-in-law's ex-girlfriend, played by Johansson. The film treats themes of morality, greed, and the roles of lust, money, and luck in life, leading many to compare it to Allen's earlier film, "Crimes and Misdemeanors" (1989). It was produced and filmed in London after Allen had difficulty finding financial support for the film in New York. The agreement obliged him to make it there using a cast and crew mostly from the United Kingdom. Allen quickly re-wrote the script, which was originally set in New York, for an English setting.
1165699	Frank Aletter (January 14, 1926 – May 13, 2009) was an American stage, film, and television actor. During the 1950s, Aletter appeared on Broadway in "Bells Are Ringing", "Time Limit", and "Wish You Were Here". He soon moved on to a prolific television career, appearing as a guest on numerous shows between 1956 and 1988. Aletter starred in three programs in the 1960s, beginning with "Bringing Up Buddy", a CBS sitcom during the 1960–1961 season, featuring Aletter with Enid Markey and Doro Merande, who portrayed his overprotective spinster aunts to Aletter's character, Buddy Flower, a bachelor stockbroker. Aletter's first wife, Lee Meriwether, a former Miss America,
1059497	Anna and the King is a 1999 biographical drama film loosely based on the 1944 novel "Anna and the King of Siam" (and its 1946 film adaptation), which give a fictionalised account of the diaries of Anna Leonowens. The story concerns Anna, an English schoolteacher in Siam, now Thailand, in the late 19th century, who becomes the teacher of King Mongkut's many children and wives. The film was directed by Andy Tennant and stars Jodie Foster and Chow Yun-fat. It was mostly shot in Malaysia, particularly in the Penang, Ipoh and Langkawi region. It was an Academy Award nominee in 1999 for Best Art Direction and Best Costume Design. Plot. Anna Leonowens (Jodie Foster) is a British widow who has come to Siam with her son Louis (Tom Felton) to teach English to the dozens of children of King Mongkut (Chow Yun-fat). She is a strong-willed, intelligent woman, and this pleases the King, who wants to modernize his country to keep it safe from the threat of colonialism, while protecting many of the ancient traditions that give Siam its unique identity. The King and Anna discuss the differences between Eastern and Western love, and the King dismisses the notion that a man can be happy with only one wife. In order to win the favors of Britain, the King orders a sumptuous reception and delegates Anna to organize it. During the reception, the King verbally spars graciously and wittily with Sir Mycroft Kincaid (Bill Stewart), of the East India Company, who accuses Siam of being a superstitious nation. At the end of the reception, the King dances with Anna. Anna is enchanted by the royal children, particularly Princess Fa-Ying (Melissa Campbell). The little girl identifies with the spirit of the playful monkeys who live in the trees of the royal garden. When she suddenly takes ill of cholera, Anna is summoned to her chambers to say goodbye. She gets there just as Fa-ying dies in Mongkut's hands, and the two mourn together. Sometime later, when the King finds that one of the monkeys has "borrowed" his glasses, as his daughter used to do, he is comforted by his belief in reincarnation and the idea that Fa-ying may be reborn as one of her beloved animals. Lady Tuptim (Bai Ling), the King's new favorite concubine, was already engaged to marry another man, Khun Phra Balat (Sean Ghazi), when brought to the court. The King is kind to her, but she is unhappy and at last runs away, disguising herself as a young man and joining the monastery where her former fiancé lives. She is tracked down and brought back to the palace, imprisoned, and initially caned along with her Balat. However, because of Anna's outburst during this incident, Tuptim and Balat are beheaded in front of the entire court, in order to save face. Siam is under siege from what appears to be a British-funded coup d'état against King Mongkut, using Burmese soldiers. Mongkut sends out his brother Prince Chaofa (Kay Siu Lim) and his military advisor General Alak (Randall Duk Kim) and their troops to investigate. However, it turns out that Alak is the man behind the coup and he turns on as he poisons his regiments, and kills Chaofa. He then flees Siam into Burma where he summons and readies his troops to invade Siam and kill the King and his children. With Anna's help, the King manages to hide his children and his wives in a safe place, then he goes with the few soldiers he has to face Alak. The King and soldiers place high explosives on a wooden bridge high above a canyon floor, as Alak and his army approaches. The King orders his "army" to stay back and rides to the bridge with only two soldiers. Alak, in front of his army, confronts the King on the bridge. Anna and Louis orchestrate a brilliant deception from their hiding spot in the forest: Louis uses his horn to replicate the sound of a bugle charge, as Anna "attacks" the area with harmless fireworks. The ploy works as the Burmese, believing the King has brought British soldiers, retreat in a panic. Alak attempts to recall them, but his efforts prove to be futile. Alak stands alone, but the King refuses to kill him, saying that Alak shall have to live with his shame. As the King turns to ride back to Siam, Alak picks up a gun and aims at the King, but the explosives are detonated, blowing the bridge and Alak to pieces. At the end of the film, the King has one last dance with Anna and realizes that it is conceivable for one man to be pleased by only one woman. Anna stayed in Siam until his son, Chululangkorn grew up, became a king after his father's death and abolishes slavery with the help of his father's 'vision'. Reception. "Anna and the King" received mixed reviews. On Rotten Tomatoes, it holds a 51% rating, based on 98 reviews, with the consensus stating that "Beautiful cinematography can't prevent "Anna and the King" from being boring and overly lengthy." On a $92 million budget, the film grossed $39,263,420 domestically, but its international gross of $74,733,517 brought its worldwide gross to $113,996,937, making the film a modest financial success. Controversy. After reviewing the script, even after changes were made to try to satisfy them, the Thai government did not allow the film-makers to film in Thailand. The Thai authorities did not permit the film to be distributed in Thailand due to scenes that they construed as a disrespectful and historically inaccurate depiction of King Mongkut. Tony Dabbs, writing an opinion piece for the Thai newspaper "The Nation", criticized the film ban.
1199681	Dianna Elise Agron (; born April 30, 1986) is an American actress, singer, dancer, and a occasionally producer, writer and director. Agron first made her debut appearing as Jessica Grant in "" during 2006. Following this, Agron had minor appearances in films and TV series such as "Drake & Josh", "Shark", "T.K.O.", "Skid Marks", "Dinner with Raphael", and "Celebrities Anonymous". From 2006 to 2007, Agron had recurring roles in "Veronica Mars" as Jenny Budosh, and "Heroes" as Debbie Marshall. In 2009, Agron was cast as Quinn Fabray on the Fox musical comedy-drama series, "Glee". Quinn was introduced as "terrible, the meanest girl", as Agron said. Thanks to this role, Agron has won many awards and nominations. Also that year, she branched out into writing and directing with the result being the short film "A Fuchsia Elephant", the story about an 18-year-old girl played by Agron who creates an ideal birthday party, however, it was never released. In 2011, Agron co-starred in the films "The Hunters" and "I Am Number Four". Later that year, a concert documentary film of "Glee" was released, titled "". In 2013, Agron co-starred alongside Robert De Niro, Michelle Pfeiffer, and Tommy Lee Jones in the crime-comedy film "The Family". Early life. Agron was born in Savannah, Georgia, and was raised in San Antonio, Texas and San Francisco, California. She is the daughter of Mary and Ronald S. Agron, a general manager of Hyatt hotels. She has a younger brother, Jason. Agron's father's family is originally from Russia, and their original surname, Agronsky, was altered by Ellis Island officials. Her father was born to a Jewish family, while her mother converted to Judaism. Agron attended Hebrew school and had a bat mitzvah. When she was 15, she found out that her father had multiple sclerosis. In an interview for "Cosmopolitan Magazine", she revealed: "Quite a bit changed after that,” she says. "At that age, you don't see mortality in your parents." The disease caused her parents' relationship to fall apart, and they decided to separate, which was devastating for her and her younger brother. "I had to play therapist to my family... be the glue." She pauses, then says, "Those kinds of things I'm not ready to speak about yet." Agron attended Burlingame Intermediate School and Burlingame High School, where she was in the Homecoming Court, and played in Grease as Marty, and also involved in the set design, the costumes, painting and the whole process. She has been dancing since the age of three, focusing mainly on jazz and ballet, and she later began hip-hop dancing and fell in love with musical theater as a child, often performing in local and school productions, and played Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz in fifth grade, and began teaching dance as a teenager. She says she was not "popular" in the stereotypical sense in high school, though she had many friends from different cliques around the school. Career. Acting. Television. Agron has appeared on television shows such as "Shark", "Close to Home", "", "Numb3rs", and had a recurring role on "Veronica Mars". She then appeared as Harper on a 13-episode series of short films called "It's a Mall World", directed by Milo Ventimiglia, and airing on MTV, and then on the second season of "Heroes" as Debbie Marshall, the head cheerleader/captain of the cheer squad at Costa Verde High School. Dianna has also hosted a mini Music Festival for 826LA in Los Angeles called "Chickens in Love." "Glee". Agron's most notable role to date is as Quinn Fabray, a high school cheerleader, on the Fox series "Glee". Agron was the last primary actor to be cast, having won the role only days before the pilot began filming.Agron said in a 2009 interview pertaining to her casting session: "I nearly bailed on my audition for the show. I was so nervous". With her wholesome good looks, Agron certainly looked the part, but the producers wondered if she appeared too innocent. Agron said in an interview: "They told me to come back with straight hair and to dress sexier. Later that week, I started work." Agron auditioned with Frank Sinatra's "Fly Me to the Moon". The "Glee" producers said "we really lucked out in finding Agron to play Quinn". Quinn is described by Agron as Rachel Berry's (Lea Michele) enemy, and "terrible, the meanest girl". Agron said that her favorite part of Quinn is that "she's smart. But she's also human, and through her tough exterior, she's often a little girl lost." Quinn was originally conceived as the antagonistic queen bee head cheerleader, a departure from Agron's actual high school experience. Quinn's role as head cheerleader is central to understanding her character. Agron said that she had never had any prior cheer experience before the Pilot. "If I had been cheerleader, I would've ended up on crutches," she told "Emmy" magazine. The role saw Agron nominated for the Teen Choice Award for "Female Breakout Star" star in 2009. She and the other cast members were awarded the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Comedy Series in 2010, and nominated in the same category the following year. Agron was praised for her dramatic acting during the confrontation scene with Quinn's parents in "Ballad". Gerrick D. Kennedy, writing for the "Los Angeles Times", was critical of the ongoing Quinn's pregnancy plot in the episode "Hairography", and noted that he cringed whenever Quinn appeared on screen. Conversely, Bobby Hankinson of the "Houston Chronicle" enjoyed Quinn in the episode, and wrote: "I love that she can keep her "Mean Girls" edge while being heartbreakingly sad or as joyful as she was singing "Papa Don't Preach". "The A.V. Club" writer Todd VanDerWerff suggested that Quinn's season three reinvention hinged on the fact the producers no longer knew how to utilize Agron. On July 23, 2012, it was reported that Agron was going to appear less frequently in "Glee"s fourth season. Agron's character, Quinn, only appeared on three episodes: "Thanksgiving", "Naked", and "I Do" In 2012, The Biography Channel aired a documentary of "Glee", with Agron being interviewed along with other castmates. It showed a brief description of Dianna's character and her audition for the show. Films. In 2007, Agron appeared as Dyanna in the action drama thriller film "T.K.O.", directed by Declan Mulvey, alongside Samantha Alarcon, Daz Crawford and Christian Boeving. She also appeared as Megan in the independent comedy film "Skid Marks". She also appeared as Kyle's Girl in the short comedy film "Rushers". She also appeared in a short comedy film "Dinner with Raphael", and a small role as Sadie in the independent comedy film "Celebrities Anonymous", directed by Dennis Hemphill Jr., alongside Lindsay Zir and Joey Kern. In 2010, she also appeared as Minnow, the younger sister of Lila Hayes, in the romantic comedy "The Romantics". She played Natalie, fiancée to main character Ali's love interest Jack, in the film "Burlesque". The actress also appeared in "Bold Native", a film about animal liberation. In 2011, Agron appeared as Alice in the horror thriller "The Hunters" and in the science-fiction action thriller "I Am Number Four". Agron appeared in the concert film of "Glee", . Agron played Belle Blake in the film "The Family", opposite Robert De Niro, Tommy Lee Jones, and Michelle Pfeiffer. The film was released on September 13, 2013, and received mixed to negative reviews. "The Family" debuted at #2 in its first weekend with $14.5 million. Reviewers praised Agron's performance. She "gives the best performance in the film as a really sexy teenager coming of sexual age," wrote critic Tony Medley." Writing for "The Huffington Post", Zorianna Kit said: "De Niro, Pfeiffer and Jones all brought 100% to their roles. "Glee" actress Dianna Agron was the stand-out here, shining as the daughter who was falling in love for the first time, while defending her family from total annihilation by the mafia." On September 26, 2013, it was confirmed by Josh Boone that Agron was cast in the upcoming film "Pretenders", alongside Michael B. Jordan, Anton Yelchin, and Imogen Poots. Singing. Several songs performed by Agron as Quinn Fabray on "Glee" have been released as singles, available for digital download, also featured on the show's soundtrack albums. Agron made her musical debut at the end of the episode "Showmance", performing Dionne Warwick's "I Say a Little Prayer". Quinn's next solo was in the episode "Throwdown", performing The Supremes' "You Keep Me Hangin' On". The song was released on "". "The Wall Street Journal" editor Raymund Flandez was critical of Quinn's cover of "You Keep Me Hangin' On", which he called "thin and jarring". She performed a rendition of James Brown's "It's a Man's Man's Man's World" in the episode "Funk". In season three, Quinn sings her first solo number since the first season, "Never Can Say Goodbye" by The Jackson 5, which received mostly positive reviews. Jen Chaney of "The Washington Post" gave the song a "B−", and said it "worked much better than every track that preceded it" because it adapted the song to the show "instead of trying to out-Jackson Jackson". "Entertainment Weekly" Joseph Brannigan Lynch called it "a nice summation of her character's journey, but not vocally impressive enough to justify listening to outside of the episode" and gave it a "B". Crystal Bell of "HuffPost TV" described it as a "blah performance", but Kate Stanhope of "TV Guide" said it was "sweet and reflective". Erica Futterman of "Rolling Stone" wrote that it was "a tune well-suited for Quinn's sultry voice and the flipped meaning she gives the lyrics", and "TVLine" Michael Slezak had a similar take: he gave it an "A" and called it a "remarkably lovely fit" for her voice. In February 2013, Agron hosted and performed "Dreams" and ""What's Love Got to Do with It"" featuring A House For Lions to the 1st "You, Me and Charlie" concert in Los Angeles. Modeling. She along with Cory Monteith, Cassie Ventura, Jessica Szohr, Trevor Donovan and Alex Meraz were selected to be in Wal-Mart's Ocean Pacific spring 2010 marketing campaign. The national campaign debuted in fashion, lifestyle and entertainment magazines such as " Elle", "Teen Vogue", "Seventeen" and "Cosmopolitan", outdoor and online at the official Ocean Pacific website. In addition, the celebrities hosted an Ocean Pacific party in Los Angeles in late April and made personal appearances on behalf of the brand. In addition, Agron has been on the main cover of many magazines, such as Rolling Stone, Seventeen, Dolly, Sugar, GQ, Elle, Candy, TV Guide, Nylon for Guys, Glamour, and Teen Vogue.
1100400	Giuseppe Peano (; 27 August 1858 – 20 April 1932) was an Italian mathematician. The author of over 200 books and papers, he was a founder of mathematical logic and set theory, to which he contributed much notation. The standard axiomatization of the natural numbers is named the Peano axioms in his honor. As part of this effort, he made key contributions to the modern rigorous and systematic treatment of the method of mathematical induction. He spent most of his career teaching mathematics at the University of Turin. Biography. Peano was born and raised on a farm at Spinetta, a hamlet now belonging to Cuneo, Piedmont, Italy. He attended the Liceo classico Cavour in Turin, and enrolled at the University of Turin in 1876, graduating in 1880 with high honours, after which the University employed him to assist first Enrico D'Ovidio, and then Angelo Genocchi, the Chair of Infinitesimal calculus. Due to Genocchi's poor health, Peano took over the teaching of the infinitesimal calculus course within 2 years. His first major work, a textbook on calculus, was published in 1884 and was credited to Genocchi. A few years later, Peano published his first book dealing with mathematical logic. Here the modern symbols for the union and intersection of sets appeared for the first time. In 1887, Peano married Carola Crosio, the daughter of the Turin-based painter Luigi Crosio, known for painting the "Refugium Peccatorum Madonna". In 1886, he began teaching concurrently at the Royal Military Academy, and was promoted to Professor First Class in 1889. The next year, the University of Turin also granted him his full professorship. Peano's famous space-filling curve appeared in 1890 as a counterexample. He used it to show that a continuous curve cannot always be enclosed in an arbitrarily small region. This was an early example of what came to be known as a fractal. In 1890 Peano founded the journal "Rivista di Matematica", which published its first issue in January 1891. In 1891 Peano started the Formulario Project. It was to be an "Encyclopedia of Mathematics", containing all known formulae and theorems of mathematical science using a standard notation invented by Peano. In 1897, the first International Congress of Mathematicians was held in Zürich. Peano was a key participant, presenting a paper on mathematical logic. He also started to become increasingly occupied with "Formulario" to the detriment of his other work. In 1898 he presented a note to the Academy about binary numeration and its ability to be used to represent the sounds of languages. He also became so frustrated with publishing delays (due to his demand that formulae be printed on one line) that he purchased a printing press. Paris was the venue for the Second International Congress of Mathematicians in 1900. The conference was preceded by the First International Conference of Philosophy where Peano was a member of the patronage committee. He presented a paper which posed the question of correctly formed definitions in mathematics, "i.e." "how do you define a definition?". This became one of Peano's main philosophical interests for the rest of his life. At the conference Peano met Bertrand Russell and gave him a copy of "Formulario". Russell was so struck by Peano's innovative logical symbols that he left the conference and returned home to study Peano's text. Peano's students Mario Pieri and Alessandro Padoa had papers presented at the philosophy congress also. For the mathematical congress, Peano did not speak, but Padoa's memorable presentation has been frequently recalled. A resolution calling for the formation of an "international auxiliary language" to facilitate the spread of mathematical (and commercial) ideas, was proposed; Peano fully supported it. By 1901, Peano was at the peak of his mathematical career. He had made advances in the areas of analysis, foundations and logic, made many contributions to the teaching of calculus and also contributed to the fields of differential equations and vector analysis. Peano played a key role in the axiomatization of mathematics and was a leading pioneer in the development of mathematical logic. Peano had by this stage become heavily involved with the "Formulario" project and his teaching began to suffer. In fact, he became so determined to teach his new mathematical symbols that the calculus in his course was neglected. As a result he was dismissed from the Royal Military Academy but retained his post at Turin University. In 1903 Peano announced his work on an international auxiliary language called "Latino sine flexione" ("Latin without inflexion," later called Interlingua, but which should not be confused with the later Interlingua of the IALA). This was an important project for him (along with finding contributors for 'Formulario'). The idea was to use Latin vocabulary, since this was widely known, but simplify the grammar as much as possible and remove all irregular and anomalous forms to make it easier to learn. In one speech, he started speaking in Latin and, as he described each simplification, introduced it into his speech so that by the end he was talking in his new language. The year 1908 was big for Peano. The fifth and final edition of the "Formulario" project, titled "Formulario Mathematico", was published. It contained 4200 formulae and theorems, all completely stated and most of them proved. The book received little attention since much of the content was dated by this time. However, it remains a significant contribution to mathematical literature. The comments and examples were written in "Latino sine flexione". Also in 1908, Peano took over the chair of higher analysis at Turin (this appointment was to last for only two years). He was elected the director of "Academia pro Interlingua". Having previously created Idiom Neutral, the Academy effectively chose to abandon it in favor of Peano's Latino sine flexione. After his mother died in 1910, Peano divided his time between teaching, working on texts aimed for secondary schooling including a dictionary of mathematics, and developing and promoting his and other auxiliary languages, becoming a revered member of the international auxiliary language movement. He used his membership of the "Accademia dei Lincei" to present papers written by friends and colleagues who were not members (the Accademia recorded and published all presented papers given in sessions). In 1925 Peano switched Chairs unofficially from Infinitesimal Calculus to Complementary Mathematics, a field which better suited his current style of mathematics. This move became official in 1931. Giuseppe Peano continued teaching at Turin University until the day before he died, when he suffered a fatal heart attack.
604696	Kristin Elizabeth Cutler (née Cavallari; born January 5, 1987) is an American television personality, fashion designer, and actress. Born in Denver, Colorado and raised in Laguna Beach, California, she attended Laguna Beach High School as a teenager. In 2004, Cavallari came to prominence after being cast in the reality television series "", which documented the lives of her and her friends. After moving to Los Angeles to pursue an acting career in 2006, Cavallari appeared in several television series as minor characters. In 2009, she replaced former "Laguna Beach" cast member Lauren Conrad in her spin-off series "The Hills", which was revamped to chronicle the personal and professional lives of Cavallari, Heidi Montag, and Audrina Patridge. In 2011, Cavallari became engaged to Chicago Bears quarterback Jay Cutler. She gave birth to son Camden Jack, the first child for both, the following year. Cavallari and Cutler married in 2013. Life and career. 1987–2005: Early life and "Laguna Beach". Cavallari was born in Denver, Colorado, the second of two children of Judith Spies (née Eifrig) and Dennis Cavallari. She is of Italian and German descent. When her mother divorced her father, her older brother, Mike, moved with their father to Laguna Beach, California, while she moved with her mother to the village of Barrington, Illinois, a suburb an hour northwest of Chicago. She attended Barrington Station Middle School, and graduated on to Barrington High School. After difficulties adjusting to a new life with a stepfather and stepbrother, Cavallari moved to California to live with her father. There, Cavallari was enrolled at Santa Margarita Catholic High School for her freshman year. After she attended a Driver's Education course through Laguna Beach High School, her father enrolled her in Laguna Beach High School. Cavallari was in her junior year of high school when the first season of "" began production. At the time, she was involved in an on-and-off relationship with senior Stephen Colletti. Cavallari's romance with Colletti caused a rivalry with another cast member, Lauren Conrad. The love triangle became one of the series' central plot lines.
586105	Arjunan Saakshi (, "Arjunan, the Witness") is a 2011 Malayalam mystery thriller film written and directed by Ranjith Sankar. It stars Prithviraj and Ann Augustine in the lead roles. The film is a thriller which deals with how we evade our responsibility to society. The film examines the vertical growth of Kochi both as a metro and a centre of crimes. It is produced by S. Sundararajan under the banner of S. R. T. Films and released on 28 January 2011. The film got positive reviews from the critics but was a failure at the boxoffice. Synopsis. Roy Mathew (Prithviraj), a young architect who has spent his entire life abroad, finally arrives in Cochin with dreams of starting a life afresh. But he soon realises that the city that he gets to live in is radically different from the one that he had seen in his dreams. By coincidence his individuality is misundertood for a witness to a sensational crime involving top brass of industrialists and political class. Roy has now got to prove not just his true self but also save himself and his dear ones from the looming threat but also set things right. Production. "Arjunan Saakshi" is the second film by Ranjith Sankar, whose previous film "Passenger", another thriller, was met with positive reviews for its novelty and was a box office hit. Ranjith Sankar announced this project on December 2009 with Prithviraj in the lead. The director says that the story of "Arjunan Saakshi" had been in his mind quite a while when he happened to see an article about a project for a tram network in Kochi, which didn't work out. The strange title of the film find more meaning, as the film progresses, according to the director. According to Prithviraj, "Arjunan Saakshi" is a contemporary film. He says: "It deals with how we evade our responsibility towards society. We often blame others for everything that goes wrong, but how often do we take responsibility for our actions? We are not ready to sacrifice anything but we tend to forget that we enjoy freedom because people risked their lives to attain it for us." In "Arjunan Saakshi", the lead character Roy Mathew is played by Prithviraj, who started working on the film much before the completion of Santosh Sivan's "Urumi" and Lijo Jose Pellissery's "City of God". Ann Augustine, who debuted through Lal Jose's "Elsamma Enna Aankutty" in 2010, plays the role of an investigative journalist and a city-bred youngster Anjali Menon, who happens to get involved in certain social issues. The supporting cast includes Jagathy Sreekumar, Nedumudi Venu, Vijayaraghavan, Biju Menon, Suresh Krishna and Vijeesh. The film was launched on 1 November 2010 in Kochi. The filming occurred at various parts of Kochi. Ajayan Vincent handles the camera while Bijibal composes the music for lyrics written by Anil Panachooran. The editor of the film will be Ranjan Abraham. The costume designer of the film is Sameera Saneesh. Release. The film released on 28 January 2011 in 70 theatres It got positive reviews from the critics, but was a failure at the box office. Prithviraj rated it among his personal favourites and that Arjunan Saakshi was one film he was proud of doing. Critical response. Veeyen of Nowrunning.com gave the film 2.5 out of 5 stars, stating, "It is a multi-pointed critique that brings everyone around – the administration, the police force, the state, the media and the general public – under the scanner and unveils a startling story of victims and perpetrators."
1067883	Encounters at the End of the World is a 2007 American documentary film by Werner Herzog. The film studies people and places in Antarctica. It was released in North America on June 11, 2008, and distributed by THINKFilm. Synopsis. Herzog and cinematographer Peter Zeitlinger go to Antarctica to meet people who live and work there, and to capture footage of the continent's unique locations. Herzog's voiceover narration explains that his film will not be a typical Antarctica film about "fluffy penguins," but will explore the dreams of the people and the landscape. They begin at McMurdo Station and interview some maintenance and support workers, as well as iceberg geologist Douglas MacAyeal. They travel next to a nearby seal camp supervised by zoologist Olav Oftedal. Next they join the film's composer/producer, research diver Henry Kaiser at his diving camp, and interview cell biologist Samuel Bowser and zoologist Jan Pawlowski. Kaiser and Bowser stage a rooftop guitar concert.
1061191	Bullitt is a 1968 American dramatic thriller film directed by Peter Yates and produced by Philip D'Antoni. It stars Steve McQueen, Robert Vaughn and Jacqueline Bisset. The screenplay by Alan R. Trustman and Harry Kleiner was based on the 1963 novel "Mute Witness" by Robert L. Fish, writing under the pseudonym Robert L. Pike. Lalo Schifrin wrote the original jazz-inspired score, arranged for brass and percussion. Robert Duvall has a small part as a cab driver who provides information to McQueen. The film was made by McQueen's Solar Productions company, with his then-partner Robert E. Relyea as executive producer. Released by Warner Bros.-Seven Arts on October 17, 1968, the film was a critical and box office smash, later winning the Academy Award for Best Film Editing (Frank P. Keller) and receiving a nomination for Best Sound. Writers Trustman and Kleiner won a 1969 Edgar Award from the Mystery Writers of America for Best Motion Picture Screenplay. "Bullitt" is notable for its car chase scene through the streets of San Francisco, regarded as one of the most influential in movie history. In 2007, "Bullitt" was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". In 2008, the Ford Motor Company produced the Mustang Bullitt model for the 40th anniversary of the film. Plot. Ambitious politician Walter Chalmers (Robert Vaughn) is about to hold a Senate Subcommittee hearing in San Francisco on organized crime in America. To improve his political standing Chalmers hopes to interrogate key State's Witness Johnny Ross (Pat Renella), who has represented himself as a defector from the "organization" (the Chicago Mob). Chalmers hopes to introduce his "surprise" witness, whom he will question in the subcommittee's public hearings. The plot of "Bullitt" takes place the weekend before the hearings, from the Friday night when, at Chalmers' request, Ross enters the protective custody of the San Francisco police, to Monday morning when he is supposed to testify. Frank Bullitt (Steve McQueen), Sergeant Delgetti (Don Gordon) and Detective Carl Stanton (Carl Reindel), are assigned to give Ross around-the-clock protection at the Hotel Daniels, a cheap flophouse near the Embarcadero Freeway. Late Saturday night, Ross inexplicably unchains the hotel room door. Before his young police protector Stanton can react, a pair of hitmen (Paul Genge and Bill Hickman) burst into the room and shoot Stanton and Ross, seriously wounding both. Bullitt wants to investigate the shooting in the hotel, while Chalmers attempts to place blame for injury to his witness on Bullitt and the Police Department. Bullitt thwarts a second assassination attempt on the hospitalized Ross, although he shortly dies of his wounds from the initial hotel-room shotgunning. Bullitt suppresses this news, sneaking the man's body out of the hospital and sending it to the morgue as a "John Doe", hoping to draw out the assassins. Beginning the investigation anew, Bullitt goes to a confidential informant to get the “lowdown” on just who this Ross was and why a high priority mob hit had been ordered on him. Bullitt is also made suspicious by the fact that Ross had unchained the door to the hotel room just prior to the shooting. Ross had been apparently expecting someone whom he wanted to assist in entering his hotel room, but to Ross’ surprise the intruders were a professional contract murder team. Bullitt learns the real reason for the hit on Ross from his North Beach informant. It turns out that the Organization has been looking for and trying to assassinate Johnny Ross for several days. They had first tried to kill him on Thursday in Chicago. When that attempt failed, Ross fled unharmed to San Francisco. The West Coast mob is reportedly assisting in looking all over the city for Ross, and has all the transport outlets covered. It is progressively revealed that the 'Ross' character is not who he has represented himself to be to Chalmers. Johnny Ross is not the low level mob technician who has come to Chalmers. He is in fact a high level mob accountant who runs its off-track betting and interstate wire service, from which he stole $2 million of the mob's money, and is planning on fleeing both the mob and the police. As Bullitt reconstructs Ross's movements, he finds the cab driver Weissberg (Robert Duvall) who originally brought Ross to the Hotel Daniels. Bullitt is told by the cabbie that Ross had made both local and long distance calls from a pay phone before he was taken to the hotel. Long distance toll records from the pay phone revealed that 'Ross' had placed an inter-city toll call to a hotel room south of San Francisco. Bullitt picks up his 1968 Ford Mustang GT and sees he is being tailed by the hitmen in their black 1968 Dodge Charger 500. He turns the tables and follows them, resulting in a protracted, visually dramatic car chase through the hills and streets of San Francisco, and Bullitt pushes them in the path of a gas station, blowing it up and killing the hitmen. Back at the police station Bullitt is given until Monday morning to follow his remaining lead. Bullitt heads to the hotel to which Ross had telephoned, where he finds the woman Ross had called still registered under the name Mrs. Dorothy Simmons, who has been graphically murdered. The dead woman, or someone, had had her luggage sent to the airport. After being examined by Bullitt and Delgetti, the contents of the dead woman’s luggage begin the unraveling of the mystery. They find a pair of empty passport and airline ticket folders in each luggage set, plus brochures from a Chicago travel agency advertising a Rome vacation. The luggage clothing contents are also strange as well, they appear to be staged. All of the items are brand new, and have never been used or worn, with the price tags still attached or still inside of them. The man’s shirts are personally monogrammed, A-R, which of course does not match the name Simmons. However, inside the pockets of each of the sets of clothing are found several thousands of dollars of travelers’ checks, in multiple folders. The checks have been separately issued to and properly endorsed by, a Mr Albert Renick and a Mrs. Dorothy Renick. Bullitt tells Delgetti to contact Immigration Service in Chicago and obtain the photos and applications that their passports were issued under. Bullitt comes to reason the events of the weekend into a coherent whole. Johnny Ross is an embezzler and had set in motion a scheme to get away with his thefts from the mob. From the beginning Ross knew that the mob, not the police, were his most important problem. He needed a way to have the mob stop looking for him, if he were to have any hope of actually getting away with his $2 million thefts. So Ross had recruited and paid the Renicks to have Albert Renick impersonate Johnny Ross as a man on-the-run in San Francisco, seeking protective custody in a Senate hearing, and turning state's evidence under police protection. Renick (as Ross), took the chain off the door of the hotel room to help his "kidnappers" (as he thought the plan was) make him disappear from police custody. The airline tickets and the traveler's checks in both Mr. and Mrs. Renick's names wrongly convinced them that they were to have a vacation in Rome. Chalmers arrives at the morgue, demanding from Bullitt a signed admission that Ross died while in his custody. Bullitt demurs, and when the faxed copy of the Renicks' passport application photographs arrives, Chalmers is shown to have sent the police to protect the wrong man. Ross, and his older brother, had set Albert Renick up in order to be killed as "Johnny Ross" so the real Ross could escape the mob. Johnny then killed Dorothy Renick to silence her. At the San Francisco airport a surveillance of passengers boarding the flight to Rome does not discover anyone resembling Ross/Renick. Bullitt guesses that Ross switched his ticket to an earlier international flight heading for London. He rapidly discovers that Ross has boarded and the London flight is taxiing toward takeoff. Chalmers makes one last attempt to use Ross for his own ends, which Bullitt moralistically rejects before pursuing Ross. A chase across the busy runways of San Francisco Airport ensues. Bullitt chases Ross back inside the crowded passenger terminal to a tense cat-and-mouse pursuit among the innocent throng. When Ross bolts and shoots a security guard, Bullitt shoots and kills him. Car chase. At the time of the film's release, the car chase scene generated a great amount of excitement. Leonard Maltin has called it a "now-classic car chase, one of the screen's all-time best." Emanuel Levy wrote in 2003 that, ""Bullitt" contains one of the most exciting car chases in film history, a sequence that revolutionized Hollywood's standards." In his obituary for Peter Yates, Bruce Weber wrote "Mr. Yates’ reputation probably rests most securely on “Bullitt” (1968), his first American film – and indeed, on one particular scene, an extended car chase that instantly became a classic." The editing of this scene likely won editor Frank P. Keller the Academy Award for Best Editing. Later, producer Philip D'Antoni filmed two more car chases for "The French Connection" and "The Seven-Ups", both set and filmed in New York City. Filming. The total time of the scene is 10 minutes and 53 seconds, beginning in the Fisherman's Wharf area at Columbus and Chestnut, followed by Midtown shooting on Hyde and Laguna Streets, with shots of Coit Tower and locations around and on Filbert and University Streets. The scene ends outside the city at the Guadalupe Canyon Parkway in Brisbane. Two 1968 390 V8 Ford Mustang GT fastbacks (325 hp) with four-speed manual transmissions were used for the chase scene, both loaned by the Ford Motor Company to Warner Bros. as part of a promotional agreement. The Mustangs' engines, brakes and suspensions were heavily modified for the chase by veteran car racer Max Balchowsky. Ford also originally loaned two Galaxie sedans for the chase scenes, but the producers found the cars too heavy for the jumps over the hills of San Francisco. They were replaced with two 1968 375 hp 440 Magnum V8-powered Dodge Chargers. The engines in both Chargers were left largely unmodified, but the suspensions were mildly upgraded to cope with the demands of the stunt work. The director called for maximum speeds of about , but the cars (including the chase cars filming) at times reached speeds of over . Driver's point-of-view shots were used to give the audience a participant's feel of the chase. Filming took three weeks, resulting in 9 minutes and 42 seconds of pursuit, first of Bullitt by the hitmen then the reverse. Due to multiple takes spliced into a single end product, heavy damage on the passenger side of Bullitt's car can be seen much earlier than the incident producing it and the Charger loses five wheel covers, with different ones missing in different shots. Shooting from multiple angles simultaneously and creating a montage from the footage to give the illusion of different streets also resulted in the speeding cars passing the same cars at several different times. At one point the Charger crashes into the camera in one scene and the damaged front fender is noticeable in later scenes. Local authorities did not allow the car chase to be filmed on the Golden Gate Bridge, but did permit it in Midtown locations including the Mission District, and on the outskirts of neighboring Brisbane. McQueen, an accomplished driver, drove in the close-up scenes, while stunt coordinator Carey Loftin hired stuntman and motorcycle racer Bud Ekins and McQueen's usual stunt driver Loren Janes for the high-speed part of the chase and other dangerous stunts. Ekins, who doubled for McQueen in the "The Great Escape" sequence where McQueen's character jumps over a barbed wire fence on a motorcycle, also lays one down in front of a skidding truck during the Bullitt chase. The Mustang’s interior rear view mirror goes up and down depending on who is driving; when the mirror is up McQueen is visible behind the wheel; when it is down Ekins is driving.
587608	Aditya 369 is a 1991 historical, science fiction Telugu film directed by Veteran Singeetam Srinivasa Rao and produced by Anita Krishna. Nandamuri Balakrishna plays the lead role in the movie. The film's soundtrack was composed by Illayaraja. This movie was later dubbed in Tamil as "Aboorva Sakthi 369". Aditya 369 collected 7 crore rupees, at the time a new record for the Telugu film industry. Plot summary. This movie begins with a scientist Prof. Ramdas (Tinnu Anand) doing vigorous experiments to invent a 'Time Machine' at his home laboratory. After tremendous effort eventually he becomes successful. His daughter Hema (Mohini) and her fiancée Krishna Kumar (Nandamuri Balakrishna) accidentally get into the time machine and visit the past (time of Krishnadeva Raya's Empire). At another instance, the couple gets ended up in a fictional 'Future' set up by the 'Time Machine' where in, the world is about to get destroyed through radiation effect after the end of Third World War. The story revolves around one more important aspect, the Krishnadeva Raya's Empire - diamond in a highly secured museum. A high profile thief Raja Verma (Amrish Puri) has a queer hobby of burglary of expensive diamonds from all over the world museums. He makes an attempt to rob the diamond in the present time, which was witnessed by a school kid - Hema's cousin (Tarun Kumar) - on his school excursion to the museum. He is trapped inside the museum and happens to see the robbery happening in front of his eyes and the kid manages to escape from the robbers and gets rescued from the museum by Krishna Kumar.
394019	Arahan () is a 2004 South Korean film. The film was the third feature film directed by Ryoo Seung-wan and stars the director's brother Ryoo Seung-bum along with Yoon So-yi, Ahn Sung-ki and Jung Doo-hong. The film was a relative commercial success, selling over 2 million tickets domestically, but wasn't as well received by critics as Ryoo Seung-wan's previous films. Plot. When a thief driving a motorcycle steals a purse of a pedestrian, the clumsy, naive and honest rookie policeman Sang-hwan runs after him, but Eui-jin, specialist in martial arts, captures the criminal and Sang-hwan is severely injured. She brings Sang-hwan to her home, where the six Masters of Tao heal him and believe that he has a powerful Qi, the spiritual energy of the universe, and could be a powerful warrior. Sang-hwan begins his training to ascend to a Maruchi, while the evil and ambitious Heuk-woon is accidentally released from his imprisonment. The powerful Heuk-woon attacks the masters, searching for a key that they protect, which would permit him to become an Arahan and dominate the world. When the masters are defeated, Sang-hwan and Eui-jin are the only and last hope to mankind.
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1065704	Krysten Alyce Ritter (born December 16, 1981) is an American actress, musician, and former model. Ritter is best known for her roles as Jane Margolis on the AMC drama series "Breaking Bad" and Chloe on the ABC comedy series "Don't Trust the B---- in Apartment 23". She has appeared in films such as "What Happens in Vegas" (2008), "27 Dresses" (2008), "Confessions of a Shopaholic" (2009), and "She's Out of My League" (2010). She has also appeared in the television series "Gilmore Girls", "Gossip Girl", "Gravity", "'Til Death", and "Veronica Mars". Early life. Ritter grew up on a cattle ranch near Shickshinny, Pennsylvania, where her mother, stepfather and sister live; her father lives in nearby Benton. Career. Modeling. Ritter was scouted by a modeling agent at her local shopping mall, the Wyoming Valley Mall, at the age of fifteen at a modeling event. Ritter described herself as, at the time, "tall, gawky, awkward, and really, really skinny" to "Philadelphia Style" magazine. While in high school, she traveled to New York on her days off and began modeling there and in Philadelphia. She signed with the Elite Model Management agency and then with Wilhelmina Models. Ritter moved to New York City at the age of eighteen and established an international modeling career in print ads and on television. She did magazine, catalog, and runway work in Milan, New York, Paris, and Tokyo. She posed for a 2013 PETA ad campaign warning pet owners of the dangers of leaving dogs in cars during the summer. Acting. Ritter's acting career began when Wilhelmina placed her for an audition for a Dr Pepper television commercial. Ritter told "Philadelphia Style" that she felt her "outgoing and bubbly and funny" personality as a performer helped her transition into acting naturally by letting her entertain the casting people. She won several bit film roles starting in 2001, and then played a 1950s art history student in Julia Roberts' "Mona Lisa Smile" (2003). In 2006, she appeared in "All This Intimacy", a two-act Off Broadway play by Rajiv Joseph, at the Second Stage Theatre. Ritter signed on to star in the premiere of Zach Braff's play "All New People" at Second Stage Theatre. Anna Camp, David Wilson Barnes and Justin Bartha co-star in this production under the direction of Peter DuBois. Ritter had a number of guest starring roles on television, and appeared on the second season of "Veronica Mars", playing Gia Goodman, the daughter of mayor Woody Goodman (Steve Guttenberg). Ritter guest-starred on "Gilmore Girls" for eight episodes from 2006 to 2007 as Rory Gilmore's friend, Lucy. She also played Allison Stark on the Fox sitcom '"Til Death". Ritter continued working in film, often cast as the best friend of the lead character. In 2008, she had supporting roles in the romantic comedies "What Happens in Vegas" and "27 Dresses". She co-starred in the 2009 film "Confessions of a Shopaholic" as Suze, the best friend of Isla Fisher's character. Ritter spent three months shooting "She's Out of My League" in Pittsburgh in 2008. She played Patty, the cynical best friend of Alice Eve's character Molly. Ritter was cast as a young Carol Rhodes in an episode of The CW's teen drama series "Gossip Girl" titled "Valley Girls", which aired May 11, 2009. The episode was a backdoor pilot for a proposed spin-off series of the same title, set in 1980s Los Angeles, that would chronicle the teenage years of the character Lily van der Woodsen. Ritter described her character Carol, Lily's sister, as "the outcast", and "an '80s Sunset Strip rocker" to "Access Hollywood". The series was not picked up by the network for the 2009–10 season. Ritter co-starred as Jane Margolis on the second season of AMC's television drama "Breaking Bad", and starred in the film "How to Make Love to a Woman" (2009), based on a best-selling book by adult film star Jenna Jameson. She also co-starred with Jason Behr in the independent film "The Last International Playboy" (2009), as Ozzy, a drug addict. Ritter sold a television pilot that she wrote based on her experiences as a model, named "Model Camp", and as of 2009, was also writing a female-buddy comedy film. She appeared in the comedy Web series "Woke Up Dead" in 2009, playing Cassie alongside Jon Heder as Drex. Ritter starred in the 2010 TV series "Gravity", with Ivan Sergei, Ving Rhames and Rachel Hunter, playing the sharp and quirky Lily. The Starz channel comedy/drama was about a group of out-patient suicide survivors. She will star opposite Ben Barnes in the independent film "Killing Bono", based on "Killing Bono: I Was Bono's Doppleganger", a book about the early days of the Irish rock band U2. The film began shooting in Belfast in January 2010, directed by Nick Hamm, and continued in London. Ritter plays the manager of an Irish band. Ritter starred alongside Alicia Silverstone in the romantic comedy "Vamps", written and directed by Amy Heckerling. She plays a New York City socialite turned into a vampire by a vampire queen (Sigourney Weaver). The film began shooting in Detroit, Michigan in August 2010 and was released on November 2, 2012. She also stars in the 2011 independent comedy film "Life Happens", with Kate Bosworth and Rachel Bilson. Co-written by Ritter with director Kat Coiro, the film is about two best friends dealing with the pregnancy and subsequent motherhood of Ritter's character. The film began production in Los Angeles in October 2010. In early February 2011, Ritter joined the cast of the ABC sitcom "Don't Trust the B---- in Apartment 23", playing the title role of Chloe, a con artist who tries to rip off her new roommates after they move in, but who ends up befriending and "mentoring" one of the applicants. On February 15, 2013, it was reported that Ritter would star as Nora in the NBC comedy pilot "Assistance", based on Leslye Headland's play of the same name. Personal life. Ritter moved from Brooklyn to Los Angeles in 2007. She sings and plays guitar in a band called Ex Vivian. Also she promotes animal rights
1058230	Arthur and the Invisibles (Arthur and the Minimoys in non-English-speaking territories â Arthur et les Minimoys in French-speaking countries) is a French/American part-animated, part-live action feature film adaptation of the 2002 children's book "Arthur et les minimoys" / "Arthur and the Minimoys", and the 2003 sequel "Arthur et la citĂŠ interdite" / "Arthur and the Forbidden City", written by filmmaker Luc Besson, who also directed the film. It premiered in limited release in France on November 29, 2006, and received wide releases in a number of countries in the following weeks. In the United States, it opened on December 29, 2006, for one week in Los Angeles, California, with a wider release on January 12, 2007 and it was released in the United Kingdom on February 2, 2007. The film was MGM's first theatrically released animated film since 1996's "All Dogs Go to Heaven 2". MGM's rights were dissolved when the movie hit theaters in December 29, 2006. With a budget of âŹ65,000,000, "Arthur and the Invisibles" was briefly the most expensive French film production until surpassed by "AstĂŠrix at the Olympic Games". Plot. In 1960, 10-year-old Arthur is living with his grandmother Daisy in a quiet farm house. His grandfather Archibald has recently gone missing and he sees little of his parents. Daisy entertains Arthur by reading stories of his grandfather's adventures in Africa. One of these stories is about the friendship between the tall Bogo Matassalai and the tooth-sized, elfin Minimoys. After Archibald had helped the Bogo Matassalai, they and the Minimoys gave him a number of rubies as thanks. Archibald brought the Minimoys home with him, where they now live in his garden and protect his rubies. Arthur becomes enamoured with a picture of Selenia, the princess of the Minimoys. Daisy has been given a two-day deadline to pay a large sum of money to a building developer named Ernest Davido, who has bought her mortgage from the bank and plans to evict the two. Arthur looks for the rubies in order to pay off the debt, stumbling across various clues left by his missing grandfather. He is met in the garden by the Bogo Matassala, who show Arthur how to get into the Minimoys' underground world by becoming a Minimoy himself. Under the garden with the Minimoys, Arthur learns that they are in danger from Maltazard, a Minimoy war hero who now leads the nearby underground community of Necropolis, who plans to conquer the Minimoys by flooding their city. Maltazard was corrupted by a seductive weevil, with whom he has a son named Darkos. Arthur, reflecting his legendary British namesake, draws a sacred sword from its recess and uses it to protect the Minimoys from Maltazard's soldiers. Sifrat the leader of the Minimoys sends Arthur to Necropolis, along with the princess Selenia and her younger brother Betameche. The trio are put in danger by Maltazard's soldiers numerous times, and discover that the irrigation system of drinking straws Arthur had made to water radishes for his grandmother is being cut apart by the soldiers, who are making plans to use them as water pipes to flood the Minimoys Over the course of the journey, Arthur comes to fall in love with Selenia. When the trio arrive in Necropolis, Selenia kisses Arthur, marking him as her husband and the future king. Selenia then takes the sword and confronts Maltazard. When Maltazard learns that she has already kissed Arthur and thus can no longer give him her powers, he throws them all in a cell. They find Archibald in the cell, also in Minimoy form, where Maltazard has been forcing him to reveal his knowledge.
589990	Jhuk Gaya Aasman "(English: The Skies Have Bowed)" is a 1968 film directed by Lekh Tandon. The film stars Rajendra Kumar, Saira Banu, Rajendranath and Prem Chopra. Music is by Shankar Jaikishan. The film is a remake of the Hollywood film "Here Comes Mr. Jordan" (1941). It performed "below average" at the box office. Summary. Sanjay (Rajendra Kumar) is in love with Priya (Saira Banu). They are painting rosy dreams of their life as husband & wife, until Priya learns that her father has been arrested. The duo decide that they will get married after Priya is able to bail out her father. Sanjay is happy, but destiny has other plans: Sanjay dies in a car crash. But after he is escorted by an angel (David) to heaven, he learns that his death was a mistake. The angel makes arrangements to send Sanjay back to earth, but his body has already been cremated. Then, the angel takes him to the house of Tarun Kumar, Sanjay's lookalike, who should have been originally killed instead of Sanjay. Tarun has been murdered just seconds before by his own brother (Prem Chopra). Sanjay learns that Tarun is a criminal & his brother wants to usurp his money. Now, it is up to Sanjay & his guardian to turn the tides & make up the loss. Plot. Sanjay is a poor man making his living as a tourist guide in Darjeeling. He meets Priya Khanna, who has come from Calcutta. The duo fall in love. Everything is hunky dory for them, until Priya receives the news of her father's arrest. The duo decide to put their dreams on the hold until Priya's father is exonerated. Priya leaves, while Sanjay returns, hopeful & joyous. However, he dies in a car accident and is escorted by an angel for the retribution of his sins. However, here they learn that Sanjay was never supposed to die. The angel learns that he accidentally killed Sanjay instead of his look alike called Tarun Kumar. The angel is punished with sending Sanjay back. However, here Sanjay's body has already been cremated. Realizing that now Sanjay's soul has to be put in somebody else's body, the angel takes him to Tarun's home. Unknown to them, Tarun has been shot in the back by his own brother just seconds ago. The angel retrieves the bullet & tells Sanjay to occupy Tarun's body. Here, Priya succeeds in bailing out her father. However, she learns from him that he was framed by Tarun. Here, Sanjay learns that Tarun was a criminal & correctly deduces that he was killed for his money. Tarun's errant ways have dissociated him from his grandmother, the only other living relative. Sanjay decides to make the wrongs right as Tarun. Tarun's brother is shocked to see him alive & all right, but Sanjay feigns ignorance. Tarun's secretary Rita is working for his brother secretly. Here, Priya comes back to exact revenge upon Tarun, but is obviously surprised to see him. Sanjay is sad by the turn of the events. He somehow succeeds in convincing his friend (Rajendra Nath) about his true identity. Later, he slowly starts shutting Tarun's illegitimate businesses & diverts the money to charity instead. This sudden change stuns and surprises his grandmother, while his brother is angered at the very thought of losing money to this newfound philanthropy. Sanjay starts courting Priya again. Seeing that Tarun has reformed, everybody gives a green signal to his marriage with Priya. However, Rita suddenly drops a bombshell that she is married to Tarun. Sanjay is unable to prove or disprove anything, making matters worse for him again. However, Rita is acting as a mere pawn in hands of Tarun's brother. He decides to confront Rita to know the truth, but Tarun's brother has already anticipated it. He kills Rita & Tarun is framed for the murder. Sanjay succeeds in running away & confronting Tarun's brother. Tarun's brother finally confesses all his crimes in front of Sanjay, which is also heard by Sanjay's buddy. Just as Sanjay is going to be killed by Tarun's brother, the angel knocks him out. In the end, Tarun's brother is arrested on the basis of his testimony. Realizing that Sanjay will now be able to live the life in form of Tarun, the very life that was unjustly taken from him, the angel unites him with Priya & goes back.
775253	Robb Wells (born October 28, 1971) is a Canadian actor and screenwriter who portrays Ricky on "Trailer Park Boys". Early life. Wells was born in Moncton, New Brunswick and moved to Dartmouth, Nova Scotia when he was eight years old. In January 2006, "The Globe and Mail" published an article in which it was revealed that Wells is a distant cousin of the current Prime Minister of Canada, Stephen Harper. Career. Actors John Dunsworth, John Paul Tremblay, and Rob Wells can be seen in the MGM 2002 movie "Virginia's Run" starring Gabriel Byrne and Joanne Whalley. John Dunsworth plays a local cop while John Paul Tremblay and Rob Wells play active and verbal townsmen similar to their "Trailer Park Boys" characters. Actors are credited as cop for John Dunsworth, J.P. for John Paul Tremblay (credits as J.P. Tremblay), and Rob Wells as Rob. The movie was filmed in Nova Scotia, Canada. Robb Wells is also featured in "Boondock Saints 2". In 2010, Wells reunited with many of his former "Trailer Park Boys" castmates in the new series "The Drunk and On Drugs Happy Fun Time Hour". Wells appeared in the film "Hobo with a Shotgun", out in theaters March 25, 2011. In August 2011, Wells made a cameo appearance in the independent film "Jackhammer", shot in Victoria, British Columbia. Wells also appeared as a radical Nova Scotian separatist "freedom fighter" / terrorist in the TV series "Archer" in its third season in an episode entitled "The Limited." On July 4, 2013, it was announced that Wells, Tremblay and Mike Smith acquired the rights to Trailer Park Boys and confirmed it would return with an eighth season. It will not air on television, but on their Internet channel, SwearNet.com. Production is set for July 2013.
170354	Eratosthenes of Cyrene (, ; ;  – ) was a Greek mathematician, geographer, poet, astronomer, and music theorist. He was the first person to use the word "geography" in Greek and he invented the discipline of geography as we understand it. He invented a system of latitude and longitude. He was the first person to calculate the circumference of the earth by using a measuring system using stades, or the length of stadiums during that time period, and his calculation was remarkably accurate. He was the first to calculate the tilt of the Earth's axis (also with remarkable accuracy). He may also have accurately calculated the distance from the earth to the sun and invented the leap day. He also created the first map of the world incorporating parallels and meridians within his cartographic depictions based on the available geographical knowledge of the era. Eratosthenes was the founder of scientific chronology; he endeavoured to fix the dates of the chief literary and political events from the conquest of Troy. In number theory, he introduced the sieve of Eratosthenes, and efficient method of identifying prime numbers. According to an entry in the Suda (a 10th-century reference), his contemporaries nicknamed him "beta", from the second letter of the Greek alphabet, because he supposedly proved himself to be the second best in the world in almost every field. Life. Eratosthenes was born in Cyrene (in modern-day Libya). He was the third chief librarian of the Great Library of Alexandria, the center of science and learning in the ancient world, and died in Alexandria, then the capital of Ptolemaic Egypt. Eratosthenes studied in Alexandria, and claimed to have also studied for some years in Athens. In 236 BC, he was appointed by Ptolemy III Euergetes as librarian of the Alexandrian library, succeeding the second librarian, Apollonius of Rhodes. He made several important contributions to mathematics and science, and was a good friend to Archimedes. Around 255 BC, he invented the armillary sphere. In "On the Circular Motions of the Celestial Bodies", Cleomedes credited him with having calculated the Earth's circumference around 240 BC, using knowledge of the angle of elevation of the sun at noon on the summer solstice in Alexandria and on Elephantine Island near Syene (now Aswan, Egypt). Eratosthenes believed there was good and bad in every nation and criticized Aristotle for arguing that humanity was divided into Greeks and barbarians, and that the Greeks should keep themselves racially pure. By 195 BC, Eratosthenes became blind. He died in 194 BC at the age of 82. Measurement of the Earth's circumference. Eratosthenes must have had a considerable margin of error and therefore couldn't have used the Egyptian stadion. If Eratosthenes calculation is performed with the correct data, the result is 40,074 km. This is 66 km of difference (0.16%) from the current aproximation of the Earth's circumference. Other astronomical distances. Eusebius of Caesarea in his "Preparatio Evangelica" includes a brief chapter of three sentences on celestial distances (Book XV, Chapter 53). He states simply that Eratosthenes found the distance to the sun to be "" (literally "of stadia myriads 400 and 80,000") and the distance to the moon to be 780,000 stadia. The expression for the distance to the sun has been translated either as 4,080,000 stadia (1903 translation by E. H. Gifford), or as 804,000,000 stadia (edition of Edouard des Places, dated 1974–1991). The meaning depends on whether Eusebius meant 400 myriad plus 80,000 or "400 and 80,000" myriad. With a stadium of 185 meters, 804,000,000 stadia is 149,000,000 kilometers, approximately the distance from the earth to the sun. Prime numbers. Eratosthenes also proposed a simple algorithm for finding prime numbers. This algorithm is known in mathematics as the Sieve of Eratosthenes. In mathematics, the sieve of Eratosthenes (Greek: κόσκινον Ἐρατοσθένους), one of a number of prime number sieves, is a simple, ancient algorithm for finding all prime numbers up to any given limit. It does so by iteratively marking as composite (i.e. not prime) the multiples of each prime, starting with the multiples of 2. The multiples of a given prime are generated starting from that prime, as a sequence of numbers with the same difference, equal to that prime, between consecutive numbers. This is the sieve's key distinction from using trial division to sequentially test each candidate number for divisibility by each prime.
1427698	The Cookout is a 2004 comedy film, directed by Lance Rivera. It is co-written by and features Queen Latifah, and is also the feature film debut for her mother Rita Owens. This was the last film for Farrah Fawcett due to her death in 2009. Plot. When Todd Andersen (played by Quran Pender) has just signed a $30 million contract with his hometown basketball team the New Jersey Nets, he purchases many new luxuries for himself and his family including a new house in a well established, high class neighborhood for him and his gold digging girlfriend Brittany (played by Meagan Good). Keeping with family tradition, he decides to host a regular family reunion cookout in his new place, however, not planning for it to clash with an important business meeting for an endorsement deal.
589199	Shree 420 (translation: "Mr. 420", also transliterated as Shri 420) is a 1955 Bollywood film directed, produced by and starring Raj Kapoor and Nargis. The number 420 refers to Section 420 of the Indian Penal Code, which prescribes the punishment for the offence of cheating; hence, "Mr. 420" is a derogatory term for a cheater. The film centers on Raj, a poor but educated orphan who comes to Bombay with dreams of success. Kapoor's character is heavily influenced by Charlie Chaplin's "little tramp", much like Kapoor's character in his 1951 "Awaara". It was written by Khwaja Ahmad Abbas, and the music was composed by the team of Shankar Jaikishan. The lyrics were penned by Shailendra. "Shree 420" was the highest grossing film of 1955, and the song "Mera Joota Hai Japani" ("My Shoes are Japanese"), sung by Mukesh, became hugely popular and a patriotic symbol of the newly independent India. Plot. A country boy, Raj (Raj Kapoor), from Allahabad, travels to the big city, Bombay, by walking, to earn a living. He falls in love with the poor but virtuous Vidya (Nargis), but is soon seduced by the riches of a freewheeling and unethical lifestyle presented to him by an unscrupulous and dishonest businessman, Seth Sonachand Dharmanand (Nemo) and the sultry temptress Maya (Nadira). He eventually becomes a confidence trickster, or "420," who even cheats in card gambling. Vidya tries hard to make Raj a good man but fails. Meanwhile, Sonachand comes up with another scheme to exploit poor people, whereby he promises permanent homes to them at just Rs. 100. The scheme pays off, as people start hoarding money for a home, even at the cost of other important things. Vidya's contempt for Raj increases even more. Raj becomes wealthy, but soon realizes that he paid a very high price for it. When Raj discovers that Sonachand has no plans to fulfill his promises, he decides to make wrongs right. Raj takes all the bond papers of the people's homes and tries to flee Sonachand's home, only to be caught by Sonachands and his cronies. In a scuffle that occurs, Sonachand shoots Raj and he fells unconscious. When people hear the shooting, they come and see Raj nearly dead. Sonachand tells police that Raj was trying to flee after stealing money from his safe, hence Sonachand shot him. Upon this, the 'dead' Raj springs back to life and using pure logic, proves Sonachand's guilt. Sonachand and his partners are arrested, while Vidya happily forgives Raj. The film ends with Raj saying "Yeh 420 nahin, shree 420 hain" ("These are not simply con men, they are respectable con men"). Allusions. The title refers to section 420 of the Indian penal code, where crimes of theft and deception are punished, which relates to the troubles of the main character. In Sanskrit, the name of the main character, "Vidya", means knowledge, while "Maya" means illusion. The title of the song "Ramaiya Vastavaiya" is in Telugu, though the rest of the song's lyrics (and the film) are in Hindi. Sonachand's car license plate reads "BMZ 840". "BMZ" seems to suggest a faked BMW, while 840 is obtained by multiplying 420 by 2. That would suggest that Sonachand is a "double" confidence trickster. Reception. The film grossed over Rs.20 million. This record was beaten 2 years later by "Mother India" in 1957. The song "Mera Joota Hai Japani", in which the singer asserts his pride in being an Indian despite his clothes being from other countries, became, and remains, a patriotic favourite among many Indians. It is often referenced, including in an acceptance speech at the Frankfurt Book Fair in 2006 by Bengali author Mahasweta Devi. The movie proved to be popular in other countries, including the Soviet Union, Romania and Israel. In Russia, it was said that Raj Kapoor was as popular as Jawaharlal Nehru due to the success of the film. In Israel, the song "Ichak Dana Beechak Dana" (transliterated as "Ichikidana") became very popular, and was re-recorded by local singer Naim Rajuan.
588781	Woh Chokri (1994) (; ) is an Indian movie directed by Subhankar Ghosh and stars Pallavi Joshi, Neena Gupta, Paresh Rawal and Om Puri. Film won 3 National Film Awards. Pallavi Joshi won National Film Award – Special Jury Award whereas Paresh Rawal won the National Film Award for Best Supporting Actor and Neena Gupta that of the National Film Award for Best Supporting Actress for this movie. Plot. Geeta Devi (Neena Gupta) is one of the daughters-in-law of a prominent and wealthy family, who is unfortunately widowed. Still youthful and attractive, she gives in to the wiles of one of the men in the neighbourhood, Lalit Ramji (Paresh Rawal), and starts living with him. She has a daughter, Apsara (Pallavi Joshi) by him, and the three are portrayed as a happy family unit.
585945	Maheshwari Amma better known by her stage name K.P.A.C. Lalitha, is a National Award winning Indian film and stage actress. She was the wife of late filmmaker Bharathan. Early life. K.P.A.C. Lalitha was born Maheshwari Amma in Ramapuram near Kayamkulam, Alappuzha, Kerala to Kadaykatharayil Veettil K. Ananthan Nair and Bhargavi Amma on 1947. She has a brother and a sister: Krishnakumar and Shyamala. She learned to dance when she was still a child under the tutelage of Kalamandalam Gangadharan. She started acting in plays when she was 10 years old. Her first appearance on stage was in the play "Geethayude Bali". She later joined K.P.A.C. (Kerala People's Arts Club), which was a prominent leftist drama troupe in Kerala. She was given the screen-name Lalitha and later when she started acting in movies, the tag K.P.A.C. was added to her screen-name to differentiate it from another actress called Lalitha. Career. Her first movie was the film adaptation of her K.P.A.C. play "Koottukudumbam" directed by K. S. Sethumadhavan. She then went on to act in critically acclaimed films like "Swayamvaram" and "Anubhavangal Palichakal". She acted as the heroine opposite superstar Prem Nazir in "Chakravakam". She was the female lead in "Kodiyettam" (1977) with actor Bharath Gopi. In 1978 she married Bharathan, a noted Malayalam film director. She took a break from film acting for sometime, doing only a few films. The second era of her career started with "Kattathe Kilikkoodu" (1983) directed by her husband. During this time, she did many critically acclaimed roles including those in "Sanmanassullavarkku Samadhanam" (1986), "Ponn Muttyidunna Tharavu" (1988), "Mukunthetta Sumitra Vilikkunnu" (1988), "Vadakku Nooki Yanthram" (1989), "Dasharatham" (1989), "Venkalam" (1993), "Godfather" (1991), "Amaram" (1991), "Vietnam Colony" (1993), "Pavithram" (1993), "Manichitrathazhu" (1994), "Sphadikam" (1995), and "Aniyathi Pravu" (1997). She won the National Film Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in "Amaram" (1991), a film directed by her husband Bharathan. In 1998, when Bharathan died, she took a break for a few months only to come back with a brilliant performance in Sathyan Anthikkad directed "Veendum Chila Veetukaryangal" (1999). K.P.A.C. Lalitha's notable roles in recent years were in "Shantham" (2000), "Life Is Beautiful" (2000), "Alaipayuthey" (2000) and "Valkannadi" (2002). She won her second National Film Award for Best Supporting Actress for her role in "Shantham" (2000), directed by Jayaraj. K.P.A.C, Lalitha has acted in over 500 Malayalam films and three Tamil films. She still appears in films and is a well-respected person in the Malayalam film industry. K.P.A.C Lalitha has acted alongside many popular actors of the Malaylam film industry: Bharath Gopi, Kuthiravattam Pappu, Sankaradi, Innocent, Thilakan, Oduvil Unnikrishnan, Mala Aravindan, Krishnankutty Nair, Karamana Janardanan Nair, Janardanan, Nedumudi Venu, and Murali to name a few. She acted with Mammootty in the movie "Kanalkaattu". Personal life. K.P.A.C. Lalitha was married to director Bharathan. Her son Sidharth debuted as an actor in the movie "Nammal", which was directed by Kamal. After a short career in acting, he chose a career in film direction. In 2012, he made his directorial debut with the film "Nidra", which is the remake of 1984 film with the same title written and directed by his father Bharathan. She had also acted in the movie Nidra. External links. http://en.msidb.org/displayProfile.php?category=actors&artist=KPAC%20Lalitha&limit=333
1015434	Tiny Furniture is a 2010 American independent comedy-drama written by, directed by, and starring Lena Dunham. It premiered at South by Southwest, where it won best narrative feature, screened at such festivals as Maryland Film Festival, and was released theatrically in the United States on November 12, 2010. Dunham’s own mother, the artist Laurie Simmons, plays Aura’s mother, while her real sister, Grace, plays Aura’s on-screen sibling. The actors Jemima Kirke and Alex Karpovsky would also appear in Dunham's television series "Girls". Plot. Aura returns home from her Midwest liberal arts college to her artist family’s TriBeCa loft with nothing but a film studies degree, a failed relationship, and a lack of direction. She takes a job as a hostess at a restaurant and falls into relationships with two self-centered men while struggling to define herself. Production. Filming. The film was shot on the Canon EOS 7D. Filming took place in TriBeCa and Lower Manhattan. The film was shot in November 2009. "Tiny Furniture" shares many aspects of the mumblecore movement—loosely defined as an indie, low-budget, mostly digital video movement of dialogue-heavy films about the personal experiences of young adult characters using amateur actors and improvised dialogue. But Dunham does not consider the film mumblecore, because she wrote a "tight script" to which the actors were faithful. Music. The soundtrack includes music by Teddy Blanks of The Gaskets, Domino (Domino Kirke, and Jordan Galland), Rebecca Schiffman and Sonia's Party! & The Everyone's Invited Band. The Soundtrack is downloadable for free on the movie website. Home media. "Tiny Furniture" was released on DVD and Blu-ray Disc in 2012 as part of the Criterion Collection. Awards. Lena Dunham won for Best First Screenplay at the 2010 Independent Spirit Awards.
1069716	To the Shores of Tripoli is a 1942 American Technicolor film starring John Payne, Maureen O'Hara, Randolph Scott, Nancy Kelly and Minor Watson. The film was directed by H. Bruce Humberstone and produced by Milton Sperling. Plot. Titled after a lyric in the Marines' Hymn, which contains the phrase "... to the shores of Tripoli" (which is, itself, a reference to the Battle of Derne) the film is one of the last of the pre-Pearl Harbor service films. When the film was in post-production the Pearl Harbor attack occurred having the studio shoot a new ending where Payne re-enlists. Wealthy Culver Military Academy drop-out and playboy Chris Winters (John Payne) enlists in the U.S. Marine Corps as a private where he meets his drill instructor Gunnery Sergeant Dixie Smith (Randolph Scott) and falls in love with a Navy Nurse, Lieutenant Mary Carter (Maureen O'Hara). Smith is given a letter from Winters' father. Captain Christopher Winters (Minor Watson) writes Smith of his playboy son. Sgt. Smith served in World War I under the elder Winters; Smith affectionately calls Winters "The Skipper". Chris Winters can not understand that Officers and Enlisted Men do not associate under the non-fraternization policy, even if the officer is a woman and the enlisted man is a male. Chris' society girlfriend Helene Hunt (Nancy Kelly) wants Chris to get a cushy civilian job in Washington, D.C. and uses her uncle's power and her influence on the base commander, General Gordon. In sequences filmed at the Marine Corps Recruit Depot San Diego, Smith gives the younger Winters an opportunity to demonstrate his leadership potential by drilling his platoon. To Smith's amusement the Marines mock Chris and perform slapstick antics during the drill as Winters marches them away. As Smith is enjoying himself the platoon marches back and performs close order drill of a high order of perfection. Smith is greatly surprised until he looks over the platoon and notices several Marines have black eyes, chipped teeth and bruises. Chris Winters says, "I was captain of the boxing team at Culver." Winters is selected for Sea School and on gunnery practice during naval maneuvers he bravely saves Dixie Smith's life when repairing gunnery targets. Chris picks a fight with Smith. However, Smith claimed he struck the first blow, by being busted in rank Smith will save Chris from the Naval Prison. Despite winning the respect of Dixie Smith and his fellow Marines, Chris decides to leave the Marines. But then he hears the news of the Pearl Harbor attack when driving in a car with Helene. His way is blocked by his old platoon marching to a Navy transport ship. Chris Winters runs to Sgt. Dixie Smith to reenlist; Chris enters the ranks that close up as he dresses in his old uniform from his satchel, he tosses away his civilian clothes and is in uniform except for his two-toned shoes. Chris's proud father, (Watson) wounded in World War I, asks his son to "Get a Jap for me". Production. The original planned ending was a simple romantic coupling with Maureen O'Hara's Navy nurse, but after Pearl Harbor, it switched to John Payne signing up for war. Portions of the film were shot at the Marine Base in San Diego and in the desert near Palm Springs, California. The Marines credit the movie as the biggest single recruitment aide in 1942. In 1940, before Pearl Harbor, there were only 19,400 Marines; when WWII ended there were 485,052 Marines and this number was subsequently reduced to 77,000 as the USA de-mobilized. Though a big money maker, author Leon Uris ridicules the film in his reaction of Marines who see it in "Battle Cry".
1044097	Carry On Matron is the twenty-third in the series of "Carry On" films to be made. It was released in 1972. It features series regulars Sid James, Kenneth Williams, Charles Hawtrey, Joan Sims, Hattie Jacques, Bernard Bresslaw, Barbara Windsor and Kenneth Connor. This was the last "Carry on..." film for Terry Scott after appearing in seven films. "Carry On Matron" was the second and last "Carry On..." for Kenneth Cope. Plot. Sid Carter (Sid James) is the cunning head of a criminal gang that includes the longhaired drip Ernie Bragg (Bernard Bresslaw), the cheeky Freddy (Bill Maynard) and Sid's son, Cyril (Kenneth Cope). Cyril disguises himself as a new nurse to case a maternity hospital and the booty – the hospital's stock of contraceptive pills. The "Head Chopper" at the hospital, Sir Bernard Cutting (Kenneth Williams), is convinced he's undergoing a sex change while the nutty Dr F.A. Goode (Charles Hawtrey) dishes out psychiatric mumbo jumbo. The hard working Matron (Hattie Jacques) has more than enough to contend with on the wards, with the troublesome Mrs Tidey (Joan Sims) who seems more interested in eating than producing a baby and her loyal, British Rail worker husband (Kenneth Connor) who continually hangs around the waiting room. Waiting. Cyril is picked out by notorious "bird-watcher" Dr Prodd (Terry Scott) and goes back to his place to get a map of the hospital. The poor doc gets a shock when the lovely "nurse" turns out to be a crook in a frock. However, "she" makes headline news when film star Jane Darling (Valerie Leon) hails "her" a heroine for helping her through her pregnancy. The Sister (Jacki Piper) desperately tries to keep the ward in order, while Cutting's secretary, Miss Banks (Patsy Rowlands) keeps her employer in check but nothing can cool his pent-up desire to prove himself as a man ... and it's Matron who's in his sights! The criminal gang don disguises – Sid dresses as the foreign Dr Zhivago and Ernie as a heavily expectant mum – but the crime is thwarted by the mothers-to-be. The medical hierarchy's threat to call the police is halted when Sid reveals the heroine of the day is a man. Cyril weds his shapely nurse, Susan Ball (Barbara Windsor) and Matron finally gets her doctor. Filming and locations. Interiors: Exteriors:
520483	Cherry Pie Castro Picache (born May 27, 1970) is a Filipina actress and screenwriter who has starred television and films and has worked as a model for modelling Palmolive, Camay, and Eskinol. Biography. Education. Picache attended St. Mary's College in Mo. Ignacia, Quezon City, De La Salle University in Manila. She also took Pre-Dentistry in Centro Escolar University Manila Campus. Television career. She was first cast in the television soap opera Ikaw Na Sana previously aired on GMA Network in 1997, her first ever role in television. But she had more projects from ABS-CBN Currently she is a part of ABS-CBN management. Family. She is the daughter of Ceferino Picache and Zenaida Picache.
641925	In mathematics, differential algebraic equations (DAEs) are a general form of (systems of) differential equations for vector–valued functions "x" in one independent variable "t",
1622578	Latcho Drom ("safe journey") is a 1993 French documentary film directed and written by Tony Gatlif. The movie is about the Romani people's journey from north-west India to Spain, consisting primarily of music. The film was screened in the Un Certain Regard section at the 1993 Cannes Film Festival. Plot. The film contains very little dialogue and captions; only what is required to grasp the essential meaning of a song or conversation is translated. The film begins in the Thar Desert in Northern India and ends in Spain, passing through Egypt, Turkey, Romania, Hungary, Slovakia, France, and Spain. All of the Romani portrayed are actual members of the Romani community. Music. The use of music in the film is highly important. Despite the fact that Latcho Drom is a documentary, there are no interviews and none of the dialogue is captioned. Very few of the lyrics are captioned and the whole film relies heavily on the tone of music to portray emotions and the history of the Romani. Music is included from the Romanian Romani group Taraf de Haïdouks, La Caita (Spain), Tchavolo Schmitt and many others.
1152566	John Dall (May 26, 1918 – January 15, 1971) was an American actor. Life and career. Dall was born John Jenner Thompson in New York City, New York, the second son of Charles Jenner Thompson, a civil engineer, and his wife Henry (née Worthington). Primarily a stage actor, he is best remembered today for two film roles; the cool-minded intellectual killer in Alfred Hitchcock's film "Rope", and the trigger-happy lead in the 1950 noir "Gun Crazy". He also had a substantial role in Stanley Kubrick's film "Spartacus". He first came to fame as the young prodigy who comes alive under the tutelage of Bette Davis in "The Corn Is Green", for which he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. Warner Bros signed him to a contract to make the film but they let him go in 1946. In 1962 Dall made two guest appearances on "Perry Mason": "The Case of the Lonely Eloper", and the murder victim in "The Case of the Weary Watchdog." In 1963 he again portrayed the murder victim in "The Case of the Reluctant Model." He made his fourth and final appearance on the show in the 1965 episode, "The Case of the Laughing Lady." Dall died in Hollywood, California. Sources indicate he died of a heart attack.
1061141	Madeleine Stowe (born Madeline M. Stowe; August 18, 1958) is an American actress. She is best known for her performances in the films "Revenge", "Stakeout", "Unlawful Entry", "The Last of the Mohicans", "Blink", "China Moon", "12 Monkeys", "", and "We Were Soldiers". She currently stars as Victoria Grayson in the ABC drama series "Revenge", for which she was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Television Series Drama in 2011. Early life. Stowe, the first of three children, was born at the Queen of Angels Hospital, in Hollywood, Los Angeles, California and raised in Eagle Rock, a suburb of Los Angeles. Her mother, Mireya (née Mora Steinvorth), had come from a prominent family in Costa Rica. Her father, Robert Stowe, was a civil engineer from a "poor Oregon family". One of Stowe's maternal great-great-grandfathers, politician José Joaquín Mora Porras, was a younger brother of President Juan Rafael Mora Porras, who governed Costa Rica between 1849-1859. Another one of Stowe's maternal great-great-grandfathers was Bruno Carranza, President of Costa Rica in 1870, albeit briefly, as he resigned three months after taking power. His wife, Stowe's great-great-grandmother, Gerónima Montealegre, was the sister of President José María Montealegre Fernández, who governed Costa Rica from 1859-1863. One of Stowe's maternal great-grandfathers was a German immigrant to Costa Rica. Stowe's father suffered from multiple sclerosis, and she accompanied him to medical treatments. She originally aspired to become a concert pianist, taking piano lessons between the ages of 10 and 18. Stowe would later explain that playing the piano was a means of escape from having to socialize with other children her age. Her Russian-born music teacher, Sergei Tarnowsky, had faith in Stowe, even teaching her from his deathbed. Following his death at the age of 96, she quit, later commenting: "I just felt it was time to not be by myself anymore." Stowe went on her first date at the age of 18. Career. Early years. Stowe studied cinema and journalism at the University of Southern California. Not overly interested in her classes, she volunteered to do performances at the "Solaris", a Beverly Hills theater, where a movie agent saw her in a play and got her several offers of appearances in TV and films. In 1978, she made her debut in an episode in the police drama series "Baretta", followed by a string of TV work with guest appearances on the "The Amazing Spider-Man", "Barnaby Jones" and "Little House on the Prairie". In 1978, she played a leading role as Mary in the television movie '. She starred in the NBC miniseries "The Gangster Chronicles", which starred Brian Benben, her future husband. She also starred in several television films, such as ' (1978), "Amazons" (1984) and "Blood & Orchids" (1986). Breakthrough and film career. In 1987, Stowe appeared in her first breakthrough role in the feature film, "Stakeout" opposite Richard Dreyfuss and Emilio Estevez. The film debuted at No.1 at the box office. After "Stakeout", she co-starred with Mark Harmon in the comedy "Worth Winning", with Kevin Costner in the 1989 thriller "Revenge", and opposite Jack Nicholson in 1990 in "The Two Jakes". She played a leading role in the 1991 independent film "Closet Land". In 1992, she appeared opposite Kurt Russell in the financially successful gritty crime drama "Unlawful Entry". Also that year, Stowe played Cora Munro in "The Last of the Mohicans", which also starred Daniel Day-Lewis. Her critically acclaimed performance in the film, which grossed more than $75 million worldwide, elevated Stowe from supporting player to an A-list movie star. The next year, director Robert Altman cast Stowe in the award-winning ensemble cast movie "Short Cuts", where she gave one of her most acclaimed screen performances as the wife of a compulsively lying and adulterous police officer played by Tim Robbins. She won the National Society of Film Critics Awards for Best Supporting Actress, a Golden Globe Award and a Volpi Cup for Best Ensemble Cast for her performance in the movie. She also made a cameo appearance in "Stakeout"'s sequel "Another Stakeout". The following year, Stowe played a leading role as a blind musician in the thriller "Blink", in the neo-noir thriller "China Moon", and in the Western "Bad Girls". The year after that, she was a sympathetic psychiatrist in the financially successful and critically lauded science-fiction movie "Twelve Monkeys". Stowe received a Saturn Awards nomination for this performance. In 1994 Stowe was named one of People magazine's "50 Most Beautiful People in the World". In 1995, Stowe was chosen by "Empire" as one of the "100 Sexiest Stars in Film History".
584355	Ainthaam Padai is a 2009 Tamil film starring Sundar C, Mukesh and Simran Bagga. It released on 23 July 2009 and is produced by Sundar's wife, Kushboo. Plot. The film is about relationships between two families where hardships and affections are on the competencies. It centers on five brothers: Elder one As the film moves ahead it unravels about enmity with other family where Devasena (Simran) is a pampered daughter. But Gunasekaran is kind enough in breaking the hardships and getting united by arranging nuptials for Devasena with his brother Karunakaran. However, Devasena mistakes Prabhakaran to be her bridegroom. When things are unraveled and Prabhakaran turns away from Devasena's offer of marrying him, she vows to alienate him from his family by marrying Karunakaran. Rest of the film is about the hand-in-hand combat between Prabhakaran and Devasena with each one moving around with their smart plans.
1102285	Karl Theodor Wilhelm Weierstrass (; 31 October 1815 – 19 February 1897) was a German mathematician who is often cited as the "father of modern analysis". Biography. Weierstrass was born in Ostenfelde, part of Ennigerloh, Province of Westphalia. Weierstrass was the son of Wilhelm Weierstrass, a government official, and Theodora Vonderforst. His interest in mathematics began while he was a "Gymnasium" student at Theodorianum in Paderborn. He was sent to the University of Bonn upon graduation to prepare for a government position. Because his studies were to be in the fields of law, economics, and finance, he was immediately in conflict with his hopes to study mathematics. He resolved the conflict by paying little heed to his planned course of study, but continued private study in mathematics. The outcome was to leave the university without a degree. After that he studied mathematics at the University of Münster (which was even at this time very famous for mathematics) and his father was able to obtain a place for him in a teacher training school in Münster. Later he was certified as a teacher in that city. During this period of study, Weierstrass attended the lectures of Christoph Gudermann and became interested in elliptic functions.
1163874	Debra Jo Rupp (born February 24, 1951) is an American film and television actress, perhaps best known for her role as Kitty Forman on the Fox sitcom, "That '70s Show". She is also known for playing the role of Alice on the third, fourth and fifth seasons of "Friends". She starred on the ABC sitcom "Better with You" from 2010-2011. Early life. Rupp was born in Glendale, California, and raised in Boxford, Massachusetts, where she attended Masconomet Regional High School, graduating in 1969. She has two sisters. She went on to attend the University of Rochester, graduating with a B.A. degree in 1974. Career. 1980s. Rupp left her home state of Massachusetts in 1979 to pursue an acting career in New York City. She frequently performed on stage and appeared in commercials before winning her first television role in 1980 as Sheila, a topless dancer, on the daytime drama "All My Children". Earlier in the same year, Rupp played Helen, the wife of a cheating husband, in Sharon Tipsword's one-act comedy "Second Verse", which was produced as part of a play festival at New York's Nat Horne Theater. Another notable stage performance was as the young bride Eleanor in the 1985 production of A. R. Gurney's "The Middle Ages" at the Whole Theater Company, established by Olympia Dukakis in nearby Montclair, NJ. She received praise from Walter Goodman in a "New York Times" review of one of her many off-Broadway performances: as June Yeager, a young wife who feels she is never "loved enough", in the 1986 York Theater Company production of Arthur Laurents' dramatic play "The Time of the Cuckoo" staged at the Church of the Heavenly Rest in New York's Upper East Side neighborhood (Manhattan). Rupp's list of stage credits includes appearances in Terrence McNally's "Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune" and Cynthia Heimel's "A Girl's Guide to Chaos", the Broadway role which significantly propelled her career forward. She originated the role of Cynthia in 1986, a character based on Heimel's observations made during her stints as a columnist for "Playboy" and "The Village Voice". Directed by Wynn Handman and sharing the stage with Rita Jenrette, Rupp's performance as Cynthia was immortalized by legendary caricaturist Al Hirschfeld and described in a "New York Times" review as "an appealing mixture of pluck and pathos." In "Newsday's" review of "Chaos", theater critic Allan Wallach called Rupp “a real find.” In early 1987, Rupp was featured in an article written by Enid Nemy for the "Broadway" section of "The New York Times". Entitled "New York is beckoning, but first, Los Angeles", the interview revealed how Rupp's success in the theater so soon after her arrival in New York City had scared the young actress enough to take time off from acting for several years. After returning to the stage, Rupp explained, she was often cast as an ingénue, but after her portrayal of Cynthia in "Chaos", she began getting calls to audition in Los Angeles for "really crazy neurotic" parts in television pilots. She was realistic about the unpredictability of an acting career and, since she had promised her mother she would never wait tables when she left for New York, she hadn't given up her part-time work as a bookkeeper and was "learning computers" as something to fall back on. Rupp continued to devote herself to acting full-time through the 1980s and performed in numerous regional stage productions. One such production was Sherry Kramer's "Wall of Water" in New Haven, Connecticut at the Yale Repertory Theatre's Winterfest play festival of 1988. She guest-starred on numerous television shows, including "Kate & Allie", "Spenser for Hire", and "The Days and Nights of Molly Dodd". In 1988, Rupp landed her first film role on the big screen as Miss Patterson, Tom Hanks's secretary in the film "Big". 1990s. In 1990, Rupp returned to New York City to perform in a Broadway stage production of "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" with Kathleen Turner at the Eugene O'Neill Theatre. In it, Rupp portrayed Mae (Sister Woman). Her television work during the early 1990s included recurring roles as Ms. Higgins on the television "Davis Rules" with Randy Quaid, and as Sister Mary Incarnata on "Phenom" with Judith Light, as well as guest roles on "Blossom", "Family Matters", "L.A. Law", and "ER". In 1995 she began her stint as Jeff Foxworthy's sister-in-law Gayle on "The Jeff Foxworthy Show", and also appeared in the three-episode science fiction mini-series "The Invaders" with Scott Bakula, portrayed Jerry Seinfeld's eccentric booking agent Katie on an episode of "Seinfeld" (a role she reprised in 1996), and performed on stage as Meg in "Broken Bones", a dark drama about spousal abuse by Drew McWeeny and Scott Swan, as part of a one-act play festival at Hollywood's Met Theater. Rupp also appeared in several episodes of "Friends", playing Alice Knight, a home economics teacher who fell in love with and married Phoebe Buffay's (Lisa Kudrow) much younger half-brother, Frank Jr. (Giovanni Ribisi). (Rupp had previously appeared with Kudrow in the 1997 independent film "Clockwatchers".) In 1998, she began her role as Kitty Forman in the comedy series, "That '70s Show" in perhaps her most successful role to date. As well, she portrayed Marilyn See, wife of astronaut Elliot See, in Episode #11 of the Emmy Award-winning television mini-series "From the Earth to the Moon", produced by Tom Hanks and directed by Sally Field. 2000s. Her distinctive voice was heard as the character of Mrs. Helperman in Disney's animated series "Teacher's Pet" in 2000, and again for the 2004 movie version. She starred as a stand-up comic with a secret in the highly-acclaimed independent short film "The Act", directed by Susan Kraker and Pi Ware, and received praise for her performance. The short film was an official selection at the Sundance Film Festival and won several awards at film festivals around the world. In 2004, she played Brad Hunt's nagging mother in "Lucky 13", a full-length independent film starring Lauren Graham. She then returned to "All My Children" for one episode in December 2005, playing a homeless woman named Victoria. Rupp has often returned to Massachusetts and New York to appear in regional and off-Broadway stage productions. In 2004, she played Dotty Otley in Michael Frayn's "Noises Off" at the Cape Playhouse in Dennis, Massachusetts, and in 2006 Rupp appeared on stage in Pittsfield, Massachusetts as a kooky mother in French playwright Jean Anouilh's comedy "Ring Round the Moon" at Barrington Stage Company. New York theater-goers saw Rupp return to the off-Broadway stage in June 2007, as Valerie in the Second Stage Theatre production of Marisa Wegrzyn's "The Butcher of Baraboo", directed by Judith Ivey. Two months later she performed in the Berkshire Theatre Festival in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, as Ida Bolton in a revival of Paul Osborn's 1939 play "Morning's at Seven". "That '70s Show" ended in 2006. Rupp appeared soon after in a dramatic television role as the wife of a murdered pharmaceutical CEO, on the crime drama "". In the episode, entitled "Infiltrated", Rupp's character desperately attempts to hide her slain husband's past sexual abuses. In early 2007, the feature film "Kickin It Old Skool" was released, in which Rupp was cast as Jamie Kennedy's mother. In 2008, Rupp appeared as a restaurant owner who helps two homeless men in the comedy-drama-musical, "Jackson", written and directed by J. F. Lawton. In the same year, she returned to daytime television in a guest role on "As the World Turns". Massachusetts theater-goers saw Rupp onstage in 2008, playing Olympia in Georges Feydeau's 1907 farce "A Flea in Her Ear", at the Williamstown Theatre Festival in Williamstown, and as Miss Maudie in "To Kill a Mockingbird" at the Barrington Stage Company in Pittsfield. In 2012, Rupp portrayed the role "Ruth" in She Wants Me, an independent romantic comedy which stars Josh Gad, Kristen Ruhlin, Hilary Duff and Charlie Sheen.
592162	Naagarahaavu (Kannada: ನಾಗರಹಾವು, The Cobra) is a 1972 Kannada film by Puttanna Kanagal starring Dr. Vishnuvardhan, Aarathi, Dr. K S Ashwath, Dr. Leelavathi, Dr. Ambrish .
1121316	Return of Hanuman (previously "Hanuman Returns") is a 2007 Indian animated film about an adventure of the Hindu god Hanuman. It has been stated that the film is not a sequel to "Hanuman"; it has an independent storyline. It was produced by the Percept Picture Company and is directed by Anurag Kashyap. The music was composed by Tapas Relia. It is a children's film and has been rated as an Educational Film by the CBFC because it deals with the issue of global warming. It was released in India on 28 December 2007. Plot. Devas are ’busy’ in their Swarglok (heaven). Technology has crossed boundaries of earth and even non-mortal devas have become techno-geeks. They converse in Hinglish. Hanuman sees a village boy who is bullied by local hooligans. He decides to help him but for that he has to take birth as a human. He decides to do so after managing some conditional understanding with Brahma. He appears on earth in a village named Bajrangpur from a priest and his wife as a human baby. What differs the reincarnated Hanuman with other humans is that he has a tail and a huge appetite. The baby is christened "Maruti" by his mother. After Maruti is three months old, he takes admission in school. Thereafter he teaches a lesson to local hooligans, Gabbarsingh and his gang.
1060682	Jimmy Smits (born July 9, 1955) is an American actor. Smits is perhaps best known for his roles as attorney Victor Sifuentes on the 1980s legal drama "L.A. Law", as NYPD Detective Bobby Simone on the 1990s police drama "NYPD Blue", and as Matt Santos on "The West Wing". He is also notable for his portrayal of Bail Organa in the "Star Wars" prequel trilogy, and Miguel Prado in "Dexter". In the fall of 2010, he starred in NBC's short-lived series "Outlaw", about a U.S. Supreme Court justice who leaves the bench to return to practicing law. In 2012, he joined the cast of "Sons of Anarchy" as high-level pimp Nero Padilla. Early life. Smits was born in Brooklyn, New York. His father, Cornelius Smits, was a Surinamese immigrant of Dutch descent who managed a screen-printing factory. His mother, Emilina, was a Puerto Rican who worked as a nurse. Smits identifies himself as Puerto Rican, and was raised in a strict devout Roman Catholic family. "Jimmy" is actually the name on his birth certificate, rather than "Jim" or "James". He has two sisters, Yvonne and Diana. He grew up in a working-class neighborhood and spent time in Puerto Rico during his childhood. Smits earned a bachelor's degree from Brooklyn College in 1980 and an MFA from Cornell University in 1982. Though born in New York, Smits has deep Puerto Rican roots and frequently visits the island. In 2001, he was arrested for his participation in protests against U.S. Navy bombing practices on the Puerto Rican offshore island of Vieques. Career. A notable early role played by Smits was that of Eddie Rivera in the series premiere of "Miami Vice". In the episode, he was Sonny Crockett's original partner, only to be shortly killed off in a sting gone wrong. He played Victor Sifuentes in the first five seasons of the long-running legal drama "L.A. Law". Smits played a Conky Repairman on "Pee-wee's Playhouse" as one of the series' memorable characters. He also starred in the multigenerational story of a Chicano family in "My Family/Mi Familia" in 1995. One of Smits' most acclaimed roles was that of Detective Bobby Simone on "NYPD Blue", which he starred in from 1994 to 1998. He was nominated numerous times for Emmys for his performance on that television series and won the ALMA award twice. A new audience became aware of Smits for his appearance as Senator Bail Organa of Alderaan, who appears in the film ' and becomes Princess Leia's adoptive father in the film '. He reappears as Bail Organa in the game "". In 1999, he received the HOLA Award for Excellence (later renamed the HOLA Rita Moreno Award for Excellence) from the Hispanic Organization of Latin Actors (HOLA). Smits was to have hosted the 2001 Latin Grammy Awards broadcast on September 11, 2001, but it was called off because of the terrorist attacks that day. He instead hosted a non-televised press conference to announce the winners. Smits played the role of Congressman Matt Santos of Houston, Texas in the final two seasons of the American television drama "The West Wing", joining fellow "L.A. Law" alumnus John Spencer. Smits's character eventually ran for and won the US Presidency in the series. For the third season of "Dexter", Smits played the role of Miguel Prado, an assistant district attorney who befriends Dexter. Smits was nominated for an Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series for the role. Additionally, he portrayed the character, Alex Vega, in the CBS TV series "Cane", which aired from September 25, 2007 to December 18, 2007 and was subsequently cancelled by the network due to the 2007 Screen Writer's Guild strike. Smits joined the "Sons of Anarchy" cast in season 5 as Nero Padilla, a high-level pimp who refers to himself as a "companionator". He builds a relationship with Gemma Teller Morrow (Katey Sagal) and creates an alliance and mentorship with the central character Jax Teller (Charlie Hunnam). Stage performances. In the mid-1980s, Smits acted in numerous performances at the Hangar Theatre in Ithaca, New York. His roles at the Hangar included Max in the 1982 production of "Cabaret" and Paul in "Loose Ends" the same year. Smits has participated in the Public Theater's New York Shakespeare Festival, playing the role of Duke Orsino in "Twelfth Night" in 2002, and Benedick in "Much Ado about Nothing" in 2004. From November 2009 to February 2010, he appeared opposite Christine Lahti, Annie Potts and Ken Stott in the critically lauded Broadway play, "God of Carnage", replacing Jeff Daniels. In December 2012 through March 2013, he appeared in Chicago in "The Motherfucker with the Hat" at Steppenwolf Theatre Company. Personal life. Smits was married to Barbara Smits from 1981 until their divorce in 1987. They have two children, Taina (born in 1973) and Joaquin (born in 1983). Since 1986, Smits has been in a relationship with actress Wanda De Jesus; they live in Los Angeles. Smits helped found the National Hispanic Foundation for the Arts to advance the presence of Latinos in the media, telecommunications and entertainment industries. Smits is also an advocate for diagnostic colorectal screening and has appeared in a public service commercial. Most recently, Smits filmed a PSA for Detroit Non-Profit Cass Community Social Services. Smits will act as the Honorary Chair of their 6th Annual "Catch the Fireworks With Cass" event that takes place during the notable fireworks display in Brooklyn. Smits was arrested in 1987 for assaulting an officer after police answered a call for help at his home. His girlfriend and he were arrested for battery on three police officers who responded to the call. The charges were later dropped because of conflicting witness statements. Smits later pled guilty to the misdemeanor of disturbing the peace, receiving a sentence of 18 months of unsupervised probation and a $150 fine. Wanda DeJesus pled guilty to misidentifying herself to a police officer and disturbing the peace. She received a fine of $250, 18 months of unsupervised probation and 75 hours of community service.
1054656	Iron Will is a 1994 family adventure film directed by Charles Haid. The film stars Mackenzie Astin, Kevin Spacey, David Ogden Stiers, George Gerdes, Brian Cox, Penelope Windust, and August Schellenberg. Plot. In 1917, Will Stoneman's (Mackenzie Astin) father is killed in a mushing accident leaving Will to care for his family. Needing money for college and to save the family farm in South Dakota, Will decides to travel to Winnipeg, Canada to take part in a dog-sled race from Winnipeg to Saint Paul, Minnesota. With the aid of Ned Dodd (August Schellenberg), the young man prepares both physically and mentally for the harsh weather and terrain throughout the race. During the race, Will becomes popular with the newspaper media as reporter Harry Kingsley (Kevin Spacey) tells about Will's strong courage in what he must do. Production. Much of the film was shot on location in Minnesota, mostly along the Lake Superior shoreline as well as Iron Range cities such as Floodwood. Although the race takes place between Winnipeg and Saint Paul, neither city actually appears in the film. The Winnipeg starting point for the race was filmed in Duluth, Minnesota near the old Central High School. The Lake Superior Railroad Museum, located in Two Harbors, Minnesota, portrayed the St. Paul train station's finish line. Due to the general lack of mountains in Minnesota (excepting the Sawtooth Mountains), scenes in which Will goes through mountainous terrain were filmed in Montana. Additional footage was shot in Superior, Wisconsin as well as Brookston, Minnesota. Historical accuracy. Although the story of Will Stoneman is fictional, the character was loosely based on the exploits of Albert Campbell, who won the 1917 race from Winnipeg to Saint Paul, and Fred Hartman, the American hope in the race. According to Campbell, he won the race to fulfill his father’s dying wish made just two weeks before the race.
1166263	Billy Jayne (born April 10, 1969) is an American actor, musician, and director. He has been in many films, and has sometimes been credited as Billy Jacoby. His siblings, Scott Jacoby, Robert Jayne, Susan Jayne and Laura Jacoby, are also actors. Name. Jayne was born in Flushing, New York. At the age of three years old, he was visiting his older brother Scott Jacoby on the set of "That Certain Summer", for which Scott later won an Emmy for Best Supporting Actor. The director needed someone to play Scott in flashbacks, and Billy was selected and began his career. Scott and Billy have different fathers and therefore different last names. Billy's mom thought it would be best at the time for Billy to use his brother Scott's last name of Jacoby. At the age of seventeen, Billy changed his professional name to coincide with his birth name from Jacoby to Jayne. He has also done years of extensive voice work for cartoons and films. Career. He was one of the most established child actors from the mid-to the late 80s, starring in numerous guest appearances on famous TV shows as Trapper John, M.D., The Golden Girls, as Blanche's 14-year-old rebellious grandson, The A-Team, 21 Jump Street. He is most known for his role in the successful teen show Parker Lewis Can't Lose, starring alongside with actor Corin Nemec. The show ran from 1990 until 1993. After the show ended he had smaller roles in shows such as Renegade (TV series), Murder One (TV series) (1995), Walker, Texas Ranger (1996), Charmed (1999), Cold Case (TV series) in 2009. In the late 90s he began to star in and direct big budget commercials for trademarks such as Dr Pepper, Nokia, Snickers and AT&T. He is now an established commercial director and producer and acts only occasionally. Music. Jayne plays, writes and produces music. Mainly a guitar player, he has toured the Persian Gulf for the troops in wartime. Billy has played on stage with Macy Gray.
65163	Bernhard Placidus Johann Nepomuk Bolzano or Bernard Bolzano in English, (October 5, 1781 – December 18, 1848), was a Bohemian mathematician, logician, philosopher, theologian and Catholic priest. He is also known for his antimilitarist views. Bolzano is an author of German expression, which was his mother tongue. His work came to prominence posthumously for its major part. Family. Bolzano was the son of two pious Catholics. His father, Bernard Pompeius Bolzano, was born in northern Italy and moved to Prague, where he married Maria Cecilia Maurer, the German-speaking daughter of a Prague merchant. Only two of their twelve children lived to adulthood. Career. Bolzano entered the University of Prague in 1796 and studied mathematics, philosophy and physics. Starting in 1800, he also began studying theology, becoming a Catholic priest in 1804. He was appointed to the then newly created chair of philosophy of religion in 1805. He proved to be a popular lecturer not just in religion but also in philosophy, and was elected head of the philosophy department in 1818. Bolzano alienated many faculty and church leaders with his teachings of the social waste of militarism and the needlessness of war. He urged a total reform of the educational, social, and economic systems that would direct the nation's interests toward peace rather than toward armed conflict between nations. Upon his refusal to recant his beliefs, Bolzano was dismissed from the university in 1819. His political convictions (which he was inclined to share with others with some frequency) eventually proved to be too liberal for the Austrian authorities. He was exiled to the countryside and at that point devoted his energies to his writings on social, religious, philosophical, and mathematical matters. Although forbidden to publish in mainstream journals as a condition of his exile, Bolzano continued to develop his ideas and publish them either on his own or in obscure Eastern European journals. In 1842 he moved back to Prague, where he died in 1848. Works. Bolzano's posthumously published work "Paradoxien des Unendlichen (The Paradoxes of the Infinite)" was greatly admired by many of the eminent logicians who came after him, including Charles Sanders Peirce, Georg Cantor, and Richard Dedekind. Bolzano's main claim to fame, however, is his 1837 "Wissenschaftslehre" ("Theory of Science"), a work in four volumes that covered not only philosophy of science in the modern sense but also logic, epistemology and scientific pedagogy. The logical theory that Bolzano developed in this work has come to be acknowledged as ground-breaking. Other works are a four-volume "Lehrbuch der Religionswissenschaft" ("Textbook of the science of religion") and the metaphysical work "Athanasia", a defense of the immortality of the soul. Bolzano also did valuable work in mathematics, which remained virtually unknown until Otto Stolz rediscovered many of his lost journal articles and republished them in 1881. "Wissenschaftslehre" ("Theory of Science"). In his 1837 "Wissenschaftslehre" Bolzano attempted to provide logical foundations for all sciences, building on abstractions like part-relation, abstract objects, attributes, sentence-shapes, ideas and propositions in themselves, sums and sets, collections, substances, adherences, subjective ideas, judgments, and sentence-occurrences. These attempts were basically an extension of his earlier thoughts in the philosophy of mathematics, for example his 1810 "Beiträge" where he emphasized the distinction between the objective relationship between logical consequences and our subjective recognition of these connections. For Bolzano, it was not enough that we merely have "confirmation" of natural or mathematical truths, but rather it was the proper role of the sciences (both pure and applied) to seek out "justification" in terms of the fundamental truths that may or may not appear to be obvious to our intuitions. Introduction to "Wissenschaftslehre". Bolzano begins his work by explaining what he means by "theory of science", and the relation between our knowledge, truths and sciences. Human knowledge, he states, is made of all truths (or true propositions) that men know or have known. This is, however, only a very small fraction of all the truths that are out there, although still too much for one human being to comprehend. Therefore, our knowledge is divided into more accessible parts. Such a collection of truths is what Bolzano calls a science ("Wissenschaft"). It is important to note that not all true propositions of a science have to be known to men; hence, this is how we can make discoveries in a science. To better understand and comprehend the truths of a science, men have created textbooks ("Lehrbuch"), which of course only contain the true propositions of the science known to men. But how to know where to divide our knowledge, that is, which truths belong together? Bolzano explains that we will ultimately know this through some reflection, but that the resulting rules of how to divide our knowledge into sciences will be a science in itself. This science, that tells us which truths belong together and should be explained in a textbook, is the "Theory of Science" ("Wissenschaftslehre"). Metaphysics. In the "Wissenschaftslehre", Bolzano is mainly concerned with three realms: (1) The realm of language, consisting in words and sentences.
1059044	Big Fat Liar is a 2002 American teen comedy film directed by Shawn Levy, written and produced by Dan Schneider and Brian Robbins, and starring Frankie Muniz, Paul Giamatti, and Amanda Bynes. The main plot revolves around 14-year-old con artist named Jason Shepherd (Muniz), whose creative writing assignment is stolen by an arrogant Hollywood producer named Marty Wolf (Giamatti), who plans to use it to make the fictional film of the same name. Plot. Jason Shepherd (Frankie Muniz) is a 14-year old pathological liar and con artist living in the fictional town of Greenbury, Michigan. When his English teacher, Ms. Phyllis Caldwell (Sandra Oh), assigns Jason and the rest of his class a creative writing assignment, Jason does not complete it. His parents, Harry and Carol (Michael Bryan French and Christine Tucci), are later called into school, where Ms. Caldwell tells Jason that if Jason cannot bring her a handwritten story, Ms. Caldwell will not consider it a valid contribution and he will flunk the class and have to take summer school. Jason writes a story entitled "Big Fat Liar", inspired by how he lies throughout his life. Now finished, Jason rides his sister's bicycle and collides with the limousine of an arrogant Hollywood producer Marty Wolf (Paul Giamatti); Jason then blackmails Wolf into giving him a ride to school. During his ride, Wolf reveals to Jason that he is also a liar and con man, but a more professional one than Jason. When the limousine reaches the school, Jason hastens out of the limo, not realizing that he has left his story behind. Wolf initially attempts to give it back to Jason, but when he sees that it is excellent, he decides to keep it for himself. Upon entering school, Jason realizes that he does not have the story. Neither his parents nor Ms. Caldwell believes him when Jason claims to have written it, and he is therefore ordered to undergo summer school. Later, Jason and his best friend, Kaylee (Amanda Bynes) finds out that Wolf has plagiarized his composition by making the fictional film "Big Fat Liar". Jason and Kaylee use their savings to fly to Los Angeles to confront Wolf. Upon their arrival in Los Angeles, Jason and Kaylee trick limo driver Frank Jackson (Donald Faison) into giving them a ride to Wolf's studio, where Jason tricks receptionist Astrid Barker (Rebecca Corry) into leaving her post to allow him to speak with Wolf about his situation. Wolf agrees to return the story, but intentionally burns it and has Jason and Kaylee removed from his office. Angered, Jason and Kaylee plan to inconvenience Wolf until he admits to having stolen "Big Fat Liar". Frank discovers their true identities and is at first irritated, but then, after discovering their true intentions, becomes sympathetic toward Jason and Kaylee's plight. Frank takes Jason and Kaylee to Wolf's house, where Jason and Kaylee add blue and orange dye to Wolf's swimming pool and shampoo, which gives him blue skin and orange hair. Impersonating the Universal Studios president's secretary, Kaylee sends Wolf to a child's birthday party to get vengeance for veteran stunt coordinator Vince (Lee Majors), an elderly employee of his whom he criticized and who had wanted to take his granddaughter to the same party. There, Wolf is mistaken for a clown and a group of children end up attacking him. Meanwhile, Jason and Kaylee modify the controls to Wolf's blue Jaguar XKR convertible, which cause various controls to perform an incorrect function. Struggling to control his convertible, Wolf stops just behind a monster truck, but is later rear ended by a vengeful old lady, whom he had insulted earlier, which causes him to crash into it, therefore causing its driver, the Masher (Brian Turk), to destroy Wolf's convertible in anger. As a result of these pranks, Wolf misses his appointment with his boss and president of Universal Studios, Marcus Duncan (Russell Hornsby). Wolf and Duncan meet together at a party to celebrate the premiere of another fictional film "Whittaker and Fowl", which turns out to be another box office bomb. Duncan distrusts Wolf to create anything better as "Whittaker and Fowl" has cost the studio three million dollars and tells him that production for "Big Fat Liar" will be withdrawn unless Wolf can convince him otherwise. Jason agrees to help Wolf in exchange for a confession of the truth to his father. Guided by Jason, Wolf makes a successful presentation which convinces Chris Ott (Shandra Duncan) to green-light "Big Fat Liar" and warning him should any little mishap occur, funding for the film will be withdrawn and his career will be over. However, Wolf betrays Jason again and he calls his security guards to remove Jason and Kaylee from his office for the second time, but this time, both their schemes and hiding place location have been uncovered and revealed as well. Rocko, the head of security, informs Jason and Kaylee that they will be forced out from Hollywood and sent back to their hometown in disgrace, while the incidents they caused will be covered up.
1485437	Polly Shannon (born September 1, 1973) is a Canadian actress. She is best known for her portrayal of Margaret Trudeau in the 2002 miniseries "Trudeau", a film about the late Prime Minister of Canada Pierre Trudeau. Biography. Polly Shannon was born September 1, 1973 in Kingston, Ontario, and raised in Aylmer, Quebec. Her father, Michael Shannon, is a doctor who served in various senior posts at Health Canada, including director general for the Laboratory Centre for Disease Control. Her mother, Mary Mackay-Smith, is a screenwriter for children's filma and television. At the age of 13, after acting in theatre as a child, Shannon became a model, with assignments that took her to New York, London, and Tokyo. She attended Philemon Wright High School in Hull, Quebec. In 1992, Shannon began her television career, landing a part in "Catwalk", a YTV series about a struggling rock band. She went on to appear in several television series, including "Sirens" (1994) as Kelly Van Pelt, "Ready or Not" (1996) as Angelique, "Side Effects" (1996) as Lisa Burns, and the Canadian horror series "The Hunger" (1999) as Jen. In 2002, Shannon appeared in the popular comedy film "Men with Brooms" in the role of Joanne. Her most notable role was playing Margaret Trudeau in the 2002 miniseries "Trudeau", a film about the late Prime Minister of Canada Pierre Trudeau. "Playing Maggie was a really thrilling experience," Shannon noted at the time. "It was a challenge that was different from anything else I've done." More recently, Shannon starred opposite Tom Selleck as his girlfriend Abby Taylor in two Jesse Stone television films, "Stone Cold" (2005) and "" (2006). Awards and nominations. She was nominated consecutively in 1999 and 2000 for a Gemini at the Gemini Awards, for Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role in a Dramatic Program or Mini-Series for "The Girl Next Door" (1999) and for Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role in a Dramatic Program or Mini-Series for "The Sheldon Kennedy Story" (1999), respectively. In 2003, she was nominated for a Canadian Comedy Award for Pretty Funny Female Performance for "Men with Brooms" (2002). In 2008, she won the Special Jury Award at the WorldFest Houston for "Miranda & Gordon" (2006), shared with Mark Lutz (actor), Kerry Young, and Darren Portelli.
1132640	Sacred Flesh is a 1999 British nunsploitation film. It is set in an indeterminate past, and consists of a series of loosely connected vignettes that depict pseudo-lesbian sexuality and some sado-masochistic activity. Synopsis. Sister Elizabeth, the mother superior of a medieval convent, has visions of Mary Magdalene and a skeletal dead nun. Father Henry, the abbot, and his servant Richard are summoned by the convent's abbess to help with the hysteria spreading among the order.
585772	Vimala Raman is an Indian film actress, model and a trained Bharatanatyam dancer. She made her acting debut in the 2006 Tamil film "Poi" and went on to appear primarily in South Indian cinema. Early life. Vimala Raman was born to a Tamil family in Sydney, Australia. Her father Pattabhi Raman hails from Bangalore and her mother Mrs. Santha Raman is from Coimbatore. Her brother is a lawyer settled in USA. She was brought up in Sydney, where she completed her education. She started practicing Bharatanatyam at the age of five. In 2004 she won the Miss India Australia title as well as the Miss India Australia cyberqueen title.She moved to India in 2006 to pursue an acting career, which had been her childhood ambition.[2 When she entered the film industry, she was asked to change her name, however she was firmly against it, arguing that her name was her identity. Career. She made her acting debut in 2004 with "Poi", a Tamil film directed by Kailasam Balachander. Her first Malayalam film was "Time" with Suresh Gopi. She paired with Ajmal Ameer in "Pranayakalam" in 2007. In the same year, she also appeared with Mammooty in "Nasrani" and with Dileep in "Romeoo". She appeared in "College Kumaran" with Mohanlal and in "Calcutta News" with Dileep in 2008. Vimala Raman attended the Natanalaya Dance Academy based in Sydney, Australia. She studied dance under the tutelage of Jayalakshmi Kandiah. In 2010, she bagged a dream role opposite South Super Star Dr.Vishnuvardhan, an Indian star of 220 movies in five different languages. In this Kannada film Aptharakshaka directed by P. Vasu, her role was very much appreciated by the critics and gave her a very good recognition. The film went on to become a mega hit that run for 35 continuous weeks in the theaters.
1056901	The Cake Eaters is a 2007 American independent drama film about two small town families who must confront old issues with the return of one family's son. The film was directed by Mary Stuart Masterson and stars Kristen Stewart, Aaron Stanford, Bruce Dern, and Jayce Bartok. Kristen Stewart is featured as Georgia, a young girl with Friedreich's ataxia, a rare disease for which there is currently no cure. Plot. "The Cake Eaters" is a small-town, ensemble drama that explores the lives of two interconnected families coming to terms with love in the face of loss. Living in rural America, the Kimbrough family are a conflicted bunch: Easy, the patriarch and local butcher, is grieving over the recent loss of his wife, Ceci, while hiding a secret ongoing affair for years; Beagle, his youngest son who was left to care for his ailing mother, works in the local high school cafeteria by day but has a burning passion inside that manifests itself through painting street signs; and the eldest son, Guy, has been away from the family for years while pursuing his rock star dream in the big city until the day he learns of his mother's death and that he has missed the funeral. Upon Guy's return home, relationships between the characters begin to unravel: Beagle's pent up emotions connect with Georgia Kaminski, a terminally ill teenage girl wanting to experience love before it is too late; Easy's long-time affair with Marg, Georgia's eccentric grandmother, is finally exposed to the Kimbrough children; and Guy discovers that in his absence his high school sweetheart, Stephanie, has moved on and started a family of her own. Consequently, The Kimbroughs and Kaminskis manage to establish new beginnings in facing their varied relationships. Meaning of title. In an interview at The Austin Film Festival in 2007, Jayce Bartok, the movie's screenwriter, was asked about the title's meaning. Bartok is quoted as saying, "The Cake Eaters is a term I grew up with in Pennsylvania. My mom used to use it to describe those who had it made, had their lives mapped out for them, were the most likely to succeed… 'The Cake Eaters.' I thought it was an interesting metaphor for this group of misfits who begin the story searching and longing for love, trying to overcome grief, and through the course of the story… find their 'cake.' They find some love, happiness, peace…." Release. "The Cake Eaters" opened at the Tribeca Film Festival on April 29, 2007, and made the rounds of the independent film circuit, premiering at various film festivals such as Woodstock Film Festival, Lone Star International Film Festival, Fort Lauderdale International Film Festival, et al. It was eventually given a very limited theatrical release on March 13, 2009, and debuted on DVD on March 24, 2009. Critical reception. "The Cake Eaters" currently holds a "fresh" rating of 68% at Rotten Tomatoes. Roger Ebert of the "Chicago Sun-Times", who gave it three out of four stars, praised Masterson for a good debut. Stephen Holden of "The New York Times" called it a "small, overcrowded ensemble piece" that is "elevated" by "superior acting" into "something deeper". Other critics, such as Rex Reed of the "New York Observer", Bill Goodykoontz of the "Arizona Republic", and V.A. Musetto of the "New York Post", also gave favorable reviews, with Musetto, in particular, lamenting the fact that it had taken two years for the film to be released theatrically. Not all reception was positive however, with Erin Trahan of the "Boston Globe", Gary Goldstein of "Los Angeles Times", and Aaron Hillis of Village Voice, among others, giving it negative reviews. Goldstein, in particular, was sharply critical of what he described as "a bland ensemble drama with an unremarkable script."
1598253	Herbert "Barry" Morse (10 June 1918 – 2 February 2008) was a naturalized Canadian (of British birth) actor of stage, screen and radio best known for his roles in the ABC television series "The Fugitive" and the British sci-fi drama "". His performing career spanned seven decades and he had thousands of roles to his credit, including work for the British Broadcasting Corporation and the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. Beginnings. Born to a Cockney family, Morse was a 15 year old school dropout and errand boy when he won a scholarship to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. He performed the role of the Lion in "Androcles and the Lion" and as a result came to know George Bernard Shaw, a patron of the academy. His first paid job as an actor while still a student was in "If I Were King". At graduation he starred in the title role of Shakespeare's "Henry V", presented as a Royal Command Performance for King George VI and Queen Elizabeth. Career. Radio. Upon graduation, Morse won the BBC's Radio Prize which led to several parts and a leading role in "The Fall of the City". Later he played the lead in William Shakespeare's "Hamlet" and starred as Paul Temple in the radio series "Send for Paul Temple Again", among dozens of other roles. He later performed on CBC radio beginning in 1951 and continuing to the 1980s, including the long-running series "A Touch of Greasepaint", the Joe McCarthy-inspired "The Investigator", and "1984". He also starred in a number U.S. productions in the 1970s and 1980s for producer Yuri Rasovsky, including "The Odyssey of Homer", which won a Peabody Award. Morse's final radio performance, "Rogues and Vagabonds - A Theatrical Scrapbook", aired on internet radio KSAV 7 August and 9 August 2007, prior to being released on compact disc. The hour-long special audio drama was composed of a half-dozen vignettes and performances culled from theatrical history, including William Shakespeare and George Bernard Shaw. British stage. Morse was a member of repertory theatre companies in Peterborough, Nottingham and other cities where he gained experience as an actor while playing more than 200 roles. In 1941 he joined the national tour of "The First Mrs. Fraser" starring Dame Marie Tempest and A.E. Matthews. He debuted on the London West End stage in "The School for Slavery". Other West End productions included "Escort", "The Assassin", and "A Bullet in the Ballet". He was directed by John Gielgud in "Crisis in Heaven". Morse developed a theatrical partnership with actress Nova Pilbeam and they worked together both in film and on stage, most notably in the hit stage productions of "The Voice of the Turtle" and "Flowers for the Living". Film. Morse made his film debut in the 1942 comedy "The Goose Steps Out" with Will Hay and continued with roles in "Thunder Rock", "When We Are Married", and "This Man is Mine" (released as "A Soldier for Christmas" in North America) with Glynis Johns and Nova Pilbeam. Other notable films include "Kings of the Sun" with Yul Brynner, "Justine", and "Puzzle of a Downfall Child" with Faye Dunaway. He also appeared in the thrillers "Asylum" with Peter Cushing, "Funeral Home" with Kay Hawtrey and Lesleh Donaldson, (1980), and "The Changeling" with George C. Scott. He worked on several Lacewood animated productions, notably as the voice of Dragon in "The Railway Dragon", alongside Tracey Moore who played Emily. In 1999 he filmed the dramatic comedy "Taxman" with Billy Zane, released as "Promise Her Anything" and on DVD as "Nothing to Declare". His final film appearance was in I Really Hate My Job, released in 2007. Later stage work. Morse performed on Broadway in "Hide and Seek", "Salad Days", and the lead of Frederick Rolfe in "Hadrian the Seventh", which he also played in Australia, co-starring with Frank Thring. He directed the historic debut of "Staircase" starring Eli Wallach and Milo O'Shea, which stands as Broadway's first depiction of homosexual men in a serious way. He also starred in the U.S. national tour of Harold Pinter's "The Caretaker" as Davies. He first presented a version of his one man show "Merely Players" in 1959, which explored the experiences of actors through history, with the definitive version of the show debuting in 1984 for a Canadian national tour. Morse was perhaps the only actor to have performed in every play of William Shakespeare and George Bernard Shaw. Morse served as Artistic Director of the Shaw Festival of Canada for the 1966 season and as an Adjunct Professor at Yale Drama School in 1968. In 1995, he premiered the Elizabeth Sharland play "The Private Life of George Bernard Shaw" in Toronto, also starring Shirley Knight. The play featured Morse in the role of "George Bernard Shaw" with ten actresses portraying the various women in Shaw's life. Morse later performed the play in 1997 at the British Theatre Museum in London. With his son Hayward Morse, he starred in the 2004 North American debut of "Bernard and Bosie: A Most Unlikely Friendship" by Anthony Wynn, performed at the University of Florida, Sarasota. This two-act stage drama is based on the correspondence between playwright George Bernard Shaw, played by Morse, and Lord Alfred 'Bosie' Douglas (the intimate friend of Oscar Wilde), played by Hayward. The following year, Morse appeared in the world premiere performance of the science fiction play "Contact" by Doug Grissom, co-starring Ryan Case and presented in Tampa, Florida. Television. Guest roles. Morse guest starred in more than a thousand drama, comedy, and talk show presentations in the U.S., Canada and Britain. Early American appearances include the "U.S. Steel Hour," "Encounter," and "Playhouse 90". He also guest starred on such TV series as "Naked City", "The Untouchables", "The Twilight Zone", "Wagon Train", "The Defenders", The Starlost and "The Saint". In "The Outer Limits" episode "Controlled Experiment" he starred with Carroll O'Connor and Grace Lee Whitney. In "The Starlost" episode ""The Goddess Calabra"" he guest starred with John Colicos. In his later years, Morse guest-starred in a number of Canadian-produced series, including "La Femme Nikita" and "", as well as such British series as "Doctors", "Waking the Dead" and "Space Island One". Series. Morse's first television series was "Presenting Barry Morse", which aired for thirteen weeks in the summer of 1960 on CBC. Some of his best known television roles included: Lt Philip Gerard on the 1960s series "The Fugitive" with David Janssen; "Prof. Victor Bergman" in the 1975-76 season of "" with Martin Landau, Barbara Bain and Zienia Merton; 'Mr. Parminter' in "The Adventurer" with Gene Barry; and "Alec 'The Tiger' Marlowe" in "The Zoo Gang" with Sir John Mills, Lilli Palmer and Brian Keith. In 1982 he played the Reaganesque U.S. President Johnny Cyclops in the satirical sitcom "Whoops Apocalypse" in the UK and hosted the series "Strange But True" for the CBC. Miniseries. Morse appeared in a number of television mini-series, including "The Winds of War" and "War and Remembrance" (both with Robert Mitchum), "The Martian Chronicles", "Sadat" and Frederick Forsyth's "Icon". Other notable miniseries appearances include "A Woman of Substance", "Master of the Game" and "Race for the Bomb". Books. The book based on his long-running stage play "Merely Players - The Scripts" was published in 2003. His first autobiography "Pulling Faces, Making Noises" was released in 2004. "Stories of the Theatre" was published in 2006 and features material from his CBC radio series "A Touch of Greasepaint", which aired from 1954 to 1967. His long-awaited theatrical memoir, "Remember With Advantages - Chasing 'The Fugitive' and Other Stories from an Actor's Life" (ISBN 9780786427710), (written with Robert E. Wood and Anthony Wynn), details his life and career. The book features a foreword written by Academy Award-winning actor Martin Landau and was released by McFarland and Company publishers in spring 2007. Morse wrote the Afterword to "Destination: Moonbase Alpha - The Unofficial and Unauthorised Guide to SPACE: 1999" (ISBN 9781845830342), published in 2010 by Telos Publishing. Written by Robert E. Wood and featuring a colour photo section of models created for the series by Martin Bower, as well as a foreword by Zienia Merton, the book is the most comprehensive work ever published on the cult science fiction series "". Morse is extensively quoted throughout the book, as are numerous other series cast and crew. Personal life. Family life. After a short courtship, Morse married actress Sydney Sturgess on 26 March 1939, during their work together in repertory theatre in Peterborough, Cambridgeshire. The couple had two children, Melanie Morse (1945–2005) and Hayward Morse (b. 1947). In 1951, the Morse family moved to Canada, where he worked in radio and theatre, and participated in the first television broadcasts of CBC Television from Montreal, and later Toronto. Morse became a Canadian citizen in 1953. Charitable work. Barry Morse long supported a number of charitable organisations, including the Toronto-based Performing Arts Lodges of Canada, the Royal Theatrical Fund, the London Shakespeare Workout Prison Project, Actors' Fund of Canada, The Samaritans, BookPALS, and Parkinsons disease treatment and research. The cause of Parkinson's disease held a special place in Morse's heart as his wife of more than 60 years, actress Sydney Sturgess, battled the illness for 14 years before her death in 1999. In later years, he also became an advocate for senior citizens in his adopted homeland of Canada. Death. Barry Morse died 2 February 2008 at University College London Hospital, aged 89, from undisclosed causes. His body was donated to medical science.
1067814	A Good Old Fashioned Orgy is a 2011 ensemble-comedy film written and directed by Alex Gregory and Peter Huyck. It stars Jason Sudeikis, Leslie Bibb, Lake Bell, Michelle Borth, Nick Kroll, Tyler Labine, Lindsay Sloane, Lucy Punch, and Will Forte. The main plot follows Eric (Sudeikis), who, having thrown parties at his father's house for years, decides to have one last party when the house is to be sold: an orgy. The world premiere of "A Good Old Fashioned Orgy" was held at the 2011 Tribeca Film Festival in New York City on April 29, 2011. The film received a limited theatrical release in the United States on September 2, 2011. Plot. Eric (Jason Sudeikis) is a perpetual adolescent who lives to party, holding lavish theme-events with his friends using his father's large house in the Hamptons. On July 3, Eric throws a White trash bash party attended by his friends Sue (Michelle Borth), Adam (Nick Kroll), Mike (Tyler Labine), Laura (Lindsay Sloane), Kate (Lucy Punch), Glenn (Will Forte), Doug (Martin Starr) and his girlfriend Willow (Angela Sarafyan), Alison (Lake Bell) and her boyfriend Marcus (Rhys Coiro). Eric meets Kelly (Leslie Bibb) at the party. The following morning, Eric's father (Don Johnson) arrives and informs him that he is selling the house. The next weekend, the group arrive back at the house and find it for sale by Dody (Lin Shaye) and Kelly. Eric and Mike decide to throw a last ultimate party at the house on Labor Day weekend. Lamenting the more liberal sex attitude of the younger generation that passed over his own, Eric suggests having an orgy. When they present the idea to their friends, they are all reluctant, but when Mike and Eric argue that afterwards everyone will be moving away from each other and that this might be their last real time all together, Sue agrees to join. Laura joins the plan to improve her self-esteem, and is later joined by Alison after she breaks up with Marcus. Sue has feelings for Eric from high school, but Eric pursues a relationship with Kelly, to attempt to interfere with her selling the house. Doug and Willow join the orgy, hoping it will make him more confident. At Kate and Glenn's wedding, a drunken Adam reveals he has lost his job because Eric destroyed his phone at the White Trash bash, and agrees to join the orgy. Glenn finds out about the orgy and informs Kate, causing the pair to fall out with the group for not including them. Eric and Mike go to an underground sex club to research orgies, and gain advice from Mike's uncle Vic (David Koechner). Later, during a date with Kelly, she asks Eric to meet with her friends on Labor Day, to which he reluctantly agrees. Eric admits to Mike that he is developing feelings for Kelly and is no longer sure about taking part in the orgy. The week before Labor Day, Kate and Glenn ask to join the orgy but the group refuses because the couple have a child. Kelly tells Eric that she has asked Dody to slow the house sale down until the end of the summer. The Labor Day weekend arrives and the group prepare for the orgy. Doug decides to back out at the last minute, causing the group to descend into arguments, culminating when Alison publicly reveals Sue's feelings for Eric, and Doug accuses Mike of being Eric's "pet". Glenn and Kate arrive uninvited, intending to gatecrash the orgy, but they end up having sex in their car. Eric decides to leave and go to Kelly's home, but discovers she is on a date. Eric returns to the party where the group reconcile, and the orgy finally begins. On Labor Day, Doug gives Mike a copy of his finished album, having finally found the confidence to pursue his music career. Sue gets over her feelings for Eric, Adam and Laura enter into a relationship, and Eric reconciles with Kelly. Kelly tells Eric that the house deal fell through and it will now take longer to sell. Eric begins planning a party for Memorial Day. Cast. The cast includes: Gregory and Huyck cameo in the film as, respectively, a pizza delivery man and a date of the character Kelly. Development. Writing. "A Good Old Fashioned Orgy" was long in development, with Gregory and Huyck beginning writing the script as early as 1997 while they were writers on the television series, "The Larry Sanders Show". The concept of the film was based upon a story told by a fellow writer concerning a party he had attended in the Hollywood Hills that ended in an impromptu orgy. Skeptical about the amount of truth to the story, believing that people would be "too full of shame, fear and guilt to make a successful orgy happen," it nevertheless inspired Gregory and Huyck. The pair believed that the concept would make for an interesting ensemble comedy due in part to the powerful emotions that such a sexually charged situation would entail. The characters were all based upon Gregory, Huyck and their own friends. Gregory claimed that Eric (Sudeikis) and Mike (Labine) are based largely on Huyck with both Sudeikis' and Labine's wardrobe being based on him. Huyck claimed that Adam, Glenn and Marcus were based on Gregory. Gregory and Huyck brought their first draft to their current TV agent who advised them to progress no further with the idea and abandon the project. Undaunted, the pair circulated the early draft and met with several producers to assemble a production team. With producers in place, the pair then began thinking about casting, initially setting their sights on Vince Vaughn. Vaughn ultimately did not take part in the film but worked with Gregory and Huyck on reworking the script. On Vaughn's input, Gregory stated: Casting. With the new plot direction, the pair revisited the casting of the lead role, Eric. Huyck eventually saw Sudeikis singing karaoke at a "Saturday Night Live" after party and felt he would fit the role. At the time, Sudeikis was only a writer for "Saturday Night Live" and it was felt that his playing the film's lead would require a leap of faith. After Gregory saw Sudeikis acting on the comedy show "30 Rock" however, he was also convinced that Sudeikis would be perfect for the role. While interviewing casting directors, Susie Farris stated her first choice for the role would also be Sudeikis, resulting in her being hired. Filming. Principal photography for the film commenced in May 2008 in Wilmington, North Carolina, taking place over 30 days. Wilmington was chosen due to it possessing the largest studio infrastructure on the east coast of America and because of the native architecture that bore similarities to homes found in the Hamptons of New York City. No stages or sets were created for the production with all filming occurring on location in actual businesses and locations using local residents as extras. One business in particular, only agreed to filming after it was agreed that the business name, "Fred's Beds", appear in the racy scene involving research for the orgy at a sex club. A late night party scene involved local extras and was filmed over 10 hours. Release. In February 2011, Samuel Goldwyn Films and Sony Pictures Worldwide Acquisitions (SPWA) obtained the distributions rights to the film in the United States. Samuel Goldwyn will theatrically release the film, aiming for a late Summer 2011 release. SPWA also obtained the Australian and Canadian rights to release the film. The film premiered at the 2011 Tribeca Film Festival in New York City on April 29, 2011. The US West coast premiere occurred at the ArcLight Hollywood cinema in Hollywood, California on August 25, 2011. Box office. "A Good Old Fashioned Orgy" received a limited release in the United States on September 2, 2011 across 143 theaters. During its opening day, the film accrued a total of $117,564, an average of $822 per theater. As of September 18, 2011, it has taken a total of $200,227. Critical reception. The film has received generally negative reviews. It has attained a 32% (4.4/10) aggregate approval rating based on 63 reviews on the review-aggregate website Rotten Tomatoes, providing a consensus that "its titillating title promises ribald laughs, but the lazily written, indifferently acted, and only sporadically funny "A Good Old Fashioned Orgy" fails to consummate." It also received a score of 44 out of 100 from review aggregate Metacritic, which indicates a "mixed or average" reception based on 26 reviews. John Defore of "The Hollywood Reporter" compared the film favorably to "'80s summer romp-romances", describing it as a "solidly commercial picture". DeFore appreciated the "witty banter" delivered by the cast but singled out Labine as "inherently funny" and the "cast's only automatic laugh-getter". DeFore however lamented that the film was "less outrageous than expected" given the premise and "may leave audiences wanting more". DeFore was critical of the film for including women who "look like models" in the orgy "while only one of the men can be called handsome." John Anderson of "Variety" reacted positively to the film, stating "the comic timing of this sex-saturated farce...adds up to a winner in the laughs department", echoing DeFore's sentiments that the dialog is "smart". Anderson praised the performances of Sudeikis and Labine, giving particular mention to Labine as "funny all on his own as Eric's best friend, Mike, but he would be funny in an H&R Block commercial." Katie Calautti of "Comic Book Resources" appreciated the "whip-smart humor" and "palpable chemistry" between the cast. Calautti added to the praise of Labine, stating he "irrefutably steals the show with his Jack Black-like comedic timing and Chris Farley lovability". Calautti concluded her review by saying "The happy ending, though, is that their spot-on casting and solid narrative deliver bang for your buck." "The Village Voice" enjoyed the film, stating "riffs and one-liners fly from every corner, fast enough to avert the sting of the lamer gambits" and concluded that it "may be the sex comedy this generation deserves."
1064478	"Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song" is a 1971 American independent drama film, written, produced, scored, directed by, and starring Melvin Van Peebles, father of actor Mario Van Peebles (who was also in the movie). It tells the picaresque story of a poor African American man on his flight from the white authority. Van Peebles began to develop the film after being offered a three-picture contract for Columbia Pictures. No studio would finance the film, so Van Peebles funded the film himself, shooting it independently over a period of 19 days, performing all of his own stunts and appearing in several unsimulated sex scenes. He received a $50,000 loan from Bill Cosby to complete the project. The film's fast-paced montages and jump-cuts were unique features in American cinema at the time. The picture was censored in some markets, and received mixed critical reviews. The musical score of "Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song" was performed by Earth, Wind & Fire. Van Peebles did not have any money for traditional advertising methods, so he released the soundtrack album prior to the film's release in order to generate publicity. Initially, the film was screened only in two theaters in the United States. It went on to gross $4.1 million at the box office. Huey P. Newton celebrated and welcomed the film's revolutionary implications, and "Sweetback" became required viewing for members of the Black Panther Party. According to "Variety", it demonstrated to Hollywood that films which portrayed "militant" blacks could be highly profitable, leading to the creation of the blaxploitation genre, although some do not consider this example of Van Peebles' work to be an exploitation film. Plot. A young African American orphan (Mario Van Peebles) is taken in by the proprietor of a Los Angeles brothel in the 1940s. While working there as a towel boy, he loses his virginity at a young age to one of the prostitutes. The women name him "Sweet Sweetback" in honor of his sexual prowess and large penis. As an adult, Sweetback (Melvin Van Peebles) works as a performer in the whorehouse, entertaining customers by performing in a sex show. One night, a pair of LAPD officers come in to speak to Sweetback's boss, Beetle (Simon Chuckster). A black man had been murdered, and there is pressure from the black community to bring in a suspect. The police ask permission to arrest Sweetback, blame him for the crime, and then release him a few days later for lack of evidence, in order to appease the black community. Beetle agrees, and the officers arrest Sweetback. On the way to the police station, the officers arrest a young Black Panther named Mu-Mu (Hubert Scales). They handcuff him to Sweetback, but when Mu-Mu insults the officers, they take both men out of the car, undo the handcuff from Mu-Mu's wrist, and beat him. In response, Sweetback uses the handcuffs, still hanging from his wrist, to beat the officers into unconsciousness. The remainder of the film chronicles Sweetback's flight through South Central Los Angeles towards the United States–Mexico border. Sweetback is captured by the police and violently interrogated about his previous assault on the arresting officers, but he escapes when a riot breaks out. Sweetback goes to a woman who cuts his handcuffs off in exchange for sex. With his handcuffs off, Sweetback continues onward, only to be captured by a chapter of the Hells Angels. The female leader of the gang is impressed by the size of Sweetback's penis, and agrees to help him and Mu-Mu escape from the police in exchange for sex. The police find Sweetback and Mu-Mu at the bikers' hangout, but Sweetback escapes on foot while Mu-Mu goes away with the bikers. Mu-Mu and one of the bikers (John Amos) are killed. After his escape from the bikers' hangout, a white man sympathetic to Sweetback's cause agrees to switch clothes with him, allowing the usually velour-clad Sweetback to blend in. The police find Sweetback's former foster mother, who reveals that Sweetback's birth name is Leroy. The film concludes in the desert, where the L.A. police send several hunting dogs after Sweetback. He makes it into the Tijuana River, and escapes into Mexico, swearing to return to "collect dues". Production. After Melvin Van Peebles had completed "Watermelon Man" for Columbia Pictures, he was offered a three-picture contract. While the deal was still up in the air, Van Peebles developed the story for "Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song". The initial idea for the film did not come clearly to him at first. One day, Van Peebles drove into the Mojave desert, turned off the highway, and drove over the rise of a hill. He parked the car, got out, and squatted down facing the sun. He decided that the film was going to be "about a brother getting the Man's foot out of his ass." Because no studio would finance the film, Van Peebles put his own money into the production, and shot it independently. Van Peebles was given a $50,000 loan by Bill Cosby to complete the film. "Cosby didn't want an equity part," according to Van Peebles. "He just wanted his money back." Van Peebles wound up with controlling ownership of the film. Several actors auditioned for the lead role of Sweetback, but told Van Peebles that they wouldn't do the film unless they were given more dialogue. Van Peebles ended up playing the part himself. According to Van Peebles, during the first day of shooting, director of photography and head cameraman Bob Maxwell told him he could not mix two different shades of mechanical film lights, because he believed the results would not appear well on film. Van Peebles told him to do it anyway. When he saw the rushes, Maxwell was overjoyed, and Van Peebles did not encounter that issue again during the shoot. Van Peebles shot the film over a period of 19 days in order to avoid the possibility of the cast, most of whom were amateurs, showing on some days with haircuts or clothes different from the prior day. He shot the film in what he referred to as "globs," where he would shoot entire sequences at a time. Because Van Peebles couldn't afford a stunt man, he performed all of the stunts himself, which also included appearing in several unsimulated sex scenes. At one point in the shoot, Van Peebles was forced to jump off a bridge. Bob Maxwell later stated, "Well, that's great, Mel, but let's do it again." Van Peebles ended up performing the stunt nine times. Van Peebles contracted gonorrhea when filming one of the many sex scenes, and successfully applied to the Directors's Guild in order to get workers' compensation because he was "hurt on the job." Van Peebles used the money to purchase more film. Van Peebles and several key crew members were armed because it was dangerous to attempt to create a film without the support of the union. One day, Van Peebles looked for his gun, and failed to find it. Van Peebles found out that someone had put it in the prop box. When they filmed the scene in which Beetle is interrogated by police, who fire a gun next to both of his ears, it was feared that the real gun would be picked up instead of the prop. While shooting a sequence with members of the Hells Angels, one of the bikers told Van Peebles they wanted to leave; Van Peebles responded by telling them they were paid to shoot until the scene was over. The biker took out a knife and started cleaning his fingernails with it. In response, Van Peebles snapped his fingers, and his crewmembers were standing there with rifles. The bikers stayed to shoot the scene. Van Peebles had received a permit to set a car on fire, but had done so on a Friday; as a result, there was no time to have it filed before shooting the scene. When the scene was shot, a fire truck showed up. This ended up in the final cut of the film. Directing. Van Peebles stated that he approached directing the film "like you do the cupboard when you're broke and hungry: throw in everything eatable and hope to come out on top with the seasoning, i.e., by editing." Van Peebles stated that "story-wise, I came up with an idea, why not the direct approach. [...] To avoid putting myself into a corner and writing something I wouldn't be able to shoot, I made a list of the givens in the situation and tried to take those givens and juggle them into the final scenario." Van Peebles wanted "a victorious film [...] where niggers could walk out standing tall instead of avoiding each other's eyes, looking once again like they'd had it." Van Peebles was aware of the fact that films produced by major studios would appear to be more polished than low-budget independently made features, and was determined to make a film that " as good as anything one of the major studios could turn out." Van Peebles knew that in order to spread his message, the film "simply couldn't be a didactic discourse which would end up playing [...] to an empty theater except for ten or twenty aware brothers who would pat me on the back and say it tells it like it is" and that "to attract the mass we have to produce work that not only instructs but entertains". Van Peebles also wanted to make a film that would "be able to sustain itself as a viable commercial product [...] Man ain't about to go carrying no messages for you, especially a relevant one, for free." Van Peebles wanted half of his shooting crew "to be third world people. [...] So at best a staggering amount of my crew would be relatively inexperienced. [...] Any type of film requiring an enormous technical sophistication at the shooting stage should not be attempted." Van Peebles knew that gaining financing for the film would not be easy and expected "a great deal of animosity from the film media (white in the first place and right wing in the second) at all levels of filmmaking", thus he had to "write a flexible script where emphasis could be shifted. In short, stay loose." Editing. The film's fast-paced montages and jump-cuts were novel features for an American movie at the time. Stephen Holden from "The New York Times" commented that the film's editing had "a jazzy, improvisational quality, and the screen is often streaked with jarring psychedelic effects that illustrate Sweetback's alienation." In "The 50 Most Influential Black Films: A Celebration of African-American Talent, Determination, and Creativity", author S. Torriano Berry writes that the film's "odd camera angles, superimpositions, reverse-key effects, box and matting effects, rack-focus shots, extreme zooms, stop-motion and step-printing, and an abundance of jittery handheld camera work all helped to express the paranoid nightmare that [Sweetback's] life had become." Music. Since Van Peebles did not have the money to hire a composer, he composed the film's music score himself. Because he did not know how to read or write music, he numbered all of the keys on a piano so he could remember the melodies. Van Peebles stated that "Most filmmakers look at a feature in terms of image and story or vice versa. Effects and music [...] are strictly secondary considerations. Very few look at film with sound considered as a creative third dimension. So I calculate the scenario in such a way that sound can be used as an integral part of the film."
1059731	Piper Lisa Perabo (born October 31, 1976) is an American stage, film and television actress. Since her breakthrough role in "Coyote Ugly" (2000), her subsequent films have included "Lost and Delirious" (2001), "Cheaper by the Dozen" (2003), "Cheaper by the Dozen 2" (2005), "The Prestige" (2006), "Beverly Hills Chihuahua" (2008) and "Looper" (2012). Since 2010, she has played Annie Walker, the lead role on the USA Network series "Covert Affairs", for which she has been nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress. Early life. Perabo was born in Dallas, Texas and grew up in Toms River, New Jersey, the daughter of Mary Charlotte (née Ulland), a physical therapist, and George William Perabo, a professor of poetry at Ocean County College. Her father is of German, Irish, and English ancestry, and her mother is of Norwegian descent; while the surname "Perabo" is sometimes described as Portuguese, it originates in Germany, where her paternal grandfather's family was from. Her parents named her after actress Piper Laurie and she has two younger brothers: Noah (born May 1979), and Adam (born August 1981). Perabo graduated from high school at Toms River High School North and graduated "summa cum laude" from Honors Tutorial College at Ohio University in Athens, Ohio in 1998 with a bachelor's degree in theater, also studying physics, poetry and Latin in her final year. Perabo was first noticed a year before she graduated from university. She was in New York City, visiting her then-boyfriend and accompanied him to an audition. Casting director Denise Fitzgerald spotted her and asked her to read for a part. Perabo wasn't cast but when Fitzgerald found out that she didn't have any representation, she made phone calls on Perabo's behalf and found her a manager, who still represents her. Career. 1997–2000: "Coyote Ugly" and career beginnings. After graduating, Perabo moved to New York City, where she worked as a waitress. She also studied acting at the La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club and had roles in various plays. She was cast in her first feature film just a month after moving to the city, Marc Levin's comedy "Whiteboyz". In 2000 Perabo was cast in "The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle" as FBI agent Karen Sympathy. Her next film role was in "Coyote Ugly" as Violet "Jersey" Sanford, for which she won an MTV Movie Award for Best Music Moment for "One Way or Another". 2001–2009: Subsequent work. After the success of "Coyote Ugly", Perabo made a conscious decision to move away from Blockbusters and focused on independent films. In 2001, she starred in an independent Canadian drama called "Lost and Delirious", playing a boarding school student who falls in love with a female classmate (played by Jessica Paré). The film was met with mixed reviews, but the performances of Perabo, Paré and co-star Mischa Barton were, however, widely praised. Perabo's performance in particular received critical acclaim, which Loren King of the "Chicago Tribune" remarked was her "breakout performance". Entertainment Weekly's Owen Gleiberman called her "an actress of glittering ferocity" and her performance "a geyser of emotion". Jim Lane of the "Sacramento News & Review" said that "Perabo is a revelation, wild and fiery — it’s a breakthrough performance, astonishing in its fervency" and Roger Ebert praised her performance for its sincerity and "wonderful abandon and conviction". The next year she starred as a French exchange student in the independent comedy "Slap Her... She's French", which was shelved in North America for two years, then released under the new title "She Gets What She Wants". The film was released under its original title in Europe. In 2003 she had a role as the eldest Baker child, Nora, in "Cheaper by the Dozen" (2003), a role she reprised in the film's 2005 sequel.
1164528	Stephen Tyrone Colbert (, né: ; born May 13, 1964) is an American political satirist, writer, comedian, television host, and actor. He is the host of Comedy Central's "The Colbert Report", a satirical news show in which Colbert portrays a caricatured version of conservative political pundits. Colbert originally studied to be an actor, but became interested in improvisational theatre when he met famed Second City director Del Close while attending Northwestern University. He first performed professionally as an understudy for Steve Carell at Second City Chicago; among his troupe mates were comedians Paul Dinello and Amy Sedaris, with whom he developed the sketch comedy series "Exit 57". Colbert also wrote and performed on the short-lived "Dana Carvey Show" before collaborating with Sedaris and Dinello again on the cult television series "Strangers with Candy". He gained considerable attention for his role on the latter as closeted gay history teacher Chuck Noblet. His work as a correspondent on Comedy Central's news-parody series "The Daily Show" first introduced him to a wide audience. In 2005, he left "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart" to host a spin-off series, "The Colbert Report". Following "The Daily Show's" news-parody concept, "The Colbert Report" is a parody of personality-driven political opinion shows such as "The O'Reilly Factor". Since its debut, the series has established itself as one of Comedy Central's highest-rated series, earning Colbert three Emmy Award nominations and an invitation to perform as featured entertainer at the White House Correspondents' Association Dinner in 2006. Colbert was named one of "Time's" 100 most influential people in 2006 and 2012. His book "I Am America (And So Can You!)" was No. 1 on "The New York Times" Best Seller list. Early life. Colbert was born in Washington, D.C., and grew up in Charleston, South Carolina, on James Island, the youngest of 11 children in a Catholic family. Colbert and his siblings, in order from oldest to youngest, are James ("Jimmy"), Edward ("Eddie"), Mary, William ("Billy"), Margo, Thomas ("Tommy"), Jay, Elizabeth ("Lulu"), Paul, Peter, and Stephen. Many of his ancestors emigrated from Ireland to North America in the 19th century before and during the Great Famine. His father, James William Colbert, Jr., was a doctor and medical school dean at Yale University, Washington University, and finally at the Medical University of South Carolina where he served as vice president for academic affairs. Stephen's mother, Lorna Colbert (née Tuck), was a homemaker. In interviews, Colbert describes his parents as devout people who also strongly value intellectualism and taught their children that it was possible to question the Church and still be Catholic. The emphasis his family placed on intelligence and his observation of negative stereotypes of Southerners led Colbert to train himself to suppress his Southern accent while he was still quite young. As a child, he observed that Southerners were often depicted as being less intelligent than other characters on scripted television; to avoid that stereotype, he taught himself to imitate the speech of American news anchors. Colbert sometimes comedically claims his surname is French, but his family is of Irish, English, and distant German descent. Originally, the name was pronounced in English; Stephen Colbert's father, James, wanted to pronounce the name , but maintained the pronunciation out of respect for his own father. He offered his children the option to pronounce the name whichever way they preferred. Stephen started using later in life when he transferred to Northwestern University, taking advantage of the opportunity to reinvent himself in a new place where no one knew him. Stephen's brother Ed, an intellectual property attorney, retained ; this was shown in a February 12, 2009, appearance on "The Colbert Report", when his youngest brother asked him, " or ?" Ed responded "", to which Stephen jokingly replied, "See you in Hell". On September 11, 1974, when Colbert was ten years old, his father and two of his brothers, Peter and Paul, were killed in the crash of Eastern Air Lines Flight 212 while it was attempting to land in Charlotte, North Carolina. They were "en route" to enroll the two boys at Canterbury School in New Milford, Connecticut. Lorna Colbert relocated the family downtown to the more urban environment of East Bay Street in Charleston. By his own account, Colbert found the transition difficult and did not easily make new friends in his new neighborhood. Colbert later described himself during this time as detached, lacking a sense of importance regarding the things with which other children concerned themselves. He developed a love of science fiction and fantasy novels, especially the works of J. R. R. Tolkien, of which he remains an avid fan. During his adolescence, he also developed an intense interest in fantasy role-playing games, especially "Dungeons & Dragons", a pastime which he later characterized as an early experience in acting and improvisation. Colbert attended Charleston's Episcopal Porter-Gaud School, where he participated in several school plays and contributed to the school newspaper but, by his own account, was not highly motivated academically. During his adolescence, he briefly fronted a Rolling Stones cover band called "A Shot in the Dark". When he was younger, he had hoped to study marine biology, but surgery intended to repair a severely perforated eardrum caused him inner ear damage. The damage was severe enough that he was unable to pursue a career that would involve scuba diving. The damage also left him deaf in his right ear. For a while, he was uncertain whether he would attend college, but ultimately he applied and was accepted to Hampden-Sydney College in Virginia, where a friend had also enrolled. There he continued to participate in plays while studying mainly philosophy. He found the curriculum rigorous, but was more focused than he had been in high school and was able to apply himself to his studies. Despite the lack of a significant theater community at Hampden-Sydney, Colbert's interest in acting escalated during this time. After two years, he transferred to Northwestern University as a Theater Major to study performance, emboldened by the realization that he loved performing, even when no one was coming to shows. Early career in comedy. While at Northwestern, Colbert studied with the intent of becoming a dramatic actor; mostly he performed in experimental plays and was uninterested in comedy. He began performing improvisation while in college, both in the campus improv team No Fun Mud Piranhas and at the Annoyance Theatre in Chicago as a part of Del Close's ImprovOlympic at a time when the project was focused on competitive, long form improvisation, rather than improvisational comedy. "I wasn't gonna do Second City", Colbert later recalled, "because those Annoyance people looked down on Second City because they thought it wasn't pure improv—there was a slightly snobby, mystical quality to the Annoyance people". After Colbert graduated in 1986, however, he was in need of a job. A friend who was employed at Second City's box office offered him work answering phones and selling souvenirs. Colbert accepted and discovered that Second City employees were entitled to take classes at their training center for free. Despite his earlier aversion to the comedy group, he signed up for improvisation classes and enjoyed the experience greatly. Shortly thereafter, he was hired to perform with Second City's touring company, initially as an understudy for Steve Carell. It was there he met Amy Sedaris and Paul Dinello, with whom he often collaborated later in his career. By their retelling, the three comedians did not get along at first—Dinello thought Colbert was uptight, pretentious and cold, while Colbert thought of Dinello as "an illiterate thug"—but the trio became close friends while touring together, discovering that they shared a similar comic sensibility. When Sedaris and Dinello were offered the opportunity to create a television series for HBO Downtown Productions, Colbert left The Second City and relocated to New York in order to work with them on the sketch comedy show "Exit 57". The series debuted on Comedy Central in 1995 and aired through 1996. Although it lasted for only 12 episodes, the show received favorable reviews and was nominated for five CableACE Awards in 1995, in categories including best writing, performance, and comedy series. Following the cancellation of "Exit 57", Colbert worked for six months as a cast member and writer on "The Dana Carvey Show", alongside former Second City castmate Steve Carell, as well as Robert Smigel, Charlie Kaufman, Louis C.K., and Dino Stamatopoulos, among others. The series, described by one reviewer as "kamikaze satire" in "borderline-questionable taste", had sponsors pull out after its first episode aired and was cancelled after seven episodes. Colbert then worked briefly as a freelance writer for "Saturday Night Live" with Robert Smigel. Smigel brought his animated sketch, "The Ambiguously Gay Duo", to "SNL" from "The Dana Carvey Show"; Colbert provided the voice of Ace on both series, opposite Steve Carell as Gary. Needing money, he also worked as a script consultant for VH1 and MTV, before taking a job filming humorous correspondent segments for "Good Morning America". Only two of the segments he proposed were ever produced and only one aired, but the job led his agent to refer him to "The Daily Show's" then-producer, Madeline Smithberg, who hired Colbert on a trial basis in 1997. Television career. "Strangers with Candy". During the same period, Colbert worked again with Sedaris and Dinello to develop a new comedy series for Comedy Central, "Strangers with Candy". Comedy Central picked up the series in 1998 after Colbert had already begun working on "The Daily Show". As a result he accepted a reduced role, filming only around twenty "Daily Show" segments a year while he worked on the new series. "Strangers with Candy" was conceived of as a parody of after school specials, following the life of Jerri Blank, a 46-year-old dropout who returns to finish high school after 32 years of life on the street. Most noted by critics for its use of offensive humor, it concluded each episode by delivering to the audience a skewed, politically incorrect moral lesson. Colbert served as a main writer alongside Sedaris and Dinello, as well as portraying Jerri's strict but uninformed history teacher, Chuck Noblet, seen throughout the series dispensing inaccurate information to his classes. Colbert has likened this to the character he played on "The Daily Show" and later "The Colbert Report", claiming that he has a very specific niche in portraying "poorly informed, high-status idiot" characters. Another running joke throughout the series was that Noblet, a closeted homosexual, was having a "secret" affair with fellow teacher Geoffrey Jellineck despite the fact that their relationship was apparent to everyone around them. This obliviousness also appears in Colbert's "Daily Show" and "Colbert Report" character. Thirty episodes of "Strangers with Candy" were made, which aired on Comedy Central in 1999 and 2000. Though its ratings were not remarkable during its initial run, it has been characterized as a cult show with a small but dedicated audience. Colbert reprised his role for a film adaptation, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2005 and had a limited release in 2006. The film received mixed reviews. Colbert also co-wrote the screenplay with Sedaris and Dinello. "The Daily Show". Stephen Colbert joined the cast of Comedy Central's parody-news series "The Daily Show" in 1997, when the show was in its second season. Originally one of four correspondents who filmed segments from remote locations in the style of network news field reporters, Colbert was referred to as "the new guy" on-air for his first two years on the show, during which time Craig Kilborn served as host. When Kilborn left the show prior to the 1999 season, Jon Stewart took over hosting duties, also serving as a writer and co-executive producer. From this point, the series gradually began to take on a more political tone and increase in popularity, particularly in the latter part of the 2000 U.S. presidential election season. The roles of the show's correspondents were expanded to include more in-studio segments, as well as international reports which were almost always done in the studio with the aid of a greenscreen. Unlike Stewart, who essentially hosts "The Daily Show" as himself, Colbert developed a correspondent character for his pieces on the series. Colbert has described his correspondent character as "a fool who has spent a lot of his life playing not the fool — one who is able to cover it at least well enough to deal with the subjects that he deals with". Colbert was frequently pitted against knowledgeable interview subjects, or against Stewart in scripted exchanges, with the resultant dialogue demonstrating the character's lack of knowledge of whatever subject he is discussing. Colbert also made generous use of humorous fallacies of logic in explaining his point of view on any topic. Other "Daily Show" correspondents have adopted a similar style; former correspondent Rob Corddry recalls that when he and Ed Helms first joined the show's cast in 2002, they "just imitated Stephen Colbert for a year or two". Correspondent Aasif Mandvi has stated "I just decided I was going to do my best Stephen Colbert impression". Colbert has appeared in several recurring segments for "The Daily Show", including "Even Stevphen" with Steve Carell, in which both characters were expected to debate a selected topic but instead would unleash their anger at one another. Colbert commonly hosted "This Week in God", a report on topics in the news pertaining to religion, presented with the help of the "God Machine". Colbert filed reports from the floor of the Democratic National Convention and the Republican National Convention as a part of "The Daily Show's" award-winning coverage of the 2000 and 2004 U.S. Presidential elections; many from the latter were included as part of their "" DVD release. In several episodes of "The Daily Show", Colbert filled in as anchor in the absence of Jon Stewart, including the full week of March 3, 2002, when Stewart was scheduled to host "Saturday Night Live". After Colbert left the show, Rob Corddry took over "This Week in God" segments, although a recorded sample of Colbert's voice is still used as the sound effect for the God Machine. Later episodes of "The Daily Show" have reused older Colbert segments under the label "Klassic Kolbert". Colbert won three Emmys as a writer of "The Daily Show" in 2004, 2005, and 2006. "The Colbert Report". Since October 17, 2005, Colbert has hosted his own television show, "The Colbert Report", a "Daily Show" spin-off which parodies the conventions of television news broadcasting, particularly cable-personality political talk shows like "The O'Reilly Factor" and "Glenn Beck". Colbert hosts the show in-character as a blustery right-wing pundit, generally considered to be an extension of his character on "The Daily Show". Conceived by co-creators Stewart, Colbert, and Ben Karlin in part as an opportunity to explore "the character-driven news", the series focuses less on the day-to-day news style of the "Daily Show", instead frequently concentrating on the foibles of the host-character himself. The concept for "The Report" was first seen in a series of "Daily Show" segments which advertised the then-fictional series as a joke. It was later developed by Stewart's Busboy Productions and pitched to Comedy Central, which greenlighted the program; Comedy Central had already been searching for a way to extend the successful "Daily Show" franchise beyond a half hour. The series opened to strong ratings, averaging 1.2 million viewers nightly during its first week on the air. Comedy Central signed a long-term contract for "The Colbert Report" within its first month on the air, when it immediately established itself among the network's highest-rated shows. Much of Colbert's personal life is reflected in his character on "The Colbert Report". With the extended exposure of the character on the show, he often references his interest in and knowledge of Catholicism, science fiction, and "The Lord of the Rings", as well as using real facts to create his character's history. His alternate persona was also raised in South Carolina, is the youngest of 11 siblings and is married. The actual Colbert's career history in acting and comedy, however, is often downplayed. In July 2012, Colbert added two years to his contract with Comedy Central, extending the run of the Colbert Report until at least the end of 2014. Politics. 2006 White House Correspondents' Association Dinner. On Saturday, April 29, 2006, Stephen Colbert was the featured entertainer for the 2006 White House Correspondents' Association Dinner. Standing a few yards from U.S. President George W. Bush—in front of an audience the Associated Press called a "Who's Who of power and celebrity"—Colbert delivered a searing routine targeting the president and the media. In his politically conservative character from "The Colbert Report", Colbert satirized the George W. Bush Administration and the White House press corps with such lines as: Colbert received a chilly response from the audience. His jokes were often met with silence and muttering, apart from the enthusiastic laughter of a few in the audience. The major media outlets paid little attention to it initially. "Washington Post" columnist Dan Froomkin and Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism professor Todd Gitlin claimed that this was because Colbert's routine was as critical of the media as it was of Bush. Richard Cohen, also writing for "The Washington Post", responded that the routine was not funny. The video of Colbert's performance became an internet and media sensation, while, in the week following the speech, ratings for "The Colbert Report" rose by 37% to average just under 1.5 million total viewers per episode. In "Time" magazine James Poniewozik called it "the political-cultural touchstone issue of 2006". Writing six months later, "New York Times" columnist Frank Rich referred to Colbert's speech as a "cultural primary" and called it the "defining moment" of the 2006 midterm elections. 2008 Presidential bid. Under his fictional persona in "The Colbert Report", Colbert dropped hints of a potential presidential run throughout 2007, with speculation intensifying following the release of his book, "I Am America (And So Can You!)", which was rumored to be a sign that he was indeed testing the waters for a future bid for the White House. On October 16, 2007, he announced his candidacy on his show, stating his intention to run both on the Republican and Democratic platforms, but only as a "favorite son" in his native South Carolina. He later abandoned plans to run as a Republican due to the $35,000 fee required to file for the South Carolina primary, however he continued to seek a place on the Democratic ballot and on October 28, 2007, campaigned in the South Carolina state capital of Columbia, where he was presented with the key to the city by Mayor Bob Coble. After announcing his presidential ticket, he asked his viewers to cast their votes by donating to DonorsChoose.org, an online charity connecting individuals to classrooms in need. Colbert's promotion inspired $68,000 in donations to South Carolina classrooms, which benefited over 14,000 low-income students. Colbert teamed up with DonorsChoose.org again in 2008 by asking supporters of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton to do the same. As a lead-up to the Pennsylvania primary, he created a "straw poll that makes a difference", where people could donate to Pennsylvania classroom projects in honor of their favorite candidate. Colbert viewers donated $185,000 to projects reaching 43,000 students in Pennsylvania public schools. On November 1, 2007, the South Carolina Democratic Party executive council voted 13–3 to refuse Colbert's application onto the ballot. "The general sense of the council was that he wasn't a serious candidate and that was why he wasn't selected to be on the ballot", stated John Werner, the party's director. In addition, he was declared "not viable", as he was running in only one state. Several days later he announced that he was dropping out of the race, saying that he did not wish to put the country through an agonizing Supreme Court battle. CNN has reported that Obama supporters pressured the South Carolina Democratic Executive Council to keep Colbert off the ballot. One anonymous member of the council told CNN that former State Superintendent of Education Inez Tenenbaum had placed pressure on them to refuse Colbert's application despite his steady rise in polls. Though Colbert's real-life presidential campaign had ended, current Marvel Comics editor-in-chief Joe Quesada established in an interview on "The Colbert Report" that Colbert's campaign was still going strong in the fictional Marvel Universe, citing the cover art of a then-recent issue of "The Amazing Spider-Man" which featured a Colbert campaign billboard in the background. Background appearances of Colbert campaign ads continued to appear in Marvel Comics publications, as recently as August 2008's "Secret Invasion" #5 (which also features a cameo of an alien Skrull posing as Colbert). In October 2008, Colbert made an extended 8-page appearance webslinging with Spider-Man in "The Amazing Spider-Man" issue #573. 2009 Show of solidarity with U.S. troops in Iraq War. Stephen Colbert arrived in Baghdad, Iraq on June 5, 2009, to film a week of shows called "Operation Iraqi Stephen: Going Commando" sponsored by the USO (United Service Organizations). Colbert had a suit tailored for him in the Army Combat Uniform pattern. During the first episode (which featured a cameo appearance from U.S. president Barack Obama), Colbert had his hair cropped in a military style to show his solidarity with the troops. One Army major said that "shaving of the hair is an amazing show of support" that was "very touching." USO Senior Vice President John Hanson said the shows are an important diversion for the troops. 2010 Congressional testimony. On September 24, 2010, Colbert testified in character before the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration, Citizenship, and Border Security. He was invited by committee chairwoman Zoe Lofgren to describe his experience participating in the United Farm Workers' "Take Our Jobs" program, where he spent a day working alongside migrant workers in upstate New York. At the end of his often-humorous testimony, Colbert broke character in responding to a question from Rep. Judy Chu, D-CA, and explained his purpose for being at the hearing: Democratic committee member John Conyers questioned whether it was appropriate for the comedian to appear before Congress and asked him to leave the hearing. Though Colbert offered to depart at the direction of the committee chairwoman, Lofgren requested that he stay at least until all opening testimony had been completed, whereupon Conyers withdrew his request. Conservative pundits took aim at Colbert's Congress testimony not long after. 2010 Washington D.C. rallies. In September 2010, following Glenn Beck's "Restoring Honor rally", a campaign developed that called for Colbert to hold his own rally at the Lincoln Memorial. On the September 10, 2010, episode of the "Daily Show" and the "Colbert Report", Stewart and Colbert made preannouncements of a future event. On September 16, 2010, Stewart and Colbert announced competing rallies on the Washington, DC, Mall on October 30, 2010, Stewart's ""Rally to Restore Sanity"", and Colbert's ""March to Keep Fear Alive"". Both were eventually merged into the Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear. Super PAC and 2012 Presidential campaign. In May 2011, Colbert filed a request with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) asking for a media exemption for coverage of his political action committee, ColbertPAC, on "The Colbert Report". In June 2011, during a public meeting, the FEC voted 5-1 to grant "The Colbert Report" a limited media exemption. The exemption allows unlimited donations of airtime and show resources to promote the Colbert Super PAC without requiring disclosure to the FEC, but only for ads appearing on "The Colbert Report". Following the hearing, Colbert formally filed paperwork for the creation of his Super PAC with the FEC secretary. After the 2012 New Hampshire primary, a poll for the subsequent South Carolina primary taken by Public Policy Polling (of 1,112 likely GOP voters, Jan 5-7, 2012) was reported to place Stephen Colbert at 5%, one point ahead of Jon Huntsman polling at 4%, in spite of the fact that Colbert was not on the ballot. This poll showed Colbert to be closely behind Rick Perry's 7% and Ron Paul's 8% (with Romney at 27%, Gingrich 23% and Santorum at 18%). On the January 11 episode of the Colbert Report, Colbert asked his audience if he should run for President in South Carolina, to which he received strong applause. He then stated that he would be making a "Major Announcement" during the next day's show. On January 12, Colbert started his show by discussing his role in the Presidential campaign, then addressed the law preventing him from being a Presidential candidate while running his Super PAC. With the help of his lawyer Trevor Potter, he then signed over control of his Super PAC to Jon Stewart, with the organization title then being referred to as "The Definitely Not Coordinating With Stephen Colbert Super PAC". Immediately after this legal block was out of the way, Colbert announced, "I am forming an exploratory committee to lay the groundwork for my possible candidacy for the President of the United States of South Carolina. I'm doin' it!" He reiterated in the interview portion of that show that "I'm still in the exploratory phase" of his Presidential campaign. On the January 16, 2012, episode, Colbert encouraged his viewers to vote for Herman Cain in the South Carolina primary. As Cain was still on the ballot, despite having recently dropped out of the race, Colbert announced that he would consider any votes cast for Cain to be in direct support of his own possible candidacy. Other work. Stephen Colbert is co-author of the satirical text-and-picture novel "Wigfield: The Can Do Town That Just May Not", which was published in 2003 by Hyperion Books. The novel was a collaboration between Colbert, Amy Sedaris, and Paul Dinello, and tells the story of a small town threatened by the impending destruction of a massive dam. The narrative is presented as a series of fictional interviews with the town's residents, accompanied by photos. The three authors toured performing an adaptation of "Wigfield" on stage the same year the book was released. Colbert appeared in a small supporting role in the 2005 film adaptation of "Bewitched". He has made guest appearances on the television series "Curb Your Enthusiasm", "Spin City", and "", and on the first season of the US improvisational comedy show "Whose Line Is It Anyway?". He voiced the characters of Reducto and Phil Ken Sebben in the Adult Swim's "Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law", but left the show in 2005 to work on The Colbert Report. His characters were both killed, though he returned to voice Phil for the series finale. Colbert also has provided voices for Cartoon Network's "The Venture Bros.", Comedy Central's "Crank Yankers", and "American Dad!", as well as for Canadian animated comedy series "The Wrong Coast". He appeared as Homer Simpson's life coach, Colby Krause, in the "Simpsons" episode "He Loves to Fly and He D'ohs". Colbert filled in for Sam Seder on the second episode of "The Majority Report" on Air America Radio, and has also done reports for "The Al Franken Show". He appeared on a track on "Wig in a Box", a tribute album for "Hedwig and the Angry Inch". Colbert read the part of Leopold Bloom in "Bloomsday on Broadway XXIV: Love Literature Language Lust: Leopold's Women Bloom" on June 16, 2005 at Symphony Space in New York City. He appeared in a series of TV commercials for General Motors, as a not-too-bright investigator searching for the elusive (and non-existent in real life) "Mr. Goodwrench". He also portrayed the letter Z in "Sesame Street: All-Star Alphabet", a 2005 video release. Colbert is a producer of "The 1 Second Film", the world's largest nonprofit collaborative art film. His video request that IMDb list his credit for "The 1 Second Film" ("it is as valid as most of my credits") enabled thousands of the film's producers to be listed in the massive movie database until they were removed in early 2007. Colbert has released one book associated with "The Colbert Report", "I Am America (And So Can You!)". It was released on October 7, 2007 by Grand Central Publishing. Grand Central Publishing is the successor to Warner Books, which published "America (The Book)", written by "The Daily Show" staff. The book contains similar political satire, but was written primarily by Colbert himself rather than as a collaboration with his "Colbert Report" writing staff. On November 23, 2008, his Christmas special, "", aired on Comedy Central. It was released on DVD in November 2008. In January 2010, Colbert was named the assistant sports psychologist for the US Olympic speed skating team at the 2010 Winter Olympics. He was also invited to be part of NBC's 2010 Winter Olympics coverage team by Dick Ebersol, chairman of NBC Universal Sports. In April 2011, Colbert performed as Harry in the revival of Stephen Sondheim's musical "Company", presented by the New York Philharmonic at the Lincoln Center. The show, featuring Neil Patrick Harris in the starring role, ran for four nights and was filmed for later showings in movie theaters, which began June 15. In May 2011, Colbert joined Charleston to Bermuda Race yachting race, as the captain of ship "the Spirit of Juno". He finished second, five miles behind leaders "Tucana". After the resignation of South Carolina Senator Jim DeMint to run the Heritage Foundation, Colbert was named a possible candidate for appointment to the seat being vacated by DeMint, which will trigger a special election in 2014 to finish out DeMint's term. Although Governor Nikki Haley announced promptly that she had no intention to nominate Colbert to the Senate, a poll showed Colbert as a favorite among South Carolina voters. Personal life. Although, by his own account, he was not particularly political before joining the cast of "The Daily Show", Colbert has described himself as a Democrat according to a 2004 interview. In an interview at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard Institute of Politics, he stated that he has "no problems with Republicans, just Republican policies." Colbert is a practicing Roman Catholic and a Sunday school teacher. Colbert lives in Montclair, New Jersey, with his wife, Evelyn McGee-Colbert, who appeared with him in an episode of "Strangers with Candy" as his mother. She also had an uncredited cameo as a nurse in the series pilot and a credited one (as his wife, Clair) in the film. McGee-Colbert actually met Jon Stewart, later a good friend of Colbert, before she met her husband in 1990. She is the daughter of prominent Charleston civil litigator Joseph McGee, of the firm Buist Moore Smythe McGee. The couple has three children: Madeleine, Peter, and John. Colbert prefers, however, that his children not watch his show "The Colbert Report", saying that "kids can't understand irony or sarcasm, and I don't want them to perceive me as insincere." Colbert's mother died at the age of 92 on June 12, 2013 after a time of ill health. Awards and honors. In 2000 Colbert and the other "Daily Show" writers were the recipients of three Emmy Awards as writers for "The Daily Show" and again in 2005 and 2006. In 2005 he was nominated for a Satellite Award for his performance on "The Colbert Report" and again in 2006. He was also nominated for three Emmys for "The Colbert Report" in 2006, including Best Performance in a Variety, Musical Program or Special, which he lost to Barry Manilow. Manilow and Colbert would go on to jokingly sign and notarize a revolving biannual custody agreement for the Emmy on the "Colbert Report" episode aired on October 30, 2006. He lost the same category to Tony Bennett in 2007 and Don Rickles in 2008. In January 2006, the American Dialect Society named "truthiness", which Colbert coined on the premiere episode of "The Colbert Report", as its 2005 Word of the Year. Colbert devoted time on five successive episodes to bemoaning the failure of the Associated Press to mention his role in popularizing the word "truthiness" in its news coverage of the Word of the Year. On December 9, 2006, Merriam-Webster also announced that it selected "truthiness" as its Word of the Year for 2006. Votes were accepted on their website, and according to poll results, "truthiness" won by a five-to-one margin. In June 2006, after speaking at the school's commencement ceremony, Colbert received an honorary Doctorate of Fine Arts degree from Knox College. "Time" named Stephen Colbert as one of the 100 most influential people in 2006 and 2012 and in May 2006, "New York" magazine listed Colbert (and Jon Stewart) as one of its top dozen influential persons in media. Colbert was named Person of the Year by the U.S. Comedy Arts Festival in Aspen, Colorado on March 3, 2007 and was also given the Speaker of the Year Award by The Cross Examination Debate Association (CEDA) on March 24, 2007 for his "drive to expose the rhetorical shortcomings of contemporary political discourse". Colbert was named the 2nd Sexiest TV News Anchor in September 2006 by Maxim Online, next to Mélissa Theuriau of France and was the only man featured on the list. In November 2006, he was named a "sexy surprise" by "People" in the Sexiest Man Alive honors and in the December 2006 issue of "GQ" he was named one of "GQ's" "Men of the Year". He was nominated for a TCA Award for "The Colbert Report" by the Television Critics Association in 2006 and also received two Peabody Awards for his work on ' and '. In February 2007, Ben & Jerry's unveiled a new ice cream flavor in honor of Colbert, named Stephen Colbert's AmeriCone Dream. Colbert waited until Easter to sample the ice cream because he "gave up sweets for Lent". Colbert will donate all proceeds to charity through the new Stephen Colbert AmeriCone Dream Fund, which will distribute the money to various causes. After the Saginaw Spirit defeated the Oshawa Generals in Ontario Junior League Hockey, Oshawa Mayor John Gray declared March 20, 2007 (the mayor's own birthday) Stephen Colbert Day, honoring a previous bet with Stephen. At the event, Mayor Gray referred to the publicity the bet brought the city, remarking, "This is the way to lose a bet". Colbert was honored for the Gutsiest Move on the Spike TV Guys' Choice Awards on June 13, 2007 for his performance at the 2006 White House Correspondents' Association Dinner. In August 2007, Virgin America named an airplane. "Air Colbert", in his honor. On October 28, 2007, Colbert received the key to the city of Columbia, South Carolina from Mayor Bob Coble. In 2007 a species of trapdoor spider was named Aptostichus stephencolberti after Colbert. The spider was discovered on the California coastline in 2007. The spider was named after Colbert after he reported on his television series that Jason Bond, a professor of biology at East Carolina University, named a different species of spider "Myrmekiaphila neilyoungi", after the Canadian rock star Neil Young and he began to appeal for a species of animal to be named after him. On a later edition of "The Colbert Report", Colbert revealed that Bond would name a spider after him, with Colbert claiming, "And all I had to do was shamelessly beg on national television." On December 20, 2007, Colbert was named Celebrity of the Year by The Associated Press. On April 2, 2008 he received a Peabody Award for The Colbert Report, saying in response, "I proudly accept this award and begrudgingly forgive the Peabody Committee for taking three years to recognize greatness". In 2008, Colbert won the Emmy award for writing again, this time as a writer for the "Colbert Report". Colbert delivered the Class Day address to the graduating class of Princeton University on June 2, 2008, and accepted the "Class of 2008 Understandable Vanity Award", consisting of a sketch of Colbert and a mirror. He also has been announced as the Person of the Year for the 12th annual Webby Awards. In January 2010, Colbert received the Grammy Award for Best Comedy Album for his album "". He also announced the nominees for Song of the Year while toting a pre-released Apple iPad. Colbert was the 2011 commencement speaker for Northwestern University, and received an honorary degree. COLBERT Treadmill. In 2009, NASA engineered a new treadmill for the International Space Station. It was brought to the ISS by the Space Shuttle "Discovery" during the STS-128 mission in August 2009. The complex machine is now used eight hours daily by astronauts and cosmonauts aboard the space station in order to maintain their muscle mass and bone density while spending long periods of time in a zero-gravity environment. While engineers at NASA were constructing this treadmill, it was simply called T-2 for more than two years. However, on April 14, 2009, NASA renamed it the "Combined Operational Load-Bearing External Resistance Treadmill", or COLBERT. NASA named the treadmill after Colbert, who took an interest during the Node 3 naming census for the ISS module, "Tranquility". Colbert urged his followers to post the name "Colbert", which upon completion of the census received the most entries totaling 230,539, some 40,000 votes more than the second-place choice, Serenity. The COLBERT is expected to last the life of the ISS and will have seen about 38,000 miles of running when the Space Station is retired in 2020 but was also built with 150,000 mile lifespan if needed till 2028 or longer. Colbert realized he was the recipient of an extremely rare honor when astronaut Suni Williams came on "The Colbert Report" to announce that NASA had named the treadmill after him. Despite being an acronym, the COLBERT is the only piece of NASA engineered equipment in space that is named after a living human being.
53877	Jeffrey Allan "Jeff" Anderson (born April 21, 1970) is an American film actor, film director, and screenwriter best known for starring as Randal Graves in "Clerks" and "Clerks II". In between, he has appeared in other Kevin Smith-directed films and has written, directed, and starred in "Now You Know". Early life. Born in Connecticut and raised in Atlantic Highlands, New Jersey, Anderson attended Henry Hudson Regional High School, with his friend, aspiring writer Kevin Smith, from which they both graduated in 1988. While Anderson was working at AT&T, Smith was working on his debut movie "Clerks". As a joke, Anderson auditioned for the role of "Jay," and based on this audition, Smith later offered Anderson a lead role as video store employee Randal Graves; a foul-mouthed seemingly apathetic slacker, who along with his morally elevated best friend Dante Hicks (Brian O'Halloran) belittled, aggravated, and alienated their customers whilst avoiding any real work opportunities. Career. For his role in "Clerks", Anderson was nominated for an Independent Spirit Award for Best Debut Performance. In every scene in "Clerks", he had gum in his mouth; he claims it helped him relax. Anderson often says that when he is recognized as Randal it is always by voice, not appearance. In 2002, Anderson wrote, directed, and starred in his own debut film (as writer/director) "Now You Know", the entire writing process only lasting three months. Anderson received a nomination for Best Male Performance at the Chicago Film Festival for his role in "Love 101" and has been seen in Peter Bergstrom's Something Cool. Anderson also started his own production company in Hollywood. In 2006, Anderson reprised his role as Randal in "Clerks II". In 2008, Anderson appeared in Kevin Smith's romantic comedy "Zack and Miri Make a Porno" as Deacon, the cameraman and film editor for the porno made by leading stars Seth Rogen and Elizabeth Banks. On September 14, 2010 Anderson made his first appearance on Kevin Smith's SModcast filling in for Scott Mosier on SModcast #134. In his podcast Anderson stated he had moved out of Los Angeles and into a "retirement community in the mountains" where he is "the youngest person there by 20 years." He stated he re-married in 2009 to an actress named Barbara whom he met while house sitting for Kevin Smith.
1170127	Wesley Jonathan Waples (born October 18, 1978), known professionally as Wesley Jonathan, is an American actor, best known for his starring role as Jamal Grant on the NBC Saturday morning comedy-drama series "City Guys". Additionally, he played Gary Thorpe on the WB sitcom, "What I Like About You". Jonathan is also known for his main role as Sweetness in the 2005 film, "Roll Bounce". Currently, Wesley co-stars in the TV Land sitcom, "The Soul Man". He was also known for his lead role as "Bud" in the movie "Bud'z House". Career. Jonathan started acting as a child actor in the early 1990s and has had two main roles in two series; "City Guys" as Jamal Grant, and "What I Like About You" opposite Amanda Bynes and Jennie Garth as Holly's best friend, Gary Thorpe. Jonathan landed his first job in a music video for Melissa Manchester. He then started working on" 21 Jump Street". Jonathan has starred, co-starred, or made guest appearances in several movies and television shows including: "Sister, Sister", "Moesha", "Boy Meets World", "Smart Guy", "Thea", "Baywatch", "A Different World", "Boston Public", "Crossover", "National Lampoon's Bag Boy", "Divine Intervention (2007 film)", "Roll Bounce", and the 2009 film "Speed-Dating." Advertising. Jonathan starred in a 2010 Miller Lite commercial, In 1994, he appeared in Sunny Delight commercial. Prior to the final season of "City Guys" as his first role of Jamal Grant, Jonathan appeared the Truth commercial in 2001 in which he played a host on "Soul Train". Personal life. Jonathan was romantically involved with actress Denyce Lawton from 2006 until 2009. Filmography and television episodes. Movie (2011) Title: Dysfunctional Friends Character: Bret Source: NetFlix
1065365	Wild Things is a 1998 American erotic thriller film starring Matt Dillon, Neve Campbell, Kevin Bacon, Denise Richards, Theresa Russell, and Bill Murray. It was directed by John McNaughton. In some countries the film was released as "Sex Crimes". An uncut version, adding seven minutes to its runtime, was released on DVD in 2004 and includes a change to Kelly and Suzie's relationship. The film gained notoriety for featuring several sex scenes – in particular, one involving a man and two women simultaneously – that were more explicit than is typically seen in mainstream, big-budget Hollywood releases. It spawned several direct-to-DVD sequels. The film has a MPAA rating of R for "strong sexuality, nudity, language, and violence". Times guidelines refer to a strong "ménage à trois" scene (involving Dillon, Campbell and Richards, the latter of whom is apparently wearing only a miniskirt) and some passionate girl-girl kissing (Campbell and Richards, both of whom are topless). There is also incidental male frontal nudity (Bacon). Plot. A high school guidance counselor, Sam Lombardo, is accused of rape by two female students, Kelly Van Ryan and Suzie Toller, and hires lawyer Kenneth Bowden to defend him. At trial, Suzie admits that she and Kelly had made everything up to get revenge on Lombardo: Suzie for him failing to bail her out of jail on a minor drug charge and Kelly for him having an affair with her wealthy socialite mother, Sandra. Kelly's mother is humiliated by the scandal, and Lombardo and Bowden negotiate an $8.5 million settlement for defamation. However, it is then revealed that Lombardo and the two girls had been working and sleeping together, and planned to split the money. Police detective Ray Duquette tells both Kelly and Suzie that Lombardo transferred the money to an off-shore account. Suzie panics and goes to Kelly for help; Kelly assures Suzie that they can trust each other, but separately tells Lombardo over the phone that they may have to get rid of her. Suzie overhears this and attacks Kelly in the pool. Both girls fight, but eventually end up having sex in the pool, all witnessed by Duquette. However, a few nights later, Lombardo and Kelly take Suzie to the beach and seemingly kill her. After wrapping the body in plastic, they throw it in the trunk of the car and drive out to the swamp, where Lombardo disposes of it.
1086449	The Genesis Code is a 2010 American drama film directed by C. Thomas Howell and Patrick Read Johnson, and written by Michael W. Leighton. Production. The first director, Patrick Read Johnson was fired and C. Thomas Howell was brought in to finish the film. Director Guild of America rules require that Johnson be given a shared credit. The film was shot in Grand Rapids, Michigan and Lowell, Michigan. Release. "The Genesis Code" premiered in the United States on 25 August 2010 as part of the Grand Rapids Film Festival. The film was released on home video on 6 March 2012 in North America.
1678334	Sigrid Valdis (September 21, 1935 – October 14, 2007) was the stage name of Patricia Annette Olson, an American actress. She was best known for playing "Hilda" on the American television series "Hogan's Heroes". Early life and career. Valdis began acting in the late 1950s. She appeared in bit parts in films and guest starred in several television shows including "The Wild Wild West" and "Kraft Television Theatre" before landing the role of Hilda, Colonel Klink's secretary, in the sitcom "Hogan's Heroes". Personal life. Valdis was married twice. Her first marriage was to fashion businessman George Gilbert Ateyeh, with whom she had a daughter, Melissa. Ateyeh died in 1967. Valdis married for the second time on October 16, 1970, to "Hogan's Heroes" star Bob Crane on the set of the series. Following the birth of their son in 1971, Valdis retired from acting. In 1978, she moved from the Los Angeles area after Crane was murdered.
940099	Song of the South is a 1946 American live-action/animated musical film produced by Walt Disney and released by RKO Radio Pictures, based on the Uncle Remus stories collected by Joel Chandler Harris. It was Disney's first feature film using live actors, who provide a sentimental frame story for several animated segments. The film depicts the character Uncle Remus – an African-American former slave – cheerfully relating to several children – including the film's white protagonist – the folk tales of the adventures of anthropomorphic Br'er Rabbit and his friends. The film's song "Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah" won the 1947 Academy Award for Best Song, is frequently used as part of Disney's montage themes, and has become widely used in popular culture. The film inspired the Disney theme park attraction Splash Mountain. The film's depiction of African-American former slaves and of race relations in Reconstruction-Era Georgia has been controversial since its original release, and is now commonly regarded as racist. Consequently it has never been released in its entirety on home video in the United States. Setting. The film is set on a plantation in the US state of Georgia, some distance from Atlanta. Although sometimes interpreted as taking place before the US Civil War, while slavery was still in force in the region, the setting is the later Reconstruction Era, after slavery was abolished. Harris' original Uncle Remus stories were all set after the American Civil War and the abolition of slavery (Harris himself, born in 1845, was a racial reconciliation activist writer and journalist of the Reconstruction era). The film makes several indirect references to the Reconstruction era: clothing is in the newer late-Victorian style; Uncle Remus is free to leave the plantation at will; black field hands are sharecroppers, etc. Plot. Seven-year-old Johnny is excited about what he believes to be a vacation at his grandmother's Georgia plantation with his parents, John Sr. and Sally. When they arrive at the plantation, he discovers that his parents will be living apart for a while, and he is to live in the country with his mother and grandmother while his father returns to Atlanta to continue his controversial editorship in the city's newspaper. Johnny, distraught because his father has never left him or his mother before, leaves that night under cover of darkness and sets off for Atlanta with only a bindle. As Johnny sneaks away from the plantation, he is attracted by the voice of Uncle Remus telling tales "in his old-timey way" of a character named Br'er Rabbit. Curious, Johnny hides behind a nearby tree to spy on the group of people sitting around the fire. By this time, word has gotten out that Johnny is gone and some plantation residents, who are sent out to find him, ask if Uncle Remus has seen the boy. Uncle Remus replies that he's with him. Shortly afterwards, he catches up with Johnny, who sits crying on a nearby log. He befriends the young boy and offers him some food for the journey, taking him back to his cabin. As Uncle Remus cooks, he mentions Br'er Rabbit again and the boy, curious, asks him to tell him more. After Uncle Remus tells a tale about Br'er Rabbit's attempt to run away from home, Johnny takes the advice and changes his mind about leaving the plantation, letting Uncle Remus take him back to his mother. Johnny makes friends with Toby, a little black boy who lives on the plantation, and Ginny Favers, a poor white neighbor. However, Ginny's two older brothers, Joe and Jake—who resemble Br'er Fox and Br'er Bear from Uncle Remus's stories, one being slick and fast-talking, the other big and a little slow—are not friendly at all; they constantly bully Ginny and Johnny. When Ginny gives Johnny a puppy, her brothers want to drown it. A rivalry breaks out among the three boys. Heartbroken because his mother won't let him keep the puppy, Johnny takes the dog to Uncle Remus and tells him of his troubles. Uncle Remus takes the dog in and delights Johnny and his friends with the fable of Br'er Rabbit and the Tar Baby, stressing that people shouldn't go messing around with something they have no business with in the first place. Johnny heeds the advice of how Br'er Rabbit used reverse psychology on Br'er Fox and begs the Favers Brothers not to tell their mother about the dog, which is precisely what they do, only to get a good spanking for it. Enraged, the boys vow revenge. They go to the plantation and tell Johnny's mother, who is upset that Uncle Remus kept the dog despite her order (which was unknown to Uncle Remus). She orders the old man not to tell any more stories to her son. The day of Johnny's birthday arrives, and Johnny picks up Ginny to take her to his party. Ginny's mother has used her wedding dress to make her daughter a beautiful dress for the party. On the way there, however, Joe and Jake pick another fight. Ginny gets pushed, and ends up in a mud puddle. With her dress ruined, the upset Ginny refuses to go to the party. Johnny, enraged with the way Joe and Jake treat Ginny, attacks them. Uncle Remus breaks up the fight and while Johnny goes to comfort Ginny, Uncle Remus scolds Joe and Jake, telling them not to pester Johnny and Ginny anymore. Johnny doesn't want to go either, especially since his father won't be there. Uncle Remus discovers the two dejected children and cheers them by telling the story of Br'er Rabbit and his "Laughing Place." When Uncle Remus returns to the plantation with the children, Sally meets them on the way and is angry at Johnny for not having attended his own birthday party. Ginny mentions that Uncle Remus told them a story and Sally draws a line, warning him not to spend any more time with Johnny. Uncle Remus, saddened by the misunderstanding of his good intentions, packs his bags and leaves for Atlanta. Seeing Uncle Remus leaving from a distance, Johnny rushes to intercept him, taking a shortcut through the pasture, where he is attacked and seriously injured by the resident bull. While Johnny hovers between life and death, his father returns and reconciles with Sally. But Johnny calls for Uncle Remus, who has returned amidst all the commotion. Uncle Remus begins telling a tale of Br'er Rabbit and the Laughing Place, and the boy miraculously survives. Johnny, Ginny, and Toby are next seen skipping along and singing "Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah" while Johnny's returned puppy runs alongside them. Uncle Remus is also in the vicinity, and he is shocked when Br'er Rabbit and several of the other characters from his stories appear in front of them and interact with the children. Uncle Remus breaks the fourth wall as he rushes to join the group. The entire group skips away, with a reprise of the opening theme. Animation. There are three animated segments in the movie (in all, they last a total of 25 minutes). These animated sequences were later shown as stand-alone cartoon features on television. Each of these segments features at least one song that is heard in the various versions of Splash Mountain. The last couple of minutes of the movie contain animation, as most of the cartoon characters show up in a live-action world to meet the live-action characters as they all sing "Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah", and in the last seconds of the movie, the real world is slowly merged into an animated variation as the main protagonists walk off into the sunset. Songs. Orchestral score, songs featured in the film include: "Let the Rain Pour Down" is set to the melody of "Midnight Special", a traditional blues song popularized by Lead Belly. The song "Look at the Sun" has been marketed as one of the songs from the film, though it is not actually in the film. History and production. Walt Disney had long wanted to make a film based on the Uncle Remus storybook, but it wasn't until the mid-1940s that he had found a way to give the stories an adequate film equivalent, in scope and fidelity. "I always felt that Uncle Remus should be played by a living person," Disney is quoted as saying, "as should also the young boy to whom Harris' old Negro philosopher relates his vivid stories of the Briar Patch. Several tests in previous pictures, especially in "The Three Caballeros", were encouraging in the way living action and animation could be dovetailed. Finally, months ago, we 'took our foot in hand,' in the words of Uncle Remus, and jumped into our most venturesome but also more pleasurable undertaking." Disney first began to negotiate with Harris' family for the rights in 1939, and by late summer of that year he already had one of his storyboard artists summarize the more promising tales and draw up four boards' worth of story sketches. In November 1940, Disney visited the Harris' home in Atlanta. He told "Variety" that he wanted to "get an authentic feeling of Uncle Remus country so we can do as faithful a job as possible to these stories." Roy Oliver Disney had misgivings about the project, doubting that it was "big enough in caliber and natural draft" to warrant a budget over $1 million and more than twenty-five minutes of animation, but in June 1944, Walt hired Southern-born writer Dalton Reymond to write the screenplay, and he met frequently with King Vidor, whom he was trying to interest in directing the live-action sequences. Production started under the title "Uncle Remus". Filming began in December 1944 in Phoenix, where the studio had constructed a plantation and cotton fields for outdoor scenes, and Walt Disney left for the location to oversee what he called "atmospheric shots". Back in Hollywood, the live action scenes were filmed at the Samuel Goldwyn Studio. Writing. Dalton Reymond wrote a treatment for the film. Because Reymond was not a professional screenwriter, Maurice Rapf, who had been writing live-action features at the time, was asked by the Walt Disney Company to work with Reymond and co-writer Callum Webb to turn the treatment into a shootable screenplay. According to Neal Gabler, one of the reasons Disney had hired Rapf to work with Reymond was to temper what Disney feared would be Reymond's white Southern slant. Rapf was a minority, a Jew, and an outspoken left-winger, and he himself feared that the film would inevitably be Uncle Tomish. "That's exactly why I want you to work on it," Walt told him, "because I know that you don't think I should make the movie. You're against Uncle Tomism, and you're a radical." Rapf initially hesitated, but when he found out that most of the film would be live-action and that he could make extensive changes, he accepted the offer. Rapf worked on "Uncle Remus" for about seven weeks. When he got into a personal dispute with Reymond, Rapf was taken off the project. According to Rapf, Walt Disney "ended every conference by saying 'Well, I think we've really licked it now.' Then he'd call you the next morning and say, 'I've got a new idea.' And he'd have one. Sometimes the ideas were good, sometimes they were terrible, but you could never really satisfy him." Morton Grant was assigned to the project. Disney sent out the script for comment both within the studio and outside the studio. Casting. "Song of the South" was the first live-action dramatic film made by Disney. James Baskett was cast as Uncle Remus after answering an ad to provide the voice of a talking butterfly. "I thought that, maybe, they'd try me out to furnish the voice for one of Uncle Remus' animals," Baskett is quoted as saying. Upon review of his voice, Disney wanted to meet Baskett personally, and had him tested for the role of Uncle Remus. Not only did Baskett get the part of the butterfly's voice, but also the voice of Br'er Fox and the live-action role of Uncle Remus as well. Additionally, Baskett filled in as the voice of Br'er Rabbit for Johnny Lee in the "Laughing Place" scene after Lee was called away to do promotion for the picture. Walt Disney liked Baskett, and told his sister, Ruth Disney, that Baskett was "the best actor, I believe, to be discovered in years." Even after the film's release, Walt stayed in contact with Baskett. Disney also campaigned for Baskett to be given an Academy Award for his performance, saying that he had worked "almost wholly without direction" and had devised the characterization of Remus himself. Thanks to Disney's efforts, Baskett won an honorary Oscar in 1948. After Baskett's death, his widow wrote Disney and told him that he had been a "friend indeed and certainly have been in need." Also cast in the production were child actors Bobby Driscoll, Luana Patten, and Glenn Leedy (his only screen appearance). Driscoll was the first actor to be under a personal contract with the Disney studio. Patten had been a professional model since age 3, and caught the attention of Disney when she appeared on the cover of "Woman's Home Companion" magazine. Leedy was discovered on the playground of the Booker T. Washington school in Phoenix, AZ by a talent scout from the Disney studio. Ruth Warrick and Erik Rolf, cast as Johnny's mother and father, had actually been married during filming, but divorced in 1946. Hattie McDaniel also appeared in the role of Aunt Tempy. Direction. The animated segments of the film were directed by Wilfred Jackson, while the live-action segments were directed by Harve Foster. On the final day of shooting, Jackson discovered that the scene in which Uncle Remus sings the film's signature song, "Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah", had not been properly blocked. According to Jackson, "We all sat there in a circle with the dollars running out, and nobody came up with anything. Then Walt suggested that they shoot Baskett in close-up, cover the lights with cardboard save for a sliver of blue sky behind his head, and then remove the cardboard from the lights when he began singing so that he would seem to be entering a bright new world of animation. Like Walt's idea for Bambi on ice, it made for one of the most memorable scenes in the film." Release. The film premiered on November 12, 1946 at the Fox Theater in Atlanta. Walt Disney made introductory remarks, introduced the cast, then quietly left for his room at the Georgian Terrace Hotel across the street; he had previously stated that unexpected audience reactions upset him and he was better off not seeing the film with an audience. James Baskett was unable to attend the film's premiere because he would not have been allowed to participate in any of the festivities, as Atlanta was then a racially segregated city. The film grossed $3.3 million at the box office. As had been done earlier with "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs", Walt Disney produced a Sunday strip titled "Uncle Remus & His Tales of Br'er Rabbit" to give the film pre-release publicity. The strip was launched by King Features on October 14, 1945, more than a year before the film was released. Unlike the "Snow White" comic strip, which only adapted the film, "Uncle Remus" ran for decades, telling one story after another about the characters, some based on the legends and others new, until it ended on December 31, 1972. Apart from the newspaper strips, Disney "Br'er Rabbit" comics were also produced for comic books; the first such stories appeared in late 1946. Produced both by Western Publishing and European publishers such as Egmont, they continue to appear to this day. In 1946, a Giant Golden Book entitled "Walt Disney's Uncle Remus Stories" was published by Simon & Schuster. It featured 23 illustrated stories of Br'er Rabbit's escapades, all told in a Southern dialect based on the original Joel Chandler Harris stories. Critical response. Although the film was a financial success, netting the studio a slim profit of $226,000, some critics were less enthusiastic about the film, not so much the animated portions as the live-action portions. Bosley Crowther for one wrote in "The New York Times", "More and more, Walt Disney's craftsmen have been loading their feature films with so-called 'live action' in place of their animated whimsies of the past, and by just those proportions has the magic of these Disney films decreased," citing the ratio of live action to animation at two to one, concluding that is "approximately the ratio of its mediocrity to its charm." However, the film also received positive notice. "Time" magazine called the film "topnotch Disney." In 2003, the Online Film Critics Society ranked the film as the 67th greatest animated film of all time. Controversies. The film has received much critical attention for its handling of race. Modern academic Jason Sperb describes the film as "one of Hollywood's most resiliently offensive racist texts". Early in the film's production, there was concern that the material would encounter controversy. Disney publicist Vern Caldwell wrote to producer Perce Pearce that "the negro situation is a dangerous one. Between the negro haters and the negro lovers there are many chances to run afoul of situations that could run the gamut all the way from the nasty to the controversial." When the film was first released, Walter Francis White, the executive secretary of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) telegraphed major newspapers around the country with the following statement: The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People recognizes in "Song of the South" remarkable artistic merit in the music and in the combination of living actors and the cartoon technique. It regrets, however, that in an effort neither to offend audiences in the north or south, the production helps to perpetuate a dangerously glorified picture of slavery. Making use of the beautiful Uncle Remus folklore, "Song of the South" unfortunately gives the impression of an idyllic master-slave relationship which is a distortion of the facts. White however had not yet seen the film; his statement was based on memos he received from two NAACP staff members who attended a press screening on November 20, 1946, Norma Jensen and Hope Springarn. Jensen had written that the film was "so artistically beautiful that it is difficult to be provoked over the clichés" but that it contained "all the clichés in the book", mentioning that she felt scenes like blacks singing traditional black songs were offensive as a stereotype. Springarn listed several things she found objectionable from the film, including the Negro dialect. "Both Jensen and Springarn were also confused" by the film’s Reconstruction setting, states Jim Hill Media, writing that "It was something that also confused other reviewers who from the tone of the film and the type of similar recent Hollywood movies ["Gone with the Wind;" "Jezebel"] assumed it must also be set during the time of slavery." Based on the Jensen and Springarn memos, White released the "official position" of the NAACP in a telegram that was widely quoted in newspapers. "The New York Times"' Bosley Crowther, mentioned above, made a similar assumption, writing that the movie was a "travesty on the "antebellum" South." In the same vein, "Time" magazine, although it praised the film, also cautioned that it was "bound to land its maker in hot water", because the character of Uncle Remus was "bound to enrage all educated Negroes and a number of damyankees". Adam Clayton Powell, Jr., a congressman from Harlem, branded the film an "insult to American minorities everything that America as a whole stands for." The National Negro Congress set up picket lines in theaters in the big cities where the film played, with its protesters holding signs that read ""Song of the South" is an insult to the Negro people" and, lampooning "Jingle Bells", chanted: "Disney tells, Disney tells/lies about the South." Jewish newspaper "B'nai B'rith Messenger" of Los Angeles considered the film to be "tall[ying with the reputation that Disney is making for himself as an arch-reactionary". At the same time, however, some black press had mixed reactions on what they thought of "Song of the South". While Richard B. Dier in "The Afro-American" was "thoroughly disgusted" by the film for being "as vicious a piece of propaganda for white supremacy as Hollywood ever produced," Herman Hill in "The Pittsburgh Courier" felt that "Song of the South" would "prove of inestimable goodwill in the furthering of interracial relations", and considered criticisms of the film to be "unadulterated hogwash symptomatic of the unfortunate racial neurosis that seems to be gripping so many of our humorless brethren these days." The Disney Company has stated that, like Harris' book, the film takes place after the American Civil War and that all the African American characters in the movie are no longer slaves. The Hays Office had asked Disney to "be certain that the frontispiece of the book mentioned establishes the date in the 1870s," however, the final film carried no such statement. Academy Award recognition. The score by Daniele Amfitheatrof, Paul J. Smith, and Charles Wolcott was nominated in the "Scoring of a Musical Picture" category, and "Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah", written by Allie Wrubel and Ray Gilbert won the award for Best Song at the 20th Academy Awards on March 20, 1948. A special Academy Award was given "To James Baskett for his able and heart-warming characterization of Uncle Remus, friend and story teller to the children of the world in Walt Disney's 'Song of the South.'" Bobby Driscoll and Luana Patten in their portrayals of the children characters Johnny and Ginny were also discussed for Special Juvenile Awards, but in 1947 it was decided not to present such awards at all. Re-releases. "Song of the South" was re-released in theatres several times after its original Walt Disney Pictures/RKO Pictures premiere, each time through Buena Vista Pictures: in 1956; in 1972 for Disney's 50th anniversary; in 1973 as the second-half of a double bill with "The Aristocats;" in 1980 for the 100th anniversary of Harris' classic stories; and in 1986 for the film's own 40th anniversary and in promotion of the upcoming Splash Mountain attraction at three of Disney's theme parks. Home media. Disney Enterprises has avoided making the complete version of the film directly available on home video in the United States because the frame story was deemed controversial by studio management. Film critic Roger Ebert, who normally disdained any attempt to keep films from any audience, supported the non-release position, claiming that most Disney films become a part of the consciousness of American children, who take films more literally than do adults. However, he favored allowing film students to have access to the film. Over the years, Disney has made a variety of statements about whether and when the film would be re-released. In March 2010, Disney CEO Robert Iger stated that there were no plans to release the movie on DVD, calling the film "antiquated" and "fairly offensive". On November 15, 2010, Disney creative director Dave Bossert stated in an interview, "I can say there's been a lot of internal discussion about "Song of the South". And at some point we're going to do something about it. I don't know when, but we will. We know we want people to see "Song of the South" because we realize it's a big piece of company history, and we want to do it the right way." Disney Enterprises has allowed key portions of the film to be issued on many VHS and DVD compilation videos in the U.S., as well as on the long-running Walt Disney anthology television series. Most recently, the "Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah" number and some of the animated portion of the movie were issued on the "Alice in Wonderland" 2-DVD Special Edition set, although in that instance this was originally incorporated as part of a 1950 Walt Disney TV special included on the DVD which promoted the then-forthcoming "Alice in Wonderland" film. The film has been released on video in its entirety in various European, Latin American, and Asian countries—in the UK it was released on PAL VHS tape in 1982 and again in 1991, and in Japan it appeared on NTSC VHS, Beta, and laserdisc in 1985 then again in 1990 with subtitles during songs. (Under Japanese copyright law it is now in the public domain.) While most foreign releases of the film are literal translations of the English title ("Canción del Sur" in Spanish, "Mélodie du Sud" in French, "Melodie Van Het Zuiden" in Dutch, "Sången om södern" in Swedish, "A Canção do Sul" in Portuguese, and "Etelän laulu" in Finnish), the German title "Onkel Remus' Wunderland" translates to "Uncle Remus' Wonderland", the Italian title "I Racconti Dello Zio Tom" translates to "The Stories of Uncle Tom", and the Norwegian title "Onkel Remus forteller" translates to "Storyteller Uncle Remus." A NTSC laserdisc was bootlegged in Hong Kong from the UK PAL videotape, and has a 4% faster running time because of its PAL source, and thus also suffers from "frame ghosting". A bootleg version was released on DVD in China by BoYing. The release is of poor video/audio quality and includes an animated logo that appears every 4 minutes and 45 seconds. Despite the film's lack of home video release directly to consumers in the United States, audio from the film—both the musical soundtrack and dialogue—were made widely available to the public from the time of the film's debut up through the late 1970s. In particular, many Book-and-Record sets were released, alternately featuring the animated portions of the film or summaries of the film as a whole. References in other Disney media. As early as October, 1945, a newspaper strip named "Walt Disney Presents "Uncle Remus" and His Tales of Brer Rabbit" appeared in the United States, and this production continued until 1972. There have also been episodes for the series produced for the Disney comic books worldwide, in USA, Denmark and the Netherlands, from the 1940s up to the present day, 2012. Brer Bear and Brer Fox also appeared frequently in Disney's Big Bad Wolf stories, although here, Brer Bear was usually cast as an honest farmer and family man, instead of the bad guy in his original appearances. Brer Rabbit, Brer Fox, and Br'er Bear appeared as guests in "Disney's House of Mouse". They also appeared in "". Br'er Bear and Tar Baby also appear in the film "Who Framed Roger Rabbit. "Br'er Bear can be seen near the end while the Toons are celebrating finding the will. Tar Baby can briefly be seen during the scene driving into Toon Town. Brer Rabbit, Brer Fox, and Br'er Bear also appeared in the 2011 video game "Kinect Disneyland Adventures" for the Xbox 360. The game is a virtual recreation of Disneyland and it features a mini game based on the Splash Mountain attraction. Brer Rabbit helps guide the player character through that game, while Brer Fox and Brer Bear serve as antagonists. The three Brers also appear as meet-and-greet characters in the game, outside Splash Mountain in Critter Country. In the game, Jess Harnell reprises his role from the attraction as Brer Rabbit and also takes on the role of Brer Fox, while Br'er Bear is now voiced by James Avery, who previously voiced Br'er Bear and Br'er Frog in the Walt Disney World version of Splash Mountain. This is the Brers' first major appearance in Disney media since "House of Mouse" in 2001 and their first appearance as computer-generated characters.
1163944	Hal Linden (born March 20, 1931) is an American stage and screen actor, television director and musician.
1236378	L. Scott Caldwell (born April 17, 1950) is an American actress known for her role as Rose on "Lost". Born Laverne Scott in Chicago, she started her career in 1978 as a member of the famed Negro Ensemble Company, making her Broadway debut two years later in the Tony Award nominated play Home. She has starred in world premier and regional productions across the country, including works by Wole Soyinda, Athol Fugard, Neil Simon, and Regina Taylor. Caldwell earned a degree in Theater Arts and Communications from Loyola University Chicago. She has an extensive background in theater, feature films, and television. Her film credits include "Waiting to Exhale", "The Net", "The Fugitive", "Like Dandelion Dust" and "Powder Blue". In 2010, Caldwell played the lead role in the short film "Lisa Trotter", directed by fellow Chicagoan Hawthorne James. Caldwell had recurring roles on "Judging Amy", "Lost," "The Secret Life of the American Teenager" and "Southland". She has guest-starred in over fifty television series episodes and made for television movies including "JAG", "Chicago Hope", "City of Angels" and "Promised Land,". Her additional television credits include "The Practice", "Any Day Now", "Murder One", "The Pretender", "ER", "Nip/Tuck", "L.A. Law", "Ghost Whisperer", "Cold Case", "Saving Grace", "State of Mind", and "The Cosby Show." In 2003, she was a cast as a main character, Judge Rose Barnea, in the CBS series "Queens Supreme". On Broadway, Caldwell won a 1988 Tony Award for her portrayal of Bertha Holly in "Joe Turner's Come and Gone". Her other Broadway credits include "Proposals", "A Month of Sundays" and "Home". She has also appeared off Broadway in "About Heaven & Earth", "Colored People's Time", "Old Phantoms", "A Season to Unravel", "The Imprisonment of Obatala" and "Going to St. Ives".
589689	Joy Mukherjee (24 February 1939 – 9 March 2012) was an Indian film actor and director. Family background. Joy Mukherjee was the son of Sashadhar Mukherjee and Sati Devi. His father was a successful producer and a co-founder of Filmalaya Studios. His uncles were director Subodh Mukherjee, Ashok Kumar, Anoop Kumar (Actor) and Kishore Kumar.
633229	John de Lancie (born March 20, 1948) is an American actor. He has been active in screen and television roles since 1977, and has been featured for several recurring roles on American television series, including Q in ', ', and '; Colonel Frank Simmons in "Stargate SG-1"; Donald Margolis in "Breaking Bad"; and the voice of Discord in '. Personal life. De Lancie was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the son of Andrea and John de Lancie, who was principal oboist of the Philadelphia Orchestra from 1954 to 1977. He is married to actress-singer Marnie Mosiman, and they have two sons, Keegan and Owen. Acting career. "Star Trek". De Lancie portrayed the god-like Q, a recurring character in several of the "Star Trek" franchises. Q is one of the few characters appearing in multiple shows of the Star Trek franchise: in eight episodes of "Star Trek: The Next Generation" ("Encounter at Farpoint", "Hide and Q", "Q Who", "Deja Q", "Qpid", "True Q", "Tapestry", "All Good Things..."), in one episode of "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine" ("Q-Less"), and in three episodes of "Star Trek: Voyager" ("Death Wish", "The Q and the Grey", "Q2"). De Lancie's son, Keegan de Lancie, appeared with his father as Q's son in the "Star Trek: Voyager"'s episode "Q2". Other television roles. In addition to his roles in "Star Trek", de Lancie appeared in many other television shows. He was a popular actor on the soap opera Days of Our Lives as Eugene who one day went down to the basement and was never seen again. He also co-starred in "Star Trek" writer Michael Piller's creation "Legend", had a recurring roles in "Stargate SG-1" as an NID agent. He has also appeared as Dr. Deroy in three television films of "Emergency!" Additionally de Lancie has also guest starred in multiple television series, including "Breaking Bad", "The West Wing", "Charmed", "Andromeda", "The Unit", ', ', "Touched by an Angel", "" and "Special Unit 2". De Lancie has also voiced characters in several animated series, including "Duck Dodgers", "The Angry Beavers", "Max Steel", Invader Zim, and the antagonist Discord, who appears in "". De Lancie was the narrator for a General Motors commercial in the early 1980s that featured a robot that drops a bolt and talks about the future of the auto industry. Films. His film credits include "The Hand that Rocks the Cradle", "Get Smart, Again!", "The Fisher King", "Bad Influence", "The Onion Field", "Taking Care of Business", "Fearless", "Arcade", "Multiplicity", "Woman on Top", "Nicolas", "Good Advice", "Patient 14", "The Big Time", "Teenius", "Pathology", "Evolver", and "Reign Over Me", "My Apocalypse", and "You Lucky Dog". Stage career. He has been a member of The American Shakespeare Festival, The Seattle Repertory Company, South Coast Repertory, The Mark Taper Forum, and the Old Globe where he recently performed Arthur Miller's "Resurrection Blues". De Lancie has performed and directed for Los Angeles Theater Works, the producing arm of KCRW-FM and National Public Radio, where the series "The Play's the Thing" originates. He appeared in , a touring company, with Robert Picardo. De Lancie and Picardo narrate around the orchestral performance, explaining the history of the music in "Star Trek". De Lancie performed the character Pierre Curie in Alan Alda's play, "Radiance: The Passion of Marie Curie" in 2001 at at the Geffen Theater in Los Angeles. Audio dramas. De Lancie is co-owner, with Leonard Nimoy, of Alien Voices, a company producing radio-style dramatization of classic science fiction. De Lancie produced, co-wrote, and directed audio dramatizations of "The Time Machine", "A Journey to the Center of the Earth", "The Lost World", "The Invisible Man", and "The First Men in the Moon" as well as three television specials for the Sci-Fi Channel. In addition, he played the lead in Yuri Rasovsky's audio version of "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari". He also narrated the show "Black Holes", an educational show produced by the Clark Planetarium for use in full dome planetarium star theaters. Video games. De Lancie provided the voice of the character Antonio Malochio in the PC game Interstate '76, as the angel Trias in the video game ', and as Dr. Death in "Outlaws". He also provided the voice for William Miles in ' and "Assassin's Creed III", the voice of Professor Fitz Quadwrangle in "Quantum Conundrum", and Q in the , ' and '. Documentary. While on stage at the 2012 Ottawa ComicCon, de Lancie announced that he had made plans to co-produce a documentary about "bronies," older, usually male teenage and adult fans of the television show "My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic". De Lancie stated that he was taken aback by how disrespectful national news media portrayed the brony fandom. He resolved to do it "the right way" and, with the help of producer Michael Brockhoff and director Laurent Malaquais, began a Kickstarter campaign to help fund the documentary, now titled "". The Kickstarter campaign began on May 13, 2012 and by June 10, 2012 had reached a grand total of $322,022, becoming Kickstarter's second highest funded film project of all time. Music career. De Lancie has performed as narrator with a number of major orchestras including the New York Philharmonic the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, the National Symphony Orchestra, and the Montreal Symphony. He provided the narration for the world premiere of Lorenzo Palomo's "The Sneeches" (based on the book by Dr. Seuss) with the Oberlin Conservatory Orchestra. De Lancie was the host of the Los Angeles Philharmonic Symphonies for Youth for four years where he helped conceptualize the student concerts "Don't Educate–Stimulate". In addition, he has written and directed ten symphonic plays which were produced with the Milwaukee, St. Paul Chamber, Ravinia, Los Angeles, and Pasadena Orchestras. He was the writer, director, and host of "First Nights", an adult concert series at Disney Hall with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, based loosely on the book of the same name by Thomas Forrest Kelly, which explored the life and music of Stravinsky, Beethoven, Mahler, Schumann, and Prokofiev. In 2006, de Lancie made his opera directorial debut with The Atlanta Opera performing Puccini's "Tosca" on May 18 to May 21. Writing career. De Lancie co-wrote the Star Trek novel "I, Q" with Peter David, as well as co-writing the novel "Soldier of Light" with Tom Cool. He was the writer for the DC comic book story "The Gift."
629441	Love Serenade is a 1996 Australian feature film directed by Shirley Barrett. It is a comedy film which has the tagline: "Two sisters will do anything to hook the right man." There are not many characters in "Love Serenade", which is set in a fictitious, almost-deserted town called Sunray, located on the Murray River. It is a thinly-disguised version of Robinvale, Victoria, which was the location of the movie. We're introduced to a pair of sisters, Dimity (Miranda Otto) and Vicki-Ann (Rebecca Frith), who share a house. Dimity, the shy and insecure sibling, is a waitress at a local Chinese restaurant. Vicki-Ann, the brash one, is a hair stylist. Both are looking for love, although the prospects in Sunray seem bleak, at best. That is, until Ken Sherry (George Shetsov), a thrice divorced Brisbane DJ personality, moves into the house next door. During the filming of the Silo Scene, Stuntman Collin Dragsbaek died when he fell onto a faulty airbag. Awards. The film was screened in the Un Certain Regard section at the 1996 Cannes Film Festival, where it won the Caméra d'Or. Box Office. "Love Serenade" grossed $836,110 at the box office in Australia.
1063887	Cecil B. Demented is a 2000 black comedy film written and directed by John Waters. The film stars Melanie Griffith as a snobby A-list Hollywood actress who is kidnapped by a band of terrorist filmmakers who force her to star in their underground film. Stephen Dorff stars as the eponymous character and leader of the group, with Alicia Witt, Adrian Grenier, Michael Shannon, and Maggie Gyllenhaal co-starring as the rest of his gang of filmmakers. Each of the filmmakers in the film bears tattoos of various underground directors' names, including Kenneth Anger, Sam Peckinpah, David Lynch, Otto Preminger, Herschell Gordon Lewis, Spike Lee, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Pedro Almodóvar, and Andy Warhol. The title of the film (also the name of Dorff's character) alludes to legendary director Cecil B. DeMille. The film is loosely based on the 1974 kidnapping of Patricia Hearst and like all of Waters' films, was shot in Baltimore, Maryland; Hearst has a cameo role. The film was given a limited release in North American cinemas on August 11, 2000. It was released to home media through Artisan, and later, Lionsgate Home Entertainment in the United States.
1091490	Sir James Hopwood Jeans OM FRS MA DSc ScD LLD (11 September 187716 September 1946) was an English physicist, astronomer and mathematician. Background. Born in Ormskirk, Lancashire, Jeans was educated at Merchant Taylors' School, Northwood, Wilson's Grammar School, Camberwell and Trinity College, Cambridge, he finished Second Wrangler in the university in the Mathematical Tripos of 1898. He was elected Fellow of Trinity College in October 1901, and taught at Cambridge, but went to Princeton University in 1904 as a professor of applied mathematics. He returned to Cambridge in 1910. He made important contributions in many areas of physics, including quantum theory, the theory of radiation and stellar evolution. His analysis of rotating bodies led him to conclude that Laplace's theory that the solar system formed from a single cloud of gas was incorrect, proposing instead that the planets condensed from material drawn out of the sun by a hypothetical catastrophic near-collision with a passing star. This theory is not accepted today. Jeans, along with Arthur Eddington, is a founder of British cosmology. In 1928 Jeans was the first to conjecture a steady state cosmology based on a hypothesized continuous creation of matter in the universe. This theory was ruled out when the 1965 discovery of the cosmic microwave background was widely interpreted as the tell-tale signature of the Big Bang. His scientific reputation is grounded in the monographs "The Dynamical Theory of Gases" (1904), "Theoretical Mechanics" (1906), and "Mathematical Theory of Electricity and Magnetism" (1908). After retiring in 1929, he wrote a number of books for the lay public, including "The Stars in Their Courses" (1931), "The Universe Around Us," "Through Space and Time" (1934), "The New Background of Science" (1933), and "The Mysterious Universe." These books made Jeans fairly well known as an expositor of the revolutionary scientific discoveries of his day, especially in relativity and physical cosmology. In 1939, the Journal of the British Astronomical Association reported that Jeans was going to stand as a candidate for parliament for the Cambridge University constituency. The election, expected to take place in 1939 or 1940 did not take place until 1945, and without his involvement. He also wrote the book "Physics and Philosophy" (1943) where he explores the different views on reality from two different perspectives: science and philosophy. On his religious views, Jeans was an agnostic. Jeans married twice, first to the American poet Charlotte Tiffany Mitchell in 1907, then the Austrian organist and harpsichordist Suzanne Hock (better known as Susi Jeans) in 1935. He died in Dorking, Surrey. At Merchant Taylors' School there is a James Jeans Academic Scholarship for the candidate in the entrance exams who displays outstanding results across the spectrum of subjects but notably in Mathematics and Sciences. Major accomplishments. One of Jeans' major discoveries, named Jeans length, is a critical radius of an interstellar cloud in space. It depends on the temperature, and density of the cloud, and the mass of the particles composing the cloud. A cloud that is smaller than its Jeans length will not have sufficient gravity to overcome the repulsive gas pressure forces and condense to form a star, whereas a cloud that is larger than its Jeans length will collapse. Jeans came up with another version of this equation, called Jeans mass or Jeans instability, that solves for the critical mass a cloud must attain before being able to collapse. Jeans also helped to discover the Rayleigh–Jeans law, which relates the energy density of blackbody radiation to the temperature of the emission source. Books. Available online from the Internet Archive: Other:
965078	"It Couldn't Happen Here" is a 1988 musical film starring the British pop duo Pet Shop Boys and based around their music. It was originally conceived as an hour-long video based around their album "Actually", but it turned into a surreal full-scale feature film directed by Jack Bond and co-starring Barbara Windsor, Joss Ackland, Neil Dickson and Gareth Hunt. Plot summary. In the early morning, dancers are warming up on an English beach, and Neil Tennant appears on a bicycle. The song "It couldn't happen here" is being played. He cycles up to a kiosk, where he buys some postcards from the shopkeeper (Gareth Hunt). The shopkeeper complains about the political faults of the modern world, but Neil ignores him and fills out his postcards. Meanwhile, Chris Lowe is at a bed & breakfast. He is in his room packing everything into a seemingly bottomless trunk. He runs downstairs and waits for the landlady (Barbara Windsor) to bring him breakfast. In the breakfast room, an Uncle Dredge (Gareth Hunt) is making bad jokes. When the huge fried breakfast arrives, Chris empties the contents of the tray over the landlady and runs out onto the street. He runs along the promenade being chased by a group of Hells Angels on bikes. Back at the beach, Neil continues to cycle along the beach. He passes a priest (Joss Ackland) who is reciting verses whilst leading a party of school children. Two of the boys are the Pet Shop Boys at a younger age and they run to the pier. In a building on the pier, the adult Neil is seeing an exotically dressed female fortune teller; as he leaves she uncovers her face to reveal that "she" is Chris Lowe. The young Neil and Chris (Nicholas and Jonathan Haley) look in a Victorian era Mutoscope and see a short bedroom farce: a slapstick performance featuring a squire (Chris Lowe) and a butler (Neil Tennant) making advances to a French maid (Barbara Windsor). The priest catches up with the boys and shouts more verses at them. The boys escape into the amusement arcade where they see a rock star (Neil Tennant) in a gold tasselled suit. Then they pass into a theatre, where they see a group of nuns perform a risqué dance routine to "It's a Sin". The priest catches up with them again and he takes them outside where it is now evening. On the pier, he commands twelve fishermen to haul a huge cross out of the sea and onto their ship. The adult Neil and Chris pass three rappers performing "West End Girls" and go to buy a classic car. The salesman (Neil Dickson) insists on presenting his full sales spiel, so Neil and Chris try to interrupt. They pay for the car in cash and drive off with Chris at the wheel. In the car, the news report on the radio tells of a hitchhiker who has hacked to death three people who have given him lifts. Chris pulls over for a female hitchhiker whom they see on the roadside, but instead an elderly man (Joss Ackland) gets in after a scream and banging is heard. The passenger, who fits the description of the killer from the radio, offers strange and witty anecdotes to questions asked before turning on the radio, which plays "Always on My Mind". During the song, the passenger, with a mad look in his eyes, unpacks several knives from his bag then suddenly asks to be let out and the Pet Shop Boys continue unharmed. They arrive at a transport cafe where they're sat next to a traveller (Gareth Hunt). They order an inappropriate gourmet meal, but the waitress doesn't flinch. At another table a pilot (Neil Dickson, more or less reprising his lead role in ""), fiddles frustratedly with a hand-held computer game that says "divided by... divided by... zero" (taking lyrics from "Two divided by zero"). A voice from the traveller's briefcase asks to be let out and the traveller does so, revealing a ventriloquist's dummy. The dummy starts philosophising about the concept of time. He asks whether time can be likened to a teacup in that a teacup is no longer a teacup if no one has the intention to use it as such. To shut him up Neil puts a record on the jukebox ("Rent") and the wall of the cafe rises to reveal some dancers. Meanwhile, the pilot is seen back in his office reading W.H. Newton-Smith's book 'A Structure of Time'. After a while he reaches a conclusion that "the dummy's a blasted existentialist". He boards his plane, determined to put an end to such daftness. Neil and Chris are driving along a country lane, when the pilot attacks. "Two Divided By Zero" is playing. The car is covered with bullet holes but the Pet Shop Boys drive on, again unharmed. The pilot's monologue piece is known to be extracted from Newton-Smith's book. They stop by a telephone box which is being vandalised by a group of youths. Instead of attacking Neil, they politely open the door for him and he phones his mother (Barbara Windsor). The two of them exchange the lines to "What Have I Done to Deserve This?". At the end Neil puts his head against the broken glass on the door and blood appears. In a suburban street a commuter leaves home and there is a scantily clad woman in his upstairs window. He is covered in flames but doesn't seem to notice. At the railway station, a zebra is led by two zebra-faced men into a goods van. Neil and Chris sit on the platform watching, then get into another van where a large snake coils itself around them. The van takes them to Paddington station. At Paddington station, army soldiers stand guard and there is a limo waiting for Neil and Chris. They get in and drive through a tunnel as the chauffeur (Neil Dickson) quotes passages from Milton's "Paradise Lost" at them. They are driven through a battlefield with bombs exploding all around them. They pull up by a nightclub and Neil and Chris enter. They perform "One more chance" to a crowd of dancers. Each dancer has a number on their back. Once the song is finished, Neil and Chris walk up the stairs to leave and on their back are numbers too – except that both of them read "0". Featured songs. The movie features the following Pet Shop Boys songs, either in their original form, played as background music or sung by the characters: Soundtrack track listing. Although no formal soundtrack was released, there was a limited promotional cassette. Production. The original idea of making a film emerged from the band's immense reluctance to go on tour. The band hoped that a film would satisfy the fans' demand to see them in live action. The clip where a man exits the King's Cross Station on fire was to be deleted due to the King's Cross station fire, but it remained at the request of the victims' families. Related media. The music video for the single "Always on My Mind" is a compilation of clips from the film. The Variety Club Remix of the Saint Etienne single "Avenue" samples dialogue from the film. Saint Etienne are known for their fondness of the band, having sampled numerous Pet Shop Boys songs. Video releases. "It Couldn't Happen Here" was available on VHS but this has now been discontinued. A laserdisc release was also available in the USA and Japan but this has also been discontinued. Pet Shop Boys have mentioned an eventual DVD release on their official site when questioned by fans, but nothing has been announced.
589747	Chor Machaye Shor is a 1974 Hindi movie. Produced by N. N. Sippy, it is directed by Ashok Roy. The film stars Shashi Kapoor, Mumtaz, Danny Denzongpa, Madan Puri and Asit Sen. Asrani earned a Filmfare nomination for best performance in a comic role, the only nomination for the film. The music is by Ravindra Jain. The film became a "superhit" and earned the second top spot at the box office in 1974. Because of the success, the film's producer (N.N. Sippy), cast (Shashi Kapoor, Danny Denzongpa, Asrani, Madan Puri), and music composer (Ravindra Jain) teamed together again for Fakira (1976), which also became a box office hit. "Le Jayenge Le Jayenge" is a very popular song from the film, which had a key tagline Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge turned into a later blockbuster film title.
1015448	Nights and Weekends is a 2008 American mumblecore film directed by and starring Joe Swanberg and Greta Gerwig. The film follows a long-distance relationship and its aftermath. It premiered at South by Southwest, screened within such festivals as Maryland Film Festival, and was released theatrically in the United States on October 10, 2008. Plot. The film recounts a long-distance relationship between two people, one of whom lives in Chicago, the other in New York City. The first half of the film follows their relationship while the second half focuses on the dissolution and potential continuation of it, which occurs a year after the events of the first half of the film. Production. This second half of the film was shot a year after the first half, mirroring the timeline of the story. Awards. "Nights and Weekends" was nominated for an Independent Spirit Award.
1057193	"My Baby's Daddy" is a 2004 comedy film, directed by Cheryl Dunye. Plot. Childhood friends Lonnie (Eddie Griffin), Dominic (Michael Imperioli), and G (Anthony Anderson) have a rude awakening when they find out their girlfriends are pregnant. Each have their own unique set of problems; Lonnie's girlfriend Rolonda (Paula Jai Parker) is more interested in partying than being a mother; Dominic discovers that his girlfriend Nia (Joanna Bacalso) is a lesbian and has fallen in love with her midwife; while G, an aspiring boxer, is unable to fully commit to his girlfriend XiXi (Bai Ling). Throughout the movie, all three men, particularly G and Dominic, are determined to continue their normal way of living and be a father at the same time. Lonnie is a garbageman among other small jobs, G works in the store his girlfriend's family runs, and Dominic is managing a pair of white rappers. After they momentarily lose their kids during a party they threw, they realize how much their kids depend on them, and gradually become responsible fathers. Lonnie falls in love with a woman from a Mommy and Me class named Brandy who he treats badly on date. Dominic's ex-girlfriend reveals she's a lesbian and feels he is too involved in his career to ever be a father. G's cousin No Good (Method Man) robs a store and his girlfriend feels he was in on it and takes their son away from him. After all three are given a talking to by Lonnie's Uncle Virgil, they realize how much they love their kids and what they have to do. Lonnie apologizes to Brandy, then storms to his ex-girlfriend's house and takes his son with him, while criticizing her for having a baby to get child support payments, and knocks out her cousin "Big Swoll". Dominic goes to his ex-girlfriend and tells her how much he loves his daughter and how he needs to be a part of her life. G's girlfriend's father tells him a story of being in the Triads before he had his daughter and realized how much his family meant to him, leading to G proposing to his girlfriend. At the end of the movie it is revealed that Lonnie and Brandy are married with 2 children. Lonnie has also achieved his dream of becoming a successful inventor; Dominic started a children's music album; and G and his father-in-law open a martial arts/boxing studio called The Mo Fo Dojo. No Good, after learning of organic foods, goes on to become a successful food show personality called The Organic Gangster. They lastly toast to great babies' daddies. In the end, they realize that three little babies turned them into three grown men. Tagline: "They're going from players to playtime." Sequel. Rumors of a sequel brewed in 2006 with questions of Anthony Anderson returning. Michael Imperioli and Eddie Griffin have all denied returning as well. Method Man is the only one on board with the project with thoughts about the movie being made with his character No Good as the lead role.
1099788	Mark Kac ( ; Polish: "Marek Kac"; 3 August 1914 – 26 October 1984) was a Polish mathematician. His main interest was probability theory. His question, "Can one hear the shape of a drum?" set off research into spectral theory, with the idea of understanding the extent to which the spectrum allows one to read back the geometry. (In the end, the answer was "no", in general.)
629257	Opal Dream (also known as Pobby and Dingan) is a 2006 Australian drama film, based on the Ben Rice novella "Pobby and Dingan", directed by Peter Cattaneo and starring an ensemble cast including Vince Colosimo, Jacqueline McKenzie, Christian Byers and Sapphire Boyce. It was filmed on location around South Australia, in Adelaide, Coober Pedy and Woomera. "Opal Dream" was released in Australia on 28 September 2006, with eventual release around the world. Plot. The film begins by introducing Kellyanne Williamson, playing with imaginary friends Pobby and Dingan. The family of Rex Williamson—his wife Anne, daughter Kellyanne and son Ashmol—have moved to Coober Pedy, known as the "opal capital of Australia", because Rex believed he could make a fortune in mining opal. So far he's had little success. Ashmol, while he loves his sister, is frequently annoyed when she talks to her imaginary friends, and some of the kids at school tease the siblings because of them. Rex and Annie decide it is time to wean Kellyanne from her invisible companions. Annie takes Kellyanne to a Christmas party at Annie's friend's house, Rex telling her that he will let Pobby and Dingan come with him to go opal mining. Upon Rex's return, Kellyanne says she can no longer see them and that they have disappeared. She insists on going to the opal mining area to look for them, accompanied by Rex and Ashmol. The family accidentally strays on to a neighbouring miner's patch. The miner, Sid, pulls a shotgun on Rex and calls the police, thinking that Rex was "ratting" on his territory - that is, looking for opals on his turf. Kellyanne is grief-stricken at the loss of her imaginary friends and takes ill, although doctors can find nothing physically wrong with her. Rex has to leave his opal claim. Annie loses her job at the local supermarket, thanks to the circulating rumours around Rex's arrest. Convinced that Kellyanne is faking her illness, Ashmol nonetheless goes along with her wish that he try to find Pobby and Dingan. He even comes up with the idea of putting posters around town. Ultimately, returning to Rex's mine area, Ashmol finds two lollipop wrappers. Deeper in the tunnel, he finds a large opal which he takes back to Kellyanne. He tells her he has found Pobby and Dingan, and that they are dead. Kellyanne, whose sickness has been worsening, has to go to hospital. Ashmol sells his opal and pays for a funeral for Pobby and Dingan. He has made friends with a lawyer, who takes Rex's case. Rex wins the trial. Many people in town begin to feel that their attitude toward Kellyanne and her family may have contributed to her sickness. These people show up at Pobby and Dingan's funeral. Kellyanne, though still sick, is there, and throws lollipops into her imaginary friends' graves. A short time later, Kellyanne herself dies, and is buried between her imaginary friends. Ashmol visits her grave. Rex gets his claim back, and Ashmol is allowed to accompany him on mining trips. Ending. In the original release of the film, the death of Kellyanne was not shown; after Pobby and Dingan's funeral, the screen fades to white, and the film ends. This cut was made against the wishes of the director and crew, but did air uncut and as originally intended when shown on BBC Two in 2008. Reaction. The film has had some early critical success at various international film festivals, including the 2005 Berlin International Film Festival and the 2006 Melbourne International Film Festival. With 32 reviews, Rotten Tomatoes rates the film at 69% (22 fresh, 10 rotten), giving an overall "fresh" rating. The film was commercially released on Amazon in 2007, and is available as region 1 and 2 DVDs. Box Office. "Opal Dream" grossed $64,461 at the box office in Australia, and $140,666 worldwide
900145	The House by the Cemetery (Italian: Quella villa accanto al cimitero) is a 1981 Italian supernatural horror film directed by Lucio Fulci. The film stars Catriona MacColl, Paolo Malco, Ania Pieroni, Giovanni Frezza, Silvia Collatina and Dagmar Lassander. It is the third instalment of the unofficial "Gates of Hell" trilogy which also includes "City of the Living Dead" and "The Beyond". Its plot revolves around a series of murders taking place in a New England home–a home which happens to be hiding a particularly gruesome secret within its basement walls. Themes and motifs from popular horror films such as "The Shining", "The Amityville Horror" and "Frankenstein" are readily on display. This movie made the infamous video nasty list in the United Kingdom. Plot. A woman (Daniela Doria) is in an abandoned house looking for her boyfriend. After she discovers his body, she is stabbed in the head, and her body is dragged through a cellar door. In New York City, Bob (Giovanni Frezzi) and his parents, Norman and Lucy Boyle (Paolo Malco and Catriona MacColl), are moving. Norman's ex-colleague, Dr. Peterson, who murdered his mistress before committing suicide, was the previous owner. The Boyles are to stay there, whilst Norman researches old houses. As his mother packs, Bob looks at a photograph of a house and notices a girl in it. In New Whitby, Boston, Bob waits in his parents' car while they collect keys. The girl from the photograph appears across the street. The girl, Mae (Silvia Collatina), whom only Bob can see, warns him to stay away. In the real estate office, Mrs. Gittelson (Dagmar Lassander) is annoyed when her colleague hands the couple "the Freudstein" keys. She insists it is called "Oak Mansion". Gittelson promises to find a babysitter. Oak Mansion is in a poor state of repair. The cellar door is locked and nailed shut. A woman arrives and introduces herself as Ann, the babysitter (Ania Pieroni). That night, Norman hears noises and finds Ann unblocking the cellar door. The next day, Norman goes to the library to peruse Peterson's materials. The assistant librarian, Daniel Douglas (Giampaolo Saccarola), informs Norman that Peterson conducted private research at the house. He studied records of area disappearances and other demographic data. Mae shows Bob a tombstone on the grounds marked "Mary Freudstein" and says she is not really dead. Indoors, Lucy finds the tombstone of "Jacob Tess Freudstein". When Norman returns, he reassures her that some old houses have indoor tombs, because of the hard wintry ground. Norman opens the cellar door and walks down the stairs only be attacked by a bat, which he stabs. Spooked, the family drives down to the estate office and demands to be re-housed, but are told it will be few more days before they can move. While the Boyles are at hospital to treat Norman's injuries from the bat, Gittelson arrives at the house to tell them of a new property. Letting herself in, she stands by the Freudstein tombstone, which cracks apart, pinning her ankle. A figure emerges, stabs her in the neck with a fireplace poker, and drags her into the cellar. The next morning, Lucy finds Ann cleaning a bloodstain on the kitchen floor. Ann eludes Lucy's questions about the stain. Over coffee, Norman tells Lucy that he's discovered that Freudstein was a Victorian surgeon who conducted illegal experiments. Norman must travel to New York to research Freudstein. On the way, Norman drops by the library and finds a cassette of Peterson, which explains Freudstein killed his family. Ann goes to the cellar looking for Bob, but Freudstein decapitates her after slashing her throat. Bob sees Ann's head, and exits screaming. Lucy refuses to believe Bob's tale about Ann. That evening, Bob returns to the cellar looking for Ann. Lucy hears Bob's cries and tries to open the cellar door. When she cannot open the door, Norman returns and attacks it with an axe. The rotting hands of Freudstein (Giovanni De Nava) appear and restrain Bob. One axe blow chops off the monster's hand, and he staggers away, holding Bob. The cellar contains mutilated bodies, surgical equipment and a slab. Freudstein is a living corpse with rotting flesh. Norman tells Lucy the 150-year-old Freudstein lives by using his victims' parts to regenerate blood cells. Norman attacks Freudstein, but the ghoul twists the axe away. He grabs a knife off a tray and stabs Freudstein. Freudstein picks up Norman and rips his throat out. Lucy and Bob climb a ladder leading to the cracked tombstone. Lucy strains to shift the stone, but Freudstein grabs her. Freudstein kills Lucy by ramming her head into the concrete floor. As Freudstein advances up the ladder, Bob strains to escape. Suddenly, Bob is yanked upwards and finds Mae. With Mae is her mother, Mary Freudstein (Teresa Rossi Passante), who urges them to leave. Freudstein leads Mae and Bob down the wintry grove into a netherworld of ghosts and sadness. Critical reception. Allmovie praised the film, complimenting its atmosphere. As of 26 March 2013, the film has a score of 6.1 out of 10 based on 5,944 votes on the Internet Movie Database. Home video history. In the United Kingdom, the film has had a history of problems with the BBFC over the years. The original cinema version was heavily cut with edits to the poker murder and the slashing of Ann's throat, and this print was later released on video prior to the UK's Video Recordings Act 1984 and subsequently banned as a video nasty. The film was made officially available in 1988, though the print had been pre-edited by 34 seconds (removing the cinema cuts) and then additionally cut by 4 minutes 11 seconds with further cuts to the opening stabbing, the bat attack, Norman's throat being torn out by Freudstein and tracking shots of mutilated bodies in the basement. The film was again released in 1992 though this print had been heavily pre-cut by the distributors and removed 7 minutes 27 seconds of footage, thus rendering much of the film unintelligible. The 2001 Vipco DVD issue restored nearly all of the film's prior edits but was cut by 33 secs by the BBFC with lesser edits made to the poker murder and a throat cutting. Although willing to release the movie uncut, the film had recently been prosecuted under the Obscene Publications Act following the discovery of bootleg copies of the uncut version, leaving the BBFC no choice but to cut the film. All the cuts were finally waived for the 2009 Arrow DVD. The Anchor Bay DVD version was later released uncut, containing all the gore and violence from the original version. The film was released by Blue Underground on Blu-ray (as well as a new DVD edition) on 25 October 2011 with a new 2K transfer.
426722	Caleeb Pinkett (born January 3, 1980) is an American actor and writer. He is the younger brother of actress Jada Pinkett Smith, and the brother-in-law of actor/recording artist Will Smith, and uncle of Jaden Smith and Willow Smith. He starred as Yusef in a 2004 drama film "In Your Eyes" and Kenny in the TV sitcom "All of Us". Pinkett attended Canyon Springs High School in Moreno Valley, California.
1063836	Hilary and Jackie is a 1998 British biographical film directed by Anand Tucker. The screenplay by Frank Cottrell Boyce is based on the memoir "A Genius in the Family" by Piers and Hilary du Pré, which chronicles the life and career of their late sister, cellist Jacqueline du Pré. The film attracted controversy and criticism for allegedly distorting details in Jacqueline's life, although Hilary du Pré publicly defended her version of the story. Plot. The film is divided into two sections, the first telling events from Hilary's point of view and the second from Jackie's. It opens with Hilary and Jackie as children being taught by their mother to dance and play musical instruments, the cello for Jackie and the flute for Hilary. Jackie does not take practising seriously at first, but when she does, she becomes a virtuoso, quickly rising to international prominence. Marriage to pianist and conductor Daniel Barenboim follows. Hilary, on the other hand, plays in a community orchestra and marries Christopher Finzi, the son of composer Gerald Finzi. The film, though focused primarily on Jacqueline, is ultimately about the relationship between the two sisters and their dedication to one another; to help Jacqueline through a nervous breakdown and in the interest of therapy, Hilary consents to Jacqueline having an affair with her (Hilary's) husband. The last quarter of the movie chronicles in detail the last fifteen years of Jacqueline's life: she is diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, loses control of her nervous system, becomes paralysed, goes deaf and mute, and finally dies. The film ends with Jacqueline's spirit standing on the beach where she used to play as a child, watching herself and her sister frolicking in the sand as little girls. Production. Scenes were filmed in the Blue Coat School, the County Sessions House, George's Dock, St. George's Hall, and the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool. Additional scenes were filmed at the Royal Academy of Music and Wigmore Hall in London, and most interiors were shot at the Shepperton Studios in Surrey. Brithdir Mawr, an ancient house in North Wales, was used for location shots of Hilary's house. Classical pieces performed in the film include compositions by Edward Elgar, Joseph Haydn, Johann Sebastian Bach, Johannes Brahms, César Franck, Matthias Georg Monn, Georg Friedrich Händel, Robert Schumann, Ludwig van Beethoven, and Antonín Dvořák. Jacqueline du Pré's cello in the movie was played and synchronised to Emily Watson's movements by Caroline Dale. Critical reception. In his review in "The New York Times", Stephen Holden called the film "one of the most insightful and wrenching portraits of the joys and tribulations of being a classical musician ever filmed" and "an astoundingly rich and subtle exploration of sibling rivalry and the volcanic collisions of love and resentment, competitiveness and mutual dependence that determine their lives." He went on to say ""Hilary and Jackie" is as beautifully acted as it is directed, edited and written." Roger Ebert of the "Chicago Sun-Times" described it as "an extraordinary film makes no attempt to soften the material or make it comforting through the cliches of melodrama." In the "San Francisco Chronicle", Edward Guthmann stated, "Watson is riveting and heartbreaking. Assisted by Tucker's elegant direction and Boyce's thoughtful, scrupulous writing, she gives a knockout performance." Anthony Lane of "The New Yorker" said, "The sense of period, of ungainly English pride, is funny and acute, but the movie mislays its sense of wit as the girls grow up. The nub of the tale... feels both overblown and oddly beside the point; it certainly means that Tucker takes his eye, or his ear, off the music. The whole picture, indeed, is more likely to gratify the emotionally prurient than to appease lovers of Beethoven and Elgar." "Entertainment Weekly" rated the film A- and added, "This unusual, unabashedly voluptuous biographical drama, a bravura feature debut for British TV director Anand Tucker, soars on two virtuoso performances: by the rightfully celebrated Emily Watson . . . and by the under-celebrated Rachel Griffiths." Rana Dasgupta wrote in an essay about biographical films that "the film's tagline – 'The true story of two sisters who shared a passion, a madness and a man' – is a good indication of its prurient intent. The book's moving account of love and solidarity, whose characters are incomplete and complex but not "mad", is rejected in favour of a salacious account of social deviance." Controversy and protests. Although the film was a critical and box-office success, and received several Academy Award nominations, it ignited a furore, especially in London, centre of du Pre's performing life. A group of her closest colleagues, including fellow cellists Mstislav Rostropovich and Julian Lloyd Webber, sent a "bristling" letter to "The Times" in February 1999. Clare Finzi, Hilary du Pré's daughter, charged that the film was a "gross misinterpretation, which I cannot let go unchallenged." Employees of the film's PR agency masquerading as students from the Royal College of Music picketed the premiere. Daniel Barenboim said, "Couldn't they have waited until I was dead?" Hilary du Pré wrote in "The Guardian", "At first I could not understand why people didn't believe my story because I had set out to tell the whole truth. When you tell someone the truth about your family, you don't expect them to turn around and say that it's bunkum. But I knew that Jackie would have respected what I had done. If I had gone for half-measures, she would have torn it up. She would have wanted the complete story to be told." Jay Fielden reported in "The New Yorker" that she'd said, "When you love someone, you love the whole of them. Those who are against the film want to look only at the pieces of Jackie's life that they accept. I don’t think the film has taken any liberties at all. Jackie would have absolutely loved it."
971999	Erwin O. Kreyszig (January 6, 1922 in Pirna, Germany – December 12, 2008) was a Professor of Mathematics at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada. He was a pioneer in the field of applied mathematics: non-wave replicating linear systems. He was also a distinguished author, having written the textbook "Advanced Engineering Mathematics", the leading textbook for civil, mechanical, electrical, and chemical engineering undergraduate engineering mathematics. Kreyszig received his Ph.D. degree in 1949 at the University of Darmstadt under the supervision of Alwin Walther. He then continued his research activities at the universities of Tübingen and Münster. Prior to joining Carleton University in 1984, he held positions at Stanford University (1954/55), the University of Ottawa (1955/56), Ohio State University (1956–60, professor 1957) and he completed his habilitation at the University of Mainz. In 1960 he became professor at the Technical University of Graz and organized the Graz 1964 Mathematical Congress. He worked at the University of Düsseldorf (1967–71) and at the University of Karlsruhe (1971–73). From 1973 through 1984 he worked at the University of Windsor and since 1984 he had been at Carleton University. He was awarded the title of Distinguished Research Professor in 1991 in recognition of a research career during which he published 176 papers in refereed journals, and 37 in refereed conference proceedings. Kreyszig was also an administrator, developing a Computer Centre at the University of Graz, and at the Mathematics Institute at the University of Düsseldorf. In 1964, he took a leave of absence from Graz to initiate a doctoral program in mathematics at Texas A&M University. Kreyszig authored 14 books, including "Advanced Engineering Mathematics", which was published in its 9th edition in 2008. He supervised 104 master's, 22 doctoral, and 12 postdoctoral students. Together with his son he founded the "Erwin and Herbert Kreyszig scholarship" which has funded graduate students since 2001.
1016086	A Man Called Hero is a 1999 Hong Kong wuxia film directed by Andrew Lau and based on the manhua series "" by Ma Wing-shing. Plot. The story begins in early Republican China. Hero Hua (Ekin Cheng) is given his family heirloom, the Red Sword, and is accepted by Pride (Anthony Wong) as a student after passing a test. When he returns home, he is horrified to see that his family have been murdered by Westerners for opposing the trade in opium. That night, Hero breaks up the Westerners' party and kills them in revenge. He spends the rest of the night with his lover, Jade (Kristy Yang). The next morning, he flees from China and sails to America. 16 years later, Hero's childhood friend, Sheng (Jerry Lamb), and Hero's son, Sword Hua (Nicholas Tse), arrive in New York City on the first day of Chinese New Year. They visit China House, the biggest inn in Chinatown, where they see a lion dance performance led by the Boss of China House (Yuen Biao). A group of thugs show up, demanding for a monk called Luohan (Ken Lo), whom they believe to be hiding in China House. The Boss defeats the thug leader in a fight and drives them away. The Boss then shows Sword and Sheng to Luohan, who tells them how he met and befriended Hero on board the ship bound for America, and their experiences as labourers in Steel Bull Canyon. Sword and Sheng later visit Jade's grave, and Sheng tells Sword about how he and Jade travelled to New York City before Sword's birth in search of Hero, and how Sword's parents were reunited in America. While visiting the shop where Sword's parents took their wedding photographs, Sword and Sheng sense someone following them. Sword surprises the stalker and manages to corner her after a brief chase through the streets. She identifies herself as Kate (Grace Yip), the daughter of Shadow (Dion Lam), Hero's senior. Kate leads Sword and Sheng to her father. Shadow tells them how he rescued Hero from Steel Bull Canyon when the latter was buried in the sand for allegedly murdering two men, and what happened after Hero and Jade were reunited. Hero and Shadow encountered the Five Elements Ninjas and defeated them in a fight. During the fight, Hero injured the female ninja, Wood (Shu Qi), but spared her life and sent her for medical treatment. Wood developed a crush on Hero, and that incurred the jealousy of the Gold Ninja (Mark Cheng), who is secretly in love with Wood. Jade had just given birth to a pair of twins in China House when the Gold Ninja set fire to the building. Taking advantage of the chaos, a traitor called Bigot (Elvis Tsui) kidnapped Sword's twin sister and there had been no news of her since then. Jade died in Hero's arms shortly after giving birth due to too much blood loss. Hero later met a fortune teller, who told him that he was born under the Star of Death and is destined to lead a life of loneliness as misfortune will befall those close to him. Hero then entrusted the baby Sword to Sheng before leaving with Shadow. Hero and Shadow then travelled to Japan, where they witnessed a duel between their master, Pride, and Pride's junior and rival, Invincible (Francis Ng). Pride defeated Invincible but sustained internal injuries and died not long after the duel. Before his death, Pride passed Hero the martial arts manual 'China Secret' and transferred all his powers to him. Back in China House, the Boss, along with Sword and the others, plan to liberate the labourers at Steel Bull Canyon. They disguise themselves as a Chinese opera troupe and infiltrate the canyon, catching the supervisors off guard in a surprise attack. Luohan sacrifices himself to stop the supervisors from throwing dynamite at the escaping labourers by blowing himself up together with the enemy. Sword corners Bigot and demands the whereabouts of his twin sister, but Bigot suddenly draws out a gun and shoots Sword. Bigot is about to kill Sword when Hero shows up and finishes him off. Hero uses his inner energy to create an explosion and prevent a group of enemies on horseback from advancing further. The heroes and labourers then return to China House in triumph. Sword is happy to see his father in person for the first time after hearing so many stories about his father. However, Hero appears cold towards his son and constantly keeps a distance away from him, as he persistently believes the fortune teller's words that he will lose his loved ones if he gets close to them. Hero also meets Wood, who has maintained her crush on him for the past 16 years, but he refuses to accept her. She warns Hero that her master, Invincible, has arrived in New York City. Since Pride had died, Invincible turns on Hero, Pride's successor, to finish the duel. The next morning, Invincible shows up at China House and fights with the Boss and Sword until Hero appears and stops him. Hero and Invincible then duel on top of the Statue of Liberty and eventually Hero defeats and destroys Invincible. Before the film ends, Sword and Sheng are seen preparing to depart China House while Hero watches them from a distance and walks away in the opposite direction as they leave. Music. The music and songs for the film were composed by Chan Kwong-wing.
93554	Grand Theft Parsons is a 2003 film based on the true story of the country musician Gram Parsons (played by Gabriel Macht), who died of an overdose in 1973. Parsons and his road manager, Phil Kaufman (Johnny Knoxville), made a pact in life that whoever died first would be cremated by the other in what was then the Joshua Tree National Monument, an area of desert they both loved and cherished. Plot. The death of singer Gram Parsons prompts Phil Kaufman to fulfill his promise and a subtle black comedy unwinds, with Kaufman bribing mortuary personnel, renting a psychedelic hearse from Larry Oster-burg, and trekking across the southern California desert, pursued all the while by Parsons' ex-girlfriend with Kaufman's girlfriend and Parsons’ step-father. Reaction. "Grand Theft Parsons" was shown in the "Park City at Midnight" section at the 2004 Sundance Film Festival. The film received mixed notices from critics. In his review for "The New York Times", A. O. Scott wrote, "Parsons himself might have written a surreal, funny-sad ballad about the aftermath of his own death, but "Grand Theft Parsons" is little more than a surreal anecdote, told in too much detail and without enough soul or imagination to make anything more than a footnote to a legend". Kimberley Jones, in her review for the "Austin Chronicle", wrote, "Black comedy can be a beautiful thing, but "Grand Theft Parsons" consistently misses that mark for a more bottom-feeding tasteless and broad, with the occasional ham-handed, soulless stab at sober reflection". In his review for the "Los Angeles Times", Kevin Crust found Johnny Knoxville "surprisingly good" but felt that the script left "a lot to be desired, strewn with dialogue as flat and stale as old beer and some invented characters who make the events depicted seem more silly than anarchic". However, in his review for the "Sunday Times", Bryan Appleyard wrote, ""Grand Theft Parsons" is a delight, a comic tragedy that, though it does not say much about Parsons's art, says a great deal about the context in which it emerged". "Time Out London" found that the film "hit on a pleasing vein of deadpan stoner humour, especially in the character of a hearse-driving hippie who comes along for the ride" and "could easily become a a cult favourite". The "Daily Mirror" wrote, "It's a mark of this movie's tremendous charm that, as the flames rise towards the sky, the ending seems gloriously happy".
582094	Krantiveer is an Indian Bollywood action crime film directed by Mehul Kumar, released on 22 July 1994. The film stars Nana Patekar, Dimple Kapadia, Atul Agnihotri, Mamta Kulkarni, Danny Denzongpa and Paresh Rawal in lead roles.It became the third highest grossing film of the year,[http://www.boxofficeindia.com/1994.htm] additionally winning three Star Screen Awards, four Filmfare Awards and one National Film Award.
583373	Yeh Kya Ho Raha Hai is a 2002 Bollywood comedy film. Directed by Hansal Mehta, produced by Pammi Baweja and written by Suparn Verma. the film stars Prashant Chianani, Aamir Ali Malik, Vaibhav Jalani, Yash Pandit, Deepti Daryanani, Payal Rohatgi, Samita Bangargi, Punarnava Mehta. Its basic premise is taken from American film American Pie. The film was a moderate and a commercial success at box office and was declared a hit. Soundtracks. The movie soundtrack has 6 songs composed by Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy, with lyrics by Javed Akhtar.
995192	The Emerald Forest is a 1985 English language British film set in the Brazilian Rainforest. It was directed by John Boorman and written by Rospo Pallenberg. It is based on a true story. The film was screened out of competition at the 1985 Cannes Film Festival. Plot summary. Bill Markham is an engineer who has moved to Brazil with his family to complete the construction of a large hydro-electric dam. The construction requires large areas of forest to be cleared, even more to be flooded. Its completion will bring more people to the areas who will clear the jungle for agriculture and living space. When the film opens, Markham has taken his family to the edge of the forest for a picnic to show them the jungle and the progress of the dam's construction. The site is abuzz with workers and machines cutting and clearing, but is situated right on the edge of a vast expanse of dense and unexplored Amazon terrain. His young son, Tommy, aged seven, wanders from the cleared area to just inside the treeline where he amuses himself by feeding his picnic snacks to the large jungle ants. It is then that an Indian from one of the indigenous tribes known as the Invisible People notices him, and is struck by the boy's blonde hair and bright green eyes, which are the colour of the forest. Tommy sees the tribesman, who smiles warmly at him and speaks softly in his language. Young Tommy then runs out of the treeline to inform Markham that the jungle is full of "smiling people" but his father laughs him off sceptically, telling him he'll be right there to check it out. When Tommy returns to the treeline just ahead of Markham, the tribesman decides that it is unfair to leave the child with these strange people, who, in his opinion, are destroying the world. He abducts the child. As Markham realises his son has just been taken, a warning shot from an unseen archer lands in a tree near his head. Regardless of the arrow, Markham pursues them, calling upon all the nearby construction workers to help. Frantically hacking his way through the undergrowth, Markham comes to a ridge in a clearing that reveals before him an endless valley of dense jungle. His son is gone. The story jumps ahead some ten years. The dam is nearing completion. Tommy, or Tommé as he is now called, has become part of the tribe that he lives with, adopting their language, culture and way of life. The tribesman who took him is revealed to be the chief of the Invisible People, and has taken Tommé for his own son. Tommé is depicted going through rituals of manhood and courtship, becoming involved with a beautiful member of the tribe named Kachiri. After their marriage ceremony, he undergoes a vision quest, where his spirit animal shows him what he must do to help his tribe: retrieve the sacred stones from a remote spot deep in the jungle, at the foot of a waterfall. The sacred stones are essentially a mossy-green clay, out of which the Invisible People make their signature body paint that allows them to blend in so seamlessly with the jungle. The chief of the tribe informs Tommé that the quest will be dangerous, as the Fierce People have moved into the area. The Fierce People are a hostile tribe of cannibal warriors, who ironically had been displaced from their own lands years earlier by the beginning of the dam's construction. They are now coming into uncomfortably close proximity to the Invisible People. Meanwhile, in the years after their son's abduction the Markham family has not given up hope of finding Tommy. Bill's wife Jean is now a social worker, heavily involved with orphans and displaced children. Bill himself has become well versed in tribal Amazonian culture in his search for the illusive people who took his son, to the extent that he has become nearly fluent in a few local Indian dialects. One day Bill hosts a particularly obnoxious journalist who is doing an exploitative piece of the subject of Markham's search among Indian peoples, and the two of them set off for a mission on the river. The only clue Markham has to seek out answers is the arrow that was originally shot at him when his son was abducted. Because of the particular fletching used in the arrow, local Indians on the river are able to identify the tribe that Markham has been seeking, and inform him that he quite unsurprisingly hasn't found them up until this point because they are known as the Invisible People. However, Markham and his journalist companion, whose cynicism and sarcasm concerning indigenous peoples is beginning to wear on him, set off for a likely place along the river where they intend to camp and set off fireworks and bottle rockets to attract the attention of any uncontacted but curious tribes in the region. Unfortunately, the tribe they do stumble upon happens to be the Fierce People, who quickly take them into captivity. Markham, who is armed with an M4 carbine, is able to defend himself adequately and just long enough to have an exchange with the leader of the Fierce People. The chief informs Markham that he admires his tenacity, comparing him to a jaguar, and that after a night's head-start into the jungle he will be hunted at daybreak. The journalist is not so lucky, and is gutted on the spot by the tribe's women. Markham then flees the jeering Fierce People into the jungle, firing bursts from his carbine into the darkness behind him. Shortly after dawn, Markham, in hot pursuit and low on ammunition, stumbles into the foot of a waterfall and sees a young Indian underneath the falls gathering stones. Right before he shoots, the young Indian steps forward toward Markham and is revealed to be Tommé, and the two instantly recognise each other. The moment is shattered when the Fierce People burst from the jungle above and behind them in full force, during which Markham takes an arrow in the shoulder. Tommé and his father fight off the Fierce warriors and manage to escape downriver, but Markham loses his carbine in the process. Back home with the Invisible People, Markham spends time recovering from his injuries and fighting off a fever. He comes to understand his son's transformation and the tribe's way of life, forging a begrudging respect for the chief who took him as a child. Markham himself undergoes a vision quest, discovers his spirit animal, and wakes up back in civilisation having been dropped off by the Invisible People at the edge of the dam's construction zone while he was unconscious. During these events, it is revealed that the chief of the Fierce People has been busy trying to figure out how to work the carbine Markham left behind, which he immediately understands is a formidable weapon. The chief is seen working himself up into a rage whilst stuffing bones and rocks into the firing chamber of the carbine in an increasingly desperate and futile attempt to make it shoot. Later, at a seedy brothel and cantina on the edge of the construction zone, the Fierce People wander from the jungle with the M4 in hand to essentially ask someone from civilisation how to work the thing. Seeing an opportunity, the unscrupulous owners of the brothel manage to communicate to the Fierce People that if they are brought some women (motioning to the adjacent jungle) that they would then give the Fierce warriors all the guns and bullets they wanted. When coming back to their village from taking Markham back home, Tommé and his friends in the tribe discover to their horror that the village has been violently raided, many have been killed and all their young women are missing. It is then discovered that the Fierce People have sold them all to the brothel for rifles and liquor. Tommé and his best friend from the tribe then embark upon a harrowing quest into the city, where he will find his old home according to his childhood memory, and ask his father for help. During the journey the two tribesmen meet and are helped along by two other young men who are revealed to have been former members of the Bat People tribe, but who now live in the city. Tommé manages to navigate from memory to his parents' multistory condo, which he climbs like a tree. Tommé is seen by his mother during this encounter for the first time in a decade. Markham agrees to help Tommé and his tribe by rescuing all the women from the brothel. Coordinating his attack with the Invisible People to take place at night, while all the members of the Fierce People are wildly drunk outside the building, Markham initiates a shootout in the brothel whilst all the women are sprung from captivity. However, during the attack, several members of the Invisible People are killed, including the chief, Tommé's adopted tribal father. In the aftermath of this event, Tommé becomes chief of the tribe. Markham warns Tommé that the dam, imminently nearing completion, will bring more people, reduce more jungle, and likely end their way of life, but Tommé is obstinate, insisting that the rains will wash the dam away when the frogs sing loudly enough. Soon afterward, during a particularly bad storm, Markham places demolition explosives at key points along the dam, blowing it up during the peak of the rains. With the dam washed away, Tommé and the tribe can live in relative peace for a little while longer. The film ends with Tommé and Kachiri sitting at the swimming hole near their village in the jungle, watching the members of their tribe splash and play. The tribe even includes a few new members in the two young men from the Bat People who had helped Tommé earlier. Tommé and Kachiri laugh together and leisurely speculate on which members of the tribe would make good couples. Style. The film is clearly motivated by the destruction of the rainforest, but apart from the impact on the environment and the local wildlife, it examines the fact that a way of living which was natural to human beings for many thousands of years is also being destroyed. Scenes exploring the culture and spiritual beliefs of the tribespeople give the viewer an idea of how South American people lived in the times before widespread colonisation. Reception. "Rotten Tomatoes" gave it an 87% rating, out of 13 reviews. "The Emerald Forest" was designated a Critic's Pick by the reviewers of the "New York Times". It was nominated for 3 BAFTA Awards, for Cinematography, Make Up, and Score. Inspiration. The film was promoted as "based on a true story". Critic Harlan Ellison in his book "Harlan Ellison's Watching" wrote that attempts by the SCAN library reference/research company to get background information on the real story revealed that Rospo Pallenberg's original screenplay was based on several stories, including an article in the "Los Angeles Times" about a Peruvian labourer whose child had been abducted by a local Indian tribe and located sixteen years later almost fully assimilated. Pallenberg's agent told SCAN that while Boorman claimed to have read the original "Times" article, he hadn't, but was simply working from Pallenberg's screenplay. According to SCAN, Boorman told NPR's "All Things Considered" that the son was still living with the tribe in 1985 and identified the tribe as "the Mayoruna", yet detailed anthropological studies of that tribe do not mention an adopted outsider. However, a contemporaneous January 1985 review in "Variety" magazine states up front that the movie is "on an uncredited true story about a Peruvian whose son disappeared in the jungles of Brazil." This fact demonstrates that the source of the film script was known at the time of release. The Los Angeles Times article also mentioned that the Peruvian child had at the time decided to stay with the tribe. Another potential source for "The Emerald Forest" is the book, "Wizard of the Upper Amazon", by F. Bruce Lamb. The story is a second hand account of Manuel Cordova's kidnapping when he was a teenager working for rubber cutters in the Amazon in the early 1900s. He was taken by a group of Indians to a very remote Indian village. These Indians were of a fierce independent disposition, and had fled into the interior because they refused to exist in the subservient situation imposed on them by the rubber barons of that time. Cordova was incorporated into their tribe and describes a life strikingly similar to the one depicted in "The Emerald Forest".
581846	Mallika Sherawat (born Reema Lamba) is an Indian actress and a former model. Known for her bold onscreen attitude in such films as "Khwahish" (2003) and "Murder" (2004) Sherawat has been frequently featured in the media as a sex symbol. She then appeared in successful romantic comedy "Pyaar Ke Side Effects" (2006) which won her much critical acclaim.
590886	Nartanasala () was a 1963, Indian mythological, Telugu film written by Samudrala Raghavacharya and directed by Kamalakara Kameshwara Rao. It was produced by Rajyam Pictures in Black and White. The film was a blockbuster and has won the National Film Award for Second Best Feature Film in 1963 at the 11th National Film Awards. The film has won the best art direction award at the Afro Asian film festival in Jakarta. The film is listed among CNN-IBN's list of hundred greatest Indian films of all time. Plot. This Hindu mythological film deals with the Viraata Parvam of the epic Mahabharata.
1253617	Barbara Bach (born Barbara Goldbach; August 27, 1947) is an American actress and model known as the Bond girl Anya Amasova from the James Bond film "The Spy Who Loved Me" (1977). She subsequently starred in "Force 10 from Navarone" (1978) with Robert Shaw and Harrison Ford. She is married to former Beatle Ringo Starr. Early life. Bach was born in Rosedale, Queens, and grew up in Jackson Heights, the daughter of Marjorie and Howard I. Goldbach (1922–2001), a policeman. Her mother is Irish Catholic, while her father was German-Austrian Jewish and her paternal grandmother Romanian. She attended a Catholic high school, Dominican Commercial, in Jamaica, Queens. Bach left school at age 16 to become a model. She is not related to Catherine Bach, whose birth name is Bachman. Career. In 1972, Bach co-starred with two other Bond girls, Claudine Auger and Barbara Bouchet in the mystery "La Tarantola dal ventre nero" (a giallo film) and had small roles in other Italian films. In 1977, her role as the Russian spy Anya Amasova in "The Spy Who Loved Me" gained her recognition as an international sex symbol. Bach remarked after the film that Bond is "a chauvinist pig who uses girls to shield him against bullets." The following year she appeared in the movie "Force 10 from Navarone". She lost a role to actress Shelley Hack when she auditioned for the television series "Charlie's Angels". Bach has 28 films to her credit. She has not worked as an actress since the mid-1980s. She appeared in "Playboy" several times, from 1977 to 1981, in 1985, and in 2008. Personal life. Family. Bach met Italian businessman Augusto Gregorini on a flight to Rome in 1966. They were married in 1968 and moved to Italy where they had a daughter, singer-songwriter Francesca Gregorini (born August 7, 1968) and a son Gianni (born in 1972). In 1975, Bach separated from Gregorini and moved back to the United States with her two children. Bach met Ringo Starr on the set of the film "Caveman" in February 1980, and they were married on April 27, 1981, a few weeks after the film's release. In recent years, Bach has accompanied Starr on his tours and has appeared in some of his music videos, playing on some of his songs. They live in the English village of Cranleigh. Joe Walsh, guitarist with the band the Eagles, married Barbara Bach's sister, Marjorie Bach, in Los Angeles on December 13, 2008. Rehabilitation. In October 1988, Bach and Starr attended a detox clinic in Tucson, Arizona, each receiving a six-week treatment for alcoholism. Education. Bach holds a master's degree (UCLA, 1993) in psychology. She started the Self Help Addiction Recovery Program (S.H.A.R.P.) with the help of George Harrison, Eric Clapton and Pattie Boyd, the former wife of both Harrison and Clapton. Bach and Starr created The Lotus Foundation, a charity with many sub-charities. Vegetarianism. Barbara Bach, along with her husband Ringo, is vegetarian.
775577	The Danish Poet () is a 2006 animated short film written, directed, and animated by Torill Kove and narrated by Liv Ullmann. A co-production of the National Film Board of Canada (NFB) and Mikrofilm AS of Norway, it has won both the Academy Award and Genie Award for best animated short film. Synopsis. The film follows Kasper Jørgensen, a Danish poet in the 1940s who is seeking inspiration. At the suggestion of his psychiatrist, Dr. Mørk, he travels to Norway to meet the famous author Sigrid Undset. However, after arriving in Norway, he meets Ingeborg, a farmer's daughter, and they fall in love. He proposes to her, but discovers that she is already engaged, at her father's wish. She promises not to cut her hair until they are reunited, and Kasper returns to Denmark. Later, Ingeborg's husband dies in an accident, and Ingeborg sends a letter to Kasper. However, it is accidentally dropped by the postman, and never arrives. When Sigrid Undset dies, both Kasper and Ingeborg travel to the funeral; they are reunited, and later marry and live in Copenhagen. As Kasper tells Ingeborg that he loves her long hair, she does not cut it, but when Kasper trips over it and breaks his thumb, she sends for her hairdresser from Norway. On the way, the hairdresser meets a young man on the train, who was also travelling to Copenhagen to meet Kasper, his favourite poet. The two fall in love, and are revealed to be the narrator's parents. Production. Kove first became involved with the National Film Board, an agency of the Government of Canada, after her first year at Concordia University in Montreal. After working there as an assistant for some years, she wrote and pitched a script to the company, which led to her career as a director and animator. She first wrote the script for "The Danish Poet" some time ago, though she says that she "can’t really remember when". Production was split between Marcy Page, of the National Film Board, and Lise Fearnley, of Mikrofilm AS in Norway, and took roughly three years, although Kove took a year off for maternity leave. The film was made using hand-drawn traditional animation, with pencil on paper, and then scanned and digitally coloured, with about half of the animation by Kove, and the rest divided between animators in Montreal and Norway. Kove's style is simplistic, which she says is less a specific style choice than "quite simply [...] the only one I know how to do." The backgrounds were painted by Montreal artist Anne Ashton. Narrator Liv Ullmann was selected for the film because Kove liked her voice and "thought that her delivery would be right for the story"; she reaffirmed this after the film's release, stating that Ullmann was "just right". She thanked Ullmann in her Academy Award acceptance speech, saying that "it was really amazing of her to participate in this." Origins. Kove's first ideas for "The Danish Poet" began when she went through a period of self-assessment; she wanted to write a story about what she described as when "you reach a turning point or a milestone and you look back and you think 'how in the heck did I get here?' [...] And you realize that the answer lies somewhere in a complex web of all kinds of stuff, like genetic make-up, upbringing, coincidences, choices you made along the way, missed opportunities, lucky breaks." She felt that it was a natural choice to centre on a relationship between two people, "because relationships, and especially the romantic ones, play a huge role in shaping our lives, and also, obviously, in creating new ones." Kove originally wanted to make the film biographical, based on a story her father told her: he had dreamed of being an artist, and made an appointment with an art teacher to ask if he was good enough to make it in the art world. However, he stood at the top of the stairs and decided not to go, eventually deciding to go to architecture school (as his parents wanted) where he met his wife. Kove's inspiration was drawn from the fact that her existence seemed to hinge on that decision, because "if the artist had said, 'Oh, you must paint,' you know, then in all likelihood he would never have met my mother, and, you know, that would have been it for my chances." However, Kove felt the story was too personal, and rewrote it to be fictional. Themes. The film's main theme shows the effect that coincidence and chance can have on the course of life—like the bad weather, angry dog, hungry goats, slippery planks, and careless postman that change the course of both Kasper's and Ingeborg's lives—and shows, as the film's website states, that "seemingly unrelated factors might play important roles in the big scheme of things after all." In an interview, Kove said that "what I'm trying to get across is just that I think life is really a kind of a meandering journey ... a lot is really up to chance". However, Kove has also said that she'd like people to be able to interpret the film in different ways: I’d like them to walk away thinking it’s a film that can be interpreted in more than one way. I’m happy when I hear from people who’ve seen the short that it makes them think about the kind of strangeness where we find inspiration for art and where we find love, and the kind of miraculousness of just being alive and having a life. I’m pleased when people get that out of it. She also identifies several subplots of artistic inspiration, as Kasper "finds within himself", and not within another writer, and a "subtext ... about nationalism and how much emphasis we in the western world put on stereotypes and on which country we're from". Awards. "The Danish Poet" received the Academy Award for Animated Short Film at the 79th Academy Awards in 2007, a second Oscar nomination (and first win) for Kove, who was nominated in 2000 for her first professional film, "My Grandmother Ironed the King's Shirts", also co-produced by the NFB. The win also marked the first Norwegian film to win an Academy Award since Thor Heyerdahl's "Kon-Tiki" won for best documentary in 1952. "The Danish Poet" also won Best Animated Short at the 27th Genie Awards in 2007, and a Norwegian-language picture book adaptation was nominated for the 2007 Brage Prize. It was also included in the 2006 Animation Show of Shows.
1101748	Saunders Mac Lane (4 August 1909 – 14 April 2005) was an American mathematician who co-founded category theory with Samuel Eilenberg. Early life and education. Mac Lane was born in Norwich, Connecticut, near where his family lived in Taftville. He was christened "Leslie Saunders MacLane", but "Leslie" fell into disuse because his parents, Donald MacLane and Winifred Saunders, came to dislike it. He began inserting a space into his surname because his first wife found it difficult to type the name without a space. He was the oldest of three brothers; one of his brothers, Gerald MacLane, also became a mathematics professor at Rice University and Purdue University. Another sister died as a baby. His father and grandfather were both ministers; his grandfather had been a Presbyterian, but was kicked out of the church for believing in evolution, and his father was a Congregationalist. His mother, née Winifred Saunders, studied at Mount Holyoke College and taught English, Latin, and mathematics. In high school, Mac Lane's favorite subject was chemistry. While in high school, his father died, and he came under his grandfather's care. His half-uncle, a lawyer, determined to send him to Yale University, where many of his relatives had been educated, and paid his way there beginning in 1926. As a freshman, he became disillusioned with chemistry. His mathematics instructor, Lester S. Hill, coached him for a local mathematics competition which he won, setting the direction for his future work. He went on to study mathematics and physics as a double major, taking courses from Jesse Beams, Ernest William Brown, Ernest Lawrence, F. S. C. Northrop, and Øystein Ore, among others. He graduated from Yale with a B.A. in 1930. During this period, he published his first scientific paper, in physics and co-authored with Irving Langmuir. In 1929, at a party of Yale football supporters in Montclair, New Jersey, Mac Lane (there to be presented with a prize for having the best grade point average yet recorded at Yale) had met Robert Maynard Hutchins, the new president of the University of Chicago, who encouraged him to go there for his graduate studies and soon afterwards offered him a scholarship. Mac Lane neglected to actually apply to the program, but showed up and was admitted anyway. At Chicago, the subjects he studied included set theory with E. H. Moore, number theory with Leonard Eugene Dickson, the calculus of variations with Gilbert Ames Bliss, and logic with Mortimer J. Adler. In 1931, having earned his masters degree and feeling restless at Chicago, he earned a fellowship from the Institute of International Education and became one of the last Americans to study at the University of Göttingen prior to its decline under the Nazis. His greatest influences there were Paul Bernays and Hermann Weyl. By the time he finished his doctorate in 1934, Bernays had been forced to leave because he was Jewish, and Weyl became his main examiner. At Göttingen, Mac Lane also studied with Gustav Herglotz and Emmy Noether. Within days of finishing his degree, he married Dorothy Jones, from Chicago, and soon returned to the U.S.. Career. From 1934 through 1938, Mac Lane held short term appointments at Yale University, Harvard University, Cornell University, and the University of Chicago. He then held a tenure track appointment at Harvard from 1938 to 1947. In 1941, while giving a series of visiting lectures at the University of Michigan, he met Samuel Eilenberg and began what would become a fruitful collaboration on the interplay between algebra and topology. In 1944 and 1945, he also directed Columbia University's Applied Mathematics Group, which was involved in the war effort as a contractor for the Applied Mathematics Panel; the mathematics he worked on in this group concerned differential equations for fire-control systems. In 1947, he accepted an offer to return to Chicago, where (in part because of the university's involvement in the Manhattan Project, and in part because of the administrative efforts of Marshall Stone) many other famous mathematicians and physicists had also recently moved. He traveled as a Guggenheim Fellow to ETH Zurich for the 1947–1948 term, where he worked with Heinz Hopf. Mac Lane succeeded Stone as department chair in 1952, and served for six years. Mac Lane was vice president of the National Academy of Sciences and the American Philosophical Society, and president of the American Mathematical Society. While presiding over the Mathematical Association of America in the 1950s, he initiated its activities aimed at improving the teaching of modern mathematics. He was a member of the National Science Board, 1974–1980, advising the American government. In 1976, he led a delegation of mathematicians to China to study the conditions affecting mathematics there. Mac Lane was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1949, and received the National Medal of Science in 1989. Contributions. After a thesis in mathematical logic, his early work was in field theory and valuation theory. He wrote on valuation rings and Witt vectors, and separability in infinite field extensions. He started writing on group extensions in 1942, and in 1943 began his research on what are now called Eilenberg–MacLane spaces K("G","n"), having a single non-trivial homotopy group "G" in dimension "n". This work opened the way to group cohomology in general. After introducing, via the Eilenberg–Steenrod axioms, the abstract approach to homology theory, he and Eilenberg originated category theory in 1945. He is especially known for his work on coherence theorems. A recurring feature of category theory, abstract algebra, and of some other mathematics as well, is the use of diagrams, consisting of arrows (morphisms) linking objects, such as products and coproducts. According to McLarty (2005), this diagrammatic approach to contemporary mathematics largely stems from Mac Lane (1948). Mac Lane had an exemplary devotion to writing approachable texts, starting with his very influential "A Survey of Modern Algebra", coauthored in 1941 with Garrett Birkhoff. From then on, it was possible to teach elementary modern algebra to undergraduates using an English text. His "Categories for the Working Mathematician" remains the definitive introduction to category theory. Mac Lane supervised the Ph.Ds of, among many others, David Eisenbud, William Howard, Irving Kaplansky, Michael Morley, Anil Nerode, Robert Solovay, and John G. Thompson. In addition to reviewing a fair bit of his mathematical output, the obituary articles McLarty (2005, 2007) clarify Mac Lane's contributions to the philosophy of mathematics. Mac Lane (1986) is an approachable introduction to his views on this subject.
1063115	The Omen is a 1976 American/British suspense horror film directed by Richard Donner. The film stars Gregory Peck, Lee Remick, David Warner, Harvey Spencer Stephens, Billie Whitelaw, Patrick Troughton, Martin Benson and Leo McKern. It is the first film in "The Omen" series and was scripted by David Seltzer. Plot. In Rome, the son of American diplomat Robert Thorn (Gregory Peck) and his wife, Katherine (Lee Remick), dies at birth. Robert is convinced by the hospital chaplain, Father Spiletto (Martin Benson), to secretly adopt an orphan whose mother died at the same time. Out of concern for his wife's mental well-being, Robert agrees, but does not reveal to her that the child is not theirs. They name the child Damien (Harvey Spencer Stephens).
582873	Sapoot ("English: Worthy Son") is 1996 Hindi action movie directed by Jagdish A. Sharma and starring Akshay Kumar, Karishma Kapoor, Suniel Shetty, Sonali Bendre. Other cast members include Kader Khan, Prem Chopra, Johnny Lever, Kiran Kumar, Avtar Gill, Mukesh Rishi, Shalini Kapoor, Jeetu Verma, Mahavir Shah. Plot. Singhania (Kader Khan) is a powerful Underworld don, has two sons Raj (Sunil Shetty) looks after his business, while his younger brother Prem (Akshay Kumar) is a playboy. Singhania does not deal in drugs nor does he allow anyone of him men deal with narcotics. Because of this his rivals in the crime world Dhaneshwar (Prem Chopra) and his brother Tejeshwar (Mukesh Rishi) set up and murder Singhania. Now Raj and Prem must take back their father's criminal empire one step at a time.
1164279	Stephanie Kay Panabaker (born May 2, 1990), better known as Kay Panabaker, is a retired American film and television actress now working as a zoologist. She is the younger sister of fellow actress Danielle Panabaker. Early years. Panabaker was born in Orange Grove, Texas, to Donna (née Mayock) and Harold Panabaker. Following in sister Danielle Panabaker's footsteps, she started acting at various community theatres in Chicago, Illinois; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; and Atlanta, Georgia. In Naperville, Illinois, Kay attended Crone Middle School for sixth grade, and moved to Los Angeles, California, at the start of seventh grade. In between projects, Kay focuses on her academics. She graduated from high school as valedictorian when she was 13 years old and received her Associate's Degree at age 15. Kay received two academic scholarships from Glendale Community College, where she attended, studying acting, and where she was on the Dean's list, graduating with honors. She was accepted to the UCLA history program as a junior when she was 15 and completed her BA in History from UCLA before she turned 18. Kay was inspired by an elementary school teacher who made learning exciting, and she wants to do the same for others, hoping to teach 4th or 5th grade once she finishes her teaching degree. Career. Panabaker has guest-starred in several television dramas and soap operas. She portrayed "Alice Brand" in "7th Heaven"; "Melissa Rue" in "ER"; "Sara" in "Port Charles"; "Carrie Bauer" in "The Brothers García"; "Ellisha" in "Medium"; "Lindsey Willows" in ""; to name a few. In film, she appeared in "Dead Heat" as "Sam LaRoche"; and did some voice work in the Disney/Pixar film, "Monsters, Inc.". Panabaker's breakout role came when she starred in The WB's "Summerland" as "Nikki Westerly", in the 2004-2005 season. She also appeared as "George" in the 2007 "Nancy Drew: The Mystery in Hollywood Hills" alongside Emma Roberts and Amy Bruckner. Panabaker had a recurring role in "Phil of the Future" as straight-laced Debbie Berwick, a friend of, and foil to, Pim Diffy (played by Amy Bruckner). She starred in "Life Is Ruff" as "Emily Watson" alongside Kyle Massey and Mitchel Musso. In July 2006 she starred in the Disney Channel Original Movie "Read It and Weep" (based on the book "How My Private Personal Journal Became a Bestseller"), in which her sister Danielle Panabaker also stars. In 2006 Panabaker was in the first ever "Disney Channel Games", on the "Red Team", with Zac Efron, Anneliese van der Pol, Moises Arias, Dylan Sprouse, and Shin Koyamada as part of the Disney Channel's "So Hot Summer!". Her last movie was the Lifetime Television movie "Custody" which aired in September 2007. Her other recent movies include "Moondance Alexander" and "" with Dylan and Cole Sprouse. Panabaker starred in the remake of "Fame" as Jenny, an actress; the film was released in theaters on September 25, 2009. She also played the teenage Kitty Walker on "Brothers and Sisters". Panabaker recently starred in the ABC sci-fi drama series "No Ordinary Family". It was cancelled after one season.
774584	Caroline Dhavernas (; born May 15, 1978) is a Canadian actress. Dhavernas is best known in the United States as Jaye from the short-lived television series "Wonderfalls" on Fox. She also starred as Dr. Lily Brenner in the ABC medical drama "Off the Map". She currently costars as Dr. Alana Bloom in the NBC horror drama "Hannibal". Early life. Dhavernas was born in Montreal, Quebec, the daughter of the Québécois actors Sébastien Dhavernas and Michèle Deslauriers. Her first name is pronounced kah-ro-Lean because she is a French-Canadian. Her last name is roughly pronounced dah-vair-NAH. Her sister Gabrielle Dhavernas is also an actress and specialises in dubbing. The voice timbre of both actresses is very similar, so similar that Gabrielle can dub the voice of Caroline. She learned English at a very young age, as her parents sent her to an English-speaking elementary school called The Priory School. Career. She began her career at the age of 8, dubbing voices for television productions such as "Babar". At the age of 12 she began her acting career in the film "Comme un Voleur" (1990). Dhavernas portrayed swimmer Marilyn Bell in the made-for-television movie "Heart: The Marilyn Bell Story" (1999). She trained for 2 months with the Pointe-Claire Swim Club to convincingly portray Marilyn Bell who was the first to cross 32-mile Lake Ontario in 1954. Other notable films have included a leading role in "Edge of Madness" (2002), and supporting roles in "Out Cold" (2001) and "Lost and Delirious" (2001). She also had a notable role on "Law & Order" as a closeted, gay teenager who killed her girlfriend in the episode "Girl Most Likely" (12x17).
1058201	Arliss Howard (born Leslie Richard Howard; October 18, 1954) is an American actor, writer and film director. Early life and education. Howard was born in Independence, Missouri. He graduated from Truman High School and Columbia College in Columbia, Missouri.
589388	Jaani Dushman is a 1979 Bollywood popular horror film with a large starcast including Sunil Dutt, Rekha, Shatrughan Sinha, Vinod Mehra, Sanjeev Kumar, Neetu Singh, Jeetendra, Reena Roy, Aruna Irani, Madan Puri, Amrish Puri, Shakti Kapoor and Premnath. It was directed by Rajkumar Kohli. The film became a "superhit" at the box office.[http://boxofficeindia.com/showProd.php?itemCat=185&catName=MTk3OQ==] Synopsis. Jwala Prasad is to marry the girl of his dreams. On the day of the marriage, she is dressed all in red, as is the tradition in India. Just before the wedding she slips off to meet her real lover. When Jwala finds out, he is so enraged that he turns into a monster and kills both the to-be bride and her male friend. The saga does not end here, and this monster continues to terrorize the region, first abducting brides dressed in red just before the wedding procession stops at a Mandir (temple). When a to-be groom finally confronts and kills the monster, it leaves the body of Jwala Prasad and possesses the body of its killer. And the terror continues. Years later another male has now killed this creature, and the monster has re-possessed its body, and it is again on the rampage. The police and men of this region do confront this creature, but find out it is invincible, a bhoot comes after every marriage and a song chalo re doli utthao khaar piya milan ki raat aayi bullets cannot harm it, nor can physical strength of fully grown men overpower it. The suspense mounts as one by one the brides are killed and no one seems to have a clue, and everybody seems to be suspect, including the village Poojari, the Thakur, his son, and several other people. Even if they do manage to kill this creature, it will simply re-possess the body of another male, and continue on its gruesome task. This was a multi star box office hit of 1979, all of the songs of this film became hits. Censorship banned this movie since 1976 but later released it with an A-certificate.
1054172	"L'Année dernière à Marienbad (released in the US as Last Year at Marienbad and in the UK as Last Year in Marienbad") is a 1961 French film directed by Alain Resnais from a screenplay by Alain Robbe-Grillet. The film is famous for its enigmatic narrative structure, in which truth and fiction are difficult to distinguish, and the temporal and spatial relationship of the events is open to question. The dream-like nature of the film has fascinated and baffled audiences and critics; some hail it as a masterpiece, others find it incomprehensible. Plot. At a social gathering at a château or baroque hotel, a man approaches a woman. He claims they met the year before at Marienbad and is convinced that she is waiting there for him. The woman insists they have never met. A second man, who may be the woman's husband, repeatedly asserts his dominance over the first man, including beating him several times at a mathematical game (a version of Nim). Through ambiguous flashbacks and disorienting shifts of time and location, the film explores the relationships among the characters. Conversations and events are repeated in several places in the château and grounds, and there are numerous tracking shots of the château's corridors, with ambiguous voiceovers. The characters are unnamed in the film; in the published screenplay, the woman is referred to as "A", the first man is "X", and the man who may be her husband is "M". Production. "L'Année dernière à Marienbad" was created out of an unusual collaboration between its writer Alain Robbe-Grillet and its director Alain Resnais. Robbe-Grillet described its basis: "Alain Resnais and I were able to collaborate only because we had "seen" the film in the same way from the start, and not just in the same general outlines but exactly, in the construction of the least detail as in its total architecture. What I wrote might have been what was already in mind; what he added during the shooting was what I might have written. ...Paradoxically enough, and thanks to the perfect identity of our conceptions, we almost always worked separately." Robbe-Grillet wrote a screenplay which was very detailed, specifying not only the décor and gestures but also the placement and movement of the camera and the sequencing of shots in the editing. Resnais filmed the script with great fidelity, making only limited alterations which seemed necessary. Robbe-Grillet was not present during the filming. When he saw the rough-cut, he said that he found the film just as he had intended it, while recognising how much Resnais had added to make it work on the screen and to fill out what was absent from the script. Robbe-Grillet then published his screenplay, illustrated by shots from the film, as a "ciné-roman" (ciné-novel). Despite the close correspondence between the written and filmed works, numerous differences between them have been identified. Two notable examples are the choice of music in the film (Francis Seyrig's score introduces extensive use of a solo organ), and a scene near the end of the film in which the screenplay explicitly describes a rape, whereas the film substitutes a series of repeated bleached-out travelling shots moving towards the woman. In subsequent statements by the two authors of the film, it was partly acknowledged that they did not entirely share the same vision of it. Filming took place over a period of ten weeks between September and November 1960. The locations used for most of the interiors and the gardens were the châteaux of Schleissheim, Nymphenburg and Amalienburg in and around Munich. Additional interior scenes were filmed in the Photosonore-Marignan-Simo studios in Paris. (No filming was done in the Czech spa town of Marienbad—and the film does not allow the viewer to know with certainty which, if any, scenes are supposed to be located there.) Filming was in black-and-white in Dyaliscope wide-screen. Style. The film continually creates an ambiguity in the spatial and temporal aspects of what it shows, and creates uncertainty in the mind of the spectator about the causal relationships between events. This may be achieved through the editing, giving apparently incompatible information in consecutive shots, or within a shot which seems to show impossible juxtapositions, or by means of repetitions of events in different settings and décor. These ambiguities are matched by contradictions in the narrator's voiceover commentary. Among the notable images in the film is a scene in which two characters (and the camera) rush out of the château and are faced with a tableau of figures arranged in a geometric garden; although the people cast long dramatic shadows, the trees in the garden do not. The manner in which the film is edited challenged the established classical style of narrative construction. It allowed the themes of time and the mind and the interaction of past and present to be explored in an original way. As spatial and temporal continuity is destroyed by its methods of filming and editing, the film offers instead a "mental continuity", a continuity of thought. In determining the visual appearance of the film, Resnais said that he wanted to recreate "a certain style of silent cinema", and his direction as well as the actors' make-up sought to produce this atmosphere. He even asked Eastman Kodak if they could supply an old-fashioned filmstock that would 'bloom' or 'halo' to create the look of a silent film (they couldn't). Resnais showed his costume designer photographs from "L'Inhumaine" and "L'Argent", for which great fashion designers of the 1920s had created the costumes. He also asked members of his team to look at other silent films including Pabst's "Pandora's Box": he wanted Delphine Seyrig's appearance and manner to resemble that of Louise Brooks. Most of Seyrig's dresses in the film were designed by Chanel. The style of certain silent films is also suggested by the manner in which the characters who populate the hotel are mostly seen in artificial poses, as if frozen in time, rather than behaving naturalistically. The films which immediately preceded and followed "Marienbad" in Resnais's career showed a political engagement with contemporary issues (the atomic bomb, the aftermath of the Occupation in France, and the then taboo subject of the war in Algeria); "Marienbad" however was seen to take a completely different direction and to focus principally on style. Commenting on this departure, Resnais said: "I was making this film at a time when I think, rightly, that one could not make a film, in France, without speaking about the Algerian war. Indeed I wonder whether the closed and stifling atmosphere of "L'Année" does not result from those contradictions." Reception. Critical response to the film was divided from the outset and has remained so. Controversy was fuelled when Robbe-Grillet and Resnais appeared to give contradictory answers to the question whether the man and woman had actually met at Marienbad last year or not; this was used as a means of attacking the film by those who disliked it. In 1963 the writer and film-maker Ado Kyrou declared the film a total triumph in his influential "Le Surréalisme au cinéma", recognizing the ambiguous environment and obscure motives within the film as representing many of the concerns of surrealism in narrative cinema. Another early supporter, the actor and surrealist Jacques Brunius, declared that ""Marienbad" is the greatest film ever made". Less reverently, "Marienbad" received an entry in "The Fifty Worst Films of All Time", by Harry Medved, with Randy Dreyfuss and Michael Medved. The authors lampooned the film's surrealistic style and quoted numerous critics who found it to be pretentious and/or incomprehensible. The film critic Pauline Kael called it "the high-fashion experimental film, the snow job at the ice palace... back at the no-fun party for non-people". The movie inspired a brief craze for the Nim variation played by the characters. Interpretations. Numerous explanations of the 'story' have been put forward: that it is a version of the Orpheus and Eurydice myth; that it represents the relationship between patient and psychoanalyst; that it all takes place in the woman's mind; that it all takes place in the man's mind, and depicts his refusal to acknowledge that he has killed the woman he loved; that the characters are ghosts or dead souls in limbo; etc. Some have noted that the film has the atmosphere and the form of a dream, that the structure of the film may be understood by the analogy of a recurring dream, or even that the man's meeting with the woman is the memory (or dream) of a dream. Others have heeded, at least as a starting point, the indications given by Robbe-Grillet in the introduction to his screenplay: "Two attitudes are then possible: either the spectator will try to reconstitute some 'Cartesian' scheme - the most linear, the most rational he can devise - and this spectator will certainly find the film difficult if not incomprehensible; or else the spectator will let himself be carried along by the extraordinary images in front of him [...] and to this spectator, the film will seem the easiest he has ever seen: a film addressed exclusively to his sensibility, to his faculties of sight, hearing, feeling." Robbe-Grillet offered a further suggestion of how one might view the work: "The whole film, as a matter of fact, is the story of a persuading [""une persuasion""]: it deals with a reality which the hero creates out of his own vision, out of his own words." Resnais for his part gave a more abstract explanation of the film's purpose: "For me this film is an attempt, still very crude and very primitive, to approach the complexity of thought, of its processes." Awards. The film won the Golden Lion at the 1961 Venice Film Festival. In 1962 it won the critics' award in the category Best Film of the Syndicat Français de la Critique de cinéma in France. The film was selected as the French entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 34th Academy Awards in 1962, but was not accepted as a nominee. However, it was nominated for the 1963 Academy Award for Writing Original Screenplay (Alain Robbe-Grillet) and it was also nominated for a Hugo Award as "Best Dramatic Presentation". The film was refused entry to the Cannes Film Festival because the director, Alain Resnais, had signed Jean-Paul Sartre's Manifesto of the 121 against the Algeria War. Influence. The impact of "L'Année dernière à Marienbad" upon other film-makers has been widely recognised and variously illustrated, extending from French directors such as Agnès Varda, Marguerite Duras, and Jacques Rivette to international figures like Ingmar Bergman and Federico Fellini. Stanley Kubrick's "The Shining" and David Lynch's "Inland Empire" are two films which are cited with particular frequency as showing the influence of "Marienbad". Peter Greenaway said that "Marienbad" had been the most important influence upon his own filmmaking (and he himself established a close working relationship with its cinematographer Sacha Vierny). The film's visual style has also been imitated in many TV commercials and fashion photography. The music video for "To the End", a 1994 single by British rock group Blur, is based on the film. This film was the main inspiration for Karl Lagerfeld's Chanel Spring-Summer 2011 collection. Lagerfeld's show was complete with a fountain and a modern replica of the film's famous garden. Since costumes for this film were done by Coco Chanel, Lagerfeld drew his inspiration from the film and combined the film's gardens with those at Versailles. Donald Draper, the antihero of "Mad Men", is shown watching this film and "La Notte" in season 2; themes of each film resonate with Draper's storylines.
1235787	Richard "Rick" Ducommun (born July 3, 1956) is a Canadian actor and comedian, often seen in supporting roles on both television and the silver screen. Career. Among his credits include Bart (half of Biff and Bart) in the Canadian children's TV series "Zig Zag", Rick Dukeman in the music video show "Rock 'N' America", Tom Hanks' neighbor Art Weingartner in "The 'Burbs", a barfly in the Bill Murray comedy "Groundhog Day", Henry the chauffeur in "Blank Check ("You know what you got, S.T.Y.L.E., style.")", and villainous monster "Snik" in the Fred Savage fantasy "Little Monsters". Ducommun is recognizable in minor roles for several blockbuster films, such as "Spaceballs", "Die Hard ("Shut it down, shut it down now.")", "The Hunt for Red October", "", "The Experts", "The Last Boy Scout", "Encino Man", "Last Action Hero" and "Scary Movie".
1236285	Lance Reddick (born June 7, 1962) is an American theater, film and TV actor and musician. He is best known for his roles as Cedric Daniels in "The Wire" and Phillip Broyles in "Fringe". He is also known for playing Detective Johnny Basil on "Oz, "the cable TV drama series about the fictional Oswald State Correctional Facility" "and for his appearances as Matthew Abbadon in the fourth and fifth seasons of "Lost". Previously Reddick also starred in two episodes of "Law & Order". Life and career. Reddick was born in Baltimore, Maryland. He attended Friends High School in Baltimore, graduating in 1980. As a teenager, he studied music both at the Peabody Preparatory Institute and a summer program teaching music theory and composition at The Walden School. After attending the Eastman School of Music at the University of Rochester, he moved to Boston in the 1980s, then enrolled in the Yale School of Drama in 1991. He was cast as Cedric Daniels in the acclaimed HBO series The Wire after having also auditioned for the roles of Bubbles and Bunk Moreland. Reddick joined ABC's hit series "Lost" in 2008, where he played Matthew Abaddon, an employee of Charles Widmore, in multiple episodes. He was the third of five actors from the HBO hit series, "Oz" to star in the drama (along with Harold Perrineau, Ken Leung, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje and Fred Koehler). Producers Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse have said they were interested in Reddick for the part of Mr. Eko but he was unavailable due to filming "The Wire" so they approached Akinnuoye-Agbaje instead. Reddick released his debut album "Contemplations & Remembrances" in 2007 and in early 2008 he was cast in a key role for the pilot of "Fringe" in which fellow "Oz" actor Kirk Acevedo also had a regular role. Reddick played Phillip Broyles, the head of an FBI department investigating paranormal activities. Reddick described the hard-driving character as "a real ass. But he's also one of the good guys." Like "Lost", "Fringe" is co-created and produced by J. J. Abrams. There was some doubt about whether Reddick could appear in both "Lost" and "Fringe" in the 2008-09 television season. However, Abrams stated that while being a series regular on "Fringe", he would do episodes of "Lost" whenever required. Reddick's acting career has been a combination of stage, TV and film. In 2013, he was in the thriller, "White House Down". Personal life. Reddick currently resides in Los Angeles, CA with his wife, Stephanie. In addition to his acting career, Reddick also stars in the YouTube web series DR0NE, of which he is a co-producer. He is also a promoter for Cree Light Bulbs.
1163435	Christopher Crosby Farley (February 15, 1964 – December 18, 1997) was an American actor and comedian. Farley had a loud, energetic comedy style, and was a member of Chicago's Second City Theatre and cast member of the NBC sketch comedy show "Saturday Night Live" between 1990 and 1995. Farley and Chris Rock were introduced as two of the show's new cast members in early 1990. Similar to his idol, John Belushi, Farley died of a speedball overdose at the age of 33. On August 26, 2005, Farley was posthumously awarded the 2,289th star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, which is located in front of iO West. Early life. Farley was born in Madison, Wisconsin. His father, Thomas "Tom" Farley, Sr., owned an oil company, and his mother, Mary Anne (née Crosby), was a housewife. He had four siblings: Tom Jr., Kevin, John, and Barbara. His cousin, Jim, is a vice president at Ford Motor Company. Farley's family are traditionally Irish American, and Farley attended numerous Catholic schools in his hometown, including Edgewood High School of the Sacred Heart. According to Joel Murray, a fellow Second City cast member, Farley would "always make it to Mass". Many of his summers were spent as a camper and counselor at Red Arrow Camp, near Minocqua, Wisconsin. Farley graduated from Marquette University in 1986, with a concentration in communications and theater. After college, he worked with his father at the Scotch Oil Company in Madison. He got his start in professional comedy at the Ark Improv Theatre in Madison, and at the Improv Olympic theater in Chicago. He then performed at Chicago's Second City Theatre, initially as part of Second City's touring group. He was eventually promoted to their main stage. Career. "Saturday Night Live". Along with Chris Rock, Farley was one of two new "Saturday Night Live" cast members announced in the spring of 1990. On "SNL", Farley frequently collaborated with his fellow cast members Adam Sandler, Chris Rock, Rob Schneider, and David Spade, among others. This group came to be known as the "Bad Boys of SNL". Popular characters performed by Farley included himself on The Chris Farley Show, a talk show in which Farley quite often "interviewed" the guest, got very nervous and asked simple-minded or irrelevant questions, such as what their favorite rock band was; Matt Foley, an over-the-top motivational speaker who constantly reminded other characters that he "lived in a van, down by the river"; Todd O'Connor of Bill Swerski's Superfans, a group of stereotypical Chicagoans who constantly shouted "da Bears!";, a Chippendale's dancer, in a famous sketch that paired him with guest host Patrick Swayze; one of the "Gap Girls", who hung out together at a local mall; a stereotypical lunch lady, to the theme of "Lunchlady Land" performed by Adam Sandler; and Bennett Brauer, a "Weekend Update" commentator who often divulged his personal and hygienic problems via air quotes. Some of these characters were brought to "SNL" from his days at Second City. Farley also performed impersonations of Tom Arnold, who gave Farley's eulogy at his private funeral; Andrew Giuliani, Jerry Garcia, Meat Loaf, Norman Schwarzkopf, Dom DeLuise, Roger Ebert, Carnie Wilson, Newt Gingrich, Mindy Cohn, Mama Cass, Hank Williams, Jr., and Rush Limbaugh were among the celebrities and real-life figures he portrayed. Off-screen, Farley was well known for his pranks in the offices of "Saturday Night Live". This would refer to Sandler and Farley making late-night prank phone calls from the "SNL" offices in Rockefeller Center, with Sandler speaking in an old woman's voice and Farley farting into the phone and mooning cars from a limousine. Sandler told Conan O'Brien on "The Tonight Show" that NBC fired him and Farley from the show in 1995. Film career. During his time on "SNL", Farley had roles in the comedy films "Wayne's World", "Coneheads", "Airheads", and uncredited in "Billy Madison". He also appeared in the Red Hot Chili Peppers music video for "Soul to Squeeze" which was a song featured on the "Coneheads" soundtrack. After Farley and most of his fellow cast members were released from their contracts at "Saturday Night Live" following the 1994–1995 season, Farley began focusing on his film career. His first two major films co-starred his fellow "SNL" colleague and close friend David Spade. Together, the duo made the films "Tommy Boy" and "Black Sheep". These were a success at the domestic box office, earning around $32 million each and gaining a large cult following on home video. They established Farley as a relatively bankable star and he was given the title role of "Beverly Hills Ninja", which finished in first place at the box office on its opening weekend. However, drug and alcohol problems interfered throughout Farley's film work, and production of his final film, "Almost Heroes", was held up several times so Farley could attend rehab. After his premature death on December 18, 1997, his final completed films, "Almost Heroes" and "Dirty Work", were released posthumously. Unfinished projects. Farley was the original choice to voice the title character of the DreamWorks animated film "Shrek", but died just before recording was finished. It's said approximately 80-90% of his lines were recorded, but none of these recordings have surfaced. He was replaced by one of his "SNL" colleagues, Mike Myers. He was also planning a Matt Foley film and wanted to do another film with Spade (the movie eventually became Lost & Found). By the time of his death, Farley had also been in talks to co-star Vince Vaughn in the film "The Gelfin" and also to star in a biopic film about Fatty Arbuckle. Farley had also been in talks for the lead in an adaptation of the novel "A Confederacy of Dunces". Death and funeral. By early 1997, a visible decline in Farley's health was frequently noted in the press. Following his final guest appearance on "SNL" on October 25, 1997, Farley's hoarse voice and flushed skin were the subject of public scrutiny. In the final years of his life, Farley had sought treatment for obesity and drug abuse on seventeen separate occasions. On December 18, 1997, Farley was found dead by his younger brother, John, in his apartment in the John Hancock Center in Chicago. An autopsy later revealed that Farley had died of a cocaine and opiate (namely, heroin) overdose early that morning. Advanced atherosclerosis was cited as a "significant contributing factor". Farley's death is often compared to that of his "SNL" idol John Belushi, who also died at age 33 of an accidental drug overdose consisting of cocaine and heroin. Farley's private funeral was held at Our Lady Queen of Peace Catholic Church in his hometown of Madison, Wisconsin five days after his death. Over five hundred people attended his funeral, many of the comedians who had worked with him on "Saturday Night Live" and on film including Lorne Michaels, Phil Hartman (who would die five months later), Adam Sandler, Dan Aykroyd (who wore a leather jacket over his suit, same as he did at Belushi’s funeral), John Goodman, Tom Arnold, Chris Rock, George Wendt, and Rob Schneider. Notably absent was Farley's former "SNL" castmate and close friend David Spade, who was later quoted as saying that he declined to attend Farley's funeral because he "could not be in a room where Chris was in a box." However, Spade did appear on the special 25th anniversary episode of "Saturday Night Live" by holding back his tears to call for a moment of remembrance for Farley. Farley's remains were entombed at the Resurrection Catholic Cemetery. Legacy. On August 26, 2005, Farley was posthumously awarded the 2,289th star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, which is located in front of iO West. In his memoir "Gasping for Airtime", Jay Mohr recalled a moment involving Farley and his "SNL" idol Phil Hartman. In the show's cast's goodbye song-and-dance performance to Hartman, the final scene featured Farley and Hartman embracing each other as the latter sang "Goodbye" to the camera. The authorized biography of Farley, "The Chris Farley Show", was written by his brother Tom, Jr. and Tanner Colby.
1163416	Charles Sherman “Charlie” Ruggles (February 8, 1886 – December 23, 1970) was a comic American actor. In a career spanning six decades, Ruggles appeared in close to 100 feature films. He was also the brother of director, producer, and silent actor Wesley Ruggles (1889–1972). Background. Charlie Ruggles was born in Los Angeles, California in 1886. Despite training to be a doctor, Ruggles soon found himself on the stage, appearing in a stock production of "Nathan Hale" in 1905. At Los Angeles's Majestic Theatre, he played the romantic lead Private Jo Files in L. Frank Baum and Louis F. Gottschalk's musical, "The Tik-Tok Man of Oz" in 1913. He moved to Broadway to appear in "Help Wanted" in 1914. His first screen role came in the silent "Peer Gynt" the following year. Throughout the 1910s and 1920s Ruggles continued to appear in silent movies, though his passion remained the stage, appearing in long-running productions such as "The Passing Show of 1918", "The Demi-Virgin" and "Battling Butler". His most famous stage hit was one of his last before a twenty year hiatus, "Queen High", produced in 1930. From 1929, Ruggles appeared in talking pictures. His first was "Gentleman of the Press" in which he played a comic, alcoholic newspaper reporter. Throughout the 1930s he was teamed with comic actress Mary Boland in a string of domestic farces, notably "Six of a Kind", "Ruggles of Red Gap", and "People Will Talk"; Boland was the domineering wife and Ruggles the mild-mannered husband. Ruggles is best remembered today as the big-game hunter in "Bringing Up Baby". In other films he often played the "comic relief" character in otherwise straight films. In all, he appeared in about 100 movies. In 1949, Ruggles halted his film career to return to the stage and to move into television. He was the headline character in the TV series "The Ruggles", a family comedy in which he played a character also called Charlie Ruggles, and "The World of Mr. Sweeney". He guest starred on NBC's "The Martha Raye Show". In 1961, Ruggles was cast in "Hassie's European Tour", in which he portrays a wealthy neighbor who offers to finance a European trip for series character Hassie McCoy (Lydia Reed) on ABC's "The Real McCoys", starring Walter Brennan. Ruggles returned to the big screen in 1961, playing Charles McKendrick in "The Parent Trap" and Mackenzie Savage in "The Pleasure of His Company". In the latter film, he reprised the role for which he had won a Tony Award in 1959. He had a recurring guest role on "The Beverly Hillbillies" in the mid-1960s as Lowell Redlings Farquhar, father-in-law of Milburn Drysdale (Raymond Bailey). Ruggles also played Aunt Clara's (Marion Lorne) old flame, the warlock Hedley Partridge as well as a Mr. Caldwell in the television series "Bewitched", with Agnes Moorehead, Dick York, and Elizabeth Montgomery. Ruggles also lent his voice to the Aesop and Son features in "The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show" television cartoon series produced by Jay Ward and Bill Scott. Ruggles played Aesop. Both of his marriages, to Adele Rowland (1914–1921) and Marion LaBarba (1942–1970), ended in divorce. Ruggles died of cancer at his Hollywood home in 1970 at the age of 84. He was interred in Glendale's Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery. He has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on Hollywood Boulevard.
1066449	"The Warrior's Way" is a 2010 New Zealand-South Korean fantasy action film written and directed by Sngmoo Lee and starring Jang Dong-gun, Kate Bosworth, Geoffrey Rush, Danny Huston and Tony Cox. It was produced by Barrie Osborne, who also produced "Lord of the Rings". The film was released on December 3, 2010. Synopsis. In the 19th century, a warrior named Yang (Jang Dong Gun) is ordered to kill the last member of an enemy clan—a baby. He refuses the mission and flees with the child to a dilapidated town in the American West. Despite his attempts, his master closes in on him and he must fight to protect the child and his newfound comrades: Ron (Geoffrey Rush), the town drunk, and Lynne (Kate Bosworth), both of whom have a tragic past. Plot. In 19th century Asia, Yang (Jang Dong-gun) is a warrior and member of the Sad Flutes clan, the cruelest assassins in the world. His personal goal to become the greatest swordsman in the entire world is accomplished when he kills the former greatest swordsman and leader of the enemy clan. Both clans swore to fight until every single member of the opposing clan was dead. Yang has killed every member, except a baby girl he comes upon, spares and decides to watch over. This act makes Yang a sworn enemy of his own clan, and is not safe in his homeland. Yang arrives in Lode, a small, dusty, town, where the main attraction used to be a carnival. There he seeks out a fellow rogue warrior friend known to the townsfolk as Smiley. Yang discovers Smiley died 3 years ago, but ran the town's laundry shop. Among the townspeople Yang meets, he is introduced to the gang of friendly carnies led by dwarf Eight-Ball (Tony Cox), Ron (Geoffrey Rush), the vagrant drunk and Lynne (Kate Bosworth), a spunky young woman who was friends with Smiley. Lynne gives Yang the nickname Skinny and agrees to teach him how to do the laundry. Yang begins to enjoy his life in the town, learning to enjoy pleasures he never knew as a warrior. He becomes friendly with the people, a hard worker, and able gardener, while the baby dubbed April (Analin Rudd), is adored by all. He even finds an interest in opera, after Lynne shows him on a gramophone. Lynne reveals to Yang that Smiley taught her both a little bit of the sword and the Sad Flute clan. She wants Yang to teach her more, and asks about the Sad Flutes' name. He explains that it describes the sound of blood coming from your victim's slit throat, but he is reluctant to show any of his warrior skill. Back in the East, Yang's former clan is shown to be looking for him. His former master Saddest Flute (Ti Lung) and his ninja army take the same boat to America, killing the entire crew in the process. Saddest Flute states that to find Yang in such a large country, they would wait and listen. Yang one day sees Lynne place flowers on a grave, and asks Eight-Ball what happened. He explains in a flashback, that years ago, when Lynne was an adolescent girl, the town came under siege by a corrupt Colonel (Danny Huston). His preference to rape women with healthy teeth prompts him to choose Lynne as his victim while her father is held to the ground, and mother and baby brother forced to stand by. When Lynne is brought to the Colonel in a kitchen, she manages to evade him by throwing a pan of potatoes frying in grease on his face. She runs outside, and the Colonel shoots her in the back. Her father struggles free and is shot dead by the Colonel, while her mother holding her brother runs over and both are also killed. When the townsfolk buried her family, they found Lynne still breathing. Since then, Lynne has made revenge on the Colonel a priority, aching to learn to fight and kill, and practices throwing knives, at which she her aim is lacking. Yang surprises Lynne by showing her that her knife throwing was prohibited by her sight, not her arm, and gives her a successful lesson by blindfolding her. Lynne is clearly fond of Yang, and gives him a charm on a necklace that belonged to her mother, as a present. Yang shows her his jedok geom (a Korean straight sword), but Lynne notes it is welded to its scabbard. Yang explains it is so his past cannot hear the sound of the lives he has taken, and if his past finds him, there will be no more music. In a flashback, it is shown as a young boy, Yang was given a present of a small puppy from his master, and was being trained to become the strongest. The Colonel returns to the town to terrorize the people. He now wears a frightening face prosthetic to hide the grotesque scar from the hot grease. The colonel tortures a clown by having his men shoot at a bucket of water on the Clown's head, and is about to have them shoot at a glass of whiskey when Ron the drunk takes the shot glass and drinks it. Ron is dragged through the town by a whip around his neck pulled by horse. The Colonel then inspects a lineup of women for their teeth, and chooses a Hispanic woman whose husband begs for mercy. The Colonel releases the woman to her husband to shoot them simultaneously. Eight-Ball and the other carnies tie Lynne up in a cellar for her own good as well as the people. Yang removes her blades, agreeing with the carnies. Lynne manages to free herself with a concealed knife in her boot. The Colonel has the Hispanic woman's daughters cleaned to be raped, but Lynne, disguised as a prostitute offers herself instead. She fools the Colonel, thinking she will be able to kill him when he reveals he recognized her after smelling her neck. The Colonel's men rush in to hold Lynne down to the bed. Back in the laundry, the carnies run in looking for Lynne, and Yang realizes where she is. He grabs an iron and shatters the seal on his sword to free it. Far away, Saddest Flute jerks up from meditation, sensing the seal break, and is aware of Yang's location. Just as she is about to be raped, Yang bursts in through the window, expertly and easily slaying everyone in the room but Lynne and the Colonel. As Yang turns to kill him, Lynne intercedes that she will do it, but the Colonel grabs her and leaps out the other window, using her to break his fall. The Colonel runs down an alley to escape. Lynne sees him fleeing on a horse and shuts her eyes to deliver an expert knife throw to the back of his head. The townsfolk pull off the prosthetic to reveal a lackey of the Colonel, now especially scared that he will return with an army of outlaws to kill them all. Yang is about to leave town before the Sad Flutes come for him, but the townsfolk implore him to stay and help. The people are worried they don't have the means to defend their town, but Eight-Ball has Ron's secret stash of guns and explosives unburied. Ron is shown to be an expert marksman, shooting a bowling pin down amidst his best liquor from hundreds of feet away. Yang asks Ron while preparing why Ron stopped shooting. Ron explains that he was once an outlaw, using his great skill to rob banks, and trains. His criminal career ended when the woman he loved was shot during a gunfight, and he vowed to never pick up a gun again, until that day. Ron advises for men like him and Yang, the best thing they could do for the ones they loved was stay as far away from them as possible, that they are like flowers while he and Yang are sand. The day before battle, Lynne comes to Yang and asks to leave with him after the fight, and to think on it. Later that night, Yang comes to Lynne's house. He gives her his own twin short swords, explaining these were to kill. Yang tells her to come close.
1165052	Noreen M. Corcoran (born October 20, 1943) is a former actress and dancer best known for her costarring role as the teenager Kelly Gregg, the niece of wealthy attorney Bentley Gregg, played by John Forsythe, in the television sitcom "Bachelor Father", the only primetime series to run in consecutive years on the three major networks during its run from 1957 to 1962. Background. Corcoran was the third of eight children born in Quincy, Massachusetts, to William "Bill" Corcoran, Sr. (1905–1958), and the former Kathleen McKenney (1917–1972). In 1947, the Corcorans moved to Santa Monica, California, where the father became the maintenance chief at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Her sister, Donna Corcoran, earned a speaking role in the 1951 film "Angels in the Outfield". The Corcoran children studied dramatics or dance as a means to launch potential acting careers. During the 1950s, younger brother Kevin Corcoran gained fame in the role of Moochie on Walt Disney's "The Adventures of Spin and Marty" with Tim Considine and David Stollery and in the serial "Moochie of the Little League" on ABC's "Walt Disney Presents". Other Corcoran siblings who went into acting were Brian Corcoran, Hugh Corcoran, and Kelly Corcoran (1958–2002). Bill Corcoran, Jr. (died December 2007) became the dean of students at California State University, Fresno. Noreen herself attended California State, where she studied English and drama for two years from 1962-1964 but did not graduate. Acting career. Noreen's screen debut was a small role in the emotional film, "Wait 'Til the Sun Shines, Nellie" at 20th Century Fox. She was next cast in the MGM musical "I Love Melvin" in 1953. More roles followed, including the role of "Anna," the girl who was granted another birthday in "Tusitala," a 1955 Four Star Playhouse production starring David Niven as Robert Louis Stevenson; and "Band of Angels" in 1957 and television appearances in "Circus Boy", starring Micky Dolenz, later of the singing group The Monkees. Noreen also had a part in the short-lived series "The World of Mr. Sweeney" with Charles Ruggles. In 1957, future U.S. President Ronald W. Reagan, who was working at the same studio on his "General Electric Theater" on CBS, viewed the screen tests for "Bachelor Father" and recommended Corcoran to John Forsythe for the part of Kelly. In the story line, Kelly Gregg was orphaned at thirteen when her parents were killed in an automobile accident, and she was then raised by her bachelor uncle. As a popular young actress, Corcoran made the cover of numerous magazines. Slowly before the viewers' eyes, she seemed to grow from a somewhat awkward teenager into a sophisticated young woman. The series ended as Kelly entered college. In the story line, Kelly was often acting as an unwelcome matchmaker for Uncle Bentley. A year after the demise of "Bachelor Father", Corcoran achieved mild popularity with her single record "Love Kitten". It reached #142 in Music Vendor's chart of October 1963.
1059144	Holy Man is a 1998 comedy drama film directed by Stephen Herek. It starred Eddie Murphy, Jeff Goldblum and Kelly Preston. The film was a box office and critical failure. Plot. Ricky Hayman (Jeff Goldblum) and Kate Newell (Kelly Preston) work at the (fictional) Good Buy Shopping Network, a home shopping channel run by John McBainbridge (Robert Loggia). Sales have been down over the last two years under Ricky's management, and Kate was brought in to come up with new ideas. Ricky views Kate as a threat and she expresses her dislike for him as well. However, John has given Ricky an ultimatum to increase sales, or lose his job.
582375	Raghubir Yadav (also credited as Raghuvir Yadav) is a two-time international award winner Indian stage, film and television actor, music composer, singer and set designer. Career. Theatre. Yadav performed as an actor and singer in over 70 plays and about 2500 shows, travelling in caravans, living in tents and performing on makeshift stages in villages, towns and cities of India with the Parsi Theatre Company (1967–1973). He was with the Rangoli Puppet Theatre, Lucknow (1973–1974), performing with glove puppets. At the National School of Drama Repertory (1977–1986), he acted in about 40 plays in over 2000 shows. He has also contributed to music, sets, costumes and masks. Film. He made his film debut with "Massey Sahib" (1985) in which Yadav played the title role. Incidentally he has never won the National Award but two International Awards as Best Actor for "Massey Sahib", FIPRESCI Critic's Award, Venice Film Festival, 1986 and the Best Actor Silver Peacock, IIFI, 1987. The film also starred the noted writer and social activist, Arundhati Roy. He was seen in many milestone films in the coming decades. Three films that he has acted in have received Academy Award nominations for Best Foreign Language Film ("Salaam Bombay!", "Lagaan", and "Water"). Raghubir Yadav is the only Indian actor to have received the Silver Peacock Best Actor Award, at the International Film Festival of India. His most acclaimed role was as the drug addicted "Chillum" in "Salaam Bombay!" (1988). In 2011 he plays the lead role in the film "Dear Friend Hitler" which takes its name from two letters Mahatma Gandhi wrote Adolf Hitler, in 1939 immediately before World War II and Christmas Eve 1940 after the war had started, to prevent and to stop the war. Television. Yadav started his television career with the TV series "Mungerilal Ke Haseen Sapne" (1990), playing the lead character 'Mungerilal'. Later he played the roles of Haji Nasruddin the series "Mulla Nasiruddin" and the lead in "Chacha Chaudhary". He also played the lead role for BI T.V. in "Arjun Pandit". Raghubir yadhav is acting for the first time in a Telugu film called Minugurulu .
591137	Solva Sawan is a 1979 Bollywood film directed by Bharathi Rajaa. Music by Jayadev Verma and cinematography by P. S. Nivas.
1061070	James Oliver Cromwell (born January 27, 1940) is an American film and television actor. Some of his more notable films include "Babe" (1995), for which he was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, ' (1996), "L.A. Confidential" (1997), "The Green Mile" (1999), "Space Cowboys" (2000), "The Sum of All Fears" (2002), "W." (2008), "The Artist" (2011), and the television series "Six Feet Under" (2003–2005), "24" (2007), and ' (2012).
1253822	George Clifton James (born May 29, 1921) is an American actor, best known for his role as Sheriff J.W. Pepper alongside Roger Moore in the James Bond films "Live and Let Die" (1973) and "The Man With The Golden Gun" (1974). Biography. Personal life. James was born in Spokane, Washington, the son of Grace (née Dean), a teacher, and Harry James, a journalist. James is a decorated World War II veteran, U.S. Army Combat Infantry Platoon Sergeant Co. "A" 163rd Inf., 41st Div. He served forty-two months in the South Pacific, from January 1942 until August 1945. He spent time in Australia, New Guinea, and the Philippines. His decorations include: Silver Star, Bronze Star, Purple Heart, Presidential Unit Citation, Combat Infantry Badge and six battle stars. He resides in New York City with his wife of more than 60 years. He has six children, fourteen grandchildren and three great-grandchildren. Clifton James has been working with many Hollywood legends including Marlon Brando, Charlton Heston, Steve McQueen, Lee Marvin, Paul Newman, Jack Nicholson, Gene Wilder, Robert De Niro and Tom Hanks. Career. James became well known for playing the comic-relief role of Louisiana Sheriff J.W. Pepper in the James Bond films "Live and Let Die" (1973) and "The Man with the Golden Gun" (1974). He also played a very similar character in both "Superman II" and "Silver Streak", and a more serious sheriff in "The Reivers". James was the district attorney who prosecutes Al Capone in the 1987 film "The Untouchables". He played a Navy Master at Arms in 1973's "The Last Detail" starring Jack Nicholson and baseball team owner Charles Comiskey in the 1988 true story "Eight Men Out", a drama about the corrupt 1919 Chicago White Sox. Despite being a lifelong New Yorker (and an Actors Studio member of long standing), James has been cast as a Southerner in many of his roles, like his appearances in the James Bond films, and also powerful Houston lawyer Striker Bellman in the daytime soap opera "Texas" from 1981–82. He was again a Southern character as the penitentiary's floor-walker in the Paul Newman film "Cool Hand Luke", and again as Sheriff Lester Crabb, a temporary one-off replacement for regular Sheriff Rosco P. Coltrane (James Best) in the second season "Dukes of Hazzard" episode "Treasure of Hazzard" (1980). In the 1969 film "The Reivers", opposite Steve McQueen, James played a mean & corrupt bungling country sheriff, a basic warmup for his more lovable Sheriff J. W. Pepper in the James Bond film "Live and Let Die". James appeared on 13 episodes of the sitcom "Lewis & Clark" in 1981–82. Other television credits include two episodes of "The A-Team" as murderous prison Warden Beale in the first-season episode "Pros and Cons" (1983), and as corrupt Sheriff Jake Dawson in the second season's "The White Ballot" (1983). In 1996, he played the role of "Red Kilgreen" on the ABC daytime drama series, "All My Children". His other film roles include that of a wealthy Montana land baron whose cattle are being rustled in 1975's "Rancho Deluxe" and as the source who tips off newspaperman Bruce Willis to a potentially explosive story in "The Bonfire of the Vanities". James has been featured a number of times by writer-director John Sayles, most recently in "Lone Star" (1996) and "Sunshine State" (2002).
1129592	Shari Headley (born July 15, 1964) is an American actress. Headley made her acting debut on "The Cosby Show" in 1985. Her career has mostly focused on television acting; she is perhaps best known for portraying police officer Mimi Reed Frye Williams on the soap opera "All My Children" from May 1991 to April 1994, in February 1995 and from June 2005 until her final appearance on October 14, 2005. She has also acted occasionally on the big-screen, and is known for her role as Lisa McDowell, Eddie Murphy's love interest, in the 1988 comedy film "Coming to America". Headley co-starred in an episode of "Miami Vice" in 1984 and on "The Cover Girl" episode of Andy Griffith's "Matlock" series on November 20, 1990. In 1997, she had a leading role in the short-lived FOX ensemble drama "413 Hope St." Headley made a cameo appearance in Will Smith's "Wild Wild West" music video and also starred in Blackstreet's video "Before I Let You Go". In 2004, she played Mack Johnson's (portrayed by Steve Harvey) wife Jacqueline in "Johnson Family Vacation". Headley portrayed Felicia Boudreau on "Guiding Light" from November 2001 until May 2002. She made a Guest appearance in TV Episode: Walker Texas Ranger as Trevet's date. She also appeared in the episode of the ABC Family comedy series "10 Things I Hate About You", "The Winner Takes It All" as Marcheline. In 2007 she appeared in the movie "Towelhead." Headley was married to rapper/actor Christopher "Play" Martin from May 1993 until they divorced in June 1995. In April 1994, Headley gave birth to a son, Skyler Martin.
1055159	Pather Panchali ("Pôther Pãchali", , ) is a 1955 Bengali drama film directed by Satyajit Ray and produced by the Government of the Indian state of West Bengal. Based on Bibhutibhushan Bandopadhyay's 1929 Bengali novel of the same name, the film was the directorial debut of Ray. The first film of "The Apu Trilogy", it depicts the childhood of the protagonist Apu in the countryside of Bengal in the 1920s. Though the film had a shoestring budget of Rs. 150,000 (US$3000), featured mostly amateur actors, and was made by an inexperienced crew, "Pather Panchali" was a critical and popular success. Influenced by Italian neorealism, Satyajit Ray developed his own style of lyrical realism in this film. The first film from independent India to attract major international critical attention, "Pather Panchali" won "Best Human Document" at the 1956 Cannes Film Festival, establishing Satyajit Ray as a major international filmmaker. "Pather Panchali" is today considered one of the greatest films ever made. Plot. Harihar Ray (Kanu Banerjee) earns a meager living as a priest in the village Nischindipur, and dreams of a better career as an author of scholarly plays and poems. Harihar's wife, Sarbajaya (Karuna Banerjee) takes care of their two children, Durga (Uma Dasgupta) and Apu (Subir Banerjee), and her elderly aunt-in-law, Indir Thakrun (Chunibala Devi). With limited resources, Sarbajaya resents having to share her home with Indir. Indir is very old, toothless, and a hunchback cripple. Occasionally, she takes refuge in the home of another relative when Sarbajaya either forces her out or becomes overly offensive. Durga often steals fruit from a neighbour’s orchard and shares it with Aunt Indir, with whom she feels filial affinity. Once, the wealthy neighbour blamed Durga for stealing a bead necklace. Sarbajaya bears the neighbour's innuendos blaming her for Durga’s propensity to steal. Durga, as the elder sister, cares for her brother Apu with motherly affection, although she does not spare any opportunity to tease him. They share the simple joys of life, such as sitting quietly under a tree, running after the candy man who passes through the village, viewing pictures in a bioscope shown by a travelling vendor, and watching a "jatra" by a troupe of actors. In the evening, they can hear the whistle of trains far away. One day they run away from home to catch a glimpse of the train. The scene depicting Apu and Durga running through "Kaash" fields to see the train is one of the memorable sequences in the film. While returning from seeing the train, they discover their Aunt Indir lying dead. Harihar, unable to make a good earning in the village, decides to travel to cities to seek a better job. He promises Sarbajaya that he would return with money to repair their derelict house. During his absence, the family sinks even deeper into poverty. Sarbajaya grows increasingly lonely and embittered. One day, during the monsoon, Durga dances playfully in the downpour for a long time. Soon she catches cold, and develops a fever. With scarce medical care available, her fever continues and eventually on a night of incessant rain and gusty winds, she dies. Harihar returns home and starts to show Sarbajaya the merchandise he has brought from the city. Sarbajaya, who remains silent, breaks down at the feet of her husband, and Harihar screams as he discovers that he has lost his daughter. The family decides to leave the village and their ancestral home. As they start packing, Apu finds the necklace that Durga had earlier denied having stolen; he throws it into a pond. Apu and his parents leave the village on an ox-cart. Almost immediately upon their departure, a snake crawls into the house. Production. Novel. The novel "Pather Panchali" by Bibhutibhushan Bandopadhyay is a classic bildungsroman in Bengali literature. It first appeared as a serial in a periodical in 1928, and was published as a book in 1929. The plot was based on the author's own early life. The novel depicts a poor family's struggle to survive in their ancestral rural home and the growing up of Apu, the male child in the family. The later part of the novel, where Apu and his parents leave the village and settle in Benaras, formed the basis of "Aparajito" ("The Unvanquished", 1956), the second film of the Apu trilogy. Satyajit Ray did some illustrations for a new edition of the book in 1944, and before 1946–47, contemplated the possibility of making a film based on it. Ray chose the novel because of certain qualities that, according to him, "made it a great book: its humanism, its lyricism, and its ring of truth." The author's widow granted permission for Ray to make a film based on the novel; however, the agreement was in principle only, and no financial arrangement was made. Title. The title of the film in English is ""Song of the Little Road"". Other translations of the Bengali title have been used, such as "The Lament of the Path", ""Song of the Road"", and ""Song of the Open Road"". The Bengali word "Path" literally means path, and "Pather" means "of the path". "Panchali" refers to a type of narrative folk song that used to be performed in Bengal, and was the forerunner of another type of folk performance known as "jatra". Influences. In 1949, the French director Jean Renoir came to Kolkata to shoot his film "The River" (1951). Satyajit Ray helped him find locations in the countryside. It was then that Ray told Renoir about his idea of filming "Pather Panchali", which had been on his mind for some time, and Renoir encouraged him to proceed. In 1950, Ray was sent to London by his employer, the advertising agency D.J. Keymer, to work at its headquarters. During his six months in London, he watched about hundred films. Among these, the neorealist film "Bicycle Thieves" (1948) would have a profound impact on him. Ray, in a 1982 lecture, said that he had come out of the theatre determined to become a filmmaker. The film made him believe that it was possible to make realistic cinema with an amateur cast and using location shooting. The realist narration style of "Pather Panchali" is indebted to Italian neorealism and the works of Renoir. The international success of Akira Kurosawa's "Rashomon" (1950) and Bimal Roy's 1953 film "Do Bigha Zamin" (which was shot partly on location and concerned a peasant family) inspired Ray to hope that "Pather Panchali" also might find an international audience. Besides the foreign influences, Ray is also indebted to Bengali literature and the native Indian theatrical tradition, particularly the "rasa" theory of classical Sanskrit drama. The complicated doctrine of "rasa" "centers predominantly on feeling experienced not only by the characters but also conveyed in a certain artistic way to the spectator". Script. The film did not have a complete script; it was made from Ray's drawings and notes. Ray tried to extract and build a simple theme out of the apparently random sequences of significant and trivial episodes of the novel, while preserving the loitering quality of it. Ray himself commented that, "The script had to retain some of the rambling quality of the novel because that in itself contained a clue to the feel of authenticity: life in a poor Bengali village does ramble." Some notable shifts from the novel in the script include the death scene of Indir Thakrun, which occurs quite early in the novel in a village shrine at the presence of some adults; in the film she dies in the open in the presence of Apu and Durga. The scene of Apu and Durga running to catch a glimpse of the train is not there in the novel, neither child manages to see the train there, although they made an attempt. Durga's fatal fever is shown to be due to a monsoon downpour in the film, while the novel did not narrate any specific cause of the fever. The ending of the film—the departure of the family from the village—is not the end of the novel. Casting. Kanu Banerjee, an established Bengali film actor, portrayed the role of Harihar Ray, father of Apu and Durga. The role of Sarbajaya, wife of Harihar, was played by an amateur theatre actress of the Indian People's Theatre Association (IPTA), Karuna Banerjee, who was the wife of one friend of Ray. Uma Dasgupta, who was selected by an interview to act as Durga, also had prior experience in acting in theatre. For the role of Apu, Ray advertised in newspapers looking for boys of five to seven years age. Several boys turned up in response, but none of them met the expectation of the director. Finally, Ray's wife spotted a boy in their neighbourhood as a possible candidate. This boy, Subir Banerjee, was eventually cast as Apu (the surname of three main actors was Banerjee, although they were not related to each other). The toughest hurdle in the casting process was to identify an actress suitable to enact the character of the wizened, old Indir Thakrun. Ray eventually found Chunibala Devi, a retired stage actress living in a brothel, as the right candidate to portray Indir. Several minor roles were played by the villagers of Boral, the shooting location. Filming. Shooting started on 27 October 1952. Boral, a village near Calcutta, was selected in early 1953 as the principal photography location. The technical team consisted of several first-timers. Ray had never directed anything and cinematographer Subrata Mitra had never operated a movie camera. Art director Bansi Chandragupta had professional experience, having worked with Jean Renoir on "The River". In later years, both Mitra and Chandragupta went on to establish themselves as respected professionals in their craft. Mitra had met Ray on the set of "The River", where Mitra was allowed to observe the production, take still photographs, and keep copious lighting notes for personal reference. Having become friends, Mitra frequently kept Ray informed about the production and showed his stills. Ray was impressed enough by the photos to promise him an assistant's position on "Pather Panchali", but when the production neared, Ray offered to let him shoot the film. As Mitra had no prior filmmaking experience and was only 21 at the time, the choice was met with considerable scepticism by those aware of the production. Mitra himself later speculated that Ray was perhaps nervous about working with an established crew. From the outset, funding was a problem as no producer was willing to produce the film. Ray had to borrow money to shoot enough footage so as to persuade prospective producers to finance the whole film. To raise funds during the production period, Ray kept working as a graphic designer, pawned his life insurance policy and sold his collection of LP records. Production manager Anil Chowdhury convinced Ray's wife, Bijoya, to pawn her jewels as well. Nonetheless, Ray still ran out of the required money partway through filming and shooting had to be suspended for nearly a year, and following that, the shooting could be done only in intermittent pieces. Ray acknowledged later that the delays made him tense, and that three miracles saved the film: "One, Apu's voice did not break. Two, Durga did not grow up. Three, Indir Thakrun did not die." Monroe Wheeler, the head of the department of exhibitions and publications of New York's Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), was in Calcutta in 1954 when he heard about the shooting of the film and met Ray. He considered the incomplete footage of very high quality, and inspired Ray to finish the film so that it could be shown in MoMA's exhibition next year. Bidhan Chandra Roy, then the Chief Minister of West Bengal, was requested by an influential friend of Ray's mother to see the footage. The Chief Minister obliged, and after seeing the footage, directed officials in Home Publicity Department to examine the cost of backing the film. Eventually the Government of West Bengal sanctioned a loan, allowing Ray to finish the film. However, the government misunderstood the nature of the movie, and considered it as a documentary for rural uplift, such as the need for road improvement. Indeed, the money was loaned on record for 'roads improvement', a reference to the film's title. About six months after Wheeler's visit, American director John Huston visited India for an early location scout for "The Man Who Would Be King" (which was finally made in 1975). Wheeler had asked Huston to check the progress of Ray's project. Huston saw excerpts of the unfinished film and recognised "the footage as the work of a great film-maker." Thanks to Huston's positive feedback, MoMA helped Ray with some additional money. It took three years to complete the shooting, and go to the post-production. Soundtrack. The soundtrack of the film was scored by the sitar player Ravi Shankar, who was at the early stage of his career, having debuted in 1939. The background scores feature pieces based on several "ragas" of Indian classical music, played mostly in sitar. The soundtrack, described as at once plaintive and exhilarating, is featured in the list of 50 greatest film soundtracks published by "The Guardian". It has also been cited as a major influence on The Beatles, specifically George Harrison. Ravi Shankar saw about half the film in a roughly edited version before composing the background score; however, he was already familiar with the story from having read the novel. When Ray met him, Shankar hummed a tune which had both a classical touch as well as a folk hue; the tune, usually played on a bamboo flute, became the main theme of the film. The majority of the score was composed in a night-long session lasting about eleven hours. Shankar also composed two solo sitar pieces—one based on the raga Desh (traditionally associated with rain), and one sombre piece based on the raga Todi (usually associated with morning or evening). The film's cinematographer, Subrata Mitra, also performed the sitar for parts of the soundtrack. Reception. Ray and his team worked day and night during post-production, and just managed to get the film ready to send it to MoMA for the exhibition in May 1955, although it lacked subtitles. It was billed as "The Story of Apu and Durga", and was a part of a series of six evening performances at MoMA including the US debut of sarod maestro Ali Akbar Khan and the classical dancer Shanta Rao. "Pather Panchali"s MoMA opening was well received. The film had its domestic premiere at the annual meeting of the Advertising Club of Calcutta. The response was not positive, and Ray felt "extremely discouraged". Before its general release in Calcutta, Ray himself designed some large advertisements, including a neon sign showing Apu and Durga running, which was strategically placed in a busy location of the city. "Pather Panchali" was released in a Calcutta cinema on 26 August 1955 and had a poor initial response. However, thanks to word of mouth, the screenings started filling up within a week or two. It opened again at another cinema hall, where it ran for seven weeks. A delay in subtitling caused the postponing of the film's release in UK until December 1957. It went on to great success in the US in 1958, running for eight months at the Fifth Avenue Playhouse in New York. In India, the reaction to the film was enthusiastic. "The Times of India" wrote that "It is absurd to compare it with any other Indian cinema [...] "Pather Panchali" is pure cinema". Bidhan Chandra Roy, the Chief Minister of West Bengal, arranged a special screening of the film for Prime Minister of India Jawaharlal Nehru in a Calcutta theatre. Nehru was impressed by the film. Thus, despite opposition from some quarters within the Governments of West Bengal and India because of its depiction of poverty, "Pather Panchali" was sent to the 1956 Cannes Film Festival with the personal approval of the Prime Minister. The film was screened towards the end of the festival, coinciding with a party thrown by the Japanese delegation. Thus, only a small number of critics attended the show. Although some were initially unenthusiastic at the prospect of yet another Indian melodrama, they found "the magic horse of poetry" slowly invading the screen. Subsequently, the film was awarded the Best Human Document prize at this festival. "Pather Panchali" was the first film made in independent India that received major critical attention internationally, and placed India on the world cinema map. In the United Kingdom, Lindsay Anderson noted it as "a beautiful picture, completely fresh and personal. camera reaches forward into life, exploring and exposing, with reverence and wonder." Hazel-Dawn Dumpert of "LA Weekly" wrote that the film was "as deeply beautiful and plainly poetic as any movie ever made. Rare and exquisite." Pauline Kael commented: "The first film by the masterly Satyajit Ray—possibly the most unembarrassed and natural of directors—is a quiet reverie about the life of an impoverished Brahmin family in a Bengali village. Beautiful, sometimes funny, and full of love, it brought a new vision of India to the screen." Basil Wright commented: "I have never forgotten the private projection room at the British Film Institute during which I experienced the shock of recognition and excitement when, unexpectedly, one is suddenly exposed to a new and incontrovertible work of art." "Time" wrote that "Pather Panchali is perhaps the finest piece of filmed folklore since Robert Flaherty's "Nanook of the North"." "Newsweek" critic, Jack Kroll, reviewed the film as "one of the most stunning first films in movie history", while Philip French of "The Observer" has described "Pather Panchali" as "one of the greatest pictures ever made". James Berardinelli writes, "This tale, as crafted by Ray, touches the souls and minds of viewers, transcending cultural and linguistic barriers". However, the reaction was not uniformly positive. After watching the movie, François Truffaut is reported to have said, "I don’t want to see a movie of peasants eating with their hands." Bosley Crowther, then the most influential critic of "The New York Times", wrote in a scathing review of the film, "Any picture as loose in structure or as listless in tempo as this one is would barely pass as a "rough cut" with the editors in Hollywood." "The Harvard Crimson" wrote, "Many of the fragmented episodes are effective, but many others have little to add to the general effect. The disconnection itself has its purpose, and gives an all-inclusive quality to the film; yet it is also distracting and contributes to the film's great weakness: its general diffuseness, its inability to command sustained attention. For "Pather Panchali", remarkable as it may be, is something of a chore to sit through." Early in 1980, Ray was openly criticised by an Indian Member of Parliament and former actress Nargis Dutt, who accused Ray of "exporting poverty". While many critics celebrated "Pather Panchali" as a eulogy of third world culture, others criticised it for what they took to be romanticisation of such a culture. Twenty years after the release of "Pather Panchali", Akira Kurosawa summarised the effect of the film as follows: "I can never forget the excitement in my mind after seeing it. I have had several more opportunities to see the film since then and each time I feel more overwhelmed. It is the kind of cinema that flows with the serenity and nobility of a big river... People are born, live out their lives, and then accept their deaths. Without the least effort and without any sudden jerks, Ray paints his picture, but its effect on the audience is to stir up deep passions. How does he achieve this? There is nothing irrelevant or haphazard in his cinematographic technique. In that lies the secret of its excellence." The film has a 97% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on an aggregate of 34 reviews. "Pather Panchali" is thus ranked at No. 71 on Rotten Tomatoes' list of top 100 foreign films. As of 2008, "Pather Panchali" is available in DVD in both Region 2 PAL and Region 1 NTSC formats. Artificial Eye Entertainment is the distributor of Region 2 while Columbia Tri-Star is the distributor of Region 1 format. Themes. Marie Seton describes that in "Pather Panchali" the delights and pleasures youth intersperse with depiction of impoverishment. Seton describes the bonding between Durga and Indir and their fate as signifying a philosophical core: that both young and old die. Scholars have described parts or whole of the film as having lyrical quality. Seton identifies the imagery immediately prior to the onset of monsoon as the most lyrical in the film. Darius Cooper has discussed the use of different "rasa" in the film. Cooper has noted the repeated use of "epiphany of wonder" in Apu. Apu is wondered not only by what he sees around, he uses his imagination to create another world. Cooper has analysed that the immersive experience of the film corresponds to this epiphany of wonder. Stephen Teo utilises the scene in which Apu and Durga discovers train tracks as an example of gradual build-up of the epiphany and the resulting immersive experience. Sharmishtha Gooptu, in her book "Bengali Cinema: 'An Other Nation' ", has discussed that the idyllic village life in "Pather Panchali" represents an authentic Bengali village, which was lost due to the upheavals of the partition of Bengal in 1947; the film seeks to connect an idealised past (pre-partition) with actual present (post-partition, when the film was made). She says that the film uses prototypes of rural Bengal to build up the ideal village. Mitali Pati and Suranjan Ganguly, in an essay, have discussed the use of eye-level shots, natural lighting, long takes, and other techniques by Ray to ensure his commitment to realism. Mainak Biswas, in his essay in the book "Italian Neorealism and Global Cinema", commented that "Pather Panchali" comes very near to the concept of neorealism, as there are many passages in the film during which there is no dramatic development, even though the usual realities of life, such as the changing of seasons, passing of a day, are concretely filmed. Legacy. "Pather Panchali" was followed by two films that continued the tale of Apu's life—"Aparajito" ("The Unvanquished") in 1956 and "Apur Sansar" ("The World of Apu") in 1959. The three films are together known as the Apu Trilogy. "Aparajito" portrays the adolescent Apu, his education in the rural school and in a Calcutta college. The central theme in "Aparajito" is the poignant relation between a doting mother and her young ambitious boy. "Apur Sansar" tells the story of the brief family life of Apu, his reaction at the premature death of his wife, and finally bonding with his son whom he left as an infant. Both the two sequels won multiple national and international awards. Ray did not have any specific plan to make a trilogy from the start. Indeed, he planned to make the third instalment only after being asked about the possibility of a trilogy at the 1957 Venice Film Festival, where "Aparajito" won the Golden Lion award. "Pather Panchali" ushered in a new tradition of film-making in India, one in which authenticity and social realism were key themes (see Parallel Cinema), breaking the rule of the Indian film establishment of the time. Although described as a turning point in Indian cinema, some commentators opined that "Pather Panchali" did not usher in a modern age in Indian cinema. Rather, the film refined an already existent "realist textual principle" in Indian cinema. In 1963, "Time" noted that thanks to "Pather Panchali", Satyajit Ray was one of the "hardy little band of inspired pioneers" of a new cinematic movement that was enjoying a good number of imitators worldwide. The film has since been considered as a "global landmark" and "among the essential moviegoing experiences". "Sight & Sound", the British Film Institute's film magazine, included the film several times in its Critics' Poll list of all-time greatest films, in 1962 (ranked at #11), 1992 (ranked at #6) and 2002 (ranked at #22). In 1998, in the Asian film magazine "Cinemaya"s critics' poll of all-time greatest films, "Pather Panchali" was ranked at No. 2 on the list. "The Village Voice" ranked the film at No. 12 (tied with "The Godfather") in its Top 250 "Best Films of the Century" list in 1999, based on a poll of critics. "Pather Panchali" was included in various other all-time greatest film lists, including "Time Out" magazine's "Centenary Top One Hundred Films" in 1995, the "San Francisco Chronicle" "Hot 100 Films From the Past" in 1997, the "Rolling Stone" "100 Maverick Movies of the Last 100 Years" in 1999, "The New York Times Guide to the Best 1,000 Movies Ever Made" in 2002, and the British Film Institute's Top Fifty "Must See" Children's Films in 2005, as well as BFI's "Top 10 Indian Films" of all time. "The Apu Trilogy" as a whole was included in film critic Roger Ebert's list of "100 Great Movies" in 2001 and in "Time" magazine's All-Time 100 best movies list in 2005. Following "Pather Panchali", Satyajit Ray went on to make a total of thirty-seven films, including feature films, documentaries and shorts. His works included scripting, casting, scoring, cinematography, art direction, editing and designing his own credit titles and publicity material. He developed a distinctive style of film-making, with visual lyricism and strong humanism forming the basis of his works, as in his debut film "Pather Panchali". Consequently Ray established himself as an auteur of cinema. Awards. "Pather Panchali" won multiple national and international awards:
526467	Carl Winston Lumbly (born August 14, 1951) is an American film, stage, and television actor. He is best known for his roles as NYPD Detective Marcus Petrie on the CBS police drama "Cagney & Lacey", CIA Agent Marcus Dixon on the ABC espionage drama series "Alias", and as the voice of the Martian Manhunter for the animated series "Justice League" and "Justice League Unlimited", as well as the direct-to-DVD animated film ' and the video game '. Biography. Born to Jamaican immigrants in Minneapolis, Minnesota, Lumbly graduated from South High School there and Macalester College in nearby St. Paul. At one time he was a journalist in Minnesota, when he got an acting job while on assignment for a story about a workshop theatre and stayed with the improvisational company for two years (along with then-unknown Danny Glover). His first major role was Detective Marcus Petrie on the television series "Cagney & Lacey" (1982–1988). In 1985 he appeared as Theseus in "The Gospel At Colonus," an African-American musical iteration of the Oedipus legend, which starred Morgan Freeman and The Blind Boys Of Alabama, on PBS' 'Great Performances' series. In 1987, he garnered positive reviews for his portrayal of Black Panther Party co-founder Bobby Seale in the HBO television movie "Conspiracy: The Trial of the Chicago 8". In 1989-90, his ongoing character Earl Williams (named for the prisoner in Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur's story "The Front Page") was a teacher falsely accused of the rape/murder of one of his female students, in the hit TV series "L.A. Law". From 1994-1995, Lumbly starred as the main character in the short-lived science fiction series "M.A.N.T.I.S." Perhaps his most visible role was as Marcus Dixon in the American television series "Alias" (2001–2006). Other prominent roles include providing the voice the for Martian Manhunter on "Justice League" and "Justice League Unlimited", and a recurring role on "L.A. Law" as a college professor unjustly accused of first-degree murder. He also appeared in "" as the voice of the Mayor of Metropolis on the episode "Speed Demons" in 1997, and as an alien military general in the episode "Absolute Power" in 1999. He also appeared as the voice of the villain Stalker on "Batman Beyond". In 2000, Lumbly portrayed activist and Congressman Ron Dellums in the Disney Channel original movie, "The Color of Friendship". Although the movie was focused on Dellums' daughter's friendship with a white South African girl, the film also discussed Dellums' role in ending apartheid in South Africa. Also in 2000, Lumbly guest starred in a season one episode of "The West Wing" entitled "Six Meetings Before Lunch" as Jeff Breckenridge, a nominee for U.S. Assistant Attorney General who happens to support reparations for slavery.
1063935	Carl Franklin (born April 11, 1949) is an American actor, screenwriter and film and television director. Franklin is a graduate of University of California, Berkeley, and continued his education at the AFI Conservatory, where he graduated with an M.F.A. degree in directing in 1986. Franklin is most noted for "Devil in a Blue Dress", which was based on the book by Walter Mosley and starred Denzel Washington and Don Cheadle. Early life. Franklin was raised outside of San Francisco, in Richmond, California. He never had the opportunity to know his biological father, as he died before Carl was born. Franklin was raised by his mother and stepfather. While Franklin speaks highly of his stepfather and has called him “very loving,” Franklin has spoken out about his stepfather’s abusive tendencies, linking his outlashes to alcohol use. Problems at home combined with life in a tough neighborhood fueled Franklin’s ambition to be the first in his family to attend college. In high school, Franklin worked hard on his academics, which paid off when he was awarded a scholarship to University of California, Berkeley. Franklin’s initial desires to become a teacher or lawyer lead him to study History upon his arrival at the university. However, after two years, Franklin changed his major to theater arts. It has been rumored that he became interested in the arts while trying to meet girls by spending time around the theater department. His time at Berkeley marked the beginning of his acting career. Good timing found Franklin in the center of the famous political demonstrations at Berkeley in the 1960s. While the entire movement was impossible to ignore, Franklin did not actively participate and chose rather to observe his surroundings. Describing the scene, Franklin told the "LA Times": "It was like a dream to me, I wasn't really sophisticated enough to join a particular movement." However, it has been noted that the Black Power movement in particular caught his eye. Early career. Upon completion of a BA degree in Theater Arts, Franklin almost immediately moved to New York City with hopes of becoming an actor. One of his first jobs was acting in the New York Shakespeare Festival, where he appeared in the "Twelfth Night", "Timon of Athens", and "Cymbeline". Perusing his love of acting with an on-stage career, Franklin performed off-Broadway with The Public Theater. He has performed at many well-known public arenas such as Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts and the Joseph Papp Public Theater in New York, as well as the Arena Stage (Washington, D.C.). With experience under his belt on the off-Broadway circuit, Franklin began his on-screen career with a film called "Five on the Black Hand Side" in 1973. From there, he acted in a string of guest roles on television shows such as "The Rockford Files", "Good Times", "Caribe", "The Incredible Hulk", "McClain's Law", and "The Streets of San Francisco". Over the years, Franklin’s looks have typically landed him roles portraying men of power, such as members of the police force or military officials. Franklin’s most recognizable acting role was his 1983-1985 portrayal of Captain Crane on the popular action-adventure series "The A-Team". After two seasons on the show, Franklin realized that acting became mundane and unsatisfying to him. He began to experiment with filmmaking, getting his feet wet with writing and production. Franklin is quoted in "L.A. Weekly", saying "Acting made a director out of me.” And so, at age 37, Franklin made an important decision to return to school in 1986. This time, he chose the AFI Conservatory in Los Angeles, where he studied film directing, studying mostly the works of European and Japanese directors. He obtained his M.F.A. degree in directing in 1986. His time at AFI culminated in a life-changing project. For his master’s thesis, Franklin produced a short film called "Punk" in 1989. The film follows the story of an African-American boy faced with the realities of familial stress, societal pressures, and the ever-daunting development of sexual discovery. Franklin’s 30-minute film can be attributed to both failure and success. The production of the film cost Franklin his home and left him in a state of financial crisis, however, the impactful final product gained him attention in an industry that is nearly impossible to infiltrate. From there, his vision carried him through a successful career. Concord Films. Straight out of his Master’s program, Franklin landed a job with well-known cult classic movie director Roger Corman in 1989. Corman was one of many directors who had been impressed with Franklin’s thesis film "Punk". Corman took on Franklin as a sort of protégé, working under him at his production company Concord Films. Corman has become well known for discovering young talent, having mentored famed filmmakers such as Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola, Ron Howard, and Peter Bogdanovich. Clearly, Franklin was in good hands. While working at Concord Films, Franklin gained experience working on low-budget films, helping to crank out six films in just two years’ time. Roger Corman is known for fast-paced filmmaking, with a reputation for cranking out screenplays in a matter of weeks and filming them even faster. Working with Corman gave Franklin the opportunity to write, direct, produce, and occasionally even act in a wide range of mostly unseen films. Throughout the experience, Franklin found himself working on films in exotic locations such as Peru and the Philippines, and pushing himself creatively. From 1989 to 1990, Franklin worked on "Nowhere to Run", "Eye of the Eagle 2: Inside the Enemy", and "Full Fanthom Five", respectively, under Concord Films. Later career. At the end of the 80s, producer Jesse Beaton was looking for a director for a film called "One False Move". The script’s edgy appeal needed someone gritty and fresh. Remembering Franklin’s short film Punk, Beaton met Carl to discuss the film’s vision. Hoping to focus more on the character of the story rather than the aesthetics, Beaton understood that Franklin was the right man for the job, making "One False Move" Carl Franklin’s directorial debut. Franklin’s approach to the screenplay produced a thriller just shy of the Film Noir genre, dealing with themes of drugs, violence, and sexual relationships. The story follows three drug dealers, played by Billy Bob Thornton, Cynda Williams, and Michael Beach and their interactions with an Arkansas sheriff played by Bill Paxton. Far from his low-budget past, Franklin’s budget of $2 million gave him a bit of room to be creative, and achieve his entire vision for the film. What set this film apart from the countless other cops and robbers movies was Franklin’s insight into the underlying racial aspect that the film presented. With a unique perspective on a classic topic of racial tension, Franklin’s performance as director was praised above all. However, the original version of the film, which was released in 1991, was thought to be overly violent. In response to such claims, Franklin told the "Observer", “I didn't want people getting excited seeing how neat someone can be killed… I want the audience to feel the emotional loss of life--the real violence is the loss, the violation of humanity. They've taken from us someone who had dreams, hopes, the same set of emotions we have." The film is noted for Franklin’s creative use of the pastoral motif. By combining cinematic and literary traditions, Franklin paints a picture of a crime, deeply rooted in the South, pointing out that the real issues at stake date back farther than one would expect. The underlying commentary on the severity of racial issues is one that has not been expressed by many other filmmakers in this way, however, Franklin’s film has been likened to Oscar Micheaux's "Within Our Gates" (1920), John Singleton's "Boyz N the Hood" (1991), and Roman Polanski's "Chinatown" (1974). Despite the film’s lack of professional publicity, "One False Move" was largely promoted by word of mouth and earned itself mixed reviews. However, the reviews that were positive were very positive, gaining the project more attention. The film was bestowed the honor of Best Film of the Year by Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert in 1992, and was named one of the 10 Best Films of 1992 by the National Review Board. Next came one of Franklin’s most famous films, "Devil in a Blue Dress". Franklin’s involvement in the production stemmed from Franklin’s admiration for Walter Mosley, author of the original mystery novel. Heavily invested in the project both as a director and fan, Franklin adapted the screenplay himself. Working again with Jesse Beaton, and now with Jonathan Demme as Executive Producer, they were able to obtain a strong, $20 million budget for the film, paving the way for a smooth production. With Denzel Washington on board to play the lead role, the film showed great promise. Set in Los Angeles in the end of the 1940s, the story follows an African-American private detective and his often challenging career. The film’s biggest contribution was its recreation of South Central Los Angeles, in a time when the neighborhood was at its peak of historical relevance. His portrayal of the area touched on a piece of time often overlooked, and reminded audiences of the community values of Los Angeles, and especially hit home for many African-American viewers, who appreciated the insight into the family values that define their culture. Reviews for the film vary, again mostly commending Franklin’s ability to capture strife with beautiful directorial skill more than on the film itself. The positive impression left by the film earned Franklin more positive publicity, making Franklin a highly sought-after director to many top writers and producers in the industry. Switching gears back to television, Franklin directed "Laurel Avenue", a two-part miniseries focused on an African-American family in Minnesota for HBO in 1993. Franklin’s portrayal of the realities of the African-American community were highly regarded, further demonstrating his knack for hard-hitting reality mixed with a deep sentimentality and understanding of humanity. One issue in particular that stood out in the series was the issue of drug use. Franklin defended his depictions, explaining that "Drugs are a huge problem in the black community. Not to include that would be a stupid oversight. But if the subject of drugs is introduced in the context of a hardworking family that has managed to maintain unity, and the audience sees drugs as a threat to that unity, they get a much greater understanding of the problem." The series brought Franklin even more positive reviews, proving that it is his upfront approach to portraying reality that continues to bring him success. Following "Laurel Avenue", Franklin found himself maintaining A-list status, which allowed him to work on bigger and more visible projects, such as 1998’s "One True Thing". The film is adaptation of an autobiographical story of a New York journalist, written by Anna Quindlan. The emotional film starring Renée Zellweger outlines the life of a woman whose life is changed when her mother, played by Meryl Streep is diagnosed with cancer. With no option but to leave Manhattan for the small town where she was raised, the story of mother and daughter unfolds. Racial ties and film. Franklin supports the portrayal of African-American history in films, and has been quoted as saying “I am interested in the universal values of the black experience.” However, just because Franklin is a filmmaker who is African American does not mean that all of his films are racially motivated. Not all of his films revolve around a central theme of culture: some of his films cover racial issues, while others do not. Franklin maintains a wide subject range in his films, choosing not to focus solely on his heritage. As a prominent African-American filmmaker, Franklin stands apart from the rest in his careful selection of projects. While many of his most notable films touch on the subject of racial climates and the struggles that ensue, Franklin does not hide behind his race. Explaining to "The L.A Times", "My ethnicity is a plus, a tool. It gives me ammunition in terms of the way I view the world. There are certain stories in the black community that inform us all.” Combining his humanitarian instincts and personal experiences, Franklin stands out as a visionary for community improvement through his films. However, a large part of Franklin’s remarkable journey revolves around the fact that he is black. Discussing the realities for African Americans in the television and film industry, Franklin said: "When I came up, the only legitimate dramatic actor was Sidney Poitier, the bankable star was Richard Pryor and the other choice roles were action parts that went to Jim Brown. Even someone as good as Billy Dee Williams had a couple of great moments and then couldn't get a decent part." With a very small window of opportunity for African Americans at the time that Franklin was getting his start, his skills and educational background contributed to his success. Franklin is a standout filmmaker regardless of his race, yet he is often praised for his ability to overcome adversity, and is recognized for his highly-regarded opinion as well as his relevant contributions. In February 2000, Franklin was featured as a Black History Month guest speaker at Indiana University’s ‘’Black Film Center/Archive’’. The group hosted an event called "A Night with Filmmaker Carl Franklin", which gave Franklin the opportunity to talk about his experience in the movie industry as well as show a preview of his film "Devil in a Blue Dress". Franklin's appearance was highly regarded by many students who were honored to meet him in person.
1104800	Nicolaus II Bernoulli, a.k.a. Niklaus Bernoulli, Nikolaus Bernoulli, (February 6, 1695, Basel, Switzerland – July 31, 1726, St. Petersburg, Russia) was a Swiss mathematician as were his father Johann Bernoulli and one of his brothers, Daniel Bernoulli. He was one of the many prominent mathematicians in the Bernoulli family. Nicolaus worked mostly on curves, differential equations, and probability. He was a friend and contemporary of Leonhard Euler, who studied under Nicolaus' father. He also contributed to fluid dynamics. He was older brother of Daniel Bernoulli, to whom he also taught mathematics. Even in his youth he had learned several languages. From the age of 13, he studied mathematics and law at the University of Basel. In 1711 he received his Master's of Philosophy; in 1715 he received a Doctorate in Law. In 1716-17 he was a private tutor in Venice. From 1719 he had the Chair in Mathematics at the University of Padua, as the successor of Giovanni Poleni. He served as an assistant to his father, among other areas, in the correspondence over the priority dispute between Isaac Newton and Leibniz, and also in the priority dispute between his father and the English mathematician Brook Taylor. In 1720 he posed the problem of reciprocal orthogonal trajectories, which was intended as a challenge for the English Newtonians. From 1723 he was a law professor at the Berner Oberen Schule. In 1725 he together with his brother Daniel, with whom he was touring Italy and France at this time, was invited by Peter the Great to the newly founded St. Petersburg Academy. Eight months after his appointment he came down with a fever and died. His professorship was succeeded in 1727 by Leonhard Euler, whom the Bernoulli brothers had recommended. His early death cut short a promising career.
1376238	Eddie Deezen (born March 6, 1957) is an American character actor, voice actor and comedian, best known for his bit parts as nerd characters in 1970s and 1980s films such as "Grease", "Grease 2", "Midnight Madness", "1941" and "WarGames", as well as for larger and starring roles in a number of independent cult films, including "Surf II: The End of the Trilogy", "Mob Boss", "I Wanna Hold Your Hand", "Beverly Hills Vamp" and "Teenage Exorcist". As a voice actor, he is easily recognizable for his distinctively high-pitched and nasally voice, most notably used for the characters of Mandark in the Cartoon Network series "Dexter's Laboratory", Snipes the Magpie in "Rock-A-Doodle", Ned in "Kim Possible" and Lenny the Know-It-All in "The Polar Express". Biography. Deezen was born Edward Harry Dezen in Cumberland, Maryland, the son of Irma and Robert Dezen. A class clown in his youth, Deezen started out with aspirations of becoming a stand-up comedian, moving out to Hollywood within days of graduating high school in order to pursue a career. As a comedian, he performed at least three times at The Comedy Store, though eventually decided to abandon stand-up and focus on acting after bombing his last act and having difficulty memorizing his routine. Deezen attempted stand-up one last time, however, when he appeared on an episode of "The Gong Show" in the mid-1970s, only to be gonged by singer-songwriter Paul Williams. Hollywood career. Deezen landed his first and perhaps best known role in the film "Grease", playing nerdy student Eugene Felsnic, a part he won through a standard audition process. During "Grease"'s post-production period, Deezen won another small role playing a bully in the low-budget independent science fiction movie "Laserblast". Despite being his second film, "Laserblast" marked Deezen's screen debut when it was released in March 1978, three months before the theatrical release of "Grease". Following the massive success of "Grease", Deezen found himself being cast in a string of high-profile comedy films playing similarly nerdy characters, including Robert Zemeckis' directorial debut "I Wanna Hold Your Hand" and Steven Spielberg's 1979 epic comedy "1941". Deezen was in such demand by 1979 that he was constantly having to turn down roles. At least two such notable instances were the characters of Eaglebauer in "Rock 'n' Roll High School" and Spaz in "Meatballs", both of which Deezen turned down in order to film "1941". Throughout the early 1980s, Deezen perpetuated his trademark nerd persona in several major films, including "WarGames", "Zapped!" and Disney's "Midnight Madness", as well as returning to the role of Eugene Felsnic in "Grease 2", one of only seven actors from the original "Grease" to return for the sequel. In 1984, Deezen was cast in a recurring role on television, playing a goofy superintendent on the first season of "Punky Brewster". After filming only eight episodes, however, Deezen voluntarily left the series due to his reluctance to perform before a live audience and a continuing difficulty in remembering his lines. Independent film. 1983's "WarGames" marked the final mainstream film of Deezen's live-action acting career as he began working exclusively in independent film for the remainder of the 1980s, starting with his first starring role in the 1984 cult comedy "Surf II: The End of the Trilogy", where he played the movie's antagonist, mad scientist Menlo Schwartzer. 1984 also saw the release of "Revenge of the Nerds", the film that is generally credited with making the stock character of the stereotypical "nerd" a mainstay of teen films. Despite having arguably created the nerd archetype in such movies before, Deezen was not cast in the film. He remarked in an interview that he later asked the producers of "Revenge of the Nerds" why he hadn't been offered a role, and was given the response that he was deemed "too geeky", whereas casting was instead just looking to dress "normal people" up as nerds. Despite this, Deezen says he is frequently "recognized" by strangers for being in the film. Deezen worked steadily throughout the remainder of the 1980s and early 1990s, continuing to play nerds in both bit parts and major roles, including the ensemble comedy "Million Dollar Mystery", "", "The Whoopee Boys" and "The Silence of the Hams". He worked several times alongside comedian Tim Conway, most notably appearing in two of his Dorf videos, and struck up a partnership with prolific low-budget filmmaker and producer Fred Olen Ray, who gave Deezen leading roles with the films "Beverly Hills Vamp", "Mob Boss" and "Teenage Exorcist". To date, Deezen's last live-action appearance was a cameo as a security guard in the 1996 Leslie Nielsen spoof "Spy Hard". In a July 2009 interview, Deezen revealed that he would return to acting in front of the camera, stating "The truth is, it is extremely tough to sustain a career in Hollywood. It is tough enough ever getting work, just the sheer odds. I loved John and Matthew and it would definitely be my pleasure to work with them again. Believe me, if the right role was there and available, I'd be there in a second". In 2012, Deezen starred in a live-action comedic short film entitled "I Love You, Eddie Deezen". The plot revolves around a nerdy woman's cross-country journey to find the man of her dreams: Eddie Deezen. The short was released on November 19, 2012. Voice acting. In the mid-1980s, Deezen transitioned into voice acting, a change of pace he favored due to better pay and not needing to memorize dialogue. He started out lending his voice to animated feature films, including "Sesame Street Presents Follow That Bird" and Don Bluth's 1991 "Rock-A-Doodle". According to a 2011 interview, Deezen unsuccessfully auditioned for the role of the title character in Robert Zemeckis's "Who Framed Roger Rabbit", losing out to comedian Charles Fleischer. Deezen eventually found full-time voice work on television in the mid-1990s, playing recurring characters on the animated series "Grimmy", "Duckman", "Kim Possible" and "What's New, Scooby-Doo?", as well as guest spots on many others, including "Johnny Bravo", "Recess" and "Darkwing Duck". His best-known voice-over character, however, is that of Mandark, the arch-nemesis of the eponymous Dexter on Cartoon Network's "Dexter's Laboratory", a role he played for the series' entire run from 1996–2003. Deezen also voiced the character on the TV special ' and the video games "Cartoon Network Racing" and '. In 2004, Deezen returned to the big screen once again under the direction of Robert Zemeckis to supply voice and motion capture performance for the blockbuster holiday film "The Polar Express", playing the role of the nerdy "Know-It-All". He reprised this role for the subsequent video game. Deezen regularly lends his voice to radio and television commercials. In the late 1990s, he provided the voice of Pop (of Snap, Crackle and Pop) in commercials for Rice Krispies cereal, and Nacho, the mascot for Taco Bells kid's meals commercials, alongside Rob Paulsen as Dog. In 2011, Deezen was under consideration for succeeding Gilbert Gottfried as the voice of The Aflac Duck, but did not win the role. Personal life. Deezen still lives in Hollywood, where, according to him, "Along with my unemployment checks and residual checks, I will continue living the 'great American dream' - getting paid while doing absolutely nothing". Deezen is a huge fan of The Beatles, proclaiming himself to be their "biggest fan". He was interviewed as himself for the unreleased 2005 film "Me and Graham: The Soundtrack of Our Lives", a documentary following two filmmakers searching the US and UK for the ultimate Beatles fan. For over a year his official website featured a difficult Beatles trivia quiz - devised by Deezen himself - with a $100 prize for anyone who could answer all the questions correctly. Deezen revealed in a later interview that nobody had ever claimed the prize. Deezen is also a pop culture trivia buff, and since 2011 has been a contributing writer to several trivia websites including "mental_floss", TodayIFoundOut.com and Neatorama.com. While most of Deezen's articles pertain to The Beatles and their members, he also regularly writes about such subjects as baseball, American history and classic comedy acts like The Three Stooges, the Marx Brothers and Martin and Lewis.
1789615	Pirates of Treasure Island is a 2006 American comedy-drama film produced by The Asylum, loosely adaptated from Robert Louis Stevenson's novel "Treasure Island".
1266075	Mary Carlisle (born February 3, 1912) is a retired American actress and singer. Born in Boston, Massachusetts, she was a star of Hollywood films in the 1930s, having been one of thirteen girls selected as "WAMPAS Baby Stars" in 1932. Biography. Career. The archetypal blonde, Mary Carlisle was brought to Hollywood at the age of four by her recently widowed mother. While eating lunch with her mother at the Universal Pictures commissary, she was spotted by Carl Laemmle, Jr. and offered a screen test.
589851	Kabita is a 1977 Bengali language film starring Mala Sinha in the lead. The film is directed by Bharat Shamsher, and is a remake of the Tamil film Aval Oru Thodar Kathai (1974) where Kamal Hassan had a supporting role as a neighbor. He played the same role in the Bengali remake, thus his only foray into Bengali film industry. He also acted in the Telugu remake Anthuleni Katha (1976) with Jayaprada, playing a different role as her boss and suitor. He also did a guest role in another remake, the Kannada film Benkiyalli Aralida Hoovu (1983) with his real-life niece Suhasini playing the lead role. The only remake he didn't appear in is the Hindi film Jeevan Dhaara (1982) starring Rekha.
586207	Mathilukal (Malayalam: മതിലുകൾ, meaning "Walls") is a Malayalam novel written by Vaikom Muhammad Basheer in 1965. It is one of the most cherished and well-known love stories in Malayalam. Its hero, Basheer himself, and heroine, Narayani, never meet, yet they love each other passionately. Despite being imprisoned and separated by a huge wall that divides their prisons, the two romance each other. Theme. The theme of the novel, focusses on the love between Basheer, a prisoner, and a female inmate of the prison, who remains unseen throughout the novel. In "Mathilukal", though the broad frame is autobiographical and the narration is first person, the details seem to contain sprinkles of fantasy. Plot summary. As Basheer, who is jailed for writing against the then ruling British, Gopakumar delivers a memorable performance. Basheer befriends his fellow-inmates and a considerate young jailor. One day, Basheer hears a woman's voice from the other side of the wall – the women's prison. Eventually the two jailbirds become lovebirds. They exchange gifts, and their hearts, without meeting each other. Narayani then comes up with a plan for a meeting: they decide to meet at the hospital a few days later. But before that, Basheer is released, unexpectedly. For once, he does not want the freedom he had craved for. The novel ends with Basheer standing outside the prison with a rose in his hand. Film adaptation. In 1989, a film adaptation of the novel was released, starring Mammootty as Vaikom Muhammad Basheer, and directed by Adoor Gopalakrishnan. The film was a major critical success, and gained many awards at national and international levels. Mammootty won the National Film Award for Best Actor.
1164903	Mark Alexander Knox (born April 15, 1970), better known as Flex Alexander or Flex, is an American actor, comedian and dancer. Early life. Born in New York City, Alexander is the son of Alethia Knox and Robert Whitehead. As a teen, he began dancing in New York clubs earning the nickname "Flex" due to his acrobatic dance skills. After being discovered by DJ Spinderella, he began touring with rap trio Salt-n-Pepa's dance troupe for three years. In addition to dancing, Alexander also choreographed for Mary J. Blige and Queen Latifah. In 1989, he made his stand-up comedy debut and eventually turned to acting, making his film debut in the 1992 film "Juice". Alexander also was a regular cast member of the sketch comedy show, Uptown Comedy Club, from 1992-1994. Career. Alexander's first television role was on the short-lived 1993 ABC sitcom "Where I Live", starring Doug E. Doug. Despite being critically acclaimed, the series was canceled that same year. Alexander then guest starred on episodes of "Sister, Sister" and "The Cosby Mysteries" before moving to Los Angeles in 1995 to concentrate on acting. In 1996, he landed a starring role on another short-lived sitcom "Homeboys in Outer Space". The series was critically panned and canceled the following year. Later that year, Alexander co-starred in yet another short-lived series, the Steven Bochco-created "Total Security". Following "Total Security"'s run, Alexander guest starred on "Brooklyn South" and "The Parkers", and also had roles in several films including the 1998 direct-to-video release "Backroom Bodega Boyz" and "She's All That" (1999). From 2000 to 2001, Alexander appeared as Maya Wilkes' husband Darnell during the first season of the UPN sitcom "Girlfriends". He left "Girlfriends" to star as single father Flexter "Flex" Washington on the UPN sitcom "One on One", a series he created and produced. For his role on the series, Alexander was nominated for three NAACP Image Awards and two BET Comedy Awards. In 2004, he portrayed Michael Jackson in the VH1 television biopic "", which garnered him another NAACP Image Award nomination. Alexander returned to "One on One" for two more seasons, however, during the last season, his character was phased out when the show was retooled. Following the end of "One on One", Alexander had roles in the 2006 film "Snakes on a Plane", opposite Samuel L. Jackson, and the 2007 horror film "The Hills Have Eyes 2". He also had a role in Clement Virgo's "Poor Boy's Game", with Danny Glover. Alexander's most recent role was in a 2007 episode of "". Personal life. Alexander, a born-again Christian, married R&B singer Shanice Wilson on Valentine's Day 2000. They have two children, daughter Imani Shekinah Alexander-Knox (born August 23, 2001) and son Elijah Alexander-Knox (born March 5, 2004). Flex is a member of Phi Beta Sigma Fraternity, Inc.
1751106	The Son of No One is a 2011 American action thriller film written by Dito Montiel based on a book of the same name, written by Montiel. Plot. In 2002, a young cop, Jonathan White (Channing Tatum), is a rookie officer under Captain Marion Mathers (Ray Liotta) in a Queens neighborhood in New York City, where he grew up. To provide for his wife Kerry (Katie Holmes) and ailing young daughter, he works hard to keep his life on track, but this life is threatened when a dark secret bubbles to the surface. An anonymous source reveals new information about two unsolved murders from 16 years ago. In 1986, Jonathan had killed two men in self-defense. His friends, Vinnie and Vicky, helped him dispose of the bodies and keep their involvement a secret from the authorities, and then Detective Stanford (Al Pacino), who was the partner of Jonathan's deceased father, closes the cases, knowing he was involved. In the present, Jonathan meets with a grown up Vinnie (Tracy Morgan) for the first time in years. Anonymous phone calls are being made to Jonathan's home, whose wife receives them. This leads to an increasingly difficult relationship between Jonathan and Kerry. He has contact with Lauren Bridges (Juliette Binoche), the reporter who is trying to create a successful newspaper story out of the source material that has been leaked. At a dinner, Jonathan tries to convince her not to publish the story, but she refuses and leaves. Once she leaves the restaurant, she is followed by an unknown assailant and killed. Also, Kerry has received more calls and Jonathan is forced to admit to her that he was responsible for the killings.
1060838	Channing Matthew Tatum (born April 26, 1980) is an American actor and film producer, best known for his roles in "Step Up" (2006), ' (2009), "Dear John" (2010), "The Vow" (2012), "21 Jump Street" (2012), "Magic Mike" (2012), and ' (2013). He has also appeared in films such as "Coach Carter" (2005), "She's the Man" (2006), "A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints" (2006), "Fighting" (2009), and "The Dilemma" (2010). While known for his performances in drama and action films, he has also ventured into more comedic roles. Earlier in his career he worked variously as a dancer and model. Early life. Tatum was born and raised in Cullman, Alabama. He is the son of Kay (née Faust), an airline worker, and Glenn Tatum, who worked in construction. He has a sister named Paige. His ancestry includes English, Irish, French, German, and Native American. Tatum's family moved to Mississippi when he was six, and he grew up in the bayous near the Mississippi River, where he lived in a rural setting. Tatum was athletic while growing up, playing football, soccer, track, baseball, and performing martial arts; he has said that "girls were always biggest distraction in school." As a child, he practiced wuzuquan kung fu under the lineage of 10th dan Grandmaster Chee Kim Thong. Tatum spent most of his teenage years in the Tampa, Florida, area, and initially attended Gaither High School, before he was given the option by his parents of either selecting a private high school or attending a military school; he chose Tampa Catholic High School, where he graduated in 1998 and was voted most athletic. Afterward, Tatum attended Glenville State College in Glenville, West Virginia, on a football scholarship, but dropped out. He returned home and started working odd jobs. "US Weekly" reported that around this time Tatum left his job as a roofer and began working as a stripper at a local nightclub, under the name "Chan Crawford." In 2010, he told an Australian newspaper that he wanted to make a movie about his experiences as a stripper. That idea led to the movie "Magic Mike". He later moved to Miami, where he was discovered by a model talent scout. Career. Early work. In 2000, Tatum was first cast as a dancer in Ricky Martin's "She Bangs" music video, after an audition in Orlando, Florida; he was paid $400 for the job. His experience in the fashion industry began as a model working for such noted clients such as Armani and Abercrombie & Fitch. He soon moved into television commercials, landing national spots for Mountain Dew and Pepsi in 2002. He subsequently signed with a modelling agency in Miami, Page 305 (Page Parkes Modeling Agency), but later found success after being cast by Al David for "Vogue" magazine and soon after appeared in campaigns for Abercrombie & Fitch, Nautica, Dolce & Gabbana, American Eagle Outfitters, and Emporio Armani. He was picked as one of "Tear Sheet" magazine's "50 Most Beautiful Faces" of October 2001. Tatum also signed with Beatrice Model agency in Milan, Italy and Ford Models in New York City. Tatum has said that his modeling career has helped him with his life, specifying that "It's made my life, and my family's life, a lot easier, because I never knew what I wanted to do and now they don't really have to worry about me anymore. I've been able to explore life, and through exploring it I've found that I love art, I love writing, I love acting, I love all the things that make sense to me. And I've been given the chance to go out and see the world, and to see all the things out there. Not everyone gets that chance". 2008–present. In 2008, Tatum co-starred in director Kimberly Peirce's film "Stop-Loss", about soldiers returning home from the Iraq War, and in director Stuart Townsend's film "Battle in Seattle", about the 1999 protest of the World Trade Organization meeting in Seattle. Tatum played in the short film "The Trap", directed by Rita Wilson.
1030417	Pusher II (also known as Pusher II: With Blood on My Hands) is a 2004 Danish crime film written and directed by Nicolas Winding Refn. The film is the second film in the Pusher trilogy, portraying the lives of criminals in Copenhagen. Plot. The film opens some time after the original film with Tonny serving out his last day of a prison sentence. His cell-mate delivers a monologue advising Tonny to conquer his fear. He then reminds Tonny that he owes him money, but has chosen to give him more time out of respect for Tonny's father, the Duke, a vicious gangster. Upon his release, Tonny visits his father's garage business seeking employment. The Duke has a younger son from a different mother now and receives Tonny coldly, but he ultimately allows Tonny to work for him on a trial basis. Tonny steals a Ferrari in an effort to impress his father, but the car is rejected and the Duke berates Tonny mercilessly for his lack of responsibility.
1055118	Escape to Victory, known simply as Victory in North America, is a 1981 film about Allied prisoners of war who are interned in a German prison camp during World War II. The film was directed by John Huston and stars Michael Caine, Sylvester Stallone, Max von Sydow and Daniel Massey. The film received great attention upon its theatrical release, as it also starred professional footballers Bobby Moore, Osvaldo Ardiles, Kazimierz Deyna, Paul Van Himst, Mike Summerbee, Hallvar Thoresen, Werner Roth and Pelé. Numerous Ipswich Town players were also in the film, including John Wark, Russell Osman, Laurie Sivell, Robin Turner and Kevin O'Callaghan. Further Ipswich Town players stood in for actors in the football scenes - Kevin Beattie for Michael Caine, and Paul Cooper for Sylvester Stallone. The script was written by Yabo Yablonsky. The film was entered into the 12th Moscow International Film Festival. Plot. Association football plays a central role of the film. A team of Allied prisoners of war (POWs), coached and led by English Captain John Colby (Michael Caine), a professional footballer for West Ham United before the war, agree to play an exhibition match against a German team, only to find themselves involved in a German propaganda stunt. Colby is the captain and essentially the manager of the team and thus chooses his squad of players. American POW Hatch (Sylvester Stallone) is not initially chosen, but eventually nags the reluctant Colby into letting him on the team as the team's trainer. Hatch needs to be with the team to facilitate his upcoming escape attempt. Colby's superior officers repeatedly try to convince Colby to use the match as an opportunity for an escape attempt, but Colby consistently refuses, fearing that such an attempt will only result in getting his players killed. Meanwhile, Hatch has been planning his unrelated escape attempt, and Colby's superiors agree to help him, if he in return agrees to journey to Paris, make contact with the French Resistance, and try to convince them to help the soccer team escape. Hatch succeeds in escaping the prison camp, traveling to Paris, and finding the Resistance, at first, the Resistance decides that the plan to help the soccer team escape is too risky; but once they realise the game will be at the Colombes Stadium they plan the escape using a tunnel from the Paris sewer system to their showers in the players' changing room. They convince Hatch to let himself be re-captured, so he can pass information along back to the leading British officers at the prison camp.
1065753	Semi-Tough is a 1977 comedy film directed by Michael Ritchie and starring Burt Reynolds, Kris Kristofferson, Jill Clayburgh, Lotte Lenya, Bert Convy, and Brian Dennehy, set in the world of American professional football. The plot involves a love triangle between the characters portrayed by Reynolds, Kristofferson and Clayburgh. "Semi-Tough" also includes a parody of Werner Erhard's Erhard Seminars Training ("est"), depicted in the film as an organization called "B.E.A.T." The film is based on the novel of the same name by Dan Jenkins. It was adapted for the screen by writer Walter Bernstein and director Ritchie, who added a new storyline that included a satire of the self-help movement and new religions. "Semi-Tough" follows the story of pro-football friends Billy Clyde Puckett and Marvin "Shake'" Tiller, who have a third roommate, Barbara Jane Bookman. A romance develops with Shake until he becomes self-confident after completing a self awareness course called "B.E.A.T." led by Friedrich Bismark that he insists Barbara Jane try, at which point Billy Clyde slyly makes a play to win her for himself.
588463	Seema Sastri - Bheebhatsamaina Factionist is a Telugu film starring Allari naresh and Farjana. This movie is directed and produced by G Nageswara Reddy on the banner of Sri Katyayani Creations. The film was released in 2007. Plot. Subramanyam Sastri (Allari Naresh) falls in love with Surekha Reddy (Farzana) who lives with her relatives in Hyderabad. After falling in love Sastri gets to know that Surekha Reddy belongs to a popular factionist family in Rayala Seema. The rest of the story is all about how Subramanyam and his family members convince the factionist for the marriage in a humorous way. Soundtrack. Soundtrack is composed by Vandemataram Srinivas and it contains 5 songs. Music of Allari Naresh’s latest film Seema Sastri was launched at a function arranged in Kalinga Cultural center, Banjara Hills on the evening of 28 August. This function is attended by VV Vinayak, EVV, Rajasekhar, Jeevitha, Vishnu, Naresh, G Srinivasa Reddy, Chavali Ramanjaneyulu etc. EVV and Rajasekhar jointly released the audiocassette and gave the first unit to VV Vinayak. VV Vinayak and Vishnu jointly released the audio CD and gave the first unit to EVV. Reviews. Idlebrain wrote:"If you can ignore illogical scenes and vulgarity, it is a decent comedy film that does not bore you". Telugucinema wrote:"Seema Shastry provides enough laughs and is good vasool for money. Despite some vulgar dialogues and illogical plotline and scenes, it gives entertainment". Fullhyderabad wrote:"Although Seema Sastry isn't the funniest movie ever made, it is worth a trip to the box office if you're in the mood for some lightweight timepass". Remake. It has remade into Kannada as Super Shastri.
1039614	Barbara Jefford, OBE (born 26 July 1930) is a British Shakespearean actress best known for her theatrical performances with the Royal Shakespeare Company, the Old Vic and the National Theatre, and her role as Molly Bloom in the 1967 film of James Joyce's "Ulysses". Early life. Jefford was born Mary Barbara Jefford in Plymstock, Devon, the daughter of Elizabeth Mary Ellen (née Laity) and Percival Francis Jefford. She was brought up in the West Country and attended Weirfield School in Taunton, Somerset. She attended the Hartly-Hodder School of Speech Training and Dramatic Art before training at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London, where she was awarded the Bancroft Gold Medal. In 1946, whilst still a student, she obtained small parts in the radio production of "Westward Ho!" and other radio plays, but her stage debut came in 1949, when she played the part of Viola in "Twelfth Night" at the Dolphin Theatre, Brighton. Theatre. Stratford. After spending just one year working in repertory theatre, in 1950 she was given the part of Isabella in Peter Brook's production of "Measure for Measure" at the Shakespeare Memorial Company, (now the Royal Shakespeare Company) in Stratford-upon-Avon, playing opposite John Gielgud (Angelo) and Harry Andrews (Vincentio).
394074	April Snow is a 2005 South Korean romance film. Filming commenced on February 4, 2005 under the director Hur Jin-ho. The film was released in September 2005. Despite not making a profit in its country of origin, the film was a box-office success in several other Asian countries, owing mostly to the international popularity of the lead actor, Bae Yong-joon. Due to this the film has been used as an example of the Korean wave phenomenon. Plot. In-soo and Seo-young, who are both married, meet in a hospital after their respective partners are involved in a car accident. This leads them to discover that their spouses had been having an affair and they begin one of their own. Their relationship grows as they approach each other for help occasionally. Awards and Nominations. 2005 Blue Dragon Film Awards
584323	Imsai Arasan 23am Pulikesi (; ) is a 2006 Tamil historical comedy film directed by Chimbudeven. The film stars Vadivelu in his first lead role alongside Monica, Tejashree, Manorama, Nassar and Nagesh. The film's score and soundtrack are composed by Sabesh-Murali. The film was produced and distributed by Tamil film director S. Shankar. It was the first historical film after 28 years since "Maduraiyai Meeta Sundra Pandiyan". The film emerged a high commercial success. The film was dubbed into Telugu as "Himsinche 23 Va Raju Pulikesi". Brahmanandham dubbed for Vadivelu. Plot. "Imsai Arasan 23am Pulikesi" is a comical satire on the Machiavellian politics practiced in the late 18th century. The film is laced with references to present-day happenings in politics, sports and other areas. In a faraway South Indian kingdom of Cholapuram Paalayam the ruler (Nagesh) and queen (Manorama) are longing for a child, as all their 22 children have died at birth. Little do they know that the queen’s brother Rajaguru Sangilimaayan (Nassar) is behind the death of their children, as he wants to be the next ruler. But when the palace astrologer predicts that the 23rd child will be a dimwit, Rajaguru is happy. But the queen gives birth to twins; the smarter one (according to the astrologer's instructions) is ordered to be killed while the dimwit survives. The child is named 23 am Pulikesi (Vadivelu) and he grows up to be the new king after the king's death. Pulikesi is a weak, hedonistic bully with grandiose delusions and is a puppet in the hands of the Rajaguru, who colludes with the British to loot the state. Meanwhile, the other child is adopted by the palace doctor (Venniradai Moorthy) and his wife, a childless couple and he grows up to be Ukrabuddhan (Vadivelu), an educated young man and a patriot with a lofty vision for his country. Ugrabuddhan tries to kill Pulikesi, but when Ugran sees him he realizes that Pulikesi is his twin brother. Soon Ugrabuddhan comes to know about his past and to save the land from Rajguru and British, he replaces Pulikesi as the king. He joins hands with Thalapathi (Sreeman), brings new reforms, exposes Rajaguru and saves the land from the British. Production. The film was shot in 73 days. It was filmed in Tamil Nadu around Chennai, Thiruvanamalai and Kumili.All the actors went on a rigorous training in horse riding and sword fighting. Nearly 80 percent of the film was shot in studios. Every single shot was planned and story boarded during the pre production work. Soundtrack. The soundtrack features five songs composed by Sabesh-Murali with lyrics written by Pulavar Pulamaipithan. Reception. Was a milestone in Tamil cinema. Produced on a budget of 4 crores, the film was a commercial success, grossing 16 crores at the box office. The film also received critical acclaim for its comedy and for Vadivelu's performance. The film was critically praised for conveying social messages through comedy. Moreover, the film was celebrated as children's movie. Pulikesi's moustache was offered free in the theatres for the kids. Simailar to the Salvador Dalí's moustache, Pulikesi's moustache became popular in Tamil Nadu.
1044170	John Keith Patrick Allen (17 March 1927 – 28 July 2006) was a British film, television and voice actor. Life and career. Allen was born in Nyasaland (now Malawi), where his father was a tobacco farmer. After his parents returned to Britain, he was evacuated to Canada during World War II where he remained to finish his education at McGill University in Montreal. He gained experience as a local radio broadcaster and appeared on television in plays and documentaries, before returning to Britain.
585906	P. V. Jagadish Kumar (born June 12, 1960), popularly known as Jagadish, is an Indian film actor and screenwriter best known for his comic performances in Malayalam cinema. He became popular through performances in films such as "In Harihar Nagar", "Godfather", "Mukhachitram", "Welcome to Kodaikanal", "Thiruthalvaadi", "Mantrikacheppu", and "Hitler".
1787078	Like Crazy is a 2011 American romantic drama film directed by Drake Doremus and starring Anton Yelchin, Felicity Jones, Jennifer Lawrence, and Alex Kingston. Written by Drake Doremus and Ben York Jones, the film is about a British exchange student who falls in love with an American student, only to be separated from him when she's denied re-entry into the United States after overstaying her student visa. The film, which featured fully improvised dialogue, won the 2011 Sundance Film Festival Grand Jury Prize. Plot. Anna Gardner (Felicity Jones), a British exchange student attending college in Los Angeles, meets and falls in love with Jacob Helm (Anton Yelchin), an American fellow student who returns her affections. After graduation, Anna decides to spend the summer with Jacob rather than return to England, unaware of the consequences of overstaying her student visa, which expired at graduation. After returning to London for a family engagement, Anna flies back to Los Angeles, where she is detained, denied entry, and sent back to England by immigration officials for overstaying her original visa. The couple's passionate love for each other grows strained by the separation and long-distance relationship. Despite her efforts at appealing the immigration decision, Anna is told she is banned from entering the United States. Meanwhile, Jacob leaves behind his successful design business and visits Anna in London for a few weeks. There he learns that Anna's parents have hired an immigration lawyer to try to get the ban lifted. Anna's father suggests that marrying may help their efforts. Jacob is uncomfortable with the suggestion, and the couple struggle with their feelings. After Jacob returns to the United States, he and Anna grow apart, and soon Jacob begins a relationship with his colleague, Samantha (Jennifer Lawrence). Anna also tries to find a new life for herself, but she is unable to abandon her feelings of love for Jacob. Eventually she phones him from London and tells him they will never find in others what they've found in each other, and that it is right that they marry. Soon after, Jacob breaks up with Samantha and returns to London and marries Anna in a small registry office ceremony with her parents as witnesses—both affirming that they will "never allow anything to destroy the feelings we share for each other". With a tearful parting, Jacob returns to his business in Los Angeles while they wait six months before they appeal the ban on Anna's visa. Six months later, Jacob flies back to England for the appeal, but they are unsuccessful yet again. With their relationship compromised and no hope of resolving the visa issue, they begin to fight with each other in jealousy and frustration. Jacob leaves England, and soon they are seeing other people. Anna eventually gets promoted at work to the position of editor—something she wanted very much. Her love life, however, is not as positive or fulfilling—her new boyfriend Simon simply does not evoke the same feelings in her as Jacob, whom she still misses. Sometime later, Anna finally receives her visa. She gives up her job, her current boyfriend, and her apartment and flies to Los Angeles to Jacob, who greets her with flowers at the airport. Their reunion is strained and awkward at first, after being apart for so long. Jacob joins Anna in the shower, and as the water falls over them, they remember scenes from their early life together. They embrace each other, but clearly the sparks have gone out of their relationship. Anna steps out of the shower, leaving Jacob to look after her sadly. Inspiration. "Like Crazy" has been described as loosely inspired by the real-life experiences of director Drake Doremus, and in an interview with his ex-wife Desiree Pappenscheller, who was born in Austria, she claims that the film is a reenactment of Doremus and Pappenscheller's romantic and marital history including her United States immigration problems. Production. The film was shot with the inexpensive Canon EOS 7D DSLR camera, and its budget did not exceed $250,000. Produced by Crispy Films, the film was acquired by Paramount Vantage and production company Indian Paintbrush as a joint venture. It was released in the United States on October 28, 2011. Yelchin and Jones were cast into the main roles. Prior to filming they met in a Mexican restaurant in Los Angeles to get to know one another. Jones told Steven Zeitchik from the "Los Angeles Times" that "I remember thinking, 'I just hope he's a good guy'". The pair then attended a rehearsal session before shooting the film, which was done without a script. Reception. "Like Crazy" has a 73% "certified fresh" rating on Rotten Tomatoes; the consensus states "It has the schmaltzy trappings of many romantic films, but "Like Crazy" allows its characters to express themselves beyond dialogue, crafting a true, intimate study." The film was The Christian Science Monitor's third best film of 2011. Upon the film's January 2012 release in the UK, Philip French described it as "likable, lightweight, bittersweet" and a "less knowingly smart, less entertaining conflation of "Before Sunrise" and "Before Sunset", stretched out over four or five years." According to Robbie Collin, ""Like Crazy" is a well-acted and obviously heartfelt film, and at times it's also a wispily beautiful one. Unfortunately, any attempt to appreciate its not insignificant charms is hindered by an overpowering desire to grab the main characters by the shoulders and give them a good shake...Doremus has clearly fallen head over heels for the techniques of the French New Wave, but it’s less of a romance than an infatuation. He mimics the handheld camerawork and improvised dialogue of Godard’s "Breathless" et al—except, 50 years on, those techniques have a very different effect, perversely making the film feel more premeditated, less immediate."
1193152	George Michael "Micky" Dolenz, Jr. (born March 8, 1945) is an American actor, musician, television director, radio personality and theater director, best known as the drummer and lead vocalist of the 1960s rock band The Monkees. Life and entertainment career. Dolenz was born at the Cedars of Lebanon Hospital (now Cedars-Sinai Medical Center), Los Angeles California, the son of actors George Dolenz and Janelle Johnson. "Circus Boy". Dolenz began his show business career in 1956 when he starred in a children’s show called "Circus Boy" under the name Mickey Braddock. In the show, he played an orphaned water boy for the elephants in a one-ring circus at the start of the 20th century. The program ran for three years, after which Dolenz made sporadic appearances on network television shows and pursued his education. He also played guitar and sang with obscure rock and roll bands, including The Missing Links and Mickey & Bonnie. Dolenz went to Ulysses S. Grant High School in Valley Glen, Los Angeles, California, and graduated in 1962. In 1964, he was cast as Ed in the episode "Born of Kings and Angels" of the NBC education drama series, "Mr. Novak", starring James Franciscus as an idealistic Los Angeles teacher. Dolenz was attending college in Los Angeles when he was hired for the "drummer" role in NBC's "The Monkees".
1074395	Abominable is a 2006 horror film, directed and written by Ryan Schifrin. The film stars Matt McCoy, Jeffrey Combs, Lance Henriksen, Rex Linn, Dee Wallace, Phil Morris, Paul Gleason and Haley Joel. Despite the title, the antagonist of the film is the cryptid Bigfoot. The film premiered on April 10, 2006 in New York City. The music is scored by Lalo Schifrin, which patterned on Les Baxter's score to "The Beast Within". Plot. The film begins with a farmer named Billy Hoss (Rex Linn) and his wife Ethel waking up in the middle of the night to unusual noises. They and their dog Sparky go outside to investigate, where they find a horse lying dead, violently ripped open. Their dog runs into the dark, and is attacked (and presumably killed off-screen), causing Billy and Ethel to run back in the house where they see a mysterious giant figure behind their home. Once the creature is gone, they come out again and find large footprints on the ground. Six months later, a man bound in a wheelchair named Preston Rogers (Matt McCoy) stays in a cottage in the local woods while being watched and nursed by Otis Wilhelm. A group of city girls -- Karen, Michelle, C.J., Tracy, and Amanda -- arrive in a jeep with plans to celebrate Karen's upcoming marriage in the house next door. Though things may look peaceful, Preston, who lost his wife in the climbing accident that crippled him, begins to see something mysterious happening in these woods. As night falls, a group of hunters, including Billy and a gas station clerk named Buddy (Jeffery Combs) who met Otis and Preston earlier, are out looking for the same monster that came to Billy's home, which they believe to be a deranged Sasquatch. Ziegler Dane (Lance Henrickson), the third of the party, investigates when Buddy claims to have heard noises. He finds a cave and discovers Karen, who went missing when Preston saw something grab her; she is mortally wounded with her stomach torn open. When she is dragged away and killed, Dane runs out and warns the others. They open fire. One by one, the hunters are grabbed by the hiding monster and killed. Preston tries to contact the local police after what happened to Karen. He sees that the remaining girls are looking for her. After trying to call the police, they head inside and promise to search for her later. But the Sasquatch returns and attacks Tracy, who had just finished taking a shower. As the monster pulls Tracy through a small window, snapping her in half and killing her, Preston tries to get Otis to see the creature, but it leaves. A disbelieving Otis attempts to sedate Preston, but Preston turns the tables and tranquilizes Otis. Preston then looks out a window: the creature appears, roaring at him. After fainting in terror from seeing the beast up close, Preston wakes up, only to find that the police have are seeking to jail him for what they consider a "prank." He tries to warn the girls, who now discover Tracy gone and blood in the bathroom. The Sasquatch appears again, then heads further into the woods. Preston gets the girls' attention and warns them about the monster. After what happened to Tracy and Karen, they now believe him. He urges them to stay away from the windows and to call the police, but the beast invades their cabin. They hide: Michelle in the upstairs bathroom; C.J. in the bedroom closet; and Amanda, forced to take her chances, downstairs. The Sasquatch hears Michelle in the upstairs bathroom, pulls her down through the ceiling, and mauls her. As it stomps through the living room, Amanda attempts to sneak out. C.J. runs into the room looking for her and screams at the sight of the Sasquatch, blowing their cover. C.J. escapes but Amanda is cornered, forcing her to leap through a window. An hysterical C.J. abandons Amanda and attempts to escape in the Jeep, but is unable to get it started. The Sasquatch overturns it. C.J. tries to rescue Amanda and get to Preston's cabin, but the Sasquatch knocks her to the ground and stomps on her stomach, killing her. Amanda is the sole survivor out of all her friends. A traumatized Amanda runs to Preston's cabin; he quickly welcomes her in. Promising to protect her, Preston starts a plan to stop the creature from killing them both while Amanda attempts to contact police with a different message, this time about a "psycho killer", but the power goes out. The Sasquatch breaks into the cabin, and they both try to escape down the cottage's balcony using Preston's old climbing gear. The creature gets Amanda but is interrupted by an awake Otis, now knowing Preston was telling the truth, who strikes it in the back with an axe, causing it to drop Amanda. The attack does not kill it, and the enraged beast kills Otis by biting his head vertically in half. The Sasquatch continues to pursue the two remaining humans. As they get inside Preston's car, the survivors attempt to move but the creature has them and then releases the car. Amanda is ejected from the vehicle and onto the ground and knocked out. A desperate Preston then stops the monster from killing her by using his car horn which irritates the beast. Preston then releases the brakes, causing the Sasquatch to get caught behind the car. Preston shifts gears into reverse and keeps pushing it until it is rammed to a tree, causing the axe from Otis' attack still in its back to impale it. Preston goes after Amanda as the creature dies, and the police finally arrive. After confirming dead bodies, Preston and Amanda are off to a hospital. However, the victims of the Sasquatch are not seen and the creature itself is somehow gone. On the other hand, Sheriff Halderman and his deputies then hear noises after a short search. He and his crew turn around to discover a group of Sasquatches growling at them from the bushes. Reception. At review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, 62% percent of 13 critics gave the film a positive review.
1060260	Robert Loggia (born Salvatore Loggia; January 3, 1930) is an Oscar-nominated American actor and director. Early life. Loggia, an Italian American, was born on Staten Island on January 3, 1930, the son of Benjamin Loggia, a shoemaker, and Elena Blandino, a homemaker, both of whom were born in Sicily, Italy. After studying at Wagner College and journalism at the University of Missouri (class of 1951) and serving in the U.S. Army, Loggia began a long career as a supporting player in movies, on stage and television. Career. Loggia was a radio and TV anchor in Southern Command Network in the Panama Canal Zone. Loggia first came to prominence playing the real-life American lawman Elfego Baca in a series of Walt Disney TV shows in 1958. He starred as the proverbial cat-burglar-turned-good in a short-lived series called "T.H.E. Cat". In 1972, he played Frank Carver on the CBS soap opera "The Secret Storm". His many television credits include appearances on "Frasier", "The Bionic Woman", "Overland Trail", "", "The Eleventh Hour", "Breaking Point", "Combat!", "Custer", "Columbo", "Ellery Queen", "High Chaparral", "Gunsmoke", "Big Valley", "Rawhide", "Starsky and Hutch", "Charlie's Angels", "The Rockford Files" (three times as three different characters), "Magnum, P.I.", "Quincy ME", "Kojak", "Hawaii Five-0", "The Sopranos", "Monk", Oliver Stone's miniseries "Wild Palms" and "Little House on the Prairie". His film roles include "An Officer and a Gentleman", "Mercy Mission: The Rescue of Flight 771", based on the Air New Zealand Flight 103 incident, "Scarface", "Prizzi's Honor", "Over The Top", "Independence Day", "Necessary Roughness", "Return to Me", "Armed and Dangerous", and "Big" (for which he won a Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actor).
1101943	In mathematics, a polynomial is an expression constructed from variables (also called indeterminates) and constants (usually numbers, but not always), using only the operations of addition, subtraction, multiplication, and non-negative integer exponents (which are equivalent to several multiplications by the same value). However, the division by a constant is allowed, because the multiplicative inverse of a non-zero constant is also a constant. For example, is a polynomial, but is an algebraic expression that is not a polynomial, because its second term involves a division by the variable "x" (the term 4/x), and also because its third term contains an exponent that is not a non-negative integer (3/2).
583871	Oru Kal Oru Kannadi () is an Indian Tamil romantic comedy film written and directed by M. Rajesh. It stars producer Udhayanidhi Stalin, in his acting debut, Hansika Motwani and Santhanam, whilst featuring Harris Jayaraj's music and Balasubramaniem's cinematography. The film was named after a song from the film "Siva Manasula Sakthi" (2009). Releasing on 13 April 2012, it opened to positive reviews and became a commercial success. It was eventually released in Telugu as "OK OK" on 31 August 2012. Plot. One morning in his house, Saravanan (Udhayanidhi Stalin) receives his ex-girlfriend, Meera's (Hansika Motwani) wedding invitation. He phones his friend Parthasarathy aka Partha (Santhanam) to come with his janvasa car. On his way to Pondicherry, Saravanan thinks of his flashback. He was a ruthless youth. One day in traffic, he sees Meera and falls for her on the site. He follows her to a cloth shop and also to her Air Hostess class. He sees her house and he and Partha goes to her house as Meera calls them. There, Meera threatens Saravanan by showing her dad's photo, who is a Deputy Commissioner. But still, Saravanan follows her and asks her to love him. Meera takes her to her dad's office and he asks Saravanan to stop following Meera. Meera tells Saravanan that she has some qualifications required by her lover like shaving regularly, dressing well and etc. Saravanan tells this to Partha and Partha asks him if Meera or he is best for him. Saravanan tells Meera is more important to him than Partha and this causes a break between Saravanan's and Partha's friendship. Later, Saravanan joins the broken love of Partha and asks him to rejoin his love. Partha agrees and then they go to Mumbai, following Meera in a flight. There, Meera alas tells that she loves Saravanan. After some months, Meera calls Saravanan once, but he doesn't pick up the phone and tells Partha that Meera is not real love and it is all a drama. But he really tells this for fun. But Partha had accidentally switched on the phone while Saravanan told all these. Meera comes there and shouts at Saravanan, thus breaking their love. Now, at Pondicherry, during Meera's marriage, Saravanan and Partha ends up drunk and tells a small story describing the broken love of Saravanan and Meera. Just about the marriage is going to happen, Rajini Murugan (Arya) comes there with a pregnant girl and his wife (Andrea Jeremiah) and tells that Meera's groom has a girlfriend who is pregnant by him and that the girl he is with is that girl. The groom agrees his mistake and reunites with his old girlfriend. Saravanan and Partha walk off the Hall, just when Meera comes and hugs Saravanan, ending the film Cast. Cameo Performances Production. Development. Udhayanidhi Stalin had bought the distribution rights of Rajesh's previous film "Boss Engira Bhaskaran". As the film emerged successful, Udhayanidhi decided to continue the collaboration, going on to play the lead role in the new project. During the pre-production stage, several actresses including Trisha, Nayantara were considered to play the female lead but Hansika Motwani was eventually signed. The protagonist was revealed to be an unemployed youngster, as unofficial reports of a ticket collector and a band master were brushed aside. Arya, Sneha and Andrea Jeremiah were roped in to perform cameo roles. Hansika was forced to learn Tamil, for the director wanted her to speak fluently in the film. Rajesh planned to retain the same crew members from his first two ventures but since Udhayanidhi wanted Harris Jayaraj to score the music for his debut film, he was signed over Rajesh's usual associate Yuvan Shankar Raja, while the makers decided to proceed with Balasubramaniam as the cinematographer as Sakthi Saravanan was unavailable. Filming. A photo shoot for the film was held in February 2011 with the lead. The shooting of the film began in March 2011. Filming was held in Tidel Park and Rajiv Gandhi Road in Chennai on 26 April. Overseas shooting locations included Jordan and Abu Dhabi, where the film's team flew over to shoot a song in December 2011. Some shots were canned at the PVR theater in Ampa Mall, Aminjikarai. Hansika Motwani and Saranya were spotted doing a scene together in the theater. In the second schedule, director Rajesh shot a scene on Udayanidhi Stalin, Azhagam Perumal and Saranya Ponvannan at KK Nagar. During a schedule, Santhanam was hospitalized due to illness, delaying the shoot. Release. A two-minute teaser trailer, introducing the main characters of the film, was screened during the screening of "7aum Arivu" and "Velayudham" in theaters. The film received a "U" (Universal) rating by the censor board. It was released on 13 April 2012 in Tamil as a Tamil New Year release and on 31 August 2012 in Telugu. Sun TV bagged the satellite rights. Soundtrack. The album features five songs, composed by Harris Jayaraj. The composing sessions took place in Singapore and Ooty. The audio launch was held at the Sathyam Cinemas on 5 March 2012. Actors Karthi, Surya, Jeeva and Arya were present at the event. A three-minute trailer and song sequences was screened for the guests and media people as well. Tamil Tracklist Telugu Tracklist The soundtrack received generally positive reviews. Behindwoods.com claimed that it "definitely has a few like-able singalongs to keep the audio outlets happy", providing a rating of 3/5. Indiaglitz.com mentioned that the composer had "fulfilled the director's expectations, as the songs strike a chord during the first-listen itself. 'Oru Kal Oru Kannadi' music album celebrates love and reflects youngsters, like the previous films of Rajesh." Reception. Critical reception. The film received mainly positive reviews. Sify called it a "rollicking comedy", stating: "If all you're looking for is a relaxed time at the movies, then, this is Good Fun. Go with your buddies, you'll laugh till you have tears in your eyes". The Times of India rated it 3.5 out of 5 and quoted: "M Rajesh is a rarity in Tamil cinema. How else does one explain sitting through almost a three-hour-long movie without realising the passage of time?" IndiaGlitz quoted "Oru Kal Oru Kannadi – Humour At Its Best!" and wrote that it was a "clean and convincing film that makes you laugh every minute". Behindwoods.com rated the film 3 out of 5 and quoted: "OKOK double OK". Oneindia expressed that the film "may not have a great storyline, but watching the film is worth every penny". Rohit Ramachandran of Nowrunning.com stated that it was "by no means a meaningful film experience, but it is a portal for popcorn escapism". Pavithra Srinivasan from Rediff.com rated it 2 out of 5 and said: ""OKOK" is a slightly torturous friendship story of two guys and that's pretty much it". Box Office. "Oru Kal Oru Kannadi" witnessed a grand opening. It opened in more than 300 screens, with an average of 95 per cent theatre occupancy in urban regions. The film began to collect even larger sums of revenue in the next four continuous weeks, acquiring a total of 15.09 crore in a matter of 25 days in Chennai. The film claimed top spot for more than a month at the Chennai box office. Trade pundits declared the film's collections as impressive and called it a "Blockbuster". Taken with a budget of 13 crore it grossed around 32 crore worldwide.
1165486	Mark Goddard (born July 24, 1936) is an American actor who has starred in a number of television programs. He portrayed Major Don West, the adversary of Dr. Zachary Smith (played by Jonathan Harris) in the cult 1960s CBS television series, "Lost in Space", and young Detective Sgt. Chris Ballard on "The Detectives Starring Robert Taylor". Biography. Early life. Goddard was born Charles Goddard in Lowell, Massachusetts. He is the youngest of five children, and grew up in Scituate, Massachusetts.
1165223	Julie Adams (born Betty May Adams; October 17, 1926) is an American film and television actress, sometimes credited as Julia Adams or Betty Adams. Life and career. A part-time secretary and actress raised in Arkansas, she began her film career in B-movie westerns.
628006	The Story of the Kelly Gang is a 1906 Australian film that traces the life of the legendary infamous outlaw and bushranger Ned Kelly (1855–1880). It was written and directed by Charles Tait. The film ran for more than an hour, and was the longest narrative film yet seen in Australia, and the world. Its approximate reel length was 4,000 feet (1,200 m). It was first shown at the Athenaeum Hall in Collins Street, Melbourne, Australia on 26 December 1906 and in the UK in January 1908. In 2007 "The Story of the Kelly Gang" was inscribed on the UNESCO Memory of the World Register for being the world's first full-length feature film. Plot. Film Historian Ina Bertrand suggests that the tone of "The Story of the Kelly Gang"' is "one of sorrow, depicting Ned Kelly and his gang as the Last of the Bushrangers." Bertrand identifies several scenes that suggest "considerable sophistication" as filmmakers on the part of the Taits. One is the composition of a scene of police shooting parrots in the bush. The second is the capture of Ned, shot from the viewpoint of the police, as he advances. According to the synopsis given in the surviving program, the film originally comprised six sequences.These provided a loose narrative based on the Kelly gang story. Some confusion regarding the plot has emerged as a result of a variant poster from the film dating from 1910. Its similar (but different) photos suggest that either the film was being added to, or altered, or an entirely new version was made by Johnson and Gibson, as the poster proclaims. Fragments of another version of the story, “the Perth fragment,” shows Aaron Sherritt being shot outside, in front of an obviously painted canvas flat. This now appears to be from a different film altogether, perhaps a cheap imitation by a theatrical company, keen to cash in on the success of the original. Cast. There is considerable uncertainty over who appeared in the film. According to the Australian film and Sound Archive, the only actors positively identified are;
1509825	Valerie Tian (born April 21, 1989) is a Canadian actress. She is known for her role as Su-Chin in "Juno". Tian was born in 1989 in Vancouver, Canada, of Chinese descent. In the summer of 2001, Tian auditioned for Canadian director Mina Shum, while she was casting for her feature Long Life, Happiness and Prosperity and won leading role of Mindy Ho. The film premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival 2002, and was shown at Sundance Film Festival and LA Asian American Film Festival in 2003. In 2004, she played with Jean-Claude Van Damme in the action movie Wake of Death. Tian had a cameo appearance in "The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants" and leading roles in the "Wake of Death" and the short film, "Chika's Bird". She also appeared as an "X" kid in "X2", "X-Men United" and as an elf in Disney’s "Santa Clause 2". She was a series regular on the Warner Brother’s Television series, Black Sash, and appeared in a cameo role in the ABC series "The Days".
583658	Karka Kasadara is a South Indian Tamil film released in 2005. Plot. The film begins with Rahul (Vikranth) coming from Mumbai to India to see his grandparents for the first time. He helps a girl who was going to commit suicide due to her upcoming marriage. He performs some comedy with Vadivelu and falls in love with Vijayalakshmi. The background of the movie is given by Prayog
581938	Salaam Namaste is a 2005 Bollywood musical romantic comedy film. It is directed by first-time director Siddharth Anand and produced by Aditya Chopra and Yash Chopra under the Yash Raj Films banner. The film stars Saif Ali Khan and Preity Zinta in their fourth film together. Arshad Warsi, Tania Zaetta and Jugal Hansraj appear in supporting roles. The film is a remake of the 1995 Hollywood film Nine Months starring Hugh Grant and Julianne Moore in the lead. Released on 9 September 2005, it was the first Indian movie to be filmed entirely in Australia. The film tells the story of two young and modern Indians, Nick and Ambar, who have left their homes in India to make a life on their own in Melbourne, Australia. The story follows one year of their lives, dealing with their problems and relationships, from their first meeting at a wedding ceremony, to their decision to move in together without marriage, to their break-up upon discovering that Ambar is pregnant. "Salaam Namaste" became one of the biggest box-office hits of 2005 in India, as well as India's biggest hit in the overseas market that year. On 24 September 2005, the script of the film was invited to be included in the Margaret Herrick Library, which is operated by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Zinta received several nominations for her role in various film ceremonies, such as the Filmfare Awards, IIFA Awards, Star Screen Awards and Zee Cine Awards. Plot. Two young progressive Indians, Nikhil "Nick" Arora (Saif Ali Khan) and Ambar Malhotra or "Amby" (Preity Zinta), have left India to live their lives in Melbourne, Australia. Nick fled to Australia to become an architect. After becoming one, he got a commission to design a restaurant, where he works as the head chef and the restaurant has been named "Nick of Time". His job allows him have a laid-back lifestyle and get up late in the morning, both aspects that he values very much. In Bangalore, Ambar was shown twelve men for marriage and she rejected each one. Her parents suspected that she did not want to get married, however, she denied it. She went to Australia for a one-year foreign exchange program and decided to stay and become a surgeon. After hearing this, her parents cut off all ties with her. To pay for her education, she works as an R.J. at a local radio station, "Salaam Namaste". When Nick is supposed to do an interview for Salaam Namaste, he oversleeps resulting in him getting insulted by Ambar on the air. His boss, Dheka, demands that he go to the radio station or he will 'kill' him. Nick oversleeps again and he is, once again, insulted by Ambar for being late. Nick gets work catering for one of Ambar's friends wedding. His best friend Rajeev "Ron" Mathur (Arshad Warsi) falls in love with Ambar's best friend Cathy (Tania Zaetta) at the wedding. Nick also feels a connection with Ambar, although they have no idea who the other really is. Nick tells Ambar he is an architect, lying. Ron and Cathy marry the next day and Nick and Ambar discover each other's true identities. Nick has the interview on Salaam Namaste, where he states, publicly, that he loves Ambar. They both end up at Ron and Cathy's house, where the two just had a fight. Nick persuades Ambar to move in together, where they fall in love. Two months later, Ambar discovers she is pregnant, Nick takes her to get an abortion that she later tells him she did not have, resulting in a break up. Over the next five months, they have several comical disagreements. Nick finds a restaurant to buy, but the loan was not approved and he cannot afford the downpayment because he spent all his money on the house to live with Ambar. This results in another argument where the baby kicks for the first time and Nick realises he still loves Ambar. Ambar asks Nick to take a blood test because Ambar is thalassemia minor and if Nick is a thalassemia minor too the baby would have a problem. Nick goes to the hospital where he has his blood test and the doctor gives him a sonography, and at the hospital Nick finds out that Ambar is bearing twins. On the way home he thinks about what the doctor said to him and he realises that he has left Ambar alone through the whole pregnancy, when she needed him the most. He goes home and looks at the sonography and realises he still loves Ambar. He goes to buy an engagement ring and sees a pregnant Ambar trying on rings with her friend, Jignesh (Jugal Hansraj). Nick thinks that Ambar is marrying Jignesh and is devastated. He goes and gets drunk and takes an Australian girl home with him. When he wakes up, he is shocked, but the girl, Stella, is angry because he didn't do anything and was crying out Ambar's name all night. Nick is greatly relieved, but then Ambar sees her in the bedroom and is very upset and tells Nick she's moving out today. Then, Nick discovers that when Ambar was trying on rings, it was for Jignesh's girlfriend, Tina. He desperately searches for Ambar with the help of many devoted Salaam Namaste listeners. He finds her and apologises but, when he is about propose, Ambar's water breaks, so they rush to the hospital. At the hospital, Ron is there with Cathy, who's giving birth as well, and the nurse turns out to be Stella. She tells Ambar that he didn't do anything that night and is in love with Ambar, who finally realises Nick's true love for her. They then meet the incompetent obstetrician Dr. Vijay Kumar MDGGO (Abhishek Bachchan), who turns out to be a very comical and horrible doctor, but manages to deliver the children. Ambar gives birth to twins and Nick proposes to her to which she joyously agrees. Production. Several people have made cameos in the film. Abhishek Bachchan is the narrator and makes a special appearance as a doctor towards the end of the film. Director Siddharth Anand makes an appearance as the taxi driver towards the end of the movie. The mother and son in the bookshop Saif Ali Khan's character visits, are actor Arshad Warsi's real-life wife and son, Maria Goretti and Zeke. Preity Zinta's then real-life boyfriend, Ness Wadia makes an appearance as the man reading the newspaper, whom Preity sits by on the bus. Soundtrack. The film has seven songs composed by the duo Vishal-Shekhar. The music of the film released on 10 August 2005. The music includes four songs and two remixes. Lyrics are penned by Jaideep Sahni. Tracklist Review. Popular bollywood website, Bollywood Hungama rated Salaam Namaste 3 out of 5 stars. Salaam Namaste received mostly positive reviews.
1105298	Nikolai Nikolaevich Luzin (also spelled Lusin; ; 9 December 1883 – 28 January 1950) was a Soviet/Russian mathematician known for his work in descriptive set theory and aspects of mathematical analysis with strong connections to point-set topology. He was the eponym of Luzitania, a loose group of young Moscow mathematicians of the first half of the 1920s. They adopted his set-theoretic orientation, and went on to apply it in other areas of mathematics. Life. He started studying mathematics in 1901 at Moscow University, where his advisor was Dimitri Egorov. Luzin underwent great personal turmoil in the years 1905 and 1906. He wrote to Pavel Florensky that: "You found me a mere child at the University, knowing nothing. I don't know how it happened, but I cannot be satisfied any more with analytic functions and Taylor series ... it happened about a year ago. ... To see the misery of people, to see the torment of life, to wend my way home from a mathematical meeting ... where, shivering in the cold, some women stand waiting in vain for dinner purchased with horror - this is an unbearable sight. It is unbearable, having seen this, to calmly study (in fact to enjoy) science. After that I could not study only mathematics, and I wanted to transfer to the medical school. ... I have been here about five months, but have only recently begun to study". From 1910 to 1914 he studied at Göttingen, where he was influenced by Edmund Landau. He then returned to Moscow and received his Ph.D. degree in 1915. During the Russian Civil War (1918–1920) Luzin left Moscow for the "Polytechnical Institute Ivanovo-Voznesensk" (now called Ivanovo State University of Chemistry and Technology). He returned to Moscow in 1920. On 5 January 1927 Luzin was elected as a corresponding member of the USSR Academy of Sciences and became a full member of the USSR Academy of Sciences first at the Department of Philosophy and then at the Department of Pure Mathematics (12 January 1929). In the 1920s Luzin organized a famous research seminar at Moscow University. His doctoral students included some of the most famous Soviet mathematicians: Pavel Aleksandrov, Nina Bari, Aleksandr Khinchin, Andrey Kolmogorov, Alexander Kronrod, Mikhail Lavrentyev, Alexey Lyapunov, Lazar Lyusternik, Pyotr Novikov, Lev Schnirelmann and Pavel Urysohn. Research work. Luzin's first significant result was a construction of an almost everywhere divergent trigonometric series with monotonic convergence to zero coefficients (1912). This example disproved the Pierre Fatou conjecture and was unexpected to most mathematicians at that time. At approximately the same time, he proved what is now called Lusin's theorem in real analysis. His Ph.D. thesis entitled "Integral and trigonometric series" (1915) had a large impact on the subsequent development of the metric theory of functions. A set of problems formulated in this thesis for a long time attracted attention from mathematicians. For example, the first problem in the list, on the convergence of the Fourier series for a square-integrable function, was solved by Lennart Carleson in 1966. In the theory of boundary properties of analytic functions he proved an important result on the invariance of sets of boundary points under conformal mappings (1919). Luzin was one of the founders of descriptive set theory. Together with his student Mikhail Yakovlevich Suslin, he developed the theory of analytic sets. He also made contributions to complex analysis, the theory of differential equations, and numerical methods. Letter to Vygodsky. In a letter to Vygodsky dating from 1932, Luzin expresses sympathy with Vygodsky's infinitesimal approach to developing calculus. He mocks accusations of bourgeois decadence against Vygodsky's textbook, and relates his own youthful experience with what he felt were unnecessary formal complications of the traditional development of analysis. Typical is his youthful reaction to his teachers' insistence that the derivative is a limit: "They won't fool me: it's simply the ratio of infinitesimals, nothing else." A recent study notes that Luzin's letter contained remarkable anticipations of modern calculus with infinitesimals. The Luzin affair of 1936. On 21 November 1930 the declaration of the “initiative group” of the Moscow Mathematical Society which consisted of former Luzin's students Lazar Lyusternik and Lev Shnirelman along with Alexander Gelfond and Lev Pontryagin claimed that “there appeared active counter-revolutionaries among mathematicians.” Some of these mathematicians were pointed out, including the advisor of Luzin, Dmitri Egorov. In September 1930, Dmitri Egorov was arrested on the basis of his religious beliefs. After arrest, he left the position of the director of the Moscow Mathematical Society. The new director became Ernst Kolman. As a result, Luzin left the Moscow Mathematical Society and Moscow State University. Egorov died on 10 September 1931, after a hunger strike initiated in prison. In 1931, Ernst Kolman made the first complaint against Luzin. In 1936 the Great Purge began. Unknown masses of people were arrested and/or executed, including leading members of the intelligentsia. In July–August of that year, Luzin was criticised in Pravda in a series of anonymous articles whose authorship later was attributed to Ernst Kolman. The attack on Luzin was supported by some of his students and was instigated by a letter of Pavel Aleksandroff. It was alleged that Luzin published “would-be scientific papers,” “felt no shame in declaring the discoveries of his students to be his own achievements,” stood close to the ideology of the “black hundreds,” orthodoxy, and monarchy “fascist-type modernized but slightly.” Luzin was tried at a special hearing of the Commission of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, which endorsed all accusations of Luzin as an "enemy under the mask of a Soviet citizen." One of the complaints was that he published his major results in foreign journals. Aleksandroff, Kolmogorov and some other students of Luzin accused him in plagiarism and various forms of misconduct. Sergei Sobolev and Otto Schmidt incriminated disloyalty to Soviet power. The methods of political insinuations and slander were used against the old Muscovite professorship many years before the article in Pravda.
585847	Raavanaprabhu (Malayalam: രാവണപ്രഭു, English: "Ravana the Lord") is a 2001 Malayalam action drama film written and directed by Ranjith. It is a sequel to the 1993 film "Devaasuram" which was scripted by Ranjith. The film is the directorial debut of Ranjith, who had previously worked as a screenwriter. Mohanlal plays the dual role of father (Mangalassery Neelakandan) and son (Mangalassery Karthikeyan). Napoleon reprises the role of Mundackal Shekharan, the archenemy of Neelakandan. The film was released as an Onam release on August 31, 2001. The film managed to become the highest grossing Malayalam film of the year. It won the Kerala State Film Award for Best Popular Film. Plot. The story begins with the fall of Mangalasherry Neelakantan's (Mohanlal) son Karthikeyan (Mohanlal), as he ventures out to make money which ultimately makes him a liquor baron. The relationship between Neelakantan and Karthikeyan deteriorates, as the father does not approve of his son's money-making methods. Mundakkal Shekharan (Napoleon) comes into the picture again after spending a term in prison for killing one of Neelakantan's friends. He decides to finish the Mangalasherry family by confiscating the house which was kept as collateral for Bhanumathi's (Revathy) treatment. Bhanumathi passes away and Karthikeyan is now bent on taking revenge. Neelakantan loses his home and Karthikeyan ventures out in an attempt to reclaim his ancestral home. In the meantime, Karthikeyan abducts Shekharan's daughter Janaki (Vasundhara Das) in an attempt to blackmail him (Shekharan), during which they fall in love with each other. The remainder of the movie is about how Karthikeyan manages to get his ancestral home back while Shekharan's nephew Mundakkal Rajendran (Vijayaraghavan) makes attempts to kill Karthikeyan. Awards. Kerala State Film Awards Filmfare Awards South Asianet Film Awards' Soundtrack. This film includes five songs written by lyricist Gireesh Puthenchery and composed by the composer and playback singer Suresh Peters. The songs became chartbusters. "Vandemukunda Hare" was taken from the sequel movie Devaasuram sung and composed by M. G. Radhakrishnan.
583466	Vikas Bhalla(born on October 24, 1972) is a popular Indian actor and singer, who is well known for his role in the TV serial, Shanno Ki Shaadi, which aired on STAR Plus and Tum Bin Jaaoon Kahan. Early life and education. Born in 1972, he studied at Bombay Scottish School and after that he did his B.Com. from Narsee Monjee College, Mumbai. He trained in Hindustani classical music under Pandit Jialal Vasant at the age of 11 to 12 and later under Guru Iqbal Gill. Personal life. He is married to Punita, who is the daughter of actor, Prem Chopra and the couple have two children, Sanchi & Veer. Career. Vikas made his acting debut in the film Sauda(1995), in which he was the lead actor opposite actress Neelam Kothari. Vikas also did television with Apne Paraye with Rajesh Khanna and followed it up with successful Shanno Ki Shaadi co-starring Divya Dutta. He has also pursued a singing career, and released successful albums like Awaara, Dhuan, Mehak Teri. He is also the voice behind the super duper hit song Po Po from the movie Son Of Sardar, this being his first film playback song that he's sung. He also appeared in television serials, like Jassi Jaisi Koi Nahin and Karishma - The Miracles of Destiny(2003). He also did role in Sanjog Se Bani Sangini on Zee TV. In 2011, he participated in a celebrity singing reality show called Star Ya Rockstar on Zee TV and in April 2012, he joined the cast of popular TV serial Uttaran on Colors TV as Veer Singh Bundela replacing Nandish Sandhu. Films. =music department (playback singer)=
834283	The Capture of the Green River Killer is a 2008 2-part television film that first aired on Lifetime Television and tells the story of the Green River killer serial murders between 1982 and 1998. The film was named one of the top 10 television productions of 2008 by "Variety" and was twice nominated for a 2008 Gemini Award for best direction and for best costuming. Lifetime's premiere of "The Capture of the Green River Killer" miniseries delivered two million viewers, making it 10-year-old Lifetime Movie Network's most-watched telecast ever.
587392	Suriyan (: "Sun") is a 1992 Tamil film directed by Pavithran starring Sarath Kumar and Roja in lead roles and produced by K. T. Kunjumon. This big budget production won positive reviews and became the first major success for Sarath Kumar as a hero. Certain scenes from the film were inspired by the 1985 Hollywood thriller "Commando". It was also dubbed in Telugu as "Mande Suryudu". Soundtrack. The film's songs and background score is composed by Deva. The lyrics for all the songs were written by Vaali.
1065749	Thomas Brodie-Sangster (born 16 May 1990) is an English actor and musician, known for his roles in "Love Actually", "Nanny McPhee", "The Last Legion", "Nowhere Boy", and voice of Ferb Fletcher in "Phineas and Ferb". He plays the part of Jojen Reed on the HBO show "Game of Thrones". Personal life. Sangster was born in London. He lives with his sister, Ava, and his parents, actors Anastasia "Tasha" (Bertram) and Mark Ernest Sangster. His father is a musician and film editor. Sangster is the second cousin once removed of actor Hugh Grant, alongside whom he appeared in "Love Actually"; his great-grandmother, Barbara Bertram, and Grant's grandmother were sisters. Sangster's great-grandfather, Anthony Bertram, was a novelist, and one of Sangster's maternal ancestors was politician and colonial administrator Sir Evan Nepean. Sangster plays the guitar, and he learned to play left-handed in order to portray the left-handed Paul McCartney in the feature film "Nowhere Boy". He currently resides in South London, England with his parents and sister. Career. Sangster's first acting job was in a BBC television film, "Station Jim". He subsequently appeared in a few more television films, including the lead roles in "Bobbie's Girl", "The Miracle of the Cards" (based on the story of Craig Shergold) and "Stig of the Dump". He won the "Golden Nymph" award at the 43rd Annual Monte Carlo Television Festival for his role in the miniseries "Entrusted". "Love Actually", in which he played Liam Neeson's stepson, was Sangster's first major theatrical film. He was nominated for a "Golden Satellite Award" and a "Young Artist Award" for his role in the film. Sangster next appeared in a television adaptation of the novel "Feather Boy" and played a younger version of James Franco's role in the film version of "Tristan and Isolde". Among other things, Sangster takes part in a (child's) swordfight in the film. Sangster next starred in the commercially successful film "Nanny McPhee", as the eldest of seven children. In 2007 he appeared in a two-part story ("Human Nature" and "The Family of Blood") in "Doctor Who" as schoolboy Timothy 'Tim' Latimer, and guest-starred in the "Doctor Who" audio dramas "The Mind's Eye" and "The Bride of Peladon". His voice lowered during filming of the "Doctor Who" episodes. He also starred alongside "Love Actually" and "Nanny McPhee" co-star Colin Firth in the film adaptation of Valerio Massimo Manfredi's historical novel "The Last Legion", released in 2007. That same year he voiced the character of Ferb Fletcher in the Disney Channel animated series "Phineas and Ferb" alongside "Love Actually" co-star Olivia Olson. As of December 2007, he was also working on the filming of a television series of the story of "Pinocchio", filmed in Italy. In March 2008 it was announced that Sangster would star in Steven Spielberg's CGI motion capture film "The Adventures of Tintin" as the title character of Hergé's comic books. Sangster left the project after scheduling difficulties when filming was delayed in October 2008 and the role was given to Jamie Bell. At the end of March 2008, he began working with Oscar-winning director Jane Campion on her film "Bright Star", a love story with Ben Whishaw and Abbie Cornish portraying John Keats and his lover Fanny Brawne. In March 2009 Sangster joined Aaron Johnson, Kristin Scott Thomas and Anne-Marie Duff in "Nowhere Boy", a film directed by award-winning artist Sam Taylor-Wood, about the teenage years of John Lennon and the two women who shaped his early life: his mother Julia (Duff) and his aunt Mimi (Scott Thomas). He played Paul McCartney . This would be his second time acting with Johnson, the first being in 2004's "Feather Boy". Sangster appeared in the film "Some Dogs Bite" in the role of Casey. The story involves a boy who wants to keep his family together. Casey (Sangster) takes his baby brother out of care, and with the help of his older brother, goes in search of their father. He also appears together with Andy Serkis in an Irish film, "Death of a Superhero", based on the novel, "Death of Superhero" by Anthony McCarten. Additionally, Sangster plays Liam in the 2011 film, "The Last Furlong". In April 2011, Sangster made his guest appearance as Adam Douglas in an episode of British detective drama "Lewis". In 2012 he starred in "The Baytown Outlaws" alongside Billy Bob Thornton, Natalie Martinez and Eva Longoria, and Ella Jones's short film "The Ugly Duckling", the third instalment of the "Tales" trilogy of reworked fairy tales from "More Films". He also plays the role of Jojen Reed in the HBO series "Game of Thrones". Brodie Films and Winnet music. Sangster established Brodie Films in 2006 with his mother Tasha Bertram "to create opportunities in the film industry for new British talent; innovative writers, actors and directors." Sangster plays bass guitar, and in January 2010 joined the band Winnet, where his mother, Tasha, takes the vocals.
393683	Innocent Steps () is a 2005 South Korean film written and directed by Park Young-hoon. The theme of this movie is "Success can not bring you happiness if the one you love is far away". Plot. Former acclaimed dancer Na Young-sae (Park Gun-hyung) attempts to make a comeback after his opponent, Hyun-soo (Yoon Chan), purposely injures him at a dance competition. At the suggestion of dance studio manager Ma Sang-doo (Park Won-sang), Young-sae then brings to Korea Jang Chae-min (Moon Geun-young), an ethnic Korean from China whom he presumes is a renowned, talented dancer. To his surprise, Young-sae learns Chae-min knows nothing about dancing and her soon-to-be married older sister, Chae-min, is the talented dancer. With only three months until the national dance championship, Young-sae trains Chae-min, vowing to turn her into a world-class dancer. Reception. The film received mixed to negative reviews. "Variety" reviewer, Derek Elley favorably compared the film to "Dance with the Wind", citing Moon's and Park Yeong-hun's performances, but wrote "the plot holds no water." Koreanfilm.org critic Tom Giammarco called the film "disappointing and cliche," and Darcy Paquet credited the film's success to Moon's celebrity status and noted that the ending was disappointing: "We never even really get to see the knock-em-dead dance sequence that you'd expect."
1166327	Ned Glass (April 1, 1906 – June 15, 1984) was an American character actor who appeared in more than eighty films and on television more than one hundred times, frequently playing nervous, cowardly, or deceitful characters. Short and bald, with a slight hunch to his shoulders, he was immediately recognizable by his distinct appearance, his nasal voice, and his pronounced New York City accent. Early life. Born in Poland, to a Jewish family, Glass immigrated to the United States at an early age and grew up in New York City. He attended college at City College. Career. Glass worked in vaudeville, and appeared on Broadway in 1931 in the Elmer Rice play "Counsellor-at-Law". He continued to act and direct on Broadway until 1936, when he was signed as a MGM contract player. He made his first film appearance in 1937, with an uncredited role in "True Confession", and his first credited film appearance came in two episodes of the serial "Dick Tracy Returns" (1938). Beginning in 1937, Glass worked regularly in films, helped by friends like producer John Houseman and Glass's next door neighbor, Moe Howard of The Three Stooges, who got him a part in the Stooges' film "Nutty But Nice". He also appeared in "From Nurse to Worse", "Three Little Sew and Sews" and "You Nazty Spy!". Glass did not appear in any films released between 1942 and 1947, possibly because of military service, but he generally worked in a handful of films almost every year thereafter, playing small roles and bit parts, including additional Three Stooges films "Uncivil War Birds", "Hokus Pokus" and "Three Hams on Rye". He was reportedly briefly blacklisted, during which time he found work as a carpenter. Glass began showing up on television in 1952, when he was cast on an episode of "The Red Skelton Show". He later was frequently seen on CBS in Jackie Gleason's "The Honeymooners" sketches. He was in an early episode (2.28) of Gunsmoke, "The Photographer", as a scruffy little prospector who's brutally murdered and scalped to obtain a cheaply thrilling photograph of Western violence. From 1955 to 1958, Glass played "Sgt. Andy Pendleton" on "You'll Never Get Rich" (better remembered as "The Phil Silvers Show"). In 1957, he appeared as "Jackson", an arms dealer to Indians, in an episode of the syndicated western series, "Boots and Saddles", as well as a railroad ticket agent in Alfred Hitchcock's "North by Northwest". He appeared in the syndicated crime drama, "Sheriff of Cochise", starring John Bromfield and in the ABC western series, "The Rebel", starring Nick Adams. He appeared too in David Janssen's crime drama, "Richard Diamond, Private Detective".
1061758	David Russell Strathairn (born January 26, 1949) is an American actor who was nominated for an Academy Award for portraying journalist Edward R. Murrow in "Good Night, and Good Luck". He is recognized for his role as CIA Deputy Director Noah Vosen in the 2007 film "The Bourne Ultimatum", a role he reprised in 2012's "The Bourne Legacy". He played a prominent role as Dr. Lee Rosen on the Syfy series "Alphas" from 2011 to 2012 and played Secretary of State William Henry Seward in Steven Spielberg's "Lincoln". Early life. Strathairn was born in San Francisco, California, the second of three children of Mary Frances (née Frazier), a nurse, and Thomas Scott Strathairn, Jr., a physician. He is of Scottish descent through his paternal grandfather, Thomas Scott Strathairn, a native of Crieff, and of Native Hawaiian ancestry through his paternal grandmother, Josephine Lei Victoria Alana. Strathairn attended Redwood High School in Larkspur, California, and graduated from Williams College in Williamstown, Massachusetts, in 1970. He studied clowning at the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Clown College in Venice, Florida, and briefly worked as a clown in a travelling circus. Career. Strathairn was nominated for an Academy Award for his starring portrayal of CBS newsman Edward R. Murrow in the 2005 biopic "Good Night, and Good Luck". The movie explored Murrow's clash with Senator Joseph McCarthy over McCarthy's Communist "witch-hunt" in the 1950s. Strathairn also received "Best Actor" Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild (SAG) nominations for his performance. Other notable film roles include his portrayals of the title character in "Harrison's Flowers" (2000); the wisecracking blind techie in "Sneakers" (1992); general manager Ira Lowenstein in "A League of Their Own"; Joe St. George in "Dolores Claiborne" (1995); Theseus, Duke of Athens, in the 1999 version of "A Midsummer Night's Dream"; and corrupt baseball player Eddie Cicotte in "Eight Men Out" (1988). Strathairn is a character actor, appearing in supporting roles in many independent and Hollywood films. In this capacity, he has co-starred in "Twisted" as a psychiatrist; in "The River Wild" as a husband; as a jailbird brother in "The Firm"; and as a pimp in "L.A. Confidential(1997)". He has worked with his Williams College classmate and director John Sayles. He made his film debut in "Return of the Secaucus 7", and worked in the films "Passion Fish", "Matewan", "Limbo", and "City of Hope", for which he won the Independent Spirit Award. Alongside Sayles, he played one of the "men in black" in the 1983 film "The Brother from Another Planet". Strathairn created the role of Edwin Booth with Maryann Plunkett in a workshop production of "Booth! A House Divided", by W. Stuart McDowell, at The Players in New York City. His television work includes a range of roles: "Moss", the bookselling nebbish on the critically acclaimed "The Days and Nights of Molly Dodd"; Captain Keller, the father of Helen Keller in the 2000 remake of "The Miracle Worker"; and a far-out (both figuratively and literally) televangelist in "Paradise", the pilot episode for a TV series on Showtime that was not successful. Strathairn had a recurring role on the hit television drama "The Sopranos". Strathairn starred in the second season episode, "Out Where the Buses Don't Run", in "Miami Vice". Among Strathairn's recent films are: "We Are...Marshall", a 2006 film about the rebirth of Marshall University's football program after the 1970 plane crash that killed most of the team's members; and "Cold Souls", starring Paul Giamatti as a fictionalised version of himself, who enlists a company's services to deep freeze his soul, directed by Sophie Barthes. In 2006 he did a campaign ad for then congressional candidate (now, Senator) Kirsten Gillibrand. He reprised his role as Edward R. Murrow in a speech similar to the one from "Good Night, and Good Luck", but was altered to reference Gillibrand's opponent John Sweeney. Strathairn plays the lead role in the 2007 independent film, "Steel Toes", a film by David Gow (writer/co-director/producer)and Mark Adam (co-director/DOP/editor). The film is based on Gow's stage play "Cherry Docs", in which Strathairn starred for its American premiere at the Wilma Theatre in Philadelphia. He played a lead role in the summer 2007 film "The Bourne Ultimatum" and appeared in Paramount Pictures' children's film "The Spiderwick Chronicles" (2008) as Arthur Spiderwick. Strathairn appeared in the "American Experience" PBS anthology series documentary, "The Trials of J. Robert Oppenheimer", a biography of the physicist. He plays William Flynn, an FBI agent dealing with anarchism in 1920s New York City, in "No God, No Master". In 2009, Strathairn performed in "The People Speak", a documentary feature film that uses dramatic and musical performances of the letters, diaries, and speeches of everyday Americans. It was adapted from the historian Howard Zinn's "A People's History of the United States". He starred as Dr. Lee Rosen on Syfy's series "Alphas". Theater. Strathairn is a stage actor and has performed over 30 theatrical roles. He performed several roles in stage plays by Harold Pinter. He played Stanley in two consecutive New York Classic Stage Company (CSC) productions of Pinter's 1957 play "The Birthday Party", directed by Carey Perloff (since 1992 artistic director of the American Conservatory Theatre), in 1988 and 1989; the dual roles of prison Officer and Prisoner in Pinter's 1989 play "Mountain Language" (in a double bill with the second CSC Rep production of "The Birthday Party"); Edwin Booth in a workshop production by W. Stuart McDowell at The Players in 1989; Kerner, in Tom Stoppard's Hapgood (1994); and Devlin, opposite Lindsay Duncan's Rebecca, in Pinter's 1996 two-hander "Ashes to Ashes" in the 1999 New York premiere by the Roundabout Theatre Company. Strathairn narrated a biographical video to introduce Barack Obama before his acceptance speech at the 2008 Democratic National Convention. He is married to Logan Goodman, a nurse. They have two sons and live near Poughkeepsie, New York.
1103118	Sir William Timothy Gowers, FRS (; born 20 November 1963) is a British mathematician. He is a Royal Society Research Professor at the Department of Pure Mathematics and Mathematical Statistics at the University of Cambridge, where he also holds the Rouse Ball chair, and is a Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge. In 1998 he received the Fields Medal for research connecting the fields of functional analysis and combinatorics. Education. Gowers attended King's College School, Cambridge as a choirboy in the King's College choir, and then Eton College as a King's Scholar. He completed his Ph.D., with a dissertation entitled "Symmetric Structures in Banach Spaces," at Trinity College, Cambridge in 1990, supervised by Béla Bollobás. Academic Work. Between 1991 and 1995 he was a member of the Department of Mathematics at University College London. He used combinatorial tools in proving several of Stefan Banach's conjectures on Banach spaces and in constructing a Banach space with almost no symmetry, serving as a counterexample to several other conjectures. With Bernard Maurey he resolved the "unconditional basic sequence problem" in 1992, showing that not every infinite-dimensional Banach space has an infinite-dimensional subspace that admits an unconditional Schauder basis. His proof of Szemerédi's theorem by Fourier-analytic methods has also been influential. He has worked in combinatorics, particularly on regularity for graphs and hypergraphs. Honours. In 1996 he received the Prize of the European Mathematical Society, and in 1998 the Fields Medal for research on functional analysis and combinatorics. In 1999 he became a Fellow of the Royal Society and in 2012 was knighted by the British monarch for services to mathematics He also sits on the selection committee for the Mathematics award, given under the auspices of the Shaw Prize. Popularization Work. Gowers has written several works popularizing mathematics, including "Mathematics: A Very Short Introduction" (2002), which describes modern mathematical research for the general reader. He was consulted about the 2005 film "Proof", starring Gwyneth Paltrow and Anthony Hopkins. Recently, he has edited "The Princeton Companion to Mathematics" (2008), which traces the development of various branches and concepts of modern mathematics. For his work on this book, he won the 2011 Euler Book Prize of the Mathematical Association of America. Blogging. After asking on his blog whether "massively collaborative mathematics" was possible, he solicited comments on his blog from people who wanted to try to solve mathematical problems collaboratively. The first problem in what is called the Polymath Project, Polymath1, was to find a new combinatorial proof to the density version of the Hales–Jewett theorem. After 7 weeks, Gowers wrote on his blog that the problem was "probably solved". In 2009, with Olof Sisask and Alex Frolkin, he invited people to post comments to his blog to contribute to a collection of methods of mathematical problem solving Contributors to this Wikipedia-style project, called Tricki.org, include Terence Tao and Ben Green
1165750	John Marley (October 17, 1907 – May 22, 1984) was an American actor who was known for his role as Phil Cavalleri in "Love Story" and as Jack Woltz— the defiant film mogul who awakens to find the severed head of his prized horse in his bed—in "The Godfather" (1972). He starred in John Cassavetes' breakthrough feature "Faces" (1968) and appeared in "The Glitter Dome" (1984). Career. Marley was a prolific character actor, appearing in nearly 150 films and television series, including "Bourbon Street Beat", "The Alfred Hitchcock Hour", "Johnny Staccato", and CBS's anthology series, "The Lloyd Bridges Show" throughout a career that spanned forty-five years.
403331	Flaming Creatures (1963) is an American experimental film by filmmaker Jack Smith. Due to its graphic depiction of sexuality, the film was seized by the police at its premiere on April 29, 1963 at the Bleecker Street Cinema in New York City, and was officially determined to be obscene by a New York Criminal Court. The 43-minute featurette attracted media and public attention, and has been described as a "controversial featurette". This also made Jack Smith famous as a film director across North America. Smith himself described the film as "a comedy set in a haunted music studio." Description. The film features an array of transvestites, hermaphrodites, drag shows, a sexually ambiguous vampire, a drug orgy and a well-built cunnilingual rapist. Sexual ambiguity is a prominent visual theme, which is particularly shown by overlapping images of flaccid penises and breasts. Senate use. During the confirmation hearings for the chief justice nomination of Abe Fortas, James Clancy, representing Citizens for Decent Literature, showed Flaming Creatures in a room in the capital among other material, inviting senators to view the sorts of things that Fortas had held in several decisions did not constitute obscenity.
520499	Diether Ocampo, (born in July 19, 1974) in Bacoor, Cavite, Philippines is a Filipino actor, singer and model. Background. Ocampo's elementary education and high school were spent in Bacoor, Cavite and he attended his college education in De La Salle University-Dasmarinas. He has German and Chinese ancestry. He started out as a dancer in a local escort service pub in Quezon City before being discovered by ABS-CBN in the mid-nineties. ]. He is part of the band Blow, where he is known as “Capt. Mongrel”. In 2001, Diether was executive producer for The Pin-Ups debut album "Hello Pain" that enabled the band to get signed to a U.S. label, making them the first Philippine-based band to be signed to a U.S. label. In 2007, Ocampo starred in an anti-zoo ad for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA)-Asia Pacific. Ocampo started with ABS-CBN Network and being managed by Star Magic headed by Mr. Johnny Manahan. He auditioned for ABS-CBN's talent search in 1995. A year and a half later, he became one of the members of Star Circle Batch II. His first movie appearance was in the movie adaptation of teen program Ang TV. Presently he is also active in charitable works through his K.I.D.S. (Kabataan Inyong Dapat Suportahan) Foundation to help under privileged children of Metro Manila.
113326	Emmanuelle 2 is a 1975 French softcore erotica film directed by Francis Giacobetti, and starring Sylvia Kristel. The screenplay was written by Bob Elia and Francis Giacobetti, based on novel "Emmanuelle: The Joys of a Woman" by Emmanuelle Arsan. The music score is by Pierre Bachelet and Francis Lai. Plot. As the film begins, Emmanuelle is travelling by ship to join her husband, Jean, in Hong Kong. To her annoyance there are no cabins available and she has to sleep in an all-female dorm. During the night, she is awakened by the girl in the neighboring bunk, who tells her that she is afraid of sleeping in a room full of women because she was raped by three Filipino girls while at boarding school in Macao - she concludes by confessing that she enjoyed it. Emmanuelle recognizes this as an invitation and the two women have sex. Arriving in Hong Kong, Emmanuelle is reunited with Jean and, after a couple of attempts, manage to have passionate reunion sex. Emmanuelle slips into the life of the Hong Kong expat community. She becomes friends with Anna Maria, the young stepdaughter of one of Jean's lovers. The two swap sexual confidences and Anna Maria is forced to admit that she is still a virgin. Emmanuelle schemes to remedy this. Over the course of the film, Emmanuelle has a series of sexual encounters. She has sex with Anna Maria's dance teacher and with a tattooed man in the locker room of the polo club. She experiences vivid sexual fantasies during an acupuncture session and also masquerades as a prostitute in a notorious Hong Kong brothel, where she has sex with a group of sailors (told in flashback to Jean). Together with Jean and Anna Maria she visits a bath-house, where they have steamy, full body contact massages from a trio of Thai woman. Emmanuelle, Jean, and Anna Maria take a trip to Bali. When Jean emerges from the shower that night he finds Emmanuelle and Anna Maria waiting for him on the bed. Emmanuelle undresses Anna Maria and makes love to her, before sitting back and smiling approvingly while Jean takes the young woman's virginity.
1685382	Josefina Yolanda Pellicer López de Llergo (April 3, 1934 – December 4, 1964), professionally known as Pina Pellicer, was a Mexican actress known in Mexico for portraying the female lead in "Macario" (1960), and in the United States as Louisa alongside Marlon Brando in the Brando-directed movie "One-Eyed Jacks" (1961). Family. Pellicer was born in Mexico City to César Pellicer Sánchez, a lawyer, and Pilar López de Llergo. Her uncle Carlos Pellicer was a modernist poet. Of her seven siblings, her younger sister Pilar Pellicer also became an actress best known for her roles in numerous telenovelas; another younger sister, Ana, is a sculptor and the co-author of Pina Pellicer's 2006 biography. Career. Pellicer's first acting role, albeit only her second movie to be released, was the Paramount Pictures production "One-Eyed Jacks". In the movie Pellicer played Louisa, the stepdaughter of Karl Malden and the lover of Marlon Brando. Mexican actress Katy Jurado also appeared as Louisa's mother. The production of the movie was much-delayed, and the original director Stanley Kubrick left alongside with screenwriter Sam Peckinpah, leaving Brando to finish the movie – the only time Brando was credited with directing a movie. So even though production started in 1958, the movie was not released until 1961. European response was positive, and in July 1961 the movie received the Golden Shell ("Concha de Oro") at the San Sebastián International Film Festival. In addition, Pellicer was awarded the prize for best female performer, with reviews comparing her to Audrey Hepburn. In the United States the response was more mixed and the movie received only one Academy Award nomination, for Charles Lang's cinematography. The first movie with Pellicer to reach the theaters was the Mexican production "Macario", released in 1960. Pellicer played the wife of the title character opposite Ignacio López Tarso. "Macario" was the first Mexican production to be nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, but ultimately lost out to Ingmar Bergman's "The Virgin Spring". After "Macario", Pellicer appeared in two more Mexican films, "Días de Otoño", released in 1963, and "Sinful", released after her death in 1965. During her appearance at the San Sebastián Film Festival she had met Spanish director Rafael Gil who cast the actress for the title role in the movie "Rogelia", filmed in Asturias and released in 1962. In addition to her movie work she also appeared in episodes for the television shows "The Fugitive" ("Smoke Screen", 1963) and "The Alfred Hitchcock Hour" ("The Life Work of Juan Diaz", 1964; written by Ray Bradbury), as well as on Mexican television. Death. Pellicer committed suicide on December 4, 1964, aged 30. The presumed cause was depression.
1066912	The Killing of a Chinese Bookie is a 1976 art and crime film directed and written by John Cassavetes and starring Ben Gazzara. A rough and gritty film, the formidable character Gazzara plays was based on an impersonation he did for his friend Cassavetes in the 1970s. This is the second of their three collaborations, following "Husbands" and preceding "Opening Night""." Plot. The film, set in California, opens with Cosmo Vittelli (Ben Gazzara) making the final payment on a longstanding gambling debt to a sleazy loanshark (played by the film's producer Al Ruban). To celebrate his long-anticipated freedom, strip club owner Vittelli has an expensive night out with his three favorite dancers ("Margo", "Rachael" and "Sherry"). The evening culminates in a poker game in which Vittelli loses $23,000, returning him to the debtor's position he had just left. Using the debt as leverage, his mob creditors coerce him into agreeing to perform a "hit" on a rival. Vittelli is led to believe that his target is a small-time criminal of minor consequence, the Chinese bookie of the film's title; but in fact, he is the boss of the Chinese mafia, "the heaviest cat on the West Coast." Vittelli manages to kill the man and several of his bodyguards, but is severely wounded before escaping.
1014490	Stephen Blackehart (born 1 December 1967) is an American actor and producer from Hell's Kitchen, New York. It has been reported that Blackehart was born in New York City as Stefano Brando and is the son of actor Marlon Brando.
1062937	Michael Fassbender (born 2 April 1977) is a German-Irish actor. He is best known for his roles as Lieutenant Archie Hicox in the film "Inglourious Basterds" (2009), Magneto in the superhero film ' (2011), and the android David in the science fiction film "Prometheus" (2012). In 2014 Fassbender will reprise his role as Magneto in '. Fassbender will also star in "Assassin's Creed" in 2015. His other credits include the fantasy action film "300" (2007); the drama film "Fish Tank" (2009); the romantic drama film "Jane Eyre" (2011); the historical film "A Dangerous Method" (2011); the biographical film "Hunger" (2008) and the drama film "Shame" (2011), both directed by Steve McQueen. For his role in "Shame", he won the Volpi Cup best actor award at the 68th Venice International Film Festival held in August 2011, and was nominated for a Golden Globe Award and a BAFTA. Early life and education. Fassbender was born in Heidelberg, Baden-Württemberg, Germany. His mother, Adele, is from Larne, County Antrim, in Northern Ireland, and his father, Josef Fassbender, is German. According to Fassbender's "family lore", his mother is the great-grand-niece of Michael Collins, an Irish leader during the War of Independence. When he was two years old, his parents moved to Killarney, County Kerry, in the Republic of Ireland, where they ran the West End House, a restaurant where his father worked as a chef. Fassbender was brought up as a Roman Catholic and served as an altar boy. He attended Fossa National School, St. Brendan's College (The Sem) and the Drama Centre London. Career. Early work. Fassbender first played the part of Burton "Pat" Christenson in Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg's award-winning television miniseries "Band of Brothers". He played the character of Azazeal in both series of "Hex" on Sky One and he also starred as the main character in the music video for the song "Blind Pilots", by the British band The Cooper Temple Clause. In the video, he plays the part of a man on a stag night with his friends, only to slowly transform into a goat due to wearing a cowbell necklace. Fassbender played the part of Jonathan Harker in a ten-part radio serialization of "Dracula" produced by BBC Northern Ireland and broadcast in the "Book at Bedtime" series between 24 November and 5 December 2003. He was also seen in early 2004 in a Guinness television commercial, "The Quarrel", playing a man who swims across the ocean from Ireland to apologize personally to his brother in New York.
1059446	Nathan Fillion (; born March 27, 1971) is a Canadian actor. He stars as Richard Castle on the ABC series "Castle". He is also known for his portrayal of the lead role of Captain Malcolm Reynolds in the television series "Firefly" and its feature film continuation, "Serenity". He has acted in traditionally distributed films like "Slither" and "Trucker", Internet-distributed films like "Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog", voice acted in video games ' and ', television soap operas and sitcoms, and in theatre.
1103341	John Torrence Tate, Jr. (born March 13, 1925) is an American mathematician, distinguished for many fundamental contributions in algebraic number theory, arithmetic geometry and related areas in algebraic geometry. He is professor emeritus at Harvard University. He was awarded the Abel Prize in 2010. Biography. Tate was born in Minneapolis. His father, John Tate Sr., was a professor of physics at the University of Minnesota, and a longtime editor of Physical Review. His mother, Lois Beatrice Fossler, was a high school English teacher. Tate Jr. received his bachelor's degree in mathematics from Harvard University, and entered the doctoral program in physics at Princeton University. He later transferred to the mathematics department and received his PhD in 1950 as a student of Emil Artin. Tate taught at Harvard for 36 years before joining the University of Texas in 1990. He retired from the Texas mathematics department in 2009, and returned to Harvard as a professor emeritus. He currently resides in Cambridge, Massachusetts with his wife Carol. He has three daughters with his first wife Karin Tate. Mathematical work. Tate's thesis (1950) on Fourier analysis in number fields has become one of the ingredients for the modern theory of automorphic forms and their L-functions, notably by its use of the adele ring, its self-duality and harmonic analysis on it; independently and a little earlier, Kenkichi Iwasawa obtained a similar theory. Together with his teacher Emil Artin, Tate gave a cohomological treatment of global class field theory, using techniques of group cohomology applied to the idele class group and Galois cohomology. This treatment made more transparent some of algebraic structures in the previous approaches to class field theory which used central division algebras to compute the Brauer group of a global field. Subsequently Tate introduced what are now known as Tate cohomology groups. In the decades following that discovery he extended the reach of Galois cohomology with the PoitouâTate duality, the TateâShafarevich group, and relations with algebraic K-theory. With Jonathan Lubin, he recast local class field theory by the use of formal groups, creating the LubinâTate local theory of complex multiplication. He has also made a number of individual and important contributions to p-adic theory; for example, Tate's invention of rigid analytic spaces can be said to have spawned the entire field of rigid analytic geometry. He found a p-adic analogue of Hodge theory, now called HodgeâTate theory, which has blossomed into another central technique of modern algebraic number theory. Other innovations of his include the 'Tate curve' parametrization for certain p-adic elliptic curves and the p-divisible (TateâBarsotti) groups. Many of his results were not immediately published and some of them were written up by Serge Lang, Jean-Pierre Serre, Joseph H. Silverman and others. Tate and Serre collaborated on a paper on good reduction of abelian varieties. The classification of abelian varieties over finite fields was carried out by Taira Honda and Tate (the HondaâTate theorem). The Tate conjectures are the equivalent for ĂŠtale cohomology of the Hodge conjecture. They relate to the Galois action on the l-adic cohomology of an algebraic variety, identifying a space of 'Tate cycles' (the fixed cycles for a suitably Tate-twisted action) that conjecturally picks out the algebraic cycles. A special case of the conjectures, which are open in the general case, was involved in the proof of the Mordell conjecture by Gerd Faltings. Tate has also had a major influence on the development of number theory through his role as a Ph.D. advisor. His students include Joe Buhler, Benedict Gross, Robert Kottwitz, Stephen Lichtenbaum, James Milne, V. Kumar Murty, Carl Pomerance, Ken Ribet, Ted Chinburg, Joseph H. Silverman, Dinesh Thakur, Jeremy Teitelbaum. Awards and honors. In 1956 Tate was awarded the American Mathematical Society's Cole Prize for outstanding contributions to number theory. In 1995 he received the Leroy P. Steele Prize for Lifetime Achievement from the American Mathematical Society. He was awarded a Wolf Prize in Mathematics in 2002/03 for his creation of fundamental concepts in algebraic number theory. In 2012 he became a fellow of the American Mathematical Society. In 2010, the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters, of which he is a member, awarded him the Abel Prize, citing "his vast and lasting impact on the theory of numbers". According to a release by the Abel Prize committee "Many of the major lines of research in algebraic number theory and arithmetic geometry are only possible because of the incisive contributions and illuminating insights of John Tate. He has truly left a conspicuous imprint on modern mathematics." Tate has been described as "one of the seminal mathematicians for the past half-century" by William Beckner, Chairman of the Department of Mathematics at the University of Texas.
1161890	Michael Pate (26 February 1920 – 1 September 2008), born Edward John Pate in Drummoyne, Sydney, was an Australian actor, writer and director. Early life. Initially interested in becoming a medical missionary, but unable to afford the university fees due to the Depression, he worked in Sydney before 1938, when he became a writer and broadcaster for the Australian Broadcasting Commission, collaborating with George Ivan Smith on "Youth Speaks". For the remainder of the 1930s, he worked primarily in radio drama. He also published theatrical and literary criticism and enjoyed brief success as an author of short stories, publishing works in both Australia and the United States. During World War II, Pate served in the Australian Army in the South West Pacific Area. He was transferred to the 1st Australian Army Amenities Entertainment Unit, known as "The Islanders", entertaining Australian troops in various combat areas. Acting career. After the war, Pate returned to radio, appearing in many plays and serials. Between 1946 and 1950 he began breaking into films. In 1949 he appeared in his first leading role in "Sons of Matthew". In 1950, he appeared in "Bitter Springs" with Tommy Trinder and Chips Rafferty. Also in 1950, Pate adapted, produced, and directed two plays — "Dark of the Moon" and "Bonaventure". Later that year he travelled to the U.S. to appear in a film adaptation of "Bonaventure" for Universal Pictures, which was released in 1951 as "Thunder on the Hill", starring Claudette Colbert and Ann Blyth. Pate spent most of the 1950s in the U.S., appearing in over 300 television shows and many films. Most notable among these was a 1953 "Climax!" live production of Ian Fleming's "Casino Royale", in which Pate played the role of "Clarence Leiter", opposite Barry Nelson's "Jimmy Bond". On the big screen, he played the one-scene role of Flavius in "Julius Caesar", the 1953 film adaptation of William Shakespeare's play. In the same year he first played a Native American in Australian director John Farrow's western "Hondo" playing opposite John Wayne; he later said that this was his favourite film role. Pate went on to play many Native American roles. In 1956 he appeared in the film "The Court Jester". Pate also played the lead role of a gunfighting vampire in the 1959 horror film "Curse of the Undead". During his time in the U.S., Pate became an acting instructor and lecturer, and wrote many screenplays and plays for the major American networks, including "Rawhide" ("Incident of the Boomerang")(It's actually 'Incident of the Power and the Plow' with Dick Van Patton) and "Most Dangerous Man Alive" ("The Steel Monster"). In 1959, he returned briefly to Australia, where he starred in the TV program "The Shell Hour". He returned to the U.S. for another eight years, during which he enjoyed a successful career as a television character actor, appearing repeatedly on such programs as "Gunsmoke", "The Texan", "The Rifleman", "Branded" ("Call to Glory"), "Daniel Boone", "The Virginian", "Batman", "Perry Mason" ("The Case of the Skeleton's Closet" and "The Case of the Wednesday Woman"), " ("Trek")", "The Man from U.N.C.L.E." ("The Foreign Legion Affair"), "Get Smart", "Rawhide" ("Incident of the Power and the Plow" and "Incident of the Boomerang", among others), "Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea", and "Wagon Train". In the 1963 movie "PT 109", he played the part of Arthur Reginald Evans, the Australian coast watcher who helped rescue John F. Kennedy and his crew, one of the few times that Pate played an Australian while based in the United States. In 1968, Pate returned to Australia and became a television producer, winning two Logie Awards while working at the Seven Network. In 1970, he published a textbook on acting, "The Film Actor". From 1971 to 1975 he starred as Detective Senior Sergeant Vic Maddern in "Matlock Police". After leaving "Matlock Police", Pate began working more behind the camera, as well as continuing to work in theatre in both Sydney and Melbourne. In 1977 he wrote and produced "The Mango Tree", starring his son Christopher Pate. In 1979 he adapted the screenplay for "Tim" from the novel by Colleen McCullough, as well as producing and directing the film, which starred Piper Laurie and Mel Gibson. Pate won the Best Screenplay Award from the Australian Writers Guild for his adaptation. Pate also appeared (as the U.S. President) in "The Return of Captain Invincible" (1982), in which he sings "What the World Needs", a song calling for the return of Captain Invincible to save the world. During the early 1980s Pate and his son Christopher collaborated in a stage production of "Mass Appeal". This was a success, and closed with a season at the Sydney Opera House. Later life. Although Pate retired from acting in 2001 he remained busy with voiceover work, and was writing a screenplay at the time of his death. He died on 1 September 2008 at Gosford Hospital, of complications due to pneumonia. Personal life. Pate was married to Felippa Rock, daughter of American film producer Joe Rock, and had a son, Christopher (also an actor — both had cameos in the film "Howling III") and a number of grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
1058398	King of New York is a 1990 crime drama film, starring Christopher Walken, Laurence Fishburne, David Caruso, Wesley Snipes, Victor Argo, and Giancarlo Esposito. It was directed by independent filmmaker Abel Ferrara and written by Nicholas St. John. Plot. Frank White (Walken), a drug lord, is riding into New York in a limousine after being released from Sing Sing. Emilio El Zapa (Howard), a Colombian drug dealer, is shot to death in a telephone booth. As the killers leave, one of them drops a newspaper headline which announces Frank's release. Across town, Zapa's partner, King Tito (Ernest Abuba) is in a hotel room with Jimmy Jump (Fishburne) and Test Tube (Buscemi), who are negotiating the purchase of cocaine. Jimmy and Test Tube shoot Tito and his bodyguards and steal the cocaine. Later, in a suite at the Plaza Hotel, Frank is greeted by Jimmy, Test Tube, and other members of his gang, who welcome him home with champagne and a briefcase full of money. Frank leaves to meet two of his lawyers, Joey Dalesio (Calderón) and Jennifer (Julian), for dinner. Frank expresses his desire to be mayor and asks Dalesio to set up a meeting with Mafia boss Arty Clay (Gio). He and Jennifer leave to take a ride on the subway. Confronted by three muggers, Frank first brandishes his gun then gives them a wad of money, telling them to ask for him at the Plaza Hotel if they want work. Dalesio goes to Little Italy, to set up a meeting with Clay but the mafia don urinates on Dalesio's shoes and tells him it is a message for his boss. On hearing this, Frank, Jump and other members of the gang go to Clay's social club, where Frank tells Clay that he wants a percentage of all Clay's profits. When Clay insults him, Frank shoots the mafioso. As he leaves, Frank tells Clay's men that they can all find employment at the Plaza.
1015854	The Twins Effect II is a 2004 Hong Kong film directed by Corey Yuen and Patrick Leung. The film is a sequel to "The Twins Effect" (2003), but has a completely different story from the first film. It starred Charlene Choi and Gillian Chung of Cantopop duo Twins in the leading roles. Co-stars include Donnie Yen, Daniel Wu, Edison Chen, Wilson Chen, Tony Leung Ka-fai, Qu Ying, Fan Bingbing and Jim Chim. Jackie Chan also makes an appearance, along with his son Jaycee Chan who is in his debut. The film's original English working title was Huadu Chronicles: Blade of Rose and DVD release title is Blade of Kings. Plot. The film is set in Flower Capital, a land ruled by an evil queen (Qu Ying), who started hating men after her lover, High Priest Wei Liao (Daniel Wu), betrayed her. All men in the kingdom are slaves to women. However, a prophecy foretells that one day, the Star of Rex will find and wield a mythic sword, rise to power, overthrow the queen, and restore the balance of the two sexes. At the start of the movie, Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon (Donnie Yen), a master swordsman who has made it his quest to overthrow the queen's regime, has commissioned Peachy (Edison Chen) to steal for him a certain engraved stone from the queen's palace. Peachy is successful, but the queen's soldiers and spies pursue him. Before the stone can be recaptured, it comes into the possession of Peachy's two friends Charcoal Head (Jaycee Chan) and Blockhead (Bolin Chen), who like Peachy earn a humble living by street-performing in a troupe led by their adoptive father, Blackwood. The brothers set out to deliver the stone to Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, along the way discovering the stone is actually a map, which they assume will lead them to riches. Before they can meet Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, they are intercepted by two lovely, but lethal, female warriors, Spring (Charlene Choi) and Blue Bird (Gillian Chung), each of whom is pursuing the pair for different reasons. The four agree to follow the map together, eventually learning that the map leads to the mythic sword and that either Charcoal Head or Blockhead is the Star of Rex. The journey takes them through dangerous terrain, culminating in an encounter with the Lord of Armour (Jackie Chan) who guards the way to the sword. Even as the four make their way toward the sword, the queen is preparing for their destruction, using her army and her powerful magic. A final battle will decide the fate of the land.
590038	Dharmputra is a 1961 Hindi film directed by Yash Chopra. This is Yash's second directorial venture based on a novel by the same name by Acharya Chatursen . It was first Hindi film to depict, the partition of India, and Hindu fundamentalism. Produced by his elder brother B.R. Chopra who was himself uprooted from Lahore, during the partition of India and established B.R. Films in Mumbai in 1956. The film dealt with issues of issue of religious bigotry, fanaticism and communalism amidst the backdrop of the partition. Two years earlier, Yash Chopra had made his debut with "Dhool Ka Phool" (1959), steeped in Nehruvian secularism, wherein a Muslim brings up an `illegitimate' Hindu child and featured classic song, "Tu Hindu banega na Musalman banega, insaan ki aulaad hai, insaan banega", the theme was reverse in this film as herein a Hindu family brings a illegitimate Muslim child. This was Shashi Kapoor's first film as an adult actor played the pivotal role of a Hindu fundamentalist Noted actor Rajendra Kumar made a special appearance for a song as did Shashikala. At the 9th National Film Award it was awarded the Best Feature Film in Hindi. Synopsis. The film opens in 1925, during the British rule in India at the height of Indian independence movement is the tale of two Delhi families, that of Nawab Badruddin and Gulshan Rai. The two families are so close that they virtually share the same house. The Nawab's daughter, Husn Bano, has an affair with a young man named javed & gets pregnant. When the Nawab attempts to arrange her marriage with javed, he finds that javed has disappeared. Amrit Rai and his wife Savitri assist Husn with the birth of a baby boy, Dilip, and even adopt him and give him their family name. Young Dilip is a cute young child, the apple of the Badruddin and the Rai households. Husn then gets married to another young man, Javed and moves to another location. In the meantime, while participating in a protest to force the British to leave India the Nawab is killed. Years later, Husn Bano and Javed return to a warm welcome by the Rai family. Then she meets Dilip - not the Dilip she had left behind - this Dilip is fascist, a Muslim-hater, who has joined forces with other extremists, in order to force Muslims to leave India and even go to the extent of burning buildings and killing them. How can Husn and Dilip adapt to each other with so much hate and distrust between them? Soundtrack. Film's music was by N. Dutta with lyrics by Sahir Ludhianvi (lyrics), and also features patriotic song, "Sare Jahan Se Accha" written by poet Muhammad Iqbal, in the opening title sequence, in the voices of Mohammad Rafi and Asha Bhosle. Reception. The raw reconstruction of partition riots and sloganeering led to riot-like situations at theatres screening the film, and the film flopped at the box office. After "Dharmputra"'s debacle, few directors ventured into communal theme in Hindi cinema that too so bluntly, next film which dealt with the issue was "Garm Hava" by M.S. Sathyu, made in 1973. Film's director Yash Chopra never made a political film again, stuck to love stories till many decades later, when he touched the theme of religious harmony again with "Veer Zaara" (2004) .
1104507	Edward Frenkel is a mathematician working in representation theory, algebraic geometry, and mathematical physics. He is Professor of Mathematics at University of California, Berkeley. Biography. Frenkel grew up in Kolomna, Russia. As a high school student he studied higher mathematics privately with Evgeny Evgenievich Petrov, although his initial interest was in quantum physics rather than mathematics. He was not admitted to Moscow State University because of discrimination against Jews and enrolled instead in the Applied Mathematics program at the Gubkin University of Oil and Gas. While a student there, he attended the seminar of Israel Gelfand and worked with Boris Feigin and Dmitry Fuchs. After receiving his college degree in 1989, he was first invited to Harvard University as a Visiting Professor, and a year later he enrolled as a graduate student at Harvard. He received his Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1991, after one year of study, under the direction of Joseph Bernstein. He was a Junior Fellow at the Harvard Society of Fellows from 1991 to 1994, and served as Associate Professor at Harvard from 1994 to 1997. He has been Professor of Mathematics at University of California, Berkeley since 1997. Mathematical work. Jointly with Boris Feigin, Frenkel constructed the free field realizations of affine Kac-Moody algebras (these are also known as Wakimoto modules), defined the quantum Drinfeld-Sokolov reduction, and described the center of the universal enveloping algebra of an affine Kac-Moody algebra. The last result, often referred to as Feigin–Frenkel isomorphism, has been used by Alexander Beilinson and Vladimir Drinfeld in their work on the Geometric Langlands correspondence. Together with Nicolai Reshetikhin, Frenkel introduced deformations of W-algebras and q-characters of representations of quantum affine algebras. Frenkel's recent work has focused on the Langlands program and its connections to representation theory, integrable systems, geometry, and physics. Together with Dennis Gaitsgory and Kari Vilonen, he has proved the geometric Langlands conjecture for GL(n). His joint work with Robert Langlands and Ngô Bảo Châu suggested a new approach to the functoriality of automorphic representations and trace formulas. He has also been investigating (in particular, in a joint work with Edward Witten) connections between the Geometric Langlands correspondence and dualities in quantum field theory. Awards. Frenkel was the first recipient of the Hermann Weyl Prize in 2002. Among his other awards are Packard Fellowship in Science and Engineering and Chaire d'Excellence from Fondation Sciences mathématiques de Paris. Filmmaking. Frenkel has co-produced, co-directed (with Reine Graves) and played the lead in a short film "Rites of Love and Math", a homage to the film "Rite of Love and Death" (also known as "Yûkoku") by the Japanese writer Yukio Mishima. The film premiered in Paris in April, 2010 and was in the official competition of the Sitges International Film Festival in October, 2010. The screening of "Rites of Love and Math" in Berkeley on December 1, 2010 caused some controversy. He has also written (with Thomas Farber) a screenplay "The Two-Body Problem".
1750405	Dian Bachar (; born October 26, 1970 in Denver, Colorado) is an American actor. He is most notable for his roles in various films by or starring his friends Trey Parker and Matt Stone, such as "Cannibal! The Musical" (George Noon), "Orgazmo" (Ben Chapleski) and his most famous role as Kenny "Squeak" Scolari in 1998's "BASEketball", as well as making the occasional appearance on "South Park". He also appeared as an alien engineer in "Galaxy Quest", although the bulk of his scenes were cut (but can be seen on the DVD). Career. Dian Bachar attended Chatfield Senior High School. Bachar then attended the University of Colorado at Boulder where he met Matt Stone and Trey Parker. From there he went on to star in the student film, "Cannibal! The Musical", for internship credit. Bachar also co-starred with Parker in "Orgazmo" playing the eponymous character's sidekick Choda Boy, and played multiple parts in Parker and Stone's short-lived series "Time Warped". Bachar shared an apartment with Parker and Stone up until 1997. When "BASEketball" was in the works, Parker asked David Zucker to change the script to allow for three players on each team (it was supposed to be just two to a team) to allow for Bachar to have a part in the movie. Bachar also played Irene's boyfriend in the TV sitcom "Two Guys and a Girl", competing for her love with Ryan Reynolds. He was a Scientist/Studio Tech in the 2000 film "The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle". He appeared in a film by Les Claypool titled "National Lampoon's Electric Apricot: Quest For Festeroo". He starred in a 2008 mockumentary film titled "The Life Of Lucky Cucumber". "South Park" appearances. Due to his friendship with creators Parker and Stone, Bachar has done several guest voices on their animated series "South Park". Bachar also served as production assistant on the pilot episode, "Cartman Gets an Anal Probe". Short films. Bachar appears in short films "Shreev" and "Year of the Monkey" on the site electro-man.com. Bachar also performs the voice of 'Double 9' in the short film "Vote". He has a lead role in the Internet films "Roommates The Series" (see [http://www.roommatestheseries.com]). Music videos. Bachar appears in The Melvins "The Talking Horse" music video.
1069016	The Knot () is a 2006 Chinese film directed by Yin Li. It was China's submission to the 80th Academy Awards for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, but was not nominated. It won the Best Film in the 2007 Golden Rooster Awards, and was named Outstanding Film by the 2008 Hundred Flowers Awards. Plot. They fell in love; Chen Qiushui was 20. Wang Biyun was 18. When Qiushui fled Taiwan after the 228 Massacre, Biyun gave him a gold engagement ring and they promised to meet again. Qiushui served as an army doctor during the Korean War, where he met Wang Jindi, a nurse from Shanghai who fell in love with him instantly. Years had gone by, Qiushui married Jindi and settled in Tibet. While in Taiwan, Biyun buried Qiushui's mother and continued to pray for his return. Flashback to modern time, Biyun is living in New York. Her niece played by Isabella Leong, a writer, has travelled to Tibet to find out what happened to Qiushui. Through the pictures she sends back via internet, Biyun finally gets to see the familiar face once again.
1065503	City of Ember is a 2008 science fiction fantasy film based on the 2003 novel of the same name by Jeanne DuPrau. It was directed by Gil Kenan from a screenplay by Caroline Thompson, and stars Saoirse Ronan, Harry Treadaway, Bill Murray, Mackenzie Crook, Martin Landau and Tim Robbins. It was released in October 2008, just two months after the release of the final "Book of Ember", "The Diamond of Darkhold". The film received mixed reviews from critics and commercially unsuccessful at the box office. Plot. In the midst of a nuclear war, the Builders of the underground "City of Ember" place secret instructions to future generations in a small box, timed to open in 200 years. The box is entrusted the mayor of the underground complex. Each mayor, in turn, passes the box onto his or her successor. When the box has 47 more years left on the time-lock, the mayor holding the box dies suddenly. The significance of the box had not been explained to anyone else, and the mayor's family places it in a junk-filled closet. When 200 years have passed, the time-lock clicks the box open, but the event goes unnoticed.
1163622	Fernando Álvaro Lamas (January 9, 1915October 8, 1982) was an Argentine-born actor and director, and the father of actor Lorenzo Lamas. Early life and career. Lamas was born Fernando Álvaro Lamas y de Santos in Buenos Aires, Argentina. By 1942, he was an established movie star in Argentina. His first film made in the United States was "The Avengers" in 1950. In 1951, he signed a contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and went on to play "Latin Lover" roles. In 1951, he starred as Paul Sarnac in the musical, "Rich, Young and Pretty" and as Juan Dinas in the comedy, "The Law and the Lady". Throughout the 1950s, Lamas had leading roles in a number of MGM musicals, including "Dangerous When Wet" with his future wife Esther Williams. After the beginning of the 1960s, he turned to TV series; mostly appearing in guest roles. From 1965 to 1968, Lamas had a regular role as Ramon De Vega on "Run For Your Life", which starred Ben Gazzara. Lamas directed for the first time in 1963. It was a movie titled "Magic Fountain" starring his future wife Esther Williams. He directed another feature film, "The Violent Ones", which was released in 1967 and co-starred Aldo Ray and David Carradine. He was most active directing on television, doing episodes that included "Mannix", "Alias Smith and Jones", "Starsky and Hutch" and "Falcon Crest." The latter show co-starred his son, Lorenzo. Personal life. Lamas was married four times, to Perla Mux (1940-1944), Lydia Barachi (1946-1952), actress Arlene Dahl (1954-1960), and swimmer and actress Esther Williams (1969 until his death in 1982). He had a daughter with Mux and another with Barachi, and a son, actor Lorenzo Lamas (born January 20, 1958), with Dahl. Fernando Lamas died of pancreatic cancer in Los Angeles, California at the age of 67. His ashes were scattered by close friend Jonathan Goldsmith from his sailboat. Quotes. "When a person has an accent, it means they can speak one more language than you" — when Johnny Carson teased him about his accent during an appearance on "The Tonight Show." In one of his most memorable moments on "The Tonight Show," Lamas intimated, "Sometimes other men said that he was gay, and nothing pleased him more than proving them wrong with their own wives." In popular culture. An archetypal playboy, after his death, Lamas's image lived on in popular culture via the "Fernando" character developed by Billy Crystal on "Saturday Night Live" in the mid-1980s. The character was outlandish and exaggerated but reportedly inspired by a remark Crystal heard Lamas utter on "The Tonight Show"; "It is better to look good than to feel good." This was one of the Fernando character's two catchphrases along with the better-remembered "You look marvelous!" (usually spelled "mahvelous" in this context). His friend, actor Jonathan Goldsmith, took inspiration from Lamas for the character The Most Interesting Man in the World.
1075230	Yelling to the Sky is a 2011 drama film written and directed by Victoria Mahoney. The film premiered In Competition at the 61st Berlin International Film Festival and was nominated for the Golden Bear. Plot. The film starts out with quiet, studious, high schooler, Sweetness O'Hara riding her bike with a friend down the street, when neighborhood bully Latonya, her boyfriend, and friends begins picking on her. The boyfriend threatens to take her bike, unless she can beat him in a race to a tree down the street. Sweetness agrees, taking off running. The bully comes up behind her and pushes her to the ground, proceeding to kick her. Sweetness' older, yet pregnant sister, Ola, comes to her rescue, beating up the bully.
1100966	Michel Floréal Chasles (15 November 1793 – 18 December 1880) was a French mathematician. He was born at Épernon in France and studied at the École Polytechnique in Paris under Siméon Denis Poisson. In the War of the Sixth Coalition he was drafted to fight in the defence of Paris in 1814. After the war, he gave up on a career as an engineer or stockbroker in order to pursue his mathematical studies. In 1837 he published his "Historical view of the origin and development of methods in geometry", a study of the method of reciprocal polars in projective geometry. The work gained him considerable fame and respect and he was appointed Professor at the École Polytechnique in 1841, then he was awarded a chair at the Sorbonne in 1846. A second edition of his book was published in 1875, and Leonhard Sohncke translated the work into German. Jakob Steiner had proposed the problem of enumerating the number of conic sections tangent to each of five given conics, and had answered it incorrectly. Chasles developed a theory of characteristics that enabled the correct enumeration of the conics (there are 3264) (see enumerative geometry). He established several important theorems (all called Chasles' theorem). That on solid body kinematics was seminal for understanding their motions, and hence to the development of the theories of dynamics of rigid bodies. In 1865 he was awarded the Copley Medal. As described in "A Treasury of Deception", by Michael Farquhar (Peguin Books, 2005), between 1861 and 1869 Chasles purchased over 27,000 forged letters from Frenchman Denis Vrain-Lucas. Included in this trove were letters from Alexander the Great to Aristotle, from Cleopatra to Julius Caesar, and from Mary Magdalene to a revived Lazarus, all in a fake maedieval French. In 2004, the journal "Critical Inquiry" published a recently "discovered" 1871 letter written by Vrain-Lucas (from prison) to Chasles, conveying Vrain-Lucas's perspective on these events, itself an invention. In 1986, Alexander Jones published a commentary on Book 7 of the "Collection" of Pappus of Alexandria, which Chasles had referred to in his history of geometric methods. Jones makes these comments about Chasles, Pappus and Euclid: Chasles' name is one of 72 that appears on the Eiffel Tower.
584459	Aravindhan () is a 1997 Indian Tamil film written and directed by newcomer T. Nagarajan, starring Sarath Kumar, Parthiban, Nagma, Oorvasi, Prakash Raj and Visu in lead and pivotal roles. The film marks the debut of noted music composer Yuvan Shankar Raja, musician Ilaiyaraaja's youngest son, and the debut of cinematographer R. Rathnavelu. The film flopped miserably at the box-office. The film is based on the 1968 Kizhavenmani massacre, in which 44 people were burnt alive. Soundtrack. The film score and the soundtrack were composed by film composer Ilaiyaraaja's youngest son, Yuvan Shankar Raja, who made his debut in this film. T. Siva, the producer of the film, after hearing some of Yuvan Shankar Raja's tunes, asked him to compose a trailer music and after being impressed of it, gave Yuvan Shankar the assignment to compose the entire film score including a soundtrack for that film. Yuvan Shankar Raja was 16 at the time of the release and one of the youngest composers ever in the industry. The soundtrack, released in late 1996, features 7 tracks with lyrics written by Palani Bharathi, "Kaathal" Mathi and Parthi Bhaskar.
1165243	Earl Holliman (born September 11, 1928) is an American actor. Early life and education. Earl Holliman was born at Delhi in the Richland Parish of northeastern Louisiana. Holliman’s biological father died six months before he was born, and his biological mother, living in poverty with several other children, gave him up for adoption at birth. He was adopted from an orphanage a week after his birth by Henry Holliman, an oil-field worker, and his wife. Earl's early years were normal until his adoptive father died when Earl was 13. He saved money from his job ushering at a movie theater and left Shreveport, Louisiana, hitchhiking to Hollywood. Unsuccessful at finding work, he soon returned to Louisiana. Meanwhile, his adoptive mother had remarried, and Holliman disliked his new stepfather. He lied about his age and enlisted in the United States Navy during World War II. Assigned to a Navy communications school in Los Angeles, he spent his free time at the Hollywood Canteen, talking to stars who dropped by to support the servicemen and women. A year after he enlisted, the Navy discovered his real age and discharged him.
1069801	Mischa Auer (17 November 1905 – 5 March 1967) was a Russian-born American actor. Moving to Hollywood in the late 1920s. He first appeared on film there in 1928. Auer went on to a long career playing in many of the era's most well known films, receiving an Academy Award nomination in 1936. He later moved into television and acted in films again in France and Italy well into the 1960s. Early life. Auer was born Mikhail Semyonovich Unskovsky (Михаил Семёнович Унсковский) in St. Petersburg, Russia. His name is usually seen as Mischa Ounskowsky, Mischa being the German transliteration of Misha (the diminutive form of Mikhail), and Ounskowsky being the French transliteration of his surname. Auer's maternal grandparents were Hungarian-born violinist Leopold Auer, and his Russian wife, Nadine Pelikan. Mischa renamed himself after his grandfather. Career. He began stage work in the 1920s, then moved to Hollywood, where he first appeared in 1928 in "Something Always Happens". He appeared in several small and mostly uncredited roles into the 1930s, appearing in such films as "Rasputin and the Empress", "Viva Villa!", "The Yellow Ticket", the George Gershwin musical "Delicious", the Paramount Pictures all-star revue "Paramount on Parade" and "The Lives of a Bengal Lancer". In 1936, Auer was cast as Alice Brady's protégé in the comedy "My Man Godfrey", for which he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. From then on, he was regularly cast in zany comedy roles. Auer is at his zenith in such roles as the ballet instructor, Kolenkov, in the Best Picture-winning "You Can't Take It with You" (wherein he instructs Ann Miller with the line, "Ah, my little Pavlowa!") and the prince-turned-fashion designer in Walter Wanger's "Vogues of 1938".
1123864	Baudhāyana, (fl. c. 800 BCE) was the author of the Baudhayana sūtras, which cover dharma, daily ritual, Vedic sacrifices, etc. He belongs to the Yajurveda school, and is older than the other sūtra author Āpastambha. He was the author of the earliest "Sulba Sūtra"—appendices to the Vedas giving rules for the construction of altars—called the "". These are notable from the point of view of mathematics, for containing several important mathematical results, including giving a value of pi to some degree of precision, and stating a version of what is now known as the Pythagorean theorem. The sūtras of Baudhāyana. The of are associated with the "Taittiriya" (branch) of Krishna (black) "Yajurveda". The sutras of have six sections,
1016295	The Untold Story () is a 1993 Hong Kong crime-thriller film directed by Herman Yau and starring Danny Lee and Anthony Wong. The film is allegedly based on a true crime that took place in 1985 in Macau. The film was followed up by two unrelated sequels with "The Untold Story 2", featuring Wong returning in a supporting role, and "The Untold Story 3" with Lee in another supporting role. Plot. The story opens with Wong Chi Hang fleeing the Hong Kong police, who are after him for murder. He winds up in Macau, where he takes a job as a cook at the 8 Immortals restaurant. After getting busted for cheating at a game of Mah Jong, Wong kills the owner and the family, taking over the restaurant himself. Meanwhile, the police, led by officer Lee (Danny Lee: "The Killer", "Dr. Lamb") are called out to a local beach. It seems that a bag of decomposing body parts has washed ashore. The police begin to suspect Wong has both something to do with the washed up body parts and the disappearance of the family. Wong continues to gleefully murder any of his employees who suspect what might be going on . . . disposing of their bodies in a most interesting way.
586735	Namak Halaal () is a 1982 Hindi language comedy film, directed by Prakash Mehra. Music is by Bappi Lahiri and lyrics by Anjaan. The film stars Amitabh Bachchan, Smita Patil, Shashi Kapoor, Parveen Babi, Om Prakash, Waheeda Rehman, Ranjeet, Satyen Kappu, Suresh Oberoi and Ram Sethi. The film became a "Blockbuster" at the box office and went on to be a golden jubilee hit (which was common to all Bachchan films at that time). It was remade in Tamil as "Velaikaran" by veteran director S.P. Muthuraman in 1986 with Rajnikanth and Sarath Babu in Amitabh Bachchan and Shashi Kapoor's role respectively and was a huge hit. Synopsis. Young Arjun (Amitabh Bachchan) is brought up by his Daddu (paternal grandfather) (Om Prakash). His Daddu decides for him to go to the city in search of a new job and life. While in the city he meets up with Bhairon (Ram P. Sethi) who guides him into an interview in a 5-star hotel owned by Raja (Shashi Kapoor).
582399	Shilpa Shirodkar (born 20 November 1969) is an Indian actress who enjoyed a period of popularity in the 1990s. Early life. Shilpa is the elder sister of actress and former Miss India Namrata Shirodkar. Shilpa and Namrata started their careers together, but Shilpa started with films and Namrata with modeling; and by the time Namarata became an actress, Shilpa had quit. Shilpa is the granddaughter of the famous Marathi actress Meenakshi Shirodkar, who starred in the Marathi film "Brahmachari" (1938), and stunned the audience by wearing a swimsuit. Career. Shirodkar made her debut with the 1989 film "Bhrashtachar" in which she played the role of a blind girl. She then starred opposite Anil Kapoor in the super hit film "Kishen Kanhaiya" (1990), She had several other successful films such as "Trinetra" (1991), "Hum" (1991), "Khuda Gawah" (1992), "Aankhen" (1993), "Pehchaan" (1993), "Gopi Kishan" (1994), "Bewafa Sanam" (1995) and the critically acclaimed "Mrityudand" (1997). Her last film appearance was in the 2000 film "Gaja Gamini". She was praised for her performances in films such as "Mritiyudand", "Khuda Gawah", "Choti Bahu" and "Gopi Kishan". She was nominated for the Filmfare Award for Best Supporting Actress for "Khuda Gawah". She took a long hiatus from show business to raise her family and is now ready for a second innings albeit in television. She has shifted residence to Mumbai and busy shooting in Delhi suburb for her comeback vehicle, Zee TV’s new show "Ek Muthi Aasman" based on the life of domestic helps. Personal life. She married Apresh Ranjit, a merchant banker from the UK, on 11 July 2000 in Mumbai, after which she gave up acting and settled down in London, where her husband is employed with Barclays Bank. She gave birth to a daughter, Anushka, in 2003, and is now a home-maker. Comeback. Shilpa Shirodkar is set to return to the spotlight after 13 years gap with the upcoming TV Show, "Ek Mutthi Aasmaan" which is aired on Zee TV from August 2013. She plays the role of Kamla Bai . The story focuses on the domestic life of house helps and is produced with the sole aim to give the message that even house helps are human beings with emotions.
898971	My Voyage to Italy () is a personal documentary by acclaimed Italian-American director Martin Scorsese. The film is a voyage through Italian cinema history, marking influential films for Scorsese and particularly covering the Italian neorealism period. The films of Roberto Rossellini make up for half the films discussed in the entire documentary, dealing with his seminal influence on Italian cinema and cinema history. Other directors mentioned include Vittorio de Sica, Luchino Visconti, Federico Fellini, Michelangelo Antonioni. It was released in 1999 at a length of four hours. Two years later, it was screened out of competition at the 2001 Cannes Film Festival.
582657	Pyaar Diwana Hota Hai (Hindi: प्यार दीवाना होता है, Urdu: پیار دیوانہ ہوتا ہے, English: "Love Is Crazy") is a 2002 Indian movie directed by Kirti Kumar, starring Govinda and Rani Mukerji. It is a remake of the Tamil movie Sollamale. Synopsis. Sunder (Govinda) comes from his village to the big city. He is naive, easily influenced, and illiterate. His attempts to influence girls are mocked, and he is ignored and made fun of by his roommates. One day, he befriends an NRI, Payal Khurana (Rani Mukerji), who thinks he is disabled and dumb. She feels sorry for him and decides to assist him get his voice back. She takes him to Dr. S. Puri (Om Puri), who is unable to find a solution. Sunder is thrilled at the attention he is getting from Payal, and decides to continue to pull wool over her eyes, for he knows that she does not love him, she only feels sorry for his handicap, and will soon be returning overseas. Little does he know that Payal is beginning to fall in love with him, and arranging for him to meet her aunt, Mrs. Chaudhary (Farida Jalal), and her mom and dad (Navin Nischal).
633628	John Billingsley (born May 20, 1960) is an American actor, best known for his role as Doctor Phlox on the television series "". Career. Billingsley made an appearance in an episode of "The X-Files", playing a friend of the Lone Gunmen who turns out to be a government spy. He was cast in the role of Professor Miles Ballard in the short-lived television series "The Others" and then as the eccentric alien Doctor Phlox in the fifth Star Trek series, "". He also played himself in an episode of "Roswell" that used the "Enterprise" set. He also starred in the independent film "Breathing Hard" (2000) in the same year. In 2002, he was a guest star in an episode of "Stargate SG-1", playing a scientist who is also a Trekkie, "worship at the altar of Roddenberry". He also had a sizeable role as Denzel Washington's coroner friend in the 2003 film "Out of Time". Billingsley is well known to fans of the series "Cold Case" for his guest appearance in the show's second season, playing serial killer George Marks, the only killer on the show to have gotten away with murder. Billingsley would later reprise the role in the season finale, in which Marks was killed. He also appeared as a blunt force victim in the first season of "Six Feet Under" to become the "Death of the week" in episode "The New Person". Billingsley appeared in the first season of the series "Prison Break" as the mysterious Terrence Steadman, brother of the Vice President, whose death is faked to frame Lincoln Burrows for murder. Soon after, he was cast as a regular on the series "The Nine." This left him unable to continue his role as Steadman, and he was replaced in the role by Jeff Perry. In 2005, he played the voice of Trask in "Ultimate Spider-Man". In November 2006, Billingsley portrayed William Bradford on two episodes of the podcast The Radio Adventures of Dr. Floyd. In May 2007 he appeared on "NCIS" as a blind photographer in the episode, "In The Dark". He appeared in the seventh season of 24 as a recurring character. On October 8, 2007, he also made a guest appearance on "Journeyman" as Alan Platt. Billingsley played Prof. Harry, a biologist, in the 2007 independent science fiction film "The Man from Earth". He also made a guest appearance in an October 2007 episode of ', and in 2006 on the spinoff series '. Billingsley appeared as Jacob Nolston in "Crash Into Me", a two-part, fourth season episode of the TV drama "Grey's Anatomy". Billingsley and his wife have also appeared as themselves on the HGTV series "My House Is Worth What?", in which a real estate expert toured their home and provided commentary for viewers before providing an appraisal. In 2008, Billingsley had a supporting role in several episodes of the HBO series "True Blood" as coroner Mike Spencer. In May of that year, he guest starred as John Harris, the father of the Kiss-Me-Not Killer, in "Never Tell", an episode of "Women's Murder Club". He appeared in the disaster film "2012", which was released on November 13, 2009, as Professor Frederic West, an American scientist. He subsequently appeared on the ABC series "Scrubs" in December 2009.
1061638	Geraldine Sue Page (November 22, 1924 – June 13, 1987) was an American actress best known for her work in the American theater. She was nominated for an Academy Award eight times before winning the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance as Carrie Watts in "The Trip to Bountiful" (1985) Early life and education. Page was born in Kirksville, Missouri, where her father, Leon Page (author of "Practical Anatomy" (1925), "Osteopathic Fundamentals" (1926) and "The Old Doctor" (1932)) was on the faculty of the Andrew Taylor Still College of Osteopathy and Surgery (combined with the American School of Osteopathy, eventually to form A.T. Still University). After graduating from Chicago's Englewood High School, in Chicago, Illinois, she attended the Goodman School of Drama (later renamed The Theatre School at DePaul University) in Chicago and later studied acting with Uta Hagen in New York City, New York. Career. Stage. Page was a trained method actor and worked closely with Lee Strasberg. She began appearing in stock theatre at age 17. Her appearance as Alma in the 1952 production of "Summer and Smoke", written by Tennessee Williams and staged at Circle in the Square Theatre in New York City's Greenwich Village, was legendary. Page's performance (as the minister's daughter consumed with infinite longing) in the production, directed by José Quintero, gave the play a new life, and, according to common wisdom, it was that production (for its daring, for its fervor, for its being "downtown" rather than in the artistically "safe" realm of Broadway) which gave birth to the Off-Broadway movement in New York City theatre. Her work continued on Broadway as the spinster in the 1954–1955 production of "The Rainmaker", written by N. Richard Nash; and as the frustrated wife whose husband becomes romantically obsessed with a young Arab, played by James Dean, in the 1954 production of "The Immoralist", written by Augustus Goetz and Ruth Goetz and based on the novel of the same name (1902) by André Gide. She earned critical accolades for her performance in the 1959 production of Williams's "Sweet Bird of Youth" opposite Paul Newman. She originated the role of a larger-than-life, addicted, sexually voracious Hollywood legend trying to extinguish her fears about her career with a young hustler named Chance Wayne, played by Newman. For her performance, Page received her first nomination for the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play, as well as the Sarah Siddons Award for her performance in Chicago. She and Newman later starred in the film adaptation of the same name (1962) and Page earned a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actress for the film.
1169776	Lisa Arch née Kushell (November 23, 1971), is an American comedienne and actress known for her roles in the 1997-98 Season of the FOX Network comedy show, "MADtv", as cohost of TBS's "Dinner and a Movie" from 2002 to 2005, and most recently as the recurring character of Samantha Samuels on Disney Channel's "Cory in the House". Arch has also has been in movies, such as 2007's "Evan Almighty". Personal life. Born Lisa Kushell in Los Angeles, California, she began acting on stage at 15 years old in the sketch comedy troupe Upstage Comedy. Arch has often stated that her parents were extremely supportive of her and they allowed her to hone her skills in their "unfurnished living room" until she graduated from high school. She earned her SAG card with one line as a waitress on "Dream On". After her first appearance, she began appearing on such shows as "Seinfeld", "The X-Files", and "For Your Love". She has an older brother, Bob Kushell, who is a TV writer/producer and Internet talk show host. Her brother works with her husband, Russell Arch, the Co-Creator and Executive Producer of "ANYTIME WITH BOB KUSHELL", an internet talkshow for Sony Interactive's Crackle.com. On September 18, 2007, she gave birth to a son, Garrett Mitchell Arch. Career. "MADtv". Arch joined the cast of "MADtv" in 1997, as a repertory performer, for the third season. She would be promoted to repertory status mid-season. She is remembered for playing characters like social outcast Susan Whitfield and sassy country gal Wanda Terry-Ann Lainier Parker from the Parker Sisters sketches. Arch also flexed her comedy muscles with her celebrity impressions, of public figures like Paula Jones. She also lampooned Hollywood stars like Farrah Fawcett, Demi Moore, Alyson Hannigan, Lori Loughlin and Hope Summers. She has also impersonated singers like Melanie Chisholm (a.k.a. "Sporty Spice"), Alanis Morissette and Fiona Apple. After one season on the show, Arch left "MADtv" at the conclusion of season three to pursue other career opportunities. Other television projects. Since Leaving "MADtv", Arch has done many guest appearances and voice overs. She has appeared in such commercials as "Mervyn's" and "Southern Comfort." She has featured on the Comedy Central show "Crank Yankers" as the voice of "Cammie", an airheaded, bisexual party-girl in her early twenties. She also played the role of Samantha Samuels on the Disney Channel show "Cory in the House". She has also had a part in the children's TV program "Hannah Montana" as a photographer. Arch can be seen on a regular basis at Los Angeles' ACME Comedy Theater and recently hosted a special episode of "Reel Comedy" about the movie, "Bewitched". She also has made numerous guest appearances on television shows, including "Reno 911!", "Seinfeld", and "The X-Files". Also she was in "Austin & Ally" as Damonica Dixon. Dinner and a Movie. In 2001, Arch's career got a boost when she replaced Annabelle Gurwitch as the hostess of the TBS cooking and entertainment show, "Dinner and a Movie". For two and a half years, she appeared, alongside host Paul Gilmartin and chef Claud Mann, in each episode introducing movies and cracking jokes during the preparation of a creative dinner to go with some theme of the movie. In 2004, Arch's contract had expired. As she was preparing for another season as hostess of the show, she got a call from TBS executives, right after the Thanksgiving holiday, informing her that her contract was not going to be renewed. She left the show on good relations with the "Dinner and a Movie" staff, but she was very upset about the failure to have her contract renewed. In 2005, she was succeeded by Janet Varney as host.
1103959	Morris Kline (May 1, 1908 – June 10, 1992) was a Professor of Mathematics, a writer on the history, philosophy, and teaching of mathematics, and also a popularizer of mathematical subjects. Kline grew up in Brooklyn and in Jamaica, Queens. After graduating from Boys High School in Brooklyn, he studied mathematics at New York University, earning a bachelor's degree in 1930, a master's degree in 1932, and a doctorate in 1936. He continued at NYU as an instructor until 1942. During World War II, Kline was posted to the Signal Corps (United States Army) stationed at Belmar, New Jersey. Designated a physicist, he worked in the engineering lab where RADAR was developed. After the war he continued investigating electromagnetism, and from 1946 to 1966 was director of the division for electromagnetic research at the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences. Kline resumed his mathematical teaching at NYU, becoming a full professor in 1952. He taught at New York University until 1975, and wrote many papers and more than a dozen books on various aspects of mathematics and particularly mathematics teaching. He repeatedly stressed the need to teach the applications and usefulness of mathematics rather than expecting students to enjoy it for its own sake. Similarly, he urged that mathematical research concentrate on solving problems posed in other fields rather than building structures of interest only to other mathematicians. One can get a sense of Kline's views on teaching from the following: Mathematics education. Morris Kline was a protagonist in the curriculum reform in mathematics education that occurred in the second half of the twentieth century, a period including the programs of the new math. An article in 1956 in The Mathematics Teacher, the main journal of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, by Kline was titled "Mathematical texts and teachers: a tirade". Calling out teachers blaming students for failures, he wrote "There is a student problem, but there are also three other factors which are responsible for the present state of mathematical learning, namely, the curricula, the texts, and the teachers." The tirade touched a nerve, and changes started to happen. But then Kline switched to being a critic of some of the changes. In 1958 he wrote "Ancients versus moderns: a new battle of the books". The article was accompanied with a rebuttal by Albert E. Meder Jr. of Rutgers University. ("Mathematics Teacher" 51:428 –33). He says, "I find objectionable: first, vague generalizations, entirely undocumented, concerning views held by ‘modernists’, and second, the inferences drawn from what has not been said by the ‘modernists’." By 1966 Kline yielded to the pressure to propose something positive with his eight-page high school plan ("Mathematics Teacher" 59:322–330). The rebuttal for this article was by James H. Zant and asserted that Kline had "a general lack of knowledge of what was going on in schools with reference to textbooks, teaching, and curriculum." He criticized Kline’s writing for "vagueness, distortion of facts, undocumented statements and overgeneralization." Kline continued his critique of mathematical education with his 1966 article "Intellectuals and the schools: a case history" in Harvard Educational Review (36:505–11). In 1970 he followed with "Logic versus pedagogy" in American Mathematical Monthly (77:264–82). In 1973 St. Martin’s Press contributed to the dialogue by publishing Kline’s critique, "Why Johnny Can’t Add: the Failure of the New Math". Its opening chapter is a parody of instruction as students’ intuitions are challenged by the new jargon. The book recapitulates the debates from "Mathematics Teacher", with Kline conceding some progress: He cites Howard Fehr of Columbia University who sought to unify the subject through its general concepts, sets, operations, mappings, relations, and structure. In 1977 Kline turned to undergraduate university education; he took on the academic mathematics establishment with his "Why the Professor Can’t Teach: the dilemma of university education". Kline argues that requiring original mathematics from professors distracts them too much from the broad knowledge necessary to teach. He lauds scholarship as expressed by expository writing or reviews of original work of others. For scholarship he expects critical attitudes to topics, materials and methods. Among the rebuttals are those of May 1979 in "American Mathematical Monthly" (86:401–12.) by D.T. Finkbeiner, Harry Pollard, and Peter Hilton, in which Pollard writes, "The society in which learning is admired and pursued for its own sake has disappeared." The Hilton review was more direct: Kline has "placed in the hand of enemies… weapon". Though Kline began, in 1956, with a call to action, once the mobilization was in motion he turned critic. Skilled expositor that he was, editors frequently felt his expressions were best tempered with rebuttal. In considering what motivated Morris Kline to agitate so much we can look back to Professor Meder’s opinion in "Mathematics Teacher" 51:433: It might appear so, as Kline recalls E. H. Moore’s recommendation to combine science and mathematics at the high school level in his "Why Johnny Can’t Add" (p. 147). But closer reading shows Kline calling mathematics a "part of man’s efforts to understand and master his world", and he sees that role in a broad spectrum of sciences.
1062327	Little Miss Sunshine is a 2006 American comedy-drama road film and the directorial film debut of the husband-wife team of Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris. The screenplay was written by first-time writer Michael Arndt. The movie stars Greg Kinnear, Steve Carell, Toni Collette, Paul Dano, Abigail Breslin and Alan Arkin, and was produced by Big Beach Films on a budget of US$8 million. Filming began on June 6, 2005 and took place over 30 days in Arizona and Southern California. The film premiered at the Sundance Film Festival on January 20, 2006, and its distribution rights were bought by Fox Searchlight Pictures for one of the biggest deals made in the history of the festival. The film had a limited release in the United States on July 26, 2006, and later expanded to a wider release starting on August 18. "Little Miss Sunshine" received critical acclaim and had an international box office gross of $100.5 million. The film was nominated for four Academy Awards, including Best Picture, and won two: Best Original Screenplay for Michael Arndt and Best Supporting Actor for Alan Arkin. It also won the Independent Spirit Award for Best Feature and received numerous other accolades. Plot. Sheryl Hoover (Toni Collette) is an overworked mother of two children who lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Her gay brother Frank (Steve Carell) is a scholar of French author Marcel Proust, temporarily living at home with the family after a suicide attempt. Her husband Richard (Greg Kinnear) is striving to build a career as a motivational speaker and life coach. Dwayne (Paul Dano), Sheryl's son from a previous marriage, is an unhappy seventeen-year-old who has taken a vow of silence until he can accomplish his dream of getting into the US Air Force Academy in order to become a test pilot. Richard's foul-mouthed father, Edwin (Alan Arkin), a World War II veteran recently evicted from a retirement home for using heroin, lives with the family. He is close with his seven-year-old granddaughter, Olive (Abigail Breslin). When Olive learns she has qualified for the "Little Miss Sunshine" beauty contest that is being held in Redondo Beach, California in two days, she is ecstatic. However, money is tight and due to various logistical issues, the only way to make the trip is if the entire household goes. Despite Richard, Dwayne, and Frank in particular not wanting to go, they all band together to support Olive and embark upon the 800-mile road trip in their antiquated yellow Volkswagen T2 Microbus. Family tensions play out during the journey, amidst the aging van's increasingly troublesome mechanical problems. When the van's clutch breaks early in the trip, the family discovers that they must push the van until it reaches 20 miles per hour and then run and jump in. Later, the horn starts honking unceasingly, resulting in the family getting pulled over. Throughout the road trip, the family suffers numerous personal setbacks, and discover their need for each other's support. Richard loses an important contract that would have jump-started his motivational business and saved the family from financial ruin. Frank encounters the ex-boyfriend who, in leaving him for Frank's chief academic rival (who has also just received a MacArthur Grant), precipitated his suicide attempt. Edwin dies from an apparent heroin overdose. In order to reach their destination in time, the family smuggles his body out of the hospital, (illegally transporting it across state lines in the process), planning to make funeral arrangements after the pageant. During the final stretch of the trip, Dwayne discovers that he is color blind, and therefore can never get a pilot's license, which prompts him to break his silence, refusing to continue with the trip and revealing his anger and disdain for his family. He storms from the van in tears, but is calmed down by a hug from Olive and returns to the family, apologizing for the things he yelled. After a frantic race against the clock, Olive is almost refused entrance to the pageant for arriving at the hotel four minutes late. As she gets ready, the family observes the other competitors: slender, sexualized little girls with highly styled hair, heavily made-up faces, spray tans, adult-like sexy swimsuits, and glamorous evening wear, performing highly elaborate dance, musical, and gymnastic routines with great panache. It quickly becomes apparent that Olive (plain, pale, slightly chubby, with unstyled hair, wearing large eyeglasses, and untrained in beauty pageant conventions) is not in their league. As Olive's turn to perform in the talent portion of the pageant draws near, Richard and Dwayne recognize that Olive is certain to be humiliated and, wanting to spare her feelings, run to the dressing room to prevent her from performing. Sheryl, however, insists that they "let Olive be Olive", and Olive decides to go on stage. She joyfully performs the dance routine that her Grandpa Edwin had secretly choreographed for her: a burlesque performance to Rick James' song "Super Freak", innocently oblivious to the scandalized and horrified reaction of the audience. The organizers are enraged and demand Sheryl and Richard remove Olive from the stage. Instead, one by one the members of the family join Olive on stage, dancing alongside her, and Richard prevents pageant officials from touching his daughter. The family is next seen outside the hotel's security office where a police officer tells them they are free to leave as long as Olive never again enters a beauty pageant in the state of California. Richard tells Olive that her grandfather would be very proud of her, and the family happily piles into the ramshackle bus and heads back to their home in Albuquerque. Production. Casting. When choosing the cast for the film, directors Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris were assisted by casting directors Kim Davis and Justine Baddely who had worked with them on previous music videos. The directors had initially settled on Greg Kinnear to portray Richard Hoover. However, for the character of Sheryl Hoover, they considered several actresses before deciding on Australian actress Toni Collette. Davis and Baddely traveled to "every English-speaking country" to search for the actress to portray Olive Hoover, and they finally chose actress Abigail Breslin through an audition when she was six. Paul Dano was cast as Dwayne two years before production began and in preparation for portraying his character, spent a few days taking his own vow of silence. Alan Arkin, who portrayed Edwin Hoover, was initially considered too young for the role. The role of Frank, the suicidal Proust scholar, was originally written for Bill Murray, and there was also studio pressure for Robin Williams. The directing duo chose Steve Carell for the role a few months before filming began, and in an interview revealed: "When we met with Steve Carell, we didn't know he could do this based upon what he had done. But when we met with him and talked to him about the character, the tone of the movie and the way we were approaching it, he was right on the same page with us". Although known to Comedy Central viewers for many years as a correspondent on the highly rated satirical news program "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart", at the time Carell was cast for "Little Miss Sunshine", he was relatively unknown in Hollywood. Producers of the film were worried that he was not a big enough star and did not have much acting experience. However, between the time the film was shot and its release a year later, Carell became a success as the star of the high-grossing film "The 40-Year-Old Virgin" and the leading character of the NBC television series "The Office". Script and development. The script was written by Michael Arndt and was originally about an East Coast road trip from Maryland to Florida, but was shifted to a journey from New Mexico to California because of budget issues. Arndt started the script on May 23, 2000 and completed the first rough draft by May 26. He had initially planned on shooting the film himself by raising several thousand dollars and using a camcorder. Instead, he gave the screenplay to producers Ron Yerxa and Albert Berger who teamed up with Deep River Productions to find a potential director. The producers met directors Dayton and Faris while producing "Election" and in turn gave the script to them to read in 2001. The directors commented later on the script stating: "This film really struck a chord. We felt like it was written for us." The script was purchased from first-time screenwriter Arndt for $250,000 by Marc Turtletaub, one of the film's producers, on December 21, 2001. Yerxa and Berger remained as producers as they were responsible for finding the directors and cinematographer, assisting in the ending re-shoot, and helping bring the film to the Sundance Film Festival. The film was pitched to several studios, and the only interested studio was Focus Features who wanted to film it in Canada. After the studio attempted to have the film be more centered on the character Richard Hoover, and Arndt disagreed, he was fired and replaced by another writer. The new writer added several scenes, including Richard's confrontation with the character who dismisses his motivational technique business. A corporate change brought in a new studio head and Arndt was rehired when the new writer left after four weeks of rewriting the script. After two years of pre-production, Focus Features dropped the film in August 2004. Marc Turtletaub paid $400,000 to Focus Features to buy back the rights to the film and for development costs. He also paid for the $8 million budget, allowing "Little Miss Sunshine" to then be filmed. Filming. Principal photography began on June 6, 2005. Filming took place over 30 days in Arizona and southern California, with scenes shot in keeping with the chronological order of the script. Arndt re-wrote the ending to the film six weeks before the film's release at the Sundance Film Festival, and this was filmed in December 2005. Post-production was completed four days before its screening on nine screens at the Sundance Film Festival, where it had its premiere. The film was dedicated to Rebecca Annitto, the niece of producer Peter Saraf and an extra in scenes set in the diner and the convenience store, who was killed in a car accident on September 14, 2005. Volkswagen T2 Microbus. When writing the script, Arndt chose the Volkswagen T2 Microbus to use for the road trip based on his experience with the vehicle and its practicality for filming: "I remember thinking, it's a road trip, what vehicle are you going to put them in? And VW bus just seems logical, just because you have these high ceilings and these clean sight lines where you can put the camera. In the front windshield looking back and seeing everybody." Five VW Microbuses were used for the family car as some were modified for different filming techniques. Three of the vans had engines, and the two without were mounted on trailers. During pre-production, the cinematographer used a basic video camera and set it up at angles inside the van to determine the best locations to shoot from during filming. Many of the problems associated with the van that were included in the plot (a broken clutch, a stuck horn, and a detached door), were based on similar problems that writer Arndt experienced during a childhood trip that involved the same type of vehicle. While filming the scenes where the family pushes the van to get it started, a stunt coordinator was used to ensure the safety of the actors. In an interview, actor Greg Kinnear jokingly described how the scenes were filmed when he was driving: "I was going like 50 miles an hour in this '71 VW van that doesn't have side air bags. Basically you'd wait for this huge camera truck to come whizzing in front of us with the camera. 'Okay, go!' I mean, it was insanity; it's the most dangerous movie I've ever made." While filming the scenes in the van, the actors would at times remain in the vehicle for three or four hours a day. For scenes in which Alan Arkin's character was swearing excessively, Breslin had her headphones on and could not hear the dialogue, just like her character in the film. Only when she saw the film did she know what was being said. On July 25, 2006 Fox Searchlight Pictures invited VW bus owners to a screening at Vineland Drive-In theater in Industry, California. Over 60 of the vans were present at the screening. Pageant. Prior to writing the script, Arndt read in a newspaper about Arnold Schwarzenegger speaking to a group of high school students and saying "If there's one thing in this world I hate, it's losers. I despise them." As a result, Arndt developed his script lampooning the thought process: "And I thought there's something so wrong with that attitude ... I wanted to ... attack that idea that in life you're going up or you're going down ... So to a degree a child beauty pageant is the epitome of the ultimate stupid meaningless competition people put themselves through." Co-director Jonathan Dayton also commented on the importance of the pageant to the film: "As far as the pageant goes, it was very important to us that the film not be about pageants. It's about being out of place, it's about not knowing where you're going to end up..." All the girls acting as participants in the beauty pageant, except Abigail Breslin, were veterans of real beauty pageants. They looked the same and performed the same acts as they had in their real-life pageants. To prepare for filming, the directors attended several pageants in Southern California and met with a coordinator to learn more about the pageant process. A mother of a contestant in the film claimed that the film overplayed practices that the contestants go through: "Most pageants aren’t quite like that, with shaving the girls’ legs, spraying them with fake tans and putting on so much makeup." When Focus Features initially wanted to film in Canada, the directors opposed it, believing the costs of flying all of the pageant girls and their families would be excessive. The contestants and their families instead spent two weeks filming in a hotel in Ventura with most of the equipment and costumes being provided by the contestants' parents. To make Breslin's character the "plump" figure as shown in the film, she had to wear a padded suit during filming. For Olive's final scene involving her dancing routine, Breslin spent two weeks preparing with a choreographer. Release. Sundance Film Festival. Once the film premiered at the 2006 Sundance Film Festival on January 20, 2006, several studios bid on the film, and Fox Searchlight Pictures won, offering $10.5 million, plus 10% of all the gross revenues. The deal occurred less than a day after the premiere and was one of the biggest deals made in the history of the festival. The previous year's festival had the film "Hustle & Flow" receive $9 million from Paramount Classics and in 1999, "Happy, Texas" received $10 million from Miramax Films. Box office. "Little Miss Sunshine" initially opened in seven theaters in the U.S. in its first week, earning $498,796. On July 29, 2006, the first Saturday after its initial limited release, "Little Miss Sunshine" earned a $20,335 per-theater average gross. It had the highest per-theater average gross of all the films shown in the United States every day for the first 21 days of its release, until being surpassed by the IMAX film "Deep Sea 3D" on August 15. In its third week of release "Little Miss Sunshine" entered the list of top ten highest grossing American films for the week. It remained in the top ten until the 11th week of release, when it dropped to 11th place. The highest position it reached was third, which occurred in its fifth week of release. The largest number of theaters the film appeared in was 1,602. Internationally, the film earned over $5 million in Australia, $3 million in Germany, $4 million in Spain, and $6 million combined in the United Kingdom, Ireland, and Malta. "Little Miss Sunshine" has had gross receipts of $59,891,098 in the U.S. and $40,632,083 internationally for a total of $100,523,181. Critical reception. The film received widespread critical acclaim. The review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes reported that 91% of critics gave the film a positive rating, based on 205 reviews, with an average score of 7.7/10. At the website Metacritic, which uses a normalized rating system, the film earned a favorable rating of 80/100 based on 36 reviews. Michael Medved gave "Little Miss Sunshine" four stars (out of four) saying that "... this startling and irresistible dark comedy counts as one of the very best films of the year ..." and that directors Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris, the movie itself, and actors Alan Arkin, Abigail Breslin, and Steve Carell deserved Oscar nominations. Joel Siegel issued a rarely awarded 'A' rating, saying that "Orson Welles would have to come back to life for this not to make my year-end Top 10 list." Stella Papamichael of BBC News called the film "a winning blend of sophistication and silliness". "USA Today"'s Claudia Puig commented on Breslin's depiction of Olive Hoover, "If Olive had been played by any other little girl, she would not have affected us as mightily as it did." Owen Gleiberman of "Entertainment Weekly" labeled the film with a 'C' rating, calling the characters "walking, talking catalogs of screenwriter index-card data." Jim Ridley of "The Village Voice" called the movie a "rickety vehicle that travels mostly downhill" and a "Sundance clunker." Liam Lacey of "Globe and Mail" criticized the film, stating "Though "Little Miss Sunshine" is consistently contrived in its characters' too-cute misery, the conclusion, which is genuinely outrageous and uplifting, is almost worth the hype." Anna Nimouse of "National Review" wrote that the "film is praised as a 'feel-good' film, perhaps for moviegoers who like bamboo under their fingernails. If you are miserable, then "Little Miss Sunshine" is the film for you." "Paste Magazine" named it one of the 50 Best Movies of the Decade (2000–2009), ranking it at #34. Jim Emerson, editor for RogerEbert.com, reflected on the film's themes, writing ""Little Miss Sunshine" shows us a world in which there's a form, a brochure, a procedure, a job title, a diet, a step-by-step program, a career path, a prize, a retirement community, to quantify, sort, categorize and process every human emotion or desire. Nothing exists that cannot be compartmentalized or turned into a self-improvement mantra about 'winners and losers.'" Brian Tallerico of UGO.com also focused on the film's themes: ""Little Miss Sunshine" teaches us to embrace that middle ground, acknowledging that life may just be a beauty pageant, where we're often going to be outdone by someone prettier, smarter, or just plain luckier, but if we get up on that stage and be ourselves, everything will turn out fine." Home media. The DVD was released on December 19, 2006. It includes a dual-disc widescreen/full screen format, two commentary tracks, four alternate endings, and a music video by DeVotchKa. In its first week of release, DVD sales totaled $19,614,299 and it was the sixth-most sold DVD of the week. By September 16, 2008 gross domestic DVD sales totaled $55,516,832. Rentals of the film from its release through April 15, 2007 totalled $46.32 million. The film was released on Blu-ray on February 10, 2009. Accolades. "Little Miss Sunshine" was nominated for and won multiple awards from numerous film organizations and festivals. It was nominated for four Academy Awards and was awarded two at the 79th Academy Awards: Michael Arndt received "Best Original Screenplay" and Alan Arkin received "Best Supporting Actor". In addition, the AFI Awards deemed it the "Movie of the Year", while the BAFTA Awards awarded it two awards out of six nominations with "Best Screenplay" for Arndt and "Best Actor in a Supporting Role" for Arkin. The Broadcast Film Critics Association Awards, Screen Actors Guild (SAG), and Washington D.C. Area Film Critics commended the film for its ensemble cast. Then 10-year-old Abigail Breslin was nominated for several Best Supporting Actress and Breakthrough Performance awards. The Deauville Film Festival awarded the film the "Grand Special Prize" while the Palm Springs International Film Festival awarded it the "Chairman's Vanguard Award". The Independent Spirit Awards awarded it four awards out of five nominations, including "Best Feature" and "Best Director". The film's soundtrack was nominated for "Best Compilation Soundtrack Album for Motion Picture, Television, or Other Visual Media" at the Grammy Awards, but lost to "Walk The Line". The film also had multiple nominations at the MTV Movie Awards, Satellite Awards, Chicago Film Critics Association Awards, and Golden Globe Awards, among others. Academy Awards producers controversy. There was some controversy concerning how many producers should receive an award from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for their work in producing the film. In 1999, the Academy decided that up to a maximum of three producers are eligible to be included in an award for a film. The rule was implemented to prevent a large number of involved filmmakers to appear on stage when a film was receiving an award. The Producers Guild of America (PGA) has not set a limit of producers that can be honored for a film. In the case of "Little Miss Sunshine", there were five producers (Marc Turtletaub, Peter Saraf, Albert Berger, Ron Yerxa, and David Friendly) and the Academy did not want to include Berger and Yerxa. The two producers were responsible for finding the script, introducing the directors to the other producers, choosing the cinematographer, assisting in the re-shoot of the ending, and helping bring the film to the Sundance Film Festival. The Academy acknowledged that the two were partners in the production process, but declared that only individual producers are recognized by the Academy. Deeming the two producers' work as a collective effort, the Academy refused to consider either Berger or Yerxa for the award. Producer David Hoberman commented on the support for honoring all five producers, stating "If there are five people actually involved in producing a movie, there's no reason why someone who's made a good enough film to be nominated for an Academy Award should be precluded from being rewarded for the work they did." Lynda Obst who was affiliated with an Academy Award producer committee, also commented: "By and large, five people don't make a movie. If this is an exception, then it's a sad situation. But you don't destroy a rule for an exception." At the Academy Awards, producers Marc Turtletaub, Peter Saraf, and David Friendly were able to appear on stage to accept the award for Best Original Screenplay, while the PGA had previously honored all five of the producers. Albert Berger, reacting to the Academy's decision while at a panel for the film, stated "No matter what the academy decided, we produced this movie." In June 2007, the Academy announced that they would allow exceptions for films that had more than three producers in the future, stating "The committee has the right, in what it determines to be a rare and extraordinary circumstance, to name any additional qualified producer as a nominee." Music. Score. The score for "Little Miss Sunshine" was written by the Denver band DeVotchKa and composer Mychael Danna. Performed by DeVotchKa, much of the music was adapted from their pre-existing songs, such as "How It Ends", which became "The Winner Is", "The Enemy Guns" and "You Love Me" from the album "How It Ends", and "La Llorona" from "Una Volta". Directors Dayton and Faris were introduced to DeVotchKa's music after hearing the song "You Love Me" on Los Angeles' KCRW radio station. The directors were so impressed with the music that they purchased iPods for cast members containing DeVotchKa albums. Mychael Danna was brought in to help arrange the pre-existing material and collaborate with DeVotchKa on new material for the film. The "Little Miss Sunshine" score was not eligible for Academy Award consideration due to the percentage of material derived from already written DeVotchKa songs. The DeVotchka song "Til the End of Time" received a nomination for a 2006 Satellite Award as "Best Original Song". Both DeVotchKa and Danna received 2007 Grammy nominations for their work on the soundtrack. Soundtrack. The soundtrack reached #42 on the "Top Independent Albums" and 24 on "Top Soundtracks" in the U.S. for 2006. It contains two songs by Sufjan Stevens ("" and "Chicago"), and songs by Tony Tisdale ("Catwalkin'") and Rick James ("Super Freak"). Two additional songs in the film that were written by Gordon Pogoda—"Let It Go" and "You've Got Me Dancing" (the latter of which he co-wrote with Barry Upton)—are featured during the pageant scenes near the end of the film. "Super Freak", the source music danced to by Olive during the pageant competition, was introduced during post-production by a suggestion from the music supervisor. Arndt's screenplay had called for Prince's song "Peach"; during filming, the ZZ Top song "Gimme All Your Lovin'" was used. 2011 stage musical. A musical based on the film, with music and lyrics by William Finn and book and direction by James Lapine, was workshopped at the Sundance Institute Theatre Lab at White Oak in Yulee, Florida October 25 through November 7, 2009. It then premiered at the La Jolla Playhouse from February 15 through March 27, 2011. The cast features Hunter Foster, Malcolm Gets, Georgi James, Dick Latessa, Jennifer Laura Thompson, and Taylor Trensch. On March 11, 2011 Malcolm Gets left the show. Ensemble member Andrew Samonsky took over the role of Uncle Frank, and understudy Ryan Wagner took over the role of Joshua Rose until the show closed on March 27, 2011.
1503432	Donna Murphy (born March 7, 1959) is an American stage, film, television actress and singer. Murphy has won two Tony Awards for Best Actress in a Musical for her roles in "Passion" as Fosca and in "The King and I" as Anna Leonowens. She received three more Tony Award nominations for Best Actress in a Musical for her performances in "Wonderful Town" as Ruth Sherwood, "LoveMusik" as Lotte Lenya and "The People in the Picture" as Raisel/Bubbie. She is known, most recently, for her role as Mother Gothel in the animated Disney film "Tangled" (2010); Anij, Captain Jean-Luc Picard's love interest, in "" (1998); Rosalie Octavius, the wife of Dr. Octopus in "Spider-Man 2" (2004), one of the government secretaries in "The Bourne Legacy", and her numerous stage roles in musical theatre. Personal life. Murphy, the eldest of seven children, was born in Corona, Queens, New York, the daughter of Jeanne (née Fink) and Robert Murphy, an aerospace engineer. Murphy is of Irish, French, German, and Czech ancestry. Her family moved to Hauppauge, Long Island, New York. At age three, she asked for voice lessons, and she put on shows as a child in Hauppauge. She later moved to Topsfield, Massachusetts and graduated from Masconomet Regional High School in 1977. Murphy has been married to actor and singer Shawn Elliott since 1990. She is the stepmother of Elliott's two daughters. In 2005, they adopted a daughter from Guatemala, Darmia Hope. Career. Murphy dropped out of the New York University drama program in her sophomore year when she was cast to understudy the three backup singers in the 1979 Broadway musical "They're Playing Our Song". In a 2007 interview, Murphy explained, "At the end of my sophomore year, I took a leave of absence. I needed to audition without cutting classes." She also studied at the Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute. She has appeared in many Off-Broadway productions, including the musical "Francis" in 1981 at the York Theatre at St. Peter's, "The Mystery of Edwin Drood" in 1985 at the Public Theater's Delacorte Theatre, "Birds of Paradise" in 1987 (Promenade Theatre), "Privates on Parade" (Roundabout Theatre) in 1989, the musical "Song of Singapore" in 1991, the Michael John LaChiusa musical "Hello Again" at the Lincoln Center Mitzi Newhouse Theater in 1993, "Twelve Dreams" at the Mitzi Newhouse Theater in 1995, and "Helen" at the Public Theater/New York Shakespeare Festival in 2002. In 2012, she appeared in Stephen Sondheim's "Into the Woods" at The Public Theater's Delacorte Theatre as the Witch. On Broadway, after "They're Playing Our Song" (1979), she was an understudy in the musical/opera "The Human Comedy" in April 1984 and played various roles in "The Mystery of Edwin Drood" from 1985 to 1987. She also played Audrey in Howard Ashman and Alan Menken's "Little Shop of Horrors." In 1994, she played the role of Fosca in Stephen Sondheim's and James Lapine's "Passion", winning the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical for her performance. A year later she appeared in Lapine's revival, "Twelve Dreams". In 1996, she played Anna Leonowens in the revival of "The King and I" alongside Lou Diamond Philips. The role earned her a second Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical. She appeared as Ruth Sherwood in a revival of "Wonderful Town" from 2003 to 2005 (having previously performed in the New York City Center Encores! 2000 staged concert of that musical), and was nominated for the Tony Award, Best Actress in a Musical and won the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Actress in a Musical. In 2007, she appeared in "LoveMusik" as Lotte Lenya, opposite Michael Cerveris as Kurt Weill, receiving nominations for Tony and Drama Desk Awards. She appeared in the 2007 New York City Center Encores! staged concert of "Follies" as Phyllis. She appeared in the Roundabout Theatre production of a new musical, "The People in the Picture", which opened on April 28, 2011 and closed on June 19, 2011. She was nominated for a 2011 Tony Award for Leading Actress in a Musical for her role in the production. Murphy's film roles include Kathleen, Vera Farmiga's mother in Higher Ground (2011) and Mother Gothel in the animated musical film "Tangled" (2010). She played Anij, Captain Jean-Luc Picard's love interest, in "" (1998), Scarlett Johansson's mother in "The Nanny Diaries" and Rosalie Octavius, wife of Dr. Otto Octavius, the film's villain, in "Spider-Man 2" (2004). She appeared in the film "Center Stage" as a ballet teacher in 2000 and in Darren Aronofsky's 2006 film "The Fountain" as Betty, a surgical research assistant. In 2011 she appeared in a supporting role in "Dark Horse".
1033897	Francis Finlay, CBE (born 6 August 1926) is an English stage, film and television actor. Personal life. Finlay was born in Farnworth, Lancashire, the son of Margaret and Josiah Finlay, a butcher. A devout Catholic, he belongs to the British Catholic Stage Guild. He was educated at St. Gregory the Great School but left at the age of fourteen and then trained as a butcher himself, gaining a City and Guilds Diploma in the trade. He met his future wife, Doreen Shepherd, when they were both members of the Farnworth Little Theatre. They had three children, Stephen, Cathy and Daniel and they lived in Shepperton, Middlesex and were married until her death in 2005. Stage career. Finlay began his stage career in rep before graduating from RADA. There followed several appearances at the Royal Court Theatre, notably in the Arnold Wesker trilogy. He is particularly associated with the National Theatre, especially during the Olivier years and the Chichester Festival Theatre, where he played a wide variety of roles ranging from the First Gravedigger in "Hamlet" to Josef Frank in "Weapons of Happiness". He also had parts in "The Party", "Plunder", "Saint Joan", "Hobson's Choice", "Amadeus", "Much Ado About Nothing" (as Dogberry), "The Dutch Courtesan", "The Crucible", "Mother Courage", and "Juno and the Paycock". Playing Iago opposite Laurence Olivier's title character in John Dexter's 1965 production of "Othello" and the film adaptation, Finlay's performance as the NCO left theatre critics unmoved, but later received high praise for the film version and earned him an Academy Award nomination. Critic John Simon wrote that the closeups in the film afforded Finlay the chance to give a more subtle and effective performance than he had onstage. Finlay was also seen on Broadway in "Epitaph for George Dillon" (1958–59), and, also, in the National Theatre and Broadway productions of "Filumena" (opposite Olivier's wife, Joan Plowright) in 1980. Television and film. One of his earliest television roles was in the (currently missing) family space adventure serial Target Luna (1960), as journalist Conway Henderson. Finlay's first major success on television was in the title role of "Casanova" in Dennis Potter's BBC2 series of the same name. Following this in 1972, he won perhaps the greatest praise of his career for his portrayal of Adolf Hitler in "The Death of Adolf Hitler". He portrayed Richard Roundtree's nemesis, Amafi, in "Shaft in Africa" (1973) before playing Porthos for director Richard Lester in "The Three Musketeers" (1973), "The Four Musketeers" (1975) and "The Return of the Musketeers" (1989). He has also appeared in several other films, including "The Wild Geese" (1978). He went on to star as the father in the once controversial "Bouquet of Barbed Wire" and he was reunited with his "Bouquet of Barbed Wire" co-star, Susan Penhaligon, when he played Van Helsing in the BBC "Count Dracula" with Louis Jourdan (1977). He appeared in two Sherlock Holmes films as Inspector Lestrade, solving the Jack the Ripper murders ("A Study in Terror" and "Murder by Decree"). He also played a role in an episode of the Granada Television adaptation of "Sherlock Holmes" starring Jeremy Brett, in which his son Daniel also played a minor role. In 1984, Finlay appeared on American television in "A Christmas Carol". He played Marley's Ghost opposite George C. Scott's Ebenezer Scrooge. He also guest-starred as "The Witchsmeller Pursuivant" in the first series of "The Black Adder" in 1983. Finlay also played Sancho Panza opposite Rex Harrison's Don Quixote in the 1973 British made-for-television film "The Adventures of Don Quixote", for which he won a BAFTA award. He won another BAFTA award that year for his performance as Voltaire in a non-musical BBC TV production of "Candide". In 1988, Finlay played the role of Justice Peter Mahon in the award-winning New Zealand television miniseries "". In 2002 Finlay portrayed Adrien Brody's character's father in the Roman Polanski film "The Pianist" (2002). His most recent appearances have been in the TV series "Life Begins" and as Jane Tennison's father in the last two stories of "Prime Suspect" (2006 and 2007). In 2007 he guest-starred in the "Doctor Who" audio adventure "100". In November 2008 Finlay appeared in the eleventh episode of the BBC drama series "Merlin", as Anhora; Keeper of the Unicorns. Awards. Finlay was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in the new years' honours list of 1984. Honorary Doctorate from the University of Bolton July 2010 Patron. Frank is a patron of The Academy of Creative Training a Drama school in Brighton, Sussex.
1664187	Rena Riffel (born March 5, 1969) is an American actress, singer, dancer, model, writer, producer, and director. She is known for her supporting roles in films such as "Showgirls", "Striptease", and "Mulholland Drive". Childhood and early career. Rena Riffel was born in Los Angeles, California, United States. When she was two years old her family moved from Playa Del Rey to Atascadero. Her father’s side of the family came from the music business and vaudeville in South Bend, Indiana and included a father who studied tap dancing and acrobatic ballet, a grandmother who was an accomplished singer, and a great grandmother who was a professional opera singer. Her mother is an accomplished accordion player and has performed with Myron Floren and Lawrence Welk. From an early age, Riffel enjoyed horseback riding, competing in rodeo barrel racing, and acting in home productions with her brother Todd. Performing in her first dance recital at age four, Riffel continued to study ballet, jazz, and tap. She also began taking vocal lessons and sang in a children’s all-girl group who performed locally at church events. At age 11, she landed her first acting and dance part in a production of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s "The King and I" at the Paso Robles Playhouse. Riffel’s parents began driving her down to Los Angeles at age 15 to take acting classes for commercials and to attend acting seminars. Riffel also excelled as a cheerleader and was appointed head song leader and choreographer for Atascadero High School during her senior year. In 1987, the Atascadero Chamber of Commerce chose Riffel as Miss Atascadero to compete in the San Luis Obispo Mid-State Fair Pageant where she was crowned Princess of the Mid-State Fair. After graduating high school, Riffel briefly enrolled in college where she was a pre-med major, but left early on in order to pursue an acting career. She moved to Los Angeles where she auditioned for dance parts, modeled for Catalina Swimwear, and landed a handful of minor roles in movies and television. Riffel began studying acting with Floyd Levine and dance with Marguerite Derricks. She auditioned at the Rodunsky School of Dance where she earned a scholarship. While at a restaurant, she was spotted by a scout for Elite Model Agency and was subsequently signed. She then began modeling for major brands such as Joe Boxer, Avon, and Joico hair products. Riffel landed her first film role in the horror thriller film "Satan’s Princess" (1990) with Academy Award nominated Robert Forster. During this time, Riffel also recorded a demo and was signed to Mercury/Polygram records by Ed Eckstein. Her record was unreleased. Riffel had minor roles on the television series "Freshman Dorm" and in the film "Batman Returns" as one of the Penguin’s Girls. She landed her first featured role opposite Patrick Stewart in the 1994 action movie "Gunmen". She was also featured in the made for TV movie "Sinatra" playing May Britt, the wife of Sammy Davis, Jr. as well as the television series "Quantum Leap". Riffel also began modeling for Robinsons-May and appeared in a Clio Award and Telly Award winning Fantastic Sams commercial, both of which contributed to her recognition. Riffel then began studying the Meisner Technique at Playhouse West. While working on her music, Riffel was asked to sing a song called "Spaceeba" for the 1992 film "Back in the USSR". She was invited to visit the set in Moscow, Russia where she played the song to the Russian audience and received a standing ovation. Riffel booked her first lead role as twins Meg/Julie Hudson in the 1994 independent film "Art Deco Detective" directed by Phillippe Mora, which screened at the 1994 Cannes Film Festival. She also landed the role of Rain in the 1995 thriller "Undercover Heat", which opened at #1 in the U.K. "Showgirls". Riffel landed her breakthrough role in the 1995 film "Showgirls" starring Elizabeth Berkley, Gina Gershon, and Kyle MacLachlan. Initially reading for the lead role of Cristal Connors, Riffel was cast in the supporting role of Penny/Hope after director Paul Verhoeven decided that she was too young to play an aging showgirl. While on the set of "Showgirls", Riffel approached the music supervisor with a song she recorded, "Deep Kiss". The music supervisor tested the song on the production office (without telling them it had been written by one of the actresses) to determine if it was suitable for the film. Director Paul Verhoeven listened to the song and decided to include it in the lap dance scene at the Cheetah strip club. Although an initial box office failure, "Showgirls" enjoyed success in the home video market, generating more than $100 million in video rentals and became one of MGM’s top 20 all-time best sellers. For the 2004 re-release as a DVD limited edition box set, Riffel, along with cast members Lin Tucci and Patrick Bristow, had their hand prints and names put in cement in front of the Hollywood Vista Theater at the red carpet event where they were also interviewed by "Access Hollywood". Riffel and Bristow were also special guests at Peaches Christ's Midnight Mass midnight screening of "Showgirls" in 2008 in San Francisco, California. They were interviewed on stage after the live performance of the Goddess volcano dance performed by drag queens in gold lamé and featuring Peaches Christ as Goddess. When asked if she expected "Showgirls" to produce such a cult legacy, Riffel replied, “No. I went into it thinking it would be a really erotic, serious, shocking expose. People would be sitting on the edge of their seats from suspense..like we did with Basic Instinct. But my character was comical, the ditzy blonde. Verhoeven is a genius, I think he did make the movie how he had envisioned it. Have you seen "Basic Instinct" lately? Even that seems kind of cult campy now…I think it’s a special magic that European filmmakers have. I think – and this is my theory – …that there’s something that European filmmakers have, a punched-up, extreme vibe. Everything’s extreme and more like a fairtytale. And that is what I love about European films.” She is also quoted as saying, “"Showgirls" just keeps getting more and more popular, it’s a total phenomenon. I don't think a film could even try to have this afterlife happen to it. This cult status and celebration is all created by the fans and the people who saw something special in the film. I seem to be one of the only actors that represents and gets involved with the cult status. I think Elizabeth (Berkley) is still upset about how the film was received initially. I think she is brilliant in her role and she should have won best actress at some film festivals, and I think Joe Eszterhas's writing is remarkably brilliant. I suspect because the way they marketed the film, that is what led to the backlash. The marketing campaign was misleading. But at the end of the day, it all worked out for the best. The movie just needed to find the right audience, and it did.” A sequel to Showgirls was announced in Entertainment Weekly Magazine July 23, 2010 issue. Rena is starring in the film, entitled SHOWGIRL (2012). It is a follow-up to Showgirls (1995) and inspired by the original. It was later renamed, Showgirls 2: Penny's from Heaven (2012). "Striptease". Following her role in "Showgirls", Riffel was cast in "Striptease" starring Demi Moore and Burt Reynolds. "Showgirls" was generally disliked and the filmmakers feared people would pre-judge "Striptease" on this basis. To avoid any association between the two films, advertisements were designed to make "Striptease" look more comedic than "Showgirls", which was marketed as a drama. Besides the subject matter, "Striptease" and "Showgirls" did have two notable connections: the choreography in these films were by the same person, Marguerite Derricks; and both also featured performances by Rena Riffel. Widely considered a box office failure, "Striptease" lacked the momentum that "Showgirls" gained in its cult status and has subsequently been referred to as one of the worst movies ever made. "Mulholland Drive". In 2001, Riffel appeared in the David Lynch film "Mulholland Drive". When interviewed about the film and if she “got it”, Riffel replied, “See…I can’t remember. No, I guess it still doesn’t make sense to me. It’s been a while – I’d like to watch it again….one website put a lot of clarity on it with their theories.” Czechsploitation, erotica and horror. After "Striptease", Riffel accepted minor roles on the television series "Married… with Children" in 1997, and "Clueless" as well as the HBO movie "Breast Men" before making a string of films with European director Lloyd Simandl. These movies, referred to by some as “Czechsploitation” films, include "Dark Confessions", "Bound Cargo", "Caligula’s Spawn", and "No Escape". These films, coupled with Riffel’s roles in "Showgirls" and "Striptease" opened the door for her to be cast in a handful of erotic/thriller films such as "The Pornographer" and "Scandalous Behavior" (with Shannon Tweed). In 1999, Riffel appeared alongside cult-film legends Udo Kier, Joe Dallesandro, and Mink Stole in "Citizens of Perpetual Indulgence", a gay-themed comedy/drama/art film. Riffel also appeared in several horror/thriller movies including "Candyman III: Day of the Dead", "Unstable Minds", and "Dark Reel" starring Edward Furlong and Tony Todd. Musical work and current projects. According to the text trivia track on the 2010 Blu-ray release of "Showgirls", one of the songs played during the film's lap-dance sequence was co-written by Riffel. In 2004, Riffel’s song "Geisha Girl" was featured in Oliver Robbins film "Wild Roomies". She also sang the theme song for 2007 E! Entertainment's series, "Billionaire Heiresses", called "Livin' In The Fast Lane". In 2008, she starred in Coheed And Cambria's music video for "Feathers" playing the 1950s character, Judy Feathers. Judy Feathers is the perfect housewife with a secret of being a cannibal, killing then serving the milkman, postman, sailor, and a boyscout for dinner. It won Best Video in 2008 in the UK for the Kerring Awards and Rena appeared on "Jimmy Kimmel Live!" on March 5, 2008 with the band. In 2008, Riffel directed/produced/wrote and starred in the movie "Trasharella", a comedy/crime/fantasy musical. She edited the film herself and her production company, Rena Riffel Films, released the film on DVD through Amazon.com in 2009. When asked to describe "Trasharella", Riffel stated, “It is a satire on B-movie horror films... I went against the grain and instead of trying to make this slick Hollywood film, I just let things be as they were and made it into a really bad grindhouse style exploitation film. ...it's not a dumb film, it's just 'bad'... in a good way. Mae West said: 'When I'm good I'm good, but when I'm bad I'm better.' and we use her quote in "Trasharella"". According to her blog, Riffel is now working on a musical based on "Showgirls". A teaser should be released in the first months of 2010, and the movie should soon enter in pre-production. The film had its first screening in October 27, 2011, at the Laemmle Theatre's Sunset 5 in West Hollywood, California. It played to a packed house who thoroughly enjoyed the 2 hours and 24 minute long epic. The film, now titled, "" received excellent reviews, with references made to David Lynch's "Inland Empire" by Craveonline.com and LA Weekly. "Showgirls 2: Penny's from Heaven" can be seen in art house theatres across the country and posts surprise screenings on the movie website, ShowGirls2Movie.com. Riffel is featured on the Velvet Revolver album Contraband.
1507832	Rex Maynard Linn (born November 13, 1956) is an American film and television actor. He is best known for his role as Frank Tripp in the television series "". Early life. Linn was born in Spearman, Hansford County, Texas, the third child, and second son, of Darlene (née Deere) and James Paul Linn. In August 1969, his parents relocated the family to Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, where his father practiced law. There he attended Heritage Hall and later Casady School, an independent school affiliated with the Episcopal Church, and was employed part-time at the Oklahoma City Zoo. It was in November 1975, after seeing Jack Nicholson in "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest", that Linn announced that he really wanted to be an actor.
1092512	Leon Max Lederman (born July 15, 1922) is an American experimental physicist who received, along with Martin Lewis Perl, the Wolf Prize in Physics in 1982, for their research on quarks and leptons, and the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1988, along with Melvin Schwartz and Jack Steinberger, for their research on neutrinos. He is Director Emeritus of Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab) in Batavia, Illinois, USA. He founded the Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy, in Aurora, Illinois in 1986, and has served in the capacity of Resident Scholar since 1998. In 2012 he was awarded the Vannevar Bush Award for his extraordinary contributions to understanding the basic forces and particles of nature. Early life and career. Lederman was born in New York City, New York, the son of Minna (née Rosenberg) and Morris Lederman, a laundryman. Lederman graduated from the James Monroe High School in the South Bronx. He received his bachelor's degree from the City College of New York in 1943, and received a Ph.D. from Columbia University in 1951. He then joined the Columbia faculty and eventually became Eugene Higgins Professor of Physics. He took an extended leave of absence from Columbia in 1979 to become director of Fermilab. Resigning from Columbia (and retiring from Fermilab) in 1989 to teach briefly at the University of Chicago, he then moved to the physics department of the Illinois Institute of Technology, where he currently serves as the Pritzker Professor of Science. In 1991, Lederman became President of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Lederman is also one of the main proponents of the "Physics First" movement. Also known as "Right-side Up Science" and "Biology Last," this movement seeks to rearrange the current high school science curriculum so that physics precedes chemistry and biology. A former president of the American Physical Society, Lederman also received the National Medal of Science, the Wolf Prize and the Ernest O. Lawrence Medal. Lederman serves as President of the Board of Sponsors of The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. He also served on the board of trustees for Science Service, now known as Society for Science & the Public, from 1989 to 1992. Among his achievements are the discovery of the muon neutrino in 1962 and the bottom quark in 1977. These helped establish his reputation as among the top particle physicists. In 1977, a group of physicists led by Leon Lederman announced that a particle with a mass of about 6.0 GeV was being produced by the Fermilab particle accelerator. The particle's initial name was the greek letter Upsilon (formula_1). After taking further data, the group discovered that this particle did not actually exist, and the "discovery" was named "Oops-Leon" as a pun on the original name (mispronounced ) and Dr. Lederman's first name. As the director of Fermilab and subsequent Nobel physics prizewinner, Leon Lederman was a very prominent early supporter - some sources say the architect or proposer Lederman later wrote his 1993 popular science book "" - which sought to promote awareness of the significance of such a project - in the context of the project's last years and the changing political climate of the 1990s. The increasingly moribund project was finally shelved that same year after some $2 billion of expenditure. In 1988, Lederman received the Nobel Prize for Physics along with Melvin Schwartz and Jack Steinberger "for the neutrino beam method and the demonstration of the doublet structure of the leptons through the discovery of the muon neutrino". Lederman also received the National Medal of Science (1965), the Elliott Cresson Medal for Physics (1976), the Wolf Prize for Physics (1982) and the Enrico Fermi Award (1992). In 1995, he received the Chicago History Museum "Making History Award" for Distinction in Science Medicine and Technology. Lederman was an early supporter of Science Debate 2008, an initiative to get the then-candidates for president, Barack Obama and John McCain, to debate the nation's top science policy challenges. In October 2010, Lederman participated in the USA Science and Engineering Festival's Lunch with a Laureate program where middle and high school students got to engage in an informal conversation with a Nobel Prize-winning Scientist over a brown bag lunch. Lederman was also a member of the USA Science and Engineering Festival's Advisory Board and CRDF Global. Personal life. Dr. Lederman was born in New York to a family of Jewish immigrants from Russia. His father operated a hand laundry while encouraging Leon to pursue his education. He went to elementary school in New York City, continuing on to college and his doctorate in the city. In his book,"", Lederman writes that, although he was a chemistry major, he became fascinated with physics, because of the clarity of the logic and the unambiguous results from experimentation. His best friend during his college years, Martin Klein, convinced him of "the splendors of physics during a long evening over many beers." After that conversation he became resolute and unwavering regarding his desire to pursue physics. When he joined the Army with a B.S. in Chemistry, he was determined to become a physicist following his service."by Leon Lederman with Dick Teresi" (copyright 1993) Houghton Mifflin Company After three years in the U.S. Army during World War II, he took up physics at Columbia University, and received his Masters in 1948. Lederman began his Ph.D research working with Columbia's Nevis synchro-cyclotron, which was the most powerful particle accelerator in the world at that time."by Leon Lederman with Dick Teresi" (copyright 1993) Houghton Mifflin Company Dwight D. Eisenhower, then the president of Columbia University, and future president of the United States, cut the ribbon dedicating the synchro-cyclotron in June 1950. These atom smashers were just coming of age at this time and created the new discipline of particle physics."by Leon Lederman with Dick Teresi" (copyright 1993) Houghton Mifflin Company After receiving his Ph.D and then becoming a faculty member at Columbia University he was promoted to full professor in 1958."by Leon Lederman with Dick Teresi" (copyright 1993) Houghton Mifflin Company In "The God Particle" he once wrote "The history of atomism is one of reductionism – the effort to reduce all the operations of nature to a small number of laws governing a small number of primordial objects." "by Leon Lederman with Dick Teresi" (copyright 1993) Houghton Mifflin Company And this was the quest he undertook. This book shows that he pursued the quark, and hopes to find the Higgs boson. The top quark, which he and other physicists realized must exist according to the standard model, was, in fact, produced at Fermilab not long after this book was published. He is known for his sense of humor in the physics community. On August 26, 2008 Dr. Lederman was video-recorded by a science focused organization called ScienCentral, on the street in a major U.S. city, answering questions from passersby.http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/cosmicvariance/2008/08/26/street-corner-science-with-leon-lederman He answered questions such as "What is the strong force?" and "What happened before the Big Bang?". He has three children with his first wife, Florence Gordon, and now lives with his second wife, Ellen (Carr), in Batavia, Illinois.
591038	Ramaswamy Ganesan (17 November 1920 – 22 March 2005), better known by his stage name Gemini Ganesan, was an Indian film actor who worked mainly in Tamil cinema. He was nicknamed "Kadhal Mannan" (King of Romance) for the romantic roles he played in films. Ganesan was one among the "three biggest names of Tamil cinema", the other two being M. G. Ramachandran and Sivaji Ganesan. While Sivaji Ganesan excelled in films with drama, and MGR dominated films with fight sequences, Gemini Ganesan held his own with sensitive portrayals of the yearning lover. A recipient of the Padmashree in 1971, he had also won several other prestigious awards such as the "Kalaimamani", "MGR Gold Medal" and "Screen Lifetime Achievement Award". He came from an orthodox Brahmin family, and was one of the few graduates to enter the film industry at that time. Gemini Ganesan made his debut with "Miss Malini" in 1947, but was noticed only after his villainous performance in "Thai Ullam" in 1953. After playing the lead role in "Manam Pola Mangalyam" (1954), he finally acquired star status. However unlike Sivaji Ganesan or MGR, Gemini Ganesan was not originally a stage performer, and was never involved in politics. Also, he had not won any National Award for his performances in films. In his long film career spanning over five decades, Ganesan acted in more than 200 films mainly in Tamil, and a few in Hindi, Telugu, Malayalam and Kannada. His performances on the screen were enhanced by successful playback singers like A. M. Rajah and P. B. Sreenivas. In spite of his celebrated film career, Ganesan's personal life – particularly his marriage to multiple women over the years, has often been a subject of criticism. Early life. Gemini Ganesan was born Ganapathi Subramania Sarma to Ramaswamy and Gangamma on 17 November 1920. Ramaswamy's father Narayanaswami was the Principal of the Maharajah's College, Pudukkottai. Early in his life, Narayanaswami was married to a Brahmin girl but on the early death of his wife, he married again, to a woman named Chandramma from the Isai Vellalar community. Notable among Narayanaswami's children with Chandramma were Muthulakshmi and Ramaswamy, father of Gemini Ganesan. His grandfather died when he was in the sixth class and later on, he lost his father as well. After the death of his father, Ganesan, along with his grandmother Bagirathi and mother Gangamma, moved to his aunt Muthulakshmi's residence, in Madras (now known as Chennai). Life in the city did not suit Gangamma, and she decided to go back to Pudukkottai. His birth name is widely accepted as Ramaswamy Ganesan, though it is also rumoured to have been Ganapati Subramanian Sarma. Education. Since Gemini Ganesan's aunt Muthulakshmi was an ardent follower of Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa, decided to enroll him into Ramakrishna Mission Home. There, he was taught yoga and sanskrit and made to read Upanishads, Vedas and Bhagavad Gita as well. He spent a disciplined life at the Home and became an expert in Yoga. However, he could not bear the agony of being separated from his mother, who was residing at Pudhukkottai. Therefore, he returned to his native place and joined a high-school there. Later on, he joined Maharajah's College, located in the same place. However, he completed his graduation at Madras Christian College, Chennai. Early work. Ganesan's dream was to become a doctor. In April 1940 he went to Trichy to see T.R. Alamelu. Alamelu's father proposed his daughter in marriage and promised him a medical seat after graduation. Ganesan immediately agreed and married Alamelu in June 1940. Alamelu lost her father and her elder sister within one month of her marriage. Ganesan's dreams of becoming a doctor shattered. There was no choice left for him but to find a job immediately as he was the only person to support his family. He got an interview from Indian Air Force. Much against Alamelu's wishes Ganesan went to Delhi. In Delhi he met his uncle Narayanaswami who advised him to become a teacher. Finally, Ganesan worked as a lecturer in the Department of Chemistry, at Madras Christian College. Later on, he took up the job of a production executive in Gemini Studios in 1947, from where the title "Gemini" was added to his name. He received an entry to films from the casting department of the Studio itself. Career. Initial years. From the casting department, Ganesan made his film debut in 1947 with the social satire film "Miss Malini", in a minor role. The film, which was based on the story "Mr. Sampath" by R. K. Narayan and cast him alongside his future wife Pushpavalli, was a box office failure as it was considered "ahead of its time", but was well received by intellectuals. Currently, no print of that film exists, making it a lost film. This was followed by "Chakradhari", in which he played another minor role as Lord Krishna. The film was a box-office success, but his performance went unnoticed. It was not until 1953, when he played a villainous role in the film "Thai Ullam" opposite R. S. Manohar, did people take notice of him as an actor. The next year, he appeared in a supporting role in the Gemini Studios production "Moondru Pillaigal", which was unsuccessful. He was then cast as a hero for the first time with "Manampol Mangalyam". The film, which featured him in a dual role, paired him with his future wife Savitri, and became a "milestone in his life". From then on, he carved out a niche for himself in Tamil cinema with films that required a lot of romance but little action. Stardom in south. In his career spanning nearly 50 years, Ganesan played a variety of roles, from Abhimanyu in "Maya Bazaar" (1957) to freedom fighter Madasamy in "Kappalotiya Thamizhan" (1961), and in "Pennin Perumai" (1960), he played a non-assertive imbecile morphing into a well-moulded human being. Ganesan also starred in "Kalathur Kannamma" (1959), which was also the debut for Kamal Haasan, who would later become one of the leading actors in Tamil cinema. The film won the National Film Award for Best Feature Film in Tamil – Certificate of Merit for the Third Best Feature Film in 1961. Ganesan also starred in "Veerapandiya Kattabomman" (1959) alongside Sivaji Ganesan. The film was selected for the Afro-Asian Film Festival in 1960. It was also nominated for the National Film Award in 1960, along with Gemini Ganesan's "Kalyana Parisu", but both lost to "Bhaaga Pirivinai". The ruritanian romance film "Vanjikottai Valiban" (1958) was a high budget film and became a huge commercial success due to much hype. The historical fiction film "Parthiban Kanavu" (1960) won the President's Silver Medal for Best Feature Film, but failed commercially. His 1961 film "Then Nilavu" was the first Tamil film to be shot extensively in Jammu and Kashmir, and became a great success at the box office. He co-starred with rival actor M. G. Ramachandran in "Muharasi" (1966), which was their only film together. "Konjum Salangai" (1962), which featured Ganesan alongside Savithri was released in various countries outside India, having subtitles in over 22 languages, and it was also the first Tamil film to be released in Poland in a dubbed version. Ganesan's best performance is considered to be in his home production, "Naan Avan Illai" (1974) in which he played many roles as seducer of women. Directed by K. Balachandar, this film won high critical praise for Ganesan's performance but according to Ganesan, the film did not succeed commercially. Some of his other best works include "Missiamma", a remake of the same-titled Telugu film, the multi-lingual "School Master", "Kanavane Kan Kanda Deivam, Meenda Sorgam, Shanti Nilayam, Vaazhkai Padagu, Katpaham, Ramu, Thamarai Nenjam", and "Punnagai". Ganesan had paired with several leading actresses like Anjali Devi, Pushpavalli, Padmini, Vyjayanthimala, Savithri, Devika, Vijayakumari, Saroja Devi, Rajasree, Kanchana, Jayanthi, K. R. Vijaya and Jayalalithaa. Bollywood career. Gemini Ganesan acted in a few Hindi films, most of which were remakes of his Tamil films. His first Hindi film was "Miss Mary" in 1957, where he was paired with Meena Kumari. The film became one of the biggest hits of that year. Notably, he played the lead role in "Devta", which was the Hindi version of his own Tamil film "Kanavaney Kankanda Deivam". He also acted in the ruritanian epic film "Raj Tilak" (1958), which was the Hindi remake of his own "Vanjikottai Valiban". He later appeared in a guest role in "Nazrana" (1961), the Hindi remake of his own "Kalyana Parisu", that had him in the lead. Though the film was an average grosser, it was the 12th highest-grossing film of the year. Later years. Later in his career, he switched to little different character roles. Notable among these was the Telugu film "Rudraveena" (remade in Tamil as "Unnal Mudiyum Thambi"), considered one of his best films in Telugu. Another notable film was "Avvai Shanmughi" (1996), in which he characteristically played the role of an old man longing for an old maid, portrayed by Kamal Haasan. Towards the end of his acting career he kept himself busy with elegant roles in television serials, one notable serial was "Krishnadasi". Ganesan also appeared in "Mettukudi" (1996), "Kaalamellam Kadhal Vaazhga" (1997), "Thodarum" (1998), and his acting career ended the same year with "Naam Iruvar Namakku Iruvar", followed by a special appearance in "Gemini" (2002). Other work. Unlike the other two leading Tamil actors of that time – Sivaji Ganesan and M. G. Ramachandran, Gemini Ganesan did not come from a stage background. This made his screen presence refreshingly credible and his acting was not stylised. He sustained his film career without the support of any fan club or backing of a political party. He stayed away from politics, even declining a Rajya Sabha MP offer by Rajiv Gandhi. The only time he got anywhere near politics was, when he organised a function for poet Subramania Bharathi at Ettayapuram in 1963. Apart from acting, Ganesan was also a shrewd businessman and invested heavily in real estate and property development. He was a good sportsman, having captained his College Cricket team and was successful in various sports like Tennis, Golf, and Badminton. Ganesan also worked as director for the film "Idhaya Malar" (1976), that starred Kamal Haasan and Y. G. Mahendran. Acclaim and criticism. Gemini Ganesan has widely been praised for his versatily in acting, having performed a "wide range of roles". He was "at his best" with Savitri, with whom he had acted in several successful films. In February 2006, Dayanidhi Maran had released a commemorative postage stamp of the actor, who he described as a "multi-dimensional personality, who evinced keen interest in Carnatic music, reading, yoga and poetry." He is also credited for having introduced leading Tamil actor Kamal Haasan through the National Award winning "Kalathur Kannamma", where the latter was a child artist. Ganesan also took part in a World Tamil Conference in Kuala Lumpur, notably because he "loved Tamil language". According to politician M. Karunanidhi, the actor had developed a "reformer's mind" because he was raised by his aunt Muthulakshmi Reddy, who fought for abolition of the "devadasi" system. Director K. Balachandar called Ganesan a "director's delight" and stated that, "The advantage of having him as a hero was that he was convinced about the capabilities of a director, he would leave it the director and would not interfere". Lyricist Vairamuthu said, "‘Gemini' Ganesan was not envious of anyone and promoted many actors by recommending them to producers and directors". Despite being one of the most successful actors of Tamil cinema during his time, Gemini Ganesan was criticised for being "fossilised in one type of portrayal", as most of his films were typically "boy meets girl" romantic films. Because of his portrayal of soft roles and him not doing action roles, he was informally nicknamed "Sambhar" by colleagues Sivaji Ganesan and M. G. Ramachandran. He was married to multiple women like actresses Savitri and Pushpavalli, which led to him being labelled a "womanizer". His hostile relationship with daughter Rekha was also a major criticism. He did not acknowledge Rekha's paternity during her childhood. It was in the early 1970s, when Rekha was looking for a footing in Bollywood, that she revealed her origins. Later, at the peak of her career, Rekha told a magazine interviewer that her father's neglect still rankled and that she had ignored his efforts at reconciliation. She did not even attend her father's funeral in 2005, and once when asked about their relationship in a televised interview, she paused with silence and revealed nothing. Personal life. Gemini Ganesan, at 19, married Alamelu, who he fondly called "Bobji". She is his first and only legal wife. He later married actresses Pushpavalli and Savitri. He is survived by seven daughters and a son. Alamelu and Ganesan have four daughters; three of them – Revathi, Kamala and Jayalakshmi - are medical doctors, the fourth Narayani is a journalist with The Times of India. Ganesan has two daughters with Pushpavalli – Bollywood actress Rekha, and Radha. The latter acted in a few Tamil films, but then opted for marriage and migration to the United States. Savithri and Ganesan have two children: a daughter Vijayasamundeeswari who is a physiotherapist, and acted in films as child artiste “Baby Savithri”, and Ganesan’s only son Satheesh Kumar. Ganesan's fourth and last wife, whom he married at the age of 78 was a then 36-year old Julianna. Juliana had left her job and relations, to be near her husband, who said he needed a younger wife to attend on him, as age had caught up with Bobji." Ganesan publicly admitted that he was closest to Bobji, than Pushpavalli or Savithri. The actor had noted in his autobiography "Vaazhkai Padagu", "Somehow, I seemed to attract women who were in distress." Death. After a prolonged illness caused by renal failure and multiple organ failure, Gemini Ganesan died surrounded by Bobji and their daughters at his residence on 22 March 2005, 13:30 IST. He was cremated with full state honours. Prominent personalities including Tamil Nadu's chief ministers M. Karunanidhi and Jayalalitha paid their last respects to the veteran actor. Ganesan's funeral was not attended by estranged daughter Rekha, who was then at Himachal Pradesh shooting for a film.
1184334	Gwen Renée Stefani (; born October 3, 1969) is an American singer-songwriter, fashion designer, and actress. She is the co-founder of and lead vocalist for the rock band No Doubt. Stefani recorded "Love. Angel. Music. Baby.", her first solo album, in 2004. Inspired by music of the 1980s, the album was a success with sales of over seven million copies. The album's third single, "Hollaback Girl", was the first US digital download to sell one million copies. Stefani's second and final solo studio album, "The Sweet Escape" (2006), yielded "Wind It Up", "4 in the Morning", and the highest-selling single "The Sweet Escape". Including her work with No Doubt, Stefani has sold more than forty million albums worldwide.
584293	Podaa Podi (; English:Go Boy,Go Girl) is an 2012 Indian Tamil romantic drama film written and directed by debutant Vignesh Shivan, starring Silambarasan and Varalaxmi Sarathkumar. The score and soundtrack of the film was composed by Dharan Kumar, while cinematography and editing were handled by Duncan Telford and Anthony Gonsalves, respectively. The film started production in 2008 and was released on 13 November 2012, as a Diwali release. The film opened to mixed reviews.. The film total collection is 65 crore amd declared 'Above Average'. Plot. Arjun (Silambarasan), an animation artist living in London with his uncle (Ganesh), meets Nisha (Varalaxmi Sarathkumar) in a London pub. She is an aspiring dancer who is living with her aunt (Shobana). After going around together for a day, Nisha proposes a relationship and Arjun agrees. Arjun hates Nisha attending salsa classes with her friend Mojo as her partner. However, he agrees to marry her. After their wedding, Nisha makes it clear that she still wants to dance and enter the UK competition 'Let's Dance', and make a career for herself. Arjun suddenly discovers that he is, at bottom, a "Pachai Thamizhan" who believes that a woman's place is in the home (preferably the kitchen, but she has the freedom to walk from one room to another if she wants). On the advice of his uncle, he makes her pregnant, so that she stays away from dancing. Birth of their first child brings happiness to their family. They go to Hong Kong Disneyland for their babymoon. After the tour, in a family conversation, Arjun's uncle mentions his "advice" of making Nisha pregnant so that she would not dance any more. Realising that the child was the result of Arjun’s cheap plan and not love towards her, Nisha walks out. Arjun tries to console her, but gets angry when she meets a friend who greets her with a hug. Arjun, who gets immediately jealous, goes and starts fighting with her friend, while she pleads him to stop. Then, a car comes and kills their baby. They separate and live in sorrow. After several months, Arjun comes to Nisha and pleads her aunt to make her come back and says that if he ever has another child (which he definitely wants) it will be only with her. She comes back, on the condition that she continues dancing. However during her practices she become self conscious due to the things Arjun said to her. Her partner, Mojo, refuses to work with her so Arjun tries to convince him to come back. Arjun then ends up beating Mojo, so that she will be left without a partner and leave the competition. She convinces Arjun to be her partner, but his steps fail in the first round. Impressed by Nisha dancing skills, judges give her another chance, provided she changes her partner. Arjun convinces her to do a “kuthu” dance, which impresses the judges. But she is not happy, because they have to clear 14 rounds to win the competition. Suddenly, Arjun decides to make her pregnant again. The movie ends with both of them living with their new child. Production. Vignesh Shivan made a short film and after getting Dharan to compose music for it; showed the film to producers, Gemini Film Circuit, and then to his childhood friend, Silambarasan and both parties agreed to collaborate to make it a feature film. The joint producers of the film, Shanaya Telefilms, released a series of posters in June 2008 publicising the film, while Silambarasan and Vignesh toured in Canada scouting for locations and agreeing a deal with Mayor Ron Stevens to film in Orillia and Toronto. In June 2008, reports emerged that Varalaxmi, daughter of prominent actor-politician Sarathkumar, would play the lead role in the film of a ballet dancer. For his look in the film, Silambarasan worked with Toni & Guy salon and for the initial photo shoot of the film in Mumbai, the producers had stylists from the international brand fly down in August 2008 to give him a new hair cut and styling for his hair. The title of the film went from "Podaa Podi" to "Thiru Poda Thirumathi Podi", before the makers changed it back to the original title. By December 2008, the film failed to start and reports emerged that Silambarasan would re-start "Kettavan", a film which he had stalled before. Poor weather in Canada initially delayed the production of the film, with Gemini Films making a statement in June 2009 that the film was not dropped, after media speculation. The film's delays led to Varalaxmi opting out of the film, with her father stating that he would decide when to launch her in the film industry. Subsequently, the film was temporarily put on hold with Silambarasan opting to prioritise other ventures. The film resurfaced and finally began shoot in August 2010 in London and the team shot scenes in a 45-day schedule, with Silambarasan learning salsa for the film under the guidance of Jeffrey Vardon. The team also shot further scenes in Spain in April 2011, after Silambarasan had temporarily put the film on hold to finish the multi-starrer "Vaanam". A song was filmed in Chennai in November 2011, with Santhanam and Premji Amaren making special appearances in the music video. The film went through further delays after Silambarasan committed schedules to finish "Osthe" and "Vettai Mannan", with the film being touted as a Valentine's Day 2012 release. In January 2012, the actor left for the US to work on his studio album "The Love Anthem", resulting in his ongoing film projects getting postponed again. The final portion of the film is to be shot in a ten-day schedule in Macau, Hong Kong from 20 March 2012 onwards. Silambarasan's one-year old nephew Samarth was revealed to play his son in the film. A song depicting the relationship between a father and son, written by Vaali and sung by Silambarasan himself, was shot with him and Samarth at Hong Kong Disneyland, making "Podaa Podi" the first Tamil film to be shot there. Release. The film opened on 13 November 2012, becoming a Diwali release for the year along with "Thuppakki" and "Ammavin Kaipesi". Reviews. Though movie was greatly welcomed by the audience, Ratings from professional reviewers in newspapers and online journals were largely negative. Malathi Rangarajan of The Hindu said: "More than half a dozen times in the film, the hero says, “Very good Ma!” But you can’t say the same about PP." Deccan Chronicle gave a negative review, saying: "'Poda Podi' has a promising storyline but it goes wayward, thanks to the imbalance in the approach of the director towards the script. It is the gender bias that mars the impact." The Times of India’s Sidharth Varma gave a negative review. "Podaa Podi is strictly a movie for youngsters. The story is lopsided at most times, titling towards the man's point-of-view,” he said. Trade website Nowrunning.com’s reviewer Haricharan Pudipeddi rated the movie . "Undeniably, the lead actors in the film are exceptionally good dancers and one can vouch for it. But, what doesn't work in the favour of the film is the hope that the audiences are fools to flock to theatres to watch 10 minutes of impeccable dance performance in a film that runs to almost three hours,” he said. Rating the movie, Rediff.com’s Pavithra Srinivasan said: “Points are undoubtedly due to Vignesh Shivan for trying to avoid the usual route of a romantic flick, and the dialogues are undoubtedly the movie's plus-point. But you wish he'd actually carried the idea of a culture-clash through the film, instead of stopping it halfway...” In a positive review, Sify.com praised the movie, particularly Varalaxmi’s performance. "Despite the risk of being overshadowed by STR, Varalakshmi is the big surprise here as she makes a promising debut and brings alive her character with not just those smart lines, but with the kind of confidence and candour,” the review said. Box office. The film opened to average collections against "Thuppakki". The film was swiftly wiped off single screens and was holding on only in multiplexes by the end of fourth week of its run. Soundtrack. The soundtrack and film score for "Podaa Podi" is composed by Dharan Kumar. In April 2010, Dharan stated that the soundtrack album would consist of six tracks, further adding that the film's lead actor Silambarasan had sung two songs and that composer-singer Yuvan Shankar Raja would also sing one of the songs. The album finally features eight tracks, including an instrumental, while Silambarasan has sung three songs, of which two were penned by him; a song by Yuvan Shankar Raja was not featured. The title track had been sung by Benny Dayal and actress-singer Andrea Jeremiah. Besides Silambarasan, director Vignesh Shivan had penned the lyrics for four songs, while Na. Muthukumar and Vaali had written each one song. The audio rights were acquired by Sony Music India. A rough version of the track "Love Pannlama Venama" was leaked on the Internet in 2009 and went viral. An official complete version of the track was re-released by Sony Music India as a single for direct download a month prior to the official audio release for promotional purpose. The entire album was released direct to stores on 10 October 2012. Critical reception. The music received largely positive reviews. Behindwoods wrote:"The music perfectly complements the fact that it is a dance based romance flick album‘s breezy songs are also impressive. Dharan is bound to get a good break with Podaa Podi".
582611	Ronit Roy (born Ronit Bose Roy) was born on 11 October 1965, in Nagpur, Maharashtra, India. He is an Bollywood actor and popular Indian Television actor, known for his portrayal of Rishabh Bajaj, Mihir Virani and Aparajit Deb. He currently acts in the Hindi TV serial "Adaalat" as KD Pathak. The actor also owns a security business, providing security to Bollywood stars and production houses. Early life and background. Ronit Roy was born 11 October, 1965 in Nagpur . He is the eldest son of businessman Brothindranath and Dolly Bose Roy, with his younger brother another TV actor in India, Rohit Roy. Ronit spent his childhood in Ahmedabad, Gujarat. Not having been introduced to acting, Roy pursued hotel management.
1103297	Christian Goldbach (March 18, 1690 – November 20, 1764) was a German mathematician who also studied law. He is remembered today for Goldbach's conjecture. Biography. Born in the Duchy of Prussia's capital Königsberg, part of Brandenburg-Prussia, Goldbach was the son of a pastor. He studied at the Royal Albertus University. After finishing his studies he went on long educational voyages from 1710 to 1724 through Europe, visiting other German states, England, Holland, Italy, and France, meeting with many famous mathematicians, such as Gottfried Leibniz, Leonhard Euler, and Nicholas I Bernoulli. Back in Königsberg he got acquainted with Georg Bernhard Bilfinger and Jakob Hermann.
1054970	Anson Adams Mount IV (born February 25, 1973) is an American actor who has appeared in both movies and television shows and is best known for playing Cullen Bohannon in the AMC show "Hell on Wheels".
1040359	John Alderton (born 27 November 1940) is an English actor who is best known for his roles in "Upstairs, Downstairs", "Thomas & Sarah", "Please Sir!", and "Fireman Sam". Alderton has often starred alongside his wife, Pauline Collins. Early life. Alderton was born in Gainsborough, Lincolnshire, the son of Ivy (née Handley) and Gordon John Alderton. He grew up in Hull where he attended Kingston High School. Relatives. Jack Stanley Alderton, (born 1900 in Hull) was one of three brothers and a carpenter by trade. During 1920–59 he built a large civil engineering and building contractor business, known as ‘J.S. Alderton and Co. Ltd.’ based at Felsted, Ipswich and London. Early career. Alderton first became familiar to television viewers when he took the role of Dr Moone in an early ITV soap opera, "Emergency - Ward 10". He married his co-star, successful actress Jill Browne, but they later divorced. He soon surpassed the fame of his ex-wife, taking the lead in the sitcom "Please Sir!", as hapless teacher Mr Hedges, which later resulted in his also playing the character in the 1971 feature film of the same name. In 1972 he appeared with Hannah Gordon in the BBC comedy series "My Wife Next Door" which ran for 12 episodes, and for which he won a Jacob's Award in 1975. He then transferred to another top-rated ITV series when he played Thomas Watkins, the chauffeur, in "Upstairs, Downstairs", opposite his wife, Pauline Collins. They had a daughter (the actress Kate Alderton) and two sons (Nic Alderton and Richard Alderton) and also acted together in spin-off series, "Thomas & Sarah", and another sitcom, "No, Honestly", as well as in a series of short story adaptations called "Wodehouse Playhouse" (1975–78). In the meantime, he appeared on the big screen against-type as 'Friend' in John Boorman's cult sci-fi film "Zardoz", before returning to more familiar territory, as 1930s Yorkshire vet James Herriot in the 1975 film, "It Shouldn't Happen to a Vet". Stage roles. He made his first stage appearance with the repertory company of the Theatre Royal, York in August 1961, in "Badger's Green" by R.C. Sherriff. After a period in repertory, made his first London appearance at the Mermaid, November, 1965, as Harold Crompton in "Spring and Port Wine", later transferring with the production to the Apollo. At the Aldwych, March 1969, played Eric Hoyden in the RSC's production of "Dutch Uncle". At the Comedy Theatre, July 1969, played Jimmy Cooper in "The Night I Chased the Women with an Eel". At the Howff, October, 1973, played Stanley in "Punch and Judy Stories", and played the same part in "Judies" at the Comedy, January, 1974. At the Shaw, January 1975, played Stanley in Pinter's "The Birthday Party". At the Apollo, May 1976, played four parts in Ayckbourn's "Confusions". Post-1980 career. During the 1980s and 1990s, Alderton had few roles, but he narrated the children's animated series 'Little Miss' in 1983 (with his wife Pauline Collins) and, from 1987 to 1994, he narrated the TV series "Fireman Sam". From 1989 to 1992, he starred in the successful series "Forever Green" as the character Jack Boult. Alderton played against his wife Pauline in "Mrs Caldicot's Cabbage War" in 2002 and made something of a comeback in the 2003 film, "Calendar Girls". Then, in 2004 he played a role in the BBC series of Anthony Trollope's "He Knew He Was Right". Also in 2004 Alderton starred in the first series of ITV 1's "Doc Martin" in an episode entitled "Of All The Harbours In All The Towns" as sailor John Slater, a friend and former lover of Aunt Joan. He played Christopher Casby in the 2008 BBC adaptation of Charles Dickens' "Little Dorrit". Personal life. He married actress Pauline Collins in 1969 and lives in Hampstead, London, with her and their three children, Nicholas (born 1972). , Kate (born 1973). and Richard (born 1978). He has a step-daughter called Louise
1057330	Michael Papajohn (born November 7, 1964) is an American actor, stuntman and former college baseball player for the LSU Tigers baseball team. Early life. Papajohn grew up in Vestavia Hills, a suburb of Birmingham, Alabama. He graduated from Vestavia Hills High School in 1983 and went on to play for two years at Gulf Coast Community College in Panama City Beach, Florida. He was drafted by the Texas Rangers in the 1985 Major League Baseball Draft. Instead of signing a contract, he accepted a baseball scholarship to Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. College career. Papajohn was an outfielder for Skip Bertman's LSU Tigers. He was a member of the 1986 SEC Baseball Tournament All-Tournament Team and he, along with teammates Mark Guthrie, Joey Belle, Jeff Reboulet, Jeff Yurtin, Jack Voigt and Barry Manuel, among others, helped LSU make its first College World Series appearance in 1986. Papajohn helped lay the foundation for success at LSU, as future LSU teams would go on to win six national championship from 1991-2000, 2009. Nickname Poppy. Acting career. Papajohn got his start in acting while he was a student at Louisiana State University. Already an athlete, he was hired to be a stunt performer in the film "Everybody's All-American" which was being filmed on the campus of LSU and featured football action sequences filmed during LSU football games in Tiger Stadium. From there he moved on to being a stunt performer in films such as "Money Talks" and "Starship Troopers" and acting in films like "Predator 2", "For Love of the Game", where he plays New York Yankees slugger Sam Tuttle, and "Spider-Man" and "Spider-Man 3", in which he plays Dennis Carradine, the thief that was thought to have killed Uncle Ben; Papajohn also makes a cameo appearance as a different character in the film series' reboot, "The Amazing Spider-Man". He has also starred in "", "Terminator Salvation", "Land of the Lost", and "G-Force" in 2009.
1063720	Land of the Dead (also known as "George A. Romero's Land of the Dead") is a 2005 post-apocalyptic horror film written and directed by George A. Romero; the fourth of Romero's six "Living Dead" movies, it is preceded by "Night of the Living Dead", "Dawn of the Dead" and "Day of the Dead", and succeeded by "Diary of the Dead" and "Survival of the Dead". It was released in 2005 and became a success, grossing over $40 million, and had a budget of $15 million, the highest in the series. The story of "Land of the Dead" deals with a zombie assault on Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where a feudal-like government exists. The survivors in the film have fled to the Golden Triangle area of downtown Pittsburgh. The region is protected on two sides by rivers and on the other by an electric barricade that survivors term "the Throat." Released in North America on June 24, 2005, "Land of the Dead" received mostly positive reviews from film critics. Plot. Three years after a zombie apocalypse, survivors have set up outposts across the United States, one of which, in Pittsburgh, contains a feudal-like government. Bordered on two sides by rivers and on the third by an electric fence, the city has become a sanctuary, with the rich and powerful living in a luxury high-rise called "Fiddler's Green" while the rest of the population subsists in squalor. The city's ruler Paul Kaufman (Dennis Hopper) has sponsored "Dead Reckoning", a heavily armored vehicle that can travel through the zombie-infested areas with ease. Armed with remote-controlled heavy machine guns and video cameras, Dead Reckoning functions as a moving fireworks launch base, on the premise that zombies are fascinated by fireworks and will stare at them, ignoring their environment. Riley Denbo (Simon Baker), designer and commander of Dead Reckoning, has recently retired. Unlike Kaufman, Riley is respected for his work in protecting the city from danger, as well as for bringing critical food and medical supplies which the citizens can no longer acquire safely themselves. Using the moving anti-dead tank, Dead Reckoning, Riley and crew ventured into the neighboring cities that are overrun with zombies in order to procure supplies from abandoned stores and warehouses. One of the interesting things they noticed on these missions is that many of the zombies appear to exhibit some kind of thought process or planning. One such zombie, "Big Daddy" (Eugene Clark), who was a gas station owner in life, is shown to be especially capable of comprehending and learning. Back in the protected city, Riley discovers the man who he bought a car from, Chihuahua (Phil Fondacaro), entertaining his bar's patrons by bear-baiting a hooker named Slack (Asia Argento), to some zombies. Riley and Charlie (Robert Joy) save Slack but kill Chihuahua and all three are shortly arrested. Slack reveals she was being executed on Kaufman's orders, because she works for Mulligan (Bruce McFee), a former co-worker of Riley's trying to instigate rebellion among the poor. Meanwhile, the assassin Cholo DeMora (John Leguizamo), second in command of Dead Reckoning, is denied an apartment in Fiddler's Green despite his longtime, devoted service to Kaufman. Upon being rebuffed, Cholo threatens to destroy Fiddler's Green with the Dead Reckoning, seized by himself and his assistants Pretty Boy (Joanne Boland), Mouse (Maxwell McCabe-Lokos), Anchor (Tony Munch), and Foxy (Tony Nappo). Zombies attack as they are leaving, but Cholo orders his crew not to intervene. Kaufman sends Riley to stop Cholo, alongside Manolete (Sasha Roiz), Motown (Krista Bridges), and Pillsbury (Pedro Miguel Arce). Manolete is bitten and subsequently executed by Slack. Once they come across Dead Reckoning, Riley devises a plan to approach the vehicle alone. Against Riley's orders, Charlie, Slack, and Pillsbury follow him, but they disable Motown and leave her behind on the grounds of her loyalty to Kaufman. Cholo realises that Riley is working for Kaufman and holds both Riley and Charlie at gunpoint. Before Slack and Pillsbury can react, Motown, who has come round, opens fire and nearly kills both Riley and Cholo, before being bitten by a zombie and executed by Slack. With this distraction, Riley de-activates Dead Reckoning's weapons systems and convinces Cholo to allow him escape Northward, while Cholo goes west. Cholo is later bitten by a zombie and returns to kill Kaufman. Zombie leader Big Daddy perceives that the river is no obstacle to invasion, he leads the zombies against the human city, and himself follows Kaufman to an underground garage. When Big Daddy leaves the garage, the now dead-and-reanimated Cholo attacks Kaufman; but both are killed by Big Daddy when the latter causes an explosion. Riley and his crew discover that although most inhabitants have become zombies themselves, some had followed Mulligan to escape. Pretty Boy has the opportunity to kill Big Daddy and the zombies; but Riley orders her against it. Riley and his friends then use Dead Reckoning to leave the city and head toward Canada, firing the rest of their fireworks because they no longer work on the zombies. Production. Earlier script titles included "Twilight of the Dead", "Dead City", and "Dead Reckoning" (the same as the military vehicle used in the film). Romero said in an interview [http://www.aintitcool.com/display.cgi?id=17989] that one of the first potential film studios (20th Century Fox) wanted the film to be titled "Night of the Living Dead". He refused, wanting to use the title "Dead Reckoning", and the studio then wanted to title it "Night of the Living Dead: Dead Reckoning". It turned out that Fox sought to own the rights to "Night of the Living Dead", and Romero decided not to do business with them. The film draws on some elements from the original script for "Day of the Dead". Filming took place in Toronto and Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. Ratings. "Land of the Dead" is the first film in the series to receive an MPAA rating for its theatrical release. Romero had said for years that he would film two versions; an "R" rated cut for theatrical release and first DVD, and an unrated cut for the second DVD release. Both DVDs were released in the U.S. on October 18, 2005. Rumors suggested that Romero shot alternate, less explicit, gore scenes for the theatrical release, but this is not entirely accurate. The more extreme instances of gore (e.g. a woman having her navel piercing graphically torn out by a zombie) were obscured by foreground elements filmed on bluescreen, so that these overlayed elements could be easily removed for the unrated DVD. Other ways to obscure blood in order to get an R-rating were achieved by simply trimming the grislier shots by a few seconds, by digitally repainting blood so that it is more black than red, or by digitally painting the blood out altogether. The Canadian provinces of British Columbia, Manitoba and Ontario gave both the theatrical version and DVD version a rating of "18A", though it was only given a 13+ rating in Quebec. In the UK, the BBFC gave it a "15" certificate for both the theatrical version and the unrated version (The UK "Director's Cut" DVD was rated "18" due to extras being rated higher than the feature itself). In Germany, both the theatrical and unrated versions were rated "18" anyway. As such, only the unrated version was widely available in Germany. The film was banned in Ukraine. Release. The film was met with positive reviews upon release. It was released one year after the remake of "Dawn of the Dead" was released internationally. The film grossed over $40 million and is second behind "Dawn of the Dead" with the highest-grossing revenue (unadjusted for inflation) in the "Living Dead" series, the two lowest being "Night of the Living Dead" (1968) and "Diary of the Dead" (2008). The film opened the MTV Saturday Horror block on February 27, 2010. Reception. Roger Ebert gave the film three stars out of four for what he considered its skillful and creative allusions, something that he argued was pervasive among Romero's previous three installments that contained numerous satirical metaphors to the reality of American life. In this installment, Ebert noted the similarities between the fireworks mesmerizing the zombies and the shock and awe tactics applied during the 2003 Invasion of Iraq and the film's distinction between the rich and poor, those that live in Fiddler's Green and those that live in the slums, something he considered to be Romero's take on the rising gap between rich and poor in the United States. Michael Wilmington of "Chicago Tribune" awarded the film four stars, writing, "It's another hard-edged, funny, playfully perverse and violent exercise in movie fear and loathing, with an increasingly dark take on a world spinning out of control. By now, Romero has become a classicist who uses character and dialogue as much as stomach-turning special effects to achieve his shivers." "The New York Sun" declared it "the American movie of the year." Several filmmakers including Eli Roth and Guillermo del Toro paid tribute to Romero in a "Land of the Dead" special. Guillermo del Toro said: "Finally someone was smart enough to realize that it was about time, and gave George the tools. It should be a cause of celebration amongst all of us that Michelangelo has started another ceiling. It's really a momentous occasion ..." Overall critical reaction was mostly positive; the film received very favorable reviews from "The New York Times", "The Hollywood Reporter", "Premiere", "Variety", "Slate" and "Los Angeles Times". The film earned a 74% "Certified Fresh" positive rating at the Rotten Tomatoes movie-review compilation website, with the site's consensus saying "George A. Romero's latest entry in his much-vaunted Dead series is not as fresh as his genre-inventing original, Night of the Living Dead. But Land of the Dead does deliver on the gore and zombies-feasting-on-flesh action."
584575	Indira Vizha (2009) is a Tamil film directed by film director, Rajeswar starring Srikanth and Namitha in the lead roles. It began its first schedule on 11 February 2008. The film was released on Friday, 10 July 2009. It is loosely based on the Hollywood movie Disclosure. There were some claims that this movie is inspired from Bollywood hit Aitraaz. Production. Noted actor, Raghuvaran, died during the production of the movie; the film became his final film that he had signed up and completed a photo shoot for. He was replaced by actor Nassar. Release. The film was released on Friday 10 July 2009 with average opening. It did below average business at the box office. Plot. The movie revolves around sexual harassment occurring at work. This movie is loosely based on the Hollywood movie "Disclosure" starring Michael Douglas and Demi Moore. The film is the story of Kamini (Namitha) getting back at her ex lover Sridhar (Srikanth) by reentering his life as the wife of his boss, played by Nasser. Srikanth plays the creative head of a television channel Teen TV (though it does indulge in political exposes), who is married to debutant Hemamalini. His life turns topsy-turvy when Nasser reinstates Namitha as the head of the TV channel, a promotion Srikanth anticipated for himself. Following this, it is the simple story with Namitha hurling sexual harassment accusations at him.
32782	Jeremy Irvine (born Jeremy Smith; 1990) is an English stage and screen actor. In late 2011, Irvine starred as the leading character in the epic war film "War Horse" directed by Steven Spielberg and based on an adaptation of Michael Morpurgo' children's novel. "War Horse" was nominated for six Academy Awards, two Golden Globe Awards and five BAFTAs. The movie became a box office success and turned Irvine into an overnight film star. Irvine is widely regarded as one of the most talented young actors of his generation after his breakthrough role in "War Horse" and earning widespread critical acclaim for his role in the independent film "Now Is Good". This has led to critics listing him among Hollywood's fastest-rising stars. Irvine's meteoric rise to stardom has prompted "Vogue" to call him a part of the Brit Pack. He is also well known for turning down big teen franchise films and has been described as Hollywood's most wanted actor. Later work included starring as Pip in the 2012 adaptation of Charles Dickens's "Great Expectations", directed by Mike Newell alongside Ralph Fiennes and Helena Bonham Carter. Other work has included the romantic film "Now Is Good" with Dakota Fanning and subsequently "The Railway Man" with Colin Firth and Nicole Kidman. Early life. Irvine was brought up in Gamlingay, Cambridgeshire. His mother, Bridget, is a politician in local government, and his father, Chris Smith, is an engineer. Irvine also has a little brother, Toby Irvine, a child actor, who portrays the young Pip in "Great Expectations". Irvine's stage name comes from his grandfather's first name. Irvine applied to the British Army at the age of nineteen, but was rejected after lying about his diabetes on his application. Irvine started acting the age of sixteen. He played Romeo along with other main roles in plays whilst attending Bedford Modern School in the Harpur area of Bedfordshire, followed by the National Youth Theatre and a one year foundation course at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art (LAMDA). After completing this course, Irvine spent two years posting CVs through letter boxes in an effort to get acting work. Career. Irvine started off teaching at an acting school, though this company has since closed. Early work. Irvine played the role of Luke in the television series "Life Bites" and appeared with the Royal Shakespeare Company in the 2010-production of "Dunsinane" Irvine was quoted in "Interview magazine" as saying "My friends all took the mick out of me for ["Dunsinane"], saying, 'You're gonna be the tree' … Indeed, in my first scene, I was waving two branches." 2010–present. In June 2010, Irvine was cast to play the lead character in the Steven Spielberg film "War Horse", released in December 2011. The film was an adaption of Michael Morpurgo's novel, also entitled "War Horse". Irvine was selected to play Albert Narracott, the main character, alongside other British actors, including Peter Mullan and Emily Watson—as Albert's father and mother, respectively. During production of the film, Irvine began to be represented by the Creative Artists Agency from July 2010, in addition to agents Hatton McEwan in the United Kingdom.
1048246	Copying Beethoven is a 2006 dramatic film released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and directed by Agnieszka Holland which gives a fictional take on the triumphs and heartaches of Ludwig van Beethoven's last years. Synopsis. A fictionalized version of the last three years of Beethoven's life, beginning with the composition of the Ninth Symphony. It is set in 1824 as Beethoven (Ed Harris) is finishing his new symphony. He is plagued by deafness, loneliness and personal trauma. A fictional character, a new copyist, Anna Holtz (Diane Kruger) is engaged to help the composer finish preparing the score for the first performance. Anna is a young conservatory student and aspiring composer. Her understanding of his work is such that she corrects mistakes he has made, while her personality opens a door into his private world. Beethoven is initially skeptical, but slowly comes to trust Anna's assistance and eventually grows fond of her. By the time the piece is performed, her presence is a necessity and she helps him conduct the premiere from a spot hidden amongst the orchestra. After the premiere, they collaborate and become closer. His eccentricities become more and more troublesome, but Anna continues to provide companionship. She eventually transcribes his compositions as he simply talks her through them. Artistic license. The working manuscript of the score is attributed to two copyists, both of whom were male, not a single female as depicted in the film. The actual copyists neither contributed to nor altered the score, and as shown in the film were berated by Beethoven for any deviation that occurred from the original score. The movie is set in 1824 during the composition of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. Throughout the movie Beethoven is shown to be hard of hearing but quite capable of understanding people who speak loudly. In reality, Beethoven had lost much of his hearing seven years earlier (1817). Beethoven never experienced permanent deafness; his condition fluctuated between total silence and terrible tinnitus. The Ninth Symphony was composed at a time when Beethoven's hearing had deteriorated severely. At this point in his life, most of Beethoven's conversations were facilitated by the use of notebooks. It can be argued, however, that he was also able to read people's lips, evidenced by his insistence that people face him when they spoke to him. In the film, Beethoven makes an allusion to the Moonlight Sonata. This is an anachronism as the Sonata No. 14 "quasi una fantasia" was not referred to as "Moonlight" until 5 years after his death. The reference to the Appassionata piano sonata in the same scene is similarly anachronistic. The Ninth Symphony premiere. Much of the film centers on Beethoven's insistence on conducting his own work, particularly the premiere of his Ninth Symphony (1824). The arrangement of sharing the work of conducting so that Beethoven could appear on the podium and influence the performance despite his deafness, actually did take place. Beethoven's colleague was named Michael Umlauf, the musical director of the Kärntnertor theater where the premiere took place. The two stood together on the podium; Umlauf did not lurk secretly amid the orchestra players as in the film. The tale that Beethoven had to be turned around to be aware of the audience's applause is apparently authentic. For further details on the premiere, see Symphony No. 9 (Beethoven). Critical reception. The film received mixed reviews. On the Metacritic website it received a score of 59.
1060337	Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory is a 1971 musical film adaptation of the 1964 novel "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" by Roald Dahl, directed by Mel Stuart, and starring Gene Wilder as Willy Wonka. The film tells the story of Charlie Bucket (Peter Ostrum, in his only film appearance) as he receives a golden ticket and visits Willy Wonka's chocolate factory with four other children from around the world. Filming took place in Munich in 1970, and the film was released on June 30, 1971. It received positive reviews, but it was a box office disappointment. However, it developed into a cult film due to its repeated television airings and home video sales. In 1972, the film received an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Score. Plot. After school, kids go to a local candy shop, where the owner Bill serves chocolate to the kids. Charlie Bucket, saddened that he has no money, stares through the window as the owner sings about candy. The newsagent Mr. Jopeck, for whom Charlie works after school, gives him his weekly pay, which Charlie uses to buy a loaf of bread. On his way, he passes Wonka's chocolate factory. A mysterious tinker tells him (referring to the factory) "nobody ever goes in ... and nobody ever comes out!" He brings the bread back to his widowed mother, Grandpa Joe and his other three bedridden grandparents. That night, he tells Grandpa about the tinker and what he said, and Grandpa Joe tells him about Wonka and how spies were trying to steal his life's work. Wonka closed the factory, but three years later he started selling candy again and is still unseen to this day. One day, the family, along with the rest of the world, learns that Wonka has hidden five Golden Tickets in his Wonka Bars. The finders of these special tickets will be given a full tour of his factory, as well as a lifetime supply of chocolate to the "winner". Charlie wants to take part in the search, but cannot afford to buy vast quantities of chocolate bars like other participants. Four of the tickets are found by: Augustus Gloop, a gluttonous German boy; Veruca Salt, a spoiled English girl; Violet Beauregarde, a gum-chomping American girl; and Mike Teevee, a television-obsessed American boy. As they find their tickets, a sinister-looking man is observed whispering in their ears, to whom they listen attentively despite their preoccupations with their particular obsessions. Charlie's hopes are dashed when news breaks that the final ticket had been found by a Paraguayan millionaire. The next day, as the Golden Ticket craze ends, Charlie finds some money in a gutter and uses it to buy a Wonka Bar. Since he still has some change left after eating the chocolate, he uses it to buy a second bar, which he intends bringing home. On leaving the candy store, he learns from people talking that the ticket found by the millionaire was a forgery and that one ticket is still about somewhere. When Charlie opens the bar, he finds the real golden ticket and races home to tell his family, but is confronted by the same man who had been seen whispering to the other four winners. The man introduces himself as Arthur Slugworth, a rival confectioner who offers to pay Charlie a large sum of money for a sample of Wonka's latest creation, the Everlasting Gobstopper. Grandpa Joe practically leaps out of bed to serve as Charlie's tour chaperone and Charlie tells him about his meeting with Slugworth. The next day, Wonka greets the children and their guardians at the factory gates and leads them inside, requiring each to sign a contract before the tour can begin. Inside is a psychedelic wonderland full of chocolate rivers, giant edible mushrooms, lickable wallpaper and other ingenious inventions and candies, as well as Wonka's workers, the small, orange-skinned, green-haired Oompa-Loompas. While in Wonka's Inventing Room, the remaining children are each given a sample of Wonka's Everlasting Gobstoppers. As the tour progresses, each of the first four children ignore Wonka's warnings, resulting in serious consequences: Augustus is sucked through a chocolate extraction pipe system and sent to the Fudge Room, having fallen into a chocolate river from which he was trying to drink; Violet transforms into a giant blueberry after trying an experimental piece of Three-Course-Dinner Gum; Veruca is rejected as a "bad egg" and falls down a garbage chute in the Chocolate Golden Egg Sorting Room; and Mike is shrunk to only a few inches in height after being transmitted by "Wonkavision", a broadcasting technology that can send objects through television instead of pictures. The Oompa-Loompas sing a song after each incident, describing that particular child's poor behavior. During the tour, Charlie also succumbs to temptation along with Grandpa Joe, as they stay behind in the Bubble Room and secretly sample Fizzy Lifting Drinks. They begin floating skyward and are nearly sucked into a ceiling-mounted exhaust fan. To avoid this grisly fate, they burp repeatedly until they return to the ground. Wonka initially seems unaware of this incident. When Charlie becomes the last remaining child on the tour, Wonka dismisses him and Grandpa Joe and leaves for his office. Grandpa Joe returns to ask about Charlie's lifetime supply of chocolate, Wonka angrily reveals that Charlie had violated the contract signed before the tour began by sampling the Fizzy Lifting Drinks and thus forfeited his prize, and Wonka dismisses them. Grandpa Joe vows to give Slugworth the gobstopper in revenge. Charlie, however, is unable to bring himself to hurt Wonka and places the gobstopper on his desk. Wonka recants and begs for his guests' forgiveness. He reveals that "Slugworth" is actually an employee named Wilkinson, whose offer to buy the gobstopper (as well as Wonka's tirade) was all part of a morality test for the Golden Ticket winners, and Charlie was the only one who passed the test. The trio enter the "Wonkavator", a multi-dimensional glass elevator, and fly out of the factory in it. As they soar over the city, Wonka tells Charlie that his actual prize is not just the chocolate but the factory itself, as the Golden Ticket search was created to help Wonka search for an honest and worthy child to be his heir. Charlie and his family will reside in the factory and take over its operation when Wonka retires. Cast. Additional (uncredited) performers include Frank Delfino as an auctioneer, Tim Brooke-Taylor as a computer operator, and—as the Ooompa Loompas—George Claydon, Rusty Goffe, Angelo Muscat, Rudy Borgstaller, Malcolm Dixon, Ismed Hassan, Norman McGlen, Pepe Poupee, Marcus Powell, and Albert Winkinson. In an article for the Guardian, Goffe wrote that since there weren't a lot of short British actors at the time, several of the Oompa Loompa players were non-English speakers and that translation for repeated instructions was often frustrating for the director, Mel Stuart. He also noted that the choreographer, Howard Jeffrey, had to adjust dance sequences to account for the actors' shorter legs. Production. Pre-production. The idea for adapting the book into a film came about when director Mel Stuart's 10-year-old daughter read the book and asked her father to make a film out of it, with "Uncle Dave" (producer David L. Wolper) producing it. Stuart showed the book to Wolper, who happened to be in the midst of talks with the Quaker Oats Company regarding a vehicle to introduce a new candy bar from their Chicago-based Breaker Confections subsidiary (since renamed the Willy Wonka Candy Company and sold to Nestlé). Wolper persuaded the company, who had no previous experience in the film industry, to buy the rights to the book and finance the picture for the purpose of promoting a new Quaker Oats "Wonka Bar." It was agreed that the film would be a children's musical, and that Dahl himself would write the screenplay. However, the title was changed to "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory" in order to promote the aforementioned candy tie-in. Screenwriter David Seltzer conceived a gimmick exclusively for the film that had Wonka quoting numerous literary sources, such as Arthur O'Shaughnessy's "Ode", Oscar Wilde's "The Importance of Being Earnest", Samuel Taylor Coleridge's "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" and William Shakespeare's "The Merchant of Venice". Seltzer also worked Slugworth (only mentioned as a rival candy maker in the book) into the plot as an actual character. Dahl, who had rights to the film production, unsuccessfully pushed for Spike Milligan to play Willy Wonka. His next choice, Ron Moody, rejected the part. Jon Pertwee also turned down the role due to ongoing commitments to "Doctor Who". Also initially considered was Broadway star Joel Grey, who ultimately was rejected due to his small physical stature. Auditions were held for a week in New York City's Plaza Hotel, where Gene Wilder was immediately awarded the role. Wilder said that he would do the film only if Wonka first appeared onscreen coming out of the factory hobbling with a cane, only to then lose it and do a somersault. Further auditions were held in New York, London and Munich to fill the parts of the other children and their parents. Filming. Filming commenced on April 30, 1970 and ended on November 19, 1970. The primary shooting location was Munich, Bavaria, West Germany, because it was significantly cheaper than filming in the U.S. and the setting was conducive to Wonka's factory; Stuart also liked the ambiguity and unfamiliarity of the location. External shots of the factory were filmed at the gasworks of Stadtwerke München (Emmy-Noether-Straße 10); the entrance and side buildings still exist. The closing sequence when the Wonkavator is flying above the factory is footage of Nördlingen in Bavaria. Production designer Harper Goff centered the factory on the massive Chocolate Room. The chocolate river and waterfall were created by adding chocolate cream mix to of water, which eventually turned rancid and created a foul odor that permeated the entire soundstage. When interviewed for the 30th anniversary special edition, Gene Wilder stated that he enjoyed working with most of the child actors, but said that he and the crew had some problems with Paris Themmen (who played Mike Teevee), mentioning that he was "a handful" back in the day. Reception. "Willy Wonka" was released on June 30, 1971, and was the fifty-third highest grossing film of the year in the U.S., earning approximately $4 million (on a $2.9 million budget). The film received positive reviews from critics such as Roger Ebert. and Wilder later earned a Golden Globe nomination for his performance. Seeing no significant financial advantage, Paramount Pictures decided against renewing its distribution deal for the film when it expired seven years later. Warner Communications had acquired Wolper Productions earlier, and Quaker Oats sold its share of the rights to Warner Bros. for $500,000 in 1977. WB's ownership of the film helped them get the rights to film a new version of the book in 2005. The film currently holds an 89% 'Fresh' rating on Rotten Tomatoes. By the mid-1980s, "Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory" had experienced a spike in popularity thanks in large part to repeated television broadcasts and home video sales. Following a 25th anniversary theatrical re-release in 1996, it was released on DVD the next year, allowing it to reach a new generation of viewers. The film was released as a remastered special edition on DVD and VHS in 2001 to commemorate the film's 30th anniversary. In 2003, "Entertainment Weekly" ranked it 25th in the "Top 50 Cult Movies" of all time. "Willy Wonka" was ranked #74 on Bravo's "100 Scariest Movie Moments" for the "scary tunnel" scene. American Film Institute Lists Dahl's reaction. Roald Dahl disowned the film, the script of which was rewritten by David Seltzer after Dahl failed to meet deadlines. Dahl said he was "disappointed" because "he thought it placed too much emphasis on Willy Wonka and not enough on Charlie," as well as the non-casting of Milligan. He was also "infuriated" by the deviations in the plot Seltzer devised in his draft of the screenplay, including the conversion of Slugworth into a spy and the "fizzy lifting drinks" scene. Home media. The film was first released on DVD in 1997 as the "25th anniversary edition" as a double sided disc containing a widescreen and "standard" version. The "standard" version is an open matte print, where the mattes used to make the image widescreen are removed, revealing information originally intended to be hidden from viewers. VHS copies were also available, but only containing the "standard" version. A special edition DVD was released in 2001, celebrating the film's 30th anniversary, although only full-screen, on August 28, 2001. Due to the lack of a letterboxed release, fan petitioning eventually led Warner Home Video to issue a widescreen version on November 13, 2001. It was also released on VHS, with only one of the special features (a making of feature). Several original cast members reunited to film documentary footage for this special edition DVD release. The two editions featured restored sound, and better picture quality. In addition to the documentary, the DVD included a trailer, a gallery, and audio commentary by the cast. In 2006, Warner Bros. released the film on HD DVD with all the bonus features from the 2001 DVD. The film was released on Blu-ray on October 20, 2009. It includes all the bonus features from the 2001 DVD and 2006 HD-DVD as well as a 38-page book. In 2011, a new 40th Year Anniversary special edition Blu-ray + DVD box set was released on November 1. It featured the film on Blu-ray Disc, DVD, along with a Special Features DVD disc. The box set also included a variety of rarities and "goodies", such as a Wonka Bar-designed tin, four scented Pencils, a scented Eraser, a book that describes the making of the film, original production papers and a Golden Ticket to win a trip to Los Angeles. Music. The Academy Award-nominated original score and songs were composed by Leslie Bricusse and Anthony Newley, and musical direction was by Walter Scharf. The soundtrack was first released by Paramount Records in 1971. On October 8, 1996, Hip-O Records (in conjunction with MCA Records, which by then owned the Paramount catalog), released the soundtrack on CD as a "25th Anniversary Edition". The music and songs in the order that they appear in the film are: Soundtrack. The track listing for the soundtrack is as follows:
582662	Aag Ka Gola (English translation - Fire Ball) is 1989 Hindi language Movie directed by David Dhawan and starring Sunny Deol, Dimple Kapadia, Shakti Kapoor, Prem Chopra. Plot. Young Shankar is framed for theft he did not commit. He escape from police and run into his mother's arms. When Shankar's mother see Shankar being arrested by police, she dies due to shock. Shankar escapes from police and ends up working for criminal don Raja Babu. He is now known as 'Shaka'. One day Raja Babu ask Shaka to abduct a child. Child's mother dies due to shock. This reminds Shaka(Shankar) his own mother dying due to shock. He repents, surrender to police and sent to jail for 5 years. His three years punishment is condoned when he saves life of visiting parliamentarian. After released from jail, he decide to live life of ordinary civilian and works as garage mechanic. He meets Aarti, fall in love and both marry. But past of Shankar starts haunting him to such an extent that he see no choice except joining crime gang of Raja Babu. Cast. Sunny Deol - Vikram Singh/Shankar 'Shaka' Dimple Kapadia - Aarti Paintal - Shankar's Friend Shakti Kapoor - Inspector Popat Lal Prem Chopra - Raja Babu Archana Puran Singh - NishaOm Shivpuri - Marwani SethRaza Murad - DaggaAnjana Mumtaz - Shankar's Mother Mahesh Anand - Mahesh Sharat Saxena - Natwar Dada Chunky Pandey - Himself
1742450	Plot. A middle-school girl named Mikako Nagamine is recruited to the UN Space Army in a war against a group of aliens called the Tarsians, named after the Martian region (Tharsis) where they were first encountered. As a Special Agent, Mikako pilots a Tracer, a giant robotic mecha as part of a fighting squadron attached to the spacecraft carrier "Lysithea". When the "Lysithea" leaves Earth to search for the Tarsians with Mikako on board, Mikako's friend Noboru Terao remains behind. The two continue to communicate across interplanetary, and eventually interstellar space via the email facilities on their mobile phones. As the "Lysithea" travels deeper into space, the emails take increasingly longer to reach Noboru on Earth, and the time-lag of their correspondence eventually spans years. The narrative begins in 2047. Mikako is apparently alone in a hauntingly empty city, trying to contact people through her cell phone. She finally says, in an empty classroom with stacked chairs, "Noboru? I'm going home, okay?", a rhetorical question which is answered with a busy line on her cell phone. Then she wakes up to discover that she is in her Tracer orbiting an alien gas giant. She then goes to Agartha, the (fictional) fourth planet of the Sirius System, . In the middle of the anime proper, she sends an email to Noboru (which shows the date 2047-09-16), with the subject "I am here", saying "to the 24-year old Noboru, from the 15-year old Mikako" which would only reach him 8 years, 224 days and 18 hours later, and just hopes it reaches him. Some flashes of imagery, perhaps indicative of memory, a hallucination, or even a mystical encounter, are then shown. It is a morphing character that looks like a younger Mikako. While they're speaking however, that character morphs into a Tarsian and then into an older version of herself. The same room where she woke up in the beginning of the animation is presented again, with the same ambience, but this time she is squatting in the corner, sobbing and pleading with her doppelganger to let her see Noboru just one more time to be able to say "I love you" to him. The other being says "It will be all right. You will see him again". The ship's alarm starts warning her that the Tarsians are suddenly coming from everywhere. Mikako cries even more, yelling "I don't understand!". A climactic battle ensues. Meanwhile, back on Earth, Noboru receives the message, albeit almost 9 years in the future. A voice-over dialogue commences between the two of them which functions as a synchronous soliloquy on the same subject. Meanwhile, back at Agartha, three of the four carriers equipped with the warp engines which brought the expeditionary force to Sirius have been destroyed. The "Lysithea" is still intact after Mikako joins the fight and stops its destruction. After winning the battle, Mikako lets her damaged Tracer drift in space. Alternatively, in the manga 16 years old Mikako sends a message to 25 years old Noboru, telling him that she loves him. By this time Noboru has joined the UN, who have launched a rescue mission for the Lysithea. When Mikako hears the news from her crew mate that that UN is sending help for their rescue, she consults a list of people on the mission, Noboru being one of them. She ends by saying that they will definitely meet again. Production. "Voices of a Distant Star" was written, directed and produced entirely by Makoto on his Power Mac G4. Makoto and his wife, Miko provided the voice acting for the working dub (A second Japanese dub was later created for the DVD release with professional voice actors). Makoto's friend Tenmon, who had worked with Makoto at his video game company, provided the soundtrack. Shinkai cited "Dracula" and "Laputa" as inspirations to make "Voices". Media. OVA. The single disc OVA was released on 2 February 2002. It was later broadcast across Japan on the anime satellite television network, Animax. In July 2002, ADV Films announced that they had licensed "Voices of a Distant Star" for U.S. distribution and would release the 30-minute short. The finished DVD premiered in May 2003 at Project A-Kon in Dallas, Texas. The DVD version also includes Shinkai's earlier work, "She and Her Cat". CD. A CD soundtrack was released for the OVA, with music by Tenmon and all song lyrics written by K. JUNO. Manga. There was a manga serialization based on the series in "Afternoon" magazine from Kodansha in Japan. It was run monthly from February 2004 to December 2004. The story of the manga begins at the same point as the start of the anime and carries the story a little bit beyond the anime itself. Makoto Shinkai wrote the manga, with illustration work done by Mizu Sahara. The manga was translated into English by Tokyopop. Reception. "Voices of A Distant Star" film was listed 100th on DVD Verdict's Top 100 DVD Films list. It has also won the Animation Kobe for packaged work in 2002 and the 2003 Seiun Award for best media. Anime News Network's Jonathan Mays criticises the dubbing of the film by Steven Foster. He says, "When ADV began the dubbing process, they handed the job to Steven Foster, an anime enthusiast with a reputation for adapting (instead of translating) the script for a series. The trend continues here, as Foster carelessly omits critical details, completely rewrites some scenes, misinterprets emotions, and even adds new dialogue where the original track had silence". In an Anime News Network interview, Steven Foster defends his decision to change the script saying, "we made some changes to make the jokes more accessible". THEM Anime Review's Carlos Ross commends the film's quality despite having a small budget, saying "The voice-acting is remarkable, the directing is solid, and music is quite competent. But the real kicker here is the animation quality, which actually equals (and sometimes exceeds) that of excellent television series like "Vandread" and "Full Metal Panic". I can think of many big-money productions that can only hope to be half as good. And for how short this anime is, there is a remarkable amount of storyline; the plot is well-written and executed, and never gets a chance to be too drawn out. And Shinkai gives equal time to the slick action sequences and the well-handled, genuinely touching romance". IGN's A.E. Sparrow criticises the film by saying "While film was visually one of the best pieces of eye-candy I have seen in a year or so, it's ultimately a voice track over a sequence of pretty pictures. Don't get me wrong, it was absolutely beautiful, but it left me wanting more". Mania's Chris Beveridge commends ADV Films's use of the video, saying "ADV managed to score very big with this release in terms of source materials by getting the actual original hard drive files that were used to create it. Quite simply, you cannot get any better than that. Working with that, the transfer here is simply gorgeous. Colors are amazingly lush and deep, saturated without bleeding. Cross coloration is non-existent and only a few very minor areas of aliasing occur. The only real “flaw” that I could see with this transfer is during some of the panning sequences up and down, there’s a slight stutter that’s simply inherent in the materials". DVDs Worth Watching's Johanna Draper Carlson criticises the art, saying "the character designs are familiar and uninspired, and the cross-cutting choppy". DVD Verdict's Rob Lineberger commends the music, saying "the simple score infuses the animation with meaning. Solitary piano notes are sluggish, as though the pianist lacked the enthusiasm needed to pick up his fingers. When the action kicks in, it arrives with a sonic punch from 5.1 speakers. Rockets scream around you, birds move overhead, engines thrum quietly in your wake. The soundtrack does what it is supposed to do: transport you to another world". IGN's A.E. Sparrow commends the manga for "a healthy amount of additional storylines, characters and dialogue have been added to this manga" compared to the film. He further comments that manga artist "Mizu Sahara's artwork brings a bit of clarity to scenes that might have come off as muddled in the anime". Anime News Network's Theron Martin commends the manga for having a "strong storytelling which carries good emotional appeal, fleshes out the original anime" but her criticises it for the unimpressive artistry and "unnecessarily adds on to the ending". He comments on Sahara's artwork saying "Character designs were not Shinkai's strong point, and Sahara's are only a slight improvement. Her take on Mikako makes her look a lot taller and at least a couple of years older, while Noboru looks more or less the same but with sharper lines. There's also inconsistency in the shading for the hair of the two leads, especially for Mikako, and some of the shading in other places obscures actions more than it should. Background art, where present, is decent but unremarkable, as are designs for side characters". Manga Worth Reading's Johanna Draper Carlson commends the manga's art saying "the art is denser than in many manga, with toned backgrounds anchoring the drawn world. Faces are often in shadow, suggesting separation and loss. Wordless flashbacks capture everyday moments, such as kids taking shelter from a sudden shower. There’s nothing particularly special about those incidents; their significance is only in their absence, something never to be shared again and remembered more powerfully for that". Pop Culture Shock's Melinda Beasi commends Sahana's art saying, "the manga is absolutely beautiful. The art is nicely detailed and very expressive, and the panel layouts, including the placement and style of dialogue and narrative text, make the story visually interesting and easy to follow". She also comments that "Sahara also spends more time exploring both Mikako’s and Noboru’s feelings about Mikako’s appointment to the Lysithea, which is very revealing for both characters".
1216031	The Pink Floyd and Syd Barrett Story is a documentary released on DVD on 24 March 2003, produced by Otmoor Productions in 2001 as part of the BBC's" Omnibus" series and originally called Syd Barrett: Crazy Diamond (in the US, a slightly modified version aired as the last episode of "VH1's Legends" series in January 2002). Directed by John Edginton, the film includes interviews with all the Pink Floyd members - Roger Waters, David Gilmour, Nick Mason and Richard Wright - plus the "fifth Pink Floyd", Bob Klose, who left the band in 1965, getting their points of view on the original band founder Syd Barrett. The film includes rare early television appearances of Pink Floyd, and home movies.
1375909	Rock & Rule (known as Ring of Power outside of North America) is a 1983 Canadian animated musical science fiction fantasy film from the animation studio Nelvana. It was produced and directed by the company's founders, Michael Hirsh, Patrick Loubert, and Clive A. Smith. The film features the voices of Don Francks, Greg Salata, and Susan Roman. It was the studio's first feature film and the first one produced entirely within Canada. Centering on rock and roll music, the film includes songs by Cheap Trick, Chris Stein and Debbie Harry of the pop group Blondie, Lou Reed, Iggy Pop, and Earth, Wind & Fire. The story takes place in a post-apocalyptic United States populated by mutant humanoids. With John Halfpenny, Patrick Loubert, and Peter Sauder at the helm of its screenplay, "Rock & Rule" was a heavily derived spin-off of Nelvana's earlier TV special from 1978, "The Devil and Daniel Mouse". Its distributor, MGM, acquired United Artists at the time and the new management team had no interest in it so, except for a limited release in Boston, MA., it was never released in North America. It received a screening at a film festival in Germany and because it was funded in part by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, which had obtained the Canadian TV rights, it did get some minor exposure in that country. A hard-to-find VHS was released at that time, followed by a laser disc. The film developed a cult following from repeated airings on HBO and Showtime and the circulation of bootleg VHS copies at comic book conventions booths (with Ralph Bakshi named as director). In 2005, Unearthed Films released a special 2-disc edition DVD of the film. Plot. Mok, an aging yet legendary rock musician, is on the search for a very special voice that can unleash a powerful demon from another dimension. After traveling around the world looking for the right voice, he returns to Ohmtown, a remote, storm-ravaged village famous for its unique power plant (which is also Mok's hometown). Meanwhile, at a nightclub, Omar, Angel, Dizzy and Stretch perform in a small rock band. As Angel performs a gentle love ballad to a mostly empty audience, Mok hears her sing and the special ring that Mok wears goes off, and he realizes that Angel has the voice he needs. He invites Angel and the band to his mansion outside of town. Arriving there, due to Omar's 'charms', Mok loses his temper for him and hypnotizes him, Dizzy and Stretch with "Edison Balls"- a modern drug. Mok takes Angel on a stroll through his garden and tries to convince her to join him. Initially unaware of Mok's true intentions, she refuses to abandon her band. Unwilling to admit defeat, Mok kidnaps her and takes his blimp to Nuke York, where his summoning, disguised as a concert, will be performed. After Dizzy snaps his band-mates out of their stupor, the trio find out what happened to Angel and they follow the blimp in a stolen police car. Before they reach Nuke York, they're caught by a border guard and are placed under arrest. Meanwhile, Angel attempts to escape with the unknowing help of Cinderella, a sister of Mok's goons. While sneaking through the ventilation system, Angel overhears Mok confirming his plans with his computer. At this time, the computer informs Mok that the only way to stop the demon is with "One voice, One heart, One song", but when Mok asks who can do this, the computer replies "no one can send it back". Angel and Cindy escape the building and head to the dance club "Club 666", unknowingly being followed by Mok's henchmen. Omar and his friends are soon bailed out by Dizzy's aunt, who tells them the whereabouts of Angel and Cindy. They follow, but Omar eventually bumps into Mok, who has already recaptured Angel and uses an impersonator to fool Omar into thinking that she is into Mok. To manipulate Angel, Mok then captures the band and tortures them with a giant "Edison Ball" to force her to agree with his demands. He also brainwashes them to ensure that they stay out of the way. The Nuke York concert turns out to be a disaster, because of an electrical failure. Mok relocates the summoning to Ohmtown, where the power plant has unlimited energy. During the second concert, a power surge causes overloads all over the city. The shock also brings Omar and his friends out of their stupor. Omar, still believing Mok's earlier deception, refuses to help Dizzy and Stretch stop the concert, so they alone went on another stolen police car to the concert. However, they are unable to prevent the demonic summoning. Omar suddenly appears, freeing Angel after it is too late. The invoked demon tries to attack Omar; unexpectedly, one of Mok's simple-minded minions, Zip, sacrifices himself to save Omar. Angel tries singing to force the demon back, but her sole voice has no effect. Omar joins in harmony with Angel, driving the demon back through the portal. Mok realizes that "no one" did not mean that a person who could stop him did not exist, but that more than one person was needed for the counter-spell. As Mok scrambles to stop the duo's interference, Zip's brother, Toad, throws him down the portal. The film ends with a cheering crowd as the band is introduced as the newest superstar talent, fronted by a vocalist duo. It is also revealed that Zip is not really dead and the film ends with a sunny Ohmtown. Production. "Rock & Rule" was Nelvana's first animated feature film, and also the first Canadian animated feature to be produced in English. ("Le Village enchanté", a 1956 production from Quebec, was the country's first overall.) The film spent several years in production and underwent many changes from the original concept, which was titled "Drats!" and aimed for children. The cost of production, $8 million in studio resources, nearly put Nelvana out of business. Over 300 animators worked on the film. The animation was of unusually high quality for the era (it began production in 1979), and the special effects were mostly photographic techniques, as computer graphics were in their infancy. Computers were used to generate only a few images in the film. Release. Prior to its completion, "Rock & Rule" was picked up by U.S. film studio MGM/UA in April 1982. Controversy and reaction. Because of scenes involving drug use, implied devil worship, and mild sexuality, the film could only be marketed to an adult audience. No soundtrack album was ever released (though some of the songs appeared as B-sides on subsequent singles by the musicians involved with the film). Commentary on the Special Edition DVD partially lays the blame for the film's lack of release in the U.S. on MGM. The DVD claims that management at MGM changed and the new overseers of the project were not as enthusiastic about the film as their predecessors. This caused script revisions and other changes which damaged the flow of the story, delayed its release date and raised costs. In the end, MGM was still unhappy with the film, so it was shelved. Critic Janet Maslin of "The New York Times" commented: "The animation [...] has an unfortunate way of endowing the male characters with doggy-looking muzzles. In any case, the mood is dopey and loud." This has been cited by fans as an odd critique, since the characters were "meant" to be humans affected by radiation, resulting in them looking like dogs, cats and mice. Though it had a limited theatrical release, the film soon developed a cult following in the United States as a result of late-night airings on the cable channels HBO and Showtime. Alternative versions. The American distributor, MGM, disliked Greg Salata, who voiced Omar, and insisted that he be re-dubbed by an actor with name recognition, along with several edits being made to the film. Paul Le Mat was cast and Omar's obscenities were rewritten. Released under the title "Ring of Power", the revised film was unable to find an audience at the box office, and it was this chopped version that quickly found its way to video and laserdisc. The film was initially broadcast on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation in 1984 (uncut, and including parental warnings). In 1988, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation began airing the original cut, which featured extra footage, a different, clearer audio mix, the original voice of Omar, original shots that where replaced by alternate footage, and the shot of Zip, still alive, at the conclusion. Home media. Original home video release copies of "Rock & Rule" are extremely difficult to find. MGM released the film on VHS video in 1984, and again on the Laserdisc format in 1986. Both of these editions soon went out of print. Bootleg copies of the film ended up being sold at comic conventions but these copies erroneously listed the film as being done by Ralph Bakshi. Soon after its demise in the home entertainment market, copies of the film could only be acquired by writing to Nelvana. The studio charged a fee of $80 to create and send a video copy of the film. On June 7, 2005, Unearthed Films released the film for the first time on DVD. The first disc includes the theatrical cut (sourced from a 'Ring of Power' print) and the second disc includes the alternate cut of the film (though the original print was destroyed in a fire, this is taken from a VHS source); "The Devil and Daniel Mouse", the TV special that was the inspiration for "Rock & Rule"; other features would be the alternate 'Ring of Power' intro sequence and a slightly different rough cut version of the ending. On September 28, 2010, a Blu-ray Disc was released by Unearthed Films and has two versions of the film in one disc. Merchandise. Because of MGM's disinterest in the film, very little promotion was given. The film was mentioned in an episode of "Night Flight", when Lou Reed was interviewed. Marvel Comics published a comic book adaptation with authentic pictures from the film and its production in "Marvel Super Special" #25.
1236380	Harold Perrineau (born August 7, 1963) is an American actor, known for the roles of Michael Dawson in the U.S. television series "Lost", Link in "The Matrix" films and games, Augustus Hill in the American television series "Oz", and Mercutio in Baz Luhrmann's "Romeo + Juliet". He starred in ABC's comedy-drama television series "The Unusuals", playing NYPD homicide detective Leo Banks and was cast as ruthless drug kingpin Damon Pope on the FX drama "Sons of Anarchy". He has appeared in several other high-profile films, including "The Best Man", "28 Weeks Later", "", and "Zero Dark Thirty". He also starred alongside Anthony Hopkins and Alec Baldwin in the survival drama "The Edge". Personal life. Perrineau was born in Brooklyn, New York, the son of Harold Williams and Sylvia Perrineau. His parents changed his name to Williams when he was seven. Harold later legally changed his name back to his birth name, after discovering there was already a Harold Williams in the Screen Actors Guild union. Perrineau attended Shenandoah University, but did not graduate. Perrineau and his wife, Brittany, have three daughters, Aurora Robinson Perrineau, born 1994, Wynter Aria, born on May 7, 2008, and Holiday Grace, born on March 21, 2013. Acting career. In 1989, Perrineau was cast as the original Tyrone Jackson in the world premiere of the stage adaptation of the 1980 hit movie "Fame" (now known as "Fame: The Musical") at the Walnut Street Theatre, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
1253614	Lynn-Holly Johnson (born December 13, 1958) is an American professional ice skater and actress. After achieving some success as a figure skater in the mid-1970s, she began an acting career, including a Golden Globe-nominated role in 1978's "Ice Castles". Early life and career. Johnson was born Lynn Holly Johnson in Chicago, Illinois to Margaret, a housewife, and Alan Johnson, a general contractor. She has a brother, Gregg, and an older sister, Kimberlee. Johnson added the hyphen to her name after her roommate signed Johnson's name that way. Johnson won the silver medal at the novice level of the 1974 U.S. Figure Skating Championships. She gave up competitive skating in 1977 to turn professional and join the Ice Capades, and subsequently began an acting career, making her film debut in "Ice Castles", where she played a figure skater. The film, a romantic drama co-starring Robby Benson, was a minor success in December 1978, grossing $18 million domestically. Johnson, who was described as "an appealing young woman who actually happens to be a good skater who can act" by film critic Roger Ebert, was nominated for a Golden Globe as "New Star of the Year in a Motion Picture - Female" for her performance in the film. Johnson was subsequently cast in the lead role of the Disney horror drama, "The Watcher in the Woods". The film received a limited release in April 1980, but was pulled from theatres and not given a wider release until October 1981. Also in 1981, Johnson starred as Bond girl Bibi Dahl in the James Bond movie "For Your Eyes Only". In that movie she played yet another ice-skater who unsuccessfully yet comically attempts to seduce an unwilling and much older James Bond (played by Roger Moore) only to later join him to stop her financier from giving an important piece of equipment to the KGB. Personal life. In 1996, Johnson quit acting to concentrate on her family; her last acting role at that time was a made-for-television film, "Fugitive X: Innocent Target". Johnson currently lives in the Los Angeles, California area with her husband and their two children, son Kellen and daughter Jensie. In the fall of 2007 she returned to acting in a community theater production of "It's a Wonderful Life". In January 2010, she suffered a stroke.
1092923	Demetrios Christodoulou () (born October 19, 1951) is a Greek mathematician and physicist, who first became well known for his proof, together with Sergiu Klainerman, of the nonlinear stability of the Minkowski spacetime of special relativity in the framework of general relativity. Christodoulou was born in Athens and received his doctorate in physics from Princeton University in 1971 under the direction of John Archibald Wheeler. After temporary positions at Caltech, CERN, and the Max Planck Institute, he became Professor of Mathematics, first at Syracuse University, then at the Courant Institute, and at Princeton University, before taking up his current position as Professor of Mathematics and Physics at the ETH Zurich in Switzerland. He holds dual Greek and U.S. citizenship. In 1993, he published a book coauthored with Klainerman in which the extraordinarily difficult proof of the stability result is laid out in detail. In that year, he was named a MacArthur Fellow. In 1991, he published a paper which shows that the test masses of a gravitational wave detector suffer permanent relative displacements after the passage of a gravitational wave train, an effect which has been named "nonlinear memory effect". In the period 1987-1999 he published a series of papers on the gravitational collapse of a spherically symmetric self-gravitating scalar field and the formation of black holes and associated spacetime singularities. He also showed that, contrary to what had been expected, singularities which are not hidden in a black hole also occur. However, he then showed that such "naked singularities" are unstable. Christodoulou is a recipient of the Bôcher Memorial Prize, the highest award of the American Mathematical Society. The Bôcher Prize citation mentions his work on the spherically symmetric scalar field as well as his work on the stability of Minkowski spacetime. In 2000, Christodoulou published a book on general systems of partial differential equations deriving from a variational principle (or "action principle"). In 2007, he published a book on the formation of shock waves in 3-dimensional fluids. In 2008 he was awarded the Tomalla prize in gravitation. In 2009 he published a book where a result which complements the stability result is proved. Namely, that a sufficiently strong flux of incoming gravitational waves leads to the formation of a black hole. In 2011, he and Richard Hamilton won the Shaw Prize in the Mathematical Sciences, "for their highly innovative works on nonlinear partial differential equations in Lorentzian and Riemannian geometry and their applications to general relativity and topology". The citation for Christodoulou mentions his work on the formation of black holes by gravitational waves as well as his earlier work on the spherically symmetric self-gravitating scalar field and his work with Klainerman on the stability of Minkowski spacetime. Christodoulou is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences. In 2012 he became a fellow of the American Mathematical Society.
960630	Kurt & Courtney is a 1998 documentary film by Nick Broomfield investigating the circumstances surrounding the death of Kurt Cobain, and allegations of Courtney Love's involvement in it. Overview. The documentary begins as an investigation of the circumstances surrounding Cobain's death and the theories which sprung up afterwards. Cobain was legally declared to have committed suicide but has been alleged by some who worked on the case, to have been Murdered, in some allegations at Courtney Love's instigation. As Broomfield investigates the claims surrounding Cobain's death, his emphasis moves from the murder theories and onto an investigation of Love herself, including an accusation that she supports the suppression of free speech, and her fame after Cobain's death. The film was due to play the Sundance Film Festival but Love threatened to sue the festival's organizers if they screened the film. Broomfield removed all of Nirvana's music and replaced it with music from bands mainly from the Seattle area. However when shown on the BBC, the film contained Nirvana's 1991 performance of "Smells Like Teen Spirit" from "Top of the Pops". While the initial focus of the film was to explore the possible murder of Cobain, Courtney Love's refusal to license any of Cobain's music and her unwillingness to speak on camera was used by Broomfield as evidence of her censorship of free speech. Music. Because of Love's refusal to license Nirvana's music for the project, Nick Broomfield was forced to use various other bands from the US Pacific Northwest. Notable amongst these were Zeke, the Dwarves, Rozz Rezabek and the Theater of Sheep and Earth. Synopsis. The film begins with a recap of Cobain's death and the media coverage which followed. Broomfield then interviews Cobain's aunt Mary who helped his love for music when he was a child. This interview is followed up with several from friends and schoolteachers who knew Cobain when he was growing up before moving onto Cobain's relationship with Courtney Love. After establishing the background the film moves on to detail the accusations that Cobain was murdered. Broomfield interviews Tom Grant, a private investigator who has alleged that Love may have conspired to kill her husband, and wants the case re-opened by the Seattle Police Department. Grant was hired by Love, but thinks it was just so people would believe that she was innocent. Hank Harrison, Courtney Love's father, is interviewed, and states he also believes that Cobain may have been killed in a conspiracy organised by Love. He has written two books about Cobain's death. The film also includes interviews with Portland drug culture celeb and former stripper, Amy Squier, about her explicit and personal knowledge of Kurt and Courtney's heroin use, and an interview with punk singer and media sideshow El Duce (real name Eldon Wayne Hoke), who claimed that Love offered him $50,000 to kill Cobain. El Duce claimed in the film that he knew who killed Cobain, but said he would "let the FBI catch him". Two days after that interview was filmed, El Duce was hit by a train and killed. The film also includes an interview with musician and friend of Cobain's Dylan Carlson, who had bought the shotgun that Cobain eventually used to kill himself. Broomfield eventually moves away from the alleged conspiracy and the film turns into an investigation of Courtney Love's alleged suppression of free speech. Included in the film are phone calls from MTV saying that they were pulling out of financing the film (which was completed thanks to financing from private investors and the BBC), due to presumed pressure from Love. There is also an interview with journalist Victoria Clarke (who wrote the book "Nirvana: Flower Sniffin', Kitty Pettin', Baby Kissin' Corporate Rock Whores" with Britt Collins) about how Love and Cobain had threatened her while doing research for her book on Cobain and Nirvana. Broomfield includes clips in the film of the threats made by Cobain and Clarke details the story of Love assaulting her. The film concludes with Broomfield taking the stage at an ACLU meeting (where Love is a guest speaker) to publicly question Love about her attempts to suppress free speech and the irony of her representing the ACLU. He is pulled from the stage by Danny Goldberg, Cobain's former manager. Box office. Riding a wave of controversy, "Kurt & Courtney" opened in one North American theatre on 27 February 1998, where it grossed $16,835 in its opening weekend. The film's final $668,228 gross was respectable considering the film's limited release (only 12 theatres at its widest point), independent distribution, documentary nature, and mixed reviews.
1485576	Bruce Ian McCulloch (born May 12, 1961) is a Canadian actor, writer, comedian, and film director. McCulloch is best known for his work as a member of "The Kids in the Hall", a popular Canadian comedy troupe, and as a writer for "Saturday Night Live". McCulloch has also appeared on series such as "Twitch City" and "Gilmore Girls". He directed the films "Dog Park", "Stealing Harvard" and "Superstar".
813210	It Happened Here is a 1964 British film directed by Kevin Brownlow and Andrew Mollo. It is set in an alternate history in which Nazi Germany successfully invades and occupies the United Kingdom during World War II. Setting. The film opens with the statement: "The German invasion of England took place in 1940 after the retreat from Dunkirk". After months of fierce resistance and brutal reprisals, the occupying forces manage to restore order, largely suppressing the resistance movement. However, due to demands from the Ural Mountains front, most German troops are eventually removed from Western Europe, and the garrisoning of Britain is largely carried out by local volunteers to the German army and the SS. England appears to be governed by the British Union of Fascists (the situation in the rest of the British Isles is unclear but presumably similar); the followers are referred to as "Blackshirts", wear uniforms with the Flash and Circle, and a framed portrait of Oswald Mosley appears in a government building, alongside one of Adolf Hitler. Meanwhile, the United States, having entered the war, stations its U.S. Seventh Fleet off Ireland and begins bombing raids on the southwest coast of England, as well as supplying men and equipment to a resurgent partisan movement. Whether Ireland itself is occupied by the Americans or Germans or manages to remain neutral is not made clear. Plot. Set in 1944–1945, the story focuses on an apolitical Irish district nurse, Pauline. Following an upsurge in partisan activity in her area, she is forcibly evacuated from her village by the Germans and their collaborators and witnesses an attack on the German forces by a group of British partisans, during which a number of her friends from the village are killed in the crossfire. The attack (and more particularly the deaths) later influences her views and decisions. She is evacuated to London, where she reluctantly becomes a collaborator, joining the medical wing of the Immediate Action Organisation (IAO), a kind of quasi-paramilitary medical corps and is re-trained as an ambulance attendant. Although at first reluctant and intent on remaining apolitical, Pauline begins to show the effects of fascist indoctrination in her behaviour. It is a reunion with old friends (an antifascist doctor and his wife) that gives Pauline pause and when she subsequently discovers they are harbouring an injured partisan she reluctantly agrees to help. Gradually Pauline learns more about the impacts of the German occupation and she sees her friends arrested. The discovery of her association with the antifascist couple by her superiors in the IAO leads to her demotion and transfer to another part of the country. She welcomes the move at first, as her new job appears to have less of the paramilitary trappings. However Pauline discovers that she has unwittingly taken part in a forced euthanasia programme and killed a group of foreign forced labourers who had contracted tuberculosis. The film ends with Pauline being arrested after protesting and refusing to continue but before she can be put on trial, she is captured and agrees to work for the resurgent British resistance as they try to liberate the country with the help of arriving American troops. In the finale, Pauline tends wounded while, out of her view, a large group of soldiers from the Black Prince Regiment of the British Legion of the Waffen-SS who had surrendered are shot, a scene reminiscent of an SS massacre of civilians earlier in the film. Production and staff. The film was directed by Kevin Brownlow and Andrew Mollo. Kevin Brownlow would later became a prominent film historian and Andrew Mollo would become a leading military historian. Brownlow developed the concept of the film when he was 18 years old, in 1956. He turned to Mollo, a 16-year-old history buff, to help him with the design of costumes and sets. Mollo was intrigued by the project, and became his collaborator. The film was in the making for the next eight years, which the "Guinness Book of World Records" (as of 2003) calls the longest ever production schedule. It was shot in black and white on 16 mm film, giving it a grainy, newsreel feel (no actual stock footage was used). The audio quality (and lighting) on the opening reel is rather poor, which makes the dialog difficult to follow for the first few minutes. It had a cast of hundreds, all volunteers, with several professional actors among them: Sebastian Shaw, Reginald Marsh, Stella Kemball, Ralph Wilson, Bart Allison, John Herrington, Nicolette Bernard, Nicholas Moore and Frank Gardner. (A number of the extras in the film were members of British science fiction fandom, and a portion was previewed at a science fiction convention in Peterborough.) The key role of Pauline, a nurse evacuated from Salisbury to London, was played by Pauline Murray. According to "DVD Times", Murray worked as a doctor's receptionist. "DVD Times" says that it is "...interesting to compare her to other British leading ladies of the time", in that the 1960s "‘Free Cinema’ movement spillover into features and a British New Wave...[led to...films such as "A Taste of Honey" and "Poor Cow". (...) Tony Richardson’s Woodfall Film Productions (central to the new wave) stumped up the money to allow "It Happened Here" to be completed on a less amateur level, yet the results are quite different. Murray may share the resilience of a Rita Tushingham or Carol White, but she’s a tougher breed, altogether more human." Stanley Kubrick, who was intrigued by the project, donated film stock from "" to Brownlow to help him finish the film. Support was also given by director Tony Richardson. Most of the equipment used in the production was borrowed. Veteran wartime BBC radio announcers Alvar Lidell and John Snagge gave their services free to voice reconstructed newsreels and radio broadcasts. Director Tony Richardson helped to pay for the final production. Though the cast was almost entirely amateur, "It Happened Here" helped to launch the career of its cinematographer, Peter Suschitzky, who went on to work on such films as "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" and "The Empire Strikes Back". "It Happened Here" premiered in September 1964 at the Cork Film Festival and was shown one month later at the German Mannheim International Film Week. In a contemporary review of a showing of the film at the Little Carnegie theatre at 146 West 57th Street in New York City, published in "The New York Times" on August 9, 1966, titled "If the Finest Hour Had Failed: Little Carnegie Offers "It Happened Here"; Occupation of England by Nazis Depicted", Bosley Crowther wrote "The acting by unfamiliar people is beautifully natural and restrained, particularly that of Pauline Murray in the principal role. Through her human and subtle generation of an ungrudging sympathy, one becomes involved in her dilemma and is caught up all the way in the despair, uncertainty and terror of her experiences." Release and criticism. After eight years of production, the film's initial release was stormy. Many people were upset by the idea that the villains in the story were not just the Nazis but their British collaborators. The film seemed to be saying that fascism can rise anywhere under the right circumstances, and that people everywhere could fall under its spell. Research prior to the film from various Nazi-occupied territories (including the Channel Islands) suggested that this was indeed the case. Jewish groups protested against the inclusion of seven minutes of footage of a British fascist speaking against the Jews and for euthanasia. In response, this was cut from the original release, though it was restored thirty years later, after Brownlow regained the rights to the film. Critics claimed the inclusion of this material gives a platform to unapologetic neo-Nazis despite the film's strongly anti-Nazi theme. Book. In 1968, Brownlow published the story of how the film got made under the title "How It Happened Here". The book has been reissued in updated form in 2005 (UK) and 2007 (United States). "How It Happened Here" (re-issued March 2007, by UKA Press, ISBN 978-1-905796-10-6) describes the making of the film "It Happened Here," and the subsequent reception that the film received. In addition to explaining how two teenage boys made a feature film, it also explores the social issues raised by the movie. Brownlow had allowed genuine British fascists to play themselves in the film, which raised the hostility of Jewish organizations. The book contains almost 100 pictures, mostly stills from the film, and an introduction by David Robinson.
502070	Film Socialisme (2010), alternative French title Socialisme, but often referred to as Film Socialism, is a film directed by Jean-Luc Godard. The film was first screened in the Un Certain Regard section at the 2010 Cannes Film Festival, to a widely varying reception, and released in France two days later, on 19 May 2010. It screened at the 48th New York Film Festival in 2010, the 27th film that Godard has shown at the festival. Plot. According to the synopsis on the film's official website, the film is composed of three movements: The cruise ship is the "Costa Concordia", sailing around the Mediterranean Sea. This ship was wrecked in real life in January 2012. Production. Principal photography began in 2008, and the film was originally scheduled for a 10 January 2010 release, but an extended post-production delayed its release. Most of the film was shot around the Mediterranean Sea. The film is Godard's first in HD video and the 16:9 aspect ratio, as well as his first in several decades not be photographed with an intended aspect ratio of 4:3. Though Godard was one of the first major directors to shoot and edit on video, and has incorporated video footage and editing into most of his work since the mid-1970s, this is the first theatrical release from him to be shot entirely in a digital format. As with many of his films, Godard's partner Anne-Marie Miéville worked on the film, other people credited as collaborators being Fabrice Aragno and Louma Sanbar, who also have worked with Godard before.
1067490	The Man in the Glass Booth is a 1975 American drama film directed by Arthur Hiller. The screenplay was adapted from Robert Shaw's 1967 novel and 1968 stage play, both of the same name. The novel was the second in a trilogy of novels, preceded by "The Flag" (1965), and followed by "A Card from Morocco" (1969). The plot may have been inspired by the kidnap and trial of the German Nazi SS-"Obersturmbannführer" (lieutenant colonel) Adolf Eichmann, who was one of the major organizers of the Holocaust.
1057083	Emperor of the North Pole is a 1973 American film starring Lee Marvin, Ernest Borgnine, and Keith Carradine. It was re-released under the shorter title Emperor of the North, and is best known under the latter name. The film is about hobos during the 1930s and is set in the U.S. state of Oregon. It is based, in part, on the books "The Road" by Jack London and "From Coast to Coast with Jack London" by "A-No.-1" (the pen-name of Leon Ray Livingston), although both books predate the 1930s by a few decades. Carradine's character, Cigaret, uses the moniker that Jack London used on the road, and like London, is portrayed as a young traveling companion to the older A-No.-1 (played by Marvin), but that is where the similarity between Carradine's character and Jack London ends, as Cigaret is portrayed in the film as immature, loud-mouthed, and none too bright. The title is a reference to a joke among hobos during the Great Depression that the world's best hobo was "Emperor of the North Pole", a way of poking fun at their own desperate situation since somebody ruling over the North Pole would reign over a wasteland. Plot. Shack is a sadistic bully of a railroad conductor who takes it upon himself to forcibly remove any hobo who tries to ride his train. Shack has an arsenal of makeshift weapons: a hammer, a steel rod, and a chain. A hobo who is a hero to his peers, A-No.1, manages to hop the train with the younger, less-experienced Cigaret close behind. At the next stop, A-No.1 evades Shack and escapes into the hobo jungle, but Cigaret is caught. Shack threatens to kill Cigaret, who is bragging that he and he alone got a free ride. Shack is distracted when he learns that A-No.1 (whom he knows by reputation) has announced that he will become the first hobo to ride Shack's train all the way to Portland.
819517	George Coe (born May 10, 1929) is an American film, stage, and television actor. Career. In 1970 he originated the role of David in the original Broadway cast of George Furth and Stephen Sondheim's "Company". Coe was also an original member of the "Not Ready For Prime Time Players," the original cast of "Saturday Night Live", but he was only credited as a cast member for the first three shows (October 11, 18, and 25 of 1975), often as a pitchman in commercial parodies. Coe was used in several other episodes of "SNL", but was never again credited. In 1979 he appeared as the head of Dustin Hoffman's advertising firm in the Academy Award-winning "Kramer vs. Kramer". He was himself nominated for an Academy Award for the 1968 comedy short film "The Dove", a parody of Ingmar Bergman's films, which he co-directed as well as starred in. Coe is also known for a guest-starring role in ""; in the 1991 episode "," he plays Chancellor Durkin, the leader of an alien planet with whom the Federation is attempting to establish relations. He also portrayed Ben Cheviot, the eventual head of Network 23, in the TV series "Max Headroom". His various television appearances include "Murder, She Wrote, Bones, Judging Amy, The King of Queens, Nip/Tuck, Grey's Anatomy, Columbo, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Gilmore Girls", The Golden Girls, and as Senator Howard Stackhouse in two episodes of "The West Wing". Most recently, he voices the character of Woodhouse the much-put-upon butler in the FX animated series "Archer". He voiced the Autobot Wheeljack in Michael Bay's '. Coe provided voice acting for the 2011 video games ' and "".
1061593	John Derek (August 12, 1926May 22, 1998) was an American actor, director and photographer. He appeared in such films as "Knock on Any Door", "All the King's Men", and "Rogues of Sherwood Forest", but was probably best known for marrying glamorous starlets and for launching the meteoric career of his last wife, Bo Derek. Early life. Derek was born Derek Delevan Harris in Hollywood, California, the son of actor/director Lawson Harris and actress Dolores Johnson. His striking good looks got him attention in the film capital, and he was being groomed for a movie career by David O. Selznick when he was drafted in 1944, and saw service in the Philippines during the last days of World War II. Movie career. After the war, Derek approached Humphrey Bogart, who renamed him John Derek and cast him as Nick (Pretty Boy) Romano, an unregenerate killer, in "Knock on Any Door", a socially conscious 1949 melodrama. Derek was recognized as a talented newcomer, "plainly an idol for the girls," as Bosley Crowther put it in a review for The New York Times. Derek followed that picture with a supporting role as the son of Broderick Crawford in "All the King's Men", the Best Picture Oscar winner of 1949. He played leads in "Fury at Showdown", and as Robin Hood in "Rogues of Sherwood Forest" (1950) with Alan Hale. He also appeared as Joshua in "The Ten Commandments" (1956). But he found himself featured increasingly as a hero or villain in a string of unimpressive B-movies—crime melodramas, westerns, pirate pictures and costume dramas.
1015872	Sharla Cheung Man (born 7 February 1967) is a Hong Kong actress and film producer. Cheung was discovered by Wong Jing, with whom she worked on many of his productions in the early 1990s. Cheung gained popularity with the numerous films she starred in alongside Stephen Chow, in which she was frequently cast as Chow's love interest. They partnered for more than 10 films from 1988 to 1994, including "All for the Winner", "God of Gamblers II", "Fist of Fury 1991", "Fight Back to School", "Royal Tramp", and "King of Beggars". Another frequent co-star is Andy Lau, who appeared alongside Cheung in such films as "God of Gamblers", "God of Gamblers II", and "Lee Rock". After an impressive body of work in the early 1990s (she starred in about 50 films between 1990 and 1995), Cheung moved into producing in 1995 with "Dream Lover" (starring Tony Leung Ka-fai and Wu Chien-lien). However, Cheung was unhappy with it and she remade the film as "Romantic Dream" (starring Cheung and Lau Ching-wan). Both versions opened in 1995. The films, however, were commercial failures, and Cheung then retired from the film industry to focus on various business interests. Cheung made a comeback in acting in the early 2000s to star in several television series. She appeared in such TV series as "My Celebrity Boyfriend" () in 2003 and "Legend of the Book's Tower" () in 2005 alongside Nicky Wu. In 2002, she portrayed Diaochan, one of the Four Beauties of ancient China, opposite Ray Lui, in the television series "Diao Chan" ().
585816	Vinodaythra (English: "Vinod's Journey") is a 2007 Malayalam comedy-drama film written and directed by Sathyan Anthikkad, and starring Dileep, Murali, Mukesh , Meera Jasmine, Innocent, KPAC Lalitha, and Nedumudi Venu. Plot. It is the story of a good natured but irresponsible young man, Vinod (Dileep) who comes to a hilly village live with his elder sister Vimala (Seetha) and brother in law, shaji (Mukesh). Shaji is an engineer and Vinod wants to learn life from him, but end up creating problems for Shaji. Vinod meets a lot of people in the village and learns lessons of life from them, chiefly from Anupama (Meera Jasmine) whom he falls in love with. The film is a comedy, but ends up leaving a message for the audience like a typical Sathyan Anthikkadu movie. Box Office. Super Family Entertainer. It was a blockbuster at box office. Trivia. Mukesh had not acted in any of the movies directed by Sathyan Anthikkad till 2005 despite both being active in the film industry for more than 20 years. When asked about this in an interview, Mukesh commented in a light mood that he and Sathyan Anthikkadu belongs to same Ezhava caste and one Ezhava does not like another Ezhava prospering. Sathyan Anthikkadu immediately called up Mukesh and was cast in a guest role in his next movie Rasathanthram. Thereafter Mukesh acted in the next two movies of Sathyan Anthikkad, namely Vinodayathra and Innathe Chintha Vishayam. Music. The score and soundtrack of the film are composed by Maestro Ilaiyaraaja. The songs are penned by Vayalar Sarathchandra Varma. All songs became chartbusters, however there was an accusation of plagiarism in the background score of the movie.
1098833	Michel Rolle (April 21, 1652 – November 8, 1719) was a French mathematician. He is best known for Rolle's theorem (1691). He is also the co-inventor in Europe of Gaussian elimination (1690). Life. Rolle was born in Ambert, Basse-Auvergne. He moved from Ambert to Paris in 1675, and he was admitted to the Académie Royale des Sciences in 1685. Rolle was promoted to a salaried position in the Academy, a "pensionnaire géometre," in 1699. This was a distinguished post because of the 70 members of the Academy, only 20 were paid. He had then already been given a pension by Jean-Baptiste Colbert after he solved one of Jacques Ozanam's problems. Rolle died in Paris. No portrait of him is known. Work. Rolle was an early critic of infinitesimal calculus, arguing that it was inaccurate, based upon unsound reasoning, and was a collection of ingenious fallacies, but later changed his opinion. In 1690, Rolle published "Traité d'Algebre." It contains the first "published" description in Europe of the Gaussian elimination algorithm, which Rolle called the method of substitution. Some examples of the method had previously appeared in algebra books, and Isaac Newton had previously described the method in his lecture notes, but Newton's lesson was not published until 1707. Rolle's statement of the method seems not to have been noticed in so far as the lesson for Gaussian elimination that was taught in 18 and 19th century algebra textbooks owes more to Newton than to Rolle. Rolle is best known for Rolle's theorem in differential calculus. Rolle had used the result in 1690, and he proved it (by the standards of the time) in 1691. Given his animosity to infinitesimals it is fitting that the result was couched in terms of algebra rather than analysis. Only in the 18th century was the theorem interpreted as a fundamental result in differential calculus. Indeed, it is needed to prove both the mean value theorem and the existence of Taylor series. As the importance of the theorem grew, so did the interest in identifying the origin, and it was finally named "Rolle's theorem" in the 19th century. Barrow-Green remarks that the theorem might well have been named for someone else had not a few copies of Rolle's 1691 publication survived. Critique of infinitesimal calculus. In a criticism of infinitesimal calculus that predated George Berkeley's, Rolle presented a series of papers at the French academy, alleging that the use of the methods of infinitesimal calculus leads to errors. Specifically, he presented an explicit algebraic curve, and alleged that some of its local minima are missed when one applies the methods of infinitesimal calculus. Pierre Varignon responded by pointing out that Rolle had misrepresented the curve, and that the alleged local minima are in fact singular points with a vertical tangent.
582249	Zakhm (Devanagari: ज़ख़्म; English: "wound") is a 1998 Hindi drama film directed by Mahesh Bhatt, starring Ajay Devgan, Pooja Bhatt, Sonali Bendre, Kunal Khemu and Nagarjuna Akkineni. The movie depicts tension between religions in Indian society. This movie is closely based on Mahesh Bhatt's own life, and it explores the relationship between Bhatt and his mother. Plot. Music director Ajay (Ajay Devgan) argues with his wife, Sonia (Sonali Bendre) over whether to give birth to their child in a foreign country or in India (because of the insecurity caused by the Mumbai riots).
1063291	Ronald N. "Ron" Perlman (born April 13, 1950) is an American television, film and voice actor. He is known for having played Vincent in the TV series "Beauty and the Beast" (for which he won a Golden Globe), Slade in the animated series "Teen Titans" and Clarence "Clay" Morrow in "Sons of Anarchy". He has starred in the Guillermo del Toro films "Cronos", "Blade II", and as the comic book character Hellboy in both 2004's "Hellboy" and its 2008 sequel "". He has also played Mr. Kellerman in an episode of "Charmed" titled Wrestling with Demons and as the narrator of the post-apocalyptic game series "Fallout". In 2010, he provided the voice of the Stabbington brothers in "Tangled", Disney's animated film adaptation of "Rapunzel". He narrated the television series "1000 Ways to Die" on Spike. In July 2013, he appeared as Hannibal Chau in del Toro's film "Pacific Rim". Early life. Perlman was born in Washington Heights, New York, to a Jewish family. His mother, Dorothy, was a municipal employee, and his father was a jazz drummer and repairman. Perlman stated in a 1988 interview that "It was not a bad childhood but...I had a perception of myself that was, I was terribly overweight as a young kid, and it was sort of a low self image." Perlman continued to say that this experience is one thing that attracts him to "playing these sorts of deformed people who are very endearing". Perlman was also made fun of for looking like a monkey, which also significantly lowered his self-esteem. He attended George Washington High School and later Lehman College in New York City in 1971, which did not have a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Theatre at that time. He has said that he and his father were "very close", and that it was his father, after seeing Perlman in a college production of "Guys and Dolls", who told Perlman, "You have to do this... You understand this? You gotta do this." Perlman says, "So, he gave me permission to be an actor...wow." Perlman attended the University of Minnesota, where he graduated with a master's degree in theater arts in 1973. Career. Perlman made his feature film debut in Jean-Jacques Annaud's film "Quest for Fire" (1981). After various minor and supporting roles in films and television series, his breakthrough role came when he played Vincent in the TV series "Beauty and the Beast", opposite Linda Hamilton from 1987 to 1990. This earned him a Golden Globe for Best Performance by an Actor in a Television Series in 1989. He went on to play roles in many films and television series throughout the 1980s and 1990s as well as the 2000s. His most notable film appearances were in films such as "The Name of the Rose" (1986), "Romeo is Bleeding" (1993), "The Adventures of Huck Finn" (1993), ' (1994), "The Last Supper" (1995), "The Island of Dr. Moreau" (1996), "Alien Resurrection" (1997), "Enemy at the Gates" (2001), "Blade II" and "Star Trek Nemesis" (both 2002) and two Stephen King story-to-movie adaptations, "Sleepwalkers" and "Desperation". His appearances in television series include ', "The Outer Limits" and "The Magnificent Seven". He played his first leading film role in 1995, when he played "One" in Jean-Pierre Jeunet and Marc Caro's French-language "The City of Lost Children". In 2003, Perlman starred in a commercial for Stella Artois beer. This commercial, which was called "Devil's Island," won a Silver Award at the 2003 British Advertising Awards. He got another leading film role in 2004 when he played the title role in the comic book adaptation "Hellboy". Perlman reprised his role as Hellboy in "", released on July 11, 2008. In 2008, Perlman joined the cast of the TV show "Sons of Anarchy" on FX playing Clay Morrow, the president of the motorcycle club and the protagonist's stepfather. Roles that required make-up. Perlman is known for playing roles which require make-up, some to the point where his entire body is covered or his face requires full facial prosthetics. Some examples include his first film role in "Quest for Fire", where he played a Neanderthal, "The Name of the Rose" where he plays a disfigured hunchback, "Beauty and The Beast", where he played Vincent, a man with the face of a half-man half-lion-like beast, "The Island of Dr. Moreau" where he plays a half man/half animal, ' in which he is the Reman viceroy and the "Hellboy" films where he plays the titular demon. He even gave his "Beauty and The Beast" co-star Armin Shimerman advice when Shimerman was going to be in full-facial prosthetics as Quark for '. Voice-over work. Perlman also has a successful career as a voice actor in addition to his onscreen acting, having portrayed characters in numerous video games and animated series. These include Casper High teacher Mr. Lancer in "Danny Phantom", Kurtis Stryker in ', Justice in "Afro Samurai" and various characters in DC Comics based series such as the villainous Slade, a version of DC character Deathstroke the Terminator, in the "Teen Titans" animated series, Clayface in ', Jax-Ur in ', Sozin in '"", Orion in "Justice League" and "Justice League Unlimited", Killer Croc, Rumor, Bane in "The Batman", Doctor Double X in ', and Sinestro in "". His video game credits include Fleet Admiral Lord Terrence Hood, who commands Earth's space defenses against the Covenant in the games "Halo 2" and "Halo 3", Jagger Valance in ', and Batman in "Justice League Heroes". He is well known by "Fallout" fans for narrating the introductory movies in the series, including uttering the famous phrase "War. War never changes." He also voices "Slade" in the 2008 "Turok" game, and Emil Blonsky/Abomination in ', "Conan" for the PS3 and Xbox 360, and voices the fast-talking Mayor Hoodoo Brown in the Neversoft game "Gun". Personal life. He has been married to Opal Stone Perlman since February 14, 1981; they have two children, a daughter, Blake Amanda (born 1984), and a son, Brandon Avery (born 1990). Perlman has volunteered as an actor with the Young Storytellers Program. On July 9, 2012 he supported the Make-A-Wish foundation by fulfilling a boy's dream to meet him dressed in full, film-ready makeup as Hellboy.
1166270	Kenneth "Ken" Davitian ( "Geğam Davt'yan") (born June 19, 1953) is an American actor of Armenian descent, who is best known for his role as Borat's producer (Azamat Bagatov) in the 2006 comedy film "", in which he speaks Armenian throughout the film. Early life and education. Kenneth Davitian was born on June 19, 1953 in an Armenian-American family in East Los Angeles. His teenage idol was Burt Reynolds, who greatly influenced his choice of becoming an actor. Restaurant ventures. Davitian founded a restaurant in 2003 called the Dip, which was located in Los Angeles. His son Robert runs his baseball-themed hot dog restaurant "The Infield" in Sherman Oaks, CA, which boasts a hot dog, conceived by Charlie Sheen, called the "Charlie Sheen Dog with Tiger Blood".
591363	Veerana (Creepy Forest) is an Indian horror film, produced by the Ramsay Brothers in 1988. It is known for its Mario Bava-like use of coloured gels mixed with atmospheric sets. The music was composed by Bappi Lahiri and sung by Suman Kalyanpur, Munna Aziz and Sharon Prabhakar. Plot. Thakur Mahender Pratap Singh (Kulbhushan Kharbanda) finds out that a witch is creating havoc in an adjoining forest. His younger brother Sameer Pratap (Vijayendra Ghatge) decides to go on a witch hunt. While driving his car through the middle of the lonely forest, he meets a beautiful young woman, just as one villager had described. The woman gets a lift in Sameer's car. They arrive at the old mansion which is located behind the lake in the forest. Sameer uses his clever seductive tactics and gets the lady to bathe with him in the bathtub. Then diverting her attention by pretending to be physically intimate with her he snatches the bat locket from her neck. The lady transforms into the hideous witch that she really is. Sameer renders her weak and helpless by holding a holy Om in front of her. The witch is taken to the outskirts of the village and the locals along with orders of the Thakur Mahender Pratap Singh hang her to death. A tantric manages to steal back her body along with all his followers in the dead of the night, and takes it to the shrine, where he keeps it in a sarcophagus and promises to provide her a new body. Some days pass off happily and peacefully, with the brothers sharing merry hours together and both the children Jasmin and Sahila being lovingly nurtured by Preeti, who is the mother of Sahila and wife of Sameer and loves the brother-in-law's daughter equally. Then, one fine day during the wee morning hours, Chotte Thakur Sahaab is being shown going to Mussoorie to drop his niece, Jasmin, at her boarding school. When they're crossing the lonely stretch of the forest (Veerana), the car overheats and stops. The uncle asks his little girl to wait in the car for him and leaves to fetch some water for the radiator. However, the tantric suddenly creeps out from behind a bush, hypnotizes the girl, and by cutting a piece of her frock and few strands of her hair makes a doll from it. He then places the glass bottle holding this doll in the witch's sarcophagus. Jasmin gets out of the car in the hypnotized state of mind and walks over to the shrine. Meanwhile, the uncle comes back with the water tin and is shocked not to find the child in the car. He follows her trail and is astonished to find himself going off deep inside the forbidden bush path. On the other side, the girl walks inside the devil's lair and comes to a standstill in front of the witch's tomb. In a shocking moment, the witch reaches out and pulls the kid over inside with her. The uncle tries to save his child but is late in opening the sarcophagus. By that time, the witch's evil spirit already manages to enter the girl's body. Thus, the uncle is rendered helpless as being badly outnumbered by the tantrik's men and is unable to save his little niece. The tantric then brings Jasmin back to her dad Mahender Pratap's mansion. The tantric informs Mahendra's family about the death of his brother due to a violent storm in the forest. After taking the child back to her room and putting her to sleep, Bade Thakur Saab leaves 2-3 servants in charge of the child and goes downstairs to meet the Baba. Baba asks for the thakur's permission to leave but the thakur requests the tantric to stay back as the caretaker of his daughter, since he has saved his child's life. However, the Chotte Thakur's wife, Rama Vij, gradually notices something different in Jasmin's behaviour. The changed behaviour of the child entices the aunt to talk to her brother-in-law regarding the weird changes in their girl and tries to convince him to get some witch-doctor to treat Jasmin. However, the witch, who's possessed the child, overhears this and kills her aunt Preeti by hanging her in Jasmin's bedroom by the ceiling fan that very night. The Thakur, horrified by this incident, then decides to send his little niece Sahila, the newly orphaned child, to Mumbai to stay with her grandmother so that she can be safe and stay protected from the ominous situations. After 12 years, the Thakur receives a letter from his niece Sahila.He's very happy on the fact that she has come first in her inter-mediate examinations. During the time that has passed, Jasmine grows up into a stunningly beautiful young girl who spends most of her time alone locked away inside her bedroom or occasionally wandering into wilderness. She tends to be moody and lost in her own world, making her father worry all the time. Thakur saheb informs the tantric that his niece has topped her exams and he's planning to call her to Chandan Nagar to spend her summer vacation at the haveli. The tantric directs one of his faithful servants to kidnap the niece, Sahila so that she would not reach her ancestral home.On the other side, a man attacks Sahila's car and chases after her. Her second cousin Satish, (Satish Shah) shouts for help. Here the hero marks his entry and Hemant, played by (Hemant Birje), turns up to rescue the damsel in distress. He manages to send the monster packing and saves sahila. Back at the village, Jasmin meets a new young man at the city petrol station who is a mechanics professional and repairs her car faults expertly. She is impressed by him and asks him to come over at the old mansion located behind the bank of the lake that night for a picnic. When the man reaches over there, she welcomes him and they both drink and dine together. Due to over-intoxication, this man forces himself on jasmin and they both have a hasty one-night stand. After some time around midnight, the man gains consciousness and wakes up. He is scared to see Jasmin's eyes all grey and the girl not moving her eyelids at all. He tries to run away but again falls on the bed. Then the girl wakes up, the witch taking control of her, takes a silver dagger and stabs the man to death. Then Jasmin hastily returns home in the darkness. His body is found by the police next morning but as no one recognises him, the investigations stop over there. Hemant and Sahila get close to each other during the journey and they both reach the Haveli together. Thakur saab is very happy to see Sahila and when he hears the story of how she was helped out of the tight spot by Hemant, gets impressed by the handsome and burly young boy and readily gives him a big job in the timber factory. He also accepts Hemant as his son and family member. However, murders continue. One evening, Jasmin takes a lift in a drunk man's car and then, after crossing some distance, the witch's spirit kills the man by tearing through his neck. One night, Sahila decides to sleep with Jasmin in their old bedroom and she suddenly notices something very strange and frightening in her elder sister and informs her uncle and Hemant. The Thakur decides to send his daughter Jasmin, for a psychiatric evaluation to his old friend who is a noted psychiatrist. Under hypnosis, Jasmin recounts the incident in her past and she transforms into a completely different person. Her voice changes and she threateningly vows to kill everybody from Thakur Mahendra Pratap's family. The Thakur refuses to believe the doctor when he informs him about his daughter being possessed. However, due to their old family relation and bosom friendship, the doctor promises to stay and treat the young girl. The doctor also asks Sahila's friend Hemant to pretend to be close to Jasmin so that the truth comes to light but they both fail in their attempts. However, one night, on seeing weird shadows and smoke coming out of Jasmin's bedroom, the doctor walks inside and sees the witch's grossly frightening face. He tries to warn the thakur but thakur refuses to believe the doctor. The doctor runs away from the house to save his life but is mocked at by the servant man, raghu while departing from the mansion. In a huff, the doctor shuns raghu and leaves from the haveli as Jasmin looks at him with a strange victorious smile on her face standing in the balcony. While the doctor is driving his car at a breakneck speed through the old village lanes, he takes a wrong turn in confusion, bangs on a tree and stops right in middle of the lonely forest. The witch, who is lying in wait for him, suddenly comes out from the dark shadows and while the doctor is barely conscious to look at her with wide shocked eyes, pierces his body and brutally kills him. The servant Raghu(Gulshan Grover), is the next to die. He is killed when out of the witch's fear he decides to sleep in the factory at night instead of going to the haveli. Then Hemant and Sahila while discussing the killings with satish, take out the topic of Baba. Hemant decides to follow the servant (tantric) along with Sahila on a hunch. They both chase him to the Veerana. But they get captured and Sahila discovers that her father is alive. Satish Shah, in a twist of events, reaches the Veerana and rescues all of them. Now, Sameer thakur goes straight home to his brother with the children. Thakur saab is thrilled to see his dear brother hale and hearty. Then Sahila and Hemant relate the story of Baba's plots and Sameer informs his brother of the plan that helped the Baba make the witch's evil spirit possess Jasmin and turn her into a living nightmare. In the meantime, the tantric plans to kill Jasmin on amavasya so that the witch can be reborn and attain immortality. He takes her from the haveli to the devil's lair and prepares her for the sacrificial ritual. But the family manages to reach the scene. Jasmin is saved by making the witch leave her body by destroying the bottle containing her voodoo doll. But, by sheer ill luck, Bade thakur saheb loses his life to grant his daughter happiness and a long survival. The family briefly grieves and somehow, as now the witch has got her spirit back in her own foul body, succeeds in locking the witch inside sarcophagus with the help of the holy Om.
900146	Zombie Holocaust, (Original title: Zombi Holocaust) also known as Zombie 3 and Doctor Butcher, M.D., is a 1979 Italian zombie movie, directed by Marino Girolami. Plot. In New York City a hospital worker is found to have been devouring bodies in the morgue. Morgue assistant and anthropology expert Lori (Alexandra Delli Colli) discovers he was from the Asian Molucca islands where she grew up. Dr. Peter Chandler (Ian McCulloch) investigates, and he and Lori discover that similar corpse mutilations have occurred in other city hospitals, where immigrants from this region are working. Peter leads an expedition to the islands to investigate, where he liaises with Doctor Obrero. Included are his assistant George, George's eager journalist girlfriend Susan, Lori, local boatsman Molotto assigned by Obrero, and three guides. The crew are hunted by cannibals and zombies, the latter created by the sinister Doctor Obrero who is experimenting with corpses. Lori is accepted as queen of the cannibals, and sends them off against the mad scientist and his zombie army. Production. Following the success of "Zombi 2" (1979) and "Emanuelle and the Last Cannibals" (1977), producer Fabrizio De Angelis came up with the idea of cashing in on both films' subjects at the same time. He reused the basic story of "Zombi 2" and added elements of cannibal films to come up with "Zombie Holocaust". The film depicted zombies and cannibals clashing on a south-east Asian island. The zombies of this film physically resemble those of "Zombi 2" but they do not consume flesh. In this film it is the island native people that hunt, kill, and consume humans. Release. The film was slightly re-edited and released theatrically in the United States as "Doctor Butcher, M.D." by Aquarius Releasing in 1982. The DVD was released on May 21, 2002 by Shriek Show. It can be purchased separately or in a triple feature package. The Zombie Pack, Vol. 2 contains "Zombie Holocaust", "", and "Flesheater". It was released on Blu-ray for the first time by Shriek Show on 28 June 2011 in USA. The film was released uncut on UK DVD & VHS on January 29, 2001 by Stonevision. It was reissued on the Dead of Night label in 2004 and again in 2010 by Beyond Terror. Alternate versions. Zombi Holocaust was re-edited for U.S. release as Doctor Butcher, M.D. This version contained a 2½ minute sequence from an unfinished American film, and a different music score. Certain scenes were also re-edited for pacing reasons. This version also contains a 5 minute sequence presented on Shriek Show's DVD as a deleted scene. The deleted scene also appears in certain foreign prints, one of which runs 86 minutes.
1066817	How to Steal a Million is a 1966 heist comedy film, directed by William Wyler and starring Audrey Hepburn, Peter O'Toole, Eli Wallach and Hugh Griffith. The picture is set and was filmed in France, though the characters speak entirely in English. Audrey Hepburn's clothes were designed by Givenchy. Plot. Charles Bonnet (Hugh Griffith) is selling a famous portrait by Cézanne at an auction. His daughter, Nicole (Audrey Hepburn), is driving on her way home when she hears over the radio that her father's painting sold at the auction for $515,000. Nicole rushes home and, in a secret room in the house, confronts her father about the sale. It is revealed that Charles is an art forger, and the sold Cézanne was a fake he created. He shows her a Vincent van Gogh portrait that he has finished copying and mentions a sculpture of the Cellini Venus forged by her grandfather. Their conversation is interrupted by the arrival of the curator of Kléber-Lafayette Museum. Charles tells Nicole he is loaning the statue to the museum for their upcoming exhibition. The curator soon leaves, and Nicole argues with her father as she is concerned that the Venus may be tested for authenticity. Charles doesn't seem to care and insists that nobody will find out, since the museum has no reason to test the sculpture. That night, Nicole is home alone while Charles is at the exhibition's opening event. While in bed she hears a noise coming from downstairs. She sneaks down to the foyer with a gun and finds Simon Dermmot (Peter O'Toole) holding the Van Gogh that her father made. Believing him to be a burglar, Nicole aims the gun at Simon and makes him return the painting to the wall, then goes to call the police. He convinces her not to, but when Nicole puts down the gun it accidentally discharges, shooting him in the arm. After cleaning his wound, he guilt-trips Nicole into driving him home, then kisses her goodbye outside his hotel. Nicole returns home in a daze, and tells her father, who is back home, about the robbery. She tells him that she let him go because she didn't want a police investigation around his fake masterpiece. Meanwhile, Simon examines a paint fragment he took from the fake Van Gogh painting in his hotel room. It is later revealed he was hired to investigate whether the painting is real, or a forgery by Charles.
1061740	Randall Rudy "Randy" Quaid (born October 1, 1950) is an American actor nominated for a Golden Globe, BAFTA and an Academy Award for his role in "The Last Detail". Quaid also won a Golden Globe Award and was nominated for an Emmy for his portrayal of U.S. President Lyndon Johnson in "". Quaid is well known for his roles in the "National Lampoon's Vacation" movies, "Brokeback Mountain" and "Independence Day". Early life. Randy Quaid was born in Houston, Texas, the son of Juanita Bonniedale "Nita" (née Jordan), a real estate agent, and William Rudy Quaid, an electrician. Randy attended Pershing Middle School and Bellaire High School. He is the older brother of actor Dennis Quaid and the uncle of Jack Quaid, and half brother, Buddy John Quaid. He is a third cousin of cowboy movie star Gene Autry. He briefly attended college at the University of Houston, studying acting through the university's School of Theatre and Dance. Acting career. Film. Quaid has appeared in over 90 films. Peter Bogdanovich discovered him when Quaid was a student at the University of Houston, and he received his first exposure in Bogdanovich's "The Last Picture Show." His character escorts Jacy Farrow (played by Cybill Shepherd) to a late-night indoor skinny-dip at a swimming pool. It was the first of several roles directed by Bogdanovich and/or based on the writings of Larry McMurtry. Quaid's first major role was in the critically acclaimed "The Last Detail" (1973). He played a young US Navy sailor on his way to serve a harsh sentence for stealing $40 from an admiral's wife's pet charity. Jack Nicholson played the sailor assigned to transport him to prison. Nicholson's character eventually becomes his friend and mentor, helping him experience different aspects of life before he goes behind bars. Quaid was nominated for a Golden Globe, BAFTA and an Academy Award for his role in "The Last Detail". He was featured in two science fiction movies, "Independence Day" and the unsuccessful "Martians Go Home". Other movie roles include "Kingpin", where he played the lovable Amish bowler Ishmael, alongside Woody Harrelson and Vanessa Angel, a loser father in "Not Another Teen Movie", and an obnoxious neighbor to Richard Pryor's character in "Moving". He played the lead role in the HBO movie "Dead Solid Perfect", a golfer trying to make it on the PGA Tour. He also appeared in the National Lampoon "Vacation" movies as Cousin Eddie to Chevy Chase's Clark W. Griswold. Shortly after starring in National Lampoon "Christmas Vacation", Randy Quaid was featured in "Days of Thunder" as a comical NASCAR car owner and successful car salesman Tim Dailand, a determined businessman who expects his team to be top-notch for fans and sponsors. Quaid had a pivotal supporting role in "Brokeback Mountain" (2005) as an insensitive rancher. Television. Quaid received both Golden Globe and "Emmy" nominations for his 2005 portrayal of talent manager Colonel Tom Parker in the critically acclaimed CBS television network mini-series "Elvis". He was nominated for an Emmy and won a Golden Globe for his portrayal of President Lyndon Johnson in '. Quaid's other television appearances include a season as a "Saturday Night Live" (SNL) cast member (1985–1986), the role of gunslinger John Wesley Hardin in the miniseries "Streets of Laredo" and starring roles in the short-lived series "The Brotherhood of Poland, New Hampshire" (2003) and "Davis Rules" (1991–1992), and the two part television film adaptation of John Steinbeck's novel "Of Mice and Men", playing the character of Lenny. He was featured in the highly rated television films ' and "" and starred in "Last Rites", a made-for-cable Starz/Encore! premiere movie. Quaid voiced the Colonel Sanders character in radio and television commercials for fast-food restaurant chain "Kentucky Fried Chicken". Quaid's voice-over work also included Capitol One Credit Card,US Air ,Miller Beer and a guest role in "The Ren and Stimpy Show" (as Anthony's father in the second season episode, "A Visit to Anthony"). He narrated the 2006 PBS show "Texas Ranch House". Recurring characters on "Saturday Night Live". Quaid played a number of recurring characters on "Saturday Night Live", including: Theater. In 2004, Quaid appeared on stage undertaking the starring role of Frank in the world premiere of Sam Shepard's "The God of Hell" produced by the New School University at the Actors Studio Drama School in New York. In "The God of Hell" Quaid's portrayal of Frank, a Wisconsin dairy farmer whose home is infiltrated by a dangerous government operative who wants to take over his farm, was well received and reviewed by New York City's top theatre critics. It marked the second time that Quaid starred in a Shepard play, the first being the long running Broadway hit "True West". In February 2008, a five-member hearing committee of Actors' Equity Association, the labor union representing American stage actors, banned Quaid for life and fined him more than $81,000. The charges that brought the sanctions originated in a Seattle production of "Lone Star Love", a Western-themed adaptation of Shakespeare's "The Merry Wives of Windsor", in which Quaid played the lead role of Falstaff. The musical was scheduled to come to Broadway, but producers cancelled it. According to the "New York Post", all 26 members of the musical cast brought charges that Quaid "physically and verbally abused his fellow performers" and that the show closed rather than continuing to Broadway because of Quaid's "oddball behavior". Quaid's lawyer, Mark Block, said the charges were false, and that one of the complaining actors had said the action was driven by "the producers who did not want to give Randy his contractual rights to creative approval ... or financial participation ..." Block said that Quaid had left the union before the musical started, making the ban moot, and that Quaid only participated in the hearing because he wanted due process. Quaid's statement on the charges was "I am guilty of only one thing: giving a performance that elicited a response so deeply felt by the actors and producers with little experience of my creative process that they actually think I am Falstaff." Music career. Quaid has performed musical work, primarily through his band Randy Quaid & The Fugitives. The group released its first single, "Star Whackers", in March 2011. An accompanying film, "Star Whackers", was premiered by the Quaids in Vancouver on April 23, 2011. Personal life. Quaid was married to Ella Marie Jolly on May 11, 1980; they separated on September 9, 1986 and divorced August 24, 1989. They had a daughter, Amanda Marie. Quaid then married Evi Motolanez on October 5, 1989 at a Montecito, California resort (The San Ysidro Ranch). His brother Dennis, actress Meg Ryan, and Randy's six-year-old daughter Amanda were in attendance. Quaid and Evi met in December 1987 on the set of the film, "Bloodhounds of Broadway", starring Madonna and Quaid. Legal issues. "Brokeback Mountain" lawsuit. On March 23, 2006, Quaid, who played Joe Aguirre in "Brokeback Mountain", filed a lawsuit against Focus Features (LLC), Del Mar Productions (LLC), James Schamus, David Linde, and Does 1–10 alleging that they intentionally and negligently misrepresented "Brokeback Mountain" as "a low-budget, art house film with no prospect of making money" in order to secure Quaid's professional acting services at below-market rates. The film had grossed more than $160 million as of the date of his lawsuit, which sought $10 million plus punitive damages. On May 5, Quaid dropped his lawsuit. Quaid's publicist said that he decided to drop the lawsuit after Focus Features agreed to pay a bonus. Focus Features denies making such a settlement. Alleged failure to pay hotel bill. On September 24, 2009, Quaid and his wife were arrested in Texas for allegedly defrauding an innkeeper, burglary, and conspiracy in California. The arrest stemmed from an earlier incident in which the Quaids had allegedly left a Santa Barbara, California hotel with a balance due of approximately $10,000. The two were released on bail that evening. Evi Quaid provided a handwritten statement to the celebrity news site TMZ after the arrest claiming that the bill had been paid. A copy of a cashier's check for $5,546.96 dated September 22, 2009 accompanied the note. The Quaids made arrangements to appear in court in Santa Barbara but failed to do so. On October 29, the Santa Barbara District Attorney's Office requested bench warrants for their arrest and extradition from Texas. Although subsequent arrest warrants were quashed, after the Quaids failed to appear at court on April 12 and 13, 2010, $40,000 in bail was forfeited and arrest warrants for the couple were issued again on April 14, 2010. The Quaids appeared in court with their attorney Robert Sanger on April 26, 2010 after missing several court appearances. The Quaids were briefly detained in custody on April 26, 2010 and released after processing. On April 28, 2010, Sanger resolved the case with Senior Deputy District Attorney Arnis Tolks. The case was dismissed against Randy Quaid for lack of evidence. Evi Quaid pleaded no contest to a misdemeanor count of defrauding an innkeeper. She was granted probation for three years. She will be required to serve 240 hours of community service. Alleged illegal occupancy. On September 18, 2010, in Santa Barbara, California, Randy Quaid and his wife faced burglary charges for living in a guest house without permission of the owner. They claimed that they had owned the property since the 1990s although a representative of the property owner had called the sheriff's department and produced documents that showed the house as being sold to the current owner in 2007. The previous owner purchased the property from the Quaids several years earlier. TMZ reported that the Quaids claim that the home was wrongfully transferred to a third party by the use of the forged signature of a dead woman named Ronda Quaid in 1992. The Quaids are accused of more than $5,000 in damage that they are said to have caused to the guest house. They were booked for felony residential burglary under section 459 of the California Penal Code (459PC), and misdemeanor entering a non-commercial building without consent (602.5 PC). Evi Quaid was also booked for misdemeanor resisting arrest (148PC). Their bail was set at $50,000 each. On September 19, 2010 they posted bail and were released. On October 18, 2010, bench warrants for the Quaids were issued following their failure to appear for a hearing on the burglary charges. Their bail was subsequently raised to $500,000 each. The bail was forfeited in November 2010. The company that posted bail for the Quaids lost a court case in January 2012 to prevent the forfeiture. Application for Canadian refugee status. On October 22, 2010, Quaid and his wife sought protection under the Canadian Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, after being arrested in the Kerrisdale neighborhood of Vancouver. They have since applied for refugee status on the grounds that they fear for their lives in the United States, claiming that numerous actors have died under mysterious circumstances committed by the "Hollywood star whackers". They were granted bail on the condition of $10,000 bond pending further Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada hearings. However, due to their failure to deposit the required bond with the court for several days, they remained in custody of the Canada Border Services Agency. They were released on October 27 after the discovery that Evi Quaid is a ""prima facie" Canadian citizen". On July 15, 2011 an attempt to extradite Randy and Evi Quaid from Canada failed when the U.S. Department of Justice turned down a request from the Santa Barbara County district attorney calling for the Quaids to be returned to California to face the felony burglary charges dating from the September 2010 incident. As a result, if Quaid and his wife re-enter the United States, they will be arrested. In January 2013, Canadian immigration officials denied Randy Quaid's request for permanent resident status in Canada while leaving open the option to challenge this decision in federal court.
585076	Desamuduru () is a 2007 Telugu film, dubbed into Malayalam and Tamil as "Hero: The Real Hero", and Hindi as "Ek Jwalamukhi". The film has Allu Arjun and Hansika Motwani in the lead. The film was directed by Puri Jagannadh. D.V.V. Danaiah produced "Desamuduru" under the Universal Media banner. The movie was released on 12 January 2007 in 400 theatres. This movie is one of the biggest hits in Allu Arjun's career till date. Plot. Bala Govind (Allu Arjun) is a program director in MAA TV. His fights for justice regularly get him into trouble. During one of these incidents, he saves a person (Raja Ravindra) from goons while severely thrashing Murugan (Subbaraju), son of the notorious smuggler Tambi Durai (Pradeep Rawat). Fearing retribution from Tambi Durai, the MAA TV crew sends Bala to Kulu Manali to shoot a travel episode, where Bala meets Vaishali (Hansika Motwani), who is a sanyasin. It is love at first sight for Bala. Vaishali, though initially apprehensive of Bala, falls for him. The head sanyasin of the ashram (Ramaprabha) unites the couple. However, before Bala is able to return to Hyderabad with Vaishali and marry her, some goons kidnap her. Bala returns to Hyderabad and finds that she is with Tambi Durai. The person who was saved by Bala in the beginning reveals that Vaishali is the daughter of Narayana Patwari. In order to grab Patwari's property, Tambi Durai killed him and his wife and performed the marriage of Vaishali with Murugan in front of their dead bodies. However, Vaishali escapes and reaches Kulu Manali. Bala decides to save Vaishali from their clutches and eventually succeeds in his attempt. Music. The film has six songs composed by Chakri. Music of the film was launched on 25 December 2006. The song "Ninne Ninne" was the most popular song in the soundtrack among music lovers. Release. The film was released on 500 screens, including 424 in Andhra Pradesh, 32 in Karnataka, 8 in Orissa, 2 in Chennai, 3 in Mumbai and 31 overseas. Box office. Despite receiving mixed talk from the public, "Desamuduru" grossed 12.58 crores and a share of Rs.9.5 crores. worldwide in the first week of its release. The openings stand out as the highest in Arjun's career. The film grossed 30 crores in four weeks.
1044033	The Mouse on the Moon is a 1963 British comedy film, an adaptation of the novel "The Mouse on the Moon" by Irish author Leonard Wibberley. It was directed by Richard Lester and served as the sequel to "The Mouse That Roared". In it, the people of the Duchy of Grand Fenwick, a microstate, attempt space flight using wine as a propellant. It satirises the space race, Cold War and politics. Peter Sellers, who had played three different roles in the first film, did not return for this sequel and was replaced by Margaret Rutherford, Ron Moody and Bernard Cribbins. The film also featured June Ritchie, and Terry-Thomas. David Kossoff reprised his role as Professor Kokintz. Plot. Financial disaster looms for Grand Fenwick when the current vintage of its only export, wine, starts exploding in would-be consumers' faces. Prime Minister Mountjoy (Ron Moody) decides to ask the United States for a loan, ostensibly to fund its entry in the race to the Moon, but actually to save the duchy (and install modern plumbing so he can have a hot bath). The devious politician knows that the Americans will not believe him, but will consider the half million dollars he is asking for to be cheap propaganda supporting their hollow call for international cooperation in space. He is delighted when they send him double the amount as an outright gift. The Soviets, not wishing to be one-upped by their Cold War rivals, deliver an obsolete rocket. Mountjoy asks resident scientist Professor Kokintz (David Kosoff) to arrange a small explosion during the "launch" of their lunar rocket to make it look like they have actually spent the money as intended. Meanwhile, Mountjoy's son Vincent (Bernard Cribbins) returns after being educated in England. Mountjoy is disappointed to find that Vincent has picked up the British sense of fair play and the ambition to be an astronaut. Professor Kokintz has pleasant news for Vincent: he has discovered that the wine makes excellent rocket fuel. Together, they secretly begin preparing the rocket for flight. Maurice Spender (Terry-Thomas), a bumbling spy sent by the suspicious British, is given a tour of the ship, including the shower heads converted into attitude jets, and reports back to his bosses that it is all a hoax. Mountjoy invites the Americans, Soviets, and British to the launching. To everyone's surprise, the rocket leisurely takes off with Kokintz and Vincent aboard. Kokintz calculates it will take three weeks to reach the Moon. Humiliated, the Americans and Soviets decide to risk sending their own manned rockets, timing it so they will land at the same time as (or a little before) Grand Fenwick's ship. However, Vincent accidentally hits a switch, speeding up the vessel, and he and Kokintz become the first to set foot on the Moon. The latecomers are greatly disappointed. When the Americans and Soviets try to race home to salvage some sort of propaganda coup, they enter the wrong ships and each descend deep into the lunar dust. The American and Soviet spacemen have to hitch a ride with Kokintz and Vincent. They return to Grand Fenwick during a memorial ceremony (they had been out of radio contact for weeks and presumed lost). The diplomats immediately begin squabbling about who reached the Moon first. Production. The film was made on sets left over from Cornel Wilde's film "Sword of Lancelot". Sellers recommended Lester, whom he knew from his direction of "The Running, Jumping and Standing Still Film", as director. Producer Walter Shenson and director Lester next made The Beatles film "A Hard Day's Night". The film had its American premiere at Cape Canaveral, where the attending cast members met American astronauts. Dell Publishing issued a comic book of the film.
583912	Janani Iyer (; born 31 March 1989) is an Indian film actress and model. Starting a modelling career after her studies, she appeared in over 150 television advertisements before getting signed by director Bala to essay the lead female role in the Tamil feature film "Avan Ivan". Early life. Janani Iyer was born in Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India into a Tamil family. Brought up in Chennai as well, she studied at D.A.V. School in Gopalapuram and later completed engineering in computer science at Saveetha Engineering College in Chennai. Career. After her studies, she ventured into modelling and appeared in over 150 regional television advertisements. However, she said, she always dreamt of becoming an actress, considering acting to be her "passion in life". During her modelling career, she appeared in insignificant cameo roles in "Thiru Thiru Thuru Thuru" (2009) and Gautham Menon's "Vinnaithaandi Varuvaayaa" (2010). In early 2010, following the recommendation of director A. L. Vijay, Janani went to audition for director Bala, who was looking for a Tamil-speaking new face for the lead female character in his new film project, "Avan Ivan". Upon seeing her audition, Bala signed her for the role, saying he felt that she "fits into the role". The comedy-drama film, which also starred Arya, Vishal Krishna and Madhu Shalini, featured Janani in the role of an innocent police constable. Her next release was "Paagan", in which she was paired opposite Srikanth. A critic from sify wrote, " Janani Iyer looks beautiful and it is a relief to watch a Tamil girl speaking in her own voice."
1132390	Rolando Alberto Argueta-Molina (Born August 13, 1971) is an Hispanic-American actor. Molina was born in El Salvador and immigrated to the United States at a very young age. The family settled in Los Angeles. Approached by Edward James Olmos while working as a security guard at Universal Studios one day; Rolando caught Olmos' attention and asked him to audition for his new film. His acting début was (a cameo) on Olmos' project at the time; "American Me" (1992). He has also been in other films such as "Menace II Society" (1993), "Mojave Moon" (1996), "The Rich Man's Wife" (1996), "Next Friday" (2000), "Crazy/Beautiful" (2001), "Party Animalz" (2004) and "Six Thugs" (2006). He also made guest appearances in "Desperate Housewives" as the biological father of Gabrielle Solis's legal daughter Juanita.
1100049	Claire Voisin (born 4 March 1962) is a French professor of mathematics and was director of research at the Institut de mathématiques de Jussieu at the for several years. On October 15, 2012, École Polytechnique announced that it "celebrates its recruitment of Claire Voisin" to a part-time Professorship. She is married to Jean-Michel Coron, who was also a plenary speaker at the 2010 International Congress of Mathematicians. They have five children. Work. She is noted for her work in algebraic geometry particularly as it pertains to variational Hodge structures and mirror symmetry, and has written several books on Hodge theory. This area of mathematics is recognized as one of the most difficult in existence at this time, a reviewer from the American Mathematical Society writing that "the task of reviewing Claire Voisin’s two-volume work Hodge Theory and Complex Algebraic Geometry is a daunting one, given the scope of the subject matter treated, namely, a rather complete tour of the subject from the beginning to the present, and given the break-neck pace of Voisin’s clear, complete, but “take no prisoners” exposition." The Hodge conjecture is one of the seven Clay Mathematics Institute Millennium Prize Problems which were selected in 2000, each having a prize of a million dollars to the person that solves one of these problems. In 2002 Voisin proved that rational Hodge classes on a compact Kähler variety are false. Her work on the subject "has rapidly become a reference." Voisin won the European Mathematical Society Prize in 1992, and the Servant Prize awarded by the Academy of Sciences in 1996. She received the Sophie Germain Prize in 2003 and the Clay Research Award in 2008 for her disproof of the Kodaira conjecture, another problem in complex algebraic geometry. In 2007 she was awarded the Ruth Lyttle Satter Prize in Mathematics for her solutions of two long standing mathematical problems, "the Kodaira problem (On the homotopy types of compact Kähler and complex projective manifolds), and Green's conjecture (Green's canonical syzygy conjecture for generic curves of odd genus), and Green's generic syzygy conjecture for curves of even genus lying on a K3 surface". Green's conjecture attracted a huge amount of effort by algebraic geometers over twenty years before finally being settled by Voisin. She was invited at the 1994 International Congress of Mathematicians (Zurich) in the section 'Algebraic Geometry', and she was also invited as a plenary speaker at the 2010 International Congress of Mathematicians, Hyderabad, India. She is a member of the Selection Committee for Mathematics for judging of the Shaw Prize, and recently a Visiting Fellow of the Moduli Spaces program which is organised by Isaac Newton Institute for Mathematical Sciences. She is also a member of the national mathematical institutes of France, Germany, the USA and Italy.
1163653	Rita Moreno (born December 11, 1931) is a Puerto Rican singer, dancer and actress. She is the only Hispanic and one of the few performers to have won an Emmy, a Grammy, an Oscar, and a Tony, and was the second Puerto Rican to win an Academy Award. Early years. Moreno was born Rosa Dolores Alverío in Humacao, Puerto Rico, to Rosa María (née Marcano), a seamstress, and Paco José Alverío, a farmer. She was raised in nearby Juncos. She began her first dancing lessons soon after arriving in New York from a friend of her mother, a Spanish dancer, Paco Cansino, an uncle of Rita Hayworth. When she was 11 years old, she lent her voice to Spanish language versions of American films. She had her first Broadway role — as "Angelina" in "Skydrift" — by the time she was 13, which caught the attention of Hollywood talent scouts. She appeared in small roles in "The Toast of New Orleans" and "Singin' in the Rain", in which she played the starlet "Zelda Zanders". In March 1954, Moreno was featured on the cover of "Life Magazine" with a caption, "Rita Moreno: An Actresses' Catalog of Sex and Innocence". In 1956, she had a supporting role in the film version of "The King and I" as Tuptim, but disliked most of her other work during this period. "West Side Story" and its aftermath. In 1961, Moreno landed the role of Anita in Robert Wise's and Jerome Robbins' film adaptation of Leonard Bernstein's and Stephen Sondheim's groundbreaking Broadway musical, "West Side Story", which was played by Chita Rivera on Broadway. Moreno won the Best Supporting Actress Academy Award for that role. After winning the Oscar, Moreno thought she would be able to continue to perform less stereotypical film roles, but was disappointed."Ha, ha. I showed them. I didn't make another movie for seven years after winning the Oscar... Before "West Side Story", I was always offered the stereotypical Latina roles. The Conchitas and Lolitas in westerns. I was always barefoot. It was humiliating, embarrassing stuff. But I did it because there was nothing else. After "West Side Story", it was pretty much the same thing. A lot of gang stories." Moreno went on to be the first Hispanic to win an Emmy (1977), a Grammy (1972), an Oscar (1962) and a Tony (1975). In 1985, she won the Sarah Siddons Award for her work in Chicago. Other roles. Besides appearing in "Singin' in the Rain", "The King and I", "Summer and Smoke" (1961), "West Side Story", "The Night of the Following Day" (1968) and "Carnal Knowledge" (1971), Moreno appeared on the PBS children's series "The Electric Company" in the 1970s, most notably as Millie the Helper. In fact, it was Moreno who screamed the show's opening line, "HEY, YOU GUYS!" She also had roles as the naughty little girl Pandora, and as "Otto", the "very" short-tempered director. Moreno appeared in the family variety series "The Muppet Show", and she made other guest appearances on television series such as "The Rockford Files", "The Love Boat", "The Cosby Show", "George Lopez", "The Golden Girls", and "Miami Vice". She was also a regular on the short-lived sitcom version of "Nine to Five" (based on the film hit) during the early 1980s. Broadway and television. Moreno's Broadway credits include "The Last of the Red Hot Lovers", "Gantry", "The Ritz", for which she won the 1975 Tony Award for Best Featured Actress, and the female version of "The Odd Couple". In 1993 she was invited to perform at President Bill Clinton's inauguration and later that month was asked to perform at the White House. During the mid-1990s, Moreno provided the voice of Carmen Sandiego on the animated Fox show "Where on Earth is Carmen Sandiego?" In 1995, she co-starred with Charlton Heston, Mickey Rooney, Deborah Winters and Peter Graves in the Warren Chaney docudrama, "". In the late 1990s, she gained exposure to a new generation of viewers when she played Sister Pete, a nun trained as a psychologist in the popular HBO series, "Oz". She made a guest appearance on "The Nanny" as Coach Stone, Maggie's (Nicholle Tom) tyrannical gym teacher, whom Fran Fine (Fran Drescher) also remembered from her school as Ms. Wickavich. Performing in the 21st century. Moreno continues to be active on stage and screen. In 2006, she portrayed Amanda Wingfield in Berkeley Repertory Theatre's revival of "The Glass Menagerie". She had a recurring role on "" as the dying mother of Detective Robert Goren. She was a regular on the short-lived TV series "Cane", which starred Jimmy Smits and Hector Elizondo. In 2011 she accepted the role of the mother of Fran Drescher's character in the TV sitcom "Happily Divorced". In September 2011, Moreno began performing a solo autobiographical show at the Berkeley Rep (theater) in Berkeley, California, "Rita Moreno: Life Without Makeup" written by Berkeley Rep artistic director Tony Taccone after hours of interviews with Moreno. Family and Personal Life. Moreno dated Marlon Brando for eight years, and attempted suicide in his home in 1962. On June 18, 1965, Moreno married Leonard Gordon, a cardiologist who was also her manager. He died on June 30, 2010. They have one daughter, Fernanda Luisa Fisher, and two grandsons, Justin and Cameron Fisher. In an interview with Good Day LA, Moreno said Elvis Presley was not a good lover. They dated for quite some time, but each time when the opportunity presented itself to take the relationship to another level, Elvis always backed off. Awards. Among Moreno's awards and recognitions are the following:
589394	Dharam Karam is a 1975 Hindi film produced by Raj Kapoor and directed by Randhir Kapoor, who also star as father and son in the film, respectively. The film also stars Rekha, Premnath and Dara Singh. The music is by R.D. Burman and the lyrics by Majrooh Sultanpuri, who received a Filmfare nomination as Best Lyricist for the hit song "Ek Din Bik Jayega." The song is played several times during the film, with playback singing by Mukesh, Kishore Kumar, and Sushma Shrestha. Of the three of them, only Mukesh received a Filmfare nomination as Best Male Playback Singer for the song. According to one source, the film performed "below average" at the box office. Plot. Shankar is a hoodlum who lives in a shanty hut with his pregnant wife, Kanta, and makes a living as a career criminal. He prays to Lord Shiv that if he is blessed with a male child, he will ensure that the child does not take to his path, but instead grows up to a decent and honest human being. His wife does give birth to a baby boy, and Shankar loots the ill-gotten gains of another hoodlum named J.K.. A furious J.K. hunts down Shankar in an attempt to abduct his son, but Shankar takes his child and switches him with one belonging to renowned stage artist, Ashok Kumar. Shankar gets into a scuffle with J.K. and his men, killing one of them, getting arrested, tried in Court, and being sentenced to 14 years in jail. Kanta passes away, while Dharam is left in the care of a wrestler, Bhim Singh, and a mid-wife, Ganga. Dharam is taught to be a hoodlum, but wants to focus on becoming a singer, while Ranjit has taken to alcohol, gambling, and a life of crime under J.K. himself. After his discharge, Shankar finds to his delight out that Ashok has brought up Ranjit and both are stage actors. Then his world descends into chaos when he finds out that Ranjit is in fact Dharam, while his very son, Ranjit has taken to a life of crime. Angered at Dharam, he beats him up and asks him to be a hoodlum like himself, he also beats up Ranjit and asks him to obey Ashok and follow in his footsteps. Watch as things spiral out of control when a vengeful J.K. abducts Shankar and holds him hostage - the ransom - the dead body of Ashok - at any and all costs - and the person chosen to carry out this task is none other than Dharam!!
327429	Angela Kinsey (born June 25, 1971) is an American actress. She appeared as the uptight accountant Angela Martin on the NBC television series "The Office". Personal life. Kinsey was born in Lafayette, Louisiana. When she was two, her family moved to Jakarta, Indonesia, where her father worked as a drilling engineer. They lived there for twelve years, and she attended the Jakarta International School. During this time she learned Indonesian, a language she still occasionally speaks. Her family then returned to the United States and settled in Archer City, Texas. Kinsey studied English at Baylor University, where she became a member of the Chi Omega sorority, "took as many theatre classes as possible", and participated in the "Baylor in London" program. In a 2007 interview with the Baylor student newspaper, she discussed the influence of her years at the university:
588827	Before the Rains is a 2007 Indian-British period drama film directed by Santosh Sivan. The film is adapted from a story from the 2001 anthology Israeli film "Asphalt Zahov". It was filmed on location in Kerala, India and was released in cinemas in India, the US and the UK. Plot. "Before the Rains" is set in 1930s Malabar District of the Madras Presidency of British India, against the backdrop of a growing nationalist movement. An idealistic young Indian man, T.K. (Rahul Bose) finds himself torn between his ambitions for the future and his loyalty to tradition when people in his village learn of an affair between his British boss and close friend Henry Moores (Linus Roache) and a married village woman Sajani (Nandita Das).
1164473	George Young Newbern (born December 30, 1964) is an American television and film actor best known for his roles as Bryan MacKenzie in "Father of the Bride" (1991) and its sequel "Father of the Bride Part II" as well as Danny (The Yeti) in "Friends". He is also well known for providing the voices of Superman from the "Justice League" and "Justice League Unlimited" animated series, as well as Nooj and Sephiroth from the "Final Fantasy" series and the "Kingdom Hearts" series. He is also known for having appeared in "Saw VI".
582158	Thoda Pyaar Thoda Magic (English: "A Little Love, A Little Magic") is a 2008 Hindi film with Saif Ali Khan and Rani Mukerji in lead roles, and Rishi Kapoor and Ameesha Patel in special appearances. The child artists include Akshat Chopra, Shriya Sharma, Rachit Sidana and Ayushi Berman. Directed, written and co-produced by Kunal Kohli, the film is produced and distributed by Yash Chopra and Aditya Chopra under Yash Raj Films. Synopsis. Ranbeer Talwar (Saif Ali Khan), a leading industrialist in India, is lonely because he has lost everyone who is dear to him. Due to distraction, he mistakenly kills a husband and wife in a car accident. The judge sentences him to look after their four children, and to do so without ill-treating them. The children resent Ranbeer for his role in their parents' death and desire revenge, whereas he is unprepared to live with them, making both him and the children miserable in this situation. One day, the children pray to God (Rishi Kapoor) for help. God discusses the matter with his fairylike angels and decides to send Geeta (Rani Mukerji), his favourite and the most whimsical of the angels, to unite Ranbeer with the children. God warns her not to use her ability to alter reality during her time on earth. Geeta ignores God's warning and uses this power often, providing comic relief. She appoints herself as the children's governess and places the children in awe of her by using her transformative powers. Soon, she ingratiates herself with the children with her supportive affection and positiveness. The children begin to cherish her and depend on her while Ranbeer remains perplexed and overwhelmed by her dominance of his affairs. He soon becomes enamored of her, despite the interference by his girlfriend Malaika (Ameesha Patel). Ranbeer's relationship with Malaika ends when the children spoil her party. Ranbeer eventually begins getting involved with the children's lives after Geeta tells him that he just needs to see their dreams, and see what troubles them. As Ranbeer and the children slowly become friends, the children forsake their desire for revenge and treat him as an older brother. Geeta is called back to heaven as she has succeeded in uniting Ranbeer and the children. Upset, Ranbeer and the children go to a church to pray that she return to them. After God talks with Geeta, he concedes to her wishes and changes Geeta into a human, allowing her to return to the children. Geeta marries Ranbeer and gives birth to a daughter, who inherits the ability to alter reality, despite Geeta's loss of her own power. Nevertheless, they all live happily ever after. Plot Similarity. The story contains significant similarities to "The Sound of Music", wherein (as here) a newly-arrived governess serves to unite the denizens of a household, becomes enamored of its head, and flees in response, only to be returned by her former dispatcher. The plot also resembles that of the Bollywood film Hum Hain Rahi Pyar Ke (starring Aamir Khan and Juhi Chawla). The inclusion of transformative powers gives a resemblance to "Mary Poppins" and "Nanny McPhee", which also features a governess as its crucial character. The character of Ranbeer Talwar is based on "King Uncle". Production. Casting. Kunal Kohli considered Aamir Khan and Kajol for the lead roles, but both Aamir and Kajol were busy with their home productions, "Jaane Tu Ya Jaane Na" (2008) and "U, Me Aur Hum" (2008) respectively. Development. In September 2007, the film began shooting in Delhi with some portions also being shot in Alibaug, Bangkok and Los Angeles. The film completed its shooting on 3 February 2008. Rani Mukerji sports one layered outfit designed by Manish Malhotra throughout the film while some layers have been taken off according to the requirements of each scene. Kunal Kohli initially asked Ameesha Patel to lose slight weight for her role in the film. Kohli and Malhotra spent hours deciding her look in the film. She dons a yellow bikini in the film in the hit song 'lazy lamhe'. The movie opened in Canada on 27 June 2008. Box office. According to Box Office India, "Thoda Pyaar Thoda Magic" had a poor opening and altogether grossed . It was declared a 'Below Average' at the Box Office. Reviews and reception. The film opened to a decent collections at the box office and picked up during the first weekend. It could not sustain business for long, however, due to the release of two big movies, "Lovestory 2050" and "Jaane Tu Ya Jaane Na" the following weekend. Noyon Jyoti Parasara of AOL India gave the movie 3 out of 5 saying, "The story brings out quite a few emotions. And this is helped by its simplicity". One India Entertainment said that, "It takes you back to the light-hearted, feel-good cinema made by directors of calibre like Hrishikesh Mukherjee and Basu Chatterjee." Music. The music of the film is composed by Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy with lyrics by Prasoon Joshi.
1056589	Le Divorce is a 2003 Merchant Ivory Productions film directed by James Ivory from a screenplay by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala and Ivory, based on Diane Johnson's best-selling novel. Summary. A young American woman called Isabel Walker (Kate Hudson) travels to Paris to visit her pregnant sister Roxy (Naomi Watts). Roxy's husband Charles-Henri left her for his married Russian lover, Magda Tellman. As Isabel secretly begins two affairs with French men from different social classes and Magda's husband begins harassing Roxy, the two families fight over the ownership rights of a long-lost masterpiece. Also in the film is Roxy's friend and Isabel's employer, Olivia Pace (Glenn Close), an American author who also had an affair with one of Isabel's lovers. Plot. Isabel (Hudson) visits her sister, Roxeanne (Watts), a poet who is living in Paris with her husband, Charles-Henri, and her young daughter, Gennie. Roxy is pregnant, but her husband has just walked out on her. She holds the lie that he is "in the country" selling a painting. Isabel discovers the truth and agrees to go see Charles-Henri with Roxy to give him his contacts which he left behind. Arriving, Charles-Henri makes an excuse to leave when Paris-based American author Olivia Pace (Close), a friend of Roxy's, arrives. Olivia offers Isabel a job which she takes. Later, the sisters go to the country to visit Charles-Henri's family for Sunday brunch. It is there that Isabel meets Charles-Henri's mother (Leslie Caron), along with Charles-Henri's uncle, Edgar. Later, while helping Olivia, Isabel meets Yves, another one of Olivia's workers. The two have sex, and afterwards while watching television Isabel sees Edgar giving a speech and admits she is attracted to him. The two have lunch and begin an affair, but Isabel still strings Yves along. Edgar sends a Hermes Paris Kelly bag to Isabel, which is an expensive item Roxy knows Isabel can't afford, and Isabel tells Roxy of their affair. Meanwhile, Roxy meets Charles-Henri's own mistress, Magda Tellman. Magda's husband, an American, begins to stalk Isabel's apartment complex. One afternoon, Roxy meets Charles-Henri at a park where Gennie rides a carousel. The two talk and Roxy says she doesn't want a divorce, but Charles-Henri does. Roxy admits she's been thinking about names and likes Henri-Luc. Charles-Henri is still not entertained and leaves. Later that evening, Isabel finds a bloody, unconscious Roxy on the sofa and calls an ambulance. Roxy lives and apologizes for her attempt at suicide and is aided by her lawyer. Isabel calls the family to Paris to help with Roxy. This only further complicates things, especially when Edgar's wife, Amelie, discovers the affair through Edgar's sister and Roxy's mother-in-law. Along with this, Olivia's own long over affair with Edgar is exposed, and Charles-Henri is found dead, murdered by Magda Tellman's husband in a crime of passion. Mr. Tellman follows the Walkers up the Eiffel Tower where he corners them and pulls a gun, demanding to have an opportunity to explain to an absent Roxy why he killed her husband. After some persuasion, Tellman slides the gun over to Isabel who puts it in her Kelly bag before throwing it off the Eiffel Tower. Subsequently, Edgar ends his affair with Isabel with a Chanel scarf and a blunt, brief lunch. Charles-Henri's mother still stays involved with her new grandson's life. Roxy marries her lawyer, Isabel begins a real relationship with Yves, and the family painting by La Tour of Saint Ursula sells for more than $4M. This prompts the family to begin a foundation named after Saint Ursula based in Paris. Locations. "Le Divorce" was filmed in Paris at locations including Café de Flore, Tour Eiffel, Musée du Louvre and Salle Gaveau. The Eiffel Tower's elevators, stairways and various levels are seen extensively as one character pursues another near the end of the film. Music. Opening title music was Paul Misraki's "Qu'est-ce qu'on attend pour être heureux", sung by Patrick Bruel and Johnny Hallyday from Bruel's CD "Entre deux". End title music was Serge Gainsbourg's "L'Anamour", sung by Jane Birkin from her CD "Version Jane". Reaction. "Le Divorce" was given an initial limited release on August 8, 2003 in 34 theaters where it grossed $516,834 on its opening weekend. It went into wide release on August 29, 2003 in 701 theaters where it grossed $1.5M on its opening weekend. The film went on to make $9 million in North America and $3.9M in the rest of the world for a worldwide total of $12.9M. "Le Divorce" received largely mixed to negative reviews. It has a 38% rating on a Rotten Tomatoes and a 51 metascore on Metacritic. Film critic Roger Ebert gave the film three out of four stars and felt that it did not "work on its intended level, because we don't care enough about the interactions of the enormous cast. But it works in another way, as a sophisticated and knowledgeable portrait of values in collision". In his review for the "New York Times", A.O. Scott wrote, "As it is, "Le Divorce" is tasteful, but almost entirely without flavor. It is tough work to sit through a comedy made by filmmakers with so little sense of timing and no evident sense of humor". "Entertainment Weekly" gave the film a "C" rating and Owen Gleiberman wrote, "I'm disappointed to report that Hudson and Watts have no chemistry as sisters, perhaps because Watts never seems like the expatriate artiste she's supposed to be playing". In his review for the "Village Voice", David Ng wrote, "Indeed, featuring a boatload of intercontinental stars who have little to do, "Le Divorce" uncannily embodies its privileged bilingual milieu. At worst, it suggests a documentary of its own lavish wrap party". "Premiere" magazine's Glenn Kenny gave the film three out of four stars and wrote, "the picture is a nice return to form for Ivory and company, as well as a welcome stretch for Kate Hudson, whose luminous talents, I fear, are going to be hidden under bushels of stupid Hollywood romantic comedies for the foreseeable future". In his review for "The New York Observer", Andrew Sarris wrote, "The film's greatest achievement, however, is in keeping a dizzying variety of characters at odds with each other without any breach of good manners, and without descending to facile stereotypes and caricatures".
1438654	Cicak Man (pronounced ) is a 2006 Malaysian comedy-superhero film. It is the first Malaysian film of this genre, and features almost 40% CGI footage. The film was directed by KRU member Yusry and starred comedian Saiful Apek. The name "Cicak-Man" literally translates to "Gecko-Man". A sequel, Cicakman 2 – Planet Hitam was released on 11 December 2008 in Malaysia, Singapore and Brunei. The original announced release is in the end of 2007. Set in the make-believe city of Metrofulus, "Cicak-Man" is about the last person on earth anyone would expect to turn into a superhero. But funnyman Saiful Apek, does, quite by accident and becomes a shock to his friend, who also tries his best to adjust to his superpowers. When he's not climbing walls, Cicakman reverts to his alter ego, the unassuming Hairi. Plot. Hairi Saiful Apek, is a loser who lives in Metrofulus. While working in the lab, he accidentally drinks coffee that has been contaminated by a virus-infected gecko. He soon finds himself doing the most insane things, such as sticking to walls, making chirping cicak noises and adding bugs to his menu. He turns to his best friend and apartment mate, Danny Yusry Abdul Halim, and begs him to find the reason behind his strange antics. Meanwhile, the people of Metrofulus are constantly being infected by new strains of viruses, and the only cure seems to come only from Professor Klon's Aznil Nawawi lab. Suspecting something amiss, Hairi and Danny launch their own investigation and discover that Professor Klon is not only the creator of such viruses, but also has a more sinister plan up his sleeve, backed by his business partners, the Ginger Boys (played by Adlin Aman Ramlie and AC Mizal, who first tend to take revenge on Professor Klon's failed experiment on them; making their senses turn abnormal. Hairi soon makes use of his new-found powers as "Cicakman" when he saves Tania Fasha Sandha, Professor Klon's secretary from a threatening situation, and also ends up falling for her. However, he finds that his powers are more of a threat to his life, than a gift, and embarks on a mission to bring down Prof Klon and the Ginger Boys before his time runs out. Production. The film was shot using Dolby TrueHD, and about 40% of the film was shot in Green Screen. The visual effects team led by the director, Yusry, used CGI technology to fully realize the fictional city of Bandar Metrofulus (which was based on Kuala Lumpur), the protagonist's super-hero movements and various digital sets. Over 90% of the rotoscoping and compositing work were carried out by KRU Films (now known as KRU Studios), who were also behind the musical scores and audio effects. Of note, Adlin Aman Ramlie and AC Mizal previously worked together on the "Puteri Gunung Ledang" musical. Response. "Cicak-Man" created Malaysian movie history by grossing RM350,000 with an audience attendance number of 47,116 in its first day. The film eventually gave its production company, KRU Group of Companies, a RM6.7 million boost due to sales. Honours. The film received praise from some critcs. One of them is Dato' Yusof Haslam alias ""Six Million Dollar Man"".David Teo as a film producer and CEO of Metrowealth International Group referred Cicak Man as a miracle with the response and difference shown in Malaysian filming industry. Besides film maker, ex-president of Persatuan Sutradara Malaysia (FDAM), Ahmad Ibrahim, praised this masterpiece created by Yusry and KRU. Comparison. While there were people who praised "Cicak Man", there were many others who criticized this film greatly. Mansor Putih in an interview by Harian Metro said that the film has no 'soul', aesthetic values and culture. There were individuals who compared between Cicak Man and Spider-Man, Batman, Superman, and other superhero films from Hollywood, but before it was released to public, the director, Yusry had advised people to not compare Cicak Man with other superhero characters because the budget is obviously lower compared to Hollywood productions. Malaysianisms. The film contains many in-jokes or references to Malaysian culture. Among them are:
422782	Richard John Grieco, Jr. (born March 23, 1969) is an American actor and former fashion model. Early life. Richard Grieco was born in Watertown, New York, the son of Carolyn (née O'Reilly) and Richard Grieco. He is of Italian and Irish descent. "Richard Grieco; '21 Jump Street' Adds a Handsome Rebel"], "The Washington Post", 7 May 1989. Grieco played football, hockey, and lacrosse in High School. Grieco was "All State" in all three sports. Grieco also played football for Central Connecticut State University. Career. Modeling, TV and film. Grieco worked as a model for Armani, Calvin Klein and Chanel. He later studied acting. He played Rick Gardner on "One Life to Live" from 1985 to 1987. In 1988, Grieco began appearing as Detective Dennis Booker on the shows "21 Jump Street" and its spinoff "Booker". He also appeared in the TV series "Marker" in 1995. Grieco's feature film debut was as Michael Corben in "If Looks Could Kill" (1991) and has appeared in numerous films since then, Later in 1991, he played the young Jewish bootlegger and mobster Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel in the movie "Mobsters". He played himself in the 1998 film "A Night at the Roxbury". Music. Grieco began a singing career in 1994 with the Dunmore Band. He signed to a German label and released a CD, "Waiting for the Sky to Fall", in 1995. Later on he teamed up with music manager Cheryl Bogart and formed the band Wasteland Park in 2004. Art. In 2009, several years after being encouraged by Dennis Hopper, Grieco publicly revealed that he has been painting since 1991. He calls his work "Abstract Emotionalism". His paintings are a revolutionary new art form which is being coveted by many collectors all over the world. Personal life. Grieco resides in Los Angeles, California. In popular culture. In the WB sitcom "Off Centre", Grieco is idolized by Chau Presley, a character played by John Cho. In the show, Chau met Grieco at a Department of Motor Vehicles and traded him an Oingo Boingo shirt for the one he was wearing. Several references are made to Grieco and his movies (especially "Point Doom"). In "A Night at the Roxbury", Grieco is idolized by the main characters. His lifestyle ("Clothes, Cars, Women") was what Doug and Steve Butabi were trying to achieve. In "Conan" Season 1, Episode 47, Grieco was given a quick humorous spot in what Conan called "World's least visited sites."
588203	Bhuvan Shome is a 1969 Hindi film directed by Mrinal Sen. The cast includes Utpal Dutt (Mr. Bhuvan Shome) and Suhasini Mulay (Gauri, a village belle). Sen based his film on a Bengali story by Banaphool (Balai Chand Mukhopadhya). The film is considered a landmark in modern Indian cinema. This was the debut film of Suhasini Mulay. Plot. Bhuvan Shome, a widower and a dedicated civil servant — strict, uncompromising – takes a holiday which transforms him irreparably though at the same time heightening his sense of isolation. Bhuvan Shome is a "big officer" in the Indian Railways. The background of the film is constructed in the context of a few railway ticket checkers discussing him as a strict, unreasonable officer ("afsar"). It continues with him being described, by a narrator, as a man whose "Bengali"-ness has not been affected by his travels. His apparent age, late 50s, is an important element of his psychology. Inspired by hunting, Bhuvan Shome is seen to take a "hunting holiday" to Gujarat. It is quite clear that his expedition is amateurish. He is portrayed as an inept "hunter" rather than a man who knows how to acquire a skill. His encounter with the young Gouri is fortuitous because it is she who takes care of him and helps "hunt" birds. She helps him through a barren wilderness, takes him home and takes care of him. When he is made to change his clothes because otherwise the "birds will know" and fly away is probably an important part of his transformation from a strict, conformist and aging man to one of a person more open to the stimuli of his environment. The subsequent hunting sojourn of Gouri and Bhuvan Shome is a lyrical exploration of Bhuvan Shome's transformation. He is not only enamored by the simple beauty of Gouri, but also enchanted by the sights of birds on the lake and in the sky. His hunt is "successful," but only in a way that reflects Bhuvan Shome's limitations as a man. Bhuvan Shome is deeply affected by Gouri, who is actually schooled more than she could expect to be in that environment. When he returns to his office chambers, he is seen to reprieve an offending railwayman. This is a sub-plot that completes the story and context of the initial narration.
744141	The Groomsmen is a 2006 comedy film written and directed by Edward Burns. It opened in New York City and Los Angeles on July 14, 2006. Filming took place at many locations on City Island, New York. Plot. A groom and his four groomsmen wrestle with issues such as fatherhood, homosexuality, honesty and growing up in the week leading up to his wedding. Paulie (Burns), a self-supporting writer, is making plans for his marriage to Sue (Murphy), his girlfriend who is in her 5th month of pregnancy. In real-life, Burns' then girlfriend, supermodel Christy Turlington, was also five months pregnant when they married in June 2003. Christy inspired Burns to re-work the manuscript for this movie, which he hadn't worked on in many months.
1253801	Rik Van Nutter (May 1, 1929 – October 15, 2005), was an American actor who appeared in many minor films, but is most famous for playing the third version of Felix Leiter in the James Bond movie "Thunderball". He also had a role alongside Peter Ustinov in "Romanoff and Juliet".
1062986	Richard W. Farnsworth (September 1, 1920 – October 6, 2000) was an American actor and stuntman. His film career began in 1937; however, he achieved his greatest success for his performances in "The Grey Fox" (1982) and "The Straight Story" (1999), for which he received a nomination for an Academy Award for Best Actor. Early life. Farnsworth was born in Los Angeles, California, to a housewife mother and an engineer father. He was raised during the Great Depression. He lived with his aunt, mother, and two sisters in downtown Los Angeles after his father died when he was seven years old. Career. He was working as a stable hand at a polo field in Los Angeles for six dollars a week when he was offered a chance to make seven dollars a day plus a box lunch as a stuntman. In 1937, when he was sixteen, he started by riding horses in films such as "The Adventures of Marco Polo" with Gary Cooper. He performed several horse-riding stunts in such films as the Marx Brothers' "A Day at the Races" (1937) and "Gunga Din" (1939).
1102747	Diophantus of Alexandria (. b. between AD 201 and 215, d. between 285 and 299 at age 84), sometimes called "the father of algebra", was an Alexandrian Greek mathematician and the author of a series of books called "Arithmetica", many of which are now lost. These texts deal with solving algebraic equations. While reading Claude Gaspard Bachet de Méziriac's edition of Diophantus' "Arithmetica," Pierre de Fermat concluded that a certain equation considered by Diophantus had no solutions, and noted in the margin without elaboration that he had found "a truly marvelous proof of this proposition," now referred to as Fermat's Last Theorem. This led to tremendous advances in number theory, and the study of Diophantine equations ("Diophantine geometry") and of Diophantine approximations remain important areas of mathematical research. Diophantus coined the term παρισὀτης to refer to an approximate equality. This term was rendered as "adaequalitat" in Latin, and became the technique of adequality developed by Pierre de Fermat to find maxima for functions and tangent lines to curves. Diophantus was the first Greek mathematician who recognized fractions as numbers; thus he allowed positive rational numbers for the coefficients and solutions. In modern use, Diophantine equations are usually algebraic equations with integer coefficients, for which integer solutions are sought. Diophantus also made advances in mathematical notation. Biography. Little is known about the life of Diophantus. He lived in Alexandria, Egypt, probably from between AD 200 and 214 to 284 or 298. Much of our knowledge of the life of Diophantus is derived from a 5th-century Greek anthology of number games and puzzles created by Metrodorus. One of the problems (sometimes called his epitaph) states: This puzzle implies that Diophantus' age formula_1 can be expressed as which gives formula_3 a value of 84 years. However, the accuracy of the information cannot be independently confirmed. In popular culture, this puzzle was the Puzzle No.142 in "Professor Layton and Pandora's Box" as one of the hardest solving puzzles in the game, which needed to be unlocked by solving other puzzles first. Arithmetica. The Arithmetica is the major work of Diophantus and the most prominent work on algebra in Greek mathematics. It is a collection of problems giving numerical solutions of both determinate and indeterminate equations. Of the original thirteen books of which Arithmetica consisted only six have survived, though there are some who believe that four Arab books discovered in 1968 are also by Diophantus. Some Diophantine problems from Arithmetica have been found in Arabic sources. It should be mentioned here that Diophantus never used general methods in his solutions. Hermann Hankel, renowned German mathematician made the following remark regarding Diophantus. “Our author (Diophantos) not the slightest trace of a general, comprehensive method is discernible; each problem calls for some special method which refuses to work even for the most closely related problems. For this reason it is difficult for the modern scholar to solve the 101st problem even after having studied 100 of Diophantos’s solutions”
1163840	Michael Rennie (25 August 1909 – 10 June 1971) was an English-born film, television, and stage actor, perhaps best known for his starring role as the space visitor Klaatu in the classic science fiction film "The Day the Earth Stood Still" (1951). However, he also acted in more than 50 other films beginning in 1936. During the Second World War, Rennie served in the Royal Air Force. From 1959 onwards, Rennie also appeared in some American television series, in between acting in movies. Early years. Eric Alexander Rennie was born in Idle near Bradford, West Riding of Yorkshire. He received his education at the Leys School, Cambridge. Rennie tried out a number of occupations, including periods as car salesman and as the manager of his uncle's rope factory; before deciding (at the time of his 26th birthday, in 1935) on a career as an actor. Retaining his surname but adopting the professional name Michael Rennie, the 6' 4" tall show business hopeful, with chiseled facial features, first appeared onscreen in an uncredited bit part in the 1936 premiere of Sir Alfred Hitchcock's film "Secret Agent". During the late 1930s, Rennie served his apprenticeship as an actor, gaining experience in technique while touring the provinces in British repertory. There is evidence that, at the age of 28, he was noticed by one of the British film studios, which decided to appraise his potential as a film personality by arranging a screen test. The 1937 screen test, which exists in the British Film Institute archives under the title "Marguerite Allan and Michael Rennie Screen Test," did not lead to a film career for either performer. In "Secret Agent", he was primarily a stand-in for leading man Robert Young, and his on-camera sequence was so small that it cannot be discerned in the preserved final version of the film. He also played other bit parts, and minor unbilled roles in ten additional films produced between 1936 and 1940; the last of which, "Pimpernel Smith", had a belated release in July 1941, when Rennie was already in uniform, serving in the Royal Air Force. Second World War. Shortly after the outbreak of war on 3 September 1939, Rennie began to receive offers for larger film roles, starting with his first (small) billed performance in the wartime morale booster "The Big Blockade", seen in March 1940. Michael Redgrave, by then a fully-fledged star, had one of the leading roles in the film. Six films later, however, Michael Rennie also had his first film lead. The suspense drama "Tower of Terror", released in late December 1941 was styled in the manner of a horror film, and it starred Wilfrid Lawson as a crazed Dutch lighthouse keeper in the German-occupied Netherlands, while the second-billed Rennie and third-billed Movita had the romantic leads. Michael Rennie enlisted in the RAF Volunteer Reserve on 27 May 1941 (Serial No 1391153). He was officially discharged on 4 August 1942, and then on the following day, he was commissioned "for the emergency" as pilot officer number 127347 on probation in the General Duties Branch of the RAFVR. On 5 February 1943, he was promoted to flying officer on probation. He resigned his commission on 1 May 1944 (not discharged on disability, as the studio publicity stated). Rennie had carried out his basic training near Torquay in Devon, after which he was sent to the United States for fighter pilot training under the Arnold Plan. In this programme, pilots for the RAF were trained by United States Army Air Forces instructors. One of his fellow students was RAF Sgt Jack Morton, who told an anecdote about when he and Rennie were in the same class: "At the end of our primary course we were posted to a Basic Flying School at Cochran Field, Macon, Georgia. The class which completed the course at Cochran Field was now split up, half were posted to Napier Field, Dothan, Alabama, to train on single engine planes, and the remainder were posted to twin-engine schools. Like Cochran, Napier Field was a large permanent Air Corps Base and most of us were quite content to stay on the camp when we had time off. One of the cadets on our course had told us that he was a film actor, but no one took him seriously. We had to admit that he was right however when a film came to the camp cinema called "Ships with Wings" starring Michael Rennie." British film star (1945–1950). With the end of the war in Europe in May 1945, Rennie began to be seen as a potential star as a result of playing second leads in two vehicles for Britain's most popular leading actress of the era, Margaret Lockwood: the musical "I'll Be Your Sweetheart" and, most prominently, the sensual costume adventure "The Wicked Lady". The latter turned out to be the year's biggest box office hit, subsequently being listed ninth on a list of top ten highest-grossing British films. He also had a single prominent scene as a commander of Roman centurions in the film described at the time as the most expensive (and financially ruinous) British film enterprise ever made, Gabriel Pascal's production of George Bernard Shaw's "Caesar and Cleopatra", starring Vivien Leigh and Claude Rains. Second leads and then leads in seven other British films produced between 1946 and 1949 followed, including what may be considered Michael Rennie's only role as one of two central characters in a fully-fledged love story. In the 47-minute episode "Sanatorium", the longest of the Somerset Maugham tales constituting the omnibus film "Trio" (1950), the 40-year-old Rennie and the 20-years-younger Jean Simmons play patients in the title institution, which caters to victims of tuberculosis. They fall in love and decide to marry, despite the doctor's grim prognosis that Rennie can only expect a few more months of life. Simmons' character also faces a premature death within a couple of years. Simmons would, in fact, turn out to be Rennie's most frequent co-star. Although they shared no scenes in their minor roles in "Caesar and Cleopatra" (1945), it was the first of their films together. They also appeared in two 20th Century-Fox epics. In 1953's "The Robe" and its 1954 sequel, "Demetrius and the Gladiators", Rennie played the Apostle Peter, while Simmons portrayed a Christian martyr. In the sequel, they were only briefly seen in a flashback. Their final shared film was 1954's "Désirée". He was again billed fourth, after Marlon Brando (as Napoleon), Simmons (as the title character, Désirée Clary), and Merle Oberon (as Joséphine). Rennie's character, French Marshal Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte, marries Désirée after Napoleon abandons her for Joséphine. 20th Century-Fox. Rennie, along with Simmons and "The Wicked Lady" leading man James Mason, was one of a number of British actors offered Hollywood contracts in 1949–50 by 20th Century-Fox's studio head, Darryl F. Zanuck. The first film under his new contract was the British-filmed Medieval period adventure "The Black Rose", starring Tyrone Power, who became one of Rennie's closest friends. Fifth-billed after the remaining first-tier stars Orson Welles, Cécile Aubry and Jack Hawkins, Rennie was specifically cast as 13th century King Edward I, whose 6' 2" (1.88 m) frame gave origin to his historical nickname "Longshanks". Rennie's second Fox film gave him fourth billing in the top tier. "The 13th Letter", directed by his future nemesis and love rival Otto Preminger, was a remake of the 1943 French film "Le Corbeau" ("The Raven"), with the setting changed to the Canadian province of Quebec. Rennie received top billing in his next film, after Claude Rains turned down the role. "The Day the Earth Stood Still" was the first post-war, respectably budgeted, "A" science-fiction film. It was a serious, high-minded exploration of Cold War paranoia and humanity's place in the universe. The story was dramatised in 1954 for "Lux Radio Theatre", with Rennie and Billy Gray recreating their roles. Seven years later, on 3 March 1962, when "The Day the Earth Stood Still" had its television premiere on NBC's "NBC Saturday Night at the Movies", Rennie appeared before the start of the film to give a two-minute introduction. Buoyed by the strong critical reception and profitability of the film, Fox assigned much of the credit to the central performance of Rennie. Convinced that it had a potential leading man under contract, the studio decided to produce a version of "Les Miserables" as a vehicle for him. The film, released on 14 August 1952, was directed by "All Quiet on the Western Front's" Lewis Milestone. Rennie's performance was respectfully, but not enthusiastically, received by the critics. Ultimately, "Les Misérables" turned in an extremely modest profit and put an end to any further attempts to promote the 43-year-old Rennie as a future star. He was, however, launched on a thriving career as a top supporting actor, as in "Sailor of the King". Based on the positive reaction to his two turns as the Apostle Peter, Fox assigned him another third-billed, top-tier role as a stalwart man of God, Franciscan friar Junipero Serra, who, between 1749 and his death in 1784, founded missions in Alta California. The film was September 1955's "Seven Cities of Gold", with Richard Egan and Anthony Quinn. In 1953, he starred in "Dangerous Crossing" under contract with 20th Century Fox. It was released in 1953 as a black-and-white noirish mystery film. It was directed by Joseph M. Newman, starred Rennie and Jeanne Crain, and was based on a 1943 play "Cabin B-13" by John Dickson Carr. The production reused sets and props from "Titanic" of the same year, in which Rennie did the closing narration. His next film was the last under his five-year contract with 20th Century-Fox. "The Rains of Ranchipur", released on 14 December 1955, assigned him fifth billing after the lead romantic teaming of Lana Turner and Richard Burton. As Turner's character's cuckolded husband, Lord Esketh, Rennie maintained his typical dignity and stiff upper lip. Post-20th Century-Fox. Now a freelancer, Rennie appeared in six additional features between 1956 and 1960, three of which were produced or released by Fox. Rennie appeared as adventurer Lord John Roxton in director Irwin Allen's 1960 adaptation of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's "The Lost World", a tale of a jungle expedition that finds prehistoric monsters in South America; the film also starred Claude Rains, David Hedison, Fernando Lamas, Jill St. John and Richard Haydn. No longer bound by the no-television clause in his studio contract, he began his prolific 15-year association with the medium. "The Third Man" series and television. In 1959, Rennie became a familiar face on television, taking the role of Harry Lime in "The Third Man", an Anglo-American syndicated television series very loosely based on the character previously played by Orson Welles. During the 1960s, he made guest appearances on such series as "The Barbara Stanwyck Show", "The Americans", "Route 66" (a portrayal of a doomed pilot in the two-part episode "Fly Away Home"); "Alfred Hitchcock Presents"; "Perry Mason" (one of four actors in four consecutive episodes substituting for series star Raymond Burr, who was recovering from surgery); "Wagon Train" (a 90-minute colour episode as an English big game hunter); "The Great Adventure" (in an installment of this anthology series about remarkable events in American history, he portrayed Confederate president Jefferson Davis); "Daniel Boone", (in the episodes "The Sound of Wings" and "First in War, First in Peace"); "Lost in Space" (another two-part episode—as an all-powerful alien zookeeper, "The Keeper", he worked one last time with his "Third Man" costar Jonathan Harris); "The Time Tunnel" (as Captain Smith of the "Titanic", in the series' premiere episode); "Batman" (as the villainous Sandman, in league with Julie Newmar's Catwoman); three episodes of "The Invaders" (as a malign variation of the Klaatu persona, culminating in a parallel plot also involving an assembly of world leaders); an episode of "I Spy" ("Lana"); and two episodes of "The F.B.I." Broadway. At the start of the 1960s, Michael Rennie made his only Broadway appearance in "Mary, Mary" playing Dirk Winsten, a jaded film star. After two previews, the sophisticated five-character marital comedy written by Jean Kerr and directed by Joseph Anthony opened at the Helen Hayes Theatre on 8 March 1961. It ran for a very successful 1,572 performances, closing at the Morosco Theatre on 12 December 1964. Rennie stayed with the production less than five months, to be replaced by Michael Wilding in July 1961. When Warner Brothers Pictures cast the film version in early 1963, Rennie, along with leading man Barry Nelson and supporting actor Hiram Sherman (who joined the play two years after the opening in the part first played by John Cromwell) were the only Broadway cast members cast. Debbie Reynolds was given the title role created by Barbara Bel Geddes, and Warners contractee Diane McBain, whom the studio saw as a potential star of the future, took over "the socialite part" essayed by Betsy von Furstenberg. Veteran Mervyn LeRoy produced and directed the film, which opened at Radio City Music Hall on 25 October 1963. Ironically, while the film disappeared from cinemas by the end of 1963, the Broadway version continued for another full year. Personal life. Rennie was married twice: first to Joan England (1938–1945), then to actress Margaret (Maggie) McGrath (1947–1960); their son, David Rennie, is an English circuit judge in Lewes, Sussex, England. Both marriages ended in divorce. He also had a son, John Marshall, by his longtime friend and mistress, Renée (née Gilbert) whose later married name was Taylor. Renée was the sister of the British film director Lewis Gilbert. During the war years, they lived coincidentally in flats in the White House in Albany Street near Regents Park in London (now a hotel). The White House was a favourite location to live during the war years. It was built in the shape of a white cross and was such a good navigation mark for the Luftwaffe, that it was rumoured that there were standing orders to avoid bombing it - hence its popularity with celebrities and the wealthy. Although Rennie offered to accept paternity on discovering the news of her pregnancy, Renée refused, as she was unwilling to jeopardise his growing success as a romantic lead in major feature films. However, Rennie kept a watchful eye on Marshall over the years even after his marriage to Maggie McGrath and both families were in constant touch until Rennie's death. In fact, Renée and Maggie lived for many years in the 1970s and 1980s within 200 yards of each other in Barnes and were close friends. Both Rennie and his sister Bunny were very fond of Renée's family. Coincidentally the British Film Institute's database lists Michael as also having a son, John M. Taylor, who is described as "a producer." John Marshall Rennie used the pseudonym "Taylor" during his long career in the industry to avoid accusations of nepotism. Michael Rennie was also briefly engaged to Mary Gardner, the ex-wife of Hollywood director Otto Preminger. Final years. After completing what amounted to guest roles in two 1968 films, "The Power" and "The Devil's Brigade", as well as top guest-starring roles in two episodes of the ABC/Quinn Martin Productions series "The F.B.I.", Michael Rennie moved from Los Angeles to Switzerland in the latter part of that year. His final seven feature films were filmed in Britain, Italy, Spain and, in the case of "Surabaya Conspiracy", the Philippines. Less than three years after leaving Hollywood, he journeyed to his mother's home in Harrogate, Yorkshire, following the death of his brother. It was there that he died suddenly of an aortic aneurysm almost two months before his 62nd birthday. After his cremation, his ashes were interred in Harlow Hill Cemetery, Harrogate. In popular culture. The opening song of "The Rocky Horror Show" and "The Rocky Horror Picture Show", "Science Fiction Double Feature", begins with the words "Michael Rennie was ill "The Day the Earth Stood Still", but he told us where we stand..." ("and Flash Gordon was there in silver underwear, Claude Rains was The Invisible Man..." etc.) References. Personal War Diary of Flight Lieutenant Jack Morton RAFVR
939554	Zyzzyx Road ( ) is a 2006 American thriller film written and directed by John Penney. It stars Leo Grillo, Katherine Heigl, and Tom Sizemore. The film has gained a degree of notoriety due to being considered the lowest grossing movie in history with a domestic gross of $30 USD. Plot. Grant is an accountant with a bad marriage and a daughter whom he loves. He takes to the road to service his accounts in Las Vegas. While there he meets seductive Marissa. They have a week-long affair which culminates in the arrival of Marissa's ex-boyfriend, Joey. Joey attempts to kill the lovers, but Grant gets the upper hand and in turn kills Joey. Grant and Marissa then drive Joey's body to Zyzzyx Road and Grant buries Joey in the desert there. The next morning, the body is missing and something is trying to kill Grant and Marissa Production. The role of Heigl was originally offered to Thora Birch but she passed. Principal photography took place in the summer of 2005 and lasted 18 days, plus an additional two days for pickup scenes. The film was shot entirely on location in the Mojave Desert, in and around local mines. Sizemore and long-time friend Peter Walton, who worked as Sizemore's assistant, were arrested during the film's production for repeatedly failing drug tests while on probation. Police discovered that Walton had a warrant out for his arrest for child pornography distribution and was subsequently jailed. Sizemore was not jailed, making it possible for him to film his scenes. Release and box office gross. "Zyzzyx Road" was shown once a day at noon for seven days (February 25 – March 2, 2006) at Highland Park Village Theater in Dallas, Texas, a movie theater rented by the producers for $1,000. The limited release was deliberate: Grillo was uninterested in releasing the film domestically until it underwent foreign distribution, but needed to fulfill the U.S. release obligation required by the Screen Actors Guild for low-budget films (films with budgets less than $2.5 million that are not for the direct-to-video market). The strategy had the side effect of making the film at the time the lowest-grossing film of all time, earning just $30 at the box office from six patrons. Unofficially, its opening weekend netted $20. The $10 difference is due to a personal refund by Grillo to makeup artist Sheila Moore, who had worked on the film, and her friend. The similarly-named "Zzyzx" has also (mistakenly) been cited as the lowest-grossing film of all time, due to the similar titles and release dates of the films. Home media. The film was released on DVD in 23 countries, including Bulgaria, Indonesia and Portugal and by the end of 2006 had earned about $368,000. On September 11, 2012, the film was released on DVD in North America, one carrier being Redbox.
1056689	Ghosts of the Abyss is a 2003 documentary film released by Walt Disney Pictures and Walden Media. It was directed by Academy Award-winning filmmaker James Cameron after his 1997 Oscar-winning film "Titanic". During August and September 2001, Cameron and a group of scientists staged an expedition to the wreck of the RMS "Titanic", and dive in Russian deep-submersibles to obtain more detailed images than anyone has before. With the help of two small, purpose-built remotely-operated vehicles, nicknamed "Jake" and "Elwood", the audience too can see inside the "Titanic" and with the help of CGI, audiences can view the ship's original appearance superimposed on the deep-dive images. Also along for the ride Cameron invites friend and actor Bill Paxton who played Brock Lovett in the 1997 film. He narrates the event through his eyes. The film itself was premiered for IMAX 3D and was also nominated for a BFCA award for Best Documentary. The submersibles Mir 1 and Mir 2 carried the filming team on twelve dives. The film is also known as "Titanic 3D: Ghosts of the Abyss". Outline. Director James Cameron returns to the site of the 1912 wreck of the "RMS Titanic" aboard the Russian research vessel "Akademik Mstislav Keldysh". With a team of history and marine experts and friend Bill Paxton, he embarks on an unscripted adventure back to the final grave where 1,517 people were killed 89 years ago in 1912. Using technology developed for this expedition, Cameron and his crew are able to explore virtually all of the wreckage, inside and out, as never before. This documentary was made for IMAX 3D Theatres and specially outfitted 35mm 3D theaters. Cameron and his team bring audiences to sights not seen since the sinking 89 years previously to the filming and explore why the vessel continues to intrigue and fascinate the public. While diving on September 11, 2001, the filming crew hears about the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Afterward, they all compare and reflect on the tragedy of 9/11 with the tragedy of the Titanic. Release. The film was screened out of competition at the 2003 Cannes Film Festival. Home media. The feature film on the DVD is 90 minutes long and is available in a 2-disc edition and as the 5th disc in the "Titanic 5-Disc Deluxe Limited Edition". Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment released the film on a three-disc Blu-ray 3D, Blu-ray and DVD edition on September 11, 2012. Soundtrack. The official soundtrack's songs were composed and conducted by Joel McNeely, and the orchestrations were conducted by David Brown, Marshall Bowen, and Frank Macchia. The album was also recorded and mixed by Rich Breen, edited by Craig Pettigrew, and mastered by Pat Sullivan. The album was ultimately produced by James Cameron, Randy Gerston and Joel McNeely and released by Disney's Hollywood Records label.
1055486	Bless the Child is a 2000 American horror-thriller film directed by Chuck Russell, starring Kim Basinger, Jimmy Smits, Angela Bettis, Rufus Sewell, Christina Ricci, and Holliston Coleman. It is based on the novel of the same name by Cathy Cash Spellman. Plot. Maggie O'Connor's (Kim Basinger) life revolves around her job as a nurse at a busy New York hospital, until one rainy night, her sister Jenna (Angela Bettis) abandons her newborn autistic daughter, Cody, at her home. Maggie takes Cody in, and she becomes the daughter she never had.
1683298	Martha Elba Higareda Cervantes (; born August 24, 1983) is a Mexican actress. Higareda was born in Villahermosa, Tabasco, the daughter of actress Martha Cervantes and artist Jose Luis Higareda, and sister of the actress Miriam Higareda. Her debut was participating in various plays like "Bang", "Don Juan Tenorio", "La Fonda de las Siete Cabrillas", "La Casa de Té en la Luna de Agosto", "Mujercitas", "Muerte Que Te Quiero Muerte", "La Corbata", "Flores Para Chava Flores" and "Niñas Mal". She also appeared in diverse advertising campaigns and video clips. It is not until 1999, when she receives her professional debut as a show hostess in Disney Channel’s "Zapping Zone". After that she also appeared in other Mexican soaps like Carita de Ángel and "Cara o Cruz." In 2002, Higareda finally appeared in her first movie as a protagonist. The movie "Amarte Duele", directed by Fernando Sariñana, in which she shares credits with Luis Fernando Peña and Alfonso Herrera. A year after, she debut as a protagonist in the Mexican soap opera, "Enamórate", TV Azteca Mexican TV chain, next to Yahir, where she also shared credits with Martha Cristiana, Fernando Sarfati, and Amara Villafuerte. In 2004, she participates in another protagonist for “Las Juanas” another of TV Azteca’s soap opera. In 2005, Higareda returned with the movie "Siete Días", next to Jaime Camil, in which she interprets a girl whose dream is to make U2 come to the city of Monterrey, in less than a week. She also appeared in the Mexican movie, “Fuera del Cielo” which was first named "El Malboro y el Cucú". In 2007, she came with her latest production "Niñas Mal", directed by Fernando Sariñana where she shared credits with Camila Sodi and Ximena Sariñana. She also finished the production of a movie named "Borderland" where she shares credits with Brian Presley and Beto Cuevas. In 2008, she appeared in the film "Street Kings", sharing credits with Keanu Reeves, Hugh Laurie, and Forest Whitaker. In 2010, she appeared in the prequel to the crime/action film Smokin Aces, , as a deadly female assassin with poisonous lips.
1061653	James Harrison Coburn III (August 31, 1928 – November 18, 2002) was an American film and television actor. Coburn appeared in nearly 70 films and made more than 100 television appearances during his 45-year career, winning an Academy Award for his supporting role as Glen Whitehouse in "Affliction". A capable, rough-hewn leading man, his toothy grin and lanky body made him a perfect tough-guy in numerous leading and supporting roles in westerns and action films, such as "The Magnificent Seven", "Hell Is for Heroes", "The Great Escape", "Major Dundee", "Our Man Flint", "In Like Flint", "Duck, You Sucker", "Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid", "Charade", and "Cross of Iron".
696333	Mitti Wajaan Maardi, (translation: The Soil Beckons) is a Punjabi film directed by Manmohan Singh. Plot. This is a moving saga of Punjabis who go abroad for better prospects but circumstances prevent them from returning to their homeland. One such story focuses on Surjit Singh who goes to America leaving behind his wife and two year old daughter. But to get American citizenship he has to marry for a second time. This act breaks his relationship with his family back home in Punjab. Now a wealthy man, Surjit hopes his son, Varyam, will marry the daughter of his best friend back in Punjab but his plans are soon put on hold when he discovers he is dying. On his death bed Surjit reveals the truth of his first marriage to his son, and begs him to make things right with his first family. Little does Varyam know that doing so will completely change his life.
1165473	James F. Hawkins (born November 13, 1941), known as Jimmy Hawkins, and later, Jim Hawkins, is an American actor and film producer whose career began as a child actor to such Hollywood stars as Lana Turner, Spencer Tracy, James Stewart, and Donna Reed. His acting career spans the time frame from 1944–1974, after which he devoted his energies to the production of films and later to his construction/contracting business. Hawkins had starring roles in several television series: "The Ruggles" (1949–1952), "Annie Oakley" (1954–1957, syndicated), "The Donna Reed Show" (1958–1966, ABC), and "Petticoat Junction" (CBS, the first four seasons, 1963–1967). He also had recurring roles as (1) a friend of the Nelson brothers on ABC’s "The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet" and (2) as Jonathan Baylor on CBS's "Ichabod and Me" sitcom with Robert Sterling and George Chandler in the 1961-1962 season. He guest starred in many other programs during his childhood and young adult years, such as the CBS sitcom, "Dennis the Menace". Hawkins was born in Los Angeles to Thomas J. Hawkins (1913–1993) and Bette C. Hawkins (born c. 1916). His first roles—as a two-year-old—were uncredited – Spencer Tracy’s "The Seventh Cross" and Lana Turner’s "Marriage Is A Private Affair" at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios. His mother was the force behind his early childhood acting. He graduated from the Roman Catholic-affiliated Notre Dame High School in Sherman Oaks, Los Angeles. Hawkins and Donna Reed. Hawkins starred in December 1946 as four-year-old Tommy Bailey, the son of George and Mary Bailey, in the nostalgic blockbuster "It’s a Wonderful Life", starring James Stewart and Donna Reed, an actress for whom young Hawkins developed a lifelong admiration. In 1958, he worked again with Reed in her sitcom, having portrayed Scotty, a persistent and loyal boyfriend of Donna’s television daughter Mary Stone, played by Shelley Fabares. He became personally close to Fabares and Paul Petersen, who played Reed’s son, Jeff Stone, on the series. Hawkins recalls having visited Reed for the last time at Christmas 1985, just days before her death of cancer: "I really loved that woman . . .is a scene in "It’s A Wonderful Life" where she touched my cheek. Well, flashback to the eighties, Donna was really ill, it was around Christmas time, and I went to visit her at her home, I brought her an "It's A Wonderful Life" Christmas ornament for her tree. She asked me to put it on her tree, and we visited, but it was hard for her to expend any energy; so I wished her a Merry Christmas and told her I had to go, and then she reached her hand up to touch my cheek just like she did when I was in that scene with her when she drew me in, and in just two weeks, she died." Hawkins is a mainstay of the Donna Reed Foundation. Each June, he, Shelley Fabares, and Paul Petersen travel to Denison, Iowa (Reed’s hometown), for an annual celebration. During the week, classes in theatre arts are taught by professionals from Hollywood and New York City. Hawkins and Jimmy Stewart. Hawkins was also close to "It's a Wonderful Life" star Jimmy Stewart, who signed for various charities six copies of a commemorative 50th anniversary book on the classic film. Hawkins picked up the books at Stewart's Beverly Hills home on July 3, 1997, the day after Stewart's death at the age of eighty-nine. Hawkins also worked with Stewart again in the 1950 film "Winchester '73", which was partially filmed at Old Tucson Studios in Tucson, Arizon a. And Stewart wrote the foreword to Hawkins' previous "It's a Wonderful Life Trivia Book". Hawkins said that Stewart's willingness to sign the books showed that the veteran star was "giving to the end."
588993	Seeta aur Geeta (transliteration: "Seeta and Geeta") is a 1972 Hindi comedy drama film directed by Ramesh Sippy. The story is by Salim-Javed and the music by R.D. Burman. The story is about identical twins (played by Hema Malini) who are separated at birth and grow up with different temperaments. The twins then swap places (like "The Prince and the Pauper"). Hema's two partners in the movie are played by Dharmendra and Sanjeev Kumar. Manorama plays the evil aunt who changes her tune after her arm is twisted (literally). Furthermore, Hema Malini was noted for the novelty of her role as Geeta where she is rambunctious and sometimes violent. This theme has been repeated in other movies before and after. A prior movie on this theme was "Ram Aur Shyam" starring Dilip Kumar in the leading dual role. Subsequent Hindi remakes of the story have been made, including "Jaise Ko Taisa" starring Jeetendra, "Chaalbaaz" starring Sridevi and "Kishen Kanhaiya" starring Anil Kapoor in the dual role. Remakes in other languages include the Telugu film "Ganga Manga" (1973) and the Tamil film "Vani Rani" (1974), both starring Vanisri in the dual roles. Hema Malini won her only competitive Filmfare Best Actress Award of her career. P. Vaikunth won the Filmfare Best Cinematographer Award. In 1976 the film was shown in Soviet Union where it was a success. Plot. Seeta and Geeta (Hema Malini-dual role) are twin girls who were separated at birth. Geeta, a feisty girl is raised in a poor neighborhood and is a street performer, while Seeta is raised by her cruel aunt Chachi and meek uncle. Chachi treats Seeta like a servant, despite the fact that the family is living off her late parents' money. Seeta's only consolation is her old grandmother. One day, Seeta decides life is not worth living and runs away to commit suicide. She is saved but is mistaken for her identical twin Geeta and is taken to Geeta's home. Meanwhile, Seeta's aunt and uncle are frantically searching for her and find Geeta. They attempt to force Geeta to go with them but, using some of her clever tricks, she escapes them and the police who have been searching for her. She then meets Ravi (Sanjeev Kumar) and, though he also mistakes her for Seeta, she goes home with him. Ravi is surprised by this "Seeta" and the Seeta he had met previously. Geeta realizes the cruelty that Seeta has been living under and vows to teach her aunt a lesson. Meanwhile, the real Seeta is living in Geeta's house. Her surrogate mother has attributed her new docile attitude to shock. Here, Seeta meets Raka (Dharmendra), Geeta's friend and fellow performer. Raka is also surprised by "Geeta's" sudden gentle nature and desire to do housework. When he tried to coax her into performing, she is unable to do so. Ravi meanwhile falls in love with Geeta. At home, Geeta begins to set everything on a proper course. She resumes control of the money and restores her grandmother to the head of the household, where she belongs. Raka begins to fall in love with Seeta. Trouble begins brewing when Chachi's brother Ranjeet comes to visit and sees the real Seeta in a marketplace. He follows her and discovers the truth, which leads to a showdown in the villains' den with happy endings and marriage.
1267424	Virginia Rappe (; July 7, 1891 – September 9, 1921) was an American model and silent film actress. She worked mostly in small bit parts, and is best known for her death after attending a party with actor Fatty Arbuckle, who was accused of complicity in her death though ultimately exonerated. Early life and career. Virginia Caroline Rapp was born in New York City to an unwed mother, Mabel Rapp, who died when Virginia was 11. Virginia was then raised by her grandmother in Chicago. At age 14 she began working as a commercial and art model in Chicago. Rappe had at least two abortions by the time she was 16. In 1916 she relocated to San Francisco to pursue her career as an artist's model, where she met dress designer Robert Moscovitz, to whom she became engaged. Shortly after the engagement Moscovitz was killed in a streetcar accident, whereupon she moved to Los Angeles. In early 1917 she was hired by director Fred Balshofer and given a prominent role in his "Paradise Garden" opposite popular screen star Harold Lockwood. In 1918 she gave birth to a child, which was put into foster care. Balshofer then hired her again to costar with early drag performer Julian Eltinge and newcomer Rudolph Valentino in "Over the Rhine", for which she was awarded the title of "Best Dressed Girl in Pictures". This film was not released until 1920 when Balshofer recut it and released it under the title "An Adventuress" and later in 1922 as "The Isle of Love". In 1919, she began a relationship with director/producer Henry Lehrman; the two eventually became engaged. She appeared in at least four films for Lehrman: "His Musical Sneeze", "A Twilight Baby", "Punch of the Irish" and "A Game Lady". However, because many of Lehrman's films are lost, the exact number of roles she performed for him cannot be known. Death. The circumstances of Rappe's death in 1921 became a Hollywood scandal and were covered widely (and sensationalized) by the media of the time. During a party held on Labor Day, September 5, 1921, in Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle's suite, number 1219, at the St. Francis Hotel in San Francisco, Rappe allegedly suffered a trauma.
585164	Anthuleni Katha also spelled as Antuleni Katha (; English:"Story Without Ending") is a 1976 Telugu film directed by K. Balachander starring Jayaprada in the lead role, with Rajinikanth, Sripriya and Phataphat Jayalaxmi in supporting roles. Kamal Hassan played an extended cameo. The film is a remake of the 1974 Tamil film "Aval Oru Thodar Kathai" which was also directed by Balachander. This is Jayaprada's first starring role, reprising the role played by Sujatha in the original and is considered to be one of her best films. This was also Rajinikanth's first major role. This film was shot in black-and-white. Plot. Saritha (Jayaprada) is a working woman in a middle-class family. She works hard to support her widowed sister, unmarried sister, her blind younger brother, her mother, her drunkard brother Murthy Rajnikanth and his family. Her father abandons the family and becomes a saint. Her brother not only does not take responsibilities, but also creates additional problems for her. She has a longtime boyfriend, who wants to marry her, but she doesn't because of her commitment to her family. His eyes now wander to Saritha's widowed younger sister (Sripriya) who reciprocates his feelings. Saritha, after reading her boyfriend's love letter to her sister, arranges for them to get married, thus giving up her chance of having a life with him. She eventually accepts a marriage proposal of her boss (Kamal Hassan), when she realizes that her brother has become responsible enough to take care of her family. She also helps her distressed friend, played by Phataphat Jayalaksmi to settle in life. She decides to resign from hard work, but could not as the result of turning point in a typical Balachandar style climax. Original and Remakes. The film is a remake of Tamil super hit film "Aval Oru Thodar Kathai" (1974), also directed by K. Balachander. It was also shot on black & white film. Sujata played the role of Jayaprada, Jai Ganesh did the role of Rajnikanth, Kamal Haasan played the role of Narayana Rao. Same tunes were used in both the languages. Sripriya, Phataphat Jayalaxmi and rest of the cast are same in both the versions. The Tamil film was later was dubbed into Malayalam as "Aval Oru Thudarkatha" (1975). In 1977, Mala Sinha starred in the Bengali remake titled Kabita playing the Jayaprada role. Kamal Haasan made his Bengali film debut with this film by acting in the same role that he played in the Tamil original film. Bharat Shamsher directed the black-and-white film. The film was remade in Hindi as "Jeevan Dhaara" (1982) by director Tatineni Rama Rao. Rekha did the role of Jayaprada. Rakesh Roshan did the role of Kamal Haasan, Amol Palekar did the role of Narayana Rao. Karan Razdan did the conductor role, Simple Kapadia (sister of Dimple Kapadia) did Phataphat Jayalaxmi's role. The film was shot in color. The film was a decent hit. In 1983, Balachander produced the Kannada remake titled "Benkiyalli Aralida Hoovu" directed by Chandulal Jain and starring Suhasini, whose real-life uncle Kamal Haasan played the guest role of a bus conductor in this remake. The film was shot in color. Soundtrack. All songs are penned by Athreya and the music is composed by M. S. Viswanathan.
582083	Kaante (, English: "Thorns") is a 2002 Bollywood action film directed by Sanjay Gupta and starring Amitabh Bachchan, Sanjay Dutt, Sunil Shetty, Mahesh Manjrekar, Lucky Ali, Kumar Gaurav, Namrata Singh Gujral, Rati Agnihotri, Malaika Arora and Isha Koppikar in the lead roles. The film's central plot is based on Quentin Tarantino's Reservoir Dogs, and also borrows plot points from The Usual Suspects and Heat. However, Tarantino has been quoted as saying that "Kaante" is his favourite among the many rip-offs of his film. Plot. The movie is narrated by (Lucky Ali), as Mak. The six main characters are detained by the LAPD, and interrogated about stealing a truck full of laptops and its whereabouts. All six are detained for about a day, where their deep antipathy towards the police department, for arresting them without any apparent evidence against all of them, and just because the witnesses had seen a South Asian at work, grows into a daring plot. Sparked by "Major" and blown up by "Ajju", who asks them to meet him in his club, they all hatch a plan to rob the bank in which holds the payroll for the LAPD. In return, Ajju reveals that he was the truck stealer and splits the money with all. Everyone goes about their normal life after that, in which it is revealed the personal troubles all face. Marc is a bouncer who hates the way his lover, a club-dancer, has to live and decides to rescue her from the club owner Cyrus, by paying him the required money. Ajju is a club owner who is facing his own problems handling the club and has to lease it out. He also has an ongoing spat with Marc about his girlfriend. Major has a sick wife who he has to look after by supplying her with medicine and injections. Andy is a young, intelligent, software engineer who is having problems with his job and is in the middle of a divorce and custody dispute with his wife. Major knows that Andy is the most important member of the group as he is the only one who can hack the bank's computer system. Mak and Bali are two drug-peddlers who live off the street selling and buying illicit drugs for a drug lord. They first meet when Bali is being chased by some undercover policemen and meets Mak in alley where he is adjusting something in his car. He agrees to save him only if he splits his loot. They agree to work as partners on those terms from then on.
586940	Eijaz Khan (born 28 August 1975 in Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh, India) is an Indian film and television actor. Early life. Eijaz studied in the Our Lady Of Perpetual Succour High School located in Chembur a suburb in Mumbai and later pursued Civil Engineering from the prestigious Datta Meghe College of Engineering, Airoli. Acting happened to him by chance when Balaji discovered him. Before that he used to handle the family business which deals with shock absorbers. Now since acting takes up all of Eijaz's time, his father and brother handle the business. Injury. Eijaz had a freak injury whilst performing at a stage show which led to his shoulder getting dislocated, to the extent that, he was thrown off-track for almost two years. Even today, due to this injury, he cannot move his right-hand above a certain extent and feels he lost out on a lot of work due to this. Career. Eijaz appeared in some music videos like Leena O Leena, Patang Wali Dor, Ho Gaya Ho Gaya, Kuch To Kaho, Nachche Sari Raat, Kehdu Tumhein, Hum to Mohabbat Karega and an AIDS Awareness Video. He did Suncrest, Asli Atta, Visa Electron, Pride, Pure Ghee, Breeze, Chloromint, TVS Victor, Big Bazaar, Wrigley's, Tata Indicom, BSNL advertisements also. He is seen in most of the K-series soap in quite significant roles and is considered to be Ekta Kapoor's blue-eyed boy. Eijaz won awards like Aap Jaisa Koi 2005 Evergreen Hero, ITA 2005 Bright Onscreen TV Couple of the year with Anita, 2006 SPA Best Jodi again with Anita. Besides working in Indian television, Eijaz has also done roles in Bollywood movies. He was slated to perform in Jhalak Dikhla Ja but had to bow out because of a shoulder injury .Currently he is seen essaying the role of a wealthy and arrogant businessman Vikrant Suryavanshi in Zee TV popular soap Punar Vivah ek nayi umeed.
629478	Reckless Kelly is a 1993 Australian comedy film written, directed and starring Yahoo Serious. The story is a satirical take on a modern day Ned Kelly who is forced to Hollywood in order to make enough money to save his family's land. As it goes against his belief, he cannot simply rob banks for his own benefit (all money goes to the poor). Ned is forced to find another way to come up with the $1 million required to save his family island. It co-stars Melora Hardin, Alexei Sayle and Hugo Weaving. Production. The film was financed by Warner Bros, Village Roadshow and the Australian Film Finance Corporation. Serious used many of the same key creatives had had on "Young Einstein". Box office. "Reckless Kelly" grossed $5,444,534 at the box office in Australia.
583962	Paiyaa () is a 2010 Indian Tamil romantic action film written and directed by N. Linguswamy. It stars Karthi and Tamannaah, with Milind Soman, Sonia Deepti and Jagan appearing in supporting roles. The film follows the journey of two strangers – a jobless carefree man, living in Bangalore, and a woman with whom he has fallen in love. Upon the woman's request, he drives her to Mumbai, while a group of gangsters follow them, planning to kidnap the woman. Meanwhile, the man also has a past in the city and he goes there to sort it out. The film, produced by N. Subash Chandra Bose under the banner of Thirupathi Brothers and distributed by Dhayanidhi Alagiri's Cloud Nine Movies, features a film score and soundtrack composed by Yuvan Shankar Raja, cinematography by Madhi and editing by Anthony Gonsalves. Following a lengthy pre-production phase, during which the film underwent major changes in its main cast and its technical crew, it began shooting in December 2008 at various locations throughout South India, most notably in Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra. The film was released on 2 April 2010 to predominantly positive reviews and was commercially successful. A Telugu dubbed version of the film titled "Awara" was released on 21 May in Andhra Pradesh and also received positive response and it was also dubbed in Hindi as "Aakhri Baazi". "Paiyaa" was remade in Bengali in 2012 as "Jaaneman", starring Soham Chakraborty and Koel Mallick. It is being remade into Kannada as "Ajith", with Chiranjeevi Sarja playing the male lead. Plot. Shiva (Karthi) is a young, carefree, unemployed man staying in Bangalore. He has a loyal group of friends including his best friend, a young woman named Priya (Sonia Deepti) with whom he shares his feelings. His friends are determined to get him a job. One day he sees a young, beautiful woman named Charulatha (Tamannaah), who is also looking for a job. Shiva is immediately attracted to her. He subsequently spots Charulatha on various occasions and follows her, but loses sight of her each time. He even misses a job interview Priya has arranged for him. Later, as Shiva waits at the railway station to pick up a friend and owner of the Mitsubishi Lancer Shiva and his friends use, he is confronted by a tense Charulatha, accompanied by her uncle. They assume that Shiva is a cab driver and ask him to take them to Chennai. An excited Shiva accepts the offer and takes them. While stopping to refuel the car, Charulatha suddenly requests Shiva to drive on, leaving her uncle behind; Shiva does as she wishes and takes off. She first asks Shiva to drop her at the airport but she misses the flight and later at a railway station, she is unable to go by train,so she asks Shiva if he will take her to Mumbai by car. Shiva instantly agrees and drives her to Mumbai. Shiva tries to get into a conversation with Charulatha. She initially refuses to talk, but eventually gives in and tells him about her background. It comes to light that Charulatha's mother, who had always supported her daughter, died after a violent altercation with her father; since then her father has tried to force Charulatha to marry an unknown man of his choice. Not willing to bow to her father's wishes, she had escaped from home, but was later found by her father's business partner, Jayaraman, her supposed uncle. He was about to take her to register the marriage arranged by her father when Charulatha tried to escape, leaving him behind at the filling station. Now she wants to head to Mumbai to stay at her grandmother's home. However, she is being followed by a gang, led by a furious Telugu-speaking lady. Shiva manages to lose the pursuers and decides to change the route in order to avoid the gang, but encounters a second gang. He realizes that this gang is not following Charulatha, but himself, as they are the henchmen of a Mumbai-based gangster Baali (Milind Soman). He recalls an incident that happened some years ago in Mumbai, when he stayed there at his friend Poochi's (Jagan) house. He had beaten one of Baali's men, who had attacked him, and later Baali himself, not knowing about him and his reputation in the city, and returned to Bangalore. Both gangs are following the couple to achieve their own ends. After reaching Mumbai and experiencing a series of events, they end up at Poochi's house. Poochi finds out where the grandmother lives and Shiva brings Charulatha there. Shiva, unable to bear the thought that the journey is complete, leaves silently only to find Charulatha on the road. After hesitating, she reveals that her relatives had spoken ill about her parents, which prompted her leave, not wanting to push the matter further. While in a state of doubt, they are attacked by Baali's gang, who have teamed up with Jayaraman. Shiva saves Charulatha from the clutches of the goons by single-handedly overpowering them. While on their way back to Bangalore, his friends arrive. Priya, whom Shiva has called often, tells Charulatha of his feelings for her. Charulatha reciprocates Shiva's love, as she too has fallen for him during the journey, thus both unite. Production. Development. In September 2007, while working on "Bheema", a film starring Vikram, Linguswamy announced that Karthi would star in his next venture to be launched in January 2008. He said that he had written a story "suitable for Karthi", further adding that it would be "an action oriented film". The following month, sources suggested that he was planning a bilingual project, filming simultaneously in Tamil and Telugu with Karthi and Ram Charan Teja, respectively. However in early November, reports claimed that Vishal would portray the protagonist after Linguswamy had considered Jayam Ravi for the lead character. The reports proved to be false and Karthi was confirmed as the lead actor of the film. The film failed to begin production in January 2008, with sources reporting in March that Linguswamy was still working on the script. The film was yet to be titled. It was to feature the main crew members of "Bheema", including music director Harris Jayaraj, cinematographer R. D. Rajasekhar and editor Anthony. Linguswamy later announced the film with an entirely new crew; Yuvan Shankar Raja replaced Jayaraj as the film's music composer, and Madhi was selected as the cinematographer, after Rajasekhar had opted out of the project as he was busy working on "Jaggubhai". Linguswamy chose Priya Manikandan, wife of cinematographer Manikandan, as the chief costume designer, for whom "Paiyaa" would be her first film project. Linguswamy further revealed that the film would be produced by his home production studio Thirupathi Brothers and denied that it was a remake of a Telugu film. Lingusamy disclosed later that he had written two scripts, out of which Karthi eventually chose "Paiyaa", because he wanted to do an "urban love story" after two successive roles as a ruffian. Initially titled as "Kuthirai", it was later renamed as "Paiyaa", which was considered a tentative, working title only. Karthi said he was " ... dying to start shooting for Paiyaa " and to " ... wear good clothes ... and he accepted the film because he " ... desperately wanted to play a cool dude on screen. The filming was supposed to begin in August 2009. However, due to the slow progress of Karthi's ongoing project, "Aayirathil Oruvan", "Paiyaa" was postponed several times, since Karthi needed to maintain the continuity of his looks for his role in "Aayirathil Oruvan". Its producer Ravindran complained at the Tamil Film Producers Council that Karthi was trying to change his look and move on to "Paiyaa" before finishing his commitments, which forced Linguswamy to readjust the schedules. The shooting finally began in December 2008. The film's music was released in November 2009 along with the trailer. In late 2009, after finishing the filming of "Paiyaa", Lingusamy disclosed his plans of remaking the film in Telugu and Hindi as well. Later, as "Yuganikki Okkadu", the Telugu dubbed version of Karthi's "Aayirathil Oruvan", emerged as successful in Andhra Pradesh, the team instead decided to dub and release the film in Telugu to cash in on Karthi's new-found popularity in the state. The Telugu version was titled "Awara" and its audio was released in March 2010; "Awara" was released simultaneously with the Tamil version. In March 2010, the film's distribution rights were acquired by Dhayanidhi Alagiri's Cloud Nine Movies. This film is also dubbed version in Hindi as "Aakhri Baazi" Casting. In July 2008, actress Nayantara was signed for the female lead role in "Paiyaa" for a record salary of 1 crore. Speaking about the issue, the director admitted that she was one of his favourite actress and he liked her performance in "Yaaradi Nee Mohini". He also quoted: "The way her career graph shot up is intriguing. Unlike others her career progressed in reverse gear. She paired up with the superstar during the early years of her career and started accepting roles with heroes of next generation." She also expressed her interest to work in the project. However, plans were made to trim the film's budget due to the economic recession, and discussions were held with Nayantara to reduce her salary. The talks resulted in failure and Nayantara left the project in December 2008. Later, she was accused of cheating the director by refusing to return an advance of 15 lakh she had taken before commencement, after walking out of the film. The director filed a complaint with the Tamil Film Producers Council, which decided to ban the actress. Subsequently Trisha was reported to have bagged the role, before Tamannaah was finalized as the female lead, who was signed for 80 lakh. Later in December 2008, Milind Soman, who had last appeared in "Pachaikili Muthucharam", was signed up for the main antagonist's role, a Mumbai-based don, with other minor antagonists numbering up to 18. Filming. After Karthi had completed his film "Aayirathil Oruvan", the principal photography for "Paiyaa" began on 24 December 2008 at a highway near Bangalore. Shooting carried on in and around Bangalore in the following weeks. The film's main portions were extensively shot across some major highways, where the story plays, whilst the climax was filmed in Mumbai, where the journey would also end. The filming also took place in Tamil Nadu, Puducherry, Kerala and Andhra Pradesh. In May 2009, a street fight was filmed near the Chembarambakkam Lake in Chennai. Later that month, a song ("Suthudhe Suthudhe Boomi"), choreographed by Sabeena Khan, was shot at Prasad Studios in Chennai, where a set had been erected by art director Rajeevan. The song was said to have featured computer graphics and visual effects with which forests and mountain ranges were created. In June 2009, after nearly six months of shooting, more than sixty-five percent of the project was completed, with a song and the climax sequences being the remaining parts to be filmed. A twenty-five day schedule was to be held in Mumbai and Pune, but the shooting got halted in July due to heavy rains. In October 2009, the final action scenes of the climax involving Karthi and Milind Soman were filmed in Mumbai and its suburbs in a ten-day schedule, following which a rain song ("Adada Mazhaida"), featuring Karthi and Tamannaah, was shot at the Athirappilly waterfalls in Kerala. Soundtrack. The soundtrack for "Paiyaa" was scored by Yuvan Shankar Raja, collaborating with Linguswamy again after "Sandakozhi" (2005). The audio launch function was held on 22 November 2009 at the Satyam Cinemas, which was attended by many prominent film personalities; director Shankar released the soundtrack. The album originally features five songs with vocals by singers Karthik, Benny Dayal, Haricharan, Rahul Nambiar and composer Yuvan Shankar Raja himself. Three songs were reportedly composed and recorded in Singapore. The lyrics were provided by Na. Muthukumar. The album received highly positive reviews and responses from critics and audiences alike and the songs were considered to have played an important role for the film's success. Release. The film was initially scheduled for a late 2009 release, but was pushed to 14 January 2010 coninciding with the Tamil harvest festival Thai Pongal. Karthi's second film "Aayirathil Oruvan", which was in production for nearly three years, was also planned to release on the same day. Since, according to the Tamil Film Producers Council, two films starring the same actor could not be released on the same day, "Aayirathil Oruvan" was given priority, whilst "Paiyaa" was postponed for 30 days. The release was postponed again for some reasons, before finally hitting the screens on 2 April 2010. The film had its premiere at the Satyam Cinemas, Chennai. A group of celebrities attended the event, including Vijay, Simbu, Narain, Jayam Ravi, Premji Amaren, Aishwarya Dhanush, Gautham Menon, Hari, Venkat Prabhu and Jai, besides some of the film's cast and crew. Box office. "Paiyaa" got a solo release on 2 April 2010, coinciding with Good Friday. It earned 71 lakh in the opening weekend across Chennai with an average occupancy of 90%. The film grossed 3 crore in the first three days and was declared a commercial success within a few days. In the United Kingdom the film was distributed by B4U and was released across six screens, grossing £21,021 in the opening weekend, opening at the 23rd place. Furthermore, in Malaysia, the film opened across 34 screens and collected $349,368 after the second week. In Tamil Nadu, it netted 13 crore from 300 screens in two weeks. Critical reception. Upon release, the film generally received positive reviews, with most critics calling the film "summer entertainer" and lauding its technical aspects. "Sify" described the film as a "road movie laced with mass elements and extraordinary songs", adding that it is a "jolly good ride". The reviewer praised the "loveable lead pair" for their "credible performance, which makes up for the plot holes". He said that technically the film was Linguswamy's his best, with Mathi's "eye-catching camera work", Antony's "crisp editing", Rajeevan's "exotic set designs", and praised composer Yuvan Shankar Raja, whose "foot-tapping" songs "scorch just like the desert sun" and were all "rocking", while his background score was a "perfect co-ordination with the narration". A reviewer from the "Times of India", Bhama Devi Ravi, gave the film 3 out of 5 stars, writing that "the story is not earth-shatteringly new, but what pulls you into the movie is the different spin that Lingusamy gives to the familiar story". She praised the lead pair's performance, particularly Karthi, who "comes up with an enjoyable performance", as well as the film's technical values, describing the camera work as "mind-blowing", Brinda Sarathy's dialogues as "thoroughly enjoyable" and Yuvan Shankar Raja's songs as "a real treat". Indiaglitz described the film as a "racy action adventure" and "undeniably an entertainer this summer", writing that Linguswamy has brought out "a classy entertainer" and Karthi and Tamannaah's performances are "absolutely great". Regarding the technical crew, the reviewer cited that the camera work was "immaculate", while editor Anthony and stunt coordinator Kanal Kannan had done "an incredible and marvellous job". The music, in particular, was described as "the greatest strength of the movie" and his background score as "excellent". An entertainment portal, "Behindwoods" gave the film 2.5 out of 5 stars, describing the film as "a stylish, light hearted family entertainer for the summer" and a "Pacy road show with a few humps on a straight run". It too, like the other reviewers, cited that Karthi had brought out an "enjoyable performance", whilst describing Yuvan Shankar Raja as "the major backbone of "Paiya"". Moreover, he cited that Brinda Sarathy's dialogues "evoke laughter", the car chasing sequence is "absolutely brilliant", the cinematographer "needs plaudits" and the "crisp editing" by Anthony as a "major plus point." In contrast, Rediff's Pavithra Srinivasan cited that there was "othing entertaining about "Paiyya"" and that film was worth a watch only for Karthi's screen presence, "pretty" Tamannaah and Yuvan's songs, despite giving 2.5 out of 5 stars. She criticized Linguswamy's script as the film's "biggest minus", adding that the film "starts out so very promisingly", describing the first half was "racy, peppy and enthusiastic, only to fizzle out with no appreciable sequences in the second half."
1056764	The Town that Dreaded Sundown is a 1976 horror film directed by (and co-starring) Charles B. Pierce. It is based on a series of actual murders attributed to a man dubbed locally as the Phantom Killer, who murdered five people between February and May 1946. The murders occurred in and around the city of Texarkana, which is on the border between Texas and Arkansas. Most of the murders occurred in rural parts of the Texarkana area in both states and in rural areas of Bowie County, Texas and Miller County, Arkansas. The Phantom Killer was never identified by law enforcement and therefore never apprehended. The film is presented like an episode of "Unsolved Mysteries", with a narrator describing the actions as they are shown. Ben Johnson stars as the law-enforcement officer attempting to catch the killer. Dawn Wells (Mary Ann of "Gilligan's Island") appears as one of the victims. Although the movie was presented with the claim that "only the names have been changed," much of the film is fictional embellishment of the real events. A good portion of the film was filmed in and around Texarkana and a number of extras appearing in the film were recruited from the town's local residents. Plot. Sunday, March 3, 1946. In the small town of Texarkana, Arkansas, Sammy and Linda Mae are out parking in a car. The car hood pops open and a man wearing a hood over his face takes something from the engine. Sammy realizes that someone is out there and fruitlessly tries starting the car as the hooded man breaks the drivers side car window with a pipe and pulls Sammy out. Linda Mae screams, and the man goes for her as well. Linda Mae is found lying severely wounded on the side of the road the following morning and both she and Sammy are taken to a nearby hospital. A doctor tells Deputy Ramsey and Sheriff Barker that Linda Mae was "bitten" and "literally chewed" on different parts of her body by the assailant. Police Chief Sullivan asks about the Lovers Lane Case and he tells the other officers to warn people about parking on lonely roads. Ramsey states his belief that the mysterious person will strike again. On March 24, Howard and his girlfriend, Emma Lou, go out driving in the rain. After hearing gunshots, Ramsey, patrolling in his car, finds Howard's parked car, but no one around. Ramsey hears more gunshots and in the woods he finds Howard and Emma Lou, both dead, having been shot several times. The hooded killer gets in the parked car and drives away. Since the killer, now known as "The Phantom", seems to have no motive the townspeople begin to dread sundown. A few days later, Ramsey goes to the nearby train station to meet Captain Morales, a famous criminal investigator and Texas Ranger who arrives in Texarkana to find the killer. Morales has the officers set up a curfew for the entire town. Many people are on the case, including the FBI who arrive in town to assist. But a number of criminals and crazy people come forward admitting to the murders, while a horde of other citizens are demanding protection. Ramsey tells Morales that on April 14, 21 more days after the second attack, the killer may strike again. Morales sets up decoys (cops posing as couples in unmarked parked cars). That very night at the local Junior and High Schools Prom, many people leaving under the watchful eyes of the police officers nearby. Peggy gets her trombone and leaves with her boyfriend Roy. Roy suggests parking at their favorite spot, despite Peggy's wariness over the recent murders. After making out, the two of them nod off and wake up in their car at 2:40 in the morning. As Roy starts the car and begins to drive away, the Phantom jumps on their car, grabs Roy and causes both of them to fall out. The Phantom whacks Roy on the head with a pistol and chases Peggy down, and ties her to a tree. A dazed Roy gets up and tries to run away, but the killer shoots him dead. The killer gets Peggy's trombone, attaches a knife to the end and "plays" the instrument, stabbing Peggy in the back a few times, killing her. The next day, Morales is upset that the Phantom was able to kill again with all the law officers out looking for him. In a nearby diner, Morales, Ramsey and the group talk to Dr. Kress, who says that the Phantom is apparently motivated by a strong sex drive and will probably not get caught. He also says that the killings are like a game to the Phantom. Morales asks the doctor if the killer is insane, to which Dr. Kress replies "oh, yes!" At a nearby table, an unseen man, (wearing the killer's boots and slacks) stands up and walks out of the diner unnoticed after he has apparently heard everything the officers were talking about. Back at the station, Morales talks to a man named Johnson, who says that he was held at gunpoint by a man claiming to have killed five people. Morales and Ramsey get a call about an armed man. They spot him speeding away from a store and chase him down. The man, Eddie, is arrested after they find that he is driving a stolen car. Johnson identifies him as the man with the gun. Under interrogation, Eddie says that he is the Phantom, but Morales does not believe him and correctly suspects that Eddie is just another nutcase who wants to confess to being the killer in order to gain publicity and fame. On Friday, May 3, Helen Reed drives away after grocery shopping and is unknowingly followed by the unseen killer who is identified by his familiar boots. While she is at home in a remote farmhouse, her husband, Floyd, in the living room, is sitting in an armchair reading a newspaper when the Phantom walks up to the window and shoots him twice with a silenced pistol. Helen only hears the breaking glass and enters the living room to see Floyd fall out of his chair to the floor dead with two bullet wounds in the back of his head and neck. Helen runs to a phone to call the police when the killer bursts into the house through the front door and shoots Helen twice in the face. While the Phantom enters the living room to look at Floyd's dead body, Helen, despite having a bullet wound through her mouth and right cheek, and grazed in the head by the second bullet, manages to crawl out of the house through the back door and stumbles into a cornfield. The Phantom follows her out with a pick axe. After a cat-and-mouse game of hiding in the cornfield, Helen gets to a nearby house and bangs on the door and windows yelling for help. A concerned farmer, armed with a shotgun, comes out to help her in. The killer, seeing the man with a gun, angrily flees. The next day, Ramsey and Morales get a call about an abandoned car that fits the description of the car Ramsey saw that rainy night. They find the car and they get some shotguns from their police car and run off into the woods to look for the Phantom. They find the Phantom walking around an old quarry with the hood still on. Morales and Ramsey chase the Phantom through the woods to railroad tracks where the Phantom jumps over the tracks and a moving train gets between them. Morales fires under the moving train and hits the killer in his left leg. The Phantom manages to stumble away into the woods on the other side of the tracks. Over the next few days, police officers and Bloodhound dogs search the woods and the nearby swamps, but the wounded killer is not found. Afterwards, the killings stop, but the fear continues to this day. The voice-over narrator explains that no one ever found out what happened to the Phantom. Release. The film was released theatrically in the United States by American International Pictures in December 1976. The film received a VHS release by Warner Home Video in the 1980s. Shout! Factory released "The Town That Dreaded Sundown" on Blu-ray/DVD Combo Pack along with "The Evictors" on May 21, 2013, the first time the film made an appearance on any home video format since the VHS release. In 2012, a widescreen version of the film was shown on two different occasions (January 20th, September 21st) on the Turner Classic Movies (TCM) cable channel. Remake. A remake is being developed by Ryan Murphy and Jason Blum. Alfonso Gomez-Rejon is to direct from a script by Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa. Addison Timlin will play the lead role. A second film, titled "The Phantom Slayer" begins production in early 2014. The film will be directed by Dustin Ferguson (director of "The Legacy of Boggy Creek") and is a fictitious follow-up to the events that inspired the original film.
1043335	Tunes of Glory is a 1960 British drama film directed by Ronald Neame, based on the novel and screenplay by James Kennaway. The film is a "dark psychological drama" focusing on events in a Scottish Highland regimental barracks in the period following World War II. It stars Alec Guinness and John Mills, and features Dennis Price, Kay Walsh, John Fraser, Susannah York, Duncan MacRae and Gordon Jackson. Writer Kennaway served with the Gordon Highlanders, and the title refers to the bagpiping that accompanies every important action of the regiment. The original pipe music was composed by Malcolm Arnold, who also wrote the music for "The Bridge on the River Kwai". The film was generally well received by critics, the acting in particular garnering praise. Kennaway's screenplay was nominated for an Academy Award. Plot. The film opens in a Battalion officers' mess of an unnamed Highland Regiment in the early post-war era. Major Jock Sinclair (Alec Guinness) announces that this will be his last day as Commanding Officer. Sinclair, who had been in command since the battalion's colonel was killed in action during the North African campaign in Second World War, is to be replaced by Lieutenant Colonel Basil Barrow (John Mills). Although Major Sinclair led the battalion through the rest of the war, Brigade HQ considered Barrow to be a more appropriate peacetime commanding officer. Barrow arrives early and observes the battalion's officers (including Sinclair) dancing rowdily. Barrow and Sinclair briefly swap their respective military backgrounds. Sinclair joined the regiment as an enlisted bandsman and rose through the ranks, winning the Military Medal and Distinguished Service Order in the war. Barrow by contrast came to the regiment directly from Oxford University, his ancestors having been colonel of the regiment before him – although he served only for a year with the regiment back in 1933 before being posted to "special duties". When Sinclair humorously tells of the time he was briefly thrown in Barlinnie Prison for being drunk and disorderly (also in 1933), Barrow rather reticently mentions his own experience as a prisoner in a Japanese POW camp. Sinclair dismissively presupposes Barrow received preferential treatment being an officer ("officer's privileges and amateur theatricals") and sat out the war. But in fact Barrow is deeply psychologically scarred after being tortured by the Japanese but does not tell this to Sinclair who privately resents the fact that he is being replaced by a "stupid wee man". Meanwhile Morag (Susannah York), Sinclair's daughter, is observed illicitly meeting an enlisted piper. Barrow immediately passes several orders designed to instil discipline in the battalion that Sinclair had allowed to slip. Particularly controversial is an order that all officers take lessons in Highland dancing in an effort to make their customary rowdy style more formal and suitable for mixed company. However the unchanged energetic dancing of the officers, led by a drunken Sinclair at Barrow's first cocktail party with the townspeople, incites his anger. An outburst by Barrow only further damages his own authority. Tensions come to a head when Major Sinclair publicly assaults the uniformed piper he discovers with his daughter – "bashing a corporal" as he put it. Barrow decides an official report must be made, meaning an imminent court-martial, even though he is aware the action will further erode his popularity and authority within the battalion. Barrow is eventually persuaded to back down by Sinclair, even though he was guilty of striking an NCO and deserved to be court-martialled. The decision further undermines his authority, Sinclair along with other officers, notably Captain Alec Rattray (Richard Leech), treat him with a renewed lack of respect. Barrow then discovers other senior officers believe it is Sinclair who is really running the battalion, because he forced Barrow to dismiss the charges against him. Realising that his authority will never be accepted, Barrow shoots himself in the head. With the colonel's death, Sinclair realises he is to blame. He calls the officers to a meeting and announces plans for a grandiose funeral fit for a field marshal, complete with a march through the town in which all the "tunes of glory" will be played by the pipers. When it is pointed out how out disproportionate the plans are to the circumstances, especially given the manner of the colonel's death, Sinclair insists that it was not suicide but murder! He tells everyone he himself was the murderer and the other senior officers were his accomplices with the exception of the colonel's adjutant. Minutes later, Sinclair suffers a nervous breakdown and is escorted from the barracks while the officers and men salute as he passes. Production. "Tunes of Glory" was shot at Shepperton Studios in London. Establishing location shots were done at Stirling Castle in Stirling, Scotland.Stirling Castle is the Regimental Headquarters of the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders which was the actual location but in fact James Kennaway served with the Gordon Highlanders. Although the production was initially offered broad co-operation to film within the castle from the commanding officer there, as long as it didn't disrupt the regiment's [Argyll's] routine, after seeing a lurid paperback cover for Kennaway's book, that co-operation evaporated, and the production was only allowed to shoot distant exterior shots of the castle. Director Ronald Neame worked with Guinness on "The Horse's Mouth" (1958), and a number of other participants were also involved in both films, including actress Kay Walsh, cinematographer Arthur Ibbetson and editor Anne V. Coates. Awards and honours. James Kennaway, who adapted the screenplay from his novel, was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay, but lost to "Elmer Gantry". It also received numerous BAFTA nominations, including Best Film, Best British Film, Best British Screenplay and Best Actor nominations for both Guinness and Mills. The film was the official British entry at the 1960 Venice Film Festival, and John Mills won the Best Actor award there. That same year the film was named "Best Foreign Film" by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association. Adaptations. "Tunes of Glory" was adapted for the stage by Michael Lunney, who directed a production of it which toured England in 2006. Home video. "Tunes of Glory" is available on DVD from Criterion and Metrodome.
1066416	The Midnight Meat Train is a 2008 mystery horror-thriller film based on Clive Barker's 1984 short story of the same name, which can be found in Volume One of Barker's collection "Books of Blood". The film follows a photographer who attempts to track down a serial killer dubbed the "Subway Butcher" and discovers more than he bargained for under the city streets. The film was directed by Japanese director Ryuhei Kitamura and stars Bradley Cooper, Leslie Bibb, Brooke Shields, Roger Bart, Ted Raimi, and Vinnie Jones. Its script was adapted by Jeff Buhler, the producer was Tom Rosenberg of Lakeshore Entertainment, and it was released on August 1, 2008. Producer Joe Daley, a long-time friend of Buhler's, brought the two writers together and helped develop the script, along with producers Anthony Diblasi and Jorge Saralegui, for their and Clive Barker's production company Midnight Picture Show, which was also responsible for "Book of Blood", the next film adaptation from the anthology of short stories that spawned "The Midnight Meat Train". The film appears in a scene of 2012 "Silver Linings Playbook", also likewise starring Cooper. Plot. The film opens as a well dressed, barrel chested man stalks the late-night passengers of a subway train. He assaults and kills several people with a meat hammer, and a butchers hook. He dispatches his prey wordlessly, and with an uncannily unnatural strength. He wears a ring on his finger, adorned with eight stars. We are then introduced to Leon, a vegan photographer who heads into the city's subway system at night to take photographs. He is criticized constantly by other photographers for fleeing danger before shooting a full reel. One night, in a decision to break this trend, he saves a woman from a gang that is abusing her. The next day, he discovers this girl has gone missing. Leon is intrigued by the mystery, and begins to investigate newsreels about similar disappearances. His investigation leads him to a butcher named Mahogany, who he suspects has been killing subway passengers for as long as a hundred years. Leon attempts to turn some of the photos he has taken of Mahogany in to the police, but they refuse to believe him, and instead cast suspicion on his own motives in photographing the victims. Leon's involvement quickly turns into a dark obsession, upsetting his waitress girlfriend Maya, who is as disbelieving of his story as the police chief. Leon takes matters into his own hands, entering the subway train at midnight, only to witness a shocking bloodbath, as the butcher kills several passengers, then hangs them on meat hooks. Passing out on the subway floor, he awakes the next morning in a slaughterhouse with strange markings carved into his chest. A concerned Maya and her friend Jurgis, a short-order cook, begin to examine the photos Leon has been taking of Mahogany, leading them to the killer's apartment. After breaking and entering the butcher's home, Jurgis is captured, and brutally killed. Maya goes to the police, But finds that they are as unwilling to consider her story, as they were of Leon's. It is at this point that we begin to discover that the police may be involved in the cover-up of Mahogany's crimes. A police official directs the misguided Maya to a trip on the midnight train. Leon, unaware of Maya's involvement, finally decides to put an end to the butcher's crimes, and heads to the hidden subway entrance in the slaughterhouse, arming himself with the a butcher's apron, and several slaughterhouse knives. Leon enters the train as Mahogany has completed his nightly massacre, and has cornered a helpless Maya. Leon attacks the murderer with a knife, beginning a climactic battle between the photographer and the superhuman butcher. They fight in between the swinging human meat, Leon's knives against Mahogany's meat hammer, and human body parts are ripped, thrown, and used as weapons in the shower of epic gore. Finally, Mahogany is thrown out of the train by Leon, but not long before it hits its final stop. The train has entered an underground cavern, filled with skulls and decomposing bodies. Mahogany, in a battered and bleeding state, returns, barely alive, from beneath the train, and engages in a death struggle with Leon, who finishes the job at last by impaling the psychotic butcher's skull on a blade. Mahogany grins in his dying throes, pronouncing the single word "Welcome!" With the butcher's death, the conductor of the train enters the car, advising Leon and Maya to "Please step away from the meat." With these words, the true purpose of the underground station is revealed, as horrible reptilian creatures enter the car, consuming the meat to which they have been delivered. The conductor explains to Leon that the creatures have always existed below the city, and that the butcher's job was to keep them satisfied by feeding them every night. The conductor then forces Leon to watch as he kills Maya with one of the butcher's knives. When he is done, he picks up Leon, and with the same supernatural strength as the deceased butcher, rips out Leon's tongue, throwing him to the ground. He tells Leon that, having killed the butcher, he must take his place. In the final scene, the police chief hands the train schedule to the new butcher, who wears a ring with eight stars. The killer walks onto the midnight train, and turns his head to reveal that he is Leon, ready to go on his nightly slaughter. Production. The film's original director, Patrick Tatopoulos, originally planned to shoot the film in 2005 in New York City and Montreal. Tatopoulos left the production in 2006 and was replaced by Ryuhei Kitamura. The story's setting was changed from New York City, due to the prohibitive cost of shooting there. Various locations in Los Angeles, including the L.A. Metro subway system, were used instead. Shooting began March 18, 2007. Music. The "official" soundtrack from Lakeshore Records (only containing two remixes of the separately available actual film score) was produced and remixed by Justin Lassen and includes the bands and artists Iconcrash, Breaking The Jar, Blind Divine, Manakin Moon, Three Dot Revelation, Apocalyptica, Slvtn, Alu, Robert Williamson, Johannes Kobilke, Second Coming, Illusion of Order, Jason Hayes, Gerard K Marino, Penetrator, and Digital Dirt Heads. Release. Initially, "The Midnight Meat Train" was set for a May 16, 2008 release but was delayed. Ultimately, the film's release on August 1 was limited to the secondary market - of which only 100 screens showed it - with plans for a quick release on DVD. The world premiere was on July 19, 2008 at the Fantasia Festival in Montreal, in the presence of director Ryuhei Kitamura. An internet campaign was started by several horror websites to draw attention to the scaled-down theatrical release. Barker was angry with Lionsgate's treatment, believing that the studio's president Joe Drake is essentially shortchanging other people's films in order to focus more attention on films like "The Strangers", where he received a producing credit: "The politics that are being visited upon it have nothing to do with the movie at all. This is all about ego, and though I mourn the fact that "The Midnight Meat Train" was never given its chance in theaters, it’s a beautifully stylish, scary movie, and it isn’t going anywhere. People will find it, and whether they find it in midnight shows or they find it on DVD, they’ll find it, and in the end the Joe Drakes of the world will disappear." "The Midnight Meat Train" was released theatrically in Australia on 19 February 2009, with a rating of R18+ for high level violence, blood and gore. DVD and Blu-ray releases followed on 14 July. Reception. Critical reaction to "The Midnight Meat Train" has been mostly positive; IGN said, "Director Ryuhei Kitamura ... brings an incredible level of polish and visual sophistication to what is essentially a mid-range script. ... There's an energy to the film's final 10 minutes that's unmatched in recent horror films, and Kitamura's penchant for hard-hitting action, while suitably controlled, is always just below the surface. ... Overall, "The Midnight Meat Train" is a simple, bloody, hardcore offering certain to satisfy fans of the genre." Twitch Film said, "On most counts, "The Midnight Meat Train" succeeds. It's visually engrossing, the acting and story are (mostly) solid and it has a great lead villain in Vinnie Jones. It only falters in an illogical last act. No matter, the gore factor is selling point to the genre crowd and they don't have to worry. No punches are pulled. If this is the kind of quality material that Kitamura's going to deliver in Hollywood, I hope he stays there." Cinematical called the film "easily the best Clive Barker adaptation since the first "Hellraiser" film," saying that "screenwriter Jeff Buhler manages to maintain the sly sense of dread that permeates the best of Barker's horror tales." Bloody Disgusting said that "Clive Barker fans will rejoice in what director Ryuhei Kitamura has given them. In the Japanese director's first English-language film, he has taken his visual genius from "Alive" and "Versus" and translated into an action-packed blood fest. It has been a long time since a major horror film has been given such loving treatment by its director." Conversely, DVD Talk said that while the story is "an interesting concept," it's "subpar" compared to the rest of Clive Barker's work, and criticized the film's "melodrama" and computer-generated effects. The film currently holds a 71% "fresh" rating on Rotten Tomatoes; the consensus states: "A creative and energetic adaptation of a Clive Barker short story, with enough scares and thrills to be a potential cult classic."
1165745	Lori Martin (April 18, 1947 – April 4, 2010) was an American actress. Early career. Lori Martin was born Dawn Catherine Menzer, in Glendale, California, at 10:02 a.m.; her fraternal twin sister, Doree, arrived four minutes later. As she weighed only 5 pounds and measured just 18 inches at birth, she spent the first few weeks of her life in an incubator, during which time her survival was somewhat doubtful. Her father, Russell C. Menzer (1916–1999), was an MGM and Warner Brothers commercial artist and art director. She had a younger brother, Stephen Menzer, and an older sister, Jean Coulter, a veteran Hollywood stuntwoman who doubled for Barbara Anderson on "Ironside", and Farrah Fawcett and Cheryl Ladd on "Charlie's Angels," sometimes Kate Jackson and Jaclyn Smith. When Lori was six years old, her mother took her to an agent who specialized in child actors. She thought that acting might be a healthy outlet for Lori. When later asked what inspired her to be an actress, Martin said that, "the best time in my life was when I was about four. Doree and I had to go live with my aunt in Ponca City, Oklahoma. My mother got sick and Daddy had to go to work every day, so we couldn't stay here. I didn't want to come back. I cried and cried. That was when I decided, if I had to come back, I'd be an actress. I started getting parts immediately and my little brother was signed by the same agent, but he lacked my interest in acting. I just loved it."
584265	Something Something... Unakkum Enakkum is a 2006 Tamil-language romantic drama film directed by M. Raja. It stars Jayam Ravi and Trisha Krishnan in the lead roles and a huge star-cast, including Richa Pallod, veterans Prabhu, Bhagyaraj, Geetha and comedians Santhanam and Ganja Karuppu in supporting roles. The film is a remake of the 2005 Telugu blockbuster, "Nuvvostanante Nenoddantana" starring Siddharth, Trisha Krishnan, Srihari, and Prakash Raj. The film was also remade in Oriya under the name "Suna Chadhei Mo Rupa Chadhei" and copied in Bengali as "I Love You". The film's score and soundtrack was composed by Devi Sri Prasad, who also scored the music in the original version of the film, whilst cinematography was handled by A. Venkatesh and editing by S.SurajKavee. The film become a blockbuster upon release and was one of the highest grossing Tamil movies of 2006. And the film also remade in hindi under the name Ramaiya Vastavaiya Plot. The story starts in a jail, where prisoner Muthupandi (Prabhu) is telling his life story to a police officer (Vijayakumar). Muthupandi is a self -made, Hard working man, who dotes on his only sister Kavitha (Trisha Krishnan). Their mother died when Kavitha was little and it was Muthupandi who brought her up with a lot of love and care. Kavitha’s best friend Lalitha (Richa Pallod) is getting married; 15 days before her marriage she takes Kavitha to her house. This is the first time Kavitha has been away from her brother. At first she refused because she doesn't want be away from her brother. However, her brother advised her that its only 15 days and he'll be fine; he wont be alone because he has two servants to accompany him. After a lot of persuasion from her brother and her best friend she agrees to the visit. Shalini gets suspicious about Kavitha and Santhosh. When she sees Santhosh chasing Kavitha, she can tell there is something going on between them. Angrily, she went up to Kavitha's room and sees a beautiful horse and, next to it, a note saying do not touch. However, Shalini breaks it because she was unhappy and she wants Kavitha to be unhappy, too. The horse was a gift to from her brother to Kavitha, when she was little. Kavitha has alwaays looked after it very carefully. It was the most precious thing she had except her brother. When Kavitha finds about the broken horse she cries. She doesn't stop crying even whensLalitha advised her to. Santhosh couldn't bear to see Kavitha unhappy so he glued the horse together, which made Kavitha like him more. On the day of Lalitha's wedding, Janaki sends Santhosh out of the house on the pretense of buying some bangles. As soon as he leaves, she insults Kavitha. Kavitha's brother, who excitedly arrives for the marriage with gifts for Lalitha and her brother, is also insulted. Muthupandi leaves with his sister, not willing to make a fuss at the wedding. Santhosh gets word from his mother that Kavitha has left him and is heartbroken. Lalitha convinces Santhosh that Kavitha has not left him because she left the most precious thing in her life — the horse — in her room for him to take. He travels to Kavitha’s village and asks Muthupandi for his sister’s hand in marriage. Muthupandi, who is offended and angry at his arrival, says that he hates rich people because he believes that his mother's death was caused by his rich father's arrogance and that Santhosh's mother's actions only made things worse. Santhosh begs for a chance saying that he left his parents and his luxurious life behind. Muthupandi still appears disgusted but relents. He challenges Santhosh to live the life of a farmer, taking care of livestock. Thinking Santhosh would leave at once, Muthupandi simply smiles and waits for him to grab his bags. Santhosh accepts the condition of working on his farm, living as a farmer until the next harvest. The hardships that Santhosh faces and how he rises past them take up much of the second half of the film. Not only does Santhosh succeed in the challenges, he also finds a place in Muthupandi's heart. Soon, Santhosh's mother sends goons to take Kavitha away. Together, Santhosh and Muthupandi save her. Santhosh kills the goon in charge, and Muthupandi takes the blame. The story comes back to the jail, where Muthupandi wraps up the story of his past. The officer tells him that Santhosh and Kavitha are probably married with kids. It is revealed that Santhosh and Kavitha were waiting for Muthupandi's release to get married. When he is released he looks for his sister and finds out that Kavitha never got married to Santhosh because Santhosh insisted that their marriage should be when Muthupandi is free. Kavitha and Santhosh's marriage happens. Santhosh's mother also comes to the village and all ends well. In the end, it is hinted that Muthupandi and Valli may have a romantic relationship soon. Music. The film has six songs composed by Devi Sri Prasad.
1063832	The Matrix Revolutions is a 2003 American–Australian science fiction action film and the third installment of "The Matrix" trilogy. The film was released six months following "The Matrix Reloaded". The film was written and directed by The Wachowski Brothers and released simultaneously in 60 countries on November 5, 2003. While it is the final film in the series, the "Matrix" storyline continued in "The Matrix Online". The film was the second live-action film to be released in both regular and IMAX theaters at the same time. Plot. Neo and Bane lie unconscious in the medical bay of the ship "Hammer". Meanwhile, Neo finds his digital self trapped in a virtual subway station – a transition zone between the Matrix and the Machine City. In that subway station, he meets a "family" of programs, including a girl named Sati, whose father tells Neo the subway is controlled by the Trainman, an exiled program loyal to the Merovingian. When Neo tries to board a train with the family, the Trainman refuses and overpowers him. Seraph contacts Morpheus and Trinity on behalf of the Oracle, who informs them of Neo's confinement. Seraph, Morpheus and Trinity enter Club Hel, where they confront the Merovingian and force him to release Neo. Troubled by visions of the Machine City, Neo visits the Oracle, who reveals that Smith intends to destroy both the Matrix and the real world. She states that "everything that has a beginning has an end", and that the war will conclude. After Neo leaves, a large group of Smiths assimilates Sati, Seraph and the unresisting Oracle, gaining her powers of precognition.
750994	Martin Gardner (October 21, 1914May 22, 2010) was an American popular mathematics and science writer specializing in recreational mathematics, but with interests encompassing micromagic, stage magic, literature (especially the writings of Lewis Carroll and G.K. Chesterton), philosophy, scientific skepticism, and religion. He wrote the "Mathematical Games" column in "Scientific American" from 1956 to 1981 and the "Notes of a Fringe-Watcher" column in "Skeptical Inquirer" from 1983 to 2002 and published more than 100 books. Biography. Youth and education. Gardner, son of a petroleum geologist, grew up in and around Tulsa, Oklahoma. He showed an early interest in puzzles and games and his closest childhood friend, John Bennett Shaw, later became "the greatest of all collectors of Sherlockian memorabilia". He attended the University of Chicago where he earned his bachelor's degree in philosophy in 1936. Early jobs included reporter on the "Tulsa Tribune", writer at the University of Chicago Office of Press Relations, and case worker in Chicago's Black Belt for the city's Relief Administration. During World War II, he served for four years in the U.S. Navy as a yeoman on board the destroyer escort "USS Pope (DE-134)" in the Atlantic. His ship was still in the Atlantic when the war came to an end with the surrender of Japan in August 1945. After the war, Gardner returned to the University of Chicago. He also attended graduate school for a year there, but he did not earn an advanced degree. In 1950 he published an article in the "Antioch Review" entitled "The Hermit Scientist," a pioneering work on what would later come to be called pseudoscientists. It was Gardner's first publication of a skeptical nature and two years later it was published in a much expanded book version: "In the Name of Science", his first book. Early career. In the early 1950s, Gardner moved to New York City and became a writer and designer at "Humpty Dumpty" magazine where for eight years he wrote features and stories for it and several other children's magazines. His paper-folding puzzles at that magazine (sister publication to "Children's Digest" at the time, and now sister publication to "Jack and Jill" magazine) led to his first work at "Scientific American." For many decades, Gardner, his wife Charlotte, and their two sons lived in Hastings-on-Hudson, New York, where he earned his living as an independent author, publishing books with several different publishers, and also publishing hundreds of magazine and newspaper articles. Appropriately enough — given his interest in logic and mathematics — they lived on Euclid Avenue. The year 1960 saw the original edition of his best-selling book ever, "The Annotated Alice", various editions of which have sold over a million copies worldwide in several languages. "Mathematical Games". For over a quarter century (1956-1981), Gardner wrote a monthly column on the subject of "recreational mathematics" for "Scientific American". It all began with his free-standing article on hexaflexagons which ran in the December 1956 issue. The "SA" editor suggested he write a regular feature and the January 1957 issue contained his first column, entitled "Mathematical Games". The columns were first collected in book form in 1959 as "The Scientific American Book of Mathematical Puzzles and Diversions". Fourteen more followed over the next four decades. In the 1980s the column began to appear only irregularly. Other authors began to share the column and the May 1986 issue saw the final installment under that title. In 1979, Gardner and his wife semi-retired and moved to Hendersonville, North Carolina. Gatherings for Gardner. Gardner was famously shy and declined many honors when he learned that a public appearance would be required if he accepted. (He once told Colm Mulcahy that he "never gave a lecture in his life and that he wouldn't know how to.") However, in 1993 Atlanta puzzle collector Tom Rodgers persuaded Gardner to attend an evening devoted to Gardner's puzzle-solving efforts, called "Gathering for Gardner". The event was repeated in 1996, again with Gardner in attendance, which convinced Rodgers and his friends to make the gathering a regular event. It has been held since then in even-numbered years near Atlanta, and the program consists of any topic which could have been touched by Gardner during his writing career. The event's name is abbreviated to "G4G"n"", with "n" being replaced by the number of the event (the 2010 event thus was "G4G9"). Gardner attended the 1993 and 1996 events. Personal life. Gardner's wife died in 2000 and two years later he returned to Norman, Oklahoma where his son, James Gardner, was a professor of education at the University of Oklahoma. He died there on May 22, 2010. Views and interests. Recreational mathematics. Martin Gardner was important in sustaining and nurturing interest in recreational mathematics in the U.S. for a large part of the 20th century. He is best known for his decades-long efforts in popular mathematics and science journalism, particularly through his "Mathematical Games" column in "Scientific American". Ironically, Gardner had problems learning calculus and never took a mathematics course after high school. He was the editor of a children's magazine named "Humpty Dumpty's Magazine for Little Children" in 1956 when he was asked by the publisher of "Scientific American" about the possibility of starting a regular column about recreational mathematics, following his submission of an article about flexagons. The "Mathematical Games" column ran from 1956 to 1981 and was the first introduction of many subjects to a wider audience, including: Many of these articles have been collected in a series of books starting with "Mathematical Puzzles and Diversions", first published in 1956. In 1981, on Gardner's retirement from "Scientific American", the column was replaced by Douglas Hofstadter's "Metamagical Themas", a name that is an anagram of "Mathematical Games". Gardner never really retired as an author, but rather he continued to do literature research and to write, especially in updating many of his older books, such as "Origami, Eleusis, and the Soma Cube", ISBN 978-0-521-73524-7, published 2008. Gardner also wrote a "puzzle tale" column for "Asimov's Science Fiction" magazine (1977-1986), producing 111 columns in all. Pseudoscience. Gardner's uncompromising attitude toward pseudoscience made him one of the foremost anti-pseudoscience polemicists of the 20th century. His book "Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science" (1952, revised 1957) is a classic and seminal work of the skeptical movement. It explored myriad dubious outlooks and projects including Fletcherism, creationism, food faddism, Charles Fort, Rudolf Steiner, Scientology, Dianetics, UFOs, dowsing, extra-sensory perception, the Bates method, and psychokinesis. This book and his subsequent efforts ("Science: Good, Bad and Bogus", 1981; "Order and Surprise", 1983, "Gardner's Whys & Wherefores", 1989, etc.) earned him a wealth of detractors and antagonists in the fields of "fringe science" and New Age philosophy, with many of whom he kept up running dialogs (both public and private) for decades. In 1976, Gardner was a founding member of the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (CSICOP), and he wrote a column called "Notes of a Fringe Watcher" (originally "Notes of a Psi-Watcher") from 1983 to 2002 for that organization's periodical "Skeptical Inquirer". These have been collected in five books: "New Age: Notes of a Fringe Watcher" (1988), "On the Wild Side" (1992), "Weird Water and Fuzzy Logic" (1996), "Did Adam and Eve Have Navels" (2000), and "Are Universes Thicker than Blackberries" (2003). Gardner was a senior CSICOP fellow and prominent skeptic of the paranormal. On August 21, 2010, Gardner was posthumously honored with an award recognizing his contributions in the skeptical field, from the Independent Investigations Group during its 10th Anniversary Gala. Religion and philosophy. Gardner had an abiding fascination with religious belief. He was a fideistic theist, professing belief in a god as creator, but critical of organized religion. He has been quoted as saying that he regards parapsychology and other research into the paranormal as tantamount to "tempting God" and seeking "signs and wonders". He stated that while he would expect tests on the efficacy of prayers to be negative, he would not rule out a priori the possibility that as yet unknown paranormal forces may allow prayers to influence the physical world. Gardner wrote repeatedly about what public figures such as Robert Maynard Hutchins, Mortimer Adler, and William F. Buckley, Jr. believed and whether their beliefs were logically consistent. In some cases, he attacked prominent religious figures such as Mary Baker Eddy on the grounds that their claims are unsupportable. His semi-autobiographical novel "The Flight of Peter Fromm" depicts a traditionally Protestant Christian man struggling with his faith, examining 20th century scholarship and intellectual movements and ultimately rejecting Christianity while remaining a theist. He described his own belief as philosophical theism inspired by the theology of the philosopher Miguel de Unamuno. While critical of organized religions, Gardner believed in a god, asserting that this belief cannot be confirmed or disconfirmed by reason or science. At the same time, he was skeptical of claims that any god has communicated with human beings through spoken or telepathic revelation or through miracles in the natural world. Gardner's philosophy may be summarized as follows: There is nothing supernatural, and nothing in human reason or visible in the world to compel people to believe in any gods. The mystery of existence is enchanting, but a belief in "The Old One" comes from faith without evidence. However, with faith and prayer people can find greater happiness than without. If there is an afterlife, the loving "Old One" is probably real. "an atheist the universe is the most exquisite masterpiece ever constructed by nobody", from G. K. Chesterton, was one of Gardner's favorite quotes. Gardner has said that he suspects that the fundamental nature of human consciousness may not be knowable or discoverable, unless perhaps a physics more profound than ("underlying") quantum mechanics is some day developed. In this regard, he said, he was an adherent of the "New Mysterianism". Literary criticism and fiction. Gardner was considered a leading authority on Lewis Carroll. His annotated version of "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" and "Through the Looking Glass", explaining the many mathematical riddles, wordplay, and literary references found in the Alice books, was first published as "The Annotated Alice" (Clarkson Potter, 1960), a sequel published with new annotations as "More Annotated Alice" (Random House, 1990), and finally as "The Annotated Alice: The Definitive Edition" (Norton, 1999) combining notes from the earlier editions and new material. The book arose when Gardner, who found the Alice books 'sort of frightening' when he was young but found them fascinating as an adult, felt that someone ought to annotate them and suggested to a publisher that Bertrand Russell be asked; when the publisher did not manage to get past Russell's secretary, Gardner was asked to take the project. The book has been Gardner's most successful, selling over half a million copies. Gardner's interest in wordplay led him to conceive of a magazine on recreational linguistics. In 1968 he pitched the idea to Greenwood Periodicals and nominated Dmitri Borgmann as editor. The resulting journal, "Word Ways", carried many articles from Gardner; as of 2013 it continues to publish his submissions posthumously. In addition to the 'Alice' books, Gardner produced “Annotated” editions of G. K. Chesterton’s "The Innocence Of Father Brown" and "The Man Who Was Thursday" as well as of celebrated poems including "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner", "Casey at the Bat", "The Night Before Christmas", and "The Hunting of the Snark"; the last also written by Lewis Carroll. Gardner occasionally tried his hand at fiction of a kind always closely associated with his non-fictional preoccupations. His "roman à clef" novel was "The Flight of Peter Fromm" (1973) and his short stories were collected in "The No-Sided Professor and Other Tales of Fantasy, Humor, Mystery, and Philosophy" (1987). Gardner published stories about an imaginary numerologist named Dr. Matrix and "Visitors from Oz" (1998), based on L. Frank Baum's Oz books, which reflected his love of Oz. (He was a founding member of the International Wizard of Oz Club, and winner of its 1971 L. Frank Baum Memorial Award.) Gardner was a member of the all-male literary banqueting club, the Trap Door Spiders, which served as the basis of Isaac Asimov's fictional group of mystery solvers, the Black Widowers. Controversy. Although personally shy and almost never willing to make public appearances, Gardner was an avid controversialist through the medium of his many publications and letters. Best known are his stances against pseudoscience (especially parapsychology) and conservative Christianity, but over the years he held forth on many contemporary issues, arguing for his points of view in a wide range of fields, from general semantics to fuzzy logic to watching TV (he once wrote a negative review of Jerry Mander's book "Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television"). His philosophical views are described and defended in his book "The Whys of a Philosophical Scrivener" (1983, revised 1999). Under the pseudonym "George Groth", Gardner panned his own book for the "New York Review of Books". Although Gardner was a fierce critic of paranormal claims, under his "George Groth" pseudonym he wrote an article for "Fate" magazine (October 1952, pp. 39–43) titled "He Writes with Your Hand," which touted the psychic abilities of mentalist Stanley Jaks as genuine. Gardner was known for his sometimes controversial philosophy of mathematics. He wrote negative reviews of "The Mathematical Experience" by Philip J. Davis and Reuben Hersh and "What is mathematics, really?" by Hersh, each of which were critical of aspects of mathematical Platonism, and the first of which was well received by the mathematical community. While Gardner was often perceived as a hard-core Platonist, his reviews demonstrated some formalist tendencies. Gardner maintained that his views are widespread among mathematicians, but Hersh has countered that in his experience as a professional mathematician and speaker, this is not the case.
587755	Premante Idera () is a Telugu movie, released in 1998 starring Venkatesh and Preity Zinta. It was dubbed into Hindi as "Dulhan Dilwale Ki" in 2001. It was remade in Kannada as "O Premave" with Ravichandran. Plot. Murali (Venkatesh) and his friends go to a village to attend their friend`s marriage ceremony. When they reach they begin to have fun and join in with the festivities. Murali also meets Shailu (Preity Zinta) and is captivated by her attitude and beauty. Soon both fall in love but Murali soon finds out that she is to be married to a police officer. Murali puts on a brave face for the ceremony but hopes that something or someone will be able to stop the ceremony. He does everything he can to stop the marriage, he even tries to convince Shailu's parents. Finally the movie ends with the approval of Venktramayya(Ranganath) for their marriage.
584409	Poomagal Oorvalam is a 1999 Tamil film directed by Madhuravan. The film stars Prashanth, Rambha and Livingston in the lead roles. The film's score and soundtrack are composed by Siva. Plot. Saravanan(Prashanth), orphaned by his dead mother - a mental patient - is adopted by a childless couple (Manivannan and Radhika). Theirs is an inter-caste marriage. At college, he runs into Kavitha (Rambha), the granddaughter of caste-obsessed Sengodan(Rajan.P.Dev). The triangle is completed by Aavudayappan alias Armstrong(Livingston), a US-return who is smitten by Kavitha. With a little unintentional photo-swapping by the marriage broker, the parents of Saravanan and Aavudayappan (the fathers have the same name) both think they have an alliance for their son with Sengodan's family and show up at Kavitha's house at the same time. Romance flowers between Saravanan and Kavitha, who assume they are going to wed, while Aavudayappan continues to dream of Kavitha. A series of contrivances allows this comedy of errors to carry on till the engagement where announcement of the groom's name causes all sorts of confusions. Sengodan is now against the Saravanan-Kavitha union since Saravanan's parents are of different castes. Things come to a dramatic conclusion when Sengodan realizes that Prasanth is indeed his own grandson, with a brief flashback relating the 'Nizhalgal' Ravi - Anju marriage split due to her illness. Film ends with prashanth and rambha marry each other. Soundtrack. The film score and the soundtrack were composed by film composer Siva. The soundtrack, released in 1999, features 6 tracks . All the songs were Massive Hits. Production. It was reported that the actor Prashanth was badly hurt on his face, while he took part in a stunt scene. But now they say the whole incident actually did not take place at all. The accident drama is just a publicity stunt to give Prasanth an action-hero image. When asked about his injury, Prasanth coolly replied that he had very minor cut on his face, while he was doing his regular workouts. According to him the press is responsible for blowing up the incident out of proportions. Reviews. Hindu wrote: "Fun-laden situations and humour course along at a brisk pace in Supergood Films’ “Poomagal Oorvalam”. Debutant director Mathuravan, who has written the story, dialogue and screenplay, structures his narration in an enjoyable way. For Prasanth, the hero, it is another proof of his calibre, be it pouring out emotions, without overdoing it, carrying with subtlety the lighter moments or dancing comfortably". Indolink wrote: "Watch it for the comedy, if not for anything else".
583883	Thimiru () is a 2006 Indian Tamil action film written and directed by debutant Tarun Gopi. It stars Vishal Krishna, Reema Sen and Sriya Reddy in lead and former football player I. M. Vijayan, Manoj K. Jayan and Vadivelu in supporting roles, whilst Kiran Rathod appears in an item number. The film's score and soundtrack are composed by Yuvan Shankar Raja. Produced by Vishal's brother, Vikram Krishna, under the banner of GK Films Corporation, it was released on 4 August 2006. "Thimiru" became highly successful at the box office and one of the top-grossing Tamil films in 2006. The film was subsequently dubbed into Telugu, releasing as "Pogaru" and was a runaway hit in Andhra Pradesh, too. It was later remade by director Vishal Raj in Kannada as "Minchu" but eventually failed to repeat the success of its original version. Plot. The movie is about Ganesh (Vishal), who comes from Madurai to continue his medical course in Chennai. A group of baddies is in pursuit. Meanwhile Srimathy (Reema Sen), daughter of Ganesh's professor, wants to meet him and thank him for helping her escape from the clutches of some vile elements. When Ganesh and Srimathy meet they are surprised, for they know each other. The gangsters, on spotting both, vow to kill them. Why? Well, it is flashback time. Eswari (Shreya Reddy) is a shrewish, arrogant 'kattapanchayat' woman. She lends money at usurious rates and then goes after those families who fail to repay. Srimathy’s family falls afoul of Eswari. Ganesh helps Srimathy’s folks. Eswari falls for Ganesh’s bravery and boldness: She wants him to marry her. But the hero doesn’t. She ends up kidnapping Ganesh's parents and threatens Ganesh to come to them and marry her. However, Ganesh thwarts all her plans. Eventually, in a freak mishap, Eswari meets her fate. Mistaking Ganesh to be the reason for their sister's death, Eswari's brothers Periya Karuppu (Manoj K Jayan) and Veerasamy (Vijayan) resolve to kill him. Ganesh, who reaches Chennai for safety, is eventually forced to go back to his old ways to fight the baddies and restore order. Soundtrack. The soundtrack, composed by Yuvan Shankar Raja, was released on 21 July 2006 and features 6 tracks overall, including a "Theme music". The lyrics were written by Pa. Vijay, Na. Muthukumar and Yugabharathi. Rajesh Ramnath lifted the five songs for the Kannada version of the film, "Minchu", not giving due credits to the original composer Yuvan Shankar Raja. Box office. The film was a commercial success grossing $3 million at the box office.
1055916	Cemetery Man (Italian title: Dellamorte Dellamore) is a 1994 comedy horror film directed by Michele Soavi. A co-production of Italy, France, and Germany, the screenplay by Gianni Romoli was based on the 1991 novel by Tiziano Sclavi. Sclavi is also the author of the comic "Dylan Dog", which covers similar themes and whose protagonist is self-admittedly a Rupert Everett lookalike. The film stars Rupert Everett, François Hadji-Lazaro, and Anna Falchi. The film's story concerns the beleaguered caretaker of a small Italian cemetery, who searches for love while defending the town from zombies. Plot. Francesco Dellamorte (Rupert Everett) is the cemetery caretaker in the small Italian town of Buffalora. He lives in a ramshackle house on the premises, constantly surrounded by death, with only his mentally handicapped assistant Gnaghi (François Hadji-Lazaro) for company. Young punks in town spread gossip that Dellamorte is impotent. His hobbies are reading outdated telephone directories, in which he crosses out the names of the deceased, and trying to assemble a puzzle shaped like a human skull. Gnaghi, whose interests include spaghetti and television, can speak only one word: "Gna." The Latin inscription over the Buffalora Cemetery gate reads "RESVRRECTVRIS" ("They will resurrect"), and indeed, Dellamorte has had his hands full of late. Some people rise from their graves on the seventh night following their death, reanimated and ready to assault the living. Dellamorte destroys these creatures, whom he calls "Returners", before they overrun the town. Buffalora's mayor (Stefano Masciarelli) is so fixated on his campaigning that he seems unable even to hear Dellamorte's pleas for an investigation. In any event, being an outcast in the village and almost illiterate, Dellamorte doesn't want to lose the job. He opens up to his only friend, Franco, a municipal clerk, but doesn't file the paperwork necessary to get assistance: "It's easier just to shoot them." At a funeral, Dellamorte falls hard and fast in love, with the unnamed young widow (Anna Falchi) of a rich, elderly man. The widow only begins to show an interest when Dellamorte tells her about the ossuary, which she adores. While consummating their relationship by her husband's grave, the husband returns, attacks, and bites her. She seems to die from the bite, but the coroner claims it was a heart attack. Fearing the worst, Dellamorte stays near her corpse, and shoots her when she rises. Gnaghi becomes infatuated with the mayor's capricious daughter, Valentina (Fabiana Formica). This would seem to end tragically when she is decapitated in a motorcycle accident. Instead, Gnaghi digs up her reanimated head, and an innocent romance begins. The young widow also rises again, causing Dellamorte to believe that she was not really a zombie when he first shot her, in which case it was he who killed her. He plummets into a depression and is visited by the leering figure of Death, who tells him to "Stop killing the dead", asking him why he doesn't shoot the living instead. Dellamorte encounters two more unnamed women, also played by Falchi. He goes to outrageous ends to be with the first of these, an assistant to the new mayor: when the object of his affection says she is terrified of sexual penetration, Dellamorte pretends that the rumour about his impotence is correct, and visits a doctor to have his penis removed. The doctor talks him out of it, giving him an injection for temporary impotence instead. Meanwhile, the woman has been raped by her employer, and then fallen in love with her rapist, discarding both her phobia and the cemetery man. His grip on reality slipping, Dellamorte heads into town at night with his revolver, shooting the young men who has made fun of him for years due to his rumored impotence. He meets a third manifestation of the woman he loves, but upon finding out that she is a prostitute, he kills her and two other women by setting their house on fire with a room heater. His friend Franco is accused of these murders after killing his wife and child, and attempts suicide the same night by drinking a bottle of iodine. Dellamorte goes to visit his friend in the hospital, to find out why Franco stole his murders. Sitting by the hospital bed, he casually murders a nun, a nurse, and a doctor. Franco doesn't even recognize him, so even these acts fail to change Dellamorte's situation. He screams out a confession, but is ignored. Gnaghi and the caretaker pack up the car, and head for the Buffalora city limits and the mountains beyond. Gnaghi's head is injured when Dellamorte slams on the brakes. They get out of the vehicle and walk to the edge of the road, where it drops into a chasm. Gnaghi begins to seize, and collapses to the ground. Dellamorte, realizing that the rest of the world doesn't exist and fearing that his assistant is dead or dying, loads a gun with two dum-dum bullets to finish them both off. Gnaghi wakes up and drops Dellamorte's gun off the cliff. He then asks to be taken home, speaking clearly. Dellamorte replies: "Gna." Title. The title "Dellamorte Dellamore" is a word play in Italian, "della morte" (spelled as two separate words) meaning "of death," and "dell'amore" (again spelled separately) meaning "of love." The whole title could then be translated as "On the Death of Love" or else "About Love About Death". The protagonist's surname is "Dellamorte" and towards the end of the film we learn that his mother's maiden name was "Dellamore". Reception. The film was released in Italy to little success. American distributor October Films changed its title to "Cemetery Man" and saddled the film with a campy ad campaign, finally releasing it on April 26, 1996. In the U.S., "Cemetery Man" received mostly negative critical reaction, small theatrical distribution (opening on six screens), and a frequently delayed Region 1 DVD release. The film missed popular success, grossing only $253,969 in the US, but found a stateside cult following over time, via home video. It currently holds a 64% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes and has a rating of 7.4 on Internet Movie Database. Renowned director Martin Scorsese called "Dellamorte Dellamore" one of the best Italian films of the 1990s. Home media. The German distribution company Laser Paradise released the "Red Edition" DVD in 1999. The Italian DVD company "Medusa" released an uncut version in 2002. This is now out of print. Anchor Bay Entertainment released the film on R1 DVD in 2006 under the American title "Cemetery Man". The release features an anamorphic widescreen transfer, a making-of featurette entitled "Death Is Beautiful", a theatrical trailer, and an 8-page collector's booklet. However, this DVD is currently out of print. In 2011, CG Home Video released a Special Edition Blu-ray version in Italy on their CineKult label. This release also featured a Director and writer commentary as well as several making of documentaries. More recently however, the film was released on DVD by Shameless Screen Entertainment on the 27 February 2012. This Region 0 release included a director and writer audio commentary, an exclusive booklet of Alan Jones’ personal on-set memoir, trailers and photo gallery and English audio and optional Italian audio with English subtitles. Sequel. In January 2011, Fangoria reported that director Michele Soavi was planning a sequel to his 1994 film. Soavi planned to shoot the film sometime near the end of 2011 or early 2012. He would produce the film himself and wanted the film to be a great, strong, shocking Italian horror film.
1266068	Berton Churchill (December 9, 1876 – October 10, 1940) was a Canadian actor. Born in Toronto, Ontario. As a young man interested in the theater, he appeared in stock companies as early as 1903 and later headed to New York City where he began an acting career that soon put him on the Broadway stage. There, he was one of the earliest members of Actors Equity and sat on the union's Council. In 1919 he was in charge of the New York headquarters during the Equity strike in which fellow Canadian and friend, actress Marie Dressler assumed a major part with him that led to her being blacklisted by the producers. With the advent of filmmaking in New York Churchill appeared in several motion pictures, and in the 1920s, following the use of sound in film, he moved to Hollywood, California. There, his powerful stage voice and commanding presence landed him numerous supporting roles, usually as the stern or pompous character with such roles as a banker, a State Governor, or a land baron. Much in demand, in more than 125 films Churchill worked for some of the great directors such as Otto Preminger, John Ford, and Frank Capra. As well, he performed with many of the most famous stars of the day such as Bette Davis ("The Cabin in the Cotton"), Jeanette MacDonald, Tyrone Power, Edward G. Robinson, and Will Rogers. Churchill is perhaps best known for his role as Gatewood, the absconding banker in John Ford's highly acclaimed 1939 film "Stagecoach", starring John Wayne. In 1925, Churchill helped found the Masquers club that led to him and five other actors creating the Screen Actors Guild in 1933. Churchill died in New York City, of uremic poisoning. His body was returned to the west coast to be interred in the Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, California.
1437141	Keir O'Donnell (born 8 November 1978) is an Australian-born American actor. O'Donnell is best known for his roles in the comedy films "Wedding Crashers" and '. He has also made guest appearances in the television series "Lost", ', "The Closer", "Sons of Anarchy", "United States of Tara". Early life. O'Donnell was born in Sydney to an Australian father of Irish descent and an English mother. He grew up in the suburb of St Ives, outside of Sydney. When he was eight years old he and his family moved to Harvard, Massachusetts, United States. He has one sibling, a brother, Patrick, who is eighteen months older.
589221	Lal Patthar is a 1971 Hindi film, produced by F. C. Mehra, and directed by Sushil Majumdar. The film stars Raaj Kumar, Vinod Mehra, Hema Malini, Raakhee, Ajit, Asit Sen and Paintal. The film is one of rare films where lead actress Hema Malini played negative role, of jealous mistress of a zamindar, and tries to frame his young wife as an adultress, and her performance received accolades. The music of the film was composed by Shankar-Jaikishan with award winning songs. The film was shot on some minor outdoor locations and at Mehboob Studios, and Natraj Studios Bombay. Plot. Raja Kumar Bahadur alias Gyan Shankar Rai (Raaj Kumar) has been a total abstainer all his life, never touching a drop of alcohol, and keeping away from women and all known vices all his life. Then one day he sees a young woman named Saudamani (Hema Malini), and instantly falls in love with her. He finds out about her background, and virtually buys her, and brings her to his palatial home. This is when he takes to drinking, and wooing her, and renaming her Madhuri, but refrains from marrying her. Years later, he sees another beautiful woman, about half his age, named Sumita (Raakhee), meets with her parents, pays off their debts, and marries her in the bargain. He brings Sumita home, but makes it clear that Madhuri's word is law here. Then Kumar finds out that Sumita had a childhood sweetheart in Shekhar (Vinod Mehra), who has now returned from abroad. Kumar meets with Shekhar and finds out that both still have feelings for each other. An insecure and jealous Kumar now schemes a plot against them on the historical grounds of Fatehpur Sikri It is here Kumar's plot unfolds to entrap the young lovers, thus giving the title "Lal Patthar". Soundtrack. Film s music was given by Shankar Jaikishan and lyrics were by Hasrat Jaipuri, Neeraj and Dev Kohli. The song "Geet gaata hoon main" by the latter and sung as Kishore Kumar stood 18th on the Annual 1972 listing of Binaca Geetmala. Asha Bhosle received a Filmfare Award nomination for Best Female Playback Singer in 1973, for her rendition of ""Suni Suni Sans Ki Sitar Par"". Another memorable number in the film is a ghazal, "Unke Khayal Aaye To, Aake Chale Gaye", a composition based on Bageshwari/Gara ably sung by Mohammed Rafi. The song "Re Man Sur Mein Ga" by Manna Dey won the "Sur Singar" Award for the year 1971.
589832	Usha Kiran (22 April 1929 – 9 March 2000) was a Hindi and Marathi film actress. In a career spanning over four decades she acted in over 50 Hindi and Marathi films, notably "Daag" (1952), "Patita" (1953), "Baadbaan" (1954), "Chupke Chupke" (1975), "Mili" (1975) and "Bawarchi" (1972). She was also the Sheriff of Mumbai during 1996–97. Career. She began her acting career on stage with M. G. Rangnekar's Marathi play "Ashirwad". She enter Hindi film industry with a small role in Uday Shankar's dance-drama film, "Kalpana" (1948). She went on to act in numerous popular Hindi films are "Nazrana" (1961), "Daag" (1952), and "Baadbaan" (1954), for which she won the very first Filmfare Award for Best Supporting Actress in 1955 "Kabuliwala" (1961), "Patita" (1953), "Mili", "Bawarchi" (1972) and "Chupke Chupke"
1017474	The Big Boss (, also known as Fists Of Fury) is a 1971 Hong Kong martial arts action film written and directed by Lo Wei, with assistance from Bruce Lee. It stars Lee, Maria Yi, James Tien and Tony Liu. Bruce Lee's first major film, it was written for James Tien. However, Lee's strong performance overshadowed Tien, already a star in Hong Kong, and made Bruce Lee famous across Asia. Plot. Cheng is a Chinese man from mainland China who moves to Thailand to live with his uncle and works in an ice factory. When a block of ice is accidentally broken, a bag of white powder falls out. Several of Cheng's cousins are asked to see the manager. The factory is really a front for a drug smuggling ring led by Hsiao Mi. When they refuse to cooperate, they are killed and their bodies disposed of. Two more cousins are sent to Hsiao Mi's house where he has them killed for asking questions. The men at the factory then riot. To ease tensions, the Big Boss now makes Cheng a foreman, providing him with alcohol and prostitutes. When one of the prostitutes tells Cheng the truth, he breaks into the factory at night and finds his cousins' bodies. He is discovered by the gangsters. Cheng fights his way out, killing the Big Boss's son Hsiao Chiun in the process. When he returns home, he finds his entire family has been murdered. He exacts revenge by killing Hsiao Mi in a final fight. He then surrenders to the Thai police, who arrive shortly after he has disposed of the Big Boss. Original Mandarin cut. When the film was released in 1971 in Hong Kong, it included scenes that were later removed from all the mainstream versions. This was a result of the "1972 Hong Kong movie censorship crackdown", when martial arts films were censored for extreme violence. The "The Big Boss" originally included graphic scenes of a body being cut in half with a circular saw, an artery cut with a knife causing blood to spew from a character's forehead, and a notorious depiction of a villain killed by "vertical partial cranial laceration" with a hand saw. Alternative title confusion. When "The Big Boss" was being prepared for American distribution, it was to be retitled "The Chinese Connection", a play on the popular "The French Connection", since both dealt with drug trafficking. The title of Lee's second film, "Fist of Fury", was to be identical, except for being "Fists of Fury". However, the titles were accidentally reversed. "The Big Boss" was released as "Fists of Fury" and "Fist of Fury" became "The Chinese Connection". Film purists refer to the films by their original titles. Recent American TV showings and the official US DVD release from Twentieth Century-Fox have restored the original titles of all Bruce Lee films. Alternative music scores. Unlike other Lee films, "The Big Boss" is unique in having not only two, but three completely different music scores. "Fist of Fury", "Way of the Dragon", "Enter the Dragon", and "Game of Death" all only feature one score with minor alterations. The first music score for it was composed by Wang Fu-ling, who worked on films such as "The Chinese Boxer" and "One-Armed Swordsman". This was made for the Mandarin language version and the first English version. It similar to other martial arts movie scores, especially the Shaw Brothers films. Wang was the only one to receive credit, but it is also believed composer Chen Yung-yu assisted with the score. The second and most popular of the music scores was by German composer Peter Thomas. This did not become widely known until 2005, when most of the music he composed for the film appeared on iTunes in a "Big Boss" collection. Thomas's involvement stems from a complete reworking of the English version of the film. The early version featured the British voice actors who worked on all Shaw Brothers films and used Wang Fu-ling's score. It was decided to make a new English version that would stand out from the other martial arts films. New actors were brought in to voice the film in English, and Peter Thomas (composer) re-scored the film, abandoning Wang Fu-ling's music. The German dubbed version features his score, especially in the German title of the film in the iTunes compilation. The third score is the 1983 Cantonese release score, which primarily features music from Golden Harvest composer Joseph Koo. However, a good portion of Joseph Koo's music in the Cantonese version was originally created in 1974 for the Japanese theatrical release of "The Big Boss", which was half Koo's music and half Peter Thomas'. Golden Harvest simply took Koo's music from the Japanese version and added it to the Cantonese version. Aside from this, this version is most infamous for its use of the Pink Floyd music cues "Time" and "Obscured by Clouds", as well as King Crimson's "Larks' Tongues In Aspic, Part Two". Other actors as Bruce Lee playing Cheng Chao-an. Various Bruce Lee biopics have been filmed over the years, with the two most famous being ' and '. Both of these films feature their respective actors, Bruce Li and Jason Scott Lee, at one point acting as Lee on the set of "The Big Boss". Both films feature a variation of the rumor that Lee was challenged on the set by a Thai boxer. In "Myth", Lee was challenged on set and was caught in the middle of an ambush later on off the set. In "Dragon", Lee is challenged during an actual take during filming of "The Big Boss", wearing the trademark rolled up long sleeve white T-shirt, white sash, and black pants. Both of these are highly exaggerated accounts (not to mention that "Dragon" makes the mistake of saying that filming for "The Big Boss" began in July 1970 rather than in July 1971), as the story told is that Lee merely discusses martial arts with a Thai fighter on the set. Besides these two examples, a third Bruce Lee biopic, "The Legend of Bruce Lee", this time with Danny Chan Kwok Kwan as Lee and filmed in mini-series form, was shown in Hong Kong in 2008 as part of China's hosting of the summer Olympics. Once again, this biopic shown Lee encountering a Thai boxer on the set of "The Big Boss", this time with the challenger being played by martial arts film veteran Mark Dacascos. Photos and behind-the-scenes video of this scene have appeared on various websites, including Dacascos's official site. Release. Miramax acquired rights from Golden Harvest to distribute "The Big Boss" on G4TV in 2009. Columbia pictures released the film as a re-issue in 1978 and again re-issue it double featured with "Fist Of Fury" in February 1981. VHS releases. 4 Front United Kingdom) 4 Front(United Kingdom) 20th Century Fox (America) DVD releases. Universe (Hong Kong) Mega Star (Hong Kong) Fortune Star – Bruce Lee Ultimate DVD Collection (Hong Kong) Fox (America) Fox – Bruce Lee Ultimate Collection (America) "Hong Kong Legends – Special Collector's Edition (United Kingdom)" Hong Kong Legends – Platinum Edition (United Kingdom) Blu-ray Disc release. Kam & Ronson (Hong Kong)
581709	Teree Sang () is a 2009 Hindi film directed by Satish Kaushik, starring Ruslaan Mumtaz (previously seen in "MP3 - Mera Pehla Pehla Pyaar") and Sheena Shahabadi in her first role. "Teree Sang" explores the issue of teen pregnancy. Plot. Maahi Puri (Sheena Shahabadi) is a 15-year-old girl who is the only child of a high-class family. Kabir (Ruslaan Mumtaz) is a 17-year-old teenager from a lower middle-class family. As they become friends, they are attracted to each other's lives. Their friendship and intimacy grows day by day. On a camping trip on New Year's Eve, the young couple have sex and Maahi becomes pregnant. Both sets of parents oppose her going through the pregnancy, and the young couple run away together. Maahi refuses to have an abortion. Kabir and Maahi's friends take them to an abandoned cottage, where they stay to protect their unborn child. The four worried parents have no other choice than to team together and find their children. Kabir's parents overhear his friends talking about where he might be, and go look for them. Meanwhile, Kabir finds a job to earn money to support his family. Maahi keeps the house clean, makes dinner every day, and secretly sells fruit. When the parents find the two, the young couple try to flee. Catching up with them, the parents realize they are allies. While all six are traveling together in a bus, Maahi goes into labour. The group takes Maahi to a hospital where she gives birth to a boy.
1164899	Willis Macon "Sonny" McCalman (December 30, 1932 – November 29, 2005), aka Macon McCalman, was an American television, stage and big screen movie actor. Biography. Acting career. McCalman Helped form the Front Street Theatre in his hometown Memphis, Tennessee. During the Korean War, he served in the U.S. Army. Over the course of his acting career McCalman appeared in various film and TV guest roles, usually in supporting parts, both dramatic and comedic often as heavies and authoritarian figures. McCalman first got his acting start on The Broadway stage appearing in the productions "The Last of Mrs. Lincoln" (1971), "An Enemy for the People" (1971), and a comedy, "The Playboy Of the Western World". Hollywood film and TV roles. His first Hollywood film role was as Deputy Queen in the Oscar-winning film "Deliverance" opposite Burt Reynolds, and Ned Beatty in 1972. In films, he would continue to have prominent supporting parts in films such as "The Falcon and the Snowman" (1985), "Fried Green Tomatoes" (1991), and "Falling Down" (1993) starring Michael Douglas. He would also appear in the Roger Donaldson directed film "Marie" (1985). McCalman also appeared in guest roles in television shows such as "Starsky and Hutch", "Kojak", "Lou Grant", and miniseries and TV films such as the ABC-TV miniseries "Roots" (1977), and "The Captains and The Kings" (1976). He also appeared in three episodes of the hit ABC-TV sitcom "Three's Company", two as Janet Wood's (Joyce DeWitt) father Roland. Death. McCalman retired from acting and returned to Memphis in 1997 after suffering a heart attack. He died in Memphis in 2005 one month shy of his 73rd birthday, after complications arose while hospitalized after suffering a series of debilitating strokes. Complete filmography. Films. ... aka "Timerider" - USA (short title) Television work (continued). ... aka "The 72 Hour Dead Line" - USA (alternative title) ... aka "Harold Robbins' The Pirate" - USA (complete title)
1039567	Dame Dorothy Tutin CBE (8 April 19306 August 2001) was an English actress of stage, film and television. An obituary in the "Daily Telegraph" described her as "one of the most enchanting, accomplished and intelligent leading ladies on the post-war British stage. With her husky voice, deep brown eyes, wistful smile and sense of humour, she brought an enduring charm to all kinds of stage drama, ancient and modern, as well as to films and television plays in a career that spanned more than 40 years." Biography. Dorothy Tutin was born in London on 8 April 1930, daughter of John Tutin and his wife Adie Evelyn (Fryers), a couple who married the following year. Her year of birth was sometimes given as 1931, said to disguise the circumstances of her birth, but certainly not by herself. She was educated at St Catherine's School, Bramley, Surrey and studied for the stage at PARADA and the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art.
1166121	Lisa Lampanelli (born Lisa Marie Lampugnale; July 19, 1961) is an American stand-up comedian and insult comic. She is noted for her racy and controversial style of comedy. Much of her material is ethnic humor, ridiculing and badmouthing various types of minority groups, most notably racial minorities and homosexuals. Early life and journalism career. Lampanelli, one of three siblings, was born in Trumbull, Connecticut, to a middle class family. Three of her grandparents were of Italian descent, and the fourth of Polish ancestry. Her mother, Gloria (née Velgot), worked for the local police department, where "she typed in all the arrests made", and her father, Leonard Lampugnale, worked for Sikorsky Aircraft and later became a painter. Lampanelli attended Roman Catholic schools, studied journalism at Boston College and Syracuse University, and went through a graduate program at Harvard. She worked as a copy editor at "Popular Mechanics" and an assistant at "Rolling Stone". She was also a fact checker and the first chief of research for "Spy" magazine; a book about "Spy" describes her then as "your average decked-out-heavy-metal-head-next-door." Speaking later to "Maxim Magazine Online", Lampanelli remarked, "I was a real journalist for "Rolling Stone", "Spy", "Hit Parader". I interviewed those fuckin' hair bands: Cinderella, Slaughter." Career. Comedy. Lampanelli began her stand-up career in New York in the early 1990s. In explaining her reasons for switching from journalism to comedy, Lampanelli stated not only for the pay raise, but because "“I get to say the n-word word on stage and get paid money.”" She made her break at the 2002 New York Friars' Club roast of Chevy Chase, and went on to participate in the roasts of Denis Leary, Pamela Anderson, Jeff Foxworthy, Flavor Flav, William Shatner, and Donald Trump and to serve as Roastmaster for Larry the Cable Guy. Lampanelli is frequently on the dais for "The Howard Stern Show" roasts, including appearances at the roasts for Gary Dell'Abate, Artie Lange, Andy Dick, and A&E's "Gene Simmons Roast" in April 2008. Lampanelli released a comedy special on DVD entitled "Take it Like A Man" in 2005, appeared in the 2006 motion picture "", and had a cameo appearance in the VH1 sitcom "So NoTORIous". She also landed a deal with Fox for a sitcom pilot with the tentative title "Big Loud Lisa", which was considered a candidate for the network's 2006–07 television season. Lampanelli taped her stand-up special "Dirty Girl" in the fall of 2006, which aired on Comedy Central on January 28, 2007. Her "Dirty Girl" CD and "Dirty Girl .. No Protection" DVD were released by Warner Bros./Jack Records on January 30, 2007. Lampanelli was also featured in the movie "Delta Farce" starring Larry the Cable Guy, Bill Engvall and D.J. Qualls, which was released early in 2007, and in "Drillbit Taylor" starring Owen Wilson. Her style of humor was influenced most by the Dean Martin roasts that televised when she was growing up; she didn't start watching other stand-up comedians until she became one herself. Ethnic humor and racial minority insults, slurs, and stereotypes are a predominant part of Lampanelli's comedy routine. Among some of her blatantly racist insults while doing stand-up, include: ""How many ‘hispangics’ does it take to clean a bathroom? None! That’s a nigger’s job!""; "“What do you call a black woman who’s had seven abortions? A crime fighter”"; In addition, Gossip site TMZ reported that censors for the Comedy Central Roast of Flavor Flav cut a Lampanelli joke where she called the "Flavor of Love" girls in the audience ""nappy headed bitches."" In addressing her racist stand-up comedy, Lampanelli stated, ""I can get away with it because I'm a nice person, I have a warm personality, my intention is good behind it. The thing is, people sense when you have the least bit of anger or hate towards a group––that's why you never make fun of people you don't like."" Though only having married white men, she makes frequent references to her "real-life relationships with black men", riffing in an interview that ""my problem is, I can't get a good-looking white guy anymore, I just don't have the looks to get that. I can get hot blacks, but also blacks are now starting to get uppity and go for the skinny white ones and the Asians, which is very offensive to me that they don't stick with their roots—the chubby white girl!"" On November 21, 2008, in Santa Rosa, California, Lampanelli taped her first one-hour HBO Special at the Wells Fargo Center for the Arts. The special, "Lisa Lampanelli: Long Live the Queen", which aired January 31, 2009, was directed by Dave Higby, who also directed her "Dirty Girl" special. In December 2010 she reunited with Higby when he directed her "Tough Love" special for Comedy Central that aired in the spring of 2011. She is scheduled to debut a one-woman show, "Bring Back the Fat Chick", on Broadway in 2012. In May 2012, she headlined at the Night of a Thousand Gowns, a huge charity gala in NYC, where she also filmed a cameo for Adam Barta's new "Q&A" music video. "The Celebrity Apprentice 5". Lampanelli was a contestant on "The Celebrity Apprentice 5" (also known as "The Apprentice 12"). She was criticized by viewers and had numerous outbursts and clashes with other contestants, including Arsenio Hall, Lou Ferrigno, and Dayana Mendoza. Lampanelli refused to apologize for her controversial treatment of other contestants and racist remarks about Hispanics. In spite of her behavior and relations with other contestants, she raised $130,000 for Gay Men's Health Crisis winning two out of three of the challenges she took on as Project Manager. Lampanelli was fired on May 6, 2012 during the Final Four interview because John Rich and Marlee Matlin thought she was overly emotional. Books. It Books (HarperCollins) is the publisher of Lampanelli's memoir, "Chocolate, Please: My Adventures in Food, Fat, and Freaks" (2009). "Publishers Weekly" reviewed: Personal life. Lampanelli married in 1991 and divorced soon after, though she and her former spouse remained friends. She married Jimmy Cannizzaro, a former rock & roll club owner from Valley Stream, New York, on October 2, 2010 at the New York Friars' Club. Lampanelli is an avid supporter of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender community. When members of the Westboro Baptist Church planned to protest a show she held on 20 May 2011 in Topeka, Kansas she promised to donate $1000 to Gay Men's Health Crisis (the same charity she contributed to during "The Celebrity Apprentice") for every protester that attended. After an initial count of 44 protesters she rounded the donation to an even $50,000, crediting the donation as being "made possible by the WBC."
1016449	Ip Man 2 is a 2010 Hong Kong biographical martial arts film loosely based on the life of Ip Man, a grandmaster of the martial art Wing Chun. A sequel to the 2008 film "Ip Man", the film was directed by Wilson Yip, and stars Donnie Yen, who reprises the leading role. Continuing after the events of the earlier film, the sequel centers on Ip's movements in Hong Kong, which is under British colonial rule. He attempts to propagate his discipline of Wing Chun, but faces rivalry from other practitioners, including the local master of Hung Ga martial arts. Producer Raymond Wong first announced a sequel before "Ip Man" theatrical release in December 2008. For "Ip Man 2", the filmmakers intended to focus on the relationship between Ip and his most famed disciple, Bruce Lee. However, they were unable to finalize film rights with Lee's descendants and decided to briefly portray Lee as a child. Principal photography for "Ip Man 2" began in August 2009 and concluded in November; filming took place inside a studio located in Shanghai. For the sequel, Yip aimed to create a more dramatic martial arts film in terms of story and characterization; Wong's son, screenwriter Edmond Wong, wanted the film to portray how Chinese people were treated by the British, as well as the Western perceptions towards Chinese martial arts. "Ip Man 2" premiered in Beijing on 21 April 2010, and was released in Hong Kong on 29 April 2010. The film was met with positive reviews; critics praised various aspects of the film, such as its storytelling, as well as Sammo Hung's martial arts choreography. The film grossed over HK$13 million on its opening weekend, immediately surpassing "Ip Man" opening weekend gross. During its theatrical run, "Ip Man 2" brought in over HK$43 million domestically, and its domestic theatrical gross made it the highest grossing Hong Kong film released during the first half of 2010. In total, "Ip Man 2" grossed an estimated US$15 million worldwide. Plot. Continuing from where the first film ended, Wing Chun master Ip Man and his family move to Hong Kong in the early 1950s after their escape from Foshan. There, Ip desires to open a school to propagate his art, as well as make a living during the difficult times, but he has difficulty attracting students due to his lack of reputation in the city. One day, a young man named Wong Leung appears and promptly challenges Ip to a fight, but is easily defeated. Wong leaves humiliated, only to return with some friends to gang up on him. Ip beats them as well. Stunned and impressed by his skills, Wong and his friends become Ip's first students, bringing more disciples to help the school thrive. Wong is later caught posting promotional posters for the school by some Hung Gar students. One of them challenges Wong to a fight and loses, but his friends take Wong hostage in revenge and demand a ransom from Ip. Ip goes to the local wet market as directed, but the meeting ends in a confrontation with a growing mob of Hung Ga students. Ip and Wong fight their way outside to meet Jin Shanzhao — the martial artist and former bandit in the first film — who comes to their rescue with his own gang. The students' master and head of the coalition of Hong Kong martial arts clubs, Hung Chun-nam, arrives to break up the fight. Ip introduces himself, and Hung informs him that before setting up a school, he needs to attend a special fighting ceremony to test his worth. Ip, Wong and Jin are subsequently arrested by Officer Fatso for disturbing the peace but are later released on bail. Hung and Fatso are then shown to be acting as reluctant collectors for the martial arts schools (including Hung's) as part of a protection racket headed by Superintendent Wallace, a corrupt officer in the Hong Kong police. Ip attends the ceremony and defeats his first challengers, before striking a draw with the last challenger, Hung. Ip is allowed to keep running his school on the condition that he pay his monthly protection fees, but he declines. Hung thus has his students loiter in front of the Wing Chun School and harass anyone interested, causing a street brawl between them and Ip's disciples. Ip is thus forced to close up and move the school nearer to home. Ip soon confronts Hung, who blames him since he wouldn't pay his protection fees, whereas Ip criticizes Hung's management of his students. Hung insists that he is doing what he must and also insists they finish their fight, but during this encounter, Ip stops Hung from accidentally kicking his son as he suddenly appears, earning respect from him. Ip leaves, and the next day, Hung invites him to a British boxing match he has helped to set up, quietly coming to terms with him. The boxing competition allows for a demonstration by the various martial arts schools to help promote themselves and their Chinese culture. However, the event's star boxer, Taylor "The Twister" Milos, an arrogant, racist and brutal man, openly insults and attacks the students, causing chaos as the masters try to restore order. Hung accepts Twister's challenge to a fight so that he can defend his culture. Although Hung has the upper hand at first due to his wider range of skills, in the second round he suffers a misfortunate and devastating blow that severely disorientates him. As he fights on, he begins to weaken from his asthma and is eventually beaten to death by the British boxer, as he refuses to give up and allow the man to insult his culture and people. News of Hung's death rapidly spreads throughout the enraged Chinese populace, causing a scandal that spurs Wallace to hold a press conference, where he states that Hung's death was an accident, that Twister held back during Hung's challenge and that he was a weakling who died after a few punches. Twister announces that he will accept any challenge from the Chinese in order to get rid of his bad reputation, yet remorselessly gloats that he would murder every Chinese boxer in Hong Kong to prove the supposed superiority of western boxing. Ip Man has already arrived to challenge Twister to a fight. As his wife goes into labor, Ip finishes training and begins his fight with Twister. Ip exchanges blows with the boxer and seems overwhelmed by the westerner's sheer muscle at first, but begins to make a comeback using his more diverse techniques and great speed. He receives an illegal punch from Twister after the second round's bell, and is also told he will be disqualified for using kicks due to the judges changing the rules during the match. When it looks like the end, Ip remembers Hung's patriotic spirit and is spurred to go on. He changes his strategy and attacks the boxer's arms to disable him. The fight is brought to a climactic finish as Ip Man rains blow after blow into the knocked-down Twister's face (reminiscent of the first film), with flashbacks reflecting the latter's killing of Master Hung. While the Chinese celebrate, Wallace is arrested by his superiors for corruption, as Fatso has secretly reported him. Ip then gives a speech to the audience, stating that despite the differences between their race and culture, he wishes for everyone to respect each other regardless of their status. Both the Western and Chinese audience give him a standing ovation while Twister's manager walks away, unhappy at the defeat. Ip goes home and reunites with his family, including his newborn second son, Ip Ching. A final scene shows Ip being introduced to a boy named Bruce Lee who wishes to study Wing Chun in order to "beat up people he doesn't like". Ip smiles and simply tells the boy to "come back when he is older". Production. "Ip Man 2" is the second feature film overall to be based on the life of Ip Man, following the previous film "Ip Man". The sequel is also the fifth film collaboration between director Wilson Yip and actor Donnie Yen. "Ip Man 2" was produced by Raymond Wong, and was distributed by his company Mandarin Films upon its theatrical release in Hong Kong. It is the last film that Wong will produce under his Mandarin Films production banner. Wong's son, Edmond Wong, returned to write the screenplay. Apart from appearing in a supporting role for the sequel, Sammo Hung reprised his role as the film's martial arts choreographer. Kenji Kawai reprised his role as the film's music composer. Development. Prior to "Ip Man" theatrical release in December 2008, producer Raymond Wong announced plans to develop a sequel to the film. The sequel was intended to focus on the relationship between Ip Man and his most famed disciple Bruce Lee. In March 2009, Wong announced that the Lee character might not appear in the sequel, as producers had not fully finalized negotiations with Lee's descendants on the film rights. In July 2009, it was announced that "Ip Man 2" would focus on a young Bruce Lee, prior to Lee becoming Ip Man's most famed disciple. The sequel continues Ip Man's story, focusing on his movements to Hong Kong as he attempts to propagate Wing Chun in the region. Casting. Several cast members from "Ip Man" reprise their respective roles in the sequel. Donnie Yen reprises his role as Ip; Lynn Hung reprises her role as Cheung Wing-sing, Ip's wife, who is now pregnant with their second child. To prepare for her role in the film, Hung asked producers for a 10-pound prosthetic belly to portray the feeling of being pregnant. Hung stated that the difficulty of her role lay in playing someone who goes from "a naive and simple-minded young woman to a strong, understanding and supportive adult." Fan Siu-Wong reprises his role as Jin Shanzhao, Ip's aggressive rival in the first film. In the sequel, Jin attempts to retire from the martial arts world by becoming an ordinary citizen, and befriending Ip. In a cameo appearance, Simon Yam reprises his role as Ip's friend Chow Ching-chuen, who is now a beggar. Li Chak reprises his role as Ip Chun, Ip and Wing-sing's son. Sammo Hung was announced to be appearing as part of the cast in April 2009. Apart from serving as the film's martial arts choreographer, Hung appears as Hung Chun-nam, a master of Hung Ga which is a southern Chinese martial art. In August 2009, it was announced that Huang Xiaoming would be playing Wong Leung, a supporting character based on Wong Shun Leung, one of Ip Man's disciples and the person responsible for mentoring Bruce Lee. Former child star Ashton Chen was also announced to be a part of the supporting cast, also playing a disciple. Veteran actor Kent Cheng also has a supporting role in the film. To Yu-hang, who had a supporting role in the first film, appears in the sequel as a different character named Cheng Wai-kei. Cheng is a gang leader practicing Hung Ga, who decides to exact revenge on Wong after he is defeated by him in a fight. Wilson Yip commented on the casting of the veteran actors as being "a form of tribute to old school kungfu movies." Yen and Yip reportedly conducted a worldwide casting call for a suitable candidate to play Lee, who is Ip Man's most celebrated disciple. The film briefly portrays Lee at the age of 10. Yip and Yen debated over whether to look for an actor with solid martial arts foundation or looks. Among the 1300 Mainland Chinese candidates auditioning for the role, Yip narrowed the casting call down to two possible candidates: 10-year-old Jiang Dai Yan from Henan and 12-year-old Pan Run Kang from Heilongjiang. On 10 August 2009, it was announced that Jiang Dai Yan would be playing the role of a 10-year-old Bruce Lee. While the Bruce Lee character makes a brief appearance in the film, director Wilson Yip has expressed interest in making a third film that will focus on the relationship between Ip and Lee. Yen, however, has stated his lack of interest in making a third film, feeling that "Ip Man 2" will "become a classic." In November 2008, Yip revealed that there would be another actor appearing in the film, a martial artist who has been a fan of Donnie Yen. With no intention of revealing who he is and what role he plays in the film, Yip commented, "I can only say that he fights even more vehemently than Sammo Hung." However, in February 2010, it was revealed that British actor and stunt performer Darren Shahlavi would have a supporting role as a boxing opponent fighting against Ip Man. Yip later stated that Shahlavi's character "has his own drama. He is also a personage, not just some random foreign guy that appears from nowhere for the sake of getting beaten up, like you see in other films." Other cast members include Ngo Ka-nin and Kelvin Cheng. Writing and story. The filmmakers have expressed that while "Ip Man" was about survival, "Ip Man 2" is about living. The sequel is set in Hong Kong in 1949, when the country was under British colonial rule. Screenwriter Edmond Wong stated that the film also "deals with how Hong Kong people were treated under British colonial rule, and Western attitudes concerning Chinese kung fu." Wilson Yip stated that "Ip Man 2" is a much better film than its predecessor, in terms of characterization and storyline. The film focuses on disputes between the disciples of Hung Ga and Wing Chun martial arts, as well as the conflict and rivalry of the two practitioners. Wing Chun, as taught by Ip Man, is being viewed as a martial art meant only for girls; Hung Ga, as taught by Hung Chun-nam, is being seen as a macho form of boxing. Of the two characters, Yip commented, "Sammo Hung's character is not exactly villainous, but he's very overbearing, just like his torrential Hung Ga. In contrast, Ip Man is very unassuming, much like his fist." Yip also stated that the film has some moments of "family drama", such as the ongoing conflict between Ip and his wife Wing-Sing. Filming. Prior to filming, a production ceremony for "Ip Man 2" was held in Foshan, receiving plenty of media coverage. Principal photography began on 11 August 2009; filming took place in a sound stage at Songjiang Studios, which is located in Shanghai. On 28 October 2009, reporters were invited to the set to view the anticipated duel between Donnie Yen and Sammo Hung as it was being filmed. Filming ended on 8 November 2009. Stunts and choreography. The film's martial arts sequences were choreographed by Sammo Hung, who also worked on the choreography for the first film. Prior to principal photography, Hung had undergone a major cardiac surgery. When he returned to the set, his dramatic scenes in the film were filmed first, with his fight sequences being filmed last. Hung performed his own stunts in the film, which led to him receiving several injuries during filming. While filming a scene, Hung was struck in the face by co-star Darren Shahlavi. He insisted on completing the shoot before going to the hospital. Hung spent five hours trying to complete the scene before going to the hospital for four stitches; Hung stated that he did not want his injuries to hinder the production progress. After the completion of filming, Hung expressed that he was dissatisfied with the fight sequences involving his character, presumably due to his heart condition. He also stated that he plans to challenge Yen in a future film: "Although I'm the martial arts choreographer, our moves were all rather regulated, being confined by the script. So, I made a pact with Donnie Yen to have a rematch next year if the opportunity arises." Huang Xiaoming prepared for his role by learning Wing Chun martial arts. He turned his hotel room into a gym, practicing with weights and a wooden dummy. Huang received multiple bruises on his arms, due to his frequent practices on the dummy. Huang would also spend time practicing with the film's stunt team. Wilson Yip praised his performance in the film, stating that Huang "may not be a martial artist, but he specially ordered a wooden dummy, and trained daily at home. In the end, he is doing the action scenes better than Hiroyuki Ikeuchi in the first film." Film title. The Chinese title of the film (), literally means "Ip Man 2: Legend of a Grandmaster". The title is a play on the first film's working title which was "Grandmaster Ip Man", a title that was changed when Wong Kar-wai clashed with producers, while trying to make his own Ip Man biopic. Wilson Yip explained that the title of the film as being purely coincidental rather than intentional: "The sequel is about Ip Man being elevated from a master, a hero to a grandmaster, so we have 'grandmaster' in the title." Wong Kar-wai's film, titled "The Grandmaster", was released in January 2013. Release. "Ip Man 2" was released in select Asian countries and in Australia on 29 April 2010. Prior to its release, Mandarin Films publicly launched the film's official website in Beijing on 6 April 2010. The film held a premiere press conference in Beijing on 21 April 2010, only seven days after the 2010 Yushu earthquake. Guests were asked to wear dark-colored clothing in show of mourning; there was a moment of silence for the victims of the disaster. The film's cast, Donnie Yen, Sammo Hung, Huang Xiaoming, Lynn Hung, and Kent Cheng attended the premiere, and donated a total of ¥500,000 (US$73,200) to relief efforts helping in the disaster recovery. The film held private screenings in Chengdu on 21 April 2010, and in China on 27 April 2010, receiving positive reactions from audiences. Mandarin Films has sold North American distribution rights for the film to distributor Well Go USA. "Ip Man 2" was released in the United States by Variance Films on 28 January 2011. Box office. In Hong Kong, "Ip Man 2" faced competition with the international release of "Iron Man 2", which premiered in Hong Kong one day later than "Ip Man 2". During its opening weekend, "Ip Man 2" grossed HK$13 million (US$1,736,011), surpassing "Ip Man" opening weekend gross of HK$4.5 million (US$579,715). The sequel claimed first place at the box office, grossing HK$1 million more than "Iron Man 2". The film's revenues decreased by 28.1% in its second weekend, earning HK$9,719,603.56 (US$1,248,996) to remain in first place. The film dropped 45.7% in its third week, bringing in HK$5,293,401 (US$678,613) while still remaining in first place. "Ip Man 2" continued to stay at number one at the box office, dropping an additional 39.4% in its fourth week and grossing HK$3,199,567 (US$411,115). During its fifth week, the film moved to fifth place at 79.3%, grossing HK$664,535 (US$85,325). "Ip Man 2" grossed HK$43,268,228.72 (US$5,558,704) domestically. The sequel's domestic gross in Hong Kong puts it ahead of "Ip Man" total box office gross of HK$25,581,958.69 (US$3,300,847). "Ip Man 2" also broke box office records in Singapore. The film was the highest-grossing Hong Kong film to be released in the country, beating a five-year record held by "Kung Fu Hustle". On its opening weekend "Ip Man 2" came in second place behind "Iron Man 2", grossing SG$1.74 million (US$1,264,919). The film's opening weekend gross surpassed "Ip Man" 2008 weekend gross of SG$827,000 (US$463,946). In total, "Ip Man 2" has grossed an estimated US$14,856,127 worldwide during its theatrical run. Performance analysis. Analysts believed that "Ip Man 2" box office success was related to the favorable reputation and popularity of its first installment. Huang Qunfei, a general manager of the Chinese theater chain New Film Association Company, made notice of Chinese viewers preferring films made domestically over ones made in Hollywood: "Chinese viewers are less obsessed with Hollywood blockbusters than before. Finally, it is the film's quality that matters. With a good story, local films are likely to win more favor among audiences." Liu Wei of "China Daily" noted that the film's finale was similar to its competition against "Iron Man 2" at the box office: "The hero of "Ip Man 2"...faces up to a Western boxer and knocks him out. Off screen, it is a similar story." Analysts also predicted that Mandarin Films' hopes of having the sequel gross over ¥300 million in China was unlikely, due to competition with other films such as "Iron Man 2". Another factor was that the illegal recording, downloading and file sharing of the film would cause a potential loss in revenue. A pirated version was released online, one week after the film's release in China, and attracted more than 10 million online users. Raymond Wong publicly expressed that he would be pursuing legal action against the originator of the illegal downloads. In the first half of the year 2010 (from 1 January to 30 June 2010), "Ip Man 2" was the highest grossing Hong Kong film to be released in the country. However, when compared to films produced outside of Asia, the highest-grossing foreign film was "Alice in Wonderland" with HK$44 million. Critical reception. "Ip Man 2" received mostly positive reviews from film critics. The film holds an average rating of 7.5/10 from 30,823 users in IMDB. It currently has a 92% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Based on 24 reviews, the film currently carries an average rating of 6.8 out of 10. Singaporean film critic Genevieve Loh of "Channel NewsAsia" wrote, "..."Ip Man 2" delivers. Perhaps not as action-packed with dignified choreography as showcased by its excellent predecessor, this installment is nonetheless still exciting, if a tad one-dimensional." James Marsh of "Twitch Film" praised the film, writing, ""Ip Man 2" looks fantastic and does a grand job of evoking the period authentically, lending the film a much-appreciated sense of dramatic gravitas." Joy Fang, a critic for online news portal "AsiaOne" wrote, "While not as big a movie as the first one, which focuses on heartbreaking and intense issues arising from the Japanese occupation in China, this film evokes Chinese pride with its strong cultural roots." Ho Yi, of the "Taipei Times" wrote, "Despite its plot holes, the "Ip Man" series has potential and recalls the 1990s' "Once Upon a Time in China" franchise starring Jet Li." Amir Hafizi of "The Malay Mail" praised Sammo Hung's martial arts choreography: "With fluid movements intricate interplay between contrasting martial styles and gor­geous sequences, kung fu fans will definitely get their eye-balls' worth here as this time around, the introduction of Western box­ing into the mix makes for some interesting choreography." Roger Ebert of the "Chicago Sun-Times" awarded "Ip Man 2" three stars out of four, writing, "In its direct and sincere approach, it's a rebuke to the frenzied editing that reduces so many recent action movies into incomprehensible confusion." Darcy Paquet of "Screen Daily" had mixed opinions of the film. He wrote that the film's performances and fight sequences "should ensure decent theatrical runs." Paquet concluded his review by writing, "Ultimately, the film's energy and humour overcome cartoonishly bad performances from the British actors and an utter lack of surprises in the final two reels." Amanda Foo of "The UrbanWire" awarded the film two stars out of five, writing in her review, "It's no surprise that Donnie Yen isn't willing to sign up for any more "Ip Man" movies, with the shameless repetition that is happening in these films, even the most ardent fan would be tired." Home media. In Hong Kong, "Ip Man 2" was released on DVD, and Blu-ray Disc formats on 25 June 2010. Releases include a single-disc edition and a two-disc special edition on DVD Features for the special edition DVD, as well as the Blu-ray disc, include deleted scenes, several theatrical trailers, cast and crew interviews, a making-of featurette, coverage of the film's gala premiere, and a shooting diary. Coinciding with the sequel's home video release, both "Ip Man" and "Ip Man 2" were released as a double feature on DVD and Blu-ray Disc. Releases include two-disc special editions of both feature films with a total of four discs on DVD, as a well as a standard DVD edition featuring both films with a total of two discs. Sequel. "Ip Man 3" (also known as "Ip Man 3D") is a direct sequel to "Ip Man 2" and is due to be released in 2013.
1622555	Fallen Art (Polish "Sztuka spadania") is the name of a 6-minute, animated short film written and directed by Tomasz Bagiński. It features Romanian band Fanfare Ciocarlia's song "Asfalt Tango." The film was produced and created by Platige Image, a VFX company. In 2006 it received the British Academy of Film and Television Arts Award. Plot. "Fallen Art" presents the story of General A, a self-proclaimed artist. His art, however, consists of a deranged method of stop motion photography, where the individual frames of the movie are created by photographs made by Dr. Johann Friedrich, depicting the bodies of dead soldiers, pushed down by Sergeant Al from a giant springboard onto a slab of concrete.
1042840	Irene Handl (27 December 1901 – 29 November 1987) was an English character actress who appeared in over a hundred British films. Life. Irene Handl was born in Maida Vale, London, the daughter of an Austrian banker father and French mother. She took to acting at the relatively advanced age of 36, and studied at the acting school run by the sister of Dame Sybil Thorndike. She made her London stage debut in February 1937 and appeared in over a hundred British films in supporting roles, mostly comedy character parts such as slightly eccentric mothers, grannies, landladies and servants. Among many stage appearances, she played Lady Bracknell in "The Importance of Being Earnest" in 1975, directed by Jonathan Miller. Career. Films. Handl had very minor roles in such landmark films as "Night Train to Munich", "Spellbound" and "Brief Encounter". Her notable appearances included "I'm All Right Jack" as the wife of Peter Sellers' union leader Fred Kite, Tony Hancock's landlady in "The Rebel" and Sherlock Holmes' housekeeper Mrs. Hudson in "The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes". She had small roles in two of the Carry On series ("Nurse" and "Constable"). Television. On television she appeared as a guest in a number of comedy series, notably as a regular in the 1958 series "Educating Archie" and as Cockney widow Ada Cresswell in "For the Love of Ada", which would later be adapted for the cinema. She would also appear in "Maggie and Her" (1978) opposite Julia McKenzie. In the early 1980s, she played Gran in the ITV children's comedy show "Metal Mickey". She appeared in a rare aristocratic role in "Mapp and Lucia" and as another aristocratic character in Eric Sykes' 1982 television film "It's Your Move" where her chauffeur was played by Brian Murphy. She also appeared as Madame de Bonneuil in the BBC's film of "Hotel du Lac" in 1986. Her last appearance was in the BBC sitcom "In Sickness and in Health" in 1987, just before her death at the age of 85. Novels. In addition to her acting career, she wrote two novels: "The Sioux" (1965), "The Gold Tip Pfitzer" (1966), Death. Handl died at her flat in Kensington, London on 29 November 1987, from metastasized breast cancer; the death was registered by her agent, Glanville Evans. She never married.
743583	Boundin' is a 2003 Pixar computer-animated short film, which premiered in December 2003, and was shown in theaters with "The Incredibles". The film was written, directed, narrated and featured the musical composition and performance of Pixar animator Bud Luckey. Plot. The film features a sheep that lived in the American West whose elegant dancing is very popular with the other animals. One day the sheep-shearers arrive and shear it for wool. Having lost his coat, the sheep becomes shy and loses the confidence to dance so elegantly. It is whilst in his bare state that a benevolent jackalope comes across the little lamb and teaches him the merits of "bounding" rather than dancing (that is, getting up whenever you fall down). The sheep is converted and its joy in life is restored. The sheep's wool eventually grows back in the winter, only for it to be cut again, but his pride is now completely unshaken and he continues to "bound". It is also implied that the jackalope has helped other animals before the sheep. Production. Writer-director Bud Luckey designed and voiced all the characters, composed the music and wrote the story. According to the director's commentary for "The Incredibles", Brad Bird wanted to introduce the animated short by having Rick Dicker, (the superhero relocator from "The Incredibles", also voiced by Bud Luckey) enter a room, sit down, and pull out his banjo. This is the first Pixar short with a theatrical release that included vocal performances with words (Bobby McFerrin did an a capella song for Knick Knack). All prior films included only music and sound effects. So far, this is the only short to include a vocal performance and not be based on and star characters from a Pixar theatrical film. Other shorts that included vocal performances are "Mike's New Car" ("Monsters, Inc."), "Jack-Jack Attack" ("The Incredibles"), "Mater and the Ghostlight" ("Cars"), "Your Friend the Rat" ("Ratatouille"), and "Dug's Special Mission" ("Up"), though all of these films were released on video only. The "Cars" DVD contains a version of "Boundin'" with Mater as the jackalope and Lightning McQueen as the lamb as an Easter Egg. Release. In order to qualify for the 2004 Academy Awards, Pixar arranged in December 2003 special screenings of the short at the Laemmle Theatres in Los Angeles. Home media. "Boundin'" was released on March 15, 2005, on the "The Incredibles" two-disc DVD collector's release, including commentary from Bud Luckey and the short clip titled "Who is Bud Luckey?".
68949	Geometry (; "geo-" "earth", "-metron" "measurement") is a branch of mathematics concerned with questions of shape, size, relative position of figures, and the properties of space. A mathematician who works in the field of geometry is called a geometer. Geometry arose independently in a number of early cultures as a body of practical knowledge concerning lengths, areas, and volumes, with elements of a formal mathematical science emerging in the West as early as Thales (6th Century BC). By the 3rd century BC geometry was put into an axiomatic form by Euclid, whose treatment—Euclidean geometry—set a standard for many centuries to follow. Archimedes developed ingenious techniques for calculating areas and volumes, in many ways anticipating modern integral calculus. The field of astronomy, especially mapping the positions of the stars and planets on the celestial sphere and describing the relationship between movements of celestial bodies, served as an important source of geometric problems during the next one and a half millennia. Both geometry and astronomy were considered in the classical world to be part of the Quadrivium, a subset of the seven liberal arts considered essential for a free citizen to master.
1059737	"Everyone's Hero" is a 2006 computer animated sports comedy-drama family film, directed by Colin Brady, Christopher Reeve (who was working on this film at the time of his death), and Daniel St. Pierre, with music by John Debney. The majority of this film was produced by IDT Entertainment in Toronto with portions outsourced to Reel FX Creative Studios. It was distributed by 20th Century Fox, and released theatrically on September 15, 2006. "Everyone's Hero" had a moderate performance at the box office, earning only $16 million worldwide during its theatrical run, but the film was not released in several major countries. The film is also dedicated to the memory of director Christopher Reeve and his wife, Dana Morosini. Plot. In 1932, the dawn of the Great Depression, and young baseball fan Yankee Irving (Jake T. Austin), whose father Stanley (Mandy Patinkin) works as a janitor for New York City's Yankee Stadium, dreams of playing for the Yankees but can't even play sandlot baseball well enough to avoid being picked last. One day beside the sandlot, he finds a talking baseball he names Screwie (Rob Reiner). While father and son are in the stadium, a thief steals Babe Ruth's famous bat Darlin' (Whoopi Goldberg), with the result that Yankee's father is blamed and fired. The true thief is Lefty Maginnis (William H. Macy), a pitcher for the Chicago Cubs. Lefty works for Cubs owner Napoleon Cross (Robin Williams), who desires to see the Cubs defeat the Yankees during the 1932 World Series. Stealing the bat back, Yankee decides to return it to Ruth—and thereby exonerate his father—by journeying across the country to Chicago, where the next World Series' games will be played. Darlin' is able to speak, as does her counterpart Screwie, who she constantly argues and bickers with (though near the end, they finally become friends). Much of the plot is driven by Lefty's comic attempts to retrieve the bat from Yankee, with slapstick results. Other scenes involve Yankee meeting others who will help him in his quest: several hobos (Ed Helms); Marti (Raven-Symoné), an African American girl; her baseball player father Lonnie Brewster (Forest Whitaker); and in Chicago, Babe Ruth himself (Brian Dennehy). A series of improbable coincidences allows Yankee himself to bat for the Yankees, resulting in the archetypal home run (technically, a series of errors after an infield pop-up that allow him to round the bases). This restores the morale of the Yankees, who score 7 more runs to take the lead and win the World Series. Cross tries to talk Babe Ruth out of accepting the victory, saying that Yankee is too young to be a counting player. This leads to the arrest of Cross. Yankee also successfully exonerates his father. Yankee returns home, now knowing what is truly important in baseball. Production. With the exception of Ruth, none of the film's characters are based on real people. However, there is a scene near the end where Ruth is at dinner, and talks to a man named Lou, probably a representation of Lou Gehrig. The film takes a largely nostalgic tone in its presentation of 1930s American life, though the Great Depression is alluded to, as is the existence of separate Negro Leagues. (Marti's father is a member of the Cincinnati Tigers, though the team was actually founded two years later, in 1934.) The announced morals of the movie are to "keep swinging" (that is, never give up), and the importance of family. The actual events of the 1932 series, though dramatic, were not followed in the film (perhaps because of rights issues over depictions of the game). For example, the Yankees swept the Cubs in the series, but in the film, they lost three games to set up the classic game 7 scenario. In one point of the film, Screwie refers to Superman, which is anachronistic due to the fact that Superman did not appear until 1938, and the film is set in 1932, though the reference is clearly intended as a nod to late co-director Reeve, who played Superman in several films. Reception. Box office. In its opening weekend, the film grossed $6,061,762 million in 2,896 theaters in the United States and Canada, ranking #3 at the box office, behind "Gridiron Gang" and "The Black Dahlia". By the end of its run, "Everyone's Hero" grossed $14,522,427 domestically and $2,104,087 internationally, totaling $16,627,188 worldwide. Critical reception. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the film received an average score of 51%, based on 20 reviews, which indicates "mixed" reviews. There were two negative reviews, twelve mixed and six positive. "New York Daily News", positive review, "Whoever wanders into the theater should leave a winner". "L.A. Weekly", positive review, "The movie's antique Rockwellian look is its greatest pleasure". "Entertainment Weekly", positive review, ""Everyone's Hero" re-creates Depression-era America with surprisingly agreeable anachronistic panache, but a sassy ball and bat don't cut it as compelling cartoon characters, and the not-so-human humans never quite do either (Babe Ruth looks like "Shrek")". "New York Post", mixed review, ""Everyone's Hero", a tame CGI cartoon for the simple-minded: the very young, the very old and Yankee fans". "TV Guide", negative review, "An anemic adventure that epitomizes generic feature animation". Syndication. In the United States, Cartoon Network aired "Everyone's Hero" on April 12, 2008. In Latin America, Cartoon Network Latino aired the film on November 23, 2011. In Asia, Disney Channel premiered May 29, 2012. It also aired on Disney XD in the United States on April 8, 2013. Soundtrack. The soundtrack, released on the Columbia Records/Sony Music Soundtrax labels, features tracks by the star of the film Raven-Symoné, Grammy-winners Wyclef Jean, Brooks & Dunn, Mary Chapin Carpenter, and various other artists.
1061202	Richard Benjamin (born May 22, 1938) is an American actor and film director. He has starred in a number of well-known film productions, including "Goodbye, Columbus" (1969), based on the novella by Philip Roth; "Catch-22" (1970), from the Joseph Heller best-seller; "Westworld" (1973), a science-fiction thriller by Michael Crichton, and "The Sunshine Boys" (1978), written by Neil Simon. He has directed, among other films, the 1982 comedy "My Favorite Year". Life and career. Benjamin was born in New York City, New York, the son of a garment industry worker. He attended the High School of Performing Arts and graduated from Northwestern University, where he was involved in many plays and studied in the Northwestern theater school. He married actress Paula Prentiss on October 26, 1961; and they have two children. They appeared together in the short-lived television series "He & She" (1967–68) and the film "Catch-22" (1970). In 1978, he starred in the ambitious, but short-lived, television series "Quark". Benjamin starred in "Goodbye, Columbus" (1969), based on the novella by Philip Roth as well as "Diary of a Mad Housewife", "The Steagle", "The Marriage of a Young Stockbroker", and yet another film based on a famous Roth novel, "Portnoy's Complaint" (1972), in the title role. He played a sexually ambiguous murder suspect in "The Last of Sheila" (1973), a mystery conceived and co-scripted by Anthony Perkins and Stephen Sondheim. In an imaginative Michael Crichton story, "Westworld" (1973), Benjamin played a man vacationing as a make-believe cowboy in a theme park where he ends up being stalked by a robot gunslinger played by Yul Brynner. Then he returned to comedy, with a supporting role as a harried theatrical agent in the Neil Simon hit "The Sunshine Boys" opposite Walter Matthau and George Burns and as Matthau's colleague at an ineptly run hospital in "House Calls" (1978). Benjamin also played a frustrated fiance of a woman who falls for the vampire Count Dracula in the surprise box-office smash "Love at First Bite" (1979) starring George Hamilton and Susan Saint James. On April 7, 1979, Benjamin hosted "Saturday Night Live". Benjamin's first project as a director was the hit comedy "My Favorite Year" (1982), which brought an Oscar nomination to its star, Peter O'Toole. Benjamin went on to direct a number of Hollywood films, mainly comedies, including "City Heat" (1984) with Burt Reynolds and Clint Eastwood and "The Money Pit" (1986) with Tom Hanks. He also directed Cher in "Mermaids" (1990). The most recent film Benjamin has directed was a drama, "A Little Thing Called Murder" (2006), featuring Judy Davis which was based on the true story of Sante and Kenny Kimes, mother and son grifters and killers. Benjamin's acting appearances have become less frequent and include a role in the Woody Allen comedy "Deconstructing Harry" (1997). He directed and appeared in "Marci X" (2003), a comedy starring Lisa Kudrow and Damon Wayans.
589269	Khel Khel Mein (; ) is a 1975 Indian Hindi film directed by Ravi Tandon. The film's music (Ek main aur ek tu, and also Khullam khulla pyaar karenge) was composed by R.D. Burman and the lyrics written by Gulshan Bawra. The film stars Rishi Kapoor, Neetu Singh and Rakesh Roshan as college students, who play a prank and get involved with a notorious criminal. The film turns fast from fun and frolic to a taut thriller. Iftekhar and Aruna Irani also star in the film. The story has been adapted from the English novel "Good children don't kill", written by Louis Thomas, the blind writer, and published in 1967. Songs. The music for the movie was directed by R. D. Burman. Summary. Ajay, Vikram & Nisha are three college friends who are always up to some prank. One day they spot a rich man & send him a typewritten extortion letter, just for fun. The fun turns too real when they find out that the same night the man (Jankidas) has been murdered & that the extortionists are the main suspects. As if this is not enough, their typewriter suddenly disappears & Vikram is mysteriously killed. To top it, a stranger(Dev Kumar) suddenly starts stalking them. To add to this, one police officer Bhupendra Singh(Iftekhar) frequently meets them threatening that very soon they are going to land in trouble. Can Ajay & Nisha save themselves from a game that has become deadly? Plot. Ajay joins a college in Shimla for further education. He meets Vikram & Nisha, two slackers in the college who just love playing pranks. Ajay is way different from them & an easy target. But after some initial hiccups, Ajay becomes friends with them. Soon, the trio are playing pranks on unsuspecting people. One day, they spot a stingy Seth(a wealthy man) & send him a fake typewritten extortion note, hoping to relieve him of his money. However, the next day, they find out through the newspaper that the man is dead. Based on the circumstances, they realize that they might end up as prime suspects in the case. They decide to destroy their incriminating typewriter, only to find it missing. Also, they realize that a stranger(Dev Kumar) is stalking them. Ajay & Nisha decide to tell police the truth, whether they believe it or not. But even before they can tell the truth, they are horrified to find Vikram dead. They meet Inspector Bhupendra Singh, who is investigating the case. The Inspector is sceptical, but gives them one chance to prove their innocence. From Vikram's personal belongings, they find out about a club singer named Sherie. Anticipating that Sherie may know as to why Vikram was killed, they go to meet Sherie. But when they go to her dressing room after her performance, they find her dead. The duo realize that Sherie was involved in some shady deals and Vikram was her partner. After trying to find out some information, they learn that Sherie acted as a middleman between a dreaded criminal named Black Cobra & the people who paid him. After learning that Black Cobra is an extortionist & the dead man was also on his payroll, blocks suddenly start falling into places. Ajay & Nisha deduce that the Seth thought the note was from Black Cobra & confronted him. The Seth thought that Black Cobra became more greedy and threatened to expose him, following which he was killed by latter. Black Cobra thought that Vikram & Sherie were extorting people in his name, behind his back, so he killed them. He also stole the typewriter to frame Ajay & Nisha. It becomes clear that the person following them is either Black Cobra himself, or his henchman. Though they have no concrete information about Black Cobra, they find some information secretly hidden by Sherie, that might unmask Black Cobra. The stranger confronts them, but the duo overpower him & escape. They inform the Inspector about their findings. The Inspector calls them to meet him in an abandoned place. Ajay give him all the incriminating evidence, but to his astonishment, the Inspector burns all of it. He shocks him by telling that he is none other than Black Cobra himself. Suddenly Ajay realizes that he played right into his hands. Black Cobra coolly goes on to declare that since he knows pretty much everything, he has to kill him & pin the blame of all the killings on him. He denies that he sent any man behind them. Just he is about to pull the trigger, the stranger makes an entry & after some fight the Black Cobra is put behind the bars. To a bewildered Ajay & Nisha, the stranger reveals that he is Charlie, an undercover police officer working on the murder cases. He tells that he suspected Vikram & Sherie of running the extortion racket much before the first murder. He already knew about the prank, but was unsure of the killer's identity. So he stole their typewriter. Then Cobra killed Vikram & Sherie to keep his secret intact. Then he knew that Cobra is behind all this & used the duo to track down Cobra. He reassures Ajay & Nisha that even though Black Cobra destroyed all the proof, there is no proof against the duo either. He tells the duo to collect the typewriter from him the next day. The duo oblige, vowing never to play such pranks again.
584151	Oru Kalluriyin Kathai (Tamil: ஒரு கல்லூரியின் கதை, English: "The story of a college") is a 2005 Indian Tamil film written and directed by newcomer Nandha Periyasamy. It stars Arya and Sonia Agarwal in lead roles, whilst Santhanam, Mouli, Charlie, Charuhasan, Raja and Nizhalgal Ravi play significant roles. The film released in late 2005 and was deemed a success upon release. The film was later dubbed into Telugu and released as "College Days" in 2008. Plot. Satya (Arya) is told to meet five friends at their old college at Valentines Day, when his dad comes in a van. Unfortunate Satya in coma. In a physcho test, conducted by doctor (Charuhasan), it turns out that he`s in love with Jothi (Sonia Agarwal) for five years, but never confesses it to her during college days. On the last day of college, his friends and he decided to meet there again after 5 years. But his friends are shocked to see him, his mind is not completely sound. What happen to Satya, does he become alright, and where does Jothi fit in all, this is what this movie is about.. Soundtrack. The music, including film score and soundtrack, was composed by Yuvan Shankar Raja. The soundtrack released on 4 August 2005 and features 8 tracks with lyrics penned by Na. Muthukumar.
1105105	In applied mathematics, the transfer matrix is a formulation in terms of a block-Toeplitz matrix of the two-scale equation, which characterizes refinable functions. Refinable functions play an important role in wavelet theory and finite element theory. For the mask formula_1, which is a vector with component indexes from formula_2 to formula_3, the transfer matrix of formula_1, we call it formula_5 here, is defined as More verbosely The effect of formula_5 can be expressed in terms of the downsampling operator "formula_9":
629234	Shane Jacobson is an Australian actor, director, writer, and comedian, best known for his performance as the eponymous character Kenny Smyth in the 2006 film "Kenny". In 2006, he won the Australian Film Institute's Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role for that performance. Career. Jacobson began his career on the stage at the age of 10 with amateur theatre, and also performed in the Melbourne Gang Show. At age 18 he began his comedy career with regular theatre restaurant, musical theatre, stand-up and MC gigs. He was also hired to play to corporate functions, impersonating business icons and luminaries.
590243	Rituparna Sengupta ("Ritupôrna Shengupta"; born 7 November 1971) is an Indian actress from Kolkata, West Bengal. She is one of the most successful and sought-after stars in Bengali Cinema, and is also currently performing in some well known Hindi Cinema. Early life. Rituparna was interested in the arts since a young age and learned painting, dancing, singing and handicrafts at a painting school, called "Chitrangshu". She studied at Mount Carmel school, and later graduated in History from Lady Brabourne College. She began studying Modern History for an M.A. at University of Calcutta, but had to interrupt studies to concentrate on her career as an actress. Her first film was "Swet Patharer Thala" with Aparna Sen who played her mother-in-law. in Her Hindi debut was N N Sippy's "Teesra Kaun" directed by Parto Ghosh. Hema Malini picked her for a negative supporting role in Zee's home-production "Mohini", starring Madhu and Sudesh Berry. In 2013, she will be making her Malayalam debut with Sohanlal's "Kadhaveedu". She had named her favourite Bengali films -- "Sujan Sakhi", "Shami Keno Ashami", "Moner Manush", "Adorer Bon"—directed by the quickie-hit-maker Swapan Saha, "Ami Shei Meye" directed by Prasenjeet, "Sansar Sangram" directed by Chiranjeet. Personal life. Sengupta got married to her childhood friend Sanjay Chakrabarty, founder and CEO of "MobiApps" on 13 December 1999 in Munshigonj and the couple has a son named Ankan and a daughter named Rishona Niya. Canadian Airport Harassment. In July 2013, Sengupta was entering Canada for a festival to showcase her new film, Mukti Dir Reshmi, when she was allegedly stopped by immigration officials, who harassed her for over 6 hours. She had reported that she was entering Canada on a legal and valid visitor's visa, when the immigration officials said that her visa was expired and that she would have to leave the country without being allowed into Canada.
1103124	Dennis Parnell Sullivan (born February 12, 1941) is an American mathematician. He is known for work in topology, both algebraic and geometric, and on dynamical systems. He holds the Albert Einstein Chair at the City University of New York Graduate Center, and is a professor at Stony Brook University. Work in topology. He received his B.A. in 1963 from Rice University and his doctorate in 1966 from Princeton University. His Ph.D. thesis, entitled "Triangulating homotopy equivalences", was written under the supervision of William Browder, and was a major contribution to surgery theory. He was a permanent member of the Institut des Hautes Études Scientifiques from 1974 to 1997. Sullivan is one of the founders of the surgery method of classifying high-dimensional manifolds, along with Browder, Sergei Novikov and C. T. C. Wall. In homotopy theory, Sullivan put forward the radical concept that spaces could directly be "localised", a procedure hitherto applied to the algebraic constructs made from them. He founded (along with Daniel Quillen) rational homotopy theory. The Sullivan conjecture, proved in its original form by Haynes Miller, states that the classifying space "BG" of a finite group "G" is sufficiently different from any finite CW complex "X", that it maps to such an "X" only 'with difficulty'; in a more formal statement, the space of all mappings "BG" to "X", as pointed spaces and given the compact-open topology, is weakly contractible. This area has generated considerable further research. (Both these matters are discussed in his 1970 MIT notes.) Work in dynamics. In 1985, he proved the No wandering domain theorem. The Parry-Sullivan invariant is named after him and the English mathematician Bill Parry. In 1987, he proved Thurston's conjecture about the approximation of the Riemann map by circle packings together with Burton Rodin. Awards and honors. Awards include the 1971 Oswald Veblen Prize in Geometry, the 1981 Prix Élie Cartan of the French Academy of Sciences, the King Faisal International Prize for Science in 1994, the 2004 National Medal of Science, the 2006 AMS Steele Prize for Lifetime Achievement and the Wolf Prize in Mathematics in 2010 for "his contributions to algebraic topology and conformal dynamics". In 2012 he became a fellow of the American Mathematical Society.
582461	No One Killed Jessica () is a 2011 Indian political crime thriller film starring Rani Mukerji and Vidya Balan, produced by UTV Spotboy and directed by Rajkumar Gupta, who directed the acclaimed film "Aamir" (2008). The music of the film is composed by Amit Trivedi, who has also composed the music for "Dev D" (2009). Vidya Balan plays the character of Jessica’s elder sister, Sabrina Lal, while Rani played the role of a news reporter. Upon release, the film met with positive critical and box office reception. The movie also received 4 nominations at the 57th Filmfare Awards including Filmfare Award for Best Film and Filmfare Award for Best Actress for Vidya Balan and ultimately won the Filmfare Award for Best Supporting Actress for Rani Mukherji's performance. Production. The film, set in New Delhi, is based on the media coverage of the controversial Jessica Lal murder case. The director clarified that the title and the script are actually inspired by a 2006 headline when the accused in the infamous murder case were acquitted by a trial court, leading to nationwide protests, the appeal and re-opening of the case and subsequent sentencing of the accused, and not the case "per se". Jagat Rawat as Dharam Saxena Themes. "No One Killed Jessica" is based on the true story of Jessica Lall, a Delhi-based model and restaurant worker who was shot in 1999 at a New Delhi restaurant by Siddharth Vashisht, alias Manu Sharma. Sharma is the son of a wealthy, influential and intimidating Haryana politician, Vinod Sharma, a close aide of the Chief Minister of Haryana Bhupinder Singh Hooda. Jessica, along with actor and model Vikram Jai Singh, were closing a restaurant's bar for the evening when approached by Manu and two friends. Infuriated by Jessica's refusal to serve them drinks after the bar closed, Manu fatally shoots Jessica. Manu's family's political, financial, justice and police connections intimidated, coerced, threatened and bribed nearly all the witnesses to the wanton crime. The case then became an uneven battle between Jessica’s family (especially her sister Sabrina) and the politically-backed and influential family of the accused. In February 2006, the court acquitted Manu and the other accused due to lack of sufficient evidence, setting off a public outcry and widespread protests. The backlash from the initial acquittal forced the re-opening of the investigation. In December 2006, Manu was found guilty and sentenced to life imprisonment. Release. The film was released on 7 January 2011. It received positive reviews from critics. "No One Killed Jessica" opened quite well and got positive feedback from audience. The film recovered its cost before release through satellite and music rights. Reception. Critical response. "No One Killed Jessica" received a number of positive reviews. Nikhat Kazmi of the "Times of India" gave the movie four stars out of five stating, "No One Killed Jessica is a film that unleashes a myriad emotions in you. The hard facts of modern India's most written about case are well known by almost everybody but the director Rajkumar Gupta's (he'd already displayed his talent in Aamir) dramatic handling of the crime, the criminals, the crusaders and the victim creates a storm, once again." Taran Adarsh of "Bollywood Hungama" also rated the film 4/5 and described it as "a remarkable blend of facts and fiction inspired by a series of real-life episodes, which has thankfully not been presented as a tedious biography or in a mind-numbing docu-drama format." Anupama Chopra of "NDTV" while rating the film three stars out of five wrote, "No One Killed Jessica is several notches ahead of the tripe we’ve been subjected to in theatres lately." Rajeev Masand of CNN-IBN gave the film two and a half stars out of five and wrote, "With the exception of a few powerful scenes that leave you with a genuine lump in your throat, Gupta goes for full-on melodrama that doesn't always ring true." Mayank Shekhar of the "Hindustan Times" gave it three stars and argues, "Can a feature film, in a couple of hours flat, ever detail an entire truth about anything? Possibly not. But it can entertainingly dramatise it. That’s what the fine director-writer and a consummate raconteur here (Rajkumar Gupta) manages to do." Bollywood actor Amitabh Bachchan wrote that this film is a "pertinent, media friendly and brave effort by the makers. The performances living up to the title and story of the film." Soundtrack. The music of the film is composed by Amit Trivedi who had debuted with the same director in "Aamir". Lyrics are penned by Amitabh Bhattacharya. The album received generally positive reviews from critics. Controversy. During the filming of scenes in Delhi, one shot was taken at Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University, where University School of Information Technology (one of the 12 on-campus schools of university) was disguised to Patiala House District-Court. During the process, the university's Vice Chancellor Dilip Bandopadhyay was prevented from entering his own campus. Bandopadhyay argued with bouncers, on guard outside the main gate, to let him enter while the cameras rolled, allegedly without his permission. As a result, the university terminated the contract of a faculty member accused of organising the 19 April film shoot on campus.
1545614	Orenthal James "O. J." Simpson (born July 9, 1947), nicknamed "The Juice", is a retired American football player and actor. Simpson was the first professional football player to rush for more than 2,000 yards in a season, a mark he set in 1973. While six other players have passed the 2,000 rush yard mark, he stands alone as the only player to rush for more than 2,000 yards in a 14-game season (professional football changed to a 16-game season in 1978). He holds the record for the single season yards-per-game average, which stands at 143.1 ypg. Simpson was elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1985. After retiring from professional football, Simpson had a successful career as a football broadcaster and actor. In 1995, he was acquitted of the 1994 murder of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman after a lengthy and internationally publicized criminal trial, the "People v. Simpson". In 1997, a civil court awarded a judgment against Simpson for their wrongful deaths; to date he has paid little of the $33.5 million penalty. In September 2007, Simpson was arrested in Las Vegas, Nevada, and charged with numerous felonies, including armed robbery and kidnapping. In 2008, he was found guilty and sentenced to 33 years' imprisonment, with a minimum of nine years without parole. He is serving his sentence at the Lovelock Correctional Center in Lovelock, Nevada. Early life. Simpson was born in San Francisco, the son of Eunice (née Durden; October 23, 1921 – San Francisco, California, November 9, 2001), a hospital administrator, and Jimmy Lee Simpson (Arkansas, January 29, 1920 – San Francisco, California, June 9, 1986), a chef and bank custodian. Simpson's maternal grandparents were from Louisiana. His aunt gave him the name Orenthal, which supposedly was the name of a French actor she liked. Simpson has one brother, Melvin Leon "Truman" Simpson, one living sister, Shirley Simpson-Baker, and one deceased sister, Carmelita Simpson-Durio. As a child, Simpson developed rickets and wore braces on his legs until the age of five. His parents separated in 1952 and was raised by his mother. Growing up in San Francisco, Simpson lived in the housing projects of the Potrero Hill neighborhood. In his early teenage years, he joined a street gang called the Persian Warriors and was briefly incarcerated at the San Francisco Youth Guidance Center. At Galileo High School (currently Galileo Academy of Science and Technology) in San Francisco, Simpson played for the school football team, the Galileo Lions. From 1965 to 1966, Simpson was a student at City College of San Francisco, a member of the California Community College system. He played both offense (running back) and defense (defensive back) and was named to the Junior College All-American team as a running back. College football career. Simpson was awarded an athletic scholarship to the University of Southern California, where he played running back in 1967 and 1968. Simpson led the nation in rushing in 1967 when he ran for 1,451 yards and scored 11 touchdowns. He also led the nation in rushing the next year with 355 carries for 1,709 yards. In 1967, he starred in the 1967 USC vs. UCLA football game and was a Heisman Trophy candidate as a junior, but he did not win the award. His 64-yard touchdown run in the fourth quarter tied the game, with the extra point after touchdown providing the win. This was the biggest play in what is regarded as one of the greatest football games of the 20th century. Another dramatic touchdown in the same game is the subject of the Arnold Friberg oil painting, "O.J. Simpson Breaks for Daylight." Simpson also won the Walter Camp Award in 1967 and was a two-time consensus All-American. He ran in the USC sprint relay quartet that broke the world record in the 4x110 yard relay at the NCAA track championships in Provo, Utah in June 1967. (While this time has not been beaten, the IAAF now refers to it as a "world's best", not a world record. The scarcity of events over distances measured in imperial units resulted in the designation change in 1976.) In 1968, he rushed for 1,709 yards and 22 touchdowns, earning the Heisman Trophy, the Maxwell Award, and the Walter Camp Award that year. He still holds the record for the Heisman's largest margin of victory, defeating the runner-up by 1,750 points. In the 1969 Rose Bowl, where No. 2 USC faced No. 1 Ohio State, Simpson ran for 171 yards, including an 80-yard touchdown run in a 16–27 loss. Professional football career. Buffalo Bills. Simpson was drafted by the AFL's Buffalo Bills, who got first pick in the 1969 AFL-NFL Common Draft after finishing 1–12–1 in 1968. Early in his professional football career, Simpson struggled on poor Buffalo teams, averaging only 622 yards per season for his first three. He first rushed for more than 1,000 yards in 1972, gaining a total of 1,251. In 1973, Simpson rushed for a record 2,003 yards, becoming the first player ever to pass the 2,000-yard mark, and scored 12 touchdowns. Simpson gained more than 1,000 rushing yards for each of his next three seasons. From 1972 to 1976, Simpson averaged 1,540 rushing yards per (14 game) season, 5.1 yards per carry, and he won the NFL rushing title four times. Simpson had the best game of his career during the Thanksgiving game against the Detroit Lions on November 25, 1976, when he rushed for a then record 273 yards on 29 attempts and scoring two touchdowns. Simpson's 1977 season in Buffalo was cut short by injury. San Francisco 49ers. Before the 1978 season, the Bills traded Simpson to the San Francisco 49ers for a series of draft picks. He played two seasons. Summary. Simpson gained 11,236 rushing yards, placing him 2nd on the NFL's all-time rushing list when he retired; he now stands at 18th. He was named NFL Player of the Year in 1973, and played in six Pro Bowls. He was the only player in NFL history to rush for over 2,000 yards in a 14 game season and he's the only player to rush for over 200 yards in six different games in his career. Simpson was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1985, his first year of eligibility. Simpson acquired the nickname "Juice" as a play on "O. J.", an informal abbreviation for "Orange Juice". "Juice" is also a colloquial synonym for electricity or electrical power, and hence a metaphor for any powerful entity; the Bills' offensive line at Simpson's peak was nicknamed "The Electric Company." Acting career. Even before his retirement from football and in the NFL, Simpson embarked on a successful film career with parts in films such as the television mini-series "Roots" (1977), and the dramatic motion pictures "The Klansman" (1974), "The Towering Inferno" (1974), "The Cassandra Crossing" (1976), "Capricorn One" (1978), and the comedic "Back to the Beach" (1987) and "The Naked Gun" trilogy (1988, 1991, 1994). In 1979, he started his own film production company, Orenthal Productions, which dealt mostly in made-for-TV fare such as the family-oriented "Goldie and the Boxer" films with Melissa Michaelsen (1979 and 1981) and "Cocaine and Blue Eyes" (1983), the pilot for a proposed detective series on NBC. NBC was considering whether to air "Frogmen", another series starring Simpson, when his arrest canceled the project. Besides his acting career, Simpson worked as a commentator for "Monday Night Football" and "The NFL on NBC". He also appeared in the audience of "Saturday Night Live" during its second season and hosted an episode during its third season. Endorsements. Simpson's amiable persona and natural charisma landed him numerous endorsement deals. He was a spokesman for the Hertz rental car company, in whose commercials he was depicted running through airports, as if to suggest he were back on the football field. Simpson was also a longtime spokesman for Pioneer Chicken and owned two franchises, one of which was destroyed during the 1992 Los Angeles riots; as well as HoneyBaked Ham, the pX Corporation, and Calistoga Water Company's line of Napa Naturals soft drinks. He also appeared in comic book ads for Dingo cowboy boots. Family life. On June 24, 1967, Simpson married Marguerite L. Whitley. Together they had three children: Arnelle L. Simpson (born December 4, 1968), Jason L. Simpson (born April 21, 1970), and Aaren Lashone Simpson (born September 24, 1977). In August 1979, Aaren drowned in the family's swimming pool a month before her second birthday. Simpson and Whitley divorced that same year. On February 2, 1985, Simpson married Nicole Brown. They had two children, Sydney Brooke Simpson (born October 17, 1985) and Justin Ryan Simpson (born August 6, 1988). In 1989, Simpson pleaded no contest to a domestic violence charge and was separated from Nicole Brown, to whom he was paying child support. They divorced in 1992. Legal history. Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman murders and trials. Nicole Brown and her friend Ronald Goldman were murdered on June 12, 1994. Simpson was charged with their deaths and subsequently acquitted of all criminal charges in a controversial criminal trial. In the unanimous jury findings of a civil court case in February 1997, Simpson was found liable for the wrongful death of Ronald Goldman and battery of Nicole Brown. Simpson stayed in Denice Shakarian Halicki and Kardashian's house during the days following the June 12, 1994, murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman. Kardashian was the man seen carrying Simpson's garment bag the day that Simpson flew back from Chicago. Prosecutors speculated that the bag may have contained Simpson's bloody clothes or the murder weapon. Criminal trial for murder. On June 12, 1994, Brown and her friend Ronald Goldman were found dead outside Brown's condominium. Simpson was charged with their murders. On June 17, after failing to turn himself in, he became the object of a low-speed pursuit in a white Ford Bronco SUV that interrupted coverage of the 1994 NBA Finals. The pursuit, arrest, and trial were among the most widely publicized events in American history. The trial, often characterized as "the trial of the century", culminated on October 3, 1995 in a jury verdict of not guilty for the two murders. The verdict was seen live on TV by more than half of the U.S. population, making it one of the most watched events in American TV history. Immediate reaction to the verdict was notable for its division along racial lines: polls showed that most African-Americans felt that justice had been served by the "not guilty" verdict, while most white Americans did not. O. J. Simpson's defense counsel included Johnnie Cochran, Robert Kardashian, and F. Lee Bailey. Wrongful death civil trial. On February 5, 1997, a civil jury in Santa Monica, California unanimously found Simpson liable for the wrongful death of and battery against Goldman, and battery against Brown. Daniel Petrocelli represented plaintiff Fred Goldman, Ronald Goldman's father. Simpson was ordered to pay $33,500,000 in damages. However, California law protects pensions from being used to satisfy judgments, so Simpson was able to continue much of his lifestyle based on his NFL pension. In February 1999, an auction of Simpson's Heisman Trophy and other belongings netted almost $500,000. The money went to the Goldman family. A 2000 "Rolling Stone" article reported that Simpson still made a significant income by signing autographs. He subsequently moved from California to Miami. In Florida, a person's residence cannot be seized to collect a debt under most circumstances. The Goldman family also tried to collect Simpson's NFL $28,000 monthly pension but failed to collect any money. On September 5, 2006, Goldman's father took Simpson back to court to obtain control over his "right to publicity" for purposes of satisfying the judgment in the civil court case. On January 4, 2007, a Federal judge issued a restraining order prohibiting Simpson from spending any advance he may have received on a canceled book deal and TV interview about the 1994 murders. The matter was dismissed before trial for lack of jurisdiction. On January 19, 2007, a California state judge issued an additional restraining order, ordering Simpson to restrict his spending to "ordinary and necessary living expenses". On March 13, 2007, a judge prevented Simpson from receiving any further compensation from the defunct book deal and TV interview. He ordered the bundled book rights to be auctioned. In August 2007, a Florida bankruptcy court awarded the rights to the book to the Goldman family to partially satisfy an unpaid civil judgment. The book was renamed "", with the word "If" reduced in size to make it appear that the title was ""I Did It: Confessions of the Killer"". Additional material was added by members of the Goldman family, investigative journalist Dominick Dunne, and author Pablo Fenjves. The Goldman family was listed as the author. Alleged confession. Mike Gilbert, a memorabilia dealer and former agent and friend of Simpson, wrote a book titled "How I Helped O.J. Get Away with Murder: The Shocking Inside Story of Violence, Loyalty, Regret and Remorse" (2011). He states that Simpson had smoked marijuana and taken a sleeping pill and was drinking beer when he allegedly confided, at his Brentwood home weeks after his trial, what happened the night of June 12, 1994. According to Gilbert, Simpson said, "If she hadn't opened that door with a knife in her hand...she'd still be alive." Gilbert claimed Simpson had confessed. However, Simpson's current lawyer, Yale Galanter, said none of Gilbert's claims are true and that Gilbert is "a delusional drug addict who needs money. He has fallen on very hard times. He is in trouble with the Internal Revenue Service." Miscellaneous legal troubles. The State of California claims Simpson owes $1.44 million in past due taxes. A tax lien was filed in his case on September 1, 1999. In the late 1990s, Simpson attempted to register "O.J. Simpson", "O.J.", and "The Juice" as trademarks for "a broad range of goods, including figurines, trading cards, sportswear, medallions, coins, and prepaid telephone cards." A "concerned citizen", William B. Ritchie, sued to oppose the granting of federal registration on the grounds that doing so would be immoral and scandalous. Simpson gave up the effort in 2000. In February 2001, Simpson was arrested in Miami-Dade County, Florida for simple battery and burglary of an occupied conveyance for allegedly yanking the glasses off another motorist during a traffic dispute three months earlier. If convicted, Simpson faced up to sixteen years in prison. He was put on trial and quickly acquitted on both charges in October 2001. Simpson's Miami home was searched by the FBI on December 4, 2001 on suspicion of ecstasy possession and money laundering. The FBI had received a tip that O.J. Simpson was involved in a major drug trafficking ring after 10 other suspects were arrested in the case. Simpson's home was thoroughly searched for two hours, but no illegal drugs were discovered, and no arrest or formal charges were filed following the search. However, investigators uncovered equipment capable of stealing satellite television programming, which eventually led to Simpson's being sued in federal court. On July 4, 2002, Simpson was arrested in Miami-Dade County, Florida for speeding through a manatee protection zone and failing to comply with proper boating regulations. Yale Galanter, his criminal defense attorney, was able to get the misdemeanor boating regulation charge dropped and Simpson only had to pay a fine for the speeding infraction. In March 2004, satellite television network DirecTV, Inc. accused Simpson in a Miami federal court of using illegal electronic devices to pirate its broadcast signals. The company later won a $25,000 judgment, and Simpson was ordered to pay an additional $33,678 in attorney's fees and costs. Las Vegas robbery. In September 2007, a group of men led by Simpson entered a room at the Palace Station hotel-casino and took sports memorabilia at gunpoint, which resulted in Simpson's being questioned by police. Simpson admitted to taking the items, which he said had been stolen from him, but denied breaking into the hotel room; he also denied that he or anyone else carried a gun. He was released after questioning. Two days later, however, Simpson was arrested and initially held without bail. Along with three other men, Simpson was charged with multiple felony counts, including criminal conspiracy, kidnapping, assault, robbery, and using a deadly weapon. Bail was set at $125,000, with stipulations that Simpson have no contact with the co-defendants and that he surrender his passport. Simpson did not enter a plea. By the end of October 2007, all three of Simpson's co-defendants had plea-bargained with the prosecution in the Clark County, Nevada court case. Walter Alexander and Charles H. Cashmore accepted plea agreements in exchange for reduced charges and their testimony against Simpson and three other co-defendants, including testimony that guns were used in the robbery. Co-defendant Michael McClinton told a Las Vegas judge that he, too would plead guilty to reduced charges and testify against Simpson that guns were used in the robbery. After the hearings, the judge ordered that Simpson be tried for the heist. Simpson's preliminary hearing, to decide whether he would be tried for the charges, occurred on November 8, 2007. He was held over for trial on all 12 counts. Simpson pleaded not guilty on November 29. Court officers and attorneys announced on May 22, 2008, that long questionnaires with at least 115 queries would be given to a jury pool of 400 or more. Trial was reset from April to September 8, 2008. In January 2008, Simpson was taken into custody in Florida and flown to Las Vegas, where he was incarcerated at the county jail for allegedly violating the terms of his bail by attempting to contact Clarence "C.J." Stewart, a co-defendant in the trial. District Attorney David Roger of Clark County provided District Court Judge Jackie Glass with evidence that Simpson had violated his bail terms. A hearing took place on January 16, 2008. Glass raised Simpson's bail to US$250,000 and ordered that he remain in county jail until 15 percent was paid in cash. Simpson posted bond that evening and returned to Miami the next day. Simpson and his co-defendant were found guilty of all charges on October 3, 2008. On October 10, 2008, O. J. Simpson's counsels moved for new trial ("trial de novo") on grounds of judicial errors (two African-American jurors were dismissed) and insufficient evidence. Galanter announced he would appeal to the Nevada Supreme Court if Judge Glass denied the motion. The attorney for Simpson's co-defendant, C.J. Stewart, petitioned for a new trial, alleging Stewart should have been tried separately, and cited perceived misconduct by the jury foreman, Paul Connelly. Simpson faced a possible life sentence with parole on the kidnapping charge, and mandatory prison time for armed robbery. On December 5, 2008, Simpson was sentenced to a total of thirty-three years in prison with the possibility of parole after about nine years, in 2017. On September 4, 2009, the Nevada Supreme Court denied a request for bail during Simpson's appeal. In October 2010, the Nevada Supreme Court affirmed his convictions. He is now serving his sentence at the Lovelock Correctional Center and his inmate ID number is #1027820. A Nevada judge agreed on October 19, 2012 to "reopen the armed robbery and kidnapping case against O.J. Simpson to determine if the former football star was so badly represented by his lawyers that he should be freed from prison and get another trial." A hearing is being held beginning May 13, 2013 to determine if Simpson is entitled to a new trial. On July 31, 2013, the Nevada Parole Board granted Simpson parole on some charges from armed robbery convictions, but he will continue to be held for four years on other charges.
1104701	Lewis Fry Richardson, FRS (11 October 1881 – 30 September 1953) was an English mathematician, physicist, meteorologist, psychologist and pacifist who pioneered modern mathematical techniques of weather forecasting, and the application of similar techniques to studying the causes of wars and how to prevent them. He is also noted for his pioneering work concerning fractals and a method for solving a system of linear equations known as modified Richardson iteration. Early life. Lewis Fry Richardson was the youngest of seven children born to Catherine Fry (1838–1919) and David Richardson (1835–1913). They were a prosperous Quaker family, David Richardson operating a successful tanning and leather manufacturing business. At age 12 he was sent to a Quaker boarding school, Bootham in York, where he received an education in science, which stimulated an active interest in natural history. In 1898 he went on to Durham College of Science (a college of Durham University) where he took courses in mathematical physics, chemistry, botany, and zoology. Two years later, he gained a scholarship to King's College, Cambridge, where he graduated with first-class honours in the natural sciences tripos in 1903. At age 47 he received a doctorate in mathematical psychology from the University of London. Career. Richardson's working life represented his eclectic interests: In 1926, he was elected to the Fellowship of the Royal Society Pacifism. Richardson's Quaker beliefs entailed an ardent pacifism that exempted him from military service during World War I as a conscientious objector, though this subsequently disqualified him from having any academic post. Richardson worked from 1916 to 1919 for the Friends' Ambulance Unit attached to the 16th French Infantry Division. After the war, he rejoined the Meteorological Office but was compelled to resign on grounds of conscience when it was amalgamated into the Air Ministry in 1920. He subsequently pursued a career on the fringes of the academic world before retiring in 1940 to research his own ideas. His pacifism had direct consequences on his research interests. According to Thomas Körner, the discovery that his meteorological work was of value to chemical weapons designers caused him to abandon all his efforts in this field, and destroy findings that he had yet to publish. Weather forecasting. Richardson's interest in meteorology led him to propose a scheme for weather forecasting by solution of differential equations, the method used nowadays, though when he published "Weather Prediction by Numerical Process" in 1922, suitable fast computing was unavailable. He described his ideas thus (his "computers" are human beings): “After so much hard reasoning, may one play with a fantasy? Imagine a large hall like a theatre, except that the circles and galleries go right round through the space usually occupied by the stage. The walls of this chamber are painted to form a map of the globe. The ceiling represents the north polar regions, England is in the gallery, the tropics in the upper circle, Australia on the dress circle and the Antarctic in the pit. A myriad computers are at work upon the weather of the part of the map where each sits, but each computer attends only to one equation or part of an equation. The work of each region is coordinated by an official of higher rank. Numerous little "night signs" display the instantaneous values so that neighbouring computers can read them. Each number is thus displayed in three adjacent zones so as to maintain communication to the North and South on the map. From the floor of the pit a tall pillar rises to half the height of the hall. It carries a large pulpit on its top. In this sits the man in charge of the whole theatre; he is surrounded by several assistants and messengers. One of his duties is to maintain a uniform speed of progress in all parts of the globe. In this respect he is like the conductor of an orchestra in which the instruments are slide-rules and calculating machines. But instead of waving a baton he turns a beam of rosy light upon any region that is running ahead of the rest, and a beam of blue light upon those who are behindhand. Four senior clerks in the central pulpit are collecting the future weather as fast as it is being computed, and despatching it by pneumatic carrier to a quiet room. There it will be coded and telephoned to the radio transmitting station. Messengers carry piles of used computing forms down to a storehouse in the cellar. In a neighbouring building there is a research department, where they invent improvements. But there is much experimenting on a small scale before any change is made in the complex routine of the computing theatre. In a basement an enthusiast is observing eddies in the liquid lining of a huge spinning bowl, but so far the arithmetic proves the better way. In another building are all the usual financial, correspondence and administrative offices. Outside are playing fields, houses, mountains and lakes, for it was thought that those who compute the weather should breathe of it freely.” (Richardson 1922) When news of the first weather forecast by the first modern computer, ENIAC, was received by Richardson in 1950, he responded that the results were an "enormous scientific advance." The first calculations for a 24-hour forecast took ENIAC nearly 24 hours to produce. He was also interested in atmospheric turbulence and performed many terrestrial experiments. The Richardson number, a dimensionless parameter of the theory of turbulence is named for him. He famously summarised turbulence in rhyming verse in "Weather Prediction by Numerical Process" (p 66): "Big whirls have little whirls that feed on their velocity," play on Augustus De Morgan's rewording of Jonathan Swift, "Great fleas have little fleas upon their backs to bite 'em, And little fleas have lesser fleas, and so ad infinitum." ("A Budget of Paradoxes", 1915). Richardson's attempt at numerical forecast. One of Richardson's most celebrated achievements is his retroactive attempt to forecast the weather during a single day—20 May 1910—by direct computation. At the time, meteorologists performed forecasts principally by looking for similar weather patterns from past records, and then extrapolating forward. Richardson attempted to use a mathematical model of the principal features of the atmosphere, and use data taken at a specific time (7 AM) to calculate the weather six hours later Ab initio. As Lynch makes clear, Richardson's forecast failed dramatically, predicting a huge rise in pressure over six hours when the pressure actually was more or less static. However, detailed analysis by Lynch has shown that the cause was a failure to apply smoothing techniques to the data, which rule out unphysical surges in pressure. When these are applied, Richardson's forecast is revealed to be essentially accurate—a remarkable achievement considering the calculations were done by hand, and while Richardson was serving with the Quaker ambulance unit in northern France. Mathematical analysis of war. Richardson also applied his mathematical skills in the service of his pacifist principles, in particular in understanding the basis of international conflict. For this reason, he is now considered the initiator, or co-initiator (with Quincy Wright and Pitirim Sorokin as well as others such as Kenneth Boulding, Anatol Rapaport and Adam Curle), of the scientific analysis of conflict—an interdisciplinary topic of quantitative and mathematical social science dedicated to systematic investigation of the causes of war and conditions of peace. As he had done with weather, he analyzed war using mainly differential equations and probability theory. Considering the armament of two nations, Richardson posited an idealized system of equations whereby the rate of a nation's armament build-up is directly proportional to the amount of arms its rival has and also to the grievances felt toward the rival, and negatively proportional to the amount of arms it already has itself. Solution of this system of equations allows insightful conclusions to be made regarding the nature, and the stability or instability, of various hypothetical conditions which might obtain between nations. He also originated the theory that the propensity for war between two nations was a function of the length of their common border. And in "Arms and Insecurity" (1949), and "Statistics of Deadly Quarrels" (1950), he sought to analyze the causes of war statistically. Factors he assessed included economics, language, and religion. In the preface of the latter, he wrote: "There is in the world a great deal of brilliant, witty political discussion which leads to no settled convictions. My aim has been different: namely to examine a few notions by quantitative techniques in the hope of reaching a reliable answer." In "Statistics of Deadly Quarrels" Richardson presented data on virtually every war from 1815 to 1945. As a result he hypothesized a base 10 logarithmic scale for conflicts. In other words, there are many more small fights, in which only a few people die, than large ones that kill many. While no conflict's size can be predicted beforehand—indeed, it is impossible to give an upper limit to the series—overall they do form a Poisson distribution. On a smaller scale he showed the same pattern for gang murders in Chicago and Shanghai. Others have noted that similar statistical patterns occur frequently, whether planned (lotteries, with many more small payoffs than large wins), or by natural organization (there are more small towns with grocery stores than big cities with superstores). Research on the length of coastlines and borders. Richardson decided to search for a relation between the probability of two countries going to war and the length of their common border. However, while collecting data, he found that there was considerable variation in the various published lengths of international borders. For example, that between Spain and Portugal was variously quoted as 987 or 1214 km, and that between the Netherlands and Belgium as 380 or 449 km.
1166037	Denny Scott Miller (born April 25, 1934, in Bloomington, Indiana) is an American actor, perhaps best known for his regular role as Duke Shannon on "Wagon Train", his guest-starring appearances on "Gilligan's Island", and his 1959 role as Tarzan. Background. Miller was a basketball star at for the UCLA Bruins at the University of California, Los Angeles, where his father was a physical education instructor. In his senior year, while he was working as a furniture mover to pay for school, Miller was discovered on Sunset Boulevard by a Hollywood agent who signed him with MGM. His screen test was directed by George Cukor. He became the first blond Tarzan in "Tarzan, the Ape Man", a cheapie/quickie which lifted most of its footage from earlier Johnny Weissmuller movies. Miller had been recommended by someone else considered for the role, William Smith, later a star of the NBC "Laredo" western series. MGM had Miller under contract for twenty months; in that time, he worked only eight weeks as Tarzan. Acting career. After that, Miller did guest spots on a number of television series, such as "Northwest Passage" and "Overland Trail". In 1960, the 26-year-old Miller appeared as Wilkie, the son of a powerful rancher, in the "License to Kill" episode of "Laramie". He also appeared on "Have Gun, Will Travel" and an episode of The Rifleman" as a dimwitted gunfighter named Reuben Miles. From 1961 to 1964, Miller was a regular on "Wagon Train" in the role of the scout, Duke Shannon. His co-stars in addition to Robert Fuller were John McIntire, Robert Horton, Frank McGrath, Terry Wilson, and Michael Burns. After "Wagon Train"'s cancelleation, Miller starred as Mike McCluskey, the husband of Juliet Prowse in the sitcom "Mona McCluskey". He also appeared "Gunsmoke", "The Fugitive", and "High Chaparral". Miller guest-starred twice on CBS's "Gilligan's Island" -- in 1964 as lost surfer Duke Williams in the episode "Big Man on Little Stick", in 1967, as a method actor playing Tongo the Ape Man in the episode "Our Vines Have Tender Apes". In 1970 he was "Moose" on "I Dream of Jeannie". He appeared on "The Brady Bunch" in 1973 as Carol Brady's egomaniacal high-school boyfriend Tank Gates in "Quarterback Sneak". In episode 1.2 of "Alice", "Alice Gets a Pass", he played a gay football player. In 1968, Miller appeared as "Wyoming" Bill Kelso in "The Party", which he remembers as the part he most enjoyed. In 1978, Miller appeared in the "Battlestar Galactica" episode "The Gun on Ice Planet Zero". He also appeared on "Buck Rogers in the 25th Century" in the episode "The Dorian Secret". He portrayed John Hays on CBS's "Hawaii Five-O" in the 1968 episode "Pray Love Remember, Pray Love Remember", as a man falsely accused of murder. Miller subsequently appeared as an alien invader in the miniseries "V". Miller also appeared in a 1983 "Magnum, P.I." episode "A Sense of Debt" as Leon Platt, a bare-knuckles fighter. In 1976 Miller played a murderer on Quincy M.E.. Miller appeared in more than two hundred television episodes. For fourteen years, he played the Gorton's Fisherman in TV commercials. Miller today. Denny Miller wrote an autobiography titled ""Didn't You Used To Be...What's His Name?"" and a book about obesity in the United States called ""Toxic Waist?...Get To Know Sweat!"". Miller now lives with his second wife, Nancy, in Las Vegas, Nevada, and teaches classes in relaxation.
1716270	Reinhard Selten (born 5 October 1930) is a German economist, who won the 1994 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences (shared with John Harsanyi and John Nash). He is also well known for his work in bounded rationality, and can be considered as one of the founding fathers of experimental economics. Biography. Selten was born in Breslau (Wrocław) in Lower Silesia, now in Poland, to a Jewish father, Adolf Selten, and Protestant mother, Käthe Luther.
1164162	Paul Xavier Gleason (May 4, 1939 – May 27, 2006) was an American film and television actor, known for his roles on television series such as "All My Children" and films such as "The Breakfast Club", "Trading Places" and "Die Hard". Early life. Gleason was born in Jersey City, New Jersey, the son of Eleanor (née Doyle), a registered nurse, and George L. Gleason, a restaurateur, professional boxer, iron worker, and roofing manufacturer. Gleason was raised in Uleta, Florida (which has since been annexed into the City of North Miami Beach). At age 16, he ran away from home and hitchhiked across the east coast, sleeping on beaches and playing baseball. He attended North Miami High School and Florida State University where he played football. He signed a professional baseball contract with the Cleveland Indians, but played just briefly in two minor league seasons between 1959 and 1960.
1062013	Edward Harrison Norton (born August 18, 1969) is an American actor, screenwriter, film director and producer. In 1996, in his début film, his supporting role in the courtroom drama "Primal Fear" garnered him a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. Two years later, his lead role as a reformed white power skinhead in "American History X" earned a nomination for Academy Award for Best Actor. His other performances are diverse in range and include supporting roles in the biographical drama "The People vs. Larry Flynt" (1996) and the comedy "Everyone Says I Love You" (1998), starring roles in the cult hit "Fight Club" (1999), "25th Hour" (2002), "The Illusionist" (2006) and "Leaves of Grass" (2009) (in which he acted against himself), a rare villain turn in "The Italian Job" (2003) and an unrecognizable appearance in "Kingdom of Heaven" (2005). In addition to acting, Norton has experience writing and directing films. He made his directorial debut with the film "Keeping the Faith" (2000). In addition to this, he performed uncredited work on the scripts for "The Score", "Frida", and "The Incredible Hulk". He also appeared as a character in all of these films. He starred as Jack Teller in "The Score", alongside Robert De Niro, and as Dr. Bruce Banner, the alter-ego of the Marvel Comics superhero the Hulk in "The Incredible Hulk". He also had a minor role in "Frida" as Nelson Rockefeller. In his private life, Norton is an environmental and social activist. He is a member of the board of trustees of Enterprise Community Partners, a non-profit organization for developing affordable housing, founded by his grandfather, James Rouse. Norton is president of the American branch of the Maasai Wilderness Conservation Trust. He ran in the 2009 New York City Marathon to raise money for the Trust. He also raises money for charity through Crowdrise, a social networking community for volunteers and a micro-donations fundraising platform. In July 2010, Norton was designated as the United Nations Goodwill Ambassador for Biodiversity by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. Early life and education. Edward Norton was born in Boston, Massachusetts, and raised in Columbia, Maryland. His father, Edward Mower Norton, Jr., was an environmental lawyer and conservation advocate working in Asia, as well as a former federal prosecutor in the Carter administration. His mother, Lydia Robinson "Robin" (née Rouse), a teacher of English, died of a brain tumor in 1997. His maternal grandfather was the developer James Rouse (founder of The Rouse Company), who developed the city of Columbia, Maryland (where Norton grew up), helped develop Baltimore's Inner Harbor, Norfolk's Waterside Festival Marketplace, and Boston's Quincy Market, as well as co-founded Enterprise Community Partners with Norton's maternal stepgrandmother, Patty Rouse. Norton has two younger siblings—Molly and Jim, with whom he has professionally collaborated. From 1981 to 1985, along with his brother, Norton attended Camp Pasquaney, on the shores of Newfound Lake in Hebron, New Hampshire. There, he won the acting cup in 1984, and later returned to the camp's council for two years, directing theater. He maintains close connections with the camp. Norton was raised Episcopalian. He graduated from Columbia's Wilde Lake High School in 1987. He attended Yale University, where he was a competitive rower and acted in university productions alongside Ron Livingston and Paul Giamatti, graduating in 1991 with a Bachelor of Arts in History. Following graduation, Norton worked in Osaka, Japan, consulting for his grandfather's company, Enterprise Community Partners. Norton can speak some Japanese. He appeared in an EFL textbook, "Only in America", used by Nova, a formerly major English language school in Japan. Career. Norton moved to New York City and began his acting career in Off-Broadway theater, breaking through with his 1993 involvement in Edward Albee's "Fragments", at the Signature Theatre Company. His first film was 1996's "Primal Fear", which tells a story of a defense attorney (Richard Gere), who defends Aaron Stampler (Norton), an altar boy charged with the murder of a Roman Catholic archbishop. The movie is an adaptation of William Diehl's 1993 novel. Ken Tucker of "Entertainment Weekly" wrote: "Norton gives a performance that's fully the equal of Gere's – he's as slyly self-effacing as Gere is slyly ostentatious." Alison Macor of "The Austin Chronicle", in review of the film, wrote, "Norton's performance and the well-paced tension preceding the movie's climactic sequence provide an entertaining if slightly predictable thriller." Despite the mixed reviews, Norton won a Golden Globe Award and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. That same year, Norton appeared as lawyer Alan Isaacman in "The People vs. Larry Flynt". In 1998, he played Derek Vinyard, a reformed neo-Nazi, in the film "American History X". David Denby of "The New Yorker" noted that Norton gives Derek "ambiguous erotic allure; he's almost appealing". "American History X" received positive reviews and grossed over $23 million worldwide at the box office. His performance earned him an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor. Also in 1998, Norton starred opposite Matt Damon in "Rounders", a movie following two friends who need to quickly earn enough cash playing poker to pay off a huge debt. In the 1999 film "Fight Club", Norton played the nameless protagonist, an everyman and an unreliable narrator who feels trapped with his white-collar position in society. The film, an adaptation of Chuck Palahniuk's novel of the same name, was directed by David Fincher. To prepare for the role, Norton took lessons in boxing, taekwondo, and grappling. "Fight Club" premiered at the 1999 Venice International Film Festival. During promotion for the film, he said, "I feel that "Fight Club" really, in a way ... probed into the despair and paralysis that people feel in the face of having inherited this value system out of advertising." The film failed to meet expectations at the box office, and received polarized reactions from film critics. However, it became a cult classic after its DVD release. In 2008, Fight Club was named the 10th greatest movie of all time by Empire Magazine in its issue of The 500 Greatest Movies Of All Time. In 2002, he starred in Brett Ratner's "Red Dragon" as FBI profiler Will Graham and in Spike Lee's "25th Hour". While "Red Dragon" received mixed reviews, it was commercially successful. "25th Hour" was praised by critics, particularly for its examination of a post-9/11 New York City, but failed to break even. In 2003 Norton was forced by Paramount Studios, under threat of lawsuit having signed a three film contract when he signed up for "Primal Fear", to appear in "The Italian Job" (2003), for which he accordingly refused to promote upon its release. Norton won critical acclaim for his role as Baldwin IV, the leper king of Jerusalem, in "Kingdom of Heaven". Norton portrayed Marvel Comics character Bruce Banner / the Hulk in the Marvel Studios film "The Incredible Hulk", released in 2008. Norton's failed attempt to rewrite the film along lines of his own choosing resulted in his refusal to promote the film. He had been expected to reprise his role as the character in the 2012 film "The Avengers", but the role was later confirmed to have been given to Mark Ruffalo. In 2006, Norton starred in two films: "Down in the Valley", as a dangerous drifter affecting to be a cowpoke, and in "The Illusionist", which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival and later became a sleeper hit when it went into general release. In 2010, Norton appeared in two films again: in "Leaves of Grass", as estranged identical twins (one a small-time drug dealer and the other a Harvard professor); and in "Stone", which reunited Norton with his "The Score" cast-mate Robert De Niro, and in which Norton plays a convict trying to con his parole officer (De Niro) into an early release. In 2008, Norton starred in New Line Cinema's "Pride and Glory", as an honest detective assigned to investigate the precinct run by his older brother. The film was not well received by critics, not strongly supported by the studio, and despite also starring Colin Farrell and Jon Voight, its worldwide grosses totaled only $31.1 million, against a production budget of $30 million. Norton played himself in a cameo role in the experimental comedy show "Stella", and made another comedic television appearance on the Emmy award-winning ABC show "Modern Family" in 2010, playing a fictional member of real life '80s new wave band Spandau Ballet. In the 2012 movie "The Bourne Legacy", he is the antagonist Eric Byer. Norton has also done uncredited script work on some of the films he has appeared in, specifically "The Score", "Frida", and "The Incredible Hulk". In 2000, Norton made his debut as a director with "Keeping the Faith". He will also direct the film adaptation of the novel "Motherless Brooklyn". Norton has a reputation of being a perfectionist. He managed to receive final cut of "American History X", clashed with the director while shooting "Red Dragon", and (with the director) clashed with the studio during the shooting of "The Incredible Hulk" (and refused to do promotion for it).
589179	Anari is a 1959 Bollywood film directed by Hrishikesh Mukherjee. The film stars Raj Kapoor, Nutan, Motilal and Lalita Pawar. The music was by Shankar Jaikishan and the lyrics by Hasrat Jaipuri as well as Shailendra. Among the few movies that Lalita Pawar played a positive role and Motilal a role with shades of grey. Plot. Raj Kumar is an honest, handsome and intelligent young man as well. He works as a sole trader and being a painter trade, he is unable to earn a living and unable to pay rent to his kind-hearted but talkative landlady Mrs. D'sa. One day Raj finds a wallet containing money and returns it to the owner Mr Ramnath. Ramnath admires Raj and pleased with his honesty, employs him to work in his office as a clerk. Raj meets with Ramnath's maidservant Asha and soon both fall in love. This all ends when Raj finds out that Asha is really Aarti, the niece of his employer. Unfortunately, his landlady dies consuming medicine manufactured by his employer Mr Ramnath and she passes away suddenly leaving Raj Kumar alone. The police conducts a post-mortem and as a result find out that Mrs. D'sa was poisoned. Raj became the prime suspect and is subsequently taken for questioning and is arrested and held in a cell. In the trial that he faces, however, Ramnath reveals the truth and thus Raj is saved. Trivia. Motilal plays Nutan's uncle in the film. In real life, he lived with Nutan's mother, Shobhana Samarth.
1558076	Joe Palma (March 17, 1905 – August 14, 1994) was an American film actor. Born in New York City, Palma appeared in over 120 films between 1937 and 1968. Early years. Palma grew up in New York City, and worked as a mortician in the Provenzano Funeral Home, owned by his parents. Eventually, Hollywood called, and Palma headed west. He joined the stock company at Columbia Pictures in 1937, and played scores of bit parts over 30 years. With his lean build, brushed-back hair, and unassuming appearance, Joe Palma almost always played incidental roles. He was usually in the background, and at most, he would be given only a few lines of dialogue. In the 1945 Three Stooges comedy "Beer Barrel Polecats", for instance, Palma plays an angry convict who dares Curly Howard to punch him in the nose. Palma can be glimpsed in all kinds of movies, including crime dramas, musical comedies, costume epics, westerns, serials, and two-reel comedies. Several of his many roles consisted of the following: Palma's largest speaking role is probably in the Schilling & Lane short "Training for Trouble", in which Palma attempts a Jewish dialect: "This is Goldstein, Goldberg, Goldblatt, and O'Brien, booking agents. O'Brien speaking" (a gag borrowed from the Stooges' "A Pain in the Pullman"). "Fake Shemp". Today, Palma is best known as Shemp Howard's posthumous double. In 1955, Three Stooges member Shemp Howard died of a sudden heart attack. At the time, the Stooges still had four short films left to deliver on their annual contract with Columbia Pictures. By 1955, budget cuts had forced them to utilize stock footage from previous shorts as a matter of survival. As a result, the Stooges managed to complete the four films without Shemp. To do this, Palma was made up to resemble the late Stooge, complete with wig, and would be filmed only from the back or side. On occasion, Palma was required to add a brief line of dialogue or sound (most notably in "Hot Stuff"). The few new shots Palma appeared in were then edited together with the recycled footage containing the real Shemp, and "new" films were born. Later years. Palma spent his last years in the entertainment industry as an assistant to Jack Lemmon. He appears as "Mr. Palma," the mailman, in Lemmon's 1964 Columbia comedy "Good Neighbor Sam". His final film appearance was as a butcher in Lemmon's 1968 Paramount film "The Odd Couple". He died of natural causes on August 14, 1994.
71351	The Rainbow Thief is a 1990 film directed by cult film-maker Alejandro Jodorowsky and written by Berta Domínguez D.. It reunites "Lawrence of Arabia" co-stars Peter O'Toole and Omar Sharif in a fable of friendship. Christopher Lee also plays a cameo. Synopsis. Rudolf Von Tannen is an eccentric millionaire who cares for no one but his dalmatians. One night he welcomes his guests - all of them related to him, expecting to cash in his fortune once he passes away - to a dinner party. The dogs are fed caviar and the people are given bones to eat. This sends them away in anger. Then Rudolf's predilect brothel service arrives, the Rainbow Girls, big-breasted women dressed with the colors of the rainbow. After dancing and partying with them, Rudolf has a heart attack that leaves him comatose. The relatives gather to argue over the will, but since Rudolf is alive but in a coma, nothing can be done. The relatives suspect that Rudolf will leave all of his fortune to his equally eccentric nephew, Meleagre. Meleagre arrives in time to overhear the back-talk, and walks away unnoticed with his dog Chronos. Five years later, Meleagre and Dima (a petty thief) live together in the sewerline. Chronos has died. Together they wait for Rudolf's demise and the subsequent inheritance. Dima has set to stealing in order to make a living for the two of them, and takes advantage of carnivals and traveling circuses in order to do so. He has frequent run-ins against a bartender (played by English rock musician Ian Dury), whom he owes large amounts of money, as well as several low-life individuals (a midget, a giant, phony blind beggars) and Ambrosia, a large woman whose love he exploits for money. One night, as he escapes one of his many persecutors, he reads about Rudolf's demise, and sets out to spend his savings in a dinner with Ambrosia. However, upon close inspection of the newspaper, he finds out that Rudolf has left his entire fortune to the Rainbow Girls (as long as they take care of his dogs). Upset, Dima confronts Meleagre, feeling betrayed by him, although Meleagre argues that the fortune he once promised was not money or gold, but paradise and eternity. Outraged, Dima forsakes him and decides to leave him and the sewers for good by taking a ship to Singapore. Guilty of leaving Meleagre behind, he jumps off the train and hurries back to the sewers, where his friend awaits death with his dog's corpse. The couple set to find a way out of the flooding sewerlines, but to no good. They eventually reach a ladder leading upwards. Dima manages to climb up to safety. Meleagre happily accepts his fate and hurls himself into a strong current that sweeps him away. Dima climbs up and sits catatonic in the middle of the street for hours, shocked. In the very end, as Dima walks by the docks, he spots a very much alive Chronos swimming in the water. The dog and the thief reunite and walk happily away by the pier, under a rainbow. Production notes. This was Jodorowsky's fifth feature-length film, and his first British film. Filming was carried out in Gdańsk, Poland. He was frequently threatened by the producers not to change anything in the script, effectively restraining further artistic involvement from his behalf. Jodorowsky has since disowned the movie. It was released in cinemas in London (May 1990), Italy ("Il Ladro dell'arcobaleno", 1990), France ("Le voleur d'arc-en-ciel", Paris, 1994) and, after, Spain ("El ladrón del Arco iris", Cine Doré, Madrid, 2011); but it was never released in American cinemas.
1036353	Bill Bailey (born Mark Bailey; 13 January 1964) is an English comedian, musician, actor, TV and radio presenter and author. As well as his extensive stand-up work, Bailey is well known for his role in "Black Books" and for his appearances on "Never Mind the Buzzcocks", "Have I Got News for You" and "QI". Bailey was listed by the "Observer" as one of the 50 funniest acts in British comedy in 2003. In 2007 and again in 2010, he was voted the 7th greatest stand-up comic on Channel 4's "100 Greatest Stand-Ups". Personal life. Bailey was born in Bath, Somerset, and spent most of his childhood in Keynsham, a town situated between Bath and Bristol in the West of England. His father was a medical practitioner and his mother was a hospital ward sister. His maternal grandparents lived in an annexe, built on the side of the house by his maternal grandfather who was a stonemason and builder. Two rooms at the front of the family house were for his father's surgery. Bailey was educated at King Edward's School, an independent school in Bath where he was initially a highly academic pupil winning most of the prizes. At about the age of 15, he started to become distracted from school work when he realised the thrill of performance as a member of a school band called Behind Closed Doors, which played mostly original work. He was the only pupil at his school to study A-level music and he passed with an A grade. He also claims to have been good at sport (captain of KES 2nd XI cricket team 1982), which often surprised his teachers. He would often combine music and sport by leading the singing on the long coach trip back from away rugby fixtures. It was here that he was given his nickname Bill by his music teacher, Ian Phipps, for being able to play the song "Won't You Come Home Bill Bailey" so well on the guitar. He started studies for an English degree at Westfield College of the University of London but left after a year. He is a classically trained musician and received an Associateship Diploma from the London College of Music as well as being made an honorary member of the Society of Crematorium Organists. Bailey often mythologises his early years in his stand-up. In his show "Bewilderness", he claims to have attended Bovington Gurney School of Performing Arts and Owl Sanctuary. He talks about a succession of jobs he had before becoming a comedian, including lounge pianist, crematorium organist, door-to-door door-salesman and accompanist for a mind-reading dog. A clip of Bailey's appearance in the dog's routine was shown during his "Room 101" appearance. He is self-deprecating about his appearance, suggesting he is so hairy that he is part troll, or that his hair or beard is a small animal named Lionel whom he has trained to sit "very very still". Bailey also talks about his role as a "Disenfranchised Owl" in an experimental Welsh theatre troupe. Other acting roles included a part in a Workers' Revolutionary Party stage production called "The Printers", which also featured Vanessa Redgrave and Frances de la Tour. His trivia page on IMDb also claims that he was awarded Best Actor in the 1986 Institut Français awards. Bailey supports Queens Park Rangers and describes himself an avid fan of "Star Trek". He lives in Hammersmith with his wife Kristin, whom he married in 1998, and their son named Dax, born in 2003. Politics. Bailey appeared in the Labour Party's fifth party election broadcast of the 2010 General Election campaign. He is also an outspoken feminist and supporter of the Fawcett Society. Bailey is a patron of International Animal Rescue and has been instrumental in the organisation's campaign to capture dancing bears. Career. Early stand-up. Bailey began touring the country with comedians such as Mark Lamarr. In 1984 he formed a double act, the Rubber Bishops, with Toby Longworth (a former fellow pupil at King Edward's, Bath). It was there that Bailey began developing his own unique style, mixing in musical parodies with deconstructions of or variations on traditional jokes ("How many amoebas does it take to change a lightbulb? One, no two! No four! No eight..."). According to comedy folklore, after a reviewer once criticised his act for its lack of jokes, Bailey returned the following night, at Queen Margaret College, Edinburgh, to perform a set composed entirely of punchlines. Longworth left to join the RSC in 1989 and was replaced by Martin Stubbs. Stubbs later quit to pursue a more serious career, and in 1994 Bailey performed "Rock" at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe with Sean Lock, a show about an ageing rockstar and his roadie, script-edited by comedy writer Jim Miller. It was later serialised for the Mark Radcliffe show on BBC Radio 1. The show's attendances were not impressive and on one occasion the only person in the audience was comedian Dominic Holland. Bailey almost gave up comedy to take up a telesales job. He went solo the next year with the one man show "Bill Bailey's Cosmic Jam". The show led to a recording at the Bloomsbury Theatre in London which was broadcast in 1997 on Channel 4 as a one-hour special called "Bill Bailey Live". It was not until 2005 that this was released in DVD uncut and under its original title. It marked the first time that Bailey had been able to tie together his music and post-modern gags with the whimsical rambling style he is now known for. After supporting Donna McPhail in 1995 and winning a "Time Out" award, he returned to Edinburgh in 1996 with a show that was nominated for the Perrier Comedy Award. Amongst the other nominees was future "Black Books" co-star Dylan Moran, who narrowly beat him in the closest vote in the award's history. Bailey won the Best Live Stand-Up award at the British Comedy Awards, 1999. Television. Though he did not win the Perrier in 1996, the nomination was enough to get him noticed, and in 1998 the BBC gave him his own television show, "Is It Bill Bailey?". This was not Bailey's first foray into television. His debut was on the children's TV show "Motormouth" in the late 1980s – playing piano for a mind-reading dog. Bailey reminisced about the experience on the BBC show "Room 101" with Paul Merton in 2000. In 1991, he was appearing in stand-up shows such as "The Happening", "Packing Them In", "The Stand Up Show" and "The Comedy Store". He also appeared as captain on two panel games, an ITV music quiz pilot called "Pop Dogs", and the Channel 4 science fiction quiz show "Space Cadets". "Is it Bill Bailey?" was the first time he had written and presented his own show. Over the next few years, Bailey made guest appearances on shows such as "Have I Got News for You", "World Cup Comedy", "Room 101", "Des O'Connor Tonight", "Coast to Coast" and three episodes of off-beat Channel 4 sitcom "Spaced", in which he played comic-shop manager Bilbo Bagshot. In 1998, Dylan Moran approached him with the pilot script for "Black Books", a Channel 4 sitcom about a grumpy bookshop owner, his put-upon assistant, and their neurotic female friend. It was commissioned in 2000, and Bailey took the part of the assistant Manny Bianco, with Moran playing the owner Bernard and Tamsin Greig the friend, Fran. Three series of six episodes each were made. When Sean Hughes left his long-term role as a team captain on "Never Mind the Buzzcocks" in 2002, Bailey became his successor. His style quickly blended into the show, possibly helped by his background in music. He soon developed a rapport with host Mark Lamarr, who continually teased him about his looks and his pre-occupation with woodland animals. It was announced on 18 September 2008 that Bailey would be leaving the series and be replaced by a series of guest captains including Jack Dee and Dermot O'Leary. Whilst touring in 2009, Bailey joked that his main reason for leaving the show was a lack of desire to continue humming Britney Spears' "Toxic" to little known figures in the indie music scene. During this time he also left his position as "curator" of "the Museum of Curiosity", and declared his intention to "retire" from panel games, although he has since appeared on "QI" many more times and hosted "Have I Got News For You". Bailey has appeared frequently on the intellectual panel game "QI" since it began in 2003, appearing alongside host Stephen Fry and regular panellist Alan Davies. Other television appearances include a cameo role in Alan Davies' drama series "Jonathan Creek" as failing street magician Kenny Starkiss and obsessed guitar teacher in the "Holiday" episode of Sean Lock's "Fifteen Storeys High". He later appeared with Lock again as a guest on his show "TV Heaven, Telly Hell". He has also appeared twice on "Friday Night with Jonathan Ross". Bailey also hosted his own show "Comic's Choice", which aired in 2011. Bailey also presented "Wild Thing I Love You" which began on Channel 4 on 15 October 2006. The series focuses on the protection of Britain's wild animals, and has included rehoming badgers, owls and water voles. Bailey appeared in the second series of the E4 teenage "dramedy" "Skins" playing Maxxie's dad, Walter Oliver. In episode 1, Walter struggles with his son's desire to be a dancer, instead wishing him to become a builder, which is what he himself does for a living. Walter is married to Jackie, played by Fiona Allen. Bailey appeared on the first episode of "Grand Designs Live" on 4 May 2008, helping Kevin McCloud build his eco-friendly home. In 2009 Bailey appeared in the BBC show "Hustle" as the character "Cyclops", a side-line character. In autumn 2009, Bailey presented "Bill Bailey's Birdwatching Bonanza". As a continuation of Bailey's recent foray into natural history, he presented ITV1's half-hour wildlife mini-series "Baboons With Bill Bailey". The series was filmed in Cape Town and spanned 8 episodes, with exclusive content available on itvWILD. Bill Bailey played Droxil, a Harvest Ranger from the Planet Androzani Major, in the 2011 Christmas Special of "Doctor Who", titled "The Doctor, the Widow and the Wardrobe". In 2009, Bailey presented a project about the explorer and naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace, in the form of an Indonesian travelogue. Bailey said in an interview that Wallace had been "airbrushed out of history", and that he feels a "real affinity" with him. In 2013, to coincide with the centenary of Wallace's death, Bailey presented a two-part documentary, "Bill Bailey's Jungle Hero", first broadcast on BBC Two on 21 and 28 April 2013. He travelled around producing and filming the series in Indonesia and Borneo. International tours. In 2001, Bailey began touring the globe with "Bewilderness". A recording of a performance in Swansea was released on DVD the same year, and the show was broadcast on Channel 4 that Christmas. A modified version of it also proved successful in America, and in 2002 Bailey released a CD of a recording at the WestBeth Theatre in New York City. The show contained his popular music parodies (such as Unisex Chip Shop, a Billy Bragg tribute, which he also performed with Bragg himself at the 2005 Glastonbury Festival), "three men in a pub" jokes (including one in the style of Geoffrey Chaucer) and deconstructions of television themes such as "Countdown" and "The Magic Roundabout". A "Bewilderness" CD was sold outside gigs, a mixture of studio recordings of songs and monologues Bailey had performed in the past – it was later released in shops as "Bill Bailey: The Ultimate Collection... Ever!". That same year he also presented a Channel 4 countdown, "Top Ten Prog Rock". Bailey premiered his show "Part Troll" at the 2003 Edinburgh Festival Fringe. A critical and commercial success, he then transferred it to the West End, where tickets sold out in under 24 hours, and new dates had to be added. Since then he has toured it all over the UK as well as in the US, Australia and New Zealand. Bailey expanded on subjects such as the war on Iraq. He also talks extensively about drugs, at one point asking the audience to name different ways of baking cannabis. A DVD was released in 2004. 2005 saw the release of his 1995 show "Bill Bailey's Cosmic Jam". The 2-disc set also contained a director's cut of "Bewilderness", which featured a routine on Stephen Hawking's "A Brief History of Time" not seen in the original version. Bailey performed at show at the 2006 Edinburgh Festival Fringe entitled "Steampunk". Bailey appeared at the Beautiful Days festival in August 2007. The UK leg of the "Tinselworm" tour enjoyed 3 sell-out nights at the MEN Arena in Manchester, Europe's largest indoor arena, and culminated with a sell-out performance at Wembley Arena. Early in 2007, a petition was started to express fans' wishes to see him cast as a dwarf in the 2010 film "The Hobbit", after his stand-up routine mentioned auditioning for Gimli in "The Lord of the Rings". The petition reached its goal in the early days of January, and was sent to the producers. It was hoped that as the "Tinselworm" tour took him to Wellington in New Zealand where the film is in pre-production, that he would be able to audition. "Dandelion Mind" was released on DVD on 22 November 2010. In 2012 he departed on his new world tour entitled "Qualmpeddler", which toured England as well as returning to Australia and New Zealand in August and September 2012. Music. Bailey is a talented pianist and guitarist and has perfect pitch; of this he has said
1072249	, is a 1969 kaiju ("monster") genre film, the fifth entry in the original Gamera series. It was one of five Gamera films to be featured as episodes of movie-mocking television show "Mystery Science Theater 3000". Plot. While scanning the skies through their telescope, two young boys, Akio and Tom, spy a spaceship descending into a nearby field. Stunned, bewildered, and bemused, they tell Akio's mother what they have seen, but she dismisses their story as childish nonsense. The next day, the two boys—with Akio's younger sister, Tomoko, in tow—bicycle to the site to investigate. Enthralled, Akio and Tom manage to steal into the spaceship. But then, without warning, the ship takes off, leaving Tomoko behind. It soars into outer space...toward a field of asteroids, which sends the boys into panic. However, Gamera (obviously aware of the boys' plight) appears and clears a path for the ship through the asteroids. The spaceship, flying near the speed of light, leaves Gamera behind and transports the boys to an unknown planet, where it lands on the outskirts of an alien city. Suddenly, a silver "Space" Gyaos appears, menacing the ship and the two young boys. Just before the creature attacks, a second, bizarre monster—whose head resembles a knife—emerges from an underground lair and attacks the Space Gyaos. The Gyaos accidentally chops off its own foot in battle. After a short battle, the knife-headed creature rears up and kills the Gyaos by chopping off one of its wings. The creature cuts the remaining body into smaller pieces to inspect it, then goes back to its lair.
1163426	Lynn Bari (December 18, 1913 – November 20, 1989), born Margaret Schuyler Fisher, was a movie actress who specialized in playing sultry, statuesque man-killers in over one hundred 20th Century Fox films from the early 1930s through the 1940s. Career. Bari was born in Roanoke, Virginia. She lived at the foot of Mill Mountain from 1920 to 1925 in a two-story house located at 613 Walnut Avenue. In most of her early films Bari had uncredited parts usually playing receptionists or chorus girls.
588980	Zeenat Aman (, ) (born 19 November 1951) is an Indian actress who has appeared in Hindi films since the 1970s. She was the second runner up in the Miss India Contest and went on to win the Miss Asia Pacific in 1970. Upon making her debut in Bollywood, Zeenat Aman, along with Parveen Babi was credited with making a lasting impact on the image of its leading actresses by bringing the western heroine look to Hindi cinema and throughout her career she has been considered a sex symbol. Early life. Zeenat Aman was born in Mumbai (erstwhile Bombay) on 19 Nov 1951 to a Muslim father, Amanullah Khan and a Hindu mother, Scinda. Her father was a script writer who was one of the writers for such movies as "Mughal-e-Azam" and "Pakeezah". He died when Zeenat was 13. Her mother got re-married to a German, Heinz (was constantly referred to as Mrs. Heinz in all subsequent articles film magazines that would carry articles on Zeenat). Zeenat's mother obtained German citizenship and took her to Germany where Zeenat was very unhappy and returned to India as soon as she turned 18. Zeenat Aman graduated from St. Xavier's College, Mumbai and went to University of Southern California in Los Angeles (USA) for further studies on student aid. Upon returning to India, she first took a job as a journalist for "Femina" and then later on moved on to modeling. One of the first few brands that she modeled for was Taj Mahal Tea and Television X Debut in 1966 exclusively. She was the second runner up in the Miss India Contest and went on to win the Miss Asia Pacific in 1970. Film career. After having studied in Los Angeles, winning the Miss Asia Pageant and a successful modeling career, Zeenat Aman's film career began with a small role in O.P. Ralhan's "Hulchul" in 1971. A second role in "Hungama" (1971), starring singer Kishore Kumar where both films were not successful and she was ready to pack her bags to leave India and go back to Germany with her mother. Dev Anand offered Zaheeda (his second heroine in "Prem Pujari") the role of his sister to Zeenat Aman in "Hare Rama Hare Krishna" (1971). Not realizing the importance of this secondary role, Zaheeda wanted the lead female part (eventually played by Mumtaz) and she opted out. Zeenat Aman was chosen as a last-minute replacement. In "Hare Rama Hare Krishna", Zeenat Aman, aided by R. D. Burman's song "Dum Maro Dum" (Take Another Toke), won over the heart's of audience as Janice. She earned a Filmfare Best Supporting Actress Award and BFJA Award for Best Actress. Throughout the 1970s, the Dev-Zeenat pairing was seen in half a dozen films: "Heera Panna" (1973), "Ishq Ishq Ishq" (1974), "Prem Shastra" (1974), "Warrant" (1975), "Darling Darling" (1977) and "Kalabaaz" (1977). Of these, "Warrant", was the biggest box-office success. Her hip looks in "Yaadon Ki Baaraat" (1973) as the girl carrying a guitar, singing "churaliya hai tumne jo dil ko" (in Asha Bhonsle's voice) has won her more popularity and the hearts of millions of fans. She appeared on every Hindi film magazine's cover during 1970s. In December 1974, Cine Blitz magazine was launched with Zeenat Aman on its cover, a testimony to her popularity at the time. However, she went on as the favourite cover girl of the popular magazine 'Stardust'. The 1970s. Zeenat Aman, in her career and her success with Navketan Films and Dev Anand, found success with other banners such as B.R. Chopra, Raj Kapoor, Manmohan Desai, Feroz Khan, Nasir Hussain, Manoj Kumar, Prakash Mehra, Raj Khosla and Shakti Samanta. In 1978, she starred in Raj Kapoor's massively publicised "Satyam Shivam Sundaram" (1978), however, the film was heavily criticized. The subject ironically dealt with the notion of the soul being more attractive than the body but Kapoor chose to showcase Aman's sex-appeal. The actress was highly criticized for her exposure but somehow at later stage, the film had a great deal to do with Zeenat's fame and the movie itself was distinguished as a work of art. She also earned a Filmfare nomination as Best Actress for this film. Zeenat Aman's entry into Hollywood also backfired when Krishna Shah's "Shalimar" (1978), co-starring Dharmendra and international names like Rex Harrison and Sylvia Miles, proved to be a failure in the USA and in India. Zeenat possessed a convent schoolgirl accent and a penchant for revealing dresses. She matched Gina Lollobrigida in the battle of oomph at Shalimar's launch. 1978 could have been a disaster year for her, because of the diminishing box office returns of "Shalimar" and discouraging critics riviews of "Satyam Shivam Sundaram "but Zeenat had other successful commercial films during that year such as "Heeralal Pannalal" and "Chor Ke Ghar Chor", yet it was "Don" that came to the rescue with its huge success. Ironically, her reasons for accepting the role in "Don" were altruistic and she didn't even take any remuneration for it because she wanted to help the producer Nariman Irani who died midway filming. Her role of a Westernized revenge-seeking action heroine contributed to the film's huge success and her fans reconnected with her again. Westernized heroines like Parveen Babi and Tina Munim now followed in her footsteps by the late 1970s. Zeenat continued to act in hits like "Dharam Veer", "Chhaila Babu" and "The Great Gambler". The 1980s. By the beginning of the 1980s, multi-starrer films became a trend and Zeenat Aman was increasingly asked to just provide sex appeal in hero-oriented films, despite success in so many films. In contrast to this trend was her performance as a rape victim seeking justice in B. R. Chopra's "Insaaf Ka Tarazu" (1980) for which she received a Filmfare Best Actress nomination. This film was followed by success in the love triangle "Qurbani", "Ali Baba aur 40 Chor", "Dostana" (1980) and "Lawaaris" (1981). Zeenat's popularity in Russia was so great after "Alibaba Aur 40 Chor" that she felt pressured into doing a supporting role in "Sohni Mahiwal". The film was moderately successful but no credit went to Zeenat. Her last role as the female lead was in the movie "Gawahi", a court room drama in 1989. The 1990s and 2000s. Zeenat came back to the silver screen after a decade doing a cameo role in the film "Bhopal Express" (1999). The 2000s. Zeenat went on to do roles in "Boom" (2003), "Jaana... Let's Fall in Love" (2006), "Chaurahen" (2007), "Ugly Aur Pagli" (2008), "Geeta in Paradise" (2009),"Dunno Y... Na Jaane Kyon" (2010) and "Strings of Passion" (2012). In 2004, she appeared as Mrs. Robinson in the play "The Graduate" staged at St Andrew's auditorium in Mumbai. Zeenat Aman had a TV show called "In Conversation with Zeenat" made by B4U TV and also made an appearance along with Hema Malini in the popular show "Koffee with Karan" hosted by Karan Johar. She received a Lifetime Achievement Award during the Zee Cine Awards function in 2008 as a recognition of her contribution to Hindi Cinema. She also received An Outstanding Contribution to Indian Cinema award at IIFA awards 2010 held at Colombo, Sri Lanka. She dedicated this award to her mother. Image. Zeenat Aman's sultry persona was a contrast to many of the more conservative stars of the era. At a time when heroines were obedient wives and lovers on the screens of Hindi Cinema, Zeenat was drawn to more unconventional roles—she was cast as the opportunist who deserts her jobless lover for a millionaire ("Roti Kapda Aur Makaan"), the ambitious girl who considers having an abortion in order to pursue a career ("Ajnabee"), the happy hooker ("Manoranjan"), the disenchanted hippie ("Hare Rama Hare Krishna"), the girl who falls in love with her mother's one-time lover "(Prem Shastra") and a woman married to a caustic cripple but involved in an extramarital relationship ("Dhund"). She managed to balance these roles with acting in more conventional films such as "Chori Mera Kaam", "Chhaila Babu", "Dostana" and "Lawaaris", which is considered by many to be a landmark in Indian Cinema. Encyclopædia Britannica's "Encyclopedia of Hindi Cinema" wrote, "Zeenat Aman had a definite impact on the characterization of the heroine in Hindi films. With films such as "Hare Rama Hare Krishna" and "Yaadon Ki Baraat", she fashioned the image of the youthful and westernized woman in Hindi cinema." Zeenat Aman's persona was such that newcomers were and still are compared to her. Parveen Babi was called "The poor man's Zeenat Aman", Sarika was christened "Zeenat Aman 2" and Padmini Kolhapure was named "Baby Zeenat". Personal life. In 1985, she got married to Mazhar Khan and had two sons Azaan and Zahaan. Her husband Mazhar used to beat her up often which ultimately led to their filing for divorce. Mazhar Khan died in September 1998 (renal failure). Today, Zeenat Aman lives with her two sons and makes many social appearances and film awards functions and she is rarely seen on screen. She is more keen in going behind the camera while Zahaan is interested in acting. As of February 2013, Zeenat Aman is reportedly planning to marry a 36 year old businessman from Mumbai, Shiva Sena member Sarfaraz Ahmed. But then again she has refuted the news of her getting married while at the same time acknowledging that she is in love.
586071	Balettan is a 2003 Malayalam film directed by V. M. Vinu and starring Mohanlal, Devayani, Harisree Ashokan, Innocent, Nedumudi Venu and Jagathy Sreekumar. It won the Kaveri Film Critics' Award for the most popular Malayalam film of 2003. Plot. Balettan (Mohanlal) is a bank accountant who is known well for his help to the whole village he is living in. His father(Nedumudi Venu) is a retired postman. Meanwhile, helping others, he becomes a big debtor and his father pays the debts using his pension money. Then once when travelling by bus, Mohanlal's father gets a heart stroke and decides to tell his eldest son, Balettan, that he has another wife and two daughters. When Mohanlal knows this he loses his control and gets angry at his father. This leads to another stroke which causes Nedumudi Venu's death but he manages to tell Balettan that he should take of his second wife and daughters. He also tells him that his family should not know anything. Then Balettan visits them and takes care of both the families but once when Balettan steals his own house' papers and mortgages it for his half-sister's marriage. Then when his brother gets to know about this, his entire family gets angry and even tell that he has another wife. Even Balettan's wife Radika (Devayani) also tells him to go out.Finally,his half-sister Devaki (Nithya Das)along with Achumama (Innocent (actor)) reveals the truth to prove Balettan's innocence and Balettan returns the house to his family and reveals what his father told before death. Reception. The movie was received by all types of audience positively with both hands. The audience were begging for a good script since 2002 was a real bad year for malayalam industry. Balettan gave them what they were waiting for and it was a huge hit with audience accepting it with glee. It was the biggest hit of the year 2003 ahead all the other 55 films released. Music. The hit songs of this movie were composed by M. Jayachandran and lyrics were by Gireesh Puthenchery.
1163049	Patricia Castle Richardson (born February 23, 1951) is an American television and film actress best known for her portrayal of Jill Taylor on the sitcom "Home Improvement". Early life. Richardson was born in Bethesda, Maryland as the third daughter of Mary Elizabeth (née Howard) and Laurence Baxter Richardson. Her sisters' names are Marianna 'Ann' Bales (née Richardson), Lynn Richardson and Catherine 'Cathy' Moseley (née Richardson). Her father was a corporate executive and retired naval officer. Richardson attended the Holton-Arms School in Maryland and then The Hockaday School in Dallas, Texas. She is a 1973 graduate of Southern Methodist University, where she was friends with classmates Beth Henley and Stephen Tobolowsky, who was slated to be a cast member of "Home Improvement" but had other contractual commitments when the series began filming. Tobolowsky initially suggested to producers of "Home Improvement" that Richardson be considered for the role of Jill Taylor after Frances Fisher was deemed too serious for the role. Career. Richardson began as an understudy in Angela Lansbury's Broadway production of "", eventually playing several parts. With early roles in programs such as "Double Trouble," "The Equalizer", "Quantum Leap", and "Kate & Allie". She appeared in one episode of "The Cosby Show" in the third season. Richardson appeared in the films "C.H.U.D." and "You Better Watch Out" before landing her breakout role in 1991 on "Home Improvement" after Frances Fisher tested poorly in the role of Jill Taylor. Richardson received four Emmy nominations and two Golden Globe nominations in this role.
583416	Pooja Bedi (born 11 May 1970) is a former Bollywood actress, television talk show host. She is the daughter of actor Kabir Bedi and the late Protima Bedi, the internationally renowned classical dancer. Biography. Pooja Bedi was born in Mumbai to the late Indian classical dancer Protima and film star Kabir Bedi. She was brought up in what she calls a bohemian progressive artistic environment. She received her basic education at Besant Montessori in Mumbai and then at Lawrence School, Sanawar . She was a class topper academically and was in the basketball team , hockey team , swimming team , debating team, and theatre group. Bedi married Farhan Ebrahim Furniturewalla whom she met in 1990. She has two children, a daughter Aalia Furniturewalla born in 1997 and a son Omar Ebrahim, born in 2000. Bedi and Farhan divorced in 2003. Career. From 1991 to 1994, Bedi worked in Bollywood films, has appeared in many commercials and campaigns. She is remembered for the Kama Sutra condom campaign which she endorsed and used as a vehicle to raise awareness of AIDS. She appeared in plays such as "Carry On Papa", "Wow What a Girl" and "A Bengali Jatra". She made her film debut with Jag Mundhra's 1991 film "Vishkanya". She went on to act in "Jo Jeeta Wohi Sikander" (1992) with Aamir Khan for which she earned a nomination in the Filmfare Award for Best Supporting Actress in 1993. Her other films include "Lootere" (1993) and "Aatank Hi Aatank" (1995). In 2000, she complied and edited "Timepass", the memoirs of her mother Protima Bedi. She has been a columnist with the "Times of India", the "Hindustan Times", and "MiD DAY" newspapers, and has written articles for numerous publications, including "L'officiel", "Femina" and "The Week". In 2000 she had a public tiff with Amitabh Bachchan.
1055240	Almost an Angel is a 1990 U.S. comedy film directed by John Cornell and starring Paul Hogan. The original music score was composed by Maurice Jarre. The film's tagline is: ""The guy from down under is working for the man upstairs."" It was made after Paul Hogan's success with the "Crocodile Dundee" movies (which were also from Paramount Pictures). It was a critical and commercial failure. Plot. Terry Dean (Paul Hogan), a professional burglar specialized in sabotaging electronic surveillance systems, stands before his release from yet another stint in prison. Following a fellow inmate's suggestion, he decides to switch to bank robbery instead, with a special twist of his own design: first by having the security cameras record TV shows he would connect them to with a modified remote control, then entering disguised as a celebrity; the confusion over this unexpected appearance would serve to confound a detailed description. Terry's first heist is successful, but shortly afterwards he witnesses a young boy about to be overrun by a van; he impulsively pushes the child away and is himself hit. While in the hospital, he has a nebulous experience (which may have been caused by "Highway to Heaven" playing on the room's TV) in which he meets God (Charlton Heston; this is used as a pun later on) who introduces himself as Terry's 'probation helper'. Though Terry has lived a sinful life, his last deed, impulsive as it was, has earned him a second chance to save his soul - by doing God's work as an angel in training. After reawakening, Terry tries another hold-up (this time as Rod Stewart), but a stroke of bad luck and a gang of amateurs interfere. During this, one of the thugs tries to shoot but fails to kill him (he had loaded his gun with blanks). Thinking himself to be an angel now, Terry reconsiders his ways, seeks advice in a church, and then he follows several 'signs' to another town. In a bar, he meets Steve Garner (Elias Koteas), an embittered young man confined to a wheelchair by a terminal sickness. In order to bring Steve out of his self-pity, Terry engages him in a fist-fight on equal terms, sitting fixed on a stool. Steve, taken with Terry's acceptance of him as a person, not a cripple, strikes up a friendship with Terry and offers him a place to stay at the youth center for children and teens, which he runs with his sister Rose (Linda Kozlowski). Rose is at first suspicious about Terry, but Terry proves himself by slyly intimidating two drug dealers into leaving the center's area and helping out as much as he can, and Rose gradually falls in love with him. The center itself, however, is in financial difficulties, since its backer George Bealeman (Parley Baer), while claiming himself to be a faithful Christian, refuses to provide any more funds. Since he has no angel's powers, Terry uses his technical know-how to convince Bealeman otherwise: by recording and re-editing a segment from TV evangelist Rev. Barton's (Ben Slack) telecast (which Bealeman watches feverently), and fitting the cross at the rooftop of the center's church with lighting effects, triggered by his universal remote. At the evening where Bealeman drops by, however, two police detectives close in on Terry. Steve, who happens to overhear them, rushes off in his wheelchair to warn Terry, but during the flight he injures himself critically, slowly bleeding to death. Just after Bealeman has left, he arrives at the center, and while Rose runs to calls an ambulance, Steve delivers his warning. Afraid of death, Steve feels lost, but is reassured he will find a place in Heaven when Terry uses the remote to trigger the lighted cross, creating a sign from God. No longer afraid of death, Steve dies in the arms of Terry and Rose. Terry then announces that he has to leave, and trying to comfort Rose, he reveals that he is "almost an angel". Rose is understandably skeptical, but after Terry leaves, she checks his universal remote which he had left her as a keepsake, only to discover that it contains no batteries, and the cross nevertheless begins to shine brilliantly on its own. She runs after Terry and calls out to him. Distracted, Terry slips and falls right before a speeding truck - only to have it pass right through him. Having passed his angel's exam, Terry continues on his quest to do God's work (though not without promising to return), and Rose is left comforted at last. Cast. Paul Hogan ... Terry Dean Elias Koteas ... Steve Garner Linda Kozlowski ... Rose Garner Doreen Lang ... Mrs. Garner Douglas Seale ... Father Ruth Warshawsky ... Irene Bealeman Parley Baer ... George Bealeman Michael Alldredge ... Det. Sgt. Freebody David Alan Grier ... Det. Bill Larry Miller ... Teller Travis Venable ... Bubba Robert Sutton ... Guido Ben Slack ... Rev. Barton, TV Evangelist Troy Curvey, Jr. ... Tom the Guard Eddie Frias ... Young Guard Trainee Peter Mark Vasquez ... Thug Lyle J. Omori ... Thug's Crony Joseph Walton ... Prisoner #1 Steven Brill ... 2nd Male Teller Richard Grove ... Uniformed Cop Susie Duff ... Mother Justin Murphy ... Small Boy Gregory J. Barnett ... Driver (Van) (billed as Greg Barnett) Ray Reinhardt ... Doctor Laurie Souza ... Young Nurse Hank Worden ... Pop, Hospital Patient Reception. The film had a mostly negative reception. It currently holds a 29% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Box office. The film was also a commercial failure. It grossed just under $7 million in ticket sales on a $10.5 million budget.
1166131	Daniel Lawrence Whitney (born February 17, 1963) best known by his stage name and character Larry the Cable Guy, is an American stand-up comedian, actor, voice actor, and former radio personality. He was one of the members of the Blue Collar Comedy Tour, a comedy troupe which included Bill Engvall, Ron White, and Jeff Foxworthy (with whom he has starred on "Blue Collar TV"). Whitney has released seven comedy albums, of which three have been certified gold by the RIAA for shipments of 500,000 copies. In addition, he has starred in three Blue Collar Comedy Tour-related movies, as well as in the films "", "Delta Farce", and "Witless Protection", as well as voicing Mater in the "Cars" franchise. Whitney's catchphrase: "Git-R-Done!" is also the title of his book. On January 26, 2010, the TV channel History announced that it was ordering a series starring Whitney called "Only in America with Larry the Cable Guy", in which he would explore the country and immerse himself in different lifestyles, jobs and hobbies. The first episode of the series aired on February 8, 2011. Early life. According to a CMT biography, Whitney grew up on a pig farm in Pawnee City, Nebraska. He went to college at Baptist University of America, and the University of Nebraska. He credits his roommates from Texas and Georgia for inspiring his imitation Southern accent. He dropped out after his junior year after trying his hand at comedy. Career. Radio career. Whitney started his career in radio in the early 1990s when he made regular radio appearances via phone on programs such as "The Ron and Ron Show," "The Chris Baker Show" on KDGE and KEZO's "The Todd and Tyler Show" in Omaha, Nebraska, as well as the "Kirk, Mark, and Lopez" morning show on WIYY in Baltimore, Maryland. He was also a frequent guest on "The Johnny Dare Morning Show" on 98.9/KQRC, Kansas City. He also did appearances on WJRR in Orlando, Florida, He was brought to New England on "Greg and the Morning Buzz" on WHEB 100.3 and WGIR-FM 101.1 in Portsmouth and Manchester, New Hampshire, respectively, doing two commentaries a week. Stand-up career. He became famous developing the Larry character, a personality that he now maintains throughout his stage act. The Larry character has a stereotypical redneck appearance and a thick Southern accent, recounts stories about his "family," and uses, among other common expressions, his own catchphrase "Git-R-Done!" A part of Whitney's routine is his affected Southern accent. He says in interviews and in his autobiographical book "GIT-R-DONE" that he deliberately "turns on" the accent both on and off stage, because he may forget it if he kept his normal accent intact. He uses catchphrase humor, including "Lord, I apologize, and be with the starvin' Pygmies down there in New Guinea. Amen." and "I don't care who ya are, that's funny right there" after certain jokes. His first two comedy albums, "Lord, I Apologize" (2001) and "The Right to Bare Arms" (2005), have both been certified gold by the RIAA. A third album, "Morning Constitutions", and its accompanying TV special were released in 2007. Other work. Whitney was roasted in a Comedy Central special on March 15, 2009.
1068360	Fay Grim is a 2006 drama film written and directed by Hal Hartley. The film is a sequel to Hartley's 1997 film "Henry Fool", and revolves around the title character, played by Parker Posey, the sister of Simon Grim (James Urbaniak). The plot revolves around Fay's attempt to unravel an increasingly violent mystery in Europe. The film was shot almost entirely in Dutch angles, meaning the vast majority of shots are framed diagonally, or "tilted." At the 2007 Sundance Film Festival, Hartley revealed that the two shots in the film's final cut that are not "Dutched" occurred when he and the film crew forgot to tilt the camera. Plot. Seven years after the events of "Henry Fool," Fay Grim (Parker Posey) is coerced by a CIA agent (Jeff Goldblum) to try to locate 'the confession novel' notebooks that belonged to her fugitive husband (Thomas Jay Ryan) whom he believes to be deceased. Fay is launched into a world of espionage as she travels to Paris to retrieve some of the journals, each having mysteriously appeared in the hands of the most unlikely of people. Simon Grim, Fay's brother and Nobel-prize winning poet because of Henry, remains home with his sister's son, the CIA and his publisher.
790092	Fear and Desire is a 1953 American military action/adventure film directed, produced, shot, and edited by Stanley Kubrick. It is Kubrick’s first feature film and is also one of his least-seen productions. Plot. "Fear and Desire" opens with an off-screen narrator (actor David Allen) who tells the audience: The story is set during a war between two unidentified countries. An airplane carrying four soldiers from one country has crashed six miles behind enemy lines. The soldiers come upon a river and build a raft, hoping they can use the waterway to reach their battalion. As they are building their raft, they are approached by a young peasant girl who does not speak their language. The soldiers apprehend the girl and bind her to a tree with their belts. One of the soldiers is mentally disturbed. He is left behind to guard the girl but when she escapes he fatally shoots her while shouting about William Shakespeare's "The Tempest". A second soldier persuades the commander to take the raft for a solo voyage in connection with a plan to kill an enemy general at a nearby base. The remaining two soldiers successfully infiltrate the base. They locate and kill the general and one of his aides – only to discover the dead men looked exactly like them. Production. Prior to shooting "Fear and Desire", Kubrick was a "Look" photographer who had directed two short documentaries in 1951, "Day of the Fight" and "Flying Padre". Both films were acquired for theatrical release by RKO Radio Pictures. Based on his experiences in creating short films, Kubrick felt he was ready to make a narrative feature film. Kubrick quit his full-time job with "Look" and set forth to create "Fear and Desire". The screenplay was written by Howard Sackler, a classmate of Kubrick’s at William Howard Taft High School in the Bronx, New York; Sackler later won the Pulitzer Prize for his 1968 drama "The Great White Hope". Paul Mazursky, who would later receive recognition as the director of such films as "Harry and Tonto" and "An Unmarried Woman", was cast as the soldier who kills the captive peasant. Funds for "Fear and Desire" were raised from Kubrick's family and friends, with most of it coming from Martin Perveler, Kubrick’s uncle and the owner of a profitable pharmacy. The film’s original budget has been estimated at $10,000. The production team consisted of 15 people: five actors (Paul Mazursky, Frank Silvera, Kenneth Harp, Steve Coit, and Virginia Leith), five crew members (including Kubrick’s first wife, Toba Metz) and four Mexican laborers who transported the film equipment around California's San Gabriel Mountains, where the film was shot. Due to budget limitations, Kubrick improvised in the use of his equipment. To create fog, Kubrick used a crop sprayer, but the cast and crew was nearly asphyxiated because the machinery still contained the insecticide used for its agricultural work. For tracking shots, Paul Mazursky recalled how Kubrick came up with a novel substitute: "There was no dolly track, just a baby carriage to move the camera," he told an interviewer.
1063252	Mean Streets is a 1973 crime film directed by Martin Scorsese and written by Scorsese and Mardik Martin. The film stars Harvey Keitel and Robert De Niro. It was released by Warner Bros. on October 2, 1973. De Niro won the National Society of Film Critics award for Best Supporting Actor for his role as John "Johnny Boy" Civello. In 1997, "Mean Streets" was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". Plot. Charlie (Harvey Keitel) is a young Italian-American man who is trying to move up in the local New York Mafia but is hampered by his feeling of responsibility towards his reckless friend, Johnny Boy (Robert De Niro), a small-time gambler who owes money to many loan sharks. Charlie works for his uncle, Giovanni (Cesare Danova), the local caporegime, mostly collecting debts. He is also having a secret affair with Johnny Boy's cousin, Teresa (Amy Robinson), who has epilepsy and is ostracized because of her condition—especially by Charlie's uncle.
1166178	Arden Myrin (; born December 10, 1973) is an American comedienne and actress, best known for her work on the television show "MADtv". She has appeared in many films, including "Kinsey" and "What Women Want". Notable television credits include the regular role of Abby on "Working" and guest roles on "Friends" and "Reno 911!". Myrin has become a frequent panelist on E!'s "Chelsea Lately" roundtable. She has also appeared twice as a guest on popular internet podcast Two Jacks in the Hole, and twice appeared on the USA Network show "Psych" as a stalker with an attraction for older men. Early life and education. Myrin was born on December 10, 1973 in Little Compton, Rhode Island, a seaside fishing village. Her father was an accountant, and her mother was a real estate agent. She has an older brother, Alarik. As a child, she staged her neighborhood plays, and she enjoyed seeing "Annie" on Broadway. She attended the Friends Academy in Dartmouth, Massachusetts, where she graduated in 1988. She then attended Middlesex School in Concord, Massachusetts for high school. She is of Swedish and Norwegian heritage. Afterwards, she attended Colorado College, a small liberal arts school, where she received a degree in theater and studio arts and she was elected commencement speaker at her graduation. During one college break, Myrin began to study improvisational comedy and worked as an intern on NBC's "Late Night with Conan O'Brien" in 1993–94, where she admits she "mostly ran the Xerox machine". Career. Soon after graduation, Myrin briefly moved to Chicago when she became a member of the Improv Olympic and later re-located to Los Angeles where she was part of the same group. One of her memorable standup comedian acts included a section of her own life experiences called “Straight Outta Lil' Compton”. Myrin also trained with the L.A. Comedy troupe The Groundlings. Myrin returned to New York and appeared in commercials while working as a waitress and taking acting classes. She caught a break when two casting directors sent an agent to see her newly minted stand-up comedy act, which netted her an agency contract. Since then, she has shelved her standup career. "MADtv". Myrin officially joined the cast of "MADtv" in 2005 as a repertory performer for the eleventh season and remained with the show until it was canceled in 2009. Her characters included "Crafty Gal Kendra" and Alana from "Holly Meadow Estates". Her impersonations included Jennifer Love Hewitt, Jillian Barberie, Katherine Heigl, Tara Reid, Cindy McCain, Alex Borstein (as Lois Griffin from "Family Guy"), Goldie Hawn, Ali Lohan, Avril Lavigne, Lily Allen, Jamie Lynn Spears, Emily Osment, and Portia de Rossi. Personal life. On December 30, 2007, Myrin married Dan Martin, a comedy writer she first met in 2001.
1058582	Romance & Cigarettes is a 2005 American musical romantic comedy film written and directed by John Turturro. The film stars an ensemble cast which includes James Gandolfini, Susan Sarandon, Kate Winslet, Steve Buscemi, Bobby Cannavale, Mandy Moore, Mary-Louise Parker, Aida Turturro, Christopher Walken, Barbara Sukowa, Elaine Stritch, Eddie Izzard, and Amy Sedaris. Plot. Nick Murder (James Gandolfini) is an iron worker who has been married for years to Kitty (Susan Sarandon), who works as a seamstress and is the mother of Nick's three daughters. While Nick loves his wife, his head is turned by Tula (Kate Winslet), a sexy lingerie salesgirl, and soon they're having a passionate affair. When Kitty discovers the infidelity, she becomes enraged and kicks him out, forcing him to decide what he really wants from life and what's most important to him. Along the way, many of the characters periodically turn to their favorite songs to explain and amplify their emotions, lip-synching along with the original recordings. Production and release. Produced by upcoming New York production company GreeneStreet Films, with financial backing from United Artists, the Coen brothers and Mel Gibson's company Icon Entertainment International, "Romance & Cigarettes" premiered at the Venice Film Festival on September 6, 2005, followed by a showing at the Toronto International Film Festival a week later. It was first released in the United Kingdom and Ireland on March 24, 2006, quickly followed by a number of other European countries in March and April 2006. In the United States the film got a limited release on September 7, 2007, distributed by director Turturro himself, although it was originally intended that United Artists should handle the US distribution. UA still owns a financial stake in this film, but the main underlying rights are currently with Icon. Reception. "Romance & Cigarettes" has received mixed reviews; on Rotten Tomatoes, as of October 2011, it has a score of 52% On April 27, 2008, the film was viewed at the 10th Annual Ebertfest, in Champaign, Illinois. Ebertfest is Roger Ebert's film festival near his hometown of Urbana, Illinois. Aida Turturro and Tricia Brouk were scheduled to attend the event. Ebert gave the film 4 stars out of 4.
1080101	Faune Alecia Chambers (born September 23, 1976) is an American actress. Personal life. Chambers was born in Florida and began dancing when she was only three years old. Her family moved to Virginia when she was nine, where she participated in various types of dance and gymnastic competitions. There she studied with and was a member of the Atrium Dance Company directed by Christine Grogis. They later moved to Atlanta, Georgia, where Chambers attended North Atlanta High School and where she continued her dance education at Warners studio (owned by the mother of well-known dancer Lorey Warner). After graduation, Chambers initially went to Spelman College, with hopes of a career in medicine, but after a successful audition for "Prince" she eventually moved to Los Angeles to pursue an acting and dance career. Chambers is the wife of Fonzworth Bentley, Sean Combs's former personal assistant and host of MTV's From G's to Gents. They have a daughter, Zoie Alecia Watkins born on August 30, 2013 at St. Joseph’s Medical Center in Los Angeles. Career. Chambers is best known for her roles in the films "Epic Movie" (2007) and "White Chicks" (2004). She has also been featured in "Austin Powers in Goldmember" (2002), "Breakin' All the Rules" (2004), "Bring It On Again" (2004) and "" (2006). Her television appearances include "Las Vegas", "All of Us", The Game, "Eve", and "Psych". She is also featured on Trina and Tamara's video What'd You Come Here For?, Ne-Yo's video "Mad". And Destiny's Child Say My Name and Jennifer Lopez's video Feelin' So Good as a dancer.
1060267	Ivan Simon Cary Elwes (; born 26 October 1962), known professionally as Cary Elwes, is an English actor and voice actor. The son of painter Dominick Elwes and designer Tessa Georgina Kennedy, Elwes acted in off-Broadway plays during college and moved to the United States in the early 1980s. He is known for his roles as Westley in the classic film "The Princess Bride", Arthur Holmwood in Francis Ford Coppola's "Bram Stoker's Dracula", Robin Hood in "", Garrett in "Quest for Camelot", and Dr. Lawrence Gordon in "Saw" and "Saw 3D: The Final Chapter". He has also appeared in box office hits such as "Days of Thunder", "Hot Shots!", "Twister", "Liar, Liar" and "New Year's Eve". He has had recurring roles in television series such as "The X-Files" playing Brad Follmer and "Psych" playing Pierre Despereaux. Early life and education. Elwes was born in Westminster, London. He is the third and youngest son of portrait-painter Dominick Elwes and interior designer Tessa Georgina Kennedy, who has Serbian, Croatian-Jewish, Anglo-Irish, and Scottish ancestry. His paternal grandfather was painter Simon Elwes, whose father was the diplomat and tenor Gervase Elwes (1866–1921). His brothers are Damian Elwes, an artist, and Cassian Elwes, a producer and agent. He was the stepson of Elliott Kastner, an American film producer. One of his ancestors is John Elwes, who is believed to be the inspiration for Ebenezer Scrooge in Charles Dickens' "A Christmas Carol" (1843) (Elwes played five roles in the 2009 film adaptation of the novel). He was brought up as a Roman Catholic. His parents divorced when he was four years old, and in 1975 when Elwes was thirteen his father committed suicide. Elwes attended Harrow School in London and then the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art. In 1981 Elwes moved to the United States to study acting at Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville, New York. While living in New York, Elwes studied acting at both the Actors Studio and the Lee Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute. Elwes also was a production assistant on the films "Octopussy" and "Superman", where he worked for a week assigned to Marlon Brando. When Elwes introduced himself, Brando told him he was lying and that his (Elwes') name was actually Rocky. Career. Film. Elwes made his acting debut in 1984 with Marek Kanievska's film "Another Country". He played James Harcourt, a young and sentimental homosexual student from an English boarding school. He went on to play Guilford Dudley in the British film "Lady Jane", co-starring Helena Bonham Carter. He was cast as a stable boy turned swashbuckler Westley in Rob Reiner's fantasy-comedy "The Princess Bride", based on the novel of the same name by William Goldman. It was a modest box office success, but received critical acclaim, earning a score of 96% on the review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes. Since being released on home video and television it has become a cult classic. In an interview around the film's DVD release in 2001, Elwes said, "The studio didn't know how to sell itas an adventure, fantasy, comedy or love story, it had to rely on word of mouth". He also acknowledged the film's cult following saying, "Many people tell me they have it in their video collection, it's a family film but also a cult film in a way, being passed down to other generations". He continued working steadily, varying between dramatic roles, as in "The Bride" (1985) with Sting and Jennifer Beals, to the Academy Award-winning "Glory" (1989), and comedic roles, as in "Hot Shots!" (1991). In 1993, he starred as Robin Hood in Mel Brooks's comedy, "". Elwes also appeared in such films as Francis Coppola's adaptation of "Bram Stoker's Dracula", "The Crush", "Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book", "Twister", "Liar Liar", "Cradle Will Rock", "The Cat's Meow" and "Kiss the Girls". In 2004, he starred in the horror–thriller "Saw" which, at a budget of a little over $1 million, grossed over $100 million worldwide. The same year he appeared in "Ella Enchanted", portraying the villain rather than the hero. He made an uncredited appearance as Sam Green, the man who introduced Andy Warhol to Edie Sedgwick, in the 2006 film "Factory Girl". In 2007, he appeared in Garry Marshall's "Georgia Rule" with Jane Fonda. He also starred in the mystery thriller "Shadows". Elwes portrayed Dr. Clement in the psychological thriller "Psych 9" (2010). Elwes returned to the "Saw" franchise in "Saw 3D" (2010), the seventh and final film in the series, as Dr. Lawrence Gordon. Elwes was set to portray George Harrison in Zemeckis's 3D performance capture re-telling of "Yellow Submarine"; however in May 2011, Disney withdrew from the project, leaving its fate uncertain. He played Bobbly Wobbly in "The Oogieloves in the Big Balloon Adventure"; filming was completed in late 2009 and the film was released on 29 August 2012. Elwes filmed a film adaptation of "Camilla Dickinson" in late 2010 where he played Rafferty Dickinson. It is awaiting release. In 2012, Elwes will appear in the independent drama "The Citizen (2012 film)". On 13 December 2012, The Hollwood Reporter announced that Elwes will make his directorial debut with an independent film about the life of Kit Lambert, the manager for the rock group The Who from a script penned by Pat Gilbert, a former editor of the British music magazine Mojo. The film is being produced by Orian Williams. Television. In 1996, Elwes made his first television appearance as David Lookner on the sitcom "Seinfeld". In 1998, he played astronaut Michael Collins in the Golden Globe Award-winning HBO miniseries "From the Earth To the Moon". In 1999, he guest starred as Dr. John York in an episode of the television series "The Outer Limits". He earned two Golden Satellite Award nominations for his performances in the television films "The Pentagon Wars" and "Uprising". Elwes had a recurring role in the final season (from 2001 to 2002) of "The X-Files" as FBI Assistant Director Brad Follmer. In 2004, he played serial killer Ted Bundy in the A&E Network television film "The Riverman", which was based on the book "The Riverman: Ted Bundy and I Hunt for the Green River Killer" written by Robert D. Keppel. In 2005, Elwes played the young Pope John Paul II in the CBS television film "Pope John Paul II". In 2007, he made a guest appearance on the "" episode "" as a Mafia lawyer. In 2009, he played the role of Pierre Despereaux, an international art thief, in the fourth season premiere of "Psych". In 2010, he returned to "Psych", reprising his role in the second half of the fifth season, and again in the show's sixth season. In March 2011, Elwes was selected to appear as Henry Detmer in the pilot episode of NBC's "Wonder Woman". However, the show was never picked up for a series. Elwes just completed work on the USA Network pilot, "Horizon" produced by Gale Anne Hurd
1100954	The mathematical term well-posed problem stems from a definition given by Jacques Hadamard. He believed that mathematical models of physical phenomena should have the properties that Examples of archetypal well-posed problems include the Dirichlet problem for Laplace's equation, and the heat equation with specified initial conditions. These might be regarded as 'natural' problems in that there are physical processes that solve these problems. By contrast the inverse heat equation, deducing a previous distribution of temperature from final data is not well-posed in that the solution is highly sensitive to changes in the final data. Problems that are not well-posed in the sense of Hadamard are termed ill-posed. Inverse problems are often ill-posed. Such continuum problems must often be discretized in order to obtain a numerical solution. While in terms of functional analysis such problems are typically continuous, they may suffer from numerical instability when solved with finite precision, or with errors in the data. Even if a problem is well-posed, it may still be ill-conditioned, meaning that a small error in the initial data can result in much larger errors in the answers. An ill-conditioned problem is indicated by a large condition number. If the problem is well-posed, then it stands a good chance of solution on a computer using a stable algorithm. If it is not well-posed, it needs to be re-formulated for numerical treatment. Typically this involves including additional assumptions, such as smoothness of solution. This process is known as "regularization". Tikhonov regularization is one of the most commonly used for regularization of linear ill-posed problems.
1083521	Hana Yori Dango Final is a 2008 Japanese film, directed by Yasuharu Ishii, and starring Mao Inoue and Jun Matsumoto. The film is the last chapter of the "Hana Yori Dango" trilogy in Japan, based on Japanese shōjo manga series, , written by Yoko Kamio. "Hana Yori Dango Final" was released in Japan on June 28, 2008 and was subsequently released in Hong Kong, Singapore and South Korea. Plot. Tsukasa Dōmyōji (Jun Matsumoto) and Tsukushi Makino (Mao Inoue) are driving through Nevada. Weeks prior, Tsukasa announced to the world that he was engaged to Tsukushi. He released an embarrassing picture of her eating noodles, angering her. As a result of the announcement, Tsukushi's family become targets of media attention.
1162834	Steven Ralph "Steve" Schirripa (, ; born September 3, 1957) is an American actor, producer, voice artist, and author. He is best known for playing Bobby Baccalieri on "The Sopranos". Schirripa is the host of two Investigation Discovery series Karma's a B*tch! and Nothing Personal. He was a regular cast member of ABC Family's "The Secret Life of the American Teenager", and the voice of Roberto in the "Open Season" franchise. He has also done commercials for Lamisal and Dick's Sporting Goods. Early life. Schirripa was born Steven Ralph Schirripa in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn. His father Ralph was Italian American. His grandparents Ilario Schirripa and Maria Capacci are from Riace, Italy. His mother is half Jewish. Career. Film and television work. While working in Las Vegas, Schirripa landed a role as an uncredited extra in the Martin Scorsese classic "Casino". He played a customer at the bar in the infamous scene when Joe Pesci's character angrily stabs a man with a pen. After this, Schirripa decided that he wanted to become an actor. He had several minor roles in movies, including "The Runner" (1999) and "Joe Dirt". His breakthrough role was in The Sopranos (2000), playing Tony Soprano's dense but likable mobster brother-in-law Bobby Baccalieri for 6 seasons. His many television appearances include "Angel", "Casino Cinema", "", "Hollywood Squares", "Joey", "Law & Order", "Law & Order SVU", "My Wife and Kids", "Ed", "Jeopardy!", "George Lopez", "Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job!" and "The King of Queens". Schirripa recently appeared on CBS's primetime game show "Million Dollar Password". Furthering his game show enthusiasm, Schirripa appeared on the game show "Pyramid" helping contestant Scott Zinser win $10,000. He also made an uncredited appearance, along with fellow Soprano star Vincent Pastore, on the 6th Season episode of Aqua Teen Hunger Force entitled "She Creature". Schirripa was a frequent guest on the Don Imus radio program. In February 2007, he began to make appearances for "Total Nonstop Action Wrestling", on Spike TV, siding with Team 3D as their cousin in their ongoing battle against The Latin American Xchange. On October 30, 2007, he appeared on, "The Podge and Rodge Show". He is also currently doing spots as "Steve the Judgmental Bastard," on "The Tonight Show" with Jay Leno, and has recently taped several episodes of, "The Gong Show with Dave Attell," as one of the celebrity judges.
1162475	Hallie Todd (born January 7, 1962) is an American actress, producer and writer, known for her roles as Penny Waters on "Brothers" and as Jo McGuire on "Lizzie McGuire. Personal life. Todd was born as Hallie Eckstein in Los Angeles, California, the daughter of producer George Eckstein and actress Ann Morgan Guilbert. Her sister, Nora Eckstein, is an acting teacher. Todd is married to Glenn Withrow; they have a daughter, Ivy Withrow. Career. Todd played a homeless character, “The Kid,” on a Christmas episode of the sitcom, "Growing Pains." She played Penny Waters, the daughter of fictional former football player Joe Waters on the Showtime comedy series "Brothers", which is her longest lasting role. In 1990, a year after "Brothers" left the air, Todd moved into her next sitcom role as spunky writer-and-aspiring-comedian Kate Griffin on "Going Places". Later roles include Lal, Data’s “daughter,” on the "" episode "The Offspring;" Blanche's niece, Lucy, on the "The Golden Girls" episode "Nice and Easy;" the mother in the Disney Channel original movie "The Ultimate Christmas Present;" Hilda's and Zelda’s cousin Marigold, Amanda's mother, on "Sabrina, the Teenage Witch;" and—Lizzie's mother, Jo McGuire, on "Lizzie McGuire." Todd subsequently appeared frequently on VH1, providing comedic commentary. She also starred in numerous "Murder, She Wrote" episodes. Todd starred in the feature film "The Mooring," which she co-wrote with her husband and daughter. The film is being released on DVD, digital download and Video on Demand on February 19, 2013.
1266008	Frances Marion Dee (November 26, 1909 – March 6, 2004) was an American actress. She starred opposite Maurice Chevalier in the early talkie musical, "The Playboy of Paris" (1930). She starred in the film "An American Tragedy" (1931) in a role later recreated by Elizabeth Taylor in the 1951 retitled remake, "A Place in the Sun". Early life. The younger daughter of Francis "Frank" Marion Dee and his wife, the former Henriette Putnam, Frances Marion Dee was born in Los Angeles, California, where her father was working as a civil-service examiner. She grew up in Chicago, Illinois, where she attended Shakespeare Grammar School and Hyde Park High School, where she went by the nickname of Frankie Dee.
1034122	Walter Leonard Sparrow (22 January 1927 – 31 May 2000) was a British film and television actor best known for his appearance as Duncan in the 1991 film "" starring Kevin Costner. Born in Eltham, London in 1927, Sparrow began his career as a stand-up comic before moving to acting with a period with the Royal Shakespeare Company. His first film role was in 1964, in "Dr. Terror's House of Horrors", with Christopher Lee. Subsequent films, interspersed between countless TV appearances, included the 1969 sex fantasy "Zeta One", "Young Sherlock Holmes", and the acclaimed 1988 film "The Accidental Tourist" starring William Hurt, Kathleen Turner and Geena Davis. His career enjoyed a resurgence in the 1990s, with Sparrow playing key roles in the 1991 film "" as the blinded retainer Duncan, 1993's "The Secret Garden" as gruff gardener Ben Weatherstaff, and the 1995 American coming-of-age film "Now and Then" as tragic drifter 'Crazy Pete'. In 1998 he starred in Tony Harrison film "Prometheus". Sparrow's even more prolific TV appearances included regular roles in the soap opera "Emmerdale Farm", as two different characters, and the comedy "Paris", and guest spots on "Hugh and I", "Adam Adamant Lives!", "Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased)", "Z Cars", "The Onedin Line", "All Creatures Great and Small", "Alas Smith and Jones", "Rumpole of the Bailey", "One Foot in the Grave" and "The Bill" among many others. Sparrow is also well known for playing Maurice, a peasant who was threatened to be shipped to the Americas, in the 1998 Cinderella remake "Ever After". One of his more notable guest appearances was in the 1989 episode Danger UXD of the sitcom "Only Fools and Horses", which had 16.1 million viewers, as porn shop owner Dirty Barry. His last appearance was in 2000 in an episode of the BBC's medical drama series "Doctors".
1074166	Blow Dry is a 2001 comedy film directed by Paddy Breathnach, written by Simon Beaufoy and starring Alan Rickman, Natasha Richardson and Josh Hartnett. Plot. Shelley Allen (Natasha Richardson) operates a hairdressing shop in Keighley with her domestic partner Sandra (Rachel Griffiths). Shelley has been battling cancer, a secret known only to Sandra and a few confidants. She receives a terminal prognosis from her oncologist and decides to hide the truth from Sandra. When Keighley is chosen to host the British hairdressing championship, Shelley wants to participate one last time. She asks her ex-husband Phil (Alan Rickman) and her son Brian (Josh Hartnett), who operate a barber shop, to join her and Sandra as a team to enter the competition. Phil rejects the proposition: ten years previously Shelley had been his partner in the competition, and she ran off with Sandra (their model) the night before the third event; Phil has never forgiven them. Meanwhile, defending champion Raymond Robertson (Bill Nighy) visits Phil to ensure that Phil is not competing. Brian is offput when Raymond belittles Phil's confidence and ability. When he is attracted to Raymond's beautiful daughter Christina (Rachael Leigh Cook), Brian offers to join Shelley's team. Christina aspires to be a hair colorist, but lacks experience. Brian brings her to a funeral parlor where he works, where she can practice on one of the corpses after hours while Brian cuts its hair. Christina is startled when the corpse "groans" (expels trapped gas in the lungs) and flees into the street. Brian follows to console her and inadvertently allows the doors to lock behind them. The next morning the family of the deceased is displeased to find shocking pink spiky hair on their 95-year-old uncle. During the first round of the competition, Brian is cornered by the relatives of the deceased and is physically beaten.
1054933	Elizabeth Tulloch (born January 19, 1981), known professionally as Bitsie Tulloch, is an American actress. Early life and education. Tulloch was born in San Diego, California, but grew up in Spain, Uruguay, and Argentina. "Bitsie" is not a contraction of Tulloch's given name, Elizabeth, but an homage to her oddly nicknamed grandfather, a World War II bomber pilot. Her father, Andrew Tulloch, works in Latin American banking, which is why she grew up abroad. After returning to the U.S., she went to middle and high school in Bedford, New York. Tulloch graduated "magna cum laude" from Harvard University with a double major in English and American Literature and Visual and Environmental Studies. Tulloch is of Scottish descent on her father's side and Spanish descent on her mother's. Acting career. Film & theater. Tulloch recently wrapped the star-studded film "Parkland", co-starring opposite Paul Giamatti, Billy Bob Thornton, Marcia Gay Harden, Jackie Weaver, Jackie Earle Haley, and Zac Efron. The film is being produced by Tom Hanks and Gary Goetzman of Playtone. It will be released in November of 2013 to coincide with the 50th anniversary of John F. Kennedy's assassination. She stars in independent film "Caroline and Jackie" opposite Marguerite Moreau, which she also co-produced. The film premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival in April 2012, and will be released theatrically in May 2013. Tulloch co-starred in the award-winning movie "The Artist" with Jean Dujardin, John Goodman and James Cromwell, which was released by The Weinstein Company in November 2011, and won the 2012 Academy Award for Best Picture. Tulloch was nominated for a Critics Choice Award for Best Ensemble Cast for the movie.
757139	Paul Michael Levesque (born July 27, 1969), better known by his ring name Triple H (an abbreviation of his character's full name, Hunter Hearst Helmsley), is an American professional wrestler, business executive, actor, and former bodybuilder. Levesque currently works in the front office of WWE as the Executive Vice President of Talent and Live Events; he appears as Triple H on television as the chief operating officer and part-time wrestler. Levesque began his wrestling career in the International Wrestling Federation as Terra Ryzing before joining World Championship Wrestling (WCW) in 1994. He soon became Jean-Paul Lévesque, a French Canadian aristocrat, similar to the Hunter Hearst Helmsley character he would later portray in the World Wrestling Federation (WWF). He later abbreviated his name to Triple H and adopted an alternative image in the D-Generation X (DX) stable. After the dissolution of DX, Triple H was pushed as a main event wrestler, winning several singles championships. As part of a storyline Triple H married Stephanie McMahon, who later became his real-life spouse. In 2003, Triple H formed another stable known as Evolution, and reformed DX with Shawn Michaels in 2006 and 2009. Levesque is heavily involved in the writing process of WWE programming, and holds complete creative control over his television character's storylines, win/loss record, and championship reigns. Overall, Levesque has won 23 championships in WWE. He is a thirteen-time world champion (a company record shared with John Cena) having won the WWF/E Championship eight times, and the World Heavyweight Championship five times. He was the first World Heavyweight Champion, having been awarded the title in September 2002. In addition, Helmsley won the 1997 King of the Ring, the 2002 Royal Rumble, and was the second Grand Slam Championship winner. Outside of wrestling, Helmsley has made numerous guest appearances in film and on television. Early life. Paul Levesque was born in Nashua, New Hampshire. In his youth, he was a fan of professional wrestling and his favorite wrestler was Ric Flair. Levesque became aware of bodybuilding at the age of fourteen; after graduating from high school in 1987, Levesque entered several bodybuilding competitions. He was crowned Teenage Mr. New Hampshire in 1988. Professional wrestling career. World Championship Wrestling (1994–1995). In early 1994, Levesque signed a one-year contract with World Championship Wrestling (WCW). In his first televised match, Levesque debuted as a villain named Terror Risin' and defeated Keith Cole. His ring name was soon modified to Terra Ryzing, which he used until mid-1994, when he was renamed Jean-Paul Lévesque. This gimmick referred to his surname's French origins and he was asked to speak with a French accent, as he could not speak French. During this time, he began using his finishing maneuver, the "Pedigree". Levesque had a brief storyline feud with Alex Wright that ended at Starrcade 1994 with Wright pinning him. Between late 1994 and early 1995, Levesque briefly teamed with Lord Steven Regal, whose snobby British persona was similar to Levesque's character. The team was short-lived, however, as Levesque left for the World Wrestling Federation (WWF) in January 1995 after WCW turned down his request to be pushed as a singles competitor. World Wrestling Federation/Entertainment. The Connecticut Blueblood (1995–1997). As a continuation of his gimmick in WCW, Levesque started his WWF career as the "Connecticut Blueblood" Hunter Hearst Helmsley. Levesque appeared in taped vignettes, in which he talked about how to use proper etiquette, up until his wrestling debut on the April 30, 1995 episode of "WWF Wrestling Challenge". Although he was heavily pushed in the first few months after his debut, Levesque's career stalled during 1996, starting off with being mired in a feud with Duke "The Dumpster" Droese following a loss during the "Free for All" at 1996 Royal Rumble. Up until that event, his angle included appearing on television each week with a different female valet (which included Playboy Playmates Shae Marks and Tylyn John). Sable was his valet at WrestleMania XII, and after his loss to Ultimate Warrior, as part of the storyline, he took his aggressions out on her. The debuting Marc Mero—her real-life husband—came to her rescue, starting a feud between the two wrestlers. On June 1, 1996, Helmsley appeared on an episode of "WWF Superstars" in a match against Marty Garner. When Levesque attempted to perform the "Pedigree", Garner mistook the maneuver for a double underhook suplex and tried to jump up with the move, causing him to land squarely on top of his head and suffer neck damage. Garner sued the WWF, eventually settling out of court and later discussed the incident in an appearance on "The Montel Williams Show". Levesque was known backstage as one of the members of The Kliq, a group of wrestlers including Shawn Michaels, Kevin Nash, Sean Waltman and Scott Hall, who were known for influencing Vince McMahon and the WWF creative team. It has been claimed that he was scheduled to win the 1996 King of the Ring tournament, but the victory was instead awarded to Stone Cold Steve Austin after the , in which the Kliq broke character after a match to say goodbye to the departing Nash and Hall. Despite the punishment, Helmsley did have several successes following the MSG Incident. Mr. Perfect became his manager and he won the WWF Intercontinental Championship for the first time on October 21, 1996, defeating Marc Mero. When Mr. Perfect left the WWF, his departure was explained to be a result of Helmsley turning his back on his manager as soon as he won the Intercontinental Championship. Levesque held the belt for nearly four months before dropping it to Rocky Maivia on the February 13, 1997 special edition of "Monday Night Raw", called "Thursday Raw Thursday". For a very brief time, Helmsley was accompanied by Mr. Hughes, who was his storyline bodyguard. After losing the Intercontinental title, he feuded with Goldust, defeating him at WrestleMania 13. During their feud, Chyna debuted as his new bodyguard. D-Generation X (1997–1999). Helmsley's push resumed in 1997, when he won the 1997 King of the Ring tournament by defeating Mankind in the finals. Later that year, Shawn Michaels, Helmsley, Chyna and Rick Rude formed D-Generation X (DX). This stable later became known for pushing the envelope, as Michaels and Helmsley made risqué promos—spawning the catchphrase "Suck It", using a "crotch chop" hand motion, and sarcastically deriding Bret Hart and Canada. By that point, Helmsley had fully dropped the "blueblood snob" gimmick, appearing in T-shirts and leather. During this period, his ring name was shortened to simply Triple H. Even after the DX versus Hart Foundation storyline ended, Helmsley continued to feud with the sole remaining member Owen Hart over the WWF European Championship. This ended in a match between the two at WrestleMania XIV, with the stipulation that Chyna had to be handcuffed to then-Commissioner Sgt. Slaughter. Helmsley won after Chyna threw powder into Slaughter's eyes, momentarily "blinding" him and allowing her to interfere in the match. After WrestleMania, Michaels was forced into temporary retirement due to a legitimate back injury sustained at the Royal Rumble, with Triple H taking over the leadership position in DX, claiming that his now-former associate had "dropped the ball". He introduced the returning X-Pac the night after WrestleMania and joined forces with the New Age Outlaws. As 1998 went along, D-Generation X became more popular, turning the group from villains to fan-favorites. During this time, Levesque adopted an entrance gimmick of asking the crowd "Are you ready? I said, are you ready?", followed by a parody of rival promotion WCW's ring announcer Michael Buffer's famous catch-phrase, "Let's get ready to rumble," substituting the word "rumble" with the DX slogan, "suck it." Also during this time, he began a feud with the leader of the Nation of Domination and rising WWF villain, The Rock. This storyline rivalry eventually led to a feud over the Intercontinental Championship, which Triple H won in a ladder match at SummerSlam. He did not hold the title long, however, as he was sidelined with a legitimate knee injury. When The Rock won the WWF Championship at Survivor Series, the rivalry between the two continued, as DX fought The Corporation stable, of which The Rock was the main star. Triple H received a shot at the WWF Championship on the January 25, 1999 "Raw" in an "I Quit" match against The Rock, but the match ended when Triple H was forced to quit or see his aide Chyna chokeslammed by Kane. This began a new angle for Triple H, as Chyna betrayed him by attacking him after the match and joining The Corporation. At WrestleMania XV, Triple H lost to Kane after Chyna interfered on his behalf, and she was thought to have rejoined DX. Later on in the night, he betrayed his long-time friend and fellow DX member X-Pac by helping Shane McMahon retain the European Championship and joined The Corporation. turning heel in the process. In April, he started to move away from his DX look, taping his fists for matches, sporting new and shorter wrestling trunks, and adopting a shorter hairstyle. Levesque's gimmick changed as he fought to earn a WWF title shot. After numerous failed attempts at winning the championship, Triple H and Mankind challenged WWF Champion Stone Cold Steve Austin to a Triple Threat match at SummerSlam, which featured Jesse "The Body" Ventura as the special guest referee. Mankind won the match by pinning Austin. The following night on "Raw", Triple H defeated Mankind to win his first WWF Championship. Triple H dropped the WWF Championship to Vince McMahon on the September 16, 1999 "SmackDown!" before regaining it at Unforgiven in a Six-Pack Challenge that included Davey Boy Smith, Big Show, Kane, The Rock, and Mankind. He defeated Stone Cold Steve Austin at No Mercy before dropping the title to Big Show at Survivor Series. Triple H then continued his feud with Vince McMahon by marrying his daughter, Stephanie McMahon. He then defeated McMahon at Armageddon. As a result of the feud, an angle with Triple H and Stephanie McMahon began which carried the WWF throughout the next seventeen months; together they were known as the "McMahon-Helmsley Faction". McMahon–Helmsley Era; The Power Trip (2000–2001). By January 2000, Triple H dubbed himself "The Game," implying that he was on top of the wrestling world and was nicknamed "The Cerebral Assassin" by Jim Ross. ("The Game" nickname was originally intended for Owen Hart, with Triple H adopting the nickname in honor of Owen.) On the January 3 "Raw is War", Triple H defeated The Big Show to win his third WWF championship. Triple H feuded with Mick Foley in early 2000. They both fought at the Royal Rumble in a Street Fight Match for the WWF Championship, which Triple H won after doing two pedigrees on Foley. The feud ended at No Way Out in a Hell in a Cell, where Triple H retained the title and forced Foley to retire. Triple H pinned The Rock at WrestleMania 2000 to retain the title, but lost it at Backlash to The Rock. He regained it three weeks later, in an Iron Man match at Judgment Day, only to lose it back to The Rock at King of the Ring. Triple H then entered a storyline feud with Chris Jericho, which culminated in a Last Man Standing match at Fully Loaded. Afterwards, Triple H entered a feud with Kurt Angle, initially over the WWF Championship but then as a love triangle between himself, Angle, and Stephanie. On the August 3 "SmackDown!", Triple H and his wife, Stephanie McMahon, along with Kurt Angle, were booked in a Six-man tag team match by Commissioner Mick Foley, against the Dudley Boyz (Buh-Buh Ray Dudley and D-Von Dudley), which Triple H, McMahon, and Angle won. After the match, as Triple H left the ring, Angle and McMahon hugged in a victory celebration, frustrating Triple H and marking the beginning of the Triple H-Angle feud. On the August 24 edition of Smackdown!, Angle kissed Stephanie McMahon after she was injured during a tag team match. At SummerSlam, The Rock defeated Triple H and Angle in a Triple Threat match to retain the WWF Championship after Angle received a concussion at the hands of Triple H. Angle had started taking a liking to Triple H's on-screen wife, Stephanie McMahon which made Triple H, jealous of Angle. On August 28 edition of Raw is War, Angle interfered in a match between Eddie Guerrero and Triple H by attacking both men with a chair. On September 11 edition of Raw is War, Angle interfered in Triple H's match with Chris Jericho and distracted Triple H, causing Triple H to leave the ring and chase Angle. Later that night, Angle attacked both Triple H and McMahon after his Handicap match against T & A. The feud culminated at Unforgiven, where Triple H defeated Angle with a Pedigree after a low blow from Stephanie. A later storyline feud between Triple H and Steve Austin started when it emerged that Triple H had paid off Rikishi to run down Austin at Survivor Series, causing him to take a year off. In storyline, Triple H said he had did it in order to shield Austin from the WWF Championship and end his career. In reality, Austin's previous neck injuries started bothering him again, forcing him to have surgery. In 2000, Triple H and Austin had a match at Survivor Series that ended when Triple H tried to trick Austin into coming into the parking lot to run him over again, only to have Austin lift his car up with a forklift and flip the car onto its roof 10 feet high. Triple H returned a few weeks later and attacked Austin. The feud continued into 2001 and ended in a Three Stages of Hell match in which Helmsley defeated Austin. In 2001, Triple H also feuded with The Undertaker, who defeated him at WrestleMania X-Seven. The night after WrestleMania, Triple H interfered in a steel cage match between Austin (who had just won the WWF Championship) and The Rock where he joined forces with Austin and double teamed on The Rock, forming a tag team called The Two-Man Power Trip. Triple H then defeated Chris Jericho for his third Intercontinental Championship on the April 5 "SmackDown!", and won it for a fourth time two weeks later by defeating Jeff Hardy. Triple H then became a tag team champion for the first time at Backlash when he and Austin defeated Kane and The Undertaker in a winner-take-all tag match. As Triple H was still Intercontinental Champion, the win made him a double champion. During the May 21, 2001 "Raw", he suffered a legitimate and career-threatening injury. In the night's main event, he and Austin were defending the Tag Team Championship against Chris Jericho and Chris Benoit. At one point, Jericho had Austin trapped in the Walls of Jericho. Triple H ran in to break it up, but just as he did, he suffered a tear in his left quadriceps muscle, causing it to come completely off the bone. Despite his inability to place any weight on his leg, Triple H was able to complete the match. He even allowed Jericho to put him in the "Walls of Jericho", a move that places considerable stress on the quadriceps. The tear required an operation, which was performed by orthopedic surgeon Dr. James Andrews. This injury brought an abrupt end to the McMahon-Helmsley Era, as the rigorous rehabilitation process kept Triple H out of action for over eight months, completely missing The Invasion storyline. Return from injury and Shawn Michaels feud (2002). Triple H returned to "Raw" as a face on January 7, 2002 at Madison Square Garden. He won the Royal Rumble and received an Undisputed WWF Championship match at WrestleMania X8. At WrestleMania X8, Triple H beat Chris Jericho for the Undisputed Championship. After holding the title for a month, Helmsley dropped it to Hulk Hogan at Backlash. Triple H then became exclusive to the "SmackDown!" roster due to the WWF Draft Lottery and continued to feud with Jericho, culminating in a Hell in a Cell match at Judgment Day. On June 6 "SmackDown", Triple H defeated Hogan in a Number One Contenders match for the Undisputed Championship at the King of the Ring against The Undertaker but was unsuccessful at the event. In the interim, between the Royal Rumble and WrestleMania, the McMahon-Helmsley Faction was brought to an official on-screen conclusion. By the time he returned, Triple H's on-screen marriage to Stephanie McMahon was on the rocks, so Stephanie faked a pregnancy in order to get him back on her side. When he learned that it was fake, he dumped her publicly on Raw when they were supposed to renew their wedding vows. Stephanie aligned with Jericho afterward, but she was forced to leave after losing a Triple Threat match on "Raw" the night after WrestleMania when she was pinned by Triple H. The divorce, and thus the storyline, was finalized at Vengeance. Meanwhile, Shawn Michaels had made his return to WWE and joined the New World Order (nWo). Michaels and Kevin Nash planned to bring Triple H over to Raw in order to put him into the group. Vince McMahon, however, disbanded the nWo following several backstage complications and brought in Eric Bischoff as the Raw brand's new general manager. One of Bischoff's first intentions was to follow up on the nWo's plan and bring Triple H over to the Raw roster. Triple H did indeed go to the Raw brand, reuniting with Shawn Michaels, but on July 22 he turned on Michaels by performing a Pedigree on him during what was supposed to be a DX reunion, turning heel once again. The following week, Triple H smashed Michaels' face into a car window to prove that Michaels was weak. These events led to the beginning of a long storyline rivalry between the former partners and an eventual "Unsanctioned Street Fight" at SummerSlam, in which Michaels came out of retirement to win. Afterwards, however, Triple H attacked him with a sledgehammer, and Michaels was carried out of the ring. Before September 2, 2002, WWE recognized only one champion for both the Raw and SmackDown! brands. After SummerSlam, champion Brock Lesnar became exclusive to SmackDown!, leaving Raw without a champion. Raw General Manager Eric Bischoff then awarded Triple H the Big Gold Belt (which had been used for the NWA World Heavyweight Championship and WCW World Heavyweight Championship) making him the first World Heavyweight Champion of the WWE brand. Triple H retained his title against Rob Van Dam at Unforgiven when Ric Flair hit RVD with a sledgehammer. In October 2002, Triple H began feuding with Kane, leading to a match at No Mercy on October 20 in which both Kane's Intercontinental Championship and Triple H's World Heavyweight Championship were at stake. In the weeks preceding the match, Triple H claimed that, several years earlier, Kane had an unrequited relationship with a woman named Katie Vick. He went on to claim that, after Vick was killed in a car crash, Kane (the driver) raped her corpse. Triple H later threatened to show video footage of Kane committing the act in question; however, the footage that finally aired showed Triple H (dressed as Kane) simulating necrophilia with a mannequin in a casket; Kane's tag team partner The Hurricane responded the following week by showing a video of Triple H (rather, someone wearing a Triple H series of masks) getting an enema. The angle was very unpopular with fans, and was de-emphasised before the title match. Triple H went on to defeat Kane at No Mercy, unifying the two titles. Triple H eventually lost the World Heavyweight Championship to Shawn Michaels in the first Elimination Chamber match, at Survivor Series. He defeated RVD for the title shot at Armageddon with Michaels as special referee. He regained the title from Michaels in a Three Stages of Hell match at Armageddon. Evolution (2003–2005). In January 2003, Triple H formed a stable known as Evolution with Ric Flair, Randy Orton, and Batista. Triple H and Ric Flair challenged RVD and Kane for the World Tag Team Titles, but they lost the match. The group was pushed on Raw from 2003 to 2004. The height of their dominance occurred after Armageddon when every member of Evolution left the pay-per-view holding a title. Triple H held the World Heavyweight Championship for most of 2003 until Unforgiven, losing the title to Bill Goldberg. After a failed attempt to win back the title from Goldberg in a rematch at the Survivor Series, he finally regained the championship against Goldberg in a triple threat match at Armageddon which also involved Kane. At the 2004 Royal Rumble, Triple H and Shawn Michaels fought in a Last Man Standing match to a double countout, so Triple H retained the title as a result. Triple H dropped the title to Chris Benoit at WrestleMania XX, and he was unable to reclaim the belt from Benoit in subsequent rematches, including a rematch from WrestleMania between Triple H, Benoit, and Shawn Michaels at Backlash. He then ended his feud with Michaels, defeating him in a Hell in a Cell match at Bad Blood. After another failed attempt, losing to Benoit at Vengeance, he focused on Eugene, beating him at SummerSlam. Triple H then regained the title from former associate Randy Orton at Unforgiven. Following a Triple Threat World Heavyweight title defense against Benoit and Edge on the November 29, 2004 "Raw", the World Heavyweight Championship became vacant for the first time. At New Year's Revolution, Triple H won the Elimination Chamber to begin his tenth world title reign. At WrestleMania 21, Triple H lost the championship to Batista, and subsequently lost two rematches at Backlash and Vengeance. After Vengeance, Triple H took hiatus from WWE due to suffering from his minor neck problems. After four-month hiatus, Triple H returned to Raw on October 3, 2005 as part of "WWE Homecoming". He teamed with fellow Evolution member Flair to defeat Chris Masters and Carlito. After the match, Triple H turned on Flair hitting Flair with a sledgehammer, sparking a feud between the duo. Flair defeated Triple H in a Steel cage match at Taboo Tuesday for Flair's Intercontinental Championship. Subsequently, Triple H defeated Flair in a non-title Last Man Standing match at Survivor Series to end their feud. D-Generation X reunion (2006–2007). Although Triple H failed to win the Royal Rumble match at the Royal Rumble, another championship opportunity arose for Triple H in the "Road to WrestleMania Tournament". He won the tournament, granting him a match for the WWE Championship at WrestleMania 22. At WrestleMania, Triple H and John Cena fought in the main event for the title, which Triple H lost via submission. Later that month at Backlash, Triple H was involved in another WWE Championship match, fighting Edge and Cena in a Triple Threat match, where he lost again. In an act of frustration, a bloodied Triple H used his sledgehammer to attack both Edge and Cena and then performed a number of DX crotch chops. Triple H unsuccessfully attempted to win the WWE title from Cena on numerous occasions, blaming his shortcomings on Vince McMahon, which eventually led to a feud between the McMahons and Triple H. Shawn Michaels returned on the June 12 "Raw" and soon reunited with Triple H to reform D-Generation X, turning Triple H into a fan-favorite once again for the first time since 2002. DX defeated the Spirit Squad at Vengeance in a 5-on-2 handicap match. They continued their feud with Vince McMahon, Shane McMahon and the Spirit Squad for several weeks. They then defeated the Spirit Squad again on the July 18, 2006 Saturday Night's Main Event in a 5-on-2 Elimination match. They then again defeated the McMahons at SummerSlam, withstanding the attack of several handpicked WWE superstars by Vince McMahon. At Unforgiven, D-Generation X overcame the odds once again, defeating The McMahons and ECW World Champion Big Show in a Hell in a Cell match. During the match, DX embarrassed Vince by shoving his face in between Big Show's buttocks, and DX won when Triple H broke a sledgehammer over the shoulders of Vince McMahon after Michaels performed "Sweet Chin Music" on him. At Cyber Sunday during DX's feud with Rated-RKO, special guest referee Eric Bischoff allowed the illegal use of a weapon to give Rated-RKO the win. At Survivor Series, DX got their revenge when their team defeated Edge and Orton's team in an Elimination Match. In January 2007, at New Year's Revolution, DX and Rated-RKO fought to a no-contest after Triple H suffered a legitimate torn right quadriceps (similar to the one he suffered in 2001 but in the other leg) fifteen minutes into the match. Surgery was successfully performed on January 9, 2007 by Dr. James Andrews. Record breaking WWE Champion (2007–2009). Triple H made his return at SummerSlam, where he defeated King Booker. Two months later at "No Mercy", Triple H was originally scheduled to face Umaga in a singles match. However, at the start of the night Triple H decided to challenge newly named WWE Champion Randy Orton, reigniting his rivalry with Orton that had been interrupted following his injury. Triple H won the match, winning his eleventh world championship and sixth WWE Championship, and then defended his title against Umaga in his regularly scheduled match after Mr. McMahon declared the match to be for the WWE title. After that McMahon gave Orton a rematch against Triple H in a Last Man Standing match in the main event, and Triple H lost after failing to beat the ten count when Orton hit his "RKO" onto the announcer's table. Triple H's title reign at No Mercy is the fifth shortest reign in WWE history, only lasting through the duration of the event. After winning the Raw Elimination Chamber at No Way Out, Triple H gained a WWE Championship match, by outlasting five other men, last eliminating Jeff Hardy after a Pedigree on a steel chair. However, at WrestleMania XXIV, Randy Orton retained after punting Triple H and pinning John Cena following Triple H's "Pedigree" on Cena. A month later, at Backlash, Triple H won the title in a Fatal Four-Way Elimination match against Orton, Cena, and John "Bradshaw" Layfield, tying the record for most WWE Championship reigns with The Rock. Triple H then retained the title against Orton at Judgment Day in a Steel Cage match and again at One Night Stand in a Last Man Standing match. Orton suffered a legitimate collarbone injury during the match, thus ending the feud prematurely. On June 23, 2008 "Raw", Triple H was drafted to the SmackDown brand as a part of the 2008 WWE Draft, in the process making the WWE Championship exclusive to SmackDown. He defended the championship over the summer and was the only champion to retain his title at Unforgiven's Championship Scramble matches. After this he defended it against Jeff Hardy, who was in the Unforgiven match. At Survivor Series, Triple H was scheduled to defend the championship against Vladimir Kozlov and Hardy, however Hardy was kept out of the match after a scripted attack and injury. During the match, Smackdown General Manager Vickie Guerrero announced that Edge had returned and introduced him into the contest. Jeff Hardy interfered and hit Triple H with a steel chair meant for Edge, thus costing him the title and resulting in Edge winning his sixth World Title. Triple H entered seventh in the 2009 Royal Rumble, but was last eliminated by Randy Orton. In February at Elimination Chamber, Triple H won the WWE Championship in the SmackDown Chamber match, setting the record for most reigns at eight. That record stood until 2011 when John Cena won his ninth WWE Championship. The Legacy feud and DX farewell (2009–2011). On the February 16, 2009 "Raw", Triple H made an appearance aiding Stephanie and Shane McMahon, after they were attacked by Randy Orton. On the February 20 "SmackDown", Triple H was interviewed by Jim Ross, in the interview, footage was shown highlighting the events that occurred on the February 16 "Raw". Ross asked Triple H how he felt seeing that footage, in response, he broke character (after 5 years of marriage) by admitting that Vince McMahon is his father-in-law, that Shane is his brother-in-law, and that Stephanie is his wife, thus creating a rivalry between Triple H and Orton. On the February 23 "Raw", Triple H confronted Orton, before attacking him, Ted DiBiase, and Cody Rhodes (a group known as The Legacy) with a sledgehammer and chasing them from the arena. At WrestleMania XXV, Triple H defeated Orton to retain the title. He, with Shane McMahon and Batista, then faced Orton and Legacy in a six-man tag match for the WWE championship at Backlash (2009). He lost the title to Orton after trying to stop Batista from hitting Cody Rhodes with a chair, allowing Orton to hit the RKO and punt to the head. After six weeks off of TV, selling the injury, he lost a Three Stages of Hell title match to Orton at The Bash. At Night of Champions, he again lost a title match to Orton, this time a Triple Threat match, also involving John Cena. On the August 10, 2009 "Raw", Triple H met with Michaels at an office cafeteria in Texas where Michaels was working as a chef; throughout the show, Triple H tried to convince Michaels to return to WWE from hiatus. After several incidents (including grease grill burgers on fire and Michaels shouting at a little girl), Michaels agreed to team with Triple H to face The Legacy at SummerSlam, superkicked the girl, and quit his chef job. On the August 17 "Raw", in St. Louis, MO, Michaels and Triple H officially reunited as DX, but as they were in the process of their in-ring promo, Legacy attacked them both. Their first match after reuniting was against Legacy at SummerSlam, which they won. At Breaking Point, however, they lost to Legacy in the first ever Submissions Count Anywhere match in WWE history. At Hell in a Cell, DX defeated Legacy in a Hell in a Cell match. DX unsuccessfully challenged John Cena for the WWE Championship in a triple threat match at Survivor Series, after which they remained friends and partners. On December 13, at , DX defeated Chris Jericho and The Big Show to win the Unified WWE Tag Team Championship in a Tables, Ladders, and Chairs match. This was their first tag championship reign together. On December 21, Triple H announced that Hornswoggle was the new DX mascot. This came about after Hornswoggle sued DX for emotional and physical distress due to them not allowing him to join DX. After being taken to court where they were ruled guilty by a jury and judge consisting of dwarves, Michaels told Triple H that Hornswoggle could be the mascot. Triple H agreed to it only if the charges were dropped, which Hornswoggle agreed to. On January 11 Mike Tyson, who was the "Raw" guest host for the night, teamed with Jericho to face DX; however, at the end of the bout, Tyson turned on Jericho and aligned himself with Michaels and Triple H. On the February 8, 2010 "Raw", DX lost the Unified Tag Team Title to ShoMiz (The Miz and The Big Show) in a Triple Threat Elimination tag match, also involving The Straight Edge Society (CM Punk and Luke Gallows.) On the March 1 "Raw", they lost a rematch for the title. This was their last televised match before Michaels retired. Michaels and Triple H had a non-wrestling reunion at the 2010 Tribute to the Troops. On February 21, Triple H eliminated WWE Champion Sheamus from an Elimination Chamber match, though he did not win the title himself. Sheamus attacked him weeks later, setting up a match at WrestleMania XXVI, which Triple H won. Also at WrestleMania, Shawn Michaels lost to The Undertaker and was forced to retire. While giving a farewell speech the next night, Sheamus attacked him. This set up a rematch at Extreme Rules. Sheamus attacked Triple H at the start of the show, before later winning the match. Triple H then took time off to recover from injuries. Triple H made an untelevised appearance on October 30 at the WWE Fan Appreciation Event and also at the 2010 "Tribute to the Troops". Various feuds; Chief Operating Officer (2011–present). On the February 21, 2011 "Raw", Triple H returned WWE by interrupting the return of The Undertaker. He challenged him to a match at WrestleMania XXVII, which later became a No Holds Barred match. A week later he put Sheamus through the announce table with a Pedigree, in retaliation for Sheamus giving him a 10 month injury. At WrestleMania XXVII Triple H lost which extended Undertaker's undefeated streak to 19-0, however Undertaker was carried from the ring in a stretcher whereas Triple H left the ring of his own volition. At the end of the July 18, 2011 "Raw", Triple H returned on behalf of WWE's board of directors to relieve his father-in-law Vince McMahon of his duties. This was followed by the announcement that he had been assigned to take over as Chief Operating Officer (COO) of the WWE. This was during a storyline where CM Punk had won the WWE Championship and left the company. Though a new champion was crowned, Triple H helped re-sign CM Punk and upheld both championship reigns. He announced he would referee a match to unify both WWE Championships at SummerSlam. Although he counted a pinfall for CM Punk to win, John Cena's leg was on the ropes which would break the pin. Regardless, Triple H's longtime friend Kevin Nash attacked Punk immediately after the match to allow Alberto Del Rio to become champion. Though Nash and Punk demanded a match against each other, Triple H fired Nash for insubordination and booked himself in a No Disqualification match at Night Of Champions with his position of COO on the line. He won the match despite interference from John Laurinaitis, Nash, The Miz and R-Truth. After repeated attacks from these wrestlers in various matches, the majority of WWE's on-screen staff gave Triple H a vote of no confidence. Mr. McMahon returned to relieve him of his duties on "Raw" though he remained COO. He was replaced as General Manager of "Raw" by Laurinaitis, who booked him in a tag team match against Miz and R-Truth at Vengeance. During the match, Nash once again attacked him and did so the following night on the October 24 "Raw", hospitalizing him. WWE later announced that Triple H had sustained a fractured vertebrae, and would be out of action. He returned on December 12, as part of the Slammy Awards. On December 18, he defeated Nash at in Sledgehammer Ladder Match, after attacking him with a sledgehammer. Triple H returned on the January 30 edition of "Raw", to evaluate Laurinaitis' performance as General Manager. Before he could announce the decision, he was interrupted by the returning Undertaker. After initially refusing the rematch as he did not want to tarnish Undertaker's legacy, Triple H accepted the challenge after being called a coward who lives in Shawn Michaels' shadow, on the condition their rematch be contested inside Hell in a Cell. Triple H went on to lose this match at WrestleMania XXVIII. Triple H returned on the April 30 "Raw", when he refused to give in to Brock Lesnar's unreasonable contract demands, resulting in Lesnar attacking him and storyline breaking his arm. Upon his return two weeks later, Triple H was confronted by Lesnar's legal representative, Paul Heyman, who announced Lesnar was filing a lawsuit against WWE for breach of contract. After he acosted Heyman, Heyman threatened another lawsuit against Triple H for assault and battery. At the No Way Out in June, Triple H challenged Lesnar, who was not present, to a match at SummerSlam, which Heyman refused on Lesnar's behalf the following night on "Raw". At "Raw 1000", Stephanie McMahon managed to goad Heyman into accepting her husband's challenge against Lesnar. To anger Triple H, Lesnar broke his best friend Shawn Michaels's arm on the August 13 "Raw". Six days later at SummerSlam, Lesnar defeated Triple H via submission after once again breaking his arm. On the August 27, 2012 "Raw", Triple H was supposed to address his potential retirement, but did not make a definitive decision. Triple H returned on the February 25, 2013 "Raw", brawling with Brock Lesnar after he attempted to attack Vince McMahon. The brawl resulted in Lesnar having his head split open and requiring 18 stitches. The following week, Triple H issued a challenge to Lesnar, requesting a rematch with him at WrestleMania 29, which Lesnar accepted on the condition that he could choose the stipulation. The following week, after Triple H signed the contract and assaulted Heyman, the stipulation was revealed as No Holds Barred with Triple H's career on the line. Triple H went on to win the match after hitting Lesnar with a "Pedigree" onto the steel steps. On the April 15 "Raw", Heyman challenged Triple H to face Lesnar in a Steel Cage match at Extreme Rules, which Triple H accepted the following week. Triple H ended up losing the match at the pay-per-view on May 19 thanks to interference from Heyman, where he also injured his jaw.
1163072	Audie Leon Murphy (June 20, 1925 – May 28, 1971) was one of the most famous and decorated American combat soldiers of World War II. He was awarded every U.S. military combat award for valor available from the U.S. Army, and was also decorated by France and Belgium. He served in the Mediterranean and European Theater of Operations. He was presented the Medal of Honor for his defensive actions against German troops on January 26, 1945, at the Colmar Pocket near Holtzwihr, France. During an hour-long siege, he stood alone on a burning tank destroyer firing a machine gun at attacking German soldiers and tanks. Wounded and out of ammunition, Murphy climbed off the tank, refused medical attention, and led his men on a successful counter assault. In 2013, he was posthumously awarded the Texas Legislative Medal of Honor. He was born into a large sharecropper family in Hunt County, Texas, and his skill with a hunting rifle was a necessity for feeding the family. His father abandoned the family, and his mother died when he was a teenager. Murphy dropped out of school in fifth grade to pick cotton and find other work to help support his family. His older sister helped him falsify documentation about his birth date in order to meet the minimum age requirement for enlisting in the military. He received training at Camp Wolters, Texas, Fort Meade, Maryland and Arzew, Algeria. He first saw action in the Allied invasion of Sicily and Anzio, and was part of the 1944 liberation of Rome. On August 15, 1944, he was part of the Allied Invasion of southern France, where he saw action at Montélimar and the capture of German Brigadier General Otto Richter. He led his men on a successful assault at the L'Omet quarry near Cleurie in northeastern France in October 1944. Murphy was only 19 years old when he was awarded the Medal of Honor for his actions at the Colmar Pocket. He always maintained that the medals belonged to his entire military unit. Suffering what would in later wars be labeled post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), he slept with a loaded gun under his pillow and looked for solace in addictive sleeping pills. The Audie L. Murphy Memorial Veterans Hospital in San Antonio is named for him. After the war, Murphy enjoyed a 21-year career as an actor. He played himself in the 1955 autobiographical "To Hell and Back" based on his 1949 memoirs of the same name. Most of his 44 films were Westerns. He made guest appearances on celebrity television shows and starred in the series "Whispering Smith". As a songwriter, he penned the successful "Shutters and Boards". He bred quarter horses in California and Arizona, and became a regular participant in horse racing. In the last few years of his life, he was plagued with money problems. He remained aware of his role model influence and refused offers for alcohol and cigarette commercials. Murphy died in a plane crash in Virginia in 1971, just 23 days before his 46th birthday. He was interred with full military honors in Arlington National Cemetery. Early life. Audie Leon Murphy was born the seventh of twelve children to Emmett Berry Murphy and his wife Josie Bell Killian on June 20, 1925, in Kingston, Hunt County, Texas. The Murphys were sharecroppers of Irish descent. When Josie was pregnant with Audie, she had already buried three of her children. Emmett temporarily deserted the family, leaving her to care for the remaining three children. Audie B. Evans Sr., a friend who lived away, made sure the family had food and basic supplies. Another friend Audie Lee West worked the Murphy garden so Josie could stay off her feet, and he assisted in the child's birth. Josie named the child Audie after both these men. He would later say that even in his youth he was a loner with an explosive temper, subject to mood swings. He grew up around Farmersville, Greenville and Celeste, where he attended elementary school. His father drifted in and out of the family's life and eventually deserted the family for good. Murphy dropped out of school in fifth grade and got a job picking cotton for $1 a day to help support the family. He became skilled with a rifle, hunting small game to help feed the family. After his mother died in 1941, he worked at a combination general store, garage and gas station in Greenville, and also at a radio repair shop. Hunt County authorities placed his three youngest siblings in Boles Children's Home, a Christian orphanage in Quinlan. After the war, he bought a house in Farmersville for his oldest sister Corrine and her husband Poland Burns. His other siblings also briefly shared the home. The loss of his mother stayed with him throughout his life. The day Murphy died, May 28, 1971, would have been his mother's 80th birthday. Military service. Enlistment and initial training. Murphy had wanted to be a soldier all his youth and dreamed about combat. The death of his mother in May 1941 added even more impetus to his desire to achieve that goal. When he heard the news of Japan's December 7 attack on Pearl Harbor he tried to enlist in the Marines, the Navy and the Army, but was turned down for being underweight and underage. He added weight with a change in diet, and gave the Army a sworn affidavit from his sister Corrine that falsified his birth date by a year. Murphy enlisted in Greenville on June 20, 1942 at the Post Office Building, which was added to the NRHP in 1974. During his physical examination his height was registered as and his weight as . Assigned to the infantry, during basic training at Camp Wolters, Texas, Murphy earned the Marksman Badge with Rifle Clasp and the Expert Badge with Bayonet Clasp. While participating in a close-order drill during that hot Texas summer, he passed out. Due to his slight build, his company commander thought he was too small to serve in the infantry, and tried to have him transferred to a cook and bakers' school. Regardless, Murphy insisted on becoming a combat soldier. He subsequently completed the 13-week basic training course, and in October he was given leave to visit his family. At the end of his leave, he was sent to Fort Meade, Maryland for advanced infantry training that lasted until January 1943. Mediterranean Theater. North Africa. In January 1943, Murphy was processed through Camp Kilmer, New Jersey, and he arrived at Casablanca, in French Morocco on February 20. On arrival, he was assigned to Company B, 1st Battalion, 15th Infantry Regiment, 3rd Infantry Division. As part of Operation Torch on November 8, 1942, the United States seized Port Lyautey in French Morocco. The 3rd Infantry Division was sent to this Port Lyautey on March 7, 1943, coming under the command of Major General Lucian Truscott, who took them through rigorous training at Arzew, Algeria, for an amphibious landing at Sicily. Private Murphy participated with his division in 8-hour marches, known as the "Truscott Trot". For the first hour, the men marched at a pace of , and slowed to for the second hour, taking the final at a pace of . They also performed bayonet and land mine drills, obstacle course training and other exercises. In Algeria, Murphy was promoted to private first class on May 7. After the May 13 surrender of the Axis forces in French Tunisia, the division was put in charge of the prisoners. They returned to Algeria on May 15 for "Operation Copycat", training exercises in preparation for the assault landing in Sicily. Italy. Sicily. Truscott's 3rd Infantry Division, as part of the Seventh United States Army under the command of Lieutenant General George S. Patton, sailed from Tunisia on July 7, 1943, for the Allied invasion of Sicily, landing at Licata on July 10. Murphy was promoted to the rank of corporal on July 15. Company B later took part in fighting around Canicattì, during which Murphy killed two fleeing Italian officers. They arrived in Palermo on July 20, and Murphy was sidelined by illness for a week. Allied capture of the transit port of Messina was crucial to taking Sicily from the Axis. En route there, Company B was assigned to a hillside location protecting a machine-gun emplacement, while the rest of the 3rd Infantry Division fought at San Fratello. Benito Mussolini was removed from power and arrested on July 25 by King Victor Emanuel III and exiled to the Gran Sasso d'Italia region. The Axis began their evacuation of Messina on July 27, completed when the 3rd Infantry Division's 7th Infantry Regiment secured the port on August 17. During the fighting in Sicily, Murphy became realistic about military duty, "I have seen war as it actually is, and I do not like it. But I will go on fighting..." Mainland invasion. With Mussolini removed from power and Sicily secured from Axis forces, Supreme Commander General Dwight D. Eisenhower made the decision to invade Italy in early September 1943. The German Gran Sasso raid on September 12 rescued Mussolini and returned him to power. As part of the Salerno landings, the 3rd Infantry Division came ashore at Battipaglia. One of the early skirmishes recounted by author Don Graham involved Murphy, his best friend Lattie Tipton (referred to as "Brandon" in Murphy's book "To Hell and Back") and an unnamed soldier in their unit as they traveled along the Volturno River. The trio were near a bridge when the third soldier was killed by German machine-gun fire. Tipton tossed hand grenades in the direction of the fire and Murphy responded with a tommy gun, killing five German soldiers. Allied forces entered Naples on October 1. The 3rd Division became part of the Allied assault on the Volturno Line. Near Mignano Monte Lungo Hill 193, Company B repelled an attack by seven German soldiers, taking four prisoners. Platoon soldier Swope wounded the other three who took days to die as they sat vigil over them. Murphy was promoted to sergeant on December 13. By this time, the 3rd Infantry Division had suffered heavy casualties: 683 deaths with 170 missing, and 2,412 wounded. Anzio. The 3rd Infantry Division, under the VI Corps commanded by Major General John P. Lucas, was notified in December 1943 of the planned January 22, 1944, storming of Anzio beachhead, the beginning of the liberation of Rome. The division began training near Naples and practiced an amphibious landing at Salerno. Murphy was promoted to staff sergeant on January 13. He was hospitalized in Naples with malaria on January 21, and was unable to participate in the initial landing. One of the eighty-four 3rd Infantry Division casualties suffered during the landing was Private Joe Sieja, given the alias "Little Mike Novak" in "To Hell and Back". Sieja was a Polish-born American soldier in Murphy's unit he had grown to admire and one of the two people to whom Murphy dedicated his book. Lucas delayed sending the troops inland from the beachhead, allowing the Axis to reinforce their strength. Murphy returned to his unit from his hospital stay and took part in the unsuccessful First Battle of Cisterna, which was fought between January 30 and February 2. It was the most fierce and sustained fighting Murphy had experienced to date.
1057370	Winged Migration (, also known as The Travelling Birds in some UK releases, or The Travelling Birds: An adventure in flight in Australia), is a 2001 documentary film directed by Jacques Cluzaud, Michel Debats and Jacques Perrin, who was also one of the writers and narrators, showcasing the immense journeys routinely made by birds during their migrations. The film is dedicated to the French ornithologist Jean Dorst. Production. The movie was shot over the course of four years on all seven continents. It was shot using in-flight cameras, most of the footage is aerial, and the viewer appears to be flying alongside birds of successive species, especially Canada geese. They traverse every kind of weather and landscape, covering vast distances in a flight for survival. The filmmakers exposed over 590 miles of film to create an 89-minute piece. In one case, two months of filming in one location was edited down to less than one minute in the final film. Much of the aerial footage was taken of "tame" birds. The filmmakers raised birds of several species, including storks and pelicans, from birth. The newborn birds imprinted on staff members, and were trained to fly along with the film crews. The birds were also exposed to the film equipment over the course of their lives to ensure that the birds would react the way the filmmakers want. Several of these species had never been imprinted before. Film was shot from ultralights, paragliders, and hot air balloons, as well as trucks, motorcycles, motorboats, remote-controlled robots, and a French Navy warship. Its producer says that "Winged Migration" is neither a documentary nor fiction, but rather a "natural tale". The film states that no special effects were used in the filming of the birds, although some entirely CGI segments that view Earth from outer space augment the real-life footage. The film's soundtrack by Bruno Coulais was recorded by several Bulgarian vocal groups in Bulgarian, as well as Nick Cave in English and Robert Wyatt. The vocal effects include sequences in which panting is superimposed on wingbeats to give the effect that the viewer is a bird. Reception. "Winged Migration" has an overall approval rating of 96% on Rotten Tomatoes. However, respected critic Calen Cole noted that he fell asleep three separate times during the film. He accredited the plenitude of long shots combined with the lack of narration for the soporific quality.
583024	Shortkut (also known as Short Kut: The Con Is On) is a 2009 Bollywood comedy film directed by Neeraj Vora and produced by Anil Kapoor under Anil Kapoor Films Company. The film stars Akshaye Khanna, Arshad Warsi and Amrita Rao in lead roles. It released on 10 July 2009 worldwide to mostly negative reviews from critics. The film was an uncredited remake of the blockbuster Malayalam film "Udayananu Tharam" starring "Mohanlal". Plot. The story focuses on Shekhar (Akshaye Khanna), who is currently an assistant director, hoping to write and direct his own movie soon. His friend Raju (Arshad Warsi) is a struggling actor who has been waiting for Shekhar to write a film script so he can star in. However, when Shekhar rejects him as the film's hero, Raju decides to steal Shekhar's film script and release the film under his own name. The film is released and turns out to be an blockbuster, leading Raju to stardom. Heartbroken Shekhar, at this time, is left by his girlfriend Mansi (Amrita Rao). Lack of confidence, Shekhar writes an new and better film script and wants to star Raju in it, however when Raju rejects the script, Shekhar decides to film the movie without Raju knowing he is in it. Shekhar and his low-budget film crew follow Raju around everywhere to complete their movie. Eventually, when the movie is finished, it turns out that Raju's role in the film was embarrassing and humiliating, and turns Raju into a box office bomb. Shekhar's film succeeds and he is offered more movies. Raju turns into a flop, and decides to steal someone else's script. Soundtrack. The film's soundtrack is composed by Shankar Mahadevan, Ehsaan Noorani & Loy Mendonsa, with lyrics penned by Javed Akhtar. The song, "Patli Gali" was split into two versions in the film, even though only one version (including remix) was included in the soundtrack. Tracklist. The soundtrack contains 4 original songs and 3 remixes. Reception. "Short Kut" was panned by film critics in India as a poor comedy and also, there were plans for a sequel titled "Shortkut: The Con is Back", but it was rejected later and a major disappointment.
754673	Jesus Christ Vampire Hunter is a 2001 cult film from Odessa Filmworks which deals with Jesus' modern-day struggle to protect the lesbians of Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, from vampires with the help of Mexican wrestler El Santo (based on El Santo, Enmascarado de Plata, and played by actor Jeff Moffet, who starred as El Santo in two other Odessa Filmworks productions). This film earned an honorable mention in the Spirit of Slamdance category at the 2002 Slamdance Film Festival. Plot. The movie begins with Jesus Christ sitting on a beach relaxing and comparing the kingdom of God to a sand castle. He meets up with El Santo and a woman named Mary Magnum. Together they fight lesbian-killing vampires. Jesus fights with mixed martial arts skills and uses his carpentry skills to create weapons to slay vampires. Reception. "Time"'s Richard Corliss panned the film, finding that "the comedy is slack, the song lyrics feeble, the pace torpid". Ken Eisner of "Variety" took a more neutral view, finding that "the film is too silly to offend". Jason Nolan of "The Harrow" deemed the production "horridly wonderful" although uneven, noting that "ith a film like this, you want it to be bumpy". Film Threat's Eric Campos gave the film a generally positive review.
584357	Natpukaaga ( English: "For Friendship") is a 1998 Tamil language film directed by K. S. Ravikumar. It starred Sarath Kumar and Simran Bagga in the lead roles. It became a success upon release.
1066098	The Learning Tree is a 1969 drama film produced and released by Warner Bros.-Seven Arts. The film tells the story of a young African American growing up in rural Kansas during the late 1920s and early 1930s, when racial discrimination was a social norm and legally sanctioned in parts of the United States. Written and directed by Gordon Parks, "The Learning Tree" is based upon his 1964 semi-autobiographical novel of the same name. It is the first Hollywood studio film to be directed by an African American. In 1989, "The Learning Tree" was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". Plot summary. Newt Winger (Kyle Johnson) is an African-American teenager living in rural Kansas in the late 1920s and early 1930s. He generally confronts the prejudices of the era with pride and an even temper, unlike his hot-headed friend Marcus Savage (Alex Clarke). As circumstances slowly pull Newt and Marcus further apart, Newt witnesses a murder – one committed by Marcus' father Booker (Richard Ward). When Newt's decision to come forward as a witness leads to Booker's death, Marcus ambushes and confronts Newt with a gun – resulting in a vicious fight. Newt wins the fight but spares Marcus' life, only to watch helplessly as Marcus is shot and killed by a racist sheriff (Dana Elcar). Response. The film was well received by critics; Parks was applauded for the story, actors and the cinematography. It would lead to other serious films made by black filmmakers, while a few white filmmakers followed along with more dramas about black American. Among the more serious works made were "Black Girl" and "Sounder" (both 1972); these, among other films, contrasted with the large number of blaxploitation movies also released during the 1970s, denoted by violence, fierce typecasting of whites as evil and angry black characters played by Richard Roundtree, Jim Brown and Pam Grier. The screenplay that Parks wrote was registered and placed in the records of the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. In March 2011, the Warner Archive Collection released "The Learning Tree" for digital download and manufacture on demand DVD.
1165201	Hugh O'Brian (born Hugh Charles Krampe; April 19, 1925) is an American actor, known for his starring role in the 1955-1961 ABC western television series, "The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp". Early life and Marine years. O'Brian was born as Hugh Charles Krampe in Rochester, New York to Hugh John Krampe, a career United States Marine Corps officer, and his wife, Edith. He attended New Trier High School in Winnetka, Illinois. He later enrolled at the since defunct Kemper Military School in Boonville, Missouri. He lettered in football, basketball, wrestling, and track. O'Brian dropped out of the University of Cincinnati in Cincinnati, Ohio, after one semester to enlist in the United States Marine Corps during World War II. At seventeen, he became the youngest Marine drill instructor. Career start. After World War II, O'Brian moved to Los Angeles to study at the University of California, Los Angeles. He was discovered on the stage by Ida Lupino who signed him to a film, "Never Fear", she was directing that led to a contract with Universal Pictures. O'Brian replaced Bud Abbott in what began and ended up as an Abbott and Costello movie, "Fireman Save My Child" (1954), with Buddy Hackett cast in the Lou Costello role and Spike Jones and his band also appearing at length. "Wyatt Earp" and television career. He was chosen to portray legendary lawman Wyatt Earp on the ABC western series "The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp", which debuted in 1955. Alongside "Gunsmoke" and "Cheyenne", which debuted the same year, these programs spearheaded the "adult western" television genre, with the emphasis was on character development, rather than moral sermonizing. It soon became one of the top-rated shows on television. During its six-year run, "Wyatt Earp" consistently placed in the top 10 in the United States. Decades later, O'Brian reprised the role in two episodes of the television series "Guns of Paradise" (1990), TV-movie ' (1991) and the independent film ' (1994), the latter mixing new footage and colorized archival sequences from the original series. O'Brian appeared regularly on other programs in the 1960s, including Jack Palance's ABC circus drama "The Greatest Show on Earth". He also appeared as a 'guest attorney' in the 1963 "Perry Mason" episode "The Case of the Two-Faced Turn-a-bout" when its star, Raymond Burr, was sidelined for a spell after minor emergency surgery. He was a guest celebrity panelist on the popular CBS prime-time programs "Password" and "What's My Line?", and served as a mystery guest on three occasions on the latter series. In 1999 and 2000, he co-starred with Dick Van Patten, Deborah Winters, Richard Roundtree, and Richard Anderson miniseries "Y2K - World in Crisis". Film career. The actor made a number of motion pictures, among them "Rocketship X-M" (1950), "The Lawless Breed" (1953), "There's No Business Like Show Business" (1954), "White Feather" (1955), "Come Fly with Me" (1963), "Love Has Many Faces" (1965), "In Harm's Way" (1965), "Ten Little Indians" (1965), and "Ambush Bay" (1966). While on stage, Elvis Presley introduced O'Brian from the audience at the singer's April 1, 1975, performance at the Las Vegas Hilton, as captured in the imported live CD release "April Fool's Dinner". O'Brian was a featured star in the 1977 two-hour premiere of the popular television series "Fantasy Island". He played the last character that John Wayne ever killed on the screen in Wayne's final movie "The Shootist" (1976). O'Brian was a good friend of Wayne and said he considers this a great honor. O'Brian also appeared in fight scenes with a Bruce Lee lookalike in Lee's last film, "Game of Death". O'Brian recreated his Wyatt Earp role for three 1990s projects: "Guns of Paradise" (1990) and ' (1991) with fellow actor Gene Barry doing likewise as lawman Bat Masterson for each as well as the independent film ' (1994). He also had a small role in the Danny DeVito/Arnold Schwarzenegger comedy film "Twins" (1988) as one of several men who had "donated" the DNA that later became the "twins". In the film, Schwarzenegger thought he'd found his "father" when he met Hugh O'Brian's character. For his contribution to the television industry, Hugh O'Brian has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6613½ Hollywood Blvd. In 1992, he was inducted into the Western Performers Hall of Fame at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. Marriage. On June 25, 2006, O'Brian married for the first time at age 81; his wife is the former Virginia Barber (born ca. 1952). The ceremony was held at Forest Lawn Memorial Park with the Reverend Robert Schuller, pastor of the former Crystal Cathedral in Garden Grove, California, officiating. The couple was serenaded by close friend Debbie Reynolds. HOBY. Hugh O'Brian has dedicated much of his life to the Hugh O'Brian Youth Leadership (HOBY), a non-profit youth leadership development program for high school scholars. HOBY sponsors 10,000 high school sophomores annually through its over 70 leadership programs in all 50 states and 20 countries. Since its inception in 1958, over 355,000 young people have been participated in HOBY related programs. One high school sophomore from every high school in the United States, referred to as an "ambassador," is welcome to attend a state or regional HOBY seminar. From each of those seminars, students (number based on population) are offered the opportunity to attend the World Leadership Congress (WLC). In 2008, over 500 ambassadors attended from all 50 states and 20 countries. The concept for HOBY was inspired in 1958 by a nine-day visit O’Brian had with famed humanitarian Dr. Albert Schweitzer in Africa. Dr. Schweitzer believed "the most important thing in education is to teach young people to think for themselves." Hugh O’Brian’s core message to young people is “Freedom to Choose” as explained in an essay on the topic.
1164605	Samuel Wanamaker, CBE (June 14, 1919 – December 18, 1993) was an American film director and actor and is credited as the person most responsible for the modern recreation of Shakespeare's Globe Theatre in London. He was the father of actress Zoë Wanamaker. Early years. Wanamaker was born in Chicago, Illinois, the son of Ukrainian Jewish immigrants from Nikolayev, tailor Maurice Wattenmacker (Manus Watmakher) and Molly (Bobele). He was the younger of two brothers, the elder being William Wanamaker, long-term cardiologist at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. Wanamaker trained at the Goodman Theatre in Chicago and began working with summer stock theatre companies in Chicago and northern Wisconsin, where he helped build the stage of the Peninsula Players Theatre in 1937. Career. Britain and America. Wanamaker began his acting career in traveling shows and later worked on Broadway. In 1957, he was appointed director of the New Shakespeare Theatre, in Liverpool. In 1959, he joined the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre company at Stratford-upon-Avon, playing Iago to Paul Robeson's Othello in Tony Richardson's production that year. In the 1960s and 1970s, he produced or directed several works at Covent Garden and elsewhere including the Shakespeare Birthday Celebrations in 1974.
1151528	Anthony David Miles (born November 8, 1971), best known as A. D. Miles, is an American actor, writer and comedian who is best known as Marty Shonson on Comedy Central's "Dog Bites Man". He also appeared in recurring roles on both "" and "Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job!". Miles' film work includes "Bamboozled", "The Believer", "Wet Hot American Summer", "Thirteen Conversations About One Thing", "Uptown Girls", "The Baxter", "The Ten", "Role Models", "Crystal Shyps", and "Wedding Daze" with Jason Biggs and Isla Fisher. He was also an extra in the movie "Airheads". Miles is a regular on David Wain's internet series "Wainy Days" and the creator and star of Horrible People, a show on the website My Damn Channel. He is currently head writer on "Late Night with Jimmy Fallon", and often appears in the show's comedy sketches.
774492	__NOTOC__ Year 10 (X) was a common year starting on Wednesday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. At the time, throughout Roman Empire, it was known as the year of the consulship of Dolabella and Silanus (or, less frequently, year 763 "ab urbe condita"). The denomination 10 for this year has been used since the early medieval period, when the Anno Domini calendar era became the prevalent method in Europe for counting years. Events.
628918	Firass Dirani (pronounced "Feh-ress"; born 29 April 1984) is an Australian actor of Lebanese descent known for his roles of Nick Russell, the Red Mystic Ranger on "Power Rangers Mystic Force", Charlie on the 2009 Australian film "The Combination", and as John Ibrahim on the 2010 series "". Dirani pursued his acting career in Hollywood before receiving a call to play the role of John Ibrahim in "". In April 2010, Dirani was named Cleo Bachelor of the Year. Other films include "Killer Elite", which starred Jason Statham, Clive Owen, Yvonne Strahovski and Robert De Niro. Dirani won the Logie for Most Popular New Male Talent and the Graham Kennedy award for most outstanding new talent, at the 2011 Logie Awards. He received Acting Training at Actors College of Theatre and Television in Central Sydney. A scholarship has been setup there in his honor. Awards. Dirani has won several Logie Awards. In 2011, he won two awards - winning the Most Outstandning New Talent and the Most Popular Nale New Talent awards, for his role in . In 2013, he was nominated for the Most Popular Actori awar for his roles in The Straits and House Husbands.
395805	Ahn Chil-hyun () was born on 10 October 1979, mononymouly credited by his stage name Kangta (). He is a South Korean pop, R&B singer, first known as the lead singer of the boy band H.O.T. and as a solo singer since their disbandment in 2001. Biography. Pre-debut and H.O.T.. Kangta was discovered at Lotte World, a theme park, when he was only 13 years old. He debuted as a back-up dancer together with future band member Moon Hee Jun for singer Yoo Young-jin. Kangta eventually decided to become a singer with Moon Hee Jun and three others, Jang Woo Hyuk, Tony An, and Lee Jae Won to form H.O.T. in 1996. He is an experienced songwriter and composer, having written over 100 songs for H.O.T.'s albums as well as for other groups and singers like NRG and Fly to the Sky. When H.O.T. disbanded in March 2001, Kangta was the first member to debut solo. He released his first solo album "Polaris", which became a huge hit; it was followed by his second album "Pinetree" in 2002. His first solo concert took place in the summer of 2003. In 2006, Kangta was chosen as a runner up for Best Korean Singer overseas, according to Arirang International Broadcasting. A poll was issued over the internet, allowing only people outside of Korea to vote. Shinhwa's song "Once In A Lifetime" won by 60% of the vote, beating Kangta, who came in second with 20.3 percent. 2004-2010: Acting and military service. Kangta received several offers and has accepted a drama offer in China. In 2004, he starred in a drama called "Magic Touch of Fate" together with Taiwanese actors and actresses, Ruby Lin and Alec Su. Kangta portrayed the role of the evil magician Jin-Xiu Soon afterwards, Kangta returned to Korea and released his much-awaited third album. In 2005, Kangta released "Persona", which included tracks that were very different from his previous two albums. The main single of the album, "Persona" had a similar melody to Babyface's "The Loneliness". Kangta surprised his fans when he said he wanted to become an actor. A month later, he starred in a KBS drama, "Loveholic". Kangta also acted in his second Chinese drama, "Love In The City 2". In "Love In The City 2" Kangta portrayed the life of a successful CEO with a dull life. In March Kangta was announced to be starring in JTBC's 2012 drama "Happy Ending" as Kim So Eun's love interest. In 2007, he filmed two dramas and Love in the city 2 aired on October 1, 2007. In January 2007, Kangta took part in the "Hallyu Festival in Osaka" which also featured Jun Jin and Lee Min-woo of Shinhwa, SG Wannabe and actor Song Seung-heon at the Osaka Dome. Kangta enlisted for mandatory military service in April 2008 for 21 months of active duty. During which time he starred in military musical, "Mine" with rapper Yang Dong-geun. It is about the true life story of Lieutenant Lee Jong-myung, who lost his legs in a land mine explosion near the demilitarized zone, in June 2000, when he saved fellow soldier, Sul Dong-seob from the minefield. 2010-present; Comeback and Chinese debut. After two years and five months of hiatus from the entertainment industry due to Korean military service, Kangta comes back with his first Chinese mini album entitiled "静享七乐 (Rest in the Seven Tunes)", with its lead single, Love, Frequency (Breaka Shaka). The digital single was released online on September 13, 2010. The mini-album marked Kangta's entrance to the Chinese market. Meanwhile, the teaser for the single, as well as the digital mini-album, was released through SM Entertainment's official YouTube page on September 9, 2010. The mini album and the music video was released September 13, 2010. Group projects. S (Supreme). After planning for years, Kangta worked with his celebrity friends Shin Hye Sung from Shinhwa and Lee Ji Hoon to form the project group "S", standing for "Supreme". They released their first solo project album called "Fr. In. Cl." or Friends in Classic. They have won several awards since then. Their title track, "I Swear" was written, composed, and arranged by Kangta while Shin Hye Sung wrote the English lyrics. Kangta & Vanness. Early 2006, Kangta collaborated with Vanness Wu of F4 from Taiwan, and formed Kangta & Vanness. Their debut was in Thailand ending the ceremony for the 2006 MTV Asia Awards. They released their single "Scandal" and have been busy promoting their single all over Asia. "Scandal" was a success over Asia and a repackaged version was released in mid-July. On September 12, they held a showcase in Malaysia, Berjaya Times Square. On Arirang TV's talk-show "Heart to Heart", Kangta announced that he would be entering the Army in early 2008, so activities have been put on hold.
1063386	Meg Tilly (born 14 February 1960) is an Oscar-nominated Canadian-American actress and published novelist. She is the younger sister of actress and poker player Jennifer Tilly. Early life. Tilly, the third of four children, was born Margaret Elizabeth Chan in Long Beach, California, the daughter of Patricia (née Tilly), a Canadian schoolteacher, and businessman Harry Chan. Tilly's father was Chinese American, and her mother was of Irish, Finnish, and First Nations descent.• •
1078924	Kopps is a 2003 Swedish film directed by Josef Fares. The name itself is a pun on pronouncing the English word "Cops" with a Swedish accent. The film is a comedy about Swedish police, starring Fares Fares, Torkel Petersson, Sissela Kyle, Göran Ragnerstam and Eva Röse. Plot. The film concerns the police force of a small fictional Swedish village, Högboträsk. The village is so peaceful that crime has become nonexistent. The police spend their shifts drinking coffee, eating hot dogs and chasing down runaway cows. This is all well and good for the village's own police, but the police management board wants to discontinue the local police force for lack of crime. This would mean the loss of income for the policemen, so they begin to stage crimes in order to preserve their jobs. This includes burning down the local hotdog stand, hiring a drunk to steal a packet of sausages, thrashing a local car, faking a shootout and staging a kidnapping using their friends as actors. American Version. Shortly after Kopps' release in 2003, Adam Sandler and Columbia Pictures bought the rights and announced their plans to remake the comedy into an English-language release, though the status is currently unknown.
1060476	Udo Kier (born Udo Kierspe; 14 October 1944) is a German actor who has appeared in more than 200 European and American films. Early life. Udo Kier was born in Cologne, near the end of World War II. The hospital where he was born was bombed moments after his birth. Kier moved to the United Kingdom to learn the English language and in 1966 was cast in the lead role for the film, "Road To St.Tropez".
965216	Enzo Cilenti (born 8 August 1974) is an English actor. Life and career. Cilenti was born in Bradford, to Italian parents. He is married to the actress Sienna Guillory, with whom he has appeared in several films. The couple have two daughters, Valentina and Lucia Cilenti born in February 2011. After attending Bradford Grammar School, a degree in French and Spanish at the University of Nottingham followed and led to him working as a night porter and a bodyguard on the Cote D’Azur and in Mexico City respectively. He completed a one year postgraduate course in acting at Drama Studio London, after which he worked at The Duffer of St. George. His first professional acting role came in "Trial & Retribution", which led to the role of Grant in the world premiere of Liz Lochhead's "Perfect Days" at The Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh. Here he was spotted by Wendy Brazington who was casting Michael Winterbottom’s film "Wonderland" which at the time had the working title 'Snarl Up." Enzo played graphic artist Peter Saville on his second collaboration with Winterbottom: the Palme d'Or-nominated "24 Hour Party People". He has appeared in plays both on and off the West End, notably lead roles in Neil la Bute’s "The Shape Of Things" at The New Ambassadors Theatre, and the European premiere of the Pulitzer prize-winning play "Anna In The Tropics" at the Hampstead Theatre. He also performed at The Royal Court in a series of plays written and directed by Russian artists entirely in Russian; in Thai ballet as Orpheus in "Backpacker Orpheus", a play devised entirely from people’s experiences in the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake; and in conceptual theatre for new-writing company Paines Plough in a series of shows (including a one man show) commissioned over a number of seasons by Miuccia Prada to showcase collections for her Miu Miu line at Milan Fashion Week. Enzo also directed a short film called "Getalife", and is currently producing his first feature length movie "The Wicked Within", which he also wrote and stars in. His first novel, "Mediterranean Homesick Blues", co-written with Ben Chatfield, has just been published. Enzo appeared in "Kick-Ass 2" (2013) and will have a role in "Guardians of the Galaxy" (2014). He now lives and resides in London and Los Angeles.
1054502	Sam Riley (born 8 January 1980) is an English actor and singer best known for the performance in the 2007 biographical film "Control", about the life of Ian Curtis. Early life. Riley was born in Menston, West Yorkshire, the son of "a textile agent and nursery school teacher". He was educated at Uppingham School. He was turned down by both the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art ("LAMDA") and the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art ("RADA"). Career. Film. His breakthrough performance came when he played the role of Ian Curtis in the film "Control", a biopic about the lead singer of the 1970s post-punk band Joy Division. The film received high critical acclaim due in no small part to Riley's performance, which won him a selection of awards including the British Independent Film Award for "Most Promising Newcomer" a BAFTA "Rising Star" nomination; and a Mark Kermode nod for Best Actor 2007. Prior to his portrayal of Ian Curtis, Riley played the Fall frontman Mark E Smith in the Michael Winterbottom film "24 Hour Party People", which details the Factory Records era. His scenes, however, were omitted from the final cut. In September 2007, Riley was cast in Gerald McMorrow's British science fiction film "Franklyn". He starred as the lead role in "13", an English language remake of the French thriller "13 Tzameti" that has yet to have an American and European release. He played the role of Pinkie Brown in "Brighton Rock" alongside Helen Mirren, released 4 February 2011. He also starred in Walter Salles' film adaptation of Jack Kerouac's autobiographical "On the Road" playing the narrator and protagonist Sal Paradise. He also has a small role in the German comedy "Rubbeldiekatz" (2011) in which his wife Alexandra Maria Lara plays the female lead role. His role is listed as "Wagenmeister". In "Byzantium" (2012), a film directed by Neil Jordan, he plays alongside Gemma Arterton and Saoirse Ronan as "Darvell". Modelling. He featured in the autumn/winter 2008 publicity campaign for the British fashion house Burberry, devised and supervised by Christopher Bailey and shot by Mario Testino. Music. For a few years he was the lead singer of the Leeds band 10,000 Things, with whom he achieved moderate success. After their first release on indie label Voltage Records in 2002, they signed to major label Polydor for one self-titled album They disbanded in 2005. Personal life. He currently lives in Berlin with his wife and "Control" co-star Alexandra Maria Lara. They married in August 2009.
1063345	Bud Cort (born Walter Edward Cox; March 29, 1948) is an American film and stage actor, writer, and director widely known for his portrayals of Harold in Hal Ashby's 1971 film "Harold and Maude" and the titular hero in Robert Altman's 1970 film "Brewster McCloud". Both films have large cult followings today. Early life. Cort was born in New Rochelle, New York, but grew up in Rye, New York. His father, Joseph Parker Cox, was a bandleader and pianist, as well as a World War II veteran and merchant. His mother, Alma Mary Cox (née Court), was a reporter and a merchant, who also worked in MGM studios. Cort has four siblings—three younger sisters and one older brother. His parents ran a clothing business in downtown Rye from the 1950s until the mid-1980s. Most of Cort's adolescence was spent caring for his sisters and father; his father had multiple sclerosis and died of it in 1971. He also engaged in reading and painting. As a teenager he was a local portrait painting prodigy and began taking acting lessons. He was educated in Catholic schools and graduated from Iona Preparatory School in New Rochelle in 1966. Career. Cox (renamed Cort, since the name Wally Cox was already taken) was discovered in a revue by director Robert Altman, who subsequently cast him in two of his movies, "MASH" and "Brewster McCloud", in which he played the title role. Cort next went on to his most famous role, as the suicide-obsessed Harold, in "Harold and Maude". Though the film was not particularly successful at the time of its release, it later gained international cult status and now is acclaimed as an American film classic. On Broadway, Cort appeared in the short-lived 1972 play "Wise Child" by Simon Gray. Cort was invited to live with the famous comedian Groucho Marx in his Bel-Air mansion, and was present at Marx's death in 1977. In 1979, Cort nearly died in a car accident on the Hollywood Freeway where he collided with an abandoned car blocking a lane into which he was turning. He broke an arm and a leg and sustained a concussion and a fractured skull. His face was severely lacerated and his lower lip nearly severed. Years of plastic surgery, substantial hospital bills, a lost court case, and the disruption of his career ensued. In 1989 he directed the "Hôtel de Paris" episode of the second series of the ZDF German television documentary series "Hotels", about famous hotels around the world. Cort has since appeared in a number of film, stage and TV roles: "Endgame", "He Who Gets Slapped", "Sledge Hammer!", "The Chocolate War", "The Big Empty", "Theodore Rex", "Dogma", "But I'm A Cheerleader", "Pollock", "The Twilight Zone", "The Secret Diary of Sigmund Freud" and "The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou". Cort lent his voice to the computer in the movie "Electric Dreams." Cort voiced Toyman, a Superman villain, over the course of various DCAU series including ', "Static Shock", and "Justice League Unlimited". He also voiced the character Josiah Wormwood in the animated television series ' Cort had a cameo appearance as himself in the "Arrested Development" episode "Fakin' It", hosting a daytime court show called "Bud Cort", a competitor to a similar daytime court show in the series called "Mock Trial with J. Reinhold". On the November 8, 2007 episode of "Ugly Betty", he made a guest appearance as the priest officiating at Wilhelmina Slater's ill-fated wedding. He guest-starred on "Criminal Minds" in the episode "Mosley Lane," playing a predator who, with his wife, was kidnapping young children. In an ironic homage to his most famous role, his character, when faced with imminent capture, was shown hanging in an apparent suicide. Then, in 2012, he appeared as the artist "Gleeko" in the episode "Exit Wound the Gift Shop" in the second season of Adult Swim's "Eagleheart".
402001	Gemma Louise Ward (born 3 November 1987) is an Australian fashion model turned actress. Born in Perth, Western Australia, Ward was first scouted at the age of 14, and made her Australian Fashion Week debut aged 15. She later became the youngest model to appear on the cover of the American edition of "Vogue", later appearing on the covers of both "Teen Vogue" and "Time". Ward's first major acting appearance was in the 2007 Australian film "The Black Balloon", and she has since also appeared in the horror film "The Strangers" (2008) and "" (2011). Early life. Gemma Ward was born on 3 November 1987 in Perth, Western Australia, the second of four children of Gary Ward, a doctor, and Claire, a nurse. She has an older sister, Sophie (who also became a model), and younger twin brothers, Oscar and Henry. She was educated at the Presbyterian Ladies' College and Shenton College. Gemma was the family clown whose ambition was acting. Her passion for acting was born in 1997, when she was cast as the witch in a school play of "Hansel and Gretel" at age ten. Ward's brush with modeling was an accidental one. She was discovered in 2002, at the age of fourteen, while accompanying her friends to the Australian modelling competition "Search for a Supermodel". As she said herself in a "Teen Vogue" interview, she ended up being scouted herself:
1073626	Craig Wasson (born March 15, 1954) is an American actor. His most notable appearance is a starring role in the 1984 Brian DePalma film "Body Double". Career. Wasson's first feature film was the 1977 suspense thriller "Rollercoaster". In 1978, he appeared in two films about the Vietnam war: first as a private in "The Boys in Company C" and then as a corporal in "Go Tell the Spartans". Craig starred in the short-lived 1980 TV series "Skag". In 1981, he played David Wanderely, a junior English professor in the film "Ghost Story", in which his character has a torrid sexual relationship with a mysterious woman he later realizes is a ghost seeking vengeance. In 1982, he was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for New Star of the Year - Actor for his performance in "Four Friends". He later starred as Jake Scully in the 1984 Brian De Palma suspense movie "Body Double". His other big role was as Dr. Neil Gordon in the hit 1987 horror film "". In 1989, Wasson starred as James Madison in "A More Perfect Union: America Becomes a Nation". His most recent movie role was in the 2006 film "Akeelah and the Bee". Wasson was featured as Doug Ebert in the soap opera "One Life to Live" in 1991. He has made guest appearances in a number of series, including "The Bob Newhart Show", "Phyllis", "Skag", "For Jenny with Love", "M*A*S*H", "Hart to Hart", "Walker, Texas Ranger", "Profiler", "The Practice", "Seven Days", "The Secrets of Isis" and "". Wasson is also a prolific reader for audio books, having narrated Stephen King's 2011 novel "11/22/63", and other books by Stephen King, as well as books by James Ellroy and John Grisham.
743906	Stephanie Caroline March (born ) is an American actress, best known for her portrayal of Alexandra Cabot on the television series "". Early life. March was born in Dallas, Texas, the daughter of John Abe March IV and wife Laura Len (née Irwin) and the sister of Charlotte. She has German, Dutch, Irish, and English ancestry. She attended Highland Park High School, the same high school Angie Harmon (of the original "Law & Order") attended; March was a sophomore when Harmon was a senior. She began performing in plays in high school. In 1996 she graduated from the School of Speech (now School of Communication) at Northwestern University, where she majored in Theater and Hispanic Studies and was a member of the Kappa Alpha Theta sorority. Career. At Northwestern, she played Helena in "A Midsummer Night's Dream" in Chicago, where she continued to pursue her stage career. In 1999, March made her Broadway debut in the highly acclaimed production of Arthur Miller's "Death of a Salesman", opposite Brian Dennehy. Her other career highlights include roles on the television series "Early Edition" and in the TV movie "Since You’ve Been Gone". She has also appeared in the Chris Rock comedy "Head of State" and the Brad Pitt/Angelina Jolie vehicle "Mr. & Mrs. Smith". March also appeared in a 2009 story arc on "Rescue Me" as a psychic. March posed for "Maxim Magazine" in 2000 and also performed in the Broadway premiere of Eric Bogosian's "Talk Radio", starring Liev Schreiber, in 2007. She more recently also starred in Howard Korder's "Boy's Life" alongside Jason Biggs. She also played Cissy Hathaway in the TV movie "Jesse Stone: Night Passage" (2006) starring Tom Selleck. March appeared in the 2009 film "The Invention of Lying" as the woman Ricky Gervais's character tells the world will end unless she has sex with him. "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit" and "Conviction". Her biggest career success to date has been her role as Assistant District Attorney Alexandra Cabot on the NBC crime drama "", a role she played from 2000 to 2003. She departed in the season 5 episode "Loss", when Cabot is shot and placed in witness protection. She returned to the series for a six-episode arc season in season 10 and then continued as a main character in season 11. After her departure near the end of season 11, she returned again in season 13 as a recurring character. March reprised her role as Cabot, now the Bureau Chief ADA of the homicide bureau, on the short-lived NBC courtroom drama "Conviction", which debuted in spring 2006. The show, which was part of the "Law & Order" universe, only lasted one 13-episode season before being cancelled. Personal life. March lives in New York City. She married celebrity chef Bobby Flay on February 20, 2005. She has appeared on four of Flay's Food Network shows—"Boy Meets Grill", "Grill It! with Bobby Flay", "Iron Chef America", and "Throwdown with Bobby Flay"—as a guest judge. March became a celebrity ambassador to World of Children Awards in January 2010. She gave up her birthday to World of Children on July 23, 2010, to raise money for the non-profit. Additionally, she serves as a board member for Safe Horizon, an organization that provides support, prevents violence, and promotes justice for victims of crime and abuse. March is a vocal advocate for women's rights and a supporter of Planned Parenthood. Her great-grandmother, Ruby Webster March, founded the West Texas Mother's Health Center in 1938, and the center is now a part of Planned Parenthood of West Texas.
1102468	An approximation is anything that is similar but not exactly equal to something else. The term can be applied to various properites (e.g. value, quantity, image, description) that are nearly but not exactly correct; similar, but not exactly the same. Although approximation is most often applied to numbers, it is also frequently applied to such things as mathematical functions, shapes, and physical laws. In science, approximation can refer to using a simpler process or model when the correct model is difficult to use. An approximate model is used to make calculations easier. Approximations might also be used if incomplete information prevents use of exact representations.
519916	José Sixto Raphael González Dantes (born August 2, 1980, Quezon City, Philippines), also known by his nickname Dingdong Dantes, is a Filipino television and film actor, director, presenter, print ads and commercial model, and movie producer. Dantes is currently working as an exclusive talent of GMA Network as of 2013. He manages his own film studio named "AgostoDos Pictures. Career. Early years. He is the son of José Sixto Z. Dantes, Jr. and Angeline González Dantes. Dantes began his career as a child model, appearing in a dairy product commercial when he was two years old. Several other commercials followed before he became part of an all-male dance group called Abztract Dancers, with his friend, actor Dino Guevarra, and his cousin, actor, Arthur Solinap. Their group became regulars on "Eat Bulaga!" and "That's Entertainment". As an actor, his first movie appearance was in "Shake, Rattle and Roll V" in an episode titled "Anino". After three years, he debuted on GMA Network's youth-oriented "T.G.I.S." when he was 17, under the name Raphael Dantes playing the role of Iñaki. He appeared in films like "Honey My Love So Sweet" and "I'm Sorry My Love", and television programmes including "Anna Karenina" and did a few guesting stints on ABS-CBN such as a "F.L.A.M.E.S." episode, a youth-oriented romantic-drama anthology with different love teams and stories that aired from 1996 to 2000. 2000–2001. In 2000, Dantes appeared in the sitcom "Super Klenk" with Ara Mina. In 2001, Dantes was paired with actress Tanya García as they top-billed GMA-7's primetime soap opera series "Sana Ay Ikaw Na Nga". The two headlined in another primetime romance-drama billing in 2003 titled "Twin Hearts". Dantes then took on several hosting jobs including beauty pageants such as the prestigious Binibining Pilipinas and GMA Network's reality artist search, "StarStruck", a role he retained for a few seasons, and the game show "Family Feud" before its transfer to Edu Manzano. Aside from his television stints, Dantes appeared in films including "Magkapatid" and "Pangarap Ko Ang Ibigin Ka". Dantes also hosts the suspense-thriller "Wag Kukurap", occasionally directing. He played King Ybrahim in the "Encantadia" fantasy-themed television saga and the 2006 film "Moments of Love". 2007–present. In 2007, Dantes portrayed the lead role Sergio to Marian Rivera's character, Marimar. During the same period, he was named No. 1 Bachelor of 2007 by "Cosmopolitan" magazine (Philippines). He won the USTV Students’ Choice Award for "Most Popular Actor in a Drama/Mini-series." In 2008, he was cast by his home studio to play the role of Fredo, love interest in "Dyesebel". In March 2008, he debuted as the Bench image model. On 22 August 2008, Dantes was chosen as one of the "25 Sexiest Men of the World" He holds the title as "The third sexiest man in the World." in the Entertainment Television special. Dantes was the only Filipino in the list and the highest-ranking Asian, placing third. Also in 2008, Dantes starred in "One True Love". The Cinema Evaluation Board of the Philippines rated the film a B. In early 2009, Dantes appeared on "Ang Babaeng Hinugot Sa Aking Tadyang". Dantes was chosen as Myx guest VJ in August 2009 to promote his album "The Dingdong Dantes Experience". The album turned gold one week after it was released on the variety show "SOP". Dantes was chosen to portray the role of "Cholo" in the Philippine adaptation of the Korean drama "Stairway To Heaven". He will replace Richard Gomez as the new host for "Family Feud". In 2010, Dantes was scheduled to release "You Are To Me Are Everything". He's part of Regine Velásquez and Ogie Alcasid U.S. tour mid May–June. He appeared in the television show "Endless Love" from 25 June to 15 October 2010. In 2010, Dantes became a cohost of Party Pilipinas on channel 7. He won the "Best Drama Actor Award" for "Stairway To Heaven" in the 2010 Star Awards for TV and was nominated for the same category at the 2010 Asian Television Awards. In 2011, Dantes did a comedy primetime TV series titled "I Heart You, Pare!" with his leading lady Regine Velasquez. He plays an obnoxious masculine man who falls with a heterosexual female played by Velásquez who, after a chance encounter, will meet again as she plays a drag who tries to run away from the law but both will fall in love unexpectedly. Until she reveals her secret, Regine Velásquez, left seven weeks before the series came to a close due to her revealed pregnancy to husband Ogie Alcasid, Dantes, leading lady is former TV and film leading lady Iza Calzado who replaced Velásquez in the series. He will be part of a Star Cinema suspense film "Segunda Mano" with Kris Aquino and Angelica Panganiban for the 2011 Metro Manila Film Festival. This marks Dantes' first project with rival station and film archive Star Cinema a division of ABS-CBN. This marks his first time to work with Kapamilya stars. He stated that he signed a one-film contract with Star Cinema to do the film and work with Kris Aquino. He is slated to do a primetime TV series "My Beloved" which is scheduled to air February 13, 2012. In June 2012 he was chosen to star in another MMFF Entry for 2012 in the film entry One More Try (film) starring Kapamilya actors Angelica Panganiban and Angel Locsin and Zanjoe Marudo this film is also Dingdong's second film with rival film arm Star Cinema of ABS-CBN and is also a comeback for Ruel S. Bayani after his critically acclaimed successful blockbuster film No Other Woman hit the Box-Office Last Year successfully the film is another adult themed drama and a comeback for then kapuso star Angel Locsin to work with the Kapuso star. November 2012- Dingdong Dantes stars in a primetime TV series "Pahiram Nang Isang Sandali" with Actress, Lorna Tolentino, Actor Christopher De Leon and Max Collins. Filmography. Television Specials. Report Card News and Public Affairs Education Special
582099	Sarfarosh (translation: "Martyr") is a 1999 Indian Hindi action drama film. It was directed by John Matthew Matthan and starred Aamir Khan, Sonali Bendre and Naseeruddin Shah. John started working on "Sarfarosh" in 1992. Seven years were spent on the research, pre-production and production till it finally released in 1999. The film dealt with an Indian police officer's fight to stop cross-border terrorism. The film was released at the time of the Kargil conflict when tensions between India and Pakistan were high. The film was critically successful and did well at the box office where it was declared "Super Hit". The film was remade in Kannada as "Sathyameva Jayathe" with Devaraj and in Telugu as "Astram" with Vishnu Manchu. Plot. The film opens with illegal arms trade taking place in India. An arsenal enters Indian territory via the state of Rajasthan, which makes its way to interior of India with help of many middlemen. Bala Thakur, a gun handler in Chandrapur, provides the arms to Veeran, a forest dwelling brigand. Later, Veeran and his gang attack a bus, mercilessly gunning down every person in it. The government appoints a Special Action Team in Mumbai to trace the roots behind the attack. The team learns about Bala Thakur, but thanks to his informants, Thakur flees before he can be apprehended. Meanwhile, ACP Ajay Singh Rathod, a resident of Mumbai, is attending a concert by the famed ghazal singer Gulfam Hassan, where he spots a familiar face, Seema. Ajay had a crush over Seema when they were studying in Delhi, but never got the courage to propose her. The duo are happy to meet each other again. Gulfam, on the other hand, is Indian by birth, but had to move to Pakistan as a child during partition. Deeply scarred due to the experience, he is still happy that the Government allows him to live in his palatial residence whenever he comes to India. Gulfam finds a huge fan in Ajay, who used to attend his programs as a child. Despite the age difference, the two bond. Inspector Salim is taken off from the Special Action Team when a notorious gangster Sultan escapes his clutches. Despite being an honest and upright police officer with the best intelligence gathering network in the force, Salim is rueful that he is being given a step motherly treatment because he is a Muslim. His anger at the system doesn't lessen when Ajay, who was his junior, is told to head the team. Ajay wants Salim on the team, but Salim refuses. It is revealed that Ajay's father and elder brother were going to testify against some criminals, but in an attempt to stop them from doing so, Ajay's elder brother was killed. Ajay's father was kidnapped and by the time the criminals spared him, the man had lost his voice. This made Ajay to join the police force. Unknown to Ajay, Gulfam is also working on the payroll of the bad guys. Since Gulfam likes Ajay, he sees to it that nothing untoward happens to latter. Here, Salim finds the location of Bala Thakur along with the information that Sultan, the man who escaped from his clutches, will also be there. Salim gives the information to Ajay. An encounter at the criminals' rendezvous results in the death of Bala Thakur and Ajay is seriously injured. Though Sultan and his right-hand man Shiva manage to escape, the operation is deemed a success as the team is able to intercept a large consignment of lethal arms and ammunition meant for terrorist acts around the country. While recuperating, Ajay has an epiphany which leads the team to Bahid in Rajasthan and to "Mirchi Seth" Rambandhu Gupt. The investigative team save for Ajay and Salim camp in Bahid and gather all possible information on Mirchi Seth. Ajay comes over to Bahid to investigate and meets Gulfam who is temporarily staying in his ancestral manor near Bahid. Gulfam attempts to derail the investigation through political means and ordering an assault on Ajay to subvert the investigation, but of no avail. The repeated failures on Gulfam's part displease the senior officers in Pakistani Intelligence, who dispatch Major Aslam Baig to take care of the business. Here, Ajay goes through the information collected so far and realises that he has seen many key suspects near Gulfam, but fails to make the connection. The investigative teams prepares for a final assault on the gun-running operation and in the pursuit of Mirchi Seth land up at Gulfam's mansion. Ajay feels betrayed when he learns of Gulfam's treachery, but is aware of lack of substantial evidence to indict Gulfam for his crimes. He goads and tricks Gulfam into killing Baig and arrests him for the offence. After realising what happened, Gulfam reveals how the incidents that happened during the partition embittered him and why he did those deeds. In retaliation, Ajay makes him realise that his actions are not benefiting people of any religion. After Ajay makes him see the error in his ways, Gulfam, unable to stand the humiliation and guilt, commits suicide. Gulfam's suicide is hushed up and the team returns triumphant to Mumbai to much accolades for busting the terrorist racket. At Mumbai Airport, Salim is tipped on the whereabouts of Veeran and Ajay embarks on another investigation with his team. Box office. "Sarosh" grossed 180 million in India and was declared a "Super-hit". Soundtrack. The film's music was composed by Jatin Lalit. Lyrics are penned by Israr Ansari, Nida Fazli, Sameer, and Indeevar. Mukul Deshpande of Planet Bollywood gave the album 9 stars stating, "The best thing about this score is the variety. We have a qawwali, some rock, a ghazal, and – of course – a lot of melody".
1245116	Flag Wars is a 2003 American documentary film about the conflict between two communities during the gentrification of a Columbus, Ohio neighborhood. Filmed in a cinéma vérité style, the film is an account of the tension between the two historically oppressed communities of African-Americans and gays in Columbus' Olde Towne East neighborhood. The film was nominated for an Emmy Award and won three awards, including a Peabody Award. Plot. "Flag Wars" is a look inside the conflicts that surface when black working-class families are faced with an influx of white gay homebuyers to their Columbus, Ohio neighborhood. Filmed over four years, "Flag Wars’" “as-it-is-happening” cinéma vérité style captures the emotions and honesty of unguarded moments as tensions mount between neighbors.
1635424	Leehom Wang (born May 17, 1976) is an American singer-songwriter, record producer, actor and film director. He is currently based in Taiwan. Formally trained at the Eastman School of Music, Williams College and Berklee College of Music, his musical style is known for fusing Chinese elements (such as Beijing opera, traditional styles of ethnic minorities, Chinese classical orchestra) with hip-hop and R&B. Wang has been active since 1995 and contributed in 25 albums. He is also a four-time winner of Taiwan's Golden Melody Awards, the "Grammys" of Taiwanese music. His concert at the Beijing Bird's Nest on April 14, 2012 was the first solo pop concert to be held at the venue. In addition to his music, Wang also acted in several films, including Ang Lee's "Lust, Caution" and Jackie Chan's film "Little Big Soldier". He is an environmental activist, and his album "Change Me" was dedicated to raising eco-awareness among Chinese youth. Wang was one of the first torchbearers for the Beijing 2008 Summer Olympics, and performed in the Olympics' closing ceremony in Beijing. He was again a torchbearer for the 2012 Summer Olympics in London, making him the only person in the Mandarin pop circle to have taken part in the event twice. He is a longtime ambassador for World Vision Taiwan and was appointed World Vision Malaysia's 15th anniversary ambassador (from October 2011 to September 2012). He was listed as one of Goldsea's "The 100 Most Inspiring Asian Americans of All Time". Life and music career. Childhood and early beginnings. Born in Rochester, New York, Wang is the second of three sons of immigrants from Taiwan of waishengren heritage. His father, a pediatrician, and his mother moved to the United States to further their college studies in the early 1960s. Influenced by his older brother, Leo Wang, who had been taking violin lessons since he was seven, Wang began to develop a curious interest towards the violin and its musical counterparts when he was three. He begged his mother to put him in violin lessons with his brother but his mother was against it, reasoning that he was too young. When Wang turned six, his mother enrolled him in violin classes, performing along with his brother. As he became a teenager, he began taking piano lessons, also teaching himself the guitar. He also worked several jobs to earn money to buy a second hand drum kit. He attended Jefferson Road Elementary School, Pittsford Middle School, and Pittsford Sutherland High School in Pittsford, New York. He graduated from Pittsford Sutherland. Passionate for a career in music, he chose to attend Williams College double majoring in music and Asian studies. He joined an all-male a cappella group, The Springstreeters, and the group recorded several demo tracks. In the summer of 1995, while Wang was visiting his grandparents in Taiwan, he was offered a professional recording contract by Bertelsmann Music Group (BMG) after he participated in a talent competition hosted by the label. Not wanting to lose the opportunity, he immediately began preparing for his debut, and released his debut album "Love Rival, Beethoven" (情敌贝多芬) that December. The record received little limelight, forcing him to leave the label. He signed with Decca Records the following year, a label then famous for producing "powerful singers" (實力派歌手) in Taiwan. Wanting to also have control in the idol market, the label initially planned to market Wang as the mainstream "romantic idol", like with their previous artist Mavis Fan. However, after discovering Wang's talent in music-making, Decca began promoting him as Taiwan's "quality idol" (優質偶像) instead. Wang released his second album "If You Heard My Song" in 1996, which included some of his own compositions. He co-wrote the album's eponymous title song, which earned positive responses from the audience. The album drew moderately successful sales, and he became a rising star in the idol market, also finding similar successes with his third and fourth albums. During this time, Wang was asked to leave his college studies to pursue a full-time singing career, but he insisted on finishing school first. Rise to prominence (1998–2000). Wang's contract with Decca records was terminated after the release of his fourth album "White Paper" in the summer of 1997. After graduating with honors at Williams College, he released his first award-winning album "Revolution" under Sony Music Entertainment in August 1998. The album became his breakthrough album, immediately selling over 10,000 domestic units in the first week of release. Critics rated the album highly, and it won Wang two Golden Melody Awards—Best Producer and Best Mandarin Male Singer. He was the youngest artist to win in either of the two categories. Wang has been nominated the Best Mandarin Male Singer at the awards every year since the success of "Revolution". The singles of "Revolution" also achieved similar success–"Revolution" became Wang Leehom's first #1 single, becoming one of the top 20 songs of the year on Channel V Taiwan. He continued his studies by attending Berklee College of Music's Professional Music program, with voice as his principal instrument. In 1999, Wang released his sixth album "Impossible to Miss You", which combined the catchy pop melodies of "Revolution" with a quirky style of new-found dance pop. It became his then best-selling album, selling over 1 million copies. All of the album's promotional singles topped KTV charts and yearly music charts, notably the upbeat "Julia" and the ballad "Crying Palm". His album also attracted international attention–Wang won three Best Male Vocalist awards at three different award ceremonies and was also awarded for his musical merit in the album at the 1st annual Asia Chinese Music Awards. At the beginning of the millennium, Wang began filming for several Cantonese-language Hong Kong blockbusters, which inspired him to study the Cantonese language. He included a Cantonese track, "Love My Song," in the Hong Kong release of "Forever's First Day" (2000), his seventh album. Unlike his previous two albums, "Forever's First Day" consisted mainly of melodic R&B tunes. The album's eponymous single is a tragic romantic ballad, speaking of a separation of two individuals. Although raised in New York for most of his life, living in Taiwan made Wang realize the deep roots of his Chinese heritage. "Forever's First Day" yielded a cover of his uncle's signature song "Descendants of the Dragon"; Wang re-arranged the song with heavier rock and dance elements. The song also included a rap bridge that summarized experiences of his parents living as a Chinese American in New York. International success (2001–03). Wang's next album, "The One and Only" (2001) received phenomenal international success. Selling over 1 million units in Asia, the rock-inspired album won him over seven different prestigious awards throughout 2001 and 2002. The album's title single "The One and Only" peaked #1 in almost all available music charts of Taiwan and was on the Ringback Tone #1 Download Charts for over a year, becoming his signature song. "The One and Only" also found success in Japan, opting him to release his first full-length Japanese album "The Only One" on May 9, 2003. The album only promoted one single, a Japanese version of "The One and Only", but it did not meet success on Japan's Oricon Charts. Wang also began filming several Japanese films, establishing his rising star status in Japan. Eager to experience and perform different musical genres, Wang embarked on his first Asia-wide concert tour "The Unbelievable Tour" a few months before the release of his ninth album "Unbelievable" (2003). His concert tour received great reviews from both fans and music critics; they were impressed and shocked with his new-found hip hop image. His R&B/hip hop-inspired album "Unbelievable" involved new urban pop numbers, drawing hip hop influences from different styles of popular music, such as Indipop and urban pop. The album marked a milestone in his musical career; his new image received international critical acclaim and the album a chart-topping success, selling over 1.5 million units by 2004. A celebratory version of the album was released three months later, also becoming a chart-topping album. The album's singles, notably the ballad number "You're Not Here" also experienced international success, ranking #1 on several music charts for over 10 weeks. "Unbelievable" yielded his second win for Best Producer of the Year at the Golden Melody Awards in 2004. Chinked-out (2004–06). Having established himself as one of the most important, influential, and prolific artists in Chinese music, Wang continued to invent and experiment with new sounds and voices. For most of 2004, he traveled to remote villages in China, collecting often unheard tribal sounds of aboriginal Chinese music, Tibetan music, and Mongolian music. With his younger brother Leekai as his assistant, they carried 15 kg of music equipment as he recorded these sounds, recording and producing his album on the way. He incorporated these sounds into R&B and hip hop music, coining the style as "chinked-out." Despite the derogatory nature of the term "chink," Wang had wanted to repossess the term and "make it cool." "Shangri-La" was released on the last day of 2004, selling an 40,000 copies within the first ten days of release. "Shangri-La" became an international music sensation, especially catching the attention of many youths in Asia. Within a month, the album sold over 300,000 copies, ultimately selling over 1.5 million units. Wang continued to infuse chinked-out elements into his next album "Heroes of Earth" (2005). Unlike the aboriginal tribal music heard in "Shangri-La", "Heroes of Earth" contained mixes of Beijing opera and Kunqu. Following the concept of "heroes," he collaborated with Ashin of Mayday ("Beside the Plum Blossoms"), Chinese American rapper Jin and opera master Li Yan ("Heroes of Earth"), and also K-pop artists Rain and Lim Jeong-hee ("Perfect Interaction"). "Heroes of Earth" was the fastest-selling album of both 2005 and 2006, selling over 1 million copies ten days after its release. Subsequently, the album stayed as #1 in the charts for six weeks, and remained in the charts for 23 weeks, ultimately becoming 2006's third best-selling album. By 2007, about 3 million units were sold, and has since been Wang's most commercially and critically successful album. The album earned Wang a Golden Melody Award for Best Mandarin Male Singer for the second time. Three months after the release of "Heroes of Earth", he began the "Heroes of Earth Tour", his first major world tour. The concert commenced with two shows per night in the Taipei Dome in March 2006, breaking Taiwan's concert attendance records. Professional breakthrough (2007–present). Wang took a break in working on his music to film "Lust, Caution" (2007), an espionage thriller film directed by Ang Lee. He released a promotional single "Falling Leaves Return to Roots" on June 20, 2007 through Hito Radio, a month before the release of his twelfth studio album, "Change Me". "Falling Leaves Return to Roots" incorporated Broadway-influenced musical elements, with classical instrumental accompaniments, such as the violin and piano. When asked about the sudden change of music style, Wang explained that the inspiration behind the song was due to the influence of his portrayal of Kuang Yumin in "Lust, Caution". "In the past, I have only been releasing mainstream pop and chinked-out related hip hop. "Lust, Caution" made me return to 1930's Shanghai, re-living the moment." "Change Me" was released on Friday, July 13, despite the superstition generally attached to Friday the 13th. Unlike his previous albums, "Change Me" mainly concentrates on pop rock, including influences of Broadway ("Falling Leaves Return to Roots") and old-school Taiwanese pop ("You Are a Song in My Heart"). Through this album, he promoted the issue of global warming and raised environmental awareness. The packaging of the album used only recycled paper and contained no plastic. He believed that small changes by each person can change the world. "To change the world, you start with changing yourself." Reviews of the album were generally positive, defining the album as "mature." An online album poll organized by China's Sohu, however, suggested that Wang's album did not meet expectations. Netizens remarked that his chinked-out productions were more impressive, although that genre itself has also been criticized. Nonetheless, over 1 million units were shipped on the first day of release. The album broke past 2 million sales, becoming one of Wang's best-selling albums. In August 2008, Wang sought US$320,000 in damages for plagiarism by Pritam, an Indian composer. The lead song for the movie "Race" (2008), composed by Pritam, was allegedly copied from "In the Depths of the Bamboo Forest," a single taken off from Wang Leehom's "Shangri-La" album. In November 2008, Wang was selected to conduct the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra for their 2008 annual grand finale, being the first Asian pop musician to conduct the orchestra. The concert "Hong Kong Music, Leehom Wang" (港樂‧王力宏) was held in the Hong Kong Cultural Centre for three nights, with four shows, receiving CNN International coverage throughout. Wang embarked on his second world tour, the "Music-Man Tour", in the latter months of 2008. The tour commenced with two shows per night in the Taipei Dome in September 2008, three months before the release of Wang's thirteenth studio album, "Heart Beat". "Heart Beat" was released on December 26, debuting at #3 on the weekly G-Music charts. The album peaked at #1 on its seventh week of release, ultimately staying on the charts for 17 weeks. Like Wang's previous album, "Heart Beat" showed a similar emphasis of rock influences. The album largely focused on guitar and electric guitar solos, which Wang also used for performances in most of the album's music videos. Wanting to continue a similar "chinked-out" element, the album's first single, "What's Up with Rock?!" incorporated rock influences with Chinese flavor. For the track, he worked with pipa artist Liu Fang, and the two concentrated on mixing both electric guitar elements and pipa strings into the song. On April 15, 2011, Wang Lee Hom took home the Best Male Singer (Hong Kong and Taiwan region), Best Album for "The 18 Martial Arts", and Best Newcomer Director Award for his directorial debut, Love in Disguise at the Global Chinese Music Awards. On September 7, 2011, it was announced that Wang hired Wong Fu Productions to direct his upcoming music video. On November 30, 2012, Wang received the 2012 MAMA (Mnet Asian Music Awards) for “Best Asian Artist”. On December 2, 2012, Wang Leehom surpassed actress Yao Chen to become the Chinese with most Weibo (the most popular micro-blog in China) fans. On April 21, 2013, Wang became the first Chinese singer invited to speak at Oxford Union at the University of Oxford. Musical style. Wang's music varies in style greatly from album to album. Although he is classified as an R&B artist, Wang Leehom demonstrates competence with many styles of music ranging from traditional Mandopop, Broadway, jazz, rock, R&B, gospel, acoustic, Indipop, hip-hop, to rap. Many of the styles are infused with a Chinese flavor. When he first debuted, he sang old school pop and acoustic R&B ballads. Starting from "Revolution" (公轉自轉), Wang began to test out R&B pop music, but quickly jumped to a quirky style of dance pop for "Impossible to Miss You" (不可能錯過你). Starting from "Forever's First Day" (永遠的第一天), he began composing rock songs with heavy electric guitar melodies and less emphasis on dance pop. Nonetheless, he still concentrated in light R&B music. "The One and Only" (唯一) became his only fully produced rock album. "Unbelievable" began a new road of music for Wang. Aside from the usual R&B grove, he contributed hip hop and rap that was not clearly emphasized in his past albums. "Not Your Average Thug" was a newly composed R&B style with a huge amount of American influence. "Can You Feel My World" was a different style of R&B, and the song contained great uses of the piano and violin as the accompaniment. Fast dance songs like "Ya Birthday" and "Girlfriend" () incorporated rapid rap and heavy drum rhythms. "Girlfriend" included a heavily emphasised chinese flute and a music style that is influenced by Indipop. "Shangri-La" was the first chapter of Wang's new style, chinked-out. Chinked-out is a new kind of musical style developed by Wang that involves modern "west" music of R&B, Hip Hop, rap, and Dance, along with "east" music of heavy Chinese instrument influences, more notably the koudi, tuhu, and ijac. "Deep Within the Bamboo Grove" () which emphasized samples of Tibetan Opera, and different minority tribes in Yunnan and other remote areas of China. "Heroes of Earth" displayed a different side to chinked out. Instead of ethnic minority music, Wang focused on Beijing opera and Kunqu. He used instruments such as the erhu, guqin, and guzheng to infuse his new album with another side of traditional Chinese sound. "Beside the Plum Blossoms" () dealt with fast kunqu melodies. In the last 50 seconds of the song, Wang rapped over 250 words, increasing in speed towards the middle and then slowed down. This was to emphasize the accelerating and descending beats of traditional Chinese opera. In addition to his chinked-out style of music, he is also noted for writing modern love ballads like "Forever Love", "Kiss Goodbye", "The One and Only" and most recently, "All the Things You Never Knew" (你不知道的事） which are sung with piano and string instrument accompaniments. Acting career. Wang had displayed interest in acting when he starred in several musical plays when he was in high school and college. In 2000, he made his feature film debut in the Hong Kong action crime thriller, "China Strike Force", starring alongside Aaron Kwok, Norika Fujiwara, and Ruby Lin. Hong Kong critics had remarked Wang for giving a well-toned performance as his first film. His next starring role was the 2001 Hong Kong science fiction film "The Avenging Fist" as the main character Nova. He then starred in two Japanese films "Moon Child" (2003) and "Starlit High Noon" (2005). The major breakthrough in his film career was in "Lust, Caution", directed and produced by Academy Award winner Ang Lee. The film is based on a novella written by Eileen Chang and revolves around a plot to assassinate a high-ranking Chinese official in the Wang Jingwei Government using a beautiful young woman as bait. Wang plays Kuang Yumin, a patriotic college student who persuades Wong Chia-chi (Tang Wei) to seduce Mr. Yee (Tony Leung). The film was released in the U.S. cinemas on 28 September 2007. "Lust, Caution" was produced on a budget of approximately $15 million and grossed $64,574,876 worldwide. In 2009, Wang was selected to star with Jackie Chan in "Little Big Soldier". In 2010, Wang stepped behind the camera to direct and star in, "Love in Disguise" (), also starring Liu Yifei and Joan Chen. "Love in Disguise" went on to become the highest grossing film for a first-time director in Chinese history grossing over 60,000,000 RMB domestically. In June 2013, Wang began filming for an untitled action thriller film, tentatively called Cyber, which is written, directed and produced by Michael Mann. In July 2013, Wang was announced to be starring in an adaptation of Stan Lee's"Annihilator". The film is a co-production between Magic Storm Entertainment, who partners with Stan Lee’s POW! Entertainment banner and the Chinese state-run National Film Capital. Endorsements. Wang is one of the most highly visible celebrities in Asia due in no small part to his many product endorsements including: Coca-Cola, McDonald's, Sony Ericsson, Bausch & Lomb, Bosideng MAN, Garnier, Lay's Chips, Nikon, Brand's, Hyundai, and also Wahaha purified drinking water, which he has endorsed since 1999. Wang's Bausch & Lomb print advertisements and TV commercials featured prominently in the popular 2008-2010 TV series "Chou Nu Wu Di". The series, which took place at an advertising agency, was an adaptation of the 1999 Colombian telenovela "Yo soy Betty, la fea". Charitable events. Wang is also recognized for his effort and financial contributions to charity. He is active with Worldvision and has visited Laos and Sierra Leone in the last couple of years to raise awareness about the state of poverty in those countries. He personally sponsors over 20 underprivileged children throughout the world with NGO World Vision and frequently participates in the much needed fund-raising campaigns for disaster relief such as the massive earthquake at Sichuan (2008) and Typhoon Marakot in Taiwan (2009). In 2003, he and David Tao composed a song titled Hand in Hand (sung by over 80 celebrities in Taiwan) to promote support and courage to those affected by SARS. Participation in 2008 Beijing Olympic Games. Wang was chosen as one of the torchbearers to run in Greece. He was torchbearer number 17 on March 24, the first day of the torch relay. He also attended the torch lighting ceremony before his run. Wang took the torch from Liu Hongliang, son of the first Chinese to attend the Olympic games, Liu Changchun. He represented the newest generation of singers from Taiwan and China. He was chosen mainly because he is devoted to helping save the environment, as shown in his latest album "Change Me". Another reason he was chosen is due to Wang's enthusiasm in the 2008 Olympic Games Theme Songs Competition. His single One World One Dream was chosen as an Olympic Games participation song. The single was written, sung, produced, and scored entirely by himself. He sang along with Jackie Chan, Stephanie Sun, and Han Hong in the song for "The One Man Olympics" which was about the first Chinese to be in the Olympics. He also sang in the 100 days countdown theme song Beijing Welcomes You. He also sang alongside Stefanie Sun, Wang Feng, and Jane Zhang in the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games Torch Relay Theme Song, Light The Passion, Share The Dream. He is also one of the candidates on vote for performer of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games Theme Song. In the closing ceremony, he sang "Beijing Beijing, I Love Beijing" alongside Hong Kong singer Kelly Chen and Korean singer Rain.
1162101	Randolph Mantooth (born September 19, 1945) is an American character actor of stage, film and television. Mantooth is best known for his work in the 1970s medical drama, "Emergency!", as Johnny Gage, a Los Angeles County Fire Department paramedic. He is also known for his work on the E! Network's program "Talk Soup" alongside host John Henson, and for having appeared in various soap operas starting in 1987. History. Mantooth, the oldest of four children, was born in Sacramento, California, to Sadie and Donald (Buck) Mantooth. He is half Seminole. Because of his father's job in the construction industry, Mantooth's family lived in 24 states, finally settling in Santa Barbara, California, where he grew up. Even as a child, Mantooth was fascinated with acting. He attended San Marcos High School, where he further cultivated his passion in drama, which led him to become an actor. He graduated from high school in 1964 and then the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York City, with a major in drama. One of his earlier jobs was as an elevator operator at the Madison Ave. Baptist Church and as a page at NBC Studios at Rockefeller Center in New York City. His very first paying job in life was as a newspaper boy for the local paper, the "Coatesville Record", in Coatesville, Pennsylvania. Mantooth was spotted by Universal Studios’ talent agent Eleanor Kilgallen playing the lead in the play "Philadelphia Here I Come", in New York. His performance as Gar earned him the Charles Jehlenger Award for Best Actor, an honor he shared with fellow actor Brad Davis. In 1970, he was offered a contract with Universal Studios. He moved back to California, where he guest-starred in a variety of shows. Producer Robert A. Cinader saw him in a small role on "The Bold Ones" opposite Hal Holbrook that led to his decision to cast him as Los Angeles County Firefighter/Paramedic Johnny Gage on the long-running TV series, "Emergency!", which shot him to stardom, from 1972 to 1979, starring opposite Robert Fuller, Julie London, Bobby Troup and Kevin Tighe, who would become best friends for life. Mantooth said in one interview that when he was growing up, he alongside his family was a big fan of Julie's music, despite the fact his father didn't meet her. When he, alone, finally met the popular singer/movie icon on "Emergency!", she was also Randy's surrogate mother, mentor and dearest friend, who took him under Mantooth's wing. Second-only to Tighe, he was absolutely close to London. He also has the greatest hits compilation of her music. In a recent interview, he said about himself being influenced by her, as an on-screen nurse, "Lot of salty language, though; and we learned every bad word from Julie London. I'm quite serious! I loved her to death; but, she herself said, 'I'm a broad!,' I loved her." He also added of London's languid personality off-camera, "She was the potty-mouth of the "Emergency!" group, and she said the reason that she was, is because she was a girl and she can get away with it!" On the set, he and co-star Tighe both developed a close relationship with both London and Troup, on- the set, while off- the "Emergency!" set, he and Tighe spent a lot of time with Julie's and Bobby's family on weekends. On October 18, 2000, his longtime friend, co-star and TV nurse, London, died almost two years after her husband, co-star and TV doctor, Bobby Troup had died. After "Emergency!", Mantooth appeared in the mini series adaptation of "The Seekers" in 1979-80, based on the John Jakes novel. Afterwards, wanting to break the pigeon-hole he felt he was in playing the very popular Johnny Gage he decided to make a move back to where his career started. He moved back to New York where he appeared as Clay Alden (later Alex Masters) on the soap "Loving", which he played from 1987 to 1990 and from 1993 to 1995, reprising his role as Alex Masters on "The City" from 1995 to 1997.
635854	Dominic Zamprogna (, ) (born April 21, 1979) is a Canadian actor. He is perhaps best known for his roles on television series "Edgemont" and "General Hospital". Early life. Zamprogna was born in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. His parents operated a dance school and his father, Lou Zamprogna, was a dancer, choreographer, and ran an acting school at Theatre Aquarius. Zamprogna is the brother of Gema Zamprogna and twin of Amanda Zamprogna (both are actresses). He is of Italian and English descent. As a child, Dominic enjoyed soccer and basketball and wanted to become an athlete. He had some roles as a child; including F/X2 and the popular series "Are You Afraid of the Dark?", in which he played Rush from The Tale of Cutter's Treasure part 1 and part 2" Career. In 1997, at the age of 18, Zamprogna appeared in the movie The Boys Club, and two years later in the TV series Edgemont. He also appeared in 9 episodes of Battlestar Galactica and in several films. He attended the University of Toronto briefly but left, later noting "I was no good at school work." Zamprogna currently appears in ABC's daytime soap-opera "General Hospital" as Dante Falconeri. Personal life. On November 1, 2009, Zamprogna married his longtime girlfriend, Linda Leslie, in Los Angeles, California. His wife gave birth to their daughter, Anbilliene, on October 19, 2010. They welcomed their second daughter, Eliana, on December 30, 2012.
1062705	Easy Rider is a 1969 American road movie written by Peter Fonda, Dennis Hopper, and Terry Southern, produced by Fonda and directed by Hopper. It tells the story of two bikers (played by Fonda and Hopper) who travel through the American Southwest and South. The success of "Easy Rider" helped spark the New Hollywood phase of filmmaking during the early 1970s. The film was added to the Library of Congress National Registry in 1998. A landmark counterculture film, and a "touchstone for a generation" that "captured the national imagination," "Easy Rider" explores the societal landscape, issues, and tensions in the United States during the 1960s, such as the rise and fall of the hippie movement, drug use, and communal lifestyle. In "Easy Rider" real drugs were used in scenes showing the use of marijuana and other substances. Plot. The protagonists are two freewheeling hippies: Wyatt (Fonda), nicknamed "Captain America", and Billy (Hopper). Fonda and Hopper said that these characters' names refer to Wyatt Earp and Billy the Kid. Wyatt dresses in American flag-adorned leather (with an Office of the Secretary of Defense Identification Badge affixed to it), while Billy dresses in Native American-style buckskin pants and shirts and a bushman hat. The former is appreciative of help and of others, while the latter is often hostile and leery of outsiders. After smuggling cocaine from Mexico to Los Angeles, Wyatt and Billy sell their contraband to "Connection," a man (played by Phil Spector) in a Rolls-Royce and score a large sum of money. With the money from the sale stuffed into a plastic tube hidden inside the Stars & Stripes-adorned fuel tank of Wyatt's California-style chopper, they ride eastward in an attempt to reach New Orleans, Louisiana, in time for Mardi Gras. During their trip, Wyatt and Billy meet and have a meal with a rancher, whom Wyatt admires for his simple, traditional farming lifestyle. Later, the duo pick up a hitch-hiker (Luke Askew) and agree to take him to his commune, where they stay for a day. Life in the commune appears to be hard, with young hippies from the city struggling to grow their own crops in a dry climate with poor soil and little rainfall. (One of the children seen in the commune is played by Fonda's four-year-old daughter Bridget). At one point, the bikers witness a prayer for blessing of the new crop, as put by a communard: A chance "to make a stand", and to plant "simple food, for our simple taste". The commune is also host to a traveling theater group that "sings for its supper" (performs for food). The notion of "free love" appears to be practiced, with two women seemingly sharing the affections of the hitch-hiking communard, and who then turn their attention to Wyatt and Billy. The hitch-hiker wants the two bikers to stay at the commune, saying, "the time is now", to which Wyatt replies "I'm hip about time...but I just gotta go." As the bikers leave, the hitch-hiker (known only as "Stranger on highway" in the credits) gives Wyatt some LSD for him to share with "the right people". Later, while jokingly riding along with a parade in a small town, the pair are arrested by the local authorities for "parading without a permit" and thrown in jail. In jail, they befriend American Civil Liberties Union lawyer and local drunk George Hanson (Jack Nicholson) who has spent the night in jail after overindulging in alcohol. George helps them get out of jail, and decides to travel with Wyatt and Billy to New Orleans. As they camp that night, Wyatt and Billy introduce George to marijuana. As an alcoholic and a "square", George is reluctant to try the marijuana ("It leads to harder stuff", and "I don't want to get hooked"), but he quickly relents. While attempting to eat in a small rural Louisiana restaurant, the trio's appearance immediately attracts the attention of the locals. The girls in the restaurant want to meet the men and ride with them, but the local men and police officer make mocking, racist, and homophobic remarks. One of the men menacingly states, "I don't believe they'll make the parish line." As the waitress does not take their order Wyatt, Billy, and George leave without eating and make camp outside of town. The events of the day cause George to comment: "This used to be a hell of a good country. I can't understand what's gone wrong with it." He observes that Americans talk a lot about the value of freedom, but are actually afraid of anyone who truly exhibits it. In the middle of the night, the local men find the trio asleep and brutally assault them with clubs. Billy manages to scare off the attackers by yelling and brandishing a knife. Wyatt and Billy suffer minor injuries, but George has been bludgeoned to death. Wyatt and Billy wrap George's body up in his sleeping bag, gather his belongings, and vow to return the items to his parents. They continue to New Orleans and find a brothel George had intended to visit. Taking prostitutes Karen (Karen Black) and Mary (Toni Basil) with them, Wyatt and Billy decide to go outside and wander the parade-filled street of the Mardi Gras celebration. They end up in a cemetery, where all four ingest the LSD which the hitch-hiker had earlier given to Wyatt. They experience a psychedelic bad trip infused with Catholic prayer represented through quick edits, sound effects, and over-exposed film. Making camp afterward, Billy declares that their trek has been a success. Wyatt disagrees, declaring, "We blew it." The next morning, the two are continuing their trip eastward to Florida (where they hope to retire wealthy) when two rednecks in a pickup truck spot them and decide to "scare the hell out of them" with their shotgun. As they pull alongside Billy, one of the men lazily aims the shotgun at him and threatens and insults him by saying, "Want me to blow your brains out?" and "Why don't you get a haircut?" When Billy flips his middle finger up at them, the hillbilly fires the shotgun at Billy, who immediately hits the pavement, seriously wounded in the side. As the truck then takes off past Wyatt down the road, Wyatt turns around and races back to put his jacket over his critically injured friend, who is already covered in blood, before riding off for help. By this time, the pickup truck has turned around and closes on Wyatt. The hillbilly fires at Wyatt as he speeds by the pickup, hitting the bike's gas tank and causing it to instantly erupt into a fiery explosion. Wyatt lands by the side of the road, apparently dead. As the murderous rednecks drive away, the film ends with a shot of the flaming bike in the middle of the deserted road, as the camera ascends to the sky. Production. When seeing a still of himself and Bruce Dern in "The Wild Angels", Peter Fonda had the idea of a modern Western, involving two bikers travelling around the country and eventually getting shot by hillbillies. He called Dennis Hopper, and the two decided to turn that into a movie, "The Loners", with Hopper directing, Fonda producing, and both starring and writing. They brought in screenwriter Terry Southern, who came up with the title "Easy Rider". The film was mostly shot without a screenplay, with ad-libbed lines, and production started with only the outline and the names of the protagonists. Keeping the Western theme, Wyatt was named after Wyatt Earp and Billy after Billy the Kid. During test shooting on location in New Orleans, Hopper fought with the production's ad hoc crew for control. At one point he entered into a physical confrontation with photographer Barry Feinstein, who was one of the camera operators for the shoot. After this turmoil, Hopper and Fonda decided to assemble a proper crew for the rest of the film. Allegedly, the characters of Wyatt and Billy were respectively based on Roger McGuinn and David Crosby of The Byrds. According to Terry Southern's biographer, Lee Hill, the part of George Hanson had been written for Southern's friend, actor Rip Torn. When Torn met with Hopper and Fonda at a New York restaurant in early 1968 to discuss the role, Hopper began ranting about the "rednecks" he had encountered on his scouting trip to the South. Torn, a Texan, took exception to some of Hopper's remarks, and the two almost came to blows, as a result of which Torn withdrew from the project. Torn was replaced by Jack Nicholson, whom Hopper had recently appeared with in "Head" (along with another "Easy Rider" co-star, Toni Basil). In 1994, Jay Leno interviewed Hopper about "Easy Rider "on "The Tonight Show", and during the interview, Hopper alleged that Torn had pulled a knife on him during the altercation, prompting Torn to sue Hopper successfully for defamation. The hippie commune was recreated from pictures and shot near Santa Monica, California overlooking Malibu Canyon, since the New Buffalo commune near Taos in Arroyo Hondo, New Mexico did not permit shooting there. A short clip near the beginning of the film shows Wyatt and Billy on Route 66 in Flagstaff, Arizona, passing a large figure of a lumberjack. That lumberjack statue—once situated in front of the Lumberjack Cafe—remains in Flagstaff, but now stands inside the J. Lawrence Walkup Skydome on the campus of Northern Arizona University. A second, very similar statue was also moved from the Lumberjack Cafe to the exterior of the Skydome. Most of the film is shot outside with natural lighting. Hopper said all the outdoor shooting was an intentional choice on his part, because "God is a great gaffer." The production used two five-ton trucks, one for the equipment and one for the motorcycles, with the cast and crew in a motor home. One of the locations was Monument Valley. The restaurant scenes with Fonda, Hopper, and Nicholson were shot in Morgan City, Louisiana. The men and girls in that scene were all Morgan locals. In order to inspire more vitriolic commentary from the local men, Hopper told them the characters of Billy, Wyatt, and George had raped and killed a girl outside of town. The scene in which Billy and Wyatt were shot was filmed on Louisiana Highway 105 North, just outside of Krotz Springs, Louisiana, and the two other men in the scene—Johnny David and D.C. Billedeau—were Krotz Springs locals. While shooting the cemetery scene, Hopper tried to convince Fonda to talk to the statue of the Madonna as though it were Fonda's mother (who had committed suicide when he was 10 years old) and ask her why she left him. Although Fonda was reluctant, he eventually complied. Later, Fonda used the inclusion of this scene as leverage to persuade Roger McGuinn to allow the use of his cover of Bob Dylan's "It's Alright, Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)". Despite being filmed in the first half of 1968, roughly between Mardi Gras and the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy, with production starting on February 22 the film did not have a U.S. premiere until July 1969, after having won an award at the Cannes film festival in May. The delay was partially due to a protracted editing process. Inspired by ""', one of Hopper's proposed cuts was 220 minutes long, including extensive use of the "flash-forward" narrative device, wherein scenes from later in the movie are inserted into the current scene. But only one flash-forward survives in the final edit: when Wyatt in the New Orleans brothel has a premonition of the final scene. At the request of Bob Rafelson and Bert Schneider, Henry Jaglom was brought in to edit the film into its current form, while Schneider purchased Hopper a trip to Taos so he would not interfere with the recut. Upon seeing the final cut, Hopper was originally displeased, saying that his movie was "turned into a TV show", but he eventually accepted, claiming that Jaglom had crafted the film the way Hopper had originally intended. Despite the large part he played in shaping the film, Jaglom only received credit as an "Editorial Consultant". Motorcycles. The motorcycles for the film, based on hardtail frames and panhead engines, were designed and built by two African-American chopper builders—Cliff Vaughs and Ben Hardy—following ideas of Peter Fonda, and handled by Tex Hall and Dan Haggerty during shooting. In total, four former police bikes were used in the film. The 1949, 1950 and 1952 Harley Davidson "Hydra-Glide" bikes were purchased at an auction for $500, equivalent to about $ in current money. Each bike had a backup to make sure that shooting could continue in case one of the old machines failed or got wrecked accidentally. One "Captain America" was demolished in the final scene, while the other three were stolen and probably taken apart before their significance as movie props became known. The demolished bike was rebuilt by Dan Haggerty and shown in a museum. He sold it at an auction in 2001. It now resides at the National Motorcycle Museum in Anamosa, Iowa. Many replicas have been built since the film’s release. Hopper and Fonda hosted a wrap party for the movie and then realized they had not shot the final campfire scene. Thus, it was shot after the bikes had already been stolen, which is why they are not visible in the background as in the other campfire scenes. Significance. A box office smash with a $41 million intake (becoming the third highest grossing film of 1969), along with "Bonnie and Clyde" and "The Graduate", "Easy Rider" helped kick-start the New Hollywood phase during the late 1960s and early 1970s. The major studios realized that money could be made from low-budget films made by avant-garde directors. Heavily influenced by the French New Wave, the films of the so-called "post-classical Hollywood" came to represent a counterculture generation increasingly disillusioned with its government as well as the government's effects on the world at large, the Establishment. Although Jack Nicholson appears only as a supporting actor and in the last half of the film, the standout performance signaled his arrival as a movie star, along with his subsequent film "Five Easy Pieces" in which he had the lead role. The film's success, and the new era of Hollywood that it helped usher in, gave Hopper the chance to direct again with complete artistic control. The result was 1971's "The Last Movie", which was a notable box office and critical failure, effectively ending Hopper's career as a director for well over a decade. Awards and honors. Hopper received the First Film Award ("Prix de la première œuvre") at the 1969 Cannes Film Festival. At the 42nd Academy Awards, Jack Nicholson was nominated for Best Actor in a Supporting Role, and the film was also nominated for Best Writing, Story and Screenplay Based on Material Not Previously Published or Produced. The film appears at number 88 on the American Film Institute's list of 100 Years, 100 Movies. In 1998, "Easy Rider" was added to the United States National Film Registry, having been deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant." Music. The movie's "groundbreaking" soundtrack featured The Band, The Jimi Hendrix Experience, and Steppenwolf. Editor Donn Cambern used various music from his own record collection to make watching hours of bike footage more interesting during editing. Most of Cambern's music was used, with licensing costs of $1 million, more than the film's budget. When CSN viewed a rough cut of the film, they assured Hopper that they could not do any better than he already had. Bob Dylan was asked to contribute music, but was reluctant to use his own recording of "It's Alright, Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)", so a version performed by Byrds frontman Roger McGuinn was used, instead. Also, instead of writing an entirely new song for the film, Dylan simply wrote out the first verse of “Ballad of Easy Rider” and told the filmmakers, “Give this to McGuinn, he’ll know what to do with it.” McGuinn completed the song and performed it in the film. Home media. The film was released by The Criterion Collection in November 2010 as part of the box set, "America Lost and Found: The BBS Story". It included two audio commentaries, one featuring actor-director-writer Dennis Hopper, the other Hopper, actor-writer Peter Fonda, and production manager Paul Lewis, "Born to Be Wild (1995) and “Easy Rider”: Shaking the Cage" (1999), documentaries about the making and history of the film, television excerpts showing Hopper and Fonda at the Cannes Film Festival, and a new video interview with BBS cofounder Steve Blauner.
1038048	Sir Nigel Barnard Hawthorne, CBE (5 April 1929 – 26 December 2001) was an English actor, perhaps best remembered for his role as Sir Humphrey Appleby, the Permanent Secretary in the 1980s sitcom "Yes Minister" and the Cabinet Secretary in its sequel, "Yes, Prime Minister". For this role he won four BAFTA Awards during the 1980s in the 'Best Light Entertainment Performance' Category. In the 1990s he won two more BAFTAs, one as Best TV Actor for "The Fragile Heart", and one as Best Film Actor for "The Madness of King George". His role in the latter garnered him an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor. He is also an Olivier Award and Tony Award winner for his work in the theatre. Early life. Hawthorne was born in Coventry, Warwickshire, England, the son of Agnes Rosemary (née Rice) and Charles Barnard Hawthorne, a physician. He grew up in South Africa, where he was educated at St George's Grammar School, Cape Town and Christian Brothers College. He enrolled at the University of Cape Town but withdrew and returned to the United Kingdom in the 1950s to pursue a career in acting. Career. Hawthorne made his professional stage debut in 1950, playing Archie Fellows in a Cape Town production of "The Shop at Sly Corner". He made his Broadway debut in 1974 in "As You Like It". He returned to the New York stage in 1990 in "Shadowlands" and won the 1991 Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play. In a long and varied career, which began with an advert for Mackeson Stout and a bit part in "Dad's Army", his most famous roles were as Sir Humphrey Appleby, the Permanent Secretary of the fictional Department of Administrative Affairs in the television series "Yes Minister" (and Cabinet Secretary in its sequel, "Yes, Prime Minister"), for which he won four BAFTA awards during the 1980s, and as King George III in Alan Bennett's stage play "The Madness of George III" (for which he won a Best Actor Olivier Award) and the film version entitled "The Madness of King George", for which he received an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor and won the BAFTA Film Award for Best Actor. He won a sixth BAFTA for the 1996 TV mini-series "The Fragile Heart" Hawthorne was also a voice actor, and lent his voice to two Disney films. In 1985, he voiced Fflewddur Fflam in "The Black Cauldron", and in 1999, he voiced Professor Porter in "Tarzan". On hearing of Hawthorne's death, Alan Bennett described him in his diary: "Courteous, grand, a man of the world and superb at what he did, with his technique never so obvious as to become familiar as, say, Olivier's did or Alec Guinness's." Honours. He was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 1987, and was knighted in 1999. Personal life and death. An intensely private person, he was upset at having been involuntarily "outed" as gay in 1995 in the publicity surrounding the Academy Awards, but he did attend the ceremony with his long-time partner Trevor Bentham, speaking openly about being gay in interviews and his autobiography, "Straight Face", which was published posthumously. Hawthorne had several operations for pancreatic cancer, although his immediate cause of death was from a heart attack, aged 72. He was survived by his partner, Trevor Bentham, and buried at the Parish Church of Thundridge near Ware, Hertfordshire.
1042522	Anthony Edward Lowry "Tony" Britton (born 9 June 1924) is an English actor. He is the father of presenter Fern Britton, scriptwriter Cherry Britton and actor Jasper Britton. Life and career. Britton was born above the Trocadero public house in Temple Street, Birmingham, England, the son of Doris Marguerite (née Jones) and Edward Leslie Britton. He attended Edgbaston Collegiate School, Birmingham and Thornbury Grammar School, Gloucestershire. During World War II he served in the Army and he also worked for an estate agents and in an aircraft factory. He joined an amateur dramatics group in Weston-super-Mare and then turned professional, appearing on stage at the Old Vic and with the Royal Shakespeare Company. He has appeared in numerous British films from the 1950s onwards, including such classics as "Operation Amsterdam" (1959), "Sunday Bloody Sunday" (1971) and "The Day of the Jackal" (1973). Britton won the Broadcasting Press Guild Award for Best Actor in 1975 for "The Nearly Man". From 1983 to 1990, he starred with Nigel Havers and Dinah Sheridan in the BBC sitcom, "Don't Wait Up". His other sitcoms appearances include "...And Mother Makes Five" and "Robin's Nest". Britton and his first wife Ruth (née Hawkins) had two children, scriptwriter Cherry Britton and TV presenter Fern Britton. Cherry is married to children's TV presenter Brian Cant. Fern is married to Phil Vickery. Britton's second wife is Danish sculptor and member of the wartime Danish resistance Eva Castle Britton (née Skytte Birkfeldt). They have one son, actor Jasper Britton.
711814	Madeline Rose Zima (born September 16, 1985) is an American actress. She is best known for her six years as Grace Sheffield on the TV series "The Nanny" (1993–1999) or more recently as Mia Lewis on the Showtime comedy-drama "Californication" (2007–2011) and as Gretchen Berg on "Heroes" (2009–2010). Early life. Zima was born in New Haven, Connecticut, to Marie and Dennis Zima. She has two younger sisters, Vanessa and Yvonne, both of whom are also actresses. Her surname means "winter" in Polish and comes from her maternal grandfather, who was from Poland. Career. Zima began her career at the age of 24 months when she was chosen as a toddler to appear in a television commercial for Downy fabric softener. She played the role of Grace Sheffield on the television show "The Nanny" for six years. Zima has become known for her work in films such as "The Hand That Rocks the Cradle", "A Cinderella Story", "Dimples", "Looking for Sunday", "Once in a Very Blue Moon" and "Legacy". In 2007, Zima played Mia Lewis, a sexually precocious and conniving 16-year old, on the series "Californication". Zima returned for a second season of "Californication" in 2008. In promotion of Mia's book, "Fucking & Punching", Zima starred in several "Californication" webisodes that are featured on YouTube. In 2009, Zima joined the cast of "Heroes" as Gretchen Berg, Claire Bennet's quirky bisexual roommate and tentative love interest. She stars as Jill in the 2009 release "The Collector". She will co-star on the upcoming ABC drama series "Gilded Lillys" created and produced by Shonda Rhimes. In 2012 it was announced Zima will portray Charlotte in an upcoming episode of "The Vampire Diaries". Awards and nominations. She was nominated three times for a YoungStar Award at the YoungStar Awards, in 1995, 1997 and 1999 all of them for Best Performance by a Young Actress in a Comedy TV Series for "The Nanny" (1993). She was also nominated thirteen times for a Young Artist Award at the Young Artist Awards:
1602037	Louis Bertrand Castel (15 November 1688 – 9 January 1757) was a French mathematician born in Montpellier, and entered the order of the Jesuits in 1703. Having studied literature, he afterwards devoted himself entirely to mathematics and natural philosophy. He wrote several scientific works, that which attracted most attention at the time being his "Optique des couleurs" (1740), or treatise on the melody of colors. He also wrote "Traité de physique sur la pesanteur universelle des corps" (1724), "Mathématique universelle" (1728), and a critical account of the system of Sir Isaac Newton in 1743. Work in Optics. It was in 1740 that Louis Bertrand Castel published a criticism of Newton's spectral description of prismatic colour in which he observed that the colours of white light split by a prism depended on the distance from the prism, and that Newton was looking at a special case. It was an argument that Goethe later developed in his Theory of Colours. The Ocular Harpsichord. Early on, Castel illustrated his optical theories with a proposal for a "Clavecin pour les yeux" ("Ocular Harpsichord", 1725). While the treatise and the illustration were apparently forgotten, he continually developed the idea. It was soon after the publication of his L'Optique des couleurs in the 1740s, that German composer Telemann went to France to see Castel's Ocular Harpsichord for himself. He ended up composing several pieces for it, and even wrote a book about it. .
1101456	Hermann Günther Grassmann (; April 15, 1809 – September 26, 1877) was a German polymath, renowned in his day as a linguist and now also admired as a mathematician. He was also a physicist, neohumanist, general scholar, and publisher. His mathematical work was little noted until he was in his sixties. Biography. Grassmann was the third of 12 children of Justus Günter Grassmann, an ordained minister who taught mathematics and physics at the Stettin Gymnasium, where Hermann was educated. Hermann often collaborated with his brother Robert. Grassmann was an undistinguished student until he obtained a high mark on the examinations for admission to Prussian universities. Beginning in 1827, he studied theology at the University of Berlin, also taking classes in classical languages, philosophy, and literature. He does not appear to have taken courses in mathematics or physics. Although lacking university training in mathematics, it was the field that most interested him when he returned to Stettin in 1830 after completing his studies in Berlin. After a year of preparation, he sat the examinations needed to teach mathematics in a gymnasium, but achieved a result good enough to allow him to teach only at the lower levels. In the spring of 1832, he was made an assistant at the Stettin Gymnasium. Around this time, he made his first significant mathematical discoveries, ones that led him to the important ideas he set out in his 1844 paper referred to as A1 (see references). In 1834 Grassmann began teaching mathematics at the Gewerbeschule in Berlin. A year later, he returned to Stettin to teach mathematics, physics, German, Latin, and religious studies at a new school, the Otto Schule. This wide range of topics reveals again that he was qualified to teach only at a low level. Over the next four years, Grassmann passed examinations enabling him to teach mathematics, physics, chemistry, and mineralogy at all secondary school levels. Grassmann felt somewhat aggrieved that he was writing innovative mathematics, but taught only in secondary schools. Yet he did rise in rank, even while never leaving Stettin. In 1847, he was made an "Oberlehrer" or head teacher. In 1852, he was appointed to his late father's position at the Stettin Gymnasium, thereby acquiring the title of Professor. In 1847, he asked the Prussian Ministry of Education to be considered for a university position, whereupon that Ministry asked Kummer for his opinion of Grassmann. Kummer wrote back saying that Grassmann's 1846 prize essay (see below) contained "... commendably good material expressed in a deficient form." Kummer's report ended any chance that Grassmann might obtain a university post. This episode proved the norm; time and again, leading figures of Grassmann's day failed to recognize the value of his mathematics. During the political turmoil in Germany, 1848–49, Hermann and Robert Grassmann published a Stettin newspaper calling for German unification under a constitutional monarchy. (This eventuated in 1871.) After writing a series of articles on constitutional law, Hermann parted company with the newspaper, finding himself increasingly at odds with its political direction. Grassmann had eleven children, seven of whom reached adulthood. A son, Hermann Ernst Grassmann, became a professor of mathematics at the University of Giessen. Mathematician. One of the many examinations for which Grassmann sat required that he submit an essay on the theory of the tides. In 1840, he did so, taking the basic theory from Laplace's "Mécanique céleste" and from Lagrange's "Mécanique analytique", but expositing this theory making use of the vector methods he had been mulling over since 1832. This essay, first published in the "Collected Works" of 1894–1911, contains the first known appearance of what are now called linear algebra and the notion of a vector space. He went on to develop those methods in his A1 and A2 (see references). In 1844, Grassmann published his masterpiece, his "Die Lineale Ausdehnungslehre, ein neuer Zweig der Mathematik" Theory of Linear Extension, a New Branch of Mathematics, hereinafter denoted A1 and commonly referred to as the "Ausdehnungslehre," which translates as "theory of extension" or "theory of extensive magnitudes." Since A1 proposed a new foundation for all of mathematics, the work began with quite general definitions of a philosophical nature. Grassmann then showed that once geometry is put into the algebraic form he advocated, the number three has no privileged role as the number of spatial dimensions; the number of possible dimensions is in fact unbounded. Fearnley-Sander (1979) describes Grassmann's foundation of linear algebra as follows: Following an idea of Grassmann's father, A1 also defined the exterior product, also called "combinatorial product" (In German: "äußeres Produkt" or "kombinatorisches Produkt"), the key operation of an algebra now called exterior algebra. (One should keep in mind that in Grassmann's day, the only axiomatic theory was Euclidean geometry, and the general notion of an abstract algebra had yet to be defined.) In 1878, William Kingdon Clifford joined this exterior algebra to William Rowan Hamilton's quaternions by replacing Grassmann's rule "epep" = 0 by the rule "epep" = 1. (For quaternions, we have the rule "i"2 = "j"2 = "k"2 = −1.) For more details, see exterior algebra. A1 was a revolutionary text, too far ahead of its time to be appreciated. Grassmann submitted it as a Ph. D. thesis, but Möbius said he was unable to evaluate it and forwarded it to Ernst Kummer, who rejected it without giving it a careful reading. Over the next 10-odd years, Grassmann wrote a variety of work applying his theory of extension, including his 1845 "Neue Theorie der Elektrodynamik" and several papers on algebraic curves and surfaces, in the hope that these applications would lead others to take his theory seriously. In 1846, Möbius invited Grassmann to enter a competition to solve a problem first proposed by Leibniz: to devise a geometric calculus devoid of coordinates and metric properties (what Leibniz termed "analysis situs"). Grassmann's "Geometrische Analyse geknüpft an die von Leibniz erfundene geometrische Charakteristik", was the winning entry (also the only entry). Moreover, Möbius, as one of the judges, criticized the way Grassmann introduced abstract notions without giving the reader any intuition as to why those notions were of value. In 1853, Grassmann published a theory of how colors mix; it and its three color laws are still taught, as Grassmann's law. Grassmann's work on this subject was inconsistent with that of Helmholtz. Grassmann also wrote on crystallography, electromagnetism, and mechanics. Grassmann (1861) set out the first axiomatic presentation of arithmetic, making free use of the principle of induction. Peano and his followers cited this work freely starting around 1890. Lloyd C. Kannenberg published an English translation of The Ausdehnungslehre and Other works in 1995 (ISBN 0-8126-9275-6. -- ISBN 0-8126-9276-4). In 1862, Grassmann published a thoroughly rewritten second edition of A1, hoping to earn belated recognition for his theory of extension, and containing the definitive exposition of his linear algebra. The result, "Die Ausdehnungslehre: Vollständig und in strenger Form bearbeitet" Theory of Extension, Thoroughly and Rigorously Treated, hereinafter denoted A2, fared no better than A1, even though A2's manner of exposition anticipates the textbooks of the 20th century. Response. One of the first mathematicians to appreciate Grassmann's ideas during his lifetime was Hermann Hankel, whose 1867 "Theorie der complexen Zahlensysteme" In 1872 Victor Schlegel published the first part of his "System der Raumlehre" which used Grassmann's approach to derive ancient and modern results in plane geometry. Felix Klein wrote a negative review of Schlegel's book citing its incompleteness and lack of perspective on Grassmann. Schlegel followed in 1875 with a second part of his "System" according to Grassmann, this time developing higher geometry. Meanwhile Klein was advancing his Erlangen Program which also expanded the scope of geometry. Comprehension of Grassmann awaited the concept of vector spaces which then could express the multilinear algebra of his extension theory. A. N. Whitehead's first monograph, the "Universal Algebra" (1898), included the first systematic exposition in English of the theory of extension and the exterior algebra. With the rise of differential geometry the exterior algebra was applied to differential forms. For an introduction to the role of Grassmann's work in contemporary mathematical physics see "The Road to Reality" by Roger Penrose. Adhémar Jean Claude Barré de Saint-Venant developed a vector calculus similar to that of Grassmann which he published in 1845. He then entered into a dispute with Grassmann about which of the two had thought of the ideas first. Grassmann had published his results in 1844, but Saint-Venant claimed that he had first developed these ideas in 1832. Linguist. Disappointed at the inability of others to recognize the importance of his mathematics, Grassmann turned to historical linguistics. He wrote books on German grammar, collected folk songs, and learned Sanskrit. His dictionary and his translation of the Rigveda (still in print) were recognized among philologists. He devised a sound law of Indo-European languages, named Grassmann's Law in his honor. "By demonstrating that Germanic actually was "older" in one phonological pattern than was Sanskrit, Grassmann undermined the position of Sanskrit as the language which was the earliest attainable in Indo-European linguistics. By this demonstration Grassmann also undermined the notion that language developed from an analytic to a synthetic structure through simple words without changing their form to make new words."--> These philological accomplishments were honored during his lifetime; he was elected to the American Oriental Society and in 1876, he received an honorary doctorate from the University of Tübingen. References and ciations. Extensive online bibliography, revealing substantial contemporary interest in Grassmann's life and work. References each chapter in Schubring.
586960	Yash Tonk is an Indian actor from Sonipat District, Haryana. He was brought up in a middle-class family at Hisar, Haryana where his father works as Chief Security officer in Haryana Agricultural University, Hisar. He studied at Campus School in Hisar. He is married to Gauri Yadav; they were a popular couple on the TV show "Nach Baliye 2" and they made it to finals. They have a daughter.
1074145	The King of Marvin Gardens is a 1972 American drama film. It stars Jack Nicholson, Bruce Dern, Ellen Burstyn and Scatman Crothers. It is one of several collaborations between Nicholson and director Bob Rafelson. The majority of the film is set in a wintry Atlantic City, New Jersey, with cinematography by László Kovács. The title alludes to the Marven Gardens in Margate, NJ as well as to one of the properties in the game Monopoly (original version). Plot. David and Jason are estranged siblings, the former a depressive late-night radio talk-show host, the latter an extrovert con man. When Jason drags his younger brother and his (Jason's) bitter aging beauty-queen squeeze, Sally, to a dreary Atlantic City and into a real-estate scam, events spiral toward tragedy.
1456230	Plata quemada () is a 2000 Argentine film directed by Marcelo Piñeyro, and written by Piñeyro and Marcelo Figueras. The film won, among other awards, the Goya Award for "Best Spanish Language Foreign Film" in 2001. The picture stars Leonardo Sbaraglia, Eduardo Noriega, Pablo Echarri, Leticia Bredice, Ricardo Bartis, Héctor Alterio, and others. It is based on Ricardo Piglia's 1997 "Planeta" prize-winning novel of the same name (but translated into English as "Money to Burn") that was inspired by a true story of a famous bank robbery in Buenos Aires in 1965. The film, a recreation of their now-legendary story, is an action thriller of the exploits and red-hot passion of two thugs. The work was partly funded by INCAA. Plot. The setting is Argentina, 1965. El Nene (Leonardo Sbaraglia), a petty thief, and Angel (Eduardo Noriega), a drifter, meet in the bathroom of a Buenos Aires subway station, and from that moment they are inseparable. They become known as "the twins", but their relationship is in fact that of lovers and, soon, as partners in crime. At a point when their relationship is already turning difficult, the plot sets in. Their love and loyalty to each other is tested when "the twins" join a plan to hold up an armored truck together with a group of seasoned gangsters: their swaggering straight cohort Cuervo (Pablo Echarri), a sedative addict who's been carrying on an affair with the luscious Vivi (Dolores Fonzi); a 16-year-old nymphet; the trio's boss Fontana (Ricardo Bartis); and the elderly lawyer Nando (Carlos Roffé), who is past the days of any professional illusions and helps make connections to find a good team for the crime. Angel is wounded by police gunfire during the robbery, provoking Nene to kill all of the guards and police in a fit of rage. Two police officers are among the victims, and so the police of Buenos Aires start a major search for the culprits. They soon find a lead to Vivi's apartment, where the gang had been hiding out, but by this time, all except Vivi have escaped to neighboring Uruguay. The police force Vivi to give away their plans, and the search is broadened to Uruguay. Meanwhile, the gang needs to wait for new passports (to be arranged by a dubious character played by Héctor Alterio) for their escape from Uruguay. They take refuge in an empty apartment in Montevideo, but the organisation of the documents takes longer than originally planned. The waiting is especially hard on Nene: Angel—who is described as constantly "hearing voices" and seems to suffer a slight form of schizophrenia—has been rejecting intimate contact with Nene since at least the beginning of the escape, for reasons indirectly connected with his condition. Nene eventually decides to break curfew and "get some air", and he, Angel, and Cuervo go and enjoy themselves at a fair. That evening outside of the apartment is not their last though, partly because Angel continues to reject any contact and does not even speak to Nene anymore. On one evening, Nene ends up verbally and sexually abusing another gay person, but finally he meets the prostitute Giselle (Leticia Bredice) and starts a relationship with her, even mentioning a solo escape with her. When Nando is caught by the police, the group is forced to abandon their refuge. Fontana goes off on his own, but Nene brings Angel and Cuervo to hide out in Giselle's apartment before they leave the city at night. Angel had sensed that Nene had been cheating on him, and he soon understands where Giselle fits in. Before it can come to a fight, however, he also hears from Giselle that Nene still cares for him and suffered from his rejection. Giselle tells Nene that she has a cousin who lives near the border and she can arrange passage, but not for three men the police are after. She says that a couple, a man and a woman, will be able to get across easily. When she forces him to choose between her and Angel, he chooses Angel. Nene tells Giselle that he will find her and kill her if she turns them in. Despite his threats, Giselle goes straight to the police to turn in the gang. Before the group takes to their heels, police have already surrounded the building. At first, the trio believes they will be able to escape, thinking that the police will not endanger the haul (several million dollars) or the lives of a large number of policemen. In high spirits, the three of them set to defend the apartment and their freedom, while Nene and Angel rekindle their relationship and spend some short and erotic moments of mutual happiness. After the first wave of attacks, a contented Angel even says the "voices" he always heard have fallen silent. The group soon finds out, however, that there is no way out. Cuervo dies in an attempt to sally, and Nene and Angel remain waiting for the next wave of police attacks on the apartment. Seeing that they can save neither their own lives nor the money, they burn the entire haul in a final outburst of "joie de vivre." Finally, Nene catches a bullet and dies in Angel's arms. Angel still holds Nene and sends a volley of bullets in the direction of the approaching police every now and again, when the lights fade out and the audience is left with the sound of the final fusillade of the police machine guns. It is implied that Angel committed suicide by cop. Background. Filming locations. Filming took place in both Buenos Aires and Montevideo. Historical background. The film is based on the true story of a hold-up in Buenos Aires in 1965 and the subsequent flight of the criminals to nearby Montevideo. The film makes several changes about the main characters, usually following Ricardo Piglia's book. El Nene, whose real name was Brignone, was actually the educated son of a judge; in an interview he said that he never knew what would happen with the money. He described Dorda –renamed "Angel" in the film– as the most good-natured of the robbers, whereas Malito –"Fontana" in the film– supposedly evoked fear. From pictures of Malito, he was probably considerably younger than the character in the film. El Cuervo's real name was Mereles. The film has been said to be more authentic than Ricardo Piglia's book on which it was based. The dates indicated at the end of the film (28 September to 4 November 1965), however, are not entirely accurate as the final attack on the fugitives' hiding place in Montevideo took place on Saturday, 6 November 1965. Three days earlier, the fugitives had stolen a car to exchange it for the stolen one they had, and thereby had provoked a shooting with the Uruguayan police; the shooting had taken place next to the TV channel "canal 8" from Montevideo, which would later be the only channel with live coverage of the siege. In the siege, both El Nene and Dorda/Angel died; according to a police officer who was interviewed for a documentary about the events and the release of Piñeyro's film, the bodies of the two were found holding hands; they were, however, separated before the official police photographs were taken from the location. Both were half-naked and in underwear, in a pool of blood, as shown in the film. In contrast to the movie, El Cuervo/Mereles was mortally wounded, but did not die during the siege. Spat on, hit, kicked and insulted by the police, he was relocated to a public hospital, where he died a few hours later. The three were anonymously buried in the Northern Cemetery of Montevideo at 8am on Wednesday, 10 November 1965. Only El Nene's body was reclaimed by his family and transferred back to Argentina. In February 1966, Malito/Fontana was seen in Flores, a Buenos Aires neighborhood, and there shot by the police. Distribution. The film opened wide in Argentina on May 11, 2000. In the United States it opened on October 4, 2001, on a limited basis. The film was shown at various film festivals, including: the Toronto Film Festival, Canada; the Palm Springs International Film Festival, United States; the Berlin International Film Festival, Germany; and others. Awards. Wins Nominations
1055843	Hippie Hippie Shake is an unreleased British drama film produced by Working Title Films. The film is based on a memoir by Richard Neville, editor of the Australian satirical magazine "Oz", and chronicles his relationship with girlfriend Louise Ferrier, the launch of the London edition of "Oz" amidst the 1960s counterculture, and the staff's trial for distributing an obscene issue. "Hippie Hippie Shake" stars Cillian Murphy as Richard Neville, with Sienna Miller as Louise. British film production company Working Title began development of "Hippie Hippie Shake" in 1998, but the film was repeatedly delayed, changing directors and screenwriters. In September 2007, the film finally began principal photography. In 2011 Working Title said that the film will not be released in cinemas. Premise. "Hippie Hippie Shake" follows the love story of "Oz" editor Richard Neville and Louise Ferrier, as Neville and his cohorts launch the London edition of the radical magazine and are put on trial for publishing an obscene issue. The film serves as a metaphorical journey through the 1960s in London. Pre-production delays. In October 1998, British film production company Working Title Films announced the development of the film "Hippie Hippie Shake", based on "Hippie Hippie Shake: The Dreams, the Trips, the Trials, the Love-ins, the Screw Ups: The Sixties", a memoir by "Oz" magazine editor Richard Neville. Screenwriter Don Macpherson was hired to write the adapted screenplay for the film, which was slated to begin production in 1999, depending on Working Title's status following the breakup of PolyGram Filmed Entertainment.
1037087	Tamsin Olivia Egerton (born 26 November 1988) is an English actress and model best known for her roles as Chelsea Parker in the 2007 film "St Trinian's", Holly Goodfellow in the 2005 film "Keeping Mum" and Guinevere in the 2011 TV series "Camelot". Career. Egerton started her acting career age six, following her older sister, Sophia, to a local youth theatre, saying; "The whole reason I'm acting now is because I wanted to be doing what my big sister was doing". A year later, she appeared in a Royal Shakespeare Company musical production of "The Secret Garden", playing Mary. Egerton's other film credits include Sarah in "Driving Lessons" (2006) alongside Rupert Grint and Flora in "Knife Edge" (2008). She was to appear as Katrina in "Eragon", but the scenes which she featured in were removed from the final cut. Egerton starred as Princess Elenora in the TV children's series "". In 2001, she starred as the "young" Morgaine in the TV miniseries "The Mists of Avalon". She has also appeared on stage – in the RSC's musical version of "The Secret Garden". In 2009, Egerton appeared in the "St Trinian's" sequel, "". In 2011, she appeared in "Chalet Girl" alongside Felicity Jones, Ed Westwick and Bill Nighy, playing Georgie. In her second Arthurian role, Egerton plays Guinevere in the 2011 US Starz adaptation of the Arthurian legend, "Camelot", also starring Joseph Fiennes, Eva Green and Jamie Campbell Bower. Personal life. Egerton attended Ditcham Park School near Petersfield in Hampshire, where she says she was bullied. She also states she truanted, preferring to go to modelling shoots; "I played truant all the time. I was modelling so I'd go to shoots and call in sick." After finishing school at 16 with nine A-grade GCSEs, Egerton decided to pursue acting rather than going to university, saying, "At drama school, they like to take you apart and rebuild you but I don't want to change now." She had a brief job as a babysitter for three children. She previously shared a flat in Marylebone, Central London, with her "St Trinians" castmate Talulah Riley, whom she described as her "soulmate". She lived in Hampstead with theatre producer Jamie Hendry. She has cited Takeshi Kitano as her favourite film director, and said, "I’d love Takeshi Kitano to put me in a martial arts film so I’d have an excuse to practise all the time".
585168	Kai Kodukkum Kai is a Tamil film is directed by Mahendran starring Rajinikanth and Revathi. Revathi plays the role of a blind girl who is raped by the villain, and Rajini her husband forgives her for that and they continue to live together. Though the performance of Rajini was much appreciated, the movie turned out to be a family drama and was not received well by the fans. The movie was a box office disaster. Soundtrack. Lyrics: N.Kamarasan, Vali, Pulamaipithan, Gangai Amaran
581941	Dostana (, translation: "Friendship") is a 2008 romantic comedy film directed by Tarun Mansukhani starring Abhishek Bachchan, John Abraham and Priyanka Chopra in the lead roles. "Dostana" was filmed entirely in Miami, Florida. Filming began in March 2008, and it was released on 14 November 2008. It went on to become the eighth highest grossing film at the Indian box office in 2008. Plot. Sameer Kapoor (Abhishek Bachchan), a nurse, and Kunal Chopra (John Abraham), a photographer, bump into each other while looking for an apartment to rent. They fall in love with the same apartment; however, the owner refuses to sublet it to them as her niece, Neha Melwani (Priyanka Chopra), will stay in the apartment alone, and she doesn't want men living there with her. When a gay US soldier on the street mentions how much Sameer and Kunal remind him of his own relationship with his life partner, Sameer tries to convince Kunal to pretend to be lovers so that they may live in the apartment. Kunal initially refuses but, desperate for the apartment, he decides to agree to it. Their plan works and they move in. Neha, Kunal, and Sameer spend time together and become good friends. One day, Neha's boss, Murli 'M' (Boman Irani), announces that he is resigning his job as the editor of "Verve" magazine and will decide who should take his position. To impress her editor and get the job, Neha invites M for dinner at her house, telling him that she will introduce him to her gay friends. The evening turns out to be comedic. However, Sameer's mother finds out that her son might be gay and is not pleased. The next day at Neha's office, M announces that Abhimanyu Singh (Bobby Deol) will be the new editor. Neha, heartbroken that she wasn't promoted to editor, returns home where she is consoled by Sameer's mother. Kunal and Sameer then help Neha with a project given to her by Abhimanyu. While Kunal is out for a few days, Sameer takes Neha on a romantic outing. Later, he tries to tell Neha about their scheme and admit that he loves her, but she doesn't hear. Instead, Kunal overhears and stops him, admitting to Sameer that he also loves Neha. While they try to figure out what to do, Kunal suggests that Sameer meet him and Neha that night at a local dance bar. Instead, Sameer is tricked into a night with Neha's aunty and her friends while Kunal takes Neha to a romantic dinner and movie. The next morning, Sameer is furious with Kunal. Abhimanyu and Neha start dating, and Sameer and Kunal decide to team up to sabotage the relationship. Despite their efforts, Abhimanyu and Neha eventually fall in love. Sameer and Kunal redirect their efforts into frightening Abhi's son, Veer, about his future if his father should marry Neha. Neha discovers that Abhi plans to propose to her during a basketball game. She excuses herself and asks Kunal and Sameer what she should do. Kunal and Sameer are shocked and reveal to her that they are not gay and are in love with her. Meanwhile, Veer tells Abhi of his fears and begins to cry, asking his father not to marry Neha. During the game, Abhi hugs Neha and ends the relationship, citing Veer's discomfort. Neha tearfully kicks Kunal and Sameer out of the apartment and resigns from "Verve." A few months later, Kunal and Sameer go to court to collect their resident permits and realise that they miss Neha. They find her at a fashion show and try to apologise, but she refuses to see them. Abhi shows up, and Kunal asks when their wedding is. Neha tells him that they broke up because Veer wasn't comfortable with her. Kunal and Sameer then admit the truth about their manipulations, infuriating Abhi and Neha. Kunal and Sameer get on the stage and beg for Neha's forgiveness, with the crowd egging them on and asking them to get on their knees and give flying kisses to Neha. Then they are asked to kiss each other, and the guys refuse to do so. Neha and Abhi begin to turn away. At the last moment, Kunal forcibly kisses Sameer. Abhi is amazed and tells Neha that the guys were really her best friends, as he wouldn't have done that for her. Neha goes to them and they make up. Kunal and Sameer propose to Abhi for Neha. He agrees, and Neha and Abhi get married. Two months later, Neha, Kunal, and Sameer are sitting on the apartment's balcony, enjoying themselves. Neha asks them if they felt anything during their charade of pretending to be gay. Kunal and Sameer get defensive and Neha leaves saying, "sorry, touchy topic." Sam and Kunal, now alone, remember the kiss. Reception. Critical reception. The film review site Rotten Tomatoes gave the movie an aggregate 100% (fresh) rating, based on 5 reviews. Rony D'Costa of Box Office India gave it 3 stars out of 5, stating, "Dostana is fresh, frothy, naughty & a delightful romantic comedy. It's an ideal date movie". Bollywood Hungama gave it 4 stars out of 5, with Taran Adarsh commenting, "On the whole, DOSTANA is a winner all the way. In terms of content, it might just prove to be a trendsetter." The Times of India gave it 4 stars out of 5, stating, "Just for laughs, with a loose second half, "Dostana" boasts of some fine chemistry between the two lead players: Abhishek and John". The review at Rediff.com makes note of the elaborate sequences and the possibility of the film becoming a financial success. However, it also mentions that the film is flawed in its depiction of homosexuality, calling it a "crucial blunder". AOL India gave it 3 out of 5, with Noyon Jyoti Parasara calling "Dostana" "a fun film". Among other US critics, Frank Lovece of "Film Journal International" enjoyed it as a "colorful, delightfully dumb Bollywood 'gateway' movie" that "could be a perfect crossover vehicle for U.S. audiences". Referring to the thematically similar film "I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry", Lovece said "this reverse "La Cage aux Folles" ... is miles above Adam Sandler's Hollywood take on the topic". Critic and author Maitland McDonagh in MissFlickChick.com, placing the film in a larger context, analysed that it "trades in stereotypes about swishy queers, shallow horndogs, frustrated career girls, guilt-wielding (s)mothers and overbearing aunties who need to chill out and get laid. And you know what? It's pretty damned funny and oddly subversive. Yes, everyone learns a lesson about tolerance without actually embracing an alternative lifestyle, but any movie that can finagle two macho movie studs into a full-on smooch that doesn't devolve into slapstick gay panic is venturing into risky territory". Soundtrack. The film's soundtrack was composed by Vishal-Shekhar. The album met with an electrifying response from potential audiences. According to the statistics published on IndiaFM, Dostana debuted at No. 4 on its Top Ten Soundtrack Sales Chart. Listeners registered on the website reviewed the album favourably and "Dostana"'s music had an average rating of 4 stars out of 5. Reception. The soundtrack received generally positive reviews. Joginder Tuteja of IndiaFM stated that ""Dostana" is an excellent album from Vishal-Shekhar which does not carry a single number which doesn't work", giving the soundtrack 4 out of 5 stars. NDTV also gave the soundtrack 4 out of 5 stars stating that "that the soundtrack of the film will keep the cash registers ringing, with "Shut Up and Bounce" as an exception." Coincidentally most critics were in favour of every track apart from "Shut Up and Bounce," which they described as a huge disappointment considering it carried the tune played during the first promo of "Dostana". Some even said that it lacked originality and because of its familiar tune, comparisons were made between "Shut Up and Bounce" and "Kal Ho Naa Ho"'s "It's the Time to Disco". Another song "Maa da laadla" affirms that "Dostana" isn't just about soothing, pleasant numbers but also about celebration. Punjabi in flavour, the song has good beats and is sung by Saleem. The lyrics of the song, penned by Kumaar, are noteworthy. The track has a slight humorous essence as well. In cont,bast to IndiaFM and NDTV, Buzz18's Chandrima Pal gave the soundtrack 2.5 stars out of 5, stating that it "misses out on most of the spunk Vishal-Shekhar had in their previous works". Rediff's Sukanya Verma also gave the soundtrack 2.5 stars out of 5, stating that "although "Dostana"'s music is nice and peppy for the most part, it's nothing extraordinary." She even said that "Dostana" "certainly wasn't the best from Dharma Productions". ApunKaChoice.com has given it 3 out of 5 stars saying that it features some of the nicest groovy numbers. "The Times of India" has rated the soundtrack 3 out of 5 and mentioned that its cliche. Later, a video 'Maa Da Laadla - Remix' was released. It was also the ending theme for the movie. Controversy. Pritish Nandy, owner of Pritish Nandy Communications, filed a court case against Dharma Productions for using the song "Kuch Kum" without his permission. His allegations were that "Kuch Kum" was originally composed by Vishal-Shekhar for a film to be directed by Tarun Mansukhani under his banner, but the film never took off. Hence, Vishal-Shekhar used "Kuch Kum"'s composition in "Dostana", which apparently made Pritish Nandy, "livid" and caused him to "raise objections" against the use of the song. Instead of wasting time going to court, Dharma Productions decided to handle the situation by paying Nandy Rs. 30 million in compensation. Box office. "Dostana" performed well both in India and overseas markets. Its opening weekend gross in the USA was $645,604 whilst in the UK, it was the third biggest opener-only behind "Singh is Kinng" and "Race" with £341,665. As of 21 December 2008, the film had grossed $1,444,246 after a 37-day run at the UK box office alone with its total production budget of $2 million being almost covered. In the USA, the film had a total gross of $1,243,910 as of 11 December 2008, whereas in countries such as Australia, South Africa, New Zealand, Fiji, Malaysia, Netherlands and India the total gross was $16,650,664. In India, (as of 12 December 2008) the film had earned $14,718,754 which was 82% of its total gross. As of 11 December 2008, the film had a grossed $17,894,574 (which is just over Rs. 850 million) worldwide. Awards. Filmfare Award International Indian Film Academy Awards Stardust Awards Star Screen Awards Blu-ray release. Yash Raj Films released "Dostana" on Blu-ray on 14 December 2009. Sequel. In 2009 reports came out that director Tarun Mansukhani and Karan Johar are planning for a sequel of the film to cash in on its success, the sequel is titled "Dostana 2". It was reported that along with the existing cast of the film (excluding Priyanka Chopra and Bobby Deol) Johar has roped in Katrina Kaif, Arjun Rampal, Ritesh Deshmukh and Shreyas Talpade. Ritesh Deshmukh and Shreyas Talpade will play a real gay couple.
1100107	Kazimierz Kuratowski (February 2, 1896 – June 18, 1980) was a Polish mathematician and logician. He was one of the leading representatives of the Warsaw School of Mathematics. Biography and studies. Kazimierz Kuratowski was born in Warsaw, then part of the Russian Empire, on February 2, 1896. He was a son of Marek Kuratow, a barrister, and Róża Karzewski. He completed a Warsaw secondary school, which was named after general Paweł Chrzanowski. In 1913, he enrolled in an engineering course at the University of Glasgow in Scotland, in part because he did not wish to study in Russian; instruction in Polish was prohibited. He completed only one year of study when the outbreak of World War I precluded any further enrollment. In 1915, Russian forces withdrew from Warsaw and Warsaw University was reopened with Polish as the language of instruction. Kuratowski restarted his university education there the same year, this time in mathematics. He obtained his Ph.D. in 1921, in newly independent Poland. Doctoral thesis. In autumn 1921 Kuratowski was awarded the Ph.D. degree for his groundbreaking work. His thesis statement consisted of two parts. One was devoted to an axiomatic construction of topology via the closure axioms (Sur la notion de l'ensemble fini, "Fundamenta Mathematicae", 1/1920). This first part (republished in a slightly modified form in 1922) has been cited in hundreds of scientific articles. The second part of Kuratowski's thesis was devoted to continua irreducible between two points. This was the subject of a French doctoral thesis written by Zygmunt Janiszewski. Since Janiszewski was deceased, Kuratowski's supervisor was Wacław Sierpiński. Kuratowski's thesis solved certain problems in set theory raised by a Belgian mathematician, Charles-Jean Étienne Gustave Nicolas, Baron de la Vallée Poussin. Academic career until World War II. Two years later, in 1923, Kuratowski was appointed deputy professor of mathematics at Warsaw University. He was then appointed a full professor of mathematics at Lwów Polytechnic in Lwów, in 1927. He was the head of the Mathematics department there until 1933. Kuratowski was also dean of the department twice. In 1929, Kuratowski became a member of the Warsaw Scientific Society While Kuratowski associated with many of the scholars of the Lwów School of Mathematics, such as Stefan Banach and Stanislaw Ulam, and the circle of mathematicians based around the Scottish Café he kept close connections with Warsaw. Kuratowski left Lwów for Warsaw in 1934, before the famous Scottish Book was begun (in 1935), hence did not contribute any problems to it. He did however, collaborate closely with Banach in solving important problems in measure theory. In 1934 he was appointed the professor at Warsaw University. A year later Kuratowski was nominated as the head of Mathematics Department there. From 1936 to 1939 he was secretary of the Mathematics Committee in The Council of Science and Applied Sciences. During and after the war. During World War II, he gave lectures at the underground university in Warsaw, since higher education for Poles was forbidden under German occupation.
430792	David Patrick O'Hara (born 9 July 1965) is a Scottish actor. Life and career. O'Hara was born in Glasgow, Scotland, the son of Martha (née Scott) and Patrick O'Hara, a construction worker. He has appeared in many films and TV series, including a featured role in the U.S. series "The District", which he left after one season to return to Scotland. His memorable role as the 'mad' Irishman Stephen in "Braveheart" saw him become William Wallace's (Mel Gibson) trusted friend and guardian after proclaiming of Ireland, "It's my island". In 2006, O'Hara appeared as Fitzy, one of Jack Nicholson's chief mobsters in the Oscar winning film "The Departed". In June 2009, O'Hara was filming "The Tudors" in Dublin.
1064281	Edward "Eddie" Rubin Griffin (born July 15, 1968) is an American actor and comedian. He is best known for his role as Eddie Sherman on the sitcom "Malcolm & Eddie" along with co-star Malcolm-Jamal Warner, and his role in the 2002 comedy film "Undercover Brother" as the film’s title character. Early life. Griffin was born in Kansas City, Missouri, and raised by his single mother, Doris Thomas, a phone company operator. After attending high school in Kansas City, he enrolled as a biological engineering major at Kansas State University, but left after three months. Career. Acting career. Griffin starred in many films, including "The Meteor Man" (1993), ' (1999), "Double Take" (2001), "Undercover Brother" (2002), "John Q" (2002), "Scary Movie 3" (2003), ' (2005) and "Norbit" (2007). Later in 2007, Eddie starred alongside Steven Seagal in "Urban Justice" a thriller set in New Mexico. He also starred in the UPN television series "Malcolm & Eddie" (1996–2000). Stand-up career. He was ranked at number 62 on Comedy Central's list of the 100 Greatest Stand-ups of All Time. In 2011 Comedy Central released You Can Tell 'Em I Said It on DVD. It was 82 minutes of unedited and uncensored content. Other work. In addition to his acting credits, he also performed on two tracks from Dr. Dre's 1999 album, "2001", and the intro track from The D.O.C.'s 1996 album "Helter Skelter". He also has appeared on commercials for Miller Beer's Man Laws. Griffin is well known for his comedic routine of imitating Michael Jackson on crack cocaine. He also made an appearance on "Chappelle's Show" in the skit "World Series of Dice" as the character "Grits n' Gravy". Personal life. Griffin has been married three times. He married his first wife Carla in 1983 when he was 16 years old, They were together for 13 years. Griffin married his second wife, Rochelle, in 2002, but has since divorced. Griffin has nine kids and the oldest is 25 years old, Edward James Griffin, III. On September 8, 2011, Griffin married Nia Rivers. Car accident. In March 2007, Griffin participated in a charity race at Irwindale Speedway to promote the film "Redline", using a Ferrari Enzo owned by Daniel Sadek. During a practice run, Griffin accidentally hit the gas pedal instead of the brake and lost control of the Enzo, crashing hard into a concrete barrier. He walked away unscathed, but the $1.5 million supercar was badly damaged. Griffin later lashed out at reporters who claimed the crash was a publicity stunt. Discography. The Message Message in the Hat
1635334	Vanness Wu () is a Taiwanese American actor, singer, director, and producer. Early life. Wu was born on August 7, 1978 in Santa Monica, California and worked as a telemarketer upon graduating from high school, then moved to Taiwan shortly afterwards, "searching for more to life." He takes part in the Christian movement called the Moral Revolution, which emphasizes the importance of sexual intercourse only within marriage. Career beginnings. Wu starred as Mei Zuo (美作), one of the F4 members, in the Taiwanese drama series Meteor Garden. At the conclusion of the series, they continued to perform together and released three studio albums as the boy band F4. Before the series, he studied performance arts and acting classes in Hollywood, and became a polyglot, as he became fluent in Cantonese and Mandrin, as he can also speak English, Korean, Japanese and Spanish. In 2002, Wu was the second F4 member, after Vic Chou, to release his debut solo album, "Body Will Sing." The track, "我討厭我自己" (I Hate Myself) is listed at number 95 on Hit Fm Taiwan's "Hit Fm Annual Top 100 Singles Chart" (Hit-Fm年度百首單曲) for 2002. The album was awarded one of the "Top 10 Selling Mandarin Albums of the Year" at the 2002 IFPI Hong Kong Album Sales Awards, presented by the Hong Kong branch of IFPI. He has collaborated with Korean singer Kangta to produce one album, "Scandal" and is featured on singles by Beyoncé and Coco Lee. Wu has directed two music videos from his second album "V.DUBB", as well as a video for Nike's "This is Love" campaign in Hong Kong. He was also the executive producer, along with Terry Tye Lee, on the Nike track "She's Not Sorry." In addition, Wu has collaborated with other Chinese artists including Wang Lee Hom and made an appearance in Wang's music video for "Ai cuo." Opened up and performed alongside with Kanye West, for his Glow In The Dark Tour in Shang Hai. Wu has appeared in several Taiwanese dramas both with and without other members of F4, and has starred in three motion pictures. In 2009, Vanness performed in "Autumn's Concerto", which is one of the highest rating Taiwanese Idol Drama Wu’s third Chinese solo album "C'est La "V"" was released July 2011 under Universal Music Taiwan. It features international artistes such as Vic Chou from F4, Ryan Tedder from OneRepublic, and Knockin' was written by Bruno Mars and Justin Michael Besides Directing, Producing, Acting, and Singing. Van Ness is also creator/designer of his own Jewelry line 3.V.O.7. and Creative Director of Reebok (Greater China Division) On August 13, 2013, Wu married longtime girlfriend, Arissa Cheo. Discography. With Kangta & Vanness. 2006 - "Scandal" - Kangta & Vanness Collaboration
774030	The Whistleblower is a 2010 thriller film directed by Larysa Kondracki, written by Kondracki and Eilis Kirwan, starring Rachel Weisz. Inspired by actual events, the film tells the story of Kathryn Bolkovac, and premiered at the 2010 Toronto International Film Festival. It was distributed theatrically in the United States by Samuel Goldwyn Films in August 2011. Plot. Kathryn Bolkovac (Rachel Weisz) is a police officer from Lincoln, Nebraska who accepts an offer to work with the U.N. International Police in post-war Bosnia at a U.K. company called Democra Security (a pseudonym for DynCorp International). Upon fighting for the trial for a Muslim woman suffering from domestic abuse and succeeding, Kathryn is made head of the department of gender affairs. She becomes involved in the case of a young Ukrainian woman named Raya, who had recently been sold by her aunt's husband to a sex trafficking ring. She escapes and Kathryn sends her to a women's shelter specifically set up for the victims of sexual slavery. Through Raya's case, Kathryn is able to uncover a wide-scale sexual slavery and human-trafficking ring that various international personnel, including that of the U.S., have participated in. Furthermore, when she brings the scandal to the attention of the U.N., she discovers that they have covered it up in order to protect lucrative defense and security contracts. Kathryn finds allies in Madeleine Rees (Vanessa Redgrave) and Peter Ward (David Strathairn), authority figures who support her investigation.
1065137	Jennifer O'Neill (born February 20, 1948) is an American actress, model, author and speaker, known for her role in the 1971 film "Summer of '42" and modelling for CoverGirl cosmetics starting in the 1970s. Early life. O'Neill was born in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. O'Neill and her older brother Michael were raised in New Rochelle, New York, and Wilton, Connecticut. When she was 14, the family moved to New York City. On Easter Sunday, 1962, O'Neill attempted suicide because the move would separate her from her dog Mandy and horse Monty – "her whole world". That same year, she was discovered by the Ford modeling agency and put under contract. By age 15, she was appearing on the cover of "Vogue", "Cosmopolitan", "Seventeen" and other magazines, earning $80,000 a year in 1962 working as a fashion model in New York City. An accomplished rider, O'Neill won upwards of 200 ribbons at horse show competitions in her teens. She bought a horse with her modelling fees, Alezon, who balked before a wall at a horse show, breaking O'Neill's neck and back in three places, and giving her a long period of recovery. She attended New York City's Professional Children's School and the Dalton School in Manhattan, but dropped out to wed her first husband at age 17. Later, she moved on to films and worked in a number of television movies and series. Career. In 1968 O'Neill landed a small role in "For Love of Ivy". In 1970 she played one of the lead female roles in "Rio Lobo" starring opposite John Wayne.
1163515	Deanna Durbin (born Edna Mae Durbin, December 4, 1921c. April 20, 2013) was a Canadian singer and actress, who appeared in a number of musical films in the 1930s and 1940s, her singing voice being variously described as being light but full, sweet and unaffected. With the technical skill and vocal range of a legitimate lyric soprano, she performed everything from popular standards to operatic arias. Durbin made her first film appearance with Judy Garland in "Every Sunday" (1936), and subsequently signed a contract with Universal Studios. Her success as the ideal teenage daughter in films such as "Three Smart Girls" (1936) was credited with saving the studio from bankruptcy. In 1938, at the age of 17, Durbin was awarded the Academy Juvenile Award. As she matured Durbin grew dissatisfied with the girl-next-door roles assigned to her, and attempted to portray a more womanly and sophisticated style. The film noir "Christmas Holiday" (1944) and the whodunit "Lady on a Train" (1945) were, however, not as well received as her musical-comedies and romances had been. Durbin retired from acting and singing in 1949, and withdrew from public life. She married film producer-director Charles Henri David in 1950, and the couple moved to a farmhouse near Paris. Early life. Born Edna Mae Durbin at Grace Hospital in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, The daughter of James Allen Durbin and his wife Ada (née Read), who were originally from Manchester, England, she was taken to Hollywood when just a year old and began to sing children's songs as soon as she could talk. Her parents would become U.S. citizens after moving their family from Winnipeg to Southern California in 1923. By the time she was ten, her parents recognised that she had definite talent and took her to a singing teacher, leading her to sing in local entertainments. She was given the professional name Deanna at the beginning of her association with Universal Studios in 1936, when she was still 14 years old. Durbin had an older sister named Edith, who recognized Deanna's musical talents at an early age and helped Deanna to take singing lessons at Ralph Thomas Academy. This led to her discovery by MGM in 1935. In late 1936, Cesar Sturani, who was the General Music Secretary of the Metropolitan Opera, offered Deanna Durbin an audition. Durbin turned down his request because she felt she needed more singing lessons. Andrés de Segurola, who was the vocal coach working with Universal Studios (and himself a former Metropolitan Opera singer), believed that Deanna Durbin had an excellent opportunity to become an opera star. De Segurola had been commissioned by the Metropolitan Opera to watch her progress carefully and keep them advised. Durbin started a collaboration with Eddie Cantor's radio show in 1936. This collaboration lasted until 1938 when her heavy workload for Universal Studios made it imperative for Durbin to discontinue her weekly appearances on Cantor's radio show. Career. Durbin signed a contract with MGM in 1935 and made her first film appearance in a short subject, "Every Sunday" (1936), with another young contract player, Judy Garland. The film was to serve as an extended screen test for the pair as studio executives were questioning the wisdom of having two female singers on the roster. Ultimately Louis B. Mayer decreed that both girls would be kept, but by the time that decision was made, Durbin's contract option had elapsed. Durbin was quickly signed to a contract with Universal Studios and made her first feature-length film "Three Smart Girls" (also 1936). The film was an immediate success and established Durbin as a star. (Ironically, upon seeing "Every Sunday" with Garland and Durbin, producer Joe Pasternak at Universal was casting "Three Smart Girls" and wanted to borrow Garland from Metro. However, Garland was not available at the time. When Pasternak found out that Durbin was no longer with MGM, he cast her in the film instead.) It would take Garland three more years to become a star at "MGM" after the release of "The Wizard Of Oz" in 1939. This prompted a bit of a rivalry between the two singers for many years, mostly on Garland's part. According to Christopher Finch author of Garland's biography "Rainbow: The Stormy Life Of Judy Garland", Garland "regarded her rival as a rank amateur, however talented" and was known to do a cruel imitation of Durbin's singing posture at parties. When she appeared on such television talk shows as "The Jack Paar Program" and "The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson" in the 1960s, Garland would tell humorous anecdotes about Durbin's "one eyebrow". It was never revealed how Durbin felt about Garland. However, in the early 1950s when Garland was performing in England, she telephoned Durbin in France. When Durbin asked her what she was up to, Garland told her she was in Great Britain singing in concerts. Upon hearing that, Durbin was reported to have said, "My God, girl, are you still at it?". The huge success of Durbin's films was reported to have saved Universal from bankruptcy. In 1938 she received a special Academy Juvenile Award, along with Mickey Rooney. Joe Pasternak, who produced many of the early Deanna Durbin movies, said about her:
113248	Boogeyman 2 is a 2007 direct-to-video horror film directed by Jeff Betancourt and starring Danielle Savre. It is the sequel to the 2005 film "Boogeyman". Despite being a direct-to-DVD release, the film received a very rare theatrical run in some countries including Russia, Italy, Mexico and Venezuela. A sequel, "Boogeyman 3", was released on January 20, 2009. Plot. The film focuses on Laura Porter (Danielle Savre), who as a child witnessed both her parents being brutally murdered by a hooded man, along with her brother Henry (Matt Cohen). A decade later, she still is having trouble dealing with the traumatic event. She checks into a mental health clinic run by Dr. Mitchell Allen (Tobin Bell) and joins a therapy group under the care of Dr. Jessica Ryan (Renee O'Connor). Dr. Ryan has a fear of becoming comatose like her schizophrenic mother. Her brother Henry, who was in the same therapy group, seems to be doing fine and is seemingly cured. Henry goes off to a job interview. Laura gets comfortable with the group which consists of scotophobic Mark (David Gallagher), germaphobic Paul (Johnny Simmons), masochistic Alison (Mae Whitman), agoraphobic Darren (Michael Graziadei) who is scared of commitment and relationships, and Nicky (Chrissy Griffith), a bulimic girl who fears extreme weight gain. Laura struggles in facing her fear of the Boogeyman, the entity that Laura believes killed her parents. Then, the therapy group begins to get murdered, one by one. All of their deaths relate to their fears. Mark falls down the elevator shaft, trying to escape from the darkness when the lights go out, and is torn in half. The next is Paul, who accidentally eats a cockroach after finding them in his bag of chips. The killer, a mysterious man wearing a Boogeyman mask and cloak, then hands him a bottle of cleaning solution, which Paul drinks and burns a hole in his throat. Laura begins to suspect these were not accidents. The lights go out at the hospital and all that's left is Laura, Alison, Darren, Nicky, Dr. Ryan and Gloria, the receptionist. Gloria (Lesli Margherita) goes to the basement to check the lights. Alison is killed when the Boogeyman ties her to the bed and places maggots on her arms, which crawl into Alison's skin using the cuts, forcing her to cut them out, killing herself in the process.
1091444	Simon Newcomb (March 12, 1835 – July 11, 1909) was a Canadian-American astronomer and mathematician. Though he had little conventional schooling, he made important contributions to timekeeping as well as writing on economics and statistics and authoring a science fiction novel. Early life. Simon Newcomb was born in the town of Wallace, Nova Scotia. His parents were Emily Prince, the daughter of a New Brunswick magistrate, and itinerant school teacher John Burton Newcomb. John moved around teaching in different parts of Canada, particularly in different villages in Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island. Newcomb seems to have had little conventional schooling other than from his father and from a short apprenticeship to Dr. Foshay, a charlatan herbalist, in New Brunswick in 1851. Nevertheless, his father provided him with an excellent foundation for his future studies. Newcomb's apprenticeship with Dr. Foshay occurred when he was only 16. They entered an agreement that Newcomb would serve a five-year apprenticeship during which time Foshay would train him in using herbs to treat illnesses. For two years he was an apprentice but became increasingly unhappy and disillusioned with his apprenticeship and about Foshay's unscientific approach, realizing that the man was a charlatan. He made the decision to walk out on Foshay and break their agreement. He walked the to the port of Calais in Maine where he met the captain of a ship who agreed to take him to Salem, Massachusetts so that he could join his father. In about 1854, he joined his father in Salem (John Newcomb had moved earlier to the United States), and the two journeyed together to Maryland.
1063726	House of 1000 Corpses is a 2003 American exploitation horror film written, co-scored and directed by Rob Zombie, and starring Chris Hardwick, Rainn Wilson, Sid Haig, Bill Moseley, Sheri Moon Zombie, and Karen Black. The plot focuses on two couples who are held hostage by a sadistic backwoods family on Halloween. Zombie's directorial debut, the film is a combination of "The Texas Chain Saw Massacre" meets the "The Hills Have Eyes". Filmed in 2000, the film was originally bought by Universal Pictures, and a large portion of it was filmed on the Universal Studios backlots, but it was ultimately shelved by the company in fear that it would receive an NC-17 rating. The rights to the film were eventually re-purchased by Zombie, who then sold the film to Lions Gate Entertainment. It was released theatrically on April 11, 2003. Plot. On October 30, 1977, Jerry Goldsmith, Bill Hudley, Mary Knowles, and Denise Willis are two couples out on the road in hopes of writing a book on offbeat roadside attractions. When the four meet Captain Spaulding, a vulgar but friendly owner of a gas station and "Museum of Monsters & Madmen", they learn the local legend of Dr. Satan. As the four take off in search of the tree from which Dr. Satan was hanged, they pick up a young hitchhiker named Baby who claims to live only a few miles away. Shortly after, the vehicle's tire bursts in what is later seen to be a trap and Baby walks to her family's house along with Bill. Only moments later, Baby's half-brother, Rufus, picks up the stranded passengers and takes them to the family home. Soon following, the four friends meet Mother Firefly, Baby's mother; Otis Driftwood, Baby's adopted brother; Grampa Hugo, Baby's grandfather; and Baby's deformed giant half-brother, Tiny. While being treated to dinner, they discover that the family has their own weird Halloween traditions. Mother Firefly then explains that her ex-husband, Earl, had previously tried to burn Tiny alive along with the Firefly house. After dinner is over, the family puts on a Halloween show for their guests, where Baby offends Mary by acting flirtatiously towards Bill. After Baby is threatened, Mother Firefly tells the couples to leave and that their car is repaired. As they try to leave, though, they are attacked by Otis and Tiny, being taken as prisoners. Not long after, Otis creates a work of art out of Bill's body, Mary is tied up and abused, Denise is bed-bound and dressed up for Halloween and Jerry is scalped because he failed to guess Baby's favorite movie star. After Denise does not return home, her father, Don, calls the police to search for her. Two Deputy Sheriffs, George Wydell and Steve Naish, find the couples' abandoned car in a field with a tortured victim in the trunk. Don, who is an ex-cop, is called and arrives at the scene to go with the two Deputies to search for information. They arrive at the Firefly house and upon finding bodies, the three are quickly killed. Later that night, the three remaining teenagers are taken to an underground well (they are dressed as rabbits, a reference to something Otis had said earlier in the film about how "scared kids run like rabbits, run little rabbit, run!") and Mary manages to escape, only to be killed by Baby moments later. Meanwhile, Jerry and Denise are lowered into the underground chamber, where a number of feral figures pull Jerry away and leave Denise to find her way through the underground lair. As she journeys through the mysterious chambers and catacombs, she encounters Dr. Satan and a multitude of mentally handicapped patients. Dr. Satan has Jerry on his operating table, horribly gutting him through the back with needles. As Dr. Satan yells for his mutated assistant, revealed to be Earl, Mother Firefly's ex-husband, to capture Denise, she outwits the monstrous figure and escapes the underground chambers. Moments later, she is picked up by Captain Spaulding and passes out from exhaustion in the front seat, only for Otis to appear in the backseat with a knife. Denise suddenly wakes up, back in Dr. Satan's lair bound to a wall where she is cornered by Dr. Satan and screams in terror. Cast. The names of the villains were taken from the names of Groucho Marx characters ("Animal Crackers" "Captain Spaulding", "A Night at the Opera"s "Otis B. Driftwood", "Duck Soup"s "Rufus T. Firefly", and "A Day at the Races" "Hugo Z. Hackenbush", among others). While this was left as a subtle allusion in the first movie, the sequel "The Devil's Rejects" brought it out into the open, with the names becoming integral to the plot. Dr. Satan was inspired by a 1950s billboard-sized poster advertising a "live spook show starring a magician called Dr. Satan" that Zombie has in his house. Development and production. Rob Zombie had a very small list of credits in film at that point— he had done animation for the 1996 film, "Beavis and Butt-head Do America", tried to write a script for "", and directed some of his own music videos but little else. Zombie had designed a haunted maze attraction for Universal Studios; Bill Moseley, who later starred in the film, presented Zombie an award for his design in 1999. Back in the late 90's and in 2000, Rob Zombie was instrumental in reviving Universal Studios annual "Halloween Horror Night", which led to a friendship between him and the company. Zombie initially took his script for "House of 1000 Corpses" to Universal Pictures with his manager Andy Gould to pitch the project in January 2000. Aesthetically and in the film's script, Zombie drew from a number of influences, particularly from 1970s exploitation horror films and monster movies of the 1930s. With the company's interest in the film and past collaboration with Zombie, production began in May of that year. The film was shot on a 25 day shooting schedule in 2000. Two weeks were spent filming on the Universal Studios Hollywood backlots— the house featured in the film is the same house used in "The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas" (1982), and can be seen on Universal Studios' tram tours. The remaining 11 days of the shoot were spent on a ranch in Valencia, California. The starting budget was $3–4 million, but finished at $7 million. Release. The film was completed in 2000; Stacey Snider, then-head of Universal, called Zombie up for a meeting. Zombie feared Snider would give him money and say "go re-shoot everything". Snider feared the film would receive an NC-17 rating, which led to the company refusing to release the film. After several months of the film being shelved, Zombie was able to purchase the film rights back from Universal, and sell them to Lions Gate Entertainment. Box office. The film grossed $3,460,666 on its limited opening weekend and $2,522,026 on its official opening weekend. The film grossed $12,634,962 domestically and $4,194,583 in foreign totals. Altogether the film made a worldwide gross of $16,829,545. Critical reception. The film opened on April 11, 2003 without being pre-screened for critics. Those who viewed it gave it generally negative reviews. Frank Schrek of "The Hollywood Reporter" wrote that the film "lives up to the spirit but not the quality of its inspirations" and is ultimately a "cheesy and ultragory exploitation horror flick" and "strangely devoid of thrills, shocks or horror." "JoBlo.com" said "film slaps together just the right amount of creepy atmosphere, nervous laughter, cheap scares, fun rides and blood and guts to satisfy any major fan of the macabre." Clint Morris of "Film Threat" slammed the film as "an hour and a half of undecipherable plot" and found the film to be "sickening" overall. James Brundage of Filmcritic.com wrote that the film was simply "hick after hick, cheap scary image after cheap scary image, lots of southern accents and psychotic murders," and was "too highbrow to be a good cheap horror movie, too lowbrow to be satire, and too boring to bear the value of the ticket." Sequel. Zombie produced a sequel in 2005, "The Devil's Rejects". Sid Haig, Bill Moseley, Sheri Moon Zombie, and Matthew McGrory reprised their roles from "Corpses". Karen Black demanded a higher salary - which Zombie could not afford - to return as Mother Firefly; Leslie Easterbrook was approached and later cast as her replacement. Tyler Mane - who would later play Michael Myers in Zombie's "Halloween" and "Halloween II" - took over the role of RJ. The character of Grampa Hugo was removed entirely as Dennis Fimple died before "Corpses"' release. The sequel received mixed reviews, but the critical reception was generally better than its predecessor. The film's three leads, Haig, Moseley, and Moon Zombie, also appear as voices in Zombie's animated film "The Haunted World of El Superbeasto." Haig and Moseley made cameos as their characters from both films, Captain Spaulding and Otis B. Driftwood, respectively, while Sheri voiced one of the lead characters, Suzie X. Soundtrack. Zombie composed the film score with Scott Humphrey. It is isolated on the DVD as a separate audio track.
590928	Paluvayi Bhanumathi Ramakrishna (7 September 1925 – 24 December 2005) was a multilingual Indian film actress, director, music director, singer, producer, book writer and songs writer. Most of her works are in Telugu and Tamil languages. She was awarded the Padma Bhushan in 2003 for her contribution towards Indian cinema. Early life. She was born as third child to Saraswatamma and Bommaraju Venkata Subbaiah, in Doddavaram village of Prakasam district, near Ongole, Andhra Pradesh. She grew up watching her father performing stage shows. Her father, Venkatasubbiah, was a staunch lover of classical music and gave her early training in music. Career. Bhanumathi entered the film industry in 1935, and acted in over 200 films in Telugu and Tamil. She was also called as Ashtavadhani by the film industry people as she was a writer, actor, director, producer, singer, music director, editor and studio owner. She also had a good knowledge of Astrology and philosophy. Film career. She made her debut in Telugu cinema in 1939 as Kalindi in "Vara Vikrayam" (Telugu), directed by C. Pullaiah. She had acted in "Malathi Madhavam", "Dharma Patni" and "Bhaktimala". Her first popular film was "Krishna Prema". Her next popular film was "Swargaseema", a milestone film in her career. She later acted in many memorable movies like "Chakrapani", "Laila Majnu", "Vipranarayana", "Malliswari", "Batasari" and "Anthastulu". In 1953, she made her directorial debut with "Chandirani" (made simultaneously in Tamil, Telugu and Hindi). Her last film was made in 1998, entitled Pelli Kanuka. C. N. Annadurai gave her a title "Nadippukku Ilakkanam" (Grammar for acting) that suits her aptly. Even veteran actors Sivaji Ganesan and the later on Chief minister of Tamilnadu M.G.Ramachandran who acted with her were afraid on the sets of her bold and prolific versatility. For the movie Anthasthulu (1964), VB Rajendra Prasad had approached Bhanumati for the role of Akkineni Nageswara Rao’s sister. She liked the subject and agreed to do the film immediately. The crew booked a room in "Ritz-Carlton" in Hyderabad and she didn’t want to waste money, so she offered to stay at Sarathi Studios, which had an open area and snakes. The next morning she woke up with her nails bitten by rats. The director decided to cancel the shoot, VB Rajendra Prasad rushed to see Bhanumati applying iodine casually on the nails and asking when she could start work. While continuing with the shooting, she said, “If you cancel shoot for small things how will I be a Bhanumati (which means ‘shining like the sun’ in Sanskrit).” Apart from being an exceptional actress, she was also a very talented musician. She is one of the fine actress of Telugu film industry. She was adept in both Carnatic and Hindustani music. She gave voice to her songs despite it being the norm to use playback singers for actors. Some of her songs are still popular like "Pilichina biguvatara", "Kila Kila Navvulu", "Oh Pavurama", "Preme Nerama". She also provided music to a lot of her films. During her later years she served on various movie related organizations. She was a Member of State Film Awards Committee for two years. She was also a Visiting Professor at the Film Institute for one year. She was Member of Children Film Society for 5 years, from 1965 to 1970. Literary career. Bhanumati was also a talented writer with a number of short stories to her credit. Her autobiography "Nalo Nenu" was published in Telugu and later, released in English as Musings. Andhra Pradesh Sahitya Academy awarded her as the best short story writer for her popular short stories "Attagari Kathalu". She was a Member of Lalit Kala Academy for 5 years, and Sahitya Academy, Andhra Pradesh for 10 years. She served as Director and Principal of the Tamil Nadu Government Music College, Philanthropy. She was an eminent social worker who was closely associated with a number of Social Service Organizations. She was the founder member and treasurer of Madras branch of Altrusa International Inc., Chicago for lifelong starting from 1963. She was a life member of the 'Red Cross Society'. She established an educational institution named as "Dr. Bhanumathi Ramakrishna Matriculation School" at Saligramam, Chennai providing free education to the poor. Personal life. During the shooting of the film "Krishna Prema", she met P. S. Ramakrishna Rao, an assistant director for that film. He was a film producer, director and editor of Telugu and Tamil Films. The couple later married on 8 August 1943 and later launched a popular production company, Bharani Pictures on their son's name. She died at the age of 80 years in Chennai. Filmography. This is partial list of her films. Kindly help expanding it. Playback singer. Bhanumati gave her voice for herself and many actors to sing many songs.
1177942	Paul Albert Anka, (born July 30, 1941) is a Canadian singer, songwriter and actor. Anka became famous in the late 1950s and 1960s with hit songs like "Diana", "Lonely Boy", and "Put Your Head on My Shoulder". He went on to write such well-known music as the theme for "The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson" and one of Tom Jones' biggest hits, "She's a Lady", and the English lyrics for Frank Sinatra's signature song, "My Way" (originally French song "Comme d'habitude"). In 1983, he co-wrote with Michael Jackson the song "I Never Heard", which was retitled and released in 2009 under the name "This Is It". An additional song that Jackson co-wrote with Anka from this 1983 session, "Love Never Felt So Good", has since been discovered, and will be released in the future. The song was also released by Johnny Mathis in 1984. Anka became a naturalized US citizen in 1990. Early life. Anka was born to Andy and Camelia Ankain in Ottawa, Ontario, where they owned a restaurant called the Locanda. His parents are both of Greek Orthodox Lebanese descent. He sang with the St. Elias Antiochian Orthodox Church choir under the direction of Frederick Karam, with whom he studied music theory. He studied piano with Winnifred Rees. Anka attended Fisher Park High School and Lisgar Collegiate Institute.
1034118	Patrick Malahide (born 24 March 1945) is a British actor, who has played many film and television roles. Personal life. Malahide, real name Patrick Gerald Duggan, was born in Reading, Berkshire, the son of Irish immigrants, a cook mother and a school secretary father. He was educated at Douai School, Woolhampton, Berkshire. Career. He made his television debut in 1976, in an episode of "The Flight of the Heron", then in single episodes of "Sutherland's Law" and "The New Avengers" (1976) and "ITV Playhouse" (1977). He was then in an adaptation of "The Eagle of the Ninth", and his first film was "Sweeney 2" in the following year. In 1979 he began a nine-year stint as Detective Sergeant Albert "Cheerful Charlie" Chisholm in the popular TV series "Minder". Since then, he has become a familiar face to screen audiences, often playing villains. His television appearances have included dramas such as "The Singing Detective" (1986) and "Middlemarch" (1994), and he played Ngaio Marsh's Inspector Roderick Alleyn in a 1993-94 series. His films include "Comfort and Joy" (1984), "A Month in the Country" (1987), and "Captain Corelli's Mandolin" (2001). In 1999, he made a small appearance in the introduction to the James Bond film "The World Is Not Enough" opposite Pierce Brosnan as a Swiss banker named Lachaise working in Bilbao. He played Mr. Ryder in the 2008 film adaptation of "Brideshead Revisited".
1063606	Scary Movie is a 2000 horror comedy spoof film directed by Keenen Ivory Wayans. It was intended to be released with the title "Slasher 911". It is an American dark comedy that heavily parodies the horror, slasher, and mystery genres. Several mid- and late-90s films and TV shows are spoofed, especially "Scream", along with "I Know What You Did Last Summer", "Buffy the Vampire Slayer", "The Sixth Sense", "The Usual Suspects", "The Matrix", "The Blair Witch Project", and "Dawson's Creek". The tagline reads ""No mercy. No shame. No sequel."", the last reference being an ironic nod towards the tendency of popular horror movies becoming cash cow franchises. 2001 saw the release of "Scary Movie 2", with the appropriate tagline ""We lied"". Later video covers of the first film frequently drop the tagline's third statement. The film was originally titled ""Last Summer I Screamed Because Halloween Fell on Friday the 13th"". "Scary Movie" was followed by four more sequels "Scary Movie 2" (2001), "Scary Movie 3" (2003), "Scary Movie 4" (2006) and "Scary Movie 5" (2013). Its title serves as a homage to the production title of "Scream", which was also released through Dimension Films.
584475	Cheran Pandiyan (; is an Indian film written and directed by K. S. Ravikumar. The film proved to be successful at the box office. Plot. Vijayakumar is the head of the village (Oor Gounder) with his wife Manjula and his daughter Srija. He is a person of who strictly adheres to the caste. Sarathkumar is also in the same village. The father of both Vijayakumar and Sarathkumar are one but Sarathkumar's mother is from a lower caste. So Vijayakumar always ignores Sarathkumar. Anandbabu who is relative of Sarathkumar comes to meet him in the village and falls in love with Srija. Vijayakumar comes to know about this and he makes arrangements for Srija's marriage with K.S.Ravikumar, son of Nagesh. At the end Vijayakumar becomes a good person with the advice of Manjula and a happy end of Anandbabu marrying Srija. This movie was remade in Telugu in 1992 with Sobhan Babu, Dr Rajashekhar, Jagapathi Babu, and Ramya Krishna in lead roles. It is titled Balaramakrishnulu, and it became a blockbuster. Soundtrack. Songs. The music composed by Soundaryan while lyrics also written by himself.
1059684	Jennifer Esposito (born April 11, 1973) is an American actress, dancer and model, known for her appearances in films such as "I Still Know What You Did Last Summer", "Summer of Sam" and "Crash", and in television series such as "Spin City", "The Looney Tunes Show", "Samantha Who?", and "Blue Bloods". Early life. Esposito was born in Brooklyn, New York, the second of two daughters of Phyllis, an interior decorator, and Robert Esposito, a computer consultant and music producer. She is of Italian descent. Career. Esposito made her first television appearance in "Law & Order" in 1996. She then joined the cast of "Spin City", where she appeared for two seasons. She also appeared in "I Still Know What You Did Last Summer". One of her more notable roles was as Ruby in Spike Lee's "Summer of Sam" in 1999, which was set against the late-1970s backdrop of the Son of Sam murders. She originally had the Mira Sorvino role in "Summer of Sam", but had to take a different role due to scheduling conflicts. Esposito's next film was "Wes Craven Presents: Dracula 2000". In 2000, Esposito appeared in the "" episode "Remorse" as a rape victim. She played Don Cheadle's girlfriend, Ria, in the Academy Award-winning film "Crash". Esposito was part of the cast of "Related". She also played the part of Jennifer in "The Master of Disguise" in 2002 and played a Lieutenant in the NYPD in the 2004 film "Taxi". She played a love interest to Denis Leary's character in the FX dramedy "Rescue Me". Esposito appeared on television as Andrea Belladonna in the ABC comedy, "Samantha Who?". She also appeared in the NBC medical drama "Mercy". Esposito joined the cast of "Blue Bloods" in 2010, during its first season; she plays Detective Jackie Curatola, the partner of Detective Danny Reagan (played by Donnie Wahlberg). In the third season, Esposito entered a dispute with CBS regarding doctor's orders for her to cut back working hours due to her Celiac disease. Rather than work around her limited schedule, CBS chose to replace her character this season. As such, Esposito only appears in six episodes, receiving "also starring" billing in all of them. Personal life. Esposito announced that she had been diagnosed with celiac disease on "The Late Show with David Letterman" in October 2011, reporting she had been diagnosed "a couple years ago" and had plans to open a gluten-free bakery. In 2012, Esposito opened the bakery in Manhattan's East Village under the name "Jennifer's Way Bakery." According to Esposito, she collapsed on set while shooting an episode of Blue Bloods, requiring her to miss a week of work, and during the show's third season, informed CBS that her medical condition would limit her availability. On October 20, 2012, CBS announced that her character was being placed on indefinite leave of absence. Esposito and CBS reportedly have been at odds over her medical condition and its effect on her availability for work. Esposito married Bradley Cooper on December 30, 2006. They were divorced in 2007.
1055360	Glenn Fitzgerald (born December 21, 1971) is an American actor who has had over 30 roles in movies or television series. He played the character of Sean in "The Sixth Sense". Some of his other movies include "", "Neal Cassady", "Confess", "Flirting With Disaster" and "40 Days and 40 Nights". In the theater world, he starred in Kenneth Lonergan's "Lobby Hero". He starred in the show "Dirty Sexy Money" alongside "Peter Krause" who he worked with in 3 episodes of season 2 of "Six Feet Under". In his role on "Dirty Sexy Money", as well as , he plays opposite actress Brooke Smith. He also played in Buffalo Soldiers as Hicks the tank operator. Glenn has also starred as Natalie Imbruglia's love interest in her 1998 Top 20 summer hit Wishing I Was There. The MTV was filmed in New York by acclaimed director Alison Maclean. From November 6-December 13, 2009, Glenn created the role of "Alan" in the World Premiere of THIS by Melissa James Gibson, at New York's Playwrights Horizons alongside Julianne Nicholson. Glenn grew up in Brooklyn, New York. His brooding looks saw him cast as a Calvin Klein model in the late 80s and early 90s. He quickly graduated to character work in some of Hollywood's critical success, becoming a featured performer in independent films and a staple at Sundance.
1103006	Abraham Robinson (born "Robinsohn"; October 6, 1918 – April 11, 1974) was a mathematician who is most widely known for development of non-standard analysis, a mathematically rigorous system whereby infinitesimal and infinite numbers were incorporated into mathematics. Biography. He was born to a Jewish family with strong Zionist beliefs, in Waldenburg, Germany, which is now Wałbrzych, in Poland. In 1933, he emigrated to British Mandate of Palestine, where he earned a first degree from the Hebrew University. Robinson was in France when the Nazis invaded during World War II, and escaped by train and on foot, being alternately questioned by French soldiers suspicious of his German passport and asked by them to share his map, which was more detailed than theirs. While in London, he joined the Free French Air Force and contributed to the war effort by teaching himself aerodynamics and becoming an expert on the airfoils used in the wings of fighter planes. After the war, Robinson worked in London, Toronto, and Jerusalem, but ended up at University of California, Los Angeles in 1962. Work in model theory. He become known for his approach of using the methods of mathematical logic to attack problems in analysis and abstract algebra. He "introduced many of the fundamental notions of model theory". Using these methods, he found a way of using formal logic to show that there are self-consistent nonstandard models of the real number system which include infinite and infinitesimal numbers. Others, such as Wilhelmus Luxemburg, showed that the same results could be achieved using ultrafilters, which made Robinson's work more accessible to mathematicians who lacked training in formal logic. Robinson's book "Non-standard Analysis" was published in 1966. Robinson was strongly interested in the history and philosophy of mathematics, and often remarked that he wanted to get inside the head of Leibniz, the first mathematician to attempt to articulate clearly the concept of infinitesimal numbers. While at UCLA his colleagues remember him as working hard to accommodate PhD students of all levels of ability by finding them projects of the appropriate difficulty. He was courted by Yale, and after some initial reluctance, he moved there in 1967. He died of pancreatic cancer in 1974.
1130362	David Tom is an American actor. Career. In 1993, Tom was nominated for two Young Artist Awards for his roles in "Stepfather III" and "Stay Tuned". In 1994, he was again nominated for "Outstanding Youth Ensemble in a Motion Picture" for "Swing Kids", alongside co-stars Robert Sean Leonard, Christian Bale and Frank Whaley. He previously portrayed Billy Abbott on the CBS soap opera, "The Young and the Restless", from 1999 to 2002. Tom received two Daytime Emmy nominations for "Outstanding Younger Actor" in 2000 and 2001, winning in the former year. He also won a Soap Opera Digest Award for "Outstanding Male Newcomer" in 2000 and was consecutively nominated in 2001 for "Outstanding Younger Lead Actor". In 2004, Tom portrayed Paul Cramer (the half-brother of Kelly Cramer, portrayed by his sister, Heather) on the ABC soap opera, "One Life to Live", a role he played from March of that year to October 2004. His character was crucial to a year-long baby-switch storyline on "One Life to Live" and its sister series, "All My Children". He played Whitey, Tobey Maguire's adversary in the Reese Witherspoon/Tobey Maguire movie "Pleasantville" in 1998. He also had a small role in the made for TV movie "The 60s" in 1999, and a recurring role on The CW television network in its series "Veronica Mars" in 2006. Personal life. Tom was born in Hinsdale, Illinois. He has a twin sister, Nicholle Tom, who is also an actress. He and Nicholle guest-starred together as siblings in a 2008 episode of "Criminal Minds". His other sister, Heather Tom, appeared on "The Young and the Restless" as well, as Victoria Newman, but the two almost never appeared together in the same scene. Coincidentally, the Tom siblings' "The Young and the Restless" characters, Victoria Newman and Billy Abbott, are now married on the soap opera. Tom's musical background includes formerly being the lead singer of the indie rock band Eudora. References. 3. from the DVD liner notes for 'Walking Thunder' 1994 as Jacob McKay
1746005	The manga was made into a live-action film, starring Aoi Miyazaki as the female protagonist. It was released in Japan in April 2010. Story. Meiko and Taneda graduated from university two years ago. Having no real goals or direction, they step into society, clueless. Meiko works as an Office Lady to pay the rent for her apartment, while Taneda works as an illustrator in a press company, earning just enough to take some of Meiko's burden. While Taneda often meets up with his bandmates from their University days to jam, he still feels something is missing. His bandmates know what it is: they need to step out, promote themselves and let their songs be heard by a larger crowd; which has been their dream since their first meeting in their university's "Pop Music Club". Unhappy with the rhythm of their "normal" graduate lives, things change when two important decisions are made: Meiko decides to quit her job, and Taneda decides to devote time to write his first proper song for the band. Having broken free of their old routines, they now find themselves uncertain of where their new life will take them. Slowly, Meiko and Taneda come to embrace their unpredictable future together but an unexpected tragedy occurs, changing their lives and the lives of their friends forever. Manga. "Solanin" was written and illustrated by Inio Asano. It was serialized in Shogakukan's "Weekly Young Sunday" from 2005 to 2006. Shogakukan published the manga's two "tankōbon" between December 5, 2005 and May 2, 2006. The manga is licensed in North America by Viz Media, which released the manga as a single volume on October 21, 2008. The manga is licensed in France by Kana, in Poland by Hanami, and in Taiwan by Taiwan Tohan, which released the manga's two "tankōbon" volumes between June 23, 2005 and September 24, 2006.
1555140	Julie Bowen (born March 3, 1970) is an American film and television actress who is best known for playing Carol Vessey on "Ed" (2000–2004), Denise Bauer on "Boston Legal" (2005–2007) and Claire Dunphy on the sitcom "Modern Family" (2009–present), with "Modern Family" earning her four nominations for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series, winning in 2011 and 2012. Throughout Bowen's career, she has played supporting roles in films including "Happy Gilmore" (1996), "Multiplicity" (1996), "Venus and Mars" (2001), "Joe Somebody" (2001), "Kids in America" (2005), "Sex and Death 101" (2007), "Crazy on the Outside" (2010), "Jumping the Broom" (2011), and "Horrible Bosses" (2011). Early life. Bowen was born Julie Bowen Luetkemeyer in Baltimore, Maryland, the middle of three daughters of Suzanne (née Frey) and John Alexander Luetkemeyer, Jr., a commercial real estate developer. She is of German, English, Irish, Scottish, and French descent; one of her paternal great-great-grandfathers was John V. Le Moyne, a Representative from Illinois, and one of her three times great-grandfathers was Pittsburgh mayor Magnus Miller Murray. Her older sister, Molly Luetkemeyer, is an interior designer who has appeared on "Clean Sweep", and her younger sister, Annie Luetkemeyer, is a doctor at the University of California, San Francisco in the HIV/AIDS Division. Her parents were socially prominent in Baltimore. Raised in suburban Ruxton, she first attended Calvert School, then Roland Park Country School, and also attended St. George's School, Newport, in Rhode Island. High Pie Classmate of Nigel Sterne of The Tony Kornheiser Show. She matriculated at Brown University, majoring in Italian Renaissance studies. In her junior year, Bowen spent a year in Florence, Italy. During college, she had roles in "Guys and Dolls", "Stage Door", and "Lemon Sky". Before graduating, Bowen had the lead role in the independent film "Five Spot Jewel". Among other places, Bowen studied acting at the Actor's Institute. Career. After graduation, Bowen had a role in the soap opera "Loving" and made her prime-time debut on an episode of the college drama "Class of '96". She also had the lead role in the 1994 television film "Runaway Daughters", opposite Paul Rudd. In films, Bowen played the love interest of the title character in "Happy Gilmore". Roles in other films include "An American Werewolf in Paris" and "Multiplicity". On television, she has had guest roles on "Party of Five", "Strange Luck", and a recurring role on "ER" as the girlfriend of Dr. Carter. On the sketch comedy program "Stella Shorts", Bowen played an angel in the "Raking Leaves" episode. Bowen first gained prominence on the television series "Ed", where she played high school English teacher Carol Vessey, the love interest of the protagonist, Ed Stevens. Bowen then guest starred as Sarah Shephard in five episodes of "Lost". In the fall of 2005, Bowen joined the cast of "Boston Legal", playing attorney Denise Bauer. She left the series in 2007 and returned for guest appearances in 2008. In 2008, she had a recurring role on "Weeds", playing Silas's love interest, Lisa. Since fall 2009, Bowen has co-starred on the ABC sitcom "Modern Family", playing Claire Dunphy. For her portrayal, Bowen received four consecutive Primetime Emmy Award nominations for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series (2010-13), winning the award in 2011 and 2012. Bowen was a spokesmodel for Neutrogena, most recently advertising the Pure Glow products. She also appeared on an episode of "Jeopardy!" on August 31, 2010. Describing her feelings on winning Emmy awards, Bowen told an interviewer: You are assuming everyone gets high from an award. Some of us are more like German soldiers in the trenches of the world wars. When you win the award, it is like being pulled out of the trench. And as exciting and wonderful as it is not to be in the trench, and to be recognised for what you do, it also means everyone has got a clear shot at you and that is a very frightening prospect for most of us. The first year, when I was nominated but didn’t win, I was so relieved. I can’t deny winning felt lovely and amazing and great – but now I am just worried about next year. Personal life. Bowen married Scott Phillips, a real estate investor and software developer, on September 9, 2004. Their son, Oliver McLanahan Phillips, was born April 10, 2007 in Los Angeles. On May 8, 2009, she gave birth to twins, John and Gustav, with whom she was visibly pregnant when shooting the pilot for Modern Family. Bowen has had a pacemaker since her early twenties due to heart problems. She is mentioned throughout Episode 11 in Season 4 of "Arrested Development". Awards and nominations. Critics' Choice Television Awards Primetime Emmy Awards Satellite Awards Screen Actors Guild Awards
1065603	Topsy-Turvy is a 1999 musical drama film written and directed by Mike Leigh and stars Allan Corduner as Arthur Sullivan and Jim Broadbent as W. S. Gilbert, along with Timothy Spall and Lesley Manville. The story concerns the 15-month period in 1884 and 1885 leading up to the premiere of Gilbert and Sullivan's "The Mikado". The film focuses on the creative conflict between playwright and composer, and the decision by the two men to continue their partnership, which led to the creation of several more famous Savoy Operas between them. The film was not released widely, but it received very favourable reviews, including a number of film festival awards and two design Academy Awards. While considered an artistic success, illustrating Victorian era British life in the theatre in depth, the film did not recover its production costs. Leigh cast actors who did their own singing in the film, and the singing performances were faulted by some critics, while others lauded Leigh's strategy. Plot. On the opening night of "Princess Ida" at the Savoy Theatre in January 1884, composer Arthur Sullivan (Allan Corduner), who is ill from kidney disease, is barely able to make it to the theatre to conduct. He goes on a holiday to Continental Europe hoping that the rest will improve his health. While he is away, ticket sales and audiences at the Savoy Theatre wilt in the hot summer weather. Producer Richard D'Oyly Carte (Ron Cook) has called on Sullivan and the playwright W. S. Gilbert (Jim Broadbent) to create a new piece for the Savoy, but it is not ready when "Ida" closes. Until a new piece can be prepared, Carte revives an earlier Gilbert and Sullivan work, "The Sorcerer". Gilbert's idea for their next opera features a transformative magic potion, which Sullivan feels is too similar to the magic lozenge and other magic talismans used in previous operas and appears mechanical in its reliance on a supernatural device. Sullivan, under pressure to write more serious music, says he longs for something that is "probable" and involves "human interest", and is not dependent on magic. Gilbert sees nothing wrong with his libretto and refuses to write a new one, which results in a standoff. The impasse is resolved after Gilbert and his wife visit a popular exhibition of Japanese arts and crafts in Knightsbridge, London. When the katana sword he purchases there falls noisily off the wall of his study, he is inspired to write a libretto set in exotic Japan. Sullivan likes the idea and agrees to compose the music for it. Gilbert, Sullivan and Carte work to make "The Mikado" a success, and many glimpses of rehearsals and stressful backstage preparations for the show follow: Cast members lunch together before negotiating their salaries. Gilbert brings in Japanese girls from the exhibition to teach the ladies' chorus how to walk and use fans in the Japanese manner. The principal cast react to the fittings of their costumes designed by C. Wilhelm. The entire cast object to Gilbert's proposed cut of the title character's Act Two solo, "A more humane Mikado," which persuades the playwright to reconsider. The actors face first-night jitters in their dressing rooms. Finally "The Mikado" is ready to open. As usual, Gilbert is too nervous to watch the opening performance and paces the streets of London. Returning to the theatre, however, he finds that the new opera is a resounding success. Depiction of Victorian society. Film professor Wheeler Winston Dixon wrote that the film "uses the conventions of the biographical narrative film to expose the ruthlessness and insularity of the Victorian era, at the same time as it chronicles, with great fidelity, the difficulties of a working relationship in the creative arts. ... "Topsy-Turvy" is an investigation into the social, political, sexual and theatrical economies of the Victorian era". While the film deals primarily with the production of "The Mikado", it shows many aspects of 1880s British life. Scenes show George Grossmith's use of morphine; Sullivan's mistress, Fanny Ronalds, implying that she will obtain an abortion; three actors' discussion of the destruction of the British garrison at Khartoum by the Mahdi; a private salon concert; a conversation about the use of nicotine by women; Sullivan's visit to a French brothel; and Gilbert being accosted outside the theatre on opening night by a beggar. The film also depicts the Savoy Theatre as having electric lighting; it was the first public building in Britain – and at the time one of the few buildings there of any kind – to be lit entirely by electricity. Another scene shows an early use of the telephone. These scenes, some based on historical incidents, depict different aspects of Victorian society and life at the time. Production. "Topsy-Turvy" was filmed at Three Mills Studios in London beginning 29 June 1998 and completed shooting on 24 October. Location shooting took place in London and Hertfordshire, and scenes which took place at the Savoy Theatre were filmed at the Richmond Theatre in Richmond, London. The film's budget was $20,000,000. Reception. In the United Kingdom, the film grossed £610,634 in total and £139,700 on its opening weekend. In the United States, the film grossed $6,208,548 in total, and $31,387 on its opening weekend. The film has an 89% rating at Rotten Tomatoes, and a 90 at Metacritic, indicating that critical reception was overall positive. According to Janet Maslin, "Topsy-Turvy" is "grandly entertaining", "one of those films that create a mix of erudition, pageantry and delectable acting opportunities, much as "Shakespeare in Love" did: According to Richard Schickel, the film was "one of the year's more beguiling surprises"; it is a "somewhat comic, somewhat desperate, very carefully detailed" story given "heartfelt heft" in the way it depicts how rehearsing and putting on an operetta "takes over everyone's life." According to Philip French, ""Topsy-Turvy" is not a conventional biographical film"; "the film is an opulently mounted, warm-hearted celebration of two great artists and of a dedicated group of actors, backstage personnel and front-of-house figures working together." French also notes the film is "a rare treat, thanks to Dick Pope's photography, Eve Stewart's production design and Lindy Hemming's costumes", with "great music orchestrated by Carl Davis." "Topsy-Turvy" ranks 481st on "Empire"s 2008 list of the 500 greatest movies of all time. Awards and honours. At the 72nd Academy Awards, "Topsy-Turvy" received the Academy Award for Best Costume Design and the Academy Award for Makeup, and was nominated for Best Art Direction and Best Original Screenplay, losing these to "Sleepy Hollow" and "American Beauty", respectively. The film also won Best Make Up/Hair at the BAFTA Awards, and was nominated for Best British Film, Best Actor in a Leading Role (Jim Broadbent), Best Supporting Actor (Timothy Spall) and Best Original Screenplay. Broadbent also won the Volpi Cup for Best Actor at the Venice Film Festival, and the film was nominated for the Golden Lion at the same festival. "Topsy Turvy" also won the Best British Film Award at the Evening Standard British Film Awards, and received 1999 awards for Best Film (shared with Spike Jonze's "Being John Malkovich") and Best Director from the National Society of Film Critics, and for Best Picture and Best Director at the 1999 New York Film Critics Circle Awards. Home media. A digitally restored version of the film was released on DVD and Blu-ray by The Criterion Collection in March 2011 includes and audio commentary featuring director Mike Leigh, new video conversation between Leigh and musical director, Gary Yershon, Leigh's 1992 short film "A Sense of History", written by and starring actor Jim Broadbent, deleted scenes, and a featurette from 1999 including interviews with Leigh and cast members.
592207	Premaloka () is a Kannada feature film, starring Ravichandran Juhi Chawla and Leelavathi, released in 1987. Premaloka literally means "World of Love" in Kannada. It was a super hit, becoming the biggest grosser of that time. The film had twelve songs, all of which are popular even today. It gave a talented music director Hamsalekha to the Kannada film industry. It gave Juhi Chawla a break in the film industry and V. Ravichandran a name as director. Vishnuvardhan, Ambarish and Tiger Prabhakar made guest appearances in the movie. Plot. Loosely based on "Grease 2", the story revolves around the protagonist, who tries to woo a classmate. On being spurned, he poses as a mysterious biker and sweeps her off her feet. Toward the end, she learns that the biker and her classmate are, in fact, the same guy. Legacy. In spite of an ordinary story and moderate performances, the film had a tremendous response for a few reasons: For one, the whole package was fresh. It was a complete break-away from Anant Nag, Rajkumar and Vishnuvardhan movies. The sets and art direction gave the viewer an impression that Kannada films can be big budget. The music by Hamsalekha was a huge plus. The songs are hummed even today, and it made Hamsalekha an overnight star. One of the songs, "Nodamma Hudugi," was reused by Sundeep Malani for his Kanglish film "SMS 6260" featuring Diganth, Kiran, Janu. It started the trend of lavish movies in Kannada. It also marked the debut of Bollywood actress Juhi Chawla to filmdom. Hamsalekha would go on to compose music for many more Ravichandran films, making them a superb pair in the 1980s and 90s. "Premaloka" was dubbed in Tamil as "Paruva Ragam" and in Telugu as "Premalokam". It was a hit there, too. Soundtrack. Music director: Hamsalekha
1166247	Peggy Wood (February 9, 1892 – March 18, 1978) was an American actress of stage, film and television. Early career. She was born Mary Margaret Wood in Brooklyn, New York, the daughter of Eugene Wood, a journalist, and Mary Gardner, a telegraph operator. She was a direct descendant of Daniel Boone. Wood spent nearly fifty years on the stage, beginning in the chorus and becoming known as a Broadway singer and star. She made her stage debut in 1910, as part of the chorus for "Naughty Marietta." In 1917, she appeared in "Maytime", in which she introduced the song "Will You Remember". She starred in several other musicals before playing the role of Portia in a 1928 production of "The Merchant of Venice." From the late 1920s thru the 1930s, Wood had lead roles in musicals staged in London and New York.
393863	Wishing Stairs ( also known as Whispering Corridors 3: Wishing Stairs) is a 2003 South Korean horror film. It is the third installment of the "Whispering Corridors" film series set in girls high schools, but, as with all films in the series, is unrelated to the others; apart from a song being sung in one scene that is a pivotal plot in "Voice". Plot. The legend goes that if you climb the twenty eight steps leading up to the school dormitory, counting each step aloud, and find a twenty ninth, a spirit will appear and grant you a wish.
1063655	The Bucket List is a 2007 American comedy-drama film directed by Rob Reiner, written by Justin Zackham, and starring Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman. The main plot follows two terminally ill men (portrayed by Nicholson and Freeman) on their road trip with a wish list of things to do before they "kick the bucket". The film premiered on December 15, 2007 in Hollywood. It opened in limited release in the United States and Canada on December 25, 2007 and was distributed by Warner Bros. The film opened in wide release in the United States and Canada on January 11, 2008 and was released in the United Kingdom on February 8, 2008, and in Australia on February 21, 2008. It received mixed reviews from film critics, but was a box office success, opening at the top of the box office and grossing a total of $175.3 million worldwide. Plot. Blue-collar mechanic Carter Chambers (Freeman) and billionaire hospital magnate Edward Cole (Nicholson) meet for the first time in the hospital after both have been diagnosed with terminal lung cancer. Although Edward is reluctant to share a room with Carter, complaining that he "looks half-dead already", they become friends as they undergo their respective treatments. Carter is a gifted amateur historian and family man who had wanted to become a history professor in his youth, had been "black, broke, with a baby on the way" and, thus, never rose above his status as a mechanic at the McCreath body shop. Carter loves showing off his knowledge and his favorite show is "Jeopardy!". Edward is a four-time divorced health-care tycoon and cultured loner who enjoys nothing more than tormenting his personal valet/servant, Thomas (Hayes), who later reveals his name is actually Matthew. Edward prefers to call him Thomas because he finds the name Matthew "too biblical". Edward enjoys drinking Kopi Luwak, one of the most expensive coffees in the world.
1484635	Connor Price (born November 11, 1994) is a Canadian actor. An early role was Young Bobby Jr in the television drama "Sins of the Father" (2002). Other works include BB. Jammies, Harvey and Bud in "the Save-Ums" (2003), and Jay Braddock in "Cinderella Man" (2005). He portrayed JJ Bannerman on the USA Network's television series "The Dead Zone", and he played young Chuck in the feature film "Good Luck Chuck" (2007). Connor is the voice of Will on the television cartoon "Will & Dewitt" airing on WB Kids. He has appeared in over 20 commercials. In his elementary school days, he attended St. Matthews Catholic Elementary School. He attends Niles North High School in Skokie, Illinois.
150515	New Town Killers is a British drama film written and directed by Richard Jobson, starring James Anthony Pearson and Dougray Scott. "New Town Killers" follows two business men, portrayed by Dougray Scott and Alastair Mackenzie, who play macabre cat and mouse games with people from the fringes of society. The film was an official selection for both The Times BFI London Film Festival, 2008 and The International Thessaloniki Film Festival, 2008. Plot. Two private bankers, Alistair (Scott) and Jamie (Mackenzie), who have the world at their feet get their kicks from playing a 12-hour game of hunt, hide and seek with people from the margins of society. Their next target is Sean Macdonald (Pearson) a parentless teenager who lives with his sister on a housing estate on the outskirts of Edinburgh. She's in debt, he's going nowhere fast. Sean agrees to play for cash. He soon realises he's walked into 12 hours of hell where survival is the name of the game. Theme song. The theme song "New Town Killers" marked Richard Jobson's first official return to songwriting in over 15 years. The song was co-written with Scottish group Isa & the Filthy Tongues who include former members of Goodbye Mr. Mackenzie and Angelfish. Jobson contributed the lyrics and the band created the music. The backing music for this song was also used as the introductory score for the film. Jobson helped the band perform this song at the Edinburgh film festival launch of the movie in June 2009 at Edinburgh's Voodoo Rooms.
1760812	A Better Life is a 2011 American drama film directed by Chris Weitz. The screenplay, originally known as "The Gardener", was written by Eric Eason based on a story by Roger L. Simon. Demián Bichir was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actor. Plot. Carlos Galindo (Demián Bichir) works as a gardener with Blasco Martinez (Joaquín Cosio) in Los Angeles, California. Blasco wants to return to Mexico and continually tries to persuade Carlos to purchase his business from him, which includes the work truck and gardening tools. Carlos's son Luis (José Julián) is in high school and is dating Ruthie Valdez(Chelsea Rendon), the niece of a local gang leader. Luis regularly goes to her house after school where gang members congregate. Luis is embarrassed by his father and, although he does not wish to follow in his footsteps, has a hard time committing himself to his education. However, his relationship with Ruthie and his friendship with Facundo (Bobby Soto) pushes him toward becoming a gang member. Carlos asks his sister Anita (Dolores Heredia) for a loan to purchase Blasco's truck and tools. Anita lends Carlos $12,000, which comes out of her family's emergency fund. Carlos reluctantly accepts. Carlos returns to a corner where he used to look for work and hires Santiago (Carlos Linares). On the first day, Santiago steals the truck. The next morning, Carlos and Luis head out to find Santiago. A tip leads them to a South Central apartment complex. The apartment is used as lodgings for illegal immigrant workers. One man, to whom Santiago sold Carlos’ cellphone, tells them that Santiago moonlights as a dishwasher at a nightclub. When they first go, the club is closed and they go to a nearby rodeo. At the rodeo, Carlos and Luis talk about Luis’s feelings toward his culture and his family. Luis is bitter about his mother abandoning them. He does not like Mexican music or certain Mexican traditions. When the nightclub opens, Carlos finds Santiago washing dishes. Santiago runs away, but Luis is waiting outside and tackles him. Carlos pulls Luis away. They discover that Santiago has sold the truck and sent the money to his family back home to El Salvador. Luis runs away.
587429	Rettai Jadai Vayasu () is a 1997 Tamil comedy film directed by C. Sivakumar featuring Ajith Kumar and Manthra in the leading roles. Goundamani, Senthil and Ponvannan among others play other pivotal roles in the film, which has music composed by Deva. It was released on 12 December 1997 and subsequently became a failure at the box office. Production. The film saw the return of C. Sivakumar, who had previously directed the film "Ayudha Poojai", and Bhagyam Cine Arts offered him another chance. During the launch of the film, veteran comedian Goundamani was given a large green garland. Release. The film became a failure commercially and subsequently became one of five consecutive failure films starring Ajith Kumar in 1997 after the success of "Kadhal Kottai". Soundtrack. The soundtrack of the film was composed by Deva.
588273	Kunjalu Kochumoideen Padiyath (1930 – 22 May 2000), known by his stage name Bahadoor, was a Malayalam film comedian who, along with Adoor Bhasi, redefined the way in which comedy and funny scenes were perceived in Malayalam cinema. They made a significant contribution toward establishing comedy as the predominant genre of Malayalam cinema. Bahadoor also appeared in some serious roles and in professional plays. Early life. Bahadoor was born as P. K. Kunjalu in 1930 in Kodungalloor, near Thrissur, British India. As one of the nine children of Padiyath Blangalil Kochumoideen and Khadeeja. Out of his eight siblings, seven were sisters. His family was financially poor and the seven young women added to the burden as the Kerala social system openly supported dowry at that time. He had affinity towards plays from very young age itself. He passed 10th Standard with First Class and joined Farook College, Calicut for Intermediate. He could not complete his studies due to financial troubles and had to start working for a living. He found his first job in a private bus as the bus conductor. He still wished to be an actor. He met Thikkurussi Sukumaran Nair through a relative. Thikkurussi gave him the chance to act in films and renamed him Bahadoor. Career. Bahadoor made his debut with a minor role in "Avakasi" (1954). At that time he also acted in Akashavani and amateur-professional plays and got established as a good actor. Bahadoor got his first break with his role as "Chakkaravakkal" in Neela Production's "Padatha Painkili". The film which went on to become a big hit marked Bahadoor's presence in the industry. Then there was no turning back. He along with Adoor Bhasi formed a box-office ruling combination and the duo is being compared to Laurel and Hardy. Bahadoor became hero in "Neelisali" and "Mucheettu Kalikkarante Makal". Bahadoor found time in acting in plays as well. He partnered a play production theatre which made blockbuster plays like "Manikyakkottaram" and "Ballatha Pahayan". These plays were later made into feature films by him. Bahadoor started a black and white processing studio in Trivandrum named K. C. Lab. But the studio's establishment was ill-timed as films were shifting to colour. This caused financial troubles for Bahadoor and finally the studio was taken over by people to whom Bahadoor was indebted. Bahdoor also started a film distribution company only to face failures. He produced few films all of which failed at the box office. Even with his commercial debacles from the industry, he could meet his family's monetary requirements and mark his presence in the field of acting. Bahadoor was last seen in Lohithadas's "Joker" (2000). He did the role of a mentally ill veteran joker in a circus camp. In the film, he commits suicide by letting himself into the lion's cage in the circus den. Awards. Kerala State Film Awards: Death. On 22 May 2000 around 10 am, Bahadoor felt severe chest pain and was taken to Vijaya Hospital. He died at the hospital by 3 pm due to internal bleeding in his brain.
1072452	The film, set in World War II, depicts the story of the real-life Japanese battleship, the "Yamato", which is confronted in the Pacific Ocean by giant monsters, including the most fearsome of them all, Reigo. Plot. In September 1942, Captain Yamagami (Susumu Kurobe) is ordered to rendezvous the Yamato with the Combined Fleet that is gathering at the Truk Islands (aka Chuuk Islands) in Micronesia, a key strategic point in the South Pacific. With beautiful clear blue skies above and surrounded by coral reefs below, this South Seas paradise became a strong base for the Combined Fleet and the front lines of the naval war; a place where many fierce battles were fought. Decades later, the sea bed surrounding the Truk Islands is still littered with the remains of more than 60 warships and airplanes. Among Yamagami’s crew are the cantankerous Divisional Officer Noboru Osako (Yukijiro Hotaru) and the young Ensign Takeshi Kaido (Taiyo Sugiura). Unsure of what the future may bring, Kaido went off to war without declaring his intentions for his childhood sweetheart, Chie Kojima (Mai Nanami). He always carries her photo in his coat pocket, while Chie longs for his return to their seaside hometown. When the Yamato arrives at Truk, the married Osako decides to ease his worries over leaving behind a pregnant wife by sneaking an island woman named Momoka (Yumika Hayashi) aboard ship for some private recreation. But to Osako’s annoyance, Momoka brings along her elderly grandfather (Mickey Curtis) who insists on telling him a local tale about monsters that has been passed down for generations. The disbelieving naval officer is told that the surrounding waters are home to man-sized, carnivorous Bonefishes…and, as dangerous as the fish are, they are nothing more than an “opening act” for an even greater menace; the legendary Hell King of the Seas called Reigo. The next night, a lookout spots a massive shape half-submerged in the distance. Believing it to be an enemy submarine, the Yamato fires on it and scores a direct hit. Osako is shocked when the object emits a strange cry as it sinks beneath the waves. He reports the incident and the story of Reigo to his commander and shipmates. Unbeknownst to the crew, they have killed the offspring of Reigo. Not long after that first encounter, a school of luminous Bonefish launch themselves from the water like flying fish and attack a group of soldiers standing watch on the Yamato’s deck. Kaido hears their screams and rushes to the rescue, but finds the men already torn to pieces. Just as the old man predicted, the Bonefish herald the arrival of Reigo, a beast 80 meters-long and resembling a cross between Godzilla and a shark. Seething with rage at the murder of its cub, the monster attacks the Combined Fleet with incredible ferocity and awesome destructive power. The naval forces are caught off guard, and Reigo is able to destroy escort ships and damage the Yamato before returning to the ocean depths. The crew quickly regroups and plans a counterattack, but when Reigo returns it manages to stay one step ahead of the Japanese forces. Almost as if it is aware that the Yamato’s main guns are long range weapons which are ineffective up close, the monster attacks at close range or blasts the ships from underwater with blue bursts of electricity. Thoughts of family and lovers back home… fear at being confronted by an unknown enemy…conflict and confrontation explode among the officers and crew over the best battle strategy to use against the threat of Reigo. Over Osako’s loud objections, Kaido suggests a last-ditch plan of attack that will either stop Reigo or sink the Yamato. Now the stage is set for a final battle to unfold between the world’s largest battleship and the mysterious dragon-like monster that glides through the seas at will. Which one will prevail… Reigo or the battleship Yamato? Sequel of sorts. In 2009 director Hayashiya made a follow up entitled . The film features a more traditional Godzilla like kaiju called Raiga. The creature rises from the sea to do battle with another of his kind.
1064389	Edmund Gwenn (26 September 1877 – 6 September 1959) was an English theatre and film actor. He is perhaps best remembered for his role as Kris Kringle in the 1947 film, "Miracle on 34th Street" Background. Born Edmund John Kellaway in Wandsworth, London and educated at St. Olave's School and later at King's College London, Gwenn began his acting career in the theatre in 1895. Playwright George Bernard Shaw was impressed with his acting, casting him in the first production of "Man and Superman", and subsequently in five more of his plays. Gwenn's career was interrupted by his military service during World War I; however, after the war, he began appearing in films in London. (Cecil Kellaway was his cousin and Arthur Chesney was his brother.) Career. Gwenn appeared in more than eighty films during his career, including the Greer Garson/Laurence Olivier version of "Pride and Prejudice" (1940), "Cheers for Miss Bishop", "Of Human Bondage", and "The Keys of the Kingdom". George Cukor's "Sylvia Scarlett" (1935) marked his first appearance in a Hollywood film, as Katharine Hepburn's father; - his final British film, as a capitalist trying to take over a family brewery in "Cheer Boys Cheer" (1939) is credited with being the first authentic Ealing comedy. He settled in Hollywood in 1940 and became part of its British colony. For his Santa role in "Miracle on 34th Street", which was ranked ninth by the American Film Institute on a list of America's 100 most inspiring films, Gwenn won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. Upon receiving his Oscar, he said "Now I know there is a Santa Claus!" He is the only person to win an acting Academy Award for playing the role of Santa Claus. Gwenn later reprised the Kris Kringle role on three different adaptations of "Miracle on 34th Street" for radio, including a 1948 performance on "Lux Radio Theater". He received a second Oscar nomination for his role in "Mister 880" (1950). Near the end of his career he played one of the main roles in Alfred Hitchcock's "The Trouble with Harry" (1955). He has a small but hugely memorable role as a Cockney assassin in another American Hitchcock film, "Foreign Correspondent" (1940), the year he moved to Hollywood. He is one of many actors whose Hollywood careers were helped by Hitchcock. In theatre, he starred in a 1942 production on Broadway of Anton Chekhov's "Three Sisters", which also starred Judith Anderson and Ruth Gordon. It was produced by and starred Katherine Cornell. Time magazine proclaimed it "a dream production by anybody's reckoning — the most glittering cast the theatre has seen, commercially, in this generation."[http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,886023,00.html] In 1954, Gwenn played Dr. Harold Medford in the classic science fiction film "Them!" with James Arness and James Whitmore. Death. Edmund Gwenn died from pneumonia after suffering a stroke, in Woodland Hills, California, twenty days before his 82nd birthday. According to several sources, his last words, when a friend at his bedside remarked that "It is hard to die," were: "But it is harder to do comedy." However, a very similar deathbed saying was earlier attributed to a similarly named 19th century English actor, Edmund Kean, so the association of the words with Gwenn may be erroneous. Gwenn was cremated and his ashes are stored in the vault at the Chapel of the Pines Crematory in Los Angeles, California. Edmund Gwenn has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 1751 Vine Street for his contribution to motion pictures.
1066177	Right at Your Door is a 2006 American thriller film about a couple and follows the events surrounding them when multiple dirty bombs detonate in Los Angeles. Chris Gorak both wrote the screenplay and directed the film in his writing and directorial debuts. It was first screened at the Sundance Film Festival in January 2006 where it was nominated for Cinematography Award and the Grand Jury Prize, winning the Cinematography award. Consequently the world-wide rights for the film were acquired by Lions Gate for nearly $3 million. Plot. The film opens with Brad (Rory Cochrane), an out of work musician, making a cup of latte for his wife Lexi (Mary McCormack) who is still in bed. She soon leaves for work and Brad is left at home alone. Over the radio he hears that several suspected dirty bombs have been detonated across Los Angeles. He exits his house and sees large amounts of smoke rising from the city center and gets into his car to drive towards the city center in order to find her. Brad tries to contact her through her cell phone, but only receives a busy signal. He soon finds that most roads now have police blockades. An ash covered car is stopped by the police. One policeman notices Brad watching from inside his car and goes over to him to tell him to go back home. The police officers aim their weapons at the driver as he gets out and demand that he get back into his car. He ignores their warning and is shot down by the police. Brad decides to leave and go back home when he encounters a small boy called Timmy (Scotty Noyd, Jr.) who is watching the rising smoke from the city center. Brad tells him to run home to his parents as fast as he can as it is not safe where he is. Once home Alvaro (Tony Perez) enters the house and asks Brad if he can stay with him as there is no one at the neighbor's house where he was working. They hear that survivors of the blasts are being quarantined as the weapons were dirty bombs and the authorities advise people to seal up their homes before the contaminated dust cloud reaches them. Brad and Alvaro then proceed to seal up the house with duct tape and plastic. As it becomes increasingly more obvious that Lexi might not come home, he takes some of Lexi's clothes and leaves them outside the back door with some food and water. Brad and Alvaro then proceed to seal off the front door. Radio newscasts claim that the bombs contained several toxins and an unknown viral strain. Lexi has been involved in a car crash but is still alive. She walks home still covered in the dust and Brad realizes she could infect both himself and Alvaro so does not let her in. Lexi becomes desperate believing that Brad had planned to lock her out of the house. She loses her temper and throws her cell phone at one of the door panes, breaking it. Brad and Alvaro both rush to cover up the breakage and seal it off. Together they manage to calm down Lexi. Brad then seals off the main bedroom from the rest of the house so that Lexi can get into it. Lexi receives a call from her mother, who realizes that she was near the explosion and is probably infected. Her pleas for Lexi to go to a hospital fall on deaf ears, as Lexi tells her that the rest of the country is seeing news that is not reflecting the reality of the situation. A car alarm goes off revealing Timmy standing next to it. Lexi calls him over and Brad seals off another part of the house in order for Lexi and Timmy to clean off the ash up in the bathroom. Alvaro soon decides to leave the house as he "needs to be with his wife". Brad tries to convince him to stay but the last we see of Alvaro is him walking down the road slowly getting covered by the ash. Lexi hears a noise from the back and alerts Brad. A masked man appears who reveals himself to be Rick (Jon Huertas). He tells Lexi that there is a ship on the coast that has medical supplies and is helping people. Lexi, Rick and Timmy leave for help and Brad hears newscasts on the radio saying that the bombs contained a hybrid viral strain that attacks the respiratory system. That same night Brad is visited by a Corporal Marshall (Max Kasch) and his men. He asks Brad several questions, such as how well his house has been sealed, who else is there/has been there, and if there had been any contact between him and anyone on the outside. Brad mentions the cell-phone which Lexi had thrown through the window and the marshall demands a sample of the dust off the phone. Marshall tells Brad that he will soon be back with the results and that his wife should under no circumstances be let into the house. As the marshall leaves we hear him recite the home's address and say "Red Tag". Lexi returns home the next day without Timmy or Rick and sees the red tag placed outside the house. Lexi tells Brad that Timmy was treated with all the other children and that she saw five men get shot. Lexi rings her brother Jason (Will McCormack) so that she can have someone to talk to about simple things to pass the time, after she could not cope with talking to her mother who is frantic with worry about her. The next couple of hours are spent with Brad and Lexi on either side of their back door talking to each other about what they will do, assuming that they survive this crisis. Brad imagines that after this they will both probably end up on one of those morning talk shows where everyone goes to reveal their woes. Troops appear from the side of the house and grab Lexi while preventing Brad from coming outside to interfere with them. The soldier manages to calm Brad down and explains to him that because Brad did such a good job sealing up the house there was no new air to circulate through. The virus (brought in by Lexi breaking the glass with her cell phone) has now multiplied to lethal levels and the air inside the house has become lethal. Brad doesn't understand what the soldier is saying and insists that they bring his wife back. The marshall tells him "Please don't struggle." A large heavy piece of plywood is put over the back door which completely covers it. A hole is drilled through the wood and a pipe appears through which a gas starts to be pumped in. More boards seal the windows and doors but Brad manages to break down the plywood covering his front door, only to discover that a fumigation tent has been erected over the whole house. He tries to tear through the tent and is knocked unconscious by the rifle butt of a soldier as Lexi screams Brad's name. The camera cuts to Brad as he takes his last few breaths. Lexi is sitting on the edge of an ambulance being attended to by a female nurse who says "Say a prayer; you might just make it." The film closes with Lexi in too much shock to say anything, her cell phone ringing. Reception. The film received mixed to positive reviews from critics and audiences, earning an approval rating of 67% on Rotten Tomatoes.
1048883	Joseph Michael "Mickey" Shaughnessy (August 5, 1920 - July 23, 1985) was an Irish American character actor and comedian who specialized in playing lovable, but not-too-bright lugs. One of his best-known roles was as the tough, experienced mentor of Elvis Presley's character in "Jailhouse Rock". The New York City-born Shaughnessy lived in Wildwood, New Jersey, and died at the age of 64 of heart failure at Cape May Court House, New Jersey.
1068903	Persis Khambatta (2 October 1948 – 18 August 1998) was an Indian model, actress and author. She was best known for her role as Lieutenant Ilia in the 1979 feature film "". Early life. Persis Khambatta was born into a middle-class Parsee home in Mumbai, then known as Bombay. She first gained fame when a set of her pictures casually taken by a well-known Bombay photographer was used for a successful campaign for a popular soap brand. This led eventually to her becoming a model. She entered and won the Miss India contest in 1965. Career. Persis first appeared, at age 13, in advertisements for the popular soap brand Rexona and set her on her way to becoming a popular model. At age 17, as Femina Miss India, Khambatta entered Miss Universe 1965, dressed in off-the-rack clothes she bought at the last minute. Khambatta became a model for companies such as Air India, Revlon and Garden Vareli. Khambatta made her Hindi film début in director K.A. Abbas's "Bambai Raat Ki Bahon Mein" (1967). Khambatta played the part of a cabaret singer, Lily, who croons the film's title track. In 1975, she played small roles in "Conduct Unbecoming" and "The Wilby Conspiracy". She went on to a brief movie career that included the role for which she is most recognized, as bald Deltan navigator Lieutenant Ilia, in "" (1979). Khambatta became the first citizen of India to present an Academy Award in 1980. She was nominated for Saturn Award Best Actress for her role in "Star Trek". This led to roles in "Nighthawks" (1981), "Megaforce" (1982) and "Warrior of the Lost World" (1983). She was considered for the title role in the James Bond film "Octopussy" (1983), but was passed over in favor of Maud Adams. Khambatta was seriously injured in a car crash in Germany in 1980, which left her with a large scar on her head. She underwent a heart bypass operation in 1983. She returned to Bombay in 1985, and appeared as a character in the Hindi television series "Shingora". Soon after, Khambatta returned to Hollywood and performed in guest roles on various television series such as "Mike Hammer" and "MacGyver". In 1997 she wrote and published a coffee table book, "Pride of India", which featured several former Miss India winners. The book was dedicated to Mother Teresa, and part of the royalties went to the Missionaries of Charity. Her final appearance in an acting part was that of Chair of the Congress of Nations in the 1993 pilot episode of "". Death. In 1998, Khambatta was taken to the Marine Hospital in south Mumbai, complaining of chest pains. She died of a heart attack on 18 August 1998 at the age of 49. Her funeral was held in Mumbai on 19 August.
1163890	Joseph Charles John "Joe" Piscopo (pronounced PIS-ka-po) (born June 17, 1951) is an American comedian and actor best known for his work on "Saturday Night Live" where he played a variety of recurring characters. Early life. Born in Passaic, New Jersey, Piscopo attended West Essex High School and was a member of the drama club "the Masquers". He developed a reputation for never playing a part the way it was written. When he was not clowning around he could usually be found lifting weights with his cousins Paul LaMagna and Bill Dolphin (Scarecrow). Graduating high school in 1969, Joe went on to attend Jones College in Jacksonville, Florida. There he received his degree in broadcast management. Although his mother wanted him to follow in his father's footsteps and become a lawyer, Joe ultimately went into stand-up comedy in the late 1970s, becoming a cast member of the short-lived sketch-comedy series "Madhouse Brigade" in 1978. "Saturday Night Live". In the summer of 1980, he was hired as a contract player for "Saturday Night Live". The show had gone through major upheaval when all the writers, major producers, and cast members had left that spring. The all-new cast bombed with critics and fans with the exception of Piscopo and Eddie Murphy; thus they were the only two cast members to be kept when Dick Ebersol took over the show the following spring. With the success of SNL, both Murphy and Piscopo moved to Alpine, New Jersey. Piscopo was best known for his impressions of such celebrities as Frank Sinatra, although he feared for his life due to Sinatra's alleged Mafia ties. Piscopo thus rewrote the lyrics for a Sinatra sketch with the help of Sinatra lyricist Sammy Cahn, and recalled that "by the grace of God, the old man loved it." Piscopo left "SNL" in 1984, but unlike Eddie Murphy he did not find major success. He appeared in a few successful films such as "Johnny Dangerously" and "Wise Guys", and also had his own HBO comedy special. One of Piscopo's more successful bits on "SNL" included his sports commentary on the Weekend Update portion of the show (called "SNL Newsbreak" at that time), led by a series of rhyming or otherwise associated words, rather than a sentence, leading up to his first story. One example surrounded one of Muhammad Ali's last bouts during the 1980s, with Eddie Murphy in Rick Baker makeup as Ali. "The big story, Muhammad Ali! Last night... fight... drama... Bahama... LOST!" and... "The big story! Baseball! Yankees! Billy Martin hired! The big question: When will he be fired?" Piscopo's sports reports provided NBC network officials enough confidence to allow him to continue this persona on NBC's Sportsworld program in the early 1980s. During his time on SNL, Piscopo recorded two singles. The first, "I Love Rock 'n Roll (Medley)" was released in 1982 using his impression of Frank Sinatra, and included big-band arrangements of the title song by Joan Jett & The Blackhearts, "Cold as Ice" by Foreigner, "Under My Thumb" by The Rolling Stones, "Hit Me with Your Best Shot" by Pat Benatar, "Born to Run" by Bruce Springsteen, "I Know What Boys Like" by The Waitresses, "Smoke on the Water" by Deep Purple, and "Life During Wartime" by The Talking Heads. The second single was "The Honeymooners Rap," in which he performed as Jackie Gleason's character Ralph Kramden of "The Honeymooners". Also appearing on the single was Eddie Murphy as Art Carney's character Ed Norton. "The Honeymooners Rap" also appeared on Piscopo's 1985 comedy album "New Jersey". In the character of Paulie Herman, Piscopo lampooned Piscataway Township, New Jersey, triggering an immediate outcry from officials of that Township, and the character was dropped. Part of the reparteé of the Paulie Herman character was a Piscopo catchphrase in response to other characters mentioning New Jersey: "You from Jersey? What Exit?!" In the 1980s, Piscopo starred in a series of Miller Beer commercials. In 1984, Piscopo made a cameo appearance at the end of the Billy Joel music video "Keeping the Faith". (He gives a shoe-shine boy $100 and says "Keep the faith kid.") In 1986 Piscopo appeared in the "Lets Go Mets" music video. He also co-starred with Treat Williams in the 1988 film "Dead Heat". In 1988 he appeared in the "" episode "The Outrageous Okona" as a holographic comedian, for which he provided all of his own jokes and dialogue. In 1992 he provided the voice for Sheriff Terrorbull in the Saturday-morning animated series "Wild West C.O.W.-Boys of Moo Mesa". He also supplied the voice of a manager in an episode of "" and The Dogfather in the revived "Pink Panther" series in 1993. He also lent his voice to the Canadian animated special "The Real Story of Rain, Rain Go Away". In the early 1990s, Piscopo became a subject of controversy after appearances of his newly buff physique on the covers of fitness magazines led many to speculate he was using steroids. Piscopo has repeatedly denied the allegations and says he began a campaign to improve himself after battling thyroid cancer from 1981 to 1982. He has also appeared in anti-steroid public service announcements. Piscopo lampooned the controversy in his HBO special, wherein he appeared to undergo a drug test during the show. Personal information. In 1973, Piscopo married television producer Nancy Jones ("Wheel of Fortune"). The couple divorced in 1988. Piscopo's second wife, Kimberly Driscoll, filed for divorce on July 10, 2006. Piscopo is a resident of Lebanon Township, New Jersey, and is an avid New Jersey Devils fan. Piscopo starred in "Dirty Rotten Scoundrels" at the Gateway Playhouse in August 2009, playing 8 performance per week for a three week run. He has also been a resident of Tewksbury Township, New Jersey.
1152679	City That Never Sleeps is a 1953 film noir produced and directed by John H. Auer with cinematography by John L. Russell. Plot. Johnny Kelly (Gig Young) is a Chicago cop from a long line of police officers. He's grown tired of the job and his married life. He plans on leaving his wife for exotic dancer Sally "Angel Face" Connors (Mala Powers). When Penrod Biddel (Edward Arnold), a corrupt, powerful attorney, wants him for a job, Johnny is tempted. He needs money in order to get quick money to escape Chicago and start life anew with "Angel Face". Kelly accepts an assignment to escort a low-life former magician (William Talman), now a criminal, across the border to Indiana. Not all is what it seems and the more Kelly learns the more he's determined to do right. Reception. Critical response. Film critic Craig Butler wrote, ""City That Never Sleeps" is an uneven crime drama, one that contains some enough good elements that it's frustrating the film as a whole is not better. The chief culprit is, as so often, the screenplay, which starts out promisingly. Gig Young's character seems to be one that is fairly complex, a cop who is dissatisfied with his lot in life and could fall prey to temptation. Unfortunately, the character is not developed sufficiently beyond that, which is also the case with the Wally Cassell "mechanical man" character; he, too, shows promise that goes unfulfilled, although the sheer strangeness of his job does fascinate. The staff at "Variety" magazine gave the film a mixed review, and wrote, "Production and direction loses itself occasionally in stretching for mood and nuances, whereas a straightline cops-and-robbers action flavor would have been more appropriate. Same flaw is found in the Steve Fisher screen original...John L. Russell's photography makes okay use of Chicago streets and buildings for the low-key, night-life effect required to back the melodrama.
1166600	Kimberly Beck (born January 9, 1956) is an American actress for over 60 television and film roles. Life and career. Beck starred in such movies as "Massacre at Central High", "Roller Boogie", and "". Among her notable television credits are "Capitol" (as Kimberly Beck-Hilton), "Fantasy Island", "Buck Rogers in the 25th Century" (as one side of a Jekyll-and-Hyde character, whose counterpart was played by Trisha Noble), "Westwind", "Dynasty", "Lucas Tanner" and "Peyton Place" (as the character Kim Schuster). As a child she appeared in television commercials for such products as Mattel Toymakers Barbie and Chatty dolls. She had a very brief appearance in "The Munsters" as a transformed Eddie Munster after Eddie drank the rest of Grandpa's Texas Playgirl Potion in season 1, episode 33 entitled "Lily Munster, Girl Model". She starred in the pilot episode of "Eight Is Enough" as Nancy Bradford, the role that, in the series, went to Dianne Kay. She also had a role in "Rich Man, Poor Man Book II" with Peter Strauss and a host of other well-received television mini-series. In 1968 she and her step-father Tommy Leonetti, then working in Australia, recorded the single "Let's Take a Walk", released under the name of "Tommy Leonetti and his daughter Kim". It charted at #4 on the Melbourne charts. In 1988, Beck married producer, Jason Clark and they had two sons.
586512	Chal Chalein is a 2009 Hindi family film. The film stars Mithun Chakraborty and Rati Agnihotri in a story about the academic pressures on children.
1789657	I Am Omega, stylized as "I Am Ωmega" is a 2007 direct-to-DVD American doomsday film produced by The Asylum and starring Mark Dacascos. The film is an unofficial adaptation of the novel "I Am Legend" by Richard Matheson, the title being a combination of "The Omega Man" and 2007's "I Am Legend" with Will Smith, two other film adaptations of the same novel. The movie was intentionally released as a "Mockbuster" to capitalize on Smith's big-budget film. Plot. The film takes place in a post-apocalyptic Los Angeles, which is overrun by savage, zombie-like, cannibalistic humans who have degenerated into a feral subspecies as the result of a genetic infection. The film does not make clear if the virus has infected the entire world, or just a small, isolated area, but it is suggested that it is global by the inability of the hero, Renchard (Mark Dacascos), to locate radio signals or contact anyone via the Internet. Renchard has been forced to live in a daily struggle for survival against the mutants. One day, Renchard is contacted via webcam by Brianna (Jennifer Lee Wiggins), another survivor who was stranded in L.A. while trying to find Antioch, a community of survivors. She asks Renchard to help her, but Renchard, who has placed time bombs at strategic points around the city, refuses.
582988	Jaagruti is an Indian Bollywood film directed by Suresh Krissna, released on 3 July 1992. The film stars Salman Khan and Karisma Kapoor in lead roles. Plot. Vishal (Pankaj Dheer) is a respectable and honest officer. One day Vishal is abducted and killed in the presence of his younger brother, Jugnu (Salman Khan), who is missing and considered to be dead. In reality he is taken in by a jungle tribe, where the chief (Puneet Issar) trains him. Honest and diligent Gandhian Raghunath gets very angry by seeing this situation, and demands from the Chief Minister, Omiji, to step into the picture. When Omiji attempts to inquire into this, his son is incriminated for selling tainted glucose in hospitals, which caused to several deaths. Powerless to act, Omiji hesitates, and as a result Raghunath is killed. Thereafter, Jugnu returns, now a one man army, willing to avenge his brother's death. Music. The soundtrack of the film contains 10 songs. The music is composed by Anand-Milind, with lyrics authorred by Sameer.
1075342	Notre musique (Our Music) is a 2004 film directed by Jean-Luc Godard. The film reflects on violence, morality, and the representation of violence in film, and touches especially on past colonialism and the current Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It was screened out of competition at the 2004 Cannes Film Festival. Plot. The film's tripartite structure is apparently inspired by the "Divine Comedy" of Dante; the film's three segments are titled "Realm 1: Hell", "Realm 2: Purgatory", and "Realm 3: Heaven". The first segment is a relatively brief, non-narrative montage composed of war footage, propaganda footage, and battle scenes and other scenes of chaos from fictional films, constantly intercut, and accompanied by classical piano. The second segment, which is relatively straightforwardly narrative, makes up the bulk of the film. It tells the story of two young women visiting a European arts conference in Sarajevo: Judith Lerner (Sarah Adler), a journalist from Tel Aviv, and Olga Brodsky (Nade Dieu), a French-speaking Jew of Russian descent. Judith interviews the poet Mahmoud Darwish (played by himself) at the conference, and surveys the city, visiting the Mostar bridge, where she reads Emmanuel Levinas ("Entre Nous"). Olga makes a digital-video film of the conference, is visited by her uncle Ramos Garcia (Rony Kramer), who is translating for the conference, and attends a lecture on film by Godard (who plays himself). The Spanish writer Juan Goytisolo also appears as himself.
1059472	The Last Station is a 2009 biographical drama film directed by Michael Hoffman. It is an adaptation of the 1990 biographical novel of the same name by Jay Parini about the final months of Leo Tolstoy's life. The film stars Christopher Plummer as Tolstoy and Helen Mirren as his wife Sophia Tolstaya. The film is about the battle between Sophia and his disciple Vladimir Chertkov for his legacy and the copyright of his works. The film premiered at the 2009 Telluride Film Festival. Plot. In 1910, the last year of the life of Leo Tolstoy (Christopher Plummer), his disciples, led by Vladimir Chertkov (Paul Giamatti), manoeuvre against his wife, Sophia (Helen Mirren), for control over Tolstoy's works after his death. The main setting is the Tolstoy country estate of Yasnaya Polyana. Tolstoy and Sophia have a long, loving marriage, but his idealistic and spiritual side (he is opposed, for example, to private property) is at odds with her more aristocratic and conventionally religious views. Contention focuses on a new will that the "Tolstoians" are attempting to persuade him to sign. It would place all of his copyrights into the public domain, supposedly leaving his family without adequate support. The maneuvering is seen through the eyes of Tolstoy's new secretary, Valentin Bulgakov (James McAvoy), who finds himself mediating between the two sides. He also has a love affair with one of the Tolstoians, Masha (Kerry Condon). Ultimately, Tolstoy signs the new will and travels to an undisclosed location where he can continue his work undisturbed. After his departure, Sophia unsuccessfully attempts suicide. During the journey, Tolstoy falls ill. The film ends with his death near the Astapovo train station where Sophia is allowed by their daughter to see him just moments before his death. The closing credits state that five years after his death the Russian senate reverted the copyrights in Tolstoy's work to Sophia. Production. Filming took place in the German federal states of Saxony-Anhalt, Brandenburg (Studio Babelsberg) and Thuringia, the city of Leipzig in Saxony and at historical locations in Russia. The location for Jasnaja Poljana, the residence of the Tolstoy family, was the "Schloss Stülpe" palace near Luckenwalde in Brandenburg. The station of the small German town of Pretzsch stood in for Astapovo, the "last station" of the title. Still a working rural station, the Pretzsch station was closed for two weeks for filming. Awards. Mirren won the Best Actress award at the 2009 Rome International Film Festival for her performance. She was also nominated for Best Actress - Drama at the 67th Golden Globe Awards, as was Plummer for Best Supporting Actor in a Motion Picture. Both actors also received nominations for their performances from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and the Screen Actors Guild. Release and reception. Sony Pictures Classics acquired distribution rights and gave the film an awards-qualifying limited release on 23 December 2009, with a wide release on 15 January 2010. It was released in Germany on 28 January 2010. The film has received generally positive reviews. Review aggregate Rotten Tomatoes reports that 70% of critics have given the film a positive review based on 137 reviews, with an average score of 6.6/10. According to Rotten Tomatoes, "Michael Hoffman's script doesn't quite live up to its famous subject, but this Tolstoy biopic benefits from a spellbinding tour de force performance by Helen Mirren." Critic Philip French praised McAvoy for bringing "the same amiable diffidence he brought to the role of Idi Amin's confidant in "The Last King of Scotland"". Kenneth Turan of the "Los Angeles Times" called Hoffman's direction "accomplished", and the film's centerpiece "the spectacular back and forth between Christopher Plummer and Helen Mirren"...For those who enjoy actors who can play it up without ever overplaying their hands, "The Last Station" is the destination of choice." On the negative side, one reviewer characterized the film as a "genteel domestic farce" and faulted the director for "pander to the worst impulses of the cast". Home media. The film was released on DVD and Blu-ray on 22 June 2010. One reviewer criticized the lack of special features on the disc.
1183645	Nicholas Scott "Nick" Lachey ( ; born November 9, 1973) is an American singer, songwriter, actor, producer and television personality. Lachey rose to fame as the lead singer of the multi-platinum selling boy band 98 Degrees. He later starred in the reality television series "" with his then-wife, Jessica Simpson. He has released two solo albums, "SoulO" and "What's Left of Me". He is also known for his recurring role as Leslie St. Claire on the television series "Charmed". Career. Nick Lachey attended the School for Creative and Performing Arts (SCPA) in the Cincinnati Public School District (CPS). He attended Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. Nick started his professional singing career at Kings Island with friend Justin Jeffre in the mid-1990s singing in a group quartet throughout the park. Lachey was a member of boyband 98 Degrees along with his brother, Drew, Justin Jeffre, and Jeff Timmons. Their debut album was the self-titled "98 Degrees"; however, the band's first real success came with their follow up album "98 Degrees and Rising". 98 Degrees has sold over 10 million records. 98 Degrees performed a one-off summer reunion show in Hershey, Philadelphia at the Summer Mixtape Festival on August 18; their first concert in more than a decade. During the summer of 2003, the reality show, "", starring Lachey and then-wife Jessica Simpson began airing on MTV. The couple starred in the television special "The Nick and Jessica Variety Hour," which aired in 2004 and was compared to "The Sonny & Cher Show". In 2005, "Newlyweds" won a People's Choice Award for Favorite Reality Show before wrapping shortly after. On November 11, 2003, his solo debut album, "SoulO", was released. Despite being released during the success of "Newlyweds", the album was a commercial failure. Lachey took a recurring role on series "Charmed" between 2004 and 2005. "What's Left of Me" was released on May 9, 2006 and debuted at number two on the "Billboard" 200. The album was certified Gold, after selling more than 500,000 copies domestically. The first single from the album was the title track, "What's Left of Me", released on February 21, 2006. The song became a hit, reaching a peak position of number six on the "Billboard" Hot 100. The video for "What's Left Of Me" featured former MTV VJ, Vanessa Minnillo. Lachey recorded "Ordinary Day" for the Oprah Winfrey-produced film, "". Lachey began working on his third solo album in 2007. Lachey also starred in a well known TV series, "One Tree Hill", as a singer at Red Bedroom Productions. It was announced in January 2010 that Jive Records had put his new album on hold indefinitely. In June 2010, Lachey confirmed that he had parted ways with Jive Records. "Taking the Stage", a musical reality show documenting the lives of high school students at the School for Creative and Performing Arts, premiered on MTV in March 2009. It was produced by Lachey. In December 2009, he hosted "The Sing-Off", a four-part American singing competition featuring a cappella groups, a role he reprised during December 2010 for the show's second and third season on NBC. Lachey was a contestant in the NBC celebrity reality competition series called "Stars Earn Stripes". Sports interests. Lachey is part owner of the Hollywood Fame, a team in the American Basketball Association that began play in fall 2006, and was part of an ownership group of the Tacoma Rainiers, the Seattle Mariners' Triple-A affiliate. Lachey is also a die-hard Cincinnati Bengals, Cincinnati Reds, and Cincinnati Bearcats fan. On April 7, 2009, Lachey threw out the ceremonial first pitch for the MLB Opening Day game in Cincinnati, Ohio. On July 9, 2011 Lachey sang the National Anthem for the inaugural NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race at Kentucky Speedway in Sparta, Kentucky. Personal life. Lachey dated fellow pop star Jessica Simpson on and off beginning in early 1999. On October 26, 2002, Lachey married Simpson. In November 2005, after months of tabloid speculation, Simpson and Lachey announced they were separating. Simpson filed for divorce on December 16, 2005, citing "irreconcilable differences." The couple's divorce was publicized worldwide and was reportedly finalized on June 30, 2006. "Despite his much smaller net worth, he openly refused to request a payout, even turning down a $1.5 million settlement offer from Simpson's dad." The couple sold their Calabasas mansion, in which "Newlyweds" was filmed, to "Malcolm in the Middle" star Justin Berfield for an undisclosed amount. Soon after the release of "What's Left of Me", his 2006 music video starring Vanessa Minnillo, Lachey and Minnillo began dating. They briefly broke up in June 2009, but by October 2009, Lachey confirmed that they were back together after having been "single for a minute". On November 4, 2010, Lachey and Minnillo announced their engagement. They were married July 15, 2011, on Sir Richard Branson's private Necker Island in the British Virgin Islands, with a small party of 35 close friends and family. Their wedding was filmed and televised on July 30 on TLC. The couple's first child, Camden John Lachey, was born in September 2012. Lachey is also on the Entertainment Council of the hunger-relief organization Feeding America. Awards and nominations. Teen Choice Awards MTV Video Music Awards American Music Awards
1061162	Batman Begins is a 2005 superhero film based on the fictional DC Comics character Batman, co-written and directed by Christopher Nolan. It stars Christian Bale as Batman along with Michael Caine, Liam Neeson, Katie Holmes, Gary Oldman, and Morgan Freeman. The film reboots the "Batman" film series, telling the origin story of the character from Bruce Wayne's initial fear of bats, the death of his parents, his journey to become Batman, and his fight against Ra's al Ghul's plot to destroy Gotham City. It draws inspiration from classic comic book storylines such as "The Man Who Falls", ', and '. After a series of unsuccessful projects to resurrect Batman on screen following the 1997 critical failure of "Batman & Robin", Nolan and David S. Goyer began to work on the film in early 2003 and aimed for a darker and more realistic tone, with humanity and realism being the basis of the film. The goal was to get the audience to care for both Batman and Bruce Wayne. The film, which was primarily shot in England and Chicago, relied on traditional stunts and miniatures—computer-generated imagery was used minimally. "Batman Begins" was both critically and commercially successful. The film opened on June 17, 2005, in the United States and Canada in 3,858 theaters. It grossed $48 million in its opening weekend in North America, eventually grossing over $372 million worldwide. The film received a generally positive critical response and has been considered by many as one of the best superhero films ever made. Critics noted that fear was a common motif throughout the film, and remarked that it had a darker tone compared with previous "Batman" films. The film was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Cinematography and three BAFTA awards. The film is followed by "The Dark Knight" (2008) and "The Dark Knight Rises" (2012) in a continual story-arc, which has later been referred to as "The Dark Knight" trilogy. Plot. As a child, Bruce Wayne falls into a well, where he is attacked by a swarm of bats; he develops a fear of bats as a result. Soon afterward, he witnesses his parents' murder by mugger Joe Chill, leaving Bruce to be raised by the family's butler, Alfred Pennyworth. Fourteen years later, Chill is granted parole in exchange for testifying against Gotham City crime boss Carmine Falcone. Bruce goes to the trial, intending to kill Chill, but one of Falcone's assassins does so first. Bruce's childhood friend, assistant district attorney Rachel Dawes, chides him for attempting to take the law into his own hands. Bruce later confronts Falcone, who tells him that real power comes from being feared. Bruce decides to travel and learn about the criminal underworld, before becoming a criminal himself. In a Bhutanese prison, Henri Ducard offers to train him in the arts of stealth and fear as a member of the League of Shadows, led by Ra's al Ghul. After completing his training, Bruce learns the League's true intention is to destroy Gotham City, which it views as corrupt beyond saving. Bruce refuses to join them and burns down the League's temple. Ra's is killed by falling debris, while Bruce saves an unconscious Ducard, leaving him with the local villagers. Soon afterward, Bruce returns to Gotham. Publicly posing as a playboy, he takes an interest in his family's company, Wayne Enterprises, which is now run by the unscrupulous William Earle. Bruce meets Wayne Enterprises's top scientist Lucius Fox, who shows him various prototype technologies, including the Tumbler (a heavily armored car) and a protective bodysuit. Taking these, Bruce finds an entrance to the cave under his well, confronts his fear of bats and creates a workshop, taking up the identity of "Batman". As Batman, he intercepts a drug shipment and provides Rachel with evidence to indict Falcone, empowering the honest Sgt. James Gordon and the Gotham police to arrest the previously untouchable criminal. Falcone and his henchmen are declared mentally unfit for trial and transferred to Arkham Asylum by the corrupt Dr. Jonathan Crane, who had been using Falcone to import a drug that causes terrifying hallucinations. Crane exposes Falcone to the toxin while wearing a burlap mask, driving Falcone insane with fear of the "Scarecrow". While investigating Crane, Batman is also exposed to the drug, but is rescued in time by Alfred and given an antidote by Fox. Rachel goes to Arkham, where Crane reveals that he has been dumping the toxin into Gotham's water supply before dosing her with it. She is rescued by Batman and they escape in the Tumbler, inoculating her and giving her two vials of the antidote, one for Gordon and one for mass production. Meanwhile, Gordon finds out that the compound has been laced into the entire city's water supply, but can only cause harm if inhaled. At his birthday celebration at Wayne Manor, Bruce is confronted by Ducard, who reveals himself to be the real Ra's al Ghul. Feigning drunkenness, Bruce kicks his guests out so they will be safe, leaving him alone with Ra's and his men. Ra's reveals the League's plan to destroy Gotham: having stolen the Microwave Emitter and conspired with Crane, they intend to vaporize the city's toxin-riddled water supply, making it airborne and creating mass hysteria and violence. The League sets fire to the mansion and Bruce is saved by Alfred. As the League begins unleashing the toxin, Batman rescues Rachel from a drug-induced mob and indirectly reveals his true identity to her before pursuing Ra's. Batman confronts Ra's on the train and escapes just as Gordon uses the Tumbler to destroy the elevated tracks, leaving Ra's to die in the ensuing crash. Batman becomes a public hero, but loses Rachel, who cannot bring herself to love both Bruce and Batman. Bruce buys a controlling stake in the now publicly traded Wayne Enterprises, fires Earle, and replaces him with Fox. Gordon is promoted to Lieutenant, showing Batman the Bat-Signal and mentions a criminal who leaves Joker playing cards at crime scenes. Batman promises to investigate, and disappears into the night. Cast and characters. Other cast members include Rutger Hauer as William Earle, the CEO of Wayne Enterprises who takes the company public in the long-term absence of Bruce Wayne; Mark Boone Junior as Gordon's corrupt partner Detective Arnold Flass; Ken Watanabe as Ra's al Ghul's decoy; Larry Holden as district attorney Carl Finch; Colin McFarlane as Police commissioner Gillian B. Loeb; Linus Roache and Sara Stewart as Thomas and Martha Wayne, Bruce's parents; Richard Brake as Joe Chill, the Waynes' killer; Gerard Murphy as the corrupt High Court Judge Faden; Tim Booth as Victor Zsasz; Rade Šerbedžija as a homeless man, who is the last person to meet Bruce when he leaves Gotham, and the first civilian to see Batman, and Andrew Pleavin as a uniformed policeman. Actors John Foo, Joey Ansah, Spencer Wilding, Dave Legeno, Khan Bonfils, Rodney Ryan, Dean Alexandrou, James Embree, David Bedella, Emil Martirossian, Mark Strange, Justin Miu and Chuen Tsou appear as members of the League of Shadows. Production. Development. In January 2003, Warner Bros. hired "Memento" director Christopher Nolan to direct an untitled "Batman" film, and David S. Goyer signed on to write the script two months later. Nolan stated his intention to reinvent the film franchise of "Batman" by "doing the origins story of the character, which is a story that's never been told before". Nolan said that humanity and realism would be the basis of the origin film, and that "the world of Batman is that of grounded reality. will be a recognizable, contemporary reality against which an extraordinary heroic figure arises." Goyer said that the goal of the film was to get the audience to care for both Batman and Bruce Wayne. Nolan felt the previous films were exercises in style rather than drama, and described his inspiration as being Richard Donner's 1978 film "Superman", in its focus on depicting the character's growth. Also similar to "Superman", Nolan wanted an all-star supporting cast for "Batman Begins" to lend a more epic feel and credibility to the story. Nolan's personal "jumping off point" of inspiration was "The Man Who Falls", a short story by Denny O'Neil and Dick Giordano about Bruce's travels throughout the world. The early scene in "Batman Begins" of young Bruce Wayne falling into a well was adapted from "The Man Who Falls". ', written by Jeph Loeb and drawn by Tim Sale, influenced Goyer in writing the screenplay, with the villain Carmine Falcone as one of many elements which were drawn from "Halloweens "sober, serious approach". The writers considered having Harvey Dent in the film, but replaced him with the new character Rachel Dawes when they realized they "couldn't do him justice". The character was later portrayed by Aaron Eckhart in the 2008 sequel "The Dark Knight". The sequel to "Halloween", ', also served as an influence. Goyer used the vacancy of Bruce Wayne's multi-year absence presented in ' to help set up some of the film's events in the transpiring years. In addition, the film's Sergeant James Gordon was based on his comic book incarnation as seen in "Year One". The writers of "Batman Begins" also used Frank Miller's "Year One" plot device, which was about a corrupt police force that led to Gordon and Gotham City's need for Batman. A common idea in the comics is that Bruce saw a Zorro film with his parents before they were murdered. Nolan explained that by ignoring that idea – which he stated is not found in Batman's first appearances – it emphasized the importance of bats to Bruce and that becoming a superhero is a wholly original idea on his part. It is for this reason Nolan believes other DC characters do not exist in the universe of his film; otherwise, Wayne's reasons for taking up costumed vigilantism would have been very different. At his audition, Bale wore the batsuit Val Kilmer donned for 1995's "Batman Forever". Filming. As with all his films, Nolan refused a second unit; he did this in order to keep his vision consistent. Filming began in March 2004 in the Vatnajökull glacier in Iceland (standing in for Bhutan). The crew built a village and the front doors to Ra's' temple, as well as a road to access the remote area. The weather was problematic, with winds, rain, and a lack of snow. A shot Wally Pfister had planned to take using a crane had to be done with a handheld camera. In seeking inspiration from "Superman" and other blockbuster films of the late 1970s and early 1980s, Nolan based most of the production in England, specifically Shepperton Studios. A Batcave set was built there and measured long, wide, and high. Production designer Nathan Crowley installed twelve pumps to create a waterfall with , and built rocks using molds of real caves. In January 2004, an airship hangar at Cardington, Bedfordshire was rented by Warner Bros. for filming in April 2004. There, the Narrows and the feet of the monorails filled the long stage. Mentmore Towers was chosen from twenty different locations for Wayne Manor, as Nolan and Crowley liked its white floors, which gave the impression of the manor as a memorial to Wayne's parents. The building chosen to represent Arkham Asylum was the National Institute for Medical Research building in Mill Hill, northwest London, England. The St Pancras railway station and the Abbey Mills Pumping Stations were used for Arkham's interiors. University College London was used for courtrooms. Some scenes, including the Tumbler pursuit, were filmed in Chicago at locations such as Lower Wacker Drive and 35 East Wacker. Authorities agreed to raise Franklin Street Bridge for a scene where access to the Narrows is closed. Despite the film's darkness, Nolan wanted to make the film appeal to a wide age range. "Not the youngest kids obviously, I think what we've done is probably a bit intense for them but I certainly didn't want to exclude the sort of ten to 12-year olds, because as a kid I would have loved to have seen a movie like this." Because of this, nothing gory or bloody was filmed. Design. Nolan used the 1982 cult science fiction film "Blade Runner" as a source of inspiration for "Batman Begins". He screened "Blade Runner" to cinematographer Wally Pfister and two others to show the attitude and style that he wanted to draw from the film. Nolan described the film's world as "an interesting lesson on the technique of exploring and describing a credible universe that doesn't appear to have any boundaries", a lesson that he applied to the production of "Batman Begins". Nolan worked with production designer Nathan Crowley to create the look of Gotham City. Crowley built a model of the city that filled Nolan's garage. Crowley and Nolan designed it as a large, modern metropolitan area that would reflect the various periods of architecture that the city had gone through. Elements were drawn from New York City, Chicago, and Tokyo; the latter for its elevated freeways and monorails. The Narrows was based on the slummish nature of the (now demolished) walled city of Kowloon in Hong Kong. Tumbler. Crowley started the process of designing the Tumbler for the film by model bashing. Crowley used the nose cone of a P-38 Lightning model to serve as the chassis for the Tumbler's turbine engine. Six models of the Tumbler were built to 1:12 scale in the course of four months. Following the scale model creation, a crew of over 30 people, including Crowley and engineers Chris Culvert and Annie Smith, carved a full-size replica of the Tumbler out of a large block of Styrofoam in two months. The Styrofoam model was used to create a steel "test frame", which had to stand up to several standards: have a speed of over , go from 0 to in 5 seconds, possess a steering system to make sharp turns at city corners, and withstand a self-propelled launch of up to . On the first jump test, the Tumbler's front end collapsed and had to be completely rebuilt. The basic configuration of the newly designed Tumbler included a 5.7-liter Chevy V8 engine, a truck axle for the rear axle, front tires by Hoosier (which are actually dirt racing tires used on the right rear of open wheel sprint cars), 4 rear 44/18.5-16.5 Interco Super Swamper TSL tires (44" tall, 18.5" wide, mounted on a 16.5" wheel) and the suspension system of Baja racing trucks. The design and development process took nine months and cost several million dollars. With the design process complete, four street-ready race cars were constructed, with each vehicle possessing 65 panels and costing $250,000 to build. Two of the four cars were specialized versions. One version was the flap version, which had hydraulics and flaps to detail the close-up shots where the vehicle propelled itself through the air. The other version was the jet version, in which an actual jet engine was mounted onto the vehicle, fueled by six propane tanks. The visibility inside the vehicle was poor, so monitors were connected to cameras on the vehicle body. The professional drivers for the Tumblers practiced driving the vehicles for six months before they drove on the streets of Chicago for the film's scenes. The interior of the Tumbler was an immobile studio set and not actually the interior of a street-capable Tumbler. The cockpit was over-sized to fit cameras for scenes filmed in the Tumbler interior. In addition, another version of the Tumbler was a miniature model that was 1:6 scale of the actual Tumbler. This miniature model had an electric motor and was used to show the Tumbler flying across ravines and between buildings. However, the actual Tumbler was used for the waterfall sequence. Batsuit. The filmmakers intended to create a very mobile Batsuit that would allow the wearer to move easily to fight and crouch. Previous film incarnations of the Batsuit had been stiff and especially restricted full head movement. Costume designer Lindy Hemming and her crew worked on the Batsuit at an FX workshop codenamed "Cape Town", a secured compound located at Shepperton Studios in London. The Batsuit's basic design was a neoprene undersuit, which was shaped by attaching molded cream latex sections. Christian Bale was molded and sculpted prior to his physical training so the team could work on a full body cast. To avoid imperfections picked up by sculpting with clay, plastiline was used to smooth the surface. In addition, the team brewed different mixtures of foam to find the mixture that would be the most flexible, light, durable, and black. The latter presented a problem, since the process to make the foam black reduced the foam's durability. For the cape, director Christopher Nolan wanted to have a "flowing cloak... that blows and flows as in so many great graphic novels". Hemming's team created the cape out of their own version of parachute nylon that had electrostatic flocking, a process shared with the team by the British Ministry of Defence. The process was used by the London police force to minimize night vision detection. The cape was topped by a cowl, which was designed by Nolan, Hemming, and costume effects supervisor Graham Churchyard. The cowl was created to be thin enough to allow motion but thick enough to avoid wrinkling when Bale turned his head in the Batsuit. Churchyard explained the cowl had been designed to show "a man who has angst", so his character would be revealed through the mask. Fight choreography. Fight choreography utilized the Keysi Fighting Method which itself gained fame after it was used in the movie "Batman Begins" and its sequel, "The Dark Knight"; however, it was not used in "The Dark Knight Rises" due to a change in fight team. The method is a self-defense system whose training is based on the study and cultivation of natural instincts. Special effects. For "Batman Begins", Nolan preferred traditional stuntwork over computer-generated imagery. Scale models were used to represent the Narrows and Ra's al Ghul's temple. There were, however, several establishing shots that were CG composite images; that is, an image composed of multiple images. Examples include Gotham's skyline, exterior shots of Wayne Tower, and some of the exterior monorail shots. The climactic monorail sequence mixed live action footage, model work, and CGI. The bats were entirely digital (except in shots containing only one or two bats), as it was decided directing larger numbers of real bats on set would be problematic. Dead bats were scanned to create digital models. Locations and sets were recreated on the computer so the flying bats would not be superfluous once incorporated into the finished film. Music. The score for "Batman Begins" was composed by Hans Zimmer and James Newton Howard. Nolan originally invited Zimmer to compose the music, and Zimmer asked Nolan if he could invite Howard to compose as well, as they had always planned a collaboration. The two composers collaborated on separate themes for the "split personality" of Bruce Wayne and his alter ego, Batman. Zimmer and Howard began composing in Los Angeles and moved to London where they stayed for twelve weeks to complete most of their writing. Zimmer and Howard sought inspiration for shaping the score by visiting the "Batman Begins" sets. Zimmer wanted to avoid writing music that had been done in earlier "Batman" films, so the score became an amalgamation of orchestra and electronic music. The film's ninety-piece orchestra was developed from members of various London orchestras, and Zimmer chose to use more than the normal number of cellos. Zimmer enlisted a boy soprano to help reflect the music in some of the film's scenes where tragic memories of Bruce Wayne's parents are involved. "He's singing a fairly pretty tune and then he gets stuck, it's like froze, arrested development," said Zimmer. He also attempted to add a human dimension to Batman, whose behavior would typically be seen as "psychotic", through the music. Both composers collaborated to create 2 hours and 20 minutes worth of music for the film. Zimmer composed the action sequences, while Howard focused on the film's drama. Themes. Comic book writer and author Danny Fingeroth argues that a strong theme in the film is Bruce's search for a father figure, saying "is the good father that Bruce comes to depend on. Bruce's real father died before they could establish an adult relationship, and Liam Neeson's Ducard is stern and demanding, didactic and challenging, but not a father figure with any sympathy. If Bruce is anyone's son, he is Alfred's. [Morgan Freeman's Lucius is cool and imperturbable, another steady anchor in Bruce's life." Blogger Mark Fisher states that Bruce's search for justice requires him to learn from a proper father figure, with Thomas Wayne and Ra's al Ghul being the two counterpoints. Alfred provides a maternal figure of unconditional love, despite the overall lack of focus on a mother figure in Bruce's life. Fingeroth also argues that a major theme in the film is fear, which supports the story of Bruce Wayne becoming a hero. Director Christopher Nolan stated that the idea behind the film was "a person who would confront his innermost fear and then attempt to become it". Fingeroth referred to this film's depiction as "the man with fear—but who rises above it". The theme of fear is further personified by the choice of antagonist, the Scarecrow. The film depicts how fear can affect all creatures regardless of might. Allusions to fear are seen throughout, from Bruce's conquering of his demons, to becoming Batman, to the Scarecrow and his deadly fear toxin. The macabre, distorted images presented in the Scarecrow's toxin-induced hallucinations also express the idea of terror to an extreme. Critic Brian Orndorf considered "Batman Begins" "fierce" and "demonstrative in brood", giving the film an abundance of gravitas and energy. It strays away from the lighter fare of Joel Schumacher's 1997 Batman film, "Batman & Robin", which contained camp one-liners throughout. The theme of fear is intensified with the help of the musical score by Zimmer and Howard, which also "eschews traditional heroic themes". Also contrary to previous "Batman" films, a psychological investigation of Bruce Wayne's split personality in the bat suit is only lightly touched upon. Orndorf noted that Bruce is a "character constantly striving to do the right thing, not worn down by incessant reexamination". Reception. "Batman Begins" has received generally positive reviews from critics. Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reports that 85% of critics have given the film a positive review based on 263 reviews, with an average score of 7.7/10, making the film a "Certified Fresh" on the website's rating system. At Metacritic, which assigns a weighted mean rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the film received an average score of 70, based on 41 reviews, which indicates "generally favorable reviews". Additionally, the film was a success with audiences who, when polled by CinemaScore, awarded the film an A grade. James Berardinelli applauded Nolan and Goyer's work creating more understanding into "who is and what motivates him", something Berardinelli felt Tim Burton's film lacked; at the same time, Berardinelli felt the romantic aspect between Bale and Holmes did not work because the actors lacked the chemistry Christopher Reeve and Margot Kidder ("Superman"), or Tobey Maguire and Kirsten Dunst ("Spider-Man") shared in their respective roles. According to "Total Film", Nolan manages to create such strong characters and story that the third-act action sequences cannot compare to "the frisson of two people talking", and Katie Holmes and Christian Bale's romantic subplot has a spark "refreshingly free of Peter Parker/Mary Jane-style whining". "Los Angeles Times" Kenneth Turan, who felt the film began slowly, stated that the "story, psychology and reality, not special effects", assisted the darkness behind Batman's arsenal; he noted that Neeson and Holmes, unlike Bale's ability to "feel his role in his bones", do not appear to fit their respective characters in "being both comic-book archetypes and real people". "The New Yorker" David Denby did not share Berardinelli and Turan's opinion. He was unimpressed with the film, when comparing it to the two Tim Burton films, and that Christian Bale's presence was hindered by the "dull earnestness of the screenplay", the final climax was "cheesy and unexciting", and that Nolan had resorted to imitating the "fakery" used by other filmmakers when filming action sequences. Michael Wilmington of the "Chicago Tribune" believed Nolan and Goyer managed to "comfortably mix the tormented drama and revenge motifs with light hearted gags and comic book allusions," and that Nolan takes the series out of the "slam-bang Hollywood jokefests" the franchise had drifted into. Comic book scribe and editor Dennis O'Neil stated that he "felt the filmmakers really understood the character they were translating", citing this film as the best of the live-action "Batman" films. In contrast, J.R. Jones, from the "Chicago Reader", criticized the script, and Nolan and David Goyer for not living up to the "hype about exploring Batman's damaged psyche". Roger Ebert, who gave mixed reviews to the previous films, wrote this was "the "Batman" movie I've been waiting for; more correctly, this is the movie I did not realize I was waiting for". Giving it four out of four stars, he commended the realistic portrayals of the Batman arsenal – the Batsuit, Batcave, Tumbler, and the Batsignal – as well as the focus on "the story and character" with less stress on "high-tech action". Like Berardinelli, "USA Today"s Mike Clark thought Bale performed the role of Batman as well as he did Patrick Bateman in "American Psycho", but that the relationship between Bruce Wayne and Rachel Dawes was "frustratingly underdeveloped". Kyle Smith thought Bale exhibited "both the menace and the wit he showed in his brilliant turn in "American Psycho"", and that the film works so well because of the realism, stating, "Batman starts stripping away each layer of Gotham crime only to discover a sicker and more monstrous evil beneath, his rancid city simultaneously invokes early '90s New York, when criminals frolicked to the tune of five murders a day; "Serpico" New York, when cops were for sale; and today, when psychos seek to kill us all at once rather than one by one." In contrast, Salon.com's Stephanie Zacharek felt Nolan did not deliver the emotional depth expected of "one of the most soulful and tortured superheroes of all"; she thought Bale, unlike Michael Keaton whom she compared him to, failed to connect with the audience underneath the mask, but that Gary Oldman succeeded in "emotional complexity" where the rest of the movie failed. Film director Tim Burton felt Nolan "captured the real spirit that these kind of movies are supposed to have nowadays. When I did "Batman" twenty years ago, in 1988 or something, it was a different time in comic book movies. You couldn't go into that dark side of comics yet. The last couple of years that has become acceptable and Nolan certainly got more to the root of what the "Batman" comics are about." Box office. "Batman Begins" opened on June 17, 2005 in the United States and Canada in 3,858 theaters, including 55 IMAX theaters. The film ranked at the top in its opening weekend, accumulating $48,745,440, which was seen as "strong but unimpressive by today's instantaneous blockbuster standards". The film's five-day gross was $72.9 million, beating "Batman Forever" (1995) as the franchise high. "Batman Begins" also broke the five-day opening record in the 55 IMAX theaters, grossing $3.16 million. Polled moviegoers rated the film with an A, and according to the studio's surveys, "Batman Begins" was considered the best of all the "Batman" films. The audience's demographic was 57 percent male and 54 percent people over the age of 25. The film held its top spot for another weekend, accumulating $27,589,389 in a 43 percent drop from its first weekend. "Batman Begins" went on to gross $205,343,774 in North America and had a worldwide total of $372,710,015. It is the fourth-highest grossing "Batman" film, as of August 2012, behind Tim Burton's "Batman", which grossed $411,348,924 worldwide and also being surpassed by its sequels "The Dark Knight" and "The Dark Knight Rises", both of which have grossed over $1 billion. "Batman Begins" averaged $12,634 per theater in its opening weekend. It was released in more theaters, but sold fewer tickets than the other previous "Batman" movies, with the exception of "Batman & Robin". "Batman Begins" was the eighth-highest grossing film of 2005 in the US. Home media. The DVD of "Batman Begins" was released on October 18, 2005, in both single-disc and two-disc deluxe editions and also released on VHS and UMD Video formats. In addition to the film, the deluxe edition contained featurettes and other bonus materials. The edition contained a small paperback booklet, the first "Batman" story, featured in "Detective Comics" No. 27, as well as ' and an excerpt from '. "Batman Begins" achieved first place in national sales and rental charts in October 2005, becoming the top-selling DVD of the fourth quarter of 2005. The DVD grossed $11.36 million in rental revenue. The DVD held its position at the top of the sales chart for a second week, but fell to second place behind "Bewitched" on video rental charts. "Batman Begins" was released on HD DVD on October 10, 2006. A "Limited Edition Giftset" of the film was released on DVD and Blu-ray on July 8, 2008, to coincide with "The Dark Knight" which hit theaters July 18, 2008. The film grossed $167,000,000 in DVD sales, bringing its total film gross to $539,853,783 as of August 2006. Due to the successful box office performance of "The Dark Knight", the "Batman Begins" DVD has since seen an increase in both sales and rentals. Accolades. Wally Pfister was nominated for Best Cinematography at the 78th Academy Awards, receiving the film's only Academy Award nomination. The film received three nominations at the 59th British Academy Film Awards. Just months after its release, "Batman Begins" was voted by "Empire" readers as the 36th greatest film of all time. In 2006, the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers honored James Newton Howard, Hans Zimmer, and Ramin Djawadi with an ASCAP award for composing a film that became one of the top grossing films of 2005. The film was awarded three Saturn Awards in 2006 as well: Best Fantasy Film, Best Actor for Christian Bale, and Best Writing for Nolan and Goyer. Christian Bale would go on to win an MTV Movie Award for Best Hero. However, Katie Holmes's performance was not well received, and she was nominated for a Razzie Award for Worst Supporting Actress. "Batman Begins" won the fan-based "Total Film" award for Best Film. In November 2008, "Empire" ranked "Batman Begins" 81 in its 500 Greatest Movies of All Time list. Impact. Shawn Adler of "MTV" stated "Batman Begins" heralded a trend of darker genre films, that either retold back-stories or rebooted them altogether. Examples he cited were "Casino Royale", as well as the in-development "RoboCop", "Red Sonja", and "Grayskull". Filmmakers, screenwriters and producers who have mentioned "Batman Begins" or "The Dark Knight" to describe their projects include: Jon Favreau and "Iron Man", Edward Norton and "The Incredible Hulk", McG and "Terminator Salvation" (which also stars Bale), Damon Lindelof and "Star Trek", "Star Trek Into Darkness", Robert Downey, Jr. and "Sherlock Holmes", Lorenzo di Bonaventura and ', Hugh Jackman and ', Matthew Vaughn and "", Rupert Wyatt and "Rise of the Planet of the Apes", Kevin Tancharoen and "Mortal Kombat", Sam Mendes and "Skyfall", Alex Kurtzman and "Van Helsing", Andrew Kreisberg and "Arrow", and Marcus Dunstan and Patrick Melton with a potential adaptation of "God of War". "Entertainment Weekly" has cited "Batman Begins" as an inspiration for both the reinventing, as well as the tone for the recently released "The Amazing Spider-Man".
583441	Pyaar Mein Kabhi Kabhi (English: Sometimes in love) is a 1999 Hindi film, directed by Raj Kaushal. The film is set against the backdrop of a Performing Arts College. Plot. The film revolves around a group of talented friends, whose lives undergo a complete change with the arrival of a new student... Khushi (Rinke Khanna). The friends Sids or Siddhant (Dino Morea), Bhargav or Bugs (Sanjay Suri), Ronnie (Akashdeep Saigal), Radha (Shweta Salve), Ruby (Melody), Manoj Dhanwani as ‘Haklu’ because he stammers a lot. They all are the young and vibrant students of National Institute of Performing Arts. With Kushi comes a lot of happiness in their lives and as the days pass by, both Sids and Bugs fall in love with her. But Kushi loves Sids. Sids is driven by a burning ambition of becoming a singer. He throws friendship aside for a desirable woman (Roxy), who he believes, is his stepping stone to success. He dreams of becoming the greatest pop singer and perform with Roxy. But nothing stops them (Sids and Kushi) to come closer and closer each day.Bugs finds himself falling deeper and deeper in love with Khushi, but is forced to keep it a secret that only he can treasure. He takes Khushi on a day long romantic date. Khushi, broken by Sid’s falling for another woman, returns to her comfortable yet lonely existence... The very home that she left to find genuine love and lasting friendships. Emotional upheavals also haunt the rest of the group when a close colleague develops AIDS. Notes. Percept Picture Company produced Pyaar Mein Kabhi Kabhi with 300 debutantes, an industry first in Indian cinema. Also a first for an Advertising Agency to produce a full length film.
1165756	Robert Cletus "Bobby" Driscoll (March 3, 1937 – March 30, 1968) was an American child actor known for a large body of cinema and TV performances from 1943 to 1960. He starred in some of The Walt Disney Company's most popular live-action pictures of that period, such as "Song of the South" (1946), "So Dear to My Heart" (1948), and "Treasure Island" (1950). He served as animation model and provided the voice for the title role in "Peter Pan" (1953). In 1950, he received an Academy Juvenile Award for outstanding performance in feature films. In the mid-1950s, Driscoll's acting career began to decline, and he turned primarily to guest appearances on anthology TV series. He became addicted to narcotics and was sentenced to prison for drug use. After his release he focused his attention on the avant-garde art scene. In ill health from his drug use, and his funds completely depleted, he died on March 30, 1968. Early life. He was born Robert Cletus Driscoll in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, the only child of Cletus, an insulation salesman, and Isabelle (née Kratz) Driscoll, a former schoolteacher. Shortly after his birth, the family moved to Des Moines, where they stayed until early 1943. When a doctor advised the father to relocate to balmy California due to pulmonary ailments he was suffering from his work-related handling of asbestos, the family moved to Los Angeles.
1057676	The Great Caruso is a 1951 biographical film made by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and starring Mario Lanza in the title role. It was directed by Richard Thorpe and produced by Joe Pasternak with Jesse L. Lasky as associate producer from a screenplay by Sonya Levien and William Ludwig. The original music was by Johnny Green and the cinematography by Joseph Ruttenberg. Costume design was by Helen Rose and Gile Steele. The film is a highly fictionalized biography of the life of tenor Enrico Caruso. Cast. Mario Lanza stars in the title role as Caruso and Ann Blyth stars as his wife Dorothy; the cast also includes Richard Hageman, Carl Benton Reid, Eduard Franz, Ludwig Donath and Nestor Paiva. It features a large number of Metropolitan Opera stars, notably sopranos Dorothy Kirsten, Teresa Celli, Lucine Amara, Marina Koshetz and Jarmila Novotná, mezzo-soprano Blanche Thebom, baritone Giuseppe Valdengo and bass Nicola Moscona. A couple of the duets Lanza sang for the film's soundtrack were recorded with soprano Elaine Malbin.
1163489	Forrest Tucker (February 12, 1919 – October 25, 1986) was an American actor in both movies and television from the 1940s to the 1980s. Tucker, who stood 6'4"tall and weighed 200 lb, appeared in nearly 100 action films in the 1940s and 1950s. Early life and education. Tucker was born in Plainfield, Indiana, a son of Forrest A. Tucker and his wife Doris Heringlake. He began his performing career at age 14 at the 1933 Chicago World's Fair, pushing the big wicker tourist chairs by day and singing "Throw Money" at night. After his family moved to Washington, D.C., Tucker attracted the attention of Jimmy Lake, the owner of the Old Gaiety Burlesque Theater, by winning its Saturday night amateur contest on consecutive weeks. After his second win, Tucker was hired full time as master of ceremonies at the theatre. However, his initial employment there was short-lived; it was soon discovered that Tucker was underage. Tucker graduated from Washington-Lee High School, Arlington, Virginia, near Washington, D.C. in 1938. Lying about his age, Tucker then joined the United States Army cavalry. He was stationed at Fort Myer in Arlington, Virginia, but was discharged when his age became known. He returned to work at the Old Gaiety after his 18th birthday. Career. Hollywood. When Lake's theatre closed for the summer in 1939, Tucker travelled to California and began auditioning for movie roles. He was cast as Wade Harper in "The Westerner" (1940), which starred Gary Cooper. He stood out in a fight scene with Cooper and was signed to Columbia Pictures. In 1941, he played his first lead in PRC's "Emergency Landing", and the following year he co-starred in the classic "Keeper of the Flame".
578403	Tom Yum Goong 2 (can be referred to as TYG 2) is an upcoming Thai martial arts film starring Tony Jaa, Yanin Vismitananda, and Marrese Crump. The film is the sequel to "Tom-Yum-Goong". Production. The sequel officially went into production in August 2011. It reunites director Prachya Pinkaew with star Tony Jaa and action choreographer Panna Rittikrai for the first time since 2005's "Tom-Yum-Goong" which is another movie where an elephant was stolen and all kinds of crazy action stunts, explosions and fighting happened. The film will be shot in 3-D. The film is to be released in Thailand on 23 October 2013 Stunt work. The fights are being choreographed by Tony Jaa and Marrese Crump and Vince Makiling with their mentor, Panna Rittikrai.
1065015	Four Lions (2010) is a British dark comedy film. It is the feature film debut of director Chris Morris, written by Morris, Sam Bain, and Jesse Armstrong. The film is a jihad satire following a group of homegrown terrorist jihadis from Sheffield, South Yorkshire, England. Plot. A group of radicalised young British Muslim men aspire to be suicide bombers. They are Omar (Riz Ahmed), who is deeply critical of Western society and imperialism; his dim-witted friend, Waj (Kayvan Novak); Barry (Nigel Lindsay), a bad-tempered and extremely rash white convert to Islam; and the naive Faisal (Adeel Akhtar), who tries to train crows to be used as bombers. While Omar and Waj go to a terrorist training camp in Pakistan, Barry recruits a reluctant fifth member, Hassan (Arsher Ali). The visit to the training camp ends in disaster, with Omar misfiring a rocket backwards that kills fellow jihadists; however, he uses the experience to assert authority on his return to Britain. The group begins acquiring materials for making improvised explosive devices but disagree about what to target. Barry wants to bomb a local mosque as a false flag operation to "radicalise the moderates", but Omar considers this idiotic. Faisal suggests blowing up a branch of the pharmacy chain Boots, but Omar states it is a not a worthwhile target. Hassan allows an oblivious neighbour (Julia Davis) into their safe house; the group think they have been compromised and transport their volatile explosives to a new location in grocery bags. Faisal accidentally trips in a field while carrying the explosives and blows up. This causes a row among the remaining four, who disband; but they reconcile, and Omar decides to target the upcoming London Marathon. Wearing mascot costumes to conceal their explosives—Omar as the Honey Monster; Waj as a man riding an ostrich; Barry as a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle; and Hassan as an inverted clown —they prepare to attack. Waj expresses doubts about the rectitude of the plot, but Omar convinces him to go ahead. Hassan loses his nerve and tries to alert nearby police officers, but Barry detonates his bomb using a mobile phone, killing Hassan and the police, as well as alerting the authorities to the remaining three.
1074106	100 Feet is a 2008 American horror film written and directed by Eric Red and starring Famke Janssen, Bobby Cannavale, Ed Westwick and Michael Paré. Plot. Marnie Watson (Famke Jannsen) is being driven home in a police car after killing her abusive husband in self-defense--she is condemned to house arrest. Shanks (Bobby Cannavale), a cop and the former partner of Marnie's husband who was also a cop, escort her. After they get inside, another officer arrives to fit Marnie's ankle bracelet. The cop tells her she cannot move more than from the detector in the hallway. He also tells Marnie that if the alarm sounds for more than three minutes, the police will be notified. Shanks informs Marnie that if she attempts to remove her tag or transgresses the boundaries, she will be imprisoned for ten years. Marnie argues with Shanks, telling him that if the police had taken her crime reports and hospital trips seriously, her husband would still be alive today. Later that day, Marnie places all of her husband's pictures and belongings in a suitcase and places them in her basement. Although her ankle bracelet goes off, Marnie is not alarmed as the duration is less than three minutes. She then paints over the blood on the wall. When she calls the power company about having her power restored, they inform her they cannot make it until Monday, so she reads by candlelight and speaks on the telephone to one of her friends who is still incarcerated. Later that night, she is in bed and hears footsteps, but it turns out to be a cat. The next day, a delivery boy Joey (Ed Westwick) arrives to deliver her groceries. She tells him she needs him to come by on a regular basis. Later that night, when Marnie is in bed, her husband's face suddenly appears directly before hers. Frightened, she leaps up and flees from her room. Her husband's ghost, Mike (Michael Pare), pushes her down the stairs. As she crawls to the front door, she sets the detector off. Shanks arrives a short time later and finds her unconscious at the front door. She tells him she fell down the stairs. He asks her if someone is beating her and then chastises her for not cleaning up the blood stain, which has reappeared on the wall. The next day, she cleans the bloodstain up again and becomes scared when the power company switches the power back on. The cupboards begin to rattle. When plates fly across the room at her, she shouts at Mike that he had it coming, because he beat her for years. Marnie's sister arrives at the house and it is clear that they are estranged. Her sister accuses Marnie of constantly seeking attention and manipulating their mother. Her sister explains that their mother kept thinking only about her. Marnie accuses her sister of wanting the family fortune for herself and brusquely signs the inheritance papers that officially name Marnie as the new landlord. Joey comes over the next day and discovers why Marnie wears a tag. She tells him that her husband used to beat her. The beatings commenced when Mikey joined the police force. When she filed a complaint, Mikey got his police 'buddies' to investigate the matters. This was why no one knew that Marnie was a battered woman. Joey tells Marnie that he wants to be her friend and gives her his landline number as well as his cell phone number. Marnie then asks him to get books on ghosts from the library.
219956	The Tulse Luper Suitcases is a multimedia project by Peter Greenaway, initially intended to comprise three "source" and one feature films, a 16-episode TV series, and 92 DVDs, as well as Web sites, CD-ROMs and books. Once the online Web-based portion of the project was completed: the "winner" having taken a trip following Tulse Luper's travels (and often imprisonment) during his first writings about the discovery of uranium in Moab, Utah in 1928 to his mysterious disappearance at the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. Two books and three feature films were released to supply material to the Flash/Web designers who competed in a contest to make one of the 92 Flash-based "suitcase" games featured on the interactive, online site "The Tulse Luper Journey". Films / DVDs. Three films: "The Tulse Luper Suitcases, Part 1: The Moab Story"
1068483	Rebecca Pidgeon (born October 25, 1965) is a British actress and singer-songwriter. She has maintained a recording career while also acting on stage and in feature films. She is married to the American writer and director David Mamet. Early life. Pidgeon was born to English parents in Cambridge, Massachusetts, while her father, Carl R. Pidgeon, was a visiting professor at MIT. Her mother was a yoga teacher. Her paternal grandmother, Monica Pidgeon, the editor of Architectural Design, was the sister of artist Olga Lehmann and art critic Andrew George Lehmann. She moved to Edinburgh, Scotland in 1970, with her parents. She holds dual American/British citizenship. She attended drama college and graduated from the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts in London alongside Clive Owen, Liza Tarbuck and Serena Harragin. After some promising work as an actress in the UK, she moved back to the U.S. Career. From 1986 to 1990, Pidgeon was the lead singer of the British folk/pop band Ruby Blue. Pidgeon left Ruby Blue shortly after the band signed to a major record label and was beginning to gather both commercial and critical success. She appeared in her first feature film in 1988, "The Dawning". She then decided to concentrate on her acting career, starring in David Mamet's plays and films, first "Homicide", then "Oleanna" onstage, a part Mamet wrote for her; Pidgeon composed the music for the film version, which starred Debra Eisenstadt in her role. Returning to music in 1994, she released the solo album "The Raven", followed by "New York Girls' Club". Another album, "The Four Marys", a collection of traditional Celtic folk songs, followed in 1998. In October 2005, she released "Tough on Crime," which featured Walter Becker on guitar and the late Billy Preston on keyboards. Her 2008 album, "," includes a cover version of the Beach Boys song "Wouldn't It Be Nice?" and a duet with Luciana Souza. On March 12, 2012 she released the album "Slingshot". Pidgeon has had starring roles in several of Mamet's films, including "The Spanish Prisoner" (1997), "The Winslow Boy" (1999), "State and Main" (2000), and "Heist" (2001). She had a small role in the Mamet's 2008 movie "Redbelt" and also performed the music in it. Her most recent major film appearance was in 2010's "Red". Pidgeon appeared in the U.S. television series "The Unit", playing Charlotte Ryan, and in the 2007 film "Jesse Stone: Sea Change" she played Leeann Lewis, a murder-bank robbery suspect. Personal life. Pidgeon is married to the American writer and director David Mamet. She met Mamet while acting in his play "Speed-the-Plow" during its run at the National Theatre, London. Although married at the time to actress Lindsay Crouse, Mamet began a relationship with Pidgeon. Mamet divorced Crouse in 1990 and married Pidgeon in 1991. Pidgeon and Mamet have two children, Clara and Noah. Pidgeon, who was born to a non-practicing Christian family, converted to Mamet's Jewish faith.
1034448	Sir Norman Joseph Wisdom, OBE (4 February 1915 – 4 October 2010) was an English actor, comedian and singer-songwriter best known for a series of comedy films produced between 1953 and 1966 featuring his hapless onscreen character Norman Pitkin. Wisdom gained a celebrity status in lands as far apart as South America, Iran and many Eastern Bloc countries, particularly in Albania, where his films were the only ones by Western actors permitted by dictator Enver Hoxha to be shown. Charlie Chaplin once referred to Wisdom as his "favourite clown". Wisdom later forged a career on Broadway in New York and as a television actor, winning critical acclaim for his dramatic role of a dying cancer patient in the television play "Going Gently" in 1981. It was broadcast on 5 June that year. He toured Australia and South Africa. After the 1986 Chernobyl disaster, a hospice was named in his honour. In 1995 he was given the Freedom of the City of London and of Tirana. The same year he received an OBE. Wisdom was knighted in 2000 and spent much of his later life on the Isle of Man. Some of his later appearances included roles in "Last of the Summer Wine" and "Coronation Street", and he retired from acting at the age of 90 after his health deteriorated. Early life. Norman Joseph Wisdom was born in the Marylebone district of London. His parents were Frederick, a chauffeur, and Maud Wisdom (née Targett), a dressmaker who often worked for West End theatres, and had made a dress for Queen Mary. The couple married in Marylebone on 15 July 1912. Wisdom had an elder brother, Frederick Thomas "Fred" Wisdom (13 December 1912 – 1 July 1971). The family resided at 91 Fernhead Road, Maida Vale W9, where they slept in one room. Wisdom quipped, "I was born in very sorry circumstances. Both of my parents were very sorry." He and his brother were raised in severe poverty and were frequently hit by their father. After a period in a children's home in Deal, Kent, Wisdom ran away when he was 11 but returned to become an errand boy in a grocer's shop on leaving school at 13. Having been kicked out of his home by his father and becoming homeless, in 1929 he walked (by his own account) to Cardiff, Wales, where he became a cabin boy in the Merchant Navy. He later also worked as a coal miner, waiter and page boy. Armed forces. Wisdom first enlisted into the King's Own Royal Regiment (Lancaster), but his mother had him discharged as he was under age. He later re-enlisted as a drummer boy in the 10th Royal Hussars of the British Army. In 1930 he was posted to Lucknow, in the United Provinces of British India, as a bandsman. There he gained an education certificate, rode horses, became the flyweight boxing champion of the British Army in India and learned to play the trumpet and clarinet. Second World War. At the outbreak of the Second World War, Wisdom was sent to work in a communications centre in a command bunker in London where he connected telephone calls from war leaders to the prime minister. He met Winston Churchill on several occasions when asked for updates on incoming calls, and once was disciplined for calling him Winnie. Wisdom then joined the Royal Corps of Signals, and performed a similar military function at the unit headquarters based in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire. Early career. Whilst performing a shadow boxing routine in the army gym, Wisdom discovered he had a talent for entertainment, and began to develop his skills as a musician and stage entertainer. In 1940 aged 25, at a NAAFI entertainment night, during a dance routie section Wisdom stepped-down from his position in the orchestra pit, and started shadow boxing. Hearing his colleagues and officers giggles, he broke into a duck-waddle, followed by a series of facial expressions: Wisdom later credited this as where he first patented his persona as "The Successful Failure". Over the next few years, until he was de-mobbed in 1945, his routine would be suffixed with his characteristic singing and the trip-up-and-stumble. After Wisdom appeared at a charity concert at Cheltenham Town Hall, actor Rex Harrison came backstage and urged him to become a professional entertainer. Theatre. After being demobed in 1946, he worked as a private hire car driver. Having improved his diction in the army, he also took a job as a night telephone operator. Wisdom made his debut as a professional entertainer at the age of 31; his rise to the top was phenomenally fast. Initially the straight man to the magician David Nixon, he had already adopted the costume that would remain his trademark: tweed flat cap askew, with peak turned up; a suit at least two sizes too tight; a crumpled collar and a mangled tie. The character that went with this costume—known as "the Gump"—was to dominate Wisdom's film career. A West End theatre star within two years, he honed his performance skills mainly between theatres in London and Brighton: Wisdom made his TV debut the same year and was soon commanding enormous audiences. Charlie Chaplin called Wisdom his "favourite clown". Film career. Wisdom made a series of low-budget star-vehicle comedies for the Rank Organisation, beginning with "Trouble in Store" in 1953. This film earned him a BAFTA Award for Most Promising Newcomer to Film in 1954 and being voted by exhibitors as the tenth biggest star at the British box office the same year. Their cheerful, unpretentious appeal make them the direct descendants of the films made a generation earlier by George Formby. Never highly thought of by the critics, they were very popular with domestic audiences and Wisdom's films were among Britain's biggest box office successes of their day. They were also successful in some unlikely overseas markets, helping Rank stay afloat financially when their more expensive film projects were unsuccessful. The films usually involved the Gump character, Norman Pitkin, in a manual occupation in which he is barely competent and in a junior position to a straight man, often played by Edward Chapman (as Mr Grimsdale) or Jerry Desmonde. They benefited from Wisdom's capacity for physical slapstick comedy and his skill at creating a sense of the character's helplessness. The series often contained a romantic subplot; the Gump's inevitable awkwardness with women is a characteristic shared with the earlier Formby vehicles. His innocent incompetence still made him endearing to the heroine. Later career. In 1966, Wisdom went to the United States to star in a Broadway production of the James Van Heusen and Sammy Cahn musical comedy "Walking Happy". His performance was nominated for a Tony Award. On 31 December 1976, Wisdom performed his theme song "Don't Laugh at Me ('cause I'm a Fool)" on BBC1's "A Jubilee of Music", celebrating British pop music for Queen Elizabeth II's impending Silver Jubilee. Wisdom had performed in front of the Queen at many Royal Command Performances, the first being in 1952. He also completed his first American film as a vaudeville comic in "The Night They Raided Minsky's". After a typical performance on "The Ed Sullivan Show", further US opportunities were denied him when he had to return to London after his second wife left him. His subsequent career was largely confined to television, and he toured the world with a successful cabaret act. He won critical acclaim in 1981 for his dramatic role of a dying cancer patient in the television play "Going Gently". Wisdom became prominent again in the 1990s, helped by the young comedian Lee Evans, whose act was often compared to Wisdom's work. His classic Rank films were playing to new audiences on television screens and DVD, with a growing number of new young fans in the United Kingdom and abroad. The high point of this new popularity was the knighthood he was awarded, for services to entertainment, in the 2000 new year's honours list. During the ceremony, once he had received his knighthood, he walked away and again performed his trademark trip which the Queen smiled and laughed at. From 1995 until 2004 he appeared in the recurring role of Billy Ingleton in the long-running BBC comedy "Last of the Summer Wine". The role was originally a one-off appearance, but proved so popular that he returned as the character on a number of occasions. In 1996, he received a Special Achievement Award from the London Film Critics. Wisdom was a guest on a "This Is Your Life" special in the year 2000 for actor and director Todd Carty. He appeared as a half-time guest at the England vs Albania 2002 World Cup qualifier at St James' Park, Newcastle upon Tyne, and scored a penalty at the Leazes End. In 2002 Wisdom filmed a cameo role as a butler in a low budget horror film. In 2004, he made a cameo appearance in "Coronation Street," playing fitness fanatic pensioner Ernie Crabbe. In 2007 he came out of retirement to take a role in a short film called "Expresso". Popularity in Albania. Wisdom was a cult figure in Albania, where he was one of the few Western actors whose films were allowed in the country during the dictatorship of Enver Hoxha. In Hoxha's view, proletarian Norman's ultimately victorious struggles against capitalism, personified by Mr Grimsdale and the effete aristocratic characters played by Jerry Desmonde, were a Communist parable on the class war. He was known as "Mr Pitkin" after the character from his films. In 1995, he visited the post-Stalinist country where, to his surprise, he was greeted by many appreciative fans, including the then President of Albania, Sali Berisha. During this trip, Wisdom was filmed by "Newsnight" as he visited a children's project funded by ChildHope UK. On a visit in 2001, which coincided with the England football team playing Albania in the city of Tirana his appearance at the training ground overshadowed that of David Beckham. He appeared on the pitch before the start of the Albania v England match wearing a half Albanian and half English football shirt. He was well received by the crowd, especially when he performed one of his trademark trips on his way out to the centre circle. Wisdom was made an honorary citizen of Tirana. In his book and TV series "One Hit Wonderland", Tony Hawks united with Wisdom and, along with Sir Tim Rice, released a single, "Big in Albania", in an attempt to enter the Albanian pop charts. It reached Number 18 on the Top Albania Radio chart. Songwriting. Whilst Norman's stage performances often involved musical numbers, he wrote few of them. He has seven songs attributed to him in the ASCAP database, which were: "Beware", "Don't Laugh at Me ('cause I'm a Fool)", "Falling in Love", "Follow a Star", "I Love You", "Please Opportunity", and "Up in the World". Retirement. Wisdom announced his retirement from the entertainment industry on his 90th birthday (4 February 2005). He announced that he intended to spend more time with his family, playing golf and driving around the Isle of Man, where he was living. In 2007, Wisdom returned to acting in a feature film directed by Kevin Powis, "Expresso". The film, which Wisdom later announced (reported BBC/ITV News) was to be officially his last film role, is set during one day in a coffee shop and was funded by the UK Film Council and ScreenWM. Shot in January, it premièred at the Cannes Film Festival on 27 May 2007. It was later adopted by the UK charity Macmillan and released on DVD in aid of the charity. In the film Wisdom plays a vicar plagued by a fly in a café. Producer Nigel Martin Davey gave him only a visual role so he would not have to remember any lines, but on the day Wisdom was alert and had his performance changed to add more laughs. Personal life. Wisdom was married twice. His first wife was Doreen Brett, whom he married in 1941. By 1944 they had separated when Doreen gave birth to a son, Michael (born 1944), fathered by Albert Gerald Hardwick, a telephone engineer. The marriage was dissolved in 1946. He married his second wife, Freda Isobel Simpson, a dancer, in 1947; they had two children: Nicholas (born 1953, who later played first-class cricket for Sussex) and Jacqueline (born 1954). The couple divorced in 1969, with Wisdom granted full custody of the children. Freda Wisdom died in Brighton in 1992. Popular in the Isle of Man, he lived for 27 years in a house in Andreas named Ballalough (Manx language for "place of the lake", though really a humorous corruption of the English "belly laugh"). A supporter of various charities including Mencap, in 2005 Wisdom starred in a video for the Manx girl group Twisted Angels, for their single "LA", in support of the local charity Project 21. During the 1960s he was involved in a famous legal case ("Wisdom v Chamberlain")(1968) in which he was pursued by the Inland Revenue for tax on profits made from the sale of silver bullion he had bought when concerned about the further devaluation of sterling. He contended that it was an investment, but the court held that it had been a trading venture and was duly chargeable to income tax. Interests. Wisdom was a lifelong supporter and a former board member of football team Brighton and Hove Albion. He also liked Everton and Newcastle United. He enjoyed golf, and was a member of the Grand Order of Water Rats. He was an Honorary Member of the Winkle Club, a famous charity in Hastings, East Sussex. A lover of cars, his collection included a 1956 Bentley S1 Continental R Type fastback, which he first bought in 1961, and then again in the late 1980s. Until his age and declining mental health meant he failed a Department of Transport fitness-to-drive test, he owned and drove 1987 Rolls-Royce Silver Spirit and a Jaguar S-Type, which were sold in September 2005. In 1963, he commissioned D. J. (Rick) Richardson to design a new motor yacht. The long hull and superstructure were built in Spain for £80,000, before being towed to Shoreham-by-Sea, West Sussex for fitting-out. After three years of extensive works and sea trials, she was named M/Y "Conquest" and valued at £1.25 million by insurers. One of the first private yachts available for charter at £6,000 a month, she was later based in ports on the Mediteranean Sea, and finally at Port Vauban, Antibes, where Wisdom sold her. Refitted and recommissioned, she is again available for charter. Health decline. In mid-2006, after he suffered an irregular heart rhythm, Wisdom was flown by helicopter to hospital in Liverpool and was fitted with a heart pacemaker. In August 2007, newspapers of the "Daily Mail" group and the Isle of Man Newspapers reported that Wisdom was in the Abbotswood nursing home in Ballasalla, where he had been resident from 12 July 2007. On the release of "Expresso" to DVD in the same month, BBC News confirmed that Wisdom lived in a care home, because of his suffering from vascular dementia. It was also reported that he had granted his children power of attorney over his affairs and having sold off his flat in Epsom, Surrey, they were now in the process of selling his Isle of Man home to raise money to fund his longer term care. In an exclusive interview on 27 August 2007 with the "News of the World", journalists were given access to Wisdom's room at the home. He claimed to be happy and content in a routine which his family and carers considered kept him safe in spite of the memory losses associated with his condition. On 16 January 2008, BBC2 aired "Wonderland: The Secret Life Of Norman Wisdom Aged 92 and 3/4." The documentary highlighted the dilemma of coping with an ageing parent. His family said that Wisdom's memory loss had become so severe that he no longer recognised himself in his films. Death. In the six months prior to his death, Wisdom suffered a series of strokes, causing a decline in his physical and mental health. He died on 4 October 2010 at Abbotswood nursing home on the Isle of Man at the age of 95. According to his publicist, Phil Day, "I have never met anyone in the profession who didn't like him, right up to royalty". His funeral took place on 22 October 2010 in Douglas, Isle of Man and all of the Isle of Man were invited. His trademark cloth cap was placed on the coffin in the church. The funeral was attended by a large number of showbusiness personalities and, at Wisdom's request, Moira Anderson sang "Who Can I Turn To," which was specially arranged for the occasion by Gordon Cree. Filmography. Box office ranking. For a number of years British exhibitors voted Wisdom one of the most popular stars in the country.
1063173	Biutiful is a 2010 Mexican-Spanish drama film directed by Alejandro González Iñárritu and starring Javier Bardem. It is González Iñárritu's first feature since "Babel" and fourth overall, and his first film in his native Spanish language since his debut feature "Amores perros". The title "Biutiful" refers to the phonological spelling in Spanish of the English word "beautiful". The film was nominated for two Academy Awards in 2011: Best Foreign Language Film and Best Actor for Javier Bardem, which it lost to "In a Better World" and Colin Firth for "The King's Speech", respectively. Bardem's nomination makes his performance the first entirely Spanish-language performance to be nominated for that award. Bardem also received the Best Actor Award at Cannes for his work on the film. Plot. Uxbal lives in a shabby apartment in Barcelona with his two young children, Ana and Mateo. He is separated from their mother Marambra, an unreliable and reckless woman suffering from alcoholism and bipolar disorder. Having grown up an orphan, Uxbal has no family other than his brother Tito, who works in the construction business. Uxbal earns a living by procuring work for illegal immigrants and managing a group of Chinese women producing forged designer goods along with the African street vendors who are selling them. He is able to talk to the dead and is sometimes paid to pass on messages from the recently deceased at wakes and funerals. When he is diagnosed with terminal prostate cancer leaving him with only a few months to live, his world progressively falls apart. Uxbal initially begins chemotherapy, but he later ends the treatment at the advice of his friend and traditional healer Bea. She also gives him two black stones which she asks him to give his children before he dies. The group of Africans are brutally arrested by the police despite Uxbal's regular bribes because of their involvement with drugs. As his friend Ekweme faces deportation to Senegal, Uxbal offers Ekweme's wife Ige and their baby son a room in his apartment. Meanwhile, an attempt at reconciliation with Marambra fails when Uxbal realizes she cannot be trusted to raise his children. Tito brokers a deal to put the Chinese to work at a construction site. However, almost all of them die while asleep in the basement of their sweatshop due to malfunctioning gas heaters that Uxbal provided to heat their clammy sleeping quarters. An attempt by the human trafficker to dump the bodies of the Chinese into the sea fails when they are washed up on the shore shortly after. As Uxbal's health continues to deteriorate, he is plagued with guilt that he is responsible for the death of the Chinese immigrants. As his death draws nearer, he realizes that there will be nobody to take care of Ana and Mateo once he is gone. He entrusts the remainder of his savings to Ige, asking her to stay with the children after his death. She accepts his request but later decides to use the money to pay for her return to Africa. She changes her mind at the last minute, however, and returns to the apartment. Knowing that Ige will take care of his children, Uxbal lies down next to Ana and dies after having passed on to her a diamond ring which his father had once given to his mother. He is then reunited in a snowy winter landscape with his father, who had died before Uxbal's birth shortly after having fled Spain for Mexico during the Franco regime. Production. "Biutiful" took three and half years to make, since the beginning of the writing process. It was shot between October 2008 and February 2009 in Barcelona, Spain. It was a Mexican and Spanish co-production. The film was shot in chronological order by scenes. Reception. Critical reception. Review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes reports 64% of critics featured on the site gave a positive review of the film at an average rating of 6.4/10 based on 131 reviews. Kirk Honeycutt of the "Hollywood Reporter" calls the film, "a gorgeous melancholy tone poem about love, fatherhood and guilt", and describes Bardem’s performance as "...a knockout. " Betsy Sharkey of the "LA Times" wrote, “Bardem gives a performance of staggering depth, unquestionably one of the year’s best. ” A. O. Scott from the "New York Times" writes, “ Mr. Iñárritu creates a feeling of raw, sprawling intimacy…every shot is full of emotional and social detail. ” Roger Ebert wrote "What drew me into the film and engaged my sympathy was the presence of Bardem...a vastly human actor. " Steve Pond of The Wrap writes Bardem’s performance is a “towering achievement”. The film has been overwhelmingly well received in many countries including France and the UK. Peter Bradshaw of "The Guardian" writes, "The fluency and confidence of Inarritu's cinematic language are really spectacular. It may not convert, or convince, but it is certainly arresting: not magic realism exactly, but rather the director's very own brand of magic naturalism". At Metacritic, which assigns a weighted average score out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the film has so far received an average score of 58 . critical praise was not universal, however. Some reviews criticized the story as being too bleak; Justin Chang of "Variety" writes "Iñárritu" is "...stuck in a grim rut. "
587936	Yugandhar () was a 1979 Telugu remake of the hit Hindi film "Don". It starred N.T. Rama Rao, Jayasudha, Jaggaiah, Sheela and Chalam. Jayamalini does a dance number in the film. The director was K. S. R. Das, who stated that this film became a hit. The Hindi song "Khaike Pan Banaras wala" was also remade into the Telugu song "Oh Rabba Yesukunna Killi." "Yugandhar" is said to have some of the elements of another Telugu film, also starring NTR titled "Bhale Thammudu (1969)", where he played dual roles. That film was a direct remake of Shakti Samanta's Hindi film China Town starring Shammi Kapoor. In 2009, a second Telugu remake of Hindi film "Don" titled "Billa" was released. Jayasudha played a guest role, different from the role she played in "Yugandhar."
774250	Vincent and Me (French-language title: Vincent et moi) is a 1990 Canadian fantasy film. The movie was directed by Michael Rubbo and is the 11th in the "Tales for All (Contes Pour Tous)" series of children's movies created by Les Productions la Fête. At the age of 114, Jeanne Calment appeared briefly in the film as herself, making her the oldest actress ever. Calment claimed to be the last living person to have met Vincent van Gogh. Plot. Jo loves to draw, and she is good enough at it to win a scholarship. She goes to the city from her small town to study at a special art school, where more than anything else, she hopes to learn to paint like her hero, Vincent van Gogh. While sketching faces one day, she encounters a mysterious European art dealer who buys a few of her drawings, and commissions her to do some more. He rewards her handsomely for her work, and goes back to Amsterdam. Not long after, Jo is shown a magazine story about the "discovery" and million dollar sale of some of the drawings of young Vincent van Gogh, drawings only she and her friend, Felix, know are hers. The only thing to do is for Jo and friends to get to Amsterdam and find the mystery man. Or better still, go right to the source and speak to Vincent himself in 19th century Arles.
1165250	Joan Marshall (June 19, 1931 – June 28, 1992) was an American film and television actress. Early life and career. She was born Joan Schrepfermann; in Chicago where she was also raised. She began her career as a showgirl in Chicago clubs. After appearing as a dancer in the 1945 film "The Chicago Kid" and a part in the television series "Have Gun – Will Travel" in 1958, she moved to California the following year. During the 1960s, Marshall frequently guest starred on various television series including "Tales of Wells Fargo", "Surfside 6", "Hawaiian Eye", and "The Jack Benny Program". She also appeared in the films "Homicidal" (using the stage name "Jean Arless") and "Tammy and the Doctor" opposite Sandra Dee and Peter Fonda. Marshall also appeared in the 15 minute unaired pilot of "The Munsters" as Phoebe Munster (who strongly resembled Morticia Addams). Before the series was picked up, "The Munsters" was retooled and Marshall was replaced by actress Yvonne De Carlo. Marshall continued guest starring in episodic television throughout the 1960s before her last role in the 1975 film "Shampoo" with Warren Beatty. Personal life and death. Marshall was married three times and had two children, Steven and Sheri. She married director Hal Ashby in August 1969. Two years after Ashby's death in 1988, she married executive Mel Bartfield. The couple relocated to Jamaica where they remained until Marshall's death in 1992.
1164268	Frances Elena Farmer (September 19, 1913 – August 1, 1970) was an American actress of stage and screen. She is perhaps better known for sensationalized accounts of her life, and especially her involuntary commitment to a mental hospital. Farmer was the subject of two films, one television special, three books, and numerous songs and magazine articles. Early life and education. Farmer was born in Seattle, to Ernest Melvin Farmer and Cora Lillian (Van Ornum) Farmer. In 1931, while attending West Seattle High School, she entered and won $100 from The Scholastic Art & Writing Awards, a writing contest sponsored by "Scholastic Magazine", with her controversial essay "God Dies". It was a precocious attempt to reconcile her wish for, in her words, a "superfather" God, with her observations of a chaotic and godless world. In her autobiography she writes that the essay was influenced by her reading of Nietzsche, who "expressed the same doubts, only he said it in German: ""Gott ist tot."" God is dead. This I could understand. I was not to assume that there was no God, but I could find no evidence in my life that He existed or that He had ever shown any particular interest in me. I was not an atheist, but I was surely an agnostic, and by the time I was sixteen I was well indoctrinated into this theory." Although her father was a prominent lawyer, Farmer displayed independence through her work roles as an usherette in a cinema, a waitress, a tutor and a factory worker. Farmer used the money earned from such employment to pay for her university fees, before winning a popularity contest that rewarded her with a trip to Europe. In 1935, as a student at the University of Washington, Farmer won a subscription contest for the leftist newspaper, "The Voice of Action". The first prize was a trip to the Soviet Union—Farmer accepted the prize, despite her mother's strong objections, so that she could see the pioneering Moscow Art Theatre. Farmer's interest in such topics fostered speculations that Farmer was not only an atheist, but a Communist as well. Farmer proceeded to study drama at the University of Washington (UW) and, during the 1930s, the university's drama department productions were considered citywide cultural events and were frequented accordingly. While a student at UW, Farmer starred in numerous plays, including "Helen of Troy", "Everyman", and "Uncle Vanya". In late 1934, she starred in the UW production of "Alien Corn", in which she spoke foreign languages and played the piano—the production received rave reviews and was the longest-running play in the drama department's history at the time. Career. Returning from the Soviet Union in the summer of 1935, Farmer stopped in New York City, U.S., hoping to launch a legitimate theater career. Instead, she was referred to a Paramount Pictures talent scout, Oscar Serlin, who arranged for a screen test. Paramount offered her a 7-year contract. Farmer signed it in New York on her 22nd birthday and moved to Hollywood. She had top billing in two well-received 1936 B-movies. She wed actor Leif Erickson in February 1936 while shooting the first of the movies, "Too Many Parents". Later that year, Farmer was cast opposite Bing Crosby in her first "A" feature, "Rhythm on the Range". During the summer of 1936, she was loaned to Samuel Goldwyn to appear in "Come and Get It", based on the novel by Edna Ferber. Both of these films were sizable hits, and her portrayals of both the mother and daughter in "Come and Get It" were praised by the public and critics, with several reviews greeting Farmer as a new found star. Farmer was not entirely satisfied with her career, however. She felt stifled by Paramount's tendency to cast her in films which depended on her looks more than her talent. Her outspoken style made her seem uncooperative and contemptuous. In an age when the studios dictated every facet of a star's life, Farmer rebelled against the studio's control and resisted every attempt they made to glamorize her private life. She refused to attend Hollywood parties or to date other stars for the gossip columns. However, Farmer was sympathetically described in a 1937 "Colliers" article as being indifferent about the clothing she wore and was said to drive an older-model "green roadster". Hoping to enhance her reputation as a serious actress, she left Hollywood in 1937 to do summer stock in Westchester, New York. There she attracted the attention of director Harold Clurman and playwright Clifford Odets. They invited her to appear in the Group Theatre production of Odets' play "Golden Boy". Her performance at first received mixed reviews, with "Time" magazine commenting that she had been miscast. Due to Farmer's box office appeal, however, the play became the biggest hit in the Group's history. By 1938, when the production had embarked on a national tour, regional critics from Washington D.C. to Chicago gave her rave reviews.
900319	The Stendhal Syndrome is 1996 Italian horror film written and directed by Dario Argento and starring his daughter Asia Argento. It was the first Italian film to use computer-generated imagery (CGI). Stendhal syndrome is a real syndrome, first diagnosed in Florence, Italy in 1982. Argento said he experienced Stendhal syndrome as a child. While touring Athens with his parents young Dario was climbing the steps of the Parthenon when he was overcome by a trance that caused him to become lost from his parents for hours. The experience was so strong that Argento never forgot it; he immediately thought of it when he came across Graziella Magherini's book about the syndrome, which would become the basis of the film. It was a large box office hit when released in Italy, grossing ₤5,443,000,000 Italian lira (US $3,809,977), making it Argento's highest grossing film in his native country. Plot. Detective Anna Manni (Argento) travels to Florence on the trail of a serial killer Alfredo (Thomas Kretschmann). While at a museum, Anna is struck by Stendhal syndrome, which causes people to become overwhelmed by great works of art. Alfredo uses this disorder against Anna, kidnapping and raping her. She escapes and is deeply traumatized. Alfredo tracks her movements and is able to capture her again. This time, Anna manages to break free, badly wounding her captor, and knocking him into a river.
1789611	Deep Blood (also known as "Squali" and "Sangue negli abissi"/ "Blood in the Abyss") is a 1989 Italian shark attack film directed by Raffaele Donato and Joe D'Amato and written by George Nelson Ott. It was edited by Kathleen Stratton, and contained original music by Carlo Maria Cordio. The film was made in Italy by Filmirage S.r.l. and Variety Film Production. Synopsis. Several men try to stop an ancient Native American evil in the form of a killer shark that is attacking a beach community. Release. As of 2011, the film has still not been officially released in the United States in any home video format. It was released on DVD in the Czech Republic in 2009.
501445	Charles "Chuck" Zito, Jr. (born March 1, 1953), is an American actor, amateur boxer, martial artist, celebrity bodyguard, stuntman, former boxing trainer and former president of the New York chapter of the Hells Angels. Early life. Zito was born in New York, the 2nd of three children to Charles Zito, Sr. and Gloria Frangione. Charles Zito, Sr. brother to James Zito, Sr, The son of a professional welterweight boxer, Zito was taught at an early age how to fight and defend himself. At the age of seventeen, Zito dropped out and married his high school sweetheart, Kathy. His involvement with the Hells Angels motorcycle club eventually led to their divorce. Hells Angels. A motorcycle aficionado, Zito established the New Rochelle Motorcycle Club which later merged with the Ching-a-Ling Nomads. Zito would later leave the Nomads and join the Hells Angels. In 1984, Zito helped establish the Hells Angels New York Nomad Chapter, and became the chapter's president. In 2005, Zito left the Hells Angels, after twenty-five years, to focus on his acting career. Career. Following in his father's footsteps, Zito became an amateur boxer and fought in New York Golden Gloves while working manual labor. In 1980, after assisting the bodyguards of actor Robert Conrad at a motorcycle convention, Zito began his own bodyguard agency. Named Charlie's Angels Bodyguard Services, Zito initially provided protection for actress Lorna Luft and later was hired by her half-sister Liza Minnelli. The actress recommended Zito's service to her plethora of celebrity acquaintances, allowing Zito to quickly develop contacts throughout Hollywood. Parlaying his connection, Zito began a career as a stuntman working on films such as "Year of the Dragon", "Hudson Hawk" and "The Rock". In 1996, after a meeting with producer Tom Fontana, Zito joined the HBO prison drama "Oz" as Italian wise guy "Chucky Pancamo". Over the years Zito has alternated with stunt work and acting with credits for stunt work in films like "Fifteen Minutes" and acting roles in the film "This Thing of Ours". In 2003, Chuck Zito released his autobiography, "Street Justice", co-authored with Joe Layden. In 2006, Zito expanded into radio with the show Chuck Zito's View on Howard Stern's Sirius Satellite Radio station. In 2010, Chuck Zito filed a $5 million lawsuit against the cable network FX, alleging that he had a development meeting with them in 2006 and he pitched the idea of an outlaw motorcycle group. He alleges that FX blew him off and then stole his idea, which became the FX show "Sons of Anarchy". Chuck Zito appeared in Season 5 of the show "Sons of Anarchy". He also appeared in show creator Kurt Sutter's Discovery Channel documentary series, "Outlaw Empires". In 2013 Zito competed on Food Network Television's "Chopped" along with NASCAR's "Danica Patrick", former NFLer "Tiki Barber" and Olympic Champion "Natalie Coughlin".
1714487	Evgeny "Eugen" Evgenievich Slutsky ( ; ; – 10 March 1948) was a Russian/Soviet mathematical statistician, economist and political economist. Slutsky's work in economics. He is principally known for work in deriving the relationships embodied in the very well known Slutsky equation which is widely used in microeconomic consumer theory for separating the substitution effect and the income effect of a price change on the total quantity of a good demanded following a price change in that good, or in a related good that may have a cross-price effect on the original good quantity. There are many Slutsky analogs in producer theory. He is less well known by Western economists than some of his contemporaries, due to his own changing intellectual interests as well as external factors forced upon him after the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917. His seminal paper in Economics, and some argue his last paper in Economics rather than probability theory, was published in 1915 ("Sulla teoria del bilancio del consumatore"). Paul Samuelson noted that until 1936, he had been entirely unaware of Slutsky's 1915 "masterpiece" due to World War I and the paper's Italian language publication. R. G. D. Allen did the most to propagate Slutsky's work on consumer theory in published papers in 1936 and 1950. Vincent Barnett argues: In the 1920s Slutsky turned to working on probability theory and stochastic processes, but in 1927 he published his second famous article on economic theory, 'The Summation of Random Causes as a Source of Cyclical Processes'. This opened up a new approach to business cycle theory by hypothesising that the interaction of chance events could generate periodicity when none existed initially. Mathematical statistics work. Slutsky's later work was principally in probability theory and the theory of stochastic processes. He is generally credited for the result known as Slutsky's theorem.
1082415	Paz Campos Trigo (born 2 January 1976), better known as Paz Vega, is a Spanish actress. Early life. Vega was born in Seville, Andalusia, Spain to a homemaker mother and a retired bullfighter father. Vega's younger sister has performed as a flamenco dancer. Vega has described her family as "traditional" and Catholic. She took her stage name from her grandmother. After attending a performance of Federico García Lorca's "La casa de Bernarda Alba" at the age of 15 she was convinced that she wanted to become an actress. After completing compulsory education at 16, she was accepted at the prestigious "Centro Andaluz de Teatro" stage school. After two years at the stage school and two more years studying journalism, Vega moved to Madrid. Screen career. Vega made her television debut in the Spanish TV series, "Menudo es mi padre", which starred rumba singer El Fary. After appearing in two other series in 1997—"Mas que amigos" and teen drama "Compañeros"—she went on to grace the silver screen in 1999 in "Zapping". The same year she also had a minor role in the David Menkes movie "I Will Survive" ("Sobreviviré") alongside Emma Suárez, Juan Diego Botto and a cameo from Boy George. Vega found success in 1999's "7 Vidas". The series was billed as a Spanish "Friends" and went on to become one of the country's best-loved domestic sitcoms. Vega played Laura, a perky Andalusian girl who had come to stay with David, who had recently come out of a coma. The series was broadcast on Telecinco and finished on 12 April 2006, albeit without Vega. The 2001 film "Sex and Lucia" brought the actress to the attention of a larger audience. She then became much better known in the United States after appearing in a supporting role in the 2004 James L. Brooks film "Spanglish" opposite Adam Sandler. In 2006, she co-starred with Morgan Freeman in the independent film "10 Items or Less". In 2008, she co-starred with Gabriel Macht, Samuel L. Jackson, and Scarlett Johansson in "The Spirit". Vega is also a model; she is signed to 1/One Management in New York City. In 2011, Paz Vega had a role in the Italian movie "The Flower of Evil" by Michele Placido. On May 2011 Paz Vega replaced Penélope Cruz as the face for L'oreal Spain. Personal life. Vega and her Venezuelan husband, Orson Salazar, had their first child, son Orson, on 2 May 2007. Her second child, daughter Ava, was born on 17 July 2009. Their third child, son Lenon, was born on 13 August 2010.
1042988	Peggy Cummins (born 18 December 1925) is a retired Welsh-born Irish actress. Cummins is best known for her performance in Joseph H. Lewis' "Gun Crazy" (1949), playing a trigger-happy femme fatale who robs banks with her lover (played by John Dall). Early life. She was born Augusta Margaret Diane Fuller in Prestatyn, Denbighshire, Wales. She was born in Wales—but that particular locale was but an accident. Her Irish parents happened to be there and a storm kept them from returning to their home in Dublin. Peggy lived most of her early life in Dublin where she was educated and later in London. Her mother was the actress Margaret Cummins (Margaret Mary Treacy Fuller Cummins, 1889–1973) who played a small but effective role of Anna the maid in the film "Smart Woman" (1948). She also played Emily in the Margaret Ferguson film "The Sign of the Ram." In 1938 actor Peter Brock noticed Peggy Cummins at a Dublin tram stop and introduced her to Dublin's Gate Theatre Company. She then appeared on the London stage in the title role of "Alice in Wonderland" and in the title role of "Junior Miss" at age 12 at the Saville Theatre. Film career. Cummins made her film debut at 13 in the British production directed by Herbert Mason, "Dr. O'Dowd" (1940). Her first major film was "English Without Tears" (1944) with Michael Wilding and Lilli Palmer, directed by Harold French and released in the USA as "Her Man Gilbey". In 1945, Cummins was brought to Hollywood by Darryl F. Zanuck, head of 20th Century-Fox, to play Amber in Kathleen Winsor's "Forever Amber". She was soon replaced by Linda Darnell because she was "too young." She went on to make six films in Hollywood, including "Gun Crazy" with John Dall (1949). During a brief stay in Italy in 1948 while filming "That Dangerous Age" (1949) (also titled "If This Be Sin" and directed by Gregory Ratoff) with Myrna Loy and Roger Livesey, Cummins took voice lessons to prepare for a possible Hollywood musical. She returned to London in 1950 to marry and work in British films. In 1952 she starred in "Who Goes There!" and in 1953 she appeared in "Meet Mr. Lucifer", an Ealing Studios comedy. She later starred alongside Dana Andrews in the horror film "Night of the Demon" (1957), directed by Jacques Tourneur and "Hell Drivers" (also 1957) which also featured Stanley Baker, Patrick McGoohan and Herbert Lom. Cummins's last film, in 1961, was Darcy Conyers's "In the Doghouse" alongside Leslie Phillips. "Gun Crazy". In 1998, "Gun Crazy" (1950) was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant." Michael Adams wrote in "Movieline" in August 2009 that the film was "directed by B-movie specialist Joseph H. Lewis from a script co-written by MacKinlay Kantor and blacklisted Dalton Trumbo, "fronted" by his friend Millard Kaufman, "Gun Crazy" was made for a measly $400,000 in 30 days in 1949. Despite the limitations, the results were pure pop poetry and years ahead of its time." "Movieline" found Cummins in 2009 and she was still going strong. "It was a great part," she said of Laurie Starr. "It was a brilliant story from a brilliant writer. We had a very good director and a great cameraman. I think John Dall and myself were in those days quite well-suited in the parts we had." The film played at the British Film Institute in London in February 2009. At the screening, Peggy Cummins viewed the film with an audience for the first time in six decades. "Night of the Demon". On 14 June 2006 she appeared as guest of honour at a special screening of "Night of the Demon" in Borehamwood, Hertfordshire, hosted by the Elstree Film & Television Heritage Group. At the screening, she answered questions from the audience before viewing the film for the very first time. She said she had never worked with her co-star Dana Andrews before, though she knew and liked him; they remained friends for the rest of his life. On 29 August 2013 Cummins introduced the world premiere of a new digital remastering of Night of the Demon, screened by the British Film Institute in the courtyard of the British Museum. The screening location features prominently in the film, with shots of the courtyard before a key scene in which the psychologist Holden meets occultist Karswell for the first time in the British Library, which until 1998 was housed within the museum.
645243	Matthew Cook (born February 7, 1970) is a mathematician and computer scientist who proved Stephen Wolfram's conjecture that the Rule 110 cellular automaton is Turing-complete. Biography. Cook was born in Morgantown, West Virginia and grew up in Evanston, Illinois. His undergraduate studies were at the University of Illinois and the Budapest Semesters in Mathematics program. In the 1980s Cook qualified as a member of the six-person US team to the International Mathematical Olympiad. In 1990, Cook went to work for Wolfram Research, makers of the computer algebra system Mathematica. He did his doctoral work in Computation and Neural Systems at Caltech from 1999 to 2005. He is now at the Institute of Neuroinformatics at Zurich in Switzerland.
1063934	Tracey Walter (born November 25, 1947) is an American character actor. He has appeared in over 100 films and television series. Life and career. Walter was born in Jersey City, New Jersey, the son of a truck driver. He is known for his portrayal of "sidekicks" and "henchmen" such as Bob the Goon in "Batman", Cookie in "City Slickers", and Malak in "Conan the Destroyer". He portrayed Frog Rothchild Jr. on the ABC sitcom "Best of the West" from 1981 to 1982. Walter has acted in six Jonathan Demme films: "Something Wild" (1986), "Married to the Mob" (1988), "The Silence of the Lambs" (1991), "Philadelphia" (1993), "Beloved" (1998), and "The Manchurian Candidate" (2004). He has been directed by Danny DeVito in three films: "Matilda" (1996), "Death to Smoochy" (2002), and "Duplex" (2003). He acted with and was directed by Jack Nicholson in "The Two Jakes" (1990). The two have acted together in nine films, the first being "Goin' South" in 1978. He appeared in a small role with Clint Eastwood in the 1982 film "Honkytonk Man" and has coined the phrase "Right Cheer" (as in right here) while playing a service station attendant as well as "Make 'Em Bounce" (as in happy) from the movie "Raggedy Man". His portrayal of Miller, the philosopher mechanic of Alex Cox's "Repo Man", earned Walter a Saturn Award in 1984 for Best Supporting Actor. In the 2000 film "Erin Brockovich", Walter played Charles Embry, the PG&E employee who supplied the memo that tied an executive at the PG&E corporate headquarters to knowledge of the Hinkley station water contamination. Walter's television credits include guest appearances on "Taxi", "Charlie's Angels", "Hill Street Blues", "Amazing Stories", "Moonlighting", David Lynch's "On the Air", "Melrose Place", "The Division", "Veronica Mars", "Criminal Minds" and "Cold Case". He appeared on "Nash Bridges" as Angel from 1996–2001 and on "Reno 911!" as Sheriff Walter Chechekevitch from 2003–2006.
1054999	Paradise Now () is a 2005 film directed by Hany Abu-Assad about two Palestinian men preparing for a suicide attack in Israel. It won a Golden Globe for best foreign language film and was nominated for an Academy Award in the same category. "The film is an artistic point of view of that political issue," Abu-Assad said. "The politicians want to see it as black and white, good and evil, and art wants to see it as a human thing." Plot. "Paradise Now" follows Palestinian childhood friends Said and Khaled who live in Nablus and have been recruited for suicide attacks in Tel Aviv. It focuses on what would be their last days together. Their handlers from an unidentified resistance group tell them the attack will take place the next day. The pair record videos glorifying Allah and their cause, and bid their unknowing families and loved ones goodbye, while trying to behave normally to avoid arousing suspicion. The next day, they shave off their hair and beards and don suits in order to look like Israelis. Their cover story is that they are going to a wedding. An explosive belt is attached to each man; the handlers are the only ones with the keys needed to remove the belts without detonating them. The men are instructed to detonate the bombs at the same place, a military check point in Israel, with a time interval of 15 minutes so that the second bomb will kill police arriving after the first blast. They cross the Israeli border, but have to flee from guards. Khaled returns to their handlers, who have fled by the time Said arrives. The handlers remove Khaled's explosive belt and issue a search for Said. Khaled believes he is the best person to find Said since he knows him well, and he is given until the end of that day to find him. After Said escapes from the guards, he approaches an Israeli settlement. At one point, he considers detonating the bomb on a commercial bus, but he decides not to when he sees a child on board. Eventually, Said reveals his reason for taking part in the suicide bombing. While in a car with Suha, a woman he has fallen in love with — who plays the role of the doubter or the men's conscience — he explains that his father was an "ameel" (a "collaborator," or Palestinian working for the Israelis), who was executed for his actions. He blames the Israelis for taking advantage of his father's weakness. Khaled eventually finds Said, who is still wearing the belt and about to detonate it while lying on his father's grave. They return to the handlers, and Said convinces them that the attack need not be canceled, because he is ready for it. They both travel to Tel Aviv. Influenced by Suha, who discovered their plan, Khaled cancels his suicide attack. Khaled tries to convince Said to back off as well. However Said manages to shake Khaled by pretending to agree. The film ends with a long shot of Said sitting on a bus carrying Israeli soldiers, slowly zooming in on his eyes, and then suddenly cuts to white. Production. Hany Abu-Assad and co-writer Bero Beyer started working on the script in 1999, but it took them five years to get the story before cameras. The original script was about one man searching for his friend, who is a suicide bomber, but it evolved into a story of two friends, Said and Khaled. The filmmakers faced great difficulties making the film on location. A land mine exploded 300 meters away from the set. While filming in Nablus, Israeli helicopter gunships launched a missile attack on a car near the film's set one day, prompting six crew members to abandon the production indefinitely. "Paradise Now"'s location manager was kidnapped by a Palestinian faction during the shoot and was not released until Palestinian President Yasser Arafat's office intervened. In an interview with the "Telegraph", Hany Abu-Assad said, "If I could go back in time, I wouldn't do it again. It's not worth endangering your life for a movie." The Israel Film Fund is underwriting the film’s distribution in Israel. Statements by the filmmakers. In Hany Abu-Assad's Golden Globe acceptance speech he made a plea for a Palestinian state, saying he hoped the Golden Globe was “a recognition that the Palestinians deserve their liberty and equality unconditionally." In an interview with Jewish American "Tikkun" magazine, Hany Abu-Assad was asked "When you look ahead now, what gives you hope?", "The conscience of the Jewish people" he answered. "The Jews have been the conscience of humanity, always, wherever they go. Not all Jews, but part of them. Ethics. Morality. They invented it! I think Hitler wanted to kill the conscience of the Jews, the conscience of humanity. But this conscience is still alive...Maybe a bit weak...But still alive. Thank God." He has also stated in an interview to Tel Aviv-based newspaper "Yedioth Ahronoth" that had he been raised in the Palestinian territories instead of in his Arab-Israeli home city of Nazareth, he would have become a suicide bomber himself.
1165140	William Joseph Schallert (born July 6, 1922) is an American actor who has appeared in many films and in such television series as "Perry Mason, The Smurfs", "Jefferson Drum", "The Rat Patrol", "Gunsmoke", ', "The Patty Duke Show", "87th Precinct", "The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis", " The Waltons", "Bonanza", "Leave It to Beaver", "The Dick Van Dyke Show", "Love, American Style", "Get Smart", "Lawman", and in later years, '.. Life and career. Schallert was born in Los Angeles, California, the son of Elza Emily (née Baumgarten) and Edwin Francis Schallert, a drama editor. Schallert has appeared in supporting roles on numerous television programs since the early 1950s including Gunsmoke, season 4, episode 16 "Gypsum Hills Fued " in 1958. He has also appeared in several movies, including "The Man from Planet X" (1951) with Robert Clarke, "The Tarnished Angels" (1958) with Robert Stack, "Blue Denim" (1959) with Brandon deWilde, "Pillow Talk" (1959) with Doris Day and Rock Hudson, "In the Heat of the Night" (1967) with Rod Steiger, "Speedway" (1968) with Elvis Presley, The Partridge Family As very humble folk singing guitar player with "Stage Fright" January 1971 "The Jerk" (1979) with Steve Martin, "Teachers" (1984) with Nick Nolte, and "Innerspace" (1987), in which he played Martin Short's doctor. He also played (uncredited) an ambulance attendant in the early minutes of the 1950s sci-fi classic, "Them!" (1954). He appeared three times as Major Karl Richmond on NBC's "Steve Canyon", starring Dean Fredericks in the title role. He is a founding member of the Circle Players at The Circle Theatre, started in 1946, now known as El Centro Schallert is known as the editor of a newspaper ("The Chronicle") and patriarch Mr. Martin Lane on "The Patty Duke Show", as a wise teacher, Mr. Leander Pomfritt on "The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis", and also as The Admiral on "Get Smart". Coincidentally, on the two former shows he worked opposite actress Jean Byron. Schallert made three guest appearances on CBS's "Perry Mason" between 1957-1962, including the role of Donald Graves in the series' fifth episode, "The Case of the Sulky Girl," and Dr. Bradbury in the 1961 episode, "The Case of the Misguided Missile." He is also remembered for playing the role of Nilz Baris in the ' episode "The Trouble With Tribbles". He also appeared in the archive footage of that episode which was used in the ' episode "Trials and Tribble-ations". Schallert appeared in DS9 himself, in the second season episode "", in which he played Varani, a Bajoran musician. Schallert starred in "Philbert", an innovative 1964 TV pilot for ABC, which combined live action camera work and animation. Created by Friz Freleng and directed by Richard Donner, ABC backed out of the series shortly before full production was to begin, though the completed pilot was released in theaters as a short subject. Schallert played the role of Carson Drew in the television series "The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries" (1977–1979), featuring Pamela Sue Martin as Nancy Drew. In addition to his onscreen performances, Schallert has done voiceover work for numerous television and radio commercials over the years. Among these were a recurring role as "Milton the Toaster" in animated commercials for Kellogg's Pop-Tarts. Schallert was president of the Screen Actors Guild from 1979 to 1981 (his former co-star and television daughter, Patty Duke, would follow him from 1985 to 1988). He continues to work steadily, appearing in a 2008 episode of "How I Met Your Mother", the HBO television movie "Recount" (2008) as U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice John Paul Stevens, the HBO series "True Blood", and his distinctive voice continues to bring him work for commercial and animation voiceovers. 2009 appearances included a guest role on "Desperate Housewives" on March 15, 2009, in which he played the role of a small newspaper editor, and he also appeared in an episode of "According to Jim". More recently he appeared in the January 21, 2010 pilot episode of "The Deep End" on ABC as a retiring CEO with Alzheimer's Disease. He also made an appearance on "Medium" on the February 5, 2010 episode and a cameo on the June 26, 2011 season premiere of "True Blood" as the Mayor of Bon Temps. He played Max Devore, a secondary antagonist, in the A&E adaptation of Bag of Bones.
1105366	In science, engineering, and other quantitative disciplines, orders of approximation refer to formal or informal terms for how precise an approximation is, and to indicate progressively more refined approximations: in increasing order of precision, a zeroth-order approximation, a first-order approximation, a second-order approximation, and so forth. Formally, an "n"th-order approximation is one where the order of magnitude of the error is at most formula_1, or in terms of big O notation, the error is formula_2 In suitable circumstances, approximating a function by a Taylor polynomial of degree "n" yields an "n"th-order approximation, by Taylor's theorem: a first-order approximation is a linear approximation, and so forth. The term is also used more loosely, as detailed below. Usage in science and engineering. Zeroth-order. "Zeroth-order approximation" (also 0th order) is the term scientists use for a first educated guess at an answer. Many simplifying assumptions are made, and when a number is needed, an order-of-magnitude answer (or zero significant figures) is often given. For example, you might say "the town has a few thousand residents", when it has 3,914 people in actuality. This is also sometimes referred to as an order-of-magnitude approximation.
900233	Virus: Hell of the Living Dead () is a 1980 horror film, specifically a zombie movie, directed by Bruno Mattei (credited as Vincent Dawn). The film is also known as Virus (which is the original Italian title of the film), as well as Night of the Zombies and Zombie Creeping Flesh. Plot. The film opens at a top secret chemical research facility called Hope Center #1 where a chemical leak in one of the modules at the facility turns the entire staff into flesh-eating zombies. The movie then shifts to an unnamed European country with a four-man team of commandos led by Lt. Mike London (José Gras) being deployed to eliminate a group of terrorists who have taken hostages inside a large building. The unknown terrorists are demanding the closing down of all the Hope Centers, which both the government and the military deny the existence of, and the press, under orders of the local authorities, do not make any public announcement to the terrorists' demands or any mentioning of Hope Centers. After pumping tear gas into the building, Lt. London and his three commandos burst into the room where the terrorists are and kill them all. Once the mission is completed, the team is flown to Papua New Guinea due to communication being lost with Hope Center #1, presumed due to terrorist action. They soon meet journalist Lia Rousseau (Margit Evelyn Newton) and her cameraman, who are investigating a series of mysterious and violent attacks on the local native population. After encountering some of the natives, the group come under attack by hordes of flesh-eating zombies which attack the native village, killing and eating all the living people they come into contact with. Over the course of the movie, the four military men and two journalists travel through the New Guinea jungle in the commando's jeep, trying to survive while evading increasing numbers of flesh-eating zombies. Midway through the film, the group takes refuge in an abandoned plantation, only to come under attack from the zombie residents who kill and eat one of the commandos, forcing the surviving group to flee. Eventually, Rousseau and London's men battle their way to a beach where they take a raft and finally arrive at Hope Center #1, where they find all of the workers either dead or roaming the facility as zombies. Rousseau and London finally learn about the experimental chemical that was accidentally released which kills people and turns them into zombies. Rousseau learns from the papers left behind in the offices that the chemical, coded as 'Operation Sweet Death', had been intended to curb the Third World population by driving them into preying on each other. In the end, however, neither London's team nor the two journalists make it out alive as the zombies attack them from all directions, and they are all killed. The final scene has a group of zombies attacking a couple in a city park where it grimly implies that the contagion has now spread to the developed world. Production history. "Virus" started life as a film treatment written in 1980 by José María Cunillés and was latter fleshed out into a rather large script by Claudio Fragasso and his wife Rossella Drudi. As the market was hungry for zombie films in the wake of Lucio Fulci's blockbuster "Zombi 2", two studios specializing in low budget horror, Dara Films in Spain and Beatrice Films in Rome, pitched together to option the script.
584009	Jaggubhai is a 2010 Indian Tamil-language Action thriller written and directed by K. S. Ravikumar, who with collaborates with the lead actor, Sarath Kumar for their ninth film. Also starring Shriya Saran, debutant Srisha and veteran comedian Goundamani; the film is produced by Sarath Kumar's wife, Radhika and UTV Motion Pictures. The film features music composed by Rafee, whilst cinematography is handled by R. D. Rajesekhar and the film is edited by Don Max.
1044423	Julia Foster (born 2 August 1943 in Lewes, Sussex, England) is an English actress. Foster's credits include the films "The Bargee" (1964) with Harry H. Corbett, "Alfie" (1966) with Michael Caine, "Half a Sixpence" (1967) with Tommy Steele, and "Percy" (1971) with Hywel Bennett. On television she starred as the eponymous heroine in the BBC production of "Moll Flanders" (1975) and also appeared alongside John Stride in the Yorkshire Television series "Wilde Alliance" in 1978. She also appeared with Michael Winner in a British TV advert for Esure car insurance. She played Queen Margaret of Anjou in the BBC Television Shakespeare adaptations of "Henry VI" and "Richard III", which received its UK broadcast in January 1983. Foster's first husband was Lionel Morton, once the lead singer with the 1960s pop band The Four Pennies. She is the mother of British television celebrity Ben Fogle with her second husband, veterinarian Bruce Fogle. Foster is also a seller of antique furniture, in particular decorated Scandinavian furniture of the 18th and 19th centuries.
1163854	Richard "Rick" Overton (born August 10, 1954) is an American screenwriter, actor and comedian. His writing credits include "Dennis Miller Live", and his acting credits include "Willow" and "The Secret Adventures of Jules Verne". Life and career. Overton was born in Forest Hills, Queens, New York, the son of Nancy Overton (née Swain), a singer, and Hall Overton, a teacher and music arranger. He grew up in Englewood, New Jersey, where he attended Dwight Morrow High School. Overton made his first onscreen appearance in the 1982 film "Young Doctors in Love", followed by a small role in "" later that year. In 1987, he wrote an episode of "The New Adventures of Beans Baxter" while also appearing in various films and television shows including "Willow", "Amazing Stories" and "Million Dollar Mystery". In 1992, he landed a role in the FOX Network sketch comedy show "The Edge". The show ended in 1993. Later that year, Overton appeared in two episodes of "Seinfeld" and landed a small role in "Mrs. Doubtfire". The following year, he won an Emmy for writing an episode of "Dennis Miller Live". In 2005, Overton appeared on "Alias" and "Joan Of Arcadia"; in the latter he played God explaining to the title character the meaning of real wealth. He also portrayed both H.G. Wells and Orson Welles in a podcast episode of "The Radio Adventures of Dr. Floyd" that same year. In 2009, Overton appeared in the film "A Fork in the Road" alongside Jaime King. In 2012, Overton appeared in the music video "Star Power" by Pakistani rapper Adil Omar. Awards and nominations. Emmy Awards Writers Guild of America Award
1085649	James Roday (; born April 4, 1976) is an American actor, director and screenwriter. He stars on the USA Network series "Psych" as hyper-observant consultant detective and fake psychic Shawn Spencer. Personal life. Roday was born in San Antonio, Texas, as James David Rodriguez. He attended Taft High School in San Antonio. His father is of Mexican descent and his mother is of English, Irish, and Scottish ancestry. Roday's father, Jaime "Jim" Rodriguez, worked for Boardwalk Auto Group. Rodriguez is now the regional caterer manager of Taco Cabana. At New York University's Experimental Theatre Wing, Roday studied theater and earned a bachelor's degree in fine arts. At the age of 22 he selected the professional name James Roday as there was already another "James Rodriguez" registered in the Screen Actors Guild. Roday is the co-artistic director of Red Dog Squadron, a Los Angeles theater company he co-founded with Brad Raider. Roday has been in a relationship with "Psych" co-star Maggie Lawson since 2006. Career. Roday has acted in various theatrical productions, including "Three Sisters", "Twelfth Night" as Sebastian, "A Respectable Wedding", "Severity's Mistress", and "Sexual Perversity in Chicago" with his theatre company, Red Dog Squadron. He starred in the 2003 film "Rolling Kansas", and appeared in the 2005 film adaptation of "The Dukes Of Hazzard" as Billy Prickett and the 2006 film "Beerfest". Behind the scenes, he and writing partners Todd Harthan and James DeMonaco wrote the screenplay for the film "Skinwalkers". The team also worked on a script for the film adaptation of the video game "Driver". Roday is directing the film "Gravy", which he and Harthan wrote, produced with Infinity and Gold Circle Films.
1034086	Michael Culver (born 16 June 1938) is an English actor. He was born in Hampstead, London, the son of actor Roland Culver and casting director Daphne Rye. He was educated at Gresham's School. Actor. Apart from acting being in his blood (his aunt, father, mother and brother all had theatrical careers), he gained experience at the Old Vic, Dundee Rep (performing in 35 plays in 2 years) and London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art. Culver has appeared in several television series in recurring roles, as Squire Armstrong in "The Adventures of Black Beauty" (1972–74), Major Erwin Brandt in the BBC drama "Secret Army" (1977–78), crooked banker Ralph Saroyan in the second series of "The House of Eliott" (1992) and the strict Prior Robert ('Brother Prior') in "Cadfael" (1994–98). His guest roles include an episode of "The Professionals" (1982) as Lawson, "Miss Marple" "The Moving Finger" (1985) as Edward Symmington and as Sir Reginald Musgrave, in the episode "The Musgrave Ritual" (1986) in the Granada Television series "The Return of Sherlock Holmes". He appeared as Captain Needa in "" (1980) and played a major part in "A Passage to India" (1984) as a bigoted police inspector. In 2008, he appeared in a guest role in "Sidetracked", the first episode of "Wallander". Culver was in the first ever episode of "New Tricks" in 2003 as a corrupt dinosaur detective. He performed in three of Tricycle Theatre’s Tribunal Plays: "Nuremberg" (A distillation of the 1945-46 Nuremberg Trials - of leading Nazi war criminals); "Half the Picture" (From transcripts from the Scott Inquiry into Arms-to-Iraq - the first play to be performed in the Palace of Westminster.) and "The Colour of Justice" (The dramatisation of the evidence given during Sir William Macpherson’s inquiry into the murder of Stephen Lawrence, his family's search for justice and endemic racism in the police force). They were directed by Nicolas Kent. "The Colour of Justice" and "Half the Picture" and were broadcast by the BBC Television. Activism. Culver is a peace activist and supporter of Brian Haw who protested in Parliament Square, opposite the Houses of Parliament, Westminster, from 2001 to 2011. On the day Tony Blair appeared for the first time at the Chilcot Inquiry into the invasion of Iraq, Michael Culver was shown on BBC News (and later used on "Charlie Brooker's Screenwipe") outside shouting "If we're going to have a police state, at least organise it properly!" Theatre. Won Best Touring Production in Theatrical Management Association Awards. Michael Culver played Sir William Macpherson. Casts also included; James Woolley, Jenny Jules, David Robb, Kenneth Bryans, Michael Attwell, Christopher Fox, Tyrone de Rizzio (Neville Lawrence), Yvonne Pascal (Doreen Lawrence), Hugh Simon, Roderic Culver, Robert East, Leon Stewart (Duwayne Brooks), Jeremy Clyde (Michael Mansfield QC), Tim Woodward, Jan Chappell, Thomas Wheatley, Tanveer Ghani and Michael Cochrane. Michael Culver played Albert Speer. Other cast members included: Michael Cochrane (as Hermann Göring), William Hoyland (as Field-Marshal Wilhelm Keitel), Jeremy Clyde (as Alfred Rosenberg), Thomas Wheatley (as Rudolf Höss), Richard Heffer and Colin Bruce. First play to be performed in the Palace of Westminster. Michael Culver (played Gore-Booth and Sir Nicholas Lyell), with Michael Stroud (as Richard Scott), Jan Chappell (as Presiley Baxendale QC), Sylvia Syms (as Margaret Thatcher), William Hoyland (as John Major and Geoffrey Robertson), Jeremy Clyde (as Alan Clark), Raad Rawli (as Alan Moses QC), Thomas Wheatley (as William Waldegrave), Robert East (as J. K. Galbraith and Tristan Garel-Jones) and David Robb (as Michael Heseltine). Michael Culver played Roald Amundsen. The rest of the cast was: Robert Powell (Captain Robert Falcon Scott), Stephanie Beacham (Kathleen Scott), Bill Stewart (Lieutenant Henry Robertson Bowers, "Birdie"), Donald Gee (Dr Edward Adrian Wilson, "Bill"), Neil Philips (Captain Lawrence Oates, "Titus") and David Troughton (Petty Officer Edgar Evans). Michael Culver as Lord Goring. Other cast members included: Lucinda Curtis (as Lady Chiltern), Harold Reese, Anthony Howden, Raymond Graham, John Counsell, Jenny Quayle, Mary Kerridge, Wendy Williams and John Humphry. Michael Culver played Young Macduff. The cast also included: Hubert Gregg, Clive Wood, Donald Burton, Brian Jackson, Colin Baker, Nigel Bennett, Terry Mason, Adrian Scarborough and Heather Sears; Fights directed by Donald Burton. Michael Culver played The Earl of Harpenden. Others in the cast included: Jeffrey Segal, Doran Godwin, John Stratton, Richard Warwick and Anna Calder-Marshall. Michael Culver played Mike Danbury. Cast included: June Barry, Peter Sallis, Frank Middlemass, Anthony Sharp and Carol Cleveland. Michael Culver played Charles. The cast included: Gwen Watford, Gemma Jones, Joyce Carey, Andrew Ray, Carmel McSharry, Michael Goodliffe and Marda Vanne. Michael Culver played Capt. Wickham. Cast also included: Jack Allen, Petra Davies, Susan Jameson, Terence Longdon and Michael Gaunt. Michael Culver played Peter Quilpe. Others in the cast included: Hugh Burden, Meg Wynn Owen and Joyce Carey. Michael Culver played Ellis Petersen. Others in the cast included Charles Hyatt, Ron Randell, John Bentley and Jessie Matthews. Michael Culver played Charles. The cast also included: Eleanor Bron, Zena Walker, Neil Stacey, June Brown, Michael Gwynn, Sheila Gish, James Aubrey and Sylvia Coleridge. Michael Culver played Alexander. The cast also included: Robin Bailey, Frances White, Heather Chasen, Paul Eddington and Sheila Burrell. Cast included: Sean Connery, Barry Foster, Michael Gough, Peter Bayliss, Vivien Merchant, Eileen Way, Gary Watson, Simon Oates and Roy Stewart. Producers: Roger L. Stevens, William Zeckendorf, designer: Boris Aronson, costume designer: Freddy Wittop, composers: Richard Rodney Bennett and Daphne Oram; H. M. Tennent Ltd. At Dundee Repertory Theatre 1959-1961 Casts including; Lucinda Curtis, Edward Fox, Glenda Jackson, Bruce Boa, Jeffery Dench, Ann Way, Nicol Williamson, Jimmy Gardner, Rowena Cooper, Tom Conti, Gawn Grainger, Prunella Scales, Frances White, Patrick Godfrey, Monica Evans, Trevor Martin, William Marlowe and Elizabeth MacLennan. Shakespeare At the Old Vic Directed by Michael Benthall London with casts including Judi Dench, Coral Browne, Edith Evans, Harry Andrews, John Gielgud, John Neville, Barbara Jefford, Paul Daneman, Harold Innocent, Charles West, Dennis Chinnery, Derek Godfrey, David Waller, James Culliford, Edward Hardwicke, Barrie Ingham, Derek Francis, Ronald Fraser, Adrienne Hill, Colin Spaull and John Humphry. Michael Culver played the second footman and was the ASM. The cast included: Patrick Newell, Gawn Grainger and Jane Hylton. Radio and voice work. “Breizh has a problem. The World Cup looms and all eyes are on FRANCE. Down on the estate, something stirs.” Others in the cast: Philip Madoc and Frances Jeater. BBC Radio 4 Saturday Play 30 May 1998 repeated 20 March 1990 Michael Culver voiced Rachmaninoff. Other contributions from Vladimir Ashkenazy (speaker and piano), Jonathan Kydd (Yermakov voice over), Boris Berezovskii (piano), Shura Cherkassky (piano), Mikhail Falkov (tenor), Alexander Fedin (tenor), Joan Rodgers (soprano). With Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and Philharmonia Chorus. Cast included Anton Lesser (Xavier March), Graham Padden (Krause), Robert Portal (Jost), Peter Ellis (Max Jarger), Thomas Copeland (Pili), Andrew Sachs, Amanda Walker, Patrick Godfrey, Michael Byrne, Ian Gelder, Angeline Ball, William Scott Masson, Stratford Johns, Eleanor Bron, Dan Fineman, Alice Arnold and Trevor Nichols, with Ned Sherrin, Jonathan Coleman and Alan Dedicoat. Goldhawk Radio production. Broadcast BBC Radio 4, 9 June 1997 Cast included: Rosalind Shanks and David Neal The play deals with human love and how it is so often impossible for one person to really know another.
1165744	Jan Sterling (April 3, 1921 – March 26, 2004) was an American actress of stage, film, and television.
1058672	The Fox and the Hound is a 1981 American animated film loosely based on the Daniel P. Mannix novel of the same name, produced by Walt Disney Productions and released in the United States on July 10, 1981. The 24th film in the Walt Disney Animated Classics series, the film tells the story of two unlikely friends, a red fox named Tod and a hound dog named Copper, who struggle to preserve their friendship despite their emerging instincts and the surrounding social pressures demanding them to be adversaries. The film is directed by Ted Berman and Richard Rich and features the voices of Kurt Russell, Mickey Rooney, Pearl Bailey, Pat Buttram, Sandy Duncan, Richard Bakalyan, Paul Winchell, Jack Albertson, Jeanette Nolan, John Fiedler, John McIntire, Keith Coogan, and Corey Feldman. At the time of release it was the most expensive animated film produced to date, costing $12 million. A direct-to-video midquel, "The Fox and the Hound 2", was released to DVD on December 12, 2006. Plot. After a young red fox is orphaned, Big Mama the owl, Boomer the woodpecker, and Dinky the finch arrange for him to be adopted by Widow Tweed. Tweed names him Tod, since he reminds her of a toddler. Meanwhile, Tweed's neighbor, Amos Slade, brings home a young hound puppy named Copper and introduces him to his hunting dog Chief. Tod and Copper become playmates, and vow to remain "friends forever". Slade grows frustrated at Copper for constantly wandering off to play, and places him on a leash. While playing with Copper at his home, Tod awakens Chief. Slade and Chief chase him until they are confronted by Tweed. After a brief argument, Slade says that he will kill Tod if he enters his farm again. Hunting season comes and Slade takes his dogs into the wilderness for the interim. Meanwhile, Big Mama explains to Tod that his friendship with Copper cannot continue, as they are natural enemies, but Tod refuses to accept this. Months pass, and both Tod and Copper reach adulthood. On the night of Copper's return, Tod sneaks over to meet him. Copper explains that while he still values Tod as a friend, he is now a hunting dog and things are different. Chief awakens and alerts Slade, a chase ensues and Copper catches Tod. Copper lets Tod go then diverts Chief and Slade. Chief maintains his pursuit onto a railroad track where he is struck by an oncoming train and wounded. Copper and Slade blame Tod for the accident and swear vengeance. Tweed, now realizing that her pet is no longer safe with her, leaves him at a game preserve.
1054812	D-War (Korean: 디워), is a 2007 South Korean fantasy action film released in North America as "Dragon Wars: D-War" and "D-War: Dragon Wars", in Malaysia as "War of the Dragons", and sometimes referred to colloquially and in some marketing materials as "Dragon Wars". It is written and directed by Shim Hyung-rae. This was Korea's largest-budgeted film as of 2007. Plot. The story follows the adventures of Ethan Kendrick, charged in his childhood by Jack to protect the Yeouiju, an individual born able to change an Imoogi into a Celestial Dragon. To this end, Jack gives Ethan a medallion formerly belonging to Haram and reveals that the Yeouiju is Sarah, whom Ethan will find in Los Angeles. 15 years after this revelation, a corrupt Imoogi identified as "Buraki" invades the city, bent on capturing Sarah; whereupon Ethan, now a televised-news anchor, rescues her, conveys the knowledge of her purpose, and attempts to save her from Buraki. During the resulting chase, Buraki's "Artox Army" enters the city and engages the United States Army, the United States Air Force, and the Los Angeles Police Department in battle. Here, the Atrox Army is shown to consist of black-armored, humanoid warriors; theropod-like cavalry called "Shaconnes"; small, winged Western dragons called "Bulcos"; and immense, slow-moving reptiles carrying rocket-launchers on their backs, identified in the dialogue as "Dawdlers". This army overwhelms the human forces, while Ethan and Sarah escape. They are subsequently captured by the Bulcos and taken to a menacing fortress in the midst of a darkened desert landscape. There, Ethan's medallion destroys the Artox Army; but Buraki attempts to consume Sarah, whereupon he is attacked by the Good Imoogi. The two Imoogi, good and evil, engage each other in a duel that Buraki appears to win after seemingly snapping the Good Imoogi's neck. Having won the fight, Buraki again approaches Sarah; but having offered herself to him, she instead gives her power to the Good Imoogi who had just revived, who thereupon becomes the Celestial Dragon, continuing the duel until it finally destroys Buraki. After Buraki is destroyed, Sarah dissolves into a spirit form, and the Celestial Dragon permits Sarah to speak to Ethan, whom she promises to "love...for all eternity"; then withdraws Sarah into his body and ascends to the heavens. Immediately Jack appears behind Ethan, reminds him that the two of them "have been given a great honor" to take part in this transformation, and vanishes; presumably never to be seen again. After whispering "Goodbye old man", Ethan walks away into the desert. Production. Originally titled "Dragon Wars" (and still referred to by this title in publicity material), "D-War" has a long production history in South Korea. The film was announced in 2002 by director Shim Hyung-rae as his follow-up project to 1999's "Yonggary". A show reel appeared in early 2003, displaying the extensive amount of CGI used to create the various creatures. Despite heavy promotion via posters, press releases, and videos, principal photography did not begin until October 2004, continuing through December. The budget was set at 30 billion won (approximately US$33 million), but ultimately went over budget in order to create the various creatures in the film, with some outside estimation as high as $US75 million dollars. The DVD release confirmed that it did indeed cost US$75 million. In Korea, the budget of this movie was controversial because of the high costs and the poor reception abroad, which led to embarrassment over the true budget numbers, which were concealed to further shame. As with "Yonggary", Shim opted for a mostly American cast. Veteran actor Robert Forster landed a pivotal role and Jason Behr and Amanda Brooks were cast as the two young leads. The next three years were spent creating the creature effects, all of which were done in house by Shim's Younggu-Art Movies company. The completed film premiered at the American Film Market in early 2007. The film was released in South Korea on August 1, 2007. In the U.S., the film was released on September 14, 2007. On August 7, 2007, South Korea's MBC "Morning Live TV Show" broadcast the film's final scene on TV without the permission of the studio, causing a controversy. A few days later the Ministry of Culture and Tourism released a statement in which they said that the incident did not violate South Korean copyright laws. Reception. The film received mostly negative reviews upon release in the U.S. and was not screened in advance for many critics. Up to January 5, 2008, 25% of the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes critics gave the film positive reviews, based on 32 reviews, while the film scored a 33 out of 100 at Metacritic. Derek Elley of "Variety", reviewing it at the Berlin Film Festival's market section, called it "visually entertaining, and superior to helmer Shim Hyung-rae's last monster movie ("Yonggary" in 1999)", while also saying the film had a "Z-grade, irony-free script," and "likely to end up the most expensive cult movie on DVD." "The Hollywood Reporter"'s Frank Scheck said, "the CGI effects are undeniably impressive" but that "the laughable story line, risible dialogue and cheap humor ... seriously detract from the fun." Luke Y. Thompson in "L.A. Weekly" derided the film as one "for connaisseurs of the 'totally preposterous crap' school of fantasy cinema... You know who you are: You have all the Warlock sequels on Laserdisc the complete Leprechaun series on DVD" and says it's "funnier when it tries to be serious than when it goes for the gag." Within nine days of its South Korean release, "D-War" attracted five million viewers, setting a national box office record for an opening week. The seemingly positive reaction from the Korean population, as indicated by the movie's box office success in Korea, was widely attributed to the film's appeal to Korean nationalism; a logical impression drawn from Shim's message at the end of the Korean version of this film, ""D-War" and I will succeed in the world market without fail," accompanied by the Korean folk anthem, "Arirang." However, despite box office success, "D-Wars" was far from critically acclaimed by either Korean critics or Korea's general public. Korean film critic Kim Bong-sok said, "They want it to be successful in the U.S. because it's Korean, not because it's good" and called the film "immature and poorly made" and "below criticism". Other reactions from Korean critics have been
1072685	It won the 1974 "Kinema Junpo" Awards for Best Film, Best Actor (Bunta Sugawara) and Best Screenplay (Kazuo Kasahara). Due to the series' enormous commercial and critical popularity it was followed by another three-part series, "New Battles Without Honor and Humanity". It is often called the "Japanese "Godfather"." Synopsis. The violent, documentary-like film chronicles the underworld tribulations of Shozo Hirono (Bunta Sugawara), a young ex-soldier and street thug in post-war Hiroshima. Starting in the open-air black markets of bombed-out Hiroshima in 1945, the film spans a period of more than ten years. The plot consists of a changing of the guard of new families and organizations with the same feuds and people, punctuated by the gritty violence. It gave way to four sequels, which form a sprawling yakuza epic. The overall tone of the series is bleak, violent and chaotic, expressing the futility of the struggles between yakuza families. Etymology. The title refers to the post-war yakuza's lack of "jingi", a Japanese term loosely translated as "honor and humanity". Previous yakuza movies had, for the most part, been tales of chivalry set in pre-war Japan. It is also a parody of an ancient Chinese fable about a foolish king who respected honor and humanity too much in a war and consequently lost his kingdom. A commercial and critical success, "Battles Without Honor and Humanity" portrayed a darker and more cynical world, and set the stage for much subsequent Japanese cinema. In the western market it is also known under the titles: North American release. The first five films in the "Battles Without Honor and Humanity" series were released as "The Yakuza Papers" by Home Vision Entertainment in a 6-disc DVD box set in 2004. The bonus DVD contains interviews with director William Friedkin, discussing the influence of the films in America; subtitle translator Linda Hoaglund, discussing her work on the films; David Kaplan, Kenta Fukasaku, Kiyoshi Kurosawa, a Toei producer and a biographer among others.
1062260	Carla Gugino (born August 29, 1971) is an American actress. She is well known for her roles of Ingrid Cortez in the "Spy Kids" film trilogy, Dr. Vera Gorski in "Sucker Punch", Lucille in "Sin City", Amanda Daniels in seasons 3, 5 and 7 of "Entourage", Sally Jupiter in "Watchmen" and as the lead characters of the television series "Karen Sisco" and "Threshold". Her feature film work includes starring roles in "Son in Law", "Night at the Museum", "Race to Witch Mountain", "American Gangster" and "Mr. Popper's Penguins". Gugino has a lead role in the 2012 mini-series, "Political Animals". Early life. Gugino was born in Sarasota, Florida, to Carl Gugino, an orthodontist of Italian descent, and a mother of English-Irish descent described as "Bohemian". Her parents separated when she was two, after which she traveled between her father and half-brother Carl Jr.'s home in Sarasota, and her Paradise, California home, to which her mother moved her when she was four. She has described her bicoastal childhood, saying, "I lived in a tepee in Northern California and a van in Big Sur. With my dad, I lived in a beautiful house with a swimming pool and a tennis court and went to Europe for the summers. So I feel like I lived two childhoods." She worked as a teenage fashion model, and took acting classes at the suggestion of her aunt, former "Let's Make a Deal" spokesmodel Carol Merrill. She eventually came to support herself, and with her parents' support, was legally emancipated by the time she was 16. Career. Gugino's television work during the late 1980s and early 1990s included appearances on "Saved by the Bell", "Who's the Boss?", "ALF", "Doogie Howser, M.D.", "The Wonder Years" and a recurring role on "Falcon Crest". In film, Gugino appeared the Shelley Long film, "Troop Beverly Hills" and co-starred with Pauly Shore in the 1993 romantic comedy "Son in Law". She later appeared in the video to Bon Jovi's 1994 song "Always". After playing Michael J. Fox's love interest, Ashley Schaeffer, during the first season of the sitcom "Spin City" in 1996, Gugino starred with Nicolas Cage in Brian De Palma's "Snake Eyes", and in "Judas Kiss", which she also co-produced. She appeared as Dr. Gina Simon during the 1999–2000 final season of "Chicago Hope". In 2001, she appeared as family matriarch Ingrid Cortez in the first "Spy Kids" film (as well as the film's two sequels in 2002 and 2003). That same year she appeared as Jet Li's love interest in the martial arts action thriller "The One". She starred in two short-lived TV series: ABC's Elmore Leonard crime drama "Karen Sisco" in 2003, and CBS's science fiction series "Threshold" in 2005. That same year, Gugino appeared as Lucille in the feature film adaptation of Frank Miller's graphic novel, "Sin City". The following year, she appeared in the movie "Night at the Museum". Gugino appeared in the Roundabout Theatre Company play "After the Fall" opposite "Six Feet Under"'s Peter Krause. In late 2006, she appeared in an Off-Broadway production of Tennessee Williams' "Suddenly Last Summer" opposite Blythe Danner. Gugino appeared as Amanda, Vincent Chase's agent, in a dozen episodes of the cable television series "Entourage". Gugino appeared nude in the May 2007 issue of "Allure". That same year she appeared in the feature film "American Gangster". The following year, she played the female lead in the thriller "Righteous Kill", opposite Robert De Niro and Al Pacino. Gugino starred in Chicago's Goodman Theater production of Eugene O'Neill's "Desire Under the Elms" from January 17 to February 17, 2009, in the role of Abby. Charles Isherwood of "The New York Times" praised Gugino's performance, saying, "Ms. Gugino displays a depth and range of expression that I cannot imagine any other actress achieving with such blazing honesty and wrenching truth. She is simply magnificent." During the first three months of 2009, three feature films premiered featuring Gugino: the thriller "The Unborn", the film "Watchmen", in which she played Sally Jupiter, and the adventure remake "Race to Witch Mountain", in which she starred opposite Dwayne Johnson. That April, she received an Outer Critics Circle Award nomination for Outstanding Actress In a Play for her performance in "Desire Under the Elms". Later in November of that year, she appeared as a pornographic actress in the comedy film "Women in Trouble", which spawned a sequel in 2010, "Elektra Luxx", titled after her character. In 2011, Gugino appeared as Madame Vera Gorsky in Zack Snyder's action-fantasy film "Sucker Punch" alongside Abbie Cornish and Emily Browning. Gugino sang a duet with co-star Oscar Isaac, which appeared in the end credits and in the film's soundtrack. She also guest starred on the fourth season of "Californication" as Abby Rhodes, Hank Moody's attorney and love interest. In the summer of 2012 Gugino had a lead role as Susan Berg, a Washington D.C. investigative reporter, on the USA Network's miniseries "Political Animals". Personal life. Gugino is the life and film partner with film director, screenwriter and film producer Sebastian Gutierrez.
1165174	Pippa Scott (born November 10, 1935) is an American actress who has appeared in film and television since the 1950s. She was married to a founding partner of Lorimar Productions, Lee Rich. Her father was the screenwriter Allan Scott; an uncle was the blacklisted screenwriter Adrian Scott. Acting career. Scott attended Radcliffe and UCLA before studying at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in England. Shortly after her return to the United States, she won a Theatre World Award for her 1956 Broadway debut in "Child of Fortune". Scott then quickly signed a contract with Warner Bros. and made her movie debut that same year with a role in John Ford's epic "The Searchers". Scott was cast in the 1958 film "As Young As We Were" in the role of a new high school teacher who falls in love with the character Hank Moore, played by Robert Harland, who turns out to be a student. She also appeared as Pegeen in the 1958 movie, "Auntie Mame".
1074988	Journey from the Fall () is a 2006 independent film by writer/director/editor Ham Tran, about the Vietnamese reeducation camp and boat people experience following the Fall of Saigon on April 30, 1975. This drama was released on March 23, 2007, by ImaginAsian to sold-out screenings. The film is notable for having been financed entirely by the Vietnamese American community. Plot. The film traces the story of a family's struggle for survival in the aftermath of the Fall of Saigon on April 30, 1975 to North Vietnam's communist regime. After her South Vietnamese Army husband Long, is imprisoned in a North Vietnamese reeducation camp, Mai, her son Lai, and her mother-in-law escape Vietnam by boat in the hopes of starting a new life in Southern California. Believing his family is dead, Long gives up in the face of brutal conditions, while Mai struggles to keep her family from crumbling under the pressures of life in a new country. When Long learns his family is alive in America, he is reinvigorated and decides he must join them at any cost. Reception. An early cut of the film was screened in April 2005 in sold-out one-day-only showings in Little Saigon, Washington, D.C., and San Jose to commemorate the 30 year anniversary of the Fall of Saigon. The film was highly-praised by the Vietnamese diaspora as an accurate presentation of the experiences that many Vietnamese people had to go through. In the process of making the film, the director interviewed more than 400 former boat people, some of whom are cast in the film even though they are not professional actors. In the opening weekend, it played in packed theaters, generating $87,442 on just four screens, giving the film the largest per theater average for that weekend ($21,861). The film received mostly favorable reviews. In the review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes, it received an 92% "fresh" and is currently in the Top 100(27th) Best Movies of 2007. Matt Zoller Seitz of "The New York Times" remarked that the director "achieves the impossible" and called it a "tearjerker". "The Los Angeles Times" called it a "superbly wrought saga of loss and survival" and "an example of sophisticated, impassioned filmmaking involving mainly people who lived through the harrowing experiences so unsparingly depicted". Bruce Newman of the "San Jose Mercury News" called it "heartbreaking" and gave it 4.5 out of 5 stars. Russell Edwards from "Variety" said it "deserves to be seen by a wider commercial audience" and is "frequently enthralling". "New York" magazine had a negative review of the film, saying that it has "several powerful sequences" but "never quite comealive". Bill White of the "Seattle Post-Intelligencer" was even more critical, suggesting that "this "Journey" doesn't know where it's going", criticizing the "careless cinematography" and "clumsy stag[ing". Controversies. The "OC Weekly", an alternative weekly in Orange County, California, published two reviews of the film. The first and longer review was written by R. Scott Moxley, praised the director for "bring to life the true South Vietnamese experience". The second and much shorter review was published almost a year later, written by Scott Foundas. In his review, Foundas praised the film for being "one of the few movies to depict Vietnam and its aftermath through the eyes of the Vietnamese" but ultimately characterized it as "old-fashioned and even phony". This conclusion brought a flurry of letters to the paper, most disagreeing with Foundas and taking offense at his "phony" characterization, prompting Foundas to clarify his review, claiming that he was "by no means suggesting that the history depicted by the movie didn't happen, but rather that matters were not nearly as black-and-white as Mr. Tran makes them seem". In Vietnam, where the film was neither filmed nor shown officially, pirated copies were so prevalent that the government issued orders to confiscate all DVD copies. The film was banned for its "reactionary" content. The government consider the film "defamation" and a "distortion" of its policy of sending people to reeducation camps after 1975. The film was considered such a threat that the Ministry of Public Security's newspaper "Công an Nhân dân" featured an article warning about the "poisonous film" and claiming that "most overseas Vietnamese are indifferent or critical of this movie". The article also quoted Foundas and several random people in online message boards to bolster its claim. Release. The film is distributed by ImaginAsian Pictures, and released in Orange County, New York City, and San Jose on March 23, 2007, to sold-out screenings. With a total gross of $87,442 in its opening weekend, it has the highest opening weekend for any Vietnamese diasporic film to date. The opening weekend's per-screen average of $21,861 was the highest of any film that opened on the March 23 weekend, and the second weekend's average of $16,513 per screen was number one as well, despite expanding to two additional screens. As of July 16, the film has grossed over $630,000, despite a limited release that never exceeded fourteen theaters at a time. Since its opening weekend on March 23, 2007, it has expanded to Dallas, Houston, Washington, DC, San Diego, Chicago, San Francisco, Mountain View, Daly City, Seattle, Berkeley, Honolulu, Atlanta, Portland, Sacramento, Vancouver, and is expanding to other cities throughout the summer in what is called a "rolling release". Awards. The film was not eligible for competition in the Sundance Film Festival even though it was an official selection because it was screened prior at a Korean film festival (only world premiere films at Sundance are eligible for competition). Home media release. The 2-disc DVD was released on October 31, 2007, which includes a 38-minute "The Making of Journey from the Fall", a 135-minute roundtable discussion/commentary with cast and crew, a deleted scene and alternate ending, as well as original theatrical trailer and TV spots.
1068402	"Goin' South" is an American western-comedy film, directed by and starring Jack Nicholson. The 1978 film also starred Mary Steenburgen in her film debut and included Christopher Lloyd, John Belushi (also in his movie debut), Richard Bradford, Veronica Cartwright, Danny DeVito and Ed Begley, Jr. Overall, the film was cast with strong actors. As the film begins, the Paramount logo sequence plays in reverse. Plot outline. Henry Lloyd Moon (Nicholson), a third-rate outlaw in the late 1860s, is a bank-robber, horse thief and cattle thief who is sentence to be hanged in Longhorn, Texas, to the glee of the local populace and especially of the deputy sheriff, played wickedly by Christopher Lloyd. Moon comes under especially close scrutiny from some women in town, due to a local ordinance originating during the Civil War, that allowed a condemned man (short of being a murderer) to be saved from the gallows if an unmarried lady would marry him and take responsibility for his good behavior. Moon is spared by the intervention of a lovely young woman who agrees to marry and take charge of him. Julia Tate (Steenburgen), a headstrong, genteel Southern virgin weds Moon, initially only to work a gold mine that she insists is on her property; their shaky partnership evolves into much more throughout the film. The deputy particularly hates Moon for marrying "his" girl, although there is no evidence that she has any interest in him. Moon's old gang complicate matters at Julia's home when they show up, and introduce Julia to intoxicating beverages. They then discover that Julia and Moon are mining gold, something that Moon was trying to conceal from the entire town, and his erstwhile colleagues. Moon schemes to Betray Julia and steal the gold. Moon and Julia experience a cave-in at the mine which changes the nature of their relationship.
1103104	George David Birkhoff (March 21, 1884 – November 12, 1944) was an American mathematician, best known for what is now called the ergodic theorem. Birkhoff was one of the most important leaders in American mathematics in his generation, and during his prime he was considered by many to be the preeminent American mathematician. His parents were David Birkhoff and Jane Gertrude Droppers. The mathematician Garrett Birkhoff (1911–1996) was his son. Career. Birkhoff obtained his A.B. and A.M. from Harvard. He completed his Ph.D. in 1907, on differential equations, at the University of Chicago. While E. H. Moore was his supervisor, he was most influenced by the writings of Henri Poincaré. After teaching at the University of Wisconsin and Princeton University, he taught at Harvard University from 1912 until his death. Awards and honors. In 1923, he was awarded the inaugural Bôcher Memorial Prize by the American Mathematical Society for his paper Birkhoff (1917) containing, among other things, what is now called the Birkhoff curve shortening process. He was elected to the National Academy of Sciences, the American Philosophical Society, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Académie des Sciences in Paris, the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, and the London and Edinburgh Mathematical Societies. Work. In 1912, attempting to solve the four color problem, Birkhoff introduced the chromatic polynomial. Even though this line of attack did not prove fruitful, the polynomial itself became an important object of study in algebraic graph theory. In 1913, he proved Poincaré's "Last Geometric Theorem," a special case of the three-body problem, a result that made him world famous. In 1927, he published his "Dynamical Systems". He wrote on the foundations of relativity and quantum mechanics, publishing (with R E Langer) the monograph "Relativity and Modern Physics" in 1923. In 1923, Birkhoff also proved that the Schwarzschild geometry is the unique spherically symmetric solution of the Einstein field equations. A consequence is that black holes are not merely a mathematical curiosity, but could result from any spherical star having sufficient mass. Birkhoff's most durable result has been his 1931 discovery of what is now called the ergodic theorem. Combining insights from physics on the ergodic hypothesis with measure theory, this theorem solved, at least in principle, a fundamental problem of statistical mechanics. The ergodic theorem has also had repercussions for dynamics, probability theory, group theory, and functional analysis. He also worked on number theory, the Riemann–Hilbert problem, and the four colour problem. He proposed an axiomatization of Euclidean geometry different from Hilbert's (see Birkhoff's axioms); this work culminated in his text "Basic Geometry" (1941). In his later years, Birkhoff published two curious works. His 1933 "Aesthetic Measure" proposed a mathematical theory of aesthetics. While writing this book, he spent a year studying the art, music and poetry of various cultures around the world. His 1938 "Electricity as a Fluid" combined his ideas on philosophy and science. His 1943 theory of gravitation is also puzzling, since Birkhoff knew (but didn't seem to mind) that his theory allows as sources only matter which is a perfect fluid in which the speed of sound must equal the speed of light . Influence on hiring practices. Albert Einstein and Norbert Wiener, among others, accused Birkhoff of advocating anti-Semitic hiring practices. During the 1930s, when many Jewish mathematicians fled Europe and tried to obtain jobs in the USA, Birkhoff is alleged to have influenced the hiring process at American institutions to exclude Jews. While Birkhoff may have held anti-Semitic views, it was also the case that he had always been outspoken in his promotion of American mathematics and mathematicians. It has been argued that Birkhoff's actions were in good part motivated by a desire to assure jobs for home-grown American mathematicians. Saunders Mac Lane (1994), a close friend and collaborator of Birkhoff's son, argued that any anti-Semitic tendencies Birkhoff may have had were not unusual for his time. However, Birkhoff took a particular liking to certain Jewish mathematicians, including Stanislaw Ulam. Gian-Carlo Rota writes: "Like other persons rumored to be anti-Semitic, he would occasionally feel the urge to shower his protective instincts on some good-looking young Jew. Ulam's sparkling manners were diametrically opposite to Birkoff's hard-working, aggressive, touchy personality. Birkoff tried to keep Ulam at Harvard, but his colleagues balked at the idea."
566376	Joseph Maxwell "Max" Kasch (born December 6, 1985) is an American film and television actor. He is the brother to fellow actors Cody Kasch and Dylan Kasch. Max appeared in the 2003 film, "Holes as Zig-zag". He also portrayed the role of T-Dog in "Waiting...", and played Troy in the horror film "Shrooms". Personal life. Born in Santa Monica, California to Jody and Taylor Kasch, Max has five siblings - three sisters and two brothers.
584719	Aasai Aasaiyai is a South Indian Tamil film released in 2002. This movie marked the entry of the famous producer R.B Choudary's second son, Jiiva. This movie did not fare well at the box office, but gave decent reviews for him. The story revolves around Vinod (Jiiva), who aspires to become a businessman after completing his bachelors. His parents keep nudging him to start working in a job. He also works part- time as a private detective. He is assigned a detective job to follow a girl and find out her general activities and also if she is in love with anyone. While doing this job, he eventually falls in love with the girl (Sharmelee), and quits his detective job. Sharmelee, who is the daughter of a rich gold seller, has a strict policy in her life to not love anyone, because her sister eloped with another guy in the past and her father (Nasser) had suffered a heart attack. The crux is how Jiiva wins Sharmelee's heart and how they convince their parents to accept their marriage: New Wine in an old bottle.
589629	Rajnigandha (Hindi: रजनीगन्धा, Translation: Tuberose) is a Hindi movie directed by Basu Chatterjee and released in 1974. It is based on story "Yehi Sach Hai" by noted Hindi writer Manu Bhandari. The movie stars Amol Palekar, Vidya Sinha and Dinesh Thakur in the lead. "Rajnigandha" won the Best Picture, the Popular Award and the Critics Award at the Filmfare Awards in 1975. "Rajnigandha" was considered to have a realistic outlook on cinema in 1974, an era when potboilers were ruling Bollywood. The film was the first screen role of Vidya Sinha and first Hindi film of Amol Palekar, both of whom went on to work with Basu Chatterjee in many films. Plot summary. Deepa (Vidya Sinha) is a graduate student in Delhi who is in a long-term relationship with Sanjay (Amol Palekar), whom she plans to marry. Sanjay is a loquacious, humorous, and a good individual who is also rather lackadaisical and forgetful with no sense of punctuality.
1057984	Stand and Deliver is a 1988 American drama film based on the true story of high school math teacher Jaime Escalante. Edward James Olmos portrayed Escalante in the film and received a nomination for Best Actor at the 61st Academy Awards. The film was added to the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress in 2011. Plot. In the area of East Los Angeles, California, in 1982, in an environment that values a quick fix over education and learning, Jaime "Kemo" Escalante is a new teacher at Garfield High School determined to change the system and challenge the students to a higher level of achievement. Leaving a steady job for a position as a math teacher in a school where rebellion runs high and teachers are more focused on discipline than academics, Escalante is at first not well liked by students, receiving numerous taunts and threats.
1079767	Sir George Howard Darwin KCB FRS (9 July 1845 – 7 December 1912) was an English astronomer and mathematician. Biography. George Darwin was born at Down House, Kent, the second son and fifth child of Charles and Emma Darwin. He studied under Charles Pritchard, and entered St John's College, Cambridge in 1863, though he soon moved to Trinity College, where his tutor was Edward John Routh. He graduated as second wrangler in 1868, when he was also placed second for the Smith's Prize and was appointed to a college fellowship. He was admitted to the bar in 1872, but returned to science. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in June, 1879 and won their Royal Medal in 1884 and their Copley Medal in 1911. He delivered their Bakerian Lecture in 1891 on the subject of ""tidal prediction"". In 1883 Darwin became Plumian Professor of Astronomy and Experimental Philosophy at the University of Cambridge. He studied tidal forces involving the Sun, Moon, and Earth, and formulated the fission theory of Moon formation. Darwin won the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society in 1892, and also later (1899–1901) served as president of that organization. He was an invited speaker in the International Congress of Mathematicians 1908, Rome on the topic of ""Mechanics, Physical Mathematics, Astronomy"." Darwin married Martha (Maud) du Puy of Philadelphia in 1884; she died on February 6, 1947. They had two sons and two daughters: He is buried in Trumpington Extension Cemetery in Cambridge with his and his daughter Gwen (Raverat), his wife Lady Maud Darwin was cremated at Cambridge Crematorium; his brothers Sir Francis Darwin and Sir Horace Darwin are interred in the Parish of the Ascension Burial Ground.
659751	Robert Lyle Knepper (born July 8, 1959) is an American actor. He is best known for starring as Theodore "T-Bag" Bagwell in the Fox network's drama series "Prison Break, "as" "Samuel Sullivan in the NBC series "Heroes" and as Roger Reeves and his series-counterpart Billy Grimm in the CW's network mystery series "Cult". He has also appeared in the films "Hitman" (2007) and "Transporter 3" (2008), and joined the cast of "Heroes" for its fourth and final season as Samuel Sullivan. He joined the cast of "Stargate Universe" for its second season, which aired in the US in the 2010 fall season. Knepper reprised his role as Theodore "T-Bag" Bagwell in the first season of "Breakout Kings". Life and career. Knepper was born in Fremont, Ohio, the son of Pat Deck and Donald Knepper. He was interested in acting from an early age, due to his mother's involvement at a community theater. He was raised in Maumee, Ohio, near Toledo, by his mother and father, who were veterinarians. Knepper spent many years of his youth working in community theater and high school productions. After graduating from Maumee High School in 1977, he attended Northwestern University to study drama. During this time, Knepper also obtained professional roles in plays in Chicago. Nearing the completion of his degree, Knepper quit Northwestern and went to New York City, where he continued to work in theater. Although Knepper never intended to work in film and television projects, he began his television and film career in 1986 with "The Paper Chase" and "That's Life!". In 2010, he guest-starred in "Criminal Minds" in the Season 6 episode, "Reflection of Desire" as Rhett Walden, a serial killer. On August 26, 2011, Knepper, along with three others, was honored by the Maumee Alumni Association during an awards dinner and at the opening Maumee High School varsity football game. In 2012, he guest-starred as Frank Sinatra in the film "Cloclo", biopic of Claude François, a French pop singer who wrote "Comme d'habitude", the original version of "My Way".
900328	The Bird with the Crystal Plumage (Italian: "L'uccello dalle piume di cristallo") is a 1970 Italian giallo film directed by Dario Argento, in his directorial debut. The film is considered a landmark in the Italian giallo genre. Written by Argento, the film is an uncredited adaptation of Fredric Brown's novel "The Screaming Mimi", which had previously been made into a Hollywood film, "Screaming Mimi" (1958), directed by Gerd Oswald. The film was nominated for an Edgar Allan Poe award for best motion picture in 1971. The film was originally cut by 20 seconds for its US release and received a 'GP' rating, though it was later re-classified as 'PG'. It has since been released in the US uncut. Upon its release the film was a huge box office hit, grossing 1,650,000,000 Italian lira (roughly about $1 million US), twice the production cost of $500,000. The film was also a success outside of Italy, gaining €1,366,884 admissions in Spain. Plot. Sam Dalmas (Tony Musante) is an American writer living in Rome with his model girlfriend Giulia (Suzy Kendall). Suffering from writer's block, Sam is on the verge of returning to America, but witnesses the attack of a woman in an art gallery by a mysterious black-gloved assailant dressed in a raincoat. Attempting to reach her, Sam is trapped between two mechanically-operated glass doors and can only watch as the villain makes his escape. The woman, Monica Ranieri (Eva Renzi), the wife of the gallery's owner, Alberto Ranieri (Umberto Raho), survives the attack and the local police confiscates Sam's passport to stop him from leaving the country; the assailant is believed to be a serial killer who is killing young women across the city, and Sam is an important witness. Sam is haunted by what he saw that night, feeling sure that some vital clue is evading him, and he decides to help Inspector Morosini (Enrico Maria Salerno) in his investigation. He interviews the pimp of a murdered prostitute and visits a shop where another of the murdered women worked. There, he finds that the last thing she sold on the day she was murdered was a painting of a stark landscape featuring a man in a raincoat murdering a young woman. He visits the artist, but finds only another dead end. On his way back to his apartment, Giulia is attacked but Sam returns home in time to save her and the assailant escapes. Receiving menacing phone calls, the police manage to isolate an odd cricketing noise in the background, which is later revealed to be the call of a rare bird from Siberia, called "The Bird with Crystal Plumage" due to the diaphanous glint of its feathers. This proves important since the only one of its kind in Rome is kept in the Italian capital's zoo, allowing Sam and the police to identify the killer's abode. There they find Monica struggling with her husband, Alberto, who is wielding a knife. After a short struggle, Alberto is killed. As he dies, he confesses to the murders and tells them he loves his wife. Finding that Giulia and Monica have run off, Sam goes after them, eventually coming to a darkened building. There he finds his friend Garullo (Gildo Di Marco) murdered and Giulia bound, gagged and wounded. The assailant emerges and is revealed as Monica. Sam realises that the attack he witnessed in the gallery was not Monica being assaulted but rather her attacking her husband, who was wearing the raincoat. She flees and he pursues her to her art gallery. There, he is trapped, pinned to the floor by the release of a wall-sized sculpture of wire and metal. Unable to free himself, he becomes the prey of the person he was pursuing—the attractive, deranged wife of the gallery owner. This climax to the mystery, with strong sado-masochistic elements, has the knife-wielding Monica teasing Sam as she prepares to kill him. As she raises her knife, the police burst in and apprehend her, notified by Giulia who had escaped. Sam is freed and Monica is taken to a psychiatric hospital. The victim of a traumatic attack ten years before, seeing the painting drove her mad, causing her to identify not with the victim but with the assailant. Alberto likewise suffered from an induced psychosis, helping her to cover up the murders and committing some himself. Sam and Giulia are re-united and return to America. Assessment. Argento was already a successful screenwriter and movie critic at the time; he borrowed money from his well-off father to produce his directorial debut. Additional funds were gathered from German producers interested in a run-of-the-mill "Krimi" such as the Edgar-Wallace-inspired films which were a staple at West German box offices in the day. Argento managed to derail the project injecting heavy doses of violence and implied sexual titillation in the movie, meshing them in a lustrous and visionary cinematographic style which captivated both the general public (thrilled by the most lurid plot elements) and the critics (enthralled by the audacity of the camerawork and the montage). Argento borrowed heavily from crime thriller literature (some plot elements derive from works of Fredric Brown; Musante's character is named after an early incarnation of Raymond Chandler's iconic character Philip Marlowe) and from previous Italian thrillers (the killer's attire was lifted from Mario Bava's "Blood and Black Lace", of which he closely imitated the gory murder sequences) but he managed to make the end result fresh and provocative instead of derivative. Following murder movies from Argento would treasure these elements along with the recurring plot point of the protagonist seeing something of great importance but finding himself either unable to realize or remember what he saw (another favourite of some Bava movies, who was fascinated by the idea of cinema as sensory illusion). Release. Critical reception. "The Bird with the Crystal Plumage" has been very well received by critics. On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes the film has an approval rating of 91% based on twenty-two reviews, with the consensus "Combining a deadly thriller plot with the stylized violence that would become his trademark, "The Bird with the Crystal Plumage" marked an impressive horror debut for Dario Argento.""The New York Times" wrote, "has the energy to support its elaborateness and the decency to display its devices with style. Something from each of its better models has stuck, and it is pleasant to rediscover old horrors in such handsome new décor. " Roger Ebert gave the film three out of four stars, writing, "it's a pretty good [thriller", but that "its scares are on a much more basic level than in, say, a thriller by Hitchcock." It was placed 272nd in "Empire" magazine's "500 Greatest Movies of All Time" list. Home media. The film was originally cut by 20 seconds for its US release and received a 'GP' rating, though it was later re-classified as 'PG'. The film was later released on DVD by VCI with the restored violence, but had problems with a sequence of shots referred to as "the panty removal scene". Later pressings fixed it. Blue Underground later obtained the rights and re-released the film completely uncut, adding an extra shot of violence previously unseen. The picture was completely restored and the sound was remixed into both 5.1 audio for both Italian and English tracks, but contained another soundtrack remixed into DTS-ES 6.1 Discrete in English. Blue Underground released the film on Blu-ray Disc on 24 February 2009. Tech specs saw a BD-50 dual-layer presentation with newly remastered 1080p video and English audio tracks in DTS-HD Lossless Master Audio 7.1 Surround and Dolby TrueHD 7.1 Surround plus the original Italian audio track. It is now out-of-print. VCI announced on their Facebook page that they plan to release the film on Blu-ray Disc sometime soon.
1055307	Brain Donors (1992) is an American comedy movie released by Paramount Pictures, loosely based on the Marx Brothers comedy, "A Night at the Opera" (coincidentally the Brothers' first film they did after leaving Paramount). The film co-stars John Turturro, Mel Smith, and Bob Nelson in the approximations of the Groucho, Chico, and Harpo roles, with Nancy Marchand in the Margaret Dumont dowager role. The project was filmed as "Lame Ducks"; however, when the film's producers (David and Jerry Zucker) left for another studio, Paramount scrapped the publicity campaign, changed the title, and withdrew the film after its initial screenings. "Brain Donors" attracted attention on the home video market, which has resulted in a cult following according to its screenwriter, Pat Proft. Plot. After the death of tycoon and philanthropist Oscar Winterhaven Oglethorpe, a ballet company is founded in his name by his widow, Lillian (Nancy Marchand). The formation of the ballet company leads to ambulance-chasing attorney Roland T. Flakfizer (John Turturro) vying against Oglethorpe's former attorney Edmund Lazlo (John Savident) to be director of the company. Lazlo is chosen to be director of the company after signing the greatest ballet dancer in the world, "The Great Volare" (George de la Pena) to dance for the company. Flakfizer, however — with assistance from his two associates Rocco (Mel Smith) and Jacques (Bob Nelson) — earns a spot as co-director by wooing the wealthy widow and by signing the company's leading ballerina (Juliana Donald, billed as Juli Donald) and her dancer boyfriend Alan Grant (Spike Alexander). The ensuing struggle between Flakfizer and Lazlo leads to comic hijinks, including a badger game involving a chorus girl (Teri Copley), and an opening-night performance ludicrously sabotaged by Flakfizer and his cohorts. Reaction. Richard Harrington in his review for the "Washington Post" wrote, "It's all very busy, and in Zucker style there seem to be 10 jokes per minute, but most fly fast and fall flat." Mick LaSalle's review for the "San Francisco Chronicle" felt that the film was "an audacious attempt actually to make them like they used to - with no apologies, no nostalgia. It's no masterpiece, but neither was every Marx Brothers movie." In her review for the "New York Times", Janet Maslin wrote, ""Brain Donors" will stop at very little to get its laughs, and Mr. Turturro has just the right silliness for the occasion."
1063327	The Cincinnati Kid is a 1965 American drama film. It tells the story of Eric "The Kid" Stoner, a young Depression-era poker player, as he seeks to establish his reputation as the best. This quest leads him to challenge Lancey "The Man" Howard, an older player widely considered to be the best, culminating in a climactic final poker hand between the two. The script, adapted from Richard Jessup's novel, was written by Ring Lardner Jr. and Terry Southern; it was Lardner's first major studio work since his 1947 blacklisting as one of The Hollywood Ten. The film was directed by Norman Jewison and stars Steve McQueen in the title role and Edward G. Robinson as Howard. Jewison, who replaced original director Sam Peckinpah shortly after filming began, describes "The Cincinnati Kid" as his "ugly duckling" film. He considers it the film that allowed him to transition from the lighter comedic films he had previously been making and take on more serious films and subjects. The film garnered mixed reviews from critics on its initial release; supporting actors Robinson and Joan Blondell earned award nominations for their performances. Plot. Eric Stoner, nicknamed "The Kid," is an up-and-coming poker player. He hears that Lancey Howard, a long-time master of the game nicknamed "The Man," is in town, and decides to take him on. The Kid's friend Shooter cautions him, reminding the Kid how he thought he was the best five-card stud player in the world, until Howard "gutted" him when they played. Howard arrives in town and arranges a game with William Jefferson Slade and secures Shooter's services as dealer. Howard takes Slade for $6,000 over a 30-hour game, angering Slade and wounding his pride. That night at Slade's home, Slade tries to bribe Shooter into cheating in the Kid's favor, as a big game involving the Kid and Howard has been arranged. When Shooter declines, Slade calls in markers worth $12,000 he holds on Shooter, and blackmails him by threatening to reveal damaging information about his wife, Melba. When Shooter asks him why he wants him to cheat, Slade tells him that he wants to see Howard gutted the way Howard gutted him. Shooter agonizes over his choice, having spent the last 25 years building a reputation for integrity. With The Kid's girl Christian visiting her parents, Melba tries to seduce the Kid. Out of respect for Shooter he rebuffs her, and spends the day before the big game with Christian and her family. The big game starts with six players, including Howard, the Kid and Shooter playing as he deals. In the first big confrontation between The Kid and Howard, The Kid is short $2,000 and Slade steps in to stake him. Several hours later, Howard busts one player, perhaps with a bluff, and the remaining players take a break. Following the break Lady Fingers, who's been delighting in needling Howard all evening, takes over as dealer and continues to needle him. As the game wears on, Shooter only deals the game, and then after another hand when Howard outplays them, two more players drop out, leaving just Howard and the Kid, who after a few unlikely wins catches on to Shooter's cheating. The Kid calls for a break and confronts Shooter, who brags about his skills as a mechanic but admits to being forced into cheating by Slade. The Kid insists he can win on his own and tells Shooter to deal straight or he'll blow the whistle, destroying Shooter's reputation. Before the game resumes, Melba tries again to seduce the Kid and succeeds, though Christian makes a surprise visit to the room, catches them after the fact and walks out on the Kid. After another break in the game, Slade tells the Kid that Shooter will continue to cheat in his favor. Despite Slade's threats, the Kid tells him he won't allow Shooter to cheat, insisting he'll beat Howard without help. Back at the game, the Kid maneuvers to have Shooter replaced by Lady Fingers, and wins several major pots from Howard, who is visibly losing confidence. The final hand. With Lady Fingers dealing, the Kid is on the button.
1103213	Keith J. Devlin is a British mathematician and popular science writer. Since 1987 he has lived in the United States. He has dual American-British citizenship. Biography. Devlin earned a B.Sc. (Special) in Mathematics at Kings College London in 1968, and a Ph.D. in Mathematics at the University of Bristol in 1971 under the supervision of Frederick Rowbottom. He is co-founder and Executive Director of Stanford University's Human-Sciences and Technologies Advanced Research Institute, a co-founder of Stanford Media X university-industry research partnership program, and a Senior Researcher in the Center for the Study of Language and Information (CSLI). He is a commentator on National Public Radio's Weekend Edition Saturday, where he is known as "The Math Guy." As of 2012, he is the author of 34 books and over 80 research articles. Several of his books are aimed at an audience of the general public, as opposed to much academic work.
583050	Perizaad Zorabian (born 23 October 1973) is an Indian actress. Her film debut was with Nagesh Kukunoor's "Bollywood Calling" and she gained international recognition for her role as Jenny in Subhash Ghai's "Joggers' Park" (2003). Early life. Perizaad Zorabian was educated in New York City, where, in addition to her studies for a Master's degree in Business Administration at Baruch College, she also attended the Lee Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute. She returned to India after receiving her MBA degree, and subsequently assisted her father in his poultry farm business.
899630	Seduced and Abandoned () is a 1964 European film directed by Pietro Germi. It was entered into the 1964 Cannes Film Festival. Synopsis. The film presents the tale of Agnese Ascalone, daughter of prominent miner Vincenzo Ascalone, and takes place in a small town in Sicily, as did Germi's previous film "Divorce, Italian Style". Agnese is seduced by her sister Matilde's fiance, and has a tryst with him for which she confesses and tries to repent, only to be discovered by her mother and father. Vincenzo immediately demands that the man, Peppino Califano, marry his daughter, and antics ensue. The film is a dark satire of Sicilian social customs and honor laws, and is very similar to "Divorce, Italian Style". Context. These Sicilian customs, including a form of bride kidnapping or elopement known as "fuitina" and the following "rehabilitating marriage" ("matrimonio riparatore"), were brought to national attention in 1966 by the case of Franca Viola. Her story was turned into the 1970 film, "La moglie più bella" ("The Most Beautiful Wife") by Damiano Damiani and starring Ornella Muti.
1224953	Lily Rabe (born June 29, 1982) is an American actress. She is best known for playing Portia in the Shakespeare in the Park production of William Shakespeare's "The Merchant of Venice", and in her roles in each season of the FX anthology series "American Horror Story". Early life. Rabe was born in New York City, New York, the daughter of the late actress Jill Clayburgh and playwright David Rabe. She attended Northwestern University and the Hotchkiss School. Career. Rabe's Broadway credits include a revival of "Steel Magnolias", as well as "An American Plan" in 2008. In the fall of 2005, she appeared in MCC's production of "Colder Than Here". In 2006, her performance in George Bernard Shaw's "Heartbreak House" was praised by "New York Times" critic Charles Isherwood. Rabe has appeared in the films "Never Again", "Mona Lisa Smile," and as Bernadette in "No Reservations" and "The Toe Tactic." She also appeared in two episodes of "Medium" in 2008, as a serial killer working under the guise of a victim. She was seen in the 2010 film "All Good Things". In June and July 2010, Rabe played Portia in William Shakespeare's "The Merchant of Venice" in Central Park in New York City, in the famed Shakespeare in the Park series of productions. She starred opposite Al Pacino as Shylock in a performance described as a "smashing break-out". For this performance, Rabe was nominated for a Tony Award for Best Leading Actress in Play. She continued in the role of Portia when the play opened at the Broadhurst Theater in November 2010, and continued in this role into 2011. On December 21, 2010, she discussed the role on "Charlie Rose". Rabe took on the role of Nora in Henrik Ibsen's "A Doll's House" at the 2011 Williamstown Theatre Festival. She played Nora Montgomery on the first season of the FX show "American Horror Story", and Sister Mary Eunice on the second season. She was one of seven actors from the first season of the show to return for the second season as a completely new character.
633210	Nana Visitor (born Nana Tucker on July 26, 1957) is an American actress, known for playing Kira Nerys in the television series "" and Jean Ritter in the television series "Wildfire". Early life. Nana Tucker was born July 26, 1957 in New York City, the daughter of Nenette Charisse, a ballet teacher, and Robert Tucker, a choreographer; she is a niece of actress/dancer Cyd Charisse. Career. Visitor began her acting career in the 1970s on the Broadway stage in such productions as "My One and Only". Her film debut (billed as Nana Tucker) came in the 1977 horror film "The Sentinel". On television, Visitor co-starred in the short-lived 1976 sitcom "Ivan the Terrible", and from 1978 to 1982 had short-lived regular roles on three soap operas: "Ryan's Hope", "The Doctors" and "One Life to Live". In 1984, she appeared in Season 2, Episode 3 of "Hunter". In 1985, Visitor made an appearance in the television series "MacGyver", in the season one episode "Hellfire" as Laura Farren, and in the season two episode "DOA: MacGyver" as Carol Varnay. Visitor also made an appearance in the 1985 season 4, episode 3 "Remington Steele" episode titled "Steele Blushing." In 1986, she appeared in "Hills of Fire", a fourth season episode of "Knight Rider". In 1987, Visitor appeared as Ellen Dolan in a failed television pilot for Will Eisner's pulp comic creation "The Spirit" starring Sam J. Jones as the title character and Garry Walberg as her father, Commissioner Dolan. In 1988, she made a guest appearance on the sitcom "Night Court" as a mental patient who is obsessed with the movies. That same year, she made a guest appearance on the television series "In the Heat of the Night" as the owner of the Sparta newspaper. She also made a guest appearance that year in an episode of "Matlock". In 1989, Visitor appeared as a guest on the fifth episode of the television series "Doogie Howser, M.D." as Charmagne, a rock star who has a throat nodule removed at Doogie's hospital, and as Miles Drentell's glamorous girlfriend, in "Success", a 1989 episode of "Thirtysomething"'s second season. In 1990, Visitor co-starred with Sandra Bullock in the short-lived sitcom "Working Girl", which was based on the feature film of the same name. From 1993–1999, Visitor appeared on "" as Major (later Colonel, and eventually, Commander) Kira Nerys, a former freedom fighter/terrorist for the planet Bajor, who worked to drive off the alien occupiers, the Cardassians, from her homeworld, now forced to work with the Starfleet contingent brought in by her government to administer the titular space station built in orbit around her planet during the occupation.
1451637	Cold Showers () is a 2005 French film directed by Antony Cordier. It was a Directors' Fortnight Selection at 2005 Cannes Film Festival. The film tells the story of three teenagers, a girl, Vanessa, and two boys, Mickael and Clement, who face changes and problems over a period of three months as they enter adulthood. The film attracted attention on its release due to the full-frontal nudity of several young French actors. Plot. Mickael (Johan Libereau) is from a poor working class family - his father Gérard (Jean-Philippe Ecoffey) is a taxi cab driver who lost his license and then his job as a result of a police roadblock targeting drivers under the influence. His mother Annie (Florence Thomassin) works as a cleaning woman in the high school gym: After this they have a tough time financially. Not a great student, Mickael excels in judo and his life is focused on his sport and on his girlfriend Vanessa (Salomé Stévenin). One of Mickael's teammates Clément (Pierre Perrier) is from a wealthy family: his father Louis Steiner (Aurelien Recoing) uses a wheelchair and his mother Mathilde (Claire Nebout) is a woman of the world and society. Louis decides to sponsor the judo team, buys them outfits, and asks Mickael to work with Clement to perfect his technique and prepare the judo team for a French championship. Mickael and Clément relate well and while Mickael is a winning player, Clément is smarter and understands the intrinsic rules of the game better. An incident occurs that forces Mickael to take the position of a wounded team mate and in doing so he must lose eight kilos to qualify for the championship team. The struggle to lose weight (he is already in ideal physical condition) places stress on both Mickael and his family and teammates. Mickael and Vanessa include Clément in their camaraderie, a situation which evolves into a ménage à trois as the three have group sex in the after hours gym. Controversially, the two male stars show their genitals. Vanessa reacts as though this is the greatest physical feeling ever, Clément is smitten, and Mickael has troubling doubts. When the three decide to try it again in a hotel room Mickael is so conflicted that he does not join the other two, only listening to their cavorting in the bathtub feeling inferior to the smarter, wealthier Clément. But on the judo side, the team plays the championship and Mickael's delicate sense of self worth is restored for a moment. It is the manner in which the trio of teenagers resolve their antics that closes the film. Soundtrack. The soundtrack for this film contains songs by Julie Delpy and Galt MacDermot. The score is composed by Nicolas Lemercier. The main song of the film is called "Central Park". Awards and nominations. César Awards
1067161	Resurrecting the Champ is a 2007 American drama sports film directed by Rod Lurie. The storyline was conceived from a screenplay written by Michael Bortman and Allison Burnett, based on a "Los Angeles Times Magazine" article entitled "Resurrecting the Champ", by author J.R. Moehringer. The film centers around a fictionalized former athlete portrayed by Samuel L. Jackson, living on the streets of Denver, who attempts to impersonate the life and career of former professional heavyweight boxer Bob Satterfield. The ensemble cast also features Josh Hartnett, Alan Alda, David Paymer, and Teri Hatcher. The film was a co-production between the motion picture studios of Phoenix Pictures, Alberta Film Entertainment, Battleplan Productions, and the Yari Film Group. Theatrically, it was commercially distributed by the Yari Film Group, while in the home video rental market it was distributed by 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment. "Resurrecting the Champ" explores professional ethics, journalism and athletics. On September 25, 2007, the original motion picture soundtrack was released by the Rykodisc record label. The film score was composed and orchestrated by musicians Larry Groupé and Blake Hazard. Indie Rock band The Submarines also contributed a musical track to the score. In 2008, the film was nominated for an ESPY Award for Best Sports Movie as well as a Young Artist Award in the category of Best Performance in a Feature Film – Young Actor Age Ten or Younger. "Resurrectng the Champ" premiered in theaters nationwide in the United States on August 24, 2007 grossing $3,172,573 in domestic ticket receipts. The film took in an additional $69,854 in business through international release for a combined worldwide total of $3,242,427. Preceding its initial screening in cinemas, the film was generally met with positive critical reviews. With its initial foray into the home video marketplace; the widescreen DVD edition of the film featuring theatrical trailers, cast and crew interviews, and commentary with director Lurie among other highlights, was released in the United States on April 8, 2008. Plot. Erik Kernan Jr. (Hartnett) is a young fledgling journalist employed by "The Denver Times". Frustrated, Kernan struggles with his supervising editor Ralph Metz (Alda) concerning rudimentary coverage over his sports related articles. Metz views Kernan's editorial work as bland and uninspiring considering his recently deceased father was a famous sportscaster. Kernan is separated from his wife, Joyce (Morris), who also works at the newspaper, and worries that he might be losing touch with their young son, Teddy (Goyo). In an alley near the Denver Coliseum, three rowdy young men taunt an elderly homeless man (Jackson), who calls himself "Champ" and claims to have been a professional boxer. As the men begin to assault him, Kernan, leaving a boxing match he was covering at the venue, comes to his aid. Eventually, Kernan learns that Champ was once a famous former heavyweight boxing contender, Bob Satterfield. Most people though believe Satterfield died awhile back. During an interview with a magazine publisher named Whitley (Paymer), Kernan informs him that he has an influential story about the former boxer Satterfield, who's now a homeless man living on the streets assuming the moniker "Champ". Though at the same time, Champ is reluctant to cooperate for any biographical piece. In order to gain Champ's confidence for the chronicle, Kernan recruits an associate at the newspaper, Polly (Nichols), to assist him in retrieving information about his past. The magazine ultimately publishes Kernan's article. It wins applause from readers and journalists alike. The story even draws the attention of a TV personality from Showtime, Flak (Hatcher), who boldly suggests it should be nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. But the intense publicity brings Kernan into contact with elderly folk who knew Satterfield personally, and are adamant that he's no longer alive. Kernan later learns that Champ is in fact a lesser known boxing contender, Tommy Kincaid, whom Satterfield once defeated in the ring. He makes a conscious choice and decides to inform his editors about the profile error. However, before he can do so, he learns that he and the newspaper are being sued by Satterfield's son, Robert (Lennix). Satterfield Jr. is angered, since it had been long known to a number of people that Champ had a lengthy history of impersonating his father. Metz derides Kernan for not having done due diligence in examining Champ's authenticity regarding his past. Satterfield Jr. is later appeased with a proposal by Kernan to write another article retracting his mistake and include personal journalistic material about the elder Satterfield which he long wanted someone to articulate about. Kernan is also gratified with knowing that his young son Teddy will be proud of his father even if he does not know the famous people he once claimed to know. Production. Filming. Filming locations for the motion picture included, Calgary, Alberta and Denver, Colorado. Music. The original motion picture soundtrack for "Resurrecting the Champ", was released by the Rykodisc music label on September 25, 2007. The film score was composed and orchestrated by a number of musicians including, Larry Groupé, Blake Hazard, and Neville Ivey. Release. Home media. Following its cinematic release in theaters, the Region 1 Code widescreen edition of the film was released on DVD in the United States on April 8, 2008. Special features for the DVD include; commentary with director Lurie; a Resurrecting the Champ featurette; cast and crew interviews; and the theatrical trailer.
1688779	Alison Brie Schermerhorn (born December 29, 1982), known by her stage name Alison Brie, is an American actress. She is known for portraying Annie Edison on the NBC sitcom "Community" and Trudy Campbell on the AMC drama "Mad Men". She has also starred in movies, including the 2011 slasher film "Scream 4" and the 2012 comedy "The Five-Year Engagement". Early life. Brie was born in Hollywood, California. Her mother, Joanne (née Brenner), works at a non-profit child care agency called Para los Niños ("For the Children"), and her father, Charles Terry Schermerhorn, is a musician and freelance entertainment reporter. Her mother is Jewish and her father has Dutch, Scottish, and Irish ancestry. Brie has stated that, while being raised by her divorced parents, she occasionally attended her father's "Christian-Hindu hybrid church", while her mother "would always make sure we knew we were Jewish". Brie began her career acting onstage at the Jewish Community Center in Southern California. She graduated from the California Institute of the Arts with a bachelor's in theater in 2005. Prior to becoming a television actress, Brie had worked as a clown at birthday parties, and performed in theater in California. For a time, Brie studied at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama in Glasgow. Career. One of Brie's first television roles was the minor character Nina, a novice hairdresser, on "Hannah Montana". She then went on to star in the web series "My Alibi," and was chosen for the role of Trudy Campbell in "Mad Men". She is also a main cast member on "Community" as Annie Edison. On April 15, 2010, Brie co-hosted G4's "Attack of the Show!". Brie has also appeared for a short segment on the G4 show, "Web Soup". She had a role in the 2010 film "Montana Amazon". Brie made Maxim's 2010 Hot 100 list at number 99 and Maxim's 2011 Hot 100 list at number 49. She was also voted the 56th sexiest woman in the world by FHM readers in 2013. Brie has had several major movie roles. She starred in the 2011 horror film "Scream 4", as Sidney Prescott's assistant. She appeared alongside Jason Segel, Emily Blunt and Chris Pratt in "The Five-Year Engagement", which was released April 27, 2012.
1061944	Matthew David McConaughey (; born November 4, 1969) is an American actor. McConaughey first gained notice for his breakout role in the coming of age comedy "Dazed and Confused" (1993). He went on to appear in films in a variety of genres including the slasher "" (1994), the legal thriller "A Time to Kill" (1996), Steven Spielberg's historical drama "Amistad" (1997), the science fiction drama "Contact" (1997), the comedy "EDtv" (1999) and the war film "U-571" (2000).
591562	Khamosh Pani (; "lit." "Silent Waters") is a 2003 French/German production about a widowed mother and her young son set in a late 1970s village in Punjab, Pakistan which is coming under radical influence.
1016390	Candice Yu (Yu On On) born Yu De Ying on 22 October 1959) is a Hong Kong film actress and occasional singer, best known for her films with Shaw Studio of the 1970s and 1980s. She was the first wife of acclaimed Hong Kong actor, Chow Yun-fat. Film career. Yu made her debut in film at the age of 16 in "Let's Rock" and was instantly signed by the Shaw Brothers Studio in 1976 after starring in the film "Massage Girls" with Chow Yun-fat, her future husband and in "Forever and Ever" alongside Alan Tang. Between 1977 and 1979, she starred in six of Chu Yuan's sword films, including "Death Duel, The Sentimental Swordsman", "Legend of the Bat", "Murder Plot", and two Heaven Sword and Dragon Sabre films. In the late 1970s, Yu also began appearing on television, notably the Rediffusion TV series "Reincarnated", and her appearances as Princess Xiang Xiang in the martial arts series "Book and Sword". In 1984 she portrayed a lesbian in the film "Lust For Love of a Chinese Courtesan". In 1992, Yu had a cameo role in "Swordsman 2, directed by Tsui Hark.
1073132	Plot. Tetsuya "Phoenix Tetsu" Hondo is a member of a recently deactivated Yakuza gang. His boss, to whom he holds absolute loyalty, Kurata, has given up the life of crime for himself and his syndicate. Otsuka, a rival gang boss, attempts to recruit Tetsu into his organization, but is turned down. After failing, Otsuka sends an assassin to neutralize Tetsu, fearing he will interfere with a real estate scam. Looking to profit from the scheme himself and fearing that his group is threatened by his presence, Kurata asks Tetsu to leave and live the life of a drifter. Otsuka and Kurata join forces, and assign the successful hitman, "Viper" Tatsuzo, to kill Tetsu. Tetsu evades Viper and his hit squad a number of times and arrives at the establishment of Umetani, an ally of boss Kurata. Tetsu returns to Tokyo, confronting his boss who betrayed him. He kills everyone in the room besides his boss and former girlfriend. At the end of the movie, Kurata kills himself, and Tetsu rejects his former girlfriend Chiharu's plea to allow her to accompany him on his travels. He exits down a pure white hallway, explaining that he has a new allegiance to the wanderer lifestyle, and cannot abandon it for the company of another. Production. Nikkatsu bosses had been warning Suzuki to tone down his bizarre visual style for years and drastically reduced "Tokyo Drifter"'s budget in hopes of getting results. This had the opposite effect in that Suzuki and art director Takeo Kimura pushed themselves to new heights of surrealism and absurdity. The studio's next move was to impose the further restriction of filming in black and white on his next two films, which again Suzuki met with even greater bizarreness culminating in his dismissal for "incomprehensibility". Because of budget limitations, Suzuki had to cut connecting shots out of many fights, leading to a need for more creative camera work. Various shots of Tokyo were used to establish the setting as the then-contemporary post-1964 Japan. Suzuki drew inspiration from a wide variety of sources in making "Tokyo Drifter", including the musical films of the 1950s, pop art, absurdist comedy, and surrealist film. Themes. Suzuki displays common themes found in Yakuza films, particularly the theme of loyalty, to parody the message and presentation of traditional Yakuza films. He uses his depictions of Yakuza relationships to show the inherent weakness of the archetype, particularly the possible abuses of power that can arise from unquestioning allegiance. Further, the common theme of corporate corruption is also parodied in through exaggeration when the main character becomes an expendable retainer. The conventions in the film further parody the conformity of theme and structure apparent in all Japanese film, but most notably in Yakuza films of the time, particularly its excesses. Style. The mise en scène of "Tokyo Drifter" is highly stylized. Film reviewer Nikolaos Vryzidis claims that the film crosses over into a number of different genres, but most resembles the avant-garde films occurring in the 1960s. At times, the film draws a good deal of inspiration from westerns. The whistling of the main character Tetsu is reminiscent of cowboy heroes. Near the middle of the film, a large bar fight erupts; this scene is meant to directly parody western films, everyone in the saloon joins in the brawl against United States Navy sailors, and comical violence is used where no one is permanently injured, despite the large-scale violence of the scene. The majority of the film takes place in Tokyo, but portrays the city in a highly stylized manner. The opening sequence consists of a mash of images from metropolitan Tokyo, meant to condense the feeling of the city into one sequence. The film opens in stylized black and white, which becomes vibrant color in all subsequent scenes. This served to represent Tokyo post-1964 Summer Olympics. Reception. Vryzidis claims that Suzuki's later films, once the studio gave him more freedom, never reached the same level of artistic quality as "Tokyo Drifter", where the studio attempted to impose a large amount of control over the project. Tetsu, the main character of the film, has also been well received. One reviewer commented that he always looks "cool", even when he is not the toughest guy in the room. Stephen Barber called the visualization in "Tokyo Drifter" "bizarre and individual". Douglass Pratt praised the film for its quirkiness and character. He further stated that the plot of the film does not matter so much as "the gorgeous Pop Art sets, the bizarre musical sequences, the confusing but ballistic action scenes and the film's gunbutt attitude." Legacy. The film is considered ahead of its time, as it abandoned the themes of the Ninkyo eiga films popular at the time, and combines with themes from the later Jitsuroku eiga Yakuza films, which disavowed the romantic and nostalgic views of the Yakuza in favor of social criticism. Home video. The Criterion Collection released the film outside of Japan in DVD format in 1999.
1043435	Dandy Nichols (21 May 1907 – 6 February 1986) was an English actress most noted for her role as Else Garnett, the long-suffering wife of the racially bigoted and misogynistic character Alf Garnett in the BBC sitcom "Till Death Us Do Part". Early life and career. Born Daisy Sander in Hammersmith, London, she started her working life as a secretary in a London factory. Twelve years later, after drama, diction and fencing classes, she was spotted in a charity show by a producer, who offered her a job in his repertory theatre company in Cambridge. During her early career on stage she acted under the name Barbara Nichols but later changed it to Dandy, her childhood nickname. When the Second World War broke out, she returned to office work but later undertook a six-week tour with ENSA. When the war was over, she returned to the theatre and also began appearing in films: usually comedies and invariably as a maid or charlady. Her successes in theatre include the Royal Court Theatre and Broadway productions of "Home". Her big screen debut was in "Hue and Cry", in 1947, followed with performances in "Nicholas Nickleby", "The Winslow Boy", "The History of Mr Polly", "Scott of the Antarctic", "Mother Riley Meets the Vampire" and Dickens' "The Pickwick Papers". "Till Death Us Do Part". Dandy Nichols's best-known role was Else Garnett in the landmark series "Till Death Us Do Part". The part was originally played in the pilot episode for the series (as part of the BBC's "Comedy Playhouse") by future EastEnders actress Gretchen Franklin. Dandy's role seemed, at first, almost negligible: spending the best part of one early episode reading the telephone book as Alf embarked on another of his tirades. However, Else proved to be a perfect foil for Alf, and could put him down effortlessly with a withering look or cutting remark. Perhaps her finest hour - in an episode shown by the BBC in tribute to Dandy in 1986 - was when, in 1974, Else took a leaf out of Prime Minister Edward Heath's book and went on a "three-day week", forcing Alf to fend for and feed himself on her days off. Controversy. In the original scripts, Alf was to refer to his wife as a "silly cow". This was firmly vetoed by BBC Head of Comedy Frank Muir, who thought this was inappropriate. Una Stubbs said that it was ""a lot of silly fuss about a silly moo"" which was overheard by script writer Johnny Speight and became the series most enduring catchphrase. "In Sickness and in Health". "Till Death Us Do Part" came to an end in 1975 but was revived in 1985. Dandy agreed to appear, but had been suffering from rheumatoid arthritis and had to use a wheelchair. Her illnesses were written into the scripts, and the series was appropriately renamed "In Sickness and in Health". The series continued after her death: Alf, left alone after the other mourners have gone home, gently touched the handle of her (now empty) wheelchair and sobbed "Silly old moo!" Film career. She appeared in numerous films, which included "Carry On Sergeant" and "Carry On Doctor", "Ladies Who Do", "The Holly and the Ivy", "The Vikings", the Beatles' film "Help!", "Georgy Girl", "Doctor in Clover", "The Birthday Party", "The Bed Sitting Room", "Confessions of a Window Cleaner" and "Britannia Hospital" amongst others. Later years. After finding fame in "Till Death Do Us Part", Nichols found work in television, notably playing opposite Alastair Sim in William Trevor's production of "The Generals Day". She made appearances in "Flint", "The Tea Ladies" and "Bergerac". Onstage, she appeared in Ben Travers's comedy "Plunder", as well as playing alongside Sir Ralph Richardson and Sir John Gielgud in David Storey's "Home", in both London and on Broadway. Personal life. Nichols, whose only marriage to Stephen Bagueley Waters in 1942 had ended in divorce, died of pneumonia and heart disease on 6 February 1986 at the London Hospital, Whitechapel.
1104849	Pierre-Louis Lions (born August 11, 1956) is a French mathematician. His parents were Jacques-Louis Lions, a mathematician and at that time professor at the University of Nancy, who became President of the International Mathematical Union, and Andrée Olivier, his wife. He graduated from the École Normale Supérieure in 1977 (same year as Jean-Christophe Yoccoz). Refusing to take the "agrégation" in Mathematics, he chose to carry out research in applied mathematics and received his doctorate from the University of Pierre and Marie Curie in 1979. He studies the theory of nonlinear partial differential equations, and received the Fields Medal for his mathematical work in 1994 while working at the University of Paris-Dauphine. Lions was the first to give a complete solution to the Boltzmann equation with proof. Other awards Lions received include the IBM Prize in 1987 and the Philip Morris Prize in 1991. He is a doctor honoris causa of Heriot-Watt University (Edinburgh) and of the City University of Hong-Kong and is listed as an ISI highly cited researcher. Currently, he holds the position of Professor of "Partial differential equations and their applications" at the prestigious Collège de France in Paris as well as a position at École Polytechnique. In the paper "Viscosity solutions of Hamilton-Jacobi equations" (1983), written with Michael G. Crandall, he introduced the notion of viscosity solutions. This has had a great effect on the theory of partial differential equations.
589035	Asha Parekh (born 2 October 1942) is a Bollywood actress, director, and producer. She was one of the top stars in Hindi films from 1959 to 1973. In 1992, she was honoured with the Padma Shri by the Government of India. Parekh is regarded as one of the most successful and influential Hindi movie actresses of all time. Biography. Early life. Asha Parekh was born into a middle-class Gujarati family on 2 October 1942 in Mumbai, to a Hindu father (who was from Paldi near Pirana, Ahmedabad, Gujarat) and a Dawoodi Bohra Muslim mother. Parekh's religious upbringing involved worshipping Sai Baba. Her mother enrolled her in Indian classical dance classes at an early age and she learned from many teachers including Pandit Bansilal Bharati. Career. Parekh started her career as a child artist under the screen name Baby Asha Parekh in the film "Aasmaan" (1952). Famed film director Bimal Roy saw her dance at a stage function and cast her at the age of twelve in "Baap Beti" (1954). The film's failure disappointed her and even though she did a couple more child roles, she quit to resume her schooling. At sixteen she decided to try acting again and make her debut as a heroine, but she was rejected from Vijay Bhatt's "Goonj Uthi Shehnai" (1959) in favour of actress Ameeta, because the filmmaker claimed she was not star material. The very next day, film producer Subodh Mukherjee and writer-director Nasir Hussain cast her as the heroine in "Dil Deke Dekho" (1959) opposite Shammi Kapoor, which made her a huge star. The film also led to a long and fruitful association with Hussain. He went on to cast Parekh as the heroine in six more of his films: "Jab Pyar Kisi Se Hota Hai" (1961), "Phir Wohi Dil Laya Hoon" (1963), "Teesri Manzil" (1966), "Baharon Ke Sapne" (1967), "Pyar Ka Mausam" (1969), and "Caravan" (1971). She also did a cameo role for his film "Manzil Manzil" (1984). Hussain also got her involved in distribution of films for 21 years, starting with "Baharon Ke Sapne" (1967). Parekh was primarily known as a glamour girl/excellent dancer/tomboy in most of her films, until director Raj Khosla gave her a serious image by casting her in tragedienne roles in three of her favourite films: "Do Badan" (1966), "Chirag" (1969), and "Main Tulsi Tere Aangan Ki" (1978). Director Shakti Samanta gave her more dramatic roles in her other favourite films, "Pagla Kahin Ka" (1970) and "Kati Patang" (1970); the latter earned her the Filmfare Best Actress Award. Many important directors used her several times in their films, including Vijay Anand, Mohan Segal and J.P. Dutta. Parekh acted in her mother tongue by starring in three Gujarati films at the height of her fame in Hindi films, the first film being "Akhand Saubhagyavati" (1963), which became a huge hit. She
400669	Robert Anderson "Rob" Huebel (born June 4, 1969) is an American actor, comedian and writer best known for his sketch comedy work on the MTV series "Human Giant". He currently co-stars on the Adult Swim series "Childrens Hospital". Early life. Huebel was born in Alexandria, Virginia, the son of Louisa and Jared Huebel. He later moved to New York and began studying improv comedy at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theater. Career. He first began improvising when he was 27 by taking classes at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre in New York. Huebel's early work was as a sketch actor on shows such as "Late Night with Conan O'Brien" and "Upright Citizens Brigade". He was nominated for an Emmy award for his work as a producer for Michael Moore's Bravo series "The Awful Truth" and also worked as a segment producer on "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart" . Huebel was a panelist on the VH1 series "Best Week Ever", part of the NetZero "Candidate Zero" campaign during the 2004 election, and known for the "Inconsiderate Cell Phone Man" character, shown at movie theatres before showtime. He also appeared on the HBO television series "Curb Your Enthusiasm" as well as Fox's "Arrested Development". He is the comedy partner of Rob Riggle, a comedian he worked with in the improvisational comedy troupe Respecto Montalban and at the Upright Citizens Brigade. Huebel and Riggle performed a comedy bit in the documentary "Super High Me". Among their best known work at UCB, included their long-running two-man show "Kung-Fu Grip", which was eventually showcased at the 2004 HBO Comedy Arts Festival. Huebel and fellow comedians Aziz Ansari and Paul Scheer are writers, actors, and executive producers in the MTV sketch comedy show "Human Giant". Some of Huebel's characters from the show include Samir from "The Shutterbugs" and T.C. Everwood from "Clell Tickle." He guest starred in the "30 Rock" episode "MILF Island", and also as Holly's boyfriend A.J. in three episodes of "The Office". He played the role of 'Tevin' in the 2009 comedy "I Love You, Man". He currently co-stars with Rob Corddry in "Childrens Hospital", currently airing new episodes on Adult Swim. Huebel continues to regularly perform at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre in Los Angeles. He currently co-hosts the live sketch show "Crash Test" with Paul Scheer twice a month, as well as hosting "The Shit Show", in which he gathers comedian friends and other well-known performers to present the worst scenes in films, television and commercials that they have ever done. Huebel has written and starred in various filmed sketches for the HBO sketch comedy program "Funny or Die Presents". In November 2010, Huebel performed stand-up on "The Benson Interruption" on Comedy Central. Huebel most recently appeared in the films "The Other Guys", "Life as We Know It", "Little Fockers", "Despicable Me", and "The Descendants". In February 2011, Huebel was cast as a lead in the FOX sitcom pilot "Family Album". Huebel appears frequently on the comedy podcast Comedy Bang Bang along with starring in his own podcast series on the Earwolf network, "Mike Detective".
1102717	Gregori Aleksandrovich Margulis (, first name often given as Gregory, Grigori or Grigory; born February 24, 1946) is a Russian mathematician known for his work on lattices in Lie groups, and the introduction of methods from ergodic theory into diophantine approximation. He was awarded a Fields Medal in 1978 and a Wolf Prize in Mathematics in 2005, becoming the seventh mathematician to receive both prizes. In 1991, he joined the faculty of Yale University, where he is currently the Erastus L. DeForest Professor of Mathematics. Short biography. Margulis was born in Moscow, Soviet Union. He received his PhD in 1970 from the Moscow State University, starting research in ergodic theory under the supervision of Yakov Sinai. Early work with David Kazhdan produced the Kazhdan–Margulis theorem, a basic result on discrete groups. His superrigidity theorem from 1975 clarified an area of classical conjectures about the characterisation of arithmetic groups amongst lattices in Lie groups. He was awarded the Fields Medal in 1978, but was not permitted to travel to Helsinki to accept in person. His position improved, and in 1979 he visited Bonn, and was later able to travel freely, though he still worked in the Institute of Problems of Information Transmission, a research institute rather than a university. In 1991, Margulis accepted a professorial position at Yale University. Margulis was elected a member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences in 2001. In 2012 he became a fellow of the American Mathematical Society. In 2005, Margulis received the Wolf Prize for his contributions to theory of lattices and applications to ergodic theory, representation theory, number theory, combinatorics, and measure theory. Scientific contributions. Early work of Margulis dealt with Kazhdan's property (T) and the questions of rigidity and arithmeticity of lattices in semisimple algebraic groups of higher rank over a local field. It had been known since the 1950s (Borel, Harish-Chandra) that a certain simple-minded way of constructing subgroups of semisimple Lie groups produces examples of lattices, called "arithmetic lattices". It is analogous to considering the subgroup "SL"("n",Z) of the real special linear group "SL"("n",R) that consists of matrices with "integer" entries. Margulis proved that under suitable assumptions on "G" (no compact factors and split rank greater or equal than two), "any" (irreducible) lattice "Γ" in it is arithmetic, i.e. can be obtained in this way. Thus "Γ" is commensurable with the subgroup "G"(Z) of "G", i.e. they agree on subgroups of finite index in both. Unlike general lattices, which are defined by their properties, arithmetic lattices are defined by a construction. Therefore, these results of Margulis pave a way for classification of lattices. Arithmeticity turned out to be closely related to another remarkable property of lattices discovered by Margulis. "Superrigidity" for a lattice "Γ" in "G" roughly means that any homomorphism of "Γ" into the group of real invertible "n" × "n" matrices extends to the whole "G". The name derives from the following variant: (The case when "f" is an isomorphism is known as the strong rigidity.) While certain rigidity phenomena had already been known, the approach of Margulis was at the same time novel, powerful, and very elegant. Margulis solved the long-standing Banach–Ruziewicz problem that asks whether the Lebesgue measure is the only normalized rotationally invariant finitely additive measure on the "n"-dimensional sphere. The affirmative solution for "n" ≥ 4, which was also independently and almost simultaneously obtained by Dennis Sullivan, follows from a construction of a certain dense subgroup of the orthogonal group that has property (T). Margulis gave the first construction of expander graphs, which was later generalized in the theory of Ramanujan graphs. In 1986, Margulis completed the proof of the Oppenheim conjecture on quadratic forms and diophantine approximation. This was a question that had been open for half a century, on which considerable progress had been made by the Hardy-Littlewood circle method; but to reduce the number of variables to the point of getting the best-possible results, the more structural methods from group theory proved decisive. He has formulated a further program of research in the same direction, that includes the Littlewood conjecture.
1063346	Lars and the Real Girl is a 2007 American-Canadian comedy-drama film written by Nancy Oliver and directed by Craig Gillespie. It stars Ryan Gosling, Emily Mortimer, Paul Schneider, Kelli Garner and Patricia Clarkson. The film follows Lars (Gosling), a sweet yet quirky, socially inept young man, who develops a romantic relationship with an anatomically correct sex doll, a "RealDoll" named Bianca, and the story of how his older brother (Schneider), his brother's wife (Mortimer), and the rest of the small town grow to accept and welcome Bianca into the community for Lars' sake, not realizing that she would touch all of their lives in such a profound way. Despite not earning back its initial budget in theatrical release, "Lars and the Real Girl" was critically acclaimed. It earned an Academy Award nomination for "Best Writing (Original Screenplay)", while Gosling received a Golden Globe Award nomination for "Best Actor in a Motion Picture Comedy" and a Screen Actors Guild Award nomination for "Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Leading Role". Plot. Lars Lindstrom lives in the converted garage behind the house he and his brother Gus inherited from their late father. Karin is Lars's pregnant sister-in-law. Her persistent attempts to lure him into the house for a family meal are usually rebuffed, and on the rare occasions he accepts, their conversation is stilted and he seems eager to leave as soon as he can. The young man finds it difficult to interact with or relate to his family, co-workers or fellow parishioners in the church he regularly attends. Margo, Lars's co-worker, is clearly interested in him, but Lars avoids anything more than brief encounters with her.
1166204	Kevin Tighe (b. Jon Kevin Fishburn; August 13, 1944) is an American character actor primarily known for his roles on television. Tighe is best known for his role as Roy DeSoto, a senior paramedic, on the NBC series "Emergency!" (1972–77). He and Randolph Mantooth, his partner in the series, have remained close friends. In the 2000s he played Anthony Cooper, the father of John Locke, on the ABC series "Lost". Life and career. Tighe was born in Los Angeles, California, the son of an actor. When he was five, he moved with his family to the nearby suburb of Pasadena. Tighe began acting at an early age, auditioning for juvenile leads at the Pasadena Playhouse, before he was enrolled at Pasadena High School, graduating in 1962. He then attended University of Southern California, where he earned a Master of Fine Arts in acting in 1967. That same year, his first film appearance was a bit role in "The Graduate", starring Dustin Hoffman. In it, he portrayed a member of fraternity and only had a few lines of dialogue late in the film. Following "The Graduate", Tighe served in the Army. Following his military service, he returned to acting, working under contract for Paramount Pictures. While with Paramount, Tighe worked with actors that included Lorne Greene, Maggie Smith and Michael Landon, before he signed a contract with Universal Studios in 1971. At that time, he auditioned for a new Jack Webb television series, "Emergency!". He landed the role and was signed to play senior paramedic Roy DeSoto, opposite Randolph Mantooth, Robert Fuller, Julie London, and Bobby Troup. The show ran for six seasons, 1972–1977. Tighe has had many guest appearances in other television series since "Emergency!" including "Adam-12", "The Six Million Dollar Man", "The Love Boat", "Murder, She Wrote", ', "ER", "Freaks and Geeks", "The Nancy Drew/Hardy Boys Mysteries", "Law & Order" (both ' and ""), "The 4400", "Tales from the Crypt" and "The West Wing" where he portrayed Governor Jack Buckland, among others. On "Lost", he appeared numerous times (2005–2010) as Anthony Cooper, father of John Locke. Tighe has also made appearances on the following shows: "Numb3rs" as Keith Watts (2008), "Leverage" for two episodes as Ian Blackpoole (2009), "Lie to Me" as Fletcher Bellwood (2009), and "Trauma" as Captain Channing (2010), which was intended as a nod to "Emergency!". Tighe has also become a character actor and has appeared in supporting or featured roles in several films, including "Newsies", "Matewan", "Eight Men Out", "K-9" (the first of two films with James Belushi, the other being "Race the Sun"), "Road House", "Another 48 Hrs.", "What's Eating Gilbert Grape", "I Love a Man in Uniform" (for which he won a Genie Award for best supporting actor in 1994) and a TV remake of "Escape to Witch Mountain", and "". Tighe, whose voice and delivery reminds many of the late actor Richard Widmark, also portrayed Coach McDevitt in the 1992 film, "School Ties", alongside Matt Damon, Ben Affleck, and Brendan Fraser. Stage appearances. Tighe made an off-Broadway appearance as Mick Dowd in "A Skull in Connemara", and was the eponymous tiger in the Center Theatre Group production of Rajiv Joseph's "Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo". Personal life. Since the late 1970s, Tighe has maintained a residence in Sedro-Woolley, Washington. When not working in Hollywood, he resides there with his wife, Rebecca.
1056854	Rio Lobo is a 1970 American Western film starring John Wayne. The film was the last film directed by Howard Hawks, from a script by Leigh Brackett. The film was shot in Technicolor with a running time of 114 minutes. The musical score was composed by Jerry Goldsmith and the movie was filmed at Cuernavaca in the Mexican state of Morelos and at Tucson, Arizona.
995667	Presque rien (meaning "Almost Nothing", which is also the UK release title; the U.S. title is "Come Undone") is a 2000 French-Belgian romantic drama film directed by Sebastien Lifshitz, set in Brittany, depicting a stormy holiday romance between two 18-year-olds and what remains of that relationship eighteen months later. Plot. Upper-middle class Mathieu, is spending his summer vacation on the French coast before beginning studies in the fall to become an architect. His mother is deeply depressed because of the death of his baby brother from cancer, and is cared for by her sister, while Mathieu and his moody younger sister cannot get along. Then he meets Cedric at the beach, who is attractive and obviously looking for a boyfriend. The boys embark on a romance, and Mathieu's sudden secrecy and long hours away from home invite the curiosity of both his sister and aunt. A parallel plotline focuses on Mathieu eighteen months later, as he recovers from the shock of their separation. After having tried to commit suicide, Mathieu's psychiatrist sends him back to the small seaside town to learn how to deal with what happened. The film ends on a hopeful note when Mathieu looks up Pierre, another former boyfriend of Cedric's living in the seaside town, and they overcome past tensions to discover that they understand each other. Production. Rather than having a clear, chronologically ordered narrative, the movie switches between the "summer" and the "winter" plotlines, depicting the differences in Mathieu's life at both points, as well as establishing the contrast between one and the other visually. Soundtrack. The soundtrack uses songs by Irish singer and songwriter Perry Blake (from his album "Still Life") to convey Mathieu's melancholic, depressive mood.
1063629	I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry is a 2007 American comedy film directed by Dennis Dugan, written by Barry Fanaro, and starring Adam Sandler and Kevin James as the title characters. The film was released on July 20, 2007, in the United States; August 16, 2007, in Australia; and on September 21, 2007, in the United Kingdom and Ireland. Although the film received negative reviews by critics for its very crude humor and portrayal of gay people, it was a financial success, ranking #1 at the box office. This film is Sandler's first to be released by Universal Studios since "Bulletproof" in 1996. The film's depiction of same-sex marriage in New York preceded the 2011 enactment of the Marriage Equality Act, which legalized marriage for same-sex couples in the state. At the time of the film's release, the state allowed for residents to file for unregistered cohabitation rights, and various municipal and county governments (including, as shown in-film, New York City) offered domestic partnership registries. Plot. Chuck Levine and Larry Valentine are two veteran New York City fire fighters. Chuck is a bachelor and womanizer and Larry is a widower who tries to raise his two children. During a routine sweep of a burned building, a segment of floor collapses and Chuck almost dies. Larry eventually rescues Chuck by shielding him from the falling debris. As he and Larry are awaken at a hospital later, Chuck vows to repay his debt in any way possible. The incident prompts Larry to realize the fact that death can come for him at any moment, but he has difficulties naming his children as primary beneficiaries in his life insurance policy. One of the ways suggested for him to do so is to get married. Inspired by a newspaper article about domestic partnerships, Larry asks Chuck to enter a civil union with him. Although at first Chuck declines, he is reminded of his debt to Larry and finally agrees. Chuck and Larry become domestic partners and Chuck becomes Larry's primary beneficiary in the event of his death. Soon, New York City investigators arrive to inquire about their partnership, suspecting fraud. Chuck and Larry decide to enlist the help of a lawyer, Alex McDonough, who suggests that they get married. Chuck and Larry then marry in Canada and move in together. At a gay benefit costume party, the partygoers are confronted by homophobic protesters, whose leader, Jim the minister, calls Chuck a "faggot". Chuck punches him, causing the event to be published in a newspaper. With their apparent homosexuality and marriage revealed, the pair come under fire: Chuck and Larry are heckled, while their fellow FDNY firefighters refuse to work or even play basketball alongside the couple. Their only ally is Fred G. Duncan, an angry, intimidating firefighter who comes out to a very surprised Chuck. Larry's effeminate son, Eric is harassed in school by a homophobic bully - but he surprises everybody by easily winning the fight. During the ordeal, the previously homophobic pair come to understand what it is like to be persecuted, and become more accepting of homosexuality. Chuck becomes romantically interested in Alex after the two spend time together, but finds himself unable to get close to her because she thinks he is gay. Meanwhile, city agent Clinton Fitzer arrives to investigate the couple. The strain on both Larry and Chuck leads to a verbal fight and also working different shifts, although there was a petition to have Chuck and Larry thrown out of the firehouse. This prompts Larry to confront the crew about their personal embarrassments on the job that Chuck and Larry helped them overcome. After this a call goes out and before they go on the call Larry even goes as far as to say: "Oh! A fire. I hope its not a big one because the faggot who's been saving your sorry asses thanks to you is on another shift". After Larry's shift is over, Chuck and Larry reconcile their differences. The marriage soon comes under fire, as numerous women provide testimonies as to having slept with Chuck in the recent past, and the couple is called into court to defend their marriage on charges of fraud. They are defended by Alex, and their fellow firefighters arrive in support, after they realize all Chuck and Larry done for them over the years, and how they were treating Chuck and Larry. Fitzer interrogates both men, who testify that they genuinely love each other (albeit in a platonic fashion). As his final demand, Fitzer asks for the pair to kiss to prove that their relationship is physical, but before they do so, they are interrupted by Captain Phineas J. Tucker, who finally reveals that their marriage is a sham and that they are both straight. Tucker attempts to save Chuck and Larry by claiming that he would have to be arrested as well, since he knew about the falsity, but failed to report it. This prompts the other firefighters to each claim a role in the wedding in a show of solidarity. However, Chuck, Larry, and the other firefighters are sent to jail, but they are quickly released after negotiating a deal to provide photos for an AIDS research benefit calendar. The deal including pleading guilty to fraud, which would reduce the charges to a misdemeanor. Two months later, Duncan and Alex's brother, Kevin, are married in Canada at the same chapel as Chuck and Larry were. At the wedding party, Larry finally moves on after the death of his wife and talks to a new woman, while Alex tentatively agrees to a dance with Chuck. The film ends when Lance Bass sings, and little Eric tap-dances. Production. Producer Tom Shadyac had planned this film as early as 1999. "I Now Pronounce You Joe and Benny", as the film was then titled, was announced as starring Nicolas Cage and Will Smith with Shadyac directing. In the official trailer, the song "Grace Kelly" by British pop star, Mika, was included. Release. MPAA rating. The film was originally rated R for "crude sexual humor and nudity". Universal appealed the rating, but it was upheld. Upon losing the appeal, Universal edited the film: the film was re-rated PG-13 for "crude sexual content throughout, nudity, language and drug references". Critical response. The film received negative reviews. Film review aggregation site Rotten Tomatoes, the film has a 14% "Rotten" critic rating from 154 reviews; the consensus states: "Whether by way of inept comedy or tasteless stereotypes, "I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry" falters on both levels."
586454	This adventure is about A Bumm Bumm Bole is a Hindi film by director Priyadarshan. The film stars Darsheel Safary, SAtul Kulkarni, Rituparna Sengupta and newcomer Ziyah Vastani. The film is an authorized Sadaptation of the 1997 Iranian film "Children of Heaven" which was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in the same year. "Bumm Bumm Bole" was released on May 14, 2010. The title of the film is based on one of the songs of "Taare Zameen Par". Plot. Character develpoment is very important in this film. Khogiram (Atul Kulkarni), his wife (Rituparna Sengupta) and their children Pinu (Darsheel) and Rimzim (Zia) belong to a terrorist dominated region. Khogiram and Ritu have a hand-to-mouth income working for a tea plantation and can barely manage things. The kids are affected by this as well. They go to a respectable school as it is Khogiram's ambition to give them the educational opportunities he missed. But the financial crunch makes it difficult for kids to match the standards of the school. They don't have enough money for uniform or shoes. Things become worse when Pinu misplaces Rimzim's only pair of shoes in the vegetable shop. Pinu tells Rimzim about the shoes and begs her not to tell their mother; she agrees.
583719	Kangalal Kaidhu Sei (English: Arrest by eyes) is a 2004 Tamil language film, written and directed by Bharathiraja. It stars Vaseegaran in the protagonist's role and marks actress Priyamani's debut in the Tamil film industry. Music was scored by A. R. Rahman, which was the major highlight of this film. The plot is loosely based on Hollywood film "The Thomas Crown Affair". Plot. John Vaseegaran is a young man who ranks fifth richest millionaire in India and 30th on the international level. The plot opens in a graveyard where Vaseegran's parents' funeral takes place. He is not disturbed by the demise of his parents as he had not been showered with any affection by them instead concentrated only on making money. A lady of his community expresses her condolence to him and leaves. While getting into her car she finds her diamond ring is missing and screams; the lost ring is in Vaseegaran's pocket. Vasee inherits the huge property of his parents and becomes the chairman of 32 companies in his twenties. Though rich he seeks true motherhood affection. He imagines his dream girl and names her Cinderella. He is a Kleptomaniac. He consults his family doctor for a solution. The doctor instructs him to get into love. Vidhya, a young woman, sees Vasee stealing a crystal from a shopping mall. She tries to report it to mall authorities. A diamond exhibition is organised and one of the millionaires is exhibiting his special diamond which is worth 100 million. It is different from other diamonds, with 16 reflecting faces. This tempts Vasee. He visits the diamond exhibition. The special diamond is under the responsibility of Vidhya. She sees Vaseegaran at the exhibition and becomes alerted. Despite special tight security Vaseegaran manages to steal the diamond and happily leave. Vidhya is about to be arrested. She pleas to cancel the arrest. She remembers Vasee's presence and relates the old incident of crystal theft. She immediately understands Vasee is the thief and tells police. But cops don't believe her as he is a wealthy man. The owner of the diamond is ready to believe her words as he relates the diamond ring theft in the graveyard. With no evidence, a drama is organised by Vidhya to get back the diamond and fetch evidence. She enters Vasee's home as his personal secretary. Vasee wants her to be dressed with modern attire and she does so. He looks sees imaginary dream girl Cinderella in Vidhya and starts develops a love for her. She is not interested in him. Meanwhile Vidhya searches for diamond and spots it in a big fish tank. She attempts to get back while Vasee is away home and does so when he leaves for a meeting. Vasee rushes back to home when suddenly Vidhya disappears and when he was informed by his family doctor at airport that Vidhya and a police officer who is her fiancé met him for an inquiry about Vasee. At home he sees the broken fish tank and understands that Vidhya took the diamond. Vidhya was happy as she is relieved from the first charge, but she is charged again for the theft. The diamond taken from Vasee by Vidhya is not the original one, and she is remanded. The owner of the diamond demands an illegal relation with her in return for discharge from the case. She rushes to Vasee and pleas to give back the diamond as it destroys her future and life. She expresses that she cannot marry him and mother his children. Her fiancé warns Vasee that soon he will be caught and jailed. Vasee bails her from police custody. He demands Vidhya to be his Cinderella for five days in Switzerland as a punishment for attacking psychologically with love as a weapon. He assures no physical contact but only love. Vidhya initially refuses but, due to the pressure by her fiancé to save his position, she goes with Vaseegaran. At the Swiss airport she dashes an officer who introduces himself a person to help her. Vasee takes her to his home, introduces her to all of his friends, teachers etc. She constantly imagines Vasee misbehaving to her and is annoyed. Vasee one day sees Vidhya talking to a stranger whom she dashed in the airport, from a distance. She breaks a photograph jointly posed by her and Vasee. On seeing broken pieces Vasee screams at her that it is his family photo and she has no rights to break it. Meanwhile the officer dashed by Vidhya with some officers who follow Vasee and Vidhya find him alone after third day. They see him speaking to himself at the top of the hill, at boating, at church, etc. They immediately rush to Vasee's home to rescue Vidhya. They could see only the dead bodies of Vasee and Vidhya dressed in groom and bride costumes. Vasee actually killed Vidhya by slapping her on the day for she breaking the photograph. Unexpectedly, due to the attack, she died by dashing into a heavy stone. Not willing to be jailed, Vasee kills himself with his precious golden gun as soon as cops arrive. The cops see a letter which instructs to spend his property in the name of Cindrella trust to help poor and needy and a will of it. Production. Priyamani who worked as a model for various advertisements was selected as heroine and it marked her debut in Tamil cinema. Fazal Ahmed from Palladam was rechristined as Vaseegaran made his debut in this film in lead role. The climax scene was shot at Switzerland and so were a couple of songs. One of the songs was picturised at the airport, where Vaseegara and Priyamani took part. Earlier, a 36 days' shooting schedule was held at Sri Lanka. After this the unit shifted to locations in Chennai and Ooty. Soundtrack. The soundtrack has 5 tracks composed by A. R. Rahman and an introductory speech by the film's director Bharathiraja. Lyrics were written by Paa Vijay, Thenmozhi and Kabilan. The soundtrack got high acclaim and immediate praise and was fairly noticed. One of the tracks features vocals by noted Malayalam film score composer Johnson. It is perhaps the only song sung by Johnson.
582379	Maine Pyar Kiya (English: "I Fell in Love") is an Indian Bollywood film directed by Sooraj R. Barjatya, starring Salman Khan and Bhagyashree. It was released on 29 December 1989.. "Maine Pyar Kiya" was the biggest hit of 1989 and the biggest hit of the 1980s, receiving an "All-time Blockbuster" status at the Box Office. This film marked the debut of Salman Khan. Synopsis. Although Karan and Kishan have been friends for years, they have grown apart and have little in common. The widower Karan is a poor mechanic who lives in a humble house in the countryside. Kishan is a rich man with a vast business empire and little time for old friends. However, when Karan prepares to work abroad and earn more money, he turns to Kishan to solve a problem. Kishan lets Karan's daughter Suman (Bhagyashree) stay at his house as he cannot turn down his old friend's request and Suman comes to live with his family. At first, country girl Suman is ill at ease in the huge mansion. She is befriended by Kishan's son Prem (Salman Khan), who assures her that he has no romantic interest in her and that a boy and a girl can be platonic friends. The pair share outings and confidences and all seems to be going well. Prem takes Suman to a party, organised by some of his rich friends. They humiliate Suman and accuse her of scheming to marry Prem. Suman leaves in tears and distances herself from Prem. At that point, Prem realises that he has fallen in love with her. With the aid of his mother (who likes the unassuming Suman) and his comic friend Manohar, Prem sets out to win Suman's heart. He succeeds, but Kishan balks at the romance, as he does not want his son to marry a poor nobody. He prepares to send Suman home in disgrace. At this unfortunate moment, Karan returns from overseas. Kishan accuses him of plotting to match Prem and Suman. Karan and Kishan quarrel, and Karan and Suman return to their village humiliated. Prem refuses to accept the separation. He defies his father and is disinherited. He goes to Suman's village and begs to be allowed to marry her. Karan, angered by Kishan's accusations, says that he will allow the marriage on one condition: Prem must prove that he can support his wife by his own efforts. Prem then works as a truck driver and laborer in the nearby quarry. At the end of the month, when Prem is ready with the required money and comes to win over his lady's father, he is ambushed by his enemies. They nearly succeed in killing him, but he survives. Karan harshly dismisses Prem's efforts, but his stoic determination melts Karan's heart, and he agrees to let Suman marry Prem. When Kishan arrives at Karan's village, Prem confronts Jeevan and his friends and Prem, Karan, and Kishan kill all of Prem's enemies, thus saving Suman. By the end of the movie, the estrangement between Karan and Kishan has ended, too. Prem and Suman live happily ever after. Influences. The Telugu film Nuvvostanante Nenoddantana is copied from this movie. Dubbing Versions. Maine Pyar Kiya was later dubbed in English as "When Love Calls", a 125-minute version, became the biggest hit in the Caribbean market at Guyana and also dominated the box-office collections at Trinidad and Tobago. The film had also been dubbed in Spanish as "Te Amo", the first experiment of its kind. This 125-minute film also proved its universal appeal with a glorious 10-week premiere run at Lima, capital of Peru. In Telugu as "Prema Paavuraalu", it crossed the 25 weeks at Visakhapatnam and had 100 plus day run at six centres in Andhra Pradesh. It was also dubbed in Tamil as "Kaadhal Oru Kavithai" and in "Malayalam as "Ina Praavukal". Soundtrack. The soundtrack was very successful in India. Suman's role was sung by the famous playback singer Lata Mangeshkar; S. P. Balasubrahmanyam sang for Prem. Folk singer Sharda Sinha has also sung in the film on "Kahe Toh Se Sajna". The opening track, "Aate Jaate", is a copy of Stevie Wonder's 1984 single, "I Just Called to Say I Love You", while the whistling and humming interludes in "Aaya Mausam Dosti Ka" used the hook from Baltimora's hit, "Tarzan Boy". "Mere Rang Mein Rangne Wali" was directly taken from Swedish rock band Europe's 1986 single, "The Final Countdown" and theme from "Love Story", "Where Do I Begin". The track "Antakshri" was a medley of various Bollywood songs based on the Antakshari game, which was popularised with this film's release. The remaining tracks, including the popular "Dil Deewana", were original compositions.
1246595	Frankie Darro (December 22, 1917 – December 25, 1976) was an American actor and later in his career a stuntman. He began his career as a child actor in silent films, progressed to lead roles and co-starring roles in adventure, western, dramatic, and comedy films, and later became a character actor and voice-over artist. He is known for his role as Lampwick in Disney's production Pinnochio (1940 film)
677722	I Got the Hook-Up is a 1998 U.S. crime comedy film, starring Anthony Johnson, Master P, Ice Cube, C-Murder and directed by Michael Martin. This was No Limit Records' first theatrical release. The movie was distributed by Dimension Films. Plot. Working out of their van, Black (Master P) and Blue (Johnson) deal in TV sets and boomboxes, but then a driver mistakenly drops off a cell phone shipment. Business is on the upswing, but then the local crime boss, Roscoe, and his enforcer, T-Lay (Tom Lister, have a deal go sour and blame Black and Blue. Lorraine's boss Dalton and the FBI are also closing in. Soundtrack. A soundtrack containing hip hop music was released on April 7, 1998 by No Limit Records. It peaked at #3 on the Billboard 200 and #1 on the Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums.
584085	M. S. Bhaskar (born 1950) is an Indian actor. A former theatre artiste, he has appeared in supporting roles and as a comedian in Tamil TV series and more recently in Tamil films. He is probably best known for his performances in the series "Chinna Papa Periya Papa" and "Selvi" and in the films "Sivakasi" and "Mozhi". In addition to acting, Bhaskar is a dubbing artiste and occasional playback singer as well. Early life. M. S. Bhaskar, who hails from Thiruvarur, was a part of a Tamil drama troupe "Society for New Drama" which performed modern theatrical plays all over Tamil Nadu. Bhaskar was then known as "Accountant Bhaskar" for a role he played in one such unforgettable play. To supplement his income, Bhaskar also worked as an LIC agent for a brief period and also as an employee of Tamil Nadu Mercantile Bank from 1981 until 2006 when he took voluntary retirement. After the dissolution of this society-Bhaskar acted in a number of other troupes including Nungambakkam Boys Kondatum (which included the popular comedian Santhanam). Before acting, he worked in a paste company. During this period, Bhaskar began as a dubbing artiste especially for dubbing Telegu films into Tamil where he spoke the comedians lines. He has dubbed for over 1000 films and he himself once said that dubbing for "Kamaraj" was the toughest dubbing job for him. Even today he is used as a dubbing artiste for English Films (Dubbed in Tamil) shown on Sun TV every Sunday. His elder sister Hemamalini is also a dubbing artist. Acting career. Television. When the dramatic society ended in 1992 - Bhaskar moved to Teleserials in DD1 and DD2 such as "Nam Kudumbam" and "Vizhudugal", before he essaying roles in Sun TV-serials such as "Ganga Yamuna Saraswati" and "Mayavi Marichan". He then landed a role in the very popular comedy series "Chinna Papa Periya Papa", in which he essayed the role of a docile husband and father-in-law. This as well as the series "Senior Junior", both aired on Sun TV, made possible his breakthrough. Subsequently, he starred in popular series on Sun TV such as "Selvi" and "Arasi", making him a household name in Tamil Nadu. Films. Bhaskar made his film debut in 1987 already, enacting a small role in the film "Thirumathi Oru Vegumathi". This was followed by several films in the 90's, in which he appeared in very minor or small roles including films like "Friends" and "Thamizhan". He then graduated to supporting roles in films like "Sadhu Miranda", "Sivaji: The Boss", "Dasavathaaram", "Santosh Subramaniam" and "Mozhi". As of November 2009, he has acted in over 75 Tamil films. A regular actor in directors Perarasu and Radha Mohan's films, he has starred in all their films. Personal life. Bhaskar is married and has one son(Adithya, 9th standard) and one daughter(Ishwarya studying B.Sc. Visual communication in Loyola College chennai). Awards. M. S. Bhaskar was awarded "The Best Supporting Actor" from the Government of Tamil Nadu, India for the film "Mozhi" in which he played a touching role of a father who gets psychologically affected after his son's death.
1062350	Sean Astin (born February 25, 1971) is an American film actor, director, voice artist, and producer best known for his film roles as Samwise Gamgee in the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy, Mikey Walsh in "The Goonies", and the title character of "Rudy". In television, he appeared as Lynn McGill in the fifth season of "24" and currently voices Raphael in the 2012 Nickelodeon "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" TV series and Oso in the Disney Junior show "Special Agent Oso". Astin also served as the campaign manager for his friend, Democrat Dan Adler, a businessman in the entertainment industry, for California's 36th congressional district special election, 2011. Early life and education. Astin was born Sean Patrick Duke in Santa Monica, California, the son of actress Patty Duke. At the time, it was reported that entertainer Desi Arnaz, Jr. was his biological father. In 1994, Astin discovered that his biological father is Michael Tell, a music promoter and writer, and publisher of the newspaper "The Las Vegas Israelite"; Michael Tell was married to Patty Duke in 1970, for several weeks.
1072072	Plot. Structurally, "Gozu" is a succession of bizarre scenes sandwiched between a storyline involving Minami’s search for his Yakuza brother Ozaki in a small town, that is reminiscent of the episodic quests in Greek Mythology. Minami's encounter with a minotaur-like creature gives the film its name ("Gozu" is Japanese for "cow's head"). Reception. Shot on a low budget, the movie was originally planned for release on DVD but its positive reception at the Cannes Film Festival in May 2003 secured its theatrical release overseas. The film received mostly positive reviews from the "New York Times", BBC, "Washington Post" and internet sites Rotten Tomatoes and IMDB, with most critics commenting on the deeply surreal and disjointed nature of the film.
1131402	Dennis James (August 24, 1917–June 3, 1997), born Demie James Sposa, was an American television personality, actor, and announcer. He is credited as the host of television's first network game show, the DuMont Network's "Cash and Carry", in 1946. James was the first person to host a telethon and the first to appear in a television commercial. Early career. Born in Jersey City, New Jersey, James began his career in radio with WNEW (now WBBR) and moved to television in 1938, working for the soon-to-become-DuMont Television Network station WABD, which helped to found the DuMont network in 1946. (WABD is now WNYW.) James became the host of a few game shows, such as the ABC version of "Chance of a Lifetime" (1952–53) and served as commentator for DuMont's wrestling and boxing shows, such as "Boxing From Jamaica Arena" (1948–49). He hosted the DuMont daytime variety show "Okay, Mother" (1948–51) with Julia Meade.
687760	Inside Deep Throat is a 2005 American documentary film about the 1972 pornographic film "Deep Throat" and its effects on American society. The film discusses how "Deep Throat" was distributed to theaters. Prints would be hand-delivered and employees would count heads of moviegoers and then collect the cash profits from the theaters. This process was known as sending "checkers and sweepers". It features scenes from the film, news of the time and interviews, both from archive and purpose-made, with director Gerard Damiano, actor Harry Reems, actress Linda Lovelace, Gore Vidal, Larry Flynt, Hugh Hefner, John Waters, Erica Jong, a prosecutor, Reems' defense, Mafia money collectors, and other people involved or just commenting on the film. Much of the material was compiled from approximately 800 hours of interview and archive footage collected by the filmmakers. Narrated by Dennis Hopper, the documentary was written, produced, and directed by Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato, and produced by Brian Grazer. It is a production of Imagine Entertainment, HBO Documentary Films, and World of Wonder, and distributed by Universal Pictures. Rating. "Inside Deep Throat" was rated NC-17 by the Motion Picture Association of America for explicit sexual content; specifically, explicit excerpts from the original film. It was the first NC-17 film to be shown on HBO and it was the first film rated NC-17 to be released by Universal since "Henry & June" in 1990, which was the first film to receive the NC-17 rating. An edited version received an R rating for "strong sexuality including graphic images, nudity and dialogue". In addition, Arrow Productions edited the original, pornographic version of "Deep Throat" to get an "R" rating, and also submitted the original for reclassification. Both versions were released theatrically in 2005, in a double-bill with this documentary.
582432	7 Khoon Maaf, pronounced Saat Khoon Maaf (English: "Seven Murders Forgiven"), is a 2011 Indian black comedy film directed, co-written and co-produced by Vishal Bhardwaj. The film is based on the short story "Susanna's Seven Husbands" by Ruskin Bond. After Bhardwaj saw the possibility of a script in the short story, he asked Bond about a film adaptation. Bond expanded his four-page short story into an 80-page novella, and then to a full-length script. The film centers on femme fatale Susanna Anna-Marie Johannes, an Anglo-Indian woman who murders her seven husbands in a quest for love. The film stars Priyanka Chopra in the lead role, with Naseeruddin Shah, Irrfan Khan, Annu Kapoor, Neil Nitin Mukesh, John Abraham, Aleksandr Dyachenko, Vivaan Shah and Usha Uthup in supporting roles. The film opened on 18 February 2011 to mostly positive reviews, with praise for Chopra's performance. Despite the critical acclaim, "7 Khoon Maaf" was unsuccessful at the box-office. However, it made profits to its producers by earning a total of for its box-office run and television-music-home-video rights against a budget of . It premiered at the 61st Berlin International Film Festival, receiving a number of nominations and winning several awards (particularly for Chopra). At the 57th Filmfare Awards "7 Khoon Maaf" received three nominations, winning two: the Best Actress Critics Award for Chopra and the Best Female Playback Singer for Uthup and Rekha Bhardwaj's song, "Darling". Plot. "7 Khoon Maaf" tells the story of an Anglo-Indian woman, Susanna Anna-Marie Johannes (Priyanka Chopra), who murders all her husbands. Susanna tries to find love, but six of her seven husbands have a flaw which proves fatal. The killings (and her yearning for love) are explained by the loss of her mother at a young age. The story is told by a young forensic pathologist, Arun, (Vivaan Shah) to his wife (Konkona Sen Sharma). Arun has watched Susanna since their childhood, and has a secret crush on her. He owes his life to her; she funded his education, making him what he is today. Arun tells his wife that Susanna has committed suicide, leaving him a note congratulating him on his marriage. The doctor must now confirm that the body found is Susanna's. Arun is unable to overcome his grief over her death and pours out his heart to his wife, who listens patiently. Susanna's first husband—Edwin Rodriques (Neil Nitin Mukesh), an army major—is overbearing, jealous and possessive. Disabled, he cannot believe that a beautiful woman like Susanna would be faithful to him. Uncertain of his sexual potency, he takes out his anger on his wife. Although Susanna endures his mental cruelty, she cannot forgive Edwin for blinding her faithful, mute stableboy (Shashi Malviya) with a whip. Edwin is eliminated during a panther-hunting trip with the help of Susanna's faithful maid (Usha Uthup), butler (Harish Khanna) and the mute stableboy.
394350	Never Forever is a 2007 US/South Korean co-production written and directed by Gina Kim. The film was critically acclaimed when it was first screened at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival, and won the Jury Prize at the Deauville American Film Festival.
775112	Mike Dopud (, "Мајк Допуђ"; born June 10, 1968) is a Canadian film actor, television actor, voice actor, stuntman, stage actor and athlete. He is best known for playing Detective Smits in "White Noise" the 2005 action-horror film, Agent Turner in "Alone In The Dark" a 2005 action-horror film, playing Vic Hadfield in the Canadian miniseries Canada Russia '72, and for playing Michael 'The Assassin' in the "Rollerball" 2002 film remake. He also took on several minor roles on "Stargate SG-1" and "Stargate Atlantis", as well as performing many stunts on both shows, before taking on a bigger role as Varro on "Stargate Universe". He was nominated for a Taurus World Stunt Award in 2005 for his work in "Walking Tall". Background. Dopud was born and raised in Montreal. He speaks three different languages fluently (English, French and Serbian). He played professional Canadian football briefly for the Saskatchewan Roughriders. He is married to Canadian actress Angela Schneider.
629822	Where the Green Ants Dream () is a 1984 film by German film director Werner Herzog. It was Herzog's first film in English although also dubbed into German. Based partly on the "Milirrpum v Nabalco Pty Ltd" case and making use of professional actors as well as Aboriginal activists who were involved in the case, it was a mix of facts and fiction. The ant mythology was claimed as Herzog's own, however some natives did consider the green ant as the totem animal that created the world and humans. Wandjuk Marika noted that the ant dreaming belief existed in a clan that lived near Oenpelli in the Northern Territory. The film is set in the Australian desert and is about a land feud between a mining company (which he called Ayers to avoid any legal threats from Nabalco) and the native Aborigines. The Aborigines claim that an area the mining company wishes to work on is the place where green ants dream, and that disturbing them will destroy humanity. The film was entered in the 1984 Cannes Film Festival. Marika, recommended to Herzog by Phillip Adams, was a leader for the Rirratjingu people, an artist and musician who was involved in activism for Aboriginal rights. His didgeridoo music is used in the movie and several members of his family were cast in the film. The contract with Herzog allowed the Marikas to make enough money to move from Yirrkala to their ancestral region of Yalanbara, Port Bradshaw. Critics of the film found it uncomfortably placed between a documentary and a feature film. Phillip Adams was particularly incensed and claimed that the film implied that the Australian Government was against the Aborigines, leading him to write an article titled "Dammit Herzog, you are a Liar!'.
899224	The 10th Victim () is a 1965 Italian/French international co-production science fiction film directed by Elio Petri and starring Marcello Mastroianni and Ursula Andress, and featuring Elsa Martinelli in a supporting role. The picture is based on Robert Sheckley's 1953 short story "Seventh Victim". Sheckley later published a novelization of the film in 1966, and two sequels ("Victim Prime" and "Hunter/Victim") in 1987 and 1988, respectively. Plot. In the near future, big wars are avoided by giving individuals with violent tendencies a chance to kill in the Big Hunt. The Hunt is the most popular form of entertainment in the world and also attracts participants who are looking for fame and fortune. It includes ten rounds for each competitor, five as the hunter and five as the victim. The survivor of ten rounds becomes extremely wealthy and retires. Scenes switch between the pursuit, romance between the hunter and the victim, and a narrator explaining the rules and justification of the Hunt. Caroline Meredith (Ursula Andress) is the huntress armed with a high caliber Bosch shotgun looking for her tenth victim. Marcello Poletti (Marcello Mastroianni) is the victim. He is reluctant to kill Meredith as he is not sure whether she is his hunter, but then later because they become romantically involved. To maximize financial gain, Meredith wants to get a perfect kill in front of the cameras as she has negotiated a major sponsor from the Ming Tea Company.
155056	The Winning Season is a 2009 sport comedy film written and directed by James C. Strouse, starring Sam Rockwell. The film premiered at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival and had a limited theatrical release on September 3, 2010. Lionsgate bought the United Kingdom and United States rights to the film at Sundance. Plum Pictures and Gigi Films produced the film. Plot. Bill (Sam Rockwell), a divorced deadbeat dad, is estranged from his teenage daughter Molly (Shana Dowdeswell). Bill's friend Terry (Rob Corddry), a high school principal, helps him land a job as the coach for the girls' varsity basketball team. Bill begins to regret his decision when he meets the girls on the team: Abbie (Emma Roberts), Tamra (Meaghan Witri), Mindy (Melanie Hinkle), Wendy (Rooney Mara), Lisa (Shareeka Epps), and Kathy (Emily Rios). The team improves under Bill's coaching and the girls advise him on his relationship with his daughter. The team's winning season, however, does not protect the girls from their real world difficulties.
676390	Sydney Chaplin (16 March 188516 April 1965) was an English actor. He was the elder half-brother of Sir Charlie Chaplin and served as his business manager, and the half-uncle of the actor Sydney Chaplin (1926–2009), who was named after him. Early life. Chaplin was born as Sidney John Hill, to 19-year-old Hannah Hill in London. There is a mystery as to who was Sydney’s father. The story is that it was a man named Hawkes, but there is no record of Hannah’s marriage to a Mr. Hawkes. He began using the Chaplin surname following his mother's marriage to Charles Chaplin, Sr., a year after his birth. While Syd and brother Charlie were in the Cuckoo Schools in Hanwell following his mother's mental collapse, Syd was placed in the programme designed to train young boys to become seamen, on the Exmouth training ship docked at Grays, Essex. He followed this training period with several years working on ships, receiving high marks from all of his employers. But his ambition was to get into the entertainment business and he left his final voyage with that in mind. Charlie and Sydney worked briefly together in one of their first stage appearances, the play "Sherlock Holmes" in 1905. Syd was briefly cast as a villain in that play. In 1906, however, he landed a contract with Fred Karno, of Karno's London Comedians and was to fight hard to bring Charlie into the company two years later. Charlie never achieved the sort of fame Syd did as a principal comedian for that company, but that was to be the only time that Syd was able to outdo his brother—at least in front of an audience. After Charlie achieved world-wide fame in the 1910s, the brothers discovered they had another half-brother through their mother, Wheeler Dryden, who had been removed from his mother's care as an infant and brought up abroad by his father. Wheeler was also an actor, and the brothers reunited in Hollywood in 1918, occasionally working together at Chaplin's studio through to the 1950s. Career. As Charlie was negotiating his Keystone contract, he suggested Sydney be asked to join the company. Syd and Minnie Chaplin arrived in California, then, in October 1914 and he made a few comedies there, including the "Gussle" comedies and the feature-length "A Submarine Pirate" in 1915, which, second to "Tillie's Punctured Romance," was the most financially successful comedy Keystone ever made. Following this success, Chaplin decided to leave the screen to negotiate Charlie's Mutual contract. He was able to get Charlie his first million dollars in early 1916. Soon, he was handling the majority of Charlie's business affairs, including a failed sheet music business and a successful merchandising one, in addition to further contract negotiation. He also appeared in a few films during the First National era, such as "Pay Day" and "The Pilgrim". Sydney achieved his own million-dollar contract from Famous Players-Lasky in 1919, but a series of problems resulted in only one failed film, "King, Queen, Joker" and disappearance from the screen once again. Later films include "The Perfect Flapper" (1924) with Colleen Moore, "A Christie Comedy", "Charley's Aunt" (1925) and five features for Warner Brothers, including "The Man on the Box" (1925), "Oh, What a Nurse!" (1926), "The Missing Link" (1927), "The Fortune Hunter" (1927), and "The Better 'Ole" (1926). The last is perhaps his best-known film today because of his characterisation of cartoonist Bruce Bairnsfather's famous World War I character, Old Bill and the fact that it was the third Warner Brothers film to have a Vitaphone soundtrack. Sydney's first film for British International Pictures (BIP), "A Little Bit of Fluff" (1928), proved to be his final film. In 1929, just as was to begin work on a second film for the studio, "Mumming Birds", he was accused of biting off the nipple of actress Molly Wright in a sexual assault. BIP settled out of court, conceding the truth of Wright's claims. Following the scandal, he left England, leaving a string of unpaid tax demands. By 1930 he was declared bankrupt. Personal life. In addition to his importance in launching and promoting brother Charlie's career over the years, perhaps Chaplin's most important contribution to history is in the field of aviation. In May 1919, he, along with pilot Emery Rogers, formulated the first privately owned domestic American airline, the Syd Chaplin Airline Company, based in Santa Monica, California. Even though the corporation lasted only a year, in that time it accumulated many "firsts." Syd and partners had the first ever aeroplane showroom for their Curtiss aeroplanes. Emery Rogers conducted the first roundtrip Los Angeles to San Francisco flight in one 24-hour period. Charlie Chaplin took his first-ever aeroplane flight in one of Syd's planes, as did many other notable personages of the period. Chaplin got out of the aviation business right after legislation began to pass regarding pilot licensing and the taxation of planes and flights. Chaplin married twice and had no children. His first wife, Minnie, died in France in September 1936 following surgery for breast cancer. After World War II, Sydney lived most of his final years in Europe. His second wife, Henriette (called Gypsy) survived him. After a long illness, he died one month after his 80th birthday, on Good Friday, 16 April 1965, in Nice, France, on his brother Charlie's 76th birthday. Chaplin is buried beside his wife Gypsy in Clarens-Montreux Cemetery, near Vevey. In popular culture. Sydney was portrayed both as a teenager by actor Nicholas Gatt and as an adult by actor Paul Rhys in Richard Attenborough's "Chaplin", depicting his personal and professional relationship with Charlie.
1789612	Cruel Jaws, also known as The Beast and Jaws 5: Cruel Jaws, is a 1995 mockbuster, based on the 1975 classic, Jaws and its sequels. The film stars Richard Dew and was directed by infamous Italian filmmaker Bruno Mattei (under the name of William Snyder). The movie utilizes footage from the "Jaws" series, "Deep Blood", and "The Last Shark". While marketed in many areas as "Jaws 5: Cruel Jaws", it is actually not part of the Jaws franchise. Plot. The coastal town of Hampton Bay is threatened when a 35-Foot Tiger Shark starts chomping up their vacationers. Days before the annual Regatta celebration, the townspeople are faced with financial ruin if something isn't done about their newfound Shark problem. If that wasn't enough, the owners of the local amusement park have been subject to a hostile takeover from a prospective businessman looking to cash in on their prized property. It's up to the Sheriff, the Park's Owner, and a Shark Expert to head out and destroy the Shark before the summer economy is slashed and the park is left for the Bulldozer. Home media. The film was released on DVD in its native Italy in 2009. In 2013, Retro Vision Entertainment announced a limited edition Region 0 DVD release of only 500 copies. It will only be able to be purchased online.
1266972	Virginia Cherrill (April 12, 1908 – November 14, 1996) was an American actress known for her role as the blind flower girl in Charlie Chaplin's "City Lights" (1931). Early life. Virginia Cherrill was born on a farm in rural Carthage, Illinois, to James E. and Blanche ("née" Wilcox) Cherrill. She initially did not plan on a film career, but her friendship with Sue Carol (who would later marry Alan Ladd) eventually drew her to Hollywood. She had been voted "Queen of the Artists Ball" in Chicago in 1925 and was invited to perform on the variety stage by Florence Ziegfeld, an offer she declined. She found her first marriage unsatisfying and, courtesy of her friendship with Lederer, decamped to California where she would meet William Randolph Hearst, When she went to Hollywood for a visit, she met Charlie Chaplin when he sat next to her at a boxing match, although Chaplin, in his autobiography, wrote that she approached him on the beach wanting him to cast her in his film. Career. Chaplin soon cast Cherrill in "City Lights". Although the film and her performance were well-received, her working relationship with Chaplin on the film was often strained. As indicated in the documentary, "Unknown Chaplin", Cherrill was fired from the film for leaving the set for a hairdressing appointment, at one point and Chaplin planned to re-film all her scenes with Georgia Hale, but ultimately realized too much money had already been spent on the film. Cherrill recalls in the documentary that she followed close friend Marion Davies's advice to hold out for more money when Chaplin asked her to return to the film. Even before "City Lights" was released, 20th Century Fox signed Cherrill to a contract and she appeared in early sound films of the 1930s, such as "Girls Demand Excitement" (1931), one of John Wayne's first films as a star. John Ford directed her in The Brat (1931). She also appeared in the 1931 Gershwin musical "Delicious" with Janet Gaynor, and two of James Mason's first films, including "Troubled Waters," which turned out to be her last film. She then gave up her film career, claiming that she was "no great shakes as an actress." Personal life. Cherrill married four times. Her first husband, Irving Adler, was a rich Chicago lawyer (not the famed scientist Irving Adler). Her second husband was actor Cary Grant, from 1934 to 1935; she left him after seven months of marriage alleging that Grant was abusive toward her. Her third husband was George Child-Villiers, 9th Earl of Jersey, from 1937 to 1946. She thus changed her legal name to Virginia Child-Villiers, Countess of Jersey. Cherrill finally settled down with Florian Martini, a Polish airman whose squadron she had looked after during World War II. He found a job working for Lockheed Martin in Santa Barbara, California where they lived from 1948 until her death at age 88. She had no children. Cherrill has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 1545 Vine Street.
1104867	Harald August Bohr (22 April 1887 – 22 January 1951) was a Danish mathematician and football player. After receiving his doctorate in 1910, Bohr became an eminent mathematician, founding the field of almost periodic functions. His brother was the Nobel Prize-winning physicist Niels Bohr. He was a member of the Danish national football team for the 1908 Summer Olympics, where he won a silver medal. Biography. Bohr was born in 1887 to Christian Bohr, a professor of physiology, from a Lutheran background, and Ellen Adler Bohr, a woman from a wealthy Jewish family of local renown. Harald had a close relationship with his elder brother, which "The Times" likened to that between Captain Cuttle and Captain Bunsby in Charles Dickens' "Dombey and Son". Mathematical career. Like his father and brother before him, in 1904 Bohr enrolled at the University of Copenhagen, where he studied mathematics, obtaining his masters in 1909 and his doctorate a year later. Among his tutors were Hieronymus Georg Zeuthen and Thorvald N. Thiele. Bohr worked in mathematical analysis; much of his early work was devoted to Dirichlet series including his doctorate, which was entitled "Bidrag til de Dirichletske Rækkers Theori" ("Contributions to the Theory of Dirichlet Series"). A collaboration with Göttingen-based Edmund Landau resulted in the Bohr–Landau theorem, regarding the distribution of zeroes in zeta functions. Bohr worked in mathematical analysis, founding the field of almost periodic functions, and worked with the Cambridge mathematician G. H. Hardy. In 1915 he became a professor at Polyteknisk Læreanstalt, working there until 1930, when he took a professorship at the University of Copenhagen. He remained in this post for 21 years until his death in 1951. Børge Jessen was one of his students there. He was a visiting scholar at the Institute for Advanced Study in the summer of 1948. In the 1930s Bohr was a leading critic of the anti-Semitic policies taking root in the German mathematical establishment, publishing an article criticising Ludwig Bieberbach's ideas in Berlingske Aften in 1934. Football. Bohr was also an excellent football player. He had a long playing career with Akademisk Boldklub, making his debut as a 16 year old in 1903. During the 1905 season he played alongside his brother Niels, who was a goalkeeper. Harald was selected to play for the Danish national football team in the 1908 Summer Olympics, where football was an official event for the first time. Though a Danish side had played at the 1906 Intercalated Games, the opening match of the 1908 Olympic tournament was Denmark's first official international football match. Bohr scored two goals as Denmark beat the French "B" team 9–0. In the next match, the semi-final, Bohr played in a 17–1 win against France, which remains an Olympic record to this day. Denmark faced hosts Great Britain in the final, but lost 2–0, and Bohr won a silver medal. After the Olympics he made one further appearance for the national team, in a 2–1 victory against an England amateur team in 1910. His popularity as a footballer was such that when he defended his doctoral thesis the audience was reported as having more football fans than mathematicians. Teacher. Bohr was known as an extremely capable academic teacher and the annual award for outstanding teaching at the University of Copenhagen is called the Harald, in honour of Harald Bohr. With Johannes Mollerup, Bohr wrote an influential four-volume textbook "Lærebog i Matematisk Analyse" ("Textbook in mathematical analysis").
1060325	Julianna Luisa Margulies (pronounced ; born June 8, 1966) is an American actress and producer. After several small television roles, Margulies achieved both critical and commercial success in her role as Nurse Carol Hathaway on NBC's long-running medical drama "ER", for which she won an Emmy Award. After her departure from "ER" in 2000, Margulies appeared in the 2001 miniseries "The Mists of Avalon" and voiced the role of Neera in Disney's CGI film "Dinosaur". In 2009 she took the lead role of Alicia Florrick in the American legal drama "The Good Wife" on CBS, for which she has won a Golden Globe, a Television Critics Association Award and the 2011 Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series. She is tied with Alec Baldwin at winning the most Screen Actor Guild Awards, having won a total of eight. Early life. Margulies, the youngest of three daughters, was born in Spring Valley, New York. Her mother, Francesca (born Gardner), was a ballet dancer and eurythmy teacher, and her father, Paul Margulies, was a writer. Her parents were Jewish, descended from immigrants from Austria, Hungary, and Romania (her mother later converted to Christianity, during Margulies's childhood). The family lived in Israel for a time before Margulies was born, before moving back to the Upper West Side of New York City. Margulies attended grade school at Green Meadow Waldorf School and high school at High Mowing School. As a child, she lived in New York, France and England. Margulies obtained a B.A. from Sarah Lawrence College, where she appeared in several campus plays. In 1988-89 she studied acting in the Meisner Technique class at The Acting Studio, Inc. - New York. Career. Margulies's first acting role was as a prostitute looking to go straight in Steven Seagal's film "Out for Justice". In 1994, Margulies was cast in a role in the pilot episode of "ER" as an emergency care nurse who, despondent over her relationship with George Clooney's character, Doug Ross, attempted suicide. Her character was originally intended to die; however, the producers changed the plot and she went on to play the role of Nurse Carol Hathaway for six years. She won an Emmy Award for Best Supporting Actress in a Television Drama in 1994, and was nominated for this award every year during her tenure. She is also notable for being the only series regular cast member to win an "Emmy Award". Following her departure from "ER", Margulies worked on stage and screen. On stage she appeared in a MCC Theater production of Kate Robin's "Intrigue With Faye", a Lincoln Center production of Jon Robin Baitz's "Ten Unknowns", and "The Vagina Monologues". Her film work after "ER" included "Evelyn" with Pierce Brosnan and "Ghost Ship" with Gabriel Byrne and Ron Eldard. She starred as the protagonist and narrator (Morgaine) in the 2001 TNT miniseries "The Mists of Avalon" and participated in the 2002 documentary film "Searching for Debra Winger". In 2004, she guest-starred in a two-episode arc in season 4 of the hit TV show "Scrubs" as Neena Broderick, an unscrupulous lawyer who sues Turk and has a brief sexual relationship with J.D. She starred in another miniseries on TNT, "The Grid", in 2004. In April 2006, she appeared in four episodes of the sixth season of "The Sopranos", portraying realtor Julianna Skiff. In August 2006, she appeared in "Snakes on a Plane" as flight attendant Claire Miller. In December 2006, she played Jennifer Bloom in the Sci Fi Channel miniseries "The Lost Room". In an August 2006 interview with tvguide.com, Margulies said that she was close to accepting an offer to return to "ER" for a four-episode arc with Noah Wyle that filmed in Hawaii during the 2005-2006 season. However, she decided against it at the last minute. Margulies was again invited to return during "ER"'s final season, but the actress initially turned down the offer, saying that she felt like she left Carol Hathaway in the perfect place and could not imagine bettering her departure episode. Later, however, Margulies did return to "ER" for one episode during its 15th and final season. She had a minor role in 2007's "The Darwin Awards". In 2008, Margulies starred in the legal series "Canterbury's Law", a Fox mid-season replacement show. She played the title character, Elizabeth Canterbury, a lawyer described as "a tough-minded defense attorney who isn't afraid to push boundaries in order to protect innocent clients." She was also credited as a producer of the show. The series was severely impacted by the 2007–2008 Writers Guild of America strike and cancelled after six episodes. In 2009, Margulies began starring in the CBS legal drama "The Good Wife". She plays Alicia Florrick an attorney returning to legal practice after her husband Peter Florrick (played by Chris Noth) resigned as Illinois State's Attorney amidst a sex and corruption scandal. On October 7, 2009, CBS gave the series a full-season pickup, extending the first season from thirteen to twenty-two episodes.
1102998	Rudolf Otto Sigismund Lipschitz (14 May 1832 – 7 October 1903) was a German mathematician and professor at the University of Bonn from 1864. Peter Gustav Lejeune Dirichlet was his teacher. He supervised the early work of Felix Klein. Lipschitz was Jewish. While Lipschitz gave his name to the Lipschitz continuity condition, he worked in a broad range of areas. These included number theory, algebras with involution, mathematical analysis, differential geometry and classical mechanics. He wrote: "Lehrbuch der Analysis" (two volumes, Bonn 1877, 1880); "Wissenschaft und Staat" (Bonn, 1874); "Untersuchungen über die Summen von Quadraten" (Bonn, 1886); "Bedeutung der theoretischen Mechanik" (Berlin, 1876). Rediscovery of Clifford algebra. Lipschitz discovered Clifford algebras in 1880, two years after William K. Clifford (1845–1879) and independently of him, and he was the first to use them in the study of orthogonal transformations. Up to 1950 people mentioned “Clifford-Lipschitz numbers” when they referred to this discovery of Lipschitz. Yet Lipschitz’s name suddenly disappeared from the publications involving Clifford algebras; for instance Claude Chevalley (1909–1984) gave the name “Clifford group” to an object that is never mentioned in Clifford’s works, but stems from Lipschitz’s. Pertti Lounesto (1945–2002) contributed greatly to recalling the importance of Lipschitz’s role.
1356195	Paranormal Activity 3 is a 2011 American supernatural horror film, directed by Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman. It is the third installment of the "Paranormal Activity" series and serves as a prequel, mostly set 18 years prior to the events of the first two films. It was released in theaters on October 21, 2011. "Paranormal Activity 3" was also Joost and Schulman's first horror film. The film broke financial records upon release, setting a new record for a midnight opening for a horror film ($8 million), the best opening day for a horror film in the United States ($26.2 million), the highest opening for any film in October, highest opening for a film in the fall (September–October), and setting a record opening for the franchise ($52.6 million).
1060898	John Franklin Candy (October 31, 1950 – March 4, 1994) was a Canadian actor and comedian who rose to fame as a member of the Toronto branch of The Second City and its related "Second City Television" series, and through his appearances in comedy films such as "Stripes", "Splash", "Cool Runnings", "Summer Rental", "The Great Outdoors", "Spaceballs", and "Uncle Buck". One of his most renowned onscreen performances was as Del Griffith, the loquacious, on-the-move shower-curtain ring salesman in the John Hughes comedy "Planes, Trains and Automobiles". While filming the Western parody "Wagons East!", Candy died of a heart attack in his sleep in Durango, Mexico, at the age of 43. His final two films, "Wagons East!" and "Canadian Bacon", are dedicated to his memory. Biography. Early life and career (1950–1980). Candy was born in Newmarket, Ontario in 1950. The son of Sidney James Candy and his wife Evangeline (Aker) Candy, he was raised in a working-class Roman Catholic family. He studied at Centennial College in Toronto and at McMaster University. Candy's first movie role was a small uncredited appearance in the 1973 film "Class of '44". He appeared in several other low-budget films during the 1970s, including the bank-robbery thriller "The Silent Partner" with Christopher Plummer and Elliott Gould. In 1976, Candy played a supporting role (with Rick Moranis) on Peter Gzowski's short-lived, late-night television talk show, "90 Minutes Live". That same year, as a member of Toronto's branch of The Second City, he gained wide North American popularity, which grew when he became a cast member on the influential Toronto-based comedy-variety show "Second City Television" ("SCTV"). NBC picked the show up in 1981 and it quickly became a fan favorite. It had won Emmy Awards for the show's writing in 1981 and 1982. 1980s career (1980–1989). Among Candy's memorable characterizations for "Second City Television" were unscrupulous street-beat TV personality Johnny LaRue, 3-D horror auteur Doctor Tongue, sycophantic and easily amused talk-show sidekick William B. Williams, and Melonville's corrupt Mayor Tommy Shanks. Other characters included the cheerful Leutonian clarinetist Yosh Shmenge, who was half of the Happy Wanderers and the subject of the mockumentary "The Last Polka", folksy fishin' musician Gil Fisher, handsome if accent-challenged TV actor Steve Roman, hapless children's entertainer Mr. Messenger, corrupt soap opera doctor William Wainwright, smut merchant Harry, "the Guy With the Snake on His Face", and Giorgy, everyone's favourite Cossack. Mimicry was one of Candy's talents, which he used often at "SCTV". Celebrities impersonated by Candy include Jerry Mathers, Divine (Glen Milstead), Orson Welles, Julia Child, Richard Burton, Silvio Gigante, Luciano Pavarotti, Jimmy the Greek, Andrew Sarris, Tip O'Neill, Don Rickles, Curly Howard, Merlin Olsen, Jackie Gleason, Tom Selleck, Gordon Pinsent, Ed Asner, Gertrude Stein, Morgy Kneele, Doug McGrath, and Hervé Villechaize. By 1980, he began a more active film career having appeared as a soldier in Steven Spielberg's big-budget comedy "1941" and had a supporting role as Burton Mercer, "Joliet" Jake's probation/parole officer in "The Blues Brothers". A year later, Candy played the lovable, mild-mannered Army recruit Dewey Oxberger in 1981's "Stripes", one of the most successful films of the year. In the next two years, Candy did a small cameo in Harold Ramis's "National Lampoon's Vacation" and appeared on "Saturday Night Live" twice (hosting in 1983) while still appearing on "SCTV". According to writer-comedian Bob Odenkirk, Candy was reputedly the "most-burned potential host" of SNL, in that he was asked to host many times, only to be told 'no thanks' by the SNL staff at the last minute. In 1983, Candy headlined in the film "Going Berserk", and was also approached to play the character of accountant Louis Tully in "Ghostbusters" (completed and released in 1984), but ultimately did not get the role because of his conflicting ideas of how to play the character; the part went instead to Rick Moranis. Candy was one of the many celebrities who appeared chanting "Ghostbusters" in Ray Parker, Jr.'s hit "single" for the movie. In 1984, Candy played Tom Hanks's womanizing brother in the hit romantic comedy "Splash", generally considered his breakout role. Throughout the latter half of the 1980s, Candy often took roles in substandard films (even performing the voice of a talking horse in the Bobcat Goldthwait comedy "Hot to Trot"). While continuing to play supporting roles in films like "Spaceballs", Candy was awarded the opportunity to headline or co-star in such comedy films as "Volunteers"; "Planes, Trains and Automobiles"; "Brewster's Millions; The Great Outdoors; Armed and Dangerous"; "Who's Harry Crumb?", "Summer Rental", and "Uncle Buck". He also continued to provide memorable bit roles, including a "weird" disc jockey in the comic musical film "Little Shop of Horrors" and a policeman in the "Sesame Street" film "Follow That Bird". Candy also produced and starred in a Saturday-morning animated series on NBC entitled "Camp Candy" in 1989. The show was set in a fictional summer camp run by Candy, featured his two children in supporting roles, and also spawned a brief comic book series published by Marvel Comics' Star Comics imprint. Later years and death (1990–1994). In the early 1990s, Candy's career went into decline after he appeared in a string of critical and commercial failures, including "Nothing but Trouble" (for which he was nominated for a Razzie as "worst supporting actress," playing a woman), "Delirious", and "Once Upon a Crime", although he did appear in major successes such as "Rookie of the Year" (uncredited), "The Rescuers Down Under", "Home Alone" and "Cool Runnings". Candy attempted to reinvigorate his acting career by broadening his range and playing more dramatic roles. In 1991, Candy appeared in a light romantic drama, "Only the Lonely", which saw him as a Chicago cop torn between his overbearing mother (Maureen O'Hara) and his new girlfriend (Ally Sheedy). The same year and in rare form, Candy played a dramatic role as Dean Andrews Jr., a shady Southern lawyer in Oliver Stone's "JFK". In 1991, Bruce McNall, Wayne Gretzky, and Candy became owners of the Canadian Football League's Toronto Argonauts. The celebrity ownership group attracted a lot of attention in Canada and the team spent a significant amount of money, even signing some highly touted National Football League prospects like wide receiver Raghib Ismail. The Argonauts took home the 1991 Grey Cup beating Calgary 36–21 in the final. In 1994, while filming "Wagons East!" on location in Durango, Mexico, Candy called his friends, including Canadian Football League commissioner Larry Smith, and told them that he had just let go of his team and was putting it up for sale. He then called his assistant, who invited him to play golf with him in the spring when he came back to Toronto. After cooking a late lasagne dinner for his assistants, Candy called his co-stars from his hotel, then went to sleep. After midnight, on March 4, 1994, Candy died from a heart attack. In "Pocahontas", he was going to voice a turkey named Redfeather but, after his death, his character and dialogue were deleted. Candy was survived by his wife Rosemary Hobor, and his two children Jennifer Candy and Christopher Candy. Legacy. Candy's funeral was held at St. Martin of Tours Catholic Church. Candy was interred in the mausoleum at Holy Cross Cemetery in Culver City, California. His crypt lies just above fellow actor Fred MacMurray. On March 18, 1994, a special memorial service for Candy, produced by his former improv troupe The Second City, was broadcast across Canada. Candy's final completed movie was "Canadian Bacon", a satirical comedy by Michael Moore that was released a year after Candy's death. Candy played American sheriff Bud Boomer who led an "invasion" of Canada. Candy recorded a voice for the TV film "The Magic 7" in the early-1990s. The film remained in production for years due to animation difficulties and production delays, and it was shelved. Candy was inducted into Canada's Walk of Fame. In May 2006, Candy became one of the first four entertainers ever honoured by Canada Post by being featured on a postage stamp. "Blues Brothers 2000" is dedicated to three people, including Candy, who played a supporting role in the original "Blues Brothers". A tribute to Candy was hosted by Dan Aykroyd at the 2007 Grey Cup festivities in Toronto in November 2007. Ween's "Chocolate and Cheese" album released in 1994 is "dedicated in loving memory to John Candy (1950-1994)". The John Candy Visual Arts Studio at Neil McNeil Catholic High School, in Toronto, Ontario was dedicated in his honor after his death. John Candy, one of the school's most famous alumni, said during one of his annual visits to the school, "My success is simply rooted in the values and discipline and respect for others that I was taught at Neil McNeil." Candy's daughter, Jennifer Candy, is an actress and television producer, having production credits for the television series "Prom Queen" and "Sam Has 7 Friends".
1067754	Briana Barbara-Jane Evigan (born October 23, 1986) is an American actress and dancer. She is perhaps best known for her roles as Andie West in "" and Cassidy Tappan in "Sorority Row". She started dancing at the age of 9 and is still dancing as part of her career today. Evigan has been noted as a Scream Queen for starring in many horror, and thriller films such as "Sorority Row", "Burning Bright", "Mother's Day", "The Devil's Carnival", "Stash House", and "Mine Games". Early and Personal life. Evigan was born in Los Angeles, California, the daughter of Pamela C. Serpe, a dancer, model, and actress, and actor Greg Evigan. Her father is of Polish ancestry, and her mother of Italian ancestry. She is the youngest of three siblings, with brother Jason and sister Vanessa Lee. She has studied dance since she was nine. She is one of the singers and plays keyboards in the group Moorish Idol. She also undertook a speech and communication degree at Los Angeles Valley College. She currently lives in Los Angeles, California. Career. A professional dancer, Evigan has appeared in music videos for Linkin Park, Flo Rida, T-Pain and Enrique Iglesias. She has also had small roles in television series and films such as "Bottom's Up", "Something Sweet" and "Fear Itself". In 2008, she won the breakout role of Andie West in the sequel to the 2006 dance drama "Step Up", "". Filming took place in late 2007 in Baltimore and was released February 14, 2008. The film, which met with negative reviews with Rotten Tomatoes (receiving 24%), achieved box office success earning a worldwide gross of $148,424,320. Both Evigan and co-star Robert Hoffman earned the Best Kiss Award at the 2008 MTV Movie Awards. In 2009, "S. Darko", a sequel to the 2001 cult-hit horror "Donnie Darko", was released. Evigan played Samantha Darko's best friend, Corey. The film stars James Lafferty and Ed Westwick. A theatrical release was scrapped and was released Straight-to-DVD on May 12, 2009. Unlike Donnie Darko, the film received negative reviews. In August 2008, Summit Entertainment announced Briana has signed on to portray the central character Cassidy Tappan in the remake of the low-budget horror film "Sorority Row". The screenplay was written by "Good Luck Chuck" writer Josh Stolberg and directed by Stewart Hendler. The film was budgeted at $12,500,000. Briana stars alongside Audrina Patridge, Rumer Willis and Jamie Chung. "Sorority Row" was released on September 11, 2009 and debuted at No. 6 at the box office and earned worldwide $26,735,797. Critical reception was mixed to negative. Evigan's performance was well received by critics. The leading female cast members earned a ShoWest Award for "Female Stars of Tomorrow" in April 2009. The DVD release was February 23, 2010. In February 2009, Evigan announced in an interview she has signed on for another remake. The film will be a remake of the cult slasher horror film "Mother's Day" and will be directed by Darren Lynn Bousman best known for his work with previous Lionsgate films such as the Saw trilogy. Darryn previously directed Briana in an episode of "Fear Itself" in 2008. The film will co-star A.J. Cook and Jaime King. The film has suffered numerous push backs, and was finally released on May 8, 2012 on DVD and Bluray. The film was also part of the 2010 Cannes Film Festival. In January 2009, Evigan was confirmed by Lionsgate to star in "Burning Bright". She plays the lead female role, Kelly Taylor. In the film, "A young woman and her autistic brother find themselves trapped in their house with a ravenous tiger during a hurricane". Critical reception was extremely positive. Despite this, the film was announced to be released Straight-to-DVD on August 17, 2010. In 2009, Evigan was announced the central character in the indie drama romance film "". She portrays the role of 'Butterfly'. The film was announced completed on May 17, 2010. A distributor and release is yet to be announced. She stars in "The Devil's Carnival", a short film that got a 30 city world tour that began in April 15, 2012. On 2011, during a UStream, Evigan announced that she was working in a TV series with her family, but no new information has been announced. It was confirmed on early 2013 that she would be back for Step Up 5, alongside Ryan Guzman, who played Sean Asa in "Step Up Revolution", and Adam Sevani, who's played Moose in Step Up "", "3", and "4". Although she has been announced, and confirmed to star in this fifth installment of the Step Up series, it is unknown whether or not she will be portraying Andie West again, but most likely will. Shooting will begin later this year.
1056427	Ridicule () is a 1996 French film set in the 18th century at the decadent court of Versailles, where social status can rise and fall based on one's ability to mete out witty insults and avoid ridicule oneself. The story examines the social injustices of late 18th century France, in showing the corruption and callousness of the aristocrats. Plot. The film begins in 1783 with the Chevalier de Milletail (Carlo Brandt) visiting the elderly Monsieur de Blayac (Lucien Pascal), confined to his chair. He taunts him about his past prowess in wit and reminds him of how he humiliated him, naming him "Marquis de Clatterbang" when he fell over while dancing. He then urinates on the helpless old man. The film then shifts to the Dombes, a boggy region north of Lyon. The Baron Grégoire Ponceludon de Malavoy (Charles Berling) is a minor aristocrat and engineer. He is one of the few aristocrats who care about the plight of the peasants. Horrified by the sickness and death caused by the mosquitoes that infest the swamps, he hopes to drain them; he goes to Versailles in the hope of obtaining the backing of King Louis XVI (Urbain Cancelier). Just before reaching Versailles, Ponceludon is robbed and beaten. He is found by the Marquis de Bellegarde (Jean Rochefort), a minor noble and physician. As Ponceludon recuperates at the marquis' house, Bellegarde takes him under his wing, teaching him about wit ("l'esprit"), the primary way to make one's way at court. At first, Ponceludon's provincial background makes him a target at parties and gatherings, even though he proves himself a formidable adversary in verbal sparring. At one such party, he catches L'abbé de Vilecourt (Bernard Giraudeau) cheating at a game of wits, with the help of his lover, Madame de Blayac (Fanny Ardant), the beautiful and rich recent widow of Monsieur de Blayac, who was to have been Ponceludon's sponsor at court. Blayac repays his generosity in not exposing them by arranging for the certification of his lineage—thereby allowing his suit to proceed. Despite his success, Ponceludon begins to see that the court at Versailles is corrupt and hollow. In one notable example, a bumbling noble of the court, Monsieur de Guérêt, falls asleep during a roll call to partake in court with the King Louis XVI. L'abbé de Vilecourt, seeing that the noble is asleep, removes the noble's shoe, throwing it in a fireplace, and mimics a call for him. The noble wakes upon hearing his name, but finding out he has only a single shoe, is terribly distraught. To attend court without the proper clothes is a social impossibility, and because of this, the noble is forced to leave. He is so terribly distraught with his own failure that he later hangs himself in the garden.
1048958	The Small One is a 1978 animated Christmas short film created by Walt Disney Productions and was originally released to theaters in the United States by Buena Vista Distribution Company before the 1978 re-release of "Pinocchio". The story is based on a children's book by Charles Tazewell and was an experiment for the newer and younger Disney animators, including Don Bluth, Richard Rich, Henry Selick, Gary Goldman and John Pomeroy. The story tells of a young boy, outside Nazareth, who must part with his best friend, an old donkey named Small One. He brings it to market, but no one is in need of a "scrawny donkey", save for a tanner.
1063090	Ruby Dee (born October 27, 1924) is an American actress, poet, playwright, screenwriter, journalist, and activist. She is perhaps best known for co-starring in the film "A Raisin in the Sun" (1961) and the film "American Gangster" (2007) for which she was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. She has won Grammy, Emmy, Obie, Drama Desk, Screen Actors Guild Award, and Screen Actors Guild Lifetime Achievement Awards. She is a recipient of the National Medal of Arts and the Kennedy Center Honors, among scores of others awards. Early years. Dee was born Ruby Ann Wallace in Cleveland, Ohio in 1924 Dee was raised in Harlem, New York and attended Hunter College High School and went on to graduate from Hunter College with degrees in French and Spanish in 1944. She is a member of Delta Sigma Theta. Career. Dee made several appearances on Broadway before receiving national recognition for her role in the 1950 film "The Jackie Robinson Story". Her career in acting has crossed all major forms of media over a span of eight decades, including the films "A Raisin in the Sun", in which she recreated her stage role as a suffering housewife in the projects, and "Edge of the City". She played both roles opposite Sidney Poitier. During the 1960s, Dee appeared in such politically charged films as "Gone Are the Days" and "The Incident", which is recognized as helping pave the way for young African-American actors and filmmakers.
1031307	Faintheart is a 2008 film, the first to be created using input from an online site. The film was a result of a collaborative effort from Myspace, Vertigo films and Film4. The resulting group, MyMovieMashUp, sought to harness the talents of the online community and to enable them to be involved in the film-making process. Various cast and crew members were picked from the MySpaceUK website to work on the project, a unique tactic in the film-making industry. Although the casting and soundtrack were assembled with the help of myspace, the screenplay was written by UK-based writer David Lemon. Professional Viking re-enactors from UK-based company "The Vikings" formed part of the cast alongside Britannia Romano-British society. Also a specialist stunt team from East 15 Acting School took part in filming the large battles under the Fight Direction of Richard Ryan.
1044957	A Study in Terror is a 1965 British thriller film directed by James Hill and starring John Neville as Sherlock Holmes and Donald Houston as Dr. Watson. It was filmed at Shepperton Studios, London, with some location work at Osterley House in Middlesex. Synopsis. Although it is based on Conan Doyle's characters, the story is an original one, which has the famous detective on the trail of Jack the Ripper. In the dark alleys of nineteenth century London, the notorious Jack the Ripper committed a series of gruesome murders. The story of "A Study in Terror" challenges Sherlock Holmes to solve these horrific crimes. This leads Holmes through a trail of aristocracy, blackmail, and family insanity. Unlike Scotland Yard, and the real-life story, Holmes exposes the identity of the Ripper. Reception. "A Study in Terror" was released with reviews mixed to positive. Critics criticised the incorrect chronological order of murders carried out by the Ripper, but praised the strong performances from the cast for a low budget film. "A Study in Terror" received praise regarding John Neville and Donald Houston's portrayal of Holmes and Watson, comparing it to Rathbone and Bruce's portrayals of the duo. The film itself currently holds a three and a half star rating (6.7/10) on IMDb. Post-release history. In 1966, the film was made into a novel by Ellery Queen and Paul W. Fairman. The novelisation is unusual in that it adds a framing story wherein Ellery Queen reads a manuscript that re-tells the actions of the film. The framing story was written by Ellery Queen and the novelisation of the film itself by Fairman. Several plot points, including most notably the identity of the murderer, were altered for the novel.
1058163	What Happens in Vegas is a 2008 American romantic comedy film from 20th Century Fox starring Cameron Diaz and Ashton Kutcher. The title is based on the Las Vegas marketing catchphrase "What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas." Plot. In New York City, high-strung equity trader Joy Ellis McNally (Cameron Diaz) is dumped by her fiancé at a surprise birthday she throws for him. At the same time easy-going carpenter Jack Fuller (Ashton Kutcher) is fired from his job by his father, Jack, Sr. (Treat Williams). Both become emotionally distraught and, with best friends Toni "Tipper" (Lake Bell), a bartender, and Jeff "Hater" (Rob Corddry), a lawyer, take a debauched trip to Las Vegas. Joy and Jack meet by chance when they are given the same hotel room because of a computer error. After clearing up the misunderstanding and receiving upgraded rooms and coupons to various clubs, they party and drink together and end up getting married. The next morning, they realize it was a mistake and decide to divorce. Before they do so, Jack uses a quarter Joy gives him in a slot machine. He hits a three million dollar jackpot and Joy reminds Jack that they are married and hence, she is entitled to half of the money. The couple return to New York, where they attempt to divorce. The judge (Dennis Miller) declares that the couple cannot divorce until they attempt to co-exist for six months, while attending weekly sessions with a marriage counselor (Queen Latifah). If they work at the marriage but still want to divorce after six months, each will be permitted to keep half the winnings. If either party does not cooperate, the money will be tied up in litigation by the judge. The newlyweds devise more and more cunning schemes to undermine each other, such as Jack telling Joy that their counseling session is canceled to prove she's not committed, and Joy inviting girls to their apartment to try to get Jack to cheat on her. Jack gives Joy's ex-fiancé Mason (Jason Sudeikis), her engagement ring back without Joy knowing. At Joy's job retreat, Jack and Joy find themselves developing an unexpected attraction to one another and they soon realize that being with each other has brought out the best in both of them. After they get back from the retreat, it's time for the judge to decide what happens to the money. On her way to the hearing, Joy sees her ex-fiancé Mason and he tells her that he wants her back. He gives her back the engagement ring and tells her that she is good enough for him. Joy realizes that Jack set her up to get back with him, therefore cheating on him and letting Jack keep the money. Joy walks away from Mason and goes to the hearing. At the hearing, their marriage counselor testifies that the couple truly tried to work on their marriage. The judge decides that they will split the remaining 1.4 million dollars (after taxes and the bills Joy had run up and Jack had spent on his new woodworking business). Joy tells the judge she doesn't want any money, and gives the engagement ring to Jack, telling him she officially doesn't want anything from him. Jack realizes she knows that he talked to Mason. Joy gets the promotion she'd been working for, but tells her boss that she would rather be happy doing nothing than doing something she hated and being miserable. Jack talks to his parents, and they tell him that it looks like he and Joy were actually in love. Realizing his mistake, he goes to find her. Tipper tells Jack that she quit her job and that nobody knows where she is. He has a suspicion that she has gone to a beach (Fire Island, New York) that she told him about, the only place that makes her feel truly happy. Jack asks her to be his wife (again) and she says yes. As the two embrace, Joy says that she quit her job and has no idea what she's going to do. Jack reminds her that they have a lot of money between them. Joy states that they hit the jackpot, to which Jack replies that he certainly did (referring both to the money and to Joy). Epilogue. During the credits, we see Tipper and Hater on the day Jack and Joy get married. Tipper and Hater subsequently enact a plan of revenge on Mason, devised by Tipper earlier in the film. Tipper and Hater ring Mason's doorbell, and when he answers, Tipper slugs him in his testicles. He moans in agony and drops to his knees asking why, and she responds that he knows why, and Tipper leaves with Hater. Post-credits, Dave is telling Hater about a party that evening, but Hater no longer wants to associate with Dave, citing Jack as being "the glue" that held the two of them together as friends. With that, Hater simply leaves. Dave asks a random guy on the street if he likes to party. Releases. Theaters. The film had its world premiere at the Odeon in Leicester Square, London on April 22, 2008. Twentieth Century Fox held the U.S. premiere on May 1, 2008 at the Mann Village Theatre in Westwood, CA. It opened in wide release in the United States on May 9, 2008. American "Big Brother 9" housemates Ryan and Sharon were given a special screening of the film after winning a "luxury competition" in April. They were also awarded tickets to the May 1 Hollywood premiere. Box office performance. In its opening weekend, the film grossed $20,172,474 in 3,215 theaters in the United States and Canada, ranking No. 2 at the box office, behind "Iron Man", but ahead of the highly-anticipated "Speed Racer" and averaging $6,274 per venue. As of August 26, 2008, it has grossed a total of $219,375,797 worldwide – $80,250,204 in the United States and Canada and $131,350,000 in other territories, which makes the film a financial success, given its production budget of $35 million. Critical reception. Audiences reacted positively to the movie though reviews for the film were negative, earning the film a 27% "Rotten" rating at Rotten Tomatoes based on 131 reviews. Manohla Dargis of the "New York Times" slammed it as well stating that “What Happens in Vegas,” is one of those junky time-wasters that routinely pop up in movie theaters. Metromix Chicago's Matt Pais did not mince words either calling it "bland, boring and not fun at all". The film received two Razzie Award nominations including Worst Actress (Cameron Diaz) and Worst Screen Couple (Cameron Diaz and Ashton Kutcher).
1377354	Casper Meets Wendy is a direct-to-video and second prequel/spin-off to the 1995 film "Casper". It was released by 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment and Saban Entertainment in 1998. The film is a sequel to "". It was aired on Disney Channel around Halloween night October 27, 1998. This was the first major film for Hilary Duff, who was eleven at the time when this film was released. Plot. The film opens with the tail end of a Friday night baseball game. With the bases loaded, the home team wins by a narrow margin as the batter hits the ball out of the park. Both the celebration of the home team and fans and the dread of losing for the visiting team are cut short as a mysterious spaceship floats over the park, thus snatching the attention of everybody there: the players, the fans, the hot dog and popcorn vendors, and the announcer. After the ship performs a tune, it dissipates into three floating balls of light. One of them forms into a ghost who initially appears as an alien, but thereafter, is revealed to be Fatso (Jess Harnell), a member of The Ghostly Trio, who releases gas which hits the scoreboard, causing a shower of sparks, also sparking terror. The other two ghosts of the trio, Stinky (Bill Farmer), and Stretch (Jim Ward), join in, causing panic in the park, as everybody scatters. Casper (Jeremy Foley), a shy, friendly ghost (whom all three ghosts are uncles to), arrives, attempting to settle the rattled crowd, but the people are just as scared. The park is eventually empty, as Casper's uncles plan a vacation. Meanwhile, a dark character named Desmond Spellman (George Hamilton) is settled down in his mansion. He is the greatest warlock to ever exist, until the Oracle (Pauly Shore) tells him that in the future Wendy the Good Little Witch (Hilary Duff) will be the greatest witch to ever exist, and so he plots to kill the "little mole rat", with the advised "Mystic Abyss". He creates two warlock enforcers: Jules (Richard Moll), and Vincent (Vincent Schiavelli) with a mix of chemicals in a blender, exposure to thunder and lightning, and a spill over his catwalk balcony. He assigns them to go to Wendy's address (which the oracle printed on Desmonds' fax machine) and bring her to him. They prove what they think is a simple task by firing their hand guns through the wall. Meanwhile, Wendy (Hilary Duff) is living in the country with her three aunts Gerti (Cathy Moriarty), Gabby (Shelley Duvall), and Fanny (Teri Garr). While attempting to befriend the local paper boy, they foil it by slingshotting a green ball of goo at him, thus causing the newspapers to automatically slap him. She is angered, and while trying to prove herself to them, Jules and Vincent arrive with the purpose of abducting her. They begin attacking with their hand guns. She and her aunts narrowly escape Desmond's men as Wendy turns their weapons into water guns and traps them in a cage. On the run from her nemesis, she runs into Casper, who has been violently thrown around by his three uncles. They then become great friends, but of course, in the tale, a ghost's worst enemy is a witch, and vice-versa, so her aunts don't get along with his uncles, and vice-versa. As a part of their plan to convince them to get along, he gets his uncles to haunt a dance, and she convinces her aunts to attend as well. The Ghostly Trio possesses three men at the party and end up flirting with the three witches. Though everything seems to go well, the plan is foiled when their real selves are revealed to Wendy's aunts, who bluffingly threaten them with magic. Later, Wendy tells Casper about Desmond and that she and her aunts can't use powerful magic, begging him not to tell anyone about this. He accidentally tells the Ghostly Trio, prompting them to attack her and her aunts. She feels she has no choice but to fight them and uses a spell to cover them in plaster. This action is picked up by Desmond's magic tracker. The witches are attacked by Jules and Vincent. Before Wendy and her aunts have a chance to escape, Desmond arrives. He tries to cast her into the Mystic Abyss to kill her, but Casper dives in to save her. Her aunts try to fight Desmond but they aren't powerful enough. Before he can throw them in along with Wendy, however, a giant three-eyed monster pops up and frightens him, causing him to fall into the Abyss instead. It turns out to be the Ghostly Trio, who combined together to defeat him. While they hold the Abyss open, Wendy's aunts pull her and Casper out of it. The Oracle proclaims that she is the greatest witch because she did something no other witch ever did: she befriended a ghost (Casper). Finally, she, her aunts, Casper, and his uncles all bid each other goodbye, but he and Wendy reassure each other that they'll be together again soon. Awards and nominations. "Casper Meets Wendy" won the Children’s Programming - Electronic Visual Effects award. Hilary Duff was nominated for a Young Artist Award.
583563	Benjamin Gilani (born 1946) is an Indian actor of film, television and theatre. He portrayed Jawaharlal Nehru in the 1993 film "Sardar". He also acted in the movie "Hum Dum". He is a postgraduate from Delhi University having studied and taught at St Stephen's College, Delhi, studied at Film and Television Institute of India (FTII) Pune 1972 batch, where Naseeruddin Shah and Tom Alter were his batchmates. Prior to FTII, he became a professor of English Literature at St. Stephen's College, Delhi while remaining active in theatre in Delhi. He founded 'Motley Productions', a Mumbai-based theatre company in 1977, along with Tom Alter and Naseeruddin Shah, and "Waiting For Godot" was their first play on July 29, 1979 at Prithvi Theatre, the play was revived in 2009 for group's 30th anniversary celebrations. He is currently hosting a quiz show on Disney Channel India, namely Disney Q Family Mastermind.
1132300	Michael Richard Wayans (born March 28, 1985) is an American actor.
1063050	The Holiday is a 2006 American romantic comedy film written, produced and directed by Nancy Meyers. Distributed by Columbia Pictures and Universal Studios, it stars Cameron Diaz and Kate Winslet as two lovelorn women from opposite sides of the Atlantic Ocean, who temporarily exchange homes to escape heartbreak during the holiday season. Jude Law and Jack Black co-star, with Eli Wallach, Shannyn Sossamon, Edward Burns and Rufus Sewell playing key supporting roles. Released to mixed or average reviews by critics, the film became a global box office success, grossing $205 million worldwide, mostly from its international run. Diaz garnered an ALMA Award nomination for her performance, while Winslet was nominated for an Irish Film and Television Award the following year. The film itself won the 2007 Teen Choice Award in the Chick Flick category. Plot. The story is about two women who trade homes "only to find that a change of address can change their lives." Amanda Woods (Cameron Diaz) is a workaholic who owns a company that produces movie trailers in Los Angeles. Iris Simpkins (Kate Winslet) is a society column editor for The Daily Telegraph in London.
971999	Erwin O. Kreyszig (January 6, 1922 in Pirna, Germany – December 12, 2008) was a Professor of Mathematics at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada. He was a pioneer in the field of applied mathematics: non-wave replicating linear systems. He was also a distinguished author, having written the textbook "Advanced Engineering Mathematics", the leading textbook for civil, mechanical, electrical, and chemical engineering undergraduate engineering mathematics. Kreyszig received his Ph.D. degree in 1949 at the University of Darmstadt under the supervision of Alwin Walther. He then continued his research activities at the universities of Tübingen and Münster. Prior to joining Carleton University in 1984, he held positions at Stanford University (1954/55), the University of Ottawa (1955/56), Ohio State University (1956–60, professor 1957) and he completed his habilitation at the University of Mainz. In 1960 he became professor at the Technical University of Graz and organized the Graz 1964 Mathematical Congress. He worked at the University of Düsseldorf (1967–71) and at the University of Karlsruhe (1971–73). From 1973 through 1984 he worked at the University of Windsor and since 1984 he had been at Carleton University. He was awarded the title of Distinguished Research Professor in 1991 in recognition of a research career during which he published 176 papers in refereed journals, and 37 in refereed conference proceedings. Kreyszig was also an administrator, developing a Computer Centre at the University of Graz, and at the Mathematics Institute at the University of Düsseldorf. In 1964, he took a leave of absence from Graz to initiate a doctoral program in mathematics at Texas A&M University. Kreyszig authored 14 books, including "Advanced Engineering Mathematics", which was published in its 9th edition in 2008. He supervised 104 master's, 22 doctoral, and 12 postdoctoral students. Together with his son he founded the "Erwin and Herbert Kreyszig scholarship" which has funded graduate students since 2001.
1063868	Eraserhead is a 1977 surrealist body horror film written and directed by American filmmaker David Lynch. Shot in black-and-white, "Eraserhead" is Lynch's first feature-length film, coming after several short works. The film was produced with the assistance of the American Film Institute (AFI) during the director's time studying there. Starring Jack Nance, Charlotte Stewart, Jeanne Bates, Judith Anna Roberts, Laurel Near, and Jack Fisk, it tells the story of Henry Spencer (Nance), who is left to care for his grossly deformed child in a desolate industrial landscape. Throughout the film, Spencer experiences dreams or hallucinations, featuring his child and the Lady in the Radiator (Near). "Eraserhead" spent several years in principal photography because of the difficulty of funding the film; donations from Fisk and his wife Sissy Spacek kept production afloat. The film was shot on several locations owned by the AFI in California, including Greystone Mansion and a set of disused stables in which Lynch lived. Lynch and sound designer Alan Splet spent a year working on the film's audio after their studio was soundproofed. "Eraserhead" soundtrack features organ music by Fats Waller and includes the song "In Heaven", penned for the film by Peter Ivers. Initially opening to small audiences and little interest, "Eraserhead" gained popularity over several long runs as a midnight movie. Since its release, the film has earned positive reviews. The surrealist imagery and sexual undercurrents have been seen as key thematic elements, and the intricate sound design as its technical highlight. Thematic analysis of the film has also highlighted these issues and has elaborated on Spencer's fatalism and inactivity. In 2004, the film was preserved in the National Film Registry, maintained by the United States Library of Congress. Plot. The Man in the Planet (Jack Fisk) is seen moving levers in his home in space, while the head of Henry Spencer (Jack Nance) is seen floating in the sky. A spermatozoon-like creature emerges from Spencer's mouth, floating into the void. In an industrial cityscape, Spencer walks home with his groceries. He is stopped outside his apartment by the Beautiful Girl Across the Hall (Judith Anna Roberts), who informs him that his girlfriend, Mary X (Charlotte Stewart), has invited him to dinner with her family. Spencer leaves his groceries in his apartment, which is filled with piles of dirt and dead vegetation. That night, Spencer visits X's home, conversing awkwardly with her mother (Jeanne Bates). At the dinner table, he is asked to carve a chicken that X's talkative father (Allen Joseph) has "made"; the bird moves and writhes on the plate and gushes blood. After dinner, Spencer is cornered by X's mother, who tries to kiss him. She tells him that X has had his child and that the two must marry. X, however, is not sure if what she bore is a child. The couple move into Spencer's one-room apartment and begin caring for the child—a swaddled bundle with an inhuman, snakelike face, resembling the spermatozoon creature seen earlier. The infant refuses all food, crying incessantly and intolerably. The sound drives X hysterical, and she leaves Spencer and the child. Spencer attempts to care for the child, and he learns that it struggles to breathe and has developed painful sores. Spencer begins experiencing visions, again seeing the Man in the Planet, as well as the Lady in the Radiator (Laurel Near), who sings to him as she stomps upon miniature replicas of Spencer's child. After a sexual encounter with the Beautiful Girl Across the Hall, Spencer has another vision, seeing his own head fall off, revealing a stump underneath that resembles the child's face. Spencer's head falls from the sky, landing on a street and breaking open. A boy finds it, bringing it to a pencil factory to be turned into erasers. Spencer is then seen, in his normal form, in a billowing cloud of eraser shavings. Spencer tries to seek out the Beautiful Girl Across the Hall, but she has begun taking other men home. Crushed, Spencer returns to his room, where the child is crying. He takes a pair of scissors and for the first time removes the child's swaddling. It is revealed that the child has no skin; the bandages held its internal organs together, and they spill apart after the rags are cut. The child gasps in pain, and Spencer stabs its organs with the scissors. The wounds gush a thick liquid, covering the child. The power in the room overloads, causing the lights to flicker; as they flick on and off the child grows to huge proportions. As the lights burn out completely, the child's head is replaced by the planet seen at the beginning. The side of the planet bursts apart, and inside, the Man in the Planet struggles with his levers, which are now emitting sparks. Spencer is embraced warmly by the Lady in the Radiator, as both white light and white noise build to a crescendo before the screen turns black and silent. Production. Pre-production. Writer and director David Lynch had previously studied for a career as an artist, and he had created several short films to animate his paintings. By 1970, however, he had switched his focus to film-making, and at the age of 24 he accepted a scholarship at the American Film Institute's Centre for Advanced Film Studies. Lynch disliked the course and considered dropping out, but he changed his mind after he was offered the chance to produce a script of his own devising. He was given permission to use the school's full campus for film sets; he converted the school's disused stables into a series of sets and lived there. In addition, Greystone Mansion, also owned by the AFI, was used for many scenes. Lynch had initially begun work on a script titled "Gardenback", based on his painting of a hunched figure with vegetation growing from its back. "Gardenback" was a surrealist script about adultery, which featured a continually growing insect representing one man's lust for his neighbor. The script would have resulted in a roughly 45-minute-long film, which the AFI felt was too long for such a figurative, nonlinear script. In its place, Lynch presented "Eraserhead", which he had developed based on a daydream of a man's head being taken to a pencil factory by a small boy. Several board members at the AFI were still opposed to producing such a surrealist work, but they were persuaded when dean Frank Daniel threatened to resign if it was vetoed. Lynch's script for "Eraserhead" was influenced by his reading as a film student; Franz Kafka's 1915 novella "The Metamorphosis" and Nikolai Gogol's 1836 short story "The Nose" were strong influences on the screenplay. The script is also thought to have been inspired by Lynch's fear of fatherhood; his daughter Jennifer had been born with "severely clubbed feet", requiring extensive corrective surgery as a child. Jennifer has claimed that her own unexpected conception and birth defects were the basis for the film's themes. The tone of the film was also shaped by Lynch's time living in a troubled neighborhood in Philadelphia. Lynch and his family spent five years living in an atmosphere of "violence, hate and filth". The area was rife with crime, inspiring the bleak urban backdrop of "Eraserhead". Describing this period of his life, Lynch said "I saw so many things in Philadelphia I couldn't believe ... I saw a grown woman grab her breasts and speak like a baby, complaining her nipples hurt. This kind of thing will set you back". Film critic Greg Olson, in his book "David Lynch: Beautiful Dark", posits that this time contrasted starkly with the director's childhood in the Pacific Northwest, giving the director a "bipolar, Heaven-and-Hell vision of America" which has subsequently shaped his films. Initial casting for the film began in 1971, and Jack Nance was quickly selected for the lead role. However, the staff at the AFI had underestimated the project's scale—they had initially green-lit "Eraserhead" after viewing a twenty-one page screenplay, assuming that the film industry's usual ratio of one minute of film per scripted page would reduce the film to approximately twenty minutes. This misunderstanding, coupled with Lynch's own meticulous direction, caused the film to remain in production for a number of years. In an extreme example of this labored schedule, one scene in the film begins with Nance's character opening a door—a full year would pass before he was filmed entering the room. Nance, however, was dedicated to producing the film and retained the unorthodox hairstyle his character sported for the entirety of its gestation. Filming. Buoyed with regular donations from Lynch's childhood friend Jack Fisk and Fisk's wife Sissy Spacek, production continued for several years. Additional funds were provided by Nance's wife Catherine E. Coulson, who worked as a waitress and donated her income, and by Lynch himself, who delivered newspapers throughout the film's principal photography. During one of the many lulls in filming, Lynch was able to produce the short film "The Amputee", taking advantage of the AFI's wish to test new film stock before committing to bulk purchases. The short piece starred Coulson, who continued working with Lynch as a technician on "Eraserhead". "Eraserhead" production crew was very small, composed of Lynch; sound designer Alan Splet; cinematographer Herb Cardwell, who left during production and was replaced with Frederick Elmes; production manager and prop technician Doreen Small; and Coulson, who worked in a variety of roles. The physical effects used to create the deformed child have been kept secret. The projectionist who worked on the film's dailies was blindfolded by Lynch to avoid revealing the prop's nature, and he has refused to discuss the effects in subsequent interviews. The prop—which Nance had nicknamed "Spike"—featured several working parts; its neck, eyes and mouth were capable of independent operation. Lynch has offered cryptic comments on the prop, at times stating that "it was born nearby" or "maybe it was found". It has been speculated by "The Guardian" John Patterson that the prop may have been constructed from a skinned rabbit or a lamb's fetus. The child has been seen as a precursor to elements of other Lynch films, such as John Merrick's make-up in 1980's "The Elephant Man" and the sandworms of 1984's "Dune". During production, Lynch began experimenting with a technique of recording dialogue that had been spoken phonetically backwards and reversing the resulting audio. Although the technique was not used in the film, Lynch returned to it for "Episode 2", the third episode of his 1990 television series "Twin Peaks". Lynch also began his interest in Transcendental Meditation during the film's production, adopting a vegetarian diet and giving up smoking and alcohol consumption. Post-production. Lynch worked with Alan Splet to design the film's sound. The pair arranged and fabricated soundproof blanketing to insulate their studio, where they spent almost a year creating and editing the film's sound effects. The soundtrack is densely layered, including as many as fifteen different sounds played simultaneously using multiple reels. Sounds were created in a variety of ways—for a scene in which a bed slowly dissolves into a pool of liquid, Lynch and Splet inserted a microphone inside a plastic bottle, floated it in a bathtub, and recorded the sound of air blown through the bottle. After being recorded, sounds were further augmented by alterations to their pitch, reverb and frequency. After a poorly received test screening, in which Lynch believes he had mixed the soundtrack at too high a volume, the director cut twenty minutes of footage from the film, bringing its length to 89 minutes. Among the cut footage is a scene featuring Coulson as the infant's midwife, another of a man torturing two women—one again played by Coulson—with a car battery, and one of Spencer toying with a dead cat. Soundtrack. The soundtrack to "Eraserhead" was released by I.R.S. Records in 1982. The two tracks included on the album feature excerpts of organ music by Fats Waller and the song "In Heaven", written for the film by Peter Ivers. The soundtrack was re-released on August 7, 2012, by Sacred Bones Records in a limited pressing of 1,500 copies. The album has been seen as presaging the dark ambient music genre, and its presentation of background noise and non-musical cues has been described by Pitchfork Media's Mark Richardson as "a sound track (two words) in the literal sense". Themes. "Eraserhead" sound design has been considered one of its defining elements. Although the film features several hallmark visuals—the deformed infant and the sprawling industrial setting—these are matched by their accompanying sounds, as the "incessant mewling" and "evocative aural landscape" are paired with these respectively. The film features several constant industrial sounds, providing low-level background noise in every scene. This fosters a "threatening" and "unnerving" atmosphere, which has been imitated in works such as David Fincher's 1995 thriller "Seven" and the Coen brothers' 1991 comedy "Barton Fink". The constant low-level noise has been perceived by James Wierzbicki in his book "Music, Sound and Filmmakers: Sonic Style in Cinema" as perhaps a product of Henry Spencer's imagination, and the soundtrack has been described as "ruthlessly negligent of the difference between dream and reality". The film also begins a trend within Lynch's work of relating diegetic music to dreams, as when the Lady in the Radiator sings "In Heaven" during Spencer's extended dream sequence. This is also present in "Episode 2" of "Twin Peaks", in which diegetic music carries over from a character's dream to his waking thoughts; and in 1986's "Blue Velvet", in which a similar focus is given to Roy Orbison's "In Dreams". The film has also been noted for its strong sexual themes. Opening with an image of conception, the film then portrays Henry Spencer as a character who is terrified of, but fascinated by, sex. The recurring images of sperm-like creatures, including the child, are a constant presence during the film's sex scenes; the apparent "girl next door" appeal of the Lady in the Radiator is abandoned during her musical number as she begins to violently smash Spencer's sperm creatures and aggressively meets his gaze. David J. Skal, in his book "The Monster Show: A Cultural History of Horror", has described the film as "depict human reproduction as a desolate freak show, an occupation fit only for the damned". Skal also posits a different characterization of the Lady in the Radiator, casting her as "desperately eager for an unseen audience's approval". In his book "David Lynch Decoded", Mark Allyn Stewart proposes that the Lady in the Radiator is in fact Spencer's subconscious, a manifestation of his own urge to kill his child, who embraces him after he does so, as if to reassure him that he has done right. As a character, Spencer has been seen as an everyman figure, his blank expression and plain dress keeping him a simple archetype. Spencer displays a pacifistic and fatalistic inactivity throughout the film, simply allowing events to unfold around him without taking control. This passive behavior culminates in his sole act of instigation at the film's climax; his apparent act of infanticide is driven by his life of being domineered and controlled. Spencer's inactivity has also been seen by film critics Colin Odell and Michelle Le Blanc as a precursor to Lynch's 1983–92 comic strip "The Angriest Dog in the World". Release. Box office. "Eraserhead" premièred at the Filmex film festival in Los Angeles, on March 19, 1977. On its opening night, the film was attended by twenty-five people; twenty-four viewed it the following evening. However, Ben Barenholtz, head of distributor Libra Films International, persuaded local theater Cinema Village to run the film as a midnight feature, where it continued for a year. After this, it ran for ninety-nine weeks at New York's Waverly Cinema, had a year-long midnight run at San Francisco's Roxie Theater from 1978 to 1979, and achieved a three-year tenure at Los Angeles' Nuart Theatre between 1978 and 1981. The film was a massive commercial success. Produced on a shoestring budget of $100,000, it grossed $7 million in the United States. "Eraserhead" was also screened as part of the 1978 BFI London Film Festival, and the 1986 Telluride Film Festival. Home media. "Eraserhead" was released on VHS on August 7, 1982, by Columbia Pictures. The film was released on DVD and Blu-ray by Umbrella Entertainment in Australia; the former was released on August 1, 2009, and the latter on May 9, 2012. The Umbrella Entertainment releases include an 85-minute feature on the making of the film. Other home media releases of the film include DVD releases by Universal Pictures in 2001, Subversive Entertainment in 2006, and Scanbox Entertainment in 2008. Reception. Upon "Eraserhead" release, "Variety" offered a negative review, calling it "a sickening bad-taste exercise". The review expressed incredulity over the film's long gestation and described its finale as unwatchable. Comparing "Eraserhead" to Lynch's next film "The Elephant Man", Tom Buckley of "The New York Times" felt that while the latter was a well-made film with an accomplished cast, the former was not. Buckley called "Eraserhead" "murkily pretentious", and felt that the film's horror aspects stemmed solely from the appearance of the deformed child rather than from its script or performances. Writing in 1984, Lloyd Rose of "The Atlantic" felt that "Eraserhead" demonstrated that Lynch was "one of the most unalloyed surrealists ever to work in the movies". Rose described the film as being intensely personal, finding that unlike previous surrealist films, such as Luis Buñuel's 1929 work "Un Chien Andalou" or 1930's "L'Age d'Or", Lynch's imagery "isn't reaching out to us from his films; we're sinking into them". In a 1993 review for the "Chicago Tribune", Michael Wilmington described "Eraserhead" as unique, feeling that the film's "intensity" and "nightmare clarity" were a result of Lynch's attention to detail in its creation due to his involvement in so many roles during its production. In the 1995 essay "Bad Ideas: The Art and Politics of Twin Peaks", critic Jonathan Rosenbaum felt that "Eraserhead" represented Lynch's best work. Rosenbaum felt that the director's artistic talent declined as his popularity grew, and contrasted the film with "Wild at Heart"—Lynch's most recent feature film at that time—saying "even the most cursory comparison of "Eraserhead" with "Wild at Heart" reveals an artistic decline so precipitous that it is hard to imagine the same person making both films". Twenty-first century critical opinion of the film is widely positive. "Eraserhead" holds an average rating of 91% on review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes, representing the distillation of forty-three reviews. Writing for "Empire" magazine, Steve Beard rated the film five stars out of five. He felt that it was "a lot more radical and enjoyable than later Hollywood efforts" and highlighted its mix of surrealist body horror and black comedy. The BBC's Almar Haflidason awarded "Eraserhead" three stars out of five, describing it as "an unremarkable feat by [Lynch's later standards". Haflidason felt that the film was a gathering of loosely related ideas, adding that it is "so consumed with surreal imagery that there are almost limitless possibilities to read personal theories into it"; the reviewer's own take on these themes were that they represented a fear of personal commitment and featured "a strong sexual undercurrent". A reviewer writing for Film4 rated "Eraserhead" five stars out of five, describing it as "by turns beautiful, annoying, funny, exasperating and repellent, but always bristling with a nervous energy". The Film4 reviewer felt that "Eraserhead" was unlike most films released to that point, save for the collaborations between Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dalí; however, Lynch denies having seen any of these before "Eraserhead". Writing for "The Village Voice", Nathan Lee praised the film's use of sound, writing "to see the film means nothing—one must also "hear" it". He described the film's sound design as "an intergalactic seashell cocked to the ears of an acid-tripping gargantua". "The Guardian" Peter Bradshaw similarly lauded the film, also awarding it five stars out of five. Bradshaw considered it to be a beautiful film, describing its sound design as "industrial groaning, as if filmed inside some collapsing factory or gigantic dying organism". He highlighted the film's body horror elements, comparing it to Ridley Scott's 1979 film "Alien". Keith Phipps, writing for AllRovi, also gave the film a rating of five stars out of five; he highlighted the disturbing sound design of the film and described it as "an open metaphor". He felt that "Eraserhead" "sets up the obsessions that would follow through his career", adding his belief that the film's surrealism enhanced the understanding of the director's later films. In an article for "The Daily Telegraph", film-maker Marc Evans praised both the sound design and Lynch's ability "to make the ordinary seem so odd", considering the film an inspiration on his own work. A review of the film in the same newspaper compared "Eraserhead" to the works of Irish playwright Samuel Beckett, describing it as a chaotic parody of family life. Manohla Dargis, writing for "The New York Times", called the film "less a straight story than a surrealistic assemblage". Dargis felt that the film's imagery evoked the paintings of Francis Bacon and the Georges Franju 1949 documentary "Blood of the Beasts". "Film Threat" Phil Hall called "Eraserhead" Lynch's best film, believing that the director's subsequent output failed to live up to it. Hall highlighted the film's soundtrack and Nance's "Chaplinesque" physical comedy as the film's stand-out elements. Legacy. In 2004, "Eraserhead" was selected for preservation in the National Film Registry by the United States Library of Congress. Selection for the Registry is based on a film being deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". "Eraserhead" was one of the subjects featured in the 2005 documentary "", which charted the rise of the midnight movie phenomenon in the late 1960s and 70s; Lynch took part in the documentary through a series of interviews. The production covers six films which are credited as creating and popularizing the genre; also included are "Night of the Living Dead", "El Topo", "Pink Flamingos", "The Harder They Come", and "The Rocky Horror Picture Show". In 2010, the Online Film Critics Society compiled a list of the 100 best directorial débuts, listing what they felt were the best first-time feature films by noted directors. "Eraserhead" placed second in the poll, behind Orson Welles' 1941 "Citizen Kane". Lynch collaborated with most of the cast and crew of "Eraserhead" again on later films. Frederick Elmes served as cinematographer on "Blue Velvet", 1988's "The Cowboy and the Frenchman", and 1990's "Wild at Heart". Alan Splet provided sound design for "The Elephant Man", "Dune", and "Blue Velvet". Jack Fisk directed episodes of Lynch's 1992 television series "On the Air" and worked as a production designer on 1999's "The Straight Story" and 2001's "Mulholland Drive". Coulson and Nance appeared in "Twin Peaks", and made further appearances in "Dune", "Blue Velvet", "Wild at Heart", and 1997's "Lost Highway". Following the release of "Eraserhead", Lynch attempted to find funding for his next project, "Ronnie Rocket", a film "about electricity and a three-foot guy with red hair". Lynch met film producer Stuart Cornfeld during this time. Cornfeld had enjoyed "Eraserhead" and was interested in producing "Ronnie Rocket"; he worked for Mel Brooks and Brooksfilms at the time, and when the two realized that "Ronnie Rocket" was unlikely to find sufficient financing, Lynch asked to see some already-written scripts to consider for his next project. Cornfeld found four scripts that he felt would interest Lynch; on hearing the title of "The Elephant Man", the director decided to make it his second film. While working on "The Elephant Man", Lynch met American director Stanley Kubrick, who revealed to Lynch that "Eraserhead" was his favorite film. "Eraserhead" also served as an influence on Kubrick's 1980 film "The Shining"; Kubrick reportedly screened the film for the cast and crew to "put them in the mood" that he wanted the film to achieve. "Eraserhead" is also credited with influencing the 1990 Japanese cyberpunk film "", the experimental 1990 horror film "Begotten", and Darren Aronofsky's 1998 directorial debut "Pi". Swiss surrealist H. R. Giger cited "Eraserhead" as "one of the greatest films had ever seen", and said that it came closer to realizing his vision than even his own films. According to Giger, Lynch declined to collaborate with him on "Dune" because he felt Giger had "stolen his ideas".
1164615	Marjorie Main (February 24, 1890 – April 10, 1975) was an American character actress, mainly at MGM, perhaps best known for her role as "Ma Kettle" in a series of ten "Ma and Pa Kettle" movies. Early life. Born Mary Tomlinson in Acton, Indiana, Main attended Franklin College in Franklin, Indiana, and adopted a stage name to avoid embarrassing her father, Samuel J. Tomlinson (married to Jennie L. McGaughey), who was a minister. She worked in vaudeville on the Chautauqua and Orpheum Circuits, and debuted on Broadway in 1916. Her first film was "A House Divided" in 1931. Career. Main began playing upper class dowagers, but was ultimately typecast in abrasive, domineering, salty roles, for which her distinct voice was well suited. She repeated her stage role in "Dead End" in the 1937 film version, and was subsequently cast repeatedly as the mother of gangsters. She again transferred a strong stage performance, as a dude ranch operator in "The Women", to film in 1939.
1105441	Michael David Spivak (born 1940) is an American mathematician specializing in differential geometry, an expositor of mathematics, and the founder of Publish-or-Perish Press. He is the author of the five-volume "A Comprehensive Introduction to Differential Geometry". He received a Ph.D. from Princeton University under the supervision of John Milnor in 1964. He was born in Queens, New York. His book "Calculus" takes a rigorous and theoretical approach to introductory calculus. It is used in calculus courses, particularly those with a pure mathematics emphasis, at many universities. Spivak has also written "The Joy of TeX: A Gourmet Guide to Typesetting With the AMS-TeX Macro Package" and "The Hitchhiker's Guide to Calculus". The famous book "Morse Theory", by John Milnor, was based on lecture notes by Spivak and Robert Wells. Spivak's book "Calculus on Manifolds" is also rather infamous as being one of the most difficult undergraduate mathematics textbooks. Spivak has lectured on elementary physics. His most recent book, "Physics for Mathematicians: Mechanics I", which contains the material that these lectures stemmed from and more, was published on December 6, 2010. In each of his books Spivak has hidden references to yellow pigs, an idea he apparently came up with at a bar while drinking with David C. Kelly.
1054392	Tea with Mussolini is a 1999 Anglo-Italian semi-autobiographical film directed by Franco Zeffirelli, scripted by John Mortimer, telling the story of young Italian boy Luca's upbringing by a circle of British and American women, before and during World War II. Plot. The film begins in Florence, Italy in 1935, where a group of cultured expatriate English women — called by the Italians ""the Scorpioni"" — meet for tea every afternoon. Young Luca (Charlie Lucas) is the illegitimate son of an Italian businessman (Massimo Ghini) who shows little interest in his son's upbringing; the boy's mother, a dressmaker, has recently died. Mary Wallace (Joan Plowright), who works as the man's secretary, steps in to care for him, turning to her Scorpioni friends – including eccentric would-be artist Arabella (Judi Dench) – for support. Together, they teach Luca many lessons about life and especially the arts. Elsa Morganthal (Cher), a brash rich young American widow whom Scorpioni matron Lady Hester Random (Maggie Smith) barely tolerates, sets up a financial trust for Luca when she learns of the death of his mother, whom she was fond of and to whom Elsa still owed money for her dressmaking services. One day, when the ladies are in a restaurant for afternoon tea, it is vandalised by Fascists, reflecting the increasingly uncertain position of the expatriate community. Lady Hester, widow of Britain's former ambassador to Italy, retains an admiring faith in Benito Mussolini (Claudio Spadaro), and takes it upon herself to visit him, receiving his insincere assurances of their safety, and proudly recounting her "tea with Mussolini". But the political situation continues to deteriorate and the Scorpioni find their status and liberties diminishing. Luca's father decides that Italy's future is with Germany rather than Britain and sends Luca to an Austrian boarding school.
582298	Rinke Khanna (born Rinkle Khanna on 27 July 1977) is an Indian actress. She is the daughter of late actor Rajesh Khanna and Dimple Kapadia and is the sister of Twinkle Khanna and sister-in-law of actor Akshay Kumar. She made her film debut with "Pyaar Mein Kabhi Kabhi" (1999), changing her screen name from Rinkle to Rinke. In "Mujhe Kucch Kehna Hai" (2001), she played a supporting role. She starred in the 2002 film "Chameli". Filmography. 'Pyaar Mein Kabhi Kabhi" (1999)
583668	Vishwavidhaata is a 1997 Hindi movie directed by Farogh Siddique starring Jackie Shroff, Ayesha Jhulka, Sharad Kapoor, Pooja Batra, Arjun and Ashish Vidyarthi. The film is shot in India and Sharjah. It is a remake of a Tamil movie "Pudhiya Mugam", written by Revathi and Suresh Menon. The music of the movie has been composed by A. R. Rahman. Plot. Jay Verma (Sharad Kapoor) lives in Bombay. He is an honest, unemployed youth who cannot arrange for his mothers treatment. He happens to meet underworld goons looking for such frustrated people and they force Jay into the world of terrorism. R.B the uncrowned king of terrorrism, orders Jay to be killed when he revolts. Jay flees to Sharjah and undergoes plastic surgery to begin a new life. He returns to India as Ajay Kahnna (Jackie Shroff), meets his ex-lover Radha (Ayesha Jhulka) and marries her. They have a baby boy, Ravi Khanna. Ravis parents want him to become a police officer to do away with traitors, but they themselves end up becoming a target instead. Soundtrack. All songs were composed by A. R. Rahman. He reused the songs of the original film Pudhiya Mugam with a new song "Humdum Pyaara Pyaara" added. The lyrics were written by P. K. Mishra and Mehboob for Humdum Pyaara Pyaara.
1266451	Dorothy Burgess (March 4, 1907 – August 20, 1961) was a stage and motion picture actress from Los Angeles. Family, education. She was a niece of Fay Bainter. On her father's side she was related to George Montgomery of Montgomery and Stone. Her grandfather was Henry A. Burgess, Sr. He came to Los Angeles in 1893, establishing a business at Terminal Island. His home was at 637 West 41st Place. He was born in England. Her dad was H.A. (Burgie) Burgess, a pioneer air transport executive. For a decade he was an assistant to Harris M. (Pop) Hanshue, who founded Western Air Express (Western Airlines), and was its first president. Burgess studied drawing, painting, and sculpture at Mrs. Dow's School in Briarcliff Manor, New York. Her talent in the three artistic disciplines was evident in the creative objects which decorated her Hollywood apartment. Burgess and her mother, Grace, resided in a home in Malibu, California, in 1932. Stage actress. Burgess made her stage debut in a "walk-on" role in support of her mother's sister, Bainter. She first came to light as a specialty dancer in "The Music Box Revue". Burgess played a 17-year-old in the comedy, "The Adorable Liar", which was staged at the 49th Street Theater in August 1926. It was her first appearance in New York City. Burgess was "heralded as a combination of Eleonora Duse, Maude Adams, Helen Hayes, Janauschek, Katharine Cornell, and, possibly, Mrs. Fiske." A reviewer commented that she proved an "authentic success", especially considering the material she was given.
581743	Ek Hasina Thi (Devnagari: एक हसीना थी, English: "There Was A Beautiful Woman") is a 2004 Indian psychological thriller film noir by Sriram Raghavan, produced by Ram Gopal Varma, and starring Urmila Matondkar and Saif Ali Khan in the lead roles. The screenplay was by Sriram Raghavan and Pooja Ladha Surti. The film received rave reviews upon release. Plot bares resemblance to the 1985 novel If Tomorrow Comes by American author Sidney Sheldon. Plot. Karan is a rich, suave businessman. But he can also be very possessive of Sarika. His temper can flare at slightest pretext. After Karan involves Sarika in looking after a suitcase full of illegal firearms belonging to his friend, a hitman, she is arrested for having links with the underworld and is remanded to judicial custody. Karan claims innocence to her and sends her a defense attorney to fight her case. The attorney advises her to confess the crime, arguing that there is no proof exonerating her. After being convinced that the judge will give her a light sentence and might even set her free for co-operation, Sarika complies. But, the judge sentences her to seven years hard labour without parole. Sarika then realizes that Karan is an associate to the underworld and that he had her framed to keep police eyes away from him. This realization is soon followed by the death of her father, the ongoing ordeal of prison life and hatred towards Karan. She beats up an abusive inmate Gomati. An elder inmate Pramila (Pratima Kazmi), who has contacts outside the prison, decides to help her. She receives a complete change; she hacks off her long hair. Sarika changes from inside and outside. ACP Malti Vaidya (Seema Biswas) sets out to find Sarika after she escapes prison. She first confronts Mathur, killing him after learning Karan's whereabouts. She is angered to see Karan enjoying his life with a new girl. With the news of Mathur's mysterious death, Karan becomes a suspect. Karan soon learns that Sarika has escaped but is not able to put two and two together. Sarika learns that Karan is working for a businessman (Abhay Bhargava), who has many illegal operations going under his garb. After she kills the businessman's brother, Karan gets trapped as he was the last man to see the person alive. Karan is shocked at the development but chalks it to the work of rival gang. He believes that somebody is their mole. Meanwhile, Sarika pretends to run into him. She pretends to have sympathy for him. Seeing that she still has not seen through his game, Karan decides to play with her for some time. Karan confronts a man whom he suspects to be a traitor, but he believes that somebody else could have sneaked after Karan went out. Before the man can say anything else, Karan kills him, too. Sarika watches amused as Karan gets entangled in a cat-and-mouse game. She steals money from Karan's boss, for which Karan is again made a patsy. However, Karan soon realizes the plot. After he confronts and assaults her, she shocks him by telling him that she has burnt the money. Karan takes her to his boss and makes her confess at gunpoint. But she feigns ignorance and claims that Karan made her say so. As Karan is attacked by his boss's goons, he breaks into a fight. Just then, the ACP enters the scene with the police. In a shootout, the ACP succeeds in killing Karan's boss. The gang is either killed or apprehended. While the ACP herself gets shot, Karan succeeds in escaping. His success is short-lived: Sarika holds him at gunpoint and makes him drive to a secluded spot. After knocking him out, she chains him in a cavern infested with rats. As Karan regains consciousness, Sarika tells him how she used to be scared of rats. Karan is baffled at her talk, but she leaves him in the cavern, with light from a flashlight pointing towards him. Karan screams, but nobody hears as he is in a secluded place. Soon the flashlight goes out and Karan loses strength. The rats attack and kill him brutally (shown by dimming of lights and screams). Later Sarika is shown giving the bag of money, which she had not burnt after all, to an injured ACP Vaidya. She states that she has exacted her revenge, hinting that the ACP knew of Sarika's plans. The film ends with Sarika's name being called and she comes out of the prison gates. Awards. Along with other technical nominations, "Ek Hasina Thi" won the Best Screenplay and Best Editing at the Star Screen and Zee Cine award ceremonies, respectively. Matondkar received nominations for Best Actress, including Filmfare Awards, Star Screen Awards and Zee Cine. Khan received nominations for Best Villain at the Star Screen and Zee Cine Awards. Box office. "Ek Hasina Thi" opened well in multiplexes and become the number one movie of the week it was released. In the second week it slipped, facing tough competition from "Khakee" and other movies. By the time, the film could not sustain at the box office and started fading. Filmmakers felt that the title "Ek Hasina Thi" gave the wrong impression to viewers as they were expecting an out-and-out romantic venture. Nevertheless the film did good business on the account of its budget and helped Ram Gopal Verma to churn out several other medium budgeted movies from his production house 'Factory'.
1184210	Mariah Carey (born March 27, 1969 or 1970) is an American singer, songwriter, record producer, actress, and philanthropist. Under the guidance of Columbia Records executive Tommy Mottola, Carey released her self-titled debut studio album "Mariah Carey" in 1990; it went multi-platinum and spawned four consecutive number one singles on the U.S. "Billboard" Hot 100 chart. Following her marriage to Mottola in 1993 and success with hit records "Emotions" (1991), "Music Box" (1993), and "Merry Christmas" (1994), Carey was established as Columbia's highest-selling act. "Daydream" (1995) made music history when its second single "One Sweet Day", a duet with Boyz II Men, spent a record sixteen weeks on top of the "Billboard" Hot 100, and remains the longest-running number-one song in U.S. chart history. During the recording of the album, Carey began to deviate from her R&B and pop beginnings and slowly traversed into hip hop. This musical change became evident with the release of "Butterfly" (1997), at which time Carey had separated from Mottola. Carey left Columbia in 2000, and signed a $100 million recording contract with Virgin Records. Before the release of her first feature film "Glitter" (2001), she suffered a physical and emotional breakdown and was hospitalized for severe exhaustion. Following the film's poor reception, she was bought out of her recording contract for $50 million, which led to a decline in her career. She signed a multi-million dollar contract deal with Island Records in 2002, and after an unsuccessful period, returned to the top of music charts with "The Emancipation of Mimi" (2005). Its second single "We Belong Together" became her most successful single of the 2000s, and was later named "Song of the Decade" by "Billboard". Carey once again ventured into film with a well-received supporting role in "Precious" (2009); she was awarded the "Breakthrough Performance Award" at the Palm Springs International Film Festival, and Black Reel and NAACP Image Award nominations. In a career spanning over two decades, Carey has sold more than 200 million records worldwide, making her one of the best-selling music artists of all time. In 1998, she was honored as the world's best-selling recording artist of the 1990s at the World Music Awards. Carey was also named the best-selling female artist of the millennium in 2000. According to the Recording Industry Association of America, she is the third best-selling female artist in the United States, with 63.5 million certified albums. With the release of "Touch My Body" (2008), Carey gained her eighteenth number one single in the United States, more than any other solo artist. In 2012, Carey was ranked second on VH1's list of the "100 Greatest Women in Music". Aside from her commercial accomplishments, Carey has won five Grammy Awards, 17 World Music Awards, 11 American Music Awards, and 31 Billboard Music Awards. Referred to as the "songbird supreme" by the "Guinness World Records", she is famed for her five-octave vocal range, power, melismatic style and signature use of the whistle register. Life and career. 1970–87: Early life and struggles. Mariah Carey was born on Long Island, in Huntington, New York. Her father, Alfred Roy, was of African American and Venezuelan (including Afro-Venezuelan) descent, while her mother, Patricia (née Hickey), is of white Irish descent. The last name Carey was the product of a name-change by her Venezuelan grandfather, Francisco Nuñez, after emigrating to New York. Patricia's father had died while she was young; however, she inherited his passion for music. She developed a career as an occasional opera singer and vocal coach, and met Alfred in 1960. As he began earning a living as an aeronautical engineer, the couple wed later that year, and moved into a small suburb in New York. After the pair's elopement, Patricia's family disowned her, due to marrying a man of color. Carey later explained that growing up, she felt a notion of neglect from her maternal family, a mark that affected her greatly: "So later I was like, 'Well, where does this leave me? Am I a bad person?' You know. It's still not that common to be a multi-racial person, but I'm happy with the combination of things that I am." During the interval of years in between Carey's older sister Alison and the singer's birth, the Carey family experienced personal struggles within the community due to their ethnicity. Carey's name was derived from the song "They Call the Wind Mariah", originally from the 1951 Broadway musical "Paint Your Wagon." When Carey was three years old, her parents divorced due to the increasingly strenuous nature of their marriage. After their separation, Alison moved in with her father, while the other two children remained with their mother. As the years passed, Carey would grow apart from her father, and would later stop seeing him altogether. By the age of four, Carey recalled that she had begun to sneak the radio under her covers at night, and just sing from her heart, and try and find peace within the music. During elementary school, she would excel in subjects that she enjoyed, such as literature, art and music, while not finding interest in other subjects. After several years of financial struggles, Patricia earned enough money to move her family into a stable and more affluent sector in New York. Carey had begun writing poems and adding melodies to them, thus starting as a singer-songwriter while attending Harborfields High School in Greenlawn, New York. Even from a young age, Carey excelled in her music, and demonstrated usage of the whistle register, though only beginning to master and control it through her training with her mother. Though introducing her daughter to the world of classical opera, Patricia never pressured Carey to pursue a career in the genre, as she never seemed interested in that world of music. Carey recalled that she kept her singer-songwriter works a secret and noted that Patricia had "never been a pushy mom. She never said, 'Give it more of an operatic feel'. I respect opera like crazy, but it didn't influence me." While a high school student, Carey developed a relationship with Gavin Christopher, with whom she shared musical aspirations. The songwriting duo needed an assistant who could play the keyboard: "We called someone and he couldn't come, so by accident we stumbled upon Ben . Ben came to the studio, and he really couldn't play the keyboards very well - he was really more of a drummer - but after that day, we kept in touch, and we sort of clicked as writers." Carey and Christopher began writing and composing songs in the basement of his father's store during Carey's senior year. After composing their first song together, "Here We Go Round Again", which Carey described as having a Motown-vibe, they continued writing material for a full-length demo. She began living in a one bedroom studio in Manhattan, which she shared with four other female students. During this time, Carey worked as a waitress for various restaurants, usually getting fired after two-week intervals. While requiring work to pay for her rent, Carey's mind and effort still remained with her musical ambitions, as she continued working late into the night with Margulies, in hopes of completing a demo that could be passed on to record executives. After completing her four song demo tape, Carey attempted to pass it to music labels, but was met with failure each time. Shortly thereafter, she was introduced to rising pop singer Brenda K. Starr. 1988–92: Recording debut and career beginnings. As Carey's friendship with Starr grew, so did her interest in helping Carey succeed in the industry. On a Friday night in December 1988, Carey accompanied Starr to a record executives gala, where she handed her demo tape to Tommy Mottola, head of Columbia Records, who listened to it on his way back home. After the first two songs, he became so enamored at the sound and quality of Carey's voice that he turned around and returned to the event, only to find that she had left. In what has been widely described by critics as a modern day Cinderella-like tale, after searching for Carey for two weeks, and eventually contacting her through Starr's management, he immediately signed her and began mapping out her debut into mainstream music. While she maintained that she wanted to continue working with Margulies, Mottola enlisted top producers of the time, including Ric Wake, Narada Michael Walden and Rhett Lawrence. Mottola and the staff at Columbia had planned to market Carey as the main female pop artist on their roster, competing with the likes of Whitney Houston and Madonna, who were signed to Arista and Sire Records respectively. After the completion of her debut album, titled "Mariah Carey", Columbia spent an upward of $1 million to promote it. Though opening with weak sales, the album eventually reached the top of the "Billboard" 200, after Carey's exposure at the 33rd annual Grammy Awards. "Mariah Carey" stayed atop the charts for eleven consecutive weeks, and she won the Best New Artist, and Best Female Pop Vocal Performance awards for her single "Vision of Love". The album yielded an additional three number one singles on the "Billboard" Hot 100, following the four-week number-one run of "Vision of Love". Carey became the first artist since The Jackson 5 to have their first four singles reach number one. "Mariah Carey" finished as the best-selling album in the United States in 1991, while totaling sales of over 15 million copies. Carey began recording her second studio album, eventually titled "Emotions", in 1991. The album, as Carey described it, paid homage to Motown soul music, as she felt the need to pay tribute to the type of music and genre that truly influenced her as a struggling child. For the project, Carey worked with Walter Afanasieff, who only had a small role on her debut, as well as Clivillés and Cole, from the dance group C+C Music Factory. However, Carey's relationship with Margulies deteriorated over a contract Carey had signed prior to her signing with Columbia, agreeing to split not only the songwriting royalties from the songs, but half of her earnings as well. However, when the time came to write music for "Emotions," Sony officials made it clear he would only be paid the fair amount given to co-writers on an album. Subsequently, Margulies filed a lawsuit against Sony which ultimately led to their parting of ways. On September 17, 1991, "Emotions" was released around the world, and was accepted by critics as a more mature album than its predecessor. While praised for Carey's improved songwriting, production and new sound, the album was criticized for its material, which many felt was noticeably weaker than her debut. Though the album managed sales of over eight million copies globally, "Emotions" failed to reach the commercial and critical heights of its predecessor. As they had done after the release of her debut, critics again questioned whether Carey would embark on a world tour in promotion for her material. Although Carey explained that due to her stage fright, and the general strenuous nature of her songs, a tour sounded very daunting, speculation grew that Carey was a "studio worm", and that she wasn't capable of producing the perfect pitch and 5-octave vocal range for which she was known. In hopes of putting any claims of her being a manufactured artist to rest, Carey and Walter Afanasieff decided to book an appearance on MTV Unplugged, a television program aired by MTV. The show's purpose was to present name artists, and feature them "unplugged" or stripped of studio equipment. While Carey felt strongly of her more soulful and powerful songs, it was decided that her most popular content to that point would be included. Days prior to the show's taping, Carey and Afanasieff thought of adding a cover version of an older song, in order to provide something different and unexpected. They chose "I'll Be There", a song made popular by The Jackson 5 in 1970, rehearsing it few times before the night of the show. On March 16, 1992, Carey recorded a seven-piece set-list at Kaufman Astoria Studios in Queens, New York. The revue was met with critical acclaim, leading to it being aired more than three times as often as an average episode would. The revue's success tempted Sony officials to use it as some form of an album. Sony decided to release it as an EP, selling for a reduced price due to its shorter length. The EP proved to be a success, contrary to critics and speculations that Carey was just a studio artist, and was given a triple-Platinum certification by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), and managed Gold and Platinum certifications in several European markets. 1993–96: First marriage, "Music Box" and "Daydream". During early 1993, Carey began working on her third studio album, "Music Box". After "Emotions" failed to achieve the commercial heights of her debut album, Carey and Columbia came to the agreement that the next album would contain a more pop influenced sound, in order to appeal to a wider audience. During Carey's writing sessions, she began working mostly with Afanasieff, with whom she co-wrote and produced most of "Music Box". During the album's recording, Carey and Mottola became romantically involved. They wed in a lavish ceremony on June 5, 1993, with several high-profile guests including Barbra Streisand, Billy Joel, Gloria Estefan and Ozzy Osbourne. On August 31, "Music Box" was released around the world, debuting at number-one on the "Billboard" 200. The album was met with mixed reception from music critics; while many praised the album's pop influence and strong content, others felt that Carey made less usage of her acclaimed vocal range. Ron Wynn from AllMusic described Carey's different form of singing on the album: "It was wise for Carey to display other elements of her approach, but sometimes excessive spirit is preferable to an absence of passion." The album's second single, "Hero", would eventually come to be one of Carey's most popular and inspirational songs of her career. The song became Carey's eighth chart topper in the United States, and began expanding Carey's popularity throughout Europe. With the release of the album's third single, Carey achieved several career milestones. Her cover of Badfinger's "Without You" became her first number one single in Germany, Sweden, and the United Kingdom. "Music Box" spent prolonged periods at number one on the album charts of several countries, and eventually became one of the best-selling albums of all time, with worldwide sales of over 32 million copies. After declining to tour for her past two albums, Carey agreed to embark on a short stateside string of concerts, titled the Music Box Tour. Spanning only six dates across North America, the short but successful tour was a large step for Carey, who dreaded the hassle of touring. Following "Music Box", Carey took a relatively large period of time away from the public eye, and began working on an unknown project throughout 1994. The project was kept very secretive until "Billboard" announced on their October issue that Carey would release a holiday album later that year. In late 1994, Carey recorded a duet with Luther Vandross; a cover of Lionel Richie and Diana Ross's "Endless Love". By that point, Columbia felt Carey had already established herself as a pop singer, and vocalist, but wanted to try and feature her as more of an entertainer. Through the release of "Merry Christmas", Columbia hoped that audiences would buy Carey's material solely for her name and reputation, and squash fears of her being a typical pop singer. The album was released on November 1, 1994, on the same day that the album's first single, "All I Want for Christmas Is You", was released. The album eventually became the best-selling Christmas album of all time, with global sales reaching over 15 million copies. Additionally, "All I Want for Christmas Is You" was critically lauded, and is considered "one of the few worthy modern additions to the holiday canon." "Rolling Stone" described it as a "holiday standard", and ranked it fourth on its Greatest Rock and Roll Christmas Songs list. Commercially, it became the best-selling holiday ringtone of all time, and the best-selling single by a non-Asian artist in Japan, selling over 2.1 million units (both ringtone and digital download). By the end of the holiday season of 1994, Carey and Afanasieff had already begun writing material for her next studio album, which would be released in the fall of the following year. Released on October 3, 1995, "Daydream" combined the pop sensibilities of "Music Box" with downbeat R&B and hip hop influences. The album's second single, "One Sweet Day" was inspired by the death of David Cole, as well as her sister Alison, who had contracted AIDS. The song remained atop the Hot 100 for a 16 weeks, and became the longest running number one song in history. "Daydream" became her biggest-selling album in the United States, and became her second album to be certified Diamond by the RIAA, following "Music Box". The album again was the best-seller by an international artist in Japan, shipping over 2.2 million copies, and eventually reaching global sales of over 25 million units. Critically, the album was heralded as Carey's best to date; "The New York Times" named it one of 1995's best albums, and wrote, "best cuts bring R&B candy-making to a new peak of textural refinement [...] Carey's songwriting has taken a leap forward and become more relaxed, sexier and less reliant on thudding clichés." Carey once again opted to embark on a short world tour titled Daydream World Tour. It had seven dates, three in Japan and four throughout Europe. When tickets went on sale, Carey set records when all 150,000 tickets for her three shows at Japan's largest stadium, Tokyo Dome, sold out in under three hours, breaking the previous record held by The Rolling Stones. Due to the album's success, Carey won two awards at the American Music Awards for her solo efforts: Favorite Pop/Rock Female Artist and Favorite Soul/R&B Female Artist. "Daydream" and its singles were respectively nominated in six categories at the 38th Grammy Awards. Carey, along with Boyz II Men, opened the event with a performance of "One Sweet Day". However, Carey did not receive any award, prompting her to comment "What can you do? I will never be disappointed again. After I sat through the whole show and didn't win once, I can handle anything." In 1995, due to "Daydream"s enormous Japanese sales, "Billboard" declared Carey the "Overseas Artist of the Year" in Japan. 1997–2000: New image and independence, "Butterfly" and "Rainbow". After the release of "Daydream" and the success that followed, Carey began focusing on her personal life, which was a constant struggle at the time. Carey's relationship with Mottola began to deteriorate, due to their growing creative differences in terms of her albums, as well as his controlling nature. With each following album, and her continual established fame and popularity, Carey began to take more initiative and control with her music, and started infusing more genres into her work. During mid-1997, Carey was well underway, writing and recording material for her next album, "Butterfly" (1997). She sought to work with other producers and writers other than Afanasieff, such as Sean Combs, Kamaal Fareed, Missy Elliott and Jean Claude Oliver and Samuel Barnes from Trackmasters. During the album's recording, Carey and Mottola separated, with Carey citing it as her way of achieving freedom, and a new lease on life. Aside from the album's different approach, critics took notice of Carey's altered style of singing, which she described as breathy vocals. Her new-found style of singing was met with mixed reception; some critics felt is was a sign of maturity, that she did not feel the need to always show off her upper range, while others felt it was a sign of her weakening and waning voice. The album's lead single, "Honey", and its accompanying music video, introduced a more overtly sexual image than Carey had ever demonstrated, and furthered reports of her freedom from Mottola. Carey stated that "Butterfly" marked the point when she attained full creative control over her music. However, she added, "I don't think that it's that much of a departure from what I've done in the past [...] It's not like I went psycho and thought I would be a rapper. Personally, this album is about doing whatever the hell I wanted to do." Growing creative differences with producer Afanasieff continued, and eventually ended their working relationship, after collaborating on most of Carey's material. Reviews for "Butterfly" were generally positive: "Rolling Stone" wrote, "It's not as if Carey has totally dispensed with her old saccharine, Houston-style balladry [...] but the predominant mood of 'Butterfly' is one of coolly erotic reverie. [... Except "Outside" the album sounds] very 1997. [...] Carey has spread her wings and she's ready to fly." Allmusic editor Stephen Thomas Erlewine described Carey's vocals as "sultrier and more controlled than ever", and heralded "Butterfly" as one of her "best records and illustrates that Carey continues to improve and refine her music, which makes her a rarity among her '90s peers.'" The album was a commercial success, although not to the degree of her previous three albums. Toward the turn of the millennium, Carey began developing other projects, many of which she wasn't able to during her marriage. On April 14, 1998, Carey partook in the VH1 Divas benefit concert, where she sang alongside Aretha Franklin, Celine Dion, Shania Twain, Gloria Estefan and Carole King. Carey had begun developing a film project "All That Glitters", later re-titled to simply "Glitter", and intended her songwriting to other projects, such as "Men in Black" (1997) and "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" (2000). After "Glitter" fell into developmental hell, Carey postponed the project, and began writing material for a new album. The executives at Sony Music, the parent company of Carey's label Columbia, wanted her to prepare a greatest hits collection in time for the commercially favorable holiday season. However, they disagreed as to what content and singles should constitute the album. Sony wanted to release an album that featured her number one singles in the United States, and her international chart toppers on the European versions, void of any new material, while Carey felt that a compilation album should reflect on her most personal songs, not just her most commercial. She felt that not including any new material would result in cheating her fans, therefore including four new songs that she had recorded. While compromised, Carey often expressed distaste towards the album's song selection, expressing her disappointment in the omission of her "favorite songs". The album titled, "#1's" (1998), featured a duet with Whitney Houston, "When You Believe", and was included on the soundtrack for "The Prince of Egypt" (1998). During the development of "All That Glitters", Carey had been introduced to DreamWorks producer Jeffrey Katzenberg, who asked her if she would record the song "When You Believe" for the soundtrack to the animated film "The Prince of Egypt". In an interview with "Ebony", Houston described working with Carey, as well as their growing friendship: "Mariah and I got along very great. We had never talked and never sang together before. We just had a chance for camaraderie, singer-to-singer, artist-to-artist, that kind of thing. We just laughed and talked and laughed and talked and sang in between that ... It's good to know that two ladies of soul and music can still be friends." "#1's" became a phenomenon in Japan, selling over one million copies in its opening week, and placing as the only international artist to accomplish this feat. When describing Carey's popularity in Japan throughout the 1990s, author Chris Nickson compared it to Beatlemania in the 1960s. The album sold over 3.25 million copies in Japan after only the first three months, and holds the record as the best-selling album by a non-Asian artist, while amassing global sales of over 17 million copies. During the spring of 1999, Carey began working on the final album of her record contract with Sony, her ex-husband's label. During this time, Carey's strained relationship with Sony affected her work with writing partner Afanasieff, who had worked extensively with Carey throughout the first half of her career. She felt Mottola was trying to separate her from Afanasieff, in hopes of keeping their relationship permanently strained. Due to the pressure and the awkward relationship Carey had now developed with Sony, she completed the album in a period of three months in the summer of 1999, quicker than any of her other albums. The album, titled "Rainbow" (1999), found Carey once again working with a new array of music producers and songwriters, such as Jay-Z and DJ Clue?. Carey also wrote two ballads with David Foster and Diane Warren, whom she seemingly used to replace Afanasieff. "Rainbow" was released on November 2, 1999, to the highest first week sales of her career at the time, however debuting at number two on the "Billboard" 200. Throughout early-2000, Carey's troubled relationship with Columbia grew, as they halted promotion after the album's first two singles. They felt "Rainbow" didn't have any strong single to be released, whereas Carey wanted a ballad regarding personal and inner strength released. The difference in opinion led to a very public feud, as Carey began posting messages on her webpage in early and mid-2000, telling fans inside information on the dispute, as well as instructing them to request "Can't Take That Away (Mariah's Theme)" on radio stations. One of the messages Carey left on her page read: "Basically, a lot of you know the political situation in my professional career is not positive. It's been really, really hard. I don't even know if this message is going to get to you because I don't know if they want you to hear this. I'm getting a lot of negative feedback from certain corporate people. But I am not willing to give up." Fearing to lose their label's highest seller, Sony chose to release the song. Carey, initially content with the agreement, soon found out that the song had only been given a very limited and low-promotion release, which made charting extremely difficult and unlikely. Critical reception of "Rainbow" was generally enthusiastic, with the "Sunday Herald" saying that the album "sees her impressively tottering between soul ballads and collaborations with R&B heavyweights like Snoop Doggy Dogg and Usher [...] It's a polished collection of pop-soul." "Vibe" magazine expressed similar sentiments, writing, "She pulls out all stops [...] "Rainbow" will garner even more adoration". Though a commercial success, "Rainbow" became Carey's lowest selling album to that point in her career. 2001–04: "Glitter", "Charmbracelet"; personal and professional struggles. After she received "Billboard"'s Artist of the Decade Award and the World Music Award for Best-Selling Female Artist of the Millennium, Carey parted from Columbia and signed a $100 million five-album recording contract with Virgin Records (EMI Records). Carey was given full conceptual and creative control over the project. She opted to record an album partly mixed with 1980s influenced disco and other similar genres, in order to go hand-in-hand with the film's setting. She often stated that Columbia had regarded her as a commodity, with her separation from Mottola exacerbating her relations with label executives. Just a few months later, in July 2001, it was widely reported that Carey had suffered a physical and emotional breakdown. She had left messages on her website that complained of being overworked, and her relationship with the Latin icon Luis Miguel ended. In an interview the following year, she said, "I was with people who didn't really know me and I had no personal assistant. I'd do interviews all day long and get two hours of sleep a night, if that." Due to the pressure from the media, her heavy work schedule and the split from Miguel, Carey began posting a series of disturbing messages on her official website, and displayed erratic behavior on several live promotional outings. On July 19, 2001, Carey made a surprise appearance on the MTV program "Total Request Live" (TRL). As the show's host Carson Daly began taping following a commercial break, Carey came out pushing an ice cream cart while wearing a large men's shirt, and began a striptease, in which she shed her shirt to reveal a tight yellow and green ensemble. While she later revealed that Daly was aware of her presence in the building prior to her appearance, Carey's appearance on TRL garnered strong media attention. Only days later, Carey began posting irregular voice notes and messages on her official website: "I'm trying to understand things in life right now and so I really don't feel that I should be doing music right now. What I'd like to do is just a take a little break or at least get one night of sleep without someone popping up about a video. All I really want is just be me and that's what I should have done in the first place ... I don't say this much but guess what, I don't take care of myself." Following the quick removal of the messages, Berger commented that Carey had been "obviously exhausted and not thinking clearly" when she posted the letters. On July 26, she was suddenly hospitalized, citing "extreme exhaustion" and a "physical and emotional breakdown". Carey was inducted at an un-disclosed hospital in Connecticut, and remained hospitalized and under doctor's care for two weeks, followed by an extended absence from the public. Following the heavy media coverage surrounding Carey's publicized breakdown and hospitalization, Virgin Records and 20th Century Fox delayed the release of both "Glitter", as well as its soundtrack of the same name. Consequently, critics suggested that in delaying "Glitter", hype for the project would have largely subsided, and would possibly hurt both ticket and album sales. When discussing the project's weak commercial reaction, Carey blamed both her frame of mind during the time of its release, its postponement, as well as the soundtrack having been released on September 11. Critics panned "Glitter", as well as its accompanying soundtrack; both were unsuccessful commercially. The accompanying soundtrack album, "Glitter", became Carey's lowest-selling album to that point. The "St. Louis Post-Dispatch" dismissed it as "an absolute mess that'll go down as an annoying blemish on a career that, while not always critically heralded, was at least nearly consistently successful." Following the negative cloud that was ensuing Carey's personal life at the time, as well as the project's poor reception, her $100 million five-album record deal with Virgin Records (EMI Records) was bought out for $50 million. Soon after, Carey flew to Capri, Italy for a period of five months, in which she began writing material for her new album, stemming from all the personal experiences she had endured throughout the past year. Carey later said that her time at Virgin was "a complete and total stress-fest [...] I made a total snap decision which was based on money and I never make decisions based on money. I learned a big lesson from that." Later that year, she signed a contract with Island Records, valued at more than $24 million, and launched the record label MonarC. To add further to Carey's emotional burdens, her father, with whom she had little contact since childhood, died of cancer that year. In 2002, Carey was cast in the independent film, "WiseGirls", alongside Mira Sorvino and Melora Walters, who co-starred as waitresses at a mobster-operated restaurant. It premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, and received generally negative critical response, though Carey's portrayal of the character was praised; Roger Friedman of Fox News referred to her as "a Thelma Ritter for the new millennium", and wrote, "Her line delivery is sharp and she manages to get the right laughs". Later that year, Carey performed the American national anthem to rave reviews at the Super Bowl XXXVI at the Louisiana Superdome in New Orleans, Louisiana. Towards the end of 2002, Carey released her next studio album "Charmbracelet", which she said marked "a new lease on life" for her. Though released in the wake of "Glitter" and Carey's return to the music scene, sales of "Charmbracelet" were moderate and the quality of Carey's vocals came under criticism. Joan Anderson from "The Boston Globe" declared the album "the worst of her career, and revealed a voice is no longer capable of either gravity-defying gymnastics or soft coos", while Allmusic editor Stephen Thomas Erlewine expressed similar sentiments and wrote, "What is a greater problem is that Mariah's voice is shot, sounding in tatters throughout the record. She can no longer coo or softly croon nor can she perform her trademark gravity-defying vocal runs." In an attempt to "relaunch" her career following the poor reception to "Glitter", as well as her breakdown, Carey announced a world tour in April 2003. Lasting over eight months, the , became her most extensive tour to date, spanning sixty-nine shows around the world. Throughout the United States, the shows were done in smaller theaters, and something more Broadway-influenced, "It's much more intimate so you'll feel like you had an experience. You experience a night with me." However, while smaller productions were booked throughout the tour's stateside leg, Carey performed at stadiums in Asia and Europe, performing for a crowd of over 35,000 in Manila, 50,000 in Malaysia, and to over 70,000 people in China. In the United Kingdom, it became Carey's first tour to feature shows outside of London, booking arena stops in Glasgow, Birmingham and Manchester. Charmbracelet World Tour: An Intimate Evening with Mariah Carey garnered generally positive reviews from music critics and concert goers, with many complimenting the quality of Carey's live vocals, as well as the production as a whole. 2005–07: Return to prominence with "The Emancipation of Mimi". Throughout 2004, Carey focused on composing material for her tenth studio album, "The Emancipation of Mimi" (2005). The album found Carey working predominantly with Jermaine Dupri, as well as Bryan-Michael Cox, Manuel Seal, The Neptunes and Kanye West. The album debuted atop the charts in several countries, and was warmly accepted by critics. Caroline Sullivan of "The Guardian" defined it as "cool, focused and urban [... some of] the first Mariah Carey tunes in years which I wouldn't have to be paid to listen to again", while "USA Today"s Elysa Gardner wrote, "The ballads and midtempo numbers that truly reflect the renewed confidence of a songbird who has taken her shots and kept on flying." The album's second single, "We Belong Together", became a "career re-defining" song for Carey, at a point when many critics had considered her career over. music critics heralded the song as her "return to form", as well as the "return of The Voice", while many felt it would revive "faith" in Carey's potential as a balladeer. "We Belong Together" broke several records in the United States and became Carey's sixteenth chart topper on the "Billboard" Hot 100. After staying at number one for fourteen non-consecutive weeks, the song became the second longest running number one song in US chart history, behind Carey's 1996 collaboration with Boyz II Men, "One Sweet Day". "Billboard" listed it as the "song of the decade" and the ninth most popular song of all time. Besides its chart success, the song broke several airplay records, and according to Nielsen BDS, gathered both the largest one-day and one-week audiences in history. During the week of September 25, 2005, Carey set another record, becoming the first female to occupy the first two spots atop the Hot 100, as "We Belong Together" remained at number one, and her next single, "Shake It Off" moved into the number two spot (Ashanti had topped the chart in 2002 while being a "featured" singer on the number two single). On the Billboard Hot 100 Year-end Chart of 2005, the song was declared the number one song, a career first for Carey. "Billboard" listed "We Belong Together" ninth on The Billboard Hot 100 All-Time Top Songs and was declared the most popular song of the 2000s decade by "Billboard". The album earned ten Grammy Award nominations in 2006–07: eight in 2006 for the original release (the most received by Carey in a single year), and two in 2007 for the "Ultra Platinum Edition" (from which "Don't Forget About Us" became her seventeenth number-one hit). In 2006 Carey won Best Contemporary R&B Album for "The Emancipation of Mimi", as well as Best Female R&B Vocal Performance and Best R&B Song for "We Belong Together". "The Emancipation of Mimi" was the best-selling album in the United States in 2005, with nearly five million units sold. It was the first album by a solo female artist to become the year's best-selling album since Alanis Morissette's "Jagged Little Pill" in 1996. At the end of 2005, the IFPI reported that "The Emancipation of Mimi" had sold more than 7.7 million copies globally, and was the second best-selling album of the year after Coldplay's "X&Y". It was the best-selling album worldwide by a solo and female artist. To date, "The Emancipation of Mimi" has sold over 12 million copies worldwide. At the 48th Grammy Awards, Carey performed a medley of "We Belong Together" and "Fly Like a Bird". The performance earned the night's only standing ovation, prompting Teri Hatcher, who was presenting the next award, to exclaim, "It's like we've all just been saved!" In support of the album, Carey embarked on her first headlining tour in three years, named The Adventures of Mimi: The Voice, The Hits, The Tour after a "Carey-centric fan's" music diary. The tour spanned forty stops, with thirty-two in the United States and Canada, two in Africa, and six in Japan. Tickets for the tour went on sale on June 2, 2006, with prices ranging from $95 to $150 USD, and featured Carey's long-time friend Randy Jackson as the tour's musical director. Carey's performances consisted of old songs from her catalog as well as her newest singles. The tour received warm critical reaction from music critics and concert goers, many of which celebrated the quality of Carey's live vocals, as well as the show as a whole. However, critics felt the show's excesses, such as Carey's often costume changes and pre-filmed clips, were unnecessary distractions. The tour proved successful, with Carey playing to over 60,000 fans in the two stops in Tunis alone. Midway through the tour, Carey booked a two-night concert engagement in Hong Kong, which was scheduled to take place following her Japanese shows. The shows were cancelled, however, after tickets went on sale. According to Carey's then-manager Benny Medina, the cancellation was due to the concert promoter's refusal to pay Carey her agreed-upon compensation. The promoter instead blamed poor ticket sales (allegedly, only 4,000 tickets had sold) and "Carey's outrageous demands". Carey ultimately sued the promoter, claiming $1 million in damages due to the concert's abrupt cancellation. "The Adventures of Mimi" DVD was released in November 2007 internationally and December 2007 in the US. 2008–10: "E=MC²", second marriage, "Memoirs of an Imperfect Angel", and acting breakthrough. By spring 2007, Carey had begun to work on her eleventh studio album, "E=MC²", in a private villa in Anguilla. When asked about the album title's meaning, Carey said "Einstein's theory? Physics? "Me?" Hello! ...Of course I'm poking fun." She characterized it as ""Emancipation of Mimi" to the second power", and said that she was "freer" on this album than any other. Although "E=MC²" was well received by most critics, some of them criticized it for being very similar to the formula used on "The Emancipation of Mimi". Two weeks before the album's release, "Touch My Body", the record's lead single, reached the top position on the "Billboard" Hot 100, becoming Carey's eighteenth number one and making her the solo artist with the most number one singles in United States history, pushing her past Elvis Presley into second place according to the magazine's revised methodology. Carey is second only to The Beatles, who have twenty number-one singles. Additionally, it gave Carey her 79th week atop the Hot 100, tying her with Presley as the artist with the most weeks at number one in the "Billboard" chart history." Carey has also had notable success on international charts, though not to the same degree as in the United States. Thus far, she has had two number-one singles in Britain, two in Australia, and six in Canada. Her highest-charting single in Japan peaked at number two. "E=MC²" debuted at number one on the "Billboard" 200 with 463,000 copies sold, the biggest opening week sales of her career. With six number one albums, Carey is tied with Britney Spears and Janet Jackson in the United States for the third most number one albums for a female artist, behind Madonna with seven and Barbra Streisand's nine chart toppers. In 2008, "Billboard" magazine ranked her at number six on the "Billboard Hot 100 All-Time Top Artists", making Carey the second most successful female artist in the history of the "Billboard" Hot 100 chart. Carey and actor/comedian Nick Cannon met while they shot her music video for her second single, "Bye Bye", on an island off the coast of Antigua. On April 30, 2008, Carey married Cannon at her private estate on Windermere Island in The Bahamas. Carey had a cameo appearance in Adam Sandler's 2008 film "You Don't Mess with the Zohan", playing herself. Since the album's release, Carey had planned to embark on an extensive tour in support of "E=MC²", describing its production and direction in several interviews. When asked to describe the tour's theme, Carey explained "I'm thinking elaborate. I like elaborate. We only do substantial. That's what my jeweler says. I haven't gotten the looks in mind just yet, but we're going to figure it out soon enough." Despite continued plans for a tour, and announcements made on "The X Factor" in the United Kingdom in November, the tour was suddenly cancelled in early December 2008. Heavy speculation suggested that Carey had become pregnant, and had abandoned plans for a tour as a result. Many reports were made claiming that Carey had been visiting a famed gynecologist's office in Los Angeles. Additionally, Carey's newly slimmed figure began to change, as she stopped her exercise routines and gained weight. Carey did not address those allegations until two years later on October 28, 2010, which was the same day she announced her new pregnancy; she admitted that she had indeed been pregnant during that time period, and suffered a miscarriage. For that reason, she cancelled the tour, and lost the child only two months later. On January 20, 2009, Carey performed "Hero" at the Neighborhood Inaugural Ball after Barack Obama was sworn as the first African-American president of the United States. On July 7, 2009, Carey – alongside Trey Lorenz – performed her version of The Jackson 5 song "I'll Be There" at the memorial service for Michael Jackson. At the sight of Jackson's casket, Carey's voice, overwhelmed with emotion, cracked in the opening line of the song. She later apologized on "The Today Show", explaining how she did her best effort despite the circumstances. In 2009, she appeared as a social worker in "Precious", the movie adaptation of the 1996 novel "Push" by Sapphire. The film garnered mostly positive reviews from critics, as had Carey's performance. "Variety" described her acting as "pitch-perfect". "Precious" won awards at both the Sundance Film Festival and the Toronto Film Festival, receiving top honors there. In January 2010, Carey won the Breakthrough Actress Performance Award for her role in "Precious" at the Palm Springs International Film Festival. On September 25, 2009, Carey's twelfth studio album, "Memoirs of an Imperfect Angel", was released. Reception for the album was generally positive, but mixed in certain aspects; Stephen Thomas Erlewine of Allmusic called it "her most interesting album in a decade", while Jon Caramanica from "The New York Times" criticized Carey's vocal performances, decrying her overuse of her softer vocal registers at the expense of her more powerful lower and upper registers. Commercially, the album debuted at number three on the "Billboard" 200, and became the lowest-selling studio album of her career. The album's lead single, "Obsessed", became her 40th entry on the "Billboard" Hot 100 and her highest debut on the chart since "My All" in 1998. The song debuted at number eleven and peaked at number seven on the chart, and became Carey's 27th US top-ten hit, tying her with Elton John and Janet Jackson as the fifth most top-ten hits. Within hours after the song's release, various outlets speculated that its target was rapper Eminem, in response to his song "Bagpipes from Baghdad", in which he taunted Carey's husband, Nick Cannon. According to MTV, Carey alludes to drug problems in "Obsessed", which Eminem opened up about on his sixth studio album, "Relapse". The album's follow-up single, a cover of Foreigner's "I Want to Know What Love Is", failed to achieve any significant chart success in the United States, or much throughout Europe, but managed to break airplay records in Brazil. The song spent 27 weeks atop the Brasil Hot 100 Airplay, making it the longest running song in the chart's history. On December 31, 2009, Carey embarked her seventh concert tour, Angels Advocate Tour, which visited the United States and Canada. Though stateside, the tour spanned few international dates, such as in Brazil and Singapore, where Carey played to over 100,000 spectators. The tour ended on September 26, 2010. On January 30, 2010, it was announced that Carey would release a remix album of "Memoirs of an Imperfect Angel"; titled "Angels Advocate" (an R&B remix album featuring a collection of newly remixed duets with some of Carey's favorite artists). The album was slated for a March 30, 2010 release, but was eventually cancelled. 2010–11: "Merry Christmas II You" and motherhood. Following the cancellation of "Angels Advocate", it was announced that Carey would return to the studio to start work on her thirteenth studio album. It was later revealed that it would be her second Christmas album, the follow-up to "Merry Christmas" (1994), which became the best-selling Holiday album of all time. Longtime collaborators for the project included Jermaine Dupri, Johntá Austin, Bryan-Michael Cox and Randy Jackson, as well as new collaborators such as Marc Shaiman. Dupri stated that a single would be released alongside the album before the year's end. During a press conference in Seoul, South Korea in August 2010, Island Def Jam executive Matt Voss announced that the album would be out on November 2, 2010, and would include six new songs as well as a remix of her classic hit "All I Want for Christmas Is You". The album, titled "Merry Christmas II You", was released alongside an accompanying DVD, and was sent to retailers on November 2, 2010. "Merry Christmas II You" debuted at number four on the "Billboard" 200 with sales of 56,000 copies, surpassing the opening week sales of Carey's previous holiday album of 45,000 copies 16 years prior. It also became Carey's 16th top ten album in the United States. The album debuted at number one on the R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart, making it only the second Christmas album to top this chart. In May 2010, Carey dropped out of her planned appearance in "For Colored Girls", the film adaptation of the play "For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow Is Enuf", citing medical reasons. After much media speculation, Carey confirmed on October 28, 2010, that she and Cannon were expecting their first child. In February 2011, Carey announced that she had officially began writing new material for her upcoming fourteenth studio album. That same month, it wan announced that Carey recorded a duet with Tony Bennett for his "Duets II" album, titled "When Do The Bells Ring For Me". In March 2011, it was announced that Carey wrote a song titled "Save the Day" for her upcoming fourteenth studio album. On April 30, 2011, the couple's third wedding anniversary, Carey gave birth to fraternal twins via C-section. The twins were named Monroe, after Marilyn Monroe, and Moroccan Scott, after the location in which Cannon proposed to Carey in her Moroccan-style room; Scott is Cannon's middle name and his grandmother's maiden name. In an interview, Carey stated that her pregnancy was very difficult; she suffered from high blood pressure, pre-eclampsia, and gestational diabetes. Before giving birth to the twins, she also said: "I was afraid I wasn't going to be able to walk properly again, It was a huge strain. I would sit and then someone would have to help me up. I couldn't go even to the loo by myself. It was just like, 'What are we doing? Are we going to the hospital?' No, I'm gonna stick it out, I'm gonna keep taking this medicine to keep these babies in... I made it to 35 weeks and then the doctor said it wasn't safe anymore". Following the birth of their children, Cannon revealed during an interview with "Billboard" that Carey had already begun working on a new record and that she's been inspired by her first two albums. Cannon said "She's been working away, and we have a studio in the crib, and pregnancy has totally inspired her on so many different levels. You're definitely gonna see some new phenomenal music from Mariah" and assured Carey would plan on releasing a brand new single by the end of 2011. When asked if an album will be released by the end of 2011 as well, Cannon said that he was not sure. However, a late 2011 release for a single never materialized. In October 2011, Carey announced that she re-recorded her song "All I Want for Christmas Is You" with Justin Bieber as a duet for his Christmas album, "Under the Mistletoe". On November 5, 2011, Carey and Bieber filmed a music video for the duet at the Macy's in New York City. On October 21, 2011, a pre-taped interview with Barbara Walters aired on ABC's 20/20, during the interview Carey and Cannon allowed the cameras to photograph/film twins Moroccan and Monroe for the first time. In November 2011, Carey was included in the remix to the mixtape single "Warning" by Uncle Murda; the remix also features 50 Cent and Young Jeezy. That same month, Carey announced that she and John Legend collaborated on a duet, "When Christmas Comes", which was originally part of Carey's 2010 holiday album "Merry Christmas II You". 2012–present: "American Idol", return to film, and "The Art of Letting Go". On March 1, 2012, Carey took the stage at New York City's Gotham Hall for a show, where only 50 tickets were made available to the public, as part of the Plot Your Escape concert series. This was Carey's first time performing since giving birth to twins Moroccan and Monroe. The 40-minute set included many of Carey's hits such as "Always Be My Baby", "Hero", "Obsessed", "We Belong Together", and a cover of Michael Jackson's "I'll Be There". In May 2012, Carey announced that she wrote and recorded a new song titled "Mesmerized" for Lee Daniels's 2012 movie "The Paperboy". On June 14, 2012, Carey performed a three song set at a special fundraiser for United States President Barack Obama held in New York's Plaza Hotel. The three songs she performed were "Hero", "We Belong Together", and a new song titled "Bring It On Home", which Carey wrote specifically for the event to show her support behind Obama's re-election campaign. In June 2012, Carey posted a photo that wrote, "MC Summer 2012", after the photo was posted, many fans speculated that new music will be released soon. On July 21, 2012, Carey announced that a song titled "Triumphant (Get 'Em)" featuring Rick Ross and Meek Mill, would be released in early August 2012 as the lead single from her fourteenth studio album. The song was co-written and co-produced by Carey, Jermaine Dupri, and Bryan-Michael Cox. In February 2013, Walt Disney Studios revealed that Mariah Carey recorded a song called "Almost Home" co-written and co-produced by Carey herself along with Simone Porter, Justin Gray, Lindsey Ray, Tor Erik Hermansen, and Mikkel Eriksen (a.k.a. Stargate) for the soundtrack of the film "Oz the Great and Powerful". The video was directed by photographer David LaChapelle. Carey joined the judging panel of "American Idol" for season twelve. Her salary is reported to be $18 million. Carey appeared in Lee Daniels' 2013 film "The Butler", about a White House butler who served eight American Presidents over the course of three decades. In an interview, Carey spoke about her upcoming fourteenth studio album: "I'm collaborating with a lot of my favorite people but the main thing is I'm not trying to follow any particular trend, I want it to be well received. I want to stay true to myself and the music that I love and make the fans happy". Some of the people that Carey worked with on the album include: DJ Clue?, Randy Jackson, Q-Tip, R. Kelly, David Morales, Loris Holland, Stevie J, James Fauntleroy II, Ray Angry, Walter Afanasieff, Jermaine Dupri, Bryan-Michael Cox, James "Big Jim" Wright, Hit-Boy, The-Dream, Da Brat, and Rodney Jerkins. Carey gave "Billboard" an exclusive interview in their March 9, 2013 issue, stating: "It's about making sure I have tons of good music, because at the end of the day that's the most important thing...There are a lot more raw ballads than people might expect...there are also uptempo and signature-type songs that represent [my different facets as an artist...Wherever we go with this project, I've tried to keep the soul and heart in it"; In late March 2013, Carey stated that she "has more than enough songs" but "she's in the process of finishing things and mixing and all that". The lead single, "#Beautiful" featuring singer Miguel, was released on May 6, 2013. It has so far peaked at number 15 on the Hot 100 chart. The music video was premiered on "American Idol" on May 9, 2013. Carey taped a performance of "Beautiful" along with a medley of her greatest hits on May 15, 2013; the taping aired on the "American Idol" finale the following day. She also performed on "Good Morning America's" Summer Concert Series on May 24, 2013. Walmart revealed the album's title as "The Art of Letting Go", which was later confirmed by Carey's longtime friend and producer Jermaine Dupri. On August 2, 2013, it was announced that Carey will guest voice-star as a redneck character on the adult animated series "American Dad!", the episode slated to air in the show's upcoming 10th season. Artistry. Musical style. Love is the subject of the majority of Carey's lyrics, although she has written about themes such as racism, social alienation, death, world hunger, and spirituality. She has said that much of her work is partly autobiographical, but "Time" magazine wrote: "If only Mariah Carey's music had the drama of her life. Her songs are often sugary and artificial—NutraSweet soul. But her life has passion and conflict," applying it to the first stages of her career. He commented that as her albums progressed, so too her songwriting and music blossomed into more mature and meaningful material. Jim Faber of the "New York Daily News", made similar comments, "For Carey, vocalizing is all about the performance, not the emotions that inspired it. Singing, to her, represents a physical challenge, not an emotional unburdening." While reviewing "Music Box", Stephen Holden from "Rolling Stone" commented that Carey sang with "sustained passion", while "Entertainment Weekly"s Arion Berger wrote that during some vocal moments, Carey becomes "too overwhelmed to put her passion into words." In 2001, "The Village Voice" wrote in regards to what they considered Carey's "centerless ballads", writing, "Carey's Strawberry Shortcake soul still provides the template with which teen-pop cuties draw curlicues around those centerless ballads [...] it's largely because of that the new R&B demands a greater range of emotional expression, smarter poetry, more from-the-gut testifying, and less [sic unnecessary notes than the squeaky-clean and just plain squeaky Mariah era. Nowadays it's the Christina Aguileras and Jessica Simpsons who awkwardly oversing, while the women with roof-raising lung power keep it in check when tune or lyric demands." Carey's output makes use of electronic instruments such as drum machines, keyboards and synthesizers. Many of her songs contain piano-driven melodies, as she was given piano lessons when she was six years old. Carey said that she cannot read sheet music and prefers to collaborate with a pianist when composing her material, but feels that it is easier to experiment with faster and less conventional melodies and chord progressions using this technique. While Carey learned to play the piano at a young age, and incorporates several ranges of production and instrumentation into her music, she has maintained that her voice has always been her most important asset: "My voice is my instrument; it always has been." Carey began commissioning remixes of her material early in her career and helped to spearhead the practice of recording entirely new vocals for remixes. Disc jockey David Morales has collaborated with Carey on several occasions, starting with "Dreamlover" (1993), which popularized the tradition of remixing R&B songs into house records, and which "Slant" magazine named one of the greatest dance songs of all time. From "Fantasy" (1995) onward, Carey enlisted both hip-hop and house producers to re-structure her album compositions. "Entertainment Weekly" included two remixes of "Fantasy" on a list of Carey's greatest recordings compiled in 2005: a National Dance Music Award-winning remix produced by Morales, and a Sean Combs production featuring rapper Ol' Dirty Bastard. The latter has been credited with popularizing the R&B/hip-hop collaboration trend that has continued into the 2000s, through artists such as Ashanti and Beyoncé. Combs said that Carey "knows the importance of mixes, so you feel like you're with an artist who appreciates your work—an artist who wants to come up with something with you". Voice and timbre. Mariah Carey possesses a five-octave vocal range, and has the ability to reach notes beyond the 7th octave. Referred to as the "songbird supreme" by the "Guinness World Records", she was ranked first in a 2003 MTV and "Blender" magazine countdown of the 22 Greatest Voices in Music, as voted by fans and readers in an online poll. Carey said of the poll, "What it really means is voice of the MTV generation. Of course, it's an enormous compliment, but I don't feel that way about myself." She also placed second in "Cove" magazine's list of "The 100 Outstanding Pop Vocalists". Regarding her voice type, Carey said that she is an alto, though several critics have described her as a soprano. However, within contemporary forms of music, singers are classified by the style of music they sing. There is currently no authoritative voice classification system within non-classical music. Attempts have been made to adopt classical voice type terms to other forms of singing, but they are controversial, because the development of classic voice categorizations were made with the understanding that the singer would amplify his or her voice with their natural resonators, without a microphone. Jon Pareles of "The New York Times" describes Carey's lower register as a "rich, husky alto" that extends to "dog-whistle high notes". Carey also possesses a "whisper register". In an interview with the singer, Ron Givens of "Entertainment Weekly" described it this way, "In one brief swoop, she seems to squeal and roar at the same time: whisper register." Additionally, towards the late 1990s, Carey began incorporating breathy vocals into her material. Tim Levell from the BBC News described her vocals as "sultry close-to-the-mic breathiness", while "USA Today"s Elysa Gardner wrote "it's impossible to deny the impact her vocal style, a florid blend of breathy riffing and resonant belting, has had on today's young pop and R&B stars." Her sense of pitch is admired and Jon Pareles adds "she can linger over sensual turns, growl with playful confidence, syncopate like a scat singer... with startlingly exact pitch." Influences. Carey has said that from childhood she has been influenced by Billie Holiday, Sarah Vaughan, and R&B and soul musicians such as Gladys Knight and Aretha Franklin. Her music contains strong influences of gospel music, and she credits The Clark Sisters, Shirley Caesar and Edwin Hawkins as the most influential in her early years. When Carey incorporated hip-hop into her sound, speculation arose that she was making an attempt to take advantage of the genre's popularity, but she told "Newsweek", "People just don't understand. I grew up with this music". She has expressed appreciation for rappers such as The Sugarhill Gang, Eric B. & Rakim, the Wu-Tang Clan, The Notorious B.I.G. and Mobb Deep, with whom she collaborated on the single "The Roof (Back in Time)" (1998). Carey was heavily influenced by Minnie Riperton, and began experimenting with the whistle register due to her original practice of the range. During Carey's career, her vocal and musical style, along with her level of success, has been compared to Whitney Houston, who she has also cited as an influence, and Celine Dion. Carey and her peers, according to Garry Mulholland, are "the princesses of wails [...] virtuoso vocalists who blend chart-oriented pop with mature MOR torch song". Author and writer Lucy O'Brien attributed the comeback of Barbra Streisand's "old-fashioned showgirl" to Carey and Dion, and described them and Houston as "groomed, airbrushed and overblown to perfection". Carey's musical transition and use of more revealing clothing during the late 1990s were, in part, initiated to distance herself from this image, and she subsequently said that most of her early work was "schmaltzy MOR". Some have noted that unlike Houston and Dion, Carey co-writes and produces her own songs. Legacy. Carey's vocal style and singing ability have significantly impacted popular and contemporary music. As music critic G. Brown from "The Denver Post" wrote, "For better or worse, Mariah Carey's five-octave range and melismatic style have influenced a generation of pop singers." According to "Rolling Stone", "Her mastery of melisma, the fluttering strings of notes that decorate songs like "Vision of Love", inspired the entire "American Idol" vocal school, for better or worse, and virtually every other female R&B singer since the Nineties." Jody Rosen of "Slate Magazine" wrote of Carey's influence in modern music, calling her the most influential vocal stylist of the last two decades, the person who made rococo melismatic singing. Rosen further exemplified Carey's influence by drawing parallel with American Idol, which to her, "often played out as a clash of melisma-mad Mariah wannabes. And, today, nearly 20 years after Carey's debut, major labels continue to bet the farm on young stars such as the winner of Britain's X Factor show, Leona Lewis, with her Generation Next gloss on Mariah's big voice and big hair." Sean Daly of "St. Petersburg Times" wrote, "Depending on how you feel about public humiliation, the best/worst parts of American Idol are the audition shows, which normally break down into three distinct parts:(1) The Talented Kids.(2) The Weird Kids.(3) The Mariahs." Daly further commented, "The Mariahs are the hardest ones to watch, mainly because most of them think they're reeeaaally good. The poor, disillusioned hopefuls plant themselves in front of judges Simon Cowell, Paula Abdul and Randy Jackson – then proceed to stretch, break and mutilate every note of a song, often Mariah's Hero, a tune that has ruined more throats than smoker's cough." "New York Magazine's" editor Roger Deckker said that in regarding Carey as an influential artist in music, he commented that "Whitney Houston may have introduced melisma (the vocally acrobatic style of lending a word an extra syllable or twenty) to the charts, but it was Mariah—with her jaw-dropping range—who made it into America's default sound." Deckker also added that "Every time you turn on American Idol, you are watching her children". Despite her vocal prowess, Carey's vocal technique particularly with the use of melisma and belting, has been subject to public scrutiny mainly because of young singers such as from talent shows have been overly imitating her singing technique in which critics commented "Mariah Carey is, without a doubt, the worst thing to happen to amateur singing since the karaoke machine". As Professor Katherine L. Meizel noted in her book, "The Mediation of Identity Politics in American Idol", "Carey's influence not just stops in the emulation of melisma or her singing amongst the wannabe's, it's also her persona, her diva, her stardom which inspires them... a pre-fame conic look." Carey's influence is notable in numerous hip hop, pop and R&B artists, including Britney Spears, Beyoncé, Christina Aguilera, Jessica Simpson, Rihanna, Kelly Clarkson, Nelly Furtado, Leona Lewis, Brandy Norwood, Pink, Mary J. Blige, and Missy Elliott, among others. Knowles credits Carey's singing and her song "Vision of Love" as influencing her to begin practicing vocal "runs" as a child, as well as helping her pursue a career as a musician. Rihanna has stated that Carey is one of her major influences and idol. Christina Aguilera has cited in her early stages of her career that Carey is a big influence in her singing career and being one of her idols. According to Pier Dominguez, author of "Christina Aguilera: a star is made : the unauthorized biography", Aguilera has stated how she loved listening to Whitney Houston, but it was Carey who had the biggest influence on her vocal styling. Carey's carefully choreographed image of a grown woman struck a chord on Aguilera. Her influence on Aguilera also grew from the fact that both were of mixed heritage. Philip Brasor, editor of "The Japan Times", expressed how Carey's vocal and melismatic style even influenced Asian singers. He wrote regarding Japanese superstar Utada Hikaru, "Utada sang what she heard, from the diaphragm and with her own take on the kind of melisma that became de rigueur in American pop after the ascendance of Mariah Carey." In an article called "Out With Mariah's Melisma, In With Kesha's Kick", writer David Browne of "The New York Times" discusses how the ubiquitous melisma pop style has suddenly fallen down from pop culture in favor of young stars who uses the now ubiquitous autotune in which the first mentioned was heavily popularized into mainstream pop culture with the likes of Mariah Carey and Whitney Houston. Browne had commented "But beginning two decades ago, melisma overtook pop in a way it hadn't before. Mariah Carey's debut hit from 1990, "Vision of Love," followed two years later by Whitney Houston's version of "I Will Always Love You," set the bar insanely high for notes stretched louder, longer and knottier than most pop fans had ever heard." Browne further added "A subsequent generation of singers, including Ms. Aguilera, Jennifer Hudson and Beyoncé, built their careers around melisma. (Men like Brian McKnight and Tyrese also indulged in it, but women tended to dominate the form.)" Carey is also credited for introducing R&B and hip hop into mainstream pop culture, and for popularizing rap as a featuring act through her post-1995 songs. Sasha Frere-Jones, editor of "The New Yorker" commented, "It became standard for R&B/hip-hop stars like Missy Elliott and Beyoncé, to combine melodies with rapped verses. And young white pop stars—including Britney Spears, Jessica Simpson, Christina Aguilera, and 'N Sync—have spent much of the past ten years making pop music that is unmistakably R&B." Moreover Jones concludes that "[Carey's] idea of pairing a female songbird with the leading male MCs of hip-hop changed R&B and, eventually, all of pop. Although now anyone is free to use this idea, the success of "The Emancipation of Mimi" suggests that it still belongs to Carey." Judnick Mayard, writer of "The Fader", wrote that in regarding of R&B and hip hop collaboration, "The champion of this movement is Mariah Carey." Mayard also expressed that "To this day ODB and Mariah may still be the best and most random hip hop collaboration of all time", citing that due to the record "Fantasy", "R&B and Hip Hop were the best of step siblings." Kelfa Sanneh of "The New York Times" wrote, "In the mid-1990s Ms. Carey pioneered a subgenre that some people call the thug-love duet. Nowadays clean-cut pop stars are expected to collaborate with roughneck rappers, but when Ms. Carey teamed up with Ol' Dirty Bastard, of the Wu-Tang Clan, for the 1995 hit "Fantasy (Remix)", it was a surprise, and a smash." Aside from her pop culture and musical influence, Carey is credited for releasing a classic Christmas song called "All I Want for Christmas Is You". In a retrospective look at Carey's career, Sasha Frere-Jones of "The New Yorker" said, the "charming" song was one of Carey's biggest accomplishments, calling it "one of the few worthy modern additions to the holiday canon". "Rolling Stone" ranked "All I Want for Christmas Is You" fourth on its Greatest Rock and Roll Christmas Songs list, calling it a "holiday standard." Following the release of her "Greatest Hits" album, Devon Powers of PopMatters has said in his review that "She has influenced countless female vocalists after her. At 32, she is already a living legend—even if she never sings another note." While reviewing a concert of Carey in Sydney, Elise Vout of "MTV Australia" wrote that "it's not amazing choreography or high production value you're going to see, it's the larger than life personality, unique voice, and legend that is Mariah Carey." Carey's business ventures include the launch of her perfumes, her clothing line, and books. She has portrayed the true nature of being a superstar, according to sociologist Naomi Hirahara, and is a classic example of the word "diva". Carey is never seen without her large entourage, whether it be award shows, performances or as guests on late night specials. Hirahara says, "her demands are sporadic, her looks are glamorous, she is hardly of her age, but she is still ruling. Nowadays people emulate the idea of being a diva, but Carey was the original one in true sense of the term." Honors and awards. Throughout Carey's career, she has collected many honors and awards, including the World Music Awards' Best Selling Female Artist of the Millennium, the Grammy's Best New Artist in 1991, "Billboard"'s Special Achievement Award for the Artist of the Decade during the 1990s. In a career spanning over 20 years, Carey has sold over 200 million albums, singles, and videos worldwide, making her one of the biggest-selling artists in music history. Carey is ranked as the best-selling female artist of the Nielsen SoundScan era, with over 52 million copies sold. Possessing a five-octave vocal range, Carey was ranked first in MTV and "Blender" magazine's 2003 countdown of the 22 Greatest Voices in Music, and was placed second in "Cove" magazine's list of "The 100 Outstanding Pop Vocalists". Aside from her voice, she has become known for her songwriting. Yahoo Music editor Jason Ankeny wrote, "She earned frequent comparison to rivals Whitney Houston and Celine Dion, but did them both one better by composing all of her own material." According to "Billboard" magazine, she was the most successful artist of the 1990s in the United States. At the 2000 World Music Awards, Carey was given a Legend Award for being the "best-selling female pop artist of the millennium", as well as the "Best-selling artist of the 90s" in the United States, after releasing a series of albums of multi-platinum status in Asia and Europe, such as "Music Box" and "Number 1's". She is also a recipient of the Chopard Diamond award in 2003, recognizing sales of over 100 million albums worldwide. Additionally, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) lists Carey as the third-best-selling female artist, with shipments of over 63 million units in the US. In Japan, Carey has the top four highest-selling albums of all time by a non-Asian artist. Carey has spent a record 79 weeks at the number-one position on "Billboard" Hot 100, becoming the artist with the most weeks at number-one in US chart history. On that same chart, she has accumulated 18 number-one singles, the most for any solo artist and places her second in the chart's history (after only The Beatles). In 1994, Carey released her holiday album "Merry Christmas" has sold over 15 million copies worldwide, and is the best-selling Christmas album of all time. It also produced the successful single "All I Want for Christmas Is You", which became the only holiday song and ringtone to reach multi-platinum status in the US. In Japan, "Number 1's" has sold over 3,250,000 copies and is the best-selling album of all time in Japan by a non-Asian artist. Her hit single "One Sweet Day", which featured Boyz II Men, spent sixteen consecutive weeks at the top of "Billboard"s Hot 100 chart in 1996, setting the record for the most weeks atop the Hot 100 chart in history. After Carey's success in Asia with "Merry Christmas", "Billboard" estimated Carey as the all-time best-selling international artist in Japan. In 2008, "Billboard" listed "We Belong Together" ninth on The Billboard Hot 100 All-Time Top Songs and second on Top Billboard Hot 100 R&B/Hip-Hop Songs. The song was also declared the most popular song of the 2000s decade by "Billboard". In 2009, Carey's cover of Foreigner's song "I Want to Know What Love Is" became the longest-running number-one song in Brazilian singles chart history, spending 27 consecutive weeks at number-one. Additionally, Carey has had three songs debut at number-one on the "Billboard" Hot 100: "Fantasy", "One Sweet Day" and "Honey", making her the artist with the most number-one debuts in the chart's 52-year history. Also, she is the first female artist to debut at number 1 in the U.S. with "Fantasy". In 2010, Carey's 13th album and second Christmas album, "Merry Christmas II You", debuted at No.1 on the R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart, making it only the second Christmas album to top that chart. On November 19, 2010, "Billboard" magazine named Carey in their "Top 50 R&B/Hip-Hop Artists of the Past 25 Years" chart at number four. In 2012, Carey was ranked second on VH1's list of the "100 Greatest Women in Music". Philanthropy and other activities. Carey is a philanthropist who has donated time and money to organizations such as the Fresh Air Fund. She became associated with the Fund in the early 1990s, and is the co-founder of a camp located in Fishkill, New York, that enables inner-city youth to embrace the arts and introduces them to career opportunities. The camp was called Camp Mariah "for her generous support and dedication to Fresh Air children", and she received a Congressional Horizon Award for her youth-related charity work. Carey also donated royalties from her hits "Hero" and "One Sweet Day" to charities. She is well-known nationally for her work with the Make-A-Wish Foundation in granting the wishes of children with life-threatening illnesses, and in November 2006 she was awarded the Foundation's Wish Idol for her "extraordinary generosity and her many wish granting achievements". Carey has volunteered for the New York City Police Athletic League and contributed to the obstetrics department of New York Presbyterian Hospital Cornell Medical Center. A percentage of the sales of "MTV Unplugged" was donated to various other charities. In 2008, Carey was named Hunger Ambassador of the World Hunger Relief Movement. In February 2010, the song, "100%", which was originally written and recorded for the film, "Precious", was used as one of the theme songs for the 2010 Winter Olympics, with all money proceeds going to Team USA. One of Carey's most high-profile benefit concert appearances was on VH1's 1998 "Divas Live" special, during which she performed alongside other female singers in support of the Save the Music Foundation. The concert was a ratings success, and Carey participated in the Divas 2000 special. In 2007, the Save the Music Foundation honored Carey at their tenth gala event for her support towards the foundation since its inception. She appeared at the "" nationally televised fundraiser in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks, and in December 2001, she performed before peacekeeping troops in Kosovo. Carey hosted the CBS television special "At Home for the Holidays", which documented real-life stories of adopted children and foster families, from the Wayback Machine on October 22, 2001. In 2005, Carey performed for Live 8 in London and at the Hurricane Katrina relief telethon "Shelter from the Storm". In August 2008, Carey and other singers recorded the charity single, "Just Stand Up" produced by Babyface and L. A. Reid, to support "Stand Up to Cancer". In March 2011, Carey's representative Cindi Berger stated that royalties for the song "Save The Day", which was written for her fourteenth studio album, will be donated to charities that create awareness to human rights issues. Berg also said that "Mariah has and continues to donate her time, money and countless hours of personal service to many organizations both here and abroad". Declining offers to appear in commercials in the United States during her early career, Carey was not involved in brand marketing initiatives until 2006, when she participated in endorsements for Intel Centrino personal computers and launched a jewelry and accessories line for teenagers, Glamorized, in American Claire's and Icing stores. During this period, as part of a partnership with Pepsi and Motorola, Carey recorded and promoted a series of exclusive ringtones, including "Time of Your Life". She signed a licensing deal with the cosmetics company Elizabeth Arden, and in 2007, she released her own fragrance, "M". In 2007, "Forbes" named her as the fifth richest woman in entertainment, with an estimated net worth of US $270 million. In November 2011, it was reported that Carey's net worth was valued at more than $500 million. On November 29, 2010, she debuted a collection on HSN, the collection range included jewelry, shoes and fragrances. In November 2011, Carey was announced as the new global ambassador for Jenny Craig, following her weight loss with the program after giving birth to fraternal twins in April. Carey claims she lost on the program.
583100	Genelia D'Souza (born 5 August 1987) is an Indian film actress, model, and host. She has appeared in South Indian cinema and Bollywood films. After gaining wide attention in a Parker Pen commercial with Amitabh Bachchan, Genelia began her acting career with "Tujhe Meri Kasam" in 2003. She was recognized for her role in "Boys" the same year, and later established herself in Telugu cinema by acting in several Telugu films during 2003–2005. Genelia received her first Filmfare Award in 2006 for her performance in the Telugu romantic film, "Bommarillu", which earned her critical acclaim. In 2008, she gave critically acclaimed performances in "Santosh Subramaniam", a Tamil remake of "Bommarillu", and the Bollywood movie "Jaane Tu... Ya Jaane Na". Having acted in several commercially successful movies in Telugu and Tamil, Genelia has established herself as one of the leading actresses of the South Indian film industry. In addition to movie acting, Genelia has hosted the television show "Big Switch", and is the brand ambassador of Fanta, Virgin Mobile India, Fastrack, LG Mobiles, Garnier Light, Margo, and Perk in India. Early life. Born in Mumbai into a Mangalorean Catholic family, Genelia was raised a Roman Catholic in the Bandra suburb of Mumbai. Her mother Jeanette D'Souza was formerly a managing director of the Pharma Multinational corporation (MNC), who left her job in 2004 to help Genelia with her career. Her father Neil D'Souza, is a senior official with Tata Consultancy Services (TCS). She also has a younger brother, Nigel D'Souza, who works with the Bombay Stock Exchange. According to Genelia, her name means "rare" or "unique", and is a portmanteau of Jeanette and Neil, her mother and father's name. She is also often informally referred to as "Geenu", her nickname. Genelia studied at the Apostolic Carmel High School in Bandra and later joined St. Andrew's College in Bandra to pursue her Bachelor's Degree of Management Studies. She completed her degree while shooting for her first film, "Tujhe Meri Kasam" in 2003 and initially thought that an MNC job would suit her. She liked sports and studies in college, and was a state level athlete, sprinter, and a national level football player.
1060823	Robert Prosky (December 13, 1930 – December 8, 2008) was an American actor. Life and career. Prosky, a Polish American, was born Robert Joseph Porzuczek in the Manayunk neighborhood of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to Helen and Joseph Porzuczek. His father was a grocer and butcher. He was raised in a working-class neighborhood and studied at the American Theatre Wing, later graduating from Temple University. He performed at Old Academy Players, a small theater in the East Falls section of Philadelphia, adjacent to Manayunk. Career. He appeared in "Thief", "Christine", "Hanky Panky", "The Natural", "Hoffa", "Broadcast News", "Things Change", "Rudy", "Mrs. Doubtfire", "Green Card", and "Dead Man Walking". In addition to appearing in movies, Prosky appeared as a regular on the television series "Hill Street Blues", "Danny" and "Veronica's Closet". He was considered for the role of Martin Crane in "Frasier" and later made a guest appearance in the show as a reclusive writer. He played Rebecca Howe's father on "Cheers". He also played Coach Hayden Fox's mentor Jake "the Snake" Connolly on a two part 1991 episode of "Coach". He also appeared as Will Darnell, the man who owned the auto repair shop where Arnie Cunningham (Keith Gordon) rebuilds the possessed car "Christine" in the film "John Carpenter's Christine" based on Stephen King's novel. Prior to his film and television career, he appeared in numerous productions at the Arena Stage in Washington, D.C., most notably as Willy Loman in "Death of a Salesman". Prosky often performed at Arena Stage with over 100 stage credits to his name at that theatre alone. He also originated the role of Shelly Levene in David Mamet's Pulitzer Prize-winning play "Glengarry Glen Ross". He was also a board member of the Cape May Stage in Cape May, New Jersey. Family. In 1960, he married Ida Hove, who survived him, along with three sons, Stefan, John and Andrew Prosky. Andrew and John Prosky are also actors. Death. Prosky died on December 8, 2008, five days short of his 78th birthday, from complications following a heart procedure. At the time of his death, he was living in the Capitol Hill neighborhood of Washington, D.C..
774864	The High Cost Of Living is a 2010 indie drama film set in Montreal, Canada, starring Zach Braff, Isabelle Blais and Aimee Lee. Written and directed by Deborah Chow and set in Montreal, the film centers on a young, pregnant woman whose world falls apart when she loses her child in a hit and run accident. The film made its debut at the Toronto International Film Festival 2010 and was released theatrically in April 2011. Plot. The story tells of a young, pregnant woman (Isabelle Blais) whose world falls apart when she loses her child in a hit and run accident. As her life unravels, Nathalie finds an unlikely protector in Henry (Zach Braff), a down and out guardian angel who has followed her thread. But Henry is not quite an angel, and she struggles to come to terms with the loss. Nathalie begins to rely on Henry, and even begin to love him. However, it becomes apparent to Nathalie that he is a drug dealer, and she accepts this but tells him he should change his ways. Later, as Nathalie and the police are trying to find the man that hit her, it is revealed to be Henry. He then goes to her telling he will turn himself in because that is all he can give her since she cannot forgive him. To prove that he will he calls the detective and leaves his number. Earlier in the movie she asked him if he would accompany her when she gives birth to her stillborn, in the end he still goes. After the OR doors shut on him, the police return his call.
589224	Dil Ek Mandir ('Heart is a Temple') is a 1963 Hindi movie directed by C. V. Sridhar. The film stars Rajendra Kumar, Meena Kumari, Raaj Kumar and Mehmood. The film's music is by Shankar Jaikishan. Almost all the songs of the film were big hits and so was the film too. The film was a remake of Tamil film, "Nenjil Ore Alayam" (1962), also directed by C. V. Sridhar. This movie was later remade in Telugu as "Manase Mandiram" (1966) starring Akkineni Nageshwara Rao, Savithri and Kongara Jaggayya and also in Kannada as "Kumkuma Rakshe" (1977) starring Rajinikanth and Manjula and Malayalam as "Hridayam Oru Kshethram" (1976) starring Madhu and Srividya. Plot. Sita (Meena Kumari) is married to Ram (Raj Kumar) who is diagnosed to have cancer. Ram is admitted to a hospital where he is to be treated by Dr. Dharmesh (Rajendra Kumar). Dr. Dharmesh is Sita's former love and both of them are very much uncomfortable to interact in front of Sita's husband. Sita suspects that Dr. Dharmesh will not be able to give her husband a fair treatment because of his love interest in her. When she mentions this to him he promises her that he will try his best to save her husband. Ram overhears this conversation and later suggests to Sita that she should get married to Dr. Dharmesh after his death. Ram is to undergo a major surgery under Dr. Dharmesh which will decide his fate. Dr. Dharmesh seized with a feeling that he can't afford to fail in this surgery as it might seem that he was biased due to Sita. He works hard for the preparation of the surgery, without proper food/sleep for a long time. Finally at the end the surgery takes place. Dr. Dharmesh comes out from the operation theater and tells Sita that the operation was successful and her husband is safe. He takes couple of steps forward and collapses. Long days of hard work for the preparation of surgery takes its toll, and he dies on the spot. Last scene shows Ram and Sita at the inauguration of a hospital built in Dr. Dharmesh's memory. Dr. Dharmesh's mother inaugurates his statue and everybody places flowers there.
565043	The Ghost Inside () is a 2005 Chinese horror film directed by Herman Yau, and starring Mainland actors, Liu Ye and Gong Beibi and Taiwanese actress Barbie Hsu. The film was produced by the China Film Group and at the time of its filming was the most expensive horror film ever made in China at US$600,000. Plot. The Ghost Inside tells the story of a young mother, Lin Xiaoyue, who flees an abusive husband, taking their young daughter with her. She rents an apartment in a new apartment block but soon regrets the move as a neighbor tells her the apartment is haunted by the spirit of a young mother who threw her daughter out of the window before jumping to her death herself. A series of strange occurrences convince Lin there really is a ghost before the spirit finally reveals herself to Lin. The ghost tells Lin she too will one day committed murder/suicide in the same fashion.
1060793	What Lies Beneath is a 2000 American supernatural horror film directed by Robert Zemeckis. It is the first film by ImageMovers. It stars Harrison Ford and Michelle Pfeiffer as a well-to-do couple who experience a strange haunting that uncovers secrets about their past.
394281	Shark Bait (The Reef in the UK, Australia and North America, "Pi's Story" in South Korea) is a 2006 computer animated film. The plot revolves around Pi and his attempt to win the heart of Cordelia while dealing with a tiger shark who is terrorizing him and the reef's inhabitants. The film was a commercial failure. It was harshly criticised for borrowing heavily from other films such as Disney/Pixar's "Finding Nemo", Dreamworks' "Shark Tale" and Walt Disney's "The Little Mermaid" (and at one point, a reference to "Star Wars" and "The Karate Kid") and, despite the amount of talented actors and comedians involved in the voiceover work, was a box office failure. Despite being an American-South Korean co-production, the movie did not receive a theatrical release in the United States, where it was released direct to DVD in 2007. A direct-to-DVD sequel, "The Reef 2: High Tide" was released in 2012. Plot. Pisces, or Pi (Freddie Prinze, Jr.), is a 5 year old orange fish who lives happily with his parents, until a fishing boat scoops them from the sea. Pi's parents manage to help him escape, but cannot escape themselves. Pi (Now 25 years old) is taken by his porpoise friends to live with his aunt Pearl (Fran Drescher) and cousin Dylan (Andy Dick) on an exotic reef. As he tries to settle himself in this new world, the sweet and well-meaning Pi makes some good friends in his new home. When he reaches adulthood Pi falls in love with Cordelia (Evan Rachel Wood), a celebrity fish who has appeared of the front cover of "National Geographic Magazine". However, Troy (Donal Logue), the meanest, toughest shark in the ocean, is not only terrorizing everyone in the reef community, but also has his eye set on Cordelia to become his mate. Pi also learns about Nerissa (Rob Schneider), a wise old hermit turtle who lives in the Old Ship Wreck and practices martial arts, leading to rumours that he is a wizard.
1052335	5x2 (also "Cinq fois deux"; ) is a 2004 French film directed by François Ozon, which uncovers the back story to the gradual disintegration of a middle class marriage by depicting five key moments in the relationship, but in reverse order. Plot. A young married couple, Gilles and Marion, sit in an office while they listen to a lawyer read out the formal terms of their separation, after which they book a hotel room together. The plot then travels backwards chronologically, with the following chapter focusing on a tense dinner party the couple hosted for Gilles’ brother and his boyfriend some time previously, at which Gilles appears to admit to infidelity, before moving back again to the point at the birth of their son, which Gilles manages to miss by several hours, leaving Marion’s parents as the only family with her in the hospital. The film then reverts to their wedding day, before ending with scenes at the Italian beach resort where, already acquaintances from work, they ran into each other by chance and first began their relationship. The individual chapters are all punctuated by romantic Italian love songs, which Ozon has said he chose for their "over-the-top sentimentality" and in order to offset the darkness of some of the scenes in the film. Ozon has also said that the backward structure of the story was in part inspired by Jane Campion’s 1986 film "Two Friends", and that it allowed for “a true, lucid reading of a couple’s story”.
1073560	The Rachel Papers is a 1989 British film written and directed by Damian Harris, and based on the novel of the same name by Martin Amis. It stars Dexter Fletcher and Ione Skye with Jonathan Pryce, James Spader, Bill Paterson, Jared Harris, Claire Skinner, and Michael Gambon in supporting roles. Plot. Nineteen year old Charles (Fletcher) is a highly sexed and precociously intelligent teenager about to attend Oxford University. Before he does he intends to use all his charm and intelligence to seduce a beautiful American girl, Rachel (Skye). Charles becomes completely besotted by Rachel, and after numerous rebuffs he eventually forges a friendship with her. Things become complicated, however, and his strategy becomes threatened. Rachel already has a boyfriend, DeForest (Spader); however, he is a control freak who does not treat her particularly well. With help from his sister Jenny, his lunatic brother-in-law Norman (Pryce) and best friend and big brother mentor Geoff (Harris), Charles eventually manages to lure Rachel away from DeForest, and his father Gordon (Paterson) is impressed with Charles' new quarry; however, as the unlikely relationship develops, Charles discovers that his seemingly "perfect" woman has numerous dislikeable habits and personality traits, just like all of the other "lesser" girls he has previously seduced. Irritated by some of Rachel's habits, Charles grows bored and is seduced by, and later sleeps with, his old flame Gloria (Skinner), ending his relationship with Rachel, who subsequently moves to New York. Charles still ends up going to Oxford University, but he does not enjoy his life there, feeling that his life is missing something following the end of his relationship with Rachel. She and Charles accidentally meet up again in a museum there and spend the whole day together, but at the end, Rachel kisses him only on the cheek, and leaves. We hear Charles in voiceover saying that he tried to remember William Blake's quotation about love being eternal, so that he could say it to Rachel, but was unable to. Charles then finally realises, all too late, that he had in fact fallen genuinely in love with Rachel while he was with her and regrets his actions, but is forced to face the reality that he has now probably lost her forever. Reception. Internationally, the film did little serious business commercially and was ranked 206 in the U.S. for the year of 1989.
1035174	Rula Lenska (born Rosa Marie Lubienski, 30 September 1947) is an English actress. Best known for her work in the United Kingdom, she is remembered in the United States for a television advert that presented her as a celebrity, even though she was not widely known in the US at the time the advert was produced (see below). She is the former wife of British actor Dennis Waterman. Early life. Lenska was born at St Neots, Cambridgeshire, England. Her father, Major Count Ludwik Maria Lubienski, had led Radio Free Europe in Poland and was the chief of the Polish military mission in Gibraltar during World War II. Her mother was Countess Elzbieta Tyszkiewicz. She has two sisters: Anna, an actress who appeared in a few films in the late 1950s and early 1960s, and Gabriela. Lenska was educated at the Ursuline Convent School in Westgate-on-Sea, Kent. Early career. Her big break was as "Little Ladies"' band member, "Q," in the British TV series "Rock Follies" (1976) and its sequel "Rock Follies of '77" the following year. By this time, she had renounced her title as a Polish countess; she has said of the decision, "In England it doesn't "count," if you'll excuse the pun."
1091075	Satyendra Nath Bose FRS ( "Shottendronath Boshū", ; 1 January 1894 – 4 February 1974) was an Indian physicist specializing in mathematical physics. He was born in Calcutta. He is best known for his work on quantum mechanics in the early 1920s, providing the foundation for Bose–Einstein statistics and the theory of the Bose–Einstein condensate. A Fellow of the Royal Society, the Government of India awarded him India's second highest civilian award, the Padma Vibhushan in 1954. The class of particles that obey Bose–Einstein statistics, bosons, was named after him by Paul Dirac. A self-taught scholar and a polyglot, he had a wide range of interests in varied fields including physics, mathematics, chemistry, biology, mineralogy, philosophy, arts, literature and music. He served on many research and development committees in independent India. Early life. Bose was born in Calcutta, British India (now Kolkata, West Bengal, India), the eldest of seven children. He was the only son, with six sisters after him. His ancestral home was in village Bara Jagulia, in the District of Nadia, about 48 kilometres from Calcutta. His schooling began at the age of five, near his home. When his family moved to Goabagan, he was admitted to the New Indian School. In the final year of school, he was admitted to the Hindu School. He passed his entrance examination (matriculation) in 1909 and stood fifth in the order of merit. He next joined the intermediate science course at the Presidency College, Calcutta, where he was taught by illustrious teachers as Jagadish Chandra Bose and Prafulla Chandra Ray. Meghnad Saha came from Dacca (Dhaka) and joined the same college two years later. P C Mahalanobis and Sisir Kumar Mitra were a few years senior to them. Satyendra Nath Bose chose mixed (applied) mathematics for his B.Sc. and passed the examinations standing first in 1913 and again stood first in the M.Sc. mixed mathematics exam in 1915. It is said that his marks in the MSc examination created a new record in the annals of the University of Calcutta, which is yet to be surpassed. After completing his MSc, Bose joined the University of Calcutta as a research scholar in 1916 and started his studies in the theory of relativity. It was an exciting era in the history of scientific progress. Quantum theory had just appeared on the horizon and important results had started pouring in. His father, Surendranath Bose, worked in the Engineering Department of the East Indian Railway Company. Satyendra Nath Bose married Ushabati at the age of 20. They had nine children. Two of them died in their early childhood. When he died in 1974, he left behind his wife, two sons, and five daughters. As a polyglot, he was well versed in several languages such as Bengali, English, French, German and Sanskrit as well as poetry of Lord Tennyson, Rabindranath Tagore and Kalidasa. He could also play the "esraj", a musical instrument similar to a violin. He was actively involved in running night schools that came to be known as the Working Men's Institute. Research career. Bose attended Hindu School in Calcutta, and later attended Presidency College, also in Calcutta, earning the highest marks at each institution while fellow student Meghnad Saha came second. He came in contact with teachers such as Jagadish Chandra Bose and Prafulla Chandra Ray who provided inspiration to aim high in life. From 1916 to 1921, he was a lecturer in the physics department of the University of Calcutta. Along with Saha, Bose prepared the first book in English based on German and French translations of original papers on Einstein's special and general relativity in 1919. In 1921, he joined as Reader of the department of Physics of the then recently founded University of Dhaka (now in Bangladesh) by the then Vice Chancellor of University of Calcutta Sir Ashutosh Mukherjee, himself a distinguished mathematician, a high court judge, and with strong interest in physics. Bose set up whole new departments, including laboratories, to teach advanced courses for M.Sc. and B.Sc. honors and taught thermodynamics as well as James Clerk Maxwell's theory of electromagnetism. Satyendra Nath Bose, along with Saha, presented several papers in theoretical physics and pure mathematics from 1918 onwards. In 1924, while working as a Reader at the Physics Department of the University of Dhaka, Bose wrote a paper deriving Planck’s quantum radiation law without any reference to classical physics by using a novel way of counting states with identical particles. This paper was seminal in creating the very important field of quantum statistics. Though not accepted at once for publication, he sent the article directly to Albert Einstein in Germany. Einstein, recognizing the importance of the paper, translated it into German himself and submitted it on Bose's behalf to the prestigious "Zeitschrift für Physik". As a result of this recognition, Bose was able to work for two years in European X-ray and crystallography laboratories, during which he worked with Louis de Broglie, Marie Curie, and Einstein. After his stay in Europe, Bose returned to Dhaka in 1926. He was made Head of the Department of Physics. He continued guiding and teaching at Dhaka University. Bose designed equipments himself for a X-ray crystallography laboratory. He set up laboratories and libraries to make the department a center of research in X-ray spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction, magnetic properties of matter, optical spectroscopy, wireless, and unified field theories. He also published an equation of state for real gases with Meghnad Saha. He was also the Dean of the Faculty of Science at Dhaka University until 1945. When the partition of India became imminent, he returned to Calcutta to take up the prestigious Khaira Chair and taught at University of Calcutta until 1956. He insisted every student to design his own equipment using local materials and local technicians. He was made professor emeritus on his retirement. He then became Vice Chancellor of Visva-Bharati University in Shanti Niketan. He returned to the University of Calcutta to continue research in nuclear physics and complete earlier works in organic chemistry. In subsequent years, he worked in applied research such as extraction of helium in hot springs of Bakreshwar. Apart from physics, he did some research in biotechnology and literature (Bengali, English). He made deep studies in chemistry, geology, zoology, anthropology, engineering and other sciences. Being a Bengali, he devoted a lot of time to promoting Bengali as a teaching language, translating scientific papers into it, and promoting the development of the region. Bose–Einstein statistics. There are three outcomes. What is the probability of producing two heads? Since the coins are distinct, there are two outcomes which produce a head and a tail. The probability of two heads is one-quarter. While presenting a lecture at the University of Dhaka on the theory of radiation and the ultraviolet catastrophe, Bose intended to show his students that the contemporary theory was inadequate, because it predicted results not in accordance with experimental results. In the process of describing this discrepancy, Bose for the first time took the position that the Maxwell–Boltzmann distribution would not be true for microscopic particles where fluctuations due to Heisenberg's uncertainty principle will be significant. Thus he stressed the probability of finding particles in the phase space, each state having volume , and discarding the distinct position and momentum of the particles. Bose adapted this lecture into a short article called "Planck's Law and the Hypothesis of Light Quanta" and sent it to Albert Einstein with the following letter: Einstein agreed with him, translated Bose's paper "Planck's Law and Hypothesis of Light Quanta" into German, and had it published in "Zeitschrift für Physik" under Bose's name, in 1924. The reason Bose's interpretation produced accurate results was that since photons are indistinguishable from each other, one cannot treat any two photons having equal energy as being two distinct identifiable photons. By analogy, if in an alternate universe coins were to behave like photons and other bosons, the probability of producing two heads would indeed be one-third (tail-head = head-tail). Bose's interpretation is now called Bose–Einstein statistics. This result derived by Bose laid the foundation of quantum statistics, as acknowledged by Einstein and Dirac. Einstein adopted the idea and extended it to atoms. This led to the prediction of the existence of phenomena which became known as Bose–Einstein condensate, a dense collection of bosons (which are particles with integer spin, named after Bose), which was demonstrated to exist by experiment in 1995. Although several Nobel Prizes were awarded for research related to the concepts of the boson, Bose–Einstein statistics and Bose–Einstein condensate—the latest being the 2001 Nobel Prize in Physics given for advancing the theory of Bose–Einstein condensates—Bose himself was not awarded the Nobel Prize. In his book "The Scientific Edge", physicist Jayant Narlikar observed: However, when asked about the omission, Bose himself said: Honours. In 1937, Rabindranath Tagore dedicated his only book on science, Visva–Parichay, to Satyendra Nath Bose. Bose was honoured with title Padma Vibhushan by the Indian Government in 1954. In 1959, he was appointed as the National Professor, the highest honour in the country for a scholar, a position he held for 15 years. In 1986, the S.N. Bose National Centre for Basic Sciences was established by an act of Parliament, Government of India, in Salt Lake, Calcutta. Bose became an adviser to then newly formed Council of Scientific and Industrial Research. He was the President of Indian Physical Society and the National Institute of Science. He was elected General President of the Indian Science Congress. He was the Vice President and then the President of Indian Statistical Institute. In 1958, he became a Fellow of the Royal Society. He was nominated as member of Rajya Sabha. Partha Ghose has stated that Later works. Bose's ideas were well received in the world of physics, and he was granted leave from the University of Dhaka to travel to Europe in 1924. He spent a year in France, where he worked with Marie Curie and met several other well-known scientists. He then spent another year abroad, working with Einstein in Berlin. Upon his return to Dhaka, he was made a professor in 1926. He did not have a doctorate, and so ordinarily he would not be qualified for the post, but Einstein recommended him. His work ranged from X-ray crystallography to grand unified theories. Together with Meghnad Saha, he published an equation of state for real gases. In addition to physics, he did some research in biochemistry and literature (Bengali, English). He studied other sciences—chemistry, geology, zoology, anthropology—and engineering in depth. Being of Bengali origin, he devoted time to promoting Bengali as a teaching language, translating scientific papers into it, and promoting the development of the region.
589232	Bewafai is a 1985 Hindi film starring Rajesh Khanna and Rajnikanth. This was the first film starring these two actors. The film was directed by R. Thyagaarrajan. Dhandayuthapani produced only four films in Hindi with Bewafai being the most successful of them. Bewafai grossed 11.95 crores at the box office in 1985. Synopsis. Bewafai was a romantic film revolving mostly around a woman named Asha (Tina Munim) who has been in love with a man named Ashok Nath (Rajesh Khanna) since her childhood. But somehow she was never able to convey her feelings for him throughout her childhood and college days. Now Ashok works as her dad's employee. She becomes very possessive about him to the point where she cannot stand the thought of another woman trying to woo him. The possessiveness becomes so strong that Asha beats up a woman named Vinny (Meenakshi Seshadri) over Ashok. She tries her best to ensure that she keeps herself aware of Ashok's whereabouts. Renu (Padmini Kolhapure) falls in love with Ashok and when this fact is known to Asha she becomes heartbroken. She comes to know that Ashok has been taking care of Renu for a long time. Asha decides to meet Renu to teach her a lesson but when she finds that Renu is a mental patient and Ashok has been nursing her, she changes her heart and begins to assist Ashok in doing service to the mentally imbalanced Renu. Their lives take an unexpected turn when an unknown person shoots Ashok and leaves him mortally wounded. The rest of the story is about whether Asha gets a chance to convey her feelings for Ashok, how Renu became a mental patient, the relation between Renu and Ashok, how Ashok solves the problem and how the mystery gets unfolded.
581777	Naqaab (English: "The Hidden Mask") is a Bollywood suspense thriller directed by the famous duo Abbas Burmawalla and Mustan Burmawalla. The film reunites Bobby Deol and Akshaye Khanna after their last film "Humraaz" which was also directed by Abbas-Mustan. Former model Urvashi Sharma makes her film debut as the leading actress of the film. The story of the film is inspired from the Hollywood movie "Dot the I". Synopsis. The story revolves around the life of Sophia (Urvashi Sharma) who lives in Goa. When she is stalked and then attacked by a rapist named Rakesh, Sophia re-locates to Dubai. Here she rents a room in a villa near Jumeirah Beach, owned by wealthy star Karan Oberoi (Bobby Deol). Six months later he proposes to her, and she accepts. Shortly before the marriage, she meets with an unemployed actor, Vicky Malhotra (Akshay Khanna), and is attracted to him, but decides to go ahead and marry Karan. At the altar, she changes her mind, ditches him and decides to move in with Vicky. But things take a turn for the worse. When Karan gets embarrassed in front of everyone for being dumped at the altar, he commits suicide, and when Sophia finds out about this, she realises it was her fault that Karan was killed. Soon enough, it is revealed that it was actually Vicky's fault Karan died, because Vicky was hired by a film director named Rohit Shroff, who decided to make a film on Karan's life, and therefore was hired to enter Sophia's life. Sophia goes mad at Vicky, and insists on meeting Rohit Shroff. Vicky calls Rohit to the building. Rohit arrives, and it turns out that Karan is actually Rohit Shroff. It is revealed that Karan was in need of money, therefore decided to make a film on Sophia's life, so he hired Vicky to enter her life and make her fall in love with him. Then he faked his suicide and that would be the ending of the film. It turns out he had hidden cameras in Sophia's home, and recorded all the intimate scenes between Vicky and her. Karan then convinces Vicky and Sophia that if they do not go along with the film, he would upload the intimate scenes of them on the internet, and turn them into porn-stars. Therefore, Vicky and Sophia let the movie release. At the premiere, Karan plans a publicity stunt by him getting shot by Vicky (with fake bullets), then getting up and revealing he is still alive. However, nothing goes as planned. Vicky shoots Karan with the fake gun multiple times, but it turns out that the gun had real bullets, and Karan brutally dies. All the movie's staff are arrested. In custody, Vicky explains to the police officers that it was all supposed to be a publicity stunt, and they let him free. Vicky escapes from the police station, and all the blame goes on the film's associate producers as they had planned the stunt in the first place. Vicky arrives at the hospital and meets Sophia, where it is revealed that Sophia and Vicky have actually murdered Karan. Sophia changed the fake gun to a real one with real bullets for Vicky to shoot with. In the end, the associate producers are trapped in jail. Sophia received Karan's wealth and property, and lives a rich lifestyle as she marries Vicky who is now a famous superstar due to the film Karan made, which turned out to be a blockbuster. Response. Reviews. "Naqaab" received positive reviews. Critics were generally positive to the performances of the three lead actors. Taran Adarsh of Indiafm.com said "Naqaab belongs to Akshaye, who delivers yet another powerful performance. He's splendid, the real scene stealer, the soul of the enterprise. Bobby is relegated to the backseat in the first hour, but manages to make his presence felt in the second half. Urvashi Sharma gets a dream launch and she utilizes the golden opportunity completely." Bollywoodarchive.com said "Akshaye Khanna stands out most outstandingly. His chemistry with Urvashi is superb. Bobby Deol does his part well but offers nothing vulnerable. Newcomer Urvashi Sharma acts as if she has the experience of many films behind her." Soundtrack. The soundtrack of Naqaab is composed by Pritam. The song Ek Din Teri Rahon Mein sung by Javed Ali was a big rage of 2007 and is heard even today. Songs are as follows :-
595572	The Big White is a 2005 black comedy picture directed by Mark Mylod starring Robin Williams, Holly Hunter, Giovanni Ribisi, Woody Harrelson, Tim Blake Nelson, W. Earl Brown and Alison Lohman. Plot. A body left in a dumpster by Mafia hitmen is discovered by financially troubled travel agent Paul Barnell (Robin Williams). Heavily in debt and attempting to find a cure for his wife's apparent Tourette Syndrome, he stages a disfiguring animal attack with the body in order to cash in his missing brother's life-insurance policy, for which a corpse is required. Local police are convinced, but a promotion-hungry insurance agent (Giovanni Ribisi) is not. The Mafia hitmen are also in search of the corpse for proof to collect their payment. They take Paul's wife (Holly Hunter) hostage to ensure that they will get the body. Paul stays in his brother's cottage. Paul's missing brother Raymond (Woody Harrelson) returns home, beats him, and demands a portion of the insurance money. By suggesting the insurance agent has assaulted him, Paul speeds up the delivery of the million dollar insurance payment. He has the body exhumed and agrees to exchange it and a portion of the money for his wife. In fear that Raymond will attempt to kill his wife to keep her quiet, Paul considers killing his brother in his sleep, but cannot bring himself to do so. The next morning Paul leaves his brother asleep and meets the hit-men for the exchange. Raymond is angered at his brother's deception and arrives as well, and is told by the insurance agent, who has finally pieced together what has happened about his million dollar policy.
1265468	Dolores Costello (September 17, 1903 – March 1, 1979) was an American film actress who achieved her greatest success during the era of silent movies. She was nicknamed "The Goddess of the Silent Screen". She was stepmother of John Barrymore's daughter Diana, by his second wife Blanche Oelrichs, the mother of John Drew Barrymore and Dolores (Dee Dee) Barrymore, and the grandmother of John Barrymore III, Blyth Dolores Barrymore, Brahma Blyth (Jessica) Barrymore, and Drew Barrymore. Early years. Dolores Costello was born in Pittsburgh, the daughter of actors Maurice and Mae Costello, of Irish and German descent, respectively. She and her younger sister, Helene, made their first film appearances in the years 1909–1915 as child actresses for the Vitagraph Film Company. They played supporting roles in several films starring their father, who was a popular matinee idol at the time. Dolores Costello's earliest listed credit on the IMDb is in the role of a fairy in a 1909 adaptation of Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream". Film career. The two sisters appeared on Broadway together as chorines and their success resulted in contracts with Warner Brothers Studios. In 1926, following small parts in feature films, she starred opposite John Barrymore in "The Sea Beast", a loose adaptation of Herman Melville's "Moby-Dick". Warner Bros. soon began starring her in her own vehicles. Meanwhile, she and Barrymore became romantically involved and married in 1928.
589137	Amanush is a 1975 Indian action drama film made in both Hindi and Bengali produced and directed by Shakti Samanta. The film stars Sharmila Tagore, Uttam Kumar, Utpal Dutt and Asit Sen. The Bengali version of the fim achieved immense popularity amongst Bengalis and featured many memorable songs by Kishore Kumar like Bipinbabur karansudha and Ki asha-y baandhi khelaghar. Also, this film featured the Bengali film star Uttam Kumar at the height of his popularity and Utpal Dutt turned in a typically stellar performance as the villain. The film was later remade in Telugu as "Edureeta" (1977) starring N.T.Rama Rao, Vanisri, and Jayasudha. After Amanush, Samanta once again tried a double version, made another double version, "Anand Ashram" (1977) with the same lead actors, however that film didn't do well at the box office.
776615	Rider on the Rain (French: Le Passager de la pluie) is a 1970 French mystery thriller film starring Charles Bronson, directed by René Clément, produced by Serge Silberman, with film music composed by Francis Lai. Plot summary. In a god-forsaken, off-season French seaside town we meet Marlène Jobert starring as the diffident, nail-biting, beautiful and lonely Mélancolie "Mellie" Mau, who watches a mysterious stranger step down from the bus into the pouring rain. He follows and eventually rapes her, while her husband (an airline navigator) is away from home. However, when she comes to her senses again, she manages to kill her attacker and dispose of the corpse. She decides to keep quiet about the whole incident to avoid complications with her jealous husband. But just then Charles Bronson as the tough US Army colonel Harry Dobbs appears on the scene. Dobbs is out on undercover work trying to track down a serial rapist who has escaped from a military stockade in Germany. He confronts her, and she is shocked that he seems to know exactly what has happened, but she sticks to her story of knowing nothing. Since the Colonel is less than forthcoming about his own mission, she also starts to worry about her absent husband possibly being implicated in something shady. Then a dead body is discovered on the beach where she dumped the rapist's body – and further complications ensue. Awards. In 1970 the film won the Special David of the David di Donatello Awards. In 1971 it won the Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Language Film, was nominated for Best Motion Picture of the Edgar Allan Poe Awards, and for the Golden Laurel. Soundtrack. "Rider on the Rain" is also the main theme of the original movie soundtrack (with lyrics by Sébastien Japrisot and sung by French chansonette Severine). The American singer-songwriter Peggy Lee wrote English lyrics for the song, and recorded it on her 1971 album "Make It With You" as "Passenger in the Rain".
1701262	The Haunted Palace is a 1963 horror film released by American International Pictures, starring Vincent Price, Lon Chaney Jr., and Debra Paget in a story about a village held in the grip of a cult. The film was directed by Roger Corman, and is often regarded as one in his series of eight films largely based on the works of American author Edgar Allan Poe. Although marketed as "Edgar Allan Poe's "The Haunted Palace,"" the film actually derives its plot from "The Case of Charles Dexter Ward", a novella by H. P. Lovecraft. The title, "The Haunted Palace," is borrowed from a poem by Poe published in 1839 (the story of which was later incorporated into Poe's horror short story, "The Fall of the House of Usher"). Plot. In 1765, the inhabitants of the New England town of Arkham are suspicious of the strange goings-on up in the grand 'palace' that overlooks the town. They suspect its inhabitant, Joseph Curwen, of being a warlock.
520921	Alma "Ness" Moreno-Salic (born Vanessa Moreno Lacsamana on May 25, 1959) is a Filipina actress and politician. She was born in Cervantes, Ilocos Sur to Frank Lacsamana, from Pampanga, and Jean Moreno. Film & television personality. She appeared in her first movie as a "Dama" in "Urduja" with Amalia Fuentes, while her first starring role was "Ligaw na Bulaklak Part 2" (Lost Flower) with Vic Silayan, which was her breakout film. The 1976 film was directed by National Artist for Film Ishmael Bernal. From then until the late 1980s, Moreno starred in a number of revealing movies that were box office hits, earning her the title "Sex Goddess of Philippine Movies" of the 1970s and 1980s. Bernal had also directed her in the acclaimed film, "City After Dark", that premiered in 1980. Her other notable films include the 1993 Gawad Urian Best Picture, "Makati Avenue Office Girls" (directed by José Javier Reyes) and the 1977 "Mga Bilanggong Birhen" (Incarcerated Virgins) (directed by Mario O'Hara and Romy Suzara). Versatile for having starred in sexy, drama, and comedy films, Moreno was also a presenter on several highly-rated television variety shows in the 1980s for which she earned the title "Shining Star", as well as the weekly television drama anthology, "Alindog", which explored the lives of modern Filipino women. Moreno is also a dancer, who popularised a sexy, high-cut outfit called the "Tangga” on her shows like "The Other Side of Alma", "Rated A" and "Loveli-Ness". She has been nominated in various film and TV acting awards for her dramatic and comedic performances. In the early 2000s, Moreno divided her time between her professional commitments with GMA-7's teleserye "Habang Kapiling Ka", and situational comedy programme "Da Boy and Da Girl"; she balanced these with her personal commitment to helping the women and the poor in Parañaque City through various socio-civic and community development projects. In 2002, she starred in her comeback film "Kapalit". Recently, she was a resident judge of the defunct dance contest "You Can Dance". Political career. Moreno ran for Mayor of Parañaque City in 2004 but lost. In 2007, she was elected a Councilor of the city, and was re-elected in 2010. In 2012, Moreno became the first female National President of the Philippine Councilors League (PCL), where she previously served as National Secretary-General and National Executive Vice-President. In May 2012, she declared her intention to run for Senator in the 2013 elections under Lakas-CMD party. A few months later in September however, she announced that she had dropped her bid due to a lingering illness. She moved to the Liberal Party with her former husband Joey, and she ran again for Councilor in 2013. Controversy. On September 24, 2008, the Parañaque City prosecutor's office found probable cause for violation of Batas Pambansa 22 against Moreno. The complaint Maya Media Arts Yielding Ads (Maya) Inc. accused Moreno of issuing P 390,000 rubber or bouncing checks for campaign materials. Moreno denied the charges and her bail bond was set at P30,000. Personal life. Fondly called "Ness" in show business, Moreno had a long, live-in relationship with action star Rudy Fernández, with whom she had a son, actor Mark Anthony Fernandez. She also figured in another high-profile live-in affair with the "King of Comedy", Dolphy, which produced a son, former child actor, Vandolph. In 2001, she was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. Moreno later married actor-politician Joey Marquez. Their twelve-year union produced four children: Yeoj, Winwyn, VJ, and adopted daughter, Em-Em; their marriage was annulled in 2004. Her current husband is Sultan Fahad "Pre" Salic, Mayor of Marawi City, whom she wed in 2009 in a traditional Muslim "nikah".
900183	After Death is an 1989 Italian zombie movie. Released in the United States under the title Zombie 4: After Death and in the United Kingdom as Zombie Flesh Eaters 3, the movie has no connections to the other official or unofficial "Zombi" films. It was directed by frequent zombie writer/director Claudio Fragasso under the pseudonym Clyde Anderson. The film is also notable for starring Jeff Stryker (credited as "Chuck Peyton") in one of his few non-pornography roles. Plot. A group of researchers at a remote jungle island outpost discover the natives are practicing voodoo and black magic. After killing the local priest (James Sampson), a voodoo curse begins to raise the dead to feed on the living in retribution. The researchers on the island are killed by the newly risen zombies, except for Jenny (Candice Daly), the daughter of a scientist couple. She escapes, protected by an enchanted necklace charm given to her by her mother shortly before her death. She returns years later as an adult with a group of mercenaries to attempt to uncover what happened to her parents. Shortly after arriving at the island their boat's engine dies, stranding them. Meanwhile elsewhere on the island a trio of hikers discover a cave, the same cave leading to the underground temple where the original curse was created. After accidentally reviving the curse, the dead once again return to kill any who trespass on their island. The mercenaries encounter their first zombie, who injures a member of the team.
1066747	"River's Edge" is a 1986 American drama film directed by Tim Hunter, written by Neal Jimenez, and starring Crispin Glover, Keanu Reeves, Ione Skye, Daniel Roebuck, and Dennis Hopper. The movie was awarded Best Picture at the 1986 Independent Spirit Awards. Plot. A group of high school friends discover that they are in the presence of a killer. One of them, John, has murdered one of their friends, Jamie. He brags to them all at school about killing her, and when they discover he is telling the truth, their reactions vary. Layne, the self-proclaimed leader of the group, is intent on keeping the murder a secret and protecting John, while the rest of the group (Matt, Clarissa, Maggie, and Tony) contemplate going to the police. Basis. While the screenplay is fiction, it draws from the November 3, 1981 murder of Marcy Renee Conrad, who was raped and strangled by Anthony Jacques Broussard in Milpitas, California. Broussard bragged about the crime, showing the body to at least thirteen different people; despite this, the crime went unreported for two days. Neal Jimenez read the story in the newspaper while visiting friends, wrote a script and turned it in to his instructor while he was an English major at Santa Clara University. Jimenez said "that the incident is merely the inspiration for the screenplay". Soundtrack. The film featured early Thrash Metal/Death Metal tracks from bands such as Slayer and Fates Warning, an unprecedented noncommercial approach that created a very dark vibe and aided the film becoming unconventionally monumental for its era.
1502252	Marilyn Miller (September 1, 1898 - April 7, 1936) was one of the most popular Broadway musical stars of the 1920s and early 1930s. She was an accomplished tap dancer, singer and actress, but it was the combination of these talents that endeared her to audiences. On stage she usually played rags-to-riches Cinderella characters who lived happily ever after. Miller's enormous popularity and famed image were in distinct contrast to her personal life, which was marred by disappointment, tragedy, frequent illness, and ultimately her sudden death due to complications of nasal surgery at age 37. Early life. Miller was born Mary Ellen Reynolds in Evansville, Indiana, the youngest daughter of Edwin D. Reynolds, a telephone lineman, and his first wife, the former Ada Lynn Thompson. The tiny, delicate-featured blonde beauty was only four years old when, as "Mademoiselle Sugarlump," she debuted at Lakeside Park in Dayton, Ohio as a member of her family's vaudeville act, the "Columbian Trio," which then included Marilyn's step-father, Oscar Caro Miller, and two older sisters, Ruth and Claire. They were re-christened the "Five Columbians" after Marilyn and her mother joined the routine. From their home base in Findlay, Ohio, they toured the Midwest and Europe in variety for ten years, skirting the child labor authorities, before Lee Shubert discovered Marilyn at the Lotus Club in London in 1914. Career. Miller appeared for the Shuberts in the 1914 and 1915 editions of "The Passing Show," a Broadway revue at the Winter Garden Theatre, as well as in "The Show of Wonders" (1916) and "Fancy Free" (1918). But it was Florenz Ziegfeld who made her a star after she performed in his Ziegfeld Follies of 1918, at the famed New Amsterdam Theatre on 42nd Street, with music by Irving Berlin. Sharing billing with Eddie Cantor, Will Rogers and W. C. Fields, she brought the house down with her impersonation of Ziegfeld's wife, Billie Burke, in a number entitled "Mine Was a Marriage of Convenience". She followed as a headliner in the "Follies of 1919", dancing to Berlin's ""Mandy"", and reputedly became Ziegfeld's mistress, though this was never proven. Miller attained legendary status in the Ziegfeld production "Sally" (1920) with music by Jerome Kern, especially for her performance of Kern's "Look for the Silver Lining". The musical, about a dishwasher who joins the Follies and marries a millionaire, ran 570 performances at the New Amsterdam. In 1921, a still-obscure Dorothy Parker memorialized her performance in verse: From the alley's gloom and chill / Up to fame danced "Sally". / Which was nice for her, but still / Rough upon the alley. / How it must regret her wiles. / All her ways and glances. / Now the theatre owns her smiles, / Sallies, songs, and dances. ... After a rift with Ziegfeld, she signed with rival producer Charles Dillingham and starred as "Peter Pan" in a 1924 Broadway revival, then as a circus queen in "Sunny" (1925), with music by Kern and lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein. A box-office smash, it featured the classic "Who?", and made her the highest paid star on Broadway. In 1928, after reuniting with Ziegfeld, she starred in his production of the successful George Gershwin musical "Rosalie" then in "Smiles" (1930) with Fred Astaire, a rare Ziegfeld box office failure.
1044302	Billie Honor Whitelaw, CBE (born 6 June 1932) is an English actress. She worked in close collaboration with Irish playwright Samuel Beckett for 25 years and is regarded as one of the foremost interpreters of his works. She is also known for her portrayal of Mrs Baylock, the demonic nanny in "The Omen". Whitelaw was appointed CBE in the 1991 Birthday Honours list. Early life. Whitelaw was born in Coventry, Warwickshire, the daughter of Frances Mary (née Williams) and Gerry Whitelaw. She grew up in a working class part of Bradford and later attended Grange Girls' Grammar School in Bradford. At age 11, she began performing as a child actress on radio programmes, including the part of Bunkle, an extrovert prep-schoolboy on Children's Hour from Manchester, and later worked as an assistant stage manager and acted with the repertory company at the Prince's Theatre in Bradford during high school.. Film career. After training at RADA, Whitelaw made her stage debut at age 18 in London 1950. She made her film debut in "The Sleeping Tiger" (1954), followed by roles in "Carve Her Name With Pride" (1958) and "Hell Is a City" (1960). Whitelaw soon became a regular in British films of the 1950s and early 1960s. In her early film work she specialized in blousy blondes and secretaries, but her dramatic range began to emerge by the late 1960s. She starred alongside Albert Finney in "Charlie Bubbles" (1967), a performance which won her a BAFTA award as Best Actress in a Supporting Role. She would win her second BAFTA as the sensuous mother of college student Hayley Mills in the psychological study "Twisted Nerve" (1969). She continued in film roles including "Leo the Last" (1970), "Start the Revolution Without Me" (1970), "Gumshoe" (1971) and the Alfred Hitchcock thriller "Frenzy" (1972). Whitelaw gained international acclaim for her chilling role as Mrs. Baylock, the evil guardian of the demon child Damien in "The Omen" (1976). Her performance was considered one of the most memorable of the film, winning her the "Evening Standard" British Film Award for Best Actress. Other films included performing the voice of Aughra in "The Dark Crystal", as the hopelessly naive Mrs. Hall in "Maurice" (1987), one of two sisters, with Joan Plowright, struggling to survive in war-time Liverpool in "The Dressmaker" (1988), the fiercely domineering and protective mother of psychopathic twin murderers in "The Krays" (1990), a performance that earned her a BAFTA nomination, as the nurse Grace Poole in "Jane Eyre" (1996), and the blind laundress in "Quills" (2000). She returned to film, in a comedy turn, as Joyce Cooper in "Hot Fuzz" (2007). According to Simon Pegg, his wife accidentally referred to her as "Willie Bitelaw". In 1970, she was a member of the jury at the 20th Berlin International Film Festival. Theatre and Beckett. In 1963, Billie Whitelaw met Irish playwright Samuel Beckett. She and Beckett enjoyed an intense professional relationship until his death in 1989. He wrote many of his more experimental plays especially for her, referring to Whitelaw as "A perfect actress". Whitelaw became Beckett's muse, as he created, reworked and revised each play while she physically, at times to the point of total exhaustion, acted out each movement. Whitelaw remains the foremost interpreter of the man and his work. She gives lectures on the Beckettian technique, and has explained "He used me as a piece of plaster he was moulding until he got just the right shape". They collaborated on Beckett plays such as "Play", "Eh Joe", "Happy Days", "Not I", "Footfalls" and "Rockaby" for both stage and screen. From 1964-66, Whitelaw was a member of Britain's National Theatre Company. In 1965, she took the part of Desdemona opposite Laurence Olivier's Othello from Maggie Smith. Television career. Whitelaw has also appeared frequently on television and won acclaim for her work. A very early TV appearance was in the first series of the long-running BBC1 police series, "Dixon of Dock Green" (1955), as Mary Dixon, daughter of George (Jack Warner). She also appeared as a woman who tries to join Robin Hood's outlaw band in an episode of The Adventures of Robin Hood (TV series), "The Bride of Robin Hood." She won a BAFTA award as Best Actress for her performance in "The Sextet" (1972), the BBC adaptation of Thomas Hardy's "Wessex Tales" (1973), "A Tale of Two Cities" (1980), "A Murder of Quality" (1991), "Duel of Hearts" (1991), "Firm Friends" (1992-1994) with Madhur Jaffrey, "Jane Eyre" (1996), "Merlin" (1998) and "A Dinner of Herbs" (2000). Personal life. Whitelaw was married first to the actor Peter Vaughan (1952–66) and, until his death, to the writer and drama critic Robert Muller, with whom she had a son. Her autobiography, "Billie Whitelaw... Who He?," was published by St. Martin's Press (1996). She currently lives in Hampstead, London.
1163352	Ralph Meeker (November 21, 1920 August 5, 1988) was an American film, stage and television actor best known for starring in the 1953 Broadway production of "Picnic", and in the 1955 film noir cult classic "Kiss Me Deadly". Early life and education. He was born Ralph Rathgeber in Minneapolis, the son of Ralph and Magnhild Senovia Haavig Meeker Rathgeber.
1065715	Short Circuit 2 is an American 1988 comedy science fiction film, the sequel to 1986's film "Short Circuit". It was directed by Kenneth Johnson, and starred Fisher Stevens as Ben Jahrvi, Michael McKean as Fred Ritter, Cynthia Gibb as Sandy Banatoni, and Tim Blaney as the voice of Johnny 5 (the main character – a friendly, naive, self-aware robot). Filming for this film took place in downtown Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Plot. Benjamin Jahrvi (Fisher Stevens) is selling toy versions of Johnny 5 in New York City, when department-store buyer Sandy Banatoni (Cynthia Gibb) orders 1,000 such toys, in manufacture of which Ben is helped by con artist Fred Ritter (Michael McKean), who borrows money; hires temporary workers; and rents a warehouse, later identified as the base of operations for a small group of thieves hired by bank teller Oscar Baldwin (Jack Weston) to steal a set of jewels known as the Vanderveer Collection, worth $37,862,000, who prevent Ben and Fred from completing their toys in time. Thereafter Ben's friends Stephanie and Newton send Johnny 5 to build the toys rapidly, allowing Ben to study for his U.S. citizenship test. Considering Johnny's thirst for data, Fred is sworn not to reveal their location to Johnny, believing that the robot would become over-excited; but when Fred reveals their location the robot leaves the warehouse to explore the city and inadvertently befriends Oscar himself. Fred, having learned that Johnny is worth $11,002,076.17, tries to sell the robot to a few businessmen; upon discovering this, Johnny escapes into the city, disappointed in his inability to convince others of his sentience. Johnny is later retrieved by Ben from the police's stolen-goods warehouse, whereafter Johnny encourages Ben to court Sandy. The thieves later lock Ben and Fred in the freezer of a Chinese restaurant, while Oscar persuades Johnny to finish the tunnel leading to the bank. Having discovered the Vanderveer Collection, Johnny deduces Oscar's true intentions; but is pursued, then severely damaged by the thieves. Ben and Fred are assisted by Sandy to escape; but Ben and Sandy are captured by the police for the robbery. After a long search, Fred finds Johnny and enables his self-repair. Enraged upon learning of the harm attempted against Ben and Fred, as well as himself, Johnny pursues revenge on Oscar, even though he is in the process of dying. After a chase he corners Oscar and trap his accomplices; but Oscar himself flees and steals a boat. Johnny, now even more enraged, once again pursues Oscar, using a dockside crane to capture Oscar, who is captured and deprived of the stolen Collection. The effort exhausts Johnny entirely; but he is revived by Ben. Later scenes show Johnny as a celebrity, allowing Sandy, Ben, and Fred to establish a business in his image. The film concludes with Ben and Johnny becoming US citizens, which he shares with a newly restored and gold-plated Johnny. Asked about his new status, Johnny enthusiastically jumps into the air, shouting that he feels "alive!". Reception. Siskel & Ebert gave the film "two thumbs up" and called the film "even better than the original." In a 1988 "Los Angeles Times" article, the review noted that "Wilson and Maddock have improved considerably here...Their construction is more deft, their dialogue is better, and they make Number Five come more alive..." Rita Kempley of the "Washington Post" scored the film 6/10 saying, "...Kenneth Johnson pulls heartstrings with the best of them—or the worst, if you hate that sort of thing... if you're a kid, or an adult with an Erector Set, you might just enjoy this summer-weight caper." It is rated 38% on Rotten Tomatoes. DVD release. "Short Circuit 2" was re-released on DVD on April 24, 2007, which included a "making-of featurette" on actor Fisher Stevens. In 2010, the film was released once again with alternative cover-art. A Blu-ray disc of the film was also released in April 2011, though no extras were included. "Hot Cars, Cold Facts". Hot Cars, Cold Facts, made in 1990, is a short educational film featuring the Johnny 5 character, voiced by Russell Turner. It also starred Gina Revarra as Lisa, John Hugh as Officer Dave and Donald Bishop as Howard. The film takes place after "Short Circuit 2".
1100314	Edward Kasner (April 2, 1878 – January 7, 1955) was a prominent American mathematician who was appointed Tutor on Mathematics in the Columbia University Mathematics Department. Kasner was the first Jew appointed to a faculty position in the sciences at Columbia University. Subsequently, he became an adjunct professor in 1906, and a full professor in 1910, at the university. Differential geometry was his main field of study. In addition to introducing the term "googol", he is known also for the Kasner metric and the Kasner polygon. Kasner's Ph.D. dissertation was titled "The Invariant Theory of the Inversion Group: Geometry upon a Quadric Surface"; it was published by the American Mathematical Society in 1900 in their "Transactions". Googol. Kasner is perhaps best remembered today for introducing the term "googol." In order to pique the interest of children, Kasner sought a name for a very large number: one followed by a hundred zeros. On a walk in the New Jersey Palisades with his nephews, Milton (born about 1929) and Edwin Sirotta, Kasner asked for their ideas. Nine-year-old Milton suggested "googol." In 1940, with James R. Newman, Kasner co-wrote a non-technical book surveying the field of mathematics, called "Mathematics and the Imagination" (ISBN 0-486-41703-4). It was in this book that the term "googol" was first introduced: Google. Kasner's number naming legacy includes technology unforeseen in his lifetime. The Internet search engine "Google" originated from a misspelling of "googol", which refers to 10100 (the number represented by a 1 followed by 100-zeros). The "Googleplex", the Google company headquarters in Mountain View, California, is a play on words for "googolplex", the name given by Kasner's nephew to a number with so many zeros that one gets tired from counting. Kasner assigned it to the large number: (the number represented by a 1 followed by a googol of zeros).
1065142	Lou Taylor Pucci (born July 27, 1985) is an American actor who first appeared on film in Rebecca Miller's well-received "" in 2002. Pucci had his breakthrough leading role in the critically acclaimed "Thumbsucker" (2005), for which he won a Special Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival. Pucci went on to star in a multitude of indie films, including "The Chumscrubber" (2005), "Fast Food Nation" (2006), The Go-Getter (2007), Explicit Ills (2008), and Carriers (2009). Most recently, Pucci had starring roles in the 2013 "Evil Dead" remake, as well as "The Story of Luke" (2013). Life and career. Pucci was born in Seaside Heights, New Jersey. His mother, Linda Farver, is a former model and beauty queen, and his father, Louis Pucci, worked as a guitarist for the bands The Watch and Leap of Faith. At the age of two, he moved to Keansburg, New Jersey. A graduate of Christian Brothers Academy in Lincroft, he currently lives in Venice, California.
581147	Kissa Kursi Ka (Trans: "Tale of Throne") is a 1977 Hindi film directed by Amrit Nahata, who was a member of Indian parliament and produced by Badri Prasad Joshi. The film was a satire on the politics of Indira Gandhi and her son Sanjay Gandhi and was banned by the Indian Government during the Emergency period and all prints were confiscated. Music of the film was composed by Jaidev Verma. Plot. The plot revolved around a corrupt and evil politician Gangaram or Gangu, played by Manohar Singh, trying to woo personified public, depicted as mute and helpless looking (Shabana Azmi.) The movie is a humorous comment over the system and the selfishness of the politicians regarded as a motion picture version of the cartoonist columns that are the most brutal taunt over the politics. Ban and print confiscation. The film was submitted to the Censor Board for certification on in April 1975. The film had spoofed Sanjay Gandhi auto-manufacturing plans (later established as Maruti Udyog in 1981), besides Congress supporters like Swami Dhirendra Brahmachari, private secretary to Indira Gandhi R.K. Dhawan, and Rukhsana Sultana. The board sent to seven-member revising committee, which further sent it to Union government. Subsequently, a show-cause notice raising 51 objections was sent to the producer by the Information and Broadcasting ministry. In his reply submitted on July 11, 1975, Nahata stated that the characters were "imaginary and do not refer to any political party or persons". By the time, the Emergency has already been declared. Subsequently, all the prints and the master-print of the film at Censor Board office were picked up, later brought to Maruti factory in Gurgaon, where they were burned. The subsequent Shah Commission established by Government of India in 1977 to inquiry into excesses committed in the Indian Emergency found Sanjay Gandhi guilt of burning the negative, along with V. C. Shukla, Information and Broadcasting minister of the time. Legal case. The legal case ran for 11 months, and court gave its judgment on February 27, 1979. Both Sanjay Gandhi and Shukla were sentenced to a month and two year jail term imprisonment. Sanjay Gandhi was denied bail. The verdict was later overturned. In his judgment, District Judge, O. N. Vohra at Tis Hazari Court in Delhi, found the accused, guilty of "criminal conspiracy, breach of trust, mischief by fire, dishonestly receiving criminal property, concealing stolen property and disappearance of evidence".
1055270	The Pirate Movie is a 1982 Australian musical comedy film directed by Ken Annakin and starring Christopher Atkins and Kristy McNichol. The film is loosely based on Gilbert and Sullivan's comic opera "The Pirates of Penzance". The original music score is composed by Mike Brady and Peter Sullivan (no relation "Pirates of Penzance"-composer Arthur Sullivan). The movie performed far below expectations when first released and is generally reviewed very poorly. Plot. Mabel Stanley is an introverted girl yearning for popularity in a seaside community in Australia. She attends a local pirate festival featuring a swordplay demonstration led by a curly-haired instructor, Frederic, who then invites her for a ride on his boat. She is duped by her acquaintances into missing the launch, so she rents a small sailboat to give chase. A sudden storm throws her overboard, and she washes up on a beach. She subsequently dreams an adventure that takes place a century before. In this fantasy sequence, the swordplay instructor is now named Frederic, a young apprentice of the Pirates of Penzance, celebrating his 21st birthday on a pirate vessel. Frederic refuses an invitation from the Pirate King, his adoptive father, to become a full pirate, as his birth parents were murdered by their contemporaries. Frederic swears to avenge their deaths and is forced off of the ship on a small boat. Adrift, Frederic spies Mabel and her older sisters on a nearby island and swims to shore to greet them. In a reversal of roles, Mabel is a confident, assertive and courageous young woman, while her sisters are prim, proper and conservative. Frederic quickly falls for Mabel and proposes marriage, but local custom requires the elder sisters to marry first. Soon, Frederic's old mates come ashore, also looking for women and kidnap Mabel's sisters. Major-General Stanley, Mabel's father, arrives and convinces the Pirate King to free his daughters and leave in peace. The pirates anchor their ship just outside the harbour instead of actually leaving. Mabel wants Frederic to gain favour with her father so they can marry, so she plots to recover the family treasure stolen years earlier by the pirates. Unfortunately, the treasure was lost at sea, but the location where it lies was tattooed as a map on the Pirate King's back. Mabel successfully tricks the Pirate King into revealing his tattoo while Frederic sketches a copy. The next day, Mabel and Frederic recover the stolen treasure and present it to her father. The Major-General is underwhelmed as he believes the treasure will simply be stolen again once the pirates realise it is missing. Mabel dispatches Frederic to raise an army for protection, but the Pirate King interferes. The ship nurse, Ruth, convinces them to stop fighting, reminding the Pirate King of Frederic's apprenticeship contract. Frederic's birthday is 29 February, and he is dismayed to see that the contract specifies his twenty-first "birthday", rather than his twenty-first "year". As his birthday occurs every four years, Frederic has celebrated only five birthdays and is still bound by contract to remain with the pirates. That night, the pirates raid the Stanley estate, and the Pirate King orders their execution. Mabel demands a "happy ending" – admitting for the first time that she believes this all to be a dream. Everyone—even the pirates—cheers their approval, leaving the Pirate King disappointed and shocked. Mabel then confronts her father, but the Major-General is steadfast that the marriage custom remains in effect. Mabel quickly pairs each of her older sisters with a pirate, and she also pairs the Pirate King to Ruth, the ship nurse. With Mabel and Frederic now free to marry, the fantasy sequence ends in song and dance. Mabel awakens back on the beach to discover that she is wearing the wedding ring that Frederic had given her in her dream. At that moment, the handsome swordplay instructor arrives and lifts her to her feet. He passionately kisses Mabel, who is still shaken by her dream. She asks if his name is Frederic. He assures her that he isn't who she imagines him to be, but then carries her off to marry her, thus giving Mabel her happy ending in reality as well. Production. The film was the idea of actor Ted Hamilton, who became executive producer. Richard Franklin was first announced as director but then Ken Annakin got the job. Release. The film earned A$1,013,000 at the Australian box office. Soundtrack. Polydor Records released a soundtrack album and singles from this film. Historical note. The movie was made soon after the 1980 New York City Central Park and 1981 Broadway theatre production of "The Pirates of Penzance" produced by Joseph Papp, which re-popularized swashbuckling pirates as a theatrical genre. Reception. "The Pirate Movie" received negative reviews from critics, as it currently holds a 9% rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 11 reviews. At the Australian Film Institute Awards, the film was nominated for Best Costume Design and Best Supporting Actor for Garry McDonald. It was also nominated for nine Golden Raspberry Awards in 1983 including Worst Picture, Worst Actor for Christopher Atkins, Worst Actress for Kristy McNichol, Worst Supporting Actor for Ted Hamilton, Worst Screenplay and Worst Original Song for the track "Happy Ending", winning three overall for Worst Director for Ken Annakin, Worst Musical Score and Worst Original Song for the track "Pumpin' and Blowin'". The movie was nominated for a Stinkers Bad Movie Awards for Worst Picture. The film is listed in Golden Raspberry Award founder John Wilson's book The Official Razzie Movie Guide as one of the The 100 Most Enjoyably Bad Movies Ever Made.
899580	Bread and Chocolate () is a 1974 Italian comedy-drama film directed by Franco Brusati. This film chronicles the misadventures of an Italian immigrant to Switzerland and is representative of the "commedia all'italiana" film genre. Plot. Like many southern Europeans of the period (1960s to early 1970s), Nino Garofalo (Nino Manfredi) is a migrant "guest worker" from Ciociaria, working as a waiter in Switzerland. He loses his work permit when he is caught urinating in public, so he begins to lead a clandestine life in Switzerland. At first he is supported by Elena, a Greek woman. Then he befriends an Italian industrialist, relocated to Switzerland because of financial problems. The industrialist takes him under his wing, only to commit suicide when he squanders his last savings. Nino is constrained to find shelter with a group of clandestine Neapolitans living in a chicken coop, together with the same chickens they tend to in order to survive. Captivated by the idyllic vision of a group of young blonde, Swiss youths, he decides to dye his hair and pass himself off as a local. In a bar, when rooting for the Italian national football team during its transmission, he is found out after celebrating a goal scored by Fabio Capello. He is arrested and deported. He embarks on a train and finds himself in a cabin filled with returning Italian guest workers. Amid the songs of "sun" and "sea", he is seen having second thoughts. He gets off at the first stop: better life as an illegal immigrant than a life of misery.
395986	Daniel Phillip Henney (; born November 28, 1979) is an American actor and model. Life and career. Henney was born in Carson City, Michigan, to a Korean adoptee mother and an American father of Irish descent. Henney started modeling in the U.S. in 2001 and worked in France, Italy, Hong Kong and Taiwan while attending college. After his debut in South Korea with an advertisement for the Amore Pacific's cosmetic "Odyssey Sunrise", he became a spokesperson for commercials with Jeon Ji-hyun for Olympus cameras and Kim Tae-hee for Daewoo Electronics's Klasse air conditioners.
1041531	Play Dirty is a 1969 British war film starring Michael Caine, Nigel Green and Harry Andrews. It was directed by Andre De Toth based on a screenplay by Melvyn Bragg and Lotte Colin. The film's story is inspired by the exploits of units such as the Long Range Desert Group, Popski's Private Army and the SAS in North Africa during World War II.
803965	Fra Luca Bartolomeo de Pacioli (sometimes "Paccioli" or "Paciolo"; 1445–1517) was an Italian mathematician, Franciscan friar, collaborator with Leonardo da Vinci, and seminal contributor to the field now known as accounting. He was also called Luca di Borgo after his birthplace, Borgo Sansepolcro, Tuscany. Life. Luca Pacioli was born in 1445 in Sansepolcro (Tuscany) where he received an abbaco education. This was education in the vernacular (i.e. the local tongue) rather than Latin and focused on the knowledge required of merchants. He moved to Venice around 1464, where he continued his own education while working as a tutor to the three sons of a merchant. It was during this period that he wrote his first book, a treatise on arithmetic for the boys he was tutoring. Between 1472 and 1475, he became a Franciscan friar. In 1475, he started teaching in Perugia, first as a private teacher, from 1477 holding the first chair in mathematics. He wrote a comprehensive textbook in the vernacular for his students. He continued to work as a private tutor of mathematics and was, in fact, instructed to stop teaching at this level in Sansepolcro in 1491. In 1494, his first book to be printed, "Summa de arithmetica, geometria, proportioni et proportionalità", was published in Venice. In 1497, he accepted an invitation from duke Ludovico Sforza to work in Milan. There he met, collaborated with, lived with, and taught mathematics to Leonardo da Vinci. In 1499, Pacioli and Leonardo were forced to flee Milan when Louis XII of France seized the city and drove out their patron. Their paths appear to have finally separated around 1506. Pacioli died at about the age of 70 in 1517, most likely in Sansepolcro where it is thought that he had spent much of his final years. Mathematics. Pacioli published several works on mathematics, including: Translation of Piero della Francesca's work. The majority of the second volume of "Summa de arithmetica, geometria, proportioni et proportionalità" was a slightly rewritten version of one of Piero della Francesca's works. The third volume of Pacioli's "De divina proportione" was an Italian translation of Piero della Francesca's Latin writings "On Five Regular Solids". In neither case, did Pacioli include an attribution to Piero. He was severely criticized for this and accused of plagiarism by sixteenth-century art historian and biographer Giorgio Vasari. R. Emmett Taylor (1889–1956) said that Pacioli may have had nothing to do with the translated volume "De divina proportione", and that it may just have been appended to his work. However, no such defence can be presented concerning the inclusion of Piero della Francesca's material in Pacioli's Suma. Chess. Pacioli also wrote an unpublished treatise on chess, "De ludo scacchorum" ("On the Game of Chess"). Long thought to have been lost, a surviving manuscript was rediscovered in 2006, in the 22,000-volume library of Count Guglielmo Coronini. A facsimile edition of the book was published in Pacioli's home town of Sansepolcro in 2008. Based on Leonardo da Vinci's long association with the author and his having illustrated "De divina proportione", some scholars speculate that Leonardo either drew the chess problems that appear in the manuscript or at least designed the chess pieces used in the problems.
899057	I Vitelloni () is a 1953 Italian comedy-drama directed by Federico Fellini from a screenplay by Fellini, Ennio Flaiano, and Tullio Pinelli. The film launched the career of Alberto Sordi, one of post-war Italy's most significant and popular comedians, who stars with Franco Fabrizi and Franco Interlenghi in a story of five young Italian men at crucial turning points in their small town lives. Recognized as a pivotal work in the director's artistic evolution, the film has distinct autobiographical elements that mirror important societal changes in 1950s Italy. Recipient of both the Venice Film Festival Silver Lion in 1953, and an Academy Award nomination for Best Writing in 1958, the film's success restored Fellini's reputation after the commercial failure of "The White Sheik" (1952). Plot. As summer draws to a close, a violent downpour interrupts a beach-side beauty pageant in a provincial town on the Adriatic coast. Sandra Rubini (Leonora Ruffo), elected "Miss Siren of 1953", suddenly grows upset and faints: rumours fly that she’s expecting a baby by inveterate skirt chaser Fausto Moretti (Franco Fabrizi). Under pressure from Francesco (Jean Brochard), his respectable father, Fausto agrees to a shotgun wedding. After the sparsely attended middle-class ceremony, the newlyweds leave town on their honeymoon. Unemployed and living off their parents, Fausto's twenty-something friends kill time shuffling from empty cafés to seedy pool halls to aimless walks across desolate windswept beaches. During the interim, they perform immature pranks. Taunting honest road workers from the safety of a luxury car they never earned, they're given a sound thrashing when it runs out of gas.
1164675	Mary Janice Rule (15 August 1931 – 17 October 2003) was an American actress "at her most convincing playing embittered, neurotic socialites". Acting career. Janice Rule was born in Norwood, Ohio to parents of Irish origin. Her father was a dealer in industrial diamonds. She began dancing at the Chez Paree nightclub at fifteen, which paid for ballet lessons, and was a dancer in the 1949 Broadway production of "Miss Liberty". Rule also studied acting at the Chicago Professional School. She was pictured on the cover of "Life" magazine of 8 January 1951, as being someone to watch in the entertainment industry. Given a contract by Warner Bros., her first credited screen role was as Virginia in "Goodbye My Fancy" (1951), which featured Joan Crawford in the lead. The established star though, belittled the younger woman, making her work on the film difficult, and Rule's Warner contract was allowed to lapse after only two films. She was troubled by the attitude toward women's beauty at the studios in the early 1950s: "Because I was afraid of being robbed of my individuality, I fought with the makeup people, the hairdressers, and I didn't understand problems of the publicity department," she was reported as saying in 1957.
1055632	The Marine is a 2006 American action film starring wrestler John Cena. The film was directed by John Bonito, written by Michelle Gallagher and Alan B. McElroy and produced by Joel Simon. It was produced by the films division of WWE, called WWE Studios, and distributed in the United States by 20th Century Fox. Plot. The film opens with a sting operation in Iraq where Marine stalwart Sergeant John Triton (John Cena) is closing in on an Al-Qaeda hideout. Disregarding his superior's direct orders to wait for reinforcement, Triton attacks the extremists and rescues the American military hostages. The next morning, after Triton is done exercising back at home base, his Colonel asks to speak to him. The Colonel regretfully informs Triton that he is being honorably discharged from the Marine Corps. After returning home from Iraq, Triton finds it hard to settle back in to normal life. He gets a job as a security guard, but is fired on his first day due to using excessive force on a building employee's ex-boyfriend and his bodyguards, throwing the ex-boyfriend through a window. Triton's wife Kate (Kelly Carlson) decides the two need a vacation to help Triton ease into his new life. Meanwhile, criminal mastermind Rome (Robert Patrick) steals diamonds from a jewelry store with his gang: girlfriend Angela (Abigail Bianca), wildcard Morgan (Anthony Ray Parker), smart-mouthed Vescera (Damon Gibson), and Bennett (Manu Bennett). Rome is in collusion with an anonymous partner, with whom he is planning on sharing the profits from the diamonds. While running from the cops, the gang stops at a gas station where Triton and Kate are stopped. When two policemen in a patrol car arrive to get gas, Morgan believes they are there to arrest the gang, and shoots and kills one of the officers. To cover up the murder, Rome shoots the other officer and Angela kills the gas station attendant. Bennett knocks Triton out with a fire extinguisher. Kate is kidnapped. Morgan shoots at a gas pump, causing the store to blow up with Triton inside. Triton survives the explosion, takes the abandoned patrol car, and gives chase, with every single member of the gang shooting at him. The chase leads to a lake, where, under heavy fire, Triton falls out of the patrol car and into the lake, seemingly to his death. Rome and his gang decide to travel through a swamp to avoid the police, with Kate as their hostage. Kate tries to escape several times, to no avail. Triton, having survived the accident, climbs out of the lake. Detective Van Buren (who is looking for Rome and his gang) denies Triton permission to pursue the gang, but Triton does anyway. After an altercation between Morgan and Vescera, Rome decides he has no further use for Vescera and shoots him, leaving his body for the alligators. Rome gets a call from his anonymous partner, and tells him that he intends to keep all of the profits, cutting the partner out of the deal.
1062412	Saoirse Una Ronan (; born 12 April 1994) is an American born Irish actress. She came to international prominence in 2007 after co-starring in the film "Atonement" with James McAvoy and Keira Knightley; making her one of the youngest actresses ever to receive Academy Award, BAFTA and Golden Globe Award nominations for Best Supporting Actress. Ronan has since acted in the romantic comedy "I Could Never Be Your Woman" (2007), the film adaptation of the science fantasy Young Adult novel "The City of Ember" (2008), the supernatural romance " Death Defying Acts" (2008), the war drama film "The Way Back" (2010) and the action thriller "Hanna" (2011). She was awarded a Critics' Choice Award and a Saturn Award and received a second BAFTA Award nomination for her performance in Peter Jackson's "The Lovely Bones" (2009). She most recently starred in the science fiction romantic film "The Host", based on the novel by Stephenie Meyer. Personal life. Born in the Woodlawn neighborhood of The Bronx, New York City, Ronan is the only child of Irish parents Paul and Monica Ronan – the former an actor – who were living in New York at the time. Her family is Catholic. Ronan was raised in County Carlow, Ireland, having moved there when she was three years old, and is a dual citizen of the United States and Ireland. She was home schooled while living in Carlow. As a baby, she sometimes accompanied her father on the set when he was working on such films as "The Devil's Own" and "Veronica Guerin". Ronan supports the Irish Blue Cross, as the charity had reunited her with her runaway dog Sassie. On her name, she said, "'Seer-sha' is how Irish people pronounce my first name, but I would pronounce it 'Sir-sha,' like 'inertia'. It's Irish for 'freedom.' I recently found out that my middle name, Una, means 'unity' in Ireland. And I think my last name means 'seal.' So I’m a free, unified seal." In 2012, Ronan worked for free on a campaign video encouraging Irish food and drink manufacturers to become more sustainable. The voluntary Origin Green programme by Bord Bia, the Irish food board, aims to get every Irish food and drink manufacturer signed up to a sustainability charter by 2016. Ronan currently resides in Howth, a suburb of Dublin. Career. 2003–2008. Saoirse Ronan made her screen debut on Irish public service broadcaster RTÉ, in the 2003 primetime medical drama "The Clinic" and then appeared in the mini-serial "Proof". During the same time, Ronan auditioned to play Luna Lovegood in "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix", a role she eventually lost out to Evanna Lynch. At the age of twelve, Ronan was asked to attend a casting call for Joe Wright's 2007 film adaptation of Ian McEwan's 2001 novel "Atonement". She auditioned for and won the part of Briony Tallis, an aspiring 13-year-old novelist, who irrevocably changes the course of several lives when she accuses her older sister's lover of a crime he did not commit. Starring alongside Keira Knightley and James McAvoy, Wright grew more and more impressed with Ronan on-set, who declared her role a "fantastic part play." Budgeted at US$30 million, the film became a financial and critical success, resulting in a worldwide box office total of US$130 million and various awards, including the BAFTA Award for Best Film, Golden Globe for Best Motion Picture - Drama, and an 2008 Academy Award nomination for Best Picture. Ronan herself received rave reviews for her performance, with Ty Burr of "The Boston Globe" calling her "remarkable eccentric," and was subsequently nominated for a BAFTA, a Golden Globe and an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, ranking her among the youngest persons ever to be nominated for the latter. Ronan's next film was Amy Heckerling's often-delayed romantic comedy film "I Could Never Be Your Woman" (2007). Initially shot in mid-to fall 2005 in Los Angeles and London, the film went straight-to-DVD in the United States and other major market territories after it had struggled to attract financing and several deals disintegrated during its post-production in spite of its budget of US$25 million. In the film, Ronan portrayed the character of Izzie Grossman, the pubescent daughter of a television show screenwriter, played by Michelle Pfeiffer, who falls for a younger man (Paul Rudd), while Izzie falls in love for the first time herself. Upon its release, the independent project garnered generally lukewarm reviews, with Joe Leydon of "Variety" summing it as "a desperately unfunny mix of tepid showbiz satire and formulaic romantic comedy." In 2008, Ronan starred in both "Death Defying Acts" and "City of Ember". In Gillian Armstrong's supernatural romantic thriller "Death Defying Acts", she played Benji McGarvie, the daughter of an impoverished and uneducated psychic, played by Catherine Zeta-Jones, who begins a passionate affair with magician Harry Houdini at the height of his career. Ronan was awarded an Irish Film & Television Award for her performance. Released to a mixed reception, the film was not a success at the box office, barely grossing US$8.3 million worldwide. In Gil Kenan's "City of Ember" Ronan starred as Lina Mayfleet, a teenager who must save the people of the fictional underground city named Ember. The fantasy film, based on the 2003 novel by Jeanne DuPrau, received mixed reviews from critics, and grossed US$17 million worldwide, well below its US$55 million budget. 2009–present. In 2009, Ronan appeared alongside Rachel Weisz, Mark Wahlberg, Susan Sarandon and Stanley Tucci in Peter Jackson's "The Lovely Bones" (2009), an adaptation of the same-titled book by Alice Sebold. In the film, Ronan plays 14-year-old Susie Salmon, who, after being murdered, watches from the "in-between" as her family and friends struggle to move on with their lives while she comes to terms with her own death. Ronan and her family were originally hesitant for Ronan to accept her role in the film because of its subject matter, but agreed after meeting with Jackson, who described her as "just amazing on-screen." "The Lovely Bones" was released to mainly mixed reviews from critics, who criticised the film's story and its message. Critics praised the acting however, particularly Ronan's, whose performance Richard Corliss of "Time" described as "magic". The film garnered various accolades, winning Ronan a Critics' Choice Award and a Saturn Award as well as a second BAFTA Award nomination the following year. In 2010's "The Way Back", directed by Peter Weir, Ronan played the character of Irena, a Polish orphan, who joins a group of prisoners who escape from the gulag in Siberia in 1940 and attempt to make a 4,000 mile trek to India. Shot on location in Bulgaria, India and Morocco alongside Jim Sturgess, Colin Farrell and Ed Harris, the war drama film received generally positive reviews, with "The Telegraph" calling it "a journey that feels awful and heroic and unfathomable – and one you’ll want to watch again." Her performance in the film garnered Ronan her fourth Irish Film & Television Award. In 2011, Ronan starred in the title role of the action thriller film "Hanna", which marked her reunion with "Atonement" director Joe Wright. The film co-starred Cate Blanchett and Eric Bana and earned positive reviews. Ronan was nominated for another Critics' Choice Award and won her fifth Irish Film & Television Award for her performance in the film. In November 2011, Ronan took part in a promotion for the Irish Film Institute Archive Preservation Fund, in which she was digitally edited into popular Irish films of the past, such as "Once" and "My Left Foot", as well as documentary footage on the arrival of John F. Kennedy at Dublin Airport and the GAA All-Ireland finals. In that same month, Ronan was announced as an ambassador for the ISPCC. Ronan was in talks to play the role of wood elf Itaril in Peter Jackson's "The Hobbit" but she later stated that she would not be appearing in the film. She said that she was "really disappointed" to have to turn down the role, "but there are other projects as well that I've had to consider – and to do ["The Hobbit"] over a year, it wouldn't have left me time to do anything else". In 2013, Ronan starred in Andrew Niccol's film adaptation of Stephenie Meyer's novel "The Host". She plays the dual main characters of Wanderer and Melanie Stryder. The film debuted in cinemas in March 2013. Ronan starred in director Neil Jordan's vampire film "Byzantium", an adaptation of the play of the same name, and in Geoffrey S. Fletcher's directorial debut "Violet & Daisy", where she again played a teen assassin. As reported, Ronan will play Daisy in the film adaptation of the 2004 novel "How I Live Now" by Meg Rosoff. She will appear in Wes Anderson's "The Grand Budapest Hotel", which will co-star Bill Murray, Ralph Fiennes, Adrien Brody, Jude Law and Owen Wilson.
583960	Naan Kadavul (; ) is a 2009 Indian Tamil film co-written and directed by Bala, based on the Tamil novel "Yezhaam Ulagam" by Jayamohan who also penned the dialogues for the film. The film stars Arya and Pooja in the lead roles. The music is composed by Ilaiyaraaja. The film, which had been in making for over three years, was finally released on 6 February 2009, received rave reviews and critical acclaim, winning two National Film Awards, including the Best Director Award for Bala, and three Tamil Nadu State Film Awards. It is a success at the box office. Plot. For astrological reasons, a father leaves his son Rudran (Arya) in Kasi. Fourteen years later, repenting his act he goes with his daughter in search of him. He finds him there but is shocked to learn that he has become an Aghori, a character who gives moksha and prevents the soul from getting rebirth. Nevertheless he brings him back to Tamil Nadu. The story takes a turn here and introduces us to the world of physically and mentally challenged beggars. A world controlled by the cruel Thandavan (Rajendran). Hamsavalli (Pooja Umashankar) a blind girl is forcefully separated from her troop and made to join the beggars. Soon she becomes another victim of Thandavan's cruelty. Meanwhile, Rudran leaves his house to find his place on a small cave, and soon meets Hamsavalli, who tries her best to convince him to return home, but fails. Thandavan then takes a deal with a Malayali man of the same profession to sell some of the beggars.The Malayali guy forcefully takes the beggars away,although they want to stay with the rest of the beggars. He returns again,but this time to force Hamsavalli to marry an ugly, deformed man for 10-lakhs worth of money. Thandavan orders his men to bring Hamsavalli but they take Hamsavalli to Rudran to help her. Rudran kills the Malayali guy and is also arrested by the local Police. This agitates Thandavan and he orders the Police man to release Rudran so that he can kill him. In the mean time Thandavan also finds Hamsavalli and on one incident, Hamsavalli refuses to marry the deformative,which angers him and he runs away without marrying her. This angers Thandavan, who deeply wounds her. Rudran is shown wounded in his forehead with blood oozing out. Flashback opens where Thandavan appears face to face with Rudran. In the fight between the two, Rudran kills Thandavan. Rudran's wound in the forehead is caused due to the fight. She later goes crying to Rudran to somehow free from this curse and also prevent her from rebirth. The aghori then kills her and grants her moksha. In the final scene Rudran returns to Kasi. Production. After the commercial and critical success of "Pithamagan" (2003), Bala began to work on a script for a film starring Dhanush in the lead role. However the project failed to materialize and in September 2004, Bala announced that his next film would star Ajith Kumar in the lead role and A. M. Rathnam would produce the venture. Ajith signed a contract for the film which accepted that he would work in the film for 150 days, and the project was titled as "Naan Kadavul". However the producer dropped out of the film in December 2004, opting to concentrate on his Telugu film "Bangaram" and his son's venture, "Kedi". Early sources indicated that Cleeny, sister of actress Gopika, would play the lead role in the film although this later proved to be untrue and Meera Jasmine was selected. As pre-production work continued, Ajith grew his hair for the role and subsequently appeared in a song in the much-delayed film, "Varalaru" with the long hair he grew for "Naan Kadavul", when doing patchwork. The film was briefly shelved in August 2005 and Ajith moved on to sign other films such as P. Vasu's "Paramasivan", which was initially set to be produced by Bala, and Perarasu's "Thirupathi". The film then re-emerged and in April 2006, Bala announced the technical crew of the film revealing that Arthur A. Wilson would be cinematographer, Krishnamoorthy as art director and that Ilaiyaraaja would score the film's music. Pre-production on the film began in early 2006, with Bala’s assistants already scouting for ideal filming locations in the city of Varanasi. Ajith announced that the shoot of the film would start in the city in May 2006, with the actor refusing to speculate the story of the film. However as the film yet again failed to take off, Ajith finally pulled out of the project in June 2006 stating he could wait no longer for Bala. Suriya was named as a potential replacement, but the actor was committed to several other films during the period. It was reported that Narain, who also made his debut with "Chithiram Pesuthadi", would do the role but producers wanted a more saleable name, and hence Arya was signed up. Arya was eager to appear in the film but had already given dates to Saran for "Vattaram", and unsuccessfully attempted to drop out of that film to allott dates for "Naan Kadavul". Saran's refusal meant that Arya had to wait and complete the film before joining Bala's team. Bhavana was signed for the film after the success of "Chithiram Pesuthadi", replacing Meera Jasmine. The film was consequently launched in June 2006 at Hotel Green Park, Chennai with P. L. Thenappan's Sri Rajalakshmi Films as producers. The photo shoot of the film was held in August 2006 with Arya and Bhavana and images of Arya were released showing him in different postures of Yoga including Sirasasanam and Padmasanam. The film's first schedule began later that month in Nazarethpettai, near Chennai. Reports suggested that Arya was ousted from the film in November 2006 and replaced with Vikram, but this proved untrue. Shoots continued in Kasi and Varanasi in January 2007, with Arya opting against working in any other films til "Naan Kadavul" was complete. Producer Thennapan also backed out of the film in early 2007 but Srinivasan of Vasan Visual Ventures took over swiftly. Bhavana also walked out of the film in early 2007 as she was unable to allot dates for the film and a search for another new cast member began. Meenakshi, Anjali and Parvathi Menon were heavily linked to the role to replace Bhavana, but Bala opted against selecting either. Subsequently Karthika, who had been seen in small budget films such as "Thootukudi" and "Pirappu", was booked as heroine and she was made to beg in the streets of Periyakulam during an audition. However Bala was still unimpressed. Hindi actress, Neetu Chandra, was flown down to Theni for a test shoot but Bala felt she did not have the looks for the role of a beggar girl. Actress Pooja was later finalised as lead actress in September 2007 and joined the sets of the film in Periyakulam in late 2007. She revealed that she went to the audition of the film only after being compelled by director Seeman and thought twice about accepting the film due to her commitments in a Sinhalese film, before the producer of that film released her from her contract. Soundtrack. This film features 7 songs composed by Ilaiyaraaja. The audio was released on 1 January 2009. Lyrics have been penned by Vaali except for the track "Pitchai Paathiram" which has been penned by Ilayaraja himself and the title song "Maa Ganga" written by Bharath Achaarya. Release. Critical response. Rediff wrote:"Naan Kadavul is definitely worth a watch for its superb secondary characters, setting and music. Now, if only the screenplay had provided the missing punch". Behindwoods wrote:"Naan Kadavul is not a movie that everyone can digest. It shows reality in such brutality that you wonder whether such things really do happen. It cannot be called violent; the word ‘brutal’ has to be repeated often to describe the movie. One feels the director could have toned it down a bit, it leaves one very disturbed". Sify wrote:"It's a much darker film than the director’s previous works. Watch Naan Kadavul, because it's one of those films that won't easily get out of your head long after the film is over". Indiaglitz wrote:"In one word, Naan Kadavul is a movie to cherish and celebrate". Actor Rajinikanth was in full praise of Naan Kadavul, citing it as an extraordinary work on screen and congratulated them for their meticulous efforts.
1054409	The Nines is a 2007 science fantasy psychological thriller drama film, written, and directed by John August, and starring Ryan Reynolds, Hope Davis, Melissa McCarthy, and Elle Fanning. The film debuted at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival, and made $63,165 in the U.S. box office through October 11, 2007. Plot. Gary is a troubled actor who is wearing a green bracelet on his wrist, under house arrest living in another person's house because he burned down his own. The owner of the house is described as a TV writer away on work. While living in the house he is befriended by both a P.R. 'handler', Margaret, and the single mom next door, Sarah, who may or may not be interested in him romantically. Over the course of his house arrest, Gary becomes convinced that he is being haunted by the number nine, including finding a note saying "Look for the nines" in "his" handwriting. He encounters many occurrences of the number nine, while playing backgammon he rolls nines, while reading newspaper advertisements he becomes obsessed with finding nines. Asking Sarah about the number 9 worries her and she cryptically tells him "I can get you out of here". He also sees different versions of himself around the house, which unsettles him, causing him to break out of his house arrest barrier, which in turn causes a blip in reality. A television writer, Gavin, trying to get his pilot produced. He leaves home to work on his TV show, "Knowing", about a mother and daughter who are lost, which stars his friend Melissa as the lead actress. In a conversation about reviews and critics Susan, a television executive and producer of the show, tells Gavin to look for the nines which he then writes on a piece of paper, the same piece which Gary found in Part One. He also tells Melissa he thinks he is haunted by "himself". During the process of post production, Susan pushes for Gavin to ditch his friend Melissa as the unconventional lead of his project in favor of a more attractive, well-known actress. This causes an argument between him and Melissa. He then finds out that the well-known actress was actually cast in another show which Susan knew of before suggesting her. Since she is now unavailable and Melissa won't answer Gavin's calls, he confronts Susan about her knowing his show would never get picked up and about him only being a subject on a reality television show. After a heated exchange, he snaps and slaps her. Insulting his manhood for hitting a woman, she scoffs "Do you think you are a man?" and walks away, which leads to him telling the reality TV cameraman to leave him alone. A pedestrian then asks him who he is talking to, and it is shown that the reality television cameraman does not exist. He looks around and notices that everyone has a 7 floating above their heads and also that he has a 9 floating above his head. A flashback from Part One shows Gary's P.R. handler, Margaret, telling him he is a God-like being and that God is a 10, humans are a 7 and that he is a 9, therefore he can destroy the world with a single thought, and that he exists in many different forms and that none of them are real. Gary does not believe this and flips out, which is revealed to be the real reason for his breaking his house arrest barrier in Part One. Acclaimed video game designer Gabriel, whose car breaks down in the middle of nowhere, leaves his wife, Mary, and young daughter, Noelle, to try to get a better signal on his phone. He meets a woman, Sierra (Davis), who leads him off into the woods to her car, so she can give him a lift to the gas station. Meanwhile back at the car Noelle watches a video on a digital camera showing Gavin talking to Melissa from Part Two and Margaret talking to Gary in Part One. She is confused and shows her mom, who appears confused as well.
69014	Mesh generation is the practice of generating a polygonal or polyhedral mesh that approximates a geometric domain. The term "grid generation" is often used interchangeably. Typical uses are for rendering to a computer screen or for physical simulation such as finite element analysis or computational fluid dynamics. The input model form can vary greatly but common sources are CAD, NURBS, B-rep and STL (file format). The field is highly interdisciplinary, with contributions found in mathematics, computer science, and engineering. Three-dimensional meshes created for finite element analysis need to consist of tetrahedra, pyramids, prisms or hexahedra. Those used for the finite volume method can consist of arbitrary polyhedra. Those used for finite difference methods usually need to consist of piecewise structured arrays of hexahedra known as multi-block structured meshes.
724735	Taylor Laurence Handley (born June 1, 1984) is an American actor. In 1998, Taylor played Rory Buck in the movie "Jack Frost". In 2000, Handley starred in the Disney Channel Original Movie, "Phantom of the Megaplex". Handley appeared in three episodes during the last season of "Dawson's Creek" and guest starred during an episode of '. In 2003/2004, Handley appeared in six episodes of the first season of "The O.C.", as Oliver Trask, a mentally unstable teenager who, after meeting Marissa Cooper in a therapy clinic, becomes infatuated with her to the point of nearly committing suicide over her. In 2006, Handley appeared in three fims: "The Standard", ' and "Zerophilia". Handley's next film, "September Dawn", was released to theaters on August 24, 2007. In 2007, Handley starred as Johnny Miller in the short-lived CW television program, "Hidden Palms". On April 9, 2009, he guest starred in the pilot of "Southland", playing the character Wade. He returned as Wade in the second episode of the second season. Handley also co-starred alongside Dennis Quaid in the series "Vegas", playing the character Dixon Lamb. In 2013 he also appeared in the commercial Greatness Awaits for The Upcoming PS4 Console
632755	Peter John DeLuise (born November 6, 1966) is an American actor, director, producer, and screenwriter, known for his role as Officer Doug Penhall in the Fox TV series "21 Jump Street", and for directing and writing episodes of science fiction television shows, particularly in the "Stargate" franchise. Early life. DeLuise was born in New York City, New York, and is the oldest son of actor and comedian Dom DeLuise and actress Carol Arthur (née Arata), and the brother of actors Michael DeLuise and David DeLuise. He is sometimes credited as Peter De Luise. Career. DeLuise made his film debut in the 1979 film "Hot Stuff". He landed his best known acting role, as Officer Doug Penhall, in the 1987 Fox series "21 Jump Street", alongside other promising actors including Johnny Depp. His brother Michael came on the show in the fifth season where he played his younger brother, Officer Joey Penhall. DeLuise is also well known for his role as Dagwood on the NBC science fiction television series "SeaQuest DSV" from 1994 to 1996. DeLuise has made guest appearances on the television shows "The Facts of Life", "21 Jump Street" spin-off "Booker", "Friends", "", "Gene Roddenberry's Andromeda", and "Stargate SG-1". In 1997, he began working on the series "Stargate SG-1", serving as producer, writer, director, and creative consultant. He has appeared, normally as an extra, in every episode of the series he has directed. He went on to work as executive producer, director and writer for the "Stargate SG-1" spin-off "Stargate Atlantis", and directed eight episodes of the spin-off "Stargate Universe". His father, Dom DeLuise, made a guest appearance in the "Stargate SG-1" episode "Urgo", which Peter directed. Peter also made a cameo in the episode as the "Urgo" character transformed to be a young man in a United States Air Force uniform. DeLuise directed the CBC television series "jPod", based on the novel of the same name by Douglas Coupland, which debuted in January 2008 and directed the fantasy film "Beyond Sherwood Forest". He made a brief cameo appearance alongside Johnny Depp in the 2012 film adaptation, "21 Jump Street". Depp, DeLuise and Holly Robinson reprised their roles as Tom Hanson, Doug Penhall and Judy Hoffs, respectively. Personal life. Peter DeLuise was married to actress Gina Nemo from 1988 to 1992; she played Doug Penhall's girlfriend on "21 Jump Street". In 2002 he married Canadian actress Anne Marie Loder. They have a son, Jake Dominick (born 2004).
585192	Achamillai Achamillai is a 1984 Indian Tamil language drama film directed by K. Balachander starring Delhi Ganesh, Rajesh and Saritha. Plot. Achamillai Achamillai is a family oriented movie where Rajesh marries Sarita. At first they enjoy their life together very but another woman enters his life and he marries her. Sarita is disappointed in this. This movie captures the status of a man,his woman, his family & his village before and after the entry of politics. Director vents out his anger towards the politicians throughout the movie by means of few characters. Thenmozhi (Sarita) admires Ulaganathan (Rajesh) for all his good qualities, loves him and marries him eventually. But he is brain washed by politicians and becomes a different person to which Thenmozhi is against. All his atrocities go beyond the tolerance limit of her, finally she decides to take him out.
589955	Harindranath Chattopadhyay (April 2, 1898 – June 23, 1990) was an Indian English poet, an actor, and a member of the 1st Lok Sabha from Vijayawada constituency. He was the younger brother of Sarojini Naidu. Life. Born to Aghornath Chattopadhyay, a scientist-philosopher, and Barada Sundari Devi, a poetess, he is famous for poems like "Noon" and "Shaper Shaped". His other interests were politics, theatre and cinema. He was awarded Padma Bhushan in 1973. He married Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay, a Socialist and leader of Women, who created the All India Women's Conference, the Indian Cooperative Union and also was the inspiration for the All Indian Handicraft's Board, a body which revived many Indian handicrafts, decimated by the Industrial Revolution in Britain in the 19th century. (Pottery and Weaving) their son Ramakrishna Chattopadhyaya is in Banagalore, India, today. Their divorce marked the very first legal separation granted by the courts of India.
586778	Anaganaga Oka Roju () is a 1997 Telugu Road movie thriller written and directed by Ram Gopal Varma. The film stars J. D. Chakravarthy and Urmila Matondkar in the lead roles. Raghuvaran, Brahmanandam and Kota Srinivasa Rao play other pivotal roles. The film was opened to positive reviews by critics. The soundtrack of this film had a positive opening. Synopsis. Chakri (J.D Chakravarthy) and Madhu(Urmila Mantodkar) are neighbors who love each other. Their parents who fight each other all the time over petty issues do not approve them of their love. The film involves the comic travails of a couple eloping and on the run from their parents. They get entangled as murder suspects of a politician. In a police and political mafia road hunt for an incriminating audio tape. Awards. Bramhanandam won Nandi award for Best Comedy DVD. KAD Entertainment bagged the home video rights for this movie
1065665	The Brown Bunny is a 2003 American independent art house film written, produced and directed by Vincent Gallo about a motorcycle racer on a cross-country drive who is haunted by memories of his former lover. The film had its world premiere at the 2003 Cannes Film Festival. The film garnered a great deal of media attention because of the explicit and unsimulated sexual content of the final scene between Gallo and actress Chloë Sevigny, as well as a war of words between Gallo and film critic Roger Ebert, who stated that "The Brown Bunny" was the worst film in the history of Cannes, although he later gave a re-edited version of the film his signature "thumbs up". The film stars Gallo and Chloë Sevigny in the two central roles, as well as a cameo performance by American former model Cheryl Tiegs. The movie was filmed on handheld 16 mm cameras in various locations throughout the United States, including New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Missouri, Utah, Nevada, and California. Plot. Motorcycle racer Bud Clay undertakes a cross-country drive, following a race in New Hampshire, in order to participate in a race in California. All the while he is haunted by memories of his former lover, Daisy. On his journey he meets three women, but Bud seems to be a lost soul, and he's unable to form an emotional connection with any of them. He first meets Violet at a gas station in New Hampshire and convinces her to join him on his trip to California. They stop at her home in order to get her clothes, but he drives off as soon as she enters the house. Bud's next stop is at Daisy's parents' home, the location of Daisy's brown bunny. Daisy's mother does not remember Bud, who grew up in the house next door, nor does she remember having visited Bud and Daisy in California. Next, Bud stops at a pet shelter, where he asks about the life expectancy of rabbits (he is told about five or six years). At a highway rest stop, he joins a distressed woman, Lilly, comforts and kisses her, before starting to cry and eventually leaving her. Bud appears more distressed as the road trip continues, crying as he drives. He stops at the Bonneville Speedway to race his motorcycle. In Las Vegas, he drives around prostitutes on street corners, before deciding to ask one of them, Rose, to join him for a lunch. She eats McDonald's food in his truck until he stops, pays her, and leaves her back on the street. After having his motorcycle checked in a Los Angeles garage, Bud stops at Daisy's home, which appears abandoned. He leaves a note on the door frame, after sitting in his truck in the driveway remembering about kissing Daisy in this place and checks in at a hotel. There, Daisy eventually appears. She seems nervous, going to the bathroom twice to smoke crack cocaine, while Bud waits for her, sitting on his bed. As she proposes to go out to buy something to drink, Bud tells her that, because of what happened the last time they saw each other, he doesn't drink anymore. They have an argument about Daisy kissing other boys. At this point, Bud undresses Daisy and she performs fellatio on him, culminating in her swallowing his semen. Once done, he insults her as they lie in bed, talking about what happened during their last meeting. Bud continuously asks Daisy why she had been involved with some men at a party. She explains that she was just being friendly and wanted to smoke pot with them. Bud becomes upset because Daisy was pregnant and it transpires that the baby died as a result of what happened at this party. Through flashback scenes, the viewer understands that Daisy was raped at the party, a scene witnessed by Bud, who did not intervene. Daisy asks Bud why he didn't help her, and his feelings of guilt on this are considerable. But Bud explains to her that he didn't know what to do, and so he decided to leave the party. After he came back a bit later, he saw an ambulance in front of the house and Daisy explains to Bud that she's dead, having passed out prior to the rape and then choked to death on her own vomit. Bud awakens the next morning, alone; his encounter with Daisy turns out to be a figment of his imagination. The movie ends as Bud is driving his truck in California. Production and release. The film was shot in 16 mm and then blown up in 35 mm, which gives the photography a typical "old-school grain". Vincent Gallo is credited as director of the photography as well as one of the three camera operators along with Toshiaki Ozawa and John Clemens. The version of the film shown in the U.S. has been cut by about 25 minutes compared to the version shown at Cannes, removing a large part of the initial scene at the race track (about four minutes shorter), about six minutes of music and black screen at the end of the film, and about seven minutes of driving before the scene in the Bonneville Speedway. Neither Anna Vareschi nor Elizabeth Blake, both in the film, were professional actresses. Kirsten Dunst and Winona Ryder were both attached to the project but left. In an interview from "The Guardian" Sevigny said of the sex scene: "It wasn't that bad for me, I have been intimate with Vincent before." For the film's promotion, a trailer was released featuring a split screen in the style of Andy Warhol's "Chelsea Girls", depicting on one side of the screen a single point-of-view-shot of a driver on a country road, and the other side various scenes from the end of the film featuring Chloë Sevigny. Both sides of the screen had no audio tracks attached, although the song "Milk and Honey" by folk singer Jackson C. Frank played over the trailer's duration. Controversy. Cannes reception and reviews. The film was entered into the 2003 Cannes Film Festival.
1017564	Winners and Sinners (), (aka 5 Lucky Stars), is a 1983 Hong Kong martial arts action crime comedy film written and directed by Sammo Hung, and starring Hung, Jackie Chan and Yuen Biao. It was the first in the "Lucky Stars" series of films a highly successful series in Hong Kong. The film co-stars Jackie Chan in a significant role as an error-prone police officer. It also features a cameo appearance from Yuen Biao as another police officer who gets into a fight with Chan's character. The film is a semi-prequel to "My Lucky Stars" and "Twinkle, Twinkle Lucky Stars", insofar as the "Five Lucky Stars" concept and many of the same actors return in those latter films. However, the character names and indeed their roles differ - Stanley Fung's character is the nominal "leader" of the quintet in "Winners and Sinners", whereas Sammo Hung's character takes the mantle in the latter films. Background. Sammo Hung got the idea for the film from an old TV show, in which a group of police officers from different backgrounds worked together, each displaying their own particular skills. By giving the characters humorous and disparate backgrounds, he hoped to make an entertaining film. The film's Chinese title, "Five Lucky Stars" was chosen as it was evocative of the Seven Little Fortunes (aka "The Lucky Seven"). The Seven Little Fortunes was the name of the performance troupe that included Hung, Chan and Yuen, whilst they attended the Peking Opera School, The China Drama Academy, as children. Mika used the hook from the closing titles song as the chorus tune to his smash hit Lollipop without acknowledging the authors. Plot. The film begins with Teapot (Sammo Hung), attempting to rob the dormant homes of a wealthy neighborhood in Hong Kong. When attempting to rob one particular house, he is briefly mistaken for the guest of honor at a surprise birthday party, and is subsequently handed over to the police. The following day, four other petty criminals are apprehended - unruly civil rights leader Curly (John Shum), car washer Exhaust Pipe (Richard Ng) who steals vehicle parts, well-dressed thief Vaseline (Charlie Chin) who swindles jewelry shops' most expensive watches, and Rookie (Stanley Fung), a mysterious, and rude, stranger. The quintet unite in prison and promise to make their fortune together in every possible way upon their release. Rookie is the gang's leader, whilst Teapot is bullied by the others (in the later films, Roundhead, played by Eric Tsang, is the group's victim and Hung's character is the leader). Following their release, they team up with Curly's beautiful sister, Shirley (Cherie Chung), and form a cleaning company. A sixth convict, the wealthy Jack Tar (James Tien) is released on the same day. Upon his release, he returns to his mansion, his fleet of expensive vehicles and his dozens of bodyguards. Tar commences work on his next criminal project, trading counterfeit US and Hong Kong currency with another crime boss. When the deal takes place, a brave but careless cop CID 07 (Jackie Chan) attempts to recover the briefcase containing the phony money, but the case somehow ends up in the Five Stars Cleaning Co. van. While none of the workers realize this misfortune, Tar certainly does. Later, Teapot and his friends decide to attend Tar's high-class party, hoping to expand their business with the wealthy guests. Unluckily Tar recognizes Curly instantly, and interrogates him. A battle ensues, where Teapot's kung fu skills are heavily relied on. Finally, another Triad gang, led by Tar's rival, wants the printing plates as well. A climatic fight takes place at a warehouse, where both Tar and his rival, along with their goons, are finally defeated. At the end, Teapot receives a reward and marries Shirley. International version. A dubbed version was released in the UK in the late 1980s, and later on DVD in Sweden, which omitted a karaoke sequence in the market stall (with the song performed being Young Turks by Rod Stewart). The 2004 UK DVD release by Hong Kong Legends is the original Hong Kong version (containing this scene). DVD release. On August 2, 2004, DVD was released by Hong Kong Legends at UK in Region 2.
1163858	Cheryl Ruth Hines (born September 21, 1965) is an American actress, comedian, producer and director, known for her role as Larry David's wife Cheryl on HBO's "Curb Your Enthusiasm", for which she was nominated for two Emmy Awards. She is currently starring as Dallas Royce on the ABC sitcom "Suburgatory". In 2009, she made her directorial debut with "Serious Moonlight". Early life. Hines was born Cheryl Ruth Hines in Miami Beach, Florida, a daughter of James and Rosemary Hines. Part of the family came from Frostproof, Florida, but she grew up in Tallahassee, where she was a member of the Young Actors Theatre throughout high school. Hines also attended Lively Technical Center and Tallahassee Community College in Tallahassee. She was raised Catholic and has two brothers and a sister. She attended West Virginia University and Florida State University before graduating from the University of Central Florida. Career. Before getting her break in Hollywood, Hines worked as a waitress, television reporter, and telephone operator, as well as personal assistant to Rob Reiner, when she moved to Los Angeles to pursue acting. Though Reiner did not play a critical role in her career, he would watch her shows when she began acting. She would guest appear on TV shows such as "Swamp Thing" and "Unsolved Mysteries". Hines began her acting career by doing improvisational comedy at The Groundlings Theater. Among the people she studied with was Lisa Kudrow. She also learned to write comedy sketches, which served her well when working on HBO's "Curb Your Enthusiasm" as Larry David's fictional wife, Cheryl. The show is written using the retroscripting technique, in which the plot outlines are generally and loosely drawn, and the individual actors improvise to create the dialogue. "When the show first came out, people from Tallahassee thought, 'Well, maybe Cheryl got married'", she recalls of the show's initial reception. "Sometimes, I do feel like I live two lives." Hines received Emmy nomination for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series for her work on "Curb Your Enthusiasm" in 2003 and 2006. Speaking about being cast on the show, Hines has said that "Until "Curb", I’d done small roles, really small roles. They wanted to cast an unknown actress. It worked in my favor that I hadn’t done anything. It changed my life." In movies, she was one of the stars of "RV" opposite Robin Williams, "Waitress" with Keri Russell, and the 2008 mockumentary comedy "The Grand", a spoof of the World Series of Poker. Her 2009 directorial debut "Serious Moonlight" stars Meg Ryan with a script by the late Adrienne Shelly, Hines's co-star in "Waitress". During the 2009-2010 season of "Brothers and Sisters", she guest-starred as Kitty Walker McCallister's campaign manager, Buffy. It was announced in July 2010 that Hines would be joining the cast of the new Nickelodeon films based on their series "The Fairly Oddparents", "A Fairly Odd Movie: Grow Up Timmy Turner!" and "A Fairly Odd Christmas". She served as Wanda, the main character's (Timmy's) godmother. Hines serves as the executive producer for the 2010 reality series "School Pride", which follows the renovation of a different school each week. Hines is currently starring as Dallas Royce on the ABC sitcom "Suburgatory". Personal life and Charities. Hines married Paul Young, founder of the management firm Principato-Young, on December 30, 2002. They have one child, daughter Catherine Rose Young. On July 20, 2010, Hines and Young filed papers for their divorce after nearly eight years of marriage. Hines serves on the Board of Trustees of United Cerebral Palsy.
774804	Paul Michael Gross (born April 30, 1959) is a Canadian actor, producer, director, singer and writer born in Calgary, Alberta. He is known for his lead role as Constable Benton Fraser in the television series "Due South" as well as his 2008 war film "Passchendaele", which he wrote, produced, directed, and starred in. During "Due South"'s final season, Gross acted as executive producer in addition to starring, wrote the season three opener and finale, the two part series finale and wrote and sang songs for the show, some of which can be found on the two "Due South" soundtracks. He later found success with another Canadian TV series, "Slings and Arrows". He also produced one film with Akshay Kumar called Speedy Singhs starring Camilla Belle and Vinay Virmani. Career. Gross studied acting at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, but he left during the third year of his study. He went back later to complete the half-credit needed to receive his fine arts degree. He appeared in several stage productions, such as "Hamlet" and "Romeo and Juliet". Other productions in which he appeared include "Observe the Sons of Ulster Marching Towards the Somme" and "As You Like It".
1161261	Gil Birmingham (born July 13, 1953) is an American actor of Comanche ancestry, known for his portrayal of Billy Black in the "The Twilight Saga" film series. Personal background. Birmingham was born in San Antonio, Texas. His family moved frequently during his childhood, due to his father's career in the military. He learned to play the guitar at an early age and considers music his "first love." After obtaining a bachelor of science degree from the University of Southern California he worked as a petrochemical engineer before becoming an actor. Professional background. Music videos. In the early 1980s, a talent scout spotted Birmingham at a local gym, where he had been bodybuilding and entering bodybuilding contests. This led to his first acting experience, in Diana Ross's 1982 music video for the song "Muscles". Theme park appearances. After appearing in Ross' music video, Birmingham began to pursue acting as his primary career. He studied acting with Larry Moss and Charles Conrad. He portrayed the character of Conan the Barbarian in Universal Studios Hollywood's theme park attraction "". Television roles. In 1986, Birmingham made his television debut on an episode of the series "Riptide". By 2002, he had a recurring role as the character Oz in the medical drama "Body & Soul", starring Peter Strauss. In 2005, he was cast as the older Dogstar in the Steven Spielberg six-part miniseries "Into the West".
582207	Action Replayy (formerly "Action Replay") is an Indian science fiction romantic comedy film directed by Vipul Shah and starring Akshay Kumar and Aishwarya Rai in the lead roles. Aditya Roy Kapoor, Neha Dhupia, Om Puri, Kirron Kher and Rajpal Yadav play supporting roles in the film. The film was scheduled for release coinciding with Diwali 2010. The plot is similar to the 1985 Hollywood film "Back to the Future" starring Michael J. Fox and Christopher Lloyd. Director Vipul Shah says any such similarities are coincidental because the screenplay was adapted from a Gujarati play of the same name and perhaps "inspired" by H. G. Wells' "The Time Machine". Plot. The story focuses on Kishen (Akshay Kumar), a well-to-do businessman, who is unhappily married to Mala (Aishwarya Rai). They have a grown-up son, Bunty (Aditya Roy Kapoor), who does not want to get married because of the loveless relationship between his parents. Bunty's girlfriend, Tanya (Sudeepa Singh), keeps proposing to him but he always rejects. On their 35th anniversary, Kishen and Mala get in an argument because of her friend Kundan (Rannvijay Singh). Kundan had been in love with Mala for 30 years and still dislikes Kishen. This leads to a fight between Kishen and Kundan. After the fight, Tanya takes Bunty to her grandfather, Anthony Gonsalves (Randhir Kapoor), who happens to be a scientist and he is working on a time machine.
674143	Luna Marie Schweiger (born 11 January 1997) is a German child actress. She is best known for her role as young Anna Gotzlowki in the 2007 film "Keinohrhasen" and its 2009 sequel "Zweiohrküken", directed by her father Til Schweiger. Family. Luna Marie Schweiger was born on 11 January 1997 in Berlin to German actor Til Schweiger and American fashion model Dana Carlson. She is the second of four children, after Valentin (born 1995), and the eldest daughter, before Lilli (born 1998) and Emma (born 2002). All four of them are child actors, having all first appeared in the 2007 film "Keinohrhasen" and its 2009 sequel "Zweiohrküken", directed by their father. Her parents separated in 2005. Schweiger now lives with her mother in Hamburg. Career. Schweiger made her film debut as young Anna Gotzlowski in "Keinohrhasen" (2007), co–starring Nora Tschirner and her father Til Schweiger, who also directed the film, and reprised her role in its 2009 sequel, "Zweiohrküken". In 2009, she portrayed the role of Sarah in the drama "Phantomschmerz", starring Til Schweiger, Jana Pallaske and Stipe Erceg. Schweiger briefly appeared in the 2011 film "Kokowääh", starring her father and sister Emma Tiger Schweiger.
1268093	Bessie Love (September 10, 1898 – April 26, 1986) was an American motion picture actress who achieved prominence mainly in the silent films and early talkies. With a small frame and delicate features, she played innocent young girls, flappers, and wholesome leading ladies. Her role in "The Broadway Melody" (1929) earned her a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actress. In addition to her acting career, she wrote the screenplay for the 1919 film "A Yankee Princess". Early life. Love was born Juanita Horton in Midland, Texas. She attended school in Midland until she was in the eighth grade, when her chiropractor father moved his family to Hollywood. Bessie graduated from Los Angeles High School and then received from her parents the graduation present of a trip around the United States. After six months of traveling, she finally returned home to Los Angeles. Career. The Silent Era. To help with the family's financial situation, Love's mother sent her to Biograph Studios, where she met pioneering film director D.W. Griffith. Griffith, who introduced Bessie Love to films, also gave the actress her screen name. He gave her a small role in his film "Intolerance" (1916). She also appeared opposite William S. Hart in "The Aryan" and with Douglas Fairbanks in "The Good Bad Man", "Reggie Mixes In", and "The Mystery of the Leaping Fish" (all 1916). In 1922 Love was selected one of the WAMPAS Baby Stars. In 1923, she starred in "Human Wreckage" with Dorothy Davenport and produced by Thomas Ince. As her roles got larger, so did her popularity. She performed the Charleston in the film "The King on Main Street" in 1925. Also that same year she starred in "The Lost World", a science fiction adventure based on the novel of the same name by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Three years later she starred in "The Matinee Idol", a romantic comedy directed by a young Frank Capra. The Sound Era. Love was able to successfully transition to talkies, and in 1929 she was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress for "The Broadway Melody". She also appeared in several other early musicals including "The Hollywood Revue of 1929" (1929), "Chasing Rainbows" (1930), "Good News" (1930), and "They Learned About Women" (1930). However, by 1932 her American film career was in decline. She moved to England in 1935 and did stage work and occasional films there. As war came in Europe she returned to the US for a while, worked for the Red Cross, and entertained the troops. After the war she moved back to Britain where she kept her main residence, and continued to play small film roles for film companies in both the US and Britain. She appeared in films such as "The Barefoot Contessa" (1954) with Humphrey Bogart, Ealing Studios' "Nowhere to Go" (1958), and as an American tourist in "The Greengage Summer" (1961) starring Kenneth More. She also played a small role as an American tourist in the James Bond thriller "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" (1969). She played a small but pivotal role as a switchboard operator in 1971's "Sunday Bloody Sunday". Her career came to a quick halt soon after that however, and she moved permanently to the United Kingdom, becoming a British citizen. She made a comeback in the 1980s with roles in "Ragtime" (1981), Warren Beatty's "Reds" (1981), "Lady Chatterley's Lover" (1981) and (her final film) "The Hunger" (1983) starring Catherine Deneuve, David Bowie, and Susan Sarandon. During her lifetime, Love was featured in 131 films and TV episodes. Personal life. In 1977 she published an autobiography, "From Hollywood with Love". She was at this time living comfortably in a flat overlooking London’s Clapham Common and had recently appeared in a television account of the abdication of King Edward VIII. She recorded that during World War II in Britain when she found acting work hard to come by she had been the "continuity girl" on the film drama "San Demetrio London", an account of a ship badly damaged in the Atlantic but whose crew managed to bring her to port. She also says she had regular diet in the post-war era of stage roles as an American Tourist and similar roles, and was "Aunt Pittypat" in a large-scale musical version of "Gone With the Wind". Love married agent William Hawks (January 29, 1901 Neenah, Wisconsin – January 10, 1969 Santa Monica, California) at St. James Episcopal Church in Pasadena, California on December 27, 1929. Mary Astor, Bebe Daniels, Carmel Myers, Norma Shearer and Blanche Sweet were her bridesmaids, William's brother Howard Hawks and Irving Thalberg ushered. Mary Astor was William's sister-in-law, married to brother Kenneth Hawks. They then lived at the Havenhurst Apartments in Hollywood. They had daughter Patricia Hawks (February 19, 1932 Los Angeles, California) who had some bit parts in movies in 1952. They divorced in 1935. Love died in London, England from natural causes on April 26, 1986. She has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6777 Hollywood Boulevard, Los Angeles, California.
1063842	The Lost Boys is a 1987 American teen horror film starring Jason Patric, Corey Haim, Kiefer Sutherland, Jami Gertz, Corey Feldman, Dianne Wiest, Edward Herrmann, Alex Winter, Jamison Newlander, and Barnard Hughes. The film is about two Arizona brothers who move to California and end up fighting a gang of teenage vampires. The title is a reference to the Lost Boys in J. M. Barrie's stories about Peter Pan and Neverland. The film was followed by two sequels, ' and '. Plot. Michael Emerson (Jason Patric) and his younger brother, Sam (Corey Haim), move with their recently divorced mother, Lucy (Dianne Wiest), to the beach community of Santa Carla, California. The family moves in with Lucy's father (Barnard Hughes), a cantankerous and eccentric old man who lives on the outskirts of town and enjoys taxidermy as a hobby. Michael and Sam begin hanging out on the Boardwalk, which is plastered with flyers of missing people. While Lucy gets a job at a local video store run by a conservative man named Max (Edward Herrmann), Michael becomes fascinated by Star (Jami Gertz), a beautiful young woman he spots at the Boardwalk one night and who is in a relationship with David (Kiefer Sutherland). David is the handsome and mysterious leader of a local gang. Meanwhile, in the local comic book store, Sam meets brothers Edgar and Alan Frog (Corey Feldman and Jamison Newlander), a pair of self-proclaimed vampire hunters, who warn him that Santa Carla is under attack from vampires and give him horror comics to teach him about the threat. Michael finally talks to Star and is approached by David, who goads Michael into following them by motorcycle down the beach until they reach a dangerous cliff, which Michael almost goes over. At the gang's headquarters, a sunken luxury hotel beneath the cliff, David initiates Michael into the group, having him drink from a bottle of wine. Star warns Michael not to drink, telling him it's blood, but Michael ignores her advice.
1376965	Bambi II is a 2006 Disney animated feature directed by Brian Pimental that initially premiered in theaters in Argentina on January 26, 2006, before being released as a direct-to-video title in the United States on February 7, 2006. It holds the world record for the longest span of time between two consecutive installments of a franchise, being released 64 years after the original. The film is a midquel, the story taking place in the middle of Disney's original "Bambi", with the Great Prince of the Forest dealing with the now motherless Bambi. It was first titled "Bambi and the Great Prince", but was renamed "Bambi and the Great Prince of the Forest" and later "Bambi II". Plot. After his mother is killed by hunters Bambi (Alexander Gould) stumbles upon his father, the Great Prince of the Forest (Patrick Stewart), who takes him back to his den. The Great Prince asks Friend Owl (Keith Ferguson) to find a doe to raise Bambi, since his duties are to his herd, but Owl informs him that because of the harsh winters the does can barely feed themselves, let alone any extra mouths. The Great Prince has no choice but to look after Bambi until the spring. Months later, the Great Prince allows Bambi to accompany his friends, Thumper (Brendon Baerg), and Flower (Nicky Jones), to see the Groundhog, whose shadow will foretell if winter will end soon. Bambi lies to them about how close he and his father are, while the Great Prince keeps the truth of his mother’s death from him.
1065039	Horse Feathers (1932) is a Marx Brothers film comedy. It stars the four Marx Brothers (Groucho, Chico, Harpo and Zeppo) and Thelma Todd. It was written by Bert Kalmar, Harry Ruby, S. J. Perelman, and Will B. Johnstone. Kalmar and Ruby also wrote some of the original music for the film. Several of the film's gags were taken from the Marx Brothers' stage comedy from the 1900s, "Fun in Hi Skule". Plot. The film revolves around college football and a game between the fictional Darwin and Huxley Colleges. Many of the jokes about the amateur status of collegiate football players and how eligibility rules are stretched by collegiate athletic departments remain remarkably current. Groucho plays Quincy Adams Wagstaff, the new president of Huxley College, and Zeppo is his son Frank, who convinces his father to recruit professional football players to help Huxley's team. There are also many references to Prohibition. Baravelli (Chico) is an "iceman", who delivers ice and bootleg liquor from a local speakeasy. Pinky (Harpo) is also an "iceman", and a part-time dogcatcher. Through a series of misunderstandings, Baravelli and Pinky are recruited to play on Huxley's football team; this requires them to enroll as students at Huxley, which creates chaos throughout the school. The climax of the movie, often referenced as one of the greatest football-related scenes in movie history, includes the four protagonists winning the football game by taking the ball into the end zone in a horse-drawn garbage wagon that Pinky rides like a chariot. A picture of the brothers in the "chariot" near the end of the film made the cover of "TIME" in 1932. Musical numbers. The film prominently features the song "Everyone Says I Love You", by Bert Kalmar and Harry Ruby. (This song was later the title song of the eponymous 1996 Woody Allen movie. All four brothers perform the song, almost every time as a serenade to Connie Bailey. Zeppo leads with a "straight" verse:
1047095	Catriona MacColl (born 3 October 1954) is an English actress who has worked extensively in both film and television across Europe. Career. MacColl is recognised for her work on European television and film, mainly in Italy. She has gained somewhat of a cult status in her career as an Italian horror actress. MacColl began her career in the late 1970s, making her debut in the French romantic drama "Le dernier amant romantique", in which she received a small role. In 1979, she received her first leading role in "Lady Oscar", a historical drama directed by Jacques Demy based on the manga "Rose of Versailles" by Riyoko Ikeda. Following her part in the drama "Le fils puni", MacColl appeared in the first of director Lucio Fulci's 'The Gates of Hell Trilogy', "City of the Living Dead", playing the role of Mary Woodhouse, with Christopher George. In her second role in the trilogy, "The Beyond", she plays the role of Liza Merril, a young woman who inherits an infamous hotel in Louisiana only to discover what lies beneath it is one of the seven doors to Hell. MacColl has stated that "The Beyond" is her most favourable of the trilogy, for the fact that she enjoyed working with the cast and crew, especially David Warbeck, and that it was filmed in New Orleans. The final of the trilogy was "The House by the Cemetery", for which she played Lucy Boyle, the mother and wife of a family who move into an old house, unaware that someone or something lives in the basement. MacColl did not originally plan to work in films with such a violent nature, as she had thought that they would not attract an audience, but following the growing fanbase of the trilogy over the years and that the films have received worldwide recognition, she is proud of the success of the trilogy. In 2004, MacColl was approached by French director Pascal Laugier, to play a leading role in "House of Voices". The film contains all the elements of a Fulci film. She has appeared in several films throughout her film career, having appeared in "Hawk the Slayer", "Afraid of the Dark", "A Good Year", directed by Ridley Scott and starring Russell Crowe and most recently, she appeared in the 2011 anthology film "The Theatre Bizarre". MacColl has also had a successful career in television. In 1978, she made her television debut in the French series "Il était un musicien". Her credits include, the mystery series "Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson", the short-lived BBC series "Squadron", the mini-series "The Last Days of Pompeii", "Dempsey and Makepeace", "The Hardy Boys", and the French soap opera "Plus belle la vie". Personal life. MacColl was married to the late actor Jon Finch from 1982-87 and now lives in France.
1057623	On Dangerous Ground is a 1952 film noir directed by Nicholas Ray and produced by John Houseman. The screenplay was written by A. I. Bezzerides based on the novel "Mad with Much Heart," by Gerald Butler. The drama features Ida Lupino, Robert Ryan, Ward Bond, and others. Plot. The film opens with Bernard Herrmann's music, played over the both the RKO logo and then the title credits as the camera cruises down a dark city street. The stark nighttime scenery immediately establishes a "noir" atmosphere. The police officers are getting ready for a day's work and head to the squad room. It is announced that it has been two weeks since the killing of a cop and the culprit is still on the loose. Detective Jim Wilson and his partner, acting on a tip, visit Myrna Bowers. Her very abusive boyfriend, Bernie Tucker, is supposed to be a partner of the suspected murderers. Jim convinces Myrna to reveal Bernie's hideout, and after he tracks Bernie down, he beats him into betraying his partners. Although Jim's actions lead to the arrest of the killers, his superior, Capt. Brawley, cautions him to take it easy. Later, while on patrol, the detectives hear a woman scream and discover Myrna being beaten by two thugs. Jim grabs one of the men and starts to rough him up. The next day, Brawley yells at Jim that he is becoming a liability to the department and assigns him to assist in the investigation of a young woman's murder in the rural north. Jim Wilson has lost control, and says after he's restrained by his partner from beating up a suspect: In the second act, Wilson is sent up north to cool out. "Siberia," he wryly notes. Though he is given a job similar to what he has left behind in the city—a murder investigation—Wilson's exile to the wintry countryside marks the beginning of his journey of redemption. Following a pursuit of the killer, Wilson is brought together with a blind woman, Mary Malden (Ida Lupino), the sister of the fugitive. In the brief final act, Wilson's redemption is a foregone conclusion, but it is his journey toward it that matters most: Wilson has made his way on dangerous ground. Reception. Critical response. "The New York Times" film critic Bosley Crowther gave the film a harsh review based on the screenplay. He wrote. "But, as we say, the story is a shallow, uneven affair, as written by A. I. Bezzerides from Gerald Butler's "Mad With Much Heart." The cause of the cop's sadism is only superficially explained, and certainly his happy redemption is easily and romantically achieved. And while a most galling performance of the farmer is given by Ward Bond, Ida Lupino is mawkishly stagey as the blind girl who melts the cop's heart. For all the sincere and shrewd direction and the striking outdoor photography, this R. K. O. melodrama fails to traverse its chosen ground." Fernando F. Croce, film critic for "Slant" magazine, liked the film and wrote, "Perched between late-'40s noir and mid-'50s crime drama, this is one of the great, forgotten works of the genre...Easily mushy, the material achieves a nearly transcendental beauty in the hands of Ray, a poet of anguished expression: The urban harshness of the city is contrasted with the austere snowy countryside for some of the most disconcertingly moving effects in all film noir. Despite the violence and the steady intensity, a remarkably pure film." Critic Dennis Schwartz liked the film and acting in the drama and wrote, "A schematic film noir by Nicholas Ray ("They Live by Night") that overcomes its artificial contrivances to become a touching psychological drama about despair and loneliness--one of the best of this sort in the history of film noir...Robert Ryan's fierce performance is superb, as he's able to convincingly assure us he has a real spiritual awakening; while Lupino's gentle character acts to humanize the crime fighter, who has walked on the "dangerous ground" of the city and has never realized before that there could be any other kind of turf until meeting someone as profound and tolerant as Mary." Music. The film score was composed by the legendary Bernard Herrmann (1911–1975). Instrumentation: piccolo, 3 flutes, 2 oboes, an English horn, 2 clarinets, bass clarinet, 2 bassoons, contrabassoon, 8 horns, 3 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, bass drum, tam-tam, bell plate, piano, and strings.
691308	A Summer in St. Tropez or Un été à Saint-Tropez (original French title) is a 1983 French film directed by photographer David Hamilton. Principal photography. The film was shot at and around David Hamilton's own house in Saint Tropez, which is 800 years old. Summary. The film contains no dialogue at all, although the characters occasionally laugh and giggle. The soundtrack is the music of Benoit Wiedemann. Stills from the film can be seen in Hamilton's book "The Dance". Some shots in the film are taken from his books "Sisters" and "Dreams of a Young Girl". Availability. This film is available on DVD in the UK. Book. A book of images from the film, "A Summer in St. Tropez" was released in 1983.
585676	Thoovanathumbikal (, ) is a 1987 Malayalam romance film written and directed by P. Padmarajan, which is based on his own novel "Udakappola". The film revolves around Jayakrishnan (Mohanlal) who falls in love with two women; Radha (Parvathy) a distant relative of his and Clara (Sumalatha) an escort in town. The film has turned into a cult film with a large following and commands good viewership even till today. The film was ranked #8 by IBN Live in its list of greatest Indian films of all time. The movie is also praised for the rich film score and popular songs. Rain is a recurring theme and is portrayed almost as a character in the film. Plot. Jayakrishnan (Mohanlal), a well-to-do bachelor lives a contrasting dual life, one among his friends in the town and the other at his native village, where he lives with his mother and sister. While he is a spendthrift guy celebrating life with his friends in town, he is a frugal family-man at home. The film is about his dual life and how he falls in love with two women — Clara (Sumalatha) and Radha (Parvathy) unable to decide a partner among the two. Jayakrishnan is a typical Malayali guy belonging to an aristocratic family from Trichur. He has his own vision of life, especially when it comes to marriage. He is hardworking and works on his own farm. At the same time he finds time to enjoy a very modern life with his friends in town, about whom very few people in his village know. He meets a girl called Radha, a distant relative, and he falls in love with her. He is attracted to her no-nonsense attitude. He tells Radha that he loves her and wants to marry her. But Radha refuses, thinking that he is a flirt. Jayakrishnan is persuaded to write a letter to a girl named Clara for his friend Thangal, who is a pimp. The letter is intended to fool Clara's father and thereby introduce Clara to the sex industry under Thangal. When Jayakrishnan writes the letter it rains. Clara belonged to the coastal fisherman community and was poor. Her stepmother treated her bad and Clara was trying to get out of her clutches. As an easy way out of this, Clara agrees to become a sex worker and meets Jayakrishnan. It rains again as the two meet. Depressed, after Radha's rejection and urged on by his friend Thangal, Jayakrishnan, who until then had never been to a prostitute, agrees to be Clara's first customer under Thangal. Later when he realizes that Clara was a virgin, Jayakrishnan becomes disturbed. He had made a promise to himself that he would not sleep with a virgin unless she was his wife and if he could keep his pledge, then that girl would at least become his wife. On breaking the one promise he was determined to keep in life, he is deeply disturbed and proposes to Clara. Admiring his sincerity and scruples, she finds it difficult to reject his proposal, but not wanting to cause Jayakrishnan any hurt socially or personally (as she considers herself a sex worker), Clara decides to disappear from his life. During this time, Radha, hears more about Jayakrishnan from her brother (Madhavan), who was junior in college to Jayakrishnan. She hears more about the dual life of Jayakrishnan, his small games of fooling people around him and ready to do anything attitude for his friends. She also hears that he had never fooled around with girls in spite of all this. Her brother tells her that it was the first time that Jayakrishnan had proposed to someone. Understanding that Jayakrishnan is not a roadside flirt, she starts falling in love with him and becomes ready to accept his proposal. She meets Jayakrishan to express her feelings and tells him that she feels sorry about what had happened in their first meeting. But by now Jayakrishnan feels that he is not the right person for Radha. When she asks the reason, he discloses everything that happened with Clara. But Radha takes things differently as she feels even more attracted and closer to him because of his sincerity. Radha expresses to Jayakrishnan how she feels about him and convinces him that she is not at all worried about his past. Since he was not going to meet Clara anymore, she does not care about her. But Clara calls up Jayakrishnan one day and informs him that she is coming to visit him again. It rains again. Jayakrishnan cannot resist meeting her. During his time with her, he tell her about Radha, and Clara says she is happy for him. But later on Clara feels that she is the hindrance for Jayakrishnan not committing to Radha and vows that she will not meet him anymore. Before she leaves, she asks him not to disappoint Radha. Jayakrishan and Radha get closer to each other and decide to marry. Everything goes on fine until one day Jayakrishnan gets a telegram. An off season rains arrives and it rains heavily. Clara is coming to see him, this will be the last time they meet, and it will be at the Ottapalam railway station. Shocked, Jayakrishnan and Radha can't decide what to do. Radha asks Jayakrishnan not to meet Clara, but he cannot resist seeing her. Toward the end of the movie, Jayakrishnan reaches the station to meet Clara. Radha too reaches the station without Jayakrishan's knowledge. At the station both are surprised to see that Clara is married and is holding a baby. She tells Jayakrishnan that she had decided to get married to save both their futures. Now she can have a family life and Jayakrishnan can get married to Radha, with whom he has fallen in love. Clara leaves Jayakrishnan's life forever, and Radha and Jayakrishnan unite. It does not rain at the final meeting between Clara and Jayakrishnan. Inspiration. Part of this movie, especially Jayakrishnan's lifestyle in the town, is loosely based on one of Padmarajan's friends, Karakath Unni Menon. Padmarajan met Unni Menon when the former was working at All India Radio, Thrissur. The friends of Jayakrishan were loosely based on the other friends of Unni Menon: Kanjavu Varkey, Express George and Vijayan Karot. Legacy. "Thoovanathumbikal" is one of the most significant Malayalam films of the 1980s and enjoys a cult status even decades after its release. In a 2013 online poll, IBN Live listed it as the 8th greatest Indian film of all time. The poll was conducted as part of the celebrations of Indian cinema completing 100 years. The poll constituted a list of 100 films from different Indian languages. The film's famous thematic background score was reused in the 2011 film "Beautiful". In the 2012 film "Trivandrum Lodge", Babu Namboothiri reprised his role as Thangal, a professional pimp.
620305	Otto Yulyevich Schmidt () ( — September 7, 1956) was a Soviet scientist, mathematician, astronomer, geophysicist, statesman, academician, Hero of the USSR (27 June 1937), and member of the Communist Party. Biography. He was born in Mogilev, Russian Empire (now Belarus). His father was a descendant of German settlers in Courland, while his mother was a Latvian. In 1913, Schmidt married Vera Yanitskaia and graduated from the University of Kiev, where he worked as a privat-docent starting from 1916. After the October Revolution of 1917, he was a board member at several People's Commissariats (narkomats)such as Narkomprod from 1918 to 1920 ("Narodnyi Komissariat Prodovolstviya", or People's Commissariat for Supplies), People's Commissariat for Finance from 1921 to 1922 ("Narodnyi Komissariat Finansov", or People's Commissariat for Finances). Schmidt was one of the chief proponents of developing the higher education system, publishing, and science in Soviet Russia.
1064940	Jeffrey Donovan (born May 11, 1968) is an American television, film and stage actor. He played the lead character Michael Westen on the long-running American cable television series "Burn Notice". Notable starring roles in film include: "Hitch", "Believe in Me", "Changeling", and "Come Early Morning". He portrayed Robert F. Kennedy in Clint Eastwood's "J. Edgar" (2011). Early life. Donovan was born in Amesbury, Massachusetts, and raised, along with two brothers, Michael and Sean, by their mother. Of his childhood, Donovan recalled: At Amesbury High School, he was mentored by teacher Patricia Hoyt. She aided him in starting a drama club and then found him a private scholarship, enabling him "to participate in a summer program that helped pave the way for his acting career." He attended Bridgewater State University before transferring to the University of Massachusetts Amherst, where he graduated with a BA in theater. While attending UMass, Jeff was a commercial bus driver at UMass Transit Service, where he operated passenger buses as part of the PVTA. He went on to earn his MFA from New York University's Graduate Acting Program at the Tisch School of the Arts. Career. Television. Donovan has appeared in ', "Spin City", "Monk", "Millennium", "Witchblade", "The Pretender", ', and "Law & Order". In the short-lived TV series "Threshold", Donovan portrayed the antihero Dr. Sloan. In "Crossing Jordan" he was cast in the recurring role of William Ivers . In 2004, he received his first leading role in the American remake of the British television series "Touching Evil" opposite Vera Farmiga on the USA Network. Starting in 2007, he starred in the long-running hit, "Burn Notice", as the lead Michael Westen, a spy who was cast off for unknown reasons and attempted to regain his career. Donovan made his directorial debut, directing the "Burn Notice" episode, "Made Man", which first aired on June 17, 2010. He also directed a prequel film starring co-star Bruce Campbell, titled "", which first aired on USA Network on April 17, 2011. Burn Notice ended its last season in September 2013. Theatre. Donovan has also performed on the stage including in the eponymous role "Hamlet", "A View from the Bridge" as Marco, "An Inspector Calls" and Off-Broadway in "Things You Shouldn't Say Past Midnight" as Gene, "The Glory of Living" as Clint, regionally in "Toys in the Attic" as Julian Berniers, "On the Waterfront" as Terry, "Oedipus" as Teiresias and "Freedomland" as Seth. From October 2008 until spring 2009, Jeffrey starred in the comedy farce "Don't Dress for Dinner" in Chicago. Also performances on the radio: "On the Waterfront" as Terry, "Frozen" and "Grapes of Wrath". Personal life. Jeffrey Donovan has over twenty years of martial arts experience. In college the actor earned his black belt in karate and competed throughout the state. Since then he has also studied aikido for over six years and Brazilian jiu-jitsu. On July 3, 2009, Donovan, a Red Sox fan who first visited Fenway as a child, threw the ceremonial first pitch at the baseball game between the Boston Red Sox and Seattle Mariners at Fenway Park. On July 3, 2010, Donovan once again threw out the ceremonial first pitch at Fenway Park, this time between the Red Sox and the Baltimore Orioles. On July 12, 2009 he was arrested in Miami for allegedly driving under the influence; charges were reduced to reckless driving. Donovan was in a long-term relationship with Kathryn Kovarik. In August 2011, Donovan became engaged to model Michelle Woods. They married on August 25, 2012. On December 18, 2012, Donovan and Woods welcomed a baby girl, Claire. Philanthropy. In 2009 Donovan returned to Amesbury High School where he took part in a career day mentorship program with other successful professionals and then presented the school with a $100,000 arts scholarship program. The first $10,000 award was given out to a senior that June.
1066110	The Mack is a 1973 blaxploitation film starring Max Julien and Richard Pryor. Although the movie was produced during the era of such blaxploitation movies as "Dolemite", its producers do not label it a true blaxploitation picture. They believe it to be a social commentary, according to "Mackin' Ain't Easy", a documentary about the making of the film, which can be found on the DVD edition. The movie is set in Oakland, California and was the biggest-grossing blaxploitation film of its time. Its soundtrack was recorded by Motown artist Willie Hutch. Plot. Oakland, California 1967: John "Goldie" Mickens, (Max Julien) a small-time black drug dealer and his friend Slim (Richard Pryor) are in the middle of a shootout in a salvage yard after being set up during a botched drug deal. Realizing that they're outgunned, Goldie orders Slim to flee the salvage yard. Goldie crashes his car as he attempts to escape and is apprehended by Hank (Don Gordon) and Jed (William Watson), two corrupt, racist white police detectives. Goldie is tried in court and sentenced to five years in the California State Penitentiary. In prison Goldie almost becomes stir crazy and struggles to maintain his sanity. Five years later, in 1972 Goldie is released from prison and returns to Oakland on a charter bus. He immediately goes into a pool hall where he's reunited with his mentor The Blind Man (Paul Harris), an aging street hustler and pimp. The Blind Man decides to help Goldie get back on his feet by turning him on to pimping and gives him his first lessons on being a successful pimp: "A pimp is only as good as his product, and his product is women. Now you've got to go out there and get the best ones you can find. And you've got to work them broads like nobody's ever worked them before. And never forget: anybody can control a woman's body, you see, but the key is to control her mind." After meeting with the Blind Man, Goldie goes to a nightclub where he bumps into Lulu (Carol Speed), a childhood girlfriend who is now a prostitute. Lulu tells Goldie that, because she's an "outlaw" (a prostitute who doesn't have a pimp), that she is constantly antagonized by pimps who are trying to force her to "choose" (choose a pimp to run her). Lulu pleads with Goldie to become her pimp and, although initially hesitant, he accepts. As Goldie leaves the bar he's met by Hank and Jed, who harass and intimidate him. Goldie then goes to the apartment of his humble and deeply religious mother (Juanita Moore) who pleads with Goldie to go to church with her and to abandon his criminal ways. In their conversation it's revealed that the Mickens family relocated to California from Alabama after Goldie's father was murdered. Goldie rejects his mother's pleas, reasoning that he has to face "the man" the only way that he knows how to. Goldie then heads to a meeting where his younger brother Olinga (Roger E. Mosley), a Black Nationalist, is giving a speech about creating a "Black America Within But Without White America". The two brothers reunite and Goldie informs Olinga that he's going to get his life together, not disclosing to Olinga that he's decided to become a pimp, something that he knows Olinga strongly disapproves of. As Goldie sits in a barber shop he overhears the conversations of several pimps, including the cocky and boisterous Pretty Tony (Dick Anthony Williams) and Frank Ward, the real-life pimp who the film is based on. Goldie begins soaking up the attitude and mentality of a pimp and immediately develops a cold-hearted attitude. This is displayed in the following scene in Lulu's apartment where, after having sex with Lulu and reminiscing on their difficult childhoods, Goldie coldy moves Lulu's arm off of him and struts to a mirror to look at himself. After being fronted money by the Blind Man in order to get started out Goldie begins pimping, with Lulu as his "bottom bitch" (a pimp's #1 prostitute who is also put in charge of other prostitutes in a pimp's stable) and Slim as his partner in crime . A montage set to the film's theme song show Goldie's rapid success as a pimp, recruiting several prostitutes including Chico (Kai Hernandez), a loud and sassy prostitute, and Diane (Sandra Brown) a young white woman from a wealthy family who becomes Goldie's favorite hooker. Goldie moves his mother out of her tenement apartment and into an upscale condominium. Goldie teaches his prostitutes how to rob clients and shoplift from expensive department stores. Goldie maintains his sway over the young women by brainwashing them, giving them speeches at a makeshift theater where he tells them what he requires of them as they watch an eleborate film display. As Goldie's rise to success becomes evident he's confronted with several antagonists. The first is a black gambler who intends to rob Goldie. Goldie and Slim accost the man at gunpoint, lock him in the trunk of Goldie's 1971 Cadillac Eldorado, filling the trunk with rats and drive around Oakland with the man screaming in the trunk as the rodents eat away at him before finally dropping him off in front of a hospital. The second antagonist is the Fat Man (George Murdock), a white heroin kingpin who Goldie worked for before going to prison. The Fat Man is jealous of Goldie's success and wants Goldie to return to work for him in order to control him. Additionally The Fat Man is angered because Olinga and his group have abducted several black drug dealers under the Fat Man's employ in order to turn them into Black Nationalists and to stop them from selling drugs in the black community. Hank and Jed are also angered by Olinga's interferrence with their drug racket and routinely brutalize and harass Goldie in an attempt to get Olinga to stop. Goldie and Olinga argue with one another about their activities. Olinga tries to get Goldie to see that pimping black women is no better than drug dealing, as both crimes involve exploiting black people. Goldie tells Olinga that he'll support him in ridding the ghetto of the drug dealers, but tells Olinga not to send his group after Goldie. Olinga asserts that, in order to fix the ghetto, they have to get rid of the drug dealers and the pimps at the same time. After Hank and Jed murder Sgt. Duncan (Lee Duncan), a black police detective who confronted the pair about their illegal activities, they unsuccessfully try to pin the murder on Goldie and Slim, even going so far as trying to force Goldie and Slim to run away from them at gunpoint so that the detectives can shoot them and claim that they attempted to evade arrest. It is at this point that Goldie begins to contemplate his lifestyle and it's inevitable consequences. Goldie, along with Slim, Lulu and Diane, attend the Players Ball, an annual gala event highlighting Bay Area pimps. During the festivities the Fat Man once again attempts to force Goldie into working for him. Goldie once again refuses and lambasts the Fat Man for being so greedy that he's even willing to sell drugs to children. Goldie celebrates with Slim, Lulu and Diane and is awarded "Mack of the Year" at the Player's Ball. The scene then cuts to several days later as Goldie finds Diane dead in a hotel room. When Goldie examines her corpse he notices needle marks on her arm and realizes that she's been killed by the Fat Man as a way to get back at Goldie. Goldie meets with the Fat Man in a vacant lot. The Fat Man intends to have his henchman kill Goldie, however the attempt on Goldie's life is thwarted when Slim, disguised as a homeless man playing an accordion, kills the Fat Man's bodyguards. Goldie, Slim and several of their associates then subdue the Fat Man and kill him by injecting him with battery acid. While gambling at an after hours spot, Goldie and Pretty Tony get into an argument after Pretty Tony's top hooker, China Doll (Annazette Chase), humiliates Pretty Tony by leaving him and "choosing" Goldie in front of the other hustlers at the crap table. Pretty Tony threatens Goldie, telling him "You're gonna wish you was never born, nigga!" and leaves. Later an unidentified man knocks on Goldie's mother's door, announcing himself as "A friend of Goldie's". When Goldie's mother answers the door the man points a gun at her. Goldie visits his mother at the hospital. She has been severely beaten by the assailant and is unconscious. She awakens to find Goldie at her bedside, who lies to her and tells her that the doctor says she will be alright. Broken-hearted and disappointed, she looks away from Goldie and slips into death. Goldie and Slim track down Pretty Tony. After a brief shootout they chase Pretty Tony into an abandoned warehouse. Pretty Tony stabs Slim with his cane sword, but only causes a minor injury. Goldie and Slim hold Pretty Tony at gunpoint while Goldie forces Pretty Tony to stab himself in the buttocks repeatedly with the sword as payback for stabbing Slim. Goldie and Slim then bind Pretty Tony to a chair and gag him with a stick of dynamite, then leave as a helpless Pretty Tony is blown through a warehouse window when the explosives detonate. Hank and Jed arrive to investigate the murder. At their mother's funeral Olinga tells a grief-stricken Goldie that he's "brought death to their house" because of his criminal activities and that, because of this, he's going to help Goldie get revenge against the people responsible for their mother's murder. Outside of the funeral home the Blind Man informs Goldie that someone's put a contract out on his life. Slim and several of their friends help Goldie evade the would-be hitmen by disguising themselves as movers and getting Goldie out of his condominium as the hitmen arrive to kill him. Goldie and Slim split up to meet at a rendezvous point. When Goldie arrives at the rendezvous point he finds an accordion with Slim's blood on it. Hank and Jed appear with their guns drawn on Goldie and confirm that they've killed Slim. The detectives then reveal that they, not Pretty Tony, killed his mother. As they do so Olinga appears from the inside of a vacant building and strangles Jed to death as Goldie disarms a distracted Hank. Hank attempts to plead for his life by claiming that he and Goldie are the same and that Goldie would have done the same thing to Hank. Goldie kills Hank execution-style as Olinga watches. Goldie walks over to Hank and Jed's car and finds Chico sitting in the backseat. Chico, resentful of Goldie's favorable treatment of Diane over her, revealed to the corrupt cops the addresses of Goldie and his mother. Goldie contemplates shooting Chico, but relents. He throws some pocket change at her and walks away. Realizing that Oakland is now too dangerous for him to remain there, Goldie hugs Olinga goodbye and boards a charter bus leaving the city the same way he came. Reception. The movie received a mixed reception, but has gained a huge cult following in the years after its release which has spawned many cultural references, in music, film and television. References in popular culture. Big L referenced The Mack in the song "American Dream", in the line "nigga, yo' bitch chose me, you know the rules to the game." Jay Z referenced it in the "7 minute freestyle", in the line "I mack like Goldie, go back like the oldies."
1170320	Early life. Yuji Okumoto was born in Los Angeles, California to Japanese-American parents. He attended Hollywood High School (where he played both baseball and basketball) and Cal State Fullerton, where he eventually took up acting. Okumoto has also been involved with several theater companies, including the celebrated "East West Players", where he appeared in the play, "Webster Street Blues". Career. Yuji's first feature film role was in the 1985 comedy film "Real Genius" as Fenton. He is also well known for his convincing portrayal of the venomous, ever-smiling Chozen Toguchi in "The Karate Kid, Part II". He played a Korean character, Shu Kai Kim, in the 1989 film, "True Believer", alongside James Woods and Robert Downey, Jr. Yuji then played the role of Pete Kapahala in the 1999 Disney Channel Original Movie "Johnny Tsunami" and its 2007 sequel "". In 2005, he played a role in Lane Nishikawa's film about the Japanese American segregated fighting unit, the 442nd Regimental Combat Team of World War II, "Only the Brave". He also played alongside Ken Watanabe in Christopher Nolan's 2010 thriller "Inception". Personal life. Okumoto resides in Seattle, Washington where he is the proprietor of a Hawaiian-themed restaurant named "Kona Kitchen/Yuji Lounge", along with his wife and family.
1068630	Hotel Chevalier is a short film written and directed by Wes Anderson and released in 2007. Starring Jason Schwartzman and Natalie Portman as former lovers who reunite in a Paris hotel room, the 13-minute film acts as a prologue to Anderson's 2007 feature "The Darjeeling Limited". It was shot on location in a Parisian hotel by a small crew and self-financed by Anderson, who initially intended it to be a stand-alone work. Its first showing was at the Venice Film Festival première of the feature film on September 2, 2007, and it made its own debut later that month at Apple Stores in four American cities. The day after its première, it was made available for free from the iTunes Store for one month, during which it was downloaded more than 500,000 times. "Hotel Chevalier" became one of the most-discussed short films of the year, with much popular attention drawn in particular by Portman's extended nude scene. The film garnered near-universal critical acclaim from reviewers who compared it favorably with "The Darjeeling Limited" and praised its richness, poignancy, and careful construction. Plot. In a hotel lobby, the concierge answers a phone call from one of the guests' rooms. A man (Jason Schwartzman) lies on a hotel bed in a yellow bathrobe, watching the black-and-white American war film "Stalag 17" and reading the newspaper. After ordering room service from the concierge in broken French, he receives a call from a woman whose voice he recognizes. She tells him she is on her way from the airport and asks for his room number. Despite objecting that he did not tell her she could come, the man consents nevertheless. He then hurriedly attempts to tidy the room – pausing to play the opening bars of the song "Where Do You Go To (My Lovely)?" by Peter Sarstedt on his stereo system – and runs a bath. The man is again lying on the bed, now in a gray suit. Hearing a knock, he starts the song playing again before opening the door to a woman (Natalie Portman). After staring at him for several seconds, the woman breaks the silence by asking what music is playing. Receiving no response, she steps into the room and presents the man with a bouquet of flowers. When she moves to kiss him on the mouth, he turns his head away and they embrace instead. He closes the door and asks how she found him; she replies that it "wasn't actually that hard". She moves around the room browsing through his possessions, brushes her teeth with his toothbrush and declines to take the bath he had run for her. Stepping back into the bedroom, the woman turns to face the man and confronts him, asking slowly "what the fuck is going on?" He motions to her to join him on the bed and at her prompting, he reveals in the ensuing conversation that he has been living in the hotel room for "more than a month", and that he had left to escape their relationship. They lie back on the bed looking at one another before being interrupted by the arrival of room service. Once alone again, the two kiss and the man begins to undress the woman. They have an uncomfortable exchange about not having slept with other people and when he notices bruises on her arm after undressing her further, the woman chooses not to comment on them. Lying on top of him, she tells the man that she does not want to lose his friendship, that she loves him and never meant to hurt him. He responds coldly that he "will never be your friend", but holds her when she embraces him. "Where Do You Go To (My Lovely)?" starts again and the man offers to show the woman his view of Paris. The woman is perched against an armoire, the man approaching and covering her naked body with the yellow bathrobe, and the two moving towards the window. After they step out on the balcony, the man draws a toothpick from his pocket and hands it to her with an upwards nod, which she reciprocates. After looking out for another few seconds she clasps his neck lightly and they step back inside. Background and production. Director Wes Anderson first approached actors Schwartzman and Portman about "Hotel Chevalier" in 2005. Schwartzman and Anderson had previously worked on "Rushmore" (1998), Anderson's cult second feature, and had been living together in Schwartzman's Paris apartment in the months leading up to the shoot. Portman was approached after the director obtained her email address from Scott Rudin, producer of 2004's "Closer" in which she starred. The actors appeared for free, and Anderson financed the remainder of the production himself. It was filmed at the Hôtel Raphaël in Paris, which had previously been used as a setting for the films "Love in Paris" (1996) and "Place Vendôme" (1998). It was shot by a crew of 15 in Panavision and used props from Anderson's apartment. Filming took two and a half days, and editing (done on Anderson's computer) another week. Despite his use of a wardrobe from prestigious fashion designer Marc Jacobs and a handmade suitcase from Louis Vuitton, the director described the production as "like making a student film". Anderson initially intended it to be a stand-alone short film, but shortly before filming commenced, he realized that Schwartzman's character bore a close resemblance to one of the protagonists of a feature film he was writing at the time. That film would begin production a year later as "The Darjeeling Limited". "Chevalier" takes place two weeks before Schwartzman's character (named Jack Whitman in the feature) joins his two older brothers on a journey in India in "Darjeeling". The dialogue between the characters at the end of "Chevalier" is recounted by Schwartzman's character to his brothers at the close of the feature film, in the form of an excerpt from a short story he has composed. Portman's character has a brief cameo in the feature. Fox Searchlight Pictures, the studio that backed "Darjeeling", was unaware of the short until the feature had been made and claimed to have no financial interest in it. Release. "Hotel Chevalier" was screened as part of the program at the world première of "The Darjeeling Limited" at the 64th Annual Venice Film Festival on September 2, 2007. The short had its own première at Apple Stores in New York City, Chicago, San Francisco and Santa Monica, California, on September 25. Anderson, Schwartzman and Portman appeared at the New York screening in SoHo, after which they held a questions-and-answers session with the audience. The short was made available the following day as a free download from Apple's iTunes Store. On September 28, it preceded the showing of the feature on the opening night of the 2007 New York Film Festival. A press release posted before the première described the short as "the brief coda to a doomed romance and the prologue to "The Darjeeling Limited"". The film was withdrawn from iTunes after having been available for download for a month. Although it had been dismissed by "USA Today" columnist Susan Wloszczyna before its iTunes release as an "amuse-bouche" that was "destined to be a mere footnote", it was downloaded nearly 500,000 times during its run, and received wide acclaim. Following its withdrawal from iTunes, the short was distributed in theaters as the prologue to the feature-length film. Although "The New York Times" reported in October 2007 that distributor Fox Searchlight Pictures intended to promote "Chevalier" as a competitor for the Best Live Action Short Film of the Academy Awards, it was not among that year's nominations. It was included as an extra feature on the "Darjeeling" 2008 DVD release, and Anderson's screenplay for the short was published in the Winter 2007 issue of the literary magazine "". Critical reception. Apart from being one of the year's most discussed short films, "Hotel Chevalier" attracted considerable critical praise, with reviewers comparing it favorably to "The Darjeeling Limited". "Entertainment Weekly"s Gary Susman described it as "an exquisite short story where we learn not much but exactly enough about these two characters", adding that ""Chevalier" sees Anderson working in his customary jewel-box/dollhouse mode, but the form and length really suit each other here." In "New York Press", Armand White judged the short "moving and genuinely contemporary", citing its "lost-girl poignancy". The film drew some attention for co-star Natalie Portman's extended nude scene, and for her character's bruised body. Portman expressed disappointment at this focus, saying "It really depressed me that half of every review ... was about the nudity". The episode made the actress reconsider the wisdom of this aspect of her performance, and she subsequently swore off nude appearances in film. Portman's performance was praised by "TIME" reviewer Richard Corliss, who declared her to be "a comic actress in fresh bloom" in the "beguiling vignette", and expressed his wish that her role in "Darjeeling" had been greater. The feature, he felt, lacked "the feeling and wit of the short film". Salon.com's Stephanie Zacharek concurred, stating that "the untold story of "Hotel Chevalier" is 10 times more interesting, and infinitely richer, than the one told outright in "The Darjeeling Limited"", and calling the short "very close to perfect". "The Guardian" columnist Danny Leigh contrasted the lukewarm reception of the feature among bloggers and critics with the "genuine ardour" that greeted the "perfectly measured narrative" of "Chevalier". He proposed that the constraints of the short-film format suited Anderson, whose trademark deadpan humor, idiosyncratic set designs and choice of soundtrack inclined to exhaust the viewers' patience in a feature-length work. A. O. Scott of "The New York Times" hailed "Chevalier" as "a small gem" in comparison to the "overstuffed suitcase" of the feature, and wrote that "It is worth seeking out, not only because it fleshes out part of the story of the Whitman brothers but also because, on its own, it is an almost perfect distillation of Mr. Anderson's vexing and intriguing talents, enigmatic, affecting and wry."
327448	Zach Woods (born September 25, 1984) is an American actor and comedian. Starting in 2010, he portrayed Gabe Lewis on the NBC sitcom "The Office". He was promoted to a series regular beginning in Season 7. Woods is a regular performer at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre and is part of the improvisational sketch troupe "The Stepfathers", whose members also include Bobby Moynihan and Chris Gethard. He has taught improv at Columbia University, Duke University and Lincoln Center. He has appeared in such films as "In The Loop", "The Other Guys" and appeared in the CollegeHumor skit "Adam and Eve in the Friends Zone". In late 2011, Woods appeared in the third season of HBO's "Bored to Death". Woods is also known for starring as Awkward Boy, the protagonist in the YouTube video series "The Most Awkward Boy in the World". In 2010, Woods appeared as a zombie in a Starburst candy commercial.
1061178	William Gaither "Billy" Crudup (; born July 8, 1968) is an American actor of film and stage. He is well known for his role as the voice of the "priceless" Mastercard commercials, and also as the guitarist Russell Hammond in "Almost Famous", Will Bloom in "Big Fish", and Prince Ashitaka in "Princess Mononoke". He also starred in the 2007 romantic comedy film "Dedication", alongside Mandy Moore. In 2009, he appeared as Doctor Manhattan in the film "Watchmen" and as J. Edgar Hoover in the film "Public Enemies". Early life. Crudup was born in Manhasset, New York. His parents, Georgann (née Gaither) and Thomas Henry Crudup III, divorced during his childhood, and later remarried, before divorcing a second time. His maternal grandfather was William Cotter "Billy" Gaither, Jr., a well-known Florida trial lawyer, and his maternal grandmother later remarried to Episcopal bishop James Duncan. Crudup has two brothers: Tommy, an executive producer, and Brooks, also a producer. He left New York with his family when he was about eight years old, first living in Texas, then in Florida. He graduated from Saint Thomas Aquinas High School in Fort Lauderdale, Florida in 1986. Crudup attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he received an undergraduate degree, and he continued his passion for acting with the undergraduate acting company, LAB! Theatre. He also acted for UNC-STV's most popular show, General College. He was a member of the Beta Chapter of Delta Kappa Epsilon. He then studied at the Graduate Acting Program at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts, where he earned a Master of Fine Arts in 1994. A year after graduating, he made his debut on Broadway in the Lincoln Center Theater production of Tom Stoppard's "Arcadia". Career. Crudup began acting in such films as 1996's "Sleepers", 1997's "Inventing the Abbotts" and 1998's "Without Limits", where he played the role of Olympic hopeful Steve Prefontaine. While he has appeared in many films, he regularly returns to the stage. His first role in an animated feature was in 1999's English release of "Princess Mononoke", in which he starred as Ashitaka. He then played Russell Hammond, the lead guitar player of the fictional band Stillwater in Cameron Crowe's "Almost Famous" (2000). He has also been the voice of MasterCard "Priceless" commercials in the U.S. since 1997, making his first appearance in an ad in 2005. In 2006's "The Good Shepherd," he played British spy Arch Cummings, a stand-in for Kim Philby. The same year, he played a supporting role in "".
1165736	Stephen McNally (July 29, 1911 - June 4, 1994) was an American actor remembered mostly for his appearances in many westerns and action films. He was an attorney in the late 1930s before he pursed his passion for acting. Career. He started his stage career using his real name Horace McNally and began appearing uncredited in many World War II-era films. In 1946, he changed his stage name to Stephen McNally and began appearing credited as both movie villains and heroes.
1059631	Kim Delaney (born November 29, 1961) is an American actress best known for her starring role as Detective Diane Russell on the ABC drama television series, "NYPD Blue", for which she has won an Emmy Award. Early in her career, she played the role of Jenny Gardner in the hugely popular ABC daytime television drama, "All My Children". She later had leading roles in the TV dramas "Philly", "" and on the Lifetime television drama "Army Wives". Early life. Delaney, an Irish American, was born on November 29, 1961 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the daughter of Joan and Jack Delaney. Delaney's mother was a homemaker and her father a union official and former head of the United Auto Workers. She was raised Roman Catholic. Delaney grew up in Roxborough and has four brothers: Ed, John, Keith, and Patrick. While she was attending J. W. Hallahan Catholic Girls High School, she worked as a model for the Elite agency. After her graduation, she went to New York and found employment there as a model. At the same time, she studied acting with William Esper. Career. Delaney first became known for her stint as innocent teenager Jenny Gardner Nelson on the soap opera "All My Children", which also was her first job. She played the character from August 1981 to August 1984, earning a Daytime Emmy Award nomination, as well as a loyal fan base; a profile of the actress a decade later noted, "Delaney left the soap in 1984, but fans still remember her as Jenny. 'They come up and will say they've followed everything I've done, and they stopped watching the show after I left, and they're so happy to see me on "NYPD Blue", because they love the character.'"
1100024	Andrey Nikolaevich Kolmogorov () (25 April 1903 – 20 October 1987) was a Soviet mathematician, preeminent in the 20th century, who advanced various scientific fields, among them probability theory, topology, intuitionistic logic, turbulence, classical mechanics, algorithmic information theory and computational complexity. Biography. Early life. Andrey Kolmogorov was born in Tambov, about 500 kilometers south-southeast of Moscow, in 1903. His unmarried mother, Maria Y. Kolmogorova, died giving birth to him. Andrey was raised by two of his aunts in Tunoshna (near Yaroslavl) at the estate of his grandfather, a well-to-do nobleman. Little is known about Andrey's father. He was supposedly named Nikolai Matveevich Kataev and had been an agronomist. Nikolai had been exiled from St. Petersburg to the Yaroslavl province after his participation in the revolutionary movement against the czars. He disappeared in 1919 and he was presumed to have been killed in the Russian Civil War. Andrey Kolmogorov was educated in his aunt's village school, and his earliest literary efforts and mathematical papers were printed in the school newspaper. As a teenager, he designed "perpetual motion machines", concealing their (necessary) defects so cleverly that his secondary-school teachers could not discover them. In 1910, his aunt adopted him, and they moved to Moscow, where he graduated from high school in 1920. Later that same year, Kolmogorov began to study at the Moscow State University and the Chemistry Technological Institute. Kolmogorov gained a reputation for his wide-ranging erudition. As an undergraduate student in college, he attended the seminars of the Russian historian S.V. Bachrushin, and he published his first research paper on the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries' landholding practices in the Novgorod Republic. During the same period (1921–22), Kolmogorov worked out and proved several results in set theory and in the theory of Fourier series. Adulthood. In 1922, Kolmogorov gained international recognition for constructing a Fourier series that diverges almost everywhere. Around this time, he decided to devote his life to mathematics. In 1925, Kolmogorov graduated from the Moscow State University and began to study under the supervision of Nikolai Luzin. He formed a lifelong friendship with Pavel Alexandrov. (Both were later involved in the political persecution of their common teacher Nikolai Luzin, in the so-called Luzin affair in 1936.) According to some researchers, Kolmogorov and Alexandrov were involved in a homosexual relationship, while others deny this and suppose that this rumor was spread in the 1950s in order to rehabilitate the participants of the Luzin affair. Kolmogorov (together with Aleksandr Khinchin) became interested in probability theory. Also in 1925, he published his famous work in intuitionistic logic — "On the principle of the excluded middle", in which he proved that under a certain interpretation, all statements of classical formal logic can be formulated as those of intuitionistic logic. In 1929, Kolmogorov earned his Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) degree, from the Moscow State University. In 1930, Kolmogorov went on his first long trip abroad, traveling to Göttingen and Munich, and then to Paris. His pioneering work, "About the Analytical Methods of Probability Theory," was published (in German) in 1931. Also in 1931, he became a professor at the Moscow State University. In 1933, Kolmogorov published his book, "Foundations of the Theory of Probability", laying the modern axiomatic foundations of probability theory and establishing his reputation as the world's leading expert in this field. In 1935, Kolmogorov became the first chairman of the department of probability theory at the Moscow State University. Around the same years (1936) Kolmogorov contributed to the field of ecology and generalized the Lotka–Volterra model of predator-prey systems. In a 1938 paper, Kolmogorov "established the basic theorems for smoothing and predicting stationary stochastic processes"—a paper that would have major military applications during the Cold War. In 1939, he was elected a full member (academician) of the USSR Academy of Sciences. In his study of stochastic processes (random processes), especially Markov processes, Kolmogorov and the British mathematician Sydney Chapman independently developed the pivotal set of equations in the field, which have been given the name of the Chapman–Kolmogorov equations. Later, Kolmogorov focused his research on turbulence, where his publications (beginning in 1941) significantly influenced the field. In classical mechanics, he is best known for the Kolmogorov–Arnold–Moser theorem, first presented in 1954 at the International Congress of Mathematicians. In 1957, working jointly with his student, V. I. Arnold, he solved a particular interpretation of Hilbert's thirteenth problem. Around this time he also began to develop, and was considered a founder of, algorithmic complexity theory - often referred to as Kolmogorov complexity theory. Kolmogorov married Anna Dmitrievna Egorova in 1942. He pursued a vigorous teaching routine throughout his life, not only at the university level but also with younger children, as he was actively involved in developing a pedagogy for gifted children (in literature, music, and mathematics). At the Moscow State University, Kolmogorov occupied different positions, including the heads of several departments: probability, statistics, and random processes; mathematical logic. He also served as the Dean of the Moscow State University Department of Mechanics and Mathematics. In 1971, Kolmogorov joined an oceanographic expedition aboard the research vessel Dmitri Mendeleev. He wrote a number of articles for the "Great Soviet Encyclopedia." In his later years, he devoted much of his effort to the mathematical and philosophical relationship between probability theory in abstract and applied areas. Kolmogorov died in Moscow in 1987, and his remains were buried in the Novodevichy cemetery. A quotation attributed to Kolmogorov is into English: "Every mathematician believes that he is ahead over all others. The reason why they don't say this in public, is because they are intelligent people." Bibliography. A bibliography of his works appeared in
1044121	Eric Leslie Barker (12 February 1912 – 1 June 1990) born in Thornton Heath, Surrey, was an English comedy actor. He is most remembered for his roles in the popular British "Carry On" films. Career. Eric Barker, born on 20 February 1912, was the youngest of three children. He was brought up in Croydon, Surrey and educated at Whitgift School. He joined his father's paper merchants' company in the city but left to concentrate full time on writing. His first novel 'The Watch Hunt' was published when he was eighteen. He wrote short stories and plays appearing in the latter himself and gradually turned to writing and performing lyrics revues and sketches for stage and on radio. He later became one of the most familiar faces in British comedy in his day. Eric Barker gained his renewed start in show business during World War II, when he was part of the armed forces radio show "Merry Go Round", which he helped to write. After the war the show continued, though renamed "The Waterlogged Spa", with Barker and his wife, fellow actor Pearl Hackney. His "Steady Barker" catchphrase and verbal stumbling over words beginning with the letter 'h' became well known to audiences. The show's success led to Barker's starring in other radio shows, where he achieved a sizeable following due to his versatility at doing voices. In the 1950s he moved into television and films. On television he wrote and appeared in his own show, "The Eric Barker Half-Hour", a black-and-white comedy sketch show on the BBC. The cast included his wife, Nicholas Parsons and Deryck Guyler. It ran for three series (21 episodes) between 1951 and 1953, and was broadcast fortnightly on Wednesdays around 9.00pm. Such was his success that it led to him writing his autobiography "Steady Barker" in 1956. He had appeared as an adult in nine films, including "Carry on London" a 45-minute crime short in 1937. It is ironic therefore that in 1958 he received a BAFTA as "Most Promising Newcomer" for his role as a barrister's clerk in the film "Brothers in Law" (1957). The award led to more film work over the next 20 years, including three "St Trinians" films, and four in the classic "Carry On" British comedy film series. He found his niche in playing variations on the busybody sticking his nose in everyone's business, or as some authority figure, "Carry On Constable" (1960) being a good example. Along with Kenneth Williams and Kenneth Connor he is the only actor in the Carry On films to appear in the first, "Carry On Sergeant" in 1958 and the last of the original series of "Carry On" films "Carry On Emmannuelle" in 1978. He was also a writer and published a number of novels: "Sea Breezes" in the early thirties under the pen name of Christopher Bentley and "Day Gone By" under his own name in 1933 as well as "Golden Gimmick" in 1958 published by Hodder and Stoughton. P. G. Wodehouse wrote that he had "a real talent for humorous writing" (p. 775. "A Century of Humour" edited by P. G. Wodehouse pub. by c. 1935 by Hutchinson and Co. (Publishers) Ltd). Personal life. He married the actress Pearl Hackney (b. 28 October 1916, d. 18 September 2009) with whom he often worked, though she also had a comedy career of her own. They had a daughter, Petronella Barker, in 1942, who also appeared in films and television between 1964 and 1983. Petronella married Oscar-winner Anthony Hopkins in September 1967. They divorced in 1972 and had a daughter in 1967, Abigail Hopkins, who is a singer and actress. He died in Canterbury Kent and is buried in the churchyard of St. Mary's Stalisfield. In 1971 Barker was the subject of the British ITV television show "This Is Your Life".
589286	Lootmaar is a 1980 Hindi movie produced and directed by Dev Anand. The film stars Dev Anand, Tina Munim, Mehmood, Nirupa Roy, Amjad Khan, Prem Chopra, Kader Khan, Ranjeet, Shakti Kapoor, Simple Kapadia, Shreeram Lagoo and Rakhee. The films music is by Rajesh Roshan. The club song 'Jab Chhaye Mera Jaadu' is still super hit. It was expected that this film may break the success recorded by the earlier film "Des Pardes" but Dev Anand failed in his attempt and this film became an average film. Acting-wise nobody has done any remarkable job. The role of Dev Anand and Rakhee's son was played by Tina Munim's real brother 'Manan'. Plot. Indian Air Force pilot Bhagat lives with his wife, Raksha and a young son. While going to the bank one day, the family find that the bank is being held up. The bank-robbers panic at the arrival of the police, and fire randomly killing Raksha instantly. Bhagat witnesses this horrific spectacle and is unable to do anything to save his wife. The robbers were masked, but one of them had a tear in his shoe and another was wearing a locket, very similar to the worn by his wife. Bhagat's inquiries take him to the northernmost hilly regions of India, where he must confront the past, as well as seek out the elusive killers and bring them to justice, not knowing that in so doing he will be endangering the life of his son. Box office and Reception. The film was a major box office success of the year and it's songs became very popular.
1059433	Pickup on South Street is a 1953 writer-director Samuel Fuller's thriller film noir released by the 20th Century Fox studio. The film stars Richard Widmark, Jean Peters and Thelma Ritter. This movie was screened at Venice Film Festival in 1953. Plot. Widmark plays Skip McCoy, an insolent pickpocket who steals the wallet of Candy (Peters). Unbeknownst to Skip or Candy, the wallet contains a microfilm of top-secret government information. Candy was delivering an envelope as a final favor to her ex-boyfriend, Joey. But Candy didn't know the envelope's content, nor did she know that Joey was a Communist spy. Joey's espionage had been under Federal investigation for months. Skip is soon the subject of a manhunt: wanted by police, federal agents, and by Candy and Joey. Candy attempts to seduce Skip, but he turns her down. But when Skip discovers the importance of the microfilm, he rejects the cops' appeals to patriotism and instead offers the microfilm to whoever can deliver $25,000. After Candy realizes that Joey had set her up, she changes sides in the scheme and confesses her love for Skip. A Communist agent interrogates Moe (Ritter). Skip's only real friend, she refuses to rat him out. The agent kills her in cold blood, and Skip vows revenge. The agent, Joey, then confronts Candy in her apartment. She has obtained 4 of the 5 film slides from Skip, but refuses to tell Joey where the last is, and he shoots her. The cops then arrive and try to arrest Joey, who escapes and chases after Skip. He runs into Skip on the subway where the two engage in a climactic battle that ends with Skip beating Joey to death.
1164807	Evan Handler (born January 10, 1961) is an American actor who is best known for playing Charlie Runkle, Hank Moody's comically bumbling friend and agent, on "Californication" (2007–present) and Harry Goldenblatt, a divorce attorney and later husband of one of the characters on "Sex and the City" (2002–2004). Early life and education. Handler was born in New York City, to secular Jewish parents, the son of Enid Irene, a mental health administrator, and Murry Raymond Handler, an agency owner and advertising designer. He was raised in the Town of Cortlandt, New York, near Croton-on-Hudson, New York, and attended Hendrick Hudson High School in Montrose, New York. After graduating from high school a year early, he moved to New York City and worked as an intern at the Chelsea Theater Center. During that time he appeared in the off-Broadway plays "Biography: A Game" and "Strider: The Story of a Horse". He then attended the Juilliard School as a member of the Drama Division's "Group 12" (1979–1983), which also included Kevin Spacey, Ving Rhames, and Elizabeth McGovern. Handler left the four-year program after less than two years to accept a role in the 1981 film "Taps". Career. Acting. Handler has appeared in television dramas and sitcoms including "Six Feet Under", "Friends", "Law & Order", "The West Wing", "Miami Vice", "Sex and the City", "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip" (as staff writer Ricky Tahoe), "Ed", "Lost" and "24". He was a co-star in the ABC sitcoms "It's Like, You Know..." and "Hot Properties" and starred in the ill-fated FOX sitcom "Woops!". He has also appeared in several major feature film roles, including "Ransom", 1996; "The Chosen", 1981; "Sweet Lorraine", 1987; and "Taps", 1981. In 2000, Handler portrayed Larry Fine in a made-for-TV biopic of The Three Stooges. Handler can currently be seen on "Californication" where he plays Charlie Runkle, the best friend and agent to David Duchovny's character, Hank Moody. In 1991, Handler famously walked off stage during the first act of a performance of the Broadway play, "I Hate Hamlet" after co-star Nicol Williamson broke choreography during a swordfighting scene and struck Handler on the backside. Handler responded later, stating, "I removed myself from the production because from the first day of rehearsals I have endured the show's producers condoning Nicol Williamson's persistent abusiveness to other cast members." Handler's understudy continued the performance, for which Gregory Peck and Elaine Stritch were in attendance. Writing. Handler is also an author. His first book, "Time On Fire: My Comedy of Terrors", tells the story of his unlikely recovery from acute myeloid leukemia in his mid-twenties. His second, "It's Only Temporary...The Good News and the Bad News of Being Alive", tells the story of his long journey toward gratitude in the years after his illness. The book was released in May 2008. Handler has written for several nationally distributed magazines, including "ELLE", "O, the Oprah Magazine", and "Mirabella". Handler contributes regularly to The Huffington Post. Personal life. Evan married Elisa Atti, an Italian-born chemist, in 2003, and they have a daughter, Sofia Clementina Handler, born . Handler has a brother Lowell and a sister Lillian. Lowell Handler, a writer and photographer, is the author of the book "Twitch & Shout: A Touretter's Tale" and the star, narrator, and associate producer of the Emmy-nominated PBS television documentary "Twitch & Shout", in which Evan appeared.
1742895	Saffron Henderson (born September 25, 1965) is a Canadian voice actress and singer and the daughter of Bill Henderson of Chilliwack fame. She has voiced various characters from anime series. She is usually cast as mature and occasionally flirtatious young woman, or as a child, mostly young boys. In an "Animerica" interview, she stated that she was in the movies "The Fly II" and "". She played Veronica Quaife, taking over the Geena Davis role, and the rocker J.J. Jarret, whom Jason Voorhees used a guitar to kill. Saffron has also provided backing vocals on several albums, including for ex Free/Bad Company vocalist Paul Rodgers' 1999 album "Electric".
899689	Claudia Mori (born Claudia Moroni, Rome, 12 February 1944), is an Italian actress, singer, television producer, and wife of the singer Adriano Celentano. Biography. 1960s. She began her career in show business as an actress playing in musicals, but also in major films such as "Rocco e i suoi fratelli" ("Rocco and His Brothers") by Luchino Visconti and "Sodoma e Gomorra" ("Sodom and Gomorrah") by Robert Aldrich. In 1963, she met Adriano Celentano on the film set of "Uno strano tipo" ("A Strange Type"). Surprisingly, Celentano left his girlfriend Milena Cantù, and in 1964 he married Claudia, secretly in the night, at the church of San Francesco in Grosseto. She bore three children: Rosita (1965), Giacomo (1966) and Rosalinda (1968). In 1964, she acted in "Super rapina a Milano" ("The Great Robbery in Milan"), the first film directed by Celentano. Since then her acting career suffered a setback, in favor of that as singer, in 1964, in fact, with "Non guardarmi" ("Do Not Look at Me"), she recorded her first album. The flip side of the vinyl record includes a cover of Little Eva, "Quello che ti dico" ("What I Say", The Locomotion). She achieved a big success while singing with her husband, in 1967 with "La coppia più bella del mondo" ("The Most Beautiful Couple in the World") and in 1970, winning the Sanremo Music Festival, with "Chi non lavora non fa l'amore" ("Those who don't work don't make love"). 1970s. She returned to the film set many years later, in 1971, with her husband in "Er più - Storia d'amore e coltello" (The best-a story of romance and knife) with Vittorio Caprioli, Romolo Valli, Maurizio Arena and Ninetto Davoli directed by Sergio Corbucci. In 1973 she acted in the film version of "Rugantino", with Adriano Celentano, and played Rosita Flores in "L'emigrante" ("The Emigrant"), directed by Pasquale Festa Campanile. In 1974, she recorded the album "Fuori tempo" ("Out of Time"), collaborating with Paolo Limiti, who wrote the famous song ""Buonasera dottore"" ("Good Evening Doctor"), sung with Franco Morgan. In 1975, Claudia participated in "Yuppi du", a film directed by Celentano. In the same year, she starred in the films of Marcello Mastroianni "Come una Cenerentola" ("Like a Cinderella") and "Culastrisce Nobile Veneziano" ("Culastrisce Noble Venetian"). Another foray into the world of music was in 1977, with release of the album "È amore" ("It is Love"), with the title song written by Shel Shapiro. It is the first single ""Ehi, ehi, ehi"" ("Hey, Hey, Hey"), written by Roberto Vecchioni. The LP also contains ""Mi vuoi"" ("You want me", written by Ivano Fossati and published the following year on a single version of Marcella Bella) and a cover of Roberto Carlos, ""Io bella figlia"" ("I, Beautiful Daughter"). In 1978, she was Marcella in her husband's film "Geppo il folle" ("The Crowds"), and in 1979 she took part in the movie "Bloodline" by Terence Young, with actors like Audrey Hepburn, Ben Gazzara, Irene Papas, Romy Schneider and Omar Sharif. 1980s and 1990s. In 1980, she played Mirandolina in the film "La locandiera di Goldoni" ("The Landlady of Goldoni"), directed by Paolo Cavara, with Paolo Villaggio and Milena Vukotic. In 1982, Claudia returned as a guest at the Sanremo Music Festival, singing the known song ""Non succederà più"" ("Will Not Happen Again"). The song, which enjoyed some commercial success in Spain, France and Germany, contains a vocal interlude by Adriano Celentano. This success helped the couple at an alleged time of crisis, and therefore the text was understood as autobiographical. In 1988 the song was featured in the Soviet movie "Igla" (Russian: Игла), starring Viktor Tsoi In 1984, she released "Claudia canta Adriano", an album where she sings her husband's covers. In 1985, she acted in the film "Joan Lui - Ma un giorno nel paese arrivo io di lunedì" ("Joan - But One Day I Arrive in the Country on Monday") and participated at the Sanremo Music Festival with the song "Chiudi la porta" ("Close the Door"). In 1989, she hosted the show "Du du du" with Pino Caruso; in 1991, she became the CEO of the label "Clan Celentano", producing her husband's famous albums, as "Mina Celentano" (1998). In 1994, Claudia participated at the Sanremo Music Festival with the song ""Se mi ami"" ("If You Love Me"), written by Toto Cutugno. Recent activities. In 2009, Claudia Mori released the "Claudia Mori Collection", containing a CD with her greatest hits and a DVD with a Celentano family private movie. In September 2009, she joined the "X Factor" judging panel, with Mara Maionchi and Morgan. More over, recently she emerged as a TV series and TV movie producer, such as with "C'era una volta la città dei matti..." ("There Was Once a City of Fools"), with her production company "Ciao ragazzi!" ("Hello Boys"), winning the Roma FictionFest Special Award for her achievements as a TV producer.
1047716	A Short Film About Killing () is a 1988 film directed by Krzysztof Kieślowski and starring Miroslaw Baka, Krzysztof Globisz, and Jan Tesarz. Written by Krzysztof Kieślowski and Krzysztof Piesiewicz, the film was expanded from "Decalogue V" of the Polish television series "The Decalogue". Set in Warsaw, Poland, the film compares the senseless, violent murder of an individual to the cold, calculated execution by the state. "A Short Film About Killing" won both the Jury Prize and the FIPRESCI Prize at the 1988 Cannes Film Festival, as well as the European Film Award for Best Film. It is one of the 11 films that have been selected for preservation by National Film Archive of India. Plot. Waldemar Rekowski (Jan Tesarz) is a middle-aged taxicab driver in Warsaw who enjoys his profession and the freedom it affords. His concern for turning a profit leads him to ignore some potential fares in favor of others. An overweight and crude man, Waldemar also enjoys leering at young women.
901573	Temuera Derek Morrison, MNZM (born 26 December 1960), is a New Zealand-born actor. He has become one of the country's most famous stars for roles including the abusive Jake "the Muss" Heke in 1994's "Once Were Warriors," and as bounty hunter Jango Fett and the Clone Troopers in the "Star Wars" series. He also voiced Boba Fett in the 2004 special edition of "". Personal life. Morrison was born in the town of Rotorua, in the North Island of New Zealand, the son of Hana (née Stafford) and Laurie Morrison, a musician. He is of Māori, Scottish, and Irish descent. His sister was performer Taini Morrison and his uncle was musician Sir Howard Morrison. His secondary education took place at Wesley College, Auckland and Western Heights High School, Rotorua. Morrison lives in New Zealand, and divides his time filming there and in Australia and the United States. He has an adult son, James, from a relationship in the late 1980s with singer Kim Willoughby from the all-girl group When The Cat's Away. Career. Trained in drama under the New Zealand Special Performing Arts Training Scheme, one of his earliest roles was in the 1988 film "Never Say Die", opposite Lisa Eilbacher. Before this he played Dr. Hone Ropata on the television soap opera "Shortland Street" from 1992–1995; he was immortalized when another character rebuked him with the line "You're not in Guatemala now, Dr. Ropata!" In 1994 he received attention as the violent and abusive Māori husband Jake Heke in "Once Were Warriors", a film adaptation of Alan Duff's novel of the same name. The role won him international acclaim, and he received the 1994 award for best male performance in a dramatic role from the New Zealand Film and TV Awards. He reprised the role in the sequel, "What Becomes of the Broken Hearted?", for which he received the Best Actor award from the New Zealand Film Awards. He has appeared in supporting roles in "" (1997) and "The Beautiful Country" (2004). In 2005, Morrison became the host of the talk show "The Tem Show" on New Zealand television. In the 1996 Queen's Birthday Honours, Morrison was made a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit, for services to drama. "Star Wars". In recent years, Morrison has received much popularity from his role as the bounty hunter Jango Fett in ' (2002). Part of the film's plot involves an army of clones created with Jango's DNA; Morrison also provided acting and voice work for the soldiers. He reappeared as a number of clones in ', the final film of the series, and rerecorded the lines of the character Boba Fett (Jango's "son" and another clone) in the 2004 DVD re-releases of the original "Star Wars" trilogy, replacing the voice of Jason Wingreen. He has since portrayed Jango Fett and his clones in a number of "Star Wars" video games, all produced by LucasArts. He played the commando "Boss" in ', voiced all the troopers in ', and returned again to voice the bounty hunters Jango Fett and Boba Fett in '. He played Jango again in ', which reveals the origins of Jango Fett, and played Boba Fett in the 2006 game '. He also reprised his roles uncredited as Jango Fett, Boba Fett, and the clones in the video games ' and "Lego Star Wars The Video Game". Other roles. Temuera returned to Shortland Street for six weeks in June/July 2008 as Dr Hone Ropata. In 2008, Morrison also appeared on New Zealand skit comedy television show Pulp Sport where he appeared in a sketch that made fun of him being cloned. Morrison portrayed Abin Sur in the 2011 superhero film "Green Lantern".
64788	In 1642, while still a teenager, he started some pioneering work on calculating machines. After three years of effort and fifty prototypes, he invented the mechanical calculator. He built 20 of these machines (called Pascal's calculators and later Pascalines) in the following ten years. Pascal was an important mathematician, helping create two major new areas of research: he wrote a significant treatise on the subject of projective geometry at the age of 16, and later corresponded with Pierre de Fermat on probability theory, strongly influencing the development of modern economics and social science. Following Galileo and Torricelli, in 1646 he refuted Aristotle's followers who insisted that nature abhors a vacuum. Pascal's results caused many disputes before being accepted. In 1646, he and his sister Jacqueline identified with the religious movement within Catholicism known by its detractors as Jansenism. His father died in 1651. Following a mystical experience in late 1654, he had his "second conversion", abandoned his scientific work, and devoted himself to philosophy and theology. His two most famous works date from this period: the "Lettres provinciales" and the "Pensées", the former set in the conflict between Jansenists and Jesuits. In this year, he also wrote an important treatise on the arithmetical triangle. Between 1658 and 1659 he wrote on the cycloid and its use in calculating the volume of solids. Pascal had poor health, especially after his 18th year, and his death came just two months after his 39th birthday. Early life and education. Pascal was born in Clermont-Ferrand; he lost his mother, Antoinette Begon, at the age of three. His father, Étienne Pascal (1588–1651), who also had an interest in science and mathematics, was a local judge and member of the "Noblesse de Robe". Pascal had two sisters, the younger Jacqueline and the elder Gilberte. In 1631, five years after the death of his wife, Étienne Pascal moved with his children to Paris. The newly arrived family soon hired Louise Delfault, a maid who eventually became an instrumental member of the family. Étienne, who never remarried, decided that he alone would educate his children, for they all showed extraordinary intellectual ability, particularly his son Blaise. The young Pascal showed an amazing aptitude for mathematics and science. Particularly of interest to Pascal was a work of Desargues on conic sections. Following Desargues' thinking, the 16-year-old Pascal produced, as a means of proof, a short treatise on what was called the "Mystic Hexagram", "Essai pour les coniques" ("Essay on Conics") and sent it—his first serious work of mathematics—to Père Mersenne in Paris; it is known still today as Pascal's theorem. It states that if a hexagon is inscribed in a circle (or conic) then the three intersection points of opposite sides lie on a line (called the Pascal line). Pascal's work was so precocious that Descartes was convinced that Pascal's father had written it. When assured by Mersenne that it was, indeed, the product of the son not the father, Descartes dismissed it with a sniff: "I do not find it strange that he has offered demonstrations about conics more appropriate than those of the ancients," adding, "but other matters related to this subject can be proposed that would scarcely occur to a 16-year-old child." In France at that time offices and positions could be—and were—bought and sold. In 1631 Étienne sold his position as second president of the "Cour des Aides" for 65,665 livres. The money was invested in a government bond which provided if not a lavish then certainly a comfortable income which allowed the Pascal family to move to, and enjoy, Paris. But in 1638 Richelieu, desperate for money to carry on the Thirty Years' War, defaulted on the government's bonds. Suddenly Étienne Pascal's worth had dropped from nearly 66,000 livres to less than 7,300. Like so many others, Étienne was eventually forced to flee Paris because of his opposition to the fiscal policies of Cardinal Richelieu, leaving his three children in the care of his neighbor Madame Sainctot, a great beauty with an infamous past who kept one of the most glittering and intellectual salons in all France. It was only when Jacqueline performed well in a children's play with Richelieu in attendance that Étienne was pardoned. In time Étienne was back in good graces with the cardinal, and in 1639 had been appointed the king's commissioner of taxes in the city of Rouen — a city whose tax records, thanks to uprisings, were in utter chaos. In 1642, in an effort to ease his father's endless, exhausting calculations, and recalculations, of taxes owed and paid, Pascal, not yet 19, constructed a mechanical calculator capable of addition and subtraction, called Pascal's calculator or the Pascaline. The Musée des Arts et Métiers in Paris and the Zwinger museum in Dresden, Germany, exhibit two of his original mechanical calculators. Though these machines are early forerunners to computer engineering, the calculator failed to be a great commercial success. Because it was extraordinarily expensive the Pascaline became little more than a toy, and status symbol, for the very rich both in France and throughout Europe. However, Pascal continued to make improvements to his design through the next decade and built 20 machines in total. Contributions to mathematics. Pascal continued to influence mathematics throughout his life. His "Traité du triangle arithmétique" ("Treatise on the Arithmetical Triangle") of 1653 described a convenient tabular presentation for binomial coefficients, now called Pascal's triangle. The triangle can also be represented: He defines the numbers in the triangle by recursion: Call the number in the ("m" + 1)th row and ("n" + 1)th column "t""mn". Then "t""mn" = "t""m"–1,"n" + "t""m","n"–1, for "m" = 0, 1, 2, ... and "n" = 0, 1, 2, ... The boundary conditions are "t""m",−1 = 0, "t"−1,"n" = 0 for "m" = 1, 2, 3, ... and "n" = 1, 2, 3, ... The generator "t"00 = 1. Pascal concludes with the proof, In 1654, prompted by a friend interested in gambling problems, he corresponded with Fermat on the subject, and from that collaboration was born the mathematical theory of probabilities. The friend was the Chevalier de Méré, and the specific problem was that of two players who want to finish a game early and, given the current circumstances of the game, want to divide the stakes fairly, based on the chance each has of winning the game from that point. From this discussion, the notion of expected value was introduced. Pascal later (in the "Pensées") used a probabilistic argument, Pascal's Wager, to justify belief in God and a virtuous life. The work done by Fermat and Pascal into the calculus of probabilities laid important groundwork for Leibniz' formulation of the infinitesimal calculus. After a religious experience in 1654, Pascal mostly gave up work in mathematics. Philosophy of mathematics. Pascal's major contribution to the philosophy of mathematics came with his "De l'Esprit géométrique" ("Of the Geometrical Spirit"), originally written as a preface to a geometry textbook for one of the famous ""Petites-Ecoles de Port-Royal" ("Little Schools of Port-Royal")". The work was unpublished until over a century after his death. Here, Pascal looked into the issue of discovering truths, arguing that the ideal of such a method would be to found all propositions on already established truths. At the same time, however, he claimed this was impossible because such established truths would require other truths to back them up—first principles, therefore, cannot be reached. Based on this, Pascal argued that the procedure used in geometry was as perfect as possible, with certain principles assumed and other propositions developed from them. Nevertheless, there was no way to know the assumed principles to be true. Pascal also used "De l'Esprit géométrique" to develop a theory of definition. He distinguished between definitions which are conventional labels defined by the writer and definitions which are within the language and understood by everyone because they naturally designate their referent. The second type would be characteristic of the philosophy of essentialism. Pascal claimed that only definitions of the first type were important to science and mathematics, arguing that those fields should adopt the philosophy of formalism as formulated by Descartes. In "De l'Art de persuader" ("On the Art of Persuasion"), Pascal looked deeper into geometry's axiomatic method, specifically the question of how people come to be convinced of the axioms upon which later conclusions are based. Pascal agreed with Montaigne that achieving certainty in these axioms and conclusions through human methods is impossible. He asserted that these principles can be grasped only through intuition, and that this fact underscored the necessity for submission to God in searching out truths. Contributions to the physical sciences. Pascal's work in the fields of the study of hydrodynamics and hydrostatics centered on the principles of hydraulic fluids. His inventions include the hydraulic press (using hydraulic pressure to multiply force) and the syringe. He proved that hydrostatic pressure depends not on the weight of the fluid but on the elevation difference. He demonstrated this principle by attaching a thin tube to a barrel full of water and filling the tube with water up to the level of the third floor of a building. This caused the barrel to leak, in what became known as Pascal's barrel experiment. By 1646, Pascal had learned of Evangelista Torricelli's experimentation with barometers. Having replicated an experiment that involved placing a tube filled with mercury upside down in a bowl of mercury, Pascal questioned what force kept some mercury in the tube and what filled the space above the mercury in the tube. At the time, most scientists contended that, rather than a vacuum, some invisible matter was present. This was based on the Aristotelian notion that creation was a thing of substance, whether visible or invisible; and that this substance was forever in motion. Furthermore, "Everything that is in motion must be moved by something," Aristotle declared. Therefore, to the Aristotelian trained scientists of Pascal's time, a vacuum was an impossibility. How so? As proof it was pointed out: Following more experimentation in this vein, in 1647 Pascal produced "Experiences nouvelles touchant le vide" ("New Experiments with the Vacuum"), which detailed basic rules describing to what degree various liquids could be supported by air pressure. It also provided reasons why it was indeed a vacuum above the column of liquid in a barometer tube. On 19 September 1648, after many months of Pascal's friendly but insistent prodding, Florin Périer, husband of Pascal's elder sister Gilberte, was finally able to carry out the fact-finding mission vital to Pascal's theory. The account, written by Périer, reads: "The weather was chancy last Saturday... around five o'clock that morning...the Puy-de-Dôme was visible...so I decided to give it a try. Several important people of the city of Clermont had asked me to let them know when I would make the ascent...I was delighted to have them with me in this great work... "...at eight o'clock we met in the gardens of the Minim Fathers, which has the lowest elevation in town...First I poured 16 pounds of quicksilver...into a vessel...then took several glass tubes...each four feet long and hermetically sealed at one end and opened at the other...then placed them in the vessel quicksilver...I found the quick silver stood at 26" and 3½ lines above the quicksilver in the vessel...I repeated the experiment two more times while standing in the same spot... produced the same result each time... "I attached one of the tubes to the vessel and marked the height of the quicksilver and...asked Father Chastin, one of the Minim Brothers...to watch if any changes should occur through the day...Taking the other tube and a portion of the quick silver...I walked to the top of Puy-de-Dôme, about 500 fathoms higher than the monastery, where upon experiment...found that the quicksilver reached a height of only 23" and 2 lines...I repeated the experiment five times with care...each at different points on the summit...found the same height of quicksilver...in each case..." Pascal replicated the experiment in Paris by carrying a barometer up to the top of the bell tower at the church of Saint-Jacques-de-la-Boucherie, a height of about fifty meters. The mercury dropped two lines. In the face of criticism that some invisible matter must exist in Pascal's empty space, Pascal, in his reply to Estienne Noel, gave one of the 17th century's major statements on the scientific method, which is a striking anticipation of the idea popularised by Karl Popper that scientific theories are characterised by their falsifiability: "In order to show that a hypothesis is evident, it does not suffice that all the phenomena follow from it; instead, if it leads to something contrary to a single one of the phenomena, that suffices to establish its falsity." His insistence on the existence of the vacuum also led to conflict with other prominent scientists, including Descartes. Pascal introduced a primitive form of roulette and the roulette wheel in the 17th century in his search for a perpetual motion machine. Adult life, religion, philosophy, and literature. Religious conversion. In the winter of 1646, Pascal's 58 year-old father broke his hip when he slipped and fell on an icy street of Rouen; given the man's age and the state of medicine in the 17th century, a broken hip could be a very serious condition, perhaps even fatal. Rouen was home to two of the finest doctors in France: Monsieur Doctor Deslandes and Monsieur Doctor de La Bouteillerie. The elder Pascal "would not let anyone other than these men attend him...It was a good choice, for the old man survived and was able to walk again..." But treatment and rehabilitation took three months, during which time La Bouteillerie and Deslandes had become household guests. Both men were followers of Jean Guillebert, proponent of a splinter group from the main body of Catholic teaching known as Jansenism. This still fairly small sect was making surprising inroads into the French Catholic community at that time. It espoused rigorous Augustinism. Blaise spoke with the doctors frequently, and upon his successful treatment of Étienne, borrowed works by Jansenist authors from them. In this period, Pascal experienced a sort of "first conversion" and began to write on theological subjects in the course of the following year. Pascal fell away from this initial religious engagement and experienced a few years of what some biographers have called his "worldly period" (1648–54). His father died in 1651 and left his inheritance to Pascal and Jacqueline, of which Pascal acted as her conservator. Jacqueline announced that she would soon become a postulant in the Jansenist convent of Port-Royal. Pascal was deeply affected and very sad, not because of her choice, but because of his chronic poor health; he too needed her. "Suddenly there was war in the Pascal household. Blaise pleaded with Jacqueline not to leave, but she was adamant. He commanded her to stay, but that didn't work, either. At the heart of this was...Blaise's fear of abandonment...if Jacqueline entered Port-Royal, she would have to leave her inheritance behind... nothing would change her mind." By the end of October in 1651, a truce had been reached between brother and sister. In return for a healthy annual stipend, Jacqueline signed over her part of the inheritance to her brother. Gilberte had already been given her inheritance in the form of a dowry. In early January, Jacqueline left for Port-Royal. On that day, according to Gilberte concerning her brother, "He retired very sadly to his rooms without seeing Jacqueline, who was waiting in the little parlor..." In early June 1653, after what must have seemed like endless badgering from Jacqueline, Pascal formally signed over the whole of his sister's inheritance to Port-Royal, which, to him, "had begun to smell like a cult." With two thirds of his father's estate now gone, the 29-year-old Pascal was now consigned to genteel poverty. For a while, Pascal pursued the life of a bachelor. During visits to his sister at Port-Royal in 1654, he displayed contempt for affairs of the world but was not drawn to God. Brush with death. On 23 November 1654, between 10:30 and 12:30 at night, Pascal had an intense religious vision and immediately recorded the experience in a brief note to himself which began: "Fire. God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob, not of the philosophers and the scholars..." and concluded by quoting Psalm 119:16: "I will not forget thy word. Amen." He seems to have carefully sewn this document into his coat and always transferred it when he changed clothes; a servant discovered it only by chance after his death. This piece is now known as the "Memorial". The story of the carriage accident as having led to the experience described in the "Memorial" is disputed by some scholars. His belief and religious commitment revitalized, Pascal visited the older of two convents at Port-Royal for a two-week retreat in January 1655. For the next four years, he regularly travelled between Port-Royal and Paris. It was at this point immediately after his conversion when he began writing his first major literary work on religion, the "Provincial Letters". The "Provincial Letters". Beginning in 1656, Pascal published his memorable attack on casuistry, a popular ethical method used by Catholic thinkers in the early modern period (especially the Jesuits, and in particular Antonio Escobar). Pascal denounced casuistry as the mere use of complex reasoning to justify moral laxity and all sorts of sins. The 18-letter series was published between 1656 and 1657 under the pseudonym Louis de Montalte and incensed Louis XIV. The king ordered that the book be shredded and burnt in 1660. In 1661, in the midsts of the formulary controversy, the Jansenist school at Port-Royal was condemned and closed down; those involved with the school had to sign a 1656 papal bull condemning the teachings of Jansen as heretical. The final letter from Pascal, in 1657, had defied Alexander VII himself. Even Pope Alexander, while publicly opposing them, nonetheless was persuaded by Pascal's arguments. Aside from their religious influence, the "Provincial Letters" were popular as a literary work. Pascal's use of humor, mockery, and vicious satire in his arguments made the letters ripe for public consumption, and influenced the prose of later French writers like Voltaire and Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Wide praise has been given to the "Provincial Letters". The "Pensées". Pascal's most influential theological work, referred to posthumously as the "Pensées" ("Thoughts"), was not completed before his death. It was to have been a sustained and coherent examination and defense of the Christian faith, with the original title "Apologie de la religion Chrétienne" ("Defense of the Christian Religion"). The first version of the numerous scraps of paper found after his death appeared in print as a book in 1669 titled "Pensées de M. Pascal sur la religion, et sur quelques autres sujets" ("Thoughts of M. Pascal on religion, and on some other subjects") and soon thereafter became a classic. One of the "Apologie"'s main strategies was to use the contradictory philosophies of skepticism and stoicism, personalized by Montaigne on one hand, and Epictetus on the other, in order to bring the unbeliever to such despair and confusion that he would embrace God. Pascal's "Pensées" is widely considered to be a masterpiece, and a landmark in French prose. When commenting on one particular section (Thought #72), Sainte-Beuve praised it as the finest pages in the French language. Will Durant hailed it as "the most eloquent book in French prose." In "Pensées", Pascal surveys several philosophical paradoxes: infinity and nothing, faith and reason, soul and matter, death and life, meaning and vanity—seemingly arriving at no definitive conclusions besides humility, ignorance, and grace. Rolling these into one he develops Pascal's Wager. Last works and death. T. S. Eliot described him during this phase of his life as "a man of the world among ascetics, and an ascetic among men of the world." Pascal's ascetic lifestyle derived from a belief that it was natural and necessary for a person to suffer. In 1659, Pascal fell seriously ill. During his last years, he frequently tried to reject the ministrations of his doctors, saying, "Sickness is the natural state of Christians." Louis XIV suppressed the Jansenist movement at Port-Royal in 1661. In response, Pascal wrote one of his final works, "Écrit sur la signature du formulaire" ("Writ on the Signing of the Form"), exhorting the Jansenists not to give in. Later that year, his sister Jacqueline died, which convinced Pascal to cease his polemics on Jansenism. Pascal's last major achievement, returning to his mechanical genius, was inaugurating perhaps the first bus line, moving passengers within Paris in a carriage with many seats. In 1662, Pascal's illness became more violent, and his emotional condition had severely worsened since his sister's death, which happened the previous year. Aware that his health was fading quickly, he sought a move to the hospital for incurable diseases, but his doctors declared that he was too unstable to be carried. In Paris on 18 August 1662, Pascal went into convulsions and received extreme unction. He died the next morning, his last words being "May God never abandon me," and was buried in the cemetery of Saint-Étienne-du-Mont. An autopsy performed after his death revealed grave problems with his stomach and other organs of his abdomen, along with damage to his brain. Despite the autopsy, the cause of his poor health was never precisely determined, though speculation focuses on tuberculosis, stomach cancer, or a combination of the two. The headaches which afflicted Pascal are generally attributed to his brain lesion. Legacy. In honor of his scientific contributions, the name Pascal has been given to the SI unit of pressure, to a programming language, and Pascal's law (an important principle of hydrostatics), and as mentioned above, Pascal's triangle and Pascal's wager still bear his name. Pascal's development of probability theory was his most influential contribution to mathematics. Originally applied to gambling, today it is extremely important in economics, especially in actuarial science. John Ross writes, "Probability theory and the discoveries following it changed the way we regard uncertainty, risk, decision-making, and an individual's and society's ability to influence the course of future events." However, it should be noted that Pascal and Fermat, though doing important early work in probability theory, did not develop the field very far. Christiaan Huygens, learning of the subject from the correspondence of Pascal and Fermat, wrote the first book on the subject. Later figures who continued the development of the theory include Abraham de Moivre and Pierre-Simon Laplace. In literature, Pascal is regarded as one of the most important authors of the French Classical Period and is read today as one of the greatest masters of French prose. His use of satire and wit influenced later polemicists. The content of his literary work is best remembered for its strong opposition to the rationalism of René Descartes and simultaneous assertion that the main countervailing philosophy, empiricism, was also insufficient for determining major truths. In France, prestigious annual awards, Blaise Pascal Chairs are given to outstanding international scientists to conduct their research in the Ile de France region. One of the Universities of Clermont-Ferrand, France – Université Blaise Pascal – is named after him. The University of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, holds an annual math contest named in his honour. Roberto Rossellini directed a filmed biopic (entitled "Blaise Pascal") which originally aired on Italian television in 1971. Pascal was a subject of the first edition of the 1984 BBC Two documentary, "Sea of Faith", presented by Don Cupitt.
1062328	Abigail Kathleen Breslin (born April 14, 1996) is an American actress. She is one of the youngest actresses ever to be nominated for an Academy Award. Breslin appeared in her first commercial when she was three years old, and in her first film, 'Signs' (2002), at the age of five. Her subsequent films include "Little Miss Sunshine" (2006); "No Reservations" (2007); "Nim's Island" (2008); "Definitely, Maybe" (2008); "My Sister's Keeper" (2009); "Zombieland" (2009); "Rango" (2011); and "The Call" (2013). Personal life. Breslin was born in New York City, the daughter of Kim and Michael, a telecommunications expert, computer programmer, and consultant. She has two older brothers, Ryan and Spencer, who are also actors. Breslin lives in New York with her family, which her maternal grandparents have described as "very close-knit". She is named after First Lady of the United States Abigail Adams.
1066591	William Glenn Shadix (April 15, 1952 – September 7, 2010) was an American actor, known for his role as Otho Fenlock in Tim Burton's horror/comedy film "Beetlejuice" and the voice of the Mayor of Halloween Town in "The Nightmare Before Christmas". Early life. Shadix was born in Bessemer, Alabama. He added the surname "Scott" when his mother, Annie Ruth (Livingston), remarried a few years after his birth. He attended Birmingham-Southern College for two years, studying with absurdist playwright-director Arnold Powell. Career. He lived in New York City prior to moving to Hollywood in the late 1970s. He got his breakthrough film role in "Beetlejuice" while doing a stage play, portraying Gertrude Stein. "Beetlejuice" filmmaker Tim Burton went on to cast Shadix in 1993's "The Nightmare Before Christmas", and the 2001 remake of "Planet of the Apes"." In 2005, Shadix was cast as the voices of the Brain and Monsieur Mallah in season five of the "Teen Titans" animated series. His other voice work includes the aforementioned "Nightmare", and episodes of "Jackie Chan Adventures" and "Justice League Unlimited". He reprised his "Nightmare Before Christmas" role in the video game "", and the Square-Enix video game "Kingdom Hearts II". His television work included the HBO drama "Carnivàle", the NBC television comedy "Seinfeld", in which he played Jerry's landlord, and playing the roles of giant brothers Typhoon and Typhon in "". On stage, Shadix was set to begin rehearsals for a Birmingham production of Alan Bennett's "History Boys". He also recorded a promo for Red Bar Radio. Personal life. He once wrote that as a teenager he underwent aversion therapy, in an attempt to become straight. In 2007, after spending 30 years in Los Angeles, he retired to his native Bessemer, Alabama, where he purchased a Queen Anne-style Victorian era home. The house was completely destroyed in a fire on December 13, 2008. Shadix told reporters, "I have lost my dream." Death. On September 7, 2010, Shadix accidentally fell at his condominium in Birmingham, Alabama, and died of blunt trauma to his head. Shadix had mobility problems and was in a wheelchair.
1056622	Dear Frankie is a 2004 British drama film directed by Shona Auerbach and starring Emily Mortimer, Gerard Butler, and Jack McElhone. The screenplay by Andrea Gibb focuses on a young single mother whose love for her son prompts her to perpetuate a deception designed to protect him from the truth about his father. Plot. Lizzie Morrison (Emily Mortimer) and nine-year-old deaf son Frankie (Jack McElhone) frequently relocate to keep one step ahead of her abusive ex-husband and his family. They are accompanied by her opinionated, chain-smoking mother Nell. Newly relocated in the Scottish town of Greenock, Lizzie accepts a job at the local fish and chips shop owned by a friendly woman named Marie, and enrolls Frankie in school. Through a Glasgow post office box, Frankie maintains a regular correspondence with someone he believes to be his father, Davey, who allegedly is a merchant seaman working on the HMS "Accra". In reality, the letters he receives are written by his mother, who prefers maintaining this charade instead of telling the boy the reason she fled her marriage.
1044871	Caroline Munro (born 16 January 1949) is an English actress and model known for her many appearances in horror, science fiction and action films of the 1970s and 1980s. Biography. Early career. According to Munro, her career took off in 1966 when her mother and photographer friend entered some headshots of her to Britain's Evening News (London) "Face of the Year" contest. ""I wanted to do art. Art was my love. I went to art school in Brighton but I was not very good at it. I just did not know what to do. I had a friend at the college who was studying photography and he needed somebody to photograph and he asked me. Unbeknownst to me, he sent the photographs to a big newspaper in London. The famous fashion photographer, David Bailey, was conducting a photo contest and my picture won."" This led to modelling chores, her first job being for "Vogue" magazine at the age of 17. She moved to London to pursue top modelling jobs and became a major cover girl for fashion and TV advertisements while there. Decorative bit parts came her way in such films as "Casino Royale" (1967) and "Where's Jack?" (1969). One of her many photo ads got her a screen test and a one-year contract at Paramount where she won the role of Richard Widmark's daughter in the comedy/western A Talent for Loving (film) (1969). 1969 proved to be a good year for Munro, because it was then that she began a lucrative 10 year relationship with Lamb's Navy Rum. Her image was plastered all over the country, and this would eventually lead to her next big break. 1971 saw her appear alongside Vincent Price in "The Abominable Dr. Phibes", playing the deceased Mrs. Victoria Regina Phibes: ""The most challenging scenes involved lying in the coffin with Vincent,"" she reveals. ""You see, I’m allergic to feathers and I was attired in this beautiful negligee — but it was covered with feathers! It took a great deal of willpower not to sneeze or sniffle. On occasion, I would simply have to sneeze and this would result in having to do another take."" She would reprise the role in the sequel, "Dr. Phibes Rises Again" in 1972. In the same year, she was referred to in Colin Blunstone's song "Caroline Goodbye", a song about the break-up of their relationship. Hammer Horror films. Hammer Films CEO, Sir James Carreras, spotted Munro on a Lamb's Navy Rum poster/billboard. He asked his right hand man, James Liggett, to find and screen test her. She was immediately signed to a one-year contract. Her first film for Hammer proved to be something of a turning point in her career. It was during the making of "Dracula AD 1972" that she decided from this film onward she was a full-fledged actress. Up until then, she was always considered a model who did some acting on the side. Munro completed her contract for Hammer with "Captain Kronos – Vampire Hunter" in 1974. Directed by Brian Clemens, she plays the barefoot gypsy girl Carla. In Paramount Pictures DVD commentary, Clemens explains that he envisioned the role as a fiery, Raquel Welch type, red-head. Hammer pushed for Munro, and the script was adapted accordingly. Munro has the distinction of being the only actor ever signed to a long-term contract by Hammer Films. She would later turn down the lead female roles in Hammer's "Dr. Jekyll and Sister Hyde", "Frankenstein and the Monster from Hell", and the unmade "Vampirella" because they required nudity. "The Golden Voyage of Sinbad". Brian Clemens later helped her get the role of Margiana, the slave girl in "The Golden Voyage of Sinbad" (1974). ""I got the part — I had been signed by Hammer, for one year, for a contract, out of which I did two films, one being "Dracula AD 1972", and the second one being "Captain Kronos – Vampire Hunter", which, kind of, would come full-circle, to "Sinbad". It was written and directed by Brian Clemens, who wrote the screenplay for "The Golden Voyage of Sinbad", so, I was lucky enough to be chosen for "Captain Kronos", and they were searching for somebody to do "Sinbad", and they wanted a big name, somebody American, or well-known, but Brian said "No". He kept lobbying Charles Schneer and Ray Harryhausen — saying: 'I think you should come and look at the rushes, and see what you think, because I think she's right'. So, they said "No", but, eventually, Brian persuaded them to do that, and they saw the rushes, and that was how I got the part. So, it was lovely, like work-out-of-work. I was very lucky to have done that."" Other appearances during this time included "I Don't Want to Be Born" (1975) with Joan Collins, and "At the Earth's Core" (1976) with Peter Cushing and Doug McClure. She appeared also as Tammy, a nursing employee of a sinister health farm, in "The Angels of Death" (1977), an episode of the TV series "The New Avengers" that featured also rising stars Pamela Stephenson and Lindsay Duncan. This was notable, among other things, for a vicious fight between Munro and Joanna Lumley's Purdey. James Bond. In 1977, Munro turned down the opportunity to play villainess Ursa in "Superman" in favour of what would become her most celebrated film appearance, Naomi in "The Spy Who Loved Me," who seductively winks at Bond while trying to gun him down from her helicopter. Cubby Broccoli urged Caroline to make her way to America in search of more lucrative offers. She declined, preferring to stay close to her family. Late 1970s and 1980s. Munro continued to work in numerous British and European horror and science fiction films through the 1970s and 1980s, most notably "Starcrash" (1979) with David Hasselhoff, Christopher Plummer and Marjoe Gortner. Munro's dialogue was completely redubbed by another actress, even for English language prints of the film. Munro's career continued to thrive well in the 1980s, appearing in many slasher and Eurotrash productions. Her first film shot on American soil was the William Lustig production "Maniac" (1980). This was soon followed by the "multi-award winning, shot during the Cannes Film Festival" shocker "The Last Horror Film" (1982) (directed by David Winters), in which she was reunited with her "Maniac" co-star Joe Spinell. She had a cameo role in the cult classic slasher "Don't Open 'Til Christmas" as a singer (1984), "Slaughter High" (1986), Paul Naschy's "Howl of the Devil" (1987), and Jess Franco's "Faceless" (1988), followed in rapid succession. She reteamed with "Starcrash" director, Luigi Cozzi, for "Il Gatto nero" in 1989, though this would be her last major film appearance. Throughout the 1980s, Munro was often cited by the press as being a candidate for the co-starring role in a proposed (but never produced) feature film based upon "Doctor Who". The feature was being co-produced by her second husband George Dugdale. At various times, press reports linked her with numerous actors touted to play the role of The Doctor. Music and television. In 1984, Munro signed a recording contract with Gary Numan's label Numa Records, and released a dance single called "Pump Me Up". Written and produced by Numan, the single hardly sold, and Numan admitted later that his label was probably to blame. His original version of the song can be found on his 1984 album "Berserker". Munro and Numan had a brief affair in 1984, but because of the break-up, Numan cancelled plans to produce an album for her and dropped her (and her younger brother, Lee), from his label. Numan publicly trashed her as a greedy sexbomb bimbo , and she is the subject of his 1986 song "The Need" from his "Strange Charm" album. Munro also provided vocals and lyrics for the song "Warrior of Love" which she sang in the film "Don't Open Till Christmas". The song was never officially released, although it can be found easily on the internet. Between 1984 and 1987, Munro was also a hostess on the Yorkshire Television game show "3-2-1". Munro was also a popular pin-up girl during this time, though she refused to pose nude. In the early 1980s, she appeared in music videos with Adam Ant and Meat Loaf. The 1990s and fewer acting jobs. By the early 1990s Munro decided to focus her efforts more on her children, Georgina and Iona, and her husband George. Her film roles were confined to performing cameos as herself in "Night Owl" (1993); as Mrs. Pignon in "To Die For" (1994); and as the counsellor in her friend Jeffrey Arsenault's film "Domestic Strangers" (1996).
1036403	Tallulah Jessica Elina Hynes ( Stevenson; born 15 November 1972) is an English actress and writer. She was known professionally as Jessica Stevenson until 2007. She was one of the creators, writers and stars of the British sitcom "Spaced". Hynes has worked as a writer and actress for over twenty years and is a celebrity ambassador for the charity Action for Children and organised a fundraising concert for Haiti Kids Kino project with her friend and sometime collaborator Julia Davis which raised £4000 for the charity. She has been nominated for a Tony, a Bafta, a Lawrence Olivier Award and won two British comedy awards. Life and career. Hynes was born in Lewisham, London, on 15 November 1972, but grew up in Brighton, where she attended Dorothy Stringer High School. As a teenager Hynes was part of the National Youth Theatre company, and she made her stage début with the company in Lionel Bart's "Blitz" in 1990. In 1992–3 she played a season at the West Yorkshire Playhouse, Leeds. In the same year she appeared in Peter Greenaway's 1993 film "The Baby of Mâcon", playing the first midwife. For the first fourteen years of her career, she used her maiden name as a stage name. Early in her career she teamed up with future "Spaced" co-star Katy Carmichael in a comedy double-act called "the Liz Hurleys", appeared in two productions at Sheffield's Crucible Theatre, and played parts on television in the nursing drama "Staying Alive" (1995–97) and short-lived sketch shows "Six Pairs of Pants", "(Un)natural Acts" and "Asylum"—where the "Spaced" team (Stevenson, Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright) first assembled. She also guest starred in the first episode of "Midsomer Murders" in 1997. From 1998-2000 she played the supporting role of Cheryl in the hit sitcom "The Royle Family" and reprised the role for special episodes in 2006, 2009 and 2010. Also in 1999, she co-wrote and starred in "Spaced". Her London theatre début was in April 2002, playing the tough ex-prisoner "Bolla" in Jez Butterworth's "The Night Heron" at the Royal Court. In 2004 she played a minor part as Yvonne in horror comedy "Shaun of the Dead", again working with Pegg and Wright. In the same year she was also cast as Magda, friend of the titular character, in the Hollywood sequel "Bridget Jones' Diary 2" also called "Bridget Jones' Diary: The Edge of Reason". In 2005 Hynes took the lead role in the BBC One sitcom "According to Bex" (which she thought was so bad that she sacked her agent for putting her up for it), and had a starring role in British comedy "Confetti" alongside Jimmy Carr, Martin Freeman and Mark Heap. In early 2007 she took a lead role in the film "Magicians", starring alongside comic duo David Mitchell and Robert Webb. Later that year she starred in "Learners", a comedy drama television movie which she also wrote, on BBC One in November 2007. She also provided the voice of Mafalda Hopkirk in "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix". She played Joan Redfern in the 2007 "Doctor Who" episodes "Human Nature" and "The Family of Blood". She then appeared in part two of the story "The End of Time", playing a character named Verity Newman, who is Joan's great granddaughter. Hynes has appeared in Big Finish's Eighth Doctor audio adventure "Invaders from Mars", with her "Spaced" colleague Simon Pegg. In 2007 she starred in "Son of Rambow" (credited as Jessica Stevenson), playing Mary Proudfoot opposite the star of the film, Bill Milner. Hynes co-wrote the pilot "Phoo Action", based on the cartoons of Jamie Hewlett, which was transmitted on BBC Three in early 2008. In the same year Hynes appeared in the film "Faintheart" and in a revival of Alan Ayckbourne's "The Norman Conquests" at the Old Vic. In 2009 she made her Broadway début in the play's transfer and was nominated for a Tony Award for her performance. In 2009 she returned to the Royal Court in "The Priory", a new play by Michael Wynne. She plans to pursue a solo career as a standup comedian as well as publishing a children's book "Ants in the Marmalade". Jessica Hynes appeared as a "right-on" PR person Siobhan Sharpe in the London Olympic centred satire "Twenty Twelve", of which the first series screened on BBC4 in 2011, moving to BBC2 in spring 2012. A further series was screened in July 2012. In December 2012 she appeared with co-star Hugh Bonneville in "World's Most Dangerous Roads", travelling through Georgia. Jessica was in the film "", in which she plays competition host Angel Matthews. The film was released in November 2012. In October 2012 she released a duet with singer Anthony Strong of Slim Gaillard's "Laughing in Rhythm". Awards. Hynes has won two British Comedy Awards, both for her performances in "Spaced": Best Female Comedy Newcomer in 1999 and Best TV Comedy Actress in 2001. In 2013 she won the Royal Television Society award for Best Comedy Performance for her role in "Twenty Twelve". She was nominated for a TV BAFTA for her performance in the largely improvised TV feature "Tomorrow La Scala" (2000), and for an Olivier Award for her role in the play "The Night Heron" in 2003. In 2009 she was nominated for a Tony Award for Best Performance by a Featured Actress in a Play, but lost out to Angela Lansbury.
1266256	David Manners (April 30, 1900 – December 23, 1998) was a Canadian - American film actor. Early life. Born Rauff de Ryther Daun Acklom in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Manners originally studied forestry at the University of Toronto, but he found it boring. Over his father's objections, he pursued a stage career and appeared in both Broadway and out-of-town productions. He came to Hollywood at the beginning of the talking films revolution after studying acting with Eva Le Gallienne, even though she had remarked that he was "a very bad actor" after seeing one of his stage performances. He once appeared on stage with Helen Hayes. His family moved to New York City in 1907 and to Hastings-on-Hudson, New York in 1922. Hollywood career. Manners was serendipitously "discovered" by the film director James Whale at a Hollywood party, and within a few years, he was a popular leading man, playing opposite such up and coming actresses as Katharine Hepburn, Barbara Stanwyck, Gloria Stuart, Myrna Loy, Loretta Young, and Ann Dvorak, and he was paired several times with Helen Chandler. His very first film, directed by Whale, was destroyed before having been released, but with his second movie, "Journey's End" (1930), "The New York Times" and "Variety" officially bestowed their imprimatur upon the fledgling film actor. His subsequent film appearances in movies made at RKO Radio Pictures and Warner Brothers were critically praised (again including "The New York Times", an early and prescient adherent of his acting abilities), and he was contracted by the latter studio. In late 1930, he filmed his most famous role, as Jonathon Harker opposite Bela Lugosi, in Universal's 1931 horror classic, "Dracula". Until the end of his life, Manners continued to receive fan mail from fans of the movie, even though he claimed to have never seen it. Numerous films followed. In his tenth movie, he co-starred with Barbara Stanwyck in Frank Capra's critically acclaimed but commercially unsuccessful "The Miracle Woman" (1931). "The New York Times", again lauding Manners, featured this tribute, "Manners does exceptionally well with this sympathetic assignment." During his brief tenure at Warners, which loaned him out to other studios quite frequently, Manners progressed from callow featured actor and leading man to finally attaining star stature with the lead in "Crooner" (1932). Shortly thereafter, he began to freelance with much success. One of the final films he made before the termination of his Warner Bros. contract, was RKO's "A Bill of Divorcement". His co-star Katharine Hepburn commented that, "David was a big star. I was so nervous working with him... He was... just a dear to work with and a totally professional and talented actor." Lucille Ball, his costar in "Roman Scandals", commented, "David wasn't in the one scene I did in "Roman Scandals", but he watched every scene shot. He was tremendously enthusiastic, and he...invited me to supper. ... He was mobbed everywhere. All the time he kept telling me I had style and personality. He said if I persevered I'd get somewhere in Hollywood. Not once did he ever hint that he'd like to take me home to his boudoir. ... He was so utterly charming."
582540	Tanushree Dutta (Bengali: তনুশ্রী দত্ত; pronounced , ITRANS: "tanushri"; born 19 March 1984) is an Indian actress who appears in mainly Bollywood films. A former beauty queen, she won the Femina Miss India Universe title in 2004. Early life. Dutta was born and raised in Jamshedpur, Jharkhand (then Bihar) to a Bengali Hindu Kayastha family. She also has a younger sister, Ishita Dutta; who is currently acting as the main lead in the serial Ek Ghar Banaunga which is aired on Star Plus She attended D.B.M.S. English School in Jamshedpur and attended junior college in pune.She dropped out of college after 1st year of B.COM to pursue a career in modelling. Career. Dutta won the Femina Miss India 2004 competition held in Mumbai; subsequently she won the title of Femina Miss India Universe 2004 and represented India at Miss Universe 2004 Quito, Ecuador where she placed in the Top 10. In 2005, the Government of Jharkhand honored her by releasing postcards and stamps featuring her. She made her Bollywood debut in 2005 appearing in Chocolate and Aashiq Banaya Apne.She also did a music video, "Saiyan Dil Mein Aana Re" by Harry Anand.
584980	Aata (, translation: "Game") is a 2007 Telugu film starring Siddharth Narayan and Ileana D'Cruz in the lead roles. M. S. Raju produced this film while V. N. Aditya directed the project. This film was released on May 9, 2007. Plot. Srikrishna (Siddharth) grows up watching films playing in the theatre in which his father works as a movie-projectionist in a village. Satya (Ileana) is harassed by Vicky (Munna) - son of a politician (Jaya Prakash Reddy)- who wants to marry her. Satya escapes from home and Srikrishna falls in love with her the first time he meets her. As the goons and police chase Satya, Srikrishna protects her and drops her in the house of the politician. He wins Vicky’s confidence. Then, he plays a one sided game with him. At the end, the police that were working with Vicky turn against him and arrest Vicky and his parents. Satya and Srikrishna get married. Music. The music and soundtrack of the movie was composed by Devi Sri Prasad. And the lyrics were written by Sirivennela Sitaramasastri, Chandrabose. Business & Critical Reception. Some critics noted that the plot closely follows the plot of the Pawan Kalyan's film "Gudumba Shankar". "Aata" did very well commercially but content was pretty average. The movie was dubbed into Tamil as "Gillida".
1055178	Tony Lo Bianco (born October 19, 1936) is an American actor in films and television. Life and career. Lo Bianco was born in Brooklyn, New York, the son of a taxi driver. He is known for his tough guy, Italiante blue-collar roles in the cult films "The Honeymoon Killers", "God Told Me To", and "The French Connection". Lo Bianco was a Golden Gloves boxer and also founded the Triangle Theatre in 1963, serving as its artistic director for six years and collaborating with lighting designer Jules Fisher, playwright Jason Miller & actor Roy Scheider. Lo Bianco won an off-Broadway Obie award for "Yanks-3, Detroit-0, Top of the Seventh." Most notably, Lo Bianco was nominated for a Tony for his portrayal of Eddie Carbone in Arthur Miller's "A View from the Bridge". He also won the 1983 Outer Critics Circle Award for this performance.
1656752	The Lost Bladesman is a 2011 Hong Kong film loosely based on the story of Guan Yu crossing five passes and slaying six generals in Luo Guanzhong's historical novel "Romance of the Three Kingdoms". Written and directed by Alan Mak and Felix Chong, the film starred Donnie Yen as Guan Yu, with Yen also serving as the film's action director. Plot. The film opens with a scene of Cao Cao attending Guan Yu's funeral — Guan's decapitated head is buried with a wooden statue in place of his body. The scene flashbacks to 20 years ago: After Guan Yu had been separated from his sworn brother Liu Bei, he temporarily served Cao Cao while he waited for news of Liu's whereabouts. At the Battle of Baima between Cao Cao and his rival Yuan Shao, Guan Yu slew Yuan's general Yan Liang and lifted the siege on Baima. As a reward, Cao Cao suggested to Emperor Xian to grant Guan Yu a marquis title and promote him to a higher rank. Liu Bei's family, including his concubine Qilan, were staying in Cao Cao's base together with Guan Yu. Cao Cao showered Guan Yu with precious gifts, hoping that the general will be touched and will decide to remain by his side, but Guan refused to renounce his loyalty to Liu Bei. When Guan Yu received news that Liu Bei had taken shelter under Yuan Shao, he negotiated with Cao Cao to release Liu's family. Cao Cao agreed, but Qilan remained behind with Guan Yu. As Cao Cao was aware that Guan Yu was secretly in love with Qilan, he tricked Guan into consuming food spiked with aphrodisiac, in the hope that Guan would express his feelings to Qilan and rape her when she was immobilised. However, Guan Yu managed to maintain his composure and refrain from dishonouring his sworn brother's concubine. He and Qilan made preparations to leave Cao Cao after he knew Liu Bei's whereabouts from a messenger sent by Liu himself. Cao Cao's followers strongly opposed their lord's decision to allow Guan Yu to leave as they felt that Guan might become a threat to their lord in the future. Despite this, Cao Cao gave a strict order that no one was to stop Guan Yu. However, along the way, Guan Yu encountered resistance and had to fight his way through the passes. Guan Yu slew Kong Xiu, Han Fu, Meng Tan, Bian Xi, Wang Zhi and Qin Qi, consecutively after they attempted to stop him. It was eventually revealed that it was Emperor Xian, and not Cao Cao, who issued the order to kill Guan Yu. Before reuniting with Liu Bei, Guan Yu agreed to kill Yuan Shao but entered a dilemma on whether to stay or leave in favour of his relationship with Qilan. However, before Qilan left, she pretended that she loved Guan Yu and said that she would ask for Liu Bei's consent for them to marry. Her true intention, however, was actually to stop Guan Yu from helping Cao Cao. Guan Yu refused and was stabbed by Qilan before Emperor Xian sent assassins to kill him. After a final grim exchange of words, Guan Yu turned his back on Cao Cao and the emperor. He headed to reunite with Liu Bei, fighting against his lord's rivals for the next two decades until his death. The scene then turns back to Guan Yu's funeral. Cao Cao is sad and sheds tears for the loss of his friend. Before the film ends, Cao Cao makes some final remarks on how not him, but others such as Sun Quan, Liu Bei and Zhuge Liang, are responsible for Guan Yu's death. In a post credits scene, Guan Yu is seen wielding his Green Dragon Crescent Blade upright and stroking his long beard. Reception. "The Lost Bladesman" received mixed reviews. It holds a 57% "rotten" rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 7 reviews. Production. Shooting began in March 2010 and wrapped up on 30 June 2010. Directors Alan Mak and Felix Chong initially sought actor Zhang Tielin for the role of Guan Yu but Zhang turned down the offer, saying that he would "rather do Zhang Jizhong's "The Water Margin" instead". The role was later offered to Donnie Yen, who also rejected initially, as he felt that he was unable to play the role well. The directors then offered the role again to Yen, explaining to him that if he took up the offer he would have a chance to show that he is not just another martial arts actor, but also a good actor. Music. The song played in the end credits is "Qianli Zou Danqi" (千里走单骑; "Riding Alone for a Thousand Li") performed by Tan Jing.
134257	The Jackie Robinson Story is a 1950 biographical film starring baseball legend Jackie Robinson as himself. The film focuses on Robinson's struggle with the abuse of racist bigots as he becomes the first African-American Major League Baseball player of the modern era. Even during its release in the era of racial segregation, the film received critical praise and fared well at the box office. On April 19, 2005, 20th Century Fox and Legend Films released a colorized version of the film, donating a portion of the proceeds to the Jackie Robinson Foundation, a charity that benefits education for gifted students. An "official" version remains in release by MGM Home Entertainment (whose sister company, United Artists, produced this film). Plot. The film begins with Robinson as a child, being given a worn-out baseball glove by a stranger impressed by his fielding skills. As a young man, he becomes a multi-sport star at the University of California, Los Angeles, but as he nears graduation, he worries about his future. His older brother Mack was also an outstanding college athlete and graduate, but the only job he could get was that of a lowly street cleaner. When America enters World War II, Robinson is drafted, serving as an athletic director. Afterward, he plays baseball with a professional African-American team. However, the constant travel keeps him away from his college sweetheart, Rae.
1049238	Alfred Lettieri (February 24, 1928 – October 18, 1975) was an American actor, known for his portrayal of Virgil Sollozzo, in "The Godfather". Lettieri projected an aura of menace, ruthlessness and brooding malevolence in his film roles, which he attributed to his acquaintance with real-life gangsters, including Joey Gallo. At the age of 36, he made his screen debut in the television film "The Hanged Man". Lettieri acted with some of Hollywood's biggest screen names including Steve McQueen in "The Getaway", Charles Bronson in "Mr. Majestyk", John Wayne in "McQ" and both Marlon Brando and Al Pacino in "The Godfather". Lettieri died of a heart attack in 1975, at the age of 47, leaving two children.
1042265	John Paton Laurie (25 March 1897 – 23 June 1980) was a Scottish actor born in Dumfries, Scotland. Throughout a long career, Laurie performed a wide range of theatre and film work. He is perhaps best remembered to modern audiences for his role as the dour but kindhearted Private James Frazer in the sitcom "Dad's Army" (1968-1977). Laurie appeared in scores of feature films with directors such as Alfred Hitchcock, Michael Powell, and Laurence Olivier. He was also a stage actor (particularly of Shakespearean roles) and speaker of verse, especially when written by Robert Burns. Early life. Laurie was the son of William Laurie (1856–1903), a clerk in a tweed mill and later a hatter and hosier, and Jessie Ann Laurie ("née" Brown; 1858–1935). He was a pupil at Dumfries Academy, then a grammar school, and abandoned a career in architecture to serve in the First World War. Laurie was left particularly haunted by his experiences. He once asked Jim Perry to stop showing a piece of film of the war, which was part of a piece Perry was filming about First World War veterans; saying "Turn it off, son. I can't watch it". After the war, in which he served with the Honourable Artillery Company, he trained to become an actor at the Central School of Speech and Drama in London and first acted on stage in 1921. Acting career. A prolific Shakespearean actor, Laurie spent much of the time between 1922 and 1939 playing Shakespearean parts, including in "Hamlet", "Richard III", and "Macbeth" at the Old Vic or Stratford-upon-Avon. He featured in his friend Laurence Olivier's three Shakespearean films, "Henry V" (1944), "Hamlet" (1948), and "Richard III" (1955). He and Olivier also appeared in "As You Like It" (1936). During the Second World War, Laurie served in the Home Guard. His early work in films included "Juno and the Paycock" (1930), directed by Alfred Hitchcock. His breakthrough third film was Hitchcock's "The 39 Steps" (1935) in which he played a crofter (with Peggy Ashcroft as his wife). Other roles included Peter Manson in Michael Powell's "The Edge of the World" (1937), Clive Candy's batman in Powell and Pressburger's "The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp" (1943), a gardener in "Medal for the General" (1944), the farmer recruit in "The Way Ahead" (1944), and the brothel proprietor in "Fanny by Gaslight" (1944). In the film "I Know Where I'm Going!" (1945), another Powell and Pressburger production, Laurie had a small speaking part in a céilidh sequence for which he was also credited as an adviser. In the next decade he played the repugnant Pew in Disney's "Treasure Island" (1950), Angus in "Pandora and the Flying Dutchman" (1951), and Dr. MacFarlane in "Hobson's Choice" (1954). His role as Frazer, the gaunt-faced, intense, pessimistic undertaker, and Home Guard soldier in the BBC sitcom "Dad's Army" (1968–77) remains his most known television role, although he featured in many British series of the 1950s, '60s, and '70s including "Tales of Mystery", "Doctor Finlay's Casebook", and "The Avengers". He also appeared in the Disney film "One of Our Dinosaurs is Missing" (1975) and "The Prisoner of Zenda" (1979). One of his last appearances, looking slightly frail, was in "Return to the Edge of the World" (1978), in which Michael Powell revisited his earlier film of forty years before. Laurie's final work was in the BBC Radio 2 comedy series "Tony's" (1979) along with Victor Spinetti and Deborah Watling. Personal life. Laurie was married twice; his first wife, Florence Saunders, whom he had met at the Old Vic, died in 1926. His second wife was Oonah V. Todd-Naylor, with whom he had a daughter. He died aged 83 from emphysema in the Chalfont and Gerrards Cross Hospital, Chalfont St Peter. His ashes were scattered into the English Channel.
1164789	Anna Maria Horsford (born March 6, 1948) is an American television and film actress. She is perhaps best known for her roles as Thelma Frye on the NBC sitcom "Amen", as Dee Baxter on the WB sitcom "The Wayans Bros.", and as Craig Jones' mother Betty in the comedy films "Friday" and "Friday After Next". Currently, she portrays Helen on the BET sitcom "Reed Between the Lines". Early life. Horsford was born in Harlem, New York, the daughter of Lillian and Victor A. Horsford, an investment real estate broker. Her parents were from Antigua and the Dominican Republic. According to a DNA analysis, her ancestry is mainly Limba of Sierra Leone. She attended Manhattan's School of Performing Arts, where she studied and perfected her acting abilities. Horsford is a member of Sigma Gamma Rho sorority. Career. Though she is known today for her work in front of the cameras, her first major role in television was as a producer for the PBS show, "Soul!", hosted by Ellis Haizlip, which aired between 1967 and 1973. Horsford made guest appearances on such sitcoms as "The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air", "Sparks", "Moesha","The Bernie Mac Show", "The Shield", "Girlfriends", and "Everybody Hates Chris". She had a prominent role on the sitcom "The Wayans Bros." as "Dee Baxter". She also appeared on the drama "Judging Amy". More recently, she was seen in the first season of "Grey's Anatomy'. She will return to the big screen in Winter 2013's anticipated release of A Madea Christmas from Tyler Perry. She will be playing Madea's best friend in need.
249133	Guilty or Innocent of Using the N Word is a 2006 documentary directed by British director, Bhavna Malkani, in Warsaw, capital of Poland. The documentary explores questions and issues surrounding the word "nigger" that many feel constrained to discuss, as is often categorized as a taboo word. The twenty-eight-minute film investigates the word chronologically, discussing the history of the word from its origins all the way to hip hop's influence on the acceptance and commercialization of the term. Guest appearances in the documentary include M-1 of Dead Prez, Grouchy Greg, CEO of allhiphop.com, Philadelphia rapper The Last Emperor, hip-hop producer/rapper Marchitect and others. The documentary was filmed in London, England; New York City, New York; Newark, Delaware, and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. "Guilty or Innocent of Using the N Word" won the London Film Convention Award at the Portobello Film Festival in 2006 and Best Short Documentary at New York's 5th Annual H20 Odyssey International Hip-hop awards in 2007. The documentary was also short listed to win Best Film at the 5th Buffalo Film Festival in October 2007.
583870	Ye Maaya Chesave () is a 2010 Telugu-language romantic drama film written Gautham Menon and directed by Gautham Menon. The music is by A.R. Rahman and dialogues are by Umarji Anuradha. The film stars debutants Naga Chaitanya and Samantha Ruth Prabhu in the lead roles. It was produced by Manjula Ghattamaneni under the banner Indira Productions and features a soundtrack composed by A. R. Rahman. Other credits include cinematography by Manoj Paramahamsa, dialogues by Umarji Anuradha and editing by Anthony Gonsalves. The film was simultaneously shot in Tamil as Vinnaithaandi Varuvaayaa with a completely different cast and climax. The television rights were sold to Zee Telugu. "Ye Maaya Chesave" portrays the complicated relationship between a Telugu Hindu assistant director, Karthik, and a Malayali Christian girl, Jessie whom he falls in love with. Jessie is torn between her love for Karthik and her family, who is steadfast in their disapproval of him. This results in a volatile relationship until Jessie leaves him without an explanation. They accidentally meet after a couple of years and the movie takes a different turn. The Tamil version was made following much speculation that Gautham Menon was set to remake it with Manjula's brother, Mahesh Babu. Shooting continued through the latter part of 2009, with the film garnering significant media interest, with schedules in the United States, with Princeton University being used as a backdrop for song picturisation. Plot. Karthik (Naga Chaitanya) is a mechanical engineering graduate but aspires to become a filmmaker. Through his friend, Karthik gets introduced to a cinematographer. With his support,Karthik family, who are Hindus, rents the ground floor of a two-storeyed house which belongs to the Thekekuttus. The Thekekuttu family is a conservative Malayali Syrian Catholic family from Alappuzha, Kerala, who live upstairs. The Thekekuttus have a daughter, Jessie (Samantha). When Karthik meets Jessie for the first time, he falls in love with her. Karthik expresses his love one day to her, who is afraid of speaking to men around her strict father, and ends up angering Jessie. The two meet several times afterwards and Jessie begins to admit that she likes Karthik but wants to refrain from any problems because she knows her father won't accept a Hindu marrying their daughter. Her parents learn about their affair and arrange a marriage for her. But at the wedding, she refuses to marry the groom, displeasing everyone in her family. Karthik and Jessie continue to love each other without the knowledge of their parents. Suddenly, Jessie is forced by her father to marry and seeks Karthik's help, who was in Goa for a film shooting. Busy Karthik is unable to attend to her calls and messages; Jessie is unable to reach him. After a tense phone call from Jessie, Karthik goes back one night to check on her. An angry and hurt Jessie makes a final decision to break up with Karthik because of her father's strong disapproval of their love. Later on, Karthik learns that Jessie got married and is settled abroad. Two years later, Karthik meets Nandini (Sapan Saran), who falls in love with him. She is rejected by Karthik who cites his previous affair with Jessie whom he can not get over. He then comes up with a script for his first film, which happens to be his own love story. He calls upon Silambarasan Rajendar as the film's protagonist and Trisha Krishnan (who are leads in the Tamil version of the film) as the female lead. The film is eventually titled "Jessie".
1066676	The Calcium Kid is a British mockumentary comedy film which was released in 2004. It stars Orlando Bloom as a milkman and amateur boxer. Billie Piper and Michael Peña are also featured. It is directed by Alex De Rakoff and produced by Working Title Films. The milkman-turned-prizefighter concept had been previously used in both Harold Lloyd's "The Milky Way" and its remake, Danny Kaye´s vehicle, "The Kid from Brooklyn". Plot. Jimmy Connelly (Orlando Bloom) is a milkman who is thrust into the spotlight after a brutal fighter, Pete Wright (Tamer Hassan), gets injured. Under manager Herbie Bush (Omid Djalili), Jimmy must fight the middleweight champion of the world, Jose Mendez (Michael Peña). It includes numerous references to "Rocky". Within the lead up to the fight with Mendez, Jimmy has to take part in a press conference, in which Bush recommends him to give Mendez fighting talk. However, this leads to Jimmy being seen as a fascist and a disgrace to England after being seen as racist. After Jimmy realises the harm Bush has caused, he calls off the fight. As Bush and the training team look for Jimmy, they find him cleaning his old milk cart. In a negotiation to help the town in order to fight, Jimmy is persuaded to participate.
587576	Padaharella Vayasu () is a 1978 Telugu film starring Sridevi Kapoor, Chandra Mohan, and Mohan Babu. Directed by K. Raghavendra Rao, it is a remake of the Tamil Super hit "16 Vayathinile" (1977) which starred Kamal Hassan, Rajinikanth and Sridevi. Plot. This film revolves around a 16-year-old girl, Malli (Sridevi), filled with ambitions of becoming a teacher. She is an attractive, intelligent woman living in a small society and experiences ripe love when seeing the new veterinarian who has come to visit. Many are impressed by this charming young fellow who has entered the village. He seems to be a wealthy, prosperous man and soon develops a relationship with Malli. Malli, who is deeply in love, sacrifices her opportunity to study in the teaching college course to spend time with him. But his intentions are not pure and he dumps Malli after consummating their relationship. Malli's mother also passes away soon after, after finding out about her daughter's affair. Her only remaining family is her distant cousin Chandram (Chandramohan). Chandram, the village simpleton, is taken advantage of and isolated by the society. He is secretly in love with Malli, and is jealous and upset about the veterinarian. Another important character is the village rowdy Simhachalam (Mohan Babu) who also has an eye on Malli. How Malli lives and whom she chooses as her man forms the rest of the story. The theme of this emotive story is to show how vulnerable women are when in love. This story conveys strong themes and depicts an issue faced by many young women all over the world. Soundtrack. The music, largely Carnatic, was composed by K. Chakravarthi.
1169516	Dakin Matthews (born November 7, 1940) is an American actor with a long history of work in film, television and theater. He is also a playwright, director, and theatrical scholar. Life and career. Matthews was born in Oakland, California. He initially aspired to become a Roman Catholic priest, studying in San Francisco and then at Gregorian University in Rome in the 1960s. However, his growing interest in drama led him to the Juilliard School, where he taught, among others, Kevin Kline and Patti LuPone. He acted and taught at the American Conservatory Theatre (A.C.T.) in San Francisco where Annette Bening was one of his students. He also attended graduate school at NYU and is an Emeritus Professor of English at California State University, East Bay in Hayward, California. He began his stage career in 1965 in the San Francisco Bay Area, appearing in both the Marin and California Shakespeare Festivals, eventually becoming a member of the acting ensemble of the American Conservatory Theatre. In the late 1980s, settling permanently in Los Angeles, Matthews began guest-starring in television series and appearing in films. He starred in series such as "Down Home", "Soul Man" and, most successfully, "The Jeff Foxworthy Show". He also has made many guest appearances on television, including "Remington Steele", "Dallas", "Murder She Wrote", "L.A. Law", "Just Shoot Me!", "", "The West Wing", "Gilmore Girls "(as Headmaster Charleston), "Ally McBeal", "The Practice", "Charmed", "The King of Queens" (as Doug Heffernan (Kevin James)'s father Joe), "NYPD Blue", "Desperate Housewives" (appearing in every season except the fifth as Reverend Sykes), "House M.D.", "Two and a Half Men" and "Carnivàle". Matthews has appeared in more than twenty-five feature films, including "Nuts", "Like Father Like Son", "Clean and Sober", "Thirteen Days", "Child's Play 3", "Funny Farm, True Grit (as Colonel Stonehilll), "Steven Spielberg's" Lincoln, "and "Zero Chrisma. " He also appeared in a number of television movies, including "And the Band Played On", "Baby M," and "White Mile". As a stage actor, he is known for his many Shakespearean roles, especially King Lear, Bottom, and Falstaff, and most recently for his portrayals of C. S. Lewis in South Coast Repertory's "Shadowlands", as "Warwick" in Shakespeare's "Henry IV" at the Lincoln Center Theater, as "Undershaft" in "Major Barbara" and "Tarleton" in "Misalliance" for South Coast Repertory, as "The Fixer" in "Water and Power" for the Center Theatre Group in Los Angeles, as "Leonato" in Shakespeare Center L.A.'s production of "Much Ado About Nothing" with Helen Hunt, as "Cardinal Wolsey" in "A Man For All Seasons" with Frank Langella at the Roundabout, and as "Senator Carlin" in "Gore Vidal's The Best Man "on Broadway. In 2010, Matthews joined the cast of the ABC soap opera "General Hospital" as Judge Peter Carroll, the judge in Sonny Corinthos' trial. He is also a playwright, director, and theater scholar who has published books and articles on Shakespeare and translations of 17th-century Spanish theater. He has been a dramaturg on numerous theatrical productions, including the 2005 Broadway revival of "Julius Caesar" starring Denzel Washington and the 2003 revival of "Henry IV", winning a Drama Desk Award Special Award for his adaptation of the latter. Matthews was also Artistic Director of the Berkeley Shakespeare Festival, the California Actors Theatre, The Antaeus Company (which he co-founded in 1991), and the Andak Stage Company; he is an Associate Artist of the Old Globe Theatre; and a founding member of the John Houseman's The Acting Company and Sam Mendes' Bridge Project. Most recently, Matthews appeared in the 2009 world tour of The Bridge Project as "Pishchick" in "The Cherry Orchard" and "Antigonus" in T"he Winter's Tale"; in the 2011 summer season of The Public Theater's Shakespeare in the Park, performing as "the Provost" in "Measure for Measure" and "Lafew" in "All's Well That Ends Well"., and as "Sir Humphrey" in the American premiere of "Yes Prime Minister" at the Kirk Douglas Theatre. He was nominated for an Ovation Award for Book and Lyrics of an original musical entitled "Liberty Inn", which he co-wrote with B. T. Ryback. In 2011, his verse translation of "The Capulets & The Montagues" played at the Andak Stage Company and the International Siglo de Oro Festival, winning the LA Drama Critics Circle Award for Best Adaptation. Matthews appeared as Santa Claus in The Big Bang Theory season 6 episode, "The Santa Simulation". He is currently dramaturging the Lincoln Center production of "Macbeth", directed by Jack O'Brien and starring Ethan Hawke, and rehearsing Robert Schenkkan's award-winning LBJ play "All The Way", starring Bryan Cranston, at A.R.T. in Cambridge." "He and his wife, director Anne McNaughton, have four children and reside in Los Angeles.
1056867	Strange Wilderness is a 2008 comedy-adventure film produced by Adam Sandler's production company, Happy Madison Productions for Paramount Pictures, and starring Steve Zahn, Allen Covert, Justin Long, Kevin Heffernan, and Jonah Hill. Plot. Peter Gaulke is the host of an unsuccessful nature program called "Strange Wilderness". When the show is threatened with cancellation, he goes in search of the elusive bigfoot in order to restore ratings. Critical reception. The film received highly negative reviews. Rotten Tomatoes gave it a 0% rating with an average reviewer rating of 2.2/10 based on 43 reviews. At Metacritic, it was given a 12% (ranking "Overwhelming Dislike") based on 12 reviews, tying it for 30th place for the worst-reviewed films ever.
1246859	Glenn Strange (August 16, 1899 – September 20, 1973) was an American actor who mostly appeared in Western films. He is best remembered for playing Frankenstein's monster in three Universal films during the 1940s and for his role as Sam Noonan, the popular bartender on CBS's "Gunsmoke" television series. Strange was of Irish and Cherokee descent and was a cousin of the Western film star and narrator Rex Allen. Life and career. Strange was born some thirteen years prior to New Mexico gaining statehood near Alamogordo in tiny Weed in Otero County northeast of El Paso, Texas. He was born as George Glenn Strange, the fourth child of William Russell Strange and the former Sarah Eliza Byrd. He was an eighth generation grandson of Pocahontas and John Rolfe of Jamestown, Virginia.
1674576	Vase de Noces (1974) is a Belgian arthouse film directed by Thierry Zéno and stars Dominique Garny. Vase de Noces (aka"The Pig Fucking Movie") deals openly and sometimes graphically, with bestiality. It features both real and simulated animal killings and coprophagia, and has been labeled obscene by many sources, notably by the OFLC of Australia. The film was banned in Australia by the Australian Classification Board in the mid 1970s with 2 failed attempts, according to the Australian Classification Board. The film went before the Australian Classification Board on April 1, 1977 and was banned again for the third time. The ban status on the film in Australia has remained largely unchanged since then, due to in part that the film violates Australian obscenity laws. Plot. The film follows an autistic man who lives on a farm in rural Belgium [http://www.dvdbeaver.com/film2/DVDReviews49/vace_de_noces.htm]. He demonstrates bizarre behavior from the beginning: fastening doll's heads to pigeons; collecting waste in glass jars; beheading a hen for his own amusement. He is also obsessed with a sow who lives on the farm. We see him gleefully rolling around in the manure with the sow, and then he rapes it, which his behavior suggests he sees as an intimate and mutually agreeable act. Later, the sow gives birth to a litter of piglets. The man attempts to spoon-feed milk to the piglets, but the piglets prefer to drink directly from the milk bowl. In general, the piglets prefer their mother's company, repeatedly scorning the man's advances. Taking this rejection as an unforgivable personal slight, the man hangs the piglets to death and leaves their bodies strung up in the open. When the sow discovers the remains of the piglets, it runs madly around the farm squealing. The sow slips into a deep patch in the mud and drowns there. The man searches for the sow, and becomes visibly distraught when he discovers it dead. He drags the body from the mud, buries it on the farm grounds, and crudely attempts to bury himself on a patch of ground nearby. He gets up, and his 'grief' turns to rage. He rushes around the farm scattering and smashing his belongings from the house, including his jars of waste. He prepares and vigorously consumes a 'tea' made of feces and urine, and determinedly climbs a ladder in the barn and hangs himself with a rope. In the final scene we see his spirit floating skyward. Distribution. Better known by the English title Wedding Trough, the film has never had an official theater release, but has been shown in film festivals around the world (notably at the Perth International Film Festival in 1975, which upset Australian censors). Because of no official theatrical, VHS, or (until recently) DVD release, "Wedding Trough" is one of the most obscure movies that is not a lost film. Its last film festival appearance was at the 61 st Film Festival Locarno in "Tribute to the Royal Belgian Cinémathèque / Experimental film Competitions of Knokke le Zoute". German video distributor Camera Obscura and Swedish distributor Njuta Films each released the film on DVD. Censorship In Australia. In Australia, The Perth International Arts Festival scheduled a screening of "Vase de Noces" in 1975. At the time, film festival submissions did not require approval from Australian censors, however the Western Australian government pressured censors to review the film before the screening. The censors did so, and subsequently refused to classify the film on grounds of obscenity. Festival chairman David Roe and director Thierry Zeno appealed to the censors to reconsider. Their appeal was successful, and the film was shown in the festival after all. The Western Australian Government was not happy that it the festival went ahead with the screening, and this incident created a precedent for animosity between the two groups for years to come. The government of Western Australian urged the Perth Film Festival to discontinue their plans to screen Nagisa Oshima's "Empire of the Senses", threatening that future festivals would be subject to thorough censorial review in advance, if they went ahead with the screening. As a result of this pressure, the Perth Film Festival decided not to screen Oshima's film. Film festivals in Melbourne and Sydney went on to screen Empire of the Senses without incident. On December 17, 1976, "Vase de Noces" went before the Australian censors again, and again received a judgment of "refused classification". A third such attempt was made a third time on April 1, 1977. But, the Australian censored rejected the film once again, effectively banning its reproduction and dissemination throughout Australia. This ruling has not been successfully appealed.
1723001	Elephants Dream (code-named Orange) is a short computer-generated short film that was produced almost completely using the free software 3D suite Blender (except for the modular sound studio Reaktor and the cluster that rendered the final production, which ran Mac OS X). It premiered on 24 March 2006, after about 8 months of work. Beginning in September 2005, it was developed under the name "Orange" by a team of seven artists and animators from around the world. It was later renamed "Machina" and then to "Elephants Dream" after the way in which Dutch children's stories abruptly end. Overview. The film was first announced in May 2005 by Ton Roosendaal, the chairman of the Blender Foundation and the lead developer of the foundation's program, Blender. A 3D modelling, animating, and rendering application, Blender was the primary piece of software used in the creation of the film. The project was joint funded by the Blender Foundation and the Netherlands Media Art Institute. The Foundation raised much of their funds by selling pre-orders of the DVD. Everyone who preordered before September 1 has his or her name listed in the film's credits. The bulk of processing for rendering the film was donated by the BSU Xseed, a 2.1 TFLOPS Apple Xserve G5-based supercomputing cluster at Bowie State University. It reportedly took 125 days to render, consuming up to 2.8GB of memory for each frame. The completed film is 10 minutes 54 seconds long, including 1 minute and 28 seconds of credits. The film's purpose was primarily to field test, develop and showcase the capabilities of open source software, demonstrating what can be done with such tools in the field of organizing and producing quality content for films. During the film's development, several new features such as an integrated node-based compositor, hair and fur rendering, rewritten animation system and render pipeline, and many workflow tweaks and upgrades were added into Blender especially for the project. The film's content was released under the Creative Commons Attribution license, so that viewers may learn from it and use it however they please (provided attribution is given). The DVD set includes NTSC and PAL versions of the film on separate discs, a high-definition video version as a computer file, and all the production files. The film was released for download directly and via BitTorrent on the Official Orange Project website on May 18, 2006, along with all production files. Plot and explanation. The movie was made mostly as an experiment, rather than to tell a certain story, and therefore has a strong arbitrary and surreal atmosphere. It features two men, Proog, who is older and more experienced, and Emo, who is young and nervous, living in a miraculous construction referred to only as "The Machine". Proog tries to introduce Emo to The Machine's nature but Emo is reluctant and argues about The Machine's purpose. The creators originally intended for the movie to show the abstraction of a computer. Bassam Kurdali, Director of Elephants Dream, explained the plot of the movie by saying: "The story is very simple—I'm not sure you can call it a complete story even—It is about how people create ideas/stories/fictions/social realities and communicate them or impose them on others. Thus Proog has created (in his head) the concept of a special place/machine, that he tries to "show" to Emo. When Emo doesn't accept his story, Proog becomes desperate and hits him. It's a parable of human relationships really—You can substitute many ideas (money, religion, social institutions, property) instead of Proog's machine—the story doesn't say that creating ideas is bad, just hints that it is better to share ideas than force them on others. There are lots of little clues/hints about this in the movie—many little things have a meaning—but we're not very "tight" with it, because we are hoping people will have their own ideas about the story, and make a new version of the movie. In this way (and others) we tie the story of the movie with the "open movie" idea." The original title was to be "Machina" but was dropped due to pronunciation issues. Stereoscopic 3D version. In 2010 Elephants Dream was entirely re-rendered in stereoscopic 3D by Wolfgang Draxinger. The project was announced to the public in mid September on BlenderNation and premiered on the 2010 Blender Conference. Unlike the original version, which was in Full-HD resolution (1920×1080), the stereoscopic version was rendered in Digital Cinema Package (DCP) 2K flat resolution (1998×1080), a slightly wider aspect format, which required adjustment of the camera lens parameter in every shot. Many scenes in the original production files used flat 2D matte paintings, which were integrated into the rendered images during the compositing phase. For the 3D production each matte painting had to be manipulated or entirely recreated into versions for each eye. Wolfgang Draxinger implemented a number of stereoscopic features in Blender to aid in the stereoscopic production process. These never made into Blender trunk though. Award. "Elephants Dream 3D" received the award of "Best Short Film" at the first European 3D Film Festival. Software and tools used. Blender was the main program used to create the 3D animation of the film. The other programs were used for pre and post-production, file management, collaboration, and scripting. Ubuntu with KDE and GNOME desktop environments was used on the workstations.
589067	Kati Patang is an 1970 Indian Hindi movie produced and directed by Shakti Samanta. It was a box office success. The Hindi title of the film translates as "cut kite", a kite whose cord has been cut and is therefore drifting. The film stars Asha Parekh as a woman pretending to be a widow, and her ensuing trials and tribulations. The story, written by Gulshan Nanda, is based on the novel "I Married a Dead Man", by Cornell Woolrich and had been previously made into a picture titled "No Man of Her Own" (1950) starring Barbara Stanwyck. The novel was also later filmed in French as "J'ai épousé une ombre (I Married a Shadow)" (1983), and by Hollywood as "Mrs. Winterbourne" (1996). The movie also stars Nasir Hussain, Bindu, Prem Chopra and Rajesh Khanna. The film was the second in a string of nine movies in which Samanta and Khanna collaborated. Synopsis. Madhavi (Asha Parekh) is an orphan living with her maternal uncle, who arranges her marriage with someone she does not know, so she runs away to her lover, Kailash (Prem Chopra), only to find him in the arms of another woman, Shabnam (Bindu). She returns to her maternal uncle, only to find him dead. She then runs away from there, and meets with a friend Poonam, who is a widow and her child at a railway station. The three travel together by train to meet Poonam's in-laws, who have never seen her. Unfortunately, the train meets with an accident, killing the widow, who leaves the child in Madhavi's care. Madhavi assumes the identity of the dead woman, Poonam, and travels along with the child to her in-laws. She is welcomed with open arms. She finds out that her uncle had arranged her marriage with Kamal Sinha (Rajesh Khanna). Kamal is angry and bitter at the manner his to-be wife treated him, even without knowing him. Kamal is attracted to Poonam, but she tries to distance herself, fearing that he will find out the truth about her. Then Shabnam and Kailash re-enter her life, making her look like an imposter, turning her in-laws against her, and turning Kamal's love into resentment. Cast. Shakti Samanta has said that he cast Asha Parekh, because he was "confident" that he could extract a "convincing performance from her." He had cast her in his earlier film, the underrated "Pagla Kahin Ka". She won the Filmfare Best Actress Award, the only win for the film. Music. The music was composed by Rahul Dev Burman, and the lyrics were penned by Anand Bakshi. Kishore Kumar sang four solos for Rajesh Khanna, while Mukesh got to sing a number for the latter - a rare combination. Asha Bhosle performed "Mera Naam Hai Shabnam" in the talk-sung style of Rex Harrison in "My Fair Lady" (and thus often incorrectly dubbed "the first Hindi rap number"). Box office. The film was a "hit" and the sixth highest earning Bollywood film of 1970, and together with " Aradhana" (1969), and "Amar Prem" (1972), Samata went on to have a hattrick of hits with Rajesh Khanna.
578610	One Night Husband ( or "Kuen rai ngao") is a 2003 Thai thriller film directed by Pimpaka Towira and co-written by Pimpaka and Prabda Yoon. It was the debut feature film for Pimpaka, an independent film director and one of the few female directors working in the Thai film industry. "One Night Husband" was also the film debut of Thai-Canadian pop singer Nicole Theriault. Plot. On her first night with her husband, newlywed Sipang's husband Napat takes a mysterious phone call and then leaves. When he doesn't return, Sipang asks her new brother-in-law, Chatchai, to help. Joining Sipang in her search is Chatchai's timid wife Busaba. As the search for Napat drags on, Sipang uncovers some disturbing things about her husband's past. Reception. "One Night Husband" premiered at the Berlin Film Festival in 2003 and was screened at several other film festivals in 2003, including the Deauville Asian Film Festival, Hong Kong International Film Festival, Singapore International Film Festival, CINEFAN Film Festival, Fukuoka Asian Film Festival, Pusan International Film Festival and the Stockholm International Film Festival.
1789704	The Butterfly Effect 2 is a 2006 American science fiction psychological thriller film directed by John R. Leonetti, starring Eric Lively, Erica Durance, Dustin Milligan and Gina Holden. The film is largely unrelated to the 2004 film "The Butterfly Effect" and was released direct-to-DVD October 10, 2006. It is followed by "". Plot. Julie (Erica Durance) and her boyfriend, Nick (Eric Lively), are celebrating Julie's 24th birthday with their friends Trevor (Dustin Milligan) and Amanda (Gina Holden). Julie and Nick start to discuss their future when Nick is called in to work, urgently. He has to go to the meeting because he is up against co-worker Dave (David Lewis) for a promotion. As the four friends drive back to the city there's an accident with a semi-truck. Of the four friends, Nick is the only survivor. Later, when looking at a photograph of himself and Julie, everything in the room begins to shudder and shake, while the people in the photograph begin moving.
1236338	William Reibert Mapother, Jr. (; born April 17, 1965) is an American actor and former teacher known for his role as Ethan Rom on the television series "Lost". Personal life. Mapother was born in Louisville, Kentucky, the son of Louisa (née Riehm) and William Reibert Mapother, Sr. He is of English, Irish, and predominantly German ancestry. He is a first cousin of actor Tom Cruise (whose given name is Thomas Cruise Mapother IV). Mapother has appeared in five movies starring Cruise. He had a cameo role in "Minority Report", "Vanilla Sky", and supporting roles in "", "Born on the Fourth of July", and "Magnolia". Mapother has two sisters, Katherine and Amy (an occasional actress, born February 17, 1974), both born in Louisville, Kentucky. His father was an attorney, bankruptcy consultant and judge in Louisville, between 1967 and 1970; William Sr., died on June 22, 2006, after fighting lung cancer and pulmonary fibrosis. Mapother graduated from the University of Notre Dame as an English major, and then taught high school in East Los Angeles for three years before becoming an actor. Career. Mapother has become widely known as a character actor, who sometimes plays scary or otherwise dark characters. Despite playing a pivotal role in Todd Field's "In the Bedroom", Mapother is perhaps more widely known as Ethan Rom in the TV show "Lost". The character was killed off early in the first season, but since then has appeared in seven episodes mainly through flashbacks, once due to time travel and another in an alternate timeline. In all, he appeared in eleven episodes of Lost. Mapother has also had considerable roles in a series of independent films, such as "The Lather Effect", "Moola", "Hurt", and "Another Earth". Mapother starred in "The Burrowers" as a former Indian fighter who joins a posse to help find missing white settlers, only to discover that the hunters have become the hunted. In September 2007, he was elected to a three-year term on the National Board of Directors for the Screen Actors Guild. He has provided the motion capture work for Agent 47, the main character in the 2012 video game and also provided the voice before series veteran David Bateson was recast.
711133	Transylmania is a 2009 horror/farce sequel to the 2006 comedy "National Lampoon's Dorm Daze 2", the film is directed by the brothers David and Scott Hillenbrand and written by Patrick Casey and Worm Miller. The film received very poor reception from critics and performed horribly at the box office, making it one of the biggest flops of 2009. Synopsis. Transylmania is a story of a group of not-too-bright American college kids on a semester abroad at the only college that would accept them: The Razvan University. This movie is a Spoof horror in which a group of college kids do a semester abroad in Romania and realize that if the partying doesn't kill them, the vampires just might. Release. The movie premiered at American Film Market in November 2008, and was later screened at the European Film Market in February 2009 and was set to be released theatrically on December 4, 2009. Unlike the straight-to-DVD release of ""National Lampoon's Dorm Daze 2"" the film had a theatrical release on December 4, 2009 opening in 1,007 theaters. The DVD was released on April 27, 2010 by Sony Pictures Home Entertainment. Production. The movie was entirely shot in Romania in 2007 and the Vgp Effects & Design was created by Vincent Guastini. Reception. Critical. The film has been universally panned by critics. Review aggregate Rotten Tomatoes reports that 0% of critics have given the film a positive review based on 17 reviews, with an average score of 1.9/10. Review aggregate Metacritic awarded the film an average score of 8 out of 100 based on 10 reviews, indicating "Overwhelming dislike." Tom Russo for the Boston Globe called it "Woefully dim-witted." Steve Hyden for the AV Club called it "such a colossal comedic misfire that it makes the execrable Scary Movie films look like masterworks of Preston Sturges-esque genius by comparison." Frank Scheck for The Hollywood Reporter called it a "Lame vampire spoof" that "has no bite." Adam Markovitz for Entertainment Weekly called it "a no-stars, no-plot, no-point vampire spoof about a group of coeds studying abroad in a haunted castle, Transylmania boasts the kind of acting and direction usually relegated to the adult section of your local video store." Mike Hale of The New York Times said that Transylmania is "destined to spend a short and painful life in theaters and then join the ranks of the DVD and late-night-cable undead." Robert Able of The Los Angeles Times said that "If your idea of a good time is laughing with repulsion at a humpbacked Romanian nympho with a torture-loving midget dad, or tittering every time a bong appears, a darkened theater awaits you." Brian Orndorf in his review said that "I surveyed the crowd at the screening I attended, feeling the chill in the air as seven strangers sat in stone-cold silence -- not a single laugh from anyone. The eighth moviegoer? Fast asleep five minutes in. I've never envied a person more." Box office. The film was a major box office disaster and had an extremely poor opening, at #21 with only $263,941 from 1,007 theaters, making it the 3rd worst movie opening since 1982 for films which opened in more than 600 theaters, and the worst ever for films opening in over 1,000 theaters. 2012 Lawsuit. David and Scott Hillenbrand were sued by their Transylmania financial backers for financial recovery in 2012. These claims are rejected by the Hillenbrands. Kim Swartz, an attorney at Mitchell Silberberg representing the Hillenbrands, says in response, "This is a completely meritless lawsuit. The plaintiffs saw the finished film numerous times before they chose to invest. In any event, David and Scott Hillenbrand and their team of top professionals did everything they could to try to get their investors a return on their investment, even to the Hillenbrands' own financial detriment, and, as stated in the Complaint, in spite of the plaintiffs' failure to provide the agreed upon P&A funds in a timely manner. The Hillenbrands look forward to having the plaintiffs' completely meritless claims dismissed and to prosecuting their own claims." In August, 2012, the Hillenbrands’ production company, Hill & Brand Productions 7, LLC that produced Transylmania, counter sued Third Eye Capital Corporation and Strative Capital LTD for fraud and breach of contract seeking damages of no less than $107,000,000.00 and alleging a scheme to defraud Hill & Brand Productions 7, LLC and to exploit the name and reputation of the Hillenbrands for their own financial gain.
1099235	Sir Ronald Aylmer Fisher FRS (17 February 1890 – 29 July 1962) was an English statistician, evolutionary biologist, geneticist, and eugenicist. Fisher is known as one of the chief architects of the neo-Darwinian synthesis, for his important contributions to statistics, including the analysis of variance (ANOVA), method of maximum likelihood, fiducial inference, and the derivation of various sampling distributions, and for being one of the three principal founders of population genetics. Anders Hald called him "a genius who almost single-handedly created the foundations for modern statistical science", while Richard Dawkins named him "the greatest biologist since Darwin". Biography. Early life. Fisher was born in East Finchley in London, England, to George and Katie Fisher. His father was a successful fine arts dealer at one time. He had a happy childhood, being doted on by three older sisters, an older brother, and his mother, but she died when he was 14. His father lost his business in several ill-considered transactions only 18 months later. Although Ronald Fisher had quite poor eyesight, he was a precocious student, winning the Neeld Medal (a competitive essay in mathematics) at Harrow School at the age of 16. Because of his poor eyesight, he was tutored in mathematics without the aid of paper and pen, which developed his ability to visualize problems in geometrical terms, without contributing to his interest in writing proper derivations of mathematical solutions, especially proofs. He amazed his peers with his ability to conjecture mathematical solutions without justifying his conclusions by showing intermediate steps. He also developed a strong interest in biology, and especially evolutionary biology. In 1909, he won a scholarship to the Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge. There he formed many friendships and became enthralled with the heady intellectual atmosphere. At Cambridge, Fisher learned of the newly rediscovered theory of Mendelian genetics. He saw biometry and its growing corpus of statistical methods as a potential way to reconcile the discontinuous nature of Mendelian inheritance with continuous variation and gradual evolution. However, his foremost concern was eugenics, which he saw as a pressing social as well as scientific issue that encompassed both genetics and statistics. In 1911, Fisher was involved in the forming of the University of Cambridge Eugenics Society with John Maynard Keynes, R.C. Punnett, and Horace Darwin (the son of Charles Darwin). This group was active, and it held monthly meetings, often featuring addresses by leaders of mainstream eugenics organizations, such as the Eugenics Education Society of London, founded by Charles Darwin's half-cousin, Francis Galton in 1909. Close to Fisher's graduation in 1912, his tutor told his student that—despite his enormous aptitude for scientific work and his mathematical potential—his disinclination to show calculations or to prove propositions rendered him unsuited for a career in applied mathematics, which required greater fortitude. His tutor gave him a "lukewarm" recommendation, stating that if Fisher "had stuck to the ropes he would have made a first-class mathematician, but he would not." After his graduation, Fisher was eager to join the British Army in anticipation of the entry of Great Britain into World War I. However, he failed the medical examinations (repeatedly) because of his poor eyesight. Over the next six years, he worked as a statistician for the City of London. For part of his war work, he took up teaching physics and mathematics at a sequence of public schools, including Bradfield College in Berkshire, as well as aboard H.M. Training Ship "Worcester". Major Leonard Darwin (another son of Charles Darwin) and an unconventional and vivacious friend he called Gudruna were almost his only contacts with his Cambridge circle. They sustained him through this difficult period. A bright spot in his life then was that Gudruna set him up with her sister Eileen Guinness. They were married in 1917 when she was only 17 years old. With her sister's help, he set up a subsistence farming operation on the Bradfield estate, where they had a large garden and raised animals, learning to make do on very little. They lived through the rest of the war without using their food coupons. During this period, Fisher started writing book reviews for the "Eugenic Review" and gradually increased his interest in genetic and statistical work. He volunteered to undertake all such reviews for the journal, and was hired to a part-time position by Major Darwin. He published several articles on biometry during this period, including the ground-breaking paper "The Correlation Between Relatives on the Supposition of Mendelian Inheritance", written in 1916 and published in 1918. This paper laid foundation for what came to be known as biometrical genetics, and it introduced the methodology of the analysis of variance, which was a considerable advance over the correlation methods used earlier. This paper showed that the inheritance of traits measurable by real values (i.e., continuous or dimensional traits) is consistent with Mendelian principles. This forms the basis of the genetics of complex trait inheritance and mitigated debates between biometricians and Mendelians, and the compatibility of particulate inheritance with natural selection. In this paper was also the first use of the term "variance" in statistics. After the end of World War I, Fisher went looking for a new job in low hopes, calling himself "an egregious failure in two professions" as a commercial statistician and as a teacher. He was offered a position at the Galton Laboratory led by Karl Pearson, the founder of mathematical statistics in Great Britain. Because he saw the developing rivalry with Pearson as a professional obstacle, however, he accepted a temporary job instead as a statistician with a small agricultural station in the countryside in 1919. Early professional years. In 1919, Fisher started work at Rothamsted Experimental Station in Harpenden, Hertfordshire, England. Here he started a major study of the extensive collections of data recorded over many years. This resulted in a series of reports under the general title "Studies in Crop Variation." This began a period of great productivity. Over the next seven years, he pioneered the principles of the design of experiments and elaborated his studies of analysis of variance. He furthered his studies of the statistics of small samples. Perhaps even more important, he began his systematic approach of the analysis of real data as the springboard for the development of new statistical methods. He developed computational algorithms for analyzing data from his balanced experimental designs. In 1925, this work resulted in the publication of his first book, "Statistical Methods for Research Workers". This book went through many editions and translations in later years, and it became the standard reference work for scientists in many disciplines. In 1935, this book was followed by "The Design of Experiments", which was also widely used. In addition to analysis of variance, Fisher named and promoted the method of maximum likelihood estimation. Fisher also originated the concepts of sufficiency, ancillary statistics, Fisher's linear discriminator and Fisher information. His article "On a distribution yielding the error functions of several well known statistics" (1924) presented Pearson's chi-squared test and William Gosset's t in the same framework as the Gaussian distribution, and his own parameter in the analysis of variance Fisher's z-distribution (more commonly used decades later in the form of the F distribution). These contributions made him a major figure in 20th century statistics. He was a prominent opponent of Bayesian statistics, and was even the first to use the term "Bayesian". His work on the theory of population genetics also made him one of the three great figures of that field, together with Sewall Wright and J.B.S. Haldane, and as such was one of the founders of the neo-Darwinian modern evolutionary synthesis. In addition to founding modern quantitative genetics with his 1918 paper, he was the first to use diffusion equations to attempt to calculate the distribution of gene frequencies among populations. He pioneered the estimation of genetic linkage and gene frequencies by maximum likelihood methods, and wrote early papers on the wave of advance of advantageous genes and on clines of gene frequency. His 1950 paper on gene frequency clines is notable as the first application of a computer, the EDSAC, to biology. His ground-breaking book "The Genetical Theory of Natural Selection" was started in 1928 and published in 1930. He developed ideas on sexual selection, mimicry and the evolution of dominance. He famously showed that the probability of a mutation increasing the fitness of an organism decreases proportionately with the magnitude of the mutation. He also proved that larger populations carry more variation so that they have a larger chance of survival. It was in this book that he set forth the foundations of what was to become known as population genetics. The book was reviewed, among others, by physicist Charles Galton Darwin, a grandson of Charles Darwin's, and following publication of his review, C.G. Darwin sent Fisher his copy of the book, with notes in the margin. The marginal notes became the food for a correspondence running at least three years. Fisher's book also had a major influence on the evolutionary biologist W. D. Hamilton and the development of his later theories on the genetic basis for the existence of kin selection. Fisher had a long and successful collaboration with E.B. Ford in the field of ecological genetics. The outcome of this work was the general recognition that the force of natural selection was often much stronger than had been appreciated before, and that many ecogenetic situations (such as polymorphism) were not selectively neutral, but were maintained by the force of selection. Fisher was the original author of the idea of heterozygote advantage, which was later found to play a frequent role in genetic polymorphism. The discovery of indisputable cases of natural selection in nature was one of the main strands in the modern evolutionary synthesis. His later years. Fisher received the recognition of his peers in 1929 when he was inducted into the Royal Society. His fame grew and he began to travel more and lecture to wider circles. In 1931, he spent six weeks at the Statistical Laboratory at Iowa State College in Ames, Iowa. He gave three lectures per week on his work, and he met many of the active American statisticians, including George W. Snedecor. He returned to Iowa State again for another visit in 1936. In 1933 he left Rothamsted to become a Professor of Eugenics at the University College London. In 1937, he visited the Indian Statistical Institute in Calcutta, which at the time consisted of one part-time employee, P. C. Mahalanobis. He visited there often in later years, encouraging its development. He was the guest of honour at its 25th anniversary in 1957 when it had grown to 2000 employees. In 1939, when World War II broke out for the British Empire, the University tried to dissolve the eugenics department, and it ordered all of the animals destroyed. Fisher fought back, but then he was dispatched back to Rothamsted with a much-reduced staff and resources. He was unable to find any really suitable war work, and though he kept very busy with various small projects, he became discouraged of any real progress. His marriage disintegrated. His oldest son George, an aviator, was killed in combat. In 1943, Fisher was offered the Balfour Chair of Genetics at the University of Cambridge, his alma mater. During the war, this department was almost destroyed, but the University promised him that he would be charged with rebuilding it after the war. Fisher accepted this offer, but the promises were largely unfilled, and the department grew very slowly. A notable exception was the recruitment in 1948 of the Italian researcher Cavalli-Sforza, who established a one-man unit of bacterial genetics. He continued his work on mouse chromosome mapping—breeding the mice in laboratories in his own house— and other projects. These culminated in the publication in 1949 of "The Theory of Inbreeding." In 1947, Fisher cofounded the journal "Heredity: An International Journal of Genetics" with Cyril Darlington. He opposed the UNESCO Statement of Race. He believed that evidence and everyday experience showed that human groups differ profoundly "in their innate capacity for intellectual and emotional development" and concluded that the "practical international problem is that of learning to share the resources of this planet amicably with persons of materially different nature", and that "this problem is being obscured by entirely well-intentioned efforts to minimize the real differences that exist". The revised statement titled "" (1951) was accompanied by Fisher's dissenting commentary. Fisher eventually received many awards for his work, and he was dubbed a Knight Bachelor by Queen Elizabeth II in 1952. He was also awarded the Linnean Society of London's prestigious Darwin–Wallace Medal in 1958. Fisher was opposed to the conclusions of Richard Doll and Austin B. Hill that smoking causes lung cancer. He compared the correlations in their papers to a correlation between the import of apples and the rise of divorce in order to show that correlation does not imply causation. To quote his biographers Yates and Mather, "It has been suggested that the fact that Fisher was employed as consultant by the tobacco firms in this controversy casts doubt on the value of his arguments. This is to misjudge the man. He was not above accepting financial reward for his labours, but the reason for his interest was undoubtedly his dislike and mistrust of puritanical tendencies of all kinds; and perhaps also the personal solace he had always found in tobacco." After retiring from the University of Cambridge in 1957, Fisher emigrated, and he spent some time as a senior research fellow at the Australian CSIRO in Adelaide, South Australia. He died and was buried in Adelaide in 1962. Personality and beliefs. Fisher was noted for his loyalty to his friends. Once he had formed a favourable opinion of any man, he was loyal to a fault. A similar sense of loyalty bound him to his culture. He was a patriot, a member of the Church of England, politically conservative, and a scientific rationalist. Much sought after as a brilliant conversationalist and dinner companion, he very early on developed a reputation for carelessness in his dress and, sometimes, his manners. In later years he was the archetype of the absent-minded professor. He knew the scriptures well and H. Allen Orr describes him in the "Boston Review" as a "deeply devout Anglican who, between founding modern statistics and population genetics, penned articles for church magazines". But he was not dogmatic in his religious beliefs. In a 1955 broadcast on Science and Christianity, he said: Fisher was an ardent promoter of eugenics, which also stimulated and guided much of his work in the genetics of humans. The last third of his book "The Genetical Theory" concerned the applications of these ideas to humans, and presented the data available at that time. He presented a theory that attributed the decline and fall of civilizations to its arrival at a state where the fertility of the upper classes is forced down. Using the census data of 1911 for Britain, he showed that there was an inverse relationship between fertility and social class. This was partly due, he believed, to the rise in social status of families who were not capable of producing many children but who rose because of the financial advantage of having a small number of children. Therefore he proposed the abolition of the economic advantage of small families by instituting subsidies (he called them allowances) to families with larger numbers of children, with the allowances proportional to the earnings of the father. He himself had two sons and six daughters. According to Yates and Mather, "His large family, in particular, reared in conditions of great financial stringency, was a personal expression of his genetic and evolutionary convictions." Between 1929 and 1934 the Eugenics Society also campaigned hard for a law permitting sterilization on eugenic grounds. They believed that it should be entirely voluntary, and a right, not a punishment. They published a draft of a proposed bill, and it was submitted to Parliament. Although it was defeated by a 2:1 ratio, this was viewed as progress, and the campaign continued. Fisher played a major role in this movement, and served in several official committees to promote it. In 1934, Fisher moved to increase the power of scientists within the Eugenics Society, but was ultimately thwarted by members with an environmentalist point of view, and he, along with many other scientists, resigned. Bibliography. A selection from Fisher's 395 articles. These are available on the University of Adelaide website: Books by Fisher. Full publication details are available on the University of Adelaide website:
1789628	Snakes on a Train is an action/horror Z movie released direct to DVD by The Asylum on August 15, 2006. Continuing The Asylum's notoriety of capitalizing on major films with low-budget films with similar titles and plots (hence the term "mockbuster"), many aspects of the film are inspired by the film "Snakes on a Plane" which was scheduled for theatrical release three days later on August 18, 2006. However, this film contains slightly more violence and gore than its counterpart and also includes some supernatural elements. It is also much more slowly paced than "Snakes on a Plane". Plot. Although taking the same basic idea from "Snakes on a Plane" (lots of deadly snakes loose on a claustrophobic, high speed means of transport), the background story of how the snakes end up on the train is completely different.
520998	Regina Encarnacion Ansong Velasquez-Alcasid (née Regina Encarnacion Ansong Velasquez; April 22, 1970), known as Regine Velasquez, is a Filipina recording artist and actress. She won the Grand Prize at the 1989 Asia Pacific Singing Contest in Hong Kong, and is widely known for possessing an extensive vocal range. Regine Velasquez is the FIRST Asian artist to stage a solo concert at the Carnegie Hall in New York, as part of Carnegie Hall's centennial-year concert series. In 1994, Polygram Records produced her first Asia-released album, Listen Without Prejudice. It is considered as Velasquez' most successful album to date, selling more than 700,000 copies in Asia. The album has sold over 100,000 units in the Philippines, 300,000 units in China and 20,000 in Thailand. She has performed/collaborated with other international artists such as Paul Anka, David Hasselhoff, 98 Degrees, Brian McKnight, Mandy Moore, Ronan Keating, Stephen Bishop, Jim Brickman, Peabo Bryson, Jeffrey Osborne, Dave Koz, Grasshopper, Coco Lee, Michel Legrand, David Pomeranz, Eduardo Capetillo, Fernando Carrillo, Billy Crawford, David Archuleta, and Singaporean vocal band Skritch. In 2000, Regine's music video "In Love With You", a duet with Jacky Cheung, landed the #1 spot in MTV Asia's Top 20 Asian Videos. On the eve of the new millennium, as part of BBC's Millennium Special "2000 Today", Regine Velasquez, together with some 2,000 Filipino Youth, sang the Philippine Millennium Theme, "Written in the Sand". This was broadcast by the BBC to 67 countries reaching to almost a billion people. In 2002, Regine won in the MTV Asia awards held in Singapore as Favorite Artist making her the FIRST Filipino to win the award. The following year, Regine won the same award at the 2003 MTV Asia Awards held also in Singapore. Regine won her first Best Actress award from Star Awards (for Television) in her portrayal of a mentally-challenged woman seeking acceptance and love in a Maalaala Mo Kaya episode entitled "Lobo". Lobo is the highest-rating episode (47.9%) in the history of Maalaala Mo Kaya. Regine Velasquez performed in International events such as MTV Asia Awards (in Singapore), UNICEF Benefit Concert (in China), Perfect 10 Music Awards (in Singapore), Asia Live Dream Concert (in Japan), SEA Games, Asian Music Scene, Miss Universe Preliminaries (in the Philippines), Lunar New Year Parade and Festival (in the U.S), Asian TV Awards (in Singapore) & Mosaic International Music Festival (in Singapore). She has also embarked on several television and film projects, receiving a Best Actress award for her portrayal of a mentally challenged woman in a "Maalaala Mo Kaya" episode entitled "Lobo", and another Best Actress award for her film "Of All The Things". Velasquez formed IndiMusic (iMusic), a record label partnered with Bella Tan's Universal Records. She is currently managed by iMusic Entertainment. She was hailed by the Philippine Association of the Record Industry or PARI as the Philippines' Best-Selling Artist of All Time with 7 Million albums sold in Philippines and 500,000 in Asia. Regine Velasquez is currently nominated at the 2013 World Music Awards as World's Best Entertainer of the Year, World's Best Live Act, and World's Best Female Artist. The awarding date is yet to be set. Biography. 1970–1985: Early life and discovery. Velasquez is the first child of Teresita and Gerardo Velasquez, born in Tondo, Metro Manila, Philippines on April 22, 1970. Her family moved to Hinundayan, Southern Leyte, where Velasquez studied at the Hinundayan Central School. Music figured largely in her early development; her father always sang Frank Sinatra songs to the children and her mother accompanied on guitar. Velasquez always loved music and even before she could read, she was singing along with the family. Her father signed her up for small local singing competitions. He helped train her voice by having her sing while neck-deep in the ocean. Her mother also helped by teaching her how to move on stage and interpret songs. At the age of six, Velasquez participated in a nationally-televised amateur singing competition, The Tita Betty's Children's Show. Her piece, "Buhat Nang Kita'y Makilala" (Since I Met You), won third place. Velasquez continued to compete in more singing competitions in small towns around the country. By nine, Velasquez and her family had moved to Balagtas, Bulacan, where she studied at Balagtas Central School. She later studied at St. Lawrence Academy, where she won Vocal Solo and Vocal Duet awards for her school at the annual BULPRISA (Bulacan Private School Association) competition. At fourteen, Velasquez entered the senior division of Ang Bagong Kampeon (The New Champion), a nationally-televised singing competition, hosted by Bert "Tawa" Marcelo and Pilita Corrales. Her father suggested that she audition with "Saan Ako Nagkamali" (Where Did I Go Wrong). She won for eight straight weeks and became the first grand champion of the show. The show's musical director, Dominic Salustiano, suggested her winning piece, George Benson's "In Your Eyes". She won a contract with OctoArts, recording the single "Love Me Again" as "Chona Velasquez", her nickname at the time. She then joined the Organisasyon ng mga Pilipinong Mang-aawit (OPM), an organization of Filipino singers, performing in music lounges all over Metro Manila. Members of OPM helped her out by giving her industry advice and by lending their gowns for her performances. 1986–1987: Debuts. At the behest of friend and fellow OctoArts recording artist, Pops Fernandez, Velasquez guested on the GMA 7 Variety TV show, 'Penthouse Live', on February 16, 1986. Martin Nievera, Pops' husband and co-host of the show, suggested to Velasquez that she drop the name "Chona" and use Regine as her screen name. That year, her father resigned from his job as a construction estimator to fully attend to his daughter's blossoming career. Viva Records signed Velasquez to a contract in 1987, releasing her self-titled debut album Regine. The album contained the songs "Kung Maibabalik Ko Lang," "Isang Lahi, " and "Urong Sulong." Her first regularly televised performances were musical variety shows with ensemble casts, such as ABS-CBN's Triple Treat and the Sunday variety show Teen Pan Alley. Velasquez and Alley's Janno Gibbs continued to collaborate throughout the years, creating the musical Kenkoy at Rosing, recording the cover song "Magkasuyo Buong Gabi," and performing duets in concert. 1988–1991: Growing Fame. In 1988, Velasquez cut her hair short out of protestations that she was not given a chance to stage her first concert entitled, "True Colors" because "The Jets" were performing on that same day which was on her 18th birthday. In 1989, Velasquez was chosen to represent the Philippines in the "Asia-Pacific Singing Contest" held in Hong Kong. On Dececember 23, 1989, Velasquez won the grand prize with "You'll Never Walk Alone" from "Carousel" and "And I Am Telling You I'm Not Going" from "Dreamgirls". After the competition, media started calling her "Asia's Songbird". Jose Mari Chan, picked Velasquez to do a duet for his album entitled "Constant Change". The album was awarded a Certified Diamond Record Award by the PRIMA. Gary Valenciano penned the song 'Each Passing Night' which they sang together for his album 'Faces of Love'. Velasquez signed with Vicor records and released several albums, starting with Nineteen 90. The album included ""Narito Ako"" ("Here I Am"), her first Ogie Alcasid-penned song, "I Have To Say Goodbye, " and "Promdi". Her first major solo concert, "Narito Ako", was standing-room only at the Folk Arts Theater, with Gary Valenciano as a guest performer. Velasquez's debut United States solo concert, "Narito Ako sa New York" (Here I Am in New York), was held at the Main Hall of Carnegie Hall on October 11, 1991.
1065767	Condorman is a 1981 American adventure/comedy superhero film from Walt Disney Productions starring Michael Crawford, Barbara Carrera and Oliver Reed. Inspired by Robert Sheckley's "The Game of X", the movie follows comic book illustrator Woodrow Wilkins' attempts to assist in the defection of a female Soviet KGB agent. Plot. Woodrow "Woody" Wilkins (Michael Crawford) is an imaginative, yet eccentric, comic book writer and illustrator who demands a sense of realism for his comic book hero "Condorman", to the point where he crafts a Condorman flying suit of his own and launches himself off the Eiffel Tower. The test flight fails as his right wing breaks, sending him crashing into the Seine River. Later after the incident, Woody is asked by his friend, CIA file clerk Harry (James Hampton), to perform what appears to be a civilian paper swap in Istanbul. Upon arriving in Istanbul, he meets a beautiful Russian named Natalia Rambova (Barbara Carrera), who poses as the Russian civilian with whom the exchange is supposed to take place, but it is later revealed that she is in fact a KGB spy. Woody does not tell Natalia his real name, and instead fabricates his identity to her as a top American agent code-named "Condorman". During the encounter, Woody fends off a group of would-be assassins and saves her life by sheer luck before accomplishing the paper trade. Impressed by Woody, and disgusted by how she was treated by her lover/boss Krokov (Oliver Reed) when she returns to Moscow, Natalia decides to defect and asks the CIA to have "Condorman" be the agent that helps her. Back in Paris, Woody's encounter with Natalia inspires him to create a super heroine patterned after her named "Laser Lady". He is then notified by Harry and his boss Russ (Dana Elcar) that he is to escort a defecting Soviet agent known as "The Bear". Woody refuses to do the job, but when Russ reveals that "The Bear" is Natalia, he agrees to do it on the condition that the CIA provides him with gadgetry based on his designs. Woody meets up with Natalia in Yugoslavia and protects her from Krokov's henchmen led by the homicidal, glass-eyed assassin Morovich (Jean-Pierre Kalfon). After joining Harry in Italy, the trio venture to Switzerland, where Natalia discovers the truth about Woody when a group of children recognize her from his comic books. Their journey back to France is compromised when Morovich puts Woody and Harry out of commission and Krokov's men recover Natalia before retreating to their headquarters in Monte Carlo. Woody is told that the mission is a failure and he and Harry are ordered to return to Paris, but he asks for two more days to conduct an operation to rescue Natalia. Disguising themselves as Arab sheiks, Woody and Harry create a diversion at the Monte Carlo Casino to recover Natalia from Krokov and his men. As Harry drives away in a Rolls-Royce, Woody uses an improved version of his Condorman suit to fly himself and Natalia out of the casino and onto the pier, where the trio make their getaway aboard the Condorboat. They manage to destroy Krokov's speedboats following them, but Krokov and Morovich pursue them in their own speedboat. The Condorboat reaches its pick-up point, but Morovich shows his intent on ramming it. When Morovich ignores his commander's orders to return to base, Krokov abandons ship. The Condorboat is lifted by the CIA helicopter in time to prevent a collision, causing Morovich to crash on an island rock. Days later, Woody, Natalia and Harry are at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles, where they see the Goodyear Blimp flash a sign welcoming Natalia to the U.S. Aboard the blimp, Russ contacts Harry and has him ask Woody if he is interested in taking Condorman to another assignment. Production. "Condorman" was filmed on location in Paris, Monte Carlo and Zermatt, Switzerland. The Condormobile was a modified Nova Sterling kit car. Reception. The film was heavily panned by critics, and has retrospectively scored an approval rating of 25% on Rotten Tomatoes. On their television show "At the Movies", critics Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert featured the film in their round-up of the year's worst films, pointing out the less-than-special effects such as the visible harness and cable used to suspend Condorman in the air and the obvious bluescreen effect. On the other hand, John Corry of "The New York Times" wrote a favorable review of the film, calling it "painless and chaste, and it has a lot of beautiful scenery and beautiful clothes. There are worse things to watch while you eat popcorn." The film also did poorly at the box office. However, despite the film's failure, this film has recently gained a cult following among Disney fans. Media. Home video. "Condorman" was first released on Region 1 DVD by Anchor Bay Entertainment on May 18, 1999. A Region 2 version was released on August 21, 2006. The film was re-released in Region 1 exclusively for members of the Disney Movie Club in May 2008. Soundtrack. The film's complete musical score composed by Henry Mancini was released on CD by Intrada Records on November 13, 2012. The album contained twenty tracks from the film and eight bonus tracks totaling just over 60 minutes, and was designated as Intrada Special Collection Volume 219. It was part of a special collaboration with The Walt Disney Company resulting in the release of several rare Disney scores on CD. Comic book adaptation/sequel. A comic book adaptation of "Condorman" was published by Whitman Comics at the time of the film's release. A notable change in the illustrations was that Russ, the CIA boss, became an African-American. An original comic adventure sequel was also published, taking place in the U.S. itself. Woody is engaged to Natalia, and his Condorman machines are being built by a toy company — a cover for a CIA unit. Krokov and Morovich again appear, attempting to take Natalia back to the USSR by force, and Russ is again a black character. Following Disney's acquisition of Marvel Comics in 2009, "The Amazing Spider-Man" editor Stephen Wacker lobbied to have Condorman brought into the Marvel Universe. Pop culture references. In the Pixar short film "Toy Story Toons: Small Fry", a Condorman toy appears at a support group meeting for discarded kids' meal toys. Remake. In October 2012 it was announced Disney was prepping a remake of "Condorman" with Robert Pattinson rumored to appear as the title character.
1198576	"It's a Boy Girl Thing" is a 2006 romantic comedy film directed by Nick Hurran and written by Geoff Deane, starring Samaire Armstrong and Kevin Zegers and set in the United States but produced in the United Kingdom. The producers of the film are David Furnish, Steve Hamilton Shaw of Rocket Pictures and Martin F. Katz of Prospero Pictures. Elton John serves as one of the executive producers. "It's a Boy Girl Thing" was produced by Sir Elton John's motion picture company Rocket Pictures and independently distributed by Mel Gibson's Icon Productions and was released on 26 December 2006 in the UK and has since then been released in some countries in cinemas, in others directly to DVD, and in others as a TV film. Most of the school scenes were shot at Western Technical-Commercial School in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Plot. Woody Deane (Kevin Zegers) and Nell Bedworth (Samaire Armstrong) are neighbors and former childhood friends who go to the same high school, but are otherwise completely different. Woody is a popular varsity football player while Nell is a nerdy, literature-loving girl. They loathe each other and are constantly in dispute. One day their class goes on a school trip to a museum and they are forced to work together on an assignment. They quickly begin arguing in front of a statue of the ancient Aztec god Tezcatlipoca. As they argue, the statue casts a spell upon them — causing them to wake up in each other's bodies the next morning. When they arrive at school, they immediately blame each other for the body swap, but agree to pretend to be the other person until they can find a way to switch back. At first, they seem to succeed, but quickly return to arguing when they each feel the other is misrepresenting them in the opposite body, such as Nell (Woody in Nell's body) answering a question oddly and surprising a teacher. The following day, Nell (in Woody's body) arrives at school wearing "Chinos and an Oxford cotton button-down" making Woody's appearance look "dorky" which frustrates Woody, and he is even more frustrated after he hears about how Nell (in Woody's body) failed Woody's football practice the previous day. As payback, Woody (in Nell's body) dresses in inappropriate and provocative clothing the following day. After school, Nell (in Woody's body), in retaliation, breaks up with Breanna (Brooke D'Orsay), Woody's girlfriend, much to the disappointment of Woody. The humiliation competition continues when Woody (in Nell's body) drives off with a biker boy, Nicky (Brandon Carrera), and makes Nell (in Woody's body) think she is going to lose her virginity. However, Woody decides it is "so gay" and leaves Nicky just as he is removing his clothing. The following day, rumors are being spread around school by Nicky about his night with Nell. When Nell (in Woody's body) finds out, she gets very upset. When Woody (in Nell's body) finds Nell (in Woody's body), he admits that he didn't actually lose Nell's virginity and that everyone was simply spreading Nicky's lies. However, Nell is still let down and so Woody (in Nell's body) decides to confront Nicky. It turns out that Woody (in Nell's body) can't fight him, and Nell (in Woody's body) runs up and punches him in the face. After this, Nell and Woody reach a truce and realize the statue of Tezcatlipoca at the museum had something to do with their body swap. They head down to the museum and even after confronting the statue, they fail to return to their original bodies. They realize they are going to have to help each other in two important upcoming events. Nell must learn how to play football for Woody's Homecoming game and Woody must learn about poetry and literature for Nell's Yale interview. Later that night Nell (in Woody's body) is getting drunk at a party while Woody (in Nell's body) is stuck at a slumber party listening to all the gossip about Woody, and surrounded by nailpolish, pajamas and slippers. After spending so much time together, Nell and Woody become very fond of each other and start to understand each other better. The night before the interview and the game, they agree to go to the Homecoming Dance together, as "not a date." The day of the interview and match, Woody goes to Yale for the interview and at first messes things up and is asked to leave, but he starts to talk about poetry in rap, which impresses and astonishes the interviewer. After that, he goes to the match and watches Nell run in the winning touchdown in the closing seconds. A college recruiter witnesses his good performance and wants to talk to him later. After the game, they congratulate each other for their successes. Shortly after this, the spell lifts and they return to their original bodies. The scene finishes with Woody being kissed by Breanna and Nell going home very upset about it. The following day, Woody tries to talk to Nell but is stopped by her mother, who sees Woody's family as uneducated. Nell receives a letter from Yale informing her that she has been accepted to Yale, meaning that her interview (done by Woody in her body) was successful. However, she is still upset with Woody and has decided not to go to the Homecoming Dance. Meanwhile, Nell's father has a talk with her on the porch about Woody, during which she confesses she truly likes him, and her father surprises her with a dress and shoes for the dance. At the dance, Woody sees Nell and they leave the school together and share a kiss in front of their houses. The following day, Nell tells her mother that she is taking a year's sabbatical before attending Yale, and hops into Woody's car as they drive off together. Soundtrack. The movie's soundtrack features a range of music. Tracks include a cover version of "I Think We're Alone Now" by Girls Aloud, "Let's Get It Started" by The Black Eyed Peas, "Be Strong" by Fefe Dobson, "High" by James Blunt and "Push the Button" and "Red Dress" by the Sugababes, as well as other songs by the likes of Ozzy Osbourne, Elton John, Orson, Marz and many more. Response. The movie currently holds a 63% rating on Rotten Tomatoesand a 6.2 out of 10 on IMDB.
1390945	The Story of 1 is a BBC documentary about the history of numbers, and in particular, the number 1. It was presented by ex-Monty Python member Terry Jones. It was released in 2005. Plot. Terry Jones first journeys to Africa, where bones have been discovered with notches in them. However, there is no actual way of knowing if they were used for counting. Jones then discusses the Ishango Bone, which must have been used for counting, because there are 60 scratches on each side of the bone. Jones declares this "the birth of one"; a defining moment in history of mathematics. He then journeys to Sumer. Shortly after farming had been invented and humans were starting to build houses, they started to represent 1 with a token. With this, it was possible for the first time in history to do arithmetic. The Sumarians would enclose a certain number of tokens in a clay envelope and imprint the number of tokens on the outside. However, it was realized that you could simply write the number on a clay tablet. To explore why the development of numbers occurred here and not some other place, Jones travels to Australia and meets a tribe called the Walpri. In their language, there are no words for numbers. When an individual is asked how many grandchildren he has, he simply replies he has "many", while he in fact has four. In Egypt, the numeral system provides a fascinating glimpse of Egyptian society, as larger numbers seem more applicable to higher strata of society. It went something like this: One was a line, ten was a rope, a hundred a coil of rope (three symbols for smaller numbers, probably applicable to the average Egyptian), a thousand a lotus (a symbol of pleasure), ten thousand was a commanding finger, and a million - a number the Sumerians would never have dreamed of - was the symbol of a prisoner begging for forgiveness. The Egyptians had a standard unit, the cubit, which was instrumental for building wonders such as the pyramids. Terry Jones then journeys to Greece to cover the time of Pythagoras. Jones discusses with mathematician Marcus de Sautoy Pythagoras' obsession with numbers, his secret society, his dedication to numbers, the Pythagorean theorem, and his flawed belief that all things could be measured in units (brought down by the attempt to measure the hypotenuse of an isosceles right triangle, in units relative to the two legs). Archimedes was also in love with numbers. He tried to see what would happen if you took a sphere and turned it into a cylinder. This concept would later be applied to map making. Archimedes lived in Syracuse which at the time was at war with Rome. Archimedes was killed by a Roman soldier while working on a mathematical problem. The Romans were not interested in maths, and as a result mathematics declined. The Roman numeral system was clumsy and inefficient. One reason that Terry Jones theorizes might be the reason, was the fact that the numerals that the Romans used were basically the old-fashioned lines of the Ishango bone. Jones discusses India's invention of a more efficient numeral system, including the invention of the concept of zero. He explains how the concept traveled West to the Caliphate. Then it arrived in Italy where it met fierce resistance. The reason for this was because most people were familiar only with the Roman numerals and not the superior Indian numerals. Eventually, the Hindu-Arabic numerals displaced the Roman ones. Jones discusses finally how Gottfried Leibniz invented the binary system, which is the foundation for modern digital computers. He planned on building a mechanical computer to use this system, but never followed through with the plan. Leibniz was convinced that 1 and 0 were the only numbers anyone really needed. In 1944, a computer called Colossus was used to crack enemy codes during World War II. Computers like Colossus evolved into modern computers, which are used for every type of number calculation.
584514	Delhi Ganesh a veteran Tamil Actor born in Tirunelveli , who mostly acts in supporting roles and is perhaps best known for his role in Kamal Hassan comedies and films like Nayagan and Michael Madana Kama Rajan. He has acted in more than 400 films from 1976 to present. He was a member of the 'Delhi' drama troupe called Dakshina Bharata Nataka Sabha (DBNS). Ganesh worked in the Food Corporation of India from 1964 to 1974 before quitting in favour of films.
900487	La vacanza (AKA Vacation) is a 1971 Italian drama film by Tinto Brass. It stars Vanessa Redgrave and Franco Nero. It premiered at the Venice Film Festival on 4 September 1971 where it was awarded the 'Best Italian Film' prize. This was followed by a theatrical release in Italy on 5 April 1972. A year earlier, Brass, Redgrave and Nero had worked together on the romantic drama, "Dropout". Plot. Immacolata (Redgrave) is a peasant girl and mistress of the count, but when he turns his attentions back to his wife he has Immacolata inturned into a mental asyulm. 'La Vacanza' is her one-month experimental leave from the institution. She is rejected by her family and subsequently finds new friends in the form of gypsies and an Englishman. But their happiness is blighted by criminal actions and a fight for freedom.
591899	Gurukiran or Gurukiran Shetty is a music director of the Kannada film industry in India. He started his career as a music director of the Kannada movie "A", directed and acted by Upendra. His music for his next movie "Upendra" further consolidated his position in Kannada movie industry. He is a native of Mangalore and his mother tongue is Tulu. He has also acted in several movies in side (character) roles and also sung several songs. He is popular in Kannada cinema for his foot tapping musical scores. Initial years. He was a class singer even in his School days at St Aloysius pry school in early 70s . After completion of graduation in commerce from Mangalore University, Guru Kiran started performing in orchestras in and around Mangalore as a singer and a keyboard performer. He started off his musical career in 1994 as an assistant to the well known music director V. Manohar well known music director and lyricist. As Actor. His first film is tulu( badkongi Kabithe) Mr.Shanker Bekal as camera man. He entered the film industry to be known as a famous actor and had even tried his luck acting in films. He did get a noticeable role in Nishkarsha directed by Sunil Kumar Desai, but luck was not with him as an actor. As music director. He had a chance to be a music director in ""A"" directed by Upendra. Guru Kiran did his best, worked hard spent some sleepless nights to compose some fantastic songs for ""A"". His recent hit P. Vasu's directed Apthamitra which again reinforced the power of Guru Kiran in the music composition. Jogi released in the year 2005 was a mile stone in the career of Guru Kiran. The film's album audio sales before the release of the film is an all time record in the Kannada film industry. This hit took him to Telugu Film Industry as music director for remake of same movie.He is also scoring music for Telugu movie "Nagavalli", which is the remake of blockbuster Kannada movie "Aptharakshaka'. He has been involved in multiple music talent shows as a judge, including 2 seasons of Confident Star Singer on Asianet Suvarna. He has also been a guest judge on shows like Ede Tumbi Haduvenu on ETV Kannada. As Singer. He had sung many songs in Kannada films in his own composition as well as others."Kanasina Maratta" song sung by him, is a big hit in "Banna Bannada Loka" Kannada film, Music Directed by Thomas Rathnam. Awards. Karnataka State Film Awards: Filmfare Awards South: Udaya Film Awards : Srigandha Awards : Other Awards:
1041105	From Prada to Nada is an American romantic comedy film directed by Angel Gracia and produced by Gary Gilbert, Linda McDonough, Gigi Pritzker and Chris Ranta. The plot was conceived from Jane Austen's "Sense and Sensibility". The screen play was adapted by Luis Alfaro, Craig Fernandez and Fina Torres to be a Latino version of the English novel, where two spoiled sisters who have been left penniless after their father's sudden death are forced to move in with their estranged aunt in East Los Angeles. Pantelion Films (joint venture of Lionsgate and Televisa) opened this film in limited theatrical release in the United States on January 28, 2011. In the United States, this film grossed $3 million theatrically; the box office result met Pantelion's expectation. Plot. The film opens with Nora studying law and Mary shopping. They head to their home, Casa Bonita, for their father's birthday. While dancing with their father, he falls and dies. At the funeral they meet Gabe Dominguez, a half brother who resulted from an affair their father had years ago. At the reading of their father's will, they discover that they are bankrupt. Nora and Mary sell their house to Gabe, who lets them live with him and his wife, Olivia. They meet Olivia's brother, Edward, when he visits for lunch. During lunch, Olivia tells the sisters that they must move out of the house. Before they leave, their maid gives Nora a box left by their father. The two sisters go to East L.A. to live with their maternal aunt, Aurelia, where they are introduced to Bruno, their aunt's neighbor. Later, Nora opens the box from her father and finds letters addressed to Gabe, which his mother returned unopened. Nora decides to quit law school and get a job and tells Mary to finish college. Their aunt sells Mary's car and Prada purse ('from Prada to nada'). Edward arrives and gives Mary and Nora stuff from their old home, offering Nora a job in his law office - which she declines. Nora finds a job on her own, and on the bus ride to work she meets a woman who has been fired from her job as a maid. When Nora arrives at her new job she learns that her boss is Edward. Nora and Edward work together on the case for the cleaning ladies, winning a judgment when they discover that there has been a fraud with their payroll. Mary returns to college, where she meets and flirts with teaching assistant Rodrigo. She gets a ride home from him, directing him to her childhood mansion rather than her aunt's house in East L.A. They later share a kiss over lunch and, later still she admits that she no longer lives in the mansion, suggesting to Rodrigo that he buy her old house. Mary visits Bruno's house and make a deal that, if Bruno can make the aunt's backyard look good for a party dedicated to Mexican Independence Day, he can have a dance with Mary. On the day of the party, Bruno watches how Mary dances with Rodrigo. Bruno later declines Mary's offer of a dance to complete the decoration agreement. Edward later arrives at the party, finding Nora drunk on tequila. They go into the kitchen where they kiss. After that, Nora feels bad because she is not supposed to act like that and tells Edward that she needs to focus on her career. The next day Nora finds out that she has received a promotion, that involves a transfer to another department, away from Edward. When Rodrigo drops Mary at her aunt's home after she spends the night with him, he tells her he is going to Mexico for a few weeks. When Nora asks Mary if she loves Rodrigo, Mary tells her that she just wants to go back home and that Rodrigo can make that happen, for which Nora calls her a whore and Mary retorts that she would rather be that than a spinster like Nora. Mary and Nora start to ignore each other. Nora quits Edward's law firm and opens a free legal service from her aunt's home. Upon Gabe's insistence, Olivia invites the sisters to attend Edward's engagement party at their former home. When they arrive at the party they are welcomed lovingly by their former house staff. Mary and Gabe go their father's office - the one part of the house that Gabe wouldn't let Olivia remodel. Mary gives Gabe the letters from their father and he tearfully realises that their father wanted to be in his life. Meanwhile, Nora tells Edward why she doesn't count on personal relationships, due to losing both her parents and that her rejection of Edward wasn't because she didn't love him. Mary sees Rodrigo at the party with another woman who turns out to be his wife. Rodrigo tells Mary that he did, indeed, take her recommendation to buy the house. Heartbroken, Mary leaves the party and tries to go home but has a traffic accident. Gabe comes over to visit his sisters in the hospital and reveals without sadness that he and Olivia split up. Mary returns home in a wheelchair and neck brace. The next day, when she goes over to Bruno's house, Mary discovers detailed designs for the wheelchair ramp he made for her, her old car mirror that he fixed and realises Bruno showed more genuine care for her than Rodrigo ever did. When she finds him in the back yard teaching kids how to paint, the two admit their feelings for each other and share a kiss. Edward arrives with another removal van full of furniture. He reveals to Nora that they bought the house across the street from her aunt. He presents her with the front door key, attached to an engagement ring and declares his love for her. The film ends with all the family and friends celebrating at Nora and Edward's street party wedding. Release. "From Prada to Nada" was released on Blu-ray and DVD May 3, 2011.
583623	Priyanka Kothari (Hindi, born 30 November 1983), often credited as Nisha Kothari or Amoga, is an Indian actress and model. She has appeared in Bollywood, Telugu, Tamil and Kannada films. Early life. Kothari was born in Majhdia(dist: nadia)Kolkata to a Marwari Jain family and grew up speaking Bengali, Rajasthani, English and Hindi. She moved to New Delhi while in grade 10 and got her degree in Chemistry from Delhi University at Dayal Singh College. Her father is a chemical businessman, her mother a home-maker. Career. After college, Kothari became a model and appeared in a number of advertisement campaigns. In 2003, she got her big break through actor Madhavan, who recommended her for an audition in his film after viewing her photographs. She made her acting debut with him in the Tamil film "Jay Jay", credited as Amoga. She made her Bollywood debut in the 2005 film " Sarkar" and then later that same year appeared in "James", directed by Ram Gopal Varma and Rohit Jugraj respectively. She then went on to do "The Killer" with Emraan Hashmi. Since then she had appeared in less significant films and roles. Her most recent release was "Bin Bulaye Baraati". Kothari is a member of the International Film And Television Club of Asian Academy Of Film & Television. In the 2011 West Bengal state assembly elections, she campaigned for Dr Nirmal Majhi, an All India Trinamool Congress candidate contesting from North Uluberia, Kolkata. In 2011, she walked the ramp at Wills Lifestyle India Fashion Week (WIFW), which she describes as her comeback in Bollywood.
646334	Warren Weaver, PhD (July 17, 1894 – November 24, 1978) was an American scientist, mathematician, and science administrator. He is widely recognized as one of the pioneers of machine translation, and as an important figure in creating support for science in the United States. Career. Weaver received three degrees from the University of Wisconsin–Madison; a Bachelor of Science in 1916, a Civil Engineering degree in 1917 and a PhD in 1921. He became an assistant professor of mathematics at Throop College (soon to be renamed the California Institute of Technology). He served as a second lieutenant in the Air Service during World War I. After the war, he returned to teach mathematics at Wisconsin (1920–32). Weaver married Mary Hemenway, one of his fellow students at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, a few years after their graduation. They had a son, Warren Jr., and a daughter, Helen. He was director of the Division of Natural Sciences at the Rockefeller Foundation (1932–55), and was science consultant (1947–51), trustee (1954), and vice president (from 1958) at the Sloan-Kettering Institute for Cancer Research. Weaver's chief researches were in the problems of communication in science and in the mathematical theory of probability and statistics. At the Rockefeller Foundation, he was responsible for approving grants for major projects in molecular engineering and genetics, in agriculture (particularly for developing new strains of wheat and rice), and in medical research. During World War II, he was seconded from the Foundation to head the Applied Mathematics Panel at the U.S. Office of Scientific Research and Development, directing the work of hundreds of mathematicians in operations research. He was therefore fully familiar with the development of electronic calculating machines and the successful application of mathematical and statistical techniques in cryptography. He was co-author (together with Claude Shannon) of the landmark work on communication, "The Mathematical Theory of Communication" (1949, Urbana: University of Illinois Press). While Shannon focused more on the engineering aspects of the mathematical model, Weaver developed the philosophical implications of Shannon's much larger essay (which forms about 3/4 of the book). With Max Mason he authored the book "The Electromagnetic Field" which was published by the University of Chicago Press in 1929. The "Translation" memorandum. Weaver had first mentioned the possibility of using digital computers to translate documents between natural human languages in March 1947 in a letter to the cyberneticist Norbert Wiener. In the following two years, he had been urged by his colleagues at the Rockefeller Foundation to elaborate on his ideas. The result was a memorandum, entitled simply "Translation", which he wrote in July 1949 at Carlsbad, New Mexico. Said to be probably the single most influential publication in the early days of machine translation, it formulated goals and methods before most people had any idea of what computers might be capable of, and was the direct stimulus for the beginnings of research first in the United States and then later, indirectly, throughout the world. The impact of Weaver's memorandum is attributable not only to his widely recognized expertise in mathematics and computing, but also, and perhaps even more, to the influence he enjoyed with major policy-makers in U.S. government agencies. Weaver's memorandum was designed to suggest more fruitful methods than any simplistic word-for-word approach, which had grave limitations. He put forward four proposals. These were that the problem of multiple meanings might be tackled by the examination of immediate context; that it could be assumed that there are logical elements in language; that cryptographic methods were possibly applicable, and that there may also be linguistic universals. At the end of the memorandum, Weaver asserted his belief in the fourth proposal with what is one of the best-known metaphors in the literature of machine translation: "Think, by analogy, of individuals living in a series of tall closed towers, all erected over a common foundation. When they try to communicate with one another, they shout back and forth, each from his own closed tower. It is difficult to make the sound penetrate even the nearest towers, and communication proceeds very poorly indeed. But, when an individual goes down his tower, he finds himself in a great open basement, common to all the towers. Here he establishes easy and useful communication with the persons who have also descended from their towers". Advocate for science. Weaver early understood how greatly the tools and techniques of physics and chemistry could advance knowledge of biological processes, and used his position in the Rockefeller Foundation to identify, support, and encourage the young scientists who years later earned Nobel Prizes and other honours for their contributions to genetics or molecular biology. He had a deep personal commitment to improving the public understanding of science. He was President of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 1954 and Chairman of the Board in 1955, a member or chairman of numerous boards and committees, and the primary author of the Arden House Statement, a 1951 declaration of principle and guide to setting the Association's goals, plans, and procedures. Weaver was awarded the Public Welfare Medal from the National Academy of Sciences in 1957. In 1965 he was awarded the first Arches of Science Medal for outstanding contributions to the public understanding of the meaning of science to contemporary men and women, and UNESCO's Kalinga Prize for distinguished contributions to the popular understanding of science. Other activities. Weaver was fascinated by Lewis Carroll's "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland". In 1964, having built up a collection of 160 versions in 42 languages, Weaver wrote a book about the translation history of Alice called "Alice in many tongues: The translations of Alice in Wonderland". Among other features, it provides excerpts from the business correspondence of author Lewis Carroll (the Reverend Charles Dodgson) dealing with publishing royalties and permissions as Alice's fame snowballed worldwide. Ever the scientist, even in the area of literature, Weaver devised a design for evaluating the quality of the various translations, focusing on the nonsense, puns and logical jokes in the Mad Tea-Party scene. His range of contacts provided an impressive if eccentric list of collaborators in the evaluation exercise including anthropologist Margaret Mead (for the South Pacific Pidgin translation), longtime Jerusalem mayor Teddy Kollek, and Nobel laureate biochemist Hugo Theorell (Swedish).
584221	Shruti Rajalakshmi Haasan (born 28 January 1986) is an Indian actress, singer and music composer who works in the South Indian film industry and Bollywood. Her parents are noted actors Kamal Haasan and Sarika. As a child artist, she sang in films and appeared in a guest role, before making her adult acting debut in the 2009 action drama, "Luck". She later went on to win critical acclaim for her role in the Walt Disney fantasy film, "Anaganaga O Dheerudu", "Oh My Friend" and "7aam Arivu". In 2012, she starred in "Gabbar Singh", Telugu remake of "Dabangg" which also was her first hit as an actress. She has also continued her stint in music through work as a singer in Indian languages, a career in music direction beginning with her father's production "Unnaipol Oruvan" and her own music band and album. Early life. Shruti Haasan was born on 28 January 1986 to actors Kamal Haasan and Sarika Thakur in Chennai, India. Her younger sister Akshara represents India nationally for Ballroom Latin dancing. Shruthi studied at Abacus in Chennai and moved to Mumbai to study psychology at St. Andrew’s College. Shruti shifted her focus to cinema and music, and eventually travelled to the USA to continue to learn music at the Musicians Institute in California, before returning to Chennai. Career. Singing career. Shruti Haasan sang her first song aged just six in her father's "Thevar Magan" in the composition of Ilaiyaraaja. While in school, Haasan made her singing debut in the Hindi language film, "Chachi 420", singing a duet with her father who also directed the film. Shruti sang the bilingual versions of the title theme, "Rama Rama" with her father, in Hindi and in Tamil for the movie "Hey Ram". The album from Ilayaraaja, which was critically praised, won Haasan accolades for her efforts with "Screen India" saying that she "has the makings of a good singer, and with some training she should go great guns". Shruti sang along with veteran singer K. J. Yesudas for the film "En Mana Vaanil" (2002) under Ilaiyaraaja's music. She has sung for Gautham Menon's "Vaaranam Aayiram" under the composition of Harris Jayaraj. As of November 2008, Haasan is also midway through her untitled debut album, which she has composed, written and sung, and is set for release in mid-2009. A further song was recorded with her voice for her Hindi film, "Luck". In September 2010, Haasan collaborated with Dave Kushner for the film, "Hisss". Whilst Kushner composed the track, Shruti wrote the lyrics, sang and appeared in a promotional video for the film. Acting career. Hasan made her acting debut making a cameo appearance as the daughter of Vallabhbhai Patel in the Tamil-Hindi bilingual "Hey Ram", based on a murder attempt of Mahatma Gandhi, directed by her father Kamal Haasan. After rejecting prominent film offers, most notably the lead role in Venkat Prabhu's "Saroja", reports suggested in late 2007 that Haasan was set to make her full debut as a heroine in 2008 with a film opposite Madhavan directed by Nishikanth Kamat. Despite Madhavan admitting that the news "was premature", she eventually did sign up to the film which was titled "Endrendrum Punnagai", only to be stalled prior to production. Eventually Haasan signed up to feature in Soham Shah's Hindi film "Luck" opposite Imran Khan in July 2008 and shot for the film for a close to a year. Imran Khan, her childhood friend, had recommended her name to the director and Haasan signed on after listening to the entire script and accepted to play a dual role in the action film. Shruti took part in action scenes during filming, while she also worked out to get a toned body for a sequence in which she appears in a bikini in the film. The film opened in July 2009 to unanimously poor reviews from critics and took a poor opening at the box office, with critics stating that she "deserved a better launch vehicle". Reviewers were critical of her performance with Rajeev Masand of IBN stating that she delivers "dialogues with deadpan expressions", while another critic added that she is "synthetic and fails to impress". Haasan then went on to appear alongiside Blaaze in the promotional videos for "Unnaipol Oruvan" and "Eenadu", the bilingual films starring her father, which she had composed the music for. She made a further appearance in a promotional video for the horror film "Hisss" starring Mallika Sherawat, where she had also sung a song composed by Dave Kushner. She made her Telugu debut in January 2011, acting opposite Siddharth in the fantasy adventure film "Anaganaga O Dheerudu" directed by Prakash Kovelamudi son of director K. Raghavendra Rao. The film, co-produced by Walt Disney Pictures, saw Shruti play a gypsy woman whose life coincides with a task that a blind swordsman, played by Siddharth. The film opened to positive reviews, with her performance being praised with a critic noting "Shruti looks quite attractive and makes a wonderful screen presence", while a reviewer from Rediff.com wrote that she "looks beautiful and has a mystical aura about her". The film however became a commercial failure at the box office, and the film failed to capitulate on a hefty promotional campaign which had been undertaken. Her second Hindi feature film, Madhur Bhandarkar's romantic comedy "Dil Toh Baccha Hai Ji", saw her appear in an extended guest appearance alongside an ensemble cast of Emraan Hashmi, Ajay Devgn and Shazahn Padamsee. The film portrayed her as Nikki Narang, the step-daughter of an ex Miss India model, with Hashmi's character falling for both mother and daughter. Shruti's performance gained poor responses from critics with a reviewer citing that her character has been "reduced to post-interval surfacing, last-ditch glamour" whilst another labelled hers as "so fake that she offers only disappointment"; however the film went on to become a commercial success at the box office. In mid-2010, Shruti was signed by A. R. Murugadoss to star opposite Suriya in his next film "7aum Arivu", and the film's shoot began in June later that year. The director signed after he felt she looked the part of the scientist, mentioning that she seemed "intelligent and beautiful". Shruti played Subha Srinivasan, a young scientist in the film, who hopes to re-activate the genes of 5th century Buddhist monk Bodhidharma and her performance in the film won appreciation from critics. The film opened to mixed reviews, but became commercially successful. A critic from The Hindu noted "rarely is a heroine given near-equal footing in Tamil films", describing her as "ravishing but that she ought to work harder on spontaneity, and fine-tune her Tamil accent", but concluded "the point is the actor shows promise." Her next Telugu release was "Oh My Friend", a romantic comedy film alongside Siddharth again which also co-starred Hansika Motwani and Navdeep. The film told the story of childhood friends and that of their platonic friendship which goes on in their adulthood as well and for the role Shruti Haasan went on to learn the dance of Kuchipudi. The film opened to average reviews with several critics claiming the film evoked a sense of "déjà vu", though a reviewer noted "Shruti, on her part displays the same conviction." Shruti Haasan was next seen in Aishwarya Dhanush's directorial debut "3", a romantic drama film co-starring Dhanush. Aishwarya revealed that she had written the script with Shruti Haasan in mind but date problems meant that the film began its shoot with Amala Paul instead. However in a turn of events, Shruti was re-signed to play the character of Janani, and the film gained much hype prior to release due to the collaboration of herself and Aishwarya, being the daughters of the two leading contemporary Tamil actors Kamal Haasan and Rajinikanth as did the success of the song Why This Kolaveri Di?. The film opened in March 2012 to positive reviews with a critic noting "Shruti Hassan has come a long way", though the film only garnered average returns at the box office. Her second release in 2012 was Harish Shankar's Telugu film "Gabbar Singh", a remake of the 2010 Hindi film "Dabangg", with the version featuring her alongside Pawan Kalyan. Shruti had signed the film in November 2011 replacing Ileana D'Cruz who had opted out, and played the role of Bhagyalakshmi, a village girl, which had been essayed by Sonakshi Sinha in the original version. The film went on to become a large commercial success at the box office and created more film offers for the actress. Critics also gave her performance a favourable verdict citing that she "justifies her role" and "though she didn't have much of a role, she has left her mark". Her next release in Telugu is "Balupu" with Ravi Teja., the movie, along with her performance was well received from critics and audience. Shruti will be apart of upcoming Telugu movie "Yevadu" which has Ram Charan Teja in the lead. Her recent Hindi film releases were Prabhu Deva's "Ramaiya Vastavaiya" and Nikhil Advani's "D-Day", both released on July 19. she was the cover model of the men's magazine maxim(India) for May 2013 edition. Ever since Shruthi Hassan broke up with her boyfriend Siddharth few years back, She has maintained always her relationship status as single. Music composing. After much speculation, Shruti Haasan was finalized as the music composer of the Tamil film "Unnaipol Oruvan" which released in 2009. The bilingual was a remake of the successful Hindi film, "A Wednesday!". The soundtracks of both the projects are separate. Apart from this, Shruti is also the vocalist of an alternative rock band The Extramentals.
1103584	Numerical analysis is the study of algorithms that use numerical approximation (as opposed to general symbolic manipulations) for the problems of mathematical analysis (as distinguished from discrete mathematics). One of the earliest mathematical writings is a Babylonian tablet from the Yale Babylonian Collection (YBC 7289), which gives a sexagesimal numerical approximation of formula_1, the length of the diagonal in a unit square. Being able to compute the sides of a triangle (and hence, being able to compute square roots) is extremely important, for instance, in carpentry and construction. Numerical analysis continues this long tradition of practical mathematical calculations. Much like the Babylonian approximation of formula_1, modern numerical analysis does not seek exact answers, because exact answers are often impossible to obtain in practice. Instead, much of numerical analysis is concerned with obtaining approximate solutions while maintaining reasonable bounds on errors. Numerical analysis naturally finds applications in all fields of engineering and the physical sciences, but in the 21st century, the life sciences and even the arts have adopted elements of scientific computations. Ordinary differential equations appear in celestial mechanics (planets, stars and galaxies); numerical linear algebra is important for data analysis; stochastic differential equations and Markov chains are essential in simulating living cells for medicine and biology. Before the advent of modern computers numerical methods often depended on hand interpolation in large printed tables. Since the mid 20th century, computers calculate the required functions instead. These same interpolation formulas nevertheless continue to be used as part of the software algorithms for solving differential equations. General introduction. The overall goal of the field of numerical analysis is the design and analysis of techniques to give approximate but accurate solutions to hard problems, the variety of which is suggested by the following: The rest of this section outlines several important themes of numerical analysis. History. The field of numerical analysis predates the invention of modern computers by many centuries. Linear interpolation was already in use more than 2000 years ago. Many great mathematicians of the past were preoccupied by numerical analysis, as is obvious from the names of important algorithms like Newton's method, Lagrange interpolation polynomial, Gaussian elimination, or Euler's method. To facilitate computations by hand, large books were produced with formulas and tables of data such as interpolation points and function coefficients. Using these tables, often calculated out to 16 decimal places or more for some functions, one could look up values to plug into the formulas given and achieve very good numerical estimates of some functions. The canonical work in the field is the NIST publication edited by Abramowitz and Stegun, a 1000-plus page book of a very large number of commonly used formulas and functions and their values at many points. The function values are no longer very useful when a computer is available, but the large listing of formulas can still be very handy. The mechanical calculator was also developed as a tool for hand computation. These calculators evolved into electronic computers in the 1940s, and it was then found that these computers were also useful for administrative purposes. But the invention of the computer also influenced the field of numerical analysis, since now longer and more complicated calculations could be done. Direct and iterative methods. Direct methods compute the solution to a problem in a finite number of steps. These methods would give the precise answer if they were performed in infinite precision arithmetic. Examples include Gaussian elimination, the QR factorization method for solving systems of linear equations, and the simplex method of linear programming. In practice, finite precision is used and the result is an approximation of the true solution (assuming stability). In contrast to direct methods, iterative methods are not expected to terminate in a number of steps. Starting from an initial guess, iterative methods form successive approximations that converge to the exact solution only in the limit. A convergence test is specified in order to decide when a sufficiently accurate solution has (hopefully) been found. Even using infinite precision arithmetic these methods would not reach the solution within a finite number of steps (in general). Examples include Newton's method, the bisection method, and Jacobi iteration. In computational matrix algebra, iterative methods are generally needed for large problems. Iterative methods are more common than direct methods in numerical analysis. Some methods are direct in principle but are usually used as though they were not, e.g. GMRES and the conjugate gradient method. For these methods the number of steps needed to obtain the exact solution is so large that an approximation is accepted in the same manner as for an iterative method. Discretization. Furthermore, continuous problems must sometimes be replaced by a discrete problem whose solution is known to approximate that of the continuous problem; this process is called "discretization". For example, the solution of a differential equation is a function. This function must be represented by a finite amount of data, for instance by its value at a finite number of points at its domain, even though this domain is a continuum. Generation and propagation of errors. The study of errors forms an important part of numerical analysis. There are several ways in which error can be introduced in the solution of the problem. Round-off. Round-off errors arise because it is impossible to represent all real numbers exactly on a machine with finite memory (which is what all practical digital computers are). Truncation and discretization error. Truncation errors are committed when an iterative method is terminated or a mathematical procedure is approximated, and the approximate solution differs from the exact solution. Similarly, discretization induces a discretization error because the solution of the discrete problem does not coincide with the solution of the continuous problem. For instance, in the iteration in the sidebar to compute the solution of formula_3, after 10 or so iterations, we conclude that the root is roughly 1.99 (for example). We therefore have a truncation error of 0.01. Once an error is generated, it will generally propagate through the calculation. For instance, we have already noted that the operation + on a calculator (or a computer) is inexact. It follows that a calculation of the type a+b+c+d+e is even more inexact. What does it mean when we say that the truncation error is created when we approximate a mathematical procedure? We know that to integrate a function exactly requires one to find the sum of infinite trapezoids. But numerically one can find the sum of only finite trapezoids, and hence the approximation of the mathematical procedure. Similarly, to differentiate a function, the differential element approaches to zero but numerically we can only choose a finite value of the differential element. Numerical stability and well-posed problems. Numerical stability is an important notion in numerical analysis. An algorithm is called "numerically stable" if an error, whatever its cause, does not grow to be much larger during the calculation. This happens if the problem is "well-conditioned", meaning that the solution changes by only a small amount if the problem data are changed by a small amount. To the contrary, if a problem is "ill-conditioned", then any small error in the data will grow to be a large error. Both the original problem and the algorithm used to solve that problem can be "well-conditioned" and/or "ill-conditioned", and any combination is possible. So an algorithm that solves a well-conditioned problem may be either numerically stable or numerically unstable. An art of numerical analysis is to find a stable algorithm for solving a well-posed mathematical problem. For instance, computing the square root of 2 (which is roughly 1.41421) is a well-posed problem. Many algorithms solve this problem by starting with an initial approximation "x"1 to formula_1, for instance "x"1=1.4, and then computing improved guesses "x"2, "x"3, etc.. One such method is the famous Babylonian method, which is given by "x""k"+1 = "xk"/2 + 1/"xk". Another iteration, which we will call Method X, is given by "x""k" + 1 = ("x""k"2−2)2 + "x""k". We have calculated a few iterations of each scheme in table form below, with initial guesses "x"1 = 1.4 and "x"1 = 1.42. Observe that the Babylonian method converges fast regardless of the initial guess, whereas Method X converges extremely slowly with initial guess 1.4 and diverges for initial guess 1.42. Hence, the Babylonian method is numerically stable, while Method X is numerically unstable. Areas of study. The field of numerical analysis includes many sub-disciplines. Some of the major ones are: Computing values of functions. One of the simplest problems is the evaluation of a function at a given point. The most straightforward approach, of just plugging in the number in the formula is sometimes not very efficient. For polynomials, a better approach is using the Horner scheme, since it reduces the necessary number of multiplications and additions. Generally, it is important to estimate and control round-off errors arising from the use of floating point arithmetic. Interpolation, extrapolation, and regression. Interpolation solves the following problem: given the value of some unknown function at a number of points, what value does that function have at some other point between the given points? Extrapolation is very similar to interpolation, except that now we want to find the value of the unknown function at a point which is outside the given points. Regression is also similar, but it takes into account that the data is imprecise. Given some points, and a measurement of the value of some function at these points (with an error), we want to determine the unknown function. The least squares-method is one popular way to achieve this. Solving equations and systems of equations. Another fundamental problem is computing the solution of some given equation. Two cases are commonly distinguished, depending on whether the equation is linear or not. For instance, the equation formula_9 is linear while formula_10 is not. Much effort has been put in the development of methods for solving systems of linear equations. Standard direct methods, i.e., methods that use some matrix decomposition are Gaussian elimination, LU decomposition, Cholesky decomposition for symmetric (or hermitian) and positive-definite matrix, and QR decomposition for non-square matrices. Iterative methods such as the Jacobi method, Gauss–Seidel method, successive over-relaxation and conjugate gradient method are usually preferred for large systems. General iterative methods can be developed using a matrix splitting. Root-finding algorithms are used to solve nonlinear equations (they are so named since a root of a function is an argument for which the function yields zero). If the function is differentiable and the derivative is known, then Newton's method is a popular choice. Linearization is another technique for solving nonlinear equations. Solving eigenvalue or singular value problems. Several important problems can be phrased in terms of eigenvalue decompositions or singular value decompositions. For instance, the spectral image compression algorithm is based on the singular value decomposition. The corresponding tool in statistics is called principal component analysis. Optimization. Optimization problems ask for the point at which a given function is maximized (or minimized). Often, the point also has to satisfy some constraints. The field of optimization is further split in several subfields, depending on the form of the objective function and the constraint. For instance, linear programming deals with the case that both the objective function and the constraints are linear. A famous method in linear programming is the simplex method. The method of Lagrange multipliers can be used to reduce optimization problems with constraints to unconstrained optimization problems. Evaluating integrals. Numerical integration, in some instances also known as numerical quadrature, asks for the value of a definite integral. Popular methods use one of the Newton–Cotes formulas (like the midpoint rule or Simpson's rule) or Gaussian quadrature. These methods rely on a "divide and conquer" strategy, whereby an integral on a relatively large set is broken down into integrals on smaller sets. In higher dimensions, where these methods become prohibitively expensive in terms of computational effort, one may use Monte Carlo or quasi-Monte Carlo methods (see Monte Carlo integration), or, in modestly large dimensions, the method of sparse grids. Differential equations. Numerical analysis is also concerned with computing (in an approximate way) the solution of differential equations, both ordinary differential equations and partial differential equations. Partial differential equations are solved by first discretizing the equation, bringing it into a finite-dimensional subspace. This can be done by a finite element method, a finite difference method, or (particularly in engineering) a finite volume method. The theoretical justification of these methods often involves theorems from functional analysis. This reduces the problem to the solution of an algebraic equation. Software. Since the late twentieth century, most algorithms are implemented in a variety of programming languages. The Netlib repository contains various collections of software routines for numerical problems, mostly in Fortran and C. Commercial products implementing many different numerical algorithms include the IMSL and NAG libraries; a free alternative is the GNU Scientific Library. There are several popular numerical computing applications such as MATLAB, S-PLUS, LabVIEW, and IDL as well as free and open source alternatives such as FreeMat, Scilab, GNU Octave (similar to Matlab), IT++ (a C++ library), R (similar to S-PLUS) and certain variants of Python. Performance varies widely: while vector and matrix operations are usually fast, scalar loops may vary in speed by more than an order of magnitude. Many computer algebra systems such as Mathematica also benefit from the availability of arbitrary precision arithmetic which can provide more accurate results. Also, any spreadsheet software can be used to solve simple problems relating to numerical analysis. External links. Journals Software and Code Online Texts Online Course Material
1056796	Rupert Friend (born 1 October 1981) is an English film actor, who is best known for his roles as Mr. Wickham in the 2005 film "Pride and Prejudice", Lieutenant Kurt Kotler in the 2008 film "The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas", and Prince Albert in the 2009 film "The Young Victoria". He currently plays Peter Quinn in Showtime's multiple Emmy Award winning television drama, "Homeland". Early life. Friend grew up in Stonesfield, Oxfordshire, the son of a solicitor mother, Caroline, and a fine arts historian father. He attended Marlborough School in Woodstock. He moved to take A-levels at the Cherwell School and d'Overbroeck's College in Oxford. Friend trained at the Webber Douglas Academy of Dramatic Art in London. He calls himself a late starter, as he was "about to set off sailing around the world when I heard I’d got into drama school. Everyone else there had grown up singing and dancing, whereas I was the opposite". Career. He made his debut in the film "The Libertine", as Billy Downs, a young friend and lover of Johnny Depp's John Wilmot, 2nd Earl of Rochester, for which he was named "outstanding new talent" at the 2005 Satellite Awards. In 2005, Rupert played his first starring role opposite Dame Joan Plowright, Lady Olivier in the bittersweet film, "Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont". The same year, he portrayed Wickham in Joe Wright's version of "Pride and Prejudice". In 2008, he and his Webber Douglas contemporary Tom Mison filmed the short "The Continuing and Lamentable Saga of the Suicide Brothers", which they wrote and in which they play the title characters. He also starred in the film "Cheri" opposite Michelle Pfeiffer and played Albert, Prince Consort in "Young Victoria", co-starring Emily Blunt. In 2010, Friend made his stage debut as Mitchell in the UK premiere of "The Little Dog Laughed". He stars in the films "The Kid", based on the novel by Kevin Lewis, and "Lullaby for Pi". Friend wrote and produced the 2009 short film in which he starred in entitled, "The Continuing and Lamentable Saga of the Suicide Brothers". Then in 2010, Rupert wrote, directed and produced another short film entitled, "Steve". Personal life. He dated Keira Knightley from 2005 to December 2010.
170354	Eratosthenes of Cyrene (, ; ;  – ) was a Greek mathematician, geographer, poet, astronomer, and music theorist. He was the first person to use the word "geography" in Greek and he invented the discipline of geography as we understand it. He invented a system of latitude and longitude. He was the first person to calculate the circumference of the earth by using a measuring system using stades, or the length of stadiums during that time period, and his calculation was remarkably accurate. He was the first to calculate the tilt of the Earth's axis (also with remarkable accuracy). He may also have accurately calculated the distance from the earth to the sun and invented the leap day. He also created the first map of the world incorporating parallels and meridians within his cartographic depictions based on the available geographical knowledge of the era. Eratosthenes was the founder of scientific chronology; he endeavoured to fix the dates of the chief literary and political events from the conquest of Troy. In number theory, he introduced the sieve of Eratosthenes, and efficient method of identifying prime numbers. According to an entry in the Suda (a 10th-century reference), his contemporaries nicknamed him "beta", from the second letter of the Greek alphabet, because he supposedly proved himself to be the second best in the world in almost every field. Life. Eratosthenes was born in Cyrene (in modern-day Libya). He was the third chief librarian of the Great Library of Alexandria, the center of science and learning in the ancient world, and died in Alexandria, then the capital of Ptolemaic Egypt. Eratosthenes studied in Alexandria, and claimed to have also studied for some years in Athens. In 236 BC, he was appointed by Ptolemy III Euergetes as librarian of the Alexandrian library, succeeding the second librarian, Apollonius of Rhodes. He made several important contributions to mathematics and science, and was a good friend to Archimedes. Around 255 BC, he invented the armillary sphere. In "On the Circular Motions of the Celestial Bodies", Cleomedes credited him with having calculated the Earth's circumference around 240 BC, using knowledge of the angle of elevation of the sun at noon on the summer solstice in Alexandria and on Elephantine Island near Syene (now Aswan, Egypt). Eratosthenes believed there was good and bad in every nation and criticized Aristotle for arguing that humanity was divided into Greeks and barbarians, and that the Greeks should keep themselves racially pure. By 195 BC, Eratosthenes became blind. He died in 194 BC at the age of 82. Measurement of the Earth's circumference. Eratosthenes must have had a considerable margin of error and therefore couldn't have used the Egyptian stadion. If Eratosthenes calculation is performed with the correct data, the result is 40,074 km. This is 66 km of difference (0.16%) from the current aproximation of the Earth's circumference. Other astronomical distances. Eusebius of Caesarea in his "Preparatio Evangelica" includes a brief chapter of three sentences on celestial distances (Book XV, Chapter 53). He states simply that Eratosthenes found the distance to the sun to be "" (literally "of stadia myriads 400 and 80,000") and the distance to the moon to be 780,000 stadia. The expression for the distance to the sun has been translated either as 4,080,000 stadia (1903 translation by E. H. Gifford), or as 804,000,000 stadia (edition of Edouard des Places, dated 1974–1991). The meaning depends on whether Eusebius meant 400 myriad plus 80,000 or "400 and 80,000" myriad. With a stadium of 185 meters, 804,000,000 stadia is 149,000,000 kilometers, approximately the distance from the earth to the sun. Prime numbers. Eratosthenes also proposed a simple algorithm for finding prime numbers. This algorithm is known in mathematics as the Sieve of Eratosthenes. In mathematics, the sieve of Eratosthenes (Greek: κόσκινον Ἐρατοσθένους), one of a number of prime number sieves, is a simple, ancient algorithm for finding all prime numbers up to any given limit. It does so by iteratively marking as composite (i.e. not prime) the multiples of each prime, starting with the multiples of 2. The multiples of a given prime are generated starting from that prime, as a sequence of numbers with the same difference, equal to that prime, between consecutive numbers. This is the sieve's key distinction from using trial division to sequentially test each candidate number for divisibility by each prime.
582104	Aaja Nachle (Hindi:आजा नचले English: "Come, Let's Dance") is a 2007 Bollywood film. It was released in India and in the United States on 30 November 2007. The film stars Madhuri Dixit in her first film after six years, alongside Konkona Sen Sharma, Jugal Hansraj, Akshaye Khanna and Kunal Kapoor in pivotal roles. The film opened to mixed reviews and was declared a flop by Box Office India. Plot. Dia (Madhuri Dixit) is a choreographer who lives in New York with her daughter Radha. One day she receives word that her old dance guru, Makarand, is dying. She returns to her hometown called Shamli with Radha to find that he has already died and left her the responsibility of saving the deserted dance theatre Ajanta, which is to be demolished to make way for a shopping mall. Shamli has changed a great deal since Dia left. Her parents left the town in shame after she eloped with an American photographer and their house is now owned by the strict Mr. Chojar and his wife. Her childhood friend Najma is married to Farooque, a successful businessman. Both of them greet Dia coldly. The only ally she has left is her old friend Doctor Saab. To save Ajanta, Dia goes to petition the local MP Raja Uday Singh. He issues her a challenge; if she can put on a successful performance using only people from Shamli, he will cancel the demolition. That night Dia dances in Ajanta and afterwards calls on the people to help her put on a performance of Laila-Majnu. Jeering at her, they leave the theatre one by one, but Raja remains behind to taunt her. Refusing to accept defeat, Dia goes out into the street the next day to scout for talent. When she returns to the theatre she finds that a group of thugs are burning the set, after being ordered by a local election candidate, Chaudhary Om Singh. Instead of being angry, she is intrigued by the ring-leader, Imram, and makes a deal with Chaudhary that she will help him win the next election if he will support Ajanta and if Imram plays Majnu. He agrees and Imram is forced to take on the role. In the town, the girls find out about this and flock to the theatre for the part of Laila. Among them is Anokhi, a tomboy who is in love with Imram. She begs Dia, who is reluctant because of her rough appearance and lack of talent, but agrees in the end thinking that her love for Imram will make her the ideal Laila. Other parts in the play go to Mr. Chojar, who wants to prove to his wife that he is not boring, Chaudhary who plays Laila’s father and Dia’s former fiancé Mohan, who is able to overcome his bitterness towards her. With one month to put the show together, Dia struggles to get Imram and Anokhi to work together. With Dia’s support, Anokhi changes her attitude and appearance to get Imram to take her seriously and soon their relationship deepens. A few days before the show, Farooque pays Chaudhary to abandon Ajanta and makes Najma spread hurtful stories about Dia. Chaudhary tries to get Imram to give up his part, but Imram is aware of Chaudhary’s political intentions and refuses, leading him to be attacked by Chaudhary’s men while Anokhi tries to protect him. With the whole town against her, Dia loses hope until Najma arrives to apologise and asks to be in the show. On the night of the show, Dia is amazed to find that the entire town has come to Ajanta. The troupe put on a performance that amazes and excites the audience, including Chaudhary who is moved to tears. Farooque is stunned to see his wife playing the part of Laila’s mother and Mrs. Chojar is shocked and thrilled when her husband appears singing and dancing on stage. At the end, the audience cheers loudly as the cast return to the stage for an encore. The night is a success and Ajanta is saved. After Dia says her farewells to Shamli, she and Radha leave to find her parents in another part of India. Imram and Anokhi go on to teach dance classes at Ajanta with Doctor Saab’s help and dance becomes an inherent part of Shamli once again. Production. Shooting began on 15 January 2007 at Film City in Mumbai and ended in March 2007. Madhuri Dixit told that during the shoot of Aaja Nachle, she was given special attention by the crew. Madhuri’s favourite chocolates were brought everyday on the shoot. Soundtrack. The film's soundtrack was released on 18 October 2007 composed by Salim-Sulaiman and lyrics by Jaideep Sahni and Piyush Mishra. A few songs from the final sequence of the movie have not been included on the soundtrack including "Yeh Ishq". The film's music was well received. This soundtrack debuted at number 9 for the first week. The song "O Re Piya" was later used in the 2009 Malaysian movie "Talentime". Response. Box office. "Aaja Nachle" opened to a poor response due to controversy. The domestic performance of the film was below average mostly everywhere. Overseas the response was lukewarm as well. Movie managed to collect Rs 207.5 million and was declared a flop by Box Office India from first day due to ban by governments. Reviews. The film was received with mixed reception from both critics and audiences. The lead performances received mixed reviews. Khalid Mohammed from the "Hindustan Times" wrote, "Madhuri Dixit has a cool time. Konkona is overacting while Kunal Kapoor is flustered", while Rajeev Masand from CNN-IBN noted, "Madhuri is the one and only star of the film. Konkona Sen Sharma is nothing short of fantastic. Her greatest strength is that she isn't afraid of making a fool of herself and she doesn't worry about being laughed at. As a result, her performance in Aaja Nachle is fearless and uninhibited." Madhuri was nominated for the best actress award at the 54th Filmfare awards in 2008. Controversy. The movie was banned in Uttar Pradesh, Harayana, Punjab on the 1st three days of its release over alleged casteist remarks. It majorly affected the its Box office Rating Dia, the character played by Madhuri Dixit, sings the lines "Mohalle mein kaisi maara-mar hai; bole mochi bhi khud ko sunar hai" (translated "There is chaos in the neighborhood, even the "Mochi" (Cobbler) calls himself a "Sunar" (Goldsmith)". Dalit groups said the line implied that "Mochis" (the Jatav caste – a caste of cobblers) were inferior to "Sunars" (goldsmiths). Punjab and Haryana followed suit, banning the film the next day. However the ban was later lifted in Uttar Pradesh, Punjab and Haryana, after a written apology from the producers and the removal of the disputed lyrics ("bole mochi bhi khud ko sunar hai") in the title song. The lyrics were replaced by other words "mere dar pe deewano ki bahaar hai"(translated "there is a parade of lovers at my doorstep"). However, a ban was imposed in the city of Patna on 2 December 2007. The issue was also raised in the Indian Parliament (Lok Sabha) by RPI member Ramdas Athawale who sought a ban by the government for hurting Dalit sentiments, but Information and Broadcasting Minister Priya Ranjan Dasmunsi said that it was the responsibility of state governments to take any such action. Subsequent impact. Although the movie was not received too well at the box office, it went on to become a favourite with a segment of the audience, notably Madhuri fans. The title song "Aaja Nachle" became a favourite at clubs and marriages. The movie is regarded as a pure dance film after a long time comparing it to the classics like "Geet Gaya Patharon Ne, Jhanak Jhanak Payal Baaje, Jal Bin Machhli Nritya Bin Bijli" and "Navarang". It was aired on Sony Entertainment Television in the year 2008.
696577	Sonya Jehan ()(born Sonya Rizvi) is a Pakistani Bollywood actress of partial French descent. Jehan's debut film was the big-budget period epic romance "" in 2005. Jehan's original name was "Sonya Rizvi" but she changed her last name to Jehan in honor of her grandmother, Noor Jehan, a legendary singer and actress in British India and Pakistan. Jehan's father is Akbar Hussain Rizvi, who is the eldest son of Noor Jehan. Jehan's mother is Florence Rizvi, who is of French descent and lives in Karachi, Pakistan. She is the owner of one of Karachi's French restaurants, Cafe Flo. Jehan had her early education in Pakistan, she did her O-levels from Centre of Advanced Studies (CAS). And she did her A-Levels from The Lyceum School. She is Muslim by religion. Jehan received a degree in design from St. Martin's College of Art and Design and is currently married to Vivek Narain, an Indian banker.
1059166	Marc Singer (born January 29, 1948) is a Canadian-born American actor best known for his roles in the "Beastmaster" film series, as Mike Donovan in the original 1980s TV series "V", and his role in Dallas as Matt Cantrell. Personal life. Singer was born in Vancouver, British Columbia into a family of performers. His father, Jacques Singer, was a symphony conductor, his mother, Leslie, a concert pianist, and his sister, Lori, is also an actress. His cousin, Bryan, is a noted film producer/director. Marc was raised in Corpus Christi, Texas. He is married to actress Haunani Minn. Career. Before the height of his career, Singer appeared in the "" to the miniseries "Roots" as Col. Warner's elder son Andy. Singer has appeared in several fantasy adventure films and series, such as "The Beastmaster" and its sequels, in which he played the title role, and as Mike Donovan in the 1983 miniseries "V", the 1984 sequel "V: The Final Battle", and the TV series "V: The Series. Other roles include the 1982 film "If You Could See What I Hear" (where he portrayed blind musician Tom Sullivan), "Body Chemistry", "Something for Joey" (as football star John Cappelletti), "Watchers II", "High Desert Kill", "The Fighter", "Go Tell the Spartans" and "Dead Space", as well as General Klaus Von Kraut in "A Man Called Sarge". Singer voiced the character of Man-Bat on '. He has guest-starred on television series, such as "Dallas", "The Twilight Zone", "The Hitchhiker", "Murder, She Wrote", "The Young and the Restless", "The Ray Bradbury Theater" and '. Singer is active in theater and played Petruchio in the American Conservatory Theatre (A.C.T.) production of Shakespeare's "Taming of the Shrew", as well as Christian in "Cyrano de Bergerac". Both "Taming of the Shrew" and "Cyrano" were filmed. Singer is currently teaching children inter-disciplinary tactics at the Heifetz International Music Institute, in Wolfeboro, New Hampshire. In Seattle, he met his future wife, Hawaiian-born actress Haunani Minn. They live a California casual lifestyle, and Marc enjoys running, sailing, martial arts (he is a black belt in Kung fu), boxing, skiing and motorcycling in his spare time, as well as playing some Western classical piano every day. Singer was the first choice for the role of Connor MacLeod in "Highlander", but he turned it down because of his commitment on "V: The Series". He was also the first choice for the role of Whistler in "Blade". Singer appeared in the last episode of Season 2 of the new version of "V", airing on March 15, 2011, however, instead of reprising his role of Mike Donovan, he plays a new character called Lars Tremont.
1044018	Au Pair Girls is a 1972 British comedy film directed by Val Guest.
1064030	Margaret Travolta is an American actress and a sister of actor John Travolta. Early life. Travolta, one of six children (John, Joey, Ellen, Ann, Sam, and Margaret), was born in Englewood, New Jersey, the daughter of Salvatore Travolta, a semi-professional football player turned tire salesman and partner in a tire company, and Helen Cecilia (née Burke), an actress and singer who had appeared in "The Sunshine Sisters", a radio vocal group, and acted and directed before becoming a high school drama and English teacher. Travolta's father was a second-generation Italian American and her mother was Irish American; Her family was Catholic. She was influenced at a very early age by her mother's involvement in local theatre and her sister Ellen's success on stage. While attending the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York, Margaret supported herself by performing in children's theatre, waiting tables and singing in cabarets. Career. Chicago was one of the many stops Margaret made while performing summer stock in the late 1960s. She quickly realized the city's great advertising potential by winning National TV Commercials for Sears, Nescafe and Alberto Culver. It was the Windy City where she met her husband Jim and settled down to raise their two boys. Margaret's talent, hard work and professionalism earned her the reputation of being one of Chicago's Top Voice-over Talents. Her voice career has included such clients as Disney, United Airlines, Kraft, McDonalds and Pillsbury. She currently resides with her family in Los Angeles where she has expanded her resume into more film and television projects in complement to her commercial campaigns for Gerber, Disneyland, Home Depot, City of Hope, and Pearl Vision. Travolta has a solid career in supporting roles, gaining respect on television and in film. Her credits include performances in the films "Hangman's Curse" with David Keith, "Catch Me if You Can" with Leonardo DiCaprio and Tom Hanks, "National Security" with Martin Lawrence and Steve Zahn, "High Fidelity" with John Cusack and Jack Black (as John Cusack's mother), and "While You Were Sleeping" with Sandra Bullock and Bill Pullman. Her television credits include the recurring roles of Dr. Helen Boyd on NYPD Blue and Sister Mary Margaret on "Days of our Lives", and guest starring appearances on "The Drew Carey Show", "Strong Medicine", and "Early Edition".
1064763	The Benchwarmers is a 2006 American sports-comedy film directed by Dennis Dugan. It stars Rob Schneider, David Spade and Jon Heder. It is produced by Revolution Studios and Happy Madison Productions and distributed by Columbia Pictures. Plot. Gus Matthews, Richie Goodman, and Clark Reedy are three adult "nerds"; Clark and Richie were the unpopular children who were constantly bullied by "jocks" and were always left on the bench at their baseball games, because of their less-than-stellar athletic abilities. When a nerdy boy named Nelson and his friends are kicked off a nearby baseball diamond by a team of bullies, Gus and Clark chase the bullies away. When Gus and Clark return with Richie to play again and get back their feel for the game, the bullies return and demand that they leave. Gus challenges the bullies to play them for the field, and the three friends, despite Clark and Richie's poor abilities, win the game. Days later, one of Clark and Richie's bullies, Brad, challenges them to another baseball game with his team, but the three friends win again. Later, Nelson's billionaire father, Mel, tells the trio that he is impressed with their wins, and explains his plan to hold a round-robin with all the mean spirited little league teams in the state, plus their team. The winners will be given access to a new multi-million dollar baseball park that he is building. Wanting to capture the spirit and fun they never had when they were kids, the three decide to form the Benchwarmers and join the tournament. They prepare to compete with all the other teams, despite the fact that they are three adults squaring off against nine kids per team. After winning the first game, Mel's friend, the former New York Yankees superstar Reggie Jackson, helps the Benchwarmers (mainly Clark and Richie) to train using unorthodox methods (childhood pranks and games such as ding-dong ditching, hot potato, and mailbox baseball). In the second game, just as the Benchwarmers are about to lose, Richie uses one of Reggie's unorthodox methods to hit a home run, winning the game. The Benchwarmers then go from county to county (including Gus' hometown, Brookdale), winning the next two games to reach to the semi-finals. In the semi-finals, the rival team hires a drunken 50-year-old Dominican man named Carlos as the team's new pitcher by bribing the umpire. Carlos is more than a match for the Benchwarmers, but they manage to come back by making Carlos too drunk to play well. In the last inning, the umpire has Richie's agoraphobic younger brother, Howie, be on deck. Howie ends up being hit in the arm by Carlos, but forces in the winning run for the Benchwarmers, sending them to the finals. Just when it is looking like the stadium is all theirs, a bully named Steven reports to the public that Gus was a brutal bully himself as a child, not a victim of bullies like Clark and Richie. He had bullied one child so intensely that the boy, named Marcus, had to be sent to a mental institution. Gus is kicked off the team as a result, but at his wife, Liz's, suggestion, Gus apologizes to Marcus. Marcus arrives at the final game to reveal to the crowd that Gus had apologized and felt awful about what he did when he was kid, and Gus re-joins the team, announcing that Marcus is the Benchwarmers' new third-base coach. In the final game, Gus, Clark and Richie do not play; rather, they let a team of Nelson and other children play, to give them a chance to compete. The final is played against a team with a heartless coach, Jerry (dubbed by Gus as "Fairy Jerry") (Craig Kilborn), who practically torments his playersand was Richie and Clark's main bully when they were children. In the bottom of the 6th inning, the Benchwarmers are losing, 42–0, when Jerry's team, after realizing that the true meaning of baseball is to have fun, throws Nelson a "meatball" pitch down the middle. Nelson hits the ball, and Jerry's team lets him score a run, saying that Jerry is "the loser". The Benchwarmers storm the field, celebrating the fact that they were not shut out, and they give an enraged Jerry a taste of his own medicine, hanging him from the dugout fence by his underwear. Later, The Benchwarmers celebrate at Pizza Hut where Richie and Clark manage to kiss girls, and Gus celebrates as he will become a father. Production. "The Benchwarmers" was shot in various locations in California, mostly in Agoura Hills in the following addresses: Chumash Park5550 Medea Valley Drive and Pizza Hut5146 Kanan Road, while the rest of the locations were in Chino Hills; Chino; Culver City; Glendale; Watson Drug Store116 E. Chapman Avenue, Orange; Simi Valley; Westwood, Los Angeles and 33583 Mulholland Hwy, Malibu (Mel's house) Reception. The film received generally negative reviews from critics with a 12% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 66 reviews and 25 out of 100 on Metacritic based on 17 reviews. The consensus on Rotten Tomatoes was "a gross-out comedy that is more sophomoric than funny, "The Benchwarmers" goes down swinging". Rob Schneider earned a Razzie Award nomination for Worst Actor for the movie, alongside "Little Man", but lost to both Shawn and Marlon Wayans, also for "Little Man". Box office. In its opening weekend, the film grossed $19.6 million, ranking second at the North American box office. The film grossed $59,843,754 domestically and $5,113,537 in foreign markets, totaling $64,957,291 worldwide.
1053003	Barbara Jo Lawrence (born February 24, 1930) is an American writer and real-estate businessperson, and retired actress and model. Career. Born to Morris and Bereniece (née Eaton) Lawrence in Carnegie, Oklahoma, she moved with her mother to Kansas City, Missouri as an adolescent. Lawrence's career began as a child photographer's model. She appeared in her first film, Billy Rose's "Diamond Horseshoe" (1945). She was featured in the swashbuckler, "Captain from Castile" (1947) with Tyrone Power. While finishing her studies at UCLA, she attracted the attention of talent scouts, and Lawrence was soon co-starring in a handful of 20th Century Fox movies, including "A Letter to Three Wives", "The Street with No Name", "Thieves' Highway" and "Here Come the Nelsons". Upon moving to MGM, Lawrence starred with Gig Young in the 3D movie, "Arena". She starred in "Her Twelve Men" with Greer Garson. She played the role of Gertie Cummings in the film version of "Oklahoma!", in which she gets into a knockdown catfight with Gloria Grahame ("Ado Annie"). In 1957, she starred in "Kronos" with Jeff Morrow. Although the film was not praised by critics at the time, it eventually attracted a cult following for its imaginative storyline and special effects. Between 1958-1962 Lawrence made four guest appearances on "Perry Mason". In 1958 she played Ellen Waring in "The Half-Wakened Wife" and Gloria Barton in "The Case of the Jilted Jockey." In 1961 she played murderer Lori Stoner in "The Case of the Envious Editor," and in 1962 she played Agnes Theilman in "The Case of the Shapely Shadow." Personal life. In January 1947, she married John Forrest Fontaine, an actor known professionally as Jeffrey Stone. This was kept secret until June 28, 1947, when Lawrence's mother threw her daughter a church wedding in Beverly Hills, but the marriage ended a year and a half later, in 1948. In 1951, she wed Johnny Murphy; the couple had two children before divorcing in 1957. After marrying Lester R. Nelson in 1961, she had two more children. She made several more television appearances in 1962, then retired from acting altogether. She and Nelson divorced in 1976. She has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
1039466	Simon Montagu McBurney, OBE (born 25 August 1957) is an English actor, writer and director. He is the founder and artistic director of Théâtre de Complicité in England, now called Complicite. Early life. McBurney was born in Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, England. His father, Charles McBurney, was an American archaeologist and academic. Charles McBurney was the grandson of the American surgeon Charles McBurney (who was credited with describing McBurney's point, though critics have since challenged its existence). His mother, Anne Francis Edmondstone (née Charles), was a British secretary of English, Scottish and Irish ancestry; his parents were distant cousins who met during World War II. Brought up in a loving, somewhat cloistered, environment, McBurney was 15 before he discovered that Burn's Night wasn't purely a family affair. McBurney studied English literature at Peterhouse, Cambridge graduating in 1980. After his father died, he went to France and trained for the theatre at the Jacques Lecoq Institute in Paris. Career. McBurney is a founder and artistic director of the UK-based theatre company Complicite, which performs throughout the world. He directed their productions of "Street of Crocodiles" (1992), "The Three Lives of Lucie Cabrol" (1994), "Mnemonic" (1999) and "The Elephant Vanishes" (2003), “A Disappearing Number” (2007), “A Dog’s Heart” (2010), "The Master and Margarita” (2011). "A Disappearing Number" was a devised piece conceived and directed by McBurney, taking as its inspiration the story of the collaboration between two of the 20th century's most remarkable pure mathematicians, the Indian genius Srinivasa Ramanujan, and Cambridge don G.H. Hardy. It played at the Barbican in autumn 2008 and toured internationally. In February 2009 McBurney directed the Complicite production "Shun-kin", based on two texts by Jun'ichiro Tanizaki. It was produced in London and Tokyo in 2010. On a freelance basis, McBurney directed the following: "The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui" and "All My Sons" (2008) (both in New York), and live comedy shows, including Lenny Henry's "So Much Things To Say" and "French and Saunders Live in 2000". McBurney is an established screen actor: he played the recurring role of Cecil the choirmaster in "The Vicar of Dibley", CIA computer whiz Garland in "Body of Lies", Dr. Atticus Noyle in "The Manchurian Candidate" (2004), Stone in "The Last King of Scotland", the metrosexual husband Aaron in "Friends with Money", Fra Pavel in "The Golden Compass", Charles James Fox in "The Duchess" and Oliver Lacon in "Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy". He also wrote the story and was an executive producer for "Mr. Bean's Holiday". He appears in the BBC TV comedy series "Rev.", where he plays Archdeacon Robert. He provides the voice of Kreacher in "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 1" (2010). In the series "The Borgias" he plays the canon law expert Johannes Burchard (2011). He is the Artiste Associé of the 66th Festival d'Avignon (2012).
583404	Little Zizou is an 2009 Indian film in Hindi, Gujarati, and English, written and directed by Sooni Taraporevala. Little Zizou is a fast-paced, exuberant, yet poignant comedy about how two battling Mumbai families finally come to terms. "Little Zizou" won the "Rajat Kamal" of 'National Film Award for Best Film on Family Welfare' category at the 56th National Film Awards. Plot. Xerxes, 'Little Zizou' as he is known, is an eleven-year-old soccer-crazy Parsi boy whose fervent wish is that his idol, Zinedine Zidane, visit Mumbai. His older brother Ataxerxes, or Art, is a talented artist whose wild fantasies come to life in surprising ways. Their father Khodaiji is a self-proclaimed protector-of-the-faith who thrives on the attentions (and donations) of hopeful believers. Art burns with unrequited love for the daughter of Khodaiji's arch rival, Pressvala, a free thinking newspaper publisher. And to the extreme displeasure of their other daughter, Xerxes adores the maternal Mrs Pressvala. But the real fireworks begin when Pressvala writes a scathing critique of Khodaiji and public reaction is widespread. As the two households fight, life becomes complicated. Liana ( the younger daughter), finally lets Xerxes be his friend. Khodaiji shuts down Presswala's office. Presswala gets a heart attack. Will Khodaiji reform his ways? Will Pressvala let Art be Zenobe's ( the older daughter)? This is what forms the rest of the story.
1165895	Nehemiah Persoff (born August 2, 1919) is a Jerusalem-born American actor. Background. Born in Jerusalem, Palestine Mandate (now part of Israel), Persoff emigrated with his family to the United States in 1929. After serving in the Army during World War II, he worked as a subway electrician doing signal maintenance while he began to pursue his acting career in the New York Theater. In 1947, he was accepted into the Actors Studio and eventually began his acting career in 1948. Acting career. His first notable role was as "Little Bonaparte" in "Some Like It Hot" (he is the last survivor of the credited cast). He starred in supporting roles in films like "The Greatest Story Ever Told" and - a bit bigger - in "The Comancheros". In the film "Yentl" Persoff portrayed Barbra Streisand's character's father, also the 1988 film "Twins" and the "American Tail" (animated-film series) as Papa Mousekewitz.
1132169	Muppet Treasure Island is a 1996 American musical film based on Robert Louis Stevenson's "Treasure Island". It is the fifth feature film to star The Muppets and was directed by Jim Henson's son Brian Henson. Similarly to the earlier "Muppet Christmas Carol", the key roles were played by live-action actors, with the Muppets in supporting roles. The live-action actors consisted of Tim Curry as Long John Silver, Billy Connolly as Billy Bones, Jennifer Saunders, and introducing Kevin Bishop as Jim Hawkins. Kermit the Frog appeared as Captain Abraham Smollett, Fozzie Bear as Squire Trelawney, Sam the Eagle as Mr. Samuel Arrow, and Miss Piggy as the gender-flipped castaway "Benjamina" Gunn. Following their success as the narrators of "The Muppet Christmas Carol", The Great Gonzo and Rizzo the Rat appeared in specially created roles as Jim's best friends. The film was released on February 16, 1996 before "Muppets Tonight" aired on ABC in March. Plot. Jim Hawkins (Kevin Bishop) is a young orphan living with his friends Gonzo and Rizzo at the "Admiral Benbow" inn in England. Dreaming of sea voyages, Jim only has the tales of Billy Bones (Billy Connolly) to help, Bones telling Jim and the inn patrons of Captain Flint (David Nicholls), his old captain, burying his treasure on a remote island and killing all of his crew, and that no one knows the whereabouts of the map ("Shiver My Timbers"). One night, as Jim, Gonzo, and Rizzo continue to dream of sea voyages ("Something Better"), Billy Bones' fellow pirate Blind Pew arrives and gives Bones the black spot. Bones dies of a heart attack but reveals to Jim, Gonzo and Rizzo he had the map all along beforehand. Blind Pew returns with an army of pirates, but the boys escape with the map. Going to a harbor town, the boys meet the half-wit son of Squire Trelawney (Fozzie Bear) who decides to fund a voyage to find Treasure Island and Flint's fortune. Accompanied by Dr. Livesey (Dr. Bunsen Honeydew) and his assistant Beaker, the boys and Trelawney hire the "Hispaniola", commanded by Captain Abraham Smollett (Kermit the Frog) and his overly strict first mate Mr. Arrow (Sam the Eagle). The boys meet the cook Long John Silver (Tim Curry), a one-legged man who Bones warned the boys about before dying. The ship sets sail ("Sailing for Adventure"), but Smollett is concerned by the pirate-like crew, learning they were hired on Silver's suggestion. Jim and Silver bond, but Gonzo and Rizzo are captured by the pirates Polly Lobster, Mad Monty and Clueless Morgan who demand they surrender the map but Mr. Arrow catches them in the act and imprisons them in the brig. Smollett locks the map in his safe upon ordering Jim to give him the map for safekeeping. Eventually, after all members of the crew battle against starvation ("Cabin Fever"), it becomes apparent that Silver is leader of the pirates and plots a mutiny, fooling Mr. Arrow into leaving the ship to test a lifeboat for safety precautions, and faking his death. Jim, Gonzo and Rizzo learn of Silver's plan and inform Smollett. Smollett planned to leave Long John Silver and those involved on Treasure Island. However, Silver captures Jim upon arrival at Treasure Island (where he tricks him into giving him his crutch) with the other pirates stealing the map from Smollett's safe ("Professional Pirate"). Smollett, Gonzo and Rizzo go to save Jim but are captured by the local tribe of native pigs ruled over by Benjamina Gunn (Miss Piggy), Smollett's ex-fiance who he left at the altar. Jim, Silver and the pirates find the hiding place of Flint's treasure only to find the treasure missing, Silver sending Jim away as a fight breaks out among the pirates. The pirates come across Smollett and Benjamina. Smollett is then suspended from a cliff until Benjamina tells Silver the treasure is hidden in her home, but when Benjamina spits out a kiss from Silver, he leaves the two to dangle, allowing the pair to fall in love again ("Love Led us Here"). Jim, Gonzo and Rizzo find Mr. Arrow who aids them sneaking on board the ship and scaring off the pirates still onboard by posing as his ghost and freeing Trelawney, Dr. Livesey and Beaker, before the figureheads of the "Hispaniola" (Statler and Waldorf) save Smollett and Benjamina (though Waldorf notes that they "didn't save the movie"). A battle breaks out between the heroes and the pirates where Sweetums defects to Smollett's side by taking out some of the pirates. Smollett then fights Silver in a sword battle but loses. Jim and the others rally to their captain's aid, Silver surrendering honourably. All the pirates are stuffed into the brig, but Silver escapes using Mr. Arrow's keys. Jim catches him in the act, but allows Silver to leave for the sake of their friendship. However, Mr. Arrow informs Jim and Smollett that the longboat Silver took was unsafe, forcing Silver to abandon ship and swim to Treasure Island the next day. The crew of the "Hispaniola" sail off into the sunset while some scuba-diving rats discover the treasure. During the credits, it is shown that Silver is marooned on the island with only a wisecracking Moai head for company as the Moai tells him a joke. Cast. There were also five other unnamed human pirates with no speaking lines aboard the "Hispaniola" who stayed on board while the other four pirates went ashore to the island with Long John Silver in search of the buried treasure. The beginning of the movie also features several unnamed human pirates who were members of Captain Flint's Crew that are seen during the opening number Shiver My Timbers. There were also unnamed Human Pirates who were members of Blind Pew's gang who appeared as background characters at the Admiral Benbow Inn. There were also other unnamed non-pirate human characters who appeared both at the Admiral Benbow inn and in the town of Bristol. Muppet performers. Additional Muppets performed by Robbie Barnett, James Barton, Michael Bayliss, Charles Broughton, Simon Buckley, David Bulbeck, Dave Chapman, Marcus Clarke, Sue Dacre, Taylor David, John Eccleston, Geoff Felix, Mike Gallant, Pat Garrett, Louise Gold, Barnaby Harrison, Mark Jefferis, William Todd Jones, Robin Kingsland, Steve Kynman, Christopher Leith, Anthony Lymboura, Mark Mansfield, Joan Morris, Rebecca Nagan, Margaret O'Flaherty, Angie Passmore, Peter Passmore, Marie Phillips, Nigel Plaskitt, Colin Purves, Mike Quinn, Peter Robbins, Gillie Robic, Helena Smee, Katherine Smee, Andrew Spooner, John Thirtle, Ian Thom, Heather Tobias, Jurgen Tombers, Ian Tregonning, Robert Tygner, James Vaughan, John Wheatley, Victoria Willing, Phil Woodfine, Sarah Wright, and Paul Zerdin Note: As Frank Oz was unavailable for most of the film's shooting, he had fellow Muppet Performer Kevin Clash puppeteer his characters for a number of scenes. Frank Oz had already participated in a recorded read-through of the script; Clash used these recordings to help prompt his performances. According to Kevin Clash, Frank Oz gave him a brief description of each of his characters prior to shooting. Oz described Miss Piggy as "a truck driver wanting to be a woman", and Fozzie Bear as somebody similar to Jerry Lewis. Release. Box office. The movie debuted at No.2. The film was a commercial success, grossing $34,327,391 during its theaterical run and surpassing the grosses of "The Muppet Christmas Carol", "The Muppets Take Manhattan" and "The Great Muppet Caper". Critical reception. "Muppet Treasure Island" received generally positive reviews; Rotten Tomatoes reported that 70% of critics gave the film positive reviews. Home media. This is the second "Muppet" film co-produced and released by Walt Disney Pictures, following "The Muppet Christmas Carol". The film has been made available on home video formats. It was released on VHS September 11, 1996, and twice on DVD in Region 1. The first DVD release in the U.S. on June 4, 2002 was in a fullscreen-only format. Other releases of these were in widescreen only format. The DVD release has 3 bonus features added like "Hidden Treasure Commentary", "The Tale of the Story Behind the Tail" and "Treasure Island Sing-Along" (but the menus were in widescreen format). The film was re-released on DVD November 29, 2005 in conjunction with Kermit the Frog's 50th anniversary celebration; this time the DVD contained both fullscreen and widescreen presentations and the 3 extra features were replaced with "Pepe Profiles Present: Fozzie Bear - A Long Day's Journey Into Night Clubs". Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment will release "Muppet Treasure Island" on Blu-ray, alongside "The Great Muppet Caper", called "Of Pirates & Pigs Collection" on December 10, 2013. Music. Soundtrack. "The Muppet Treasure Island: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack" features an instrumental score by Hans Zimmer, with additional music by Harry Gregson-Williams, as well as songs written by pop songwriters Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil. The film's ending includes the reggae number "Love Power" performed by Ziggy Marley, which was released as a single and promoted with a music video featuring Marley and some Muppets with dreadlocks. Lawsuit. The Hormel Foods Corporation (who are the creators of Spam) sued Jim Henson Productions for using the name "Spa'am" for one of the film's tribal pig characters. Their suit was defeated on September 22, 1995. The judge dismissed it after a trial for failure to prove damages, noting, "one might think Hormel would welcome the association with a genuine source of pork." When Spa'am later appeared as a racing boss in "Muppet RaceMania", he was credited as "Pig Chief."
1060564	Alan Cumming, OBE (born 27 January 1965), is a Scottish-American actor who has appeared in numerous films, television shows and plays. His London stage appearances include "Hamlet", the Maniac in "Accidental Death of an Anarchist" (for which he received an Olivier Award), the lead in "Bent", and the National Theatre of Scotland's "The Bacchae". On Broadway he has appeared in "The Threepenny Opera", the master of ceremonies in "Cabaret" (for which he won a Tony Award), and "Design for Living". Cumming also introduces "Masterpiece Mystery!" for PBS and appears on "The Good Wife", for which he has been nominated for two Primetime Emmy Awards, two Screen Actors Guild Awards, and a Satellite Award. He has also written a novel, "Tommy's Tale", had a cable talk show called "Eavesdropping with Alan Cumming", and produced a line of perfumed products labelled "Cumming". He has contributed opinion pieces to many publications and performed a cabaret show, "I Bought A Blue Car Today". Cumming has also promoted LGBT rights, same-sex marriage, AIDS charities, and groups concerned with foreskin preservation and has spoken against the practice of routine infant circumcision. Retaining his British citizenship, Cumming became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 2008. Early life. Cumming was born in Aberfeldy, Perthshire, the son of Mary (née Darling), an insurance company secretary, and Alex Cumming, a forester. He has stated that his father was physically and emotionally abusive towards him. He has one older brother, Tom, and a niece and two nephews. Brought up in Angus, Cumming attended Monikie Primary School and Carnoustie High School. Following graduation, he spent a year and a half employed as an editor and columnist for the pop and TV magazine TOPS before entering the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama in Glasgow. On graduation from Drama school, he married fellow student, Hilary Lyon; they divorced eight years later and had no children. Film. Cumming made his film debut in Gillies MacKinnon's "Passing Glory" in 1986. His feature film debut came in 1992 when he starred alongside Sandrine Bonnaire and Bruno Ganz in Ian Sellar's "Prague", which premiered at the Cannes Film Festival and earned him the Best Actor award at the Atlantic Film Festival and a Scottish BAFTA Best Actor nomination. American audiences first saw him playing the oleaginous Sean Walsh, an unwanted suitor of Minnie Driver's character, in "Circle of Friends", an Irish film released in 1995. Also in 1995 he played Boris Ivanovich Grishenko in the James Bond film "GoldenEye". His first film in the United States was 1997's "Romy and Michele's High School Reunion", playing Sandy Frink opposite Lisa Kudrow and Mira Sorvino. Cumming co-wrote, co-directed, co-produced, and co-starred in the ensemble film "The Anniversary Party" with friend and former "Cabaret" co-star Jennifer Jason Leigh, in 2001. The two starred in the film as a Hollywood couple. The film premiered at Cannes and garnered two Independent Spirit nominations and a National Board of Review award. He went on to star in and direct "Suffering Man's Charity", later released as "Ghost Writer". He had prominent roles in the "Spy Kids" trilogy, "X-Men 2" (as Nightcrawler), Stanley Kubrick's "Eyes Wide Shut" and played Saturninus in the 1999 Julie Taymor film production of "Titus". His many other films include "Investigating Sex", "Josie and the Pussycats", "Emma", "Get Carter", "Plunkett and Macleane", "Son of the Mask", "The Flintstones in Viva Rock Vegas", "Full Grown Men", "Spice World", "Burlesque", "The Tempest", "Boogie Woogie" and the animated films "", "Jackboots on Whitehall" and "The Smurfs". Earlier in his career, Cumming also directed two short films, "Butter" and "Burn Your Phone". The latter began its life as a one-off drama on BBC Radio 4. He continues to direct short films and video pieces. Television. Britain. In the mid-1980s Cumming made his TV debut in the Scottish Television series "Taggart". He went onto star in STV's "Shadow of the Stone" and as Jim Hunter, an evil woodcutter, in the Scottish soap opera "Take The High Road". He also appeared as the Angel in the lyrical Channel 4 series "Heavenly". His breakthrough role was as Bernard Bottle in the Christmas 1991 BBC comedy "Bernard and the Genie", a Richard Curtis-scripted film in which he starred alongside Lenny Henry and Rowan Atkinson. Cumming went on to star as flight attendant Sebastian Flight in the BBC2 cult airline sitcom "The High Life" in 1995. The series was written by Cumming and co-star Forbes Masson, continuing an acting-writing partnership the two had developed since their drama school days. Masson and Cumming had previously formed a cult Kelvinside musical double act "Victor and Barry", who later made many shows and appearances for STV. They performed regularly at the Edinburgh Festival and appeared in the Perrier Pick of the Fringe season at the Donmar Warehouse in 1988, toured Australia in 1989 playing the Sydney Opera House, released a record ("Hear Victor and Barry and Faint") but were killed off onstage at the London Palladium in the early 1990s. Cumming returned to British TV screens in 2011 to star as Desrae, a transvestite, on the Sky series "The Runaway". He has also made several documentaries: "My Brilliant Britain", about Scottish humour, "The Real Cabaret" in which he investigated the Weimar cabaret artistes and the BBC's "Who Do You Think You Are" in which he discovered his maternal grandfather was a war hero who had died playing Russian roulette. United States. Cumming has guested on several US TV shows: In 2001, he appeared in the HBO comedy "Sex and the City" as O the designer in the episode, 'The Real Me'. 2003 saw him playing a cameo role in the sitcom "Frasier", playing Niles' yoga instructor. He also guest starred on "3rd Rock from the Sun". In 2004, he shot Showtime's "Reefer Madness: The Movie Musical" in which he played the role of The Lecturer – a versatile character who narrates the story and transforms himself into several other minor characters. He also appeared in the television films "Neil Simon's The Goodbye Girl", the Disney remake of "Annie". Cumming played the role of Bill Blaikie, a gay drag queen party promoter hired by Kit Porter to manage her café "cum" nightclub, in season 3 of The L Word. His character had an affair with Max, a transgender male character in the show. He appeared in episodes 2 to 7, which originally aired on Showtime in 2006. In 2007, Cumming played Glitch/Ambrose, an inventor whose brain had been partially removed, in the TV miniseries, "Tin Man". He also provided the voice of Chuck Masters, a 50 year-old, paralyzed, HIV-positive gay man in Logo's "Rick and Steve", a stop animation sitcom created by Q. Allan Brocka. Cumming also hosted the Oxygen cable television show, "Eavesdropping with Alan Cumming", in which he interviewed female co-stars of his film roles, and "Midnight Snack", where he and his dogs introduced cult films. Cumming hosted "Saturday Night Live" in 2000, with musical guest Jennifer Lopez. He is also the host of the 2008–2012 seasons of the PBS Masterpiece "Mystery!" series. He currently plays Eli Gold on the CBS television show "The Good Wife". He appeared as a guest star in the latter third of the first season, becoming a series regular in the show's 2010–2011 season. He has been nominated for two Primetime Emmy Awards, two Screen Actors Guild Awards, and Satellite Award for his performance. In 2009, Cumming guest-starred in Lisa Kudrow's improvised web series Web Therapy, portraying Austen Clarke, a possible love interest for Kudrow's character, Fiona Wallice. In 2010, Showtime announced plans to air Web Therapy as a TV series, and Cumming's guest appearance was broadcast as part of the first season finale of the show on September 20, 2011. Originally, the character was intended for a one-off appearance, however, plans were later changed and Cumming became a recurring cast member during the TV series' second season in 2012. Theatre. Cumming began his theatre career in his native Scotland, performing in seasons with the Royal Lyceum Edinburgh, Dundee Rep, The Tron Glasgow and tours with Borderline, Theatre Workshop and Glasgow Citizens' TAG. He played Slupianek in the Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh's 1988 production of "Conquest of the South Pole", which later transferred to the Royal Court in London and earned him an Olivier Award nomination as Most Promising Newcomer.
1291584	Alexandra Holden (born April 30, 1977) is an American film and television actress. Life and career. Holden was born in Northfield, Minnesota, the daughter of Kristi and Barry Holden. She played film roles in "Drop Dead Gorgeous" as Mary Johanson and in "Sugar & Spice" as Fern Rogers. She also starred in the low budget slasher film "Wishcraft". Holden has also had roles in TV and music videos. She appeared on "Friends" as Ross's girlfriend, Elizabeth Stevens. Other TV roles include "Ally McBeal", "Tru Calling", "Six Feet Under" and "Private Practice". In music, she appeared in Aerosmith's "Hole in My Soul" video.
588875	Swami Dada is a 1982 Hindi-language Indian feature film directed by Dev Anand, starring Mithun Chakraborty, Naseeruddin Shah, newcomer "Christine O'Neil", Padmini Kohlapure and Dev Anand. The film was the first credited screen appearance of Jackie Shroff. Music was provided by R.D.Burman for this film. A couple of songs became popular. Plot. Swami Dada is the story of Hari Mohan (Dev Anand), a saintly person who organizes Hindu prayers and discourses in a warm and welcoming atmosphere. He is called "Swami Dada" by everyone. He has many followers, and devotees who throng in large numbers to hear his sermons. What they do not know that Hari Mohan is a professional thief, and is now conspiring with a young woman, and a group of orphaned children to steal the temple jewellery.
1060814	Vin Diesel (born Mark Sinclair or Mark Sinclair Vincent; July 18, 1967) is an American actor, producer, director, and screenwriter. He came to prominence in the late 1990s, and first became known for appearing in Steven Spielberg's "Saving Private Ryan" in 1998. He is most known for his portrayings of Riddick in "The Chronicles of Riddick" trilogy (2001-2013), and of Dominic Toretto in "The Fast and the Furious" film series (2001-present), two franchises in which he also acted as producer. He also starred in "xXx" (2002) and Sidney Lumet's "Find Me Guilty" (2006). His voice acting work includes Brad Bird's "The Iron Giant" (1999), the video games of "The Chronicles of Riddick" franchise, and the upcoming "Guardians of the Galaxy" adaptation of the Marvel comics of the same name. As a filmmaker, Diesel directed, wrote, produced and starred in the drama film "Strays", as well as in two short films. He is also the founder of the production companies One Race Films, Racetrack Records, and Tigon Studios. Early life. Diesel was born in New York City, New York. His mother, Delora Sherleen (Sinclair) Vincent, is an astrologer. Diesel has stated that he is "of ambiguous ethnicity". His mother's background includes Scottish, Italian and German. He has never met his biological father, and has stated that "all I know from my mother is that I have connections to many different cultures". Diesel has self-identified as "definitely a person of colour". He was raised by his Caucasian mother and African-American stepfather, Irving H. Vincent, an acting instructor and theater manager. He made his stage debut at age seven when he appeared in the children's play "Dinosaur Door", written by Barbara Garson. The play was produced at Theater for the New City in New York's Greenwich Village. His involvement in the play came about when he, his brother, and some friends had broken into Theater for the New City's space on Jane Street with the intent to vandalize it. They were confronted by the theater's artistic director, Crystal Field, who, instead of calling the police, handed them scripts and offered them parts in the upcoming show. Diesel remained involved with the theater throughout adolescence, going on to attend the city's Hunter College, where his creative writing studies led him to begin screenwriting. He has identified himself as a "multi-faceted" actor as a result of early difficulties finding roles due to his mixed heritage. He changed his name to Vin Diesel while working as a bouncer at the New York nightclub Tunnel, because one's real name is not usually given out in that business. The name "Vin" is simply a shortened version of "Vincent". He received the nickname "Diesel" from his friends, who said he ran off diesel fuel, referring to his non-stop energy. Career. 1990s. Diesel's first film role was a brief uncredited appearance in the film "Awakenings" (1990). He then wrote, directed, produced, and starred in the short film "Multi-Facial" (1994), a short semi-autobiographical film which follows a struggling actor stuck in the audition process. The film was selected for screening at the 1995 Cannes Festival. He made his first feature-length film, "Strays" (1997), an urban drama in which he played a gang leader whose love for a woman inspires him to try to change his ways. Written, directed, and produced by Diesel, the film was selected for competition at the 1997 Sundance Festival, leading to an MTV deal to turn it into a series. He was cast in Steven Spielberg's 1998 Oscar-winning film "Saving Private Ryan" on the poignancy of his performance in "Multi-Facial". In 1999, he earned critical acclaim for his voice work as the title character in the animation film "The Iron Giant". 2000s. Diesel had a major role in the business drama "Boiler Room" (2000), and then got his breakthrough role as the anti-hero Riddick in the science-fiction film "Pitch Black" (2000). Diesel attained action hero stardom with two box office hits: the street racing action film "The Fast and the Furious" (2001), and the action thriller "xXx" (2002). In 2004, Diesel reprised his role as Riddick in "The Chronicles of Riddick", which was a box office failure considering the large budget. In 2005, he played a lighthearted role in the comedy film "The Pacifier", which became a box office success. In 2006, he chose a dramatic role playing real-life mobster Jack DiNorscio in "Find Me Guilty". Although he received critical acclaim for his performance, the film did poorly at the box office. Later that year, Diesel made a cameo appearance in ', reprising his role from "The Fast and the Furious". He was originally offered the lead in "2 Fast 2 Furious", but turned it down. He was also offered the chance to reprise his role from "xXx" in ', but turned it down as well. In 2007, Diesel was set to produce and star as Agent 47 in the film adaptation of the video game "Hitman", but eventually pulled back and served as executive producer on the film instead. In 2008, he starred in the science-fiction action thriller "Babylon A.D.". Diesel returned to the "The Fast and The Furious" series, alongside all the actors from the original film, in "Fast & Furious", which was released in April 2009. 2010s. In 2011, Diesel returned for "Fast Five", the fifth film in the series, and reprised the role again in "Fast & Furious 6" (2013). He will star in "Riddick", slated for release in September 2013. In April 2013, Diesel announced that "Fast & Furious 7" would be released in July 2014, with production scheduled to begin in August 2013. Diesel will be voicing Groot in upcoming Marvel Cinematic Universe film "Guardians of the Galaxy". In August 2013, Diesel earned a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Personal life. Diesel is noted for his recognizably deep voice; he has said that his voice broke at around age 15, giving him a mature sounding voice on the telephone. He has a twin brother, Paul, a younger brother, Tim, and a sister, Samantha. Around 2001, Diesel dated his "Fast and the Furious" co-star, Michelle Rodriguez. Diesel has a daughter, Hania Riley (born 2008), and a son with his girlfriend, Mexican model Paloma Jimenez. Speaking to "An tEolas", an Irish newspaper, Diesel stated he has been seen as a hard man, but is in touch with his soft side as a father. Diesel claims that he prefers dating in Europe, where he is less likely to be recognized and where celebrities are not romantically linked to each other. He prefers to maintain his privacy regarding his personal life: "I'm not gonna put it out there on a magazine cover like some other actors. I come from the Harrison Ford, Marlon Brando, Robert De Niro, Al Pacino code of silence." Diesel has expressed his love for the Dominican Republic, and how he relates to its multicultural facets. He is also acquainted with its president, Leonel Fernández, and appeared in one of Fernández's earlier campaign ads. "Los Bandoleros", a short film directed by Diesel, was also filmed in the Dominican Republic. Diesel has played "Dungeons & Dragons" for over 20 years, and wrote the foreword for the commemorative book "". In the 30th anniversary issue of "Dragon" magazine, it was revealed that Diesel had a fake tattoo of his character's name, Melkor, on his stomach while filming "xXx".
952309	The Sorrow and the Pity () is a two-part 1969 documentary film by Marcel Ophüls about the French Resistance and collaboration between the Vichy government and Nazi Germany during World War II. The film uses interviews with a German officer, collaborators, and resistance fighters from Clermont-Ferrand. They comment on the nature of and reasons for collaboration. The reasons include antisemitism, anglophobia, fear of Bolsheviks and Soviet invasion, the desire for power, and simple caution. Synopsis. Part One of the film, "The Collapse," has an extended interview with Pierre Mendès-France. He was jailed by the Vichy government on charges of desertion, but escaped from jail to join Charles de Gaulle's forces operating out of England, and later served as Prime Minister of liberated France. Part Two, "The Choice", revolves around Christian de la Mazière, who is something of a counterpoint to Mendès-France. Whereas Mendès-France was a French Jewish political figure who joined the Resistance, de la Mazière, an aristocrat who embraced Fascism, was one of 7,000 French youth to fight on the Eastern Front wearing German uniforms.
582495	Murder 2 is a 2011 Bollywood psychological thriller film and the quasi-sequel to the 2004 film, "Murder" and the second film in the "Murder film series". It stars Emraan Hashmi and Jacqueline Fernandez in leading roles, with Prashant Narayanan and Sulagna Panigrahi featuring in pivitol roles. Directed by Mohit Suri and produced by Mukesh Bhatt, the film released on 8 July 2011. The theatrical trailer of the film was revealed on 1 June 2011 and also in cinemas with "Ready". It was the second film in a series of quasi-sequels released under the Bhatt Banner including "Raaz – The Mystery Continues", "Jannat 2", "Jism 2", "Raaz 3D" and "", each of which had nothing to do with their respective prequels, but somehow fell into the same genre following a similar story. "Murder 2" takes the same plot elements from Academy Award-winning Hollywood film "The Silence of the Lambs" (1991) as well as South Korean film "The Chaser" (2008). The film did well in the box office and was declared a 'blockbuster' by Box Office India. It is one of the highest grossing Bollywood films of 2011. Plot. Arjun Bhagwat (Emraan Hashmi) is an ex-police officer who is hungry for money and earns his bread by doing wrong things. He is an atheist (Nastik) but regularly visits church to donate money to orphans. Priya (Jacqueline Fernandez), a model, is in a passionate but confused relationship with Arjun. Whilst Priya is in love with Arjun, Arjun merely lusts for her and he forces upon her in the beginning of movie but she too enjoys his company. Arjun meets a gangster, Sameer, who has been going through a slump in his business due to an unexplained disappearance of his hookers. Sameer offers him a huge amount of money to locate the missing girls, which Arjun accepts. During his investigation, Arjun finds a phone number linked to the missing girls. He tells Sameer to send a prostitute to the number. Sameer decides to send Reshma (Sulagna Panigrahi), a 17-year-old college newcomer in the business, who has entered prostitution to feed her family, though keeps this a secret from them. Reshma is sent to the house of Dheeraj Pandey (Prashant Narayanan), who is actually a psychopath murderer responsible for torturing and killing the missing hookers. He decides to do the same with Reshma and throws her in a dark well, with the intention of torturing her till her death. Arjun finds out that Dheeraj is the murderer and tells the police. While Dheeraj is held in jail, the commissioner calls a psychiatrist to extract his confession. Dheeraj tells the doctor that he kills women because he thinks they take advantage of men. He also reveals that he castrated himself and became an eunuch to get rid of his sex addiction, with the help of a fellow eunuch and big-shot politician, Nirmala Pandit. Dheeraj is eventually let out under Nirmala Pandit's influence. Meanwhile, Reshma escapes from the well and tries to find her way out through the forest. Arjun meets Dheeraj's family, who reveal that Dheeraj used to beat his wife. He next meets a private dancer, Sonia, who had also been tortured by Dheeraj, but managed to escape. Arjun then meets an idol-maker who used to work with Dheeraj. The maker tells him that Dheeraj used to make idols of devils instead of deities and killed the factory-owner who tried to stop him. Inspector Sadaa (Sudhanshu Pandey) informs Arjun that Dheeraj is free, and the police try to track him down as quickly as possible. Nirmala and Dheeraj enter the same temple where Reshma is hiding. Nirmala and the priest, who had both been unaware of Dheeraj's true nature, are killed by Dheeraj, but not before the priest reveals that Reshma is there. Dheeraj finds the terrified Reshma and brutally murders her, escaping just before Arjun and the cops arrive. Arjun finds Reshma's body and breaks down, feeling guilty and responsible for her death. Dheeraj targets Priya next whom she calls for a photoshoot and tries to torture her, but Arjun saves her, engaging Dheeraj in a fight as police officers show up. They request Arjun not to kill Dheeraj. Dheeraj then plays the tape he recorded when he was torturing Reshma. Hearing Reshma's pleading cries, Arjun, tormented by her death and blaming himself for it, angrily kills Dheeraj, ending his reign of terror once and for all. The film ends with Arjun visiting a church with Priya, implying that Priya's near death has made Arjun realise his love for her. Production and filming. The film was shot in Mumbai and Goa. Earlier, Bipasha Basu was offered the part of the leading lady, but she refused. Then Mohit Suri offered the leading role to Asin Thottumkal but, she thought the role of leading lady is not so powerful so she also refused to do this role. The part then went to Jacqueline Fernandez, after also considering actress Sonal Chauhan. Basu was also offered the item number "Aa Zara". When she refused, the song was given to Yana Gupta. The song "Haal-E-Dil" had to be re-shot to make it more suitable for television promos. Yana Gupta's item number "Aa Zara" was not aired on television promos as it was too explicit and suggestive for audiences under 18. Instead, the number was shot with Jacqueline Fernandez and Emraan Hashmi, which was aired on television. The original number with Yana was retained in the film. The film has been claimed to be an unofficial remake of South Korean movie "The Chaser", whilst being influenced by real-life events including Ted Bundy's case. The DVD of the film was released on 1 August 2011. Reception. Critical reception. "Murder 2" received mixed to positive reviews from various critics of India. Taran Adarsh of Bollywood Hungama gave it 4/5 stars and stated ""Murder 2" is one of the finest crime stories to come out of the Hindi film industry. Also, as a film, it lives up to the expectations that you may associate from a sequel of a smash hit." Nikhat Kazmi of The Times Of India gave it 3.5/5 stars coomenting,'Murder 2 has enough to give the masses a mast time'.IANS gave it 3/5 stars. Komal Nahta of Koimoi rated "Murder 2" with 3/5 stars and said – " It doesn’t have too much to offer in terms of entertainment as it is a dark film but its plus points are the abundant sex scenes and the good music. Its reasonable budget on the one hand, and wonderful recovery from sale of its satellite, music and worldwide theatrical rights on the other have ensured that the producers have made a handsome profit before release." Pankaj Sabnani of Glamsham gave it 3/5 stars while writng that'An intriguing plot supported by superb performances, make MURDER 2 a 'killer' film'. Daily Bhaskar also gave it 3/5 stars, stating that ' If Emraan plus Jacqueline under the name 'Murder 2' don't arise your interest enough, then the story will surely do the trick'. Saibal Chatterjee of NDTV gave the movie 2.5/5 stars. Nikita Kapoor of FilmiTadka rated the film with 2.5/5 stars and said – "Overall "Murder 2" is an adult, violent, and gruesome movie, which is a good thing, however after a time you feel as if the film was written and directed only for Emraan Hashmi (excessive presence in every frame) which doesn’t go down well with me." Raja Sen of Rediff gave it 1.5/5 stars and wrote in his review – ""Murder 2" is flat, boring and not worth talking about. Even Emraan, sporting less stubble than usual, seems baby-faced as he goes through the motions. It might be inspired by some obscure film, but I don't even care enough to look for its name. By now, I've come to accept that the Bhatts have a bigger DVD collection than me. I do wish they'd stop flaunting it, though." Box office. The film opened with full houses across India with occupancy ranging from 70–100%, earning . The film grossed in its opening weekend. After the weekend, the film grossed on Monday, on Tuesday and on Wednesday. The film went on to gross in its first week, although collections were affected on 13–14 July due to the bomb blasts in Mumbai on 13 July 2011. As of February 2012, Box Office India claimed that it was the 28th biggest opening week of all time. The movie dominated the single screens despite new releases and grossed in the second week despite limited multiplex release. "Murder 2" grossed approximately at the Indian box office. The all India distributor share stood at . It was elevated to "Blockbuster" status all over India. Soundtrack. Tracklist. The films soundtrack is composed by Mithoon, Harshit Saxena & Sangeet-Sidharath. Lyrics are penned by Mithoon, Kumaar & Syeed Quadri. Songs are as follows : - Reception. The album received positive reviews from critics. Joginder Tuteja from Bollywood Hungama gave the album a 3/5 stars saying that ""Murder 2" turns out to be a good deal overall." Musicaloud gave the album 3.5/5 stars. Sequel. After the success of the first two instalments, the producers released a third instalment "Murder 3", on 15 February 2013. The film, which was an official remake of Spanish film "The Hidden Face", starred Randeep Hooda, Aditi Rao Hydari and Sara Loren in lead roles. However, unlike the earlier parts, it under performed at the box office
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1163284	Wonga Phillip "Phil" Harris (June 24, 1904 – August 11, 1995) was an American singer, songwriter, jazz musician, actor, and comedian. He was born to Harry and Dollie Harris. His mother was of Irish descent. Though successful as an orchestra leader, Harris is remembered today for his recordings as a vocalist, his voice work in animation (probably most famous later in his career for his roles as bears, one being Baloo in Disney's "The Jungle Book", and as Little John in Disney's "Robin Hood"). He also voiced Thomas O'Malley in Disney's "The Aristocats". Harris was also a pioneer in radio situation comedy, first with Jack Benny, and then in a series in which he co-starred with his wife, singer-actress Alice Faye in eight years. Bandleader. Harris was born in Linton, Indiana, but grew up in Nashville, Tennessee, and identified himself as a Southerner (his hallmark song was "That's What I Like About the South"). His upbringing accounted for both his trace of a Southern accent and, in later years, the self-deprecating Southern jokes of his radio character. The son of two circus performers, Harris's first work as a drummer came when his father, as tent bandleader, hired him to play with the circus band. Harris began his music career as a drummer in San Francisco, forming an orchestra with Carol Lofner in the latter 1920s and starting a long engagement at the St. Francis Hotel. The partnership ended by 1932, and Harris led and sang with his own band, now based in Los Angeles. Phil Harris also played drums in the Henry Halstead Big Band Orchestra during the mid-1920s. In 1931, Lofner-Harris recorded for Victor. After Harris recorded for Columbia in 1933, he recorded for Decca in 1935. From December 1936, through March 1937, he recorded 16 sides for Vocalion. Most were hot swing tunes that used a very interesting gimmick; they faded up and faded out with a piano solo. These were probably arranged by pianist Skippy Anderson. On September 2, 1927, he married actress Marcia Ralstone in Sydney, Australia; they had met when he played a concert date. The couple adopted a son, Phil Harris, Jr. (b. 1935), but they divorced in September, 1940. In 1933, he made a short film for RKO called "So This Is Harris!", which won an Academy Award for best live action short subject. He followed with a feature-length film, "Melody Cruise". Both films were created by the same team that next produced "Flying Down to Rio", which started the successful careers of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. Phil also starred in "I Love a Bandleader" with Leslie Brooks in 1945. Here he played a housepainter who gets amnesia, then starts to lead a band. His nickname was 'Old Curly'. Additionally, he appeared in "Thunder Across the Pacific" (1951), alongside Forrest Tucker and Walter Brennan, during the same year, he made a cameo appearance in the Warner Bros. musical, "Starlift", with Janice Rule and Dick Wesson, and was featured in "The High and the Mighty" with John Wayne in 1954. Phil was in a movie released in 1956 called Goodbye, My Lady co-starring with Walter Brennan. Radio. In 1936, Harris became musical director of "The Jell-O Show Starring Jack Benny" (later renamed "The Jack Benny Program"), singing and leading his band, with Mahlon Merrick writing much of the show's music. When he showed a knack for snappy one-liners, he joined the Benny ensemble portraying himself, but scripted as a hip-talking, hard-drinking, brash Southerner, whose good nature often overcame his ego. His first trademark was his jive-talk nicknaming of the others in the Benny orbit. Benny was "Jackson," for example; Harris's usual entry was a cheerful "Hiya, Jackson!". He usually referred to Mary Livingstone as "Livvy". His signature song, belying his actual Hoosier birthplace, was "That's What I Like About the South." His comic persona—that of a musical idiot who never met a bottle he didn't like or a mirror he could bypass—masked his band's evolution into a smooth, up-tempo big band. Many of Harris's vocal recordings were comic novelty "talking blues" numbers not unlike the talking numbers of African-American comedian Bert Williams, a style sometimes considered a precursor to modern rap music. In time, Harris's comic persona made such an impression that he got a chance to step out on his own, though he remained loyal to Benny and a key member of the Benny cast for a few more years. In 1946, Harris and wife Alice Faye began co-hosting "The Fitch Bandwagon", a comedy-variety program that followed the Benny show on Sunday nights. It was sponsored by hair products manufacturer F.W. Fitch Co. of Des Moines, Iowa. Phil and Alice. Harris and Faye married in 1941; it was a second marriage for both (Faye had been married briefly to singer-actor Tony Martin) and lasted 54 years, until Harris's death. Harris engaged in a fistfight at the Trocadero nightclub in 1938 with RKO studio mogul Bob Stevens; the cause was reported to be over Faye after Stevens and Faye had ended a romantic relationship. In 1942, Harris and his entire band enlisted in the U.S. Navy, and they served until the end of World War II. By 1946, Faye had all but ended her film career. She drove off the 20th Century Fox lot after studio czar Darryl F. Zanuck reputedly edited her scenes out of "Fallen Angel" (1945) to pump up his protege Linda Darnell. Originally a vehicle for big bands, including Harris' own, "The Fitch Bandwagon" became something else entirely when Harris and Faye's family skits made them the show's breakout stars. Coinciding with their desire to settle in southern California and raise their children – Phil Jr. (born 1935 and whom Harris had adopted while previously married), Alice (born 1942) and Phyllis (born 1944), "The Fitch Bandwagon" name disappeared when Rexall became the program's sponsor in 1948; the show was renamed "The Phil Harris-Alice Faye Show". By that time, it had become a full-fledged situation comedy featuring one music spot each for Harris and Faye. Harris was the vain, language-challenged, stumbling husband, and Faye was his acid but loving wife on the air. Off the air, as radio historian Gerald S. Nachman has recorded, Harris was actually a soft-spoken, modest man. "But it was the 'Phil Harris' character," wrote radio historian John Dunning (in "On the Air: The Encyclopedia of Old-Time Radio"), "that carried show: his timing was exceeded by none, including Benny himself. Like Benny, Harris played a character who in real life would be intolerable. That both men projected themselves through this charade and made their characters treasures of the air was a notable feat." Young actresses Jeanine Roos and Anne Whitfield played the Harris' two young daughters on the air; unlike Ozzie and Harriet Nelson's two young sons, the Harris's real-life children did not seem to have any inclination to join their famed parents on the air. The series also featured Gale Gordon as Mr. Scott, their sponsor's harried representative, and "Great Gildersleeve" co-star Walter Tetley as obnoxious grocery boy Julius Abruzzio. Elliott Lewis – already a distinguished radio performer and producer/director – found himself in a comic role that would be long remembered, playing Frank Remley, a layabout guitarist whose mission in life seemed to be getting Harris into and out of trouble almost continuously; his "I know a guy . . ." – usually, referring to a shady character he'd enlist to help Harris out of a typical jam – became one of the show's catch-phrases. "The Phil Harris-Alice Faye Show" ran until 1954, by which time radio had succumbed to television. Harris continued to appear on Jack Benny's show, along with his own, from 1948 to 1952. Because the Harris show aired immediately after Benny's on a different network (Harris and Faye were still on NBC, whereas Benny jumped his show to CBS in 1949), Harris would only appear during the first half of the Benny show; he would then leave the CBS studio and walk approximately one block to his own studio down the street, arriving just in time for the start of his own program. He was succeeded as Benny's orchestra leader in the fall of 1952 by Bob Crosby. After radio. After the show ended, Harris revived his music career. In 1956, he appeared in the film "Good-bye, My Lady". He made numerous guest appearances on 1960s and 1970s TV shows, including the "Kraft Music Hall", "Burke's Law", with the most memorable being as a college-educated, jive-talking horn-player in "Who Killed Billy Jo", "The Dean Martin Show", "F Troop", "The Hollywood Palace" and other musical variety programs. He appeared on ABC's "The American Sportsman" hosted by Grits Gresham, and later sports announcer Curt Gowdy, which took celebrities on hunting, fishing or shooting trips around the world. Song hits by Harris included the early 1950s novelty song, "The Thing." The song describes the hapless finder of a box with a mysterious secret and his efforts to rid himself of it. Harris also spent time in the 1970s and early 1980s leading a band that appeared often in Las Vegas, often on the same bill with swing era legend Harry James. Harris was also a close friend and associate of Bing Crosby and appeared in an episode of ABC's short-lived "The Bing Crosby Show" sitcom. After Crosby died in 1977, Harris sat in for his old friend doing color commentary for the telecast of the annual Bing Crosby Pro-Am Golf Tournament. Harris said of Crosby's death, "I have grown up to learn that God doesn't make mistakes. Today, I'm beginning to doubt that." An old episode of "The Phil Harris-Alice Faye Show" began with Harris telling the story of how he once won the tournament. Animation. He worked as a vocalist and voice actor for animated films, lending his distinctive voice to the Disney animated features "The Jungle Book" (1967) as Baloo, "The Aristocats" (1970) as Thomas O'Malley and "Robin Hood" (1973) as Little John (another bear). "The Jungle Book" was his greatest success in the years at the end of his radio career. As Baloo the Sloth Bear, he sings one of the film's showstoppers, "The Bare Necessities," a performance that introduced Harris to a new generation of young fans who had no awareness of his radio fame. He famously appears to sing the word 'founder' instead of 'fonder' (after the line 'wherever I wander') in this song although this is simply the Southern pronunciation of the word 'fonder' whimsically exaggerated and should not be construed as a mistake. The recording still survives in TV adverts today. Harris also joined Louis Prima in "I Wanna Be Like You," delivering a memorable scat singing performance. "The Aristocats" features Harris as alley cat Abraham de Lacey Giuseppe Casey Thomas O'Malley, who joins in the film's showstopper, "Ev'rybody Wants to Be a Cat," with Scatman Crothers. In "Robin Hood", Harris's Little John sings the popular anti-Prince John tune "The Phony King of England." In 1989, Harris briefly returned to Disney to once again voice Baloo, this time for the cartoon series "TaleSpin". But after a few recording sessions he was replaced by Ed Gilbert. His last role was in 1991 film "Rock-a-Doodle", directed by Don Bluth, as the friendly, laid-back Basset Hound Patou. Honors. Harris was a longtime resident and benefactor of Palm Springs, California, where Crosby also made his home. Harris was also a benefactor of his birthplace of Linton, Indiana, establishing scholarships in his honor for promising high school students, performing at the high school, and hosting a celebrity golf tournament in his honor every year. Harris and Faye donated most of their show business memorabilia and papers to Linton's public library. In 1994, a Golden Palm Star on the Palm Springs Walk of Stars was dedicated to him. Death and legacy. Harris died of a heart attack at his Rancho Mirage home on August 11, 1995. Alice Faye died of stomach cancer three years later. Two years before his death, Harris was inducted into the Indiana Hall of Fame. Both are interred at Forest Lawn-Cathedral City in Riverside County, California. Phyllis Harris was last reported living in St. Louis (she had been with her mother at her father's bedside when he died), while Alice Harris Regan was reported living in New Orleans. Harris remained grateful to radio for the difference it made in his professional and personal life. He was quoted as saying, "If it hadn't been for radio, I would still be a traveling orchestra leader. For 17 years I played one-night stands, sleeping on buses. I never even voted, because I didn't have any residence." Episodes of "The Phil Harris-Alice Faye Show" turn up frequently on compact-disc collections of old-time radio classics, both on their own sets and amid various comedy collections. At least half the surviving episodes of the show's final season include Harris's audience warmup routine, performed for ten minutes before the show was to begin recording. Many old-time radio historians (such as Nachman and Dunning) consider the show at its best to have stood the test of time, thanks to above-average writing (mostly by the team of Ray Singer and Dick Chevillat) and the two stars who executed it with impeccable timing.
1102501	Gerolamo (or Girolamo, or Geronimo) Cardano (; ; 24 September 1501 – 21 September 1576) was an Italian Renaissance mathematician, physician, astrologer and gambler. He wrote more than 200 works on medicine, mathematics, physics, philosophy, religion, and music. His gambling led him to formulate elementary rules in probability, making him one of the founders of the field. Early life and education. He was born in Pavia, Lombardy , the illegitimate child of Fazio Cardano, a mathematically gifted lawyer, who was a friend of Leonardo da Vinci. In his autobiography, Cardano claimed that his mother had attempted to abort him. Shortly before his birth, his mother had to move from Milan to Pavia to escape the Plague; her three other children died from the disease. In 1520, he entered the University of Pavia and later in Padua studied medicine. His eccentric and confrontational style did not earn him many friends and he had a difficult time finding work after his studies ended. In 1525, Cardano repeatedly applied to the College of Physicians in Milan, but was not admitted owing to his combative reputation and illegitimate birth. Eventually, he managed to develop a considerable reputation as a physician and his services were highly valued at the courts. He was the first to describe typhoid fever. In 1553 he cured the Scottish Archbishop of St Andrews of a disease that had left him speechless and was thought incurable. The diplomat Thomas Randolph recorded the "merry tales" rumoured about his methods still current in Edinburgh nine years later. Cardano himself wrote that the Archbishop had been short of breath for ten years, and after the cure was effected by his assistant, he was paid 1,400 gold crowns. Mathematics. Today, he is best known for his achievements in algebra. Cardano was the first mathematician to make systematic use of numbers less than zero. He published the solutions to the cubic and quartic equations in his 1545 book "Ars Magna". The solution to one particular case of the cubic equation formula_1 (in modern notation), was communicated to him by Niccolò Fontana Tartaglia (who later claimed that Cardano had sworn not to reveal it, and engaged Cardano in a decade-long fight), and the quartic was solved by Cardano's student Lodovico Ferrari. Both were acknowledged in the foreword of the book, as well as in several places within its body. In his exposition, he acknowledged the existence of what are now called imaginary numbers, although he did not understand their properties (described for the first time by his Italian contemporary Rafael Bombelli, although mathematical field theory was developed centuries later). In "Opus novum de proportionibus" he introduced the binomial coefficients and the binomial theorem. Cardano was notoriously short of money and kept himself solvent by being an accomplished gambler and chess player. His book about games of chance, "Liber de ludo aleae" ("Book on Games of Chance"), written around 1564, but not published until 1663, contains the first systematic treatment of probability, as well as a section on effective cheating methods. Cardano invented several mechanical devices including the combination lock, the gimbal consisting of three concentric rings allowing a supported compass or gyroscope to rotate freely, and the Cardan shaft with universal joints, which allows the transmission of rotary motion at various angles and is used in vehicles to this day. He studied hypocycloids, published in "de proportionibus" 1570. The generating circles of these hypocycloids were later named Cardano circles or cardanic circles and were used for the construction of the first high-speed printing presses. He made several contributions to hydrodynamics and held that perpetual motion is impossible, except in celestial bodies. He published two encyclopedias of natural science which contain a wide variety of inventions, facts, and occult superstitions. He also introduced the Cardan grille, a cryptographic tool, in 1550. Someone also assigned to Cardano the credit for the invention of the so-called "Cardano's Rings", also called Chinese Rings, but it is very probable that they are more ancient than Cardano. Significantly, in the history of education of the deaf, he said that deaf people were capable of using their minds, argued for the importance of teaching them, and was one of the first to state that deaf people could learn to read and write without learning how to speak first. He was familiar with a report by Rudolph Agricola about a deaf mute who had learned to write. De Subtilitate 1552. As quoted from Charles Lyell's "Principles of Geology": The title of a work of Cardano's, published in 1552, 'De Subtilitate' (corresponding to what would now be called Transcendental Philosophy), would lead us to expect, in the chapter on minerals, many far fetched theories characteristic of that age; but when treating of petrified shells, he decided that they clearly indicated the former sojourn of the sea upon the mountains. Later years. Cardano's eldest and favorite son was executed in 1560 after he confessed to having poisoned his cuckolding wife. His other son was a gambler, who stole money from him. He allegedly cropped the ears of one of his sons. Cardano himself was accused of heresy in 1570 because he had computed and published the horoscope of Jesus in 1554. Apparently, his own son contributed to the prosecution, bribed by Tartaglia. He was arrested, had to spend several months in prison and was forced to abjure his professorship. He moved to Rome, received a lifetime annuity from Pope Gregory XIII (after first having been rejected by Pope Pius V) and finished his autobiography. It appears that he was still practicing medicine up to his death in 1576. The date of his death is disputed, most probably he was still alive in 1577. References in literature. Richard Hinckley Allen tells of an amusing reference made by Samuel Butler in his book "Hudibras":
1015959	Wilson Yip Wai-Shun () is a Hong Kong actor, filmmaker and screenwriter. His films include "Bio Zombie", "The White Dragon", "", "Dragon Tiger Gate", "Flash Point", "Ip Man", and "Ip Man 2. Early career. A film buff at an early age, Yip went to the cinema whenever he could and often wrote reviews on the backs of ticket stubs. He entered the movie business in the 1980s, starting out as a "gofer" and working his way up to assistant director. His directorial debut was "01.00 AM", a three-segment horror compendium. He directed two of three parts, one with Veronica Yip as a nurse who sees dead pop stars, and Anita Yuen interviewing a demon. His next effort, "Daze Reaper", was a Category III exploitation film, based on a true-crime story about a prison guard who turns to crime. Next was "Mongkok Story", an exploitive story in the vein of "Young and Dangerous", and another horror trilogy, "Midnight Zone", about urban myths. He also turned to comedy with "Teaching Sucks", about two Hong Kong teachers played by Anthony Wong and Jan Lam. In 1998 Wilson co-wrote and directed his biggest cult hit at the time, "Bio Zombie", which was influenced by "Dawn of the Dead" and takes place in a shopping mall, where a small group of misfits bands together in order to survive. Turning point. Yip next directed the 1999 crime-drama "Bullets Over Summer", starring Francis Ng and Louis Koo as two detectives hunting a gang of deadly criminals who have to use a demented elderly woman's (Helena Law Lan) apartment for surveillance. The biggest-budget film of his career up to then, he considers "Bullets Over Summer" his "turning point". He shared a best-screenplay award at the 2000 Hong Kong Film Critics Society Awards for the film. In 2000 he was picked by Golden Harvest to direct "Skyline Cruisers", a big-budget action film. Yip did not get along with the cast and clashed with the studio's management over creative differences. Other films include the science-fiction-action story "2002", and the romantic comedies, "Dry Wood, Fierce Fire" (with Miriam Yeung and Louis Koo) and "Leaving Me, Loving You" (with Leon Lai and Faye Wong). In 2004, Yip also directed his first wuxia style film, "The White Dragon", starring Cecilia Cheung and Francis Ng. Yip also acts, mostly doing small roles. They include a pimp in "The Runaway Pistol" and a Taoist exorcist in the Pang Brothers' "The Eye". Films with Donnie Yen. In 2005, Yip directed his most critically acclaimed film, "". A gritty return to the 1980s style of Hong Kong action cinema, "SPL" starred Simon Yam and Donnie Yen as Hong Kong police officers trying to pin a crime on an unstoppable gangster, portrayed by Sammo Hung. In 2006, Yip re-teamed with Yen for an adaptation of a Hong Kong manga, "Dragon Tiger Gate". In 2007 Yip released "Flash Point", another martial-arts crime drama in the same vein as "SPL". The film starred Donnie Yen, Louis Koo, and Collin Chou. Yen and Yip's latest collaboration as actor and director, "Ip Man", is a semi-biographical account of Yip Man, the first martial arts master (Chinese: "Sifu") to teach the Chinese martial art of Wing Chun openly. It also featured fight choreography by Sammo Hung. The film was released in December 2008 and immediately shot to number one on its opening week in Hong Kong, earning over HK$2.8 million in three weeks. "Ip Man 2" which is produced by Raymond Wong picks up on Yip Man's life after his migration to Hong Kong where he took on his most famous disciple - Bruce Lee. It has been released on 29 April 2010.
584399	S. Krishnamoorthy (born October 9), better known by his screenname Madhan Bob, is a popular comedian and Tamil film actor from Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India. He started his film career as a musician and became an actor instead. Apart from appearing in supporting roles in Tamil films he also appears in the Sun TV comedy show "Asathapovathu Yaaru" as one of the judges. His debut film was "Vaaname Ellai". References. His father is Kaka Radhakrishnan.
1165432	Warren Albert Stevens (November 2, 1919 – March 27, 2012) was an American stage, screen, and television actor. Early life and career. Born in Clarks Summit, Pennsylvania, Stevens began his acting career after serving in the U.S. Army Air Force as a pilot during World War II. A founding member of The Actor's Studio in New York, Stevens received notice on Broadway in the late 1940s, and thereafter was offered a Hollywood contract at 20th Century Fox. His first Broadway role was in "The Life of Galileo" (1947) and first movie role followed in "The Frogmen" (1951). As a young studio contract player, Stevens had little choice of material, and he appeared in films that included "Phone Call from a Stranger" (1952), "Wait Till the Sun Shines, Nellie" (1952), and "Gorilla at Large" (1954). His most memorable movie role was probably that of the ill-fated "Doc" Ostrow in the science fiction film "Forbidden Planet" (1956). He also had a supporting role in "The Barefoot Contessa" (1954) with Humphrey Bogart. Despite occasional parts in big films, Stevens was unable to break out consistently into A-list movies, so he carved out a career in television as a journeyman dramatic actor. Television career. He co-starred as Lt. William Storm in Tales of the 77th Bengal Lancers (NBC, 1956–1957), a prime-time adventure series set in India. Stevens also provided the voice of John Bracken in season one of "Bracken's World" (NBC, 1968-1970). He appeared in over 150 prime time shows from the 1950s to the early 1980s, including:
1712295	My Name is Nobody (, also known as Lonesome Gun) is a 1973 Spaghetti Western comedy film. The film was directed by Tonino Valerii and, in some scenes, by Sergio Leone. It was written by Leone, Fulvio Morsella and Ernesto Gastaldi. Leone was also the uncredited executive producer. The cast includes Terence Hill, Henry Fonda, and Jean Martin. The title of the movie coincides with the reply Odysseus gave to Cyclops when he was asked his name. Plot. Jack Beauregard (Henry Fonda) is a tired, aging legendary gunslinger who just wants to retire in peace in Europe to get away from young gunmen constantly trying to test themselves against the master. The film opens with three gunmen attempting to ambush Beauregard in a barbershop. After Beauregard has dispatched them, the barber's son asks his father if there is anyone in the world faster than Beauregard, to which the barber replies "Faster than him? Nobody!" 'Nobody' (Terence Hill) idolizes Beauregard and wants him to increase his fame by facing off the 150 men strong Wild Bunch singlehanded. The Wild Bunch are a gang of bandits who launder their loot of stolen gold via a fake goldmine. The owner of the goldmine sends them after Beauregard because Beauregard's now-dead brother was in on the deal. Nobody dogs Beauregard through the west, encountering many who wish him dead, and pesters him to let him stage his grand finale. Eventually, the grand shoot-out takes place by a railway line. Nobody arranges for Beauregard to shoot at the Wild Bunch's mirrored-concho-decorated saddles which, he discovered earlier, contain sticks of dynamite, thus letting a few good shots eliminate many of the men. To escape, the two board a train that Nobody has stolen. Finally, Nobody fakes a very public showdown in New Orleans with Beauregard, "killing" him and allowing him to slip away quietly. A street sign, marking where the gunfight took place, says "Nobody Was Faster On The Draw". Beauregard boards a boat for Europe and a quiet retirement, while the Wild Bunch turn their attentions from Beauregard to Nobody. Production. By the 1970s, the spaghetti Western had almost become a parody of itself. The serious westerns were primarily violent, low-budget films that were barely distributed outside of Italy. Meanwhile, slapstick parodies of the genre were becoming more popular. Sergio Leone and his team decided that if anyone was going to make the ultimate "joke" version of the genre, they should be the ones. Terence Hill was cast not only for box-office, but because he had in a short time become something of an icon of the genre. Hill had started the comedy spaghetti craze with the hugely successful movies "They Call Me Trinity" and its sequel "Trinity Is Still My Name". With the casting of the classic Westerner Henry Fonda, the contrast between the old and new (dying) West was clear. Inside jokes in the film include invocations of director Sam Peckinpah: his name on a tombstone, the villains being known as "the Wild Bunch", and use of the duster coats which Peckinpah vigorously exposed on screen.
1775633	Guilty Hearts is 2005 drama film. The film consists of six short stories. It is directed by George Augusto, Phil Dornfeld, Ravi Kumar, Savina Dellicour and Benjamin Ross. It was written by George Augusto. Charlie Sheen and Anna Faris starred in the episode "Spelling Bee". Eva Mendes starred in the episode "Outskirts". Julie Delpy starred in the named "Notting Hill Anxiety Festival". Stellan Skarsgård starred in the episode "Torte Bluma". Kathy Bates starred in the episode "The Ingrate". Imelda Staunton starred in the episode "Ready".
587987	Shootout at Wadala is a 2013 Bollywood crime thriller film written and directed by Sanjay Gupta. It is a prequel to the 2007 hit "Shootout at Lokhandwala", and it is the second installment of the Shootout series. It is based on the book "Dongri to Dubai". The film features John Abraham, Anil Kapoor, Kangna Ranaut, Tusshar Kapoor, Manoj Bajpai and Sonu Sood in lead roles. The film dramatizes the first-ever registered encounter by Mumbai police, where gangster Manya Surve was shot dead, which took place at the junction next to Dr. Ambedkar college, Wadala, Mumbai on 11 January 1982. The film was expected to release on 1 May 2013, but was postponed, and release on 3 May 2013, the date which marks 100 years in Bollywood.The film released with positive reviews from critics and good box-office collections.The film was declared a "hit" by Box-Office India after its 3-week run. Plot. In a police van, ACP Afaaque Baaghran (Anil Kapoor) listens to the story which is narrated by a gangster Manya Surve (John Abraham)who is grievously injured with a bullet-riddled body. Manohar Surve alias Manya Surve, is a decent student of Kirti College, Dadar. He is equally good in studies and in nature, who had just finished his exams even whilst Vidya is trying to distract him for answers. Vidya asks him why he doesn't give the answers and Manya replies that even though they are in love he will not do anything stupid to stop him being successful. Vidya understands and persuades Manya to take her to meet his parents. Whilst presenting his girlfriend Vidya Joshi (Kangna Ranaut) to his mother to discuss their marriage, Manya is interrupted by his older brother Bhargav Surve. Bhargav is a gangster who is after an underworld don named Nitesh Dhamne (Ranjeet). Soon enough, Bhargav is attacked by Bhaskar's goons, and beaten up. Manya jumps in to save him and the two brothers end up killing one of the goons. It is now the day of Manya's exam results but before he can discover his grades, Manye and his brother are arrested by Insp. Ambolkar (Raju Kher) and end up in Yerawada Prison. In prison, another convict named Munir (Tusshar Kapoor) saves Manya from being attacked by a goon named Potya, during lunch time. In this assault, Bhargav is killed. Munir befriends Manya and another convict named Veera, trains Manya to become stronger. Manya trains and then eventually is challenged by Potya. Manya takes the lead by staying in front of Potya during the whole fight. Soon enough, Potya backfires and beats Manya up, in which response, Manya stabs Potya to his death. Later on, both Manya and Munir escape from the prison, and try to tie hands with two brothers who rule Bombay's deals. The first brother, Zubair Imtiaz Kaskar (Manoj Bajpai) is cool, who is impressed by Manya. However, the second brother, Dilawar (Sonu Sood), disapproves of Manya and dislikes him. After this act Manya forms his own gang which consists of him, Munir, Veera and Gyancho, a sharpshooter, brought by Munir. Soon enough, Manya himself challenges the two Kaskar brothers, with a chilling story following, with Manya finishing off Bhaskar (the gangster who had him and his brother arrested), Manya meeting up with Vidya again, and being revealed that at the start, Manya Surve had actually received 78% distinction in his exams. Cast. Special appearances Controversy. Director Sanjay Gupta knew the consequences of using Dawood Ibrahim's real name while shooting the film, however carried on with Sonu Sood being addressed as 'Dilawar Imtiaz' in the film. On 27 January 2013, Balaji Motion Pictures uploaded a new version of the theatrical trailer, and trimmed nearly every single dialogue from the film off. The character of Dawood Ibrahim is only seen for three seconds in the new trailer, in order to avoid any hassles. Also, the character names have been changed as well, except for Abraham's character, whose name remains the same in the film. The film received an A certificate for its violence and obscene language. Soundtrack. The music of "Shootout at Wadala" is composed by Anu Malik, Anand Raj Anand, Meet Bros Anjjan and Mustafa Zahid. Critical reception. The film received mixed reception from critics and audiences. Box office. India. "Shootout at Wadala" had an opening of around 65% occupancy and went on to collect on first day. After five days of release, the film had amassed a collection of . The two-week domestic distributor share is 25.50 crore approx. The final total came out to be
632630	Natasha Gregson Wagner (born September 29, 1970) is an American actress. Wagner was born in Los Angeles, California, the daughter of Richard Gregson, a film producer, and actress Natalie Wood. Early life. Natasha Gregson Wagner is the daughter of actress Natalie Wood and British producer Richard Gregson. Her godmother was actress Ruth Gordon. Her parents separated when she was ten months old, and later divorced. Her mother remarried actor Robert Wagner in 1972, whom she had divorced in 1962 before her marriage to Gregson. Wagner legally adopted Natasha upon his marriage to Wood. Gregson Wagner has a younger half-sister, Courtney, and a stepsister Katie. Her aunt is Lana Wood. On November 29, 1981, Natalie Wood drowned near Catalina Island. After her mother's death, Gregson Wagner and her sisters were raised by Wagner in California. Wagner married actress Jill St. John in 1990. Gregson Wagner attended Crossroads School in Santa Monica. She went on to Emerson College, and later transferred to the University of Southern California. She left in 1992 to pursue an acting career. Career. Gregson Wagner's first film role was as Lisa in the film "Fathers & Sons", with Jeff Goldblum and Famke Janssen in 1992. She then had a small role in the movie "Buffy the Vampire Slayer". Following that film she starred in several TV movies including "Modern Vampires", "Hefner: Unauthorized", and "The Shaggy Dog". In 1995 she starred with her father Robert Wagner in a "Hart to Hart" TV movie. She starred in the Wes Craven film "The Outpost". In 1996 she co-starred with Jon Lovitz in the comedy "High School High". She played Lou in the 1997 film "Two Girls and a Guy". Gregson Wagner had a small role in the 1998 thriller "Urban Legend". That same year she guest starred in an episode of "Ally McBeal". In 1999 she played a heroin junkie in "Another Day in Paradise", in which she had an explicit sex scene with Vincent Kartheiser.
1061376	Gloria Frances Stewart, known by the stage name Gloria Stuart, (July 4, 1910 – September 26, 2010) was an American actress, activist, painter, bonsai artist and fine art printer and printmaker. Over a Hollywood career which spanned, with a long break in the middle, from 1932 until 2004, she appeared on stage, television and film, for which she was best-known. She appeared as Claude Rains' sweetheart in "The Invisible Man" and as the elderly Rose Dawson Calvert in an Academy Award-nominated role in the film "Titanic". She was the oldest person to be nominated for a competitive Oscar, at the age of 87, for that role. Early life and career. Stuart was born Gloria Frances Stewart in Santa Monica, California, a third-generation Californian. Her mother, Alice Vaughan Deidrick Stewart, was born in Angels Camp, California. Her father, Frank Stewart, was an attorney representing many Tongs in San Francisco. Gloria's brother, Frank, came eleven months later. A second brother, Thomas, died in infancy. When Gloria was nine years old, her father, who had been appointed a judge and was about to take the bench, was hit by a car and died. Her mother got a job in the Ocean Park, California, Post Office to support her children. Alice Stewart remarried, to Fred J. Finch, a native of Kentucky, who owned a local funeral parlor and held oil leases in Texas. A half-sister, Patsy — Patricia Marie Finch — was born in 1924. Gloria's younger brother Frank took the surname Finch, later becoming a sportswriter for the "Los Angeles Times". She later changed the spelling of her surname when she began her career, reportedly because "Stuart" would fit better on a marquee. She attended Santa Monica High School, graduating in 1927, then immediately ran off to Berkeley to attend the University of California, Berkeley. At Berkeley, she majored in drama and philosophy but dropped out in her junior year to marry Blair Gordon Newell, a San Francisco sculptor working under Ralph Stackpole on the facade of the San Francisco Stock Exchange building. The Newells lived a bohemian life in Carmel and were part of a circle of artists including Ansel Adams, Edward Weston, and Robinson Jeffers. She acted at the Carmel Playhouse and worked on the Carmel newspaper. Returning to Los Angeles, she appeared at the Pasadena Playhouse and was immediately signed to a contract by Universal Studios in 1932. She became a favorite of director James Whale, appearing in his "The Old Dark House" (1932), "The Kiss Before the Mirror" (1933) and "The Invisible Man" (1933). Stuart was an activist and became a founding member of the Screen Actors Guild, but her career with Universal was disappointing. She moved to 20th Century Fox, and by the end of the decade had appeared in more than forty films, including Busby Berkeley's "Gold Diggers of 1935" and "Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm". She appeared alongside such stars as Lionel Atwill, Lionel Barrymore, Freddie Bartholomew, Warner Baxter, James Cagney, Eddie Cantor, Melvyn Douglas, Ruth Etting, Boris Karloff, Paul Lukas, Raymond Massey, Pat O'Brien, Al Pearce, Dick Powell, Claude Rains, the Ritz Brothers, Shirley Temple and Lee Tracy. Personal life. In 1934, Stuart and Newell divorced amicably and she married screenwriter Arthur Sheekman, one of the writers on "Roman Scandals". Sheekman was Groucho Marx's best friend and was collaborating (sometimes without credit) on Marx Brothers films. Later, Sheekman ghostwrote several of Marx's books; Marx called him "The Fastest Wit in the West". The Sheekmans' daughter, Sylvia Vaughn Sheekman, was born in 1935. Four years later, Stuart convinced her husband they should travel around the world. When they reached France, they tried to volunteer for the French Resistance, but were turned down, so they caught the last ship sailing to New York. They decided to stay in New York and work in the theater. In the next few years, Sheekman wrote several plays (two with George S. Kaufman) and Stuart got roles mostly in summer stock, including Emily to Thornton Wilder's Stage Manager in "Our Town". When Sheekman's third play flopped, they returned to Hollywood, and he was hired by Paramount Pictures. Stuart took singing lessons and toured the country entertaining the troops in hospitals and selling war bonds. In 1946, she opened a small business, Décor, Ltd, where she sold lamps, tables, chests and other "objets d'art" of decoupage she created. Sheekman wrote seventeen screenplays during the next sixteen years. In 1954, with their daughter studying at UC Berkeley, Gloria and Arthur Sheekman joined friends who were living abroad, settling in Rapallo on the Italian Riviera. Inspired by the success of the primitive paintings of Grandma Moses, Stuart took up oil painting. Her first one-woman show at the Hammer Galleries in New York all but sold out. After forty-three years of happy marriage, husband Arthur Sheekman succumbed to the effects of Alzheimers Disease, and died on January 12, 1978, just weeks before his 77th birthday. According to the widow's autobiography, "I Just Kept Hoping," Sheekman was cremated and his ashes were buried beneath a tree at their home in Brentwood, California. Stuart was also active in political and social causes, Stuart helped form the Hollywood Anti-Nazi League in 1936, the same year she and writer Dorothy Parker helped organize the League to Support the Spanish War Orphans. She also became a member of the Hollywood Democratic Committee and was on the executive board of the California State Democratic Committee. For several decades she was a member of The Wesley United Methodist Church in Los Angeles, California. Stuart was a friend of the author Christopher Isherwood and his longtime companion, the portraitist Don Bachardy, who made several portraits of Stuart. She discusses her relationship to the pair, and particularly her views on Bachardy's art, in video interviews included among the supplementary outtakes on the DVD release of the documentary film "Chris and Don: A Love Story". Return to acting – 1970s to 2000s. In 1975, after twenty-nine years away from acting, with her husband, Arthur, in a nursing home suffering from Alzheimer's, Gloria got herself an agent and hoped for work. In 1978, Arthur died. Over the next few years she appeared in small parts in television. Then in 1982 came an offer for what was to be one of her favorite scenes in all her films: playing a silver-haired dowager taking a solitary turn around a dance floor with Peter O'Toole in "My Favorite Year". During this period, Stuart took up the Japanese art of bonsai, becoming the first Anglo member of the California Bonsai Society. And she began to travel again, going with friends or on her own to Europe, India, Africa, the Balkans. In 1983, Stuart became romantically involved with California printer Ward Ritchie, whom she had known during her college years. Ritchie taught her how to run an antique book press. She bought her own hand press and established "Imprenta Glorias", and began creating artists' books (books hand-made, labor intensive, usually with a very limited run). Stuart wrote the text, designed the book, set the type, printed the pages, and finished pages with water colors or silk screen or decoupage. Books from Imprenta Glorias are in the Metropolitan Museum, Library of Congress, Huntington Library, J. Paul Getty Museum, Morgan Library, Victoria and Albert Museum, "Bibliothèque nationale de France", and numerous private and university collections. No longer able to work with small type and a large heavy press, she gave her press and sets of rare type to Mills College. Stuart and Ritchie maintained their close relationship until his death from cancer in 1996. Not long after Ritchie's death, Stuart landed the character of 100-year-old Rose, at the heart of James Cameron's "Titanic". Stuart was nominated for an Academy Award, Golden Globe Award and a Screen Actors Guild Award. She remains the oldest person ever to have been nominated for an Oscar. Suzy Amis credited Stuart for bringing her together on the set with her eventual husband, director James Cameron. Stuart published her autobiography, "I Just Kept Hoping", in 1999, and received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2000. Her last appearance on film was a role in Wim Wenders's "Land of Plenty" in 2004, and afterward she gave numerous filmed and audio interviews. Stuart continued to work at her artist's books, finishing a miniature about a time when she was in Berkeley, called "I Dated J. Robert Oppenheimer". Even after her retirement from film acting in 2004, she remained never far away from the public eye. Other work. Her poem, 'You Are Gone Now', was set to music by Richard Tauber, who first sang it in her presence at a concert in Los Angeles on November 30, 1937. When Stuart was 99 years old, she was interviewed by writer and actor Mark Gatiss about her role in the"The Old Dark House" by James Whale, and about her co-star Boris Karloff, for his 2010 BBC documentary series "A History of Horror". Death. Stuart was diagnosed with lung cancer at around age 95; however, she still lived to see her 100th birthday. Stuart died less than three months later in her sleep of respiratory failure on September 26, 2010, at age 100. Awards and honours. On June 19, 2010, Stuart was honoured by the Screen Actors Guild for her years of service. She was presented the Ralph Morgan Award by "Titanic" co-star Frances Fisher and in response Stuart replied, "I'm very, very grateful. I've had a wonderful life of giving and sharing." On July 4, 2010, Stuart celebrated her 100th birthday at the ACE Gallery in Beverly Hills with a party hosted by the director of "Titanic", James Cameron and his wife, Suzy Amis. Frances Fisher, and Shirley MacLaine were among the guests. On July 22, The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences honoured her career with a program featuring film clips and a conversation between Stuart and film historian Leonard Maltin. Stuart later said that she relates with her comeback character of the 100-year-old Rose saying: ""I think that's the important thing, if you're full of love, admiration, appreciation of the beautiful things there are in this life, you have it made, really. And I have it made."" Legacy. Documentary of Stuart's life. A new documentary is currently in production called "The Secret Life of Old Rose" which explores Stuart's long acting career as well as her career as an artist, fine art printer and printmaker, and bonsai master. The link to the documentary is: http://www.secretlifeofoldrose.com The documentary is produced and directed by Benjamin Stuart Thompson, Gloria Stuart's grandson. Butterfly Summers. Gloria Stuart's great granddaughter Deborah B. Thompson published a memoir in March 2012 entitled "Butterfly Summers: A Memoir of Gloria Stuart's Apprentice." Through the ebook, Deborah shares her personal experience of working closely with her great grandmother to complete a set of butterfly-shaped artist's books over the course of five years. The New York Times bestselling author Alice Hoffman writes, "Here is the heart-felt and moving story of the bond between a young woman and her great grandmother -- who happens to be a Hollywood movie star -- but the real connection is forged by a love of art and books and by their love for one another."
1064145	March of the Penguins (French "La Marche de l'empereur" ; ) is a 2005 French nature documentary film directed and co-written by Luc Jacquet, and co-produced by Bonne Pioche and the National Geographic Society. The film depicts the yearly journey of the Emperor Penguins of Antarctica. In autumn, all the penguins of breeding age (five years old and over) leave the ocean, their normal habitat, to walk inland to their ancestral breeding grounds. There, the penguins participate in a courtship that, if successful, results in the hatching of a chick. For the chick to survive, both parents must make multiple arduous journeys between the ocean and the breeding grounds over the ensuing months.
1063918	Tess Harper (born August 15, 1950) is an American actress. Early life. Born Tessie Jean Washam on August 15, 1950 in Mammoth Spring, Arkansas, the daughter of Ed and Rosemary (Langston) Washam. She grew up around lots of quilts and quilt makers. On her own time, she liked to sit on the porch-swing and read. She graduated from high school in 1968. She attended Arkansas State University–Beebe (ASU–Beebe), where she performed in several plays, as well as Southwest Missouri State University (now Missouri State University) in Springfield, where she graduated with a degree in education. Career. Tess Harper began acting in theater production and appearances in theme parks, including Dogpatch, USA and Silver Dollar City, dinner theatres and children's theatre. She had given up hopes of an acting career and was working for a financial institution in Texas. The institution wanted to produce a TV spot and asked Tessie to be in the spot. She accepted. In a weird twist of fate, the airplane of a casting person with Tender Mercies, had to spend the night in Dallas and saw her on TV. She called Duvall and arranged a tryout. Director Bruce Beresford was impressed with Harper and cast her in the lead female role of Rosa Lee, for the film "Tender Mercies". the young widow and mother who marries country singer Mac Sledge. Beresford said the previous actress who auditioned for the role brought to it a sophistication and worldliness inappropriate for the part, whereas Harper brought a kind of rural quality without coming across as simple or foolish. Beresford said of Harper, "She walked into the room and even before she spoke, I thought, 'That's the girl to play the lead.'" "Tender Mercies" was Harper's feature film debut. Harper said she was so excited about the role that she bit her script just to make sure it was real, and she was so nervous that during her first take she feared the filmmakers would "come to their senses and say, 'We're sorry, we made a terrible mistake.'" Actor Robert Duvall, who played the lead role of Mac Sledge, did his best to help Harper in her first film role. During one scene in which Mac Sledge and Rosa Lee were fighting, Duvall yelled at a make-up artist in front of Harper specifically to make her angry for the scene; Duvall apologized to the make-up artist after the scene was shot. After filming, Duvall said Harper did a very good job, and he felt her rural past in Arkansas helped her in the part. She earned a Golden Globe Award nomination for the role. Duvall won the Academy Award for Best Actor for his performance. Harper appeared in the TV mini-series "Chiefs" (1983) and "Celebrity" (1984), as well as many television movies including "" (1983) and "Reckless Disregard" (1985). In 1983, she appeared in the full-length feature "Silkwood". In 1986, Harper was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her work as Chick Boyle in "Crimes of the Heart". She later played parts in "Ishtar" (1987), "Far North" (1988), "The Man in the Moon" (1991), "The Jackal" (1997) and "Loggerheads" (2005). She also took part in Michael Jackson's Black Or White (1991) musical minifilm. Harper had a regular role in a CBS television series, "Christy", from 1994-95. Her roles have frequently been that of a Southern lady, although she had worked to lose her Arkansas accent. She also had a recurring role on another CBS television series, "Early Edition", from 1996-2000. She portrayed the mother of lead character Gary Hobsen. Harper shared a Screen Actors Guild Award (in the Best Ensemble Cast category) with her fellow cast members in the Oscar-winning film "No Country for Old Men", in which she played the wife of Tommy Lee Jones. She had the recurring role of Mrs. Pinkman on "Breaking Bad", appearing in the first three seasons. External links. Encyclopedia of Arkansas - http://www.encyclopediaofarkansas.net/encyclopedia/entry-detail.aspx?entryID=2775
393686	Flying Boys is a 2004 South Korean film, written and directed by Byun Young-joo, and starring Yoon Kye-sang and Kim Min-jung. The film had 114,478 admissions in South Korea. Plot summary. Min-jae is a high school senior who lives with his father, an airline pilot, and is struggling with his studies. For some time he has had a crush on Su-jin, a girl his own age who lives in the same apartment building, but has lacked the courage to approach her. Su-jin, meanwhile, is frustrated with her family life and keen to get away. She plans to become a veterinarian, even though she is no good with animals. Min-jae and Su-jin are unexpectedly thrown together when they are both pressured into joining a local ballet class. As time passes they get to know each other, as well as the other oddball characters who make up the rest of the class.
1038258	Sir Patrick Stewart, OBE (born 13 July 1940) is an English filmmaker, television and stage actor, who has had a distinguished career on stage and screen. He is most widely known for his roles as Captain Jean-Luc Picard in "" and its successor films and as Professor Charles Xavier in the "X-Men" film series. In 1993, "TV Guide" named him the best dramatic television actor of the 1980s, and television's sexiest man in the previous year. Early life. Patrick Stewart was born on 13 July 1940 in Mirfield, in the West Riding of Yorkshire, England. He is the son of Gladys (née Barrowclough), a weaver and textile worker, and Alfred Stewart, a Regimental Sergeant Major in the British Army. He has two older brothers, Geoffrey (b. 1925) and Trevor (b. 1935). Stewart grew up in a poor household rife with domestic violence from his father, an experience which influenced his later political and ideological beliefs. Stewart's father served with the King's Own Yorkshire Light Infantry and was Regimental Sergeant Major of the 2nd Battalion, Parachute Regiment during the Second World War, having previously worked as a general labourer and as a postman. As a result of his wartime experience during the Dunkirk evacuation, his father suffered from what was then known as shell shock (post-traumatic stress disorder). In a 2008 interview, Stewart said: "My father was a very potent individual, a very powerful man who got what he wanted. It was said that when he strode onto the parade ground, birds stopped singing. It was many, many years before I realised how my father inserted himself into my work. I've grown a moustache for "Macbeth". My father didn't have one, but when I looked in the mirror just before I went on stage I saw my father's face staring straight back at me." Stewart attended Crowlees Church of England Junior and Infants School. He attributes his acting career to an English teacher named Cecil Dormand who "put a copy of Shakespeare in my hand said, 'Now get up on your feet and perform'". In 1951, aged 11, he entered Mirfield Secondary Modern School, where he continued to study drama. At age 15, Stewart left school and increased his participation in local theatre. He acquired a job as a newspaper reporter and obituary writer at the "Mirfield & District Reporter", but after a year, his employer gave him an ultimatum to choose acting or journalism. He quit the job. His brother tells the story that Stewart would attend rehearsals during work time and then invent the stories he reported. Stewart also trained as a boxer. He lost his hair at the age of 18. The traumatic experience made Stewart timid, and he found that acting served as a means of self-expression. Career. Early work. Following a period with Manchester's Library Theatre, he became a member of the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1966, staying with them until 1982. He was an Associate Artist of the company in 1968. He appeared next to actors such as Ben Kingsley and Ian Richardson. In January 1967, he made his debut TV appearance on "Coronation Street" as a Fire Officer. In 1969, he had a brief TV cameo role as Horatio, opposite Ian Richardson's Hamlet, in a performance of the gravedigger scene as part of episode six of Sir Kenneth Clark's "Civilisation" television series. He made his Broadway debut as Snout in Peter Brook's legendary production of "A Midsummer Night's Dream," then moved to the Royal National Theatre in the early 1980s. Over the years, Stewart took roles in many major television series without ever becoming a household name. He appeared as Vladimir Lenin in "Fall of Eagles"; Sejanus in "I, Claudius"; Karla in "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy" and "Smiley's People"; Claudius in a 1980 BBC adaptation of "Hamlet". He even took the romantic male lead in the 1975 BBC adaptation of Mrs Gaskell's "North and South" (wearing a hairpiece). He also took the lead, playing Psychiatric Consultant Dr. Edward Roebuck in a BBC TV series called "Maybury" in 1981. He also had minor roles in several films such as King Leondegrance in John Boorman's "Excalibur" (1981), the character Gurney Halleck in David Lynch's 1984 film version of "Dune" and Dr. Armstrong in Tobe Hooper's "Lifeforce" (1985). While not wealthy, Stewart had a comfortable lifestyle as an actor; he found that despite a lengthy career, his reputation was not great enough to bring a production of "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" to West End theatre. Stewart thus in 1987 agreed to work in Hollywood, after Robert H. Justman, producer for a revival of a long-cancelled television show, saw him while attending a literary reading at UCLA. Stewart knew nothing about the original show, "", or its iconic status in American culture. He was reluctant to sign the standard contract of six years but did so as he, his agent, and others Stewart consulted with, all believed that the new show would quickly fail and he would return to his London stage career after making some money. "Star Trek: The Next Generation". When Stewart began his role as Captain Jean-Luc Picard of the USS Enterprise in "" (1987–94), the "Los Angeles Times" called him an "unknown British Shakespearean actor". Still living out of his suitcase because of his scepticism that the show would succeed, Stewart was unprepared for the long hours of television production. He initially experienced difficulty fitting in with his less-disciplined castmates, stating that his "spirits used to sink" when required to memorise and recite Treknobabble. Stewart eventually came to better understand the cultural differences between the stage and television, and his favourite technical line became "space-time continuum". He remained close friends with his fellow "Star Trek" actors and became their advocate with the producers when necessary. Marina Sirtis credited Stewart with "at least 50%, if not more" of the show's success because others emulated his professionalism and dedication to acting. Besides becoming immediately wealthy because of the show's great success—Stewart calculated during one break during filming the show that he made more money during that break than from 10 weeks of "Woolf" in London—Stewart received a 1995 Screen Actors Guild Award nomination for "Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Drama Series". From 1994 to 2002, he also portrayed Picard in the films "Star Trek Generations" (1994), ' (1996), ' (1998) and ' (2002); and in "s pilot episode "". When asked in 2011 for the highlight of his career, he chose "Star Trek: The Next Generation", "because it changed everything me." He has also said he is very proud of his work on "Star Trek: The Next Generation", for its social message and educational impact on young viewers. On being questioned about the significance of his role compared to his distinguished Shakespearean career, Stewart has said that: "The fact is all of those years in Royal Shakespeare Company – playing all those kings, emperors, princes and tragic heroes – were nothing but preparation for sitting in the captain's chair of the Enterprise." The accolades Stewart has received include the readers of "TV Guide" in 1992 choosing him with Cindy Crawford, of whom he had never heard, as television's "most bodacious" man and woman. In an interview with Michael Parkinson, he expressed gratitude for Gene Roddenberry's riposte to a reporter who said, "Surely they would have cured baldness by the 24th century," to which Roddenberry replied, "In the 24th century, they wouldn't care." Other film and television. Stewart has said that he would never have joined "The Next Generation" had he known that it would air for seven years: "No, no. NO. And looking back now it still frightens me a little bit to think that so much of my life was totally devoted to Star Trek and almost nothing else." Stewart became so typecast as Picard that he has found obtaining other Hollywood roles difficult. The main exception is the "X-Men" film series. The films' success has resulted in another lucrative regular genre role in a major superhero film series. Stewart's character, Charles Xavier, is very similar to Picard and himself; "a grand, deep-voiced, bald English guy". He has also since voiced that role as Xavier in 4 video games including: "X-Men Legends", "X-Men Legends II", and "". Other film and television roles include the flamboyantly gay Sterling in the 1995 film "Jeffrey" and King Henry II in "The Lion in Winter", for which he received a Golden Globe Award nomination for his performance and an Emmy Award nomination for executive-producing the film. He portrayed Captain Ahab in the 1998 made-for-television film version of "Moby Dick", receiving Emmy Award and Golden Globe Award nominations for his performance. He also starred as Scrooge in a 1999 television film version of Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol, receiving a Screen Actors Guild Award nomination for his performance. In late 2003, during the eleventh and final season of NBC's "Frasier", Stewart appeared on the show as a gay Seattle socialite and opera director who mistakes Frasier for a potential lover. In July 2003, he appeared in Series 02 (Episode 09) of "Top Gear" in the Star in a Reasonably-Priced Car segment, achieving a time of 1:50 in the Liana. In 2005, he was cast as Professor Ian Hood in an ITV thriller 4-episode series "Eleventh Hour", created by Stephen Gallagher. The first episode was broadcast on 19 January 2006. He also, in 2005, played Captain Nemo in a two-part adaptation of "The Mysterious Island". Stewart also appeared as a nudity obsessed caricature of himself in Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant's television series "Extras", as a last-minute replacement for Jude Law. For playing himself, he was nominated for an Emmy Award in 2006 for Guest Actor in a Comedy Series. In 2011, Stewart appeared in the feature length documentary "The Captains" alongside William Shatner, who also wrote and directed the film. In the film, Shatner interviews actors who have portrayed captains within the "Star Trek" franchise. The film pays a great deal of attention to Shatner's interviews with Stewart at his home in Oxfordshire as well as at a "Star Trek" Convention in Las Vegas, Nevada; Stewart reveals the fear and personal failings that came along with his tenure as a Starfleet captain, but also the great triumphs he believes accompanied his role as Captain Jean-Luc Picard. It was announced in November 2012 that Stewart will reprise his role as Professor Charles Xavier, alongside Ian McKellen as Magneto, and both their younger counterparts (played by James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender, respectively). The upcoming film is titled "" and is helmed by Bryan Singer, director of the first and second film. Stage. After "The Next Generation" began, Stewart soon found that he missed acting on the stage. Although he remained associated with the Royal Shakespeare Company, the lengthy filming for the show prevented Stewart from participating in most other works. He instead began writing one-man shows that he performed in California universities and acting schools. Stewart found that one—a version of Charles Dickens's "A Christmas Carol" in which he portrayed all 40-plus characters—was ideal for him because of its limited performing schedule. In 1991, Stewart performed it on Broadway, receiving a nomination for that year's Drama Desk Award for Outstanding One-Person Show. He staged encore performances in 1992, 1993, 1994, 1996, again for the benefit of survivors and victims' families in the 11 September attacks, and a 23-day run in London's West End in December 2005. For his performances in this play, Stewart has received the Drama Desk Award for Best Solo Performance in 1992 and the Laurence Olivier Award for Best Entertainment for Solo Performance in 1994. He was also the co-producer of the show, through the company he set up for the purpose: Camm Lane Productions, a reference to his birthplace in Camm Lane, Mirfield. Shakespeare roles during this period included Prospero in Shakespeare's "The Tempest", on Broadway in 1995, a role he would reprise in Rupert Goold's 2006 production of "The Tempest" as part of the Royal Shakespeare Company's Complete Works Festival. In 1997, he took the role of Othello with the Shakespeare Theatre Company (Washington, D.C.) in a race-bending performance, in a "photo negative" production of a white "Othello" with an otherwise all-black cast. Stewart had wanted to play the title role since the age of 14, so he and director Jude Kelly inverted the play so Othello became a comment on a white man entering a black society. His years in the United States had left Stewart a "gaping hole in his CV" for a Shakespearean actor, as he had missed the opportunity to play such notable roles as Hamlet, Romeo, and Richard III. He played Antony again opposite Harriet Walter's Cleopatra in "Antony and Cleopatra" at the Novello Theatre in London in 2007 to excellent reviews. During this period, Stewart also addressed the Durham Union Society on his life in film and theatre. When Stewart began playing Macbeth in the West End in 2007, some said that he was too old for the role; he and the show again received excellent reviews, with one critic calling Stewart "one of our finest Shakespearean actors". He was named as the next Cameron Mackintosh Visiting Professor of Contemporary Theatre based at St Catherine's College, Oxford in January 2007. In 2008, Stewart played King Claudius in "Hamlet" alongside David Tennant. He won the Laurence Olivier Award for Best Supporting Actor for the part. When collecting his award, he dedicated the award "in part" to Tennant and Tennant's understudy Edward Bennett, after Tennant's back injury and subsequent absence from four weeks of "Hamlet" disqualified him from an Olivier nomination. Stewart has expressed interest in appearing in "Doctor Who". In 2009, Stewart appeared alongside Ian McKellen as the lead duo of Vladimir (Didi) and Estragon (Gogo), in "Waiting for Godot". Stewart had previously appeared only once alongside McKellen on stage, but the pair had developed a close friendship while waiting around on set filming the "X-Men" films. Stewart stated that performing in this play was the fulfilment of a 50-year ambition, having seen Peter O'Toole appear in it at the Bristol Old Vic while Stewart was just 17. Reviewers stated that his interpretation captured well the balance between humour and despair that characterises the work. Voice acting. Known for his strong and authoritative voice, Stewart has lent his voice to a number of projects. He has narrated recordings of Prokofiev's "Peter and the Wolf", Vivaldi's "The Four Seasons" (which had also been narrated by William Shatner), C. S. Lewis's "The Last Battle" (conclusion of the series "The Chronicles of Narnia"), Rick Wakeman's "Return to the Centre of the Earth"; as well as numerous TV programmes such as "High Spirits with Shirley Ghostman". Stewart provided the narration for "Nine Worlds", an astronomical tour of the solar system and nature documentaries such as "The Secret of Life on Earth" and "Mountain Gorilla". He is also heard as the voice of the Magic Mirror in Disneyland's live show, "Snow White – An Enchanting Musical". He also was the narrator for the American release of "". He is narrator for two fulldome video shows produced and distributed by Loch Ness Productions, called "MarsQuest" and "The Voyager Encounters". He also was a voice actor on the animated films "The Prince of Egypt", "", "Chicken Little", "The Pagemaster", and on the English dubbings of the Japanese anime films "Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind" by Hayao Miyazaki and "Steamboy". He supported his home town of Dewsbury in West Yorkshire by lending his voice to a series of videos on the town in 1999. He voiced the pig Napoleon in a TV adaptation of George Orwell's "Animal Farm" and guest starred in the "Simpsons" episode "Homer the Great" as Number One. Patrick also narrated the prologue and epilogue for Disney's "The Nightmare Before Christmas", which also appears on the film's soundtrack. He was originally going to do the voice for Jafar in "Aladdin", but couldn't finish due to scheduling conflicts. He played a recurring role as CIA Deputy Director Avery Bullock, lending his likeness as well as his voice on the animated series "American Dad!" as well as making (as of 6 August 2011) eight guest appearances on "Family Guy" in various roles: first in "Peter's Got Woods", second in "No Meals on Wheels" when Peter likens something to when he once swapped voices with him for a day, third in "Lois Kills Stewie" as his "American Dad!" character Bullock, fourth in "Not All Dogs Go to Heaven" as himself, fifth in "And Then There Were Fewer" as a cat that proclaims himself a professor, sixth in "Halloween on Spooner Street" as Dick Pump, seventh in "The Hand That Rocks the Wheelchair" as Susie Swanson and eighth in the DVD version of "It's A Trap!" as Captain Picard. Stewart also appears as narrator in McFarlane's 2012 film directorial debut, "Ted". In 2006, Stewart voiced Bambi's father, the Great Prince of the Forest in Disney's direct-to-video sequel, "Bambi II". He lent his voice to the Activision-produced "Star Trek" computer games ', ', ', ', ', and ', all reprising his role as Captain Picard. Stewart reprised his role as Picard in "" for both PC and Xbox 360, along with the four other 'major' Starfleet captains from the different Star Trek series. In addition to voicing his characters from "Star Trek" and "X-Men" in several related computer and video games, Stewart worked as a voice actor on games unrelated to both franchises, such as ', ', ' and ' for which in 2006 he won a Spike TV Video Game Award for his work as Emperor Uriel Septim. He also lent his voice to several editions of the "Compton's Interactive Encyclopedia". His voice talents also appeared in a number of commercials including the UK TV adverts for Domestos 5x Longer Bleach and Moneysupermarket.com, an advertisement for Shell fuel, and an American advertisement for the prescription drug Crestor. He also voiced the UK and Australian TV advertisements for the PAL version of "Final Fantasy XII". Stewart used his voice for Pontiac and Porsche cars and MasterCard Gold commercials in 1996, and Goodyear Assurance Tyres in 2004. He also did voice-overs for RCA televisions. He provided the voice of Max Winters in "TMNT" in March 2007. In 2008, he is also the voice of television advertisements for Currys and Stella Artois beer. Since 2010, he has been the voice in television advertisements for National Car Rental. He voiced the narrator of the Electronic Arts computer game, "The Sims Medieval", for the game's introduction cinematic and trailer released on 22 March 2011. He also voiced the story plaques and trailer of the MMOG "LEGO Universe". Charity work. In 2006, Stewart made a short video against domestic violence for Amnesty International, in which he recollected his father's physical attacks on his mother and the effect it had on him as a child, and he has given his name to a scholarship at the University of Huddersfield, where he is Chancellor, to fund post-graduate study into domestic violence. His childhood experiences also led him to become a patron of Refuge, a UK charity for abused women. In October 2011 he presented a BBC Lifeline Appeal on behalf of Refuge, talking about his own experience of domestic violence and interviewing a woman whose daughter was murdered by her ex-husband. Stewart also supports the Armed Forces charity Combat Stress after learning about his father's posttraumatic stress disorder when researching his family genealogy for the documentary series "Who Do You Think You Are?". Personal life. Relationships and children. Stewart and his first wife Sheila Falconer divorced in 1990 after 24 years of marriage. They have two children together, son Daniel and daughter Sophia. Daniel is a television actor, and has appeared alongside his father in the 1993 made-for-television film "Death Train", and the 1992 "Star Trek" episode "", playing his son. In 1997, Stewart became engaged to Wendy Neuss, one of the producers of "Star Trek: The Next Generation". They married on 25 August 2000, and divorced three years later. Four months before his divorce from Neuss, Stewart played opposite actress Lisa Dillon in a production of "The Master Builder", and the two were romantically involved until 2007.
1163767	James Allen Whitmore, Jr. (October 1, 1921 – February 6, 2009) was an American film, theatre and television actor. Early life, education and military service. Born in White Plains, New York, to Florence Belle (née Crane) and James Allen Whitmore, Sr., a park commission official, Whitmore attended Amherst Central High School in Snyder, New York, before graduating from The Choate School (now Choate Rosemary Hall) in Wallingford, Connecticut. He went on to study at Yale University, where he was a member of Skull and Bones, and had his first taste of radio drama as a member of the student-run WOCD-AM, later renamed WYBC-AM. Whitmore was later commissioned a second lieutenant and served in the United States Marine Corps in the Panama Canal Zone during World War II. Career. Following World War II, he appeared on Broadway in the role of the sergeant in "Command Decision". Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) gave Whitmore a contract, but his role in the film adaptation was played by Van Johnson. His first major picture for MGM was "Battleground", in a role that was turned down by Spencer Tracy, to whom Whitmore bore a physical resemblance. He was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for this role. Other major films included "Angels in the Outfield (1951 film)," "The Asphalt Jungle", "The Next Voice You Hear", "Above and Beyond", "Kiss Me, Kate", "Them!", "Oklahoma!", "Black Like Me", "Guns of the Magnificent Seven", "Tora! Tora! Tora!", and "Give 'em Hell, Harry!", a one-man show for which he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor for his portrayal of former U.S. President Harry S Truman. In the film "Tora! Tora! Tora!", he played Admiral William F. "Bull" Halsey. Whitmore appeared during the 1950s on many television anthology series. He was cast as Father Emil Kapaun in the 1955 episode "The Good Thief" in the ABC religion anthology series "Crossroads" (which can be viewed at archive.org). Other roles followed on "Jane Wyman Presents the Fireside Theater", "Lux Video Theatre", "Kraft Theatre", "Studio One in Hollywood", "Schlitz Playhouse", "Matinee Theatre", and the "Ford Television Theatre." In 1958, he carried the lead in "The Gabe Carswell Story" of NBC's "Wagon Train", with Ward Bond. In the 1960-1961 television season, Whitmore starred in his own ABC crime drama, "The Law and Mr. Jones", in the title role, with Conlan Carter as legal assistant C.E. Carruthers and Janet De Gore as Jones' secretary. The program ran in the 10:30 p.m. Eastern half-hour slot on Friday. It was cancelled after one year but returned in April 1962 for thirteen additional episodes on Thursday. In 1963, Whitmore played Captain William Benteen in "The Twilight Zone" episode "On Thursday We Leave for Home". In 1965, Whitmore guest-starred as Col. Paul J. Hartley in "The Hero", episode 32 of "Twelve O'Clock High". In 1967, he guest starred as a security guard in "The Invaders" episode, "Quantity: Unknown." That same year, Whitmore appeared on an episode of ABC's "Custer" starring Wayne Maunder in the title role. In 1969, he played the leading character of Professor Woodruff in the TV series "My Friend Tony", produced by NBC. Whitmore also made several memorable appearances on the classic ABC western "The Big Valley" starring Barbara Stanwyck and the classic NBC western "The Virginian" starring James Drury during the second half of the 1960s. From 1972-1973, Whitmore played Dr. Vincent Campanelli in the short-lived ABC medical sitcom "Temperatures Rising". He also appeared in "Planet of the Apes". Appeared in an episode of "Combat!" as a German officer masquerading as a Catholic priest. Whitmore appeared as General Oliver O. Howard in the 1975 television film "I Will Fight No More Forever", based on the 1877 conflict between the United States Army and the Nez Percé tribe, led by Chief Joseph. In 1979 Whitmore hosted a talk show of twenty-two episodes called simply "Comeback". One of those segments focuses on the helicopter inventor Igor Sikorsky. In 1986, Whitmore voiced Mark Twain in the first claymation film "The Adventures of Mark Twain". Whitmore's last major film role was that of librarian Brooks Hatlen in the critically acclaimed and Academy award-nominated 1994 Frank Darabont film starring Tim Robbins and Morgan Freeman, "The Shawshank Redemption". Two years later, he co-starred in the 1996 horror/sci-fi film "The Relic". In 2002, Whitmore played a supporting role in "The Majestic", a film that starred Jim Carrey. To a younger generation, he was probably best known, in addition to his role in "Shawshank", as the commercial spokesman for Miracle-Gro plant food for many years. In 2003, Whitmore appeared as Josh Brolin's father on the short-lived NBC drama series Mister Sterling. One of the founding members of the Actors Studio, Whitmore did extensive theatre work. He won a Tony Award for Best Performance by a Newcomer in the Broadway production of "Command Decision" (1948). He later won the title "King of the One Man Show" after appearing in the solo vehicles "Will Rogers' USA" (1970) (repeating the role for TV in 1972), "Give 'em Hell, Harry!" (1975) (repeating the role in the film version, for which he was nominated for an Oscar) and as Theodore Roosevelt in "Bully" (1977) although the latter production did not repeat the success of the first two. In 1999, he played Raymond Oz in two episodes of "The Practice", earning an Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series. In 2002, Whitmore got the role of the Grandfather in the Disney Channel original film "A Ring of Endless Light". Whitmore has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6611 Hollywood Boulevard. In April 2007, he made his last screen appearance in a "" episode titled "Ending Happy" as Milton, an elderly man who provides a clue of dubious utility. Personal life. Whitmore was twice married to Nancy Mygatt, first in 1947. The couple had three sons before their divorce in 1971. One of those sons, James, III, found success as a television actor and director under the name James Whitmore, Jr. Another son, Steve Whitmore, became the public spokesman for the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department. His youngest son, Daniel, was a Forest Service Snow Ranger and firefighter before he launched his own construction company. Whitmore was married to actress Audra Lindley (died 1997) from 1972 until 1979. He later remarried Mygatt, but they divorced again after two years. In 2001, he married actress and author Noreen Nash, who is the grandmother of film actor Sebastian Siegel. Whitmore is the grandfather of "" contestant Matty Whitmore. In his later years, Whitmore spent most of his summers in Peterborough, New Hampshire, performing with the Peterborough Players. Although not always politically active, in 2007, Whitmore generated some publicity with his endorsement of Barack Obama for U.S. President. In January 2008, Whitmore appeared in television commercials for the First Freedom First campaign, which advocates preserving "the separation of church and state" and protecting religious liberty. Death. Whitmore was diagnosed with lung cancer in November 2008, from which he died, at the age of 87 in February 2009, at his Malibu, California, home.
1038312	David Hayman (born 9 February 1948) is a Scottish film, television and stage actor and director, known for his role as DCS Mike Walker in ITV drama "Trial and Retribution". He's also a prominent supporter of the SNP's call for Scottish independence. Life and career. Hayman studied at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama in Glasgow. He began his acting career at the Citizens Theatre in the city, playing a variety of roles, including Hamlet, Figaro and Al Capone. He gained national prominence playing notorious Barlinnie Prison convict turned sculptor, Jimmy Boyle, in the film "A Sense of Freedom". After this film he focused on playing character roles rather than the lead. His long list of film credits include appearances supporting Pierce Brosnan in "The Tailor of Panama", Bruce Willis in "The Jackal" and Kevin Spacey in "Ordinary Decent Criminal". He also appeared in "The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas". Hayman is well known for his role as Chief Supt. Michael Walker in Lynda La Plante's long-running crime thriller "Trial & Retribution", which had twelve series from 1997 to 2009. He has a distinct scar over his left eye, which he chose to use as character makeup, along with a shaved head, for his part in the series. Hayman has also had success in directing film and TV productions. "Silent Scream" is a return to a study of convicts in Barlinnie Prison, examining the life of convicted murderer Larry Winters. The film was entered into the 40th Berlin International Film Festival. Later followed "The Hawk", starring Helen Mirren as a woman who begins to suspect that her husband is a serial killer. "The Near Room" is a dark and disturbing film about child abuse and corruption set in Glasgow. In 2009 he appeared in an episode of the BBC series "Robin Hood". In September 2011, Hayman hosted a documentary reconstructing the unsolved murders of Glasgow serial killer Bible John, who murdered three young woman in the late 1960s. The documentary was named "In Search of Bible John", and looked at the evidence which links Peter Tobin to the killings. In 2012, Hayman played the Earl of Worcester in the BBC2 adaptation of "Henry IV, Part I". On stage, Hayman appeared as Chris in the 2011 production of "Anna Christie" at the Donmar Theatre, London. In 2012, he returned to the Citizens Theatre in Glasgow to play the title role in "King Lear". Hayman was awarded the City of Glasgow's gold medal in 1992, for outstanding services to the performing arts. In 2001 he founded the humanitarian charity "Spirit Aid" which is dedicated to children of the world whose lives have been devastated by war, genocide, poverty, abuse or lack of opportunity at home and abroad. Hayman is currently Head of Operations of the charity which undertakes humanitarian relief projects from Kosovo to Guinea-Bissau, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, Cambodia, Malawi and South Africa. He is a supporter of Celtic F.C.
1054266	One Night with the King is a historical epic film that was released in 2006 in the United States. Based on the novel "" by Tommy Tenney and Mark Andrew Olsen, "One Night with the King" is a dramatization of the Biblical story of Esther, who risked her life by approaching the king to request that he save the Jewish people. The movie was produced by Matt Crouch and Laurie Crouch of Gener8Xion Entertainment It was ninth on the list of highest-grossing motion pictures during the week it was released. This film received a 2007 CAMIE Award, as Luke Goss did for his portrayal of King Xerxes. Plot. The movie is set in Susa, Persia (now Iran). King Xerxes holds a great feast for all the people to attend. Hadassah (the main protagonist) longs to go to Jerusalem to see the Holy Land and prepares to leave with the caravan along with her friend, Jesse. They stop by the King’s feast before he goes marching to war to avenge his father’s death. Hadassah and Jesse witness the King summoning Queen Vashti. Queen Vashti was opposed to the war, desiring King Xerxes to enhance his kingdom instead. She holds her own feast in protest to the war. When the king summons her to his own feast, she refuses to come stating, “I am queen, and I will not lower my dignity. or shame my crown by wearing it before your drunk, and thinly veiled war council”. Because of this, King Xerxes is advised to banish her and select a more worthy queen.
1245478	Once Brothers (Serbian: "Једном браћа" / Croatian: "Jednom braća") is a 2010 sports documentary film written and directed by Michael Tolajian. It was co-produced by ESPN and NBA Entertainment for ESPN's "30 for 30" series.
1061205	Madeline Kahn (September 29, 1942 – December 3, 1999) was an American actress, comedienne and singer. She was best known for her comedic roles in such films as "Blazing Saddles", "Paper Moon", "Young Frankenstein", "History of the World, Part I", "What's Up, Doc?," and "Clue". Early life. Kahn was born Madeline Gail Wolfson in Boston, the daughter of Bernard B. Wolfson, a garment manufacturer, and his wife, Freda (née Goldberg). She was raised in a non-observant Jewish family. Her parents divorced when Kahn was two, and she and her mother moved to New York City. In 1953, Freda married Hiller Kahn—who later adopted Madeline—and eventually changed her name to Paula Kahn. Kahn had two half-siblings: Jeffrey (from her mother's marriage to Kahn) and Robyn (from Bernard Wolfson's second marriage). In 1948, Kahn was sent to a progressive boarding school in Pennsylvania and stayed there until 1952. During that time, her mother pursued her acting dream. Kahn soon began acting herself and performed in a number of school productions. In 1960, she graduated from Martin Van Buren High School in Queens, where she earned a drama scholarship to Hofstra University on Long Island. At Hofstra, she studied drama, music, and speech therapy. After changing her major a number of times, Kahn graduated from Hofstra in 1964 with a degree in speech therapy. She was a member of a local sorority on campus, Delta Chi Delta.
1059315	James Anthony "Jim" Sturgess (born 16 May 1978) is an English actor and singer-songwriter. His breakthrough role was appearing as Jude in the musical romance drama film "Across the Universe" (2007). Early life. Sturgess was born in London, England but grew up in Farnham, Surrey, where he attended Frensham Heights School. He spent most of his youth skateboarding around his local car parks and started his first band as early as 15 years old where they would rehearse in the garage of his friend's dad's house. The band would also play gigs in and around his local area to any publican that would turn a blind eye to the fact that they were all under age. Sturgess's first acting experience came when the local theatre group came to his school looking for kids to audition for the local play. Quickly realising that he would be able to miss school, he went along to the audition and landed one of the parts in the play. It was clear to both his school and his parents that he had a natural talent, but it was always music rather than acting that was at the forefront of his mind. Sturgess moved to Manchester to attend Salford University hoping it would enable him to start another band and hang around the Manchester music scene, where most of his music idols were from. In Manchester, he fell in with a group of aspiring actors and filmmakers, and his passion for acting was re-ignited. He started to write and perform his own short films and plays. Whilst performing his one person show 'BUZZIN', based around his performance poetry, Jim was discovered by an acting agent. He graduated from the University of Salford in 1999 with an HND in Media and Performance. Acting career. In 2007, he got his big break when he was cast in Julie Taymor's musical "Across the Universe", portraying Jude Feeny, a paternally shorn young man who travels to the US amid the raging throes of the late 1960s and falls in love with a sheltered American teenager, Lucy, played by Evan Rachel Wood. In 2008, he appeared in the historical drama "The Other Boleyn Girl" in the supporting role of George Boleyn opposite Natalie Portman, Scarlett Johansson and Eric Bana. He also played the male lead role of Ben Campbell in "21", a movie about five MIT students, who, by counting cards, take Las Vegas casinos for millions. Sturgess's co-stars in "21" include Kevin Spacey and Laurence Fishburne. In 2009, he played Gavin Kossef in "Crossing Over", appearing with Harrison Ford, Ray Liotta and Ashley Judd. Set in Los Angeles, the story revolves around immigrants from different countries and backgrounds who share a common bond: they are all desperately trying to gain legal-immigrant status. Also in 2009, he starred in Kari Skogland’s "Fifty Dead Men Walking", loosely based on the true story, related in a best-selling book by Martin McGartland, of a young Irishman who is recruited by the British police to infiltrate and spy on the Irish Republican Army, and who in the process ends up saving about fifty innocent lives. "Heartless", a film directed by Philip Ridley, premiered on 31 August 2009 at the London FrightFest Film Festival, a popular horror film festival. Sturgess appears as Jamie Morgan, a young man whose life has always been blighted by the large, heart-shaped port wine birthmark on his face and sells his soul to the devil. Jim Sturgess won the Best Actor Award at the 2010 Fantasporto Film Festival for his role. The film also won the Best Film Award and the Best Director Award for Philip Ridley. In 2010, Sturgess starred in the film, "The Way Back", which is based on a true story and is directed by Peter Weir. The character Sturgess plays is based on Sławomir Rawicz, a young Polish officer who escaped from a Russian gulag during World War II.
580522	Singapore Dreaming () is a 2006 film set in Singapore. The film follows the Loh family, a typical Singaporean working-class family, through their aspirations for a better life and the harsh reality that makes it difficult for them to fulfill these aspirations. The film is inspired by a 2000 essay, "Paved with Good Intentions", that the writers of the film had written for the Singapore International Foundation. A concatenation of e-mails Singaporeans sent to writers Colin Goh and Woo Yen Yen on their life stories in relation to the Singaporean dream eventually led them to write, produce and direct "Singapore Dreaming". The film stars Richard Low as Poh Huat, Alice Lim as Siew Luan, Serene Chen as Irene, Yeo Yann Yann as Mei, Lim Yu-Beng as CK and Dick Su as Seng. The film was theatrically released on 7 September 2006, and at one time ranked fifth on the Singapore box office. It won the Montblanc New Screenwriters Award at the 54th San Sebastián International Film Festival, and was the first Singaporean film to receive an IFFPA-recognised international feature film award. Owing to its nature as a Singapore-produced film, "Singapore Dreaming" received much attention from local viewers, film critics and public figures alike. It has received great praise from some local critics and public figures, most notably from S.R. Nathan, the President of Singapore. Plot summary. Poh Huat (Richard Low), the father of the Loh family, works as a lawyer's clerk. He is married to Siew Luan (Alice Lim), a housewife who likes to brew "liang teh" (herbal tea) for the family. Poh Huat has a habit of buying lottery tickets in hope of winning and enjoying a better life. He also keeps newspaper cuttings of car models and condominiums and stores them in a box in his room.
1090873	Gaspard-Gustave de Coriolis or Gustave Coriolis (; 21 May 1792 – 19 September 1843) was a French mathematician, mechanical engineer and scientist. He is best known for his work on the supplementary forces that are detected in a rotating frame of reference. See the Coriolis Effect. Coriolis was the first to coin the term "work" for the transfer of energy by a force acting through a distance. Biography. Coriolis was born in Paris in 1792. In 1816, he became a tutor at the École Polytechnique, where he did experiments on friction and hydraulics. In 1829, Coriolis published a textbook, "Calcul de l'Effet des Machines" ("Calculation of the Effect of Machines"), which presented mechanics in a way that could readily be applied by industry. In this period, the correct expression for kinetic energy, "½mv2", and its relation to mechanical work, became established.
1091030	James Clerk Maxwell (13 June 1831 – 5 November 1879) was a Scottish mathematical physicist. His most prominent achievement was to formulate a set of equations that describe electricity, magnetism, and optics as manifestations of the same phenomenon, namely the electromagnetic field. Maxwell's achievements concerning electromagnetism have been called the "second great unification in physics", after the first one realised by Isaac Newton. With the publication of "A Dynamical Theory of the Electromagnetic Field" in 1865, Maxwell demonstrated that electric and magnetic fields travel through space as waves moving at the speed of light. Maxwell proposed that light is in fact undulations in the same medium that is the cause of electric and magnetic phenomena. The unification of light and electrical phenomena led to the prediction of the existence of radio waves. Maxwell helped develop the Maxwell–Boltzmann distribution, which is a statistical means of describing aspects of the kinetic theory of gases. He is also known for presenting the first durable colour photograph in 1861 and for his foundational work on analysing the rigidity of rod-and-joint frameworks (trusses) like those in many bridges. His discoveries helped usher in the era of modern physics, laying the foundation for such fields as special relativity and quantum mechanics. Many physicists regard Maxwell as the 19th-century scientist having the greatest influence on 20th-century physics, and his contributions to the science are considered by many to be of the same magnitude as those of Isaac Newton and Albert Einstein. In the millennium poll—a survey of the 100 most prominent physicists—Maxwell was voted the third greatest physicist of all time, behind only Newton and Einstein. On the centenary of Maxwell's birthday, Einstein himself described Maxwell's work as the "most profound and the most fruitful that physics has experienced since the time of Newton." Life. Early life, 1831–39. James Clerk Maxwell was born on 13 June 1831 at 14 India Street, Edinburgh, to John Clerk, an advocate, and Frances Cay. His father was a man of comfortable means, of the Clerk family of Penicuik, holders of the baronetcy of Clerk of Penicuik; his father's brother being the 6th Baronet. He had been born "John Clerk", adding the surname Maxwell to his own after he inherited a country estate in Middlebie, Kirkcudbrightshire, from connections to the Maxwell family, themselves members of the peerage. James was the first cousin of the artist Jemima Blackburn. Maxwell's parents did not meet and marry until they were well into their thirties, and his mother was nearly 40 years old when he was born. They had had one earlier child, a daughter named Elizabeth, who died in infancy. When Maxwell was young his family moved to Glenlair House, which his parents had built on the Middlebie estate. All indications suggest that Maxwell had maintained an unquenchable curiosity from an early age. By the age of three, everything that moved, shone, or made a noise drew the question: "what's the go o' that?". In a passage added to a letter from his father to his sister-in-law Jane Cay in 1834, his mother described this innate sense of inquisitiveness: Education, 1839–47. Recognising the potential of the young boy, his mother Frances took responsibility for James' early education, which in the Victorian era was largely the job of the woman of the house. She was however taken ill with abdominal cancer, and after an unsuccessful operation, died in December 1839 when Maxwell was only eight years old. James's education was then overseen by his father and his sister-in-law Jane, both of whom played pivotal roles in his life. His formal schooling began unsuccessfully under the guidance of a sixteen-year-old hired tutor. Little is known about the young man John Maxwell hired to instruct his son, except that he treated the younger boy harshly, chiding him for being slow and wayward. John Maxwell dismissed the tutor in November 1841, and after considerable thought, sent James to the prestigious Edinburgh Academy. He lodged during term times at the house of his aunt Isabella. During this time his passion for drawing was encouraged by his older cousin Jemima. The ten-year-old Maxwell, having been raised in isolation on his father's countryside estate, did not fit in well at school. The first year had been full, obliging him to join the second year with classmates a year his senior. His mannerisms and Galloway accent struck the other boys as rustic, and his having arrived on his first day of school wearing a pair of homemade shoes and a tunic, earned him the unkind nickname of "Daftie". Maxwell never seemed to resent the epithet, bearing it without complaint for many years. Social isolation at the Academy ended when he met Lewis Campbell and Peter Guthrie Tait, two boys of a similar age who were to become notable scholars later in life. They would remain lifelong friends. Maxwell was fascinated by geometry at an early age, rediscovering the regular polyhedra before he received any formal instruction, but much of his talent went overlooked. Despite winning the school's scripture biography prize in his second year his academic work remained unnoticed until, at the age of 13, he won the school's mathematical medal and first prize for both English and poetry. Maxwell’s interests ranged far beyond the school syllabus, and he did not pay particular attention to examination performance. He wrote his first scientific paper at the age of 14. In it he described a mechanical means of drawing mathematical curves with a piece of twine, and the properties of ellipses, Cartesian ovals, and related curves with more than two foci. His work, "Oval Curves", was presented to the Royal Society of Edinburgh by James Forbes, who was a professor of natural philosophy at Edinburgh University, but Maxwell was deemed too young to present the work himself. The work was not entirely original, since René Descartes had also examined the properties of such multifocal ellipses in the seventeenth century, but Maxwell had simplified their construction. University of Edinburgh, 1847–50. Maxwell left the Academy in 1847 at the age of 16 and began attending classes at the University of Edinburgh. He had the opportunity to attend the University of Cambridge, however, Maxwell decided, after his first term, to complete the full course of his undergraduate studies at Edinburgh. The academic staff of Edinburgh University included some highly regarded names, and Maxwell's first year tutors included Sir William Hamilton, who lectured him on logic and metaphysics, Philip Kelland on mathematics, and James Forbes on natural philosophy. Maxwell did not find his classes at Edinburgh University very demanding, and was therefore able to immerse himself in private study during free time at the university, and particularly when back home at Glenlair. There he would experiment with improvised chemical, electric, and magnetic apparatuses, but his chief concerns regarded the properties of polarised light. He constructed shaped blocks of gelatine, subjected them to various stresses, and with a pair of polarising prisms given to him by William Nicol he would view the coloured fringes which had developed within the jelly. Through this practice Maxwell discovered photoelasticity, which is a means of determining the stress distribution within physical structures. At the age of 18, Maxwell contributed two papers for the Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. One of these, "On the Equilibrium of Elastic Solids", laid the foundation for an important discovery later in his life, which was the temporary double refraction produced in viscous liquids by shear stress. His other paper was "Rolling Curves", and just as with the paper "Oval Curves" that he had written at the Edinburgh Academy, Maxwell was again considered too young to stand at the rostrum and present it himself. The paper was delivered to the Royal Society by his tutor Kelland instead. University of Cambridge, 1850–56. In October 1850, already an accomplished mathematician, Maxwell left Scotland for the University of Cambridge. He initially attended Peterhouse, but before the end of his first term transferred to Trinity, where he believed it would be easier to obtain a fellowship. At Trinity, he was elected to the elite secret society known as the Cambridge Apostles. In November 1851, Maxwell studied under William Hopkins, whose success in nurturing mathematical genius had earned him the nickname of "senior wrangler-maker". In 1854, Maxwell graduated from Trinity with a degree in mathematics. He scored second highest in the final examination, coming behind Edward Routh, and thereby earning himself the title of Second Wrangler. He was later declared equal with Routh, however, in the more exacting ordeal of the Smith's Prize examination. Immediately after earning his degree, Maxwell read his paper "On the Transformation of Surfaces by Bending" to the Cambridge Philosophical Society. This is one of the few purely mathematical papers he had written, and it demonstrated Maxwell's growing stature as a mathematician. Maxwell decided to remain at Trinity after graduating and applied for a fellowship, which was a process that he could expect to take a couple of years. Buoyed by his success as a research student, he would be free, apart from some tutoring and examining duties, to pursue scientific interests at his own leisure. The nature and perception of colour was one such interest, and had begun at Edinburgh University while he was a student of Forbes. Maxwell took the coloured spinning tops invented by Forbes, and was able to demonstrate that white light would result from a mixture of red, green and blue light. His paper, "Experiments on Colour", laid out the principles of colour combination, and was presented to the Royal Society of Edinburgh in March 1855. Maxwell was this time able to deliver it himself. Maxwell was made a fellow of Trinity on 10 October 1855, sooner than was the norm, and was asked to prepare lectures on hydrostatics and optics, and to set examination papers. However, the following February he was urged by Forbes to apply for the newly vacant Chair of Natural Philosophy at Marischal College, Aberdeen. His father assisted him in the task of preparing the necessary references, but died on 2 April at Glenlair before either knew the result of Maxwell's candidacy. Maxwell accepted the professorship at Aberdeen, leaving Cambridge in November 1856. Marischal College, Aberdeen, 1856–60. The 25-year-old Maxwell was a fifteen years younger than any other professor at Marischal; however, he still engaged himself with his new responsibilities as head of a department, devising the syllabus and preparing lectures. He committed himself to lecturing 15 hours a week, including a weekly "pro bono" lecture to the local working men's college. He lived in Aberdeen during the six months of the academic year, and he spent the summers at Glenlair, which he had inherited from his father. He focused his attention on a problem that had eluded scientists for two hundred years: the nature of Saturn's rings. It was unknown how they could remain stable without breaking up, drifting away or crashing into Saturn. The problem took on a particular resonance at that time because St John's College, Cambridge, had chosen it as the topic for the 1857 Adams Prize. Maxwell devoted two years to studying the problem, proving that a regular solid ring could not be stable, and a fluid ring would be forced by wave action to break up into blobs. Since neither was observed, Maxwell concluded that the rings must be composed of numerous small particles he called "brick-bats", each independently orbiting Saturn. Maxwell was awarded the £130 Adams Prize in 1859 for his essay "On the stability of Saturn's rings"; he was the only entrant to have made enough headway to submit an entry. His work was so detailed and convincing that when George Biddell Airy read it he commented "It is one of the most remarkable applications of mathematics to physics that I have ever seen." It was considered the final word on the issue until direct observations by the "Voyager" flybys of the 1980s confirmed Maxwell's prediction. In 1857, Maxwell befriended the Reverend Daniel Dewar, who was then the Principal of Marischal; and, through him Maxwell met Dewar's daughter, Katherine Mary Dewar. They were engaged in February 1858, and married in Aberdeen on 2 June 1858. On the marriage record, Maxwell is listed as Professor of Natural Philosophy in Marischal College, Aberdeen. Seven years Maxwell's senior, comparatively little is known of Katherine, although it is known that she helped in his lab and worked on experiments in viscosity. Maxwell's biographer and friend, Lewis Campbell, adopted an uncharacteristic reticence on the subject of Katherine, though describing their married life as "one of unexampled devotion". In 1860, Marischal College merged with the neighbouring King's College to form the University of Aberdeen. There was no room for two professors of Natural Philosophy, and Maxwell, despite his scientific reputation, found himself laid off. He was unsuccessful in applying for Forbes's recently vacated chair at Edinburgh, the post instead going to Tait. Maxwell was granted the Chair of Natural Philosophy at King's College London instead. After recovering from a near-fatal bout of smallpox in the summer of 1860, Maxwell headed south to London with his wife. King's College London, 1860–65. Maxwell's time at King's was probably the most productive of his career. He was awarded the Royal Society's Rumford Medal in 1860 for his work on colour, and was later elected to the Society in 1861. This period of his life would see him display the world's first light-fast colour photograph, further develop his ideas on the viscosity of gases, and propose a system of defining physical quantities—now known as dimensional analysis. Maxwell would often attend lectures at the Royal Institution, where he came into regular contact with Michael Faraday. The relationship between the two men could not be described as being close, because Faraday was 40 years Maxwell's senior and showed signs of senility. They nevertheless maintained a strong respect for each other's talents. This time is especially noteworthy for the advances Maxwell made in the fields of electricity and magnetism. He examined the nature of both electric and magnetic fields in his two-part paper "On physical lines of force", which was published in 1861. In it he provided a conceptual model for electromagnetic induction, consisting of tiny spinning cells of magnetic flux. Two more parts were later added to and published in that same paper in early 1862. In the first additional part he discussed the nature of electrostatics and displacement current. In the second additional part, he dealt with the rotation of the plane of the polarization of light in a magnetic field, a phenomenon that had been discovered by Faraday, and now known as the Faraday effect. Later years. In 1865, Maxwell resigned the chair at King's College London and he returned to Glenlair with Katherine. In his paper "On reciprocal figures, frames and diagrams of forces" (1870) he discussed the rigidity of various designs of lattice, and he wrote the textbook "Theory of Heat" (1871) and the treatise "Matter and Motion" (1876). Maxwell was also the first to make explicit use of dimensional analysis, in 1871. In 1871, he became the first Cavendish Professor of Physics at Cambridge. Maxwell was put in charge of the development of the Cavendish Laboratory, and supervised every step in the progress of the building and of the purchase of the collection of apparatus. One of Maxwell's last great contributions to science was the editing (with copious original notes) of the research of Henry Cavendish, from which it appeared that Cavendish researched, amongst other things, such questions as the density of the Earth and the composition of water. Maxwell died in Cambridge of abdominal cancer on 5 November 1879 at the age of 48. His mother had died at the same age of the same type of cancer. Maxwell is buried at Parton Kirk, near Castle Douglas in Galloway, near where he grew up. The extended biography "The Life of James Clerk Maxwell", by his former schoolfellow and lifelong friend Professor Lewis Campbell, was published in 1882. His collected works were issued in two volumes by the Cambridge University Press in 1890. Personality. As a great lover of Scottish poetry, Maxwell memorised poems and wrote his own. The best known is "Rigid Body Sings", closely based on "Comin' Through the Rye" by Robert Burns, which he apparently used to sing while accompanying himself on a guitar. It has the opening lines A collection of his poems was published by his friend Lewis Campbell in 1882. Descriptions of Maxwell remark upon his remarkable intellectual qualities being matched by social awkwardness. Maxwell was an evangelical Presbyterian, and in his later years became an Elder of the Church of Scotland. Maxwell's religious beliefs and related activities have been the focus of a number of papers. Attending both Church of Scotland (his father's denomination) and Episcopalian (his mother's denomination) services as a child, Maxwell later underwent an evangelical conversion in April 1853, which committed him to an antipositivist position. Scientific legacy. Electromagnetism. Maxwell had studied and commented on electricity and magnetism as early as 1855 when "On Faraday's lines of force" was read to the Cambridge Philosophical Society. The paper presented a simplified model of Faraday's work, and how the two phenomena were related. He reduced all of the current knowledge into a linked set of differential equations with 20 equations in 20 variables. This work was later published as "On physical lines of force" in March 1861. Around 1862, while lecturing at King's College, Maxwell calculated that the speed of propagation of an electromagnetic field is approximately that of the speed of light. He considered this to be more than just a coincidence, and commented "We can scarcely avoid the conclusion that light consists in the transverse undulations of the same medium which is the cause of electric and magnetic phenomena." Working on the problem further, Maxwell showed that the equations predict the existence of waves of oscillating electric and magnetic fields that travel through empty space at a speed that could be predicted from simple electrical experiments; using the data available at the time, Maxwell obtained a velocity of . In his 1864 paper, "A dynamical theory of the electromagnetic field", Maxwell wrote, "The agreement of the results seems to show that light and magnetism are affections of the same substance, and that light is an electromagnetic disturbance propagated through the field according to electromagnetic laws". His famous equations, in their modern form of four partial differential equations, first appeared in fully developed form in his textbook, "A Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism" in 1873. Most of this work was done by Maxwell at Glenlair during the period between holding his London post and his taking up the Cavendish chair. Maxwell expressed electromagnetism in the algebra of quaternions and made the electromagnetic potential the centrepiece of his theory. In 1881, Oliver Heaviside replaced Maxwell’s electromagnetic potential field by ‘force fields’ as the centrepiece of electromagnetic theory. Heaviside reduced the complexity of Maxwell’s theory down to four differential equations, known now collectively as Maxwell's Laws or Maxwell's equations. According to Heaviside, the electromagnetic potential field was arbitrary and needed to be "murdered". The use of scalar and vector potentials is now standard in the solution of Maxwell's equations. A few years later there was a debate between Heaviside and Peter Guthrie Tait about the relative merits of vector analysis and quaternions. The result was the realisation that there was no need for the greater physical insights provided by quaternions if the theory was purely local, and vector analysis became commonplace. Maxwell was proven correct, and his quantitative connection between light and electromagnetism is considered one of the great accomplishments of 19th century mathematical physics. Maxwell also introduced the concept of the "electromagnetic field" in comparison to force lines that Faraday described. By understanding the propagation of electromagnetism as a field emitted by active particles, Maxwell could advance his work on light. At that time, Maxwell believed that the propagation of light required a medium for the waves, dubbed the luminiferous aether. Over time, the existence of such a medium, permeating all space and yet apparently undetectable by mechanical means, proved impossible to reconcile with experiments such as the Michelson–Morley experiment. Moreover, it seemed to require an absolute frame of reference in which the equations were valid, with the distasteful result that the equations changed form for a moving observer. These difficulties inspired Albert Einstein to formulate the theory of special relativity, and in the process Einstein dispensed with the requirement of a luminiferous aether. Colour analysis. Maxwell contributed to the field of optics and the study of colour vision, creating the foundation for practical colour photography. From 1855 to 1872, he published at intervals a series of valuable investigations concerning the perception of colour, colour-blindness and colour theory, being awarded the Rumford Medal for "On the Theory of Colour Vision". In the course of his 1855 paper on the perception of colour, Maxwell proposed that if three black-and-white photographs of a scene were taken through red, green and blue filters, and transparent prints of the images were projected onto a screen using three projectors equipped with similar filters, when superimposed on the screen the result would be perceived by the human eye as a complete reproduction of all the colours in the scene. During an 1861 Royal Institution lecture on colour theory, Maxwell presented the world's first demonstration of colour photography by this principle of three-colour analysis and synthesis. Thomas Sutton, inventor of the single-lens reflex camera, did the actual picture-taking. He photographed a tartan ribbon three times, through red, green and blue filters, as well as a fourth exposure through a yellow filter, but according to Maxwell's account this was not used in the demonstration. Because Sutton's photographic plates were in fact insensitive to red and barely sensitive to green, the results of this pioneering experiment were far from perfect. It was remarked in the published account of the lecture that "if the red and green images had been as fully photographed as the blue," it "would have been a truly-coloured image of the riband. By finding photographic materials more sensitive to the less refrangible rays, the representation of the colours of objects might be greatly improved." Researchers in 1961 concluded that the seemingly impossible partial success of the red-filtered exposure was due to ultraviolet light. Some red dyes strongly reflect it, the red filter used does not entirely block it, and Sutton's plates were sensitive to it. Kinetic theory and thermodynamics. Maxwell also investigated the kinetic theory of gases. Originating with Daniel Bernoulli, this theory was advanced by the successive labours of John Herapath, John James Waterston, James Joule, and particularly Rudolf Clausius, to such an extent as to put its general accuracy beyond a doubt; but it received enormous development from Maxwell, who in this field appeared as an experimenter (on the laws of gaseous friction) as well as a mathematician. Between 1859 and 1866, he developed the theory of the distributions of velocities in particles of a gas, work later generalised by Ludwig Boltzmann. The formula, called the Maxwell–Boltzmann distribution, gives the fraction of gas molecules moving at a specified velocity at any given temperature. In the kinetic theory, temperatures and heat involve only molecular movement. This approach generalised the previously established laws of thermodynamics and explained existing observations and experiments in a better way than had been achieved previously. Maxwell's work on thermodynamics led him to devise the thought experiment that came to be known as Maxwell's demon, where the second law of thermodynamics is violated by an imaginary being capable of sorting particles by energy. In 1871, he established Maxwell's thermodynamic relations, which are statements of equality among the second derivatives of the thermodynamic potentials with respect to different thermodynamic variables. In 1874, he constructed a plaster thermodynamic visualisation as a way of exploring phase transitions, based on the American scientist Josiah Willard Gibbs's graphical thermodynamics papers. Control theory. Maxwell published a paper "On governors" in the "Proceedings of Royal Society", vol. 16 (1867–1868). This paper is considered a central paper of the early days of control theory. Here "governors" refers to the governor or the centrifugal governor used to regulate steam engines. Legacy. His name is honoured in several ways:
1033546	Robert Lewis Glenister (born 11 March 1960) is an English actor known for his roles as con man Ash "Three Socks" Morgan in the BBC television series "Hustle" (which ran for eight series in the UK between 2004 and 2012, Glenister being the only actor to appear in every episode), and Nicholas Blake in the BBC spy drama "Spooks". Career. Glenister made his first television appearance in the sitcom "Sink or Swim" in 1980. He has also appeared in shows such as "Soldier Soldier, " "Doctor Who" (in the serial "The Caves of Androzani", opposite his "Sink or Swim" co-star Peter Davison), "Only Fools and Horses (as Myles the millionaire garden centre owner and chairman of the SWANS committee)", "A Touch of Frost" and "Hustle" as Ash Morgan, as well as several films. He is probably best known for his starring role in the BBC drama "Hustle"; Ash Morgan is a high-level con-man who has to convincingly play various roles or characters in order to pull off a con and lure a 'mark'. He is the only actor who has appeared in every episode of the series. He has also had regular starring roles in the BBC dramas such as "Spooks", "George Gently" and "Spartacus". Personal and family life. He is the son of director John Glenister and the brother of actor Philip Glenister, who played DCI Gene Hunt in "Life on Mars" and "Ashes to Ashes". His ex-wife is actress Amanda Redman with whom he has a daughter, Emily. He and his current wife, Celia Glenister, have a son, Thomas. His sister-in-law is also an actress. When Robert Glenister was growing up he attended Hatch End High School.
586296	Kaiyethum Doorath, alternatively called also as "Kai Ethum Doorathu" is a 2002 Malayalam romance film written, directed and produced by Fazil. It was the debut film of Fazil's son Fahadh Faasil(rechristened as Shanu) and Nikita Thukral, who played the title roles. Mammootty played a cameo role in the movie. "Kaiyethum Doorath" was a Disaster at the Box-office. Plot. Sachin Madhavan (Fahadh Faasil) comes to a hill station where he meets a girl Sushma (Nikitha) and it is love at first sight. Later he comes to know that she stays with her aunt and comes from a broken family. Her father (Siddique) and mother (Revathy) are said to be separated and living abroad. They want to legally get divorced after their only daughter gets married. Sachin loves her deeply but never reveals his feeling, as he comes to know that her parents have fixed her marriage. Both become great friends and they share a very special relationship till Sushmas mother arrives from Kuwait for her engagement. Sushma however agrees for the marriage provided her father too comes for the function. But her overprotective mother assumes that she is in love with Sachin and provokes her to tell a lie that she loves Sachin. She convinces Sachin also to tell the same lie and help her unite her parents. They run away with the help of Sachins friends and stay somewhere away from home. Slowly Sushma too starts falling in love with Sachin.
813321	Perla Haney-Jardine (born May 2, 1997) is a Brazilian-born American actress. She is best known for her role in "Kill Bill Vol. 2" as B.B., the four-year-old daughter of Beatrix "The Bride" Kiddo and Bill. Personal life. Haney-Jardine was born in Niterói, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. She started out doing commercials before going into movies. She now lives with her family in Asheville, North Carolina. Her father, Chusy Haney-Jardine, is Venezuelan-born director, and her mother, Jennifer MacDonald, is a film producer. She has a younger brother, Lux.
1164179	Julia Duffy (born Julia Margaret Hinds; June 27, 1951) is an American actress from Minneapolis, Minnesota, specializing in character roles, best known as the spoiled rich girl and Dick Loudon's (played by Bob Newhart) inn maid, Stephanie Vanderkellen, on the 1980s sitcom, "Newhart". Career. Duffy's early career included parts in soap operas such as "One Life to Live", "The Doctors" and "Love of Life". Duffy also appeared in movies such as "Night Warning" (1981) and "Cutter's Way" (1981). She made an appearance on the television sitcom "Cheers" during the show's first season in 1982; she had been considered for the role of Diane Chambers. In 1983, she played Princess Ariel Baaldorf in the medieval spoof "Wizards and Warriors", which had a short run on the CBS television network. Duffy joined the cast of the television series "Newhart" in its second season (she made an appearance in the 14th episode of the 1st season), playing the part of the self-infatuated preppy maid Stephanie Vanderkellen. It is probably her most popular role and one she played for seven seasons. She earned Emmy Award nominations for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series for the role every year from 1984 through 1990. She also received a Golden Globe nomination and won three Viewers For Quality Television Awards for her work. Julia was actually pregnant during several episodes of "Newhart." To hide it, she wore baggy clothes and stood behind furniture.
1099223	Curve fitting is the process of constructing a curve, or mathematical function, that has the best fit to a series of data points, possibly subject to constraints. Curve fitting can involve either interpolation, where an exact fit to the data is required, or smoothing, in which a "smooth" function is constructed that approximately fits the data. A related topic is regression analysis, which focuses more on questions of statistical inference such as how much uncertainty is present in a curve that is fit to data observed with random errors. Fitted curves can be used as an aid for data visualization, to infer values of a function where no data are available, and to summarize the relationships among two or more variables. Extrapolation refers to the use of a fitted curve beyond the range of the observed data, and is subject to a degree of uncertainty since it may reflect the method used to construct the curve as much as it reflects the observed data. Different types of curve fitting. Fitting lines and polynomial curves to data points. Starting with a first degree polynomial equation: This is a line with slope "a". A line will connect any two points, so a first degree polynomial equation is an exact fit through any two points with distinct x coordinates. If the order of the equation is increased to a second degree polynomial, the following results: This will exactly fit a simple curve to three points. If the order of the equation is increased to a third degree polynomial, the following is obtained: This will exactly fit four points. A more general statement would be to say it will exactly fit four constraints. Each constraint can be a point, angle, or curvature (which is the reciprocal of the radius of an osculating circle). Angle and curvature constraints are most often added to the ends of a curve, and in such cases are called end conditions. Identical end conditions are frequently used to ensure a smooth transition between polynomial curves contained within a single spline. Higher-order constraints, such as "the change in the rate of curvature", could also be added. This, for example, would be useful in highway cloverleaf design to understand the rate of change of the forces applied to a car (see jerk), as it follows the cloverleaf, and to set reasonable speed limits, accordingly.
1034422	Arthur Haynes (19 May 1914; London, England – 19 November 1966; Ealing, London) was an English comedian and star of "The Arthur Haynes Show", a comedy sketch series produced by ATV from 1957 until his death from a heart attack in 1966. Haynes also appeared on radio and in films. Early life. Arthur Haynes was the only child of a Fulham (south-west London) baker. He started off in a number of odd jobs, doing painting (he was very proud of his painting in later years), plumbing and joinery He continued to work with Chester after the war in the BBC Radio series "Stand Easy" (1946–49) Chester had not originally wanted to feature him as he had a full cast but once he heard Haynes give a high pitched laugh, he knew he could use it and found a place for him. They became a double act in the show where Chester wrote the scripts. Much later, the comedian returned to BBC radio with "The Arthur Haynes Show" (1962-65) which ran over four series. Sometimes Patricia Hayes would join them as a woman tramp. In early episodes, the shows were played out on a stage, and basic scenery and props were used where, for instance, the audience could see outside and inside a house, as there was no wall on their side. Later episodes had improved sets. The stars sometimes forgot (or didn't bother to learn) their lines, and would ad lib them. If someone fluffed a line, that would be used to get more laughs. Haynes and others sometimes failed to keep a straight face, and occasionally burst into laughter. The shows would also feature musical guests, such as the Springfields in 1963, Kenny Ball and his Jazzmen and the Rolling Stones in 1964, and Joe Brown and the Bruvvers and the Dave Clark Five in 1965. A number of the shows started and ended with Arthur Haynes driving a horse and cart along a narrow country lane, whistling and (unconvincingly) playing a harmonica. Some began with a cartoon workman using a road drill on the show's title. Haynes received the Variety Club's award as ITV Personality of 1961 and appeared on the Royal Variety Performance in the same year. Volume 6 was released in January 2013
586741	Jaadugar () is a 1989 Hindi fantasy thriller drama film directed by Prakash Mehra and starring Amitabh Bachchan, Jaya Prada, Aditya Pancholi, Amrita Singh, Amrish Puri and Pran. Prakash Mehra and Amitabh Bachchan collaborated for the eighth time on this movie (previous movies being: Zanjeer, Khoon Pasina, Hera Pheri, Muqaddar Ka Sikander, Laawaris, Namak Halal and Sharaabi). This was last collaboration between Prakash Mehra and Amitabh Bachchan. Plot. Returned American Shankar Narayan is baffled to witness his former businessman and jailbird dad posing as a soothsayer by the name of Mahaprabhu Janak Sagar Jagat Narayan, in a small town called Dharampur. He comes to know that his dad has learned a few magician's tricks from a fellow inmate, and is able to fool the entire township with his "divine" powers. Shankar enlists the assistance of noted magician Goga, and brings him to Dharampur. Goga challenges the Mahaprabhu; he is able to dethrone him, ousts him from his temple, and takes over. His task over, Shankar asks Goga to leave; but power-hungry Goga, who now calls himself Gogeshwar, refuses to let go of his new-found position. Actually Goga is not power-hungry as he seems to be. Mahaprabhu, however, refuses to give up and uses all deceitful methods to expose the fact that Goga is just a mortal, and it is he who is actually divine. He tries to poison the 'Prasad' that Goga gives to his 'followers' but they all escape. In the end, Goga completely exposes 'Mahaprabhu' in front of the whole public along with the fact that he himself is a common man who posed as a 'Divine' man just to match and teach 'Mahaprabhu'. He then returns to his best role – being the people's magician. Production notes. This was the final film of Prakash Mehra with Amitabh Bachchan, which, although it did not do well at the box-office, was praised for its unique story and great performances by the total cast. The film is also best remembered for its many confrontational scenes between Amitabh Bachchan and Amrish Puri.
393964	Midnight FM () is a 2010 South Korean thriller film by Kim Sang-man starring Soo Ae and Yoo Ji-tae.
1059197	Jaime King (born April 23, 1979) is an American actress and model. In her modeling career and early film roles, she used the names Jamie King and James King, which was a childhood nickname given to King by her parents, because her agency already represented another Jaime — the older, then-more famous model Jaime Rishar. King appeared in "Vogue", "Mademoiselle", and "Harper's Bazaar", among other fashion magazines. Afterwards, she began taking small film roles. Her first major role was in "Pearl Harbor" (2001) and her first starring movie role was in "Bulletproof Monk" (2003). She has since appeared as a lead in other films, such as "Sin City" (2005) and "My Bloody Valentine 3D" (2009) and is currently starring in the television series "Hart of Dixie". Early life and family. King was born in the suburbs of Omaha, Nebraska, the daughter of Nancy King, a former beauty queen, and Robert King. She has an older sister, Sandi and a younger brother, Barry. King was named after Lindsay Wagner's character, Jaime Sommers, on the 1970s television series "The Bionic Woman". King's parents separated in 1994. King had attended Nancy Bounds' Studios, a modeling school, and in 1995 dropped out of Westside High School in order to pursue a modeling career in New York. She later enrolled in a home-study program run by the University of Nebraska. Modeling career. She was discovered in November 1993, at age fourteen, while attending Nancy Bounds' Studios. After being spotted at her graduation fashion show by model agent Michael Flutie, King was invited to New York City to begin modeling professionally. She joined Company Management, which already represented Jaime Rishar, a more established model. To avoid confusion, King opted to use her childhood nickname, James, for the duration of her modeling career and later, at the beginning of her film career. In March 1994 she traveled to New York for test pictures and received enthusiastic responses, however, she did not return to New York until July 1994, after gaining a successful advertisement for Abercrombie & Fitch. Much of fall and spring 1994 were spent commuting between Omaha and New York. King had a successful early career as a fashion model, and by age fifteen she had been featured in the fashion magazines "Vogue", "Mademoiselle", "Allure", and "Seventeen". At sixteen, King had graced the pages of "Glamour" and "Harper's Bazaar". She was featured in the cover story of the "New York Times Magazine" published on February 4, 1996 and had walked the runway for Chanel and Christian Dior. In 1998, she began co-hosting MTV's fashion series, "House of Style", with fellow model turned actress Rebecca Romijn. Despite her success, King noted that she "remember the times where I was so alone" and thought she was "never gonna be able to be a kid." In 2004, King, along with Halle Berry, Julianne Moore, and Eva Mendes was chosen as a spokesmodel for a high profile ad campaign for Revlon. The advertisements were featured in print, television, theatrical, outdoor and Internet venues, banking on their spokeswomen's "collective star power" to sell the cosmetics products. In 2006, King was chosen by Rocawear CEO Jay-Z to become the new face of the line; her advertisements were featured for the winter 2006 season. Acting career. Early work, 1998–2004. In 1999, King began her acting career and made her debut in the Daniel Waters' comedy "Happy Campers", as Pixel. "Happy Campers" was screened at the Sundance Film Festival in 2001, and in 2003, King was nominated for Best Actress at the DVD Exclusive Awards. Filmed in 1999, she also appeared in Filter's music video for "Take a Picture". Following her debut acting roles, King appeared briefly in the film "Blow", portraying the adult Kristina Jung, daughter of cocaine smuggler George Jung (portrayed by Johnny Depp). King made her first appearance in a large Hollywood production with her role as the seventeen-year-old nurse, Betty, in the World War II epic romance "Pearl Harbor" (2001). Peter Travers of "Rolling Stone" magazine commented that King "has a lively minute or two" in the film, but her part was small and the "young cast is mostly pinup packaging". King went on to be featured in the Incubus music video "Wish You Were Here". The roles King took part in during 2001 garnered her the "New Stylemaker" title at the Young Hollywood Awards. In 2002, she appeared in the teen comedy "Slackers" as Angela Patton, "Four Faces of God" as Sam, and the crime comedy "Lone Star State of Mind" as Baby. "Slackers" received negative responses from critics, including one who found that the characters "are not so strikingly original as to elevate the slack material", while "Four Faces of God" and "Lone Star State of Mind" did not have wide theatrical releases. 2003 saw King in the film "Bulletproof Monk", alongside Chow Yun-fat and Seann William Scott, an adaptation of a comic book by Michael Avon Oeming. After five auditions, a screen test, and a physical test, she landed the role of Jade, a character skilled in martial arts. This was King's first leading action film role. "Bulletproof Monk" received mostly negative reviews from critics, who cited that the fight scenes were not as well choreographed or directed as those other genre films, and that the alternating comedic and action scenes were jarring. Regardless, "Bulletproof Monk" was nominated for Choice Movie in a Drama/Action Adventure award at the Teen Choice Awards. In late 2003, King appeared in the music video for the Robbie Williams song, "Sexed Up", and on the cover artwork for the single's release. In 2004, she appeared in the comedy "White Chicks", playing Heather Vandergeld, with actress Brittany Daniel as her sister Megan Vandergeld, a parody on socialites Paris and Nicky Hilton. "White Chicks" was negatively reviewed by critics, receiving five nominations at the Razzie Awards in the categories for Worst Actress, Worst Director, Worst Picture, Worst Screen Couple and Worst Screenplay. However, "White Chicks" received Outstanding Directing for a Box Office Movie and Outstanding Writing for a Box Office Movie at the BET Comedy Awards. Breakthrough, 2005–2008. In 2005, King appeared in a variety of film and television roles. She first appeared in the independent black comedy and satire "Pretty Persuasion", playing a small role as Kathy Joyce, the stepmother of Evan Rachel Wood's character. King landed dual roles (as twins) in the film adaptation of Frank Miller's graphic novel "Sin City". She had met with director Robert Rodriguez, who was a fan of her work, and at the time King was unaware that Rodriguez wanted her involved in the film. Eventually, "we started reading "Sin City" graphic novel, and it was really fun". King portrayed Goldie and Wendy, the twin prostitutes in charge of the girls of Old Town, in the segment "The Hard Goodbye" opposite Mickey Rourke. "Sin City" featured a large ensemble cast of well-known actors which included Rosario Dawson and Jessica Alba, with whom King "kinda grew up together" in New York. "Sin City" had opened to wide critical and commercial success, gathering particular recognition for the film's unique coloring process, which rendered most of the film in black and white but retained coloring for select objects; King was one of the few in the black and white film to have color, that being, red lips and blonde hair when acting as Goldie. The film was screened at the 2005 Cannes Film Festival in-competition and won the Technical Grand Prize for the film's "visual shaping." The family comedy "Cheaper by the Dozen 2" featured King as Anne Murtaugh in another large ensemble cast. She also acted in the Al Pacino drama "Two for the Money" as Alexandria. Both films had negative critical and box office reception. On television, she had a guest appearance on the teen drama "The O.C." and a recurring role on the short-lived situation comedy "Kitchen Confidential". King was featured in the Zach Braff-directed music video for Gavin Degraw's "Chariot". In 2006, King appeared with a small role as Heather in the comedy "The Alibi" and a starring role in the thriller "True True Lie". Her largest role that year was in the David Arquette horror film "The Tripper" as Samantha. King had a recurring role on the short lived comedy "The Class", which ended its run on television after an announcement in May 2007. "The Class" had been nominated for an Emmy Award in 2007, and it won the People's Choice Award for Favorite New TV Comedy. In 2007, King filmed "They Wait", a horror-thriller film inspired by true events, with Terry Chen as her husband and Regan Oey as their son. She stars as a mother attempting to find the truth and save her son when threatened by spirits during the Chinese tradition of Ghost Month. It was featured in the 2007 Toronto Film Festival, but has not yet had a wide theatrical release. In 2008, King appeared as Lorelei Rox in "The Spirit", a live-action film adaptation based on the 1940s newspaper strip "The Spirit" created by Will Eisner. The role reunited King with "Sin City" writer Frank Miller, who wrote and directed the film. Film and television roles, 2009–present. King was cast as Sarah Palmer in the horror remake of "My Bloody Valentine 3D", which opened in January 2009. She appeared in the "Star Wars"-themed comedy "Fanboys", which had a release date pushed first to January 2008 when director Kyle Newman received additional funding to shoot new scenes, but the busy schedule of the actors postponed filming. Still delayed, the filmmakers and its distributor, the Weinstein Company, are involved in a dispute over which version to release. In May 2008, King featured in another Newman-directed film, Act I of "The Cube", the beginning of an online movie-making contest. "The Pardon", a film based on the true life story of Toni Jo Henry, the only woman to be electrocuted by Louisiana, stars King in the lead role with John Hawkes playing her partner-in-crime. This drama is slated for release in 2013. "The Pardon"'s co-producer and writer Sandi Russell says: "Jaime carries this film. She is literally in every scene of the movie and given the subject matter, that is no small task." The Jim Kouf comedy, "A Fork in the Road", has King portraying April Rogers, alongside Daniel Roebuck. King will reprise her role as twins Goldie and Wendy in the part sequel and part prequel of the Miller written and co-directed film "Sin City 2". She plays Beth in Darren Lynn Bousman's remake of "Mother's Day" and narrated the movie on Scream Award 2009. King hosts the reality show "Scream Queens 2", directed by Biagio Messina on VH1. She appeared in the music video for the song "Bury Me Alive" by the band We Are The Fallen with her husband Kyle Newman. King worked in the TV series "". She played the role of Aurra Sing in the series Season 1 finale episode "Hostage Crisis" and later the final three episodes of Season 2: "Death Trap", "R2 Come Home", and "Lethal Trackdown" as well as an appearance in Season 3. She played three other characters in addition to Aurra Sing in series. In the episode "Lightsaber Lost", she voices Cassie Cryar and Muk Muk Monkey. She voices a ticket droid in the episode "Lethal Trackdown". King appeared in the ABC documentary-style dramedy television series "My Generation", which premiered on September 23, 2010. After initial low ratings, ABC pulled the program from broadcast after two episodes. King also appeared in the video of The Fray hit single Never Say Never. King plays Lemon Breeland in the new CW show "Hart of Dixie", which premiered on September 26, 2011. Jamie King appeared in Lana Del Rey's music video, Summertime Sadness, which was directed by her husband, Kyle Newman. The video was released July 2012 and can be seen on Youtube.com. In the video, King plays Del Rey's suicidal lesbian lover. Personal life. During her first job modeling, King began using heroin and had an addiction to the drug from age fourteen to nineteen. In 1997, her boyfriend, 20 year old fashion photographer Davide Sorrenti, had died from what was thought to be a kidney ailment brought on by excessive heroin use. Following his death, King became sober, and went to rehabilitation at age nineteen for her addictions to both heroin and alcohol. In 2006, she commented that her past reputation as a "party girl" is "like another lifetime," and she now thinks of herself as a different person. In January 2005, while working on the set of "Fanboys", she met future husband Kyle Newman, the film's director. Within three months of dating, the two moved in together. Newman proposed in Spring 2007, and the two married on November 23, 2007 in an "intimate and relaxed" ceremony in Los Angeles at Greystone Park and Manor, where Newman had proposed. King told "InStyle" magazine, "I want at least three children." On May 3, 2013 it was announced that King and her husband are expecting their first child. In an interview published in 1996, King, after retiring from modeling, suggested her plans to be a writer or a photographer. She resides in Los Angeles.
592495	Amma Ariyan (Malayalam: അമ്മ അറിയാന്‍, translation: "For the Information of My Mother") is a 1986 Malayalam film directed by avant-garde filmmaker John Abraham. The story revolves around the incidents following the death of a young Naxalite, upon whose death his friends travel to the village where his mother lives to inform her of the death of her only son. "Amma Ariyan" is considered to be a complex movie. Since its release in 1986, critics have read several layers of meaning in its story. The film was the only South Indian film to feature in British Film Institute's Top 10 Indian Films list. Plot. Preparing to leave for Delhi, Purushan bids his mother goodbye, promising to write to her regularly. In the thinly populated forest area of Wayanad in the north-east of Kerala, the jeep in which he is travelling is stopped by the Police, who take possession of it to carry a dead body found hanging on the wayside tree. The dead man's face looks familiar to Purushan. He becomes restless and is seized with a pathological obsession to find out the identity of the deceased. Against the wishes of his girl friend, he abandons his trip to Delhi and sets out to seek his friends who may have some clue. Purushan meets journalist friends, doctors, and finally a veteran comrade, fondly addressed as Balettan who identifies the dead as the fellow musician who accompanied Satyajit, the guitarist. Satyajit confirms the deceased is his friend Hari, the tabla player. Together they decide to inform Hari's mother who stays in Cochin. They set out on a long eventful journey from the northern highlands of Wayanad to the Southern port city of Cochin. As they move from Kozhikode to, Beypore, Kodungalloor, Thrissur, Kottapuram, Vypin, and finally to Fort Kochi, the group swells as they meet many mothers and their sons and relatives who have known Hari; some had known him as a tabla player, some as Tony, the jazz drummer and others as a silent political activist, a victim of police brutality, and a loner. And for others he was a drug addict and one who used to drown his sorrow and pain in his music. Through their recollections, Hari's rather diffused identity unfolds. His classmates remember Hari as an introvert, weak and indecisive. His worker comrades identify him as a staunch revolutionary with a strong resistance and will power. But then what went wrong? The colonial past of the places, what they took from us and what they left behind as well as the peoples protests and uprisings, the region witnesses and their heroes and victims are integrated into the narrative, by way of information as well as critiquing.
995735	Room 666 () is a 1982 documentary film directed by German film director Wim Wenders. During the 1982 Cannes Film Festival, Wenders set up a static camera in room 666 of the Hotel Martinez and provided selected film directors a list of questions to answer concerning the future of cinema. Each director is given one 16 mm reel (approximately 11 minutes) to answer the questions. The principal question asked was, "Is cinema a language about to get lost, an art about to die?" Wenders then edited this footage and added an introduction.
1103297	Christian Goldbach (March 18, 1690 – November 20, 1764) was a German mathematician who also studied law. He is remembered today for Goldbach's conjecture. Biography. Born in the Duchy of Prussia's capital Königsberg, part of Brandenburg-Prussia, Goldbach was the son of a pastor. He studied at the Royal Albertus University. After finishing his studies he went on long educational voyages from 1710 to 1724 through Europe, visiting other German states, England, Holland, Italy, and France, meeting with many famous mathematicians, such as Gottfried Leibniz, Leonhard Euler, and Nicholas I Bernoulli. Back in Königsberg he got acquainted with Georg Bernhard Bilfinger and Jakob Hermann.
1044307	Work Is a Four-Letter Word (also known as Work Is a 4-Letter Word) is a 1968 British satirical comedy film directed by Peter Hall, adapted from Henry Livings' play ""Eh?"" and starring David Warner and Cilla Black. It was not well received by critics and is Black's only acting role in a cinema film. Synopsis. Everyone is employed by the ultra-modern DICE Corporation but Valentine Brose (Warner) would rather stay at home to tend his psychedelic mushrooms. However, his bedroom is too small and his fiancee Betty Dorrick (Black) wants him to settle down. Accordingly, Brose seeks a job in DICE's boiler-room, a suitable environment to grow his mushrooms. The plot describes his attempts to get the job, and the conflicts with middle-management, including the personnel manager, Mrs Murray (Spriggs, in her first film role). Having obtained it, Brose is more interested in his mushrooms than tending the boiler, with unforeseen results including a major power cut. The boiler room contains a computer (for some reason), which towards the end of the film is also breaking down. Brose eventually marries Betty, but is more interested in having her sweep up the boiler room so he can concentrate on his first love, the mushrooms. Eventually he goes haywire and the film ends with Brose and Betty loading up a pram with mushrooms and escaping. Casting. David Warner had established a reputation for playing off-beat roles, including the title role in "Morgan: A Suitable Case For Treatment" (1966) and was a member of the Royal Shakespeare Company, of which Peter Hall was artistic director until the year of the film's release.
1163173	Tricia Leigh Fisher (born December 26, 1968) is an American actress and singer. Early life. Fisher was born in Burbank, California to singer Eddie Fisher and actress Connie Stevens. Her older sister is actress Joely Fisher. Other siblings include half brother Todd Fisher and half-sister actress Carrie Fisher of "Star Wars" fame, whose mother is actress Debbie Reynolds. Fisher's parents divorced when she was a baby, and she, along with her sister Joely, were raised by Stevens. As children, both Tricia and Joely began performing on stage in their mother's Las Vegas show. They toured the world with their mother, attending many different schools and having tutors. Both girls would go on to attend Beverly Hills High School. Career. Acting. Fisher made her debut in the 1985 crime drama "Stick", starring Burt Reynolds, Candice Bergen, George Segal, and Charles Durning. She then starred as Daphne Ziegler in the 1986 comedy, "Pretty Smart". In 1987, Fisher appeared in the television movie "Strange Voices", opposite Valerie Harper. The following year, she landed a role in the TV movie "Bring Me the Head of Dobie Gillis", opposite Bob Denver. In 1989, Fisher appeared in two movies, "Hollywood Chaos" and "", followed by roles in the 1990 comedy, "Book of Love" and "Arizona Dream" starring Johnny Depp, Jerry Lewis, and Faye Dunaway. In addition to Fisher's work in movies, she has also made guest appearances on "Our House", "Growing Pains", "Ellen", "Wild Card", "7th Heaven", and '"Til Death". In 1996, she portrayed Heidi Fleiss in the CBS television movie "The Making of a Hollywood Madam". On October 7, 2006, Fisher was honored at The Thalians 51st Anniversary Ball along with producer Marc Cherry, her mother Connie Stevens, and her sister Joely Fisher. They performed together at the event at the Hyatt Regency Century Plaza Hotel in Century City, California. In September 2011, Fisher and her husband Byron Thames, appeared in her mother's Las Vegas stage show. In July 2012, Fisher, her husband and children began appearing on the ABC Family reality series "Beverly Hills Nannies". Music. Fisher performed the theme song for her 1986 movie "Pretty Smart", and released a self-titled debut album for Atco Records in 1990. The album's single, "Empty Beach", was a modest hit. Personal life. Fisher has a son, Holden Chabot, from a previous relationship. On August 12, 2007, Fisher married actor/singer Byron Thames in a Los Angeles wedding ceremony. Their son, Wylder, was born on May 30, 2009.
1062033	Frances Louise McDormand (born June 23, 1957) is an American film and stage actress. She has starred in a number of films, including her Academy Award-winning performance as Marge Gunderson in "Fargo", in 1996. She won the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play in 2011 for her performance in "Good People" as Margie Walsh, and was nominated for the same category in 1988 for her performance in "A Streetcar Named Desire".
583199	Aamir Bashir is an Indian actor and film director. Background. Bashir was born and raised in Kashmir, the son of the retired Chief Justice of Jammu High Court. He is a graduate of St. Stephen's College University of Delhi. Career. His acting career began with a very small role on television, "Bhanwar" TV series, and acted in several TV advertisements, this led to film debut, "Split Wide Open" (1999) and the telefilm, "Doordarshan Srinagar". He appeared in the 2003 film "Armaan". Acclaim came his way in 2008, with thriller, "A Wednesday", where he essayed the role of a police inspector; the film also won him a Screen Awards nomination for Best Actor in a Supporting Role. Bashir was set to play Khan's younger brother in the film "My Name is Khan", but was denied a visa to the United States in December 2008, where the film was being shot. He was eventually replaced by Jimmy Shergill as Khan's younger brother. In 2010 Bashir's directorial debut "Harud" premiered at the 2010 Toronto International Film Festival. The film stars Reza Naji and Shahnawaz Bhat and takes place in Kashmir.
1063233	Brandon James Routh (born October 9, 1979) is an American actor and former fashion model. He grew up in Iowa before moving to Los Angeles to pursue an acting career, and subsequently appeared on multiple television series throughout the early 2000s. In 2006, he gained greater recognition for his role as the titular superhero of the 2006 film "Superman Returns". He also had a recurring role in the TV series "Chuck", as Daniel Shaw. Following this, he has had several supporting roles in television and film. In 2011, he portrayed the eponymous protagonist of another comic book film, "". Early life. Routh, the third of four children, was born in Norwalk, Iowa, on October 9, 1979, the son of Catherine (née Lear), a teacher, and Ronald Wayne Routh, a carpenter. Routh's family, which is Methodist, has German, French, English, and Native American ancestry (Routh has stated "I'm Chickapoo, watered down quite a bit, on my father's side"). Routh grew up in Norwalk, approximately south of Woolstock, the hometown of George Reeves, the first actor to play Superman on television. During his childhood, Routh thought a full-time acting career was unrealistic, citing his small-town background. In his spare time, he played the trumpet and the piano. Routh attended Norwalk High School, where he played sports and participated in music and theatre. He has described himself as a "momma's boy" and not "the most popular kid" during his school years. Routh has also noted that during his younger years, he was fond of the Superman films and comic books. Routh attended the University of Iowa for a year, aspiring to be a writer. During this time, he modelled and acted in order to earn his tuition fee. Routh has said he was often told that he bore a physical resemblance to Christopher Reeve, who had previously portrayed Superman in a film series. His former manager signed him on because of the resemblance, telling him that he thought Routh would be cast as Superman if there was another film in the series. Career. Early career. In 1999, Routh left the University and moved to Manhattan and then Los Angeles, where he pursued a full-time acting career, first appearing as an extra in Christina Aguilera's music video for "What a Girl Wants". He was cast in his first acting role in 1999, in an episode of the short-lived ABC television series, "Odd Man Out". In 2000, he had a four-episode role on the third season of MTV's nighttime soap opera, "Undressed". Routh subsequently appeared on the WB's "Gilmore Girls" (in a February 2001 episode, "Concert Interupptus", playing an attendee of a Bangles concert), and earned steady work on the soap opera "One Life to Live", playing Seth Anderson from May 23, 2001 until April 17, 2002. Superman. Prior to Routh's casting as Superman in the film "Superman Returns", Warner Bros. had spent over a decade developing a plan to relaunch the franchise, with possible stars including name actors Nicolas Cage, Josh Hartnett, Brendan Fraser, Paul Walker, Henry Cavill, James Marsden, Ashton Kutcher, Keanu Reeves, Will Smith and James Caviezel and planned directors including Tim Burton, Wolfgang Petersen, McG, Brett Ratner and Shekhar Kapur. When director Bryan Singer came aboard the project, however, he insisted an unknown actor be cast in the part, in the tradition of the casting of the best-known film Superman, Christopher Reeve. Routh, then 24, had previously already auditioned for director McG and was spotted by Singer after he viewed Routh's videotaped audition. Singer, who since noted Routh as being the embodiment of "our collective memory of Superman," was impressed by his resemblance to the comic book icon and found the actor's humble Mid-western roots perfect for the role, as well as his "combination of vulnerability and confidence" Singer said reminded him of Christopher Reeve. Singer decided to cast Routh after the two met on August 13, 2004, but did not tell Routh until two months later, when Routh's casting was announced in October 2004, making him an "instant celebrity". Before filming began, Routh bulked up for the role, gaining 22 pounds to reach a high of 218 pounds. Filming for "Superman Returns" began in Sydney in February 2005. The film was released in the U.S. on June 28, 2006 and impressed critics, but was a box-office disappointment, grossing only $200 million in the US compared to its estimated budget of $270 million. Routh was signed on to appear in two potential sequels to the film, but due to low box office results it never happened. Routh has commented he feared his performance would too closely resemble Christopher Reeve. Routh has said that he hopes to "remind people of Christopher while at the same time making them feel like they're seeing a totally new Superman." Reviews of Routh's performance were generally positive, with "Newsweek" noting he "effortlessly lays claim to the iconic role." On the other hand, film critic Roger Ebert noted that he thinks "Routh lacks charisma as Superman, and I suppose as Clark Kent, he isn't supposed to have any." At the 2006 Spike TV Awards, Routh won the award of "Best Superhero" as Superman in "Superman Returns", beating out among others, Hugh Jackman as Wolverine. In August 2008, Warner Bros. officially announced they intended to reboot the Superman franchise. Routh was still set to reprise the role, according to "DC Comics" president Paul Levitz. In 2009, however, Routh's contract to play Superman in another film expired, but he says he would like to return if given the chance. However, British actor Henry Cavill was cast to play Superman in the reboot of the series, "Man of Steel." Subsequent projects. After the release of "Superman Returns", Routh signed on to play CIA agent John Clark in "Without Remorse" under the direction of John Singleton with a screenplay by Stuart Beattie. Routh would be the third actor to portray the character after Willem Dafoe and Liev Schreiber. The film was intended for a late-2007/early-2008 release. However, Paramount Pictures recently put the film into turnaround. Routh's future participation on the project is unknown. Routh appeared in the ensemble film "Life is Hot in Cracktown" and the independent drama "Fling" (formerly titled "Lie to Me"), co-starring his wife Courtney Ford. Routh was signed to star in "The Informers", a film based on the Bret Easton Ellis novel of the same name. He joins Kim Basinger, Amber Heard, and Billy Bob Thornton, but his scenes ended up scrapped with the decision to excise the "vampire" subplot from the film entirely. At Comic Con 2008, it was revealed Routh was to have a cameo in the Kevin Smith comedy "Zack and Miri Make a Porno" and would serve as a judge on Platinum Studios' 2008 Comic Book Challenge. In addition, he has a cameo where he plays himself in the Bollywood film "Kambakkht Ishq". In January 2009, Routh was officially cast to play Todd Ingram in "Scott Pilgrim vs. the World", based on the "Scott Pilgrim" series by Canadian artist Bryan Lee O'Malley. His character is an arrogant, narcissistic bass player who derives psychic powers from his vegan lifestyle, and is the third of the seven Evil Exes the title character must fight. Routh plays Daniel Shaw in season 3 of spy series "Chuck", in a recurring, supporting role. He again played this character in the shows fifth season. He portrayed "Dylan Dog" in the 2011 film "". The movie is based on the Italian comic series created by Tiziano Sclavi. On February 22, 2012, it was announced that Routh had been cast in David Kohan and Max Mutchnick's (the creators of "Will & Grace"), new CBS half-hour, multicamera comedy pilot, "Partners". He played Michael Urie's character's steady partner, alongside Lucy Davis and his "Table for Three" co-star Sophia Bush. Personal life. On August 23, 2006, Brandon became engaged to his girlfriend of three years, actress Courtney Ford; the couple married on November 24, 2007, at the El Capitan Ranch in Santa Barbara. In March 2012, Routh and Ford announced that they were expecting their first child in the summer of 2012. On August 10, 2012, the couple welcomed a son, Leo James. Routh knew actor Kal Penn, a co-star in "Superman Returns", for several years during the time he lived in Los Angeles. Routh and Penn were both also featured in The Lonely Island's "Awesometown" MTV pilot music video "The Avon Lady". Routh's sister, Sara, has a musical track entitled "You're Never Gone" on "Sound of Superman", the companion soundtrack of the film. Routh is a fan and player of the video game "World of Warcraft". During the 2008 Presidential Election, Routh spoke at an Iowa rally in support of Democratic candidate Barack Obama.
585877	Krishnagudiyil Oru Pranayakalathu (English: "During a Romantic Season in Krishnagudi") is a 1997 Malayalam romance film, made in India, written and directed by Kamal, starring Jayaram, Manju Warrier, Balachandra Menon, Biju Menon, and Vinaya Prasad. The music was composed by Vidyasagar. Plot. Meenakshi (Manju Warrier), after her father's (Narendra Prasad) death, joins Uma (Vinaya Prasad) at "Krishnagudi", a small village in Andhra Pradesh. Pavithran (Balachandra Menon), Uma's husband, is an Army officer posted there. The jovial and amiable atmosphere brings cheer and happiness back to Meenakshi. Giri (Jayaram), a colleague and family friend of Pavi, falls in love with Meenakshi, but she is not ready to accept his feelings. Akhilachandran (Biju Menon), Meenakshi's spoiled cousin, was supported by her father after the death of his parents. Her father always wanted her to marry Akhil, but his extra-possessive attitude and violent behavior had created problems for her. Though she never had any soft feelings for him, Meenakshi had promised her father on his deathbed that she would marry Akhil.
1066820	Booty Call is a 1997 comedy film, written by J. Stanford Parker (credited as Bootsie) and Takashi Bufford, and directed by Jeff Pollack. The film stars Jamie Foxx, Tommy Davidson, Vivica A. Fox and Tamala Jones. Plot. "Booty Call" is about a tender-hearted, upwardly-mobile African American named Rushon (Davidson) who has been dating his girlfriend Nikki (Jones) for seven weeks. They really like each other, but their relationship has not yet been consummated; Nikki is not so sure if their relationship is ready for the next stage. Rushon asks Nikki out to dinner, but Nikki wants it to be a double date. She brings her opinionated friend Lysterine "Lysti" (Vivica A. Fox), and Rushon comes with his "bad boy" buddy Bunz (Jamie Foxx). Lysti and Bunz hit it off very quickly, and to Rushon's surprise, Nikki decides it is time for their relationship to move to the next level. However, they have one small problem: this is the 90s, and everyone wants to practice "safe sex." Therefore, Rushon and Bunz must go on wild adventures trying to find "protection" before the evening's mood evaporates.
578496	Syndromes and a Century ( "S̄æng ṣ̄atawǎat", literally "Light of the Century") is a 2006 Thai drama film written and directed by Apichatpong Weerasethakul. The film was among the works commissioned for Peter Sellars' New Crowned Hope festival in Vienna to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the birth of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. It premiered on August 30, 2006 at the 63rd Venice Film Festival. The film is a tribute to the director's parents and is divided into two parts, with the characters and dialogue in the second half essentially the same as the first, but the settings and outcome of the stories are different. The first part is set in a hospital in rural Thailand, while the second half is set in a Bangkok medical center. "The film is about transformation, about how people transform themselves for the better", Apichatpong said in an interview. In Thailand, "Syndromes and a Century" became controversial after the Board of Censors demanded that four scenes be cut in order for the film to be shown commercially. The director refused to cut the film and withdrew it from domestic release. Since then, the director had agreed to a limited showing in Thailand where the cut scenes were replaced with a black screen to protest and inform the public about the issues of censorship. Production. Origins. "It's a film about heart", the director told the "Bangkok Post". "It's not necessarily about love, it's more about memory. It's about feelings that have been forever etched in the heart." It was originally entitled "Intimacy and Turbulence" and was to be an autobiographical look at his mother and father, who were both physicians working in a hospital in Khon Kaen, Thailand. But the director revised that concept when he cast the actors and began filming. The story still focuses on a male and female doctor, and is dedicated to the director's parents, but is set in two hospitals 40 years apart and explores both the memories and current lives of the protagonists. "I began with my parents' story, but it has sprung to other things", Apitchatpong said in an interview. "When I met the actors, when I found the location, there were other stories combined and added in. I try not to limit it. I allow it to flow whichever way it goes. It is very exciting." Reception. Critical reception. The film has a 87% "fresh" rating on Rotten Tomatoes, based on 38 reviews. Metacritic gives it a score of 71 out of 100, based on seven reviews. "Screen Daily" noted the enigmatic, non-existent narrative while praising the film's technical aspects. Top ten lists. The British Film Institute's "Sight & Sound" year-end poll for 2007 had "Syndromes and a Century" tied for seventh best with four other films. "Syndromes" also appeared on several critics' top ten lists of the best films of 2007. In November 2009, the film was named by Toronto International Film Festival's Cinematheque as the best of the decade, as voted by more than sixty international film historians, archivists, curators, and programmers. Thai reception and censorship. A limited theatrical release in Bangkok was originally slated for April 19, 2007, but was indefinitely delayed after the Board of Censors demanded the removal of four scenes. Apichatpong refused to cut the film and withdrew it from domestic circulation. He explained his reasons for doing so in an article in the "Bangkok Post": Two of the "sensitive" scenes involve doctors engaging in "inappropriate" conduct (kissing and drinking liquor) in a hospital; the others depict a Buddhist monk playing a guitar and two monks playing with a remote-control flying saucer. The censors refused to return the print unless the requested cuts were made. Later in 2007, the film was shown twice in privately arranged screenings at the Alliance française in Bangkok. The censorship of the film came about as a motion picture rating system was being considered by the National Legislative Assembly. A replacement for the 1930 film act, the ratings law contained a restrictive ratings structure and retained the government's powers to censor and ban films it deemed would "undermine or disrupt social order and moral decency, or that might impact national security or the pride of the nation". To oppose the draft law, Apichatpong and other directors formed the Free Thai Cinema Movement. "We disagree with the right of the state to ban films", Apichatpong was quoted as saying. "There already are other laws that cover potential wrongdoings by filmmakers." Ladda Tangsupachai, director of the Ministry of Culture's Cultural Surveillance Department, said the ratings law was needed because moviegoers in Thailand are "uneducated". "They're not intellectuals, that's why we need ratings", she was quoted as saying. Despite the protest, the law was passed on December 20, 2007. The film was released for a limited run in April, 2008 at the Paragon Cineplex in Bangkok, Thailand in its censored form. In protest of the censoring, the director inserted black, scratched film trailer in place of each of the censored scenes, the same length as the scenes that were cut. The result is that the audience experiences no sound and no picture for the same time and in the same spots in the film as the censored scenes. Festivals and awards. "Syndromes and a Century" had its world premiere at the 2006 Venice Film Festival, where it was in competition. It was also screened at the New York Film Festival, Toronto International Film Festival, London International Film Festival, Vancouver International Film Festival, Chicago International Film Festival, Tokyo Filmex, Pusan International Film Festival, International Film Festival Rotterdam, Taipei Golden Horse Film Festival, Hong Kong International Film Festival, the Maryland Film Festival, and the Melbourne International Film Festival.
1165238	Michael George Ansara (April 15, 1922 – July 31, 2013) was a Syrian-born American stage, screen, and voice actor best known for his portrayal of Cochise in the American television series "Broken Arrow", Kane in the 1979–1981 series "Buck Rogers in the 25th Century", Commander Kang on three different "Star Trek" television series, Deputy U.S. Marshal Sam Buckhart on the NBC series, "Law of the Plainsman", and providing the voice for Mr. Freeze in "" and several of its spin-offs. Early life and career. Ansara was born in a small village in Syria, and his family emigrated to the United States when he was two years old. They resided in Lowell, Massachusetts, for a decade before moving to California. He originally wanted to be a physician, but developed a passion for becoming a performer after he began taking acting classes to overcome his shyness. He was educated at the Los Angeles City College, from which Ansara earned an Associate of Arts degree. During the 1950s, Ansara appeared in several episodes of "Alfred Hitchcock Presents". It was the popular television series "Broken Arrow" (1956), wherein he played the lead role of Cochise, that raised Ansara's profile and made him a household name. While making the series, the 20th Century-Fox publicity department arranged a date between Ansara and actress Barbara Eden. The two later married and Ansara guest starred on Eden's "I Dream of Jeannie" series as the Blue Djinn, who had imprisoned Jeannie in a bottle. He also played King Kamehameha in the Jeannie episode "The Battle of Waikīkī" and in the final season he played Major Biff Jellico in the episode "My Sister, the Home Wrecker." Michael Ansara and Barbara Eden divorced in 1974. The couple had one son together, actor Matthew Ansara, who died on June 25, 2001, of a heroin overdose. Ansara starred in his own ABC-TV series, "Law of the Plainsman" (1959–1960), with Gina Gillespie and Robert Harland. He performed as an Apache Indian named "Sam Buckhart" who had been appointed as a U.S. Marshal. The series began as an episode of "The Rifleman". In 1961, he appeared as Carl in the episode "Night Visitors" of the NBC anthology series "The Barbara Stanwyck Show". Ansara also played in the Biblical epics "The Robe" (1953) as Judas Iscariot, "The Ten Commandments" (1956) as a taskmaster (uncredited), and "The Greatest Story Ever Told" (1965) as Herod's commander. He also appeared as Belshazzar in Columbia's 1953 movie "Slaves of Babylon". Later career. In 1961, Ansara played the role of Miguel Alvarez in the film "Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea", co-starring with Barbara Eden and Walter Pidgeon, who played the role of Admiral Harriman Nelson. Ansara later appeared in an episode of the television series "Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea", playing the rebel sub commander Captain Ruiz in "Killers Of The Deep" (1966). He also appeared in another episode as a Soviet scientist to disarm a defective Soviet atomic satellite that has crashed off the coast of California. The episode title was "Hot Line", broadcast on November 9, 1964. In 1962, he starred in a Broadway show with famous silent film actor Ramon Novarro. In 1964 he made his only guest appearance on "Perry Mason" as Vince Kabat in "The Case of the Antic Angel." He starred in a supporting role in the 1965 Elvis Presley film, "Harum Scarum". (His wife, Barbara Eden, had starred in an earlier Elvis film, 1960's "Flaming Star") Ansara played The Ruler on episode 22, "The Challenge", of the television series "Lost in Space" (March 2, 1966) with a young Kurt Russell as his son Quano and, later that same year, appeared in the feature film "Texas Across the River" with Dean Martin. He also appeared on "Daniel Boone" as Red Sky in a 1966 episode. In another 1966 episode of that series, Ansara portrayed Sebastian Drake. In 1967, Ansara guest-starred in the episode "A War for the Gravediggers" of the NBC western series "The Road West" starring Barry Sullivan, Andrew Prine, and Glenn Corbett, and in the episode "The Savage Street" of the ABC action drama series "The Fugitive" with Gilbert Roland and Tom Nardini. In 1969, Ansara guest-starred in the episode "On a Clear Night You Can See Earth" as Murtrah in the ABC-TV series "Land of the Giants". Also in 1969, he starred as the sadistic militant Diego in the film "Guns of the Magnificent Seven." In 1973, he guest-starred in "The Western", the penultimate episode of the original CBS television series "". In 1976, he starred in the movie "Mohammad, Messenger of God" (also titled "The Message"), about the origin of Islam and the message of prophet Mohammad. Ansara played Killer Kane in the 1979-1980 season of "Buck Rogers in the 25th Century", having previously played two different characters in two episodes of the 1966 science fiction television series "The Time Tunnel". In episode #11, he played Colonel Hruda and in episode #28 he played The Curator. He also played the title role in the acclaimed "The Outer Limits" original series episode "Soldier", written by Harlan Ellison. He narrated Paul Goble's "The Gift of the Sacred Dog" at Crow Agency, Montana, on June 17, 1983, and Sheila MacGill Callahan's "And Still the Turtle Watched" on October 21, 1993, on the PBS series "Reading Rainbow". Also in 1979, he starred in the acclaimed miniseries "Centennial", based on the novel by James A. Michener. In it, he played the great Indian leader Lame Beaver, whose descendants are showcased throughout the centuries alongside the growth of the West and the town that the novel and miniseries are named after. In 1988, Ansara appeared in an episode of the television series "Murder, She Wrote" titled "The Last Flight of the Dixie Damsel". In 1994, Ansara portrayed the Technomage Elric in the science fiction television series "Babylon 5" in the episode "The Geometry of Shadows". In recent years, he performed voice-acting as Mr. Freeze in ' as well as the animated film ', an episode of both "The New Batman Adventures" and "Batman Beyond" and the video game "". "Star Trek". He is one of seven actors to play the same character (in his case the Klingon commander Kang) on three different "Star Trek" television series — the original series ("Day of the Dove"), "Deep Space Nine" ("Blood Oath") and "Voyager" ("Flashback"). The other actors who hold this distinction are Jonathan Frakes (Riker; TNG, DS9, "Voyager" and "Enterprise"), Marina Sirtis (Troi; TNG, "Voyager" and "Enterprise"), Armin Shimerman (Quark; TNG, DS9 and "Voyager"), Mark Allen Shepherd (Morn; TNG, DS9 and "Voyager", although in the first and last, he only appeared in brief cameos) John de Lancie (Q; TNG, DS9 and "Voyager"), and Richard Poe (Gul Evek; TNG, DS9 and "Voyager"). Ansara also played 's husband Jeyal on the "Deep Space Nine" episode, "". Awards and honors. Ansara was nominated for an Academy of Science Fiction Award, and has won a Western Heritage Award for "Rawhide" and received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for both films and television. Personal life. Ansara was married three times, first to Jean Byron in 1955; after a year of marriage the couple divorced in 1956. In 1958, Ansara married Barbara Eden, who is best known for the "I Dream of Jeannie" sitcom series. The couple had a son named Matthew born in 1965. Ansara and Eden divorced in 1974, and he married Beverly Kushida in 1977. On June 25, 2001, his son Matthew died from a drug overdose in Monrovia, California. Ansara resided in Calabasas, California. Death. Ansara died following a long illness at his home in Calabasas on July 31, 2013 at the age of 91.
1073284	, also known as Karate Bullfighter, is a Japanese martial arts film made by the Toei Company in 1975. It was the first in a trilogy of films based on the manga "Karate Baka Ichidai" (literal translation: A Karate-Crazy Life), a manga based on Masutatsu Oyama's life by Ikki Kajiwara, Jiro Tsunoda and Jōya Kagemaru. Sonny Chiba stars as his former master Oyama who was the founder of Kyokushin karate. Chiba would reprise this role in two more films "Karate Bearfighter" (1975), and "Karate for Life" (1977).
1054597	John E. "Jack" Noseworthy, Jr. (born December 21, 1969, Lynn, Massachusetts) is an American actor, whose most visible movie roles were in "Event Horizon" and "U-571". He graduated from Lynn English High School in 1982 and attended Boston Conservatory, where he earned a BFA. He appeared in Bon Jovi's music video "Always", with Carla Gugino and Keri Russell. He co-starred with Meryl Streep in the Public Theater's 2006 production of "Mother Courage and Her Children".
1072351	Atragon, released in Japan as , is a 1963 Science fiction Tokusatsu film directed by Ishirō Honda and produced and financed by Toho. It is based on a series of juvenile adventure novels under the banner "Kaitei Gunkan" by Shunrō Oshikawa (heavily influenced by Jules Verne) and the illustrated story "Kaitei Okoku" ("The Undersea Kingdom") by illustrator Shigeru Komatsuzaki, serialized in a monthly magazine for boys. Komatsuzaki also served as an uncredited visual designer, as he had on "The Mysterians" (1957) and "Battle in Outer Space" (1959). visualizing the titular super weapon, among others.
1762991	Plot. "Welcome to the Space Show", whose story "surpasses "Star Wars" in its scale" according to its producers, tells of the four adventures of five schoolmates and an alien dog in space during summer vacation. The plot revolves around five elementary school kids on their "school trip". In the process of looking for their missing class pet (a rabbit named Pyon-Kichi), the children find and rescue a dog they find injured in a corn field. The dog turns out to be an alien called Pochi Rickman, and he invites them to visit the moon as a reward for helping him. However, through a series of strange events, they become stranded and must make their way across the galaxy to get to Pochi's homeworld, Wan; so that they may return to Earth. Along the way they are pursued by the aliens responsible for Pochi being injured in the first place. The aliens work for the host (called Neppo) of the universe's most popular entertainment, "The Space Show", which appears to be a variety act broadcast from a mysterious moving spaceship. Neppo is bent on using the power of the ship, called the Pet Star, to become a god. However, the ship requires a particular power source to run; namely a substance called Zughan, which turns out to be a close relative of the wasabi root. As Natsuki is carrying some of the root with them in her bag, Neppo has thus targeted the group. When his thugs fail to retrieve the bag, Neppo goes himself; arriving just as the children and Pochi reach Wan. The Pet Star's tractor beams steal the bag, but they also take Amane as well. This leads to a show down at an interstellar festival, where with the help of friends they've made along the way, the children manage not only to defeat Neppo and rescue Amane but also save the entire universe. The children are then able to return home (along with Pyon-Kichi, who had been kidnapped by Neppo's henchmen as well) and arrive at the school just before their parents show up to retrieve them. Characters. Sources: Production. The production staff of "Welcome to the Space Show" was announced in the February 2008 issue of "Newtype" magazine, and the film was originally given the working title "The Space Show". The film reunites the production staff of "R.O.D the TV" (2003–2004), including director Koji Masunari, writer Hideyuki Kurata, and character designer Masashi Ishihama. It was animated by Japanese studio A-1 Pictures. Masunari decided to cast child voice actors for the film's main characters through a series of auditions. The film was conceived with the themes of entertainment and friendship among children. Scottish singer Susan Boyle, who became famous after her television performance in "Britain's Got Talent", contributed the song "Who I Was Born to Be" as the film's theme song. Prior to the announcement, the film had been screened without a theme song. Release. "Welcome to the Space Show" made its world premiere at the 60th Berlin International Film Festival (Berlinale) in February 2010. It was screened alongside "Summer Wars" (2009) as part of the festival's Generation program. They were the two anime films out of a total of 28 screened at the festival. The film was also screened at the 57th Sydney Film Festival in June 2010 as part of the Kids Flicks program. It premiered in the United States at Otakon on July 31, 2010. The first 22 minutes of the film can be seen at Aniplex's USA Youtube channel. Reception. A review by the "Yomiuri Shimbun" encouraged families to watch the children's adventure film. While praising the artwork in village and lunar scenes, the reviewer also called the film an "explosive sense of "moe"". The film was criticized for its lack of originality, primarily because A-1 Pictures appears to draw too much material from the works of Hayao Miyazaki. Unlike Miyazaki's films, however, "Welcome to the Space Show" "has a much edgier attitude" and is more humorous. Anime World Order reviewed the show at at the Otakon 2010 premier and praised it for its imagination, but also echoed the issues such other reviewers as Tim Maughan have stated primarily about the length of the movie. Tim Maughan did comment on the similarities to works by Hayao Miyazaki stating that the film has a "much edgier attitude than any of Miyazaki's works".
1059207	Voyage of the Damned is a 1974 book written by Gordon Thomas and Max Morgan-Witts, which was the basis of a 1976 drama film with the same title. The story was inspired by true events concerning the fate of the MS "St. Louis" ocean liner carrying Jewish refugees from Germany to Cuba in 1939. Film version. The film was directed by Stuart Rosenberg, with a screenplay by David Butler and Steve Shagan. It was produced by ITC Entertainment. The cast included Faye Dunaway, Laura Gemser, Lee Grant, Oskar Werner, Sam Wanamaker, Lynne Frederick, Luther Adler, Wendy Hiller, Julie Harris, Nehemiah Persoff, Paul Koslo, Jonathan Pryce, Max von Sydow, Malcolm McDowell, Orson Welles, James Mason, Katharine Ross, José Ferrer, Ben Gazzara, Fernando Rey, Maria Schell, Janet Suzman, Helmut Griem, Victor Spinetti and Denholm Elliott. It was also the final film starring Oskar Werner. Plot. Based on actual events, this film tells the story of the 1939 voyage of the MS "St. Louis", which departed from Hamburg, carrying 937 Jews from Germany, ostensibly to Havana, Cuba. The passengers, having seen and suffered rising anti-Semitism in Germany realised that this might be their only chance to escape. The film details the emotional journey of the passengers who gradually become aware that their passage was planned as an exercise in propaganda and that it had never been intended that they disembark in Cuba. Rather, they were to be set up as Pariahs: an example before the world. As a Nazi official states in the film, when the whole world has refused to accept them as refugees, no country can blame Germany for the fate of the Jews. The Cuban Government refuses entry to the passengers, and as the liner waits off the Florida coast, they learn that the United States also has rejected them, leaving the ship no choice but to return to Europe. The captain tells a confidante that he has received a letter signed by 200 passengers saying they will join hands and jump into the sea rather than return to Germany. He states his intention to run the liner aground on a reef off the southern coast of England. Shortly before the film's end, it is revealed that the governments of the United Kingdom, Belgium, France and the Netherlands have each agreed to accept a share of the passengers as refugees. As they cheer and clap at the news, footnotes disclose the fates of some of the main characters, suggesting that more than 600 of the 937 passengers, not making it to the UK, ultimately lost their lives in Nazi concentration camps.
728894	Her Best Move is a 2007 film. It tells the story of a 15-year-old soccer prodigy named Sara Davis who has a chance to join the U.S. National Team. At the same time, she must juggle high school, romance, sports, and parental pressure. Plot. Sara Davis (Leah Pipes), a 15-year-old female soccer prodigy, has a chance to join the U.S. National Soccer Team. Her daily life is extremely hectic, as she finds a balance between high school, running, romance, sports, and parental pressure while realizing her own priorities. Sara, coached by her father Gil (Scott Patterson), sacrifices her interest in dance, photography, and her social life to concentrate on her sport. With the encouragement of her best friend Tutti (Lalaine), Sara begins a relationship with Josh (Drew Tyler Bell), the solitary photographer on the school newspaper. As she takes control of her life, Sara faces the challenge of discovering what she really wants, so that she can make the best move of her life.
1163501	Bronson Alcott Pinchot (born May 20, 1959) is an American actor. He has appeared in several feature films, including "Risky Business", "Beverly Hills Cop" (and reprising his popular supporting role in "Beverly Hills Cop III)", "The First Wives Club", "True Romance", "Courage Under Fire" and "It's My Party". Pinchot is probably best known for his role in the ABC sitcom "Perfect Strangers" as Balki Bartokomous from the (fictional) Hellenic island of Mypos. Personal life. Pinchot was born in Manhattan, the son of Rosina (née Asta), a typist, and Henry Pinchot (originally Poncharavsky), a bookbinder. His mother was Italian-American, and his father, who was of Russian descent, was born in New York and raised in Paris. Pinchot was raised in southern California. After graduating from South Pasadena High School, where he was number one in his class and valedictorian, he went to Yale University on a full scholarship. He was placed in Morse College there and graduated "magna cum laude". He began college studying fine art but became interested in acting when he won a role in a college play and was discovered by a casting director which resulted in a role in the feature film "Risky Business".
1055617	Emmanuelle Sophie Anne Chriqui (; born December 10, 1977) is a Canadian film and television actress. She is perhaps best known for her role on HBO's "Entourage" as Sloan McQuewick, as well as Dalia, the love interest of Adam Sandler's character in "You Don't Mess with the Zohan". She is also known for her role as Red John's accomplice, Lorelei Martins on The Mentalist. In May 2010, she topped the AskMen.com Most Desirable Women of 2010 list. Early life. Chriqui was born in Montreal, Quebec, the daughter of Moroccan Jewish immigrants. Her mother, Liliane, was born in Casablanca, and her father in Rabat, and Chriqui has relatives in Israel. Her family practised Orthodox Judaism in the Sephardic tradition. Chriqui has an older brother, Serge and an older sister, Laurence. When she was almost two, her family moved to Toronto, Ontario. She grew up in Markham-Unionville, a suburb north east of the city. Her mother, an esthetician who once told Emmanuelle she would become an actress, died when Chriqui was very young. As a child, she took acting classes, for which her brother paid. Chriqui attended the drama program at Unionville High School. After high school, Chriqui decided to pursue a career in acting. Career. Chriqui began acting as a 10-year-old in a McDonald's commercial. She moved to Vancouver in the mid-1990s, guest-starring in series such as "Are You Afraid of the Dark?", "Forever Knight", "Once a Thief" and "". Her first Hollywood role was as a supporting character in "Detroit Rock City" (1999). Chriqui later appeared in several movies, such as "100 Girls", "Wrong Turn", "On the Line" and "In the Mix". She starred opposite Cameron Douglas in the movie "National Lampoon's Adam & Eve", playing the character of Eve and played Adam Sandler's love interest in "You Don't Mess with the Zohan". Chriqui was nominated for a Best Actress DVD Exclusive Award for her performance in "100 Girls" and was nominated, with Lance Bass, for a Choice Liplock Teen Choice Award in "On the Line". Recently, she won the Standout Performance Trophy at the Young Hollywood Awards. Chriqui also starred in Hinder's "Lips of an Angel" music video as well as in the Zac Brown Band's "Whatever It Is" music video. She threw out the ceremonial first pitch at a Los Angeles Dodgers game on June 8, 2008. Chriqui was on the cover of the Autumn 2008 issue of "Naked Eye". She acted in the film "Cadillac Records" (2008) as Revetta Chess, where she performed with Beyoncé Knowles. Chriqui was seen in 2009 as one of several women whose lives interconnect in the comedy "Women in Trouble" and appeared in its sequel "Elektra Luxx", which was released in 2010. In 2010 Chriqui joined Showtime's 2011 series, "The Borgias". She is also the voice of Cheetara in the "ThunderCats" 2011 animated series.
1058551	Another 48 Hrs. is a 1990 action film and a sequel to the 1982 film "48 Hrs.". It was directed by Walter Hill and stars Eddie Murphy, Nick Nolte, Brion James, Andrew Divoff, and Ed O'Ross. In the film San Francisco police officer Jack Cates, who has 48 hours to clear his name from a potential manslaughter charge. To do so, he needs the help of Reggie Hammond (Murphy), Cates's friend who is now a newly released convict. At the same time, a notorious mastermind known only as The Iceman has hired a gang of bikers to kill Reggie. Plot. Veteran San Francisco police officer Jack Cates (Nick Nolte) has been after "the Iceman"—a drug dealer operating in the city—for the past four years. At the Hunter's Point Raceway, Jack confronts Tyrone Burroughs (Brent Jennings) and Arthur Brock. Jack kills Brock, while Burroughs escapes. Despite killing Brock in self-defense, Jack is now under investigation, as Brock's gun cannot be found at the scene. Blake Wilson (Kevin Tighe), the head of the Internal Affairs division, becomes determined to prosecute Jack on a third-degree manslaughter charge. Jack finds a picture that proves that the Iceman has put a price on the head of Reggie Hammond (Eddie Murphy), who is scheduled to be released from prison the next day.
373743	The Bad News Bears Go to Japan (also known as The Bad News Bears 3) is a 1978 film release by Paramount Pictures and was the third and last of a series, following "The Bad News Bears" and "The Bad News Bears in Breaking Training". It stars Tony Curtis and Jackie Earle Haley, also featuring Regis Philbin in a small role. This film was followed by a 1979 CBS-TV series, and by a 2005 remake of the 1976 film. Plot. Small-time promoter/hustler Marvin Lazar (Curtis) sees a potential money-making venture in the Bears that will help him to pay off his debts. After seeing a TV spot about the Bears, he decides to chaperone the baseball team for a trip to Japan in their match against the country's best little league baseball team. As implied in "Breaking Training", the Bears had to defeat the Houston Toros for a shot at the Japanese champs. In the process, the trip sparks off a series of adventures and mishaps for the boys. A subplot involves the interest of Kelly Leak (Haley) in a local Japanese girl, and the cultural divide that comes to bear in that relationship. About half of the original or "classic" lineup of Bears players return (many like Jose Agilar, Alfred Ogilvie, Timmy Lupus and Tanner Boyle are not featured). Three new players are featured: E.R.W. Tillyard III, Abe Bernstein and Ahmad's younger brother, Mustapha Rahim. Cast. Other cast members listed alphabetically:
1082172	Tristana is a 1970 Spanish film directed by Luis Buñuel. Based on the eponymous novel by Benito Pérez Galdós, it stars Catherine Deneuve and Fernando Rey and was shot in Toledo, Spain. The voices of French actress Catherine Deneuve and Italian actor Franco Nero were dubbed to Spanish. "Tristana" is a Spanish-Franco-Italian co-production. Plot. Tristana is an orphan adopted by nobleman don Lope Garrido. Don Lope falls in love with her and thus treats her as daughter and wife from the age of 19. But, by age 21 Tristana starts finding her voice, to demand to study music, art and other subjects with which she wishes to become independent. She meets the young artist Horacio Díaz, falls in love, and eventually leaves Toledo to live with him. When she falls ill, she returns to don Lope. The illness results in her losing a leg, which changes her prospects; here, the film substantially varies from the novel.
1163132	Kimberly "Kim" Richards (born September 19, 1964) is an American actress. She is a former child actress, and currently a television personality on the TV series "The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills". Beginning her acting career at the age of four months in a diaper advertisement, Richards made her television debut in 1970 as Prudence on "Nanny and the Professor". She then starred in films "Escape to Witch Mountain"; "No Deposit, No Return"; "Assault on Precinct 13"; "The Car" and "Return from Witch Mountain", garnering the title of the "Disney Girl".
1057194	Rolling Kansas is a 2003 independent film directed and co-written by Oscar-nominated actor Thomas Haden Church. Rolling Kansas is about five men (a t-shirt salesman, his two brothers, a large narcoleptic nursing student, and a dim-witted gas station attendant) who embark on a journey to find a secret government marijuana field in Kansas that was discovered on a map that three of the young men's parents left for them (known as the Hippies Murphy). On the way, they encounter cops, crazy geese, strippers, and a crazy old man played by Rip Torn.
1073919	Mary Vivian Pearce is an American actress. She has worked primarily in the films of John Waters. Life and career. Pearce is the childhood best friend of John Waters and has appeared as an actress in all of his films. Because of her work with Waters, she is considered one of the Dreamlanders, Waters' ensemble of regular cast and crew members. Along with Mink Stole, she is one of only two actors to appear in all of his films to date. Pearce is always credited by her real name, but in her personal life she is known as Bonnie. Her first film with Waters, in 1964, was a 17-minute independent short film called "Hag in a Black Leather Jacket". The film was never released. In the rest of Waters' films she's played both main and bit parts. Her most famous roles were in Waters' "Mondo Trasho", "Multiple Maniacs", "Pink Flamingos", "Female Trouble" and "Desperate Living". However, as the years progressed, Pearce appeared less and less in Waters' films, usually as an extra or a character without a major impact on the plot. She continues to appear in Waters' films; she appeared as a protester in "Cecil B. Demented" just weeks after brain surgery. Personal life. At the age of eighteen, Pearce was married to a jockey who worked at Saratoga. In an interview with Gerald Peary, Pearce explained that she left for Provincetown to live with Waters and his then-girlfriend, Mona Montgomery:
582948	Ankhiyon Se Goli Maare is a 2002 Bollywood comedy film directed by Harmesh Malhotra, and starring Govinda, Raveena Tandon, Kader Khan, Shakti Kapoor, Asrani and Johnny Lever. Plot. Akendra or Bhangari(Kader Khan) has a shop at Chor bazaar which he runs illegally, he lives with his wife and only daughter Kiran(Raveena Tandon). Bhangari wants his daughter to be married to a gangster, so he begins his search. He finds Shakti dada(Shakti Kapoor) and wants him to be married to Kiran but Kiran already loves Raj(Govinda), a wealthy man who has no links to crime. But in order to satisfy her dad, she persuades Raj to pose as a Gangster for time being. For this they search a Trainer called Subramaniam (Johnny Lever), who teaches Raj to act as a Gangster. Finally Raj becomes successful posing as a gangster but Bhangari's dad(Kader Khan) somehow appears and doesn't want Kiran to marry to a gangster. Will Raj be able to clean his image? Box Office. The movie was a box office bomb. Trivia. The name of the film is taken from the song of the same name from the 1998 movie "Dulhe Raja", also starring Govinda, Raveena Tandon, Kader Khan, Asrani, and Johnny Lever.
1163331	Barbara Barrie (born May 23, 1931) is an American actress and author of children's books. Personal life. Barrie was born as Barbara Ann Berman in Chicago, Illinois, of Jewish heritage, the daughter of Frances Rose (née Boruszak) and Louis Berman. She was raised in Corpus Christi, Texas. She briefly attended Del Mar College, going on to graduate from the University of Texas at Austin with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree with honors in 1953. During her time at UT-Austin, she received at least two scholarships for drama, including the Kappa Kappa Gamma Donna Dellinger annual scholarship for "the most outstanding junior in the drama department," as well as awards for specific performances, such as the Atlas Award from the Globe Theatre in San Diego for "best female part in a minor role for 1950–51" based on her appearance in the California Theatre's summer production of "Much Ado About Nothing". She married Jay Harnick in July 1964. They had two children, Aaron and Jane. Harnick (d. 2007) was the brother of the musical lyricist Sheldon Harnick ("Fiddler on the Roof"). She was treated successfully for rectal cancer in 1994, and wrote a memoir, "Second Act: Life After Colostomy and Other Adventures", about the experience. Career. Barrie has had a lengthy career on stage and in film and television. In the early 1950s, she appeared in seven television productions before receiving her first starring role, in the "Wait For Me" installment of the "Robert Montgomery Presents" series. Her professional theater debut came in 1953, in a Corning, New York, production of "The Moon Is Blue", with her Broadway debut occurring in the short-lived "The Wooden Dish". She received the award for Prix d'interprétation féminine (best actress — tied with Anne Bancroft) at the 1964 Cannes Film Festival for her role in "One Potato, Two Potato", a breakthrough film about an interracial marriage and institutionalized American anti-miscegenation. Her other high-profile roles have been as Susan's (Brooke Shields) grandmother on the sitcom "Suddenly Susan", and as the wife of the title character (portrayed by Hal Linden) on the comedy-drama "Barney Miller". In the mid-2000s, Barrie played a recurring role on the Showtime cable-TV drama series "Dead Like Me". She also starred in the 1963 "Twilight Zone" episode "Miniature", alongside Robert Duvall. In 1970, Barrie earned a Tony Award nomination for her role in the original Broadway production of Stephen Sondheim's musical "Company", in which she played "Sarah", the weight-watching, karate-practicing married friend of the lead character, "Robert". In 1979 she was nominated for the Best Supporting Actress Academy Award for her role in the sleeper hit "Breaking Away". Also in 1979, she portrayed Mamie Eisenhower in the NBC miniseries "Backstairs at the White House". A near-encounter with Barrie is the subject of Christine Lavin's song "The Moment Slipped Away." Barbara Barrie also acted as Aunt Margo of the twins (Liz and Jean Sagal) in the TV show "Double Trouble" in the '80s (1984 to 1985); she also played the part as the blind girl Celia in the episode "Even Stones Have Eyes" on "Route 66" (second season, 1962). In 1993 she played Gloria Unger in the television movie "The Odd Couple: Together Again", a role originated by Janis Hansen on the original series "The Odd Couple". Barrie is the author of two critically acclaimed novels for young adults: "Lone Star" (1989) and "Adam Zigzag" (1995).
587909	Ishtam (, English translation: "Liking") is a Telugu movie produced by Ramoji Rao (Eenadu Group) and directed by Vikram Kumar & Raj Kumar. This is the debut movie of Shriya. Charan paired up with Shriya for the first time. Plot. Karthik (Charan), hailing from a rich family, is quite inept in his academics. Neha (Shriya) is Subbu's (Chandra Mohan) daughter and she's motherless. Karthik is the senior of Neha in the college and rags her quite a bit. When Karthik's mother Lakshmi (Poonam Dhillon) meets with an accident, Neha rescues and admits her in a hospital. Overtime Lakshmi and Neha become friends and Neha falls in love with Karthik. But when Subbu proposes to get Karthik and Neha married, Lakshmi refuses. The film is about why Lakshmi doesn't accept for the marriage, who initially wanted Neha to get married to Karthik.
587408	Gokulathil Seethai is a 1996 Tamil film directed by Agathiyan. The film stars Karthik, Suvalakshmi and Karan in the lead roles. The film's score and soundtrack are composed by Deva. The film was a "super - blockbuster" and displayed a different dimension of the actor. The movie was remade into Telugu as "Gokulamlo Seetha" (1997) starring Pawan Kalyan and Raasi. Agathiyan himself remade the film in hindi as "Hum Ho Gaya Aapke" with Fardeen Khan. Plot/Synopsis. Rishi (Karthik) sleeps around through the efforts of a sophisticated, dedicated and ‘immigration officer’ look alike pimp (‘Thailaivasal’ Vijay). His DAD (Manivannan) whom Rishi considers to be his ‘friend’ voices his concern in a friendly way about Rishi’s life style and suggests him to try falling in love instead of spending all his hard earned money on call girls. Rishi brushes him off asking him to only worry about his earnings and that he would take of care of the expenditure. Rishi offers his employee/old friend I.C. Mohan (Karan) to take him to a showt. Although hesitant at first (as Mohan refers I.C. to be inferiority complex), he agrees. The show turns out be a college show where a beautiful looking Nila (Suvalaxmi), doing her final year BBA performs a song. Mohan feels he has had one his best days as he falls instantly in love with her. On the contrast, Rishi instantly sets his sexual sight on her. Rishi calls on the pimp to book Nila. The pimp gives his professional shot at it and ends up in jail. Rishi bails him out. I.C. Mohan sends a tape that has his recital of her song irritating Nila. She tries to throw the tape away but her friends offer to use the tape to record something else. Intrigued by a couple of flower bouquets, she finds out the information about Rishi and meets him personally. Rishi proposes to sleep with her one night. Nila rejects his ‘proposal’ despite Rishi offering half of his property and walks away. But Rishi is quietly resolute to woo her into bed one night. When Nila returns to her hostel, she finds the ‘tape’ to have more info into it and hears a whining I.C. Mohan’s marriage proposal. Nila takes sympathy towards Mohan and meets him at a beach and lays down her rules straight: “She would fall in love, but only after marriage” and that she is determined to be behind the success of a man she marries. She asks him to meet her mother ‘formally’ if he is too desperate. While Nila takes a hiatus and visits home, her mother informs Nila that their family ‘doctor’ friend is interested in marrying her. It is implied that she informs Mohan about this. Mohan meets up with Rishi at a restaurant and confesses that he had lied to him and that he is really in love and that ‘she’ is about to get married. On hearing that ‘she’ is Nila, Rishi is stumped and takes a brief moment to himself to kill his own sexual urge and decides to help his ‘only’ friend and gives him an idea to forge a letter and that he would take care of the rest.
1060063	Jaws 2 is a 1978 horror/thriller film and the first sequel to Steven Spielberg's "Jaws" (1975), which was based on Peter Benchley's novel of the same name. Directed by Jeannot Szwarc, it stars Roy Scheider as Police Chief Martin Brody, who must deal with another great white shark terrorizing the waters of Amity Island, a fictional seaside resort. Like the first film, the production of "Jaws 2" was troubled. The original director, John D. Hancock, proved to be unsuitable for an action film and was replaced by Szwarc. Scheider, who only reprised his role to end a contractual issue with Universal, was also unhappy during production and had several heated exchanges with Szwarc. "Jaws 2" remained on "Variety"'s list of top ten box office hits of all time until the mid-1990s, and was the highest-grossing sequel in history until "Rocky II" the following year. The film's tagline, "Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water...," has become one of the most famous in film history and has been parodied and homaged several times. It is widely regarded as being the best "Jaws" sequel. "Jaws 2" was followed by "Jaws 3-D" and "", released in 1983 and 1987, respectively. Plot. Four years after the events of "Jaws", two divers are photographing the wreck of the "Orca", Quint's boat from the first film. They are suddenly attacked by a large great white shark, and during the attack one of the divers' camera gets a photo of the shark's profile. A few days later, the shark enters Amity Island's coastal waters, killing a female water skier. The speedboat's female driver tries to defend herself by first throwing a gasoline tank at the shark (accidentally spilling some on herself) and then igniting the fuel with a flare gun. The fire ignites the gas tank and the speedboat explodes, killing the driver. The shark survives, but burned on the right side of its head. In addition to these incidents, a dead killer whale is beached at a nearby lighthouse with large wounds all over its body which Police Chief Martin Brody (Roy Scheider) suggests were caused by a great white shark. Once again, Mayor Vaughn (Murray Hamilton) doesn't share Brody's belief that the town has another shark problem and warns him not to press the issue. Later, Brody spots a section of a ruined speedboat bobbing in the surf just off the beach. When he goes to retrieve it, he encounters the burnt remains of the female speedboat driver. Brody stops his 17-year-old son Mike (Mark Gruner) from going sailing, and finds him a summer job working at the beach. The following day, while Brody is in an observation tower, he sees a large shadow produced by a school of bluefish, which he mistakes for a shark. In his haste, Brody orders everyone out of the water and fires his gun, causing a panic. Later that evening, he receives the photo of the shark's eye, taken by one of the attacked divers. Brody shows it to Vaughn and his townsmen, but they refuse to accept the evidence put in front of them. Len Peterson (Joseph Mascolo), who has built a new resort in Amity to attract people, and the town council fire Brody for the beach incident, with Mayor Vaughn being the only one to vote against dismissal. Deputy Hendricks (Jeffrey Kramer) is promoted to Brody's position. The next morning, Mike sneaks out and goes sailing with his friends, but has to take his young brother Sean (Mark Gilpin) along to stop him telling his parents about Mike's trip. Later, they go past a group of divers led by Tom Andrews (Barry Coe). Tom encounters the shark minutes after entering the water to catch lobsters and escapes, but suffers an embolism due to rushing to the surface too fast. Tina (Ann Dusenberry) and Eddie (Gary Dubin) later encounter the shark when it smashes into their sailboat, devouring Eddie and leaving Tina terrified and alone. Brody and his wife Ellen (Lorraine Gary) find Andrews being put into an ambulance, and Brody suspects that something must have scared him to make him come up so fast. Hendricks informs Brody that Mike has gone out sailing to the lighthouse with his friends, so Brody insists on taking the police patrol boat to rescue them, with Ellen and Hendricks both joining him. They find Tina's boat, with Tina hiding in the hull, who confirms Brody's suspicions about the shark in the area. Hendricks and Ellen take Tina ashore in a passing boat, while Brody continues to search for the teenagers using the police launch. All seems well with the other teenagers until the shark appears. The shark then smashes into one of their sail boats, causing panic and their boats to collide with each other. Mike is knocked unconscious and is pulled out of the water just as the shark appears; two friends take him back to the shore for help. The rest of the teens remain floating on the wreckage of tangled boats, drifting out toward the open sea. A harbor patrol marine helicopter arrives and a line is rigged to tow the boats to shore, but before the pilot can tow them, the shark attacks the chopper causing it to capsize and sink. Sean also falls into the water, but he is quickly saved by Marge (Martha Swatek). As Marge tries to get back into the boat, her hands slip on the wet hull, and she falls back into the water. The shark approaches and devours Marge. Back at mainland, Tina is sent to the hospital, and Ellen berates Peterson for getting Brody fired and denying the shark's presence. Brody finds Mike, who informs his father about the situation. Sean and his friends are drifting on the wreckage toward Cable Junction (a small rocky island housing an electrical relay station), with the open sea beyond it. Brody quickly finds the teenagers, but the shark attacks again, which causes Brody to run his boat aground on the rocks. Brody tries to tie a rope line, but snags an underwater power cable instead. Most of the teenagers are tossed into the water during the shark's next attack, and they swim to safety on Cable Junction, though the shark injures Lucy while Sean and Jackie are left marooned on one of the boats. Using an inflatable raft, Brody gets the shark's attention by pounding the power line with an oar (thus creating a rhythmic vibration under the water), and gets the shark to bite the power cable. The shark gets electrocuted, then sinks to the bottom of the sea. Brody collects Sean and Jackie and paddles over to Cable Junction, to await rescue with the other teenagers. Production. The studio ordered a sequel early into the success of "Jaws". The success of "The Godfather Part II" and other sequels meant that the producers were under pressure to deliver a bigger and better shark. They realized that someone else would produce the film if they didn't, and they preferred to be in charge of the project themselves. In October 1975, Steven Spielberg told the San Francisco Film Festival that "making a sequel to anything is just a cheap carny trick" and that he did not even respond to the producers when they asked him to direct "Jaws 2". He told the audience that the planned plot was to involve the sons of Quint and Brody hunting a new shark. Brown said that Spielberg did not want to direct the sequel because he felt that he had done the "definitive shark movie". The director later added that his decision was influenced by the problems the "Jaws" production faced - "I would have done the sequel if I hadn’t had such a horrible time at sea on the first film." Despite Spielberg's rejection the studio went ahead with plans to make the sequel, leading to an arduous 18 month pre-production process. Howard Sackler, who had contributed to the first film's script but chose not to be credited, was charged with writing the first draft. He originally proposed a prequel based on the sinking of the USS "Indianapolis", the story relayed by Quint in the first film. Although Universal Studios President Sid Sheinberg thought Sackler's treatment for the film was intriguing, the executive rejected the idea. On Sackler's recommendation, theatre and film director John D. Hancock was chosen to helm the picture. Sackler later felt betrayed when Dorothy Tristan, Hancock's wife, was invited to rewrite his script. The film, under Hancock's direction and Tristan's writing, had originally a different tone and premise than what would eventually be seen in the final film. The two had envisioned Amity as a sort of ghost-town when the film opened with several businesses shuttered and the island's overall economy in ruins due to the first film's events. The new resort and condos built on the island by developer Len Peterson were to help celebrate its rebirth giving the island's economy a much needed boost. Tristan had borrowed a subplot from the "Jaws" novel and from a discarded early draft of the first film, in which Amity officials were in debt to the Mafia. Both Mayor Vaughn and Len Peterson were anxious for the new island resort to be a success not only to revive Amity but to pay back loans from the Mob that helped build it, thus leading to Vaughn's and Peterson's ignoring of Brody's warning. Tristan and Hancock felt this treatment would lead to more character development that would make the overall story that much more believable. Hancock began filming the movie in June 1977. However, after nearly a month of filming, Universal and MCA executives disliked the dark subtle tone that the film was taking and wanted a more lighthearted and action oriented story. Additionally, Hancock ran into trouble with Sid Sheinberg. Sheinberg suggested to Hancock and Tristan that his wife Lorraine Gary "should go out on a boat and help to rescue the kids." When told of the idea, Richard D. Zanuck replied, "Over my dead body." The next draft of the film's screenplay was turned in with Gary not going out to sea. Hancock says that this, and his later firing of another actress who turned out to be a Universal executive's girlfriend, contributed to his own dismissal from the film. Hancock began to feel the pressure of directing his first epic adventure film "with only three film credits, and all small-scale dramas". The producers were unhappy with his material, and on a Saturday evening in June 1977, after a meeting with the producers and Universal executives, the director was fired. He and his wife left for Rome and production was shut down for a few weeks. The couple had been involved in the film for eighteen months. Hancock blamed his departure on the mechanical shark, telling a newspaper that it still couldn't swim or bite after a year and a half; "You get a couple of shots and shark breaks." Echoing the first film's production, Carl Gottlieb was enlisted to further revise the script, adding humor and reducing some of the violence. Gottlieb wrote on location at Fort Walton Beach, Florida. It cost the producers more money to hire Gottlieb to do the rewrite than it would have if they had hired him in the first place. At this point, Spielberg considered returning to direct the sequel. Over the Bicentennial weekend, Spielberg hammered out a screenplay based on Quint's "Indianapolis" speech. Because of his contract for "Close Encounters of the Third Kind", however, he would not be able to film for a further year, a gap too long for the producers. Production designer Joe Alves (who would direct "Jaws 3-D") and Verna Fields (who had been promoted to vice-president at Universal after her acclaimed editing on the first film) proposed that they co-direct it. The request was declined by the Directors Guild of America, partly because they would not allow a DGA member to be replaced by someone who was not one of its members, and partly because they, in the wake of events on the set of "The Outlaw Josey Wales", had instituted a ban on any cast or crew members taking over as director during a film's production. The reins were eventually handed to Jeannot Szwarc, best known for the film "Bug" and "Night Gallery" and whom Alves knew from the "Night Gallery" days. Szwarc recommenced production by filming the complicated waterskier scene, giving Gottlieb some time to write. He reinstated the character of Deputy Hendricks, played by Jeffrey Kramer, who had been missing from the original script. Many of the teenagers were sacked, with the remaining roles developed. Three sharks were built for the film. The first was the "platform shark", also referred to as the "luxurious shark". Special mechanical effects supervisor Bob Mattey and Roy Arbogast used the same body mold used for the shark in the first film. The original "Bruce" sharks rotted behind sheds on the lower lot of Universal Studios; the only pieces that were salvageable were the chromoly tube frames. Mattey's design was much more complicated and ambitious than the first film. The same (male) "Bruce" body was used; even though "Jaws 2"'s shark is described as female. A brand new head was also sculpted by sculptor Chris Mueller which made use of an all new mouth mechanism, one which incorporated jowls to disguise the pinching of the cheeks that had proven to be a problem with the original "Bruce" shark. The sharks were known as "Bruce Two" (after the original sharks), but on set they were referred to as "Fidel" and "Harold", after David Brown's Beverly Hills lawyer. The other 'sharks' were a fin and a full shark, both of which could be pulled by boats. "Cable Junction", the island shown in the film's climax, was a floating barge. This was created in order to have the effects platform positioned as close to the island as possible. Like the first film, footage of real sharks filmed by Australian divers Ron & Valerie Taylor were used for movement shots that could not be convincingly achieved using the mechanical sharks. Although the first film was commended for leaving the shark to the imagination until two thirds of the way through, Szwarc felt that they should show it as much as possible because the "first image of it coming out of the water" could never be repeated. Szwarc believed that the reduction of the first's Hitchcockian suspense was inevitable because the audience already knew what the shark looked like from the first film's final third. Reviewers have since commented that there was no way that they were ever going to duplicate the original's effectiveness. The filmmakers gave the new shark a more menacing look by scarring it in the early boat explosion. Like the first film, shooting on water proved challenging. Scheider said that they were "always contending with tides, surf and winds [...] jellyfish, sharks, waterspouts and hurricane warnings." After spending hours anchoring the sailboats, the wind would change as they were ready to shoot, blowing the sails in the wrong direction. The saltwater's corrosive effect damaged some equipment, including the metal parts in the sharks. Susan Ford, daughter of U.S. President Gerald Ford, was hired to shoot publicity photographs. Many of these appeared in Ray Loynd's "Jaws 2 Log", a book documenting the film's production in the same way as Carl Gottlieb had for the first film. Location. Martha's Vineyard was again used as the location for the town scenes. Although some residents guarded their privacy, many islanders welcomed the money that the company was bringing. Shortly after the production arrived in June 1977, local newspaper the "Grapevine" wrote: Many residents enjoyed being cast as extras. Some people, however, were less pleased by the film crew's presence and refused to cooperate. Only one drugstore allowed its windows to be boarded up for the moody look that Hancock wanted. "Universal Go Home" T-shirts began appearing on the streets in mid-June. The majority of filming was at Navarre Beach in Florida, because of the warm weather and the water's depth being appropriate for the shark platform. The company was at this location from August 1 until December 22, 1977. The production "was a boost to the local economy because local boaters, extras and stand-ins or doubles were hired. Universal brought in actors, directors, producers and their wives, camera and crew people who needed housing, food and clothing for the movie. Services were needed for laundry, dry-cleaning and recreation." Navarre's Holiday Inn "Holidome" was used as the film's headquarters, with the ground floor converted into production offices, and some of the Gulf-front suites remodelled for David Brown and Roy Scheider. Universal rented 100 of the hotel's 200 rooms, spending $1 million. Boats and parts for their maintenance were purchased from local businesses. One proprietor said that he sold "Universal approximately $400,000 worth of boats and equipment". Cable Junction Island was built on a barge so that the huge mechanism of the platform shark could go close to, or even underneath, it. On one occasion, the set broke loose from its anchorage and had to be rescued as it drifted towards Cuba. Real hammerhead sharks circled the teen actors during the filming of one shot. Because the characters they were playing were meant to be in distress, the crew (filming from a distance) did not realize that the actors were genuinely calling for help. The interior shots of the teen hang-out where they play pinball were filmed in the original location of the Hog's Breath Saloon on Okaloosa Island. This restaurant later relocated to Destin, Florida as its original building was susceptible to hurricane damage. The production company had to seek dredge and fill permits from Florida's Department of Environmental Regulation to sink the revised platform that controlled the shark on the sea bottom. Principal photography ended three days before Christmas 1977, on the Choctawhatchee Bay, near Destin, Florida. The actors had to put ice cubes in their mouths to prevent their breath showing on camera. The final sequence to be filmed was the shark being electrocuted on the cable. In mid-January, the crew reconverged in Hollywood with some of the teenage actors for five weeks of post-production photography. "Jaws 2" cost $30 million to produce, over three times more than the original. David Brown says that they did not budget the film "because Universal would never have given a green light to a $30 million budget in those days." The Marine Division Head for Universal on location, Philip Kingry, says that "It cost approximately $80,000 per day to make that movie." When Kingry asked Brown what his budget was, the producer responded, "We're not wasteful, but we're spending the profit from "Jaws", and it will take what it takes." Casting. Roy Scheider reluctantly returned to reprise his role as Martin Brody. He had quit the role of Steven Pushkov in "The Deer Hunter" two weeks before the start of filming because of "creative differences". Universal used Scheider's failure to fulfill this contractual obligation to force him to appear in "Jaws 2". The actor heavily resisted the film, claiming that there was nothing new to create and that people would be watching the film to see the shark, not him. According to his biographer, Scheider was so desperate to be relieved from the role that he "pleaded insanity and went crazy in The Beverly Hills Hotel". He made "Marathon Man" and "Sorcerer" to put as much time as he could between the two "Jaws" films. However, he was given an attractive financial package for appearing in "Jaws 2"; he quadrupled his base salary from the first film, and negotiated points (a percentage of the film's net profits). "The Star" newspaper reported that Scheider received $500,000 for 12 weeks work, plus $35,000 for each additional week that the schedule ran over. Despite his reluctance, Scheider pledged to do the best job that he could, wanting to make Brody believable. However, the atmosphere was tense on the set, and he often argued with Szwarc. On one occasion, Scheider complained (in front of extras) that Szwarc was wasting time with technical issues and the extras while ignoring the principal actors. A meeting was called with the two, David Brown and Verna Fields, in which Scheider and Szwarc were encouraged to settle their differences. The discussion became heated and a physical fight broke out, which Brown and Fields broke up. The rift was also articulated in written correspondence. In a letter to Szwarc, Scheider wrote that "working with Jeannot Szwarc is knowing he will never say he is sorry or ever admitting he overlooked something. Well, enough of that shit for me!" He requested an apology from the director for not consulting him. Szwarc's reply focused upon completing the film to the "best possible" standard. Time and pressure are part of my reality and priorities something I must deal with.You have been consulted and your suggestions made part of my scenes many times, whenever they did not contradict the overall concept of the picture.If you have to be offended, I deplore it, for no offense was meant. At this point in the game, your feelings or my feelings are immaterial and irrelevant, the picture is all that matters.Sincerely, Jeannot Many extras were recruited from Gulf Breeze High School. The students were paid $3 per hour, well above the minimum wage at the time, and revelled in being able to miss classes. Casting director Shari Rhodes, requested members of the Gulf Breeze band performed as the Amity High Band, seen in an early scene in the film showing the opening of the Holiday Inn Amity Shores "Amity Scholarship Fund Benefit". "The GBHS band consisted of approximately 100 members, and band director John Henley chose 28 student musicians, including the band's section known as Henley's Honkers." Universal scheduled their involvement for mid-afternoons to prevent them missing too much time in school. Universal made a contribution of $3,500 to the school and the band for their part in the film. Several other GBHS students were hired as stand-ins or doubles for the teenage actors to appear in the water scenes and to maintain and sail the boats. Music. John Williams returned to score "Jaws 2" after winning an Academy Award for Original Music Score for his work on the first film. Williams says that it was assumed by everyone that "the music would come back also and be part of the cast ... it would require new music, certainly, but the signature music of "Jaws" should be used as well". He compares this to "the great tradition" for repeating musical themes in Hollywood serials such as Roy Rogers and The Lone Ranger. In addition to the familiar themes, Szwarc says Williams also composed a "youthful counterpoint to the shark that is always around when the kids are sailing or going out to sea. It was very inventive". Szwarc said that the sequel's music should be "more complex because it was a more complex film". Williams says that this score is broader, allowing him to make more use of the orchestra, and use longer notes, and "fill the space" created by the director. Williams used a larger ensemble than for the first film, and "the orchestral palette may have been broader or had longer notes". Delays in shooting meant that Williams was forced to start working on the score before the film was completed. Szwarc discussed the film with the composer, showing him edited sequences and storyboards. The director praises Williams in being able to work under such difficult conditions. Critic Mike Beek suggests these time constraints enabled Williams "to create themes based on ideas and suggestions, rather than a locked down print." Critics have praised Williams' score, comparing it favorably to the original. Williams "uses a few basic elements of the original—the obligatory shark motif, for one—and takes the music off in some new and interesting directions." The score is "more disturbing in places" than the original, and "Williams some new and hugely memorable out to sea adventure music." Because "Jaws 2" "isn't a film that requires subtlety ... Williams pulls out all the stops to make it as exciting and hair raising as possible." According to the liner notes on the soundtrack album, Williams' "sense of the dramatic, coupled with his exquisite musical taste and knowledge of the orchestra definitely stamp this score as truly one of his best." It is "brilliantly performed by a mini-symphony made up of the finest instrumentalists to be found anywhere." Mike Beek makes positive comments about the film, saying that "the music certainly elevates it to a level it would otherwise never have achieved." The album's cover features a different image than the main theatrical poster; instead of the water skier sequence, the album depicts the scene with Eddie and Tina. Release. Box office. "Jaws 2" was the most expensive film that Universal had produced up until that point, costing the studio almost $30 million. The film grossed 45% of the original, not adjusted for inflation. Despite this, the film became the highest-grossing sequel in history at that point, succeeded by the release of "Rocky II" in 1979. It opened in 640 theaters to a $9,866,023 gross, ranking first. The domestic gross for its first release was $77,737,272, making it the seventh highest domestic grossing film of 1978. It eventually surpassed the $100 million mark with further reissues, with a final gross of $102,922,376. It was also the third highest grossing film worldwide in 1978 with $187,884,007. Its current worldwide gross stands at $208,900,376, so that it stayed on "Variety"'s list of top ten box office hits of all time until the mid-nineties. "Jaws 2" inspired much more merchandising and sponsors than the first film. Products included sets of trading cards from Topps and Baker's bread, paper cups from Coca-Cola, beach towels, a souvenir program, shark tooth necklaces, coloring and activity books, and a model kit of Brody's truck. A novelization by Hank Searls, based on an earlier draft of the screenplay by Sackler and Tristan, was released, as well as Ray Loynd's "The Jaws 2 Log", an account of the film's production. Marvel Comics published a comic book adaptation of the film by writer Rick Marschall and artists Gene Colan and Tom Palmer in "Marvel Super Special" #6. Reception. The film has met with mixed reviews, though it is generally regarded as the best of the "Jaws" sequels. John Kenneth Muir comments that opinions towards "Jaws 2" depend upon which side of the franchise it is being compared. Against Spielberg's original, "it is an inferior sequel to a classic", but the reviewing the subsequent films "Jaws 3-D" and "Jaws the Revenge" shows Szwarc's film to be "a decent sequel, and one produced before the franchise hit troubled waters." "Jaws 2", he says, is "at the deep end of the pool, better than its two shallow follow ups, and there is enough of "Jaws" lingering greatness floating about to make it an entertaining and exciting two hours." On the film's Rotten Tomatoes listing, 53% of critics gave the film positive reviews from a total of 19 reviews. DVD Authority says "After this one, the other "Jaws" movies seemed to just not be as good. One review says: "it's obviously not a patch on Spielberg's classic, but it's about as good as could be hoped for, with some excellent sequences, almost worthy of the original, several genuine shocks, a different enough story and some pretty decent characters." The performances of Scheider, Gary and Hamilton are particularly praised. George Morris for the "Texas Monthly" preferred "Jaws 2" over the original because it is "less insidious in its methods of manipulation" and "because director Jeannot Szwarc streamlines the terror ... By crosscutting among the teenagers, Scheider, and the officials' efforts to rescue them, Szwarc works up enough suspense to keep the adrenaline going." However, Morris' review is not entirely complimentary. He would have preferred the shark to have been seen less, positing "producers and audiences alike seem to have forgotten that the greatest suspense derives from the unseen and the unknown, and that the imagination is capable of conceiving far worse than the materialization of a mere mechanical monster." Similarly, John Simon felt that the "shark's waning is caused by a decline in direction: Jeannot Szwarc has none of Steven Spielberg's manipulative cleverness. For one thing, he allows us close and disarming close-ups of the shark almost immediately..."Simon praises Scheider and Hamilton, but is less complimentary about Gary. A reviewer for the BBC complained that the additional screen time awarded to the shark makes it "seems far less terrifying than its almost mystical contemporary". The "Radio Times" was not pleased with "Jaws 2", calling it a "pale imitation of the classic original" and stating that "the suspense comes unglued because the film floats in all-too-familiar waters. You just know how everyone is going to react — from the stars to the director, and even the mechanical shark." Although many critics identify some flaws, often comparing Szwarc negatively to Spielberg, they say that "this sequel does have some redeeming qualities going for it that make it a good movie in its own right". The presence of Richard Dreyfuss and Robert Shaw are missed, especially since the teenage characters are labeled "largely annoying 'Afterschool Special' archetypes" who are "irritating and incessantly screaming" and "don't make for very sympathetic victims". Because of its emphasis upon the teenage cast, some critics have compared the film to the slasher films that were rising in popularity at that time. Also comparing the film's "interchangeable teens to slasher films, particularly the "Friday the 13th" franchise, Muir says that "it feels wrong for a "Jaws" film to dwell in that shallow domain." However, Muir commends the teen characters' comradeship and heroism, citing the girl killed when saving Sean from the shark. The film's tagline, "Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water...", has become one of the most famous in film history. Andrew J. Kuehn, who developed the first film's trailer, is credited with coining the phrase. It has been parodied in numerous films; most notably the tagline of the 1996 feature film adaptation of the television series, "Flipper", "This summer it's finally safe to go back in the water." Home releases. In 1980, MCA Home Video (then known as MCA Videocassette Inc.) released "Jaws 2" on VHS and Laserdisc, following its 1980 theatrical re-release. In the 1990s, MCA-Universal Home Video reissued it on both formats. The film received a DVD release on May 22, 2001. Many reviewers praised it for the quantity of special features, with DVD Authority asserting that it had "more than a lot of titles labeled as 'special edition' discs". It includes a 45-minute documentary produced by Laurent Bouzereau, who is responsible for many of the documentaries about Universal's films. Actor Keith Gordon reminisces in a short feature, and Szwarc explains the phonetic problem with its original French title, "Les Dents de la mer 2", as it sounded like it ended with the expletive merde ("mer deux"). This was combated by using the suffix "Part 2". The disc also contains a variety of deleted scenes. These scenes show the animosity between Brody and his wife's boss, and the selectmen voting to fire Brody; the Mayor (Murray Hamilton) is the only person to vote to save him. These scenes were cut because they were slowing the film's pace. Also included is footage of the shark attacking the coast guard pilot underwater after his helicopter had capsized. The scene was cut because of the struggle with the ratings board to acquire a PG certificate. Although the audio was presented in Dolby Digital 2.0 mono, a reviewer for "Film Freak Central" comments that "Williams' score often sounds deceptively stereophonic". The BBC, though, suggest that the mix "really demands the added bass that a 5.1 effort could have lent it".
1103114	Michael Artin (born 28 June 1934) is an American mathematician of Armenian descent and a professor emeritus in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology mathematics department, known for his contributions to algebraic geometry and also generally recognized as one of the outstanding professors in his field. Life and career. Artin was born in Hamburg, Germany, and brought up in Indiana. His parents were Natalia Naumovna Jasny (Natascha) and Emil Artin, preeminent algebraist of the 20th century. Artin's parents had left Germany in 1937, because Michael Artin's maternal grandfather was Jewish. Artin did his undergraduate studies at Princeton University, receiving an A.B. in 1955; he then moved to Harvard University, where he received a Ph.D. in 1960 under the supervision of Oscar Zariski. In the early 1960s Artin spent time at the IHÉS in France, contributing to the SGA4 volumes of the Séminaire de géométrie algébrique, on topos theory and étale cohomology. His work on the problem of characterising the representable functors in the category of schemes has led to the Artin approximation theorem, in local algebra. This work also gave rise to the ideas of an algebraic space and algebraic stack, and has proved very influential in moduli theory. Additionally, he has made contributions to the deformation theory of algebraic varieties. He is working on noncommutative rings, especially geometric aspects. In 2002, Artin won the American Mathematical Society's annual Steele Prize for Lifetime Achievement. In 2005, he was awarded the Harvard Centennial Medal. In 2013 he won the Wolf Prize in Mathematics. He is also a member of the National Academy of Sciences and a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1969), the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics, and the American Mathematical Society.
1102707	David Bryant Mumford (born 11 June 1937) is an American mathematician known for distinguished work in algebraic geometry, and then for research into vision and pattern theory. He won the Fields Medal and was a MacArthur Fellow. In 2010 he was awarded the National Medal of Science. He is currently a University Professor Emeritus in the Division of Applied Mathematics at Brown University. Early life. Mumford was born in Worth, West Sussex in England, of an English father and American mother. His father William started an experimental school in Tanzania and worked for the then newly created United Nations. In high school, he was a finalist in the prestigious Westinghouse Science Talent Search. After attending the Phillips Exeter Academy, Mumford went to Harvard, where he became a student of Oscar Zariski. At Harvard, he became a Putnam fellow in 1955 and 1956. He completed his Ph.D. in 1961, with a thesis entitled "Existence of the moduli scheme for curves of any genus".
1026333	Helen Morgan (August 2, 1900 – October 9, 1941) was an American singer and actress who worked in films and on the stage. A quintessential torch singer, she made a big splash in the Chicago club scene in the 1920s. She starred as Julie LaVerne in the original Broadway production of Hammerstein and Kern's musical "Show Boat" in 1927 as well as in the 1932 Broadway revival of the musical, and appeared in two film adaptations, a part-talkie made in 1929 (prologue only) and a full-sound version made in 1936, becoming firmly associated with the role. She suffered from bouts of alcoholism, and despite her notable success in the title role of another Hammerstein and Kern's Broadway musical, "Sweet Adeline" (1929), her stage career was relatively short. Helen Morgan died of cirrhosis of the liver at the age of 41. She was portrayed by Polly Bergen in the Playhouse 90 drama "The Helen Morgan Story" and by Ann Blyth in the 1957 biopic based on the television drama. Life and career. She was born as Helen Riggins in 1900 in rural Danville, Illinois. Her father Frank Riggins, was a farmer in Davis Township of Fountain County, just outside Attica, Indiana. After her mother, Lulu Lang Riggins, divorced and remarried, she changed the last name to 'Morgan'. Her mother's second marriage ended in divorce, and she moved to Chicago with her daughter. Helen never finished school beyond the eighth grade, and worked a variety of jobs just to get by. In 1923, she entered the Miss Montreal contest, even going to New York to meet Miss America Katherine Campbell, but when she returned, her American citizenship was discovered and she was disqualified. She also worked as an extra in films. By the age of twenty, Morgan had taken voice lessons and started singing in speakeasies in Chicago.
1164031	Katherine Marie Helmond (born July 5, 1929, Galveston, Texas) is an American film, theater and television actress, who portrayed Emily Dickinson on "Meeting of Minds", as well as fictional television characters, for which she is best known, including Jessica Tate on "Soap", Mona Robinson on "Who's the Boss?", Doris Sherman on "Coach", and Lois Whelan on "Everybody Loves Raymond". Career. Television. Helmond acted in the television movie "The Legend of Lizzie Borden" (1975), as Emma Borden. She appeared in an episode of the short-lived 1976 CBS adventure series, "Spencer's Pilots", starring Gene Evans. Helmond gained prominence as Jessica Tate, the ditzy matriarch in "Soap" (1977–81) on ABC. In 1984 she took the role of Mona Robinson on the ABC sitcom "Who's the Boss?" The show was a ratings success, running for eight seasons and finishing in the Nielsen 'Top 10' four straight years.
1163084	John Donald Fiedler (February 3, 1925 – June 25, 2005) was an American voice actor and character actor who was slight, balding, and bespectacled, with a distinctive, high-pitched voice. His career lasted more than 55 years in stage, film, television and radio. He is best known for four roles: the nervous Juror #2 in "12 Angry Men"; the voice of Piglet in Disney's Winnie-the-Pooh productions; Vinnie, the meek poker player in the film version of Neil Simon's "The Odd Couple"; and Mr. Peterson, the hen-pecked milquetoast on "The Bob Newhart Show". Early life. Fiedler was born in Platteville, Wisconsin, a son of Donald Fiedler, a beer salesman, and his wife Margaret Phelan. He moved to Shorewood, Wisconsin, at the age of 5, where he graduated from Shorewood High School in 1943. He then enlisted in the United States Navy and served until the end of World War II. Acting career. After his discharge from the Navy, Fiedler began acting in New York City, appearing on the radio comedy "The Aldrich Family" as Homer Brown, appeared on early television and was very popular as Cadet Alfie Higgins on the 1950s show "Tom Corbett, Space Cadet" and made his film debut in 1957 in "12 Angry Men", as Juror #2. Most of his roles were playing gentle or nervous individuals, though he appeared in the original "" episode "Wolf in the Fold" as Mr. Hengist, a Chief Administrator possessed by the spirit of Jack the Ripper.
1163519	Charles Nelson Reilly (January 13, 1931 – May 25, 2007) was an American actor, comedian, director, and drama teacher known for his comedic roles in stages, films, children's television, cartoons, and game show panelist. Early life. Reilly was born in The Bronx, New York City, the son of Charles Joseph Reilly, an Irish Catholic commercial artist, and Signe Elvera Nelson, a Swedish Lutheran. When young he would often make his own puppet theater to amuse himself. His mother, foreshadowing his future as an entertainer, often would tell him to "save it for the stage." At age 13, he survived the infamous 1944 Hartford Circus Fire which killed 169 people in Connecticut and as a result, he never sat in an audience again through the remainder of his life. Because of the event's trauma, he rarely attended theater, stating that the large crowds reminded him of what happened that day. As a boy, Reilly developed a love for opera and desired to become an opera singer. He entered the Hartt School of Music as a voice major but eventually abandoned this pursuit when he came to the realization that he lacked the natural vocal talent to have a major career. However, opera remained a lifelong passion and he was a frequent guest on opera-themed radio programs, including the Metropolitan Opera radio broadcasts. He also directed opera productions for the Lyric Opera of Chicago, Dallas Opera, Portland Opera, San Diego Opera, and Santa Fe Opera among others. He was also good friends with opera singers Renée Fleming, Rod Gilfry, Roberta Peters, and Eileen Farrell. Career. Stage. Reilly made his film debut in 1957, with an uncredited role in "A Face in the Crowd", directed by Elia Kazan, though most of his early career was spent on the stage. Reilly appeared in many Off Broadway productions. His big break came in 1960 with the enormously successful original Broadway production of "Bye Bye Birdie". In the ground-breaking musical, Reilly had a small onstage part, and was the standby for Dick Van Dyke in the leading role of Albert Peterson. In 1961, Reilly was in the original cast of another big Broadway hit, the Pulitzer prize-winning musical "How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying". For his memorable origination of the role of Bud Frump, Reilly earned a 1962 Tony Award for featured actor in a musical. In 1964, Reilly was featured in the original cast of yet another giant Broadway success, "Hello, Dolly!" For originating the role of Cornelius Hackl, Reilly received a second nomination for a Tony Award for performance by an actor in a featured role in a musical. Television. While he kept active in Broadway shows, Reilly would soon become better known for his TV work, appearing regularly on television in the 1960s. For example, he appeared both as one of the "What's My Line?" Mystery Guests and as a panelist on that popular Sunday night CBS-TV program. In 1965, he made regular appearances on "The Steve Lawrence Show", which aired for a single season. Television commercials he made throughout the 1960s and 1970s included Excedrin and Bic Banana Ink Crayons, in which he wore a banana costume. From 1968 to 1970, he appeared as uptight Claymore Gregg on the television series "The Ghost & Mrs. Muir", which also starred Hope Lange and Edward Mulhare. In one episode, Reilly was reunited with his "Hello, Dolly!" original Broadway castmate Eileen Brennan. Reilly also appeared as a regular on "The Dean Martin Show", and had multiple guest appearances on television series including "McMillan & Wife"; "Here's Lucy"; "Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In"; "The Love Boat"; and "Love, American Style". In 1971, Reilly appeared as the evil magician Hoodoo in "Lidsville", a psychedelically flavored live-action children's program produced by Sid and Marty Krofft that aired on Saturday mornings on ABC. The show was about a boy who falls into a magician's hat and enters a magical world of hat-humans. It is through these roles, as well as his playing the titular role in "Uncle Croc's Block" and appearing once on Walt Disney's "The Mouse Factory", that Reilly's voice and mannerisms became familiar to a generation of young fans. Reilly was also a frequent guest on "The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson", appearing more than one hundred times. Because Reilly was such a lively and reliable talk-show guest and lived within blocks of the Burbank studios where "The Tonight Show" was taped, he was often asked to be a last-minute replacement for scheduled guests who did not make it to the studio in time. Reilly was perhaps best known as a fixture of game shows, primarily due to his appearances as a regular panelist on the television game show "Match Game". Reilly was one of the longest-running guests, and often engaged in petty, hilarious arguments with fellow regular Brett Somers (the two generally sat next to each other on the show, Somers in the upper middle seat and Reilly in the upper right-hand seat). Reilly typically offered sardonic commentary and peppered his answers with homosexually themed double entendres that pushed the boundaries of 1970s television standards. During the taping of "Match Game 74" Reilly left for a short time, to film the made-for-TV movie "Hamburgers" (1974) also starring Sid Caesar and Charlie Callas. From 1975 to 1976, Reilly starred in another live-action children's program called "Uncle Croc's Block" with Jonathan Harris. Reilly was often a guest celebrity in the 1984 game show "Body Language", including one week with Lucille Ball and another week with Audrey Landers. Later career. From 1976, Reilly was primarily active teaching acting and directing for television and theater including directing Julie Harris portraying Emily Dickinson in her one-woman Broadway play "The Belle of Amherst" by William Luce. In 1979, he directed Ira Levin's play "Break a Leg" on Broadway. Despite the previous year's success of Levin's "Deathtrap," "Break a Leg" closed after one performance. Reilly earned a 1997 Tony Award nomination as Best Director of a Play for the revival of "The Gin Game" starring Julie Harris whom he had acted opposite of in "Skyscraper" in 1965-66. In 1990 he directed episodes of "Evening Shade". Reilly also made guest appearances in the 1990s on "The Drew Carey Show", "The Larry Sanders Show", "Family Matters", "Second Noah", and as eccentric writer Jose Chung in the television series "The X-Files" ("Jose Chung's "From Outer Space""), "Millennium" ("Jose Chung's "Doomsday Defense"") and occasionally as the voice of "The Dirty Bubble" in the animated series "SpongeBob SquarePants" before he was replaced by Tom Kenny. Reilly was nominated for Emmy Awards in 1998 and 1999 for his performances in "The Drew Carey Show" and "Millennium", respectively. Reilly was a longtime teacher of acting at HB Studio, the acting studio founded by Herbert Berghof and made famous by Berghof and his wife, the renowned stage actress Uta Hagen. His acting students included Lily Tomlin, Bette Midler, and Gary Burghoff. Personal life. Reilly did not publicly affirm his homosexuality until his one-man show, "Save It for the Stage". However, much like fellow game-show regular Paul Lynde of the same era, Reilly played up a campy on-screen persona. In many episodes of "Match Game", he would lampoon himself by briefly affecting a deep voice and the nickname "Chuck," and self-consciously describing how "butch" he was. He mentioned in a 2002 interview with "Entertainment Tonight" that he felt no need to note this and that he never purposely hid being gay from anyone. Patrick Hughes III, a set decorator and dresser, was Reilly's domestic partner; the two met backstage while Reilly appeared on the game show "Battlestars". They lived in Beverly Hills. Despite sporting what appeared to be a full head of hair for most of the prime of his career, Reilly was in fact bald, wearing a toupée throughout most of his appearances in the 1970s and 1980s. During the taping of "Match Game 74" his toupee became the joke of the filming when Reilly had to go to NYC to have his toupee put back on. During the taping of several episodes Reilly is seen wearing different hats because his toupée is back in NY waiting for him to be fitted. This was the start of the long-running jokes on "Match Game" about his hair. He abandoned the toupée in the late 1990s and appeared bald in public for the rest of his life. He dramatized the experience in his stage show, "The Life of Reilly." Final years and death. Reilly primarily spent his life touring the country directing theater and opera, and offering audiences a glimpse into his background and personal life with a critically acclaimed one-man play chronicling his life called "Save It for the Stage: The Life of Reilly". In 2004, his final performance of the play was filmed as the basis for an autobiographical independent film titled "The Life of Reilly". Reilly was ill with respiratory problems, while filming "The Life of Reilly", and retired from directing and performing immediately after the final day of shooting. The show premiered in March 2006 at the South by Southwest film festival and Reilly's performance in the film received great acclaim. Reilly canceled his personal appearance at South by Southwest due to illness and by the time the film premiered he had been hospitalized. Reilly died of pneumonia at his home on May 25, 2007 and his body was cremated. That weekend the Game Show Network was dedicated to Reilly, airing his funniest episodes of "Match Game". In popular culture. In 1985, The Dead Milkmen, a Philadelphia punk band, wrote a song about Charles Nelson Reilly called "Serrated Edge." In episode 502 of "Mystery Science Theater 3000", "Hercules", Crow T. Robot performs an ode to "Match Game" and winds up solemnly calling out to Reilly as well as the other guests of the show. In 2001, Reilly was the subject of a sketch on "Saturday Night Live" spoofing "Inside the Actors Studio", and was portrayed by Alec Baldwin. A later Baldwin character, the Generalissimo from "30 Rock", mentions both Julie Harris and "The Belle of Amherst", directed by Reilly as noted above. A 2008 parody of "Match Game" on "Saturday Night Live" included Fred Armisen playing a Reilly-like character. In the sketch, the host is found murdered moments before the show's taping; the subsequent on-air police investigation reveals that he had been having a clandestine homosexual affair with the Reilly character. Alec Baldwin briefly reprised his portrayal of Reilly in the "30 Rock" episode "Live from Studio 6H" (West Coast airing), appearing on the "joke wall" in a parody of "Laugh-In". "Weird Al" Yankovic wrote and recorded a tribute song titled "CNR", jokingly caricaturing Reilly with parodies of the internet phenomenon Chuck Norris Facts, with absurdities like winning the Tour de France "with two flat tires and a missing chain", or how "every day he'd make the host of "Match Game" give him a two hour piggyback ride". This was part of Yankovic's digital "Internet Leaks" EP and included on 2011 CD release "Alpocalypse". The music video was released by JibJab on August 4, 2009.
583846	Azhagi (2002) is a Tamil film directed by Thangar Bachchan. The film is critically acclaimed and stars Parthiban, Nandita Das and Devayani. The film's score and soundtrack are composed by Ilaiyaraaja. The movie was remade in Telugu as Letha Manasulu (2004) starring Srikanth, Kalyani and Gopika in lead roles. Plot. Shanmugam (Parthiban), a veterinary doctor, lives in the city with his wife Valarmati(Devayani) and their two children. In school, Shanmugam was in love with his classmate Dhanalakshmi but fate had forced them to go their separate ways, with Dhanalakshmi (Nandita Das) being forced to wed her brother-in-law. One day, Shanmugam spots Dhanalakshmi, who, having lost her husband, now lives a life of poverty on the platforms with her son, Balu. After an unsuccessful attempt to find her a job in a friend's house, he hires her as their servant-maid. However, memories of the past starts to create a tension between Shanmugam and Dhanam, despite their attempts to maintain a distance. One day, Valarmati finds out from Shanmugam's old classmates how they both were in love when they were young and she starts fearing that Shanmugam will leave her and her children for Dhanam. Valarmati becomes so distraught that she even humiliates Dhanam at a party organized by one of their friends. When they return home, Valarmati confronts Shanmugam and an argument ensues. Unfortunately, Dhanam overhears their argument and silently goes to bed. The next morning, Dhanam and Balu are nowhere to be found. When Shanmugam searches the house, he finds a letter written by Dhanam saying that she wants Valarmati and Shanmugam to be happy and that she doesn't want to interfere. Soon, Valarmati realises the truth and wants to bring Dhanam back home and ask her for her forgiveness. Shanmugam searches high and low for them and at last finds Balu in an orphanage. The matron informs them that his mother had left instructions that her son should remain at the orphanage till her return. However, when the matron questions Balu, he replies that he wants to go with Shanmugam and stay in their house and to tell his mother that she is there when she returns. The matron agrees and lets him go. At the beginning of the movie, it is mentioned that Balu has been adopted by Shanmugam but still continues to call him "Sir" and never "Father or "Dad". As Parthiban leaves for home from the orphanage, he mentions that he is still searching for the whereabouts of Dhanalakshmi to this day. Soundtrack. The soundtrack features songs composed by Ilaiyaraaja, with lyrics by Pazhanibarathy
320566	Hackers Wanted is an unreleased American documentary film. Directed and written by Sam Bozzo, the film explores the origins and nature of hackers and hacking by following the adventures of Adrian Lamo, and contrasting his story with that of controversial figures throughout history. The film is narrated by Kevin Spacey. Originally named "Can You Hack It?" The film failed to get a conventional release, according to Lamo, because of conflicts between its producer and others on the team. The more commonly cited reason is a problem with the quality of the finished product. On May 20, 2010, a version of the film was leaked to BitTorrent. Lamo has stated that he had no involvement in the leak. "It's ironic that a film about overcoming barriers, about new technologies, about thinking differently, had to come to the public eye by being hacked out of the hands of people who, after making a film about the free flow of information, tried to lock away that information forever. The truth tends to itself." -Adrian Lamo On June 12, 2010, a director's cut version of the film was also leaked onto torrent sites. This version of the film contains additional footage and is significantly different from the one previously leaked.
1160668	Escape from Sobibor is a 1987 British made-for-TV film which aired on CBS. It is the story of the mass escape from the extermination camp at Sobibor, the most successful uprising by Jewish prisoners of German extermination camps (uprisings also took place at Auschwitz and Treblinka). The film was directed by Jack Gold and shot in Avala, Yugoslavia (now Serbia). On October 14, 1943, members of the camp's underground resistance succeeded in covertly killing eleven German officers and a number of Ukrainian guards. Of the 600 inmates in the camp, roughly 300 escaped, although most were later re-captured and killed. The escape forced the Nazis to close the death camp. They dismantled it, bulldozed the earth, and planted trees to cover it up.
1079106	Bibi Andersson ((); born 11 November 1935) is a Swedish actress. Early life. Bibi Andersson was born as Berit Elisabeth Andersson in Kungsholmen, Stockholm, the daughter of Karin (née Mansion), a social worker, and Josef Andersson, a businessman. She studied acting at the Terserus Drama School and at the legendary Royal Dramatic Theatre School in Stockholm. After completing school, she agreed to join the Royal Dramatic Theatre in Stockholm, which she was associated with for 30 years. Her first collaboration with Ingmar Bergman was in 1951, when she participated in his production of an advertisement for the detergent "Bris". In the 1950s, 60s and 70s, she starred in more than ten Bergman-directed pictures, including "The Seventh Seal", "Wild Strawberries", "Brink of Life", "The Magician", "The Passion of Anna", "The Touch" and "Persona". Later career. In 1963, at the 13th Berlin International Film Festival, Andersson won the Silver Bear for Best Actress award for her role in Vilgot Sjöman's film "The Mistress". Her intense portrayal of the nurse Alma in the 1966 film "Persona" led to an increase in the number of cinematic roles offered her, and she appeared that same year opposite James Garner and Sidney Poitier in the violent western "Duel at Diablo". More Bergman collaborations followed, as well as working with John Huston ("The Kremlin Letter": 1970) and Robert Altman ("Quintet": 1979). She made her debut in American theatre in 1973 with a production of Erich Maria Remarque's "Full Circle". In 1990, she worked as a theatre director in Stockholm. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Andersson worked primarily in television and as a theatre actress, working with Bergman among others. She was also a supervisor for the humanitarian project Road to Sarajevo. Personal life. In 1996, she published her autobiography "Ett ögonblick" ("A Moment", or, literally, "A Blink of the Eye"). She has been married (1960, divorced) to the director Kjell Grede with whom she has a daughter, Jenny, and, secondly (1978, divorced), to the politician and writer Per Ahlmark. Since 29 May 2004, Andersson has been married to Gabriel Mora Baeza. In 2009 she suffered a massive stroke and is since hospitalized, unable to speak.
1044415	The Black Windmill is a 1974 British spy thriller directed by Don Siegel and starring Michael Caine, John Vernon, Janet Suzman and Donald Pleasence. It was produced by Richard D. Zanuck and David Brown. The screenplay by Leigh Vance is based on Clive Egleton's novel "Seven Days to a Killing". The story involves a British secret service agent, John Tarrant (Caine), involved in the investigation of an international arms syndicate. Tarrant's son is kidnapped and held to ransom, leading Tarrant to discover that he cannot even rely on the people on his own side. The film was made, in part, on location at Clayton Windmills, south of Burgess Hill, in West Sussex, England. It also featured scenes filmed at Aldwych and Shepherd's Bush tube stations. A section of the film was also shot at Pegwell Bay, Ramsgate Hoverport, where Tarrant makes his way across the channel and sneaks onto the back of a bus which is on board the hovercraft Sure. This was in order to pass back through customs undetected so that British intelligence was not aware of his locality -- this is one of the most misunderstood parts of the film. On the website Rotten Tomatoes, the film has a 29% audience ranking (May 2013).
1164732	Mary Louise Cecilia "Texas" Guinan (January 12, 1884 – November 5, 1933) was an American saloon keeper, actress, and entrepreneur. Early life. Guinan was one of seven siblings born in Waco, Texas to Irish-Canadian immigrants Michael and Bessie (née Duffy) Guinan. She attended parochial school at the Loretta Convent in Waco. When she was 16 years old, her family moved to Denver, Colorado where she was in amateur stage productions and played the organ in church. Guinan married John Moynahan, a cartoonist for the "Rocky Mountain News", on December 2, 1904. The union was childless. Moynahan's career took them to Chicago, where Guinan studied music before divorcing him and starting her career as a professional singer. She toured regional vaudeville with some success, but became known less for her singing than for her entertaining "Wild West"-related patter. Career rise. In 1906 she moved to New York City, where she found work as a chorus girl before making a career for herself in national Vaudeville and in New York theater productions. In 1917, "Texas" Guinan made her film debut in a silent film called "The Wildcat". She became the United States' first movie cowgirl, nicknamed "The Queen of the West". She claimed she had a sojourn in France, entertaining the troops during World War I. Prohibition years, "300 Club". She was one of the first female emcees. Upon the introduction of Prohibition, she opened a speakeasy called the 300 Club at 151 W. 54th Street in New York City (1920). The club became famous for its troupe of forty scantily-clad fan dancers and for Guinan's distinctive aplomb, which made her a celebrity. Arrested several times for serving alcohol and providing entertainment, she always claimed that the patrons had brought the liquor in with them, and the club was so small that the girls had to dance close to the customers. Guinan maintained that she had never sold an alcoholic drink in her life. At this hangout of the wealthy elite, George Gershwin often played impromptu piano for wealthy guests such as Reggie Vanderbilt, Harry Payne Whitney, or Walter Chrysler, and celebrities such as Peggy Hopkins Joyce, Pola Negri, Al Jolson, Jeanne Eagels, Gloria Swanson, John Gilbert, Clara Bow, Hope Hampton, Irving Berlin, John Barrymore, Dolores Costello, Leatrice Joy and Rudolph Valentino, as well as socialites such as Gloria Morgan and her sister Thelma, Viscountess Furness. Ruby Keeler and George Raft were discovered as dancers at the club by Broadway and Hollywood talent scouts. Walter Winchell credited Guinan with opening the insider Broadway scene and cafe society to him when he was starting as a gossip columnist. Guinan capitalized on her notoriety, earning $700,000 in ten months in 1926, while her clubs were routinely being raided by the police. Guinan has been credited with coining a number of phrases. "Butter and egg men" referred to her well-off patrons, and she often demanded that the audience "give the little ladies a great big hand". She traditionally greeted her patrons with "Hello, suckers!" Return to film. Guinan returned to the screen with two sound pictures, playing slightly fictionalized versions of herself as a speakeasy proprietress in "Queen of the Night Clubs" (1929) and then "Broadway Through a Keyhole" (1933, written by Winchell) shortly before her death. During the Great Depression (in which she reportedly lost a sizable amount of her personal wealth) she took her show on the road. She made a sally towards Europe, but her reputation preceded her, and she was denied entry at every European sea port. She turned this to her advantage by launching a satirical revue, "Too Hot For Paris". Death. While on the road with "Too Hot For Paris", she contracted amoebic dysentery in Vancouver, British Columbia and died there on November 5, 1933 at the age of 49, exactly one month before Prohibition was repealed. 7,500 people attended her funeral. Bandleader Paul Whiteman was a pallbearer as well as two of her former lawyers and writer Heywood Broun. She was survived by both of her parents. Her mother died at age 101 in 1959 and her father was 79 years old at his death in 1935. Her family donated a tabernacle in her name to St. Patrick's Church in Vancouver in recognition of Father Louis Forget's attentions during her last hours. When the original church was demolished in 2004, the tabernacle was preserved for the new church built on the site. Guinan is interred in the Calvary Cemetery, Queens, New York. Fictional portrayals and homages. In Damon Runyon's short stories about Broadway of the 1920s, the recurring character of nightclub operator "Miss Missouri Martin" is based on Texas Guinan. Guinan was portrayed by actress De Sacia Mooers in the now lost 1927 silent "Broadway Nights". Guinan was portrayed on film in "Incendiary Blonde" (1945) by Betty Hutton, and in "Splendor in the Grass" (1961) by Phyllis Diller. "Texie" Garcia, the gun moll of the Capone-inspired villain Big Boy in Dick Tracy was partly inspired by Guinan. Mae West's first screen appearance was as a wisecracking character based on Guinan in "Night After Night" (1932), featuring George Raft. Raft campaigned to cast Guinan herself but the studio opted for West since she was nine years younger. Raft believed that the part would have launched a major film career for Guinan, which proved to be the case for West instead. (West was reportedly a fan of Guinan and incorporated some of Guinan's ideas into her own acts). In the 1939 film "The Roaring Twenties", directed by Raoul Walsh and Anatole Litvak and starring James Cagney and Humphrey Bogart, the character "Panama Smith" (played by Gladys George) is based on Guinan. In the 1984 film "The Cotton Club", directed by Francis Ford Coppola, the part of "Vera" played by Diane Lane is loosely based on Guinan. Madonna had a musical in the works in late 2004 with her in the lead role. The film was to be called "Hello Suckers!", a catchphrase Guinan said often. The movie was canned but Madonna kept some of the songs and released them on her 2005 album "Confessions on a Dance Floor".
715184	Emanuel Lasker, PhD (December 24, 1868 – January 11, 1941) was a German chess player, mathematician, and philosopher who was World Chess Champion for 27 years (from 1894 to 1921). In his prime Lasker was one of the most dominant champions, and he is still generally regarded as one of the strongest players ever. His contemporaries used to say that Lasker used a "psychological" approach to the game, and even that he sometimes deliberately played inferior moves to confuse opponents. Recent analysis, however, indicates that he was ahead of his time and used a more flexible approach than his contemporaries, which mystified many of them. Lasker knew contemporary analyses of openings well but disagreed with many of them. He published chess magazines and five chess books, but later players and commentators found it difficult to draw lessons from his methods. Lasker made contributions to the development of other games. He was a first-class contract bridge player and wrote about bridge and other games, including Go and his own invention, Lasca. His books about games presented a problem that is still considered notable in the mathematical analysis of card games. Lasker was also a research mathematician who was known for his contributions to commutative algebra, which included proving the primary decomposition of the ideals of polynomial rings. On the other hand, his philosophical works and a drama that he co-authored received little attention. Life and career. Early years 1868–94. Emanuel Lasker was born on December 24, 1868 at Berlinchen in Neumark (now Barlinek in Poland), the son of a Jewish cantor. At the age of eleven he was sent to Berlin to study mathematics, where he lived with his brother Berthold, eight years his senior, who taught him how to play chess. According to the website Chessmetrics, Berthold was among the world's top ten players in the early 1890s. To supplement their income Emanuel Lasker played chess and card games for small stakes, especially at the Café Kaiserhof. Lasker shot up through the chess rankings in 1889, when he won the Café Kaiserhof's annual Winter tournament 1888/89 and the "Hauptturnier A" ("second division" tournament) at the sixth DSB Congress (German Chess Federation's congress) held in Breslau. Winning the Hauptturnier earned Lasker the title of "master". The candidates were divided into two groups of ten. The top four in each group competed in a final. Lasker won his section, with 2½ points more than his nearest rival. However, scores were reset to 0 for the final. With two rounds to go, Lasker trailed the leader, Viennese amateur von Feierfeil, by 1½ points. Lasker won both of his final games, while von Feierfeil lost in the penultimate round (being mated in 121 moves after the position was reconstructed incorrectly following an adjournment) and drew in the last round. The two players were now tied. Lasker won a playoff and garnered the master title. This enabled him to play in master-level tournaments and thus launched his chess career. Lasker finished second in an international tournament at Amsterdam, ahead of some well-known masters, including Isidore Gunsberg (assessed as the second strongest player in the world at that time by Chessmetrics). In 1890 he finished third in Graz, then shared first prize with his brother Berthold in a tournament in Berlin. In spring 1892, he won two tournaments in London, the second and stronger of these without losing a game. At New York 1893, he won all thirteen games, one of the few times in chess history that a player has achieved a perfect score in a significant tournament. His record in matches was equally impressive: at Berlin in 1890 he drew a short play-off match against his brother Berthold; and won all his other matches from 1889 to 1893, mostly against top-class opponents: Curt von Bardeleben (1889; ranked 9th best player in the world by Chessmetrics at that time), Jacques Mieses (1889; ranked 11th), Henry Edward Bird (1890; then 60 years old; ranked 29th), Berthold Englisch (1890; ranked 18th), Joseph Henry Blackburne (1892, without losing a game; Blackburne was aged 51 then, but still 9th in the world), Jackson Showalter (1892–93; 22nd) and Celso Golmayo Zúpide (1893; 29th). Chessmetrics calculates that Emanuel Lasker became the world's strongest player in mid-1890, and that he was in the top ten from the very beginning of his recorded career in 1889. In 1892 Lasker founded the first of his chess magazines, "The London Chess Fortnightly", which was published from August 15, 1892 to July 30, 1893. In the second quarter of 1893 there was a gap of ten weeks between issues, allegedly because of problems with the printer. Shortly after its last issue Lasker traveled to the USA, where he spent the next two years. Lasker challenged Siegbert Tarrasch, who had won three consecutive strong international tournaments (Breslau 1889, Manchester 1890, and Dresden 1892), to a match. Tarrasch haughtily declined, stating that Lasker should first prove his mettle by attempting to win one or two major international events. Chess competition 1894–1918. Match against Steinitz. Rebuffed by Tarrasch, Lasker challenged the reigning World Champion Wilhelm Steinitz to a match for the title. Initially Lasker wanted to play for US $5,000 a side and a match was agreed at stakes of $3,000 a side, but Steinitz agreed to a series of reductions when Lasker found it difficult to raise the money. The final figure was $2,000, which was less than for some of Steinitz' earlier matches (the final combined stake of $4,000 would be worth over $495,000 at 2006 values). Although this was publicly praised as an act of sportsmanship on Steinitz' part, Steinitz may have desperately needed the money. The match was played in 1894, at venues in New York, Philadelphia, and Montreal. Steinitz had previously declared he would win without doubt, so it came as a shock when Lasker won the first game. Steinitz responded by winning the second, and maintained the balance through the sixth. However, Lasker won all the games from the seventh to the eleventh, and Steinitz asked for a week's rest. When the match resumed, Steinitz looked in better shape and won the 13th and 14th games. Lasker struck back in the 15th and 16th, and Steinitz did not compensate for his losses in the middle of the match. Hence Lasker won convincingly with ten wins, five losses and four draws. Lasker thus became the second formally recognized World Chess Champion, and confirmed his title by beating Steinitz even more convincingly in their re-match in 1896–97 (ten wins, five draws, and two losses). Tournament successes. Influential players and journalists belittled the 1894 match both before and after it took place. Lasker's difficulty in getting backing may have been caused by hostile pre-match comments from Gunsberg and Leopold Hoffer, who had long been a bitter enemy of Steinitz. One of the complaints was that Lasker had never played the other two members of the top four, Siegbert Tarrasch and Mikhail Chigorin – although Tarrasch had rejected a challenge from Lasker in 1892, publicly telling him to go and win an international tournament first. After the match some commentators, notably Tarrasch, said Lasker had won mainly because Steinitz was old (58 in 1894). Emanuel Lasker answered these criticisms by creating an even more impressive playing record. Before World War I broke out his most serious "setbacks" were third place at Hastings 1895 (where he may have been suffering from the after-effects of typhoid fever), a tie for second at Cambridge Springs 1904, and a tie for first at the Chigorin Memorial in St Petersburg 1909. He won first prizes at very strong tournaments in St Petersburg (1895–96, "Quadrangular"), Nuremberg (1896), London (1899), Paris (1900) and St Petersburg (1914), where he overcame a 1½-point deficit to finish ahead of the rising stars, Capablanca and Alexander Alekhine, who later became the next two World Champions. For decades chess writers have reported that Tsar Nicholas II of Russia conferred the title of "Grandmaster of Chess" upon each of the five finalists at St Petersburg 1914 (Lasker, Capablanca, Alekhine, Tarrasch and Marshall), but chess historian Edward Winter has questioned this, stating that the earliest known sources supporting this story were published in 1940 and 1942. Matches against Marshall and Tarrasch. Lasker's match record was as impressive between his 1896–97 re-match with Steinitz and 1914: he won all but one of his normal matches, and three of those were convincing defenses of his title. He first faced Marshall in the World Chess Championship 1907, when despite his aggressive style, Marshall could not win a single game, losing eight and drawing seven (final score: 11½−3½). He then played Tarrasch in the World Chess Championship 1908, first at Düsseldorf then at Munich. Tarrasch firmly believed the game of chess was governed by a precise set of principles. For him the strength of a chess move was in its logic, not in its efficiency. Because of his stubborn principles he considered Lasker as a coffeehouse player who won his games only thanks to dubious tricks, while Lasker mocked the arrogance of Tarrasch who, in his opinion, shone more in salons than at the chessboard. At the opening ceremony, Tarrasch refused to talk to Lasker, only saying: ""Mr. Lasker, I have only three words to say to you: check and mate!"" Lasker gave a brilliant answer on the chessboard, winning four of the first five games, and playing a type of chess Tarrasch could not understand. For example, in the second game after 19 moves arose a situation (see diagram at left) in which Lasker was a pawn down, with a bad bishop and doubled pawns. At this point it appeared Tarrasch was winning, but 20 moves later he was forced to resign. Lasker eventually won by 10½−5½ (eight wins, five draws, and three losses). Tarrasch claimed the wet weather was the cause of his defeat. Matches against Janowski. In 1909 Lasker drew a short match (two wins, two losses) against Dawid Janowski, an all-out attacking Polish expatriate. Several months later they played a longer match, and chess historians still debate whether this was for the World Chess Championship. Understanding Janowski's style, Lasker chose to defend solidly so that Janowski unleashed his attacks too soon and left himself vulnerable. Lasker easily won the match 8–2 (seven wins, two draws, one loss). This victory was convincing for everyone but Janowski, who asked for a revenge match. Lasker accepted and they played a World Chess Championship match in Paris in November–December 1910. Lasker crushed his opponent, winning 9½−1½ (eight wins, three draws, no losses). Janowski did not understand Lasker's moves, and after his first three losses he declared to Edward Lasker, "Your homonym plays so stupidly that I cannot even look at the chessboard when he thinks. I am afraid I will not do anything good in this match." Match against Schlechter. Between his two matches against Janowski, Lasker arranged another World Chess Championship in January–February 1910 against Carl Schlechter. Schlechter was a modest gentleman, who was generally unlikely to win the major chess tournaments by his peaceful inclination, his lack of aggressiveness and his willingness to accept most draw offers from his opponents (about 80% of his games finished by a draw). The conditions of the match against Lasker are still debated among chess historians, but it seems Schlechter accepted to play under very unfavourable conditions, notably that he would need to finish two points ahead of Lasker to be declared the winner of the match, and he would need to win a revenge match to be declared World Champion. The match was originally meant to consist of 30 games, but when it became obvious that there were insufficient funds (Lasker demanded a fee of 1,000 marks per game played), the number of games was reduced to ten, making the margin of two points all the more difficult. At the beginning, Lasker tried to attack but Schlechter had no difficulty defending, so that the first four games finished in draws. In the fifth game Lasker had a big advantage, but committed a blunder that cost him the game. Hence at the middle of the match Schlechter was one point ahead. The next four games were drawn, despite fierce play from both players. In the sixth Schlechter managed to draw a game being a pawn down. In the seventh Lasker nearly lost because of a beautiful exchange sacrifice from Schlechter. In the ninth only a blunder from Lasker allowed Schlechter to draw a lost ending. The score before the last game was thus 5–4 for Schlechter. In the tenth game Schlechter tried to win tactically and took a big advantage, but he missed a clear win at the 35th move, continued to take increasing risks and finished by losing. Hence the match was a draw and Lasker remained World Champion. Abandoned challenges. In 1911 Lasker received a challenge for a world title match against the rising star José Raúl Capablanca. Lasker was unwilling to play the traditional "first to win ten games" type of match in the semi-tropical conditions of Havana, especially as drawn games were becoming more frequent and the match might last for over six months. He therefore made a counter-proposal: if neither player had a lead of at least two games by the end of the match, it should be considered a draw; the match should be limited to the best of thirty games, counting draws; except that if either player won six games "and" led by at least two games before thirty games were completed, he should be declared the winner; the champion should decide the venue and stakes, and should have the exclusive right to publish the games; the challenger should deposit a forfeit of US $2,000 (equivalent to over $194,000 in 2006 values); the time limit should be twelve moves per hour; play should be limited to two sessions of 2½ hours each per day, five days a week. Capablanca objected to the time limit, the short playing times, the thirty-game limit, and especially the requirement that he must win by two games to claim the title, which he regarded as unfair. Lasker took offence at the terms in which Capablanca criticized the two-game lead condition and broke off negotiations, and until 1914 Lasker and Capablanca were not on speaking terms. However, at the 1914 St. Petersburg tournament, Capablanca proposed a set of rules for the conduct of World Championship matches, which were accepted by all the leading players, including Lasker. Late in 1912 Lasker entered into negotiations for a world title match with Akiba Rubinstein, whose tournament record for the previous few years had been on a par with Lasker's and a little ahead of Capablanca's. The two players agreed to play a match if Rubinstein could raise the funds, but Rubinstein had few rich friends to back him and the match was never played. The start of World War I put an end to hopes that Lasker would play either Rubinstein or Capablanca for the World Championship in the near future. Throughout World War I (1914–18) Lasker played in only two serious chess events. He convincingly won (5½−½) a non-title match against Tarrasch in 1916. In September–October 1918, shortly before the armistice, he won a quadrangular (four-player) tournament, half a point ahead of Rubinstein. Academic activities 1894–1918. Despite his superb playing results, chess was not Lasker's only interest. His parents recognized his intellectual talents, especially for mathematics, and sent the adolescent Emanuel to study in Berlin (where he found he also had a talent for chess). Lasker gained his abitur (high school graduation certificate) at Landsberg an der Warthe, now a Polish town named Gorzów Wielkopolski but then part of Prussia. He then studied mathematics and philosophy at the universities in Berlin, Göttingen and Heidelberg. In 1895 Lasker published two mathematical articles in "Nature". On the advice of David Hilbert he registered for doctoral studies at Erlangen during 1900–02. In 1901 he presented his doctoral thesis "Über Reihen auf der Convergenzgrenze" ("On Series at Convergence Boundaries") at Erlangen and in the same year it was published by the Royal Society. He was awarded a doctorate in mathematics in 1902. His most significant mathematical article, in 1905, published a theorem of which Emmy Noether developed a more generalized form, which is now regarded as of fundamental importance to modern algebra and algebraic geometry. Lasker held short-term positions as a mathematics lecturer at Tulane University in New Orleans (1893) and Victoria University in Manchester (1901; Victoria University was one of the "parents" of the current University of Manchester). However, he was unable to secure a longer-term position, and pursued his scholarly interests independently. In 1906 Lasker published a booklet titled "Kampf" ("Struggle"), in which he attempted to create a general theory of all competitive activities, including chess, business and war. He produced two other books which are generally categorized as philosophy, "Das Begreifen der Welt" ("Comprehending the World"; 1913) and "Die Philosophie des Unvollendbar" (sic; "The Philosophy of the Unattainable"; 1918). Other activities 1894–1918. In 1896–97 Lasker published his book "Common Sense in Chess", based on lectures he had given in London in 1895. In 1903, Lasker played in Ostend against Mikhail Chigorin, a six-game match that was sponsored by the wealthy lawyer and industrialist Isaac Rice in order to test the Rice Gambit. Lasker narrowly lost the match. Three years later Lasker became secretary of the Rice Gambit Association, founded by Rice in order to promote the Rice Gambit, and in 1907 Lasker quoted with approval Rice's views on the convergence of chess and military strategy. In November 1904, Lasker founded "Lasker's Chess Magazine", which ran until 1909. For a short time in 1906 Emanuel Lasker was interested in the strategy game Go, but soon returned to chess. He was introduced to the game by his namesake Edward Lasker, who wrote a successful book "Go and Go-Moku" in 1934. At the age of 42, in July 1911, Lasker married Martha Cohn (née Bamberger), a rich widow who was a year older than Lasker and already a grandmother. They lived in Berlin. Martha Cohn wrote popular stories under the pseudonym "L. Marco". During World War I, Lasker invested all of his savings in German war bonds. Since Germany lost the war, Lasker lost all his money. During the war, he wrote a book which claimed that civilization would be in danger if Germany lost the war. Match against Capablanca. In January 1920 Lasker and José Raúl Capablanca signed an agreement to play a World Championship match in 1921, noting that Capablanca was not free to play in 1920. Because of the delay, Lasker insisted on a final clause that allowed him to play anyone else for the championship in 1920, that nullified the contract with Capablanca if Lasker lost a title match in 1920, and that stipulated that if Lasker resigned the title Capablanca should become World Champion. Lasker had previously included in his agreement before World War I to play Akiba Rubinstein for the title a similar clause that if he resigned the title, it should become Rubinstein's. A report in the "American Chess Bulletin" (July–August 1920 issue) said that Lasker had resigned the world title in favor of Capablanca because the conditions of the match were unpopular in the chess world. The "American Chess Bulletin" speculated that the conditions were not sufficiently unpopular to warrant resignation of the title, and that Lasker's real concern was that there was not enough financial backing to justify his devoting nine months to the match. When Lasker resigned the title in favor of Capablanca he was unaware that enthusiasts in Havana had just raised $20,000 to fund the match provided it was played there. When Capablanca learned of Lasker's resignation he went to Holland, where Lasker was living at the time, to inform him that Havana would finance the match. In August 1920 Lasker agreed to play in Havana, but insisted that he was the challenger as Capablanca was now the champion. Capablanca signed an agreement that accepted this point, and soon afterwards published a letter confirming this. Lasker also stated that, if he beat Capablanca, he would resign the title so that younger masters could compete for it. The match was played in March–April 1921. After four draws, the fifth game saw Lasker blunder with Black in an equal ending. Capablanca's solid style allowed him to easily draw the next four games, without taking any risks. In the tenth game, Lasker as White played a position with an isolated queen pawn but failed to create the necessary activity and Capablanca reached a superior ending, which he duly won. The eleventh and fourteenth games were also won by Capablanca, and Lasker resigned the match. Reuben Fine and Harry Golombek attributed this to Lasker's being in mysteriously poor form. On the other hand Vladimir Kramnik thought that Lasker played quite well and the match was an "even and fascinating fight" until Lasker blundered in the last game, and explained that Capablanca was twenty years younger, a slightly stronger player, and had more recent competitive practice. 1921 to end of life. By this time Lasker was nearly 53 years old, and he never played another serious match; his only other match was a short exhibition against Frank James Marshall in 1940, which Lasker lost. After winning the New York 1924 chess tournament (1½ points ahead of Capablanca) and finishing second at Moscow in 1925 (1½ points behind Efim Bogoljubow, ½ point ahead of Capablanca), he effectively retired from serious chess. During the Moscow 1925 chess tournament, Emanuel Lasker received a telegram informing him that the drama written by himself and his brother Berthold, "Vom Menschen die Geschichte" ("History of Mankind"), had been accepted for performance at the Lessing theatre in Berlin. Emanuel Lasker was so distracted by this news that he lost badly to Carlos Torre the same day. The play, however, was not a success. In 1926 Lasker wrote "Lehrbuch des Schachspiels", which he re-wrote in English in 1927 as "Lasker's Manual of Chess". He also wrote books on other games of mental skill: "Encyclopedia of Games" (1929) and "Das verständige Kartenspiel" (means "Sensible Card Play"; 1929; English translation in the same year), both of which posed a problem in the mathematical analysis of card games; "Brettspiele der Völker" ("Board Games of the Nations"; 1931), which includes 30 pages about Go and a section about a game he had invented in 1911, Lasca. In 1930, Lasker was a special correspondent for Dutch and German newspapers reporting on the Culbertson-Buller bridge match during which he became a registered teacher of the Culbertson system. He became an expert bridge player, representing Germany at international events in the early 1930s, and wrote "Das Bridgespiel" ("The Game of Bridge") in 1931. In October 1928 Emanuel Lasker's brother Berthold died. In spring 1933 Adolf Hitler started a campaign of discrimination and intimidation against Jews, depriving them of their property and citizenship. Lasker and his wife Martha, who were both Jewish, were forced to leave Germany in the same year. After a short stay in England, in 1935 they were invited to live in the USSR by Nikolai Krylenko, the Commissar of Justice who was responsible for the Moscow show trials and, in his other capacity as Sports Minister, was an enthusiastic supporter of chess. In the USSR, Lasker renounced his German citizenship and received Soviet citizenship. He took permanent residence in Moscow, and was given a post at Moscow's Institute for Mathematics and a post of trainer of the USSR national team. Lasker returned to competitive chess to make some money, finishing fifth in Zürich 1934 and third in Moscow 1935 (undefeated, ½ point behind Mikhail Botvinnik and Salo Flohr; ahead of Capablanca, Rudolf Spielmann and several Soviet masters), sixth in Moscow 1936 and seventh equal in Nottingham 1936. His performance in Moscow 1935 at age 66 was hailed as "a biological miracle." Joseph Stalin's Great Purge started at about the same time the Laskers arrived in the USSR. In August 1937, Martha and Emanuel Lasker decided to leave the Soviet Union, and they moved, via the Netherlands, to the United States (first Chicago, next New York) in October 1937. In the following year Emanuel Lasker's patron, Krylenko, was purged. Lasker tried to support himself by giving chess and bridge lectures and exhibitions, as he was now too old for serious competition. In 1940 he published his last book, "The Community of the Future", in which he proposed solutions for serious political problems, including anti-Semitism and unemployment. He died of a kidney infection in New York on January 11, 1941, at the age of 72, as a charity patient at the Mount Sinai Hospital. He was buried in the Beth Olom Cemetery, Queens, New York. He was survived by his wife Martha and his sister, Mrs. Lotta Hirschberg. Assessment. Playing strength and style. Lasker was considered to have a "psychological" method of play in which he considered the subjective qualities of his opponent, in addition to the objective requirements of his position on the board. Richard Réti published a lengthy analysis of Lasker's play in which he concluded that Lasker deliberately played inferior moves that he knew would make his opponent uncomfortable. W. H. K. Pollock commented, "It is no easy matter to reply correctly to Lasker's bad moves." Lasker himself denied the claim that he deliberately played bad moves, and most modern writers agree. According to Grandmaster Andrew Soltis and International Master John L. Watson, the features that made his play mysterious to contemporaries now appear regularly in modern play: the g2-g4 "Spike" attack against the Dragon Sicilian; sacrifices to gain positional advantage; playing the "practical" move rather than trying to find the best move; counterattacking and complicating the game before a disadvantage became serious. Former World Champion Vladimir Kramnik said, "He realized that different types of advantage could be interchangeable: tactical edge could be converted into strategic advantage and vice versa", which mystified contemporaries who were just becoming used to the theories of Steinitz as codified by Siegbert Tarrasch. Max Euwe opined that the real reason behind Lasker's success was his "exceptional defensive technique" and that "almost all there is to say about defensive chess can be demonstrated by examples from the games of Steinitz and Lasker", with the former exemplifying passive defence and the latter an active defence. The famous win against José Raúl Capablanca at St. Petersburg in 1914, which Lasker needed in order to retain any chance of catching up with Capablanca, is sometimes offered as evidence of his "psychological" approach. Reuben Fine describes Lasker's choice of opening, the Exchange Variation of the Ruy Lopez, as "innocuous but psychologically potent." However, an analysis of Lasker's use of this variation throughout his career concludes that he had excellent results with it as White against top-class opponents, and sometimes used it in "must-win" situations. Luděk Pachman writes that Lasker's choice presented his opponent with a dilemma: with only a ½ point lead, Capablanca would have wanted to play safe; but the Exchange Variation's pawn structure gives White an endgame advantage, and Black must use his bishop pair aggressively in the middle game to nullify this. In Kramnik's opinion, Lasker's play in this game demonstrated deep positional understanding, rather than psychology. Fine reckoned Lasker paid little attention to the openings, but Capablanca thought Lasker knew the openings very well, but disagreed with a lot of contemporary opening analysis. In fact before the 1894 world title match Lasker studied the openings thoroughly, especially Steinitz' favorite lines. In Capablanca's opinion, no player surpassed Lasker in the ability to assess a position quickly and accurately, in terms of who had the better prospects of winning and what strategy each side should adopt. Capablanca also wrote that Lasker was so adaptable that he played in no definite style, and that he was both a tenacious defender and a very efficient finisher of his own attacks. In addition to his enormous chess skill Lasker was said to have an excellent competitive temperament: his rival Siegbert Tarrasch once said, "Lasker occasionally loses a game, but he never loses his head." Lasker enjoyed the need to adapt to varying styles and to the shifting fortunes of tournaments. Although very strong in matches, he was even stronger in tournaments. For over twenty years, he always finished ahead of the younger Capablanca: at St. Petersburg 1914, New York 1924, Moscow 1925, and Moscow 1935. Only in 1936 (15 years after their match), when Lasker was 67, did Capablanca finish ahead of him. In 1964, "Chessworld" magazine published an article in which future World Champion Bobby Fischer listed the ten greatest players in history. Fischer did not include Lasker in the list, deriding him as a "coffee-house player knew nothing about openings and didn't understand positional chess." In a poll of the world's leading players taken sometime after Fischer's list appeared, Tal, Korchnoi, and Robert Byrne all said that Lasker was the greatest player ever. Both Pal Benko and Byrne stated that Fischer later reconsidered and said that Lasker was a great player. Statistical ranking systems place Lasker high among the greatest players of all time. The book "Warriors of the Mind" places him sixth, behind Garry Kasparov, Anatoly Karpov, Fischer, Mikhail Botvinnik and Capablanca. In his 1978 book "The Rating of Chessplayers, Past and Present", Arpad Elo gave retrospective ratings to players based on their performance over the best five-year span of their career. He concluded that Lasker was the joint second strongest player of those surveyed (tied with Botvinnik and behind Capablanca). The most up-to-date system, Chessmetrics, is rather sensitive to the length of the periods being compared, and ranks Lasker between fifth and second strongest of all time for peak periods ranging in length from one to twenty years. Its author, the statistician Jeff Sonas, concluded that only Kasparov and Karpov surpassed Lasker's long-term dominance of the game. By Chessmetrics' reckoning, Lasker was the number 1 player in 292 different months—a total of over 24 years. His first No. 1 rank was in June 1890, and his last in December 1926—a span of 36½ years. Chessmetrics also considers him the strongest 67-year-old in history: in December 1935, at age 67 years and 0 months, his rating was 2691 (number 7 in the world), well above second-place Viktor Korchnoi's rating at that age (2660, number 39 in the world, in March 1998). Influence on chess. Lasker founded no school of players who played in a similar style. Max Euwe, World Champion 1935–37 and a prolific writer of chess manuals, who had a lifetime 0–3 score against Lasker, said, "It is not possible to learn much from him. One can only stand and wonder." However, Lasker's pragmatic, combative approach had a great influence on Soviet players like Mikhail Tal and Viktor Korchnoi. There are several "Lasker Variations" in the chess openings, including Lasker's Defense to the Queen's Gambit, Lasker's Defense to the Evans Gambit (which effectively ended the use of this gambit in tournament play until a revival in the 1990s), and the Lasker Variation in the McCutcheon Variation of the French Defense. One of Lasker's most famous games is Lasker–Bauer, Amsterdam 1889, in which he sacrificed both bishops in a maneuver later repeated in a number of games. Similar sacrifices had already been played by Cecil Valentine De Vere and John Owen, but these were not in major events and Lasker probably had not seen them. Lasker was shocked by the poverty in which Wilhelm Steinitz died and did not intend to die in similar circumstances. He became notorious for demanding high fees for playing matches and tournaments, and he argued that players should own the copyright in their games rather than let publishers get all the profits. These demands initially angered editors and other players, but helped to pave the way for the rise of full-time chess professionals who earn most of their living from playing, writing and teaching. Copyright in chess games had been contentious at least as far back as the mid-1840s, and Steinitz and Lasker vigorously asserted that players should own the copyright and wrote copyright clauses into their match contracts. However, Lasker's demands that challengers should raise large purses prevented or delayed some eagerly awaited World Championship matches—for example Frank James Marshall challenged him in 1904 to a match for the World Championship but could not raise the stakes demanded by Lasker until 1907. This problem continued throughout the reign of his successor Capablanca. Some of the controversial conditions that Lasker insisted on for championship matches led Capablanca to attempt twice (1914 and 1922) to publish rules for such matches, to which other top players readily agreed. Work in other fields. Lasker was also a mathematician. In his 1905 article on commutative algebra, Lasker introduced the theory of primary decomposition of ideals, which has influence in the theory of Noetherian rings. Rings having the "primary decomposition property" are called "Laskerian rings" in his honor. His attempt to create a general theory of all competitive activities were followed by more consistent efforts from von Neumann on game theory, and his later writings about card games presented a significant issue in the mathematical analysis of card games. However, his dramatic and philosophical works have never been highly regarded. Friends and relatives. Lasker was a good friend of Albert Einstein, who wrote the introduction to the posthumous biography "Emanuel Lasker, The Life of a Chess Master" from Dr. Jacques Hannak (1952). In this preface Einstein express his satisfaction at having met Lasker, writing: Poetess Else Lasker-Schüler was his sister-in-law. Edward Lasker, born in Kempen (Kępno), Greater Poland (then Prussia), the German-American chess master, engineer, and author, claimed that he was distantly related to Emanuel Lasker. They both played in the great New York 1924 chess tournament. In popular culture. Fiction. In Michael Chabon's alternate history mystery novel, "The Yiddish Policemen's Union", the murdered man, Mendel Shpilman (born during the 1960's), being a chess enthusiast, uses the name "Emanuel Lasker" as an alias. The reference is clearly understood by the protagonist, Detective Meyer Landsman, because he has also studied chess. Tournament results. The following table gives Lasker's placings and scores in tournaments. The first "Score" column gives the number of points on the total possible. In the second "Score" column, "+" indicates the number of won games, "−" the number of losses, and "=" the number of draws. Match results. Here are Lasker's results in matches. The first "Score" column gives the number of points on the total possible. In the second "Score" column, "+" indicates the number of won games, "−" the number of losses, and "=" the number of draws.
41904	Normal Adolescent Behavior is a 2007 drama film written and directed by Beth Schacter. The film was an official selection of the 2007 Tribeca Film Festival. The film is the story of a group of best friends, all of whom are in a six-way polyfidelitous relationship. They feel that being with this group—and only this group—is more fulfilling and overall better than conventional teenage dating. However, Wendy (Amber Tamblyn) begins to question the arrangement after meeting the boy next door. "Normal Adolescent Behavior" premiered on Lifetime Television on September 1, 2007. The film was run throughout the month and was still being aired in 2011. Plot. Wendy, Billie, and Ann are seniors at an alternative private school; they spend all their time with fellow students Jonah, Price, and Robert. The six have been friends since elementary school and their friendship has become a six-person monogamous relationship. They swap sex partners each week; their loyalty is to the group, not to one person.
584057	Pokkisham (, ) is a 2009 Tamil film directed by Cheran. The feature failed at the box office compared to Cheran's previous work, "Autograph". Movie dubbed by Meena and Prasanna. This movie's concept is partially inspired by the 1995 Hollywood romantic film The Bridges of Madison County, directed by Clint Eastwood. Plot. In 1970, a marine engineer Lenin (Cheran) from Calcutta comes across a Nagore girl Nadira (Padmapriya). Started with friendship, later seeded with love, Lenin mails a letter once a month. When Lenin came to Nagore, he was disappointed and sad as Nadira and her family left the place after selling their home. Years later, Mahesh (Aryan Rajesh), son of Lenin, found his father's hidden life from reading his diary. With help from his friend Shamsudeen (Ajai.R), He marches his way to find Nadira and deliver the letter to her. He comes to know that Nadira has shifted to Malaysia after marriage. He goes to Malaysia to meet her. Once he reaches her house, he is greeted by Nadira's son who welcomes him to the house. Nadira is now very old and asks Mahesh as to who he is and how does he know her? He replies saying he is Lenin's son and also informs her that his father died few years back. Nadira is grief-stricken. Mahesh gives her Lenin's last few letters which he could not post because he did not have Nadira's address. In those letters, Lenin has spoken about his journey to find Nadira after she and her family shifted from Nagore. He describes his pain and grief over not knowing about her situation during those days, and also about his father who coaxed him to marry another girl (played by Anupama Kumar), who is now his wife and is very understanding. Nadira then drops Mahesh to the airport and while on the way she request him to let her talk to his mother. Nadira and Mahesh's mother exchange good notes and then she finally drops him to the airport. While coming back, she is talking to her herself as well as to Lenin saying that she showed her anguish and punished her father by denying to marry anyone. She currently lives with her sister and her lovable family and apologises and promises Lenin that she will join him soon and never separate.
589967	Devar (film) is a 1966 Hindi film directed by Mohan Sehgal. It stars Dharmendra, Sharmila Tagore, Deven Verma and Shashikala. The film is based on a short novel "Naa" by the noted Bengali writer, Tara Shankar Bandopadhyay . The music is by Roshan and the lyrics by Anand Bakshi. Plot. Shankar & Bhawariya are childhood lovers who have been parted by unfortunate circumstances. Shankar's cousin Suresh (Deven Verma) is an advocate. Matchmaker Ram comes up with marriage proposals for both the cousins. Following family traditions, it is decided that the boys will meet the respective brides by proxy. Suresh falls in love with Madhumati (Bhawariya). He cooks up a wicked plot. He writes two letters to each of the families. Shankar comes to know that Madhumati is Bhawariya, the girl whom he used to love. In a rift between Shankar & Suresh, Suresh dies accidentally for which Shankar is held the culprit. Madumati who is determined to see her husband's murderer hanged, changes her words & saves Shankar.
1165061	Richard Dutoit Carlson (April 29, 1912 – November 25, 1977) was an American actor, television and film director, and screenwriter. Career. Born in Albert Lea, Minnesota. Carlson's father was a lawyer.
402013	Lily Luahana Cole (born c. 27 December 1987) is an English model and actress. Her modelling career was launched by a chance encounter with Benjamin Hart in Soho when she was 14 years old. She was booked for her first "British Vogue" cover at age 16, and has worked with many well-known brands, including Vogue worldwide, Alexander McQueen, Chanel, Louis Vuitton, Jean Paul Gaultier, Marc Jacobs, Prada, De Beers and Moschino. Other clients include Numero, Christian Lacroix, Hermès, and Galliano. Advertising campaigns include Longchamp, Anna Sui and Cacharel. She has a cosmetics contract with beauty brand Rimmel London and can be seen in TV and print advertising as part of her work with them. She attracted controversy in 2008 by appearing naked in a pictorial for "Playboy"'s French edition. She is listed by "Vogue Paris" as one of the top 30 models of the 2000s. After several minor acting roles, starting with "St Trinian's" in 2007, Cole's first leading role was as Valentina in the 2009 film "The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus". Her other film work includes "Passages", a short directed by Shekhar Kapur and "There Be Dragons", directed by Roland Joffé. In June 2011, she was awarded a Double First in History of Art at Cambridge University. In January of 2012, she met with Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales to get his guidance on starting her own socially networked gift economy website, impossible.com. Early life and education. Cole was born in Torquay, Devon, and brought up in London, along with one of her two sisters. Her mother, Patience Owen, is an artist and writer, and her father, Chris Cole, was a boat builder and fisherman. Cole attended Hallfield Primary School and the St Marylebone Church School for Girls, before completing her sixth form studies at Latymer Upper School, an independent school in Hammersmith, London. She achieved A grades in her A-level examinations in English, Politics, Drama, History and Philosophy and Ethics at Latymer Upper School. Cole gained a place to read Social and Political Sciences at King's College, Cambridge, but twice deferred entry before switching to study History of Art, which she commenced during Michaelmas, 2008. She gained a First in her examinations at the end of her first year, and another in her second year examinations, one of seven members of her year to earn the grade. Cole had a long standing interest in art and stated that she felt it would be a wise course of study for the long term. She has discussed her difficulty in settling down at Cambridge. Modelling career. Magazines and fashion shows. Cole's modelling career was sparked from a chance encounter while walking through Soho when she was approached by Benjamin Hart, who asked her to consider modelling. She initially declined, later saying, "I was cynical enough to think it wouldn't come to much", though she later changed her mind and signed with Storm Models. Her big break came in 2003 when she caught the eye of photographer Steven Meisel. It was during a photoshoot for Italian "Vogue" that she found the spotlight and became one of the 'new faces' of the year. Since then, Cole has worked with many other prominent photographers, including Craig McDean, Nick Knight, Juergen Teller, Arthur Elgort and Irving Penn. Cole has said that she did not feel like natural model material but that the work has given her great confidence over the years. Cole's distinctive red hair has attracted significant media attention. At the 2004 British Fashion Awards, Cole was named "Model of the Year". She has since made appearances on the covers of many fashion magazines including, amongst others, the American, Italian, British, Japanese and Korean editions of "Vogue", "Citizen K", "V" and "Vogue" as well as featuring on "Vogue"'s "best dressed" list in December 2005. She has had cover appearances on "Numéro" and "Interview". She has modelled on the international runway circuit and at many fashion shows on behalf of Chanel, Shiatzy Chen, DKNY, Jean Paul Gaultier, Versace, Alexander McQueen, Jasper Conran, John Galliano and Louis Vuitton. She was nominated, for the second time, for the "Model of the Year" award at the 2007 British Fashion Awards and, in December 2009, was listed by "Vogue" Paris as one of the top 30 models of the 2000s. Cole made a cover appearance on the January 2010 issue of the Canadian "Elle" and opened Hermès's winter 2010/2011 collection at Paris Fashion Week in March. Towards the end of 2010, she featured in a documentary chronicling the career of Rolf Harris in which he painted her dressing up as Titania from "A Midsummer Night's Dream". Advertising. Cole has appeared in advertising campaigns for Chanel, Christian Lacroix, Hermès, Longchamp, Cacharel, Topshop and Anna Sui cosmetics, as well as being the face for Moschino's perfume "I Love Love". In September 2007, Cole was announced as the follow-up model for Accessorize, taking the place of Claudia Schiffer, also designing a line of handbags for the collection. Cole has been modelling for cosmetics company Rimmel London since October 2009, as well as featuring in advertisements for jewellers Tiffany & Co. Cole, along with Twiggy and other models became a "face" of Marks and Spencer clothes advertising campaign, making the youngest model to ever do a campaign for the line, though her contract was not renewed by M&S in late 2009 as the company struggled as a result of the financial crisis. Although she expressed a desire to focus more on her acting career, Cole launched a campaign in June 2010 at Gatwick Airport for modelling agency, Storm Model Management. The campaign aims to find new modelling talent from people passing through the airport, with the agency hoping to re-create the discovery of Kate Moss, who was spotted at JFK Airport, New York City in 1988 by the agency's founder. In March 2012, The Body Shop launched its Beauty With Heart campaign, naming Cole as its first ambassador. She declared: "This runs much deeper than just being the face of a campaign, it's really important, so it's a really exciting project to be part of!" Acting career. Films. Marilyn Manson announced in February 2006 that he intended to cast Cole in his upcoming film "" as Alice. Shorts from the movie have been featured on his website and a feature length film is also planned, though it is unknown if or when it will be released. Cole made her acting debut as Polly the geek in the 2007 comedy "St. Trinian's", a rework of the black and white films of the 1950s and '60s, alongside Rupert Everett, Colin Firth, Russell Brand, Jodie Whittaker and Stephen Fry. Her first leading role came in Terry Gilliam's 2009 fantasy film, "The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus", playing Valentina, the teenage daughter of Christopher Plummer's title character, Dr Parnassus, whom Parnassus has promised to the Devil (Tom Waits) upon her 16th birthday. Acting alongside Heath Ledger (who died before filming had finished), Cole, in an interview for the "Daily Telegraph" admitted that, at times, she felt out of her depth in the role- saying “I’d only done a couple of films and here I was surrounded by amazing actors like Christopher Plummer and Heath Ledger, and it was intimidating at times,” also describing the role as "the biggest role I’ve ever done". Gilliam said of Cole: “She has an amazing look and grasps what is required so very quickly. If she wants a career as an actress, she has a brilliant future”. According to Mark Olsen of The Los Angeles Times, writing as "Parnassus" was released in the United States, "Cole brings a surprising well of emotional tenderness to her part as Valentina", while Ryan Michael Painter wrote of the film on 'inthisweek.com' that "all of the performances are delightful, particularly Cole's as Valentina, proving that the haute couture model has more to offer this world than a pretty face". Cole appeared at the 34th Toronto International Film Festival in December 2009 to promote "Parnassus". She was featured as herself in one episode of the online series "T Takes", a series of short, improvised films published by "The New York Times". Cole appeared as "Lettuce Leaf", a celebrity supermodel in the 2009 film, "Rage", directed by Sally Potter. Cole also played "Aline" in the 2011 film "There Be Dragons". In January 2010, Cole gave an interview to the Canadian edition of "Elle" in which she expressed her desire to focus more on acting than on her modelling career, saying she "wouldn't want to treat acting as a convenient thing to do now and again", going on to mention her roles in the upcoming films "There Be Dragons" and "Phantasmagoria: The Visions of Lewis Carroll" and saying of her modelling "I've been doing modelling for years and I feel like I've taken out of it what I need to and I'm ready for new things" and that "film asks for a much bigger emotional and intellectual commitment." Released in 2012, Cole will have a part in Mary Harron's "The Moth Diaries". Other roles. Cole made a minor appearance in the music video for the Girls Aloud/Sugababes cover of "Walk This Way" in aid of the British telethon charity Comic Relief, in which she struts up and down a catwalk in "hilarious ways", interspersed by the bands and several well-known British television personalities. Cole had another minor role in Primal Scream's 2008 video "Can’t Go Back", in which she and other models featured in a horror-style video based on the films of Dario Argento. The models, including Cole, are graphically "murdered" and "meet their ends in rather striking ways" with the aim of looking "hot even when dead". It was reported in October 2009 that Cole would make her stage debut at the Old Vic Theatre in London's West End at the theatre's annual "24 Hour Plays" held in November, but "scheduling commitments" forced her to pull out. Cole ultimately made her stage début at the ADC Theatre in Cambridge, as Nina in a student production of "The Seagull". She appeared in "The Curse of the Black Spot", the third episode of the sixth series of science fiction series "Doctor Who", in May 2011. She played a Sea Siren. Cole stars in the music video for Yeah Yeah Yeahs 2013 single "Sacrilege" as a woman burned alive by the many men and women that she's had affairs with. Charity work. Cole supports a variety of humanitarian and environmental causes. She is an ambassador for children's charity Global Angels. She also supports the charity WaterAid, speaking for the organisation's "End Water Poverty" campaign, and the Environmental Justice Foundation Cole has modelled a T-shirt with the slogan "Save the Future" to fight child labour in the fashion industry for the Environmental Justice Foundation. Most recently Cole put a plaster cast bust of her torso on the auction site eBay to raise money for British telethon charity Comic Relief. In December 2009, Cole attended a party, hosted by Elton John for which guests were asked to design their ideal bar with the designs then sold at auction in aid of the Elton John AIDS Foundation. In October 2010, she helped launch the World Land Trust’s Emerald for Elephant Exhibition, which was designed to create awareness and raise important funds for the protection of the critically endangered Asian elephant.
1166118	Colin Edward Quinn (born June 6, 1959) is an American stand-up comedian and writer best known for his five years in the cast of "Saturday Night Live", as the sidekick/announcer of MTV's late 1980s gameshow "Remote Control" and as host of "Tough Crowd with Colin Quinn" on Comedy Central from 2002–2004. Early years. Quinn was born in Brooklyn, the son of teachers, and was raised in the Park Slope section of the borough. He attended and graduated from John Dewey High School. His natural idiosyncratic mannerisms are trademarks of his stand-up act, headlining at top comedy clubs across the country, including Caroline's Comedy Club in New York City. Before becoming a comedian, Quinn attended Stony Brook University for a year and worked as a bartender. He stopped drinking in the early 1980s after several bad experiences with alcohol, including drunken blackouts and nights spent in jail. After quitting bartending, Quinn began his stand-up career in 1984. He first achieved fame in 1987 as co-host of the MTV game show "Remote Control", which he did for three years. In 1989, he hosted A&E stand-up showcase "Caroline's Comedy Hour", and acted in and wrote the comedic short/music video "Going Back to Brooklyn" along with Ben Stiller. Much of his early comedy career focused on stand-up and writing for shows like "In Living Color". He later co-wrote the story and was an associate producer for the movie "Celtic Pride", starring Damon Wayans and Dan Aykroyd. "Saturday Night Live". In 1995, Quinn was hired by "Saturday Night Live" as a writer and featured player until the 1997–1998 season, when he became a full cast member. He established himself on the show with characters such as "Lenny the Lion" and "Joe Blow", and did the recurring segment ""Colin Quinn Explains the New York Times"". Quinn took over as host of the "Weekend Update" segment in January 1998 after Norm Macdonald's firing, and anchored the segment until departing "SNL" in 2000. Quinn would often comment on the highly publicized media circuses such as Clinton-Lewinsky Scandal and the Microsoft Anti-Trust Trial. At the end of each "Weekend Update" segment, he would use the catchphrase, "That's my story and I'm sticking to it." He was not thrilled about his run on the show, declaring on an episode of "Tough Crowd", "I don't miss it." During his "SNL" years, Quinn made his Broadway debut in his one-man show, "Colin Quinn: An Irish Wake" co-written with fellow comedian Lou DiMaggio, and was offered the role of Scott Evil in "" by Mike Myers, which he turned down to make time for his writing projects. The role was taken by Seth Green. Post-"SNL" career. After leaving "SNL", Quinn had a sketch comedy show on NBC called "The Colin Quinn Show" in 2002 that lasted for only three episodes. Quinn became host of "Tough Crowd with Colin Quinn" on Comedy Central in December 2002. The show immediately followed "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart", and was one of several attempts to create a companion show for Stewart's program. However, "Tough Crowd" never managed to keep the majority of its lead-in audience. Although it was renewed through the 2005 television season, "Tough Crowd" was placed on indefinite hiatus in October 2004, with its "final" episode airing on November 4, 2004. The show featured four comedians (often his friends such as Dave Attell, Greg Giraldo, Jim Norton, Nick DiPaolo, and Patrice O'Neal) with Quinn as host, discussing various political issues in conversations that were often heated. Quinn gave many comedians exposure on the show, which ran for roughly 250 episodes over a two-year period. His stand up material was also used in Comedy Central's animated stand up series "Shorties Watchin' Shorties". Colin performs regularly at the Comedy Cellar in New York City, where many top comedians perform when not on the road. In 2004, he was named #56 on Comedy Central's list of the 100 greatest standups of all time. He was also named to the "Irish America Magazine" list of the "Top 100 Irish Americans of the Year". He would later be heard as the "unofficial co-host" on the Nick DiPaolo show on the now-defunct 92.3 Free FM in New York City, airing Monday-Friday from noon to 3pm. Quinn and DiPaolo were originally slated to host the show together on WJFK-FM, but the station decided not to pick up the show. Nick often referred to Quinn as "the joke fairy", due to his propensity for telling a joke and hanging up the phone before getting a response. Quinn is also a regular guest on "The Opie & Anthony Show". Recently Quinn has discussed what he refers to as thousands of pages of "manifestos" that he's written since his departure from "Tough Crowd", but never elaborated on the contents. More recently, Quinn played Dickie Bailey, the childhood town rival to Lenny Feder (Adam Sandler's character) in Sandler's movie "Grown Ups", released in the summer of 2010. In 2010, Quinn premiered his one-man show "Colin Quinn Long Story Short" on Broadway at the Helen Hayes Theatre, directed by Jerry Seinfeld. Comically channeling the demise of various world empires, Quinn takes a satirical look at the history of the world in 75 minutes. Quinn recorded a special performance of the show that aired on HBO on April 9, 2011. He explores the attitudes, appetites and habits that toppled some of the world's most powerful nations. In summer 2011, Quinn toured "Colin Quinn Long Story Short" to Guild Hall in East Hampton, Philadelphia Theatre Company in Philadelphia, and other cities including Chicago at the Broadway Playhouse at Water Tower Place.
1082413	Spanish Movie is a 2009 Spanish parody film directed by Javier Ruiz Caldera and written by Paco Cabezas. The production makes spoofs of several successful Spanish horror/drama films in the box like "Los Otros", "El Orfanato", "Alatriste", "Abre los ojos", "Los lunes al sol", "Volver", "Mar Adentro", "El laberinto del fauno" and "REC". It features a cameo from Leslie Nielsen. The production started on 23 February 2009 in Barcelona and was released in cinemas on 4 December of that year. Plot. Ramira ("Alexandra Jiménez") works in Laura's house ("Silvia Abril") as maid and nanny of her kids: Simeón and Ofendia ("Óscar Lara" & "Laia Alda"). Unfortunately, Ramira kills the child because he saw the sun despite suffering from photodermatitis. The woman tries to hide and lies to the mother about the death of her son.
583915	Nandha () is a 2001 Indian Tamil drama film written and directed by Bala, starring Suriya and Laila in the leading roles, while Rajkiran, Saravanan and Rajshree play other supporting roles. The film also marked the debut of comedian Karunas, whilst its music was scored by Yuvan Shankar Raja and cinematography handled by R. Rathnavelu. The film released on 14 November 2001 and received critical acclaim. Plot. Nandha is a movie about a young man from a juvenile jail coming back to a society and his family he had left many years ago. It is about a battle of love and life and how a misfit tries to fight to fit into the usual social circus, a fight to earn his mother's love and a fight to live the second chance he has given himself. Nandha (Surya) is sent to a rehabilitation center for murdering his father as a boy. He returns home to a mother, who is deaf and mute, and a sister who are still in a state of shock after what has happened to their family. He decides to get a new life by trying to give himself a college education. Having the record of being an ex-convict he finds it difficult to get a seat in a college. He meets Periyavar (Raj Kiran), a disciplinarian college principal who runs his college with an iron hand. Periyavar develops a soft corner for Nandha and guides him like his own son. Kalyani (Laila), a Tamil exile from SriLanka meets Nandha and both fall in love. Meanwhile the villain Saravanan asks Periyavar who also helps Sri Lankan students in his college a lot to aid an anti-social element, but Periyavar refuses outright. But Periyavar's son-in-law agrees to help Saravanan. Meanwhile Periyavar falls sick and gets admitted in the hospital. Nandha stays around to look after his mentor and guide. Fearing what he has done might be out in the light, the son-in-law pulls out the oxygen tube of Periyavar in the hospital when Nandha is not around and blames Nandha for murdering his father-in-law. Nandha, having to deal with the pain of losing the only man who gave him a second chance to live, also struggles the fray of being convicted of murder once again and he chooses to kill Periyavar's son-in-law in the court campus. The case is dismissed due to the lack of evidence. Finally he is acquitted as there are no eyewitnesses to the murder. After being acquitted for Periyavar's son-in-law's murder he returns home. His paranoid mother who still believes that her son still has murder instincts waits at home to feed a meal, which she has poisoned herself. He finds out that the food is poisoned when he eats it, but continues to do so with a satisfaction that he is being fed by his mother. He dies in his mother's lap and when his sister and Kalyani come out to see what has happened, they realise that both mother and son are dead. Production. The title role was initially offered to Ajith Kumar, who rejected the film citing that Bala had not fully developed the story and screenplay before narrating the terms to him. Suriya, who had notably also replaced Ajith Kumar in "Nerukku Ner" to make his debut, was selected as his replacement. The director also tried to rope in Sivaji Ganesan for a character role in the film, but his unavailability led to Rajkiran being cast. Laila was signed on as heroine to play a Sri Lankan refugee. The role required Suriya to undergo physical change, so production was delayed until Suriya had finished filming for "Friends" and "Uyirile Kalanthathu". The first look of the film created media anticipation, with both Suriya and Rajkiran sporting looks which they had not portrayed before. Post-release, Suriya has stated "when "Nandha" happened, everything changed. I became a serious actor, and director Bala instilled in me the discipline to work without committing errors." Release. The critic from The Hindu noted that "powerful performance by the lead artists, a neat screenplay and narration without any deviations in the form of dance or song make "Nandhaa" worth watching. Bala's direction makes viewing a gripping experience." The critic added that "Surya as the young rustic man has reached a new milestone in acting. Rajkiran shines in the role of Periyavar. A surprise, however, is Rajashri, who reveals great histrionic skills." In comparison Rediff.com stated the film failed to live up to expectations, likening it to Kamal Haasan's "Aalavandhan" and stated that "the screenplay is smooth and incident-driven. In the final analysis, it is the climax that may be the main reason why the audience does not lap up this film." Prior to the release nandha film faced many trouble,The film was been telecasted in tv channels during first week of the film release but bala's power the film get big response in theatre.The film has been dubbed and released in the Telugu language three times, firstly as "Aakrosham" (2006) and then as "Pratheekaram" in 2009. A third dubbed version titled "Bala-Surya" was released by Nagamalla Shankar in 2011, shortly after the release of Bala's "Avan Ivan. Soundtrack. The soundtrack was composed by Yuvan Shankar Raja, son of noted composer Ilaiyaraaja, who usually scores the music for a Bala film. The soundtrack was released on 21 October 2001 at Hotel Connemara, Chennai by actor Kamal Haasan and director Bharathiraja. It features 6 tracks, out of which two were sung by Ilaiyaraaja. The songs "Amma Endrale" and "Orayiram" are based on the raaga Pantuvarali. Interestingly, the lyrics of five songs were written by five different lyricists, while "Maayane Andha"'s lyrics were derived from the Thiruppavai written and sung by Aandaal.
585080	Amma Nanna O Tamila Ammayi () (Mom, Dad and a Tamil Girl) is a Tollywood film directed by Puri Jagannadh that was released on 19 April 2003. Ravi Teja plays the lead role. Asin Thottumkal, Prakash Raj and Jayasudha play supporting roles. This movie was remade in Tamil as "M. Kumaran S/O Mahalakshmi" with Jayam Ravi, Asin and Nadhiya playing the lead roles. It was also remade in Kannada as "Maurya" with Puneet Rajkumar. The plot resembles story lines from the Hollywood movies Over the Top (film) and Rocky V both starring Sylvester Stallone. Plot. Chandu (Ravi Teja)'s entire life is about his mother, Lakshmi (Jayasudha), a college lecturer. They together live in Hyderabad. When Chandu was a little boy, Lakshmi separated from her husband, Raghuveer (Prakash Raj), who is his father. Chandu is a great kick-boxer, and is very passionate. Chandu later meets Mugaambigaambaal (Asin) aka Chennai, a Tamil girl from Chennai, and starts to fall in love with her. Chandu's happy life is suddenly jolted when his mother dies of a heart attack. On her deathbed, she tells him to go to Visakhapatnam to meet Raghuveer, who is a kick-boxing champion that won the championship six times in a row. Chandu goes to Visakhapatnam to meet him. When Chandu reaches Visakhapatnam, he meets his father but sees that he has another wife, named Shalini (Aishwarya Sivachandran) and a daughter named Swapna. He sees that he's happily settled with them and gets angry. He also gets a job as a janitor and juice provider at his father's kick-boxing academy. Anand (Subbaraju) is Raghuveer's best student and he is sure that Anand will win the championship. Unexpectedly, he sees that Mugaambigaambaal's family lives here and talks to her. Later, Chandu finds out that Anand makes Swapna pregnant and then abandons her. Anand also abandons Raghuveer by getting another master and other sponsors. Raghuveer is attacked by several of Anand's sponsors and Chandu later beats them up, making Raghuveer find out that Chandu is a great kick-boxer. Raghuveer also finds out that Chandu was also participating in the kick-boxing championship. The rest of the story is how Raghuveer trains Chandu and wins the championship, how Chandu wins the heart of Mugaambigaambaal, and how he unites Swapna and Anand. Songs. The audio launch was held at Viceroy Convention Hall, Viceroy Hotel on 7 April 2003. To suit the title, Poori Jagannath has invited 'Amma Nanna' (Mr. Venkat Rao & Mrs. Anjana) of Chiranjeevi to release the audio cassette. The songs and background score was done by Chakri.
402298	Talisa Soto (born March 27, 1967) is an American model and actress. Early life. Born Miriam Soto in Brooklyn, New York, she is the youngest of four children born to parents of Puerto Rican descent. During her early childhood, her parents moved to Northampton, Massachusetts, where Soto and her siblings were raised and educated. Career. Modeling. At the age of 15, Soto signed with Click Model Management and began modeling during summer vacations. Weeks after being signed, she traveled to Paris where she appeared in a layout for "Vogue" shot by Bruce Weber. She returned to Northampton after the summer to resume her schooling and would continue to model on occasion until she graduated from high school. She later appeared on the covers of American and British "Vogue", British "Elle", "Mademoiselle", "Glamour" and "Self" magazines. She also appeared in her first music video with former boyfriend Nick Kamen, Madonna's "Each Time You Break My Heart", directed by Tony Viramontes. Soto and Kamen were often used as models by Ray Petri: the late fashion stylist and creator of the 80's London "Buffalo Boy" look. Acting. In 1988, when Soto returned to the United States, she auditioned and landed the role of "India" in her feature debut, "Spike of Bensonhurst", a comedy which starred Sasha Mitchell and Ernest Borgnine. In 1989, she was cast as Lupe Lamora, in the James Bond film "Licence to Kill" starring Timothy Dalton and as Maria Rivera in "The Mambo Kings". Soto has participated in more than twenty films, among which are: "Mortal Kombat" (1995) as Kitana; "Island of the Dead" as Melissa O'Keefe; "Piñero" (2001) as Sugar, starring Benjamin Bratt; and "" (2002) as Ryne alongside Lucy Liu and Antonio Banderas. Soto also made two guest appearances on the television series "C-16: FBI". In 1995, she played the role of Doña Julia, one of Johnny Depp's many love interests in the tongue-in-cheek romantic comedy "Don Juan DeMarco", Depp playing the title role. She also made an appearance in Marc Anthony's music video for "I Need to Know". In 1996, Soto played the title role in the campy film "Vampirella" based on the comic book character. Magazine covers. In 1990, Soto was chosen by "People" as one of the 50 Most Beautiful People in the World. In 1995, she was featured in the "Sports Illustrated" "Swimsuit Issue". She was ranked #58 on the "Maxim" Hot 100 Women of 2002. Personal life. In 1997, Soto married actor Costas Mandylor and they were divorced in 2000. She married actor Benjamin Bratt on April 13, 2002, in San Francisco. Talisa was pregnant with his child. The two met ten years earlier during the casting audition of "Blood In Blood Out" and afterwards they saw each other on and off. It was not until the filming of "Piñero" that they began to develop a relationship. The couple have two children, a daughter Sophia Rosalinda Bratt (born 6 December 2002) and a son, Mateo Bravery Bratt (born 3 October 2005) in Los Angeles.
1165036	Alicia “Alice” Pearce (October 16, 1917 – March 3, 1966) was an American actress. Brought to Hollywood by Gene Kelly to reprise her Broadway performance in the film version of "On the Town" (1949), Pearce played comedic supporting roles in several films, before being cast as Gladys Kravitz in "Bewitched" in 1964. She won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series posthumously after the second season of the series. She died from ovarian cancer in 1966. Early life and career. Born in New York City, Pearce was educated in Europe and returned to the United States as an adult. She began working in nightclubs as a comedienne and was cast in the original Broadway production of "On the Town" (1944-1946). Gene Kelly was so impressed by her that she became the only cast member to be included in the film version in 1949. Her comedic performance was well received by critics and public alike, and she was given her own television variety show. More movie roles followed, and she made appearances on Broadway, where she met her husband, director Paul Davis, during a production of "Bells Are Ringing". During the 1953-1954 television season, Pearce was seen regularly on the live ABC weekly sitcom "Jamie" starring "Brandon deWilde". In 1964, Pearce was originally approached to play the part of Grandmama in the ABC television comedy series "The Addams Family". She turned down the part, which went to veteran actress "Blossom Rock". Pearce then joined the cast of the ABC television series "Bewitched". As the nagging and nosy neighbor, Gladys Kravitz, Pearce's scenes were almost entirely reactions to acts of witchcraft she had witnessed at the house across the street. Her hysterical accusations against Samantha, played by Elizabeth Montgomery, and the disbelief of her husband Abner (George Tobias), provided a common thread through many of the series' early episodes. Pearce was posthumously awarded an Emmy Award for this role, which was, according to her, her favorite role.
1164548	Harry Robinson Hamlin (born October 30, 1951) is an American film and television actor, known for his roles as Perseus in the 1981 fantasy film "Clash of the Titans", Bart McGuire in the groundbreaking 1982 film on gay relationships "Making Love", and as Michael Kuzak in the legal drama series "L.A. Law". Early life. Hamlin was born in Pasadena, California, the son of Berniece (née Robinson), a socialite, and Chauncey Jerome Hamlin, Jr., an aeronautical engineer who once worked with scientist Wernher von Braun. As a teenager, he attended Flintridge Preparatory School, near Pasadena, and The Hill School, a private boarding school in Pennsylvania, where he played soccer and lacrosse and acted in the school's musicals and plays. Hamlin attended University of California, Berkeley and is an alumnus of the Theta Zeta chapter of the national fraternity Delta Kappa Epsilon, of which he was President in 1972. Hamlin graduated from Yale University with a BA in Drama and Psychology in 1974. Hamlin then attended the American Conservatory Theatre's Advanced Actor Training Program from which he was subsequently awarded a Master of Fine Arts degree in acting. Career. Hamlin appeared in the 1976 television production of "Taming of the Shrew" and also had the title role in the 1979 television miniseries "Studs Lonigan". He had a role in "Movie Movie" with George C. Scott in 1978, but his big-screen break was a starring role in the 1981 Greek mythology fantasy epic "Clash of the Titans". Afterwards, his career faltered somewhat with such controversial box office films as "Making Love" (1982) and "Blue Skies Again" (1983). He returned to television appearing in the miniseries "Master of the Game" in 1984 and "Space" (based on the novel by James A. Michener) in 1985.
582115	Fiza (, ) is a 2000 Indian action crime drama film written and directed by Khalid Mohammed. The film stars Karisma Kapoor, Hrithik Roshan and Jaya Bachchan. Synopsis. The film is about Fiza (Karisma Kapoor), whose brother, Aman (Hrithik Roshan), disappears during the 1993 Bombay Riots. Fiza and her mother Nishatbi (Jaya Bachchan) desperately hold on to the hope that one day he will return. However, six years after his disappearance, Fiza, fed up with living with uncertainty, resolves to go in search of her brother. Driven by her mother Nishatbi's fervent hope and her own determination, Fiza decides to use whatever means she can—the law, media, even politicians—to find her brother, which brings her into contact with various characters and situations. When she does find him, to her horror she sees that he has joined a terrorist group. She forces him to come home, and he finally re-unites with their mother. However his allegiance and thoughts make him want to return to the terrorist network, led by Murad Khan (Manoj Bajpai)which apparently behaves as a Muslim but is a bad human with no religion in reality. A confrontation with two men who harass Fiza leads to Aman revealing his involvement with the terrorist network in front of his sister, mother and the police. His mother's grief and disappointment eventually lead her to commit suicide. Fiza tries once more to find her brother, with the help of Aniruddh (Bikram Saluja). Aman has been sent on a mission to kill two powerful politicians; when he does succeed in assassinating them, his own terrorist group tries to kill him. He escapes and Fiza follows him. They confront each other and with the police closing in on him, he asks her to kill him. As a last resort to give him an honorable end, Fiza kills her brother. Reception. The film was critically acclaimed but did not do well at the box office. Vinayak Chakravorty from "Hindustan Times" gave the film 4 out of 5 stars, writing, "Fiza is more than just about Khalid Mohamed's foray into filmmaking. It is about Karisma Kapoor's proving a point as an actress of some substance. It is about Hrithik Roshan's establishing that he doesn't need maximum footage or glitz to impress. It is about the return after a hiatus of the ever — delightful Jaya Bachchan." Mimmy Jain of "The Indian Express", in a positive review, wrote, "Fiza is the kind of movie that every critic prays will never come his way. For a critic's job, after all, is to criticise. And Fiza offers little scope for criticism." She further noted Karisma for delivering "a superbly flawless performance". Sanjeev Bariana of "The Tribune" labelled the film "only a little above average", but was highly appreciative of the performances. Karisma Kapoor won the Filmfare Award for Best Actress and Jaya Bachchan won the award in the Best Supporting Actress category, while Hrithik Roshan was nominated in the Best Actor category for his role. Both Kapoor and Bachchan also won the IIFA Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress awards respectively. The movie was also the main winner at the BFJA Awards in the Hindi film section, taking the Best Director award for Khalid Mohammed, Best Actor for Roshan, Best Actress for Kapoor, and Best Supporting Actress for Bachchan. In May 2010, "Fiza" was one of the films 14 Hindi movies selected by the Film Society of Lincoln Center to be screened as part of a section called "Muslim Cultures of Bombay Cinema" which aims to "celebrate and explore the rich influence of Muslim cultural and social traditions on the cinema of Bombay to the present". Awards. Filmfare Awards. Won Nominated Music. The background score of the film was composed and co-orchestrated by Ranjit Barot. The movie soundtrack contains 8 songs, 6 of them composed by Anu Malik, "Piya Haji Ali" composed by A. R. Rahman and "Mere Watan" composed by Ranjit Barot. The album was one of the most popular soundtracks of the year. It features songs like "Aaja Mahiya", "Piya Haji Ali", "Tu Fiza Hai" and "Mehboob Mere" which was performed by Sushmita Sen as an Item number.
311026	"The Brink's Job" is a 1978 film directed by William Friedkin and starring Peter Falk, Peter Boyle, Allen Garfield, Warren Oates, Gena Rowlands, and Paul Sorvino. It is based on the Brink's robbery of 1950 in Boston, where almost 3 million dollars were stolen. The film was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Art Direction (Dean Tavoularis, Angelo P. Graham, George R. Nelson). Plot. Small-time Boston crook Tony Pino (Peter Falk) tries to make a name for himself. He and his five associates pull off a robbery whenever they can. Tony and his gang easily rob over $100,000 in cash from a Brink's armored car, after which Tony disguises himself as a sparkplug salesman to get an inside look at Brink's large and so-called "impregnable fortress" headquarters in the city's North End, a company renowned for unbreachable security as a private "bank" throughout the East Coast. Once inside, Tony realizes that Brink's is anything but a fortress and that employees treat the money "like garbage." Still wary of Brink's public image, Tony breaks in one night after casing the building. He finds that only two doors in the building are locked, and one is easily bypassed by leaping a gate. The only thing locked in the building is the vault. Tony also realizes that despite what Brink's claims, there is only a 10-cent alarm in the vault room itself, almost impossible to set off. It appears that Brink's had relied so much on its reputation that it had not even bothered locking the doors. Pino begins to plan a robbery, using the rooftop of a neighboring building as a watch tower. Tony and his dim brother-in-law Vinnie (Allen Garfield) put together a motley gang of thieves. They include the debonair Jazz Maffie (Paul Sorvino) and a slightly deranged Iwo Jima veteran, Specs O'Keefe (Warren Oates), who proposes to blow open the Brink's safe with a bazooka. Over the crew's objections, Pino also invites the arrogant fence Joe McGinnis (Peter Boyle) to be in on the job.
585788	Vadakkunokkiyantram (, "Vadakku Nōki Yanṭram"; (English:Mariner's Compass) is a 1989 Malayalam black comedy film written and directed by Sreenivasan. The film is about the marital discord caused by a husband's inferiority complex.
1068418	"Mo' Money" is a 1992 romantic-crime-comedy-drama film, starring Damon Wayans, Marlon Wayans, and Stacey Dash. It is directed by Peter MacDonald. The screenplay was also written by Damon Wayans. Synopsis. Johnny Stewart (Damon Wayans) is a lifelong con-man who meets a girl, Amber Evans (Stacey Dash), and tries to impress her by cleaning up his act and doing things the honest way.
590656	Peddamanushulu or Pedda Manushulu is a 1954 Telugu film directed by Kadiri Venkata Reddy. The film is themed on corruption, and portrays all "Peddamanushulu" (influential people) as corrupt. Plot. The main characters in the film are in the public service, most of them in corrupt, negative roles, and there are many villains instead of one main villain. Dharma Rao (Gowrinatha Sastry) is the Chairman of the municipality. The municipal contractor, a local businessman, and his associates make up the rest of the corrupt cast. They use their influence for their own personal ends in secret. The municipal counsellor, however, Ramadasu (Lingamurthy), who is also a newspaper editor, is honest and uncorrupted. What happens to all these characters makes up the plot of the movie. Awards. National Film Awards
1054819	Rabid is a 1977 Canadian horror film written and directed by David Cronenberg. It features Marilyn Chambers in the lead role, supported by Frank Moore, Howard Ryshpan, Joe Silver and Robert A. Silverman. Chambers plays a woman who, after being injured in a motorcycle accident and undergoing a surgical operation, develops an orifice under one of her armpits. The orifice hides a phallic stinger that she uses to feed on people's blood. Those she feeds upon become rabid zombies, whose bite spreads the disease. The film has had mostly mixed reviews and received a rating of 61% on Rotten Tomatoes. Plot. A critically injured woman, victim of a motorcycle accident, is taken to the plastic surgery clinic of Doctor Dan Keloid, where some of her intact tissue is treated to become morphogenetically neutral. The tissue is grafted to fire-damaged areas of her body in the hope that it will differentiate and replace the damaged skin and organs.
1592503	Hoyt Wayne Axton (March 25, 1938 – October 26, 1999) was an American folk music singer-songwriter, and a film and television actor. He became prominent in the early 1960s, establishing himself on the West Coast as a folk singer with an earthy style and powerful voice. As he matured, some of his songwriting efforts became well known throughout the world. Among them were "Joy to the World", "The Pusher", "No No Song", and "Greenback Dollar". Biography. He was born in Duncan, Oklahoma and spent his pre-teen years in Comanche, Oklahoma with his brother, John. His mother, Mae Boren Axton, co-wrote the classic rock 'n' roll song "Heartbreak Hotel", which became the first major hit for Elvis Presley. Some of Hoyt Axton's own songs were also later recorded by Elvis.
588621	Yalgaar (an Urdu word meaning assault/attack) is a 1992 Indian Hindi language film directed by and starring Feroz Khan alongside Sanjay Dutt, Manisha Koirala and Kabir Bedi, Mukesh Khanna. Synopsis Two childhood friends grow up to be on the opposite sides of law, one an Additional Police Commissioner, Mahendra Ashwini Kumar, and the other a crime lord, Raj Pratap Singhal. An associate of Singhal kills the son of Mahendra, and his other son, Rajesh, also a police officer, swears to avenge the death. Mahendra's deceased son leaves behind a widow, Kaushalya and a daughter, Meghna. On a chance meeting, Meghna meets with Vicky Malhotra, and eventually both in love with each other. The Kumars are introduced to Vicky, and they approve of him. Mahendra is then promoted as the Commissioner of Police, and is subsequently killed by another associate of Singhal. With the police closing in on Singhal, he decides to re-locate to Dubai, U.A.E. with his wife, son, daughter-in-law Anu, and he arranges the abduction of Meghna to ensure his safety from Rajesh's wrath. It is then that Meghna comes to know that Vicky is really the other son of Singhal, and who now has started showing his true colors. Comments. As i have seen almost number of films directed by Feroz Khan but this one is poor casted movie in which
1163849	Blake Clark (born February 2, 1946) is an American actor, voice actor, comedian, and veteran of the Vietnam War, having served as a first lieutenant with the 5th Infantry Division. In the "Toy Story" series, Clark is the present-day voice of Slinky Dog, replacing Jim Varney after his death in February 2000. He is best known for his portrayal of the characters Chet Hunter in the long running ABC series Boy Meets World, and Harry "the Hardware Store Guy," in another long running ABC series, Home Improvement. Early life. Clark was born and raised in Macon, Georgia, on February 2, 1946. He graduated from LaGrange College in 1969 with a degree in the performing arts. Career. Acting. Clark is frequently cast in numerous Adam Sandler films including "The Waterboy", "Little Nicky", "Mr. Deeds", "Eight Crazy Nights", "50 First Dates", "I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry", "Bedtime Stories", "Grown Ups", and "That's My Boy". He has also appeared in numerous television guest appearances including "Home Improvement", "Boy Meets World", "The Jamie Foxx Show", and "The Drew Carey Show". Clark is also the current voice of Slinky Dog in the "Toy Story" franchise, in place of Jim Varney, who died of lung cancer in 2000. Personal life. Clark was a close friend of Jim Varney (who is best known for playing Ernest); until his death in February 2000. When "Toy Story 3" was still in production, Pixar, upon finding out that Jim Varney had died, searched frantically for someone who sounded like Varney, and were lucky to find Clark, who "had the spirit of Slinky." During his time in the army Blake Clark was also a member of the 101st Airborne division the "Screaming Eagles".
588582	Claudia Ciesla (; born February 12,) is a Polish born German model, actress. Early life. Born in Wodzisław Śląski, Poland, part of Silesia. Her father is Polish, her mother is German and she has two older sisters. She is a convert to Hinduism. Modelling career. Claudia Ciesla started modeling at the age of 15 working for shows involved in fashion and dancing. At the age of 17 she moved to Bamberg, In March 2006, Ciesla won a subscribers poll on the internet websites of "Auto Bild", "Bild", Sat.1, T-Online and Kabeleins to give her first place as "Germany's Super Girl" 2006. In November 2007 she told in an interview, that she plans after her modelling career to become a tax consultant. In 2008 Claudia Ciesla was in Austria chosen for the "Snow Queen 2008". In the touristic season 2007-2008 she was representing the snowrichest tourist Ski-Village in the World, and was showing up on various events and promotional appearances, photo shoots for magazines, advertising and brochures, and did a cover shoot for the magazine “MOTOR-Freizeit and TRENDS“ in Austria. Acting career. In 2007 and again in 2008 she was appearing on the German Internet soap opera "Beach House", playing Daisy Vandenburg. "The New Indian Express" reported that Ciesla is acting in a Bollywood film "Karma" along with leads Carlucci Weyant, Alma Saraci as part of an international filmcrew to be filmed in India. Film Director M.S. Shahjahan mentioned in an interview that there will be more assignments for Ciesla in Bollywood. In July 2008 Ciesla played "Claudia" in the Italian television sitcom "Outsiders in Palermo", shot in Palermo. She played the role of a German journalist in the film "" (directed by "Arin Paul"), together with Soumitra Chatterjee Bollywood. Claudia Ciesla was the Brand Ambassador of the "Lovely Professional University". The LPU University also honoured her as "New promising foreign face in India". She also visited Thapar University for promotion of her punjabi film during their technical fest Aranya, largest technical fest of north India.She was awarded with the prestigious Karmaveer Puraskaar Award for her involvement in social work on 26 November 2009. The Karmaveer Puraskaar, is iCONGO’s National People’s Award for Social Justice and Action that honours concerned citizens. In the past, Kajol, and social activist Alyque Padamsee, Rahul Bose, Remo Fernandes, M S Swaminathan (Father of the Green Revolution in India) have been recipients of the Karmaveer Puraskar. As a part of her social endeavor she supports a Delhi based national NGO-KHUSHII, working holistically for the benefit of the underprivileged. Ciesla was at the Bigg Boss house in the third season of the reality show Bigg Boss (Season 3). It began airing on 4 October 2009 on "Colors" with Amitabh Bachchan as the host. This was her first brush with Indian reality TV. She was evicted on day 68, after spending 10 weeks on the show. In December 2010 Claudia attended the TV show shot in Buenos Aires, Argentina. It is the Indian celebrity version of Wipeout with Bollywood actor Shah Rukh Khan as the host. The show ended on February 25, 2011 with Kushal Punjabi as the winner, while Claudia Ciesla was the runner-up by 51 seconds, to come in second place. Claudia Ciesla has done her first item song "Balma" sharing screen space with Akshay Kumar in his film Khiladi 786. The song is composed by Himesh Reshammiya and the dancing is choreographed by Ganesh Acharya.
1437184	Willie Dynamite is a 1974 blaxploitation film starring Roscoe Orman, Diana Sands, Thalmus Rasulala, and Joyce Walker. The eponymous Willie Dynamite is a pimp in NYC who strives to be number one in the city. As he is trying to become the top pimp, a social worker is trying to change his ways for the better. Plot. Willie Dynamite is a fancy pimp that has his girls working in business conventions attracting the many businessmen that need a break from work. The film starts with the girls walking into the Business International Association convention where all eyes are turned on to the girls. Willie has seven women working the night, all dressed up with vibrant outfits. Many men take the girls to their hotel rooms and even the police are paying to have fun. Willie is first seen driving his "pimped" purple Cadillac on the streets of New York. The front license plate engraves the first part of his nickname, "Willie", while the back license plate engraves the second part, "Dynamite". Willie goes to the hotel to collect payment from his girls.
1189309	Tyson Beckford (born December 19, 1970) is an American fashion model and actor, best known as a Ralph Lauren Polo model. He was also the host of both seasons of the Bravo program "Make Me a Supermodel". Early life. Beckford was born to Jamaican parents. His father is of Afro-Jamaican and Panamanian descent. His mother is of Afro-Jamaican and Chinese Jamaican descent. Career. In 1992, he was recruited to hip hop magazine "The Source" by a talent scout, Jeff Jones, who has been credited with 'discovering' Beckford in New York City. In 1993, Beckford was recruited by Ralph Lauren as the front model for the company's Polo line of male sportswear. Beckford was named "Man of the Year" in 1995 by the cable television music channel VH1 & one of the "50 Most Beautiful People in the World" by "People" magazine. He is represented by Soul Artist Management in New York City and D'management Group in Milan. He was ranked at #38 on VH1's "40 Hottest Hotties of the '90s". In 2003, he appeared on the ABC network's celebrity reality game show "I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here!". In September 2008, he supported the National RESPECT! Campaign against domestic violence, recording a voice message for the Giverespect.org Web site, speaking about the importance of respect for others. Beckford co-hosted the modeling contest "Make Me a Supermodel" on the television channel Bravo with fellow supermodel Niki Taylor. The show chose Nicole Trunfio to join Beckford as a mentor to the model contestants for the show's second season. Other judges included designer Catherine Malandrino, model Jenny Shimizu, photographer Perou and model scout Marlon. Beckford judged and mentored the contestants of the first few episodes of the Australian version of "Make Me a Supermodel" with model and former Miss Universe Jennifer Hawkins. In 2012, he participated in Fox's dating game show "The Choice". Personal life. On June 7, 2005, Beckford was injured following a car accident in Secaucus, New Jersey. Shortly before 5:00am, he lost control of his 2004 Dodge Ram SRT-10 and struck a utility pole. The vehicle caught fire immediately after the collision, but Beckford was able to pull himself out before the red pick-up became fully engulfed in flames. He was taken to the Jersey City Medical Center and hospitalized for head trauma and cuts. During an interview on "The Oprah Winfrey Show", Tyson claimed the accident had a profound effect on his spirituality. Beckford has been a resident of the New Jersey communities of Edgewater and West New York. Beckford has a son, Jordan Beckford (born in 1998), from a previous relationship with celebrity stylist April Roomet, who appears on the E! Television program "Candy Girls". References. 8. http://nymag.com/fashion/models/tbeckford/tysonbeckford/
1090998	Sir Joseph John "J. J." Thomson, OM, FRS (18 December 1856 – 30 August 1940) was a British physicist. In 1897, Thomson showed that cathode rays were composed of a previously unknown negatively charged particle, and thus is credited with the discovery and identification of the electron. Thomson is also credited with finding the first evidence for isotopes of a stable (non-radioactive) element in 1913 as part of his exploration into the composition of canal rays (positive ions) and with the invention of the mass spectrometer. Thomson was awarded the 1906 Nobel Prize in Physics for the discovery of the electron and for his work on the conduction of electricity in gases. Biography. Joseph John Thomson was born in 1856 in Cheetham Hill, Manchester, England. His mother, Emma Swindells, came from a local textile family. His father, Joseph James Thomson, ran an antiquarian bookshop founded by a great-grandfather. He had a brother two years younger than him, Frederick Vernon Thomson. His early education was in small private schools where he demonstrated great talent and interest in science. In 1870 he was admitted to Owens College at the unusually young age of 14. His parents planned to enroll him as an apprentice engineer to Sharp-Stewart & Co, a locomotive manufacturer, but these plans were cut short when his father died in 1873. He moved on to Trinity College, Cambridge in 1876. In 1880, he obtained his BA in mathematics (Second Wrangler and 2nd Smith's Prize) and MA (with Adams Prize) in 1883. In 1884 he became Cavendish Professor of Physics. One of his students was Ernest Rutherford, who later succeeded him in the post. In 1890 he married Rose Elisabeth Paget, daughter of Sir George Edward Paget, KCB, a physician and then Regius Professor of Physic at Cambridge. He had one son, George Paget Thomson, and one daughter, Joan Paget Thomson, with her. One of Thomson's greatest contributions to modern science was in his role as a highly gifted teacher: seven of his research assistants and his son won Nobel Prizes in physics. His son won the Nobel Prize in 1937 for proving the wavelike properties of electrons. He was awarded a Nobel Prize in 1906, "in recognition of the great merits of his theoretical and experimental investigations on the conduction of electricity by gases." He was knighted in 1908 and appointed to the Order of Merit in 1912. In 1914 he gave the Romanes Lecture in Oxford on "The atomic theory". In 1918 he became Master of Trinity College, Cambridge, where he remained until his death. He died on August 30, 1940 and was buried in Westminster Abbey, close to Sir Isaac Newton. Thomson was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society on 12 June 1884 and was President of the Royal Society from 1915 to 1920. Career. Discovery of the electron. Several scientists, such as William Prout and Norman Lockyer, had suggested that atoms were built up from a more fundamental unit, but they envisioned this unit to be the size of the smallest atom, hydrogen. Thomson, in 1897, was the first to suggest that the fundamental unit was over 1000 times smaller than an atom, suggesting the subatomic particles now known as electrons. Thomson discovered this through his explorations on the properties of cathode rays. Thomson made his suggestion on 30 April 1897 following his discovery that Lenard rays could travel much further through air than expected for an atom-sized particle. He estimated the mass of cathode rays by measuring the heat generated when the rays hit a thermal junction and comparing this with the magnetic deflection of the rays. His experiments suggested not only that cathode rays were over 1000 times lighter than the hydrogen atom, but also that their mass was the same whatever type of atom they came from. He concluded that the rays were composed of very light, negatively charged particles which were a universal building block of atoms. He called the particles "corpuscles", but later scientists preferred the name electron which had been suggested by George Johnstone Stoney in 1891, prior to Thomson's actual discovery. In April 1897 Thomson had only early indications that the cathode rays could be deflected electrically (previous investigators such as Heinrich Hertz had thought they could not be). A month after Thomson's announcement of the corpuscle he found that he could reliably deflect the rays by an electric field if he evacuated the discharge tube to a very low pressure. By comparing the deflection of a beam of cathode rays by electric and magnetic fields he obtained more robust measurements of the mass to charge ratio that confirmed his previous estimates. This became the classic means of measuring the charge and mass of the electron. Thomson believed that the corpuscles emerged from the atoms of the trace gas inside his cathode ray tubes. He thus concluded that atoms were divisible, and that the corpuscles were their building blocks. To explain the overall neutral charge of the atom, he proposed that the corpuscles were distributed in a uniform sea of positive charge; this was the "plum pudding" model—the electrons were embedded in the positive charge like plums in a plum pudding (although in Thomson's model they were not stationary, but orbiting rapidly). Isotopes and mass spectrometry. In 1912, as part of his exploration into the composition of canal rays, Thomson and his research assistant F. W. Aston channelled a stream of neon ions through a magnetic and an electric field and measured its deflection by placing a photographic plate in its path. They observed two patches of light on the photographic plate (see image on left), which suggested two different parabolas of deflection, and concluded that neon is composed of atoms of two different atomic masses (neon-20 and neon-22), that is to say of two isotopes. This was the first evidence for isotopes of a stable element; Frederick Soddy had previously proposed the existence of isotopes to explain the decay of certain radioactive elements. JJ Thomson's separation of neon isotopes by their mass was the first example of mass spectrometry, which was subsequently improved and developed into a general method by F. W. Aston and by A. J. Dempster. Other work. In 1905 Thomson discovered the natural radioactivity of potassium. In 1906 Thomson demonstrated that hydrogen had only a single electron per atom. Previous theories allowed various numbers of electrons. Experiments with cathode rays. Earlier, physicists debated whether cathode rays were immaterial like light ("some process in the aether") or had mass and were composed of particles. The aetherial hypothesis was vague, but the particle hypothesis was definite enough for Thomson to test. Experiments on the magnetic deflection of cathode rays. Thomson first investigated the magnetic deflection of cathode rays. Cathode rays were produced in the side tube on the left of the apparatus and passed through the anode into the main bell-jar, where they were deflected by a magnet. Thomson detected their path by the fluorescence on a squared screen in the jar. He found that whatever the material of the anode and the gas in the jar, the deflection of the rays was the same, suggesting that the rays were of the same form whatever their origin. Experiment to show that cathode rays were electrically charged. While supporters of the aetherial theory accepted the possibility that negatively charged particles are produced in Crookes tubes, they believed that they are a mere byproduct and that the cathode rays themselves are immaterial. Thomson set out to investigate whether or not he could actually separate the charge from the rays. Thomson constructed a Crookes tube with an electrometer set to one side, out of the direct path of the cathode rays. Thomson could trace the path of the ray by observing the phosphorescent patch it created where it hit the surface of the tube. Thomson observed that the electrometer registered a charge only when he deflected the cathode ray to it with a magnet. He concluded that the negative charge and the rays were one and the same. Experiment to show that cathode rays could be deflected electrically. In May–June 1897 Thomson investigated whether or not the rays could be deflected by an electric field. Previous experimenters had failed to observe this, but Thomson believed their experiments were flawed because their tubes contained too much gas. Thomson constructed a Crookes tube with a near-perfect vacuum. At the start of the tube was the cathode from which the rays projected. The rays were sharpened to a beam by two metal slits – the first of these slits doubled as the anode, the second was connected to the earth. The beam then passed between two parallel aluminium plates, which produced an electric field between them when they were connected to a battery. The end of the tube was a large sphere where the beam would impact on the glass, created a glowing patch. Thomson pasted a scale to the surface of this sphere to measure the deflection of the beam. When the upper plate was connected to the negative pole of the battery and the lower plate to the positive pole, the glowing patch moved downwards, and when the polarity was reversed, the patch moved upwards. Experiment to measure the mass to charge ratio of cathode rays. In his classic experiment, Thomson measured the mass-to-charge ratio of the cathode rays by measuring how much they were deflected by a magnetic field and comparing this with the electric deflection. He used the same apparatus as in his previous experiment, but placed the discharge tube between the poles of a large electromagnet. He found that the mass to charge ratio was over a thousand times "lower" than that of a hydrogen ion (H+), suggesting either that the particles were very light and/or very highly charged. Thomson's calculations can be summarized as follows (notice that we reproduce here Thomson's original notations, using F instead of E for the Electric field and H instead of B for the magnetic field): The electric deflection is given by Θ = Fel/mv2 where Θ is the angular electric deflection, F is applied electric intensity, e is the charge of the cathode ray particles, l is the length of the electric plates, m is the mass of the cathode ray particles and v is the velocity of the cathode ray particles. The magnetic deflection is given by φ = Hel/mv where φ is the angular magnetic deflection and H is the applied magnetic field intensity. The magnetic field was varied until the magnetic and electric deflections were the same, when Θ = φ and Fel/mv2= Hel/mv. This can be simplified to give m/e = H2l/FΘ. The electric deflection was measured separately to give Θ and H, F and l were known, so m/e could be calculated. Conclusions. As to the source of these particles, Thomson believed they emerged from the molecules of gas in the vicinity of the cathode. Thomson imagined the atom as being made up of these corpuscles orbiting in a sea of positive charge; this was his plum pudding model. This model was later proved incorrect when his student Ernest Rutherford showed that the positive charge is concentrated in the nucleus of the atom. Awards and recognition. In 1991 the thomson (symbol: Th) was proposed as a unit to measure mass-to-charge ratio in mass spectrometry in his honour.
1062870	Love Actually is a 2003 British Christmas themed romantic comedy film written and directed by Richard Curtis. The screenplay delves into different aspects of love as shown through ten separate stories involving a wide variety of individuals, many of whom are shown to be interlinked as their tales progress. The ensemble cast is composed predominantly of British actors. Set primarily in London, the story begins five weeks before Christmas and is played out in a weekly countdown until the holiday, followed by an epilogue that takes place one month later. Plot. The film begins with a voiceover from David (Hugh Grant) commenting that whenever he gets gloomy with the state of the world he thinks about the arrivals terminal at Heathrow Airport, and the pure uncomplicated love felt as friends and families welcome their arriving loved ones. David's voiceover also relates that all the messages left by the people who died on the 9/11 planes were messages of love and not hate. The film then tells the 'love stories' of many people: Billy Mack and Joe. With the help of his longtime manager Joe (Gregor Fisher), aging rock and roll legend Billy Mack (Bill Nighy) records a Christmas variation of The Troggs' classic hit "Love Is All Around". Although he thinks the record is terrible, Mack promotes the release in the hope it will become the Christmas number one single. The song does go to number one; after briefly celebrating his victory at a party hosted by Sir Elton John, Billy recognises that Joe is the love of his life and suggests that he and Joe celebrate Christmas by getting drunk and watching porn. Juliet, Peter and Mark. Juliet (Keira Knightley) and Peter (Chiwetel Ejiofor) are wed in a lovely ceremony orchestrated and videotaped by Mark (Andrew Lincoln), Peter's best friend and best man. One day Juliet arrives unexpectedly at Mark's apartment and watches his video, discovering that the footage is entirely of her. This confuses Juliet, who thought Mark didn't like her: He never talked to her, avoided her, and was generally distant and uncomfortable around her. He blurts out that he acts that way for 'self-preservation', and she finally realises that he's always been head over heels for her, but has kept it to himself out of respect for her and Peter's relationship. At Christmas Mark takes a moment to truly confess his unrequited love for Juliet (silently, using Dylan-esque word cards), which Juliet acknowledges by giving him a kiss. After this, Mark decides to set aside his infatuation and move on. Jamie and Aurélia. Writer Jamie (Colin Firth) first appears preparing to attend Juliet and Peter's wedding. His girlfriend (Sienna Guillory) misses the ceremony to sleep with his brother. Crushed by this, Jamie retires to his French cottage where he meets Portuguese housekeeper Aurélia (Lúcia Moniz), who speaks only her native tongue. There is an instant attraction between the two. When Jamie returns to England he realises he is in love with Aurélia. In the following times, Jamie learns Portuguese and returns to France to find her. When he locates her, he proposes to her and she says yes. It is then revealed that she has been learning English to communicate with Jamie. Harry, Karen and Mia. Harry (Alan Rickman) is the managing director of a design agency; Mia (Heike Makatsch) is his new secretary. For Christmas he buys her an expensive necklace from jewellery salesman Rufus (Rowan Atkinson), who elaborately wraps while Harry becomes increasingly nervous with the fear of detection. Meanwhile, Harry's wife Karen (Emma Thompson) is busy dealing with their children, Daisy (Lulu Popplewell) and Bernard (William Wadham), who are appearing in the school Nativity play. Karen discovers the necklace in Harry's coat pocket and initially assumes it is a gift for her; she later confronts Harry over the necklace and he admits his foolishness. David and Natalie. Karen's brother, David (Hugh Grant), is the recently elected Prime Minister. Natalie (Martine McCutcheon) is a new junior member of the household staff at 10 Downing Street and serves his tea and biscuits. Something seems to click between them. David walks in to find the U.S. President (Billy Bob Thornton) sexually harassing Natalie, which inspires him to take a stand against the bullying President's policies. Finding that his relationship with Natalie has become strained, David has her moved to another job, but later comes across a Christmas card from Natalie ending with a declaration of her love for him. He eventually finds Natalie at her family's home, seeing that they are on the way to the local school for the nativity play (the same one in which his niece and nephew are appearing). He drives her family to the play, and the two watch the show from backstage, their budding relationship exposed when a curtain is raised on them kissing at the end of the pageant's big finale. Daniel, Sam, Joanna and Carol. Daniel (Liam Neeson), Karen's friend, and his stepson Sam (Thomas Sangster) fend for themselves as they mourn the loss of their wife and mother, Joanna. Sam has fallen for American classmate, also named Joanna (Olivia Olson), and, after discussion with his stepfather, decides to learn the drums so that he can accompany her in the big finale for their school's Christmas pageant (the same one that Natalie's nephew and Karen and Harry's children are in). After Sam feels that he missed his chance to make an impression on her, Daniel convinces Sam that he must go catch Joanna, who is returning to the US, at the airport that night and show her how he feels, lest he regret it for his whole life. Sam runs away from the airport security and says hi to Joanna, who then kisses him on the cheek. Meanwhile, Daniel, who admires supermodel Claudia Schiffer meets Carol (who is played by Schiffer) the parent of another of Sam's school mates. Sarah, Karl and Michael. Sarah (Laura Linney) first appears at Juliet and Peter's wedding, sitting next to her friend Jamie. We learn she works at Harry's graphic design company, where she has been in love for years with the company's creative director, Karl (Rodrigo Santoro). A tryst between Karl and her is interrupted by phone calls from Sarah's mentally ill brother, Michael (Michael Fitzgerald), and this effectively ends their relationship. On Christmas Eve, she visits her brother at the institution where he lives, wrapping a scarf around him as he hugs her. Colin, Tony and the American girls. After several blunders attempting to woo various English women, including Nancy (Julia Davis), the caterer at Juliet and Peter's wedding, as well as Mia, Colin Frissell (Kris Marshall) informs his friend Tony (Abdul Salis) he plans to go to America and find love there, convinced that his Britishness will be an asset to him in a foreign country. Landing in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Colin meets Stacey (Ivana Miličević), Jeannie (January Jones), and Carol-Anne (Elisha Cuthbert), three stunningly attractive women who fall for his Basildon accent and invite him to stay at their home, where they are joined by roommate Harriet (Shannon Elizabeth). John and Judy. John (Martin Freeman) and Judy (Joanna Page), meet as body doubles for the sex scenes in a film where Tony is a production assistant. John tells Judy that "it is nice to have someone can just chat to." While the two are perfectly comfortable being naked and simulating sex on-set, they are shy and tentative off-set; they carefully pursue a relationship, and see the play (same one as David & Natalie, Harry & Karen, Daniel & Sam, et. al.) at the local school together with John's brother. Rufus. Rufus, played by Rowan Atkinson, is the jewellery salesman whose obsessive attention to gift-wrapping nearly gets Harry caught by Karen buying Mia's necklace. Also, it is his distraction of staff at the airport which allows Sam to sneak through to see Joanna. In the director and cast commentary, it is revealed that Rufus was originally supposed to be a Christmas angel; however, this was dropped from the final script. Epilogue. In the epilogue set one month later, the relationships of the characters have continued to evolve. Billy arrives with a gorgeous groupie in tow to be greeted by Joe and indicating that his comeback has remained successful. Juliet, Peter, and Mark come to meet Jamie and his new bride Aurelia, showing both that they have married. Karen and the kids greet a returning Harry confirming that they have remained together. Sam greets Joanna who has returned with her mother from the US as Daniel looks on, joined by his new girlfriend Carol and her son. John and Judy run into Tony, who is there to meet Colin on his return from the US; they are shown to be just married and off to their honeymoon. Colin returns with the gorgeous Harriet, and Harriet's sister Carla (Denise Richards) who hugs and kisses Tony in greeting. Natalie is seen welcoming David back in front of press cameras, indicating that their relationship is now public. These scenes dissolve into live-footage of actual arrivals at Heathrow Airport, which divide the screen and eventually form a heart as The Beach Boys' "God Only Knows" plays on. Links. Each story is linked in some way except for Billy Mack and his manager, who are not friends with any of the characters, but Billy appears frequently on characters' radios and TVs, his music video twice providing an important plot device for Sam's pursuit of Joanna; the pair also cross paths with the other characters in the closing Heathrow scene. John and Judy work with Tony who is best friends with Colin who works for a catering company that services the office where Sarah, Karl, Mia, and Harry work and also catered Peter and Juliet's wedding. Mia is friends with Mark who runs the art gallery where the Christmas office party takes place. Mia also lives next door to Natalie. Mark is in love with Juliet and friends with Peter. The couple are friends with Jamie and Sarah. Harry is married to Karen who is friends with Daniel, and Karen's brother is David who works with Natalie. Harry and Karen's children (and thus David's niece and nephew), Natalie's siblings (and thus Mia's neighbours), and Carol's son are all schoolmates of Sam and Joanna. An additional plot that was dropped in editing concerned the children's headmistress and her dying lesbian partner. Title. The title, "Love Actually", was intended by Curtis as an abbreviated version of the statement "Love Actually Is All Around", a reference to the mega-hit pop song "Love Is All Around", performed by Wet Wet Wet in Curtis's breakthrough film "Four Weddings and a Funeral". The song is also parodied as "Christmas Is All Around" throughout "Love Actually". Production. The Working Title Films production, budgeted at $45,000,000, was released by Universal Pictures. It grossed $62,671,632 in the United Kingdom, $13,956,093 in Australia and $59,472,278 in the US and Canada. It took a worldwide total of $247,472,278. Most of the movie was filmed on location in London, at sites including Trafalgar Square, the central court of Somerset House in the Strand, Grosvenor Chapel on South Audley Street near Hyde Park, St. Paul's Clapham on Rectory Grove, Clapham in the London Borough of Lambeth, the Millennium Bridge, Selfridges department store on Oxford Street, Lambeth Bridge, the Tate Modern in the former Bankside Power Station, Canary Wharf, Marble Arch, the St. Lukes Mews off All Saint's Road in Notting Hill, Chelsea Bridge, the OXO Tower, London City Hall, Poplar Road in Herne Hill in the London Borough of Lambeth, Elliott School in Pullman Gardens, Putney in the London Borough of Wandsworth, and London Heathrow Airport. Additional scenes were filmed at the Marseille Airport and Le Bar de la Marine. Scenes set in 10 Downing Street were filmed at the Shepperton Studios. The scene in which Colin attempts to chat up the female caterer at the wedding appeared in drafts of the screenplay for "Four Weddings and a Funeral", but was cut from the final version. Ant and Dec played themselves in the film (in which Bill Nighy's character referred to Dec as "Ant or Dec"). This refers to the common mistaking of one for the other, owing to their constant joint professional presence as a comedy and presenting duo. Veteran actress Jeanne Moreau is seen briefly, entering a taxi at the Marseille Airport. Soul singer Ruby Turner appears as Joanna Anderson's mother, one of the backup singers at the school Christmas pageant. After the resignation of PM Tony Blair, pundits and speculators referred to a potential anti-American shift in Gordon Brown's cabinet as a ""Love Actually" moment," referring to the scene in which Hugh Grant's character stands up to the American president. In 2009, during President Barack Obama's first visit to the UK, Chris Matthews referred to the president in "Love Actually" as an exemplar of George W. Bush and other former presidents' bullying of European allies. In commenting on Matthews view, Mediaite's Jon Bershad described the U.S. president character as a "sleazy Bill Clinton/George W. Bush hybrid". In the scene in question, the swaggering president bullies the prime minister and then sexually harasses a member of the P.M.'s household staff.
1062362	Gosford Park is a 2001 British mystery film directed by Robert Altman and written by Julian Fellowes. The film stars an ensemble cast, which includes Helen Mirren, Maggie Smith, Derek Jacobi, Eileen Atkins, Alan Bates, Kristin Scott Thomas, Clive Owen, Emily Watson, Charles Dance, and Michael Gambon. The story follows a party of wealthy Britons and an American and their servants, who gather for a shooting weekend at Gosford Park, an English country house. A murder occurs after a dinner party and the film goes on to present the subsequent investigation into it from the servants' and guests' perspectives. Development on "Gosford Park" began in 1999, when Bob Balaban came to Altman and asked if they could develop a film together. Altman suggested a whodunit and asked Fellowes to write the script. The film went into production in March 2001 and began filming at Shepperton Studios with a production budget of $19.8 million. "Gosford Park" premiered on 7 November 2001 at the London Film Festival. It received a limited release across cinemas in the United States in December 2001, before being widely released in January 2002 by USA Films. It was released in February 2002 in the United Kingdom. The film was successful at the box office, grossing over $87 million in cinemas worldwide, making it Altman's second most successful film after "MASH". It has received multiple awards and nominations, including seven Academy Award nominations and nine British Academy Film Awards nominations. The TV series "Downton Abbey" was originally planned as a spin-off of "Gosford Park", but instead was developed as a stand-alone property inspired by the film, set decades earlier. Plot. Constance, Countess of Trentham (Maggie Smith), and her lady's maid, Mary Maceachran (Kelly Macdonald) travel to Gosford Park for the weekend. On the way, they encounter actor Ivor Novello (Jeremy Northam), American film producer Morris Weissman (Bob Balaban) and Weissman's valet, Henry Denton (Ryan Phillippe). At the house, they are greeted by Sir William McCordle (Michael Gambon), Lady Sylvia McCordle (Kristin Scott Thomas) and their daughter, Isobel (Camilla Rutherford). The other guests include Lady Sylvia's sisters, Louisa, Lady Stockbridge (Geraldine Somerville) and Lady Lavinia Meredith (Natasha Wightman) and their husbands, Raymond, Lord Stockbridge (Charles Dance) and Commander Anthony Meredith (Tom Hollander). Also in attendance are the Honourable Freddie Nesbitt (James Wilby) and his wife, Mabel (Claudie Blakley); Isobel's suitor, Lord Rupert Standish (Laurence Fox) and his friend Jeremy Blond (Trent Ford). Commander Meredith is in financial difficulty and brings up the matter with Sir William, who reveals that he is rescinding his investment in Meredith's new scheme. Sir William also intends to stop paying Lady Trentham's allowance. Mary and Lord Stockbridge's valet, Parks (Clive Owen), are attracted to one another. Denton asks a number of questions about life in service and Parks reveals that he was raised in an orphanage. Denton meets Lady Sylvia and during the night, he goes to her room. During the pheasant shoot Sir William is slightly injured by a low shot. Commander Meredith pleads with Sir William not to back out of the investment. During dinner, Lady Sylvia attacks Sir William, implying that he was a World War I profiteer. The head housemaid, Elsie (Emily Watson), rises to his defence, thus revealing their affair. Sir William goes to the library, where the housekeeper, Mrs. Wilson (Helen Mirren) brings him coffee. He demands a glass of whisky instead. Lady Sylvia asks Mr. Novello to entertain the guests. George (Richard E. Grant, first footman), Parks, Mr. Nesbitt and Commander Meredith disappear and an unknown person goes to the library and stabs Sir William. Commander Meredith and Mr. Nesbitt do not offer an explanation of their disappearances, while George was fetching milk for the coffee service and Parks was fetching hot water bottles. Lady Stockbridge goes to the library and her screams bring everyone to the room. Inspector Thomson (Stephen Fry) and Constable Dexter (Ron Webster) arrive to investigate the murder. Dexter suggests that Sir William was already dead when he was stabbed. Denton confesses to Jennings (Alan Bates), the butler, that he is not a valet but an American actor preparing for a movie role. The next morning, Lady Sylvia goes for her morning ride, which surprises Inspector Thomson. Barnes (Adrian Scarborough) overhears Commander Meredith tell Lady Lavinia that Sir William's death was lucky for them, as the investment is now secure. Barnes tells Inspector Thomson, who interrogates Meredith. Mrs. Croft (Eileen Atkins) tells the kitchen maid, Bertha (Teresa Churcher), that Sir William was known for seducing the women working in his factories. If a woman became pregnant, Sir William offered two choices: keep the baby and lose your job, or give the baby up and keep your job. Those who gave up their babies were told that the adoptions were being arranged with good families. In reality, Sir William paid orphanages to take the children. Mary goes to Parks' room and tells him that she knows he is the murderer. Parks tells her that he discovered Sir William was his father, entered service and attempted to gain employment with someone in his circle. Parks tells Mary that he did not poison Sir William and Mary is relieved, as Parks only stabbed the corpse. Mary listens to Lady Sylvia and Lady Trentham discussing why Mrs. Croft and Mrs. Wilson are enemies. Lady Sylvia believes that the tension between them stems from the fact that Mrs. Wilson now outranks Mrs. Croft. Lady Trentham asks if Mrs. Wilson was ever married and Lady Sylvia replies that her name was once Parks or Parker. Mary goes to Mrs. Wilson and the older woman reveals that she poisoned Sir William to protect her son, because she knew that Parks was there to kill Sir William. She also reveals that she and Mrs. Croft are sisters. After talking to Dorothy (Sophie Thompson), Mrs. Wilson goes to her room and is comforted by Mrs. Croft. The guests leave and Lady Sylvia enters Gosford Park, while Jennings closes the door. Themes. The film is a study of the British class system during the 1930s; Stephen Fry, Inspector Thompson in the film, says that it shows the upper class's dependency on a servant class. A number of secondary themes are also explored. For example, the film takes a subtle look at sexual mores during the 1930s and also touches on gay issues, such as the implied relationship between Henry and Weissman. As it is set in 1932, between World Wars I and II, the impact of the First World War is also explored in the film's screenplay. It also mentions the decline of the British Empire and the peerage system. Writing for PopMatters, Cynthia Fuchs described surface appearances, rather than complex interpersonal relationships, as a theme of the film. Salon.com critic Steven Johnson notes a revival of the manor house mystery style, popularised by the writings of Agatha Christie, in the screenplay for "Gosford Park". He called it a blend between this literary style and that of the 19th century novel. Bob Balaban, an actor and producer for "Gosford Park", says that the idea of creating a murder mystery told by the servants in the manor was an interesting one for him and Altman. Themes from the movie were picked up and integrated into the series "Downton Abbey" by Julian Fellowes. Maggie Smith starred again in her role as a dowager countess, this time her title not being "Trentham" but "Grantham". Production. Development and writing. In 1999, Bob Balaban came to Robert Altman and asked him if there was something they could develop together and Altman suggested a whodunit. Altman wanted to create a country house murder mystery that explored that way of life; he called the film a "classic situation: all suspects under one roof". Altman was also inspired by the 1930s films, "The Rules of the Game" and "Charlie Chan in London." Altman chose British actor and writer, Julian Fellowes, to write the screenplay because he knew about how the houses worked. Fellowes, who had never written a feature film before, received a telephone call from Altman, who asked him to come up with some characters and stories. Fellowes was given a brief outline of the film: it was to be "set in a country house in the 30's and to have a murder in there somewhere, but for it to really be an examination of class". Altman also wanted the film to explore the three groups of people, the family, the guests and the servants. Of the call, Fellowes said, "All the way through I thought this can't be happening - a 50 year old fat balding actor is phoned up by an American movie director - but I did work as if it was going to happen". The original title of the film was "The Other Side of the Tapestry," but Altman thought it was awkward. Fellowes began looking through some books and came up with "Gosford Park." Altman said "Nobody liked it, everyone fought me on it. But when you make a picture using a name, that's its name. It's not a gripping title. But then "MASH" wasn't either." Fellowes says the screenplay was "not an homage to Agatha Christie, but a reworking of that genre". Fellowes was credited not only as the film's writer but also as a technical advisor, meaning that he wrote portions of the film as it was being produced. He notes that, when writing a large scene with many actors and characters, not everything that the characters say during the scene is scripted and instead leaves the actors to improvise other lines. Arthur Inch the retired butler of Lord & Lady Kleinwort was retained by Robert Altman to advise on correct procedures and arrangements on-set- he is credited as "Butler" immediately before Altman as Director in the final credits. Casting. In "Gosford Park", as in many of his other films, Altman had a list of actors he intended to appear in the film before it was cast formally. The film's casting director was Mary Selway, who was described by the producer David Levy as knowing many British actors. Very few actors that were offered parts did not end up in the film. Jude Law dropped out of the production just before the shoot began, and he was replaced by Ryan Phillippe. Kenneth Branagh and Robert Bathurst were both tied down by scheduling conflicts. Alan Rickman, Joely Richardson and Judi Dench were also considered for roles in the film. The film is notable for featuring two knights (Michael Gambon and Derek Jacobi) and two dames (Maggie Smith and Eileen Atkins). Two other members of the cast (Alan Bates and Helen Mirren) were later elevated to that status. Filming and editing. Filming was conducted at Wrotham Park for the exteriors, staircase, dining room and drawing room, and Syon House for the upstairs bedrooms. The opening sequence outside Lady Trentham's home was shot at Hall Barn, near Beaconsfield, Bucks, whose grounds were also used as the scene for lunch after the shoot. Sound stages were built to film the scenes of the manor's downstairs area. Shepperton Studios was used for off-location filming. The film was shot with two cameras, both moving perpetually in opposite directions. The cameras pointed toward no specific area, intended to cause the audience to move their eyes throughout the scene. Altman notes that most of the film's cast had experience in theatre and in film, meaning that they had acted in situations where the view of the audience is not on one specific actor and each audience member sees a slightly different image of the players on stage. Andrew Dunn, the film's cinematographer, appreciated the co-operative nature of "Gosford Park"'s filming process. He shot the film on Kodak Vision Expression 500T film stock generally with two Panavision cameras, using lighting ranging from relatively dim candles to bright hydrargyrum medium-arc iodide lamps. Editor Tim Squyres described the editing process on "Gosford Park" as an unusual one, as the dual cameras used were generally located in the same areas when filming, instead of the more standard method of setting up a scene directly. Release. "Gosford Park" premiered on 7 November 2001 at the London Film Festival. The film then received a limited release across cinemas in the United States on 26 December 2001, before being widely released in January 2002 by USA Films. It was released on 1 February 2002 in the United Kingdom. Box office. In its limited release opening weekend, the film grossed a mere $241,219, hitting No. 23 in the box office that weekend. In its wide release, it grossed $3,395,759; by the end of its run on 6 June 2002, "Gosford Park" grossed $41,308,615 in the domestic box office and a worldwide total of $87,754,044. With that final total, "Gosford Park" became Altman's second most successful film at the box office after his 1970 film, "MASH". Critical reception. The film received generally positive reviews from critics; review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reports that 86% of 142 critics have given the film a positive review, with an average rating of 7.5 out of 10. According to the site's summary of the critical consensus, "A mixture of "Upstairs, Downstairs", "Clue", and perceptive social commentary, "Gosford Park" ranks among director Altman's best." Metacritic, which assigns a score of 1–100 to individual film reviews, gives the film an averaged rating of 90 based on 34 reviews. Roger Ebert awarded it his highest rating of four stars, describing the story as "such a joyous and audacious achievement it deserves comparison with his Altman's very best movies". Ebert specifically noted a quality of the film that many Altman films share: a focus on character rather than plot. Emanuel Levy, an independent critic, gave "Gosford Park" an A minus rating. He described one of its themes as "illuminating a society and a way of life on the verge of extinction", placing the interwar setting as an integral part of the film's class study. However, he notes that because Altman is an independent observer of the society he portrays in the film, it does not have the biting qualities of his previous social commentaries such as "Short Cuts", set in the director's home country of the United States. Jonathan Rosenbaum in the "Chicago Reader" called it a "Masterpiece". "Gosford Park"s cinematography was a focus of several critics. CNN's Paul Clinton praised Andrew Dunn's camera work, describing it as "lush and rich; the camera glides up and down the stairs of the grand estate, the period look is beautifully crafted." Ed Gonzalez of the Internet publication "Slant Magazine" writes that "Altman's camera is the star of "Gosford Park"" and that the film's cinematography is used as an aid to its storytelling. Michael Phillips placed "Gosford Park" at number nine on his list of Best Films of the Decade. The film was placed at 82 on Slant Magazine's list of best films of the 2000s. Accolades. "Gosford Park" was nominated for 61 different awards following its release, winning 25 of them. There were seven nominations for Academy Awards (including Best Picture and Best Director, both of which it lost to "A Beautiful Mind"); Fellowes won the Best Original Screenplay. At the 55th British Academy Film Awards, the film was nominated for nine British Academy awards, winning Best Film and Best Costume Design (Jenny Beavan). Mirren, Smith and Watson were all nominated for Best European Actress at the European Film Awards. The film received five nominations at the 59th Golden Globe Awards; Altman won the Award for 'Best Director'. At the 8th Screen Actors Guild Awards Mirren won 'Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Supporting Role' and the ensemble cast collectively won 'Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture'. The film won four more 'Best Cast' awards from the Broadcast Film Critics Association, Chlotrudis Society for Independent Film, Florida Film Critics Circle, and Online Film Critics Society. Fellowes received recognition for the film's screenplay from the Writers Guild of America, where he won the Best Original Screenplay award. The film's score composer, Patrick Doyle received two nominations for his work. Doyle was nominated for Composer of the Year from the American Film Institute and he won the award for Soundtrack Composer of the Year from the World Soundtrack Awards. Home media. The region 1 DVD of "Gosford Park" was released on 25 June 2002, with the region 2 release on 3 December 2002. The critic Ed Gonzalez reviewed the DVD negatively, calling the picture quality "atrocious on the small screen", going on to say that "the image quality of this video transfer is downright lousy from start to finish". However, reviewer Robert Mack generally wrote favourably of the picture quality, noting excellence in the shots' detail and sharpness and the lack of compression artefacts, but describing an unfavourable darkness to scenes filmed within the manor house. Both reviewers commented positively on the film's score and soundtrack. Gonzalez wrote that ""Gosford Park" sounds amazing for a film so dialogue-dependent" and Mack that "the audio transfer is about as good as it can get on a movie of this style". Soundtrack. Patrick Doyle composed the film's score. Doyle said that it can take him up to six months to create a film score, but Altman asked him to write and compose the music for "Gosford Park" in less than five weeks. Doyle recorded the soundtrack at the London Air-Edel Recording Studios in October 2001. The soundtrack also features six original songs by composer and playwright, Ivor Novello. The actor who portrays Novello in the film, Jeremy Northam, sings all the songs and his brother, Christopher, accompanies him on the piano. The soundtrack was released on 15 January 2002.
1067809	A Thin Line Between Love and Hate is a 1996 American dark comedy-romance film that was directed and co-written by Martin Lawrence, who also stars in the film. Lawrence co-wrote the screenplay alongside Kenny Buford, who has also written for Lawrence's hit television sitcom, "Martin". Along with Lawrence, the film features an ensemble cast of African-American actors that include Lynn Whitfield, Regina King, Bobby Brown and Della Reese. The film tells the story of Darnell Wright, a ladies' man who finds himself targeted by one of his obsessed lovers. "A Thin Line Between Love and Hate" was released in April 1996 and went on to gross over $30 million at the box office against a budget of $8 million. The film was shot on location entirely in the city of Los Angeles, California. The title for the film is taken from the 1971 song "Thin Line Between Love and Hate" by The Persuaders. R&B trio H-Town recorded a cover version of this song that was included on the film soundtrack. At the time of filming, Lawrence was over a decade younger than his leading lady, Whitfield, who was 43 at the time. Plot. Martin Lawrence stars as nightclub manager Darnell, a perpetual playboy and hopeless male chauvinist. Darnell is a crude-but-smooth talker and lady's man who doesn't take no for an answer. He works for a nightclub called "Chocolate City" and aspires to be its owner. He trades VIP privileges at the club for favors from women. Though he is an expert at conning women, he sometimes worries about what his childhood sweetheart Mia (Regina King) thinks of his adventures. When the classy, elegant Brandi (Lynn Whitfield) steps out of a limousine to enter the club, Darnell feels that he's met his ultimate prize. She rejects his come-ons, which only fuels his appetite. He pursues her, showing up with flowers at her real estate office. He finally wins over Brandi, only to find out that he's really in love with Mia. But Brandi doesn't take kindly to rejection, and becomes an obsessed femme fatale stalking him, even taking all four wheels off his SUV to ground him from his rounds.
1042843	Dora May Bryan OBE (born 7 February 1923) is an English actress of stage, film and television. Early life. Bryan was born as Dora May Broadbent in Southport, Lancashire, England. Her father was a salesman and she attended Hathershaw County Primary School in Oldham, Lancashire. Her career began in pantomime before World War II, during which she joined the ENSA in Italy to entertain British troops. Career. Bryan made her stage debut as a child in a pantomime in Manchester and, encouraged by her mother, joined the Oldham Repertory while still a teenager. After spending eight years honing her craft there, she headed for London to try her luck on stage, where she became a regular performer in the West End. Cast in a production of Noël Coward's "Private Lives", the actress was encouraged to adopt a stage name by Coward himself. She opted for Dora Bryant but a typographical error left off the last letter and she became Dora Bryan. Recognised for her distinctive speaking voice, which became a trademark of her performances, she followed many of her theatre contemporaries into film acting, generally playing supporting roles. She often played women of easy virtue — for example in Ealing's "The Blue Lamp" (1950) and "The Fallen Idol" (1948), one of her earliest films. She appeared in similarly stereotypical female roles in other films, for example "The Cockleshell Heroes" (1955), "The Green Man" (1956) and "Carry On Sergeant" (1958). She appeared in a cameo role in 1955 on the BBC radio series "Hancock's Half Hour", in an episode now known as "Cinderella Hancock". In 1961, she appeared in "A Taste of Honey". The film won four BAFTA awards: director Tony Richardson won Best British Screenplay (with Shelagh Delaney) and Best British Film, while Bryan won Best Actress and co-star Rita Tushingham was named Most Promising Newcomer. In 1963 she recorded the Christmas song "All I want for Christmas is a Beatle". She played a headmistress in "The Great St Trinian's Train Robbery" (1966), and in 1968 she starred in her own British TV series, "According to Dora". Bryan appeared in the Anglo-Argentine Hitchcockian thriller, "Apartment Zero". The film was featured in the 1988 Sundance Film Festival and was directed by Martin Donovan (the Argentine aka: Carlos Enrique Varela y Peralta-Ramos) and starred Hart Bochner and Colin Firth. Bryan plays the role of one of two eccentric characters (the other was played by Liz Smith) described by the "Washington Post" as two "... tea-and-crumpet gargoyle-featured spinsters who snoop the corridors." Throughout her career she also remained a versatile and popular stage performer, often appearing in musicals such as "Gentleman Prefer Blondes" (1962) and "Hello, Dolly!" (1966–68). She also headlined a number of stage revues such as "The Dora Bryan Show" (1966) and "An Evening with Dora Bryan and Friends" (1968). She made her Broadway debut as Mrs. Pierce in "Pygmalion" (1987), starring Peter O'Toole and Amanda Plummer. Other notable credits include her first Shakespearean role, Mistress Quickly in "The Merry Wives of Windsor" (1984), Mrs. Hardcastle in "She Stoops to Conquer" (1985), Carlotta Campion (singing "I'm Still Here") in the 1987 London production of the Stephen Sondheim-James Goldman musical "Follies", and she appeared in the 1994 revival of Harold Pinter's "The Birthday Party". In 1999, she made an appearance in the Victoria Wood sitcom "Dinnerladies". In 2000 she joined the cast of the long-running BBC comedy series "Last of the Summer Wine" as Aunt Roz Utterthwaite, and in 2001 she was a guest star on "Absolutely Fabulous" as June Whitfield's on-screen friend Dolly (originally called Milly). She received a BAFTA nomination in 2002 for this role. However, a few years later her ability to remember her lines started to diminish, so in 2005 her role in "Last of the Summer Wine" came to an end, reportedly because her inability to remember her lines was causing too many retakes. About the same time, she stopped doing films. Her last film appearance was in "Gone to the Dogs" (2006) opposite Anthony Booth. In 2006, she was intended to appear both in the comedy "Rock-A-Hula Rest Home" at a pub theatre in Brighton, and in the comedy "There's No Place Like a Home", but in both cases she had to withdraw because of her inability to memorise her lines. Awards and testimonials. Her autobiography "According To Dora" was published in 1987 and has since been updated and republished. In 1996, she was awarded the OBE in recognition of her services to acting and she was awarded a Laurence Olivier Award in 1996 for her role in the West End production of the Harold Pinter play, "The Birthday Party". She was the subject of "This Is Your Life" on two occasions, in April 1962 when she was surprised by Eamonn Andrews at her home in Brighton, and in January 1989, when Michael Aspel surprised her on the stage of Manchester’s Opera House, at the curtain call of Hello Dolly. An exhibition about Dora Bryan will open on 13 September 2013 at Rottingdean museum, hopefully with the attendance of Bryan. Personal life. She was married from 54 years to former Lancashire and Cumberland cricketer Bill Lawton until his death as a result of Alzheimer's disease in August 2008. The couple met in Oldham during World War II and were married at Werneth St Thomas, Oldham, in 1954. During her husband's final years she reduced her public commitments to enable herself to look after him, as well as suffering with health problems herself, including a serious operation for a hernia. She once owned Clarges Hotel at 115–119 Marine Parade on Brighton's seafront, which was used as an exterior location in the films "Carry On Girls" and "Carry On at Your Convenience". She and her husband were forced to sell the bulk of the building as a result of bankruptcy, but they retained a flat with a sea view on the first floor for many years. Still maintaining its original structure, the rooms of the hotel have been reconverted into flats, which are rented and owned by local residents. She is now wheelchair bound and resides in a nursing home in Hove in frail health. On 31 May 2009, "Dora – A Gala Charity Show" was held at Her Majesty's Theatre in London, in order to raise money to two charities nominated by Bryan: the Variety Club Children's Charity and the Alzheimer's Society. Sir Cliff Richard was the star performer, but among the performers and celebrity guests there were also old friends and colleagues like June Whitfield, Rita Tushingham and Joanna Lumley. Although it was uncertain until the very end, Dora Bryan also managed to attend.
1089897	Oliver Heaviside FRS (; 18 May 1850 – 3 February 1925) was a self-taught English electrical engineer, mathematician, and physicist who adapted complex numbers to the study of electrical circuits, invented mathematical techniques to the solution of differential equations (later found to be equivalent to Laplace transforms), reformulated Maxwell's field equations in terms of electric and magnetic forces and energy flux, and independently co-formulated vector analysis. Although at odds with the scientific establishment for most of his life, Heaviside changed the face of mathematics and science for years to come. Biography. Early years. Heaviside was born at 55 Kings Street (now Plender Street) in London's Camden Town. He was short and red-headed, and suffered from scarlet fever when young, which left him with a hearing impairment. He was a good student (e.g. placed fifth out of five hundred students in 1865). Heaviside's uncle Sir Charles Wheatstone (1802–1875) was the original co-inventor of the telegraph in the mid-1830s, and was an internationally celebrated expert in telegraphy and electromagnetism. Wheatstone was married to Heaviside's aunt in London and took a strong interest in his nephew's education. Heaviside left school at age 16 to study at home in the subjects of telegraphy and electromagnetism. He continued full-time study at home until age 18. Then – in the only paid employment he ever had – he took a job as a telegraph operator with the Great Northern Telegraph Company working first in Denmark and then in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, and was soon made a chief operator. It is likely that his uncle Sir Charles was instrumental in getting Heaviside the telegraph operator position. Heaviside continued to study while working, and at age 21 and 22 he published some research related to electric circuits and telegraphy. In 1874 at age 24 he resigned his job and returned to studying full-time on his own at his parents' home in London. He remained single throughout his life. In 1873 Heaviside had encountered James Clerk Maxwell's newly published, and today famous, two-volume "Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism". In his old age Heaviside recalled: Doing research from home, he helped develop transmission line theory (also known as the ""telegrapher's equations""). Heaviside showed mathematically that uniformly distributed inductance in a telegraph line would diminish both attenuation and distortion, and that, if the inductance were great enough and the insulation resistance not too high, the circuit would be distortionless while currents of all frequencies would have equal speeds of propagation. Heaviside's equations helped further the implementation of the telegraph. Middle years. In 1880, Heaviside researched the skin effect in telegraph transmission lines. That same year he patented, in England, the coaxial cable. In 1884 he recast Maxwell's mathematical analysis from its original cumbersome form (they had already been recast as quaternions) to its modern vector terminology, thereby reducing twelve of the original twenty equations in twenty unknowns down to the four differential equations in two unknowns we now know as Maxwell's equations. The four re-formulated Maxwell's equations describe the nature of static and moving electric charges and magnetic dipoles, and the relationship between the two, namely electromagnetic induction. Between 1880 and 1887, Heaviside developed the operational calculus (involving the "D" notation for the differential operator, which he is credited with creating), a method of solving differential equations by transforming them into ordinary algebraic equations which caused a great deal of controversy when first introduced, owing to the lack of rigour in his derivation of it. He famously said, "Mathematics is an experimental science, and definitions do not come first, but later on." He was replying to criticism over his use of operators that were not clearly defined. On another occasion he stated somewhat more defensively, "I do not refuse my dinner simply because I do not understand the process of digestion." In 1887, Heaviside proposed that induction coils (inductors) should be added to telephone and telegraph lines to increase their self-induction and correct the distortion which they suffered. This was not done, largely due to the technical incompetence and personal animosity of William Henry Preece at the Post Office. The importance of Heaviside's work remained undiscovered for some time after publication in The Electrician, and so its rights lay in the public domain. AT&T later employed one of its own scientists, George A. Campbell, and an external investigator Michael I. Pupin to determine whether Heaviside's work was incomplete or incorrect. Campbell and Pupin extended Heaviside's work, and AT&T filed for patents covering not only their research, but also the technical method of constructing the coils previously invented by Heaviside. AT&T later offered Heaviside money in exchange for his rights; it is possible that the Bell engineers' respect for Heaviside influenced this offer. However, Heaviside refused the offer, declining to accept any money unless the company were to give him full recognition. Heaviside was chronically poor, making his refusal of the offer even more striking. In two papers of 1888 and 1889, Heaviside calculated the deformations of electric and magnetic fields surrounding a moving charge, as well as the effects of it entering a denser medium. This included a prediction of what is now known as Cherenkov radiation, and inspired his friend George FitzGerald to suggest what now is known as the Lorentz–Fitzgerald contraction.
1557861	Ted Healy (October 1, 1896 – December 21, 1937) was an American vaudeville performer, comedian, and actor. He is chiefly remembered as the creator of The Three Stooges, but also had a successful stage and film career of his own. Early life and career. Healy was born Charles Earnest Lea Nash on October 1, 1896 in Kaufman, Texas. He attended Holy Innocents' School in Houston before the family moved to New York in 1908. While in New York, he attended high school at De LaSalle Institute. Healy initially intended to follow in the footsteps of his father and pursue a career in business, but eventually decided to pursue a career on the stage. Healy's first foray into show business was in 1912. He and his childhood friend Moses Horwitz (later known as Moe Howard) joined the Annette Kellerman Diving Girls, a vaudeville act which included four boys. The work ended quickly, however, after an accident on stage. Healy and Howard then went their separate ways. Healy developed a vaudeville act and adopted the stage name Ted Healy. Healy's act was a hit, and he soon expanded his role as a comedian and master of ceremonies. In the 1920s he was the highest paid performer in Vaudeville making $9000 a week. He added performers to his stage show, including his new wife Betty Brown (a.k.a. Betty Braun). His first Stooge was his German Shepherd dog that appeared in his first vaudeville act. When some of his acrobats quit in 1922, Moe Howard answered the advertisement for replacements. Since Howard was no acrobat, Healy cast his old friend as a stooge (someone who impersonated a member of the audience who is called on stage). In the routine, Howard's appearance on stage would end with Healy losing his trousers. The beginning of the Stooges. Howard's brother Shemp joined the act as a heckler in 1923, and Larry Fine was added in 1925. Healy's vaudeville revues ("A Night in Venice", "A Night in Spain", "New Yorker Nights", and others) included the quartet under various names, such as Ted Healy and his Southern Gentlemen. Moe Howard took a break from show business in 1927 after the birth of his daughter. The group reconvened in 1928 and appeared in several Broadway productions, leading to their appearance in the 1930 film "Soup to Nuts". In 1931 the Stooges broke from Healy after a dispute over a movie contract. They began performing on their own, using such monikers as "The Three Lost Souls" and "Howard, Fine and Howard", and often incorporating material from the Healy shows. Healy attempted to sue the Stooges for using his material, but the copyright was held by the Shubert Theatre Corporation, for which the routines had been produced, and the Stooges had the Shuberts' permission to use it. Healy hired a new set of stooges, consisting of Eddie Moran (soon replaced by Richard "Dick" Hakins), Jack Wolf (father of sportscaster Warner Wolf), and Paul "Mousie" Garner in 1931. The original Stooges rejoined Healy's act in 1932, but Shemp left shortly thereafter to pursue a solo career and was replaced by his younger brother Curly Howard. In early 1934, Fine and the Howards parted ways with Healy for the last time. After the Stooges. From 1935 through 1937 Healy appeared in a succession of films for 20th Century Fox, Warner Brothers, and MGM, playing both dramatic and comedic roles. Most of his comedies featured new "stooges", including Jimmy Brewster, Red Pearson and Sammy Glasser. During this period Healy took to wearing a full toupée in public. His last film, "Hollywood Hotel", was released a few days after his death in 1937. Personal life. Healy's first wife was dancer and singer Betty Brown (born Elizabeth Braun), whom he married in 1922 after knowing her for one week. The couple worked together in vaudeville before divorcing in 1932, after Brown sued heiress Mary Brown Warburton for alienation of her husbands affections. Healy's second marriage was to UCLA Co-Ed Betty Hickman. Healy upon introducing himself asked her to marry him and became engaged the next day. They were married in Yuma, Arizona on May 15, 1936 after a midnight surprise elopement by plane. Betty Hickman was granted a divorce from Healy on October 7, 1936, but later reconciled. Hickman gave birth to the couple's son, John Jacob, on December 17, 1937, four days before Healy's death. Death. Healy died suddenly on December 21, 1937, and the circumstances surrounding his death were a matter of some controversy. The cause was initially reported as "heart attack", but the presence of recent wounds — a deep cut over Healy's right eye, a "discolored" left eye, and bruising of the head, neck, and trunk regions — and stories of an altercation on the night of his death at the Trocadero nightclub on Sunset Strip, gave rise to speculation that he died as a result of these injuries. According to one source, which quoted Healy's friend, the writer Henry Taylor, an argument broke out between Healy and three men identified only as "college boys". The younger men knocked Healy to the ground and kicked him in the head, ribs and stomach. United Press articles after Healy's death quoted wrestler Man Mountain Dean, who happened to be at Healy's hotel when he stumbled, injured and incoherent, out of a taxi; Dean helped get the comedian to a doctor. At some point in the evening Healy's friend Joe Frisco took him to his apartment, where he was later found dead. A more recent (and so far uncorroborated) source alleges that the three assailants were not college boys but actor Wallace Beery, Albert R. Broccoli (later producer of James Bond films), and Broccoli's cousin Pat DiCicco. While there is no documentation in news reports that either Beery or DiCicco was present, Broccoli admitted that he was indeed involved in a fist fight with Healy a few hours before he died. In other reports, Broccoli admitted to pushing Healy but not striking him. Because of the circumstances, Wyantt LaMont, the physician who treated Healy, refused to sign his death certificate; but autopsy findings revealed that Healy died of acute toxic nephritis secondary to acute and chronic alcoholism. The external wounds were specifically ruled out as a cause of death, thus rendering the role of any assailants (and their identities) moot. Healy was reportedly at the Trocadero celebrating the birth of his son, an event that he had eagerly anticipated, according to Moe Howard: "He was nuts about kids," wrote Howard. "He used to visit our homes and envied the fact that we were all married and had children. Healy always loved kids and often gave Christmas parties for underprivileged youngsters and spent hundreds of dollars on toys." Ted Healy is interred at Calvary Cemetery in Los Angeles, California. Healy's was the first caricature drawn by Alex Gard to grace the walls of Sardi's restaurant in the New York City Theater District. Healy was survived by his widow, Betty Healy and his son, John Jacob Nash. Despite his sizeable salary Healy spent his money as soon as he earned it. A trust fund was organzied by Hollywood stars for Betty Healy and her son. In Popular Culture. The Three Stooges have reached icon status.
1162645	Bonita Granville (February 2, 1923 – October 11, 1988) was an American film actress and television producer. Early life. Born in Chicago, Illinois, Granville was the daughter of stage actors, and made her film debut at the age of nine in "Westward Passage" (1933). Over the next couple of years she played uncredited supporting roles in such films as "Little Women" (1933) and "Anne of Green Gables" (1934) before playing the role of Mary in the film adaptation of Lillian Hellman's 1934 stage play "The Children's Hour". Renamed "These Three", a 1936 film that told the story of three adults (played by Miriam Hopkins, Merle Oberon, and Joel McCrea) who find their lives almost destroyed by the malicious lies of an evil attention-seeking child. For her role as that child, Granville was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, then the first youngest person to be nominated for that award. Despite this success, and although she continued to work, the next few years brought her few opportunities to build her career. In 1938, she starred as the saucy mischievous daughter in the multi-Academy Awards nominated hit comedy film "Merrily We Live" and as girl detective Nancy Drew in the hit film "Nancy Drew, Detective." The Nancy Drew film success led to Granville reprising the role in three sequels from 1938 to 1939, including "Nancy Drew... Reporter" (1939). Later career. As a young adult, she was once again cast in supporting roles, often in prestigious films such as "Now, Voyager" (1942), as well as two Andy Hardy films with Mickey Rooney, "Andy Hardy's Blonde Trouble" (1944) and "Love Laughs at Andy Hardy" (1946). She is also remembered for her starring role in the World War II anti-Nazism film "Hitler's Children" (1943). Her career began to fade by the mid-1940s. She was the heroine of the novel "Bonita Granville and the Mystery of Star Island" written by Kathryn Heisenfelt, published by Whitman Publishing Company in 1942. The novel's subtitle is "An original story featuring BONITA GRANVILLE famous motion-picture player as the heroine". The story was probably written for a young teenage audience and is reminiscent of the adventures of Nancy Drew. It is part of a series known as "Whitman Authorized Editions", 16 books published between 1941-1947 that featured a film actress as heroine. In 1947, Granville married Jack Wrather, who had produced some of her films. He formed the Wrather Corporation, and bought the rights to characters from both "The Lone Ranger" and "Lassie". Granville worked as a producer for several film and television productions featuring these characters, including the 1954 TV series "Lassie". She appeared in the film version of "The Lone Ranger" in 1956, and made her final screen appearance in a cameo role in "The Legend of the Lone Ranger" (1981). In 1949, she appeared with Rod Cameron in the comedy film "Strike It Rich," filmed about Tyler, Kilgore, and Lindale in east Texas. The marriage lasted until Wrather's death in 1984, shortly after release of the movie "The Magic of Lassie", which starred Wrather's pal James Stewart. Granville herself died four years later of lung cancer in Santa Monica, California, at the age of sixty-five. Their children are daughters Molly and Linda, and sons Jack and Christopher. Jack and Molly were from Wrather's previous marriage to Mollie O'Daniel, a daughter of Governor and U.S. Senator W. Lee O'Daniel. Bonita Granville has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, at 6607 Hollywood Boulevard, for her contributions to motion pictures. She was honored at the Disneyland Hotel, which Jack Wrather owned until it was sold to the Walt Disney Company. The Bonita Tower and Granville's Steak House were named in her honor.
584977	Khatarnak () is a Telugu film directed by choreographer-turned-director Amma Rajasekhar. Ravi Teja and Ileana D'Cruz play the lead roles. B.V.S.N Prasad ("Chatrapati" fame) has produced this film. This film released on December 14, 2006. This film was dubbed in hindi as Main hoon khatarnak. And this film has a lot of resemblance with south-korean movie Mr. Socrates which was released in November 2005. The film was a big flop. Plot. Dasu (Ravi Teja) is the son of a counterfeit racketeer (Kota Srinivasa Rao). As his father goes to jail, Dasu becomes an orphan. He stops his education at 10th class and moves like a vagabond. On the other side, there is a smuggler who used to smuggle drugs and arms into the country. But an honest police officer (Prakash Raj) hatches a plan and sends one informer (Raja Ravindra) into their underworld. He stays with them for sometime and passes on information to the police, with the help of which the police were able to bust the smugglers team, though not the kingpin. The don's assistant, who was also a lawyer advises him to play the same trick and admit one of their henchmen into the police to get information from the reverse side. However, he should not be in police records but should be crooked and cunning. The smugglers team's search ends with Dasu. The group threatens Dasu and make him to play like a puppet in their hands. In order to push him inside the police department, he should at least pass tenth class. So, they admit him in a school, where he falls in love with a teacher Nakshatra (Ileana D'Cruz). However, she doesn't like him as he neither has good education nor good looks. After a few incidents, the don's right hand i.e., the lawyer tells Dasu to study well and become a police officer to win her love. Admitting the idea, Dasu turns a good student and gets through the exam. Later, he becomes a constable and gets posted in traffic. The smugglers unit hatches another plan and succeeds in pushing him in the crime police. After watching Dasu as a sincere police constable, Nakshatra too starts liking him. Soon, in a turn of events, Nakshatra's brother, who was a police informer, is killed in the hands of Dasu at the behest of the don. She chides Dasu and starts hating him. Dasu starts disliking his job as he became a police officer only to win her love. As he lost her love, Dasu turns against the don and finally kills him. Nakshatra learns from the lawyer that her brother actually died in the hands of the don, she reunites with Dasu and the film ends on a happy note. Music. Music of the film released on November 15, 2006 statewide. The film has six songs composed by M. M. Keeravani:
582922	International Khiladi (English: International Player) is a Hindi action thriller film released in 1999. The film is directed by Umesh Mehra starring Akshay Kumar and Twinkle Khanna in the lead roles. It was the sixth instalment in the Khiladi (film series). Plot. News Reporter Payal (Twinkle Khanna) and her camera-man have been assigned the task of interviewing the world's highest ranking criminal don, Devraj (Akshay Kumar), which they accept. In the process, Payal and Devraj fall in love with each other,much to the opposition of Bismillah (Mukesh Khanna), Devraj's guardian on one hand; and Police Inspector Amit (Rajat Bedi), and Payal's brother Ravi (Vivek Shaq) on the other. What results is that Ravi is killed with Devraj being blamed and arrested. Payal tesitifies against him, and Devraj is sentenced to be hanged. When Bismillah finds about this plot tracks them down but Amit so as to save him and Payal kills him. But Devraj escapes from custody, and begins to plot vengeance against his enemies, including Payal, as well as the real killer of Ravi. As the story unfolds, it is revealed that Amit was the one who killed Ravi and joined Thakral to frame Devraj for it. But Amit betrays Thakral and kills him. He then takes Payal on a flight where Devraj tracks him down and kills him. The story ends with Payal and Devraj getting married.
578415	Nang Nak () is a romantic tragedy and horror film directed by Nonzee Nimibutr in 1999 through Buddy Film and Video Production Co. in Thailand, based on a legend. It features the life of a devoted ghost wife and the unsuspecting husband.
1064689	Shriek If You Know What I Did Last Friday the Thirteenth is a 2000 American direct-to-video parody film directed by John Blanchard. The film stars Tiffani-Amber Thiessen, Tom Arnold, Coolio and Shirley Jones. Several mid and late '90s teen horror films are parodied, as are the slasher films of the '70s and '80s, including the "Scream" films (1996, 1997, and 2000), "Friday the 13th" (1980), "Halloween" (1978), "A Nightmare on Elm Street" (1984), and "I Know What You Did Last Summer" (1997), as well as other non horror films and television series. Although there are many different films parodied, the film follows the plot of "Scream" (1996) very closely. It is often compared to "Scary Movie", a commercially successful spoof from the same year, which had as a working title "Scream If You Know What I Did Last Halloween". Plot. While in her house alone dimwitted teenager Screw (Aimee Graham) is attacked by "The Killer". While being chased, Screw accidentally runs into a bug zapper and her face gets electrocuted. The killer, feeling disappointed that he was not the cause of her death, lights up a cigarette, leading to the melting of his Jason Voorhees mask into a "Scream" mask. The next day, new kid Dawson Deery (Harley Cross) signs up at Bulimia Falls High School, meeting up with a new group of friends including Boner (Danny Strong), Slab (Simon Rex), Barbara (Julie Benz) and Martina (Majandra Delfino), to whom Dawson takes a liking, though he is not sure if she is a lesbian. While the group discusses the death of Screw, they remain certain they are safe in school, not noticing the chaos that surrounds them, including a nuclear bomb being built and the killer attempting to murder a student. The group encounters EmpTV News reporter Hagitha Utslay (Tiffani-Amber Thiessen), who is covering a series of murders, having already written a best-selling pop-up book about them, and accuses Dawson as the killer. They then meet Barbara's brother Doughy (Tom Arnold), an inept security guard who recenly lost his job patrolling a shopping mall and is working to find the killer; however, he believes Screw's death was a harmless prank. As the group talks, they do not notice Hagitha's cameraman being murdered. As the day progresses, more and more students are murdered. While in class, each of the group receives a letter from the killer, revealing he knows a secret about them. Each of the group recalls a time when they were drunk-driving and hit a deer, before dumping it in the sea. This event leads each to keep their own secrets; Martina not giving her grandmother laxatives, Boner accidentally causing his brother to be killed in prison, Slab smoking his uncle's ashes, and Barbara having sex with multiple guys, resulting in many STDs. Meanwhile, Hagitha and Doughy continuously flirt with each other. As the group meets up, Dawson gets a letter too, as he was in fact run over by the others while dressed up in a deer costume. The group decides they should spend the night in a secluded house, so they each arrange to go to Slab's after school. As the day progresses, each of the group members are attacked but manage to escape. The killer confronts Principal Interest (Coolio), but he electrocutes himself in a bathtub.
1103122	Terence "Terry" Chi-Shen Tao FAA FRS () (born 17 July 1975, Adelaide), is an Australian mathematician working in harmonic analysis, partial differential equations, additive combinatorics, ergodic Ramsey theory, random matrix theory, and analytic number theory. He currently holds the James and Carol Collins chair in mathematics at the University of California, Los Angeles. He was one of the recipients of the 2006 Fields Medal. Personal life. Tao was a child prodigy, one of the subjects in the longitudinal research on exceptionally gifted children by education researcher Miraca Gross. His father told the press that at the age of two, during a family gathering, Tao attempted to teach a 5-year-old child arithmetic and English. According to Smithsonian Online Magazine, Tao could carry out basic arithmetic by the age of two. When asked by his father how he knew numbers and letters, he said he learned them from "Sesame Street". Aside from English, Tao speaks Cantonese, but cannot write Chinese. Tao exhibited extraordinary mathematical abilities from an early age, attending university level mathematics courses at the age of nine. He is one of only two children (besides Lenhard Ng) in the history of the Johns Hopkins' Study of Exceptional Talent program to have achieved a score of 700 or greater on the SAT math section while just 8 years old (he scored a 760). In 1986, 1987, and 1988, Tao was the youngest participant to date in the International Mathematical Olympiad, first competing at the age of ten, winning a bronze, silver, and gold medal respectively. He remains the youngest winner of each of the three medals in the olympiad's history winning the gold medal when he barely turned fourteen. At age 14, Tao attended the Research Science Institute. When he was 15 he published his first assistant paper. He received his bachelor's and master's degrees (at the age of 16) from Flinders University under Garth Gaudry. In 1992 he won a Fulbright Scholarship to undertake postgraduate study in the United States. From 1992 to 1996, Tao was a graduate student at Princeton University under the direction of Elias Stein, receiving his Ph.D. at the age of 20. He joined the faculty of the University of California, Los Angeles in 1996. When he was 24, he was promoted to full professor at UCLA and remains the youngest person ever appointed to that rank by the institution. Tao's father was born and grew up in Shanghai, and Tao's mother is Cantonese by ethnicity. His parents are first generation immigrants from Hong Kong to Australia. His father, Billy Tao () is a pediatrician, and his mother, Grace Tao, is a physics and mathematics graduate from the University of Hong Kong, formerly a secondary school teacher of mathematics in Hong Kong. Tao has two brothers living in Australia, both of whom represented Australia at the International Mathematical Olympiad. Tao, his wife Laura (an engineer at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory), their son and daughter live in Los Angeles, California. Research and awards. Tao has won numerous honors and awards. He received the Salem Prize in 2000, the Bôcher Memorial Prize in 2002, and the Clay Research Award in 2003, for his contributions to analysis including work on the Kakeya conjecture and wave maps. In 2005, he received the American Mathematical Society's Levi L. Conant Prize with Allen Knutson, and in 2006 he was awarded the SASTRA Ramanujan Prize. In 2004, Ben Green and Tao released a preprint proving what is now known as the Green–Tao theorem. This theorem states that there are arbitrarily long arithmetic progressions of prime numbers. "The New York Times" described it this way:
584982	Namo Venkatesa is a 2010 Telugu language film, starring Venkatesh and Trisha Krishnan in the lead roles. The film is directed by Srinu Vytla, who recently gave big hits with "Dhee", "Dubai Seenu", "Ready" and "King". Gopimohan is the story writer. The movie is produced by Achanta Gopichand, Achanta Ram and Anil Sunkara in association with D. Suresh Babu. Plot. Venkata Ramana (Venkatesh) is a ventriloquist. He goes along with the troop of artists to perform for a local Telugu association in Europe. Paris Prasad (Brahmanandam) is a tour organizer in Europe. He enjoys making people around bakras. Pooja (Trisha) is the niece of Prasad. Venkata Ramana falls in love with her. Prasad realises that only way to make Ramana bakra is to tell him that Pooja loves him too. Pooja is the daughter of a rich factionist in Rayalaseema and she is forced to return back in the middle. Her marriage is fixed with a guy she doesn’t like. The rest of the story is all about how Prasad conspires with Ramana to rescue Pooja. Box Office Reception. Film opened to negative reviews from critics still making it a mass hit at box office as it had a lot of comedy. The movie completed 50 days in 122 centres on March 4, 2010 and 100 days Successfully on 27 April, 2010. Soundtrack. The music of the film is composed by Devi Sri Prasad and lyrics by Rama Jhogaya Sastry.
1103602	Peter David Lax (born 1 May 1926) is an American mathematician working in the areas of pure and applied mathematics. He has made important contributions to integrable systems, fluid dynamics and shock waves, solitonic physics, hyperbolic conservation laws, and mathematical and scientific computing, among other fields. Lax is listed as an ISI highly cited researcher. Life and education. Lax was born in Budapest, Hungary to a Jewish family. His parents Klara Kornfield and Henry Lax were both physicians, and his uncle, Albert Kornfeld (also known as Albert Korodi), was a mathematician and a friend of Leó Szilárd. Lax began displaying an interest in mathematics at age twelve, and soon his parents hired Rózsa Péter as a tutor for him. The family left Hungary on November 15, 1941, and traveled via Lisbon to the United States. As a high school student at Stuyvesant High School, Lax took no math classes, but competed on the school math team; in this time, he met with John von Neumann, Richard Courant, and Paul Erdős, who introduced him to Albert Einstein. As he was still 17 when he finished high school, he could avoid military service, and was able to study for three semesters at New York University. In a complex analysis class that he had begun in the role of a student, but ended up taking over as instructor, he met his future wife, Anneli Cahn (married to her first husband at that time). Before being able to complete his studies, Lax was drafted into the U.S. Army. After basic training, the Army sent him to Texas A&M University for more studies, then Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and soon afterwards to the Manhattan Project at Los Alamos, New Mexico. At Los Alamos, he began working as a calculator operator, but eventually moved on to higher-level mathematics. After the war ended, he remained with the Army at Los Alamos for another year, while taking courses at the University of New Mexico, then studied at Stanford University for a semester with Gábor Szegő and George Pólya. Lax returned to NYU for the 1946-1947 academic year, and by pooling credits from the four universities at which he had studied, he graduated that year. He stayed at NYU for his graduate studies, marrying Anneli in 1948 and earning a Ph.D. in 1949 under the supervision of Kurt O. Friedrichs. Work. In a 1958 paper Lax stated a conjecture about matrix representations for third order hyperbolic polynomials which remained unproven for over four decades. Interest in the "Lax conjecture" grew as mathematicians working in several different areas recognized the importance of its implications in their field, until it was finally proven to be true in 2003. Lax holds a faculty position in the Department of Mathematics, Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences, New York University. Awards and honors. He is a member of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters and the National Academy of Sciences, USA. He was awarded the National Medal of Science in 1986, the Wolf Prize in 1987 and the Abel Prize in 2005. In 2012 he became a fellow of the American Mathematical Society. The CDC 6600 Incident. In 1970, the Transcendental Students took a CDC 6600 super computer hostage at NYU's Courant Institute which he had been instrumental in acquiring. Some of the students present, possibly members of the Weathermen, threatened to destroy the computer with incendiary devices, but Lax managed to disable the devices and save the machine. The incident played a role in the resignation of Juergen Moser, director of the Courant Institute in 1967–1970.
1054899	The Red Balloon () is a 1956 fantasy featurette directed by French filmmaker Albert Lamorisse. The thirty-four minute short, which follows the adventures of a young boy who one day finds a sentient, mute, red balloon, was filmed in the Ménilmontant neighborhood of Paris. It won numerous awards, including an Oscar for Lamorisse for writing the best original screenplay in 1956 and the Palme d'Or for short films at the 1956 Cannes Film Festival. The film also became popular with children and educators. This is the only short film to win the Academy Award for Best Writing (Original Screenplay). Lamorisse used his children as actors in the film. His son, Pascal Lamorisse, plays Pascal in the main role, and his daughter Sabine portrays a little girl. Plot. The film, which has a music score but almost no dialogue, tells of Pascal (Pascal Lamorisse), who, on his way to school one morning, discovers a large helium-filled red balloon. As Pascal plays with his newfound toy, he realizes the balloon has a mind and will of its own. It begins to follow him wherever he goes, at times floating outside his bedroom window as Pascal's mother will not allow it in their apartment. The red balloon follows Pascal through the streets of Paris, and the pair draw inquisitive looks from adults and the envy of other children as they wander the streets. At one point the balloon enters Pascal's classroom, causing an uproar from the other pupils. The noise alerts the principal, who becomes angry with Pascal and locks him up in his office until school is over. At another, Pascal and his balloon encounter a little girl (Sabine Lamorisse) with a blue balloon that also seems to have a mind of its own. In their wanderings around the neighborhood, Pascal and the balloon encounter a gang of bullies, who are envious of his balloon, and they soon destroy his new friend. The film ends as the other balloons in Paris come to Pascal's aid and take him on a cluster balloon ride over the city. Production. The film serves as a color record of the Belleville area of Paris which had fallen into decay by the 1960s, prompting the Parisian government to demolish the area as a slum-clearance effort. Part of the site was built up with housing projects; the remainder was left as wasteland for 20 years. Some of what is seen in the film exists no more: one of the bakeries, the famous Y-shaped staircase situated just beyond the equally famous café "Au Repos de la Montagne", the long-gone steep steps of the passage Julien Lacroix where Pascal finds the balloon initially etc., the waste ground where all the battles took place. Instead of them stands today the Parc de Belleville. Exhibition. The film premiered and opened wide in France on October 19, 1956, was released in the United Kingdom on December 23, 1956 (as the supporting film to the 1956 Royal Performance Film "The Battle of the River Plate" ... which ensured it a wide distribution) and was released in the United States on March 11, 1957. The film has been featured in many film festivals over the years, including: the Wisconsin International Children's Film Festival; the Los Angeles Outfest Gay and Lesbian Film Festival; the Wisconsin Film Festival, and others. "The Red Balloon", in its American television premiere, was introduced by then-actor Ronald Reagan as an episode of the CBS anthology series "General Electric Theater" on April 2, 1961. Throughout the 1960s, 1970s, 1980s and early 1990s this film was popular in elementary classrooms throughout the United States and Canada. A four minute clip of the film is on the rotating list of programming on Classic Arts Showcase. Reception. Critical response. Since its first release in 1956, the film has generally received overwhelmingly favorable reviews from film critics. The film critic for "the New York Times", Bosley Crowther, hailed the simple tale and praised director Lamorisse, writing that "Yet with the sensitive cooperation of his own beguiling son and with the gray-blue atmosphere of an old Paris quarter as the background for the shiny balloon, he has got here a tender, humorous drama of the ingenuousness of a child and, indeed, a poignant symbolization of dreams and the cruelty of those who puncture them." When "The Red Balloon" was re-released in the United States in late 2006 by Janus Films, "Entertainment Weekly" magazine film critic Owen Gleiberman, praised the film's direction and simple story line that reminded him of his youth, and wrote, "More than any other children's film, "The Red Balloon" turns me into a kid again whenever I see it ... see "The Red Balloon" is to laugh, and cry, at the impossible joy of being a child again." Film critic Brian Gibson wrote, "So far, this seems a post-Occupation France happy to forget the blood and death of Hitler's war a decade earlier. But soon people’s occasional, playful efforts to grab the floating, carefree balloon become grasping and destructive. In a gorgeous sequence, light streaming down alleys as children's shoes clack and clatter on the cobblestones, the red globe bouncing between the walls, Pascal is hunted down for his floating pet. The film's ballooning sense of hope and freedom is deflated by a fierce, squabbling mass. Then, fortunately, Lamorisse's film floats off, with the breeze of magic-realism, into a feeling of escape and peace, "The Red Balloon" taking hold of Pascal, lifting him out of this rigid, petty, earthbound life." In a review in "The Washington Post," critic Philip Kennicott wrote a cynical view of the film, "film takes place in a world of lies. Innocent lies? Not necessarily. "The Red Balloon" may be the most seamless fusion of capitalism and Christianity ever put on film. A young boy invests in a red balloon the love of which places him on the outside of society. The balloon is hunted down and killed on a barren hilltop–-think Calvary–-by a mob of cruel boys. The ending, a bizarre emotional sucker punch, is straight out of the New Testament. Thus is investment rewarded–with Christian transcendence or, at least, an old-fashioned Assumption. This might be sweet. Or it might be a very cynical reduction of the primary impulse to religious faith." The review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reported that 95% of critics gave the film a positive review, based on twenty reviews." Accolades. Wins Other wins Video and DVD. The film was first released on VHS by Embassy Home Entertainment in 1984. A laserdisc of the film was later released by The Criterion Collection in 1986, and was produced by Criterion, Janus Films, and Voyager Press. Included in the disc was Lamorisse's award-winning short "White Mane" (1953). A DVD version became available in 2008, and a Blu-Ray version was released in the United Kingdom on January 18, 2010; it has now been confirmed as region-free. Related releases. A tie-in book was published, using stills from the film. A soundtrack, featuring music adapted from the film by Lamorisse, was released on the Nonesuch Records label. Adaptations. It was adapted for the stage by Anthony Clark, and was performed at the Royal National Theatre in 1996. "The Red Balloon" has inspired "Flight of the Red Balloon", a 2008 French feature film, directed by Hou Hsiao-hsien and starring Juliette Binoche.
485379	Harold William Kuhn (born 1925) is an American mathematician who studied game theory. He won the 1980 John von Neumann Theory Prize along with David Gale and Albert W. Tucker. A Professor-Emeritus of Mathematics at Princeton University, he is known for the Karush–Kuhn–Tucker conditions, for developing Kuhn poker as well as the description of the Hungarian method for the assignment problem. Recently, though, a paper by Carl Gustav Jacobi, published posthumously in 1890 in Latin, has been discovered that anticipates by many decades the Hungarian algorithm. He is known for his association with John Forbes Nash, as a fellow graduate student, a lifelong friend and colleague, and a key figure in getting Nash the attention of the Nobel Prize committee that led to Nash's 1994 Nobel Prize in Economics. Kuhn and Nash both had long associations and collaborations with Albert W. Tucker, who was Nash's dissertation advisor. Kuhn co-edited "The Essential John Nash", and is credited as the mathematics consultant in the 2001 movie adaptation of Nash's life, "A Beautiful Mind". His oldest son is historian Clifford Kuhn, noted for his scholarship on the American South and for collecting oral history. Another son, Nick Kuhn, is a professor of mathematics at the University of Virginia. His youngest son, Jonathan Kuhn, is Director of Art and Antiquities for the New York City Department of Parks & Recreation.
1016194	La Brassiere () is a 2001 Hong Kong comedy film starring Lau Ching-Wan, Louis Koo, Carina Lau and Gigi Leung. The film was followed by a sequel, titled "Mighty Baby", which was released in 2002. Plot. The film's underlying plot is to create the "ultimate brassiere" for a Japanese company specialising in this undergarment, hence the fanciful title. Samantha (Carina Lau), who is managing the Hong Kong subsidiary of the company, is the project leader of this assignment and she appoints two zany but highly creative designers to aid her in that project, Wayne (Louis Koo) and Johnny (Sean Lau). Johnny flirts with Samantha soon enough, being engaged in such a work, which he claims would assist in his creative powers although the story was more engaged in the humorous efforts in creating the bra. However, Samantha snubbed his overtures and their love affair remained in balance. Meanwhile, during the project various prototypes were tried and tested, but with appalling results. Apparently, Wayne and Johnny being both male were unable to realise the finer points of creating the undergarment. Lena (Gigi Leung), a lover of Wayne and also working on the project then got the inspiration that the "ultimate bra" is the one which incorporates the feeling a woman has when her male lover lovingly supports her breasts. Accordingly, the two designers created just such an undergarment and was approved by their Japanese employers.
581820	Zarina Wahab is an Indian actress and former model, who was critically acclaimed for starring roles, such as in "Chit Chor" and "Gopal Krishna" in the 1970s. She has also appeared in Malayalam films including the critically acclaimed "Madanolsavam", "Chamaram", "Palangal" and "Adaminte Makan Abu". Early life. Wahab was born into an Andhra Muslim family in Kadapa, Andhra Pradesh. She is fluent in Telugu (her mother tongue), Urdu, Hindi and English. She was trained at Film and Television Institute of India (FTII), Pune. Wahab has two sisters and one brother. Career. After receiving negative feedback about her appearance from film producer Raj Kapoor, Wahab worked on her appearance and attended film parties and events. She eventually got noticed and was cast in films. She was usually cast as the middle-class, natural beauty. Wahab had a major hit film in Basu Chatterjee's "Chit Chor" (1976). She earned a "Filmfare" nomination as Best Actress for her role in "Gharonda" (1977). She has acted in Telugu, Tamil, Malayalam films. Wahab made a comeback to Malayalam films with "Calendar", in 2009. She appeared in "My Name Is Khan" as the mother of Rizwan Khan (Shah Rukh Khan's character). Wahab currently plays older roles in television serials. Personal life. Wahab met actor Aditya Pancholi on the sets of "Kalank Ka Tika". Pancholi is 6 years her junior. They married in 1986 and have a daughter, Sana and son Suraj. News of their turbulent marriage, her husband's temper and rumors of infidelity have been in the gossip columns. Wahab's daughter is an actress. Her son, Suraj, was arrested in June, 2013, for aiding and abetting the suicide of his girlfriend, Jiah Khan.
1091441	Subrahmanyam Chandrasekhar, FRS (; October 19, 1910 – August 21, 1995), was an Indian-American astrophysicist who, with William A. Fowler, won the 1983 Nobel Prize for Physics for key discoveries that led to the currently accepted theory on the later evolutionary stages of massive stars. The Chandrasekhar limit is named after him. Chandrasekhar was the nephew of Sir Chandrasekhara Venkata Raman, who won the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1930. Chandrasekhar in distinct periods worked in various areas including stellar structure, theory of white dwarfs, stellar dynamics, theory of radiative transfer, quantum theory of the negative ion of Hydrogen, hydrodynamic and hydromagnetic stability, equilibrium and the stability of ellipsoidal figures of equilibrium, general relativity, mathematical theory of black holes and theory of colliding gravitational waves. Chandrasekhar served on the University of Chicago faculty from 1937 until his death in 1995 at the age of 84. He became a naturalized citizen of the United States in 1953. Early life and education. Chandrasekhar was born on 19 October 1910 in Lahore, Punjab, India to a Tamil Iyer family Sitalakshmi (1891–1931) and Chandrasekhara Subrahmanya Iyer (1885–1960) who was posted in Lahore as Deputy Auditor General of the Northwestern Railways at the time of Chandrasekhar's birth. He was the eldest of their four sons and the third of their ten children. His paternal uncle was the Indian physicist and Nobel laureate C. V. Raman. His mother was devoted to intellectual pursuits, had translated Henrik Ibsen's "A Doll's House" into Tamil and is credited with arousing Chandra's intellectual curiosity at an early age. Chandrasekhar was tutored at home initially through middle school and later attended the Hindu High School, Triplicane, Madras during the years 1922–25. Subsequently, he studied at Presidency College, Madras from 1925 to 1930, writing his first paper, "The Compton Scattering and the New Statistics", in 1929 upon inspiration from a lecture by Arnold Sommerfeld and obtaining his bachelor's degree, B.Sc. (Hon.), in physics in June 1930. In July 1930, Chandrasekhar was awarded a Government of India scholarship to pursue graduate studies at the University of Cambridge, where he was admitted to Trinity College, secured by Professor R. H. Fowler with whom he communicated his first paper. During his travels to England, Chandrasekhar spent his time working out the statistical mechanics of the degenerate electron gas in white dwarf stars, providing relativistic corrections to Fowler's previous work (see Legacy below). In his first year at Cambridge, as a research student of Fowler, Chandrasekhar spent his time in intensive study, calculating mean opacities and applying his results to the construction of an improved model for the limiting mass of the degenerate star, and was introduced to the monthly meetings of the Royal Astronomical Society, where he met Professor E. A. Milne. At the invitation of Max Born he spent the summer of 1931, his second year of post-graduate studies, at Born’s institute at Göttingen, working on opacities, atomic absorption coefficients, and model stellar photospheres. On the advice of Prof. P. A. M. Dirac, he spent his final year of graduate studies at the "Institute for Theoretical Physics" in Copenhagen, where he met Prof. Niels Bohr. After receiving a bronze medal for his work on degenerate stars, in the summer of 1933, Chandrasekhar was awarded his PhD degree at Cambridge with a thesis among his four papers on rotating self-gravitating polytropes, and the following October, he was elected to a Prize Fellowship at Trinity College for the period 1933–37. During this time, he made acquaintance with Sir Arthur Eddington. Chandrasekhar married Lalitha Doraiswamy in September 1936. He had met her as a fellow student, a year junior to him, at Presidency College, Madras. In his Nobel autobiography, Chandrasekhar wrote, "Lalitha's patient understanding, support, and encouragement have been the central facts of my life." Lalitha later died in 2013 in Chicago, IL. Chandrasekhar's infamous encounter with Arthur Eddington in 1935, in which the latter publicly ridiculed Chandra's most famous (and ultimately correct) discovery (see Chandrasekhar limit) led Chandra to consider employment outside of the UK (Later in life, Chandra on multiple occasions, expressed the view that Eddington's behavior was in part racially motivated.) Subsequent life and career. In January 1937, Chandrasekhar was recruited to the University of Chicago faculty as Assistant Professor by Dr. Otto Struve and President Robert Maynard Hutchins. He was to remain at the university for his entire career, becoming Morton D. Hull Distinguished Service Professor of Theoretical Astrophysics in 1952 and attaining emeritus status in 1985. Famously, Chandrasekhar declined many offers from other universities, including one to succeed Henry Norris Russell, the preeminent American astronomer, as director of the Princeton University Observatory. Chandrasekhar did some work at Yerkes Observatory in Williams Bay, Wisconsin, which was run by the University of Chicago. After the Laboratory for Astrophysics and Space Research (LASR) was built by NASA in 1966 at the University, Chandrasekhar occupied one of the four corner offices on the second floor. (The other corners housed John A. Simpson, Peter Meyer, and Eugene N. Parker.) Chandrasekhar lived at 4800 Lake Shore Drive, about a mile from the University, after the high-rise apartment complex was built in the late 1960s. During World War II, Chandrasekhar worked at the Ballistic Research Laboratories at the Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland. While there, he worked on problems of ballistics; for example, two reports from 1943 were titled, "On the decay of plane shock waves" and "The normal reflection of a blast wave". Chandrasekhar's expertise in hydrodynamics led Robert Oppenheimer to invite him to join the Manhattan Project at Los Alamos, but delays in the processing of his security clearance prevented him from contributing to the project. It has been rumored however that he was called to discuss and visit the Calutron project and was the individual responsible for suggesting that young women be used to operate the machines more efficiently than the male scientists assigned to the task. Chandraskhar had used top performing female high school students from Williams Bay, Lake Geneva, Elkhorn and Burlington, Wisconsin to calculate immensely difficult mathematical equations entirely by long hand, and found that their abilities and vigilance were unparalleled. He then applied this first-hand knowledge with the talents of local "hillbilly high school girls" to speed up the slow-moving centrifugal Calutron project. This in turn allowed the enriched radioactive materials to be completed on time, in order to fashion the atomic weapons ultimately used to end the war. Without these raw materials, developed at the Y-12 National Security Complex these weapons never would have been tested or dropped on Japan. Chandrasekhar developed a unique style of mastering several fields of physics and astrophysics; consequently, his working life can be divided into distinct periods. He would exhaustively study a specific area, publish several papers in it and then write a book summarizing the major concepts in the field. He would then move on to another field for the next decade and repeat the pattern. Thus he studied stellar structure, including the theory of white dwarfs, during the years 1929 to 1939, and subsequently focused on stellar dynamics from 1939 to 1943. Next, he concentrated on the theory of radiative transfer and the quantum theory of the negative ion of hydrogen from 1943 to 1950. This was followed by sustained work on hydrodynamic and hydromagnetic stability from 1950 to 1961. In the 1960s, he studied the equilibrium and the stability of ellipsoidal figures of equilibrium, and also general relativity. During the period, 1971 to 1983 he studied the mathematical theory of black holes, and, finally, during the late 80s, he worked on the theory of colliding gravitational waves. Chandra worked closely with his students and expressed pride in the fact that over a 50 year period (from roughly 1930 to 1980), the average age of his co-author collaborators had remained the same, at around 30. He insisted that students address him as "Chandrasekhar" until they received their Ph.D. degree, after which time they (as other colleagues) were encouraged to address him as "Chandra". From 1952 to 1971 Chandrasekhar was editor of the Astrophysical Journal. During the years 1990 to 1995, Chandrasekhar worked on a project devoted to explaining the detailed geometric arguments in Sir Isaac Newton's "Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica" using the language and methods of ordinary calculus. The effort resulted in the book "Newton's Principia for the Common Reader", published in 1995. Chandrasekhar was an honorary member of the International Academy of Science. Chandrasekhar died of a sudden heart attack at the University of Chicago Hospital in 1995, and was survived by his wife, Lalitha Chandrasekhar who passed away on September 2, 2013 at the age of 102. In the "Biographical Memoirs of the Fellows of the Royal Society of London", R. J. Tayler wrote: "Chandrasekhar was a classical applied mathematician whose research was primarily applied in astronomy and whose like will probably never be seen again." Atheism. Once when involved in a discussion about the Gita, Chandrashekhar said, "I should like to preface my remarks with a personal statement in order that my later remarks will not be misunderstood. I consider myself an atheist." This was also confirmed many times in his other talks. However, Chandra admired the teachings of Hinduism. Nobel prize. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1983 for his studies on the physical processes important to the structure and evolution of stars. Chandrasekhar accepted this honor, but was upset that the citation mentioned only his earliest work, seeing it as a denigration of a lifetime's achievement. He shared it with William A. Fowler. Legacy. Chandrasekhar's most notable work was the astrophysical Chandrasekhar limit. The limit describes the maximum mass of a white dwarf star, ~1.44 solar masses, or equivalently, the minimum mass which must be exceeded for a star to ultimately collapse into a neutron star or black hole (following a supernova). The limit was first calculated by Chandrasekhar in 1930 during his maiden voyage from India to Cambridge, England for his graduate studies. In 1999, NASA named the third of its four "Great Observatories" after Chandrasekhar. This followed a naming contest which attracted 6,000 entries from fifty states and sixty-one countries. The Chandra X-ray Observatory was launched and deployed by Space Shuttle "Columbia" on July 23, 1999. The Chandrasekhar number, an important dimensionless number of magnetohydrodynamics, is named after him. The asteroid 1958 Chandra is also named after Chandrasekhar. American astronomer Carl Sagan, who studied Mathematics under Chandrasekhar, at the University of Chicago, praised him in the book "The Demon-Haunted World": "I discovered what true mathematical elegance is from Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar." Chandrashekhar guided 50 students to their PhDs.
1165110	Leo Z. Penn (August 27, 1921 — September 5, 1998) was an American actor and director and the father of musician Michael Penn and actors Sean Penn and Chris Penn. Early life. Penn was born in Lawrence, Massachusetts, the son of Russian Jewish immigrants Elizabeth (née Melincoff) and Maurice Daniel Penn. Leo Penn may have had distant Sephardic ancestry, as his father's surname was originally "Piñon." Penn served in the United States Army Air Forces during World War II as a B-24 Liberator bombardier with the 755th Bomb Squadron, 458th Bomb Group, stationed in England as part of the Eighth Air Force. Politics. Penn supported the Hollywood trade unions and refused to accuse others to the House Un-American Activities Committee. He was blacklisted, and Paramount refused to renew his contract. As a result Penn was not able to work as a movie actor. He found acting work in television, but CBS ousted him after receiving an anonymous accusation that he had addressed a political meeting. Barred from acting in film or TV, he became a director. Career. A life member of The Actors Studio, Penn won the Theatre World Award in 1954 for his performance in the play "The Girl on the Via Flaminia". He acted in numerous roles in the early years of television. In 1956, he was cast as Mr. Rico in the episode "Ringside Padre" of the religion anthology series, "Crossroads". In 1957, he appeared in the episode "One If by Sea" of the military drama series, "Navy Log". He was also cast in an episode of Beverly Garland's 1957-1958 groundbreaking crime drama, "Decoy". In 1960, he played Cabbage in "The Poker Fiend" on Richard Boone's CBS western series, "Have Gun - Will Travel." In 1961, he was cast as Tiko in the episode "The World Is Her Oyster" of the ABC adventure series, "The Islanders", set in the South Pacific. He also appeared in another ABC adventure series, "Straightaway", which focuses on automobile racing.
630816	Callan Ryan Claude McAuliffe (born 24 January 1995) is an Australian actor known for his roles as Bryce Loski in the American feature film "Flipped" and also Sam Goode in "I Am Number Four". He appeared as young Gatsby in the 2013 film "The Great Gatsby". McAuliffe is also the Youth Ambassador of Wolf Connection, a non-profit organization based in California which rescues wolves and wolf-dogs and also a youth education and empowerment program. Life and career. McAuliffe is a native of the Sydney suburb of Clontarf, New South Wales. He is the son of Claudia Keech and Roger McAuliffe, who is a novelist, journalist, and director of Creative Writer. His cousin is actress Jacinta John. His grandparents were Irish. He attended The Scots College, an all-boy day and boarding school. He was the head chorister at the school and topped the London Trinity musical theatre exams and scored high distinction in 2008. He was a track athlete until he got injured, leading him to a stronger focus on the performing arts. McAuliffe started acting at the age of 8, appeared in the local Australian TV series "Comedy Inc." and "Blue Water High", and had a recurring role on "Packed to the Rafters". He starred in the Australian independent coming-of-age short film, "Franswa Sharl", in 2009 and had a role in "Resistance", a U.S./Australian feature film, that year. McAuliffe made his American feature debut in the Warner Bros. film, "Flipped", directed by Rob Reiner. He auditioned for the film while on vacation in the United States and won the role of Bryce, the romantic lead. The film is based on the 2001 novel of the same title by Wendelin Van Draanen. In May 2010, McAuliffe was cast in a lead role in the science fiction film, "I Am Number Four" based on the novel of the same title by Pittacus Lore, the film is produced by Steven Spielberg and Michael Bay. He played Sam, the best friend of Alex Pettyfer's title character, Number Four. The D.J. Caruso-directed film began production in Pittsburgh in May 2010 and was released in the United States on 18 February 2011. McAuliffe filmed the Australian TV miniseries, "Cloudstreet", based on the novel of the same title by Tim Winton. McAuliffe plays the lead, Quick Lamb, a young teenager. McAuliffe appeared as young Gatsby in the 2013 film adaptation of "The Great Gatsby", directed by Baz Luhrmann; Leonardo DiCaprio played the older version of Gatsby. McAuliffe was cast as the archangel Uriel alongside Djimon Hounsou in Alex Proyas' action film, "Paradise Lost", before the project was suspended. In 2012, he starred in the Australian television Movie, "", as one of the teenage Assange's friends involved in the International Subversives. In 3 February 2013, Variety had announced that Callan will play alongside Samuel L. Jackson and India Eisley in the live-action movie remake of 1998 Japanese anime film "Kite". Filming began on 26 February 2013 in South Africa.
1078330	Amy Stiller (born August 9, 1961) is an American actress, stand-up comedian and Bikram Yoga instructor. She was born in New York City, New York, the daughter of the comedy duo Jerry Stiller and Anne Meara (Stiller and Meara), and the older sister of actor Ben Stiller. She married Rodger Bumpass, which is the voice of Squidward Tentacles in Spongebob Squarepants. It happened in 2008.
1103579	In mathematics, discretization concerns the process of transferring continuous models and equations into discrete counterparts. This process is usually carried out as a first step toward making them suitable for numerical evaluation and implementation on digital computers. In order to be processed on a digital computer another process named quantization is essential. Discretization is also related to discrete mathematics, and is an important component of granular computing. In this context, "discretization" may also refer to modification of variable of category "granularity", as when multiple discrete variables are aggregated or multiple discrete categories fused. Discretization of linear state space models. Discretization is also concerned with the transformation of continuous differential equations into discrete difference equations, suitable for numerical computing. The following continuous-time state space model where "v" and "w" are continuous zero-mean white noise sources with covariances can be discretized, assuming zero-order hold for the input "u" and continuous integration for the noise "v", to with covariances where and formula_16 is the sample time, although formula_17 is the transposed matrix of formula_11. A clever trick to compute "Ad" and "Bd" in one step is by utilizing the following property, p. 215: and then having Discretization of process noise. Numerical evaluation of formula_22 is a bit trickier due to the matrix exponential integral. It can, however, be computed by first constructing a matrix, and computing the exponential of it (Van Loan, 1978): The discretized process noise is then evaluated by multiplying the transpose of the lower-right partition of G with the upper-right partition of G: Derivation. Starting with the continuous model we know that the matrix exponential is and by premultiplying the model we get which we recognize as and by integrating.. which is an analytical solution to the continuous model. Now we want to discretise the above expression. We assume that u is constant during each timestep. We recognize the bracketed expression as formula_36, and the second term can be simplified by substituting formula_37. We also assume that formula_38 is constant during the integral, which in turn yields which is an exact solution to the discretization problem. Approximations. Exact discretization may sometimes be intractable due to the heavy matrix exponential and integral operations involved. It is much easier to calculate an approximate discrete model, based on that for small timesteps formula_40. The approximate solution then becomes: Other possible approximations are formula_42 and formula_43. Each of them have different stability properties. The last one is known as the bilinear transform, or Tustin transform, and preserves the (in)stability of the continuous-time system. Discretization of continuous features. In statistics and machine learning, discretization refers to the process of converting continuous features or variables to discretized or nominal features. This can be useful when creating probability mass functions.
1760738	The Curiosity of Chance is a 2006 comedy film directed by Russell P. Marleau, produced by Bigfoot Entertainment and starring Tad Hilgenbrink. Plot. In 1980s Europe, flamboyant and gay 16-year-old Chance Marquis shows up at an international high school in a top hat and tails, immediately attracting the attention of the "queer-hating" resident bully, among others. Through his involvement in the school newspaper, he meets an introverted photographer with a mysterious briefcase, and while practicing tennis, he befriends a catty fashionista, both of whom act as his wingmen in his new high school. He also meets the jock-next-door, with whom he forms a tentative friendship, despite the jock's cacophonous group of friends. The film follows Chance through a year of high school, with its attendant drama, successes, and hijinks—including sneaking into a drag bar, where Chance begins to explore his true self. Themes underscored throughout the film include facing one's fears as one grows into adulthood, and the barriers that people put up in order to cope with life. Chance claims to be strong with his nonchalant attitude, but when photos of him in drag show up all over school, Chance must face his own preachings of staying true to oneself.
1045633	Young and Innocent (American title: "The Girl Was Young") is a 1937 British crime thriller film directed by Alfred Hitchcock and starring Nova Pilbeam and Derrick De Marney. Based on the 1936 novel "A Shilling for Candles" by Josephine Tey, the film is about a young man on the run from a murder charge who enlists the help of a woman who must put herself at risk for his cause. It is notable for an elaborately staged crane shot Hitchcock devised towards the end of the film, which identifies the real murderer. Plot. Christine Clay (Pamela Carme), a successful actress, argues passionately with her jealous ex-husband Guy (George Curzon), who makes particular reference to Robert Tisdall, a young man staying near her at her retreat on the English coast. Christine slaps him several times across the face, but he hardly reacts, choosing instead to depart without a word. The next morning, Robert Tisdall (Derrick De Marney) happens to be walking along the seaside cliffs when Christine's body washes ashore. He runs to get help and call the police, but two young swimmers arrive just in time to see him racing away from the corpse. A belt from his raincoat, which had just recently gone missing, is found next to the body, further implicating him in her strangling. He is subsequently arrested and becomes the main suspect, partly because of a large sum of money Christine left to him in her will, a gift he was unaware of. Saddled with a despondent barrister, Tisdall doubts if his innocence will ever be established. He elects to take advantage of a crowded courthouse and make his escape. Tisdall coerces Erica Burgoyne (Nova Pilbeam), daughter of the local police Chief Constable, to give him a ride in her Morris car. Though she is initially unsure about her passenger, Burgoyne eventually becomes convinced of his innocence and elects to help him in any way that she can. They are eventually spotted together, forcing both to stay on the run. Tisdall tries to prove his innocence by tracking down the stolen coat. The duo succeed in tracking down Old Will (Edward Rigby), a sociable china-mender and bum that was known to have received Tisdall's coat. He agrees to help them find the man who gave him the coat; unfortunately, all that Old Will can remember about the man is his distinctive eye twitch. Upon searching the pockets of the coat, Erica finds a box of matches from the Grand Hotel, a place Tisdall has never been to. She is separated from the group, however, and taken in by the police. Upon realising that his daughter has fully allied herself with the murder suspect, her father chooses to resign his position as Chief Constable rather than arrest her for assisting Tisdall. Nonetheless, Erica and Old Will go to the Grand Hotel together, hoping to find the true murderer. In a memorably long, continuous sequence, the camera moves forward through the hotel ballroom, finally focusing on the drummer in a dance band performing in blackface. Recognizing Old Will in the audience, and seeing policemen nearby (unaware that they have followed Old Will in the hopes of finding Tisdall), the man performs poorly due to fear and a drug he has been taking to try to control the twitching, and is berated by the musical conductor. Eventually the drummer faints in the middle of a performance, drawing the attention of Erica and the policemen. Immediately after being revived and confronted, he confesses his crime and begins laughing hysterically. Changes from the novel. There were significant changes made in adapting the book for the film. The team of screenwriters took the main suspect of the novel, Robert Tisdall, and his unexpected, initially reluctant supporter, Erica Burgoyne, and left out all the other characters, including Tey's Inspector Alan Grant and even the original murderer (who is not the same character as in the film). In other words, the episode focusing on Tisdall as a fugitive from justice was elaborated and blown up into a full-length film, whereas the subplots and distractions of Tey's novel—which make it a whodunit—were omitted. Hitchcock's cameo. Alfred Hitchcock cameo is a signature occurrence in most of his films. He can be seen outside the courthouse, holding a camera at 16 minutes into the film. References in Popular Culture. On the Mike Oldfield album "Five Miles Out", on the track "Orabidoo", at 9'12" there can be heard a sample of the conductor criticising the drummer: "Don't come in again like that. It isn't funny and I pay someone else to make the orchestrations!"
1059431	Flushed Away is a 2006 British/American computer animated action/adventure comedy film directed by David Bowers and Sam Fell. It was made in the partnership between Aardman Animations and DreamWorks Animation, and is Aardman's first completely computer-animated feature as opposed to the usual stop-motion. The film stars the voice talents of Hugh Jackman, Kate Winslet, Andy Serkis, Bill Nighy, Ian McKellen, Shane Richie and Jean Reno. The story was by Sam Fell, Peter Lord, Dick Clement, and Ian La Frenais, and the screenplay was written by Dick Clement, Ian La Frenais, Christopher Lloyd, Joe Keenan, and William Davies. The film was released in US on 3 November 2006, and in UK on 1 December 2006, and was distributed by Paramount Pictures, except for Switzerland, Spain, and the Netherlands, which were handled by Universal Pictures. Plot. Roddy St. James (Hugh Jackman) is a decidedly upper crust pet rat who makes his home in a posh Kensington flat. While his owners are away on holiday Roddy plays around the house. A common sewer rat named Sid (Shane Richie) comes spewing out of the sink and decides to stay, especially as England are playing against Germany in the World Cup final. Roddy schemes to get rid of Sid by luring him into the "jacuzzi", which is actually the toilet. Sid isn't fooled at all and instead pushes Roddy in and flushes him away into the sewer. There, Roddy discovers a city resembling London made out of various bits of junk, and meets Rita Malone (Kate Winslet), an enterprising scavenger rat who works the drains in her faithful boat, the "Jammy Dodger". Rita does not like Roddy initially, but ends up taking him along, while her arch enemy The Toad (Ian McKellen) sends his rat henchmen, Spike (Andy Serkis) and Whitey (Bill Nighy), after her because she had stolen back her father's prized ruby a long time ago. The Toad despises all rodents to the point of hateful obsession. He plans to have them frozen with liquid nitrogen inside an icemaker. The pair escape, and Rita takes a unique electrical cable that, unknown to everyone but the Toad, is required to control the floodgates. Roddy finds that the ruby is a fake and breaks it in front of Rita, enraging her, for she can now not get the money she needs for her large family. Roddy offers her a real ruby if she takes him back to Kensington. Accepting the offer, the pair first stop to visit her family before setting off. During Roddy's stay, he overhears a conversation that causes him to think that Rita had double-crossed him, so he steals the "Jammy Dodger". When Rita catches up to him, she is able to clear up the misunderstanding. The pair evade Spike and Whitey pursuing in a remote-controlled toy boat, with Thimblenose Ted and others on eggbeater jet skis. During this scene, Roddy and Rita share a quick love moment. Incensed at his minions’ repeated failures, The Toad sends for his French cousin; an infamous, if somewhat laid back, mercenary known as Le Frog (Jean Reno). During this scene, it is revealed that The Toad was once Prince Charles' pet, but was replaced by a pet rat, and subsequently flushed down a toilet. Le Frog and his subordinates intercept the duo and retrieve the cable, but Roddy and Rita use a plastic bag to lift themselves out of the sewer (snatching away the cable during the ascent) and get Roddy home, though the "Jammy Dodger" is destroyed. Back home, Roddy pays Rita the promised ruby and an emerald, then proceeds to show her around his house. She at first believes he has family in the home, but noticing his cage, she realises he's a pet. Roddy tries to pass Sid off as his brother, but Sid and Rita know each other. Rita tries to persuade Roddy to come with her, but he is too proud to admit that he is lonely. By now, they have fallen in love but have not told each other their feelings. She departs, both of them broken-hearted, but is soon captured by The Toad. Talking to Sid about half-time, Roddy pieces together The Toad's plan: to open the gates during halftime of the World Cup, when all the humans will most likely be using their toilets, causing a great flood and drowning the rats and their underground city in sewage. He can then use the depopulated city as a home for his own tadpole offspring. He gives Sid his cushy position and has him flush him back to the sewers to find Rita and save the city. Together, they defeat The Toad and freeze the wave of sewage generated by the flushing of countless toilets during half-time with liquid nitrogen before it drowns the entire rat population. Rita and Roddy build the "Jammy Dodger Mark Two" and set off in her with Rita's entire brood. A newspaper article reveals England had lost on penalties. Later while the credits start, Roddy's former owner Tabitha comes back with a new pet cat, which scares Sid. Production. The film's original concept involved pirates, and was pitched to DreamWorks soon after the release of "Chicken Run" in 2000. However, Aardman were told that there was no market for pirate films (this was before ' was released to great success in 2003), and were told to modernise the concept. By the time the rewrite was done, the project had to be postponed to make way for the production of '; it was finally released after not only the original "Pirates of the Caribbean", but also its . The film's working title was "Ratropolis", but it was changed due to its similarity to Disney-Pixar's "Ratatouille". In Spain, the movie was released as "Ratónpolis" ("ratón" is Spanish for "mouse"). The Latin-American title for the film was "Lo que el agua se llevó" ("Gone with the Water"), a pun on "Gone with the Wind". Traditionally, Aardman have used stop-motion for their animated features, but it is very complex to render water with this technique, and using real water can damage plasticine models. It would have been very expensive to composite CGI into shots that include water, of which there are many in the movie, so they chose to make "Flushed Away" their first all-CGI production. The characters still resemble Aardman's classic characters, as the designs were taken straight from the original plasticine models. Several techniques were employed to give the impression of stop-motion animation, such as using replacement mouths for lip-synch rather than the interpolation typically seen in computer animation. The film underwent many changes and versions, resulting in an inflated budget. For example, Roddy originally had two hamster manservants named Gilbert and Sullivan that were featured heavily in early trailers. This is the third of three Aardman-produced films released by DreamWorks. Aardman's experience with DreamWorks during the making of the film led to a split between the two studios. Marketing. Soundtrack. On Halloween (31 October) of 2006, the "Flushed Away: Music from the Motion Picture" soundtrack was released. Video game. Coinciding with the film's release, a video game adaptation was released on the PlayStation 2, Nintendo GameCube, Game Boy Advance, and on the Nintendo DS. Although having heavily negative reviews from critics, the game received an Annie Award for best animated video game. Home video release. "Flushed Away" was released on DVD 20 February 2007. It included behind the scenes, deleted info, Jammy Dodger videos and all new slug songs. It was released in the UK on 2 April 2007, where it was also packaged with a plasticine 'Slug Farm' kit. Reception. Critical response. "Flushed Away" has a 72% "fresh" rating on Rotten Tomatoes with an average rating of 6.7/10 based on 130 reviews. The site's critical consensus reads "Clever and appealing for both children and adults, "Flushed Away" marks a successful entry into digital animated features for Aardman Animations." Metacritic, which assigns a weighted average score out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, gives the film a score of 74, indicating "generally favorable reviews." James Verniere of the "Boston Herald" said: "Without doubt the worst title of the year, "Flushed Away" is also the best animated film of the year, and if you didn't think it was possible for slugs to be funny, think again." Box office. "Flushed Away" collected $64,488,856 in the United States, which was below the average of other CGI films from DreamWorks Animation, but $111,814,663 from international markets for a worldwide total of $176,319,242. Produced on a budget of $149 million, poor box office reception resulted in a $109-million write-down for DreamWorks Animation, and in a termination of the partnership with Aardman Animations.
589160	Aashirwad is a 1968 Bollywood film, directed by Hrishikesh Mukherjee. The film stars Ashok Kumar and Sanjeev Kumar. The film is notable for its inclusion of a rap-like song performed by Ashok Kumar, "Rail Gaadi". Plot summary. Jogi Thakur (Ashok Kumar) is a simple man of high principles. He is a resident son-in-law who, with his wife, has been bequeathed property and estates by his father-in-law. He breaks his marriage to an autocratic landlady (Veena) when he finds out that on her wife's order, the chief accountant of the estate has cunningly obtained his signatures on an order that the houses of the poor be burnt. He leaves home, vowing never to return as long as he lives, leaving his daughter Neena behind. He moves to Mumbai where he makes a living by entertaining children in a park(the famous song "Rail Gaadi", said to be India's first rap number). He is specially fond of a girl whose name, incidentally, is Neena (played by baby Sarika), too. Unfortunately the girl takes ill and dies.
583885	Thoranai (Dubbed in Hindi as "Vishal Ki Kurbani") is a 2009 Indian Tamil-language film starring Vishal and Shriya in the lead roles, whilst, supporting actor Prakash Raj plays another prominent role. Directed by Iyappan, and produced by Vishal's home company, GK Films, the film released in 29 May 2009 to mixed reviews. The Telugu version, titled "Pistha", was filmed and released simultaneously. The movie was led into a controversy for a kissing scene between the lead pair and the images were released online, later the producer reconciled that the scene were released without permission and it was not to evoke anything vulgar emotions. Some still claim that the photos were released intentionally for advertising purpose as it had the top actress Shriya kissing with Vishal. It failed to do well at the box office Plot. Guru (Kishore) and Thamizharasu (Prakashraj) are dreaded gangsters in Chennai. They are against pitted each other and fight to establish their supremacy in city. They indulge in gang war painting Chennai red. Enters Murugan (Vishal). A native of Madurai, he comes to Chennai with a mission. He leaves his village promising his mother (Geetha) that he would return only with his brother, who had run away from the house about two decades ago. Murugan gets the help of his friend Veluchamy (Santhanam). He comes across the gangsters and a sequence of events results in him incurring both their wrath. In a bloody duel with Guru, he comes to know that he is his brother, whom he has been searching for long. Now he is entrusted with the task of protecting him from Thamizharasu. How he accomplishes his task forms the crux.
1067526	Meet the Deedles is a 1998 American comedy film directed by Steve Boyum and starring Paul Walker and Steve Van Wormer. It was the first theatrically released film to be produced by DIC Entertainment since 1986 (after ""). Its name is a play on the Beatles album "Meet The Beatles". It is also one of Disney's attempts to capitalize on surf culture, the other two prime examples are "Johnny Tsunami" and "Rip Girls". Plot. Phil Deedle (Paul Walker) and Stew Deedle (Steve Van Wormer) are two fraternal twin brothers who are complete surf bums living in Hawaii off of their wealthy father. After the two decide to skip out on school to go on a special surfing expedition with friends for their 18th birthday, the twins are expelled from their high school for truancy. Their father Elton Deedle (Eric Braeden) has become tired of their insolence and lazy lifestyle and thus decides to ship them to a boot camp to straighten them out. The boys are horrified that they’re going to have to fly state-side in order for this to happen, as the camp is located in Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming. The boys arrive in Wyoming ill prepared for the far-cooler weather, disembarking from their plane dressed in shorts, flip-flops and hula shirts. They attract the attention of a small crowd when they summon a remote controlled crate containing a mini-bar that they use to create hula drinks. Afterwards they leave the terminal, noticing a gruff looking mountain man whom they make fun of, to their shock the man reveals a sign with their last names written on it, indicating he’s their ride. Major Flowers (M. C. Gainey) is already disgusted with their behavior, on the drive back to Yellowstone from the airport, Flowers reveals that his once successful camp was shut down by the children’s parents and their lawyers but the camp wasn’t necessary anymore because he intended for the Deedles to undergo survival training. Flowers becomes distracted in describing his plan and fails to pay attention to the road, eventually driving over the edge of a hillside and crashing into a river. Thinking he had killed the Deedles, he runs off thinking he’ll hide from the authorities. The Deedles awaken from their crash and find some women’s clothing that had caught onto Flower’s truck before it crashed, since it was their only option for dry clothes they opted to wear them. After, they begin to hike towards the parks main entrance, they find some of their gear and decide to land-luge down a long hill with their hula crate remotely in tow. They bypass a long line of traffic awaiting entry into Yellowstone but unable to slow down or gain enough control of their boards they crash into the park’s sign and are then collided into by the hula machine—cracking their helmets off. When the Park Rangers arrived, the only identity the boys had on them were the names “Mel” written on Phil’s sweatshirt tag and “Mo” written on Stew’s. After the incident the boys are carted off to the Ranger medical center and nursed back to health and decide to assume the false identities as it appears to be a one-way ticket to success and approval of their father. The boys find it difficult to live in their new identities, as the park rangers have already learned that the “real” Mel and Mo are vegetarians, thus the boys are forced to become such as well in order to maintain their cover. Because of their dimwitted surfer nature, the boys do not click well with the commanding park ranger, Captain Pine, although Phil falls for his stepdaughter Lt. Jesse Ryan whom the Captain is very protective of. This leads to a series of accidents all of which the Deedles are to blame for and land them in disfavor with Captain Pine. Through their trials, the Deedles inadvertently discover that an ex-park ranger named Slater (Dennis Hopper) feels he’s been betrayed by the park, the Rangers and mainly Captain Pine and so he has created a secret bunker underground near Old Faithful and has devised a plan to divert Old Faithful’s waterflow into a new geyser he’s created on his own land which he is christened “New Faithful”. Unable to win any support for investigation from their fellow rangers, the Deedles take matters into their own hands and attempt to thwart Slater’s plan. However, the real Mel and Mo arrive at the Ranger’s base at a very untimely moment to reveal that Phil and Stew are not who they say they are. Pine, Jesse and the other rangers are disgusted with their dishonesty and banish them from Yellowstone. As the Deedles are walking down the highway attempting to hitch-hike, the big picture dawns on Phil and they devise a plan to get back into Yellowstone in order to stop Slater once-and-for-all. They rig a grappling hook into a grate in the roadway, and as an unsuspecting car passes it would catch the undercarriage and tow the Deedles (who are wearing parachutes), essentially a land version of parasailing. From a few hundred feet up in the air, they both notice a familiar stench and discover the person towing them is none other than Major Flowers—who becomes distracted by his stowaways and subsequently drives over a cliff (again) landing himself in a river. The boys parachute to the entrance for Slaters underground tunnel network and go underground, where they locate and subdue Slater’s two cronies Mr. Crabbe (Richard Lineback) and Mr. Nemo (Robert Englund). They devise a plan to re-divert the water from New Faithful back to Old Faithful, and to escape by donning heat-resistance suits and escaping through the plumbing and through Old Faithful’s spout. The plan succeeds, Slater is exposed and the Deedles become heroes for saving Old Faithful. In a fortunate turn of events, the force of the explosion of water was so great it created a small lake which naturally created waves large enough to surf on, and the boys were able to create a park out of it. Earning the respect of their father for their success, from Captain Pine for their help in saving Yellowstone, and for Phil the love of Jesse. Reception. Reviews for the film were almost unanimously negative, claiming the film was nothing more than a poor attempt to revive the goofball duo genre of films such as "Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure" and "Dumb & Dumber". Areas of the film that drew the most criticism were its two-dimensional characters, overuse of surfer slang, ludicrous plot, and questionable morals. Cast. The film also features cameos from former Oingo Boingo members Steve Bartek, Johnny "Vatos" Hernandez, Carl Graves, and Sam "Sluggo" Phipps as the band at the luau. Soundtrack. The original music for the film was composed by former Oingo Boingo member Steve Bartek. Most of the songs featured on the soundtrack were from third-wave ska bands, as the genre was at the peak of its popularity at the time of the film's release.
1062854	, born , January 6, 1981, is a Japanese actress. Kikuchi is the first Japanese actress to be nominated for an Academy Award in 50 years, for the 2006 movie "Babel". She also starred in Guillermo del Toro's science fiction action film "Pacific Rim". Life and career. Kikuchi debuted in 1999, under her birth name, Yuriko Kikuchi, with the Kaneto Shindo–directed film . Soon after, in 2001, she starred in the celebrated Kazuyoshi Komuri–directed film , which was featured at several international film festivals, including the Rotterdam Film Festival. In 2004, she appeared in the much-commended Katsuhito Ishii–directed film , which was selected for the Cannes Film Festival. In 2006, she was cast by Japanese film producer Yoko Narahashi in the Alejandro González Iñárritu film "Babel", where she played Chieko Wataya, a deaf-mute teenage girl, in a role for which she received international attention and was nominated for numerous awards, including the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. She won several, such as the National Board of Review Award for Best Breakthrough Female Performance (tying with Jennifer Hudson) and the Gotham Award for Best Breakthrough. Kikuchi is also the fifth actress in Academy Award history to be nominated for an award for a role in which she does not speak a word. (The others were Jane Wyman, Patty Duke, Holly Hunter, and Samantha Morton.) Kikuchi has appeared in two Mamoru Oshii movies: 2008's "The Sky Crawlers" and "Assault Girls" (2009). She starred in Rian Johnson's second film, 2009's "The Brothers Bloom", which was her first fully English-language feature. Though she plays a main character, she only speaks three words in the film; her character is said to only know three words of English. In March 2011, she was named to the Keanu Reeves–led cast of "47 Ronin", the first English-language adaptation of the Chushingura legend, Japan's most famous tale of samurai loyalty and revenge. In 2013, Kikuchi starred alongside Charlie Hunnam and Idris Elba in "Pacific Rim", directed by Guillermo del Toro. The film in general and Kikuchi's performance in particular were well-received by critics.
1053843	Peter Francis Dante (born December 16, 1968) is an American actor. He has been in most "Happy Madison" films with his friend, Adam Sandler. Career. His roles are usually alongside Jonathan Loughran and/or Allen Covert. He played "Peter" in "Little Nicky". In "Grandma's Boy" he played "Dante". He also played a gay man named Tommy in Adam Sandler's movie "Big Daddy". He played the quarterback Gee Grenouille in "The Waterboy" and Murph in "Mr. Deeds". He played a security guard in "50 First Dates". Dante was a writer, actor and producer for the film "Grandma's Boy". In the film, Dante plays a zany drug dealer with a pet chimpanzee, lion and elephant. He played the role of firefighter in the film "I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry", and the role of Danny Guiterrez in "Strange Wilderness". He also played the role of Steve Spirou's son in Adam Sandler's 2012 film "That's My Boy" Music. Dante is also a musician and singer/songwriter. He recorded with Adam Sandler and Buck Simmonds. He is a member of the music group Rad Omen along with Dirt Nasty, DJ Troublemaker, Steven Laing, and Benji Madden.
198698	Niels Fabian Helge von Koch (Stockholm, 25 January 1870 – "ibidem", 11 March 1924) was a Swedish mathematician who gave his name to the famous fractal known as the Koch snowflake, one of the earliest fractal curves to be described. He was born into a family of Swedish nobility. His grandfather, Nils Samuel von Koch (1801–1881), was the Attorney-General of Sweden. His father, Richert Vogt von Koch (1838–1913) was a Lieutenant-Colonel in the Royal Horse Guards of Sweden. He was enrolled at the newly created Stockholm University College in 1887 (studying under Gösta Mittag-Leffler), and at Uppsala University in 1888, where he also received his bachelor's degree ("filsofie kandidat") since non-governmental college in Stockholm had not yet received the rights to issue degrees. He received his Ph.D. in Uppsala in 1892. He was appointed professor of mathematics at the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm in 1905, succeeding Ivar Bendixson, and became professor of pure mathematics at Stockholm University College in 1911. Von Koch wrote several papers on number theory. One of his results was a 1901 theorem proving that the Riemann hypothesis is equivalent to a stronger form of the prime number theorem. He described the Koch curve in a 1904 paper entitled "On a continuous curve without tangents constructible from elementary geometry" ("original French title: "Sur une courbe continue sans tangente, obtenue par une construction géométrique élémentaire"").
588600	Marupakkam "(The Other Side)" (1990) is an award-winning drama feature film directed by K.S. Sethu Madhavan. The film is in Tamil with English subtitles. It stars Sivakumar, Jayabharathi, and Radha. The film's music is composed by L. Vaidyanathan. It won 3 National Film Awards in 1991, including the Golden Lotus Award for Best Film. The film was featured at the International Film Festival of India in 2003 as part of a retrospective tribute to its director K.S. Sethu Madhavan. Plot. The film is inspired by a novel "Uchi Veyyil" written by Indra Parthasarathy. The film revolves around Ambi, a young man in his early thirties. Ambi arrives in Kumbakonam from Delhi to see his ailing father, Vembu Iyer (Sivakumar). His father, an orthodox religious scholar, revered for his knowledge in vedic studies, is now ill, having only his memories to accompany him. The state of his father is a shock to Ambi. The two fell out over Ambi's love and subsequent marriage to a Christian girl Sweetie in Delhi. Barely able to recognise his son now, Vembu Iyer ponders in total silence, as Janaki (Jayabharathi), Ambi's mother, shares with her son what has happened since he left for Delhi. Over time, he overhears his father mutter the name of Ambi's stepmother Avayam (Radha). Before his marriage to Janaki, Vembu Iyer intensely loved Avayam, much to the anger and diapproval of Vembu's own mother, who hated her daughter-in-law as she loved to dance. Eventually, Avayam and Vembu separated because of the pressure. Beginning to understand that guilt might be a reason why his father has retreated into silence over his own marriage, Ambi suggests bringing his stepmother Avayam to the house. Janaki, a traditional, submissive woman by nature is upset by the proposition, becoming frustrated at the prospect of sharing her husband with another woman. Eventually, Ambi's friend Murthy helps to reach a solution. Awards. The film has won the following awards since its release: 1991 National Film Awards (India)
1055157	Monsoon Wedding is a 2001 film directed by Mira Nair and written by Sabrina Dhawan, which depicts romantic entanglements during a traditional Punjabi Hindu wedding in Delhi. Writer Sabrina Dhawan wrote the first draft of the screenplay in a week while she was at Columbia University's MFA film program. "Monsoon Wedding" earned just above $30 million at the box office. Although it is set entirely in New Delhi, the film was an international co-production between companies in India, the United States, Italy, France, and Germany. The film won the Golden Lion award and received a Golden Globe Award nomination. A musical based on the film is currently in development and is scheduled to premiere on Broadway in April 2014. This film is part of the Criterion Collection. Plot. The film's central story concerns a father, Lalit Verma (Naseeruddin Shah), who is trying to organise an enormous, chaotic, and expensive wedding for his daughter, Aditi (Vasundhara Das), for whom he has arranged a marriage with a man she has known for only a few weeks (Parvin Dabas as Hemant Rai). As so often happens in the Punjabi culture, such a wedding means that, for one of the few times each generation, the extended family comes together from all corners of the globe including India, Australia, Oman, and the United States, bringing its emotional baggage along. It is a story set in the modern upper-middle class of India, where telecommunications and a western lifestyle mix with old traditions, like the arranged wedding young Aditi accepts when she ends a current affair. The groom is an Indian living in Texas, and all relatives from both families, some from distant places like Australia, come to New Delhi during the monsoon season to attend the wedding. The four-day arrangements and celebrations will see clumsy organisation, family parties and drama, dangers to the happy end of the wedding, and lots of music. Soundtrack. The soundtrack includes a qawwali by Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, a ghazal by Farida Khanum, a Punjabi song by Sukhwinder Singh, an old Indian song by Rafi, a folk dance song. The film includes an Urdu ghazal, Aaj Jaane Ki Zid Na Karo (Don't Be So Stubborn About Leaving Today)" sung by Pakistani artist Farida Khanum. Awards. The movie won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival. Mira Nair was the second Indian (after Satyajit Ray for "Aparajito") to receive this honour.
1061256	Annie Hall is a 1977 American romantic comedy film directed by Woody Allen from a screenplay he co-wrote with Marshall Brickman. The director co-stars as Alvy Singer, who tries to figure out the reasons for the failure of his relationship with the film's eponymous female lead, played by Diane Keaton. Allen has described the film as "a major turning point", which, unlike the farces and comedies that were his work to that point, introduced a level of seriousness where, he says, he "had the courage to abandon ... just clowning around and the safety of complete broad comedy. I said to myself, 'I think I will try and make some deeper film and not be as funny in the same way. And maybe there will be other values that will emerge, that will be interesting or nourishing for the audience.'" The film was produced by Allen's veteran manager, Charles H. Joffe, and met with widespread critical acclaim. Along with the 1978 Academy Award for Best Picture, "Annie Hall" won Oscars in three other categories: two for Allen (Best Director and, with Brickman, Best Original Screenplay), and Keaton for Best Actress. Its North American box office receipts of $38,251,425 are fourth-best in the director's oeuvre when not adjusted for inflation. Often listed among the greatest film comedies, it ranks 31st on AFI's list of the top feature films in American cinema, fourth on their list of top comedy films and number 28 on Bravo's "100 Funniest Movies." Film critic Roger Ebert called it "just about everyone's favorite Woody Allen movie". Plot. The comedian Alvy Singer (Woody Allen) is trying to understand why his relationship with Annie Hall (Diane Keaton) ended a year ago. Growing up in New York, he vexed his mother with impossible questions about the emptiness of existence, but he was precocious about his innocent sexual curiosity. Annie and Alvy get into an argument while waiting in a theater queue to watch "The Sorrow and the Pity," during which another man loudly misinterprets the work of Marshall McLuhan. McLuhan himself steps in to correct the mistake. That night, Annie shows no interest in having sex with Alvy. Instead, they discuss his first wife, Allison Portchnik (Carol Kane), with whom there was little sexual pleasure. His second marriage was to a New York intellectual, but their sexual relationship was not enjoyable for him. With Annie, it is different. The two of them have uproarious fun making a meal of boiled lobster together. Alvy enjoys mocking the unusual men with whom Annie had been involved. Alvy met Annie on the tennis court. After the game, their awkward small talk led her to offer him first a ride up town and then a glass of wine on her balcony. There, what seemed a mild exchange of trivial personal data is revealed in "mental subtitles" as an escalating flirtation. Their first date follows Annie's singing audition for a night club ("It Had to be You"). He suggests they kiss first, just to get it out of the way. After their lovemaking that night, Alvy is "a wreck," while she relaxes with a joint. Soon Annie admits she loves him, and he buys her books on death and says that his feelings for her are more than just "love." When she moves in with him, things get very tense. Alvy feels strange when they visit her family in Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin, for Easter. He claims to have never felt more Jewish than with her "Jew-hating" grandmother, and his imagined conversation between their two families reveals a gulf in style, substance, and background. Finding her arm in arm with one of her college professors, Alvy argues with Annie whether this is the "flexibility" they had discussed. They eventually break up, and he searches for the truth of relationships, asking strangers on the street about the nature of love, questioning his formative years, until he casts himself in Snow White opposite Annie’s Evil Queen. Alvy returns to dating, but the effort is marred by neurosis, bad sex, and finally an interruption from Annie, who insists he come over immediately. It turns out she needs him to kill a spider. A reconciliation follows, coupled with a vow to stay together come what may. However, their separate discussions with their therapists make it evident there is an unspoken divide. When Alvy accepts an offer to present an award on television, they fly out to Los Angeles, with Alvy's friend, Rob (Tony Roberts). However, on the return trip, they agree that their relationship is not working. After losing her to her record producer, Tony Lacey (Paul Simon), he unsuccessfully tries rekindling the flame with a marriage proposal. Back in New York, he stages a play of their relationship but changes the ending: now she accepts. The last meeting for them is a wistful coda on New York's Upper West Side, when they have both moved on to someone new. Alvy’s voice returns with a summation: love is essential, especially if it is neurotic. Annie torches "Seems Like Old Times" and the credits roll. Casting. Several references in the film to Allen's own life have invited speculation that it is autobiographical. Both Alvy and Allen were comedians. His birthday appears on the blackboard in a school scene, certain features of his childhood are found in Alvy Singer's, Allen went to New York University and so did Alvy. Diane Keaton's real surname is "Hall" and "Annie" was her nickname, and she and Allen were once romantically involved. However, Allen is quick to dispel these suggestions. "The stuff that people insist is autobiographical is almost invariably not," Allen said. "It's so exaggerated that it's virtually meaningless to the people upon whom these little nuances are based. People got it into their heads that "Annie Hall" was autobiographical, and I couldn't convince them it wasn't". Contrary to various interviewers and commentators, he says, Alvy is not the character that is closest to himself; he identified more with the mother (Eve, played by Geraldine Page) in his next film, "Interiors". Despite this, Keaton has stated that the relationship between Alvy and Annie was partly based on her relationship with the director. The role of Annie Hall was written specifically for Keaton, who had worked with Allen on "Play it Again, Sam", "Sleeper" and "Love and Death". She considered the character an "affable version" of herself—both were "semi-articulate, dreamed of being a singer and suffered from insecurity"—and was surprised to win an Oscar for her performance. The film also marks the second film collaboration between Allen and Tony Roberts, their previous project being "Play It Again, Sam". Federico Fellini was Allen's first choice to appear in the cinema lobby scene because his films were under discussion, but Allen chose cultural academic Marshall McLuhan after both Fellini and Luis Buñuel declined the cameo. Some cast members, Baxter claims, were aggrieved at Allen's treatment of them. The director "acted coldly" towards McLuhan, who had to return from Canada for reshooting, and Mordecai Lawner, who played Alvy's father, claimed that Allen never spoke to him. However, during the production, Allen began a two-year relationship with Stacey Nelkin, who appears in a single scene. Writing. The idea for what would become "Annie Hall" was developed as Allen walked around New York with co-writer Marshall Brickman. The pair discussed the project on alternate days, sometimes becoming frustrated and rejecting the idea. Allen wrote a first draft of a screenplay within a four-day period, sending it to Brickman to make alterations. According to Brickman, this draft centered on a man in his forties, someone whose life consisted "of several strands. One was a relationship with a young woman, another was a concern about the banality of life we all live, and a third an obsession with proving himself and testing himself to find out what kind of character he had." Allen himself turned forty in 1975. Brickman suggests that "advancing age" and "worries about his death" had influenced Allen's philosophical, personal approach to complement his "commercial side". Allen said that he had decided to "sacrifice some of the laughs for a story about human beings". He was also influenced by Federico Fellini's 1963 comedy-drama "8½", which the Italian director had created at a similar turning point, and for both of which their director's psychoanalysis play a part. The pair sent the screenplay back and forth between them until they were ready to ask United Artists for $4 million. Many elements from the early drafts did not survive. It was originally a drama centered on a murder mystery with a comic and romantic subplot. According to Allen, the murder occurred after a scene that remains in the film, the sequence in which Annie and Alvy miss the Ingmar Bergman film "Face to Face". Although they decided to drop the murder plot, Allen and Brickman made a murder mystery many years later: 1993's "Manhattan Murder Mystery", also starring Diane Keaton. The draft that Allen presented to the film's editor, Ralph Rosenblum, concluded with the words, "ending to be shot." It was "like a first draft of a novel ... from which two or three films could possibly be assembled," Rosenblum says. Allen's working title for the film was "Anhedonia", a term for the inability to experience pleasure. However, United Artists considered this unmarketable, as were Brickman's suggested alternatives: "It Had to Be Jew", "Rollercoaster Named Desire" and "Me and My Goy". An advertising agency, hired by UA, embraced Allen's choice of an obscure word by suggesting advertising in tabloid newspapers using vague slogans such as "Anhedonia Strikes Cleveland". However, Allen tried several titles over five test screenings, including "Anxiety" and "Alvy and Me", before settling on "Annie Hall". Production. Principal photography began on 19 May 1976 on the South Fork of Long Island with the scene in which Alvy and Annie boil live lobsters; filming continued periodically for the next ten months. The production deviated from the screenplay. There was nothing written about Alvy's childhood home lying under a roller coaster, but when Allen was scouting locations in Brooklyn with Willis and art director Mel Bourne, he "saw this roller-coaster, and... saw the house under it. And I thought, we have to use this." In a similar vein, there is the incident where Alvy scatters a trove of cocaine with an accidental sneeze: although not in the script, the joke emerged from a rehearsal happenstance and stayed in the movie. In audience testing, this laugh was so big that a re-edit had to add a hold so that the following dialogue was not lost. Rosenblum's first assembly of the film in 1976 left Brickman disappointed. At two hours and twenty minutes, Annie Hall herself was less prominent, and it dwelt "on issues just touched in passing in the version we know", featuring the "surrealistic and abstract adventures of a neurotic Jewish comedian who was reliving his highly flawed life and in the process satirizing much of our culture... a visual monologue, a more sophisticated and visual version of "Take the Money and Run"". Brickman found it "nondramatic and ultimately uninteresting, a kind of cerebral exercise." He suggested a more linear narrative. Fortunately, the shooting schedule was budgeted for two weeks of post-production photography, so even though the first cut had "some of the free-est, funniest and most sophisticated material that Woody had ever created, and it hurt him to lose it", late 1976 saw three separate shoots for the final segment, two of which appear in some form. One featured Annie Hall taking her new boyfriend to "The Sorrow and the Pity", which she had reluctantly seen with Alvy; the other, Alvy's monologue featuring the joke about 'we all need the eggs', was conceived during a cab journey to an early preview. The title sequence features a black background with white text in the Windsor Light Condensed typeface, a design that Allen would use on his subsequent films and become a trademark of his. Stig Björkman sees some similarity to Ingmar Bergman's simple and consistent title design, although Allen says that his own choice is a cost-saving device. The film was listed as "A Jack Rollins and Charles H. Joffe Production", though only Joffe took producer credit and received the Academy Award for Best Picture. Both were Allen's veteran managers and had that credit on all his films from 1969 to 1993. Music. Very little background music is heard in the film, a departure for Allen influenced by Ingmar Bergman. Diane Keaton performs twice in the jazz club: "It Had to be You" and "Seems Like Old Times" (the latter reprises in voiceover on the closing scene). The other exceptions include a boy's choir "Christmas Medley" played while the characters drive through Los Angeles, the Molto allegro from Mozart's Jupiter Symphony (heard as Annie and Alvy drive through the countryside), Tommy Dorsey's performance of "Sleepy Lagoon", and the anodyne cover of the Savoy Brown song "A Hard Way to Go" playing at a party in the mansion of Paul Simon's character. Style and technique. Technically, the film marked an advance for the director. He selected Gordon Willis as his cinematographer—for Allen "a very important teacher" and a "technical wizard," saying, "I really count "Annie Hall" as the first step toward maturity in some way in making films." At the time, it was considered an "odd pairing" by many, Keaton among them, for Willis and Allen to work together. The director was famous for "laugh machines" and hilarious farces, while Willis was known as "the prince of darkness" for work on dramatic films like "The Godfather". Despite this, the two became friends during filming and continued the collaboration on several later films, including "Zelig", which earned Willis his first Academy Award nomination for Best Cinematography. Willis described the production for the film as "relatively easy". He shot in varying styles; "hot golden light for California, grey overcast for Manhattan and a forties Hollywood glossy for... dream sequences", most of which were cut. It was his suggestion which led Allen to film the dual therapy scenes in one set divided by a wall instead of the usual split screen method. He tried long takes, with some shots, unabridged, lasting an entire scene, which, for Ebert, add to the dramatic power of the film: "Few viewers probably notice how much of "Annie Hall" consists of people talking, simply talking. They walk and talk, sit and talk, go to shrinks, go to lunch, make love and talk, talk to the camera, or launch into inspired monologues like Annie's free-association as she describes her family to Alvy. This speech by Diane Keaton is as close to perfect as such a speech can likely be ... all done in one take of brilliant brinksmanship." He cites a study that calculated the average shot length of "Annie Hall" to be 14.5 seconds, while other films made in 1977 had an average shot length of 4–7 seconds. Peter Cowie suggests that "Allen breaks up his extended shots with more orthodox cutting back and forth in conversation pieces, so that the forward momentum of the film is sustained." Other techniques reflect Allen's artistic influences. The main characters' visit to Alvy’s childhood echo Ingmar Bergman's "Wild Strawberries" and the school scenes are reminiscent of Federico Fellini's later work. The Jewish humor—particularly the character of the oversexed Jewish man—draws on Philip Roth's novel "Portnoy's Complaint". Although the film is not essentially experimental, at several points it undermines the narrative reality. In one famous scene, Allen's character, in line to see a movie with Annie, listens to a man behind him deliver misinformed pontifications on the significance of Fellini and Marshall McLuhan's work. Allen pulls McLuhan himself from just off camera to personally correct the man's errors. Later in the film, when we see Annie and Alvy in their first extended talk, "mental subtitles" convey to the audience the characters' nervous inner doubts. An animated scene—with artwork based on the comic strip "Inside Woody Allen"—depicts Alvy and Annie in the guise of the Wicked Queen from "Snow White". Although Allen uses each of these techniques only once, the "fourth wall" is broken several other times when characters address the camera directly. In one, Alvy stops several passers-by to ask questions about love, and in another he shrugs off writing a happy ending to his relationship with Annie in his autobiographical first play as forgivable "wish-fulfillment." Allen chose to have Alvy break the fourth wall, he explained, "because I felt many of the people in the audience had the same feelings and the same problems. I wanted to talk to them directly and confront them." Themes. The nature of love is a repeating subject for Allen and co-star Tony Roberts described this film as "the story of everybody who falls in love, and then falls out of love and goes on." Alvy searches for love's purpose through his effort to get over his depression about the demise of his relationship with Annie. Sometimes he sifts through his memories of the relationship, at another point he stops people on the sidewalk, with one woman saying that "It’s never something you do. That’s how people are. Love fades," a suggestion that it was no one's fault, they just grew apart and the end was inevitable. By the end of the film, Alvy accepts this and decides that love is ultimately "irrational and crazy and absurd", but a necessity of life. Alvy Singer is identified with the stereotypical neurotic Jewish male, and the differences between Alvy and Annie are often related to the perceptions and realities of Jewish identity. Vincent Brook notes that "Alvy dines with the WASP-y Hall family and imagines that they must see him as a Hasidic Jew, complete with payess (ear locks) and a large black hat." "Annie Hall", the film, "is as much a love song to New York City as it is to the character," reflecting Allen's adoration of the island of Manhattan. It was a relationship he explored repeatedly, particularly in films like "Manhattan" (1979) and "Hannah and Her Sisters" (1986). Peter Cowie argues that the film shows "a romanticized view" of the borough, with the camera "lingeron the Upper East Side [... and where the fear of crime does not trouble its characters." By contrast, California is presented less positively. While Manhattan's movie theaters show classic and foreign films, Los Angeles theaters run less-prestigious fare such as "House of Exorcism" and "Messiah of Evil". Rob's demonstration of adding canned laughter to television demonstrates the "cynical artifice of the medium". New York serves as a symbol of Alvy's personality ("gloomy, claustrophobic, and socially cold, but also an intellectual haven full of nervous energy") while Los Angeles is a symbol of freedom for Annie. Release. "Annie Hall" was shown at the Los Angeles Film Festival in March 1977, before its official release on April 20, 1977. The film ultimately earned $38,251,425 in the United States against a $4-million budget, making it the 11th highest-grossing picture of 1977. On raw figures, it currently ranks as Allen's fourth-highest-grossing film, after "Manhattan", "Hannah and Her Sisters" and "Midnight in Paris"; when adjusted for inflation, the gross figure of $135,852,600 makes it Allen's biggest box office hit. It was first released on Blu-ray on January 24, 2012 alongside Allen's 1979 film "Manhattan". Both releases include the films' original theatrical trailer. Reception. Critical reviews. "Annie Hall" met with widespread critical acclaim upon its release. Tim Radford of "The Guardian" called the film "Allen's most closely focused and daring film to date". "The New York Times"' Vincent Canby preferred "Annie Hall" to Allen's second directorial effort, "Take the Money and Run", since the former is more "humane" while the latter is more a "cartoon". Several critics have compared the film favorably to Bergman's 1973 film, "Scenes from a Marriage", including Joseph McBride in "Variety", who found it Allen's "most three-dimensional film to date" with an ambition equal to Bergman's best even as the co-stars become the "contemporary equivalent of... Tracy-Hepburn." More critically, Peter Cowie commented that the film "suffers from its profusion of cultural references and asides". After more than a quarter century, the film has continued to receive positive reviews. In his 2002 lookback, Roger Ebert noted with surprise that the film had "an instant familiarity" despite its age, and "Slant" writer Jaime N. Christley found the one-liners "still gut-busting after 35 years". Another "Guardian" critic, Peter Bradshaw, named it the best comedy film of all time, commenting that "this wonderfully funny, unbearably sad film is a miracle of comic writing and inspired film-making". "Empire" magazine rated the movie five out of five stars, calling it a "classic". To date, all of the 53 reviews tabulated at Rotten Tomatoes have approved of the film with only one exception, for a score of 98%. Its average rating is 8.8 on a scale of 10. Scholarly criticism. In his discussion of the film's relation to modernism, Thomas Schatz finds the film an unresolved "examination of the process of human interaction and interpersonal communication" and “immediately establishes self-referential stance” that invites the spectator “to read the narrative as something other than a sequential development toward some transcendent truth”. For him, Alvy "is the victim of a tendency toward overdetermination of meaning -- or in modernist terms 'the tyranny of the signified' -- and his involvement with Annie can be viewed as an attempt to establish a spontaneous, intellectually unencumbered relationship, an attempt which is doomed to failure." Christopher Knight points out that "Annie Hall" is framed through Alvy's experiences. "Generally, what we know about Annie and about the relationship comes filtered through Alvy, an intrusive narrator capable of halting the narrative and stepping out from it in order to entreat the audience's interpretative favor." He suggests that because Allen's films blur the protagonist with "past and future protagonists as well as with the director himself", it "makes a difference as to whether we are most responsive to the director's or the character's framing of events". Knight believes Alvy's quest upon meeting Annie is carnal, whereas hers is on an emotional note. Despite the narrative's framing, "the joke is on Alvy." Accolades. "Annie Hall" won four Oscars at the 50th Academy Awards on April 3, 1978. Producer Charles H. Joffe received the statue for Best Picture, Allen for Best Director and, with Brickman, for Best Original Screenplay, and Keaton for Best Actress. Allen was also nominated for Best Actor. Many had expected "" to win the major awards, including Brickman and Executive Producer Robert Greenhut. The film was also honored four times at the BAFTA awards. Along with the top award for Best Film, Keaton won for Best Actress, Allen won for Best Direction and Best Original Screenplay alongside Brickman. The film received only one Golden Globe Award, for Best Film Actress in a Musical or Comedy (Diane Keaton). despite nominations for three other awards: Best Motion Picture (Musical or Comedy), Best Director, and Best Film Actor in a Musical or Comedy (Woody Allen). In 1992, the United States' Library of Congress selected the film for preservation in its National Film Registry that includes "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" films. It's often mentioned among the greatest comedies of all time. The American Film Institute lists it 31st in American cinema history. Ten years later, they updated the list and ranked the film 35th. In 2000, they named it fourth greatest comedy film in American cinema history. Keaton's performance of "Seems Like Old Times" was ranked 90th on their list of greatest songs included in a film, and her line "La-dee-da, la-dee-da." was named the 55th greatest movie quote. The screenplay was named the sixth greatest screenplay by the Writers Guild of America, West while IGN named it the seventh greatest comedy film of all time. In 2000, readers of "Total Film" magazine voted it the forty-second greatest comedy film of all time, and the seventh greatest romantic comedy film of all time. Several lists ranking Allen's best films have put "Annie Hall" among his greatest work. In June 2008, AFI revealed its 10 Top 10—the best ten films in ten classic American film genres—after polling over 1,500 people from the creative community and "Annie Hall" was placed second in the romantic comedy genre. AFI also ranked "Annie Hall" on multiple other lists. In November 2008, "Annie Hall" was voted in at No. 68 on Empire magazine's list of "The 500 Greatest Movies of All Time". It is also ranked #2 on Rotten Tomatoes' 25 Best Romantic Comedies, second only to "The Philadelphia Story". In 2012, the film was listed as the 127th best film of all time by "Sight & Sound" critics' poll. The film was also named the 132nd best film by the "Sight & Sound" directors' poll. Legacy and influence. Although the film received critical acclaim and several awards, Allen himself was disappointed with it, and said in an interview, "When "Annie Hall" started out, that film was not supposed to be what I wound up with. The film was supposed to be what happens in a guy’s mind... Nobody understood anything that went on. The relationship between myself and Diane Keaton was all anyone cared about. That was not what I cared about... In the end, I had to reduce the film to just me and Diane Keaton, and that relationship, so I was quite disappointed in that movie". He says he has repeatedly declined to make a sequel, admitting in a 1992 interview that for a time he considered it: Ralph Lauren's clothing, assisted by costume designer Ruth Morley, were part of the look for Keaton, which had an influence on the fashion world during the late-70s, with women adopting the style: layering oversized, mannish blazers over vests, billowy trousers or long skirts, a man's tie, and boots. The look was often referred to as the ""Annie Hall" look". Some sources suggest that Keaton herself was mainly responsible for the look, and Lauren's involvement is unclear. Allen recalled that Lauren and Keaton's dress style almost did not end up in the film. "She came in," he recalled in 1992, "and the costume lady on "Annie Hall" said, 'Tell her not to wear that. She can't wear that. It's so crazy.' And I said, 'Leave her. She's a genius. Let's just leave her alone, let her wear what she wants.'" Since its release, other romantic comedies have inspired comparison. "When Harry Met Sally...", "Chasing Amy", "(500) Days of Summer" and Allen's 2003 film, "Anything Else" are among them, while film director Rian Johnson said in an interview for the book, "The Film That Changed My Life", that "Annie Hall" inspired him to become a film director.
1063951	Daniel Bernard "D. B." Sweeney (born November 14, 1961) is an American actor. Early life. Sweeney was born and raised in Shoreham, New York, by an educator father and a municipal government employee mother. He attended Shoreham-Wading River High School where he was a member of Omega Gamma Delta Fraternity and both Tulane and New York University. Before completing his B.F.A. at NYU in 1984, he was cast in the Broadway revival of "The Caine Mutiny Court Martial". Career. Sweeney guest starred on television series "The Edge of Night" and "" before entering films. He portrayed a gung-ho Vietnam enlistee in Francis Ford Coppola's "Gardens of Stone" (1987) and Travis Walton in "Fire in the Sky" (1993). Sweeney is perhaps best remembered for his portrayal of Doug Dorsey in "The Cutting Edge" (1992), Shoeless Joe Jackson in "Eight Men Out" (1988), or Dish Boggett in "Lonesome Dove" (1989). In 2000, Sweeney voiced Aladar the Iguanodon in Disney's CGI film "Dinosaur". He also starred in "Life as We Know It" as Michael Whitman (2004–2005) and "C-16: FBI" produced by Michael Robin. Sweeney has guest-starred on various television series, including "House" (2006) as Crandall, an ex-bandmate of Dr. Gregory House; "Jericho" as John Goetz (2006–2008); "Castle" as a Los Angeles detective (2011), and more. He also had recurring roles as U.S. Marshal Sam Kassmeyer, assigned to protect Haley and Jack Hotchner on "Criminal Minds" (2009); as Peter Emory in season 1 of "Crash" (2008); and as Carter in "The Event" (2010). He is currently the voice-over artist for the OWN: Oprah Winfrey Network and his large body of voiceover work includes three seasons of Fox Sports Net's "Beyond the Glory" and National Geographic Television's "Ice Pilots". Past ad campaigns include Bud Light, Lincoln cars, Conoco-Phillips, John Deere, Major League Baseball and Coca Cola. Sweeney plays Captain John Trent in the horror web series, "Universal Dead". In late June 2010, it was announced that "Universal Dead" will be made into a feature film. A supporter of the U.S. military, Sweeney founded a website Lettersfromhollywood.army.mil to get messages of support to active duty and retired military. He has made multiple visits to the Middle East and Europe to visit with service members. On May 4, 2008, Sweeney flew with the helicopter squadron HMM-364, "The World Famous Purple Foxes", in a CH-46E while in Iraq visiting with service members and promoting his new film, "Two Tickets to Paradise".
1376615	Carlos Jaime Alazraqui (born July 20, 1962) is an American actor, comedian, impressionist, voice actor and singer. He is best known for his role as Deputy James Garcia on the Comedy Central series "Reno 911!". His voice-over work includes the role of Bobbi Fabulous on "Phineas and Ferb", the Taco Bell chihuahua, Denzel Q. Crocker and Juandissimo Magnifico on "The Fairly OddParents!", Rocko and Spunky on "Rocko's Modern Life", Lazlo and Clam in "Camp Lazlo", Mr. Caliente in "Fish Hooks", Stinkbug in "T.U.F.F. Puppy" and as Mr. Weed in "Family Guy". Early life and education. Alazraqui was born in Yonkers, New York on July 20, 1962, to Argentine parents, and moved to Concord, California, at an early age. Eventually, he moved to Sacramento to attend college at California State University, Sacramento from 1982-1986, where he began competing in open mic contests. After winning in his fourth year of competing at the San Francisco International Comedy Competition, he took his prize money and moved to Los Angeles. Career. Voice work. Alazraqui has since performed several voices for Nickelodeon cartoons, including Rocko on "Rocko's Modern Life", as well as Denzel Q. Crocker and Juandissimo Magnifico on "The Fairly OddParents", Winslow T. Oddfellow and Lube on "CatDog", and additional voices on "Angry Beavers" and "KaBlam!". Alazraqui also voiced several additional voices for the Cartoon Network shows, "Cow and Chicken" and "I Am Weasel" during their runs in the mid-late 1990s. He also was the original voice of Spyro in the first game in the "Spyro the Dragon" series. He was later replaced by Tom Kenny, who would go to voice spyro in Spyro 2-4. He also voiced the Taco Bell chihuahua, Rikochet in the first two seasons of "¡Mucha Lucha!" and Mr. Weed (the head of the "Happy Go Lucky" toy factory) on "Family Guy". It is mentioned in the DVD commentary track that Alazraqui was reluctant to leave the "Family Guy" series. In particular, Seth MacFarlane suggests that the death of Alazraqui's character, Mr. Weed, took the actor by surprise. In 2005, he added the voices for two Cartoon Network series – "The Life and Times of Juniper Lee" where he played Monroe, a guardian dog with a Scottish accent and three characters in "Camp Lazlo": Lazlo, Clam, and Heimlich McMuesli. In 2006 added Salty Mike from "Squirrel Boy" and Walden in "Wow! Wow! Wubbzy!" on Nick Jr. to his credits. He played Wisk in Glen Hill's 2000 film version of L. Frank Baum's "The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus". He also provided the voice of Nestor in "Happy Feet". Jeff "Swampy" Marsh, a storyboard writer for "Rocko's Modern Life", described Alazraqui's normal voice as bearing "no accent at all". Marsh describes Alazraqui's "Scottish accent" as "one of the best" and that he performs his other accents as "all very well". According to Marsh, Alazraqui uses various accents in his comedy routines. Alazraqui also does work for the Disney Channel on the Playhouse Disney show "Handy Manny". He provides the voice for Felipe, the bilingual Phillips-head screwdriver, and for Abuelito, Manny's grandfather. He was also the original "voice guy" on the "Stephanie Miller Show". His replacement was voice actor Jim Ward, who had previously substituted for him. In January 2008, he returned to fill in for Jim Ward briefly while he recovered from surgery. Television. Alazraqui is known for his live-action work in the mockumentary series "Reno 911!", in which he played Deputy James Garcia for five seasons (2003–2008). He played the same role in the series' spinoff film, "Reno 911! Miami". As a nod to this role, he also played a "bumbling" Reno cop in the "" episode "Let it Bleed". He has been a celebrity on the Tom Bergeron version of "Hollywood Squares". Film. Alazraqui has written and starred in "The Last White Dishwasher", a short film co-starring Tara Strong. In 2009 Alazraqui collaborated with Ted Nicolaou on a web series "The Club" which was released in November 2010. "The Club" features Jill-Michele Meleán, Debra Wilson, Johnny A. Sanchez, Lori Alan and Daran Norris among others.
1105141	Successive parabolic interpolation is a technique for finding the extremum (minimum or maximum) of a continuous unimodal function by successively fitting parabolas (polynomials of degree two) to the function at three unique points, and at each iteration replacing the "oldest" point with the extremum of the fitted parabola.
1105261	Nicholas Constantine Metropolis (Greek: , June 11, 1915 – October 17, 1999) was a Greek American physicist. Work. Metropolis received his BSc (1937) and PhD (1941) degrees in physics at the University of Chicago. Shortly afterwards, Robert Oppenheimer recruited him from Chicago, where he was at the time collaborating with Enrico Fermi and Edward Teller on the first nuclear reactors, to the Los Alamos National Laboratory. He arrived in Los Alamos, on April 1943, as a member of the original staff of fifty scientists. After World War II. After World War II, he returned to the faculty of the University of Chicago as an assistant professor. He came back to Los Alamos in 1948 to lead the group in the Theoretical Division that designed and built the MANIAC I computer in 1952 that was modeled on the IAS machine, and the MANIAC II in 1957. (He chose the name MANIAC in the hope of stopping the rash of such acronyms for machine names, but may have, instead, only further stimulated such use.) (John von Neumann may have encouraged him to use this acronym.) From 1957 to 1965 he was Professor of Physics at the University of Chicago and was the founding Director of its Institute for Computer Research. In 1965 he returned to Los Alamos where he was made a Laboratory Senior Fellow in 1980. Monte Carlo method. At Los Alamos, in the 1950s, a group of researchers led by Metropolis, including John von Neumann and Stanislaw Ulam, developed the Monte Carlo method. Generally speaking, the Monte Carlo method is a statistical approach to solve deterministic many-body problems. In 1953 Metropolis co-authored the first paper on a technique that was central to the method now known as simulated annealing. This landmark paper showed the first numerical simulations of a liquid. The algorithm for generating samples from the Boltzmann distribution was later generalized by W.K. Hastings to become the Metropolis-Hastings algorithm. He is credited as part of the team that came up with the name Monte Carlo method in reference to a colleague's relative's love for the casinos of Monte Carlo. Monte Carlo methods are a class of computational algorithms that rely on repeated random sampling to compute their results. In statistical mechanics applications prior to the introduction of the Metropolis algorithm, the method consisted of generating a large number of random configurations of the system, computing the properties of interest (such as energy or density) for each configuration, and then producing a weighted average where the weight of each configuration is its Boltzmann factor, formula_1, where formula_2 is the energy, formula_3 is the temperature, and formula_4 is the Boltzmann constant. The key contribution of the Metropolis paper was the idea that Associations and honors. Metropolis was a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics and the American Mathematical Society. In 1987 he became the first Los Alamos employee honored with the title "emeritus" by the University of California. Metropolis was also awarded the Pioneer Medal by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, and was a fellow of the American Physical Society. The Nicholas Metropolis Award for Outstanding Doctoral Thesis Work in Computational Physics is awarded annually by the American Physical Society. Acting career. Metropolis played the part of a scientist in the Woody Allen film "Husbands and Wives" (1992). Personal life. Metropolis had a son, Christopher, and two daughters, Penelope and Katharine. He was an avid skier and tennis player until his mid-seventies. He died at a nursing home in Los Alamos, New Mexico. Anecdotes. In his memoirs, Stanislaw Ulam remembers that a small group, including himself, Metropolis, Calkin, Konopinski, Kistiakowsky, Teller and von Neumann, spent several evenings at Los Alamos playing poker. They played for very small sums, but: "Metropolis once described what a triumph it was to win ten dollars from John von Neumann, author of a famous treatise on game theory. He then bought his book for five dollars and pasted the other five inside the cover as a symbol of his victory." In another passage of his book, Ulam describes Metropolis as "a Greek-American with a wonderful personality."
592213	Mungaru Male () is a 2006 Kannada language movie directed by Yograj Bhat and produced by E Krishnappa. The film stars Ganesh, Pooja Gandhi, Anant Nag, Padmaja Rao in lead roles. The film is believed to have shaped and strengthened the careers of Pooja Gandhi, Ganesh, director Yogaraj Bhat, Singers Sonu Nigam, Kunal Ghanjawala, Udit Narayan, Shreya Ghoshal in south India and writer Dr.Jayanth Kaikini, choreographers A.Harsha, Imran Sardaria, composer Mano Murthy and others. This movie was the first in India for any language to be screened for continuously one year in a multiplex. It was remade in Telugu as "Vaana" and in Bengali as "Premer Kahini" in 2008. A Hindi language version is underway. Background and development. Director Yograj Bhat had earlier dabbled in advertising and corporate films. His previous ventures, "Mani", starring Mayur and Radhika, and "Ranga S.S.L.C.", starring Sudeep Sanjeev. Bhat began working on the script of "Mungaru Male". He had narrated the script to Puneet Rajkumar who rejected it. Ganesh, whose first film to be released, Chellata, was involved in the script making stage. He introduced Yograj Bhat to producer E. Krishnappa who was Ganesh's acquaintance. Krishnappa agreed to finance the film, since he knew Ganesh. Since Yograj Bhat was unable to cast well-known Kannada actresses, he signed on a relatively unknown actress, Pooja Gandhi, for the lead female role in the film. Plot. The protagonist Preetam (Ganesh), on a visit to Eva Mall (a famous Mall in Bangalore) amidst a heavy wind, spots a pretty girl, Nandini (Pooja Gandhi). While staring at her, he inadvertently falls into a manhole. Nandini rescues him from the pit, but in the process loses her heart-shaped watch she had just bought. While accompanying his mother to Madikeri, Preetam confronts a man named Jaanu (Neenaasam Ashwath). Jaanu, who has been following Nandini, beats up Preetam thinking that he is in love with Nandini. Preetam, unaware that Jaanu has vowed not to allow any one near Nandini, trashes Jaanu and his gang in return.
1166117	Frank Caliendo (born January 19, 1974) is an American comedian and impressionist, best known for his work on the Fox Network television series "MADtv", and as the in-house prognosticator for "Fox NFL Sunday". In 2007 and 2008, he performed his impersonations on his own show, "Frank TV", which aired on TBS. He is known for his impressions of Charles Barkley, NFL color commentator John Madden, sportscaster Jim Rome, comedian Robin Williams, actor William Shatner, and United States Presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton, and for his frequent appearances on "The Bob & Tom Show". He has released six solo CDs, and has performed as many as 120 impressions. From 2009 to 2011 he had a show at the Monte Carlo Resort and Casino on the Las Vegas Strip. He now tours. Early life and education. Caliendo was born in Chicago, Illinois on January 19, 1974, and grew up in Waukesha, Wisconsin, where he attended Waukesha South High School. He is of Italian ancestry. Before graduating from University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee, Caliendo began performing stand-up comedy at many different local night clubs and comedy clubs, eventually taking a job as a master of ceremonies at a local comedy club. Frank quickly became known for his spot on impressions of Columbo, the Seinfeld cast, Jonathan Winters, and many more which he mastered while bedridden after a painful back surgery. Within just a few years, he was very active on the college circuit, driving thousands of miles in his car. During these years, he built a reputation as one of the circuit's top performers. Between 2000 and 2001, Caliendo made his television debut on sketch comedy series "Hype" and later gaining significant national exposure on the comedy series "MADtv". Career. Caliendo has performed stand-up on such series as cable's "Premium Blend", "Late Show with David Letterman", "Late Late Show with Craig Kilborn", "The View", "The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson", and "Late Night with Conan O'Brien". He was featured in Comedy Central's animated series Shorties Watchin' Shorties in 2004. His signature John Madden impression is frequently seen on Fox NFL Sunday, The Best Damn Sports Show Period and "Mohr Sports". Caliendo has also appeared on Comedy Central's Comedy Central Presents, as well as many radio shows, including "Randy Baumann and the DVE Morning Show", The Dan Le Batard Show, The Junkies, Bob & Sheri, The Bob & Tom Show, Mike and Mike in the Morning, Opie and Anthony, The Don and Mike Show, Rise Guys, Bubba the Love Sponge, The John Boy and Billy Big Show, The Howard Stern Show, Mike and the Mad Dog, Elliot in the Morning, "The Sports Inferno", The Rick and Bubba Show, The Roe Conn Show, Preston and Steve, Bob and Brian, The Glenn Beck Program, and "Holmberg's Morning Sickness", and "Lamont & Tonelli on 107.7 The Bone in San Francisco." Of course as well as the illustrious The Free Beer and Hot Wings Show. "Fox NFL Sunday". On November 5, 2000, Caliendo appeared on "Fox NFL Sunday", as a guest to comedian Jimmy Kimmel. He performed his increasingly noteworthy John Madden impression and was well received. He returned again the same season on January 7 during the playoffs.
1239767	Spiders 3D is a 3D thriller film directed by Tibor Takács from a screenplay by Joseph Farrugia (screenwriter) and Tibor Takacs from a story by Boaz Davidson and Dustin Warburton. .
1166342	Paula Marshall (born June 12, 1964) is an American actress. Career. In 1992, Marshall had a three-episode guest role on "The Wonder Years" and later guest-starred on shows such as "Seinfeld", "Nash Bridges", "Grapevine" and "". In 1992 she starred in the movie "Hellraiser III:Hell On Earth, as "Terri". In 1994, she got her first sitcom role on "Wild Oats". After a few years in B movies, Marshall gained a role on a second series, 1997's "Chicago Sons". In the same year, she landed a recurring role on "Spin City" and starred alongside Bette Midler and Dennis Farina in the film "That Old Feeling", where her character fell in love with one played by Danny Nucci. Marshall has also been cast in several pilots that were not picked up, including the Elizabeth Lackey series "Cooking Lessons" and Rob Thomas's "Sticks". Marshall's third television series, Rob Thomas's "Cupid", premiered in 1998. It featured her as Dr. Claire Allen, a psychiatrist supervising a man named Trevor (Jeremy Piven) who thinks he is Cupid. Marshall then joined David E. Kelley's "Snoops", about an unconventional detective agency. In 2000, Marshall returned to television screens: first with a three-episode guest appearance as a porn star and love interest for Jeremy (Joshua Malina) on Aaron Sorkin's "Sports Night", and then in her fifth TV series, "Cursed" (a.k.a. "The Weber Show"). In 2002, she guest starred on "Just Shoot Me!" as the daughter of actress Wendie Malick's character, Nina Van Horn. Marshall's sixth series, "Hidden Hills", was an offbeat comedy about three families in suburbia. Marshall also had in a secondary role in the Steve Martin-Bonnie Hunt remake of "Cheaper by the Dozen" and a cameo appearance in "Break a Leg", which starred her husband Danny Nucci. In 2004, Marshall appeared in an episode of Alicia Silverstone's "Miss Match", but the series was cancelled before it aired. In October, she had a three-episode role in the new series "Veronica Mars" (created by "Cupid"'s Rob Thomas), which she reprised toward the end of season two. Marshall's next main role came in the sitcom "Out of Practice". In 2007, Marshall appeared in the Showtime series "Californication". She also was seen in the FX series "Nip/Tuck", as an insecure actress who dated Dr. Sean McNamara. In 2008, Marshall joined the James Woods crime drama "Shark" as a recurring character. Marshall recently starred on the CBS sitcom "Gary Unmarried". She and Jay Mohr played a divorced couple sparring while trying to be loving parents to their two kids. The show was her first to be picked up for a second season. Marshall had a guest role in the hit drama "House", playing Julia, sister of Lisa Cuddy. In 2012, Marshall guest starred in an episode of . She played the role of Kathy Veck, owner of an oil company. Personal life. Marshall was born in Rockville, Maryland; she graduated in 1982 from Robert E. Peary High School in Rockville, where she had pursued a love of photography. Marshall married actor Danny Nucci in 2003; she gave birth to her first child in March 2005.
589536	Kalicharan is a 1976 Indian film directed by Subhash Ghai and starring Shatrughan Sinha, Reena Roy, Ajit, Danny Denzongpa, Madan Puri and Premnath. The film became a box office hit. The film was the directorial debut of Subhash Ghai and was the breakthrough role for stars Shatrughan Sinha and Reena Roy. It was later remade into the Telugu film "Khaidi Kalidasu" (1977) and the Tamil film "Sangili" (1982) with Shobhan Babu and Sivaji Ganesan in the lead roles and in Malayalam "Pattham Udhayam"(1985) by Mohanlal. Plot summary. The movie starts with Din Dayal (Ajit) who is supposedly an honest rich man and a clean-hearted guy. However all this is a facade as he is a terror called LION in the world of crime. He is the man under whom black-marketing, smuggling and robberies flourish. No-one has an idea about his evil deeds. Not even his close friend IG P.N. Khanna (Prem Nath).Khanna is very worried at the sorry state of affairs in the city and state. He requests the government to bring back Inspector Prabhakar (Shatrughan Sinha) to the city as he is an honest and fearless cop. Prabhakar comes to town and starts cracking on the criminals with an iron hand. Prabhakar is a widower who has 2 small children. Besides them IG Khanna loves him like his own son and treats the children as his grandchildren. After making substantial raids Prabhakar comes to know that Din Dayal is a corrupt man and a demon for the society. He plans to spill the beans in front of everyone but is killed by Din dayal's men. Khanna is heart broken and he loses hope in life. Due to a friend he comes to know that there is a ferocious prisoner Kalicharan (Shatrughan Sinha) in a jail who resembles Prabhakar. Khanna visits him but finds him a beastly figure. Still in an attempt to trace the criminals he gets him released and takes him to a hill station where he attempts to transform him. But Kalicharan is a tough nut to crack. However after sometime it is Prabhakar's sister who wins the heart of the fugitive. Kalicharan was in prison as he had murdered the people who had raped his sister. He was still in search of the main culprit Shetty who was a fellow shooter with Kalicharan in a circus but wanted to enrope his talent in killing a man. Kalicharan makes peace with Khanna and slowly but steadily transforms into a police inspector. He manages to win the heart of Sapna (Reena Roy) and even the kids of Prabhakar accept him as their father. He finds the truth behind the Prabhakar's murder and brings Din Dayal to the hands of law. In the process he manages to win friend like Shaaka (Danny Denzongpa) and eliminate his old enemy Shetty.
65071	Imre Lakatos ( ; November 9, 1922 – February 2, 1974) was a Hungarian philosopher of mathematics and science, known for his thesis of the fallibility of mathematics and its 'methodology of proofs and refutations' in its pre-axiomatic stages of development, and also for introducing the concept of the 'research programme' in his methodology of scientific research programmes. Life. Lakatos was born Imre (Avrum) Lipschitz to a Jewish family in Debrecen, Hungary in 1922. He received a degree in mathematics, physics, and philosophy from the University of Debrecen in 1944. He avoided Nazi persecution of Jews by changing his name to Imre Molnár. His mother and grandmother died in Auschwitz. He became an active communist during the Second World War. He changed his last name once again to "Lakatos" (Locksmith) in honor of Géza Lakatos. After the war, from 1947 he worked as a senior official in the Hungarian ministry of education. He also continued his education with a PhD at Debrecen University awarded in 1948, and also attended György Lukács's weekly Wednesday afternoon private seminars. He also studied at the Moscow State University under the supervision of Sofya Yanovskaya in 1949. When he returned, however, he found himself on the losing side of internal arguments within the Hungarian communist party and was imprisoned on charges of revisionism from 1950 to 1953. More of Lakatos' activities in Hungary after World War II have recently become known. After his release, Lakatos returned to academic life, doing mathematical research and translating George Pólya's "How to Solve It" into Hungarian. Still nominally a communist, his political views had shifted markedly and he was involved with at least one dissident student group in the lead-up to the 1956 Hungarian Revolution. After the Soviet Union invaded Hungary in November 1956, Lakatos fled to Vienna, and later reached England. He received a doctorate in philosophy in 1961 from the University of Cambridge. The book "Proofs and Refutations: The Logic of Mathematical Discovery", published after his death, is based on this work. Lakatos never obtained British Citizenship. In 1960 he was appointed to a position in the London School of Economics, where he wrote on the philosophy of mathematics and the philosophy of science. The LSE philosophy of science department at that time included Karl Popper, Joseph Agassi and John Watkins. It was Agassi who first introduced Lakatos to Popper under the rubric of his applying a fallibilist methodology of conjectures and refutations to mathematics in his Cambridge PhD thesis. With co-editor Alan Musgrave, he edited the often cited "Criticism and the Growth of Knowledge", the "Proceedings" of the International Colloquium in the Philosophy of Science, London, 1965. Published in 1970, the 1965 Colloquium included well-known speakers delivering papers in response to Thomas Kuhn's ""The Structure of Scientific Revolutions"". Lakatos remained at the London School of Economics until his sudden death in 1974 of a heart attack, aged just 51. The Lakatos Award was set up by the school in his memory. In January 1971 he became editor of the internationally prestigious "British Journal for the Philosophy of Science" until his death in 1974, after which it was then edited jointly for many years by his LSE colleagues John W. N. Watkins and John Worrall, Lakatos's ex-research assistant. His last LSE lectures in scientific method in Lent Term 1973 along with parts of his correspondence with his friend and critic Paul Feyerabend have been published in "For and Against Method" (ISBN 0-226-46774-0). Lakatos and his colleague Spiro Latsis organised an international conference devoted entirely to historical case studies in Lakatos's methodology of research programmes in physical sciences and economics, to be held in Greece in 1974, and which still went ahead following Lakatos's death in February 1974. These case studies in such as Einstein's relativity programme, Fresnel's wave theory of light and neoclassical economics, were published by Cambridge University Press in two separate volumes in 1976, one devoted to physical sciences and Lakatos's general programme for rewriting the history of science, with a concluding critique by his great friend Paul Feyerabend, and the other devoted to economics. Proofs and refutations, mathematics. Lakatos' philosophy of mathematics was inspired by both Hegel's and Marx' dialectic, by Karl Popper's theory of knowledge, and by the work of mathematician George Polya. The 1976 book "Proofs and Refutations" is based on the first three chapters of his four chapter 1961 doctoral thesis "Essays in the logic of mathematical discovery". But its first chapter is Lakatos's own revision of its chapter 1 that was first published as "Proofs and Refutations" in four parts in 1963-4 in "The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science". It is largely taken up by a fictional dialogue set in a mathematics class. The students are attempting to prove the formula for the Euler characteristic in algebraic topology, which is a theorem about the properties of polyhedra, namely that for all polyhedra the number of their (V)ertices minus the number of their (E)dges plus the number of their (F)aces is 2:  (V – E + F = 2). The dialogue is meant to represent the actual series of attempted proofs which mathematicians historically offered for the conjecture, only to be repeatedly refuted by counterexamples. Often the students paraphrase famous mathematicians such as Cauchy, as noted in Lakatos's extensive footnotes. What Lakatos tried to establish was that no theorem of informal mathematics is final or perfect. This means that we should not think that a theorem is ultimately true, only that no counterexample has yet been found. Once a counterexample, i.e. an entity contradicting/not explained by the theorem is found, we adjust the theorem, possibly extending the domain of its validity. This is a continuous way our knowledge accumulates, through the logic and process of proofs and refutations. (If axioms are given for a branch of mathematics, however, Lakatos claimed that proofs from those axioms were tautological, i.e. logically true.) Lakatos proposed an account of mathematical knowledge based on the idea of heuristics. In "Proofs and Refutations" the concept of 'heuristic' was not well developed, although Lakatos gave several basic rules for finding proofs and counterexamples to conjectures. He thought that mathematical 'thought experiments' are a valid way to discover mathematical conjectures and proofs, and sometimes called his philosophy 'quasi-empiricism'. However, he also conceived of the mathematical community as carrying on a kind of dialectic to decide which mathematical proofs are valid and which are not. Therefore he fundamentally disagreed with the 'formalist' conception of proof which prevailed in Frege's and Russell's logicism, which defines proof simply in terms of "formal" validity. On its first publication as a paper in "The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science" in 1963-4, "Proofs and Refutations" became highly influential on new work in the philosophy of mathematics, although few agreed with Lakatos' strong disapproval of formal proof. Before his death he had been planning to return to the philosophy of mathematics and apply his theory of research programmes to it. Lakatos, Worrall and Zahar use Poincaré (1893) to answer one of the major problems perceived by critics, namely that the pattern of mathematical research depicted in "Proofs and Refutations" does not faithfully represent most of the actual activity of contemporary mathematicians. Cauchy and uniform convergence. In a 1966 text published as (Lakatos 1978), Lakatos re-examines the history of the calculus, with special regard to Augustin-Louis Cauchy and the concept of uniform convergence, in the light of non-standard analysis. Lakatos is concerned that historians of mathematics should not judge the evolution of mathematics in terms of currently fashionable theories. As an illustration, he examines Cauchy's proof that the sum of a series of continuous functions is itself continuous. Lakatos is critical of those who would see Cauchy's proof, with its failure to make explicit a suitable convergence hypothesis, merely as an inadequate approach to Weierstrassian analysis. Lakatos sees in such an approach a failure to realize that Cauchy's concept of the continuum differed from currently dominant views. Research programmes. Lakatos's second major contribution to the philosophy of science was his model of the 'research programme', which he formulated in an attempt to resolve the perceived conflict between Popper's falsificationism and the revolutionary structure of science described by Kuhn. Popper's standard of falsificationism was widely taken to imply that a theory should be abandoned as soon as any evidence appears to challenge it, while Kuhn's descriptions of scientific activity were taken to imply that science was most constructive when it upheld a system of popular, or 'normal', theories, despite anomalies. Lakatos' model of the research programme aims to combine Popper's adherence to empirical validity with Kuhn's appreciation for conventional consistency. A Lakatosian research programme is based on a hard core of theoretical assumptions that cannot be abandoned or altered without abandoning the programme altogether. More modest and specific theories that are formulated in order to explain evidence that threatens the 'hard core' are termed auxiliary hypotheses. Auxiliary hypotheses are considered expendable by the adherents of the research programme - they may be altered or abandoned as empirical discoveries require in order to 'protect' the 'hard core'. Whereas Popper was generally read as hostile toward such "ad hoc" theoretical amendments, Lakatos argued that they can be "progressive", i.e. productive, when they enhance the programme's explanatory and/or predictive power, and that they are at least permissible until some better system of theories is devised and the research programme is replaced entirely. The difference between a "progressive" and a "degenerative" research programme lies, for Lakatos, in whether the recent changes to its auxiliary hypotheses have achieved this greater explanatory/predictive power or whether they have been made simply out of the necessity of offering some response in the face of new and troublesome evidence. A degenerative research programme indicates that a new and more progressive system of theories should be sought to replace the currently prevailing one, but until such a system of theories can be conceived of and agreed upon, abandonment of the current one would only further weaken our explanatory power and was therefore unacceptable for Lakatos. Lakatos's primary example of a research programme that had been successful in its time and then progressively replaced is that founded by Isaac Newton, with his three laws of motion forming the 'hard core'. The Lakatosian research programme deliberately provides a framework within which research can be conducted on the basis of 'first principles' (the 'hard core') which are shared by those involved in the research programme and accepted for the purpose of that research without further proof or debate. In this regard, it is similar to Kuhn's notion of a paradigm. Lakatos sought to replace Kuhn's paradigm, guided by an irrational 'psychology of discovery', with a research programme no less coherent or consistent yet guided by Popper's objectively valid logic of discovery. Lakatos was following Pierre Duhem's idea that one can always protect a cherished theory (or part of one) from hostile evidence by redirecting the criticism toward other theories or parts thereof. (See "Confirmation holism" and Duhem-Quine thesis). This difficulty with falsificationism had been acknowledged by Popper. Popper's theory, Falsificationism, proposed that scientists put forward theories and that nature 'shouts NO' in the form of an inconsistent observation. According to Popper, it is irrational for scientists to maintain their theories in the face of Nature's rejection, as Kuhn had described them doing. For Lakatos, however, ""It is not that we propose a theory and Nature may shout NO; rather, we propose a maze of theories, and nature may shout INCONSISTENT"". The continued adherence to a programme's 'hard core', augmented with adaptable auxiliary hypotheses, reflects Lakatos's less strict standard of falsificationism. Lakatos saw himself as merely extending Popper's ideas, which changed over time and were interpreted by many in conflicting ways. He contrasted "Popper", the "naive falsificationist" who demanded unconditional rejection of any theory in the face of any anomaly (an interpretation Lakatos saw as erroneous but that he nevertheless referred to often); "Popper1", the more nuanced and conservatively interpreted philosopher; and "Popper2", the "sophisticated methodological falsificationist" that Lakatos claims is the logical extension of the correctly interpreted ideas of "Popper1" (and who is therefore essentially Lakatos himself). It is, therefore, very difficult to determine which ideas and arguments concerning the research programme should be credited to whom. While Lakatos dubbed his theory "sophisticated methodological falsificationism", it is not "methodological" in the strict sense of asserting universal methodological rules by which all scientific research must abide. Rather, it is methodological only in that theories are only abandoned according to a methodical progression from worse theories to better theories - a stipulation overlooked by what Lakatos terms "dogmatic falsificationism". Methodological assertions in the strict sense, pertaining to which methods are valid and which are invalid, are, themselves, contained within the research programmes that choose to adhere to them, and should be judged according to whether the research programmes that adhere to them prove progressive or degenerative. Lakatos divided these 'methodological rules' within a research programme into its 'negative heuristics', IE what research methods and approaches to avoid, and its 'positive heuristics', IE what research methods and approaches to prefer. Lakatos claimed that not all changes of the auxiliary hypotheses of a research programme (which he calls 'problem shifts') are equally productive or acceptable. He took the view that these 'problem shifts' should be evaluated not just by their ability to defend the 'hard core' by explaining apparent anomalies, but also by their ability to produce new facts, in the form of predictions or additional explanations. Adjustments that accomplish nothing more than the maintenance of the 'hard core' mark the research programme as degenerative. Lakatos' model provides for the possibility of a research programme that is not only continued in the presence of troublesome anomalies but that remains progressive despite them. For Lakatos, it is essentially necessary to continue on with a theory that we basically know cannot be completely true, and it is even possible to make scientific progress in doing so, as long as we remain receptive to a better research programme that may eventually be conceived of. In this sense, it is, for Lakatos, an acknowledged misnomer to refer to 'falsification' or 'refutation', when it is not the truth or falsity of a theory that is solely determining whether we consider it 'falsified', but also the availability of a "less false" theory. A theory cannot be rightfully 'falsified', according to Lakatos, until it is superseded by a better (i.e. more progressive) research programme. This is what he says is happening in the historical periods Kuhn describes as revolutions and what makes them rational as opposed to mere leaps of faith or periods of deranged social psychology, as Kuhn argued. Pseudoscience. According to the demarcation criterion of pseudoscience originally proposed by Lakatos, a theory is pseudoscientific if it fails to make any novel predictions of previously unknown phenomena, in contrast with scientific theories, which predict novel fact(s). Progressive scientific theories are those which have their novel facts confirmed and degenerate scientific theories are those whose predictions of novel facts are refuted. As he put it: "A given fact is explained scientifically only if a new fact is predicted with it...The idea of growth and the concept of empirical character are soldered into one." See pages 34–5 of "The Methodology of Scientific Research Programmes", 1978. Lakatos's own key examples of pseudoscience were Ptolemaic astronomy, Immanuel Velikovsky's planetary cosmogony, Freudian psychoanalysis, 20th century "Soviet" Marxism, Lysenko's biology, Niels Bohr's Quantum Mechanics post-1924, astrology, psychiatry, sociology, neoclassical economics, and Darwin's theory. Darwin's theory. In his 1973 LSE Scientific Method Lecture 1 he also claimed that "nobody to date has yet found a demarcation criterion according to which Darwin can be described as scientific". Almost 20 years after Lakatos's 1973 'challenge' on the scientificity of Darwin, in her 1991 "The Ant and the Peacock" (pp31–2), LSE lecturer and ex-colleague of Lakatos, Helena Cronin, attempted to establish that Darwinian theory was empirically scientific in respect of at least being supported by evidence of likeness in the diversity of life forms in the world, allegedly explained by descent with modification. She concluded that "our usual idea of corroboration as requiring the successful prediction of novel facts...Darwinian theory was not strong on temporally novel predictions". She was equivocal about whether it did or did not make any novel predictions, only saying " "For the most part" this evidence was already well known, thoroughly documented by pre-Darwinian natural history.added". Cronin did not state what other part of the evidence was not already well known, but did then assert that it was scientific on the weaker Zahar criterion of providing independent novel explanation of old already well known facts. However, she failed to demonstrate that it provided any confirmed nomological-deductive explanation of any old facts of likeness within evolutionary diversity, making an assertion that it did so, without proof. The Milton Friedman neoclassical economics case study. In August 1972, a case study of the methodology of neoclassical economics by Lakatos's London School of Economics colleague Spiro Latsis published in "The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science" found Milton Friedman's methodology to be 'pseudo-scientific' in terms of Lakatos's evaluative philosophy of science, according to which the demarcation between scientific and pseudo-scientific theories consists of their at least predicting testable empirical novel facts or not. Latsis claimed that Friedman's instrumentalist methodology of neoclassical economics had never predicted any novel facts. In defense, Friedman wrote a three-page letter to Latsis in December 1972, counter-claiming that the neoclassical monopoly competition model had in fact shown empirical progress by predicting phenomena not previously observed that were also subsequently confirmed by empirical evidence. The example he gave was a prediction of Chamberlain's monopolistic competition model that "the standard explanation for the Standard Oil monopoly was wrong", which he said had been theoretically predicted by Aaron Director, his brother-in-law, and empirically confirmed by Magee. Lakatos invited Friedman to submit a discussion note based on his December 1972 letter to Latsis for publication in a symposium on the issue of the scientific status or not of neoclassical economics, but Friedman never took up the invitation. In 1996 Elizabeth Granitz and Benjamin Klein uncovered how Standard Oil used its dominant position in refining to sell refined oil at a monopoly price, and purchase crude at a monopoly price. [http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/725768?uid=3739560&uid=2&uid=4&uid=3739256&sid=21102605694677] McGee's revisionist analysis has been heavily criticized, for reasons that demonstrate Lakatos' critique was accurate.
1162869	Phillip "Phil" LaMarr (born January 24, 1967) is an American actor, comedian, and voice actor. He was one of the original cast members on the sketch comedy series "MADtv", and has had an extensive voice acting career, with major roles spanning animated series "Justice League"/"Justice League Unlimited", "Futurama", "Samurai Jack", "Static Shock", and "Foster's Home For Imaginary Friends", and video games ' and ', and "", the "Jak and Daxter" series, "Darksiders", "Final Fantasy XII", "inFAMOUS", "Dead Island" and the series. Early life. LaMarr was born in Los Angeles, California. He is a graduate of Harvard High School in North Hollywood, and Yale University, where he helped found the improv comedy group Purple Crayon. One of his biggest roles at Yale was the title character in the British comedy "Trevor". After graduating in 1989, LaMarr became a member of the award-winning sketch and improv comedy group The Groundlings. He also studied improv at The Second City and at the ImprovOlympic in Chicago with Del Close. He has also improvised with Cold Tofu and Off the Wall. His early film jobs arose from connections from his improv and college years. For example, LaMarr appeared in the film "It's Pat" (1994), written by friends from the Groundlings, and he appeared in "Bio-Dome" because the director was a friend from college. Career. "MADtv". LaMarr, unlike most of the other original nine cast members of "MADtv", had extensive television and film jobs experience when he joined the show. Even before college, he had voiced a character on the "Mister T" cartoon show. Some of the recurring characters LaMarr performed on "MADtv" were Desperation Lee ("Funky Walker Dirty Talker"), Jaq the UBS Guy, "sexy player" Rick, talentless R&B singer Savante and Rocket Revengers star Lieutenant Abraham Jefferson (a.k.a. Lincoln Willis). LaMarr has done impressions of celebrities such as He has done impressions of Moe Howard from The Three Stooges while playing an African-American version of the character. LaMarr left "MADtv" at the end of the fifth season (2000). Sometimes, LaMarr fills in for Greg Proops on the Odd News small, 4 minute section on Yahoo.com. It features odd, but true recent news. Voice acting work. LaMarr's voiceover credits include a starring role on "Justice League"/"Justice League Unlimited" as Green Lantern, a major role as Hermes Conrad and various other characters on "Futurama", and the title roles on "Samurai Jack" and "Static Shock". LaMarr reprised his role as Hermes Conrad in the "Futurama" movies ', ', ', ', and upon the series return in 2010. He also voices Wilt and other recurring characters in "Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends", Carver Descartes on "The Weekenders", and he portrayed the character Osmosis Jones in the television series "Ozzy & Drix". He additionally voices Jazz, Omega Supreme, Oil Slick, and Jetstorm on "Transformers Animated". LaMarr portrayed Nautolan Jedi Master Kit Fisto in ' on Cartoon Network; he also played Amit Noloff, a one time character, and a Tactical Droid. He also had a major role in "Class of 3000" as Philly Phil. He portrayed Aquaman, and voiced other characters in "Young Justice"; he is the voice of Baxter Stockman in the new "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles", and voices JARVIS and Wonder Man in '. Film and theatre projects. LaMarr's stage credits include "The Tempest", "As You Like It", "Guys and Dolls", "Asylum", South Coast Repertory's "Make the Break" and the Sacred Fools Theater Company's inaugural production of "The Fatty Arbuckle Spookhouse Revue". On the big screen, LaMarr is most well known as Marvin from "Pulp Fiction". He has appeared in "Kill the Man", "Free Enterprise", "Cherish", and "Manna from Heaven". He appeared in "Speaking of Sex" with Bill Murray and Catherine O'Hara, and "Back by Midnight" with Kirstie Alley, Rodney Dangerfield, and Randy Quaid. LaMarr's recent film appearances include "Fronterz" (2004) and "Choose Your Own Adventure: The Abominable Snowman" (2005). As of April 2006, LaMarr is filming "Cook-Off!", in which he will appear as Rev. Thaddeus Briggs, Esq. LaMarr made a cameo appearance in the Will Ferrell film "Step Brothers" in which he is viewing a house for sale with his wife. LaMarr also was in the Yum Corp Sexual Harassment training videos. LaMarr is playing Cowboy Curtis in the Broadway production of "The Pee-wee Herman Show" which begins performances Oct. 26th at the newly named Stephen Sondheim Theater. He played the role when the show was recently revived in Los Angeles. The character was originally portrayed on television by Laurence Fishburne. The Broadway production of "The Pee-wee Herman Show" was recently taped for special to be aired on HBO in April. LaMarr also appeared in Spider-Man 2 as one of the riders standing behind Spidey, as he was trying to save the subway train. Video game voiceover work. LaMarr performed the English voice over work for Vamp, a villain of ' and '. Additionally, LaMarr voiced the characters Reddas from Square Enix's "Final Fantasy XII" as well as Ramza in the PSP version of '. He also did several voices, including Skelter, for '. He also did the English voice acting for the parts of Sig and Count Veger in the "Jak and Daxter" video game series as well as voicing several characters in the game ', as well as the voice of Gadon Thek in '. As well as a featuring in the Sega CD game "Make My Video C+C Music Factory", he also was the voice of Chris Jacobs in both ' and its sequel, '. He plays the character John White/The Beast in the PS3 titles "Infamous" 1 and 2. Also, he plays the character Dr. Ragland in the game "Prototype". He also was the voice of the grumpy Kane in the game "", and Marty in the video game tie-in of "Madagascar". LaMarr also recently voiced the merchant "Vulgrim" in the new action/adventure hybrid "Darksiders". He played the role of "Mr. Sunshine" in the 2008 crime game "Saints Row 2", and reprised his role in "Saints Row IV" in 2013. He reprised his role as Kit Fisto for the video game: "". LaMarr voiced Rick Grimes in the animation film of "The Walking Dead". He also voiced Sam B, one of the playable characters in "Dead Island", and recently made his debut in the "Kingdom Hearts" series in "" as Phoebus, a character originally from "The Hunchback of Notre Dame" and voiced by Kevin Kline. He recently returned to the Metal Gear franchise as the voice of Kevin Washington in "" Webisode projects. LaMarr is set to appear as a regular character in the forthcoming major webisode series Naught for Hire produced by Jeffrey Berman and Farscape's Ben Browder. His character, Mark One, is described to be that of an elevator with mood-swings. It is unclear whether or not he will be solely the voice of this character or if he will appear in person similarly to that of Max Headroom, a concept which Browder has pulled from before when writing for Farscape episode John Quixote, which used an elevator displaying a talking human interface on a screen within. A date has not yet been set for the series' release.
1163051	Danica Mae McKellar (born January 3, 1975) is an American actress, film director, academic, book author and education advocate. She is best known for her role as Winnie Cooper in the television show "The Wonder Years", and later as the "New York Times" bestselling author of four popular non-fiction books: "Math Doesn't Suck", "Kiss My Math", "Hot X: Algebra Exposed" and "Girls Get Curves: Geometry Takes Shape", which encourage middle-school and high-school girls to have confidence and succeed in mathematics. Early life. Born in La Jolla, California, McKellar moved with her family to Los Angeles when she was eight. Her mother Mahalia is a homemaker; her father Christopher is a real estate developer. Her family is "a big mix of Western Europe": Her mother's ancestry is Portuguese (via the Azores and Madeira islands); her father's ancestry is Scottish, Irish, French, German and Dutch. McKellar and her sister Crystal McKellar both maintained professional acting careers as children, but with a strong emphasis on education as a priority. As a result, Crystal became a corporate lawyer, while Danica majored in mathematics. Danica and Crystal also have two half-brothers, Chris Junior and Connor McKellar. Acting career. "The Wonder Years" and early acting career. McKellar had a leading role in "The Wonder Years", an American television comedy-drama that ran for six seasons on ABC, from 1988 to 1993. She played Gwendolyn "Winnie" Cooper, the main love interest of Kevin Arnold (played by Fred Savage) on the show. Her first kiss was with Fred Savage in an episode of "The Wonder Years". She later said, "My first kiss was a pretty nerve-wracking experience! But we never kissed off screen, and pretty quickly our feelings turned into brother/sister, and stayed that way." Late-night talk show host Jimmy Fallon has said that the character of Winnie Cooper "is the coolest girl in any TV show ever." Later career. McKellar has admitted the transition from "child actor to adult actor was a little bumpy." Since leaving "The Wonder Years", McKellar has had several guest roles in television series (including one with former co-star Fred Savage on "Working"), and has written and directed two short films. She appeared in two Lifetime TV movies in the "Moment of Truth" series, playing Kristin Guthrie in 1994's ' and Annie Mills Carman in 1996's '. She briefly returned to regular television with a recurring role in the 2002–03 season of "The West Wing," portraying Elsie Snuffin, the stepsister and assistant of Deputy White House Communications Director Will Bailey. McKellar appeared in lingerie in the July 2005 edition of "Stuff" magazine after readers voted her the 1990s star they would most like to see in lingerie. McKellar explained that she agreed to the shoot in part to obtain "grittier roles". In June 2006, Lifetime Television announced that McKellar would star in a Lifetime movie and web-based series titled "Inspector Mom" about a mother who solves mysteries. On the August 1, 2007, edition of the "Don and Mike Show", a WJFK-FM radio program out of Washington, D.C., McKellar announced plans that the producers of "How I Met Your Mother" were planning to bring her back for a recurring role (she guest-starred on the show in late 2005 in "The Pineapple Incident" and again in early 2007 in "Third Wheel"). She also made an appearance on the show "The Big Bang Theory", in the episode "The Psychic Vortex". In 2008, she starred in "Heatstroke", a Sci-Fi Channel original movie about searching for alien life on Earth and in 2009 she was one of the stars commenting on the occurrences of the new millennium in VH1's "I Love the New Millennium "and was the math correspondent for "Brink", a program by the Science Channel about technology. McKellar has also found work as a voice actress. She is the voice of Miss Martian in "Young Justice". She has also provided the voices for two characters in three video games: Jubilee in "X-Men Legends" (2004), and Invisible Woman in ' (2006) and ' (2009). Mathematics. McKellar studied mathematics at UCLA, graduating "summa cum laude" in 1998.
1056164	Night of the Living Dead 3D or Night of the Living DE3D is a 2006 horror film made in 3D. It is the second remake of the 1968 horror classic "Night of the Living Dead". The first was released in 1990 and was directed by Tom Savini from a revised screenplay by George A. Romero. Unlike the first remake, no one involved with the original is involved with this version. The original film was never properly copyrighted, and so it has fallen into the public domain, making this remake possible with no permission from the original's creators (the original movie can actually be seen playing on TV in this version). It was released on DVD on October 9, 2007 in two separate versions, the original 3D format which includes four pairs of anaglyph (red/blue) 3D glasses, and a 2D version that does not require nor include any 3D glasses. Plot. In this latest interpretation, the characters Barb and her brother Johnny arrive late for their aunt's funeral and find the cemetery overrun with zombies. After Johnny abandons her, Barb flees the cemetery and is rescued by Ben, a local college student. The two seek refuge in the nearby farmhouse of the Cooper family (Henry & Hellie Cooper, Henry's daughter and Hellie's stepdaughter Karen, farmhand Owen, and farmhand Tom and his girlfriend Judy), and attempt to live through the night along with other survivors, including the pyrophobic mortician, Gerald Tovar, Jr. As Barb and Ben attempt to convince the Cooper family that the zombies are heading to the house, Tom and Judy are attacked while having sex in the barn. After hearing Judy's screams, Barb and the rest of the household attempt to save her, but they are too late. When Tovar arrives, he explains what is happening. Owen the farmhand and Karen succumb to zombie bites and become undead. Barb and Ben leave with Tovar to what they believe is safety, while Henry and Hellie barricade themselves upstairs. Henry, who was bitten by a reanimated Karen and thus doomed to become a zombie, and Hellie, who is completely distraught over the death of her stepdaughter and the eventual reanimation of Henry, decide to commit suicide, and do so. After reaching his house, Tovar knocks Ben out and reveals that he was the one who brought the zombies back to life, even so much as bringing his own father back and feeding him with his own blood. Barb sets the house on fire, but Tovar catches her and brings her back to the mortuary along with an unconscious Ben in the trunk. Ultimately, Tovar plans to have Barb reborn as a zombie, but Barb gets the upper hand and throws him to a pack of zombies, who devour him. Barb and Ben escape and lock the other zombies in the garage. Ben realizes that he has been impaled with a tire iron, but is apparently unharmed; moments later, he transforms into a zombie. Barb uses the last bullet to kill him, and the zombies break through the gate. Prequel. A prequel, titled "", was released in 2012 starring Andrew Divoff, Jeffrey Combs, Denice Duff and directed by Jeff Broadstreet.
584113	Siruthai () is a 2011 Indian Tamil action-masala film directed by Siva. A remake of the Telugu blockbuster "Vikramarkudu", directed by S. S. Rajamouli, the film stars Karthi, performing dual roles, and Tamannaah alongside comedian Santhanam. The film was produced by K. E. Gnanavelraja and features music by Vidyasagar. It was released during Pongal on 14 January 2011; in spite of mixed reviews, it went on to become a commercial success. Plot. Rocket Raja (Karthi) is a small-time thief who steals anything he comes across. With his partner Kaatu poochi (Santhanam) he enjoys life to its fullest and even falls for the beautiful Swetha (Tamannaah). However, his life changes when a small girl Divya Rathinavel (Baby Rakshana)ends up in his care; he looks exactly like her father Rathniavel Pandian IPS (Karthi). As Raja discovers the girl's past, it is revealed that Rathinavel Pandian is an honest policeman who is a nightmare to criminals, but that one gang of criminals in the village of Devi pattnam are intent on killing him and his daughter because he killed the son of a prominent criminal, who also sexually abused women. Rathinavel Pandian's colleagues put Divya in Rocket Raja's care so that the criminals cannot track her. Rathinavel Pandian is on the verge of death following a gunshot to his head. At first Raja is angry with the little girl and breaks her tape recorder. Divya is happy and hugs him, after he repairs it. Rathinavel Pandian is intent on fighting back. Unfortunately, he dies following a battle with several criminals who had been chasing Raja and Divya.From police officers,he realise that pandyan was an honest and courageous police officer who stood against Babuji and his family who had cruelly ruled a village and pandyan even manages to kill his son and stopping their crminal acts.Pandyan manages to fail his brother but he gets shot when he tried to save a child.Upon seeing his courage, Rocket Raja (with the help of Rathinavel Pandian’s colleagues) steps into Rathinavel Pandian's shoes and finishes his unfinished work as he himself is a thug and destroys all their properties with the help of kaatu poochi in a hilarious way.He also kills his brother and also takes on the responsibility of taking care of Divya, with the help of Swetha. Production. In 2008, reports emerged that "Vikramarkudu" would be remade in Tamil with Karthi. Ruthika and Anushka, who acted in original, were considered for the female leads. Suraj of "Thalainagaram" was said to be the director. VV Kathir who directed Jeeva starrer "Thenavattu" was also announced as director but Sivakumar advised Karthi to do strong characters before making a mark as action hero thus the project was dropped. The project was revived in 2010 and Siva, who directed films like "Souryam" and "Sankham", was selected as director making his debut in Tamil. Tamannah was chosen as heroine after "Paiyaa". Soundtrack. The soundtrack album to the film was composed by Vidyasagar and features five songs. It was described as "bland" by Rediff, while Sify called it "catchy and youthful". Behindwoods gave a 2.5/5 rating, claiming that it "emphasizes the fact that it is a commercial entertainer. This may not be Vidyasagar's best album but he has given what the movie requires: A crisp album with short and sweet songs [...] "Siruthai" is a worthy listen to and must appeal to Karthi's fans is a huge way". Reception. The film was met with mixed response from most critics and audiences. Behindwoods gave a 2/5 rating and wrote: "Watch Siruthai if you are a hardcore mass masala fan. Since the originality of the Telugu version is retained, when released in Andhra this movie might serve as Karthi’s launch pad in Tollywood. Chances are that you might like Karthi, who is trying his best to prevent the movie from its impending dive into the depths of hackneyed void." Sify claimed that "Siruthai" had "come out as a festival bonanza for Tamil film goers. It is an unpretentious commercial pot boiler with ample doses of romance, comedy, action and emotion". Indiaglitz, another portal said "'Siruthai' is fit and fine for a good leap. With Karthi trying new vistas not missing out on the entertainment quotient, it is an obvious sweet pongal for masses this Pongal. Action and satisfaction is what 'Siruthai' is". N. Venkateswaran from the Times of India deemed a score of 2.5/5, citing that it "does not do anything for Karthi as an actor; what it does is to cement his position in the Tamil film industry as an actor who is a big draw at the box office". Malathi Rangarajan from The Hindu noted: "Generally, well-told cop stories don't bite the dust. Nor do dual role bonanzas. Going by the norm, this Siruthai should charge ahead!" Chennai Online stated: "Though the formula used in the flick could appeal to the masses, the director could have thought of some fresh sequences to make the movie more exciting". Oneindia.in remarked: "You can watch the film with your family because of the entertaining elements. It has a perfect mix of romance, action, fun, comedy, glamour and sentiments. It is a perfect Pongal treat for Kollywood audience. Do not miss this movie".
1059448	Alan Wray Tudyk (born March 16, 1971) is an American actor known for his roles as Hoban "Wash" Washburne in the space western television series "Firefly" and movie "Serenity", Wat in "A Knight's Tale", Simon in the British comedy "Death at a Funeral", Steve the Pirate in ', Sonny in the science fiction drama "I, Robot", Doc Potter in ', Tucker in "Tucker & Dale vs Evil", King Candy in Disney's "Wreck-It Ralph", and Alpha in "Dollhouse". He currently co-stars on the ABC sitcom "Suburgatory". He also had a main role in the film "42" as Ben Chapman. Early life. Tudyk (pronounced Tude-ick) was born in El Paso, Texas, the son of Betty Loyce (née Wiley) and Timothy Nicholas Tudyk. His father is of Polish descent and his mother has German, English, and Scottish ancestry. He was raised in Plano, Texas, a suburb of Dallas, where he attended Plano Senior High School. He had a brief experience as a stand-up comic, before quitting after an angry audience member threatened to kill him. Tudyk studied drama at the Methodist-affiliated Lon Morris College in Jacksonville, Texas where he won the Academic Excellence award for drama. While in college, he played Beaver Smith in an eastern New Mexico summer stock theater production of "Billy the Kid". Tudyk entered Juilliard but left in 1996 before earning a degree. Career. Film. In 2000, Tudyk played Gerhardt, a gay German drug addict, alongside Sandra Bullock and Viggo Mortensen in "28 Days". Tudyk played Wat in 2001's "A Knight's Tale", as well as Steve the Pirate in the 2004 comedy ' and the emotional robot Sonny in "I, Robot". In 2005, he reprised his role as the playful, easy-going Hoban "Wash" Washburne in the film "Serenity", derived from the cult television series "Firefly" by Joss Whedon. In 2007, he had a supporting role as a strong-willed doctor in the western film ' alongside Christian Bale and Russell Crowe along with a brief but memorable role in the film "Knocked Up" and a highly physical comedic performance in the British film "Death at a Funeral". Tudyk starred as Tucker in the indie horror comedy "Tucker & Dale vs Evil". He also appears in "" as Dutch. In ', he voiced Simone (a reckless French accent speaking Chipmunk, the result after Simon was bitten by a spider). In 2012, Tudyk appeared in Timur Bekmambetov's ', in the role of Stephen A. Douglas. Tudyk also voiced the character King Candy in the 2012 Disney animated film, "Wreck-It Ralph", a performance for which he won the Annie Award for Voice Acting. He plays Ben Chapman in the 2013 movie "42" about Jackie Robinson. Broadway. In 1999, Tudyk made his Broadway debut in "Epic Proportions". He was also in "Wonder of the World", "The Most Fabulous Story Ever Told", "Misalliance", "Oedipus" and "Bunny Bunny". In 2005, Tudyk filled in for Hank Azaria's roles in "Spamalot" from June to December, and starred in a limited run of "Prelude to a Kiss" on Broadway. Television. Among Tudyk's better known roles was the playful, easy-going Hoban "Wash" Washburne in the television series "Firefly" by Joss Whedon. Although the series ran for only one season, Universal Studios bought the rights to the show and turned it into a film, "Serenity", in which he reprised the role. He did a few voices from Make Way for Noddy. Tudyk appeared as the cult leader, Father, in a two-part episode of "Strangers With Candy" entitled "Blank Stare." Among several guest spots on popular shows such as "Arrested Development", he played a convicted pedophile on a popular episode of "". Tudyk was cast as a special guest star in Joss Whedon's "Dollhouse". The show featured people whose personalities had been erased, with Tudyk portraying Alpha, a former "active" who accidentally downloaded 48 separate personalities. Alpha served as the main antagonist of the series' first season, with guest appearances in the show's second season. Tudyk also guest starred in three episodes of ABC's modern remake of the television miniseries "V". Tudyk provided the voice of superhero Green Arrow in the animated series "Young Justice". He is co-starring in the ABC comedy series "Suburgatory" as Noah Werner a dentist from the big city who moved to the suburbs. Video games. Tudyk plays the voice of a Marine in the Xbox 360 game "Halo 3". He is joined by his "Firefly" co-stars Adam Baldwin and Nathan Fillion who both voice Marines. All three actors are given personalities in the game matching those of their characters from "Firefly". Tudyk made an appearance in "" as the character "Mickey", an elite ODST (Orbital Drop Shock Trooper) who is part of the player character's squad as they try to escape a city invaded by the Covenant. He is also the voice of the DC Comics character Green Arrow in the game Injustice: Gods Among Us.
1039592	Alexander Duncan "Alec" McCowen CBE (born 26 May 1925) is an English actor. He is known for his work in numerous film and stage productions. He was awarded the OBE in the 1972 New Year Honours and the CBE in the 1985 New Year Honours. Early life. McCowen was born in Tunbridge Wells, Kent, the son of Mary (née Walkden), a dancer, and Duncan McCowen, a shopkeeper. He attended the Skinners' School in Tunbridge Wells and the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. His partner, the actor Geoffrey Burridge, died in 1987 from AIDS complications. Career. Early theatre work. McCowen first appeared on stage at the Repertory Theatre, Macclesfield, in August 1942 as Micky in "Paddy the Next Best Thing". He appeared in repertory in York and Birmingham 1943-45, and toured India and Burma in a production of Kenneth Horne's West End comedy "Love in a Mist" during 1945 with the Entertainments National Service Association (ENSA). He continued in repertory 1946-49, during which time he played a season at St John's, Newfoundland, Canada. He made his London debut on 20 April 1950 at the Arts Theatre as Maxim in "Ivanov", and made his first appearances on the New York stage at the Ziegfeld Theatre on 19 December 1951 as an Egyptian Guard in "Caesar and Cleopatra", and on 20 December 1951 as the Messenger in "Antony and Cleopatra". Following a series of roles at the Arts and with the Repertory Players, he had rising success as Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec in "Moulin Rouge" at the then New Theatre, Bromley, and appeared as Barnaby Tucker in "The Matchmaker" at the Theatre Royal Haymarket, both 1954. After appearances as Dr Bird in "The Caine Mutiny Court Martial" at the London Hippodrome in 1956, and Michael Claverton-Ferry in T.S. Eliot's "The Elder Statesman", first at the Edinburgh Festival in 1958, then at the Cambridge Theatre, he joined the Old Vic Company for its 1959-60 season, among several parts taking the title role in "Richard II", then stayed on for the 1960-61 season to play Mercutio in "Romeo and Juliet", Oberon in "A Midsummer Night's Dream" and Malvolio in "Twelfth Night". He joined the Royal Shakespeare Company in September 1962, appearing at Stratford-upon-Avon playing Antipholus of Syracuse in "The Comedy of Errors" and the Fool to Paul Scofield's "King Lear", subsequently appearing in both plays at the Aldwych Theatre in December 1962 — performing these roles again for a British Council tour of the USSR, Europe and the US from February to June 1964. With the RSC he also played "the gruelling role" of Father Riccardo Fontana in Rolf Hochhuth's controversial play "The Representative" at the Aldwych in December 1963. Later theatre work. He enjoyed a career breakthrough at the Mermaid Theatre in April 1968 as Fr. William Rolfe in "Hadrian the Seventh", winning his first Evening Standard Award as Best Actor for the London production and a Tony nomination after taking it to Broadway. At the Royal Court in August 1970 McCowen was cast to play the title role in Christopher Hampton's sophisticated comedy, "The Philanthropist". If a philanthropist is literally someone who likes people, McCowen's Philip was a philologist with a compulsive urge not to hurt people's feelings — the inverse of Molière's "The Misanthrope". Following enthusiastic reviews the production played to packed houses and transferred to the Mayfair Theatre where it ran for a further three years, making it the Royal Court's most successful straight play. McCowen and his co-star Jane Asher went with it to Broadway in March 1971 where he won the 1971 Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Performance. His next big successes were in National Theatre Comnpany productions at the Old Vic. In February 1973 he co-starred with Diana Rigg in Molière's "The Misanthrope" for which he won his second "Evening Standard" award; followed in July 1973 by the role of psychiatrist Martin Dysart ("played on a knife edge of professional skill and personal disgust by McCowen", according to Irving Wardle reviewing for "The Times") in the world premiere of Peter Shaffer's "Equus". In January 1978 he devised and directed his own solo performance of the complete text of the St. Mark's Gospel, for which he received worldwide acclaim and another Tony nomination. It opened first at the Riverside Studios before beginning a long West End season at the Mermaid Theatre then at the Comedy Theatre. Taking the production to New York he appeared at the Marymount Manhattan and Playhouse theatres. Christopher Hampton's stage adaptation of George Steiner's novel "The Portage to San Cristobal of A.H." at the Mermaid in 1982 gave McCowen a great final speech, an attempted vindication of racial extermination delivered by Adolf Hitler, which for "Guardian" critic Michael Billington was "one of the greatest pieces of acting I have ever seen: a shuffling, grizzled, hunched, baggy figure, yet suggesting the monomaniac power of the Nuremberg Rallies, inhabiting the frail vessel of this old man's body." It was a performance that also won him his third "Evening Standard" Best Actor award, a record equalled only by Laurence Olivier and Paul Scofield. Two years later, again at the Mermaid, McCowen gave a portrayal of the British poet Rudyard Kipling in a one-man play by Brian Clark, performed in a setting that exactly matched Kipling's own study at Bateman's (his Jacobean rustic haven in Sussex) "and turning", as Michael Billington wrote, "an essentially private man into a performer." McCowen appeared in the play on Broadway and on television for Channel 4. Directing. While preparing to co-star as Vladimir to John Alderton's Estragon in Michael Rudman's acclaimed production of "Waiting for Godot" at the National Theatre in November 1987, McCowen also spent a busy autumn staging Martin Crimp's trilogy of short plays "Definitely the Bahamas" at the Orange Tree Theatre in Richmond upon Thames, having previously enjoyed Crimp's style of writing in a BBC radio version of "Three Attempted Acts". As Charles Spencer wrote in the Daily Telegraph: "As a director McCowen captures both the subtlety and the richness of these three original and beautifully written plays." At the Hampstead Theatre in December 1972 he directed a revival of Terence Rattigan's wartime London comedy "While the Sun Shines". Film and television. McCowen made his film debut in 1953 in the film, "The Cruel Sea". McCowen has appeared in the films "The Long Arm" (1956), "Time Without Pity" (1957), "Town on Trial" (1957), "The One That Got Away" (1957), "The Silent Enemy" (1958), "A Night to Remember" (1958), "The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner" (1962), "In the Cool of the Day" (1963), "The Agony and the Ecstasy" (1965), "The Witches" (1966), "The Hawaiians" (1970), "Frenzy" (1972), "Travels With My Aunt" (1972) for which he received a Golden Globe nomination, "Stevie" (1978), "Hanover Street" (1979), "Never Say Never Again" (1983), "The Assam Garden" (1985), "Personal Services" (1987), "Cry Freedom" (1987), "Henry V" (1989) "The Age of Innocence" (1993), and "Longitude" (TV, 2000). Television roles included the BBC four-part adaptation of J.B. Priestley's "Angel Pavement" in 1958, and his one-man stage performance of "The Gospel According to Saint Mark", transferred to television by Thames for Easter 1979. He appeared in the BBC Television Shakespeare series as Malvolio in "Twelfth Night" and as Chorus in "Henry V", and starred in the lead role of the 1980s TV series "Mr. Palfrey of Westminster". His one-man "Kipling" stage performance was broadcast in 1984, and he played Albert Speer and Rudolf Hess in the BBC docudramas "The World Walk" in 1984 and 1985. Literature. McCowen published his first volume of autobiography, "Young Gemini" in 1979, followed a year later by "Double Bill" (Elm Tree Books).
430914	Taylor Kitsch (born April 8, 1981) is a Canadian actor and model. He is known for his role as Tim Riggins in the NBC television series "Friday Night Lights" and for his role as Gambit in "" (2009). He also starred in three films "John Carter", "Battleship", and "Savages" in 2012. Early life and modeling career. Kitsch was born in Kelowna, British Columbia, Canada. His mother worked for the BC liquor board and his father in construction. He has two older brothers and two younger paternal half sisters, and was raised by his single mother in Vancouver. He played junior ice hockey for the Langley Hornets in the British Columbia Hockey League, before a knee injury ended his career. Kitsch moved to New York in 2002 after receiving an opportunity to pursue modeling with IMG and studied acting there as well. While in New York, he became a nutritionist and a personal trainer. For a time in New York he was homeless and took to sleeping on subway trains in the middle of the night. In 2004, he relocated to Los Angeles where he modeled for Diesel and Abercrombie & Fitch. He also appears in the limited edition coffee table book "About Face" by celebrity photographer John Russo. Acting career. In 2006, Kitsch was cast in his breakout role on the NBC sports teen drama television series "Friday Night Lights" based on the 2004 "film", both from Peter Berg. The series centers on the small-town football team Dillon Panthers in the fictional town of Dillon, Texas. Kitsch portrayed for five seasons the role of Tim Riggins, a high school student who is the fullback/running back of the Dillon Panthers. The series premiered in October 2006 to universal critical acclaim from critics and over 7.7 million viewers. Kitsch has ruled out reprising the role of Riggins in a potential film sequel to the television series. He played Pogue Parry in "The Covenant" alongside Steven Strait, Sebastian Stan, Laura Ramsey, Toby Hemingway, Jessica Lucas and Chace Crawford. In February 2008, he signed on to play Gambit in the X-Men franchise spinoff "", released in May 2009. Of the fan-favorite character of Gambit, Kitsch states, "I knew of him, but I didn't know the following he had. I'm sure I'm still going to be exposed to that. I love the character, I love the powers, and I love what they did with him. I didn't know that much, but in my experience, it was a blessing to go in and create my take on him. I'm excited for it, to say the least." In 2009, Kitsch signed up for Steven Silver's "The Bang Bang Club", a historical drama set in South Africa which documents the final bloody days of the apartheid. He had to lose 35 pounds in two months to play the role of photojournalist Kevin Carter, alongside Ryan Phillippe and Malin Åkerman. In November 2010, "The Hollywood Reporter" named Kitsch as one of the young male actors who are "pushing – or being pushed" into taking over Hollywood as the new "A-List". Kitsch's first lead role in a film was in Disney's "John Carter", based on the novel "A Princess of Mars", which was released in March 2012. He played the title role of John Carter, a Confederate soldier who gets transported to Mars. The film made back less than a third of its budget domestically, and worldwide grosses barely recouped its production and marketing costs. Despite this, Kitsch said, "I'm very proud of "John Carter". Box office doesn't validate me as a person, or as an actor." In May 2012, Kitsch starred in Peter Berg's "Battleship", an adaptation of Hasbro's Battleship game, as Naval commander Alex Hopper. It, too, failed at the domestic box office, boasting the worst opening in history for a film that cost more than $200 million. Again, international revenues are expected to help mitigate its performance. The film marked his reunion with Berg and former co-star Jesse Plemons, who also starred in "Friday Night Lights".
643245	Cleve Barry Moler is a mathematician and computer programmer specializing in numerical analysis. In the mid to late 1970s, he was one of the authors of LINPACK and EISPACK, Fortran libraries for numerical computing. He invented MATLAB, a numerical computing package, to give his students at the University of New Mexico easy access to these libraries without writing Fortran. In 1984, he co-founded MathWorks with Jack Little to commercialize this program. He received his bachelor's degree from California Institute of Technology in 1961, and a Ph.D. from Stanford University, all in mathematics. He was a professor of mathematics and computer science for almost 20 years at the University of Michigan, Stanford University, and the University of New Mexico. Before joining MathWorks full-time in 1989, he also worked for Intel Hypercube and Ardent Computer Corporation. He is also co-author of four textbooks on numerical methods and is a member of the Association for Computing Machinery. He was vice-president of the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics and currently sits on its Board of Trustees. He started serving a two year term as president of SIAM in January 2007. He was elected to the National Academy of Engineering on February 14, 1997. He received an honorary degree from Linköping University, Sweden. He received an honorary degree of Doctor of Mathematics from the University of Waterloo on June 16, 2001. On April 30, 2004, he was appointed Honorary Doctor (doctor technices, honoris causa) at the Technical University of Denmark. In April 2012, the IEEE Computer Society named Cleve the recipient of the 2012 Computer Pioneer Award.
804355	The Way Things Go () is a 1987 art film by the Swiss artist duo Peter Fischli and David Weiss. It documents a long causal chain assembled of everyday objects, resembling a Rube Goldberg machine. Description. The art installation was in a warehouse, about 100 feet long, and incorporated materials such as tires, trash bags, ladders, soap, oil drums, old shoes, water, and gasoline. Fire and pyrotechnics were used as chemical triggers. The film is nearly 29 minutes, 45 seconds long, but some of that is waiting for something to burn, dissolve, or slowly slide down a ramp. The film is presented as a single sequence of events, but careful observation reveals over two dozen film edits.
1099309	Monte Carlo methods (or Monte Carlo experiments) are a broad class of computational algorithms that rely on repeated random sampling to obtain numerical results; i.e., by running simulations many times over in order to calculate those same probabilities heuristically just like actually playing and recording your results in a real casino situation: hence the name. They are often used in physical and mathematical problems and are most suited to be applied when it is impossible to obtain a closed-form expression or infeasible to apply a deterministic algorithm. Monte Carlo methods are mainly used in three distinct problems: optimization, numerical integration and generation of samples from a probability distribution. Monte Carlo methods are especially useful for simulating systems with many coupled degrees of freedom, such as fluids, disordered materials, strongly coupled solids, and cellular structures (see cellular Potts model). They are used to model phenomena with significant uncertainty in inputs, such as the calculation of risk in business. They are widely used in mathematics, for example to evaluate multidimensional definite integrals with complicated boundary conditions. When Monte Carlo simulations have been applied in space exploration and oil exploration, their predictions of failures, cost overruns and schedule overruns are routinely better than human intuition or alternative "soft" methods. The modern version of the Monte Carlo method was invented in the late 1940s by Stanislaw Ulam, while he was working on nuclear weapon projects at the Los Alamos National Laboratory. It was named, by Nicholas Metropolis, after the Monte Carlo Casino, where Ulam's uncle often gambled. Immediately after Ulam's breakthrough, John von Neumann understood its importance and programmed the ENIAC computer to carry out Monte Carlo calculations. Introduction. Monte Carlo methods vary, but tend to follow a particular pattern: For example, consider a circle inscribed in a unit square. Given that the circle and the square have a ratio of areas that is /4, the value of pi can be approximated using a Monte Carlo method: In this procedure the domain of inputs is the square that circumscribes our circle. We generate random inputs by scattering grains over the square then perform a computation on each input (test whether it falls within the circle). Finally, we aggregate the results to obtain our final result, the approximation of .
582434	Namastey London is a 2007 Bollywood film. The romantic comedy film is directed by Vipul Amrutlal Shah and stars Akshay Kumar and Katrina Kaif. It also stars Rishi Kapoor, Upen Patel and Clive Standen in supporting roles. Riteish Deshmukh has a cameo role in the film. The concept of Indians being born in foreign nations and forgetting their Indian roots and instead trying to become like people of that nation is drawn from the "Manoj Kumar" starrer Purab Aur Paschim. The film is made for an Indian audience in India, with most of the topics being controversial in India, like openly kissing in public and alcohol abuse. It was remade in Bengali, as "Poran Jaye Jolia Re" starring Dev & Subhashree Ganguly which was a massive hit in West Bengal. Synopsis. Indian-born Manmohan Malhotra (Rishi Kapoor) re-located to London, England, established himself, returned to India, got married to Bebo (Nina Wadia), and after four years got a visa for her so that she could live with him. Shortly thereafter, she gave birth to Jasmeet (Katrina Kaif). Manmohan was always embarrassed by Bebo as she was fat and could not speak English. As a result, he always left her out of important occasions, while he socialised. Bebo did not want Jasmeet to end up like her, so she got her educated in an English school, encouraged to mingle with British friends, and Jasmeet was transformed into Jazz – a beautiful young woman, modern in looks, talk, habits, and heart. Her father had set her to meet a young lad, Bobby Bedi (Ritesh Deshmukh), though the date turns out to be a disaster and Bobby rejects her. Manmohan thinks that it is impossible to get him an Indian son-in-law, although his friend, Parvez Khan (Javed Sheikh), is in a similar situation with his son, Imran (Upen Patel), who has a blonde girlfriend, Susan (Tiffany Mulheron). Manmohan takes his family for a tour in India and forces Jasmeet to marry Arjun Singh (Akshay Kumar). On their return to London, Jasmeet announces that she is getting married to Charlie Brown (Clive Standen), who is well educated and has good friends and connections, even with Prince Charles. She refuses to recognise her marriage with Arjun as there is no proof of the wedding. When Jasmeet is introduced to the friends of the Brown family, she is subjected to considerable racist abuse (snake charmers, Indian rope tricks, tandoori chicken) as well as a quote from Winston Churchill: 'When we leave India, the country will be in the hands of goons'. During this period, Jazz becomes close with Arjun who still supports her. Charlie Brown then has a rugby match against the Indians and Arjun, the English lose and Brown is verbally racist to the Indians. Imran is then asked by Susan's parents to leave Islam, become a Christian, change his name to Emmanuel or Ian, as well as provide written proof that his family is not associated with terrorists. The film ends on a happy note when Imran decides not to be a Christian and Susan is accepted by Imran's family; Jazz realises her love for Arjun, runs away from her wedding to Charlie Brown, and goes with Arjun back to India where they are seen riding Arjun's motorcycle. While they are on the motorcycle Arjun reveals that all along he knew how to speak English. Release. Reception. The reviews of the film were generally positive. Taran Adarsh of indiafm.com wrote, "Namastey London is addictive stuff. You watch it once, you wanna watch it again." Akshay Kumar has received almost unanimous praise for his portrayal of Arjun Singh, with a critic saying "Kumar certainly leaves his mark throughout the flick. One of the coolest performances of the star." Adarsh said "One of his finest performances so far, Namastey London also marks the coming of age of an actor who was often dubbed as an action hero or a funster. Akshay not only wins the heart of Katrina on screen, he's sure to win the hearts of millions of moviegoers with a terrific portrayal in this film." On Katrina Kaif's performance he wrote, "she handles the complex part with remarkable ease. The pretty lass is only getting better with every film." Despite the generally favourable reviews, Prachi Singh of Moviewalah panned the film, with a verdict of 2 out of 5 stars. Box office. "Namastey London" opened to a good response and mainly picked up momentum after the second and third day of its release, a major reason being India's exit out of the 2007 Cricket World Cup. The film did extremely well in the northern parts of India especially in Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh. It also did well in Mumbai and in the first week of its release collected Rs. . The film was received very well in other parts of the country. The success of the film ended a long spell of box office failures since the release of "" in January 2007. The film went on to become a huge hit & grossed Rs. making it one of the top hits of 2007. The film was a huge hit overseas. It debuted at number 9 on the UK charts and similarly debuted within the top 20 in the United States and Australian charts. The film collected £238,841 in the first week of its release As of 27 July 2007 the movie has grossed an estimated $15,273,747 USD in five territories which included the United States ($4,149,772), Australia ($197,148), India ($17,267,662), Malaysia ($15,285), and the United Kingdom ($9,021,900). Music. The soundtrack was released on 27 January 2007 and received, so far, good reviews. This the first time Himesh Reshammiya and Javed Akhtar collaborated. Sequel. In March 2011, Shah announced his intention to do a sequel, "Namastey London 2". Kumar has expressed his interest in returning for the sequel, which will shoot scenes in London, Punjab, Mumbai, Germany, and Switzerland. The film's plot has not been fully revealed, but will not be a direct continuation of the first film.
774794	Tracy Wright (December 7, 1959 – June 22, 2010) was a Canadian actress who was known for her stage and film performances, as well as her presence in Canada's avant-garde for over 20 years. In 1989, she was a founding member of the Toronto's Augusta Company, along with her future husband Don McKellar and Daniel Brooks, and worked regularly throughout her theatre career with Brooks, McKellar, and Canadian writers and directors including Nadia Ross, Jacob Wren, Daniel MacIvor, Hillar Liitoja, Paul Bettis and Sky Gilbert. In film, she worked closely with McKellar and Bruce McDonald, whose "Highway 61" (1991) was one of her first major roles, and "This Movie Is Broken" and "Trigger" (2010) were her last. She was also known for her roles in films such as "Monkey Warfare", "Last Night", "When Night Is Falling", "Superstar" and "Me and You and Everyone We Know". Highlights of her television appearances include "The Kids in the Hall" and "Twitch City".
1085571	The Strangerhood is a comedy series created by Rooster Teeth Productions. The series is produced primarily by using the machinima technique of synchronizing video footage from computer and video games to pre-recorded dialogue and other audio. The animation is created using the computer game "The Sims 2" as a parody of sitcoms and reality television. The series details the lives of eight "assorted stereotypes" who wake up living in a neighborhood called Strangerhood Lane, with no memory of who they are, where they are, or how they got there. "The Strangerhood" is the second machinima series of four from Rooster Teeth Productions. It is preceded by "Red vs. Blue: The Blood Gulch Chronicles" and followed by "PANICS". The series is a parody of popular culture, namely television shows such as "Desperate Housewives", "Lost", "24", and "American Idol". The episodes are released online at the Rooster Teeth and official "The Sims 2" websites, and a DVD of the first season was released on May 5, 2006, available from GameStop stores in the United States and online worldwide. Plot. One morning in the near future, a group of assorted stereotypes awake in a strange town with no memory of who they are or where they came from. Their only clues come from the assorted labels that hold their names (Wade's name badge and Sam's underwear) and a mysteriously creepy voice issuing from their televisions. Over the course of the season, they endure many trials including an unusual reality show kitchen task, a murder mystery among their group, a secret affair and of course their own strange personalities before they learn the horrifying truth behind the unusual events of the Strangerhood. Strangerhood Studios. "Strangerhood Studios" is a series of shorts, each about one or two minutes long, featuring the characters of "The Strangerhood". The story, however, departs from the main plot of "The Strangerhood". For example, the characters are back in the outside world, not trapped on Strangerhood Lane. "Strangerhood Studios" was created when the Independent Film Channel asked Rooster Teeth Productions and machinima artist Paul Marino to create six shorts for television broadcast. Characters. As with "Red vs. Blue", "The Strangerhood" features a cast of diverse characters, each skewed in different ways and to varying degrees. Their natures are summed up by the Omnipotent Voice in episode 2 when it booms "Silence, assorted stereotypes!". There are nine main characters, and a small number of supporting characters. Sam is the straight man of the series, often serious in comparison to the other residents; he often describes the situations the residents find themselves in as being ridiculous. Wade, Sam's housemate, is a stereotypical stoner, with bloodshot eyes and memory problems, and is frequently confused by events. Dr Chalmers is an elderly, curmudgeonly intellectual, frequently irritated by his fellow residents. Tovar is a confused ethnic minority, with a silly accent and a penchant for doing foolish things. Dutchmiller is a yuppie stereotype, enthusiastic about everything alternative. Catherine is a stereotypical dumb blonde, who uses other people to her own ends. Nikki is a teenager who is curious as to what is actually going on. Griggs is a stereotypical "tough guy" with camouflage facepaint and a highly aggressive attitude, and is Nikki's biological father in the present time. Production. Animation for "The Strangerhood" is recorded on three separate computers. Owing to the limitations of the simulation engine, it was necessary to create a number of clones of each character, each with a different expression — happy, sad, angry, and so forth. The unused versions are herded into an out-of-viewpoint room and exchanged as necessary to obtain the various facial expressions. Lines are used that best match the mouth movements and gestures of the characters. "If we need them to kiss for a scene," explains Burns, "we have to develop their relationship until they're attracted to each other." Distribution. Videos are released in QuickTime (QT), DivX, and Windows Media Video (WMV) formats. All released episodes of the season in production are freely available from the official site, in 360-by-240 resolution. There is a charge of US$10 to the members of the official Rooster Teeth website who wish to receive sponsorship status for a 6 month timeframe. Sponsorship status allows the member to download any new videos two to three days before their release to the general public. In addition to the public low-resolution videos, sponsors can also access high-resolution (720-by-480 for QT and DivX, 640-by-480 for WMV) versions of the videos, and sponsor-only special videos. The sponsorship program covers all videos on the Rooster Teeth website, including videos for "Red vs. Blue", "The Strangerhood", and "PANICS".
1058585	Fay Masterson (born April 1974) is an English film, television and video-game actress. She is also a voice actress. Career. Masterson's performance career began as a dancer which she gave up at age 11 to attend the Brite Lites Academy in Eltham, South East London. Masterson started her acting career as a child actress at age 14 with her first appearance as Head Girl in "The New Adventures of Pippi Longstocking" (1988), a fantasy-adventure, musical, family film.
585869	Vellanakalude Nadu () is a 1988 Malayalam drama film directed by Priyadarshan, and produced by Maniyanpilla Raju. This film was a critical and commercial success. It was remade in Hindi as "Khatta Meeta" with Akshay Kumar in the lead role which released in 2010, but didn't do well there. Plot. This film is a political satire based against municipal mafia in the form of Buildings & Public roads. Music. The film has only one song "Paaduvaan Ormakalail" sung by M. G. Sreekumar and Sujatha, which the music was done by M. G. Radhakrishnan and lyrics by Kaithapram.
1100024	Andrey Nikolaevich Kolmogorov () (25 April 1903 – 20 October 1987) was a Soviet mathematician, preeminent in the 20th century, who advanced various scientific fields, among them probability theory, topology, intuitionistic logic, turbulence, classical mechanics, algorithmic information theory and computational complexity. Biography. Early life. Andrey Kolmogorov was born in Tambov, about 500 kilometers south-southeast of Moscow, in 1903. His unmarried mother, Maria Y. Kolmogorova, died giving birth to him. Andrey was raised by two of his aunts in Tunoshna (near Yaroslavl) at the estate of his grandfather, a well-to-do nobleman. Little is known about Andrey's father. He was supposedly named Nikolai Matveevich Kataev and had been an agronomist. Nikolai had been exiled from St. Petersburg to the Yaroslavl province after his participation in the revolutionary movement against the czars. He disappeared in 1919 and he was presumed to have been killed in the Russian Civil War. Andrey Kolmogorov was educated in his aunt's village school, and his earliest literary efforts and mathematical papers were printed in the school newspaper. As a teenager, he designed "perpetual motion machines", concealing their (necessary) defects so cleverly that his secondary-school teachers could not discover them. In 1910, his aunt adopted him, and they moved to Moscow, where he graduated from high school in 1920. Later that same year, Kolmogorov began to study at the Moscow State University and the Chemistry Technological Institute. Kolmogorov gained a reputation for his wide-ranging erudition. As an undergraduate student in college, he attended the seminars of the Russian historian S.V. Bachrushin, and he published his first research paper on the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries' landholding practices in the Novgorod Republic. During the same period (1921–22), Kolmogorov worked out and proved several results in set theory and in the theory of Fourier series. Adulthood. In 1922, Kolmogorov gained international recognition for constructing a Fourier series that diverges almost everywhere. Around this time, he decided to devote his life to mathematics. In 1925, Kolmogorov graduated from the Moscow State University and began to study under the supervision of Nikolai Luzin. He formed a lifelong friendship with Pavel Alexandrov. (Both were later involved in the political persecution of their common teacher Nikolai Luzin, in the so-called Luzin affair in 1936.) According to some researchers, Kolmogorov and Alexandrov were involved in a homosexual relationship, while others deny this and suppose that this rumor was spread in the 1950s in order to rehabilitate the participants of the Luzin affair. Kolmogorov (together with Aleksandr Khinchin) became interested in probability theory. Also in 1925, he published his famous work in intuitionistic logic — "On the principle of the excluded middle", in which he proved that under a certain interpretation, all statements of classical formal logic can be formulated as those of intuitionistic logic. In 1929, Kolmogorov earned his Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) degree, from the Moscow State University. In 1930, Kolmogorov went on his first long trip abroad, traveling to Göttingen and Munich, and then to Paris. His pioneering work, "About the Analytical Methods of Probability Theory," was published (in German) in 1931. Also in 1931, he became a professor at the Moscow State University. In 1933, Kolmogorov published his book, "Foundations of the Theory of Probability", laying the modern axiomatic foundations of probability theory and establishing his reputation as the world's leading expert in this field. In 1935, Kolmogorov became the first chairman of the department of probability theory at the Moscow State University. Around the same years (1936) Kolmogorov contributed to the field of ecology and generalized the Lotka–Volterra model of predator-prey systems. In a 1938 paper, Kolmogorov "established the basic theorems for smoothing and predicting stationary stochastic processes"—a paper that would have major military applications during the Cold War. In 1939, he was elected a full member (academician) of the USSR Academy of Sciences. In his study of stochastic processes (random processes), especially Markov processes, Kolmogorov and the British mathematician Sydney Chapman independently developed the pivotal set of equations in the field, which have been given the name of the Chapman–Kolmogorov equations. Later, Kolmogorov focused his research on turbulence, where his publications (beginning in 1941) significantly influenced the field. In classical mechanics, he is best known for the Kolmogorov–Arnold–Moser theorem, first presented in 1954 at the International Congress of Mathematicians. In 1957, working jointly with his student, V. I. Arnold, he solved a particular interpretation of Hilbert's thirteenth problem. Around this time he also began to develop, and was considered a founder of, algorithmic complexity theory - often referred to as Kolmogorov complexity theory. Kolmogorov married Anna Dmitrievna Egorova in 1942. He pursued a vigorous teaching routine throughout his life, not only at the university level but also with younger children, as he was actively involved in developing a pedagogy for gifted children (in literature, music, and mathematics). At the Moscow State University, Kolmogorov occupied different positions, including the heads of several departments: probability, statistics, and random processes; mathematical logic. He also served as the Dean of the Moscow State University Department of Mechanics and Mathematics. In 1971, Kolmogorov joined an oceanographic expedition aboard the research vessel Dmitri Mendeleev. He wrote a number of articles for the "Great Soviet Encyclopedia." In his later years, he devoted much of his effort to the mathematical and philosophical relationship between probability theory in abstract and applied areas. Kolmogorov died in Moscow in 1987, and his remains were buried in the Novodevichy cemetery. A quotation attributed to Kolmogorov is into English: "Every mathematician believes that he is ahead over all others. The reason why they don't say this in public, is because they are intelligent people." Bibliography. A bibliography of his works appeared in
1099754	Abraham Wald (Hungarian: "Wald Ábrahám",  – ) was a mathematician born in Cluj, in the then Austria–Hungary (present-day Romania) who contributed to decision theory, geometry, and econometrics, and founded the field of statistical sequential analysis. He spent his researching years at Columbia University. Life and career. Being a religious Jew, he could not attend school on Saturdays, as was required at the time by the Hungarian school system, and was thus home-schooled by his parents until college. His parents were quite knowledgeable and competent as teachers. In 1927, he entered graduate school at the University of Vienna, from which he graduated in 1931 with a Ph.D. in mathematics. His advisor there was Karl Menger. Despite Wald's brilliance, he could not obtain a university position, because of Austrian discrimination against Jews. However, Oskar Morgenstern created a position for Wald in economics. When the Nazis invaded Austria in 1938, the discrimination against Jews intensified. In particular, Wald and his family were persecuted as Jews. Wald was able to immigrate to the United States, at the invitation of the Cowles Commission for Research in Economics, to work on econometrics research. Wald applied his statistical skills in World War II to the problem of bomber losses to enemy fire. A study had been made of the damage to returning aircraft and it had been proposed that armor be added to those areas that showed the most damage. Wald's unique insight was that the holes from flak and bullets on the bombers that did return represented the areas where they were able to take damage. The data showed that there were similar patches on each returning bomber where there was no damage from enemy fire, leading Wald to conclude that these patches were the weak spots that led to the loss of a plane if hit, and that must be reinforced. This is still considered today seminal work in the then-fledgling discipline of operational research. Wald and his wife died in an airplane crash in the Nilgiri mountains, in southern India, while on an extensive lecture tour at the invitation of the Indian government. Following his death, Wald was attacked by Sir Ronald A. Fisher FRS. Fisher attacked Wald for being a mathematician without scientific experience who had written an incompetent book on statistics. Fisher particularly criticized Wald's work on the design of experiments, alleging ignorance of the basic ideas of the subject, as set out by Fisher and Frank Yates. Wald's work was defended by Jerzy Neyman in the following year. Neyman explained Wald's work, particularly with respect to the design of experiments. Lucien Le Cam credits in his own book, "Asymptotic Methods in Statistical Decision Theory", "The ideas and techniques used reflect first and foremost the influence of Abraham Wald's writings." Abraham Wald was the father of noted American physicist Robert Wald. Notable publications. For a complete list, see
751473	Robert Curtis Brown (born April 1957) is an American television, film and stage actor. He has appeared in such TV shows as "Criminal Minds", ', ', "NYPD Blue", "The X-Files", ', "The West Wing", "Family Law", "Murder, She Wrote", "Supernatural", ', "Wings", "Matlock", "Herman's Head" and "Search for Tomorrow" and films such as Halloween 2(2009), "Guess Who", "After the Sunset", "Catch Me if You Can", ', ', "Legal Eagles", and "Trading Places". He is in "High School Musical 2, " and "Sharpay's Fabulous Adventure" as Vance Evans.
582769	Bade Miyan Chote Miyan (literally translating to "Big Brother, Small Brother" in English) is a 1998 Bollywood action comedy film starring Amitabh Bachchan in a double role, Govinda in a double role, Anupam Kher, Ramya Krishnan, and Raveena Tandon. Directed by David Dhawan, it was released in the Diwali of 1998 along with "Kuch Kuch Hota Hai". This movie was the first hit of Amitabh Bachchan at the box office since his comeback after a few years of hiatus from Bollywood. It's a remake of the Hollywood film Bad Boys and is inspired by William Shakespeare's The Comedy of Errors. This movie was the second highest grosser of the year after "Kuch Kuch Hota Hai". The bumper collections at the Box Office and the thunderous opening ensured that the movie was the second biggest hit of the year. Plot. Two friends, Arjun Singh (Amitabh Bachchan) and Pyare Mohan (Govinda), are in the police force. Arjun's sister Seema (Raveena Tandon) is in love with Pyare. Arjun has no female companion and some petty comments are made about his age. The villain Zorawar (Paresh Rawal) runs a business smuggling arms and diamonds, under a cover of being a statue maker. Zorawar appears terrified of the police, but the mood seems to come and go: When it comes to snuffing one out, he has no problem doing so. Once, in a hotel, he discovers that he is being spied upon and along with the cop spying on him, he also gets rid of an eyewitness, played by Divya Dutta (in a cameo role). But there's another: Neha (Ramya Krishnan), a friend of the first eyewitness, who happens to see her friend die. Scared, and with the gangsters after her, she calls the police station and asks for Pyare, but since he is not there, Arjun is asked to go to her, and masquerade as Pyare, who had been described as a very good person to Neha by her dead friend. In a considerable amount of confusion, he takes her to Pyare's house and even ges to the extent of asking Pyare to masquerade as Arjun Singh. As Arjun and Pyare exchange places and get busy trying to protect Neha, a hilarious riot starts when in pop two petty thieves who look exactly like Arjun and Pyare.. They call themselves Bade Miyan and Chote Miyan. Arjun and Pyare are blamed for every crime the crooks commit and things aren't helped when Shyamlal, Anupam Kher, the police commissioner, is also thrashed by the doubles. Also, Arjun and Pyare are blamed for stealing a diamond from a bank and even messing up a security operation for Madhuri Dixit (as herself, in a special appearance), all of these acts having been committed by Bade and Chote Miyan, masquerading as Arjun Singh and Pyare Mohan. Matters are not helped when even Bade and Chote are mistaken for Arjun and Pyare by Seema and Neha, thus completing the confusion.
1066998	"Weekend at Bernie's II" is a comedy film released in 1993 by TriStar Pictures and was the sequel to the 1989 comedy "Weekend at Bernie's" with Andrew McCarthy, Jonathan Silverman and Terry Kiser reprising their roles. Plot. The film begins with Larry Wilson (Andrew McCarthy) and Richard Parker (Jonathan Silverman), at the N.Y. City Morgue where they see their deceased boss, Bernie Lomax (Terry Kiser). Larry falsely claims Bernie as his uncle, so he can get some of Bernie's possessions including Bernie's credit card. At the insurance company where, Larry and Richard are quizzed by their boss and Arthur Hummel (Barry Bostwick), who ask the two if they have the $2 million that Bernie embezzled. They deny knowing where the money is, but their boss believes they're lying and gives them a 2-week suspension.
900120	Bingo Bongo is a well known 1982 Italian family comedy film directed by Pasquale Festa Campanile and starring Adriano Celentano as an Italian Tarzan character escaping across Milan and speaking with all animal's races. The film also created an Italian neologism indicating wild animal-like language or behaviour. Plot. The film opens with the story about how Bingo Bongo was stranded in the African jungle as a baby when his plane crashed (in a manner remniscient and in parody of Tarzan). He was thrown out by parachute at the last instant and subsequently adopted by chimpanzees. Years later, as a grown man with animalistic behaviour (and still wearing his old pacifier and parachute harness), Bingo Bongo is captured by an expedition, brought to an anthropology institution in Milan for study, and shut in a cage. Bingo Bongo proves not only to be extremely strong and highly intelligent and perceptive (with some uncomfortable results for the researchers), he also develops a crush on Laura, one of the researchers, and bonds with her pet chimpanzee Renato. Laura, on the other hand, tries her best to integrate Bingo Bongo into human society. Finally, Bingo Bongo runs away and eventually hides at Laura's place, who continues her efforts. At first she makes only slow progress, but a surprise result is achieved when one evening the institute's director drops by: Bingo Bongo not only convincingly manages to pass himself off as a human (complete with fully developed articulation of the human language), he also throws the director off track by introducing himself as Laura's lover. Because Laura continues to rebuff his romantic advances, however, Bingo decides to return to Africa, with Renato in company, but his efforts are all foiled. In time, it is revealed that the animals all around the world see him as their ambassador to humanity who will vouch for a more humane treatment of the animals, thanks to his ability to speak the animal - and now also the human - tongues. He returns to the institute, where he delivers his message in a colloquium which Laura also attends. There she confesses (in ape language) that she does love him after all. The film ends with Bingo Bongo taking up his work as animal ambassador - most notably by calming down King Kong, who later attends his wedding.
1163557	Ellen Lee DeGeneres (; born January 26, 1958) is an American stand-up comedian, television host, actress, and former television music competition judge. She starred in the popular sitcom "Ellen" from 1994 to 1998 and has hosted the syndicated talk show "The Ellen DeGeneres Show" since 2003. As a film actress, she starred in "Mr. Wrong", appeared in "EDtv" and "The Love Letter", and provided the voice of Dory in the Disney-Pixar animated film "Finding Nemo", for which she was awarded the Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actress, the only time a voice performance has won a Saturn Award. She was a judge on "American Idol" in its ninth season. DeGeneres has hosted both the Academy Awards and the Primetime Emmys. She starred in two television sitcoms, "Ellen" from 1994 to 1998 and "The Ellen Show" from 2001 to 2002. During the fourth season of "Ellen" in 1997, DeGeneres came out publicly as a lesbian in an appearance on "The Oprah Winfrey Show". Shortly afterwards, her character Ellen Morgan also came out to a therapist played by Winfrey, and the series went on to explore various LGBT issues including the coming out process. She has won thirteen Emmys and numerous other awards for her work and charitable efforts. Early life and education. DeGeneres was born and raised in Metairie, Louisiana, the daughter of Elizabeth Jane "Betty" Pfeffer, a speech therapist, and Elliott Everett DeGeneres, an insurance agent. She has one brother, Vance, a musician and producer. She is of French, English, German, and Irish descent. She was raised as a Christian Scientist until age 13. In 1973, her parents filed for separation and were divorced the following year. Shortly after, Ellen's mother married Roy Gruessendorf, a salesman. Betty Jane and Ellen moved with Gruessendorf from the New Orleans area to Atlanta, Texas. Vance stayed with his father. DeGeneres graduated from Atlanta High School in May 1976, after completing her first years of high school at Grace King High School in Metairie, Louisiana. She moved back to New Orleans to attend the University of New Orleans, where she majored in communication studies. After one semester, she left school to do clerical work in a law firm with her cousin Laura Gillen. She also held a job selling clothes at the chain store the Merry-Go-Round at the Lakeside Shopping Center. Other working experiences included J. C. Penney, being a waitress at TGI Friday's and another restaurant, a house painter, a hostess, and a bartender. She relates much of her childhood and career experiences in her comedic work. On a February 9, 2011, episode of "The Ellen DeGeneres Show", DeGeneres told her studio audience via a letter from the New England Genealogical Society that she is Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge's 15th cousin via their shared common ancestor Thomas Fairfax. Stand-up comedy. DeGeneres started performing stand-up comedy at small clubs and coffee houses. By 1981 she was the emcee at Clyde's Comedy Club in New Orleans. DeGeneres cites Woody Allen and Steve Martin as her main influences at this time. In the early 1980s she began to tour nationally, being named Showtime's "Funniest Person in America" in 1982. In 1986 she appeared for the first time on "The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson", who likened her to Bob Newhart. When Carson invited her over for an onscreen chat after her performance, she became the first comedienne in the show's history to be treated this way. Film career. Early screen work. Television and film work in the late 1980s and early 1990s included roles on television in "Open House" and in the film "Coneheads". In 1992, producers Neal Marlens and Carol Black cast DeGeneres in their sitcom "Laurie Hill", in the role of Nurse Nancy MacIntyre. The series was canceled after only four episodes, but Marlens and Black were so impressed with DeGeneres' performance that they soon cast her in their next ABC pilot, "These Friends of Mine", which they co-created with David S. Rosenthal. "Ellen's Energy Adventure". DeGeneres starred in a series of films for a show named "Ellen's Energy Adventure", which is part of the Universe of Energy attraction and pavilion at Walt Disney World's Epcot. The film also featured Bill Nye, Alex Trebek, Michael Richards, and Jamie Lee Curtis. The show revolved around DeGeneres's falling asleep and finding herself in an energy-themed version of "Jeopardy!", playing against an old rival, portrayed by Curtis, and Albert Einstein. The next film had DeGeneres hosting an educational look at energy, co-hosted with Nye. The ride first opened on September 15, 1996, as "Ellen's Energy Crisis", but was quickly renamed to the more positive-sounding "Ellen's Energy Adventure". Television career. "Open House" (1989–1990). DeGeneres's first regular TV role was in a short-lived Fox sitcom called "Open House". She played the part of Margo Van Meter, an office worker at the Juan Verde Real Estate company. The show co-starred Alison LaPlaca and Mary Page Keller. "Ellen" (1994–1998). DeGeneres's comedy material became the basis of the successful 1994–1998 sitcom "Ellen", named "These Friends of Mine" during its first season. The ABC show was popular in its first few seasons due in part to DeGeneres's style of observational humor; it was often referred to as a "female "Seinfeld"." "Ellen" reached its height of popularity in February 1997, when DeGeneres made her homosexuality public on "The Oprah Winfrey Show". Subsequently her character on the sitcom came out of the closet in April to her therapist, played by Oprah Winfrey, revealing that she's gay. The coming-out episode, titled "The Puppy Episode", was one of the highest-rated episodes of the show. The series returned for a fifth season, but experienced falling ratings due to ABC's cutting back on promoting the show. It was believed that The Walt Disney Company, ABC's parent owner, had become uncomfortable with the subject matter depicted on the show now that DeGeneres' character was openly gay. In May 1998, "Ellen" was canceled. DeGeneres returned to the stand-up comedy circuit, and later re-established herself as a successful talk show host. "The Ellen Show". DeGeneres returned to series television in 2001 with a new CBS sitcom, "The Ellen Show". "The Ellen DeGeneres Show". DeGeneres launched a daytime television talk show, "The Ellen DeGeneres Show" in September 2003. Amid a crop of several celebrity-hosted talk shows surfacing at the beginning of that season, such as those of Sharon Osbourne and Rita Rudner, her show has consistently risen in the Nielsen ratings and received widespread critical praise. It was nominated for 11 Daytime Emmy Awards in its first season, winning four, including Best Talk Show. The show has won 25 Emmy Awards in its first three seasons on the air. DeGeneres is known for her dancing and singing with the audience at the beginning of the show and during commercial breaks. She often gives away free prizes and trips to her studio audience with the help of her sponsors. DeGeneres celebrated her thirty-year class reunion by flying her graduating class to California to be guests on her show in February 2006. She presented Atlanta High School with a surprise gift of a new electronic LED marquee sign. In May 2006, DeGeneres made a surprise appearance at the Tulane University commencement in New Orleans. Following George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton to the podium, she came out in a bathrobe and furry slippers. "They told me everyone would be wearing robes," she said. Ellen then went on to make another commencement speech at Tulane in 2009. The show broadcast for a week from Universal Studios Orlando in March 2007. Skits included DeGeneres going on the Hulk Roller Coaster Ride and the Jaws Boat Ride. In May 2007, DeGeneres was placed on bed rest due to a torn ligament in her back. She continued hosting her show from a hospital bed, tended to by a nurse, explaining "the show must go on, as they say." Guests sat in hospital beds as well. On May 1, 2009, DeGeneres celebrated her 1000th episode, featuring celebrity guests such as Oprah Winfrey, Justin Timberlake, and Paris Hilton, among others.
1025099	Paul Mann (December 2, 1913 - September 24, 1985) was a Canadian film and theater actor, as well as founder of the Paul Mann Actor's Workshop. His brother is Larry D. Mann, who voiced the prospector Yukon Cornelius in the 1964 Rankin/Bass animated special "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer". Biography. Mann was influential in developing the concept of Method acting in America. While many other Method advocates (including Lee Strasberg) shared their knowledge at the prestigious Actors Studio, Mann taught his own classes at his Actor's Workshop, founded in 1953. Along with Lloyd Richards (a fellow Toronto native and chief assistant director of the school), Mann also managed to create a comfortable atmosphere for actors of all races. Alumni of his school include Ruby Dee, Ossie Davis, Sidney Poitier, Al Lewis and Vic Morrow. Mann's own acting career was based primarily in theatre, beginning when he was sixteen. His onscreen appearances were limited to an episode of the 1950s television serial "Danger" and two feature film roles. The first was that of merchant Aleko Sinnikoglou in "America, America" (1963) (directed by his friend Elia Kazan) and the last was the village butcher Lazar Wolf in the screen adaptation of "Fiddler on the Roof" (1971). He received Best Supporting Actor Golden Globe nominations for both roles. Theatre credits. In most recent order: References. 1. Goudsouzian, A. (2004). "Sidney Poitier: Man, Actor, Icon", UNC Press3. http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0506891/bio4. http://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/participant.jsp?spid=136153&apid=150716
1100855	He generalized the classical approach to the classification of algebraic surfaces to the classification of algebraic three-folds. The classical approach used the concept of minimal models of algebraic surfaces. He found that the concept of minimal models can be applied to three-folds as well if we allow some singularities on them. The extension of Mori’s results to dimensions higher than three is called the Mori program and, as of 2006, is an extremely active area of algebraic geometry. He was awarded the Fields Medal in 1990 at the International Congress of Mathematicians.
1165673	Betty Lynn (born August 29, 1926) is an American actress. She is best known for having played Thelma Lou (Barney Fife's girlfriend) in "The Andy Griffith Show". She is the last surviving regular female cast member from the show, if the first season's regular appearances of Elinor Donahue are excluded. Career. Born Elizabeth Ann Theresa Lynn in Kansas City, Missouri, Lynn began acting in radio. She was later discovered in a Broadway production by Darryl F. Zanuck and signed to 20th Century Fox. Lynn made her film debut in the 1948 film "Sitting Pretty" opposite Robert Young. That same year, she appeared in "June Bride" with Bette Davis followed by roles in "Mother Is a Freshman" (1949), "Cheaper by the Dozen" (1950), and "Payment on Demand" (1951). In the 1953–1954 television season, Lynn was cast as June Wallace, the fictitious sister-in-law of the Ray Bolger character in the ABC sitcom "Where's Raymond?" Allyn Joslyn played her husband, Jonathan Wallace. Lynn and Joslyn left the series in its second season when it was renamed "The Ray Bolger Show". After guest starring on various television series including "Schlitz Playhouse of Stars", "The Gale Storm Show", "Sugarfoot", and "Markham", Lynn won the role of Thelma Lou on "The Andy Griffith Show". She portrayed the role regularly from 1961 until 1965, then made a final guest appearance in one episode during the sixth season (1965–1966).
586244	Palunku is a 2006 Malayalam-language drama film written and directed by Blessy. It stars Mammootty in the lead role with Baby Nazriya Nazim, Lakshmi Sharma, Baby Nivedita and Jagathy Sreekumar playing other pivotal roles. Lakshmi Sharma made her debut as an actress with this film. The film exposes the trappings of consumerism and how city life changes the perspective and priorities of an ordinary farmer portrayed by Mammootty. The film was mainly shot at various locations in Muvattupuzha and Thodupuzha. It released on 22 December 2006 and was an average grosser at the Kerala box office. The film was noted for its relevant plot, the performances of the lead actors and the directional excellence of Blessy. Mammootty won the Best Actor Award at the annual Kerala Film Critics Awards for the portrayal of Monichan, a down-to-earth farmer driven to the verge of suicide by the loan sharks. Plot. "Palunku" tells the story of an industrious farmer Monichan and his family, which consists of his wife Susamma, and his daughters Geethu and Neethu, whom he lovingly calls 'Ponnu' and 'Kilunthu'. Monichan is happy with his life as a farmer and loves his family, his profession, nature and the people around him. At a juncture in his life, he is forced to take his daughters to a school in the town, simply because the school in his village cannot accommodate his elder daughter, who is in fifth standard, as there are not enough students to run classes. Thus Geethu and Neethu join an English medium school. Monichan brings the children to school every morning and hangs around in town till evening to take them back.
1384378	Zulu Dawn is a 1979 war film about the historical Battle of Isandlwana between British and Zulu forces in 1879 in South Africa. The screenplay was by Cy Endfield, from his book, and Anthony Story. The film was directed by Douglas Hickox. The score was composed by Elmer Bernstein. "Zulu Dawn" is a prequel to "Zulu", released in 1964, which depicts the historical Battle of Rorke's Drift later the same day, and was written and co-directed by Cy Endfield. Plot. The film is set in British South Africa, in the province of Natal, in January 1879. The first act of the film revolves around the administrators and officials of Cape Colony, notably the supremely arrogant Lord Chelmsford and the scheming Sir Henry Bartle Frere, who both wish to crush the neighbouring Zulu Empire, which is perceived as a threat to Cape Colony's emerging industrial economy. Bartle Frere issues an impossible ultimatum to the Zulu king, Cetshwayo, demanding that he dissolve the Zulu Empire. Cetshwayo refuses, providing Cape Colony with a pretext to invade Zululand. Despite objections from leading members of Cape Colony's high society and from Great Britain itself, Bartle Frere authorises Lord Chelmsford to lead a British invasion force into Zululand. The rest of the film focuses on the British invasion of Zululand and the lead-up to the Battle of Isandlwana. The invading British army, laden with an immense network of supply wagons, invades Zululand and marches in the direction of Ulundi, the Zulu capital. British forces, eager to fight a large battle in which they can unleash their cutting-edge military technology against the vast Zulu army, become increasingly frustrated as the main Zulu army refuses to attack the British, and fighting is restricted to a few small skirmishes between British and Zulu scouts. Concerned that their supply lines are becoming overstretched and that the main Zulu army is still at large, British troops begin torturing captive Zulu warriors in an effort to learn the location and tactics of the Zulu army. Halfway to Ulundi, Chelmsford halts his army at the base of Mount Isandhlwana, ignoring the advice of Boer attendants to entrench the camp and laager the supply wagons, leaving the camp dangerously exposed. During the night, Colonel Durnford and an escort of fifty mounted Basutos approach the camp. Lord Chelmsford then orders Durnford to return to his unit, bringing them to the camp immediately to reinforce Colonel Pulleine. Lt. Vereker should join Durnford as aide-de-camp. Reacting to false intelligence, Chelmsford leads half of the British army, including the best infantry, cavalry and artillery units, on a wild goose chase far from the camp, in pursuit of a phantom Zulu army. On the day of battle, Durnford and his troops arrive at 11:00 a.m. at the camp at Isandlwana. Meanwhile, the Zulu captives escape their torturers and regroup with the Zulu army, informing them of the British army's direction and strength. After having lunch with Colonel Pulleine and Lt. Vereker, Durnford quickly decides to send Vereker to scout the hills. Durnford then decides to take his own command out from the camp too, and scout the iNyoni heights. The entire Zulu army is later discovered by men of Lt. Vereker's troop of scouts. Chasing a number of Zulu herdsmen trying to hurry away their cattle, they discover the main Zulu enemy force of thousands at the bottom of a valley. Lt. Vereker sends Lt. Raw to warn the camp that it is about to be attacked. As Zulu impis descend upon the camp, Durnford's cavalry retreat to a donga in an effort to hold back the Zulu advance. Forced back, the British take heavy casualties, including the battery of Congreve rockets, which is overrun by the Zulus. Initially, the British infantry succeed in defending the camp, and Zulu forces retreat under a hail of artillery fire. British units defending the camp are now becoming dangerously spread-out, and are oblivious to Zulu forces moving round the sides of the mountain in an encircling move. As British infantrymen begin to run out of ammunition due to the Quartermaster's incompetent distribution and the British cavalry are driven back towards the camp, Zulu warriors charge the British troops "en masse", sustaining horrific casualties, but succeed in breaking the British lines. As British troops break and flee towards the camp, the battle breaks down into hand-to-hand fighting between British soldiers and Zulu warriors, amongst the débris of tents, fallen soldiers and supply wagons. Overwhelmed by the sheer number of Zulu warriors, British soldiers and their Afrikaans allies are slaughtered in the camp, some being cut down as they attempt to flee towards Natal. During the last minutes of the battle, the camp's commander, Colonel Pulleine, entrusts the Queen's Colours of the 2nd battalion, 24th Regiment of Foot to two junior officers, Lts. Melvill and Coghill, who attempt to carry them to safety in Natal, passing gruesome scenes as Zulu warriors hunt down British and African infantrymen attempting to flee across the river.
1062489	Melissa Chessington Leo (born September 14, 1960) is an American actress. After appearing on several television shows and films in the late 1980s, her breakthrough role came in 1993 as Det. Sgt. Kay Howard on the television series "" for the show's first five seasons from 1993 to 1997. She was also previously been a regular on the television shows "All My Children" and "The Young Riders". Her breakthrough film role was in the 2003 film, "21 Grams" as Marianne Jordan. She was also in the 2013 film "Oblivion", starring as NASA Ground Control correspondent Sally. Following several films, Leo received critical acclaim and national attention in the 2008 film, "Frozen River" earning several nominations and awards, including an Oscar nomination for Best Actress. Leo earned several awards for her role as Alice Ward in the 2010 film, "The Fighter", including the Golden Globe, Screen Actors Guild Award and Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. Leo currently stars on the main cast of the HBO television series "Treme" in the role of Antoinette "Toni" Bernette. Personal life. Leo was born in Manhattan, New York City. She is the daughter of Peggy (née Chessington), a California-born teacher, and Arnold Leo III, an editor at Grove Press, fisherman, and spokesman for the East Hampton Baymen's Association. Leo was raised on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, and spent summers at her father's house in Springs, a section of East Hampton, N.Y. She is a former resident of Putney, Vermont and now lives in Stone Ridge, New York. She has a son with actor and former boyfriend John Heard named John Matthew Heard (born 1987) and years later adopted Adam (born 1984). Career. Leo's acting debut came in 1985, for which she was nominated for a Daytime Emmy at the Daytime Emmy Awards/12th Daytime Emmy Awards for Outstanding Ingenue/Woman in a Drama Series for "All My Children". Following this, Leo appeared in several films, including the lead role as a straight-laced girl named Cookie who succumbed to prostitition in "Streetwalkin," "A Time of Destiny", "Last Summer in the Hamptons", and "Venice/Venice." She also had several appearances on television, most notably her role as Det. Sgt. Kay Howard on ' until 1997. Three years later she reprised her role in the television movie, '. After a brief hiatus in film, Leo's breakthrough came three years later in the Alejandro González Iñárritu film, "21 Grams" released to critical acclaim. Leo appeared in a supporting role alongside Sean Penn, Naomi Watts, Benicio del Toro and Clea DuVall. Leo shared a "Best Ensemble Acting" award from the Phoenix Film Critics Society in 2003 and the runner-up for the Los Angeles Film Critics Association for Best Supporting Actress. Leo appeared in supporting roles throughout the 2000s including the suspense film "Hide and Seek", the independent film "American Gun", both in 2005, and a minor role in the comedy "Mr. Woodcock". In 2006, she won the Bronze Wrangler at the Western Heritage Awards for Outstanding Theatrical Motion Picture for "The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada" shared with Tommy Lee Jones who also produced the film. In 2008, she won the Maverick Actor Award and also the Best Actress award at the Method Fest for "Lullaby" (2008).
1061930	Mark Robert Michael Wahlberg (born June 5, 1971) is an American actor, producer, model, and former rapper. He was known as Marky Mark in his earlier years, and became famous for his 1991 debut as frontman with the band Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch. He later transitioned to acting, and is now known for his roles in films including "Boogie Nights" (1997), "Three Kings" (1999), "Planet of the Apes" (2001), "The Italian Job" (2003), "I Heart Huckabees" (2004), "The Departed" (2006), "Shooter "(2007), "Max Payne" (2008), "The Other Guys" (2010), "The Fighter" (2010), "Ted" (2012), and "Pain & Gain" (2013). He has also served as the executive producer of the TV series "Entourage", "Boardwalk Empire", and "How to Make It in America". Early life. Wahlberg was born in the Dorchester neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts, the youngest of nine children, with siblings Arthur, Jim, Paul, Robert, Tracey, Michelle, Debbie (died in 2003 at age 44), and Donnie. Wahlberg's mother, Alma Elaine ( Donnelly), was a bank clerk and nurse's aide, and Wahlberg's father, Donald Edward Wahlberg, was a Teamster who worked as a delivery driver. His parents divorced in 1982. His father was of half Swedish and half Irish ancestry, and his mother is of Irish, English, and French Canadian descent. Maternally, Wahlberg is distantly related to author Nathaniel Hawthorne. Wahlberg had a Roman Catholic upbringing and attended Copley Square High School (but never graduated) on Newbury Street in Boston. He received his high school diploma in June 2013. Assaults and conviction. Wahlberg had been in trouble 20–25 times with the Boston Police Department in his youth. By age 13, Wahlberg had developed an addiction to cocaine and other substances. At fifteen, he harassed a group of black school children on a field trip by throwing rocks and shouting racial epithets. At 16, Wahlberg approached a middle-aged Vietnamese man on the street and, using a large wooden stick, knocked him unconscious (while calling him "Vietnam fucking shit"). He also attacked another Vietnamese man, leaving him permanently blind in one eye. For these crimes, Wahlberg was charged with attempted murder, pleaded guilty to assault, and was sentenced to two years in state prison at Boston's Deer Island House of Correction, of which he served 45 days. In another incident, the 21-year-old Wahlberg fractured the jaw of a neighbor in an unprovoked attack. Commenting in 2006 on his past crimes, Wahlberg has stated: "I did a lot of things that I regret, and I have certainly paid for my mistakes." He said the right thing to do would be to try to find the blinded man and make amends, and admitted he has not done so, but added that he was no longer burdened by guilt: "You have to go and ask for forgiveness and it wasn't until I really started doing good and doing right by other people, as well as myself, that I really started to feel that guilt go away. So I don't have a problem going to sleep at night. I feel good when I wake up in the morning." After going to prison for assault, he decided to improve his behavior. According to Wahlberg, "As soon as I began that life of crime, there was always a voice in my head telling me I was going to end up in jail. Three of my brothers had done time. My sister went to prison so many times I lost count. Finally I was there, locked up with the kind of guys I'd always wanted to be like. Now I'd earned my stripes and I was just like them, and I realized it wasn't what I wanted at all. I'd ended up in the worst place I could possibly imagine and I never wanted to go back. First of all, I had to learn to stay on the straight and narrow." Wahlberg first relied on the guidance of his parish priest to turn his back on crime. He told his street gang that he was leaving them and had "some serious fights" with them over it. The actor commented in 2009: "I've made a lot of mistakes in my life and I've done bad things, but I never blamed my upbringing for that. I never behaved like a victim so that I would have a convenient reason for victimizing others. Everything I did wrong was my own fault. I was taught the difference between right and wrong at an early age. I take full responsibility." Career. Music. Wahlberg first came to fame as the younger brother of Donnie Wahlberg of the successful boy band New Kids on the Block. Mark, at age thirteen, had been one of the group's original members, along with Donnie, Danny Wood, Jordan Knight, and Jonathan Knight. However, he soon quit. It was his departure that eventually allowed Joe McIntyre to take his place as the fifth member of the group. Wahlberg began recording as Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch, earning a hit with "Good Vibrations" from the album "Music for the People". The record, produced by brother Donnie, hit No.1 on the "Billboard" Hot 100, later becoming certified as a platinum single. The second single, "Wildside", peaked at No. 5 on "Billboards" Hot Singles Sales chart and at No. 10 on the "Billboard" Hot 100. It was certified as a gold single. Marky Mark opened for the New Kids on the Block during their last tour. The second Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch LP, "You Gotta Believe", was not as successful as the prior, yielding only a minor hit single in the title track. Wahlberg later collaborated with the late reggae/ragga singer Prince Ital Joe on the album "Life in the Streets". Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch also had their own video game, titled "Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch: Make My Video", which despite the band's success was a huge flop. The project combined rap and ragga vocals with strong eurodance music (as in the singles "Happy People", German No. 1 hit "United", "Life in the Streets", and "Babylon") courtesy of Frank Peterson and Alex Christensen as producers. He was also featured in the Black Label Society music video for "Counterfeit God", as a stand-in for the band's bassist. Advertising. Wahlberg first displayed his physique in the "Good Vibrations" music video and most prominently in a series of underwear ads for Calvin Klein shot by Herb Ritts, following it with Calvin Klein television advertisements. Magazine and television promotions would sometimes feature Mark exclusively or accompanied by model Kate Moss. Annie Leibovitz also shot a famous session of Mark Wahlberg in underwear for "Vanity Fair"'s annual Hall of Fame issue. He also made a workout video titled "The Marky Mark Workout: Form... Focus... Fitness" (ISBN 1-55510-910-1). In 2012, he launched a line of sports nutrition supplements called "Marked". Film. Wahlberg dropped the "Marky Mark" name and began an acting career, making his debut in the 1993 TV movie "The Substitute". His big screen debut came the next year, with the Danny DeVito feature "Renaissance Man". A basketball fanatic, he caught the attention of critics after appearing in "The Basketball Diaries" in 1995, playing the role of Mickey alongside Leonardo DiCaprio, in a film adaptation of the Jim Carroll book of the same name. He also starred in the 1996 James Foley thriller "Fear". He has earned many positive reviews after successful movies like "Boogie Nights" (as Dirk Diggler), "Three Kings", "The Perfect Storm", "The Italian Job", and "Four Brothers". His performance in "I ♥ Huckabees" was voted best supporting performance of the year in the 2004 "Village Voice" Critics Poll. Wahlberg was originally cast as Linus Caldwell in "Ocean's Eleven"; Matt Damon played the role instead. The two later worked together in "The Departed". Wahlberg was also considered for a role in the film "Brokeback Mountain". It was originally intended to star him and Joaquin Phoenix, but Wahlberg was uncomfortable with the film's sex scenes as was Phoenix (whose role went to Heath Ledger) and Mark's role ultimately went to Jake Gyllenhaal. Wahlberg starred in the American football drama, "Invincible", based on the true story of bartender Vince Papale. He is also the executive producer of the HBO series "Entourage" which is loosely based on his experiences in Hollywood. He also appeared as a foul-mouthed Massachusetts State Police detective in Martin Scorsese's critically acclaimed thriller, "The Departed" in 2006, which netted him an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor, a Golden Globe nomination for Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role in a Motion Picture, and an NSFC Best Supporting Actor award. Wahlberg has confirmed that he was approached to star in a sequel to "The Departed", but it is still early in development. The sequel would reportedly revolve around the Staff Sergeant played by Wahlberg. To prepare for his role in "Shooter", Wahlberg attended long-range shooting training at Front Sight Firearms Training Institute near Pahrump, Nevada, and was able to hit a target at 1100 yards on his second day, a feat which usually takes weeks to achieve. He has said in a number of interviews that he will retire at the age of 40 to concentrate on parenthood and professional golf. However, in early 2007 he indicated that the latter was no longer the plan as "his golf game is horrible". He played Jack Salmon, a leading role in Peter Jackson's film of "The Lovely Bones". In 2007, he starred opposite Joaquin Phoenix in "We Own the Night", a movie about a family of police officers in New York City. He starred in M. Night Shyamalan's "The Happening" as Eliot Moore, which premiered in movie theatres on June 13, 2008. The same year, he played the title role in "Max Payne", based on a video game of the same name. While promoting "Max Payne", Mark became involved in a playful feud with "Saturday Night Live"'s Andy Samberg and threatened to "crack that big fucking nose of his". Samberg had done an impression of Wahlberg in a "Saturday Night Live" skit titled "Mark Wahlberg Talks To Animals". However, Wahlberg later appeared in a follow-up skit parodying both the original skit, Samberg's impression of Wahlberg, and his own threats to Samberg. In a February 2007 interview with "Empire", updated in 2010, Mark Wahlberg stated that there might be a sequel to the Scorsese film "The Departed" focusing on his character, Dignam, with Robert De Niro potentially playing a corrupt senator. He also stated that William Monahan was writing the script. The film is said to be on hold, because producer Brad Grey is now the head of Paramount Pictures and the film is a Warner Bros. project. In June 2010, Wahlberg and Monahan continued to express interest in a sequel, then said to be projected for 2012. Nothing further has been announced. As early as 18 January 2012, Wahlberg had expressed an interest in both meeting with and participating in a film project related to the Boston crime figure "Whitey" Bulger recently convicted in August 2013. Wahlberg had also expressed knowledge of the announcement of the untitled film project by Ben Affleck and Matt Damon related to "Whitey" Bulger described in a 2012 "GQ" article about Affleck. This news of Wahlberg's possible participation in the untitled Affleck film project about Bulger's life was reported in both the "L.A. Times" and "Boston Magazine" Aside from Wahlberg's availabilty for such a project, no commitments for participation were reported. Also, no indication was made by Wahlberg if his interest in such a "Whitey" Bulger project would be a surrogate for his previous plans to make a sequel to his co-starring role in "The Departed" or a replacement for it. The character played by Jack Nicholson in "The Departed" (2006), in which Wahlberg was a co-star, was also based in part upon the Boston crime figure "Whitey" Bulger. Recently, Wahlberg was cast as the new human lead in the in fourth installment of the Transformers movies. Sports franchise. In July 2013 Wahlberg became an equity interest of the Barbados Tridents cricket franchise. As a team within the Limacol Caribbean Premier League, Wahlberg become involved through colleague and personal connection Ajmal Khan, the founder of Limacol CPL. Following the announcement Wahlberg stated: “I am a huge cricket fan now,” he said. “I’m excited to be a part of the Limacol Caribbean Premier League because I know cricket is huge in the Caribbean and a rich part of the region’s heritage,” Wahlberg said in a statement. “Sports and entertainment are a powerful combination, and the LCPL will appeal to a huge audience worldwide.” Personal life. In the early 1990s, Wahlberg dated former child actress Soleil Moon Frye. Wahlberg has been in a relationship with model Rhea Durham since 2001 and they were married on August 1, 2009 at the Good Shepherd Catholic Church in Beverly Hills. The couple have four children, Ella Rae (born September 2, 2003), Michael Robert (born March 21, 2006), Brendan Joseph (born September 16, 2008) and Grace Margaret (born January 11, 2010). In a 2011 interview with "USA Weekend", Wahlberg stated that he had taken his children to visit his old Dorchester neighborhood: "I want them to know that not everyone is as fortunate and how important it is to work hard and give back." Wahlberg's father, a US Army veteran of the Korean War, died on February 14, 2008. Wahlberg is a committed Roman Catholic. His wife converted from Baptist to Catholic. Wahlberg said, "Rhea grew up Baptist but she wanted to be baptised and confirmed as Catholic before we got married, which took some time. Also, we wanted to get married here in California but we wanted Fr Flavin from Boston to do it, so we had to work out that timing. Then there were my movie commitments. Then Rhea got pregnant and she didn’t want to do it when she was bigger so we had to wait till the dress fitted again… it was a number of factors really." During an online interview on Reddit.com, Wahlberg stated that he attends Catholic mass every day. Actively involved in charity, Wahlberg established the "Mark Wahlberg Youth Foundation" in May 2001 for the purpose of raising and distributing funds to youth service and enrichment programs. Wahlberg is also active with The Good Shepherd Center for Homeless Women and Children. In an interview, Mark said that it's important to let the homeless know that people care about them and are working to help the impoverished get back on their feet. Wahlberg served on the Honorary Board of Jerry Sandusky's The Second Mile children's charity before Sandusky's 2011 arrest on child sex abuse charges. Wahlberg has four tattoos done by various artists, including Paul Timman. The tattoos include Sylvester the cat with Tweety Bird in his mouth on his ankle, a design of his initials on his upper right arm, and a Bob Marley tattoo with "One Love" on his upper left arm. The final tattoo, which Wahlberg holds as his most meaningful, is the rosary tattooed around his neck, with a crucifix and the words "In God I Trust" resting over his heart. On January 9, 2012, Wahlberg was a guest on the "Late Show with David Letterman". He spoke about his tattoos and stated he is in the process of having them removed. Initially he was told it would take 8–10 laser treatments, however he required over 30 treatments and is still in the process of getting them removed. He cited his career and children as the reason for the removal of the tattoos. His first tattoo was as a young teenager and it was of a shamrock. As it was not professionally done, he said the shamrock was not straight and had the Tweety Bird tattoo placed over it after arriving in Los Angeles.
393988	Shadowless Sword () is a 2005 South Korean film starring Lee Seo-jin, Yoon So-yi, and Shin Hyun-joon. A martial arts epic filmed in China, the film follows the exploits of the last prince of the Balhae Kingdom, who hides his identity in a small village until he is called to battle invaders from Khitan. It was released in North America, the United Kingdom and Ireland by New Line Cinema on DVD as The Legend of the Shadowless Sword. Plot. The film is set after the fall of Sanggyeong, the capital of Balhae in 926. Dongdan Kingdom dispatches the Chucksaldan (a.k.a. Killer Blade Army) to find and kill the last remaining member of the Balhae royal family, exiled prince Jeong-hyun, to prevent the possible reconstruction of Balhae. Prime Minister Lim Sun-ji, on the other hand, sends a young, talented swordswoman, Yeon So-ha, to find Prince Jeong-hyun first and bring him back safely. Jeong-hyun, however, is reluctant to come and fight for the throne, still bitter about his unfair exile. The rest of the movie follows So-ha and Jeong-hyun's journey as they fight their way back to the capital, fall in love and whether or not Jeong-hyun manages to reconstruct the fallen kingdom of Balhae.
520565	Raphael John Gil Eigenmann (born September 25, 1961), better known as Mark Gil, is a Filipino actor. Personal life. He is the son of actors Eddie Mesa and Rosemarie Gil, brother of actors Michael de Mesa and Cherie Gil. He is fourth Filipino, fourth Spanish, and half Swiss German American descent. He is the father of singer/actor Gabby Eigenmann and Ira Eigenmann from actress Irene Celebre. He is also the father of Tim "Sid Lucero" Eigenmann and Maxene "Max" Eigenmann from actress Bing Pimentel, and of Andi Eigenmann from another actress, Jaclyn Jose. He has been married for 18 yrs to Maricar Jacinto-Eigenmann.
1057962	Tin Cup is a 1996 romantic comedy film co-written and directed by Ron Shelton, and starring Kevin Costner and Rene Russo with Cheech Marin and Don Johnson in major supporting roles. Synopsis. Roy "Tin Cup" McAvoy (Kevin Costner) is a former golf prodigy who has little ambition. He owns a driving range in West Texas, where he drinks and hangs out with his pal Romeo Posar (Cheech Marin) and their friends. Dr. Molly Griswold (Rene Russo), a clinical psychologist, wants a golf lesson. She asks Roy because he knows her boyfriend David Simms (Don Johnson), a top professional golfer. Roy is immediately attracted, but she sees through his charm and resists. Simms shows up at Roy's trailer ahead of a local benefit tournament. Roy thinks Simms is offering him an invitational spot to play, but Simms actually wants to hire him as a caddy (since Roy knows the course). During the round, Roy needles Simms about "laying up" instead of having the nerve to go for the green, 230 yards away over a water hazard. Simms fires back that Roy's problem is playing recklessly instead of playing the percentages. Roy brags that he could make it, and spectators make bets among themselves that Roy could. Simms warns Roy that he'll fire him if he tries, but Roy does anyway, hitting a brilliant shot onto the green. Simms immediately fires Roy as he said he would. To get even, Roy decides to try to qualify for the U.S. Open. He also makes a play for Molly, seeking her professional help. Molly agrees to help Roy rebuild his self-confidence in exchange for the golf lessons. In two qualifying rounds, with Romeo as caddy, Roy's golf is excellent but his head needs help. He continues to resist playing safely, smashing most of his clubs (leaving only his 7-iron intact) in a snit that causes Romeo to quit, but still manages to qualify. Following the round, he makes a wager with Simms that costs him his car. He persuades Romeo to go along as caddy, but develops a problem with his golf swing. On the first day of the tournament in North Carolina he shoots a horrible 83. Meanwhile, Molly gets a glimpse of Simms' unpleasant side when he arrogantly refuses to give a child an autograph. Molly sees that trying to change Roy is a mistake and encourages him to be himself. At her suggestion, Roy wins another silly wager with Simms, the leader after the first round. Then with renewed confidence, "Tin Cup," a nobody from nowhere, shocks the golf world with a remarkable record second round of 62, making the cut. His third round is also excellent and moves him into contention. His flaw, though, is that on all three rounds, he refused to lay up on the par-5 18th hole, hitting the ball into the pond. On the last day, Roy, Simms and real-life PGA Tour pro Peter Jacobsen (playing himself) are in a three-way battle to be the Open's Champion. Jacobsen finishes with a par on 18, tied for the lead with Roy and one shot ahead of Simms. Simms yet again lays up at the 18th hole, playing it safe, despite the fact that doing so takes him out of championship contention. Roy should do likewise to save par and force a playoff, but over Romeo's objections and urged by Molly to "go for it," he takes his fateful shot which finally carries the green. However, a "little gust from the Gods", a sudden contrary wind causes his ball to roll off the green and back into the pond. Reminiscent of his blow-up back in college when he failed to qualify for the Tour, Roy tries to hit the same shot repeatedly, with the same heart-breaking result. With one last ball in his bag, Roy risks not only being humiliated but being disqualified (having no golf balls to play with), but still goes for the green. On his 12th shot, the ball clears the water and slowly rolls into the hole. After a wild celebration, Roy finally realizes what he has done and feels ashamed of himself, but Molly assures him. "Five years from now nobody will remember who won or lost, but they're gonna remember your 12!" Now back in Texas, Molly tells Roy that by finishing in the top 15 at the Open he automatically qualifies to play again next year. She further suggests that he go back to the qualifying school so he can get on the Tour. Molly, who picked up a bunch of new clients at the tournament, prepares for a career of helping players with the mental portion of the game. They kiss passionately as the movie ends.
1044080	Carry On Behind is the twenty-seventh in the series of "Carry On" films to be made, and was released in 1975. It was the first not to be scripted by Talbot Rothwell since Carry On Cruising 13 years previously. Sid James was busy touring in a play whilst Rothwell's health prevented him from writing. The regular actors present are Kenneth Williams, Kenneth Connor, Jack Douglas, Joan Sims and Peter Butterworth. Carry On Behind was the final picture in the series for Bernard Bresslaw (in his 14th appearance) and Patsy Rowlands (in her 9th appearance). This was Elke Sommer's only appearance in a Carry on and the first of two entries in the series for Windsor Davies. Plot. Frustrated butcher Fred Ramsden (Windsor Davies) and his electrician mate Ernie Bragg (Jack Douglas) happily head off for a fishing trip while their respective wives Sylvia (Liz Fraser) and Vera (Patricia Franklin) look forward to their health farm holiday. Once at the caravan site of Major Leafe (Kenneth Connor), Fred starts making eyes at a couple of gorgeous campers, Carol (Sherrie Hewson) and Sandra (Carol Hawkins). However, Ernie incriminates himself by talking in his sleep! With their infidelities certain to be repeated in the marital bed after their holiday, Fred is despondent. Meanwhile, Professor Roland Crump (Kenneth Williams) has teamed up with Roman expert Anna Vooshka (Elke Sommer) in an archaeological dig on the caravan site. Arthur Upmore (Bernard Bresslaw) and his wife Linda (Patsy Rowlands) are saddled with her mother Daphne (Joan Sims) and her vulgar mynah bird. Arthur is caught in a compromising position with blonde babe Norma Baxter (Adrienne Posta) whose husband Joe (Ian Lavender) is lumbered with their giant wolfhound. After a few pints with the amused pub landlord (David Lodge), Fred and Ernie discover that the caravan site is riddled with holes. However, Daphne is only concerned with the discovery of her estranged husband, Henry Barnes (Peter Butterworth) living a downtrodden life as the camp's odd-job man, despite having won the Pools. Major Leafe is determined to give the place a boost and arranges an evening cabaret for the caraveners but a mix-up over the phone secures a stripper, Veronica (Jenny Cox), rather than the singer he wanted. With Carol and Sandra having hooked up with archaeology students, Bob (Brian Osborne) and Clive (Larry Dann) Fred and Ernie pick up Maureen (Diana Darvey) and Sally (Georgina Moon), a couple of beauties from the village. Some wet paint, the rain and their wives soon bring their planned night of passion to a halt! Casting. Main roles are played by "Carry On" regulars Kenneth Williams, Bernard Bresslaw, Peter Butterworth, Joan Sims, Kenneth Connor, Jack Douglas, and Patsy Rowlands. Newcomers to the series in major roles are Windsor Davies, and European sexpot Elke Sommer. Sims played the role of Rowlands' mother, despite being only eight months older than her on screen daughter. Supporting roles are played by Sherrie Hewson, Carol Hawkins, Ian Lavender, Adrienne Posta, Liz Fraser, George Layton, Larry Dann, Larry Martyn and David Lodge. These supporting players were mostly recognisable comedy actors at the time but not long term regular members of the "Carry On" team. This was the last "Carry On" film for Bernard Bresslaw and Patsy Rowlands. By this time Sid James, Terry Scott, Hattie Jacques and Charles Hawtrey had already made their final "Carry On" film appearances. Filming. Chilly spring filming meant the bare trees, muddy fields and icy breath are all quite visible, although the setting is a summer caravanning holiday. A similar dilemma met the cast and crew in Carry On Camping. Whilst this film was in production, Bernard Bresslaw and Joan Sims also appeared in "One of Our Dinosaurs Is Missing", another film being made at Pinewood Studios alongside "Carry On Behind". Previous "Carry On" actors Jon Pertwee and Amanda Barrie also appeared in "Dinosaurs". Filming and locations. Interiors: Exteriors:
586687	Bina Rai (4 June 1931 – 6 December 2009), (Hindi: बीना राय), (aka Beena Roy) was a leading actress primarily of the black and white era of Hindi cinema. She is most known for her roles in classics such as "Anarkali" (1953), "Taj Mahal" (1963), and won the Filmfare Award for Best Actress for her performance in the film, "Ghunghat" (1960). Early life. Bina Rai born as Krishna Sarin hailed from Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh. Bina Rai lived in Kanpur until she moved out for acting. She had to convince her parents to allow her to act in films, she claimed that she went on a hunger strike in order to convince her disapproving parents to let her join films, and they finally relented. Career. Bina Rai was a first year student of Arts in the Isabella Thoburn College of Lucknow in 1950, when she came across an advertisement for a talent contest, she applied and received a call from the sponsors. Although she had been active in college dramatics, a film career was never within her field of vision. Nevertheless she went to Bombay, to participate in the contest where she won along with the 25,000 rupees in prize money a leading role in Kishore Sahu's "Kali Ghata" (1951), which became her film debut, and also featured Kishore Sahu in the lead role. In the 1950s, she married actor Prem Nath, whose sister Krishna was married to the actor-director Raj Kapoor, was part of the Kapoor family. They had acted together in some films, the first movie in which he was paired with Bina Rai was Aurat (1953), a Bollywood version of the tragic Biblical tale of "Samson and Delilah" (1949). The film was not a hit, but Bina Rai and Prem Nath fell in love with each other. They married and soon set up their own production unit, known as P.N. Films. Their first film from P.N. Films was "Shagufa" (1954) and they had pinned high hopes on it, but audiences rejected it. Neither Bina Rai’s elfin charm nor Prem Nath’s sensitive portrayal of the role of a doctor could save "Shagufa" from being a flop. And the films that followed "Shagufa" — Prisoner of Golconda, Samunder and Watan disappeared almost as soon as they hit the theater screens. Thus the Prem Nath-Bina Rai pairing never clicked on the screen. However, her films with leading man Pradeep Kumar remain her best-remembered performances, where she played the title role in "Anarkali" (1953), Taj Mahal (1963 film) and Ghunghat (1960 film) for which she won the Filmfare Award for Best Actress
1062117	Timothy Alan Dick (born June 13, 1953) known professionally as Tim Allen, is an American comedian, actor, voice-over artist and entertainer, known for his role in the sitcom "Home Improvement". He is known for his starring roles in several popular films, including the "Toy Story" film series (as the voice of Buzz Lightyear), "The Santa Clause" film series, and "Galaxy Quest". Allen currently stars as Mike Baxter in the ABC sitcom "Last Man Standing". Early life. Born in Denver, Colorado, Allen is the son of Martha Katherine (née Fox), a community-service worker, and Gerald M. Dick (1923–1964), a real estate agent. He is the third oldest of five brothers. His father died in a car accident, colliding with a drunk driver, when Allen was 11. Two years later, his mother married her high school sweetheart, a successful business executive, and moved with her six children to Birmingham, Michigan, a suburb of Detroit, to be with her new husband and his three children. Allen attended Ernest W. Seaholm High School in Birmingham, where he was in theater and music classes (resulting in his love of classical piano). He then attended Central Michigan University and transferred to Western Michigan University in 1974. At Western Michigan, Allen worked at the student radio station WIDR and received a Bachelor of Science degree in communications specializing in radio and television production in 1976 with a split minor in philosophy and design. In 1998, Western Michigan awarded Allen an honorary Fine Arts degree and the Distinguished Alumni Award. Career. Allen started his career as a comedian in 1975. On a dare from one of his friends, he participated in a comedy night at a comedy club in Detroit. While in Detroit he began to get recognition appearing in local television commercials and appearing on cable comedy shows such as Gary Thison's "Some Semblance of Sanity". He later moved to Los Angeles and became a regular performer at The Comedy Store. He began to do stand-up appearances on late-night talk shows and specials on record and film. Despite his admitted limited acting range (he once told a magazine his range as an actor is "strictly limited. I can only play a part if I can draw on personal experience, and that well can go dry pretty quickly" ), Allen rose to fame in acting with the television series "Home Improvement" (1991–1999) produced for ABC by Wind Dancer Productions, a company he co-founded with producer Carmen Finestra. Allen played Tim "The Tool-Man" Taylor. During one week in November 1994, he simultaneously starred in the highest grossing film ("The Santa Clause"), topped the "New York Times" best-seller list with his book "Don't Stand Too Close to a Naked Man", and appeared in the top rated television series ("Home Improvement"). The following year, he provided the voice of Buzz Lightyear in the blockbuster "Toy Story". Simultaneous with his time acting in "Home Improvement", Allen formed a race team with Steve Saleen and race driver Bob Bondurant, called the Saleen/Allen "RRR" Speedlab. The team raced Saleen Mustangs in the SCCA World Challenge, with Allen and Saleen as the team's drivers. In 1997 he starred in the family comedy "Jungle 2 Jungle" from Disney. The film was poorly received by critics. The next year marked the final year of Home Improvement, for which he was paid $1.25 million per episode. The next year he returned to voice Buzz Lightyear in "Toy Story 2" which was a financial and critical hit. Also in 2000 he starred in the sci-fi parody "Galaxy Quest" alongside Sigourney Weaver, Alan Rickman and Sam Rockwell. In 2003 he had a cameo as Seann William Scott's father in American Wedding. In 2006, "Zoom" was released, featuring Allen as Jack Shepard. The same year, he also starred in "The Santa Clause 3" and "The Shaggy Dog". Allen began narrating the "Pure Michigan" television and radio commercials for the "Travel Michigan" agency. These commercials can be seen and heard throughout the Midwest and began airing nationally in 2009. In December 2009 he started a preview tour of "Crazy on the Outside", a film that debuted in January 2010. Allen accompanied the film, helping promote it with a series of stand-up acts beforehand. During the performances he told audiences that he planned a 2010 comedy tour. Allen also directed the film, marking his film directorial debut. Allen hosted the 8th Annual TV Land Awards on April 25, 2010. That same year, he became the official voice of the Chevrolet Cruze, narrating commercials for the vehicle, and he became the voice of Campbell Soup's "It's Amazing What Soup Can Do" campaign. Allen currently stars in another ABC sitcom, "Last Man Standing". He plays the role of Mike Baxter, a dad who is fighting for his manhood in his house filled with women. Personal life. On October 2, 1978, Allen was arrested in the Kalamazoo/Battle Creek International Airport for possession of over of cocaine. He subsequently pleaded guilty to drug trafficking charges, and provided the names of other dealers in exchange for a sentence of three to seven years rather than a possible life imprisonment. He was paroled on June 12, 1981, after serving 2 years and 4 months in Federal Correctional Institution, Sandstone in Sandstone, Minnesota. Allen had the Federal Bureau of Prisons Register # 04276-040. Allen was raised as an Episcopalian. He was married to Laura Diebel from April 7, 1984, until they legally separated in 1999. Their divorce was finalized in 2003. They have a daughter, Katherine, born in 1989. Allen married actress Jane Hajduk on October 7, 2006, in a small private ceremony in Grand Lake, Colorado. They had dated for five years. In 1997, Allen was arrested for DUI in Birmingham, Michigan, and was recorded as having a .15 percent blood-alcohol content. He was sentenced to one year probation. He entered a rehabilitation clinic for alcohol abuse as part of his court obligation. On January 5, 2009, it was announced that Allen and Hajduk were expecting their first child together. In March 2009, Allen's second child, a girl named Elizabeth, was born.
1164561	John Elroy Sanford (December 9, 1922 – October 11, 1991), known professionally as Redd Foxx, was an American comedian and actor, best remembered for his explicit comedy records and his starring role on the 1970s sitcom "Sanford and Son". Foxx gained notoriety with his raunchy nightclub acts during the 1950s and 1960s. Known as the "King of the Party Records", he performed on more than 50 records in his lifetime. He also starred in "Sanford", "The Redd Foxx Show" and "The Royal Family". His film roles included "All the Fine Young Cannibals" (1960) and "Harlem Nights" (1989). With three failed marriages and various financial problems, Foxx reportedly owed more than $3.6 million in taxes at the time of his death.
584931	Kshana Kshanam is a 1991 Telugu, Road movie, directed by Ram Gopal Varma. The film was subsequently dubbed into Hindi as "Hairaan". The path breaking film received critical acclaim and has garnered the Andhra Pradesh State Nandi Award for best direction. The film became a blockbuster at its second run, and remained a cult classic. Varma later directed and produced road movies like Daud, Anaganaga Oka Roju and Road on the lines of "Kshana Kshanam". Plot. The film, mainly comprising an unexpected road trip, is the story of a middle class girl (Sridevi) and a thief (Daggubati Venkatesh) brought together under strange circumstances. The movie revolves around the pair chased by an eccentric bank robber, (Paresh Rawal) and the police (Rami Reddy). Filming was done at Mudumalai Forests, Tamil Nadu, India. Sridevi's acclaimed performance of an innocent girl stuck in a tight spot, won her awards. She also sang a song ("King la Kanipistunnadu") for this film.
1063489	Harry Northup (born September 2, 1940) is an American actor and poet. Life and career. Northup was born in Amarillo, Texas. He lived in seventeen places by the time he was seventeen, but mostly lived in Sidney, Nebraska, where he graduated from high-school in 1958. From 1958 to 1961, he served in the United States Navy, where he attained the rank of Second Class Radioman. From 1963 to 1968, he studied Method acting with Frank Corsaro, in New York City. Northup received his B.A. in English from California State University, Northridge, where he studied poetry with poet Ann Stanford. He has made a living as an actor for over thirty years and has been in thirty-seven films including Martin Scorsese's first six feature films: Who's That Knocking at My Door, Boxcar Bertha, Mean Streets, Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore, "Taxi Driver" and New York, New York. He had a role in Jonathan Demme's film "The Silence of the Lambs". Harry starred in "Over the Edge" and "Fighting Mad". Northup has been a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences since 1976. He has the rare distinction of being a notable poet as well as a successful career actor. Northup currently lives in East Hollywood with his poet and novelist wife Holly Prado. His son Dylan was born on January 29, 1969. Dylan's mother is Rita Northup, Harry's first wife. The poets Walt Whitman, Leland Hickman, Paul Blackburn, Ann Stanford, William Carlos Williams, and Holly Prado have influenced Harry Northup's poetry. He conceived and coordinated the weekly poetry-reading-series, "Poetry on Melrose," at Gasoline Alley, in Los Angeles, from 1986 to 1988. Poets who read at the venue included Robert Peters, Jack Hirschman and Lewis MacAdams. Style of poetry. The main themes in Northup's poetry are family, love, loss, work — in particular, acting in movies, place — the plains where he grew up. Harry is a lyrical realist who also explores mysterious and forceful imagery. One of his major interests is the long poem. The eminent critic Robert Peters has written, "Harry Northup is a wild language explosioneer." Awards and honors. The City of Los Angeles, as represented by the L.A. City Council, awarded Harry Northup a "Certificate of Recognition" on November 15, 2006.
773836	Lauren Felice Collins (born August 29, 1986) is a Canadian actress who is perhaps best known for portraying Paige Michalchuk on "". Life and career. Collins was born in Thornhill, Ontario, the daughter of Sari (née Bresver) and Stan Collins. Her father was born in London, England. Collins was raised Jewish. She has one brother, a copy editor, and her first cousin once removed is Spencer Rice, one of the stars of "Kenny vs Spenny". She is a graduate of Thornlea Secondary School. Collins first began acting in 1998, with roles in various television series including "Once a Thief", "Noddy", and "I Was a Sixth Grade Alien". From 2000 to 2001, she had a recurring role on "In a Heartbeat" before landing the role of Paige Michalchuk on "" in 2001. She also portrayed Derek's ex-girlfriend Kendra on "Life with Derek". She has also appeared in numerous theatrical productions, playing the title roles in "Alice in Wonderland" and the production of "Annie", and starring in the made-for-television film "Virtual Mom". She has been a member of CharActors Theatre Troupe, a children's community theater company, for over five years. In 2006, Collins made her feature film debut in "Take the Lead", appearing alongside Antonio Banderas. The following year she appeared in "Charlie Bartlett" (starring Anton Yelchin and Robert Downey, Jr.). In 2008, she co-starred in the direct-to-DVD feature "Picture This", opposite Ashley Tisdale and fellow "Degrassi" alumnus Shenae Grimes. After YouTube celebrity Shane Dawson expressed his interest in watching the "Degrassi" series, Collins starred in a parody video released March 6, 2010. She will work once again with Disney Channel and Tisdale on the newest installment of "High School Musical"'s "Sharpay's Fabulous Adventure", playing the role of Tiffany. Starting in 2013, Collins hosts MTV's "1 Girl 5 Gays" replacing Aliya Jasmine Sovani, who had been hosting the show for 4 seasons.
1227911	Kissing A Fool is a 1998 American romantic comedy film directed by Doug Ellin. It primarily stars David Schwimmer, Jason Lee, Mili Avital, Kari Wührer and Vanessa Angel. Its plot is inspired by the short story "El curioso impertinente" that appears in "Don Quixote". Synopsis. Max (David Schwimmer), an alpha-male commitment-phobic sports broadcaster, and Jay (Jason Lee), a neurotic novelist, have been best friends since childhood. Jay sets Max up with his editor Samantha (Mili Avital). Although they share few interests, they are engaged within two weeks. Still, when Max is confronted with the fact that Sam will be the last woman he will sleep with, he proposes a test. Jay will hit on Sam. If she shows no interest, then Max will be confident enough in her loyalty to go ahead with the marriage. However when Jay hits on Sam, they end up falling in love with each other. Reception. "Kissing a Fool" received mostly negative reviews from critics, earning a 27% rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 30 reviews. Box office. Even though the movie did not make as much profit as expected, the crew all agreed it was a movie to remember. Soundtrack. The Original Motion Picture Soundtrack was released on March 24, 1998, and was composed by Joseph Vitarelli. The track listing is: Other notable songs not featured in the soundtrack include: Locations. Filmed in Chicago, Illinois, "Kissing A Fool" utilises several locations within the area. Amongst them are:
1167101	Elisabeth Caroline Simms, credited as Lise Simms, (born ) is an American actress, singer, designer and dancer. Personal life. As of 2006, Lise lives in the 1941 Hollywood colonial home she renovated. She is married to actor Terry Rhoads. Career. Broadway and theater. Simms began her acting career at age 13. She started doing Broadway after graduating from high school and starred in numerous plays such as "Other People's Money", "Mame", "Can-Can", "Sweet Charity", and "Bye Bye Birdie" during the 1980s. She was also a member of the original Los Angeles, California cast of "Beauty and the Beast" and toured around the world with "A Chorus Line" in 1986. Television. Simms was the host of Style Network's "Area". She had a recurring role on "Sunset Beach", but is best known for her role as "Barbara Diffy", Phil's mom in the Disney Channel Original Series "Phil of the Future", where she also played "The Timekeeper" in the episode "It's a Wonder-Phil Life". She had a recurring role as "Connie Wayne" in the soap opera "The Young and the Restless", and made guest appearances on "Friends", "Providence", "MADtv", "3rd Rock from the Sun", "", "iCarly" and many others. She performed for President Reagan in 1988's "Great Performances at the White House" series, which aired on the Public Broadcasting Service. Most recently, Simms can be seen as a co-host and interior designer on Home & Garden Television's "Desperate Spaces". Simms works alongside co-host and designer Daniel Kucan to redecorate a room of a home in just two days and with only $2,500. They choose 1 room from 3 deserving rooms in need. "Desperate Spaces" premiered on January 1, 2008. Simms had a guest spot on the February 3, 2009 episode of 90210 as Ty's mother, Louise Collins. TV commercials. Simms has been in commercials for the game Jenga, the remedies Tums, Maalox, Advil, Bluefly, Post Cereals Shredded Wheat, Orencia and Dairy Queen's "Moolatte" drinks. At one time, she co-hosted an infomercial for the AeroBed and has done infomercials for Rug Doctor carpet cleaning products and Dormeo memory. Simms also hosted an infomercial for Franklin Wheel and won an Astrid Award. She has appeared in Disney Channel's "Express Yourself" segments with other Disney Channel stars.
1245676	A Letter to Elia is a 2010 documentary film directed by Kent Jones and Martin Scorsese that follows the life and career of film director Elia Kazan and how he influenced Scorsese. Made from clips from films, stills, readings from Kazan's autobiography, a speech he wrote on directing read by Elias Koteas, a videotaped interview done late in Kazan's life, and Scorsese's commentary on and off screen. Accolades. 2010 Peabody Award Winner
403321	Holly Woodlawn (born October 26, 1946) is a Puerto Rican-born transgender actress and former Warhol superstar, who appeared in his movies "Trash" (1970) and "Women in Revolt" (1972). Early life. Born Haroldo Santiago Franceschi Rodriguez Danhakl in Juana Díaz, Puerto Rico, Woodlawn adopted the name Holly from the heroine of "Breakfast at Tiffany's", and in 1969 added the surname from a sign she saw on an episode of "I Love Lucy". After changing her name she began to tell people she was the heiress to Woodlawn Cemetery.
1190872	Adam Herschman is an American actor. Film work. Herschman is perhaps most known for his role as Glen in the 2006 film, "Accepted". Adam also stars as Archie in "Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay" (2008), Phillip in "Soul Men" and as Mr. Pickle's employee in "I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry". He has also appeared in the extended version of "Walk Hard" as Jerry Garcia. He has an appearance in the film "House Broken" (2009). Other. He stars in the recent Alltel commercials, representing Sprint in the yellow shirt. He is in a Best Buy commercial as one of the several Best Buy employees in the Stadium audience, answering a very difficult math question. He is in the Miracle Whip commercial, where the spread is explained as "not for everybody" He appeared in a cameo in the Foo Fighters' music video, ""Breakout.""
1161963	Sheila MacRae (born 24 September 1924) is an English actress and author. She was born Sheila Margaret Stephens. She appeared in such films as "Pretty Baby" (1950), "Caged" (1950), "Backfire" (1950), and "Sex and the Single Girl" (1964). On television, MacRae is famously remembered for playing herself in the in "I Love Lucy" episode titled "The Fashion Show". She played Alice Kramden, the long-suffering but sassy wife of bus driver Ralph Kramden (played by Jackie Gleason) on the musical-comedy colour episodes of "The Honeymooners" on "The Jackie Gleason Show" from 1966 to 1970 (a role originally played by Pert Kelton and then, when Kelton was blacklisted, by Audrey Meadows and later Sue Ane Langdon). She also afterward played the role of "Madelyn Richmond" on the television soap opera "General Hospital". Personal life. MacRae was married to the actor Gordon MacRae from 1941 until their divorce in 1967. Both exceptional singers, they often appeared on the stage together, in such musical productions as a 1964 production of "The Bells Are Ringing", and "Guys and Dolls", playing the role of Miss Adelaide, a role that she took to Broadway in the 1965 revival. They were the parents of the actresses Heather MacRae and Meredith MacRae. They also had 2 sons according to Gordon MacRae personal information. A son named Gordon (Gar) and Robert Bruce.
1054969	"Vampire's Kiss" is a 1989 American black comedy horror film, directed by Robert Bierman, written by Joseph Minion, and stars Nicolas Cage, María Conchita Alonso, Jennifer Beals, and Elizabeth Ashley. The film tells the story of mentally-ill literary agent, whose condition turns even worse when he gets bitten by a vampire. It was a box office failure, but received generally positive reviews.
1061110	Laurence Harvey (1 October 192825 November 1973) was a Lithuanian-born actor. In a career that spanned a quarter of a century, Harvey appeared in stage, film and television productions primarily in the United Kingdom and the United States. His 1959 performance in "Room at the Top" brought him global fame and an Academy Award nomination. That success was followed by one of the lead roles in "The Alamo", produced by John Wayne, and as the brainwashed Raymond Shaw in "The Manchurian Candidate". Many of his films earned nominations and awards for either the films or his co-stars. Early life. Harvey maintained throughout his life that his birth name was Laruschka Mischa Skikne, but it was actually Zvi Mosheh Skikne. He was the youngest of three boys born to Ella (née Zotnickaita) and Ber Skikne, a Lithuanian Jewish family in the town of Joniškis, Lithuania. When he was five years old, his family emigrated to South Africa, where he was known as Harry Skikne. He grew up in Johannesburg, and was in his teens when he served with the entertainment unit of the South African Army during the Second World War. Career. Early years. After moving to London, he enrolled in the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. After leaving RADA early, he began to perform on stage and film. The stage name "Laurence Harvey" was the idea of talent agent Gordon Harbord who decided Laurence would be an appropriate first name. In choosing a British-sounding last name, Harbord thought of two British retail institutions, Harvey Nichols and Harrods. The actor and the agent scoured theatrical directories and found that the name Laurence Harvey was not already taken by anyone else in the profession. Harvey made his cinema debut in the British film "House of Darkness" (1948). Associated British Picture Corporation quickly offered him a two-year contract and he appeared in several of their lower budget films such as "Cairo Road" (1950). His career got a boost when he appeared in "Women of Twilight" (1952); this was made by Romulus Films who signed Harvey to a long-term contract. He secured a supporting role in a Hollywood film, "Knights of the Round Table" (1953), which led to being cast with Rex Harrison and George Sanders in "King Richard and the Crusaders" (1954). That year he also played Romeo in Renato Castellani's adaptation of Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet", narrated by John Gielgud. He was now established as an emerging British star. According to a contemporary interview, he turned down an offer to appear in "Helen of Troy" (1955) to act at Stratford-upon-Avon. Harvey was cast as the writer Christopher Isherwood in "I Am A Camera" (1955), with Julie Harris as Sally Bowles ("Cabaret" is a musical from the same source texts). He also appeared on American TV and on Broadway, making his Broadway debut in 1955 in the play "Island of Goats", a flop which closed after one week, though his performance won him a 1956 Theatre World Award. Harvey appeared twice more on Broadway, in 1957 with Julie Harris, Pamela Brown and Colleen Dewhurst in William Wycherley's "The Country Wife", and as Shakespeare's Henry V in 1959, as part of the Old Vic company, which featured a young Judi Dench as Katherine, the Daughter of the King of France. International stardom. Harvey's breakthrough to international stardom came when he was cast by director Jack Clayton as the social climber Joe Lampton in "Room at the Top" (1959) produced by British film producer brothers John and James Woolf of Romulus Films. For his performance, Harvey received a BAFTA Award nomination and a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actor. Simone Signoret won an Academy Award for her performance. Harvey was cast in the role that had made Peter O'Toole prominent in the West End: the film version of "The Long and the Short and the Tall" (1961); O'Toole was not yet established as an actor in films and Harvey was more "bankable". In 1960 he starred in John Wayne's epic "The Alamo". Harvey was John Wayne's personal choice to play Alamo commandant William Barret Travis. He had been impressed by Harvey's talent and ability to project the aristocratic demeanor Wayne believed Travis possessed. Harvey and Wayne would later express their mutual admiration and satisfaction at having worked together. Harvey starred in two films with Elizabeth Taylor, the 1960 vehicle "BUtterfield 8" that garnered an Academy Award for Taylor, and the 1973 suspense film "Night Watch". Taylor and Harvey remained friends until the end of his life. She visited him three weeks before his death, but Harvey's wife Paulene felt the visit tired him and was counter productive. Upon his death, Taylor issued the statement, "He was one of the people I really loved in this world. He was part of the sun. For everyone who loved him, the sun is a bit dimmer." She and Peter Lawford held a memorial service for Harvey in California. In 1961, Harvey co-starred with Geraldine Page in the film adaptation of Tennessee Williams's "Summer and Smoke" For her performance, Page won a Golden Globe Award and was nominated for an Academy Award, the New York Film Critics Circle Award and the National Board of Review Award. Una Merkel was nominated for a supporting performance Academy Award. The film received several other awards nominations, including Academy Award nominations for Best Music Score and Best Set Decoration. Other films included "Walk on the Wild Side" (1962) with Barbara Stanwyck, Jane Fonda and Capucine. He appeared as the brainwashed Raymond Shaw in 1962 in the Cold War thriller "The Manchurian Candidate". The same year, he recorded an album of spoken excerpts from the book "This Is My Beloved" by Walter Benton, accompanied by original music by Herbie Mann. It was released on the Atlantic label. Harvey's portrayal of Wilhelm Grimm in the 1962 film The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm earned him a nomination for Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Drama. Harvey played King Arthur in the 1964 London production of the Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe musical "Camelot", at Drury Lane. Later years. The 1964 remake of W. Somerset Maugham's "Of Human Bondage" cast Kim Novak as Harvey's co-star. During filming, kidnap threats were made against both Harvey and Novak."The Outrage" (1964) was director Martin Ritt's remake of Akira Kurosawa's classic "Rashomon". Besides Harvey, the film starred Paul Newman.and Claire Bloom. The film was not a success, in spite of the cast. Harvey reprised his Academy Award-nominated role as Joe Lampton in "Life at the Top" (1965). The film's art director Edward Marshall received a 1966 BAFTA Award nomination. Harvey starred in the 1965 film "Darling" which won three Academy Awards, including Best Actress for Julie Christie. It was nominated for Best Picture by the Academy. The film also co-starred Dirk Bogarde and received numerous other awards and nominations. Harvey co-starred with Daliah Lavi in the comedy "The Spy with a Cold Nose" (1966). The film was a spoof of the James Bond films. It garnered two Golden Globe Award nominations in 1967, for "Best Foreign Film – English Language" and for Lionel Jeffries in his performance. The script for director Tony Richardson's 1968 film "The Charge of the Light Brigade" was partially based on the 1953 Cecil Woodham-Smith book "The Reason Why". At the time John Osborne wrote the script, Harvey owned the rights to the book with the intent of filming his own adaptation. A lawsuit was filed against Richardson's company Woodfall Film Productions on behalf of the book's author. There was a monetary settlement, and Harvey was given the role of Prince Radziwell as part of the settlement. Charles Wood was brought in to re-write the script. Richardson had all Harvey's scenes cut from the movie, except a brief glimpse as an anonymous member of a theatre audience, technically still meeting the requirements of the legal settlement. The spy thriller "A Dandy in Aspic" (1968) co-starred Mia Farrow, at the time married to Frank Sinatra. Director Anthony Mann died during production, and it was left up to Harvey to finish directing the film. Harvey provided the narration for the 1969 Soviet film "Tchaikovsky," directed by Igor Talankin. At the 44th Academy Awards, the film received two nominations, for Best Foreign Language Film, and for Dimitri Tiomkin's music score. In "The Magic Christian", Harvey performed a striptease to the rhythm of stripper music while reciting Hamlet's soliloquy. Up in the balcony Ringo Starr quipped, "I've seen it. Shakespeare, right?" and Peter Sellers deadpanned, "That fellow's taking license, in my view." The 1969 movie was based on a Terry Southern novel by the same name. The Beatles references, which includes look-a-likes for John Lennon and Yoko Ono, have made the movie a cult curiosity among Beatles fans. Monty Python writers Graham Chapman and John Cleese helped work on the script. An all-star cast that included Raquel Welch, Spike Milligan, Christopher Lee, Yul Brynner and Roman Polanski was not enough to make the movie a commercial success. He was also guest murderer of the week on "Columbo: The Most Dangerous Match" in 1973 as a chess champion who murders his opponent. Joanna Pettet and her husband Alex Cord had been friends of Harvey's from the 1960s. They were both fond of Harvey and enjoyed his sense of humor, but Cord also acknowledged Harvey could be cruel with anyone he didn't like. Pettet appeared with Harvey in the 1972 episode "The Caterpillar" on Rod Serling's "Night Gallery". In the episode, Harvey's character has unrequited attraction to Pettet's married character. He hires someone to kill off the husband by placing a deadly earwig in the husband's ear. In error, the earwig is inserted into the ear of Harvey's character and, although removed, has laid eggs inside his brain. A decade later, would depict a torture very similar. Harvey directed and starred in his final film "Welcome to Arrow Beach," which co-starred his friend Joanna Pettet, John Ireland and Stuart Whitman. The movie is a horror film that deals with a type of war-related Post-traumatic stress disorder that turns a military veteran to cannibalism. Orson Welles's "The Deep" with Jeanne Moreau was to have Harvey in the lead. Welles worked on the film in between other projects of his. The production had money problems, and Harvey's 1973 death ultimately put an end to the project. Personal life. Early in his career, Harvey had a live-in relationship with Hermione Baddeley. A British stage actress who also appeared on Broadway and became familiar on American television by playing Nell Naugatuck on "Maude", she was twenty-two years older than Harvey. Although Harvey proposed marriage to her, Baddeley thought the age difference was too great. He left Baddeley in 1951 for actress Margaret Leighton, who was six years older than Harvey and at the time was married to Max Reinhardt. Leighton and Reinhardt divorced in 1955, and she married Harvey in 1957 off the Rock of Gibraltar. The couple divorced in 1961. In 1968 he married Joan Perry Cohn, seventeen years his senior. Although often referred to as the widow of film mogul Harry Cohn of Columbia Pictures, she had a brief post-widowhood marriage to shoe store magnate Harry Karl that lasted for three weeks in 1959. Her marriage to Laurence Harvey lasted until 1972. Harvey's third marriage was to British fashion model Paulene Stone. She gave birth to his only child Domino in 1969 while he was still married to Cohn. In 1972, Harvey and Stone married at the home of Harold Robbins. In his account of being Frank Sinatra's valet, "Mr. S: My Life with Frank Sinatra" (2003), George Jacobs writes that Harvey often made passes at him while visiting Sinatra. According to Jacobs, Sinatra was aware of Harvey's sexuality. In his autobiography "Close Up" (2004), British actor John Fraser claimed that Harvey was gay and that his long-term lover was his manager James Woolf, who had cast Harvey in several of the films he produced in the 1950s. Death. A heavy smoker and drinker, Harvey died from stomach cancer at the age of 45. His daughter, Domino, who later became a bounty hunter, was only 35 when she died. They are buried together in Santa Barbara Cemetery in Santa Barbara, California, USA.
589329	Sadhana Shivdasani (born 2 September 1941), better known mononymously as Sadhana, is an Indian actress who was one of the top stars in the 1960s and the early 1970s. Beside becoming the fashion icon for young Indian girls with her specific hair style, still known as "Sadhana cut", she became famous as Mystery Girl with her three suspense thriller films namely "Woh Kaun Thi?" (1964), "Mera Saaya" (1966) and "Anita" (1967), all directed by Raj Khosla.
1033946	Jennie Linden (born 8 December 1939) is an English film and television actress. She is best known for her role in the film, "Women in Love" (1969). Life and career. Linden was born in Worthing to Marcus and Freida Fletcher, an architect and housewife. She attended the Central School of Speech and Drama at the age of 17 on a scholarship. Her classmates included Julie Christie and Vanessa and Lynn Redgrave. Her earliest film appearances were as the heroine in Hammer Film's "Nightmare" (1964) and Barbara in "Dr. Who and the Daleks" (1965). Her most widely known film role was as Ursula in "Women in Love" (1969), for which she received a BAFTA nomination. Wanting to raise her son in England, Linden decided not to pursue a career in Hollywood. She was considered for "The Lion in Winter" (1968) and "The Go-Between" (1970); the latter was for the lead role of Lady Marian Trimingham, for which Christie was later cast. She turned down the role of Amy in Sam Peckinpah's "Straw Dogs" (1971). Linden toured in Trevor Nunn's Royal Shakespeare Company production of "Hedda Gabler" for two years playing Thea Elvsted, with Glenda Jackson in the title role; they later appeared together in the 1975 film adaptation. Linden's television credits include "Sherlock Holmes" (1965) with Douglas Wilmer and Nigel Stock, "The Saint" (1966), "The Rivals" (1970), "Little Lord Fauntleroy" (1976), "Lillie" (1978) as Patsy Cornwallis-West, "Chancer" (1990), and "Trainer" (1991).
1065052	Cop and a Half is a 1993 American family film directed by Henry Winkler, and starring Burt Reynolds and Norman D. Golden II. "Cop and a Half" was Ray Sharkey's final film before he died from AIDS-related complications. Synopsis. Devon Butler (Golden) is an eight-year-old in Tampa who dreams of being a cop. He watches police TV shows, knows police procedures and plays cops and burglars with his friend Ray. One day, while snooping around in a warehouse, he witnesses a murder. He goes to the police, who want the information, but refuses to give it unless they make Devon a cop. The police then team him with veteran cop (and child hater) Nick McKenna (Reynolds), and the two team up in a comic series of events to find the killer. The two eventually come to a mutual understanding in order to bring the killer to justice. Soundtrack. Joey Lawrence's "Nothing My Love Can't Fix for You" is used as the end title song. Reception. The film received generally negative reviews from critics and audiences. It currently holds a 17% "rotten" rating at the movie review aggregator site Rotten Tomatoes, where only two reviews out of the twelve polled are positive. Film critic and historian Leonard Maltin wrote, "A hemorrhoid-and-a-half to whoever sits through this abjectly painful comedy, which does for Burt Reynolds' career what "Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot" did for Sylvester Stallone's." Critic Gene Siskel also excoriated the film, seeing it as indicative of "artistic bankruptcy" on Burt Reynolds' part, and singled out Norman D. Golden II's performance as "awkward". Siskel later called it the worst movie of 1993. Siskel speculated that NBC thought little of the film when they aired it in its broadcast-network debut, pointing out that they scheduled it opposite the 1997 Super Bowl. However, Roger Ebert gave the film a positive review, giving it a thumbs up. He also gave it 3 stars out of a possible 4 saying "There isn't much that's original in "Cop and a Half," but there's a lot that's entertaining, and there's a winning performance by a young man with a big name, Norman D. Golden II, who plays little Devon Butler, a kid who dreams of someday wearing the shield." There were some positive comments, however. RedLetterMedia compared Cop Dog to Cop and a Half saying "even when Cop and a Half half-assed it, it was still three-quarters cop." Box office. The movie debuted at No.1. In its second week it dropped to number 3.
583934	Dasavathaaram is a 2008 Tamil science fiction disaster film, co-written and directed by K. S. Ravikumar. It stars Kamal Haasan, who wrote the screenplay and story of the film, in ten distinct roles. Asin appears in a dual role and Mallika Sherawat plays a subsidiary role. The film, which had been under production for nearly three years, was produced and primarily distributed by Venu Ravichandran. Primary filming locations included the USA and the state of Tamil Nadu in India. The soundtrack to the film was composed by Himesh Reshammiya and the background score by Devi Sri Prasad. This high-budget production was an all-time blockbuster and completed a 175-day run at the box office. About 20 million tickets were sold worldwide. It was also the first Tamil film to beat the record set by "Sivaji" a year earlier. However, this new record was beaten two years later by "Enthiran". The plot of the film revolves around bringing together the lives of several individuals beginning with the 12th century and ending with the 21st century; the main person being a research scientist who develops a bio-weapon and makes sure that it is not acquired by a group of terrorists. Several other people also get involved in the process and all their stories connect after the striking of a tsunami, thus bringing in philosophical views into the picture. After delays in post-production, the film was released worldwide on 13 June 2008 with 1000 prints in Tamil as well as a dubbed version in Telugu. The aspects of the visual effects and the performance of the cast were appreciated while the music was unanimously criticised. Prior to and after release, the film had its share of controversies with regard to plagiarism, the portrayal of Hindus and Sherawat's attire at the audio launch. A Hindi dubbed version, "Dashavatar" was released almost a year later. Plot. Govindarajan Ramaswamy (Haasan), a bio-scientist speaks from the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium about the Chaos theory and the Butterfly effect. He begins by reciting events from the 12th century in Chidambaram, when king Kulothunga Chola II (Napoleon), a Saivite, persecutes Vaishnavites and intends to destroy an idol of Govindaraja. Rangarajan Nambi (Haasan), a Vaishnavite, protects it and offends the king. The king orders Rangarajan to be executed by being submerged into the sea with the idol. In 20 December 2004, a bio-technology lab in the USA designs a virus (combination of Marburg and Ebola) intended as a bio-weapon. After understanding its potential, Dr. Govind (Haasan), one of the scientists involved, refuses to give the vial (containing the virus) away due to fear of misuse. However, his boss, Dr. Sethu, has other plans and tries to sell it to a terrorist group when Govind flees with it. Christian Fletcher (Haasan), an ex- CIA, follows him and attempts to seize the vial, when it is air couriered to India by accident. Govind sneaks into the aircraft carrying the virus and changes its location. After arriving in India, he is questioned by Balram Naidu (Haasan) (Pranab Kundu in Hindi version), a RAW operative. Govind unsuccessfully tries to explain the series of incidents. In the meantime, Fletcher, who has married Jasmine (Mallika Sherawat), and arrived in India, using her as a translator, threatens Govind and takes him away in a jeep with a police officer. After exiting the city, Govind escapes from Fletcher and reaches Chidambaram. Fletcher follows him, after getting a cab, along with Jasmine. After Govind attempts to persuade the receivers of package carrying the virus, it finds itself inside an idol of Govindaraja. In the chaos, Govind kills Jasmine. Govind and Andal (Asin), who is the granddaughter of Krishnaveni (Haasan), an old woman for whom the package was sent, try to run away from Fletcher, and arrive in a ground where illegal sand miners are working. They try to rape Andal, but in the fight ensued, Govind defeated the sand miners and they sneak out after the interference of Vincent Boovaragan (Haasan), a radical Christian, and save a Muslim family of Khalifulla (Haasan) from a car-crash in the process. One of them, a lady, faints suddenly and is taken to a hospital, where Govind procures a cooling box to store the weapon, as it is unstable and its temperature needs to be maintained. He meets Avatar Singh (Haasan), a pop singer, who is also there for treatment of his throat cancer. He prescribes medicines in a similar-looking box and before leaving the hospital, unknowingly switches places with Govind's box. Fletcher, follows them, takes Andal and the Muslim family as hostage into their house, from where Govind is blackmailed to bring back the box he is carrying. Unable to do anything, he reaches the place, only to find out that Avatar Singh must be having the weapon. The police surround the house, forcing Fletcher, Govind and Andal to flee in a jeep. Shinghen Narahsi (Haasan), a Japanese martial arts expert, whose sister had been killed by Fletcher, follows them. Avatar Singh finishes his supposedly last performance and finds out the blunder in the box, only to find himself shot by Fletcher after having a row. Govind and Andal flee to reach a construction site, where Govind takes out the weapon before giving the idol to Fletcher. The sun dawns on 26 December 2004. Govind gets an idea from drainage workers to immerse the virus in a large quantity of salt to destroy it. He goes to the sea, only to be stopped by Fletcher. Shinghen Narahasi arrives and fights physically with Fletcher. Both Narahasi and motivated Govind fights the Fletcher together and defeats him, who opens and swallows the virus in humiliation. Suddenly, a tsunami strikes, washing away Fletcher, and causing heavy amounts of destruction to the coast. Poovaragan's house is struck and he dies in a car after saving a child. Andal, Govind and Narahasi get into a boat. Krishnaveni arrives and begins to cry after perceiving Poovaragan as her long-lost son. After relief measures are taken, Andal argues that god had given the tsunami to get rid of the weapon. Govind responds by asking if god would destroy hundreds of lives to save millions.Then the shot zooms back where it is shown that they were talking in front of the idol submerged in the twelfth century. The scene shifts to the stadium, where Avatar Singh, who had his cancerous growth taken away by the shot he received, along with several others, listening to the speech by Govind, followed by former president George Bush (Haasan) as the credits roll. Production. Development. Kamal Haasan came up with an original storyline and approached prominent directors, to direct it, when K. S. Ravikumar accepted the offer. It began soon after the announcement of another magnum opus, "" starring Rajnikanth. K. S. Ravikumar and Kamal Haasan came together for the fourth time following their three previous successful ventures, "Avvai Shanmughi", "Thenali" and "Panchathantiram". Kamal was set to play ten different roles in the film, making it the first time that an actor has appeared in so many roles in world cinema. Venu Ravichandran, who had a profitable 2006, signed up to produce the venture securing distribution rights in the process. Pyramid Film Fund had an exposure of 50 percent in the project. Following nearly a year of pre-production, deciding the cast and the locations, the film began its first schedule on 11 September 2006. Ashmith Kunder was signed up to edit the film, despite early indications that A. Sreekar Prasad would have landed the offer. The director, K. S. Ravikumar also wrote the script for the film following negotiations with Sujatha Rangarajan, who died before the release of the film, and Crazy Mohan. Late Jeeva was initially announced as the cinematographer of the film, and he had taken over the role for a day of the shooting. However, the shots taken by him did not appear in the film and Ravi Varman became the director of photography. Casting. Between the announcement of the project and prior to the launch a year later, several actress were signed up, who then either opted out or were removed from the project. Vidya Balan was first signed up and set to make her debut in Tamil films, however due to the long inactivity of the film, Balan opted out citing date clashes with her Bollywood project. Following the removal of Balan, it was reported that each of the ten characters portrayed by Kamal Haasan in the film, would have a female lead opposite them. Actresses who were considered but failed to make the final shortlist were: Mumtaj, Kiran Rathod, Meena, Nadhiya, Kamalinee Mukerji, Nithya Das, Meera Jasmine, and Vasundhara Das. Moreover, actresses Balan, Trisha Krishnan and Nayantara opted out due to date clashes. Furthermore, Shriya Saran was forced to opt out of the project by the producers of her other film "Sivaji: The Boss", a film built up as the rival to "Dasavathaaram" at the box-office. Finally, the major female lead role was given to Asin Thottumkal, who was later assigned two distinct roles in the project. The second lead female role in the film went to Mallika Sherawat, for whom "Dasavathaaram" was her first Tamil language film. Over the course, of the production more supporting actors were added to the film, the first being Napoleon, who was signed up to portray a king in the film. Other veteran actors, Jayaprada, Nagesh, P. Vasu, K. R. Vijaya and M. S. Baskar as well as a bevy of American supporting actors were roped into essay other small roles in the film. Actors, Jayaram and Vadivelu opted out of the film during the production of the project, citing date problems. Filming. A preliminary schedule took place before the start of the film, which featured no filming, but only the make-up tests, lasting for 25 days in the USA. The make-up used for Kamal's characters proved to create difficulties. It took nine hours to implement the make-up and it failed to stay for a long period of time. To compensate that, he had to rest and take fluids using a straw and at the same time, refrain from making movement in the facial muscles to make sure that it was not disturbed. The technology of motion control was employed for the cinematography in the film. The filming of "Dasavathaaram" began on 3 August 2006 at Mahabalipuram in Chennai, where the intro song was picturised on a set created by art director Sameer Chandra. The set resembled the Airavatesvara Temple at Darasuram in Kumbakonam and scenes with Kamal Haasan in an Iyengar get-up, accompanied by over 750 extras, were recorded. Though it was initially planned to be shot in the temple itself, permission could not be obtained as the structure was a heritage site and the shooting was believed to interfere with the activities of the temple. Further plans to use a hundred elephants were shelved after the transport and accommodation for the animals was deemed impossible. However, in September 2006, Sameer Chanda was sacked from the project due to his tendency to employ only workers from Mumbai and not Tamilians, prompting Haasan and Ravikumar to remove him from the project, with his role being entrusted to Prabhakar of "Virumaandi" fame. Another team member was sacked in Chengelpet, when a stunt sequence was being captured by the camera; stunt master Kanal Kannan was reported to have used unparliamentarily and corporation words at the workers and that took over the public address system. Angered and humiliated by such remarks, the workers walked out of the sets refusing to work anymore and resumed duty only after the elimination of Kanal Kannan. A new stunt master, Thyagarajan was given the opportunity to take over following the controversy caused by Kannan, who had a similar problem while shooting for "Sivaji". Major portions of the films were shot extensively in overseas locations which included the US, Japan, Malaysia and Thailand. A role of a foreigner, played by Haasan, was shot for in casinos in and around Las Vegas and Orlando. A song involving Kamal Haasan and Mallika Sherawat that was to be shot in US was moved to Malaysia due to problems with Sherawat's visa. The crew instead decided to shift to another destination in Malaysia and the song was shot in posh night clubs; furthermore scenes were shot at a lobby of a prominent Malaysian airport. A Replica of the White House was erected at the Taramani Film City in India, with Haasan's makeup for the role lasting six whole hours to obtain the desired outcome. For the climax, another scene was shot dramatically above the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium with the permission of the chief minister, M. Karunanidhi. A tsunami effect was created in Mahabalipuram and shot at a area of land in which a wall was created near Muttukadu. Six machines, which generated high waves, were imported from the US, for a total cost of . The film's final shoot occurred on 8 October 2007 at Uthandi, a coastal village. Soundtrack. The film was originally announced with A. R. Rahman as the music director of the film. However he opted out of the project owing schedule clashes. Kamal, who quickly wanted the tunes, roped in Himesh Reshammiya, for whom "Dasavathaaram" became his Tamil film debut. The background score was composed by Devi Sri Prasad. As the film demanded a "stylish and western" quality of music, two reels of music were initially composed and tested. A two-and-a-half-minute theme song was later composed for the promos. The background music in the second half consisted of extensive usage of violins and chorus and the entire score for the film was recorded over a period of one month, in Chennai. The soundtrack was released on 25 April 2008 at the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium in Chennai, which became the largest audio launch for a south Indian film. Prominent film personalities across the world attended the event, with Jackie Chan, in his first such appearance, being Hollywood's ambassador for the function. Other prominent regional Indian artistes such as Amitabh Bachchan, Mammooty, Vijay and Madhavan attended the launch. Then Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu, M. Karunanidhi attended the event. The event hosted by Shobana, was attended by all the artistes of the film apart from producer Venu Ravichandran, who avoids to attend public events. The soundtrack album was acquired by Sony BMG, purchasing their first Tamil film, for a record of . The music was released in four languages: Tamil, Hindi, Telugu and Malayalam. Release. Distribution rights of the film worldwide, was sold for 510 million to various companies with producer Venu Ravichandran distributing the film around South India. Sony India distributed the film in North India, whilst Ayngaran International sold the film to cinema halls in the United Kingdom, Singapore and the Gulf. Canadian rights for the film were bought by Walt Disney, becoming the first distributional venture of an Indian film by the production house. Narmadha Travels acquired the rights from Aascar Films to distribute the film in the United States of America. Controversies. Assistant director Senthil Kumar filed a case against the film at the Madras High Court. He claimed to have created the story of "Dasavathaaram", in a script titled, "Ardhanari alias Clones", and that Kamal Haasan and Venu Ravichandran had "stolen" the script and left him out of the credits, violating the copyright act. On the basis of this complaint, the Chennai police queried the actor and later accepted his explanation with the high court sending notices to Kamal Haasan and the producer of the film, Venu Ravichandran announcing an interim stay on the release of the film. The film was allowed to continue with its schedules, but the case was delayed till later in 2007. However in September 2007, the Court dismissed the petition of Senthil Kumar against Kamal Haasan in the case, clearing the legal hurdles for the film. Following the audio launch on 25 April 2008, Mallika Sherawat received a police complaint against the issue of improper attire at a film function. Hindu Makkal Katchi, a splinter group of the Hindu Munnani, lodged a complaint with the police, saying that Sherawat's attire at the function to release audio-CDs of "Dasavathaaram", in which Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi had been present, had "hurt the sentiments of Hindus". The actress was accused of wearing a mini-skirt and exposing her back in front of the chief minister. In May 2008, the film was criticised by the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, which claimed that the film has portrayed the clash between Saivism and Vaishnavism which prevailed in the 12th century in the film in an objectionable manner. However, following the accusations, Venu Ravichandran announced that the film contains no controversial scenes and added that the film, based around the Hindu religion, will convert atheists to theists. The charges were cleared on 29 May 2008 insisting that "Dasavathaaram" did not portray Hindu culture in bad light. Screenings. The film's trailer was released publicly on 23 April 2008, a day after it was shown to special guests, which included M. Karunanidhi at a screen. The first exclusive screening of the film, prior to release, was held on the morning of the audio launch on 25 April 2008, to visiting guests Jackie Chan, Mammooty and Amitabh Bachchan, all of whom were full of praise for the film. The film was shown subsequently to the Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu, M. Karunanidhi by the request of the producer on 8 June 2008. Furthermore, Ravichandran sold the television rights for the film to Karunanidhi's Kalaignar TV for 45 million. Two days prior to the release, the film was shown to prominent film personalities of Indian cinema at Four Films Cinema in Chennai, with the film receiving praise. Critical reception. Upon release, "Dasavathaaram" received generally positive reviews. Rediff praised the film as "spectacular" and a "super human effort", rating it with 4 out of 5 stars. The reviewer concluded that the film will "go down in the history of Indian cinema as a unique experiment in the commercial circuit". In comparison, Sify called the film "average", stating that it "fell short of the huge expectation and hype it had generated. The reviewer also criticized the make-up, lamenting that "Kamal's prosthetic makeup, especially as George Bush, Fletcher and Khan, is a bit of a dampener" but claimed that Brian Jennings's special effects, "mainly of the climax Tsunami scene, are top class by Indian standards". The reviewer praised cinematographer Ravi Varman, noting: " may take a bow, as his camerawork is glossy and superb". "Behindwoods" rated the film 3.5 out of 5 and said, "In short, with unexpected twists and turns missing in the film, Dasavatharam is a make-up magic show that disappoints as drama and satisfies as a technical showpiece." but concluded, "Watch for Kamal!" "IndiaGlitz" said, "This is a movie that has highlighted a highly talented and passionate actor in his entire splendor. At the end of the film one tends to ask...has Kamal Haasan been so spectacular that he has overshadowed the script and story this time?" T S Sudhir of NDTV wrote, "Dasavathaaram, unfortunately, remains just a film with its USP of 10 Kamals. This Kamal does not blossom the way he did in Indian or Nayakan, Appu Raja, Mahanadi, Avvai Shanmughi or in Thevar Magan" and further stated, "One of the best in the business falters with the film's story and screenplay." Nikhat Kazmi of "The Times of India" rated the film 2.5 out of 5 and said, "EXPERIMENTS aren't always successful. Like Dasavatharam , Kamal Haasan's ambitious venture which sees him playing ten roles which include a take on George Bush too. Daring, we'd like to insist; only the make-up and the fake appearance borders more on the comic." "The Deccan Herald" said, "The ten roles are awfully disparate: they are more like pantomime characters. Kamal appears too flabby and jaded. Sorry, Appu Raja (or shall we say Michael, Madana, Kamarajan) it’s time you start being your age. From start to finish there is a severe decibel assault aided and abetted by Himesh Reshammiya." "OneIndia" said, "After watching Dasavatharam- the so called magnum opus of the year- an ardent fan of Kamal Hassan will ask why indeed it is called a magnum opus in the first place. Why was all the hype, tension, cases, expectations and unnecessary expenses wasted on this average film. Once again, Kamal fails to attract Tamil audiences with his own script." and gave the verdict, "Not up to expectations!" Malathi Rangarajan of "The Hindu" said, "The film would have worked even better had the narrative been tauter and more purposive post-interval" but concluded, "All in all, Dasavathaaram shows that Kamal Haasan has once again taken great pains to make his cinematic projects convincing. The effort has paid off." Awards. "Dasavathaaram" received the Best Film Award and Kamal Haasan received the Best Actor Award at the Tamil Nadu State Film Awards. Box office. It is the first Indian movie to gross above 200 crore worldwide. Domestic. "Dasavathaaram" was claimed to be a success and very good grosser. Upon release, "Dasavathaaram" was dubbed and released in Telugu on the same date, with later release dates set for the Hindi, Malayalam, Kannada, Bengali and Bhojpuri versions. The Indian censor board certified the film on 24 April 2008, giving it a "U" (universal) rating, after 9 cuts were made and letting the film run for 166 minutes. "Dasavathaaram" released worldwide with 1,300 prints in all the respective languages. Tamil Nadu had 275 prints, Kerala 85 prints and Karnataka 80 prints, with 190 prints released overseas. The Hindi version "Dashavtar" had about 410 prints in North India. The Telugu version had 260 prints in Andhra Pradesh including 45 prints in Nizam region. The film opened in 25 screens in Hyderabad. The film grossed 9.6 million from 17 screens in Chennai in the opening weekend. The Chennai Corporation had given the producer special permission to hold five shows daily, which helped the film to garner the extraordinary opening. The second highest collecting film did not have even 10% of its collection. In the second weekend too, the film registered at least 95% at multiplexes and 80 percent in single screens. The film grossed 9.2 million in a fortnight in Mayajaal multiplex. The film stayed at No.1 in Chennai box office for five consecutive weeks. In Sathyam Cinemas multiplex, the film grossed 9 million in a fortnight. The film grossed 3 crore in Chennai, 21 crore in Tamil Nadu and 500 million worldwide in the first week. In Chennai, the film grossed 6.35 crore in three weeks, 7.53 crore in four weeks, 8.55 crore in five weeks, 9.44 crore in six weeks and 100.8 million in seven weeks. The film grossed 25 million in seven weeks from 3 screens in Trichy. It also grossed 79.4 million in Coimbatore in six weeks. The Hindi version "Dashavatar" opened to a poor 5–10% response. The Hindi version Dasavatar netted 19.3 million in six weeks in North India. The film grossed 20 million in Kerala in the first week. The film, also released in other parts of India, grossed 6 million from outside Tamil Nadu. In a fortnight, the Telugu version grossed 3.5 crore in Nizam, 1.6 crore in Ceded, 1 crore in Vizag, 95 lakh in East and West Godavari, 75 lakh in Guntur and 7 million in Krishna. The film grossed 250 million in Andhra Pradesh in its lifetime. The film's worldwide grossed 2.50 billion ($57,058,000) in its lifetime. Overseas. The film grossed an overall $16,356,962 overseas in its lifetime. "Dasavathaaram" grossed US$4,632,719 and was ranked No.7 in the opening week, becoming the first Tamil film to reach the Top 10 at the International box office. In Malaysia, the film opened in second place, having collected $601,000 from 58 screens on the opening weekend and $1,720,780 in nine weeks. "Dasavathaaram" was released in USA with 42 prints, an unprecedented record in US movie history for a South Indian film. With print sharing facility, it was screened in 50 cities across the country. The collection on the opening weekend in the USA was $500,000. The film grossed $750,000 in the USA as lifetime business. In the UK box office, it collected £126,747 from 19 screens on its opening weekend, debuting at number 12, the third highest position ever for a Tamil film. By its second weekend, "Dasavathaaram" grossed £216,000 at the UK box office. In Canada, it was distributed by Walt Disney Pictures, the first Tamil film do so. In the UAE, the film grossed 6.3 crore in four weeks including 2.5 crore in Dubai, 2.4 crore in Abu Dhabi and 13 million in Sharjah.
1563072	Gleaming the Cube (also known as "A Brother's Justice and Skate or Die") is an American film released in 1989. It featured Christian Slater as Brian Kelly, a 16-year-old skateboarder investigating the death of his adopted Vietnamese brother. The Skating Technical Advisor for the film was original Z-Boy Stacy Peralta. Among the skateboarders who appear in the film as stunt skaters are Mike McGill, "Gator" Mark Rogowski, Rodney Mullen, Rich Dunlop, Eric Dressen, Lance Mountain, Mike Vallely, Chris Black, Ted Ehr, Natas Kaupas, Chris Borst, and Steve Saiz. Tony Hawk (Buddy), and Tommy Guerrero (Sam) then members of the Bones Brigade, appear in the film as members of Brian's skate crew. Future lead singer of The Aquabats and creator of "Yo Gabba Gabba!", Christian Jacobs, also appears in the film as Gremic. The film received only a moderate release in the United States from 20th Century Fox (in 469 theaters). Although the film had a relatively low box office turnout, it garnered a significant cult following after its theatrical release, through basic cable replays on networks such as USA and the burgeoning VHS (and later DVD) market, as well as notoriety among skateboarders. The title of the film refers to the gibberish question, "Have you ever gleemed inside a cube?" Garry Davis (GSD) asked Neil Blender in an interview in the December 1983 issue of "Thrasher" magazine. Synopsis. Brian Kelly (Christian Slater) is a slacker and the only thing he really cares about is skateboarding. Things like doing his homework and making the grades in school have little meaning to him. But when his adopted Vietnamese brother turns up dead after discovering an error in the shipping records at his place of work, Brian begins to suspect something more. Refusing to accept the police's theory of suicide, Brian launches his own investigation, determined to uncover the truth of what really happened. Cultural references. In the "Simpsons" episode "Lemon of Troy", Bart and a young Shelbyville boy skate past a female doppelganger of Groundskeeper Willy, who screams after them, "Slow down, ya sidewalk surfin, cube gleamers!" The movie is referenced again in the episode "To Surveil with Love" when Ned Flanders tells Bart to "Stop gleaming that cube!" as he is watching Bart skateboard down the sidewalk. In the Season 2 premiere of "Robot Chicken", Christian Slater plays a skater named Skater McGee, who gets kids to try an incredibly hard trick called the "Monster Cookie Pinwheel". When asked by the skaters what a Monster Cookie Pinwheel is, Skater McGee replies with, "A monster cookie pinwheel is when you skate up to a locomotives cow catch, you 360 punk buster to the second car, do a lemonade hand stand on the third car, a whipping-post ollie to the fourth car, a demon stomper on the fifth car, and a gleaming the cube off the sixth car, before dismounting the train." Legacy. Professional skateboarder Stevie Williams has stated in an online interview that Slater's character in the film was his first skateboarding influence.
898528	Linda Lovelace for President is a 1975 David Winters comedy film directed by Claudio Guzman and starring Linda Lovelace, who achieved notoriety as the central character in the 1972 most profitable X-rated film of all time "Deep Throat". Plot. A committee of independent U.S. political party leaders have gathered to join forces and select a candidate for the upcoming presidential election. One of the committee members flippantly suggests nominating Linda Lovelace. The committee approaches the porn star, who agrees to be the flag bearer of the newly formed Upright Party. Lovelace’s campaign takes her on a cross-country tour, where she meets voters in stops ranging from crowded big cities to isolated rural towns. Lovelace’s popularity, however, threatens the Washington, D.C., establishment, and her political rivals dispatch a hit man known as The Assassinator to bring a fatal end to the Lovelace campaign. Production. After the 1972 release of "Deep Throat", Linda Lovelace enjoyed a brief flurry of celebrity notoriety while dating David Winters of West Side Story fame, which included appearances at the Academy Awards ceremony with Winters and the opening day of the racing season at Ascot Racecourse plus author credit for two best-selling books that played up on her status as a pornographic icon. By 1974, however, her career stalled. An R-rated sequel to her breakthrough film, "Deep Throat Part II", was commercially unsuccessful, and her attempts to establish success as a nightclub singer and stage actress were considered failures. The film "Linda Lovelace for President" was designed by David Winters to establish the star’s crossover appeal with mainstream moviegoers. Winters came up with the idea for the film after observing the strong positive reaction that college students exhibited towards Linda Lovelace during her speeches at various college campuses.
1184005	Artis Leon Ivey Jr. (born August 1, 1963), better known by the stage name Coolio, is an American musician, rapper, actor, and record producer. Coolio has sold over 17 million albums worldwide. Music career. He recorded two singles in 1987, titled "Watch Gonna Do" and "You're Gonna Miss Me". Coolio made connections in the Los Angeles rap scene, and in 1991, ended up joining the group WC and the Maad Circle, led by rapper WC. He had a few verses on the group's debut album "Ain't a Damn Thang Changed", including on the single "Dress Code". The album was regionally successful. Tommy Boy Records and It Takes a Thief. In 1994, Coolio signed to Tommy Boy Records and released his debut solo album "It Takes a Thief". The lead single "Fantastic Voyage" received heavy rotation on MTV, and peaked at #3 on the "Billboard" Hot 100. "Fantastic Voyage" would become one of the biggest rap singles of the year, and the album contained a few other minor hits in "County Line" and "I Remember". "It Takes a Thief" peaked at #8 on the "Billboard" 200, becoming certified Platinum. The album received praise for bringing a humorous and lighthearted perspective to often violent and profane themes of typical gangsta rap. Gangsta's Paradise. In 1995, Coolio made a song for the movie "Dangerous Minds", which was titled "Gangsta's Paradise". "Gangsta's Paradise", which featured R&B singer L.V., would become one of the most successful rap songs of all time, reaching #1 on the "Billboard" Hot 100 for 3 weeks. It was the #1 single of 1995 for all genres, and was a global hit, as it reached #1 in the United States, United Kingdom, Ireland, France, Germany, Italy, Sweden, Austria, Netherlands, Norway, Switzerland, Australia, and New Zealand. The song also created a controversy when Coolio claimed that parody artist Weird Al Yankovic had not asked for permission to make his parody of "Gangsta's Paradise", titled "Amish Paradise". At the 1996 Grammy Awards, the song won Coolio a Grammy for Best Rap Solo Performance. Originally "Gangsta's Paradise" was not meant to be included on one of Coolio's studio albums, but its success led to Coolio not only putting it on his next album, but also making it the title track. The title track "sampled" the chorus and music of the song "Pastime Paradise" by Stevie Wonder, which was recorded nearly 20 years earlier on Stevie Wonder's album Songs in the Key of Life. The album "Gangsta's Paradise" was released in 1995 and was certified 2X Platinum by the RIAA. The album contained two other major hits in "1, 2, 3, 4 (Sumpin' New)" and "Too Hot" with J.T. Taylor of Kool & the Gang doing the chorus. Despite no longer being an official member of the group, Coolio made an appearance on the second WC and the Maad Circle album "Curb Servin"', on the song "In a Twist". In 1996, Coolio had another top 40 hit with the song "It's All the Way Live (Now)" from the soundtrack to the movie "Eddie". He was also featured on the song "Hit 'em High" from the soundtrack to the movie "Space Jam" with B-Real, Method Man, LL Cool J, and Busta Rhymes. Red Hot Organization and Tommy Boy Records dismissal. In 1996, Coolio appeared on the Red Hot Organization's compilation CD "America is Dying Slowly", alongside Biz Markie, Wu-Tang Clan, and Fat Joe, among many other prominent hip hop artists. The CD, meant to raise awareness of the AIDS epidemic among African American men, was heralded as "a masterpiece" by The Source magazine. That same year, he recorded the theme song and appeared in the opening sequence of the Nickelodeon TV series "Kenan & Kel" which ran for four seasons. After the success of "Gangsta's Paradise", Coolio's next album was expected to be another hit. His third solo album titled "My Soul", came out in 1996. Although it contained the major hit "C U When U Get There" and the album went platinum, it failed to reach the success of his previous two albums. Coolio was dropped from Tommy Boy Records and his albums since then, 2001's "Coolio.com", 2003's "El Cool Magnifico", 2006's "The Return of the Gangsta", and 2008's "Steal Hear", have not charted on any "Billboard" chart. He did have a minor hit in the UK in 2006 with "Gangsta Walk" (featuring Snoop Dogg), which peaked at #67 on the UK pop chart. While touring with hip hop duo Insane Clown Posse, Coolio received a tattoo as a homage to the group's fanbase, reading "Jugalo Cool" ["sic"]. He stated that the misspelling was intentional. Coolio has performed at the Gathering of the Juggalos. Television. In 2009, Coolio appeared as a housemate on Celebrity Big Brother. He later went to to appear on Ultimate Big Brother in 2010, where he was removed from the house for unacceptable behaviour towards Nadia Almada and others in the house. In January 2012, he was one of eight celebrities participating in the Food Network reality series "", where he represented the Music Saves Lives organization. He came in second place with a Zagat score of 23 out of 30, losing to Lou Diamond Phillips. As runnerup, he was awarded $10,000 for his charity. Coolio was featured on the March 5, 2013, episode of the ABC reality program "Wife Swap", and his girlfriend at the time left him after the program was taped. On June 30, 2013, he appeared alongside comedienne Jenny Eclair and "Emmerdale" actor Matthew Wolfenden on UK game show Tipping Point: Lucky Stars, where he came second. Also on June 30, Coolio voiced a wax figure of himself on Gravity Falls. Charitable work. Coolio and jazz saxophonist Jarez were enlisted in July 2008 as spokespersons by the group Environmental Justice and Climate Change to educate students at historically black colleges and universities about global warming. Coolio is a spokesperson for the Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America. He says that he and his children are asthma sufferers. As a child, he was taken to the hospital several times due to asthma complications. Personal life. Coolio appeared in the 2009 season of the British television show "Celebrity Big Brother". Coolio talked about his six children from four different relationships, including twin daughters, Shayne and Kate, born on January 21, 1987, and a son Artis Ivey III, born on September 28, 1989. In 2013, a federal court entered a default judgment against Coolio after he was sued by a woman for his actions in jumping on the woman's back and bullriding her. Later in 2013, Coolio was charged with misdemeanor domestic battery after he was accused of punching a girlfriend of three years in the face during an argument on April 1 after he brought another woman home. Filmography. Coolio has made numerous appearances in television and movies, mostly small roles or cameos. Awards and nominations. Coolio's 1995 song "Gangsta's Paradise" received several awards, including Best Rap Solo Performance at the Grammy Awards; and Best Rap Video and Best Video from a Film at the MTV Video Music Awards. Coolio himself has received several awards, including Favorite Rap/Hip Hop Artist at the American Music Awards in 1996. At the Grammy Awards in 1997, Coolio received three nominations: Best Rap Album for "Gangsta's Paradise", Best Rap Solo Performance for "1, 2, 3, 4 (Sumpin' New)", and Best R&B Vocal Performance by a Duo or Group for "Stomp". Overall, Coolio has received five awards from thirteen nominations. American Music Awards. The American Music Awards is an annual awards ceremony created by Dick Clark in 1973. Coolio has received one award from two nominations. Grammy Awards. The Grammy Awards are awarded annually by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences of the United States. Coolio has received one award from six nominations. MTV Video Music Awards. The MTV Video Music Awards is an annual awards ceremony established in 1984 by MTV. Coolio has received three awards from six nominations.
1789626	The Day the Earth Stopped is a 2008 direct-to-DVD science fiction film made by American studio The Asylum, directed by and starring C. Thomas Howell. Its title and premise are similar to those of the 2008 film "The Day the Earth Stood Still" (of which "The Day the Earth Stopped" is a mockbuster) but the film's plot also incorporates elements from other science-fiction films involving aliens, such as "Independence Day" and "Earth vs. the Flying Saucers". The film is Howell's second Asylum film in which he was attached as director, the first being "". It was released with an R rating in the United States and a 15 rating in the United Kingdom. The film stars director C. Thomas Howell as the protagonist Josh Myron who witnesses the arrival of giant alien robots that threaten to destroy the earth unless they are shown the value of human existence. Myron becomes a fugitive to protect the aliens' messenger Skye (Sinead McCafferty) and tries to meet her demands, while the aliens begin to tilt the earth on its axis and all military defense is defeated. Due to its similarities to the 2008 remake of "The Day the Earth Stood Still", the film was met with legal threats by 20th Century Fox, who felt that the film's producers had committed plagiarism. Plot. The film centers on Josh Myron (C. Thomas Howell) as six hundred and sixty six gigantic interplanetary robots land on Earth. As the robots are landing, two humanoids arrive, one male and one female (Sinead McCafferty). Both are eventually captured by the military who tries to communicate with them. Eventually, the female starts talking to Myron and reveals that she can read his mind along with others. Myron is told that the entire human race is a threat to the rest of the galaxy and unless she is shown the value of humanity by sunset, the planet will be destroyed. Attempts to communicate with the robots fail as they vaporize anyone that tries to attack them or even fires a rifle to get their attention. An effort is made to destroy the robots using Sidewinder Missiles, delivered by YF-22s. The missiles are ineffective and the attacking planes are destroyed by laser attack. The woman, who reveals that her name in its closest English translation is Skye, also displays the ability to harness surrounding energy to protect herself. However, after using that, the military officer in charge of the "mission" starts to use a Taser on Skye, forcing Myron to intervene and be thrown off the project. He goes AWOL and as he is driving away, he is contacted by Skye telepathically and he returns to rescue her. The effort proves successful and starts a city-wide search for him and Skye. The male also manages to escape as the robots begin a systemic attack on the planet, first with an EMP (which aids in Josh rescuing Skye). It's also discovered that the robots are slowing down the Earth's core and stopping the planet's rotation. An effort is made to destroy one of the robots with a nuclear explosion, sacrificing 9000 inhabitants of a small island. When the bomb goes off, the machine emerges unharmed and Skye feels the pain of the people dying and almost passes out. Josh takes the time to comfort Skye before the military finds them again. Myron and Skye come across a married couple and have to put the wife in the back of a 4x4, as she is in labour. The husband delivers the child but is unaware of a complication until he realizes that his wife has stopped breathing. Myron hands the infant to Skye and tells her that if she wants to know the value of humanity, "you're staring at it". Myron and the husband desperately try to revive the wife but are unsuccessful. Myron realizes that the wife is dead and stops applying CPR. Skye, despite her earlier statement that she would not get involved, changes her mind and uses her powers to resurrect the wife. Skye, now convinced of the value of humanity, needs to get to the closest robot to return home and end the invasion. Before they can get to the robot, Skye is shot by the military. Both are taken back to the base where Skye is treated for the injury as the planet's rotation stops and a major global earthquake hits. The commander realizes, finally, that Myron was telling the truth and helps Myron move Skye to a vehicle. As they leave, they are chased by the psychologist, who is convinced that keeping Skye will prevent the robots from attacking further. At the feet of the robot, Myron is shot by the psychologist; the robot, reacting to a perceived threat, vaporizes him. The robot man arrives, sees both Skye and Myron possibly dead and uses his own powers to revive both. Skye, in gratitude, hugs Myron before both the unnamed man and Skye are beamed aboard. The invasion ends and the robots depart the planet leaving behind major damage (such as half of the Eiffel Tower being destroyed), but the planet intact. Controversy. Due to its similarities with "The Day the Earth Stood Still", The Asylum has been threatened with legal action by 20th Century Fox over the release of "The Day the Earth Stopped". As of today, however, no action has yet been taken.
1207552	Jessy Terrero (born July 3, 1975) is a Dominican Republic film and music video director. Personal. Terrero shot his first student film on Super 8. After college, he landed an associate producer internship on the set of Darnell Martin's "I Like It Like That". In 1996, he teamed up with his brother and formed T and T Casting, supervising extras casting for low-budget films. Career. His acting credits include appearances in "Law & Order", "The Sopranos" and "In Search of a Dream" ("Buscando un sueño"). Tererro's film director credits include the short film "The Clinic". His movie directorial debut "Soul Plane" 2004. In 2009 "Brooklyn to Manhattan" was in production. Terrero is best known for directing music videos for an international clientele of famous artists including Jill Scott, Lionel Richie, Syleena Johnson, 50 Cent, Wisin y Yandel, Daddy Yankee, Ludacris, Akon, Paulina Rubio, Enrique Iglesias, Sean Paul, aventura and many others. He is currently associated with Terrero Films and directs music videos and commercials along with five other music video directors including his brother Ulysses Terrero, Steven Oritt, Rich Newey, Ana Mastro and Dava. Since 2000, Terrero's name has become linked with hip hop and reggaeton for directing popular videos for critically acclaimed artists Wisin y Yandel, 50 Cent, G-Unit, Daddy Yankee and Don Omar. In 2009, Terrero directed Wisin y Yandel's MTV VMA-nominated video Abusadora. Terrero directed Freelancers, starring Robert De Niro, Forest Whitaker, and 50 Cent. Terrero is slated to direct the film 'The Wild Cowboys' an urban, crime drama based on the true life events of a notorious New York City gang of the 1980s.
1064808	Lisa Gay Hamilton (born March 25, 1964) is an American film, television, and theater actress known for her role as attorney Rebecca Washington on the ABC legal drama "The Practice", and for her critically acclaimed performance as young Sethe in Jonathan Demme's film adaptation of Toni Morrison's "Beloved". Her theater credits include "Measure for Measure" (Isabella), "Henry IV Parts I & II" (Lady Hotspur), Athol Fugard’s, "Valley Song" and "The Ohio State Murders". Hamilton was also an original cast member in the Broadway productions of August Wilson’s, "The Piano Lesson" and "Gem of the Ocean". Early life. Hamilton was born in Los Angeles, California but spent most of her childhood in Stony Brook, New York on Long Island. Her father, Ira Winslow Hamilton, Jr., hailed from Bessemer, Alabama, and her mother, the former Eleanor Albertine "Tina" Blackwell, was from Meridian, Mississippi. Both parents graduated from historically black colleges—Tina attended Talladega while Ira went to Morehouse—and they both became successful professionals. Ira worked for a while as an engineer and then went into business as a general contractor. Tina eventually earned a Masters degree in social work and worked for the Girl Scouts for many years. Hamilton fell in love with theater at an early age. During the 1970s, she saw several off-Broadway productions by the Negro Ensemble Company, including "A Soldier's Story" and "The First Breeze of Summer". She enrolled in Carnegie Mellon University to study theater, but after a year was accepted into New York University’s Tisch Drama School. After graduating in 1985, she earned a second BFA from The Juilliard School in 1989. Career. Early on, Hamilton set her sights on classical theater. In one of her first notable roles, she played opposite Kevin Kline in "Measure for Measure" in the New York Shakespeare Festival. Her performances in Much Ado About Nothing, Tartuffe, Reckless, Family of Mann, and Two Gentlemen of Verona, earned her a reputation as a serious dramatic actor. In 1995-96, her portrayal of a young, aspiring South African singer in Athol Fugard's "Valley Song" garnered an Obie Award, the Clarence Derwent Award, the Ovation nomination for best actress, and a Drama Desk nomination. More recently, Hamilton earned critical acclaim, her second Obie, and a Lucille Lortel Award nomination for her role as Suzanne Alexander in Adrienne Kennedy’s, "The Ohio State Murders". Hamilton appeared in over two dozen films, including "The Truth About Charlie" and "Beloved" for director Jonathan Demme, Clint Eastwood’s "True Crime", the independent films; "Palookaville", "Drunks", Showtime’s "A House Divided", and as Ophelia in director Campbell Scott’s film version of "Hamlet". She has worked on several projects with director Rodrigo García, notably his films "Ten Tiny Love Stories", "Nine Lives", and "Mother and Child". "Honeydripper" directed by John Sayles and "The Soloist", directed by Joe Wright. She directed the documentary film "" in 2003. This film, about pioneering black actress Beah Richards, dealt with Hamilton seeking out Richards, an African-American actress who had broken ground making inroads for black actresses. The two women met on the set of "Beloved". Richards worked on stage and screen, taking small roles in several motion pictures during the 1950s and 1960s, earning an Oscar nomination for her role as Sidney Portier’s mother in "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner", despite being two years his junior. Richards worked in television as well, making memorable late-career appearances on the series "Designing Women" and "The Practice". Hamilton's film explored Richards' political activism as well as her poetry (her volume, "A Black Woman Speaks and Other Poems" was published in 1974). After Richards died, Hamilton collaborated with illustrator R. Gregory Christie to turn one of her poems into a children's book. "Keep Climbing Girls" was published by Simon and Schuster in 2006. Hamilton played the role of Melissa in "Men of a Certain Age", an hour-long comedy-drama starring Ray Romano, Andre Braugher, and Scott Bakula that ran from 2009 to 2011. In the fall of 2010, Hamilton took a faculty position in the School of Theater for the California Institute of the Arts. Personal life. In August 2009, Hamilton married historian and writer Robin D. G. Kelley. They reside together in Los Angeles, California.
1044185	Terence Joseph Alexander (11 March 1923 â 28 May 2009) was an English film and television actor, best known for his role as Charlie Hungerford in the British TV drama "Bergerac". Early life and career. Alexander was born in London, the son of a doctor, and grew up in Yorkshire. He was educated at Ratcliffe College, Leicestershire, and Norwood College, Harrogate, and started acting in the theatre at the age of 16. During World War II he served in the British Army as a lieutenant with the 27th Lancers, and was seriously wounded by artillery fire in Italy. In 1956, Alexander appeared on stage in "Ring For Catty" at the Lyric Theatre in London. He is probably best remembered as Charlie Hungerford from the detective series "Bergerac", though he was also very prominent in the 1967 BBC adaptation of "The Forsyte Saga". One of his early roles was in the children's series "Garry Halliday". He also appeared in one episode of "Please Sir" in 1970 as the headteacher of a rival school. Also in 1970, Alexander played Lord Uxbridge in Sergei Bondarchuk's war epic Waterloo. Alexander appeared in many other film and television roles including three appearances in different roles in "The Champions", "The Avengers"; "Terry and June" (1979â1980); "Behind the Screen" (1981â1982); the 1985 "Doctor Who" serial "The Mark of the Rani"; and "The New Statesman" (1987). On radio he starred as "The Toff" in the BBC radio adaptation of the John Creasey novels. He appeared in all but one episode of "Bergerac" from 1981 to 1991. He also played Commander Duffield in the 1985 pilot episode of "Dempsey and Makepeace", Armed and Extremely Dangerous. He appeared on the West End in comedies and farces and his credits included "Move Over Mrs Markham" (1971), "Two and Two Make Sex" (1973), "There Goes The Bride" (1974â75) and "Fringe Benefits" (1976). Personal life. Alexander retired from acting in 1999 and lived in London with his second wife, the actress Jane Downs. He died on 28 May 2009.
1253743	Caroline Bliss (born 12 July 1961) is an English actress who trained at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School. She is a granddaughter of composer Sir Arthur Bliss. She is best known for her appearance as M's secretary, Miss Moneypenny, in the James Bond films of the Timothy Dalton era. At the age of 26, she replaced the long-standing Lois Maxwell in the film "The Living Daylights" and "Licence to Kill". She was succeeded by Samantha Bond, who would play the role in 1995's "GoldenEye" alongside Pierce Brosnan. James Bond franchise. Caroline Bliss was featured in two James Bond films although her role in "Licence to Kill" was reduced to little more than a cameo. Filmography. Her film and television work includes appearances in: Theatre. Her theatre work includes:
393439	Beyond the Black Rainbow is a 2010 Canadian science fiction film written and directed by Panos Cosmatos, his feature film debut. The film stars Michael Rogers as "Dr. Barry Nyle". It was produced and filmed in Vancouver, and premiered at the 2010 Whistler Film Festival. It also showed at several film festivals throughout 2011, including Tribeca in New York City and Fantasia in Montreal. Magnet Releasing, the genre division of Magnolia Pictures, has picked up the film for US theatrical release. Plot. In the 1960s, Dr. Arboria founds the Arboria Institute, a New Age research facility dedicated to finding a reconciliation between science and spirituality, allowing human beings to move into a new age of perpetual happiness. In the 1980s, Arboria's work has been taken over by his protégé, Dr. Barry Nyle (Michael Rogers). Outwardly a charming, handsome scientist, Nyle is in fact a psychopath who has been keeping Elena (Eva Allan), a teenage girl, captive in an elaborate prison/hospital beneath the Institute. Elena demonstrates psychic capabilities, which Nyle can suppress, using a glowing, prism-like device.
1083881	Mansquito, also known as Mosquitoman, is a 2005 Syfy Pictures original film, directed by Tibor Takács, and stars Corin Nemec, Musetta Vander and Matt Jordon. It shares many similarities with the 1986 adaptation of "The Fly", and was conceived by Ray Cannella, Manager of Program Acquisition for the Syfy Channel. He and other two colleagues began producing films for the channel feeling that they could do better than the films they bought from independent producers. Plot. Dr. Jennifer Allen (Musetta Vander) in Baltimore, Maryland wants to find a cure for a disease known as the Gillian virus, a disease similar yet more deadly than the West Nile virus. She and a colleague capture infected mosquitoes and give them small doses of radiation. She explains that the levels have to be exact because if the mosquitoes receive too much radiation, the results could be more devastating than the virus itself. A convict named Ray (Matt Jordon) joins Dr. Allen's program in exchange for his lifelong prison sentence. He takes a hostage and convinces Dr. Allen to open the door to the experiment room. The security guards open fire and cause an explosion that showers Ray and Dr. Allen with the chemicals and the genetically altered mosquitoes. Ray manages to flee the scene. He begins to transform into the titular monster, a deformed chimera, half man, half squito, yet he manages to find his way to his ex girlfriend's apartment, where the process continues. When the ex comes home, she finds it in ruins. She and Ray have a short, anxious conversation before Ray's transformation is complete and he kills her. Meanwhile Dr. Allen returns home with her boyfriend, Lt. Tom Randall (Corin Nemec). That evening, she notices her wrist is red and raw-looking. She thinks little of it, but next morning, it has spread to her entire arm. Later, while kissing Tom, she has a sudden craving for blood and bites him. He is called to Ray's girlfriend apartment and leaves. Dr. Allen rushes into the bathroom to find her arm bleeding. She convulses, falls to the floor and her skin starts to bubble. Tom arrives at the crime scene and is puzzled by the way Ray's girlfriend died. He is called to investigate another crime scene, where he encounters Mansquito. The monster seems unstoppable, until Tom shocks him with a stun gun, making him flee in pain. Tom's partner doesn't believe him at first but puts a bulletin out on the creature. At the research station, Dr. Allen discovers she is also changing into a human-mosquito hybrid, but more slowly as she received a smaller dose than Ray. Mansquito appears but doesn't try to kill her, and after she faints, the monster leaves. Tom takes her to the hospital. The doctor wants to give Dr. Allen a blood transfusion to slow down the transformation, but she replies that nothing can stop the mutation. She believes the monster sensed that she is turning into a creature like him and that once the transformation is complete, he will want to mate with her. Outside, a guard falls victim to the monster and Tom leaves to investigate. Mansquito undergoes another transformation, this time growing wings. Dr. Allen also undergoes another transformation and alerts the officers of Mansquito's arrival. They fail to stop him. The monster heads for Dr. Allen, but she manages to escape. Tom fires a rocket launcher at the oxygen tanks behind Mansquito and assumes the creature was killed by the explosion, but that is not the case. Meanwhile, back at the lab, Dr. Allen undergoes yet another transformation and releases the last batch of genetically altered mosquitoes, which have been perfected. Tom arrives and Dr. Allen tells him that Mansquito is still alive. She tries to commit suicide by stabbing herself with a syringe, because without a mate, Mansquito will die. The monster arrives and Tom fights him to no avail. Dr. Allen is seriously injured by Mansquito, who is now focused on killing her rather than mating with her. Tom uses the stun gun and once again, it works. Seeing this, Dr. Allen breaks an electrical line and electrocutes Mansquito and herself to death. Tom writes a report about the incident and the Gillian virus is wiped out by the altered mosquitoes.
1102703	John Willard Milnor (born February 20, 1931) is an American mathematician known for his work in differential topology, K-theory and dynamical systems. Milnor is a distinguished professor at Stony Brook University and one of the four mathematicians to have won the Fields Medal, the Wolf Prize, and the Abel Prize. Early Life and Career. Milnor was born in Orange, New Jersey. As an undergraduate at Princeton University he was named a Putnam Fellow in 1949 and 1950 and also proved the Fary–Milnor theorem. He continued on to graduate school at Princeton under the direction of Ralph Fox and submitted his dissertation, entitled "Isotopy of Links", which concerned link groups (a generalization of the classical knot group) and their associated link structure, in 1954. Upon completing his doctorate he went on to work at Princeton. His students have included Tadatoshi Akiba, Jon Folkman, John Mather, Laurent C. Siebenmann, and Michael Spivak. His wife, Dusa McDuff, is a professor of mathematics at Barnard College. Research. His most celebrated published work is his proof in 1956 of the existence of 7-dimensional spheres with nonstandard differential structure. Later with Michel Kervaire, he showed that the 7-sphere has 15 differentiable structures (28 if one considers orientation).An "n"-sphere with nonstandard differential structure is called an exotic sphere, a term coined by Milnor. Egbert Brieskorn found simple algebraic equations for 28 complex hypersurfaces in complex 5-space such that their intersection with a small sphere of dimension 9 around a singular point is diffeomorphic to these exotic spheres. Subsequently Milnor worked on the topology of isolated singular points of complex hypersurfaces in general, developing the theory of the Milnor fibration whose fiber has the homotopy type of a bouquet of μ spheres where μ is known as the Milnor number. Milnor's 1968 book on his theory inspired the growth of a huge and rich research area which continues to mature to this day. In 1961 Milnor disproved the Hauptvermutung by illustrating two simplicial complexes which are homeomorphic but combinatorially distinct. Milnor's current interest is dynamics, especially holomorphic dynamics. His work in dynamics is summarized by Peter Makienko in his review of "Topological Methods in Modern Mathematics":- It is evident now that low-dimensional dynamics, to a large extent initiated by Milnor's work, is a fundamental part of general dynamical systems theory. Milnor cast his eye on dynamical systems theory in the mid-1970s. By that time the Smale program in dynamics had been completed. Milnor's approach was to start over from the very beginning, looking at the simplest nontrivial families of maps. The first choice, one-dimensional dynamics, became the subject of his joint paper with Thurston. Even the case of a unimodal map, that is, one with a single critical point, turns out to be extremely rich. This work may be compared with Poincaré's work on circle diffeomorphisms, which 100 years before had inaugurated the qualitative theory of dynamical systems. Milnor's work has opened several new directions in this field, and has given us many basic concepts, challenging problems and nice theorems.
1054453	Jon Avery Abrahams (born October 29, 1977) is an American film and television actor. Life and career. Abrahams attended Saint Ann's School in Brooklyn. Abrahams has starred in many films and TV shows. His most notable roles are Bobby in "Scary Movie", Dalton Chapman in the horror movie "House of Wax" and Denny Byrnes in the Robert De Niro-Ben Stiller comedy "Meet the Parents". He is also known as "DJ Jonny" on "The Ellen DeGeneres Show" for season four, replacing Tony Okungbowa. He has been replaced on season five by KROQ personality Ted Stryker due to his wish to concentrate on his acting career in film. He can be seen in the 2009 comedy "2 Dudes and a Dream," (currently in post-production) and has also starred in the Enrique Iglesias music video for "Do You Know? (The Ping Pong Song)". Abrahams great-uncles were Mack Gray, actor in over 40 films and long time confidant of George Raft, Dean Martin and Frank Sinatra and Joe Gray actor, stuntman and fight coordinator in over 110 films and boon companion of writer Henry Miller. His father is the artist Martin Abrahams.
1524229	Caged is a 1950 film noir directed by released by John Cromwell and starring Eleanor Parker, Agnes Moorehead, Ellen Corby and Hope Emerson. The movie tells the story of a teenage newlywed, who is sent to prison for being an accessory to a robbery. Her experiences while incarcerated, along with the killing of her husband, change her from a very frightened young girl into a hardened convict. The movie was adapted by Virginia Kellogg from the story "Women Without Men" by Kellogg and Bernard C. Schoenfeld. The studio had originally intended it as a vehicle for Bette Davis and Joan Crawford earlier but Davis had noted that she didn't want to make a "dyke movie" (a movie with partial homosexual content) and turned it down. Plot. A married 19-year-old (Eleanor Parker) named Marie Allen is sent to prison, after a botched armed robbery attempt with her equally young husband, Tom (who is killed). While receiving her prison physical, she finds out that she is two months pregnant. Despite the hardships she is put through under Matron Evelyn Harper (Hope Emerson), she gives birth to a healthy baby and wants to "temporarily" grant full custody to her mother. The intent is to get the baby back after she is released. However, her mother informs Marie that her callous step-father has decided that under no circumstances will he allow the baby into his house, and she uses the excuses that she's "too old" and "hasn't a penny in name" as reasons why she can't leave him and help Marie. The prison forces her to permanently give the child up for adoption. Marie never sees her baby again. After her exposure to hardened criminals and sadistic prison guards, by the end of the film she leaves prison a hardened woman with debts to the criminals who helped get her released from jail. Reception. Critical response. Film critic Dennis Schwartz panned the film, writing, "John Cromwell's "Caged" is ranked as the best women-in-prison film ever made, but even if this is so it still doesn't make it very good. It isn't anything more than a superficial melodrama with plenty of hysterics and preaching about the obvious virtues of going straight. The film was remade as "House of Women" in 1962 ... This is one of Warner Brothers' social commentary films, where it blames society for the poor prison conditions that turn Marie into a career criminal. It does this without excusing Marie for helping her own fall from grace by willingly choosing the easy way out of her dilemma. The film's message is that punishment without rehabilitation doesn't work, it will only force the inmate into choosing an easy way out of their situation." Accolades. The film was nominated for Academy Awards for Best Actress in a Leading Role (Eleanor Parker), Best Actress in a Supporting Role (Hope Emerson) and Best Writing, Story and Screenplay.
1055697	Defendor is a 2009 Canadian superhero comedy-drama film written and directed by Peter Stebbings, and starring Woody Harrelson, Kat Dennings, Elias Koteas and Sandra Oh. The story tells of a mentally ill man who adopts the persona of a real-life superhero named Defendor on a quest to find his arch enemy, Captain Industry. "Defendor", Stebbings' feature film debut, was written in 2005 and filmed in January 2009 in Toronto and Hamilton, Ontario, and had its North American theatrical release on February 19, 2010. It has also been released to DVD on April 13, 2010. Plot. Dr. Park (Sandra Oh), a psychiatrist, is interviewing Arthur Poppington (Woody Harrelson), a vigilante known as "Defendor", who tells about assaulting a police officer who claims to be working undercover. Dooney (Elias Koteas) is a corrupt detective who Defendor believes is in the employ of his arch-nemesis, "Captain Industry". Arthur's mother left him as a child, and died from drug abuse some years later. His grandfather said that the "captains of industry" killed her. As a child, Arthur misinterpreted this and thought that a particular man was responsible.
568102	Free Jimmy (No: "Slipp Jimmy cafri") is a Norwegian/British computer animated feature film first released in Norwegian in 2006, and later in English in 2008. The film was written and directed by acclaimed Norwegian subculture comic book artist Christopher Nielsen and the film features a number of characters from Nielsen's dark humor-laden comic books. The plot is an adult-oriented black comedy in which different groups of varying nationalities, and motives, all attempt to find a wayward and drug-addicted elephant in the Norwegian wilderness before the others do. The film explores a wide number of themes including addiction, drug abuse, freedom, nature, tragedy, crime, materialism, urban decay, animal cruelty and animal rights. "Free Jimmy" was Norway's first computer animated film, and costing in excess of 120 million Norwegian kroner it is the second most expensive Norwegian film to date, behind "Max Manus". Several British CGI studios were involved in the production of "Free Jimmy", although the film was mostly a Norwegian production. The voice actors for the original Norwegian version included Kristopher Schau, Jan Sælid, Are&Odin, Egil Birkeland, Terje Ragner, Anders T. Andersen and Mikkel Gaup. British comedy writer and actor Simon Pegg wrote a screenplay for the wider English-speaking world which was subsequently released straight to DVD on 7 October 2008 by BreakThru Films. The voice actors of the 2008 English-language version is made up of an international ensemble cast that including Simon Pegg himself, Woody Harrelson, Phil Daniels, Jay Simpson, Jim Broadbent, James Cosmo, David Tennant, Steve Pemberton, Reece Shearsmith, Mark Gatiss, Megan Dodds, Douglas Henshall, Kris Marshall, Emilia Fox, Samantha Morton, Kyle MacLachlan and Lisa Maxwell. The film is dedicated to Joachim Nielsen (1964–2000), the director's brother and a rock musician famous in his native Norway, who had died of a drug overdose after quitting them successfully for many years. Whilst well received in its native country, reception to "Free Jimmy" has been mixed in the English speaking world.
589174	Shaukeen is a 1982 Hindi-language Indian feature film directed by Basu Chatterjee, starring Ashok Kumar, Utpal Dutt, A.K. Hangal, Rati Agnihotri and Mithun Chakraborty Plot. Shaukeen has 3 lecherous old men ( played by Ashok Kumar, Utpal Dutt and A.K. Hangal) who decide to go away for a while to have some enjoyments in their late lifetime. They hire a driver Mithun who ends up convincing them to go to Goa where he had his lover, who works as a singer/dancer at a local club. While in Goa, the three old men get in hilarious situations with Rati as they try to impress her and try to get lucky with her, oblivious to the fact that she is their driver's lover..
1066574	Jenette Elise Goldstein (born February 4, 1960) is an American actress, known for her Saturn Award-winning role in the 1986 science-fiction-action film "Aliens". Life and career. Goldstein was born to a Jewish family in Los Angeles, California and raised in Beverly Hills. Her first film role was in James Cameron's "Aliens" (1986), as the Hispanic character PFC Jenette Vasquez. Due to its title, she initially thought the film was about immigration and arrived at her audition for the part of a tough-as-nails space marine in a short skirt and high heels. She also appeared as the vampire Diamondback in "Near Dark" (1987), Officer Meagan Shapiro in "Lethal Weapon 2" (1989), Janelle Voight in "" (1991), the "U.S.S. Enterprise-B" science officer in "Star Trek Generations" (1994), and an Irish immigrant mother in "Titanic" (1997).
1063294	A Patch of Blue is a 1965 American drama film directed by Guy Green about the relationship between a black man, Gordon (played by Sidney Poitier), and a blind white female teenager, Selina (Elizabeth Hartman), and the problems that plague their relationship when they fall in love in a racially divided America. Made in 1965 against the backdrop of the growing civil rights movement, the film explores racism from the perspective of "love is blind." Shelley Winters won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her work in this film. It was also the final screen appearance for veteran actor Wallace Ford. Scenes of Poitier and Hartman kissing were excised from the film when it was shown in film theaters in the Southern United States. These scenes are intact in the DVD version. According to the DVD audio commentary, it was the decision of director Guy Green that "A Patch of Blue" be filmed in black-and-white, although color was available. In the 1990s, Turner Entertainment Co. colorized the movie for broadcast on the Turner-owned cable station TNT. The colorized version was not released on VHS or DVD, and has not been shown since shortly after its initial broadcasts. The film was adapted by Guy Green from the 1961 book "Be Ready with Bells and Drums" by the Australian author Elizabeth Kata. The book later won a Writers Guild of America award. The plot differs slightly from the film in that it has a less optimistic ending. In addition to the Best Supporting Actress win for Winters, the film was nominated for Academy Awards for Best Actress in a Leading Role (Elizabeth Hartman), Best Art Direction-Set Decoration (Black-and-White) (George Davis, Urie McCleary, Henry Grace, Charles S. Thompson), Best Cinematography (Black-and-White) and Best Music (Original Music Score). Plot. Selina D'Arcey (Elizabeth Hartman) is a blind girl living with her prostitute mother Rose-Ann (Shelley Winters) and grandfather Ole Pa (Wallace Ford), in an apartment. She strings beads to supplement her family's small income, and spends most of her time doing chores. Her mother is abusive and Ole Pa is an alcoholic. Selina has no friends, rarely leaves the apartment and has never received an education.
588959	Inderjeet Singh Johar (16 February 1920 – 10 March 1984), better known as I. S. Johar, was an Indian actor, writer, producer and director. Early life. He was born on 16 February 1920, in Talagang, British India. He completed MA degree in Economics and Politics before completing his LLB. Career. The Partition of India prompted the migration of many established luminaries of the Indian cinema, such as Prithviraj Kapoor, who migrated to Bombay. In 1947, during the Partition crisis, Johar was visiting Patiala with his family for a wedding, when riots broke out back home in Lahore. He could never go back, and thereafter he worked in Jalandhar for a while, and his family remained in Delhi, before he eventually moved to Bombay, where he made his acting debut with Roop K Shorey’s, "Ek Thi Ladki" (1949). He acted in numerous Hindi films from the 1950s through to the early 1980s and played cameos in international films such as "Harry Black" (1958), "North West Frontier" (1959), "Lawrence of Arabia" (1962) and "Death on the Nile" (1978), besides acting in "Maya" (1967), a US TV series. He also appeared in Punjabi films, including "Chaddian Di Doli" (1966), "Nanak Naam Jahaaz Hai" (1969) with Prithviraj Kapoor, and "Yamla Jatt" with Helen. I. S. Johar also wrote and directed films, some of which included "Johar Mehmood in Goa" and "Johar Mehmood in Hong Kong" in which he co-starred with comedian Mehmood. These were inspired by comedy films of the Bob Hope-Bing Crosby style "Road to..." series. That being said, Johar was a unique and idiosyncratic individual, a lifelong liberal (if not a libertine: he had five marriages, an extraordinary number by Indian standards, both then and now) who poked fun at all forms of institutionalized self-satisfied smugness - an attitude which did not endear him to the essentially hierarchical and conservative Indian establishment, and might have contributed to being relegated to making B-grade movies all his life, due to a lack of finding financing for his highly individual and quirky screenplays. In many of his films, both those he directed and those he acted in, Sonia Sahni was the leading lady, most notably in "Johar Mahmood in Goa", 1964.
1034207	Dudley Sutton (born 6 April 1933, Surrey) is an English actor. Life. He served in the RAF as a mechanic before enrolling in the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, (RADA) from which he was later expelled for responding to rock and roll. He became known after playing a gay biker in "The Leather Boys" (1964), a role which showed his potential for eccentric screen personae. He married American actress Marjorie Steele in 1961; she had previously been married to the millionaire producer Huntington Hartford. Sutton and Steele had one child together, but divorced in 1965. On stage, he played the title role in the first production of Joe Orton's "Entertaining Mr Sloane" (1963). Sutton has appeared in many films during his career, including "Rotten to the Core" (1965), "Crossplot" (1969), "The Devils" (1971), "Madame Sin" (1972), "The Pink Panther Strikes Again" (1976), "Fellini's Casanova" (1976), "Edward II" (1991), and "The Football Factory" (2004). Among his many television appearances are his roles as Tinker Dill in "Lovejoy" – whose friendship with Lovejoy and expertise in the antique trade was the backbone of the show – as Mr Carter in the "Beiderbecke Trilogy" and as Oleg Kirov in "Smiley's People" (1982). He also featured in "The Sweeney" episode 'Golden Boy' and in a Christmas special episode of "Porridge" (1976) as the, somewhat unstable, trustee turned hostage taker, Reg Urwin, with Ronnie Barker and Richard Beckinsale. In 1999 he appeared in the BBC Radio play "Cosmos the Mystic Dog". In 2004 he made an appearance in the soap opera "EastEnders" for sixteen episodes, playing Wilfred, a conman. In 2003, Sutton found inspiration from the Internet "where apparently people say that every time you masturbate God kills a kitten". From that statement, Sutton developed a comic piece about "a young man's emotions and feelings, from the moment he's a baby tugging at his cock onwards." In August 2003, he performed the one-man "Killing Kittens" show at Edinburgh's Underbelly. Sutton followed up "Killing Kittens" with a second autobiographical show "Pandora's Lunchbox" in 2006. Following an acclaimed performance as William Blake in Peter Ackroyd's BBC television series "The Romantics", Sutton joined the cast of "Albion Rising" at St. Giles in the Fields Church, London, in April 2007. Sutton had a small role in the British teenage drama "Skins" as Freddie's granddad. He also appeared in the 15 March 2011 "Holby City" episode as a patient who fell down an escalator in a shopping centre. In 2012 he featured in the video "Once And For All" by Clock Opera. He has lived in Chelsea for forty-two years and briefly had a cottage in Mousehole, Cornwall. He also appeared briefly in The Christopher Guest BBC Comedy Family Tree in Episode 3 "The Austerity Games" which aired in July 2013.
1066546	Hall Pass is a 2011 comedy film produced and directed by the Farrelly brothers and co-written by them along with Pete Jones, the writer/director of "Stolen Summer". It stars Owen Wilson, Jason Sudeikis, Stephen Merchant, Jenna Fischer and Christina Applegate. It was released on DVD on June 14, 2011. Plot. Rick (Owen Wilson) and Fred (Jason Sudeikis) are best friends as are their wives, Maggie (Jenna Fischer) and Grace (Christina Applegate). They are both unhappy with their married lives and missing the old days when they were single. Realizing this, their wives talk to their friend Dr. Lucy (Joy Behar) and decide to give them a "Hall Pass": A week off from marriage during which they can have sex with other women. They are skeptical at first, but ultimately accept the offers and try to pick up women with their friends Gary (Stephen Merchant), Flats (J.B. Smoove) and Hog Head (Larry Joe Campbell). Maggie and Grace spend Rick's and Fred's "Hall Pass Week" at Maggie's parents' house in Cape Cod, where Grace flirts with athlete Gerry (Tyler Hoechlin). She says that if their husbands have Hall Passes, so should they. With their wives and children away, Fred and Rick check in at a motel and prepare for their Hall Pass Week. On day one, they decide to eat before going to a local bar and get too tired to spend the night there, preferring to stay at the hotel. On day two, they eat hash brownies and decide to play golf, but get too high and wreak havoc on the golf course. On day three, Rick and Fred go to a bar with their friends but fail to impress the women there. They decide to get drunk in order to become more loose, but go too far and wind up getting into a fight with other customers. They spend day four at the hotel suffering from a hangover. On day five, Rick goes to a local coffee shop where Rick flirts with an attractive waitress named Leigh (Nicky Whelan), much to the annoyance of her co-worker Brent who insults Rick. When Rick answers him back, Leigh is impressed and tells Rick that they might see each other at the local gym. They later meet there, and Leigh invites Rick for a beer after they work out. Rick decides to sit in the hot tub instead, but falls asleep and stays there for several hours ending up with his muscles too weak to use and forced to accept the help of two naked men to leave much to his dismay. Meanwhile, Grace and Gerry get closer, while Maggie finds herself attracted to Gerry's coach. On day six, Rick and Fred go to a bar called Enter the Dragon with their friend Coakley (Richard Jenkins), where Rick meets his children's babysitter Paige (Alexandra Daddario), who has just turned 21 and is with her aunt Meg. Paige is attracted to Rick, but he shoots her down to dance with Leigh. Brent, the party's DJ, is angry at this. After the party is over, Rick goes to party at Coakley's while Fred takes a girl to his motel room. However, she feels sick and, after a minor incident in the bathroom, is sent back home by Fred before they can have sex. Later that evening Paige's aunt shows up at the room and mistakes Fred for Rick, eventually seducing him. Fred fakes oral sex on Meg until they are interrupted by Rick. Meanwhile, Gerry's coach tries to seduce Maggie, but she rebuffs him. Grace, on the other hand, has sex with Gerry, but tells him it will be just that one time. On her way back home, she feels guilty about cheating on Fred and has a car accident. At Coakley's house, Rick is approached by Brent who is angry at Rick for going out with Leigh. Leigh calms Brent, then finds Rick alone in a bedroom and offers him a one-time fling. He initially wants to do it, but ultimately rebuffs her, unable to cheat on Maggie. After answering Fred's phone, Rick learns of Grace's accident and makes his way to the hotel to tell him. In the lobby he finds Paige, who thinks he was having sex with her aunt Meg. They enter the room and find Fred having fake sex with her. After finding out the truth, Meg kicks Fred in the face. Upon hearing about Grace's accident, Fred tries to go to the hospital but finds Brent vandalizing what Brent thought was Rick's car. Upon seeing Paige's aunt Meg, his mother, at the hotel, Brent thinks Fred has had sex with her and tries to kill him as well, but runs out of bullets and is tackled by Paige and his mother. Rick and Fred enter Fred's car and make their way to the hospital with Brent and the police chasing them. At the hospital, Brent is arrested for attacking them and Fred finds out Grace only broke her nose. Rick goes back home and finds Maggie. He tells her he did not use the Hall Pass and remembers the time he lost his virginity to her. She is the only woman he has ever been with. Moved by his declaration, Maggie tells him she did not use her Hall Pass either and they reconcile and have sex for the first time in months. Fred and Grace also reconcile and decide to hide their cheating from one another. However, Fred ultimately confesses that he used his Hall Pass with Paige's aunt when Grace asks him to take her to see Kathy Griffin. During the credits, Fred hosts a barbecue where he pays Kathy Griffin to be present. Noticing how happy Maggie and Grace are following the Hall Pass week, Gary's wife suggests that she give him a Hall Pass. After a fantasy where he sleeps with a married woman, resulting in the death of her, her husband, her grandmother and several innocent bystanders (and ending with him getting anally raped in prison), Gary agrees to "give it a whirl". Production. The project began as a spec script written by Pete Jones, which the Farrelly brothers purchased in September 2005, paying a "high six-figure." Conundrum Entertainment, the Farrelly brothers production partnership with Bradley Thomas, produced the film, along with Charlie Wessler. Owen Wilson was the first of the two leads to commit to the project; Sudeikis was the Farrelly brothers choice for the other lead role, but as of January 2010 it was still uncertain whether his commitment to his work on "Saturday Night Live" permitted his participation. Principal photography began in February 2010 in Atlanta, with Christina Applegate, Alyssa Milano, Larry Campbell and Vanessa Angel as late additions to the cast. Although filmed in Georgia, the film's setting, like most Farrelly brothers films, is New England; specifically Providence, Rhode Island. Georgia was chosen due to incentives introduced by the Georgia Entertainment Industry Investment Act of 2008; according to the Film, Music and Digital Entertainment Division of the Georgia Department of Economic Development, "Hall Pass" was part of Hollywood's nearly one billion outlay in the state during 2010; Marc Fischer, an executive producer of "Hall Pass", called Atlanta both more economical and easier to shoot in than Boston. Fischer, also an executive producer for the Farrelly brothers' "The Three Stooges" film, had by May 2010 already begun pre-production work in Georgia for that film. Amanda Bynes was originally set to star in the film, but was replaced by Alexandra Daddario shortly after filming began. This is the third time that Jason Sudeikis and Christina Applegate had a starring role with each other; the first being "The Rocker" and the second being "Going the Distance". Reception. Critical response. "Hall Pass" received mixed reviews from critics. Rotten Tomatoes gives the film a score of 34% based on 168 reviews, with an average rating of 4.6/10. Metacritic gives the film a score of 47% based on reviews from 33 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". Critic Roger Ebert gave the film two and a half out of four stars saying, "A problem with "Hall Pass", I think, is that both Owen Wilson and Jason Sudeikis are affable, and the movie wants us to like them." Richard Roeper gave the film a B−, stating that there are some points where it gets a little graphic, but it's all for a good laugh. The UltraCulture film blog said that its biggest problem wasn't its attitude to women (although that was brought into question), but its "disguising of an inherently conservative movie as some kind of anything-goes frat house sex romp." British newspaper "The Telegraph" named "Hall Pass" one of the ten worst films of 2011, saying, "Hall Pass is outright hideous and also embarrassing, like a creepy uncle sporting a backwards baseball cap and cracking bad, lewd jokes for the under-thirties. At a funeral." Box office. "Hall Pass" was #1 on opening day with $4.6 million, and initial estimates showed it at #2 for the weekend behind "Gnomeo & Juliet", but "Gnomeo & Juliet" was overestimated and brought down to #2, putting "Hall Pass" in first with $13.5 million in its opening weekend. It eventually grossed $45 million domestically and $38.1 million abroad to a total of $83.1 million worldwide.
1201460	Cynthia Cleese (born 17 February 1971) is an English actress. The daughter of British actor John Cleese and American actress Connie Booth, she is best known for "A Fish Called Wanda", where she played daughter Portia to Cleese's character Archie Leach. She was credited as Cynthia Caylor, with Caylor being her maternal grandmother's maiden name. In the film "Fierce Creatures" she made her second big film appearance, again starring with her father. She played the supporting role of Pip, the small mammals keeper at the Marwood Zoo. In this film, which was co-produced and co-written by John Cleese, she is credited with her own name rather than a stage name. In the film, she repeats her father's well-known Black Knight line, "It's just a flesh wound!" Personal life. Cynthia married screenwriter Ed Solomon in 1995. They have two children together, Evan and Olivia.
1046658	Reginald Gardiner (27 February 1903 – 7 July 1980) was an English-born actor in film and television and a graduate of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts in Great Britain. His parents wanted him to be an architect, but he insisted on a career as an actor. He started as a "super" on stage and eventually became well known on the West End stage. He was also well known to wireless listeners and was known on air for his amusing train and car noises. Gardiner started film work in crowd scenes, making his big film break in 1926 in the silent film "", by Alfred Hitchcock. Moving to Hollywood, he was cast in numerous roles, often as a British butler. One of his most famous roles was that of Schultz in Charlie Chaplin's "The Great Dictator". He also performed memorable turns as the spurned "almost-husband" in "The Doctor Takes A Wife" and "Christmas in Connecticut". On 4 October 1956, Gardiner appeared with Greer Garson as the first two guest stars in the series premiere of NBC's "The Ford Show, Starring Tennessee Ernie Ford". He made other guest appearances on television sitcoms of the 1960s, including Fess Parker's ABC series, "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington" and Stanley Holloway's "Our Man Higgins". He also appeared in the 1964 "Perry Mason" episode, "The Case of the Ugly Duckling," as business owner Albert Charity. His last major role was alongside Phyllis Diller in her 1966-1967 ABC series, "The Pruitts of Southampton". He also recorded a curious and eccentric classic called "Trains" which was regularly played on a 1950s British radio program called "Children's Favourites". This record consisted of Gardiner, sounding slightly tipsy, reciting a monologue about steam railway engines (which he claimed were 'livid beasts') and impersonating both the engines themselves and the sound of trains running on the track. This latter he famously characterised as 'diddly-dee, diddly-dum' to mimic the sound pattern as the four pairs of bogie wheels ran over joins between the lengths of track. (A sound no longer heard since welded rail joins were introduced.) "Trains" was released as a 78 and 45 by English Decca Records (F 5278) which remained on catalogue into the 1970s. At the end of the record, Gardiner signs off with "Well folks, that's all: back to the asylum." He was summoned to Buckingham Palace to give a performance in person. Gardiner died of a heart attack on 7 July 1980.
1065162	Kurtwood Larson Smith (born July 3, 1943) is an American television and film actor. He is known for playing Clarence Boddicker in "RoboCop" and Red Forman in "That '70s Show", and for his appearances in the genre of science fiction ("Star Trek", "The X-Files"). He also starred in the seventh season of "24". Early life. Smith was born in New Lisbon, Wisconsin, the son of Mabel Annette Lund (née Larson) and George Smith, whom Mabel Lund married after Kurtwood Smith's biological father died serving in World War II. Smith's mother was a fan of a country singer named Kurt (or Curt) in the early 1940s. However, she thought "Kurt Smith" was too short a name, so she added "wood" ("she just tacked it on to the end", he said). Smith has said that he is likely the only Kurtwood. Smith grew up in the San Fernando Valley and graduated from Canoga Park High School of Canoga Park, California in 1961; he was class president in his senior year. Smith graduated from San Jose State College in 1965 with a B.A. and Stanford University in 1969 with an M.F.A. Career. Onstage, Smith won three Drama-Logue Awards for his performances in "Billy Budd", "Idiot's Delight", and "Green Grow the Lilacs". In his film career, he notably portrayed Clarence Boddicker, the villain in Paul Verhoeven's science fiction action movie "RoboCop" and the father role as Red Forman on the Fox sitcom "That '70s Show", which ran from 1998 to 2006. After "That '70s Show", Smith played Senator Blaine Mayer in the seventh season of the action thriller "24", and portrayed Dick Clayton in the CBS series "Worst Week". He enjoyed a recurring role as a rogue FBI agent in Seasons 3-5 of the NBC (later CBS) series "Medium", appearing in later episodes as a ghost after his character's death. Before "That '70s Show" his other roles included playing Mr. Sue on Fox's "espionage comedy" "The New Adventures of Beans Baxter" from 1987-89. He also co-starred as the strict father of Robert Sean Leonard's Neil in 1989's "Dead Poets Society". He made a number of appearances in the "Star Trek" franchise, playing the President of the Federation in ', a Cardassian named Thrax in the ' episode "Things Past", and a Krenim scientist named Annorax in the "" episode "Year of Hell". He also has an extensive voice acting résumé, appearing in computer games such as ', and "FreeSpace 2", and on a number of animated series. He played a recurring role on the claymation series "Gary & Mike" as the vengeful Officer Dick and voiced the dinosaurian military commander character General Galapagos in the Savage Steve Holland produced Fox animated series "Terrible Thunderlizards". He played the voice of Bob Johnson on "Squirrel Boy" and provided the voice of Kanjar Ro in ' and starred as the sheriff in "Last of the Dogmen".
1074891	Brotherhood of Blood is a 2007 horror film, starring Jason Connery, Victoria Pratt, Sid Haig and Ken Foree, directed by Peter Scheerer and Michael Roesch. The movie had its world premiere at the prestigious Sitges Film Festival in Sitges, Spain in October 2007. For the release in the US and Canada, Sam Raimi´s label Ghosthouse Underground has picked up the movie. It was released on home video in North America through Lionsgate on October 14, 2008. Plot. Claustrophobic thriller about a team of vampire hunters who infiltrate a nest of undead to rescue one of their own. Carrie Rieger tugs at her bonds. The young vampire huntress has to free herself. Guarded by vampires, chained in a dark cellar by the mighty vampire King Pashek, her time is running out. She knows an even greater threat than the vampires is coming relentlessly closer. Everything will be decided tonight. Carrie has crossed a dangerous trail: Back from a faraway journey, a man slowly transforms into a vampire. And he transforms further - into something that even the vampires fear; the mighty vampire demon Vlad Kossel. The vampire sovereigns killed Kossel many hundreds of years ago, but now he has seemingly returned. In his new body, he will take revenge and destroy everything in his way. There is only one hunter who can stop him...
1162999	John Grinham Kerr (November 15, 1931February 2, 2013), was an American actor and lawyer. Early life. Kerr's parents, Geoffrey Kerr and June Walker, were both stage and film actors, and his grandfather was Frederick Kerr, a famed British trans-Atlantic character actor in the period 1880–1930; John developed an early interest in following their footsteps. He grew up in the New York City area, and went to Phillips Exeter Academy in New England; after graduating from Harvard, he worked at the nearby Brattle Theatre in Cambridge, Massachusetts and in summer stock. Stage career. He made his Broadway debut in 1953 in Mary Coyle Chase's "Bernardine", a high-school comedy for which he won a Theatre World Award. In 1953-54, he received considerable critical acclaim as a troubled prep school student in Robert Anderson's play "Tea and Sympathy". In 1954, he won a Tony Award for his performance, and he starred in the film version in 1956. Film and television career. Kerr's first television acting role was in 1954 on NBC's "Justice" as a basketball player who believes that gamblers have ruined his success on the court. His mother appeared with him on the series, which focuses on the cases of attorneys with the Legal Aid Society of New York. He co-starred with Leslie Caron in "Gaby" (1956), the third remake of "Waterloo Bridge", which, in its original pre-Code 1931 version, featured John's grandfather, actor Frederick Kerr. John Kerr starred with Deborah Kerr (no relation) in "Tea and Sympathy" (1956).
584524	Panakkaran is a 1990 Tamil language film starring Rajinikanth and Gouthami. The film is a remake of Lawaaris, a 1981 Bollywood film starring Amitabh Bachchan. The film ran for more than 100 days and was declared a hit film. Plot. Rajini is a poor man who works in a labour factory. He works only to give his money to his drunkard father (Senthaamarai) who tortures him for that right from his childhood. Rajini gets a chance to go to work in Vijaykumar's factory. After that he learns that Vijaykumar is his father. How they unite forms the story. Soundtrack. All Music composed by Ilayaraja. There are a Total of Seven Tracks for this Film.
1040036	Russell George Tovey (born 14 November 1981) is an English actor with numerous television, film and stage credits. Tovey is known for playing the role of werewolf George Sands in the BBC's supernatural drama "Being Human" which started in 2008. In November 2011, Tovey announced he would be leaving "Being Human" to work full-time on his BBC Three sitcom, "Him & Her". Tovey is also known for his portrayal of the character of Rudge in both the original London and Broadway stage version, and later the film, of "The History Boys". Biography. Tovey is the younger of two children, born to Carole née Haynes (formerly Webb) and George Tovey. Tovey has an older brother, Daniel. He grew up in Billericay, Essex, his parents run a Romford-based coach service taking passengers from Essex to Gatwick Airport, and he attended Harold Court School in Harold Wood and Shenfield High School. As a boy, Tovey says, he was an avid collector of various things and prone to participating in fads. His parents supported his efforts, taking him to archeological digs and museums, buying him a metal detector, and going to conventions for mineralologists. For a time he wanted to be a history teacher, but after seeing "Dead Poets Society", "The Goonies", and "Stand By Me", he decided to be an actor. For a time during his teens, Russell worked as a kitchen assistant in Billericay's King's Head pub. Career. Tovey began his career as a child actor. He joined a local drama club, and garnered the attention of a talent agent. He began acting when he was 11 years old. He worked so steadily and missed so much school that his father suggested his acting career be cut back, but his mother convinced his father to let their son continue. His TV career started in 1994, when he was cast in "Mud", a children's series broadcast on CBBC. He left high school at the age of 16, and started a BTEC in performing arts at Barking College. He was expelled after a year for refusing a role in the school play in favour of a paying acting job. He acted in plays in Chichester under the direction of Debra Gillett, wife of Patrick Marber. He met Marber through Gillett, and Marber cast him in the play "Howard Katz" at the National Theatre. He also performed in "His Girl Friday" and "His Dark Materials" there as well. In 2004 he took the role of Rudge in Alan Bennett's play "The History Boys" at the Royal National Theatre as well as touring to Broadway, Sydney, Wellington and Hong Kong and playing the role in the radio and film adaptation. He originally auditioned for the role of Crowther but agreed to act the part of Rudge after Bennett promised to beef up the role. Insecure because he had not attended drama school like many of his peers, he enrolled in numerous workshops and readings offered by the National Theatre. In spring 2007, Tovey had a recurring role in BBC Three comedy "Rob Brydon's Annually Retentive", playing Rob's producer, Ben. He played Midshipman Alonso Frame, in 2007 "Doctor Who" Christmas Special "Voyage of the Damned". Russell T. Davies, the show's executive producer and lead writer, had suggested Tovey as a future replacement for David Tennant, before it was announced that the Eleventh Doctor would be played by Matt Smith. Tovey reprised his role as Midshipman Alonso Frame in the 2009-10 "Doctor Who" Christmas special, "The End of Time". Tovey played werewolf George Sands, one of three supernatural housemates in the drama "Being Human". The pilot premiered on BBC Three on 18 February 2008. A six-part series was commissioned with the first episode broadcast on 25 January 2009. Tovey left the regular cast of the show at the start of the fourth season on 5 February 2012. In a 2008 interview in "Attitude", Tovey expressed his desire to play darker roles: "really dark, fucked-up characters... like drag queens, rent boys, someone who has been abused, a rapist", though noting that he does not consider himself "fucked-up". In March 2009, the actor played a leading role in "A Miracle" at the Royal Court Theatre as Gary Trudgill, a British soldier returning to Norfolk from abroad. On 8 March 2009 he presented the Award for Best Actress to Margaret Tyzack for her performance in "The Chalk Garden" at the Laurence Olivier Awards in Grosvenor House. In 2009, Tovey worked on the film "Huge" and starred in two television pilots: "Young, Unemployed and Lazy" (a BBC Three sitcom), renamed to "Him & Her" in 2010, and "The Increasingly Poor Decisions of Todd Margaret" (part of "Comedy Showcase"), a Channel 4 comedy with Spike Jonze and Will Arnett, written by David Cross and Shaun Pye. He also appeared in three shorts: "Drop" (which premièred at the 2009 Rushes Soho Shorts Film Festival), "Roar", and "In Passing". "Roar" premiered at the Palm Springs Film Festival on 24 June 2009. In 2011 he became the voice over/narrator for the BBC 3 show "Sun, Sex and Suspicious Parents" which, as of 8 January 2013, is currently in its third series. Tovey has narrated every episode aired. In January 2012 Tovey appeared in the British crime drama "Sherlock", playing Henry Knight in the episode "The Hounds of Baskerville". He will play a lead role in the ITV sitcom"The Job Lot" which will air in 2013 and is set in a busy unemployment bureau in the West Midlands. Tovey also played Budgie one of Gavin's friends in the BBC series Gavin and Stacey. In 2013 he signed on to appear in the upcoming American television comedy Looking, a series about a group of gay friends living in San Francisco. Writing. Tovey is also an author, playwright and screenwriter. He has written three plays (all unperformed as of August 2010), and one of his short stories was published in "Company", a noted British literary journal. He also wrote a short film, "Victor", and as of August 2010 was seeking funding to produce the picture. Personal life. During his adolescent years, Tovey's homosexuality caused friction within his family. Although he says he came out to himself when he was 15 or 16, he properly came out to his parents when he was 18. Tovey and his father subsequently had a falling out, with his father suggesting, that had he known earlier, he would have asked Tovey to take hormones or undergo some other medical treatment to "fix the problem". Tovey says his parents were deeply concerned about the possibility he might contract HIV, which may have contributed to the falling out. The birth of Tovey's nephew in October 2004 helped them mend their relationship. In an interview with "The Scotsman", Tovey said, "The only thing I can give to young gay people is that when I was growing up there were no role models that were blokey, that were men. Everybody was flamboyant and camp, and I remember going, 'That's not me, so even though I think I am gay, I don't think I fit into this world.
1065410	The Strongest Man in the World is a 1975 Disney film starring Kurt Russell, still a student in the fictional Medfield College. It is the sequel to the 1972 film "Now You See Him, Now You Don't", itself a sequel to the 1969 film, "The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes". Plot. Medfield College's Dean Higgins (Joe Flynn) is being fired for financial mismanagement because of extreme over-spending by Prof. Quigley's science class. Higgins finds out the high costs are for renting a cow to experiment on; they are feeding it various concoctions to make it fatter. In a rage, Higgins fires Quigley (yet again) then threatens to have his entire class thrown out of college. When the dean slams the door as he leaves, Dexter Riley's (Kurt Russell) chemical experiment mixes with that of another student, Richard Schuyler's vitamin cereal mix. When the cow eats some of the cereal into which the mixture has leaked, the students learn that the cereal gave the cow the ability to produce a huge supply of milk, over 80 gallons. When Dexter eats it the next morning he gains super-strength, as does the fraternity house's pet dog who, after eating some leftovers, smashes down the door and chases after a Doberman that was growling at him. While walking to the college, Dexter accidentally bends a street lamp, then on the basketball court shatters the hoop.
1570152	Boulevard Nights is a 1979 film directed by Michael Pressman. Plot. "Boulevard Nights" is a focus on life in a gang. The movie portrays the dangers of street violence. Richard Yniguez plays a young Chicano who tries to get out of the gang, but he keeps finding himself drawn back into it. "Boulevard Nights" is all about brotherhood and survival. Taglines. Two brothers ... the street was their playground and their battleground
589241	Nau Do Gyarah (Hindi: नौ दो ग्यारह; English: Nine Two Eleven, the Hindi idiom means 'to run away') is a 1957 Hindi film produced by Dev Anand. This was his brother, Vijay Anand's, directorial debut. The film stars Dev Anand, Kalpana Kartik, Madan Puri, Shashikala and Jeevan. The film's music is by S. D. Burman and the lyrics are by Majrooh Sultanpuri. Plot. The film starts with Madan Gopal (Dev Anand) being thrown out of his house for not paying the rent. He goes to visit his friend, who has been helping him collect his mail, and finds a letter from his uncle, Manoharlal. Manoharlal writes that he is willing eleven lakh rupees (nine lakhs of cash and two lakhs worth of property), to Madan. It was originally willed to his sister-in-law's son, Kuldeep (Krishan Dhawan). After seeing Kuldeep's bad behaviour, though, Manoharlal decides to give the money to Madan. Madan promptly gets a truck and sets off for Bombay, and on the way, his friend drags him to a wedding. The two discuss the wedding, with Madan saying that if he was in the girl's place, he would run away. True enough, when an eavesdropping friend tells the bride, Raksha (Kalpana Kartik) that the groom, Surjit (Jeevan), she decides to run away and hide in Madan's truck. Raksha disguises herself as a Sikh boy with the psedonym of Sardar Nihal Singh and hides in his truck. Madan discovers "him" and the two quarrel nonstop, but Madan is compelled to take him along because the boy has money, food and water. The disguise soon comes loose and Sardar Nihal Singh is revealed to be a girl. Madan doesn't know her past, but the two of them fall in love, with Madan teasing her on several occasions, calling her a "thief". Raksha, who was unhappy with her marriage, finally finds happiness travelling with Madan. When the two of them reach Bombay, Madan goes off to see his friend, Radheshyam (Madan Puri), but is informed that Manoharlal has died. A shocked Madan takes out the letter and finds out that it is a few months old. Radheshyam says that all the property has gone to Kuldeep and his mother (Lalita Pawar).
1060974	Nigel John Dermot "Sam" Neill, DCNZM, OBE (born 14 September 1947) is a British-New Zealand actor who first achieved leading roles in films such as "" and "Dead Calm" and on television in "Reilly, Ace of Spies". He won a broad international audience in 1993 for his roles as Alisdair Stewart in "The Piano" and Dr. Alan Grant in the blockbuster "Jurassic Park", a role he reprised in 2001's "Jurassic Park III". Neill also had notable roles in "Merlin", "The Hunt for Red October", and "The Tudors". Early life. Neill was born in Omagh, County Tyrone, Northern Ireland, the second son of Dermot Neill, a Harrow- and Sandhurst-educated British Army officer and third-generation New Zealander, and his English wife, Priscilla (née Ingham). At the time of Neill's birth, his father was stationed in Northern Ireland, serving with the Irish Guards. His father's family owned Neill and Co., the largest liquor retailers in New Zealand. In 1954, Neill returned with his family to New Zealand, where he attended the Anglican boys' boarding school Christ's College in Christchurch. He then went on to study English literature at the University of Canterbury where he had his first exposure to acting. While at university he lived at College House. He then moved to Wellington to continue his tertiary education at Victoria University. He graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in English literature. In 2004, on Australian talk show "Enough Rope", interviewer Andrew Denton briefly touched on the issue of Neill's "very bad" stuttering. It affected most of his childhood and as a result he was "hoping that people wouldn't talk to " so he would not have to answer back. He has mostly outgrown it, but claims it can still be detected to this day. He first took to calling himself "Sam" at school where there were other Nigels and the name Nigel was "a little effete for ... a New Zealand playground". Acting career. After working at the New Zealand National Film Unit as a director, Neill was cast as the lead in 1977 New Zealand film "Sleeping Dogs". Following this he appeared in Australian romance "My Brilliant Career" (1979), opposite Judy Davis. In the late 1970s, his mentor was James Mason. In 1981 he won his first big international role, as Damien Thorn, son of the devil, in ""; also in that year, he played an outstanding main role in Andrzej Zulawski's cult film "Possession". Later, Neill was also one of the leading candidates to succeed Roger Moore in the role of James Bond, but lost out to Timothy Dalton. His Bond screen-test can be found on the special features of the "The Living Daylights" (1987) DVD. Among his many Australian roles is playing Michael Chamberlain in "Evil Angels" (1988) (released as "A Cry In The Dark" outside of Australia and New Zealand) about the case of Azaria Chamberlain. Neill has played heroes and occasionally villains in a succession of film and television dramas and comedies. In the UK he won early fame, and was Golden-Globe nominated, after portraying real-life spy Sidney Reilly in mini-series "Reilly, Ace of Spies" (1983). His leading and co-starring roles in films include thriller "Dead Calm" (1989), two-part historical epic "La Révolution française" (1989)(as Marquis de Lafayette), "The Hunt for Red October" (1990), "Jurassic Park" (1993), "Sirens" (1994), "Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book" (1994), John Carpenter's "In the Mouth of Madness" (1995), "Event Horizon" (1997), "Bicentennial Man" (1999), and comedy "The Dish" (2000). Neill has also occasionally acted in New Zealand films, notably "The Piano" (1993), which marked the first time a woman director (Jane Campion) had won the top prize at the Cannes Film Festival. His other New Zealand features include Gaylene Preston's genre-crossing 'romance' "Perfect Strangers", and a 2009 adaptation of science fiction tale "Under the Mountain". Neill himself returned to directing in 1995 with documentary "Cinema of Unease: A Personal Journey by Sam Neill" (1995) which he wrote and directed with Judy Rymer. Made as part of a BFI series marking the centenary of cinema, the film saw Neill providing his own take on New Zealand film history. In 1993, Neill co-starred with Anne Archer in "Question of Faith", an independent drama based on a true story about one woman's fight to beat cancer and have a baby. In 2002, he hosted and narrated a documentary series for the BBC entitled "Space" ("Hyperspace" in the United States). Neill also portrayed the legendary wizard in "Merlin" (1998), a miniseries based on the legends of King Arthur. He reprised his role as Merlin in the sequel, "Merlin's Apprentice" (2006), in which Merlin learns he fathered a son with the Lady of the Lake. Neill starred in the historical drama "The Tudors", playing Cardinal Thomas Wolsey. "I have to say I really enjoyed making "The Tudors"", Neill said, “It was six months with a character that I found immensely intriguing, with a cast that I liked very much and with a story I found very compelling. It has elements that are hard to beat: revenge and betrayal, lust and treason, all the things that make for good stories." He also acted in short-lived Fox TV series "Alcatraz" as Emerson Hauser. By May 2012, he was working on fantasy adventure movie "Mariah Mundi and the Midas Box" throughout the South West of England, playing the role of "Otto Luger". The movie is scheduled for release in 2013. He is presently starring in the new BBC series 'Peaky Blinders' set in post World War I Birmingham. He plays the part of Chief Inspector Chester Campbell who has come to clean up the town on Churchill's orders. Personal life. Neill lives in Queenstown and owns a winery called Two Paddocks, made up of a vineyard at Gibbston and two near Alexandra, all in the Central Otago region of New Zealand's South Island. He also has homes in Wellington, New Zealand and Sydney, Australia. He has one son, Tim (born in 1983), by New Zealand actress Lisa Harrow, and one daughter, Elena (born in 1991), by makeup artist Noriko Watanabe, whom he married in 1989. He also has a stepdaughter, Maiko Spencer, (born 1982) who is from Noriko Watanabe's first marriage. He is a supporter of the Australian Speak Easy Association and the British Stammering Association (BSA). He also supports the New Zealand Labour Party and the Australian Labor Party. He is a patron of the National Performance Conference and donated a pair of jeans to the Jeans for Genes auction; they were painted by artist Merv Moriarty and auctioned in August 1998. Neill's hobby is running Two Paddocks. "I’d like the vineyard to support me but I’m afraid it is the other way round. It is not a very economic business", said Neill, "It is a ridiculously time- and money-consuming business. I would not do it if it was not so satisfying and fun, and it gets me pissed once in a while." Neill is friends with New Zealand musicians Neil Finn and Tim Finn, of Crowded House and Split Enz, and with Australian musician Jimmy Barnes. Neill has been appointed a Distinguished Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit (DCNZM). When knighthoods were returned to the New Zealand Honours System in 2009, those with DCNZM or higher honours were given the option of converting them into knighthoods. Neill chose not to do this, saying the title of Sir was "just far too grand, by far". Personal quotes. "Of all the characters I've played, I think I have more in common with that guy than with "Reilly: Ace of Spies" referring to Carl Fitzgerald in "Death in Brunswick". Referring to "The Simpsons": "I'm playing a cat burglar. I've made it. This is the high point of my career. I'm really chuffed." "I got an Irish passport the other day. I love it. It's the best thing in my pocket."
581691	Aitbaar (Hindi: ऐतबार, Urdu: اعتبار, ) is a 1985 Hindi film, directed by Mukul Anand and starring Raj Babbar, Dimple Kapadia, Suresh Oberoi, Danny Denzongpa and Sharat Saxena. It was a remake of Alfred Hitchcock's 1954 thriller, Dial M For Murder. Film's music is by Bappi Lahiri and lyrics by Hasan Kamaal and Farukh Kaiser, who gave "Kisi Nazar Ko Tera Intezaar", a memorable ghazal duet by Asha Bhosle and Bhupinder. Differences with the Original. Raj Babbar plays the husband, Dimple Kapadia is the wife having an affair with Suresh Oberoi's character. Sharat Saxena plays the assassin while Danny Denzongpa is an Inspector. While Mark Halliday is a crime writer, Suresh Oberoi's character is a Ghazal singer. In the original film, when Tony Wendice realizes that he has been cornered, he accepts his crime gracefully, offering drinks to all around; in the Hindi remake, Raj Babbar attacks the police officer and everyone around, but is finally cornered. Plot. Neha is the only daughter of wealthy and widowed Mr. Khanna, and he would like to see her married and well settled before he passes on. Neha is in love with Sagar, who is not prepared for marriage, so she marries the man of her dad's choice, a tennis player, Jaideep. Soon after her marriage, her dad passes away, and she finds that Jaideep does not love her anymore, and is, in fact, very abusive toward her. This leads her back to Sagar's arms, who is now a successful singer. Then Neha notices a remarkable change in Jaideep's behavior, he abstains from alcohol, starts taking an interest in her dad's business, appears apologetic for his past abusive behavior, and adores her. Then her life turns upside down when she receives a letter from a blackmailer, asking her to pay 1 lakh or a love letter written to her by Sagar will be mailed to Jaideep. Neha delivers the money, but is unable to get the letter back. She confides about this to Sagar. While Sagar and Jaideep are out at a stag party, Neha's house is broken into, and a man named Vikramjit attempts to kill her, but instead ends up getting killed by her. The Police, summoned by Jaideep, find the letter from Sagar in Vikramjit's pocket. As a result Neha is arrested, tried in court, and sentenced to death under section 302 of the Indian Penal Code. Eventually, Neha is proved innocent and Jaideep is found guilty. He commits suicide unable to bear his defeat.
1055346	Kotch is a 1971 American comedy film which tells the story of an elderly man who runs away so as not to be put into a nursing home, and strikes up a friendship with a pregnant teenage girl. It stars Walter Matthau, Deborah Winters, Felicia Farr, Charles Aidman and Ellen Geer. The film was adapted by John Paxton from the novel by Katherine Topkins. Matthau's friend and frequent costar Jack Lemmon directed; it was Lemmon's only film behind the camera. Portions of the film were shot and set in Palm Springs, California. Reception. The film earned rentals of $3.6 million in North America and $1.4 million in other countries. It recorded an overall profit of $330,000. Awards. The film was nominated for Academy Awards for Best Actor in a Leading Role (Walter Matthau), Best Film Editing (Ralph E. Winters), Best Music, Song (for Marvin Hamlisch and Johnny Mercer for "Life Is What You Make It") and Best Sound (Richard Portman, Jack Solomon). DVD. "Kotch" was released in a Region 1 DVD by Fox Video on July 6, 2004.
1166071	Mabel King (born Donnie Mabel Elizabeth Washington; December 25, 1932 – November 9, 1999) was an American film, stage and television actress. She is most notably known for her role as Mabel "Mama" Thomas on the ABC sitcom What's Happening!!. Early life and career. King was born Donnie Mabel Elizabeth Washington in Charleston, South Carolina, the daughter of Rosalie Washington. She was raised in Harlem where she eventually became a gospel and nightclub singer. She did not start acting until her mid thirties, in 1966, when she played the role of Maria in the national touring play of "Porgy and Bess". The following year she played the role of Ernestina in the Broadway musical/comedy "Hello, Dolly!". Then in 1972, she appeared in the Broadway musical "Don't Play Us Cheap". The following year, 1973, she appeared in the film version of the play. That same year she played the Queen of Myrthia in the horror film "Ganja & Hess". In January 1975, she played the role of Evillene, the Wicked Witch of the West in the all-African American cast of the Broadway musical "The Wiz". The role earned her a Drama Desk Award nomination for outstanding featured actress in a musical. Her performance in "The Wiz" brought her much attention and soon after she received roles in the films "The Bingo Long Traveling All-Stars & Motor Kings", with Billy Dee Williams and James Earl Jones and the movie "Scott Joplin" also with Billy Dee Williams and Clifton Davis. In 1976, she was offered the role of Mabel Thomas on the sitcom "What's Happening!!", a role she played from 1976 to 1978. Due to disagreements with the direction the creators wanted to take the show, King left "What's Happening!!" in 1978 after two seasons. That same year, she reprised the role of Evillene for the 1978 film version of "The Wiz". It was the second time in her career that she appeared in a movie after being in the stage version, the first time being the play/movie "Don't Play Us Cheap". The following year she appeared in what was probably her most notable film role, as mother to Steve Martin's character in "The Jerk". In June 1980, King returned to stage work, starring in the Broadway musical "It's So Nice To Be Civilized". However the show did not do well and was cancelled after eight performances. After the show, King received mostly guest spots on TV shows including "Fantasy Island", "The Jeffersons", "Amazing Stories" and "Tales from the Darkside" among others. In between, she signed on with then Hollywood agent Ruben Malaret, who negotiated the reprised role of Mama Johnson in the 1984 made-for-TV movie "The Jerk, Too". Her last two movie roles were 1988's "Scrooged" starring Bill Murray and 1990's "Dead Men Don't Die" starring Elliott Gould. Later years and death. In 1989, King suffered a stroke and entered the Motion Picture & Television Country House and Hospital in Woodland Hills, California. She also battled diabetes, and eventually lost both of her legs and an arm to the disease. In 1999, she died from complications of diabetes. She was cremated. Her only child, a son, Larry (from her marriage to Melvin King) preceded her in death three years earlier.
561344	Maryam Mirzakhani (; born May 1977) is an Iranian mathematician, Professor of Mathematics (since September 1, 2008) at Stanford University. Her research interests include Teichmüller theory, hyperbolic geometry, ergodic theory, and symplectic geometry. She is an alumna of National Organization for Development of Exceptional Talents (NODET) Tehran, Iran (Farzanegan highschool). She found international recognition as a brilliant teenager after receiving gold medals at both the 1994 International Mathematical Olympiad (Hong Kong) and the 1995 International Mathematical Olympiad (Toronto), where she finished with a perfect score. Mirzakhani obtained her BSc in Mathematics (1999) from the Sharif University of Technology. She holds a PhD from Harvard University (2004), where she worked under the supervision of the Fields Medallist Curtis McMullen. She was a Clay Mathematics Institute Research Fellow and a professor at Princeton University.
1059588	Bruce Almighty is a 2003 American fantasy comedy film directed by Tom Shadyac and written by Steve Koren, Mark O'Keefe and Steve Oedekerk. It stars Jim Carrey as Bruce Nolan, a down-on-his-luck TV reporter who complains to God that he isn't doing his job correctly, and is then offered the chance to try being God himself for one week. Morgan Freeman, Jennifer Aniston, Steve Carell, Catherine Bell, Lisa Ann Walter, and Philip Baker Hall also star, while Tony Bennett makes a cameo appearance. This is Shadyac and Carrey's third collaboration after working together on Shadyac's first film, "", which also launched Carrey's career, and "Liar Liar". When released in American theaters in May 2003, it took the #1 spot at the box office, grossing $85.89 million - higher than the release of "Pearl Harbor", making it the highest-rated Memorial Day weekend opening of any film in motion picture history (until the release of "" in 2006). The movie surprised media analysts when it beat "The Matrix Reloaded" after its first week of release. By the time it left theaters, it took in a United States domestic total of over $242 million and $484 million worldwide. The film has gone on to become a cult film. Plot. Bruce Nolan (Jim Carrey) is a television field reporter for WKBW-TV in Buffalo, New York but desires to be the news anchorman. He is passed over for the promotion in favour of his co-worker rival, Evan Baxter (Steve Carell) and becomes furious and rages during a live interview at Niagara Falls. His actions lead to his suspension from the station, followed by a series of misfortunes when he is assaulted by a gang of thugs for protecting a blind man they are bullying. Shortly after getting fired from his job, Bruce complains to God (Morgan Freeman) that He isn't doing His job correctly. Bruce later receives a message in his pager, directing him to an empty warehouse where God appears. God offers Bruce His powers to prove that He "is" doing his job correctly. God tells Bruce not to tell others he has God's powers nor use the powers to alter free will. Bruce is initially jubilant, using his newfound abilities for personal gain, such as impressing his girlfriend Grace Connelly (Jennifer Aniston), taking revenge on the gang that assaulted him, and getting his job back, causing miraculous things to occur at otherwise mundane events that he covers, such as making a meteor land near a cook-off, earning him the name "Mr. Exclusive". Bruce then gets revenge by causing Evan to embarrass himself on-air, which results in Evan being sent back to his reporting job and Bruce installed as the new anchor. But Bruce hears voices in his head that (at first) he cannot understand. He later re-encounters God on Mount Everest, who explains that the voices are prayers meant for God that Bruce must deal with. He also confronts Bruce on using the powers for personal gain and not for helping people. Bruce creates a computerized email-like system to receive the prayers and respond. Predictably, he finds that the influx is far too great for him to handle – even though God has stated that Bruce is only receiving prayers from the Buffalo area. To save himself time, Bruce sets the program to automatically answer every prayer as "Yes" for the duration of his stint as God. Bruce attends a party celebrating his promotion. When Grace arrives, she finds Bruce and his co-anchor Susan Ortega (Catherine Bell) kissing, after she had forcefully come on to him, and flees, refusing to believe his pleas that it was a misunderstanding. Bruce follows her, trying to use his powers to convince her to stay, but cannot influence her free will. As Bruce looks around, he realizes that the city has fallen into chaos due to his actions: parts of the city believe the Apocalypse is near because of the meteor strike at the cook-off, while a large number of people, all who prayed to win the multi-million dollar lottery, are now rioting because they've all won and each prize has been reduced to $17. Bruce returns to God and asks how people can all act this way after he gave them what they wanted. God explains that nobody ever has a clue about what they want or the consequences that come with it. God then explains that people always want Him to perform miracles for them but they don't realize that they can perform the miracles themselves. So God gives Bruce some words of wisdom,"If you want to see a miracle, be the miracle." Bruce returns to his computer and unplugs the prayer system. He then resigns his short-lived anchorman career and informs Evan that he will be given back the job. Bruce then proceeds to live his life without using his powers. Among other things, he helps a stranded motorist push his car, makes his own sign and stands with the homeless man, and finally trains his dog Max to urinate outdoors. Grace's sister stops by to retrieve her things and sees how Bruce has changed. She chooses to inform him that every night Grace prays, and that usually it's for him. Bruce reactivates the prayer computer to search for Grace and finds countless prayers asking for his success and well-being. As he reads them, another prayer from Grace arrives, asking not to be in love with Bruce anymore. Saddened, Bruce walks alone on a highway in a thunderstorm. He asks God to take back the powers and to remove his fate from his own hands. Bruce is suddenly struck by a truck and, upon regaining consciousness, finds himself in a white void (presumably Heaven). God appears, and asks Bruce what he really wants; Bruce admits that he only wants to make sure Grace finds a man that would make her happy. God agrees, and Bruce finds himself bruised and bandaged in the hospital, shortly after having been near-miraculously resuscitated by the doctors thanks to God. Grace arrives and the two rekindle their relationship (while they hug, Bruce notices the prayer beads suddenly in his hand and mutters to God, "Now You're just showing off."), with Bruce and Grace later becoming engaged. After his recovery, Bruce returns to his field reporting but takes more pleasure in the simple stories and interviews. The film ends with him doing an item at a blood drive with the same bakers he was with in the beginning - this time his charm, enthusiasm and an uplifting speech cause his colleagues, Evan and Grace to break spontaneously into joyful applause. As Grace drags an unwilling Bruce to give blood, the homeless man stands in the background with a sign reading "Armageddon outta here," slowly morphing into the form of God. God then claps his hands and everything cuts to black. Reception and controversy. The film received mixed reviews, with a score of 48% on Rotten Tomatoes based on 181 reviews and a weighted average score of 46 out of 100 on Metacritic. It received a B rating at Box Office Mojo and a score of 6.6 on Internet Movie Database. Controversy. The film was banned in Egypt due to pressure from Muslims who objected to the portrayal of God as a visually ordinary man. Bans in both Malaysia and Egypt were eventually lifted after the Censorship Board gave it the "18PL" rating (suitable for adult viewers only for a combination of two or more of the given parental ratings). Also, since God contacts Bruce using an actual phone number rather than a number in the standard fictional 555 telephone exchange, several people and groups sharing this number subsequently received hundreds of phone calls from people wanting to talk to God. The producers noted that the number was not in use in the area code (716, which was never specified on screen) in the film's story but did not check anywhere else. The home video and television versions changed it to the fictional 555. Sequels. On June 22, 2007, a sequel to "Bruce Almighty" entitled "Evan Almighty" was released, with Steve Carell reprising to his role as Evan Baxter and Morgan Freeman returning to his role as God. Although Shadyac returned to direct the sequel, neither Carrey nor Aniston were involved with the film, though Carrey's character, Bruce, is mentioned in the film's teaser trailer. The sequel was not as well received as the predecessor, with a 23% rating on Rotten Tomatoes and a rating of 37/100 on Metacritic. On January 12, 2012, another sequel to "Bruce Almighty" was announced starring Jim Carrey. Soundtrack. The soundtrack was released on June 3, 2003 by Varèse Sarabande. Tracks 9-14 are from the score composed by John Debney, performed by the Hollywood Studio Symphony (conducted by Pete Anthony) with Brad Dechter and Sandy De Crescent.
1055079	Michael Jai White (born November 10, 1967) is an American actor and martial artist who has appeared in numerous films and television series. He is the first African American to portray a major comic book superhero in a major motion picture, having starred as Al Simmons, the protagonist in the 1997 film "Spawn". White appeared as Marcus Williams in the Tyler Perry films "Why Did I Get Married?" and "Why Did I Get Married Too?", and currently stars as the character on the TBS/OWN comedy-drama television series "Tyler Perry's For Better or Worse". White portrayed Jax Briggs in "". White also portrayed boxer Mike Tyson in the 1995 HBO television movie "Tyson". Early life. White was born in Brooklyn, New York and moved as a teen to Bridgeport, Connecticut, where he graduated from Central High School in 1985. He is an accomplished martial artist, holding black belts in seven different styles: Shotokan, Tae Kwon Do, Kobudo, Goju Ryu (studied under Master Eddie Morales), Tang Soo Do, Wushu and Kyokushin, with a specific focus in Kyokushin (although his style incorporates aspects of many different martial arts forms). White started training in the martial arts at the age of eight. White is a former teacher. He cites his history in education as the reason why, despite his personal love for the music genre on "a lot of levels", he cannot "in good have a positive opinion on hip hop or "excuse some of [its pervasive and destructive elements", due to his experience with youngsters who had difficulty seeing the difference between it and real life. Acting career. White's first major starring role and breakout performance was in the 1995 HBO film "Tyson", as heavyweight boxer Mike Tyson. He portrayed the eponymous character in the 1997 movie "Spawn", making him the first African American to portray a major comic book superhero in a major motion picture. His work in "Spawn" earned him a nomination for the "Blockbuster Entertainment Award" for Best Male Newcomer. White starred opposite Jean-Claude Van Damme in '. In 2001, he also starred opposite fellow martial artist Steven Seagal in "Exit Wounds". In 2003, he starred in Busta Rhymes' and Mariah Carey's music video "I Know What You Want". Since 2003, in addition to his on screen roles, White has been doing voice work, including "Static Shock and the Justice League". White showcases his martial arts skills in the direct-to-DVD film '. He also appears in Michelle Yeoh's "Silver Hawk" in 2004. He appeared in "Kill Bill Vol. 2," although his role was cut from the theatrical release. His film "Why Did I Get Married?" opened at number one at the box office on October 12, 2007. White played the role of the mob boss Gambol in the 2008 film "The Dark Knight". He also starred in the film "Blood and Bone" and the blaxploitation homage "Black Dynamite", both released in 2009. White wrote the scripts for both "Black Dynamite" and his upcoming "3 Bullets" in which he stars with Bokeem Woodbine. On March 30, 2010, White appeared on "The Mo'Nique Show" to promote his film "Why Did I Get Married Too". The two joked about the acclaim that comes with winning an Oscar. In May of that year he appeared in the music video for Toni Braxton's new song "Hands Tied" from her album "Pulse", as well as the Nicki Minaj music video for Your Love as Nicki's sensei and love interest. He also starred in Kevin Tancharoen's short film ', as Jax Briggs, and reprised the role in ', a webseries from the same director. He recently posted on Twitter that he would not be returning to the role for the second season, but would return for the 2013 film. White made his directorial debut and starred in "", which was released on home video on September 13, 2011. White also provided the voice of The Green Lantern John Stewart in the video game Justice League Heroes. Personal life. In August 2005, White married his girlfriend of two years, Courtney Chatman, an OB/GYN who trained in Philadelphia and Los Angeles. Bucking tradition, she proposed to him while having dinner at a restaurant and they spoke about it in an issue of "Essence" magazine. The couple has a daughter named Morgan Michelle White, who was born on December 24, 2008. Michael has a son named Jai Jordan White (b. 1995) from a previous relationship.
1103293	Enrico Bombieri (born 26 November 1940 in Milan, Italy) is a mathematician who has been working at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey. He moved to the USA after receiving his Ph.D. at the University of Milan in 1963. Bombieri's research in number theory, algebraic geometry, and mathematical analysis have earned him many international prizes --- a Fields Medal in 1974 and the Balzan Prize in 1980. In 2010 he received the King Faisal International Prize (jointly with Terence Tao). The Bombieri–Vinogradov theorem is one of the major applications of the large sieve method. It improves Dirichlet's theorem on prime numbers in arithmetic progressions, by showing that by averaging over the modulus over a range, the mean error is much less than can be proved in a given case. This result can sometimes substitute for the still-unproved generalized Riemann hypothesis. In 1976, he developed the technique known as the "asymptotic sieve".
1062821	Easy A (stylized as easy A) is a 2010 American teen comedy film written by Bert V. Royal, directed by Will Gluck, and starring Emma Stone. The screenplay was partially inspired by the novel "The Scarlet Letter" by Nathaniel Hawthorne. The film was shot at Screen Gems studios and in Ojai, California. Screen Gems distributed with a release on . It was released on DVD and Blu-ray Disc December 21, 2010. The film was met with positive reviews, and was a huge financial success. Plot. Olive Penderghast (Emma Stone) lies to her best friend Rhiannon Abernathy (Aly Michalka) about going on a date in order to get out of camping with Rhiannon's hippie parents. Instead, she hangs around the house all weekend listening to Natasha Bedingfield's "Pocketful of Sunshine". The following Monday, pressed by Rhiannon, Olive lies about losing her virginity to a college guy. Marianne Bryant (Amanda Bynes), a strictly religious girl at their school, overhears her telling the lie and soon it spreads like wildfire. The school's conservative church group run by Marianne decides Olive will be their next project. Olive confides the truth to her friend Brandon (Dan Byrd), and he explains how others bully him because he is gay. Brandon later asks Olive to pretend to sleep with him so that he will be accepted by everyone.
629139	Picnic at Hanging Rock is a 1975 Australian drama and mystery film directed by Peter Weir and starring Anne-Louise Lambert, Helen Morse, Rachel Roberts, Vivean Gray and Dominic Guard. The film was adapted by Cliff Green from the 1967 novel of the same name by Joan Lindsay.
1060914	Lesley Ann Warren (born August 16, 1946) is an American actress and singer. She has been nominated once for an Academy Award and Emmy Award and five times for Golden Globe Award, winning one. She is known for her roles in films such as "The Happiest Millionaire", "Victor Victoria", "Clue", "Burglar", "Cop", "Color of Night" and "Secretary". She has also had roles in popular TV shows such as "", "Desperate Housewives", "Will & Grace", and "In Plain Sight". Personal life. Warren was born in New York City, New York, the daughter of Carol (née Verblow), a singer, and William Warren, a real estate agent. Her family was Russian Jewish, on both sides, and her father's original surname was "Warrenoff". Her 1967 marriage to producer Jon Peters ended in divorce in 1977. They have one son, Christopher Peters (born 1968, now an actor). She married Ronald Taft in 2000. Career. The 5-foot-8-inch Warren began her career as a ballet dancer, training at the School of American Ballet. She entered the Actors Studio at the age of 17—reputedly the youngest applicant ever to be accepted. Her Broadway debut came in 1963 in the musical "110 in the Shade". She won the Theatre World Award for her performance in the 1965 flop musical "Drat! The Cat!". In 1973, she portrayed Scarlett O'Hara in the Los Angeles production of the musical "Scarlett"; however, the play was poorly reviewed and did not continue to Broadway as planned. Having failed to obtain the role of Liesl in the film version of "The Sound of Music", Warren's first major television success was in the title role of Rodgers and Hammerstein's television special "Cinderella" in 1965. She later played the part of , the leading female on the "" team, during the 1970-71 television season. According to "The Complete Mission: Impossible Dossier" by Patrick White, she was considered too inexperienced for the part and left after only one year. Despite her departure, throughout the 1970s Warren became a leading lady of TV movies, TV series, and TV miniseries. She appeared as a guest star in the third season of "The Muppet Show" and made an occasional feature film. Warren also played Lois Lane in the 1975 TV special "It's a Bird...It's a Plane...It's Superman" adapted from the Broadway musical of the same name. Warren went on to screen-test for the role of Lois Lane in the 1978 "Superman" film, a role that was ultimately won by Margot Kidder (footage of Warren's screen test has been included as a supplementary feature on VHS and DVD releases of the film). In 1981, she starred with Ken Wahl, George Peppard, and Donald Pleasence in "Race for the Yankee Zephyr", a New Zealand suspense-action-thriller film directed by David Hemmings. For her portrayal of dim-witted gangster's moll Norma Cassidy in the 1982 musical-comedy "Victor Victoria", Warren was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role. Warren is also a five-time Golden Globe nominee and won for the 1977 miniseries "Harold Robbins' 79 Park Avenue". She was Emmy-nominated for the TV movie "Family of Spies" (1991). Warren had recurring roles on "Will & Grace" as Will Truman's father's mistress and on "Desperate Housewives" as Susan Mayer's mother. Other television roles have included Lily Lebowski's mother on "Crossing Jordan" and Kip Stedman's mother in "Less than Perfect". Warren played the role of Mary Shannon's mother in the USA Network original television series "In Plain Sight".
1043514	Adrienne Posta (born Adrienne Luanne Poster, 4 March 1948) is an English film and television actress and singer, prominent during the 1960s and 1970s. She adopted the surname "Posta" in 1966. She recorded a number of singles. She is now semi-retired and works as a teacher in the Midlands and at the Italia Conti Academy of Theatre Arts. Posta is an honorary patron of the Music Hall Guild of Great Britain and America. Discography. Her first recordings were as Adrienne Poster. Subsequent recordings were as Posta. She also recorded as part of Jonathan King's group, The Piglets:
1058742	George of the Jungle is a 1997 live-action, family romantic-adventure-comedy film based on the characters from the original cartoon of the same name. The film was produced by Walt Disney Pictures with Mandeville Films and originally released to movie theatres on July 16, 1997. It stars Brendan Fraser as the eponymous main character, a primitive man who was raised by animals in an African jungle; Leslie Mann as his wealthy American love interest; and Thomas Haden Church as her treacherous fiancé. A direct-to-video sequel, "George of the Jungle 2", was released on DVD in 2003, however only four of the original actors returned for the sequel. Plot. The film begins with an animated introduction featuring a plane heading toward "the Heart of Africa" (more specifically, a region called "Bukuvu"). The plane crashes and George, an infant, is lost, but enjoys vine swinging and crashing into trees as a running gag. Over 25 years later, George (Brendan Fraser) is a Tarzan-like man, the "King of the Jungle". His friends include a sophisticated talking gorilla named Ape (voiced by John Cleese), along with a toco toucan named Tookie, a small capuchin monkey named Little Monkey, and an African elephant named Shep, whom he calls his "dog" (all voiced by Frank Welker).
586444	Paanch () is an unreleased Indian film written and directed by Anurag Kashyap and starring Kay Kay Menon, Aditya Srivastava, Vijay Maurya, Joy Fernandes and Tejaswini Kolhapure. The film is "loosely" based on the 1976-77 Joshi-Abhyankar serial murders in Pune.
584726	Dookudu (translation: "Aggression") is a 2011 Telugu action comedy film directed by Sreenu Vaitla and distributed by 14 Reels Entertainment. The ensemble cast stars Mahesh Babu and Samantha Ruth Prabhu. The film was released on September 23, 2011 with the largest worldwide opening for a Telugu film. The film was released among seventy nine screens in the USA, the "Los Angeles Times" quoted it as "The biggest hit you've never heard of." In the rest of north, east and west India, it opened up in 21 cities. The film set a box office record by collecting a gross of more than 1 billion at the time. The film has won seven Andhra Pradesh State Nandi Awards, including the Best Popular Feature Film and Best Actor. The film was dubbed into Tamil as "Athiradi Vettai," and released on April 12, 2013. The film was also dubbed in Hindi as "The Real Tiger" and released on February 11, 2012 and in Malayalam as "Choodan" which was released on May 17, 2013. Plot. Shankar Narayana (Prakash Raj) is a politician driven by idealistic values and a sense of social service. His followers are his brother (Rajiv Kanakala), and supporters (Sayaji Shinde and Supreeth Reddy). The people of Shankar's constituency elect him as an M.L.A., during the political realm of the late N. T. Rama Rao (NTR). Although Shankar is an ardent follower of NTR, he does not wish to join NTR's party, and establishes his own independent political empire. Shankar's dream is to see his son as a politician revered by people. During this time, Shankar meets with a fatal accident. Years later, Shankar's son Ajay Kumar (Mahesh Babu) is a daring super-cop in Mumbai. He is on a mission to apprehend Mafia don Nayak (Sonu Sood), who is involved in illegal drug trade, extortion and arms trafficking. It is later revealed that Shankar actually survived the accident but ended up in a state of coma. However, this truth is hidden by Shankar's family from the people. Ajay maintains a low profile to catch Nayak. In an undercover operation in Istanbul, Ajay gets hold of Nayak's brother, Bunty (Ajaz Khan). Later, it is revealed that corrupt opposition leader Mallesh Yadav (Kota Srinivasa Rao), who is also tied up with Nayak, was the mastermind behind Shankar's accident, and had planned to derail Shankar's political empire. Ajay falls in love with Prasanthi (Samantha Ruth Prabhu), who he meets in Istanbul during his operation. Prasanthi is the daughter of Ajay's boss (Nassar), a cop who reports to the police commissioner (Suman) in Hyderabad city. When Ajay's dad comes out of the coma, doctors advise his family that Shankar is at risk if he encounters or hears anything upsetting, disturbing or shocking. Ajay hides the events surrounding his dad's accident. Ajay shifts his family to his dad's previously abandoned mansion, which is now being used for filmmaking. Ajay creates a dummy political set-up at this mansion. In the guise of a reality television program, Ajay tricks an aspiring but unsuccessful film actor Padmasree (Brahmanandam), by making him believe that the television show is being sponsored by film star Nagarjuna Akkineni's television channel, and that Nagarjuna wants to offer Padmasree very high remuneration for his realistic performance in the show. On the other hand, an aspiring actor Bokka (M. S. Narayana) is also tricked by Ajay. Ajay also tricks Mallesh Yadav with a real estate business deal, to exploit Mallesh Yadav's criminal nexus. Ajay keeps this drama under wraps from Shankar, by making Shankar believe that Ajay is now an M.L.A., revered by people fulfilling his dad's wishes. He also marries his love, Prasanthi, to make his father happy. The rest of the plot reveals the politician-criminal nexus behind Shankar's accident, the comic misadventures which lead to Shankar knowing the truth, and Ajay's retaliation over Nayak and Mallesh Yadav's political corruption. Release. The film was released on September 23, 2011. The film had the second largest worldwide opening for a Telugu film, releasing globally in 1,600 screens, including 71 screens in Hyderabad. It also shattered records by releasing in 15 screens in Chennai and 79 theaters in the United States, the highest ever for a Telugu film in both the cases. In the rest of north, east and west India, it opened up in 21 cities. Overseas, it released in 21 countries. The film became the first Telugu project to release in Botswana and was opened in a single screen with one show by the Telugu Association of Botswana. Further, it was released in Netherlands, Germany, South Africa, Dubai and Finland the first for a Telugu film, and in regular overseas markets like Singapore, Malaysia and UK, making it the biggest overseas release for a Telugu film as well. The producers of the film approached the high court for a John Doe order to prevent piracy of the film. Critical reception. "CNN-IBN" gave three and half stars said ""Dookudu" is a treat for Mahesh's fans. But others can also enjoy this film for its comedy elements and Mahesh's powerful presence." "The Times Of India" also gave a three and half rating noted ""Dookudu" is a typical Srinu Vytla film with a generous sprinkling of comedy. His narrative manages to keep the audience engaged until the end of the movie." "Deccan Chronicle" rated three stars commented "Although, it is a tale of a honest cop who is on the trail of a dreaded don, director Sinu Vaitla relies on a band of comedians like Brahmanandam and M.S. Narayana to sustain audience interests, before his protagonist accomplishes his mission." "Sify" praised the lead performances writing "Mahesh Babu`s role, particularly in the action episodes, rocks." "NDTV" stated "Mahesh Babu's style, dialogues and his fight sequences are a plus. Samantha Ruth Prabhu is largely an eye-candy in the film. Despite the star cast, the film's biggest flaw is the weak screenplay and several illogical sequences". Venkat of "Greatandhra.com" said "Overall, the film has the right ingredients to appeal the family audience and though most of it is expected, it is the pace and ability with which the audience is engaged and the entertainment value they get." Idlebrain.com, a movie news site, rated the film 3.5 out of 5, also predicting that it would "smash records in the days to come". On the other hand, the film also received some mixed and negative reviews from other critics. Pavithra Srinivasan of "Rediff" gave it 2.5 out of 5 and criticized the film's screenplay and logic-defying sequences, while praising the performance of Mahesh Babu, calling his role a "cakewalk" and recommending the film for his fans in particular. Prakash of "Oneindia.in" said "To sum up, "Dookudu" is just another average entertainer and not in the same league as Mahesh Babu’s earlier blockbusters like "Athadu" and "Pokiri"." Haricharan Pudipeddi of "nowrunning.com" said "Mahesh shines in "Dookudu" but movie falls short." giving it 3 out of 5 stars. Box office. The film had the largest opening for a Telugu film, and collected a share of 10.11 crores, and a gross of 12.58 crores, on the first day of its release. It collected a share of 35.01 crores and grossed 50.07 crores in its first week. After two weeks, it grossed 70 crores and in 47 days, it grossed 100 crores. The movie crossed the $1 million mark in the USA, and grossed 1.5 crores in two days, in UK, Australia, Dubai and Canada. The film is the biggest Telugu hit in Chennai. The film also completed 50 days in 312 centres. Some reports say that the movie has a share of about 64.97 crores in the first 8 weeks. This is the only Telugu Film to feature in Google's list of "Top 10 Most searched films in India" in the year 2011, ranked at the 9th place in the list. Home media. The satellite rights of the film were sold to MAA TV for 5.4 crores.The film was released on Anamorphic widescreen DVD and VCD on December 31, 2011, by Volga videos in India. The release will be produced in DVD widescreen, and will include a Telugu language track, and English subtitles. The release date of the DVD also coincides with the 100th day of the movie. The movie has been released on a 1080p High Definition Blu-ray Disc in January 2012. Overseas, a high-quality 2 disc Blu-ray and an Anamorphic widescreen DVD was released by Ficus Inc., in January 2012. Soundtrack. The soundtrack of the film was composed by S. Thaman and released through Aditya Music label on August 18, 2011. The album consists of six songs. Lyrics for the four songs were penned by Ramajogayya Sastry and the remaining two songs were written by Viswa and Bhaskarabhatla. The audio was launched at Shilpakala Vedika, Hyderabad on the same day. Remakes. "Dookudu" was remade into Bengali by director Raja Chanda as "Challenge 2". The film has Bengali actors Dev and Pooja Bose in lead roles. Discussions are going on to remake this film in Kannada with Puneeth Rajkumar in the lead role by the same production house 14 Reels Entertainment.
1067404	Major Payne is a 1995 comedy film, starring Damon Wayans. The film is a loose remake of the 1955 film "The Private War of Major Benson", starring Charlton Heston. Plot. United States Marine Corps Major Benson Winifred Payne (Damon Wayans), a hardened Marine, returns from a very violent but successful drug raid in South America, only to find out that he has again been denied his long-hoped-for promotion to the grade of Lieutenant Colonel. Instead, Payne receives an honorable discharge on the grounds that "the wars of the world are no longer fought on the battlefield", and that his killing skills are no longer required by the U.S Marine Corps. After leaving the military, Payne finds his life as a civilian unbearable, and within days he reaches his breaking point. To help adjust, he applies for a job as a police officer. However, during the test to see how applicants handle the domestic violence in family homes disputes, he "neutralizes" the "abusive husband" by knocking him unconscious and almost killing him. Payne is arrested and placed on charges of assault and violence. His former General visits him mid-incarceration and informs Payne that he has managed to get him out of jail and to secure a military job for him. Payne arrives at Madison Preparatory School in Virginia, and is informed by the principal (William Hickey) that his job is to train the Junior Reserve Officers' Training Corps. These "green boys" (as the principal calls them) are a disorderly group of delinquents and outcasts who have placed last in the Virginia Military Games eight years running. When Payne sees his company, he declares his intention that they will win the Games at all costs, and immediately sets about establishing order and discipline, making no exceptions for various handicaps that the cadets have (deafness, obesity, heart conditions, etc.). His punishment methods cause him to clash with Emily Walburn (Karyn Parsons), the School's counselor. Walburn tries to make Payne more empathetic, particularly towards six-year old orphan Tiger (Orlando Brown), but without much success. Chafing under Payne's iron hand, the cadets, led by chief mischief Alex Stone (Steven Martini) make a series of attempts to get back at Payne, or force him to leave. Some of the schemes include giving him a laxative-loaded cupcake, attempting to portray Payne in a photo sleeping with one of the boys, and hiring a biker to beat up Payne. None of the cadets' plots succeed. Meanwhile, Payne earns affection from Tiger after saving him from a "bogeyman" in the closet by taking his gun and shooting the closet. He tells Tiger, "If he's still in there, he ain't happy."
587777	Kondaveeti Donga is a film starring Chiranjeevi was released in 1990. Engaging and with a social cause at the same time, relating to both masses and classes. Music has been scored by Maestro Illayaraja which proved to be an asset to the film. Chiranjeevi plays the character Zorro. Kondaveeti Donga was later dubbed in Tamil as "Thangamalai Thirudan". Plot. Raja(Chiranjeevi) goes to town for higher studies with the donation of people living in a tribal village. He returns to his village after the studies. He then finds the sufferings of his people and how they are cheated local heads (Rao Gopal Rao and Mohanbabu).He then fills confidence in his men and tells them that they should face these illegal in the court of law. But this duo makes the villagers fools and Raja's attempts goes in vain. Few villagers get hurt by this act suicide as they have no other option and the blame is on Raja as he has forced them. Sametime Raja is selected for IAS but he rejects it and decides to fight against the villains and changes to a Robinhood avatar and names himself as Kondaveti Donga. He punishes the illegal and stands by the villagers thus all his folk starts admiring him. Trouble starts when the villains start doing mischief in the name of him. Vijayasanthi is an inspector comes to his place to catch hold of him. Radha her sister, working as a doctor knows his true identity and starts loving him. How this kondaveti donga punished the fraud people or is he caught by the police or what happens to him forms the rest of the story. Music. All the songs still remains chartbusters Annual Movie Screening in Kantragada. The film will screened publicly along with Kodama Simham on 22 Augest coinsiding with Chiranjeevi's birth day in Kantragada. External links. http://www.chiranjeeviblog.com/reviews/movie-review/kondaveeti-donga.html
578571	Bangkok Traffic Love Story (, ) is a Thai romantic comedy film released by GTH on 15 October 2009. It was directed by Adisorn Tresirikasem and written by Navapol Thamrongruttanarit. The film tells the story of Mei Li (Cris Horwang), a thirty-year-old woman feeling desperate about being last among her friends to marry, and her relationship with Loong (Theeradej Wongpuapan), an engineer working on the BTS Skytrain system. The skytrain, which celebrated its tenth anniversary the same year and lends its name to the film's Thai and English titles, is prominently featured throughout the story. The film was criticized for its loose plot, but critics felt that young middle-class female Bangkokians could identify with the contemporary setting. The film was financially successful, earning 57 million baht on its opening weekend and over 140 million baht after four weeks. Plot. On Ped's (Panisara Pimpru) wedding night, her close friend, Mei li or Li (Cris Horwang), had drunk too much wine and had fallen asleep in Ped's hotel room. Li woke up in the early hours, she drove back to her home however she had a car accident on her way and this was where she met Loong (Theeradej Wongpuapan). When Li arrives home, her family scolds her, and her father forbids her to drive, so Li has to go to work by public transport. One night, Li wakes up in the middle of night and goes to the roof of her house. She accidentally catches her maid and her boyfriend, who are also on the roof. Her maid's boyfriend calls his 'elder' (responsible adult), who turns out to be Loong. Li next meets Loong again at a BTS Skytrain station. This time Li accidentally breaks Loong's sunglasses. Li buys a replacement pair of sunglasses and writes her number on the box. She arranges to 'bump into' Loong to give him the new sunglasses. After waiting for Loong to call, Li goes to a video rental shop that Loong visits regularly. Li's neighbor, Plern (Ungsumalynn Sirapatsakmetha), uses a trick to get Loong's mobile number, but later goes to work at the same video store instead of giving Loong's number to Li. As revenge, Li uses Plern's mobile to send messages to Plern's three boyfriends, inviting them all to the store at the same time. Loong comes into the shop, and accidentally drops his laptop. Feeling responsible, Li take Loong's laptop to Ped's husband, but he can't fix it. Li goes to return it at the BTS office. When Loong finishes work, he finds Li, and they ride the BTS to get home. Loong decides to throw away the laptop and its bag. Li picks the bag up out of the garbage bin and takes it home. There are many things inside, including film negatives. Li has the film printed, and finds there are pictures of Loong with Kob Kavita (Taksaorn Paksukjareon), an actress in "Saint's Tear", a popular television series. The photo printing shop owner posts the pictures on the internet, as they are of a famous actress. Li meets Loong again on a skytrain, and tells him that the pictures might have been published because of her, but Loong doesn't mind. Loong tells her that Kob is his ex-girlfriend, and they broke up because their time schedules didn't match. When the skytrain arrives at Ekkamai Station, Li suggests that they watch the stars at the Bangkok Planetarium and see an exhibition about a comet that will be appearing soon. Li asks Loong to watch the comet with her in Bangkok. Later, before the Songkran holidays, Loong asks Li to come celebrate by throwing water. During the Songkran festival, Plern joins them. Li doesn't enjoy the festivities because of her. Li knows Loong's address, which is a guesthouse next to Chao Phraya River. Li changes her clothes and goes to see Loong, and finds him asleep. Li falls asleep next to him. After she wakes up, Loong asks her to travel around Bangkok. Loong asks Li to come to family day at the BTS, as he can take her into the depot. Loong takes pictures, but Li damages the camera. On the family day visit, Li finds out that Loong is leaving in two days time to spend two years studying in Germany. They say goodbye on the Taksin Bridge. Loong sends Li a box when he arrives in Germany. Inside is the mirror from her car from when they first met, the damaged sunglasses, the broken laptop, Bangkok Planetarium tickets, and the damaged camera, with the memory card still inside. Li looks at the pictures. She rushes to Suvarnabhumi Airport to try to stop Loong, but she is too late. On that day, the comet orbits to the earth. Loong watches the comet from on board his plane, while Li watches it as well. Two years later, while going to work one evening, Li accidentally meets Loong on a BTS Skytrain. Loong works a day shift and has been back in Thailand for a few months. Both get off the Skytrain at Siam station, which is the interchange station between the Sukhumvit Line and the Silom Line. Li goes downstairs to change to a different line and doesn't turn back to look at Loong. Li gets on her train, but the electricity goes out. Passengers call their friends or family to say the train has stopped. Li's phone rings; it is Loong. He asks Li to again celebrate Songkran. Li replies that she is free for the holidays. When electricity comes back on, Loong is on the same Skytrain, standing next to Li. He tells Li that she has his number now, and to record it. Production. "Bangkok Traffic Love Story" was sponsored by the BTS, and the movie includes many scenes depicting maintenance work on the system and its infrastructure. The film was promoted as part of BTS's tenth anniversary celebrations. The film's Thai name, "Rod fai fah.. Ma Ha Na Ther", translates as "Skytrain, coming to meet you", and is a word play on Rot Fai Fa Maha Nakhon (), which is the Thai name of the Bangkok Metro underground system. The English title is abbreviated "BTS" to coincide with that of the skytrain system. Reception. Critical response. Critics mostly noted how "Bangkok Traffic Love Story", despite its flaws, appropriately served and satisfied its target audience of Bangkok's young female adults. In "Manager Daily", Aphinan Bunrueangphanao noted the film's chick flick elements, and how the casting of Theeradej as the male lead helped boosted the film's appeal. He noted that Cris skilfully represented the humorously exaggerated single urban female in her lead role, but criticized the film for its weak and loose plot. Nantakwang Sirasoontorn observed in "Kom Chad Luek" that the film's most distinct theme was that of the female fantasy of meeting the perfect man. He noted that images of contemporary Bangkok life and GTH's carefully planned marketing campaigns helped propel the film to success. He commended Cris's acting and criticized the weak plot. Box office. "Bangkok Traffic Love Story" was a box office hit upon release, earning 15.1 million baht on its opening day, surpassing "Phobia 2"s prior annual record of 14.9 million, and 57 million baht during the opening weekend. At four weeks, the film totalled over 140 million baht in theatrical earnings, surpassing "Fan Chan"'s prior GTH record of 137 million, and becoming by far the highest-grossing film of 2009.
582947	Dulhe Raja is a 1998 Bollywood comedy film starring Govinda., Raveena Tandon, Kadar Khan, Johnny Lever, Prem Chopra and Asrani. Plot. K.K. Singhania (Kader Khan) buys an expensive hotel "Maharaja International" from P.K. Diwani (Dinesh Hingoo). Later on, Singhania finds that a dhaba inside the hotel complex run by a petty guy Raja (Govinda) acts as a hitch to the earnings of the hotel. Hilarity starts henceforth, when every ploy used by Singhania to dislodge Raja's dhaba ends in a smoke. Singhania's daughter Kiran (Raveena Tandon) is in love with a man named Rahul (Mohnish Behl). Rahul is financially aided by a confederate Bishambar Nath (Prem Chopra). At the same time, Raja develops a fascination for Kiran. Raja, who is already a thorn by Singhania's side, proclaims his love for Kiran before Singhania. He persistently begs Singhania for Kiran's hand only to be refused by Singhania. However, Singhania knows that Rahul is a rogue whose pursuit is to lure young women and later abandon them after exploiting their wealth. So he warns Kiran not to marry Rahul. After a strife between Singhania and Kiran, the former says that Kiran is allowed to marry any man, be he a destitute or Singhania's enemy, without his refusal but Rahul. One day, Raja knocks down the top floor of Singhania's hotel after Singhania tries to demolish his dhaba using a municipality bulldozer. Enraged at this, Singhania vehemently declares Raja as his greatest enemy. Kiran overhears this, and decides to thwart her father's decision that Kiran is allowed to marry any man, be he a destitute or Singhania's enemy but Rahul. She starts a mendacious love affair with Raja gaining the latter's affection. The story takes a turn when Kiran dumps Raja and declares Rahul as her ultimate man. She departs for Rahul's home, and Rahul finds it a great opportunity to acquire Singhania's entire wealth as his daughter is now in his custody. He assaults Kiran, confines her in his home and demands Singhania by phone his entire wealth and property as a pay-off for his daughter's life. Raja learns about Rahul's vicious plan and decides to rescue Kiran. He arrives at Rahul's house and hoodwinks him and his accomplices that they become hostile at one another. He beats up Rahul when Singhania arrives with some legal documents, apparently to transfer his entire wealth to Bishambar. Delighted at attaining Singhania's entire assets, Bishambar signs the papers without reading them, but later finds that they are not the property papers as he expected, but his confession of kidnapping Kiran and threatening her life. The papers further state his desire for his cloths and other belongings to be seized by his men forcibly. His men snatch away his possessions when police arrives and arrests Rahul, Bishambar and their associates. In the final scene, Singhania, Kiran and Raja unite. Music. A well known track of the movie is "Ankhiyon Se Goli Maare", featuring Govinda and Raveena Tandon, with upbeat lyrics and euphonious music by Anand-Milind. The song was wonderfully choreographed. A similar other track from the movie is "Suno Sasurjee Ab Zidd Chhodo". The lyrics were created by Sameer. Reception. One song from the movie, "Kahan Raja Bhoj, Kahan Gangu Teli", provoked protests from a Nagpur-based organisation, the Vidarbha Teli Samaj Mahasangh, on the grounds that it offended the members of their community; they wrote a letter of protest to then-Chief Minister Manohar Joshi, condemning the approval given by the state government to the song and calling for it to be banned. Another song, "Ankhiyon Se Goli Maare", would later become the inspiration for a film of the same name by director Harmesh Maholtra. Trivia. 1. During the 90s, the Govinda—director David Dhawan collaboration yielded many superhit comedy movies. Contrary to the customary notion, 'Dulhe Raja' — an entirely comedy film released in 1998, was directed by Harmesh Malhotra, who had to his credit movies like Nagina (1986), Paappi Devataa (1995), Kismat (1995) etc. 2. Johnny Lever received the Filmfare Best Comedian Award in 1999 for the movie. 3. A song from the movie- Ankhiyon Se Goli Maare, would later become the inspiration for a film of the same name by director Harmesh Maholtra.
1102585	In mathematics, the discrete Fourier transform (DFT) converts a finite list of equally spaced samples of a function into the list of coefficients of a finite combination of complex sinusoids, ordered by their frequencies, that has those same sample values. It can be said to convert the sampled function from its original domain (often time or position along a line) to the frequency domain. The input samples are complex numbers (in practice, usually real numbers), and the output coefficients are complex as well. The frequencies of the output sinusoids are integer multiples of a fundamental frequency, whose corresponding period is the length of the sampling interval. The combination of sinusoids obtained through the DFT is therefore periodic with that same period. The DFT differs from the discrete-time Fourier transform (DTFT) in that its input and output sequences are both finite; it is therefore said to be the Fourier analysis of finite-domain (or periodic) discrete-time functions.
1018521	Leonardo Nam (born in Buenos Aires, November 1979) is an Argentine Australian actor of Korean origin. Early life. Nam was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, of Korean descent. At the age of 8, he moved to Sydney, Australia. Nam attended Sydney Technical High School and studied architecture at the University of New South Wales. Nam left Sydney to follow his dreams of an acting career in New York City, United States at the age of 19. He studied with several acting teachers in New York, namely Austin Pendleton and William Carden at HB Studios. His brother is a choreographer, and his sister is a teacher; they both live in the United Kingdom. Acting career. Before his Hollywood success, he struggled to make ends meet by working at Lotus Bar in the Meatpacking District of New York and acted in Georgia Lee's Educated with Fay Ann Lee. His breakthrough role came in his performance of Roy in "The Perfect Score" (2004). He had a small role in the 2005 film "The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants" as Brian McBrian, a hardcore gamer. He then played a larger role in "The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2" as Tibby's boyfriend. He also made an appearance in "" (2006) as Morimoto.
1057436	Aaron Norris (born November 23, 1951 in Gardena, California) is an American film producer, director, and actor. He is the younger brother of Chuck Norris (born March 10, 1940), actor, and Wieland Clyde Norris (1943–1970). During the Vietnam war, both Aaron and his older brother Wieland enlisted in the United States Army. Wieland was killed in action in Vietnam in 1970. Aaron and Chuck went on to Hollywood fame. Film work. Norris began his career in the movies as an uncredited stunt man, then moved on to acting in small roles in films such as "Good Guys Wear Black" (1978), "A Force of One" (1979), "The Octagon" (1980) and "Lone Wolf McQuade" (1983). In the mid-1980s he began writing and directing. He has directed and produced many films. His credits include ', "Platoon Leader", ', "The Hitman", "Hellbound", "Top Dog", "Sidekicks" and was the executive producer of 168 television episodes of "Walker, Texas Ranger". In 2005, Norris produced and acted in the film, "The Cutter". In 2009, he produced the Sony/Screen Gems film, "Not Easily Broken", and currently is the "president of development and production" of ALN, formerly "The American Life Network". Personal. He currently holds a ninth-degree black belt in Chun Kuk Do, a martial art created by his brother Chuck Norris. On December 2, 2010, he (along with brother Chuck) was given the title honorary Texas Ranger by Texas Governor Rick Perry
724812	David Steven Call (born August 14, 1982), is an American film and television actor Personal life. He is a graduate student of NYU Tisch School of the Arts and the Atlantic Theater Company Acting School. Acting career. David was first seen in the film "The Notorious Bettie Page". He was next in the Matt Tauber film "The Architect" distributed by Magnolia Pictures. He was next seen in the film "Beautiful Ohio" with William Hurt and Michelle Trachtenberg. In 2007 he was in the television movie "Fort Pit" and the film "Evening". He guest starred in "" as Ricky Moss in the episode "Neighborhood Watch", and he appeared in "Army Wives". In 2009 appeared in five episodes of the drama series "Rescue Me" as the adult Connor Gaven. He also joined the cast of NBC's medical drama "Mercy". He got a supporting role in the 2009 film "Did You Hear About the Morgans?" starring Sarah Jessica Parker and Hugh Grant. He appeared in the independent films "Two Gates of Sleep" and "Tiny Furniture". In July 2010 he joined the cast of CW young-adult teen drama series "Gossip Girl" as Ben Donovan, a new character who apparently knows about the two new characters Juliet Sharp portrayed by Katie Cassidy and Colin Forrester portrayed by Sam Page . His role is expected to recur more over in whole season. He portrays the recurring role of Nick Lane, on the FOX science-fiction series "Fringe". The character made his first appearance in the first season episode "Bad Dreams", which was critically lauded. In 2013, he appeared on the NBC drama series Smash as Adam, Jimmy Collins's older brother.
1660201	Elaine Devry (born January 10, 1930) is an American actress. Career. Devry appeared in a number of films including "A Guide for the Married Man". She was formerly married to actor Mickey Rooney. She was billed as Elaine Davis in her early acting roles, including her first film, "The Atomic Kid", in which she and Rooney co-starred. Devry made three guest appearances on "Perry Mason", including the title role of defendant Janice Wainwright in the 1962 episode, "The Case of the Shapely Shadow." She also appeared in many other popular television series, including "Bonanza", "77 Sunset Strip", "Burke's Law", "Family Affair", "I Dream of Jeannie" and "Marcus Welby, M.D.".
1059443	Lindsay Ann Crouse (born May 12, 1948) is an American actress. Early life. Crouse was born in New York City, the daughter of Anna (née Erskine) and Russel Crouse, a playwright. Her maternal grandparents were Pauline (Ives) and author and educator John Erskine. Her full name—Lindsay Ann Crouse—is an intentional tribute to the Broadway writing partnership of Lindsay and Crouse. Her father and his writing partner, Howard Lindsay, wrote much of "The Sound of Music". Their 1946 play "State of the Union" won that year's Pulitzer Prize for Drama. Their last collaboration was "Mr. President" in 1962. "In our family, the work ethic was held up as some kind of byword," Crouse says. "At any hour, somebody's typewriter was going." Acting career. After graduating from Radcliffe College in 1970, Crouse began her performing career as a modern and jazz dancer but she soon switched to acting and made her broadway debut in "Much Ado About Nothing" in 1972. Crouse's film career began in 1976, with small roles in television and theatrical movies. In 1977 she appeared as Lily Braden, the discontented wife of hockey player Ned Braden, in the comedy classic "Slap Shot". Crouse was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her role in the 1984 movie "Places in the Heart". Among her films was a starring role in "House of Games", the 1987 film directed and written by her then-husband David Mamet in which she plays Margaret Ford, a psychiatrist who is intrigued by the art of the con. "It's always hard to be directed by someone who's close to you," Crouse says. "Because everybody needs to go home and complain about the director. Everybody." Crouse has appeared in featured and guest roles in a number of television series. Notable roles include a recurring portrayal of Kate McBride, a lesbian police officer on "Hill Street Blues" during its sixth season in 1986, one of the earliest appearances of a lesbian character in a major American TV show. Crouse is also known for her role in the fourth season of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer", where she was a recurring supporting cast member playing Professor Maggie Walsh. Crouse has also guest-starred on "Alias", "", "Columbo", "Criminal Minds", "Law & Order", "ER", "Millennium", and "NYPD Blue". In recent years, Crouse has concentrated on the theater. "Once you get your driver's license, you end your film career," says Crouse. "Look at my generation. Great actresses like Glenn Close and Susan Sarandon—there's nothing written for anyone over a certain age." In 2007 Crouse opened a revival of "The Belle of Amherst", a one woman show about the life of poet Emily Dickinson, at the Gloucester Stage in Gloucester, Massachusetts. "You can't stop and recite something," says Crouse. "You have to keep the poetry very, very active, which is pretty easy with Dickinson. She was striving so hard to understand what life was about. It's very dramatic poetry in that way. Crouse appeared in Lee Blessing's "Going to St. Ives" with the Gloucester Stage Company during the summer of 2008 and provided the narration for "Virginia Lee Burton: A Sense of Place", a documentary film about Virginia Lee Burton. Personal life. Crouse married playwright David Mamet in 1977. Crouse caught Mamet's eye in the hockey classic "Slap Shot". When he heard she had a part in his play "Reunion" at the Yale Repertory Theater, Mamet packed a bag and told a friend, "I'm going to New Haven to marry Lindsay Crouse." When the two did indeed wed, Crouse's mother took her aside and told her what Oscar Hammerstein had told her when she married Russel Crouse: "A playwright's wife is the only woman who knows how her husband feels when she's having a baby." John Lahr writes in his book "Show and Tell: New Yorker Profiles" that when Mamet married Crouse in 1978, he "married into show business aristocracy." Lahr also writes that Mamet got his first screenwriting assignment through Crouse. Crouse was on her way to audition for Bob Rafelson's 1981 remake of "The Postman Always Rings Twice" and Mamet told Crouse to tell Rafelson that "he was a fool if he didn't hire me to write the screenplay." Although Mamet was joking, Crouse did it and Rafelson called Mamet and asked Mamet why he should hire him for the screenplay. "Because I'll give you a good screenplay or a sincere apology," said Mamet. Mamet got the job. Crouse and Mamet have two daughters, Willa and Zosia. They divorced in 1990. Crouse is now married to Rick Blue, a television director and editor. Crouse's brother is Timothy Crouse, author of "The Boys on the Bus" about political journalism during the 1972 presidential campaign. Timothy Crouse also co-authored a new libretto for the musical "Anything Goes" with John Weidman that opened at the Vivian Beaumont Theater on Broadway on October 19, 1987, and ran for 784 performances. Buddhist beliefs. Crouse is a Buddhist and a direct student of Ven. Sumati Marut. In 2005 she organized an annual Buddhist educational program, originally held at the Windhover Center for the Performing Arts in Rockport, Massachusetts and then in 2010 moved to The Governor's Academy in Byfield, Massachusetts. "is not an exclusive club. It has something to offer everyone at all levels," says Crouse. "Buddhism is dynamic and has captured the interests of Americans. Even our quantum physics validate[s ideas the Buddha taught 2,500 years ago." Audio downloads of Lindsay Crouse's Buddhist teachings are available online at the Asian Classics Institute of Los Angeles and at The Path.
1060289	Knocked Up is a 2007 American romantic comedy drama film co-produced, written, and directed by Judd Apatow. Starring Seth Rogen, Katherine Heigl, Paul Rudd, and Leslie Mann. The film follows the repercussions of a drunken one-night stand between Rogen's slacker character and Heigl's just-promoted media personality that results in an unintended pregnancy. A spin-off sequel, "This Is 40", was released in 2012. Plot. Ben Stone (Seth Rogen) is laid-back and sardonic. He lives off funds received in compensation for an injury and sporadically works on a celebrity porn website with his roommates, in between smoking marijuana or going off with them at theme parks such as Knott's Berry Farm. Alison Scott (Katherine Heigl) is a career-minded woman who has just been given an on-air role with E! and is living in the pool house with her sister Debbie's (Leslie Mann) family. While celebrating her promotion, Alison meets Ben at a local nightclub. After a night of drinking, they end up having sex. Due to a misunderstanding, they do not use protection: Alison uses the phrase "Just do it already" to encourage Ben to put the condom on, but he misinterprets this to mean to dispense with using one. The following morning, they quickly learn over breakfast that they have little in common and go their separate ways, which leaves Ben visibly upset.
1062615	The Fabulous Baker Boys is a 1989 American romantic comedy drama musical film written and directed by Steve Kloves, and starring real life brothers Jeff Bridges and Beau Bridges as two brothers struggling to make a living as lounge jazz pianists in Seattle. In desperation, they take on a female singer, Michelle Pfeiffer, who revitalizes their careers, causing the brothers to re-examine their relationship with each other and with their music. It was nominated for Academy Awards for Best Actress in a Leading Role (Michelle Pfeiffer), Best Cinematography, Best Film Editing and Best Music, Original Score. Film critic Roger Ebert described this film as "one of the movies they will use as a document, years from now, when they begin to trace the steps by which Pfeiffer became a great star." Plot. The Fabulous Baker Boys, Jack (Jeff Bridges) and Frank (Beau Bridges), are brothers living in Seattle, making a living playing in lounges and music bars, their gimmick being that they play intricate jazz and pop-flavored duets on matching grand pianos. Frank handles the business aspect while Jack, single, attractive, and more talented as a player, feels disillusioned and bored with the often hackneyed material they play. He is, nonetheless, able to live a comfortable and responsibility-free existence because of Frank's management, sleeping where and with whom he pleases. Frank has a wife and family he adores, but Jack has no personal connections in his private life, other than Eddie, his soulful but aging Black Labrador, and Nina, the lonely child of a single mom living in his building, who walks Eddie and takes piano lessons from Jack. In all other respects, professionally and personally, Jack's life is a series of empty one-night stands. Now and again, he plays the challenging music he really cares about at a local jazz club. Concerned over the way they keep losing gigs, the Baker Boys hold auditions for a female singer to join the outfit, ending up with the beautiful but eccentric Susie Diamond (Michelle Pfeiffer), a former escort with unusual charisma, a sultry singing voice, and emotional baggage she keeps well hidden most of the time. She's late for the audition, cockily irreverent of their professional reputation, and ticks Frank off by saying she's got an intuition he'll hire her anyway—but overcomes his reservations with her impassioned performance of "More Than You Know", with Jack accompanying her, clearly more impressed with Susie's singing (and Susie herself) than he wants to admit. After a rocky start, the new act becomes unexpectedly successful, leading to bigger gigs and better money, but Frank is worried that Jack will ruin it by sleeping with Susie, having noted the growing attraction between the two, and being all too well aware of his brother's effect on the opposite sex. Jack and Susie circle each other warily from gig to gig, neither wanting to make the first move. In the meantime, the normally cool and emotionally distant Jack has a stark revelation of how fragile his world really is when Eddie has to spend the night at an animal hospital. He needs to have several teeth removed, a procedure that could easily kill the elderly dog, who is, Jack suddenly realizes, his only real friend in the world. The now sought-after trio (and Eddie, still recovering from surgery) head out of town to play an extended engagement at a grand old-style hotel. Frank has to leave suddenly, when one of his kids has a minor accident. Without him to act as chaperone, Susie and Jack give in to their feelings after playing a sizzling duet of "Makin' Whoopee" at the hotel's New Year's Eve celebration. Before they have sex, Susie opens up to Jack about her past at the escort service, having sex with clients simply because they were nice to her. She tries to tell him how good a player he is, but he's unwilling to admit his regrets to her. The romance is uneasy and off-kilter from the start, and it doesn't last long. Back in Seattle, there is increasing tension within the act, as Frank senses what has happened between Jack and Susie, and both of them begin to rebel against Frank's creative control, which has them performing crowd-pleasers like "Feelings" every night, instead of the jazz standards they prefer. After she spends the night with Jack at his apartment (leading to an embarrassing encounter with Nina), Susie reveals that she got a lucrative offer from a catfood conventioneer at the hotel to sing jingles for TV, which would mean leaving The Baker Boys. She later takes the job when Jack, wounded she'd even consider going (and thinking about the conventioneers she used to know as an escort), refuses to admit how he feels about her, and acts as if her departure is no big deal. As a parting shot, she tells him he's selling himself on the cheap as much as she ever did as an escort, by working a cheesy lounge act instead of developing his talent as a serious jazz musician. Jack and Frank quarrel over Susie's departure and the increasingly embarrassing gigs Frank has been landing them, and they get into a fight, with Jack nearly breaking Frank's fingers in frustrated rage, then storming off saying he can't pretend anymore. Jack later blows up at Nina, driving her away—but goes after her to apologize—and learns that she's getting a new stepdad, so he won't be such a big part of her life anymore. Now ready to pursue the solo career his loyalty to Frank and delayed maturity had kept on the back burner, Jack goes to Frank's house to mend fences. The brothers finally let each other know how much they care about each other, now that they don't have to work together. Frank accepts Jack's decision to go his own way, and says he'll switch to giving piano lessons at home—in his mind, he was simply helping his brother lead the carefree swinging single life that he secretly envied, and had thought Jack wanted. They reminisce happily about the early days of their act, and play a riotous chorus of "You're Sixteen", knowing now that their connection is unbreakable, no matter what happens. Jack goes to see Susie, who is not enjoying the jingle business much, to let her know he's sorry about the way he behaved, and to subtly but unmistakably communicate that he wants to try again with her. She isn't ready to give him another chance yet, but they part as friends, and Jack tells her he's got an intuition they'll see each other again, echoing her earlier prediction that the brothers would hire her for the act. She walks off to her job, with him watching until she's nearly out of sight. As the credits roll, the soundtrack plays Michelle Pfeiffer and Dave Grusin's interpretation of "My Funny Valentine". Production. Steve Kloves wrote "The Fabulous Baker Boys" after his first script, "Racing with the Moon" (1985), was made into a motion picture. Three years after the screenplay was first acquired for production by Paula Weinstein, the picture was greenlighted by Gladden Entertainment and Twentieth Century Fox with Kloves directing. Jeff Bridges was Kloves's first choice for the role of Jack Baker. "Jeff, for me, is like the old time actors who you never know are acting; he's seamless - you just never see him working at it." Jeff's brother, Beau Bridges, was then shown the script, although he admitted he was a "little reluctant since Jeff had initiated it and I didn't want anyone to feel that big brother had been forced upon them. By the time I'd finished reading the script, however, I would have killed to have done it." According to Kloves, "Beau has the most wonderful knack of making memorable moments out of simple gestures." For the plum role of Susie Diamond, actresses such as Madonna, Debra Winger, Brooke Shields, Jodie Foster and Jennifer Jason Leigh were considered. Madonna was highly critical of the finished picture, calling it "too mushy." The role eventually went to Michelle Pfeiffer. Kloves was quoted as saying that "Michelle is the icing on the cake. Her Susie Diamond is right on the mark--and she is a wonderful singer. Michelle is an actress with unlimited range." Pfeiffer, despite having already sung on screen in her cinematic début, "Grease 2" (1982), was never a professionally-trained singer; she started taking voice lessons two months before filming commenced. Her vocal coach, Sally Stevens, commended her dedication: "She was singing these songs in a very exposed way--no strings or lush orchestrations to hide behind, just a piano. She worked ten hours a day in the studio and then took the tapes home with her to study them." In preparation for the most famous scene, a rendition of 'Makin' Whoopee' atop a grand piano that took six hours to film, Pfeiffer only had one choreography lesson, and wore knee and elbow pads during rehearsals. Composer and jazz pianist Dave Grusin dubbed Jeff Bridges's piano playing, while John F. Hammond dubbed Beau Bridges. Principal photography began on December 5, 1988. Though set in Seattle, Washington, "The Fabulous Baker Boys" was filmed primarily on location in Los Angeles, California. Reception. "The Fabulous Baker Boys" currently holds a rating of 96% on Rotten Tomatoes based on 23 reviews, and holds a 6.7 rating on the Internet Movie Database based on 70 user and 27 critic reviews. The film was released on October 13, 1989, in 858 theaters, grossing USD $3.3 million in its opening weekend, before going on to make $18.4 million, above its $11.5 million budget. Pauline Kael in "The New Yorker" wrote of the film as a "romantic fantasy that has a forties-movie sultriness and an eighties movie-struck melancholy. Put them together and you have a movie in which eighties glamour is being defined." Richard Schickel in "Time" called the film "a Hollywood rarity these days, a true character comedy... The wary way in which she and Jack circle in on a relationship is one of the truest representations of modern romance that the modern screen has offered." Janet Maslin in "The New York Times" described it as a "film specializing in smoky, down-at-the-heels glamour, and in the kind of smart, slangy dialogue that sounds right without necessarily having much to say." Rita Kempley in the "Washington Post" wrote that "Kloves is a nostalgic young man whose passion for Ella Fitzgerald records, film noir and romantic melodrama mesh in this classic directorial début. "The Fabulous Baker Boys" is like a beloved movie from the glory days of Hollywood. It transports you. It's an American rhapsody." "Time Out" wrote that "with more than enough witty, well-observed details, it's a little charmer... understatement is crucial to the script's success." Roger Ebert in the "Chicago Sun-Times" was of the opinion that ""The Fabulous Baker Boys" doesn't do anything very original, but what it does, it does wonderfully well." The look and atmosphere of the film were highly praised. The "New York Times" wrote that the "warm, rich hues of Michael Ballhaus's cinematography contribute immeasurably to the film's invitingly intimate glow." "Time" thought that Steve Kloves and his "fine cinematographer, Michael Ballhaus, have created a gently dislocating noirish mood - not quite menacing but not exactly comfortable either - and let it speak for itself. It is a setting where actors can live and breathe like real people." Desson Howe in the "Washington Post" wrote that "the man who, among many films, shot Rainer Werner Fassbinder's "The Marriage of Maria Braun", Martin Scorsese's "The Last Temptation of Christ", James L. Brooks's "Broadcast News" and Mike Nichols's "Working Girl", gives human skin a peachy glow, frames a seduction scene (involving back-caressing and parted lips) that's the next best thing to being there and, in what amounts to the visual zenith of the movie, paints a champagne-drinking balcony scene with appropriately moonlit intoxication." Michelle Pfeiffer's performance drew rave reviews from almost every critic. The "New York Times" called her "as unexpected a choice for this musical bombshell as Jeff Bridges is for Jack, but, like him, she proves to be electrifyingly right... when Ms. Pfeiffer, draped across Jeff Bridges's piano and setting some new standard for cinematic slinkiness, performs in the above-mentioned New Year's Eve sequence with the camera gliding hypnotically around her, she just plain brings down the house." The "Chicago Sun-Times" wrote of this film as "the movie of her flowering - not just as a beautiful woman, but as an actress with the ability to make you care about her, to make you feel what she feels... Whatever she's doing while she performs that song ['Makin' Whoopee'] isn't merely singing; it's whatever Rita Hayworth did in "Gilda" and Marilyn Monroe did in "Some Like It Hot", and I didn't want her to stop." "The New Yorker" thought that she recalled "the grinning infectiousness of Carole Lombard, the radiance of the very young Lauren Bacall, and Pfeiffer herself in other movies." "Time" described her as "a cat with at least nine dimensions ever aflicker in her eyes." "Variety" wrote that "Pfeiffer hits the nail right on the head. She also hits the spot in the film's certain-to-be-remembered highlight - a version of 'Makin' Whoopee' that she sings while crawling all over a piano in a blazing red dress. She's dynamite." The "Washington Post" described her as "slinky and cynical, more Bacall than Bacall. Like the sun through a magnifying glass, she burns an image on the screen." Jeff Bridges and his brother, Beau Bridges, were also acclaimed for their performances. "Time" thought that "the Bridges boys are better than fabulous in it - Jeff not quite falling over the line into unredeemable cynicism, Beau never succumbing to the pull of moral blandness." "The New Yorker" wrote that "Jeff Bridges has never been as glamorously beyond reach as he is here." The "New York Times" thought that "Beau Bridges also has a chance to shine." The "Washington Post" was of the opinion that "Jeff Bridges, lean, sexy and contemptuous, is more than up to it in this, his best work to date... Beau Bridges, all pudgy and wounded, makes a subtle villain of the fussy, guilt-inflicting Frank." "The Fabulous Baker Boys" was ranked at #12 on "Entertainment Weekly"'s list of the "25 Sexiest Movies Ever". Michelle Pfeiffer's memorable rendition of "Makin' Whoopee", sprawled over a piano in a red evening dress, has been referenced and parodied numerous times, entering pop culture as an iconic image. Homages to this scene have appeared in the film "Hot Shots!", and episodes of "Eureka", "Ellen" and "Animaniacs". Awards and nominations. "The Fabulous Baker Boys" was nominated for four Academy Awards. Michelle Pfeiffer won the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress - Motion Picture Drama, fending off competition from Sally Field, Jessica Lange, Andie MacDowell and Liv Ullmann. She also won numerous critics awards, including the National Board of Review Award for Best Actress, the National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Actress, the New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actress, the Chicago Film Critics Association Award for Best Actress and the Los Angeles Film Critics Association Award for Best Actress. She was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress and the BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role, but lost both to Jessica Tandy in "Driving Miss Daisy" (1989). Dave Grusin's soundtrack won the Grammy Award for Best Album of Original Instrumental Background Score, and was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Score, the BAFTA Award for Best Original Film Score and the Golden Globe Award for Best Original Score - Motion Picture. The film also won the BAFTA Award for Best Sound. Steve Kloves was presented with the Sutherland Trophy by the British Film Institute, and was nominated for a Writers Guild of America Award. Michael Ballhaus was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Cinematography, and won the LAFCA Award for Best Cinematography and the NSFC Award for Best Cinematography. Beau Bridges won the National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Supporting Actor. William Steinkamp was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Film Editing. BBC remake. In July 2010, British actress Eve Myles, star of the "Doctor Who" spin-off "Torchwood", announced that she is about to sign on to appear in a BBC TV Wales remake of "The Fabulous Baker Boys". However the "Baker Boys" show was revealed to be unrelated to the 1989 film.
1016175	King of Beggars is a 1992 Hong Kong martial arts comedy film directed by Gordon Chan, starring Stephen Chow, Sharla Cheung, Ng Man-tat and Norman Tsui. The story is loosely based on legends about the martial artist Su Can (better known as "Beggar So"), who lived in the late Qing Dynasty and was one of the Ten Tigers of Canton. Plot. Set in the Qing Dynasty in China, the film features a fictionalised story of the martial artist So Chan (蘇燦; Mandarin: Su Can), popularly known as "Beggar So" (蘇乞兒), one of the Ten Tigers of Canton. So Chan is the spoiled son of a wealthy general in Canton. Although he is lazy and illiterate, he excels in martial arts. While visiting a brothel, So falls in love with Yu-shang, a courtesan who dares to behave rudely towards him. So vies for Yu-shang's services with Chiu Mo-kei, a high-ranking government official. By outbidding Chiu, So inadvertently foils Yu-shang's attempt to assassinate Chiu to avenge her father, who was murdered by Chiu. Yu-shang agrees to marry So if he can win the title of "Martial Arts Champion" (武狀元). To win Yu-shang's hand-in-marriage, So enters the imperial martial arts contest to win the championship title. So's father helps him cheat his way through the written examination, while his personal expertise in martial arts carries him through the physical tests. So eventually emerges as champion, but just as the emperor is about to grant him the title, Chiu reveals that So is illiterate, proving that he cheated in the written examination. The enraged emperor orders So's family properties and possessions to be confiscated and decrees that they shall remain as beggars for the rest of their lives. So does not adapt well to his new life. He encounters Chiu on the streets and Chiu breaks his legs, preventing him from practising martial arts again. So is introduced by his father to join the Beggars' Sect, but he is ashamed when he finds out that Yu-shang's family actually leads the sect. He spends most of his time sleeping in seclusion. By coincidence, he meets an elderly beggar, whom he helped earlier, and the beggar attempts to cheer him up by healing his wounds and teaching him the "Sleeping Arhat Skill". When Yu-shang is kidnapped by Chiu later, So is shaken out of his delusional state as he wants to save her. He tricks the sect's members into electing him as their new chief, by pretending that he is possessed by the spirit of Hung Tsat-kung. Using his improved literacy, he reads the sect's ancient martial arts manual and learns seventeen of the "Eighteen Dragon Subduing Palms" (降龍十八掌), while the last style is not shown in the book. Meanwhile, Chiu puts Yu-shang into a magical trance and attempts to use her as a puppet to assassinate the emperor and start a rebellion. So leads his beggar followers across to Great Wall of China to stop Chiu and they engage Chiu's forces while So saves Yu-shang in the nick of time. So uses all the skills he had learnt to fight Chiu, but they prove insufficient to completely defeat Chiu. When Chiu conjures a windstorm, So's manual falls out and forms a flip book which animates the first seventeen of the "Eighteen Dragon Subduing Palms". So suddenly realises that the final stance is a combination of the seventeen palms and he uses it to destroy Chiu and save the emperor. In the final scenes, Yu-shang agrees to marry So, and the grateful emperor asks So what reward he desires. So chooses to remain as a beggar king and the emperor expresses worries about So wielding much influence over the masses. So reminds him that as long as the people are cared for, there will be not enough beggars to pose a threat to the emperor. Before the film ends, So and Yu-shang are seen wandering the streets with their large family, using an imperial tablet to force rich people to give them money. Music. The film's theme song, "Cheung-lo Man-man Bun-nei Chong" (長路漫漫伴你闖; "The Long Road Accompanies You On Your Adventure"), was sung by George Lam in Cantonese.
1064014	Zachary David Alexander "Zac" Efron (born October 18, 1987) is an American actor and singer. He began acting professionally in the early 2000s, and became known as a teen idol after his lead roles in the Disney Channel Original Movie "High School Musical", the WB series "Summerland", and the 2007 film version of the Broadway musical "Hairspray". Efron has since starred in the films "17 Again", "Me and Orson Welles", "Charlie St. Cloud", "New Year's Eve", "The Lucky One", and "The Lorax" (voice only). Early life and education. Efron was born in San Luis Obispo, California, and later moved to Arroyo Grande, California. His father, David Efron, is an electrical engineer at a power station, and his mother, Starla Baskett, is a secretary who worked at the same power plant. Efron has a younger brother, Dylan, and had, as he has described it, a "normal childhood" in a middle-class family. He is an agnostic, having never been religious. His surname, "Efron" (עפרון), means "lark" in Hebrew (his paternal grandfather was Jewish). Efron has said that he would "flip out" if he got a "B" and not an "A" in school, and has also described himself as having been a class clown. His father encouraged him to begin acting when Zac was eleven years old. Efron subsequently appeared in theater productions at his high school, worked in the theater The Great American Melodrama and Vaudeville, and began taking singing lessons. He performed in shows such as ""; "Peter Pan; or, The Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up"; "Little Shop of Horrors"; and "The Music Man". He was recommended to an agent in Los Angeles by his drama teacher, Robyn Metchik (the mother of actors Aaron Michael Metchik and Asher Metchik). Efron was later signed to the Creative Artists Agency. Efron graduated from Arroyo Grande High School in 2006 and was then accepted into the University of Southern California, but has deferred his enrollment to work on film projects. He also attended Pacific Conservatory of the Performing Arts, a community college located in Santa Maria, California, which provided him with the opportunity to perform as a "young player" during the years of 2000 and 2001. Career. Early work. In 2002, Efron began to appear in guest roles on several television series, including "Firefly", "ER", and "The Guardian". He portrayed Cameron Bale on the now-cancelled WB series "Summerland". Originally introduced as a recurring character, Efron became a regular cast member on the show in the second season in 2004, starring opposite the likes of Kay Panabaker, Lori Loughlin and Jesse McCartney. Since appearing in "Summerland", he has also had guest roles on the shows "", "NCIS", "The Suite Life of Zack & Cody" and "The Replacements". In 2003, Efron starred in the Lifetime original television movie "Miracle Run". He played Steven Morgan, one of two autistic twins. For his performance, he was nominated for a Young Artist Award for Best Performance in a TV Movie, Mini-series or Special — Supporting Young Actor. In 2005, he played a main character in Hope Partlow's music video for her song "Sick Inside." Also in 2005, he played horse-loving Patrick McCardle in "The Derby Stallion", where his character wants to beat the town bully at the steeple chase race. Breakthrough. In 2006, Efron starred in the Disney Channel original movie "High School Musical" as Troy Bolton, a popular student and captain of the basketball team. The film, which he initially made with "low expectations", helped Efron gain recognition among teenage audiences as both an actor and a singer, even though his singing voice was overdubbed. As a result, he placed as high as #4 on the IMDBPro's STARMeter for the week of January 29, 2006. In August 2006, Efron won a Teen Choice Award in the Breakout Star and the TV — Choice Chemistry categories, shared with Vanessa Hudgens. The film's cast, along with Efron, toured Sydney, Australia, London, England, and other locations to promote the film. Shortly after "High School Musical" aired, on February 4, 2006, Efron debuted with two simultaneous charted songs on Billboard Hot 100 from the film: "Get'cha Head in the Game" and "Breaking Free", a duet with Hudgens. On the following week's chart, Efron had five simultaneous song credits from "High School Musical": "Get'cha Head in the Game", "Start of Something New", "What I've Been Looking For: Reprise", "We're All in This Together" and "Breaking Free." "We're All in This Together" was credited to the whole "High School Musical" cast. "Breaking Free", at the time, made the fastest climb in the history of the Billboard charts, from #86 to #4 between the two weeks; the record was beaten by Beyoncé and Shakira's "Beautiful Liar". Efron also appeared in the 2006 "Disney Channel Games", as captain of the Red Team. Efron's singing talents were disputed when it was revealed that Drew Seeley's voice was blended with his on the soundtrack of "High School Musical". An August 23, 2007 interview in "Rolling Stone" magazine revealed that he had been cast in "High School Musical" after the songs were written, and the songs (written for a tenor) were somewhat out of his baritone vocal range. 2007–present. On April 7, 2007, Efron appeared in an episode of "Punk'd". Efron also starred in the music video for Vanessa Hudgens's single "Say OK", in which he played her love interest. The video aired on March 16, 2007 on the Disney Channel. That year, he was named one of "People" magazine's 100 Most Beautiful People in 2007. A picture and short profile of him was in the section "Coming of Age". In it, he related how he was always the shortest kid in school (as of August 2007, he was 5'8") and was teased for the "huge gap" in his teeth. In 2006, Efron was cast as Link Larkin in a film version of "Hairspray" released on July 20, 2007. Efron performed all of his own vocals in the role, which was filmed in Toronto, Ontario, from September 5 to December 2, 2006. He cut and dyed his hair dark brown and gained about 15 pounds for the role. His performance and the film received positive reviews. Efron was not able to perform with his fellow castmates in "" because of commitments on the film "Hairspray". Drew Seeley took over for him. "High School Musical 2" aired in August 2007. At the time, Lycos reported searches for Efron surged by 81%. The film set a new record, becoming the most watched basic cable program in U.S. history, with 17.2 million viewers. Efron also appeared on the cover of the August 2007 edition of "Rolling Stone". The article about him revealed that he hoped to someday play an action hero. Efron presented the 2007 Teen Choice Award for "Favorite Movie" along with Queen Latifah, and later that year, he co-hosted the Nickelodeon Australian Kids' Choice Awards with The Veronicas on October 10 in Sydney. In early 2008, Efron was cast in the lead role in the film "Me and Orson Welles". Based on Robert Kaplow's novel of the same name, the story, set in 1937 New York, tells of a teenager hired to star in Orson Welles' production of "Julius Caesar", where he becomes attracted to a career-driven production assistant. The film was shot in the Isle of Man, London and New York, during February — April 2008. It was introduced to North America via the Toronto Film Festival on September 5, 6, and 11, 2008 and was released in 2009. Efron was also scheduled to star in Paramount's musical remake of the film "Footloose", and has said that he would like to add his "own little bit of flair" to the role originated by Kevin Bacon. In March 2009, he dropped out of the film. Efron was quoted as saying that while it was a promising gig, he left the project because he "was looking for a new challenge, and this was another musical." Efron reprised his role in "", which was theatrically released on October 24, 2008. His next role was in 2009's "17 Again", a high school-set comedy-drama produced by Adam Shankman and based on a pitch by Jason Filardi; the plot involved an adult who is transformed into a 17-year old (played by Efron). On April 8, 2009, Efron's participation in a comedic short video entitled "Zac Efron's Pool Party" for the website Funny Or Die was released for public viewing. On April 11, 2009, Efron hosted an episode of "Saturday Night Live". In early June 2009 it was confirmed that Efron would be making a guest appearance during the sixth season of HBO's comedy series "Entourage". Efron starred in a series of advertisements, along with Kristen Bell and Sean Combs, promoting the 2010 MTV Movie Awards and the host, Aziz Ansari. In 2009, he signed on to play title character in the movie "Charlie St. Cloud". The film was released on July 30, 2010. Efron was second on "People"s 2011 Most Beautiful list. That year, he appeared in Garry Marshall's "New Year's Eve", which did well at the box-office, despite receiving many negative reviews from critics. In 2012, he voiced Teg Wiggins in "The Lorax" and starred in "The Lucky One", a film adaptation of Nicholas Sparks' novel of the same name. The same year, he also appeared in three independent films: he played leading roles in "The Paperboy", alongside Nicole Kidman and John Cusack, and "At Any Price", with Dennis Quaid, and had a supporting part in director Josh Radnor's "Liberal Arts". Upcoming roles. Efron will star in two comedies, "Neighbors" (with Seth Rogen) and "Are We Officially Dating?" (alongside Miles Teller). At various points, Efron's potential projects included the title role in the live-action adaptation of the "Jonny Quest" cartoons, "This Is Where I Leave You", an adaptation of Jonathan Tropper's comic novel, "Einstein Theory", an adaptation of "Fire", by Image Comics, and the American remake of Swedish crime film "Easy Money". Personal life. Efron was on the Forbes Celebrity 100 list in 2008 as number 92, with estimated earnings of $5.8 million from June 2007 to June 2008. As of April 5, 2009, his personal wealth equaled about $10 million. "People" magazine said in 2007 that Efron and Vanessa Hudgens began dating in 2005 during the filming of "High School Musical", although "Us" magazine said, after the two broke up in December 2010, that they "met in 2005 while making the first "High School Musical" flick, and became a romantic item about two years later."
1061017	Eyes Wide Shut is a 1999 British-American drama film based upon Arthur Schnitzler's 1926 novella "Dream Story". The film was directed, produced, and co-written by Stanley Kubrick. It was his final film, as he died five days after showing Warner Bros. his final cut. The story, set in and around New York City, follows the sexually charged adventures of Dr. Bill Harford, who is shocked when his wife, Alice, reveals that she had contemplated an affair a year earlier. He embarks on a night-long adventure, during which he infiltrates a massive masked orgy of an unnamed secret society. Kubrick obtained the filming rights for "Dream Story" in the 1960s, considering it a perfect novel to adapt on a film about sexual relations. The project was only revived in the 1990s, when the director hired writer Frederic Raphael to help him with the adaptation. The film was wholly shot in the United Kingdom, including a recreation of Greenwich Village at Pinewood Studios, and had a long production, which holds the Guinness World Record for the longest constant film shoot at 400 days. "Eyes Wide Shut" was released on July 16, 1999, a few months following Kubrick's death, to positive critical reaction and intakes of $162 million at the worldwide box office. Its strong sexual content also made it controversial; to ensure a theatrical R rating in the United States, its distributor Warner Bros. digitally altered several scenes during post-production. The uncut version has since been released on DVD. Plot. Dr. Bill Harford and his wife, Alice, a young couple from New York, go to a Christmas party given by a wealthy patient, Victor Ziegler. Bill meets an old friend from medical school, Nick Nightingale, who now plays piano professionally. While a Hungarian man tries to pick up Alice, two young models try to take Bill off for a tryst. He is interrupted by a call from his host upstairs, who had been having sex with Mandy, a young woman who has overdosed on a speedball. The next evening at home, while smoking marijuana, Bill's wife asks him if he had sex with the two girls. After Bill reassures her, she asks if he is ever jealous of men who are attracted to her. As the discussion gets heated, he states that he thinks women are more faithful than men. She rebuts him, telling him of a recent fantasy she had about a naval officer they had encountered on a vacation. Disturbed by Alice's revelation, Bill is just then called to the deathbed of the father of a now-engaged female friend, Marion Nathanson, who impulsively kisses him and says she loves him. Putting her off, Bill takes a walk. He meets a prostitute named Domino and goes to her apartment.
1068155	Zombie Strippers is a 2008 American zombie comedy film written and directed by Jay Lee, starring Robert Englund, Jenna Jameson, and Tito Ortiz and distributed by Sony Pictures Home Entertainment. The film is loosely based on Eugène Ionesco's classic play "Rhinoceros". Plot. This movie opens with a news montage explaining that it is set in a dystopic near-future in which George W. Bush has been elected to a fourth term. The United States Congress has been disbanded; public nudity is banned; the United States is embroiled in wars with France, Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan, Syria, Venezuela, Canada, and Alaska. With more wars than there are soldiers to fight them, a secret laboratory run by Dr. Chushfeld (Brad Milne) in fictional Sartre, Nebraska, has developed a virus to re-animate dead Marines and send them back into battle. However, this virus has broken containment and infected test subjects and scientists, and they are at risk of escaping the lab. A team of Marines codenamed the "Z" Squad is sent in to destroy the zombies. One of the Marines named Byrdflough (Zak Kilberg) is bitten but escapes. He ends up in an alley outside an underground strip club named "Rhino". The Marine dies and awakens as a zombie who goes into the strip club. "Rhino" is run by Ian Essko (Robert Englund). A new stripper named Jessy (Jennifer Holland) has arrived at the club to save up enough money for her grandmother's operation. She is introduced to the club's star dancer, Kat (Jenna Jameson). Kat begins her dance on the stage, but is attacked by Byrdflough. Essko is concerned about losing his best dancer, so he lets her go back on stage as a zombie. To everyone's surprise, Kat is a better and more popular dancer as a zombie than she was as a human. The other strippers now find themselves faced with the prospect of losing their customers, as the customers prefer zombie strippers to human strippers. One by one, the human strippers become zombies, some by choice in order to compete or (in the case of Gothic rock stripper, Lillith) for fun. During private dances, the zombie strippers bite and kill their customers. Essko tries to keep the zombies hidden in a cage in the club's cellar, but eventually, the zombies escape and overrun the club. Kat and the underrated stripper Jeanni (Shamron Moore) fight for supremacy. The remaining humans in the club struggle to survive until the "Z" Squad burst in to destroy the zombies. But they discover that the zombies were allowed to escape by the Bush Administration, in the hopes that the ensuing zombie plague would distract Americans from their gross mishandling of the war effort and the economy. Critical reception. "Zombie Strippers" has received mixed reviews. As of August 20, 2008, the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reported that 41% of critics gave the movie positive reviews, based on 51 reviews. Metacritic reported that this movie had an average score of 45 out of 100, based on 14 reviews. It has been criticised as having poor production values, and poor execution, while recognizing its intentionally camp style and its attempt as a satire. Richard Roeper of Ebert & Roeper stated, "It looks terrible. It doesn't work as camp. It doesn't work as low budget crap", Dennis Harvey of Variety Magazine also called it a "one-joke pic". In contrast, Michael Rechtshaffen of the Hollywood Reporter thought that there was something "perversely affecting" about this movie, despite its "lame political satire". And low brow film specialists Popcorn Pictures said that "Zombie Strippers is one of those films that every self-respecting horror fan has to see simply for the absurdity of it all. I can’t recommend you watch it because on most professional levels, the film is shocking. But it’s ZOMBIE STRIPPERS for crying out loud! What more do you want?"
1054767	Going in Style is a 1979 caper film written and directed by Martin Brest. It stars George Burns, Art Carney, Lee Strasberg and Charles Hallahan. The casino scenes were shot at the Aladdin Hotel & Casino on the Las Vegas Strip. Plot synopsis. Joe (George Burns), Al (Art Carney), and Willie (Lee Strasberg) are three senior citizens who share a small apartment in Brooklyn, New York City. They live off social security checks and spend their summer days sitting on a park bench, reading newspapers, feeding pigeons, and fending off obnoxious children. It is a dull life, and finally Joe is driven to suggest something radical to break the monotony. After their monthly visits to their local bank to deposit or cash their monthly social security checks, Joe privately suggests afterwords: "why not go on a stick-up?" None of them has a criminal history (though Joe claims he "did some stealing during the war"), but just planning the bank robbery fills them with energy and optimism. After they agree on a bank to rob in nearby Manhattan, Al surreptitiously borrows some pistols from the gun collection of his nephew, Pete (Charles Hallahan) who lives with his wife and children a few miles away. During Al's visit, Pete tells him that he wants to open his own furniture store, but the problem with his home's utility bills and mortgage hinders his expectations. Al hopes to use the bank loot to give to Peter and help him out financially. A few days later, the trio, disguised with novelty Groucho Marx-style glasses, pulls off their heist, despite some complications, to the tune of USD$35,000 dollars. Unfortunately, the excitement is too much for Willie, who suffers a fatal heart attack the same day. At his funeral, Joe and Al decide to give the bulk of the money ($25,000) to Pete and his family by telling them that it's a life insurance policy that Willie left them. Joe and Al decide to splurge the rest on a whirlwind excursion to Las Vegas. Joe and Al depart for Las Vegas that afternoon after Willie's funeral where they check into a fancy hotel and decide to go gambling in the hotel's casino with them playing at a craps table. Expecting to lose about half of the money, they find beginners luck as they win more money totaling over $70,000. Joe notices several casino pit bosses angrily looking at them over their winnings which prompts him to force Al to stop gambling and retire to their room for the night. When Joe becomes worried that the pit bosses will come after them for their winnings, he forces Al to check themselves out of the hotel and they catch the first plane back to New York City, neither of them spending the night. Joe and Al arrive back at their apartment the next morning, both very tired but very happy. Joe wakes up a little later and when he turns on the radio for the afternoon news, he hears that their eccentric robbery has become a colorful story for the media and the police announce that they are closing in on the "careless amateur criminals". Worried that the police might indeed be closing in on them, Joe tries to wake up Al, but soon sees that Al has died in his sleep, leaving Joe by himself. Joe takes all the cash making up of both the bank robbery loot and the Vegas winnings (totaling a little over $107,000) to Pete's house where Joe confides in him about the bank robbery and the Las Vegas excursion, and of Al's death. Joe tells the distraught Pete to hide the cash and not to confide in anyone about it regardless of what will happen. The next day, on his way to Al's funeral, Joe is arrested by the police... just like Joe was expecting them to. At a police station, Joe confesses to the bank robbery but stubbornly refuses to tells the authorities or an FBI agent where he had hidden the stolen cash. In the final scene, Pete visits Joe in the state prison and says he'll find a way to legally free him, but Joe tells Pete not to bother. Joe explains that for years he felt like he was living in prison due to his dull life. Despite being incarcerated, Joe claims that he no longer has to cook or clean for himself, he gets three square meals a day, and generally is getting "treated like a king around here", due to the police hoping he'll reveal where the stolen money is. Joe tells Pete not to visit him again and to "enjoy his inheritance". In the final shot, as Joe is being escorted back to his cell by a guard, he looks mischievously at Pete and says with a wiry smile: "Besides, no tin-horn joint like this could ever hold me!" Response. The film opened to good reviews and helped launch Martin Brest into film. After this film, he went on to make comedy films that dealt with cops, criminals, and some unusual ongoings between them. Most of what he would make would be crime stories with funny twists and characters: among the films he did were the original "Beverly Hills Cop" and "Midnight Run". The one film that Brest did which was mainstream was the comedy-drama "Scent of a Woman", which earned Al Pacino an Oscar for Best Actor. Brest's debut with this film marked the only appearance together of George Burns, Art Carney and
1057788	The Big Red One is a World War II war film starring Lee Marvin and Mark Hamill, released in 1980. It was written and directed by Samuel Fuller. It was heavily cut on its original release, but a restored version, "The Big Red One: The Reconstruction", was premièred at the 2004 Cannes Film Festival, seven years after Fuller's death. Fuller wrote a book, with the same title, which was more a companion novel than a novelization of the film, although it features many of the scenes that were originally cut. Background. Fuller was a World War II veteran and served with the 1st Infantry Division, which was nicknamed "The Big Red One" for the red numeral "1" on the Division's shoulder patch. He received the Silver Star, Bronze Star and Purple Heart during his service. He was present at the liberation of the Falkenau concentration camp. Plot. The film begins in black and white in November 1918 at the end of World War I. A private (Marvin), using his trench knife, kills a German soldier who was approaching with his arms raised and muttering in German. When he returns to his company's headquarters, the private is told that the war ended "about four hours ago." The 1st Division patch is shown in color. The film then moves to November 1942, when the soldier, now a sergeant in the 'Big Red One', leads his squad of infantrymen through North Africa. Over the next two years the squad serves in campaigns in Sicily, Omaha Beach at the start of the Battle of Normandy, the liberation of France and the invasion of western Germany. Throughout the film, the sergeant's German counterpart, Schroeder, participates in many of the same battles and displays a murderous loyalty to Hitler and Germany. At different times he and the sergeant express the same sentiment that soldiers are killers but not murderers. During the advance across northern France the squad crosses the same field where the sergeant killed the surrendering German at the start of the film, where a memorial now stands. The following short conversation takes place: The squad's final action in the war is the liberation of Falkenau concentration camp in Czechoslovakia. Shortly after this, the sergeant is in a forest at night, having just buried a young boy he had befriended after liberating a concentration camp. Schroeder approaches, attempting to surrender, but the sergeant stabs him. His squad then arrives and informs him that the war ended "about four hours ago." This time, as the squad walks away, Pvt. Griff (Mark Hamill) notices that Schroeder is still alive; the sergeant and his men work frantically to save his life as they return to their encampment. Production. Warner Brothers Studio was interested in filming "The Big Red One" in the late 1950s, sending Fuller on a trip to Europe to scout locations. Fuller directed "Merrill's Marauders" as a dry run for the film. When Fuller argued with Jack Warner and his studio over cuts they made to "Merrill's Marauders", the plans for the film "The Big Red One" were dropped. Originally, John Wayne was to play The Sergeant, but Fuller felt that he was not right for the role. Peter Bogdanovich helped set the film up at Paramount Pictures who paid Fuller to write a script. However when Paramount head Frank Yablans left the studio, the project was in turnaround. It shifted over to Lorimar with Bogdanovich to produce (he says Fuller wanted him to play the Robert Carradine part) but then Bogdanovich pulled out and brought in Gene Corman to produce.
1163916	Ted Knight (December 7, 1923 – August 26, 1986) was an American actor best known for playing the comedic role of Ted Baxter in "The Mary Tyler Moore Show", Henry Rush in "Too Close for Comfort", and Judge Elihu Smails in "Caddyshack". Early years. Born Tadeusz Wladyslaw Konopka to a Polish-American family in Terryville in Litchfield County, Connecticut, Knight dropped out of high school to enlist for military service in World War II. He was a member of A Company, 296th Combat Engineer Battalion, earning five battle stars while serving in the European Theatre. Career. During the postwar years, Knight studied acting in Hartford, Connecticut. He became proficient with puppets and ventriloquism, which led to steady work as a television kiddie-show host at WJAR in Providence, Rhode Island, from 1950 to 1955. In 1955, he left Providence for Albany, New York, where he landed a job at station WROW-TV (now WTEN), hosting "The Early Show" featuring MGM movies and a kids’ variety show, playing a "Gabby Hayes" type character named "Windy Knight". He was also a radio announcer for sister station WROW radio. He left the station in 1957 after receiving advice from station manager (and future Capital Cities Chairman) Thomas S. Murphy that he should take his talents to Hollywood. Knight spent most of the 1950s and 1960s doing commercial voice-overs and essaying minor television and movie roles. He was the policeman guarding Norman Bates at the end of Alfred Hitchcock's "Psycho" (1960). He also guest starred on the syndicated television series "Sea Hunt" with Lloyd Bridges, during the 1961 season in the episode titled "The Defector". In the 1962-1963 season, he appeared as "Haskell" in the short-lived drama and situation comedy "The New Loretta Young Show" on CBS. He played Phil Sterling on the ABC soap opera "The Young Marrieds" in the early 1960s. He appeared frequently in television shows such as "Highway Patrol", "How to Marry a Millionaire", "Peter Gunn", "Bourbon Street Beat", "The Donna Reed Show" (in the episode "April Fool" on April 1, 1959), "Pete and Gladys", "The Eleventh Hour", "Bonanza", "The Man and the Challenge", "Combat!", "McHale's Navy" (including one episode as boy Admiral "Go Go" Granger), "Get Smart", "The Twilight Zone", "Gunsmoke" (as Mr. Rabb, esq.) and "The Wild Wild West." His final movie role was in the golf comedy "Caddyshack", where he played a judge fed up with the shenanigans of a guest at the golf club, played by Rodney Dangerfield. Knight's distinctive speaking voice brought him work as an announcer, notably as narrator of most of Filmation studio's superhero cartoons as well as voice of incidental characters. He was narrator of the first season of the "Super Friends", while other animated television series featuring his work included the voices of the opening narrator and team leader Commander Jonathan Kidd in "Fantastic Voyage". "The Mary Tyler Moore Show". His role as the vain and untalented WJM newscaster Ted Baxter on "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" brought Knight widespread recognition and his greatest success. He received six Emmy Award nominations for the role, winning the Emmy for "Outstanding Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role in Comedy" in 1973 and 1976. Knight used some of this character's style for regional commercials. In the Cleveland area during the early to late 1970s, a newsman simply known as "Ted" would provide news of the events at a local shopping center known as Southgate USA, often finishing the 60-second spot with a comedic flair, including wearing a jacket that resembled his blue "WJM" blazer. The spots were produced by UAB Productions for Southgate USA. UAB Productions was the local production arm of United Artists Broadcasting, which owned WUAB-TV in the Cleveland area at that time. After "The Mary Tyler Moore Show"s run, Knight guest-starred in "Mr. Dennis Steps Out," the October 26, 1977, episode of the situation comedy "Busting Loose", as Roger Dennis, the owner of an escort service in New York City. This episode was spun off into its own show, "The Ted Knight Show", giving Knight his first starring role. "The Ted Knight Show" was a disappointment, lasting for only six episodes in the spring of 1978. Knight appeared in one episode of "The Love Boat" as a rival cruise captain, Captain Gunner Nordquist, versus "Mary Tyler Moore Show" co-star Gavin MacLeod's Captain Merrill Stubing. This was broadcast in March 1982 as Season 5, Episodes 24 and 25, of "The Love Boat," whose segments were titled "Pride of the Pacific," "The Viking's Son," "Separate Vacations," "The Experiment," and "Getting to Know You." "Too Close for Comfort". Knight landed the lead role as the kind, curmudgeonly cartoonist Henry Rush in the series "Too Close for Comfort" in 1980. During scenes in which Henry draws in his bedroom, Knight used his earlier acquired ventriloquism talents for comical conversations with a hand-puppet version of his comic book's main character "Cosmic Cow." Throughout the run of the series, Knight would wear sweatshirts from various colleges and universities. The sweatshirts were often sent to him by students who were fans of the show. The show was cancelled by ABC after three seasons, but first-run episodes continued to be produced and successfully syndicated. In its final season, the show was retooled with Knights character leaving cartooning to become a newspaper owner and editor and was renamed "The Ted Knight Show", although it aired as "Too Close for Comfort" in rerun syndication. Production ended in 1986 due to Knights illness. Personal life. In 1948, he married Dorothy Smith, and the couple had three children: Ted, Jr., Elyse, and Eric. In January 1985, Knight was awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for his contribution to the television industry. It is located at 6673 Hollywood Boulevard. Death. A few months after the end of the "Mary Tyler Moore Show" in 1977, Knight was diagnosed with cancer for which he received various forms of treatment over several years. In 1985, the cancer returned as colon cancer which, despite rigorous treatment, eventually began to spread to his bladder and throughout his lower gastrointestinal tract. Knight died on August 26, 1986, from complications of surgery; he was 62. Knight was interred in the Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, California. His grave marker bears the name "Theodore C. Konopka" (and, at the bottom, the words "Bye Guys", a reference to his Ted Baxter catchphrase "Hi, guys!") His hometown of Terryville, Connecticut, dedicated the bridge on Canal Street over the Pequabuck River in his memory. There is a bronze plaque bearing his likeness on the bridge.
582801	Auzaar is a 1997 Bollywood action thriller film directed by Sohail Khan and written by Anwar Khan. The film starred Salman Khan, Sanjay Kapoor and Shilpa Shetty. The film is based around two college friends who find themselves on the opposite side of the law when they reunite. Synopsis. Yash Thakur (Sanjay Kapoor) and Suraj Prakash (Salman Khan) are inseparable friends. After completing their studies, they go their different ways. Yash takes over from his father's (Paresh Rawal) underground and mafia-like business, while Suraj becomes an officer of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI). Yash's dad is attacked by a gang rival, and he loses the use of his leg, making him become a wheelchair user. Meanwhile Yash marries his sweetheart Prathna (Shilpa Shetty). After completing his training successfully, Suraj is assigned to the investigation against his friend, Yash, which shocks Suraj, but which he accepts. Yash's criminal dad has many contacts, and soon Yash also comes to know of Suraj's job, and his assignment. Suraj must now convince Yash that his father is not what he appears to be, and at the same time take criticism and pressure from his superiors for not proceeding with the investigation against Yash.
580425	Just Follow Law () is a 2007 Singaporean comedy film directed by Jack Neo, and starring Gurmit Singh of Phua Chu Kang fame, Fann Wong, Moses Lim, Samuel Chong, Lina Ng and Steven Woon. The title is a pun on the Singlish phrase "just follow lor", which means to comply with orders without questioning why. This film also changes Neo's trademark of producing movies filled with dialects that will contain English in most parts. In the film, a blue-collar technician and the events and promotion department director swap souls after a freak accident at a fictional government agency Work Allocation Singapore (WAS). It presents a satirical look at the inflexibility of outdated governmental rules and regulations and the rigid mindsets of local civil servants who follow rules to a fault is portrayed. It was first released in Singapore on 15 February 2007 and Malaysia and Brunei on 22 March 2007. Plot. Lim Teng Zui is a WAS technician who is a single father to a young girl named Xiao Mei. He is employed by the director of WAS' Events and Promotion department, Tanya Chew. Tanya stays in a condominium and has a single mother, a blogger whom she has neglected. He has drawn little salary, and strives hard to earn more so that he can buy her a piano and original abalone. Alan Lui, the CEO of WAS, briefs Lau Chee Hong, Eric Tan and Uncle Tiong about Minister Seetoh accompanying China's Minister of Manpower, Mr. Chen and his delegates will be visiting the department. In an effort to prepare for the VIP visit, they decide to put the things outside temporarily. However, during a Chinese minister's visit, Lim's poor work ethics, combined with his incompetence causes the minister to fall during a photoshoot when the wall gives way due to the use of masking tapes instead of nails. An investigation is carried out, and 'finger-pointing' is done to find the scapegoat, in which Lim is blamed. As a result, his bonus is cut, and Lim stems his anger toward Tanya. Their confrontation leads into a car chase in which he chases Ms. Chew's 1998 Seat Toledo in his Citroën Berlingo until the vehicles collide, causing both to run off the flyover and fall down to the beach. The duo are knocked unconscious due to this resulting accident, and are sent to the hospital. There, they are in critical condition, but amazingly, both recovers, but Lim wakes up and finds out that he is in Tanya's body. Whereas Tanya is in her employee's body. They are forced to accept into living in each other's roles and work under their respective bodies' occupation. "Lim" upgrades her/his skills as a technician, while "Tanya" idles around, performing poorly in his/her capacity as a department director. Due to "Tanya"'s negligence, the department grossly overspends and the CEO, together with Chee and Eric, two department heads who had been offended by Tanya earlier, plans to shut down the department. In an attempt to save the department from closure, Tanya and Lim plan to put on a successful Job Fair Exhibition so that the CEO would think twice about shutting it down. Tanya and Lim try ways of getting publicity, but red tape and lack of information gets in their way and they would have to wait at least three months to be able to do anything. However, it proceeds smoothly, and Tanya hires a pyrotechnics operator, who is actually a demolition expert. After a series of trials and tribulations, the Job Fair is realized. During the fair, Chee and Eric attempt to sabotage the Fair, but Tanya and Lim repaired quickly by means of masking tape. Tanya and Lim deal with the obstacles as they come until the final sing-along session on stage, with the Minister. However, the stage catches fire as the planned pyrotechnics, combined with the pyrotechnic launcher's disobedience and the direction of the launching cannon towards the curtain. Having trapped in the ensuing utter chaos, the people dash about the stage in every direction, finding a way out. The Minister finally finds an escape route when a taped board falls off. Many of them have run down without any single casualty, and thus the situation is under control. As the Civil Defense firefighters arrive on the scene to put out the fires, Tanya rescues Lim's daughter. A board of inquiry looks into the actions during the fire. During the 2007 National Creativity Award ceremony, Lim was awarded for his use of masking tapes to save 53 lives and his initiative to invent a fire escape wall. Two months later, the statutory board has folded as WAS shuts down. Uncle Tiong retires because of his heart attack. Eric is sacked and has his pension (CPF) confiscated when their plot is discovered. Chee becomes the first director in history to receive pink slip for skills obsolete. The CEO is blacklisted for making too many mistakes, but later establishes the Minced Pork Organisation, only to be dissolved months later. Lim and Tanya, having going in their separate ways other than working, decide to re-enact the accident in an attempt to switch back to their original bodies. They start their same vehicles and drive off at the same time and place, doing the same collision. As the credits roll, Lim and Tanya's attempts are revealed to be unsuccessful, but they still marry.and they have a child together. Production. Development and writing. The development of "Just Follow Law" began when Jack Neo pitched the idea of Fann Wong during one of their backstage meetings, though they can't agree regarding the location of the agreement. It was inspired by then Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong's speech at the 2006 National Day about the lack of professionalism among Singaporean workers. Most of the workers completes work on time during evenings and their mentality of staying beyond that time would be like doing as a favour. He hopes to use the movie to highlight the bureaucracy inefficiencies in office. Filming. This film began shooting in high-definition video format starting in 1 February 2006 and ending in March 2006. Release. It had a strong opening during Chinese New Year, earning $421,000 from 35 prints for second place in the chart. Reception. At the Golden Horse Awards 2007, "Just Follow Law" was nominated for Best Original Screenplay and Best Visual Effects, while Gurmit Singh was one of four considered for Best Actor. He did not win. Movie connections. "Just Follow Law" contains many references and homages to films. The soul switching between the leading characters references to that from "Freaky Friday" and "Vice Versa". During certain sequences, some of the sound effects come from various sources, notably including the 2004 video game "Half-Life 2". For example, the Minister falls down through a poorly erected wall during his visit of WAS; Lim Teng Zui's Citroën Berlingo crashes on the ground. Later on, the Ssangyong Istana doors open to reveal the bikini dancers and hunks; the Singapore Civil Defence Force's Dennis Sabre fire engine stops over a VIP lot.
601764	Alexandra Hetherington "Alex" Breckenridge (born May 15, 1982) is an American film and television actress, photographer and voice artist. Noted for her role as Willa McPherson on the television series "Dirt", she also had a supporting role on the short lived series "The Ex List". She also is the voice of various characters on the animated television series "Family Guy". She starred as Moira O'Hara's younger self in the 2011 FX television series ' and has been cast in a recurring role in the upcoming '. Born in Bridgeport, Connecticut, Breckenridge started her interest acting and creating while living in Mill Valley, California, at the age of eleven. She and her mother moved to Los Angeles when Breckenridge was fifteen years old to pursue her career. Early life. Breckenridge was born in Bridgeport, Connecticut, on May 15, 1982. She lived in Darien until the age of ten, when she and her mother moved to Los Angeles. A year later, they moved to Mill Valley, California. At age 13, Breckenridge became interested in acting, photography and singing. At age 15, she and her mother moved back to Los Angeles to pursue Breckenridge's acting career. Her uncle is actor Michael Weatherly who is best known for his role as Special Agent Anthony "Tony" DiNozzo in the TV series "NCIS". Career. Early career. Breckenridge guest starred on "Freaks and Geeks" in 2000 as a character named Shelly Weaver. When she was 15, she met James Franco at an audition. She was surprised that Franco recognized her on set on "Freaks and Geeks". She also guest starred on "Dawson's Creek", "", "Buffy the Vampire Slayer", "Charmed", "Undeclared", "Medium" and "JAG". She guest starred as Francise in three episodes of "Opposite Sex". In 2002, she appeared in the film "Big Fat Liar" starring Frankie Muniz as Jason Shepherd's older sister Janie. "Family Guy". Breckenridge has had numerous voice roles on the animated television series "Family Guy". During an interview with "FHM", she stated quoting: "When I first went for "Family Guy" I auditioned for a guest voice. I don't know why but Seth MacFarlane really likes the sound of my voice. I'll never understand that. He just liked me and they call me back all the time to do different things". Breckenridge often does celebrity impressions on the show, such as Sarah Jessica Parker and Renée Zellweger. She also had roles on MacFarlane's web series "Cavalcade of Cartoon Comedy". She guest starred in the episode "With Friends Like Steve's" of "American Dad!", also created by MacFarlane. Further career. She is interested in photography and has her own darkroom in her apartment. At age 24, she began taking photography seriously as a form of self-expression. Her then-boyfriend Bryten Goss helped her with lighting. In 2008, she had her first exhibit with Shalon Goss hosted by her uncle Michael Weatherly and presented by Edgar Valera. She stated quoting: "I had so much to express emotionally with this show. Each photo is an expression of myself and the things I have gone through in the last three years. From my perspective, the purpose of art is to evoke feeling and to inspire. That's all I hope to achieve." In 2006, Breckenridge starred as Monique in the film "She's the Man". She starred as Willa McPherson in television series "Dirt" from 2007 to 2008. She has appeared in a couple of shows that have later been cancelled. She does not take this personally as her roles are mostly supporting characters. In 2009, Breckenridge co-starred in the independent film "The Bridge to Nowhere" by Blair Underwood. She also has a role in the upcoming film "Ticket Out". Breckenridge had a recurring role in season 4 of HBO's "True Blood", and also season one of FX's "American Horror Story". Personal life. Breckenridge dated artist Bryten Goss for two years. Goss died on October 26, 2006, of coronary failure. She also dated Evan Peters (who would later become her American Horror Story co-star) several years ago.
396494	Han Hyo-joo (born February 22, 1987) is a South Korean actress. She is best known for her leading roles in "Brilliant Legacy" (2009) and "Dong Yi" (2010). Early life. Han Hyo-joo was born in Cheongju, North Chungcheong Province. Her mother was an elementary school teacher before becoming an inspector for public schools, and her father worked in the military. As a child, she was good in sports, particularly track and field. In her sophomore year of high school, she moved to Seoul and attended Bulgok High School, despite the objections of her strict and conservative father. She then entered Dongguk University, where she joined the theater and film department. Career. Han was first discovered in a teenage beauty pageant organized by food corporation Binggrae in 2003. She began her acting career in the sitcom "Nonstop 5" and the gangster comedy "My Boss, My Teacher". Han raised her profile by being cast in "Spring Waltz", the fourth and final installment of TV director Yoon Seok-ho's "season drama" series. In 2006, director Lee Yoon-ki cast the newbie in the starring role in his low-budget independent film "Ad-lib Night", which follows a young woman who rediscovers herself through an eerie overnight encounter with strangers. Han then starred in two highly successful TV projects -- KBS1 daily drama "Like Land and Sky" with Park Hae-jin in 2007, and SBS masked-adventurer series "Iljimae" with Lee Jun-ki in 2008. Afterwards, she made another indie, "Ride Away", which debuted at the 2008 Jeonju International Film Festival. Han filmed the Korean-Japanese telecinema co-production "Heaven's Postman" in 2008, which also featured pop star Jaejoong from TVXQ (now JYJ). After several postponements, it was released in theaters in late 2009, and broadcast on TV in 2010. Her breakthrough came in "Brilliant Legacy" costarring Lee Seung-gi, which became a massive hit in 2009, reaching a peak viewership rating of 47.1%. It catapulted Han to stardom, and after the drama's conclusion, she experienced a sharp rise in endorsement deals and media requests for interviews, as well as increased pan-Asian popularity.
1059634	Nicole Houston "Nikki" Reed (born May 17, 1988) is an American film and television actress, screenwriter, singer-songwriter, and model. She became known in 2003, after the release of the film "Thirteen", directed by Catherine Hardwicke, for which she was credited with Hardwicke as a co-writer of the screenplay, and in which she played a lead role. Reed has since appeared in several films, including "Lords of Dogtown" and "Mini's First Time". She also portrays Rosalie Hale in "The Twilight Saga".
589318	Gehri Chaal is a 1973 Bollywood thriller film directed by C.V. Sridhar. The film stars Amitabh Bachchan, Jeetendra and Hema Malini . Plot. Dharamchand is the Chair of Olympic Bank, which is due for a final audit by the 30th of the month. Shortly thereafter, his daughter, Hema, finds his dead body in the bank, is unable to repay it, and hence is killing himself. Ratan decides to protect the good name of the family and does not tell anyone about the suicide note to anyone, including Hema. Shortly thereafter, Ratan is approached by a blackmailer named Shekhar, who threatens to expose Ratan's secret if Ratan does not participate in a bank robbery that will take place two days before the final audit. Ratan assists him, the robbery takes place, the money is looted, all bank records are burnt, and the robbers make a successful getaway. Ratan is relieved that his problem has been resolved and the family name is not tarnished. The only problem is that Hema saw the robbers in action, and is able to identify one of them, a woman named Shobha. When she tells Ratan, he asks her to keep this information a secret. Then Ratan's friend, Sagar, arrives from Delhi for a visit, and it is here that Ratan will find out that Sagar is in a profession that has made him a suspect with the police, and may rip open the secret that Ratan has been trying to hide from the world. This was one of Amitabhs very early movies when he was struggling much before Zanjeer had happened. Despite having a supporting role with grey shades he completely overshadowed Jeetendra who was actually suppose to be the films main hero. Years later several attempts were made to bring the two together like in Manmohan Desai's Naseeb (1981), Desh Premee (1982) and Ganga Jamuna Saraswati (1988). Ramesh Sippy also initially wanted to rope in Jeetendra for Jackies role in Akayla (1990). All these movies were only made with Amitabh in the end.
996482	Judith Ellen Light (born February 9, 1949) is an American actress. Her television roles include Karen Wolek on the soap opera "One Life to Live", Angela Bower on the sitcom "Who's the Boss?", Claire Meade on ABC's series "Ugly Betty" and Elizabeth "Liz" Donnelly on "Law & Order Special Victims Unit". She has won two Tony Awards: her first, in 2012, for her performance on Broadway as Silda in the play "Other Desert Cities", and her second in 2013 for her portrayal of Faye in "The Assembled Parties". Early life. Light was born in Trenton, New Jersey, the daughter of Pearl Sue (nĂŠe Hollander), a model, and Sidney Licht, an accountant. Light graduated from high school in 1966 at St. Mary's Hall-Doane Academy, now Doane Academy, in Burlington, New Jersey. She graduated from Carnegie-Mellon University with a degree in drama. She recalled the university as "rigorous" and "amazing". Afterwards, she started out on stage, making her professional debut in "Richard III" at the "California Shakespeare Festival" in 1970, before moving to Broadway to star in "A Doll's House" in 1975. She also starred in the 1976 Broadway play "Herzl". Light also acted for such theatre companies as the Milwaukee Repertory Theater and the Seattle Repertory Theatre. In the late 1970s, Light went through a real crisis after a period of not landing any parts. Broke, she almost quit acting, because she felt that she was not contributing to the theater. Career. In this period, Light was called by her agent to audition for an understudy role in the ABC soap opera "One Life to Live". Never wanting to be attached to a soap opera or a sitcom, she initially rejected the idea, until she was told that she would have a daily salary of US$350. At the audition, she realized that "the format reaches a lot of people", and that she could thereby "make a difference" and "make money" at the same time. Instead of landing an understudy role, she was recast in the role of Karen Wolek, a role that had previously been portrayed by actresses Kathryn Breech and Julia Duffy. This role was quite lucrative for Light and spawned one of the show's most-remembered storylines; Light's character became a prostitute after she became bored with her life as a housewife. On trial, Karen saved her friend Viki Lord Riley (Erika Slezak) from being convicted of killing Karen's pimp, Marco Dane (Gerald Anthony) by admitting to the entire town, including her faithful husband, Dr. Larry Wolek (Michael Storm), that she had been a prostitute. In 1980, this won Light her first Daytime Emmy Award for "Lead Actress in a Daytime Drama Series"; the scene in which she confessed her guilt in court is held in such high esteem that it is used in acting classes to the current day. Light recalled: "I was scared before those courtroom scenes. I was afraid to put myself out that much. With the agony of pulling it out piece by piece and having the prosecutor stick the knife in her gut, I couldn't help but let everything spew out of her." Light won another Emmy in the role in 1981. She appeared in an episode of "St. Elsewhere" in its first season, called "Dog Day Hospital", in which she played a housewife who became pregnant for the 9th time even though her husband claimed he had a vasectomy. In an effort to punish the doctor who botched the job she took an operating room hostage though it was later revealed that her husband had not had the procedure. After this success on daytime, she landed the role of assertive advertising executive Angela Bower on the ABC sitcom "Who's the Boss". Co-starring Tony Danza, who played her housekeeper (and eventual lover), the show ran for eight seasons from 1984 to 1992. TV Guide has "Who's the Boss?" ranked as the 109th best sitcom of all time. Light spent most of the 1990s starring in made-for-TV and feature films such as "Men Don't Tell" and 1997's "Too Close to Home", which co-starred Rick Schroder. She also starred on the sitcom "Phenom", which ran for only one season (1993â1994) before being canceled. In 2000 she received critical acclaim when she starred on stage as Dr. Vivian Bearing in "Wit", Margaret Edson's Pulitzer Prize-winning play about an academic dying from ovarian cancer. From 2002 to 2010, she had a recurring role on NBC's "" as Judge Elizabeth Donnelly, who served as a Bureau Chief ADA in the Manhattan District Attorney's office before being appointed to the bench in Season 7. From 2006 until 2010, she starred as Claire Meade on ABC's "Ugly Betty". The role earned her an Emmy nomination. Light appeared in a May 2006 episode of "Family Guy" ("Untitled Griffin Family History") wherein she voiced a cartoon version of herself obsessed with former co-star Tony Danza and making out with a constructed dummy of Tony in her house. She also recently appeared in an episode of the NBC sitcom "Twenty Good Years". In 2007 Light starred as a radical Christian woman in "Save Me" an independent film. Light's character, Gayle, runs a Christian ministry known as Genesis House, which works to help gay men recover from their 'affliction.' She is challenged by the arrival of Mark, an ill gay man who reminds Gayle of her dead, gay son, and the movie chronicles the challenges of the two as they learn to accept each other as they are. In 2010-2011 she appeared on Broadway in the play "Lombardi" and received a nomination for the Tony Award, Featured Actress in a Play. She appeared in the play "Other Desert Cities" on Broadway in 2011 and won the Tony Award for Featured Actress in a Play for her role as Silda. In 2013, she appears on Broadway in the play "The Assembled Parties" and on June 8, 2013, won the Tony Award for Featured Actress in a Play for her portrayal of 'Faye'. In 2013 she was cast as Judith Ryland for the second season of the TNT revival of the television show "Dallas". Personal life. Family. Light is Jewish. She has been married to television actor Robert Desiderio since 1985, when they met while co-starring on "One Life to Live". They have no children. She speaks French fluently. Robert and Judith reside in California. Activism. Light is a gay rights activist and helped former "Who's the Boss?" co-star Danny Pintauro in coming out. She has done work for many LGBT charities. She sits on the board of the Matthew Shepard Foundation and spoke at the 1993 March on Washington. In 1998, she had a library named after her at the Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Center. She is also a prominent AIDS activist and played Ryan White's mother in the 1989 TV movie on his life "The Ryan White Story". Also, she sits on the board of Point Foundation, a LGBT organization that provides financial support, mentoring, leadership training and hope to meritorious students who are or feel marginalized due to sexual orientation, gender identity or gender expression. On April 1, 2010, Judith Light joined Cyndi Lauper in the launch of her Give a Damn campaign to bring a wider awareness of discrimination of the GLBT community as part of her True Colors Fund. The campaign is to bring straight people to stand up with the gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgendered community and stop the discrimination. Other names included in the campaign are Whoopi Goldberg, Jason Mraz, Elton John, Cynthia Nixon, Kim Kardashian, Clay Aiken, Sharon Osbourne, Kelly Osbourne and Jesse Tyler Ferguson.
584330	Karthika Nair (born 27 June 1992) is an Indian film actress of the South Indian film industry. She made her debut in the 2009 Telugu film, "Josh" opposite Naga Chaitanya. She rose to fame starring in her second and her first successful Tamil film "Ko" opposite Jiiva. Childhood and early years. Karthika was born to former Indian actress Radha, and is the niece of actress Ambika. She has two siblings, a brother and a sister, Thulasi Nair, who is also a South Indian actress. She did her schooling in Podar International School in Mumbai and is now studying an international degree in Business from college affiliated to London School of Economics. Career. She made her debut at a very early age of 17 in the 2009 Telugu film, "Josh" opposite Naga Chaitanya. Her second movie was in Tamil called "Ko" pairing with Jiiva which did very well at the box office. She then appeared in the Malayalam film, "Makaramanju" directed by Lenin Rajeendran, starring alongside ace cinematographer and director Santosh Sivan. She have done a Wonderfull acting in "Annakodi". Awards and recognition. Nominations. 2011: Nominated – SIIMA Award for the Best Female Debut – Tamil – "Ko"
1063699	Jaden Christopher Syre Smith (born July 8, 1998) is an American child-actor, rapper and dancer. He is the son of actors Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith, elder brother of singer Willow Smith and younger half-brother of Trey Smith.
1062726	Road to Perdition is a 2002 American crime film directed by Sam Mendes. The screenplay was adapted by David Self, from the graphic novel of the same name by Max Allan Collins. The film stars Tom Hanks, Paul Newman, Jude Law, and Daniel Craig. The plot takes place in 1931, during the Great Depression, following a mob enforcer and his son as they seek vengeance against a mobster who murdered the rest of their family. Filming took place in the Chicago area. Mendes, having recently finished 1999's acclaimed "American Beauty", pursued a story that had minimal dialogue and conveyed emotion in the imagery. Cinematographer Conrad Hall took advantage of the environment to create symbolism for the film, for which he won several awards, including a posthumous Academy Award for Best Cinematography. The film explores several themes, including the consequence of violence and father-son relationships. The film was released on July 12, 2002, and eventually grossed over $180 million worldwide. The cinematography, setting, and the lead performances by Newman and Hanks were well received by critics. A home media release first debuted on February 25, 2003. Plot. Michael Sullivan (Tom Hanks) is an enforcer for Irish mob boss John Rooney (Paul Newman) in Rock Island, Illinois during the Great Depression. Rooney raised the orphan Sullivan and loves him more than his own biological son, the unstable Connor (Daniel Craig). Connor snaps and kills disgruntled associate Finn McGovern (Ciaran Hinds) when meeting him with Sullivan, resulting in Sullivan gunning down McGovern's men. Sullivan's twelve-year-old son Michael Sullivan, Jr. (Tyler Hoechlin) had hidden in his father's car and witnesses the event. Despite Sullivan swearing his son's secrecy and Rooney pressuring Connor to apologize for the reckless action, Connor murders Sullivan's wife Annie (Jennifer Jason Leigh) and younger son Peter (Liam Aiken), mistaking him for Sullivan, Jr. He then sends Sullivan to an ambush at a speakeasy but Sullivan realizes and escapes to Chicago with his son to seek Al Capone, for work and to discover the location of Connor, who has gone into hiding.
1163629	Paul Reiser (born March 30, 1957) is an American comedian, actor, television personality and writer, author and musician. He is most widely known for his role in the 1990s TV sitcom "Mad About You". He is ranked 77th on Comedy Central's 2004 list of the "100 Greatest Stand-ups of All Time". The name of Reiser's production company, Nuance Productions, is inspired by one of his lines in the film "Diner" (1982), in which his character explains his discomfort with the word "nuance". Early life. Reiser was born in New York City, the son of Helen, a homemaker, and Sam Reiser, a wholesale health food distributor. His family was Jewish. Reiser attended the East Side Hebrew Institute and graduated from Stuyvesant High School. He earned his bachelor's degree at Binghamton University, where he majored in music (piano, composition). During his university years, Reiser was active in student theater productions at the Hinman Little Theater, an on-campus community theater organization located in Hinman College, Reiser's dorm community. It was later renamed the Hinman Production Company. He found his calling as a comedian while performing in New York clubs during university summer breaks. Career. After developing his skills as a stand-up comedian, Reiser had a breakout film role in 1982 when he appeared in "Diner", a coming-of-age film directed by Barry Levinson. Reiser's character, Modell, a closet stand-up comedian, effectively brought Reiser's abilities to the attention of Hollywood. He followed this success by playing a detective in "Beverly Hills Cop" (1984), a role he reprised in its sequel, "Beverly Hills Cop II" (1987). Reiser also had roles in James Cameron's "Aliens" (1986), in which he played the corrupt Carter Burke; "The Marrying Man" (1991) and "Bye Bye Love" (1995). Reiser starred as one of two possible fathers of a teenage girl in the TV sitcom "My Two Dads" (1987–90), and later came to prominence in North America as Paul Buchman in "Mad About You" (1992–99), a comedy series he co-created, in which Helen Hunt co-starred as his on-screen wife. He was also the co-composer of the show's theme song, "The Final Frontier" (with Don Was), and performed the piano for the theme's recording. Reiser's role in "Mad About You" earned him nominations for an Emmy, a Golden Globe, an American Comedy Award and a Screen Actors Guild Award. For the show's final season, Reiser and Hunt received $1 million ($ million today) per episode. In 2001, Reiser played a dramatic role as a man desperate to locate his biological mother, after learning he has a serious illness, in the British TV film "My Beautiful Son". In 2002, Reiser made a guest appearance as himself on Larry David's HBO sitcom, "Curb Your Enthusiasm." In the TV comedy film "Atlanta" (2007), Reiser appears as one half of a couple who, after meeting at a funeral, are unable to stay away from each other. In 2010, Reiser collaborated with the singer Julia Fordham to create a CD album titled "Unusual Suspects", which includes the song "UnSung Hero", dedicated to American soldiers serving in Afghanistan. The two embarked on an acoustic tour after its release. Reiser scripted and starred in the semi-autobiographical comedy series "The Paul Reiser Show", which aired on NBC as a mid-season replacement during the 2010–11 TV season. "This is nice", commented Reiser on the Stephanie Miller radio program, "because you get to sit around and root for other shows to fail." However, due to the lack of lead time and promotion by NBC prior to its debut (as well as poor scheduling), the low-rated show was canceled on April 22, 2011, with only two episodes aired. Reiser has written three books: "Couplehood", about the ups and downs of being in a committed relationship; "Babyhood", about his experiences as a first-time father; and "Familyhood" (released in May 2011), a collection of humorous essays. "Couplehood" is unique in that it starts on page 145; Reiser explained this as his method of giving the reader a false sense of accomplishment. In 1996, Reiser appeared on "Late Show with David Letterman" in the middle of writing "Babyhood". Since he had not yet decided on a title, he presented a prop book, titled simply "Book" and with the same cover as that of "Couplehood". Personal life. Reiser married Paula Ravets on August 21, 1988. They have two children: Ezra Samuel (born 1995) and Leon (born 2000). He is the uncle of screenwriter and producer Will Reiser, who is known for writing the semi-autobiographical comedy-drama film "50/50" (2011).
1053700	Mary-Kate Olsen and Ashley Fuller Olsen (born June 13, 1986), also known as the Olsen Twins collectively, are American actresses and fashion designers. The fraternal twins made their acting debut as infants playing Michelle Tanner on the television series "Full House". At the age of six, they began starring together in TV, film, and video projects, which continued to their teenage years. Through their company Dualstar, the Olsens joined the ranks of the wealthiest women in the entertainment industry at a young age. Life and career. Childhood and acting career. The twins were born in Sherman Oaks, California to David "Dave" Olsen (b. 1953) and Jarnette "Jarnie" Fuller (b. 1954). Despite being very similar in appearance, they are not identical, but fraternal twins. They have an older brother, Trent, and a younger sister, actress Elizabeth, as well as a half-sister, Courtney Taylor, and a half-brother, Jake. The twins' parents divorced in 1995; Taylor and Jake are from their father's second marriage to McKenzie. The Olsen twins and their siblings have Norwegian ancestry on their father's side. In 1987, at the age of six months, the twins were cast in the role of Michelle Tanner on the ABC sitcom "Full House". They began filming at nine months old. In order to comply with child labor laws that set strict limits on how long a child actor may work, the sisters took turns playing the role. The Olsens continued to portray Michelle throughout the show's run, which concluded in 1995. In 1992, Mary-Kate & Ashley shared the role of Michelle Tanner when they guest-starred on the "Full House" crossover episode of "Hangin' with Mr. Cooper". While starring on "Full House", the Olsens also began appearing (as separate characters) in films for video and television. The first such film, "To Grandmother's House We Go", debuted in 1992 and featured cameos from several other "Full House" actors. In 1993, the Olsens established the company Dualstar, which would produce the twins' subsequent films and videos, including that year's "Double, Double, Toil and Trouble" and 1994's "How the West Was Fun". A series of musical mystery videos called "The Adventures of Mary-Kate & Ashley" premiered in 1994 and continued through 1997. In 1995, following the end of "Full House", the Olsens made their feature film debut in "It Takes Two", co-starring Steve Guttenberg and Kirstie Alley. In the same year, they introduced a second video series, "You're Invited to Mary-Kate & Ashley's...", which continued to release new entries until 2000. In 1997, the twins guest-starred in an episode of "Sister, Sister", alongside Tia & Tamera Mowry. In 1998, the Olsens appeared in an episode of "All My Children""." The twins returned to series television in 1998 with another ABC sitcom, "Two of a Kind", co-starring Christopher Sieber as their characters' widowed father. The series lasted only one season, but aired in reruns on cable for several years afterward. 1998 also saw the release of "Billboard Dad", the first of a new string of direct-to-video films starring the Olsens. The final such film, "When in Rome", debuted in 2002. In 2000, the Olsens appeared in an episode of "7th Heaven" as bad-girls Sue & Carol Murphy. In 2001, the sisters starred in two new series: "So Little Time", a live-action sitcom on Fox Family (later ABC Family); and "Mary-Kate and Ashley in Action!", an animated series airing Saturday mornings on ABC. Both shows were cancelled after one season, although Mary-Kate received a Daytime Emmy Awards nomination for her performance on "So Little Time". In early 2004, Mary-Kate & Ashley had a cameo voice role in an episode of "The Simpsons" as the readers of Marge's book-on-tape, "The Harpooned Heart". In 2004, the twins starred in a second feature film, "New York Minute". It would be their last film together, as well as Ashley's last acting role. Mary-Kate has continued to appear in film and television. Mary-Kate and Ashley had a fan club until 2000, "Mary-Kate & Ashley's Fun Club", where fans would pay to receive Mary-Kate & Ashley collectibles and photos. Each subscription included an issue of "Our Funzine", Mary-Kate & Ashley's fan club magazine, exclusively available through the club, and a collectibles catalog, where one could purchase T-shirts, posters, baseball caps, key rings, school folders, postcards, and various other items. Subscribers would also receive "surprise gifts" (usually key rings, book excerpts, or back-issues of the Funzine), lyric sheets to Mary-Kate and Ashley's songs, a school folder, a membership card, a full-sized poster, two black & white photos (one of each girl), and a color photo with reprint autographs. The club was advertised at the beginning of Mary-Kate & Ashley movies until 1998. The sisters became co-presidents of Dualstar on their 18th birthday in 2004. Upon taking control of the company, Mary-Kate and Ashley made moves to secure the future of the company by releasing products that appealed to the teen market, including home decoration and fragrances. The Dualstar brand has been sold in more than 3,000 stores in the United States and over 5,300 stores worldwide. The Olsens have appeared on the Forbes "Celebrity 100" list since 2002; in 2007, Forbes ranked them (collectively) as the eleventh-richest women in entertainment, with an estimated net worth of US$100 million. Fashion career. As the sisters have matured, there has been greater interest in their fashion choices, with "The New York Times" declaring Mary-Kate a fashion icon for pioneering her signature (and now popular among celebrities and fans alike) "homeless" look. The style, sometimes referred to by fashion journalists as "ashcan" or "bohemian-bourgeois", is similar to the boho-chic style popularized in Britain by Kate Moss and Sienna Miller. The look consists of oversized sunglasses, boots, loose sweaters, and flowing skirts, with an aesthetic of mixing high-end and low-end pieces. The twins were tapped as the faces of upscale fashion line Badgley Mischka in 2006. The Olsens have a clothing line for girls ages 4–14 in Wal-Mart stores across North America, as well as a beauty line called "Mary-Kate and Ashley: Real fashion for real girls". In 2004 they made news by signing a pledge to allow full maternity leave to all the workers that sew their line of clothing in Bangladesh. The National Labor Committee, which organized the pledge, praised the twins for their commitment to worker rights. The Olsens have also launched their own couture fashion label, "The Row", named after Savile Row in London. In 2007, they launched "Elizabeth & James", a contemporary collection inspired by many of their unique vintage finds and pieces in their personal wardrobes. They have also released a women's clothing line for J.C. Penney, called "Olsenboye", and a t-shirt line called "StyleMint". In 2008, the sisters published the book "Influence", a compilation of interviews with many of the most prominent people in the field of fashion. 7 August 2013 the twins launched a new fashion line in Oslo, Norway.
1061808	Emilio Estevez (; born May 12, 1962) is an American actor, director, and writer. He started his career as an actor and is well known for being a member of the acting Brat Pack of the 1980s, starring in "The Breakfast Club" and "St. Elmo's Fire". He is also known for "Repo Man", "The Mighty Ducks" and its sequels, "Maximum Overdrive", "Bobby" (which he also wrote and directed), and his performances in Western films such as "Young Guns" and its sequel. Early life. Emilio Estevez was born in Staten Island, New York, the oldest child of artist Janet Templeton and actor Martin Sheen (born Ramón Estévez, who is of Galician and Irish descent). His siblings are Ramon Estevez, Charlie Sheen (born Carlos Estevez), and Renée Estevez. Estevez initially attended school in the New York public school system but transferred to a prestigious private academy once his father's career took off. He lived on Manhattan's Upper West Side until his family moved West in 1968 when Sheen was cast in "Catch-22". Growing up in Malibu, California, he rejected the local private school (it was "for parents who have everything except a relationship with their children") in favor of Santa Monica High School. When Estevez was 11 years old, his father bought the family a portable movie camera. Estevez, his brother Charlie, and their high school friends, Sean Penn, Chris Penn, Chad Lowe and Rob Lowe used the camera to make short films, which Estevez would often write. Estevez also appeared in a short anti-nuclear power film produced at his high school, entitled "Meet Mr. Bomb." Emilio was 14 when he accompanied his father to the Philippines, where Sheen was shooting "Apocalypse Now". Estevez appeared as an extra in "Apocalypse Now", but the scenes were deleted. When they returned to Los Angeles, Estevez co-wrote and starred in a high school play about Vietnam veterans called "Echoes of an Era" and invited his parents to watch it. Sheen recalls being astonished by his son's performance, and "began to realise: my God, he’s one of us." After graduating Santa Monica High in 1980, he refused to go to college and instead went into acting. Unlike his brother Charlie, Emilio and his other siblings did not adopt their father's stage name. Emilio reportedly liked the assonance of the double ‘E’ initials, and "didn't want to ride into the business as 'Martin Sheen's son'." Upon his brother using his birth name Carlos Estevez for the film "Machete Kills", Emilio mentioned that he was proud of his Hispanic heritage and was glad that he never adopted a stage name, taking advice from his father who had regrets adopting the name Martin Sheen as opposed to using his birth name Ramon Estevez. Career. Brat Pack years. His first role was in a drama produced by the Catholic Paulist order. Soon after, he made his stage debut with his father in "Mister Roberts" at Burt Reynolds' Dinner theater in Jupiter, Florida (this was the only job his father ever placed him in). Since then, father and son worked together in the 1982 ABC-TV film about juveniles in jail, "In the Custody of Strangers", in which Emilio did the casting. Estevez received great attention during the 1980s for being a member of the Brat Pack and was credited as the leader of the group of young actors. Estevez and Rob Lowe established the Brat Pack when cast as supporting "Greasers" in an early Brat Pack movie, "The Outsiders" based on the novel. Lowe was cast as C. Thomas Howell's older brother Sodapop and Estévez as the drunken Two-Bit Matthews. During production, he also approached his character as a laid-back guy and thought up Two-Bit's interest in Mickey Mouse, shown by his uniform of Mickey Mouse T-shirts and watching of cartoons. Besides his roles in "In the Custody of Strangers" and "The Outsiders", his credits include NBC-TV's thrillers "Nightmares" and "Tex", the 1982 film version of another S.E. Hinton story. He bought the movie rights to a third Hinton book, "That Was Then, This Is Now", and wrote the screenplay. His father predicted he'd have to direct to feel the full extent of his talents, describing him as "an officer, not a soldier." After "The Outsiders", Estevez appeared as the punk-rocker turned car-repossessor Otto Maddox in the cult film "Repo Man" before co-starring in "The Breakfast Club" and "St. Elmo's Fire". Following the success of these back-to-back Brat Pack films, he starred in "That Was Then, This Is Now" (which he co-wrote), the horror film "Maximum Overdrive" (for which he was nominated for a Golden Raspberry Award), and the crime drama "Wisdom" (with fellow Brat Packer Demi Moore). Estevez was originally cast in "Platoon" to be private Chris Taylor but was forced to drop out after production was delayed for two years; the role eventually went to his younger brother Charlie Sheen. He went on to lead roles in the comedy/action film "Stakeout" and the westerns "Young Guns" and "Young Guns II". Late career. In the early 1990s, Estevez directed, wrote, and starred with his brother Charlie in a comedy about garbagemen, "Men at Work". Estevez later stated, "People come up to me on the street and say, "Men at Work" is the funniest movie I ever saw in my life. But, you know, I do have to question how many movies these people have seen." In 1992, he found the career longevity that escaped other Brat Packers by starring in "The Mighty Ducks" as Coach Gordon Bombay, a lawyer and former peewee star and minor hockey prodigy looking to forget the past, forced into coaching a pee wee hockey team as a form of community service. The film turned out to be one of Disney’s most successful franchises. It was followed by two sequels. The following year Estevez starred in three films: the dark thriller "Judgment Night", the spoof comedy "Loaded Weapon 1", and comedy/action film "Another Stakeout", which was the sequel to his earlier film "Stakeout". Estevez has acted alongside his father several times. He starred in (and also directed) the 1996 "The War at Home" in which he played a Vietnam War veteran dealing with posttraumatic stress disorder, while Sheen played his unsympathetic father. He also guest-starred in one episode of "The West Wing" as a younger version of his father's character (Jed Bartlet). Estevez also appeared in an uncredited role in the Saturn Award-nominated film "". From 1998 to 1999, he appeared in three television movies: the spaghetti western flick "Dollar for the Dead" (1998), the comedy "Late Last Night" (1999), and "Rated X" (2000), which he also directed. In 2000, Estevez starred in the Moxie! Award-winning thriller "Sand", as part of an ensemble cast that also included Denis Leary, Jon Lovitz, Harry Dean Stanton, and Julie Delpy. In 2003, he made his voice acting debut when he helped create the English dubbed version of "The 3 Wise Men" with his father. Later, Estevez starred in "The L.A. Riot Spectacular" and also voiced the English version of the film "Arthur and the Invisibles". In 2008, he guest-starred on his brother's sitcom "Two and a Half Men" as an old friend of Charlie Sheen's character. (His father Martin Sheen had also guest starred in 2005.) In an interview a month after the 2010 Oscar tribute to John Hughes he explained his absence as publicity shyness: "I've never been a guy that went out there to get publicity on myself. I never saw the value in it." Directing career. Aside from acting, Estevez has also directed television shows and motion pictures. He made his directorial debut with the film "Wisdom", which made Emilio the youngest person to ever write, direct, and star in, a single major motion picture. Most recently, he has directed episodes of the television series "Cold Case", "Close to Home", "The Guardian", "" and "Numb3rs". The films he has directed include "Men at Work" and "The War at Home". His most famous film was "Bobby", which took over six years to write. Producing the film nearly bankrupted him as the domestic box office gross was not able to cover production costs. The movie scored him some fans outside of the states, mainly in Europe. He won a Hollywood Film Award and received an unprecedented 7 minute standing ovation at the Venice Film Festival. Estevez has stated that he will direct and star in an independent film called "The Bang Bang Club", and that he currently has six screenplays that he has written that remain unproduced. Estevez said during an interview after one of the first screenings of "Bobby" that his next film will likely be "Johnny Longshot". Under Estevez Sheen Productions, a Warner Bros.-affiliated company, Emilio filmed his latest project, "The Way", in Spain where he directs his father in a story about a man who decides to make the Camino de Santiago after the tragic death of his son in the French Pyrénées. It was released in the United States on October 7, 2011. Music videos. Estevez appeared in John Parr's "St. Elmo's Fire (Man in Motion)" music video from the soundtrack of his film with the same name, where he played Kirby Keger. The music video featured all seven of the main cast members of the film, looking sadly through the foggy windows of a run-down and fire-damaged version of the St. Elmo's Bar set. Estevez is a close friend of Jon Bon Jovi. He appeared in Bon Jovi's music video "Blaze of Glory" as Billy the Kid. In turn, Bon Jovi also made a cameo appearance in "Young Guns II". "Blaze of Glory" was in the "Young Guns II" soundtrack and was nominated for an Academy Award. In 2000, Estevez made an appearance in another Bon Jovi video, "Say It Isn't So," along with Matt LeBlanc, Claudia Schiffer, and Arnold Schwarzenegger. Personal life. Estevez is of Irish and Spanish descent from the Galician region, on his father's side. He is environmentally conscious and is a fan and friend of interior designer Kari Whitman. His father is a Roman Catholic and his mother was raised a Southern Baptist, and he has stated that his own religion is a "work in progress". He also revealed on his official Twitter that he is a supporter of South-East London Football Club Millwall F.C. Family and relationships. Estevez is the older brother of Charlie Sheen and son of Martin Sheen. Estevez has two children with ex-girlfriend and Wilhelmina model Carey Salley. They had a steady relationship until eventually breaking up in 1986. They share a son, Taylor Levi Estevez (born June 22, 1984), and a daughter, Paloma Rae Estevez (born February 15, 1986). He was briefly engaged to actress Demi Moore and they remain good friends. The two starred as a feuding married couple in "Bobby", alongside Moore's real-life (then) husband Ashton Kutcher. On April 29, 1992, Estevez married singer-choreographer Paula Abdul. They divorced in May 1994, with Abdul later stating that she wanted children and Estevez, who already had two children, did not. In 2006, Estevez announced his engagement to Macedonian writer Sonja Magdevski. The couple live in a Spanish-style home on a one-acre lot in Malibu where they operate a small vineyard. Awards and nominations. ALMA Awards Broadcast Film Critics Association Awards Golden Globe Awards Hollywood Film Festival Western Heritage Awards Phoenix Film Critics Society Awards Razzie Awards Screen Actors Guild Awards Shorty Awards Venice Film Festival External links. ! colspan="3" style="background: #DAA520;" | Bronze Wrangler Awards ! colspan="3" style="background: #DAA520;" | Phoenix Film Critics Society Awards
1058341	Lovers and Other Strangers is a 1970 comedy film based on the play by Renée Taylor and Joseph Bologna. The film features a cast including Richard Castellano, Gig Young, Cloris Leachman, Anne Jackson, Beatrice Arthur, Bonnie Bedelia, Michael Brandon, Harry Guardino, Anne Meara, Bob Dishy, Marian Hailey, Joseph Hindy, and, in her film debut, Diane Keaton. Sylvester Stallone was an extra in this movie. The film was nominated for three Academy Awards (it won the Academy Award for Best Original Song), and was one of the top box office performers of 1970. It established Richard Castellano as a star (receiving an Oscar nomination for his performance) and he, along with Diane Keaton, was subsequently cast in "The Godfather". "Lovers and Other Strangers" was released by ABC Pictures. It was released on VHS in 1980 by Magnetic Video, but soon went out of print. The Magnetic Video release was a collector's item for many years, but the film was eventually re-released on VHS by CBS/Fox Video in the 1990s. It is now available on DVD by MGM Home Entertainment. Upon seeing this film, Richard Carpenter set about recording the song played during the wedding scene, "For All We Know", with his sister Karen. "Karen and I were in Toronto to open the show for Engelbert Humperdinck. We had one night off before opening and our manager Sherwin Bash suggested we see the film "Lovers and Other Strangers". We enjoyed the film and noticed the song For All We Know which we recorded upon our return home." (It subsequently won an Oscar for Best Song of 1970.) Taylor and Bologna followed up with their second screenplay the following year, "Made for Each Other" in which they also starred. Synopsis. "Lovers and Other Strangers" revolves around the wedding of Mike (Michael Brandon) and Susan (Bonnie Bedelia), intercutting their story with those of other couples among their families and friends. As the movie opens, Mike wants to call off the wedding, arguing that it would be hypocritical for them to get married when they've already been living together for a year and a half. He only relents when Susan's father Hal (Gig Young) tells him that Susan went to her first Halloween party dressed as a bride. Over the course of the movie, we meet: These plotlines all play out through the rehearsal, wedding, and reception. Reception. The film was very popular, earning rentals of $7 million in North America. It recorded an overall profit of $790,000.
583060	Dus Tola is a 2010 Hindi comedy and drama film, remade from the Hit Malayalam film of the 80's Ponmuttayidunna Tharavu, directed by Ajoy Varma and starring Manoj Bajpai in the lead role. "Dus Tola" was released on 22 October 2010.
1224362	Alison Courtney Pill (born November 27, 1985) is a Canadian actress. A former child actress, Pill began her career at age twelve, appearing in numerous films and television series. She transitioned to adult roles and her breakthrough came in the television series "The Book of Daniel" (2006). She is best known for her roles in the films "Milk" (2008), "Scott Pilgrim vs. the World" (2010) and "Midnight in Paris" (2011) and the television series "In Treatment" (2009), "The Pillars of the Earth" (2010) and "The Newsroom" (2012–present). Early Life. Pill was born in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Her father, a financier, is Estonian.
1042734	David Cecil MacAlister Tomlinson (7 May 1917 – 24 June 2000) was an English film actor. He is primarily remembered for his roles as authority figure George Banks in "Mary Poppins", fraudulent magician Professor Emelius Browne in "Bedknobs and Broomsticks" and as hapless antagonist Peter Thorndyke in "The Love Bug". Early life. Born in Henley-on-Thames, Oxfordshire on 7 May 1917, Tomlinson attended Tonbridge School, but left to join the Grenadier Guards. His introduction to the working world was as a clerk for London's Shell Mex House. His stage career grew from amateur stage productions to his 1940 film debut in "Quiet Wedding". His career was interrupted when he entered World War II service as a Flight Lieutenant in the RAF. His flying days continued after the war and he crashed a Tiger Moth plane near his back garden much to the chagrin of his neighbours. His father Clarence, a prominent London lawyer, defended him at his subsequent trial (for flying too low). Film career. David Tomlinson was known to generations of children for his role as George Banks, head of the Banks family, in the 1964 Disney film "Mary Poppins." "Mary Poppins" brought Tomlinson continued work with Disney, asking him to appear in "The Love Bug" (1969) and "Bedknobs and Broomsticks" (1971). Throughout the rest of Tomlinson's film career, he never steered far from comedies. He retired from acting in 1979 to spend more time with his family; however, the enduring popularity of "Mary Poppins" ensured that he remained well-known. Personal life and death. David Tomlinson married his first wife, Mary Lindsay Hiddingh, in September 1943, but she died three months later on 2 December 1943 in a double murder-suicide. Mary was suffering from depression after her first husband A.G. Hiddingh was killed in action during World War II, together they had two sons, Michael born in 1935 and John born in 1937. She later remarried actor David Tomlinson in September 1943, who was serving in the R.A.F. during the time. Two months later on December 1st 1943 she took both her sons to a hotel in New York City hoping to join her husband David in England but she soon learned that she couldn't take the children with her to England. The next day on December 2nd 1943 she took both of her children by the arm and jumped out of the hotel window killing herself at the age of 34 and Michael at age 8 and John at age 6.
67631	Jean-Baptiste le Rond d'Alembert (; 16 November 1717 – 29 October 1783) was a French mathematician, mechanician, physicist, philosopher, and music theorist. Until 1759 he was also co-editor with Denis Diderot of the "Encyclopédie". D'Alembert's formula for obtaining solutions to the wave equation is named after him. The wave equation is sometimes referred to as D'Alembert's equation. Early years. Born in Paris, d'Alembert was the illegitimate child of the writer Claudine Guérin de Tencin and the chevalier Louis-Camus Destouches, an artillery officer. Destouches was abroad at the time of d'Alembert's birth, and a couple of days after birth his mother left him on the steps of the Saint-Jean-le-Rond de Paris church. According to custom, he was named after the patron saint of the church. D'Alembert was placed in an orphanage for found children, but was soon adopted by the wife of a glazier. Destouches secretly paid for the education of Jean le Rond, but did not want his paternity officially recognized. Studies and adult life. D'Alembert first attended a private school. The chevalier Destouches left d'Alembert an annuity of 1200 livres on his death in 1726. Under the influence of the Destouches family, at the age of twelve d'Alembert entered the Jansenist Collège des Quatre-Nations (the institution was also known under the name "Collège Mazarin"). Here he studied philosophy, law, and the arts, graduating as "baccalauréat en arts" in 1735. In his later life, D'Alembert scorned the Cartesian principles he had been taught by the Jansenists: "physical promotion, innate ideas and the vortices". The Jansenists steered D'Alembert toward an ecclesiastical career, attempting to deter him from pursuits such as poetry and mathematics. Theology was, however, "rather unsubstantial fodder" for d'Alembert. He entered law school for two years, and was nominated "avocat" in 1738. He was also interested in medicine and mathematics. Jean was first registered under the name "Daremberg", but later changed it to "d'Alembert". The name "d'Alembert" was proposed by Johann Heinrich Lambert for a suspected (but non-existent) moon of Venus.
1054257	Brassed Off is a 1996 British film written and directed by Mark Herman. The film, a British-American co-production made between the Monty Python production company Prominent Features, Channel Four Films and Miramax Films, is about the troubles faced by a colliery brass band, following the closure of their pit. The soundtrack for the film was provided by the Grimethorpe Colliery Band, and the plot is based on Grimethorpe's own struggles against pit closures. It is generally very positively received for its role in promoting brass bands and their music. Parts of the film make reference to the huge increase in suicides that resulted from the end of the coal industry in Britain, and the struggle to retain hope in the circumstances. Channel 4 and "The Guardian" both sponsored what was expected to be a low-profile film; it was not expected to gain the wide audience that it has. Having expected viewers to be mostly those with past links to coal mining, the film does not make explicit the political background to the plot. The American marketing for the film (and later VHS and DVD releases) portrays the film as a cheerful romantic comedy with nearly no mention at all about the musical or political elements. The film stars Pete Postlethwaite, Tara Fitzgerald and Ewan McGregor. The film was well received as a comedy, and by some as a political statement about the state of traditional coal mining communities in Britain. The film was particularly well received in former mining communities, who felt it accurately reflected the suffering they faced because of the decline of their industry during the years of the Thatcher and Major Conservative governments. It is set during the latter period, when Michael Heseltine presided over a huge programme of pit closures, as President of the Board of Trade. Audio samples from the film were used on the 1997 Chumbawamba record, "Tubthumper". Background. The film is set in "Grimley" in the mid-1990s — a thinly disguised version of the real South Yorkshire village of Grimethorpe, which had been named as the poorest village in Britain two years earlier by the European Union. The nearby areas of the Dearne Valley and the Hemsworth area were also identified as in need of serious aid. Indeed, the soundtrack for the film was recorded by the Grimethorpe Colliery Band, the story roughly reflects Grimethorpe Colliery Band's history, and the film was largely shot in Grimethorpe. The Grimley Colliery Band in the film is made up of a mixture of actors and members of the Grimethorpe Band. The miners in the film put up little resistance to the coal board's harsh redundancy policy. This can be understood in the context of the 1984-85 British miners' strike, which effectively destroyed trade union power in British coal mining industry. The film depicts the spirit of hopelessness 10 years after the strike, and the miners' attempts to find redemption. An ongoing piece of symbolism in the first half of the film is the lack of conversation between one miner and his wife, until she finally criticises him harshly for not making a show of resistance against the closure, when he had been so full of fight in 1984. Plot. Gloria (Tara Fitzgerald) has been sent to her old hometown of Grimley to determine the profitability of the pit for the management of British Coal. She also plays the flugelhorn brilliantly, and is allowed to play with the local brass band, made up of miners from whom she must conceal her purpose. She renews a childhood romance with Andy (Ewan McGregor), which soon leads to complications. It is later revealed during a confrontation between Gloria and the management of the colliery that the decision to close the colliery had been made two years previously, and that this was to have gone ahead regardless of the findings of her report; the report simply being a P.R. exercise to placate the miners and members of the public sympathetic to their plight.
1502364	Mary Virginia Martin (December 1, 1913 - November 3, 1990) was an American actress, singer and Broadway star. A muse of Rodgers and Hammerstein, she originated many leading roles over her career including Nellie Forbush in "South Pacific" and Maria von Trapp in "The Sound of Music". She was named a Kennedy Center Honoree in 1989. She was also the mother of actor Larry Hagman. Early life. Martin was born in Weatherford, Texas. Her life as a child, as she describes it in her autobiography "My Heart Belongs", was secure and happy. She had close relationships with both her mother and father, as well as her siblings. Her autobiography details how the young actress had an instinctive ear for recreating musical sounds. Martin's father, Preston Martin, was a lawyer, and her mother, Juanita Presley, was a violin teacher. Although the doctors told Juanita that she would risk her life if she attempted to have another baby, she was determined to have a boy. Instead, she had Mary, who became quite a tomboy. Her birth was an event as all of the neighbors gathered around Juanita's bedroom window, waiting for the raising of a curtain to signal the baby’s arrival. Her family had a barn and orchard that kept her entertained. She played with her older sister Geraldine (whom she called “Sister”), climbing trees and riding ponies. Martin adored her father. “He was tall, good-looking, silver-haired, with the kindest brown eyes. Mother was the disciplinarian, but it was Daddy who could turn me into an angel with just one look” (p. 19). Martin, who said “I’d never understand the law” (p. 19), began singing outside the courtroom where her father worked every Saturday night at a bandstand where the town band played. She sang in a trio of little girls dressed in bellhop uniforms. “Even in those days without microphones, my high piping voice carried all over the square. I have always thought that I inherited my carrying voice from my father” (p. 19). She remembered having a photographic memory as a child, making it easy to memorize songs, as well as get her through school tests. She got her first taste of singing solo at a fire hall, where she soaked up the crowd’s appreciation. “Sometimes I think that I cheated my own family and my closest friends by giving to audiences so much of the love I might have kept for them. But that’s the way I was made; I truly don't think I could help it” (p. 20). Martin’s craft was developed by seeing movies and becoming a mimic. She’d win prizes for looking, acting and dancing like Ruby Keeler and singing exactly like Bing Crosby. “Never, never, never can I say I had a frustrating childhood. It was all joy. Mother used to say she never had seen such a happy child—that I awakened each morning with a smile. I don’t remember that, but I do remember that I never wanted to go to bed, to go to sleep, for fear I’d miss something” (p. 20). Marriage. During high school, Martin dated Benjamin Hagman, before she was packed off to finishing school at Ward-Belmont in Nashville, Tennessee. During that time, she enjoyed imitating Fanny Brice at singing gigs, but she found school dull and felt confined by its strict rules. She was homesick for Weatherford, her family, and Hagman. During a visit, Mary and Benjamin persuaded Mary's mother to allow them to marry. They did, and by the age of 17, Martin was legally married, pregnant with her first child (Larry Hagman) and forced to leave Ward-Belmont. She was, however, happy to begin her new life. But she soon learned that this life, as she would later say, was nothing but “role playing” (p. 39). Their honeymoon was at her parents' house, and Martin's dream of life with a family and a white-picket fence faded. “I was 17, a married woman without real responsibilities, miserable about my mixed-up emotions, afraid there was something awfully wrong with me because I didn’t enjoy being a wife. Worst of all, I didn't have enough to do” (p. 39). It was “Sister” who came to her rescue, suggesting that she should teach dance. “Sister” taught Martin her first real dance—the waltz clog. Martin perfectly imitated her first dance move, and she opened a dance studio. Here, she created her own moves, imitated the famous dancers she watched in the movies, and taught “Sister’s” waltz clog. As she later recalled, “I was doing something I wanted to do—creating” (p. 44). Apprenticeship. Wanting to learn more moves, Martin went to California to attend the dance school at the Franchon and Marco School of the Theatre, and opened her own dance studio in Mineral Wells, Texas. She was given a ballroom studio with the premise that she would sing in the lobby every Saturday. There, she learned how to sing into a microphone and how to phrase blues songs. One day at work, she accidentally walked into the wrong room where auditions were being held. They asked her what key she’d like to sing “So Red Rose”. Having absolutely no idea what her key was, she sang regardless and got the job. She was hired to sing “So Red Rose” at the Fox Theater in San Francisco, followed by the Paramount Theater in Los Angeles. There would be one catch — she had to sing in the wings. She scored her first professional gig, unaware that she would soon be center stage. Soon after, Martin learned that her studio had been burnt down by a man who thought dancing was a sin. She began to express her unhappiness. Her father gave her advice, saying that she was too young to be married. Martin left everything behind, including her young son, Larry, and went to Hollywood while her father handled the divorce for her. In Hollywood, Martin plunged herself into auditions—so many that she became known as “Audition Mary”. Her first professional audition and job was on a national radio network. Among Martin's first auditions in Hollywood, Martin sang, 'Indian Love Call'". After singing the song, “a tall, craggly man who looked like a mountain” told Martin that he thought she had something special. It was Oscar Hammerstein II (pp. 58–59). This marked the start of her career. Broadway. Mary Martin struggled for nearly two years to break into show business. As a struggling young actress, Martin endured humorous and sometimes frightful luck trying to make it in the world, from car crashes leading to vocal instruction, unknowingly singing in front of Oscar Hammerstein II, to her final break on Broadway granted by the very prominent producer, Lawrence Schwab. Using her maiden name, Mary Martin began pursuing a performing career singing on radio in Dallas and in nightclubs in Los Angeles. Her performance at one club impressed a theatrical producer, and he cast her in a play in New York, but that production did not open. She was then cast in Cole Porter's "Leave It to Me!", making her Broadway debut in November 1938. In that production, she became popular on Broadway and received attention in the national media singing "My Heart Belongs to Daddy". With that one song in the second act, she became a star 'overnight'." Martin reprised the song in "Night and Day," a Hollywood film about Cole Porter, in which she played herself auditioning for Porter (Cary Grant). "My Heart Belongs to Daddy" catapulted her career and became very special to Martin — she even sang it to her ailing father in his hospital bed while he was in a coma. Martin did not learn immediately that her father had died. Headlines read "Daddy Girl Sings About Daddy as Daddy Dies." Because of the show’s demanding schedule, Martin was unable to attend her father’s funeral. She appeared on Broadway in "South Pacific", opening on April 7, 1949 as nurse Nellie Forbush. Her performance was called "memorable...funny and poignant in turns", and she earned a Tony Award. Richard Watts, Jr. of the "New York Post" wrote: "nothing I have ever seen her do prepared me for the loveliness, humor, gift for joyous characterization, and sheer lovableness of her portrayal of Nellie Forbush... Hers is a completely irresistible performance." She opened in the West End production on November 1, 1951. Her next major success was in the role of Peter in the Broadway production of "Peter Pan" in October 1954, with Martin winning the Tony Award. Martin opened on Broadway in "The Sound of Music" as Maria on November 16, 1959, and stayed in the show until October 1961. She won the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical. The musical gave Martin "the chance to display her homespun charm." In 1966 she appeared on Broadway in the two-person musical "I Do! I Do!" with Robert Preston and was nominated for the Tony Award (Leading Actress in a Musical). A national tour with Preston began in March 1968 but was cancelled early due to Martin's illness.
167342	Persia White (born October 25, 1977) is an American actress and musician. White is known for her role as Lynn Searcy on the sitcom "Girlfriends". She is also a member of the industrial rock band XEO3 and a solo singer, who released her debut album "Mecca" in 2009. Early life. White is one of four children born to a white mother and a black father. Her early years were spent in the Bahamas. White's father was paralyzed in a car accident when she was three. He later moved to Miami to seek better medical care. White's mother moved with her children to the South Florida area two years later, but did not reunite with White's father. White later joined the Miami Coconut Grove Children's Theater. As a teen, she studied dance, acting, singing, and painting. After high school, White signed with the Ford Agency and obtained her Screen Actors Guild card. She then moved to Los Angeles to pursue a career in acting. Career. White has appeared in various independent films, including "Red Letters" (opposite Peter Coyote) and the cult horror "Blood Dolls". She starred in the made-for-TV movies "Operation Sandman" (opposite Ron Perlman), and "Suddenly", opposite Kirstie Alley. Her television work includes guest starring roles on "Angel", "NYPD Blue", "The Steve Harvey Show", "Brooklyn South", "Buffy the Vampire Slayer", as well as a series regular role on "Breaker High" with co-star Ryan Gosling. In especially2008, White appeared in "The Fall of Night", as the character Dawn. She can also be seen in Chrisette Michele's video, "Be OK". In addition to acting, White also co-produced the award-winning documentary "Earthlings", narrated by Joaquin Phoenix. In July 2011, White won the award for Best Performance By An Actor in the American Black Film Festival for her work in "Dysfunctional Friends". She also appeared as Bonnie's (Kat Graham's) mother on the hit t.v. show The Vampire Diaries in a third season episode. Personal life. White has one daughter from a previous relationship. Advocacy and religion. White, who is a vegan, is a human and animal rights advocate, and environmentalist. She was honored by PETA as a 2005 Humanitarian of the Year. She is a board member for the Humane Society of the United States, and the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society. She is also an active member of Global Green and Farm Sanctuary. White is not affiliated with any organized religions.
1057686	Beneath the 12-Mile Reef is a 1953 American adventure film directed by Robert D. Webb. The screenplay by A. I. Bezzerides was inspired by "Romeo and Juliet" by William Shakespeare. The film was the third motion picture made in CinemaScope, coming after "The Robe" and "How to Marry a Millionaire". Plot. Mike and Tony Petrakis are Greek American father and son sponge diving entrepreneurs who find themselves in competition with the Rhys family, WASP fishermen who are prepared to resort to violence and even murder to maintain their established fishing grounds off the Gulf Coast of Florida. Run-ins between the two clans lead to an exchange of threats and all-out brawls. Further complications ensue when Tony Petrakis meets Gwyneth Rhys, and the two fall in love. Production. The film was shot on location in Key West and Tarpon Springs, Florida. Critical reception. Bosley Crowther of "The New York Times" observed, "Another and further extension of the range of CinemaScope ... is handsomely manifested in "Beneath the 12-Mile Reef" ... But that, when you come right down to it, is just about the only novelty provided by this third employment of the anamorphic lens. For the scenes shot above the surface, while large and imposing, are routine, and the drama developed in the screen play is hackneyed and banal. And, unfortunately, most of the picture takes place above, not below, the reef ... There is nothing at all fascinating or edifying here." "Variety" said, "squeeze-lensing gives punch in the display of underwater wonders, the seascapes and the brilliant, beautiful sunrises and sunsets of the Florida Gulf coast. In handling the young cast, Robert D. Webb's direction is less effective, particularly in the case of Robert Wagner and Terry Moore. Both are likable, so the shallowness of their performances is no serious handicap to the entertainment."
1034476	Beryl Elizabeth Reid, OBE (17 June 1919 – 13 October 1996) was a British actress of stage and screen. Early life. Born in Hereford, England in 1919, Reid was the daughter of Scottish parents, and grew up in Manchester, where she attended Withington and Levenshulme High Schools. Career. Leaving school at 16, she made her debut in 1936 as a music hall performer at the Floral Hall, Bridlington. Before and during World War II, she took part in variety shows and pantomimes.
1072247	, born , is a Japanese actor best known for his brooding style and the stoic presence he brings to his roles. Takakura gained his streetwise swagger and tough-guy persona watching yakuza turf battles over the lucrative black market and racketeering in postwar Fukuoka. This subject was covered in one of his most famous movies, "Showa Zankyo-den" ("Remnants of Chivalry in the Showa Era"), in which he played an honorable old-school yakuza among the violent post-war gurentai.
1709546	The Wild Stallion is a film released straight to DVD in late 2009. Miranda Cosgrove, Danielle Chuchran, Robert Wagner, Paul Sorvino, Connie Sellecca and Fred Ward. It was distributed by Myriad Pictures. In December 2010 the popular Horse Book Club PONY included "The Wild Stallion" in their package. Plot. "The Wild Stallion" is about an 11 year old girl from Cleveland, Ohio named Hanna Mills (Miranda Cosgrove), who wants to photograph wild horses for a project and to try to help save them. Her mom died a few years ago of cancer. After visiting a ranch during summer vacation and befriending another 11 year old girl named CJ (Danielle Chuchran), the girl learns about illegal activities that might jeopardize the mustangs. Along the way she learns about the horses including the legend of the black stallion.
1132644	Christopher Allan Mitchum (born October 16, 1943), is an American actor and politician. He was born in Los Angeles, California, the second son of film star Robert Mitchum and his wife Dorothy. He is also the younger brother of actor James Mitchum. He ran for Congress in 2012, but lost, though he intends to run again. Mitchum, a former actor, appeared in the John Wayne motion pictures "Chisum" (1970), "Rio Lobo" (1970) and "Big Jake" (1971), with Charlton Heston in "Last Hard Men" (1976), and "Tombstone" (1993), and starred in some 60 films in 14 different countries. He is the recipient of the Photoplay's Gold Medal Award for 1971, cited by Box Office magazine as one of the top five stars of the future, and has won both The Golden Horse Award (Chinese Academy Award, 1981–1982), and The Golden Reel, Best Actor (1988, Indonesia). He has been a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Since 1978. He was elected to two three year terms on the Board of Director for SAG from 1983–1989, and spent two of those years as the National 1st Vice President from 1987–1989. He also served on the Republican Central Committees for both Ventura and Santa Barbara counties from 1998–2000. He is the father of Bentley Mitchum, Carrie Mitchum, Jennifer Mitchum and Kian Mitchum. He is also the grandfather of Cappy Van Dien, Grace Van Dien, Allexanne Mitchum and Carrington Wyatt. Political Involvement. Mitchum was the Republican nominee in the 1998 general election for the California State Assembly in the 35th District, which included portions of Santa Barbara and Ventura Counties. He lost the election to Democrat Hannah-Beth Jackson. In 2012, he declared his intention to run for the U.S. House of Representatives in Congressional District 24.
899621	Big Deal on Madonna Street (, also released as Persons Unknown in the UK) is a 1958 Italian criminal-comedy film, directed by Mario Monicelli, and considered to be among the masterpieces of Italian cinema. Its original title translates as "the usual unknown persons", a journalistic and bureaucratic euphemism for "unidentified criminals" or "usual suspects". The film is a comedy about a group of small-time thieves and ne'er-do-wells who bungle an attempt to burglarize a state-run pawn shop called Monte di Pietà in Rome. As the film's heist scene bears a striking resemblance to that in the film "Rififi", the film is often considered a parody of that film. The main roles are played by Marcello Mastroianni, Vittorio Gassman, Renato Salvatori, Carlo Pisacane, and Tiberio Murgia. The careers of both Gassman and Mastroianni were considerably helped by the success of the film—Gassman, in particular, since before then he was not deemed suitable for comedic roles. Claudia Cardinale also featured in a minor role (a chaste, black-clad Sicilian girl, almost held prisoner at home by her overbearing brother, played by Tiberio Murgia), although she would later rise to fame for other work. The film is also notable for its breezy jazz score by the composer Piero Umiliani, who helped develop the style of the jazz soundtracks now considered characteristic of European films in the 1960s and 1970s. The producers were initially skeptical about the film, and used some misleading tactics to hook the public's interest—such as the original poster featuring famous comedian Totò in a prominent position even though he has only a minor role. The film is currently distributed in Region 1 by The Criterion Collection and for the Italian market in Region 2 by 20th Century Fox. Plot. A local thief, Cosimo, is arrested for the attempted theft of a car. After he is sentenced and put in prison, he starts haranguing his girlfriend and former accomplices by telling them that he has a plan for a heist but that he needs their help to be freed. In order to assure his release, they find an acquaintance named Peppe with a clean criminal record to take blame for the theft in the hopes that the police will release Cosimo. They instead have both of them jailed. While Peppe is in jail, Cosimo tells him the plans for the heist of a safe in a pawnshop. After revealing the plans, Peppe reveals that he got off merely with probation, leaving him free to pursue the heist without him, much to the chagrin of Cosimo. The heist entails the following: as the pawnshop is adjacent to a vacant apartment, they must first break into a small courtyard, climb onto the roof of another small apartment, and break in through a window of the vacant home. To accomplish this, they enlist the help of another local thief that is an expert on safes who tells them of a plan (similar to that of the film Rififi, released a few years prior in 1955) to silence the alarm of the safe that they may break into it safely. While everything is planned, they discover that the vacant apartment has just become occupied by two spinsters and their young, attractive maid. Peppe learns from the young maid, with whom he flirts, that the two women never leave their apartment except on Thursday night. After arranging a date with the girl on this particular day, the group is distressed to learn that she has quit her job and the women may in fact be there on Thursday night. Meanwhile, a number of misfortunes are incurred by the group: Cosimo, who had since been released from jail, dies in a botched robbery; Mario, another of the group, bails on the plan in favor of a legitimate life for the sake of a beautiful girl, while another of the group is partially crippled after being attacked by the man whose camera he stole earlier for the purpose of daytime reconnaissance of the pawnshop. Despite this, they proceed with the plan anyway after learning that the women will not be in the apartment. Notwithstanding a number of bumbling entries, they gain entry into the apartment. After first boring a hole through a water pipe, they are forced to staunch the flow of water while remaining quiet after a night porter enters the apartment to make a call. After these obstacles, they bore another hole, this time knocking out a portion of the wall, revealing another room in the same apartment as the flat was remodeled since the arrival of the new tenants while the men acted on the basis of the previous rooms' arrangement. After they realize their plan was miscalculated, they leave the apartment dejected - albeit as free men. Peppe then decides to find legitimate work, much to the surprise of an elderly member of the group. The film ends with a newspaper article recounting a robbery by unknown persons of an apartment for food (which the men had eaten after their plan had crumbled.) Sequels. A sequel directed by Nanni Loy followed in 1960, reuniting the entire cast aside from Totò and Mastroianni, entitled "Audace colpo dei soliti ignoti" (released in English as "Hold-up à la Milanaise"). A further sequel was directed by Amanzio Todini titled "I Soliti ignoti vent'anni dopo" (1987). It was released on DVD in the United States as "Big Deal On Madonna Street - 20 Years Later" by Koch Lorber. Remakes. Two remakes of the film were shot in the USA: the 1984 film "Crackers" by Louis Malle (set in San Francisco), and the 2002 film "Welcome to Collinwood" by Anthony Russo and Joe Russo (set in Cleveland). Awards. The film was nominated for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 31st Academy Awards.
1058146	The Last Mimzy is a 2007 science fiction adventure drama film directed by Robert Shaye and loosely adapted from the 1943 science fiction short story "Mimsy Were the Borogoves" by Lewis Padgett (the pseudonym of husband and wife team Henry Kuttner and C. L. Moore). The film features Timothy Hutton, Joely Richardson, Rainn Wilson, Kathryn Hahn, Michael Clarke Duncan, and introducing Rhiannon Leigh Wryn and Chris O’Neil as fourteen-year old Noah, and seven-year old Emma Wilder. Plot. Presented as a memory flashback by a woman named Lena that takes place in the distant future, "The Last Mimzy" is the story of a distant future's attempt to avert a catastrophic ecological disaster that has destroyed their peaceful world. High tech devices disguised as toys, are sent back into the distant past and into the hands of Noah and Emma Wilder, two children who live with their parents, Jo (Joely Richardson) and David, (Timothy Hutton) in early 21st century in Seattle. The "toys" are mostly incomprehensible to Emma (Rhiannon Leigh Wryn) and Noah (Chris O'Neil), except for what appears to be a stuffed rabbit named Mimzy. Sensing the paranormal, supernatural strangeness of the devices, the children initially keep their discovery a secret from their parents. Interaction with the devices causes the children to develop highly advanced knowledge and genius-level intelligence, and other psionic abilities such as telepathy, empathy, and exceptional telekinesis. Emma becomes telepathically connected to Mimzy, from which she learns how to further operate the devices. Because of her psychic connection with Mimzy, Emma's development of her unique abilities are much stronger than her older brother's, being the only one of the siblings to display empathy, telepathy, levitation, telekinesis, and short-distance teleportation (though Noah can also telepathically communicate with her once she has telepathically contacted him). Emma is also the only one who can use the Spinners, strange spinning, telekinetically floating rocks that produce a visible force-field. Noah's incredibly strong psionic/physic abilities are ingeniously increased intelligence and knowledge, empathic communication with and control over arthropods, and limited telepathy (before the blackout, he could also use one of the toys to enable him telekinetically teleport objects through a small dimensional rift after staring at it, and then observing his surroundings, but it is assumed he can no longer perform this psionic ability after the toy fuses with another of the objects). At one point, Noah seems somewhat envious of his sister's psionic prowess, but she reveals to him that even though she is the Chosen One, he is her Chosen Engineer and she cannot "build the bridge to the future" without him.
583968	Unnale Unnale (, English: "Because of You") is a 2007 Tamil musical romance film. Directed and co-written by Jeeva and produced by Oscar Ravichandran its stars Vinay Rai, Sadha and Tanisha Mukherjee in the lead roles. Raju Sundaram and Lekha Washington, prominent actors from the south Indian film industry, played the roles of the lead character's friends in the film. The film revolves around the aftermath of a relationship between a careless man and a serious woman. Despite being in a relationship, the latter walks out on the former due to his antics with other women. However, the man changes his ways and on a business trip to Melbourne, he encounters another woman. This other woman's personal assistant turns out to be the man's former lover. The events that follow and who the man eventually gets together with form the crux of the story. The film opened to Indian audiences after several delays, on 14 April 2007, coinciding with the Tamil New Year. Despite receiving mixed reviews on the actors' performances, the film went on to win the box office battle on Tamil New Year's Day and become a major hit at the South Indian box office. Owing to its success, it was later dubbed into the Telugu language as "Neevalle Neevalle". Plot. The film opens with two people – a man (Aravind Akash) and a woman – interviewing civilians' thoughts on love and the opposite sex. After a mixture of answers, they cease their questions and the credits roll. The credits end as a boy, after being rejected by his girlfriend, commits suicide by jumping onto a passing car. Karthik (Vinay Rai) walks off disturbed to his girlfriend Jhansi's (Sadha) office. There, he is criticized by her for his antics with other women and his lack of passion for their love. She walks off, ending their relationship. Karthik is then shown as a civil engineer in Chennai, still playful and fun-loving. Accepting a request from his manager to go on a business trip to Melbourne, he bids farewell to his friends (Raju Sundaram and Sathish). On the plane, he encounters a playful, flirtatious girl, Deepika (Tanisha Mukherjee), whom he sits next to during the flight. After spending hours together, they become good friends and exchange details. However, by coincidence, Deepika is travelling to Melbourne to work in the same company as Jhansi, who is settled there. Together they seem to conveniently bump into Karthik at every corner, prompting an unwelcome reunion for Jhansi and Karthik. While Deepika takes a liking to Karthik, Jhansi still ignores him, even though Karthik has ambitions of getting back together. At a restaurant, Karthik bumps into a fellow Tamilian (Srinath) and explains his love for Jhansi. The story then moves two years back for a flashback of events. Karthik had met Jhansi at a festival at a temple, where she played a prank on Karthik and his friends. Taking a liking to her, Karthik begins to follow Jhansi intentionally, hoping for her to fall in love with him. Soon after this happens, she becomes more and more suspicious of Karthik. This comes to a head when Karthik acts as the boyfriend of his friend's (Raju Sundaram) girlfriend, Pooja, (Paloma Rao), only for Jhansi to get confused and mistake him. His reputation as a trusting boyfriend takes another turn for the worse, when at a wedding, the bride (Lekha Washington) gives him a kiss after he improvises a song. As the pair have a love-hate relationship, the break-up beckons when Jhansi sends her friend (Vasundra) undercover to go flirt with Karthik, however, he lies claiming he was at home ill, prompting Jhansi to end their relationship. At the end of the flashback, Srinath suggests to Karthik, that its more important to move on than think regretfully and Karthik gets over his relationship with Jhansi. However, finding out about Deepika's love towards Karthik, Jhansi becomes jealous and reinstates her love for Karthik. Soon, as she sees Deepika and Karthik's compatibility and understanding her faulty, she finally understands what went wrong in their relationship. Then, Karthik tells her through a meaningful conversation that he still loves her, not Deepika. After this, Jhansi run away to Sydney anonymously. At the end of the film, the male interviewer who appeared at the start questions Jhansi on her decision to leave anonymously, however she refuses to answer, at first. Later, she replies that though she still loves Karthik, she was unable to understand Karthik well. She knew it would not work out and she did not want to hurt Karthik further, thus becoming the sole reason for her departure. She then confirms that she met up with Deepika recently, and had found that she is married to Karthik and has a child. She then walks away, claiming her future lies in her own hands and she is happy the way she is now. Cast. The cast from the film was minimal, mainly focused on the three lead actors. Production. The key elements. The entire production of the film took about a year and a half to be completed and released. Prior to "Unnale Unnale", Jeeva had directed three films, "12B", "Ullam Ketkumae" and "Run", a Hindi film. "Unnale Unnale" became his last finished film prior to his death on the sets of his next film, "Dhaam Dhoom". The film was originally announced under the title of "July Kaatril" (In the Winds of July) with a scheduled casting of Arya, Sonia Agarwal and Parvati Melton. However all three of the proposed lead cast opted out of the film. Agarwal cited that her marriage was on the cards and she would find it difficult to sign on for a year, whilst the other two were unable to star in the film due to undisclosed reasons. In an interview, Jeeva, said "Romance always finds a special place in Tamil films. My new film July Kaatril is also about love", confirming it was a romantic flick. While Harris Jayaraj was signed on as the music director with Kavignar Vaali and Pa. Vijay assisting him with the lyrics, Jeeva's wife, Aneez, debuted as a costume designer. Casting, location and music. The casting of Vinay Rai, after Arya opted out, as Karthik was due to some similarities with the character. Vinay made his debut into the film industry after modelling and featuring in a couple of Tulu advertisements. However, they finalised the choice of the actor only after the script was ready. The choice of Sadha was more difficult and since "Anniyan" she had received many negative reviews and the film became important to rekindle her success. The role of Deepika went to Tanisha Mukherjee, who despite being a leading heroine's sister (Kajol), she was yet to maintain a hit film. Mukherjee, came down to South India to look for new opportunities and attracted the producer into signing her on. She immediately expressed her satisfaction with the character and consented for the role. The camaraderie that the lead actors shared during the filming, added on to their good performances. Raju Sundaram and Sathish were picked for their dancing skills while actresses Paloma Rao, Lekha Washington, Aravind Akash and Vasundra all played floating cameos in the film. The film was mostly shot in Melbourne, Australia overlooking the Melbourne Docklands. The climax was shot in Sydney while the beginning and the flashback was picturized in various cities across South India. For the film's music and soundtrack, Jeeva renewed his previous association ("12B" and "Ullam Ketkumae") with Harris Jayaraj. Playback singer, Chinmayi dubbed for Tanisha Mukherjee, Release. Reception. Unnale Unnale was released worldwide alongside "Mayakannadi", "Madurai Veeran" and "Arputha Theevu" on Tamil New Year's Day, 14 April 2007. Owing to the success of the film, the number of reels grew to about hundred. The film completed 100 days of screening in the theaters in the state of Tamil Nadu. The reception in Malaysia was equally successful and was released in six major metropolises for up to 9 weeks, the film collected $114,883 (then approximately 5 million) within its 50 day run. Critical acclaim and controversies. Despite its relative commercial success, the film received mixed reviews on the storyline and the performances of the actors themselves. "Rediff.com" praised Sadha but describe Tanisha Mukherjee's and Vinay Rai's performances as mediocre, while the reviewers at "SearchIndia.com" contradict the statement, praising Tanisha and criticizing the other pair. The film made business for Vinay, who signed up many films after the project. Home media. DVD. The DVD version of the film was released on 8 August 2007 in the United Kingdom. This DVD release was distributed by Ayngaran International all around the world. It is available in Anamorphic widescreen, Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround, progressive 24 FPS, widescreen and NTSC format. Soundtrack. The film has six songs composed by Harris Jayaraj with the lyrics primarily penned by Vaali and Pa. Vijay. The audio of the film released nationwide on 24 January 2007, three months prior to the movie release. Sify gave a positive rating stating "Full marks to Harris Jeyaraj for the songs especially the “Unnale Unnale…”, “June Pona…” and the background score which stays long after you leave the hall. They are picturised aesthetically in never-seen-before locations with utmost care going into details. " The Soundtracks where highly acclaimed and won "Youthful album of the year" award from "Tamil Music Awards".
1163825	Mitzi Gaynor (born September 4, 1931) is an American actress, singer and dancer. Life and career. Gaynor was born as Francesca Marlene de Czanyi von Gerber in Chicago to Pauline Fisher, a dancer, and Henry von Gerber, a violinist, cellist, and music director.
1103023	Jean Bourgain (born 28 February 1954) is a Belgian mathematician. He has been a faculty member at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign and, from 1985 until 1995, professor at Institut des Hautes Études Scientifiques at Bures-sur-Yvette in France, and since 1994 at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey. He is currently an editor for the Annals of Mathematics. He received his Ph.D. from the Vrije Universiteit Brussel in 1977. His work is in various areas of mathematical analysis such as the geometry of Banach spaces, harmonic analysis, analytic number theory, combinatorics, ergodic theory, partial differential equations, spectral theory and recently also in group theory. He has been recognised by a number of awards, most notably the Fields Medal in 1994. In 2000 Bourgain connected the Kakeya problem to arithmetic combinatorics. In 2009 Bourgain was elected a foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. In 2010 he received the Shaw Prize in Mathematics. In 2012 he and Terence Tao received the Crafoord Prize in Mathematics from the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.
1787136	Punishment Park is a 1971 film written and directed by Peter Watkins. It is a pseudo documentary of a British and West German film crew following National Guard soldiers and police as they pursue members of a counterculture group across a desert. Plot. The movie takes place in 1970. The Vietnam War is escalating and United States President Richard Nixon has just decided on a "secret" bombing campaign in Cambodia. Faced with a growing anti-war movement, President Nixon decrees a state of emergency based on the McCarran Internal Security Act of 1950, which authorises federal authorities, without reference to Congress, to detain persons judged to be a "risk to internal security". Members from the anti-war movement, civil rights movement, feminist movement, conscientious objectors, and Communist party, mostly university students, are arrested and face an emergency tribunal made up of community members. With state and federal jails at their top capacity, the convicted face the option of spending their full conviction time in federal prison or three days at "Punishment Park". There, they will have to traverse 53 miles of the hot California desert in three days, without water or food, while being chased by National Guardsmen and law enforcement officers as part of their field training. If they succeed and reach the American flag at the end of the course, they will be set free. If they fail by getting "arrested", they will serve the remainder of their sentence in federal prison. European filmmakers follow two groups of detainees as part of their documentary; while Group 637 starts their three-day ordeal and learn the rules of the "game", the civilian tribunal begins hearings on Group 638. The film makers conduct interviews with members of Group 637 and their chasers, documenting how both sides become increasingly hostile towards the other. Meanwhile, back at the tent, the film crew documents the trial of Group 638 as they argue their case in vain for resisting the war in Vietnam. The first group splinters into one group that refuses to accept the rules of the game and tries to resist with violence and another group that goes on towards the goal. The violent group are all killed. As the others come near the flag they find a group of police waiting for them; it turns out that there is no way to win the Punishment Park course as the system controls it from start to finish. Production. "Punishment Park" was shot in 16mm with a skeleton crew of eight people and only one Eclair camera. The set was extremely minimal, using only a tent enclosed within a larger tent for the interior scenes. The rest was shot on location at the El Mirage Dry Lake in California. It took only two and a half weeks to shoot. The "newsreel" quality of the film was enhanced by desaturating the color and removing the traditional hard edge of the image through the use of Harrison diffusion filters. The total production cost was only $95,000, including a transfer from 16mm to 35mm. Technical notes. The film is an example of a uchronie, or alternate history, and of a psychodrama. It was shot in the cinéma vérité style using hand-held cameras. Watkins heightened realism by using amateur actors, improvisation, and newsreel camera techniques, but he also had rigid control over editing to guarantee audience involvement and the clear expression of his personal vision. Initially Watkins had a carefully detailed script, but as in his other films, he decided to allow his cast to improvise based on their own instinctive reactions while following a rough outline of sequences drawn up by the director. In his previous films, Watkins had only used improvisation a small amount. "Punishment Park" was the first time Watkins gave his cast nearly complete control over the dialogue. On one occasion the participants identified with the situation so completely that the victims actually threw rocks at the pursuers, resulting in one opening fire in return. The panic of the film team, upon believing that the fallen actors had been shot for real, was genuine. Although the film itself is fictional, many of the elements found within are metaphors of social and political events of the time, such as the trial of the Chicago Seven, the Kent State shootings, police brutality, and political polarisation. Response. One of Watkins' intentions for the film was to provoke strong emotional and intellectual responses. Few people had impartial reactions to the film. As Watkins foresaw, this produced debates after the viewings of the film similar to the debates that take place in the film. There were many extremely negative reactions to film, largely due to the unconventional form or because it was viewed as an indictment against America. Some even linked the film to communism, claiming that the film expresses a Communist philosophy. However, many more people were outraged that a British director would make a film about American political problems in a time of crisis. The film was heavily attacked when it was released at the 1971 New York Film Festival and Hollywood studios refused to distribute it.
1044194	Norman Rossington (24 December 1928 – 21 May 1999) was an English actor best remembered for his roles in "The Army Game", the "Carry On" films and the Beatles film "A Hard Day's Night". Early life. Rossington was born in Liverpool, the son of a publican, he was educated at Sefton Park Elementary School and Liverpool Technical College. He left education at the age of 14. After that he lived a rather aimless adolescent life as messenger, office boy at Liverpool Docks, apprentice joiner, etc. He did his national service in the RAF. Later, he went to night school and studied industrial design at technical college to become a draughtsman. His interest in acting led him to the David Lewis Theatre a local theatre group where he began his acting Career, he played Shakespeare and The Critic under the direction of Thomas G Reed, Rossington went on to train at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School city's Theatre Royal, by the mid-1950s appearing on the stage in plays such as a London Old Vic tour of the USA in "A Midsummer Night's Dream" and "Salad Days", being one of the original cast. However, his big breakthrough came in 1957, when he starred as Private 'Cupcake' Cook in the popular sitcom "The Army Game". He left after three series in 1959, and in the meantime had appeared in "I Only Arsked!", again as 'Cupcake'. Film roles. His first film role was in the 1956 film "Three Men in a Boat". Rossington went on to appear in "Carry On Sergeant", the first Carry On film, as well as "Carry On Nurse" (1959) and "Carry On Regardless" (1961). Rossington also played notable serious roles in "Saint Joan" (1957) and the classic 1960 British "New Wave" film "Saturday Night and Sunday Morning", playing alongside Albert Finney in the latter's first starring role. In 1958 he acted in the first of two Titanic films, "A Night to Remember", as a steward unable to communicate with non-English speaking passengers. Rossington would return in his second Titanic film playing the Sergeant-at-Arms in "S.O.S. Titanic" in 1979. In 1962 Rossington played the uncredited role of Corporal Jenkins in "Lawrence of Arabia", and later appeared in "The Longest Day" (1962), "Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines" (1965), "Tobruk" playing Alfie (1967) and "The Charge of the Light Brigade" (1968). In 1972, he appeared in "Young Winston". Rossington is the only performer to work in both a Beatles film, in "A Hard Day's Night", and an Elvis Presley film, "Double Trouble". He remembered Presley during filming as a 'quiet man who sat by himself in a corner and who would often borrow my newspaper.' Television career. From the 1970s onwards, Rossington mainly appeared on television, including roles in "His and Hers", "The Wednesday Play", "Casanova", "Carry On Christmas", "Crown Court", "I, Claudius" (1976), "Z-Cars", "Big Jim and the Figaro Club" (1981, in the title role of "Big Jim"), Masada (1981), "The Bill" and "Last of the Summer Wine". His final appearances before his death were "Heartbeat" in 1996, "Sharpe's Regiment" as Sergeant Horatio Havercamp, also in 1996, and "What's a Carry On?" in 1998. Theatre. His stage career included time spent with the Royal Shakespeare Company and at the Metropolitan Opera in New York. Rossington also made many appearances in the West End, with roles in "Peter Pan", "My Fair Lady" (as Alfred Doolittle), "Annie Get Your Gun" (as Charlie Davenport), "Pickwick: The Musical", "Guys and Dolls" (as Nathan Detroit), and in "Beauty and the Beast". He also told the stories from"The Adventures of Portland Bill". Radio. Rossington did some radio, returning to the part of "Big Jim" in the BBC Radio 4 version of "Big Jim and the Figaro Club". He did six half-hour episodes in 1987. Personal life. Norman Rossington gave his hobbies as: woodwork, skiing, golf and languages. He was married twice. His second marriage, on 19 January 1999 to Cindy Barnes, lasted until his death aged 70 a few months later. Norman spent many of his last years living in a small terraced house in Hale, Cheshire and was seen as a local character who would cycle around the village daily and regale everyone he met, who wanted to know, with his many tales of his career. He died in Manchester after a six-month battle with cancer. The village of Hale came out to pay their respects following his death.
586579	Aditi Rao Hydari is an Indian film actress. A classical bharatanatyam dancer, she made her acting debut with Sharada Ramanathan's acclaimed film "Sringaram" (2007) and rose to fame after her performance in Sudhir Mishra's 2011 film "Yeh Saali Zindagi". In 2012 she played the female lead in the movie "London, Paris, New York" opposite Ali Zafar. In 2013, she became a part of the Mahesh Bhatt Murder franchise, when she was cast as Roshni opposite Randeep Hooda in Vishesh Bhatt's directorial film Murder 3. Early life. Aditi Rao Hydari was born in Hyderabad, from two royal lineages of Muhammad Saleh Akbar Hydari and J. Rameshwar Rao of erstwhile Raja of Wanaparthy family. She is the great granddaughter of Akbar Hydari and the grand niece of Muhammad Saleh Akbar Hydari, former Governor of Assam. Her maternal grandfather and grandmother are Raja J Rameshwar Rao, who headed the administration of Wanaparthi state during its day, and Shanta Rameshwar Rao, a much respected educationalist in the city of Hyderabad and is the Chairperson of publishing house Orient Blackswan. She started learning Bharatanatyam at age six she became a disciple of acclaimed dancer Leela Samson. She did her schooling at Rishi Valley School, near Bangalore. Later she graduated from Lady Shri Ram College, University of Delhi. Career. Hydari made her acting debut with the 2007 Tamil film "Sringaram", in which she enacted the lead character, as a devadasi. The film itself was based on classical dance, being directed by Sharada Ramanathan and produced by Padmini Ravi, two noted bharatanatyam dancers. Hydari was approached and offered the role, after Ramanathan saw her dance performance at a conference for three days. The film received critical acclaim and fetched several accloades, including three National Film Awards. Her first film to release in theatres, however, was the 2006 Malayalam film "Prajapathi", in which she starred alongside Mammootty. In 2009, she essayed a supporting role in "Delhi-6", directed by Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra. In 2011 Hydari appeared in the film "Yeh Saali Zindagi", for which she won the screen award. In 2011 she also starred in the Bollywood film "Rockstar". She has appeared in Airtel 3G advertisement in April 2011 She stars in Fox Star Studios film titled "London, Paris, New York" as the female lead opposite Ali Zafar. In this movie the actor made her singing debut by singing two of the songs. Hydari received mixed reviews for her performance. The film was a commercial failure. In 2013 Hydari appeared in Vishesh Bhatt's "Murder 3" alongside Randeep Hooda and Sara Loren. Hydari received positive reviews for her performance, Taran Adarsh of Bollywood Hungama wrote, "Aditi and Sara are show stoppers. Both deliver knockout performances," and Roshni Devi of Koimoi stated that "Aditi's performance is pillar for the film." The film was an average grosser, earning . Personal life. Aditi Rao Hydari and Aamir Khan’s wife Kiran Rao are first (maternal) cousins. In 2005 and 2009 it was reported that she was married to Satyadeep Mishra, a former bureaucrat. While the actor had declined to comment on her marital status in a 2012 interview, in a 2013 interview she mentioned that they were separated.
1066768	Devon Edward Sawa (born September 7, 1978) is a Canadian actor. Life and career. Sawa was born in Vancouver, British Columbia, the son of Edward and Joyce Sawa. Sawa has two siblings. His father is Polish, and his mother is "a little bit of everything".
296074	Rancho Deluxe is a comedy western film that was directed by Frank Perry and released in 1975. Jeff Bridges and Sam Waterston star as two cattle rustlers in modern-day Montana who plague a wealthy ranch owner, played by Clifton James. The film also stars Harry Dean Stanton, Richard Bright, Elizabeth Ashley and, as the aging detective Harry Beige hired to find the rustlers, Slim Pickens. Jimmy Buffett contributed the music, and performed "Livingston Saturday Night" with alternate lyrics within the film in a scene set at a country/western bar. Charlene Dallas, who stars as Laura Beige, was Miss California 1966. The script was by novelist Thomas McGuane, who was romantically involved with Ashley. Plot summary. Jack McKee and Cecil Colson are a couple of young, restless rustlers. Jack has turned his back on his wealthy family and his wife. Cecil is a Native American. Together, more out of boredom than anything else, they have begun rustling cattle, cutting them up with a chainsaw and paying bills with fresh meat in lieu of cash. Equally bored are wealthy Montana rancher John Brown and his wife, Cora. They once ran a beauty parlor in Schenectady, New York, but now they have bought up most of the land in this corner of Montana. Cora is so bored that she tries to catch the eye of her husband's dim ranch hands, Burt and Curt but she can't seem to work up much interest on their part. The rustling of his livestock lights a fire under Brown, who sends Burt and Curt up in a helicopter to try to catch the thieves in the act. Jack and Cecil continue to single out Brown's cattle, even kidnapping his $50,000 prize bull, Basehart of Bozeman Canyon, for ransom. Brown decides to call upon Henry Beige, said to be the scourge of rustlers everywhere. A legendary stock detective who once served time on a prison farm for rustling, Beige turns out to be a feeble old fool who doesn't seem to be interested in anything except watching TV and being waited on hand and foot by his niece, Laura, who is almost sickeningly sweet. Jack and Cecil are feeling cocky, so much so that when Burt and Curt figure out that they must be the rustlers, Jack and Cecil bribe them into a scheme to steal a semi-truck full of John Brown's cattle. Curt, however, has fallen head over heels in love with the luscious Laura, even though she still mistakenly calls him Burt. She is nowhere near as innocent as she seems, as she proves in a sexual encounter in the woods. Burt intends to use his rustling profits to take an expensive vacation in Mexico, but Curt has chosen to propose marriage to Laura. Henry Beige's ineptitude and uninterest in identifying the rustlers is infuriating to Brown, who angrily fires him. A distressed Laura explains to Curt that she needs to take care of her uncle and therefore will be leaving with him, unable to marry Curt. Curt decides to help Henry catch the rustlers instead. Henry proceeds to do exactly that, making a show of it before the town's citizens. Burt and Curt are also arrested, Curt coming to realize that Laura's sweetness and love for him was all an act. Henry Beige comes to Brown to say goodbye, nonchalantly accepting his payment because he says he's in it now simply for the sport. Brown can see now that Henry is shrewd, not doddering at all, and Laura is a sexy, all-business woman, not innocent in any way. Jack and Cecil end up sent to the Montana State Prison Ranch at Deer Lodge, presumably the same prison where Henry Beige served time in his youth. They spend their days on horseback, seemingly no more or less bored than they had been before. The final scene shows the two rustlers riding under a sign reading "Rancho Deluxe". Reaction. The film was described as a form of "parody Western" by critic Richard Eder in his Nov. 24, 1975 "New York Times" review. "It is so cool that it is barely alive," he wrote of the film's general tone. Among the positive elements: "Slim Pickens for once has a strongly written comic role. He plays it with great effect, and Charlene Dallas, as his sluttish assistant, is almost as good." Roger Ebert of the "Chicago Sun-Times" gave "Rancho Deluxe" only one-and-a-half out of four possible stars. He wrote: "I don't know how this movie went so disastrously wrong, but it did."
1431888	Matt McKenzie is an actor best known for his voicework in games and movies. He is the voice of Auron in the RPG games "Final Fantasy X", "Final Fantasy X-2", and "Kingdom Hearts II". He also provided the English voice of Borgoff in the movie ', Ptolemy in "Reign: The Conqueror", and Major Elliot in the animated movie '. McKenzie has also guest starred in some well known movies ("Gods and Monsters" with Sir Ian McKellen, in which he portrayed Colin Clive) and TV shows such as ', ', "JAG", "7th Heaven", "That '70s Show", "The O.C." and recently 24 as Agent Hollister. He also had a cameo role in Clint Eastwood's "The Rookie" as Inspector Wang. He appeared in an episode of "House M.D." as Doctor Fedler, where he talks briefly with Robert Chase about the Beatles. Most recently he appeared on two episodes of AMC's "Mad Men" as Crab Colson. McKenzie is often typecast as grumpy or serious due to his somewhat 'gruff' voice. He appeared in theater productions performed in the Pacific Resident Theatre, the Old Globe Theatre and the Notre Dame Theatre. Some of his highlight shows have been "Anna Christie", "Scotland Road", "Barbarians", and "An Ideal Wife".
586448	Ek Tho Chance is an upcoming Bollywood erotic thriller film directed by Saeed Akhtar Mirza and produced by Rangita Pritish Nandy under Pritish Nandy Communications. The music director is Ismail Darbar. The film stars Ali Fazal, Purab Kohli, Amrita Arora, Pavan Malhotra, Vijay Raaz, and others. It is scheduled for release in December 2011, even though it was filmed in 2009, but was delayed and postponed to 2013. Plot. The film tells the tale of Mumbai city and the millions who get off the train at VT station at every second of the day, hoping to latch on to the magic of Mumbai. This film is a colorful mural of the lives of individuals from Mumbai city's diverse cultural, social & economic strata. Its multiple tracks trace the hopeful, aspirational & sometimes desperate lives of people who inhabit this city. These distinct tracks run simultaneously along the film, touching and crossing each other ever so often, and finally converge towards a unique and exciting climax. "Ek Tho Chance" is aimed at showing Mumbai as a glorious collage of naive dreams, young aspirations, determined grit, cynicism and optimism that is so much a character of this vast metropolis; and all this with the will to look at ourselves in the eye. Cast. Special appearance;
1103568	In the mathematical field of numerical analysis, a Bernstein polynomial, named after Sergei Natanovich Bernstein, is a polynomial in the Bernstein form, that is a linear combination of Bernstein basis polynomials. A numerically stable way to evaluate polynomials in Bernstein form is de Casteljau's algorithm. Polynomials in Bernstein form were first used by Bernstein in a constructive proof for the Stone–Weierstrass approximation theorem. With the advent of computer graphics, Bernstein polynomials, restricted to the interval "x" ∈ [0, 1], became important in the form of Bézier curves. Definition. The "n" + 1 Bernstein basis polynomials of degree "n" are defined as where formula_2 is a binomial coefficient. The Bernstein basis polynomials of degree "n" form a basis for the vector space Π"n" of polynomials of degree at most "n".
113273	Ed O'Ross (born July 5, 1949) is an American actor perhaps best known for playing the giggling spectacled gangster Itchy in "Dick Tracy", ruthless Georgian mobster Viktor Rostavili in "Red Heat", and tough-then-alien-possessed police detective Cliff Willis in "The Hidden". Early life. O'Ross was born Edward Orss in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. of Czechoslovak descent Prior to becoming an actor O'Ross had a brief career as a boxer and as a minor league baseball player. He currently resides in New York City and Los Angeles. Acting career. Russian characters. He has starred in many films and has coincidentally played several Russian characters including villain Viktor Rosta in Walter Hill's action film "Red Heat", Nikolai, one of Ruth Fisher's love interests on the HBO series "Six Feet Under" and Leo, a sandwich shop owner on "Curb Your Enthusiasm". Other film and television roles. His films include "The Pope of Greenwich Village", "The Cotton Club", "Full Metal Jacket", "Lethal Weapon", "The Hidden", "Action Jackson", "Red Heat", "Another 48 Hrs.", "Universal Soldier", "Dick Tracy", "Hoodlum", and "Curious George".
715175	Jonathan Simon "Jon" Speelman (born 2 October 1956) is an English Grandmaster chess player, mathematician and chess writer. Early life and education. He was educated at Worcester College, Oxford, where he studied mathematics, earning a doctorate. Career. A winner of the British Chess Championship in 1978, 1985 and 1986, Speelman has been a regular member of the English team for the Chess Olympiad, an international biennial chess tournament organized by FIDE, the World Chess Federation.
585007	Chintakayala Ravi is a 2008 Telugu, romantic comedy cross over cinema starring Venkatesh, Mamta Mohandas and Anushka Shetty. The soundtrack composed by Vishal-Shekhar received positive reviews. Plot. Chintakayala Ravi (Venkatesh) works in a bar named Cyber Wave in New York. He is a head waiter; he works with his three friends who also are waiters at the same bar. He has a soft spot for software engineers because he came to the US with the dream of becoming a software pro. Unavoidable circumstances prevented him from reaching that goal. His mother Seshamamba (Lakskmi) tells everybody in her village in Andhra Pradesh that her son is big software engineer in America. Ravi is hit hard with a sentiment; for the sole reason of not wanting to hurt his mother's feelings, he continues to tell her the sweet lie that he truly is a software engineer in America. However, problems arise when Seshamamba gets ready to marry her son to Lavanya (Mamta Mohandas), a local village girl, because Lavanya believes Seshamamba when she says that Ravi is a software engineer. So, when Lavanya asks her childhood buddy, Sunitha (Anushka), to enquire about Ravi, the truth comes out that he's a bar waiter. Her family gets angry that Ravi's family lied to them, and when Ravi arrives in the village for betrothal, he is subjected to humiliation. What happens later forms the remaining story. He troubles Sunitha. Later he saves her and she understands how a good person Ravi is when he saves her father. She aims a rejoining Ravi & Lavanya. In due course they fall in love with each other and get married. Soundtrack. The soundtrack features 6 songs composed by Vishal-Shekhar with lyrics written by Chandrabose.
1094706	Hero (or Heron) of Alexandria (c. AD 10–70) was an ancient Greek mathematician and engineer who was active in his native city of Alexandria, Roman Egypt. He is considered the greatest experimenter of antiquity and his work is representative of the Hellenistic scientific tradition. Hero published a well recognized description of a steam-powered device called an "aeolipile" (hence sometimes called a "Hero engine"). Among his most famous inventions was a windwheel, constituting the earliest instance of wind harnessing on land. He is said to have been a follower of the Atomists. Some of his ideas were derived from the works of Ctesibius. Much of Hero's original writings and designs have been lost, but some of his works were preserved in Arab manuscripts. Career. It is almost certain that Hero taught at the Musaeum which included the famous Library of Alexandria, because most of his writings appear as lecture notes for courses in mathematics, mechanics, physics and pneumatics. Although the field was not formalized until the 20th century, it is thought that the work of Hero, his automated devices in particular, represents some of the first formal research into cybernetics. Mathematics. Heron described a method of iteratively computing the square root. Today, though, his name is most closely associated with Heron's Formula for finding the area of a triangle from its side lengths.The imaginary number, or imaginary unit, is also noted to have been first observed by Hero while calculating the volume of a pyramidal frustum. Bibliography. The most comprehensive edition of Hero's works was published in 5 volumes in Leipzig by the publishing house Teubner in 1903. Works known to be written by Hero: Works which have sometimes been attributed to Hero, but are now thought to have most likely been written by someone else: Works which are preserved only in fragments: Media. A 2007 The History Channel television show "Ancient Discoveries" includes recreations of most of Heron's devices. A 2008 The History Channel television show "Ancient Discoveries" - "Ancient New York" includes a short recreation of a fountain device that made water flow uphill. A 1979 Soviet animated short film focuses on Heron's invention of the "aeolipile", showing him as a plain craftsman who invented the turbine accidentally.
1099829	The curse of dimensionality refers to various phenomena that arise when analyzing and organizing data in high-dimensional spaces (often with hundreds or thousands of dimensions) that do not occur in low-dimensional settings such as the three-dimensional physical space of everyday experience. There are multiple phenomena referred to by this name in domains such as numerical analysis, sampling, combinatorics, machine learning, data mining and databases. The common theme of these problems is that when the dimensionality increases, the volume of the space increases so fast that the available data becomes sparse. This sparsity is problematic for any method that requires statistical significance. In order to obtain a statistically sound and reliable result, the amount of data needed to support the result often grows exponentially with the dimensionality. Also organizing and searching data often relies on detecting areas where objects form groups with similar properties; in high dimensional data however all objects appear to be sparse and dissimilar in many ways which prevents common data organization strategies from being efficient. The term "curse of dimensionality" was coined by Richard E. Bellman when considering problems in dynamic optimization.Republished:
1199664	Jonathan Drew Groff (born March 26, 1985) is an American singer and stage and screen actor. He originated the lead role of Melchior Gabor in the Broadway musical "Spring Awakening," for which he earned a 2007 Tony Award nomination. He regularly appears on Off-Broadway stage in plays and musicals and he received critical acclaim for his role in London West End production of "Deathtrap". His other theater credits include "Hair" as Claude, "Red", "Fame", and an Off-Broadway production of "Prayer for My Enemy" by Craig Lucas for which he earned an Obie Award. Early life. Groff was born in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, to a Methodist mother – Julie, a physical education teacher – and a Mennonite father – Jim, a harness horse trainer and driver. He has one older brother, David. Of his upbringing, he has said "My mother’s side of the family is Methodist, which is how I was raised. It was conservative in that I had strong values—sitting down and eating with the family every day, listening to authority and going to church every week and having perfect attendance at Sunday school. But at the same time, my parents always encouraged my brother and me to be happy with what we were doing. My parents were athletes in high school; my mom and my dad were the stars of the basketball team, but they never pushed my brother and me to be anything we didn’t want to be." He graduated from Conestoga Valley High School in 2003 and was going to attend Carnegie Mellon University until he booked his first professional job in New York City, the Broadway musical "In My Life." Career. Groff booked his first acting job in 2005 as a swing/dance captain for the musical "In My Life" by Joseph Brooks. The musical was about a boy with Tourette's Syndrome, and Groff understudied the lead part. He never performed in the role. Groff originated the role of Melchior Gabor in the Broadway production of "Spring Awakening". He played the role from the musical's Broadway debut on December 10, 2006 through May 18, 2008. He also played the same role in the original Off Broadway production earlier during the summer of 2006. Groff also was in the National Tour of "The Sound of Music" as Rolf, and appeared in Fame at the North Shore Music Theater in Beverly, Massachusetts. In April 2007, he was nominated for a Drama Desk Award for his role in "Spring Awakening." In May 2007, he was nominated for the Tony Award as Best Leading Actor in a Musical for his performance, with the award eventually going to David Hyde Pierce". He played the recurring role of Henry Mackler on the ABC soap opera "One Life to Live". His storyline about a school shooting on the long-running soap opera was nixed due to the Virginia Tech shooting in April 2007, and he is no longer on the show. Before performing on the Broadway stage, Jonathan was a performer at The Ephrata Performing Arts Center in Ephrata, Pennsylvania. There he portrayed such characters as Edgar in "" and Ugly in "Honk!". Groff played as Claude in the Shakespeare in the Park production of "Hair", which ran July 22 through August 31, 2008. He also appeared as Michael Lang in Ang Lee's major motion picture, "Taking Woodstock". Groff has appeared in the Off-Broadway production of "Prayer for My Enemy" by Craig Lucas ("Prelude to a Kiss", "Light in the Piazza") about the consequences the Iraq war has had on an American family. In August 2009, Groff performed "The Bacchae" as Dionysus as a part of the Public Theater's Shakespeare in the Park. He was guest starring on "Glee" as Jesse St. James, the male lead of rival glee club Vocal Adrenaline for eight of the back nine episodes. He also serves as a love interest for his former "Spring Awakening" co-star Lea Michele's character, Rachel Berry. "Newsweek" critic Ramin Satoodeh stated that Groff was unconvincing in the role of the straight Jesse ("he seems more like your average theater queen, a better romantic match for Kurt than Rachel"). Groff's performance was defended by "Glee" creator Ryan Murphy and guest star Kristin Chenoweth, both of whom described Satoodeh's essay as homophobic; it was also condemned by GLAAD president Jarrett Barrios. In August 2010, he made his West End debut in "Deathtrap", at the Noël Coward Theatre in a production directed by Matthew Warchus. Groff returned to "Glee" at the end of the second season, where his character tried to ask Rachel for forgiveness. He returned to the show on May 10 to finish out the remainder of the second season. Despite leaving the show for the first part of its third season, Groff returned to "Glee" in "Saturday Night Glee-ver" as the coach of his former Glee club, Vocal Adrenaline. From August to October 2012, Groff appeared as Ian Todd in the second and final season of the Starz TV series "Boss". Groff played Ken in the Center Theatre Group's production of the Tony Award winning play "Red", alongside Alfred Molina reprising his role as painter Mark Rothko. The show ran from August 1 to September 9, 2012. In March 2013, Groff and Molina reprised their roles for six more performances of the play, this time in the L.A. Theatre Works. These performances, like all that take place on LATW, were recorded to be broadcast on radio. Groff is scheduled to voice one of the lead roles in Disney's upcoming animated feature "Frozen". His character, Kristoff, is described as a rugged mountain man. The movie is set to premiere November 27, 2013. Groff stars as Patrick, a gay video-game developer, in HBO's comedy Looking, which as of May 2013 has an eight-episode initial order. In April 2013, Groff joined another HBO production, playing Craig in the TV movie adaptation of the Larry Kramer play, "The Normal Heart". Personal life. In October 2009, Groff told Broadway.com during the National Equality March in Washington, D.C., that he is "gay and proud". In September 2012, actor Zachary Quinto confirmed that he was in a relationship with Groff. In July 2013, it was reported the relationship had ended. Theatre credits. Other works include a national tour of "The Sound of Music" as Rolf, as well as Ugly in "Honk!" and Edgar in "", both at the Ephrata Performing Arts Center.
1163908	Robert Martin Culp (August 16, 1930March 24, 2010) was an American actor, scriptwriter, voice actor and director, widely known for his work in television. Culp earned an international reputation for his role as Kelly Robinson on "I Spy" (1965–1968), the espionage series in which he and co-star Bill Cosby played a pair of secret agents. Prior to that, he starred in the CBS western series, "Trackdown" as Texas Ranger Hoby Gilman from 1957-1959.
1062767	Michael John Pollard (born Michael John Pollack, Jr., May 30, 1939) is an American actor known for playing the character C.W. Moss in 1967 crime film "Bonnie and Clyde". Personal life. Pollard was born in Passaic, New Jersey. He is the son of Sonia (née Dubanowich) and Michael John Pollack. He attended the Montclair Academy and the Actors Studio. From November 6, 1961, to 1969, he was married to actress Beth Howland, with whom he has a daughter named Holly. Career. In 1959, at twenty, Pollard portrayed Homer McCauley, the dramatic lead, in a television adaptation of William Saroyan's novel, "The Human Comedy", production narrated by Burgess Meredith. That same year Pollard appeared in the episode "The Unknown Town" of David Hedison's 16-segment NBC espionage series, "Five Fingers".
1062686	Noriyuki "Pat" Morita (June 28, 1932 – November 24, 2005) was an American film and television actor who was well known for playing the roles of Matsuo "Arnold" Takahashi on "Happy Days" and Keisuke Miyagi in the "The Karate Kid" movie series, for which he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor in 1984. Pat was the lead actor in the television program "Mr. T and Tina", regarded as the first American sitcom centered on a person of Asian descent, and "Ohara", a police-themed drama. Both television shows were aired on ABC, but they were both short-lived and to this day go mostly unremembered. Early life. Pat Morita was born in Isleton, California. He developed spinal tuberculosis at the age of two and spent the bulk of the next nine years in Northern Californian hospitals, including the Shriners Hospital in San Francisco. For long periods he was wrapped in a full-body cast and was told he would never walk. After a surgeon fused four vertebrae in his spine, Pat finally learned to walk again at the age of 11. When he walked out of the hospital, an FBI agent escorted him directly to his Japanese American family, who had been sent to an internment camp to be detained for the duration of World War II. He was transported from the hospital directly to the Gila River camp in Arizona to join them. It was at this time that he met a Catholic priest from whom he would later take his stage name, "Pat". For a time after the war, the family operated Ariake Chop Suey, a restaurant in Sacramento, California. Teenage "Nori" would entertain customers with jokes and serve as master of ceremonies for group dinners. Later, he worked as a data entry clerk for the State of California and at Aerojet-General Corporation near Sacramento. In the early 1960s, he started his career as a stand-up comedian known as The Hip Nip, performing in local nightclubs and bars. He also spent time as a member of the improvisational comedy troupe "The Groundlings". Morita was married three times. His first marriage was soon after he finished high school at Armijo High School in Fairfield, California. They were married for 14 years and had one daughter, Erin Morita, born in 1954. Morita later married his second wife, Yuki, in 1970. They had two daughters, Aly and Tia. The couple had to deal with several setbacks during their marriage. First, their $300,000 uninsured, Tarzana, California, home was badly damaged in a mudslide. The family escaped with just the clothes they were wearing. Shortly afterward, Tia, their youngest daughter, was diagnosed with kidney disease. Their marriage dissolved in 1982 after two years of separation. Morita met his last wife, Evelyn Louise Guerrero, when she was 15 years old because Evelyn's mother had the same manager, Sally Marr. Morita and Evelyn met again years later, and were married in Las Vegas on March 26, 1994; they remained together until his death. They did not have any children together. Television and movie career. His first movie role was as a stereotypical henchman in "Thoroughly Modern Millie" (1967). He also was cast as Rear Admiral Ryunosuke Kusaka, in the film "Midway" in 1976. Later, a recurring role as South Korean Army Captain Sam Pak on the sitcom "M*A*S*H" helped advance the comedian's acting career. He had a recurring role on the show "Happy Days" as Matsuo "Arnold" Takahashi, owner of the diner Arnold's. After his first season (1975–1976), he left "Happy Days" to star as inventor Taro Takahashi, in his own show, "Mr. T and Tina", the first Asian-American sitcom on network TV. The sitcom was placed on Saturday nights by ABC and was quickly canceled after a month in the fall of 1976. Morita starred in the short-lived "Blansky's Beauties" in 1977 as Arnold. Morita eventually returned to "Happy Days", reprising his role in the 1982–1983 season. He appeared in an episode of "The Odd Couple" and had a recurring role on "Sanford and Son" in the mid-1970s. Morita gained worldwide fame playing wise karate teacher Keisuke Miyagi, who taught young "Daniel-san" (Ralph Macchio) in "The Karate Kid". He was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor and for a Golden Globe and reprised his role as the sensei Mr. Miyagi in three sequels: "The Karate Kid, Part II" (1986), "The Karate Kid, Part III" (1989) and "The Next Karate Kid" (1994, with Hilary Swank). Noriyuki actually never studied karate, and only learned enough for the film, The Karate Kid. Although he had been using the name "Pat Morita" for years, producer Jerry Weintraub suggested that Pat be billed with his given name to sound more ethnic. Morita went on to play Tommy Tanaka in the television movie "Amos" (for which he received Golden Globe Award and Emmy Award nominations), starring Kirk Douglas. He then starred as the title character in the ABC detective show "Ohara" which aired in 1987; it ended a year later due to poor ratings. He then wrote and starred in the World War II romance film "Captive Hearts" (1987). Later in his career Morita starred on the Nickelodeon television series "The Mystery Files of Shelby Woo", and had a recurring role on the sitcom "The Hughleys". He also made a guest appearance on an episode of "Married... with Children". He went on to star in "Talk To Taka" as a sushi chef who doles out advice to anyone who will hear him. In 1998 Morita voiced the Emperor of China in Disney's 36th animated feature "Mulan" and reprised the role in "Kingdom Hearts II" and "Mulan II", a direct-to-video sequel. Morita had a cameo appearance in the 2001 Alien Ant Farm music video "Movies". Morita's appearance in the video spoofed his role in "The Karate Kid". He would also reprise his role (to an extent) in the stop-motion animated series "Robot Chicken". In the episode, he is assumed to be Mr. Miyagi, but he immediately denies that by saying, "First of all, I'm Pat F'in Morita, ya nutsack." One of Morita's last television roles was as Master Udon on the "SpongeBob SquarePants" episode, "Karate Island". The episode was dedicated to him after he died about six months after its first run. One of his last film roles was in the 2005 independent feature film, "Only the Brave", about the 442nd Regimental Combat Team, where he plays the father of lead actor (and director) Lane Nishikawa. About this time he also starred in a Michael Sajbel movie called "Remove All Obstacles" as a cold storage guru. This was a 9 minute industrial short advertising doors used for cold storage warehouses. {} Pat also took a small role in the independent film, "Act Your Age", filmed in central Illinois and released in April 2011. His last movie was "Royal Kill", which also stars Eric Roberts, Gail Kim, and Lalaine, and is directed by Babar Ahmed. Death. Morita died on November 24, 2005, at his home in Las Vegas of kidney failure at the age of 73. He was survived by his wife of 11 years, Evelyn, his children from previous marriages, Erin, Aly and Tia, two grandchildren, siblings Gloria Imagire, Clarence Saika, Teddy Saika, Peggy Saika and his then-92-year-old mother, Dorothy Sueko Saika (1913–2009), of Milpitas, California. He was cremated at Palm Green Valley Mortuary and Cemetery in Las Vegas, Nevada.
939085	Parker Croft; born on January 13, 1987 is an American film actor and screenwriter. Early life. Parker Croft was born in Burlington, Vermont and raised in Northern Vermont. His mother, Juliet McVicker, is a jazz singer; his father, Parker Hendrick Croft, Jr., is an architect, and a painter. Children's theater was Parker’s introduction to acting in 1994, at the age of seven. Soon after, he began working with the Vermont Stage Company.
589525	Aan Milo Sajna is a 1970 Hindi film written by Sachin Bhowmick, produced by Jagdish Kumar and directed by Mukul Dutt. The film stars Rajesh Khanna, Asha Parekh, Vinod Khanna, Rajendra Nath, Aruna Irani and Nirupa Roy. The music is by Laxmikant Pyarelal with lyrics by Anand Bakshi. The film became a super hit at the box office and the song "Acha to Hum Chalte Hain" was a phenomenon. Aan Milo Sajna was released when Rajesh Khanna was enjoying his superstardom and this film was one of the 15 consecutive hits he featured in his superstardom era. Plot Summary. Widowed and ailing Savitri Choudhury lives a wealthy lifestyle along with her son, Anil, in a palatial mansion in India. She knows that Anil is only waiting for her to die so that he can inherit the wealth and refuses to give him any money. The Diwan convinces Anil to mend his ways, get married, and patch-up with his mom. Shortly thereafter Anil does appear to have mended his ways, gets involved in charity, and even introduces a young woman named Deepali to his mom. Deepali moves in the mansion, looks after Savitri so much so that Savitri decides to make her the sole beneficiary of her estate. What Savitri does not know is that Anil has hired Deepali to act as his fiancée, and that Deepali herself is not who she claims to be, and is actually in love with a local horse-riding peasant, Ajit, whose father was convicted of killing Savitri's husband, and soon Ajit himself will be arrested by the Police for having an affair and then killing a woman named Sita. Music. The musical score for the film was composed by Laxmikant-Pyarelal. The lyrics were written by Anand Bakshi.
1165509	Martin Sam Milner (born December 28, 1931) is a retired American film, stage, radio, and television actor. Milner is best known for his performances in two popular television series: "Route 66", which aired on CBS from 1960 to 1964, and "Adam-12", which aired on NBC from 1968 to 1975. Early years. Milner was born to film distributor Sam Gordon Milner and Paramount Theater circuit dancer Mildred E. "Jerre" Martin in Detroit, Michigan, on December 28, 1931 (some sources state 1927). The family left Detroit when he was very young, and moved frequently before settling in Seattle, by the time he was nine. It was in Seattle that he became involved in acting, first in school, and then in a children's theater group at the Cornish Playhouse. When Milner was a teenager, he moved with his family to Los Angeles where his parents hired an acting coach and later an agent for the budding star. Milner had his first screen test and began his film career with his debut in the 1947 film "Life with Father," in the role of "John Day," the second oldest son of "Clarence Day" played by William Powell. Less than two weeks after filming for "Life with Father" ended in August 1946, Milner contracted polio. He recovered within a year and had bit parts in two more films before graduating from North Hollywood High School in 1949. He immediately landed a minor role in the film "Sands of Iwo Jima" starring John Wayne. It established him as an actor with the look of an innocent juvenile, which would serve him well for ten years. It was the first of several war films in which he would have both minor and major roles in the 1950s, including another John Wayne picture called "Operation Pacific" in 1951. It was on the set of "Halls of Montezuma" in 1950 that he met and befriended actor Jack Webb. Soon thereafter, he began intermittent work on Webb's radio series "Dragnet". Career. Milner attended the University of Southern California where he studied theater. He dropped out after a year in the fall of 1950 to concentrate on acting. His first major acting appearance was in the 1947 movie, "Life with Father", where he played the second oldest son John Day. He made his first television appearance in 1950 as a guest star on "The Lone Ranger." That same year, he began a recurring role as "Drexel Potter" on the television sitcom "The Stu Erwin Show". In 1952, Milner began a two-year stint in the United States Army. He was assigned to Special Services at Fort Ord on California's Monterey Bay peninsula, where he directed training films. He also emceed and performed in skits in a touring unit show to entertain the soldiers. Milner was encouraged by fellow soldier Clint Eastwood to pursue an acting career when his time in the Army ended. While in the Army, Milner continued working for Jack Webb, playing "Officer Bill Lockwood" (briefly the partner of "Sgt. Friday") and other characters on the "Dragnet" radio series on weekends. He also appeared on six episodes of Webb's "Dragnet" television series between 1952 and 1955. After his military service ended, Milner had a recurring role on "The Life of Riley" from 1953 to 1958. He also made guest appearances on numerous television shows including episodes of "The Bigelow Theatre", "The Great Gildersleeve", "TV Reader's Digest", "Science Fiction Theatre", "Westinghouse Desilu Playhouse", "Matinee Theater", "The West Point Story", "The Twilight Zone" (episode: Mirror Image), and "Rawhide". Milner also acted in films, the most notable of which are: "The Long Gray Line" (1955), "Mister Roberts" (1955), "Gunfight at the O.K. Corral" (1957), as Jazz guitarist Steve Dallas in "Sweet Smell of Success" (1957), "Marjorie Morningstar" (1958), "Compulsion" (1959), and "13 Ghosts" (1960). "Route 66". In 1960, Milner won the role of Tod Stiles in CBS television series, "Route 66", from 1960 to 1964. Created by Stirling Silliphant, "Route 66" is essentially about two regular guys in a car touring the United States. After the sudden death of his father left him unexpectedly penniless, Tod wandered the United States with his friend Buz Murdock (George Maharis) in Tod's Chevrolet Corvette, taking a variety of jobs and getting involved in other people's problems. Maharis was eventually replaced by Glenn Corbett as Linc Case, but Milner starred throughout the show's run. Since the show was filmed almost entirely on location, Milner spent nearly four years traveling the country, sometimes bringing his wife and children along. "Adam-12". Years before "Adam-12," Milner appeared in numerous episodes of both the radio and television versions of the seminal Jack Webb series "Dragnet." (Milner had also worked with Webb in the 1950 film "Halls of Montezuma" and the 1955 film "Pete Kelly's Blues".) This ongoing working relationship eventually led to the role for which Milner is best known. In 1968, Milner returned to television as seven-year LAPD veteran uniform patrol Officer Peter Joseph "Pete" Malloy in the Jack Webb-produced police drama, "Adam-12". Kent McCord, played his partner, rookie Officer James A. "Jim" Reed. The popular NBC series ran from 1968 to 1975. Like Webb's "Dragnet", it was based on real Los Angeles Police Department procedures and cases, and was hailed for its realistic, positive portrayal of ordinary police officers. Milner was Webb's hands-down choice for "cop behind the wheel" Pete Malloy, in part because his relative youth and prior acting credits, and also (in Milner's words) because of his on-camera driving experience from his days on "Route 66". Later career. After "Adam-12" Martin Milner starred as Karl Robinson in a television series version of "The Swiss Family Robinson" (1975–1976), produced by Irwin Allen. Most of his other work since then has been as a television guest star, most notably in action-adventure series "MacGyver" (as James MacGyver, MacGyver's father), "Airwolf", "Life Goes On", and "". Milner also has the distinction of having portrayed the victim in the premiere episode of "Columbo" entitled "Murder by the Book". In 1990, Milner re-teamed with Kent McCord, his co-star from "Adam-12", in the cable TV-movie "Nashville Beat" (1990), originally shown on the now-defunct The Nashville Network. The story, partly written by Kent McCord, had McCord as an LAPD detective who teams up with his old partner, Milner, in Nashville, Tennessee. In 1992, he guest starred on five episodes of ABC's "Life Goes On". Personal life. In May 1956, he met singer and actress Judith Bess "Judy" Jones at a Hollywood dinner party, and asked for her phone number. They were married on February 23, 1957, in Waukegan, Illinois. They had four children together: Amy, Molly, Stuart and Andrew. In February 2003, Milner's eldest daughter Amy was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia. Amy died of the disease in December 2004. In his retirement, Milner is the owner of a productive California walnut farm.
583465	Kajraare is a Bollywood film that released on 15 October 2010. The film was directed by Pooja Bhatt and starred Indian singer and music composer Himesh Reshammiya and the Pakistani-born actress Mona Laizza. Himesh plays a singer who falls in love with a bar dancer and the film is centred on how they find true love. It is the first Hindi film to be shot in Petra, often called "the eighth wonder of the world." Release. The film was supposed to be released on 6 August 2010, along with "Aisha", but due to clashes between director Pooja Bhatt and the producer, Bhushan Kumar, the release was delayed. According to sources, Kumar later sold the satellite rights to a television channel, which wanted it to have an official theatrical release before they could air it. On 15 October 2010, the film was released in only two theatres in Mumbai. Bhushan Kumar stated in an interview that the film will release worldwide on the TV channel Colors in December 2010. The film was previewed on UTV Movies on 28 May 2011. Home media. The DVDs and VCDs of "Kajraare" were released by Eros in the first week of December 2010. Soundtrack. The soundtrack of "Kajraare" was released on 30th May 2010. The album has 7 tracks and 4 remixes. All songs are composed and sung by Himesh Reshammiya with lyrics by Sameer.
584623	Vishwaroopam (titled Vishwaroop in Hindi) is a 2013 Tamil spy thriller film written, directed and co-produced by Kamal Haasan who also enacts the lead role. The film has Rahul Bose, Shekhar Kapur, Pooja Kumar, Andrea Jeremiah and Jaideep Ahlawat in supporting roles. Produced simultaneously as a bilingual in Tamil, Malayalam and Hindi and dubbed into Telugu language as "Viswaroopam", the film features soundtrack composed by Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy, with lyrics by Vairamuthu and Haasan himself in while Javed Akhtar translated them for the Hindi version. Development of the project commenced after the release of Haasan's "Manmadhan Ambu" (2010) when several of the crew were brought in from the United States to lend their technical expertise. The direction was taken over by Haasan from Selvaraghavan and reports indicating a comparison with several English films surfaced during the production. The first teaser was revealed in April 2012 and first theatrical trailer was revealed in June 2012 - the Tamil version attracted 682,000 views, Hindi version 194,000 views and Telugu version 20,000 views on YouTube. "Vishwaroopam" is the first Indian film to utilize the new Auro 3D sound technology. The film was also to be the first Indian film to release via direct-broadcast satellite, also known as direct-to-home (DTH), but after protests of theatre owners this plan was dropped. The film released worldwide, excluding Tamil Nadu, on 25 January 2013 while the Hindi version was released on 1 February 2013. Legal controversies, regarding the film's plotline of Indian security services' participation in the War on Terror, arouse as several Muslim civic organisations protested the film's release in Tamil Nadu, resulting in an official ban being imposed on the film in the state for 15 days by the Government of Tamil Nadu. The ban resulted in similar decisions in major overseas markets like Malaysia, Sri Lanka and Singapore while release was delayed in the states of Andhra Pradesh, Kerala and Karnataka. Despite the fragmented release, "Vishwaroopam" garnered generally favorable reviews from critics. Heeding to the requests of Muslim civic organisations, scenes perceived as controversial were muted or morphed, allowing the film for release on 7 February 2013 in Tamil Nadu. The film was coveted with awards for Best Art Direction and Best Choreography at the 60th National Film Awards. A sequel to the film, "Vishwaroopam II" is set for release in late-2013. Plot. The film opens in a rundown pigeon shop in New York City where an old man feeds them. He then sends one pigeon away. It flies high and lands in a skyscraper off the office window of a psychologist who is conducting a session with her client Nirupama (Pooja Kumar), a nuclear oncologist, who begins to confide that her’s was a marriage of convenience that provided a safe haven for pursuing her Ph.D in the U.S.A. for past three years and that her husband Vishwanath alias Viz (Kamal Haasan) is a middle-aged Kathak teacher. She is also put off by Viz's effeminate bearing and is attracted to her boss, Deepankar (Samrat Chakrabarti). Doubting whether her husband has secrets of his own, she hires a private investigator to tail him to probe grounds for divorce. She learns from the private investigator that Viz is a Muslim. In a sudden turn of events, the investigator is killed in a sea-side warehouse by Farukh, a prominent member of the terrorist outfit led by Omar (Rahul Bose). A business card on his wallet gives away Nirupama and the terror group led by Farukh nabs the couple. Viz surprises Nirupama by having a fight with the terrorists, kills Farukh and his men at the warehouse and escapes with Nirupama. Omar and Viz have a past, one that takes the story back to circa 2002, to the Al-Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan-Pakistan border. Viz's real name was Wisam Ahmad Kashmiri. He claims to be a Tamil Jihadi in Kashmir, wanted by the Indian Army, with a reward of 5 lakh on his head. Omar accepts him into his team and drives him off to Afghanistan. Wisam becomes a trainer to the Al-Qaeda Jihadi's and also a family friend to Omar. One day, Omar tells Wisam that American prisoners of war are still alive, incarcerated and shifted each fortnight. He orders his deputy Salim (Jaideep Ahlawat) to behead the Captain and capture it on video. The next day, Salim tells Wisam that a new tall guest is expected in the town. Wisam later that night sees Osama Bin Laden greeting the Al Qaeda chieftains in a cave. Then, a joint US-led air force begins bombing raid on the town. Omar begins to doubt that there is an informer in the team but mistakenly orders lynching of an innocent man. What follows is a maze of events that go back and forth in time, unraveling a plot where in the terrorists are scraping cesium from oncological equipment to trigger a blast in New York City. Nirupama is stunned to discover the true identity of Viz, his "uncle" (Shekhar Kapur), British "friend" Dr Dawkins (Miles Anderson) and the young "dancer" Ashmita (Andrea Jeremiah). Viz later reveals that he has a lot of emotional baggage and that he had executed many terrorists including Nassar (Nassar), Omar's boss. His mission is to bust the "sleeper-cell" of Al Qaeda in the US, which is planning to divert the attention through "capsules" capable of emitting mild nuclear radiation tied to pigeons while enabling Abbasi, a Nigerian suicide bomber to detonate the cesium bomb in the city. Together, the Wisam team try to counter the plans of Omar. In the ensuing events, Wisam is arrested by the FBI before being rescued by his "uncle" Colonel Jagannath and Dr Dawkins is murdered by Salim while picking up a video tape from an antique shop. The FBI later releases Wisam after a call from the Indian embassy and Prime Minister of India, where the true identity of Wizam is revealed as an agent of Research and Analysis Wing (RAW), India. Wisam along with the FBI, take down Abbasi and defuse the Ceasium bomb with the help of Nirupama by using a microwave oven as Faraday cage to avoid incoming calls from any mobile phone. Omar and Salim try to escape in a plane. Omar tries to activate bomb through his phone, but fails. He then called Abbasi, but call is attended by Wisam, who tells him that Abbasi is not alive, Omar is shocked to hear this but escapes with Salim in his plane. The film ends with Wisam indicating that he would now go after Omar, alluding to a sequel set in India. Production. Development. After finishing his "Manmadan Ambu" (2010), Kamal Haasan stated in November 2010 that he was working on the scriptment of his "pet project" titled "Thalaivan Irukkiran", a film about an international community. Termed as a big budget multi-starrer film, it was expected to commence by March 2011, with a Hollywood studio reportedly coming forward to produce it. However, in early 2011, sources claimed that Kamal shelved that project and agreed to star in a Selvaraghavan directorial, being impressed by the one-line story narrated to him. Reports further suggested that the film was based on the 2001 American psychological thriller "Hannibal", with Kamal playing a cannibal, Closer to release, Kamal Haasan revealed that he had thought of the story seven years before production began and had to convince himself that the story could be made into a feature film. The film was named "Vishwaroopam", after several titles were considered, by late March and the shooting was planned to begin by mid-April and to be completed within 100 days. It was revealed that the film would be produced in three languages—Tamil, Telugu and Hindi—simultaneously. There will also be a dubbed Telugu version titled "Vishwaroopam". On 24 May 2011, it was announced that Selvaraghavan was ousted from the project, as he was busy finishing his project with his brother Dhanush. Kamal Hassan decided to direct the film himself in addition to writing the story, screenplay and dialogues. The producing studio, Telephoto Films, had urged him to take up the project, planning for a release on 7 November 2011. The film was then disclosed to be a spy thriller on the lines of the . The film was being made as a bilingual and simultaneously shot in Tamil, Telugu and Hindi languages; all the actors had to learn their dialogues in both languages. Sanu John Varghese made his debut as a cinematographer in Tamil after previously working in the Hindi film, "Karthik Calling Karthik" and the Malayalam film "Elektra". Varghese had previously been a part of the team that Kamal Haasan had assembled for "Marmayogi", which did not take off. Mahesh Narayanan, a leading Malayalam film editor, was signed up for the project after he had acquainted with Kamal Haasan for the pre-production works of the film "Traffic", which the actor later opted out from. The team signed up N. G. Roshan as a make-up artiste after Kamal Haasan appreciated his work in the 2009 Malayalam film "Pazhassi Raja", while Mahadevan Thampi was picked to be the still photographer after Kamal Haasan had worked with him for a day during his guest appearance in "Four Friends". Casting. By February 2011, newcomer Sonakshi Sinha was approached to play the lead female character, and was confirmed to play Haasan's wife. Her salary for the film was touted to be . However, with the film getting delayed, she opted out by July, due to conflicting dates with her Hindi assignments. Following Sinha's exit, other leading Bollywood actresses, including Katrina Kaif, Deepika Padukone, and Sonam Kapoor were considered. Vidya Balan was also approached by the makers, but she declined the offer, owing to her prior commitments. By mid-August, Sameera Reddy was reported to have been roped in for the role, while sources stated that Anushka Shetty was finalised soon after. In early November 2011, New York based model-actress Pooja Kumar was signed in for a role after she had been recommended to Kamal Haasan by his partner, Gouthami. The initial audition for Pooja Kumar was held over Skype, with Haasan noting that she had thought the film was initially based on cannibalism. Being a non-Tamil speaker her dialogues have been dubbed by actress Abhirami, although Pooja Kumar dubbed for herself in the film's Hindi version. Telugu actress Lakshmi Manchu was offered a role in the film, but declined it due to date issues. Shriya Saran was reported to play the second female lead in the film, with the actress dismissing the news several days later, citing that she had not even heard the script, following which Priya Anand was claimed to have bagged that role. This turned out to be false, with Kamal Haasan citing that he did not know who Priya Anand was. Isha Sharvani was meanwhile selected for a role, with reports suggesting that she would essay the character of Kamal Haasan's sister in the film. However, Sharvani too opted out later, due to "inordinate delay in the start of the shoot". By late August 2011, British model-turned-actress Amy Jackson was reported to have been added to the cast. During mid-October, singer-actress Andrea Jeremiah had been signed on for a pivotal role and paid an advance. Rahul Bose was finalised to play the antagonist. Later that month, actor-director Shekhar Kapur informed on Twitter that he would perform a cameo role, while Samrat Chakrabarti had also been selected for a supporting role. Jaideep Ahlawat disclosed in an interview that he would play an "out-and-out negative character" in the film. Zarina Wahab told in November 2011 that she shot for a small role in "Vishwaroopam". In January 2012, Chitrangada Singh was offered a "very special role", which the actress had to decline, since her dates clashed with Sudhir Mishra's film. As Kamal Hassan is ardent reader of Richard Dawkins, he had named Miles Anderson as Dawkins in the movie. Filming. The film's shooting was supposed to take off on 20 April, but became delayed, since the US Consulate had refused Visas to the cast and crew. The team decided to relocate to Canada, postponing filming to June. The shooting began for the film in Chennai in August 2011 and locations filmed at included Haasan's office in October 2011, when Isha Sharvani was also a part of the shoot. The film briskly progressed in late 2011, with scenes involving Samrat Chakrabarti filmed in November of the same year. Sets resembling Afghanistan were created in Chennai, with many foreigners from Russia, Iran and Africa playing American soldiers, while Haasan wore an Afghan look. In November 2011, the team also pursued schedules in Amman and Petra in Jordan with Rahul Bose's scenes being canned. Haasan learnt Kathak from Birju Maharaj for an important portion in the film. Due to delays, casting took a relatively long period of time, with several of the original cast dropping out of the project. "Vishwaroopam" was shot extensively overseas in countries like the United States and Canada. Domestic locations included Chennai and Mumbai.Kamal Haasan went to USA on 15 December 2011 for completing a schedule. The main outdoor shoots were shot in New York as the lead character is based there, and the production team also matched New York with the Grand Rapids in Michigan. Re-recording and dubbing work began in Mumbai in late February 2012, with Haasan arranging a dialogue coach in Tamil and Hindi to get the artistes' dubbing in place, with Atul Tiwari supervising the Hindi dialogues. The climax scenes featuring an aerial fight choreographed by Hollywood stuntman Lee Whittaker was filmed at Chandivali Studio in Andheri, Mumbai in early March 2012 with Haasan and Rahul Bose. The film was shot in digital format, after several false starts Haasan's previous projects. Speaking about it, he said "The fact that cinema is going digital is the biggest technological change today. We have to accept it, as it is happening globally and it will happen in Tamil Nadu too." Gouthami designed the costumes for the film. Shahrukh Khan's Red Chillies Entertainment has taken care of the graphics part in "Vishwaroopam". A research had to be carried out on the American army's hierarchy for the costumes. N. G. Roshan, who had previously worked in notable Malayalam films, took charge of the make-up for the film. The villain had to undergo a heavy use of prosthetic make-up. A scene involving a war explosion had to show an injured jaw for him. Further, the artists appearing as war victims had blood and other forms of injuries applied on their bodies. The Jaika stunt team, that was also involved in "Billa II" (2012) at the time, worked on the action sequences. Haasan's younger daughter Akshara Haasan joined the crew as an assistant director. Kunal Rajan was roped in as a sound designer and the stunt crew for the film were imported in from Thailand. In September 2012, Haasan revealed that the film would utilize Auro 3D sound technology, making it the first Indian film to do so. Soundtrack. Initially, Yuvan Shankar Raja was reported to compose the film's musical score. However, Kamal signed in the musical trio Shankar–Ehsaan–Loy to compose music for the trilingual, making it his second collaboration with them after "Aalavandhan". Lyricist Vairamuthu took charge of the lyrics of the songs in the film, after Kamal Haasan had approached him and narrated the entire plot, to which he immediately agreed to work upon. Javed Akhtar has penned lyrics for the Hindi version, while Ramajogayya Shastry has done the lyrics for the dubbed Telugu version. The audio was released on 7 December 2012. The Telugu version of the audio was released on 30 December at Hyderabad. "Vishwaroopam" was also released in Barco's 3D cinema sound. Marketing. The makers planned the high-budget production to premiere at the 2012 Cannes Film Festival. A special screening of the film was arranged for Hollywood-based producer Barrie M. Osborne and make-up artist Michael Westmore. Before release, it was reported to have been split into two parts, with each one having a separate release. The first look poster and a teaser of the film were released on May Day 2012 as part of the film's marketing process. The poster consisted of Kamal Haasan wearing a green khaki jacket, with a flying pigeon and a skyline of a city consisting of several skyscrapers in the background. Snippets from the film were unveiled during the International Indian Film Academy (IIFA) weekend and awards in Singapore in June 2012, as the actor-director screened excerpts from the film, attracting critical acclaim. A one minute trailer was released at the award ceremony, which saw Kamal Haasan and Andrea take part in a press conference. Salman Khan organised a special screening of Hindi version Vishwaroop at Ketnav Studio,Mumbai on 1 February 2013. An Auro 3D trailer of the film was released on 7 November, coinciding with Haasan's birthday. It included a webcast of Kamal's speech via Skype. The film is releasing in 3,000 prints worldwide. An early estimate by Haasan stated the film to earn from all its sources including music and distribution rights. A special screening of "Vishwaroopam" was held at Tamil Nadu superstar Rajinikanth's house on February 6, 2013 at the 6 Degrees theatre in the Auro 3D format for his friends. On February 9, 2013 Kamal Haasan left for Paris for the French premiere on of "Vishwaroopam". Release. The film's Tamil version was given a U/A (Parental Guidance) certificate by the Central Board of Film Certification with minor cuts, while the Hindi version "Vishwaroop", which was originally given an "A" certificate, went through minor cuts to receive the U/A certificate. The makers planned the high-budget production to premiere at the 2012 Cannes Film Festival. The film released with over 3,000 prints worldwide. While the movie was scheduled to release in theatres on January 25, 2013, the DTH release was planned for February 2, 2013 via six DTH players – Tata Sky, Airtel, Sun, Dish, Videocon & Reliance. "Vishwaroopam" was scheduled to release in about 500 screens in Tamil Nadu, but the film was removed from screens by district collectors across the State, due to sustained protests by Muslim civic organisations. In Andhra Pradesh, the film was scheduled to release in 300 screens by "Siri Media". The film released in 82 screens in Kerala on January 25th. After initial delays, Karnataka saw a full release on January 29, 2013 in 40 screens across the state. The Hindi version Vishwaroop was released in over 1,035 screens on February 1, 2013, thereby marking the biggest ever release for a Kamal Haasan film in Hindi. It was distributed by Balaji Motion Pictures. The film was scheduled to release in 250 screens in the overseas markets including 40 screens in Sri Lanka, 20 screens in Singapore, 20 screens in Canada. In Malaysia, the largest overseas market for Tamil films, Lotus Five Star distributed the film spending 4 million on copyright, print and promotion. "Blue Sky Cinemas" distributed the Tamil and Telugu versions of the film in Canada and the USA. The prohibitory orders imposed under Section 144 of Criminal Penal Code to ban "Vishwaroopam" in Tamil Nadu was lifted on February 3, 2013. Both the Tamil and Telugu versions of "Vishwaroopam" were screened at the Fourth Annual India International Film Festival of Tampa Bay on 16 February 2013 and 17 February 2013. Reception. "Vishwaroopam". "Vishwaroopam" received sympathetic reviews from critics. Sangeetha Devi Dundoo of "The Hindu" stated, ""Vishwaroopam" is a technically brilliant, ambitious film where most characters are not what they seem", and called the film "A gripping spy thriller of international standards". Radhika Rajamani of "Rediff" gave 3 out of 5 stars and stated, ""Vishwaroopam" undoubtedly rests on Kamal Haasan, who is brilliant." Vivek Ramz of "in.com" rated it 3.5 out of 5 and stated. ""Vishwaroopam" is a nicely made thriller and Kamal’s show all the way". "Behindwoods" rated the film 4 out of 5 stars, calling it, "One of the commercially best made movies of Tamil cinema." "IndiaGlitz" said, ""Vishwaroopam" comes with not just Hollywoodish feel but also its idiom". The critic further wrote "Sanu Varghese's cinematography is nimble and it is easily one of the biggest high points. Mahesh Narayanan's editing is proper." L. K. Advani called it "one of the best films I have seen in years." "Indiandragon" gave 3.5 dragons and said ""Vishwaroopam" is the Indian spy story no different but all together new". "Sify" said, "It is technically brilliant with world class making and a subject which is truly international on global terrorism." and called it a "must watch for those who seek classy, stylish and extra-strong entertainment." NDTV stated, ""Vishwaroopam" is likely to be appreciated by lovers of Hollywood action films." and pointed out, "The film's only minus point – the placement of songs works as speed breakers for a spy thriller." B.V.S. Prakash of Deccan Chronicle gave 3 stars and stated that the film "rides on performances." "Firstpost" stated that ""Vishwaroopam" is non-stop action Hollywood style". Praveen Kumar of "OneIndia" noted that the "film is on par with Hollywood standards" and gave 3.5/5. Anuja Jaiman of "Reuters" said, ""Vishwaroopam" is a work of art that surpasses Bollywood potboilers and tries to initiate a conversation about a not-so-perfect world and its great religious divide. Watch it for Haasan and your right to freedom of expression." J Hurtado of "Twitch Film" said, ""Vishwaroopam" is a film that will, inevitably, be remembered as much for its bumpy road to the screen as it will be for its objective quality." and called it "good fun". Shubhra Gupta of "The Indian Express" rated the film 3 stars, saying: "This is a fill it-shut it-forget it film, whose big budget slickness never overpowers it, and which holds you while it lasts." Film journalist Sreedhar Pillai, in an interview with "IBN Live" said, "I think it ["Vishwaroopam"] is Kamal's best film as a director." and called it "a well made commercial entertainer". In contrast, Baradwaj Rangan of "The Hindu" said, "The surprise about "Vishwaroopam" is how straightforward it is, given Kamal Haasan’s track record. (It’s basically a big, dumb action movie, but with smarts.)" Shailesh K Nadar of CinemaSpice.in rated "Vishwaroopam" as 3.5/5 mentioning in his review that ""Vishwaroopam", a stylishly made engaging thriller, is a must-watch not just for Kamal fans, but also for all who love cinema and appreciate brilliant filmmaking." "Vishwaroop". The Hindi version ""Vishwaroop"" received positive reviews from critics. Deccan Herald gave the film 4 out of 5 stars, saying ""Vishwaroop" is a helluva entertainer" and pointed out "The action sequences are, at last, on a par with Hollywood." LiveMint reviewed the Hindi version "Vishwaroop" and stated that the film is a showcase for Haasan’s wide-ranging skills with both microwaves and machine guns. Taran Adarsh of Bollywood Hungama gave "Vishwaroop" 3 out of 5 stars and stated that the film is a Kamal Haasan show all the way, "It has an interesting premise, superb combat scenes and Kamal Haasan's bravura act as its three aces. But a stretched second hour and far from dramatic finale dilute the impact. Yet, all said and done, those with an appetite for well-made thrillers might relish this effort!" Anupama Chopra of Hindustan Times gave 3 out of 5 stars to "Vishwaroop" and stated that "Vishwaroop" has to be admired for its scale and ambition. Director, co-producer, co-writer and Hero Kamal Haasan is attempting here to launch a franchise for himself. Meena Iyer of "The Times of India" gave 3 out of 5 and stated intentions of this film and the maker are good. Kamal's performance is A-grade. However the film fails, especially in the second half because there are no lump-in-the-throat moments; nor is there any shock and awe. Mid Day gave 3 out of 5 to "Vishwaroop" and stated that Kamal Haasan's film is sensitive and mature but the basic problem is the inconsistent pace. Prasanna D Zore of Rediff gave the movie 2/5 stars and wrote ""Vishwaroop" is flawed and a big disappointment from Kamal Haasan" "At times, the film tries to preach what is just and what is unjust, but fails miserably." Rajeev Masand of CNN-IBN noted "A lot of it is unabashedly entertaining, although you'll wish the film was shorter and smarter." and gave the movie 2.5/5. NDTV reviewed the Hindi version "Vishwaroop" and gave it 4 out of 5 stars, stating that "Vishwaroop" is technically dazzling. The big scenes of battle (in Afghanistan) and violent confrontation (in the US), to put it simply, are outstanding. Vinayak Chakravorty of India Today gave the movie 2.5/5 stars and reviewed, "As the sleek shots pile up, you realise what they are desperately trying to hide: "Vishwaroop" lacks the energy and imagination that one looks for in a good action flick." Shivesh Kumar of "IndiaWeekly" awarded the movie 3.5 out of 5 stars. Controversies. "Vishwaroopam" has been in the news for several critically viewed controversies. The first of this kind was the title naming issue, where the Hindu Makkal Katchi demanded the change from its current Sanskrit title to a purely Tamil one. When Kamal Haasan announced a Direct-To-Home premiere of the film, theatre owners demanded a rollback of this plan, as they feared major revenue losses to DTH service providers. Threatened by a complete exhibitor boycott of "Vishwaroopam", Haasan agreed to release the film first in theatres. Later, Muslim civic organisations in Tamil Nadu demanded the ban of the film and claimed, that the film was defamatory to Islamic ethos and would hurt Muslim sentiments. Although the film was cleared by Central Board of Film Certification of India, District collectors in the state of Tamil Nadu gave orders to the theatre owners to not show "Vishwaroopam", citing Law and order problems, however the film released in other states with greater Muslim populations than in Tamil Nadu. The ban in Tamil Nadu triggered also the stop of screenings in neighbouring Indian states and foreign markets. Bollywood Director, Mahesh Bhatt, condemned the actions instructed by Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu Jayalalitha as a critical attack on freedom of speech in India, but she denied all allegations against her regarding political and business interests. After persistent pressure to cut objectionable scenes, Kamal Haasan said, he could be forced to leave the state of Tamil Nadu and India, because he was "fed up at being played around in a dirty political game". He estimated the notional loss of revenue, due to banning policies, at almost 60 crore. A mutual agreement with all 24 Muslim civic organisations was finally settled on February 2, 2013, when Haasan accepted to mute five scenes. Box office. India. On its first of day of release in Tamil Nadu, February 7, 2013, "Vishwaroopam" grossed 5.81 crore at the box office. It grossed 12 crore after eight weekends in Chennai box office. Despite the controversy, the Hindi version of the film failed at the box office with 15% opening and netting 12.30 crore in 10 days, and a life time business of 15 crore. The movie completed 100-day run in Tamil Nadu and 50 days in Bangalore city. Overseas. The film suffered from piracy due to release in Canada and the UK while remaining banned in Malaysia, Sri Lanka and Singapore, major markets for Tamil films.
1377939	Lucas Stephen Grabeel ( ; born November 23, 1984) is an American actor, singer, dancer, songwriter, director and producer. As a performer, he is best known for his role as Ryan Evans in the "High School Musical" film series, and as "Ethan Dalloway" in the third and fourth installments of the Halloweentown series: "Halloweentown High" (2004) and "Return to Halloweentown" (2006). He currently plays Toby Kennish in the ABC Family drama "Switched at Birth". Life and career. Early life and career beginnings. Grabeel was born in Springfield, Missouri on November 23, 1984, the son of Jean (née Harman) and Stephen Grabeel. Before transferring to and graduating from Kickapoo High School in Springfield in 2003, he attended Logan-Rogersville Elementary, Middle and High School. He also played drums for a local church and initiated a men's a cappella singing group at a high school. At school, he found passions in the guitar and the accordion while also enjoying dance. He can dance in the styles of jazz, ballet, hip-hop and tap. While in Rogersville, Missouri, he regularly attended Harmony Baptist Church, where he was a part of the children's and youth groups. During the summer of 2002, He attended the Missouri Fine Arts Academy at Missouri State University. In a letter written to protest eliminating MFAA, Grabeel stated, "I wouldn't be where I am at if it weren't for my time at MFAA." His time there, as he refers to it, is what led him to move to LA and pursue an acting career. Following his graduation, Grabeel moved to Los Angeles to become an actor. After two months living there, Grabeel landed his first television role in a commercial for toothpaste and then eventually went to star in other commercials for Lego and Hot Wheels. Soon after, he starred in his first film role as Ethan Dolloway in the third installment of the Halloweentown series "Halloweentown High". He subsequently reprised this role in the series' fourth installment "Return to Halloweentown". "High School Musical". In 2006, he was cast in the role of Ryan Evans, the fraternal twin brother of Sharpay Evans (played by Ashley Tisdale), in the Emmy Award-winning made-for-television Disney movie "High School Musical". He reprises his role in the television sequels "High School Musical 2" and '. In 2007, he joined co-stars Vanessa Hudgens, Ashley Tisdale, Corbin Bleu and Monique Coleman on the 51-date '. In early 2009, Billboard believed that Grabeel and Tisdale’s track "I Want It All" should be nominated for an Oscar in the Best Original Song category however, the song did not make the final shortlist. During his time in High School Musical, Grabeel (along with his co-stars) had a total of six tracks chart in the Billboard Hot 100. Furthermore, he was the first artist to debut in the Billboard Hot 100 with two simultaneous new entries in one week. While with Disney Channel, Grabeel also participated in the first ever Disney Channel Games and co-captained the green team along with Ashley Tisdale, Mitchel Musso, Miley Cyrus, Emily Osment and Kyle Massey. The year later, he returned to repeat his captaincy of the green team with Dylan Sprouse, Miley Cyrus, Monique Coleman and Brandon Baker. Subsequent acting career. Grabeel has made television guest appearances in TV series such as "Boston Legal", '"Til Death", "Veronica Mars" and "Smallville", where he portrayed a young Lex Luthor in 2006 and reprised the role as a clone of Lex Luthor in the series' 10th season In 2011. In 2007, he filmed the movie, "The Adventures of Food Boy" with Brittany Curran, as the lead Ezra. Other film projects Grabeel was involved with include the animated film, "At Jesus' Side", where he voiced a dog named Jericho. He also filmed the independent film, "Alice Upside Down", as the character of Lester McKinley, based on the "Alice book series" by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor. In 2008, he also appeared in the movie "Milk", a biopic about the slain gay rights activist Harvey Milk. Grabeel played a friend and supporter of Milk, photographer Danny Nicoletta. He also appeared in the 2008 Walt Disney Pictures film "College Road Trip" as Scooter, which features other Disney stars Raven-Symoné, Brenda Song and Margo Harshman. He also stars in the independent movie "Lock and Roll Forever" alongside Ore Ska Band. Grabeel also guest starred in an episode of The Cleveland Show. Early in 2009, Grabeel was voted "Most Likely to Do Big Things in 2009" by MTV and had an exclusive interview with them. He mentions the release of another music video for his track "Get Your Ass On". He also mentioned his latest movie project, "The Legend of the Dancing Ninja", where he played the lead Tokyo Jones alongside David Hasselhoff. In May 2009 he portrayed the role on stage of Matt in the Harvey Schmidt and Tom Jones musical, "The Fantasticks" with Eric McCormack and Harry Groener at UCLA's Freud Playhouse. In the summer of 2011, Grabeel is starring in the ABC Family drama "Switched at Birth", in which he plays the brother of one of the two girls who were mistakenly switched in the hospital at birth. In March 2012 I Kissed A Vampire was released in the U.S. where Lucas stars alongside Drew Seeley and Adrian Slade. Musical projects. Aside his involvement in the "High School Musical" soundtracks, Grabeel has recorded a song called "You Know I Will" for the soundtrack of "The Fox and the Hound 2" and also recorded his own version of the Michael Bolton track "Go the Distance", from Disney's "Hercules", for DisneyMania 5. In 2007, Grabeel co-wrote and recorded a song called "You Got It" which was released on iTunes on August 19, 2007 while its accompanying music video was released on his official website. Grabeel also recorded another original song called "Trash Talkin'" which was released November 15, 2008 on YouTube. Grabeel also sings in the iTunes show "I Kissed a Vampire", in which, he stars. In early 2009, he appeared at the Southland Theatre Artists Goodwill Event (S.T.A.G.E.), an AIDS charity event, in Beverly Hills performing George and Ira Gershwin's "I Can't Be Bothered Now". 14341 Productions. In 2007, Grabeel founded a production company called "14341 Productions". His role within involves overseeing many projects from writing, directing and executive producing. The company have produced projects such as the short films "The Real Son", "Smoke Break"; the music videos for "Get Your Ass On" and "You Got It". They also produced a TV pilot called "Regarding Beauregard" which was Grabeel's directorial debut. They are currently working on a short film, "The Adventures Of Chuckle Boy", and have just released a short film "The Dragon". They debuted their work at the 2009 "Sundance Film Festival".
1090207	Sir Michael James Lighthill, FRS (23 January 1924 – 17 July 1998) was a British applied mathematician, known for his pioneering work in the field of aeroacoustics. Biography. Lighthill specialised in fluid dynamics, and worked at the National Physical Laboratory, Trinity College, Cambridge and between 1946 and 1959 at the University of Manchester where he held the Beyer Chair. Lighthill then moved from Manchester to become director of the Royal Aircraft Establishment at Farnborough. There he worked on the development of television and communications satellites, and on the development of manned spacecraft. This latter work was used in the development of the Concorde supersonic airliner. In 1955, together with G. B. Whitham, Lighthill set out the first comprehensive theory of kinematic waves (an application of the method of characteristics), with a multitude of applications, prime among them fluid flow and traffic flow. Lighthill's early work included two dimensional aerofoil theory, and supersonic flow around solids of revolution. In addition to the dynamics of gas at high speeds he studied shock and blast waves. He is credited with founding the subject of aeroacoustics, a subject vital to the reduction of noise in jet engines. "Lighthill's eighth power law" states that the acoustic power radiated by a jet engine is proportional to the eighth power of the jet speed. He also founded non-linear acoustics, and showed that the same non-linear differential equations could model both flood waves in rivers and traffic flow in highways. In 1964 he became the Royal Society's resident professor at Imperial College London, before returning to Trinity College, Cambridge, five years later as Lucasian Professor of Mathematics, a chair he held until 1979, when he was succeeded by Stephen Hawking. Lighthill then became Provost of University College London (UCL) — a post he held until 1989. Lighthill founded the Institute of Mathematics and its Applications in 1964. In 1968, he was awarded an Honorary Degree (Doctor of Science) by the University of Bath. In 1972 he was invited to deliver the MacMillan Memorial Lecture to the Institution of Engineers and Shipbuilders in Scotland. He chose the subject 'Aquatic Animal Locomotion'. In the early 1970s, partly in reaction to significant internal discord within that field, the Science Research Council (SRC), as it was then known, asked Lighthill to compile a review of academic research in Artificial Intelligence. Lighthill's report, which was published in 1973 and became known as the "Lighthill report," was highly critical of basic research in foundational areas such as robotics and language processing, and "formed the basis for the decision by the British government to end support for AI research in all but two universities", starting what is sometimes referred to as the "AI winter." His hobby was open-water swimming. He died in the water in 1998 when the mitral valve in his heart ruptured while swimming round the island of Sark, a feat which he had accomplished many times before.
1163795	Mary Kay Place (born September 23, 1947) is an American actress, singer, director, and screen writer. She is best known for portraying Loretta Haggers on the television series "Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman", a role that won her a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress - Comedy Series in 1977. Place also recorded one studio album for Columbia Records in the Haggers persona, which included the Top Ten country music hit "Baby Boy." Early life and career. Place was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma. She graduated from Nathan Hale High School and the University of Tulsa, where her father, Bradley E. Place, was an art professor; she was a member of Kappa Alpha Theta sorority and received a speech degree. Place moved to Hollywood with aspirations of becoming an actress and writer. She was hired for "The Tim Conway Comedy Hour" in the 1970s as a production assistant to both Conway and producer Norman Lear. Conway gave her her first on-camera break, while Lear saw to it that Place received her first writing credit on his subsequent "All in the Family". On the episode, she sang “If Communism Comes Knocking on Your Door, Don’t Answer It.” "Mary Hartman" and musical career. Lear then cast her in the role of would-be country and western star Loretta Haggers on the satirical soap opera "Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman" (1976–1977). She won an Emmy Award for her work as Loretta, and was later nominated for a Grammy Award for her spin-off musical album "Tonite! At the Capri Lounge Loretta Haggers". Place wrote two of the songs on "Tonite!": “Vitamin L” and “Baby Boy,” both of which she sang on the program as Loretta. Both albums featured A-list country and pop performers from the 1970s. Dolly Parton, on whom the Loretta character was loosely based, provided backing vocals as well as the song “All I Can Do" (which Parton also wrote). Emmylou Harris, Anne Murray and Nicolette Larson sang backup as well. "Aimin’ to Please"’s “Something to Brag About,” a duet with Willie Nelson, earned the pair a place on the music charts in 1977. "Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman" was one of the biggest cult television programs of all time. The show ended when Louise Lasser left the show in 1977, but the remaining cast stayed on for one more year to tape "Forever Fernwood". The series ended with Loretta finding out Charlie was not sterile immediately before giving birth to quintuplets conceived by artificial insemination. While working on "Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman", Place also wrote scripts for several TV situation comedies, including "The Mary Tyler Moore Show", "Phyllis" and "M*A*S*H", usually in collaboration with Linda Bloodworth-Thomason (who would later create "Designing Women"). She appeared in the "M*A*S*H" episode "Springtime," which she co-wrote with Bloodworth. She also made an appearance in the iconic sitcom "All in the Family" in the episode "Archie Goes Too Far" as Betty Sue. Place hosted "Saturday Night Live" in 1977 and was one of the few hosts who also appeared as the musical guest (with Willie Nelson on the duet “Something to Brag About”). Late 1970s through 1990s. In the 1979 Burt Reynolds film, "Starting Over", Place plays the first woman whom Reynolds dates after a divorce. In 1983, Place had a key role in the Lawrence Kasdan ensemble piece "The Big Chill" as Meg, a single corporate attorney who wishes to be impregnated with her first child by one of her past college friends. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, the actress appeared in a number of television movies and a starring role in the 1992 Kurt Russell and Martin Short comedy "Captain Ron". 1994 saw her return to television in the recurring role of Camille Cherski on "My So-Called Life". In 1996, Place comically portrayed an evangelistic pro-life activist in Alexander Payne's debut feature film "Citizen Ruth". She had a strong dramatic role as Dot Black, mother of a terminally ill young man, in Francis Ford Coppola’s version of "John Grisham’s The Rainmaker" in 1997. Place was nominated for an Independent Spirit Award for her work in the 1996 film "Manny & Lo". She plays the matronly Elaine, who would love to have a child and works in a maternity shop, but never married and is past her child-bearing years. She directed episodes of the HBO sitcom "Dream On", NBC’s "Friends" and the series "Baby Boom". She provided at least two voices for Fox’s animated show "King of the Hill" in an episode in which "Peggy Hill" competes in the Mrs. Heimlich County Pageant. She voiced both a competitor and the coordinator of the pageant. Place appeared in "Being John Malkovich" as the receptionist with a reception problem, Floris, and in "Girl, Interrupted". While not in any scenes together, this marked the third time that Mary Kay had done a film with one of her former "My So-Called Life" co-stars: first with Claire Danes in "The Rainmaker", second with Bess Armstrong in "Pecker", then with Jared Leto. 2000 to present. In 2000, the actress co-directed Don Henley’s video for “Taking You Home”. She had a small part in her second Lisa Krueger movie, "Committed". She played the United States Surgeon General in a 2001 episode of NBC’s "The West Wing". The character returned in the 2004 season. In the original PBS mini-series "Armistead Maupin’s Tales of the City", Place had a self-referential moment as a Maupin character during the "Mary Hartman" era in which the series is set. Laura Linney's character often watched "Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman". Showtime picked up the "Tales" franchise, but Place was not in the second installment. She did have a role in the third mini-series, "Further Tales of the City" (2001), which featured her in the role of "Prue Giroux." In 2002, Place had a sizable role in the Reese Witherspoon movie "Sweet Home Alabama" as Witherspoon's character's mother, "Pearl Smooter." That same year she was in "Human Nature" starring Tim Robbins and Patricia Arquette and "A Woman's a Helluva Thing" with Penelope Ann Miller as well as with Albert Brooks in the dark comedy "My First Mister". The story focuses on a developing relationship between an isolated, rebellious 18-year-old (Leelee Sobieski) and an engaging older man (Brooks). Place played Brooks' best friend. The film marked the directorial debut of actress Christine Lahti. Place played a Mormon mother in the film "Latter Days" (2003). Since 2006, she has also had a recurring role in HBO's "Big Love", playing Adaleen Grant, the mother of the Chloë Sevigny character, Nicki. Lily Tomlin and Place did the pilot and 5 episodes of "12 Miles of Bad Road" from Harry Thomason and Linda Bloodworth-Thomason, who wrote television scripts with Place in the 1970s. HBO chose not to air the series, and producers were seeking other networks to air it. In 2009, she was the voice of Julie's mother in the film "Julie & Julia". She recently joined the cast of HBO's comedy "Bored to Death". In 2013, she appeared as Bryan's mother on "The New Normal". Discography. Albums. Note: Both of Place's albums just missed charting on the general pop Billboard Hot 200 chart, her 1976 bubbled under in the ten runnerup slots at #202 and the 1977 at #203.
1017563	My Lucky Stars () is a 1985 Hong Kong martial arts action crime comedy film directed by Sammo Hung, and starring Hung, Jackie Chan and Yuen Biao. It is the second film in the Lucky Stars series. The film is a semi-sequel to "Winners and Sinners", with many of the same actors returning as the "Five Lucky Stars" troupe, albeit with different character names and slightly different roles.
1057955	Made in Dagenham is a 2010 British film directed by Nigel Cole. The film stars Sally Hawkins, Bob Hoskins, Miranda Richardson, Geraldine James, Rosamund Pike, Andrea Riseborough, Jaime Winstone, Daniel Mays and Richard Schiff. It dramatises the Ford sewing machinists strike of 1968 that aimed for equal pay for women. The film's theme song, with lyrics by Billy Bragg, is performed by Sandie Shaw, herself a former Dagenham Ford clerk. Plot. Rita O'Grady (a fictive character) leads the 1968 Ford sewing machinists strike at the Ford Dagenham plant, where female workers walk out in protest against sexual discrimination, demanding equal pay. The strike is successful and leads to the Equal Pay Act 1970. Reception. Of 122 Rotten Tomatoes reviews, 80% rated the film "fresh". "Maclean's", in a review for the film's 2010 Toronto International Film Festival premiere, called it a ".. combination of "Milk" and "Mad Men".. It’s a film that blatantly condemns sexism and shows, despite its mostly light tone, the real cost of fighting for civil rights. The bee-hived and bobbed characters are fully fleshed and well-rounded even though they fit into ’60s archetypes, and the period piece balances optimism and realism in a way that’s both compelling and fun to watch." Xan Brooks of "The Guardian" gave it three stars out of five, calling it ".. uncomplicated fare, overly spiced with 60s cliches... But the film is also robust, amiable and so warm-hearted you'd be a churl to take against it." Roger Ebert gave the film three and a half stars out of four., while David Cox, also of "The Guardian", gave a less glowing review, suggesting that, despite initial potential, ".. a promising opportunity has been squandered." Mark Kermode praised the film highly on his weekly show on BBC "Radio 5 Live". He ranked it as his fourth favourite film of 2010, beating such films as "The Social Network" and "Another Year". "Made in Dagenham" was nominated for four awards at the 2010 British Academy Film Awards; Outstanding British Film, Costume Design, Make Up & Hair Design and Supporting Actress (Miranda Richardson). Soundtrack. A soundtrack for the film was released, with the following tracks: The title song was written by David Arnold and Billy Bragg just for the film.
1046859	Skin Game is a 1971 movie comedy western starring James Garner and Louis Gossett, Jr. Plot. Quincy Drew (Garner) and Jason O'Rourke (Gossett) travel from town to town in the south of the United States during the slavery era. Drew claims to be a down-on-his-luck slave owner who is selling O'Rourke as a slave. Drew gets the bidding rolling, sells O'Rourke, and the two later meet up to split the profit. O'Rourke was born a free man in New Jersey and is very well educated. The twist comes when O'Rourke is sold to a slave trader who is very savvy and intent on taking him down south to make a profit. Remake. The film was remade three years later as a TV-movie called "Sidekicks", with Larry Hagman playing Garner's role and Gossett reprising his part.
1069444	Sallah Shabati () is a 1964 Israeli comedy film about the chaos of Israeli immigration and resettlement. This social satire placed the director Ephraim Kishon and producer Menahem Golan among the first Israeli filmmakers to achieve international success. It also introduced actor Chaim Topol ("Fiddler on the Roof") to audiences worldwide. The film's name, Sallah Shabati is a play on words; ostensibly a Yemenite Jewish name, it is also intended to evoke the phrase סליחה שבאתי, "sorry that I came". In earlier print versions of Kishon's short stories which were revised for the film, the character was known as Saadia Shabtai. Plot. The film begins with Sallah Shabati, a Mizrahi Jewish immigrant, arriving with his family in Israel. Upon arrival he is brought to live in a "ma'abara", or transit camp. He is given a broken down, one room shack in which to live with his family and spends the rest of the movie attempting to make enough money to purchase adequate housing. His money-making schemes are often comical and frequently satirize the political and social stereotypes in Israel of the time. Themes. "Sallah Shabati"'s irreverent and mocking depiction of core Zionist institutions like the kibbutz provoked strong reactions among many filmgoers and critics. "The kibbutzniks in the film resemble bureaucrats and are clearly divided into veterans with managing roles and 'simple' workers, a division which contradicts the myth of Socialist solidarity and collectivist idealism. The kibbutzniks betray total indifference, furthermore, to the miserable conditions of the poor "ma'abara" next to them." Critical Reception. "Sallah Shabati" received mixed reviews but achieved unprecedented box office success in Israel, drawing almost 1.3 million spectators. Overseas, it won the Hollywood Foreign Press Association's Golden Globe Award as Best Foreign Film, and opened and closed the Berlin Film Festival. The film was nominated for a 1964 Academy Award in the category of Best Foreign Language Film, a first for an Israeli production, but it lost the Oscar to the Italian film, "Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow". Trivia. At first, Foreign Affairs Minister Golda Meir refused to let the film leave the country because of her unflattering portrayal in the film.
1558054	Joe Besser (August 12, 1907 – March 1, 1988) was an American comedian, known for his impish humor and wimpy characters. He is best known for his brief stint as a member of The Three Stooges in movie short subjects of 1957–59. He is also remembered for his television roles: Stinky, the spoiled impish bratty overgrown man-child in "The Abbott and Costello Show", and Jillson, the maintenance man in "The Joey Bishop Show". Early life. Besser was born in St. Louis, Missouri. He was the ninth child of Morris and Fanny Besser, who were Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe. He had seven older sisters, and an older brother Manny who was in show business, primarily as an ethnic Jewish comic. From an early age, Joe was fascinated with show business, especially the magic act of Howard Thurston that visited his town annually. When Joe was 12, Thurston allowed him to play an audience plant (as in "stooge"). Besser was so excited by this, he sneaked into Thurston's train after the St. Louis run of the show was over, and was discovered the next day sleeping on top of the lion's cage in Detroit. Thurston relented, informed Besser's parents of the situation, and trained him as an assistant. The first act involved pulling a rabbit out of a hat. The trick involved two rabbits, one hidden in a pocket of Thurston's cape. But young Besser was so nervous that he botched badly, pulling out the rabbit from the cape at the same time as the other rabbit was on display, before the trick had been performed. The audience roared with laughter, and Besser from then on was assigned "comic mishap" roles only. Besser was placed by St. Louis juvenile authorities in a "corrective school" (reform school) at age 12. Acting career. Besser remained in show business and developed a unique comic character: a whiny, bratty, impish guy who was easily excitable and upset, throwing temper tantrums with little provocation. Besser, with his frequent outbursts of "You crazy, "youuuuu"!" and "Not so "faaaaaast"!" or "Not so "harrrrd"!!" was so original and so outrageously silly that he became a vaudeville headliner, and movie and radio appearances soon followed. The zany comedy team of Olsen and Johnson, whose Broadway revues were fast-paced collections of songs and blackouts, hired Joe Besser to join their company. Besser's noisy intrusions were perfect for the anything-can-happen O & J format. Besser's work caught the attention of the Shubert brothers, who signed Besser to a theatrical contract. Columbia Pictures hired Besser away from the Shuberts, and Besser relocated to Hollywood in 1944, where he brought his unique comic character to feature-length musical comedies like "Hey, Rookie" and "Eadie Was a Lady". On May 9, 1946 Besser appeared on the pioneer NBC television program Hour Glass (TV series), performing his classic "Army Drill" routine with stage partner Jimmy Little. According to an article in the May 27, 1946 issue of Life Magazine, the show was seen by about 20,000 people on about 3,500 television sets, mostly in the New York City area. During this period, he appeared on the Jack Benny radio program in the episode entitled "Jack Prepares For Carnegie Hall". Besser also starred in short-subject comedies for Columbia from 1949 to 1956. By this point, his persona was sufficiently well known that he was frequently caricatured in "Looney Tunes" animated shorts of the era. In 1950, he appeared in the action film "The Desert Hawk". Besser had substituted for Lou Costello on radio, opposite Bud Abbott, and by the 1950s he was firmly established as one of the A & C regulars. When Bud and Lou filmed "The Abbott and Costello Show" for television, they hired Joe Besser to play Oswald "Stinky" Davis, a bratty, loudmouthed child dressed in an oversized Little Lord Fauntleroy outfit, shorts, and a flat top hat with overhanging brim. He appeared during the first season of "The Abbott and Costello Show". In 1953, Joe was cast for the role of Yonkel, a chariot man in the low-budget biblical film "Sins of Jezebel" which starred Paulette Goddard as the titular wicked queen. The Three Stooges: Joe, Larry, and Moe. After Shemp Howard died of a heart attack on November 22, 1955, his brother Moe suggested that he and teammate Larry Fine continue working as "The Two Stooges". Studio chief Harry Cohn rejected the proposal. Although Moe had legal approval to allow new members into the act, Columbia executives had final say about any actor who would appear in the studio's films, and insisted on a performer already under contract to Columbia: Joe Besser. At the time (end of 1955), Besser was one of a few comedians still making comedy shorts at the studio. He successfully renegotiated his contract, and was paid his former feature-film salary (which was more than the other Stooges earned). Joe Besser refrained from imitating Curly or Shemp. He continued to play the same whiny character he had developed over his long career. He had a clause in his contract prohibiting being hit excessively. (He usually reacted to Moe's anger by wimpily hitting Moe's shoulder and complaining. "Not so "harrrrd!"") Besser recalled, "I usually played the kind of character who would hit others back." He claimed that Larry volunteered to take the brunt of Moe's screen abuse. In a 2002 "E Entertainment" episode which used file footage of Besser, the comic stated that the left side of Larry Fine's face was noticeably coarser than the other side, which he attributed to Moe's less-than-staged slaps. (Larry Fine's daughter attributes this, plus scars to the comic's left hand, to a chemical spill that occurred when Larry was a child.) As a result of his whiny persona and lack of true slapstick punishment against him (the cornerstone of Stooge humor), Joe has been less popular with contemporary Stooge fans, so much so, that "Stooge-a-Polooza" TV host Rich Koz has even apologized on the air before showing Besser shorts; during the show's tenure he received more than a few letters from fans expressing their outrage over his airing them. Third-stooge Joe does have his defenders, however: Koz himself once hosted an episode featuring "only" Besser shorts, and Columbia historians Ted Okuda and Edward Watz have written appreciatively of Besser bringing new energy to what was by then a flagging theatrical series. The Stooges shorts with Besser were filmed from the spring of 1956 to the end of 1957. His Stooge tenure ended when Columbia shut down the two-reel-comedy department on December 20, 1957. Producer-director Jules White had shot enough film for 16 comedies, which were released a few months apart until June 1959, with "Sappy Bull Fighters" being the final release. Moe Howard and Larry Fine discussed plans to tour with a live act, but Besser declined. His wife had suffered a heart attack in November 1957, and he was unwilling to leave without her. In later life, Besser praised Moe and Larry in a 1985 radio interview, of which a quote from said interview was aired on A&E Network's "Biography". Besser said: After the Stooges. Besser returned to films and television, most notably as the superintendent "Jillson" for four seasons (1961–1965) of "The Joey Bishop Show", and the voice of Babu the genie in "Jeannie", an animated version of "I Dream of Jeannie". He also made occasional appearances on the ABC late-night series, also called "The Joey Bishop Show" between 1967 and 1969. Besser also voiced the character Putty Puss on the DePatie-Freleng cartoon series "The Houndcats" in 1972. He appeared on the NBC variety show, "Club Oasis" in the 1957-1958 season. Several online sources indicate Besser was approached for the role of "Irwin," one of the gas station attendants at war with Jonathan Winters, in "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World"; however, his schedule requirements for "The Joey Bishop Show" prevented this, and Marvin Kaplan played the role. Later in life, Besser expressed some dismay that fans only recognized him for his brief tenure with the Stooges. However, he eventually softened, realizing that the Stooges continued to bring him his greatest exposure. In 1984, Besser co-wrote with authors Jeff and Greg Lenburg his autobiography, "Not Just a Stooge", for Excelsior Books. The book would be later retitled and re-published as "Once a Stooge, Always a Stooge" following his death in 1988. Joe Besser recalled his friendship with the Stooges in an emotional speech referring to "the four boys Larry, Curly, and Shemp . . . up in heaven" looking down at the dedication of a star to The Three Stooges on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on August 30, 1983. Stooges co-actor Emil Sitka also spoke; the only other surviving Stooge, Joe DeRita, was ill at the time (though he would outlive Besser by five years). In the spring of 2000, ABC aired a made-for-television movie about the Stooges, with actor Laurence Coy appearing briefly as Joe Besser. Personal life. In 1932, Besser married dancer Erna Kay (born Ernestine Dora Kretschmer), known as "Ernie". They were neighbors and friends of Lou Costello, of Abbott and Costello fame. In 1949, Besser appeared in the Abbott and Costello movie Africa Screams, which also featured Shemp Howard of the Three Stooges. Joe and Shemp were old friends, having met in 1932. His cousin's grandson is Upright Citizens Brigade theater co-founder and improviser/comedian Matt Besser. Death. Joe Besser died of heart failure on March 1, 1988. His wife Erna died on July 1, 1989, from a heart attack at age 89. Both spouses are buried in the same plot in the Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery, in Glendale, California, the same place his stooge-mate Larry Fine was interred. The couple had no children.
826516	I Capture the Castle is the first novel by English author Dodie Smith, written in the 1940s when she and her husband (also British and a conscientious objector) lived in California during WWII. She longed for England and wrote of a happier time—unspecified in the novel but probably early 1930s—between the wars. Smith was already an established playwright and later became famous for writing the children's classic "The Hundred and One Dalmatians". The novel relates the adventures of an eccentric family, the Mortmains, struggling to live in genteel poverty in a decaying English castle during the 1930s. The first person narrator is Cassandra Mortmain, an intelligent teenager who tells the story via her personal journal—a coming-of-age story in which she is visibly maturing and by the end is no longer a girl but a young woman. In 2003, the novel was listed at number 82 on the BBC's survey The Big Read. Plot. The Mortmain family is poor but exotic. Cassandra's father is a writer suffering from writer's block who has not published anything since his first book, "Jacob Wrestling" (a reference to Jacob wrestling with the angel), an innovative and "difficult" novel that sold well and made his name, including in America. Ten years before the story begins, he took out a forty-year lease on a dilapidated but beautiful castle, hoping to find either inspiration or isolation there; now, his family is selling off the furniture to buy food. The widowed Mortmain's second wife, Topaz, is a beautiful artist's model who enjoys communing with nature, sometimes wearing nothing but hip boots. Rose, the elder daughter, is a classic English beauty pining away in the lonely castle, longing for a chance to meet some eligible (and preferably rich) young men; she tells her sister that she wants to live in a Jane Austen novel. Cassandra, the younger daughter and the story's narrator, has literary ambitions and spends a lot of time developing her writing talent by "capturing" everything around her in her journal. Stephen, the handsome, loyal, live-in son of the Mortmain's late cook, and Thomas, the youngest Mortmain child, round out the cast of household characters. Stephen, a "noble soul", is in love with Cassandra, which she finds touching, but a bit awkward; Thomas, a schoolboy, is, like Cassandra, considered "tolerably bright". Things begin to happen when the Cottons, a wealthy American family, inherit nearby Scoatney Hall and become the Mortmains' new landlords. Cassandra and Rose soon become intrigued by the unmarried brothers, Simon and Neil. The brothers differ considerably in character; Neil, who was raised in California by their father, is a carefree young man who wants to become a rancher in America, while Simon, who grew up in New England with his mother, is scholarly and serious, and loves the English countryside. Simon, the elder brother, is the heir and therefore much wealthier than Neil, so although Rose isn't attracted to him, she decides to marry him if she can, declaring that she'd marry the devil himself to escape the family's poverty. At their first meeting, the Cottons are amused and interested by the Mortmains; when they pay a call the very next day, however, the inexperienced Rose flirts openly with Simon and makes herself look ridiculous. Both brothers are repelled by this display and, as they walk away, Cassandra overhears them resolving to drop all acquaintance with the Mortmains. After an amusing episode involving a fur coat, however, all is forgiven and the two families become good friends. Rose decides that she really is taken with Simon, and Cassandra and Topaz scheme to get Simon to propose to her. Simon falls in love with Rose and proposes to her, which then sends Rose and Topaz to London with Mrs. Cotton to purchase Rose's wedding trousseau. One evening, while everyone else is away, Cassandra and Simon spend the evening together, which leads to their kissing, and Cassandra is cast into an emotional tailspin. She becomes obsessed with Simon but suffers feelings of guilt since he is Rose's fiancé. Cassandra now faces many pressures: she must tactfully deflect Stephen's offers of love, and encourage him in his emerging career as a model and movie actor; join forces with Thomas to help their father overcome his writer's block by the drastic (though apparently effective) expedient of imprisoning him in a medieval tower; cope with her own increasing attraction to Simon; and record everything, wittily and winningly, in her journal (as the journal advances, the relationships she depicts become subtler and more problematic).
1062275	Syriana is a 2005 geopolitical thriller film written and directed by Stephen Gaghan, and executive produced by George Clooney, who also stars in the film with an ensemble cast. Gaghan's screenplay is loosely adapted from Robert Baer's memoir "See No Evil". The film focuses on petroleum politics and the global influence of the oil industry, whose political, economic, legal, and social effects are experienced by a Central Intelligence Agency operative (George Clooney), an energy analyst (Matt Damon), a Washington, D.C., attorney (Jeffrey Wright), and a young unemployed Pakistani migrant worker (Mazhar Munir) in an Arab state in the Persian Gulf. The film also features an extensive supporting cast including Amanda Peet, Tim Blake Nelson, Alexander Siddig, Amr Waked, and Academy Award winners Christopher Plummer, Chris Cooper, and William Hurt. As with Gaghan's screenplay for "Traffic", "Syriana" uses multiple, parallel storylines, jumping between locations in Iran, Texas, Washington, D.C., Switzerland, Spain, and Lebanon. Clooney won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role as Bob Barnes, and Gaghan's script was nominated by the Academy for Best Original Screenplay. As of April 20, 2006, the film had grossed a total of $50.82 million in U.S. box offices and $42.9 million overseas, for a total of $93.73 million. Plot. U.S. energy giant Connex is losing control of key Middle East oil fields in a kingdom ruled by the al-Subaai family. The emirate's foreign minister, Prince Nasir (Alexander Siddig), has granted natural gas drilling rights to a Chinese company, greatly upsetting the U.S. oil industry and government. To compensate for its decreased production capacity, Connex initiates a shady merger with Killen, a smaller oil company that recently won the drilling rights to key petroleum fields in Kazakhstan. Connex-Killen ranks as the world's twenty-third largest economy, and antitrust regulators at the U.S. Justice Department (DoJ) have misgivings. A Washington, D.C.-based law firm headed by Dean Whiting (Christopher Plummer) is hired to smooth the way for the merger. Bennett Holiday (Jeffrey Wright) is assigned to promote the impression of due diligence to the DoJ, deflecting any allegations of corruption. Emir storyline. Bryan Woodman (Matt Damon) is an energy analyst based in Geneva, Switzerland. Woodman's supervisor directs him to attend a private party hosted by the emir at his estate in Marbella, Spain, to offer his company's services. The emir's illness during the party prevents Woodman from speaking directly with the emir while, at the same time, the emir's younger son, Prince Meshal Al-Subaai (Akbar Kurtha), shows the estate's many rooms and areas to Chinese oil executives via remote-controlled cameras. No one notices that a crack in one of the swimming pool area's underwater lights has electrified the water. Just as Woodman and all the other guests are brought to the pool area, Woodman's son jumps into the pool and is fatally electrocuted. In reparation and out of sympathy for the loss of his son, Prince Nasir, the emir's older son, grants Woodman's company oil interests worth US$75 million, and Woodman gradually becomes his economic advisor. Prince Nasir (Alexander Siddig) is dedicated to the idea of progressive reform and understands that oil dependency is not sustainable in the long term; Nasir wants to utilize his nation's oil profits to diversify the economy and introduce democratic reforms, in sharp contrast to his father's repressive government, which has been supported by American interests. Assassination storyline. Bob Barnes (George Clooney) is a veteran Operations Officer with the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) trying to stop illegal arms trafficking in the Middle East. While on assignment in Tehran, Iran, to kill two arms dealers, Barnes notices that one of two anti-tank missiles (actually the Stinger MANPAD) intended to participate in an explosion was diverted to an Egyptian (Amr Waked), while the other explodes and kills two Iranian agents. Barnes makes his superiors nervous by writing memos about the missile theft and is subsequently reassigned to a desk job. However, unaccustomed to the political discretion required, he quickly embarrasses the wrong people by speaking his mind and is sent back to the field with the assignment of assassinating Prince Nasir, whom the CIA identifies as being the financier behind the Egyptian's acquisition of the missile. Prior to his reassignment, Barnes confides in his ex-CIA agent friend, Stan Goff (William Hurt), that he will return to Lebanon. Goff advises him to clear his presence with Hezbollah so they know he is not acting against them. Barnes travels to Lebanon, obtains safe passage from a Hezbollah leader, and hires a mercenary named Mussawi (Mark Strong) to help kidnap and murder Nasir. But Mussawi has now become an Iranian agent and has Barnes abducted instead; Mussawi himself then tortures Barnes. The Hezbollah leader ultimately arrives at the scene of Barnes's torture in time to stop Mussawi from beheading Barnes. When the CIA learns that Mussawi plans to broadcast the agency's intention to kill Nasir, they try to distance themselves by scapegoating Barnes, portraying him as a rogue agent. Whiting worries—first about Barnes talking about the Nasir assassination plan, second about the possibility that Nasir's coup might have a greater likelihood of success, and third that killing Nasir with an MQ-1 Predator drone would make it obvious as an American-backed assassination. So he has Barnes's passports revoked, locks him out of his computer at work, and has him investigated. Barnes, however, learns from Stan Goff that Whiting is responsible and threatens him and his family unless he halts the investigation and releases Barnes's passports. Barnes eventually learns why he was portrayed as a rogue agent and approaches Prince Nasir's convoy to warn him of the assassination plan. As he arrives, a guided bomb from a circling Predator drone strikes the automobile of Nasir and his family, killing them and Barnes instantly. Woodman, having earlier offered his seat to Nasir's family, survives the blast and makes his way home to his wife and son. Wasim storyline. Pakistani migrant workers Saleem Ahmed Khan (Shahid Ahmed) and his son Wasim (Mazhar Munir) board a bus to go to work at a Connex refinery, only to discover that they have been laid off due to a Chinese company outbidding Connex for the rights to run the facility. Since the company has provided food and lodging, the workers face the threat of poverty and deportation due to their unemployed status. Wasim desperately searches for work but is refused because he doesn't speak Arabic. Wasim and his friend join an Islamic school to learn Arabic in order to improve their employment prospects. While playing soccer, they meet a charismatic Islamic fundamentalist cleric (Amr Waked)—the same man who earlier stole Robert Barnes's anti-tank missile—who eventually leads them to execute a suicide attack on a Connex-Killen LNG tanker using a shaped-charge explosive from the missing Tehran missile. Merger storyline. Bennett Holiday meets with U.S. Attorney Donald Farish III (David Clennon), who is convinced that Killen bribed someone to get the drilling rights in Kazakhstan. While investigating Connex-Killen's records, Holiday discovers a wire transfer of funds that leads back to a transaction between Texas oilman Danny Dalton (Tim Blake Nelson) and Kazakh officials. Holiday tells Connex-Killen of his discovery, and they pretend not to have known about it. Holiday advises Dalton that he will likely be charged with corruption in order to serve as a "body" to get the DoJ off the back of the rest of Connex-Killen; Dalton responds with a fervent defense of how corruption is simply the way of competition and how America "wins" against the rest of the corrupt world. Farish then strong-arms Holiday into giving the DoJ information about illegal activities he has discovered. Holiday gives up Dalton, but Farish says this is not enough. Holiday meets with the CEO of Killen Oil, Jimmy Pope (Chris Cooper), and informs him that the DoJ needs a second body in order to drop the investigation. Pope asks Holiday whether a person at Holiday's firm above him would be sufficient as the additional body. Holiday acknowledges that if the name were big enough, the DoJ would stop the investigation and allow the merger. Holiday is brought by his colleague and mentor Sydney Hewitt (Nicky Henson) to meet with the CEO of Connex Oil, Leland "Lee" Janus (Peter Gerety). In a surprise move, Holiday reveals an under-the-table deal that Hewitt made while the Connex-Killen merger was being processed. Holiday has given Hewitt to the DoJ as the second body, thereby protecting the rest of Connex-Killen. Janus is able to attend the "oil industry man of the year" ceremony with a load taken off his shoulders. Throughout the film, Holiday has angrily crossed paths with his alcoholic father Bennett Sr.; at the movie's end when the merger has been completed, Bennett Jr. lets his apologetic-looking dad enter his house and shuts the door. Production. While working on "Traffic", Stephen Gaghan began to see parallels between drug addiction and America's dependency on foreign oil. Another source of inspiration came from 9/11 and Gaghan's lack of knowledge about the Middle East. He said, "When 9/11 happened, it suddenly was a war on terror, which I think of as a war on emotions. It all started to click for me". A few weeks after 9/11, Steven Soderbergh sent Gaghan a copy of ex-CIA officer Robert Baer's memoir, "See No Evil". The screenwriter read the book and wanted to turn it into a film because it added another layer to the story that Gaghan wanted to tell. Soderbergh bought the rights to "See No Evil" and negotiated the deal with Warner Bros. Gaghan met Baer for lunch and then, for six weeks in 2002, the two men traveled from Washington to Geneva to the French Riviera to Lebanon, Syria and Dubai, meeting with lobbyists, arms dealers, oil traders, Arab officials and the spiritual leader of Hezbollah. Meeting Baer, Gaghan realized that the man had "gone out there and done and seen things that he was not allowed to talk about, and wouldn't, but he was angry about and also trying to make amends for". Before any filming took place, Gaghan convinced Warner Bros. to give him an unlimited research budget and no deadline. He did his own legwork, meeting with oil traders in London and lawyers in Washington, D.C. Moments after arriving in Beirut in 2002, Gaghan was taken from the airport in a blindfold and hood where he met with Sheik Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah, who was interested in films. He decided to grant the writer an audience even though he had not requested one. In addition, Gaghan dined with men suspected of killing former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri and met with Former Defense Policy board chairman Richard Perle. Gaghan has cited as influences on "Syriana", European films like Roberto Rossellini's "Rome, Open City", Costa Gavras' "Z", and Gillo Pontecorvo's "The Battle of Algiers". Casting. Harrison Ford turned down the role of Robert Barnes (the role played by George Clooney), regretting it later, stating, "I didn't feel strongly enough about the truth of the material and I think I made a mistake". This is the second Stephen Gaghan-written role Ford has declined, having turned down the role of Robert Wakefield in "Traffic", a role that eventually went to Michael Douglas. Principal photography. Gaghan shot in over 200 locations on four continents with 100 speaking parts. "Syriana" originally had five storylines, all of which were filmed; but one, that featured Michelle Monaghan as Miss USA who becomes involved with a rich Arab oilman, was cut when the film became too complicated. Title. The movie's title is suggested to derive from the hypothesized "Pax Syriana," as an allusion to the necessary state of peace between Syria and the U.S. as it relates to the oil business. In a December 2005 interview, Baer told NPR that the title is a metaphor for foreign intervention in the Middle East, referring to post-World War II think tank strategic studies for the creation of an artificial state (such as Iraq, created from elements of the former Ottoman Empire) that ensured continued western access to crude oil. The movie's website states that "‘Syriana’ is a real term used by Washington think-tanks to describe a hypothetical reshaping of the Middle East." Gaghan said he saw Syriana as "a great word that could stand for man's perpetual hope of remaking any geographic region to suit his own needs." The word "Syriana" derives from "Syria" + the Latin suffix "-ana"; it means, roughly, "in the manner of Syrian." Historically, Syria refers not to the state that since 1944 has borne the name, but to a more extensive land stretching from the eastern shores of the Mediterranean Sea to the middle Euphrates River and the western edge of the desert steppe, and from the Tauric system of mountains in the north to the edge of the Sinai desert in the south. This land was part of the Fertile Crescent, and has historically been a geopolitically crucial junction for trade routes from the east, from Asia Minor and the Aegean, and from Egypt, and has long been a focus of great power conflicts. The word "Syria" does not appear in the Hebrew original of the Scriptures, but appears in the Septuagint as the translation of Aram. Herodotus speaks of "Syrians" as identical with Assyrians, but the term's geographical significance was not well defined in pre-Greek and Greek times. As an ethnic term, "Syrian" came to refer in Antiquity to Semitic peoples living outside Mesopotamian and Arabian areas. Greco-Roman administrations were the first to apply the term to a definite district. Reaction. "Syriana" was released on November 23, 2005 in limited release in only five theaters grossing $374,502 on its opening weekend. It went into wide release on December 9, 2005 in 1,752 theaters grossing $11.7 million on that weekend. It went on to make $50.8 million in North America and $43.1 million in the rest of the world for a worldwide total of $93.9 million. Critical reception. "Syriana" received generally positive reviews. On Rotten Tomatoes, the film received 74% overall approval from critics. The film also received a 76% ("Generally favorable reviews") on Metacritic. As a motion picture, the main criticism, even among reviewers who praised the film, was the confusion created by following numerous stories. Most critics stated that it was almost impossible to follow the plot, though some, notably Roger Ebert, praised precisely that quality of the film and offered an interesting hidden story possibility (a covert deal between the U.S. and China involving oil being shipped through Kazakhstan and passed off as coming from a different source). The audience confusion mimics the confusion of the characters, who are enmeshed in the events around them without a clear understanding of what precisely is going on. As with Gaghan's screenplay for "Traffic", "Syriana" uses multiple, parallel storylines, jumping from locations in Texas, Washington D.C., Switzerland, Spain, and the Middle East, leading film critic Ebert to describe the film as hyperlink cinema. "Time" magazine's Richard Corliss wrote, "Gaghan relies on Clooney's agnostic heroism to lure viewers into his maze. When they get there, they will find not a conventionally satisfying movie but a kind of illustrated journalism: an engrossing, insider's tour of the world's hottest spots, grandest schemes and most dangerous men". In his review for the "Los Angeles Times", Kenneth Turan wrote, "This is conspiracy-theory filmmaking of the most bravura kind, but if only a fraction of its suppositions are true, we—and the world—are in a world of trouble". "USA Today" gave the film three-and-a-half stars out of four and wrote, "Gaghan assumes his audience is smart enough to follow his explosive tour of global petro-politics. The result is thought-provoking and unnerving, emotionally engaging and intellectually stimulating". "Entertainment Weekly" gave the film a "B−" rating and Lisa Schwarzbaum wrote, "it's also the kind of movie that requires a viewer to work actively for comprehension, and to chalk up any lack of same to his or her own deficiency in the face of something so evidently smart". In his review for "The New York Observer", Andrew Sarris wrote, "If anything, "Syriana" tends to oversimplify a mind-bogglingly multifaceted problem that cannot so easily be resolved by a diatribe against the supposedly all-powerful 'Americans'". "Rolling Stone" magazine's Peter Travers gave the film his highest rating and praised George Clooney's performance: "This is the best acting Clooney has ever done—he's hypnotic, haunting and quietly devastating". Philip French, in his review for "The Observer", praised the film as "thoughtful, exciting and urgent". In his review for "The Guardian", Peter Bradshaw wrote, "But what complicates the plot is writer-director Stephen Gaghan's reluctance to criticise America too much. Instead of complexity, there is a blank, uncompelling tangle, which conceals a kind of complacent political correctness". Ebert named it the second best film of 2005, behind "Crash". Peter Travers of "Rolling Stone" named it as the third best film of 2005. "Entertainment Weekly" ranked "Syriana" as one of the 25 "Powerful Political Thrillers". Awards. George Clooney won an Academy Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role, and a Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actor; he was also nominated for a BAFTA for Best Supporting Actor. The film won the Grand Prix of the Belgian Syndicate of Cinema Critics. The National Board of Review named "Syriana" one of the best films of the year and Stephen Gaghan's screenplay as the Best Adapted Screenplay.
1664339	Glenn Franklin Howerton III (born April 13, 1976) is an American television and film actor. He is best known for his role as Dennis Reynolds on FX's "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia" (on which he is also a writer and executive producer). He also played Corey Howard on the short-lived 2002 sitcom "That '80s Show" and appeared in the 2008 horror film "The Strangers". Early life and education. Howerton was born in Japan, the son of American parents Janice and Glenn Franklin Howerton Jr., a fighter pilot. Howerton grew up in London, South Korea, and Montgomery, Alabama. After graduating from Jefferson Davis High School in Montgomery, he spent two years at New World School of the Arts in Miami, Florida. Howerton then attended the Juilliard School's Drama Division (1996-2000, "Group 29") where he graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree. While earning his degree, he worked as a drama teacher during his summers at French Woods Festival of the Performing Arts in Hancock, New York.
1060489	The Wind and the Lion is a 1975 adventure film written and directed by John Milius. It starred Sean Connery, Candice Bergen, Brian Keith and John Huston. It was based somewhat on the real-life Perdicaris incident of 1904.
1101644	Georg Ferdinand Ludwig Philipp Cantor ( ; ;  – January 6, 1918) was a German mathematician, best known as the inventor of set theory, which has become a fundamental theory in mathematics. Cantor established the importance of one-to-one correspondence between the members of two sets, defined infinite and well-ordered sets, and proved that the real numbers are "more numerous" than the natural numbers. In fact, Cantor's method of proof of this theorem implies the existence of an "infinity of infinities". He defined the cardinal and ordinal numbers and their arithmetic. Cantor's work is of great philosophical interest, a fact of which he was well aware. Cantor's theory of transfinite numbers was originally regarded as so counter-intuitive – even shocking – that it encountered resistance from mathematical contemporaries such as Leopold Kronecker and Henri Poincaré and later from Hermann Weyl and L. E. J. Brouwer, while Ludwig Wittgenstein raised philosophical objections. Some Christian theologians (particularly neo-Scholastics) saw Cantor's work as a challenge to the uniqueness of the absolute infinity in the nature of God – on one occasion equating the theory of transfinite numbers with pantheism – a proposition that Cantor vigorously rejected. The objections to Cantor's work were occasionally fierce: Poincaré referred to his ideas as a "grave disease" infecting the discipline of mathematics, and Kronecker's public opposition and personal attacks included describing Cantor as a "scientific charlatan", a "renegade" and a "corrupter of youth." Kronecker even objected to Cantor's proofs that the algebraic numbers are countable, and that the transcendental numbers are uncountable, results now included in a standard mathematics curriculum. Writing decades after Cantor's death, Wittgenstein lamented that mathematics is "ridden through and through with the pernicious idioms of set theory," which he dismissed as "utter nonsense" that is "laughable" and "wrong". Cantor's recurring bouts of depression from 1884 to the end of his life have been blamed on the hostile attitude of many of his contemporaries, though some have explained these episodes as probable manifestations of a bipolar disorder. The harsh criticism has been matched by later accolades. In 1904, the Royal Society awarded Cantor its Sylvester Medal, the highest honor it can confer for work in mathematics. It has been suggested that Cantor believed his theory of transfinite numbers had been communicated to him by God. David Hilbert defended it from its critics by famously declaring: "No one shall expel us from the Paradise that Cantor has created." Life. Youth and studies. Cantor was born in the western merchant colony in Saint Petersburg, Russia, and brought up in the city until he was eleven. Georg, the oldest of six children, was regarded as an outstanding violinist. His grandfather Franz Böhm (1788–1846) (the violinist Joseph Böhm's brother) was the well-known musician and the soloist in the Russian empire in an imperial orchestra. Cantor's father had been a member of the Saint Petersburg stock exchange; when he became ill, the family moved to Germany in 1856, first to Wiesbaden then to Frankfurt, seeking winters milder than those of Saint Petersburg. In 1860, Cantor graduated with distinction from the Realschule in Darmstadt; his exceptional skills in mathematics, trigonometry in particular, were noted. In 1862, Cantor entered the University of Zürich. After receiving a substantial inheritance upon his father's death in 1863, Cantor shifted his studies to the University of Berlin, attending lectures by Leopold Kronecker, Karl Weierstrass and Ernst Kummer. He spent the summer of 1866 at the University of Göttingen, then and later a center for mathematical research. Teacher and researcher. In 1867, Cantor completed his dissertation, on number theory, at the University of Berlin. After teaching briefly in a Berlin girls' school, Cantor took up a position at the University of Halle, where he spent his entire career. He was awarded the requisite habilitation for his thesis, also on number theory, which he presented in 1869 upon his appointment at Halle. In 1874, Cantor married Vally Guttmann. They had six children, the last (Rudolph) born in 1886. Cantor was able to support a family despite modest academic pay, thanks to his inheritance from his father. During his honeymoon in the Harz mountains, Cantor spent much time in mathematical discussions with Richard Dedekind, whom he had met two years earlier while on Swiss holiday. Cantor was promoted to Extraordinary Professor in 1872 and made full Professor in 1879. To attain the latter rank at the age of 34 was a notable accomplishment, but Cantor desired a chair at a more prestigious university, in particular at Berlin, at that time the leading German university. However, his work encountered too much opposition for that to be possible. Kronecker, who headed mathematics at Berlin until his death in 1891, became increasingly uncomfortable with the prospect of having Cantor as a colleague, perceiving him as a "corrupter of youth" for teaching his ideas to a younger generation of mathematicians. Worse yet, Kronecker, a well-established figure within the mathematical community and Cantor's former professor, disagreed fundamentally with the thrust of Cantor's work. Kronecker, now seen as one of the founders of the constructive viewpoint in mathematics, disliked much of Cantor's set theory because it asserted the existence of sets satisfying certain properties, without giving specific examples of sets whose members did indeed satisfy those properties. Cantor came to believe that Kronecker's stance would make it impossible for him ever to leave Halle. In 1881, Cantor's Halle colleague Eduard Heine died, creating a vacant chair. Halle accepted Cantor's suggestion that it be offered to Dedekind, Heinrich M. Weber and Franz Mertens, in that order, but each declined the chair after being offered it. Friedrich Wangerin was eventually appointed, but he was never close to Cantor. In 1882, the mathematical correspondence between Cantor and Dedekind came to an end, apparently as a result of Dedekind's declining the chair at Halle. Cantor also began another important correspondence, with Gösta Mittag-Leffler in Sweden, and soon began to publish in Mittag-Leffler's journal "Acta Mathematica". But in 1885, Mittag-Leffler was concerned about the philosophical nature and new terminology in a paper Cantor had submitted to "Acta". He asked Cantor to withdraw the paper from "Acta" while it was in proof, writing that it was "... about one hundred years too soon." Cantor complied, but then curtailed his relationship and correspondence with Mittag-Leffler, writing to a third party: Cantor suffered his first known bout of depression in 1884. Criticism of his work weighed on his mind: every one of the fifty-two letters he wrote to Mittag-Leffler in 1884 mentioned Kronecker. A passage from one of these letters is revealing of the damage to Cantor's self-confidence: This crisis led him to apply to lecture on philosophy rather than mathematics. He also began an intense study of Elizabethan literature thinking there might be evidence that Francis Bacon wrote the plays attributed to Shakespeare (see Shakespearean authorship question); this ultimately resulted in two pamphlets, published in 1896 and 1897. Cantor recovered soon thereafter, and subsequently made further important contributions, including his famous diagonal argument and theorem. However, he never again attained the high level of his remarkable papers of 1874–84. He eventually sought, and achieved, a reconciliation with Kronecker. Nevertheless, the philosophical disagreements and difficulties dividing them persisted. In 1890, Cantor was instrumental in founding the "Deutsche Mathematiker-Vereinigung" and chaired its first meeting in Halle in 1891, where he first introduced his diagonal argument; his reputation was strong enough, despite Kronecker's opposition to his work, to ensure he was elected as the first president of this society. Setting aside the animosity Kronecker had displayed towards him, Cantor invited him to address the meeting, but Kronecker was unable to do so because his wife was dying from injuries sustained in a skiing accident at the time. Late years. After Cantor's 1884 hospitalization, there is no record that he was in any sanatorium again until 1899. Soon after that second hospitalization, Cantor's youngest son Rudolph died suddenly (while Cantor was delivering a lecture on his views on Baconian theory and William Shakespeare), and this tragedy drained Cantor of much of his passion for mathematics. Cantor was again hospitalized in 1903. One year later, he was outraged and agitated by a paper presented by Julius König at the Third International Congress of Mathematicians. The paper attempted to prove that the basic tenets of transfinite set theory were false. Since the paper had been read in front of his daughters and colleagues, Cantor perceived himself as having been publicly humiliated. Although Ernst Zermelo demonstrated less than a day later that König's proof had failed, Cantor remained shaken, even momentarily questioning God. Cantor suffered from chronic depression for the rest of his life, for which he was excused from teaching on several occasions and repeatedly confined in various sanatoria. The events of 1904 preceded a series of hospitalizations at intervals of two or three years. He did not abandon mathematics completely, however, lecturing on the paradoxes of set theory (Burali-Forti paradox, Cantor's paradox, and Russell's paradox) to a meeting of the "Deutsche Mathematiker–Vereinigung" in 1903, and attending the International Congress of Mathematicians at Heidelberg in 1904. In 1911, Cantor was one of the distinguished foreign scholars invited to attend the 500th anniversary of the founding of the University of St. Andrews in Scotland. Cantor attended, hoping to meet Bertrand Russell, whose newly published "Principia Mathematica" repeatedly cited Cantor's work, but this did not come about. The following year, St. Andrews awarded Cantor an honorary doctorate, but illness precluded his receiving the degree in person. Cantor retired in 1913, living in poverty and suffering from malnourishment during World War I. The public celebration of his 70th birthday was canceled because of the war. He died on January 6, 1918 in the sanatorium where he had spent the final year of his life. Mathematical work. Cantor's work between 1874 and 1884 is the origin of set theory. Prior to this work, the concept of a set was a rather elementary one that had been used implicitly since the beginnings of mathematics, dating back to the ideas of Aristotle. No one had realized that set theory had any nontrivial content. Before Cantor, there were only finite sets (which are easy to understand) and "the infinite" (which was considered a topic for philosophical, rather than mathematical, discussion). By proving that there are (infinitely) many possible sizes for infinite sets, Cantor established that set theory was not trivial, and it needed to be studied. Set theory has come to play the role of a foundational theory in modern mathematics, in the sense that it interprets propositions about mathematical objects (for example, numbers and functions) from all the traditional areas of mathematics (such as algebra, analysis and topology) in a single theory, and provides a standard set of axioms to prove or disprove them. The basic concepts of set theory are now used throughout mathematics. In one of his earliest papers, Cantor proved that the set of real numbers is "more numerous" than the set of natural numbers; this showed, for the first time, that there exist infinite sets of different sizes. He was also the first to appreciate the importance of one-to-one correspondences (hereinafter denoted "1-to-1 correspondence") in set theory. He used this concept to define finite and infinite sets, subdividing the latter into denumerable (or countably infinite) sets and uncountable sets (nondenumerable infinite sets). Cantor developed important concepts in topology and their relation to cardinality. For example, he showed that the Cantor set is nowhere dense, but has the same cardinality as the set of all real numbers, whereas the rationals are everywhere dense, but countable. Cantor introduced fundamental constructions in set theory, such as the power set of a set "A", which is the set of all possible subsets of "A". He later proved that the size of the power set of "A" is strictly larger than the size of "A", even when "A" is an infinite set; this result soon became known as Cantor's theorem. Cantor developed an entire theory and arithmetic of infinite sets, called cardinals and ordinals, which extended the arithmetic of the natural numbers. His notation for the cardinal numbers was the Hebrew letter formula_1 (aleph) with a natural number subscript; for the ordinals he employed the Greek letter ω (omega). This notation is still in use today. The "Continuum hypothesis", introduced by Cantor, was presented by David Hilbert as the first of his twenty-three open problems in his famous address at the 1900 International Congress of Mathematicians in Paris. Cantor's work also attracted favorable notice beyond Hilbert's celebrated encomium. The US philosopher Charles Sanders Peirce praised Cantor's set theory, and, following public lectures delivered by Cantor at the first International Congress of Mathematicians, held in Zurich in 1897, Hurwitz and Hadamard also both expressed their admiration. At that Congress, Cantor renewed his friendship and correspondence with Dedekind. From 1905, Cantor corresponded with his British admirer and translator Philip Jourdain on the history of set theory and on Cantor's religious ideas. This was later published, as were several of his expository works. Number theory, trigonometric series and ordinals. Cantor's first ten papers were on number theory, his thesis topic. At the suggestion of Eduard Heine, the Professor at Halle, Cantor turned to analysis. Heine proposed that Cantor solve an open problem that had eluded Peter Gustav Lejeune Dirichlet, Rudolf Lipschitz, Bernhard Riemann, and Heine himself: the uniqueness of the representation of a function by trigonometric series. Cantor solved this difficult problem in 1869. It was while working on this problem that he discovered transfinite ordinals, which occurred as indices "n" in the "n"th derived set "S""n" of a set "S" of zeros of a trigonometric series. Given a trigonometric series f(x) with "S" as its set of zeros, Cantor had discovered a procedure that produced another trigonometric series that had "S"1 as its set of zeros, where "S"1 is the set of limit points of "S". If "S""k+1" is the set of limit points of "S""k", then he could construct a trigonometric series whose zeros are "S""k+1". Because the sets "S""k" were closed, they contained their Limit points, and the intersection of the infinite decreasing sequence of sets "S", "S""1", "S""2", "S""3"... formed a limit set, which we would now call "S"ω, and then he noticed that "S"ω would also have to have a set of limit points "S"ω+1, and so on. He had examples that went on forever, and so here was a naturally occurring infinite sequence of infinite numbers ω, ω+1, ω+2, ... Between 1870 and 1872, Cantor published more papers on trigonometric series, and also a paper defining irrational numbers as convergent sequences of rational numbers. Dedekind, whom Cantor befriended in 1872, cited this paper later that year, in the paper where he first set out his celebrated definition of real numbers by Dedekind cuts. While extending the notion of number by means of his revolutionary concept of infinite cardinality, Cantor was paradoxically opposed to theories of infinitesimals of his contemporaries Otto Stolz and Paul du Bois-Reymond, describing them as both "an abomination" and "a cholera bacillus of mathematics". Cantor also published an erroneous "proof" of the inconsistency of infinitesimals. Set theory. The beginning of set theory as a branch of mathematics is often marked by the publication of Cantor's 1874 article, "Über eine Eigenschaft des Inbegriffes aller reellen algebraischen Zahlen" ("On a Property of the Collection of All Real Algebraic Numbers"). This article was the first to provide a rigorous proof that there was more than one kind of infinity. Previously, all infinite collections had been implicitly assumed to be equinumerous (that is, of "the same size" or having the same number of elements). Cantor proved that the collection of real numbers and the collection of positive integers are not equinumerous. In other words, the real numbers are not countable. His proof is more complex than the more elegant diagonal argument that he gave in 1891. Cantor's article also contains a new method of constructing transcendental numbers. Transcendental numbers were first constructed by Joseph Liouville in 1844. Cantor established these results using two constructions. His first construction shows how to write the real algebraic numbers as a sequence "a"1, "a"2, "a"3, ... In other words, the real algebraic numbers are countable. Cantor starts his second construction with any sequence of real numbers. Using this sequence, he constructs nested intervals whose intersection contains a real number not in the sequence. Since every sequence of real numbers can be used to construct a real not in the sequence, the real numbers cannot be written as a sequence – that is, the real numbers are not countable. By applying his construction to the sequence of real algebraic numbers, Cantor produces a transcendental number. Cantor points out that his constructions prove more – namely, they provide a new proof of Liouville's theorem: Every interval contains infinitely many transcendental numbers. Cantor's next article contains a construction that proves the set of transcendental numbers has the same "power" (see below) as the set of real numbers. Between 1879 and 1884, Cantor published a series of six articles in "Mathematische Annalen" that together formed an introduction to his set theory. At the same time, there was growing opposition to Cantor's ideas, led by Kronecker, who admitted mathematical concepts only if they could be constructed in a finite number of steps from the natural numbers, which he took as intuitively given. For Kronecker, Cantor's hierarchy of infinities was inadmissible, since accepting the concept of actual infinity would open the door to paradoxes which would challenge the validity of mathematics as a whole. Cantor also introduced the Cantor set during this period. The fifth paper in this series, "Grundlagen einer allgemeinen Mannigfaltigkeitslehre" ("Foundations of a General Theory of Aggregates"), published in 1883, was the most important of the six and was also published as a separate monograph. It contained Cantor's reply to his critics and showed how the transfinite numbers were a systematic extension of the natural numbers. It begins by defining well-ordered sets. Ordinal numbers are then introduced as the order types of well-ordered sets. Cantor then defines the addition and multiplication of the cardinal and ordinal numbers. In 1885, Cantor extended his theory of order types so that the ordinal numbers simply became a special case of order types. In 1891, he published a paper containing his elegant "diagonal argument" for the existence of an uncountable set. He applied the same idea to prove Cantor's theorem: the cardinality of the power set of a set "A" is strictly larger than the cardinality of "A". This established the richness of the hierarchy of infinite sets, and of the cardinal and ordinal arithmetic that Cantor had defined. His argument is fundamental in the solution of the Halting problem and the proof of Gödel's first incompleteness theorem. Cantor wrote on the Goldbach conjecture in 1894. In 1895 and 1897, Cantor published a two-part paper in "Mathematische Annalen" under Felix Klein's editorship; these were his last significant papers on set theory. The first paper begins by defining set, subset, etc., in ways that would be largely acceptable now. The cardinal and ordinal arithmetic are reviewed. Cantor wanted the second paper to include a proof of the continuum hypothesis, but had to settle for expositing his theory of well-ordered sets and ordinal numbers. Cantor attempts to prove that if "A" and "B" are sets with "A" equivalent to a subset of "B" and "B" equivalent to a subset of "A", then "A" and "B" are equivalent. Ernst Schröder had stated this theorem a bit earlier, but his proof, as well as Cantor's, was flawed. Felix Bernstein supplied a correct proof in his 1898 PhD thesis; hence the name Cantor–Bernstein–Schroeder theorem. One-to-one correspondence. Cantor's 1874 Crelle paper was the first to invoke the notion of a 1-to-1 correspondence, though he did not use that phrase. He then began looking for a 1-to-1 correspondence between the points of the unit square and the points of a unit line segment. In an 1877 letter to Dedekind, Cantor proved a far stronger result: for any positive integer "n", there exists a 1-to-1 correspondence between the points on the unit line segment and all of the points in an "n"-dimensional space. About this discovery Cantor famously wrote to Dedekind: ""Je le vois, mais je ne le crois pas"!" ("I see it, but I don't believe it!") The result that he found so astonishing has implications for geometry and the notion of dimension. In 1878, Cantor submitted another paper to Crelle's Journal, in which he defined precisely the concept of a 1-to-1 correspondence, and introduced the notion of "power" (a term he took from Jakob Steiner) or "equivalence" of sets: two sets are equivalent (have the same power) if there exists a 1-to-1 correspondence between them. Cantor defined countable sets (or denumerable sets) as sets which can be put into a 1-to-1 correspondence with the natural numbers, and proved that the rational numbers are denumerable. He also proved that "n"-dimensional Euclidean space R"n" has the same power as the real numbers R, as does a countably infinite product of copies of R. While he made free use of countability as a concept, he did not write the word "countable" until 1883. Cantor also discussed his thinking about dimension, stressing that his mapping between the unit interval and the unit square was not a continuous one. This paper displeased Kronecker, and Cantor wanted to withdraw it; however, Dedekind persuaded him not to do so and Weierstrass supported its publication. Nevertheless, Cantor never again submitted anything to Crelle. Continuum hypothesis. Cantor was the first to formulate what later came to be known as the continuum hypothesis or CH: there exists no set whose power is greater than that of the naturals and less than that of the reals (or equivalently, the cardinality of the reals is "exactly" aleph-one, rather than just "at least" aleph-one). Cantor believed the continuum hypothesis to be true and tried for many years to prove it, in vain. His inability to prove the continuum hypothesis caused him considerable anxiety. The difficulty Cantor had in proving the continuum hypothesis has been underscored by later developments in the field of mathematics: a 1940 result by Gödel and a 1963 one by Paul Cohen together imply that the continuum hypothesis can neither be proved nor disproved using standard Zermelo–Fraenkel set theory plus the axiom of choice (the combination referred to as "ZFC"). Paradoxes of set theory. Discussions of set-theoretic paradoxes began to appear around the end of the nineteenth century. Some of these implied fundamental problems with Cantor's set theory program. In an 1897 paper on an unrelated topic, Cesare Burali-Forti set out the first such paradox, the Burali-Forti paradox: the ordinal number of the set of all ordinals must be an ordinal and this leads to a contradiction. Cantor discovered this paradox in 1895, and described it in an 1896 letter to Hilbert. Criticism mounted to the point where Cantor launched counter-arguments in 1903, intended to defend the basic tenets of his set theory. In 1899, Cantor discovered his eponymous paradox: what is the cardinal number of the set of all sets? Clearly it must be the greatest possible cardinal. Yet for any set "A", the cardinal number of the power set of "A" is strictly larger than the cardinal number of "A" (this fact is now known as Cantor's theorem). This paradox, together with Burali-Forti's, led Cantor to formulate a concept called "limitation of size", according to which the collection of all ordinals, or of all sets, was an "inconsistent multiplicity" that was "too large" to be a set. Such collections later became known as proper classes. One common view among mathematicians is that these paradoxes, together with Russell's paradox, demonstrate that it is not possible to take a "naive", or non-axiomatic, approach to set theory without risking contradiction, and it is certain that they were among the motivations for Zermelo and others to produce axiomatizations of set theory. Others note, however, that the paradoxes do not obtain in an informal view motivated by the iterative hierarchy, which can be seen as explaining the idea of limitation of size. Some also question whether the Fregean formulation of naive set theory (which was the system directly refuted by the Russell paradox) is really a faithful interpretation of the Cantorian conception. Philosophy, religion, and Cantor's mathematics. The concept of the existence of an actual infinity was an important shared concern within the realms of mathematics, philosophy and religion. Preserving the orthodoxy of the relationship between God and mathematics, although not in the same form as held by his critics, was long a concern of Cantor's. He directly addressed this intersection between these disciplines in the introduction to his "Grundlagen einer allgemeinen Mannigfaltigkeitslehre," where he stressed the connection between his view of the infinite and the philosophical one. To Cantor, his mathematical views were intrinsically linked to their philosophical and theological implications – he identified the Absolute Infinite with God, and he considered his work on transfinite numbers to have been directly communicated to him by God, who had chosen Cantor to reveal them to the world. Debate among mathematicians grew out of opposing views in the philosophy of mathematics regarding the nature of actual infinity. Some held to the view that infinity was an abstraction which was not mathematically legitimate, and denied its existence. Mathematicians from three major schools of thought (constructivism and its two offshoots, intuitionism and finitism) opposed Cantor's theories in this matter. For constructivists such as Kronecker, this rejection of actual infinity stems from fundamental disagreement with the idea that nonconstructive proofs such as Cantor's diagonal argument are sufficient proof that something exists, holding instead that constructive proofs are required. Intuitionism also rejects the idea that actual infinity is an expression of any sort of reality, but arrive at the decision via a different route than constructivism. Firstly, Cantor's argument rests on logic to prove the existence of transfinite numbers as an actual mathematical entity, whereas intuitionists hold that mathematical entities cannot be reduced to logical propositions, originating instead in the intuitions of the mind. Secondly, the notion of infinity as an expression of reality is itself disallowed in intuitionism, since the human mind cannot intuitively construct an infinite set. Mathematicians such as Brouwer and especially Poincaré adopted an intuitionist stance against Cantor's work. Citing the paradoxes of set theory as an example of its fundamentally flawed nature, Poincaré held that "most of the ideas of Cantorian set theory should be banished from mathematics once and for all." Finally, Wittgenstein's attacks were finitist: he believed that Cantor's diagonal argument conflated the intension of a set of cardinal or real numbers with its extension, thus conflating the concept of rules for generating a set with an actual set. Some Christian theologians saw Cantor's work as a challenge to the uniqueness of the absolute infinity in the nature of God. In particular, Neo-Thomist thinkers saw the existence of an actual infinity that consisted of something other than God as jeopardizing "God's exclusive claim to supreme infinity". Cantor strongly believed that this view was a misinterpretation of infinity, and was convinced that set theory could help correct this mistake: Cantor also believed that his theory of transfinite numbers ran counter to both materialism and determinism – and was shocked when he realized that he was the only faculty member at Halle who did "not" hold to deterministic philosophical beliefs. In 1888, Cantor published his correspondence with several philosophers on the philosophical implications of his set theory. In an extensive attempt to persuade other Christian thinkers and authorities to adopt his views, Cantor had corresponded with Christian philosophers such as Tilman Pesch and Joseph Hontheim, as well as theologians such as Cardinal Johannes Franzelin, who once replied by equating the theory of transfinite numbers with pantheism. Cantor even sent one letter directly to Pope Leo XIII himself, and addressed several pamphlets to him. Cantor's philosophy on the nature of numbers led him to affirm a belief in the freedom of mathematics to posit and prove concepts apart from the realm of physical phenomena, as expressions within an internal reality. The only restrictions on this metaphysical system are that all mathematical concepts must be devoid of internal contradiction, and that they follow from existing definitions, axioms, and theorems. This belief is summarized in his famous assertion that "the essence of mathematics is its freedom." These ideas parallel those of Edmund Husserl. Meanwhile, Cantor himself was fiercely opposed to infinitesimals, describing them as both an "abomination" and "the cholera bacillus of mathematics". Cantor's 1883 paper reveals that he was well aware of the opposition his ideas were encountering: Hence he devotes much space to justifying his earlier work, asserting that mathematical concepts may be freely introduced as long as they are free of contradiction and defined in terms of previously accepted concepts. He also cites Aristotle, Descartes, Berkeley, Leibniz, and Bolzano on infinity. Cantor's ancestry. "Very little is known for sure about the origin and education of George Woldemar Cantor." Cantor's paternal grandparents were from Copenhagen, and fled to Russia from the disruption of the Napoleonic Wars. There is very little direct information on his grandparents. Cantor was sometimes called Jewish in his lifetime, but has also variously been called Russian, German, and Danish as well. Jakob Cantor, Cantor's grandfather, gave his children Christian saints' names. Further, several of his grandmother's relatives were in the Czarist civil service, which would not welcome Jews, unless they converted to Christianity. Cantor's father, Georg Waldemar Cantor, was educated in the Lutheran mission in Saint Petersburg, and his correspondence with his son shows both of them as devout Lutherans. His mother, Maria Anna Böhm, was an Austro-Hungarian born in Saint Petersburg and baptized Roman Catholic; she converted to Protestantism upon marriage. However, there is a letter from Cantor's brother Louis to their mother, stating: ("Even if we were descended from Jews ten times over, and even though I may be, in principle, completely in favour of equal rights for Hebrews, in social life I prefer Christians...") which could be read to imply that she was of Jewish ancestry. There were documented statements, during the 1930s, that called this Jewish ancestry into question: It is also later said in the same document: (the rest of the quote is finished by the very first quote above). In Men of Mathematics, Eric Temple Bell described Cantor as being "of pure Jewish descent on both sides," although both parents were baptized. In a 1971 article entitled "Towards a Biography of Georg Cantor," the British historian of mathematics Ivor Grattan-Guinness mentions (Annals of Science 27, pp. 345–391, 1971) that he was unable to find evidence of Jewish ancestry. (He also states that Cantor's wife, Vally Guttmann, was Jewish). In a letter written by Georg Cantor to Paul Tannery in 1896 (Paul Tannery, Memoires Scientifique 13 Correspondence, Gauthier-Villars, Paris, 1934, p. 306), Cantor states that his paternal grandparents were members of the Sephardic Jewish community of Copenhagen. Specifically, Cantor states in describing his father: "Er ist aber in Kopenhagen geboren, von israelitischen Eltern, die der dortigen portugisischen Judengemeinde..." ("He was born in Copenhagen of Jewish (lit: "Israelite") parents from the local Portuguese-Jewish community.") In addition, Cantor's maternal great uncle, a Hungarian violinist Josef Böhm, has been described as Jewish, which may imply that Cantor's mother was at least partly descended from the Hungarian Jewish community. In a letter to Bertrand Russell, Cantor described his ancestry and self-perception as follows: Historiography. Until the 1970s, the chief academic publications on Cantor were two short monographs by Schönflies (1927) – largely the correspondence with Mittag-Leffler – and Fraenkel (1930). Both were at second and third hand; neither had much on his personal life. The gap was largely filled by Eric Temple Bell's "Men of Mathematics" (1937), which one of Cantor's modern biographers describes as "perhaps the most widely read modern book on the history of mathematics"; and as "one of the worst". Bell presents Cantor's relationship with his father as Oedipal, Cantor's differences with Kronecker as a quarrel between two Jews, and Cantor's madness as Romantic despair over his failure to win acceptance for his mathematics, and fills the picture with stereotypes. Grattan-Guinness (1971) found that none of these claims were true, but they may be found in many books of the intervening period, owing to the absence of any other narrative. There are other legends, independent of Bell – including one that labels Cantor's father a foundling, shipped to Saint Petersburg by unknown parents. A critique of Bell's book is contained in Joseph Dauben's biography.
586392	My Dear Kuttichathan (1984) is a 3D Malayalam film and the first 3-D film made in India. The movie was produced by Maliampurackal Appachan of Navodaya studio in Kerala. It was dubbed in Hindi as "Chhota Chetan" in 1997 and became a big box office hit Scenes with Urmila Matondkar were added. In 2010, further scenes were added in Tamil with Prakash Raj and Santhanam and was released as "Chutti Chathan". Overall "My Dear Kuttichathan" is considered as the all-time blockbuster of Malayalam films. It reached the Blockbuster status in 1984 and 1997. A new re-mastered version with additional footage released on August 25, 2011. Plot. The character 'Kuttichathan' is formed on the basis of the specialties of a deity popularly known as 'Chathan' who is being worshiped mainly in the south Indian state, Kerala. There are cruel magicians everywhere in the world. One of them is the Karimbhootham (black magician), who enslaved an invisible spirit with his magic spells, whom he calls Kuttichathan ("Little Ghost" in English and "Chhota Chetan" in Hindi). Two boys and a girl befriend Kuttichathan by accident and release him from the grip of the magician. They understand that this Chathan is friendly to kids and is a very good friend. Therefore, the girl promises to keep Kuttichathan in a house for two reasons: one, her father drinks too much, so she wants Chathan, who is a very good magician, to make him himself, as her mother has died, there is no one to control him; second, Chathan, being a small boy, also drinks a lot. He could drink all that her father drinks, thereby changing her father's attitude.
1056519	The French Kissers is a 2009 French teen film. Its original French title is Les beaux gosses, which means "the handsome boys". It was written and directed by Riad Sattouf, marking his film debut. The film follows Hervé (Vincent Lacoste), an average teenage boy who has little luck with finding a girlfriend until the beautiful Aurore (Alice Trémolières) takes a liking to him. Sattouf, a graphic novel writer, was asked to write a script based on an idea from producer Anne-Dominique Toussaint, and he completed the screenplay with Marc Syrigas. Sattouf cast non-professional actors as the film's teenage characters, but he chose to use experienced actors such as Noémie Lvovsky, Irène Jacob, Emmanuelle Devos and Valeria Golino as the adult characters. Filming took place over eight weeks in Gagny and Rennes. The film was released in France on 10 June 2009, and a soundtrack composed by Flairs was released on 8 June 2009. The film was well received by critics, who particularly praised the humour, the acting and the cinematography. It won the 2010 César Award for Best First Film. Plot. Hervé is a teenage boy in junior high school with ordinary looks and middling grades, living with his single mother in a housing estate in Rennes. He and his best friend Camel often fantastize about their female classmates and their mothers, but have less luck with girls in reality. Hervé unsuccessfully pursues romances with various girls at his school, including with Laura, who accepts his offer of a date as a joke. After Aurore, a beautiful, popular girl at school, asks him on a date, they embark on an awkward relationship. Although Hervé and Camel are frequent masturbators, while both alone and together, Hervé and Aurore are slow to engage in sexual activity beyond kissing. Aurore eventually breaks up with Hervé when his friends try to grope her in a game of "Dungeons & Dragons" and she discovers that he lied to them about having sex with her. The film concludes with the characters in high school; Hervé is dating Sabrina, Camel is dating Jenifer, Aurore is dating Wulfran, and Hervé's mother is married to Anas's father. Cast. The French astronaut Jean-Pierre Haigneré makes a cameo appearance as the professor of Physics. Production. Graphic novel writer Riad Sattouf had studied animation and had dreams of filmmaking, but he thought that it would be too exhausting to write and re-write a script, find producers, find funding and censor his ideas to please others. Sattouf had rejected several film offers before because they lacked creative freedom, but he agreed when he was contacted by Anne-Dominique Toussaint, a film producer and a fan of Sattouf's graphic novels who wanted to make a teen film. Sattouf wrote the first draft of the script and then asked screenwriter Marc Syrigas to help him to re-write it. Rather than make a film about "the codes of today's teens, the way they talk, their arsenal of electronic devices", Sattouf wanted to focus on "the intensity of their emotions". He wanted to depict "the things that happen during teenage-hood that we don't show so often". Casting all of the characters in "The French Kissers" took place over three months. Sattouf cast the teenage characters through casting agent Stéphane Batut – whose team he described as "experts in casting teenagers" – and chose from taped auditions of 500 Parisian high school students. He did not want to work with professional actors who he feared would be egotistical and may have thought that he was not legitimate as a first-time director. He wanted to cast unknown actors due to his "phobia of stars", but after considering that he might not make another film, he asked Emmanuelle Devos, Irene Jacob and Valeria Golino to appear in the film and they all accepted. Sattouf sought actors who were "ugly ducklings with unusual features, and their own way of talking, of walking" and who could express emotions without "acting". He struggled to find teenage actors who were like their characters and were willing to be filmed in an unflattering way. He said that Vincent Lacoste and Anthony Sonigo were less concerned about their appearances when he showed them a picture of himself as a "very ugly" teenager. Three days before the beginning of principal photography, Lacoste broke his knee at a music concert, and so his resulting limp was added to the character. According to Sattouf, Lacoste and Sonigo were completely at ease with filming scenes of masturbation, and all of the actors treated their French kisses "like a hug". Filming of "The French Kissers" lasted for eight weeks. Some street scenes and interiors of Hervé's flat were filmed in Rennes, Brittany – where the film is set – but the budget was too small for substantial filming in Brittany, so Sattouf tried to find a college in the Paris suburbs that resembled his own in Rennes. Most of the film's interior scenes were shot in Gagny in Paris's eastern suburbs at the Madame-de-Sévigné de Gagny and Eiffel de Gagny colleges. Sattouf used close-ups and unusual compositions when filming the teenagers to "feel their animal side". There was little camera movement to show "there is some heaviness in them; the world is turning around them, they are their own prisoners". He wanted the camera to be held "so close that you could feel their oily skin, every imperfection, and smell their odour". Soundtrack. The film's original music was written by French electropop musician Lionel Flairs, who performs under the moniker Flairs. It was his first composition for film. When he was approached by Sattouf to compose the soundtrack, Flairs was reluctant because he preferred total freedom when writing music, but after he agreed he enjoyed collaborating with Sattouf. The soundtrack is less like Flairs's usual "happy pop" because Sattouf wanted a sad feel to reflect the sadness in the characters' lives. Reception. Critical reviews of "The French Kissers" were positive. "The Gazette"s Brendan Kelly, who gave the film 4 out of 5 stars, wrote that "Sattouf captures that strange mix of bravado and shyness that is teenage guy-dom, and the result is both frequently hilarious and, finally, quite touching." He thought that Lacoste was "perfect" as Hervé and that the casting of non-professional actors made the film more authentic. Justin Show of "Filmink" magazine described the film as a "fresh and brutally sincere comedy that strays away from typical teen flicks". In particular, he praised the cinematography, Sattouf's dialogue and Lvovsky's performance. Mike Goodridge wrote for "Screen International" that the film shows "a nice blend of humour and intelligence that places it somewhere between "American Pie" and "Wild Reeds"". He enjoyed the well-known actors' brief appearances and thought that the film's "acute observations and ribald humour" would appeal to adult viewers. "The Hollywood Reporter"s Duane Byrge summarised the fim as "a hilarious spin through contemporary French adolescence". Berge found the teenagers' depiction "farcical but realistic" and felt that, like John Hughes's films, a particularly funny aspect was the mockery of authority figures. In a review for "Variety" magazine, Jordan Mintzer opined that the film comprised "plenty of heart-wrenching gags right in the smacker". Mintzer found some sequences "nauseating" but others "freshly and creatively slapstick", and praised the raw cinematography. David Stratton of "At the Movies" awarded the film 3.5 stars out of 5, describing it as "a likeable insight into the problems of children who want to grow up very quickly". He called the non-professional teenage cast "terrific", and praised Lvovsky's performance as Hervé's mother. "Herald Sun" critic Leigh Paatsch found the film "blatantly funny" but also "surprisingly moving". He called Sattouf "a knockout talent behind the camera" and praised the "great humour and honesty" of the story.
520238	My Big Love is a 2008 drama-romance film from Star Cinema starring Sam Milby, Toni Gonzaga and Kristine Hermosa. Overview. Sam Milby stars as Macky, a nice, courteous, well-bred educated culinary chef. He has all the qualities of an ideal man—except that he is overweight. Penchant for food is his constant mindset. Cooking his element, and eating, his pastime! Now meet the two women that affect his life: Nina (Kristine Hermosa), is the young socialite-columnist who is Macky’s forever crush. To Nina, Macky becomes the secret admirer, showering her with food, flowers, gifts. On the other side of the fence is Aira (Toni Gonzaga) the ever-vibrant fitness instructor. To Aira Macky becomes a knight-in-distress, she motivates him to lose the weight he wants to lose in order to win Nina over. What happens next is a journey of finding one's self, of discovering the best in each of us, and the unveiling of true love that goes beyond the looks—and weight! Plot. Pastry chef Macky (Sam Milby) has struggled with his weight for most of his life. It’s not easy being fat, especially when you’re in love with a young socialite columnist named Niña (Kristine Hermosa). He has been her constant secret admirer, surprising Niña every time with cakes and flowers. Everything is going well until Niña meets Macky, who gets the shock of her life when she sees Macky in his 300-pound glory. Then comes Aira (Toni Gonzaga), the ever-vibrant fitness instructor who knows how to motivate her clients well. Being the breadwinner of the family, she has to double her effort to meet their daily needs. After a number of failed attempts, Macky finally agrees to be her client. In the process of losing weight, the two gained love and affection for each other. Aira then agrees to accept an offer to work abroad, separating the two. Two years pass and the Macky who was once laughed at is now one of the most sought-after bachelors in town. Unfortunately, his heart is now owned by her ultimate fantasy - Niña. But an untimely encounter with Aira reminds Macky of his happy old days. Macky now has to choose who really is his big love – is it the woman he dreamt of all his life or is it the woman who loved him unconditionally?
1044132	Lance Percival (born 26 July 1933) is an English actor, comedian and after-dinner speaker. Biography. Born in Sevenoaks, Kent, and educated at Sherborne School in Sherborne, Dorset, Percival first became well known in the early 1960s for performing topical calypsos on television shows such as "That Was The Week That Was", and made several appearances in British comedy films including the Carry On film, "Carry On Cruising" (1962). In 1963 Percival had a cameo role in "The V.I.P.s" and, in 1964, "The Yellow Rolls-Royce". The same year brought Percival his own BBC TV comedy series "Lance at Large", with writers Peter Tinniswood and David Nobbs. He has had one UK Singles Chart hit, reaching number 37 in October 1965 with his cover version of a calypso-style song entitled "Shame and Scandal in the Family" and recorded several other comedy songs, working, like many British comics of the era, with George Martin at Parlophone, including "The Beetroot Song" ("If You Like Beetroot I'll Be True To You", 1963), written by Mitch Murray, and "The Maharajah of Brum" (1967), written with Martin. Later he provided the voice of both Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr in the 1965 cartoon series "The Beatles", leading to his voicing the central character "Old Fred" in the Beatles' animated film "Yellow Submarine". He also appeared as an "upper class tramp" in the Herman's Hermits film vehicle "Mrs. Brown, You've Got a Lovely Daughter" (1968). In 1970 he starred alongside Julie Andrews, Rock Hudson and Jeremy Kemp in the musical film, "Darling Lili" and also appeared in "There's a Girl in My Soup". However, on 14 December 1970, he was involved in a fatal car crash near Farningham, Kent, apparently while racing another driver at high speed in his Jaguar XJ on a dangerous stretch of road near Brands Hatch. Percival almost lost the sight of one eye and was summoned to court where he agreed to pay substantial damages following the death of a third, uninvolved driver, Paul Young. Percival returned to film work in the Frankie Howerd vehicles "Up Pompeii" (1971) and "Up the Chastity Belt" (1971), sustaining a film career until 1978. Between 1972 and 1978 the Thames Television game show "Whodunnit!" was written by Percival and Jeremy Lloyd. He appeared on BBC Radio light entertainment programmes such as "Just a Minute" throughout the 1980s and is also the author of two books of verse, "Well-Versed Cats" and "Well-Versed Dogs", both illustrated by Lalla Ward. Subsequently he gained a reputation as a writer, and later a presenter, of after-dinner speeches.
1057055	Fear City is a 1984 American action-thriller directed by Abel Ferrara. The lead roles are played by Billy Dee Williams and Tom Berenger. In 2012 the film was released on Blu-Ray by Shout! Factory. Plot. A serial killer who is an expert at martial arts is preying on strippers in Manhattan's Times Square. Night after night, he visits smoky strip clubs, waiting for his victims. The owners of the largest company of strippers in the city are Matt Rossi (Berenger) and Nicky Parzeno (Scalia). Rossi is a retired boxer who retired after having killed an opponent in the ring. He is now seeing their whole business under threat, at the same time as he fears that the woman he loves might be the next victim.
1164633	George Cooper Grizzard, Jr. (April 1, 1928 – October 2, 2007) was an American actor of film and stage. He appeared in more than 40 films, dozens of television programs and a number of Broadway plays. Life and career. Grizzard was born in Roanoke Rapids, North Carolina, the son of Mary Winifred (née Albritton) and George Cooper Grizzard, an accountant. Grizzard memorably appeared as an unscrupulous United States senator in the film "Advise and Consent" in 1962. His other theatrical films included the drama "From the Terrace" with Paul Newman (1960), the Western story "Comes a Horseman" with Jane Fonda (1978) and a Neil Simon comedy, "Seems Like Old Times" (1980). In more recent years, he guest-starred several times on the NBC television drama "Law & Order" as defense attorney Arthur Gold. He also portrayed President John Adams in the Emmy Award-winning WNET-produced PBS miniseries "The Adams Chronicles". Grizzard made his Broadway debut in "The Desperate Hours" in 1955. He was a frequent interpreter of the plays of Edward Albee, having appeared in the original 1962 production of "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" as Nick, as well as the 1996 revival of "A Delicate Balance" and the 2005 revival of "Seascape". He also starred in "You Know I Can't Hear You When the Water's Running". In 1980 he won an Emmy for his work in "The Oldest Living Graduate". He starred as reporter Richard Larsen in "The Deliberate Stranger", a television movie about serial killer Ted Bundy. He won the 1996 Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play for "A Delicate Balance". Additional Broadway credits include "The Creation of the World and Other Business", "The Glass Menagerie", "The Country Girl", "The Royal Family", and "California Suite". He would also appear in "The Golden Girls" as George Devereaux, the late husband of Blanche Devereaux; as well as Jamie Devereaux, George's brother. In 2001, Grizzard played Judge Dan Haywood in a stage production of "Judgment at Nuremberg" opposite Maximilian Schell under the production of actor Tony Randall. Grizzard appeared as Big Daddy in "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" at the Kennedy Center in 2004. Grizzard's last film appearance was in Clint Eastwood's "Flags of Our Fathers". He was inducted into the American Theatre Hall of Fame in 2002. Death. Grizzard died in Manhattan of complications from lung cancer. According to his New York Times obituary, his only survivor was his long-time companion William Tynan.
578701	Bangkok Knockout is a 2010 Thai martial arts film.
1032083	Rachel Louise Grant de Longueuil, more commonly known as Rachel Grant, (born 1977 on the island of Luzon, in the Philippines) is an actress and humanitarian. Besides her acting career, she specialises in Filipino martial arts Kali. Grandmaster Dan Inosanto was one of her teachers. Personal life. Rachel Grant moved to the United Kingdom when she was a baby. Her British father, a retired doctor, hypnotist and nobleman, is Michael Grant, 12th Baron de Longueuil. As such she is related to British royalty through her grandfather, the late 11th Baron Raymond De Longueuil (second cousin to Queen Elizabeth II) whose mother was the Lady Ernestine Maude Bowes-Lyon. She has one older sister - model Angela Grant (b. 1974) and one younger sister - the actress Rebecca Grant (b. 1981), and a younger half brother - David-Alexander (b. 1984). Career. Rachel Grant is most notable for her role as Peaceful Fountains of Desire in the 20th James Bond film Die Another Day. However her first TV break came in the role of Nina, the hostess of horror show "Sci-fright" and was equally popular as Professor Myang Li in the Sky One series "". She was the body double of Angelina Jolie in "". She has appeared in a number of UK Television commercials, including adverts for Lynx and Carlsberg and she is a former competitor in Miss Great Britain.
402381	Matthew Felker is an American writer, producer, actor, and model. He is currently starring and an executive producer on the 2013 Penelope Spheeris directed comedy titled "Balls to the Wall" opposite Mimi Rogers, Christopher McDonald, Joe Hursley, Colleen Camp and Jenna Dewan. He works often with directors Penelope Spheeris and Joseph Kahn. Career. Matthew got his start while attending Arizona State University where he was scouted by Ford Models. His first break was filming a commercial for Häagen-Dazs where he was depicted in a very racy interracial kiss selling cookies and cream ice cream. As a model he has worked for The Gap, Iceberg and Versace, as well as a denim campaign with Joanna Krupa seen in Times Square. He has been seen in Britney Spears' hit "Toxic" music video, directed by Joseph Kahn He also appeared in the music video for Fountains of Wayne's "Stacy's Mom" directed by Chris Applenbaum, Dido's "White Flag" again directed by Kahn, as well as Celine Dion's "Have You Ever Been In Love" video. He appeared in an episode and the cast reunion of the short lived series "MTV's Fear". Matthew filmed a pilot with Chelsea Handler titled "Dirty Famous" that was not picked up by network. Has been represented as a model by Irene Marie Models, Ford Models, and Elite Models In 2012 he was seen starring in the Lifetime Peneloe Spheeris directed film "The Real St.Nick" airing December 15, 2012 Writing. He is the creator of the "Who is Brad Lenz?"/ "No Photo" MySpace campaign phenomenon and wrote the upcoming movie of the same name, which is directed by Penelope Spheeris. While writing the film he trademarked the "No Photo" symbol from MySpace, and receives royalty checks from companies that use the image. Filmography. Felker was born and raised in Brookfield, Wisconsin and currently resides in Los Angeles, and New York
1164904	Kadeem Hardison (born July 24, 1965) is an American actor. He is best known for his role as Dwayne Wayne on "A Different World", a spin-off of the long-running NBC sitcom "The Cosby Show". Childhood. Hardison was born in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, New York, the son of Bethann (née Hardison), a fashion model who owned a modeling agency, and Donald McFadden, an art collector. Career. Hardison was a starring cast member on the sitcom "A Different World" as Dwayne Wayne, and a regular cast member of the short-lived sitcoms "Abby" and "Between Brothers". His career was managed predominately by his mother, Bethann Hardison. He has also guest starred on several other sitcoms, including "Living Single", "Girlfriends", "Under One Roof", "The Boondocks" (as himself), "Greek", "Parenthood", and on "Everybody Hates Chris" as the judge. His movies include "School Daze", "Def by Temptation", "Vampire in Brooklyn", "30 Years to Life", "Made of Honor", "Escapee", "The Sixth Man", "Drive", "Renaissance Man", "Panther", "The Fantasia Barrino Story: Life Is Not a Fairy Tale", ', "Biker Boyz", "Who's Your Daddy?", ', "I'm Gonna Git You Sucka", "Blind Faith" and "White Men Can't Jump". He has an upcoming role as an actor in the PlayStation 3 exclusive video game "". Personal life. Hardison was formerly married to singer Chanté Moore; they have a daughter named Sophia. Hardison remains a close friend of actor Darryl Bell, who played his best friend Ron Johnson on "A Different World"; he makes an appearance alongside Bell on BET's "Househusbands of Hollywood".
659731	Kevin Hooks (born September 19, 1958) is an American actor, and a television and film director; he is notable for his roles in "Aaron Loves Angela" and "Sounder", but may be best known as Morris Thorpe from TV's "The White Shadow".
1062271	Anthony Franciosa (October 25, 1928 – January 19, 2006), usually billed as Tony Franciosa during the height of his career, was an American film, TV and stage actor. He made several feature films, including "Career" (1959) for which he won the Golden Globe for Best Actor/Drama and "A Face in the Crowd" (1957). In television, along with many minor parts, he played lead roles in five major TV series: the sitcom "Valentine's Day" (1964–65), drama "The Name of the Game" (1968–71), "Search" (1972–73), "Matt Helm" (1975) and "Finder of Lost Loves" (1984). However, he began as a successful stage actor, gaining a Tony Award nomination for the drug-addiction play "A Hatful of Rain". He married four times, the longest of which marriages lasted 36 years, to his last wife, Rita Theil. He had been married during 1957–1960 to Academy Award-winning actress Shelley Winters, who died five days before him. Early life. Born Anthony George Papaleo to an Italian-American family (his grandparents emigrated from Melfi, Basilicata, in 1890), and raised by his mother and aunt, he adopted his mother's maiden name Franciosa as his professional name. Career. In 1948 he joined the Cherry Lane Theatre Group off Broadway (at the same time as actress Beatrice Arthur). Within two years, he'd been accepted as a member of the Actors Studio, which would prove an invaluable resource going forward. In the meantime, though, It would be a few years more before Franciosa could make a living from acting. In the meantime, he worked a variety of jobs which included being a waiter, dishwasher, day laborer, and messenger boy. Several years later he garnered rave reviews and a Tony Award nomination for his Broadway performance of the play "A Hatful of Rain". When he reprised his role in the film version in 1957, he was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actor. He followed that with roles in several major films, including "The Naked Maja" (1959) with Ava Gardner, "A Face in the Crowd" with Andy Griffith and Patricia Neal, "Career" with Dean Martin and Shirley MacLaine, "The Long Hot Summer" with Paul Newman and Orson Welles, "Period of Adjustment" with Jane Fonda, "The Pleasure Seekers" with Ann-Margret and Carol Lynley, "Fathom" in 1967 with Raquel Welch, "The Drowning Pool" with Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward, and "Rio Conchos" with Richard Boone and Stuart Whitman. He also appeared in a prominent co-starring role in the Frank Sinatra film "Assault on a Queen" (1966) and was later in the 70s film of the Jackie Collins book "The World is Full of Married Men". He guest-starred in the television series "The Greatest Show on Earth", Jack Palance's circus drama, which aired on ABC from 1963–1964. That same season, he appeared in the ABC medical drama about psychiatry, "Breaking Point". Producer David Dortort was on the verge of casting him as Cameron Mitchell's best friend and brother-in-law, Manolito Montoya, on the western, "The High Chaparral", if Henry Darrow did not make it in time. Unfortunately for Franciosa, he lost the part, because Darrow had arrived on the set, right on time, before filming was about to begin, in two weeks. Eager to act in any medium, he became a series lead in the sitcom "Valentine's Day" and drama TV series "The Name of the Game" (and its pilot TV-movie "Fame Is the Name of the Game"), as lead role of charismatic but doggedly determined star reporter Jeff Dillon, alternating the regular lead spot with Gene Barry and Robert Stack. He had a further alternating lead role, this time alongside Hugh O'Brien and Doug McClure, as agent Nick Bianco in "Search", and in "Matt Helm". In the 1980s he starred in the Aaron Spelling-produced series "Finder of Lost Loves". Franciosa also made notable guest star appearances as a villain in the Western series "The Virginian" (episode: "Holocaust" aka "The Shiloh Years") and later "The Men from Shiloh", plus was star of the "Theatre of Stars" episode "A Case of Armed Robbery" convincingly playing a man with feelings of alienation from a society driven to crime. Awards. Billed as "Anthony Franciosa", he won the 1960 Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Drama for the role "Sam Lawson" in "Career" (1959), opposite Dean Martin and Shirley MacLaine. He had won the Globe competing with actors Charlton Heston in "Ben-Hur", Richard Burton in "Look Back in Anger", Fredric March in "Middle of the Night" and Joseph Schildkraut as Otto Frank in "The Diary of Anne Frank". In 1958, Franciosa had been nominated for an Academy Award for his role as Polo Pope in the film version of "A Hatful of Rain" (1957), opposite Eva Marie Saint and Don Murray (actor) as his brother, Johnny a morphine addict. Personal life. Tony Franciosa was married four times, and had three children. His most famous wife was Oscar-winning actress Shelley Winters; they were married from May 4, 1957 until their divorce in 1960; they had no children. Her death preceded his by five days. His first wife, Beatrice Bakalyar, was a writer. They were married from 1952 to 1957. The marriage ended in divorce. His third wife, the former Judith Balaban, is the author of the book "The Bridesmaids", about her friend Princess Grace of Monaco, in whose wedding she served as a bridesmaid. This marriage produced Franciosa's only daughter, Nina. His last wife (from November 27, 1970 until his death in 2006) was Rita Theil, by whom he had two sons, Marco and Christopher. Christopher Franciosa is an actor. Marco Franciosa is an organic farmer. During his later years, Tony lived in Brentwood, a district in West Los Angeles. Death. On January 19, 2006, Anthony Franciosa died at age 77 at UCLA Medical Center in Los Angeles, California after suffering a massive stroke. His death came only five days after that of his ex-wife Shelley Winters (Franciosa suffered the stroke the day Winters died, January 14). He is survived by his wife, Rita, his children, Nina, Christopher and Marco and his grandchildren, Ruby and Cassius Franciosa. Quotations. Rita, when asked about Anthony's hair-trigger temper said, "He was never taught how to control his temper ... I changed him a lot ... We still have good fights once in a while, but I can scream back at him." Tony, reflecting about Rita's influence on him, said, Winters won an Academy Award in 1960, and later said, "The night I won my first Oscar my husband took one look at it and I knew my marriage was over." Notes. Tony Franciosa is mentioned in the 1992 Tom Waits song "Goin' Out West." Waits, in character, claims, "Tony Franciosa used to date my mom." In his autobiography, "The Garner Files," actor James Garner stated that Franciosa, on the set of "A Man Could Get Killed," constantly abused the stunt crew. "He purposely wasn't pulling his punches during fight scenes, and he kept doing it despite my warnings to stop... so I had to pop him one." External links. – – –
632794	Career. Doig first carved her niche in the entertainment industry at age 16, when she began accepting adverts and other modelling jobs from a talent agent whom she met while completing a modelling training course. The initial media exposure led to her co-hosting the Canadian game show "Video & Arcade Top 10" with friend Gordon Michael Woolvett on YTV, from 1991 to 2006. While auditioning for television and film roles, she worked on theatre productions of "Romeo and Juliet" and "Arsenic and Old Lace". Her first television acting role was as "Second Girl" on "The Hidden Room" in 1993. Her first recurring role was in the TV series"TekWar" in 1994 where she portrayed the role of Cowgirl. Her first movie role was in the film "Jungleground" in 1995. Doig got her first big break with a starring role in the movie "No Alibi" in 2000, opposite Dean Cain and Eric Roberts. She also landed the title role in Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry's sci-fi TV series "Andromeda" where she portrayed the Andromeda Ascendant ship's computer in three dimensions — as the ship's powerful AI (artificial intelligence) on the system's screen, as the AI's hologram, and as Rommie, the android avatar of the AI. In 2002, she played the female lead role of “Dr. Rowan LaFontaine” in the horror film "Jason X", the 10th installment of Friday the 13th film series. In a recurring role as Dr. Carolyn Lam, Doig also appeared in 11 episodes of the ninth and tenth seasons of "Stargate SG-1" between 2005-2007. In 2010, Doig appeared in 6 episodes in the remake of "V" as the alien physician Dr. Leah Pearlman. In 2012, she began playing the role of Liber8 terrorist Sonya Valentine in the Canadian science fiction TV series "Continuum". Personal life. Lexa Doig was born Alexandra Lecciones Doig in Toronto, Ontario, Canada on June 8, 1973. Nicknamed "Spark," she is the younger child of Gloria B. Lecciones and David W. Doig. Her mother is a Filipino Registered Nurse who originally came from Dumaguete City, Philippines, and her father is a Canadian engineer of Scottish and Irish descent who was a petroleum Executive Officer in Toronto. As a child, Doig studied rhythmic gymnastics and, as a teenager, she studied American Sign Language. At the age of six, natural creativity and artistic talent displayed early budding when she wrote and directed her first school play, "Strawberry Shortcake," giving the lead role to her best friend. She developed a strong interest in acting and became inspired to become an actor at age 9 after she watched a theatre production of "Porgy and Bess", an opera by George Gershwin. Since then, she participated in as many church and school stage plays as she could do during her growing years. While completing compulsory secondary education at Don Mills Collegiate Institute, she also enrolled in a vocational modelling programme where she was immediately offered representation by a talent agent, which she accepted. She was immediately booked in various modelling projects that opened doors to bigger opportunities. She chose to drop out from her final year in high school to pursue an acting career as occupation. Incidentally, Doig is a cousin of American martial artist-stunt performers Rey-Phillip Santos and Rowland Santos. Lexa Doig dated actor Michael Shanks after they met on the set of "Andromeda," where the former starred and the latter guest-starred in the 2001 episode "Star Crossed." The two married on August 2, 2003, and they continued to work in the 2003 episode "Day of Judgment, Day of Wrath" of the same TV series. Doig and Shanks were castmates in the final two seasons of "Stargate SG-1". The couple have two children: a daughter, Mia Tabitha Shanks (born September 13, 2004), and a son, Samuel David Shanks (born March 19, 2006). Their family currently resides in Vancouver, British Columbia with Michael's elder daughter, Tatiana (born in 1998 from his relationship with Vaitiare Bandera, a castmate on the first three seasons of "Stargate SG-1"), and two family cats. Doig and Shanks together are actively involved as charity fundraising partners for the Multiple Sclerosis Society of Canada. Recently, the two actors also worked together in the action thriller "Tactical Force" (2011), with Doig portraying a female LAPD SWAT officer and Shanks playing the role of a Russian mob leader. Fans follow Doig as "LexaShmexa" at Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and YouTube. Doig divides her time between Vancouver, where she works, and Toronto, where she grew up. She enjoys reading, rollerblading, and playing role-playing video games and Dungeons & Dragons, in her spare time.
675376	The White Masai (), directed by Hermine Huntgeburth, is a 2005 film about a woman named Carola (Nina Hoss) falling in love in Kenya with Maasai Lemalian (Jacky Ido). The film is based upon an autobiographical novel by the German born writer Corinne Hofmann. Plot. Carola, (Hoss) a German woman living in Switzerland, is on holiday with her boyfriend in Kenya. She falls in love with Maasai warrior Lemalian (Ido), who is visiting dressed in the clothing of his area. At the airport on the way home she decides to stay. It turns out that Lemalian has gone to his home village in the Samburu District. Carola travels to the area, and stays at the house of another European woman. Lemalian hears about her stay and comes to meet her. Eventually they start living together. She travels to Switzerland to sell her shop there, promising Lemalian to come back to him. She does, and they marry and have a daughter. Carola buys a car and starts a shop. They lose money on the shop because Lemalian gives too much credit to friends and neighbors, and because they have to pay bribes to the mini-chief. Lemalian argues that this is no problem because she has more money in Switzerland. The mini-chief demands that Carola hires his teenage nephew as a shop assistant. She has to accept this although she does not need him and he does not work hard. After some time, when he is just drinking beer and not working, she fires him. Later he returns and attacks her. A local judge rules that she has to pay two goats for firing him, but the boy's family has to pay her five goats to compensate for the attack. Carola is frustrated by the female circumcision being practised in the village. She wants to stop it, but it is a long tradition that is not easily changed. When Carola helps a pregnant woman in labour with a breech birth, Lemalian refuses to assist because the woman is supposedly bewitched. Lemalian does not want Carola to be friendly with other men, even if she just serves a customer in a friendly way. He is very jealous and suspicious of Carola having a boyfriend. He even wants to kill a man he suspects. Carola wants to return to Switzerland stating she needs a two week holiday taking their daughter with her. After some hesitation, Lemalian signs a form giving Carola consent to take the girl out of Kenya, although he suspects that she will not return to Kenya. Thematic content. The themes of the film have been controversial. Ultimately, the film is about the clash of cultures and worldviews. Two individuals who believe that their worldview is superior and therefore right (thus Carola condemns female circumcision because it does not fit her cultural outlook while Lemalian cannot understand how she could talk to men without being unfaithful to him), and it is their inability to understand the other that brings about their misery, separation, and divorce.
1166652	Tom Conway (15 September 1904 – 22 April 1967) was a British film and radio actor. Early life. Conway was born Thomas Charles Sanders to English parents in St. Petersburg, Russia. His younger brother (b. 1906) was fellow actor George Sanders. Their younger sister, Margaret Sanders, was born in 1912. At the outbreak of the Russian Revolution (1917), the family moved back to England, where Conway was educated at Bedales School and Brighton College. Career. While working as a contract player for RKO Pictures, Conway starred in three Val Lewton horror films. He played Dr. Louis Judd in two otherwise unrelated films (1942's "Cat People" and 1943's "The Seventh Victim"), despite the character having been killed in "Cat People". The third Lewton film in which he starred was "I Walked with a Zombie" (1943). Conway is perhaps best remembered for playing "The Falcon" in ten of the series' entries, taking over for his brother Sanders in "The Falcon's Brother", in which they both starred. On radio, Conway played Sherlock Holmes during the 1946–1947 season of "The New Adventures of Sherlock Holmes", following Basil Rathbone's departure from the series. In spite of a similar vocal timbre, Conway wasn't as well-received as Rathbone had been by audiences, and was replaced that season by John Stanley. Conway's screen career diminished in the 1950s, but he appeared in a number of British films, as well as on radio and television. In 1951, he replaced Vincent Price as star of the radio mystery series The Saint, a character which Sanders had portrayed on film a decade earlier. In 1956, the two brothers both featured (as brothers) in the film "Death of a Scoundrel", though Sanders had the starring role. From 1951–1954, Conway played debonair British police detective Mark Saber, who worked in the homicide division of a large American city, in the ABC series entitled "Inspector Mark Saber – Homicide Detective". In 1957, the series resumed on NBC, renamed "Saber of London", with Donald Gray in the title role. In October , Conway performed as Max Collodi in the "Alfred Hitchcock Presents" episode "The Glass Eye", to critical praise. His final television appearance was in 1964, playing the role of Guy Penrose in the "Perry Mason" episode, "The Case of the Simple Simon." Later life and death. In 1961, Conway provided his voice for Disney's "101 Dalmatians" as a collie who offers the dalmatians shelter in a barn, later guiding them home. His wife at the time, Queenie Leonard, voiced a cow in the barn. Despite having made millions in his twenty-four-year film career, Conway later struggled to make ends meet. Failing eyesight and prolonged bouts with alcohol took their toll on him in his last years. His second wife (Leonard) divorced him in 1963, owing to his drinking problem, and his brother Sanders broke off all contact with him because of it. Conway underwent cataract surgery during the winter of 1964–65. In September 1965, he briefly returned to the headlines, having been discovered living in a $2-a-day room in a Venice, California flophouse. Gifts, contributions and offers of aid poured in for a time. His last years were marked with hospitalizations. It was there that former sister-in-law Zsa Zsa Gabor paid Conway a visit and gave him $200. "Tip the nurses a little bit so they'll be good to you," she told him. The following day, the hospital called her to say that Conway had left with the $200, gone to his girlfriend's house, and became gravely sick in her bed. It was 22 April 1967, and he died from cirrhosis of the liver at the age of 62 due to alcoholism. His funeral was held in London.
573116	Bebe Daniels (January 14, 1901 - March 16, 1971) was an American actress, singer, dancer, writer and producer. She began her career in Hollywood during the silent movie era as a child actress, became a star in musicals such as "42nd Street", and later gained further fame on radio and television in Britain. In a long career, Bebe Daniels made over 230 films. Early life and career. Daniels was born Phyllis Virginia Daniels (Bebe was a childhood nickname) in Dallas, Texas. Her father was a theater manager and her mother a stage actress. The family moved to Los Angeles, California in her childhood and she began her acting career at the age of four in the first version of "The Squaw Man". That same year she also went on tour in a stage production of Shakespeare's "Richard III". The following year she participated in productions by Morosooa and David Belasco. By the age of seven Daniels had her first starring role in film as the young heroine in "A Common Enemy". At the age of nine she starred as Dorothy Gale in the 1910 short film "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz". At the age of fourteen she starred opposite film comedian Harold Lloyd in a series of two-reel comedies starting with the 1915 film "Giving Them Fits". The two eventually developed a publicized romantic relationship and were known in Hollywood as "The Boy" and "The Girl." In 1919, she decided to move to greater dramatic roles and accepted a contract offering from Cecil B. DeMille, who gave her secondary roles in such films as "Male and Female" (1919), "Why Change Your Wife?" (1920), and "The Affairs of Anatol" (1921). Later life and career. In the 1920s, Daniels was under contract with Paramount Pictures. She became an adult star by 1922 and by 1924 was playing opposite Rudolph Valentino in "Monsieur Beaucaire". Following this she was cast in a number of light popular films, namely "Miss Bluebeard", "The Manicure Girl", and "Wild Wild Susan". Paramount dropped her contract with the advent of talking pictures. Daniels was hired by Radio Pictures (later known as RKO) to star in one of their biggest productions of the year. She also starred in the 1929 talkie "Rio Rita". It proved to be one of the most successful films of that year, and Bebe Daniels found herself a star and RCA Victor hired her to record several records for their catalog.
1016082	Gen-X Cops () is a 1999 Hong Kong action/crime film directed by Benny Chan, starring Nicholas Tse, Stephen Fung and Sam Lee. Synopsis. Jet fuel is stolen by weapons smugglers. The fuel is reacquired by the Hong Kong police but then once again stolen by a yakuza boss named Akatora who is trying to sell it with the help of Hong Kong thug Daniel. Three rebellious cops go undercover to find both the jet fuel and Akatora. They must use the criminal instincts that got them kicked out of the force to save Hong Kong from a devastating terrorist attack. Characters. The Gen-x Cops. Jack (played by Nicholas Tse) The main protagonist of the movie. Jack is the tough cool one of the group. He will do almost anything to win. He’s in the one of the group that always seems to be alone with one of the thugs. He is alone with Lok at one point then Daniel and faces off with Akatora. Match (Played by Stephen Fung) Match is the play boy of the group, as he is always more concerned with the girl instead of the task at hand, though in the long run, it always seems to help as his ex-girlfriend is with Daniel and eventually leaves Daniel for Match allowing Jack to take her place and get more information. Alien (Played by Sam Lee) As his name suggests, Alien is the goofy guy of the bunch. He doesn't really like authority or doing much work but does his fair share in the group. Y2K (Played by Grace Ip) Y2K is the girl of the group. She has skills in fighting and computers. She is mainly the group’s techie. She is also the sister of an undercover cop killed, as he is the reason Akatora lost his good to begin with. The gangsters. Akatora (Played by Tôru Nakamura) The main antagonist of the movie. He is the mastermind behind the stealing and smuggling of the jet fuel explosives. He is driven by revenge. He believes that a man name Shimada is the reason his father was killed. And his goal is to eventually kill Shimada.
1017785	Five Venoms ('五毒' - Cantonese: "Mm Dook") aka "Five Deadly Venoms" is a cult 1978 Hong Kong martial arts film directed by Chang Cheh, starring the Venom Mob, and produced by the Shaw Brothers Studio, about five kung-fu fighters with unique animal styles: The Centipede, The Snake, The Scorpion, The Lizard and The Toad. The film was listed at number 11 on "Entertainment Weekly"'s Top 50 Cult Films list. Plot. The dying master of the powerful Poison Clan dispatches his last pupil, Yan Tieh, on a crucial mission. Worried that the skills he has taught are being used to evil ends, he orders Yan to trace a retired colleague and warn him that the fortune he amassed from the clan's activities is under threat from five of his former pupils, each an expert in his own lethal combat style. Yan must discover the whereabouts and true identities of these masked warriors, and decide which, if any, he can trust to join him in his mission. Styles. Each of the Poison Clan is alternatively referred to as either their venom style code name, or as their number in regard to the order of being taught by the master (except Yan, who is never referred to as "Number 6", nor has any particular animal style). Among fans, he is known as "Hybrid Venom," as his training contains a little bit of each of the five styles, but it is incomplete, and he must align with one of the venoms to stand a chance against any of the others. Number 1: Centipede Wriggly and quick, this style is a nice blend of defensive and offensive posturing. The strikes are so fast that it is almost as if he has a hundred arms and legs. The weakness of this style as revealed by Yan Tieh (told by his master) is to attack both the opponent's upper and lower body in a simultaneous assault. Number 2: Snake On one hand: the mouth, venomous fangs emulated in precise finger motor control. On the other: the stinging whip of a rattling tail. Masters of this ability can even fight extremely well while lying on their back from the floor. The weakness of this style as revealed by Yan Tieh (told by his master) is to stop the "head" and "tail" (the opponent's two arms) from combining, as neither the head nor tail can function well individually. Number 3: Scorpion The scorpion represents a double threat! Kicks from the Scorpion style are just like the stinging tail of the namesake. When delivered by a master, a single kick can paralyze or even kill, let alone the strong pincer-style attack of the arms to contend with. The weakness in this style is not clearly revealed as Yan Tieh is cut off from his explanation but one can assume (by watching The Scorpion in his bout with Yan Tieh and The Lizard) that it would be to stay out of reach of The Scorpion's damaging kicks and make him come to you. Number 4: Lizard An emphasis on speed and gravity, the Lizard style is best known for the ability to walk on walls, and can fight with ease from such positions. Number 5: Toad Toads don't do much, but they are tough. That is the essence of this style, a primarily defensive pose. The Toad is invincible to just about any form of attack, including blades and puncture. They can even bend solid metal. The weakness of this style is that any master of the Toad style has a "weak spot" that when punctured, drains the user's Toad style benefits (most notably the iron skin.) Number 5's weak spot were his ears as shown in his fight with The Snake, when The Scorpion secretly struck his ears with his darts. Some thought the way to discover the weak spot in one's Toad style is to use an Iron Maiden. But when Number 5 was first placed in the Iron Maiden, he was impervious to the needles. The Iron Maiden's needles only penetrated the Toad after the Scorpion and Snake exploited his weak spot, the ears, with darts and a snake strike. DVD release. The film received a DVD release by the Weinstein Company's Asian label, Dragon Dynasty, on August 18, 2009.
480154	Amy Louise Acker (born December 5, 1976) is an American actress. She has played roles on the television series "Angel" as Winifred Burkle and Illyria, and on "Alias" as Kelly Peyton. She also portrayed Dr. Claire Saunders on "Dollhouse" and Samantha "Root" Groves on "Person of Interest. Early life. Acker was born and raised in Dallas, Texas, to a homemaker mother and a lawyer father. She graduated from Lake Highlands High School in Dallas. She subsequently earned a bachelor's degree in theater from Southern Methodist University. In her junior year of college, Acker modeled for J. Crew's catalog. In 1999 she was nominated for a Leon Rabin award for "Outstanding Performance by an Actress in a Lead Role" for her performance in the play "Thérèse Raquin". She received a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in the same year. She worked as a stage actress for several seasons, including a stint at American Players Theatre in Spring Green, Wisconsin. Career. Acker made her major television debut when she starred as Winifred "Fred" Burkle on the 2nd - 5th seasons of "Angel", and also as the character of Illyria for part of the show's 5th and final season. She won the 2003 Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actress on Television for her portrayal. She joined the cast of "Alias" in 2005 for its final season, playing the villainous character, Kelly Peyton. Acker graduated from guest star to fully credited cast member as the show entered the final episodes in April and May 2006. Also in 2005, Acker provided voice acting for the character of Huntress on the animated series "Justice League Unlimited". Acker guest starred on fellow Buffyverse actress, Alyson Hannigan's show "How I Met Your Mother", in which she was reunited with "Angel" co-star, Alexis Denisof (Hannigan's real-life husband), who had a recurring role on the show. She portrayed Dr. Claire Saunders/Whiskey, a recurring character, on Joss Whedon's "Dollhouse". Acker guest starred in 10 of the 13 episodes of the first season and three episodes of the second. In 2010, she was a series regular in the ABC drama "Happy Town", portraying the character Rachel Conroy. Also in 2010, she starred in the season-one finale of the Fox series "Human Target", as the mysterious Katherine Walters. On May 25, 2010, she appeared on CBS's "The Good Wife". She appeared in the horror movie "The Cabin in the Woods", released April 13, 2012. She also portrayed Samantha "Root" Groves on CBS's "Person of Interest" in the season-1 finale/cliffhanger, and guest starred on multiple episodes on the subsequent season. Also in 2012, she revisited the science fiction and fantasy genres that had brought her to prominence, with guest performances in "Warehouse 13", "Once Upon A Time", and "Grimm". In 2012, she starred as Beatrice in Joss Whedon's "Much Ado About Nothing". Acker appeared in the sitcom "Husbands"s third season as Claudia, the ex-fiancée of Brady Kelly who unexpectedly shows up. Personal life. On April 25, 2003, Acker and actor James Carpinello were married in California. On January 22, 2005, she gave birth to a son, Jackson James Carpinello, and on September 1, 2006, to a daughter, Ava Grace.
1059062	The Tripper is a 2006 slasher film which was directed by David Arquette and stars Jaime King, Thomas Jane and Lukas Haas. Synopsis. The film is a nostalgic homage to the exploitation films of Wes Craven and Tobe Hooper that follows a group of free-loving hippies who escape to a modern-day Woodstock for a weekend of debauchery, only to be stalked by a radical-minded psychopath dressed and talking like Ronald Reagan. Cast. Director Wes Craven makes a cameo in the film as a hippie wearing a top-hat. Production. The film is directed, produced, written by and stars David Arquette. Arquette's wife, Courteney Cox Arquette, is also a producer and actor in the film. The title is a play on Ronald Reagan's nickname of "The Gipper". In August 2007, writer-producer Fritz Jünker sued the Arquettes' production company Coquette Productions, Inc. for copyright infringement, claiming Jünker's 2001 film, "The Truth About Beef Jerky", was the basis for "The Tripper". The case never went to court, and was eventually dropped, because Jünker could not afford to take the case to court. Coincidentally, or not, both films were shot at the same state park north of Santa Cruz, California, The Truth About Beef Jerky in 2001, and the Tripper several years later. Release. The premiere was held in the Del Mar theater in Santa Cruz (the predominate location of the picture). David Arquette and fellow cast members were there to answer questions. The Canadian premiere of "The Tripper" was at Fantasia Festival in 2007. Arquette was there to answer questions. It was shown as a bonus film as part of 2007's 8 Films to Die For. The release date of the film, April 20, or 4/20 is a reference to 420, a number of prominence in cannabis culture. The MPAA rating system gave the film an R rating for strong horror violence and graphic violence, drug content, language and some sexuality/nudity. It was part on October 13, 2007 of the "(Screamfest Horror Film Festival)". DVD release. The DVD was released on October 23, 2007. The DVD is Unrated and runs for 97 minutes; 4 minutes longer than the original cut. The DVD includes: Literature. Image Comics in conjunction with Raw Studios published the Tripper comic adaptation "David Arquette's the Tripper" during May 2007 in its 1st Edition. David Arquette is accredited with story alongside Joe Harris who adapted the concept for the comic medium with artist Nat Jones. Critical reception. The film has received negative reviews. The movie has received a 31% "rotten" rating by the review aggregators Rotten Tomatoes, based on 13 reviews, and 2 negative reviews on Metacritic respectively.
23850	Sometimes in April is a 2005 historical drama television film about the Rwandan Genocide of 1994, written and directed by the Haitian filmmaker Raoul Peck. The ensemble cast includes Idris Elba, Oris Erhuero, Carole Karemera, and Debra Winger. Story. The story centers on two brothers: Honoré Butera, working for Radio Télévision Libre des Mille Collines, and Augustin Muganza, a captain in the Rwandan army (who was married to a Tutsi woman, Jeanne, and had three children with her: Anne-Marie, Yves-André, and Marcus), who bear witness to the killing of close to 800,000 people in 100 days while becoming divided by politics and losing some of their own family. The film depicts the attitudes and circumstances leading up to the outbreak of brutal violence, the intertwining stories of people struggling to survive the genocide, and the aftermath as the people try to find justice and reconciliation. Discussions. Although this film originally aired on HBO, it was later broadcast by PBS and followed with a panel discussion by journalist Jeff Greenfield. Paul Bonerwitz is one of the speakers. In contrast to "Hotel Rwanda", which was rated PG-13 and had most of the genocide violence subtly implied rather than explicitly shown, this film was noted for its more gruesome and graphic portrayal of the violence, which gave it a TV-MA rating.
899860	Rossano Brazzi (18 September 1916 – 24 December 1994) was an Italian actor. Biography. Brazzi was born in Bologna to Adelmo and Maria (née Ghedini) Brazzi. He attended San Marco University in Florence, Italy, where he was raised from the age of four. He made his film debut in 1939. He was propelled to international fame with his role in the English-language film "Three Coins in the Fountain" (1954), followed by the leading male role in David Lean's "Summertime" (1955), opposite Katharine Hepburn. In 1958, he played the lead as Frenchman Emile De Becque in the Rogers and Hammerstein musical "South Pacific". His other notable English-language films include "The Barefoot Contessa" (1954), "The Story of Esther Costello" (1957), "Count Your Blessings" (1959),"The Light in the Piazza" (1962), and "The Italian Job" (1969). Marriages. In 1940, Brazzi married baroness Lidia Bertolini (1921–1981) to whom he was married until her death in 1981. The couple had no children. In 1984, he married Ilse Fischer, a German national, who had been the couple's housekeeper for many years. This marriage was also childless. However, he did father a son (born 24 July 1955) by a relationship with Llewella Humphreys, daughter of Murray Humphreys. Death. Brazzi died in Rome on Christmas Eve 1994, aged 78, from a neural virus.
592719	Albhutha Dweepu (Malayalam: അത്ഭുതദ്വീപ്) is a 2005 Malayalam-language Indian movie, directed by Vinayan. The movie created history by becoming the first Indian movie whose remake rights have been bought by Hollywood. Ajaykumar, Prithviraj and Mallika Kapoor appear in lead roles in the movie. The movie is about a mysterious island where all the men are dwarfs and all the women, normal. "Albhutha Dweepu" was released in 2005 and the remake rights were sold almost immediately to Hollywood director Ron Howard who was in India at that time. Leonardo DiCaprio is going to star in the Hollywood version, and all the 300 dwarfs who starred in the Malayalam version will re-enact their roles in the English version. The film features Ajaykumar (Pakru) as the dwarf prince Gajendra. He has made an entry into the Guinness Book of Records through this character for being the shortest actor (86 cm height) to play a full-length character in a film. The Film was also dubbed in Tamil by the name Arputha Theevu with Manivannan & Vaiyapuri replacing Jegathy Sreekumar & Indrans. Plot. Prithviraj Sukumaran, Jagathy Sreekumar, Jagadheesh & Indrans work for Indian Navy, who later reach a sea shore of an unknown island as a result of shipwreck. Their they find one of their friend killed by few dwarfs and take asylum in the village's temple. They later learn that all the males in that village are dwarfs as a result of Curse laid upon them by their god Kantharvan. All the ladies are 5 feet tall. The dwarfs are banned from entering the Kantharva temple & it is believed that if they enter the temple by violence their head will break into pieces. Mallika Kapoor,daughter of the dwarf king Jagathy Sreekumar & the princess of the island who is engaged to Guinness Pakru sees Prithviraj in the temple & believes that he is the real Kantharvan. Both of them fall in love with each other at the first sight. She helps them with food & shelter unknowing to her father & fiancee. The Prithviraj team secretly starts building a boat for them to escape. Pakru feels something fishy & starts watching Mallika. He even enters the Kantharvan Temple to find out the truth only to be frightened by the disguised prithviraj. They kidnap the king when he finds out the truth & disguise as Brahmachari saints. But only to be found out & sentenced to death. When the dwarfs where about to execute the death sentence they are attacked by Gigantic Cannibals who attacks & kill most of their men. Prithviraj & his friends manages to escape & fight against the Cannibals & succeeds in defeating them. The dwarf king understands them & allow them to sail to their homeland with Mallika Kapoor. Box Office. The film was a success at the box office.
1064105	Jonathan Moss Tucker (born May 31, 1982) is an American film and television actor. Personal life. Tucker was born in Boston, Massachusetts, the son of Maggie Moss, a public relations and marketing analyst and executive, and Paul Hayes Tucker, a curator, writer, and university professor who is an expert on Claude Monet and French Impressionism. Jonathan's father is of English and Irish Catholic background and his mother is Jewish. His paternal great-grandfather was historian and ambassador Carlton J. H. Hayes. Tucker was raised in Boston's Charlestown neighborhood, but attended The Park School in Brookline, Massachusetts. He attended summer camp at Camp Chingachgook on Lake George in Pilot Knob, New York (in the Adirondacks) during the 1990s. He attended the Boston Ballet and played 'Fritz' in their production of "The Nutcracker" when he was in third grade. He was also featured in a Boston Ballet calendar and attended the Thacher School in Ojai, California. Tucker married Tara Ahamed on June 16, 2012. Tara is a director of development at a Hollywood production company; Tara's father is author Liaquat Ahamed. Career. Tucker is best known for his roles in the films "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre", "Hostage", "In the Valley of Elah" and "The Ruins", and "The Black Donnellys" on television. He portrays emerging artist Patrick Angus in the 2009 film "An Englishman in New York" opposite John Hurt as Quentin Crisp. The biographical drama chronicles the English gay writer Quentin Crisp's later years spent in New York City.
1063835	Kristen Nöel "Kristy" Swanson (born December 19, 1969) is an American actress. She played Buffy Summers in the 1992 film "Buffy the Vampire Slayer". She has also played Catherine "Cathy" Dollanganger in the movie version of the V.C. Andrews book "Flowers in the Attic". Early life. Swanson was born in Mission Viejo, California, to physical education teachers Robert and Rosemary Swanson. Career. Swanson started her career at The Actors Workshop with R.J. Adams and promptly moved into TV advertising roles and several one-off appearances in TV series such as "Cagney and Lacey" and "Alfred Hitchcock Presents". In 1986, she debuted on the big screen in two John Hughes films: "Pretty In Pink", in a non-speaking role, and "Ferris Bueller's Day Off" as a character who announces a convoluted excuse for Ferris' absence in class. Her first starring role was later in 1986, in Wes Craven's "Deadly Friend" as Samantha"the girl next door". The next year she played Cathy in the adaptation of V. C. Andrews' best-seller "Flowers in the Attic". By 1990, Swanson had made many television appearances, including multiple appearances in "Knots Landing" (1987–1988), "Nightingales" (1989), her first starring role in a TV series, although it only lasted a season, and a short-lived Burt Reynolds television series called "B.L. Stryker" (1989). Throughout the 1990s, she centered mostly in films. She played the title role in the 1992 movie "Buffy the Vampire Slayer". Although not a hit at the box office originally, it had a profitable rental life. She appeared in both starring and supporting roles in movies such as "Hot Shots!", "The Program", "The Chase", or her most critically acclaimed role as Kristen Connor, a student discovering her sexuality, in John Singleton's "Higher Learning". She also appeared in the film adaptation of the comic-book "The Phantom" and the dark comedy "8 Heads in a Duffel Bag" with Joe Pesci. Most of these films failed at the box office, and she reverted to TV work in the late 1990s. In the 1998–99 season of "Early Edition", Swanson played Erica Paget, a love interest of the main character, Gary Hobson. In 1999, Swanson played Vanessa, the girlfriend of Adam Sandler in the movie "Big Daddy". In 2000, she returned to a television series, as the star of "Grapevine", a revamp of a 1992 TV series that was canceled after five episodes. Swanson posed nude for "Playboy" magazine in November 2002 in a cover-featured pictorial. She appeared in and won the 2006 Fox television program "Skating with Celebrities", partnered with Lloyd Eisler. On May 8, 2007, Swanson appeared in the "" episode "", playing a fictionalized variation on Anna Nicole Smith. In 2007, she became a spokesperson of the Medifast diet. In the following year, she guest-starred in three episodes of the lesbian web series "3Way". In July 2009, she filmed "What If...", co-starring Kevin Sorbo and Debby Ryan, released on August 20, 2010. It was her first theatrical film in 10 years. Swanson made a cameo appearance in the "Don't You Forget About Me" episode of "One Tree Hill", which aired on February 1, 2010. The episode was a homage to John Hughes; Swanson appeared in two films produced by him in the 1980s. Personal life. Swanson began a relationship with her "Skating with Celebrities" partner Lloyd Eisler during the show's run, while Eisler was still married to his then-pregnant wife, Marcie. Swanson gave birth to a son named Magnus Hart Swanson Eisler on February 16, 2007, just one month after Lloyd's divorce from Marcia O'Brien was finalized. Swanson married Eisler on February 7, 2009 in San Luis Obispo, California. They currently live in Santa Clarita, California. Awards and nominations. Wins Nominations
1224146	Frances Hussey Sternhagen (born January 13, 1930) is an American actress. Sternhagen has appeared on and off Broadway, in movies, and on TV since the 1950s. Personal life. Sternhagen was born in Washington, D.C., the daughter of Gertrude (née Hussey) and John M. Sternhagen, a U.S. Tax Court judge. He was also a part time singer on the side. Sternhagen was educated at the Madeira and Potomac schools in McLean, Virginia. At Vassar College she was elected head of the Drama Club "after silencing a giggling college crowd at a campus dining hall with her interpretation of a scene from "Richard II," playing none other than Richard himself". She also studied at the Perry Mansfield School of the Theatre, and New York's Neighborhood Playhouse. She met her husband, actor and drama teacher Thomas Carlin (who died in 1991), at The Catholic University of America. They had six children — Paul, Amanda, Tony, Sarah, Peter, and John — several of whom are also professional actors and musicians. Stage career. Sternhagen started her career teaching acting, singing and dancing to school children at Milton Academy in Massachusetts, and she herself first performed in 1948 at a Bryn Mawr summer theater in "The Glass Menagerie" and "Angel Street". She went on to work at Washington's Arena Stage from 1953–54, then made her Broadway debut in 1955 as Miss T. Muse in "The Skin of Our Teeth". The same year she had her Off-Broadway debut in "Thieves' Carnival" and her TV debut in "The Great Bank Robbery" on "Omnibus" (CBS). By the following year she had won an off-Broadway Obie Award for "Distinguished Performance (Actress)" in "The Admirable Bashville" (1955–56). She has won two Tony awards, for "Best Supporting Actress (Dramatic)": in 1974 for the original Broadway production of Neil Simon's "The Good Doctor" based on Chekhov stories (which also won her a Drama Desk Award for "Outstanding Featured Actress in a Play"); and in 1995 for the revival of "The Heiress", based on the Henry James novella. She has been nominated for Tony awards five other times, including for her roles in the original Broadway casts of "Equus" (1975) and "On Golden Pond" (1979), both later made into Oscar-nominated movies with other actresses, as well as for Lorraine Hansberry's "The Sign in Sidney Brustein's Window" (1972), the musical "Angel" (1978) which was based on Thomas Wolfe's "Look Homeward, Angel", and the 2002 revival of Paul Osborne's "Morning's at Seven". Her best-known Off-Broadway role was her feisty portrayal of the title character in 1988's Pulitzer prize-winning drama "Driving Miss Daisy" which was originated by Dana Ivey at Playwrights Horizons in New York. Sternhagen took over the role after the show moved to the John Houseman Theatre and played it for more than two years. (Jessica Tandy later won an Academy Award playing Daisy in the 1989 movie.)
1365898	The Bermuda Depths is a Japanese / American co-production 1978 fantasy film originally broadcast as a made-for-TV movie written by Arthur Rankin Jr. of Rankin/Bass fame. Special effects and creature elements were handled by Tsuburaya Productions, most famous for the "Ultraman" franchise. It is available on DVD-R on-demand directly from the Warner Bros. Archive shop. Plot. Magnus Dens (Leigh McCloskey) lies asleep on a Bermuda beach, his hat shading his eyes from the sun. He is approached by a beautiful but mysterious woman (Connie Sellecca), who kneels next to him and notices the coral necklace he is wearing. Removing his hat, she seems to recognize him, and gently caresses his face. Magnus dreams of his childhood, playing on the same beach. He finds a turtle egg in the sand, and calls to his friend Jennie to have a look. As they watch, the egg hatches. A few years later, Magnus and Jennie play with the rather large turtle. Magnus takes a shell and carves "J+M" inside a heart on the turtle's shell, while Jennie finishes making a coral necklace, which she places around Magnus's neck. Later, the young Magnus lies alone on the beach. He spots Jennie riding the turtle through the waves, heading out to sea. He calls to her, but she doesn't hear him as she and the turtle disappear beneath the water. That night, in his house on a cliff side overlooking the beach, Magnus's father, Lionel, checks on him in bed as a terrible storm rages and strange calls can be heard from the ocean. Something unseen approaches the house as Lionel descends into a cave beneath the house to continue an experiment in marine biology. The storm intensifies, blowing shingles off the roof and destroying part of the house. Lionel attempts to flee the unseen horror stalking him, but is knocked into the water. Magnus is pinned under the collapsing roof in his bedroom. Magnus awakens from his nightmare and groggily gathers his things. He sees a woman swimming in the ocean and looks at the remnants of his childhood home before he leaves to go into town. At the docks, Magnus spots his childhood friend Eric (Carl Weathers). Eric helps him on board a ship and asks where he's been. Magnus admits he's been drifting for a few years. Eric takes the boat out to sea and gets Magnus to help him lay a heavy deep-sea trawling net. Eric introduces Magnus to Dr. Paulus (Burl Ives), whom Eric is working for to finish his degree in marine biology. Suddenly the boat lists violently to one side. They pull up the net to find it has been shredded by something very large and strong. That evening, the three men are joined by Eric's wife Doshan (Julie Woodson) for dinner at Dr. Paulus' house. He explains he and Eric are studying teratology, the study of unusual growth in animals. Dr. Paulus calls out to Delia (Ruth Attaway) to hurry up with dinner. Magnus is intrigued by the necklace she wears, which resembles his own. After dinner, Paulus expresses his admiration for Magnus' father, whom he worked with, studying the Bermuda Triangle. Magnus tries to ask about the night his father died, but Paulus drifts off to sleep at the table. Stepping outside, Magnus again sees the mysterious woman swimming by the boat. He jumps in the water to follow her, but is quickly overcome underwater. He is saved and revived on the beach by the woman, whom he doesn't recognize. She returns to the ocean, telling him her name - Jennie Haniver. Describing the incident to Paulus provokes amusement. He explains to Magnus that a "Jennie Haniver" is a local icon, made of cured and dried sea life, "sold to the gullible and superstitious for centuries." Angered, Magnus steps outside, where Delia tells him of the legend of Jennie Haniver. Appearing sometimes as a young girl and sometimes as a grown woman, Jennie only appears to men about to drown. Two centuries ago, she was returning to the mainland when her ship was caught in a storm. Fearing for her life, Jennie prayed for salvation to "the one below", the devil that resides in the Bermuda Triangle. Pleading that she was too young and beautiful to die, she asked that the rest of the crew be allowed to drown if she could be saved. A voice in her head told her to dive into the sea and she would be preserved. Magnus becomes upset at what he describes as a stupid ghost story and runs off. The next morning, the police bring in Eric to examine enormous tracks on the beach. He measures them as being forty feet across. Magnus goes down to the beach and meets Jennie. Finally remembering her as his young playmate, he takes her to his father's wrecked house. He tells her some of his memories from childhood, while she describes the quadrilles her father would hold in their great hall. Eric calls Magnus away, despite Jennie's requests for him to stay with her. They go out on the boat with Dr. Paulus and discuss the prints on the beach and Paulus' belief they were caused by a giant turtle. Again, the boat lurches uncontrollably. Eric is forced to cut the cable to the trawling net before the boat capsizes. In the evening, Magnus confronts Dr. Paulus about his father's death. Paulus explains Lionel was conducting tests regarding mutation in sea life when he was attacked and apparently eaten. Magnus asks him if he remembers the turtle from his childhood, and describes how he carved initials in the shell, for himself and Jennie. Paulus is dismayed. Magnus awakens to Eric and Dr. Paulus arguing over pursuing the giant turtle. Eric wants to use the Hora, a harpoon-firing bazooka. Paulus is aghast at the idea and withdraws his support for the expedition. Despite this, Eric collects Magnus and heads out in the boat. After some trawling, they again find something dragging on the line. Taking a small harpoon gun, Eric dives to try to save the net. He shoots at a form he could see only vaguely, which turns out to be Jennie. Eric and Magnus resume trawling. Magnus tells Eric he had been with Jennie the night before on the beach, and how she was his friend from when he was young. Eric doesn't remember her, and dismisses her as an imaginary friend.
1058591	Nuovo Cinema Paradiso ( "New Paradise Cinema"), internationally released as Cinema Paradiso, is a 1988 Italian drama film written and directed by Giuseppe Tornatore. The film stars Jacques Perrin, Philippe Noiret, Leopoldo Trieste, Marco Leonardi, Agnese Nano and Salvatore Cascio, and was produced by Franco Cristaldi and Giovanna Romagnoli, while the music score was composed by Ennio Morricone along with his son, Andrea. Plot. In Rome, in the 1980s, famous Italian film director Salvatore Di Vita, returns home late one evening, where his girlfriend sleepily tells him that his mother called to say that someone named Alfredo has died. Salvatore obviously shies from committed relationships, and has not been to his home village of Giancaldo, Sicily in 30 years. As she asks him who Alfredo is, Salvatore flashes back to his childhood. It is a few years after World War II. Six-year-old Salvatore is the mischievous, intelligent son of a war widow. Nicknamed Toto, he discovers a love for films and spends every free moment at the movie house — Cinema Paradiso. There he develops a friendship with the fatherly projectionist, Alfredo, who takes a shine to the young boy, and often lets him watch movies from the projection booth. During the shows, the audience can be heard booing when there are missing sections, causing the films to suddenly jump, bypassing a critical romantic kiss or embrace. The local priest ordered these sections "censored." The deleted scenes are piled on the projection room floor. At first, Alfredo considers Toto a bit of a pest, but eventually he teaches Salvatore to operate the film projector. The montage ends as the movie house catches fire — highly flammable Nitrate film was in routine use at the time. Salvatore saves Alfredo's life, but not before some film reels explode in Alfredo's face, leaving him permanently blind. The Cinema Paradiso is rebuilt by a town citizen, Ciccio, who invests his football lottery winnings. Salvatore, yet a child, is hired as the new projectionist, being the only person who knows how to run the machines. About a decade later, Salvatore, now in high school, is still operating the projector at the Cinema Paradiso. His relationship with the blind Alfredo has strengthened, and Salvatore often looks to him for help — advice that Alfredo often dispenses by quoting classic films. Salvatore has been experimenting with film, using a home movie camera, and he has met, and captured on film, Elena, daughter of a wealthy banker. Salvatore woos — and wins — Elena's heart, only to lose her due to her father's disapproval. As Elena and her family move away, Salvatore leaves town for compulsory military service. His attempts to write to Elena are fruitless; his letters are returned as undeliverable. Upon his return from the military, Alfredo urges Salvatore to leave Giancaldo permanently, counseling that the town is too small for Salvatore to ever find his dreams. Moreover, the old man tells him that once he leaves, he must pursue his destiny wholeheartedly, never looking back and never returning, even to visit — he must never give in to nostalgia or even write or think about them. Salvatore has obeyed Alfredo, but he returns home to attend the funeral. Though the town has changed greatly, he now understands why Alfredo thought it was important that he leave. Moreover, he comes across a young girl resembling Elena (Elena's daughter), follows her and finds Elena only to discover that she waited for him and left a note for him before leaving but Alfredo and circumstances never let the two of them meet. Alfredo's widow tells him that the old man followed Salvatore's successes with pride, and he left him something — an unlabeled film reel and the old stool that Salvatore once stood on to operate the projector. Salvatore learns that Cinema Paradiso is to be demolished to give way to a parking lot. At the funeral, he recognizes the faces of many people who attended the cinema when he was the projectionist. Salvatore returns to Rome. He watches Alfredo's reel and discovers that it makes up a very special montage. It contains all of the romantic scenes the priest had ordered cut from movies. Alfredo spliced the sequences together to form a single film. Salvatore has made peace with his past. Production. "Cinema Paradiso" was shot in director Tornatore's hometown Bagheria, Sicily, as well as Cefalù on the Tyrrhenian Sea. Told largely in flashback of a successful film director Salvatore to his childhood years, it also tells the story of the return to his native Sicilian village for the funeral of his old friend Alfredo, the projectionist at the local "Cinema Paradiso". Ultimately, Alfredo serves as a wise father figure to his young friend who only wishes to see him succeed, even if it means breaking his heart in the process. Seen as an example of "nostalgic postmodernism", the film intertwines sentimentality with comedy, and nostalgia with pragmaticism. It explores issues of youth, coming of age, and reflections (in adulthood) about the past. The imagery in the scenes can be said to reflect Salvatore's idealised memories of his childhood. "Cinema Paradiso" is also a celebration of films; as a projectionist, young Salvatore (a.k.a. Totò) develops a passion for films that shapes his life path in adulthood. Release. The film exists in multiple versions. It was originally released in Italy at 155 minutes, but poor box office performance in its native country led to its being shortened to 123 minutes for international release; it was an instant success. This international version won the Special Jury Prize at the 1989 Cannes Film Festival and the 1989 Best Foreign Language Film Oscar. In 2002, the director's cut 173-minute version was released (known in the U.S. as Cinema Paradiso: The New Version). Extended cut. In the 154-minute version of the film, after the funeral, Salvatore glimpses a young girl who so resembles the teenage Elena that she must be a close relative. Following the teen on her scooter to note the home address, Salvatore is eventually reunited with his long-lost love — the girl's mother — and shares brief moments making love to her in a car overlooking a favorite location from their adolescent years. He discovers that she had married an acquaintance from his school years, who became a local politician of modest means. Afterwards, feeling cheated, he strives to rekindle their romance, and while she clearly wishes it were possible, she rejects his entreaties, choosing to remain with her family and leave their romance in the past. During their brief night together, a frustrated and angry Salvatore asks Elena why she never contacted him or left word of where her family was moving to. We learn that the reason they lost touch was because Alfredo asked her not to see him again, fearing that Salvatore's romantic fulfillment would only destroy what Alfredo sees as Salvatore's destiny, to be successful in film. Alfredo tried to convince her that if she loved Salvatore, she must leave him for his own good. Elena explains to Salvatore that, against Alfredo's instruction, she'd left a note with an address where she could be reached and a promise of undying love and loyalty. Salvatore obviously never knew of, or found, her note and thus lost his true love for more than thirty years. The next morning Salvatore returns to the decaying Cinema Paradiso and frantically searches through the piles of old film invoices pinned to the wall of the projection booth. There, on the reverse side of one of the dockets, he finds the handwritten note Elena had left thirty years earlier. Effectively, it was Alfredo's silence that kept the romantic adolescents apart, so that Salvatore would move on to achieve great things. The film ends with Salvatore returning to Rome and viewing the film reel that Alfredo left, tears in his eyes. The final impression of the extended cut is more bittersweet when compared to the pared-down version: Salvatore sees Alfredo as the source of great love in his life and of great loss, as he was cheated of the one woman he truly loved. Home Media. A special edition of "Cinema Paradiso" was released on DVD by Umbrella Entertainment in September 2006. The DVD is compatible with all region codes and includes special features such as the theatrical trailer, the Director's Cut version, scenes from the Director's Cut, the Ennio Morricone soundtrack and a documentary on Giuseppe Tornatore. An Academy Award edition of "Cinema Paradiso" was released on DVD by Umbrella Entertainment in February 2009. It is also compatible with all region codes and includes different special features such as Umbrella Entertainment trailers, cast and crew biographies and the Director's filmography. In July 2011 Umbrella Entertainment released the film on Blu-ray. Reception. "Cinema Paradiso" was a critical and box-office success and is regarded by many as a classic. It is particularly renowned for the 'kissing scenes' montage near the end of the film. Winning the Academy Award for Best Foreign Film in 1989, the film is often credited with reviving Italy's film industry, which later produced "Mediterraneo" and "Life Is Beautiful". Review aggregate Rotten Tomatoes reports that 89% of critics have given the film a positive review based on 57 reviews, with an average score of 7.9/10. The film also holds a score of 79 based on 16 reviews on Metacritic. The film was ranked #27 in "Empire" magazine's "The 100 Best Films Of World Cinema" in 2010.
1025133	Ethel Waters (October 31, 1896 – September 1, 1977) was an African-American blues, jazz and gospel vocalist and actress. She frequently performed jazz, big band, and pop music, on the Broadway stage and in concerts, although she began her career in the 1920s singing blues. Her best-known recordings include "Dinah," "Stormy Weather," "Taking a Chance on Love," "Heat Wave," "Supper Time," "Am I Blue?" and "Cabin in the Sky," as well as her version of the spiritual "His Eye Is on the Sparrow." Waters was the second African American, after Hattie McDaniel, to be nominated for an Academy Award. She is also the first African American woman to be nominated for an Emmy Award, in 1962. Early life. Ethel Waters was born in Chester, Pennsylvania, on October 31, 1896, as a result of the rape of her teenaged mother, Louise Anderson (believed to have been thirteen years old at the time, although some sources indicate she may have been slightly older), by John Waters, a pianist and family acquaintance from a mixed-race middle-class background. Waters played no role in raising Ethel. Ethel Waters was raised in poverty and never lived in the same place for more than 15 months. She said of her difficult childhood, "I never was a child. I never was cuddled, or liked, or understood by my family."
1503560	Patti Ann LuPone (born April 21, 1949) is an American singer and actress, known for her Tony Award-winning performance as Eva Perón in the 1979 stage musical "Evita" and for her Olivier Award-winning performance as Fantine in the original London cast of "Les Misérables". She is also known for her Tony Award winning performance as Mama Rose in the 2008 revival of "". Early life and training. LuPone was born in Northport, New York, on Long Island, the daughter of Angela Louise (née Patti), a college library administrator, and Orlando Joseph LuPone, a school administrator. Her great-grand-aunt was the celebrated nineteenth-century opera singer Adelina Patti. Her older brother Robert LuPone is an actor, dancer, and director who originated the role of Zach the director in "A Chorus Line." Her other brother William LuPone is a teacher. When they were young, they performed on Long Island as the LuPone Trio. She is of Italian/Abruzzese descent, and a graduate of Northport High School, where she studied under the musical direction of voice coach Esther Scott. LuPone was part of the first graduating class of Juilliard's Drama Division (1968–1972: "Group 1"), which also included actors Kevin Kline and David Ogden Stiers. She graduated from Juilliard in 1972 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree. Theatre. In 1972, LuPone became one of the original members of "The Acting Company", formed by John Houseman. "The Acting Company" is a nationally touring repertory theater company. LuPone’s stint with the company lasted from 1972 to 1976, and she appeared in many of their productions, such as "The Cradle Will Rock", "The School for Scandal", "Women Beware Women", "The Beggar’s Opera", "The Time of Your Life", "The Lower Depths", "The Hostage", "Next Time I’ll Sing to You", "Measure for Measure", "Scapin", "Edward II", "The Orchestra", "Love’s Labours Lost", "Arms and the Man", "The Way of the World". She made her Broadway debut in the play "The Three Sisters" as Irina in 1973. For her work in "The Robber Bridegroom" (1975) she received her first Tony Award nomination, for Best Featured Actress in a Musical. The Acting Company honored Patti LuPone on March 12, 2012 in an event called "Patti's Turn" at the Kaye Playhouse. In 1976, producer David Merrick hired LuPone as a replacement to play Genevieve, the title role of the troubled pre-Broadway production of "The Baker's Wife". The production toured at length but Merrick deemed it unworthy of Broadway and it closed out of town. Since 1977, LuPone has been a frequent collaborator with David Mamet, appearing in his plays "The Woods", "All Men are Whores", "The Blue Hour", "The Water Engine" (1978), "Edmond" and "The Old Neighborhood" (1997). The "New York Times" reviewer wrote of LuPone in "The Old Neighborhood" "Those who know Ms. LuPone only as a musical comedy star will be stunned by the naturalistic fire she delivers here. As Jolly, a part inspired by Mr. Mamet's real-life sister and his realized female character, Ms. LuPone finds conflicting layers of past and present selves in practically every line. She emerges as both loving matriarch and wounded adolescent, sentimental and devastatingly clear-eyed." In 1978, she appeared in the Broadway musical adaptation of Studs Terkel’s "Working", which ran for only 24 performances. In 1979 LuPone starred in the original Broadway production of "Evita", the musical based on the life of Eva Perón, composed by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice, and directed by Harold Prince. Although LuPone was hailed by critics, she has since said that her time in "Evita" was not an enjoyable one. In a 2007 interview, she stated " 'Evita' was the worst experience of my life," she said. "I was screaming my way through a part that could only have been written by a man who hates women. And I had no support from the producers, who wanted a star performance onstage but treated me as an unknown backstage. It was like Beirut, and I fought like a banshee." Despite the trouble, LuPone won her first Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical. LuPone and her co-star, Mandy Patinkin, remained close friends both on and off the stage. In May 1983, founding alumni of "The Acting Company" reunited for an off-Broadway revival of Marc Blitzstein’s landmark labor musical "The Cradle Will Rock" at the American Place Theater. It was narrated by John Houseman, with LuPone in the roles of Moll and Sister Mister. The production premiered at "The Acting Companys summer residence at Chautauqua Institution, toured the United States, including an engagement at the Highland Park, Illinois' Ravinia Festival in 1984, and played London's West End.
1049378	"Winchester '73" is a 1950 American Western film directed by Anthony Mann and starring James Stewart, Shelley Winters, and Stephen McNally. Written by Borden Chase and Robert L. Richards, the film is about the journey of a prized rifle from one ill-fated owner to another and a cowboy's search for a murderous fugitive. The movie features early film performances by Rock Hudson as an American Indian, Tony Curtis, and James Best. The film received a Writers Guild of America Award nomination for Best Written American Western. This is the first Western film collaboration between Anthony Mann and James Stewart. It was filmed in black and white. Plot. In 1876, Lin McAdam (James Stewart) and friend 'High-Spade' Frankie Wilson (Millard Mitchell) pursue outlaw 'Dutch Henry' Brown (Stephen McNally) into Dodge City, Kansas. They arrive just in time to see a man forcing a saloon-hall girl named Lola (Shelley Winters) onto the stage leaving town. Once the man reveals himself to be Sheriff Wyatt Earp (Will Geer) Lin backs down. Earp informs the two men that firearms are not allowed in town and they must check them in with Earp's brother Virgil. Lin and Dutch Henry see each other in the saloon, but are unable to fight due to the presence of Earp. Lin enters a shooting competition, contending against Dutch Henry among others, that is held on the Fourth of July. They end up the two finalists for a prized one-of-one-thousand perfect Winchester rifle. Lin wins by betting that he can shoot through a stamp placed over the hole of round piece from an Indian necklace and then doing it. Dutch Henry claims that he is leaving town, but then goes to Lin's boarding house room and jumps Lin when he enters and steals the prize. He and his two cohorts leave town with Lin and High-Spade in hot pursuit. Dutch Henry and his two men ride to Riker's Bar. Because they left town in a hurry, they left their guns behind which puts them in a very bad position considering the problems with Indians in the area. Once Indian trader Joe Lamont (John McIntire) gets a look at the rifle, he raises the price of his guns high enough that Dutch and his men can not afford to buy any. Dutch's only option is to trade the rifle for three hundred dollars in gold and their choice of weapons from the pile that Lamont is going to sell to the Indians. Lamont feigns inexperience at cards and Dutch attempts to win back the rifle. Instead, he ends up losing the three hundred in gold to Lamont. Lamont takes his guns to meet his Indian buyers, but their leader Young Bull (Rock Hudson) doesn't like the old, worn-out merchandise Lamont is offering; he wants the guns that Crazy Horse used at the Battle of the Little Bighorn. Lamont made the mistake of leaving his rifle very visible and Hudson's character wants it. When Lamont refuses to sell, he is robbed and scalped. Lola Manners (Shelley Winters) and her fiance Steve Miller (Charles Drake) are in a wagon heading to where their new home will be. The left rear wheel of the wagon is squeaking loudly because Steve forgot to grease it back in town. When they are pursued by Indians, the wheel becomes a factor because the wagon is slowed down. In a moment of panic, which Lola never forgives him for, he gets off the wagon and gets on his horse that is tied to the back. He rides away and leaves Lola, but returns when he sees a small encampment of soldiers up ahead. He rides alongside while Lola drives the wagon and they reach safety with the Army. That night, after being chased by the Indians, Lin and High-Spade meet up with those same soldiers which has been pinned down by those Indians. The soldiers are young and inexperienced and their crusty old sergeant (Jay C. Flippen) is inexperienced in fighting Indians. Lin gives him some tactical advice on how to fight the Indians. They prepare themselves for an early attack the next day and Lin gives Lola his six-gun to fight with. The unspoken message he gives her, which she fully understands, is that she is to use the gun on herself to avoid capture. After a fierce morning battle, the Indian leader is killed. Lin and 'High-Spade' return to their search for Dutch Henry and they ride right past the rifle lying on the ground by the dead Indian's body. It is found by Doan (Tony Curtis) and the sergeant gives it to Steve (to avoid having an officer take it away from Doan). Steve and Lola reach the Jameson house where Lola will stay with Mrs. Jameson and her two small children while Steve goes to meet 'Waco' Johnnie Dean, much to the disapproval of Lola. Steve ends up not having to go because Waco (Dan Duryea) and his men show up at the Jameson house unexpectedly. They are on the run from a posse and once Waco sees the rifle, he covets it. He keeps insulting Miller in front of Lola in an attempt to provoke Steve into a gunfight. Finally Steve draws on Waco, though he knows he is no match for the professional. Waco kills him and takes possession of the rifle. Once Waco and Lola escape the posse and go to Dutch's hideout, Dutch Henry takes back "his" rifle.
1064670	Problem Child 2 is the 1991 comedy film sequel to the 1990 sleeper hit "Problem Child"; a continuation of the exploits of an adopted orphan boy who deliberately wreaks comedic havoc everywhere he goes. In this film, Amy Yasbeck portrays Annie Young, unlike the first film in which she originally portrayed as Flo Healy, wife of Ben Healy (John Ritter). This film was produced by producer Robert Simonds, who also produced the first film in the "Problem Child" series, "Problem Child". This film was rated PG-13, unlike the first "Problem Child," which was rated PG.
739165	Annabeth Gish (born March 13, 1971) is an American actress. She has played roles in films "Shag", "Hiding Out", "Mystic Pizza", "The Last Supper" and "Double Jeopardy". On television, she played Special Agent Monica Reyes on "The X-Files", Elizabeth Bartlet Westin on "The West Wing" and as Eileen Caffee on the Showtime drama "Brotherhood". She currently stars on the FX drama " The Bridge". Personal life. Gish was born Anne Elizabeth Gish in Albuquerque, New Mexico, the daughter of Judy and Robert Gish. Gish has said that she is "from different branches of the same family tree" as early silent film actress sisters Lillian Gish and Dorothy Gish. When she was two, her family moved to Cedar Falls, Iowa, where she grew up with her brother Tim and sister Robin. Her father was an English professor at the University of Northern Iowa; her mother was an elementary school teacher. Gish is married to former "The X-Files" stunt man Wade Allen and they are the parents of two sons: Cash Alexander Allen (born January 12, 2007) and Enzo Edward Allen (born October 25, 2008). Humanitarian efforts. Gish is a supporter of CARE International, and more recently, of Students Rebuild and One Million Bones. On behalf of these organizations she filmed a short Public service announcement video in April, 2012. Career. Her first starring role was in the 1986 teen film "Desert Bloom". Gish went to Northern University High School in Cedar Falls, Iowa where she graduated in 1989. She attended Duke University where she was a member of the Kappa Kappa Gamma sorority and focused her energies on the drama program, film studies and women's studies. She received a BA in English in July 1993. In 1987, she starred in the film "Hiding Out" with Jon Cryer. She played the sister of Julia Roberts' character in 1988's "Mystic Pizza". In 1989, Gish got her first major TV film role in "When He's Not a Stranger" as rape victim Lyn McKenna. Gish portrayed Anne Hampton, the doomed second wife of Rhett Butler in 1994 in the TV mini series "Scarlett". Gish also had a major part in the 1989 comedy, "Shag", starring Bridget Fonda, Phoebe Cates, Page Hannah, Jeff Yagher and Scott Coffey. The film's title refers to 1960s Carolina shag dancing and Beach life in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. In 1994's "Wyatt Earp" starring Kevin Costner, she played Urilla Sutherland, Wyatt's childhood sweetheart and eventual wife. The next year, she appeared in Oliver Stone's "Nixon" as Julie Nixon. In 1996, Gish played the girlfriend Tracey in "Beautiful Girls". In 1997, Gish received her first starring role in a movie, portraying Susan Sparks opposite Shaquille O'Neal in the movie adaptation of DC Comics superhero "Steel". In 1997, she starred in the TV movie "True Women" as Euphemia Ashby alongside Dana Delany and Angelina Jolie. In 1998, Gish starred in "SLC Punk!", released September 24, 1998, as a head shop owner named Trish. In 2001, Gish joined the cast of "The X-Files" as Special Agent Monica Reyes after series star David Duchovny announced his intention to leave the show. During the eighth and ninth seasons, Gish and fellow newcomer Robert Patrick became the show's principal characters and it was presumed that the two could carry on the show even after Gillian Anderson left. While it is generally agreed their performances were good, ratings continued to drop with the departure of Duchovny and his dynamic partnership with Gillian Anderson; the ninth season of "The X-Files" became the show's last. In 2003, Gish guest-starred on "The West Wing" playing Elizabeth Bartlet Westin, eldest daughter of President Josiah Bartlet (Martin Sheen). She appeared several times over the following seasons. In 2006, Gish played the role of Julia in the independent movie "The Celestine Prophecy" and costarred in "Candles on Bay Street" alongside Eion Bailey and Alicia Silverstone.
583715	Kadhal Desam (; "Land of Love") is a 1996 Tamil film directed by Kathir and produced by K. T. Kunjumon. The film starred Abbas, Vineeth and Tabu in the lead roles, while S. P. Balasubrahmanyam, Vadivelu, Chinni Jayanth and Srividya played other pivotal characters. K. V. Anand was the cinematographer for the project and A. R. Rahman composed the film's soundtrack and score. The film opened in August 1996 to positive reviews from critics and became a commercial success. Plot. In a city in Southern India traditional rivalry has always existed between the students of Pachaiyappas and Loyola Colleges respectively. Karthik (Vineeth) is poor and an orphan, who studies in Pachaiyappa's College, lives in a rented room, travels by the bus, hangs out with a number of friends, and is the Captain of his football team. He is also a good poet and daydreams about his dream girl. Arun (Abbas), on the other hand, comes from a rich and wealthy family, studies in Loyola College, drives his own car, hangs out with number of friends, and is also the Captain of his football team. In a nasty inter college riot Arun saves Karthik's life. So in return Karthik lets Arun win in a soccer game because he thinks Arun can't take losses easily.
612375	Douglas William "Doug" Bradley (born 7 September 1954) is an English actor, best known for his role as Pinhead in the "Hellraiser" film series. Early life. Bradley was born in Liverpool, England. He attended Quarry Bank High School. Career. Acting. Bradley is best known for playing the role of Pinhead, the Cenobite antagonist in eight "Hellraiser" films (the only exception being '), as well as Captain Elliot Spencer in two of the films, ' (1988) and "" (1992). He is one of only six actors to play the same horror character at least six consecutive times, the others being Sir Christopher Lee (who portrayed Count Dracula at least seven consecutive times), Robert Englund (who portrayed Freddy Krueger eight consecutive times), Warwick Davis (who portrayed the Leprechaun six consecutive times), Tobin Bell (who portrayed Jigsaw seven consecutive times), and Brad Dourif (who portrayed Chucky six consecutive times). Due to his eventual skill at application and removal of the Pinhead appliances and costume, he has been credited in some of the "Hellraiser" films as an assistant make-up artist named Bill Bradley, using his middle name. Bradley appeared as a gym teacher in an advertisement for direct line insurance in the UK. He has performed narrations on several songs by Cradle of Filth, an English extreme metal band. The first was 2000's "Her Ghost in the Fog", as well as "Death Magick For Adepts" and "Tortured Soul Asylum". However, he could not appear in the music video and was replaced by actor David McEwen who would play Kemper in "Cradle of Fear". Bradley also appeared on "Swansong for a Raven" and "Satyriasis". In 2006, he lent his narrations to "Rise of the Pentagram" and "Tonight in Flames". Continuing in this vein, Bradley has contributed guest vocals to Cradle of Filth's 2008 album "Godspeed on the Devil's Thunder", on all songs except "Tragic Kingdom". He appears to be playing the role of Gilles de Rais, the person on which the album's concept is based. Bradley has appeared in a lot of short horror films, such as "Red Lines" and "On Edge". He is a member of the UK animation company Renga Media, makers of the independent "Dominator" films and shorts, dividing job roles between producer and voice actor. He also voiced the Loc-Nar in the short animated crossover "Heavy Metal vs. Dominator", in which characters from the "Dominator" universe meet and fight with characters from the film "Heavy Metal 2000". 2008 saw Bradley's return to Clive Barker's cinematic universe by way of a featured appearance in "Book of Blood". He also had a small guest star appearance in the 2008 black comic horror "The Cottage". In 2010, he starred in the Anglo-Spanish horror film "Exorcismus", and he joined the Nazi zombie horror "The 4th Reich" in March 2010. In 2011, he starred as a man called The Doctor in the British film noir "Jack Falls". In June 2011, it was announced that Bradley would be providing a voiceover for an independent film called "Lucifer's Unholy Desire". Bradley played the main antagonist Maynard in the fifth film of the "Wrong Turn" series, "". Writing. Bradley is the author of an autobiography, as well as a volume called "Sacred Masks: Behind the Mask of the Horror Actor", which explores the history of masks in society and their applications in horror films. Personal life. Bradley is an atheist. He is a longtime close friend of novelist Clive Barker, the two having met when they attended secondary school, and has worked with Barker in various capacities since the early 1970s.
1100803	Tom Mike Apostol (born 1923) is a Greek-American analytic number theorist and professor at the California Institute of Technology. He was born in Helper, Utah in 1923. His parents, Emmanouil Apostolopoulos and Efrosini Papathanasopoulos, originated from Greece. Mr. Apostolopoulos's name was shortened to Mike Apostol when he obtained his United States citizenship, and Tom Apostol inherited this Americanized surname. Apostol received his Bachelor of Science in chemical engineering in 1944, Master's degree in mathematics from the University of Washington in 1946, and a PhD in mathematics from the University of California, Berkeley in 1948. Apostol has since been a faculty member at UC Berkeley, MIT, and Caltech. He is the author of several influential graduate and undergraduate level textbooks. He is a well-known teacher. He is the creator and project director for Project MATHEMATICS! producing videos which explore basic topics in high school mathematics. He has helped popularize the visual calculus devised by Mamikon Mnatsakanian with whom he has also written a number of papers, many of which appeared in the "American Mathematical Monthly". Apostol also provided academic content for an acclaimed video lecture series on introductory physics, "The Mechanical Universe". In 2001, he was elected in the Academy of Athens. In 2012 he became a fellow of the American Mathematical Society.
1062680	Frida is a 2002 Miramax/Ventanarosa biopic which depicts the professional and private life of the surrealist Mexican painter Frida Kahlo. It stars Salma Hayek in her Academy Award nominated portrayal as Kahlo and Alfred Molina as her husband, Diego Rivera. The movie was adapted by Clancy Sigal, Diane Lake, Gregory Nava and Anna Thomas from the book "Frida: A Biography of Frida Kahlo" by Hayden Herrera. It was directed by Julie Taymor. It won Oscars for Best Makeup and Best Original Music Score (recipient: Elliot Goldenthal). Plot. "Frida" begins just before the traumatic accident Frida Kahlo (Salma Hayek) suffered at the age of 18 when a trolley bus collided with a motor bus she was riding. She is impaled by a metal pole and the injuries she sustained plague her for the rest of her life. To help her through convalescence, her father brings her a canvas upon which to start painting. Throughout the film, a scene starts as a painting, then slowly dissolves into a live-action scene with actors. "Frida" also details the artist's dysfunctional relationship with the muralist Diego Rivera (Alfred Molina). When Rivera proposes to Kahlo, she tells him she expects from him loyalty if not fidelity. Diego's appraisal of her painting ability is one of the reasons that she continues to paint. Throughout the marriage, Rivera cheats on her with a wide array of women, while the bisexual Kahlo takes on male and female lovers, including in one case having an affair with the same woman as Rivera. The two travel to New York City so that he may paint the mural "Man at the Crossroads" at the Rockefeller Center. While in the United States, Kahlo suffers a miscarriage, and her mother dies in Mexico. Rivera refuses to compromise his communist vision of the work to the needs of the patron, Nelson Rockefeller (Edward Norton); as a result, the mural is destroyed. The pair return to Mexico, with Rivera the more reluctant of the two. Kahlo's sister Cristina moves in with the two at their San Ángel studio home to work as Rivera's assistant. Soon afterward, Kahlo discovers that Rivera is having an affair with her sister. She leaves him, and subsequently sinks into alcoholism. The couple reunite when he asks her to welcome and house Leon Trotsky (Geoffrey Rush), who has been granted political asylum in Mexico. She and Trotsky begin an affair, which forces the married Trotsky to leave the safety of his Coyoacán home. Kahlo leaves for Paris after Diego realizes she was unfaithful to him with Trotsky; although Rivera had little problem with Kahlo's other affairs, Trotsky was too important to Rivera to be caught up with Rivera's wife. When she returns to Mexico, he asks for a divorce. Soon afterwards, Trotsky is murdered in Mexico City. Rivera is temporarily a suspect, and Kahlo is incarcerated in his place when he is not found. Rivera helps get her released. Kahlo has her toes removed when they become gangrenous. Rivera asks her to remarry him, and she agrees. Her health continues to worsen, including the amputation of a leg, and she ultimately dies after finally having a solo exhibition of her paintings in Mexico. Production. The film version of Frida Kahlo's life was initially championed by Nancy Hardin, a former book editor and Hollywood-based literary agent, turned early "female studio executive", who, in the mid-1980s wished to "make the transition to independent producing." Learning of Hayden Herrara's biography of Kahlo, Hardin saw Kahlo's life as very contemporary, her "story... an emblematic tale for women torn between marriage and career." Optioning the book in 1988, Hardin "tried to sell it as an epic love story in the tradition of "Out of Africa", attracting tentative interest from actresses such as Meryl Streep and Jessica Lange, but rejection from the film studios. As Kahlo's art gained prominence, however ("n May 1990 one of Kahlo's self-portraits sold at Sotheby's for $1.5 million, the highest price ever paid at auction for a Latin American painting"), Madonna "announced her plans to star in a film based on Frida's life", and Robert De Niro's Tribeca Productions reportedly "envisioned a joint biography of Rivera and Kahlo." In the spring of 1991, director Luis Valdez began production on a New Line feature about Frida Kahlo starring Laura San Giacomo in the lead. San Giacomo's casting was objected due to her non-Hispanic ethnicity, and New Line bowed to the protests, and left the then-titled "Frida and Diego" in August 1992 citing finances. Hardin's project found itself swamped by similar ones: When I first tried to sell the project ... there was no interest because nobody had heard of Frida. A few years later, I heard the exact oppositethat there were too many Frida projects in development, and nobody wanted mine. Valdez was contacted early on by thethen unknown in the USSalma Hayek, who sent "her reel to the director and phoned his office", but was ultimately told she was then too young for the role. By 1993 Valdez had retitled the film "The Two Fridas" with San Giacomo and Ofelia Medina both playing the portraitist. Raúl Juliá was cast as Diego Rivera, but his death further delayed the movie. At the same time, Hardin approached HBO, and with "rising young development executive and producer" Lizz Speed (a former assistant to Sherry Lansing) intended to make a television movie, hopeful that Brian Gibson (director of ""What's Love Got to Do With It", the story of Tina Turner" and "The Josephine Baker Story") would direct. Casting difficulties proved insurmountable, but Speed joined Hardin in advocating the project, and after four years in development, the two took the project from HBO to Trimark and producer Jay Polstein (with assistant Darlene Caamaño). At Trimark, Salma Hayek became interested in the role, having "been fascinated by Kahlo's work from the time she was 13 or 14"although not immediately a fan: Hayek was so set on acting the role that she sought out Dolores Olmedo Patino, longtime-lover of Diego Rivera, and (after his death) administrator to the rights of Frida and Rivera's art, which Rivera had "willed ... to the Mexican people", bequeaththe trust to Olmedo. Salma Hayek personally secured access to Kahlo's paintings from her, and began to assemble a supporting cast, approaching Alfred Molina for the role of Rivera in 1998. According to Molina, "She turned up backstage [of the Broadway play Art rather sheepishly and asked if I would like to play Diego". Molina went on to gain 35 pounds to play Rivera. When producer Polstein left Trimark, however, the production faltered again, and Hayek approached Harvey Weinstein and Miramax, and the company purchased the film from Trimark; Julie Taymor came onto the project as Director. Meanwhile, in August 2000 it was announced that Jennifer Lopez would star in Valdez's take on the story, "The Two Fridas", by then being produced by American Zoetrope. Nonetheless, it was Hayek and Miramax who began production in Spring, 2001 on what was to become simply titled "Frida". Release. On August 29, 2002, the film made its world premiere opening the Venice International Film Festival. "Frida"'s American premiere was at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in Los Angeles on October 14 of that year. It had its Mexican premiere on November 8, 2002 at Mexico City's Palace of Fine Arts. Reception. Box office. "Frida" was initially shown in five theaters and earned $205,996 upon its opening weekend in the United States. The following week the film expanded to forty-seven theaters, earning $1,323,935. By late December 2002, "Frida" was playing in 283 theaters and had earned over $20 million. The film has earned $56,298,474 in its worldwide total gross. Critical response. Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reports that 76% of 151 critics have given the film a positive review, with a rating average of 6.9 out of 10. According to the site's summary of the critical consensus, "Frida is a passionate, visually striking biopic about the larger-than-life artist." Metacritic, which assigns a score of 1–100 to individual film reviews, gives the film an average rating of 61 based on 38 reviews. Stella Papamichael from the BBC gave the film three out of five stars and stated "Julie Taymor's biography of Mexican painter Frida Kahlo connects the dots between art and anguish. The disparity lies in the fact that Frida settles for tickling a fancy where it should be packing a punch. Although involving and sprightly, it offers the kind of guilty pleasure a Fine Arts student might derive from a glossy cartoon strip." Film critic Roger Ebert awarded "Frida" three and a half stars and commented "Sometimes we feel as if the film careens from one colorful event to another without respite, but sometimes it must have seemed to Frida Kahlo as if her life did, too." Ebert thought Taymor and the writers had "obviously struggled with the material", though he called the closing scenes "extraordinary". The "New York Post's" Jonathan Foreman praised the score and Taymor's direction, saying that she "captures both the glamorous, deeply cosmopolitan milieu Kahlo and Rivera inhabited, and the importance Mexico had in the '30s for the international left." He added that the odd accents adopted by the likes of Judd and Rush let the authenticity down. Andrew Pulver from "The Guardian" gave the film three stars and proclaimed that it is "a substantial film, its story told with economy and clarity." Accolades. The American Film Institute included "Frida" in their Movies of the Year 2002, Official Selection. Their rationale was:"Frida" is a movie about art that is a work of art in itself. The film's unique visual language takes us into an artist's head and reminds us that art is best enjoyed when it moves, breathes and is painted on a giant canvas, as only the movies can provide.
1163775	Sydney Hughes Greenstreet (27 December 1879 – 18 January 1954) was an English stage and film actor. He is most widely known for his Warner Bros. films with Humphrey Bogart and Peter Lorre, which include "The Maltese Falcon" (1941) and "Casablanca" (1942). Early life. Greenstreet was born in Sandwich, Kent, England, the son of Ann (née Baker) and John Jack Greenstreet, a leather merchant, and had seven siblings. He left home at age 18 to make his fortune as a Ceylon tea planter, but drought forced him out of business and back to England. He managed a brewery and, to escape boredom, took acting lessons. Career. Greenstreet's stage debut was as a murderer in a 1902 production of a Sherlock Holmes story at the Marina Theatre, Ramsgate, Kent. He toured Britain with Ben Greet's Shakespearean company, and in 1905, he made his New York debut. Thereafter he appeared in such plays as a revival of "As You Like It" in 1916 with revered actress Margaret Anglin. Greenstreet appeared in numerous plays in Britain and America, working through most of the 1930s with Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne at the Theatre Guild. Throughout his stage career, his parts ranged from musical comedy to Shakespeare, and years of such versatile acting on two continents led to many offers to appear in films. He refused until he was 62. In 1941, Greenstreet began working for Warner Bros.. His debut film role was as Kasper Gutman ("The Fat Man") in "The Maltese Falcon", which co-starred Peter Lorre as the twitchy Joel Cairo, a pairing that would prove profitable and long-lasting for Warner Bros. The two men appeared in nine films together, including "Casablanca" (1942) as crooked club owner Signor Ferrari (for which he received a salary of $3,750 per week for seven weeks), as well as "Background to Danger" (1943, with George Raft), "Passage to Marseille" (1944), reteaming him with "Casablanca" stars Humphrey Bogart and Claude Rains, "The Mask of Dimitrios" (1944, receiving top billing), "The Conspirators" (1944, with Hedy Lamarr and Paul Henreid), "Hollywood Canteen" (1944), "Three Strangers" (1946, receiving top billing) and "The Verdict" (1946, with top billing). The actor played roles in both dramatic films, such as William Makepeace Thackeray in "Devotion" and witty performances in screwball comedies, for instance Alexander Yardley in "Christmas in Connecticut". After a mere eight years, in 1949, Greenstreet's film career ended with "Malaya", in which he was billed third, after Spencer Tracy and James Stewart. In those eight years, he worked with stars ranging from Clark Gable to Ava Gardner to Joan Crawford. Author Tennessee Williams wrote his one-act play "The Last of My Solid Gold Watches" with Greenstreet in mind, and dedicated it to him. In 1950 and 1951, Greenstreet played Nero Wolfe on the NBC radio programme "The New Adventures of Nero Wolfe", based loosely on the rotund detective genius created by Rex Stout. Death and legacy. Greenstreet suffered from diabetes and Bright's disease, a kidney disorder. Five years after leaving films, Greenstreet died in 1954 due to complications from diabetes. He is interred at Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery, in Glendale, California in the Utility Columbarium area of the Great Mausoleum, inaccessible to the public. He was survived by his only child, John Ogden Greenstreet, from Greenstreet's marriage to Dorothy Marie Ogden. John Ogden Greenstreet died 4 March 2004, aged 74. Actor Mark Greenstreet is his great-nephew An episode of "" called "The Big Goodbye" has a holographic villain "Cyrus Redblock", played by Lawrence Tierney, whose surname may be a reference to Greenstreet's surname and whose character is a reference to Greenstreet's character Kasper Gutman (The Fat Man) in "The Maltese Falcon".
1040817	Burn Hugh Gorman (born 1 September 1974) is an American-born English actor and musician. Gorman is known for his roles as Owen Harper in "Torchwood", as William Guppy in "Bleak House", as Stryver in "The Dark Knight Rises", as well as appearances in the ITV soap opera "Coronation Street", "Johnny English Reborn", "Red Lights" and the 2013 film "Pacific Rim". Early life. Gorman was born in Hollywood, California. His father was a professor of linguistics at the University of California, Los Angeles in Westwood, California. His parents were from the United Kingdom. He has three older sisters. At the age of seven, he moved to London. Career. Gorman trained at the Manchester Metropolitan School of Theatre. Gorman appeared in the first two seasons of the BAFTA Cymru-winning science-fiction/crime drama "Torchwood" as Owen Harper. Other television includes "Sex, the City and Me", "Funland", "Bonekickers" and other projects for the BBC. Gorman appeared in the BAFTA and EMMY-winning BBC One adaptation of Charles Dickens' "Bleak House" as William Guppy, and the BAFTA-nominated political thriller "Low Winter Sun" (Tiger Aspect/Channel 4) the same year. He played scriptwriter Ray Galton in the BAFTA-nominated and RTS-winning BBC Four television play, "The Curse of Steptoe". Other television includes "Funland" (BBC Three), "A Good Thief" (Granada), "Dalziel and Pascoe" (BBC One), "Casualty", "Merseybeat (TV series)" and "The Inspector Lynley Mysteries" (BBC). He played a guest role in "EastEnders" on 9 March 2007 as Jed. Gorman has recently starred in the ITV adaptation of Emily Brontë's "Wuthering Heights" as Hindley Earnshaw. He also had a small part in Cemetery Junction as one of the police officers. In 2011, he starred in Sky1's second Martina Cole adaptation, "The Runaway". It was filmed in Cape Town, South Africa and London in 2010. Film work includes "Love is Not Enough", "Layer Cake", "Colour Me Kubrick", "The Best Man", "Penelope", "Claus", "The Oxford Murders" and "Cemetery Junction". His London theatre credits include "Ladybird" (Royal Court), "Flush" (Soho Theatre), "Oliver" (Theatre Royal), "The Green Man" and "Gong Donkeys" (Bush Theatre), of which Michael Billington of "The Guardian" wrote "Burn Gorman proves that he is one of the best young actors in Britain." Gorman has also worked with acclaimed actress and director Kathryn Hunter, Marcello Magni of Complicite, Mike Hodges (of "Get Carter" and "Croupier" fame), Artistic Director of NT of Scotland Vicky Featherstone, Mark Ravenhill, Frantic Assembly, and with the English National Opera (in "Morning To Midnight" with Richard Jones). He has performed in readings, workshops and development initiatives with the National Theatre Studio, Young Vic, Royal Court, Oxford Stage Company, Paines Plough and Soho Theatre. Outside of London, Gorman has worked with the Playhouse, Nottingham, the Theatre Royal, Plymouth, and Manchester's Royal Exchange Studio and Library and Contact Theatres, where he was nominated for a "Manchester Evening News" Best Newcomer Award. From December 2008 to October 2009, he played Bill Sikes in Cameron Mackintosh's West End revival of the musical "Oliver!". He was nominated for Best Supporting Actor in a Musical in the 2010 Whatsonstage Theatre Awards for his performance. As a musician, Gorman has played in clubs and on stages all over the world, appearing alongside Neneh Cherry, Rodney P and Groove Armada amongst others, and has worked on videos and visuals with the Streets. He also competed against Yorkshire Beatboxer Desebel and was crowned the BBC 1Xtra Human Beatbox Champion. Gorman played his first leading role in the 2011 feature film, "Up There", which had its premiere at the International Filmfestival Mannheim-Heidelberg. Allan Hunter of "Screen Daily" described him as 'bringing echoes of Buster Keaton as the melancholy Martin.'
1016458	Lin Xinru (born 27 January 1976 in Taipei), also known as Ruby Lin, is a Taiwanese actress, pop singer and producer. Her English name is from her mother's love of the jewel. Lin made her acting debut in a TV commercial in Taiwan. When she received her first experience in front of the camera in 1995, for a minor role, she started to develop a passion for acting. In 1997, after playing supporting roles in various Taiwanese TV dramas, she took her breakout role as a leading actress in the television series "Princess Pearl" and its sequel, "Princess Pearl II". In 1999, after "Princess Pearl" was broadcast, she also began a singing career with her first album, a five-track EP. Following the success of "Princess Pearl", Lin has acted in a variety of major roles, such as the sassy Jian Ning princess in "Duke of Mount Deer 2000", the cruel assassin Cai Yue in "Flying Daggers" (2003), the gentle-natured Man Zhen in "Half Life Fate" (2003), benevolent & intelligent queen in "Schemes of a Beauty" (2010) and spunky tomboy Sun Shangxiang in "Three Kingdoms" (2010). For her achievements in films and television series, Korean media dubbed her Taiwan's number-one actress and goddess of ancient Chinese series. In 2009 Ruby Lin announced the establishment of her own company, Ruby Lin Studio. Taiwan media reports that the company will deal with all aspects of the actress's career, including acting, singing and film roles. Early life. Lin was born and raised in Taipei, Taiwan, the eldest of three children, having one brother a year younger and the other, six years younger. Her father was a businessman, and her mother a housewife. After her parents' divorce, when Lin was seven years old, she lived with her mother, who took her to visit relatives in Japan every year. She graduated from Ri Xin Primary School and Zhong Dian High School. Lin originally planned on going to the UK to study after high school graduation, never considering the prospect of an acting career. However, she began her acting career at age seventeen as a part-time model. Her first TV commercial was for Jasmine Tea. Lin's parents did not like the idea of their daughter being involved in the entertainment industry, but she decided to pursue an acting career. After appearing in many commercials, her parents finally agreed to allow her to sign a contract with an entertainment-management company. Following high school graduation, Lin joined Jessie and Jones Entertainment Ltd on her 20th birthday. Over the years, she has also helped her parents to reconcile. Career. Early work (1994–1996). After shooting her first TV commercial Lin caught the attention of TV and film directors, and many companies began seeking her for roles. In 1995, after shooting some commercials, Lin received her first role in a film ("School Days", with Jimmy Lin and Takeshi Kaneshiro). That same year, she was also cast in supporting roles in Taiwanese TV dramas. From 1995 to 1997, Lin had roles in several Taiwanese TV series, and began to attract notice. In 1996, Lin went to China for the first time to film; she considered this a period of valuable experience and a time that she began to learn about acting. Breakthrough (1997–2001). After playing minor roles in various series and films, Lin was selected by Taiwanese writer Chiung Yao to audition for a main role in the new TV drama "Princess Pearl". In 1997, Lin achieved popularity as the beloved Princess Ziwei in the series "Princess Pearl", appealing to large audiences in mainland China, Hong Kong, South Korea, and Southeast Asia. Chiung Yao had originally arranged for Lin to play the role of Sai Ya, but since the actress scheduled to play the main role was unavailable, the production team re-shuffled the female cast. After some deliberation, the company thought that Lin was most suitable as Zi Wei. When "Princess Pearl" was broadcast it received the highest ratings in China, and Lin rose to prominence. After "Princess Pearl", Lin starred in a number of successful television series. In 2000 she worked in Hong Kong TVB's production of "Duke of Mount Deer 2000" with Dicky Cheung, Shu Qi and other well-known artists. In this series, Lin played Princess Jian Ning – a sassy, funny girl. This role demonstrated her acting range, since it differed from the nice, sweet image she had developed from her role in "Princess Pearl". After starring in another Chinese series ("Romance in the Rain", written by Chiung Yao), Lin was included in the Top Ten Most Famous Asian Superstars for two consecutive years (2000 and 2001). The same year, she was selected in fourth place in "Malaysia 2001 Heavenly Kings & Queens". As Lin felt she had achieved all she could in television, she also appeared in three Hong Kong films in 2000. In 2001, Lin appeared in the action movie "China Strike Force" with Aaron Kwok and Taiwanese actor-singer Leehom Wang. Although Lin had only a supporting role, she considered it a learning experience. With these Hong Kong films, she made inroads into the Hong Kong market. Mainstream success (2002–2005). Since 2002, Lin focused on her career in mainland China. In 2002, she starred in three series - "Half Life Fate (Pinyin: Ban Sheng Yuan)" (adapted from Zhang Ailing’s novel "Eighteen Springs"), "Boy and Girl" and "Flying Daggers". Lin was chosen for the female lead in the TV version of "Half Life Fate"; the film version was directed by Ann Hui, a well-known Asian director. For Lin, it was a challenging role and she was under pressure. Lin's work yielded good results; her performance enhanced her fame, earning accolades for capturing her screen character Man Zhen’s 14 years of arduous life. The series was broadcast in China, Hong Kong, Taiwan and South Korea. In 2002, Lin also appeared in the romantic TV series "Boy and Girl"; it was broadcast throughout China by CCTV, receiving the highest rating of all series aired in 2003. With this series, Lin was selected one of the Top 10 actresses of the year; of those 10 actresses, she was the only one from Taiwan. That year she also appeared in the ancient martial arts TV series "Flying Daggers" (based on Gu Long's novel). Lin not only acted in a martial-arts series for the first time but also played against type – portraying a cold assassin, rather than her usual gentle damsel. These three series were released in 2003 throughout Asia, adding to Lin's success. Though Lin focused on TV series, she continued to appear in films such as the adventure drama "Life Express" (with Richie Ren) and the romantic comedy "Love Trilogy" (with Francis Ng and Anita Yuen), which was relatively successful in China. In 2004 productions such as "Amor de Tarapaca" (co-starring Korean actor Han Jae Suk), she began a trend towards China-Korea collaborations. Lin was involved in another original Korean screenplay, "Magic Touch of Fate", co-starring Taiwanese actor Alec Su and Korean idol KangTa. This series is the highest-budgeted miniseries in Asian television history (as of 2011). By this time, Lin had been in show business for almost a decade, with nearly non-stop filming. She wanted to go back to school; since high school, studying abroad had been her dream. In the winter of 2004, after filming "Magic Touch of Fate", Lin decided to study language and acting for three months in New York City. While she was there, Lin studied English at Study Group International and performance at the New York Film Academy. Returning home to Taiwan with a new passion for acting in February 2005, Lin starred almost back-to-back in four big-budget Chinese series: "Paris Sonata", "Sound of Colors", "Star Boulevard" and "Da Li Princess". For her role in "Paris Sonata", she learned to play piano two months before filming. After "Paris Sonata" she selected the TV drama "Sound of Colors" (a remake of Jimmy Liao's book) as her next work, portraying a blind radio DJ. Lin's performance as a blind girl received good reviews from audiences and the news media. This drama has been broadcast in many countries, including Hong Kong, Taiwan, Philippines, Vietnam and the United States. "Star Boulevard" and "Da Li Princess" were expected to be released in 2008 by CCTV. A new beginning (2006–2009). Lin's first 2006 television series was "Ancestral Temple". In this series, she further expanded her acting range. After three months of filming in Huang Shan, China, the series was completed at the end of October 2006. Its broadcast by CCTV-1 was planned for 2008. On June 6, 2006, Lin won the Honorable Award as Taiwan's Most Popular Actress at the Chinese TV Drama Award ceremony in Beijing; she has also been regularly featured in polls as one of the Top 10 contemporary Chinese actors. At the end of 2006, Lin bid farewell to her management company Zhong Jie, after a 10-year relationship, and on November 30, 2006 ceremoniously signed with Hua Yi Brothers Film and Television group (Simplified Chinese: 華誼兄弟影視集團) for a reported $10 million. Hua Yi Bros. is (as of 2011) the largest management and domestic movie-making company in China. After signing with the new company, she went to Los Angeles and San Francisco with her family for a vacation, returning to China in mid-January 2007. Following rumors that she would appear in a new Jackie Chan film, in September 2007 she guest-starred in CCTV's historical drama "Su DongPo". In this series she played the first wife of Su Dongpo (writer, poet, artist, calligrapher, pharmacologist, and statesman of the Song Dynasty, one of the major poets of the time), played by Lu Yi. This is their third collaboration. Also at this time, Lin said she wanted to become more involved in film. After making the digital film "Evening of Roses", Lin took on more challenging roles. In late 2007, she co-starred as Daji with Ray Lui in "The Legend and the Hero 2" (also known as "Fengshen Bang" – "封神榜"), one of the major vernacular Chinese novels written during the Ming Dynasty. After speculation over who would receive the leading role of Daji (who was known for her beauty and cruelty which ruined a dynasty), the role was offered to Lin. When Lin committed to play Daji, she could not escape comparison with Fan Bingbing, who played the same role in the first part of the series. Lin's performance received generally positive comments from media. "NetandTV" commented, "In comparison to the previous version, the bright spot in this new version's Daji gets a new makeover. Ruby Lin's look gave Daji a brand-new definition". Lin has often said "comparing with other people is meaningless, I just wants a breakthrough from past looks, to surpass myself." In 2008, after developing her career in China, Lin returned to Taiwan for the series "Love at Sun Moon Lake." Lin plays an aboriginal woman; this was the first TV series to obtain permission for mainland Chinese actors to film in Taiwan. It was also announced that Lin had been cast as Sun Shangxiang in the new "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" TV adaptation directed by Gao Xixi. In early 2009, she was cast in the main role in "Fallen City". In this film, Lin plays a rebellious woman during the 2008 Sichuan earthquake. In July 2009, Lin starred as Empress Dou in the Chinese big-budget historical fiction television drama "Schemes of a Beauty". For her role in the series, Lin received a salary of 150,000 renminbi per episode. When the series premièred on a Shanghai TV station in March 2010 with the highest rating of the year, Lin got positive reviews from audiences and critics. It was reported that "Schemes of a Beauty" sold well in the Korean and Japanese markets, due to Ruby Lin's unwavering popularity in Asia. Challenge(2010-2011). In 2010 Lin took on more film roles. In May, her first stage play, "Sweet Sweet Love", began a Chinese tour. The play is based on the 1996 Hong Kong romantic film "", which starred Maggie Cheung and Leon Lai. During its three-month run, it was performed in four cities: Shanghai, Beijing, Hangzhou and Shenzhen. Due to popular demand, a fifth city (Nanchang) was added. In January 2010, Lin was cast as a psychiatrist in the romantic film "You Deserve To Be Single" with Mike He and David Wu. For her performance, Lin was nominated for the 2010 Shanghai International Film Festival Press Prize as best actress. She also won the 2010 Vietnam DAN Movie Award as Favorite Taiwanese Actress. After that, Lin Zhao starred in Zhang Yang's film "Driverless" as a self-motivated businesswomen. Director Zhang Yang commented "Ruby has a rare ability, all her emotions seem genuine". She received critics praise for her performance by audiences and media - "Without a doubt, Ruby Lin's wonderful range of emotions really steals the show. She delicately unveils the depths of a struggling during hard time of her life, both strong and brave yet desire to be protected."
585823	Nadodikattu (; lit. "The Vagabond Wind") is a 1987 Malayalam satirical comedy film directed by Sathyan Anthikkad and written by Sreenivasan. The story revolves around two impecunious young Indian men, Ramdas (Mohanlal) and Vijayan (Sreenivasan) who not being able to find any job in Kerala, plan to immigrate to the United Arab Emirates to make their fortunes, but get deceived and they end up in the neighbouring state of Tamil Nadu. "Nadodikattu" drew upon relevant social factors affecting Kerala of the 1980s such as widespread unemployment and poverty.
588457	Ninne Premistha is a Telugu movie released on September 14, 2000.
584291	Vettai Mannan () is an upcoming Tamil action-thriller film written and directed by debutante director Nelson. The film will feature Silambarasan, Jai, Hansika Motwani, and Deeksha Seth in lead roles. It is produced by S. S. Chakravarthy and features background score and soundtrack composed by Yuvan Shankar Raja. The film is under production and is slated to release in 2013. Production. The film was first reported in September 2010, when Silambarasan announced that he would be working in a project to be directed by his childhood friend Nelson Dilipkumar. The pair had worked together in "Manmadhan" and "Vallavan", while Nelson also directed a series of the dance show Jodi Number One, in which Silambarasan had worked as a guest judge. It was announced that the film was titled "Vettai Mannan", after the team had been unsuccessful in securing the title "Vettaiyan" and it was to be an action film to be shot in the USA and Mexico, featuring three heroines including one from Hollywood with music by Yuvan Shankar Raja. The film, produced by S. S. Chakravarthy of NIC Arts began in November 2010 and Silambarasan worked for it simultaneously alongside his other projects, "Vaanam" and "Podaa Podi". There were also initial plans to make the film a trilingual, though it did not materialise. Jai was roped in to play Silambarasan's friend in the film, while Deeksha Seth also featured in the first schedule of the film, which finished in April 2011. The second schedule for the film began in Binny Mills, Chennai with Silambarasan, Jai and four hundred junior artistes, with scenes shot in May 2011. It was reported that the two other lead female roles were to be handed to Piaa Bajpai and Amrita Rao, but this proved to be untrue. Hansika Motwani was signed on to play a role in October 2011, portraying a role of a gangster's moll. Furthermore, a teaser of the film featuring Silambarasan was released in July 2011 to positive reviews. In March 2012, Silambarasan noted that the first half of the film was complete and they were looking to film the second half of the film abroad, potentially in Brazil. Nelson gave an interview suggesting that the film was 50 per cent complete and noting that it was a gangster story told in lighter vein, referring to it as a "fantasy film". Silambarasan in May 2013, announced that he dropped out both "Vettai Mannan" and "Vaalu", another project produced by Chakravarthy, citing delays. He subsequently went back on his words days later. In August 2013, it was revealed that work on the film would re-start with director Nelson and art director Ilaiyaraaja heading to Japan to scout for locations to be used in the second half of the film. Marketing. A small teaser trailer of the film was unveiled in July 2011. Satellite rights of the film has been bagged by Zee Thamizh.
1057101	Secrets of the Furious Five is an American animated short produced by DreamWorks Animation, which serves as a semi-sequel or spin-off to the animated feature film "Kung Fu Panda" and appears on a companion disc of the original film's deluxe DVD release. It was later broadcast on NBC on February 26, 2009 and is now available as a separate DVD as of March 24, 2009. The film has a framing story of Po the Dragon Warrior (in computer animation) telling the stories of his comrades in arms, the Furious Five, which are depicted in 2D cel animation, similar to the opening and credits of the original film. The only actors from the film to reprise their roles in this short were Jack Black as Po, Dustin Hoffman as Master Shifu, David Cross as Crane, and Randall Duk Kim as Master Oogway. Angelina Jolie, Lucy Liu, Jackie Chan and Seth Rogen do not reprise their roles mainly because their related characters are depicted as their younger selves. In this short, Monkey is voiced by Jaycee Chan, son of Jackie Chan. Jaycee Chan also voiced Crane in the Cantonese version of the original film. Production of the film was outsourced to Reel FX Creative Studios, who worked on CG animation, and to Film Roman, who worked on traditionally animated sequences. Synopsis. Po (Jack Black) is assigned by Master Shifu (Dustin Hoffman) to teach an introduction to Kung Fu class for a group of rambunctious rabbit children. Fortunately for Po, it doesn't take him long to bring the class to order and for the kids to calm down, and begins to emphasize to the kids that combat is not the only part of what Kung Fu is about, while its true meaning is "excellence of self." To illustrate his point, he uses the stories of the Furious Five's individual pasts and the basic philosophical concepts they learned that enabled them to be great Kung Fu masters. Mantis. In his youth, Mantis was a petulantly impatient warrior who was prone to jumping to conclusions and making impulsive decisions. When this habit got himself captured by crocodile bandits, the long wait he was forced to endure in his cage allowed him to find the "patience" to play dead long enough to ambush his captors. Viper. Viper, the daughter of Great Master Viper, was born without venomous fangs. Her father, who relied on his venomous bite to protect the village, was despondent that she could never succeed him as a warrior, making her feel timid. One day during a festival, Great Master Viper encountered a gorilla bandit who wore armor hard enough to shatter his fangs when he tried to bite him. Seeing her father in peril, Viper found the "courage" to fight the bandit and defeat him with her ribbon dancing skills. Crane. Crane was an unconfident janitor of a Kung Fu academy until the star pupil Mei Ling encouraged him to seek enrollment in the school. Even though his nerve failed him at the tryouts, Crane accidentally stumbled into the intimidating challenge that determined eligibility and suddenly found the "confidence" to take the challenge, with his skinny body proving to be an asset that enabled him to succeed. Tigress. Tigress was an orphan whose status as an apex predator and her destructive lack of control of her strength left her feared and isolated in the rest of the orphanage where she lived. Master Shifu came to kindly teach her the "discipline" she desperately needed to control her movements until she could perform delicate tasks with ease enough to allay the concerns of the orphanage and the kids that lived there. When she was again rejected for adoption by the adults who were still scared of her, Master Shifu took her in as his student and foster daughter. Monkey. Monkey was a troublemaker who tormented his village owing to him being publicly humiliated in his youth. He defied all attempts to force him to leave until Master Oogway confronted him and defeated him in a fight, deducing the cause of his anti-social behavior. Rather than making him leave the village as per the challenge, Oogway told him to stay and encouraged him to show "compassion" to others, as he would want in similar circumstances. Conclusion. At the end, Master Shifu returns to see Po's anticipated lack of progress teaching and he's surprised that he underestimated Po's talents yet again, considering how much the panda's students have learned. But when the bunnies ask Po how his first day of Kung Fu was, all the unpleasant memories during the original film flash through his head; he then proudly says, "It was totally awesome!" Awards. "Secrets of the Furious Five" has received eight nominations in the "Animated Television Production or Short Form" category at the 36th Annie Awards, of which it received four ("Character Animation," "Character Design," "Music," and "Production Design"). Controversy. The individual DVD release has received much criticism from consumers confusing it for a feature length production. The UK DVD release is described on the packaging as "The Next Kung Fu Panda Adventure", implying that it iss a sequel to the first as opposed to a spin-off.
1016008	Infernal Affairs II is a 2003 Hong Kong crime-thriller film directed by Andrew Lau and Alan Mak. It is a prequel to the 2002 film "Infernal Affairs". Anthony Wong, Eric Tsang, Edison Chen, Shawn Yue, and Chapman To reprise their roles from the original film alongside new cast members Carina Lau, Francis Ng, Roy Cheung and Hu Jun. Neither Tony Leung nor Andy Lau, who played the central roles in the original, appear in the film, as they are replaced by the younger versions played by Yue and Chen, respectively. The events of the film take place from 1991 to 1997. Plot. In 1991, Hong Kong police inspector Wong Chi-shing (Anthony Wong) meets with his informant, Hon Sam (Eric Tsang), while Lau Kin-ming, Hon's prospective mole within the Hong Kong Police Force, carries assassinates Hon's triad boss, Ngai Kwun. Lau is later greeted by Hon's wife, Mary, who casually ascertains whether he has any reservations about his mission for Hon. While giving him cash, Mary advises Lau to maintain a low profile. She also confesses that she was the person who ordered the hit on Ngai Kwun, admitting that Hon has no knowledge of this transgression and urges Lau to remain silent. Mary wants Hon to replace Ngai Kwun as the triad boss. Meanwhile, instructors at the police academy discover that Chan Wing-yan, a promising but troubled cadet, is the half-brother to Ngai Kwun's heir, Ngai Wing-hau; he is subsequently discharged from the force. Chan is later approached by Wong, who asks him why he wants to be a cop; Chan replies, "I want to be a good guy." Wong subsequently makes Chan into an undercover agent for the police, sending him to prison to get close to one of Hon's henchmen, "Crazy" Keung. Meanwhile, Ngai Wing-hau takes his late father's place as triad boss; he is the only Ngai child directly involved in the family business. With Ngai dead, four other triad bosses, known as the "Big Four", dismiss Ngai and debate on whether to pay their tithe to his family. However, Ngai blackmails with his knowledge of their mutual betrayals. Hon acts as an "agent provocateur" for Ngai in this affair. By 1995, Chan has become a small-time gangster while Lau rises as a rookie cop. Chan's continual association with Hon and Ngai causes his girlfriend to have an abortion because she does not want their child to follow in Chan's footsteps. Ngai wishes the troubled Chan to be integrated into the Ngai family and invites him to his daughter's birthday party, where he announces that he is retiring to Hawaii and dividing his former business amongst the Big Four, also giving Hon the Thai cocaine racket. Meanwhile, Hon leaks information on criminal dealings to Lau, who is able to apprehend many local gangsters and earn promotions in rank. During Ngai's next drug deal, a Morse code message from Chan tips off the police about an abrupt change of plans for the meeting, allowing the kingpin to be arrested. However, a videotape found in Ngai's suitcase reveals that Wong conspired with Mary to have Ngai Kwun killed, giving the triad leverage over the police. As he is being taken in for questioning, Ngai initiates his plan for vengeance against his father's murderers: the Big Four are killed by Ngai's men; an ambush awaits Hon in Thailand; and an assassin edges towards Mary. Mary manages to escape danger with help from Lau and Keung, but is betrayed by Lau when she rejects his romantic feelings toward her. She is run over by Ngai's henchmen at Kai Tak Airport. In 1997, Lau is picked as one of the officers to preside over the ceremony signifying Britain's handover of Hong Kong to China. Ngai attempts to enter politics, but his support disintegrates after Hon betrays him to the police. Wong brings Hon back to Hong Kong under witness protection, but Ngai manages to kidnap his family in retribution. However, during the confrontation between Ngai and Hon, it is revealed that Hon's Thai associates are also holding Ngai's family hostage in Hawaii and that the woman being held hostage is a decoy. Wong arrives with a task force and guns down Ngai, who dies in Chan's arms. Moments before succumbing to his wound, Ngai discovers the wire in Chan's jacket and realizes that his half-brother is an undercover cop. Hon's tactics against Ngai leads to a falling out between him and Wong; shortly after their final meeting, Ngai's entire family is murdered. The pieces are set in place for the first film: Hon goes down the dark path of replacing Ngai as the main triad boss, becoming Wong's new foe; Lau is a police inspector and Hon's mole; Chan is forced to remain undercover, returning to join Hon's triad. As the handover ceremony takes place, Hon sheds tears over the loss of Mary before hosting a party. Back at police headquarters, Lau handles a case involving a young woman, coincidentally also called Mary, who becomes his wife in "Infernal Affairs". Music. The film's score was composed by Chan Kwong-wing. The theme song, "Eternal Realm" (長空; "Changkong"), was composed by Wong Ka-keung, lyrics provided by Wong and Yip Sai-wing, and performed by the band Beyond. Reception. The film was highly anticipated prior to its release due to the success achieved by "Infernal Affairs". However, the general response to the film was mixed. Box office. The film grossed HK$24,919,376 — big by 2003 Hong Kong standards, but only about half of the original's earnings. Awards. Although "Infernal Affairs II" earned twelve nominations for the 2003 Hong Kong Film Awards, it could not match its predecessor's success. The film won only one award, Best Original Film Song, for the song "長空" (performed by Cantopop band Beyond). The film won the Best Film award at the Hong Kong Film Critics Society Awards. 23rd Hong Kong Film Awards 10th Hong Kong Film Critics Society Awards
1051909	A Woman Is a Woman () is a 1961 French film directed by Jean-Luc Godard, featuring Anna Karina, Jean-Paul Belmondo and Jean-Claude Brialy. It is a tribute to American musical comedy and associated with the French New Wave. It is notable for being the first film Jean-Luc Godard shot in color and Cinemascope. Plot. The film centers on the relationship of exotic dancer Angéla (Karina) and her lover Émile (Brialy). Angéla wants to have a child, but Émile isn't ready. Émile's best friend Alfred (Belmondo) also says he loves Angéla, and keeps up a gentle pursuit. Angéla and Émile have their arguments about the matter; at one point, as they have decided not to speak with each other, they pull books from the shelf and, pointing to the titles, continue their argument. Since Émile stubbornly refuses her request for a child, Angéla finally decides to accept Alfred's plea and sleeps with him. Since she shows she will do what she needs to have a child, she and Émile finally make up so that he might have a chance to become the father.
1074095	I.O.U.S.A. is a 2008 American documentary film directed by Patrick Creadon. The film focuses on the shape and impact of the United States national debt. The film features Robert Bixby, director of the Concord Coalition, and David Walker, the former U.S. Comptroller-General, as they travel around the United States on a tour to let communities know of the potential dangers of the national debt. The tour was carried out through the Concord Coalition, and was known as the "Fiscal Wake-Up Tour."
1059170	Phantom of the Paradise is a 1974 American musical film written and directed by Brian De Palma. The story is a loosely adapted mixture of "The Phantom of the Opera", "The Picture of Dorian Gray" and "Faust". Initially, it was a box office failure and was panned by some critics but has since acquired a cult following. Its music was nominated for an Academy Award and a Golden Globe Award. Plot. The story follows music composer/singer Winslow Leach, seen by satanic record producer Swan during his performance as a back-up to the nostalgia band "The Juicy Fruits", which Swan produces. Swan believes Winslow's music perfect to open "The Paradise" – Swan's highly anticipated new concert hall – and has his right-hand man Arnold Philbin steal it. When Winslow arrives at Swan's Death Records, he is thrown out. He sneaks into Swan's private mansion, and observes several women rehearsing his music for an audition. One is Phoenix, an aspiring singer, whom Winslow deems perfect for his music and the two quickly fall for one another. Winslow realizes Swan's plan to open the Paradise with his music. Winslow sneaks in and Swan orders his minions to beat up Winslow and frame him for drug dealing. Winslow is given a life sentence in Sing Sing Prison. Winslow's teeth are extracted and replaced with shiny metal ones as part of an experimental prisoner program funded by the Swan Foundation. Six months later, Winslow hears that "The Juicy Fruits", whom he hates, have made an anticipated hit record of his music with Swan's backing. Winslow escapes prison in a delivery box and breaks into the Death Records building where he destroys a record press. A guard catches him, and the record press crushes and burns his face and destroys his vocal cords. With his face severely mutilated, a disoriented Winslow sneaks into the Paradise costume department and dons a long, black cape and a silver, owl-like mask, becoming the Phantom of the Paradise. He then terrorizes Swan and his musicians and nearly kills "The Beach Bums" (formerly "The Juicy Fruits"). The Phantom confronts Swan who recognizes him as Winslow. Swan offers the composer a chance to have his music produced "his" way. In a recording studio, Swan provides the Phantom with an electronic voice-box, enabling him to speak. Swan asks the Phantom to rewrite his cantata for Phoenix, who agrees if Phoenix is the lead singer and he signs a contract in blood. But the tapes plays Swan's voice as ragged. While the Phantom remains in the recording studio rewriting his cantata, Swan breaks the deal by telling Philbin that he resents Phoenix's "perfection" for the lead role. The Phantom completes "Faust", but Swan replaces Phoenix with a pill-popping male glam rock Prima donna named "Beef" in the lead of Winslow's "Faust" with Phoenix as backup singer. Swan steals the completed cantata and seals the Phantom inside the recording studio. The Phantom escapes and confronts Beef (a comic allusion to the shower scene in "Psycho") and threatens to kill him if he performs. Beef tries to flee, but plays with the band "The Undeads" (formerly "The Beach Bums"), who resemble the somnambulist from "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari". As Beef performs the completely rewritten glam-rock version of Winslow's "Old Souls", the Phantom, hidden in the rafters, strikes and electrocutes Beef (to the delight of the crowd). Horrified, Philbin orders Phoenix onstage and Phoenix is an immediate sensation. Swan seduces Phoenix in her dressing room and promises her stardom. As she leaves, she is suddenly captured by the Phantom. On the roof, the Phantom tells Phoenix his true identity and implores her to leave the Paradise so Swan won't destroy her. Phoenix doesn't believe him and flees. At the Swanage, the Phantom observes Swan and Phoenix in a tight embrace. Heartbroken, he stabs himself through the heart with a knife. However, Swan tells the Phantom that he cannot die until Swan himself has died. The Phantom attempts to stab Swan, but Swan is unharmed. "Rolling Stone" announces the wedding between Swan and Phoenix during "Faust"s finale. The Phantom learns that Swan made a pact with the devil over 20 years ago: Swan will remain youthful forever unless the videotaped recording of his contract is destroyed, and photos age and fester in his place (from Oscar Wilde's novel "The Picture of Dorian Gray"). The tape reveals footage of Winslow signing his contract with Swan and a new one Swan made with Phoenix. On a live TV camera, the Phantom realizes Swan is planning to have Phoenix assassinated during the ceremony. The Phantom destroys all the recordings and heads off to the wedding.
1064826	Undercover Brother is a 2002 American comedy film starring Eddie Griffin and directed by Malcolm D. Lee. The screenplay is by Michael McCullers and co-executive producer John Ridley, who created the original internet animation characters. It spoofs blaxploitation films of the 1970s as well as a number of other films, most notably the James Bond franchise. It also stars former "Saturday Night Live" cast member Chris Kattan, comedian Dave Chappelle, Aunjanue Ellis, Neil Patrick Harris, Denise Richards, Billy Dee Williams, and features a cameo by James Brown. Plot. The film begins with a back story of how black culture's popularity with the American public began to decline in the 1980s, when style and originality began to lose appeal in the public eye due to the persistent efforts of "The Man" (Robert Trumbull), a powerful Caucasian man in control of a secret organization that seeks to undermine the African-American community as well as the cultures of other minorities. The freelancing protector of the black community, Undercover Brother (Eddie Griffin) fights this organization's efforts to subdue the spread of black culture. In addition to the endeavors of Undercover Brother, an organization known as the B.R.O.T.H.E.R.H.O.O.D. battles The Man to ensure the continuance of black culture. Sistah Girl (Aunjanue Ellis), a female agent of the B.R.O.T.H.E.R.H.O.O.D., infiltrates a company owned by "The Man" in order to obtain valuable data that will let them stop The Man. At the same time, Undercover Brother breaks into the building. Before Sistah Girl can relay all of the data back to the B.R.O.T.H.E.R.H.O.O.D., Undercover Brother decommissions a computer unit, ending Sistah Girl's infiltration. Undercover Brother escapes security with the help of Sistah Girl. Later, after hearing Sistah Girl describe the incident in explanation of why she failed the mission, the B.R.O.T.H.E.R.H.O.O.D.'s Chief (Chi McBride), is left in bewilderment. The Man is infuriated that Gen. Warren Boutwell (Billy Dee Williams), a U.S. Army general based on Colin Powell, is considering running for president, and his lackey Mr. Feather (Chris Kattan) informs him of a mind control drug which The Man uses to make Boutwell abort his plans and instead open a fried chicken franchise. The B.R.O.T.H.E.R.H.O.O.D. is quick to determine that this sudden change of heart is the work of The Man and recruits Undercover Brother for assistance. He is introduced to Conspiracy Brother (Dave Chappelle), Smart Brother (Gary Anthony Williams), The Chief, and Lance (Neil Patrick Harris), an intern who is the only white man in the organization due to affirmative action. The B.R.O.T.H.E.R.H.O.O.D. convinces Undercover Brother to go undercover in white culture as a new employee at a cigarette company owned by The Man. Through surveillance, Mr. Feather discovers Undercover Brother's identity as an infiltrator and deploys his secret weapon that he calls "Black Man's Kryptonite": White She-Devil (Denise Richards). Posing as another new employee, she and Undercover Brother meet and start dating, and she begins to make him do stereotypical "white" things, such as buying corduroy and khaki clothes, singing karaoke and adopting a silly set of euphemisms. The Man continues to use his mind control drug, distributed in the General's fried chicken, to undermine black culture by infecting John Singleton and Jay-Z. Concerned with Undercover Brother's unusual behavior, Sistah Girl attacks White She-Devil and convinces Undercover Brother to return to the fight. They are pursued and cornered by White She-Devil and her henchmen, but after a fight with Sistah Girl she shoots her henchmen, having fallen in love with Undercover Brother. They return to the B.R.O.T.H.E.R.H.O.O.D., where Smart Brother questions White She-Devil about The Man and Lance is officially made part of the group when he declares his desire to abolish bigotry after watching "Roots". The group heads to a major awards gala after they find out that James Brown is The Man's next target. Lance accompanies Brown as a bodyguard, but Mr. Feather gains control of their limousine and kidnaps him. Soon after, the group finds an antidote for the mind control drug. They go to The Man's base, following the signal of a transmitter placed on Brown. The group goes undercover as a Jamaican cleaning service to procure Brown and "The Candidate", a controlled black man that the organization will use to land a crushing blow to black culture. Mr. Feather receives a message from The Man himself stating that he will arrive on the island soon, and prepares to administer the drug to Brown and present him as a trophy to The Man. However, Brown starts to sing "Say It Loud - I'm Black and I'm Proud", forcing Mr. Feather to acknowledge his hidden blackness, and Brown then reveals himself as Undercover Brother in disguise. Mr. Feather sends his henchmen after the infiltrators, who discover the Candidate is Boutwell, and is ordered by Mr. Feather to kill Undercover Brother while he escapes. In the fighting, Conspiracy Brother accidentally begins the building's self-destruct sequence. The B.R.O.T.H.E.R.H.O.O.D. cure Boutwell and evacuate him from the building while Undercover Brother chases Mr. Feather. The Man's helicopter is in the air but turns to leave, The Man deciding Mr. Feather has failed him. Mr. Feather jumps onto the helicopter's landing gear as it flies away, and Undercover Brother uses his afro picks to impale Mr. Feather in the buttocks, causing him to fall into the water where he is eaten by a shark. However, The Man escapes and the building explodes, Undercover Brother survives by leaping off the building and using his wide pant legs as parachutes. He and Sistah Girl kiss and board the hovercraft and leave the island, the world at peace. Filming locations. The R. C. Harris Water Treatment Plant in Toronto served as the headquarters for "The Man". Critical reception. Reviews of the film were generally favorable, with 77% of reviews being "fresh" according to internet rating site "Rotten Tomatoes". The film, which was certified fresh on the site, received an average rating of 6.6 out of 10, with 96 reviews being positive and 30 negative. On "Metacritic", another film rating site, the film received a 69% rating based on 30 reviews.
1102717	Gregori Aleksandrovich Margulis (, first name often given as Gregory, Grigori or Grigory; born February 24, 1946) is a Russian mathematician known for his work on lattices in Lie groups, and the introduction of methods from ergodic theory into diophantine approximation. He was awarded a Fields Medal in 1978 and a Wolf Prize in Mathematics in 2005, becoming the seventh mathematician to receive both prizes. In 1991, he joined the faculty of Yale University, where he is currently the Erastus L. DeForest Professor of Mathematics. Short biography. Margulis was born in Moscow, Soviet Union. He received his PhD in 1970 from the Moscow State University, starting research in ergodic theory under the supervision of Yakov Sinai. Early work with David Kazhdan produced the Kazhdan–Margulis theorem, a basic result on discrete groups. His superrigidity theorem from 1975 clarified an area of classical conjectures about the characterisation of arithmetic groups amongst lattices in Lie groups. He was awarded the Fields Medal in 1978, but was not permitted to travel to Helsinki to accept in person. His position improved, and in 1979 he visited Bonn, and was later able to travel freely, though he still worked in the Institute of Problems of Information Transmission, a research institute rather than a university. In 1991, Margulis accepted a professorial position at Yale University. Margulis was elected a member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences in 2001. In 2012 he became a fellow of the American Mathematical Society. In 2005, Margulis received the Wolf Prize for his contributions to theory of lattices and applications to ergodic theory, representation theory, number theory, combinatorics, and measure theory. Scientific contributions. Early work of Margulis dealt with Kazhdan's property (T) and the questions of rigidity and arithmeticity of lattices in semisimple algebraic groups of higher rank over a local field. It had been known since the 1950s (Borel, Harish-Chandra) that a certain simple-minded way of constructing subgroups of semisimple Lie groups produces examples of lattices, called "arithmetic lattices". It is analogous to considering the subgroup "SL"("n",Z) of the real special linear group "SL"("n",R) that consists of matrices with "integer" entries. Margulis proved that under suitable assumptions on "G" (no compact factors and split rank greater or equal than two), "any" (irreducible) lattice "Γ" in it is arithmetic, i.e. can be obtained in this way. Thus "Γ" is commensurable with the subgroup "G"(Z) of "G", i.e. they agree on subgroups of finite index in both. Unlike general lattices, which are defined by their properties, arithmetic lattices are defined by a construction. Therefore, these results of Margulis pave a way for classification of lattices. Arithmeticity turned out to be closely related to another remarkable property of lattices discovered by Margulis. "Superrigidity" for a lattice "Γ" in "G" roughly means that any homomorphism of "Γ" into the group of real invertible "n" × "n" matrices extends to the whole "G". The name derives from the following variant: (The case when "f" is an isomorphism is known as the strong rigidity.) While certain rigidity phenomena had already been known, the approach of Margulis was at the same time novel, powerful, and very elegant. Margulis solved the long-standing Banach–Ruziewicz problem that asks whether the Lebesgue measure is the only normalized rotationally invariant finitely additive measure on the "n"-dimensional sphere. The affirmative solution for "n" ≥ 4, which was also independently and almost simultaneously obtained by Dennis Sullivan, follows from a construction of a certain dense subgroup of the orthogonal group that has property (T). Margulis gave the first construction of expander graphs, which was later generalized in the theory of Ramanujan graphs. In 1986, Margulis completed the proof of the Oppenheim conjecture on quadratic forms and diophantine approximation. This was a question that had been open for half a century, on which considerable progress had been made by the Hardy-Littlewood circle method; but to reduce the number of variables to the point of getting the best-possible results, the more structural methods from group theory proved decisive. He has formulated a further program of research in the same direction, that includes the Littlewood conjecture.
584895	Vikramarkudu is a 2006 Telugu action thriller film directed by S.S. Rajamouli. Ravi Teja and Anushka Shetty play the lead roles. Ravi Teja played a double role, for the first time, in this film and praised by big stars for his commendable performance. The film was given an 'A' certificate upon release. It released on 23 June 2006 and was a big success. It was later remade in Tamil as "Siruthai", in Bangladeshi Bengali as "Ulta Palta 69", in Kannada as "Veera Madakari", in Hindi as "Rowdy Rathore", and in Indian Bengali as "". Plot. Athili Sathi Babu (Ravi Teja) is a small-time thief and crook who is crazy about acts of daredevilry who falls in love with Neeraja (Anushka Shetty) who is in Hyderabad to attend a marriage. Sathi Babu makes his way into her heart and she also starts loving him. Sathi Babu tells her the truth about him being a thief and resolves to give up crime forever. But before that, he decides to swindle one last person for a large sum of money along with his con-friend Duvva (Brahmanandam). He tricks a woman on a railway station (Not really station, it is bus stand) and flees with a trunk. This leads Sathi Babu to Neha (Baby Neha), a young girl who was in the trunk instead of the wealth he thought was in the trunk, who thinks that satibabu is her father. Flummoxed by what is happening, but forced to keep Neha with her as a police officer Inspector Mahanti (Rajiv Kanakala) keeps his eye on him. Although he tries keeping neha away from Neeraja’s eyes, the latter finds out about Neha. Angry and hurt, Neeraja leaves for her place leaving Sathi Babu heartbroken. Soon, unknown goons attack him, taking him to be a latter named ASP Vikram Singh Rathod (also Ravi Teja), Neha’s real father. Rathod looks exactly like Sathi Babu which had caused all the confusion. While many unknown persons help Sathi Babu run to safety with Neha in his arms, he is soon surrounded by the goons. It is then that Rathod makes an appearance and saves the day killing every goon by himself. But Rathod soon dies suffering from injuries. The other policemen who had assisted the ASP then inform Sathi Babu of the whole incident. In a village Devgarh, a MLA, Bavuji used to trouble and torture people and also annex money from them. His son Munna (Amit Kumar Tiwari) used to rape the wives of policemen. Rathod immediately arrested him and also made him mentally insane. Munna humiliates police by removing their clothes but was killed by Rathod when he was hung from a tree by the belt of a humiliated inspector. Rathod was attacked by Bavuji's brother Titla on Dusshehra where he was stabbed from the back as well as shot in the head while trying to save a village child and was assumed to be dead. But he survived with a brain injury although the goons assumed that he is dead. Effects of this brain injury are later visible and these effects are diminished by water falling on his head. Sathi Babu then adopts Neha, who does not know that her father is dead. Then Sathi Babu returns to Devgarh posing as ASP Vikram Singh Rathod and heads to settle the scores with Bavuji. Duvva tells Neeraja the truth and she forgives satibabu. Sathi Babu, being a goon handles Bavuji well with tricks. He sets the MLA's wine factory on fire and makes the villagers rob his food store. A fight ensues in which he defeats all Bavuji's men alone. In the end, he fights with Titla on a rope bridge. Sathibabu ties the rope and cuts the rope and Titla fall to death. Sathibabu gets married to Neeraja and they leave for a new life with Neha and Duvva. Production. The shooting was disrupted by quarry workers started pelting the film’s unit with stones, damaging most of the equipment and injuring some of the film crew including director Rajamouli. The quarry workers were asked, by the quarry manager, to stop their work and leave the area, for the shooting of particular scenes. What started as a small miff between the manager and the workers escalated with the workers showering stones, even as the film crew was leaving the quarry in their vehicles. The injured crew members were admitted to Apollo hospital. Director Rajamouli suffered a hairline fracture to his hand. A formal complaint was lodged against the quarry workers and its owner. Soundtrack. The audio of "Vikramarkudu" was launched at a function arranged in a set erected near Hitec city on the night of 31 May. K Raghavendra Rao launched the audio and gave the first unit to YVS Chowdary. Ramesh Prasad, B Gopal and Gunnam Gangaraju were also invited as guests. The unit members who graced the occasion include ML Kumar Chowdary, Ravi Teja, Rajamouli, Anushka, Keeravani, Vijayendra Prasad, Brahmanandam, lyricist Danayya, Rajiv Kanakala, Ajay, Rama Rajamouli, Ravindra, Sarvesh Murari, Ram Lakshman, M Ratnam, Kotagiri Venkateswara Rao and Suresh Bujji. Suma anchored the event and Aditya Music bought audio rights. The soundtrack received very good response from the public as well as critics. The song "College Papala" (well known as Chinta Ta Chita Chita) was reused by Sajid-Wajid in the Hindi remake of this film, "Rowdy Rathore". Tracklist Release. Critical reception. It collected mixed to positive reviews from critics. Idlebrain wrote: "On a whole, "Vikramarkudu" is another prospective blockbuster from the stable of Rajamouli". Totaltollywood wrote: "First half of the film goes in full entertainment mode. Second half gets into action part but the entertainment values are maintained at the same level.". Sify wrote: "On the whole, "Vikramarkudu" is a masala entertainer and is OK timepass fare.". Nowrunning wrote: "Watching "Vikramarkudu" is like eating a plate of Mirchi Bhajji from the roadside pushcart.". Fullhyd wrote: ""Vikramarkudu" is like one of those dishes that smell great during cooking, but just don’t taste the same way in the end. The film assiduously builds its story to a crest with your adrenaline pumping on all cylinders, but doesn’t quite know how to handle it thereon.". Cinegoer wrote: "One thing is that "Vikramarkudu" never bores you. It will keep you glued to the screen, because so many things happen all the time and the narrative moves quickly.". Dubbed versions and remakes. The film was dubbed into Malayalam, Hindi, and Bhojpuri as "Vikramathithya", "Pratighat", and "Vikram Singh Rathod IPS" respectively. It was also remade into Bengali as "Ulta Palta 69", in Kannada as "Veera Madakari", and in Tamil as "Siruthai". A Hindi remake by Prabhu Deva as "Rowdy Rathore" with Akshay Kumar and Sonakshi Sinha in lead roles released with bumper openings. It is also remade in Bengali as "" with Prosenjit Chatterjee and Richa Gangopadhyay in the lead roles.
184730	"Merlin's Apprentice (sometimes called Merlin's Apprentice: The Search for the Holy Grail") is a 2006 miniseries. It is a sequel to the hit 1998 television miniseries "Merlin" with Sam Neill and Miranda Richardson reprising their roles as Merlin and the Lady of the Lake, albeit slightly different versions of their characters. While being vaguely based on Arthurian legend, its plot is set after the death of King Arthur and completely different from the traditional legends. Plot. Part I. Satisfied at Camelot's conditions, Merlin decides to go on vacation in order to rejuvenate. This vacation nap is supposed to last a few months, but when Merlin awakes, he finds he has slept for fifty years. Upon his return to Camelot, he discovers a downtrodden place. Almost all of those he knew have died; Lord Weston runs the kingdom; and the Holy Grail has departed from the castle. However, Merlin's protective enchantments have held invaders in check. A young thief named Jack and his tagalong pig Sir Snout stowaway in a cart entering Camelot, angering its driver Squire Brian. Jack is no ordinary vagrant, as he possesses some rudimentary magical skills. Jack enters the chamber of Yvonne, granddaughter of Sir Gawain and steals a pendant. Yvonne enters and while Jack hides, Master Graham, a local blacksmith whom she loves, visits her. Jack then attempts to steal Merlin's wand while Merlin concentrates on the whereabouts of the Grail. Merlin senses the visitor, and at first evicts him, but later apprentices Jack after a vision of the Holy Grail appears to both of them. The only training the film shows is Merlin tempting Jack with food while telling Jack to resist his hunger and seek a ring that was lost in the castle (which turns out to be the former Round Table). It is around this time that Jack learns the truth of Brian, who is actually Brianna. She disguises herself in order to avenge a wrong done to her family. In his search for the grail, Merlin suspects something is afoul in Camelot that caused the Grail to depart. Merlin confronts Yvonne (who is to be married to Lord Weston when the Grail returns) and her guardian Master Burton. Later while touching the Grail's stand, Merlin sees a vision in which he learns the truth of his absence. The Lady of the Lake enchanted him and created Jack. Thus, Jack's father is Merlin and his mother is the Lady. (This differs from the first film in that the Lady was an almost uninterested party while Merlin battled with her sister Queen Mab.) Barbarians threaten Camelot's door, and knights including Brian want to use an enchanted cave in order to surprise the invaders, who they think are building a dam to drown the kingdom. Jack agrees to lift Merlin's enchantment on the passage, but the knights find no construction. In the meantime, the Barbarians directed by the Lady of the Lake enter the passage and breach Camelot's walls, which are vulnerable from the inside. Realizing the impending doom, Merlin tells Jack the truth of his origins. Merlin then magics a bridge over the barbarian army to safety and commands the townspeople, including Jack, to escape. As Jack steps off the bridge he breaks the spell to foil the pursuers. Meanwhile, Merlin was left in the walls of Camelot and is decapitated by Rauskaug, the leader of the barbarians. Part II. The remaining people of Camelot have traveled the countryside for several months, seeking the Grail while fleeing their enemy. Jack is frustrated that his concentration does not give him insight, so the Lady of the Lake sends him a vision of the Grail's whereabouts. The group goes there, to discover that the water is cursed and several knights are murdered by a beast as they attempt to swim to the Grail's cave. Meanwhile, the Lady has told Rauskaug of their location and the barbarians begin their pursuit. The film centers on the crimes of the Camelot's guardians, which they believe prevent their reaching of the Grail. Yvonne's parents presented her as Gawain's kin but this ruse is discovered when she begs Jack to explore her past through visions. Through these it is discovered that Master Burton and Lord Weston had oppressed the surrounding peoples with taxes, unfair trade, and devious agreements. This is the source of Brianna's anger, as her family was robbed of its property through such a contract. Before Jack goes through Yvonne's past, Yvonne and Graham (Yvonne's true love) go behind a tree and kiss. In that time Jack and Brianna decide to give in to love and start to kiss. They are caught kissing by the other two. Jack tries to put it off as a joke, but Yvonne and Graham now know Brian is a girl, they don't tell anyone. In the meantime, Burton hopes to betroth Yvonne to a Scottish king and indenture the remaining citizens of Camelot to that lord for personal gain. Yvonne and Jack reveal Burton and his wife's past treachery, and instead of a quick execution Jack hopes a trial will cleanse Camelot of its sins. Instead Brianna takes justice into her own hands and kills the pair as the barbarians approach. While the two sides battle, Lord Weston accompanies Jack to the cave. Jack parts the waterfall, and they enter the cave. Jack warns Weston that he is the true stain on Camelot and advises him not to take the grail. When Weston touches it, his impurity turns him to dust. The Lady of the Lake appears and offers Jack a chance to become powerful. Instead he rejects his mother (apparently killing her) and makes a wish of the Grail: Jack says that the Grail may do what it wishes with him, if it will only end the destruction outside. The Grail accepts this unselfish act, and reanimates the dead warriors on both sides. Graham holds it aloft and promises a new Camelot will be built. Graham and Yvonne marry. During the reconstruction, Sir Snout tells Jack to speak the name of the land of the dead (Tartarus) in order to see his father. Jack goes to Merlin, and the two are allowed to spend the time they didn't have as father and son. The film concludes by hinting that Jack and Brianna are now married and probably going to have children. The film ends when Jack picks up Brianna as she blows out a candle, ending the movie.
585546	Natturajavu is a 2004 Malayalam superhit film directed by Shaji Kailas. It stars Mohanlal, Meena, Nayantara, Kalabhavan Mani, Cochin Haneefa, K.P.A.C Lalitha, and Siddique in supporting roles. Plot. Pulikattil Charlie (Mohanlal) is a Nasrani Achayan from Travancore. He, after the death of his father, has struggled hard to create a business empire of his own. His father was a ruthless feudal landlord, who during his lifetime had done several heinous crimes. Charlie is now helping all those who had to once suffer from the hands of his father. Charlie is married to a girl, whose father was killed by his father. Her brother Karnan returns from jail to avenge against Charlie. Karnan is unaware of the fact that his sister is married to Charlie. Later he realizes that Charlie is a good hearted person and gives up revenge and apologizes to Charlie.
402396	Steven Strait (born March 23, 1986) is an American actor, fashion model, and rock singer. Early life and modeling. Strait was born and raised in Greenwich Village, New York City, New York. He has English, Dutch, and Italian heritage. He attended Village Community School, Xavier High School and took classes at the Stella Adler Studio of Acting. During his teen years, Strait modeled for several magazines, including: "L'uomo Vogue", "Spoon" magazine, "Details", "Surface", "Hollister Co.", and "Pop" magazine, and worked with photographers Bruce Weber, Herb Ritts, and Ellen von Unwerth. Weber featured Strait in his 2001 book, "All-American: Short Stories". Acting career. Strait began taking acting lessons at the age of eleven. In the sixth grade, he began to take performing classes at the Village Community School. Although forced into it at first, he found a passion for acting after he performed live for the first time. He has worked at both the Stella Adler Acting Studio and the Black Nexxus Acting Studio in New York City.
1715722	David Gale (December 13, 1921 – March 7, 2008) was a distinguished American mathematician and economist. He was a professor emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley, affiliated with the departments of mathematics, economics, and industrial engineering and operations research. He has contributed to the fields of mathematical economics, game theory, and convex analysis.
586781	Phool Bane Angaray is a 1991 film by K.C. Bokadia which starrs Rajinikanth and Rekha in the lead roles. Plot. Dutta Babu (Parikshat Sahni) is standing for elections against a cunning, corrupt, & established gangster, Bishamber Prasad (Prem Chopra), who is also powerful and influential enough to swing the election his way, as well as have Dutta killed. Inspector Ranjit Singh (Rajinikanth) gets evidence about Bishamber's involvement in Dutta's death, but his superior officer, DSP Ravi Khanna, prevents him from taking any action. Ranjit then meets with beautiful Namrata (Rekha), and both get married. As Ranjit continues to be a thorn on Bishamber's side, he is killed, leaving behind a sorrowing Namrata and two children. Namrata pledges to avenge his death.
630649	Craig McLachlan is an Australian actor, musician and singer. He has been involved in film, television and music theatre for the past 25 years. He is best known for appearing in soap operas "Neighbours" and "Home and Away" and for being in the BBC One spy drama "Bugs". In 1990 he won the Gold Logie Award for Most Popular Personality on Australian Television for his work on "Neighbours". Biography. Craig McLachlan first appeared on Australian television in a guest role on "The Young Doctors", and went on to be cast as Henry Ramsay, brother of Kylie Minogue's character ‘Charlene’ in Channel 10's "Neighbours". After appearing in more than 800 episodes and winning the Gold Logie Award for Most Popular Personality on Australian Television (1990) and Silver Logie, he was contracted to Seven Network's "Home and Away" playing schoolteacher Grant Mitchell. A guitarist, Craig went on to have international success as a singer/songwriter, achieving Australian and UK hit singles with his remake of the Bo Diddley song "I Need You Baby (Mona)", as well as his self penned "Amanda", "One Reason Why" and "On My Own". His band Check 1-2 went on to tour the UK and Europe. In 1993 McLachlan starred as Danny Zuko in the West End revival of the musical "Grease" alongside Deborah Gibson and Sonia Evans. Breaking existing box office records, the initial nine-month season completely sold out before the first week of previews concluded. It was the beginning of a run of musicals for McLachlan, starring as Frankenfurter in "The Rocky Horror Show", Caractacus Potts in "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang" and Bob Wallace in "White Christmas", culminating in his performance of Billy Flynn in "Chicago". In the mid '90s McLachlan starred in three series of the BBC hit television series "Bugs" and appeared in "Catherine the Great" alongside Catherine Zeta-Jones and Omar Sharif. Throughout the first decade of the 21st century, McLachlan appeared in around 20 film and television projects, including the American movie "Superfire", as Stuart Diver in the film "Hero's Mountain", and "Blackjack" with Colin Friels. In 2004 he played Michael Chamberlain in "Through My Eyes", an account of the Lindy Chamberlain story and in the same year began work in the recurring role of Kane Morgan in the popular show "McLeod's Daughters". McLachlan echoed Buster Keaton as Jeff Kennard in the Australian film "Hating Alison Ashley" and worked alongside Benjamin Bratt and James Franco in "The Great Raid". Most recently McLachlan starred with John Jarratt in "Savages Crossing", for which he also composed the film's score. He appeared regularly in the network Seven hit TV series "Packed to the Rafters" as aging rocker Steve Wilson and was cast in ' series 4 as the ultra competitive Hayden Bradley. He has also appeared as Steve, the handsome gay gardener in the award winning production "At Home With Julia" and is returning for a second season of the comedy "Lowdown" for the ABC. In 2011 McLachlan had a guest starring role for CBS television's ', appearing with Chris O'Donnell and LL Cool J. In 2011, British group Rizzle Kicks sampled McLachlan's Mona for their single Mama Do the Hump, making #2 on the Singles Chart. Craig McLachlan returned to Australia in 2012 to commence filming on series 1 of "The Doctor Blake Mysteries", playing the title role of Lucien Blake for ABC Australia/ITV UK, a period drama set in 1958 Ballarat.
1104676	In any quantitative science, the terms relative change and relative difference are used to compare two quantities while taking into account the "sizes" of the things being compared. The comparison is expressed as a ratio and is a unitless number. By multiplying these ratios by 100 they can be expressed as percentages so the terms percentage change, percent(age) difference, or relative percentage difference are also commonly used. The distinction between "change" and "difference" depends on whether or not one of the quantities being compared is considered a "standard" or "reference" or "starting" value. When this occurs, the term "relative change" (with respect to the reference value) is used and otherwise the term "relative difference" is preferred. Relative difference is often used as a quantitative indicator of quality assurance and quality control for repeated measurements where the outcomes are expected to be the same. A special case of percent change (relative change expressed as a percentage) called percent error occurs in measuring situations where the reference value is the accepted or actual value (perhaps theoretically determined) and the value being compared to it is experimentally determined (by measurement). Definitions. Given two numerical quantities, "x" and "y", their "difference", Δ = "x" - "y", can be called their "actual difference". When "y" is a "reference value" (a theoretical/actual/correct/accepted/optimal/starting, etc. value; the value that "x" is being compared to) then Δ is called their "actual change". When there is no reference value, the sign of Δ has little meaning in the comparison of the two values since it doesn't matter which of the two values is written first, so one often works with |Δ| = |"x" - "y"|, the absolute difference instead of Δ, in these situations. Even when there is a reference value, if it doesn't matter whether the compared value is larger or smaller than the reference value, the absolute difference can be considered in place of the actual change. The absolute difference between two values is not always a good way to compare the numbers. For instance, the absolute difference of 1 between 6 and 5 is more significant than the same absolute difference between 100,000,001 and 100,000,000. We can adjust the comparison to take into account the "size" of the quantities involved, by defining, for positive values of "x""reference": The relative change is not defined if the reference value ("x""reference") is zero. For values greater than the reference value, the relative change should be a positive number and for values that are smaller, the relative change should be negative. The formula given above behaves in this way only if "x""reference" is positive, and reverses this behavior if "x""reference" is negative. For example, if we are calibrating a thermometer which reads -6° C when it should read -10° C, this formula for relative change (which would be called "relative error" in this application) gives ((-6) - (-10)) / (-10) = 4/-10 = -0.4, yet the reading is too high. To fix this problem we alter the definition of relative change so that it works correctly for all nonzero values of "x""reference": If the relationship of the value with respect to the reference value (that is, larger or smaller) does not matter in a particular application, the absolute difference may be used in place of the actual change in the above formula to produce a value for the relative change which is always non-negative. Defining relative difference is not as easy as defining relative change since there is no "correct" value to scale the absolute difference with. As a result, there are many options for how to define relative difference and which one is used depends on what the comparison is being used for. In general we can say that the absolute difference |Δ| is being scaled by some function of the values "x" and "y", say "f"("x","y"). As with relative change, the relative difference is undefined if "f"("x","y") is zero. Several common choices for the function "f"("x", "y") would be: Formulas. Measures of relative difference are unitless numbers expressed as a fraction. Corresponding values of percent difference would be obtained by multiplying these values by 100. One way to define the relative difference of two numbers is to take their absolute difference divided by the maximum absolute value of the two numbers. if at least one of the values does not equal zero. This approach is especially useful when comparing floating point values in programming languages for equality with a certain tolerance. Another application is in the computation of approximation errors when the relative error of a measurement is required. Another way to define the relative difference of two numbers is to take their absolute difference divided by some functional value of the two numbers, for example, the absolute value of their arithmetic mean: This approach is often used when the two numbers reflect a change in some single underlying entity. A problem with the above approach arises when the functional value is zero. In this example, if x and y have the same magnitude but opposite sign, then which causes division by 0. So it may be better to replace the denominator with the average of the absolute values of "x" and "y": Percent error. The percent error is a special case of the percentage form of relative change calculated from the absolute change between the experimental (measured) and theoretical (accepted) values, and dividing by the theoretical (accepted) value. The terms "Experimental" and "Theoretical" used in the equation above are commonly replaced with similar terms. Other terms used for "experimental" could be "measured," "calculated," or "actual" and another term used for "theoretical" could be "accepted." Experimental value is what has been derived by use of calculation and/or measurement and is having its accuracy tested against the theoretical value, a value that is accepted by the scientific community or a value that could be seen as a goal for a successful result. Although it is common practice to use the absolute value version of relative change when discussing percent error, in some situations, it can be beneficial to remove the absolute values to provide more information about the result. Thus, if an experimental value is less than the theoretical value, the percent error will be negative. This negative result provides additional information about the experimental result. For example, experimentally calculating the speed of light and coming up with a negative percent error says that the experimental value is a velocity that is less than the speed of light. This is a big difference from getting a positive percent error, which means the experimental value is a velocity that is greater than the speed of light (violating the theory of relativity) and is a newsworthy result. The percent error equation, when rewritten by removing the absolute values, becomes: It is important to note that the two values in the numerator do not commute. Therefore, it is vital to preserve the order as above: subtract the theoretical value from the experimental value and not vice versa. Percentage change. A percentage change is a way to express a change in a variable. It represents the relative change between the old value and the new one. For example, if a house today is worth $100,000 and the year after its worth goes up to $110,000, the percentage change of its worth can be expressed as It can then be said that the worth of the house went up by 10%. More generally, if "V"1 represents the old value and "V"2 the new one, When the variable in question is a percentage itself, it is better to talk about its change by using percentage points, to avoid confusion between relative difference and absolute difference. Example of percentages of percentages. If a bank were to raise the interest rate on a savings account from 3% to 4%, the statement that "the interest rate was increased by 1%" is ambiguous and should be avoided. The absolute change in this situation is 1 percentage point (4% - 3%), but the relative change in the interest rate is: So, one should say either that the interest rate was increased by 1 percentage point, or that the interest rate was increased by formula_13 In general, the term "percentage point(s)" indicates an absolute change or difference of percentages, while the percent sign or the word "percentage" refers to the relative change or difference. Other change units. Change in a quantity can also be expressed logarithmically using the unit of logarithmic change: the neper (Np). Normalization with a factor of 100, as done for percent, yields the derived unit (cNp) which aligns with the definition for percentage change for very small changes: But using cNp has two additional advantages. First, there is no need to keep track of which of the two quantities, V1 or V2, the change is expressed relative to, since, under the conditions of the approximation, the two quantities are nearly the same. Second, an "X" cNp change in a quantity following a "-X" cNp change returns that quantity to its original value. For example, if a quantity doubles, this corresponds to a 69cNp change (an increase). When it halves again, it is a -69cNp change (a decrease.) Examples. Comparisons. Car M costs $50,000 and car L costs $40,000. We wish to compare these costs. With respect to car L, the absolute difference is $10,000 = $50,000 - $40,000. That is, car M costs $10,000 more than car L. The relative difference is, and we say that car M costs 25% "more than" car L. It is also common to express the comparison as a ratio, which in this example is, and we say that car M costs 125% "of" the cost of car L. In this example the cost of car L was considered the reference value, but we could have made the choice the other way and considered the cost of car M as the reference value. The absolute difference is now -$10,000 = $40,000 - $50,000 since car L costs $10,000 less than car M. The relative difference, is also negative since car L costs 20% "less than" car M. The ratio form of the comparison, says that car L costs 80% "of" what car M costs. It is the use of the words "of" and "less/more than" that distinguish between ratios and relative differences.
1064844	The Comebacks is a 2007 American satirical comedy film directed by Tom Brady. This film is a parody of the clichés and plots of the sports film genre. In the UK, Greece, Finland and Australia this film is called Sports Movie . The movie was released into theaters on October 19, 2007. Plot. Coach Lambeau Fields (David Koechner) is pathetic. He has the distinction of being the worst coach in the history of sports anyone can recall. A loser of enormous proportions, the incompetent and seemingly hopeless coach is convinced by fellow coach Freddie Wiseman (Carl Weathers) to return to the field for one last shot. Assuring his long suffering wife, Barb (Melora Hardin), that he will not ignore his family, Coach moves them to Plainfolk, Texas where he hopes to redeem himself and his reputation. Here he begins yet another attempt to improve his abysmal record - this time as the coach of the football team at Heartland State University. But he is saddled with a team of misfits - most of whom don't know the difference between a line of scrimmage and a line at the cafeteria. Although the team and townsfolk are leery of the newcomer's approach, the Coach uses his unorthodox methods to whip this group of rag-tags into shape - both on and off the field. While the audience follows their winding road to the playoffs, the film pokes fun at the clichés and conventions of other sports flicks. And the team does make progress, so much so that they actually make it to the South-Southwest Conference Championship at the 2nd Annual Toilet Bowl. Facing their fiercest opponents yet and yearning to win the big game, The Comebacks face off with the Lone Star State Unbeatables. And as every great sports team has always done, The Comebacks use ingenuity and unorthodox measures in the final showdown where the best team win. The Comebacks are victorious, but Lambeau is subsequently knocked down in a surprise attack by a bus with Freddie driving it, who laughs manically as Lambeau is in pain . Lambeau groans in agony. Reaction. The film received universally negative reviews. On Metacritic, it received a 25/100 meaning "Generally Negative Reviews". On Rotten Tomatoes, it was rated a "rotten" 9%. Box office performance. "The Comebacks" was a box office bomb. The film had an opening weekend of $5,554,594 at #5. At the end of its box office run, it grossed $13,349,927 domestically and $139,173 in foreign countries. About $7,000,000 shy of the movie's budget.
1164141	Margaret "Meg" Foster (born May 10, 1948) is an American actress best known for her roles in the TV miniseries version of "The Scarlet Letter" and the films "Ticket to Heaven", "The Osterman Weekend" and "They Live" (1988).
1061431	Deborah Jane Kerr CBE (; born Deborah Jane Kerr-Trimmer, 30 September 1921 – 16 October 2007) was a Scottish-born internationally known film, theatre and television actress. She won the Sarah Siddons Award for her Chicago stage performance as Laura Reynolds in "Tea and Sympathy," a role which she originated on Broadway, a Golden Globe Award for the motion picture "The King and I," and was a three-time winner of the New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actress. She was also the recipient of honorary Academy, BAFTA and Cannes Film Festival awards. She was nominated six times for the Academy Award for Best Actress but never won. In 1994, however, she was awarded the Academy Honorary Award, cited by the Academy as "an artist of impeccable grace and beauty, a dedicated actress whose motion picture career has always stood for perfection, discipline and elegance". Her films include "The King and I", "An Affair to Remember", "From Here to Eternity", "Quo Vadis", "The Innocents", "Black Narcissus", "Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison", "The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp" and "Separate Tables". Early life. Kerr was born in a private nursing home (hospital) in Glasgow, the only daughter of Kathleen Rose (née Smale) and Capt. Arthur Charles Kerr-Trimmer, a World War I veteran who lost a leg at the Somme and later became a naval architect and civil engineer. She spent the first three years of her life in the nearby town of Helensburgh, where her parents lived with Deborah's grandparents in a house on West King Street. Kerr had a younger brother, Edmund (a.k.a. Teddy), who became a journalist and died in a "road rage" incident in 2004. Kerr was educated at the independent Northumberland House School in the Henleaze area of Bristol in England (the school was demolished in 1937, when Kerr was 16 years old), and at Rossholme School in Weston-super-Mare. Kerr originally trained as a ballet dancer, first appearing on stage at Sadler's Wells in 1938. After changing careers, she soon found success as an actress. Her first acting teacher was her aunt, Phyllis Smale, who ran the Hicks-Smale Drama School in Bristol. She adopted the name Deborah Kerr on becoming a film actress — "Kerr" was a family name going back to the maternal grandmother of her grandfather Arthur Kerr-Trimmer. Career. Theatre. Deborah Kerr's first stage appearance was at Weston-super-Mare in 1937, as "Harlequin" in the mime play "Harlequin and Columbine". She then went to the Sadler's Wells ballet school and in 1938 made her début in the corps de ballet in "Prometheus". After walking on in various Shakespeare productions at the Open-Air Theatre, Regent's Park, she joined the Oxford Playhouse repertory company in 1940 playing, "inter alia", "Margaret" in "Dear Brutus" and "Patty Moss" in "The Two Bouquets". Kerr first appeared in the West End in a revival of "Heartbreak House" (Cambridge Theatre, 1943) and stole attention as "Ellie Dunn" from stalwarts such as Edith Evans and Isabel Jeans although she was still only 21. "She has the rare gift," wrote the critic Beverley Baxter, "of thinking her lines, not merely remembering them. The process of development from a romantic, silly girl to a hard, disillusioned woman in three hours was moving and convincing".
1789653	100 Million BC (released as Jurassic Commando in France) is a 2008 direct-to-DVD action film by film studio The Asylum, continuing the urban myth of the Philadelphia Experiment. Plot. The film centers on a group of Navy SEALs, led by American Dr. Frank Reno (Michael Gross), who once worked on the Philadelphia Experiment. The film begins in 2008, when Reno has purportedly perfected time travel technology. The SEALs use it to travel backwards to the year 70,000,000 BC (despite the movie's title) of the Cretaceous Period, in order to rescue a previous, 1949 expedition led by Reno's brother Erik (Christopher Atkins). Reno's team arrives in Gondwana at a point in time which is six years after the 1949 team arrived, to find only a few survivors. The SEAL team is ill-equipped for the dangers of this prehistoric period, and is decimated by dinosaurs and poisonous plant life. Having accomplished their mission, remnants of the two teams merge into one and return to the present, but in the process the time machine malfunctions, allowing a fully-grown, , "Carcharodontosaurus" to travel to the present and wreak havoc in downtown Los Angeles. Reno stays behind, ostensibly to close the portal, but instead transports himself to the year 1950 after being mortally wounded by the dinosaur. Apparently he tried to leap through the portal as it closed, but was sent to 1950 instead of 2008. In the present, survivors of the team run through the streets of LA, barely evading the rampaging prehistoric beast. Meanwhile in 1950, the wounded Dr. Reno arrives and meets up with the younger version of himself. The old Reno teaches the young Dr. Reno (Dustin Harnish) how to correctly use the time-travel technology before dying. Young Dr. Reno assembles a strike team of Korean War-era troops and leads them through the portal to 2008, where they attempt to rescue the remainder of the original team from the rampaging dinosaur. Young Reno then has to find a means of luring the creature back into the time machine and returning it to its own time, before it takes the life of his brother from him once more. Finally the dinosaur is banished back to its time where the trip fuses it with a mountain, killing it. Frank opens a portal to 1950 for everyone to return home through. Frank and one of the rescued team members plan to start a relationship, but as someone needs to stay behind to close the portal, Erik does, his lover Betty staying with him. The two plan to catch up with the group's old selves. Reception. Critical response. Popcorn Pictures described "100 Million BC " as 'a shockingly bad film let down by everything: the shoddy acting, the ridiculous script and the abominable special effects.'
1058405	Adrian Kayvan Pasdar (; ; born April 30, 1965) is an American actor, voice artist, and film director. He is known for playing Jim Profit on the TV series "Profit", for his roles in "Near Dark", "Carlito's Way", "Mysterious Ways" and as Nathan Petrelli on "Heroes". Additionally, he directed the feature film "Cement". Pasdar is the current voice of Iron Man in "Marvel Anime", as well as in the animated series, "Ultimate Spider-Man" and "Avengers Assemble". He also plays Alec Rybak, district attorney on "The Lying Game". Early years. Pasdar was born in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. His father, Homayoon Pasdar, was an Iranian immigrant and cardiac surgeon, with a practice near Philadelphia. His mother, Rosemarie (née Sbresny), was born in Königsberg/Kaliningrad, a city that was part of Germany until 1945, and is now a part of Russia. She worked as a nurse before becoming an English teacher and travel agent in France. Pasdar graduated from Marple Newtown Senior High School in Newtown Square, Pennsylvania, and received a football scholarship to the University of Florida to play linebacker. He was badly injured in a car accident during his freshman year. The accident left his face scarred, his legs badly injured, and kept him in a wheelchair for several months, at which time he had to finish his freshman year while undergoing intensive physical therapy. Anamarie "Pink" Pasdar is the younger sister of Adrian Pasdar. She appeared in the "Mysterious Ways" episode "Handshake". She was the Associate Artistic Director (c. 2007-2008) at American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco. Acting career. Pasdar turned his attention to campus stage productions and rediscovered an early interest in writing and acting. No longer able to play football, he dropped out of school and returned home, taking a job with a theater group, People's Light and Theatre Company. There he worked on sound and lighting as part of the stage crew responsible for set construction. He had a painful accident on the set, cutting off the end of his left thumb. His resulting medical compensation paid for attendance at the Lee Strasberg Theater Institute in New York. Pasdar was also selected to play a bit part as a police officer in the Dixie Chicks video for their song, "Goodbye Earl". The music video won both the Academy of Country Music and the Country Music Association's Video of the Year Awards in 2000. Acting and directing. Film. At the age of 19, he auditioned for a role in "Top Gun". Director Tony Scott was so impressed that he wrote the part of "Chipper" just for him. This led to bigger roles in "Solarbabies" (1986), "Streets of Gold" (1986), and Kathryn Bigelow's cult vampire movie "Near Dark" (1987), with Pasdar in the lead role of Caleb Colton. Other major roles include "Vital Signs" (1990). Pasdar got his biggest break in movies, when he starred as a beautiful woman opposite Julie Walters in the British movie "Just Like a Woman". In 1992, he left Hollywood and returned to New York, working as a cashier for room and board, while taking the occasional small part, such as Frankie in Brian De Palma's "Carlito's Way" (1993). Adrian Pasdar wrote and directed the short film "Beyond Belief" and directed his first feature film, the art-house neo-noir "Cement", a contemporary re-telling of "Othello", in 1999. The $1.7 million independent feature, which won Best Picture awards on the festival circuit, starred Chris Penn, Jeffrey Wright, Sherilyn Fenn, Henry Czerny and was written by "Farscapes screenwriter Justin Monjo. "I've used every ounce of energy and every drop of money I had to make "Cement"," Pasdar said. Television. Pasdar's major break into television came in 1996, when he was cast as the title character on the short-lived but critically acclaimed Fox series "Profit". He also guest starred in the 2 hour season finale of the fourth season of "Touched by an Angel", "The Spirit of Liberty Moon". From 2000 to 2002, Pasdar played the lead role of Anthropology Professor Declan Dunn in the spooky cult drama series "Mysterious Ways" on PAX. Pasdar played David McClaren in the final two seasons of the long-running CBS drama "Judging Amy", from 2003 through 2005. In 2006, he had a high-profile guest role as Gabrielle Solis's sleazy lawyer in "Desperate Housewives". Most recently, he starred as Nathan Petrelli in the NBC superhero drama "Heroes". Pasdar based his mysterious character on "the most morally liquid characters" that he's encountered in his life. The character is not based on one particular political figure, but on a melange of different ones, both good and bad. Pasdar's character was killed off in an episode that aired November 30, 2009. Pasdar voices Hawkeye in the animated series "The Super Hero Squad Show". He also voiced Captain America in the "Black Panther" animated series, as well as Iron Man in the English dub of the Iron Man anime series. He currently plays a role on "The Lying Game" as Alec Rybak, a corrupt district attorney. He plays the voice of Iron Man on the new animated series, "Marvel's Avengers Assemble". Personal life. Pasdar married Natalie Maines of the Dixie Chicks in June 2000. The couple first met in May 1999, with Maines as a bridesmaid to her bandmate Emily Robison and Pasdar as a groomsman to his friend singer-songwriter Charlie Robison. They were married in Las Vegas's Little White Wedding Chapel, in a $55 no-frills ceremony officiated by the chapel's "Pastor Ann". They have two children, Jackson Slade Pasdar (born March 15, 2001) and Beckett Finn Pasdar (born July 14, 2004) and live in Los Angeles, California and Austin, Texas. He has a tattoo of an anchor on his arm. His children's names are written on it. It symbolizes that his family is his anchor and support in life. He also has a tattoo of the Chinese character for Strength, which he got while filming "Shanghai 1920". Pasdar is a guitarist for charity rock band Band from TV. Part of the proceeds from the band's concerts go to his nominated charity, the Rush Epilepsy Center. Awards and nominations. Award Wins for Acting Award Wins for Directing Other Award Wins Audiobook narration. In 2010 Pasdar narrated an audiobook edition of the cult novel "Queer Fish in God's Waiting Room" by the British writer Lee Henshaw. It was released in early 2011.
584103	Ajmal Ameer is an Indian film actor, who works in the Malayalam, Tamil, and Telugu film industries. Based on an online poll conducted by The Times Of India, Ajmal won the award for Best Actor in a Negative Role Male. Background. He was born in Aluva, Kerala. He studied medicine in National Pirogov Memorial Medical University in Vinnytsia, Ukraine, and had plans to open a hospital in future. Shortly after completing his education he got married and has one child, Aalin Zeyyan. Three months after his marriage, he entered the film industry and became an actor. Career. His debut film was "Pranayakalam", opposite Vimala Raman. This was followed by the Tamil film "Anjathe", directed by Myshkin, in which he played an angry young man. The film became a high critical as well as commercial success, with Ajmal receiving several awards for his performance. He next starred in the Malayalam film "Madambi" alongside Superstar Mohanlal. He also acted in an international production "De Nova", which went unnoticed. The anti-hero character, Vasanthan Perumal, he portrayed in the 2011 Tamil movie " Ko "earned him a lot of appreciation.
628753	Augustino Eugenio "Gus" Mercurio (10 August 1928 – 7 December 2010) was an American-born Australian character actor who appeared on both film and television. Early life. Mercurio, the eldest child of Vincent A. Mercurio and Cecilia W. "Mickey" Miller, was born in West Bend, Wisconsin near Milwaukee. He had two sisters, Gerie and Connie, and a brother, Tony. His parents were divorced when he was seven. He visited Australia during 1956 Melbourne Olympics and decided to stay. Boxer. His father had boxed professionally under the name of Vince McGurk, and one of his uncles had boxed professionally under the name of Ray Miller. Mercurio himself was a professional boxer, had served in the United States Marine Corps and was a qualified chiropractor. Mercurio was also an international boxing judge (refereeing a world title fight) and was also a well-known boxing promoter. He later became the inaugural president of the Australian National Boxing Hall of Fame - into which he was inducted in 2008. Radio, TV and film. Having successfully auditioned for consideration to be included in the cast of an ABC radio play, and selected at his first audition, his raspy voice, energetic personality and natural talents quickly came to the attention of Australian television production houses such as Crawford Productions. He also worked as a commentator for Channel 7's "World of Sport", as well as acting as the movie host for Channel 10's "Saturday Night with Gus Mercurio". Mercurio appeared in several Australian TV series, including "Cash and Company" (1975), its follow-up "Tandarra" (1976) and the miniseries "Power Without Glory" (1976). Additionally, he played many guest roles in Australian TV police series, including "Homicide" (1964), "Division 4" (1969) and "Matlock Police" (1971). His film appearances include "The Blue Lagoon" (1980), "The Man from Snowy River" (1982), "Turkey Shoot" (1982), ""Crocodile" Dundee II" (1988), "Return to the Blue Lagoon" (1991) and "Doing Time for Patsy Cline" (1997). Family. Mercurio was married twice and fathered seven children, including dancer/actor Paul Mercurio, the star of the film "Strictly Ballroom" (1992). Death. He died on 7 December 2010 from complications during surgery for a chest aneurism. He was 82 years old.
1789868	Roger Caesar Marius Bernard de Delgado Torres Castillo Roberto (1 March 1918 – 18 June 1973) was an English actor, best known as the first actor to play the Master in "Doctor Who". Early life. Delgado was born in Whitechapel, in the East End of London; he often remarked to "Doctor Who" co-star and close friend Jon Pertwee that this made him a true Cockney, as he was born within the sound of the Bow bells, even though his mother was Belgian and his father was Spanish. He attended Cardinal Vaughan Memorial School, a Roman Catholic secondary school in Holland Park. Personal life. Delgado married Kismet Shahani in 1957 and they were together until his tragic death in 1973. Career. Delgado worked extensively on the British stage, and on TV, film, and radio. He appeared in the 1955 BBC One serial "Quatermass II", the 1956 Powell and Pressburger wartime drama "Battle of the River Plate", and came to wide popular attention in Britain when he played the duplicitous Spanish envoy Mendoza in the ITC Entertainment series "Sir Francis Drake" from 1961 to 1962, after which he was in much demand. An in-joke in the 1971 "Doctor Who" story "Colony in Space" refers to that role, when the Brigadier tells the Doctor not to worry as the suspected sighting of the Master "was only the Spanish Ambassador". Delgado was frequently cast as a villain, appearing in many noted British action-adventure TV series by ITC, including "Danger Man" (1961), "The Saint" (1962 and 1966), "The Champions" (1969), and "Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased)" (1969). Delgado made a total of 16 guest appearances in ITC shows, the most of any actor, with his last completed role being ITC's "The Zoo Gang" (1974). He also appeared in "The Avengers" (1961 and 1969), "The Power Game" (1966), and "Crossfire" (1967). In film, he appeared in "The Road to Hong Kong". He began work as the Master on "Doctor Who" in late 1970, his first broadcast appearance being in the January 1971 adventure "Terror of the Autons". He subsequently reprised the role of the Master in many of the Third Doctor serials, including "The Mind of Evil", "The Claws of Axos", "Colony in Space", "The Dæmons", "The Sea Devils", "The Time Monster", and "Frontier in Space". The Master's story arc was to have ended in "The Final Game", which was planned as the final story to feature Pertwee's Third Doctor, but the story was scrapped following Delgado's sudden death. Death. Delgado died on location in Turkey, whilst shooting the never-completed feature film "Bell of Tibet". He was killed, along with two Turkish film technicians, when the car in which he was travelling went off the road into a ravine. He was 55 years old. Jon Pertwee often remarked (e.g. in his interview for the "Myth Makers" documentaries) that Delgado's death was one of the reasons he left "Doctor Who". External links.
1063849	Steven Bauer (born Esteban Ernesto Echevarría Samson; December 2, 1956) is a Cuban-American actor. He is known for his role as Manny Ribera in the 1983 film "Scarface", his role as Don Eladio in the AMC drama series "Breaking Bad, and "his role on the bilingual PBS show "¿Qué Pasa, USA?". Early life. Born Esteban Ernesto Echevarría Samson in Havana, Cuba, the son of Lillian Samson Agostini, a schoolteacher, and Esteban Echevarria, a pilot who worked for Cubana Airlines. Bauer's maternal grandfather was a Jewish refugee from Germany, and Bauer's maternal grandmother was a Cuban of partial Italian ancestry. His stage surname comes from his maternal great-grandmother. Bauer's parents fled from Cuba to Miami, Florida, on July 4, 1960, following Fidel Castro's Revolution. He graduated from Miami Coral Park High School in 1974. Originally intending to become a musician, Bauer turned to acting while attending Miami-Dade Community College, but then transferred to the University of Miami, where he studied in its Department of Theater Arts and performed at its Jerry Herman Ring Theatre where he became friends with actor Ray Liotta. Acting career. Bauer's first substantial role was in the PBS bilingual sitcom "¿Qué Pasa, U.S.A.?", playing the teenage son of a Cuban exile family in Miami, from 1977 to 1979. He also appeared in the 1980 TV miniseries "From Here to Eternity". He was credited in these and a few other early projects as Rocky Echevarría. In 1981, Bauer starred in the television movie "She's in the Army Now", where he met his first wife, actress Melanie Griffith. They both moved to New York City and stayed at Ray Liotta's apartment, while Liotta moved to Los Angeles and stayed at theirs. Both Bauer and Griffith studied under famed acting teacher Stella Adler, and he appeared in several off-Broadway productions. During this time he briefly adopted the stage name Rocky Echevarria, before settling on “Steven Bauer”. Bauer was given the role of Manny Ribera, the part played by George Raft in the original 1932 version, in the 1983 movie "Scarface", even though (like Raft) he was a relatively unknown actor at the time. The producers of "Scarface" were convinced that he was right for the role based on his strong audition, as well as his authentic Cuban background. His performance drew a Golden Globe nomination for Best Supporting Actor. In 1990 he played the role of DEA-agent Enrique "Kiki" Camarena in the critically acclaimed television mini-series "" alongside Benecio Del Toro and Craig T. Nelson. That same year, Bauer took over the series lead of the television show "Wiseguy" from Ken Wahl for the fourth and final season, playing U.S. Attorney Michael Santana when Wahl's character disappears. Since then, Bauer has made his career primarily, though not exclusively, in action films and crime dramas on both the big and small screens, including such motion pictures as "Primal Fear" and "Traffic". He also made an appearance in the video game spinoff "", playing drug dealer The Sandman. In 2007 he appeared on an episode of "Burn Notice". In 2011, Bauer appeared on the show "Breaking Bad" playing Mexican drug lord Don Eladio. He currently appears as ex-Mossad Agent turned private investigator "Avi" in the Showtime series Ray Donovan. Personal life. Bauer married Melanie Griffith in May 1982. The couple had a son, Alexander Bauer, on August 22, 1985, before divorcing in 1987. He remarried in 1989 to Ingrid Anderson, with whom Bauer has had another son, Dylan, born in 1990. His second marriage ended in divorce in 1991. A year later, he married his third wife, Christiana Boney, but the couple eventually divorced. On December 18, 2012, Bauer was arrested in the Miami, Florida, area, accused of driving with a suspended license. Filmography. Awards and Nominations. Nominated - Golden Globe Award - Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role in a Motion Picture - Scarface (1984) Nominated - Golden Globe Award - Best Performance by an Actor in a Mini-series or Motion Picture Made for TV - (1990) Won - Screen Actors Guild Award - Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture - Traffic (2000) Won - Short Film Award - Best Supporting Actor - Crumble (2010) Won - Festival Award - Best Actor - The Last Gamble (2011) Won - Feature Film Award - Best Actor - The Last Gamble (2012) Nominated - Saturn Award - Best Guest Starring Role on Television - Breaking Bad (2012)
930921	Glen Corbett (born Larry Holden; September 15, 1922 - August 15, 1997) was an American actor, and former husband of actress Adrienne Ellis. He was perhaps best known for his roles as Mack Miller on "The Fireball" (1950) (co-starred Marilyn Monroe and Mickey Rooney) and Barney Stetson on "The Violent Years" (1956). Father of actress Laurie Holden ("The X-Files", "Silent Hill", "The Mist", "The Walking Dead") and actor/assistant director Christopher Holden. Has a daughter from his second marriage.
585195	Punnagai Mannan () is a 1986 Tamil film directed by K. Balachander. Starring Kamal Haasan and Revathi in the lead roles, the film is Haasan's 25th film with Balachander. Coincidentally, it is music director Ilaiyaraaja's last film with lyricist Vairamuthu. The film was dubbed into Telugu as "Dance Master". The film later dubbed into Hindi as Cha Cha Charlee in 1996. Plot. The plot opens with Sethu (Kamal Haasan) and Ranjani (Rekha) arriving at a cliff where they plan to commit suicide due to the pressure put up by Ranjani's parents against their marriage. Sethu who is the son of an ordinary drunkard cook (Delhi Ganesh) and is also a dancer is not accepted as groom for Ranjani by her parents. The parents threaten Ranjani that either they would kill Sethu or commit suicide. While jumping from the cliff Sethu accidentally gets trapped in a tree and escapes but Ranjani dies. Despite the attempts made by Ranjani's father to jail Sethu by framing a fault case that Sethu killed Ranjani, no strong evidence was there to prove it. He is jailed for the offence of attempted suicide for one year. After a year, he is released from jail. Padmini (Srividya) who owns a dance school provides him a job of dance master as he is the former student. Sethu visits regularly the cliff as a remembrance of his love. On his way he sees a girl (Revathi) who attempts suicide for silly reason of failure in examination and he stops her from it. He again meets the girl in a gallery. The girl introduces herself to him as Malini but he ignores her. Malini again meets Sethu at a tourist spot where she clicks photos without his knowledge, but Sethu finds out and damages her camera. Malini chases him to his dance school as his student. Sethu repeatedly insults her but Malini develops a love for Sethu. Malini coincidentally meets Chaplin Chellapa (also Kamal Hasan), uncle of Sethu who dressed himself like Charlie Chaplin and makes people laugh. She comes to know about Sethu's failed love from him, which increases her affection towards Sethu. Chaplin Chellapa helps her to win Sethu's heart. Malini is actually a Sinhalese girl because of which she faces trouble from her class mate many times and every time rescued by Sethu. Sethu though humiliates her all the time develops a soft corner in his mind. Sethu could realise that he had started to love her but gets confused what to do as he is a failed one. Sethu's repeated attempts to prevent himself loving Malini fails and he takes a sign of blessing for his new love from Ranjani at the cliff side. He finally confesses his love for her and proposes her. Malini continues to spend time with Chaplin Chellapa as she enjoys his sense of humour. This makes Sethu jealous, so he attempts to mimic Chaplin Chellapa's mannerisms - but ends up having an accident. Sethu finds that Chaplin Chellapa is a failed lover, who to forget his past has worn a mask of Charlie Chaplin. Sethu and Malini unite Chelapa and Padmini who is a spinster. Sethu again faces pressure from Malini's father as Malini is of Sinhalese origin and Sethu is a Tamilian. Both of them struggle hard to win in their love. Malini goes to the extent of escaping from Sri Lanka to Tamil Nadu to join with Sethu. After understanding the tight bond of Malini with Sethu, Malini's father approves their marriage. Ranjani's father who hears about Sethu's marriage wants to take "revenge" for his daughter's death. On the day of Sethu's engagement, he gives a basket full of apples which has a time bomb in it to Sethu's father pretending to be his gift for his son. Sethu's father who does not know about the bomb keeps the basket in Chaplin Chellapa's car. Sethu and Malini starts to visit Sethu's love cliff in Chellapa's car which has the bomb. Sethu's father and Chellapa who come to know about this, start chasing them to stop but in vain. Tha bomb explodes at the same place where Sethu-Ranjani attempted suicide and Sethu-Malini die in the explosion, leaving Chellapa and Sethu's father heartbroken. The film ends with Chellapa showering flowers in the place where the three of them died. Production. Shooting for "Punnagai Mannan" took place in Athirappilly Falls, Kerala. The film also featured a kissing scene between Kamal Haasan and Rekha, which earned much criticism. Soundtrack. Music is composed by Ilaiyaraaja, with lyrics by Vairamuthu. Composer A. R. Rahman (then known as Dileep), who then worked with Ilayaraja as a guitarist , played keyboard in composing with the music for this album, and because it was the first time a Tamil film used a sequencer, the music became informally known as "computer music" in Tamil Nadu. Despite the album's success, Ilaiyaraaja and Vairamuthu parted ways later. Release. Prior to release, "Punnagai Mannan" was given an "A" (Adults Only) rating from the Central Board of Film Certification. The film was released on 1 November 1986, coinciding with Diwali Day. It was released alongside Rajinikanth's "Maaveeran", and was a Superhit at the box office. The film successfully ran in theatres for 25 weeks. On the film's 25th week celebrations, Kamal Haasan was given the title "Puratchi Mannan" ("Revolutionary King") by his "mentor" K. Balachander. In February 2013, entertainment magazine "Galatta Cinema" said, While Kamal and Revathy do a fab job, it's Ilayaraaja's music that plays a key character in bringing their love even closer to us..."
1064872	"Happily N'Ever After" is a 2006 computer-animated fantasy film based on the fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm and Hans Christian Andersen. It is a Vanguard Animation production, released by Lions Gate Films on January 5, 2007. The title is the opposite of "happily ever after". The film stars the voices of Sarah Michelle Gellar, Freddie Prinze, Jr., Andy Dick, Wallace Shawn, Patrick Warburton, George Carlin, and Sigourney Weaver. It proved to be Carlin's final film role before his death the following year, excluding his 2008 HBO special "It's Bad For Ya".
1253828	Vladek Sheybal (born Władysław Rudolf Z. Sheybal; 12 March 192316 October 1992) was a Polish character actor, whose career lasted from the 1950s to the 1990s. He was well known for his portrayal of the chess grandmaster Kronsteen in the "James Bond" film "From Russia with Love" (1963), a role for which he had been personally recommended by his friend, Bond actor Sean Connery. He was also known for playing Russian General Bratchenko in "Red Dawn" (1984). Life and career. Sheybal was born in Zgierz, Second Polish Republic. He appeared in the film "Kanał" (1957, credited as Władysław Sheybal), directed by Andrzej Wajda, before emigrating to the United Kingdom, where he was typically cast in villainous roles. He also appeared as Holocaust survivor Egon Sobotnik in the television mini-series "QB VII". He had a dual role as "the Director" and as Pierre Louys in Ken Russell's The Debussy film, one of Russell's composer biopics for the BBC. Other Russell films in which he appeared were "Billion Dollar Brain", "Women in Love", and "The Boy Friend". Other film credits include "Casino Royale", "Deadfall", "Mosquito Squadron", "The Last Valley", "Leo the Last" (1970), "The Wind and the Lion", "The Lady Vanishes", "The Apple" and "The Jigsaw Man". Sheybal's other TV credits include "Z-Cars", "Danger Man", "The Troubleshooters", "The Saint", "The Baron", "The Champions", "Callan", "UFO" (in which he had a recurring role as Dr Jackson), "The New Avengers", "Supernatural", "Shogun", "", and "Smiley's People" (1982). In 1977, Sheybal won the Dracula Society's prestigious Hamilton Deane Award for his performance in the BBC play "Night of the Marionettes", in which he played a sinister Austrian innkeeper whose life-size puppets supposedly inspired Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein". Sheybal's final stage appearance was as Friedrich Nietzsche in the Pierre Bourgeade play "The Eagle and the Serpent" at London's Offstage Downstairs Theatre in 1988. He died in London in 1992, aged 69, from a ruptured aortic aneurysm. He is buried in Putney Vale Cemetery.
1058530	Major Dundee is a 1965 Western film directed by Sam Peckinpah and starring Charlton Heston, Richard Harris, Jim Hutton, and James Coburn. Written by Harry Julian Fink, the film is about a cavalry officer who leads a contentious troop of Army regulars, Confederate prisoners, and scouts on an expedition into Mexico to destroy a band of Apaches who have been raiding United States bases in Texas. "Major Dundee" was filmed in various locations throughout Mexico. Plot. During the American Civil War, Union cavalry officer Major Amos Dundee (Charlton Heston) is relieved of his command for an unspecified tactical error (though it is implied that he showed too much initiative) at the Battle of Gettysburg and sent to head a prisoner-of-war camp in the New Mexico Territory. After a family of ranchers and a relief column of cavalry are massacred by an Apache war chief named Sierra Charriba (Michael Pate), Dundee seizes the opportunity for glory, raising his own private army of Union troops (black and white), Confederate prisoners led by his former friend and rival from their days at West Point, Captain Tyreen (Richard Harris), several Indian scouts, and a gang of civilian mercenaries to illegally pursue Charriba into Mexico. Tyreen bears a grudge against Dundee. Before the war, Dundee cast the deciding vote in Tyreen's court-martial from the U.S. Army for participating in a duel. However, having given his word of honor, the chivalrous Tyreen binds himself and his men to serve loyally, but only until Charriba has been dispatched. When the diverse factions of Dundee's force aren't fighting each other, they engage the Apaches in several bloody battles. Though they rescue several young boys captured by the Apaches, the Americans lose most of their supplies in an ambush, forcing them to raid a village garrisoned by French troops supporting Emperor Maximilian of Mexico. However, there is little to loot, and Dundee ends up sharing some of his dwindling food with the starving Mexicans. Beautiful resident Teresa Santiago (Senta Berger), the widow of a doctor executed for his support of the rebels under Benito Juárez, causes further tensions between Dundee and Tyreen.
1167253	Nick Stewart (March 15, 1910 – December 18, 2000) was an American television and film actor. Stewart was best known for his role as Lightnin' (Willie Jefferson) on the "Amos and Andy" television series, and, until his death in 2000, was the last surviving major cast member of that show. Acting career. Nick Stewart was born Horace Winfred Stewart in New York City, to Joseph (March 2, 1888 – July 1976) and Albertha Stewart, who were recent immigrants from the Caribbean. He began his show business career as a dancer at the Cotton Club and Hoofers Club. Stewart also was a veteran of Broadway shows, having created a comedic character he called "Nicodemus" and playing that role in "Swingin' the Dream" and "Louisiana Purchase", as well as in the film "Go West, Young Man". Stewart also performed comedy as a cast member of the Rudy Vallée radio show in 1941. Other acting credits include the 1936 movie "Go West Young Man", the voice of Br'er Bear in the 1946 Disney movie "Song of the South", (as well as in the spin-off Disney attraction Splash Mountain (Coincidentally, he is the only voice actor in that attraction to reprise his role from the film, as James Baskett and Johnny Lee, the original voices of Brer Rabbit and Brer Fox had died, and were replaced by Jess Harnell), and Willy-Willy on the television series "Ramar of the Jungle". Also in 1954, Stewart had an important role in "The Reign of Amelika Joe" presented by "Fireside Theatre". He also won a comedy role in "White Christmas". He was originally offered the role of Calhoun the lawyer, which he turned down. (After his refusal, it went to Johnny Lee, who had the role on radio since 1949.) Soon Gosden and Correll were back on the telephone, this time offering Stewart the role of Lightnin' on the television show. Nick Stewart accepted the role with one idea in mind: to make enough money to be able to open his own theater where African Americans would not be typecast as maids and porters. In 1987, Doris McMillon devoted an entire week of her nightly talk show, "On the Line with", to a discussion of the documentary "Amos 'n' Andy: Anatomy of a Controversy", and the issues surrounding the shows. Nick Stewart was one of the participants, discussing the show and his role in it. Ebony Showcase Theatre. He and his wife, Edna Stewart, also founded Los Angeles' Ebony Showcase Theatre, which provided a venue for numerous black performers, including John Amos, Nichelle Nichols and Isabel Sanford. Founded in 1950, and first located on Crenshaw Boulevard, then at Washington and Jefferson boulevards in Los Angeles, Stewart filled the seats with quality productions. The couple did all remodeling of the building themselves, with the help of salvaged lumber from the CBS Television City construction site. Stewart hosted a variety show called "Ebony Showcase Presents" on KTTV from the theatre in 1953. Because CBS believed Nick Stewart's work with his theater was impairing his ability to perform on "Amos 'n' Andy", he was notified that his contract would not be renewed; this was shortly before the decision to take the show off the air. By 1964, the Ebony Showcase had grown and moved again, this time to the Metro Theater near Washington and La Brea. Around this time, Nick Stewart wrote his own musical called "Carnival Island". In 1973, Nick and Edna Stewart were honored by Los Angeles mayor Tom Bradley and the California Museum of Science and Industry's Advisory Board for their work with the Ebony Showcase theatre. During his years in vaudeville, Stewart and Milton Berle often worked together; Berle was a frequent visitor to the Ebony Showcase. The Stewarts lost the theatre building in 1992 and it was later demolished. The couple used two homes they owned as collateral for a loan meant to save the theatre; both were lost. One of the issues which led to the theatre's financial problems was a Los Angeles law requiring all older brick buildings to meet current earthquake standards. Stewart was given a Lifetime Achievement Award by the Beverly Hills/Hollywood NAACP. He also received the Living Legend award from the National Black Theatre Festival in 1995. Death. He died of natural causes in Los Angeles, California on December 18, 2000 at age 90, a week after attending the groundbreaking ceremonies for the Performing Arts Center named for Los Angeles politician Nate Holden which was built on the site where the Ebony Showcase stood. The Nate Holden Performing Arts Center is currently the home of the Ebony Repertory Theatre, a newly formed Equity company, which is also the operator of the 400-seat facility. For the past year, the ERT has successful brought diverse professional performing arts to the Mid-City Community and greater Los Angeles, making the Nate Holden Performing Arts Center Los Angeles's newest cultural destination.
1042923	Marius Goring, CBE (23 May 191230 September 1998) was an English stage and film actor. He is most often remembered for the four films he did with Powell & Pressburger, particularly as Conductor 71 in "A Matter of Life and Death" and as Julian Craster in "The Red Shoes". He regularly performed French and German roles. Life and career. Goring was born in Newport, Isle of Wight, England, the son of Dr Charles Goring and Kate Macdonald. After attending the Perse School in Cambridge, where he became a friend of an older boy, the future documentary film maker Humphrey Jennings, he studied at the universities of Cambridge, Frankfurt, Munich, Vienna and Paris. He first performed professionally in 1927. His early stage career included appearances at the Old Vic, Sadler's Wells, Stratford and several European tours; he was fluent in French and German. He first worked in the West End in a 1934 revival of Granville-Barker's "The Voysey Inheritance" at the Shaftesbury Theatre. During the 1930s, he played a variety of Shakespearean roles, including Feste in "Twelfth Night" (1937), "Macbeth" and Romeo, in addition to Trip in Sheridan's "The School for Scandal". In 1929, he became a founding member of British Equity, the actors' union, and became its president from 1963 to 1965, and again from 1975 to 1982. Goring's relationship with his union was fraught with conflict: he took it to litigation on three occasions. In 1992 he unsuccessfully sought to end the block on the sale of radio and television programmes to (the still) apartheid South Africa. During World War II he joined the army, becoming supervisor of BBC radio productions broadcasting to Germany and continued to act under the name Charles Richardson, because of the association of his name with Hermann Göring. In 1941, he married his second wife, the actress Lucie Mannheim. She died in 1976, and the next year Goring married television producer Prudence Fitzgerald, who survived him. His TV work included starring as Sir Percy Blakeney in "The Adventures of the Scarlet Pimpernel" (ITV, 1955), a series which he also co-wrote and produced; Theodore Maxtible in the "Doctor Who" story "The Evil of the Daleks" (BBC, 1967); title role in "The Expert" (BBC, 1968–1976); King George V in "Edward & Mrs. Simpson" (Thames, 1980); and "The Old Men at the Zoo" (BBC, 1983). Goring's voice provides the narration of the sound and light show performed regularly in the evening at the Blue Mosque in Istanbul, Turkey. He was made a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1979 and appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 1991. He died from cancer in 1998 aged 86.
1166860	George Smith Lindsey (December 17, 1928 – May 6, 2012) was an American character actor, best known for his role as Goober Pyle on "The Andy Griffith Show", "Mayberry R.F.D." and his subsequent tenure on "Hee-Haw". Life and career. George Lindsey was born in Fairfield in populous Jefferson County, Alabama, and grew up in the small town of Jasper. Lindsey graduated from Walker High School in 1946 and then attended Kemper Military School in Boonville, Missouri, and Florence State College in Florence (now the University of North Alabama), where he majored in physical education and biology, played quarterback on the football team, and received a Bachelor of Science in 1952. After graduating from college he enlisted in the U.S. Air Force and was stationed at Ramey AFB in Puerto Rico. After his discharge, he taught for a year at Hazel Green High School in Hazel Green, Alabama, while waiting to be accepted by the American Theater Wing in New York City in 1956. After graduating from the American Theater Wing and performing in two Broadway plays, "Wonderful Town" and "All American", he moved to Los Angeles in 1962. He got parts in TV series of the day with bit parts in "The Rifleman", "The Real McCoys", "The Twilight Zone", "Daniel Boone", "Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea",and three episodes of "The Alfred Hitchcock Hour", before he got the role he would become famous for as "Goober" on the "The Andy Griffith Show".
1042779	Malta Story is a 1953 British war film, directed by Brian Desmond Hurst, which is based on the heroic air defence of Malta during the Siege of Malta in the Second World War. The film uses real and unique footage of the locations at which the battles were fought and includes a love story between a RAF pilot and a Maltese girl, as well as the anticipated execution of her brother, caught as an Italian spy. The character of "Peter Ross" is apparently loosely based on that of Adrian Warburton. Plot. In 1942, Britain is trying hard to keep Malta while invasion seems imminent and Italians and Germans are regularly bombing the airfields and towns regardless. The RAF fight to survive against the odds using the few fighter aircraft available. Flight Lt. Peter Ross (Alec Guinness), an archaeologist, is posted to Egypt but is stranded in Malta due to the air attacks. He is then asked to join the RAF squadron there as an air reconnaissance pilot. He meets Maria (Muriel Pavlow), a lovely Maltese girl working in the RAF operations room. The two fall in love and spend a few romantic hours in the Neolithic temples of Mnajdra and Ħaġar Qim on the island. In the meantime, the situation becomes desperate. Many civilians are buried daily under the rubble, and famine is threatening their survival, as relief convoys become easy prey to the numerous attacks by air. Peter proposes marriage to Maria although they realise that wartime is not favourable to love affairs, as her mother suggests. Nevertheless, the young couple remain hopeful of the future. In the meantime, Maria’s brother (Nigel Stock) is arrested while trying to infiltrate the island from Italy, obviously on a spying mission, for which he is expected to be executed. Maria’s mother lives a double drama. The island relies on the last few ships of a convoy for supplies. The scene of the heroic tanker SS "Ohio" (real footage) arriving half sunk in Valletta harbour is the apex of glory for the defenders and the island of Malta collectively receives the George Cross from Britain's King George VI. The RAF holds on, and, along with Royal Navy submarines, is eventually able to take the offensive, targeting enemy shipping on its way to Rommel in Libya. Many air raids take place either to defend the island with Spitfires or a number of attack aircraft, including Bristol Beaufighter fighter-bombers, Bristol Beaufort and Fairey Swordfish torpedo bombers, which succeed in sinking Italian tankers and warships. There comes the moment when the most important enemy convoy is on its way to Libya under cover of poor visibility. Peter's commanding officer (Jack Hawkins) needs desperately to locate this target and orders him to find it at any cost. Peter, flying in his Spitfire, finally finds it, but has to stay close to keep contact. He is attacked by six Messerschmitt Bf 109Fs. Peter stays calm, but cannot escape his fate; he is shot down and killed, while Maria in the operations room listens helplessly to his radio transmissions. Later the next day, Maria sits by the beach, thinking of her beloved Peter. In the end it is implied (by newspaper) that the attack was a success, as the Afrika Corps has lost the Second Battle of El Alemain (in part due to supply shortages) and thus their foothold in Africa. Cast. As appearing in "Malta Story", (main roles and screen credits identified): Production. The Ulster born director Brian Desmond Hurst was persuaded by his lifelong friend, John Ford, to direct the "Malta Story". Ford told Hurst, "it's right up your street."Thorold Dickinson who, along with Peter De Sarigny, wrote the story, was originally scheduled to helm the film. The unique footage used in the "Malta Story" is actual historic archive material. In the aerial sequences, combat footage of aircraft that attacked Malta, such as the Italian Savoia-Marchetti SM.79 torpedo/horizontal bomber and the German Messerschmitt Bf 109F fighters and Junkers Ju 88 bombers can be seen, along with many other wartime RAF aircraft.Additionally, many scenes were shot in Malta with the real types of aircraft still in operational service at that time, some of which did not exist any longer elsewhere. The production only had the use of three later Supermarine Spitfire Mk XVIs, which had been located in storage. Although a modicum of model work and studio rear projection footage was needed, careful editing of archival newsreel and location photography created an authentic looking, near-documentary style. Alec Guinness, cast and playing against type, as part of the Old Vic Company, had played in Malta as part of a tour that had travelled to Portugal, Egypt, Italy and Greece in 1939.Guinness had served in the Royal Navy Volunteer Reserve during the Second World War, joining first as a seaman in 1941 and being commissioned the following year, and actually serving in the Mediterranean Theatre. During the "Malta Story" production, he found that he was drawn to the social life of the large Royal Navy base on the island, often joining with servicemen at the local "watering holes." The Fast Minelaying Cruiser HMS "Manxman" is mentioned by name in the film as bringing Vice-Admiral Payne to Malta to relieve Vice-Admiral Willie Banks. In the film "Manxman" is briefly depicted by a Dido-class cruiser - clearly identifiable from her 5.25 inch gun turrets which were unique to this cruiser class. (HMS "Manxman" herself was coincidentally used in another 1953 film which was also shot in Malta. This was "Sailor of the King", in which she depicted the fictional German raider "Essen". This film also used the Dido-class Cruiser HMS "Cleopatra", which was then operating as part of the Mediterranean Fleet). Reception. "Malta Story" was the fourth most popular movie at the British box office in 1953. "The combination of an A-list cast, the portrayal of the iron resilience of the Maltese people, the gallantry of the RAF pilots and a tragic love story were the four components of its success."
582509	Waisa Bhi Hota Hai Part II (, ) is a 2003 Indian movie starring Arshad Warsi. Shashanka Ghosh, the creative driver behind the launch of MTV and Channel V in India, marks his debut as a director with this film. Running in many parallel threads, it is in equal parts a comedy, satire, crime, and a Hindi masala film. The film is most famous for its songs "Allah ke Bande" performed by Kailash Kher and "Sajna Aa Bhi Jaa" performed by Shibani Kashyap. Plot. Puneet Sayal (Arshad Warsi) is a copywriter with a dream: to earn enough cash to dump his job and live peacefully in Nainital. Till the said dream materialises however, he's living in Bombay with his girlfriend Agni (Sandhya Mridul). Things go asunder one day when he finds out his brother's been shot dead — a brother he's hardly acknowledged in the past. Agni finds out and, following an argument, throws him out of the house. Puneet goes on a drinking spree that leads him to a park bench where he witnesses someone being shot. He doesn't know it yet, but this is the end of his life as he knows it. He saves the injured man — a gangster called Vishnu (Prashant Narayanan) — and the act lands him squarely in the middle of Bombay's famed gang wars. The war between ganglords Ganpat (Anant Jog) and Gangu (Pratima Kazmi) is a second thread in the film. Ganpat is the dominant kingpin, and Gangu is the perpetual second-in-place who's never given up her dreams of displacing Ganpat as top don. Reception. The film did poorly at the box office in most parts of India. However, a small audience in urban India did find it interesting and have compared it with the likes of other cult classics. Arshad Warsi and Prashant Narayanan were highly appreciated for their performances. Singer Kailash Kher, however, won the most plaudits for his brilliant voice in the chart-topping song "Allah ke Bande". Awards. Kailash Kher won the Best Male Playback Singer award at the 2004 Star Screen Awards. The film was nominated for Best Performance in a Negative Role (Pratima Kazmi), Best Dialogues, Best Editing, Best Lyrics and Best Screenplay at the Star Screen Awards but failed to win any. Soundtrack. The soundtrack features seven songs by composers including Vishal-Shekhar, Shibani Kashyap, Saibal Basu and Abhinav Dhar and written by Sadaquat Hussain, Vishal Dadlani, Abhinav Dhar and Virag. The soundtrack listing is given below.
1656215	Xu Guangqi (; April 24, 1562 – November 8, 1633), who later adopted the baptismal name Paul (), was a Chinese scholar-bureaucrat, agricultural scientist, astronomer, and mathematician in the Ming Dynasty. Xu was a colleague and collaborator of the Italian Jesuits Matteo Ricci and Sabatino de Ursis and they translated several classic Western texts into Chinese, including part of Euclid's "Elements". He was also the author of the "Nong Zheng Quan Shu", one of the first comprehensive treatises on the subject of agriculture. He was one of the "Three Pillars of Chinese Catholicism". His current title is Servant of God. Early life. Xu Guangqi was born into a relatively poor family in Shanghai on April 24, 1562. His father, Xu Sicheng, was in difficult financial situation when Guangqi was a child, and had to support the family with a small vegetable farm, but apparently still earned enough to be able to send his son to school at the age of six. Xu received the equivalent of his bachelor's degree at nineteen, but did not receive higher degrees until his thirties. Afterwards, he spent the majority of his time in positions of high office serving the Ming court. When he died, he held positions of Deputy Prime Minister of the Cabinet (内阁次辅) and Minister of Rites (礼部尚书) (minister of culture, education, foreign affairs, "etc."). He lived in a period when Chinese mathematics had gone into decline. The earlier efforts at algebra had been almost forgotten. Xu blamed some of the failures on a decline in interest of practical science in China and became something of a critic of Chinese society.
1063242	Tangled is a 2010 American computer animated musical fantasy-comedy film produced by Walt Disney Animation Studios and released by Walt Disney Pictures. It is the 50th animated feature in the Walt Disney Animated Classics series. It is loosely based on the German fairy tale "Rapunzel" in the collection of folk tales published by the Brothers Grimm. The film features the voices of Mandy Moore, Zachary Levi, and Donna Murphy. The film tells the story of a lost princess with long magical hair who yearns to leave her secluded tower. Against her mother's wishes, she enlists the aid of an intruder to take her out into the world which she has never seen. Before the film's release, its title was changed from "Rapunzel" to "Tangled", reportedly to market the film as gender-neutral. "Tangled" spent six years in production at a cost that has been estimated at $260 million which, if accurate (and adjusted for inflation), would make it the most expensive animated film ever made and the second most expensive film of all time. The film employed a unique artistic style by blending features of both computer-generated imagery (CGI) and traditional animation together, while utilizing non-photorealistic rendering to create the impression of a painting. Composer Alan Menken, who had worked on prior Disney animated features, returned to score "Tangled". "Tangled" premiered at the El Capitan Theatre on November 14, 2010, and went into general release on November 24. The film earned $590 million in worldwide box office revenue, $200 million of which was earned in the United States and Canada; it was well received by critics and audiences alike. "Tangled" was nominated for a number of awards, including Best Original Song at the 83rd Academy Awards. The film was released on Blu-ray and DVD on March 29, 2011; an animated short sequel, "Tangled Ever After", was released in 2012. Plot. Once upon a time, a single drop of sunlight falls to Earth and becomes a golden flower filled with magical properties. An old enchantress named Mother Gothel discovers the flower and hoards its healing ability to keep her young for hundreds of years. Centuries later, the pregnant queen of a nearby kingdom falls deathly ill, leading the king to seek out the legendary mystical plant. Despite Gothel's efforts to hide it, the flower is found, uprooted, and boiled into medicine for the queen, which heals her. A baby princess is born with beautiful golden hair that possesses healing properties. Gothel, wanting to reclaim her immortality and youth, breaks into the royal nursery to cut a lock of the princess's hair, only to discover that doing so causes it to lose its magic. She kidnaps the princess instead and names her "Rapunzel," raising her as her own in an isolated tower. The king and the queen honor their missing daughter by releasing floating lanterns on the night of her birthday each year in hopes that one day, their lost princess will return. For her eighteenth birthday, Rapunzel asks Gothel for permission to go outside the tower to see the source of the annual floating lights, but Gothel refuses with the excuse that the outside world is too dangerous for Rapunzel. Meanwhile, Flynn Rider and the Stabbington brothers steal the tiara of the lost princess. During the ensuing chase, Maximus, horse of the Captain of the Guards, is separated from his rider but continues on his own. Flynn betrays his accomplices, outwits his pursuers, takes the tiara, and stumbles upon Rapunzel's tower. He climbs up into the tower, but Rapunzel knocks him unconscious with a frying pan and puts him in a wardrobe. When Gothel returns, Rapunzel tries to show her the captive Flynn to prove she is capable of handling the outside world, but Gothel cuts her off by saying she is never leaving the tower, so Flynn remains hidden. Rapunzel instead asks Gothel for a special paint, the ingredients for which require three days of round-trip travel. Gothel leaves and Rapunzel rushes to get Flynn from the wardrobe. She ties him up in her hair then tells him that she will give him the tiara back if he takes her to see the lights. After much arguing Flynn agrees. While on the route, he takes her to the Snuggly Duckling Inn, which is full of Gaul thugs, in hopes of scaring her into giving up her quest. The thugs, however, are charmed by Rapunzel, who encourages them to follow their dreams. Mother Gothel accidentally stumbles upon Maximus. Fearing that someone might find Rapunzel, Gothel returns early to the tower. Rapunzel is gone but Gothel finds the tiara. She then teams up with the Stabbington brothers so she can get Rapunzel back and the brothers can get revenge on Flynn. Meanwhile, the guards invade the tavern and chase Rapunzel and Flynn to a dam which collapses. Flynn and Rapunzel become trapped in a flooding cave. Flynn cuts his hand while trying to find an exit but to no avail. Believing he is about to die, Flynn tells Rapunzel his real name: Eugene Fitzherbert. Rapunzel admits her hair glows when she sings, then realizes they can use the light from her hair to find a way out. Rapunzel later uses her hair to heal Flynn's injured hand. Flynn tells Rapunzel that he was an orphan who dreamed of being like the storybook hero that inspired his alias, but Rapunzel tells him she likes Eugene better than Flynn. When Flynn goes to gather firewood, Gothel meets Rapunzel insisting that Flynn does not care for her and gives Rapunzel the tiara, suggesting that she test Flynn by giving it to him. The next morning, Maximus confronts Flynn but Rapunzel befriends the horse and convinces him to help them instead. Arriving at the kingdom, Flynn takes Rapunzel round the city and later at night, takes her to see the lanterns. There, Rapunzel gives Flynn back the tiara. He realizes he has fallen in love with her, and just before he is about to kiss Rapunzel, Flynn spies his old accomplices and leaves Rapunzel to give them the tiara, realizing that he cares more for Rapunzel. The brothers, however, knock him out, tie him up on a boat, and sail him across the lake. They tell Rapunzel that Flynn betrayed her as they attempt to kidnap her for her hair's power. But Gothel stages a rescue by knocking the brothers unconscious and takes her back to the tower. Later, while staring at a souvenir with the kingdom's symbol Flynn bought for her earlier, Rapunzel realizes she is the lost princess and attempts to flee the tower, but is captured by Mother Gothel.
1207425	El Cantante is a 2007 biographical film which stars singers Marc Anthony and Jennifer Lopez. The film is based on the life of the late salsa singer Héctor Lavoe, who is portrayed by Anthony. The film is told from the viewpoint of Puchi, Hector's wife, portrayed by Lopez. Initially debuting at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 12, 2006, "El cantante" was released on August 3, 2007. Distributed by Picturehouse, the film runs for 106 minutes and is rated R for language, sexuality and drug use. Plot. Puchi (Jennifer Lopez) talks about her late husband, salsa legend Héctor Lavoe (Marc Anthony), during a 2002 interview, as she reminisces about memories from the 1960s and '70s after his arrival in New York City. She discusses their life together and his downfall, which was led by drugs, alcohol and depression. Scenes of their meeting and courtship are inter-cut with Héctor performing while Puchi stands on the side of the stage, dancing. Héctor's collaborations with salsa musician Willie Colón (John Ortiz) and the Fania All Stars are shown, as well as his ventures as a solo artist. Notable events including the birth of their son, Héctor Jr, infidelities and their break-up. Puchi becomes fed up of his partying, cheating and drugs. Although she pushed him to get help and he did on occasion, she was unable to stop this addiction. Release. "El cantante", which has an MPAA rating of R, was first premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival which took place in September 2006. It was then released to over 542 cinemas on August 3, 2007. The film opened at No. 12 at the U.S. Box Office, grossing $3,202,035 during its opening weekend. It averaged around $6,000 per theater. The following week, it grossed $1,401,148 and fell to No. 16. It left the chart at No. 115 on the week of September 28, 2007, after grossing $1,465. "El cantante" grossed $7,556,712 domestically and $354,820 overseas, totaling $7.9 million. Charlotte O'Sullivan of the "Evening Standard" said the "film did not go down well" at the Box Office, crediting its lack of commercial success to Lopez and Anthony "know nothing about salsa" and its "negative view of the Latino community by focusing on Lavoe’s drug use and death from Aids", which had sparked controversy. The film's DVD was released on October 30, 2007. It became a hit, ranking at No. 8 on the DVD/Home Rentals chart at Box Office Mojo, and had grossed $16.61 million in DVD sales as of December 23, 2007. Critical reception. Following its Toronto International Film Festival premiere, "El Cantante" earned mostly negative reviews from critics and currently holds a 25% rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 106 reviews.
1093069	George Green (14 July 1793 – 31 May 1841) was a British mathematical physicist who wrote "An Essay on the Application of Mathematical Analysis to the Theories of Electricity and Magnetism" (Green, 1828). The essay introduced several important concepts, among them a theorem similar to the modern Green's theorem, the idea of potential functions as currently used in physics, and the concept of what are now called Green's functions. Green was the first person to create a mathematical theory of electricity and magnetism and his theory formed the foundation for the work of other scientists such as James Clerk Maxwell, William Thomson, and others. His work on potential theory ran parallel to that of Carl Friedrich Gauss. Green's life story is remarkable in that he was almost entirely self-taught. He received only about one year of formal schooling as a child, between the ages of 8 and 9. Early life. Green was born and lived for most of his life in the English town of Sneinton, Nottinghamshire, now part of the city of Nottingham. His father, also named George, was a baker who had built and owned a brick windmill used to grind grain. In his youth, Green was described as having a frail constitution and a dislike for doing work in his father's bakery. He had no choice in the matter, however, and as was common for the time he likely began working daily to earn his living at the age of five. Robert Goodacre's Academy. Roughly 25–50% of children in Nottingham received any schooling in this period. The majority of schools were Sunday schools, run by the Church, and children would typically attend for one or two years only. Recognizing the young Green's above average intellect, and being in a strong financial situation due to his successful bakery, his father enrolled him in March 1801 at Robert Goodacre's Academy in Upper Parliament Street. Robert Goodacre was a well-known science populariser and educator of the time. He published "Essay on the Education of Youth", in which he wrote that he did not "study the interest of the boy but the embryo Man". To a non-specialist, he would have seemed deeply knowledgeable in science and maths, but a close inspection of his essay and curriculum revealed that the extent of his mathematical teachings was limited to algebra, trigonometry and logarithms. Thus, Green's later mathematical contributions, which exhibited knowledge of very modern developments in maths, could not have resulted from his tenure at the Robert Goodacre Academy. He stayed for only four terms (one school year), and it was speculated by his contemporaries that he probably exhausted all they had to teach him. Move from Nottingham to Sneinton. In 1773 George's father moved to Nottingham, which at the time had a reputation for being a pleasant town with open spaces and wide roads. By 1831, however, the population had increased nearly five times, in part due to the budding industrial revolution, and the city became known as one of the worst slums in England. There were frequent riots by starving workers, often associated with special hostility towards bakers and millers on the suspicion that they were hiding grain to drive up food prices. For these reasons, in 1807, George Green senior bought a plot of land in Sneinton, a small town about a mile away from Nottingham. On this plot of land he built a "brick wind corn mill", now famously referred to as Green's Windmill. It was technologically impressive for its time, but required nearly twenty-four hour maintenance, which was to become George Green's burden for the next twenty years. Adult life. Miller. Just as with baking, Green found the responsibilities of operating the mill annoying and tedious. Grain from the fields was arriving continuously at the mill's doorstep, and the sails of the windmill had to be constantly adjusted to the windspeed, both to prevent damage in high winds, and to maximise rotational speed in low winds. The millstones that would continuously grind against each other, could wear down or cause a fire if they ran out of grain to grind. Every month the stones, which weighed over a ton, would have to be replaced or repaired. Family life. In 1823 Green formed a relationship with Jane Smith, the daughter of William Smith, hired by Green Senior as mill manager. Although Green and Jane Smith never married, Jane eventually became known as Jane Green and the couple had seven children together; all but the first had Green as a baptismal name. The youngest child was born 13 months before Green's death. Green provided for his common-law wife and children in his will. Nottingham Subscription Library. When Green was thirty, he became a member of the Nottingham Subscription Library. This library exists today, and was likely one of the only sources of Green's advanced mathematical knowledge. Unlike more conventional libraries, the subscription library was exclusive to a hundred or so subscribers, and the first on the list of subscribers was the Duke of Newcastle. This library catered to requests for specialised books and journals that satisfied the particular interests of their subscribers. 1828 essay. In 1828, Green published "An Essay on the Application of Mathematical Analysis to the Theories of Electricity and Magnetism", which is the essay he is most famous for today. It was published privately at the author's expense, because he thought it would be presumptuous for a person like himself, with no formal education in mathematics, to submit the paper to an established journal. When Green published his "Essay", it was sold on a subscription basis to 51 people, most of whom were friends and probably could not understand it. The wealthy landowner and mathematician Edward Bromhead bought a copy and encouraged Green to do further work in mathematics. Not believing the offer was sincere, Green did not contact Bromhead for two years. Mathematician. By 1829, the time when Green's father died, the senior Green had become one of the gentry due to his considerable accumulated wealth and land owned, roughly half of which he left to his son and the other half to his daughter. The young Green, now thirty-six years old, consequently was able to use this wealth to abandon his miller duties and pursue mathematical studies. Cambridge. Members of the Nottingham Subscription Library who knew Green repeatedly insisted that he obtain a proper University education. In particular, one of the library's most prestigious subscribers was Sir Edward Bromhead, with whom Green shared many correspondences; he insisted that Green go to Cambridge. In 1832, aged nearly forty, Green was admitted as an undergraduate at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge. He was particularly insecure about his lack of knowledge of Greek and Latin, which were prerequisites, but it turned out not to be as hard for him to learn as he believed, as the expected mastery was not as high as he had expected. In the mathematics examinations, he won the first-year mathematical prize. He graduated BA in 1838 as a 4th Wrangler (the 4th highest scoring student in his graduating class, coming after James Joseph Sylvester who scored 2nd). College fellow. Following his graduation, Green was elected a fellow of the Cambridge Philosophical Society. Even without his stellar academic standing, the Society had already read and made note of his Essay and three other publications, and so Green was warmly welcomed. The next two years provided an unparalleled opportunity for Green to read, write and discuss his scientific ideas. In this short time he published an additional six publications with applications to hydrodynamics, sound and optics. Final years and posthumous fame. In his final years at Cambridge, Green became rather ill, and in 1840 he returned to Sneinton, only to die a year later. There are rumours that at Cambridge, Green had "succumbed to alcohol", and some of his earlier supporters, such as Sir Edward Bromhead, tried to distance themselves from him. Green's work was not well known in the mathematical community during his lifetime. Besides Green himself, the first mathematician to quote his 1828 work was the Briton Robert Murphy (1806–1843) in his 1833 work. In 1845, four years after Green's death, Green's work was rediscovered by the young William Thomson (then aged 21), later known as Lord Kelvin, who popularised it for future mathematicians. According to the book "George Green" by D.M. Cannell, William Thomson noticed Murphy's citation of Green's 1828 essay but found it difficult to locate Green's 1828 work; he finally got some copies of Green's 1828 work from William Hopkins in 1845. Green's work on the motion of waves in a canal anticipates the WKB approximation of quantum mechanics, while his research on light-waves and the properties of the ether produced what is now known as the Cauchy-Green tensor. Green's theorem and functions were important tools in classical mechanics, and were revised by Schwinger's 1948 work on electrodynamics that led to his 1965 Nobel prize (shared with Feynman and Tomonaga). Green's functions later also proved useful in analysing superconductivity. On a visit to Nottingham in 1930, Albert Einstein commented that Green had been 20 years ahead of his time. The theoretical physicist, Julian Schwinger, who used Green's functions in his ground-breaking works, published a tribute, entitled "The Greening of Quantum Field Theory: George and I," in 1993. The George Green Library at the University of Nottingham is named after him, and houses the majority of the University's Science and Engineering Collection. In 1986, Green's Windmill was restored to working order. It now serves both as a working example of a 19th-century windmill and as a museum and science centre dedicated to Green. Westminster Abbey has a memorial stone for Green in the nave adjoining the graves of Sir Isaac Newton and Lord Kelvin. Source of knowledge. It is unclear to historians exactly where Green obtained information on current developments in mathematics, as Nottingham had little in the way of intellectual resources. What is even more mysterious is that Green had used "the Mathematical Analysis", a form of calculus derived from Leibniz that was virtually unheard of, or even actively discouraged, in England at the time (due to Leibniz being a contemporary of Newton who had his own methods that were thus championed in England). This form of calculus, and the developments of mathematicians such as Laplace, Lacroix and Poisson were not taught even at Cambridge, let alone Nottingham, and yet Green had not only heard of these developments, but also improved upon them. It is speculated that only one person educated in mathematics, John Toplis, headmaster of Nottingham High School 1806–1819, graduate from Cambridge and an enthusiast of French mathematics, is known to have lived in Nottingham at the time.
1166725	Pamela Bellwood (born Pamela Anne King on June 26, 1951) is an American actress best-known for her role as Claudia Blaisdel Carrington on the 1980s prime time soap opera, "Dynasty". Life and career. Born in New York City, Bellwood studied with Sanford Meisner at the Neighborhood Playhouse. In her early days of acting she was credited as Pamela Kingsley. In 1974, she appeared in an episode of "Paul Sand in Friends and Lovers". Later in 1974, she appeared as Pamela Bellwood in an episode of "Rhoda" entitled "9-E is available". Bellwood was an original cast member of "Dynasty" in January 1981, and was written off the series early in the third season in late 1982. She appeared once in March 1983 to help usher in Jack Coleman as a recast Steven Carrington, and later returned full-time in October 1983. Bellwood remained a key character for several seasons until leaving the series a final time in 1986 to become a full-time mother. Twenty years later in 2006, Bellwood appeared alongside her former "Dynasty" castmates in the non-fiction special "Dynasty Reunion: Catfights & Caviar". Bellwood posed for an eight page pictorial in the April 1983 edition of "Playboy" magazine.
774335	The Dog Who Stopped the War, or in original Quebec French La guerre des tuques, is a French Canadian comedy/drama film from Quebec, directed by André Mélançon. The film is the 1st in the "Tales for All (Contes pour tous)" series of children's movies created by Les Productions la Fête. Plot. The film involves a huge snowball fight between the children of a town who split into two rival gangs, one defending a snow castle, the other attacking it. The attackers are led by a boy who styles himself as "General Luc" and has a reputation for being bossy. The defenders are outnumbered and led by Marc, who owns a dog named Cleo. They also have the genius boy Francois on their side. Francois designs a massive snow mobile of total destruction and other shaitic. Elaborate snow fortress, and Marc's group constructs it. Luc arrives with his army, wearing makeshift armour and wielding wooden swords. They attempt to scale the walls with a ladder, but Luc is injured in the battle and orders a retreat. They regroup and stage a second, more covert attack, but they are spotted and beaten back again with snowballs soaked in ink. Luc counters by attacking a third time, this time with his army dressed in garbage bags as protection from the ink. They overwhelm the fort's defences, and Marc and Francois escape via toboggan through a secret tunnel. The two groups meet and agree to have one final battle to determine the winner. Luc shows up for the final siege with an even larger army, having recruited additional children with chocolate. They also possess new weapons such as slingshots and a snowball cannon. Luc orders them to charge, and despite being slowed by barricades, they eventually breach the fortress walls and engage in melee combat with the defenders. Marc's dog Cleo comes after her owner, and one of the fortress walls collapses, killing her. The war ends, as both sides help bury her. The song at the end of the movie is performed by Nathalie Simard. An iconic line, "La guerre, la guerre, c'est pas une raison pour se faire mal!" (Directly translated: War, war, it's not a reason to hurt each other!) became a popular slogan against the Iraq war in 2003.
1044117	Jim Dale, MBE (born James Smith, 15 August 1935) is an English actor, voice artist, singer and songwriter. He is best known in the United Kingdom for his many appearances in the "Carry On" series of films and in the US for narrating the "Harry Potter" audiobook series, for which he received two Grammy Awards, and the ABC series "Pushing Daisies". In the 1970s Dale was a member of Laurence Olivier's National Theatre Company. Biography. Early years. Dale was born to William Henry Smith and Miriam Jean Wells in Rothwell, Northamptonshire. He was educated at Kettering Grammar School. He trained as a dancer for six years before his debut as a stage comic in 1951, when, at the age of seventeen and a half, he became the youngest professional comedian on the British stage. He performed two years' national service in the Royal Air Force. Later years. Dale has lived in New York City since 1980. He was married to Patricia from 1957 until their divorce in 1977. They had four children. The eldest boy, Murray Dale, was briefly a successful actor in the 1970s British children's television series "Boy Dominic". Middle son Adam, a successful aerial cameraman, is the winner of the "Golden Arrow Award" for Best Helicopter Cameraman. His youngest son Toby Dale is, in his father's words, "a brilliant actor". All three sons live in London. Dale has five grandchildren. His only daughter, Belinda Dale, died of leukaemia in December 1995. His first wife, Patricia, died in March 1977, after a long battle with cancer. In 1980, Dale married Julie Schafler, the owner of Madison Avenue's 'Julie: Artisan's Gallery'. Career. Music. As a songwriter, Dale is best remembered as the lyricist for the film theme "Georgy Girl", which was nominated for an Academy Award in 1966. The song (performed by the Seekers) reached number 2 in the US Billboard Hot 100 chart the following year, and sold over seven million records. He is a gifted songwriter who also wrote lyrics for the title song of the films "Shalako", "Joseph Andrews", "Twinky" ("Lola" in the United States) and "A Winter's Tale". At the age of twenty-two he became the first pop singer under the wing of Sir George Martin, who produced all his hit records for him. Several of his songs entered the UK Singles Chart, including "Be My Girl" (1957, UK No.2), "Just Born (To Be My Baby)" (1958, UK No.27), "Crazy Dream" (1958, UK No.24) and "Sugartime" (1958, UK No.25). In 1957, he was one of the presenters on BBC Television's "Six-Five Special". Dale also wrote and recorded the song "Dick-a-Dum-Dum (King's Road)", which became a hit for Des O'Connor in 1969. Film. Dale's film debut was a tiny role as a trombone player who thwarts orchestral conductor Kenneth Williams in the comedy "Raising the Wind" (1961). However, he is most famous in Britain for his appearances in eleven Carry On films, a long-running series of comedy farces, generally playing the hapless romantic lead. His 'Carry On' career began as an expectant father in "Carry On Cabby" (1963), and was followed by "Carry On Jack" (1963), "Carry On Spying" (1964), "Carry On Cleo" (1964) and "Carry On Cowboy" (1965) - where he played a character called Marshall P Knutt. Then came "Don't Lose Your Head" (1966), "Follow That Camel" (1967), "Carry On Screaming (1966)", and the famous "Carry On Doctor" (1967). His last 'Carry On' appearance in the main series was in "Carry On Again Doctor" in 1969, where he broke his arm during filming, as he preferred to do his own stunts. However 23 years later he appeared in the title role in the 1992 'Carry On' film, "Carry On Columbus". He was in the silent short 1967 film "The Plank", and played the young Spike Milligan in the film version of "". "Pete's Dragon" (1977) is a live-action/animated musical film from Walt Disney Productions, in which he played a travelling elixir showman/salesman named Doc Terminus. He starred in "Digby, the Biggest Dog in the World", which also featured Milligan, "The National Health" directed by Jack Gold, and appeared in the 1984 film "Scandalous". He also had a triple-role as twin brothers and their father in Disney's "Hot Lead and Cold Feet", "The Hunchback", as a tap dancing executive in Arthur Miller's 1993 "The American Clock" and as a comic villain in the 1977 Disney films "Pete's Dragon" and "The Spaceman and King Arthur" aka "Unidentified Flying Oddball". Stage. At the age of eighteen Dale became the youngest professional comedian in Britain, touring all the variety music halls. On stage he appeared in both straight and musical roles, and has been nominated for five Tony Awards, winning one for "Barnum" when, in 1980, the "New York Times" cited him as "The Toast of Broadway", also winning the second of four Drama Desk Awards. In 2006, Dale performed on Broadway (at Studio 54) in the Roundabout Theatre Company's production of "The Threepenny Opera", as Mr. Peachum. In 1970, at the request of Laurence Olivier, he joined the National Theatre in London as a leading actor. Over the next two years he appeared in "Love's Labour's Lost", "The Merchant of Venice", "The National Health", "The Good Natured Man", "The Captain of Kopenick", and a two-hander play with Anthony Hopkins, "The Architect and the Emperor of Assyria". At the Young Vic Theatre, he created the title role in Scapino, which he co-adapted with Frank Dunlop, and played Petruchio in "The Taming of the Shrew". His other West End theatre credits include "The Wayward Way", "The Card", "A Midsummer Night's Dream", "The Winter's Tale", and most recently the part of Fagin in Cameron Mackintosh’s "Oliver!" at the London Palladium. His Broadway successes include "Scapino" (Drama Desk Award/Outer Critics Award/Tony Award Nomination), "Joe Egg" (Outer Critics Award /Tony Award Nomination). "Me And My Girl" and "Candide" (Tony Award Nomination). Other credits Off-Broadway include "Travels With My Aunt (Drama Desk Award/Lucille Lortel Award/Outer Critics Award), "Privates On Parade", "The Taming of the Shrew", "The Invisible Man", "The Music Man", "Comedians" (Drama Desk Award nomination and a Lucille Lortel Award nomination), "", "Address Unknown" and "The Threepenny Opera" (Drama Desk Award/Outer Critics' Award/The Richard Seff Award and a Tony Award nomination)." In November, 2006 Dale starred as "Charlie Baxter" in the Sherman Brothers' musical, "Busker Alley" alongside Glenn Close. His latest work, seen in 2011, is a one-man show, "Just Jim Dale", looking back over nearly sixty years in show business. Voice work. To millions of fans in the United States, Jim Dale is the "voice" of Harry Potter. He has recorded all seven books in the "Harry Potter" series, and as a narrator he has won two Grammy Awards, seven Grammy Nominations and a record ten Audie Awards including "Audio Book of the Year 2004," "Best Children's Narrator 2001/2005/2007/2008," "Best Children's Audio Book 2005," two Benjamin Franklin Awards from the Independent Book Publishers Association (one of these was in 2001 for "Harry Potter & the Prisoner of Azkaban") and twenty three Audio File Earphone Awards. He is also the narrator for the "Harry Potter" video games, and for many of the interactive "extras" on the "Harry Potter" DVD releases. He also holds two Guinness World Records: one for having created and recorded 146 different character voices for one audiobook, "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows," and one for occupying the first six places in the Top Ten Audio Books of America and Canada 2005. Dale also narrated the ABC drama "Pushing Daisies" as "the fairy tale narrator." In the early 1960s, Dale presented "Children's Favourites" on BBC Radio, for a year. He also narrated the "Peter and the Starcatchers" audio book, and its three sequels.
631090	Daniel Lapaine (born 16 April 1970) is an Australian actor. Life and career. Born in Sydney, Australia, Lapaine graduated from the National Institute of Dramatic Art (NIDA) in 1992. In 1994, he played David Van Arckle in P. J. Hogan's "Muriel's Wedding". He also starred in the 2000 television miniseries "The 10th Kingdom" as Prince Wendell White, ruler of the 4th Kingdom, and played Tim Allerton in the 2004 "Agatha Christie's Poirot" episode "Death on the Nile". In 2009, he portrayed Neil Armstrong in the television film "Moon Shot". In 1998, Lapaine met English actress Fay Ripley at a party hosted by mutual friends. Neither of them thought the other was interested in dating and they drifted apart. After meeting again on a trip in New York, they began dating. They married in October 2001 in a ceremony in Tuscany, Italy. In October 2002, Ripley gave birth to their first child, a daughter called Parker. She gave birth to their second child, a son whom they named Sonny, in October 2006.
1245090	Burma VJ: Reporting from a Closed Country is a 2008 Danish documentary film directed by Anders Østergaard. It follows the September 2007 protests against the military regime in Burma. The "VJ" in the title stands for "video journalists." Some of it was filmed on hand-held cameras. The footage was smuggled out of the country, physically or over the Internet. Other parts of it were reconstructed, which caused controversy. Awards and nominations. The film won numerous awards, especially at European film festivals, e.g. it won the Golden Apricot at the 2009 Yerevan International Film Festival, Armenia, for Best Documentary Film. It won the World Cinema Documentary Film Editing Award at the Sundance Film Festival. "Burma VJ" was also nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature. Box office. The film was released to one theater on 20 May 2009 and grossed $5,554 in the opening weekend. Its widest release was in three theaters. As of 1 May 2010, the total gross stands at $123,477. DVD features. The DVD includes a message from Buddhist actor Richard Gere comparing the situation in Burma to that in Tibet.
1101205	John Henry Constantine Whitehead FRS (11 November 1904–8 May 1960), known as Henry, was a British mathematician and was one of the founders of homotopy theory. He was born in Chennai (then known as Madras), in India, and died in Princeton, New Jersey, in 1960. Life. J. H. C. (Henry) Whitehead was the son of the Right Rev. Henry Whitehead, Bishop of Madras, who had studied mathematics at Oxford, and was the nephew of Alfred North Whitehead and Isobel Duncan. He was brought up in Oxford, went to Eton and read mathematics at Balliol College, Oxford, where he co-founded The Invariant Society, the student mathematics society. After a year working as a stockbroker (Buckmaster & Moore), he started a Ph.D. in 1929 at Princeton University. His thesis, titled "The representation of projective spaces", was written under the direction of Oswald Veblen in 1930. While in Princeton, he also worked with Solomon Lefschetz. He became a fellow of Balliol in 1933. In 1934 he married the concert pianist Barbara Smyth, great-great-granddaughter of Elizabeth Fry and a cousin of Peter Pears; they had two sons. During the Second World War he worked on operations research for submarine warfare. Later, he joined the codebreakers at Bletchley Park, and by 1945 was one of some fifteen mathematicians working in the "Newmanry", a section headed by Max Newman and responsible for breaking a German teleprinter cipher using machine methods. Those methods included the Colossus machines, early digital electronic computers. From 1947 to 1960 he was the Waynflete Professor of Pure Mathematics at Magdalen College, Oxford. He became president of the London Mathematical Society (LMS) in 1953, a post he held until 1955. The LMS established two prizes in memory of Whitehead. The first is the annually awarded, to multiple recipients, Whitehead Prize; the second a biennially awarded Senior Whitehead Prize. In the late 1950s, Whitehead approached Robert Maxwell, then chairman of Pergamon Press, to start a new journal, "Topology", but died before its first edition appeared in 1962. Work. His definition of CW complexes gave a setting for homotopy theory that became standard. He introduced the idea of simple homotopy theory, which was later much developed in connection with algebraic K-theory. The Whitehead product is an operation in homotopy theory. The Whitehead problem on abelian groups was solved (as an independence proof) by Saharon Shelah. His involvement with topology and the Poincaré conjecture led to the creation of the Whitehead manifold. The definition of crossed modules is due to him. Whitehead also made important contributions in differential topology, particularly on triangulations and their associated smooth structures.
1104285	Dame Mary Lucy Cartwright DBE FRS (17 December 1900 – 3 April 1998) was a British mathematician. With J. E. Littlewood she was the first to analyze a dynamical system with chaos. She was born in Aynho, Northamptonshire where her father was the vicar and died in Cambridge, England. Through her grandmother Jane Holbech she was descended from the poet John Donne and William Mompesson, the Vicar of Eyam. Career. She studied mathematics at St Hugh's College, Oxford, graduating in 1923 with a first class degree. She was the first woman to attain the final degree lectures and to obtain a first. She then taught at Alice Ottley School in Worcester and Wycombe Abbey School in Buckinghamshire before returning to Oxford in 1928 to read for her D.Phil. She was supervised by G. H. Hardy in her doctoral studies. During the academic year 1928–9 Hardy was at Princeton, so it was E. C. Titchmarsh who took over the duties as a supervisor. Her thesis on zeros of entire functions was examined by J. E. Littlewood whom she met for the first time as an external examiner in her oral examination for the D.Phil. She would later establish an enduring collaboration with Littlewood. In 1930 Cartwright was awarded a Yarrow Research Fellowship and she went to Girton College, Cambridge, to continue working on the topic of her doctoral thesis. Attending Littlewood's lectures, she solved one of the open problems which he posed. Her theorem, now known as Cartwright's theorem, gives an estimate for the maximum modulus of an analytic function that takes the same value no more than "p" times in the unit disc. To prove the theorem she used a new approach, applying a technique introduced by Lars Ahlfors for conformal mappings. In 1936 she became director of studies in mathematics at Girton College, and in 1938 she began work on a new project which had a major impact on the direction of her research. The Radio Research Board of the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research produced a memorandum regarding certain differential equations which came out of modeling radio and radar work. They asked the London Mathematical Society if they could help find a mathematician who could work on these problems and Cartwright became interested in this memorandum. The dynamics lying behind the problems were unfamiliar to Cartwright so she approached Littlewood for help with this aspect. They began to collaborate studying the equations. Littlewood wrote: The fine structure which Littlewood describes here is today seen to be a typical instance of the butterfly effect. The collaboration led to important results, and these have greatly influenced the direction that the modern theory of dynamical systems has taken. In 1945 she simplified Hermite's elementary proof of the irrationality of π. Her version of the proof was published in an appendix to Sir Harold Jeffreys' book "Scientific Inference". In 1947 she was elected to be a Fellow of the Royal Society and, although she was not the first woman to be elected to that Society, she was the first female mathematician. Cartwright was appointed Mistress of Girton in 1948 then, in addition, a Reader in the Theory of Functions in Cambridge in 1959, holding this appointment until 1968. She was the first woman: She also received the De Morgan Medal of the Society in 1968. In 1969 she received the distinction of being honoured by the Queen, becoming Dame Mary Cartwright, Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire.
633453	Katherine Kiernan Maria "Kate" Mulgrew (born April 29, 1955) is an American actress, most noted for her roles on "" as Captain Kathryn Janeway and "Ryan's Hope" as Mary Ryan. She has performed in many television shows, theater productions and movies, earning a variety of awards for her acting, including an Obie Award, a Golden Satellite Award and a Saturn Award. She has also been nominated for a Golden Globe Award. Mulgrew is an active member of the Alzheimer's Association National Advisory Council and the voice of Cleveland's MetroHealth System. Early life. Mulgrew was born in 1955 in Dubuque, Iowa, into an Irish Catholic family, to Thomas James "T.J." Mulgrew II, a contractor, and Joan Virginia Mulgrew (née Kiernan), an artist and painter. She attended Wahlert High School in Dubuque. Aged 17, she was accepted at the Stella Adler Conservatory of Acting in conjunction with New York University in New York City. Mulgrew left NYU after one year. During this time, to earn money while in New York, Mulgrew was employed as a waitress at Friar Tuck, a now defunct restaurant previously at 914 Third Avenue. Career. Her early career included portraying Mary Ryan for two years on the ABC soap "Ryan's Hope" (1975). She became a fan favorite and is still associated with the show long after its cancellation. Mulgrew remains friends with former co-star Ilene Kristen and presented a special Soap Opera Digest Award to "Ryan's Hope" creator Claire Labine in 1995. While in "Ryan's Hope" she also played the role of "Emily" in the American Shakespeare Theatre production of "Our Town" in Stratford, Connecticut. In 1979, she played Kate Columbo in "Mrs. Columbo", a spin-off of the popular detective series, created specifically for her, which lasted 13 episodes. In 1985 she appeared in 'Remo Williams The Adventure Begins' in the role of Major Fleming. In 1986, she appeared on "Cheers" as Janet Eldridge. In 1992, Kate appeared on "Murphy Brown" as Hillary Wheaton, a Toronto-based anchorwoman brought in to replace Murphy Brown during her pregnancy, but who turned out to have the same problem with alcoholism as Brown had previously dealt with at the beginning of the series. In 1993, Mulgrew separated from her husband, Robert H. Egan, to whom she had been married for 12 years. In 1995, the divorce became final, and she was on the verge of selling her house and moving into a less-expensive apartment in Westwood when she received a call to take the part of Captain Kathryn Janeway in '. Mulgrew made history in the "Star Trek" franchise when she became the first female captain as a series regular in a leading role. "Voyager" was the first show broadcast on the new UPN channel, the only series renewed after the channel's first programming season, and its only show to run for seven seasons, making it the UPN's longest running. Mulgrew won the Saturn Award for "Best TV Actress" in 1998 for her performances as Janeway. Mulgrew also voiced the character of Janeway in the PS2 and PC game ' and "". In recent years, Mulgrew kept active in doing voice-over work for video games, most notably voicing the mysterious Flemeth in the "Dragon Age" video game series, a role she described as "delicious". During "Voyager" she also played the role of Titania in the animated series, "Gargoyles" and Victoria Riddler in "Riddler's Moon", a made for TV movie. Mulgrew provided the voice of Janeway for "Star Trek: Captain's Chair", a virtual-reality tour of various Star Fleet vessels, for home computers. "Star Trek: Voyager" (1995–2001). Mulgrew auditioned for the role of the captain, named Kathryn Janeway, when producers announced casting for "Star Trek: Voyager". She initially submitted a videotaped audition, which she made in New York City in August 1994. However she was unhappy with this audition and auditioned in person a few weeks later. That day, film actress Geneviève Bujold was selected to play Janeway, but left the role after only two days of filming, due to the demanding production schedule required for a television show. About her years on "Voyager", Mulgrew said:I'm proud of it. It was difficult; it was hard work. I'm proud of the work because I think I made some little difference in women in science. I grew to really love "Star Trek: Voyager", and out of a cast of nine, I've made three great friends, I managed to raise two children. I think, "It's good. I used myself well." Speaking about the best and worst part about playing a Star Trek captain, she said: "The best thing was simply the privilege and the challenge of being able to take a shot at the first female captain, transcending stereotypes that I was very familiar with. I was able to do that in front of millions of viewers. That was a remarkable experience – and it continues to resonate. The downside of that is also that it continues to resonate, and threatens to eclipse all else in one's long career if one does not up the ante and stay at it, in a way that may not ordinarily be necessary. I have to work at changing and constantly reinventing myself in a way that probably would not have happened had "Star Trek" not come along. I knew that going in, and I think that all of the perks attached to this journey have been really inexpressively great. So the negatives are small. 2001–present. After "Voyager" came to the end of the full seven seasons, Mulgrew returned to theater and starred in a one-woman play called "Tea at Five", a monologue reminiscence based on Katharine Hepburn's memoir "Me: Stories of My Life". "Tea at Five" was a critical success and Mulgrew received two awards, one from Carbonell (best actress) and the other from Broadway.com (Audience Award for Favorite Solo Performance). In 2006, Mulgrew performed in "The Exonerated" at the Riverside Studios located in London, England. In the spring of 2007, she appeared in the NBC television series "The Black Donnellys" as Helen Donnelly which lasted for one season. She also performed the lead role in an off-Broadway production called "Our Leading Lady" written by Charles Busch in which she earned a nomination from the Drama League for her performance. In 2007, Mulgrew played Clytemnestra in New York for Charles L. Mee's "Iphigenia 2.0". She won the Obie Award for outstanding performance. In June 2008, Mulgrew appeared in "Equus" on Broadway, playing Hesther Saloman, a public official who is empathetic toward the play's central character. The play opened on September 5, 2008 for a strictly limited 22-week engagement through February 8, 2009. Also in 2008, Mulgrew filmed the 30-minute courtroom drama "The Response" which is based on actual transcripts of the Guantanamo Bay tribunals. It was researched and fully vetted in conjunction with the University of Maryland School of Law and was shot in three days. Mulgrew portrays Colonel Sims and she, the other cast members and crew agreed to defer their salaries to cover the production costs. The film has been screened at a number of sites and is available on DVD. In 2009, Mulgrew returned to television in the NBC medical series, "Mercy" playing the recurring role of Jeannie Flanagan (the mother of the show's lead, Veronica). Due for release in 2010 is the film "The Best and the Brightest", a comedy based in the world of New York City's elite private kindergartens. Mulgrew will play The Player's wife. Also in development is the film "The Incredible Story of Joyce McKinney and the Manacled Mormon". In 2010, Kate Mulgrew starred as Cleopatra in William Shakepeare's "Antony and Cleopatra" at Hartford Stage. As of July 2011, she has appeared in the Adult Swim series "". Also in 2011, Mulgrew appeared in the feature length documentary "The Captains". The film, written and directed by William Shatner, follows Shatner as he interviews each of the other actors who played a Starfleet captain within the "Star Trek" franchise. During that same year, she guest starred on the third season of the series "Warehouse 13". Her character, Jane Lattimer, is part of a story arc which has continued into the fourth season. Mulgrew has appeared as a main cast member on Adult Swim's "" since 2011 as Kove, the leader of the titular terrorism-fighting unit and ex-wife of series lead Paul Scheer's character. In 2013 Mulgrew starred as Galina 'Red' Reznikov in the Netflix original series "Orange is the New Black". Personal life. From her first marriage to Robert H. Egan, Mulgrew has two sons, Ian and Alec. For a time, Mulgrew dated Star Trek director Winrich Kolbe. In April 1999, Mulgrew married politician Tim Hagan, a former Ohio gubernatorial candidate and a former commissioner of Cuyahoga County, Ohio. Mulgrew's mother Joan introduced them, and Hagan proposed to Mulgrew on the set of "Star Trek: Voyager". Mulgrew is also a member of the National Advisory Committee of the Alzheimer's Association. Mulgrew's mother, Joan Mulgrew, died on July 27, 2006, after a long battle with the disease. Mulgrew is also an opponent of abortion and capital punishment. She received an award from Feminists for Life, a pro-life feminist group. She is quoted as saying "Execution as punishment is barbaric and unnecessary", "Life is sacred to me on all levels" and "Abortion does not compute with my philosophy." References. Notes
1463224	Ganesh Prasad (1876 – 1935) was an Indian mathematician who specialized in the theory of potentials, theory of functions of a real variable, Fourier series and the theory of surfaces. He was trained at the Universities of Cambridge and Göttingen and on return to India he helped develop the culture of mathematical research in India. The mathematical community of India considers Ganesh Prasad as the "Father of Mathematical Research in India". He was also an educator taking special interest in the advancement of primary education in the rural areas of India. Early Days. Ganesh Prasad was born on 15 November 1876 at Ballia, Uttar Pradesh. He obtained the B.A. degree from Muir Central College, Allahabad, M.A. degree from the Universities in Allahabad and Calcutta and the D.Sc. degree from Allahabad University. After teaching at the Kayasth Pathshala, Allahabad, and at the Muir Central College, Allahabad, for about two years, he proceeded to Cambridge for higher studies and research.
581950	Rahul Bose (born 27 July 1967) is an Indian actor, screenwriter, director, social activist, and amateur rugby union player. Bose has appeared in Hindi films such as "Pyaar Ke Side Effects" and "Jhankaar Beats". He also played the antagonist in the 2013 Tamil-Hindi film "Vishwaroopam". "Time" magazine named him "the superstar of Indian arthouse cinema while "Maxim" named him "the Sean Penn of Oriental cinema"." for his work in parallel cinema films like "English, August" and "Mr. and Mrs. Iyer". He is also notable for his social activism: he participated in the relief efforts that followed the 2004 Boxing Day Tsunami and is also the founder of the anti-discrimination NGO, "The Foundation". Early life. Rahul Bose was born to Rupen and Kumud Bose on 27 July 1967. He describes himself as "half Bengali; one-fourth Punjabi and one-fourth Maharashtrian". Bose spent his early childhood in Kolkata, West Bengal and then moved to Mumbai with his family. His first acting role was at age six when he played the lead in a school play, "Tom, the Piper's Son". As a child he took an interest in sports after his mother introduced him to boxing and rugby union. He also played cricket and was coached by cricketer Mansoor Ali Khan Pataudi. He is an alumnus of the Cathedral and John Connon School in Mumbai. After being rejected by a number of American universities, Bose attended Sydenham College. While at the college he played on the school's rugby team and competed in the Western India Championships, winning a silver medal in boxing. After his mother's death in 1987, Bose began working as a copy writer at Rediffusion and was later promoted to advertising creative director. Bose left the job to become a full-time actor after the release of his first film, "English, August". Stage and film career. Early career: 1993–2003. Bose started his acting career on the Bombay stage in Rahul D'Cunha's "Topsy Turvey" and "Are There Tigers In The Congo?". D'Cunha's aunt was the casting director for director Dev Benegal's film "English, August" and suggested that Bose should play the lead role. After filming a screen test, Benegal decided to cast him as civil servant Agastya Sen. Based on the novel of the same name by Upamanyu Chatterjee, "English, August" was one of the first Hinglish films and gained Bose international recognition when it became the first Indian film to be purchased by 20th Century Fox and won several awards at international film festivals. After "English, August" Bose found work in television; he was offered a role in India's first English-language television serial, "A Mouthful of Sky" and also co-hosted BBC World's "Style!" with Laila Rouass. In 1998 he appeared in Kaizad Gustad's "Bombay Boys" with Naseeruddin Shah and starred in Dev Benegal's second film, "Split Wide Open". To prepare for his role as a roving water vendor, Bose lived in Mumbai's slums and observed a drug dealer for two weeks. He later cited this time—along with the 2002 Gujarat riots—as the beginning of the awakening of his social conscience. Although "Split Wide Open" was controversial in India because of its depictions of sexual abuse, Bose received the Silver Screen Award for Best Asian Actor at the 2000 Singapore International Film Festival for his performance. He also performed abroad in the Leicester Haymarket in England where he starred in the English version of Tim Murari's play, "The Square Circle". In 1997, Bose was cast to play the role of Saleem Sinai in the BBC adaptation of Salman Rushdie's novel "Midnight's Children". The project was eventually canceled after the Indian and Sri Lankan governments refused to allow filming. After seeing Bose in "English, August", director Govind Nihalani cast him in the villain role opposite Ajay Devgan in the mainstream film "Thakshak". The film was not a financial success, although Bose received positive reviews. In 2001, Bose made his directorial debut with "Everybody Says I'm Fine!". Starring Rehaan Engineer and Koel Purie and featuring Bose in a supporting role, "Everybody" received mixed reviews from critics, but won Bose the runner-up John Schlesinger Award for best directorial debut at the 2003 Palm Springs International Film Festival. In 2002, Bose starred opposite Konkona Sen Sharma in Aparna Sen's art film "Mr. and Mrs. Iyer". The film, a critique of communal violence, was a critical success and won several awards at international film festivals as well as three National Film Awards. Mainstream success and regional cinema: 2003–present. In 2003, Bose entered mainstream Bollywood cinema with "Jhankaar Beats" in which he played one of two friends, R.D. Burman fans who are obsessed with winning a music competition. Boosted by a successful soundtrack, "Jhankaar Beats" was a surprise hit in urban multiplexes and went on to win several awards for its music. The same year, Bose appeared in another Bollywood film, "Mumbai Matinee" which saw a UK release. He starred in "Chameli" opposite Kareena Kapoor, playing a wealthy chain-smoking Mumbai banker who is stranded in the monsoon rains with a prostitute. The film was not a box office success, but won several Filmfare and IIFA awards. He was the screnwriter of Hero Bhakti Hi Shakti Hai of Hungama TV in 2005. Bose's second film pairing with Konkona Sen Sharma, "15 Park Avenue" released in January 2006. Directed by Aparna Sen and filmed in English, "15 Park Avenue" won the 2006 National Film Award for Best Feature Film in English. With his next effort, the romantic comedy "Pyaar Ke Side Effects", Bose moved once more into mainstream Bollywood cinema. The film follows the rocky relationship of Bose's commitment phobic Mumbai DJ Sid and his Punjabi girlfriend, Trisha played by Mallika Sherawat. Critics noted the freshness of Bose's narration style which involves breaking the fourth wall, a device not commonly used in Indian cinema. The film opened well in multiplexes and was a moderate financial success, eventually ranking among the top-grossing films of 2006. Both Bose and Sherawat received positive reviews for their performances. Sherawat and Bose also starred together in another Bollywood comedy, "Maan Gaye Mughal-e-Azam" (2008), which was a commercial and critical failure. In 2006, Bose starred in the first of a trio of Bengali films, Aniruddha Roy Chowdhury's "Anuranan". "Anuranan" was well received on the festival circuit and ran successfully for three months in Bengal. It was then dubbed into Hindi and released nationally. "Kaalpurush", Bose's second Bengali film, was released commercially in April 2008. "Kaalpurush" details a father-son relationship and earned writer-director Buddhadev Dasgupta a National Film Award for Best Feature Film. Bose teamed with Chowdhury again in 2009 for "Antaheen" which tells the story of online relationships. Like "Anuranan", "Antaheen" was released commercially in West Bengal and was screened at various film festivals, including the Mahindra Indo-American Arts Council Film Festival (MIACC) and the International Film Festival of India (IFFI). "Antaheen" went on to win several National Awards including one for Best Film. Bose continued working in a mix of mainstream and arthouse films in 2008, with the English-language film, "Before the Rains". "Before the Rains" was released in the US and the UK and Bose's performance was praised by many critics, although the film received mixed reviews. Bose also appeared in "Shaurya", a military court room drama modelled on the American film "A Few Good Men". Bose's performance was well-received; critic Taran Adarsh said his "performance easily ranks as one of his finest works". His appearance in "Dil Kabaddi" paired him with Konkona Sen Sharma for the third time, this time playing a husband and wife undergoing marital difficulties. "The Japanese Wife", with Japanese actress Chigusa Takaku, the third Aparna Sen film in which he has appeared, released on 9 April 2010. He also appeared as a contestant in the reality show "Khatron Ke Khiladi" where he was eliminated in the 12th round. He hosted the second series of Bloomberg UTV reality show "The Pitch". His role as a gay man harassed by the police in "I Am" was appreciated by critics. He appeared in Deepa Mehta's version of "Midnight's Children" where he essayed the role of General Zulfikar. He also played the villain in the 2013 Tamil film "Vishwaroopam". He was scheduled to begin shooting his adaptation of Mohsin Hamid's novel, "Moth Smoke" in early 2010, but the project was postponed after the film's financial backers pulled out. He secured new funding, and the film will begin principal photography in summer 2013. His other upcoming projects include Suman Mukhopadhyay's "Shesher Kabita" where Bose will co-star alongside of Konkona Sen Sharma. Sports career. In 1998, Bose was part of the first Indian national rugby team to play in an international event, the Asian Rugby Football Union Championship. He has played both scrum-half and right-winger positions. In an interview with "Daily News & Analysis", Bose announced that he would not return to the team for the 2009 season. Activism. Bose assisted in the relief efforts in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands after the 2004 Boxing Day Tsunami. As a result of this work, Bose launched the Andaman and Nicobar Scholarship Initiative through his NGO, The Foundation. The scholarship program provides for the education of underprivileged children from the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. Bose is associated with several charitable organizations such as Akshara Centre, Breakthrough, Citizens for Justice and Peace and the Spastics Society of India. He is closely associated with the Teach For India movement to eradicate inequity in education. In addition, he became the first Indian Oxfam global ambassador in 2007. He is the founder and chairman of The Group of Groups, an umbrella organisation for 51 Mumbai charitable organisations and NGOs. He is also an ambassador for the American India Foundation, the World Youth Peace Movement and Planet Alert. He was also a vocal proponent of Narmada Bachao Andolan and its efforts to halt the construction of the Narmada dam. He also recorded the Terre des hommes audio book "Goodgoodi karna, gale lagana; Sparsh ke niyam sikhiye" (English: "Tickle and hugs: Learning the touching rules"), which is designed to give children resources against sexual abuse. Bose has given lectures on gender equality and human rights at Oxford and during the 2004 World Youth Peace Summit. In 2009, he toured Canada lecturing on global climate change under the auspices of Climate Action Network and demonstrated with protesters at the Copenhagen Climate Change Summit. In 2011, he worked in conjunction with Bhaichung Bhutia to raise funds for victims of the Sikkim earthquake. Recently in the 8th convocation of BRAC University Bangladesh, which was held at the Bangabandhu International Conference Centre in the capital on 17 February 2013, the convocation speech was delivered by Bose. He praised BRAC’s efforts at alleviating poverty not only in Bangladesh, but in many countries around the world and also motivated the fresh graduates with an inspirational speech. Personal life. Rahul Bose formerly dated Koel Purie, who he directed in his film, "Everybody Says I'm Fine!". They met in 1998 while filming an episode of the travel show "The Great Escape" for Travel Channel Asia. The couple remained good friends after their split, even appearing together in the 2004 film "White Noise". Bose has one elder sister, Anuradha, who is married to Tariq Ansari, the owner and director of Mid-Day Multimedia. She had a cameo role in "Everybody Says I'm Fine!".
567648	Jesper Christensen (born 16 May 1948) is a Danish actor. A veteran of European cinema, he has more recently made the transition to English language projects, including "The Interpreter" and "Revelations". He has also appeared as the mysterious villain Mr. White in the James Bond film "Casino Royale" and its sequel, "Quantum of Solace". In his home country, Christensen has won four Bodil Awards, three for Best Actor ("Hør, var der ikke en som lo?", "Bænken", and "Drabet") and one for Best Supporting Actor ("Barbara"). In 2006 Jesper Christensen declined the offer to receive the Knight's Cross of the Order of the Dannebrog. He said that he thought the entire idea of monarchy is a crime against the members of the royal family, and does not fit with modern ideas.
192284	Adam Ries (1492 – March 30, 1559) was a German mathematician. He is also known by the name Adam Riese.
586950	Jaya Battacharya () is an Indian television actress. She has also done small roles in movies. She is of Bengali descent. Acting career. She played a small role in the 2002 Bollywood film Devdas and in the 2001 film Lajja. She also comes on television shows like Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi and Banoo Main Teri Dulhan. She gave a cameo appearance in the 2000 hindi film Fiza. She plays the antagonist and some part of the protagonist in Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi. She plays the aunt of Sagar Pratap Singh in Banoo Main Teri Dulhan. She has also worked in the film "Jigyaasa" where she played a Film Maker who wants to film a Documentary on the Actress. This character is much similar to Alice Patten part from the movie Rang De Basanti. She has also acted in Kasamh Se as the temporary Jigyaasa in 2007. She is currently seen in Jhansi Ki Rani in the historic television series from Zee TV as sakku bhai which again has negative shades.
584976	Ullasamga Utsahamga is a 2008 Telugu film, starring Yasho Sagar and Sneha Ullal in their debut directed by A. Karunakaran. With music composed by G. V. Prakash Kumar, the film was released on 25 July 2008. It was remade into Kannada as "Ullasa Utsaha" (2009). It was also dubbed and released into Malayalam as "Ayyo Pavam". Plot. Dhanalakshmi a.k.a. Dhana (Sneha Ullal) is the only daughter of a landlord who has over 50 crore property. As she lost her mother in her childhood, her father marries another woman (Kavitha). However, Dhana faces neglect from her stepmother. After Dhana's father passes away, there is no one to console her and the only friend who showed affection was Balaji. He too leaves her after she completes her schooling. After Dhana grew up, she bequeaths her father's property and her mother eyes it and wanted to marry Dhana against her wishes. So Dhana escapes from house and takes shelter in her friend's house in Hyderabad. Aravind (Yasho Sagar), son of a garage owner, is a vagabond. He comes across Dhanalaxmi and loses his heart to her. However, after a few encounters, Dhana gets caught by her stepmother and when she is about take her away, Aravind helps her from the abduction with the help of police. This makes Dhana to befriend with Aravind and she reveals her childhood friendship and tells Aravind that she is in love with Balaji and can't imagine any other in his place. After refusal, Aravind decides to go to Kolkata in search of a job and at the same time, Dhana also comes to know that Balaji is in Kolkata. They both again meet in train and accidentally Dhana misses the train during the journey. So Aravind helps her reach Kolkata to meet Balaji. In the process, Aravind gets severely hurt in the hands of a criminal, who tries to implicate Dhana in a narcotics case. Later, Aravind takes Dhana to Balaji's house in Kolkata. Dhana's stepmother also reaches Kolkata and agrees for Dhana's marriage with Balaji. When the marriage is about to take place, Dhana realises that her stepmother enacted a drama and created a fake Balaji to impress Dhana. Again Aravind comes to her rescue and at that time Dhana realises that she is in love with Aravind and the film ends on a happy note. Box office. The movie was a huge success and also collected a good amount from overseas markets as well. The debutante actors stole the show. Comedy was appreciated while the climax scene was another highlight. The rating of Jeevi (popular critic) on the film was a whopping 3/5. "Ullasamga Utsahamga" completed a 100 day-run in 10 centers. Soundtrack. The soundtrack consisted of seven songs composed by G. V. Prakash. Lyrics were written by Anantha Sriram.
1161383	James Adomian (born January 31, 1980) an American actor and stand-up comedian. He was born in Omaha, Nebraska and currently lives in New York City. He is best known for his work on "Comedy Bang Bang", "Last Comic Standing" and "The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson" where he impersonated President George W. Bush until 2009. He is partly of Armenian descent. Early life. Born in Omaha, Nebraska, Adomian moved to Atlanta and later Los Angeles. Adomian is an alumnus of Los Angeles Baptist High School and graduated from Whittier College with a self-designed major in Economics and Theatre Arts. Career. Television and film. In 2012, Adomian appeared on IFC's "Comedy Bang Bang (TV Series)" as PBS broadcaster Huell Howser, on Adult Swim's "Childrens Hospital" as Madonna and on MTV's "Money from Strangers" as himself, also making regular appearances as various sketch characters on "Conan". In 2011, he was cast as a co-lead in the un-aired Kari Lizer pilot project for NBC alongside Sarah Paulson and Tim Meadows. In summer 2010, he appeared on NBC's "Last Comic Standing" as a top-ten finalist, and also starred in the un-aired "Krog" pilot for Cartoon Network. Adomian began appearing as President George W. Bush frequently on "The Late Late Show" after Craig Ferguson took over hosting the show in January 2005 until 2009. He has appeared on several other comedy programs, including "MADtv", "Mind of Mencia", "Jimmy Kimmel Live!", "Short Circuitz", "Atom TV", "Cavemen", "Recount" and "Players". Adomian has appeared in the films "Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay" and "Miss March". As a voiceover artist, Adomian performed on The Onion Radio News, as several recurring characters on the PBS cartoon series WordGirl, as President Bush on a few episodes of MADtv, as Jimmy Kimmel on Celebrity Deathmatch and on a number of other cartoons. Podcasts and internet. Since 2009, Adomian has appeared as a frequent guest on many comedy podcast episodes, including Comedy Bang Bang, Sklarbro Country, The Todd Glass Show and WTF with Marc Maron becoming well-known to audiences for his impressions and characters in that new free-form internet medium. His most notable podcast impressions skew towards the absurd, unusual and high-energy, including Jesse Ventura, Huell Howser, Paul Giamatti, Gordon Ramsay, Dov Charney, food critic Merrill Shindler, Gary Busey, Tim Gunn, Richard Branson, Tom Leykis and several fellow comedians such as Todd Glass and Andy Kindler. Adomian has released several viral internet videos in recent years, including "Hillary's Downfall" and several videos as George W. Bush. Other videos on YouTube and Funny or Die include performances as Sam Elliott, Jesse Ventura, Alan Moore, Brett Favre, Vincent Price, Orson Welles, Gary Busey, Lewis Black, wrestler Hacksaw Jim Duggan and George Zimmer from The Men's Wearhouse. He also appeared as "The Gunslinger" in Chad, Matt & Rob's Interactive Adventure, "The Treasure Hunt." During the Bush presidency, Adomian released several YouTube videos as Bush for a number of liberal organizations, including Working Assets, Laughing Liberally, Free Press and OpenLeft. Stand-up comedy album. In 2012, Adomian released his debut comedy album "Low Hangin Fruit". The release was the first album released by Earwolf, and received mostly positive reviews. The one-hour stand-up set features personal stories, a number of celebrity impressions and political material including observations regarding the cultural perceptions of LGBT people. Live appearances. Adomian frequently performs live at Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre in sketch and stand-up shows such as Comedy Bang Bang, Who Charted?, and many others. He is also an alumnus of the Sunday Company at The Groundlings Theatre, where he still frequently performs. He also regularly performs at "The Tomorrow Show" and other stand-up shows in Hollywood. Adomian is known for doing many impressions at live shows, both in-costume and as part of his standup act, including Vincent Price, Lewis Black, Orson Welles, Jesse Ventura, Paul Giamatti, Michael Caine, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Sam Elliott, Al Franken, Huell Howser, Christopher Hitchens, Gary Busey, John McCain, Joe Lieberman, Marc Maron, Jimmy Kimmel, Andy Kindler, Tom Leykis, Todd Glass and George W. Bush. He has performed several impressions as recurring characters on the "Comedy Bang Bang" podcast. Adomian often makes live appearances around the country doing standup or characters, particularly at left-wing and progressive political events like YearlyKos, Laughing Liberally, the National Conference for Media Reform and campaign events for Congressman Alan Grayson. In 2010, he made several live standup appearances across North America in the Breaking Even tour. In 2008, he appeared with comedian Greg Giraldo at venues around the country as part of the Indecision '08 Tour produced by Comedy Central. He has performed at comedy festivals across North America, including Just for Laughs in Montreal. In March 2012, Adomian had his first overseas appearance, headlining a sell-out two night show in Seoul, South Korea for Stand Up Seoul. Personal life. Adomian is openly gay.
1067315	The Condemned is a 2007 American action film written and directed by Scott Wiper, starring Stone Cold Steve Austin, Vinnie Jones, Robert Mammone, Madeleine West and Rick Hoffman. The film centers on ten convicts who are forced to fight each other to the death as part of an illegal game which is being broadcast to the public. "The Condemned" was filmed in Queensland. Fight choreography was coordinated by Richard Norton, who also stunt doubles for Jones on some scenes. The film was produced by WWE Studios (then WWE Films) and distributed by Lionsgate on April 27, 2007. Plot. Jack Conrad (Steve Austin) is awaiting execution in a corrupt Salvadoran prison. He is "purchased" by a wealthy television producer and transported to a deserted island in the South Pacific along with nine other condemned criminals similarly purchased from prisons around the world. They are "offered" the opportunity to avoid capital punishment and win back their freedom by fighting to the death in an illegal game to be filmed and broadcast live over the Internet. A bomb is placed on the ankle of every contestant, each featuring a 30-hour countdown timer, and a ripcord that will detonate the bomb after a ten second delay. The winner will have the bomb removed and be given their freedom as well as a pocket full of cash as the prize. Ian Breckel (Robert Mammone), the producer, is aiming for online ratings that equal or beat the latest Super Bowl reception of 40 million television viewers. As the broadcast progresses, FBI agents discover Conrad's real identity as Jack Riley after a tip from one of Conrad's former classmates. Conrad is discovered to be a former Delta Force operative who was captured on a Black ops mission to El Salvador after bombing a building controlled by drug dealers. Conrad's girlfriend Sarah (Madeleine West) becomes aware of the situation and watches the show at a local bar as it unfolds. Ewan McStarley (Vinnie Jones) and Saiga (Masa Yamaguchi) team up to remove the competition, while Yasantwa (Emelia Burns) uses her wiles to trick others to their death. After seeing the show's broadcast tower before the show, Conrad infiltrates the tower and calls Sarah, managing to tell her the latitude of the island before he is forced to leave. After the other seven contestants have died, Conrad is left alone against McStarley and Saiga. He stabs Saiga, and McStarley flees. Eventually, a helicopter drops a shotgun down to McStarley, who uses it to hunt down Conrad. After Conrad falls into a stream, McStarley runs into the cameraman and his armed guard dressed in ghillie suits while searching for Conrad, and shoots them, picking up the guard's MP5 submachine gun. When McStarley and Conrad meet again, Conrad ends up rolling over a cliff and into a stream to avoid being shot by McStarley's shotgun. Conrad is presumed dead by the fall, and McStarley is declared the winner. As McStarley is being driven to the control tower to collect his prize, Breckel hears that the FBI has sent United States Navy SEALs to take him into custody. After he meets McStarley and de-activates his bomb, he tells him that he will not receive his prize money. Breckel and McStarley fixed the game in his favor in exchange for his freedom and profits. McStarley takes an MP5 from one of the guards, and kills the tech team in the building, one by one, since they truthfully did not know that Breckel is abandoning them all. When he corners Julie, Breckel's girlfriend, he is confronted by Conrad, who shoots him several times after talking briefly. Conrad grabs McStarley's two machine guns and chases down Breckel, who is fleeing the island in a helicopter. After emptying the two guns firing at the helicopter, he is given McStarley's re-activated ankle bomb by Julie. Conrad throws it into the helicopter, which explodes and crashes into a cliff. The epilogue shows Conrad being driven back to his home in Texas, a free man, and meets Sarah, who presumed him dead after he fell off the cliff in his struggle against McStarley. The film ends with Conrad smiling slowly. Cast. On one of the two DVD audio commentary tracks, Steve Austin notes that he was originally cast for the villain role of Ewan McStarley (which eventually went to Vinnie Jones) and that the role of Jack Conrad was supposed to be played by one of two stars from Hollywood that Austin chose not to mention. Soundtrack. The Condemned (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) was released on April 24, 2007. It was composed by Graeme Revell. It is exclusively available on the iTunes Store. Other songs featured in the film, but not included on the soundtrack: Release. Critical response. The critical response to the film was overwhelmingly negative. Rotten Tomatoes lists the film with a 16% rating, registering 15 "fresh" reviews out of 95, while Metacritic gives the film a 23% rating. Complaints against "The Condemned" included accusations of plot holes, overly preachy tone, and massive amounts of violence untempered by comic relief, irony, or plot progression. V.A. Musetto of the "New York Post" (considered a "top critic" by Rotten Tomatoes) gave the film zero stars out of four, describing it as a "sickeningly violent and inane movie" and complaining that it is a bad rip-off of "Battle Royale" and "The Most Dangerous Game". One of the few positive reviews came from Michael Booth of the "Denver Post". He described the concept as ""The Truman Show" meets "Con Air"" and makes positive notes the reality television aspects of the story, although he cautions readers not to expect "high art" based on the 3 star rating he gives the film. Box office. The film debuted with a $3.8m opening weekend in the US. The film lasted only 4 weeks in theaters and posted a big loss, closing with a total of $7,371,706. The movie fared worse internationally, taking only $1,271,152 in limited foreign markets, for a total of $8,642,858. Home media. On September 18, 2007, "The Condemned" was released on DVD and Blu-ray. Opening at no.4, "The Condemned" brought in $6,520,918 in the first week. Overall, it has sold an estimated 1.185 million DVD units earning $22,673,378, more than 200% it's box office gross. The majority of WWE Stars' films tend to do poorly at the box office but have a strong following in the home entertainment market. "The Condemned" was released in Australia on January 4, 2008, with an MA15+ rating (Strong Violence, Strong Coarse Language). It was released in New Zealand DVD in February 2008 with an R18 rating (Contains Violence and Offensive Language). The DVD made its release in the United Kingdom on March 24, 2008 with a rating of 18 (Contains Strong Violence and Language). This was a straight to DVD release in the United Kingdom.
1102698	Paul Richard Halmos (; March 3, 1916 – October 2, 2006) was a Hungarian-born American mathematician who made fundamental advances in the areas of probability theory, statistics, operator theory, ergodic theory, and functional analysis (in particular, Hilbert spaces). He was also recognized as a great mathematical expositor. Early life and education. Halmos obtained his B.A. from the University of Illinois, majoring in philosophy and minoring in mathematics. He took only three years to obtain the degree, and was only 19 when he graduated. He then began a Ph.D. in philosophy; but, after failing his masters' oral exams, he shifted to mathematics, graduating in 1938. Joseph L. Doob supervised his dissertation, titled "Invariants of Certain Stochastic Transformations: The Mathematical Theory of Gambling Systems". Career. Shortly after his graduation, Halmos left for the Institute for Advanced Study, lacking both job and grant money. Six months later, he was working under John von Neumann, which proved a decisive experience. While at the Institute, Halmos wrote his first book, "Finite Dimensional Vector Spaces", which immediately established his reputation as a fine expositor of mathematics. Halmos taught at Syracuse University, the University of Chicago (1946–60), the University of Michigan, the University of California at Santa Barbara (1976–78), the University of Hawaii, and Indiana University. From his 1985 retirement from Indiana until his death, he was affiliated with the Mathematics department at Santa Clara University. Accomplishments. In a series of papers reprinted in his 1962 "Algebraic Logic", Halmos devised polyadic algebras, an algebraic version of first-order logic differing from the better known cylindric algebras of Alfred Tarski and his students. An elementary version of polyadic algebra is described in monadic Boolean algebra. In addition to his original contributions to mathematics, Halmos was an unusually clear and engaging expositor of university mathematics. This was so even though Halmos arrived in the U.S. at 13 years of age and never lost his Hungarian accent. He chaired the American Mathematical Society committee that wrote the AMS style guide for academic mathematics, published in 1973. In 1983, he received the AMS's Steele Prize for exposition.
1415472	Only the Brave is a 2006 independent film about the 100th Infantry Battalion/442nd Regimental Combat Team, a segregated World War II fighting unit primarily made up of "Nisei" Japanese Americans, which for its size and length of service became the most decorated unit in U.S. military history. The film, produced and directed by Lane Nishikawa is a fictionalized account of the rescue of the Lost Battalion. Plot. In 1953, Jimmy Takata (Nishikawa) suffers from "battle fatigue" (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder), to the great concern of his wife, Mary (Tomita). Raised in Hawai'i, Takata and some of his friends enlisted in the 100th Battalion, serving in the European Theater of Operations. In a series of flashbacks, he remembers the war and events in his life surrounding it. Following a head injury, he begins to have visions, and believes that he is seeing memories of other men, including his friend Freddy Watada (Watanabe) as he courted Mary (who would later be Jimmy's wife) before entering the Army. Freddy receives a "million-dollar wound" (one which is serious enough to require evacuation to the United States, but not permanently disabling), and he shows Takata an engagement ring, purchased before being sent to Europe, which he intends to give Mary upon his return.
1043685	Mark Lester (born Mark A. Letzer; 11 July 1958) is an English former child star and actor known for playing the title role in the 1968 musical film version of "Oliver!" and starring in a number of other British and European films of the 1960s and 1970s and in a number of television series. Early life. Lester was born in the city of Oxford in Oxfordshire in Southern England, to actress Rita Keene Lester and actor and producer Michael Lester (originally Michael Boris Letzer). His father was Jewish and his mother Anglican. Lester was educated at three independent schools: at Corona Theatre School in Ravenscourt Park in West London, followed by Tower House School, a boys' preparatory school near Richmond Park (also in West London), and at Halliford School in Shepperton in Surrey. Career as child actor. Lester initially had supporting roles in several British television series, including "The Human Jungle" and "Danger Man". In 1964, at the age of six, Lester was cast in Robert Dhery's film "Allez France!" (English title "The Counterfeit Constable") with Diana Dors (who appeared in the 1948 film version of "Oliver Twist"). He played a small part as the second schoolboy in "Fahrenheit 451". In 1967, at the age of eight, Lester was cast in the title role in the film version of Lionel Bart's musical "Oliver!". The multiple Academy Award-winning adaptation of Charles Dickens' novel co-starred Jack Wild, Ron Moody, Shani Wallis and Oliver Reed, and was directed by Sir Carol Reed. Since Lester could not sing, all of his singing in the movie was dubbed by Kathe Green, daughter of the film's music arranger Johnny Green. Lester was good friends with Wild throughout the making of the film and their friendship continued after production with Lester describing Wild as a "long lost brother". When Wild was nominated for an Academy Award for the film, they were flown together to the USA for the ceremony. These two child actors later reunited for "Melody" (1971), which depicted British schoolchildren in love. Tracy Hyde played the role of Melody in the film, which used music from the Bee Gees and Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young. In 1969, Lester received critical acclaim for his portrayal of a dysfunctional and withdrawn only child in "Run Wild, Run Free", starring opposite John Mills, and then as a disturbed child in the first regular episode of "Then Came Bronson". Lester's acting roles peaked as he starred in "Eyewitness" (1970), with Susan George, "Night Hair Child" with Britt Ekland, "Whoever Slew Auntie Roo?", with Shelley Winters, "Melody" and a film version of "Black Beauty" (all 1971). After this period, his acting roles in the UK would begin to wane as he found good roles harder to come by. He extended his range with roles in a series of films in Italy including "Redneck" (1972) with Telly Savalas and the Western "Scalawag" (1973) with Kirk Douglas. The final film of his Italian-based career was in the costume drama "La Prima volta sull'erba" (English title "The First Time on the Grass", 1974), which was nominated for the Golden Bear prize at the 25th Berlin International Film Festival. Lester wrapped up his British film career with the lead role in the all-star film "Crossed Swords" aka "The Prince and the Pauper" (1977), starring Raquel Welch, Charlton Heston, Rex Harrison, George C. Scott, and Oliver Reed, who had played Bill Sikes in "Oliver!". Adult life. After the poor reception of "Crossed Swords" Lester gave up acting at the age of 19. He took his A Levels at the age of 28 and became an osteopath, studying at the British School of Osteopathy. In 1993, Lester opened the Carlton Clinic, an acupuncture clinic in Cheltenham. He married in January 1993 and with his wife had 4 children but divorced in 2005. In 2006 he remarried, to Lisa, a psychiatric nurse. He is a patron of the theatre charity The Music Hall Guild of Great Britain and America. Lester was a close friend of Michael Jackson. In August 2009, Lester gave an interview to the British tabloid newspaper "News of the World", claiming that he could be the biological father of Paris Katherine Jackson, the late singer's daughter. Lester claimed to have been a sperm donor for Jackson in 1996, and announced that he was willing to take a paternity test to determine whether he was the father. However he had previously "rubbished" all claims that Jackson was not the father. His ex wife and the mother of his children, Jane Lester, also refuted these claims stating that Lester was "nuts" and had only gotten to know Jackson after the birth of his children in 2001, she stated that, "As soon as got a whiff of Jackson’s fame, he went ballistic." Brian Oxman, former lawyer for the Jackson family, rejected the claim in a television interview, stating, “The thing I always heard from Michael was that Michael was the father of these children, and I believe Michael."
1502390	Sally Ann Howes (born 20 July 1930) is an English actress and singer, who currently holds dual British-American citizenship. Her career on stage, screen and television has spanned over six decades. She is best remembered for the role of Truly Scrumptious in the 1968 musical film, "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang". Biography. Childhood film career. Howes was born in St John's Wood, London, the daughter of British comedian/actor/singer/variety star Bobby Howes (1895–1972) and actress/singer Patricia Malone (1899–1971). She is the granddaughter of Capt. J.A.E. Malone (died 1928), London theatrical director of musicals, and she has an older brother, Peter Howes, a retired professional musician and music professor. Her great-grandfather, Joseph Malone, was awarded the Victoria Cross in 1854 during the Crimean War. Her uncle, Pat Malone, was an actor on stage, films and television. Howes moved to the family's country house in Essendon, Hertfordshire for the duration of World War II. She was a show-business baby who lived a quiet, orderly childhood where she grew up with a nanny and was surrounded by a variety of pets and her parents' theatrical peers, including actor/writer Jack Hulbert and his wife, actress Cicely Courtneidge, who had an adjoining house. Her first taste of the stage was school productions, but as she came from a theatrical family, it was inevitable that another family friend, an agent who was visiting the Howes family for dinner, became impressed with her and not long after suggested the young Sally Ann for a role in a movie. Two hundred young girls had already been screen tested without success, and the producers were desperate to find a talented little girl to play the lead, and they asked her father to please rush in some pictures on the recommendation of the agent. The movie, "Thursday's Child", was written by playwright and screenwriter Rodney Ackland, also a close neighbor to the Howes family, and it would become Ackland's directorial debut. "Thursday's Child" (1943) launched her career. A second film, "The Halfway House" (1944), led to her being put under contract by Michael Balcon of Ealing Studios, and this was followed by many other film roles as a child actress including "Dead of Night" (1945) with Sir Michael Redgrave, "Pink String and Sealing Wax" (1946), "Nicholas Nickleby" (1947), "My Sister and I" (1948) and "Anna Karenina" (1948), with Vivien Leigh. At the age of 18, the Rank Organisation put her under a seven-year contract, and she went on to make the films, "Stop Press Girl" (1949), "The History of Mr. Polly" (1949) with John Mills, "Fools Rush In" (1949), and "Due mogli sono troppe" (1950). Musical theatre on the West End and Broadway. Howes had begun taking singing lessons on the recommendation of a visiting teacher friend not only to bring out her natural talents but also in effort to lower her speaking voice which was quite high-pitched. While still in her teens, she made her first musical-comedy stage appearance in "Fancy Free". In late 1950, she starred in a BBC TV version of "Cinderella". That same year, Howes accepted her first professional stage role in the Sandy Wilson musical, "Caprice", forcing her to terminate her contract with Rank, with whom she'd been unhappy with the film roles and being on "loan out". She was finding gainful employment in television and radio, and she was looking to flex her singing talent, something that both Balcon and Rank had overlooked. "Caprice" was followed by "Bet Your Life" with Julie Wilson, Arthur Askey and Brian Reece. She was also simultaneously on the radio with Askey and Reece. In 1953, she starred on the West End in the musical "Paint Your Wagon" with her father, Bobby Howes. The show ran for 18 months. It was followed by "Summer Song", also on the West End, firmly establishing her as a leading musical comedy star. This was followed by her critically acclaimed performance in the stage drama, "A Hatful of Rain". In the early-to-mid-1950s, she also mixed her theatre with television appearances and even modelling, commercials and product endorsements. She became a popular celebrity in England, even appearing as a comic-strip character in "TV Fun" serial comics and annuals, as a young, wholesome teacher in the wild American west at a time when Western TV shows were very popular. She appeared on the cover of many magazines, most notably "Life" (3 March 1958), when she was in the United States to take over from Julie Andrews in "My Fair Lady" on Broadway. In late 1957, Howes was offered the part (for the third time) to enable Andrews to join the cast of the London production. She had turned it down twice before. The first offer had been to join the USA touring company of the musical, and the second time she declined the part was due to her film commitment for "Admirable Crichton" (1957). With the persistence of Lerner and Loewe, however, she accepted the third time, for a year's contract, but at a higher salary than Julie Andrews. She became an instant hit as a very fiery Eliza Doolittle. In January 1958, Howes married Tony-winning composer Richard Adler ("The Pajama Game", "Damn Yankees") . The following December, she appeared on television in Adler's musical adaptation (which was written for her) of O.Henry's short story, "The Gift of the Magi." Adler and Bob Merrill collaborated on a musical version of W. Somerset Maugham's "Of Human Bondage" so that Howes could play Mildred. She appeared on many TV shows including those of Perry Como, Dinah Shore and Jack Paar in 1962, "The Tonight Show", plus appearing in "The Bell Telephone Hour", "The Kraft Music Hall", "The United States Steel Hour". She appeared on "The Ed Sullivan Show" four times. When her one-year contract in "My Fair Lady" was over, she returned to Britain to tape six one-hour variety shows "The Sally Ann Howes Show" for the British commercial television network. She was also personally requested to sing for three U.S. presidents (Dwight D. Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson). She became a frequent guest panellist on game shows and was known for her quick, spontaneous answers. She returned to Broadway in 1961 in the short run of "Kwamina", another Adler musical which was written for her. She starred opposite Terry Carter. The musical centred on an interracial love story and was too controversial in a time when civil rights were hotly contested. The show has not had a Broadway revival since. Coincidentally, her father, Bobby Howes, was also on Broadway that year with a short revival of "Finian's Rainbow", and a cast album exists of that show as well. In 1962, she starred in a short revival of the musical "Brigadoon" at the New York City Opera and received a Tony nomination, the first performer to be nominated for a revival performance. She recreated the role in a private White House performance at the express invitation of President and Mrs. Kennedy. In 1964 she starred on Broadway opposite Robert Alda and Steve Lawrence in the energetic "What Makes Sammy Run?", which lasted for over 500 performances. She returned to familiar territory on TV in 1966 with "Brigadoon" opposite Robert Goulet, Peter Falk and some of her Broadway cast; it won six Emmy Awards. "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang". In 1967, she began the long film shoot for what would become a popular children's film, as Truly Scrumptious, the beautiful, aristocratic daughter of a confectionery magnate in the movie "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang" (1968). "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang" did not, however, restart her film career or launch a career for her in episodic television despite several guest-starring roles in "", "Marcus Welby, M.D.", and "Branigan" and "The Men From Shiloh". Even the pilot "Prudence and the Chief", which was a spoof on "The King and I", did not get picked up as a TV series. In addition, musicals were now failing at the box office and that venue was closed to her. As a result, she returned almost exclusively to the musical stage, appearing in only a few more films/TV productions. Later theatrical career. In the 1970s, she toured Britain with "The King and I" and later the USA with "The Sound of Music". After her debut with the Los Angeles Civic Light Opera in 1972 with "The Sound of Music" she returned to Britain to star in the stage drama, "Lover," which was written specifically for her. In the 1970s and 1980s, she began to cross over from standard musicals to operettas. She performed two summers with the Kenley Players in "Blossom Time" and "The Great Waltz", and she later added Franz Lehár's "The Merry Widow" and then two seasons of Stephen Sondheim's "A Little Night Music" at the New York City Opera. She also added the role of Gertrude in "Hamlet" to her repertoire. In 1990, she debuted her one-woman show, "From This Moment On" at the Edinburgh Festival and at a benefit for the Long Island AIDS Association at the John Drew Theatre in Easthampton, New York. Her last film was the 1992 miniseries "Judith Krantz's Secrets." That marked her 50th year in film. Recent projects include her narrations of "Cubby Broccoli, The Man Behind Bond" on 2000 year release of the DVD "Diamonds Are Forever", "The Making of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang The Musical" (2002), and her appearance in the documentary, "After They Were Famous - Chitty Chitty Bang Bang" (2004). Except for occasional lectures, charity functions and some Broadway openings, she is semi-retired, although she still hosts events or performs two or three times per year. Over the period September 2007 to January 2008, she toured the USA in the Cameron Mackintosh production of "My Fair Lady", appearing as Mrs. Higgins. When she is not performing, she is an artistic advisor for the Palm Beach Theatre Guild, a non-profit organisation dedicated to preserving the Royal Poinciana Playhouse in Palm Beach, Florida. Personal life. Howes adopted Richard Adler's two sons, Andrew and Christopher (died 1984) after the death of his first wife (1964). She has been married to Douglas Rae since the early 1970s. She is a Great Aunt to Ella, Tom, William, Ned, Joe and Jordon Howes Performances. Television films, miniseries, series, musicals and specials. Early TV appearances included a guest appearance in "Cafe Continental" with her father when they faced the camera together for the first time. Other appearances included "Kaleidoscope, and her own Sunday night series called "Short and Sweet" with Harry Jacobson at the piano. She appeared in the 1951 Festival of Musical Production, which was written for her and entitled "The Golden Year." Radio. In the late 1940s and early 1950s, she appeared on many radio programmes including: "Ignorance is Bliss," "Geraldo's Open House," "Taxi" with Jerry Verno, "Desert Island Discs," "Talk Yourself Out of This," and she appeared twice on the "Calling All Forces" show. Discography. She has several Broadway, West End, TV and Film cast albums available including: She can also be found on the albums "The Best of the Telephone Hour", "Cole Porter: A Remembrance" (1965), "An Evening With Alan Jay Lerner" (1987), and the three Christmas songs she recorded, "Toyland", "It Came Upon A Midnight Clear", and "O Little Town of Bethlehem" can be found reissued each year on various compilation Christmas albums. The last known recording she made was a gift album for a party for a friend, called "Mary Lea, Songs My Sister Loved & Sang" (1998) for which she holds the production rights and copyright. Product endorsements and modelling. In the late 1940s and early 1950s, Sally Ann Howes lent her face to many products, of which a few are mentioned here: She did some modeling in the 1950s and early 1960s, and can be found in the following publications: Further reading. The following publications feature portions about her career and life. For magazine articles and covers, see her biography on the Internet Movie Database: .
1130135	Ruth Elizabeth Warrick (June 29, 1916 – January 15, 2005), DM, was an American singer, actress and political activist, best known for her role as Phoebe Tyler on "All My Children", which she played regularly from 1970 until her death in 2005. She celebrated her 80th birthday by attending a special screening of "Citizen Kane" to a packed, standing-room-only audience, to which she spoke afterward. (She made her film debut as Kane's first wife.) Over the years, she collected several books about Orson Welles and "Citizen Kane", in which she would write "Property of Ruth Warrick, Mrs. Citizen Kane". Early life. She was born in Saint Joseph, Missouri. Some sources still site 1915 as her birth year, though that is still currently disputed by others. By writing an essay in high school called "Prevention and Cure of Tuberculosis", Warrick won a contest to be Miss Jubilesta, Missouri's paid ambassador to New York City. Popular legend says that she made her debut in New York City on the steps of city hall with an armful of turkeys for Mayor Fiorello La Guardia. Warrick began her career in the 1940s as a radio singer where she met her first husband Eric Rolf, but her first big break was being hired by a young Orson Welles for "Citizen Kane", where she played Emily Monroe Norton. When she auditioned for the part, she read with Welles. She said that because she was so new to the acting business, she was not aware that it was very rare to actually read with the star. What she also didn't realize was that this was also Welles' first film role. "Citizen Kane" proved to be a major moment of her life and the long term success of the film would follow her for the rest of her life. Welles hired her again for his film "Journey into Fear" alongside fellow "Kane" actor Joseph Cotten. She worked alongside Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., in the film "The Corsican Brothers" and had a role in the Academy Award winning Disney film "Song of the South"; she also appeared in "Daisy Kenyon", which starred Joan Crawford and Henry Fonda, but by the late 1940s her film roles were becoming infrequent and less notable. In the 1950s, she befriended soap opera creator Irna Phillips and her protégé, Agnes Nixon. Warrick became a cast member on the soap opera "The Guiding Light", playing Janet Johnson, R. N. from 1953 to 1954. Phillips was impressed by Warrick's performance and hired her for her new soap opera, "As the World Turns" when the show debuted in 1956. Her character, Edith Hughes, was madly in love with a married man, Jim Lowell. Phillips wanted the characters to live happily ever after, but Procter & Gamble, which owned the show, demanded that the characters not endorse adultery, so Jim "died". Warrick stayed on the show until 1960, and was so popular with fans that she would return several times for holiday visits. Her character married another doctor Dr. Frye. From 1959-1960, she was the understudy for Una Merkel and future "All My Children" co-star Eileen Herlie in the Broadway production of "Take Me Along". During the 1961-62 television season, she starred in the MGM "Father of the Bride" television series. Then, in 1965, she joined the cast of the primetime serial, "Peyton Place", playing Hannah Cord. While there had been previous primetime serials (such as "One Man's Family"), none had enjoyed the phenomenal success of "Peyton Place". Warrick received an Emmy Award nomination for her work on this show in 1967, the same year she left the show. In 1969, she made her last major film, Disney's "The Great Bank Robbery". During this time, Agnes Nixon had been moving up the daytime television ranks. She had created her own show, "One Life to Live", in 1968. ABC approved her new show, "All My Children", in 1969, which was based on a treatment that Procter & Gamble had rejected a few years earlier. "All My Children". When "All My Children" debuted on January 5, 1970, Warrick was among the contracted cast, playing Phoebe Tyler (the character's full name via her marriages would eventually be Phoebe English Tyler Wallingford Matthews Wallingford). The show was an instant hit and Phoebe became a popular daytime character. Warrick received Daytime Emmy Award nominations in 1975 and 1977. In 1985, she played Hannah Cord in the television film "". She was on Broadway with Debbie Reynolds in the 1973 stage play "Irene". Due to health problems, actor Louis Edmonds, who portrayed Warrick's "All My Children" husband, left the show in 1995. Combined with Warrick's own health problems from old age, that signaled a reduction in her screen time in the 1990s. Warrick broke her hip while on vacation in Greece in 2001 and thenceforth used a wheelchair. Rumors circulated that head writer Richard Culliton was planning to kill off Phoebe and that Warrick would be dropped from the show for budgetary reasons ("General Hospital" had done this twice to Anna Lee, who had played matriarch Lila Quartermaine). Phoebe was not seen on screen until "All My Children"'s 35th anniversary show on January 5, 2005. This brief appearance would ultimately be Warrick's final screen appearance. When she was wheeled into the building, the cast and crew gave her a standing ovation to welcome her back after such a long absence. This episode featured not only a rare appearance from Warrick, but the return of her stepdaughter Verla, played by comedic legend Carol Burnett. This episode also featured Agnes Nixon. In 1971 she published a single with the song "41,000 Plus 4 The Ballad of the Kent State Massacre" as an hommage to Sandra Lee Scheuer, William Knox Schroeder, Jeffrey Glenn Miller & Allison Beth Krause, the four students killed at Kent State University during a demonstration against the Vietnam war. She published her autobiography, "The Confessions of Phoebe Tyler" (co-written by Don Preston) in 1980, the same year she won a Soapy Award (a prelude to the Soap Opera Digest Awards). She received a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and was on hand to receive her Daytime Emmy Award for Lifetime Achievement in 2004. Warrick was a member of the Democratic Party, working with the administrations of John F. Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson and Jimmy Carter on labor and education issues. Upon Carter's 1980 defeat, she sent him a long letter thanking him for his efforts. He replied, telling her that if he had hired her as a speechwriter, he would have been reelected. Warrick had generally liberal political views. In her first years at "All My Children", Warrick was flustered by her character's strong right wing politics and support of U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War, which Warrick personally adamantly opposed. In July 2000, she refused to accept a lifetime achievement award from the South Carolina Arts Commission because she was offended by legislators' decision to move the Confederate flag from the state Capitol dome to another spot on the grounds in response to a boycott of the state by flag opponents. A lifelong supporter of African-American rights, she felt the flag should be removed completely, and commented, "In my view, this was no compromise. It was a deliberate affront to the African-Americans, who see it as a sign of oppression and hate." Warrick's name popped up in television infotainment shows and supermarket racks in 2002 in connection with the highly publicized courtship and marriage of Liza Minnelli and David Gest. Gest had long been spreading the rumor that he and Warrick, 38 years his senior, were romantically involved. Confronted by a reporter to confirm or deny this, Warrick predicted that Minnelli would be disappointed on her honeymoon. Minnelli and Gest escalated the tabloid war by scolding Warrick for her insinuation about Gest's sexuality. Eventually, while not recanting her statement, Warrick apologized. In her senior years, she became a spokeswoman for the rights of senior citizens as well as the disabled and was appointed to the U.N. World Women's Committee on Mental Health. She died of complications related to pneumonia, aged 88, on January 15, 2005. She received a memorial tribute at the 11th annual Screen Actors Guild Awards. The day after the 2005 Academy Award ceremony, former castmate Kelly Ripa expressed her outrage on her national television show "Live with Regis and Kelly" that Warrick had not been included in the annual memorial tribute to actors who had died in the previous year on the telecast. Death. The January 24, 2005 episode of "All My Children" was dedicated "In Loving Memory of Ruth Warrick". Phoebe died off screen on January 15. Phoebe's funeral was aired May 12, 2005. The episode featured many of Warrick's most notable performances as flashbacks, and included the return of many of the characters who had been heavily involved in her storylines over the years. Film historian Scott Feinberg conducted the final interview with Warrick on August 14, 2004, at her apartment in New York City. After her death, her family put much of her estate in an auction. This auction included her extensive collection of art and photographs, as well as books signed by Bill and Hillary Clinton. Signed scripts from "Peyton Place" and "All My Children" as well as her Broadway appearances were also in the catalog. The centerpiece of the catalog was the 25th anniversary reprint script of "Citizen Kane", signed by Warrick, Joseph Cotten and Orson Welles, one of only 100 printed. Her family donated her 2004 Lifetime Achievement Emmy Award to a museum in her hometown of Saint Joseph, Missouri.
583731	Love You Hamesha is a 2001 Hindi musical film directed by Kailash Surendranath, with music by A. R. Rahman. The film features Akshaye Khanna and Sonali Bendre in the lead roles. The film was remade from the 1994 Tamil film "May Madham". Soundtrack. All songs were composed by A. R. Rahman. He reused the songs he had composed for the original film, "May Madham". The soundtrack features 6 songs with lyrics penned by Anand Bakshi.
1060952	Patricia T. Arquette (born April 8, 1968) is an American actress and director. Following her first major film role in "", she has appeared in films such as "True Romance", "Ed Wood", "Flirting with Disaster", "Lost Highway", "Stigmata", and "Holes". She played the lead character in the supernatural drama series "Medium" for which she received three Golden Globe nominations and two Emmy Award nominations, winning the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series in 2005. Early life and family. Arquette was born in Chicago, Illinois, the daughter of Lewis Arquette, an actor, and Brenda Olivia "Mardi" (née Nowak), an actress, poet, theater operator, activist, acting teacher, and therapist. Arquette's mother was Jewish, the daughter of a Holocaust survivor from Poland. Arquette's father was a convert to Islam from Catholicism, and was related to explorer Meriwether Lewis. Her paternal grandfather was comedian Cliff Arquette, and her siblings are actors Rosanna, Alexis, Richmond, and David Arquette. Career. In 1987, Arquette's first starring roles were as pregnant teenager Stacy in television film "Daddy", boarding school student Zero in "Pretty Smart", and the attention-getting Kristen Parker in "". In 1991, she won a CableACE Award for her portrayal of a deaf epileptic in "Wildflower". In 1993, she starred in Tony Scott's "True Romance". She has since appeared in such critically acclaimed movies as "Ed Wood" as the "worst ever" film director's eventual wife, "Beyond Rangoon", "Ethan Frome", "Lost Highway", "Little Nicky", "Stigmata", "Bringing Out the Dead", "Human Nature", Disney's "Holes", and "Flirting with Disaster".
1035264	Charlie Lomax David Condou (born 8 January 1973) is an actor and writer best known for playing sonographer, Marcus Dent, in the long-running TV series, "Coronation Street". Condou was listed number 15 in the World Pride Power list 2012, and 42 in the Pride Power List 2011. He is a supporter of Manchester Pride, a Patron of the charities Diversity Role models and the Albert Kennedy Trust, and a volunteer for the Terrence Higgins Trust. He also works closely with Stonewall. In October 2012, he was named in the British gay publication, "Attitude", as the magazine's "Man of the Year" at the inaugural "Attitude" awards and was their cover star for the November issue of the same year. Career. His acting career began in the 1985 American TV Movie, "The Key to Rebecca", at the age of twelve. His TV career continued throughout his teens with appearances in such TV series as "Robin of Sherwood" and "A Sense of Guilt". In 1987 he starred in the TV movie "Every Breath You Take" opposite British actress (and one-time wife of John Cleese) Connie Booth, as Tom, a child who develops diabetes. He continued in his twenties, playing a variety of roles in series like "Martin Chuzzlewit", "Pie in the Sky", "The Bill", "Peak Practice" and "Urban Gothic". Before his 2005 performance as Jonatton Yeah? in the short-lived Channel 4 sitcom,"Nathan Barley", Condou made guest appearances in a number of British TV series including, "The Infinite Worlds of HG Wells", and "Midsomer Murders" and had a minor part in the 2001 thriller "Charlotte Gray" where Cate Blanchett played the title role. In 2006 he appeared, as Renoir in the BBC drama The Impressionists. Other television and film roles included guest appearances as Nino in "Gimme, Gimme, Gimme" with his friend Kathy Burke, Dead Babies where he appeared alongside Paul Bettany, Olivia Williams and Kris Marshall. He had a cameo role as one of the elves in Fred Claus with Vince Vaughn and Kevin Spacey in 2007, before joining Coronation Street, in the summer of 2007. In the same year he appeared in the film Good starring Viggo Mortensen and Jason Isaacs. In 2008 he left Coronation Street. Speaking of his departure Condou said: "I have had a fantastic time in Coronation Street, but as a jobbing actor I believe it is time to move on. A Corrie spokeswoman said: "We'll be sad to see Charlie leave." At the time Condou indicated "there are a few things in the pipeline, one of which is a feature film which is being made abroad. But all that's under wraps at the moment." This film turned out to be "Good", released later that year. In March 2011 he returned to Coronation Street after an absence of almost three years. He had been promised that Marcus will become a leading character on the show following reports that Coronation Street was to have its first gay wedding in 2011 when Marcus Dent tied the knot with former flame Sean Tully. However the plot failed to materialise reflecting his growing unease with his on-screen pairing with Sean Tully, played by Antony Cotton. Coronation Street sources initially indicated that he would enjoy a much more prominent role in the show, possibly at the expense of Cotton. Personal life. Condou divides his time between Manchester and Islington where he lives with his Canadian boyfriend, Cameron Laux and his daughter and son, Georgia and Hal, who split their time between Condou and their mother, the actress Catherine Kanter. In a number of interviews, Condou has revealed that the children were conceived through IVF treatment, following Kanter's 40th birthday and relationship breakup. He wrote a column for "The Guardian" newspaper on the subject of same-sex parenting which was discontinued in July 2012. His second child with Catherine Kanter, Hal, was born in January 2012 and featured heavily in Condou's Guardian column "The Three of Us".
582101	Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham... (English: "Sometimes Happiness, Sometimes Sadness"), also known as K3G, is a 2001 drama film written and directed by Karan Johar and produced by his father, Yash Johar, under the banner of Dharma Productions. Written specifically to evoke nostalgia among the expatriate Indian audiences, the film stars Amitabh Bachchan, Jaya Bachchan, Shahrukh Khan, Kajol, Hrithik Roshan and Kareena Kapoor in leading roles, with Rani Mukerji appearing in an extended cameo appearance. The music was composed by Jatin Lalit, Sandesh Shandilya and Aadesh Shrivastava, with lyrics penned by Sameer and Anil Pandey. The background score was composed by Babloo Chakravarty. The film tells the story of an Indian family, which faces troubles and misunderstandings over their adopted son's marriage to a girl belonging to a lower socio-economic group than them. Development of the film began in 1998, soon after the release of Karan's debut film "Kuch Kuch Hota Hai" (1998). Principal photography began on 16 October 2000 in Mumbai and continued in London and Egypt. Initially scheduled to release during the Diwali festivities of 2001, the film eventually released in India, United Kingdom and North America on 14 December 2001. In 2003, it became the first Indian film to be given a theatrical release in Germany. Upon release, the film met with mixed reviews from film critics and received polarising reactions to Karan Johar's "larger-than-life" directorial style. Certain academicians criticised the portrayal of a "morally corrupt" British society against an "idealist" Indian society. Made on a budget of , "Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham..." emerged as a major commercial success, both domestically and internationally, with a lifetime gross of . Outside India, the film was the highest grossing Indian film ever, until its record was broken by Karan's next directorial, "Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna" (2006). "Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham..." won several awards at popular award ceremonies the following year, including five Filmfare Awards. Plot. Yashvardhan "Yash" Raichand (Amitabh Bachchan) is a rich businessman, living in India with his wife Nandini (Jaya Bachchan) and two sons Rahul and Rohan. Rahul is the elder son and was adopted by Yash and Nandini when he was first born. At the age of eight, he learns of this and as a result feels obliged to them. This truth is known to everyone in the Raichand household, with the exception of Rohan. Years later, a grown Rahul (Shah Rukh Khan) comes across the beautiful Anjali Sharma (Kajol). The two become friends and eventually fall in love. However, they know deep down that their relationship has no future, because Anjali is from a working class background. Yash and Nandini soon send Rohan off to Boarding School, somewhere all the males in their family have attended. Yash announces his desire for Rahul to marry Naina (Rani Mukherji), the daughter of his closest friend. Naina learns however that Rahul is in love with Anjali, and encourages him to follow his heart. When Yash comes to know of Rahul's love for Anjali, he is enraged and hurt. Rahul promises his father that he will not marry Anjali. When he goes to tell her that he cannot marry her, he is shocked to discover that her father (Alok Nath) has passed away. Unable to see the woman he loves in pain, he decides to marry her despite his father's hostility. Yash learns of the marriage and is furious. He disowns Rahul, saying he no longer considers him his son. Nandini and Rahul share a tearful goodbye. Nandini sends Sayeeda (Farida Jalal), Rahul and Rohan's nanny, to watch over her son so that he will never feel apart from a mother's love. Rahul visits Rohan in Boarding School and tells him that he is leaving home forever. He begs Rohan to never ask where he went or why he left and also asks that he take care of Nandini. Ten years later, Rohan (Hrithik Roshan) returns home from Boarding School. He learns from his grandmothers (Achala Sachdev and Sushma Seth) that Rahul was adopted, and the reason why Rahul left the house. Rohan vows to reunite the family. He travels to Chandini Chowk, where Anjali used to live and learns that Rahul, Anjali, and her younger sister Pooja moved to London. He tells his parents that he wishes to do some further studies in London; his parents agree to let him go. In London, Rahul is now a wealthy businessman. He and Anjali now have their own son, Krish. Pooja (Kareena Kapoor) is now a student at King's College London. Rohan enrolls there too. He and Pooja meet again and he tells her that he has come to London to bring his brother and sister-in-law back home. Pooja tells Rahul that Rohan is her friend's brother who currently has nowhere to stay. After some persuasion, Rahul agrees to let Rohan stay. Rohan constantly drops the family hints as to who he is. At Krish's school function he leads his class in singing the Indian National Anthem. Later, Krish recites advice which Rohan had given him. Rahul had given Rohan this advice 10 years back, so he now realises that he has been reunited with his brother all this time. Rohan begs Rahul to come back home, but the latter refuses as he believes his father will never accept him. Pooja convinces Rohan to invite his parents to London and have them meet Rahul, hoping this will encourage them to patch things up. Rahul and Nandini are overjoyed to see one another, however Rahul still refuses to talk to his father. Yash learns about Rohan's true intentions and is livid. Soon, Yash receives a phone call and learns that his mother is on her death bed; her last wish being for Yash, Rahul and Rohan to light her funeral pyre together. Although Yash does not want this, all the family attend the funeral together. Nandini now plucks up the courage to tell Yash that she thought he was wrong for disowning Rahul, whom he had brought up with so much love. Rohan and Pooja now talk to Rahul and convince him to talk to Yash. Yash now acknowledges his mistake and allows Rahul and Anjali to come back to the house. With the family reunited, Rohan and Pooja get married and the family also have a belated celebration of Rahul and Anjali's wedding. Cast. Achala Sachdev and Sushma Seth were cast as Yash and Nandini's mothers, respectively. The film also featured Johnny Lever as Haldiram (a shopkeeper in Chandni Chowk), Himani Shivpuri as Haldiram's wife, Jibraan Khan as Krish Raichand (Rahul and Anjali's son), Amar Talwar as Mr. Kapoor (Yash's friend and Naina's father). Ramona Sunavala, Jeroo Writer and Vikas Sethi feature as Poo's friends Sonya, Tanya and Robbie, respectively. Additionally, Ashutosh Singh features as Ashfaque, Rukshaar's husband. Shilpa Mehta, Shashikala and Parzan Dastur were cast as Ashfaque's mother, grandmother and nephew, respectively. Production. Development. After the success of Karan's debut film, "Kuch Kuch Hota Hai" (1998), he began work on a story dealing with the concept of "generations". The idea initially revolved around two daughters-in-law. However, on the advice of filmmaker Aditya Chopra, who thought that the male characters would be too weak, Karan decided to tweak the story-line to make it the story of two brothers. The inspiration behind "Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham..." came from Yash Chopra's "Kabhi Kabhie" (1976). On being inspired by the classic, Karan quoted, "What appealed to me was the fact that the love story stretched out across generations. It began with youth and went on as the people grew older. You could say that "Kabhi Kabhie" is the starting point for my new film, that I am inspired by it. But the film, I am sure, will be very different. It will look different, feel different." Similarly, Karan added an extra "e" to the second "Kabhi" in the title of his film, due to numerological reasons. In an interview with "The Times of India", Karan dispelled comparisons with "Kuch Kuch Hota Hai" and said that while his debut film was "frothy and bubble-gummish", this one was "more classy and sophisticated". He added that there would be "plenty of drama" in this film too, but handled more maturely. Before principal photography could begin, Karan and the contracted costume designers (Manish Malhotra, Shabina Khan and Rocky S.) shopped in several locations of USA, London, Milan, and New Delhi to get the right look for each of the cast members. Additionally, Karan had only one expectation from the contracted actors; to "look good and do their job". He did not organise any rehearsals for them, except for a scene involving a climatic encounter between Amitabh Bachchan and Roshan. Additional production people hired included choreographer Farah Khan, production designer Sharmishta Roy and cinematographer Kiran Deohans. Filming. The first schedule of the film began in Mumbai on 16 October 2000, with the picturisation of the song "Bole Chudiyan" involving Roshan, Kapoor, Khan and Kajol. Amitabh and Jaya Bachchan joined the schedule on 20 October. Due to the immense stress caused by the presence of these actors, Karan fainted on the sets. However, he continued directing the rest of the song while lying in bed. For the first half of "Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham...", the production design team recreated Chandni Chowk in a studio at Film City of Mumbai. In order to lend authenticity, the team took several pictures of the original area and also shopped in the various alleys of Chandni Chowk. The inside of a palatial mansion was developed from scratch in the same studio to double as the home of the Raichand family. In order to lend authenticity to the house of the multi-multimillionaires, several expensive paintings were hung from the walls. A total of 18–19 elaborate sets were constructed by Roy, as Karan wanted the look of the film to be "larger-than-life". The second half of the film was shot in the city of London. Karan chose to set the film there due to his fondness for the city. He added, "I could have based my plot in New York City or anywhere else. But London is kind of close to my heart. I like to weave my films around London." Shooting locations include the Wales Millennium Centre, Bluewater Complex, Kent, Blenheim Palace, St Paul's Cathedral and the banks of River Thames. The outdoor scenes of the Raichand family mansion were shot at Waddesdon Manor. The crew faced enormous difficulties while filming an emotional scene between Jaya Bachchan and Khan at the Bluewater Complex, as a massive crowd had gathered there to watch them at work. The situation, eventually, got worse and the complex officials asked them to wrap up the shoot within two hours. Another song sequence ("Suraj Hua Maddham") involving Khan and Kajol was shot with the backdrop of the Pyramids of Giza in the city of Cairo in Egypt, again a first for an Indian film. Due to the extreme heat, the crew could shoot only between 7 and 9 am in the morning. As a result, the song took several days to film. In addition, Kajol suffered from a minor injury while filming for the song, as she had experienced a bad fall. Music. The music of the film was composed by Jatin Lalit, Sandesh Shandilya and Aadesh Shrivastava. The lyrics were provided by Sameer, except for "Suraj Hua Maddham" which was penned by Anil Pandey. A total of 11 tracks are present in the album, which was released by Sony Music on 16 October 2001. Explaining the album, Karan Johar said, "I wanted music that had all kinds of tunes — pop, romantic, "bhangra" – but one sound. It had to be larger than life." He added that Jatin-Lalit came up with three "haunting melodies", while Shandilya and Shrivastava came up with the pop and "bhangra" songs, respectively. A legal suit was filed against Johar for using the song "It's Raining Men" in the film without obtaining prior permission. Upon release, the soundtrack of "Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham..." emerged as a major success by selling 25 lakh units within 30 days. Additionally, it became the largest selling album of the year in India. Writing for Rediff, Sukanya Varma praised most of the compositions, while being critical of the song "Say Shava Shava" due to the "overdose of Punjabi emotions". She summed up by saying, "The music of "K3G" has a presence. Hate it or love it, you certainly won't ignore it." Planet Bollywood gave it 8 of 10 stars, calling "Suraj Hua Maddham" the best song, and the best reason to buy the album. In 2002, Sony released another album titled "Klub K3G", featuring remixes by Indian electronic music producers Akshai Sarin, Harshdeep Sidhu, Prempal Hans and others. Release and reception. Initially scheduled for a theatrical release during the Diwali celebrations of 2001, "Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham..." released a month later on 14 December. Due to the long duration of the film, theatres screened three shows daily, instead of four. Additionally, due to a massive rush in advance bookings, several theatres increased their ticket prices. The use of "Jana Gana Mana" during the film was met with criticism from a certain section of the audiences, and politicians of the Bharatiya Janata Party, for being "out-of-context" and "insulting the national pride". Subsequently, a writ was issued against Dharma Productions in the Allahabad High Court by a petitioner based in Uttar Pradesh. However, the court did not entertain the complainant's petition. Critical reception. India. In India, "Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham..." met with polarised reactions from film critics. While certain critics praised the visual richness and the performances of the cast, certain others were negative about the lengthy run time and criticised the script strength and inconsistencies. Khalid Mohamed of "The Times of India" applauded the film and reviewed, ""K3G" is the complete commercial banquet delivered with fabulous finesse by Karan Johar. So, go indulge yourself. Cry your heart out and surprisingly, you'll feel life's finally alive and kicking in Mumbai's dream world." Taran Adarsh of Bollywood Hungama gave the film 4.5 out of 5 stars. He praised the emotional sequences, as well as the choreography, production design, costumes, and cinematography. He added that Karan Johar was the real star, for creating many memorable sequences. Rakesh Budhu of Planet Bollywood gave the film 8 out of 10 stars, saying "Dharma Productions has kept its promise in giving us a lovable film to remember in coming times." He pointed out several flaws in the script, but added that the positive aspects of the film managed to outweigh the negative ones. He quoted, ""K3G" is one heck of an entertainer and was worth the wait". In the film review section of his book "Bollywood: An Insider's Guide", Fuad Omar showered overwhelming praise on the film and called it a "masterpiece from the first frame to the last". In summary he said, "Overall "Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham..." is without a doubt the most enthralling, entertaining, emotional and complete vision and definition of Hindi cinema I have ever seen. It is simply the perfect Hindi film." Contrary to the positive reviews, Anjum N., writing for Rediff, said that despite an extraordinary cast and a big budget, "Karan Johar disappoints." He praised Amitabh and Jaya Bachchan's performance and noted Hrithik Roshan for holding his own against the veteran actors. However, in summary he called the film "a bad remix of "Mohabbatein" and "Kuch Kuch Hota Hai"". Writing for "The Hindu", Ziya Salam praised Kajol's performance and Karan's ability to "keep the viewer occupied". She commented, "Watch "Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham..." not because of the hype which preceded its release but because in these meagre times not many have come up with better fare. The film at least partially redeems the hope surrounding it. Again, just like its name. Some joy, some disappointment." Namarata Joshi of "Outlook" gave a mixed review and said that while the film "makes you laugh and cry alternately", the shenanigans were nevertheless "fake and affected" and "monochromatic despite the profusion of colours". Overseas. Overseas too, the reviews were mostly mixed, with several critics praising the technical production details of the film, while being somewhat less enthusiastic about the story line. Shamaila Khan of BBC gave the film 9 out of 10 stars and praised the performances of Khan, Kajol and Kapoor. She summed up by saying, "("K3G" is) a well made film, with some magical moments (hilarious and weepy) and possibly the world's best looking family!" Derek Elley of "Variety" said that it "is a highly enjoyable, often dazzlingly staged vehicle dragged down by a sluggish final half-hour". He also praised the cinematography, and the picturisation of the song, "Say Shava Shava". Corey K. Creekmur, of the University of Iowa, said that there were many ignored or illogical plot points and inconsistencies between the moral messages meant to be portrayed and the manner in which they came off on screen. Overall, he called the film a letdown. Box Office. Upon release, "Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham..." broke all opening records. The film opened to around 6 crore nett collections in its first weekend in India, with the first week total at around 13 crore nett. The domestic opening week collections were 70% higher than the previous record and never before had opening records been eclipsed by such large margins. It also set new records for the second and third week nett, by collecting 10.50 crore nett and 8 crore nett respectively. The film went on to become the second highest grosser of 2001 domestically, netting in India, and earning "Blockbuster" status. The film was released in around 125 prints in the overseas markets, grossing a total of $8 million at the end of its theatrical run there. It performed very well in the United Kingdom, with a gross of $689,000 in its opening weekend. It thus debuted at the third position at the British box-office. The total earnings of the film reached over $3.2 million in the UK. The film also had the biggest opening ever for a Bollywood film in North America, with a gross of $1.1 million in 73 screens. However, according to a report by Rediff, the numbers were so high that the official reporting agency did not believe it, and asked for evidence that could not be furnished until after the reporting deadline had passed. If reported on time, the film would have opened at the number 10 spot in the North American box-office. However, according to figures from Box Office Mojo, the film debuted at the 32nd place at the American box office during the week of 4 January 2002. It eventually gathered a total of $2.9 million there. Additionally, in 2003, the film became the first from India to be given a theatrical release in Germany. "Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham..." earned a worldwide gross of . Internationally, the film was the highest grossing Indian film ever, until its record was broken by Johar's next directorial, "Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna" (2006). When adjusted for inflation, the film is the fifth highest grosser worldwide, with an adjusted gross of . Box Office India called it "one of the true worldwide blockbusters of Hindi cinema". Accolades. "Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham..." received fifteen nominations at the Filmfare Awards, ultimately winning five awards. In an interview with "Filmfare", Karan Johar said that he wasn't dejected to have not won too many awards at the ceremony, as he felt that "Lagaan" was "a classic" and deserved to win. The film won several awards at the International Indian Film Academy Awards (IIFA), and some at the Zee Cine Awards and Screen Awards ceremonies, among others. Among the cast members, Kajol and Jaya Bachchan won several awards in the Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress category, respectively. At the 13th annual Valenciennes International Film Festival, the film won five major awards, including three Best Film awards and Best Actress for Kajol. Analysis. Film critics and academics have analysed "Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham..." in several ways. In the book, "Encyclopedia of Religion and Film", Eric Mazur described several "mythological subtexts" in the film. While mentioning the opening scene of the film, which features the Raichand family worshiping "Hindu deities during the annual Diwali holiday", he explained that the scene allowed the Hindu audiences to participate in the "darshan" along with the characters. Author Rajani Mazumdar compared "Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham..." to "Hum Aapke Hain Koun..!" (1994) and added that the film dealt with themes of family and moral values through a "spectacular stage that moves across global locations". She further stated that the buildup to the story was juxtaposed with the backdrop of two contrasting places – the Raichand home and the interiors of Chandni Chowk. While the Raichand house is described as "expensive, almost like a museum", Chandni Chowk is shown as a world of crowds, chaos and festivities. She also made a note of the use of frontal camera angles in order to ensure that the "spectators eye travels throughout the interior expanse". Writer Sangita Gopal analysed the "intensification of the aesthetic effects of Hindi cinema" in the narrative scheme of the film. During the confrontation scene between Yash and Rahul Raichand, a "thundering background score" coupled with "360° panning shots" were used to build up melodrama. She added that while such scenes simply began by reprising previous face-offs in several melodramatic Hindi films (such as "Mohabbatein" of 2000), they gradually shifted "to a more realist register as the framework moves from a sociology to a psychology of the family". Mazur mentioned the use of "dream sequences" in the film as a means of escapism. He referred to the song "Suraj Hua Maddham" as an extradiegetic sequence that allowed Rahul and Anjali to be physically intimate "in ways that they could not in the real world of the film." He added that the characters conveyed a plethora of emotions not through extensive dialogue but through the exchange of glances, which were demonstrated by extreme close-ups on their eyes. Writing for the book "Movie Blockbusters", Andrew Willis commented that the film was specifically written to appeal to the Indian diaspora. He explained that the film was aimed at invoking nostalgia among the large section of NRI's in Canada, United Kingdom and North America. In the second half of the film, Rahul and Anjali move to London, where they enjoy an affluent lifestyle, among several non-Indian neighbours and friends. However, there is a perpetual dissatisfaction among them, especially Anjali, in living away from home. Additionally, she dresses up in a traditional sari and performs the duties of a loyal housemaker. She also frets about her son and younger sister being "too influenced" by Western culture. The film, thus tries to form an emotional connection with the expatriate Indian audiences. Certain academics, however, criticised the portrayal of Britishers as "morally corrupt". Several sequences convey a "culturally conservative" and "idealistic image" of India, while maintaining that the diaspora living in Britain lead a life of "involuntary exile". Western ideology is, however, equated with economic success, with emphasis on Western consumerism such as Starbucks and Burger King, while being critical of the society at large. However, another academic observed that Rohan was the only character in the film who could navigate multiple cultural spaces with ease. He seems totally at ease both at his ancestral home in India and in London. Additionally, he strikes a chord with the diaspora by arranging for the local schoolchildren in London to sing "Jana Gana Mana", the Indian National Anthem. Though the tagline for the film was "It's all about loving your parents", some analysts noted that the film dealt with the concept of fathers trusting and loving their children. Other media. During the production and filming process, a book entitled "The Making of Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham" was written by Niranjan Iyengar. It features materials and interviews concerning the producer, director, photographer, art director, cast and crew that Iyengar gathered over an 18-month period during the production of the film. The book was released a few days prior to the theatrical release of the film. "Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham..." has been released on VHS and DVD (one and two disc version) formats, beginning in 2002, and in the Blu-ray format beginning in 2010. The two disc DVD version of the film contains a 45-minute documentary entitled "The Making of Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham" along with deleted scenes, a theatrical trailer, and several television promos.
1060332	Jennifer Grey (born March 26, 1960) is an American actress known for her roles in the 1980s films "Ferris Bueller's Day Off" and "Dirty Dancing", the latter for which she was nominated for a Golden Globe Award. She is also known for her 2010 victory in season eleven of the American version of "Dancing with the Stars". Grey is the daughter of Academy Award–winning actor Joel Grey and former actress/singer Jo Wilder. Early life. Jennifer Grey was born on March 26, 1960 in New York City, the daughter of stage and Academy Award-winning screen actor Joel Grey and former actress/singer Jo Wilder. Her paternal grandfather was comedian and musician Mickey Katz. Grey's parents both came from Jewish families.
582542	Nirmal Pandey ( 10 august 1962 – 18 February 2010) was an Indian Bollywood actor, who was known for his role Vikram Mallah in Shekhar Kapur's "Bandit Queen" (1994), for portrayal of a transvestite in "Daayraa" (1996) for which he won a Best Actor Valenti award in France, "Train To Pakistan" (1998) and "Godmother" (1999). He was supposed to watch his latest film "Lahore" on 22 February 2010 at a special screening with Humorist R. K. Laxman and Music Maestro MM Kreem. "Lahore", scheduled to be released in 19 March 2010, would prove to be Pandey's last film. Early life and education. Born in Nainital, Uttarakhand, Nirmal Pandey was educated at Almora and Nainital. He graduated from the National School of Drama, Delhi. Career. After leaving the National School of Drama he moved to London, with a theatre group, Tara, performing plays like Heer Ranjha, Antigone, and has acted in around 125 plays. After doing two small roles, he first got noticed in Shekhar Kapur's "Bandit Queen" (1996), thereafter he received positive reviews for films like, Amol Palekar's "Daayra" (Square Circle) (1996), "Train To Pakistan" (1998), Is Raat Ki Subah Nahin" and "Hum Tum Pe Marte Hain". He also acted in movies like "Laila", 'Pyaar Kiya Toh Darna Kya', 'One 2 ka 4' and 'Shikari' and acted in several television serials, including "Hatim", and "Princess Dollie Aur Uska Magic Bag" (2005) (Star Plus).
1065010	"Mr. Bean's Holiday" is a 2007 British comedy film starring Rowan Atkinson, which was released in the United Kingdom and Australia on 24 March 2007 and on 24 August 2007 in the United States and Canada. It is the second film based on the television series "Mr. Bean", and a sequel to 1997's "Bean". Apart from Atkinson, none of the other cast from the previous film appear in this sequel. Plot. Mr. Bean (Atkinson) is attending a raffle. Mr. Bean wins the raffle and claims his prize. The prize is a holiday involving a train journey to Cannes, a Sony video camera, and €200. Bean proceeds to film his trip to the French Riviera beach on the video camera. Following a misunderstanding involving a taxi at the Gare du Nord railway station in Paris, Bean is forced to make his way on foot, literally walking through Paris (with disastrous effects) towards Gare de Lyon from La Défense to board his next train towards Cannes. He misses his train when his necktie got stuck while attempting to purchase a sandwich from a vending machine. Upon discovering the train won't leave for another hour, he has time to sample French seafood at Le Train Bleu restaurant. Unable to communicate in French, he accidentally orders oysters and langoustines, which he cannot bring himself to eat. He pours the oysters into a nearby lady's handbag then he eats a whole langoustine without removing the shell. Back on the platform, Bean asks a man, who happens to be a Cannes Film Festival jury member and Russian movie critic Emil Dachevsky (Roden), to use his camcorder to film his walking onto the train. By the time they are done, the TGV is about to leave. Although Bean manages to get onto the train, the doors close before Dachevsky can get on. Dachevsky's son, Stepan (Max Baldry) is left on board by himself. Bean attempts to befriend Stepan, who gets off at the next stop to meet his father. While confronting a threatening stranger who approaches Stepan, Bean accidentally misses the train's departure, leaving his bag aboard. The train that Stepan's father has boarded does not stop at the station, and he holds up a mobile number, but the last two digits are obscured. When their efforts at calling the number prove fruitless, they board the next train, accidentally leaving Bean's ticket, passport and money behind which results in the duo being forced off the train. Attempts at busking by miming to Puccini's "O mio babbino caro" (sung by Rita Streich) and other music prove successful in a shopping area. Bean buys a bus ticket to Cannes but loses his ticket when it gets caught in the breeze and then snagged in the talon of a chicken, which is subsequently loaded into a farm pick-up. Bean steals a nearby bicycle and follows the pick-up, only to reach a large chicken pen with no hope of finding the ticket. While he is on the farm, the bicycle is run over by a passing tank. Ironically, a van with Stepan in it passes by when Bean is in an outhouse. After attempting to steal a moped and almost getting killed by a lorry, Bean falls asleep in a village but wakes up to realise that he has stumbled onto a set for a TV advertisement, which he accidentally blows up, injuring the director Carson Clay (Willem Dafoe). Hitchhiking, Bean is picked up by actress Sabine (Emma de Caunes), whom Bean encountered at the commercial filming, driving the same car as Bean. She is on her way to the 59th Cannes Film Festival where Carson Clay's film in which she makes her debut is going to be presented. When they stop at a service station, Bean finds Stepan in a café. When Sabine falls deeply asleep on the way due to Bean accidentally activating a lullaby on her cellphone, he drives the car himself happily, finally reaching Cannes. When Sabine goes into a petrol station to change for the premiere, she watches TV news depicting Bean as Stepan's kidnapper and Sabine as an accomplice. Confronting Bean, he explains he is "going to the beach". Not wanting to miss the premiere, the three plan to get into Cannes without being identified. Stepan dresses up as Sabine's daughter, while Bean dresses up as Sabine's mother. They manage to get through the search and Sabine arrives at the premiere on time. The three sneak into the premiere, "Playback Time", a shameless vanity production written by, produced by, directed by, and starring Clay himself. From the first few moments, the audience is horribly bored. Sabine tells Bean that her big scene is coming up, but is disappointed to see that her role has been cut from the film. Hoping to cheer up Sabine, Bean goes to the projection room and plugs his video camera into the projector. The ensuing scenes, heavily featuring Sabine, fit director Clay's narration. Emil then sees footage of his son and claims that Bean stole Stepan despite not seeing that Stepan is enjoying himself in the videos. Bean walks on stage nearly being arrested as Stepan is finally reunited with his father. The audience gives a standing ovation for what they believe to be part of Clay's movie. Clay's initial anger fades and he embraces Bean and takes credit for the film's success. After the screening, Bean leaves the building and goes to the beach, encountering many of the other characters including Sabine and Stepan. The film ends with Bean and all the other characters of the film miming a large French musical finale, lip-syncing the famous song by Charles Trenet, "La Mer" (Beyond the Sea). In a post-credits scene, Bean writes "FIN" on the wet sand using his foot. He films it until the camera says "low battery" again then the sea washes the words away and the camera turns off. Music. The film music was written by Howard Goodall. It has a symphonic orchestration, a sophisticated score instead of the show's tendency to simple musical repetitions and features catchy leitmotifs for particular characters or scenes. Release. News of the second film first broke in early 2005, suggesting that it would be written by Simon McBurney, although in December 2005, Atkinson stated that the screenplay was being written by himself and his long-time collaborator Richard Curtis. The screenplay was finally confirmed to have been written by Robin Driscoll, Simon McBurney and Hamish McColl. Unlike the 1997 Mel Smith film, "Mr. Bean's Holiday" was directed by Steve Bendelack. The film began shooting on 15 May 2006. Its working title was "French Bean". It was the official film for Red Nose Day 2007, with money from the film going towards the charity Comic Relief. Prior to the film's release, a new and exclusive Mr. Bean sketch was broadcast on the Comic Relief telethon on BBC One on 16 March 2007. The movie's official premiere took place at the Odeon, Leicester Square, in London on Sunday, 25 March, and helped to raise money for both Comic Relief and the Oxford Children's Hospital Appeal charity. Universal Pictures released a teaser trailer in November 2006, and in December 2006 launched an official website online. Reception. On 18 November 2012, the film had a score of 50 out of 100 on Metacritic based on 26 reviews. On Rotten Tomatoes, 50% of critics gave the film positive reviews, based on 107 reviews (54 "fresh", 53 "rotten") and the critical consensus stating ""Mr. Bean's Holiday" means well, but good intentions can't withstand the 90 minutes of monotonous slapstick and tired, obvious gags." The film was met with mixed reviews by critics. Matthew Turner of View London gave the film 3 out of 5 stars and said "Crucially, the film-makers have decided to make Bean more of a bumbling innocent, than the obnoxious and frequently mean-spirited character of the TV show", and that the film is a "surprisingly sweet comedy" with inspired gags and is much better than the previous film. BBC film critic Paul Arendt gave the film 3 out of 5 stars, saying "It's hard to explain the appeal of Mr Bean. At first glance, he seems to be moulded from the primordial clay of nightmares: a leering man-child with a body like a tangle of tweed-coated pipe cleaners and the gurning, window-licking countenance of a suburban sex offender. It's a testament to Rowan Atkinson's skill that, by the end of the film he seems almost cuddly." Philip French of "The Observer" referred to the character of Mr. Bean as a "dim-witted sub-Hulot loner" and said the plot involves Atkinson "getting in touch with his retarded inner child". French also said "the best joke is taken directly from Tati's "Jour de Fete"." Wendy Ide of "The Times" gave the film 2 out of 5 stars and said "It has long been a mystery to the British, who consider Bean to be, at best, an ignoble secret weakness, that Rowan Atkinson's repellent creation is absolutely massive on the Continent." Ide said parts of the film are reminiscent of "City of God", "The Straight Story", and said two scenes are "clumsily borrowed" from "Pee-wee's Big Adventure". Ide also wrote that the jokes are weak and one gag "was past its sell-by date ten years ago". Steve Rose of "The Guardian" gave the film 2 out of 5 stars, said the film was full of awfully weak gags, and "In a post-Borat world, surely there's no place for Bean's antiquated fusion of Jacques Tati, Pee-Wee Herman and John Major?", while Colm Andrew of the Manx Independent said "the flimsiness of the character, who is essentially a one-trick pony, starts to show" and his "continual close-up gurning into the camera" becomes tiresome. Peter Rainer of "The Christian Science Monitor" gave the film a "B" and said, "Since Mr. Bean rarely speaks a complete sentence, the effect is of watching a silent movie with sound effects. This was also the dramatic ploy of the great French director-performer Jacques Tati, who is clearly the big influence here." Amy Biancolli of the "Houston Chronicle" gave the film 3 out of 4 stars, saying "Don't mistake this simpleton hero, or the movie's own simplicity, for a lack of smarts. "Mr. Bean's Holiday" is quite savvy about filmmaking, landing a few blows for satire." Biancolli said the humour is "all elementally British and more than a touch French. What it isn't, wasn't, should never attempt to be, is American. That's the mistake made by Mel Smith and the ill-advised forces behind 1997's "Bean: The Movie"." Ty Burr of the "Boston Globe" said "Either you'll find hilarious—or he'll seem like one of those awful, tedious comedians who only thinks he's hilarious." Burr also said "There are also a few gags stolen outright from Tati", but concluded "Somewhere, Jacques Tati is smiling." Tom Long of "The Detroit News" said "Watching 90 minutes of this stuff—we're talking broad, broad comedy here—may seem a bit much, but this film actually picks up steam as it rolls along, becoming ever more absurd." and also "Mr. Bean offers a refreshingly blunt reminder of the simple roots of comedy in these grim, overly manufactured times." Suzanne Condie Lambert of "The Arizona Republic" said, "Atkinson is a gifted physical comedian. And the film is a rarity: a kid-friendly movie that was clearly not produced as a vehicle for selling toys and video games", but also said, "It's hard to laugh at a character I'm 95 percent sure is autistic." Lawrence Toppman of "The Charlotte Observer" gave the film 2½ stars out of 4 and said "If you like character, you will certainly like "Mr. Bean's Holiday," a 10-years-later sequel to "Bean." I found him intermittently funny yet almost unrelentingly creepy", and also "Atkinson doesn't have the deadpan elegance of a Buster Keaton or the wry, gentle physicality of a Jacques Tati (whose "Mr. Hulot's Holiday" inspired the title). He's funniest when mugging shamelessly..." Ruthe Stein of the "San Francisco Chronicle" said that "the disasters instigated by Bean's haplessness quickly become tiresome and predictable" but said that one scene later in the film is worth sticking around for. Elizabeth Weitzman of the "New York Daily News" gave the film 2 out of 4 stars and said "If you've never been particularly fond of Atkinson's brand of slapstick, you certainly won't be converted by this trifle." and also "If the title sounds familiar, it's because Atkinson intends his movie to be an homage to the 1953 French classic "Mr. Hulot's Holiday." Mr. Hulot was played by one of the all-time great physical comedians, Jacques Tati, and that movie is a genuine delight from start to finish. This version offers a few laughs and an admirable commitment to old-fashioned fun." Phil Villarreal of the "Arizona Daily Star" gave the film 2 stars and said "If you've seen 10 minutes of Rowan Atkinson's Mr. Bean routine, you've seen it all", and "The Nazi stuff is a bit out of place in a G-rated movie. Or any movie, really", later calling Atkinson "a has-Bean". Claudia Puig of "USA Today" gave the film 1½ stars out of 4 and said "If you've been lobotomised or have the mental age of a kindergartener, "Mr. Bean's Holiday" is viable comic entertainment" and also, "The film, set mostly in France, pays homage to Jacques Tati, but the mostly silent gags feel like watered-down Bean." Rating. In the UK, it was classified by the British Board of Film Classification as PG for containing "irresponsible behaviour". This film was originally given a PG rating by the Motion Picture Association of America for brief mild language, but Universal cut out most of the language (leaving Stepan saying "darn" in Russian in one shot and the same word in French in a later shot) so the film was rated G by the MPAA. It was one of the few Universal theatrically released films to be rated G. The first film, by contrast, was rated PG-13. It is much cleaner in content than the original film. DVD release. "Mr. Bean's Holiday" was released on DVD and HD DVD on 27 November 2007. The DVD version is in separate widescreen and pan and scan for the US markets formats. The DVD charted at No. 1 on the UK DVD Chart on its week of release. There are 15 deleted scenes in the film. In a 2007 TV commercial, there was a scene where Mr Bean spills coffee on a laptop. Mr. Bean is seen by Stepan for the very first time in other scene. In another scene, Mr. Bean tricks a man to get a train ticket and stay with Stepan on the train. In another, Mr. Bean carries Stepan all the way through a plaza. In other scenes, Sabine goes off with her emotions and is almost run over by a truck, Mr. Bean does silly moves along the road (which are later seen in Carson Clay's "Playback Time"), plays with the shadows of the morning, mimes his journey to Stepan at the cafeteria, is menaced by a projectionist at the Cannes Film Festival (at the playing of Clay's movie), accidentally cuts the film roll and tries to stick it again, and Carson Clay discovers the film roll accumulating at the projector's room. Finally, Mr Bean is seen dancing at the beach, a scene that was replaced by the characters singing "La Mer".
1376294	Anne M. "Annie" Mumolo (born July 10, 1973) is an American actress, screenwriter, comedian and producer, known for 2011 film "Bridesmaids", for which she was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay and BAFTA Award for Best Original Screenplay. Personal life. Mumolo was born in Irvine, California, to a dentist father and a homemaker mother. She is of Italian descent. Career. Acting. She is a member of the improvisational comedy troupe The Groundlings. She appeared in the 2005 feature film "Bewitched", and television shows such as "The Minor Accomplishments of Jackie Woodman", "Out of Practice", and "Two and a Half Men". She started voice acting in 2004 on the television series "Maya & Miguel". She was recently a voice actress on "Random! Cartoons", for the segments "Hero Heights", "Sparkles and Gloom", and "Thom Cat". She appeared in two ABC pilots this year; "Bad Mother's Handbook" and "This Might Hurt". She voices Jimmy and Natalie in the cartoon shorts "Ape Escape" on Nicktoons Network. In 2011, she played an anxious airline passenger in her own film, "Bridesmaids". Screenwriting. Mumolo wrote an episode of "In the Motherhood" titled "Where There's a Will, There's a Wake". She co-wrote the script for the 2011 comedy film "Bridesmaids" with "Saturday Night Live" cast member Kristen Wiig for Universal Studios. Judd Apatow produced the project, with Paul Feig directing. Mandate Pictures is currently developing an untitled comedy feature film written by Mumolo and produced by Dana Fox and Lorene Scafaria. The story will be about "three girls who travel to New York to celebrate New Year's Eve only to be beset by a snowstorm en route, but are still intent on making it to the city before the celebratory ball drops". Mumolo said, "I wanted to write a story based on the things my friends and I are experiencing in our thirties that completely took us by surprise. [...] It was important to me that the story really capture the issues and struggles we are going through in a funny and authentic way. [...] We were stuck home on New Year's Eve, and everybody else got to go to parties, and we made a video that night. [...] We were laughing so hard it, and my friend said she was a 100% positive that she's never had as much fun as she did when she was 16. And I just thought about that a lot, how we go from 'I'm going to change the world' to 'I'm just trying to figure out where I fit in'." Nathan Kahane will executive produce the film, "seeing it as a complement to the other female-voiced comedies the company has done".
1039599	Lindsay Vere Duncan, CBE (born ) is a Scottish stage, television and film actress. On stage she has won two Olivier Awards, a Tony Award for her performance in "Private Lives", and another Tony Award nomination for her role in "Les Liaisons dangereuses". Lindsay has starred in several plays by Harold Pinter. Her most famous roles on television include: Barbara Douglas in Alan Bleasdale's G.B.H. (1991), Servilia of the Junii in the HBO/BBC/RAI series "Rome" (2005–2007), and Adelaide Brooke in the "Doctor Who" special "The Waters of Mars" (2009). On film she voiced the android TC-14 in "" (1999), and she played Alice's mother in Tim Burton's "Alice in Wonderland" (2010). She was appointed CBE (Commander of the British Empire) in 2009 for services to drama. Personal life. Duncan was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, in a working-class family; her father had served in the army for 21 years before becoming a civil servant. Her parents moved to Leeds, then Birmingham when she was still a child. Duncan attended King Edwards VI High School for Girls in Birmingham through a scholarship. Despite her origins, she speaks with a Received Pronunciation accent. As of 2011, her only role with a Scottish accent is AfterLife (2003). Duncan's father died in a car accident when she was 15. Her mother was affected by Alzheimer's disease and died in 1994; she inspired Sharman Macdonald to write the play "The Winter Guest" (1995), which was later adapted as a film by Alan Rickman. Duncan is married to fellow Scottish actor Hilton McRae, whom she met in 1985 at the Royal Shakespeare Company. They live in north London. They have one son, Cal McRae, born September 1991. Duncan was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) for services to drama in the 2009 Birthday Honours. Career. Duncan's first contact with theatre was through school productions. She became friends with the future playwright Kevin Elyot, who attended the neighbouring King Edward's School for boys, and followed him to Bristol, where he read Drama at University. She did a number of odd jobs while staging her own production of Joe Orton's "Funeral Games". Duncan joined London's Central School of Speech and Drama at the age of 21. After her training she started out in summer weekly rep in Southwold to gain her Equity card. She appeared in two small roles in Molière's "Dom Juan" at the Hampstead Theatre in 1976, and she joined the Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester when it opened. In 1978 she returned to London in "Plenty" by David Hare at the National. She appeared on the television in small roles in a special episode of "Up Pompeii!" and in "The New Avengers", and a commercial for Head & Shoulders shampoo. She made her breakthrough on "Top Girls" by Caryl Churchill, created at the Royal Court in London and later transferred to The Public Theater in New York: her performance as Lady Nijo, a 13th-century Japanese concubine, won her an Obie, her first award. The next year she took her first major role on film in Richard Eyre's "Loose Connections" with Stephen Rea. At the same time her television work included a filmed version of Frederick Lonsdale's "On Approval" (1982), "Reilly, Ace of Spies" (1983) and "Dead Head" (1985). In 1985 she joined the Royal Shakespeare Company for the production of "Troilus and Cressida", in which she played Helen of Troy. In September she created the role of the Marquise de Merteuil in "Les Liaisons Dangereuses", the play by Christopher Hampton after the French novel by Choderlos de Laclos. The play opened at The Other Place in Stratford-upon-Avon. On 8 January 1986 the production transferred to the 200-seat theatre The Pit in London's Barbican Centre, with its original cast intact. In October of the same year the production moved to the Ambassadors in the West End. In April 1987 the cast, including Duncan, took the play to Broadway, with the London production completely recast. For her performance she was nominated for a Tony and won the Olivier Award for Best Actress and a Theatre World Award. She was however replaced by Glenn Close for "Dangerous Liaisons" — Stephen Frears's film of the play; similarly John Malkovitch was selected for the role of Valmont instead of Duncan's co-star Alan Rickman. In 1988 Duncan won an Evening Standard Award for her role of Maggie in "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" by Tennessee Williams. At the same time she became a regular in the plays of Harold Pinter and the television work of Alan Bleasdale and Stephen Poliakoff. She performed for a second season with the RSC in 1994–1995, in "A Midsummer Night's Dream" in which she played the double role of Hippolyta and Titania. She went on tour in the United States with the rest of the cast, but back and neck pains forced her to be replaced by Emily Button from January to March 1997. Impressed by her performance in David Mamet's "The Cryptogram" (1994), Al Pacino asked Duncan to play the role of his wife in "City Hall" (1996) by Harold Becker. To please her young son, a "Star Wars" fan, Duncan applied for the role of Anakin Skywalker's mother in "" (1999), but was not cast; she finally accepted to voice an android . She reunited with Alan Rickman in a revival of Noël Coward's "Private Lives" (2001–2002), and won a Tony Award for Best Actress and a second Olivier Award for her performance as Amanda Prynne — she was also nominated the same year for her role in "Mouth To Mouth" by Kevin Elyot. Duncan played Servilia Caepionis in the 2005 HBO-BBC series "Rome" and she starred as Rose Harbinson in "Starter for 10". Aged by make-up, she played Lord Longford's wife, Elizabeth, in the TV film "Longford". In February 2009, she played British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in "Margaret". In November 2009, Duncan played Adelaide Brooke, companion to the Doctor, in the second of the 2009 "Doctor Who" specials. Duncan played Alice's mother in Tim Burton's 2010 film "Alice in Wonderland", alongside Mia Wasikowska, Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter. She also starred in the original London run of Polly Stenham's play "That Face" at the Royal Court co-starring Matt Smith and directed by Jeremy Herrin. She did the narration for the Matt Lucas and David Walliams 2010/2011 fly-on-the-wall mockumentary series "Come Fly with Me" on the BBC. In October–November 2010, Duncan starred in a new version by Frank McGuinness of Ibsen's "John Gabriel Borkman" at the Abbey Theatre, Dublin alongside her "Liaisons dangereuses" co-stars Alan Rickman and Fiona Shaw. The production transferred in January–February 2011 to the Brooklyn Academy of Music. Alan Bleasdale asked for Duncan to feature in his first work for television after ten years of absence, "The Sinking of the Laconia", aired on January 2011; she plays an upper-class passenger in the two-part drama based on a true story of World War II. She also played the mother of Matt Smith in the telefilm "Christopher and His Kind" written by Kevin Elyot after Christopher Isherwood's autobiography of the same title. In October–November 2011, Duncan read extracts of the King James Bible at the National Theatre, London as part of the 400th anniversary celebrations of the translation. She played Queen Annis, ruler of Caerleon and antagonist of Merlin, in the 5th episode of the fourth series of BBC1's "Merlin". She also appeared as Home Secretary Alex Cairns to Rory Kinnear's Prime Minister in 'The National Anthem', the first episode of Charlie Brooker's "Black Mirror". Duncan started 2012 as a guest in the New Year special of "Absolutely Fabulous", playing the part of Saffy's favourite film actress, 'Jeanne Durand'. In February she returned to the West End in Noël Coward's "Hay Fever" with Kevin McNally, Jeremy Northam and Olivia Colman, once again under the direction of Howard Davies. Later in 2012, Duncan featured in BBC2's productions of Shakespeare's history plays. She is to play the Duchess of York in the first film, "Richard II", with David Suchet as the Duke of York and Patrick Stewart as John of Gaunt.
1074692	Marco Leonardi (born November 14, 1971) is an Italian actor. Leonardi was born in Australia to Italian parents. He moved to Italy at the age of four and starred in the famous movie "Cinema Paradiso" and in the Mexican movie "Like Water for Chocolate" (1993). He has made several movies in the United States, such as "Once Upon a Time in Mexico". Other appearances include the Canadian film "The Five Senses". Leonardi was engaged to Mexican actress Lumi Cavazos from 1991 to 1999. Leonardi lived in Los Angeles for 10 years.
1102698	Paul Richard Halmos (; March 3, 1916 – October 2, 2006) was a Hungarian-born American mathematician who made fundamental advances in the areas of probability theory, statistics, operator theory, ergodic theory, and functional analysis (in particular, Hilbert spaces). He was also recognized as a great mathematical expositor. Early life and education. Halmos obtained his B.A. from the University of Illinois, majoring in philosophy and minoring in mathematics. He took only three years to obtain the degree, and was only 19 when he graduated. He then began a Ph.D. in philosophy; but, after failing his masters' oral exams, he shifted to mathematics, graduating in 1938. Joseph L. Doob supervised his dissertation, titled "Invariants of Certain Stochastic Transformations: The Mathematical Theory of Gambling Systems". Career. Shortly after his graduation, Halmos left for the Institute for Advanced Study, lacking both job and grant money. Six months later, he was working under John von Neumann, which proved a decisive experience. While at the Institute, Halmos wrote his first book, "Finite Dimensional Vector Spaces", which immediately established his reputation as a fine expositor of mathematics. Halmos taught at Syracuse University, the University of Chicago (1946–60), the University of Michigan, the University of California at Santa Barbara (1976–78), the University of Hawaii, and Indiana University. From his 1985 retirement from Indiana until his death, he was affiliated with the Mathematics department at Santa Clara University. Accomplishments. In a series of papers reprinted in his 1962 "Algebraic Logic", Halmos devised polyadic algebras, an algebraic version of first-order logic differing from the better known cylindric algebras of Alfred Tarski and his students. An elementary version of polyadic algebra is described in monadic Boolean algebra. In addition to his original contributions to mathematics, Halmos was an unusually clear and engaging expositor of university mathematics. This was so even though Halmos arrived in the U.S. at 13 years of age and never lost his Hungarian accent. He chaired the American Mathematical Society committee that wrote the AMS style guide for academic mathematics, published in 1973. In 1983, he received the AMS's Steele Prize for exposition.
582275	Vijeta is a 1982 Hindi film produced by Shashi Kapoor and directed by Govind Nihalani. It stars Shashi Kapoor, Rekha, Kunal Kapoor, Amrish Puri and Supriya Pathak. The movie also stars K.K. Raina, Raja Bundela and Shafi Inamdar who went to be notable support actors in Bollywood movies. Plot. Vijeta (The Victor) is the coming of age story of Angad (Kunal Kapoor). Confused like any other teenager trying to find himself and caught in between the marital problems of his Maharashtrian mother Neelima (Rekha) and Punjabi father Nihal (Shashi Kapoor). It is time for him to decide what he wants to do with his life. To select a profession and be someone, Angad chooses to become a fighter pilot with the Indian Air Force. What follows is his struggle to become a victor both with his self and the outer world. One side plot, Angad is attracted to Anna Verghese (Supriya Pathak), who is the daughter of his flying instructor (Amrish Puri). Angad must learn to adapt to flying, leaving his mom and dad for long periods of time, as well as try and woo Anna who helps him overcome his fears and realize his potential as a fighter pilot. Plot of movie delicately tackles the issue of religious harmony. Main plot of the movie contains such complex undertones; Nihal and Neelima are Hindu, Angad a Sikh and Anna a Christian, and Angad's fellow officers represent all religion.
1054660	The Clearing is a 2004 American drama film and the directorial debut of Pieter Jan Brugge, who has worked as a film producer. The film is loosely based on the real-life kidnapping of Gerrit Jan Heijn that took place in the Netherlands in 1987. The screenplay was written by Justin Haythe. Plot. Wayne Hayes (Robert Redford), and his wife Eileen (Helen Mirren) are living the American dream in a wealthy Pittsburgh suburb, having raised two children (Alessandro Nivola, Melissa Sagemiller) and built up a successful business from scratch. He is looking forward to a peaceful retirement with Eileen. However, everything changes when Wayne is kidnapped in broad daylight by a former employee, Arnold Mack (Willem Dafoe). While Wayne tries negotiating with the kidnapper, Eileen works with the FBI to try to secure her husband's release. During the investigation, Eileen learns that Wayne has continued an extramarital affair that he promised to end months previously. Eileen is eventually instructed to deliver the ransom to the kidnapper, but Arnold takes the money without returning her husband. As it turns out, Wayne had been murdered by Arnold the day of the kidnapping. Although Eileen's ordeal takes place over the course of a week, the film is edited to show Wayne's kidnapping as if it was happening at the same time. Arnold is eventually caught when he begins to spend the ransom money in the neighborhood where he lives. At a local grocery store, he uses a $100 bill to make a purchase. The store manager calls authorities and verifies the serial number on the $100 bill is on a watch list the FBI distributed to local businesses. In the end, Eileen receives a loving note written by Wayne before his death. Locations. The film was shot in and around Asheville, North Carolina and Downtown Pittsburgh, PA. Reception. The film has received mixed reviews. According Roger Ebert, in the Chicago Sun-Times, it "doesn't feel bound by the usual formulas of crime movies. What eventually happens will emerge from the personalities of the characters, not from the requirements of Hollywood endings." According Peter Travers in Rolling Stone "The pleasures of this endeavor, directed with a keen eye for detail by Pieter Jan Brugge, come from what the actors bring to the material." Ty Burr in the Boston Globe felt that the film had a "lack of emotion" and "could have been more than it is". M. Torreiro, in the Spanish newspaper El País, described the film a "tense thriller, cramped and made of downtime and sensations on the limit, a strange film."
1062076	Laura Leggett Linney (born February 5, 1964) is an American actress (film, television, and theatre) and singer. She is most well known for her performances in films such as "The Truman Show", "Mystic River" and "Kinsey", among others. She also played the lead role of Cathy Jamison in the Showtime series "The Big C", which completed its fourth and final season in May 2013. During her career she has received four Emmy Awards, two Golden Globe Awards and a Screen Actors Guild Award. Additionally she has been the recipient of three Academy Award nominations and three Tony Award nominations. Early life and education. Linney was born in Manhattan. Her mother, Miriam Anderson "Ann" Perse (née Leggett), is a nurse who worked at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, and her father, Romulus Zachariah Linney IV, was a well-known playwright and professor (he died on January 15, 2011). Linney's paternal great-great-grandfather was Republican U.S. Congressman Romulus Zachariah Linney. Linney grew up under modest circumstances, living with her mother in a small one-bedroom apartment, after her parents' divorce. She has a half-sister, Susan, from her father's second marriage. She is a 1982 graduate of Northfield Mount Hermon School, an elite preparatory school in New England, for which she currently serves as the chair of the Arts Advisory Council. She then attended Northwestern University before transferring to Brown University, where she studied acting with Jim Barnhill and John Emigh and served on the board of Production Workshop, the university's student theatre group. It was during her senior year at Brown that she performed in one of her father's plays, when she played Lady Ada Lovelace in a production of Romulus Linney's "Childe Byron", a drama in which Ada's father, the poet Lord Byron, mends a taut, distant relationship with his daughter. Linney graduated from Brown with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in 1986. She went on to study acting at the Juilliard School as a member of "Group 19" (1986–1990), which also included Jeanne Tripplehorn. Linney later received an honorary Doctor of Fine Arts degree from Juilliard when she delivered the school's commencement address in 2009. Career. Film. Linney appeared in minor roles in a few early 1990s films, including "Dave" in 1993, before coming to prominence in the public television mini-series "Tales of the City". She was then cast in a series of high-profile thrillers, including "Congo", "Primal Fear" and "Absolute Power". She made her Hollywood breakthrough in 1998, playing Jim Carrey's on-screen wife in "The Truman Show", for which she received critical acclaim. In 2000, Linney was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress for her role in the film "You Can Count on Me". The same year, she also appeared in the role of an artist's model in the low-budget film "Maze" with Rob Morrow. In 2003, Linney appeared in several notable films, including "Mystic River", "Love Actually" and "The Life of David Gale". Her 2004 performance in "Kinsey", again as the title character's wife, was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. In 2005, Linney starred in the horror film "The Exorcism of Emily Rose" and the comedy-drama "The Squid and the Whale." For the latter role, she received a Golden Globe nomination for "Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy". In 2006, Linney appeared in the political satire "Man of the Year", the comedy "Driving Lessons" (starring Rupert Grint of "Harry Potter" fame), and the Australian drama "Jindabyne" by Ray Lawrence. "Jindabyne" was based on Raymond Carver's short story "So Much Water so Close to Home". In 2007, Linney appeared in the spy thriller "Breach", the comedy-drama "The Nanny Diaries" opposite Scarlett Johansson and based on the book by Emma McLaughlin and Nicola Kraus, and "The Savages" with Philip Seymour Hoffman. She received a third Academy Award nomination for "The Savages", this time for Best Actress. In 2008, Linney starred in "The Other Man", opposite Liam Neeson, with whom she had starred in "Kinsey" and "Love Actually", and Antonio Banderas. Television. Linney starred as Mary Ann Singleton in the television adaptations of Armistead Maupin's "Tales of the City" books (1993, 1998 and 2001). She won her first "Emmy Award" in 2002 for "Outstanding Lead Actress in a Miniseries or a Movie" for "Wild Iris". In 2004, she won her second Emmy Award as "Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy Series," for her recurring role as the final love interest of Frasier Crane in the television series "Frasier". In 2008, Linney won an Emmy Award in the category "Outstanding Lead Actress in a Miniseries or a Movie" for her portrayal of Abigail Adams, wife of the second president of the United States, in the HBO mini-series "John Adams". In October 1994, Linney guest-starred in an episode of "Law & Order" (episode "Blue Bamboo") as "Martha Bowen". She played a blonde American singer who successfully claimed "battered woman syndrome" as a defense to the murder of a Japanese businessman. Laura Linney returned to series television as actress and executive producer in Showtime's half-hour series about cancer, "The Big C", which debuted in mid-2010. She starred as a suburban wife and mother who explores the emotional ups and downs of suffering cancer, and the changes it brings to her life and her sense of who she is. She won a Golden Globe award for her performance in January 2011. Since 2009, she has served as host of the PBS television series "Masterpiece Classic". Theater. Linney's extensive stage credits on Broadway and elsewhere include "Hedda Gabler", for which she won the 1994 Joe A. Callaway Award, and "Holiday" in December 1995 through January 1996 (based on the 1938 movie starring Katharine Hepburn). She received a Best Actress Tony Award nomination for her role in the Broadway production of "The Crucible" in March 2002 through June 2002. She was nominated again in 2005 for "Sight Unseen", in which she appeared on Broadway in May 2004 through July 2004. Linney also appeared on Sandra Boynton's children's CD, "Philadelphia Chickens", on which she sings "Please Can I Keep It?", and played La Marquise de Merteuil in a revival of Christopher Hampton's play "Les Liaisons Dangereuses". Linney had a three-month run on Broadway in the Manhattan Theatre Club production of "Time Stands Still" by Donald Margulies, from January 28, 2010 through March 27, 2010. She was nominated for a 2010 Tony award for Best Leading Actress in a Play. The play returned to Broadway with most of the original cast in September 2010 and closed on January 30, 2011. Personal life. Linney married David Adkins in 1995; they divorced in 2000. In 2007, she became engaged to Marc Schauer (not to be confused with Michigan Congressman Mark Schauer), a real estate agent from Telluride, Colorado. At her wedding in May 2009, actor Liam Neeson walked her down the aisle. Linney was a guest and presenter at the on January 18, 2009.
1017063	Shek Wing-cheung (1 January 1913 – 3 June 2009), better known by his stage name Shih Kien (Cantonese: Shek Kin; Mandarin: Shi Jian), was a Hong Kong-based Chinese actor. Shih is best known for playing antagonists and villains in several early Hong Kong "wuxia" and martial arts films that dated back to the black-and-white period, and is most familiar to Western audiences for his portrayal of the primary villain, Han, in the 1973 martial arts film "Enter the Dragon", which starred Bruce Lee. Biography. Early life. Shih was raised by his stepmother and was a sickly child. He decided to practise martial arts to improve his health and trained for nine years. Shih trained at Shanghai's Chin Woo Athletic Association and was among the first generation of students at the school to be certified as instructors. After becoming certified to teach styles, including Eagle Claw and Choy Li Fut, he decided to start his career as an actor. However, the outbreak of the Second Sino-Japanese War caused his studies to be disrupted. Shih and his friends travelled between Guangzhou and Hong Kong to stage drama performances, in order to raise funds as part of the anti-Japanese movement. Besides acting on stage, Shih also participated in back-stage activities, such as makeup and arrangements of lighting and props. Career. In 1940, Shih officially entered the entertainment industry as an apprentice of the Cantonese opera makeup artist Sit Kok-Sin, before becoming an actor later. Shih starred as a Japanese secret agent in his debut film "Flower in the Sea of Blood" that year. Nine years later, Shih was invited by film director Wu Pang to work with him on a series of Wong Fei-hung-related films. Shih gained fame for his portrayal of the villains in those films and continued to play the role of the antagonist in several films during the first 20 years of his career. Shih's iconic "villain laughter" in the films was later mimicked and parodied by several actors. In 1973, Shih was chosen to portray the villain in Bruce Lee's martial arts epic "Enter the Dragon", in which he played Han, a one-handed triad boss who is highly-skilled in martial arts. His character had a final showdown with Lee's character in the ending climax of the film. In 1975, Shih joined the Hong Kong television station TVB and appeared in several "wuxia"-themed television series, playing villains again most of the time. However, he had also played the roles of gentlemanly, kind and fatherly characters, such as Cheung Mo-kei's godfather Tse Shun in "The Heaven Sword and Dragon Saber" (1978), Lung Koon-sam in "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly" (1979), So Tai-pang in "The Brothers" (1980) and a grandfather in "The Feud of Two Brothers" (1986). Shih had also taken on dramatic roles in non-"wuxia" films as well, such as "Hong Kong 1941". Later in his career, Shih took on a comedic role with Jackie Chan in "The Young Master". In 1980, Shih was invited to participate in filming a television commercial to promote Ricola's mint candy products with his popular image of a film villain. Retirement and death. Shih retired from the entertainment industry in 1992, with the 1994 film "HK Adam's Family" (奸人世家) specially dedicated to him. He appeared in the 2003 documentary "" at the age of 90. Shih received the Life Achievement Award in 1996 at the Golden Bauhinia Awards. Seven years later in 2003, Shih received the Professional Achievement Award at the 22nd Hong Kong Film Awards with Cho Tat-wah, who portrayed the protagonist or hero in several of the films they starred together in. In 2006, Shih donated one of his properties to the entertainment industry in support of the development of the industry. Between January and February 2007, the Hong Kong Film Archive showed 13 of Shih's films that were preserved at the archive. Shih died of kidney failure on 3 June 2009 at the age of 96. At the time of his death, Shih was believed to be one of the oldest living successful actors in China. Personal life. Shih married Lee Kit-ying in 1936 and they have four sons and two daughters. Shih was initially a non-believer and he converted to Christianity and was baptised after being influenced by Lee, a devout Christian. Lee died of heart failure in August 1998. Popular culture. In Hong Kong, the term "Kan Yan Kin" () was a popular reference to Shih. This nickname was borrowed as the Chinese title for the 2007 TVB comedy drama "Men Don't Cry".
1062078	Joan Allen (born August 20, 1956) is an American actress. She worked in theater, television, and film during her early career, and achieved recognition for her Broadway debut in "Burn This", winning a Tony Award for Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a Play in 1989. She has received three Academy Award nominations; she was nominated for Best Supporting Actress for "Nixon" (1995) and "The Crucible" (1996), and for Best Actress for "The Contender" (2000). Her other films include "Fat Guy Goes Nutzoid" (also known as "Zeisters") (1986), "Peggy Sue Got Married" (1986), "" (1988), "In Country" (1989), "The Ice Storm" (1997), "Face/Off" (1997), "Pleasantville" (1998), "The Notebook" (2004), "The Bourne Supremacy" (2004) "The Bourne Ultimatum" (2007), "Death Race" (2008) and "The Bourne Legacy" (2012). Early life. Allen, the youngest of four children, was born in Rochelle, Illinois, the daughter of Dorothea Marie (née Wirth), a homemaker, and James Jefferson Allen, a gas station owner. She has an older brother, David, and two older sisters, Mary and Lynn. Allen attended Rochelle Township High School, and was voted most likely to succeed. She first attended Eastern Illinois University, performing in a few plays with John Malkovich, who was also a student, and then Northern Illinois University, where she graduated with a BFA in Theater. Allen began her performing career as a stage actress and on television before making her film debut in the movie, "Compromising Positions" (1985). She became a member of the Steppenwolf Theatre Company ensemble in 1977 when John Malkovich asked her to join. She's been a member ever since. In 1984, she won a Clarence Derwent Award for her portrayal of Hellen Stott in "And a Nightingale Sang". Career. In 1989, Allen won a Tony Award for her Broadway debut performance in "Burn This". She also starred in the Pulitzer Prize-winning play "The Heidi Chronicles". She received Academy Award nominations for Best Supporting Actress for her roles as Pat Nixon in "Nixon" (1995) and as Elizabeth Proctor, a woman accused of witchcraft, in "The Crucible" (1996). She was also nominated for Best Actress for her role in "The Contender" (2000), in which she played a politician who becomes the object of scandal. She had starring roles in the drama "The Ice Storm" directed by Ang Lee and the action thriller "Face/Off" directed by John Woo, both released in 1997, as well as in the comedy "Pleasantville" (1998). In 2001, Allen starred in the mini-series "The Mists of Avalon" on TNT and earned an "Emmy nomination" for the role. In 2005, she received many positive notices for her leading role in the comedy/drama "The Upside of Anger", in which she played an alcoholic housewife. She played CIA Department Director Pamela Landy in "The Bourne Supremacy", "The Bourne Ultimatum" and "The Bourne Legacy". Allen appeared in "Death Race", a prequel of the film "Death Race 2000", playing a prison warden. In 2009, Allen starred as Georgia O'Keeffe in Lifetime Television’s 2009 biopic chronicling the artist’s life. Allen returned to Broadway in March 2009, when she played the role of Katherine Keenan in Michael Jacobs' play "Impressionism" opposite Jeremy Irons at the Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre. Allen voiced the character Delphine in Bethesda Softworks' 2011 video game "". Personal life. In 1990, Allen married actor Peter Friedman. They divorced in 2002, but live close to each other to share time with their daughter, Sadie, born in 1994.
1063010	Judge Reinhold (born May 21, 1957) is an American actor, known for co-starring in movies such as "Beverly Hills Cop", "Ruthless People", "Fast Times at Ridgemont High", and "The Santa Clause" trilogy. Early life. Reinhold was born Edward Ernest Reinhold, Jr. in Wilmington, Delaware, the son of Regina Celeste (née Fleming) and Edward Ernest Reinhold, Sr., a trial lawyer. He was raised in Fredericksburg, Virginia, until his family moved to Martin County, Florida, prior to his junior year in high school. His father nicknamed him "Judge" when he was just two weeks old. Reinhold graduated from Martin County High School, although attended Alexis I. duPont High School for his 9th and 10th grade. He went on to attend Mary Washington College and North Carolina School of the Arts, after which he performed at various regional theaters, including Burt Reynolds' Dinner Theater in Jupiter, Florida. Career. Reinhold has appeared in more than 60 films. His first appearance on screen was in the "Wonder Woman" episode "Amazon Hot Wax" (1979), in which he played Jeff Gordon, a singer who gets caught up in an extortion ring in the music business. Reinhold's first major film role was as high school senior Brad Hamilton in "Fast Times at Ridgemont High" (1982) along with then-unknown actors Sean Penn, Phoebe Cates, Forest Whitaker, Jennifer Jason Leigh, and Nicolas Cage. He appeared in an uncredited role in Pat Benatar's music video for "Shadows of the Night." He later played Detective Billy Rosewood, the junior police detective sent to trail Eddie Murphy, in "Beverly Hills Cop" (1984), and in 1986, starred in "Ruthless People." Reinhold starred in the Canadian hard rock band Harem Scarem's 1992 music video "Honestly" as the male love interest. In 1994, Reinhold appeared in "Beverly Hills Cop III" and "The Santa Clause." He has reprised the role of Dr. Neil Miller for the "Santa Clause" sequels as well. Reinhold appeared as himself on two episodes of the third season of "Arrested Development", headlining a fictional court TV show called "Mock Trial with J. Reinhold". Reinhold was nominated for an Emmy for a role on "Seinfeld" in which he played the infamous "close talker" who developed an obsession with Jerry's parents. He has also been seen in Steven Spielberg's epic miniseries "Into the West." And replaced Charles Grodin in two direct-to-video movies in the "Beethoven" film series. Reinhold was featured in the 2008 political satire "Swing Vote". Reinhold's nickname "Judge" has been the subject of comedy in both "" and "Arrested Development," both times with him playing himself appointed as a judge in a court of law. Additionally, the 2009 film "Fanboys" features Billy Dee Williams playing a judge named Reinhold. Reinhold is credited as the whistler on the Martini Ranch song "Reach." Personal life. Reinhold has worked with the Boys & Girls Clubs of America's Smart Moves program in his home town of Santa Fe, New Mexico. He has also been involved in suicide prevention efforts for veterans in his wife's home state of Arkansas, as well as lending his production assistance to the Arkansas Food Bank in an effort to help combat hunger in Arkansas. He and his wife, Amy, attend church at Fellowship Bible Church, a non-denominational church in Little Rock, Arkansas.
1064926	Maila Nurmi (December 11, 1922 – January 10, 2008) was a Finnish-American actress who created the campy 1950s character Vampira. She portrayed Vampira as TV's first horror host and in the Ed Wood cult film "Plan 9 from Outer Space". She is also billed as Vampira in the 1959 movie "The Beat Generation" where she plays a beatnik poet. Early life. Born as Maila Elizabeth Syrjäniemi, she claimed to be the niece of the Finnish athlete Paavo Nurmi, who began setting long-distance running world records in 1921, the year before her birth. She moved to the United States with her family when she was two years old and grew up in Ashtabula, Ohio, home to the largest Finnish-American community in the state. She and her family lived in Ashtabula until 1939, when they moved to Oregon. She graduated from high school in Astoria, Oregon, before arriving in Los Angeles. She modeled for Alberto Vargas, Bernard of Hollywood and Man Ray, gaining a foothold in the film industry with an uncredited role in Victor Saville's 1947 film, "If Winter Comes". She reportedly was fired by Mae West from the cast of West's Broadway play "Catherine Was Great" in 1944 because West feared that she was being upstaged. On Broadway, she gained much attention after appearing in the horror-themed midnight show "Spook Scandals", in which she screamed, fainted, lay in a coffin and seductively lurked about a mock cemetery. She also worked as a showgirl for the Earl Carroll Theatre and as a high-kicking chorus line dancer at the Florentine Gardens along with stripper Lili St. Cyr. In the 1950s she supported herself mainly by posing for pin-up photos in men's magazines such as "Famous Models", "Gala" and "Glamorous Models". Before landing her role as 'Vampira', she was working as a hat-check girl in a cloakroom on Hollywood's Sunset Strip. Origin of Vampira. The idea for the Vampira character was born in 1953 when Nurmi attended choreographer Lester Horton's annual Bal Caribe Masquerade in a costume inspired by Morticia Addams in "The New Yorker" cartoons of Charles Addams. Her appearance with pale white skin and tight black dress caught the attention of television producer Hunt Stromberg, Jr. (1923–86), who wanted to hire her to host horror movies on the Los Angeles television station KABC-TV, but Stromberg had no idea how to contact her. He finally got her phone number from Rudi Gernreich, later famed as the designer of the topless swimsuit. The name Vampira was the invention of Nurmi's husband, Dean Riesner. Nurmi's characterization was influenced by the Dragon Lady from the comic strip "Terry and the Pirates" and the evil queen from Disney's "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs". On April 30, 1954, KABC-TV aired a preview, "Dig Me Later, Vampira", at 11:00 p.m. "The Vampira Show" premiered on the following night, May 1, 1954. For the first four weeks, the show aired at midnight, moving to 11:00 p.m. on May 29. Ten months later, the series aired at 10:30 p.m., beginning March 5, 1955. Each show opened with Vampira gliding down a dark corridor flooded with dry-ice fog. At the end of her trance-like walk, the camera zoomed in on her face as she let out a piercing scream. She would then introduce (and mock) that evening's film while reclining barefoot on a skull-encrusted Victorian couch. Her horror-related comedy antics included ghoulish puns such as encouraging viewers to write for epitaphs instead of autographs and talking to her pet spider Rollo. She also ran as a candidate for Night Mayor of Hollywood with a platform of "dead issues". In another publicity stunt, KABC had her cruise around Hollywood in the back of a chauffeur-driven 1932 Packard touring car with the top down, where she sat, as Vampira, holding a black parasol. The show was an immediate hit, and in June 1954 she appeared as Vampira in a horror-themed comedy skit on "The Red Skelton Show" along with Béla Lugosi, Peter Lorre and Lon Chaney, Jr.. That same week "Life" magazine ran an article on her, including a photo-spread of her show-opening entrance and scream (June 14, 1954, pp. 107, 108, 110). When the series was cancelled in 1955, she retained rights to the character of Vampira and took the show to a competing Los Angeles television station, KHJ-TV. Several episode scripts and a single promotional kinescope of Nurmi re-creating some of her macabre comedy segments are held by private collectors. Several clips from the rare kinescope are included in the documentaries "American Scary" and "Vampira: The Movie". In 2007, the kinescope film of Nurmi in character was restored by Rerunmedia, whose restorations include "The Ed Sullivan Show" and "Dark Shadows". The restoration utilized the groundbreaking LiveFeed Video Imaging process developed exclusively for the restoration of kinescopes. The restoration was funded by Spectropia Wunderhaus and Coffin Case. A reconstructed episode of "The Vampira Show" was released on DVD by the Vampira's Attic web site in October 2007. The release imitated a complete episode by using existing footage of the show combined with vintage commercials believed to have been directed by Ed Wood and the full-length 1932 feature film "The Thirteenth Guest". Nurmi made television history as the first horror movie hostess. In 1957, Screen Gems released a syndicated package of 52 horror movies, mostly from Universal Pictures, under the program title "Shock Theater". Independent stations in major cities all over the U.S. began showing these films, adding their own ghoulish host or hostess (including Vampira II and other lookalikes) to attract more viewers. Nominated for an Emmy Award as 'Most Outstanding Female Personality' in 1954, she returned to films with "Too Much, Too Soon", followed by "The Big Operator" and "The Beat Generation". Her most notable film appearance was in Ed Wood's camp classic, "Plan 9 from Outer Space", as a Vampira-like zombie (filmed in 1956, but released in 1959). In 1960 she appeared in "I Passed for White" and "Sex Kittens Go to College", followed by 1962's "The Magic Sword". The classic clip from "Plan 9 from Outer Space" featuring Vampira walking out of the woods with her hands pointing straight out was used to start the original opening sequence of WPIX Channel 11 New York's "Chiller Theatre" in the 1960s. Personal life. In the early 1950s, Nurmi was close friends with James Dean, and they spent time together at Googie's coffee shop on the corner of Crescent Heights and Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood. She explained their friendship by saying, "We have the same neuroses." Dean allegedly repudiated their friendship toward the end of his brief life. As Hedda Hopper related in a 1962 memoir that included a chapter on Dean: "We discussed the thin-cheeked actress who calls herself Vampira on television (and cashed in, after Jimmy died, on the publicity she got from knowing him and claimed she could talk to him 'through the veil'). He said: 'I had studied "The Golden Bough" and the Marquis de Sade, and I was interested in finding out if this girl was obsessed by a satanic force. She knew absolutely nothing. I found her void of any true interest except her Vampira make-up. She has no absolute. The 2010 public radio documentary "Vampira and Me" by author/director R. H. Greene took issue with Hopper's depiction of the Nurmi/Dean relationship, pointing to an extant photo of Dean and Vampira sidekick Jack Simmons in full Boris Karloff Frankenstein make-up as evidence of Nurmi and Dean's friendship. The documentary also described a production memo in the Warner Bros. archive citing a set visit from "Vampira" while Dean was making "Rebel Without a Cause". The Warner Bros. memo was first mentioned in the 2006 book "Live Fast, Die Young: The Making of Rebel Without a Cause" by Lawrence Frascella and Al Weisel, who were given access to the "Rebel" production files. An interview Frascella and Weisel conducted with actress Shelley Winters also uncovered an instance where Dean interrupted an argument with director Nicholas Ray and Winters so he could watch "The Vampira Show" on TV. In "Vampira and Me", Nurmi can be heard telling Greene that Dean once appeared in a live bit on "The Vampira Show" in which Vampira, dressed as a librarian, rapped his knuckles with a ruler because "he was a very naughty boy." On June 20, 1955, Nurmi was the target of an attempted murder when a man forced his way into her apartment and proceeded to terrorize her for close to four hours. Nurmi eventually escaped and managed to call the police, with assistance from a local shop owner. Marriages. She married her first husband, Dean Riesner, in 1949, a former child actor in silent films and later the screenwriter of "Dirty Harry", "Charley Varrick", "Play Misty for Me", and numerous other movies and TV episodes. She married her second husband, younger actor John Brinkley, on March 10, 1958. She married actor Fabrizio Mioni on June 20, 1961, in Orange County, California. She had no children. Later life. By 1962, Nurmi was making a living installing linoleum flooring. "And if things are slow in linoleum, I can also do carpentry, make drapes or refinish furniture", she told the "Los Angeles Times". In the early 1960s, Nurmi opened Vampira's Attic, an antiques boutique on Melrose Avenue. She also sold handmade jewelry and clothing. She made items for several celebrities, including Grace Slick of the music group Jefferson Airplane and the Zappa family. In 1981, Nurmi was asked by KHJ-TV to revive her Vampira character for television. She worked closely with the producers of the new show and was to get an executive producer credit, but Nurmi eventually left the project over creative differences. According to Nurmi this was because the station cast comedic actress Cassandra Peterson in the part without consulting her. "They eventually called me in to sign a contract and she was there", Nurmi told "Bizarre" magazine in 2005. "They had hired her without asking me." Unable to continue using the name Vampira, the show was abruptly renamed "Elvira's Movie Macabre" with Peterson playing the titular host. Nurmi soon filed a lawsuit against Peterson. The court eventually ruled in favor of Peterson, holding that ""likeness" means actual representation of another person's appearance, and not simply close resemblance." Peterson claimed that Elvira was nothing like Vampira aside from the basic design of the black dress and black hair. Nurmi claimed that the entire Elvira persona, which included comedic dialogue and intentionally bad graveyard puns, infringed on her creation's "distinctive dark dress, horror movie props, and...special personality." Nurmi herself claimed that Vampira's image was in part based on the Charles Addams "The New Yorker" cartoon character Morticia Addams, though she told "Boxoffice" magazine in 1994 that she had intentionally deviated from Addams' mute and flat-chested creation, making her own TV character "campier and sexier" to avoid plagiarizing Addams' idea. In 1986, she appeared alongside Tomata du Plenty of The Screamers in Rene Daalder's punk rock musical ', which was released on DVD in October 2008. According to a Daalder interview on the 2 disc special edition of ', "There was a wild lady living out in back in a shed. Tomata befriended her and found out she had played Vampira." In 2001, Nurmi opened an official website and began selling autographed memorabilia and original pieces of art on eBay. Until her death, Nurmi lived in a small North Hollywood apartment. Unlike Elvira, Nurmi authorized very few merchandising contracts for her Vampira character, though the name and likeness have been used unofficially by various companies since the 1950s. In 1994, Nurmi authorized a Vampira model kit for Artomic Creations, and a pre-painted figurine from Bowen Designs in 2001, both sculpted by Thomas Kuntz. In 2004, she authorized merchandising of the Vampira character by Coffin Case. Death. On January 10, 2008, Nurmi died of natural causes at her home in Hollywood, aged 85. She was buried in the Griffith Lawn section of the Hollywood Forever Cemetery.
581829	Chandrachur Singh (born 11 October 1968) is an Indian actor, who appeared in Bollywood films. Early life. Chandrachur Singh is a native of Aligarh, Uttar Pradesh. He was born on 11 October 1968 in New Delhi, India. He belongs to a very affluent family. His father is an ex-MLA from Khair (Aligarh) and his mother is the daughter of the Maharaja of Bolangir in Orissa. He attended The Doon School, Dehradun and St. Stephens, New Delhi. He was a music teacher in Doon School before his acting career took off. Personal life. Singh has two younger brothers: Aditya Singh and Abhimanyu Singh. He married Avantika Kumari, daughter of Ajai Singh of Glenmoor Cottages, Mcleodganj, Dharamshala. She was educated at the Lawrence School, Sanawar. Their son is named Shraanajai Singh. Career. Chandrachur Singh made his acting debut in 1996 in "Tere Mere Sapne" which was produced under Amitabh Bachchan Corporation Limited. Later that year he starred alongside Tabu in "Maachis" for which he won the Filmfare Award for Best Male Debut. He appeared in several films which failed to do well but he had success with his lead roles in the multi-starrers "" (1999) opposite Sanjay Dutt, "Kya Kehna" (2000) opposite Preity Zinta and Saif Ali Khan and "Josh" (2000) opposite Aishwarya Rai and Shah Rukh Khan. After initial successes, his career went into a low, because of multiple dislocation of his shoulder joint, which he suffered while water skiing in Goa. Because of the pain on his shoulder, he couldn't work out or stay fit which caused him to gain weight and lose roles. His last few releases included "Aamdani Atthani Kharcha Rupaiyaa" (2001), "Bharat Bhagya Vidhata" (2002) and the delayed release "Sarhad Paar" which was shot in 2002 and released in 2006. All three films did average business at the box office. In 2012, he made a comeback with "Chaar Din Ki Chandni". The film featured Tusshar Kapoor, Kulraj Randhawa, Anupam Kher, Om Puri and Farida Jalal in lead roles amongst others. "Chaar Din Ki Chandni" received mixed response from critics, and turned out to be a flop at most places in Box office India. From 2012–present, he has joined Bollywood once again as an actor. He is currently working on his second comeback, titled "Zilla Ghaziabad" which has been delayed for years, however scheduled to release in August 2012.
589717	Jennifer Kapoor - born Jennifer Kendal - (28 February 1933 – 7 September 1984) was a British actress who married Shashi Kapoor of the Kapoor family. Childhood. Jennifer Kendal was born in Southport, England, but spent much of her youth in India. Her parents (she was the elder daughter of Geoffrey Kendal and Laura Liddell and elder sister of Felicity Kendal), ran a travelling theatre company, "Shakespeareana", which traveled around India as described in the book and film, "Shakespeare Wallah" (in which Kendal appeared and which starred her husband Shashi Kapoor, her parents and her sister Felicity). Shashi Kapoor. Shashi Kapoor and Jennifer met for the first time in Calcutta, in 1956, where he was part of Prithvi Theatre troupe, while she was playing Miranda in the play "The Tempest", by the Shakespeareana travelling troupe. Soon, Shashi Kapoor started touring with the Shakespeareana Company, and in July 1958 they married. Kendal and her husband were also instrumental in the rejuvenation of Prithvi Theatre in Bombay, with the opening of their theatre in Juhu, Bombay in 1978, which is today one of the most important theatre destinations in the city, a venture now managed by her daughter Sanjana. Kendal and Kapoor also starred in a number of films together, particularly those produced by Merchant Ivory Productions. Personal life. The Kapoors had three children: a daughter Sanjana Kapoor, who now runs Prithvi Theatre, and two sons, Kunal Kapoor, who is an actor, and Karan Kapoor, a photographer and erstwhile actor. She was diagnosed with terminal colon cancer in 1982; she died of the disease in 1984.
1040367	Alan Leonard Hunt (7 February 1942 – 14 March 2007) was an English actor, known as Gareth Hunt, best remembered for playing the footman Frederick Norton in "Upstairs, Downstairs" and Mike Gambit in "The New Avengers". Early life. Alan Leonard Hunt was born in Battersea, London in 1942; he was the nephew of actress Martita Hunt. His father was killed in the Second World War when Hunt was two years old, and he was brought up by his mother Doris and stepfather. At the age of 15, he joined the Merchant Navy. After six years, he jumped ship in New Zealand and worked in a car plant for a year before he was caught and served three months in a military prison. Hunt was then deported back to Britain and while taking a BBC design course he held a variety of jobs, including stagehand, road digger, butcher's assistant and door-to-door salesman. Having had an interest in acting since his early years, he subsequently trained at the Webber Douglas Academy of Dramatic Art. Following that, Hunt did rep across the United Kingdom and joined the Royal Shakespeare Company and National Theatre in the early 1970s. Among the many stage productions he appeared in were "Twelfth Night", "Oh! What a Lovely War" and "West Side Story". Hunt started his television career in 1968, playing a private Kitson in one episode of series "Frontier". In 1972, Hunt played a policeman in "For the Love of Ada", the same year he appeared in "A Family at War" and "The Organisation". In 1974, Gareth had roles in the "Doctor Who" story "Planet of the Spiders" and "Bless This House". In 1975 he played Thomas Woolner in "The Love School". Television fame. In 1974, Gareth Hunt appeared in the "Upstairs, Downstairs" episode "Missing Believed Killed" as Trooper Norton, batman to James Bellamy. The character was a minor one; however, his performance led producers John Hawkesworth and Alfred Shaughnessy to ask him to come back as a regular for the fifth series in 1975. Hunt continued playing Frederick Norton, who had by now become the footman, until the eleventh episode of the fifth series, "Alberto". In 1975, Hunt made appearances in "The Hanged Man", "Softly, Softly" and "". In 1976, the year after leaving "Upstairs Downstairs", Hunt starred alongside Joanna Lumley and Patrick Macnee in "The New Avengers". The show's producers said he was cast because of his part in "Upstairs, Downstairs". Hunt played secret agent Mike Gambit and starred in the show until its end after two series in 1977. He portrayed secret agent Charles Bind in "Licensed to Love and Kill". After that in the late 1970s and 1980s, Hunt made appearances in "Sunday Night Thriller", "Minder" and "Hammer House of Mystery and Suspense". Hunt appeared alongside Julia McKenzie in "That Beryl Marston...!" in 1981. In 1984 he appeared in the film "Bloodbath at the House of Death" and in 1988 he played many parts in the Pet Shop Boys' film "It Couldn't Happen Here". Hunt starred in a series of television adverts for the coffee brand Nescafé in the 1980s, with a trademark move: to shake his closed hand then open it, to reveal coffee beans, and smell the aroma. Later years. Gareth Hunt continued to have minor roles in many television programmes in the 1990s and 2000s, with appearances in "The New Adventures of Robin Hood", "Harry and the Wrinklies", "Absolute Power" (as himself), "New Tricks", "Powers" and "Doctors". From 1992 to 1993 Hunt had a leading role in the sitcom "Side by Side", and had a main role in the short-lived soap opera "Night and Day" in 2001. In 1997, he appeared in the film "Fierce Creatures" and in 2001 played Ritchie Stringer, a crime boss who was an unlikely suspect in the shooting of Phil Mitchell, in "EastEnders". For a brief time he abandoned acting and started a project called Interactive Casting Universal, a computer system that presented actors' details and showreels. Hunt suffered a heart attack in December 1999 and withdrew from a pantomime in Malvern. In July 2002 he collapsed while performing on stage in Bournemouth. He died of pancreatic cancer, from which he had suffered for two years, on 14 March 2007, at the age of 65, at his home in Redhill, Surrey. He had married three times and had a son by each marriage. Hunt's remains were cremated and scattered in Battersea.
1028695	Janel Meilani Parrish (born October 30, 1988) is an American actress and singer-songwriter. She is best known for playing Mona Vanderwaal on the ABC Family series "Pretty Little Liars". She is also known for the role of Jade in the 2007 film "". Acting career. Parrish first achieved fame in Hawaii as the winner of local talent contests. She got her start as a professional entertainer when she was cast as "Young Cosette" in the National Touring Company of "Les Misérables", and later portrayed "Young Cosette" in the Broadway production as well; the role showcased both her acting and singing abilities. She subsequently appeared in several community theater productions in Hawaii—most notably as "Scout" in Manoa Valley Theatre's revival of "To Kill a Mockingbird" in 1998.
1042837	Richard Cameron Wattis (25 February 1912 — 1 February 1975) born in Wednesbury, Staffordshire, was an English character actor.
485416	George Robert Price (October 6, 1922 – January 6, 1975) was an American population geneticist. Originally a physical chemist and later a science journalist, he moved to London in 1967, where he worked in theoretical biology at the Galton Laboratory, making three important contributions: first, rederiving W.D. Hamilton's work on kin selection with a new Price equation; second, introducing (with John Maynard Smith) the concept of the evolutionarily stable strategy (ESS), a central concept in game theory; and third, formalising Fisher's fundamental theorem of natural selection. After radical Christian conversion and giving all his possessions to the poor, he committed suicide. Early life. Price was born in 1922. His father, an electrician, died when Price was four. His mother was a former opera singer, and the family struggled through the Great Depression.
1299468	Marvin Kaplan (born January 24, 1927) is an American character actor and voice artist.
1061035	Milena Markovna Kunis, professionally known as Mila Kunis (; born August 14, 1983), is an American actress and voice artist. In 1991, at the age of seven, she moved from Ukraine to Los Angeles with her family. After being enrolled in acting classes as an after-school activity, she was soon discovered by an agent. She appeared in several television series and commercials, before acquiring her first significant role prior to her 15th birthday, playing Jackie Burkhart on the television series "That '70s Show". A year later, she was cast as the voice of Meg Griffin on the animated series "Family Guy". Her breakout film role came in 2008, playing Rachel Jansen in "Forgetting Sarah Marshall". Subsequent film roles included Mona Sax in "Max Payne", Solara in "The Book of Eli", Jamie in "Friends with Benefits", Lori in the comedy "Ted", and Theodora in "Oz the Great and Powerful". Her performance as Lily in "Black Swan" gained her worldwide accolades, including receiving the Premio Marcello Mastroianni for Best Young Actor or Actress at the 67th Venice International Film Festival, and nominations for a Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress and a Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Supporting Role. Early life. Kunis was born in Chernivtsi, in the Ukrainian SSR (now Ukraine). Her mother, Elvira, is a physics teacher who runs a pharmacy, and her father, Mark Kunis, is a mechanical engineer who works as a cab driver. Kunis has a brother, Michael, who is six years older. She stated in 2011 that her parents had "amazing jobs", and that the family was "very lucky" and "not poor"; they had decided to leave the USSR because they saw "no future" there for Kunis and her brother. In 1991, when she was seven years old, her family moved to Los Angeles, California with $250. “That was all we were allowed to take with us. My parents had given up good jobs and degrees, which were not transferable. We arrived in New York on a Wednesday and by Friday morning my brother and I were at school in LA.” Kunis is Jewish and has cited antisemitism in the former Soviet Union as one of several reasons for her family's move to the United States. She has stated that her parents "raised Jewish as much as they could," although religion was suppressed in the Soviet Union. On her second day in Los Angeles, Kunis was enrolled at Rosewood Elementary School, not knowing a word of English. She later recalled: "I blocked out second grade completely. I have no recollection of it. I always talk to my mom and my grandma about it. It was because I cried every day. I didn't understand the culture. I didn't understand the people. I didn't understand the language. My first sentence of my essay to get into college was like, 'Imagine being blind and deaf at age seven.' And that's kind of what it felt like moving to the States." Education. In Los Angeles, she attended Hubert Howe Bancroft Middle School. She used an on-set tutor for most of her high school years while filming "That '70s Show". When not on the set, she attended Fairfax High School, from which she graduated in 2001. She briefly attended UCLA and Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles. Career. 1994–2000: Career beginnings and television work. At age nine, Kunis was enrolled by her father in acting classes after school at the Beverly Hills Studios, where she met Susan Curtis, who would become her manager. On her first audition she landed the role for a Barbie commercial. Shortly after, she did a commercial for the Lisa Frank product line. Her first television roles took place in 1994, first appearing on "Days of Our Lives", and a few months later doing her first of two appearances on "Baywatch". She had a minor role on "7th Heaven" and supporting roles in "Santa with Muscles", "Honey, We Shrunk Ourselves", and the Angelina Jolie film "Gia", as the young Gia Carangi. At the age of 10, Kunis auditioned for but failed to get the role of a Russian Jewish girl who moves to America in the film "Make a Wish, Molly". Instead, she was cast in the secondary role of a Mexican girl. In 1998, Kunis was cast as Jackie Burkhart in the Fox sitcom "That '70s Show". All who auditioned were required to be at least 18 years old; Kunis, who was 14 at the time, told the casting directors she would be 18 but did not say when. Though they eventually figured it out, the producers still thought Kunis was the best fit for the role. "That '70s Show" ran for eight seasons. She won two consecutive "Young Star Awards" as Best Young Actress in a Comedy TV Series in 1999 and 2000 for her performances. In 1999, Kunis replaced Lacey Chabert in the role of Meg Griffin on the animated sitcom "Family Guy", created by Seth MacFarlane for Fox. Kunis won the role after auditions and a slight rewrite of the character, in part due to her performance on "That '70s Show". MacFarlane called Kunis back after her first audition, instructing her to speak slower, and then told her to come back another time and enunciate more. Upon claiming that she had mastered these speech particulars, MacFarlane hired her. MacFarlane added: "What Mila Kunis brought to it was in a lot of ways, I thought, almost more right for the character. I say that Lacey did a phenomenal job, but there was something about Mila – something very natural about Mila. She was 15 when she started, so you were listening to a 15-year-old. Often times with animation they'll have adult actors doing the voices of teenagers and they always sound like Saturday morning voices. They sound often times very forced. She had a very natural quality to Meg that really made what we did with that character kind of really work." Kunis was nominated for an Annie Award in the category of Voice Acting in an Animated Television Production in 2007. She also voiced Meg in the "Family Guy Video Game!". Kunis described her character as "the scapegoat." 2001–2008: Transition to film. In 2001, she appeared in "Get Over It" opposite Kirsten Dunst. She followed that up in 2002, by starring in the straight-to-DVD horror film "American Psycho 2" alongside William Shatner, a sequel to the 2000 film "American Psycho". "American Psycho 2" was panned by critics, and later, Kunis herself expressed embarrassment over the film. In 2004, Kunis starred in the film adaptation "Tony n' Tina's Wedding". Although the film was shot in 2004, it did not have a theatrical release until 2007. Most critics did not like the film, which mustered a 25% approval from Rotten Tomatoes. "DVD talk" concluded that "fans would be much better off pretending the movie never happened in the first place". In 2005, Kunis co-starred with Jon Heder in "Moving McAllister", which was not released theatrically until 2007. The film received generally poor reviews and had a limited two-week run in theaters. She followed up with "After Sex" starring alongside Zoe Saldana, who had also appeared in "Get Over It". In October 2006, she began filming "Boot Camp" (originally titled "Straight Edge"). The film was not released in theatres in the United States, but was released on DVD on August 25, 2009. Kunis starred as Rachel Jansen in the 2008 comedy film, "Forgetting Sarah Marshall", co-produced by Judd Apatow. The role, which she won after unsuccessfully auditioning for "Knocked Up", entailed improvisation on her part. The film garnered positive reviews, and was a commercial success, grossing $105 million worldwide. Kunis's performance was well-received; Joe Morgenstern of "The Wall Street Journal" praised her "fresh beauty and focused energy", while James Berardinelli wrote that she is "adept with her performance and understands the concept of comic timing". She was nominated for a Teen Choice Award. In an interview, Kunis credited Apatow with helping her to expand her career from "That '70s Show". Also in 2008, Kunis portrayed Mona Sax, an assassin, alongside Mark Wahlberg in the action film "Max Payne", based on the video game of the same name. Kunis underwent training in guns, boxing, and martial arts for her role. "Max Payne" was relatively successful at the box office, grossing $85 million worldwide but was panned by critics, with several reviewers calling Kunis miscast. Travis Estvold of "Boise Weekly" wrote that she's "horribly miscast as some sort of undersized, warble-voiced crime boss". Director John Moore defended his choice of Kunis saying, "Mila just bowled us over...She wasn't an obvious choice, but she just wears Mona so well. We needed someone who would not be just a fop or foil to Max; we needed somebody who had to be that character and convey her own agenda. I think Mila just knocked it out of the park." She was nominated for another Teen Choice Award for her role in the film. 2009–2012: Film breakthrough and acclaim. In 2009, she appeared in the comedy film "Extract" with Ben Affleck and Jason Bateman. The film received mostly positive reviews, and grossed $10.8 million at the box office. Roger Ebert, while critical of the film itself, wrote that Kunis "brings her role to within shouting distance of credibility." Director Mike Judge commented that part of what was surprising to learn about Kunis was her ability to make references to the cult animation film "Rejected". Judge said: "As beautiful as Mila is, you could believe that maybe she would cross paths with you in the real world." After seeing Kunis perform in "Forgetting Sarah Marshall", Judge wanted to cast her in the role of Cindy in "Extract": "I just thought, 'Wow, this girl's perfect.' And she really wanted to do it, which was fantastic." Said Kunis, "I'm a huge fan of Mike Judge's from "Office Space", so I was, like, 'Okay, this is a very easy decision.' I told them I would do anything needed to be in this production– like craft service, or, say, acting." In 2010, she starred alongside Denzel Washington in the action film "The Book of Eli". Although the film received mixed reviews, it performed well at the box office, grossing over $157 million worldwide. Film critic Richard Roeper praised Kunis's performance, calling it a "particularly strong piece of work". Several other reviews were equally positive, including that of Pete Hammond of "Boxoffice" magazine, who wrote that she's "ideally cast in the key female role" Even reviewers who didn't necessarily like the film complimented her performance, such as James Berardinelli, who wrote that "the demands of the role prove to be within her range, which is perhaps surprising considering she has been thus far pigeonholed into more lightweight parts", and Colin Covert of the "Star Tribune", who wrote that she "generated a spark and brought a degree of determination to her character, developing an independent female character who's not always in need of rescuing." Other critics, such as Claudia Puig of "USA Today" felt she was miscast, noting that "she looked as if she dropped in from a Ray-Ban commercial". Kunis received another Teen Choice Award nomination for her performance. Kunis was also cast in a minor role in the 2010 comedy film "Date Night", starring Tina Fey and Steve Carell. She garnered several positive reviews for her performance. Michael Phillips of the "Chicago Tribune" concluded her performance with James Franco helped save the film and gave it "a shot in the arm." Kunis was nominated for multiple awards, including her first Golden Globe, for the 2010 film "Black Swan". She played a rival ballet dancer to the main character, played by Natalie Portman. Director Darren Aronofsky cast Kunis in the film based on her performance in "Forgetting Sarah Marshall", and on the recommendation of co-star and close friend Natalie Portman. She underwent a training regimen that included cardiovascular exercise, a 1,200-calorie a day diet (she lost 20 pounds that she regained after filming ended), and ballet classes for four hours a day, seven days a week. During the demanding production, she suffered injuries including a torn ligament and a dislocated shoulder. "Black Swan" has received widespread acclaim from critics and was nominated for five Academy Awards, including Best Picture. The film grossed over $106.9 million in the United States and Canada while grossing over $329 million worldwide. Reviews of Kunis's performance have been positive, with Kirk Honeycutt of "The Hollywood Reporter" stating, "Kunis makes a perfect alternate to Portman, equally as lithe and dark but a smirk of self-assurance in place of Portman's wide-eyed fearfulness." Guy Lodge of In Contention also praised Kunis, saying, "it's the cool, throaty-voiced Kunis who is the surprise package here, intelligently watching and reflecting her co-star in such a manner that we're as uncertain as Nina of her ingenuousness." Kunis' performance won her the Marcello Mastroianni Award for Best Young Actor or Actress at the 67th Venice International Film Festival, and earned her Golden Globe Award and Screen Actors Guild Award nominations for Best Supporting Actress. At the 37th annual Saturn Awards, she was also honored with the Best Supporting Actress award for her performance. Kunis was cast alongside Justin Timberlake in the romantic comedy "Friends with Benefits". Director Will Gluck stated that he wrote the story with Kunis and Timberlake in mind. "Friends with Benefits" achieved success at the box office, grossing over $149 million worldwide, and received mostly positive reviews with critics praising the chemistry between Kunis and Timberlake. Manohla Dargis of "The New York Times" wrote that "Ms. Kunis is fast proving that she's a gift that keeps giving to mainstream romantic comedy" and "her energy is so invigorating and expansive and her presence so vibrant that she fills the screen". In 2012, Kunis co-starred with Mark Wahlberg in "Ted", her most commercially successful film to date. The film was directed and co-written by "Family Guy" creator Seth MacFarlane. Kunis played the girlfriend of Wahlberg's character. When MacFarlane first conceived the project, he considered Kunis too young for the role. However, the film remained in development for several years and when it was finally ready to begin production, he ended up casting her. "Ted" has received generally positive reviews from critics and was a commercial success, grossing $549 million worldwide. Drew McWeeny of HitFix wrote that Kunis "brings some lovely subtle grace notes to a role that easily could have just been 'the pushy girlfriend. 2013–present: Future projects. In 2013, Kunis played Theodora, the youngest of three witches, opposite James Franco, in the Walt Disney Pictures' prequel, "Oz the Great and Powerful". She dedicated her performance in the film to Margaret Hamilton, the original Wicked Witch of the West in the 1939 film. The film, and Kunis' performance, received mixed reviews from critics. Kim Newman of "Empire Magazine" wrote that Kunis "walks away with the honours as the wavering witch Theodora, whose heartbreak brings another, less-expected depth to this 3D spectacle". In contrast, Todd McCarthy of "The Hollywood Reporter" found Kunis's performance to be uncertain as her character seemed to be in a state of limbo. "Oz the Great and Powerful" was a commercial success, grossing over $493 million worldwide.
1055268	Emily Jane Browning (born 7 December 1988) is an Australian film actress, singer and fashion model. After early roles in "Ghost Ship" and "Ned Kelly", she won the 2005 AFI International Award for Best Actress for her breakthrough role as Violet Baudelaire in "Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events". She has starred in lead roles in the horror film, "The Uninvited" (2009), the action film "Sucker Punch" (2011) and the independent film "Sleeping Beauty" (2011).
1104920	In numerical analysis, Simpson's rule is a method for numerical integration, the numerical approximation of definite integrals. Specifically, it is the following approximation: Simpson's rule also corresponds to the 3-point Newton-Cotes quadrature rule. The method is credited to the mathematician Thomas Simpson (1710–1761) of Leicestershire, England. Kepler used similar formulas over 100 years prior. In German, the method is sometimes called "Keplersche Fassregel" for this reason. Simpson's rule is a staple of scientific data analysis and engineering. It is widely used, for example, by naval architects to numerically integrate hull offsets and cross-sectional areas to determine volumes and centroids of ships or lifeboats. Derivation. Simpson's rule can be derived in various ways. Quadratic interpolation. One derivation replaces the integrand formula_2 by the quadratic polynomial (i.e. parabola)formula_3 which takes the same values as formula_2 at the end points "a" and "b" and the midpoint "m" = ("a" + "b") / 2. One can use Lagrange polynomial interpolation to find an expression for this polynomial, An easy (albeit tedious) calculation shows that This calculation can be carried out more easily if one first observes that (by scaling) there is no loss of generality in assuming that formula_7 and formula_8. Averaging the midpoint and the trapezoidal rules. Another derivation constructs Simpson's rule from two simpler approximations: the midpoint rule and the trapezoidal rule The errors in these approximations are respectively, where formula_12 denotes a term asymptotically proportional to formula_13. The two formula_12 terms are not equal; see Big O notation for more details. It follows from the above formulas for the errors of the midpoint and trapezoidal rule that the leading error term vanishes if we take the weighted average This weighted average is exactly Simpson's rule. Using another approximation (for example, the trapezoidal rule with twice as many points), it is possible to take a suitable weighted average and eliminate another error term. This is Romberg's method. Undetermined coefficients. The third derivation starts from the "ansatz" The coefficients α, β and γ can be fixed by requiring that this approximation be exact for all quadratic polynomials. This yields Simpson's rule. Error. The error in approximating an integral by Simpson's rule is where formula_18 is some number between formula_19 and formula_20. The error is asymptotically proportional to formula_21. However, the above derivations suggest an error proportional to formula_22. Simpson's rule gains an extra order because the points at which the integrand is evaluated are distributed symmetrically in the interval ["a", "b"]. Since the error term is proportional to the fourth derivative of "f" at formula_18, this shows that Simpson's rule provides exact results for any polynomial "f" of degree three or less, since the fourth derivative of such a polynomial is zero at all points. Composite Simpson's rule. If the interval of integration formula_20 is in some sense "small", then Simpson's rule will provide an adequate approximation to the exact integral. By small, what we really mean is that the function being integrated is relatively smooth over the interval formula_20. For such a function, a smooth quadratic interpolant like the one used in Simpson's rule will give good results. However, it is often the case that the function we are trying to integrate is not smooth over the interval. Typically, this means that either the function is highly oscillatory, or it lacks derivatives at certain points. In these cases, Simpson's rule may give very poor results. One common way of handling this problem is by breaking up the interval formula_20 into a number of small subintervals. Simpson's rule is then applied to each subinterval, with the results being summed to produce an approximation for the integral over the entire interval. This sort of approach is termed the "composite Simpson's rule". Suppose that the interval formula_20 is split up in formula_28 subintervals, with formula_28 an even number. Then, the composite Simpson's rule is given by where formula_31 for formula_32 with formula_33; in particular, formula_34 and formula_35. The above formula can also be written as The error committed by the composite Simpson's rule is bounded (in absolute value) by where formula_38 is the "step length", given by formula_39 This formulation splits the interval formula_40 in subintervals of equal length. In practice, it is often advantageous to use subintervals of different lengths, and concentrate the efforts on the places where the integrand is less well-behaved. This leads to the adaptive Simpson's method. Alternative extended Simpson's rule. This is another formulation of a composite Simpson's rule: instead of applying Simpson's rule to disjoint segments of the integral to be approximated, Simpson's rule is applied to overlapping segments, yielding: The formula above is obtained by combining the original composite Simpson's rule with the one consisting in using Simpson's 3/8 rule in the extreme subintervals and the standard 3-point rule in the remaining subintervals. The result is then obtained by taking the mean of the two formulas. Simpson's 3/8 rule. Simpson's 3/8 rule is another method for numerical integration proposed by Thomas Simpson. It is based upon a cubic interpolation rather than a quadratic interpolation. Simpson's 3/8 rule is as follows: where "b" - "a" = 3"h". The error of this method is: where formula_18 is some number between formula_19 and formula_20. Thus, the 3/8 rule is about twice as accurate as the standard method, but it uses one more function value. A composite 3/8 rule also exists, similarly as above. A further generalization of this concept for interpolation with arbitrary degree polynomials are the Newton–Cotes formulas. Simpson's 3/8 rule (for n point). Defining, we have Note, we can only use this if formula_28 is a multiple of three. Sample implementations. An implementation of the composite Simpson's rule in Python 2: An implementation of the composite Simpson's rule in Matlab R2011b: An implementation of the composite Simpson's rule in Octave 3.6.2::
1057206	Lonesome Jim is a 2005 American comedy/drama film directed by Steve Buscemi. Filmed mostly in the city of Goshen, Indiana, the film stars Casey Affleck as a chronically depressed aspiring novelist who moves back into his parents' home after failing to make it in New York City. Liv Tyler also stars as a good-hearted nurse who finds contentment through encouraging optimism in Jim's glum world. "Lonesome Jim" premiered at the 2005 Sundance Film Festival where it was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize but it lost the award to Ira Sachs' "Forty Shades of Blue". Plot. Jim (Casey Affleck) is a perennially gloomy 27 year-old aspiring novelist from Goshen, Indiana who moved to New York City in hopes of finding success with his writing. After two years of barely making a living as a dog walker, he defeatedly decides to move back home to his parents' house in Goshen. Jim's 32 year-old brother Tim (Kevin Corrigan) is a recently divorced father of two young girls whose business recently failed. Tim has moved back into his parents' home and he works in the ladder factory that's owned and operated by their pessimistic father Don (Seymour Cassel) and overly cheerful mother Sally (Mary Kay Place). Jim has no interest in the family business and he resists pressure from Don to start working there. Jim meets Anika (Liv Tyler), a nurse, in a bar and they end up having sex in a hospital bed, though Jim finishes embarrassingly early. After an argument between the two brothers on whose life has been more pathetic so far, Tim, having previously made repeated unsuccessful attempts to commit suicide, drives his car into a tree in hopes of ending his life; he is gravely injured and hospitalized. Jim now finally gives in to Don's pressure to work in the factory by taking over Tim's duties. He also takes over Tim's job as the coach of a girls basketball team; the team, which has not scored a single point in the last 14 games, includes both of Tim's daughters. While visiting Tim is in the hospital, Jim runs into Anika, who works in another department. They arrange a date, but on arriving to collect her, he discovers she is a single mother. Their relationship progresses, however. Anika is sympathetic to Jim's problems, and she decides to stand by him in encouragement even when he tries to convince her that it's in her best interest to not be around him. At the ladder factory, Jim encounters his uncle Stacy (Mark Boone Junior), who prefers to be called "Evil." Jim seeks advice from Evil about premature ejaculation, and they become friends of a sort. Evil offers Jim some recreational drugs and asks Jim to open a checking account for him so he can pay for things by mail. Evil gives Jim $4,000, saying it is saved-up birthday and Christmas presents. Jim's mother, Sally, is arrested by DEA officers for allegedly shipping illegal drugs through the store's Fedex account. It transpires that Evil is the drug dealer, but Jim cannot persuade him to confess. Evil points out that Jim will be implicated if he tries to report Evil, as he has opened an account with Evil's cash and will test positive for drug use. Eternal optimist that she is, Sally finds happiness in her new surroundings and makes friends with her fellow prisoners. Eventually she is released on bail. Despite working a job he hates and feeling responsible for his mother's imprisonment, Jim slowly allows his monumental depression to be dismantled by Anika and finds himself believing that life is worth living. Jim invites Anika and her son to move to New Orleans with him, but after Jim vacillates, she is offended and this seems to be off the cards. Jim finally decides to leave town for New Orleans by himself, leaving a note for his parents promising not to take their love for granted again and revealing Evil as the drug dealer. Anika shows up at the bus station to say good-bye, but seems to Jim miss the opportunity to reconcile with her. Jim departs on the bus, but as Anika drives home with her son, Jim is seen running after them, luggage in hand. Production. The film was originally a part of a deal with Universal Studios and had a proposed budget of $3 million. However, the deal with Universal was unexpectedly cancelled and "Lonesome Jim" then ended up being shot and produced on a meager budget of $500,000 with the original filming schedule being reduced from 30 down to 17 days. As a cost-saving measure, screenplay writer James C. Strouse, a native of Goshen, Indiana, employed two of his nieces as actors in the film, another family member as location manager, as well he used his parents' home and factory as a location for Jim's parents' home and factory. More money was saved by recording the entire film onto a mini-DV digital video camera rather than a film camera. Critical reception and box office. During its theatrical run, "Lonesome Jim" never earned back its initial budget of $500,000; instead, the film grossed less than $155,000 domestically and less than $175,000 worldwide. The film received mixed reaction from film critics. The aggregate review websites Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic record a rating of 60 percent and 54/100 respectively as of October 28, 2008. Film critic Roger Ebert of the "Chicago Sun-Times" awarded the film three stars out of four, and it also received "Two thumbs up" on the film review television program "At the Movies with Ebert & Roeper" co-hosted by Richard Roeper. Mathew Turner of View London proclaimed ""Lonesome Jim" is one of the year's best films, thanks to a superb script, terrific performances and Buscemi's assured direction". Peter Travers of "Rolling Stone" awarded it three stars out of four, calling the film a "deadpan delight" and proclaiming "I can't recall having a better time at a movie about depression". Critic Christopher Campbell declared the film "hilarious throughout. By far it is the funniest thing I saw during the film festival". Stephen Holden of "The New York Times" did not give the film a very favorable review, criticizing the film's sense of humor by calling it "only as broad as the Mona Lisa's smile" and criticizing Affleck's portrayal of Jim. Lisa Schwarzbaum of "Entertainment Weekly" awarded the film a grade of C minus, writing that director Steve Buscemi "is stymied here by the inertia of his material".
1185137	Solange Piaget Knowles, (born June 24, 1986), also known simply as Solange, is an American singer, songwriter, and model. Knowles was born in Houston, Texas to Matthew and Tina Knowles, both of whom left their careers to support elder sister Beyoncé's recording interests. Expressing an interest in music from an early age, Knowles had several temporary stints in Destiny's Child, before signing with her father's Music World Entertainment label. Aged sixteen, Knowles released her first studio album "Solo Star" (2001) to moderate commercial and critical success.
1236410	Emilie de Ravin (; born 27 December 1981) is an Australian actress. She is best known for her roles as Tess Harding on "Roswell" and Claire Littleton on the ABC drama "Lost". In 2012 she guest-starred as Belle on the ABC drama "Once Upon a Time" and became a series regular beginning in the show's second season. She was originally to play Anthony LaPaglia's daughter in the potential ABC drama, "Americana". De Ravin's film credits include "Santa's Slay" (2005), "The Hills Have Eyes" (2006) and "Ball Don't Lie" (2008). She starred as Brendan Frye's heroin-addicted ex-girlfriend Emily in the neo-noir film "Brick" (2005). She had a small cameo in "Public Enemies" (2009) and more recently starred in "Remember Me" (2010). De Ravin was included on "Maxim"'s Hot 100 list three times: in 2005, on #47, the next year on #65, and in 2008 on #68. Early life. De Ravin was born in Mount Eliza, Victoria, Australia, an outer southeastern suburb of Melbourne. Having studied ballet since the age of nine at Christa Cameron School of Ballet in Melbourne, and being home schooled by her mother, she was accepted into the Australian Ballet School at fifteen. There, she performed in productions with The Australian Ballet as well as Danceworld 301. Ravin studied acting at Australia's National Institute of Dramatic Art, and with the Prime Time Actors Studio in Los Angeles. Career. De Ravin's first major role was a recurring part as Curupira in the TV series "Beastmaster". She went on to appear as alien/human hybrid Tess Harding in the teen television series, "Roswell". She landed this role one month after moving to Los Angeles at the age of 18. In 2004, de Ravin was cast to portray Claire Littleton on the hit ABC drama "Lost". In answer to if she expected the success of "Lost", de Ravin said: "It's sort of hard to say. You read something and have a good feeling about it, it sounds great, ties nicely together and then shooting something, editing it, the music, the actors involved, everything sort of plays a huge part. Everyone involved had a great feeling towards it, but you never really know". De Ravin was a series regular for the first four seasons, but did not return as a series regular for the fifth season. She returned as a regular in the sixth and final season. In 2005, de Ravin was cast to portray Emily Kostich, the heroin-addicted ex-girlfriend of Brendan Frye (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), in the neo-noir film "Brick". In an interview about the film, Ravin told that she was attracted by the script because it was original and the teens in the film are very deep and emotional for their age. A year later, de Ravin had a lead role and was cast as Brenda Carter in the remake of "The Hills Have Eyes". The film performed well at the box office. In 2007, "Variety" reported that she would be starring in the film "Ball Don't Lie", which premiered at the 2008 Tribeca Film Festival, which arrived in cinemas early 2009. De Ravin will appear in William Dear's "The Perfect Game", and appeared in the 2009 film "Public Enemies" as a bank teller named Barbara Patzke. De Ravin was cast in the movie adaption of the video game "Onimusha", but due to producer Samuel Hadida's other project "The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus", and star Heath Ledger's death, Hadida was forced to push back the release date of the film. "Onimusha" is postponed for an unknown amount of time and there is not any confirmation if de Ravin will continue the project. De Ravin filmed "Remember Me" in the summer of 2009. The film received its wide release on 12 March 2010. She was a regular on the sixth and final season of "Lost". In 2012 she guest-starred as Belle on the ABC drama "Once Upon a Time". After sporadic appearances in the first season, she was promoted to a series regular in the second. De Ravin stars in the Finnish film, Love and Other Troubles, directed by Samuli Valkama. Film tells the story of Ville (Jussi Nikkilä) and his father (Ville Virtanen), who both fall in love with the same woman, played by de Ravin. De Ravin was to star as Anthony LaPaglia's daughter in the new drama series "Americana" in 2012, but ABC passed on the pilot. Personal life. After three years of dating, actor Josh Janowicz proposed to de Ravin on New Year's Day 2005 in Melbourne, which she said "was very impromptu and very sweet". Ravin met Janowicz in Los Angeles, and said that "our life together always comes before work. You can't buy love or family." While filming "Lost", de Ravin flew to and from Hawaii "once or twice a week" to return to her home in Burbank, California, which she shared with Janowicz and their poodle, Bella de Maria, named after a childhood friend. The couple married 19 June 2006 in Melbourne, Australia. They separated six months after they married, and then reconciled. In June 2009, it was reported that they were living separately and had filed for divorce. In October 2009, she called off the divorce after a trip to Japan with her husband.
1099762	Joseph Michael Hilbe (born 30 December 1944) is an American statistician and philosopher,
1169720	Johnny Whitaker (born December 13, 1959) is an American actor and singer notable for several performances for film and television during his childhood. The naturally redheaded Whitaker is best known for his role as Brian Keith's 6-year-old nephew, Jody Davis, on "Family Affair" from 1966–1971, originated the role of Scotty Baldwin on "General Hospital" in 1965, played the lead in Hallmark's 1969 "The Littlest Angel", and portrayed the title character in the 1973 musical version of "Tom Sawyer". Two of his siblings, Billy and Dora, provided the voices of the rabbits Skippy and Tagalong for Disney's animated film "Robin Hood" in that same year. Biography. Whitaker was born as John Orson Whitaker, Jr. in Van Nuys, California, the fifth of eight children to Thelma and John O. Whitaker, Sr. and started his professional acting career at the age of three by appearing in a television commercial for a local used car dealer. In 1965, he originated the character of the young Scotty Baldwin in the soap opera "General Hospital". In 1966, he acted in a major feature film, "The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming" which also starred Brian Keith, the actor who would later play Whitaker's uncle in the television series "Family Affair". The show "Family Affair" aired from 1966–1971. It co-starred Whitaker playing the role of a 6-year-old orphaned boy named Jody Davis, living in a high-rise apartment in New York City with his sisters Buffy (Anissa Jones) and Cissy (Kathy Garver), his uncle Bill Davis (Brian Keith), and Bill's butler, Mr. French (Sebastian Cabot). Off the set, Whitaker was a close friend of Brian Keith, who became a second uncle to him. While a regular on the show, he also starred in the Hallmark Hall of Fame production "The Littlest Angel" and an episode of the long running western "The Virginian" in 1969. After "Family Affair", Whitaker went on to star in the 1973 Sid and Marty Krofft Saturday morning children's series "Sigmund and the Sea Monsters" alongside Billy Barty and Scott Kolden, as well as appearing in feature films, including Disney's "Snowball Express", "The Biscuit Eater", "Napoleon and Samantha" and "The Magic Pony". His most prominent feature film role during this period was the lead in the 1973 musical version of "Tom Sawyer". Whitaker graduated from Sylmar High School, and then spent two years in Portugal doing missionary work for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Upon returning to the United States he attended Brigham Young University, graduating in 1986 with a degree in Communications. He worked as a computer consultant briefly at CBS as he mentioned in an interview with Tom Snyder on "The Late Late Show", and later joined a Los Angeles talent agency, Whitaker Entertainment, owned by his sister. Whitaker was Dana Plato's former manager and a friend of the family. He is also a certified drug counselor.
1036221	Katherine Lucy Bridget "Kathy" Burke (born 13 June 1964) is an English actress, comedienne, playwright and theatre director. She is best known for her portrayals of Perry in the Harry Enfield film "Kevin and Perry Go Large", and of Linda La Hughes in the British sitcom "Gimme Gimme Gimme". She is also known for her regular appearances on "French and Saunders", "Absolutely Fabulous" and "Harry Enfield and Chums". She has been nominated for six BAFTA awards. Early life. She was born at the Royal Free Hospital in London, and brought up in the Irish area of Islington. She has two older brothers, John and Barry. Her mother Bridget (Bridie) died of cancer when she was two, and she was brought up by neighbours (the Galvin family) for the following few years. Subsequently, she returned to live with her Irish father Patrick (Paddy), an alcoholic, who died of cancer in 1985. Burke attended the Maria Fidelis RC Convent School. She then studied theatre at Anna Scher Theatre. Career. Burke's first role was in the controversial 1983 film "Scrubbers", directed by Swedish actress Mai Zetterling and featuring Pam St. Clement, Robbie Coltrane, Miriam Margolyes, Honey Bane, Debby Bishop and Eva Mottley. The film was set in a young offenders' institute for girls and was seen as a female version of the film "Scum".
1165730	Charles Herbert Saperstein (born December 23, 1948) is a former American child actor of the 1950s and 1960s. Before reaching his teens, Herbert was renowned by a generation of moviegoers for an on-screen broody, mature style and wit that enabled him to go one-on-one with some of the biggest names in the industry, and his appearances in a handful of films in the sci-fi/horror genre have garnered him an immortality there. In six years he appeared in 20 Hollywood features. Herbert supported his family from the age of five and went from being one of the most desired and highest paid child actors of his time to one of the multitude of performers Hollywood "discarded" upon reaching maturity. His situation and the lifetime of damage it created for him have only recently come to light. Early life. Herbert was born Charles Herbert Saperstein in Culver City, California. According to Herbert, his career began when he was discovered by an agent: "I just happened to be riding on a bus while on a shopping trip with my mother one day and a gentleman who was a talent agent in Hollywood, named Cosmo Morgan, saw me talking and must have thought I was cute or something. He gave me his card, which I immediately tried to give to the bus driver! That’s basically how it started."
743803	Carey Lowell (born February 11, 1961) is an American actress and former model. Early life. Lowell was born in Huntington, New York, the daughter of geologist James Lowell. She spent much of her childhood living in locales including Libya, the Netherlands, France, and in the US, in Houston, Texas and Denver, Colorado, where her family settled when she was 12. After a year at the University of Colorado at Boulder, where she majored in literature, she moved to New York City to pursue modeling, and modeled for such clients as Ralph Lauren and Calvin Klein, and at some unspecified time attended New York University. She also studied at Manhattan's Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theatre. Career. Lowell broke into acting with a small role in the Robin Williams movie "Club Paradise". She went to roles including those of Bond girl Pam Bouvier in the James Bond movie "Licence to Kill" (1989) and, starting in 1996, Assistant District Attorney Jamie Ross on the television drama "Law & Order", a character she reprised in 2005 for a guest role on its spinoff, "". Immediately before that role, however, she had become frustrated with her acting career and had applied to study documentary filmmaking at New York University. She left acting after the mid-2000s. In 2012, Lowell lent her likeness and voice while reprising her "Licence to Kill" role in the video game "007 Legends". Personal life. Lowell was married to actor Griffin Dunne from 1989 to 1995 and has a daughter, Hannah, from that marriage. Lowell married actor Richard Gere in November 2002, following the birth of their child Homer James Jigme Gere, who was born in February 2000. Lowell, like her husband, is a supporter of preserving the culture of Tibet, and practices Tibetan Buddhism. A September 2013 New York City newspaper report said they had been living in separate homes for some time by then: Gere at their house in Bedford, New York, and Lowell at their estate Strongheart in North Haven, New York, on Long Island.
343902	Omar Doom (born June 29, 1976) is an American actor, musician and artist. Doom is best known to film audiences for his role as PFC Omar Ulmer in the 2009 film, "Inglourious Basterds", directed by Quentin Tarantino. Early life. Omar Doom was born Omar Makhdomi (pronounced "Makhdoomi") in Easton, Pennsylvania, to parents, Dr. Rashid and Jawahira Makhdomi. His father is a physician at Easton Hospital. He was one of three siblings, including his two sisters. Doom's parents would take the family to a cultural institution or exhibit every week. For example, the family would attend an opera or play in Manhattan, New York City, or a film at a local art house theater. Doom graduated from Easton Area High School in 1994 and fronted a band called Ordeal, while attending the school. Following graduation, Doom attended Parsons The New School for Design, where he pursued a degree in painting. Career. Doom returned to a music career after Parsons. He became the frontman of a two-person electronic rock band called Doomington, along with Stretch Armstrong, a successful DJ and music producer. The duo is now defunct. Doom met director Quentin Tarantino in Los Angeles in 1998 through mutual friends. They have reportedly been close friends ever since. Tarantino has been known to invite Doom over to his home for movie marathons. At one point, Tarantino held a birthday party for Doom. The party included screening of old television shows, cartoons, as well as films including "Hammerhead" and "The Mack". Acting. Tarantino encouraged Makhdomi to both pursue an acting career and adopt the shorter stage name, Omar Doom. Doom was not pursuing acting at the time. Instead, he was working as a musician and a co-running a clothing line, called Diabla, with one of his sisters, Saira. Following Tarantino's advice, Doom began studying acting. In an interview during a press junket in Berlin for "Inglourious Basterds", Doom described Tarantino's encouragement, "Quentin told me I'd be great in movies. He really pushed me. I decided to go for it. I took his advice, and studied acting." Quentin Tarantino hired Doom for his first acting role. Doom played a small part as Vanessa Ferlito's boyfriend, Nate, in the 2007 film, "Death Proof". Tarantino further cast Doom in a larger role in his next film, "Inglourious Basterds". Doom did not know he was cast in the movie until Tarantino called him two weeks before shooting was scheduled to start. Doom was cast as one of the film's eight Basterds, a group of Jewish American soldiers charged with hunting down and killing Nazi soldiers in occupied France during World War II. Doom attended the Cannes Film Festival with the cast in May 2009.
1060636	Toy Story is a 1995 American computer-animated buddy comedy adventure film produced by Pixar Animation Studios and directed by John Lasseter, released by Walt Disney Pictures, "Toy Story" was the first feature-length computer-animated film and the first film produced by Pixar. "Toy Story" follows a group of anthropomorphic toys who pretend to be lifeless whenever humans are present, and focuses on the relationship between Woody, a pullstring cowboy doll (Tom Hanks), and Buzz Lightyear, an astronaut action figure (Tim Allen). The film was written by John Lasseter, Andrew Stanton, Joel Cohen, Alec Sokolow, and Joss Whedon, and featured music by Randy Newman. Its executive producer was Steve Jobs with Edwin Catmull. Pixar, which produced short animated films to promote their computers, was approached by Disney to produce a computer-animated feature after the success of the short "Tin Toy" (1988), which is told from a small toy's perspective. Lasseter, Stanton, and Pete Docter wrote early story treatments which were thrown out by Disney, who pushed for a more edgy film. After disastrous story reels, production was halted and the script was re-written, better reflecting the tone and theme Pixar desired: that "toys deeply want children to play with them, and that this desire drives their hopes, fears, and actions." The studio, then consisting of a relatively small number of employees, produced the film under minor financial constraints. The top-grossing film on its opening weekend, "Toy Story" went on to earn over $361 million worldwide. Reviews were entirely positive, praising both the animation's technical innovation and the screenplay's wit and sophistication, and it is now widely considered by many critics to be one of the best animated films ever made. In addition to home media releases and theatrical re-releases, "Toy Story"-inspired material has run the gamut from toys, video games, theme park attractions, spin-offs, merchandise, and two sequels—"Toy Story 2" (1999) and "Toy Story 3" (2010)—both of which received massive commercial success and critical acclaim. "Toy Story" was inducted into the National Film Registry as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" in 2005; its first year of eligibility. Plot. Woody (Tom Hanks) is a pull-string cowboy doll and leader of a group of toys that belong to a boy named Andy Davis (John Morris), which act lifeless when humans are present. With his family moving homes one week before his birthday, Andy is given a week early party to spend with his friends. The toys stage a reconnaissance mission to discover Andy's new presents. Andy receives a space ranger Buzz Lightyear (Tim Allen) action figure, whose impressive features see him replacing Woody as Andy's favorite toy. Woody is resentful, especially as Buzz also gets attention from the other toys. However Buzz believes himself to be a real space ranger on a mission to return to his home planet, as Woody fails to convince him he is a toy. Andy prepares for a family outing at the space themed Pizza Planet restaurant. His mother tells him he can only bring one toy. Woody attempts to be picked instead of Buzz by trapping Buzz in a gap behind Andy's desk, but the plan goes disastrously wrong when he accidentally knocks Buzz out the window, resulting in the other toys accusing him of murdering Buzz out of jealousy. With Buzz missing, Andy takes Woody to Pizza Planet, but Buzz climbs into the car and confronts Woody when they stop at a gas station. The two fight and fall out of the car, which drives off and leaves them behind. Woody spots a truck bound for Pizza Planet and plans to rendezvous with Andy there, convincing Buzz to come with him by telling him it will take him to his home planet. Once at Pizza Planet, Buzz makes his way into a claw game machine shaped like a spaceship, thinking it to be the ship Woody promised him. Inside, he finds squeaky aliens who revere the claw arm as their master. Woody clambers into the machine after Buzz, but they are interrupted when Andy's neighbor Sid Phillips (Erik von Detten), arrives and operates the machine. Spotting a Buzz Lightyear amidst the squeaky aliens, Sid maneuvers the claw to pick up Buzz. In the ensuing struggle the aliens force Buzz and Woody towards the claw, and they are captured. Woody is horrified because of Sid's reputation for torturing and destroying toys. At Sid's house, the two attempt to escape before Andy's moving day, encountering Sid’s nightmarish toy creations and his vicious dog, Scud. Buzz sees a commercial for Buzz Lightyear action figures and realizes that he really is a toy. Disbelieving, he attempts to fly, but instead falls and loses his left arm. Buzz goes into depression and is unable to cooperate with Woody. Woody waves Buzz’s arm from a window to seek help from the toys in Andy’s room, but they are horrified thinking Woody had murdered Buzz when they see Buzz's disconnected arm, while Woody realizes Sid's toys are friendly when they reconnect Buzz's arm. Sid prepares to destroy Buzz by strapping him to a rocket, but is delayed that evening by a thunderstorm. Woody convinces Buzz that life is worth living because of the joy he can bring to Andy, which helps Buzz regain his spirit. Cooperating with Sid's toys, Woody rescues Buzz and scares Sid away by 'breaking a few rules' and coming to life in front of him, warning him to never harm toys again. Woody and Buzz then wave goodbye to the mutant toys and return home through a fence, but miss Andy’s car as it drives away to his new house.
1100584	Isadore Manuel Singer (born April 24, 1924) is an Institute Professor in the Department of Mathematics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is noted for his work with Michael Atiyah proving the Atiyah–Singer index theorem in 1962, which paved the way for new interactions between pure mathematics and theoretical physics. He was born in Detroit, Michigan, and received his undergraduate degree from the University of Michigan in 1944. After obtaining his M.S. and Ph.D. from the University of Chicago in 1948 and 1950 respectively, he taught at UCLA and MIT, where he has spent the majority of his career. He was chair of the Committee of Science & Public Policy of the United States National Academy of Sciences, a member of the White House Science Council (1982–88), and on the Governing Board of the United States National Research Council (1995–99). Awards and honors. Singer is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He is a member of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters. In 2012 he became a fellow of the American Mathematical Society. Among the awards he has received are the Bôcher Memorial Prize (1969) and the Steele Prize for Lifetime Achievement (2000), both from the American Mathematical Society, the Eugene Wigner Medal (1988), the National Medal of Science (1983), the Abel Prize (2004, shared with Michael Atiyah), and the James Rhyne Killian Faculty Achievement Award from MIT (2005).
1163505	Kristin Landen Davis (also listed as Kristin Lee Davis; born February 24, 1965) is an American actress. She first rose to prominence and achieved fame for playing the role of Brooke Armstrong on "Melrose Place" and went on to achieve greater success as Charlotte York Goldenblatt on HBO's "Sex and the City". Early life and education. Davis was born in Boulder, Colorado. She is an only child, and her parents divorced when she was a baby. She was adopted by her stepfather, then-University of Colorado Boulder professor Keith Davis, after he married her mother, Dorothy, a university data analyst, in 1968. She has three sisters from her adoptive father's first marriage. Early in her childhood, she and her parents moved to Columbia, South Carolina, where her father served as provost and teaches psychology at the University of South Carolina. Davis wanted to be an actress from the age of 9, when she was cast in the Workshop Theatre production of "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs". Davis lived in South Carolina until she graduated from A.C. Flora High School in 1983. She then moved to New Jersey, where she attended Rutgers University. Davis graduated with a BFA degree in Acting from Rutgers University's Mason Gross School of the Arts in 1987. Career. Television. After graduation in 1987, Davis moved to New York and waited tables before opening a yoga studio with a friend. In 1991, she acted in a couple of episodes of the daytime drama (soap opera) "General Hospital". Her big break came in 1995 when she landed the role of villainess Brooke Armstrong Campbell on the nighttime drama "Melrose Place". She left the show after one year when producers decided to kill off the character. Davis also had roles in other television series including "Friends", "Will and Grace" and "Seinfeld".
1056770	The Golden Voyage of Sinbad is a fantasy film released in 1973 and starring John Phillip Law as Sinbad. It includes a score by composer Miklós Rózsa and is known mostly for the stop-motion effects by Ray Harryhausen. The film is the second of three Sinbad films that Harryhausen made for Columbia, the others being "The 7th Voyage of Sinbad" (1958) and "Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger" (1977). It won the first Saturn Award for Best Fantasy Film. Plot. While sailing, Sinbad comes across a golden tablet dropped by a mysterious flying creature. He wears the tablet as an amulet around his neck. That night, Sinbad has a strange dream in which he sees a man dressed in black, repeatedly calling Sinbad's name, and also about a mysterious girl with an eye tattooed on her right palm. During his sleep, a mysterious storm throws his ship off course, and the next day Sinbad and his men find themselves near a coastal town in the country of Marabia. Swimming to the beach, Sinbad is met by a dark-cloaked man, who demands his amulet. Sinbad narrowly escapes into the city, where the city guard forces the hostile stranger to flee. Soon, Sinbad encounters the Grand Vizier of Marabia (Douglas Wilmer). The Vizier, who wears a golden mask to hide his disfigured face, says that Sinbad's amulet is actually one piece of a puzzle; the Vizier has another. The Vizier relates to Sinbad a legend that the three pieces, when joined together, will reveal a map showing the way to the Fountain of Destiny, hidden somewhere on the lost continent of Lemuria. The legend tells that he who bears the three pieces of the puzzle to the fountain will receive "youth, a shield of darkness, and a crown of untold riches." Sinbad agrees to help the Vizier find the fountain. They join forces against Prince Koura (Tom Baker), the black-cloaked man who is an evil magician bent on conquering Marabia. Koura had locked the Vizier in a room and set it on fire, horribly burning his face. The creature that dropped the gold tablet was one of Koura's minions, a homunculus created by his black magic. Using this creature he hears the conversation, and it turns to ash when it is found. Shortly afterward, Sinbad meets the girl he saw in his dream, Margiana (Caroline Munro), a slave-girl. Her master hires Sinbad to make a man of his lazy, no-good son Haroun (Kurt Christian), and Sinbad agrees on the condition that Margiana goes with him; so the two new passengers and the Vizier board Sinbad's ship. Koura hires a ship and crew of his own and follows Sinbad, using his magic several times to try to stop Sinbad. However, each attempt drains away part of his life force and he ages noticeably each time. Along his journey, Sinbad fights the wooden siren figurehead from his own ship which Koura has animated, which steals the map, enabling Koura to find the Island. However Sinbad has memorised the map. Koura gets to the Island and uses another homunculus to hear the Oracle of All Knowledge (an uncredited Robert Shaw) as it describes to Sinbad what he will face. Koura then seals the men inside the cave, however Sinbad is able to escape with a rope and get the others out. The Homunculus is killed with an arrow as it tries to stop Sinbad. Koura animates a six-armed Kali idol when he is captured by hostile natives, causing them to free him. However, Sinbad and his men arrive and fight and defeat Kali. The natives capture Sinbad and his crew and give Margiana to a one-eyed centaur, the fountain's guardian of evil. Sinbad and the others escape when the Vizier shows his burnt face, scaring the natives. The Centaur fights (and kills) the guardian of good, a griffin, with Koura's help, however Sinbad then stabs it dead. Once they reach the fountain, Koura obtains all the pieces, assembles the puzzle, and drops it in the fountain. His health is restored and he becomes invisible (the "shield of darkness"). However, he is slain in a sword duel by Sinbad, who then takes the "crown of untold riches" that rises out of the fountain and gives it to the Grand Vizier. Sinbad explains to Margiana that he values freedom more, and a king is never really free. The crown's magic powers causes the Vizer's mask to dissolve to reveal his healed face, and Sinbad journeys back to Marabia with Haroun, who has proven himself during the adventure, as a new crew member and Margiana by his side. Production. Originally, they wanted to use the Alhambra palace for some of the shots, but the authorities asked for a huge rental fee. Eventually, they found the Palacio de la Almudiana, Palma, Majorca. Other scenes were filmed in the Caves of Artà (the temple of the Oracle) and the Torrente de Pareis. The miniature set for the Fountain of Destiny was extensive. The monoliths were 32 inches high and the fountain was constantly maintained at a height of 51 inches. The rock background was over 15 feet high and the whole thing was built on a wooden platform 32 inches from the ground. Ray Harryhausen confessed that when he was animating the centaur, he had in mind an opera tenor in his final death throes. The actual model of the centaur was about 13 inches high and had ocelot fur on its legs and a small doll's eye in its forehead. The figurehead in the movie was mostly seen as a model but the crew used a full-size version for some shots, such as when it is sinking into the ocean. During production, Harryhausen was also producing a film called "King of the Geniis", which was to include Sinbad and dinosaurs. Harryhausen made a poster and three key drawings, but it never was produced because of the box-office failure of "The Valley of Gwangi". Leftover ideas became "Golden Voyage". An early charcoal/pencil illustration showed the one-eyed centaur battling a giant Neanderthal man, who was later replaced by a griffin in the final version. The giant Neanderthal was later used in "Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger" (1977).
581580	Love Breakups Zindagi (Eng: "Love Breakups Life") is an Hindi romantic film, directed by Sahil Sangha and produced by Zayed Khan under the banner of Sahara Motion Pictures and Born Free Entertainment. It stars Zayed Khan and Dia Mirza in the lead roles. The music is composed by the duo Salim-Sulaiman and the lyrics are penned by Javed Akhtar. The movie released on 7 October 2011.
1061841	Diane Lane (born January 22, 1965) is an American film actress. Born and raised in New York City, Lane made her screen debut in George Roy Hill's 1979 film "A Little Romance", starring opposite Sir Laurence Olivier. Soon after, she was featured on the cover of "Time" magazine and dubbed 'the new Grace Kelly'. She has since appeared in several notable films, including the 2002 film "Unfaithful", which earned her Academy Award, Golden Globes and Screen Actors Guild Award nominations. Lane has also starred in "The Outsiders", "The Perfect Storm", "Under the Tuscan Sun", "Cinema Verite", and, most recently, "Man of Steel". Early life. Lane was born in New York City. Her mother, Colleen Leigh Farrington, was a nightclub singer and "Playboy" centerfold (Miss October 1957), who was also known as "Colleen Price". Her father, Burton Eugene Lane, was a Manhattan drama coach who ran an acting workshop with John Cassavetes, worked as a cab driver, and later taught humanities at City College. When Lane was 13 days old, her parents split up. Her mother went to Mexico and obtained a divorce while retaining custody of her daughter until the child was six. Her father got custody of her after Farrington moved to Georgia. Lane and her father lived in a number of residential hotels in New York City and she would ride with him in his taxi. When Diane Lane was fifteen years old, she declared her independence from her father and flew to Los Angeles for a week with actor and friend Christopher Atkins. Lane later remarked, "It was reckless behavior that comes from having too much independence too young." She returned to New York and moved in with a friend's family, paying them rent. In 1981, she enrolled in high school after taking correspondence courses. However, Lane's mother kidnapped her and took the teenager back to Georgia. Lane and her father challenged her mother in court and six weeks later she was back in New York. Lane did not speak to her mother for the subsequent three years, but they have since reconciled. Career. Early work. Lane's grandmother, Eleanor Scott, was a thrice-married Pentecostal preacher of the Apostolic denomination, and Lane was influenced by the theatrical quality of her grandmother's sermons. Lane began acting professionally at the age of six at the La MaMa Experimental Theater Club in New York, where she appeared in a production of "Medea". At 12 she had a role in Joseph Papp's production of "The Cherry Orchard" with Meryl Streep. Also at this time, Lane was enrolled in an accelerated program at Hunter College High School and was put on notice when her grades suffered from her busy schedule. At 13 years old, she turned down a role in "Runaways" on Broadway to make her feature film debut opposite Laurence Olivier in "A Little Romance". Lane won high praise from Olivier who declared her 'The New Grace Kelly'. At the same time Lane was featured on the cover of "Time", which declared her one of Hollywood's "Whiz Kids." In the early 1980s, Lane made a successful transition from child actor to adult roles. She was cast as the teenaged female outlaw Little Britches in the 1981 Lamont Johnson film, "Cattle Annie and Little Britches", with Amanda Plummer in her own debut role as Cattle Annie. Lane's breakout performances came with back-to-back adaptations of young adult novels by S. E. Hinton, adapted and directed by Francis Ford Coppola: "The Outsiders" and "Rumble Fish", both in 1983. Both films also featured memorable performances from a number of young male actors who would go on to become leading men in the next decade (as well as members of the so-called "Brat Pack"), including Tom Cruise, Rob Lowe, C. Thomas Howell, Emilio Estevez, Patrick Swayze, Mickey Rourke, Nicolas Cage, and Matt Dillon. Lane's distinction among these heavily male casts advanced her career while affiliating her with this young generation of male actors. Andy Warhol proclaimed her, "the undisputed female lead of Hollywood's new rat pack." However, the two films that could have catapulted her to star status, "Streets of Fire" (she turned down "Splash" and "Risky Business" for this film) and "The Cotton Club", were both commercial and critical failures, and her career languished as a result. After "The Cotton Club", Lane dropped out of the movie business and lived with her mother in Georgia. According to the actress, "I hadn't been close to my mom for a long time, so we had a lot of homework to do. We had to repair our relationship because I wanted my mother back". Lane returned to acting to appear in "The Big Town" and "Lady Beware", but it was not until 1989's popular and critically acclaimed TV miniseries "Lonesome Dove" that Lane made another big impression on a sizable audience, and was nominated for an Emmy Award for her role. She was given positive reviews for her performance in the independent film "My New Gun", which was well received at the Cannes Film Festival. She went on to appear as actress Paulette Goddard in Sir Richard Attenborough's big-budget biopic of Charles Chaplin, 1992's "Chaplin". Lane won further praise for her role in 1999's "A Walk on the Moon", opposite Viggo Mortensen. One reviewer wrote, "Lane, after years in post-teenaged-career limbo, is meltingly effective." The film's director, Tony Goldwyn, described Lane as having "...this potentially volcanic sexuality that is in no way self-conscious or opportunistic." Lane earned an Independent Spirit Award nomination for Best Female Lead. At this time, she was interested in making a film about actress Jean Seberg in which she would play Seberg. Recent work. In 2000, Lane had a supporting role as Mark Wahlberg's love interest in "The Perfect Storm." In 2002, she starred in "Unfaithful," a drama film directed by Adrian Lyne and adapted from the French film "The Unfaithful Wife." Lane played a housewife who indulges in an adulterous fling with a mysterious book dealer. The film featured several sex scenes. Lyne's repeated takes for these scenes were very demanding for the actors involved, especially for Lane, who had to be emotionally and physically fit for the duration. "Unfaithful" received mostly mixed to negative reviews, though Lane earned widespread praise for her performance. "Entertainment Weekly" critic Owen Gleiberman stated that "Lane, in the most urgent performance of her career, is a revelation. The play of lust, romance, degradation, and guilt on her face is the movie's real story." She followed that film up with "Under the Tuscan Sun," based on the best-selling book by Frances Mayes. In 2008, Lane reunited with Richard Gere for the romantic drama "Nights in Rodanthe." It is the third film Gere and Lane filmed together. The film was based on the novel of the same title by Nicholas Sparks. Lane also co-starred in "Jumper," and "Untraceable" in the same year. She then appeared in "Killshot" with Mickey Rourke, which was given a limited theatrical release before being released on DVD in 2009. While promoting "Nights in Rodanthe," she expressed frustration with being typecast and stated that she was "gunning for something that's not so sympathetic. I need to be a bitch, and I need to be in a comedy. I've decided. No more Miss Nice Guy." The actress has even contemplated quitting acting and spending more time with her family if she is unable to get these kinds of roles. She said in an interview, "I can't do anything official. My agents won't let me. Between you and me, I don't have anything else coming out." In 2010, Lane starred in "Secretariat," a Disney film about the relationship between the 1973 Triple Crown-winning racehorse and his owner, Penny Chenery, whom Lane portrayed. Lane played Martha Kent in Zack Snyder's Superman film "Man of Steel", released in theaters on June 14, 2013. Snyder said of her casting, "We are thrilled to have Diane in the role because she can convey the wisdom and the wonder of a woman whose son has powers beyond her imagination." Lane will reprise her role in the confirmed sequel. Following "Secretariat," Lane starred in "Cinema Verite", an HBO movie about the making of the first reality television show "An American Family". Lane earned Emmy, Screen Actors Guild, Satellite, and Golden Globe award nominations for her portrayal of Pat Loud.
1062405	Rosanna Lisa Arquette (born August 10, 1959) is an American actress, film director, and producer. Early life. Arquette was born in New York City, the daughter of Brenda Olivia "Mardi" (née Nowak), an actress, poet, theater operator, activist, acting teacher, and therapist, and Lewis Arquette, an actor and director. Her paternal grandfather was comedian Cliff Arquette. Her mother was Jewish, the daughter of a Holocaust refugee from Poland. Her father was a convert to Islam from Catholicism, and was related to explorer Meriwether Lewis. Her siblings Patricia, Alexis, Richmond, and David Arquette are also actors. In 1963, Arquette and her family moved to Chicago, where her father managed The Second City theater for several years. When she was eleven years old, her parents moved to a commune in Front Royal, Virginia. Arquette did not do well at school. In 1974, she hitchhiked across the country with three older teenagers, eventually going to San Francisco, where she worked at renaissance and Dickens fairs. Her professional theater debut was May 27, 1977, appearing in the Story Theatre Musical production of "Ovid's The Metamorphoses" at the Callboard Theatre on Melrose Place in Los Angeles. The song "Rosanna" by Toto was not written about Rosanna Arquette by her then boyfriend and Toto band member Steve Porcaro. It was a joke band members used to make, regarding the coincidence. Career. Arquette has appeared in both television and screen films. In 1982, she earned an Emmy Award nomination for the TV film "The Executioner's Song". Arquette's first starring role was in John Sayles's "Baby It's You", a highly regarded but little seen film. She starred in "Desperately Seeking Susan" (1985) alongside pop singer Madonna, for which she won a British Academy Film Awards (BAFTA) for her "supporting" role despite her clearly being the lead. Madonna was breaking out at the time and many feel that while Rosanna's performance was key to the movie's success, Madonna made the movie into a mainstream hit. She had negotiated a deal where she would provide a song for the movie. "Into The Groove" became a huge hit for Madonna as did the movie itself. Following the commercial and critical success of Lawrence Kasdan's "Silverado" in 1985, and the failure of both "After Hours" and "8 Million Ways to Die", she quit Hollywood to work in Europe where she acted in Luc Besson's "The Big Blue" (1988). In 1989, director Martin Scorsese offered her a part in "New York Stories". Other movies of note are "Pulp Fiction" and the David Cronenberg film, "Crash" and the Australian film "Wendy Cracked a Walnut" (1990) (also known as "…Almost"). In 1990, Arquette appeared on the cover and in a nude pictorial in "Playboy"'s September issue, although she claimed it was without her prior knowledge or consent. In recent years, Arquette has expanded into directing, including the documentaries "Searching for Debra Winger" (2002) and "All We Are Saying" (2005); she also produced both projects. Arquette appeared in the short running "What About Brian" as Nicole Varsi and on Showtime's "The L Word" as Cherie Jaffe. She also guest starred on Malcolm in the Middle as a healer named Anita that takes Malcolm's virginity.
1163251	Melora Diane Hardin (born June 29, 1967) is an American actress, best known for her roles as Jan Levenson on NBC's "The Office" and Trudy Monk on USA's "Monk". Early life. Hardin was born in Houston, Texas, the daughter of acting manager/coach and retired actress Diane (née Hill) and actor Jerry Hardin. She is the sister of Flock CEO Shawn Hardin. She was raised in San Francisco, California, after her family moved there when she was 4 years old. She graduated from Sarah Lawrence College. Career. 1977-1999. Hardin started her acting career as the young star of the television series "Thunder" (1977–1978), and has appeared in over 70 movies and television programs since, including two 1981 "Little House on the Prairie" episodes (as Belinda Stevens in "The Reincarnation of Nellie", Parts 1 and 2) as well as playing Michele Pierson in the 1983 television movie "Little House: Look Back to Yesterday". She starred as Baby in the short-lived 1988 television series "Dirty Dancing" (based on the 1987 film of the same name) and two 1992 episodes of "Quantum Leap" (as Abigail in "Trilogy," Parts 2 and 3). She co-starred in the 1990 dancing movie "Lambada" as Sandy. She appeared in "Absolute Power" (1997) as Christy Sullivan and played Ross's dirty talking love interest in season 1 episode 15 of "Friends". She was also originally cast in "Back to the Future" as Jennifer Parker, but was re-cast after Eric Stoltz (the original Marty McFly) was let go. Hardin was deemed too tall to star alongside Michael J. Fox.
1065563	Kim Coates (born February 21, 1958) is a Canadian-American actor who has worked in both Canadian and American movies and television series. He has worked on Broadway portraying Stanley Kowalski in "A Streetcar Named Desire" and in the lead role of "Macbeth" performed at the Stratford Theatre. He currently stars as Tig Trager in the FX series "Sons of Anarchy". Early Life and Career. Coates had never seen a play and first saw one when he went to University of Saskatchewan, and took Drama as an elective. Once hooked, he dove into theatre. He admits that he took Drama by chance in university and after two years he knew that he wanted to be an actor. Coates portrayed Stanley Kowalski in "A Streetcar Named Desire" and played the youngest ever title role of "Macbeth" at the Stratford Theatre. Coates made his debut in a 1986 movie called, "The Boy in Blue". Even though it was a very small role, it opened up opportunities for him and has come in over a 100 titles to date. Personal life. Coates was born in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada to Fred and Joyce Coates. He lives in Los Angeles, California with his wife, Diana, and two children: Kyla and Brenna. He is known to be good friends with actor William Fichtner as well as Kevin Costner and Sons of Anarchy co-star Theo Rossi. Kim also became a United States Citizen in 2010.
1164288	Amy Marie Yasbeck (born September 12, 1962) is an American film and television actress. She is best known for her role as Casey Chapel Davenport on the sitcom "Wings" from 1994 to 1997, and also having played the part of Madison the mermaid in the television movie "Splash, Too" in 1988 (taking over the role originated by Daryl Hannah in the film "Splash"). She has guest starred in various television shows and co-starred in films such as ', "Pretty Woman", "Problem Child", "Problem Child 2", "The Mask", ' and "". Early life. Yasbeck was born in the Cincinnati suburb of Blue Ash, Ohio, the daughter of Dorothy Louise Mary (née Murphy; 1922–1984), a homemaker, and John Anthony Yasbeck (1921–1982), a butcher and grocery store owner. Her father was of Lebanese descent, while her mother was of Irish ancestry. As a child, Yasbeck was featured on the package art for the Betty Crocker Easy-Bake Oven. Years later, in 2000, she was presented with a new Easy-Bake Oven on the show "I've Got a Secret", for which she was a regular panel member. She spent her elementary, middle, and high school years at two different Catholic schools: Summit Country Day School and Ursuline Academy. After losing both of her parents, her father from a heart attack and her mother from emphysema, Yasbeck moved to New York. Career. Early into her acting career she appeared in "Rockhopper", an unsold CBS TV-Pilot from 1985. Yasbeck has had guest starring roles in many television shows including "Dallas", "Spies", "Werewolf", "J.J. Starbuck", "Magnum, P.I.", "China Beach" and "Murphy Brown". She played Olivia Reed for four months between 1986-1987 on the long-running daytime soap opera "Days of our Lives". She also played the part of Madison the mermaid in the Disney television movie "Splash, Too" in 1988 (the role of Madison was originated by Daryl Hannah in the 1984 movie "Splash"). Playing a mermaid in "Splash, Too" was a fulfillment of a childhood dream for Yasbeck as she loved mermaids when she was a little girl at 5 years old after watching a Disney movie that featured mermaids. Yasbeck has also had starring roles in the sitcoms "Wings", "Alright Already", and "Life on a Stick" and in movies such as ', "Pretty Woman", "Problem Child", "Problem Child 2" and "The Mask". She has twice worked with Mel Brooks, in 1993's ' and 1995's "". Yasbeck also appeared once on the hit DCOS "That's So Raven" as the mother of one of the main characters, Chelsea. The episode originally aired on September 22, 2006. In late 2007, plans surfaced of a potential "That's So Raven" spinoff featuring Yasbeck and Anneliese van der Pol, who portrayed her daughter, with occasional appearances by Raven-Symoné. The show was scrapped due to van der Pol signing onto a new Broadway play, and Yasbeck wanting to take a break from acting to focus on her family. She was a contestant on "Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?" in 2010. Personal life. On September 18, 1999 Yasbeck married actor John Ritter at the Murphy Theatre in Wilmington, Ohio. Yasbeck is the widow of actor John Ritter, with whom she had worked in several projects. She first met him at director Dennis Dugan's house during a read-through of their 1990 movie "Problem Child". According to Yasbeck, Ritter forced her to eat a bagel and cream cheese because he thought she was too thin. He also thought she was too young to play his wife in the movie (Ritter was almost 14 years Yasbeck's senior). Yasbeck and Ritter also starred together in "Problem Child 2" (1991) and guest-starred together in an episode of "The Cosby Show" which aired in 1991. Ritter also guest-starred on "Wings" as Yasbeck's estranged husband in the season seven episode "Love Overboard". The couple had a daughter, Stella Dorothy, in 1998, and married in 1999. On September 11, 2003, their daughter Stella's birthday, Ritter fell into a coma when rehearsing for "8 Simple Rules for Dating My Teenage Daughter". He was taken to the hospital by paramedics. He drifted in and out of consciousness and told his feelings to doctors. Initially it was concluded that Ritter was suffering a heart attack. At 10:47 PM that night, Ritter died. The cause of death was actually an aortic dissection stemming from a previously undiagnosed congenital heart defect. Yasbeck gave her blessing to the continuation of the sitcom, "8 Simple Rules", where it was ultimately decided that Katey Sagal's character would assume the lead role as a widow. Yasbeck appeared on "Larry King Live" on June 16, 2008, to discuss heart disease in the wake of television personality Tim Russert's death. Wrongful death lawsuit. After her husband died, Yasbeck filed a $67 million wrongful death lawsuit against Providence Saint Joseph Medical Center and several doctors who treated him, alleging they misdiagnosed his condition and that contributed to his death. Several of the defendants settled out of court for a total of $14 million, including Providence St. Joseph, which settled for $9.4 million. On March 14, 2008, a jury split 9–3 in favor of the doctors, clearing the physicians of any wrongdoing.
1635335	Mike He (also spelled Mike Ho; ; born 28 December 1983) is a Taiwanese actor who started his career as a model before switching to acting. As of 2010, He is managed by HIM International Music. Biography. Mike was invited to film a few music videos before debuting in his first Taiwanese drama television series, "Seventh Grade" in 2004 as one of the main characters alongside Ariel Lin. He later starred in another series with her as a lead in "Love Contract". In 2005, he starred in two TV series, "Express Boy" with Xu Wei Lun and "Devil Beside You" (as Ah Meng) opposite Rainie Yang and Kingone Wang. In 2006, he starred in TVBS-G's series "Marry Me!". In October 2006, he signed up to start another TV series also with Rainie Yang and Kingone Wang, "Why Why Love" (換換愛). He was a judge in the Miss Gabby Lee 2007 beauty pageant for the Miss Photogenic award. He also acted in the Taiwanese TV series "Bull Fighting" (鬥牛。要不要 / Dou Niu. Yao Bu Yao?) alongside the Taiwanese singer and S.H.E member Hebe Tien. In 2008, Mike filmed his Mainland TV series "Infernal Lover" (无间有爱）.
1043062	Kind Hearts and Coronets is a 1949 British black comedy film starring Dennis Price, Alec Guinness (as eight members of the D'Ascoyne family), Joan Greenwood and Valerie Hobson. The plot is loosely based on the 1907 novel "Israel Rank: The Autobiography of a Criminal" by Roy Horniman, with the screenplay written by Robert Hamer and John Dighton and the film directed by Hamer. The film's title derives from Tennyson's 1842 poem "Lady Clara Vere de Vere": "Kind hearts are more than coronets, and simple faith than Norman blood." "Kind Hearts and Coronets" is listed in "Time" magazine's top 100 and the BFI Top 100 British films. In 2011, the film was digitally restored and re-released in selected British cinemas. Plot. In Edwardian England, Louis Mazzini (Dennis Price), tenth Duke of Chalfont, writes his memoirs while in prison awaiting hanging the next morning. Most of the film consists of a flashback in which Louis narrates the events leading to his imprisonment. After his mother elopes with an Italian opera singer (also played by Price), she is disowned by her aristocratic family, the D'Ascoynes, for marrying beneath her. The couple are poor but happy, until he dies upon seeing his newborn son for the first time. As a boy, Louis' only friends are a local doctor's children: a girl named Sibella and her brother. When Louis becomes a young man, his mother writes to Lord Ascoyne D'Ascoyne, a banker, for assistance in launching her son's career. Lord Ascoyne refuses to acknowledge their existence, and Louis is forced to accept employment as a draper's assistant. When Louis' mother dies, her last requestto be interred in the family vaultis denied. Louis vows to avenge her. After Sibella ridicules his offer of marriage, Louis attends her wedding to Lionel (John Penrose), a former schoolmate with a wealthy father. He then has a chance encounter at his workplace with one of those in line for the family title of Duke of Chalfont: Ascoyne D'Ascoyne (Alec Guinness in the first of eight roles as the D'Ascoynes). An altercation results in Louis' dismissal from his job in trade. Louis then decides to eliminate those who stand between him and the dukedom. After causing the deaths of Ascoyne D'Ascoyne and his mistress in a boating accident, Louis writes a letter of condolence to his victim's father, Lord Ascoyne D'Ascoyne, who relents and employs him as a clerk in his private banking firm. Slowly becoming a man of means, Louis discreetly sees Sibella. He next decides to murder Henry D'Ascoyne, an amateur photographer, but is also charmed by Henry's wife, Edith (Valerie Hobson). After killing Henry with a darkroom explosion, Louis attends the funeral and views for the first time the remaining D'Ascoynes, including Ethelred, the current (eighth) duke. Louis poisons the Reverend Lord Henry D'Ascoyne, then meets with a now-bankrupt Lionel, who begs for an extension of his loan. Noting he would prefer that "someone else pay for Sibella's extravagances", Louis agrees. He then pierces the hot air balloon from which suffragette Lady Agatha D'Ascoyne is dropping leaflets, remarking, "I shot an arrow in the air. She fell to earth in Berkeley Square." Boer Wars veteran General Lord Rufus D'Ascoyne falls victim to an explosive gift of caviar, while Louis' quandary as to how to reach Admiral Lord Horatio D'Ascoyne is solved when he insists on going down with his ship after causing a collision. When Edith agrees to marry Louis, they notify Ethelred. Ethelred invites Louis to the family estate, where he informs Louis that he intends to marry to produce an heir. A now anxious Louis quickly arranges a shooting "accident", but before murdering Ethelred tells him the reason for doing so. Lord Ascoyne D'Ascoyne, who has suffered a stroke, is spared Louis' attentions as he dies from the shock of learning that he has acceded to the dukedom, to Louis' somewhat relief. Louis becomes the tenth duke, but his triumph is short-lived. Lionel is found dead following Louis' rejecting his drunken plea for help to avoid bankruptcy. Louis is charged with his murder and tried by his peers in the House of Lords. Sibella perjures herself and incriminates him. Ironically, he is convicted of the one death of which he is innocent. Louis is visited in prison by Sibella, who hints she could exonerate him if he would dispose of Edith and marry her. Louis indicates agreement, and moments before his hanging Lionel's suicide note is conveniently produced. Upon his release, Louis finds both Edith and Sibella waiting for him. Pondering his dilemma, Louis quotes from "The Beggar's Opera": "How happy could I be with either, Were t'other dear charmer away!" When a representative of "Tit-Bits" magazine interrupts his reflections to ask for the publication rights to his memoirs, Louis suddenly realises he left his incriminating manuscript in his cell. American version. To satisfy the Hays Office Production Code, the film was censored for the American market. Ten seconds of footage was added to the ending, showing Louis' memoirs being discovered before he can retrieve them; which is implied in the original film in any case. The dialogue between Louis and Sibella was altered to downplay their adultery; derogatory lines about the Reverend were deleted; and in the nursery rhyme "Eeny, meeny, miny, moe", "sailor" replaced the word "nigger". The American version is six minutes shorter than the British original. Production. Guinness was originally offered only four D'Ascoyne parts, recollecting: "I read screenplay on a beach in France, collapsed with laughter on the first page, and didn't even bother to get to the end of the script. I went straight back to the hotel and sent a telegram saying, ‘Why four parts? Why not eight!?'" The exterior location used for Chalfont, the family home of the d'Ascoynes, is Leeds Castle in Kent, England. The interior was filmed at Ealing Studios. The village scenes in the film were actually filmed in the Kent village of Harrietsham. Leeds Castle became Chalfont, the family castle of the D'Ascoyne family. Reception. Bosley Crowther, critic for "The New York Times", calls it a "delicious little satire on Edwardian manners and morals" in which "the sly and adroit Mr. Guinness plays eight Edwardian fuddy-duds with such devastating wit and variety that he naturally dominates the film." Praise is also given to Price ("as able as Mr. Guinness in his single but most demanding role"), as well as Greenwood and Hobson ("provocative as women in his life"). Roger Ebert lists "Kind Hearts and Coronets" among his "Great Movies", stating "Price is impeccable as the murderer: Elegant, well-spoken, a student of demeanor", and notes that "murder, Louis demonstrates, ... can be most agreeably entertaining". Novel. Reviewer Simon Heffer notes the plot of the original Roy Horniman novel was darker (e.g., the murder of a child) and differed in several respects. A major difference was that the main character was the half-Jewish (as opposed to half-Italian) Israel Rank, and Heffer noted that "...his ruthless using of people (notably women) and his greedy pursuit of position all seem to conform to the stereotype that the anti-semite has of the Jew." Historical source. The death of Admiral Horatio D'Ascoyne was inspired by a true event: the collision between HMS "Victoria" and HMS "Camperdown" off Tripoli because of an order given by Mediterranean Fleet Commander Vice Admiral Sir George Tryon. The "Victoria" was sunk, losing over 300 men (including the admiral). Radio adaptations. The film has been adapted for radio, including a version produced on BBC Radio 4 featuring Robert Powell and Timothy Bateson (first broadcast in 1990), and another for BBC7 featuring Michael Kitchen as Mazzini and Harry Enfield as the D'Ascoyne family. On 19 May 2012, BBC Radio 4 broadcast a sequel to the film called "Kind Hearts and Coronets – Like Father, Like Daughter". In it, Unity Holland (played by Natalie Walter), the biological daughter of Louis and Sibella, is written out of the title by Lady Edith Gascoyne. Unity then murders the entire Gascoyne family, with all seven members played by Alistair McGowan. Digital restoration. The Criterion Collection released a two-disc set that featured both versions of the film. UK distributor Optimum Releasing released a digitally restored version for both DVD and Blu-ray on 5 September 2011.
1032948	Parminder Kaur Nagra (born 5 October 1975) is a British film and television actress. She played Jess in the 2002 film "Bend It Like Beckham", Dr Neela Rasgotra in the medical drama series "ER" and Dr Lucy Banerjee in the Fox television series "Alcatraz". She currently has a recurring role as Rachel in the television series " Psych." Early life. Parminder Kaur Nagra was born in Leicester, UK as the eldest child of Sukha and Nashuter Nagra, Sikh factory workers who emigrated from the Punjab region of India in the 1960s.
1164713	Matthew Labyorteaux (born December 8, 1966) is an American actor who has starred in television and film. He is perhaps best known for portraying the character Albert Quinn Ingalls on the hit NBC series "Little House on the Prairie" from 1978 to 1983. Career. Matthew Labyorteaux began working in commercials at the age of seven, having been discovered while accompanying his older brother, Patrick Labyorteaux, to a casting call. He shortly thereafter landed his first dramatic role in "A Woman Under the Influence", where he played one of Peter Falk and Gena Rowlands' children. Aside from his tenure on "Little House on the Prairie", Labyorteaux also starred in the short-lived television series "The Red Hand Gang" (1977) and "Whiz Kids" (1983–1984), in addition to several made-for-television movies. Labyorteaux's most prominent film role was in the 1986 Wes Craven feature "Deadly Friend" as Paul Conway, a young genius who resurrects a dead girl using an artificial intelligence microchip from a robot he created that had previously been destroyed by a malicious neighbor. During his most active years, Labyorteaux made guest appearances on numerous television shows, including "The Rookies", "The Bob Newhart Show", "Mulligan's Stew", "Lou Grant", "Here's Boomer" (spin-off of "The Red Hand Gang"), "The Love Boat", "Simon and Simon" (crossover episode with "Whiz Kids"), "Highway to Heaven", "Night Court", "Paradise", and "Silk Stalkings". Most recently, Laborteaux has worked as a voice actor, providing characterizations in video games and animated features, additional dialogue recording in film and television, and voice-over in advertisements. Personal life. Matthew Labyorteaux is the adoptive son of Ronald Labyorteaux (1930–1992), an interior designer and talent agent, and actress Frances Marshall (1927–2012). He is the younger brother of Patrick Labyorteaux, himself adopted, and Jane Laborteaux, both of whom are also actors. In 1992, Labyorteaux and his brother founded the Youth Rescue Fund (currently partnered with Los Angeles Youth Supportive Services), a charity organization that assists young people in crisis, and they have since engaged in fundraising for youth shelters across the U.S.
1067828	Mad Hot Ballroom is a documentary film by director Marilyn Agrelo and writer/producer Amy Sewell about a ballroom dance program in the New York City public school system. The film was rated PG for "some thematic elements". In the film, Agrelo and Sewell reveal that the New York City public school system runs a ballroom dance program for fifth graders. Several styles of dance are shown in the film, such as tango, foxtrot, swing, rumba and merengue. The documentary premiered at the 2005 Slamdance Film Festival in Park City, Utah and was purchased by Paramount Classics and Nickelodeon Movies. It had a limited theatrical release in the United States on May 13, 2005. "Mad Hot Ballroom" was the second highest grossing documentary in 2005 after "March of the Penguins". As of February 7, 2012 it had earned over $8.1 million, making it the sixteenth-highest-grossing documentary film in the United States - (in nominal dollars, from 1982 to the present). This is the only Nickelodeon Movies film to have a limited release in the United States and, thus, is the studios' lowest grossing film. Plot. Based on a feature article written by Sewell, "Mad Hot Ballroom" looks inside the lives of eleven-year-old New York City public school kids who journey into the world of ballroom dancing and reveal pieces of themselves along the way. Told from the students' perspectives, the film highlights the cultural diversity that is the soul of New York City as the children strive toward the final citywide competition. The film chronicles the experiences of students at three schools in the neighborhoods of Tribeca, Bensonhurst and Washington Heights. The students are united by a zeal for the ballroom dancing lessons, which builds over a 10-week period and culminates in a competition to find the school that has produced the best dancers in the city. As the teachers cajole their students to learn the intricacies of the various disciplines, Agrelo intersperses classroom footage with the students' musings on life; many of these reveal an underlying maturity. Gender and race boundaries disappear as focus on the competition consumes the students' energy, and the teachers are brought to tears as they see their prodigies turning into what one teacher touchingly terms "little ladies and gentlemen." "Mad Hot Ballroom" celebrates the intricate lives of these students and reminds audiences of their own childhoods when anything was possible. Living with the complexities of big city life, these kids take on something unfamiliar and rise to the occasion. Filled with emotion and triumph, this documentary feature captures the essence of growing up in America. The cast. Allison Sheniak is the classroom teacher; and Alex Tchassov, a Russian native, is the teaching
1437133	Nicholas Haden-Guest (born May 5, 1951) is an American actor. He primarily works as a voice-actor, but is best known for a television role as Headmaster Patrick James Elliot in the teen sitcom "USA High". Personal life. Nicholas Guest was born in New York City, the son of Peter Haden-Guest, a British United Nations diplomat who later became the 4th Baron Haden-Guest, and his second wife, Jean Pauline Hindes, a former vice president of casting at CBS. Guest's maternal grandparents were Jewish immigrants from Russia. His paternal grandfather, Leslie, Baron Haden-Guest, was a Labour Party politician who was a convert to Judaism, and his paternal grandmother's father was Colonel Albert Goldsmid, a British officer who founded the Jewish Lads' and Girls' Brigade and the Maccabaeans. Both of Guest's parents had become atheists, and Guest had no religious upbringing. More than a decade before he was born, his uncle David Guest, a lecturer and Communist Party member, was killed in the Spanish Civil War fighting in the International Brigades. Nicholas Guest spent parts of his childhood in his father's native England. He is the brother of Christopher Guest, the brother-in-law of Jamie Lee Curtis and the half brother of the British American writer Anthony Haden-Guest. Family title. Guest is heir presumptive to the title of Baron Haden-Guest in the British peerage. This is because the children of his brother, Christopher Guest and Jamie Lee Curtis (Lord and Lady Haden-Guest) are adopted and therefore ineligible to succeed the title. However, should they have any natural-born son, that son would become heir apparent. Were he to succeed to the barony, he would be the 6th Baron Haden-Guest. As the child of a Baron, he is styled ""The Honorable" Nicholas Guest".
1065164	Silent Running is a 1972 environmentally themed American science fiction film starring Bruce Dern, featuring Cliff Potts, Ron Rifkin and Jesse Vint. It was directed by Douglas Trumbull, who had previously worked as a special effects supervisor on science fiction films, including "" and "The Andromeda Strain". Plot. The film depicts a future in which all plant life on Earth has been made extinct. Only a few specimens have been preserved in enormous, greenhouse-like geodesic domes attached to a fleet of American Airlines space freighters, currently just outside the orbit of Saturn. Freeman Lowell (Bruce Dern), one of four crewmen aboard the "Valley Forge", is the resident botanist and ecologist who carefully preserves a variety of plants for their eventual return to Earth and the reforestation of the planet. Lowell spends most of his time in the domes, both cultivating the crops and attending to the animal life. Orders come from Earth to jettison and destroy the domes (with nuclear charges) and return the freighters to commercial service. After four of the six domes are jettisoned and blown up Lowell rebels and opts instead to save the plants and animals on his ship.
1456032	The Aura () is a 2005 Argentine, French and Spanish neo-noir drama film, directed by Fabián Bielinsky, his second and final feature after "Nine Queens." The picture features Ricardo Darín in the lead role, as well as Alejandro Awada, Dolores Fonzi, among others. The drama was the Argentine entry in the 2006 Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language Film category. Plot. In neo-noir fashion "El Aura" narrates in the first person the hallucinating voyage of Espinoza, a quiet, cynical taxidermist, who suffers epilepsy attacks, and is obsessed with committing the perfect crime. He claims that the cops are too stupid to find out about it when it's well executed, and that the robbers are too stupid to execute it the right way; and that he could do it himself relying on his photographic memory and his strategic planning skills. On his first ever hunting trip, in the calm of the Patagonian forest, with one squeeze of the trigger his dreams are made real. Espinoza has accidentally killed a man who turns out to be a real criminal and he inherits his scheme: the heist of an armored truck carrying casino profits. Moved by morbid curiosity, and later by an inexorable flow of events, the taxidermist sees himself thrown into his fantasies, piece by piece completing a puzzle irremediably encircling him. And he does it while struggling with his greatest weakness: epilepsy. Before each seizure he is visited by the "aura": a paradoxical moment of confusion and enlightenment where the past and future seem to blend. Distribution. The film opened wide in Argentina on September 15, 2005. Later in the month it was presented at the Rio de Janeiro International Film Festival on September 30, 2005. The picture was screened at various film festivals, including: the Sundance Film Festival, United States; the Toulouse Latin America Film Festival, France; the Alba Regia International Film Festival, Hungary; the Transilvania International Film Festival, Romania; the Film by the Sea Film Festival, Netherlands; the Helsinki International Film Festival, Finland; and others. Reception. Critical response. Critic A.O. Scott, who writes for "The New York Times", liked the way how director Fabián Bielinsky used the neo-noir style, writing, "Mr. Bielinsky made use of a familiar film noir vocabulary, but not for the usual young-filmmaker-in-a-hurry purpose of showing off his facility with genre tricks. Rather, his movies restore some of the clammy, anxious atmosphere that made the old noirs so powerful to begin with." He also mentions the early death of director Bielinsky. He said, "For his part, Mr. Bielinsky, in what would sadly be his last film, demonstrates a mastery of the form that is downright scary." Film critic Jonathan Holland, film critic for "Variety" magazine, liked the film and wrote, "An engrossing existential thriller from Fabien Bielinsky...Leisurely paced, studied, reticent and rural, "The Aura" is a quieter, richer and better-looking piece that handles its multiple manipulations with the maturity the earlier pic sometimes lacked...Featuring a career-best perf from Ricardo Darin, pic is a must-see in territories that warmed to "Queens", while its superior production values could generate even bigger returns from international arthouse auds who enjoy their thrillers with a touch of distinction." Film critic David Wiegand thought that director Bielinsky tackled a bit too much in this film and wrote, "Bielinsky's latest film, "The Aura", is in some ways more ambitious, which may be one of the reasons it doesn't work as well as it should...the careful camera work, beautifully dark cinematography and the quietly nuanced performance by Darín keep our attention, but in the end, the film's bigger challenge isn't its length, or its deliberate pace: It's that it's overly freighted with symbolism and meaning." Currently, the film has a 89% "Fresh" rating at Rotten Tomatoes, based on forty-five reviews. Awards. Wins Nominations
635909	Kate Vernon (born April 21, 1961) is a Canadian-born film and television actress. She is best known for her roles as Lorraine Prescott on the CBS soap opera "Falcon Crest" from (1984–1985), the stuck-up and popular Benny Hanson in the comedy film "Pretty in Pink" (1986), and Ellen Tigh on the re-imagined "Battlestar Galactica". Career. Vernon was briefly (4 episodes) a regular on "Who's the Boss?" in 1990 as a girlfriend of Tony Micelli (Tony Danza). She appeared in four episodes of "L.A. Law" in 1994 as A.D.A. Belinda Fox and seven episodes of "Nash Bridges" as Whitney Thomas. In 1992 she co-starred in the film "Malcolm X" as Sophia. In 1993 she starred in an episode of "Tales from the Crypt" entitled "Till Death Do We Part" with John Stamos. Vernon is known for her recurring role as Ellen Tigh on "Battlestar Galactica". In April 2009, she made a guest appearance on ' entitled "A Space Oddity" which also featured cameos by her former "Galactica" producer Ronald D. Moore and co-stars Grace Park and Rekha Sharma. She appeared in one episode of ' as a member of Species 8472 impersonating a human in the episode "In the Flesh". She also guest stars in two episodes of "Heroes" ("Close to You" and "Pass/Fail") as Vanessa Wheeler. Personal life. Her father was actor John Vernon, who was most famous for playing Dean Vernon Wormer in "Animal House", her mother is Nancy West, and her sister is singer/actress Nan Vernon.
1164911	James Barrie Sikking (born March 5, 1934), credited as James or James B. Sikking, is an American actor known for his Emmy-nominated role as Lt. Howard Hunter on the 1980s NBC TV series "Hill Street Blues". He also starred on the ABC TV series "Doogie Howser, M.D." as Dr. David Howser and on the short-lived 1997 CBS drama series "Brooklyn South" as Captain Stan Jonas. Sikking did the voice of General Gordon on the short-lived 1998 cartoon series "Invasion America". His well known films include "The Competition", "Outland", "Up the Creek" and "", as well as a minor (but crucial) part, as a cynical hitman, in Point Blank. Sikking's film career started in 1955. Sikking starred in the critically acclaimed 1992 Fox Network TV movie "Doing Time on Maple Drive". He has made guest appearances on many TV series including "Perry Mason", "Rawhide", "Bonanza", "The Outer Limits", "General Hospital", "The Bob Newhart Show", "Hunter" and "Batman Beyond". Sikking was born in Los Angeles, California. His mother, Sue Sikking (née Paxton), was a founder of Santa Monica's Unity-by-the-Sea Church. He has two brothers, Tom and Art, and a sister, Joy. James Sikking's third brother, Robert Paxton Sikking (Bob), was born October 20, 1922 and died April 22, 1988. Bob served in the 101st Airborne and was a partial inspiration for the Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks production "Band of Brothers". Bob was awarded two Purple Hearts, the Bronze Star, and together with his fellow soldiers, received a Presidential Citation for their part in the Siege of Bastogne which led to the defeat of Hitler's Sixth Army. His photograph as the first American soldier to reach Dachau Concentration Camp appears in the Imperial War Museum, London.
696220	Khuda Kay Liye (, literal translation: "For God's Sake", English title: "In The Name Of God") is a 2007 Pakistani Urdu-language drama film written, directed and produced by Shoaib Mansoor, starring Shaan, Iman Ali, Fawad Afzal Khan and Hameed Sheikh. Indian actor Naseeruddin Shah also appears in the uncut version of the film. The film was highest-grossing Pakistani film of 2007. Much of the film was shot on location in Chicago, Illinois in the United States, and Lahore and the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan. Produced by "Geo TV", "Khuda Kay Liye" was theatrically released in Pakistan on July 20, 2007, and grossed over US$10 million worldwide. Critical response was generally positive, though some religious conservatives criticized the film and called for a ban in Pakistan. Overall, there was curiosity around the film due to the presence of big names. It resulted in a grand opening, and the film turned out to be a commercial as well as a critical success in Pakistan and India. The films was distributed in India by Percept Picture Company & released over 100 screens across 20 cities. The films opened with good response. Plot. Three different people from different continents have problems that relate to South Asian culture and the subsequent misinterpretations of Islam in Pakistan's society. Two brothers who are singers, Mansoor (Shaan Shahid) and Sarmad (Fawad Afzal Khan), become two of the best singers in Lahore. Sarmad becomes influenced by an Islamic activist. He begins to practice the extremist interpretation of Islam, grows a beard and goes against music, putting pressure on his free-spirited family to comply. Those parties interpret certain verses of the Quran and Hadith (Islamic religious texts) to call for a ban on music and pictures. In England, Mary/Mariam (played by actor-model Iman Ali) is a westernized British Pakistani girl in love with a British boy named Dave. Her hypocritical father disapproves, despite the fact that he is living with a British woman to whom he is not married. He tells Mary that they are going to Pakistan for a trip and that once they return she can marry Dave. This, however, is a trap. While touring FATA, he has her forcibly married to Sarmad, who is her cousin. Mary is then abandoned in FATA at her new household. Meanwhile, Mansoor goes to a music school in Chicago. There, he meets a girl called Janie and instantly falls in love with her. She quits alcohol for him, and they eventually get married. After 9/11, FBI officers capture him when someone overhears a drunk man accusing Mansoor of being a terrorist. Subsequently, he is tortured for a year in custody just because of his Islamic background. Mary manages to run away but is caught by Sarmad in the process. She is kept under strict supervision and, due to this incident, Sarmad eventually consummates their marriage by force. She doesn't lose hope, managing to sneak a letter to Dave under the guise of writing to her father. Mansoor and Sarmad's parents finally come to her rescue under the protection of the British government, but Mary, driven by vengeance, then takes her father and cousin to court in Pakistan. There, a Maulana (Naseeruddin Shah) explains to the court how Islam is being butchered in the name of war and hatred, bringing the religion forward in a believable and peaceful manner. Traumatized by all the suffering he has seen and caused, Sarmad withdraws from the case. He also realizes the damage that he was made to do in the name of religion. Mary is now free and returns to the village where she was kept prisoner so she can educate the girls there. Meanwhile, Mansoor is still in U.S. custody after a year of torment; the last torture session having inflicted permanent brain damage. After a failed rehab attempt, he is deported and reunited with his family in Pakistan where, thanks to the hope of his family, he begins to recover. Release and reception. The film was produced in conjunction with the film division of the popular TV network, Geo TV of Pakistan. The film is a joint venture of Pakistan, India, and the United States. The film opened to overwhelmingly positive reviews. There was tremendous curiosity around the film. The presence of big names and Naseeruddin Shah resulted in a grand opening and the film turned out to be a huge commercial as well as critical success in Pakistan. In India the film was critically lauded as people flocked to see the source of the criticism. Some religious conservatives in Pakistan have criticized the film and called for its ban. Four years after its release, on 9 September 2011 (two days before the 10th anniversary of 9/11), Zee News described "Khuda Kay Liye" as best cinematic work, along with Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11", which seems to have earned maximum appreciation from amongst 40 films and documentaries that were made in relation to WTC terrorist attacks. Music. The film's soundtrack was released on July 7, 2007. The soundtrack is also available on the film's official website. The soundtrack album of the film was composed and produced by Rohail Hyatt. All songs were written by Shoaib Mansoor with an exception of "Mahi Way" and "Bandeya". The OST was recorded at Gravity Studios in Chicago by Kamijee. Awards and accolades. "Khuda Kay Liye" is the second highest grossing film of Pakistan of all time with a gross of over $10 million. Iman Ali makes her cinematic debut with this film, playing an Anglo-Pakistani. Shaan's wife is played by Austin Sayre. Ahmed Jahanzeb and Shuja Haider produced the film's soundtrack. The film has won the following awards since its release:
1015948	A Better Tomorrow 2 (; Jyutping: Jing1hung4 bun2sik1 ji6) is a 1987 Hong Kong action crime drama thriller film directed by John Woo, starring Chow Yun-fat, Dean Shek, Leslie Cheung and Ti Lung.
1164300	Joseph Patrick Breen (born October 26, 1960) is an American actor, playwright and screenwriter. He has acted primarily on TV but has also appeared in numerous films, as well as on Broadway and Off Broadway. In 2010, he starred on Broadway in "Next Fall" by Geoffrey Naufts. He was originally hired to voice Splatter and Dodge in "Thomas & the Magic Railroad" but was cut for unknown reasons and was replaced by Neil Crone and Kevin Frank. In a July 2012 interview with "Metro Weekly" Patrick Breen stated, "I identify as one of the LGBT people" and agreed with the interviewer who referred to Breen coming out as bisexual.
583186	Karthik Calling Karthik is a 2010 Indian psychological thriller film, written and directed by Vijay Lalwani and produced by Farhan Akhtar and Ritesh Sidhwani under the banner of Excel Entertainment and Reliance Big Pictures. The film stars Farhan Akhtar and Deepika Padukone in lead roles. Ram Kapoor and Shefali Shah play supporting roles in the film. The film's music was composed by the trio of Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy, while the background score was composed by MIDIval Punditz and Karsh Kale. Plot. Karthik (Farhan Akhtar) is an introvert who lacks confidence and feels trapped in his average job at a construction company. He is continuously troubled by an incident from his childhood: His older brother, Kumar, used to torture him, but whenever he complained to his parents, they did not believe him. One day, Kumar took Karthik to a well and tried to throw him in it, but Karthik escaped. Kumar accidentally fell inside the well and died. Karthik has thought himself responsible for his brother's death ever since. Shonali Mukherjee (Deepika Padukone) is a co-worker at Karthik's company, whom Karthik is secretly in love with, though she remains unaware of his existence, much less his feelings. After being derided by his boss yet again, Karthik figures his life can’t get any better and decides to commit suicide. Just as he is about to, a stranger with the same, exact voice as him calls and says that he is also Karthik, convincing him that he has the ability to change his life. These phone calls become Karthik's life guide. His chats take place every morning at 5:00 a.m. and the caller provides advice on Karthik's problems, guiding him to become a successful man, win Shonali's heart, and bring color to his otherwise dreary life. However, when Karthik tells Shonali and his psychiatrist about the phone calls, despite being warned not to, the mysterious caller gets angry and tells Karthik that if he could bring him up, he could also throw him down. As per his word, things start going downhill. Karthik's boss throws him out and Shonali leaves him. Karthik decides that if he goes somewhere he does not know, then the caller wouldn't know where he is either and stop calling him. Karthik travels to an unknown place, takes shelter in a small hotel, and asks the receptionist to remove the telephone and room number plate. After a few months, Karthik is comfortably living in Cochin with a decent job. His life is back to normal except for the fact that he refuses to have a phone line. Upon his boss's request, he is forced to purchase a landline. He goes to great lengths to ensure that he himself is unaware of the phone number. However, one day at exactly 5 a.m, he receives a call from the mysterious caller, who threatens to kill him. Meanwhile, Shonali is contacted by Dr. Kapadia, who reveals the twist: Karthik is actually schizophrenic. He has an alter-ego that is more assertive and advises him on how to live life. All this time, the strange caller was Karthik himself. He has been dealing with this condition from a young age, when he created a fake brother named Kumar. Karthik's phone has the capacity to record messages and act as a playback feature at a certain time. Karthik would wake up in the middle of the night, leave himself messages as his alter ego, and return to sleep, where he would awake once again at 5am to take his own calls. Eventually, Karthik becomes so disturbed that he attempts to commit suicide again. Shonali, realizing the truth, arrives at the right time to save him. They reconcile and she stands by him, helping him with his condition. After a few months, Karthik is in the process of dealing with his schizophrenia and lives a happy and rehabilitated life with Shonali by his side. Production. In an effort to prepare for his role as loner introvert Karthik, Farhan Akhtar isolated himself at home and school and turned off his phone. He also learned to solve the Rubik's Cube, an activity which his character completes in only one try. Release. Critical reception. On the review-aggregation website ReviewGang, the film scored 5.5/10 based on 11 reviews. Film critic Rajeev Masand gave the film 2 out of 5 possible stars. Nikhat Kazmi of "Times of India" rated it 3.5 out of 5, calling it "immensely watchable, purely for the class act by Farhan Akhtar in the title role". Shweta Parande of IBNLive.com gave a rating of 3.5 out of 5, applauding the cast and crew for their performances and their efforts on building up the story as a team. IndiaGlitz gave a 3 out of 5, concluding "Go but with an open mind." Box Office. "Karthik Calling Karthik" was a declared a below average, netting at the end of its run. The movie grossed and collected a distributor share of . Soundtrack. The soundtrack of the film is composed by Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy with lyrics penned by Javed Akhtar. The album was released on 20 February 2010. Though the album did not get favorable critical response, the track "Uff Teri Adaa" created waves and topped the charts numerous times in the following months. At the box office, music had an impact in the opening of the film, as it got bigger opening than its competitor "Teen Patti". Before the album got released, an online copy was leaked onto the Internet. Farhan Akhtar confirmed this and requested not to download them illegally. Awards and nominations. Nominated Nominated Nominated
743587	Jack-Jack Attack is a 2005 animated short film produced by Pixar based on their film "The Incredibles", and directed by "The Incredibles" writer and director Brad Bird. Unlike many of their previous shorts, it was not given a theatrical release, but was included on the DVD release of the film. The idea for this short came from an idea for a scene originally considered for inclusion in "The Incredibles" film; it was cut from the feature and subsequently expanded into this short. The short is based on the youngest member of the superhero Parr family: the baby, Jack-Jack. From "The Incredibles", the audience knows that Jack-Jack's babysitter Kari McKeen started experiencing difficulty with him shortly after hanging up the phone with his mother, Helen Parr (also known as Elastigirl or Mrs. Incredible). Plot. This short film shows Rick Dicker, a government agent assigned to aid "supers" in maintaining their anonymity, interrogating Kari about what happened when she was babysitting. Kari calls Mrs. Parr to assure her that she can take care of Jack-Jack, but is cut off by the plane being fired upon. Thinking nothing is wrong, Kari asks Jack-Jack if he is ready for some "neurological stimulation". She puts on Mozart's Piano Sonata No. 11 for him, which has the result of Jack-Jack having an epiphany about his latent superpowers. When Kari's back is turned, Jack-Jack seems to disappear and reappear in the kitchen. Finding this weird, Kari tries calling Mrs. Parr again. While she is leaving a message, Jack-Jack floats onto the ceiling and spills milk onto Kari's face. Kari puts him in his playpen, flipped upside-down so that he cannot float away, and tries calling Mrs. Parr again. He promptly escapes the playpen, leaving a perfect circular hole in the bars, and appears on a high bookshelf. He falls, and Kari dives to catch him, but he passes through the floor into the laundry room. Running down to find him, Kari sees Jack-Jack passing through the walls and floating around, babbling happily, before she finally catches him. To calm Jack-Jack down, Kari tries showing him flashcards. This works well until she shows him a card of a campfire, at which point he suddenly bursts into flames. Horrified, Kari picks up Jack-Jack with a pair of tongs and takes him to the bathroom, where she douses him in the bathtub. Late in the afternoon of the next day, with shadows lengthening and sunlight reddening, the house is a shambles and Kari is on the verge of madness, desperately struggling to stay awake. She appears to have mastered anticipating Jack-Jack's abilities, spraying him with a fire extinguisher when he ignites and reflecting laser beams out of his eyes with a mirror. Kari has laid other items close to hand including a garden hose from the back yard, the fireplace tongs, oven mitts, a butterfly net, some rope attached to a grappling hook, and a chainsaw. Eventually, Syndrome comes to the door, asking if this is the Parrs' house. Kari thinks he is the new babysitter come to relieve her, but wonders what the "S" on his costume stands for. He claims it stands for "Sitter", because if he called himself "Babysitter", his uniform would have to say "BS". Dicker is incredulous that Kari believed Syndrome, but Kari shouts that the baby was exploding and she was not in a sound state of mind at the time. Dicker then asks Kari if she told anyone else about the event, to which she replies that she did tell her parents, who didn't believe her and thought she was joking. Kari then expresses her wish to forget the whole event, and Dicker promises that she will as he activates a device to erase her memory.
1189311	Corbin Bleu Reivers (born February 21, 1989), known professionally as Corbin Bleu, is an American actor, model, dancer, producer, and singer-songwriter. He performed in the "High School Musical" film series, the Discovery Kids drama series "Flight 29 Down", and the Disney Channel Original Movie "Jump In!". His first lead role was in the film "Catch That Kid" (2004). Guest-starring roles include appearances on "Hannah Montana", "The Amanda Show", ', "Malcolm & Eddie", and "The Good Wife". He appeared on the show "Ned's Declassified School Survival Guide", and the movie "Free Style" (2008). In 2009 he was cast as up-and-coming model Isaac Taylor in The CW Television Network drama '. He has also pursued a music career, and released his debut album "Another Side" on May 1, 2007, which included the single "Push It to the Limit". The album debuted at number thirty-six on the U.S. Billboard 200, selling 18,000 copies in its first week. Bleu released his second album, "Speed of Light", on March 10, 2009, in the U.S. Bleu played Usnavi in the Broadway company of "In the Heights". Bleu was considered as host for "The X Factor" USA. On September 4, 2013, he was revealed to be a contestant on the 17th season of "Dancing with the Stars". He is partnered with professional dancer Karina Smirnoff. Early life. Bleu was born in Brooklyn, New York City, the son of Martha (née Callari) and David Reivers. His mother is Italian American and his father is Jamaican American. He has three sisters: Jag, Phoenix, and Hunter. As a child, Bleu studied dance for several years, focusing on ballet and jazz. Bleu appeared in television commercials starting at the age two, for products such as Life cereal, Bounty, Hasbro, and Nabisco. He began taking jazz and ballet classes, usually being the only boy in the class. By the age of four he was a model with the Ford Modeling Agency in New York. He appeared in print ads for stores such as Macy's, Gap, Target, and Toys R Us, and appeared in fashion spreads in "Child", "Parents", and "American Baby" magazines, as well as having his image on toys and game packaging. At age six Corbin appeared in his first professional theater production off Broadway, at The Town Hall. This three-concert series, created, written, and hosted by Scott Siegel, took place over one weekend and included a tribute to David Merrick. Corbin Bleu played an abandoned homeless mute in the play "Tiny Tim is Dead". Bleu graduated from Los Angeles County High School for the Arts. He trained in dancing at the Debbie Allen Dance Academy. He attended the High School of Performing Arts in New York as a theater major, following in his mother's footsteps. Acting career. In 1996 Bleu's family relocated to Los Angeles, and he soon gained a recurring role on the TV series "High Incident" and a guest star appearance on "ER". Bleu also had roles in "Malcolm & Eddie" (1998), as Matthew, and "" (2000), as Nick Elderby. He also had small roles in films like "Soldier", "Family Tree", "Mystery Men", "Galaxy Quest", and "The Amanda Show". Corbin continued dancing, becoming one of the first students at the Debbie Allen Dance Academy. While in his freshman year Corbin was cast in his first lead role in the feature film 2004 film, "Catch That Kid", alongside Kristen Stewart and Max Thieriot. In his sophomore year, he played the lead role of Ren in the musical "Footloose" and the role of Sonny in the musical "Grease". That same year Corbin won Theatre Student of the Year. In the summer of 2004 Corbin became a part of the ensemble cast for the new Discovery Kids television series "Flight 29 Down" as Nathan McHugh, alongside Allen Alvarado and Hallee Hirsh and Lauren Storm, a drama series about a group of teens stranded on a deserted island after a plane crash. He also had a small role as Spencer on "Ned's Declassified School Survival Guide", appearing in the episodes entitled ' and '. and "Mother Goose Parade" as Grand Marshall in 2006 and 2007. Bleu played "Chad Danforth" in the Emmy award-winning Disney Channel original movie "High School Musical" (2006), and reprised the role in the sequels "High School Musical 2" (2007) and "" (2008). He guest starred as Johnny Collins in the premiere episode of Disney's "Hannah Montana". Bleu's next film, "Jump In!", premiered on January 12, 2007, and has since become one of the highest-rated Disney Channel original movies. He appeared on "The Tyra Banks Show" in 2008, and in the 2007 Disney Channel Games as captain of the Blue Team. In fall 2009, he had a lead role in the film "Free Style" as Cale Bryant, and appeared in The CW Television Network's new show "". Also in 2009, he is Voice in "Beyond All Boundaries", and appeared on "Entertainment Tonight" and "The Morning Show with Mike and Juliet". He landed the lead role in the Broadway Musical "In the Heights", and guest starred in one episode of "The Good Wife" as DJ Javier Berlin in October 2010. Corbin starred in the short comedy film "I Owe My Life to Corbin Bleu" in 2010. In 2011, he performed the voice Lou in "The Little Engine That Could", starred in the horror film "Scary or Die", and started filming "Renee", which will be released in 2012. In 2012, he returned to Broadway in the revival of "Godspell". In March 2013, Bleu was cast in the role of Jeffrey King on the Prospect Park web relaunch of the daytime soap opera, "One Life to Live". Bleu also has a role in the upcoming horror film "The Monkey's Paw". Music career. 2006–07: "Another Side". Bleu's first professionally recorded song was titled "Circles" or "Circles In My Mind" for his then TV show, "Flight 29 Down". Bleu signed a contract with Hollywood Records, a Disney-owned label. His debut album,"Another Side", was released in May 2007. The album debuted at #36 on the "Billboard" 200 album charts, selling 18,000 in its first week. Blue worked with Ne-Yo on "I Get Lonely," and with other performers such as Matthew Gerrard and Eric Hudson. A music video for his first single, "Push It to the Limit", premiered on the Disney Channel, and was used to promote the movie "Jump In!" "Push It to the Limit" reached the Top 20 on the "Billboard" Hot 100, peaking at #15. Bleu toured with fellow "High School Musical" cast members from late November 2006 to late January 2007 in "", and with Drake Bell and Ally & AJ performing in about 40 different cities. To promote his debut album, Bleu performed at the NextFest tour. On "Another Side", he wrote or co-wrote five of the album's twelve songs. He wrote two songs that appear as bonus tracks on the European version. One of those tracks was titled "Shake It Off", an ode to the musician Prince. 2008–09: "Speed of Light". In an interview with "Billboard", Bleu stated that he had begun working on his follow-up album. "There will be a lot of differences with the second album. First of all, it's just more personal. I'm involved in every aspect of the writing. As far as the direction of the music, it's very different. I wanted this album to have something that was a little bit of rock, a little bit of R&B and a little bit of pop." Producer Eric Hudson was attached to the project, along with songwriter/lyricist Claude Kelly. Bleu performed the planned tracks "Close", "Whatever It Takes", and "Champion" on a summer concert tour with singer/actor Justin Stein. "Speed of Light" was released on March 10, 2009, via Hollywood Records. The album's first single, "Moments That Matter", was performed by Bleu at Kids' Inaugural: "We Are the Future". The album failed to debut on Billboard Top 200 album charts. According to sources, the album sold less than 4,000 in its first week, despite promotion from MySpace.com. The album spawned the singles "Celebrate You" and "Moments That Matter," which was released with a music video. Voice and Musical Ability. According to his interview with Paul Wontorek, Bleu discusses that he is naturally a Lyric Baritone. His trained voice has been described as being "decent and pleasant which fits well into both pop and R&B". As a musical theatre performer, Bleu has claimed that he is a huge fan of Brian d'Arcy James and says that he gets vocal influences from him. Due to his dancing, songwriting, and dance-influenced sound, Corbin Bleu has earned comparisons to Justin Timberlake. Personal life. Bleu is a frequent volunteer worker, working for charities such as Starlight Children's Foundation, the Make-A-Wish Foundation, and St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, and served Thanksgiving's dinner and Christmas Eve lunch at a Los Angeles homeless shelter with Debby Ryan in 2008. Bleu has been an avid supporter of Do Something. In 2009, he hosted the sixth annual Do Something Awards in New York. In May 2011, Bleu also attended the 2011 Do Something Awards kick-off event. He teamed up with Aimee Teegarden, Kevin Jonas and JoJo during the event to honor the thirteen nominees who were up for the Do Something Award and $100,000 in recognition of their outstanding activism.
686183	Marie Jean Antoine Nicolas de Caritat, marquis de Condorcet (; 17 September 1743 – 28 March 1794), known as Nicolas de Condorcet, was a French philosopher, mathematician, and early political scientist whose "Condorcet method" in voting tally selects the candidate who would beat each of the other candidates in a run-off election. Unlike many of his contemporaries, he advocated a liberal economy, free and equal public education, constitutionalism, and equal rights for women and people of all races. His ideas and writings were said to embody the ideals of the Age of Enlightenment and rationalism, and remain influential to this day. He died a mysterious death in prison after a period of flight from French Revolutionary authorities. Early years. Condorcet was born in Ribemont (in present-day Aisne), and descended from the ancient family of Caritat, who took their title from the town of Condorcet in Dauphiné, of which they were long-time residents. Fatherless at a young age, he was raised by his devoutly religious mother. He was educated at the Jesuit College in Reims and at the "Collège de Navarre" in Paris, where he quickly showed his intellectual ability, and gained his first public distinctions in mathematics. When he was sixteen, his analytical abilities gained the praise of Jean le Rond d'Alembert and Alexis Clairaut; soon, Condorcet would study under d'Alembert. From 1765 to 1774, he focused on science. In 1765, he published his first work on mathematics entitled "Essai sur le calcul intégral", which was very well received, launching his career as a respected mathematician. He would go on to publish many more papers, and on 25 February 1769, he was elected to the "Académie royale des Sciences" (French Royal Academy of Sciences). In 1772, he published another paper on integral calculus which was widely hailed as a groundbreaking paper in several domains. Soon after, he met Jacques Turgot, a French economist, and the two became friends. Turgot was to be an administrator under King Louis XV in 1772, and became Controller-General of Finance under Louis XVI in 1774. Condorcet was recognized worldwide and worked with such famous scientists as Leonhard Euler and Benjamin Franklin. He soon became an honorary member of many foreign academies and philosophic societies notably the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences (1785), in Germany, Imperial Russia, and the United States. His political ideas, however, many of them in continuity with Turgot's, were criticized heavily in the English-speaking world, most notably by John Adams, who wrote two of his principal works of political philosophy to oppose Turgot and Condorcet's unicameral legislature and radical democracy. Early political career. In 1774, Condorcet was appointed Inspector General of the "Monnaie de Paris" by Turgot. From this point on, Condorcet shifted his focus from the purely mathematical to philosophy and political matters. In the following years, he took up the defense of human rights in general, and of women's and Blacks' rights in particular (an abolitionist, he became active in the Society of the Friends of the Blacks in the 1780s). He supported the ideals embodied by the newly formed United States, and proposed projects of political, administrative and economic reforms intended to transform France. In 1776, Turgot was dismissed as Controller General. Consequently, Condorcet submitted his resignation as Inspector General of the "Monnaie", but the request was refused, and he continued serving in this post until 1791. Condorcet later wrote "Vie de M. Turgot" (1786), a biography which spoke fondly of Turgot and advocated Turgot's economic theories. Condorcet continued to receive prestigious appointments: in 1777, he became Permanent Secretary of the Académie des Sciences, holding the post until the abolition of the Académie in 1793, and in 1782 secretary of the "Académie française". Condorcet's paradox and the Condorcet method. In 1785, Condorcet wrote "Essai sur l’application de l’analyse à la probabilité des décisions rendues à la pluralité des voix" ("Essay on the Application of Analysis to the Probability of Majority Decisions"), one of his most important works. This work described several now famous results, including Condorcet's jury theorem, which states that if each member of a voting group is more likely than not to make a correct decision, the probability that the highest vote of the group is the correct decision increases as the number of members of the group increases, and Condorcet's paradox, which shows that majority preferences become intransitive with three or more options – it is possible for a certain electorate to express a preference for A over B, a preference for B over C, and a preference for C over A, all from the same set of ballots. The paper also outlines a generic Condorcet method, designed to simulate pair-wise elections between all candidates in an election. He disagreed strongly with the alternative method of aggregating preferences put forth by Jean-Charles de Borda (based on summed rankings of alternatives). Condorcet was one of the first to systematically apply mathematics in the social sciences. Other works. In 1786, Condorcet worked on ideas for the differential and integral calculus, giving a new treatment of infinitesimals – a work which was never printed. In 1789, he published "Vie de Voltaire (1789)", which agreed with Voltaire in his opposition to the Church. In 1798, Thomas Malthus wrote "An Essay on the Principle of Population" partly in response to Condorcet's views on the ""perfectibility of society"" as outlined in the "Sketch for a Historical Picture of the Progress of the Human Mind". In 1781, Condorcet wrote a pamphlet, "Reflections on Negro Slavery", in which he denounced slavery. French Revolution. Deputy. Condorcet took a leading role when the French Revolution swept France in 1789, hoping for a rationalist reconstruction of society, and championed many liberal causes. As a result, in 1791 he was elected as a Paris representative in the Assemblée, and then became the secretary of the Assembly. The institution adopted Condorcet's design for state education system, and he drafted a proposed Bourbon Constitution for the new France. He advocated women's suffrage for the new government, writing an article for "Journal de la Société de 1789", and by publishing "De l'admission des femmes au droit de cité" ("For the Admission to the Rights of Citizenship For Women") in 1790. There were three competing views on which direction France should go, embodied by three political parties: the moderate royalists or Feuillants, republican Girondists, and the more radical Montagnards, led by Maximilien Robespierre. The Feuillants wished to keep the constitutional monarchy as it was developed by the Assemblée, the latter two favored purging France of its royal past ("Ancien Régime"), each in their own way. Condorcet was quite independent, but still counted many friends in the Girondist party. He presided over the Assembly as the Girondist held the majority, until it was replaced by the National Convention, elected in order to design a new constitution. He led the Constitution Committee which drafted the Girondin constitutional project. The constitution was ordered to be printed, but was not put to votes. When the Montagnards gained control of the Convention, they wrote their own, the "French Constitution of 1793". At the time of King Louis XVI's trial, the Girondists had, however, lost their majority in the Convention. Condorcet, who opposed the death penalty but still supported the trial itself, spoke out against the execution of the King during the public vote at the Convention – he proposed to send the king to the galleys. From that moment on, he was usually considered a Girondist. The Montagnards were becoming more and more influential in the Convention as the King's "betrayal" was confirming their theories. One of them, Marie-Jean Hérault de Séchelles, a member, like Condorcet, of the Constitution's Commission, misrepresented many ideas from Condorcet's draft and presented what was called a "Montagnard Constitution". Condorcet criticized the new work, and as a result, he was branded a traitor. On 3 October 1793, a warrant was issued for Condorcet's arrest. Arrest and death. The warrant forced Condorcet into hiding. He hid for five (or eight) months in the house of Mme. Vernet, on Rue Servandoni, in Paris. It was there that he wrote "Esquisse d'un tableau historique des progrès de l'esprit humain" ("Sketch for a Historical Picture of the Progress of the Human Spirit"), which was published posthumously in 1795 and is considered one of the major texts of the Enlightenment and of historical thought. It narrates the history of civilization as one of progress in the sciences, shows the intimate connection between scientific progress and the development of human rights and justice, and outlines the features of a future rational society entirely shaped by scientific knowledge. On 25 March 1794 Condorcet, convinced he was no longer safe, left his hideout and attempted to flee Paris. Two days later he was arrested in Clamart and imprisoned in the Bourg-la-Reine (or, as it was known during the Revolution, "Bourg-l'Égalité", "Equality Borough" rather than "Queen's Borough"). Two days after that, he was found dead in his cell. The most widely accepted theory is that his friend, Pierre Jean George Cabanis, gave him a poison which he eventually used. However, some historians believe that he may have been murdered (perhaps because he was too loved and respected to be executed). Condorcet was symbolically interred in the Panthéon in 1989, in honor of the bicentennial of the French Revolution and Condorcet's role as a central figure in the Enlightenment. However his coffin was empty. Interred in the common cemetery of Bourg-la-Reine, his remains were lost during the nineteenth century. Family. In 1786 Condorcet married Sophie de Grouchy, who was more than twenty years his junior. His wife, reckoned one of the most beautiful women of the day, became an accomplished salon hostess as Madame de Condorcet, and also an accomplished translator of Thomas Paine and Adam Smith. She was intelligent and well-educated, fluent in both English and Italian. The marriage was a strong one, and Sophie visited her husband regularly while he remained in hiding. Although she began proceedings for divorce in January 1794, it was at the insistence of Condorcet and Cabanis, who wished to protect their property from expropriation and to provide financially for Sophie and their young daughter, Louise 'Eliza' Alexandrine. Condorcet was survived by his widow and their four-year-old daughter Eliza. Sophie died in 1822, never having remarried, and having published all her husband's works between 1801 and 1804. Her work was carried on by their daughter Eliza Condorcet-O'Connor, wife of former United Irishman Arthur O'Connor. The Condorcet-O'Connors brought out a revised edition between 1847 and 1849. The Idea of Progress. Condorcet's "Sketch for a Historical Picture of the Progress of the Human Spirit" (1795) was perhaps the most influential formulation of the idea of progress ever written. It made the Idea of Progress a central concern of Enlightenment thought. He argued that expanding knowledge in the natural and social sciences would lead to an ever more just world of individual freedom, material affluence, and moral compassion. He argued for three general propositions: that the past revealed an order that could be understood in terms of the progressive development of human capabilities, showing that humanity's "present state, and those through which it has passed, are a necessary constitution of the moral composition of humankind"; that the progress of the natural sciences must be followed by progress in the moral and political sciences "no less certain, no less secure from political revolutions"; that social evils are the result of ignorance and error rather than an inevitable consequence of human nature. Condorcet's writings were a key contribution to the French Enlightenment, particularly his work on the Idea of Progress. Condorcet believed that through the use of our senses and communication with others, knowledge could be compared and contrasted as a way of analyzing our systems of belief and understanding. None of Condorcet's writings refer to a belief in a religion or a god who intervenes in human affairs. Condorcet instead frequently had written of his faith in humanity itself and its ability to progress with the help of philosophers such as Aristotle. Through this accumulation and sharing of knowledge he believed it was possible for any man to comprehend all the known facts of the natural world. The enlightenment of the natural world spurred the desire for enlightenment of the social and political world. Condorcet believed that there was no definition of the perfect human existence and thus believed that the progression of the human race would inevitably continue throughout the course of our existence. He envisioned man as continually progressing toward a perfectly utopian society. However, he stressed that for this to be a possibility man must unify regardless of race, religion, culture or gender. Civic duty. For Condorcet's republicanism the nation needed enlightened citizens and education needed democracy to become truly public. Democracy implied free citizens, and ignorance was the source of servitude. Citizens had to be provided with the necessary knowledge to exercise their freedom and understand the rights and laws that guaranteed their enjoyment. Although education could not eliminate disparities in talent, all citizens, including women, had the right to free education. In opposition to those who relied on revolutionary enthusiasm to form the new citizens, Condorcet maintained that revolution was not made to last and that revolutionary institutions were not intended to prolong the revolutionary experience but to establish political rules and legal mechanisms that would insure future changes without revolution. In a democratic city there would be no Bastille to be seized. Public education would form free and responsible citizens, not revolutionaries. Evaluation. Rothschild (2001) argues that Condorcet has been seen since the 1790s as the embodiment of the cold, rational Enlightenment. However she suggests his writings on economic policy, voting, and public instruction indicate different views both of Condorcet and of the Enlightenment. Condorcet was concerned with individual diversity; he was opposed to proto-utilitarian theories; he considered individual independence, which he described as the characteristic liberty of the moderns, to be of central political importance; and he opposed the imposition of universal and eternal principles. His efforts to reconcile the universality of some values with the diversity of individual opinions are of continuing interest. He emphasizes the institutions of civilized or constitutional conflict, recognizes conflicts or inconsistencies within individuals, and sees moral sentiments as the foundation of universal values. His difficulties call into question some familiar distinctions, for example between French, German, and English-Scottish thought, and between the Enlightenment and the counter-Enlightenment. There was substantial continuity between Condorcet's criticism of the economic ideas of the 1760s and the liberal thought of the early 19th century. The Lycée Condorcet in the rue du Havre, in the 9th arrondissement of Paris is named in his honour.
1060640	Finding Nemo is a 2003 American computer-animated comedy-drama adventure film written and directed by Andrew Stanton, released by Walt Disney Pictures, and the fifth film produced by Pixar Animation Studios. It tells the story of the over-protective clownfish named Marlin (Albert Brooks) who, along with a regal tang named Dory (Ellen DeGeneres), searches for his abducted son Nemo (Alexander Gould) all the way to Sydney Harbour. Along the way, Marlin learns to take risks and let Nemo take care of himself. It is Pixar's first film to be released in cinemas in the northern hemisphere summer. The film was re-released for the first time in 3D on September 14, 2012, and it was released on Blu-ray on December 4, 2012. A sequel, "Finding Dory", is currently in development, set to be released on June 17, 2016. The film received universal critical acclaim and won the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature, and was nominated in three more categories including Best Original Screenplay. It was the second highest-grossing film of 2003, earning a total of $921 million worldwide. "Finding Nemo" is also the best-selling DVD of all time, with over 40 million copies sold as of 2006, and was the highest-grossing G-rated film of all time before Pixar's own "Toy Story 3" overtook it. It is also the 25th highest-grossing film of all time, as well as the 3rd highest-grossing animated film. In 2008, the American Film Institute named it the tenth greatest animated film ever made during their Top 10. Plot. Two ocellaris clownfish, Marlin and his wife Coral are admiring their new home in the Great Barrier Reef and their clutch of eggs that are due to hatch in a few days. Suddenly, an Australian barracuda attacks them, leaving Marlin unconscious. Marlin wakes up to find that Coral and all but one of her eggs are missing, and assumes the barracuda ate them. Marlin names this last egg Nemo, a name that Coral liked. The film then moves on to Nemo's first day of school. Nemo has a very small right fin, due to a minor injury to his egg from the barracuda attack, which limits his swimming ability. After Marlin embarrasses Nemo during a school field trip, Nemo disobeys his father and sneaks away from the reef towards a boat, resulting in him being captured by scuba divers. As the boat sails away, one of the divers accidentally knocks his diving mask into the water. While unsuccessfully attempting to save Nemo, Marlin meets Dory, a good-hearted and optimistic regal blue tang with short-term memory loss. While meeting three sharks in a submarine wreck in an old WWII mine field on a fish-free diet at a meeting, Bruce, a great white shark; Anchor, a scalloped hammerhead; and Chum, a shortfin mako shark, Marlin discovers the diver's mask that was dropped from the boat and notices an address written on it. However, when he argues with Dory and accidentally gives her a nosebleed, the scent of blood causes Bruce to lose control of himself and attempt to eat Marlin and Dory. The two escape from Bruce in the submarine when the mines detonate, but the mask falls into a trench in the deep sea. During a hazardous struggle with an anglerfish in the trench, Dory is able to read the address written on the mask, which leads to Sydney, Australia, and manages to remember it. After receiving directions to Sydney from a large school of moonfish, Marlin and Dory accidentally run into a bloom of jellyfish that nearly sting them to death; Marlin falls exhausted after the risky escape and wakes up to see a surf-cultured sea turtle named Crush, who takes Dory and him on the East Australian Current. In the current, Marlin reluctantly shares the details of his journey with a group of young sea turtles; his story spreads rapidly across the ocean through word of mouth and eventually finds Nemo in Sydney. Meanwhile, Nemo's captor - P. Sherman, a dentist - places him into a fish tank in his office on Sydney Harbour. There, Nemo meets a group of aquarium fish called the "Tank Gang", led by a crafty and ambitious moorish idol named Gill, who also has a broken fin. The "Tank Gang" includes Bloat, a puffer fish; Bubbles, a yellow tang; Peach, an ochre starfish; Gurgle, a royal gramma; Jacques, a pacific cleaner shrimp; and Deb, a Blacktailed Humbug. The fish are frightened to learn that the dentist plans to give Nemo to his niece, Darla, as she once killed a fish given to her previously by constantly shaking the bag. In order to avoid this fate, Gill gives Nemo a role in an escape plan, which involves jamming the tank's filter and forcing the dentist to remove the fish from the tank to clean it manually. The fish would be placed in plastic bags, at which point they would roll out the window and into the harbor. After a friendly Brown Pelican named Nigel visits with news of Marlin's adventure, Nemo succeeds in jamming the filter, but the plan backfires when the dentist installs a new high-tech filter. Upon leaving the East Australian Current, Marlin and Dory become lost in the blooms of plankton and krill and are engulfed by a blue whale. Inside the whale's immense mouth, Marlin desperately tries to escape while Dory communicates with it in whale-speak. In response, the whale carries them to Port Jackson and expels them through his blowhole. They are met by Nigel, who recognizes Marlin from the stories he has heard and rescues him and Dory from a flock of hungry gulls by scooping them into his beak and taking them to the dentist's office. By this time, Darla has arrived and the dentist is prepared to give Nemo to her. Nemo tries to play dead in hopes of saving himself, and, at the same time, Nigel arrives. Marlin sees Nemo and mistakes this act for the actual death of his son. Gill helps Nemo escape into a drain through a sink after a chaotic struggle. Overcome with despair, Marlin leaves Dory and begins to swim back home. Dory then loses her memory and becomes confused, but meets Nemo, who has reached the ocean through an underwater drainpipe. Dory's memory is restored after she reads the word "Sydney" on a nearby drainpipe and, remembering her journey, she guides Nemo to Marlin. After the two joyfully reunite, Dory is caught in a fishing net with a school of grouper. Nemo bravely enters the net and directs the group to swim downward to break the net, reminiscent of a similar scenario that occurred in the fish tank earlier. The fish, including Dory, succeed in breaking the net and escape. After some days, Nemo leaves for school once more and Marlin, who is no longer overprotective or doubtful of his son's safety, proudly watches Nemo swim away into the distance with Dory at his side. Back at the dentist's office, the high-tech filter breaks down and The Tank Gang have escaped into the harbor. However, they realize that they are still confined to the bags of water that the dentist put them into when cleaning the tank. Production. The inspiration for Nemo was made up of multiple experiences. The idea goes back to when director Andrew Stanton was a child, when he loved going to the dentist to see the fish tank, assuming that the fish were from the ocean and wanted to go home. In 1992 shortly after his son was born, he and his family took a trip to Six Flags Discovery Kingdom (which was called Marine World at the time). There he saw the shark tube and various exhibits he felt that the underwater world could be done beautifully in computer animation. Later, in 1997 he took his son for a walk in the park, but found that he was over protecting him constantly and lost an opportunity to have any "father-son experiences" on that day. In an interview with "National Geographic" magazine, he stated that the idea for the characters of Marlin and Nemo came from a photograph of two clownfish peeking out of an anemone: Also, clownfish are very colourful, but do not tend to come out of an anemone very often, and for a character who has to go on a dangerous journey, Stanton felt a clownfish was the perfect kind of fish for the character. Pre-production of the film took place in early 1997. Stanton began writing the screenplay during the post-production of "A Bug's Life". As such, it began production with a complete screenplay, something that co-director Lee Unkrich called "very unusual for an animated film." The artists took scuba diving lessons so they could study the coral reef. The idea for the initiation sequence came from a story conference between Andrew Stanton and Bob Peterson while driving to record the actors. Ellen DeGeneres was cast after Stanton was watching "Ellen" with his wife and seeing Ellen "change the subject five times before finishing one sentence" as Stanton recalled. There was a pelican character known as Gerald (who in the final film ends up swallowing and choking on Marlin and Dory) who was originally a friend of Nigel. They were going to play against each other as Nigel being neat fastidious while Gerald being scruffy and sloppy. However the filmmakers could not find an appropriate scene for them that did not slow the pace of the picture down, so Gerald's character was minimized. Stanton himself provided the voice of Crush the sea turtle. Stanton originally did the voice for the film's story reel, and assumed they would find an actor later. When Stanton's performance was popular in test screenings, Stanton decided to keep his performance in the film. Stanton recorded all his dialogue while lying on a sofa in co-director Lee Unkrich's office. Crush's son Squirt was voiced by Nicholas Bird, the young son of fellow Pixar director Brad Bird. According to Stanton, the elder Bird was playing a tape recording of his young son around the Pixar studios one day. Stanton felt the voice was "this generation's Thumper" and immediately cast Nicholas. Megan Mullally revealed that she was originally doing a voice in the film. According to Mullally, the producers were dissatisfied to learn that the voice of her character Karen Walker on the television show "Will & Grace" was not her natural speaking voice. The producers hired her anyway, and then strongly encouraged her to use her Karen Walker voice for the role. When Mullally refused, she was dismissed. The film was dedicated to Glenn McQueen, a Pixar animator who died of melanoma in October 2002. "Finding Nemo" shares many plot elements with "Pierrot the Clownfish", a children's book published in 2002, but allegedly conceived in 1995. The author, Franck Le Calvez, sued Disney for infringement of his intellectual rights. The judge ruled against him, citing the color differences between Pierrot and Nemo. To ensure that the movements of the fish in the film were believable the animators essentially took a crash course in fish biology and oceanography. They visited aquariums, went diving in Hawaii and received in-house lectures from an ichthyologist. Home media. "Finding Nemo" was released on DVD and VHS on November 4, 2003. The film was also released on DVD in a "Gold Edition," which came with a "Finding Nemo" stuffed toy character. The film had a home video release on both Blu-ray and Blu-ray 3D on December 4, 2012, with both a 3-disc and a 5-disc set. Reception. "Finding Nemo" has achieved universal critical acclaim. It currently holds a 99% fresh rating at Rotten Tomatoes and an average of 89 on Metacritic. Roger Ebert gave the film four stars, calling it "one of those rare movies where I wanted to sit in the front row and let the images wash out to the edges of my field of vision." Broadway star Nathan Lane who was the voice of Timon the meerkat in "The Lion King", said "Finding Nemo" was his favorite animated film. The film's use of clownfish prompted mass purchase of the animal as pets in the United States, even though the movie portrayed the use of fish as pets negatively and suggested that saltwater aquariums are notably tricky and expensive to maintain. The demand for clownfish was supplied by large-scale harvesting of tropical fish in regions like Vanuatu. Tourism in Australia strongly increased during the summer and autumn of 2003, with many tourists wanting to swim off the coast of Eastern Australia to "find Nemo". The Australian Tourism Commission (ATC) launched several marketing campaigns in China and the USA in order to improve tourism in Australia, many of them utilising "Finding Nemo" clips. Queensland also used "Finding Nemo" to draw tourists to promote its state for vacationers. On the 3-D re-release, Lisa Schwarzbaum of "Entertainment Weekly" wrote that its emotional power was deepened by "the dimensionality of the oceanic deep" where "the spatial mysteries of watery currents and floating worlds are exactly where 3-D explorers were born to boldly go." The 3-D re-release also prompted a retrospective on the film then nine years after its initial release. Stephen Whitty of the Newark Star-Ledger described it as "A genuinely funny and touching film that, in less than a decade, has established itself as a timeless classic," with Roger Moore of the McClatchy-Tribune News Service calling the movie "the gold standard against which all other modern animated films are measured." Box office. "Finding Nemo" earned $380,843,261 in North America, and $540,900,000 in other countries, for a worldwide total of $921,743,261. It is the second highest-grossing film of 2003, behind "", and the 25th highest-grossing film of all time. Worldwide it was the highest-grossing Pixar film, up until 2010 when "Toy Story 3" surpassed it. "Finding Nemo" set an opening weekend record for an animated feature, making $70,251,710 (first surpassed by "Shrek 2"). It became the highest-grossing animated film in North America ($339.7 million), outside North America ($528.2 million) and worldwide ($867.9 million), in all three occasions out-grossing "The Lion King". In North America, it was surpassed by both "Shrek 2" in 2004, and "Toy Story 3" in 2010. After the re-release of "The Lion King" in 2011, it stands as the fourth highest-grossing animated film in these regions. Outside North America, it was surpassed by ', "Toy Story 3", and '. Worldwide, it now ranks third among animated films. The film had impressive box office runs in many international markets. In Japan, its highest-grossing market after North America, it grossed $102.4 million becoming the highest-grossing U.S. animated film in the country. Following in biggest grosses are the UK, Ireland and Malta, where it grossed £37.2 million ($67.1 million), France and the Maghreb region ($64.8 million), Germany ($53.9 million), and Spain ($29.5 million). 3D re-release. After the success of the 3D re-release of "The Lion King", Disney and Pixar re-released "Finding Nemo" in 3D on September 14, 2012, with a conversion cost estimated below $5 million. For the opening weekend of its 3D re-release in North America, "Finding Nemo" grossed $16.7 million debuting at the No. 2 spot behind "". In total, it earned $41 million in the United States, and $13 million in other countries. Accolades. Finding Nemo won the Academy Award and Saturn Award for Best Animated Film. It also won the award for best Animated Film at the Kansas City Film Critics Circle Awards, the Las Vegas Film Critics Society Awards, the National Board of Review Awards, the Online Film Critics Society Awards, and the Toronto Film Critics Association Awards. The film received many awards, including: "Finding Nemo" was also nominated for: In June 2008, the American Film Institute revealed its "Ten top Ten", the best ten films in ten "classic" American film genres, after polling over 1,500 people from the creative community. "Finding Nemo" was acknowledged as the 10th best film in the animation genre. It was the most recently released film among all ten lists, and one of only three movies made after the year 2000, the others being "" and "Shrek". American Film Institute recognition: Environmental concerns and consequences. The reaction to the film by the general public has led to environmental devastation for the clownfish and has provoked an outcry from several environmental protection agencies, including Marine Aquarium Council, Australia. Apparently, the demand for tropical fish skyrocketed after the film's release. This has caused reef species decimation in Vanuatu and many other reef areas. Furthermore, after seeing the film, some aquarium owners released their pets into the ocean, but the wrong ocean. This has introduced species harmful to the indigenous environment and is harming reefs worldwide as well. Music. Finding Nemo is the original soundtrack album. It was the first Pixar film not to be scored by Randy Newman. The album was nominated for the Academy Award for Original Music Score, losing to "". Theme park attractions. "Finding Nemo" has inspired numerous attractions and properties at Disney Parks around the world. "Finding Nemo – The Musical". The stage musical "Tarzan Rocks!" occupied the Theater in the Wild at Disney's Animal Kingdom in Orlando, Florida from 1999 to 2006. When, in January 2006, it closed, it was rumored that a musical adaptation of "Finding Nemo" would replace it. This was confirmed in April 2006, when Disney announced that the adaptation, with new songs written by Tony Award-winning "Avenue Q" composer Robert Lopez and his wife, Kristen Anderson-Lopez, would "combine puppets, dancers, acrobats and animated backdrops" and open in late 2006. Tony Award-winning director Peter Brosius signed on to direct the show, with Michael Curry, who designed puppets for Disney's successful stage version of "The Lion King", serving as leading puppet and production designer. Anderson-Lopez said that the couple agreed to write the adaptation of "one of their favorite movies of all time" after considering "The idea of people coming in see the musical at 4, 5 or 6 and saying, 'I want to do that'...So we want to take it as seriously as we would a Broadway show." To condense the feature-length film to thirty minutes, she said she and Lopez focused on a single theme from the movie, the idea that "The world's dangerous and beautiful." The forty-minute show (which is performed five times daily) opened on January 2, 2007. Several musical numbers took direct inspiration from lines in the film, including "(In The) Big Blue World", "Fish Are Friends, Not Food", "Just Keep Swimming", and "Go With the Flow". In January 2007, a New York studio recording of the show was released on iTunes, with Lopez and Anderson-Lopez providing the voices for Marlin and Dory, respectively. "Avenue Q" star Stephanie D'Abruzzo also appeared on the recording, as Sheldon/Deb. "Nemo" was the first non-musical animated film to which Disney added songs in order to produce a stage musical. In 2009, "Finding Nemo – The Musical" was honored with a Thea award for Best Live Show from the Themed Entertainment Association. Video game. A video game based on the film was released in 2003, for PC, Xbox, PS2, GameCube and GBA. Sequel. In 2005, after disagreements between Disney's Michael Eisner and Pixar's Steve Jobs over the distribution of Pixar's films, Disney announced that they would be creating a new animation studio, Circle 7 Animation, to make sequels to the seven Disney-owned Pixar films (which consisted of the films released between 1995 and 2006). The studio had put "Toy Story 3" and "Monsters, Inc. 2" in development, and had also hired screenwriter Laurie Craig to write a draft for "Finding Nemo 2". Circle 7 was subsequently shut down after Robert Iger replaced Eisner as CEO of Disney and arranged the acquisition of Pixar. In July 2012, it was reported that Andrew Stanton is developing a sequel to "Finding Nemo" which will be titled "Finding Dory", with Victoria Strouse writing the script and a schedule to be released in 2016. However, the same day the news of a potential sequel broke, director Andrew Stanton posted a message on his personal Twitter calling into question the accuracy of these reports. The message said, "Didn't you all learn from "Chicken Little"? Everyone calm down. Don't believe everything you read. Nothing to see here now. #skyisnotfalling" According to the report by "The Hollywood Reporter" published in August 2012, Ellen DeGeneres is in negotiations to reprise her role of Dory. In September 2012, it was confirmed by Stanton saying: "What was immediately on the list was writing a second "Carter" movie. When that went away, everything slid up. I know I'll be accused by more sarcastic people that it's a reaction to "Carter" not doing well, but only in its timing, but not in its conceit." In February 2013, it was confirmed by the press that Albert Brooks would reprise the role of Marlin in the sequel. In April 2013, Disney announced the sequel, "Finding Dory", confirming that Ellen DeGeneres and Albert Brooks would be reprising their roles as Dory and Marlin, respectively. It was scheduled to be released on November 25, 2015., but the film's ending was revised after Pixar executives viewed "Blackfish". On September 18, 2013, it was announced that the film would be pushed back to a June 17, 2016 release. Pixar's The Good Dinosaur was moved to the November 25, 2015 slot in order to allow more time for production of the film.
1103108	Walter Rudin (May 2, 1921 – May 20, 2010) was an American mathematician and professor of Mathematics at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. He is known for three books on mathematical analysis: "Principles of Mathematical Analysis", "Real and Complex Analysis", and "Functional Analysis." The first (affectionately referred to as "Baby Rudin") was written when Rudin was a Moore instructor at MIT for his undergraduate analysis course and is widely used as a textbook for undergraduate courses in analysis. Biography. Rudin was born into a Jewish family in Austria in 1921. They fled to France after the Anschluss in 1938. When France surrendered to Germany in 1940, Rudin fled to England and served in the British navy for the rest of the war. After the war he left for the United States, and earned his B.A. from Duke University in North Carolina in 1947, and two years later earned a Ph.D. from the same institution. After that he was a C.L.E. Moore instructor at MIT, briefly taught in the University of Rochester, before becoming a professor at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. He remained at the University for 32 years. His research interests spanned from harmonic analysis to complex analysis. He received an honorary degree from the University of Vienna in 2006. His Erdős number is 2. In 1953, he married fellow mathematician Mary Ellen Estill. The two resided in Madison, Wisconsin, in the eponymous Walter Rudin House, a home designed by architect Frank Lloyd Wright. They had four children. Rudin died on May 20, 2010 after suffering from Parkinson's disease. Publications. Uniqueness Theory for Laplace Series. Rudin wrote his dissertation while working towards his PhD under doctoral advisor John Jay Gergen at Duke University. It was published in March 1950.
1598349	When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth is a 1970 movie starring Victoria Vetri, set in the time of cavemen. The film was made by Britain's Hammer Films. Like several of Hammer's previous films, such as "One Million Years B.C." (1966), the film anachronistically portrays dinosaurs and humans alongside each other. Directed and scripted by Val Guest, it was based on a treatment by J. G. Ballard, and nominated for an Oscar for its visual effects.[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0066561/awards] The special effects are considered a benchmark in stop-motion animation believability, and the film is referenced in the movie "Jurassic Park". Stop-motion effects were created by Jim Danforth, assisted by David W. Allen and Roger Dickens. The landscapes of Earth during the Quaternary period were filmed in Gran Canaria and Fuerteventura (Canary Islands). Locations included Maspalomas beach, Ansite Mountain, Amurga and Caldera de Tejeda. The film was released on DVD as an exclusive from Best Buy with a G-rating, but was quickly recalled because it was the uncut version and contained nudity. The original is now a collector's item. "When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth" was the third in Hammer's "Cave Girl" series, preceded by "One Million Years B.C." (1966) and "Slave Girls" (1967). It was followed by "Creatures the World Forgot" (1971). The movie characters talk in a language that seems like a ancient cave man language which involves dialect of random made up words that does not make any sense. Plot. The films opens with a tribe on a cliff who are about to sacrifice three blonde women. One of them Sanna escapes and jumps off the cliff, where she is rescued by Tara and some men on a raft. Tara takes Sanna to his seaside tribe, who worship the sun, and where a plesiosaur that was roped, escapes temporarily, but is recaptured and burned to death. At the feast afterwards, we learn that a brunette woman, Ayak, is interested in Tara, but he is fascinated with Sanna who has set up a hut. He brings her food. After a fight between Sanna and Ayak in the water, Sanna's former tribe arrives, looking for her. She flees and is followed by pursuers. Hiding in a tree, a Gigantophis tries to wrap itself around her but attacks and kills one of the men, whom the three other men can't help. They think Sanna is in a nearby cave, but a Chasmosaurus attacks instead, killing one man and injuring another. Vultures, not content as scavengers, take swipes at the wounded man. When Tara seeks Sanna, he finds the one man dead and, after the Chasmosaurus charges and runs off a cliff, rescues the others. A funeral pyre at sea is followed by a tribal frenzy during which Sanna's hut gets burned and Tara runs away. Sanna meanwhile has faced a vicious prehistoric long-tongued lizard and is nearly eaten by a plant. She cuts off her hair to escape the plant. Tara unfortunately thinks Sanna has been eaten by the man-eating plant. Sanna sleeps in a large dinosaur eggshell. The other egg hatches and the dinosaur imprints. The parent, thinking Sanna has hatched, brings her a deer carcass. Sanna plays with her new sibling. She dives and catches fish in her teeth. She finds her dinosaur involved in a fight with a few men, and she calls off the dinosaur. While Tara is hiking back to the tribe, he is carried off by a giant Rhamphorhynchus. He kills it by ripping its wing and then stabbing it, knocking it off a cliff. Tara and Sanna reunite and go to her cave where they strip nude and make love and go skinny dipping but they are, witnessed by a lookout. When Tara returns to the tribe, he is challenged, tied to a raft, and set to sea with the raft burning. A Mosasaur knocks over the raft; Tara escapes and staggers back to Sanna. But the tribe is still searching for Sanna, and see smoke from her fire. The two run, swim, climb, and witness a dinosaur fight, but are captured. Sanna's dino sibling rescues her, but Tara they prepare to burn again. A giant crab kills a few men as the weather grows ominous again. The moon seems to be forming, and a tidal wave looms. Sanna arrives to save Tara from the giant crab, and a raft escape begins to take shape. The tribal leader tries commanding the water to heel. Ayak gets sucked into quicksand, and the leader is drowned. Sanna and Tara and two other people survive and witness an eclipse, as now the moon exists. Reception. The film was popular at the box office.
1163592	Tab Hunter (born Arthur Andrew Kelm; July 11, 1931) is an American actor, singer and author who has starred in over forty films. Background. Hunter was born in New York City to Charles Kelm and Gertrude Gelien. His parents were German immigrants - his father Jewish and his mother Lutheran. Hunter's father was an abusive man and within a few years of his birth, his parents divorced and his mother moved with her two sons to California. She reassumed her maiden surname Gelien and changed her sons' name to that as well. As a teenager Hunter was a figure skater, competing in both singles and pairs, and a horseback rider. He joined the Coast Guard at the age of fifteen, lying about his age to enlist. While in the Coast Guard he gained the nickname "Hollywood" for his penchant for watching movies rather than going to bars while on liberty. In later years Hunter's mother was institutionalized and underwent shock treatments, and he supported her financially until her death. Career. Arthur Gelien was given the stage name "Tab Hunter" by his first agent, Henry Willson. His good looks landed him a role in the film "Island of Desire" opposite Linda Darnell. However, it was his co-starring role as young Marine Danny in 1955's World War II drama "Battle Cry", in which he has an affair with an older woman, but ends up marrying the girl next door, that cemented his position as one of Hollywood's top young romantic leads. His other hit films include "The Burning Hills" with Natalie Wood, "That Kind of Woman" with Sophia Loren, "Gunman's Walk" with Van Heflin and "The Pleasure of His Company" with Debbie Reynolds. He went on to star in over forty major films and became a cult star in the 1980s appearing in "Lust in the Dust", "Polyester" and "Grease 2". In September 1955, the tabloid magazine "Confidential" reported Hunter's 1950 arrest for disorderly conduct. The innuendo-laced article, and a second one focusing on Rory Calhoun's prison record, were the result of a deal Henry Willson had brokered with the scandal rag in exchange for not revealing his more prominent client Rock Hudson's sexual orientation to the public. Not only was there no negative effect on Hunter's career, but a few months later he was named Most Promising New Personality in a nationwide poll sponsored by the Council of Motion Picture Organizations. In 1956 he received 62,000 Valentines. Hunter, James Dean and Natalie Wood were the last of the actors placed under exclusive studio contract to Warner Bros. Hunter had a 1957 hit record with the song "Young Love", which was #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart for six weeks and became one of the larger hits of the Rock n' Roll era. He also had the hit "Ninety-Nine Ways", which peaked at #11. His success prompted Jack Warner to enforce the actor's contract with the Warner Bros. studio by banning Dot Records, the label for which Hunter had recorded the single (and which was owned by rival Paramount Pictures), from releasing a follow-up album he had recorded for them. He established Warner Bros. Records specifically for Hunter. Hunter starred in the 1958 musical film "Damn Yankees", in which he played Joe Hardy of Washington D.C's American League baseball club. The film had originally been a Broadway show, but Hunter was the only one in the film version who had not appeared in the original cast. The show was based on the 1954 best-selling book "The Year the Yankees Lost the Pennant" by Douglass Wallop. Hunter later said the filming was hellish because director George Abbott was only interested in re-creating the stage version word for word. Hunter was Warner Bros. top money grossing star from 1955 through 1959. Hunter's failure to win the role of Tony in the film adaptation of "West Side Story" prompted him to agree to star in a weekly television sitcom. On July 9, 1960, prior to the program's debut, he was arrested by Glendale, California police for allegedly beating his dog Fritz. His 11-day trial started in mid-October, a month after "The Tab Hunter Show" debuted on Sunday evenings on NBC. It was proved that the neighbor who initiated the charges had done so for spite when Hunter declined her repeated invitations to dinner, and he was acquitted by the jury. "The Tab Hunter Show" had moderate ratings (due to being scheduled opposite The Ed Sullivan Show) and was hence cancelled after one season, however it was a huge hit in the UK where it ranked as one of the top situation comedies of the year. For a short time in the latter 1960s, Hunter settled in the south of France, where he acted in spaghetti westerns. His career was revived in the 1980s, when he starred opposite actor Divine in John Waters' "Polyester" (1981) and Paul Bartel's "Lust in the Dust" (1985). He is particularly remembered by later audiences as Mr. Stewart, the substitute teacher in "Grease 2", who sang "Reproduction." Hunter had a major role in the 1988 horror film "Cameron's Closet". He also wrote and starred in "Dark Horse" (1992). A documentary about Tab's life called "Tab Hunter Confidential" is being developed by producers Allan Glaser, Neil Koenigsberg, and Jeffrey Schwarz of Automat Pictures. In January 2012, Tab Hunter appeared opposite Joyce DeWitt in A. R. Gurney's play "Love Letters" at Judson Theatre Company in Pinehurst, North Carolina. Personal life. Hunter's autobiography, "Tab Hunter Confidential: The Making of a Movie Star" (2006), co-written with film noir specialist Eddie Muller, became a "New York Times" best-seller as did the paperback edition in 2007. The book is still currently in publication and was nominated for several prestigious writing awards. In the book, he acknowledged his homosexuality, confirming rumors that had circulated since the height of his fame. According to William L. Hamilton of "The New York Times", detailed reports about his alleged romances with close friends Debbie Reynolds and Natalie Wood, were strictly the fodder of studio publicity departments. As Wood and Hunter embarked on a well-publicized and groundless romance, promoting his apparent heterosexuality while promoting their films, insiders developed their own headline for the item: "Natalie Wood and Tab Wouldn't". Hunter became close enough with Etchika Choureau, his co-star in "Lafayette Escadrille", and Joan Cohn, widow of Harry Cohn, to contemplate marriage, but thought he never could maintain a marriage and remained merely platonic friends with both women. During Hollywood's studio era, Hunter says, life "was difficult for me, because I was living two lives at that time. A private life of my own, which I never discussed, never talked about to anyone. And then my Hollywood life, which was just trying to learn my craft and succeed..." The star emphasizes that the word 'gay' "wasn't even around in those days, and if anyone ever confronted me with it, I'd just kinda freak out. I was in total denial. I was just not comfortable in that Hollywood scene, other than the work process." "There was a lot written about my sexuality, and the press was pretty darn cruel," the actor says, but what "moviegoers wanted to hold in their hearts were the boy-next-door marines, cowboys and swoon-bait sweethearts I portrayed." Hunter had long-term relationships with actor Anthony Perkins and champion figure skater Ronnie Robertson, before settling down with his partner of 30 years, Allan Glaser. Hunter has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6320 Hollywood Blvd. In 2007, a Golden Palm Star on the Palm Springs, California, Walk of Stars was dedicated to him.
639203	Love and a .45 is a 1994 Bonnie and Clyde-esque road movie starring Gil Bellows and Renée Zellweger. The film was originally released by Lions Gate Entertainment. Plot. A young couple in love – Watty Watts (Gil Bellows) and Starlene (Renée Zellweger), – are planning a successful convenience store robbery. The next day they are paid a visit by two collectors for a local mobster who Watty has borrowed money from to buy an engagement ring for Starlene. They are called Creepy Cody and Dinosaur Bob, and they inform Watty that he must get the money very soon. This is followed by a visit by Watts' drug-addicted former prison buddy, Billy Mack Black (Rory Cochrane), who has a plan for a big score. Against the wishes of Starlene, Watty goes along with the plot and the robbery fails, leading to the stoned clerk being shot and killed by Billy, though they do clear the safe of the money. Following the murder Billy pulls his gun on Watty and forces him to go to a restaurant to eat breakfast, where Billy again pulls his gun on Watty. Fearing for his life, Watty attacks Billy with a fork and escapes. He then returns to his trailer and Starlene, asks her to marry him and tells her they have to flee to Mexico. They are then paid a visit by two police officers, who try to kill them as revenge for the murder and robbery. Starlene manages to shoot one of the officers, who accidentally shoots the other one, and the couple escape. They then make their way toward Mexico pursued by Billy Mack, Bob and Creepy and the police. The two are romanticized in the crime obsessed media and become celebrities. On the way they stop in to see Starlene's parents, (Peter Fonda and Ann Wedgeworth), who are later found by Billy, Bob and Creepy, leading to a violent showdown in which all are killed except Billy.
581927	Lagaan ("Land Tax") is a 2001 Indian epic sports drama film written and directed by Ashutosh Gowariker. Aamir Khan, who was also the producer, stars with Gracy Singh in the lead roles; British actors Rachel Shelley and Paul Blackthorne play the supporting roles. Made on a budget of , the film was shot in an ancient village near Bhuj, India. The film is set in the Victorian period of India's colonial British Raj and revolves around the peasants from a barren village who are oppressed by high taxes imposed by their rulers. They attempt to persuade the British officers to reduce the taxes because of poor agricultural production. Instead, a wager is offered: If their village team beats a British team in a game of cricket, their taxes for three years would be cancelled. After accepting this wager, the villagers face the arduous task of learning an alien game and playing for a result that will change their village's destiny. "Lagaan" received critical acclaim and awards at international film festivals, as well as many Indian film awards. It became the third Indian film to be nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film after "Mother India" (1957) and "Salaam Bombay!" (1988). It was one of the biggest box office hits of 2001. In 2010, the film was ranked No. 55 in "Empire" magazines "The 100 Best Films of World Cinema". In 2011, it was listed in "Time" magazine's special "The All-TIME 25 Best Sports Movies". Plot. "Lagaan" takes place in the small village of Champaner, now in the State of Gujarat, in western India during the height of the British Empire in India in 1893. Captain Andrew Russell (Paul Blackthorne), the commanding officer of the Champaner cantonment, has imposed high taxes ("lagaan") on people from the local villages which they are unable to pay due to a prolonged drought. Led by Bhuvan (Aamir Khan), the villagers beg Raja Puran Singh (Kulbhushan Kharbanda) to help them. He tells them that much to his regret, he is also bound by British law. It is after their visit to the Raja that the people of the village first witness a cricket match. Bhuvan mocks the game and gets into a fight with one of the British officers. Taking an instant dislike to Bhuvan, Russell offers to cancel the taxes of the whole province for three years if the villagers can beat his men in a game of cricket. If the villagers lose, however, they will have to pay three times the amount of their normal taxes. Bhuvan accepts this wager on the behalf of all villages without their consent. When the other villagers find out about the bet, they are furious with Bhuvan. He argues that it is important for everyone to fight against British rule. Bhuvan thus begins to prepare the villagers for the match. He initially finds only five people willing to join the team. He is aided in his efforts by Russell's sister Elizabeth (Rachel Shelley) who feels that her brother has mistreated the people in the villages. As she teaches them the rules of the game, she falls in love with Bhuvan, much to the anguish of Gauri (Gracy Singh) who is also in love with him. After Bhuvan reassures Gauri of his feelings for her, the woodcutter Lakha (Yashpal Sharma) becomes enraged as he is also in love with Gauri. In an attempt to discredit Bhuvan, Lakha offers himself as a spy for Russell and joins the villager's team to destroy it. Eventually, as the villagers realise that winning equals freedom, and as a few of them are insulted by the British, they join the team. Still short one player, Bhuvan also invites an untouchable, Kachra (Aditya Lakhia), who can bowl leg spin. The villagers, conditioned by long term prejudice against untouchables, refuse to play if Kachra joins the team. Bhuvan chastises the villagers, leading them to accept Kachra. The second half of the film focuses on the match itself. On the first day, Russell wins the toss and elects to bat, giving the British officers a strong start. Bhuvan brings Kachra into the match only to find that Kachra has lost his ability to spin the ball, because new cricket balls do not spin as well as worn-down ones like the team had been practising with. In addition, as part of his agreement with Russell, Lakha deliberately drops many catches. During the evening, however, Elizabeth sees Lakha meeting with her brother. She races to the village and informs Bhuvan of Lakha's deception. Rather than allow the villagers to kill him, Bhuvan offers Lakha the chance to redeem himself. The next day as part of his promise to Bhuvan, Lakha takes a diving one-handed catch. However the British score almost 300 runs, losing only three wickets by the lunch break. Kachra is brought back to bowl and, bowling with a now-worn ball, takes a hat-trick which sparks the British batting collapse. The villagers soon start their innings. Bhuvan and Deva (a Sikh, who has played cricket earlier when he was a British sepoy) give their team a solid start. Deva misses out on his half-century when a straight-drive from Bhuvan ricochets off the bowler's hand onto the stumps at the non-striker's end, while Deva was backing up too far. When Lakha comes on to bat, he is hit by a bouncer on his head, and he falls on to his stumps. Other batsmen get out trying to score a boundary off each delivery. Ismail (Raj Zutshi), a good batsman, retires hurt as he is hit on his leg. The villager's team ends the day with 4 batsmen out of action with barely a third of the required runs on board. On the third and final day, Bhuvan passes his century, while most of the later wickets fall. Ismail returns to bat with the help of a runner and passes his half-century, reducing the required runs to a gettable total. The game comes down to the last over with Kachra on strike. With one ball remaining and the team down 5 runs, Kachra knocks the ball a short distance, managing only a single. However, the umpire signals no ball and Bhuvan returns to bat, and swings extremely hard at the next ball. Captain Russell backpedals and catches the ball, leading him to believe the British team has won. However, Russell caught the ball beyond the boundary which gives 6 runs, and the win, to Bhuvan's team. At that moment, the drought ends as a rainstorm erupts. Bhuvan's defeat of the British team leads to the disbanding of the humiliated cantonment. In addition, Russell is forced to pay the taxes for the whole province and is transferred to Central Africa. After realising that Bhuvan loves Gauri, Elizabeth returns to London. Heartbroken, she remains unmarried for the rest of her life. Bhuvan marries Gauri. Production. Origins. Director Ashutosh Gowariker has stated that it was almost impossible to make "Lagaan". He first put forth the idea to Shahrukh Khan who was not able to do the film and recommended Aamir Khan. Gowariker then went to Aamir, who agreed to participate after hearing the detailed script. Even after securing Khan, Ashutosh had trouble finding a producer. Producers who showed interest in the script wanted budget cuts as well as script modifications. Eventually, Aamir agreed to Ashutosh's suggestion that he'd produce the film. Aamir corroborated this by saying that the faith he had in Ashutosh, the story and script of the film, and the opportunity of starting his own production company inspired him to produce "Lagaan". He also said that by being a producer himself, he was able to give greater creative freedom to Ashutosh. He cited an example: "If the director tells the producer that he wants 50 camels, the latter will probably say, 'Why not 25? Can't you manage with 25 camels?' Whereas, if he is telling me the same thing... I will not waste time asking him questions because I am also creatively aware why he needs them." Jhamu Sughand co-produced the film because he liked the emotional and patriotic story. Location, language and costumes. One of the first members to join the production team was Nitin Chandrakant Desai, the art director, with whom Ashutosh set out for extensive location hunt throughout India, to find the setting for the fictional town of Champaner, in late 1998. After searching through Rajasthan, Nasik, UP, they zeroed in on an ancient village near Bhuj, located in Gujarat's Kutch district, by May 1999, where the film was primarily shot. The script demanded a dry location: an agricultural village where it had not rained in several years. To depict the 1890s era, the crew also required a village which lacked electricity, communication and automobiles. Kutch faced the same problems at that time and hence the village of Kanuria, located a few miles away from Bhuj, was chosen. During the filming of "Lagaan", it did not rain at all in the region. However, a week after the shoot finished, it rained heavily bringing relief to Bhuj, which had had a lean monsoon the previous year. The typical old Kutch hamlet was built by the local people four months before the arrival of the crew. The 2001 Gujarat earthquake devastated this region and displaced many locals. The crew, including the English, contributed to their cause by donating 2.5 lakhs, with further contributions during the year. Avadhi, which is a dialect of Hindi, is primarily from a region in Uttar Pradesh. It was chosen to give the feel of the language spoken during that era. However, the language was diluted so that modern viewers could understand it. The dialogues, which were a combination of three dialects (Avadhi, Bhojpuri and Braj Bhasha) were penned by Hindi writer K. P. Saxena. Bhanu Athaiya, an Oscar winner for "Gandhi", was the costume designer for the film. With a large number of extras, it was difficult for her to make enough costumes. She spent a lot of time researching to lend authenticity to the characters. Filming. Pre-planning for a year, including ten months for production issues and two months for his character, was tiring for Aamir. As a first-time producer, he obtained a crew of about 300 people for six months. Due to the lack of comfortable hotels in Bhuj, he hired a newly-constructed apartment and furnished it completely for the crew. Security was set up and a special housekeeping team was brought to take care of the crew's needs. Most of the 19th century tools and equipment depicted in the film were lent to the crew by the local villagers. Initially, they did not want to part with their equipment, but after much coaxing, they gave in. They then travelled to different parts of the country to collect the musical instruments used in that day and era. During the shooting, Ashutosh suffered from a slipped disc and had to rest for 15 days. During this period, he had his bed next to the monitor and continued with his work. The filming schedule spanned across the winter and summer commencing early January and finishing in mid-June. This was physically challenging to many with the temperatures ranging from 0 to 50 degrees Celsius. The actors had to drink frequently and sit in the shade. The schedule was strict. The day began at 6 am, changing into costumes and getting onto the actors' bus, which took them to the sets in Kanuria. The actors, including Aamir, all travelled on the same bus. If anyone missed it, it was up to them to reach the sets. One day, Aamir was late and missed the actors' bus. That day, his wife Reena, the executive producer, reprimanded him for being late. She told him he had to set an example for the rest of the crew. "If he started coming late, how could she tell the others to come on time?" While on the sets, the actors were given call sheets with the day's timetable such as breakfast, hair styling, make-up, costumes, etc. Release. Before its worldwide release, Aamir Khan kept a promise to screen the film to the locals of Bhuj. "Lagaan" clashed with Sunny Deol's "" at the box office. The film made it to the UK Top 10 after its commercial release. It was the first Indian film to have a nationwide release in China and had its dubbed version released in Italy. With favourable reviews from the French press, "Lagaan" premiered in Paris on 26 June 2002 and continued to have an unprecedented nine weeks of screening with over 45,000 people watching. It was released in the United States, France, Germany, Japan, Malaysia, Hong Kong, South Africa and the Middle East with respective vernacular subtitles. The film garnered a cumulative of $2.5 million at the international box-office and Rs. 38 crores at the domestic box-office. In 2001, "Lagaan" had a world premiere at the International Indian Film Academy Awards (IIFA) weekend in Sun City, South Africa. The Locarno International Film Festival authorities published the rules of cricket before the film was screened to a crowd which reportedly danced to its soundtrack in the aisles. "Lagaan" was shown four times due to public demand as against the usual norm of showcasing films once at the festival. It subsequently won the "Prix du Public" award at the festival. After the film's publicity in Locarno, the director, Ashutosh Gowarikar said that distributors from Switzerland, Italy, France, Netherlands, North Africa, Finland and Germany were wanting to purchase the distribution rights. Special screenings were held in Russia, where people were keen to watch the film after its Oscar nomination. Apart from these screenings, it was screened at the Sundance Film Festival, Cairo International Film Festival, Stockholm International Film Festival, Helsinki Film Festival and the Toronto International Film Festival. Reception. "Lagaan" was met with high critical acclaim. The film currently scores a 95% "Certified Fresh" approval rating on review aggregate site Rotten Tomatoes, based on 59 reviews, with an average rating of 7.9/10. The site's critical consensus is, ""Lagaan" is lavish, rousing entertainment in the old-fashioned tradition of Hollywood musicals." Derek Elley of "Variety" suggested that it "could be the trigger for Bollywood's long-awaited crossover to non-ethnic markets". Somni Sengupta of "The New York Times", described it as "a carnivalesque genre packed with romance, swordplay and improbable song-and-dance routines" Roger Ebert gave three and half out of four stars and said, ""Lagaan" is an enormously entertaining movie, like nothing we've ever seen before, and yet completely familiar... At the same time, it's a memory of the films we all grew up on, with clearly defined villains and heroes, a romantic triangle, and even a comic character who saves the day. "Lagaan" is a well-crafted, hugely entertaining epic that has the spice of a foreign culture." Peter Bradshaw of "The Guardian" described the film as "a lavish epic, a gorgeous love story, and a rollicking adventure yarn. Larger than life and outrageously enjoyable, it's got a dash of spaghetti western, a hint of Kurosawa, with a bracing shot of Kipling." Kuljinder Singh of the BBC stated that ""Lagaan" is anything but standard Bollywood fodder, and is the first must-see of the Indian summer. A movie that will have you laughing and crying, but leaving with a smile." Kevin Thomas of the "Los Angeles Times" argued that the film is "an affectionate homage to a popular genre that raises it to the level of an art film with fully drawn characters, a serious underlying theme, and a sophisticated style and point of view." Sudish Kamath of "The Hindu" suggested that "the movie is not just a story. It is an experience. An experience of watching something that puts life into you, that puts a cheer on your face, however depressed you might be." "The Times of India" wrote, ""Lagaan" has all the attractions of big-sounding A. R. Rahman songs, excellent performances by Aamir Khan... and a successful debut for pretty Gracy Singh. In addition, there is the celebrated David vs Goliath cricket match, which has audiences screaming and clapping." Perhaps one of the most emphatic recommendations for the movie, coming 10 years later, is by John Nugent of the "Trenton Independent", who wrote "a masterpiece ... and what better way to learn a bit about India's colonial experience! History and great entertainment, all rolled in to one (albeit long) classic film." "Lagaan" was listed as number 14 on Channel 4's "50 Films to See Before you Die" and was the only Indian film to be listed. Awards. Aamir Khan and Gowariker went to Los Angeles to generate publicity for the Academy Awards. Khan said, "We just started showing it to whoever we could, even the hotel staff." About India's official entry to the 2002 Oscars, The Daily Telegraph wrote, "A Bollywood film that portrays the British in India as ruthless sadists and Mafia-style crooks has been chosen as Delhi's official entry to the Academy Awards." It added that the film was expected to win the nomination. On 12 February 2002, "Lagaan" was nominated for the best foreign language film at the Academy Award nominations ceremony. After the nomination, Khan reacted by saying, "To see the name of the film and actually hear it being nominated was very satisfying". Post-nomination reactions poured in from several parts of the world. The USA Today wrote "Hooray for Bollywood, and India's "Lagaan"". With Sony Pictures Classics distributing the film and Oscar-winning director Baz Luhrmann praising it, "Lagaan" had a chance to win. The "BBC" commented that the nomination raised Bollywood hopes that Indian films would become more popular in the US. In India, the nomination was celebrated with news reports about a win bringing in "a great boost for the Indian film industry" and "a Bharat Ratna for Aamir Khan and the status of a 'national film' for Lagaan". When "Lagaan" lost the award to the Bosnian film "No Man's Land", there was disappointment in India. Khan said, "Certainly we were disappointed. But the thing that really kept us in our spirits was that the entire country was behind us." Filmmaker Mahesh Bhatt criticised the "American film industry" as "insular and the foreign category awards were given just for the sake of it." Gowarikar added that "Americans must learn to like our films". The film won a number of national awards including eight National Film Awards, nine Filmfare Awards, nine Screen Awards and ten IIFA Awards. Apart from these major awards, it also won awards at other national and international ceremonies. Soundtrack. The acclaimed soundtrack for the film was composed by A. R. Rahman with lyrics by Javed Akhtar. The "Los Angeles Times" said that the "songs and dances are not mere interludes inserted in the action, bringing it to a halt—a Bollywood trademark—but are fully integrated into the plot and marked by expressive, dynamic singing and dancing that infuse a historical drama with energy and immediacy." A review of the tracks suggests that "the music is true to the time period (the British Raj)". Another review said: "A. R. Rahman is again at his prodigious best. His score for Aamir Khan’s period drama Lagaan is a delectable blend of Indian classical music, folk melodies and jazzy snazzy tunes." The reviewer of "Screen India" said, "Great music, heard after a long time, which elevates your senses. That Rahman's among the best is proved here." The soundtrack was ranked No. 44 on Amazon.com's "The 100 Greatest World Music Albums of All Time". The soundtrack won 3 National Film Awards in three categories. A. R. Rahman won the award for the best music, Udit Narayan won the Best Male Playback Singer Award for "Mitwa" and Javed Akhtar won the Best Lyrics Award for "Ghanan Ghanan" and "Radha Kaise Na Jale". "Lagaan" also became the biggest audio hit of the year by topping the music charts and selling 3.5 million records within a year. Home media. There were two releases for the DVD. The first, as a 2-DVD set, was released on 27 May 2002 in limited regions. It contained subtitles in Arabic, English, Hebrew, Hindi, Turkish and several European languages. It is available in 16:9 Anamorphic widescreen, Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround, progressive 24 frame/s, widescreen and NTSC format. It carried an additional fifteen minutes of deleted scenes, filmographies and trailers. The second was released as anniversary edition three-disc DVD box after six years of the theatrical release. This also included "Chale Chalo" which was a documentary on the making of Lagaan, a curtain raiser on the making of the soundtrack, deleted scenes, trailers, along with other collectibles.| After its release, it became the highest selling DVD in India beating "Sholay" (1975). Merchandise. In the anniversary DVD edition, a National Film Award-winning documentary, "Chale Chalo – the lunacy of film making", 11 collector cards, a collectible "Lagaan" coin embossed with the character of "Bhuvan", a 35 mm CinemaScope filmstrip hand-cut from the film's filmstrip were bundled with the film. A comic book, "Lagaan: The Story", along with two colouring books, a mask book and a cricket board game were subsequently released to the commercial market. The comic book, available in English and Hindi, was targeted for children between the ages of six and 14. At the book's launch, Aamir Khan said that they were keen to turn the film into a comic strip during the pre-production phase itself. In March 2002, a book titled "The Spirit of Lagaan – The Extraordinary Story of the Creators of a Classic" was published. It covers the making of the film, describing in detail about the setbacks and obstacles that the crew faced while developing the film from concept to its release.
584846	Nandamuri Balakrishna (born 10 June 1960) is an Indian film actor and politician, who works predominantly in Telugu cinema. He is the sixth son of Telugu matinee idol and former Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh N. T. Rama Rao. He entered the film industry as a child artist at the age of 14 with the film "Tatamma Kala". In the mid-1980s, he graduated to acting in the lead role and soon became one of the sought after actors in Telugu cinema. As of 2013, In his film career, spanning thirty nine years, he has acted in ninety eight films, in a variety of roles. He has won two Andhra Pradesh State Nandi Awards and one Filmfare Award in his entire film career. He was the guest of honour at the 43rd International Film Festival of India. He is actively involved in politics and is a member of the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) founded by his father. He is also the chairman of the trust board of his father's cancer hospital, "The Basavatarakam Indo-American Cancer Hospital & Research Institute", based in Hyderabad, India Early life and family. Balakrishna was born in Chennai, to veteran Telugu actor and three-time former Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh N. T. Rama Rao and his wife Basava Tarakam, of the Nandamuri Family. As the Telugu film industry was based in Madras at the time, he spent his entire childhood in Madras. During his adolescence, he moved to Hyderabad following the shifting of the Telugu film industry to that city. He earned a bachelors degree in commerce from Nizam College in Hyderabad. In 1982, at the age of 22, Balakrishna married Vasundhara Devi. They have 2 daughters, Brahmani and Tejaswini, and a son, Taraka Rama Mokshagna Teja. His elder daughter Brahmani is an alumnus of Santa Clara University and Stanford University. She is married to her cousin Nara Lokesh, the son of TDP president and former Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh N. Chandrababu Naidu. It is rumoured that his son Mokshagna Teja will make his film debut in 2014. Film career. Breakthrough (1974–1986). In 1974, he acted as a child artist in "Tatamma Kala" which was directed by NTR. Over a period of time he acted in several films, many of them were directed by NTR. Out of which "Dana Veera Soora Karna", "Srimadvirataparvam", "Akbar Saleem Anarkali" and "Sri Tirupati Venkateswara Kalyanam" became memorable films in his film career. His roles as Abhimanyu in "Dana Veera Soora Karna", "Srimadvirataparvam" and saleem in "Akbar Saleem Anarkali", saint Narada In "Sri Tirupati Venkateswara Kalyanam" are highly praised. At the age of 16, Balakrishna acted in a movie titled "Annadammula Anubandham", a remake of Dharmendra's Hindi movie "Yaadon Ki Baaraat". After watching this movie, other legend of Tollywood Akkineni Nagewara Rao commented that 'Simham kadupuna Sihame puttindi'. In this film, Balakrishna appeared in brother role to his real life father Swargiya NTR. Balakrishna appeared as son to his real life brother Harikrishna in the movie "Dana Veera Sura Karna". In 1984 he debuted in a hero role with "Sahasame Jeevitham". Even though BalaKrishna acted in several films named as N.T. Rama Rao son, later his hard work, discipline, talent and dedication made him stand in the industry and to win the hearts of crores of fans. He then starred in a drama film "Mangammagari Manavadu" (1984) alongside Bhanumathi, Suhasini directed by Kodi Ramakrishna. The film was a Block Buster at the box-office. In the same year, he acted in "Kathanayakudu" and in Biographical film "Shrimad Virat Veerabrahmendra Swami Charitra". Both the films were hits at the Box-office. Again his role as Siddhappa in Shrimad Virat Veerabrahmendra Swami Charitra is critically praised. This movie was directed by his father NTR. In the year 1985, he acted with Akkineni Nageswara Rao in the film Bharya Bhartala Bandam alongside rajani, which is a moderate success. In the year 1986, he acted in hit movies like "Muddula Krishnnayya", "Seetarama Kalyanam", "Anasuyamma Gari Alludu" and "Desoddarakudu" which gradually increased his potential at boxoffice. Commercial stardom (1987–1999). In 1987, he acted in a dual role in the film "Apurva Sahodarudu" directed by K. Raghavendra Rao, was a box-office success. This year he had six super hit films in a row. In the same year, he starred in "Presidentugari Abbai" directed by Tatineni Rama Rao and "Muvva Gopaludu" by Kodi Ramakrishna were biggest hits of the year. Bhargava Ramudu, which is made from a novel, alongside vijayashanti is success at the box office. His other films like "Inspector Pratap", "Bharatamlo Bala Chandrudu", "Tiragabadda Telugubidda", "Rakthabhisekham" were also critically and commercially successful at the boxoffice. In 1989, he paired with Vijaya Shanti in "Muddula Mavayya" directed Kodi Ramakrishna. The film was a blockbuster at the box-office. "Bhale Donga" alongside Vijayasanthi and sharada was also success at the boxoffice. In 1990, he acted in "Nari Nari Naduma Murari" directed by A. Kodandarami Reddy alongside Shobana and Nirosha. The film was a box-office success. In the same year he appeared in B. Gopal's "Lorry Driver" opposite Vijaya Shanti; the film was a Superhit at the box-office. Talli Tandrulu alongside vijayasanthi was again a success at the boxoffice. In 1991, he acted in another blockbuster science fiction film "Aditya 369" directed by Singeetam Srinivasa Rao. The film is about a time machine that goes into the past and the future. And now they are trying to remake it again This is the only science fiction film in Telugu cinema, during that period of time. He then had two releases in 1992 "Dharma Kshetram" was a disappointment and "Rowdy Inspector" directed by B. Gopal, was a "Super Hit" at the box-office. In the year 1993, balakrishna had two releases on the same day which are "Nippu Ravva" alongside Shobana and Vijaya Shanti directed by A. Kodandarami Reddy and "Bangaru Bullodu" alongside Raveena Tandon and Ramya Krishna directed by Ravi Raja Pinisetty, out of which "Bangaru Bullodu" was a hit. His next appearance was a folk role in "Bhairava Dweepam" (1994) directed by Singeetam Srinivasa Rao. The film was a critical and commercial success and one of the milestone of his acting career. In Brahmarshi Viswamitra, directed by his father, he played as Satya Harischandra and Dushyanta. Between 1994–1999, he acted in super hit movies like "Bobbili Simham", "Vamsanikokkadu", "Peddannayya" and moderate successes like "Muddula Mogudu", "Maatho Pettukoku", "Yuvaratna Rana" and "Pavitra Prema". In the year 1999, he acted in B. Gopal's action film "Samarasimha Reddy" opposite Simran and Anjala Zhaveri. The film went on to become one of the biggest hits of Telugu cinema of its time. Recent work (2000–present). In 2000, Balakrishna acted in "Goppinti Alludu" directed by E V V Satyanarayana with Simran. The film was a hit at the box office. In 2001, he starred in B. Gopal's directed faction film "Narasimha Naidu" opposite Simran. The film broke several box office records and it completed 100 days in as many as 109 centres in the state and neighbouring states and silver jubilee in a record 17 centre. He won his first Nandi Award for Best Actor for his performance. In the same year, he appeared in "Bhalevadivi Basu" with Shilpa Shetty, Anjala Zhaveri which opened to average reviews. His 2002 and 2003 films include "Seema Simham", "Chennakeshava Reddy" neither of which were well received, but the later one did an average business at the box office. In 2004, he performed in a remake of the 2003 Tamil hit "Saamy" titled "Lakshmi Narasimha" with Asin Thottumkal. The film and Balakrishna's performance won critical acclaim and was a box office hit. The years from 2005 to 2008 saw a lull in Balayya's career. Action-drama flicks such as "Vijayendra Varma", "Veerabhadra", "Allari Pidugu", "Okka Magadu" and "Maharadhi" bombed at the box office. Balakrishna paired with Sneha and Tabu in the mythological movie "Panduranga" (2008) directed by K. Raghavendra Rao. He played the dual roles of Krishna and Panduranga. Rediff described his performance as "Balakrishna does justice to both the roles of God and Ranga. He shines in the climax of the movie. It's quite a task to step into NTR's shoes but his son has done pretty well, though one does miss NTR in the role of Krishna!". The film was an average success and his performance won him the Santosham Best Actor Award. In the year 2009, he starred in family drama "Mithrudu" alongside Priyamani in a slightly different role – that of a dependable friend and confidante to the female lead. The film opened to average reviews. In 2010, he acted in Boyapati Srinu's film "Simha" alongside Nayantara and Sneha Ullal. NBK played dual roles as father and son. The film opened to positive reviews, and went on to became one of the highest grossing film of the year. A review in Rediff said about his performance "Balakrishna has put in a restrained performance. Though his character is supposed to roar at times, he seems subdued most of the time. But he's given plenty to be pleased about as it is his show all the way." In 2011 he acted in a mythological film Sri Rama Rajyam based on the epic Ramayana. International Film Festival of India (IFFI). The Goa Governor, Mr B V Wanchoo, the Chief Minister Mr Manohar Parrikar and well-known actor of Telugu films, Nandamuri Balakrishna are seen along with award winners and other dignitaries at closing ceremony of the 43rd edition of the IFFI on Friday. The well-known actor of Telugu films, Nandamuri Balakrishna, who was the chief guest at the event, presented the award to the director of the film, Gurvinder Singh and its producer, the National Films Development Corporation. Earlier, Balakrishna, in his speech, said that although Telugu film industry finds no place in the film festival by way of representation to its films, 80 per cent of the movies that are produced in India are in regional languages, out of which 50 per cent are from South India. "Today, film industry is facing competition from radio, and television as also from piracy," the South Indian superstar stated. He also maintained that the film festivals have enlarged his vision towards his career. Shooting controversy. Balakrishna was involved in a shooting controversy. The incident took place on 3 June 2004 around 20:50 hrs at his residence in Jubilee Hills, Hyderabad. The actor has allegedly fired shots at producer Bellamkonda Suresh and his associate, Satyanarayana Chowdhary. Later both the wounded were admitted into Apollo hospital. The circumstances under which the case was handled led to much controversy as purported by the Human Right Forum (HRF). The HRF has questioned the authenticity of people who handled the case, and the circumstances under which the actor was shielded from police by giving refuge in the CARE Hospital with out any justifiable cause. References. mahasaya
1064015	Brenda Song--> (born March 27, 1988) is an American actress, singer, film producer, and model. Song started in show business as a child fashion model. Her early television work included roles in the television shows "Fudge" (1995) and "100 Deeds for Eddie McDowd" (1999). After many commercials and television roles in the late 1990s, Song won a Young Artist Award for her performance in "The Ultimate Christmas Present" (2000). She made her screen debut in "Santa with Muscles" (1996) and appeared in 20th Century Fox's "Like Mike" (2002). Her movies on the Disney Channel include "Get a Clue" (2002) and "Stuck in the Suburbs" (2004). In 2005, Song began playing the lead female role of London Tipton in the Disney series "The Suite Life of Zack & Cody" and "The Suite Life on Deck". The character was noted as Disney's longest continuous female character in October 2009. Song gained more fame after she played the title role in the Disney Channel Original Movie, "", which received over 5.7 million viewers on the night of its premiere. In 2006 Song was named the "Queen of Disney" by "Cosmogirl Magazine". In the late 2000s, she starred in the coming-of-age drama "Special Delivery", "College Road Trip", and "The Social Network" (2010). She was the celebrity endorser of Disney Cruise Lines in 2010 and also became the spokesperson of the clothing brand Op in 2011. Song has been described as one of "young Hollywood’s most promising rising stars" and a "young phenomenon on the rise" by media outlets. "TV Guide" listed her in its 2008 list of "13 Hottest Young Stars to Watch". Early life. Brenda Song was born in Carmichael, California, a suburb of Sacramento, to a Hmong father and a Thai mother who had been adopted by a Hmong family. Her paternal grandparents were from the Xiong clan, but changed their last name to Song when the family immigrated to the United States. Her parents were born in Asia and met as adults in Sacramento. Her father works as a schoolteacher and her mother is a homemaker. She has two younger brothers, Timmy and Nathan. When she was six years old, Song moved with her mother to Los Angeles, California, to support her acting career; the rest of the family followed two years later. As a young girl, Song wanted to do ballet, while her younger brother wanted to take taekwondo. She said, "My mom only wanted to take us to one place," so they settled on taekwondo. Although Song cried all the way through her first class, she now holds a black belt in taekwondo. Song was named an All-American Scholar in the ninth grade. She was homeschooled and earned a high school diploma at age 16, then took courses at a community college and online from the University of California, Berkeley, with a major in psychology and a minor in business. Acting career. Early work. Song started in show business as a child fashion model in San Francisco after being spotted in a shopping mall by an agent from a modeling school. She began acting at the age of five or six in a Little Caesars commercial, and then a Barbie commercial. Her first film role was in the 1995 "Requiem", an AFI student short film by actress Elizabeth Sung. "She came in confident the auditions. She was very focused, and it was very obvious that she loved what she was doing," said Sung. The film is about a waitress/dancer named Fong who remembers her loving brother and their bittersweet childhood in Hong Kong. The seven-year-old Song played a young version of "Fong", who is portrayed as an adult by Tamlyn Tomita. The film won a CINE Golden Eagle award. She appeared in another short film directed by Elizabeth Sung called "The White Fox". Song appeared in two episodes of the television program "Thunder Alley", and was a regular in the children's television series "Fudge", in which she portrayed Jenny. Her theatrical film debut was in "Santa with Muscles", a 1996 independent film starring professional wrestler Hulk Hogan. After a small role in "Leave It to Beaver" (1997), she appeared in the Nickelodeon television series "100 Deeds for Eddie McDowd", where she played Sariffa Chung in thirteen episodes. After "100 Deeds", she had a number of small parts in television shows such as "7th Heaven", "Judging Amy", "ER", "Once and Again", and "Bette", where she met Ashley Tisdale. Two of Song's early roles led to recognition in the Young Artist Awards. Her role in the 2000 Disney Channel Original Movie "The Ultimate Christmas Present" won her the award for "Best Performance in a TV Movie Comedy, Supporting Young Actress". The film centers on two teenage girls, Allison Thompson (Hallee Hirsh) and Samantha Kwan (Song), who find a weather machine and make it snow in Los Angeles. Her 2002 appearance on "The Bernie Mac Show" led to a nomination for "Best Performance in a TV Comedy Series, Guest Starring Young Actress". In the same year, she was in the 20th Century Fox family film "Like Mike", which grossed over $60 million. The film stars rapper Bow Wow as an orphan who can suddenly play NBA-level basketball. Song portrays the character Reg Stevens, a thirteen-year old orphan. Although the film was criticized for its "frightening myths about adoption", it was successful enough to spawn a sequel. Song did not participate in the sequel. In 2002, Song signed a contract with Disney and appeared in the Disney Channel movie "Get a Clue". After 2002, Song continued to make guest appearances in American situation comedies such as "That's So Raven" and "One on One". She had a recurring role as Tia in the Disney Channel series "Phil of the Future", appearing in seven episodes of the series in 2004 and 2005. In late 2004, Song starred in the Disney Channel Original Movie "Stuck in the Suburbs", portraying Natasha Kwon-Schwartz. The television premiere received 3.7 million viewers. The film is about two teenage girls living in suburbia who accidentally exchange cell phones with a famous teen musician. She later said: "When "Stuck" came out it was crazy 'cause we went to Six Flags and we were there and so many kids recognized us from "Stuck in the Suburbs", I'm like wow that movie must have done really well." That year, Song posed for the cover of "Teen People" with her "Get a Clue" co-star, Lindsay Lohan. "The Suite Life of Zack & Cody". In 2005, Song began appearing in the role of spoiled heiress London Tipton in the Disney Channel Original Series, "The Suite Life of Zack & Cody". The role was named "Paris" in an early script and alludes to Paris Hilton (London spoofing Paris, and Tipton is the name of the hotel her father owns in the show). She got the role without an audition and was surprised to find her friend, Ashley Tisdale, working in the show. Song says, "London is my fantasy person, I wish I could be her. I wish I had her closet." The series is about the residents and workers at the fictional Tipton Hotel in Boston and mainly centers around the trouble-making twins, Zack and Cody Martin (Dylan and Cole Sprouse), and London Tipton (Song). The series premiered on the Disney Channel on March 18, 2005, receiving four million viewers, making it the most successful premiere for the Disney Channel in 2005. In 2007 the series was the top-rated television program among children aged 6 to 11, and was the second top-rated television program for children aged 9 to 14. Song's participation in the series led to her becoming highly popular among children between the ages of seven and ten. In 2006 Song was featured in "Teen People"'s "Young Hollywood" issue, which described her role in the "Suite Life" as her breakout role. Critics often praised Song's performance in the "Suite Life" series. An April 2009 andPOP.com article stated that as London Tipton, "Song is the One to Steal the Spotlight" on the Disney Channel. It said, "if you ever watched an episode of ‘The Suite Life with Zack & Cody’ you should realize that show is watchable because of one character: London Tipton. Brenda plays the ditzy spoiled hotel heiress London (an allusion to Paris Hilton) and, if I could say so myself, she does quite an excellent job doing so." While commenting on Song, "MSN"'s 2009 cover story on the series stated, "Song is one of the main reasons why the "Suite Life" franchise remains one of the most successful and highly rated series in the Disney stable." In a 2009 "People" magazine article, the character was described as a "melodramatic high-seas diva." The series eventually earned a 2007 Young Artist Award for "Best Family Television Series (comedy)", Emmy nominations for "Outstanding Children's Program" (twice) and "Outstanding Choreography", and three Nickelodeon Kids' Choice Award nominations for "Favorite TV show" in 2007, 2008, and 2009. In 2006 Song earned an Asian Excellence Award nomination for "Outstanding Newcomer" for her part in the series. After her debut on the "Suite Life" series, Song became a regular on the Disney Channel, and had a voice role in Disney Channel's ' series. In 2006, Song had a voice-over role in '. She later starred in an online series called "London Tipton's Yay Me!" based on the episode "Tiptonline" on "The Suite Life of Zack and Cody". "Wendy Wu: Homecoming Warrior". Song's first starring role as the title character was in the 2006 Disney Channel Original Movie "", which had over 5.7 million viewers at its premiere. "Wendy Wu" was planned to be a comedy, but the directors of the film were having trouble finding a suitable actor with both the comedic presence and taekwondo ability to play the main character, originally named Kenny Lu. Lydia Cook, one of the films's directors, said, "Brenda was originally brought in to play the monk’s role. We started training with her in martial arts, and that’s when we realized that she should be Kenny Lu. They quickly switched things around and offered Brenda the lead in the movie. She had the perfect combination of wit and martial arts." Song had to break a brick with her hand in a screen test before landing the title role. According to "The New York Times", the film became a "star vehicle" for Song. The film was about an average, popular Chinese-American teenager whose life is turned upside down by a visit from a young Chinese monk (Shin Koyamada). The monk claims she is the reincarnation of a powerful female warrior and the only person who can prevent an ancient evil spirit from destroying the world. In a second story line, Wendy and most of her family struggle with keeping their culture and heritage. Song felt she could relate to the message since she knew little about her own people before making the film. She said, "I really identified with Wendy because I don’t want to not know where I came from". To promote the film, she posed for the cover of "Seventeen", "Teen People", "Teen", "Seventeen" Malaysia, and several other magazines, and traveled to Malaysia, Singapore, and Costa Rica. A "Wendy Wu: Homecoming Warrior" sequel, starring Song and Koyamada, was announced in the end of 2007. The film received positive reviews from critics. UltimateDisney.com called the role "a strong departure from her flaky London Tipton character in "The Suite Life of Zack & Cody"", adding that Song "shows in this movie that she no longer has to restrict herself to playing the dumb one." The site praised the film, stating, "Wendy Wu: Homecoming Warrior is an enjoyable little telefilm, rife with killer action sequences (for a DCOM), and a great showcase of talent in both acting and martial for Brenda Song. Aside from a few totally cliched characters and situations, it's worth 91 minutes of your time." "Allmovie" described Song as a "charming and appealing personality, even when playing a shallow airhead". While commending Disney for the strong Asian cast, a BellaOnline review noted that that it is rare to see a female martial arts star with a black belt. Song did most of her own stunt work for the film, with guidance from Koichi Sakamoto, executive producer for the "Power Rangers" series. Song was inspired to endure the stunt training by the way her mother dealt with breast cancer in 2005. Disney Channel executive vice president Gary Marsh called the film ""Buffy the Vampire Slayer" meets "Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon"" and said of Song: "She's incredibly talented, she's smart. She adds diversity to our network, and she's a real kid." Theatrical films and "Suite Life" spin-off. In 2008 Song appeared in the Walt Disney Pictures film "College Road Trip" with Raven-Symoné and Martin Lawrence. In its opening weekend in March 2008, the film grossed $13.6 million, ranking #2 at the box office. The family film centers on college-bound teen Melanie Porter (Symoné), who goes on a road trip to different colleges with her father, while her college-bound friends Nancy Carter (Song) and Katie (Margo Harshman) surprise Melanie on her road trip. The film grossed $45 million in the United States and $6 million outside the United States. Although it earned a Teen Choice Award nomination for "choice movie comedy", the film mainly received negative reviews, and critics panned the acting. A "Daily Mail" review said the film was "one of those churn-'em-out Disney comedies in which every performer seems to be competing to give the most annoying performance in cinematic history." After being a captain for three years in the "Disney Channel Games", Song was featured in "" with other Disney stars. She had guest voice roles in "Phineas & Ferb" and "The Emperor's New School". She starred in the Lifetime Movie Network telefilm "Special Delivery", a film about bonded courier, Maxine (Lisa Edelstein), who is forced to take care of a 14-year old troubled teen, Alice (Song). The "Daily Record" called it a "likeable comedy". The Australian publication "Urban CineFilm" gave Song a positive review for her performance in the film. Song reprised her role as London Tipton in the 2008 "Suite Life" spin-off/sequel, "The Suite Life on Deck". The show's premiere on the Disney Channel drew 5.7 million viewers, and it became the most-watched series premiere on Canada's Family Channel. The show became the most-watched scripted series among children aged 6 to 11 and among tweens in 2008. In 2009, the show was the most-watched scripted series among children and the second most-watched scripted series among pre-teens. Disney ordered a second season for the series, which aired in August 2009. In May 2009, Disney Channel's executive vice president Gary Marsh issued a press release, which stated: "with this second-season extension, the cast of 'The Suite Life' makes Disney Channel history by becoming the longest running continuous characters on our air – 138 half-hour episodes. We are thrilled for them, and for the brilliant, inspired production team that made this extraordinary run possible." Song's character, London Tipton, is Disney Channel's longest continuous female character. Song starred as Paige in a December 2013 animated TV special for NBC, "Macy's Presents Little Spirit: Christmas in New York". The animated TV special is about a friendly New York cab driver (Danny DeVito) who tells a magical story to two sisters (Song and Rachel Shier). The television special received five million viewers. In late 2008, Song made a special appearance at the grand opening of the RTA HealthLine in Cleveland. In early 2009, Song started filming "Boogie Town" with Marques Houston and Vanessa Simmons. The film is compared to "West Side Story"; it is set in a future New York City where dancing battles occur in "Boogie Town". In the film, Micah (Houston) falls in love with Natalie (Song), the sister of the head of a rival dance group, and the two become a modern Romeo and Juliet. The film was shot in downtown Los Angeles. Distributed by Vivendi Entertainment, it was scheduled to be released in the summer of 2009, but it was postponed, and was expected to be released theatrically in 2010. In October 2009 Song joined the main cast of Columbia Pictures' "The Social Network" alongside Jesse Eisenberg, Andrew Garfield and Justin Timberlake. The film was about the founders of the popular social networking site, Facebook. Song portrays Eduardo Saverin's girlfriend. The film won the "Hollywood Ensemble Award" from the Hollywood Awards and was nominated for eight Academy Awards, including Best Picture. An independent film starring Song, "Little Sister", was announced at the 2010 Cannes Film Festival in May 2010. The film is distributed by Goalpost Film and Goalpost Productions. In 2012, Song filmed a pilot for a TV series called "Table for Three". In 2012, Song guest starred as Alissa in the TV show "Scandal". She worked on a pilot with ABC for "Table for Three". Song has been working on a movie with actress Brittany Snow called "5 More". As announced in November 2012, Song will be joining the cast of "New Girl" as a recurring character portraying Daisy. In August 2013, Song's new TV show "Dads", about two guys and their fathers (written by Seth MacFarlane) began production. She plays a character named Veronica who is a bit of a nerd but loves her job and will do anything to succeed. The show premiered September 17, 2013.
1100340	George Boole (; 2 November 1815 – 8 December 1864) was an English mathematician, philosopher and logician. He worked in the fields of differential equations and algebraic logic, and is now best known as the author of "The Laws of Thought". As the inventor of the prototype of what is now called Boolean logic, which became the basis of the modern digital computer, Boole is regarded in hindsight as a founder of the field of computer science. Boole said, ... no general method for the solution of questions in the theory of probabilities can be established which does not explicitly recognise ... those universal laws of thought which are the basis of all reasoning ... Early life. George Boole's father, John Boole (1779–1848), was a tradesman in Lincoln and gave him lessons. He had an elementary school education, but little further formal and academic teaching. William Brooke, a bookseller in Lincoln, may have helped him with Latin; which he may also have learned at the school of Thomas Bainbridge. He was self-taught in modern languages. At age 16 Boole became the breadwinner for his parents and three younger siblings, taking up a junior teaching position in Doncaster, at Heigham's School. He taught briefly in Liverpool. Boole participated in the local Mechanics Institute, the Lincoln Mechanics' Institution, which was founded in 1833. Edward Bromhead, who knew John Boole through the Institution, helped George Boole with mathematics books; and he was given the calculus text of Sylvestre François Lacroix by Rev. George Stevens Dickson, of St Swithin Lincoln. It took him many years to master calculus, however, without a teacher. At age 19 Boole successfully established his own school at Lincoln. Four years later he took over Hall's Academy, at Waddington, outside Lincoln, following the death of Robert Hall. In 1840 he moved back to Lincoln, where he ran a boarding school. Boole became a prominent local figure, an admirer of John Kaye, the bishop. He took part in the local campaign for early closing. With E. R. Larken and others he set up a building society in 1847. He associated also with the Chartist Thomas Cooper, whose wife was a relation. From 1838 onwards Boole was making contacts with sympathetic British academic mathematicians, and reading more widely. He studied algebra in the form of symbolic methods, as these were understood at the time, and began to publish research papers. Professor at Cork. Boole's status as mathematician was recognised by his appointment in 1849 as the first professor of mathematics at Queen's College, Cork in Ireland. He met his future wife, Mary Everest, there in 1850 while she was visiting her uncle John Ryall who was Professor of Greek. They married some years later. He maintained his ties with Lincoln, working there with E. R. Larken in a campaign to reduce prostitution. Boole was elected Fellow of the Royal Society in 1857; and received honorary degrees of LL.D. from the University of Dublin and Oxford University. Death. On 8 December 1864, Boole died of an attack of fever, ending in pleural effusion. He was buried in the Church of Ireland cemetery of St Michael's, Church Road, Blackrock (a suburb of Cork City). There is a commemorative plaque inside the adjoining church. Works. Boole's first published paper was "Researches in the theory of analytical transformations, with a special application to the reduction of the general equation of the second order", printed in the "Cambridge Mathematical Journal" in February 1840 (Volume 2, no. 8, pp. 64–73), and it led to a friendship between Boole and Duncan Farquharson Gregory, the editor of the journal. His works are in about 50 articles and a few separate publications. In 1841 Boole published an influential paper in early invariant theory. He received a medal from the Royal Society for his memoir of 1844, "On A General Method of Analysis". It was a contribution to the theory of linear differential equations, moving from the case of constant coefficients on which he had already published, to variable coefficients. The innovation in operational methods is to admit that operations may not commute. In 1847 Boole published "The Mathematical Analysis of Logic ", the first of his works on symbolic logic. Differential equations. Two systematic treatises on mathematical subjects were completed by Boole during his lifetime. The "Treatise on Differential Equations" appeared in 1859, and was followed, the next year, by a "Treatise on the Calculus of Finite Differences", a sequel to the former work. In the sixteenth and seventeenth chapters of the "Differential Equations" is an account of the general symbolic method, and of a general method in analysis, originally described in his memoir printed in the "Philosophical Transactions" for 1844. During the last few years of his life Boole worked on a second edition of his "Differential Equations", and part of his last vacation was spent in the libraries of the Royal Society and the British Museum; but it was left incomplete. Isaac Todhunter printed the manuscripts in 1865, in a supplementary volume. Analysis. In 1857, Boole published the treatise "On the Comparison of Transcendents, with Certain Applications to the Theory of Definite Integrals", in which he studied the sum of residues of a rational function. Among other results, he proved what is now called Boole's identity: for any real numbers "a""k" > 0, "b""k", and "t" > 0. Generalisations of this identity play an important role in the theory of the Hilbert transform. Symbolic logic. In 1847 Boole published the pamphlet "Mathematical Analysis of Logic". He later regarded it as a flawed exposition of his logical system, and wanted "An Investigation of the Laws of Thought (1854), on Which are Founded the Mathematical Theories of Logic and Probabilities" to be seen as the mature statement of his views. Boole's initial involvement in logic was prompted by a current debate on quantification, between Sir William Hamilton who supported the theory of "quantification of the predicate", and Boole's supporter Augustus De Morgan who advanced a version of De Morgan duality, as it is now called. Boole's approach was ultimately much further reaching than either sides' in the controversy. It founded what was first known as the "algebra of logic" tradition. Boole did not regard logic as a branch of mathematics, but he provided a general symbolic method of logical inference. Boole proposed that logical propositions should be expressed by means of algebraic equations. Algebraic manipulation of the symbols in the equations would provide a fail-safe method of logical deduction: i.e. logic is reduced to a type of algebra. By 1 (unity) Boole denoted the "universe of thinkable objects"; literal symbols, such as "x", "y", "z", "v", "u", etc., were used with the "elective" meaning attaching to adjectives and nouns of natural language. Thus, if "x" = horned and "y" = sheep, then the successive acts of election (i.e. choice) represented by "x" and "y", if performed on unity, give the class "horned sheep". Thus, (1 – "x") would represent the operation of selecting all things in the world except horned things, that is, all not horned things, and (1 – "x") (1 – "y") would give all things neither horned nor sheep. Treatment of addition in logic. Boole conceived of "elective symbols" of his kind as an algebraic structure. But this general concept was not available to him: he did not have the segregation standard in abstract algebra of postulated (axiomatic) properties of operations, and deduced properties. His work was a beginning to the algebra of sets, again not a concept available to Boole as a familiar model. His pioneering efforts encountered specific difficulties, and the treatment of addition was an obvious difficulty in the early days. Boole replaced the operation of multiplication by the word 'and' and addition by the word 'or'. But in Boole's original system, + was a partial operation: in the language of set theory it would correspond only to disjoint union of subsets. Later authors changed the interpretation, commonly reading it as exclusive or, or in set theory terms symmetric difference; this step means that addition is always defined. In fact there is the other possibility, that + should be read as disjunction, This other possibility extends from the disjoint union case, where exclusive or and non-exclusive or both give the same answer. Handling this ambiguity was an early problem of the theory, reflecting the modern use of both Boolean rings and Boolean algebras (which are simply different aspects of one type of structure). Boole and Jevons struggled over just this issue in 1863, in the form of the correct evaluation of "x" + "x". Jevons argued for the result "x", which is correct for + as disjunction. Boole kept the result as something undefined. He argued against the result 0, which is correct for exclusive or, because he saw the equation "x" + "x" = 0 as implying "x" = 0, a false analogy with ordinary algebra. Probability theory. The second part of the "Laws of Thought" contained a corresponding attempt to discover a general method in probabilities. Here the goal was algorithmic: from the given probabilities of any system of events, to determine the consequent probability of any other event logically connected with the those events. Legacy. Boolean algebra is named after him, as is the crater Boole on the Moon. The keyword "Bool" represents a Boolean datatype in many programming languages, though Pascal and Java, among others, both use the full name "Boolean". The library, underground lecture theatre complex and the Boole Centre for Research in Informatics at University College Cork are named in his honour. 19th-century development. Boole's work was extended and refined by a number of writers, beginning with William Stanley Jevons. Augustus De Morgan had worked on the logic of relations, and Charles Sanders Peirce integrated his work with Boole's during the 1870s. Other significant figures were Platon Sergeevich Poretskii, and William Ernest Johnson. The conception of a Boolean algebra structure on equivalent statements of a propositional calculus is credited to Hugh MacColl (1877), in work surveyed 15 years later by Johnson. Surveys of these developments were published by Ernst Schröder, Louis Couturat, and Clarence Irving Lewis. 20th-century development. In 1921 the economist John Maynard Keynes published a book on probability theory, "A Treatise of Probability". Keynes believed that Boole had made a fundamental error in his definition of independence which vitiated much of his analysis. In his book "The Last Challenge Problem", David Miller provides a general method in accord with Boole's system and attempts to solve the problems recognised earlier by Keynes and others. Theodore Hailperin showed much earlier that Boole had used the correct mathematical definition of independence in his worked out problems
645742	Hypot is a mathematical function defined to calculate the length of the hypotenuse of a right-angle triangle. It was designed to avoid errors arising due to limited-precision calculations performed on computers. Motivation and usage. Calculation of the length of the hypotenuse of a triangle is possible to do using the square root function but hypot("x", "y") avoids possible problems with very large or very small numbers. The magnitude of the hypotenuse from (0, 0) to ("x", "y") can be calculated using: However the squares of very large or small values of "x" and "y" may exceed the range of machine precision when calculated on a computer, leading to an inaccurate result (see underflow, overflow). The hypot function was designed to calculate the result without causing this problem. The hypot function may typically be used together with the atan2 function to convert from Cartesian to polar coordinates: This operation is also known as Pythagorean addition. Implementation. The difficulty with the naive implementation is that "x"2 or "y"2 may over- or underflow, unless the intermediate result is computed with extended precision. A common implementation technique is to exchange the values, if necessary, so that |"x"| > |"y"|, and then use the equivalent form: The computation of "y"/"x" cannot overflow, and underflows compute the correct result. The square root is computed over a value between 1 and 2. Finally, the multiplication by |"x"| cannot underflow, and overflows only when the result is too large to represent. Pseudocode: Programming language support. The function is present in several programming languages: Some C90 and C++ libraries have provided a hypot function.
1063289	Olivia Jane Cockburn (née ; March 10, 1984), known professionally as Olivia Wilde, is an American actress. She has appeared in a number of television and film productions such as "The O.C.", "The Black Donnellys", "House", "", "Cowboys & Aliens", "In Time", "Drinking Buddies", and most recently "Rush". Early life and background. Wilde was born in New York City. Her mother, Leslie Cockburn (née Redlich), is an American-born "60 Minutes" producer and journalist. Her father, Andrew Myles Cockburn, a journalist, was born in London to British parents, and raised in Ireland; her uncles, Alexander Cockburn and Patrick Cockburn, also worked as journalists. Wilde's older sister, Chloe Cockburn, is a civil rights attorney in New York; her aunt, Sarah Caudwell, was a writer, and her paternal grandfather, Claud Cockburn, was a novelist and journalist. Wilde's father's upper-class British ancestors lived in several countries during the height of colonialism and the British Empire, including Beijing (where her paternal grandfather was born), Kolkata, Mumbai, Cairo, and Tasmania (one of her paternal great-great-grandfathers, Henry Arthur Blake, was Governor of Hong Kong). Wilde's father's ancestors include abolitionist and Anglican minister James Ramsay, politician George Arbuthnot, lawyer, judge, and literary figure Henry Cockburn, Lord Cockburn, Lord Provost of Edinburgh Sir William Arbuthnot, 1st Baronet, and Sir Thomas Osborne, 9th Baronet. Wilde's ancestry includes English, Irish, Scottish, Manx, and German; she is also of more distant Sephardi Jewish descent from a paternal ancestor, Ralph Bernal (1783–1854), a British Whig politician and actor. Wilde has said that as a result of her parents' occupations, she has a "strong journalistic streak", being "really critical and analytical". Both her parents were prominent in the Washington social scene, hosting dinner parties. Her mother once recounted a story of a four-year-old Wilde eavesdropping one night on a conversation between diplomat Richard Holbrooke and singer Mick Jagger, until Jagger noticed her and shooed her to bed. She has wanted to become an actress since the age of two. For a short time, Wilde's family had a house in Guilford, Vermont. She attended Georgetown Day School in Washington, D.C., as well as Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts, graduating in 2002. She also studied acting at the Gaiety School of Acting in Dublin, Ireland. Wilde had writer Christopher Hitchens as a babysitter. Career. She has appeared in the films "The Girl Next Door", "Alpha Dog", "Conversations with Other Women" and "Turistas". She became known for her role on "The O.C." as Alex Kelly, although she originally auditioned for the role of Marissa Cooper. She has also appeared in the Dashboard Confessional music video for "Stolen", and the French Kicks music video for "So Far We Are". In 2007, Wilde was a part of the ensemble cast of the short-lived NBC mid-season drama "The Black Donnellys". Her character, Jenny Reilly, was a principal female character in the series following the lives of an Irish-American family tied to organized crime in New York City. Also in 2007, Wilde appeared in the play "Beauty on the Vine", a political thriller, playing three different characters. Wilde joined the cast of the Fox medical drama "House" in September 2007, making her first appearance the episode "The Right Stuff". She played a secretive and bisexual young internist with Huntington's disease, Dr. Remy Hadley, nicknamed Thirteen, who was handpicked by House out of a number of applicants to join his team. Wilde told "Star" magazine how she sometimes took cues from her character even when she was not working, saying, "I'm now convinced that I'm a doctor. I mean, if someone says they have a pain, I'm like, 'Well, that's your spleen.'" On October 7, 2008, Wilde appeared in a video on funnyordie.com showing how much she enjoys registering early for the 2008 Presidential election, "Olivia Wilde Does It Early". She appeared in the 2009 comedy film "Year One". She played Quorra in Disney's ', which opened on December 17, 2010. In the December 2010/January 2011 issue of "Details" Wilde was quoted as saying she panicked the first time she saw her costume for the movie: "I saw the boobs on the suit and I said, 'Oh hell no. I'm doing kicks and backflips in this thing? She also reprised her role as Quorra in ' in the episode "Isolated". She was seen in flashbacks of Paige's past, where she befriended Quorra, not knowing that she was an ISO (isomorphic algorithm) at the time. Wilde played Ella Swenson in the science fiction Western film "Cowboys & Aliens". Her character works with Jake Lonergan (Daniel Craig), and Woodrow Dolarhyde (Harrison Ford), to save their town from evil aliens. Wilde played Sabrina McKay in the comedy film "The Change-Up". Her character is the love interest of Mitch Planko, who was played by Ryan Reynolds. In January 2011, it was announced that Wilde was cast alongside Chris Pine in the film "People Like Us", released in June 2012. In August 2011, it was announced Wilde would be leaving "House" to pursue her film career. Wilde left "House" a few months later, in the episode "Charity Case". In May 2012, Wilde returned to "House" for the final two episodes, "Holding On" and "Everybody Dies". "The New York Observer" has described Wilde as having a "throaty voice" and the "wide, teal-eyed charisma of Hollywood in the days of yore". She has cited Meryl Streep, Sigourney Weaver, Frances McDormand, Catherine Keener and Robin Wright Penn as acting inspirations. She won the 2006 US Comedy Arts Festival Film Discovery Jury Award for Best Actress for "Bickford Shmeckler's Cool Ideas" (2006), and in 2008 at the Teen Choice Awards, she was nominated for the Teen Choice Award for Choice TV Breakout Star Female for "House". Also in 2008, Wilde was honored alongside Jesse Eisenberg with the Vail Film Festival Rising Star Award. On September 24, 2013, "Variety" and "Entertainment Weekly" reported that Wilde will guest voice-star in the long-running adult animated series "American Dad!", the episode slated to air as part of the show's 10th season (2013–14). Personal life. Wilde has dual citizenship in the United States and Ireland. She derived her stage name "Wilde" from Irish author Oscar Wilde. She changed her surname while in high school, to honor the writers in her family, many of whom used pen names. She is a vegan, and was voted PETA's Sexiest Vegetarian Celebrity of 2010. Relationships. On June 7, 2003 Wilde married Tao Ruspoli, an Italian filmmaker and musician, whose family owns a famed palazzo in Italy, in Washington, Virginia, on a school bus with only a pair of witnesses, when she was nineteen years old. She later said the marriage occurred in an abandoned school bus because it was the only place where they could be completely alone, as the marriage was a secret at the time. On February 8, 2011, she and her husband announced that they were separating. Wilde filed for divorce in Los Angeles County Superior Court on March 3, 2011, citing "irreconcilable differences". The divorce was finalized on September 29, 2011. Wilde did not seek spousal support, and the pair reached a private agreement on property division. Wilde is engaged to actor Jason Sudeikis; she confirmed the engagement on Twitter on January 13, 2013. Political activism. Wilde is a board member of Artists for Peace and Justice, which provides education and health services in Haiti, and the ACLU of Southern California. Previously, Wilde was a supporter of the youth voter organization, 18 in '08. She serves on their advisory council and appeared in a public service announcement that debuted June 30, 2008. In 2008, Wilde campaigned with actors Justin Long and her then-current "House" castmate Kal Penn for the 2008 Democratic Presidential nominee Barack Obama. She also appeared in the MoveOn.org mock-PSA "supporting" the rights of the healthcare insurance industry. She also appeared in the Global Poverty Project. Wilde was commended by the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, a farmworkers' union, for supporting the Fair Foods campaign. In 2013, she appeared in a video clip for Gucci's "Chime for Change" campaign that aims to raise funds and awareness of women's issues in terms of education, health, and justice.
393817	The Classic (; "Keulraesik") is a 2003 South Korean melodrama / romance film directed by Kwak Jae-yong. Plot. The film tells the parallel love stories of a mother and daughter. The story of the mother is told partially in flashbacks. The movie starts in the present day. The daughter, Ji-hye (Son Ye-jin), is cleaning-up around her house when she comes across a box full of old letters and a diary that detail the story of her mother, Joo-hee (who is also played by Son Ye-jin). Periodically in the movie, Ji-hye reads one of these letters, which starts a flashback scene in which the story of the mother is told. These flashbacks are intertwined with Ji-hye's own story, in which she falls for a fellow student, Sang-min (Zo In Sung), who is involved with the school theater. The movie tells the story of both relationships. The mother, Joo-hee, visits the countryside as a student one summer and meets Joon-ha (Jo Seung-woo). Together they explore the countryside, playing near a river which they both will always remember as their special place. When a storm starts they take shelter together under a tree, but not before Joo-hee twists her ankle and is rendered helpless. Joon-ha carries her on his back and they struggle home, only to be confronted by her angry parents. Before they separate, Joo-hee gives him a necklace, which he keeps close as a precious reminder of their time together. Unfortunately, as often happens in affairs of the heart, a third party prevents any deepening of their relationship. Joo-hee has been promised by her parents as a bride to Tae-soo, Joon-ha's friend. But Tae-soo, a noble friend, finds out about Joo-hee and Joon-ha's attraction for each other and helps the two communicate secretly by letting them use his own name in place of Joon-ha's in their letters. When Tae-soo's father finds this out, however, he beats Tae-soo. Tae-soo tries unsuccessfully to commit suicide so that his two friends can be together. Meanwhile, in the present, Ji-hye falls for Sang-min in whom her friend Soo-kyeong is also very interested, but he seems not to notice. Then, in a sweet scene, they take shelter from the rain together under the same tree. He uses his coat to cover both of them and escorts her to where she needs to go. The moment, while magical, does not go anywhere as she feels his help was only due to his generous nature and not from any feelings for her on his part. Back in the past, Joon-ha is guilt-ridden over his friend's attempted suicide and Joo-hee's own guilt. Determined to prevent any more hurt to her, Joon-ha joins the army and goes to Vietnam. There he loses his eyesight while he tries to retrieve the necklace Joo-hee had given him. When he returns to Korea, he meets again with Joo-hee, and, trying to hide his blindness, convinces her he has married in the hope she will move on with her life. Though heart broken that their relationship cannot continue, she does move on and eventually marries Tae-soo, Joon-ha's kind friend. After they have been married for several years and have a young daughter (Ji-hye) Joo-hee is approached by friends of Joon-ha, who relate Joon-ha's last wish: that his ashes be scattered by Joo-hee in the river, now a reservoir, where they first met. She then finds out that Joon-ha hadn't married, but he later did after Tae-soo and Joo-hee were married. She was told that he had a son also. The heart-break is too much and she cries. In the present, Ji-hye's own story unfolds. Sang-min reveals his true feelings for Ji-hye - feelings that mirror her own. It is also revealed that their taking shelter together during the storm was no accident: he had purposely left his umbrella behind in a shop so that he could join her under the tree. Then, when Ji-hye pensively reveals her mother's story to him, tears stream down his face. Silently he lifts a necklace from around his neck and places it around hers. It is the necklace that Ji-hye's mother, Joo-hee, had given to Joon-ha when they met. The circle is completed: Joo-hee's daughter and Joon-ha's son have fallen in love. Development. Several of the school scenes were filmed at various universities in Korea. Notably, the library was in Kyung Hee University. There are many parallels between the flashback and present day stories. In the flashbacks, Joon Ha writes letters in the name of his friend Tae-soo to their mutual love interest. In the present day, Ji-hye writes letters in the name of her friend to their mutual love interest. In the flashbacks, Joo-hee has an annoying female friend that Joon-ha is initially set up with. In the present day, Ji-hye also has an annoying friend that interferes with her relationship. Also, Joo-hee and Ji-hye both receive the same poem from the people they love: "When the sun shines...". Reception. "The Classic" was nominated at the Hong Kong Film Awards in the category Best Asian Film in 2004. Son Ye-jin received several awards for her performance in the film: Music. The film relies heavily on music to help convey emotion. Korean Songs in the film: The piano piece performed by Joo-Hee on stage is Beethoven's Piano Sonata 8, movement 2 Pathetique Sonata.
1169700	Ronald Ralph "Ronnie" Schell (born December 23, 1931) is an American actor, stand-up comedian and cartoon voice actor (notably Peter Puck). Early in his career he appeared as himself as a contestant on "You Bet Your Life" opposite Groucho Marx, demonstrating a comic barrage of jive talk. Schell is probably best known in his 1960s television role as Duke Slater in "Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C." Life and career. Schell was born in Richmond, California. His first choice of careers was to play professional baseball. He got as far as the semi-pro league level before enlisting in the Air Force, where he performed in variety shows as both an emcee and comedian and also did record pantomimes. Schell studied at San Francisco State University and formed a nightclub comedy duo which took off. He turned solo within a year and progressed to Las Vegas work as an opening act. In his role as Duke Slater on "Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C.", Schell's character was cast for three seasons as a Marine Private, and best friend of Gomer Pyle. Schell left for a season to star as a disc jockey in his own sitcom, "Good Morning, World". He then returned to "Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C." as a Corporal for its fifth and final season. Schell played his Duke Slater character as street-wise, compared to Pyle's bucolic background as portrayed by Jim Nabors. Schell also acted in a few Pacific Southwest Airlines Commercials such as "Smile Inspection" and "PSA Gives You A Lift Pageant". At the end of a Jerry Lewis PSA Jingle, a voice said "That was Jerry Lewis for PSA, and this is Ronnie Schell. What did I do wrong?" He also did a commercial with Don Adams where he parodied Don's TV character Maxwell Smart. His television guest credits include "The Andy Griffith Show", "Phil of the Future", "Yes, Dear", "The Wayans Bros.", "Step by Step", "Coach", "The Golden Girls", "227", "Saved by the Bell", "Empty Nest", "Mr. Belvedere", "Santa Barbara", "Trapper John, M.D.", "Too Close for Comfort", "The Brian Keith Show", "The Love Boat", Love American Style, "Alice", "Mork & Mindy", "One Day at a Time", "Charlie's Angels", "The Dukes of Hazzard", "Sanford and Son", "Emergency!", "Happy Days", "Adam-12", "The New Dick Van Dyke Show", "That Girl", "Black Sheep Squadron", "Hogan's Heroes" and "Jessie", currently on the Disney Channel. In 2007, Schell was part of a touring cabaret show titled, "5 Star Revue" with Gary Collins, Mary Ann Mobley, Ruta Lee and Steve Rossi. He starred in the 2009 Off-Broadway production of "Don't Leave it All to Your Children!", a comedic and musical revue dedicated to those Baby Boomers everywhere who are about to enter into the golden age of Senior Citizenship.
696454	Salman Shahid is a Pakistani actor who has worked in many film, stage plays and TV shows. He recently appeared in the Bollywood film Ishqiya. The actor for many years has given Pakistan great comedy shows. His mother Khursheed Shahid was also a well known TV artist while his father Salim Shahid created programs for BBC London. Among his comic roles, the famous ones are from the shows Tal Matol, Teen Bata Teen and Ho Bahoo.
1035051	Pamela E. "Pam" Ferris (born 11 May 1948) is a British actress. She starred on television as Ma Larkin in "The Darling Buds of May", and as Laura Thyme in "Rosemary & Thyme", and has played parts in family films based on works by British authors as Miss Trunchbull in "Matilda" and as Aunt Marge in "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban". Personal life. Ferris was born in Hanover, Lower Saxony, Germany, to Welsh parents, while her father was serving in the Royal Air Force. Ferris spent her childhood in the Aberkenfig area, near Bridgend in Wales. Her father, Fred Ferris, was a policeman, and her mother, Ann Perkins, worked in her family's bakery business. Her family emigrated to New Zealand when she was thirteen. Ferris returned to the UK in her early twenties. In 1986, she married actor Roger Frost. Career. Ferris performed in her younger years at the Mercury Theatre in Auckland, and later with various regional companies in the UK. Ferris played motherly Ma Larkin in the ITV series "The Darling Buds of May", which ran from 1991 to 1993. She has also acted in a succession of television dramas, including: "Meantime", in which she played the Cockney mother of Phil Daniels and Tim Roth, "Connie", "Hardwicke House", "Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit", "Where the Heart Is" and "Paradise Heights". From 2003 to 2006, she played the gardening sleuth, Laura Thyme, in "Rosemary & Thyme". Her roles in costume dramas include parts in television adaptations of "Middlemarch", "The Tenant of Wildfell Hall", "Our Mutual Friend", "The Turn of the Screw", "Pollyanna" and "Jane Eyre". Ferris portrayed the horrid school headmistress Miss Agatha Trunchbull in "Matilda". Additionally, she played the nasty Aunt Marge in "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban", and Miriam, a motherly activist in "Children of Men", both of which were directed by Alfonso Cuarón. She has also acted in productions for BBC Radio 4. Her career in the theatre has included parts in Royal Court Theatre and National Theatre productions. In 2007 she played Phoebe Rice in an acclaimed revival of John Osborne's" The Entertainer" at London's Old Vic Theatre. In 2007 Ferris took part in the BBC Wales programme "Coming Home" about her Welsh family history. In 2008 she played Mrs General in an all-star cast BBC adaptation of the Charles Dickens novel "Little Dorrit". In 2009 she appeared in the final series of the BBC comedy "Gavin and Stacey". In 2010 she made a guest appearance in the sitcom "Grandma's House". In 2012, Ferris began playing the part of Sister Evangelina in the series "Call the Midwife".
1265898	Ina Claire (October 15, 1893February 21, 1985) was an American stage and film actress. Career. Born Ina Fagan in 1893 in Washington, D.C., Claire began her career appearing in vaudeville. She performed on Broadway in the musicals "Jumping Jupiter" and "The Quaker Girl" (both 1911) and "Lady Luxury", and starred on Broadway in plays by some of the leading comic dramatists of the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s, including the roles of Jerry Lamarr in Avery Hopwood's "The Gold Diggers" (1919), Mrs. Cheyney in Frederick Lonsdale's "The Last of Mrs. Cheyney" (1925), Lady George Grayston in W. Somerset Maugham's "Our Betters" (1928), and Enid Fuller in George Kelly's "Fatal Weakness". Her last stage appearance was as Lady Elizabeth Mulhammer in T. S. Eliot's "The Confidential Clerk" (1954). She was particularly identified with the high comedies of S. N. Behrman, and created the female leads in three of his plays: "Biography" (1934), "End of Summer" (1936), and "The Talley Method" (1941). Behrman wrote of Claire's performance in one of Behrman's comedies: "Her readings were translucent, her stage presence encompassing. The flick of an intonation deflated pomposity. She never missed a nuance." Critic J. Brooks Atkinson praised Claire for her "refulgent comic intelligence. In films, she is best known as the Grand Duchess in the 1939 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer political satire "Ninotchka" directed by Ernst Lubitsch and starring Greta Garbo. She made her onscreen debut in the Cecil B. DeMille film "The Wild Goose Chase" in 1915. Family. Claire's second husband was screen actor John Gilbert. Death. Ina Claire died February 21, 1985 in San Francisco, California, aged 91 due to an heart attack. She is buried in Mount Olivet Cemetery located in Salt Lake City, Utah. She was an inductee in the American Theatre Hall of Fame and has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
1062535	The Full Monty is a 1997 British comedy-drama film directed by Peter Cattaneo, starring Robert Carlyle, Mark Addy, William Snape, Steve Huison, Tom Wilkinson, Paul Barber, and Hugo Speer. The screenplay was written by Simon Beaufoy. The film is set in Sheffield, England, and it tells the story of six unemployed men, four of them former steel workers, who decide to form a male striptease act (à la Chippendale dancers) in order to gather enough money to get somewhere else and for main character, Gaz, to be able to see his son. Gaz declares that their show will be better than the Chippendales dancers because they will go "the full monty" — strip all the way — hence the film's title. Despite being a comedy, the film also touches on serious subjects such as unemployment, fathers' rights, depression, impotence, homosexuality, obesity, working class culture and suicide. The film was rated a 15 in Britain for "frequent strong language". "The Full Monty" was a major critical success upon release and an unexpected international commercial success, grossing over $250 million becoming the highest grossing film in the UK until it was outsold by "Titanic" from a budget of only $3.5 million. It was ultimately nominated for the Academy Awards for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay and Best Original Music Score, winning the latter. Plot. The once-successful steel mills of Sheffield, South Yorkshire, have shut down and most of the employees have been laid off. Former steel workers Gary "Gaz" Schofield and Dave Horsefall (who worked at their steel mills for ten years) have resorted to stealing scrap metal from the abandoned mills to sell. Gaz is facing trouble from his ex-wife, Mandy, over child support payments that he's failed to make since losing his job. Gaz's son, Nathan, loves his father but wishes they could do more "normal stuff" in their time together. One day, Gaz spots a crowd of women lined up outside a local club to see a Chippendale's striptease act. He gets the idea to form his own strip tease group using local men in hopes of making enough money to pay off his child support obligations. The first to join the group is Lomper, a security guard at Harrison's, the steel mill where Dave and Gaz once worked. Severely depressed, Lomper attempts to commit suicide, but is rescued by Dave who convinces him to join the group. Next they recruit Gerald Cooper, a former manager at the plant, who has been hiding from his wife the fact that he's been laid off. Gaz and Dave see Gerald and his wife, Linda Deidre Costello, at a dance class and recruit him to teach them some actual dance moves. The four men hold an open audition to recruit more members and settle on Horse, an older man who is nevertheless a good dancer, and Guy, who can't dance but proves to be well-endowed when he exposes himself. When they are approached by local women while they are hanging up posters for the show, Gaz declares that their show will be better than the Chippendales dancers because they'll go "the full monty" and remove all their clothes, to the others' chagrin. During the rehearsals, Dave drops out due to body image issues. The others try a public rehearsal at the abandoned factory in front of several female relatives of Horse, but they are caught mid-show by a passing policeman and arrested, though no charges are finally filed. Due to the arrest, Gaz loses the right to see Nathan. But the sting makes the front page of the newspaper, making them famous. Lomper and Guy are the only ones who escape the police and run to Lomper's house, where they start a relationship.
1139511	Kelly Lee Curtis (born June 17, 1956) is an American actress and Assistant
1015857	Jaycee Chan Jo-Ming (born 3 December 1982) is a Hong Kong actor and singer. In 2004, he released his first Mandarin CD album in Hong Kong. He is currently based in Taiwan to continue his music career. He is the son of the Chinese martial artist and actor, Jackie Chan and his wife, Lin Feng-Jiao. Biography. Jaycee was born and raised in Los Angeles, California, he is the son of Hong Kong action/martial arts star Jackie Chan and Taiwanese actress Lin Feng-Jiao. Sources, including Jackie Chan's autobiography, state that he was born in 1984 and that his parents were married in 1983. On the other hand Jackie's official website states that he was born in 1982. Jaycee briefly attended the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia for two semesters, but did not graduate. He has a penchant for luxury cars and nightlife and stated that he left school because “all you can see in Virginia is sheep.” Jaycee made an agreement with his parents that if his first film, "The Huadu Chronicles; Blade of the Rose" aka "Twins Effect II" had failed at the box office, he would quit the entertainment business and return to the US to finish his degree at The College of William and Mary. Although the film was a failure, Jaycee did not return to school. It was later revealed that he was expelled for low grades. Jaycee's father, Jackie Chan gave a speech at Harvard and donated an undisclosed sum of money in an attempt to convince his son to return to school. Giving up on school, Jaycee moved to Hong Kong in 2003. Despite heavy promotions and awards, his albums and movies have had dismal sales. His film, Double Trouble, only grossed US$9,000 in Hong Kong, making it one of the biggest box office failures ever. His studio, though, is adamant that he will be a success one day at whatever cost. In early 2009, Chinese websites reported that he has given up United States citizenship in favor of Chinese citizenship to appeal to local audiences. For the film "Little Big Soldier", Joan Lin suggested that Jaycee costar with his father, but Jackie was highly against it. However, Jaycee has since reconciled with his father, and they starred together in Jackie's 100th film, "1911" The team up resulted in Jackie Chan's least profitable and worst reviewed film to date. To appeal outside of Chinese audiences, his studios hired Korean and Singaporean artists, Jang Nara and Fann Wong, to promote Jaycee's new film, Whoever. The film was meant to satire Jaycee's life as a playboy from a famous father. Once again, the film was a box office disaster, not placing in the China top ten, despite a government mandate requiring it to be played at half the nation's theaters. The studios decided not to release the film theatrically in Hong Kong and Taiwan. Frustrated by his son's financial burdens and extravagant lifestyle, during an awards ceremony in Beijing in April 2011, Jackie stated that he would be donating all his assets to charity after his death, letting his son earn his own money and prove his honor.
901638	Hardware Wars is a 1978 short film parody of the classic science fiction film "". The thirteen-minute film, which was released shortly after "Star Wars", consisted of little more than inside jokes and visual puns that heavily depended upon audience familiarity with the original. The theme song is Richard Wagner's famous "Ride of the Valkyries". The tagline was ""You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll kiss three bucks goodbye."" Synopsis. The film begins with the text "Meanwhile — in another part of the galaxy — later that same day". A household steam iron flies through space, fleeing a toaster, which fires toast at it. Two robots named 4-Q-2 (who looks like the Tin Man from the 1939 film "The Wizard of Oz") and Arty-Deco (a canister vacuum cleaner), escape from the evil Empire. After launching from the ship (a cassette player) in an escape pod (a cassette tape), they land on a desert planet (a watermelon). They are found by young Fluke Starbucker, played by future multi-platinum award winning music producer, Scott Mathews who finds a video message saved on Arty-Deco. It is a loop of Princess Anne-Droid saying "Help me Augie Ben Doggie, you're my only hope." Upon meeting Augie "Ben" Doggie (of the venerable Red-Eye Knights), Fluke receives his father's lightsaber (a flashlight). After tricking the Imperial Steam Trooper guards (steam cabinets) to let them into the city, they reach a cantina, which Fluke describes as "too weird". The cantina is a country and western bar, where they meet space renegade Ham Salad and Chewchilla the Wookiee Monster (played by a puppet that resembles Cookie Monster of "Sesame Street" fame). Meanwhile, the villainous Darph Nader is interrogating the princess. When she refuses to talk (mainly because she can't understand him; his speech is muffled by his welder's mask), he destroys her peaceful home planet, Basketball (the name speaks for itself).
1551615	Taffin is a 1988 Irish thriller film directed by Francis Megahy and starring Pierce Brosnan in the title role of Mark Taffin. It also featured Ray McAnally, Alison Doody and Jeremy Child. Taffin's quote "Then maybe you shouldn't be living heeeeeeeeeeeeere!" became an internet meme after repeated plays on the Adam & Joe show on BBC Radio 6 Music. Plot. The plot concerns Taffin and his methods of executing justice, in order to save a local park in the town of Ballymoran. An Irish tough-guy debt collector is asked by his local community to help rid the town of developers bent on building a chemical plant on the outskirts of town. The developers are ruthless and have sent their heavies into town to keep the locals quiet. Production. Taffin was filmed in County Wicklow in Ireland in 1987 and 1988. Issues arose between the author Lyndon Mallet and the production company surrounding the casting of Pierce Brosnan in the role of Mark Taffin. This was due to the actual nature of the character in the book. In the book, Mark Taffin was never a handsome man; he was decidedly overweight and very unattractive, a very different image to that portrayed by Brosnan.
1062769	Elizabeth Alice "Ali" MacGraw (born April 1, 1939) is an American actress. She first gained attention for her role in "Goodbye, Columbus" in 1969, for which she won a Golden Globe Award, followed by "Love Story" in 1970, for which she received an Academy Award nomination and won a second Golden Globe. She married actor Steve McQueen in 1973, after appearing with him in the 1972 film "The Getaway". After that, MacGraw did not make another film for six years and later retired altogether from show business. Early life. Ali MacGraw was born in Pound Ridge, New York, the daughter of commercial artists Frances (née Klein) and Richard MacGraw. She has one brother, Dick, an artist. Her father was of Scottish descent and her maternal grandparents were from Hungary. MacGraw's mother was from a Jewish family, but did not disclose this to MacGraw's father. MacGraw has described her father as "violent". MacGraw is an alumna of Rosemary Hall (now Choate Rosemary Hall, class of 1955) in Wallingford, Connecticut and Wellesley College (class of 1960), Wellesley, Massachusetts.
1069203	Lost in Beijing () is a 2007 Chinese film directed by Li Yu and starring Tony Leung Ka-fai, Fan Bingbing, Tong Dawei, and Elaine Jin. It had its international premiere at the 2007 Berlin International Film Festival on February 16, 2007. "Lost in Beijing" is director Li Yu's third feature film after the lesbian-themed "Fish and Elephant" (2002) and the drama "Dam Street" (2005).
1165743	Joi Lansing (April 6, 1928 – August 7, 1972) was an American model, film and television actress, as well as a nightclub singer. She was noted for her pin-up photos and minor roles in B-movies. Early life. Lansing was born Joy Brown in Salt Lake City, Utah, in 1928 to Jack Glenn Brown, a shoe salesman, and Virginia Grace (née Shupe) Brown, a housewife. She would later be known as Joyce Wassmansdorff, which was the surname of her stepfather. The family moved to Los Angeles in 1940. She began modeling in her teens, and at age 14 was signed to a contract at MGM. She completed high school on the studio lot. Career. A model and actress, Lansing often was cast in roles similar to those played by her contemporaries, Jayne Mansfield and Mamie Van Doren. She frequently was clad in skimpy costumes and bikinis that accentuated her attractive figure, but she never posed nude. Lansing practiced yoga for relaxation, and as a devout Mormon, she did not drink or smoke. Film career. Lansing's film career began in 1948, and in 1952 she played an uncredited role in MGM's "Singin' in the Rain". She received top billing in "Hot Cars" (1956). In the opening sequence of Orson Welles's "Touch of Evil" (1958), she appeared as Zita, the dancer who dies at the end of the famous first tracking shot, during which her character exclaims to a border guard, "I keep hearing this ticking noise inside my head!" Lansing had a brief role as an astronaut's girlfriend in the 1958 sci-fi classic "Queen of Outer Space". During the 1960s, she starred in short musical films for the Scopitone video-jukebox system. Her songs included "The Web of Love" and "The Silencers".
1039472	Iain Glen (born 24 June 1961) is a Scottish film, television and stage actor. Glen is perhaps most notable for his roles in the "Resident Evil" films and for portraying Ser Jorah Mormont on "Game of Thrones". Early life and education. Iain Glen was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, and educated at the Edinburgh Academy, an independent school for boys (now co-educational) in Edinburgh, followed by the University of Aberdeen. He then trained at RADA in London, where he won the Bancroft Gold Medal. Career. In 1990, Glen won the Silver Bear for Best Actor at the 40th Berlin International Film Festival for his role in "Silent Scream". He was nominated for an Olivier Award for his performance in "The Blue Room" opposite Nicole Kidman. It was announced on 20 August 2009 that Glen would star as Ser Jorah Mormont in the HBO series "Game of Thrones". In 2010, he was seen on television in the part of Father Octavian, leader of a sect of Clerics who were on a mission against the Weeping Angels in the serial "The Time of Angels" a two episode story which formed part of the fifth season of the revived "Doctor Who". He appeared in the second series of "Downton Abbey" as Sir Richard Carlisle, a tabloid publisher who is a suitor to and subsequently engaged to Lady Mary. In the 2012 BBC drama series "Prisoners' Wives" he plays Paul the husband of Francesca whose comfortable life comes crashing down when he is imprisoned for drug trafficking. Also in 2012, he starred in a new 4-part BBC Radio 4 adaptation of "The Count of Monte Cristo" written by Sebastian Baczkiewicz and directed by Jeremy Mortimer and Sasha Yevtushenko, with Richard Johnson as Faria, Jane Lapotaire as the aged Haydee, Toby Jones as Danglars, Zubin Varla as Fernand, Paul Rhys as Villefort and Josette Simon as Mercedes. In 2013 he played the lead in the new play "Longing". Family. Glen is the younger brother of Hamish Glen, theatre director, artistic director of The Belgrade Theatre, Coventry, and formerly artistic director of the Dundee Repertory Theatre. He was married to Susannah Harker from 1993 to 2004; they have one son, Finlay (born 1994). His partner is now Charlotte Emmerson, and they have a daughter Mary (born September 2007).
1059932	Heathers is a 1988 black comedy-coming of age film starring Winona Ryder and Christian Slater. The film portrays four girls — three of whom are named Heather — in a clique at a fictional Ohio high school. The film brought director Michael Lehmann and producer Denise Di Novi the 1990 Independent Spirit Award for Best First Feature. Daniel Waters also gained recognition for his screenplay, which won a 1990 Edgar Award. The film was a U.S. box office failure, but went on to become a cult classic, with high rentals and sales business. In 2006, it was ranked #5 on "Entertainment Weekly's" list of the "50 Best High School Movies" and in 2008, it was ranked #412 on "Empire"s list of "The 500 Greatest Movies of All Time". Plot. The most dominant clique at Westerburg High School consists of three wealthy and beautiful girls with the same first name: the leader, Heather Chandler (Walker), the bookish bulimic Heather Duke (Doherty), and the weak-willed cheerleader Heather McNamara (Falk). Though they are the most popular students, the Heathers are both feared and hated. They recently invited 17-year-old Veronica Sawyer (Ryder) to join their group, by association making her a very popular girl as well. However, as the movie begins, Veronica has had enough of their behavior and longs to return to her old life and her nerdy friends. At school, a rebellious outsider named Jason "J.D." Dean (Slater) pulls a gun on school bullies Kurt Kelly (Fenton) and Ram Sweeney (Labyorteaux) and fires blanks at them. Veronica finds herself fascinated by this dark and quirky newcomer. When Veronica embarrasses Heather Chandler at a frat party by refusing sex and throwing up, Heather vows to destroy her reputation. Later, J.D. shows up at Veronica's house and they end up having sex after an impromptu game of strip croquet. Veronica tells J.D. she wants to make Heather puke her guts out. The next morning, Veronica and J.D. break into Heather's house. J.D. serves Heather a liquid he claims is a hangover cure but is actually drain cleaner, killing her. Although initially shaken by their act, J.D. regains his composure and urges Veronica to forge a dramatic suicide note in Heather's handwriting. The school and community look on Heather's apparent suicide as a tragic decision made by a popular but troubled teenager. Heather Duke soon steps into Heather Chandler's former role as clique leader and begins wearing a red scrunchie that had belonged to Chandler as a symbol of her new status. Several days later, Kurt and Ram spread a rumor about Veronica giving them oral sex. To get even, J.D. proposes that Veronica lure them into the woods with the promise to "make the rumors true," then shoot them with what he promises are nonfatal "Ich lüge" German bullets that only break the skin but do no real damage. Afterwards they would humiliate Kurt and Ram by planting "gay" materials, such as a Joan Crawford photo and mineral water, on their unconscious bodies. However, JD is lying; the bullets are in fact real. At the rendezvous in the woods, JD shoots Ram but Veronica misses Kurt, who runs away. Seeing Ram dead on the ground, Veronica to her horror realizes that the bullets are real after all. J.D. chases Kurt back towards Veronica, who panics and shoots him dead. J.D. plants the "gay" materials beside the boys, and a forged suicide note stating the two were lovers participating in a suicide pact. At their funeral, the boys are made into martyrs against homophobia.
1060920	Emily Kathleen A. Mortimer (born 1 December 1971) is an English actress. She began performing on stage, and has since appeared in several film and television roles, including "30 Rock", "Scream 3", "Match Point", "Lars and the Real Girl", "Hugo", "Cars 2", "Shutter Island", "Harry Brown", "Our Idiot Brother", and "The Newsroom". Early life. Mortimer was born in Finsbury Park, London England, a daughter of Sir John Mortimer, QC (a lawyer and writer who created "Rumpole of the Bailey") and his second wife, Penelope (née Gollop). She has a younger sister, Rosie; two older half-siblings, Sally Silverman and Jeremy, by her father's first marriage, to author Penelope Fletcher; and a half-brother, Ross Bentley, by her father's liaison with actress Wendy Craig.
1057858	Life as a House is a 2001 American drama film produced and directed by Irwin Winkler. The screenplay by Mark Andrus focuses on a man who is anxious to repair his relationship with his ex-wife and teenaged son after he is diagnosed with terminal cancer. Plot. George Monroe (Kevin Kline), a fabricator of architectural models, is fired from the job he has held for twenty years when he refuses to fall into step with his co-workers and use the computer technology available to them. In a fit of rage at his boss' refusal to let George keep the models that he had built, he destroys all of the models with a bat, keeping only one for himself. As he exits the building, he collapses on the pavement and is rushed to the hospital, where it is revealed he has cancer of such an advanced stage that the doctor feels any treatment would be futile. Liberated from a job he hated and funded by his severance package, George decides the time has come to demolish the ramshackle home left to him by his father and replace it with a house more in keeping with the ambiance of his upscale neighborhood. He decides to enlist the aid of his son, angst-ridden and self-loathing Sam (Hayden Christensen), a rebellious, pill-popping, glue-sniffing teenager with blue hair, makeup, and a number of piercings. Sam is alienated from his stepfather Peter (Jamey Sheridan) and his mother Robin (Kristin Scott Thomas) finds herself unable to cope. Against his will, Sam must spend the summer with George, who has opted not to reveal his terminal condition, and help him with what will be the final project of his life. Sam is not happy to be forced to stay with George and makes it a point not to help him with the house's construction. In return, George refuses to give him any money and makes him shower outside. In attempt to gain money to fund his drugs, Sam turns to prostitution, however he is caught and forced to flee. This leads him to take George's Vicodin.
1060556	Denis Colin Leary (born August 18, 1957) is an American actor, comedian, writer, director and film producer. Leary is known for his biting, fast paced comedic style and chain smoking. He is the star and co-creator of the television show "Rescue Me", which ended its seventh and final season on September 7, 2011. Leary has starred in many motion pictures, most recently as Captain George Stacy in Marc Webb's 2012 film "The Amazing Spider-Man" and the voice of Diego in the animated "Ice Age" series. Early life. Leary was born in Worcester, Massachusetts, the son of Irish Catholic immigrants. His mother, Nora (née Sullivan), was a maid, and his father, John Leary, was an auto mechanic. As both of his parents are from Killarney, County Kerry, Ireland, Leary holds both Irish and U.S. citizenship. Through marriage, Leary is a third cousin of talk show host Conan O'Brien. He attended Saint Peter-Marian High School, in Worcester. Leary is a graduate of Emerson College, in Boston. While at Emerson, he met fellow comic Mario Cantone, whom to this day Leary considers his closest friend. Comedian Steven Wright and actress Gina Gershon also attended Emerson at the same time as Leary. At the school, he founded the Emerson Comedy Workshop, a troupe that continues on-campus as of 2011. After graduating with the Emerson Class of 1979, he took a job at the school teaching comedy writing classes and maintained the job for five years. Leary received an honorary doctorate and spoke briefly at his alma mater's undergraduate commencement ceremony on May 16, 2005; he is thus credited as "Dr. Denis Leary" on the cover of his 2009 book, "Why We Suck". Career. Leary began working as a comedian in the Boston comedy scene of the 1980s at the underground club Play It Again Sam's. But his first real gig was at the Rascals Comedy Club as part of the TV show "The Rascals Comedy Hour" on October 18, 1990. He also wrote and appeared on a local comedy series, "The Late, Late Show", hosted by his friend Lenny Clarke and written by Boston comedy writer Martin Olson. Leary and Clarke both spoke about their early affiliations and influences in the Boston comedy scene in the documentary film "When Standup Stood Out" (2006). It was during this time that he developed his stage persona. He also appeared in skits on the MTV game show "Remote Control", playing such characters as Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones, the "brother" of co-host Colin Quinn, and artist Andy Warhol. Leary first earned fame when he ranted about R.E.M. in an early 1990s MTV sketch. Several other commercials for MTV quickly followed, in which Leary would rant at high speeds about a variety of topics, playing off the then-popular and growing alternative scene. He released two records of his stand-up comedy: "No Cure for Cancer" (1993) and "Lock 'n Load" (1997). In late 2004, he released the EP "Merry F#%$in' Christmas", which included a mix of new music, previously unreleased recordings, and some tracks from "Lock 'n Load". In 1993, his sardonic song about the stereotypical American male, "Asshole", achieved much notoriety. It was voted #1 in an Australian youth radio poll (the Triple J Hottest 100). The song was used as part of the Holsten Pils series of ads in the UK, in which Leary was participating, with adapted lyrics criticizing a drunk driver. The single was a minor hit there, peaking at No. 58 in the UK Singles Chart in January 1996. Leary has appeared as an actor in over 40 movies, including "The Sandlot", as Scott's stepfather Bill, "Monument Ave.", "The Matchmaker", "The Ref", "Suicide Kings", "Dawg", "Wag the Dog", "Demolition Man", "Judgment Night", "The Thomas Crown Affair", and "Operation Dumbo Drop". He had a small part in Oliver Stone's "Natural Born Killers", playing a ranting inmate during a prison riot; his part was eventually cut, but can be seen on the Special Edition DVD. He has had the lead role in two television series, "The Job" and the FX cable-network series "Rescue Me", of which he is also co-creator. He plays Tommy Gavin, a New York City firefighter dealing with alcoholism, family dysfunction, and other issues in post-9/11 New York City. He received Emmy Award nominations in 2006 and 2007 for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series for "Rescue Me", and in 2008 for Outstanding Supporting Actor In A Miniseries Or A Movie for the HBO movie "Recount". Leary was offered the role of Dignam in the 2006 film "The Departed" but turned it down due to scheduling conflicts with "Rescue Me". In addition, Leary has provided voices for characters in animated films, such as a fire-breathing dragon named Flame in the series "The Agents", a prehistoric saber-toothed cat named Diego in the "Ice Age" film series, and the pugnacious ladybug Francis in "A Bug's Life". He has produced numerous movies, television shows, and specials through his production company, Apostle; these include Comedy Central's "Shorties Watchin' Shorties", the stand-up special "Denis Leary's Merry F#$%in' Christmas", and the movie "Blow". As a Boston Red Sox fan, he narrated the official 2004 World Series film (Q Video/MLB Productions, 2004). In 2006, Leary and Lenny Clarke appeared on television during a Red Sox telecast and, upon realizing that Red Sox first baseman Kevin Youkilis is Jewish, delivered a criticism of Mel Gibson's antisemitic comments. As an ice hockey fan, Leary hosted the National Hockey League video "NHL's Greatest Goals". In 2003, he was the subject of the "Comedy Central Roast of Denis Leary". Leary did the TV voiceover for MLB 2K8 advertisements, where he used his trademark rant style in baseball terms, and ads for the 2009 Ford F-150 pickup truck. He has also appeared in commercials for Hulu and DirecTV's NFL Sunday Ticket package. Leary was a producer of the Fox Broadcasting series "Canterbury's Law", and wrote and directed its pilot episode. "Canterbury's Law" aired in the spring of 2008 and was canceled after eight episodes. On September 9, 2008, Leary hosted the sixth annual "Fashion Rocks" event, which aired on CBS. In December of the year, he appeared in a video on funnyordie.com critiquing a list of some of his "best" films, titled "Denis Leary Remembers Denis Leary Movies". Also in 2008, Leary voiced a guest role as himself on the "Lost Verizon" episode of "The Simpsons". On March 21, 2009, Leary began the "Rescue Me Comedy Tour" in Atlantic City, New Jersey. The 11-date tour, featuring "Rescue Me" co-stars Lenny Clarke and Adam Ferrara, was Leary's first stand-up comedy tour in 12 years. The Comedy Central special "Douchebags and Donuts", filmed during the tour, debuted on American television January 16, 2011, with a DVD release on January 18, 2011. On January 1, 2010, both Leary and Lenny Clarke sang the Neil Diamond song "Sweet Caroline" at the 2010 NHL Winter Classic at Fenway Park, flanked by members of the Boston and Worcester Fire Departments. Nine days later, Leary sang at Road Recovery, on New York City's The Bowery, along with Peter Frampton, John Varvatos and Leary's band The Enablers. He played Captain George Stacy in the movie "The Amazing Spider-Man", released in July 2012. He is writing the American adaptation of British comedy "Sirens". Leary is one of the executive producers of the documentary "BURN", which chronicles the struggles of the Detroit Fire Department. "BURN" made its debut on April 23, 2012, at the Tribeca Film Festival. Personal life. Leary has been married to writer Ann Lembeck Leary since 1989. They met when he was her instructor in an English class at Emerson College. They have two children, son John Joseph "Jack" (born 1990) and daughter Devin (born 1992). Ann Leary published a memoir, "An Innocent, a Broad", about the premature birth of their son on an overseas visit to London. She has also written a novel, "Outtakes From a Marriage", which was published in 2008. Her second novel, "The Good House", was published in 2013. Leary is an ice hockey fan and has his own backyard hockey rink at his home in Roxbury, Connecticut, with piping installed under the ice surface to help the ice stay frozen. His favorite National Hockey League team is the Boston Bruins. He is also a Boston Red Sox fan, as well as a fan of the Green Bay Packers. Leary describes himself as a Jack Kennedy Democrat with some conservative ideologies, such as support for the military. Leary told Glenn Beck, "I was a life-long Democrat, but now at my age, I've come to realize that the Democrats suck, and the Republicans suck, and basically the entire system sucks. But you have to go within the system to find what you want." Leary has said of his religious beliefs, "I'm a lapsed Catholic in the best sense of the word. You know, I was raised with Irish parents, Irish immigrant parents. My parents, you know, prayed all the time, took us to Mass. And my father would sometimes swear in Gaelic. It doesn't get more religious than that. But, no, after a while, they taught us wrong. I didn't raise my kids with the fear of God. I raised my kids with the sense of, you know, to me, Jesus was this great guy..." Leary Firefighters Foundation. On December 3, 1999, six firefighters from Leary's hometown of Worcester were killed in the Worcester Cold Storage Warehouse fire. Among the dead were Leary's cousin Jerry Lucey and his close childhood friend Lt. Tommy Spencer. In response, the comedian founded the Leary Firefighters Foundation. Since its creation in the year 2000, the foundation has distributed over $2.5 million (USD) to fire departments in the Worcester, Boston, and New York City areas for equipment, training materials, new vehicles, and new facilities. Leary won $125,000 for the foundation on the game show "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire". Leary has close ties with 107.3/WAAF, which in 2000 released the station album "Survive This!" Part of the proceeds from this album were donated to the Leary Firefighters Foundation. A separate fund run by Leary's foundation, the Fund for New York's Bravest, has distributed over $2 million to the families of the 343 firemen killed in the September 11 attacks in 2001 in addition to providing funding for necessities such as a new mobile command center, first responder training, and a high-rise simulator for the New York City Fire Department's training campus. As the foundation's president, Leary has been active in all of the fundraising, usually presenting large checks and donated equipment personally. The close relationship he has developed with the FDNY as well as with individual firefighters across the New York/New England area has resulted in Leary's most recent television show, "Rescue Me", a comedy-drama on FX. In the pilot episode of the show, he is seen wearing a Leary Firefighter Foundation 9-11 Memorial T-shirt. In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, Leary donated over a dozen boats to the New Orleans Fire Department to aid in rescue efforts in future disasters. The foundation also rebuilt entire NOLA firehouses. Controversies. Allegations of plagiarism. For many years, Leary had been friends with fellow comedian Bill Hicks. When Leary's comedy album "No Cure for Cancer" was released, many people believed Leary had stolen Hicks' act and material. The friendship ended abruptly as a result. In April 1993, the "Austin Comedy News" remarked on the similarities of Leary's performance, "Watching Leary is like seeing Hicks from two years ago. He smokes with the same mannerisms. (Hicks recently quit) He sports the same attitude, the same clothes. He touches on almost all of the same themes. Leary even invokes Jim Fixx." When asked about this, Hicks told the magazine, "I have a scoop for you. I stole his [Leary's] act. I camouflaged it with punchlines, and to really throw people off, I did it before he did". At least three stand-up comedians have gone on the record stating they believe Leary stole Hicks' material, comedic persona and attitude. One similar routine was about the band Judas Priest, during which Hicks says, "I don’t think we lost a cancer cure." During a 2003 Comedy Central Roast of Denis Leary, comedian Lenny Clarke, a friend of Leary's, said there was a carton of cigarettes backstage from Bill Hicks with the message, "Wish I had gotten these to you sooner." This joke was cut from the final broadcast. The feud is also mentioned in Cynthia True's biography "American Scream: The Bill Hicks Story": According to the book, True said upon hearing a tape of Leary's album "No Cure for Cancer", "Bill was furious. All these years, aside from the occasional jibe, he had pretty much shrugged off Leary's lifting. Comedians borrowed, stole stuff and even bought bits from one another. Milton Berle and Robin Williams were famous for it. This was different. Leary had, practically line for line, taken huge chunks of Bill's act and "recorded" it." In a 2008 appearance on "The Opie and Anthony Show", comedian Louis CK claimed that Leary stole his "I'm an asshole" routine, which was then expanded upon and turned into a hit song by Leary. On a later episode of the same show, Leary challenged this assertion by claiming that he (Leary) co-wrote the song with Chris Phillips. Autism. In his 2008 book "Why We Suck: A Feel Good Guide to Staying Fat, Loud, Lazy and Stupid", Leary said: In response to the controversy, Leary stated that the quote was taken out of context and that in that paragraph he had been talking about the trend of unwarranted overdiagnosis of autism, which he attributed to American parents seeking an excuse for behavioral problems and underperformance. Later, he apologized to parents with autistic children whom he had offended.
293725	Latter Days is a 2003 American romantic comedy-drama film about a gay relationship between a closeted Mormon missionary and his openly gay neighbor. The film was written and directed by C. Jay Cox and stars Steve Sandvoss as the missionary, Aaron, and Wes Ramsey as the neighbor, Christian. Joseph Gordon-Levitt appears as Elder Ryder, and Rebekah Johnson as Julie Taylor. Mary Kay Place, Erik Palladino, Amber Benson, and Jacqueline Bisset have supporting roles. "Latter Days" premiered at the Philadelphia International Gay & Lesbian Film Festival on July 10, 2003 and was released in various states of USA over the next 12 months. Later the film was released in a few other countries and shown at several gay film festivals. It was the first film to portray openly the clash between the principles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and homosexuality, and its exhibition in some U.S. states was controversial. Various religious groups demanded that the film be withdrawn from theaters and video stores under boycott threats. The film was met with mixed reactions from film critics, but was popular with most film festival attendees. At the North American box office however, "Latter Days" only made $834,685, barely covering the production's costs with an estimated budget of $850,000. In 2004, freelance writer T. Fabris made "Latter Days" into a novel, which was published by Alyson Publications. Plot. Elder Aaron Davis, a young Mormon from Pocatello, Idaho, is sent to Los Angeles with three other missionaries to spread the Mormon faith. They move into an apartment next to openly gay party boy Christian Markelli and his roommate Julie, an aspiring singer. Christian and Julie work as waiters at Lila's, a trendy restaurant owned by retired actress Lila Montagne. Christian makes a bet with his co-workers that he can seduce one of the Mormons, and soon realizes that Aaron, the most inexperienced missionary, is a closeted homosexual. Aaron and Christian become acquainted after several encounters in the apartment complex. When Christian accidentally cuts himself on a metal hose reel and faints, Aaron helps him indoors and cleans his wound. Christian attempts to seduce Aaron, but the hesitant Mormon becomes upset by Christian's remark that sex "doesn't have to mean anything." Aaron accuses him of being shallow and walks out. Worried that Aaron is correct, Christian joins Project Angel Food, delivering meals to people with AIDS. Aaron's fellow missionary, Paul Ryder, has a cycling accident. Returning to his apartment, a distraught Aaron encounters Christian, who tries to comfort him with a hug. Both men are overwhelmed by their feelings and end up kissing, failing to notice the return of Aaron's roommates. Aaron is sent home in disgrace, leading Christian to confront Ryder, who is angry that Christian corrupted Aaron for no reason. Christian admits that he initially just wanted to win a bet, but says "it's not about that" anymore. Recognizing Christian's distress, Ryder tells him that Aaron's flight has a five-hour layover in Salt Lake City. Christian finds Aaron standing in the snow outside the airport terminal. Christian confesses his love, and despite his misgivings, Aaron admits his own feelings of love. With all flights canceled due to a snowstorm, Christian and Aaron spend an intimate night in a motel. When Christian awakes, he finds Aaron gone. Aaron's pocket watch, a family heirloom, has been left behind. Christian returns to Los Angeles. In Idaho, Aaron is excommunicated by the church elders, led by his own father, Farron, who is the stake president. Aaron is rejected by his father and scolded by his mother, who tells him that he needs to pray for forgiveness. When Aaron suggests that he might be gay, his mother slaps him. Overwhelmed by despair, Aaron attempts suicide. He is subsequently sent by his parents to a treatment facility to be cured of his homosexuality. Christian is desperate to find Aaron and locates his home address and phone number. Aaron's mother informs him that "Thanks to you, my son took a razor to his wrists; thanks to you I have lost my son." Believing that Aaron is dead, Christian spends the next few days thinking continually about Aaron. Julie discovers an entry about Christian's feelings in his cellphone journal and uses it as the basis for her new song. Christian travels to the Davis home in Idaho, where he tearfully returns Aaron's watch to his mother. During an encounter with Julie, she hesitantly shows him her new video, which upsets Christian, realizing that part of the lyrics came from his personal journal without his consent. Julie tells Christian that she hoped something good would come from it. In the treatment facility, Aaron hears a female voice singing and investigates. He discovers a music video playing on television, the song performed by Julie. The video prompts Aaron to return to Los Angeles in search of Christian. Upon arriving at Christian's apartment, Aaron is heartbroken when a stranger answers the door. Thinking that Christian has returned to his party boy ways and moved on, and having nowhere else to go, Aaron makes his way to Lila's restaurant, having befriended the owner while on missionary work after her life partner died. Christian, who happens to be working there, comes out to serve a plate and sees Aaron clearly shocking him. Christian is overjoyed to see Aaron alive, they reconcile and later celebrate Thanksgiving with Christian's co-workers. Lila tells everyone that, no matter what, they will always have "a place at my table, and a place in my heart". Themes. Cox has stated that the film is primarily about a love story between two characters. There is also an exploration of religious attitudes towards homosexuality, and the dilemma of religious homosexuals, torn between who they are and what they believe. A non-fiction film with similar themes that has been contrasted with "Latter Days" is "Trembling Before G-d". Cox has also said that there is a massive irony, both in the film and in real life, that a religion so focused on the family and its importance is ripping families apart through its teaching on homosexuality. In fact, Cox believes one cannot be Mormon and gay. Nevertheless, a major theme of "Latter Days" is that there is an underlying spirituality in the world that goes beyond the rituals and dogmas of religion. Production. "Latter Days" was written and directed by C. Jay Cox after the success of his previous screenplay, "Sweet Home Alabama", gave him the financial resources and critical credit to write a more personal love story. Cox based both characters – Christian and Aaron – on himself. He was raised as a Mormon and served a mission before coming out as gay, and had wondered what the two halves of himself would have said to each other if they had ever met. "Latter Days" was filmed in several locations in Los Angeles in 24 days on an estimated $850,000 budget. After Cox had financed the search for initial backing, funding was acquired from private investors who wanted to see the film made. However producer Kirkland Tibbels still faced several bottlenecks, as financing the whole film remained difficult. It was distributed through TLA Releasing, an independent film distributor, who picked it up through its partnership with production company Funny Boy Films, which specializes in gay-themed media. Despite coming from a Mormon background, Cox had to research details of the excommunication tribunal, which is held after Aaron is sent back to Idaho. Former Mormons told him about their experiences and provided Cox with "a pretty accurate representation, right down to the folding tables." According to Cox experienced actress Jacqueline Bisset also added valuable suggestions for improvements to the story. Casting for the two main characters did not focus on their sexuality, but their ability "to show vulnerability". In a behind-the-scenes commentary, Steve Sandvoss explains that he did not want to play his character as a gay character, and Wes Ramsey emphasizes that the love story aspect of the film to him was detached from the character's gender. Due to several nude and kissing scenes, "Latter Days" was released unrated. Release. "Latter Days" premiered at the Philadelphia International Gay and Lesbian Film Festival on July 10, 2003. The audience enjoyed the film so much that they gave it a standing ovation. When the cast came on stage, they received another standing ovation. The film had a similar reception both at OutFest a week later, and at the Palm Springs International Film Festival. The film also screened at the Seattle and Washington film festivals before being released across the United States over the following 12 months. Later the film was released in several other countries and shown at numerous gay film festivals, namely in Barcelona and Madrid (where it was also a popular pick) and Mexico City. Since its initial release it had received nine best film awards, as Cox mentioned in 2005 on a featurette included on the UK DVD. The film was banned by Madstone Theaters, an arthouse cinema chain with nine theaters across the country, which claimed it was "not up to artistic quality." The company was pressured with threatened boycotts and protests by conservative groups to withdraw their planned release. At the North American box office, "Latter Days" made $834,685 from a maximum of 19 theaters. As of January 2011, the film is the top-grossing film from its distributor TLA Releasing. Reception. Critical response. Critics' reviews have been mixed; film review website Rotten Tomatoes reported that 45% of critics gave the film positive write-ups, based upon a sample of 44 reviews, with an average score of 5.4/10. Frank Scheck, reviewer for "The Hollywood Reporter", wrote: "Cox's screenplay, while occasionally lapsing into the sort of clichés endemic to so many gay-themed films, generally treats its unusual subject matter with dignity and complexity." Film critic Roger Ebert gave it two and a half stars out of four, writing "the movie could have been (a) a gay love story, or (b) an attack on the Mormon Church, but is an awkward fit by trying to be (c) both at the same time." Michael Wilmington of the "Chicago Tribune" commented "this movie is often as kitschy and artificial as ... 'Sweet Home Alabama'." Despite criticism, the film has received positive reviews, such as "Toronto Sun" critic Liz Braun, who said "Latter Days" was "the most important gay male movie of the past few years." Kevin Thomas of the "Los Angeles Times" was also positive, saying, "at once romantic, earthy and socially critical, "Latter Days" is a dynamic film filled with humor and pathos." Gary Booher, an editor for the LGBT Mormon organization , said "It was so realistic that it was scary. I felt exposed as the particulars of my experience and of others I know was brazenly spread across the big screen for all to behold." Soundtrack. Eric Allaman scored the soundtrack to the film after shooting wrapped, and composed much of the score himself. Several scenes featuring the rapid passing of time, such as Christian's desperate search for Aaron at Salt Lake City Airport, were scored with techno style beats, and scenes with emotional content were given a more "ambient 'tronica feel." A total of three songs were written by C. Jay Cox for Rebekah Johnson to sing: "More", "Another Beautiful Day", and "Tuesday 3:00 a.m.". Allaman was very impressed with Cox's musical ability, and both men composed more songs as background music. The official soundtrack album was released on October 26, 2004. Due to contractual reasons, Johnson did not appear on the album, and her character's songs were performed by Nita Whitaker instead. Novelization and other releases. In 2004, the "Latter Days" screenplay was adapted into a novel by freelance writer T. Fabris, which was published by Alyson Publications. The book was faithful to the film, but added several extra scenes that explained confusing aspects of the film and gave more about the characters' backgrounds. For example, the reason Ryder tells Christian where to find Aaron is his own broken heart over a girl he fell in love with while on his mission training. The novel also added dialogue that had been cut out of the film: finishing, for example Christian's cry – in the film – of "That's the hand I use to..." with "masturbate with." In France, "Latter Days" has been titled "La Tentation d'Aaron" ("The Temptation of Aaron"), and the DVD given a cover showing Aaron in a nude and suggestive pose. A new trailer was also released, which is considerably more sexual than the original. In Italy, "Latter Days" is distributed by Fourlab. The film has also been titled "Inguaribili Romantici", shown on pay-TV on Sky Show in December 2006, and then released on DVD by Fourlab's gay-themed label "OutLoud!". The film is also available in an Italian-language-dubbed version.
927588	Steven Henry Strogatz (born August 13, 1959, Torrington, Connecticut) is an American mathematician and the Jacob Gould Schurman Professor of Applied Mathematics at Cornell University. He is known for his contributions to the study of synchronization in dynamical systems, and for his work in a variety of areas of applied mathematics, including mathematical biology and complex network theory. Education. Strogatz attended the Loomis Chaffee School (1972–1976) and graduated summa cum laude with a Bachelor of Arts degree in mathematics from Princeton University in 1980. He was a Marshall Scholar at Trinity College, Cambridge from 1980–1982, and then received a PhD in applied mathematics from Harvard University in 1986 for his research on the dynamics of the human sleep-wake cycle. Research. Strogatz 1998 Nature paper with Duncan Watts, entitled "Collective dynamics of small-world networks", is widely regarded as a seminal contribution to the interdisciplinary field of complex networks, whose applications reach from graph theory and statistical physics to sociology, business, epidemiology, and neuroscience. As one measure of its importance, it was the most highly cited article about networks between 1998 and 2008, and the sixth most highly cited paper in all of physics. Strogatz's writing includes the 1994 textbook "Nonlinear Dynamics and Chaos", three popular books, and frequent newspaper articles. His book, published in 2009, "The Calculus of Friendship", was called "a genuine tearjerker" and "part biography, part autobiography and part off-the-beaten-path guide to calculus". His trade book "Sync" was chosen as a Best Book of 2003 by Discover Magazine. Strogatz also filmed a series of lectures on chaos theory for the Teaching Company, released in 2008, and, in late January 2010, Strogatz began writing a weekly column on mathematics in "The New York Times." These columns, along with many others penned by Strogatz, now appear in a book "The Joy of X" released in October 2012. The New York Times columns have been described as "must reads for entrepreneurs and executives who grasp that mathematics is now the "lingua franca" of serious business analysis." Career. After spending three years as a National Science Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow at Harvard and Boston University, Strogatz joined the faculty of the Department of Mathematics at MIT in 1989. His research on dynamical systems was recognized with a Presidential Young Investigator Award from the National Science Foundation in 1990. In 1994 he moved to Cornell where he is the Jacob Gould Schurman Professor of Applied Mathematics, as well as a Professor of Mathematics and of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering. Awards. Strogatz is a Fellow of the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Strogatz has been lauded for his ability as a teacher and communicator. In 1991 he was honored with the E.M. Baker Memorial Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching, MIT's only institute-wide teaching award selected and awarded solely by students. He has also won several teaching awards from Cornell's College of Engineering, including the Tau Beta Pi Excellence in Teaching Award (2006), given to a faculty member selected by engineering students for exemplary teaching. At the national level, Strogatz received the JPBM Communications Award in 2007. Presented annually, this award recognizes outstanding achievement in communicating about mathematics to nonmathematicians. The JPBM represents the American Mathematical Society, the American Statistical Association, the Mathematical Association of America, and the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics. Strogatz was selected to be the 2009 Rouse Ball Lecturer at Cambridge and a MIT Mathematics 2011 Simons lecturer.
627021	Jeffrey Richard Nordling (born March 11, 1962) is an American actor. He is known for his roles as Jake Manning in "Once and Again", Larry Moss in 24 and Nick Bolen in "Desperate Housewives" as well as various films.
395781	Lee Hyuk-jae () was born on 4 April 1986, mononymously credited by his stage name Eunhyuk (). He is a South Korean singer-songwriter, dancer, rapper and television host. He is best known as the main dancer and rapper of the K-pop boy band Super Junior and their subgroups, Super Junior-T and Super Junior-H. In 2011, he joined Super Junior's Mandopop subgroup, Super Junior-M and the duo Donghae & Eunhyuk. Also, he is in SM Town sub group, Younique Unit. Biography. 2000-2005: Pre-debut. Eunhyuk was born Lee Hyuk-jae in Neunggok, Goyang, Gyeonggi. In elementary school he was a member of a dance group, 'SRD', which stood for song, rap and dance, with childhood friend Kim Junsu. In 1999 when he turned thirteen, together with Junsu he auditioned for SM Entertainment through the company's "Starlight Casting System". Under SM Entertainment, Eunhyuk was trained in singing, dancing, acting, and had brief Mandarin Chinese language courses. In 2002 Eunhyuk, Kim Junsu, and another trainee Sungmin were placed in a project R&B group. A year later, the group along with three future members from TRAX (Jay Kim, No Minwoo, Kang Jungwoo) made a brief appearance in a show called "Heejun vs. Kangta, Battle of the Century: Pop vs. Rock", in which Moon Hee-joon and Kangta individually taught them techniques on different types of singing. In 2003 the trio disbanded when Junsu went on to debuted as a member of TVXQ. Eunhyuk and Sungmin were then placed in another project group with ten other male trainees, "Super Junior 05", the first generation of rotational boy band Super Junior. 2005-2006: Debut with Super Junior. Eunhyuk officially debut as part of 12-member project group "Super Junior 05" on 6 November 2005 on SBS's music programme "Popular Songs", performing their first single, "Twins (Knock Out)". Their debut album "SuperJunior05 (Twins)" was released a month later on 5 December 2005 and debuted at #3 on the monthly MIAK K-pop album charts. In March 2006, SM Entertainment began to recruit new members for the next Super Junior generation. However, plans changed and the company declared a halt in forming future Super Junior generations. Following the addition of thirteenth member Kyuhyun, the group dropped the suffix "05" and became officially credited as Super Junior. The re-polished group's first CD single "U" was released on 7 June 2006, which was their most successful single until the release of "Sorry, Sorry" in March 2009. Eunhyuk is also a lyricist and wrote the rap lyrics for a majority of Super Junior's songs. The rap lyrics to "Show Me Your Love" from the winter single with TVXQ was written by him, along with Heechul and Shindong, and "One Love". "여행" (A Short Journey) from repackaged version of "Bonamana" was written by him and composed by Donghae. Along with Shindong and Donghae, he also choreographs some of Super Junior's dance routines. 2006-2010: MC and Sub-Groups. Eunhyuk was partnered with band mate Leeteuk as radio DJs for KBS "Super Junior's Kiss The Radio" (aka SUKIRA) from 21 August 2006. With the exception of fours months from March to June 2011, where band mate Yesung temporarily replaced Eunhyuk, while he was away on promotional activities for Super Junior-M's third EP "Perfection". Eunhyuk replaced Kangin as MC on Mnet's music programme "M! Countdown" in late 2006. He hosted with band mates Leeteuk and Shindong until early 2008. In February 2007, he was placed in the trot-singing sub group Super Junior-T. A year later, he became a member of Super Junior-H. From 2009, Eunhyuk, along with Leeteuk and Shindong, has been regular guests SBS's "Strong Heart". Where they host special segment, Boom Academy. He is also frequent guest on "Star King", also on SBS, with fellow Super Junior members. On 26 February 2010, Eunhyuk was diagnosed with H1N1 influenza, but was set to appear as a guest at label mate Girls' Generation's "Into the New World" encore concert in Seoul, hence has to pulled out and was replaced by band mates Leeteuk and Heechul. 2011: Musical theatre and "Oppa, Oppa". In 2011, Eunhyuk, along with Sungmin was placed two new members of Super Junior-M. On 27 September 2011, he along with Yesung and Shindong filled in for bandmate Heechul, who enlist for mandatory military service on 1 September, during the performance on Music Bank and Show! Music Core of Kim Jang-hoon latest single, "Breakups are So Like Me". Heechul is featured in the song and starred in the music video, which was completed the day before he enlisted. In November, Eunhyuk made his musical theatre debut in "Fame", where he played Tyrone Jackson, along with Tiffany of Girls' Generation, Son Ho Young, Lina of The Grace and Kim Jung Mo of TRAX. It was on at the Woori Financial Art Hall from 25 November 2011 to 29 January 2012. It was announced on 30 November 2011 that after five years, he and Leeteuk would leave "Super Junior's Kiss the Radio" and was replaced by fellow members, Sungmin and Ryeowook on 4 December 2011. On 16 December 2011 Eunhyuk and Donghae released digital single "Oppa, Oppa", where they first performed it at Super Junior's "Super Show 4" Seoul concert on 19 November 2011. This marks the first release of their collbrations. The single was also released in Japanese with an original Japanese music video on 4 April 2012. On the day of its release, it reached number two on Oricon Daily Chart with 42,114 copies sold. The pair then held a fan meeting, "Premium Mini Live Event", in support of the single on 11 April at Shibuya-AX, Tokyo. Eunhyuk is MC for MBC every1's "Super Junior Foresight", along with fellow members Leeteuk, Kyuhyun, Yesung and Shindong. From 23 March 2012, he took over as MC for the last three live shows of singing-survival program "Great Birth 2", better known as "MBC Star Audition", on MBC. As of the 10 April 2012 boardcast, following the change in MCs and the departure of Shindong from "Strong Heart", the show was re-vamped with Leeteuk and Eunhyuk billed as two of the 'six-fixed guests'. 2012: Comeback with Super Junior. In June 2012, Eunhyuk reunited with his Super Junior band mates for their sixth studio album, "Sexy, Free & Single" released on 4 July. On 21 June 2012, the first teaser photo of Eunhyuk was released showing him in a white shirt, blue jeans, styled with a mullet-like hairstyle and blindfolded with white and pink flowers. In October SM Entertainment and Hyundai have partnered up to release the "Maxstep" featuring Eunhyuk and other SM artists Super Junior-M's Henry Lau, SHINee's Lee Taemin, EXO-K's Kai, EXO-M's Luhan and Girl's Generation's Hyoyeon. 2013-present: Comeback with Super Junior-M. On January 7, 2013, Super Junior-M released their second album, "Break Down", along with the music video for the lead single of the same name. A press conference took place in Beijing on January 7. They promoted the album in China. April 2007 car accident. On 19 April 2007, almost two months after Super Junior-T's release of their first single "Rokuko", Eunhyuk was involved in a car accident, along with Shindong, Leeteuk, Kyuhyun, and two managers, when returning home after a recording of the radio show "Super Junior Kiss the Radio". While they were on the highway, the front left tire burst as the driver was switching lanes and the van ran into the guard rail/median on the driver's side and skidded for about 30 metres. At some point, the momentum caused the van to flip over on its right side. While Shindong and Eunhyuk suffered minor injuries, Leeteuk and Kyuhyun sustained more serious injuries, which required both to be hospitalised.
1062704	Five Easy Pieces is a 1970 American drama film written by Carole Eastman (as Adrien Joyce) and Bob Rafelson, and directed by Rafelson. The film stars Jack Nicholson, with Karen Black, Susan Anspach, Ralph Waite, and Sally Struthers in supporting roles. The film tells the story of a surly oil rig worker, Bobby Dupea, whose seemingly rootless, blue-collar existence belies his privileged youth as a piano prodigy. When Bobby learns that his father is dying, he goes home to see him, bringing along his pregnant girlfriend, Rayette (Black), a waitress. Nicholson and Black were nominated for Academy Awards for their performances. The film was selected to be preserved by the Library of Congress in the National Film Registry in 2000. Plot. Bobby Dupea (Jack Nicholson) works in a California oil field (shot in and around the city of Taft in the San Joaquin Valley) with his friend Elton (Bush), who has a wife and baby son. Most of Bobby's time is spent with his waitress girlfriend, Rayette (Karen Black), who has dreams of singing country music, or in the company of Elton, with whom he bowls, gets drunk, and has sex with other women. Bobby has evidently not told anyone that he is a former classical pianist who comes from an eccentric family of musicians. When Rayette becomes pregnant and his friend Elton is arrested for having robbed a gas station a year earlier, Bobby quits his job and leaves for Los Angeles where his sister, Partita (Lois Smith), also a pianist, is making a recording. Partita informs him that their father, from whom he is estranged, has suffered two strokes. She urges him to return to the family home in Washington state. As Rayette has threatened to kill herself if Bobby leaves her, he very reluctantly asks her along. Driving north, they pick up two women headed for Alaska, one of whom is obsessed about "filth". The four of them are thrown out of a restaurant when he gets into an argument with a waitress who refuses to accommodate his special order. Reaching his destination, Bobby, embarrassed by Rayette's lack of polish, registers her in a motel before proceeding to his family home on an island in Puget Sound. He finds Partita giving their father a haircut, but the old man seems completely oblivious to him. At dinner, he meets Catherine Van Oost (Susan Anspach), a young pianist engaged to his brother, Carl (Ralph Waite), a violinist. Despite personality differences, Catherine and Robert, the name she calls him, become attracted and make love in her room.
1164941	Albert Lincoln "Al" Roker, Jr. (born August 20, 1954) is an American television weather forecaster as well as an actor and book author. He is best known as being the weather anchor on NBC's "Today". On Monday, July 20, 2009, he began co-hosting his morning show, "Wake Up with Al", on The Weather Channel, which airs weekdays from 5:30–7am ET one hour and half earlier than "Today". He holds an expired American Meteorological Society Television Seal, #238. Writing with Dick Lochte, Roker began a series of murder mysteries in 2009 that feature Billy Blessing, a celebrity chef turned amateur detective. The second book in the series, "The Midnight Show Murders" (2010), was nominated for a 2011 Nero Award. Early life. Al Roker was born in Queens, New York, the son of Isabel, of Jamaican descent, and Albert Lincoln Roker, Sr., a labor relations negotiator, bus driver and dispatcher, of Bahamian descent. Roker initially wanted to be a cartoonist. He was raised Catholic (in the faith of his mother) and graduated from Xavier High School in Manhattan. He worked on several projects as a member of the school's Cartooning & Illustration Club. He attended the State University of New York at Oswego where he double-majored in graphic design and broadcasting/journalism. Roker is the cousin of actress Roxie Roker, who was most notable for her role as Helen Willis on the sitcom "The Jeffersons" and the mother of popular rock musician Lenny Kravitz. Career. Before the national recognition, Roker worked as a weather anchor for CBS affiliate WHEN-TV (now WTVH) in Syracuse, New York from 1974 until 1976, while he was still enrolled at SUNY Oswego. Following the completion of his collegiate studies, Roker moved to Washington, D.C. and took a weathercasting position at independent station WTTG, then owned by Metromedia, remaining there for much of the next two years. Roker's career with NBC began in 1978 when he was hired at WKYC-TV in Cleveland, then an NBC owned-and-operated station. After five successful years in Cleveland, Roker was promoted to the network's flagship outlet, WNBC-TV in his hometown. Roker returned to New York City in late 1983 as a weekend meteorologist, and within eight months became the station's regular weeknight weathercaster. Roker replaced 27-year WNBC-TV veteran Dr. Frank Field, who left the network after a contract dispute. From 1983 to 1996, Roker was the regular substitute for forecaster Joe Witte on the NBC News program "NBC News at Sunrise", and from 1990 to 1995 filled-in for Willard Scott on the "Today Show". In 1995, he became the host of "The Al Roker Show", a weekend talk show on CNBC. In 1996–1997, he hosted a game show on MSNBC called "Remember This?". Roker started getting more exposure, especially when David Letterman asked him to do an elevator race with him in one episode of his talk show "Late Night with David Letterman", which taped across the hall from WNBC's news studio in the GE Building. That led Roker to getting a job as the forecaster for "Weekend Today". He also substituted on the weekday edition of "Today" when Willard Scott was ill or away. In 1996, Scott announced his semi-retirement from the show, and Roker received the weekday weather position on "Today", where he has been since. He officially joined "Today" on January 26, 1996. Roker became popular for doing his forecasts outside of the studio, interviewing audience members and giving some of them camera time. Roker also began doing more interviews and segments on the show as time progressed. In 2005, Roker reported from inside Hurricane Wilma. A popular viral video exists on the internet of Roker being swept off his feet by the force of the hurricane and holding on to his cameraman. Roker is a game show fan, and hosted a week-long segment on "Today" in honor of five game shows and their hosts. He also appeared as a celebrity player on both Merv Griffin game shows "Jeopardy!" and "Wheel of Fortune". In 2008, Roker hosted NBC's "Celebrity Family Feud." Roker also substituted Meredith Vieira for a week of "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire" shows on March 5–9, 2007. Roker also hosted the "Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade". Roker also hosts various programs on Food Network, namely, "Roker on the Road", and, "Tricked-Out Tailgating". He is also the author of several non-fiction books, and an avid barbecue enthusiast. Roker was also the forecaster for several radio stations, including the New York smooth jazz radio station WQCD (101.9 FM) and for Cleveland smooth jazz station WNWV (107.3 FM). The service was called the "Al Roker Radio Weather Network", it was provided by United Stations Radio Networks. He has since been replaced on those networks by Accuweather. Roker currently has a one and a half hour weekday morning stint 5:30–7 a.m. on The Weather Channel under the name "Wake Up with Al". The 6-7 a.m. hour replays at 10 a.m. Personal life. Roker's wife, his third, is fellow journalist Deborah Roberts, who has reported for both ABC and NBC, meeting Roker when she joined the latter in 1990 as a reporter. Roker has three children. On November 7, 2010, he ran in the ING New York City Marathon. In the July 2011 issue of "Us Weekly" in 25 Things You Did not Know About Me, Roker is a first cousin to late actress Roxie Roker (Helen Willis character on The Jeffersons television series) and a first cousin once removed of rocker Lenny Kravitz. Health problems. In 2002, Roker underwent gastric bypass surgery to lose weight, which he said he did after failing at numerous diets. Eight months after that surgery, the New York "Daily News" reported he dropped 100 pounds (45 kg) off his 320-pound figure. On Thursday, June 7, Roker underwent a total knee arthoplasty (replacement, or "TKA") on his left knee. In 2005, Roker had a back operation. In an interview with NBC correspondent Nancy Snyderman on "Dateline NBC" in January 2013, Roker stated that he had "pooped his pants" at the White House as a result of his gastric bypass surgery. Charity work. In 2007, Roker became an official supporter of Ronald McDonald House Charities and is a member of their celebrity board, called the Friends of RMHC. He also served as the official spokesperson for Amtrak's National Train Day, which took place on May 10, 2008. Olympic logo controversy. On June 7, 2007, Roker referenced the logo for 2012 Summer Olympics: Remember that controversial Olympic logo for the 2012 Olympics in London? Some folks have complained that the campaign actually sent them into epileptic seizures. Well, we asked you to weigh in on our website in an informal poll; those of you who could get up off the floor after shaking around were able to actually log in. The following day Roker stated, "I started joking about logo. I want to make this clear—I was not joking about epilepsy or anyone who suffers from epilepsy. We understand and know that this is a serious affliction and would never joke about that. We were joking about the logo—not about epilepsy. If anybody was offended, I heartily and really humbly apologize."
1184837	Victoria Louise "Pixie" Lott (born 12 January 1991) is an English singer-songwriter, dancer and actress. Her debut single "Mama Do" was released in June 2009 and went straight to number one in the UK Singles Chart. Her second single "Boys and Girls", also topped the UK charts in September 2009. Her debut album "Turn It Up" was released in September 2009. It reached number six on the UK Albums Chart, spawned five consecutive Top 20 singles, and sold over a million copies. Her second album, "Young Foolish Happy", was released on 14 November 2011. "All About Tonight", the first single from that album, entered the charts at number one on 17 September 2011, making it her third UK number one hit. Early and personal life. Lott was born in Bromley and initially lived in Petts Wood and then Bickley, all suburban areas of London. Her mother gave her the nickname Pixie because she was "such a tiny, cute baby who looked like a fairy". She started singing in her church school and when she was five she attended the Italia Conti Associates Saturday school in Chislehurst. She went on to attend the main school – Italia Conti Academy of Theatre Arts – at 11, where she was awarded a scholarship. At the age of 13, Lott moved with her family to Brentwood. During her time as a student she appeared in the West End production of "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang" at the London Palladium, and in BBC One's "Celebrate the Sound of Music" in 2005, aged 14, as Louisa von Trapp. At the age of 14, she was part of the chorus, recording vocals on Roger Waters's opera "Ça Ira". Despite missing school time because she was recording her album, Lott says she received straight 'A' grades in her GCSEs. She was voted No. 45 in 2010, No. 31 in 2011, No. 12 in 2012 and No. 7 in 2013 in "FHM"'s 100 Sexiest Women list. Music career. 2008–10: "Turn It Up". In 2006, at the age of 15, she sang for L. A. Reid after he heard a few of her demos. He then signed her to the Island Def Jam Music Group. After a change of managers, a bidding war ensued and Lott parted ways with the Island Def Jam Music Group, to sign with Mercury Records in the UK and to Interscope Records in the U.S. She signed a publishing deal, as a songwriter, with Sony/ATV Music Publishing in December 2007, while writing and recording tracks for "Turn It Up". Lott wrote a song for Alexandra Burke's debut album, "Overcome", titled "You Broke My Heart" and a song for Girls Can't Catch titled "Happy Alone". She also wrote two tracks on Lisa Lois – the Dutch X Factor's winners album, titled "No Good For Me" and "Promises, Promises". Lott played her first festival concert in the Big Top at the Isle of Wight Festival 2009, during her first full British tour, where she supported The Saturdays on The Work Tour. Lott's debut single, "Mama Do", was released on 8 June 2009. It spent one week at number one, eleven weeks within the top forty and eighteen weeks within the top seventy five. The single also had considerable success outside the UK, reaching the top forty in eleven other countries, including top ten peaks of number eight in Denmark and number ten in France. The single was certified silver by the British Phonographic Industry on 28 August 2009 after selling over 200,000 copies in the United Kingdom. On 15 August 2009, Lott was featured alongside Hoobastank, The All-American Rejects, Kasabian, Boys Like Girls, Estranged and Raygun as one of the live acts at Asia's very first MTV World Stage Live in Malaysia concert. Lott's second lead single "Boys and Girls" was released on 6 September 2009 and topped the UK Singles Chart on 13 September 2009. On 14 September 2009, Lott's debut album, "Turn It Up" was released. This followed an intensive promotional tour where Lott visited the Asia-Pacific region to promote the album and 'Mama Do'. The album debuted at number six on the UK Album Chart, and sold over 600,000 copies in the United Kingdom. In August 2010, it was certified Double-Platinum by the British Phonographic Industry. Lott's third single from the album, "Cry Me Out" was released on 23 November 2009. It was during this time that Lott was chosen as the face of Nokia's "Illuvial Pink Collection" mobile phone range and Casio's range of Baby G watches. The fourth single, "Gravity", was released in the UK on 8 March 2010. Lott won two MTV EMA Awards MTV Europe Music Awards 2009, Best UK & Ireland Act and Best Push Artist (best break through artist). Lott was nominated for British Breakthrough Act, British Female Solo Artist and British Single at the 2010 BRIT Awards. Lott also served as the opening act of Rihanna's Last Girl on Earth Tour in the UK 7–26 May 2010. In April 2010, Lipsy launched a fashion range co-designed by Lott. The first Pixie Collection comprised two ranges: Pixie Festival and Pixie Party. Pixie Lott's second collection for Lipsy was launched in September 2010 and consisted of a new range, Pixie Rocks, and an updated Pixie Party collection. In July 2010, Lott appeared as a guest judge for the auditions for the seventh series of "The X Factor" in Cardiff, covering for Dannii Minogue, who was on maternity leave. Lott also performed on the main stage at the V Festival in August 2010. The fifth single from Lott's album, the title song "Turn It Up", was released on 7 June 2010. Lott recorded a song for the film "Street Dance 3D", "Live For The Moment". Lott released "Boys and Girls" as her debut US single on 24 August 2010. The release coincided with the TV premiere of her film debut, '. In January 2010, Lott was named one of 2010's "Faces to Watch" by US magazine, "Billboard". Lott was cast as Judy, Fred Figglehorn's crush, in the film ', starring alongside Lucas Cruikshank. The comedy was released on America's Nickelodeon channel on 18 September 2010. "Turn It Up" was to be released in the US in 2011, but this never materialised. It was, however, rereleased in the UK. "The Way The World Works", from Lott's debut record was used in the U.S.-produced medical drama "Private Practice". For the new repackaged version of "Turn It Up" Lott recorded duets with Jason Derulo and Joe Jonas, though the latter failed to make the final tracklisting for the album. This edition included her single, "Broken Arrow". 2011–12: "Young Foolish Happy". In July 2011 it was revealed that Lott had signed a deal with "Select Model Management". The company is also responsible for signing Cher Lloyd, Agyness Deyn and David Gandy. Lott's second album, "Young Foolish Happy" was released on 14 November 2011, it includes collaborations with Stevie Wonder and John Legend. The lead single "All About Tonight" was released on 4 September and became Lott's third UK number 1 single. The second single "What Do You Take Me For?", featuring the rapper Pusha T became available for download on 4 November 2011. The single entered and peaked at No. 10, becoming Lott's first top 10 hit not to achieve the top spot. The third single, "Kiss The Stars", was released on 29 January 2012. "Kiss The Stars" peaked at number 8, making "Young Foolish Happy" her first album to produce three consecutive top 10 singles.
633777	Salli Elise Richardson-Whitfield (born November 23, 1967) is an American television and film actress. She is known for her role as Dr. Allison Blake on the sci-fi TV series "Eureka" and her voice acting as Elisa Maza on the Disney animated series "Gargoyles". Early life. Richardson-Whitfield was born in Chicago, Illinois, the daughter of an African American mother and an Irish-Italian father. She has three brothers: Josh Richardson, Chad Richardson, and Nalin. Salli Richardson played tennis in high school, and launched her acting career in the Kuumba Workshop theater there. She graduated from the University of Chicago Laboratory Schools in 1985. Career. Richardson's acting credits include: "A Low Down Dirty Shame", "Posse", and "Antwone Fisher". She has guest-starred in numerous television shows, such as "", "Silk Stalkings", "New York Undercover", "The Pretender" and "Secret Agent Man". Richardson had a recurring role as "Kim" on the show "Mercy Point" and as "Nancy Adams" on "Rude Awakening". She played "Viveca Foster" on the television drama "Family Law". She is best known by animation fans as the voice of Elisa Maza on the animated series "Gargoyles". She also has been cast as Department of Defense agent (and later head of Global Dynamics) Allison Blake in the television series "Eureka", which aired on the SyFy Channel. Her second pregnancy was written into the storyline of the series. She appeared in the 2007 film "I Am Legend" alongside actor Will Smith. Whitfield has appeared along with her husband Dondre Whitfield in a late night infomercial as part of an advertising campaign to promote the Time Life Zestify Midnight Soul collection. Personal life. Richardson has dated Matthew McConaughey, Sean Combs, and Tupac Shakur , and on September 8, 2002, dfgergresgrtryeryhtrgerfreshe married long-time boyfriend and fellow actor Dondre Whitfield. She and Whitfield have one daughter, Parker Richardson-Whitfield and one son, Dre Terrell Whitfield (born January 24, 2009).
337151	The Great Locomotive Chase is a 1956 Walt Disney Productions CinemaScope adventure film based on the real Great Locomotive Chase that occurred in 1862 during the American Civil War. The film stars Fess Parker as James J. Andrews, the leader of a group of Union soldiers from various Ohio regiments who volunteered to go behind Confederate lines in civilian clothes, steal a Confederate train north of Atlanta, and drive it back to Union lines in Tennessee, tearing up railroad tracks and destroying bridges and telegraph lines along the way.
1102699	John Griggs Thompson (born October 13, 1932) is a mathematician at the University of Florida noted for his work in the field of finite groups. He was awarded the Fields Medal in 1970, the Wolf Prize in 1992 and the 2008 Abel Prize. Biography. He received his B.A. from Yale University in 1955 and his doctorate from the University of Chicago in 1959 under the supervision of Saunders Mac Lane. After spending some time on the Mathematics faculty at the University of Chicago, he moved in 1970 to the Rouse Ball Professorship in Mathematics at the University of Cambridge, England, and later moved to the Mathematics Department of the University of Florida as a Graduate Research Professor. He is currently a Professor Emeritus of Pure Mathematics at the University of Cambridge, and professor of mathematics at the University of Florida. He received the Abel Prize 2008 together with Jacques Tits. Work. Thompson's doctoral thesis introduced powerful and innovative techniques, and included the solution of a problem in finite group theory which had stood for around sixty years, the nilpotency of Frobenius kernels. At the time, this achievement was noted in "The New York Times" (though his university affiliation was stated incorrectly there). Thompson became a key figure in the progress toward the classification of finite simple groups. In 1963, he and Walter Feit proved that all nonabelian finite simple groups are of even order (the "Odd Order Paper", filling a whole issue of the "Pacific Journal of Mathematics"). This work was recognised by the award of the 1965 Cole Prize in Algebra of the American Mathematical Society. His monumental N-group papers classified all finite simple groups for which the normalizer of every non-identity solvable subgroup is solvable. This included, as a by-product, the classification of all minimal finite simple groups (those for which every proper subgroup is solvable). This work had great influence on later developments in the classification of finite simple groups, and was quoted in the citation by Richard Brauer for the award of Thompson's Fields Medal in 1970 (Proceedings of the International Congress of Mathematicians, Nice, France, 1970). The Thompson group "Th" is one of the 26 sporadic finite simple groups. Thompson also made major contributions to the inverse Galois problem. He found a criterion for a finite group to be a Galois group, that in particular implies that the monster simple group is a Galois group. Further recognition. In 1971, Thompson was elected to the United States National Academy of Sciences. In 1982, he was awarded the Senior Berwick Prize of the London Mathematical Society, and in 1988, he received the honorary degree of Doctor of Science from the University of Oxford. Thompson was awarded the United States National Medal of Science in 2000. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society (United Kingdom), and a recipient of its Sylvester Medal. He is a member of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters.
1065969	Angela Marie Bettis (born January 9, 1973) is an American film and stage actress, film producer, and director best known for her lead roles in the 2002 TV adaptation of the Stephen King novel "Carrie", the title character in "May" (2002), and in "Girl, Interrupted" as an anorexic psychiatric patient Janet Webber.
1016315	A Chinese Odyssey is a two-part 1995 Hong Kong fantasy comedy film directed and written by Jeffrey Lau, starring Stephen Chow, Ng Man-tat, Yammie Lam, Karen Mok and others. The first part is titled "A Chinese Odyssey Part One: Pandora's Box while the second one is called A Chinese Odyssey Part Two: Cinderella". The film is very loosely based on the Chinese classical novel "Journey to the West". It incorporates elements of slapstick comedy and wuxia revolving around the central theme of a love story. Although the dialogue is in Cantonese, "A Chinese Odyssey" has become a cult classic among young Mandarin-speaking adults in mainland China. Plot. Part One. 500 years ago, during their journey to the west to fetch the Buddhist scriptures, Monkey got annoyed with the constant nagging of his master, Longevity Monk, and decided to betray the latter. He was intercepted and subdued by Guanyin, who decided to give him a second chance after the Monk pleaded for leniency. In the present, Monkey has been reincarnated as Joker, the chief of a group of outlaws. Joker and his gang are attacked by two demonesses, Spider Woman and Pak Jing-jing, who threaten and force them to do their bidding. Joker's second-in-command (later revealed to be a reincarnation of Pigsy) secretly overhears the demons' plan to capture the Longevity Monk and feast on his flesh to gain immortality. On the other hand, Joker falls in love with Pak Jing-jing. Grandpa Buddha shows up in disguise as a bunch of grapes, informs Joker about the danger he is in, and gives him a magic mirror which can reveal a being's true form. The group are later attacked by Bull King, who is also after the Monk. Joker and Pigsy flee with Pak Jing-jing and Spider Woman to Waterfall Cave, where the two demonesses start fighting over Joker. Pak Jing-jing and Joker eventually flee from the cave while Spider Woman becomes pregnant with Pigsy's child by accident. As Pak Jing-jing had been poisoned by Spider Woman, Joker goes back to the cave to ask for the antidote, but Spider Woman imprisons him instead. In the meantime, outside the cave, Pak Jing-jing is captured by Bull King, who cures her of the poison. Inside the cave, Joker finds Pandora's Box, which can open up a time portal when moonlight shines on it and "Prajñāpāramitā" is chanted. He also overhears Guanyin's voice, telling him that he was actually the Monkey King in his past life and is destined to continue his quest to escort his master on the journey to the west. Meanwhile, Bull King and Pak Jing-jing enter the cave and start fighting with Spider Woman. Pak Jing-jing commits suicide after mistakenly believing that Joker has betrayed her love and fathered a child with Spider Woman. Joker finds Pak Jing-jing and tries to save her by travelling back in time with the aid of Pandora's Box, but each time he arrives a few seconds too late to stop her from committing suicide. On his last attempt, however, he ends up going back in time to 500 years ago. Outside the cave, he encounters a fairy named Zixia, who confiscates Pandora's Box and sears three dots on the sole of his foot to mark him as her servant. He then looks in the magic mirror given to him by Grandpa Buddha earlier and is shocked to see a reflection of him as Monkey. Part Two. After travelling back in time, Joker discovers more about his past life and reunites with his master, Longevity Monk, and his fellows Pigsy and Sandy. However, he does not want to accept his fate as Monkey, because he just wants to get back Pandora's Box and return to 500 years later to save Pak Jing-jing. The fairy Zixia falls in love with him after he pulls out her sword from its scabbard because she once made a promise to love the person who can unsheathe her sword. Zixia and Longevity Monk are captured by Bull King, who wants to take Zixia as his concubine and feast on the Monk's flesh to become immortal. Pigsy and Sandy try to rescue their master but the Monk refuses to leave unless Joker promises to fulfil his destiny. Joker goes off in search of Zixia, rescues her, and they flee from Bull King. In an ensuing fight between Joker and his companions against Bull King, Joker falls off a cliff and finds himself back in Waterfall Cave, where he meets Grandpa Buddha and Pak Jing-jing. Pak Jing-jing agrees to marry Joker initially, but she leaves later and tells him to save Zixia because she knows the one he truly loves is Zixia. Shortly after, Spider Woman comes to Waterfall Cave and kills everyone there, including Joker. Joker, as a ghost, hears Guanyin's voice inside the cave again, reminding him about his destiny. He decides to accept his fate and puts on the golden headband, transforming into Monkey. He returns to the world and rushes off to Bull King's city to save his master and stop Bull King's wedding ceremony with Zixia. As he is now Monkey, he must relinquish all his human desires, including love, so he tells Zixia that he is not Joker and pretends to scorn her. Monkey and Bull King engage in battle. When Bull King realises that he is losing, he uses Princess Iron Fan's magic fan to churn up strong winds that will blow the entire city towards the Sun. Monkey succeeds in stopping Bull King and saving everyone, but Zixia sacrifices herself to save him. As she dies, Monkey feels that he still loves her and his headband starts to tighten, giving him a headache. In anger, he beats up Bull King severely before escaping together with his master, Pigsy and Sandy, by using the Pandora's Box. Monkey wakes up later and finds himself in a cave, but with his master and fellows this time. Outside the cave, in a busy city, Monkey sees the incarnations of Joker and Zixia in a standoff on top of a wall. He uses his powers to possess Joker's body and make Joker give Zixia a long and passionate kiss before leaving Joker's body. Joker recovers and is surprised to see himself locked in an embrace with Zixia, but accepts and continues the romance with her. They notice Monkey walking away in the crowd below. He does not turn back and continues on the journey to the west with his companions. Box office. The first part grossed HK$25,093,380 and the second ca HK$20,872,117 in Hong Kong.
1163068	Paul Ben-Victor (born July 24, 1965) is an American actor. Life and career. Ben-Victor was born Paul Friedman in Brooklyn, New York, the son of Leah Kornfeld, a playwright, and Victor Friedman. Ben-Victor debuted on the small screen in 1987 in the made-for-TV movie "Blood Vows: The Story of a Mafia Wife" and on an episode of "Cagney & Lacey". Fifteen years after beginning his television career with bit parts, Ben-Victor found himself cast in important roles on HBO dramas "The Wire" and "Entourage", as well as making a 2006 appearance as Coach Lou on "My Name is Earl". He portrayed Moe Howard in the 2000 made-for-TV film "The Three Stooges". Ben-Victor has been featured on many television cop dramas like "Monk" and "", and also had a recurring role as two-bit con man Steve Richards on three episodes of "NYPD Blue" from 1994 to 1997. Ben-Victor has co-written stage plays with his mother including "Club Soda" and "The Good Steno". Ben-Victor had a starring role in the Sci-Fi channel television show, "The Invisible Man", alongside Vincent Ventresca. The two later guest starred together on the hit TV show "Las Vegas". They were reunited again on an episode of the new USA Network series "In Plain Sight" (Episode 1.2, "Hoosier Daddy"), on which Ben-Victor has a supporting role. In 2008, Ben-Victor held a supporting role in the feature film, "Clear Lake, WI", starring Michael Madsen. In August 2008, Ben-Victor co-starred in "Coma", a web series on Crackle.
358048	Baseball Bugs is a Warner Brothers "Looney Tunes" theatrical cartoon short released on February 2, 1946, starring Bugs Bunny. It had a similar theme to MGM's 1944 "Batty Baseball", which was directed by former WB cartoon director Tex Avery. Overview. "Baseball Bugs" was directed by Friz Freleng and written by Michael Maltese. Voice characterizations were performed by Mel Blanc, with additional uncredited performances by Bea Benaderet as Lady Liberty and the screaming baseball, and Tedd Pierce as the stadium announcer and several of the Gas-House Gorillas. The cartoon's title is a double play on words. "Bugs" was then a common nickname for someone who was considered to be crazy, erratic, or fanatical. In addition to its adjective form being the indirect inspiration for the Bunny's name, the noun form was sometimes applied to sports fans. Plot. A baseball game is going on in New York City, at the Polo Grounds (although the rooftop facade is more suggestive of Yankee Stadium), between the visiting "Gas-House Gorillas" and the home team, the "Tea Totallers". The game is not going well for the Tea Totallers, as the Gorillas, a bunch of oversized, roughneck players, are not only dominating the Tea Totallers, made up of old men, but intimidating the umpire by knocking him into the ground like a tent peg after an unpopular judgment. The Gorillas' home runs go screaming out of the ballpark (literally) and the batters form a conga line, with each hitter knocking a ball out. Deep in the outfield, a lone fan of the Tea Totallers is heard above the roar of the crowd. From his rabbit hole, wearing a straw hat and eating a carrot on a hot dog bun, Bugs talks trash against the Gorillas, claiming that he could win the game single-handed with an endless barrage of home runs. He loses a bit of his bravado when he suddenly finds himself surrounded by the Gorillas. His challenge is forced on him by the Gorillas and, as a result, Bugs now has to play all the positions on the opposing team, including speeding from the mound to behind the plate to catch his own pitches. Furthermore, he must pick up where the Tea Totallers left off: scoreless and down by about 95 runs. Bugs (as pitcher) first throws his fastball so hard that it zips by the opposing batter but also knocks Bugs (who has outraced the ball to home plate to be catcher as well as pitcher) off-screen and into the backstop with a loud crash as he catches it. In the course of his dual role, Bugs shouts encouraging words to the "pitcher" before rushing back to the pitcher's mound to make the next pitch, then returning to home plate to catch it. Bugs then "perplexes" the Gorillas with his slow ball, accompanied by a sputtering engine sound, a gravity-defying pitch so slow that the players can't seem to connect with it. Three batters standing in line wail at it in vain, as the umpire counts "1, 2, 3 strikes, you're out" against each of the three in quick succession (the third one wearing a Derby hat instead of a baseball cap for some unknown reason), finally ending the inning. Bugs takes his first at-bat, and selects a bat from the stack brought out by the "batboy" who literally has bat wings. Bugs starts smacking the ball as promised. On the first pitch, he makes a long hit, dashing around the bases while also showing off for the crowd, only to find a grinning Gorilla holding the ball just ahead of the plate. Bugs then pulls out a pin-up poster, distracting the player and allowing Bugs to score his first run. The scoreboard now shows the Gorillas as the "home" team, still with 95 runs, and with Bugs batting in the top of the fifth with one run so far. Bugs hits another one deep, and while rounding the bases, a Gorilla ambushes the plate umpire and puts on his uniform. Bugs slides into home, obviously safe, but the fake umpire calls him out. Bugs gets in his face and argues the call, pulling his time-honored word-switching gag, resulting in the umpire declaring, "I say you're "safe"! And if you don't like it, you can go to the showers!" Bugs gives in, but the faux-umpire gets wise too late as the board flashes another run. Bugs knocks the next pitch deep. A Gorilla comes running in, yelling, "I got it! I got it! I got it!" The ball hits him so hard in the face that it drives him under the ground, and a tombstone pops up with the epitaph "He got it." Another run appears on the board for Bugs. Bugs lines another one deep. This outfielder, who is smoking a cigar while playing the field, also takes it in the face, smashing the cigar and driving the fielder up against the fence, in front of a billboard that reads "Does your tobacco taste different lately?" (This was an actual ad slogan at the time for the "Sir Walter Raleigh" pipe tobacco manufactured by the Brown & Williamson Tobacco Company.) Another run on the board for Bugs. Bugs hammers the next pitch on a line drive that bounces off each Gorilla with a ping sound as with a pinball game. The scoreboard then blinks a random series of numbers and the word "Tilted". Bugs is now pitching again and delivers a fastball at the Gorilla. He hits Bugs' pitch and it seems that he just scored another run. But Bugs just appears at home base with a ball in his hand. He tags the Gorilla so hard that he is knocked out and the umpire yells "Yerrr OUT!" As the Gorilla is hallucinating, Bugs holds up a sign that says "Was this trip really necessary?" Jump ahead to the final inning, announced by a radio-style jingle ("What's the score, boys, what did Bugs Bunny do, what's with the Carrot League baseball today?"), with Bugs leading 96-95, the Gorillas having lost a run somewhere along the way. The radio booth has also lost its original play-by-play announcer and Blanc's voice is now heard as the announcer. With two outs in the last of the ninth, a Gorilla is on base and another is up at bat, having just fashioned a bat out of a large tree and swinging it menacingly. Unintimidated, Bugs asks the audience to "watch me paste this pathetic palooka with a powerful, paralyzing, poifect, pachydoimous, percussion pitch." He proceeds with a tremendous wind-up and lets the pitch go, but the ball is crushed and rockets out of the ballfield. Startled, Bugs goes chasing after it desperately, clear out of the stadium, is almost led astray by a Gorilla driving a taxi, jumps out and catches a bus (where he spends the trip casually reading a newspaper and checking on the flight of the ball), goes to the top of the "Umpire State Building", climbs a flagpole, throws his glove in the air and manages to catch it. The Gorilla batter arrives by stairs just as the umpire (apparently no longer intimidated) climbs over the ledge and yells, "Yerrr OUT!" The Gorilla yells back, "I'm OUT?!" to which the Statue of Liberty (voiced by an uncredited Bea Benaderet) comes to life, saying "That's what the man said, you heard what he said, he said that!" (a popular line from a radio show) with Bugs echoing her words as the iris closes around Bugs.
583021	Say Salaam India' is an 2007 Indian Hindi language movie, written and directed by Subhash Kapoor, and starring Sanjay Suri, Milind Soman and Sandhya Mridul . Salaam India is the story of cricket. It revolves around a group of 4 boys and their passion for the game. The boys come from humble backgrounds and limited resources but what they have is a zeal for the game of cricket and undeniable natural talent. They study in the local corporation school where the most important sport on agenda is wrestling…. Taught by Wrestling Guru Surinder Huda- a man driven by hatred for cricket because in his eyes it is cricket that is responsible for destroying traditional sports like Kushti, Kabbadi, and Hockey etc. Story. The story begins with introducing the four boys Viru, Mahi, Shakeel and Guri and their milieu and how they fight their circumstances and lack of resources to pursue their fervor for Cricket. From here the story moves on to an elite school; 'Royal Heritage', in the state capital. It is here that we meet the protagonist of the film, Hari Sadu; a Cricket Fanatic who believes that gully Cricket is to be played with a similar commitment as any other level of Cricket. His new job is to coach the Royal Heritage team to win their sixth state championship, but he faces a stiff opposition to his coaching methods by the headstrong and arrogant members of the school team who are more impressed with Sachin’s Ferrari than his batting skills and hard work behind it. The boys are talented but don’t have the passion and the discipline to match Hari’s ideas. This results in a lot of situations which add to the already simmering tension, leading to a final showdown where Hari Sadu is wrongly accused and is thrown out by the board of members. He’s replaced by Harry Oberoi, who is more of a suave fixer from the Cricket world than a coach, but suits the image and profile of the school. Hari Sadu gets home determined make a local team to take on the cudgel at the Inter-School Challenge. He’s helped in this pursuit by his wife Sonali and his cerebral palsy-suffering son Rustam. How he develops a Cricketing eleven from the wrestling team at the local corporation school, overcoming various hurdles to take on the Royal Heritage School at the Inter-School Challenge, is the rest of the story.
1253750	Luciana Paluzzi (born 10 June 1937, Rome, Italy) is an Italian actress. She is best known for playing SPECTRE assassin Fiona Volpe in the fourth James Bond film, "Thunderball". Career. Paluzzi's very first film was an uncredited walk-on part in "Three Coins in the Fountain" (1954). She went on to appear in many movies, most of which were made in her native Italy. In her early films, she is credited as Luciana Paoluzzi. She is best known as the villainess, Fiona Volpe, in "Thunderball" (1965). She had auditioned for the part of the lead Bond girl, Dominetta "Domino" Palazzi but producers cast Claudine Auger, changing the Domino character from an Italian to a Frenchwoman and renaming her Dominique Derval. Initially crestfallen when informed she did not get the part, Paluzzi rejoiced when told her consolatory prize was the part of Volpe, which she said was "more fun to play".
1775395	Jeffrey Bryan "Jeff" Davis (born October 6, 1973) is an American actor, comedian and singer. He is most famous as a guest star on the improv comedy show "Whose Line Is It Anyway?" He also appeared in "Drew Carey's Green Screen Show" as one of the major actors. In 2011, Davis appeared on Drew Carey's game show, "Drew Carey's Improv-A-Ganza". He was also known for doing impressions of several actors, most notably Christopher Walken, Keanu Reeves, and Jeff Goldblum on the shows. Biography. Jeff Davis was born in Los Angeles and raised in Whittier, California. He began his acting career at the age of four at the Groundlings Theater in Hollywood, playing Linus in "You're A Good Man, Charlie Brown." He attended La Serna High School. Davis started in commercials when he was four years old, and at age 11 was cast as Louis in the Broadway production of "The King and I" with Yul Brynner. A national US tour followed and, after 750 performances, Davis returned home to attend school. Career. Davis began performing with various improv troupes. He also worked with the short video website Channel 101.com and was in the Dan Harmon series "Laser Fart". In addition, he played the role of David Lee Roth of Van Halen in an episode of the hugely popular Yacht Rock show. Soon after, he landed a recurring role on the improv series "Whose Line Is It Anyway?." His comedic timing won over comedian Steve Martin and the other producers of "The Downer Channel", earning Davis a spot in the cast of the comedy sketch/reality series in 2001. He also has appeared in the television series "The Norm Show", "The Drew Carey Show" and "The Jamie Kennedy Experiment". Davis appeared in the acclaimed telefilm "Tuesdays With Morrie" and was a series regular in "Happy Family", opposite Christine Baranski and John Larroquette, in the fall of 2003. He played the role of an attorney in the October 9, 2008 episode of "The Sarah Silverman Program". Davis also regularly appears as a guest on the "Superego" podcast, where he has impersonated Sam Elliot. Davis currently resides in Los Angeles and he has toured on the "The Improv All Stars" alongside fellow Whose Line Is It Anyway stars Drew Carey, Ryan Stiles, Colin Mochrie, Chip Esten, Brad Sherwood, Kathy Greenwood and Greg Proops. Davis has also been part of two USO tours and tours with Stiles, Esten and Proops doing live shows in various cities across the US and Canada. He was often used in games that required improvisational singing and usually partnered with Wayne Brady on Whose Line and Esten on "Drew Carey's Green Screen Show" or live tours. He still performs live improv shows with Esten, Proops and Stiles under the name "Whose Live Anyway?" and they regularly tour around the USA and Canada. Davis was one of the rotating announcers on television's longest running game show "The Price Is Right" after Rich Fields's departure. Davis often modeled prizes (prizes oriented towards men such as watches, men's clothing, and occasionally a musical instrument are usually modeled by the announcer) and participated in games where the model traditionally participates (when only two models are available). However, George Gray eventually got the job.
1099665	In statistics, propagation of uncertainty (or propagation of error) is the effect of variables' uncertainties (or errors) on the uncertainty of a function based on them. When the variables are the values of experimental measurements they have uncertainties due to measurement limitations (e.g., instrument precision) which propagate to the combination of variables in the function. The uncertainty is usually defined by the absolute error Δ"x". Uncertainties can also be defined by the relative error (Δ"x")/"x", which is usually written as a percentage. Most commonly the error on a quantity, Δ"x", is given as the standard deviation, "σ". Standard deviation is the positive square root of variance, "σ"2. The value of a quantity and its error are often expressed as an interval . If the statistical probability distribution of the variable is known or can be assumed, it is possible to derive confidence limits to describe the region within which the true value of the variable may be found. For example, the 68% confidence limits for a one dimensional variable belonging to a normal distribution are ± one standard deviation from the value, that is, there is approximately a 68% probability that the true value lies in the region . If the variables are correlated, then covariance must be taken into account. Linear combinations. Let formula_1 be a set of "m" functions which are linear combinations of formula_2 variables formula_3 with combination coefficients formula_4. and let the variance-covariance matrix on x be denoted by formula_7. Then, the variance-covariance matrix formula_9 of "f" is given by This is the most general expression for the propagation of error from one set of variables onto another. When the errors on "x" are uncorrelated the general expression simplifies to where the "x" superscript is merely notation, not exponentiation. Note that even though the errors on "x" may be uncorrelated, the errors on "f" are in general correlated; in other words, even if formula_12 is a diagonal matrix, formula_13 is in general a full matrix. The general expressions for a single function, "f", are a little simpler. Each covariance term, formula_16 can be expressed in terms of the correlation coefficient formula_17 by formula_18, so that an alternative expression for the variance of "f" is In the case that the variables "x" are uncorrelated this simplifies further to Non-linear combinations. When "f" is a set of non-linear combination of the variables "x", an interval propagation could be performed in order to compute intervals which contain all consistent values for the variables. In a probabilistic approach, the function "f" must usually be linearized by approximation to a first-order Taylor series expansion, though in some cases, exact formulas can be derived that do not depend on the expansion as is the case for the exact variance of products. The Taylor expansion would be: where formula_22 denotes the partial derivative of "fk" with respect to the "i"-th variable. Or in matrix notation, where "J" is the Jacobian matrix. Since "f 0" is a constant it does not contribute to the error on "f". Therefore, the propagation of error follows the linear case, above, but replacing the linear coefficients, "Aik" and "Ajk" by the partial derivatives, formula_24 and formula_25. In matrix notation, That is, the Jacobian of the function is used to transform the rows and columns of the covariance of the argument. Simplification. Neglecting correlations or for independent variables yields a common formula among engineers and experimental scientists to calculate error propagation, the variance formula: formula_27 where formula_28 represents the standard deviation of the function formula_29, formula_30 represents the standard deviation of formula_31, formula_32 represents the standard deviation of formula_33, and so forth. One practical application of this formula in an engineering context is the evaluation of relative uncertainty of the insertion loss for power measurements of random fields. It is important to note that this formula is based on the linear characteristics of the gradient of formula_29 and therefore it is a good estimation for the standard deviation of formula_29 as long as formula_36 are small compared to the partial derivatives. Example. Any non-linear function, "f(a,b)", of two variables, "a" and "b", can be expanded as hence: In the particular case that formula_39, formula_40. Then or Caveats and warnings. Error estimates for non-linear functions are biased on account of using a truncated series expansion. The extent of this bias depends on the nature of the function. For example, the bias on the error calculated for log "x" increases as "x" increases since the expansion to 1+"x" is a good approximation only when "x" is small. In the special case of the inverse formula_43 where formula_44, the distribution is a reciprocal normal distribution and there is no definable variance. For such inverse distributions and for ratio distributions, there can be defined probabilities for intervals which can be computed either by Monte Carlo simulation, or, in some cases, by using the Geary–Hinkley transformation. The statistics, mean and variance, of the shifted reciprocal function, formula_45, where formula_46 however exist in a principal value sense if the difference between the shift or pole, formula_47, and the mean formula_48 is real. The mean of this transformed random variable is then indeed the scaled Dawson's function formula_49 in a principal sense
744706	Martin Henderson (born 8 October 1974) is a New Zealand actor, best known to American audiences for his starring role in the ABC TV series "Off the Map", while remaining known in his home country for his teenage role as Stuart Neilson in the soap opera "Shortland Street". Early life. Henderson was born in Auckland, New Zealand and began acting at the age of thirteen, appearing in "Strangers", a local television production. He attended Birkenhead Primary and Westlake Boys High schools. Career. Henderson starred in the drama "Shortland Street", where he played the character of "Stuart Neilson" from 1992 to 1995. He subsequently appeared in a number of Australian films and television productions "Echo Point" and "Home & Away" before he moved to the United States in 1997, in order to pursue a career in Hollywood films and to train in a two-year program at the Neighborhood Playhouse in New York City. Henderson spent more than a year unsuccessfully auditioning for film roles in Los Angeles, but in 2001, he was finally cast in a supporting role in the John Woo-directed war film, "Windtalkers". In 1999 he appeared in a major leading role in "Kick" for which he was nominated by Australian Film Institute to "Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role".
1055174	Mississippi Masala is a romantic drama film directed by Mira Nair, based upon a screenplay by Sooni Taraporevala, starring Denzel Washington, Sarita Choudhury, and Roshan Seth. Set primarily in rural Mississippi, the film explores interracial romance between African Americans and Indian Americans in the United States.
584179	Maanja Velu () is a 2010 Tamil language action film directed by A. Venkatesh. It stars Arun Vijay, Karthik Muthuraman and Dhansika in the lead, with Prabhu Ganesan, Vijayakumar and Riyaz Khan playing supporting roles and Santhanam and Ganja Karuppu providing comical relief. Most of the team from the successful venture, "Malai Malai" re-united for this film, which is a remake of the 2007 Telugu film "Lakshyam". Plot. The film starts with a flashback. ACP Bose (karthik) is a sincere police officer happily married and lives with his parents and younger brother velu (arunvijay). Surjo is a college student and he falls in love with his classmate shalini (dhansika). Enter Umapathi (chandrasekar) the villain who is notorious for settlements and land deals. shalini comes across ACP Bose when she is on a field trip from her college with her friends. She gets friendly with his daughter Pinky who tells her that she would get her introduced to her uncle velu and they would make a good pair. It turns out that velu studies in Indu’s college and soon after they accidentally even come to know each other and get close. ACP Bose investigates the case of a dreaded criminal umapathi whom no one has been able to touch. He is even involved with a land deal involving crores of money which is completely illegal and others including the D.I.G is involved. When the chairman of the bank who has lent money for the deal demand the money back as the deal hasn’t worked, but umapathi eliminates him. The people who are customers of the bank take to the streets and try to damage the bank. ACP Bose arrives there, arrests the manager and takes him away. Somehow umapathi comes to know where the manager has been taken .He arrives there with his men and the D.I.G and nearly kill ACP Bose. umapathi asks his men to dump the body. On the way, somehow velu gets involved and ultimately rescues his brother from a burning bus and the elder brother dies in the younger brother’s arms. The entire media and the people think that ACP Bose has swindled off all the money as they have been made to believe that by the D.I.G. velu decides to take revenge on the people who killed his brother. Firstly he kills dinesh (his friend and Umapathy’s friend) .Then he kills the D.I.G (he had been taken to jail and he had escaped). umapathi also kidnaps the entire family of velu. velu goes to an old temple where he kills umapathi, he spills the beans that bose is dead and rescues his family under the supervision of the new D.I.G Gautam sankar (prabhu) who supports him wholeheartedly. Production. After the success of his film "Malai Malai", Arun Vijay teams with Malai Malai team (consists of A Venkatesh, Mani Sharma, Santhanam and producer Mohan) for second time, Venkatesh decided to remake the Telugu film "Lakshyam". The film was said to be titled as "Maanja Madhan" which proved untrue and it is changed as "Maanja Velu". Suresh Gopi was initially selected to play the role of Arun's elder brother but he was replaced by another senior actor Karthik who made his comeback through this film. Dhansika, who was one of the five girls in "Peraanmai" has been selected to play the pair opposite hero making her first project as a solo heroine. First schedule of the film was started with song at Bangkok. The climax fight scenes of the film was canned in Ekkattuthangal Burma Colony Muneeswarar Temple, Chennai for last 5 days and it was shot using two outdoor units and four cameras, the set was built like that of a ruined temple with a 50 ft tall 'Aiyanaar' statue was erected at a whoping 65 lakhs. A scene featuring 400 junior artists and 25 stunt artists was canned in a festival set that was erected around the temple. A scene in which Arun Vijay kicking two fighters by jumping from a platform was being shot, for which both the fighters were tied on with a transparent nylon rope, to avoid accidents. Unexpectedly one of the nylon ropes got tangled with Arun Vijay's right arm while he was performing the action. Arun Vijay's elbow was badly injured due to the accident and the whole arm swell at once. Immediately the actor was offered first aid by the stunt master Kanal Kannan and was rushed to the hospital where he was offered emergency treatment, for this scene Arun tonsured his head to give a new look and also hanged upside down which was shot for 7 days. Songs were shot at Pazhani, Dindigul and Chennai. The title song of the film was shot in Pondicherry schedule with 80 junior artists. Few stunts were shot at Trichy and Stunt master Kanal Kannan has given 45 days of his schedule. Controversy. Before the release, Dr. Kalidoss has stated that he had been in the film industry for the past 15 years and that he completed a film titled ‘Thunichal’ with Arun Vijay in the lead in the year 2008. He also stated that though the Censor Board had cleared the film, Arun Vijay had ‘purposely’ delayed the release of the film by not completing his portion of the ‘dubbing’ work. As he had spent Rs.2 crores till date, the producer told Vijay that he couldn’t continue to shoot the film. Meanwhile, he was asked by the actor to release Thunichal after his ‘Malai Malai’ released. Due to his non-cooperation, instead of releasing ‘Thunichal’ in 160 theatres, I could release the film only in 16 theatres on 1 January this year, said Kalidoss. Due to this, I incurred a loss of Rs.1.5 crores, he added. “Due to the mental harassment I had to endure because of Arun Vijay, I couldn’t continue my profession as a doctor for the past 4 years. Vijay has to pay me Rs.1.5 crores and till he does so, the release of his ‘Maanja Velu’ should be stayed till the 19th of this month,” he had stated in the petition Dr. Mohan, producer of ‘Maanja Velu’ and father-in-law of Arun Vijay, had filed a counter petition with the Court praying for vacation of the stay on the grounds that he, as a producer, had nothing to do with Dr. Kalidoss’ case and requested that as such, his film should be allowed to release on the stipulated date. Advocate G. Murugesh Kumar, who appeared on behalf of Dr. Mohan in the court of Mr. Justice T.S. Sivagnanam, managed to putforth his point of view strongly before the Judge and said that Dr. Kalidoss had ‘wrongly informed’ the Court in the matter. As soon as the Judge announced that he’d be giving the verdict based on the ‘actual nature’ of the case, Dr. Kalidoss is said to have ‘withdrawn’ his petition from the Court. Following this, the Judge dismissed the petition and said that the film could release on May 21 as per its original schedule. Soundtrack. The soundtrack is composed by Mani Sharma and he reused the tunes from the original film "Lakshyam". Audio function was attended by Producers Council chief Rama Narayanan, secretary Sivasakthi pandian, director Shakthi Chidambaram, actors Karthik, Shaam, Jai, Sibiraj, Sundar C.. Critical response. The soundtrack was released to generally positive reviews. Behindwoods said, "there is nothing in the album that will make it stand up for itself". Milliblog said, "getting 3 decent tracks in a masala potboiler soundtrack is a huge win indeed". Indiaglitz said, "Over all, the music of Maanja Velu will definitely be chart busters and the music will have a wide reach. Mani Sharma, has used the tunes of his hit songs in Telugu in this album, which would surely appeal even to the Tamil audience". Release. The film was released in May 21, 2010 alongside "Magane En Marumagane", "Kanakavel Kaaka", "Kutti Pisasu", "Kola Kolaya Mundhirikka" and "Kutrapirivu". Reviews. Sify said, "On the whole director Venkatesh has dished out a an average run of the mill mass masala cocktail which is quite entertaining in the first half but fizzles out in the second half with a predictable long drawn out climax". Behindwoods said, "Maanja Velu is an entertainer that aims to satisfy all types of audiences and A. Venkatesh has managed to create a screenplay that takes care of all requirements. But, there is a feeling that the full potential of the script has not been realized. It is still a decent entertainer which can be watched especially for its wonderful casting". Times of India said, "The one thing that strikes you about Maanja Velu is what a talent house Tamil cinema has been. As you watch the parade of the seniors like Karthik, Prabhu, Vijaykumar and Vagai Chandrasekhar you feel glad that they came up with good, great, moving or simply lovable performances in the past. It does a lot to ease the heart burn caused by the so-called earthy cinema that we has have been treated to for months and months now. Where you saw plenty of victims of circumstances on display, but so very lacking in angst that you came away from the movie without any emotional connect". Indiaglitz said, "A perfect one for those who love masala flicks". Chennaionline said, "Maanja Velu has all the ingredients of a masala flick but the problem is that it has no novelty or neatness to impress us". Top 10 cinema said, "The movie may have its reach amongst the commercial film lovers, who have no regards for logics". Box Office. The film has seen an above average opening with total collections running up to Rs. 18 lakhs and weekend collections at Rs. 3,38,177 in second week. After that, weekend saw Rs. 4,22,307 drawn in its favor with Rs. 26 lakhs over the last weeks. Rs. 1,76,967 was made by the film this weekend with Rs. 32 lakhs spanning over 3 weeks. Total collections in chennai was Rs. 26 lakhs. Overall trade pundits declared the film as "average"
1166391	Ian Gomez (born December 27, 1964). is an American actor best known for his comedic TV work, the most notable of which are his series-regular stints as Javier on "Felicity" and Andy on "Cougar Town". Early life. He was born in New York City, New York to an artist father and a dancer mother.
775013	Young People Fucking, also called Y.P.F., is a 2007 Canadian comedy directed, written, and produced by Martin Gero and Aaron Abrams. It debuted at the 2007 Toronto International Film Festival. Plot. The film intertwines the story of four different couples and one threesome over the course of one sexual encounter, with specific chapters for each one: prelude, foreplay, sex, interlude, orgasm and afterglow. Each couple represents a specific archetype: Reception. Reviews were generally positive, with Liberal Heritage critic Denis Coderre awarding the film three stars and describing it as a "social reality check." New Democratic Party Heritage critic Bill Siksay said, "I had a good time, I laughed a lot. There was some serious exploration of relationships, but it was fun. [...] What I would find offensive is that anybody would try and enforce their own sense of personal taste to prohibit a movie like that from being made". Controversy. The film was at the centre of a Canadian political controversy in 2006: The Canadian federal government enacted Bill C-10, allowing the government to retroactively strip tax credits from films deemed "offensive or not in the public interest" by the Heritage Minister. A special screening was held in Ottawa, which was well-attended by opposition Members of Parliament, although no MPs from the governing Conservative Party attended. One staffer for Cambridge MP Gary Goodyear was fired for reserving a ticket in his name without permission. Writer/director Gero stated: "I think we're an easy target – we've got a swear in the title —. And also no one's seen it. So it's easy for the pro-C-10 people, whoever they are, I've only met one, to say...this is obviously pornography, we want to shut it down". "Our generation makes an effort to separate love and sex," says Gero. "They're all trying to do this thing, and they're all failing miserably...we're saying, 'Listen, people our age. This is really hard to do without being emotionally involved.'"
581799	Upen Patel (born 16 August 1981) is a British Indian male model and Bollywood film actor. Career. Early work. After winning Zee TV's supermodel hunt in 2002, Patel began modelling for Hugo Boss, Paul Smith and Zegna. He started his acting career with singer/song writer Romey Gill's "Sadeyan paran to sikhi udna." He received the MTV India Most Stylish Male Award 2 years in a row. He won F awards as India's number one Supermodel, which led to many more endorsements including Tuscan Verve, Hugo Boss, Tommy Hilfiger, Provogue and D'damas Desire. He has campaigned for brands like Wendell Rodrick, Vikram Phadnis and Westside. He was a cook on the show 'Karen Anand's Cook Na Kaho' before his official debut into films. Film. Patel appeared in many music videos, including the remix of the classic Bollywood song "Kya Khoob Lagti Ho", which also featured Udita Goswami. In 2006, he made his Bollywood debut in the film "36 China Town". The film was a success at the box office. Subash K Jha commented "Upen Patel as the Casanova in the casino makes an unusual stylish debut. He dances with confidence and holds his own, even among the accomplished ensemble of actors." Patel won several awards, including the IIFA Award for the role. His second film, "Namastey London", was released on 23 March 2007 and also did well at the box office. Shortly afterwards, his third film "Shakalaka Boom Boom" was released on 6 April 2007, but did not do as well at the box office. He did however garner appreciation for his performance. Taran Adarsh comments that Patel is "confidence personified" when performing the complex role, and that "Upen is not just a show-stopper when it comes to looks, but has the potential to climb the ladder as an actor". In 2008, he received flak for his guest appearance in Ashwani Dheer's "One Two Three". His role in "Money Hai Toh Honey Hai" was well received, but the film did not become a commercial success. He also played a cameo in "Ajab Prem Ki Ghazab Kahani". In 2010 he took time out to finish a diploma in film making from the NIFT in the UK and earned a diploma in scriptwriting from Raindance in the UK. The same year, he completed a summer camp in Acting at the Lee Strasberg Actors' Studio in Los Angeles. In 2012, he is going to appear in the film Run Bhola Run. In 2013 he will be making his debut in South Indian cinema starring in one of India's most expensive films titled "I" which will be directed by S. Shankar. In 2013 he will be making his debut in French cinema as the leading man in a film to be directed by Yann Danh. Personal life. Upen Patel lives in Mumbai, India. He has been linked to many supermodels and Bollywood actresses in the media including Tabu, Tanisha, Amrita Arora, Shivani Kapoor, Shamita Shetty, Shamita Singha, Sheetal Mallar, Celina Jaitley, Esha Gupta, Kangana Ranaut, Deepika Padukone and Victoria Secret Brazilian model Camilla Tavares. Awards and nominations. Star Screen Awards. Nominated Zee Cine Awards. Winner IIFA Awards. Winner Global Indian Film Awards. Winner In the media. Patel was voted one of the top ten sexiest Asians in the world in 2008, 2009, 2010 and 2011 in the "Eastern Eye". Other work. Patel was the first male Grand Marshal from Bollywood at the Independence Day parade in Los Angeles on 10 August 2008.
1017522	Magnificent Butcher () is a 1979 action comedy film directed by Yuen Woo-ping, starring Sammo Hung, Kwan Tak-hing, Yuen Biao, Wei Pai, Lee Hoi San, Chiang Kam, Fan Mei Sheng, Fung Ging Man, Fung Hak-on and Max Lee. The film is based on the story of Lam Sai-wing, one of the students of the legendary Chinese folk hero Wong Fei-hung. Sammo Hung plays "Butcher" Lam Sai-wing and Kwan Tak-hing plays Wong Fei-hung, a role he had played before in over 70 films. The film also features Hung's opera "brother" Yuen Biao as another of Wong Fei-hung's students, Leung Foon, a role he would reprise years later in the film "Once Upon a Time in China" along with Jet Li. Magnificent Butcher was produced as Hung's attempt to duplicate the success of Jackie Chan's 1978 martial arts action comedy film Drunken Master, in which Chan plays Freddy Wong. Drunken Master heavily features the Beggar So character, who is also in Magnificent Butcher. Yuen Siu Tien was his first choice for the role of Beggar So in this film. Later on, Yuen died of a heart attack before Magnificent Butcher's production began and was replaced by Fan Mei Sheng, which may have adversely affected the film's profit. Plot. Lam Sai-wing (Sammo Hung), also known as Butcher Wing, is a student of Wong Fei-hung (Kwan Tak-hing). Butcher Wing's long-lost brother Lam Sai-kwong (Chiang Kam) comes to town with his beautiful bride Yuet Mei (Tang Jing). Ko Tai-hoi (Fung Hak-on), the son of Master Ko (Lee Hoi San), sees Yuet Mei and, lusting for her, abducts her. The abduction is witnessed by Master Ko's goddaughter Lan Hsing (JoJo Chan Kei-kei). Wong Fei-hung goes out of town, and leaves Butcher Wing and the other disciples, including Leung Foon Yuen Biao and Chik (Wei Pai), to fend for themselves. Sai-kwong assaults Tai-hoi, threatening to murder him if he doesn't free Yuet Mei. Butcher Wing arrives and witnesses Sai-kwong beating Tai-hoi. Not recognizing Sai-kwong, Butcher Wing stops him and drives him off. A despondent Sai-kwong decides to commit suicide but is saved by the wily drunkard Beggar So (Fan Mei Sheng), an old friend of Wong Fei-hung with equally good kung fu skills. Sai-kwong explains his situation to Beggar So. Beggar So confronts Tai-hoi, who claims that Butcher Wing took Yuet Mei. Beggar So confronts Butcher Wing, accusing him of abducting his brother's wife. Butcher Wing asks to meet this supposed brother of his. Beggar So introduces Butcher Wing to Sai-kwong, and they realize who each other are. Butcher Wing, Sai-kwong, and Beggar So realize that Tai-hoi still has Yuet Mei. Lan Hsing attempts to rescue Yuet Mei but is caught by Tai-hoi, who holds Lan Hsing captive as well. Butcher Wing and Beggar So unite and free Yuet Mei from Tai-hoi's clutches. They also free Lan Hsing, assuming that she's just another of Tai-hoi's captives and not realizing that she's Master Ko's goddaughter. She keeps her identity secret. They go to Butcher Wing's house. Butcher Wing unwittingly insults Lan Hsing, who decides to punish him. Beggar So drinks too much alcohol and loses consciousness. For the sake of inconveniencing Butcher Wing, Lan Hsing insists on staying at his house that night, claiming to be homeless and feigning an injury that leaves her unable to walk. She climbs into his bed. Beggar So awakens. Butcher Wing invites Beggar So out for more drinks to stop him from noticing that Lan Hsing is in Butcher Wing's bed, and they leave. Tai-hoi breaks into Butcher Wing's house and attempts to rape Lan Hsing. She resists, screaming, and while trying to silence her, Tai-hoi accidentally kills her. The murder is overheard by a passing night watchman. Tai-hoi flees, unknowingly leaving behind an identifying ring, which the night watchman finds. Tai-hoi accuses Butcher Wing of the murder. Believing that Butcher Wing will take refuge at Po Chi Lam (Wong Fei-hung's school), Master Ko goes there with two of his students and destroys Po Chi Lam's sign. Leung Foon and Chik attack Master Ko and his students. Butcher Wing arrives during the fight, and Master Ko fatally injures him. Leung Foon and Chik take the dying Butcher Wing to Beggar So, who successfully treats his injuries and critiques his kung fu. Butcher Wing asking the old man to teach him how to improve his kung fu, he is made to undergo rigorous training. The night watchman attempts to extort Tai-hoi, selling the ring back to him. Tai-hoi attempts to murder the night watchman, who flees. The night watchman encounters Sai-kwong and Yuet Mei and tells them that Tai-hoi was Lan Hsing's murderer. Tai-hoi then catches up and murders the night watchman and Sai-kwong. Yuet Mei escapes with the ring, which she gives to Butcher Wing. She tells him everything. Later on, Butcher Wing was destroying Tai-hoi’s private party that Tai-hoi is holding on a rented boat, Butcher Wing walks in holding Sai-kwong's funeral tablet. However, Wing will murder Tai-hoi to avenge Sai-kwong, then attacks. Everyone but Tai-hoi flees, Tai-hoi fights back, but Butcher Wing proves himself the superior fighter, Tai-hoi tries to flee, but Butcher Wing stops Tai-hoi. Finally Tai-hoi begs for mercy, groveling on the floor and bowing to Sai-kwong's funeral tablet, Butcher Wing hit Tai-hoi’s head with the funeral tablet, and he died. In the morning, Master Ko was upset about his son’s death and sets up Tai-hoi's funeral in the town square and waits for Butcher Wing, who will come that way, when Butcher Wing comes, Master Ko attempts to murder him, Butcher Wing fights back, using Tai-hoi's funeral tablet against Master Ko, that Master Ko breaks Tai-hoi’s funeral tablet, even more infuriated, Master Ko redoubles his attack, with help from Beggar So, Butcher Wing to defeat Master Ko into a submission, after the fight, Wong Fei-hung returns, the film ends with a joke as Wong Fei-hung prepares to punish Butcher Wing for incorrectly replacing Po Chi Lam's sign was turned upside down. DVD release. On July 23, 2001, the DVD was released by Hong Kong Legends at UK in Region 2.
395785	Lee Dong-hae () (born 15 October 1986) mononymously credited as Donghae (), is a South Korean Idol singer, dancer, rapper songwriter, promotional model and actor. He is best known as the main dancer, vocal, and rapper of the K-pop boy band Super Junior and its subgroup, Super Junior-M and Donghae & Eunhyuk. He is also one of the first four Korean artists to appear on Chinese postage stamps. Career. Pre-debut. Donghae was born in Mokpo, Jeollanam on 15 October 1986. Donghae initially wanted to become an athlete, but under the influence of his father, who once desired to become a singer, Donghae decided to train himself to become a singer. In 2001, Donghae signed a contract with SM Entertainment soon after he jointly won the "Best Outward Appearance" award with future band mate Sungmin on the company's third annual "SM Youth Best Contest". Under SM Entertainment, Donghae was put in singing, dancing, and acting lessons, and was then recruited into a five-member boy band "Smile", with future band mate Leeteuk, but the idea was soon dropped. In 2004, Donghae, along with Leeteuk were put into another boy band and formed Super Junior with ten other trainees. The group later became known as "Super Junior 05", the first generation of a rotational music group, "Super Junior". In November 2005, several days before the group's debuted, Donghae made a brief appearance at SBS's "Shin Dong-yup's There Is There 2005–2006: Debut with Super Junior. Donghae officially debut as part of 12-member project group "Super Junior 05" on 6 November 2005 on SBS's music programme "Popular Songs", performing their first single, "Twins (Knock Out)". Their debut album "SuperJunior05 (Twins)" was released a month later on 5 December 2005 and debuted at #3 on the monthly MIAK K-pop album charts. In March 2006, SM Entertainment began to recruit new members for the next Super Junior generation. However, plans changed and the company declared a halt in forming future Super Junior generations. Following the addition of thirteenth member Kyuhyun, the group dropped the suffix "05" and became officially credited as Super Junior. The re-polished group's first CD single "U" was released on 7 June 2006, which was their most successful single until the release of "Sorry, Sorry" in March 2009. Donghae made his acting debut in Super Junior's horror documentary "Mystery 6", broadcast in early 2006. The documentary surrounds Donghae and his peculiar ability to see and feel ghosts. In August 2006, Donghae played the role of a human turned cyborg in the Korean version of BoA's music video drama, "Key of Heart", his first lead appearance in a music video. 2007–2008: Sub-group. Donghae's official debut as an actor was in July 2007, with the release of Super Junior's debut film, "Attack on the Pin-Up Boys". Donghae stars as a class mate and close friend of Kim Kibum, a high school student who investigates on a mysterious attack on pretty boys in various high schools in town. In late 2007, Donghae was featured in Girls' Generation's "Kissing You" music video. Also, he and Kyuhyun appeared and sang for facial wash product commercial "Happy Bubble" with actress Han Ji Min.
1184163	Kelendria Trene Rowland (born February 11, 1981), also known simply as Kelly Rowland, is an American recording artist, songwriter, dancer, actress and television personality. Born in Atlanta, Georgia and raised in Houston, Texas, Rowland rose to fame as a founding member of Destiny's Child, who have sold 60 million records worldwide, making them one of the world's best-selling girl groups. As of November 2012, Rowland, as a solo artist, has sold over 24 million records worldwide. Her work has earned her several achievements, including a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame with Destiny's Child, four Grammy Awards, a Billboard Music Award, and a Soul Train Music Award. Rowland has been honored by the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) and "Essence" magazine for her contributions to music. Rowland released her debut solo album "Simply Deep" in 2002, while Destiny's Child was in recess. It produced her worldwide number-one single "Dilemma" with rapper Nelly, and the international top-ten hit "Stole". The album topped the UK Albums Chart and sold more than 2.5 million copies worldwide. Following the group's disbandment in 2005, Rowland released her second solo effort "Ms. Kelly" in 2007 and despite being less successful than its predecessor, it included the international top-ten singles "Like This" and "Work". Rowland scored her second worldwide number-one hit in 2009, as a featured artist on French DJ David Guetta's single "When Love Takes Over", and two years later she collaborated with Italian DJ Alex Gaudino on the international top-ten single "What a Feeling". Both songs are included in the international edition of her third album "Here I Am" (2011), which topped the US R&B/Hip Hop Albums chart. It also included the international top-ten single "Commander" and the US R&B number-one "Motivation". Rowland's fourth album "Talk a Good Game" was released in 2013, and was preceded by its lead single "Kisses Down Low". Apart from her work in music, Rowland has also launched a career in film and television. In 2002, she made her acting debut with guest appearances on sitcom series "The Hughleys" and "Taina", prior to appearing in various films, including "Freddy vs. Jason" (2003), "The Seat Filler" (2004) and "Think Like a Man" (2012). In 2007, Rowland appeared as a choirmaster on the reality show "Clash of the Choirs", and in 2009 she served as the host on Bravo's reality competition series "The Fashion Show" alongside Isaac Mizrahi. Rowland served as a judge for the eighth series of UK version of "The X Factor" in 2011, and will serve as a judge for the third season of the American version in 2013. In 2012, she became a dance master on the first series of the Australian dance talent show "Everybody Dance Now". Life and career. 1981–96: Early life. Kelendria Trene Rowland was born on February 11, 1981, in Atlanta, Georgia. She is the daughter of Doris Rowland Garrison and Christopher Lovett. When she was seven, her mother took her and left her father, who was an abusive alcoholic. At the age of eight, she relocated to Houston. Rowland was placed into a rapping and dancing group, along with Beyoncé Knowles and friend LaTavia Roberson. Originally named Girl's Tyme in 1992, they were eventually cut down to six members. West coast R&B producer, Arne Frager, flew into Houston to see them and eventually brought them to his studio, The Plant Recording Studio, in Northern California. As part of efforts to sign Girl's Tyme to a major label record deal, Frager's strategy was to debut them in "Star Search", the biggest talent show on national TV at that time. They participated, but lost the competition. To manage the group, Mathew Knowles, Beyoncé's father, resigned in 1995 from his job as a medical-equipment salesman. He dedicated his time and established a "boot camp" for their training. At this time Rowland moved in with the Knowles. Not long after the inclusion of Rowland, Mathew cut the original lineup to four with LeToya Luckett joining in 1993. Rehearsing in Tina Knowles' hair styling salon and their backyards, the group continued performing as an opening act for other established R&B girl groups of the time. They auditioned before record labels and were finally signed to Elektra Records, only to be dropped months later, before they could release an album. 1997–02: Breakthrough with Destiny's Child. Taken from a passage in the Biblical Book of Isaiah, the group changed their name to Destiny's Child in 1993. Together, they performed in local events and, after four years on the road, the group was signed to Columbia Records in late 1997. That same year, Destiny's Child recorded their major label debut song "Killing Time", for the soundtrack to the 1997 film, "Men in Black". The following year, the group released their self-titled debut album, spawning hits such as "No, No, No". The album established the group as a viable act in the music industry, amassing moderate sales and winning the group three Soul Train Lady of Soul Awards. The group rose to stardom after releasing their multi-platinum second album "The Writing's on the Wall" in 1999. The record featured some of the group's most widely known songs such as "Bills, Bills, Bills", "Jumpin' Jumpin'" and "Say My Name", which became their most-successful song at the time, and would remain as one of their signature songs. "Say My Name" won Best R&B Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals and Best R&B Song at the 43rd Grammy Awards. "The Writing's on the Wall" sold more than 15 million copies worldwide, essentially becoming their breakthrough album. Along with their commercial successes, the group became entangled in much-publicized turmoil involving the filing of a lawsuit by Luckett and Roberson for breach of contract. The issue was heightened after Michelle Williams and Farrah Franklin appeared in the video of "Say My Name", implying that Luckett and Roberson had already been replaced. Eventually, Luckett and Roberson left the group. Franklin would eventually fade from the group after five months, as evidenced by her absences during promotional appearances and concerts. She attributed her departure to negative vibes in the group resulting from the strife. After settling on their final lineup, the trio recorded "Independent Women Part I", which appeared on the soundtrack to the 2000 film, "Charlie's Angels". It became their best-charting single, topping the "Billboard" Hot 100 for eleven consecutive weeks. The success cemented the new lineup and skyrocketed them to fame. Later that year, Luckett and Roberson withdrew their case against their now-former band mates, while maintaining the suit against Mathew, which ended in both sides agreeing to stop public disparaging. Later that year, while Destiny's Child was completing their third album "Survivor", Rowland appeared on the remix of Avant's single "Separated". "Survivor", which channeled the turmoil the band underwent, spawned its lead single of the same name, which was a response to the experience. The song went on to win a Grammy Award for Best R&B Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals. The themes of "Survivor", however, caused Luckett and Roberson to refile their lawsuit; the proceedings were eventually settled in June 2002. Meanwhile, the album was released in May 2001, debuting at number one on the US "Billboard" 200 with first-week sales of 663,000 copies sold. To date, "Survivor" has sold over twelve million copies worldwide, over forty percent of which were sold in the US alone. The album also spawned the number-one hit "Bootylicious". After releasing their remix album "This Is the Remix" in 2002, the group announced their temporary break-up to pursue solo projects. 2002–06: "Simply Deep", acting career debut, "Destiny Fulfilled" and group disbandment. In 2002, Kelly Rowland was featured on Nelly's single "Dilemma", which won the pair a Grammy Award for Best Rap/Sung Collaboration. The song became one of the most successful singles of the year, topping many charts worldwide including the United States, where it became Rowland's first number-one single as a solo artist. Caroline Sullivan of "The Guardian" wrote that because of the song's success, "Rowland is no longer a mere backing vocalist for Beyoncé". Rowland's debut solo album "Simply Deep" was released on October 22, 2002 in the US. Featuring production contributions by Mark J. Feist, Big Bert, Rich Harrison, and singers Brandy and Solange Knowles providing background vocals, the album took Rowland's solo work further into an alternative music mixture, which Rowland described as a "weird fusion a little bit of Sade and a little bit of rock." "Simply Deep" debuted at number 12 on the "Billboard" 200 and at number three on the R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart, with first-week sales of 77,000 copies sold. It was eventually certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). As of 2013, "Simply Deep" remains as Rowland's best-selling album in the US, with 602,000 copies sold. Released to an even bigger success in international territories, the album topped the UK Albums Chart and became a gold-seller in Australia, Canada and New Zealand, resulting into worldwide sales total of 2.5 million copies. "Simply Deep" yielded the international top-ten single "Stole" and the UK top-five single "Can't Nobody". Rowland branched out into acting in 2002, playing the recurring role of Carly in the fourth season of UPN sitcom "The Hughleys". She continued her acting career the following year, with guest roles in UPN sitcom "Eve" as Cleo, and in NBC drama series "American Dreams" as Martha Reeves. In August 2003, Rowland made her big screen debut playing the supporting role of Kia Waterson alongside Robert Englund and Monica Keena in the slasher film, "Freddy vs. Jason", which grossed $114.5 million at the box office worldwide. In July 2004, Rowland starred opposite Duane Martin and Shemar Moore in the romantic comedy "The Seat Filler", which grossed $17.9 million worldwide. She played Jhnelle, a pop star who falls for an awards-show seat filler whom she mistakes for a high-profile entertainment attorney. After a three-year journey that involved concentration on individual solo projects, Rowland rejoined Beyoncé and Michelle Williams for Destiny's Child's final studio album "Destiny Fulfilled", released on November 15, 2004. The album hit number two on the "Billboard" 200, and spawned the top-five singles "Lose My Breath" and "Soldier", which features T.I. and Lil Wayne. The following year, Destiny's Child embarked on a worldwide concert tour, Destiny Fulfilled ... And Lovin' It. During the last stop of the European tour in Barcelona, Spain on June 11, Rowland announced that they would disband following the North American leg of the tour. Destiny's Child released their first compilation album "Number 1's" on October 25 in the US, which peaked at number one on the "Billboard" 200. On March 28, 2006, Destiny's Child accepted a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Rowland began dating American football player Roy Williams in 2004 and they became engaged later that year. However, the couple called off their engagement in January 2005, two months prior to the planned wedding ceremony in March. Williams stated that they did not "know each other well enough to get married". Shortly after, Rowland appeared on the cover of "Modern Bride" wearing her wedding dress. The singer stated that she was so embarrassed about the cover because the public had already knew about her and Williams' separation. "I didn't even want to go out of the house and I really didn't want to put my family in the position of having to answer questions about the wedding". After Hurricane Katrina in 2005, Rowland and Beyoncé founded the Survivor Foundation, a charitable entity set up to provide transitional housing for victims and storm evacuees in the Houston, Texas area. The Survivor Foundation extended the philanthropic mission of the Knowles-Rowland Center for Youth, a multi-purpose community outreach facility in downtown Houston. Rowland and Beyoncé lent their voices to a collaboration with Kitten Sera, entitled "All That I'm Lookin for". The song appeared on "The Katrina CD" album, whose proceeds went to the Recording Artists for Hope organization. In 2006, Rowland joined other artists such as Pink and Avril Lavigne in ads for so-called empowerment tags for the ALDO Fights AIDS campaign, which went on sale exclusively at ALDO stores and benefited the YouthAIDS initiative. Rowland returned to television later that year, playing ambitious 21-year-old apprentice Tammy Hamilton, in the sixth season of UPN sitcom "Girlfriends". Rowland initially hoped her three-episode stint would expand to a larger recurring role, but as the show was moved to The CW Television Network the following year plans for a return eventually went nowhere. 2007–09: "Ms. Kelly", television debut, new management and label. In June 2007, Kelly Rowland embarked on the Ms. Kelly Tour to promote her second solo album "Ms. Kelly". The five date tour visited Europe, North America, Africa and Asia. "Ms. Kelly" was released on July 3, 2007 in the United States. Originally entitled "My Story", the album's first version was actually scheduled for a June 2006 release, but Rowland, her management and Columbia Records decided to shelve the album at the last minute to re-work a version with a different vibe as the singer considered the final tracklisting "too full of midtempos and ballads." Rowland eventually consulted additional producers to collaborate on the album, including Billy Mann, Mysto & Pizzi, Sean Garrett, Scott Storch, and Polow da Don. Upon its release, "Ms. Kelly" debuted at number six on the "Billboard" 200, and at number two on the R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart, with first-week sales of 86,000 copies. Outside the US, the album widely failed to reprise the success of "Simply Deep", barely reaching the top-forty on the majority of all charts it appeared on, except for the UK, where it opened at number 37. "Ms. Kelly" included the UK top-five hit "Like This", featuring Eve, and the international top-ten hit "Work". In July 2007, Rowland released her first DVD entitled "BET Presents Kelly Rowland", which celebrates the release "Ms. Kelly" and features an interview with Rowland about the album's production, footage of her time with Destiny's Child, live performances and music videos. Following the album's lukewarm sales, it was re-released as an extended play entitled, "", on March 25, 2008. Previously unreleased Bobby Womack cover "Daylight", a collaboration with Travie McCoy, served as the EP's lead single and was a moderate success in the UK. By April 2008, "Ms. Kelly" had managed to sell over 1.2 million copies worldwide. In 2007, Rowland, along with stars such as Jessica Simpson and the cast of "Grey's Anatomy" autographed pink Goody Ouchless brushes that were made available for auction on eBay, with all proceeds going to Breast Cancer Awareness. In addition, the singer teamed up with Kanye West, Nelly Furtado and Snoop Dogg to design a Nike sneaker for another eBay auction. All proceeds went to AIDS Awareness. In October 2007, Rowland auditioned for the role of Louise, Carrie Bradshaw's assistant, in the 2008 of HBO's comedy series "Sex and the City". The part eventually went to Jennifer Hudson. Two months later, Rowland appeared as a choirmaster in the first season of the NBC talent show "Clash of the Choirs" among other musicians such as Michael Bolton, Patti LaBelle, Nick Lachey, and Blake Shelton. Rowland's choir finished fifth in the competition, and "Clash of the Choirs" did not return for a second season. In 2008, Rowland officially became ambassador for MTV's Staying Alive Foundation, which aims to reduce discrimination against HIV and AIDS victims. She visited projects in Tanzania and Kenya to promote the charity, and underwent a HIV and AIDS test in Africa to raise awareness of the deadly diseases. In 2009, Rowland connected with Serve.MTV.com, MTV's platform to connect young people with local volunteerism opportunities, for a series of on-air PSAs. From battling homelessness to beautifying impoverished neighborhoods to saving whales, Rowland was joined by the likes of Cameron Diaz, will.i.am, and Sean Kingston as they discuss causes they volunteer to support, and urge young people to join with their friends in making civil service a part of their lifestyle. That same year, she spearheaded a bone marrow drive, and joined fellow singers Alesha Dixon and Pixie Lott to create T-shirts for River Island in aid of the Prince's Trust, profits from which help change young lives. In January 2009, Rowland ended her professional relationship with Beyoncé's father Mathew Knowles, who had managed her career since she was a member of Destiny's Child. Knowles stressed that no animosity was involved in the decision and acknowledged that Rowland will always be a part of the Knowles family. Then two months later, Rowland announced that she left Columbia Records, adding that she "felt the need to explore new directions, new challenges, and new freedoms outside my comfort zone." In an interview with "Entertainment Weekly", Rowland stated that the label ended her contract because "Ms. Kelly" was not commercially successful. She later signed with Universal Motown Records. In April 2009, Rowland was featured on French DJ David Guetta's single "When Love Takes Over", which topped many charts in Europe and received a Grammy Award nomination for Best Dance Recording. In May 2009, Rowland was cast to host the first season of Bravo's reality competition series "The Fashion Show" alongside Isaac Mizrahi, but was replaced by fashion model Iman in the second season. 2010–12: "Here I Am", compilations and "The X Factor UK". In 2010, Kelly Rowland launched I Heart My Girlfriends, a charity that focuses on self-esteem, date violence prevention, community service, abstinence, sports, drugs and alcohol and smoking avoidance, obesity, disabilities, and education. In April 2010, Rowland toured Australia alongside Akon, Pitbull, Sean Paul, Jay Sean, and Eve for the Australian urban festival, Supafest. Later that month, her song "Everywhere You Go", featuring an all-star supergroup of international artists called Rhythm of Africa United, was released as the MTN theme song for the 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa. In October 2010, the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) honored Rowland at the second annual ASCAP Presents Women Behind the Music, an event which recognizes women in all areas of the music industry. Rowland's first compilation album, "Work: The Best of Kelly Rowland", was released on October 25, 2010 but failed to impact the charts. In January 2011, Rowland reunited with Nelly on "Gone", a sequel to their successful 2002 collaboration "Dilemma". Upon its release, the song failed to reprise the success of "Dilemma". In April 2011, Rowland appeared on Italian DJ Alex Gaudino's single "What a Feeling", which became another UK top-ten hit. Originally scheduled for release in 2010, Rowland's third studio album "Here I Am" was released on July 26, 2011 in the United States. The album sold 77,000 copies in its first week and debuted atop the R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart. "Here I Am" produced the successful lead single "Commander", which peaked in the top-ten of many charts in Europe, and the UK top-ten single "Down for Whatever". It also included another successful single "Motivation", with Lil Wayne, which topped the R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart for seven consecutive weeks and was certified double platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). "Motivation" won Song of the Year at the 2011 Soul Train Music Awards and Top R&B Song at the 2012 Billboard Music Awards, and received a Grammy Award nomination for Best Rap/Sung Collaboration. Rowland was the face of Diddy's women's fragrance Empress, the female counterpart to his men's fragrance I Am King. She was also the worldwide ambassador for watchmakers company TW Steel. Rowland's second compilation album, "", was released on October 18, 2011, but failed to impact the charts. She also released her first fitness DVD entitled, "Sexy Abs with Kelly Rowland". Later that year, Rowland returned to television as a judge on the eighth series of "The X Factor" (UK). Due to a conflicting schedule, Rowland stepped down as a judge in 2012 and was replaced by Nicole Scherzinger. During the Black Women in Music event held on February 8, 2012, "Essence" magazine honored Rowland and music executive Sylvia Rhone for their contributions to music. In April 2012, Rowland toured Australia alongside Ludacris, Chris Brown, Ice Cube, Lupe Fiasco, and Big Sean for the urban festival, Supafest. That same month, she returned to the big screen playing the supporting role of Brenda in the romantic comedy "Think Like a Man". The film, which also starred Michael Ealy, Jerry Ferrara, Meagan Good, Regina Hall, and Kevin Hart, topped the US box office and grossed $91.5 million. Rowland recorded "Need a Reason" with Future and Bei Maejor for the "Think Like a Man" soundtrack. In June 2012, Rowland became the face of popular rum brand Bacardi. Rowland and German production team Project B reworked the Bacardi song, "Bacardi Feeling (Summer Dreamin')", and released an accompanying music video to help promote the brand. In August 2012, Rowland became a dance master in the first season of the Australian talent show "Everybody Dance Now" alongside Jason Derulo. The show was cancelled after the fourth episode due to poor ratings. "The Hollywood Reporter" announced later that month that Rowland will appear in the pilot of BET's upcoming sitcom "What Would Dylan Do?". Rowland will play the lead role of Dylan, a struggling LA-based relationship blogger who lives with roommates Cherise (Gabrielle Dennis) and Brooke (Melanie Liburd). 2013: Destiny's Child reunion, "Talk a Good Game" and "The X Factor US". In January 2013, Destiny's Child released a compilation album entitled "Love Songs", a collection of romance-themed songs from their previous albums as well as newly recorded song "Nuclear". On February 3, during Beyoncé's performance at the Super Bowl XLVII halftime show, held at the Mercedes-Benz Superdome in New Orleans, Kelly Rowland and Michelle Williams joined Beyoncé on stage and performed "Bootylicious", "Independent Women" and "Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)". On February 24, Rowland co-hosted the Academy Awards pre-show for the 85th Academy Awards alongside Kristin Chenoweth, Lara Spencer, Robin Roberts and Jess Cagle. In May, it was announced that Rowland will become a judge on the third season of the US version of "The X Factor" alongside Simon Cowell, Demi Lovato, and Paulina Rubio. Later that month, Rowland performed as a supporting headlining act at the RiverFest 2013 in Little Rock, Arkansas. Rowland embarked on the Lights Out Tour, a co-headlining tour with The-Dream, to promote her fourth studio album "Talk a Good Game". Formerly titled "Year of the Woman", the album was released on June 18 in the US. It is Rowland's first release with Republic Records following Universal Music Group's decision to close Universal Motown and Universal Republic, and reviving Motown Records and Republic Records. "Talk a Good Game" sold 68,000 copies in its first week and debuted at number four on the "Billboard" 200, becoming Rowland's third top-ten album in the US. The album was preceded by its first two singles "Kisses Down Low", which was a moderate success on the R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart, and "Dirty Laundry". Artistry. Musical style. Rowland can be classfied as a mezzo-soprano, and her music includes various styles of musical genres, including contemporary R&B, pop, hip hop, soul, rock and dance. Her debut solo album "Simply Deep" (2002) followed an adult-alternative rock sound, while her second album "Ms. Kelly" (2007) featured an urban sound. In an interview with "The Independent", Rowland admitted that with her first two albums she struggled to find her sound. "I was in a stage with the first two records where I was searching and I was like, let me try a rock-dance approach, the label management wanted me to try it and I did it ... And then after that came a more urban approach with "Ms. Kelly" in 2007." Her third album "Here I Am" (2011) consisted of a pop and R&B sound, with subtle influences of dance. Rowland stated that meeting French DJ David Guetta has influenced her to record dance music. During production of the album, Rowland stated that part of the reason for the new sound on "Here I Am" was wanting to do something different, saying "I knew I couldn't be afraid of this direction, and I wasn't going to let the thoughts and opinions of others make me afraid to go in this direction". Most of the lyrical themes in "Simply Deep" (2002) speak of love and life experiences, particularly in the songs "Dilemma", in which Rowland expresses her endless love to her love interest, and "Stole", in which she sings about an emotional "tale of school shootings and suicides". In "Ms. Kelly" (2007), Rowland covers topics such as her "deeply personal relationship issues" in her songs, "Still in Love with My Ex", "Flashback", "Love", "Better Without You" and "Gotsta Go (Part I)". Alex Macpherson of "The Guardian" noted that the songs could be about Rowland's former relationship with American football player Roy Williams. "Here I Am" (2011) included common themes of womanhood, sexual intimacy and love. Some of Rowland's other songs such as "Work", "I'm Dat Chick" and "Work It Man" have been musically compared to the work of former bandmate Beyoncé Knowles. Influences. Rowland has cited Whitney Houston and Janet Jackson as her biggest musical influences. She stated that Houston "was the woman that inspired me to sing". Rowland is also inspired by Sade Adu and says that "she has a style that's totally her own". Her other inspirations include Destiny's Child, Martin Luther King Jr., Mariah Carey, Mary J. Blige, Naomi Campbell, and Oprah Winfrey, whom she describes as "the female version of God". Rowland has discussed how living in Miami has influenced her style, growth, and music. From a fashion perspective, Rowland credits her grandmother, Halle Berry, Jennifer Lopez, Beyoncé Knowles, and Oprah Winfrey as her style icons. Rowland cited Houston, Knowles, and Brandy Norwood as vocal inspirations for her second solo album "Ms. Kelly", "I love how different they are. I love how they take themselves to the next level". Her third solo album "Here I Am" was inspired by Donna Summer and Diana Ross, as well as dance producers David Guetta and will.i.am. Rowland's fourth solo album "Talk a Good Game" was also inspired by Houston, Marvin Gaye, and Stevie Wonder. Public image. After Destiny's Child disbanded, Rowland has always been compared by the media to her former bandmate Beyoncé Knowles. After the international success of her singles "Dilemma" and "Stole" and of her debut album "Simply Deep", music critics wrote of Rowland as an emancipated and different artist from Beyoncé, that has established herself as a solo singer and songwriter. Over the years, the media have speculated about a feud between the two and have often referred to Rowland as living in Beyoncé's shadow. In an interview with "omg! Insider", Rowland commented on the feud rumors stating, "I think the people wanted those stories for years and that's just so sad on them because it's not like that". She also commented on her relationship with Beyoncé stating, "I love my sister and she is so incredibly supportive. One of the closest people to me. I love her to death". Rowland expressed her envy of Beyoncé's solo success in the lyrics to "Dirty Laundry": "When my sister was on stage, killing it like a motherfucker, I was in rage, feeling it like a motherfucker. Bird in a cage, you'd never know what I was dealing with. Went our separate ways but I was happy she was killin' it. Bittersweet, she was up, I was down. No lie, I feel good for her but what do I do now?". The song garnered widespread media attention upon its release. Rowland stated that there was a time in her life when she struggled about being dark-skinned. Beyoncé's mother Tina Knowles would eventually help Rowland embrace her skin color. In October 2007, Rowland underwent plastic surgery to receive breast implants. She stated, "I simply went from an A-cup to a B-cup" and that "the decision was 10 years in the making". In 2012, Rowland ranked at number 61 on "Complex" magazine's list of "The 100 Hottest Female Singers of All Time" and was recognized as one of the best-dressed women by "Glamour UK". In April 2013, Rowland ranked seventh on "People"'s Most Beautiful in the World list. Tours. Headlining Supporting
590122	Pyar Kiye Jaa () is a 1966 Hindi language movie directed by C. V. Sridhar starring Kishore Kumar, Shashi Kapoor, Mehmood, Om Prakash, Mumtaz, Kalpana and Rajasree. It was a "semi-hit" at the box office. The film is a remake of the Tamil comedy "Kaadhalikka Neramillai" (1964). Actress Rajasree starred in all the three versions of the film. Awards and nominations. According to film expert Rajesh Subramanian, Mehmood bagged the Radhakrishan award for best comedian instituted by B R Chopra in honour of yesteryear actor Radhakrishan. Mehmood acknowledged that Om Prakash, who played his father in the film,equally deserved the award and his fabulous reactions made the scenes more entertaining.
585111	Anaganaga O Dheerudu () is a 2011 Indian Telugu fantasy-adventure film directed by debutant, Prakash Kovelamudi, in his first mainstream film. Co-produced by Disney World Cinema with veteran director K. Raghavendra Rao at a budget of 27 crore, it stars Siddharth, Shruti Haasan, in her Telugu debut, and Harshita as protagonists with Lakshmi Manchu making her debut in a negative role. The film features musical score by Salim-Sulaiman, an ensemble soundtrack by Salim-Sulaiman, M. M. Keeravani, Koti and Mickey J Meyer, while cinematography and editing are handled by Soundar Rajan and Sravan Katikaneni, respectively. "Prasad Devineni" of Arka Media Works is the Line producer of the movie. "Anaganaga O Dheerudu" focuses on the journey of Moksha, a nine year-old girl with special healing powers, and Yodha, her fierce warrior bodyguard, as they travel to a faraway village to save its children, under the constant menace of the evil witch Irendri. Plot. Irendri (Lakshmi Manchu) is a sorceress, who captures sarpa sakthi (serpent power) and tries to terrorise people of Anga Rashtram. So, a guru arrests her and doesn't allow her to play with the lives of people and destroys her. Even before she was destroyed with the sarpa sakti, Irendri takes her soul away and traps in a locket. Though she dies, her soul (atma) lives in the locket. Her great great grand daughter is Priya (Shruthi Haasan) and she lives as a gypsy. However, she too possesses some magical powers, as she was born into a sorceress’ family. Yodha (Siddharth) is a person who always lures girls and romances with them at whenever there is opportunity. He is smitten by Priya’s beauty and falls in love with her. Sudigundam (Ravibabu) is a local goon and he attacks the gypsies’ village. Yodha prevents him and defeats him in a fight. However, Sudigundam makes another attack and ties the hands of Yodha and sets afire the entire village. In this process, the locket in the neck of Priya falls down and Irendri’s soul comes out with the touch of fire. The sarpa sakthi tells her that she could gain power with the drop of blood of Priya. So, Irendri takes away Priya and imprisons her. Meanwhile, Yodha turns blind as Sudigundam pierces his eyes. However, Yodha gets saved by a swami (Subbaraya Sharma) and appoints to save a girl named Moksha (Baby Harshita), who has divine powers. Irendri, in order to take revenge, attacks Agartha, a village in Anga Rashtram and make the children of the village senseless. Druki (Ramji) goes to Pushpagiri to bring Moksha, who could save their children. So, Druki, Yodha and Moksha start from Pushpagiri and reach Agartha. At this juncture, the sarpa sakti tells Irendri that the blood of Moksha would make her Maha Sakti if it was taken by her on lunar eclipse day. So, Irendri sends her men to capture Moksha. But Yodha kills all of them. Irendri again sends Sudigundam, the commander-in-chief, to bring her. Yodha follows them in search of Moksha and finds that Priya was alive and saves both Moksha and Priya. Moksha with her divine power brings back Yodha’s vision. Then, Yodha decides to completely destroy Irendri as she is trying to harm people and succeeds in the climax. Production. Pre-production for "Anaganaga O Dheerudu" began in June 2009 and the cast of the film was finalized soon after, with the film creating expectations as it marked the debuts of noted star children Prakash Rao, Shruti Haasan and Lakshmi Manchu. Furthermore, the film marked a return to a rarely filmed genre in Indian cinema, the fantasy adventure. Shooting began in October 2009, and took place across India, whilst scenes were also shot in Turkey. During the production stage, Disney agreed to co-produce the film with Raghavendra Rao's home banner, a Bellyful of Dreams Entertainment, marking the first South Indian production by Disney. Release. The film was released internationally on January 14, 2011 during the Sankranti festival to average reviews and box office collections. Dubbed versions of the film were created in Tamil and Malayalam but their release was put on hold indefinitely due to the unexpected failure of the Telugu version. The film is rated PG-13 in North America for "violence and scary images" making it the sixth of ten Disney-branded films to receive the rating. Home media. The film was released by Buena Vista Home Entertainment on DVD and digital download on July 26, 2011. The release will be produced in DVD widescreen and include a Telugu language track plus English subtitles.
53869	Small Town Gay Bar is a 2006 documentary directed by Malcolm Ingram that focuses on two gay bars in the rural deep Southeast United States, one in Shannon, Mississippi, and one in Meridian, Mississippi. The documentary was produced by View Askew Productions with Kevin Smith serving as executive producer. Plot. The story of community in the Deep South that is forced to deal with the struggles of ignorance, hypocrisy and oppression, Malcolm Ingram's "Small Town Gay Bar" visits two Mississippi communities and bases those visits around two small gay bars, Rumors in Shannon, Mississippi, and Different Seasons/Crossroads in Meridian, Mississippi.
1057978	The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada is a 2005 Mexican-American western film directed by and starring Tommy Lee Jones and written by Guillermo Arriaga. It also stars Barry Pepper, Julio Cedillo, Dwight Yoakam, and January Jones. The film was inspired by the real-life killing in Texas of an American teenager, Esequiel Hernandez Jr, by United States Marines during a military operation near the United States–Mexico border as well as the novel "As I Lay Dying" by William Faulkner which displays the same plot, promise, and challenges encountered in the movie. Plot. The film has many flashbacks and sometimes the same event is shown twice from different perspectives. Melquiades Estrada, a Mexican illegal alien working in Texas as a cowboy, shoots at a coyote which is menacing his small flock of goats. A nearby border patrolman, Norton, thinks he is being attacked and shoots back, killing Melquiades. Norton quickly buries Melquiades and does not report anything. Melquiades' body is found and is reburied in a local cemetery by the sheriff's office. Evidence that he may have been killed by the U.S. Border Patrol is ignored by the local sheriff, Belmont, who would prefer to avoid trouble with the Border Patrol. Pete Perkins, a rancher and Melquiades' best friend, finds out from a waitress, Rachel, that the killer was Norton. Perkins kidnaps Norton after tying up his wife, Lou Ann, and forces him to dig up Melquiades' body. Perkins had promised Melquiades that he would bury him in his home town of Jiménez in Mexico if he died in Texas. Perkins undertakes a journey on horseback into Mexico with the body tied to a mule and his captive Norton in tow. It is clear to Sheriff Belmont that Perkins has kidnapped Norton, and so police officers and the Border Patrol begin to search for them. Belmont sees them heading towards the Mexico border, but as he takes aim at Perkins, he can't bring himself to shoot and returns to town, leaving the pursuit to the border patrol. On their way across the harsh countryside, the pair experience a series of surreal encounters. They spend an afternoon with an elderly blind American man (Levon Helm), who listens to Mexican radio for company. The man asks to be shot since there is no one left to take care of him. He does not want to commit suicide because, he argues, doing so would offend God. Perkins refuses as, if he killed the man, "he" would offend God. Norton attempts to escape and is bitten by a rattlesnake and eventually discovered by a group of illegal immigrants crossing into Texas. Perkins gives one of them a horse as barter payment for guiding them across the river to an herbal healer. She turns out to be a woman whose nose Norton had broken when he punched her in the face a few weeks previously during an arrest. At Perkins's request, she saves Norton's life before exacting her revenge by breaking Norton's nose with a coffee pot. The captivity, the tiring journey, and the rotting corpse slowly take a profound psychological toll on Norton. At one point the duo encounter a group of Mexican cowboys watching American soap operas on a television hooked up to their pickup truck. The program is the same episode that was airing when Norton had sex with his wife in their trailer earlier in the movie. Norton is visibly shaken and is given half a bottle of liquor by one of the cowboys. Norton's wife is shown as she decides to leave the border town to return to her home town of Cincinnati. She has grown distant from her husband and seems unconcerned about his kidnapping, stating that he is "beyond redemption." Perkins and Norton then arrive at a town that is supposed to be near Jiménez — the town Melquiades Estrada claimed was his home. No one in the town has heard of Jiménez. Perkins has some luck in locating a woman Melquiades indicated was his wife but, when Perkins confronts her, she states that she has never heard of Melquiades Estrada and lives in town with her husband and children. She does visibly react to Estrada's Polaroid photograph Perkins shows her of Melquiades standing behind her and her children, stating that she does "...not want to get in trouble with her husband." Perkins continues onward searching for Melquiades' descriptions of a place "filled with beauty." Eventually they come upon a ruined house which Perkins feels was the one Melquiades had mentioned. Perkins and Norton repair the walls, construct a new roof and bury Estrada for the third and final time. Perkins then demands that Norton beg forgiveness for the killing, but Norton responds with obstinacy. Perkins fires several shots from his pistol around Norton until he breaks down and relents, begging forgiveness from Melquiades. Perkins accepts his outpouring of grief and leaves Norton a horse, and in passing calls him "son." As Perkins rides away, Norton calls out and asks him if he will be okay, suggesting that Norton may have found the redemption his wife had felt he was incapable of having. Production. The film was shot in the following locations: Big Bend National Park, Big Bend Ranch State Park, Lajitas, Midland, Monahans, Odessa, Van Horn, and Redford, all in Texas. Reception. The film received generally positive reviews; it currently holds an 87% rating at Rotten Tomatoes, where the consensus states: "Tommy Lee Jones' directorial debut is both a potent western and a powerful morality tale." Awards and nominations. Cannes Film Festival Belgian Syndicate of Cinema Critics
719546	Jensen Ross Ackles (born March 1, 1978) is an American actor and director. He is known for his roles in television as Eric Brady in "Days of our Lives", which earned him several Daytime Emmy Award nominations, as well as Alec/X5-494 in "Dark Angel" and Jason Teague in "Smallville". Ackles currently stars as Dean Winchester on the CW series "Supernatural". Early life. Ackles was born in Dallas, Texas, the son of Donna Joan (née Shaffer) and Alan Roger Ackles, an actor. Ackles has a brother, Joshua, who is three years older, and sister, Mackenzie, who is seven years younger. He is of English, Irish, and Scottish ancestry. He had planned to study sports medicine at Texas Tech University and to become a physical therapist, but instead moved to Los Angeles to start his acting career. Career. After modelling on and off since the age of 4, Ackles began to concentrate on an acting career in 1996. He appeared in several guest roles on "Mr. Rhodes", "Sweet Valley High", and "Cybill" before joining the cast of the NBC soap opera "Days of our Lives" as Eric Brady in 1997. He won a 1998 Soap Opera Digest Award for Best Male Newcomer and went on to be nominated three times (in 1998, 1999, and 2000) for a Daytime Emmy Award for "Outstanding Younger Actor in a Drama Series" for his work on "Days of our Lives". Ackles departed "Days of our Lives" in 2000 and went on to appear in the mini-series "Blonde", about the life of Marilyn Monroe. He also auditioned for the role of the young Clark Kent on "Smallville", a role offered to actor Tom Welling instead. Next he appeared in a guest role on the James Cameron television series "Dark Angel" on Fox in 2001 as serial killer Ben/X5-493, the "brother" of main character Max/X5-452 (played by Jessica Alba). His character died in the episode, but Ackles returned to the show as a series regular in the second season as Ben's sane clone, Alec/X5-494. He remained with the show until its cancellation in 2002. Ackles worked steadily throughout 2003. He joined the cast of the WB's hit show "Dawson's Creek" during its final season, playing CJ, Jen Lindley's lover. Afterward, Ackles filmed several episodes of the unaired series "Still Life" for Fox before it was abruptly dropped. He also had a small role in the 2004 short film "The Plight of Clownana". Ackles was the producer's first choice to play Eliza Dushku's love interest on the second season of "Tru Calling", Ackles turned down the role, which was then offered to Eric Christian Olsen and the character's name was changed to "Jensen" because the producers of "Tru Calling" liked Ackles' name. Ackles returned to Vancouver (where "Dark Angel" was filmed) in 2004 to become a regular on "Smallville" playing the assistant football coach Jason Teague, who was also the newest romantic interest for Lana Lang (played by Kristin Kreuk). He also had a lead role in the 2005 film "Devour" in which Ackles' father, actor Alan Ackles, also had a role playing the father of Ackles' character, Jake Gray. Most recently, Ackles joined the cast of the CW horror/drama series "Supernatural" in 2005, where he stars as Dean Winchester. Dean and his brother Sam (Jared Padalecki) drive throughout the United States hunting paranormal predators, sometimes with their father, John (Jeffrey Dean Morgan). The eighth season began broadcast on October 3, 2012. In the summer of 2007, Ackles took on the role of Priestly in the independent comedy "Ten Inch Hero". The film began hitting the film festival circuit in early 2007 and Ackles received high praise for his comedic timing in the role. In February 2009, the film was released on DVD exclusively by Blockbuster Home Video. He also appeared on stage from June 5–10, 2007 with Lou Diamond Phillips in "A Few Good Men" at Casa Mañana Theatre in Fort Worth, Texas, as Lt. Daniel Kaffee. Ackles received strong praise for his work in this role, which was also his professional theatre debut. In the summer of 2008, Ackles was cast in the remake of the cult film "My Bloody Valentine 3D", which opened nationwide on January 16, 2009. In summer of 2010, Ackles lent his voice as the Red Hood (Jason Todd) for the animated film, "", which was released to DVD and Blu-ray on July 27. On October 22, 2010, Disney Interactive Studios announced that he would be voicing a character named Gibson in the video game, "", which was released on December 7, 2010. Personal life. After three years of dating, Ackles became engaged to actress, model, and gymnast Danneel Harris in November 2009. The couple married on May 15, 2010 in Dallas, Texas. They have one daughter, Justice Jay "JJ" Ackles, born on May 30, 2013. Ackles considers himself a non-denominational Christian.
1712174	Karl-Otto Alberty (also Karl Otto Alberty, b. November 13, 1933 in Berlin) is a German actor. He started out as an amateur boxer before discovering a talent for acting, making his début at the City Theatre in Konstanz in 1959. He then began to take supporting roles in films. He made his first appearance in English-language films as an SD officer (who captures Richard Attenborough) in "The Great Escape" (1963). With his broad face, broken nose and distinctive white-blond hair, he would go on to play variations on the role of German officers in a series of films, notably "The Battle of the Bulge" (1965), Luchino Visconti's "The Damned" (1969), and as a tank commander in "Kelly's Heroes" (1970). He played a Luftwaffe general in Battle of Britain (1969). He also continued to work in both Germany and Italy in a wide variety of films from dramas and comedies to spaghetti westerns. He also made regular appearances on German television. His last appearance was in the TV series "War and Remembrance" (1988). He has been variously credited as "Charles Albert", "Charles Alberty" and "Carlo Alberti".
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1055785	Reservation Road is a 2007 American drama film directed by Terry George and based on the book of the same title by John Burnham Schwartz, who, along with George, adapted the novel for the screenplay. The film, starring Joaquin Phoenix and Mark Ruffalo, deals with the aftermath of a tragic car accident. It was released to theaters on October 19, 2007. Plot. Dwight Arno (Ruffalo) is an attorney who is divorced from his wife Ruth (Sorvino). Ruth controls custody of their son Lucas (Alderson), while Dwight maintains visitation rights. Dwight and Lucas are at a baseball game when Ruth calls, informing Dwight that he is late with returning their son home. Dwight drives Lucas home in a hurry, thinking he might forfeit his visitation privileges. When he loses control of his vehicle, he accidentally hits a young boy, Josh Learner (Curley), who is standing by a roadside. Aware that he has struck the boy, Dwight continues driving on. To Lucas, who has a minor injury from the incident, Dwight lies, saying that they had collided with a tree log. Dwight later hears on a newscast that Josh died in the collision. Subsequently, he tries to cover up the evidence which implicates him in the hit-and-run accident. After the initial shock of losing Josh, Grace (Connelly) gradually tries to get on with life, but her husband Ethan (Phoenix), is obsessed with finding out who killed their son and frustrated with the lack of progress the police are making in their investigation. Ethan eventually decides to hire a lawyer, who oddly enough turns out to be Dwight.
135207	Be Like Others (also known as Transsexual in Iran) is a 2008 documentary film written and directed by Tanaz Eshaghian about transsexuals in Iran. It explores issues of gender and sexual identity while following the personal stories of some of the patients at a Tehran gender reassignment clinic. The film played at the Sundance Film Festival and the Berlin International Film Festival, winning three awards. Overview. Although homosexual relationships are illegal (punishable by death) in Iran, sex reassignment operations are permitted. In 1983, Islamic leader Ayatollah Khomeini passed a fatwa allowing sex-change operations as a cure for "diagnosed transsexuals". "Be Like Others" shows the experiences of male and female patients at Dr. Bahram Mir-Jalali's Mirdamad Surgical Centre, a sex-reassignment clinic in Tehran. One of them is Ali Askar, a 24 year-old man who faces harassment from other men due to his feminine appearance and behaviour. He does not want to become a woman but sees no other options for him in Iranian society. He decides to go ahead with the surgery despite death threats from his father and finds support from Vida, a post-operative transsexual he meets at the clinic. By the end of the film, Ali has become a woman named Negar. She has been disowned by her family, experienced depression and has had to work as a prostitute. 20 year-old Anoosh is another young man who has been ostracised due to his femininity. His boyfriend feels more comfortable when Anoosh dresses as a woman, and in contrast to Ali, Anoosh's mother is supportive of his desire to change sex. The end of the film shows Anoosh – now Anahita – happy and engaged to her boyfriend. However, her boyfriend has become increasingly distant since Anahita had her surgery. Throughout the film, the patients of the sex-reassignment clinic assert that they are not homosexual, seeing homosexuality as something that is shameful and immoral. Eshaghian's opinion is that this shame is the driving force behind so many Iranians deciding to change their sex. She says that identifying as transsexual rather than homosexual allows them to live free from harassment. Production. Eshaghian, an Iranian American film-maker, got the idea for "Be Like Others" after reading a 2004 "New York Times" article about sex-change operations happening in Iran and being surprised that such an operation would be acceptable in a Muslim country. She wrote a proposal for a film and tried to find funding, but was unsuccessful. She contacted a British journalist who had written on the subject and he gave her telephone numbers for Dr. Bahram Mir-Jalali and the Muslim cleric featured in the film. To find subjects, she visited the predominant sex-reassignment clinic in Iran, and spent time in the waiting-room talking to patients and their families. She found that female-to-male transsexuals were generally very successful in living as their new gender and as a result were reluctant to take part in the documentary for fear of being "outed" as transsexual. She felt that the contrasting stories of Ali and Anoosh highlighted the importance of family bonds in Iranian society. At a question and answer session at the Sundance Film Festival, Eshaghian said that one of the men she met while filming decided to live as a gay man rather than become a woman, and that she is now trying to help him leave Iran. Distribution and reception. In 2008, "Be Like Others" was screened at the Sundance Film Festival, where it was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize and the Berlin International Film Festival where it won three Teddy Awards; the Amnesty International Film Prize – Special Mention, Reader Jury of the "Siegessäule" and the Jury Award. The film was shown on BBC television as "Transsexual in Iran" in February 2008. It is due to be screened at the Seattle International Film Festival in June 2008. Writing for "Variety", Robert Koehler called "Be Like Others" "a powerful window into a once-hidden side of the country" and "a model of non-dogmatic filmmaking on a highly charged topic." In 2010, "Be Like Others" was nominated for a GLAAD Media Award for "Outstanding Documentary" during the 21st GLAAD Media Awards.
586377	Sanusha, also known as "Baby Sanusha" (born 3 November 1994) from Kasaragod Neeleswaram is an Indian film actress. She started her acting career as a child in Malayalam films and went on to appear in television serials. Career. After being popular in TV serials, Sanusha started her film career in 2000 at the age of 5 with the movie Dada Saheb. She has since played in "Nalai Namathey", "Renigunta", "Nandi", "Bangaram" and "Eththan". She is basically from Kannur District, Kerala, she has at studied Sreepuram School, Kannur.
1103940	Vito Volterra (3 May 1860 – 11 October 1940) was an Italian mathematician and physicist, known for his contributions to mathematical biology and integral equations. Biography. Born in Ancona, then part of the Papal States, into a very poor Jewish family, Volterra showed early promise in mathematics before attending the University of Pisa, where he fell under the influence of Enrico Betti, and where he became professor of rational mechanics in 1883. He immediately started work developing his theory of functionals which led to his interest and later contributions in integral and integro-differential equations. His work is summarised in his book "Theory of functionals and of Integral and Integro-Differential Equations" (1930). In 1892, he became professor of mechanics at the University of Turin and then, in 1900, professor of mathematical physics at the University of Rome La Sapienza. Volterra had grown up during the final stages of the Risorgimento when the Papal States were finally annexed by Italy and, like his mentor Betti, he was an enthusiastic patriot, being named by the king Victor Emmanuel III as a senator of the Kingdom of Italy in 1905. In the same year, he began to develop the theory of dislocations in crystals that was later to become important in the understanding of the behaviour of ductile materials. On the outbreak of World War I, already well into his 50s, he joined the Italian Army and worked on the development of airships under Giulio Douhet. He originated the idea of using inert helium rather than flammable hydrogen and made use of his leadership abilities in organising its manufacture. After World War I, Volterra turned his attention to the application of his mathematical ideas to biology, principally reiterating and developing the work of Pierre François Verhulst. The most famous outcome of this period is the Lotka–Volterra equations. In 1922, he joined the opposition to the Fascist regime of Benito Mussolini and in 1931 he was one of only 12 out of 1,250 professors who refused to take a mandatory oath of loyalty. His political philosophy can be seen from a postcard he sent in the 1930s, on which he wrote what can be seen as an epitaph for Mussolini’s Italy: "Empires die, but Euclid’s theorems keep their youth forever". However, Volterra was no radical firebrand; he might have been equally appalled if the leftist opposition to Mussolini had come to power, since he was a lifelong royalist and nationalist. As a result of his refusal to sign the oath of allegiance to the fascist government he was compelled to resign his university post and his membership of scientific academies, and, during the following years, he lived largely abroad, returning to Rome just before his death.
1057210	Franklyn is a 2008 British film written and directed by Gerald McMorrow as his debut feature. Produced by Jeremy Thomas, it stars Ryan Phillippe, Eva Green and Sam Riley. Shooting took place in London in the fourth quarter of 2007. "Franklyn" held its world premiere at the 52nd London Film Festival on 16 October 2008. The film was released in the United Kingdom on 27 February 2009. Plot. Split between the parallel realities of contemporary London and the otherworldly metropolis of Meanwhile City, "Franklyn" follows the tales of four characters. Jonathan Preest (Ryan Phillippe) is a masked vigilante who will not rest until he finds his individual. Emilia (Eva Green) is a troubled young art student whose rebellion may turn out to be deadly. Milo (Sam Riley) is a heartbroken twenty something yearning for the purity of first love. Peter (Bernard Hill) is a man steeped in religion, searching desperately for his missing son amongst London's homeless.
589288	Apna Desh (Our Country) is a 1972 Hindi movie. Produced by T.M. Kittu and A. V. Subramaniam and directed by Jambu. The film stars Rajesh Khanna, Mumtaz, Om Prakash, Jagdeep, Mukkamala, Madan Puri and the uncredited Roja Ramani, who plays Rajesh Khanna's niece Sharda. The films music is by R. D. Burman. The film is a remake of 1969 Tamil hit movie "Nam Naadu" ("Our Country") starring M.G.R and Jayalalithaa in the lead roles. Actress Sridevi has enacted in a role as child nephew of lead protagonist. Plot. Akash is an honest and educated young man, employed by the Bombay Municipal Corporation as a clerk. He lives with his equally honest brother, his sister-in-law, a niece, Sharda, and a nephew. Due to Akash's honesty he becomes a liability to his corrupt superiors. One day they find fault with his work, and dismiss him. When Akash attempts to assert himself legally, he finds that there is corruption everywhere. In retaliation, even his brother is implicated in a crime, and arrested. Now Akash must come up with a way to clear his brother, as well as expose the wrong-doers.
1061176	Neve Adrianne Campbell (; born October 3, 1973) is a Canadian actress who played teenage roles in the 1990s as Julia Salinger in the television series "Party of Five" and as Sidney Prescott in the Wes Craven horror film "Scream" and its sequels. She has also starred in films such as "The Craft", "Wild Things", and later several films that were critically acclaimed but received a limited theatrical release, including "Panic" (2000) and "The Company" (2003). Early life. Campbell was born in Guelph, Ontario. Campbell's mother, Marnie (née Neve), is a yoga instructor and psychologist from Amsterdam. Her father, Gerry Campbell, an immigrant to Canada from the East End of Glasgow, Scotland, UK, taught high school drama classes in Mississauga, Ontario — first at Westwood Secondary School (now Lincoln M. Alexander Secondary School), later at Lorne Park Secondary School, and now at Erindale Secondary School. Campbell's maternal grandparents ran a theatre company in the Netherlands and her paternal grandparents were also performers. On her mother's side, Campbell is descended from Sephardic Jews who immigrated to the Netherlands and converted to Catholicism; she has stated, "I am a practicing Catholic, but my lineage is Jewish, so if someone asks me if I'm Jewish, I say yes". Campbell has three brothers, Christian, Alex, and Damian (aka Damian McDonald). Her parents divorced when she was two years old. At age six, Neve saw a performance of "The Nutcracker" and decided she wanted to take ballet which she then enrolled in at the Erinvale School Of Dance. She and her brother Christian resided largely with their father (who received custody of the two), with regular periods at their mother's home, until Neve was nine years old. At that time, she moved into residence at the National Ballet School of Canada, training there and appearing in performances of "The Nutcracker" and "Sleeping Beauty". After accumulating a lot of dance injuries, Campbell moved from dancing into acting at the age of 15, when she performed in "The Phantom of the Opera" at the Canon Theatre in Toronto while attending John F. Ross Collegiate Vocational Institute in Guelph during her time at home. Acting career. Early roles. She appeared in a 1991 Coca-Cola commercial promoting its sponsorship on Bryan Adams' 1991–1992 "Waking Up the Nation", the tour promoting his album "Waking Up the Neighbours". Campbell's first starring role was Daisy in the Canadian youth TV series "Catwalk", which she held from 1992 to 1994. She made several guest appearances on shows such as "Are You Afraid of the Dark?" and "". 1994–2000. Described as 'TV's most believable teenager', Campbell rose to fame outside Canada after being cast as Julia Salinger in the drama series "Party of Five", in which she performed from 1994 to 2000. The show won the Golden Globe Award for Best Drama in 1996. Campbell's first widely released film was 1996's "The Craft". She then had a leading role in "Scream" (1996), directed by Wes Craven. The film was a huge success, earning over $173 million at the worldwide box office, and winning critical acclaim. Campbell's role as Sidney Prescott has received significant critical praise throughout the series, earning her the Saturn Award for Best Actress for her role in "Scream". The film was followed by three sequels, all of which were also hugely successful, with "Scream 2" earning over $170 million, "Scream 3" earning over $160 million and "Scream 4" earning over $97 million. Campbell won the MTV Movie Award for Best Female Performance for "Scream 2". Roger Ebert, in his review of "Scream 3", wrote of Campbell, "The camera loves her. She could become a really big star and then giggle at clips from this film at her AFI tribute". Campbell also appeared in "Wild Things", opposite Denise Richards, Matt Dillon and Kevin Bacon, and "54", both of which were moderately successful. She also appeared in "Three to Tango" with Matthew Perry. She also provided the voice of Simba and Nala's daughter, Kiara in Disney's '. In both 1998 and 2000, she was on "Peoples "50 Most Beautiful People" list. In 1998 she was ranked #3 in Empire's 100 sexiest movie stars. Campbell was also included in FHM's 'sexiest women in the world' list in 1998 (#31), 1999 (#20), 2000 (#31) and 2001 (#42). 2000–2009. Following the third film in the "Scream" series, Campbell appeared in several films that received a limited theatrical release but were well reviewed by critics, including the 2000 film "Panic", in which she appeared alongside William H. Macy and Donald Sutherland. In 2002, she appeared in "Last Call" opposite Sissy Spacek and Jeremy Irons, for which she won a Prism Award for Performance in TV Movie or Miniseries. Campbell co-wrote, produced, and starred in the 2003 film "The Company", about Chicago's Joffrey Ballet. Next came the independent film "When Will I Be Loved". Released in 2004, the film was praised by critic Roger Ebert but received only a brief and limited theatrical release. In "Leonard Maltin's Movie Guide" (2009 edition), the film critic describes it as an "Unlikable film ... crammed with coldhearted characters who are obsessed with big bucks, sleazy sex, and endless hustling." In March 2006, Campbell made her West End theatre debut, in a version of Arthur Miller's "Resurrection Blues" at the Old Vic theatre. Matthew Modine and Maximilian Schell also appeared in the play, which received mixed reviews. "Resurrection Blues" was directed by Robert Altman, with whom Campbell had previously worked in "The Company". Later in 2006, Campbell performed again in the West End in "Love Song", alongside Cillian Murphy, Michael McKean, and Kristen Johnston, to mixed reviews. On July 7, 2007, she presented at the UK leg of Live Earth at Wembley Stadium, London. In 2007, she was featured for a third time on "People" "most beautiful people" list. On June 24, 2009, Campbell returned to television in a starring role on NBC's "The Philanthropist".
1039642	Felicity Ann Kendal, CBE (born 25 September 1946) is an English actress known for her television and stage work. Kendal has appeared in numerous stage and screen roles over a 45-year career, but the role that brought attention to her career was that of Barbara Good in the 1975 television series "The Good Life". Early life. Felicity Kendal was born in Olton, Warwickshire, England, in 1946. She is the younger daughter of Geoffrey Kendal, an actor and manager, and his wife Laura (née Lidell). Her sister, Jennifer Kendal (died 1984, aged 51), also became an actress. Kendal spent much of her childhood in India as her father was an English actor-manager who made his living leading a repertory company on tours of India. The family would perform Shakespeare before royalty one day, and in rough rural villages the next where audiences included many schoolchildren. Her father had adopted his birthplace of Kendal (then Westmorland now Cumbria) as his stage name, his original surname being Bragg. Felicity Kendal was educated at six convents in India. At age 17, Kendal contracted typhoid in Calcutta. She left India at the age of 20. "The Good Life". In 1975 Kendal had her big break on television with the BBC sitcom "The Good Life". She and Richard Briers starred as Barbara and Tom Good – a middle-class suburban couple who decide to quit the rat race and become self-sufficient, much to the consternation of their snooty but well-meaning neighbours Margo and Jerry Leadbetter (played by Penelope Keith and Paul Eddington). Kendal appeared in all 30 episodes which extended over four series from 1975 to 1978. Kendal has stated that she can be "short-tempered and difficult" – which is in contrast to the character of Barbara – with whom the public have come to associate her. Stage work. Kendal made her stage debut aged nine months, when she was carried on stage as a changeling boy in "A Midsummer Night's Dream". She made her London stage debut in "Minor Murder" (1967), and went on to star in a number of well regarded plays. Kendal's stage career blossomed during the 1980s and 1990s when she formed a close professional association with Sir Tom Stoppard, starring in the first productions of many of his plays, including "The Real Thing" (1982), "Hapgood" (1988), "Arcadia" (1993), and "Indian Ink" (1995). This last was originally a radio play and the role was written for her. She won the "Evening Standard" Theatre Award in 1989 for her performances in "Much Ado About Nothing" and "Ivanov". In 2002, Kendal starred in Charlotte Jones's play, "Humble Boy", when it transferred from the National Theatre to the West End. In 2006 she starred in the West End revival of "Amy's View" by David Hare. In 2008 she appeared in the West End in a revival of Noël Coward's play "The Vortex". In 2009 she appeared in the play "The Last Cigarette" (by Simon Gray) and in 2010 in "Mrs Warren's Profession" (by Shaw). Both played at the Chichester Festival Theatre and subsequently in the West End. In 2013 she will star in the first London revival of "Relatively Speaking" by Alan Ayckbourn. Television work. Kendal has appeared in many television series (both before and after "The Good Life"), including: From 1976, Kendal has appeared as herself in about 40 television shows and documentaries, the most recent being: Film work. Kendal's film roles are: Awards. Kendal was made a CBE in 1995 for services to drama. In 1995 (at age 49) Kendal was selected as one of the "100 sexiest women in the world" by FHM magazine. Personal life. Kendal's first marriage to Drewe Henley (1968 to 1979) and her second to Michael Rudman (1983 to 1990) ended in divorce. Kendal has two sons: Charley, from her marriage to Henley, and Jacob, from her marriage to Rudman. In 1991 she left Rudman, and subsequently started a relationship with playwright Tom Stoppard. The affair with Stoppard ended in 1998, and Kendal has since reunited with Michael Rudman. Kendal was brought up as a Catholic. She converted to Judaism at the time of her second marriage, and has stated about the conversion, "I felt I was returning to my roots". Her conversion took more than three years; she has stated that her decision to convert had "nothing to do" with her husband. In 1998 Kendal published a book of memoirs titled "White Cargo". When asked (by "The Guardian" in 2010) whom she would invite to her "dream dinner party", Kendal replied "Emmeline Pankhurst, Gandhi, Byron, Eddie Izzard, George Bernard Shaw, Golda Meir, and Marlene Dietrich". References. Citations Sources
584100	Mayilsamy (Tamil: மயில்சாமி) (born 5 June 1965) is a Tamil comedian actor who prominently plays supporting roles. Appearing in many Tamil films, he is also a regular guest judge on "Asathapovathu Yaaru" on Sun TV in Chennai. He is most probably best known for his performances in Tamil films such as "Dhool", "Gilli", "Kangalal Kaidhu Sei", "Devathayai Kanden", "Rendu" and "Thiruvilaiyaadal Aarambam". Career. Mayilswamy made his acting debut after being spotted in the troupe popularly known as "Sirrippu Isai" - a popular comedy troupe- where he along with a number of popular comedians came from. He collaborated with Lakshman (of Lakshman Shruti fame) for successful mimicry releases, namely "Sirippo Sirippu", "Sirippo Super Sirippu" and "Meendum Sirippo Sirippu". He also made his film debut at a very young age of 20- in the film Kanni Raasi in 1985. Since then he has come a long way playing supporting roles in films such as Apoorva Sagodharargal, Sivalingam, Nade Namade, Vetri Raagangal and Villathi Villain to name a few. Till date he has acted in over 100 Tamil films in a variety of roles. As of the 2000s he got fame being a popular sidekick to Tamil comedian Vivek in films such as Dhool, Kandaen Seethayei and Pennin Manathai Thottu. He also hosted comedy time from 2002-2004 on Sun TV and received Best Host in 2003 Sun TV Telly Awards. His son Arumainayagam alias Anbu is going to make his debut in films.
1169724	Denise "Denny" Dillon (born May 18, 1951) is an American actress and comedian. First known as a stage actress, who was nominated for a Tony Award on Broadway, Dillon appeared for a season on "Saturday Night Live" and has done other television and film acting. In recent years, she has continued to act in theatre and both teaches and performs in improv comedy. Career. Dillon was born in Cleveland, Ohio and has lived in New York City and Los Angeles, and now lives in Ulster County, New York.
724810	Sebastian Stan (born August 13, 1983) is a Romanian-born American actor. He was raised in America since the age of 12. He played Jefferson the Mad Hatter on the ABC's fantasy drama "Once Upon a Time", Prince Jack Benjamin on "Kings" and Carter Baizen on "Gossip Girl". He appeared in the films "" and "Black Swan". In 2012, he appeared in the USA Network miniseries "Political Animals" starring alongside Sigourney Weaver.
1072740	Synopsis. Kitano plays sociopathic detective Azuma, a "Dirty Harry"-type whose single-mindedness leads to self-destruction. After the suicide of his friend and colleague Iwaki (a vice cop who was involved with drugs), and the kidnapping of his sister by yakuza gangsters, Azuma breaks all the rules of ethical conduct. He responds to every situation with violence, and resorts to unethical methods if they produce results. Title. The Japanese title echoes the wording of a police wanted poster: 'This man, being extremely violent, not be approached'. It is the same as that given to the Japanese translation (published 1972) of James Hadley Chase's 1968 novel "Believed Violent". Translation by Makoto Sawa (佐和誠), published by Tokyo Sogen-sha (東京創元社) as number M-chi-2-20 in the Sogen Mystery Library ("Sogen suiri bunko": 創元推理文庫)16 June 1972. Production. Although Kinji Fukasaku was the film's original director, he stepped down upon falling ill. Kitano took over the position of director. The screenplay was originally written by Hisashi Nozawa, but upon taking over as director Kitano rewrote the script heavily. Despite his contributions to the screenplay, he was left uncredited as a contributing writer. The film was originally meant to be a comedy but Kitano wanted to try being a serious actor, therefore he made the movie into a police drama. Reception. The movie was a moderate financial success in Japan, and also did moderately well in limited release internationally. Soundtrack. The piano theme heard several times during the movie is Erik Satie's Gnossienne No.1.
1066032	The Debut is an independent feature-length film directed and co-written by first-time Filipino American filmmaker Gene Cajayon. It is the first Filipino American film to be released theatrically nationwide, although regionally and every few months starting in March 2001 in the San Francisco Bay area ending in November 2002 in New York City. It is also one of the first feature films to take place within the Filipino American community, one of the largest Asian ethnic minorities in America. Synopsis. Dante Basco ("Biker Boyz", "Hook") plays Ben Mercado, a talented high school senior who enrolls in a prestigious arts institute in order to realize his dreams of becoming an artist. However, his plans come into conflict with those of his strict immigrant father Roland (Tirso Cruz III), a postal worker intent on seeing Ben become a doctor. Their long-simmering feud—for Ben, a struggle to be accepted by America and therefore reject his Filipino heritage; and for Roland, a quest to give his children a better life than he had—threatens to boil over and ruin the elaborate eighteenth birthday party of Ben’s sister Rose (Bernadette Balagtas). However, it is at the party where everything starts to change for Ben. The celebration emerges as a cultural stew of old world traditions and contemporary urban lifestyle, challenging Ben’s sense of misplaced identity, his choice of friends, even the way he regards his father. He also finds an unexpected confidante (and perhaps a love interest) in Rose’s best friend Annabelle (Joy Bisco). However, the evening’s challenges to Ben are just beginning to surface. The arrival of the Mercado family’s overbearing patriarch (Eddie Garcia) exacerbates tensions between father and son, while the temptation to ditch the relatives to be with his friends at a kegger across town tugs at Ben throughout the evening. Worse, his budding romance with Annabelle is complicated by the presence of hot-headed Augusto (Darion Basco), a former boyhood friend-turned gangsta wannabe—and Annabelle’s ex. In one night, Ben will face the true nature of his relationships with his family, his friends, and himself. The history/making of the film. "The Debut" is based on a ten-minute short film Cajayon had made as his thesis project at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, California, United States. He incorporated themes from co-writer John Manal Castro's short film, "Diary of a Gangsta Sucka." The full-length film took eight years to produce and raise funding for (from 1992 to 2000), and another year to be released in theaters, and two years to go on DVD in 2003 and television. In 2012, it was made available on iTunes, Amazon Instant video, and VUDU. After shooting the first ten minutes of his thesis project, Cajayon sent the movie script to potential private financial backers but was turned down. Cajayon and Castro shopped the film to every major Hollywood studios (Disney, Warner Bros., MGM, Paramount, 20th Century Fox, Columbia, Universal), but were rebuffed. Eventually, producer Dean Devlin became associated with the project, and the film was able to garner a grant from NAATA (National Asian American Telecommunications Association). The filmmakers were able to set up the film independently. Cajayon tapped "Picture Bride" producer Lisa Onedera, husband Greg Spence, and Celestial Pictures to produce the film. Adult roles in the movie were cast in the Philippines, where casting director Ernest Eschaler held casting sessions in Manila. The filmmakers were able to cast Tirso Cruz III, Gina Alajar, Eddie Garcia, and comedian Fe De Los Reyes. Back in the US, the filmmakers put out a casting call for the lead character, eventually selecting Dante Basco of the movie "Hook". Actress Joy Bisco was cast as the female lead. Production started on October 21, 1997 at the Cantwell-Sacred Heart of Mary High School in Montebello, California. Reshoots were done a year after production finished. The musical score and licensing of songs for the soundtrack was done in 1999. The film had its world premiere as the Opening Night Attraction of the 15th Annual Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film & Video Festival on May 18, 2000. Early success. Prior to the film's theatrical release in 2001, the film was shown at various film festivals around the United States, including the Hawaii International Film Festival in November 2000. American film critic Roger Ebert, in attendance, was given a private screening of the film and gave the film a "thumbs up." "The Debut" won the 2000 HIFF Audience Award for Best Feature Film, beating out heavily-favored "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon". The film was also awarded Best Feature Film honors by the 2000 San Diego Asian Film Festival. Theatrical Release. "The Debut"’s success on the film festival circuit inspired the filmmakers to launch a theatrical self-distribution campaign. For two years, "The Debut"’s promotional team (consisting of Cajayon, co-writer John Castro, associate producer Patricio Ginelsa, and a full-time staff of five) traveled to fifteen major cities across the United States and promoted the film directly to Asian Pacific American and mainstream communities. TV commercials were shown on local channels and on local cable systems. "The Debut" eventually grossed $1.8 million at the box office and won the 2001 Ammy Award for Best Independent Feature Film. The movie's success in theaters led to a domestic and international distribution deal with Sony Pictures. The film has now been released in theaters, DVD, home video, television in over fifty countries worldwide, iTunes,Amazon Instant video, and VUDU. Reception. The film has been given positive reviews. Rotten Tomatoes post a 74% "fresh" rating for the film. Film critics like Roger Ebert of the "Chicago Sun Times," Kevin Thomas of the "Los Angeles Times" applauded the movie. The actors. In addition to Dante Basco in the lead role, the film also features other members of the Basco family (Derek, Darion, Dion, Arianna), along with Eddie Garcia, Tirso Cruz III, and Gina Alajar, as well as character actor Abe Pagtama. Joy Bisco of the ABC daytime soap operas "Port Charles" and "Days of our Lives" rounds out the cast as Annabelle, Ben's love interest.
583109	Balwaan is a 1992 Hindi language Indian feature film directed by Deepak Anand. The film has Sunil Shetty as the leading man and this was the first release for him, as the original launchpad Ek Aur Faulad was dropped. Supporting cast was Divya Bharti and Danny Denzongpa. It was premiered on 11 September 1992 in Mumbai. Plot. Arjun Singh comes from a very poor family. He lives in a small and shabby tenement with his mom and sister. Despite of his circumstance, he is honest and helpful. This puts him into conflict with Bhai, a notorious gangster. In order to teach Arjun a lesson, Bhai orders people in this community to stop interacting with Arjun and his family, and as a result the three are alienated. His sister is raped, and his mother passes away. Then Bhai has Arjun captured and chained. But Arjun manages to escape, only to find that he has been framed for murder and is arrested by the police. Reception. The film was a Success, establishing Sunil Shetty as a tough Action Hero. The Presence of Divya Bharti helped the film a lot.
1712165	Prime Cut is a 1972 American film produced by Joe Wizan and directed by Michael Ritchie, with a screenplay written by Robert Dillon. The movie stars Lee Marvin as a mob enforcer from Chicago sent to Kansas to collect a debt from a meatpacker boss played by Gene Hackman. Sissy Spacek appears in her first credited on-screen role as a young orphan sold into prostitution.
581872	Kunal Kapoor (born in Mumbai, India) is an Indian actor who appears in Hindi cinema. Born in Mumbai, his father comes from Amritsar, whereas his mother's family belongs to Rawalpindi. Kunal's career took off with the critically and commercial acclaimed film "Rang De Basanti" for which his performance received a nomination in the Filmfare Best Supporting Actor Award category (2006). He is not related to the Kapoor family. Career. Kapoor began his career as an assistant director on the Amitabh Bachchan starrer "Aks". He began his acting career training under theatre legend Barry John. He continued his theatre career with Motley, a theater group run by Naseeruddin Shah. He made his movie debut starring opposite Tabu in "".
1043427	Those Magnificent Men in their Flying Machines; Or, How I Flew from London to Paris in 25 Hours 11 Minutes is a 1965 British comedy film starring Stuart Whitman, Sarah Miles, Robert Morley, Terry-Thomas and James Fox, directed and co-written by Ken Annakin. Based on a screenplay entitled "Flying Crazy", the fictional account is set in 1910, when Lord Rawnsley, an English press magnate, offers £10,000 to the winner of the "Daily Post" air race from London to Paris, to prove that Britain is "number one in the air". Plot. In 1910, just seven years after the first heavier-than-air flight, aircraft are fragile and unreliable contraptions, piloted by "intrepid birdmen". Lord Rawnsley (Robert Morley) is a newspaper magnate and a stuffed shirt. His daughter, ardent suffragette Patricia (Sarah Miles), is a would-be aviatrix who can't fly because her father forbids it. Aviator Richard Mays (James Fox), a young Army officer and (at least in his own eyes) Patricia's fiancé, conceives the idea of an air race from London to Paris to advance the cause of British aviation (and his career). With Patricia's support, he persuades Lord Rawnsley to sponsor the race as a publicity stunt for his newspaper. Rawnsley, who takes full credit for the idea, announces the event to the press, shocking everyone with the amount of the prize. Invitations and newspaper advertising go out worldwide, and dozens of participants arrive in England with their aircraft. The aircraft are housed and maintained in the hangars at the airfield on the Brookley Motor Racing Track, where the fliers make practice runs in the days prior to the race. During this time, predictable patriotic antagonisms quickly develop. Most of the contestants conform to national stereotypes, including the by-the-book, monocle-wearing Prussian officer Colonel Manfred von Holstein (Gert Fröbe); the impetuous Italian Count Emilio Ponticelli (Alberto Sordi), whose test flights wreck one aircraft after another; and the amorous Frenchman Pierre Dubois (Jean-Pierre Cassel). Yujiro Ishihara is the late-arriving Japanese naval officer Yamamoto, whose perfect Etonian accent (which was dubbed) makes him sound more British than they do. The rivalries between their respective nations degenerate into a ridiculous hot-air balloon duel between the German and French fliers, and the nefarious actions of baronet Sir Percy Ware-Armitage (Terry-Thomas), an unscrupulous British flier who "never leaves anything to chance". With his bullied servant, Courtney (Eric Sykes), he sabotages two aircraft, drugs one pilot, and cheats by shipping his aeroplane across the channel at night. More complications occur when the rugged American cowboy Orvil Newton (Stuart Whitman) falls for Patricia, forming a love triangle with her and Mays. Wishing the fliers "good luck" before the race starts, Lord Rawnsley complains to his associate: "The trouble with these international affairs is that they attract foreigners". Fourteen competitors take off but, one by one, their engines fail or they crash, until only four remain (arriving in three aircraft) to land in Paris. Newton loses time when he slows down to rescue Ponticelli from his burning aircraft, and comes in second. Mays wins for Britain, but he recognises Newton's heroism and insists on sharing the glory and the prize with the penniless American. Newton's and Patricia's final kiss is interrupted by a strange noise. They and the others at the field look up to see a flyover by six English Electric Lightning jet fighters, as the time period reverts to the "present" (1965). Production. Origins. Director Ken Annakin had been interested in aviation from his early years when pioneering aviator, Sir Alan Cobham took him up in a flight in a biplane. Later in the Second World War, Annakin had served in the RAF when he had begun his career in film documentaries. In 1963, with co-writer Jack Davies, Annakin had been working on an adventure film about transatlantic flights when the producer's bankruptcy aborted the production. Fresh from his role as director of the British exterior segments in "The Longest Day" (1962), Annakin suggested an event from early aviation to Darryl F. Zanuck, his producer on "The Longest Day". Zanuck financed an epic faithful to the era, with a £100,000 stake, deciding on the name, "Those Magnificent Men in their Flying Machines" after Elmo Williams, managing director of 20th Century Fox in Europe, told him his wife had written an opening for a song that Annakin complained would "seal the fate of the movie":Those magnificent men in their flying machines,They go up up, Tiddley up, up,They go down, Tiddley down, down. After being put to music by Ron Goodwin, the "Those Magnificent Men in their Flying Machines" song was released as a single and reached No. 1 on the British hit parade. An international cast plays the array of contestants with the film opening with a brief, comic prologue on the history of flight, narrated by James Robertson Justice and featuring American comedian Red Skelton. In a series of silent blackout vignettes that incorporate stock footage of unsuccessful attempts at early aircraft, Skelton depicted a recurring character whose adventures span the centuries. The early aviation history sequence that begins the film is followed by a whimsical animated opening credit sequence drawn by caricaturist Ronald Searle, accompanied by the title song. "Those Magnificent Men in their Flying Machines ..." concludes with an epilogue in a fogbound 1960s London Airport when cancellation of flights to Paris is announced. The narrator remarks that today a jet makes the trip in seven minutes, but "it "can" take longer". One frustrated passenger (Skelton, again) starts wing-flapping motions with his arms, and the scene morphs into the animation from the title sequence for the closing credits. This was Skelton's final feature film appearance; he was in Europe filming the 1964–65 season of his television series, "The Red Skelton Show". One of the strengths of the film was British and international character actors who enlivened the foibles of each contestant's nationality. The entertainment comes from the dialogue and characterisations and the aerial stunts, with heroism and gentlemanly conduct. Top British comedy actors, Benny Hill, Eric Sykes, Terry-Thomas and Tony Hancock, among others, provided madcap misadventures. While Terry-Thomas had a substantial leading role as a "bounder", Hill, Sykes and Hancock played lesser cameos. Although Hancock had broken his leg off-set, two days into filming, Annakin wrote his infirmity into the story, and his leg bound in a cast figured in a number of scenes. In a recurring gag suggested by Zanuck, Irina Demick plays a series of flirts who are all pursued by the French pilot. First, she is Brigitte (French), then Marlene (German), Ingrid (Swedish), Françoise (Belgian), Yvette (Bulgarian), and finally, Betty (British). A major distraction occurred when the two lead actors, Stuart Whitman and Sarah Miles, fell out early in the production. Director Ken Annakin commented that, after an ill-timed pass, "she hated his guts" and rarely deigned to speak to him if it was not part of the script. Annakin had to employ various manipulations in order to ensure the production proceeded smoothly despite his stars' animosity towards each other. By the end of filming, when additional scenes had to be redone, the two stars had reconciled and acted civilly towards each other. Another aspect was the fluid writing and directing with Annakin and Davies feeding off each other. They had worked together on "Very Important Person" (1961), "The Fast Lady" (1962) and "Crooks Anonymous" (1962). Annakin and Davies continued to develop the script with zany interpretations. When the German character, Gert Fröbe, contemplates piloting his country's entry, he climbs into the cockpit and retrieves a manual. Annakin and Davies devised a quip on the spot, having him read out: "No. 1. Sit down." Although a comedy, elements of Annakin's documentary background were evident with authentic sets, props and costumes. More than 2,000 extras out in authentic costumes were in the climactic race launch which was combined with entrants in the London to Brighton Veteran Car Run being invited on set as part of their 1964 annual run, an unexpected coup in gaining numerous period vehicles to dress the set. Locations. The film used period accurate, life-size working aeroplane models and replicas to create an early 20th century airfield, at the Brookley Motor Racing Track (fashioned after Brooklands where early automotive racing and aviators shared the facilities for testing). All Brookley's associated trappings of structures, aircraft and vehicles (including a rare 1908 Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost, estimated to be worth 50 million dollars) were part of the exterior set at Booker Airfield, High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, England. The completed set featured a windmill as a lookout tower as well as serving as a restaurant (the "Old Mill Cafe"). A circular, banked track was also built and featured in a runaway motorcycle sequence in the film. The windmill used was at Turville, Buckinghamshire, close to Booker Airfield. In addition, the field adjacent to the windmill was used as the location for a number of aerial close-up shots of the pilots. Hangars were constructed in rows, bearing the names of real and fictional manufacturers: A.V. Roe & Co., Bristol: The British and Colonial Aeroplane Company, Humber, three Sopwith hangars, Vickers and Ware-Armitage Manufacturing CoY (sic) and Works. A grandstand was added for spectators. When the production was unable to obtain rights to film main sequences over Paris, models of the aircraft and a miniature Parisian set played a prominent role in sequences depicting Paris. A mock-up of Calais was also constructed. Interior and studio sets at Pinewood Studios were used for bluescreen and special effects while exterior and interior footage of Rawnsley's Manor House were shot at Pinewood Studios in Iver Heath, Buckinghamshire. Other principal photography used location shooting at Dover Castle, along with the cliffs and beaches in the area. The location where Sir Percy's aircraft lands on a train is the now closed line from Bedford to Hitchin. The tunnel into which they fly is the Old Warden Tunnel near the village of the same name in Bedfordshire; the tunnel had only recently been closed, and in the panning shot through the railway cutting, the cooling towers of the now demolished Bedford power station can be seen. The locomotive is former Highland Railway Jones Goods Class No 103. About 1910, French Railways built duplicates of a Highland Railway Class "The Castles" which were a passenger version of the Jones Goods. Principal photography. The film was photographed in 70 mm Todd-AO by Christopher Challis. Royal Air Force Air Commodore Allen H. Wheeler was head technical consultant during planning. Wheeler had previously restored a 1910-era Blériot with his son, and provided invaluable assistance in the restoration and recreation of period aircraft for the film. The camera platforms included a modified Citroën sedan, camera trucks, helicopters and a flying rig constructed by Dick Parker. Parker had built it for model sequences in "Strategic Air Command" (1955). The rig consisted of two construction cranes and a hydraulically operated device to tilt and position a model, along with 200 ft (61 m) of cables. Parker's rig allowed actors to sit inside full-scale models suspended 50 ft (15 m) above the ground, yet provide safety and realism for staged flying sequences, with the sky realistically in the background. A further hydraulic platform did away with matte shots of aircraft in flight. The platform was large enough to mount an aircraft and Parker or stunt pilots could manipulate its controls for realistic bluescreen sequences. Composite photography was used when scenes called for difficult shots; these were completed at Pinewood Studios. Some shots were created with rudimentary cockpits and noses grafted to an Alouette helicopter. One scene over Paris was staged with small models when Paris refused an overflight. However, for the majority of flying scenes, full-scale flying film models were assembled. Aircraft. The film is notable for reproductions of 1910-era aircraft, including a triplane, monoplanes, biplanes and also Horatio Phillips's 20-winged multiplane from 1904. Air Commodore Wheeler insisted on authentic materials but allowed the use of modern engines and modifications necessary to ensure safety. Of 20 types built in 1964 at £5,000 each, six could fly, flown by six stunt pilots and maintained by 14 mechanics. The race take-off scene where seven aircraft are in the air at once included a composite addition of one aircraft. Flying conditions were monitored carefully, with aerial scenes filmed before 10 am or in early evening when the air was least turbulent, for the replicas, true to the originals, were flimsy, and control, especially in the lateral plane, tended to be marginal. If the weather conditions were poor, interiors or other incidental sequences were substituted. Wheeler eventually served not only as the technical adviser but also as the aerial supervisor throughout the production, and, later wrote a comprehensive background account of the film and the replicas that were constructed to portray period aircraft. The following competitors were listed: While each aircraft was an accurate reproduction, some "impersonated" other types. For instance, "The Phoenix Flyer" was a Bristol Boxkite built by F.G. Miles Engineering Co. at Ford, Sussex, representing a Curtiss biplane of 1910 vintage. Annakin had apparently expressed a desire to have a Wright Flyer in the film. The Bristol (a British derivative of the French 1909 Farman biplane) was chosen instead, because it shared a common general layout with a Wright or Curtiss pusher biplane of the era, and had an excellent reputation for tractability. For the impersonation, the replica had "The Phoenix Flyer" painted on its outer rudder surfaces and was also called a "Gruber-Newton Flyer" adding the name of its primary backer to the nomenclature; although the American pilot character, Orvil Newton inaccurately describes his aircraft to Patricia Rawnsley as a "Curtiss with an Anzani engine." F. G. Miles, chiefly responsible for its design and manufacture, built the replica Bristol Boxkite with the original standard twin rudder installation and powered the replica with a 65 hp Rolls-Royce A65. In the course of testing, Air Commodore Wheeler had a third rudder inserted between the other two (as some original Boxkites had been modified) to improve directional control, and substituted a Rolls-Royce C90 that barely delivered the power of the original 50 hp Gnome rotary. The replica achieved a 45 mph top speed. The Boxkite was tractable, however, and the scene in the film when the aircraft loses a pair of main wheels just after take off but lands smoothly, was repeated 20 times for the cameras. In the penultimate flying scene, a stuntman was carried in the Boxkite's undercarriage and carried out a fall and roll (the stunt had to be repeated to match the principal actor's roll and revival). Slapstick stunts on the ground and in the air were a major element and often the directors requested repeated stunts; the stuntmen were more than accommodating; it meant more pay. The Eardley Billing Tractor Biplane replica flown by David Watson appeared in two guises, in more or less authentic form, impersonating an early German tractor biplane, and also as the Japanese pilot's mount, modified with boxkite-like side curtains over the interplane struts, a covered fuselage, and colourful "oriental" decorations. In addition to the flying aircraft, several unsuccessful aircraft of the period were represented by non-flying replicasincluding contraptions such as an ornithopter (the Passat Ornithopter) flown by the Italian contender, the Walton Edwards Rhomboidal, Picaut Dubrieul, Philips Multiplane and the Little Fiddler (a canard, or tail-first design). Several of the "non-flying" types flew with the help of "movie magic". The Lee Richards Annular Biplane with circular wings (built by Denton Partners on Woodley Aerodrome, near Reading) "flew" better than its 1910 namesake, although the model was towed into the air. The flying replicas were specifically chosen to be different enough that an ordinary audience member could distinguish them. They were all types reputed to have flown well, in or about 1910. In most cases this worked well, but there were a few surprises, adding to an accurate historical reassessment of the aircraft concerned. For example, in its early form, the replica of the Santos-Dumont Demoiselle, a forerunners of today's ultralight aircraft, was unable to leave the ground except in short hops. Extending the wingspan and fitting a more powerful Ardem 50 hp engine produced only marginal improvement. When Doug Bianchi and the Personal Planes production staff who constructed the replica consulted with Alan Wheeler, he recalled that the Demoiselle's designer and first pilot, Alberto Santos-Dumont was a very short, slightly built man. A suitably small pilot, Joan Hughes, a wartime member of the Air Transport Auxiliary who was the Airways Flying Club chief instructor, was hired. With the reduced payload, the diminutive Demoiselle flew very well, and Hughes proved a consummate stunt flyer, able to undertake exacting manoeuvres. In 1960, Bianchi had created a one-off Vickers 22 (Blériot type) Monoplane, using Vickers Company drawings intended for the Vickers Flying Club in 1910. 20th Century Fox purchased the completed replica although it required a new engine and modifications including replacing the wooden fuselage structure with welded steel tubing as well as incorporating ailerons instead of wing-warping. The Vickers 22 became the final type used by the Italian contestant. Sometime after the film wrapped, the Vickers was sold to a buyer in New Zealand. It is believed to have flown once, at Wellington Airport in the hands of Keith Trillo, a test pilot involved in a number of aircraft certification programmes, and is now at the Southward Car Museum, Otaihanga, New Zealand. Peter Hillwood of Hampshire Aero Club constructed an Avro Triplane Mk IV, using drawings provided by Geoffrey Verdon Roe, son of A.V. Roe, the designer. The construction of the triplane followed A.V. Roe's specifications and was the only replica that utilised wing-warping successfully. With a more powerful 90 hp Cirrus II replacing the 35 hp Green engine that was in the original design, the Avro Triplane proved to be a lively performer even with a stuntman dangling from the fuselage. The Antoinette IV film model closely replicated the slim, graceful monoplane that was very nearly the first aircraft to fly the English Channel, in the hands of Hubert Latham, and won several prizes in early competitions. When the Hants and Sussex Aviation Company from Portsmouth Aerodrome undertook its construction, the company followed the original structural specifications carefully, although an out-of-period de Havilland Gypsy I engine was used. The Antoinette's wing structure proved, however, to be dangerously flexible, and lateral control was very poor, even after the wing bracing was reinforced with extra wires, and the original wing-warping was replaced with ailerons (hinged on the rear spar rather than from the trailing edge, as in the original Antoinette). Nonetheless, even in its final configuration the Antoinette was marginal in terms of stability and lateral control and great care had to be taken during its flying sequences, most flights being, in fact, straight "hops". The realism and the attention to detail in the replicas of vintage machines are a major contributor to the enjoyment of the film, and although a few of the "flying" stunts were achieved through the use of models and cleverly disguised wires, most aerial scenes featured actual flying aircraft. The few genuine vintage aircraft used included a Deperdussin used as set dressing, and the flyable 1912 Blackburn Monoplane "D" (the oldest genuine British aircraft still flying), belonged to the Shuttleworth Trust based at Old Warden, Bedfordshire. When the filming was completed, the "1910 Bristol Boxkite" and the "1911 Roe IV Triplane" were retained in the Shuttleworth Collection, Both replicas are still in flyable condition, albeit flying with different engines. For his role in promoting the film, the non-flying "Passat Ornithopter" was given to aircraft restorer and preservationist, Cole Palen who displayed it at his Old Rhinebeck Aerodrome, New York, where it still exists and is on display in the 21st century. Despite the reliance on flying stunts and their inherent danger, the one near-tragedy occurred on the ground when a stunt went wrong. Stuntman Ken Buckle inadvertently turned the throttle to full on a runaway motorbike and sidecar, launching himself through the retaining wall on the sloped Brookley racing track and crashing into the adjoining cesspool, off-camera. Thinking quickly, the special effects man on the other side of the wall saw the motorbike hurtling towards him and set off the accompanying explosion, creating a realistic waterspout. Lucky to escape with only facial bruises and a dislocated collarbone, as he struggled to his feet, Buckle apologised for having messed up, but the shot "was in the can". During the promotional junkets accompanying the film in 1965, a number of the vintage aircraft and film replicas used in the production were flown in both the United Kingdom and the United States. The pilots who had been part of the aerial team readily agreed to accompany the promotional tour to have a chance to fly these aircraft again. Reception. Contemporary reviews judged "Those Magnificent Men In their Flying Machines ..." as "good fun", and even the usually hyper-critical "The New York Times" reviewer Bosley Crowther was effusive in that the film was a "a funny picture, highly colorful, and it does move". "Variety" had a similar reaction: "As fanciful and nostalgic a piece of clever picture-making as has hit the screen in recent years, this backward look into the pioneer days of aviation, when most planes were built with spit and bailing wire, is a warming entertainment experience." When the film turned up on television for the first time in 1969, "TV Guide" summed up most critical reviews: "Good, clean fun, with fast and furious action, good cinematography, crisp dialogue, wonderful planes, and a host of some of the funniest people in movies in the cast." At over two hours, "Those Magnificent Men In their Flying Machines ..." (most cinemas abbreviated the full title, and it was eventually re-released with the shorter title) was treated as a major production, one of only three full-length 70 mm Todd-AO Fox releases in 1965 with an intermission and musical interlude spliced into the original screenings. Because of the Todd-AO process, the film was an exclusive feature shown in deluxe Cinerama venues, where customers needed reserved seats purchased ahead of time. One of the most popular examples of the '60s "epic comedy" genre, it was an immediate box-office success, far out-grossing the similar car-race comedy "The Great Race" (1965). It stood up well against the perennial favourite, "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World" (1963). Audience reaction both in first release and even today, is nearly universal in assessing the film as one of the "classic" aviation films. The success of the film prompted Annakin to write (again with Jack Davies) and direct another race film, "Monte Carlo or Bust!" (1969), this time involving vintage cars, with the story set around the Monte Carlo Rally. Ron Goodwin composed the music for both films.
1057810	Richard Riehle (born May 12, 1948) is an American actor. Life and career. Riehle was born in Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin, the son of Mary Margaret (née Walsh), a nurse, and Herbert John Riehle (1921–61), an assistant postmaster. He attended the University of Notre Dame.
774939	Katherine Isobel Murray (born November 2, 1981), better known by her screen name Katharine Isabelle, is a Canadian actress, best known for her portrayal of Ginger in the "Ginger Snaps" trilogy, as Gibb in "Freddy vs. Jason" and as Mary Mason in American Mary. Biography. Isabelle is the daughter of Graeme and Gail Murray, Graeme created special effects for the TV series "The X Files". Isabelle's brother is actor, writer and director Joshua Murray. Isabelle broke into acting at an early age with parts in the films "Cousins" and "Cold Front" and an episode of "MacGyver". Isabelle later had the lead role in "Ginger Snaps". She won Best Supporting Actress in a mini-series for "The Englishman's Boy" in the 2008 Gemini Awards".
589333	Jawani Diwani (; traduction: Crazy youth) is a 1972 Bollywood movie directed by Narender Bedi, and starring Randhir Kapoor, Jaya Bhaduri, Balraj Sahni, Nirupa Roy, as leads. The film is most remembered for its songs by R.D. Burman, including, ""Jaane Jaan Doodta Fir Ruha"" ""Saamne Yeh Koun Aaya"," and ""Yeh Jawani Hai Diwani". The film was a musical hit and the eighth highest grossing film at the Indian Box Office. Plot. After being stereotyped in the girl-next-door image after her Bollywood debut film, "Guddi" (1971), Jaya Bhaduri tried to break out of the mould with a glamourous role in the film. Madhu (Nirupa Roy) falls in love with Ravi Anand (Balraj Sahni), son of an employee in her Thakur brother's (Iftekhar) household. When they get married, the Thakur breaks all ties with them, she moves into Ravi's home, where they live with his younger brother, Vijay (Randhir Kapoor). Subsequently, Vijay meets a girl, Neeta (Jaya Bhaduri), at school, with the usual problems with parents. She turns out to be the Thakur's daughter, who has been promised in marriage to Benny Sinha (Narendra Nath). Satyen Kappu gives a comical performance as the DJ friend of Randhir Kapoor in two scene-stealing pieces: first, when he impersonates Randhir Kapoor's father to meet the boy's teacher, and later when he meets Jaya's father. Music. R. D. Burman composed and produced the music for this movie Jawani Diwani is known R.D. Burman melodious score. The lyrics were written by Anand Bakshi. Song, "Jaane Jaan Dhoondta Phir Raha" made it to #26 on the Binaca Geetmala annual list 1972. The title of the hit film, "Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani" (2013) was taken from a hit song from the film.
113323	Emmanuelle 4 is the fourth official theatrical feature film in the Emmanuelle franchise. Sylvia Kristel returns in this strange blend of sci-fi and erotic romance, playing herself, and handing over the role of Emmanuelle to Mia Nygren. Plot. Sylvia (Sylvia Kristel) is involved in a tormented love affair with Marc. She has tried to end their love, and escape, but always ends up back with him. After an encounter at a Los Angeles party, she decides she's had enough - she will go to Brazil and get extensive plastic surgery. This way he will never recognize her again, much less find her, and it will make for a great article which she promises to hand in to a California newspaper. Sylvia goes through with it, and becomes a new woman named Emmanuelle (Mia Nygren); she is now a twenty year old virgin. She plans to take on all of Brazil in a series of sexual escapades that will purge her past. Production. The original French version of the film was shot and released in ArriVision 3-D, but new scenes were shot for the US version in StereoVision 3-D and composited into the American print. Emmanuelle 4 was the first in the series with explicit sex scenes, seen in European versions of the cinema release and some VHS versions. Released in 1984. Shot in English, dubbed into French, Spanish, Polish, Italian. Filmed in France and Brazil. Soundtrack by Michel Magne. Discography. The CD soundtrack composed by Michel Magne is available on Music Box Records label (website).
1039525	David Haig Collum Ward MBE (born 20 September 1955) is an Olivier Award-winning English actor and FIPA Award-winning writer. He is known for his versatility, having played dramatic, serio-comic and comedic roles, playing characters of varied social classes. He has appeared in top roles in stage productions all over the West End and has done numerous TV and film roles over the past 25 years. Career. Film and television. He appeared in the 1994 film "Four Weddings and a Funeral" and had a secondary lead in the BBC television sitcom "The Thin Blue Line" playing Inspector Grim, the inept foil to Rowan Atkinson's Inspector Fowler. In 2002 he played the brother of "Four Weddings"' co-star Hugh Grant in the romantic comedy "Two Weeks Notice", alongside Sandra Bullock. In 2007, He appeared in a Comic Relief sketch called "Mr. Bean's Wedding" as the bride's father, reuniting with his Thin Blue Line co-star Rowan Atkinson. Other TV work includes "Doctor Who" story "The Leisure Hive" (1980); "Blake's 7" episode "Rumours of Death" (1980); "Campion" story "Sweet Danger" (1990); "Inspector Morse" episode "Dead On Time" (1992); and "Cracker". In the 1990s he appeared in the successful TV series "Soldier Soldier". He appears in the Richard Fell adaptation of the 1960s science fiction series "A for Andromeda", on the UK digital television station BBC Four.
1057340	The Hills Have Eyes 2 is a 2007 American horror film, and the sequel to the 2006 film "The Hills Have Eyes" which was a remake of the 1977 horror film "The Hills Have Eyes". The film follows several heroic, but troubled, U.S. National Guardsmen as they fight for survival against the mutant people living in a military base in New Mexico. "The Hills Have Eyes 2" was directed by German film director Martin Weisz and written by father and son team Wes and Jonathan Craven. A graphic novel titled "" was published by Fox Atomic Comics to accompany the release of the film; it was released July 3, 2007. Plot. The movie opens in the New Mexico desert, with the mutants from the first film having captured a woman who is being forced to breed mutant children. As soon as she has given birth, Papa Hades (Michael Bailey Smith) kills her. Nearby, a group of scientists working in the desert hills are attacked by Letch (Jason Oettle). It is also hinted at the beginning of the film that the surviving members of the Carter family from the first film were not killed by Papa Hades' mutant clan and managed to escape the hills. Some time later, a group of National Guard reservists in training are sent into the hills to resupply the scientists, who are working for the Department of Defense on installing a surveillance system (implied to be a result of the events in the first film). The soldiers arrive to find the camp apparently abandoned, with no sign of their commanding officer or any of the civilians, with outside radio contact impossible due to the topography. When the radio operator, Spitter (Eric Edelstein), picks up a faint distress call, the sergeant (Flex Alexander) organizes a rescue mission, leaving behind Napoleon (Michael McMillian) and Amber (Jessica Stroup). The search party discovers the mutilated body of a scientist in the hills, while Amber and Napoleon pull another mutilated and dying scientist from beneath the portable toilet. On her way to join the group, Amber is attacked by Stabber (Tyrell Kemlo), but a returning (and injured) Mickey (Reshad Strik) drives him off. Just as Napoleon catches up, Mickey is pulled into a bolt-hole and killed. At the same time, the remaining troops are also attacked by Letch, leading to the sergeant accidentally being killed by Spitter's friendly fire. Spitter himself is later killed by an unseen mutant sabotaging his rappelling gear. The troop soon locates their commanding officer, who has clearly become unhinged from recent events. He warns them of the mutants' plans to capture women for breeding and kill everyone else, committing suicide upon being asked how to escape the hills. With their remaining gear stolen, the team are forced to try to find another way down the mountain. In the process, Missy (Daniella Alonso) is captured and taken into the tunnels by Chameleon (Derek Mears) who attempts to rape her but is interrupted by Papa Hades who stops him, but then savagely rapes Missy himself for the purpose of impregnating her despite her pleas for help, while the remaining troops chase after her. They manage to kill mutants Chameleon and Grabber (Gaspar Szabo), but Stump (Ben Crowley) and Delmar (Lee Thompson Young) are also killed while underground. Crank (Jacob Vargas) is also killed via a trapped crate of dynamite that he attempts to take with him, incidentally triggering the explosion. While in the mines, the troop locate a non-violent mutant named Hansel (David Reynolds) who eventually shows them the way out of the mines, but Amber insists on returning to find Missy. They find and free her, then having to fight Papa Hades, whom they manage to kill. The final three National Guard troops—Amber, Napoleon, and Missy—make their way out of the mine alive.
628925	Background. Born Ernest Ashley Dingo on 31 July 1956, in Bullardoo Station, he was the second child of nine. He grew up in Mullewa with his family. He went to Prospect Primary and then Geraldton High School. He came to acting after moving to Perth and meeting Richard Walley, with whom he played basketball in a local team. Ernie went on to play state league first division for the East Perth Eagles. Career. Dingo has had a distinguished career as an actor and presenter in film and television, and has also promoted the Generation One "Hand Across Australia" which was a promotion for Indigenous equality. With Richard Walley created a controversial "welcome to country" ceremony after dancers from the Pacific would not perform without one in Perth in 1976. Film. Dingo's film career commenced in the early 1980s and he appeared regularly on screen through the 1990s. He appeared in Bruce Beresford's 1987 drama "The Fringe Dwellers" and worked on the 1988 docu-drama biopic "Tudawali". He had a major supporting role in the international comedy blockbuster "Crocodile Dundee II" in 1988. He appeared as himself in the 1989 comedy "Capuccino" had a major role in the 1991 Wim Wenders film "Until the End of the World". In 1993 he starred in "Blackfellas" and he had a lead role in 1996's "Dead Heart". In 1998 he starred in "Somewhere in the Darkness". In 2010 he returned to the silver screen with a role in the Aboriginal musical "Bran Nue Dae" along with Jessica Mauboy and Geoffrey Rush. Television and other appearances. Dingo hosted the television program "The Great Outdoors" since 1993. He has also appeared in many Australian television series such as "Blue Heelers", "The Flying Doctors", "Heartbreak High" and "Rafferty's Rules". He appeared in the TV mini-series' "The Cowra Breakout" (1984), "A Waltz Through the Hills" (1987), (for which he won an AFI Award for Best Actor in a Television Drama) and "Kings In Grass Castles" (1997), as well as co-starring with Cate Blanchett in the Australian television drama series "Heartland" ("Heartland" is known as "Burned Bridges" in the United States). Ernie Dingo narrated the Indigenous segment of the 2000 Olympic Games opening ceremony in Sydney, New South Wales. In May 2007, Dingo appeared as one of the celebrity performers on the celebrity reality singing competition "It Takes Two". Dingo also hosted the first series of "No Leave, No Life", on Seven Network, Channel Seven. Personal life. Ernie Dingo married Sally Butler, then a sales representative for 2Day FM, in 1989. Dingo discovered in 2004 that he had a daughter, named Zoe, from a brief relationship before his marriage. He also has a daughter called Alyssa Dingo and his wife also raised another grandchild Jurra, as well as their 16-year-old adopted daughter Wilara. Sally Dingo has authored two books about her husband and family, 2000's "Ernie Dingo: King of the Kids" and "Dingo, The Story of our Mob" in 1997. They live in the suburb of Warrandyte, 24 kilometres northeast of Melbourne. National Order of Australia. Ernie Dingo was made a Member of the Order of Australia in 1990, in recognition of his service to the performing arts. Dingo is a prominent supporter of Australian rules football, and in particular the Australian Football League's West Coast Eagles. He was on the selection committee for the Indigenous Team of the Century. In 2010, two women from New South Wales and Victoria claimed to have engaged in affairs with Dingo. It was reported that they are living in an open marriage for the sake of their children. The claim of an open marriage was found to be false and was retracted. Controversy. In December 2009, Ernie made controversial comments hitting out at "hypocritical white people who lecture Aborigines about alcohol consumption". "What you should be worrying about is who is giving them access ... who sells alcohol? Not black people," Dingo said. "We people don't have a problem. Our problem is to say 'no' to you blokes, to white people ... 'no' is not really part of our cultural background." "There are more white alcoholics than there are black people in this country, so don't come at us with restrictions and Aboriginal laws about alcohol." "It upsets me a lot. I'm passionate about the fact that people talk – journalists talk – about Aboriginal people with our drinking problem. We don't have a drinking problem at all." " Aboriginal drinking problem is white people selling to them." In August 2010, the WA Police Force announced they had opened an investigation into reports of child abuse by Ernie Dingo. It is alleged that Dingo slapped and verbally abused an 11-year boy at Carnarvon Primary School, and then made abusive comments singling out that particular boy while speaking at a school assembly shortly afterward. Dingo denied the claims, saying: "I deny it, but until there is an outcome I can't really talk about it." He entered a plea of not guilty by endorsement in a letter to the court and a date of 3 February 2011 was set for trial in Carnarvon. However, on 18 April 2011, following a mediation session, the assault charge was dropped and the matter formally withdrawn.
1209171	Waiting for Forever is a 2010 American romance film directed by James Keach, starring Rachel Bilson and Tom Sturridge. The film had a limited theatrical release beginning February 4, 2011. It was shot in Salt Lake City and Ogden, Utah. Plot. Emma (Rachel Bilson) and Will (Tom Sturridge) were childhood best friends; they lost touch a long time ago—as far as she knows. She is back in their hometown, because her father is terminally ill. Emma hasn't just come home to be with her father, but she is also trying to leave behind her complicated love life and career as a TV actress. She has a strained relationship with her mother.
1044100	Carry On Cruising is the sixth in the series of "Carry On" films to be made and was released in 1962. It was the first in the "Carry On" series to be filmed in colour and was based on an original story by Eric Barker. P&O – Orient Lines were thanked in the credits. Regulars Sid James, Kenneth Williams and Kenneth Connor appear in the movie. Joan Sims and Charles Hawtrey are missing. Sims took ill shortly before filming began and was replaced by Dilys Laye, making her Carry on debut, at four days' notice. Hawtrey would be back for the next entry whilst Sims would return two years later in Carry On Cleo. Liz Fraser notches up the second of her four appearances here. Lance Percival makes his only appearance in the series in Carry On Cruising, playing the ship's chef. Plot. Captain Crowther (Sid James) has five of his crew replaced at short notice before a new cruise voyage begins. Not only does he get the five most incompetent crew men ever to sail the seven seas, but the passengers turn out to be a rather strange bunch too. The SS "Happy Wanderer" is the cruise ship and after this voyage, Crowther hopes to get a job as captain on a transatlantic ship, promising to take many of the crew members with him to the new ship. Starting off from England, the "Happy Wanderer" calls at unnamed ports in Spain, Italy and North Africa before going home again. Single ladies Gladys (Liz Fraser) and Flo (Dilys Laye) take the cruise, with Flo hoping to find a husband. Bridget (Esma Cannon) is her usual dotty and entertaining self, and one unnamed passenger (Ronnie Stevens) never disembarks but always goes straight to the bar to drink, to forget an unidentified woman. The crew and passengers settle in as the ship leaves port and head chef Wilfred Haynes (Lance Percival) finds out he is seasick. Mario Fabrizi makes a quick appearance as one of the cooks under Haynes. Ed Deveraux, best known for the part of Matt Hammond in the Australian TV series 'Skippy', appears as a Young Officer.
1059518	Frances Conroy (born November 13, 1953) is an American actress. She is best known for playing Ruth Fisher on the television series "Six Feet Under". Her work on the show won her acclaim and several awards, including a Golden Globe and three Screen Actors Guild Award. She is also known for playing Moira O'Hara on the television anthology series "American Horror Story", which garnered Conroy her first Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actress on Television nomination, and as well an Emmy nomination for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Miniseries or a Movie. Early life. Conroy was born in Monroe, Georgia to a business executive father and a mother who also worked in business. During the 1971-1972 school year she was a student at Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, where she was a member of the Mermaid Players and appeared in college theatrical productions. She moved to New York City to study drama at the Neighborhood Playhouse and the Juilliard School. She was a member of Juilliard's Drama Division "Group 6" (1973–1977) which also included Kelsey Grammer, Harriet Sansom Harris, and Robin Williams. Career. During the 1970s, she performed regularly with regional and touring theatrical companies (most notably The Acting Company), and appeared as Desdemona at the Delacorte Theatre in a production of "Othello" with Richard Dreyfuss and Raul Julia. One of her first film appearances was as a Shakespearean actress in Woody Allen's 1979 classic, "Manhattan". In 1980, she made a very well received Broadway debut in Edward Albee's "The Lady From Dubuque". She focused primarily on her stage career for the next two decades, appearing in such productions as "Our Town", "The Little Foxes", and "The Ride Down Mt. Morgan", receiving one Tony and four Drama Desk Award nominations (including a Drama Desk win for "The Secret Rapture"). Conroy had a small role in the 1984 movie "Falling in Love", as a waitress in a swanky restaurant.
400649	Melvin Goes to Dinner is a 2003 American film adaptation of Michael Blieden's stage play "Phyro-Giants!", directed by Bob Odenkirk. Blieden wrote the screenplay from his stage play, and he also stars in the film (as he did in the Los Angeles stage production), along with Stephanie Courtney, Matt Price and Annabelle Gurwitch. Plot. Melvin is a onetime medical student who has dropped out of medical training and now works (after a fashion) in a planning office of an unnamed city; the office supervisor is his big sister, so she "mothers" him instead of making him perform well. Melvin accidentally makes telephone contact with an old friend, and they decide to meet that evening for dinner. The friend decides to arrive early at the restaurant for drinks with a lady friend. By the time the dinner appointment arrives, there are 4 people involved, all of them connected in some way to at least one of the other parties. The evening passes in a leisurely dinner with much conversation, sometimes intimate. The connections between the parties are revealed throughout the evening. The movie includes several flashbacks, which at the start are not explained but which become understandable by the end. Production. Michael Penn wrote the music for the film. The film won the Audience Award at the 2003 South by Southwest Film Festival in Austin, Texas, and the Best Picture and Best Ensemble Awards at the Phoenix Film Festival.
582942	Dil Vil Pyar Vyar (, ) is a 2002 Bollywood romantic drama film. It was dubbed into Tamil as "". Composer R.D.Burman was one of the main inspirations for this movie. All the songs in this movie were composed by him. Plot. The first love story is about love getting a second chance. Dev (Sanjay Suri) is a widower, his wife Payal (Dipannita Sharma) dies soon after their honeymoon. He moves to Mumbai from Pune with his sister Rachna (Bhavna Pani). Here he meets Gauri (Sonali Kulkarni), who lives with her psychosomatically ill brother Gaurav (Rakesh Bapat). Though they fall in love, the shadow of Gaurav's illness is always between them. And then Rachna falls in love with Gaurav: The second love story. The third story is one of how love can be swallowed by ego, pride and insecurity. Vishal (R. Madhavan) and Raksha (Namrata Shirodkar) are happily married. Both are aspiring singers and want to become stars. Though Vishal is more ambitious than Raksha, it is Raksha who succeeds first and becomes a rage. Their marriage totters. The fourth love story is that of Hrithik (Jimmy Shergill) and Jojo (Hrishitaa Bhatt). Even through Hrithik is a multi-millionaire and both the families want them married, Jojo refuses to marry him until he gets a job and becomes independent of his father. Soundtrack. This movie contains several re-arranged hit songs of R.D. Burman sung by singers like Hariharan, Alka Yagnik etc. The re-arrangement was done by Babloo Chakravorty.
633297	Michael Dorn (born December 9, 1952) is an American actor and voice artist who is best known for his role as the Klingon Worf from the "Star Trek" franchise. Early life and career. Dorn was born in Luling, Texas, the son of Allie Lee (née Nauls) and Fentress Dorn, Jr. He grew up in Pasadena, California. He studied radio and television production at the Pasadena City College. From there he pursued a career in music as a performer with several different rock music bands, travelling to San Francisco and then back to Los Angeles. Dorn first appeared in "Rocky" (1976) as Apollo Creed's bodyguard, though he was not credited. He first appeared as a guest on the television show "W.E.B." in 1978. The producer was impressed with his work, so he introduced Michael to an agent who introduced him to acting teacher Charles Conrad to study acting for six months. He then landed a regular role on the television series "CHiPs". "Star Trek". Dorn's most famous role to date is that of the Klingon Starfleet officer Lieutenant J.G. (later Lieutenant and then Lt. Commander) Worf in ' and '. He said he got the role by showing up at the interview with several people. He did not smile or speak or sit, but stood in a corner in rigid attention posture, like the stereotypical Klingon warrior. When called, he marched into the room, scowled, and shook the interviewer's hand sharply. After reading, he gruffly thanked the director, and walked out. He attributes this reading in character as a Klingon warrior to getting the part. Dorn has appeared on-screen in more "Star Trek" episodes and movies as the same character than anyone else: he appeared in 175 episodes of "Star Trek: The Next Generation", 102 episodes of "Deep Space Nine" and five "Star Trek" movies, bringing his total to 281 appearances as Worf. Dorn is also one of six actors to lend his voice to "", reprising his role of Lieutenant Commander Worf. Dorn's appearance in the film ' was as Colonel Worf, representing Captain James T. Kirk and Dr. Leonard McCoy at their trial on Qo'noS and also unmasked the real assassin: Colonel West. Although never confirmed on screen, the character of Colonel Worf was intended to be the grandfather of "Star Trek: The Next Generations Worf. Dorn's voice deepened from his years of playing Worf. His two favorite episodes of "The Next Generation" are "" and "The Drumhead". In 2012, Dorn announced a desire to return to his Klingon role in a television series tentatively titled "Star Trek: Captain Worf". He said: “I had come up with the idea because I love and I think he’s a character that hasn’t been fully developed and hasn’t been fully realized. Once I started thinking about it, it became obvious to me that I wanted to at least put it out there, which I have, and the response has been pretty amazing. We’ve been contacted by different individuals–I can’t say who and all that–about wanting to come on board and be part of this.” Other work. Dorn has also appeared in various video games, including ', a game loosely based on Frank Herbert's Dune novels, as the Duke of House Atreides, Dr. John in "Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers", Special Agent Frank Horrigan and Marcus the Mutant Sheriff in "Fallout 2", as Maero in "Saints Row 2", the critically acclaimed "Mission Critical" as Commander Dana, captain of the spaceship, and Gatatog Uvenk the minor antagonist in "Mass Effect 2". Dorn later reprised his role as Marcus in '. He is the voice of the narrator in the 1996 DOS game "Vikings, Strategy of Ultimate Conquest!". Dorn has been the spokesman for Neutrogena T-Gel Shampoo, and has appeared in a car commercial. Dorn has appeared on "Webster" and "Family Guy" as Worf; the latter along with fellow "Star Trek: The Next Generation" stars in the episodes "Peter's Got Woods" and "Not All Dogs Go to Heaven". Dorn supplied the voice to I.M. Weasel, protagonist of the animated series "I Am Weasel". Dorn also supplied the voice of the Martian Centurion Robots in cartoon "Duck Dodgers". He provided the voice of Kraven the Hunter in ' and appeared on "Martial Law". He voiced Gorgon in "Fantastic Four" and King Beardbottom in "Here Thar Be Dwarves", the 30th episode of "The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy". Dorn also reappeared in the DC animated universe as Kalibak, in episodes of "Justice League" and "Justice League Unlimited". He appeared in the "Ben 10" episode "The Return" and "Be Afraid of the Dark" as Doctor Vicktor and Ben Vicktor. Dorn appeared as the President of the United States on Volume 4 of "Heroes". Dorn also appeared again with Sylvester Stallone in "Shade" as a high stakes poker player. Michael Dorn has also appeared in SWAT Kats: The Radical Squadron as Mutilor the alien antagonist. He was also the voice of Rufus 3000 in the movie '. He also appeared on "Without a Trace" on November 15, 2007. He voiced the former Great Spirit Mata Nui in the recent film, '. Months later, LEGO hired him to return to the voice of Mata Nui in "Mata Nui Saga", a illustrated blog in BIONICLE.com. In 2010 he voiced Tassadar in '.
1043145	Alastair George Bell Sim, CBE (9 October 1900 – 19 August 1976) was a Scottish character actor who appeared in a string of classic British films. He is best remembered in the role of Ebenezer Scrooge in the 1951 film "Scrooge", and for his portrayal of Miss Fritton, the headmistress in two St. Trinian's films. He was memorably described by comedian Ronnie Corbett as a "sad-faced actor, with the voice of a fastidious ghoul", in Corbett's autobiography "High Hopes". Early life. Alastair Sim was born in Edinburgh in 1900. His mother had been born on the island of Eigg, and when she came to the mainland in her teens she could speak only Gaelic. His father, Alexander Sim, was a prosperous businessman with property in Braemar and Edinburgh. He designed and paid for the construction of the Earl Haig Gardens in Edinburgh for returning servicemen to sit in during the day.
711630	Gingerdead Man is a 2005 horror-comedy film starring Gary Busey. It is followed by ' and '. "The Gingerdead Man" was released on DVD by Shoot Productions. Plot. In a Waco, Texas diner called Cadillac Jack's, crazed killer Millard Findlemeyer (Gary Busey) opens fire on the Leigh family, killing Jeremy (James Snyder) and James (Newell Alexander), but leaving Sarah (Robin Sydney) and her mother, Betty (Margaret Blye), alive. Findlemeyer is arrested and sentenced to die in the electric chair, due in part to Sarah's testimony. After the execution, Findlemeyer is cremated and his ashes are sent to his mother (E. Dee Biddlecome), a witch who mixes the ashes with a gingerbread spice mix. Some time later, The Bakery, a pastry shop run by the surviving Leighs, is in dire straits and Betty has been reduced to a shotgun-toting alcoholic who shoots down the banner of the new restaurant opening across the street; Sarah sends her home with Bakery employee Julia (Daniela Melgoza). The restaurant owner, Jimmy Dean (Larry Cedar) arrives to complain about the banner and attempts to buy Sarah out, so he can knock down The Bakery, which he bemoans as an eyesore. After exchanging hostilities with Dean's daughter Lorna (Alexia Aleman), Sarah defers the decision. Returning to work, Sarah and Brick Fields (Jonathan Chase), another Bakery employee, find a mysterious gingerbread spice mix left at their doorstep by Findlemeyer's mother. They set to using the mix, but Brick cuts himself, allowing his blood to pollute the dough. Sarah permits him to leave early so he can pursue his amateur wrestling career as The Butcher-Baker at Wrestlepalooza. She then makes a large gingerbread man with the contaminated dough and puts it in an industrial oven to bake. Lorna has returned and planted a rat in The Bakery so the health department will shut them down, but is discovered by Sarah. A physical fight ensues, during which Lorna hits a switch that causes a surge of electricity into the oven where the gingerbread man is cooking, animating it. Amos Cadbury (Ryan Locke), Lorna's boyfriend, who has gotten tired of waiting outside for her, arrives on the scene. Sarah removes the gingerbread man from the oven, at which point the newly-dubbed Gingerdead Man leaps up, taunting them. They attempt to lock the living cookie in the freezer and Sarah tries to call the police, but the line is dead. Lorna calls her dad on Amos’s cell phone before the batteries go dead. Betty comes back to look for her stash of alcohol and Julia comes back looking for Betty. Each is, in turn, assaulted by the Gingerdead Man; Betty loses a finger and is put into the oven, while Julia is knocked out by a frying pan, encased in frosting, decorated, and left in the freezer. Amos returns to his car and retrieves a handgun. Jimmy Dean arrives to pick up Lorna. While he investigates Amos’s car, the Gingerdead Man takes Jimmy's car and, using a rolling pin to operate the accelerator, hits him, pinning him between the car and a wall and killing him. Amos and Sarah discover and rescue Julia from the freezer. Sarah tells Amos that she thinks the killer cookie is Millard. Lorna decides to wait outside for her father, but discovers only his body sprawled over the hood of his car. She steals his ring and heads back inside, where she triggers a tripwire that lodges a knife into her forehead, killing her. Sarah and Amos find Betty and attempt to rescue her from the oven, but the Gingerdead Man locks Sarah in the oven and knocks Amos out with a hammer. Amos recovers, shoots the oven door's lock off, and saves Sarah. Brick returns. The Gingerdead Man gets Amos's pistol and opens fire. Julia and Brick manage to subdue him and Brick eats the cookie's head. Their problem briefly appears to be resolved, but Brick turns out to be possessed by the Gingerdead Man. He is pushed into the oven and baked to death. Several months later, Betty, Sarah, and Amos are having a bake sale to raise money for the hospital, with a little help from two nurses (Debra Mayer and Kaycee Shank). Two kids ask if they have any gingerbread cookies, and one of the nurses tells them that an older lady (presumably Millard's mother) stopped by a few minutes ago and dropped some off. The nurse opens the box, revealing five gingerbread cookies, who open their eyes. One of the gingerbread cookies is bought by a woman, who also buys a box full of pastries and ships them to her sister in L.A., setting up the plot for the sequel. Reception. The film currently has a 60% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Sequel. Rumors spread of a sequel in the works entitled "Gingerdead Chick" which planned to start shooting May 15, 2007. On October 9, 2007, it was revealed that "" had begun shooting. It was released in 2008. It included new monsters called "Tiny Terrors" (a pun on the unreleased Puppet Master Bobblehead line.) On July 16, 2008, Charles Band announced that he'll be making "". The film was slated for a 2009 release, but filming was delayed until January 2010. Full Moon Entertainment announced on their YouTube page that the film was slated for a September 13, 2011 release, and other sites like CDUniverse have the same release date. The film was rumored to be shot in 3D, but the trailer released by Full Moon said nothing about the film in 3D. It was most likely a scrapped gimmick announced very early in production as an idea. The movie was released in 2011.
1043992	The Leather Boys is a 1964 British drama film about the rocker subculture in London featuring a gay motorcyclist. This film is notable as an early example of a film that violated the Hollywood production code, yet was still shown in the United States, as well as an important film in the genre of queer cinema. An example of British kitchen sink realism, it was considered daring in 1964 as it touched upon homosexuality, however obliquely. Reviewers have noted that it contains naturalistic photography and period locations such as the Ace Cafe. The film is based on a novel commissioned by the London literary agent and publisher Anthony Blond, who suggested that Gillian Freeman write about a "Romeo and Romeo in the South London suburbs". Novel to screenplay. The book was published in 1961 under the pseudonym Eliot George—an inversion of the pen-name of the famous 19th century female author, Mary Ann Evans, who published as George Eliot. Freeman is credited under her own name in the film as the author of the screenplay based on the novel of "Eliot George". The original novel is explicit about the sexual relationship between the two male characters, and about the fact that the hero's wife is pregnant by another man. It also portrays the gang to which they belong as a criminal network, and ends with a botched robbery committed by the two main characters. The film plot was changed considerably, presumably to make it more palatable to 1964 movie-goers. Only one of the main male characters is gay in the film (with the hero Reggie leaving Pete upon finding out his sexuality at the film's end) and there is no criminal activity at all. Even the wife's infidelity is portrayed ambiguously. Plot. Working class cockney teenagers Dot (Rita Tushingham) and biker Reggie (Colin Campbell) get married. Their marriage soon turns sour. During an unsuccessful honeymoon at a holiday camp Reggie becomes alienated from the brassy and self-absorbed Dot. Afterwards, they begin to live increasingly separate lives as Reggie becomes more involved with his biker friends, especially the eccentric Pete (Dudley Sutton). Reggie also loses interest in having sex with Dot. When Reggie's grandfather dies, Dot merely complains that his support for his bereaved grandmother (Gladys Henson) has stopped them visiting the cinema. Her boorish behaviour at the funeral and her refusal to move in with Reggie's grandmother leads to a major argument. She leaves and Reggie stays with his gran, who will not leave her own house. He brings in Pete, who has been forced to leave his lodgings, to stay as a lodger with her. The two share a bed at her house. Meanwhile Dot shows an interest in Brian (Johnny Briggs), another biker. The following day Pete and Reggie drive to the seaside. Reggie wants them to chat up a couple of girls, but Pete shows no interest. Reggie intends to return to Dot. Dot herself has already hatched a plan to get him back by pretending to be pregnant. Dot is sitting with Brian when she tells Reggie of her "pregnancy". Believing he can't be the father, Reggie accuses Brian and the two fight. Reggie knocks out Brian. Dot visits Reggie's gran's house and learns that he is sharing a bed with Pete. She taunts them, calling them "queers". Reggie is disturbed by this, and asks Pete to deny that he is homosexual, but Pete avoids answering. The bikers organise a race from London to Edinburgh and back in which Reggie, Pete and Brian all take part. Dot rides with Brian. When Brian's bike breaks down, Reggie carries Dot on his. Dot admits she is not pregnant. The two start to rekindle their relationship. When they get back, Pete manages to separate Reggie from Dot, taking him to the pub. They come back to their room drunk. When Pete passes out, Reggie sits up thinking. The following morning he decides to return to Dot. Pete gets upset, and says he can't understand why Reggie would want to return to Dot, since they get on so much better. He says they should go to America together. Reggie says that he needs a woman. He returns to Dot, but discovers her in bed with Brian. In despair, he meets up with Pete and says he wishes to leave for America as soon as possible. Pete says he can get them passage working on a ship. While Pete is arranging things, he leaves Reggie in a pub, which turns out to be a gay bar. Reggie realises that the clientele are gay when one starts chatting him up. When Pete walks in they all recognise him and Reggie suddenly understands that Pete too is gay. He leaves.
582560	Mumbai Meri Jaan (Hindi: , Urdu: , translation: "Mumbai My Life") is a 2008 Hindi film directed by Nishikanth Kamath and produced by Ronnie Screwvala. It stars R. Madhavan, Soha Ali Khan, Irrfan Khan, Paresh Rawal and Kay Kay Menon. It deals with the aftermath of the 11 July 2006 Mumbai train bombings, where 209 people lost their lives and over 700 were injured. It won multiple Filmfare Awards. Plot. "Mumbai Meri Jaan" tells the story of five people whose lives are affected by the 2006 Mumbai train bombings.
1063882	Revenge of the Nerds is a 1984 comedy film about social life on a college campus. The film stars Robert Carradine and Anthony Edwards, with Curtis Armstrong, Ted McGinley, Julia Montgomery, Brian Tochi, Larry B. Scott, Michelle Meyrink, John Goodman, and Donald Gibb. The film was directed by Jeff Kanew. The film's storyline chronicles a group of nerds trying to stop harassment by the persecuting jock fraternity, the Alpha Betas. "Revenge of the Nerds" is #91 on Bravo's "100 Funniest Movies". Plot. Best friends and nerds Lewis Skolnick (Robert Carradine) and Gilbert Lowe (Anthony Edwards) enroll in Adams College to study computer science. The Alpha Betas, a fraternity to which many members of the school's football team belong, carelessly burn down their own house and seize the freshmen dorm for themselves. The college allows the displaced freshmen, living in the gymnasium, to join fraternities or move to other housing. Lewis, Gilbert, and other outcasts who cannot join a fraternity renovate a dilapidated home to serve as their own fraternity house. The Alpha Betas and their associated sorority, the Pi Delta Psi, harass the nerds. The nerds appeal to the Greek Council, but its president Stan Gable (Ted McGinley), the leader of the Alpha Betas, rejects their complaints as the nerds are not a part of any fraternity. The nerds attempt to join a national fraternity, but all but one reject them. They meet U.N. Jefferson (Bernie Casey), the head of the black fraternity Lambda Lambda Lambda (Tri-Lambs). Although Jefferson notes that the applicants are nerds, he gives them probationary membership when Poindexter (Timothy Busfield) discovers that the Tri-Lambs' official bylaws require it. The nerds prepare a party and invite Jefferson, but the party appears ruined when the Pi Delta Psi, after promising to be their dates, do not appear. However, thanks to the Omega Mus - a sorority consisting largely of overweight or geeky women - and large amounts of marijuana supplied by Booger (Curtis Armstrong), the party is ultimately successful. Towards the end of the evening, the Alpha Betas and Pis unleash a herd of pigs in the nerds' house, then loudly taunt and moon them from the street; Jefferson sees firsthand the harassment the nerds face. The nerds seek revenge; they stage a panty raid on the Pi Delta Psi house and use the distraction to install video cameras to spy on the women while they undress. The nerds then sneak into the football team's locker room and pour a powerful liniment on the players' jock straps, resulting in a painful and humiliating football practice. The nerds' ingenuity impresses Jefferson, who officially makes them the Adams College chapter of Lambda Lambda Lambda. The Alpha Betas continue to harass the nerds, however, leaving a burning "NERDS" sign outside the house. The new Tri-Lambs realize they need to win control of the Greek Council by winning the annual Greek Games during homecoming. They use their significant knowledge to compete well with the Alpha Betas during the athletic portion of the event. They then use topless photos taken from their Pi Delta cameras to easily win the charity sales and costume events, during which Lewis seduces Stan's girlfriend Betty Childs (Julia Montgomery) by posing as Stan while they have sex. Booger soundly defeats Ogre (Donald Gibb) in a belching contest. Finally, the nerds' elaborate, computer-driven musical production wins the final event of the Greek Games, and the Lambdas nominate Gilbert to succeed Stan as president of the Greek Council. The angry Alpha Betas vandalize the Tri-Lambs' house. Gilbert attempts to denounce the act at the homecoming pep rally, but the Alpha Betas attack him, while Coach Harris (John Goodman) prepares to assault the school's dean when he intervenes. The Alpha Betas and Harris are stopped when Jefferson and a group of Tri-Lambs from other chapters arrive and intimidate them. As the other nerds arrive, Gilbert makes an inspiring speech about how it feels to be mistreated just for being different, and Lewis invites anyone who has "ever felt stepped on, left out, picked on, put down" to come and join them. Betty and most members of the assembled crowd do so, to the chagrin of the Alpha Betas. The Dean gives the Tri-Lambs the Alpha Beta house until theirs is repaired, while the Alpha Betas must live in the gymnasium. The film ends with the nerds celebrating their victory, accompanied by "We Are the Champions". Production. Exterior scenes such as the arrival of the nerds at college and the fraternity houses were filmed at the University of Arizona in Tucson, Arizona. The original Nerds residence, from which they were ousted, was in fact Cochise Hall. Their subsequent residence was Bear Down Gymnasium. The original Alpha Beta fraternity house that gets burned down was shot (at the time of filming) at the Alpha Gamma Rho house, now the Beta Theta Pi house on University Boulevard and the Pi house was the Phi Delta Theta fraternity house. Soundtrack. Ollie E. Brown, of Ollie & Jerry fame, wrote and performed as Revenge the song "They're So Incredible" for the film. "They're So Incredible" is performed with different lyrics by the nerds in the film at the final event of the Greek Games. Reception. The film holds a 77% "Fresh" rating at the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, based on 27 critics' reviews and a 41 out of 100 ration on Metacritic based on 5 critics' reviews and signifying "mixed or average reviews". Sequels. Three less successful sequels followed; two of which were television films. Influence. Due to the influence of how the nerds started their own fraternity in the movie, several real life chapters of Lambda Lambda Lambda have sprung up in different locations around the United States. The real life fraternity currently has five chapters in Connecticut, Maryland, New York, and Washington. The song played over the first of the homecoming events (a Japanese rendition of "A Bicycle Made for Two") is parodied in the "American Dad!" episode "Home Adrone" from the sixth season. The song "They're Incredible" by Revenge - the song that wins Tri-Lambda the homecoming presidency - is used in the 16th episode (Peter's Progress) of Family Guy's 7th season. Television series. The pilot episode of the 1991 attempted series of the same name was mostly a condensed version of the film's events. The only character created for the series was the nerds' resident advisor, P.T. Turner (Richard Gant). The pilot aired on FOX in 1991 to fairly negative reviews. This pilot is available on the "Panty Raid" DVD release. Home media. On January 3, 2007 "Revenge of the Nerds" was released as a special edition DVD entitled "Panty Raid Edition" (The special edition name was changed from "The 'We've Got Bush' Edition", with preliminary artwork shown on websites such as The Digital Bits). Special features included: an audio commentary, Making of Documentary, deleted scenes, television pilot, and two theatrical trailers. Planned remake. A remake of the original "Revenge of the Nerds" was slated for release in 2007; however, the project was canceled in 2006 after two weeks of filming. The cast included Adam Brody (who also co-produced), Dan Byrd, Katie Cassidy, Kristin Cavallari, Jenna Dewan, Chris Marquette, Ryan Pinkston, Efren Ramirez, and Nick Zano. The film was to be directed by Kyle Newman and executive produced by McG. The script was written by Gabe Sachs and Jeff Judah, Adam Jay Epstein and Andrew Jacobson, and Adam F. Goldberg. Filming took place in Atlanta, Georgia at Agnes Scott College, the Georgia State Capitol, and Inman Park. Filming was originally scheduled to take place at Emory College but university officials changed their minds after reading the script. A story by the "Chicago Tribune" described the film as too "raunchy" for the campus administration. In November 2006, the film was shelved by Fox Atomic. Producers found it difficult to shoot on the smaller Agnes Scott campus, and studio head Peter Rice was disappointed with the dailies. The remake would have been the first project for the newly created Fox Atomic. 20th Century Fox personnel have stated that it's highly unlikely that a remake will be picked up in the future.
589728	Sanam Teri Kasam is a 1982 Hindi-language Indian film directed by Narendra Bedi, starring Kamal Haasan and Reena Roy. Reena's sister Barkha Roy produced the film. It became a "semi-hit" at the box office and was more successful in the big cities. R.D. Burman won his first Filmfare Best Music Director Award for Sanam Teri Kasam. Plot. "Sanam Teri Kasam" is the story of Sunil and his search for his father who has gone somewhere when Sunil was just a child. He meets Reena Roy en route who leads him to his father Kader Khan. But unfortunately, somebody else (Ranjeet) has already been planted by Jeevan as Sunil and hence, Kader Khan neither recognises his real son, nor allows him to meet Reena Roy. In the end however, every hurdle is removed and all is well. The film is also known for its super hit songs, especially 'nisha, nisha, nisha'. The other songs 'sheeshe ke gharon mein', 'kitne bhi tu kar le sitam' were also hit. Songs. 1 Jana O Meri Jana
1059083	Rise of the Planet of the Apes is a 2011 American science fiction film directed by Rupert Wyatt and starring James Franco, Freida Pinto, and Andy Serkis. Written by Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver, it is 20th Century Fox's reboot of the "Planet of the Apes" series, intended to act as an origin story for a new series of films. Its premise is similar to the fourth film in the original series, "Conquest of the Planet of the Apes" (1972), but it is not a direct remake in that it does not fit into that series' continuity. "Rise of the Planet of the Apes" was released on August 5, 2011, to critical and commercial success. The film was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Visual Effects. It was also nominated for five Saturn Awards including Best Director for Wyatt and Best Writing for Jaffa and Silver, winning Best Science Fiction Film, Best Supporting Actor for Serkis and Best Special Effects. Serkis's performance as Caesar was widely acclaimed, earning him many nominations from many associations which do not usually recognize performance capture as real acting. A sequel to the film, "Dawn of the Planet of the Apes", is set for release in July 2014. Plot. Will Rodman (James Franco) a scientist at biotechnology company Gen-Sys, is testing viral-based drug "ALZ-112' on chimpanzees to find a cure for brain ailments such as Alzheimer's disease. The drug is given to a chimpanzee, Bright Eyes, greatly increasing her intelligence, but she is forced from her cage, goes on a rampage, and is killed. Will's boss Steven Jacobs (David Oyelowo) terminates the project and orders chimp handler Robert Franklin (Tyler Labine) to euthanize the chimps. After doing as ordered, Franklin discovers that Bright Eyes had recently given birth and convinces Will to save the baby chimp's life by taking him home temporarily. Will's father Charles (John Lithgow), who is suffering Alzheimer's disease, names the chimp "Caesar." Will learns that Caesar (Andy Serkis) has inherited his mother's high intelligence and decides to raise him, working from home and observing his behavior in hopes that he can get the project restarted. Three years later, Will introduces Caesar to the redwood forest at Muir Woods National Monument. Meanwhile, with Charles' condition rapidly deteriorating, Will treats him with ALZ-112 and he is restored to better-than-original cognitive ability. After five more years, as an adult chimp of seven, upon seeing a dog on a leash (like his) Caesar openly question his identity — and Will tells him of his origins. Meanwhile, Charles' dementia returns as he has become resistant to the ALZ-112. Caesar witnesses a confrontation between confused Charles and neighbor Douglas Hunsiker (David Hewlett) and attacks Hunsiker. Caesar is then placed in a primate shelter where he is treated cruelly by the other chimps and the chief guard, Dodge (Tom Felton). Caesar learns how to unlock his cage, gaining free access to the common area. With the assistance of Buck — a gorilla - he confronts the sanctuary's alpha chimp and claims that position. Will's boss Jacobs clears development of a more powerful, gaseous version of the viral drug — now called ALZ-113 - when Will tells him it will not only heal brain disease, but will improve intelligence in anyone. Will takes the drug home to save his father, but is too late. Franklin is exposed to the new drug and becomes ill. Attempting to warn Will at his home, he sneezes blood onto Hunsiker and is later discovered dead. Will attempts to release Caesar, but the chimp refuses to go home with him. Instead he escapes from the facility and returns to Will's house, where he takes canisters of the ALZ-113. Returning to the facility he releases the gas, enhancing the intelligence of the other apes overnight. When Dodge attempts to get Caesar back into his cage, Caesar shocks him by speaking for the first time — yelling "No!" Caesar then electrocutes the cattle prod-wielding man by spraying him with water. The apes flee the facility, release the remaining apes from Gen-Sys, and free the apes from the San Francisco zoo. A battle ensues as the ape army fights its way past a police blockade on the Golden Gate Bridge to escape into the Redwood forest at Muir Woods. Buck sacrifices himself to save Caesar, jumping into the helicopter which Jacobs is riding and crashing it onto the bridge, but Jacobs is trapped in the helicopter; he is then killed by Koba, an elder ape who had been a test subject all his life. As the apes find their way into the forest, Will arrives and warns Caesar that the humans will hunt them down, and begs him to return home. To Will's surprise Caesar speaks, telling him "Caesar is home." In the final scene the apes climb to the tops of the Redwoods; in the distance is the city from which they escaped. In a post-credits scene Hunsiker — having been infected by Franklin — arrives at San Francisco International Airport for his flight to Paris. His nose begins to drip blood onto the floor. The camera then zooms into the flight-status board and a graphic traces the spread of the humanity-killing virus to France and then around the globe via airline flight routes. Production. Development and writing. In 2006, screenwriter-producer Rick Jaffa was searching for a script idea. As Jaffa searched a newspaper articles clipping, one about pet chimpanzees that become troublesome to their owners and heartbroken for not adapting well to the human environment intrigued him. As Jaffa eventually realized it fit the "Planet of the Apes" series, he called his wife and screenwriting partner Amanda Silver to express his ideas of such a chimpanzee eventually starting the ape revolution, and then the couple started developing the character of Caesar. Jaffa and Silver then wrote a script and sold it to Fox, producers of the "Apes" franchise. The script added other elements which the couple had researched, such as genetic engineering. Several tributes to specific scenes, characters, and cast and crew from the previous "Apes" film series were added in the script – in particular, Caesar's treatment at the primate sanctuary parallels Taylor's treatment as a captive in the original film.
219926	Drowning by Numbers is a 1988 British film directed by Peter Greenaway. It won the award for Best Artistic Contribution at the 1988 Cannes Film Festival. Plot. The film's plot centers on three women — a grandmother, her daughter and her niece — each named Cissie Colpitts. As the story progresses each woman successively drowns her husband. The three Cissie Colpitts are played by Joan Plowright, Juliet Stevenson, and Joely Richardson. Bernard Hill plays the coroner Madgett, who is cajoled into covering up the three crimes.
1263809	Love at First Bite is a 1979 comedy horror film directed by Stan Dragoti and written by Robert Kaufman, using characters originally created by Bram Stoker. It stars George Hamilton, Susan Saint James, Richard Benjamin and Arte Johnson. The original music score was composed by Charles Bernstein. The film's tagline is: "Your favorite pain in the neck is about to bite your funny bone!" Plot. The infamous vampire Count Dracula is expelled from his castle by the Communist government of Romania, which plans to convert the structure into a training facility for gymnasts (the head trainer declares that it will include Nadia Comăneci). The world-weary Count travels to New York City with his bug-eating assistant Renfield and establishes himself in a hotel, but only after a mix-up at the airport causes his coffin to be accidentally sent to be the centerpiece in a funeral at a black church in Harlem. While Dracula learns that America contains such wonders as blood banks, he also proceeds to suffer the general ego-crushing that comes from modern life in the Big Apple as he romantically pursues flaky fashion model Cindy Sondheim (Susan Saint James), whom he has admired from afar and believes to be the current reincarnation of his true love (an earlier being named Mina Harker). Dracula is ineptly pursued in turn by Sondheim's psychiatrist and quasi-boyfriend Jeffrey Rosenberg. Jeffrey is the grandson of Dracula's old nemesis Fritz (sic) van Helsing but changed his name to Rosenberg "for professional reasons". Rosenberg's numerous methods to combat Dracula - mirrors, garlic, a Star of David (which he uses instead of the cross), and hypnosis - are easily averted by the Count. Rosenberg also tries burning Dracula's coffin with the vampire still inside, but is arrested by hotel security. Subsequently he tries to shoot him with three silver bullets, but Dracula remains unscathed, patiently explaining that this works only on werewolves. Rosenberg's increasingly erratic actions eventually cause him to be locked up as a lunatic, but as mysterious cases of blood-bank robberies and vampiric attacks begin to spread, NYPD Lieutenant Ferguson starts to believe the psychiatrist's claims and gets him released. In the end, as a major blackout hits the city, Dracula flees via taxi cab back to the airport with Cindy, pursued by Rosenberg and Ferguson. The coffin is accidentally sent to Jamaica instead of London and the couple miss their plane. On the runway, Cindy finally agrees to become Dracula's vampire bride. Rosenberg attempts to stake Dracula, but as he moves in for the kill, the two fly off as bats together. A check drops down by which Cindy pays off her (enormous) psychiatry bill to Rosenberg, to which he remarks: "She has become a responsible person ... or whatever." Rosenberg keeps Dracula's cape - the only thing his stake had hit - which Ferguson borrows, hoping (since the cape makes the wearer look stylish) it will help him on his wedding anniversary. The last scene shows Dracula and Cindy, transformed into bats, on their way to Jamaica. Reception. The film was a financial success, earning about $43 million and ranking at 13th place on a list of the top grossing films of 1979. In fact, it was one of the highest grossing independent films of all time for many years. However, critical reviews were mixed, and "Love at First Bite" has a 67% "fresh" rating on review aggregator site Rotten Tomatoes, based on 21 reviews. As quoted by Rotten Tomatoes, Janet Maslin described "Love" as " coarse, delightful little movie with a bang-up cast and no pretensions at all," while Dave Kehr lamented the film's "hodgepodge of flat one-liners and graceless slapstick." DVD. The movie has been released on DVD. On the DVD version, the song played during the disco scene, "I Love the Nightlife" by Alicia Bridges has been removed and replaced by a different song. Sequel. Hamilton has been very eager to make a sequel to "Love at First Bite". In 2009, he stated: It's terrific. It's all about old world school of Dracula in the Bela Lugosi 1940s up against the Twilight felons with humor, It's hard to do but it's great fun. I think 'Twilight' is a wonderful series of books. It's so important for these young girls with hormonal changes and this love that's worth giving your life for. But now I have to find a way to bring my 'Love At First Bite' character into that kind of story and make it funny and not be at all like 'Twilight' and I think I found a way to do that.
519967	Michael V. (born Beethoven del Valle Bunagan; December 17, 1969), also known as "Bitoy", is a Filipino comedian, actor, impersonator, director, composer, singer, rapper, voice artist and parodist, who appears in the GMA Network show "Bubble Gang", and in his own TV show "Pepito Manaloto".
659770	Paul Adelstein (born April 29, 1969) is an American television and film actor, best known for the role of Agent Paul Kellerman in the television series, "Prison Break", and his role as pediatrician Cooper Freedman in the series "Private Practice". Early life. Adelstein was born in Chicago, Illinois in 1969, to a Reform Jewish family. Prior to his professional acting career, Adelstein attended the progressive Francis W. Parker School, then Bowdoin College where he graduated Phi Beta Kappa and summa cum laude with a degree in English. He began his career in theatre, working with New Crime Productions, a company founded by John Cusack, and later with the Steppenwolf Theatre Company. Career. Making his film debut in 1990 in "The Grifters", Adelstein went on to appear in several television series which include "Cupid", "ER", "Without a Trace" and "Scrubs" and to have a number of significant supporting roles in films such as "Bedazzled" (2000), "Intolerable Cruelty" (2003), "Memoirs of a Geisha" (2005), and "Be Cool" (2005). In 2005, he received his most significant role to date as a member of the regular cast of "Prison Break". Interestingly, though he played the role of Paul Kellerman, he had originally auditioned for the role of Lincoln Burrows. When he left the show in 2007, he joined the regular cast of "Private Practice". Personal life. Paul moved to Los Angeles in 2003 at the age of 34. "I've fallen in love with the city. I found it difficult at first, but like I said I was doing it in pretty small doses. By the time I had my own place I was pretty comfortable here, and now I love it. There's really no place in the world like Los Angeles, love it or hate it." In November 2006, Adelstein married actress Liza Weil, who played Paris Geller on "Gilmore Girls". They had their first child in April 2010, a girl named Josephine Elizabeth Weil-Adelstein. Adelstein is also lead singer and guitarist of a band called Doris. The band was started in the late nineties and Adelstein has recorded several albums with them, singing and songwriting for the group. Adelstein is also a pianist and guitarist. His musical background was the cover story in the May/June 2012 issue of Making Music Magazine.
583492	Sankat City () is a dark comedy Bollywood Hindi movie directed by Pankaj Advani starring Kay Kay Menon. The film was released in India on July 10, 2009. Plot. Guru (Kay Kay Menon) and Ganpat (Dilip Prabhavalkar)are two small time car thieves. One night, they steal a Mercedes along with sum of Rs. 10 million inside the car, unaware of the fact that car belongs to a vicious gangster/loan shark called Faujdaar (Anupam Kher).They try to sell the stolen Mercedes to Suleman Supari (Rahul Dev), a hitman, who recognizes the car and notifies his friend Faujdaar. Faujdaar sends his henchman with Guru to get back the cash. Meanwhile, Ganpat has hidden cash in the safe place, but after meeting with an accident, he loses his memory. Angered by the chain of events, Faujdaar gives three days to Guru to return the money. Critical reception. "Sankat City" received generally positive reviews from film critics as a dark comedy.
628940	Damon Herriman (born 31 March 1970) is an Australian actor known for his film and television work in Australia and the United States. Life and career. Damon Herriman was born in Adelaide, South Australia. He began acting in local television commercials at the age of eight, but it was not until he was cast as Frank Errol in "The Sullivans" two years later that his career began to take off. He continued to work solidly as a child actor, with a return to The Sullivans a year later, as well as the Australian series "The Patchwork Hero, Sara Dane, For the Term of His Natural Life" and "Taurus Rising." He received three Logie Award nominations for his performance in "The Sullivans". After appearing in the "The Flying Doctors" (for which he won the Penguin Award for Excellence in a Performance by a Juvenile) and the children's mini-series "Elly & Jools", Herriman was cast as Mark Jorgensen, the bespectacled best friend of Ben Mendelsohn's Danny Clark in the Australian cult comedy classic, "The Big Steal". As well as continuing to work solidly in film, television and theatre, Herriman has also written and/or directed many successful short films, including the Tropfest finalsts "They" and "The Date". In 2004, he won the Best Screenplay award at Flickerfest for the short film "Soar", in which he also performed. He is a performer and contributing writer on the new ABC sketch comedy series, "The Elegant Gentleman's Guide to Knife Fighting". Herriman is best known to Australian audiences for playing Claudia Karvan's workmate and friend George Wagstaffe in the critically acclaimed Foxtel series "Love My Way" and more recently as Marcus Dwyer in the ABC comedy, "Laid". In 2004, he played the creepy roadkill truck driver in the US horror film "House of Wax", and since 2005 has worked regularly in the United States, appearing in such productions as "The Unit"; "Redbelt" (both written and directed by David Mamet); "Breaking Bad"; "Wilfred"; ""; "The Loop"; "Cold Case"; as well as the pilot for the unaired Dick Wolf series, "Lost and Found". He played the convicted kidnapper of the Lindbergh baby, Bruno Hauptmann, in the Clint Eastwood-helmed "J. Edgar" (2011), and one of the Cavendish gang in Gore Verbinski's "The Lone Ranger" (2013). He is best known in the US for playing redneck Dewey Crowe in the FX series, "Justified", and more recently the mysterious hitman Mr. Jones on the CBS crime series, "Vegas". In 2013, Herriman will be seen in the Australian feature, "100 Bloody Acres", as well as the playing the title role in the ABC telemovie, "The Outlaw Michael Howe".
592085	Hudugaru (Kannada:ಹುಡುಗರು) is a 2011 Kannada-language drama film directed by Maadesh, starring Puneet Rajkumar, Yogesh, Srinagar Kitty and Radhika Pandit in the lead roles. The film, which is a remake of the successful 2010 Tamil film "Naadodigal", has been produced by Parvathamma Rajkumar. While V. Harikrishna has composed the soundtrack, Satya Hegde has worked on the cinematography. The film released on 5 May 2011. It is doing great at box office similar to Puneeth's previous film "Jackie" which was one of the biggest blockbusters of Kannada film industry. The film earned Puneeth Rajkumar Filmfare Best Actor Award in Kannada. Plot. Three youths – Prabhu, Chandru and Siddesh (Puneeth Rajakumar, Srinagara Kitty and Yogesh respectively) aspiring for government job, computer center and to settle in Dubai are struck with a bad luck in life when Sudhir (Vishal Hegde) a best friend of Prabhu. Prabhu with his best friends Chandru and Siddesh decide to kidnap the daughter of business tycoon so that his friend Sudhir (son of former MP) lives happily. In the process of kidnap of Sushma fiancé of Sudhir – Prabhu is hit badly on his forehead, Chandru loses his right leg and Siddesh becomes deaf. It is not just that in the life of trios. The destiny is very bad when they are back to their native place. Prabhu loses his lover for someone, Siddesh is sent out from the home, Chandru losing a leg finds Pavitra, sister of Prabhu for his life. The story takes a curious turn when the marriage out of struggle between Sudhir and Sushma breaks up. The trio goes back to the same place where they received brutal injuries and question the lovers on separation Release. The film released on 5 May 2011 in around 130 plus cinema screens all over Karnataka. Also efforts are being made to release the film in overseas market in the month of May. The film has been sold to various distributors in the state for fancy prices and is slated to be on par with Puneet's earlier mega hit film "Jackie". Boxoffice. It got great response from both audiences and critics. It grossed 30 crores. Soundtrack. V. Harikrishna's music for the movie have been widely appreciated. The lyrics are written by Jayanth Kaikini, Yograj Bhat and Nagendra Prasad.
1049880	The Wizard of Gore is a 1970 splatter film written by Allen Kahn and directed by Herschell Gordon Lewis. It stars Ray Sager and Judy Cler. Plot. Magician Montag the Magnificent delivers hectoring speeches about the nature of reality to his audience and then performs mutilation tricks on female "volunteers". The women appear unharmed immediately afterward but later collapse, dead, in public or at home—mutilated in the same grisly fashion suggested by Montag's stage tricks (cut in half with a chainsaw, drilled through with a punch press, etc.). Audience member Sherry Carson, a local TV talk show hostess, and her boyfriend Jack begin to suspect that Montag is somehow involved in the murders. Jack and fellow reporter Greg attempt to research the case but are unable to come up with any solid evidence.
1065197	AnnaSophia Robb (born December 8, 1993) is an American film and television actress. She gained prominence in 2005 with starring roles in "Because of Winn-Dixie" and "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory". She is also known for "Bridge to Terabithia" (2007), "Race to Witch Mountain" (2009), "Soul Surfer" (2011). From 2013, she has starred as Carrie Bradshaw on the CW's series "The Carrie Diaries", the prequel to HBO's TV series "Sex and the City". Early life. Robb was born in Denver, Colorado, the only child of Janet, an interior designer, and David Robb, an architect. She was named after her maternal great-grandmother, Anna Sophie, and her paternal grandmother, Anna Marie. She is of English, Scottish, Danish, Swedish, and Irish descent. She is a Christian and was home-schooled. Robb competed in dance and gymnastics for four and a half years, but quit in order to focus on acting. In 2009 the "Arapahoe Herald" reported that she was attending Arapahoe High School in Centennial, Colorado. In May 2012, Robb announced she was admitted to Stanford University, though she was deferring acceptance due to filming commitments. Career. After appearing in a commercial for McDonald's, AnnaSophia Robb made her acting debut in 2004; she had a small role in the episode "Number One Fan" of the television series "Drake & Josh" (her character informs Josh that the group only joined the Campfire Kids so they could hang out with their friends and eat free food). Her first major role was as the title character in the television special "". Her hair was dyed dark brown for the part.
1131982	Together for Days is a 1972 film starring Clifton Davis, Lois Chiles, Northern Calloway and Samuel L. Jackson in his film debut. It was shot entirely in Atlanta, Georgia. Leonard Jackson also appears in this motion picture as Phil; he was cast in Steven Spielberg's "The Color Purple" thirteen years later.
634242	Alex Hyde-White (born 30 January 1959), also credited as Alex Hyde White, is a British-born film and television actor. In 1978, he signed with Universal Pictures as one of the last "contract players" in Hollywood, in a group that included Lindsay Wagner, Andrew Stevens and Sharon Gless. Background. Hyde-White was born in London, the son of Ethel M. (née Korenman), a stage manager who acted under the name Ethel Drew, and the actor Wilfrid Hyde-White. Known as Punch to friends, he grew up in Palm Springs, California attending Palm Springs High School (Class of 1975) and Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. for one year after which he left to pursue the inevitable acting career. Hyde-White was married to actress Karen Dotrice, daughter of actor Roy Dotrice from 1986 until 1992. He is married to Shelly Hyde-White and resides in Santa Monica, California. They have two children, both boys, Garrick and Jack. They are active at First Presbyterian Church, Santa Monica Little League the local schools, including John Adams Middle School and Will Rogers Elementary School, and the local Moose Lodge. He is represented by Ann Geddes and Richard Lewis at the Geddes Agency and by well-known Hollywood attorney Michael Donaldson. Glenn Hughes, at GEM Entertainment, is his manager, as he is for Jack Hyde-White who starred in 2010's Kay Jewelers Mother Day commercial, directed by Bob Giraldi. Career. Under contract to Universal Pictures at age 18, his first television job was one line "leave my mother alone" spoken to star Jack Klugman on the iconic television series "Quincy M.E." He recurred in several episodes, each time a different character and also made numerous appearances in "Battlestar Galactica" with Lorne Greene and later "Buck Rogers in the 25th Century" which also featured his father Wilfrid. The only time both father and son appeared on screen together was on "The Merv Griffin Show" in 1980. A clip from that show is featured in his film "Three Days of Hamlet". Through his production company TMG, named after his mentor, Washington attorney Steven Martindale, he produced the 2002 independent romantic drama, "Pursuit of Happiness" which starred Frank Whaley, Annabeth Gish, Adam Baldwin and featured comedienne Jean Stapleton in a cameo as the advertising agency's owner. Stapleton's son John Putch was the director. Putch had directed Alex prior in "Deep Water" and since in "Murder 101" starring comedian Dick Van Dyke for Hallmark. Alex has worked with Steven Spielberg three times, "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade", as Young Henry Jones, Sr., "Catch Me If You Can" and "", which was released on 21 December 2011. Projects. Hyde-White directed the TMG production "Three Days", from Universal City based Ytinifni Pictures, headed by David Suarez. Also starring Peter Woodward, Richard Chamberlain and Stefanie Powers, the experimental first-person doc weaves a hero's journey from the most unlikely of arenas as it follows a troupe of actors who gather for three days to rehearse and perform a staged reading of Shakespeare's Hamlet. The film won Best Documentary at three festivals, International Family Film Festival (Hollywood, Spring 2012), L-Dub (Lake Worth, FL, Fall 2012), and Eugene Int'l Film Festival (Oregon, Fall 2012).
102105	Benvenuti al Sud () is an Italian adaption of French comedy film "Bienvenue chez les Ch'tis" directed by Luca Miniero. The plot is similar to the original version: the manager of a postal service (Poste Italiane) in northern Italy, near Milan, is banished for two years in southern Italy, in Castellabate, a town near Naples. Dany Boon appears in a cameo. It was dedicated to Angelo Vassallo, an Italian mayor murdered for his anti-crime campaign.
750351	In numerical analysis and functional analysis, a discrete wavelet transform (DWT) is any wavelet transform for which the wavelets are discretely sampled. As with other wavelet transforms, a key advantage it has over Fourier transforms is temporal resolution: it captures both frequency "and" location information (location in time). Examples. Haar wavelets. The first DWT was invented by the Hungarian mathematician Alfréd Haar. For an input represented by a list of formula_1 numbers, the Haar wavelet transform may be considered to simply pair up input values, storing the difference and passing the sum. This process is repeated recursively, pairing up the sums to provide the next scale: finally resulting in formula_2 differences and one final sum. Daubechies wavelets. The most commonly used set of discrete wavelet transforms was formulated by the Belgian mathematician Ingrid Daubechies in 1988. This formulation is based on the use of recurrence relations to generate progressively finer discrete samplings of an implicit mother wavelet function; each resolution is twice that of the previous scale. In her seminal paper, Daubechies derives a family of wavelets, the first of which is the Haar wavelet. Interest in this field has exploded since then, and many variations of Daubechies' original wavelets were developed. The Dual-Tree Complex Wavelet Transform (ℂWT). The Dual-Tree Complex Wavelet Transform (ℂWT) is relatively recent enhancement to the discrete wavelet transform (DWT), with important additional properties: It is nearly shift invariant and directionally selective in two and higher dimensions. It achieves this with a redundancy factor of only formula_3 for d-dimensional signals, which is substantially lower than the undecimated DWT. The multidimensional (M-D) dual-tree ℂWT is nonseparable but is based on a computationally efficient, separable filter bank (FB). Others. Other forms of discrete wavelet transform include the non- or undecimated wavelet transform (where downsampling is omitted), the Newland transform (where an orthonormal basis of wavelets is formed from appropriately constructed top-hat filters in frequency space). Wavelet packet transforms are also related to the discrete wavelet transform. Complex wavelet transform is another form. Properties. The Haar DWT illustrates the desirable properties of wavelets in general. First, it can be performed in formula_4 operations; second, it captures not only a notion of the frequency content of the input, by examining it at different scales, but also temporal content, i.e. the times at which these frequencies occur. Combined, these two properties make the Fast wavelet transform (FWT) an alternative to the conventional Fast Fourier Transform (FFT). Time Issues. Due to the rate-change operators in the filter bank, the discrete WT is not time-invariant but actually very sensitive to the alignment of the signal in time. To address the time-varying problem of wavelet transforms, Mallat and Zhong proposed a new algorithm for wavelet representation of a signal, which is invariant to time shifts. According to this algorithm, which is called a TI-DWT, only the scale parameter is sampled along the dyadic sequence 2^j (j∈Z) and the wavelet transform is calculated for each point in time. Applications. The discrete wavelet transform has a huge number of applications in science, engineering, mathematics and computer science. Most notably, it is used for signal coding, to represent a discrete signal in a more redundant form, often as a preconditioning for data compression. Practical applications can also be found in signal processing of accelerations for gait analysis, in digital communications and many others. It is shown that discrete wavelet transform (discrete in scale and shift, and continuous in time) is successfully implemented as analog filter bank in biomedical signal processing for design of low-power pacemakers and also in ultra-wideband (UWB) wireless communications. Comparison with Fourier transform. To illustrate the differences and similarities between the discrete wavelet transform with the discrete Fourier transform, consider the DWT and DFT of the following sequence: (1,0,0,0), a unit impulse. The DFT has orthogonal basis (DFT matrix): while the DWT with Haar wavelets for length 4 data has orthogonal basis in the rows of: Preliminary observations include: Decomposing the sequence with respect to these bases yields: The DWT demonstrates the localization: the (1,1,1,1) term gives the average signal value, the (1,1,–1,–1) places the signal in the left side of the domain, and the
1067906	Catfish is a 2010 American documentary film directed by Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman, involving a young man, Nev, being filmed by his brother and friend, co-directors Ariel and Henry, as he builds a romantic relationship with a young woman on the social networking website Facebook. The film was a critical and commercial success, even inspiring an MTV reality TV series, "". Plot. Young photographer Yaniv "Nev" Schulman lives with his brother Ariel in New York City. Abby Pierce, an eight-year-old child prodigy artist in rural Ishpeming, Michigan, sends Nev a painting of one of his photos. They become Facebook friends, which broadens to include Abby's family: including her mother, Angela (Wesselman); Angela's husband Vince (Stephen Fogarty); and Abby's attractive older half-sister Megan, who lives in Gladstone, Michigan. For a documentary, Ariel and Henry Joost film Nev as he begins an online relationship with Megan. She sends him MP3s of song covers she performs for him, but Nev discovers that they are all taken from performances on YouTube. He later finds evidence that Angela and Abby have lied about other details of Abby's art career. Ariel urges Nev to continue the relationship for the documentary, although Nev seems reluctant to continue. The siblings decide to travel to Michigan in order to make an impromptu appearance at the Pierces' house and confront Megan directly. As they arrive at the house, Angela takes some time to answer the door; but is welcoming and seems happy to finally meet Nev in person. She also tells him that she has recently begun chemotherapy for uterine cancer. After leaving multiple messages while trying to ring Megan, she drives Nev and Ariel to see Abby herself; while talking with Abby and her friend alone, Nev learns that Abby never sees her sister and rarely paints. The next morning, Nev wakes up to a text message from Megan saying that she has had a long-standing alcohol problem, and has decided to check into rehab and cannot meet him, which is confirmed by one of Megan's Facebook friends, but Nev realizes that this is likely another lie from Angela. After meeting with the family back at their house, Angela admits that the pictures of Megan were of a family friend, that her daughter Megan really is in rehab downstate and that Angela had really painted each of the paintings that she had sent to Nev. Nev thus realizes that while believing he was talking to Megan, it was really Angela posing as her with an alternate Facebook account and mobile phone. As he sits for a drawing, Angela confesses that the various Facebook profiles were all maintained by her; but that through her friendship with Nev she had reconnected with the world of painting, which had been her passion before she sacrificed her career to marry Vince—who has two severely mentally disabled children who require constant care. Through a conversation with Vince himself, the siblings learn that Angela had told him (falsely) that Nev was paying for her paintings, and that he had encouraged her to seize the opportunity to have him as a patron. Vince, talking with Nev, tells a story. He says that when live cod were shipped to Asia from North America, the fish's inactivity in their tanks resulted in only mushy flesh reaching the destination; but fishermen found that putting catfish in the tanks with the cod kept them active, and thus ensured the quality of the fish. Vince talks of how there are people in everyone's lives who keep us active, always on our toes and always thinking. It is implied that he believes Angela to be such a person. Some time after, Nev receives a package labeled as being from Angela herself; it is the completed drawing that she labored over during their meeting, although Nev seems ambivalent in his feelings about it. On-screen text then informs the viewer that Angela did not have cancer, that her daughter was not in a rehab center, and that she closed all her false Facebook accounts. On her own account, she and Nev remain friends. Production. To portray Megan and her family, Angela used pictures that Vancouver, Washington photographer Aimee Gonzales had posted on Facebook. "Catfish"s filmmakers compensated Gonzales for her involuntary appearance in the documentary, and she participated in publicity for the film. A photograph Angela described as a son, Alex, is that of rapper Joshua Paul Liimatta, also known as "The Sisu Kid". Authenticity. In an interview, Schulman related that some viewers believe "Catfish" to be a fake documentary or a hoax. Morgan Spurlock, director and subject of the documentary "Super Size Me", told the producers of the film during one of its initial screenings, "It was the best fake documentary I have ever seen." Comedian Zach Galifianakis also has stated that he does not believe the events in the film to be true. Kyle Buchanan at "Movieline" questions why the filmmakers would begin obsessively documenting Nev's online relationship so early on, and argues that it is highly improbable that media-savvy professionals like the Schulmans and Joost would not use the Internet to research Megan and her family before meeting them. Others have also questioned the trio's decision to begin filming, as well as the seemingly improbable coincidence of them catching everything of importance to the story on film as it happens. It has also been pointed out that the group's supposed movements in "Catfish" are not documented in their public blog postings at the time.
1211617	Jackass 3D (also known as Jackass 3) is a 2010 American 3D comedy film and the third film in the "Jackass" film series. It was released on October 15, 2010 by Paramount Pictures and MTV Films to American theaters and marked the 10th anniversary of the franchise, which started in 2000. This and "Jackass 3.5" are the final "Jackass" films that Ryan Dunn appeared in before his death in 2011. Plot. Beavis and Butt-head introduce the film by explaining 3D technology. The opening sequence features the cast lining up and then being attacked by various objects in slow-motion. The opening sequence, as well as many of the stunts, were filmed with Phantom high speed cameras which shoot at 1,000 frames per second. "Jackass 3D" follows the same premise as the past movies and the television series. It is a compilation of various pranks, stunts and skits, and has no plot. Some of the stunts featured included tether ball being played with a beehive filled with Africanized bees, a tooth being pulled out with a Lamborghini, using super mighty glue to take off chest hair and much more. The final stunt includes Steve-O being launched in the air while inside a portable toilet (which was achieved by connecting the port-a-potty to bungee cords) filled with excrement.
583343	Tum Bin - Love Will Find the Way (, meaning: "Without You") is a 2001 Hindi movie directed by Anubhav Sinha. It starred Sandali Sinha, Himanshu Malik, Priyanshu Chatterjee and Rakesh Bapat in the leading roles. The film did average at the box office, however, the song "Koi Fariyaad" sung by legendary Ghazal singer Jagjit Singh and is considered one of the greatest ghazal in modern day bollywood movies.
1060192	State and Main is a 2000 comedy film, written and directed by David Mamet and starring Philip Seymour Hoffman, Rebecca Pidgeon, Sarah Jessica Parker, Julia Stiles, William H. Macy and Alec Baldwin. The plot involves the on-location production in Waterford, Vermont of a film called "The Old Mill". The actual film was shot in Manchester-by-the-Sea, Massachusetts; Beverly, Massachusetts; Dedham, Massachusetts; and Waltham, Massachusetts. Synopsis. Havoc is wrought on the inhabitants of a small New England town by a troubled film production. After the leading man's penchant for underage girls gets them banished from their New Hampshire location, a film crew relocates to the small town of Waterford, Vermont, to finish shooting "The Old Mill." As its title suggests, the film depends on the presence of a genuine mill, something the town is reported to possess. Unfortunately, with only days before principal photography begins, it becomes apparent that the mill in fact burned down decades ago. Unfazed, the film's director, Walt Price (William H. Macy), places his faith in the ability of first-time screenwriter Joseph Turner White (Philip Seymour Hoffman) to alter the script; what he doesn't count on is White's apparently bottomless reserve of angst-fueled writer's block. A local bookseller, Annie Black (Rebecca Pidgeon), tries to provide White with inspiration. The film's leading lady (Sarah Jessica Parker) refuses to do her contracted nude scene unless she's paid an additional $800,000, while a foreign cinematographer offends the locals by messing with a historic firehouse. Meanwhile, the leading man, Bob Barrenger (Alec Baldwin), dallies with Carla (Julia Stiles), a crafty local teen. Everything comes to a head after Barrenger and Carla are injured in a car accident, which leads White (the only witness) to another emotional quandary and into the arms of Annie. Meanwhile, a powerful movie producer (David Paymer) comes to town to help Price with the ensuing mess.
1030209	Pola X is a 1999 French romantic drama film starring Guillaume Depardieu, Yekaterina Golubeva and Catherine Deneuve. The film is loosely based on the Herman Melville novel "". It revolves around a successful young novelist who is confronted by a woman who claims to be his lost sister, and the two begin a romantic relationship. The film title is an acronym of the French title of the novel, "Pierre ou les ambiguïtés", plus the Roman numeral "X" indicating the tenth draft version of the script that was used to make the film. The film was entered into the 1999 Cannes Film Festival. "Pola X" has been associated with the New French Extremity. Plot. Pierre (Guillaume Depardieu) lives with his mother Marie (Catherine Deneuve) in a castle in Normandy by the riverside of the Seine. They are very beautiful, rich, carefree and they like themselves. Every morning, Pierre leaves on the inherited bike of his father to visit Lucie (Delphine Chuillot), his fiancee. One night, Marie announces to Pierre that she arranged the date for his marriage to Lucie. Pierre leaves to announce the good news to his fiance. On the way, in the forest, a funereal beauty appears (Yekaterina Golubeva). She speaks with a strong accent from the countries of the East: "Pierre... you are not the only child, I am your sister, Isabelle." A passionate incestuous relationship will ensue. Soundtrack. The soundtrack was produced by Scott Walker and features some instrumental tracks by him, as well as contributions by Sonic Youth and Bill Callahan, who also has a cameo appearance in the film. Alternative version. An alternate longer TV version entitled "Pierre ou les ambiguïtés", edited in three episodes with an additional 40 minutes of footage was shown for the first time on September 24, 2001 on Arte German-French TV channel. The episodes were titled "A la lumière," "A l'ombre des lumières" and "Dans le sang." Carax edited the TV version along the lines of serials from his childhood, in particular Vidocq. The new scenes in the alternative version were produced during the original shoot with extra money raised by producer Bruno Pesery to allow them to exceed their contractually agreed 140 minute running time. The new sequences explore the dreams of Peter and his relationship with his mother, sister and fiancee. In an interview with Jacques Morice, Carax stated that "it is not an "extended version" or a "final version" of the film "Pola X", but a different proposition for television."
1102570	In mathematics the Chebyshev polynomials, named after Pafnuty Chebyshev, are a sequence of orthogonal polynomials which are related to de Moivre's formula and which can be defined recursively. One usually distinguishes between Chebyshev polynomials of the first kind which are denoted and Chebyshev polynomials of the second kind which are denoted . The letter T is used because of the alternative transliterations of the name "Chebyshev" as "Tchebycheff", "Tchebyshev" (French) or "Tschebyschow" (German). The Chebyshev polynomials or are polynomials of degree and the sequence of Chebyshev polynomials of either kind composes a polynomial sequence. Chebyshev polynomials are polynomials with the largest possible leading coefficient, but subject to the condition that their absolute value is bounded on the interval by 1. They are also the extremal polynomials for many other properties. Chebyshev polynomials are important in approximation theory because the roots of the Chebyshev polynomials of the first kind, which are also called Chebyshev nodes, are used as nodes in polynomial interpolation. The resulting interpolation polynomial minimizes the problem of Runge's phenomenon and provides an approximation that is close to the polynomial of best approximation to a continuous function under the maximum norm. This approximation leads directly to the method of Clenshaw–Curtis quadrature. In the study of differential equations they arise as the solution to the Chebyshev differential equations and for the polynomials of the first and second kind, respectively. These equations are special cases of the Sturm–Liouville differential equation. Definition. The Chebyshev polynomials of the first kind are defined by the recurrence relation The conventional generating function for "T""n" is The exponential generating function is The generating function relevant for 2-dimensional potential theory and multipole expansion is The Chebyshev polynomials of the second kind are defined by the recurrence relation One example of a generating function for "U""n" is Trigonometric definition. The Chebyshev polynomials of the first kind can be defined as the unique polynomials satisfying or, in other words, as the unique polynomials satisfying for "n" = 0, 1, 2, 3, ... which is a variant (equivalent transpose) of Schröder's equation, viz. "Tn"("x") is functionally conjugate to "nx", codified in
1056736	The Offence is a 1972 British drama film directed by Sidney Lumet, based upon the 1968 stage play "This Story of Yours" by John Hopkins. It stars Sean Connery as police detective Johnson, who kills suspected child molester Kenneth Baxter (Ian Bannen) while interrogating him. The film explores Johnson's varied, often aggressive attempts at rationalizing what he did, revealing his true motives for killing the suspect in a series of flashbacks. Trevor Howard and Vivien Merchant appear in major supporting roles. Plot summary. Detective-Sergeant Johnson (Connery) has been a police officer for 20 years, and is deeply affected by the murders, rapes, and other violent crimes he has investigated. His anger surfaces while interrogating Kenneth Baxter (Bannen), who is suspected of raping a young girl; by the end of the interrogation, Johnson has beaten him to death. Johnson is suspended and returns home for the night, and gets into a violent argument with his wife, Maureen (Vivien Merchant).
1162908	Jenna Michelle Boyd (born March 4, 1993) is an American actress. She is best known for her roles in the feature films "The Missing" and "The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants". Life and career. Jenna Boyd was born in Bedford, Texas and moved with her parents and younger brother Cayden (also an actor) to Los Angeles to pursue her acting career. After a few small roles on television and film, Boyd's big break came when she was cast in "The Missing", alongside Cate Blanchett and Evan Rachel Wood. Boyd's performance was praised in critical reviews of this film, although the film itself was not particularly well received. Previously she had been in "" playing the daughter of a family hired by the title character (David Spade) to help him recapture his childhood. In 2005 Boyd played the Leukemia-suffering Bailey Graffman in "The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants". Her recent roles include the Lifetime miniseries "The Gathering" in which she played the daughter of a doctor (Peter Gallagher) searching for his wife and in the "Ghost Whisperer" episode "Children of Ghosts" she played a troubled teenager living in a foster home.
1084014	Santa Claus Conquers the Martians is a 1964 science fiction film that regularly appears on lists of the worst films ever made. It is regularly featured in the "bottom 100" list on the Internet Movie Database, and was featured in an episode of the 1986 syndicated series, the "Canned Film Festival". It was directed by Nicholas Webster, and it stars John Call as Santa Claus. It also includes an 8-year-old Pia Zadora playing the role of one of the Martian children. The film took on newfound fame in the 1990s after being featured on an episode of the comedy series "Mystery Science Theater 3000". It became a holiday staple on the Comedy Central cable channel in the years following its 1991 premiere. It has since found new life again in the 2000s having been riffed by Cinematic Titanic. The movie was also featured on the current run of "Elvira's Movie Macabre." Plot. The story involves the people of Mars, including Momar ("Mom Martian") and Kimar ("King Martian"). They're worried that their children Girmar ("Girl Martian") and Bomar ("Boy Martian") are watching too much Earth television, most notably station KID-TV's interview with Santa Claus in his workshop at the North Pole. Consulting the ancient 800-year-old Martian sage Chochem (a Yiddish word meaning "genius"), they are advised that the children of Mars are growing distracted due to the society's overly rigid structure; from infancy, all their education is fed into their brains through machines and they are not allowed individuality or freedom of thought. Chochem notes that he had seen this coming "for centuries", and says the only way to help the children is to allow them their freedom and be allowed to have fun. To do this, they need a Santa Claus figure, like on Earth. Leaving the Chochem's cave, the Martian leaders decide to abduct Santa Claus from Earth and bring him to Mars. As the Martians could not distinguish between all the fake Santas, they kidnapped two children to find the real one. Once this is accomplished, one Martian, Voldar, who strongly disagrees with the idea, repeatedly tries to kill Santa Claus along with the two kidnapped Earth children. He believes that Santa is corrupting the children of Mars and turning them away from the race's original glory. When they arrive on Mars, Santa and the children build a factory to make toys for the children. However, Voldar and his assistants, Stobo and Shim, sabotage the factory and change the programming so that it makes the toys incorrectly. Meanwhile, Dropo, Kimar's assistant, has taken a great liking to Santa Claus and Christmas, puts on one of Santa's spare suits and starts acting like Santa Claus. He goes to the toy factory to make toys, but Voldar mistakes him for Santa and kidnaps him. When Santa and the children come back to the factory to make more toys, they discover the machines have been tampered with. Voldar and Stobo come back to the factory to make a deal with Kimar, but when they see the real Santa Claus they realize that their plan has been foiled. Dropo, held hostage in a cave, tricks his guard Shim and escapes. Kimar then arrests Voldar, Stobo and Shim. Santa notices Dropo acts like him, and says that Dropo would make a good Martian Santa. Kimar agrees to let Dropo be the Martian Santa Claus and sends Santa and the children back to Earth. Release. Home Media. Due to its public domain status in the United States, "Santa Claus Conquers the Martians" has been released on many different bargain-price DVD labels. Reception. From 20 reviews in Rotten Tomatoes, the film scored 25% fresh reviews. Influence. A single issue comic book adaptation of the film was published by Dell Comics. It has been named one of the worst films ever. Years later, the film was included as one of the choices in the book "The Fifty Worst Films of All Time".
586533	"My Wife's Murder" is a 2005 Bollywood film. It was directed by Jijy Philip. The cast includes Anil Kapoor, Suchitra Krishnamurti, Boman Irani and Nandana Sen. The film is a remake of Telugu film, Madhyanam Hathya directed by Ram Gopal Varma himself. Plot. Police Inspector Tejpal Randhawa (Boman Irani) is assigned to investigate the case of the dead woman whose body is recovered from a small pond. Insp. Tejpal checks if this matter can be linked with a missing persons' report filed by Ravi Patwardhan (Anil Kapoor) and his father-in-law. The dead woman is identified as Sheela (Suchitra Krishnamoorthi), Ravi's wife. According to Ravi, Sheela had left their home to go to visit her parents. When she had not arrived at their house 24 hours later, he himself had gone to their house, and on not being able to locate her, had accompanied his father-in-law to the nearest police station and filed a report as she is missing. Insp. Tejpal concludes that Sheela was waylaid on her way to her parents' house by person(s) unknown, beaten, and her body was left in the pond. But this case puzzles him, as there was no apparent motive for unknown person(s) to waylay her, as no money was taken, and her body does not show any signs of sexual molestation. Taking these facts into consideration, Insp. Tejpal starts to suspect Ravi. Ravi's assistant (Nandana Sen) tries to help Ravi. However, her involvement makes the matter worse. The movie then takes the audience through thrilling tale of how Ravi makes out of this matter and truth behind Sheela's murder.
1104262	Ernst Gabor Straus (February 25, 1922 – July 12, 1983) was a German-American mathematician who helped found the theories of Euclidean Ramsey theory and of the arithmetic properties of analytic functions. His extensive list of co-authors includes Albert Einstein and Paul Erdős as well as other notable researchers including Richard Bellman, Béla Bollobás, Sarvadaman Chowla, Ronald Graham, László Lovász, Carl Pomerance, and George Szekeres. It is due to his collaboration with Straus that Einstein has Erdős number 2. Straus was born in Munich, Germany, February 25, 1922, the youngest of five children of a prominent attorney, Eli Straus, and his wife Rahel Straus née Goitein, a medical doctor and feminist. Ernst Gabor Straus came to be known as a mathematical prodigy from a very young age. Following the death of his father, the family fled the Nazi regime for Palestine in 1933, and Straus was educated at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. Although he never received an undergraduate degree, Straus began graduate studies at Columbia University in New York, earning a PhD in 1948 under F. J. Murray. Two years later, he became the assistant of Albert Einstein. After a three-year stint at the Institute for Advanced Study, Straus took a position at the University of California, Los Angeles, which he kept for the rest of his life. Straus died July 12, 1983 of heart failure. Straus's interests ranged widely over his career, beginning with his early work on relativity with Einstein and continuing with deep work in analytic number theory, extremal graph theory, and combinatorics. One of his best known contributions in popular mathematics is the Erdős–Straus conjecture that every number of the form 4/"n" has a three-term Egyptian fraction.
1064294	Alpha Dog is a 2006 American crime drama film written and directed by Nick Cassavetes, first screened at the Sundance Film Festival on January 27, 2006, with a wide release the following year on January 12, 2007. The film is based on the true story of the kidnapping and murder of 15-year-old Nicholas Markowitz and related events in 2000. It portrays the involvement of Jesse James Hollywood, a young middle-class drug dealer in California. The film stars Emile Hirsch, Justin Timberlake, Ben Foster, Shawn Hatosy, Anton Yelchin, Olivia Wilde, Amanda Seyfried with Harry Dean Stanton, Sharon Stone and Bruce Willis. Plot. Johnny Truelove (Emile Hirsch) is a young marijuana dealer in Southern California. Sonny Truelove (Bruce Willis) supplies his son with marijuana, which Johnny distributes to his gang of friends, including Jake Mazursky (Ben Foster). Jake owes Johnny a $1,200 drug debt. Mazursky makes a failed attempt at asking for the money from his stepmother, Olivia (Sharon Stone) and his biological father Butch (David Thornton). Olivia and Butch are dealing with their own problems in the form of their rebellious son Zack Mazursky (Anton Yelchin), Jake's half-brother who admires his older brother. A fight between Jake and Johnny results in an escalating series of retaliations, which culminates in Johnny, Frankie (Justin Timberlake), and Tiko (Fernando Vargas) kidnapping Zack off the side of the road. They intend to hold Zack as collateral until Jake pays his debt. Wanting a break from his home life, Zack makes little effort to escape. Johnny, meanwhile, pawns Zack off on his right-hand man Frankie, who initially offers him a chance to get away. Zack declines the offer, not wanting to cause any trouble for his brother and the two strike up an unlikely friendship. Zack stays with Frankie at his father's house, does chores, and ingratiates himself with Frankie's friends, including Keith Stratten (Chris Marquette), and Julie (Amanda Seyfried), the youngest member of the group. By this point a number of hangers-on and friends of the gang know of Zack's kidnapping, though only Susan (Dominique Swain) seems concerned about it.
1067023	Everett McGill (born October 21, 1945) is an American actor, best known for mostly playing supporting roles in films like "Licence to Kill", "Silver Bullet", "The People Under the Stairs", "Heartbreak Ridge", "Dune", "Yanks", "" and "My Fellow Americans" Life and career. McGill was born Charles Everett McGill III in Miami Beach, Florida. He graduated from Rosedale High School in Kansas City, Kansas, in 1963. Filmography. McGill has a relatively short filmography, but has managed to garner some level of fame by appearing in films and television series with cult followings, including a stint as Chad Richards on the soap opera "The Guiding Light" in 1975 and 1976. After coming into the public eye in 1981 for his role as the rugged caveman leader Naoh in "Quest for Fire", McGill appeared in "Silver Bullet", a 1985 werewolf movie inspired by a Stephen King short story; the Korean War battle epic "Field of Honor" and the Clint Eastwood war film "Heartbreak Ridge" in 1986; and in the 1989 installment of the James Bond franchise "Licence to Kill". Successes. The success of McGill's movies has varied; "Field of Honor" was delayed for a year after its release due to its bad reception at Cannes, while "Licence to Kill" and "The People Under the Stairs", where he plays an insanely racist, incestuous, and murderous cannibalistic landlord, were more successful. His most recent film performance was in David Lynch's "The Straight Story", where he played Tom, a John Deere dealer/mechanic. Work with David Lynch. The actor is most widely recognized for his work with director David Lynch. McGill first worked with Lynch in the 1984 adaptation of Frank Herbert's "Dune", in which he played Fremen leader Stilgar. McGill later appeared as Ed Hurley on the television series "Twin Peaks". McGill also appeared in Lynch's 1999 film "The Straight Story". The People Under the Stairs. In 1991, McGill would reunite with his "Twin Peaks" co-star Wendy Robie appeared as the villains of the Wes Craven feature "The People Under the Stairs".
1057882	Law Abiding Citizen is a 2009 American thriller film directed by F. Gary Gray from a screenplay written by Kurt Wimmer and stars Jamie Foxx & Gerard Butler. The film takes place in Philadelphia and tells the story of a man driven to commit multiple murders while targeting not only his family's killer but also the corrupt criminal justice system itself. "Law Abiding Citizen" was released theatrically in North America on October 16, 2009. The film was nominated for a Saturn Award as the "Best Action/Adventure/Thriller Film" of the year, and the film also garnered NAACP Image Awards nominations for both Jamie Foxx (Outstanding Actor in a Motion Picture) and F. Gary Gray (Outstanding Directing in a Motion Picture). Plot. In a 1999 Philadelphia home invasion, Clarence James Darby (Christian Stolte) and his accomplice Rupert Ames (Josh Stewart) kill the wife and daughter of Clyde Alexander Shelton (Gerard Butler) before his eyes. Prosecutor Nick Rice (Jamie Foxx) is unable to use DNA hard evidence to securely convict both accused. Unwilling to take a chance on lowering his high conviction rate, he makes a deal with Darby, letting him plead guilty to a lesser charge and receive a reduced sentence in return for testifying against Ames. Ames is found guilty and is sentenced to death. Darby is released after a few years. Shelton feels betrayed by Rice's actions and by the justice system in general. Ten years later, Ames's time on death row is up. Unknown to the prosecutors and the witnesses, the cardiotoxic drug usually used in executions has been replaced with an anticonvulsant, causing Ames to die an extremely painful death. Evidence relating to tampering with the drug implicates Darby. An anonymous caller alerts Darby as the police draw near, and directs him to a remote location. Shelton, disguised as a cop, reveals himself as the caller and paralyzes Darby with puffer fish poison. He straps Darby to a table and slowly dismembers him as revenge for murdering his wife and daughter, videorecording the gory proceedings. When Darby's remains are found, evidence ties his death to Shelton. Shelton willingly gives himself up and goes to jail. Rice learns his wife and daughter were sent the dismemberment video and were traumatized by it, and initially refuses to bargain with Shelton to make a confession. But District Attorney Jonas Cantrell (Bruce McGill) orders Rice to make a deal. In court, Shelton represents himself. He successfully argues that he should be granted bail, then berates the judge for accepting the "bullshit" legal precedents he himself cited and for being too eager to let madmen and murderers back on the street. The judge jails Shelton for contempt of court. Shelton demands a porterhouse steak dinner be delivered to his cell by a specific time, in return for telling where to find Darby's lawyer, who was reported missing three days earlier. Rice agrees, though the dinner is delayed by a few minutes due to the warden's pedantic security measures. Once he has his meal, Shelton provides a set of coordinates, where Rice and the others find Darby's lawyer, buried alive but suffocated when his air supply ran out while Shelton's dinner was being delayed. Shelton kills his cellmate using the steak's bone, forcing the warden to secure him in solitary confinement. Cantrell arranges a meeting with a CIA contact and brings Rice. They learn that Shelton has previously worked with the agency, creating devices to assassinate people in imaginative ways. Further, they are warned that Shelton is capable of killing anyone he wishes. During a meeting with Rice and Cantrell, the judge is killed when she answers her cell phone and it explodes. A number of Rice's assistants are killed by car bombs, one of them Sarah Lowell (Leslie Bibb). As Rice and Cantrell leave the funeral of one of Rice's assistants, Cantrell is killed by a weaponized bomb disposal robot. The mayor (Viola Davis) puts the city under lockdown and promotes Rice to acting District Attorney. Rice learns (via email from Sarah's boyfriend) that Shelton owns an auto garage next to the prison. A tunnel from the garage leads to a cache of guns, disguises, and other equipment below the solitary confinement cells, and secret entrances to each cell. He and Police Detective Dunnigan (Colm Meaney) realize Shelton wanted to be in solitary, allowing him to easily leave the prison without detection and commit the murders. Evidence in the tunnel points Rice to Shelton's next target, city hall, where the mayor is holding an emergency meeting with city officials. Rice and his men cannot find Shelton, but discover evidence pointing to a cell-phone-activated suitcase bomb in the room directly below the meeting. Shelton returns to his garage after planting the city hall bomb, then returns to his cell. He is surprised to find Rice waiting for him. Rice berates Shelton for taking revenge because of the pain he suffered. Shelton suggests another deal, but Rice refuses this time, saying that he does not make deals with murderers anymore, and thanks Shelton for teaching him that. Rice and Dunnigan secure Shelton in the cell and flee. Despite being pleased that Rice had finally learned his lesson, Shelton dials the cell phone on the city hall bomb. Shelton realizes too late that Rice has moved the bomb to his cell and the cell's entrance to the tunnel has been sealed. Shelton looks upon his daughter's bracelet with a sense of sadness, accepting his fate as the bomb explodes. Production. Filming began in August 2008 and took place in and around Philadelphia. Filming locations included Philadelphia's City Hall and the old Eastern State Penitentiary. The film was edited after being threatened with an NC-17 rating for violence, with the full version released unrated on Blu-ray. Soundtrack. The score to "Law Abiding Citizen" was composed by Brian Tyler, who recorded his score with a 52-piece ensemble of the Hollywood Studio Symphony at the Sony Scoring Stage with help from Kieron Charlesworth. The movie also uses "Eminence Front" by The Who and "Engine No. 9" by Deftones on Clyde's iPod while he is eating his steak in his cell. While Clyde calls Darby to help him 'escape' the police after Ames' execution, "Bloodline" by Slayer is Darby's ringer. The tune at the end for closing credits is "Sin's A Good Man's Brother" by Grand Funk Railroad. Release. The film was released theatrically on October 16, 2009. The first theatrical trailer was released on August 14, 2009 and was attached to "District 9". The premiere was held on November 15, 2009 at the Cineworld complex in Glasgow - hometown of Gerard Butler. Many British tabloids have labeled this event as the "Homecoming Premiere", in reference to the Homecoming Scotland celebrations. Reception. The film took second place in its opening weekend, with $21,039,502, behind "Where the Wild Things Are". It went on to gross $126.6 million total worldwide. "Law Abiding Citizen" received mixed reviews from critics.
1042622	Danger Within is a 1959 British war film set in a prisoner of war camp in Northern Italy during the summer of 1943. It is based upon the novel "Death in Captivity" by Michael Gilbert, who had been a prisoner of war, held by the Italians. Plot. When a clever escape attempt which seemed guaranteed to work fails, resulting in the escapee being shot dead within seconds of leaving the POW camp, the escape committee led by Lieutenant Colonel David Baird (Richard Todd) suspects there is an informer within their ranks. The prime candidate is a Greek officer, Lieutenant Coutoules (Cyril Shaps). However, when Coutoules is found dead in an escape tunnel, suspicions that there is an informer among the POWs die down. In an effort to explain away his death to the Italian captors, Coutoules' body is placed in an abandoned tunnel within the camp and the Italians are informed he was suffocated by a roof fall. Based on the flimsiest of evidence, sadistic Capitano Benucci (Peter Arne) charges Captain Roger Byfold (Donald Houston) with the murder of the Coutoules. It is obvious to the POWs that although Byfold is completely innocent, Benucci will ensure that he is found guilty and executed. The escape committee forms a desperate plan to get Byfold and two other officers (played by Peter Jones and Michael Wilding) out of the camp before Byfold goes on trial. The three POWs scale the camp fence with a ladder constructed from two rugby posts. Unfortunately, Benucci is concealed just outside the fence with a machinegun, and promptly shoots them all dead. The escape committee realise that Benucci knew exactly when and where the three POWs planned to escape, and he was waiting for them to arrive. The race is then on to find the informer and for the rest of the inmates to escape en masse before the camp is handed over to the Germans as part of the Italian Armistice. The escape plan devised by Lieutenant Colonel Huxley (Bernard Lee) is for the prisoners to make their escape during the day, under cover of a production of "Hamlet" in the theatre hut by a group of POWs led by Captain Rupert Callender (Dennis Price). Filming locations. Locations for the film were Chobham Common, Surrey and Shepperton Studios. Notes. The film was retitled "Breakout" for the US market.
230934	John Blyth Barrymore III (born May 15, 1954) is an American former film and television actor. Known for his role as Zeke in the 1970s television series, "Kung Fu", he is a member of the Barrymore family, notable for success in acting. His parents are John Drew Barrymore and Cara Williams. Actress Drew Barrymore is his half-sister . He is of partial Irish descent through his father's grandfather, actor Maurice Costello.
1016247	Aaron Kwok Fu-shing (Traditional Chinese: 郭富城, Hanyu Pinyin: Guō Fùchéng) (born 26 October 1965) is a Hong Kong singer, dancer, and actor. He has been active since the 1980s and to the present. The media refer to him, Jacky Cheung, Andy Lau and Leon Lai as the (四大天王). Kwok's onstage dancing and displays is influenced by Michael Jackson. While most of his songs are in the dance-pop genre, he has experimented numerous times with rock and roll, ballad, rock, R&B, soul, electronica and traditional Chinese music. Biography. Kwok graduated from Joseph's College in Hong Kong. After graduating from secondary school, Kwok worked as a junior staff in King Fook Gold & Jewellery Co. Ltd. His father, who owns a small gold retail store, desired that he gain experience in the business with the view of eventually handing the family business over to him. If not for one of Kwok's brothers taking over the gold business, his father would not have allowed him to join the entertainment industry. Kwok has been in a serious relationship with Chinese-born actress Lynn Hung since 2006 , but the wedding plans late in 2012 had been postponed indefinitely due to ill health of Lynn's father. He lost the battle against liver cancer in January 2013. In May 2013, Aaron Kwok and Lynn Hung ended their relationship. Career. Early years. In 1984 at the age of 19, Kwok joined a dancer training course at TVB, where his talent for dancing was immediately recognized. Kwok then performed in music videos and variety shows for other singers. In 1987 he was transferred to the acting department of the talent training course and became a TV actor, where he played minor parts in TVB dramas. In 1990 he did a TV commercial in Taiwan for the Honda motorcycle DJ-1RR. The commercial gained him instant popularity with Taiwanese girls, and he immediately burst onto the music scene. Music. Kwok then began his music career with three mandopop albums including the famous song "Loving You Forever" (對你愛不完) to accompany his dance moves. After his success in Taiwan, he returned to Hong Kong in 1991 to do Cantopop. The next few years saw his popularity reach fever-pitch, and he was soon ranked as one of the "". Kwok became one of Hong Kong and Asia's most prominent pop stars. He won his first major awards with the 1991 Jade Solid Gold Top 10 Awards and 1991 RTHK Top 10 Gold Songs Awards. He would then win a major award every year until 2001. As a solo performer, his sell-out concerts in Hong Kong, mainland China, United States, Canada, Singapore, Malaysia and other countries total over 200 to date. In 1999 he won his first "Asia Pacific most popular artist" award. Aaron Kwok will begin his 2011 tour on 16 April and his first stop is in Shanghai. Aaron Kwok has also created the choreography with Sunny Wong for the group As One. Janet Jackson collaborated with Aaron Kwok and Ricky Martin for international versions of "Ask for More", a promotional single and commercial released as part of an advertising campaign for Pepsi. A full length music video of the version with Kwok was also released in Asian markets. Dancer. As soon as Kwok entered the music industry in 1991, he started a fast-dancing trend (勁歌熱舞). Kwok's onstage dancing and displays has been known to be influenced by Michael Jackson. Later in his career, he is known to have won a prestigious "Top ten Hong Kong dance award" (十大舞蹈家年獎). Of all the performing arts at which Kwok excels, stage appearances remain his perennial favorite. His dance accomplishments are also matched with stage displays. On 17 February 2008, he held an "Aaron Kwok De Show Reel Extension Live" concert at the Hong Kong AsiaWorld Arena with the largest revolving stage measured at 10m x 9.44m and created a new entry for the Guinness Book of World Records. Acting. Over the years, Kwok has also been active in other media such as TV commercials and acting. He began his acting career with the TVB series "Rise of Genghis Khan", and the 1988 series "Twilight of a Nation" about the Taiping Rebellion. One of his more noticeable role was for the 1996 TVB drama series "Wars of Bribery" where he plays an ICAC special-agent with Athena Chu.
1016243	Gigi Leung Wing-kei (born March 25, 1976) is a Hong Kong Cantopop singer and actress. Biography. Given the name Leung Bik-Zi (梁碧芝) at birth, at the age of seven her mother changed her name changed to 'Wing-Kei' for superstitious reasons; as a child, Leung suffered from frequent asthma attacks and it was believed a change of name would bring better health. At 176 cm, Leung earned the nickname of 'Tall Girl'. She has a twin brother named Keith Leung (Leung Wing-Chun, 梁詠俊). Early years. Gigi Leung attended Maryknoll Convent School. Later, she went to the Hong Kong Polytechnic University where she gained a diploma from the School of Design. It was during her study at university that she accepted a modelling assignment from the watch company City Chain and caught the attention of film director Lee Chi-Ngai who cast her in her very first movie, "Doctor Mack" (1995). The success of the movie brought her a further role in "Full Throttle" (1995), shot while she was finishing her diploma. For her supporting role in the film, Leung received a nomination for Best Newcomer at the 1995 Hong Kong Film Awards. Entertainment career. Her singing career began the following year with the debut album "Love Myself" (1996). Since then, she has sung both Cantonese and Mandarin songs. She is recognized not only as a Cantopop/Mandopop singer, but as a songwriter and lyricist as well, having written songs for both herself and other local singers. She has a contract with Warner Music Hong Kong, with more than a dozen albums to her name. She has performed in several full-scale live concerts including one entitled "Funny Face" in 2003. In 2008 25 March she signed a new company Big Artiste Management a subsidiary of Mei Ah Entertainment. Since 1995, Leung has starred in over 20 movies, most of which are dramas and comedies. She has worked opposite acting veterans such as Tony Leung Chiu-Wai, Andy Lau, Daniel Chan and Jet Li. In 2003, she starred with Takeshi Kaneshiro in Warner Bros.' first-ever Chinese-language film "Turn Left, Turn Right". Notably, at the Hong Kong Film Awards, Leung was nominated for Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress for roles in "Tempting Heart" (1999) and "A War Named Desire" (2000) respectively. Primarily an actress on the silver screen, Leung briefly appeared in the TVB serial "The Last Breakthrough" (2004). She has also performed in a number of stage musicals including "The Great Entertainer" (2004). Other works include the Cantonese narration for the Japanese film "Quill" (2004). Gigi is also very active in charity work. Apart from being the ambassador for different charities, she has helped to build 7 schools in mainland China to help poor children. She is also the youngest-ever local (at age 27) to receive the "Ten Most Outstanding Youth Award". Spokesperson. Outside of the entertainment business, Leung has acted as the Hong Kong spokesperson for Japanese cosmetics company FANCL since 1999. She is also an ambassador to both United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) and World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) Hong Kong. Other charity ambassador titles include Honourably Ambassador of Yan Chai Hospital, Special Ambassador to the Yan Aiu Hospital, Ambassador of Breast Cancer Fund and Ambassador of Society for Abandoned Animals (SAA). She also held numerous other special titles to numerous organizations. She joined her friends, Charlie Yeung, Valen Hsu and Angelica Lee to form the "Hope Foundation," a non-profit organization to help children in need. Personal life. Leung had a boyfriend named Kenny, who were classmates in college, at the beginning of her career. The couple broke up in summer 1999. It is implied that one of her songs 迫不得已 was dedicated to this relationship, which Leung wrote part of the lyrics. In October 1999, Leung was reported to appear in Hong Kong singer/actor Ekin Cheng's house. Arguably, the exposure of their relationship to the public had a negative impact on her career, since Cheng was rumored to be still going out with local actress Maggie Shiu. Although this was unsubstantiated and denied by Cheng, Leung was still regarded by some as the 'third' party. In January 2006, Leung and Cheng broke up and went their separate ways. In July 2009, she was reported to be in a relationship with a furniture designer from France, known only as Sly. Neither Gigi nor Sly admitted their relationship, but it was reported the couple separated in early 2010. In Oct 3 2011, 35-year-old Gigi Leung married her Spaniard boyfriend Sergio on the island of Ibiza. The Sina microblog incident. Gigi Leung's Sina microblog account has up to 470,000 followers, most of them are her young fans. On March 30, 2010, she blogged about the unjustly jailed Zhao Lianhai, who has a five-year-old son who fell victim to the poison milk and developed kidney stones, the father-turned-activist began to utilise various means to voice his grievances. After receiving a message from website's administrator, Gigi Leung then deleted the relevant blog, resulted in hundreds of supportive messages from her fans.
1059574	Star 80 is a 1983 American film about the true story of "Playboy" Playmate of the Year Dorothy Stratten, who was murdered by her estranged husband Paul Snider in 1980. The film was directed by Bob Fosse, and starred Mariel Hemingway and Eric Roberts. The film was shot on location in Vancouver, British Columbia and Los Angeles, California; the death scene was filmed in the same house in which the murder-suicide actually took place. The story is based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning "Village Voice" article "Death of a Playmate" by Teresa Carpenter; the film's title was taken from Snider's vanity license plates. The fictionalized director Aram Nicholas (played by Roger Rees) is based on Stratten's real-life lover, Peter Bogdanovich. Hugh Hefner sued the producers of the film because he did not like the way he was portrayed, perhaps in part because the article the film was based on suggested that Stratten was as much a victim of Hefner and Bogdanovich as she was of Snider. Hefner also later sued Bogdanovich for the negative portrayals in Bogdanovich's book about Stratten, "The Killing of the Unicorn". In a 1998 interview, Hefner stated that he still disliked the film because it was a poor portrayal of Stratten, although he did commend Eric Roberts for "an excellent portrayal of the sick husband who murdered her." Hemingway underwent breast enlargement surgery before filming began, but she has denied that she had the surgery for the film role. She would later have the implants removed after they ruptured. "Star 80" was the second movie based on the murder of Stratten. It was preceded by the 1981 television film "" in which Jamie Lee Curtis portrayed Stratten and Bruce Weitz portrayed Paul Snider. Roberts earned a Golden Globe nomination for Best Dramatic Actor for his performance in the film. "Star 80" was the last film Fosse directed. Reception. The film was screened out of competition at the 34th Berlin International Film Festival. The film received a mixed reception upon release although it was generally agreed that Eric Roberts gave an impressive performance as Snider. "The Washington Post" called it "Bob Fosse's latest stylish stinker." Gene Siskel placed the film on his top ten list of the best films of 1983, taking into account that the film was very unpleasant to watch. Roger Ebert gave the film four out of four stars. The film opened in 16 theaters grossing $233,312 its opening weekend. Eventually the film grossed a total of $6,472,990 domestically with 502 theaters being its widest release. "Star 80" maintains an 89% "fresh" rating from Rotten Tomatoes.
1103594	Spectral methods are a class of techniques used in applied mathematics and scientific computing to numerically solve certain differential equations, often involving the use of the Fast Fourier Transform. The idea is to write the solution of the differential equation as a sum of certain "basis functions" (for example, as a Fourier series which is a sum of sinusoids) and then to choose the coefficients in the sum in order to satisfy the differential equation as well as possible. Spectral methods and finite element methods are closely related and built on the same ideas; the main difference between them is that spectral methods use basis functions that are nonzero over the whole domain, while finite element methods use basis functions that are nonzero only on small subdomains. In other words, spectral methods take on a "global approach" while finite element methods use a "local approach". Partially for this reason, spectral methods have excellent error properties, with the so-called "exponential convergence" being the fastest possible, when the solution is smooth. However, there are no known three-dimensional single domain spectral shock capturing results. In the finite element community, a method where the degree of the elements is very high or increases as the grid parameter "h" decreases to zero is sometimes called a spectral element method. Spectral methods can be used to solve ordinary differential equations (ODEs), partial differential equations (PDEs) and eigenvalue problems involving differential equations. When applying spectral methods to time-dependent PDEs, the solution is typically written as a sum of basis functions with time-dependent coefficients; substituting this in the PDE yields a system of ODEs in the coefficients which can be solved using any numerical method for ODEs. Eigenvalue problems for ODEs are similarly converted to matrix eigenvalue problems . Spectral methods were developed in a long series of papers by Steven Orszag starting in 1969 including, but not limited to, Fourier series methods for periodic geometry problems, polynomial spectral methods for finite and unbounded geometry problems, pseudospectral methods for highly nonlinear problems, and spectral iteration methods for fast solution of steady state problems. The implementation of the spectral method is normally accomplished either with collocation or a Galerkin or a Tau approach. Spectral methods are computationally less expensive than finite element methods, but become less accurate for problems with complex geometries and discontinuous coefficients. This increase in error is a consequence of the Gibbs phenomenon. Examples of spectral methods. A concrete, linear example. Here we presume an understanding of basic multivariate calculus and Fourier series. If g(x,y) is a known, complex-valued function of two real variables, and g is periodic in x and y (that is, g(x,y)=g(x+2π,y)=g(x,y+2π)) then we are interested in finding a function f(x,y) so that where the expression on the left denotes the second partial derivatives of f in x and y, respectively. This is the Poisson equation, and can be physically interpreted as some sort of heat conduction problem, or a problem in potential theory, among other possibilities. If we write f and g in Fourier series: and substitute into the difference equation, we obtain this equation: We have exchanged partial differentiation with an infinite sum, which is legitimate if we assume for instance that "f" has a continuous second derivative. By the uniqueness theorem for Fourier expansions, we must then equate the Fourier coefficients term by term, giving which is an explicit formula for the Fourier coefficients "a""j","k". With periodic boundary-conditions, the Poisson equation possesses a solution only if "b""0","0" = "0". Therefore we can freely choose "a""0","0" which will be equal to the mean of the resolution. This corresponds to choosing the integration constant. To turn this into an algorithm, only finitely many frequencies are solved for. This introduces an error which can be shown to be proportional to formula_6, where formula_7 and formula_8 is the highest frequency treated. Algorithm. Since we're only interested in a finite window of frequencies (of size "n", say) this can be done using a Fast Fourier Transform algorithm. Therefore, globally the algorithm runs in time "O"("n" log "n"). A concrete, nonlinear example. We wish to solve the forced, transient, nonlinear Burgers' equation using a spectral approach. Given formula_9 on the periodic domain formula_10, find formula_11 such that where ρ is the viscosity coefficient. In weak conservative form this becomes where formula_14 following inner product notation. Integrating by parts and using periodicity grants To apply the Fourier-Galerkin method, choose both and where formula_18. This reduces the problem to finding formula_19 such that Using the orthogonality relation formula_21 where formula_22 is the Kronecker delta, we simplify the above three terms for each formula_23 to see Assemble the three terms for each formula_23 to obtain Dividing through by formula_27, we finally arrive at With Fourier transformed initial conditions formula_29 and forcing formula_30, this coupled system of ordinary differential equations may be integrated in time (using, e.g., a Runge Kutta technique) to find a solution. The nonlinear term is a convolution, and there are several transform-based techniques for evaluating it efficiently. See the references by Boyd and Canuto et al. for more details. A relationship with the spectral element method. One can show that if formula_31 is infinitely differentiable, then the numerical algorithm using Fast Fourier Transforms will converge faster than any polynomial in the grid size h. That is, for any n>0, there is a formula_32 such that the error is less than formula_33 for all sufficiently small values of formula_34. We say that the spectral method is of order formula_8, for every n>0. Because a spectral element method is a finite element method of very high order, there is a similarity in the convergence properties. However, whereas the spectral method is based on the eigendecomposition of the particular boundary value problem, the spectral element method does not use that information and works for arbitrary elliptic boundary value problems.
1037038	Guest House Paradiso is a 1999 British slapstick dark comedy written by and starring comic duo Rik Mayall and Adrian Edmondson, and directed by Edmondson - his directorial debut for a feature film. The film is semi-officially based on their comedy television series "Bottom" (in some territories, the DVD cover refers to it as "The Bottom Movie"). The key difference in the characters is in their surnames: Mayall's character, known as "Richard Richard" in the TV show, is here referred to as "Richard Twat" (although he regularly and angrily insists on the pronunciation "Thwaite"). Edmondson's character changes from "Edward Elizabeth Hitler" in the TV/live show to "Edward Elizabeth Ndingombaba". The film was made at Ealing studios and on location on the Isle of Wight. Plot. Richard "Richie" Twat and Edward "Eddie" Elizabeth Ndingombaba (Rik Mayall and Adrian Edmondson) run the worst guest house in the United Kingdom ("You're not in any of the guidebooks. Nobody for miles around - an oasis of calm. Even the peasants in the village denied its existence."), neighbouring a poorly maintained nuclear power station. The chef is not only unable to cook, but is both an idiotic drunkard and an illegal immigrant and eventually leaves due to not being paid ("Have you seen Pascal? Oh, damn. I'll have to phone the psychiatric hospital, he's probably checked himself in again!"). The guests are totally unsatisfied (one of them played by Bill Nighy) at the poor service, and all decide to leave, except for one "Mrs Foxfur" (Fenella Fielding) who lives there.
1065325	The Bounty is a 1984 British adventure drama historical film directed by Roger Donaldson, starring Mel Gibson and Anthony Hopkins, and produced by Bernard Williams with Dino De Laurentiis as executive producer. It is the fifth film version of the story of the mutiny on the "Bounty". The screenplay was by Robert Bolt and it was based on the book "Captain Bligh and Mr. Christian" (1972) by Richard Hough. It was made by Dino De Laurentiis Productions and distributed by Orion Pictures Corporation and Thorn EMI Screen Entertainment. The music score was composed by Vangelis and the cinematography was by Arthur Ibbetson. Plot. The film follows both the efforts of Fletcher Christian (Mel Gibson) to get his men beyond the reach of British punishment, and the epic voyage of Captain Bligh (Anthony Hopkins) to get his loyalists safely to the Dutch East Indies in a tiny longboat. Setting out from Britain in December 1787 for the Pacific island of Tahiti to gather breadfruit pods for transplantation in the Caribbean as slave fodder, the "Bounty" sailed west to round the tip of South America, but failed, due to harsh weather, and had to take the longer eastern route. Finally arriving in Tahiti in October 1788, Bligh found that due to the delays the wind was against him for a quick return journey, so he decided to stay on the island for four months longer than originally planned. In that time, it would be fair to say that ship discipline became problematic, and many of the crew developed a taste for the easy pleasures that island life afforded, making the relation with their Captain tense. Bligh, at the same time, constantly subjected the crew to pressure, eventually reaching a breaking point. Bligh is not shown as a cruel tyrant, but instead is seen as a traditional British naval captain and a man of his times. The worst acts of Bligh are compared with those of the crew, and is ultimately portrayed as a man who takes his sense of discipline and command too far, exceeding the limits of the ship's company; while at the same time he protected his loyal non-mutineers, when he guides their overcrowded boat to safety without any firearms or navigational equipment. The crew is portrayed in a different light than the previous films. They are shown as a group of typical 18th-century sailors—a much more "rough and tumble" group, some of whom use the "might-is-right" principle to impose a hierarchy of sorts below decks. Their motivations in this film were not as noble as in the other two films. Previous films portrayed the crew's desire for freedom from Bligh's oppressive behaviour; in this version of the story the desire to return to Tahiti is shown to be one of the primary motivations behind the mutiny. Also, they are shown as having more responsibility than they did in the other versions of the event. Fletcher Christian is a much more complex character than in prior films. He and Bligh are at first friends, and Bligh even asks him to sail for a second time with him. But both men turn against each other over the course of the events. Matters become worse when the ship leaves Tahiti, as Fletcher is forced to leave his wife Mauatua behind. Christian's Tahitian wife is given as more of a reason that Fletcher led the mutiny than before. Fletcher shows regret over one of his decisions; he tells another mutineer that he wished he had supplied Bligh with muskets before setting him adrift. The resumption of naval discipline, and a Bligh who has slowly turned into a tyrant not willing to tolerate any disobedience whatsoever, creates an atmosphere of tension and violence. Corporal punishment is meted out for the slightest offence. Bligh insists that the boat is dirty and orders the crew to clean up several times a day. Many of the men, including Christian, are singled out for severe, even hysterical tongue-lashings by Bligh. His announced intention to try once again to round Cape Horn in attempts to circumnavigate the globe pushes the crew to the breaking point. Playing on Christian's obvious resentment against Bligh's treatment of both him and the men, the more militant members of the crew finally persuade Christian to take control of the ship. Bligh is roused from his bed and arrested, along with those considered loyal to him, and all of them are forced into the ship's launch, minimally supplied, and cast adrift. Blissfully happy at their new-found freedom (though Christian feels remorse, and understands the implications of what's been done) they naively sail back to Tahiti to collect their wives, girlfriends, and native friends. King Tynah, however, is shocked by this turn of events. He makes them aware that, as mutineers, their presence on the island could incite King George to declare war against Tahiti and his people. Realising the folly of staying, though some do, they gather supplies and sail away to try to find a safe refuge. Christian pleads with Tynah to allow Mauatua to decide her own destiny. Tynah concedes, and Mauatua chooses the uncertainty of a life with Christian over remaining with her father but without her husband. Bligh, through courage and excellent seamanship—and also a return of his good character and leadership qualities—successfully manages to reach civilisation (Coupang, in Dutch West Timor) after a very harrowing journey. One man was killed by natives as the crew stopped for supplies in a hostile island. The search for a safe haven is long and seemingly impossible, as they all realise that any pursuing Royal Navy vessels will search all known islands and coastlines to find them. By this point, those that remained on board the "Bounty" are so frustrated that they are ready to rebel against Christian to turn the ship back towards Tahiti. After Christian forces the crew to continue on, they eventually find Pitcairn Island, a place which Christian realises is not marked on British maps of the region (the charts indicated that the island was sighted but no landing was made due to the lack of suitable terrain, and the island's location was recorded only by its latitude; the lack of a precise longitude made its location unknown and therefore their best hope of avoiding the Royal Navy). As the crew of the "Bounty" burn the ship to keep it from being found, the judgment of Bligh's court martial is read—Bligh is found to have not been responsible for the loss of the "Bounty", and is commended for the voyage of the open launch. Fletcher Christian and his men realise that they will never go back to England. Production. This version was originally a longstanding project of director David Lean and his frequent collaborator, Robert Bolt, who worked on it from 1977 until 1980. It was originally to be released as a two-part film, one named "The Lawbreakers" that dealt with the voyage out to Tahiti and the subsequent mutiny, and the second named "The Long Arm" that studied the journey of the mutineers after the mutiny, as well as the admiralty's response in sending out the frigate HMS "Pandora". Lean could not find financial backing for both films after Warner Bros. withdrew from the project; he decided to combine it into one, and even looked at a seven-part TV series, before finally getting backing from Italian magnate Dino De Laurentiis. Unfortunately for Lean, the project suffered a further setback when Bolt suffered a massive stroke and was unable to continue writing; the director felt that Bolt's involvement would be crucial to the film's success. Melvyn Bragg ended up writing a considerable portion of the script. Lean was ultimately forced to abandon the project after overseeing casting and the construction of the "Bounty" replica; at the last possible moment, Mel Gibson brought in his friend Roger Donaldson to direct the film, as producer De Laurentiis did not want to lose the millions he had already put into the project over what he thought was as insignificant a person as the director dropping out. Anthony Hopkins was one of two actors considered for the role of Captain Bligh by David Lean. The other was Oliver Reed. Christopher Reeve, Sting and David Essex were considered for the role of Fletcher Christian. The role of Peter Heywood (who inspired the character 'Roger Byam' in the novel and earlier film versions) was originally intended to be played by Hugh Grant. The replica of the "Bounty" used in the film was built in New Zealand before the script was even completed at the cost of $4 million, and the entire film cost $25 million. However, unlike many other films filmed on water, "The Bounty" was finished under budget. As well as the New Zealand–built "Bounty", Lean had also looked at refitting the frigate "Rose" to play the role of "Pandora". The latter has since gone on to become HMS "Surprise" in Peter Weir's "". For the storm sequences a detailed 25-foot model of the "Bounty" was built. The film was shot on location in Moorea, French Polynesia, New Zealand and at Greenwich Palace and the Reform Club, Pall Mall, London. Many of the shots of the ship were filmed in Opunohu Bay, Moorea which is the same bay Captain James Cook anchored in 1777. Gibson described the making of the film as difficult because of the long production and bad weather: "I went mad. They would hold their breath at night when I went off. One night I had a fight in a bar and the next day they had to shoot only one side of my face because the other was so messed up. If you see the film, you can see the swelling in certain scenes." Anthony Hopkins, who had battled with alcoholism until becoming abstinent in 1975, was worried about Gibson's heavy drinking, saying, "Mel is a wonderful, wonderful fellow with a marvelous future. He's already something of a superstar, but he's in danger of blowing it unless he takes hold of himself." Gibson agreed with this concern, and added his admiration for the Welsh actor, "He was terrific. He was good to work with because he was open and he was willing to give. He's a moral man, and you could see this. I think we had the same attitudes". Differences from earlier versions. The first version, an Australian silent film, "The Mutiny of the Bounty" was made in 1916. The second, "In the Wake of the Bounty" (1933) was another Australian production, starring Errol Flynn in his film debut. The third and most famous version, "Mutiny on the Bounty" (1935), starred Clark Gable, Charles Laughton, and Franchot Tone. The fourth, a remake of the third film, released in 1962, starred Marlon Brando, Trevor Howard, and Richard Harris. This version is generally regarded as a more revisionist as well as historically accurate depiction of the mutiny than the two earlier film versions. According to director Donaldson, "The major difference between our film and the other versions is that none of the others pointed out that Bligh and Christian were friends. They'd made voyages together before they sailed on the "Bounty". And while they were on the "Bounty", Bligh demoted another officer and promoted Christian, who was at that stage nothing but a midshipman, and made him second in command. What interested me was to explore how their relationship deteriorated from that point to where Christian leads a mutiny against Bligh." Unlike earlier versions, this film did not portray Bligh as a villainous character. According to Gibson, "It was a kind of fresh look at Captain Bligh, and I think of all the renditions of who Bligh was, his was probably the closest. His Bligh was stubborn and didn't suffer fools, but he was brilliant and just had a lot of bad luck." "The Bounty" also paints a far less heroic portrait of Christian. In Gibson's description, “Fletcher was just a lad of twenty-two and he behaved like one. The first time he decided to test his horns and fight for the herd, it was a mistake. He shouldn't have done it.” Gibson later expressed the opinion that film did not go far enough in correcting the historical record."I think the main problem with that film was that it tried to be a fresh look at the dynamic of the mutiny situation, but didn't go far enough. In the old version, Captain Bligh was the bad guy and Fletcher Christian was the good guy. But really Fletcher Christian was a social climber and an opportunist. They should have made him the bad guy, which indeed he was. He ended up setting all these people adrift to die, without any real justification. Maybe he'd gone island crazy. They should have painted it that way. But they wanted to exonerate Captain Bligh while still having the dynamic where the guy was mutinying for the good of the crew. It didn't quite work." The film also portrays the sailors exploiting the islanders. Gibson said, “It was a complete culture shock and it was unbelievable to them. It was paradise in terms of personal freedoms – freedoms that shouldn't have been taken advantage of. They exploited the people, fooled them, and didn't tell them the whole truth”. Gibson chose to suddenly erupt in violent emotion during the mutiny scene because eyewitness accounts had described Christian as 'extremely agitated' and 'sweating and crying'. Historical errors. Advisor Stephan Walters was responsible for much of the film's great attention to historical detail. However, director Roger Donaldson also noted that dramatic license was taken in the areas where factual evidence is lacking. Critical response. The film received generally favourable reviews, many liking the film for realism and historical accuracy as well as being an entertaining film. It has received a 81% 'fresh' rating from 16 critical reviews on film aggregate site Rotten Tomatoes. Roger Ebert gave the film a very impressive review, stating, "this "Bounty" is not only a wonderful movie, high-spirited and intelligent, but something of a production triumph as well." However, others were disappointed with the film, especially given its distinguished cast. Many critics singled out Gibson's performance as bland, particularly when compared to the performances given by Clark Gable and Marlon Brando in the two earlier MGM versions. Vincent Canby of the "New York Times" stated, "Both Bligh and Christian are unfinished characters in a screenplay that may or may not have been tampered with...The movie seems to have been planned, written, acted, shot and edited by people who were constantly being over-ruled by other people. It's totally lifeless. The film was entered into the 1984 Cannes Film Festival.
592605	Under Our Skin: The Untold Story of Lyme Disease is a 2008 documentary film about Lyme disease, focusing on the controversy surrounding "chronic" Lyme disease. The film was directed by Andy Abrahams Wilson, who became interested in the subject after his sister contracted Lyme disease. The film had its theatrical premiere on June 19, 2009 at the IFC Center in New York City. The film argues that persistent infection with Lyme disease is responsible for a variety of debilitating symptoms. The film presents advocates of the position, including International Lyme and Associated Diseases Society (ILADS), then-Connecticut Attorney General and current United States Senator Richard Blumenthal, and Center for Science in the Public Interest. The position is at odds with that of major medical bodies including the Infectious Diseases Society of America and the American Academy of Neurology, who do not recognize "chronic" Lyme disease as a legitimate diagnosis. The film portrays the Infectious Diseases Society of America as a group laden with conflicts of interest and briefly discusses Richard Blumenthal's antitrust charges against the society. The film shows individual patients responding to long-term antibiotic treatment and portrays the IDSA as "an organization riddled with conflicts of interest." Synopsis. The film follows six individuals including major league ball player Ben Petrick who report chronic symptoms, which they attribute to persistent Lyme infection. The majority of the film is devoted to the storyline of these patients and their reported recovery. At the same time, the film presents advocates of long-term therapies for chronic Lyme disease and briefly presents the position of the Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA). The second half of the film focuses primarily on state medical board investigations of Joseph Jemsek and Ray Jones, two physicians who prescribe long-term antibiotics for chronic Lyme disease. Jemsek was investigated based on the complaints of 10 patients who described "nightmarish experiences" as a result of his treatment; he was supported by a number of patients and Lyme disease advocacy organizations. The board found that Jemsek had departed from standard medical practice and had failed to inform patients that his treatments were unorthodox; his medical license was suspended with stay, allowing him to continue practicing medicine. Facing a lawsuit from an insurance company, Jemsek declared bankruptcy and closed his medical practice. The final act of the film focuses on Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal's antitrust investigation of the IDSA Lyme disease guidelines. Blumenthal issued a press release in May 2008 stating that his investigation "uncovered serious flaws" in the development of the IDSA guidelines, although Blumenthal declined to file any charges. Under pressure of mounting legal fees, the IDSA agreed to submit its Lyme disease guidelines to an independent review, which supported the scientific validity of the IDSA guidelines. The case was described in "Forbes" as "intimidation" of the medical community by the Attorney General, and in "JAMA" as an example of "elected officials advocating for health policies against the weight of scientific evidence." The film concludes with vignettes of two patients discussing their recoveries. Critical reception. According to meta-critic review site Rotten Tomatoes, "Under Our Skin" is certified "fresh". As of January, 2010, the film has received 23 positive reviews and 5 negative reviews for a fresh score of 82%. On November 18, 2009, the Academy Awards announced "Under Our Skin" as one of 15 finalists in the Documentary Feature category. The film was selected as a finalist from 89 qualifying documentaries. The film did not go on to receive an Oscar nomination. Awards and honors. Finalist, 82nd Annual Academy Awards, Documentary Feature Finalist, Audience Choice Award, Tribeca Film Festival (World Premiere)
1101903	Julius Wilhelm Richard Dedekind (October 6, 1831 – February 12, 1916) was a German mathematician who made important contributions to abstract algebra (particularly ring theory), algebraic number theory and the foundations of the real numbers. Life. Dedekind's father was Julius Levin Ulrich Dedekind, an administrator at Collegium Carolinum in Braunschweig. Dedekind had three older siblings. As an adult, he never employed the names Julius Wilhelm. He was born, lived most of his life, and died in Braunschweig (often called "Brunswick" in English). He first attended the Collegium Carolinum in 1848 before moving to the University of Göttingen in 1850. There, Dedekind studied number theory under Moritz Stern. Gauss was still teaching, although mostly at an elementary level, and Dedekind became his last student. Dedekind received his doctorate in 1852, for a thesis titled "Über die Theorie der Eulerschen Integrale" ("On the Theory of Eulerian integrals"). This thesis did not display the talent evident in Dedekind's subsequent publications. At that time, the University of Berlin, not Göttingen, was the leading center for mathematical research in Germany. Thus Dedekind went to Berlin for two years of study, where he and Riemann were contemporaries; they were both awarded the habilitation in 1854. Dedekind returned to Göttingen to teach as a "Privatdozent", giving courses on probability and geometry. He studied for a while with Peter Gustav Lejeune Dirichlet, and they became close friends. Because of lingering weaknesses in his mathematical knowledge, he studied elliptic and abelian functions. Yet he was also the first at Göttingen to lecture on Galois theory. Around this time, he became one of the first to understand the fundamental importance of the notion of groups for algebra and arithmetic. In 1858, he began teaching at the Polytechnic in Zürich (today ETH Zürich). When the Collegium Carolinum was upgraded to a "Technische Hochschule" (Institute of Technology) in 1862, Dedekind returned to his native Braunschweig, where he spent the rest of his life, teaching at the Institute. He retired in 1894, but did occasional teaching and continued to publish. He never married, instead living with his unmarried sister Julia. Dedekind was elected to the Academies of Berlin (1880) and Rome, and to the French Academy of Sciences (1900). He received honorary doctorates from the universities of Oslo, Zurich, and Braunschweig. Work. While teaching calculus for the first time at the Polytechnic, Dedekind came up with the notion now called a Dedekind cut (German: "Schnitt"), now a standard definition of the real numbers. The idea behind a cut is that an irrational number divides the rational numbers into two classes (sets), with all the members of one class (upper) being strictly greater than all the members of the other (lower) class. For example, the square root of 2 puts all the negative numbers and the numbers whose squares are less than 2 into the lower class, and the positive numbers whose squares are greater than 2 into the upper class. Every location on the number line continuum contains either a rational or an irrational number. Thus there are no empty locations, gaps, or discontinuities. Dedekind published his thoughts on irrational numbers and Dedekind cuts in his pamphlet "Stetigkeit und irrationale Zahlen" ("Continuity and irrational numbers"); in modern terminology, "Vollständigkeit", "completeness". In 1874, while on holiday in Interlaken, Dedekind met Cantor. Thus began an enduring relationship of mutual respect, and Dedekind became one of the very first mathematicians to admire Cantor's work on infinite sets, proving a valued ally in Cantor's battles with Kronecker, who was philosophically opposed to Cantor's transfinite numbers. If there existed a one-to-one correspondence between two sets, Dedekind said that the two sets were "similar." He invoked similarity to give the first precise definition of an infinite set: a set is infinite when it is "similar to a proper part of itself," in modern terminology, is equinumerous to one of its proper subsets. (This is known as Dedekind's theorem.) Thus the set N of natural numbers can be shown to be similar to the subset of N whose members are the squares of every member of N, (N → N2): Dedekind edited the collected works of Lejeune Dirichlet, Gauss, and Riemann. Dedekind's study of Lejeune Dirichlet's work was what led him to his later study of algebraic number fields and ideals. In 1863, he published Lejeune Dirichlet's lectures on number theory as "Vorlesungen über Zahlentheorie" ("Lectures on Number Theory") about which it has been written that: "Although the book is assuredly based on Dirichlet's lectures, and although Dedekind himself referred to the book throughout his life as Dirichlet's, the book itself was entirely written by Dedekind, for the most part after Dirichlet's death." (Edwards 1983) 1879 and 1894 editions of the "Vorlesungen" included supplements introducing the notion of an ideal, fundamental to ring theory. (The word "Ring", introduced later by Hilbert, does not appear in Dedekind's work.) Dedekind defined an ideal as a subset of a set of numbers, composed of algebraic integers that satisfy polynomial equations with integer coefficients. The concept underwent further development in the hands of Hilbert and, especially, of Emmy Noether. Ideals generalize Ernst Eduard Kummer's ideal numbers, devised as part of Kummer's 1843 attempt to prove Fermat's Last Theorem. (Thus Dedekind can be said to have been Kummer's most important disciple.) In an 1882 article, Dedekind and Heinrich Martin Weber applied ideals to Riemann surfaces, giving an algebraic proof of the Riemann–Roch theorem. Dedekind made other contributions to algebra. For instance, around 1900, he wrote the first papers on modular lattices. In 1888, he published a short monograph titled "Was sind und was sollen die Zahlen?" ("What are numbers and what should they be?" Ewald 1996: 790), which included his definition of an infinite set. He also proposed an axiomatic foundation for the natural numbers, whose primitive notions were one and the successor function. The following year, Peano, citing Dedekind, formulated an equivalent but simpler set of axioms, now the standard ones. Bibliography. Primary literature in English: Primary literature in German: Secondary: There is an online bibliography of the secondary literature on Dedekind. Also consult Stillwell's "Introduction" to Dedekind (1996).
1051737	Stavisky... is a 1974 French film drama based on the life of the financier and embezzler Alexandre Stavisky and the circumstances leading to his mysterious death in 1934. This gave rise to a political scandal known as the Stavisky Affair, which led to fatal riots in Paris, the resignation of two prime ministers and a change of government. The film was directed by Alain Resnais and featured Jean-Paul Belmondo as Stavisky and Anny Duperey as his beautiful wife, Arlette. Stephen Sondheim wrote the film's musical score. Plot. The core narrative of the film portrays the last months in the life of Serge Alexandre (Stavisky), from late 1933 to January 1934. We see glimpses of his operations as a "financial consultant", setting up a mysterious company to deal in international bonds, his 'laundering' of stolen jewellery, and his juggling of funds to stave off the discovery of fraudulent bonds that he has sold through the Crédit Municipal in Bayonne (municipal pawnbrokers); we see his activity as a theatre impresario in Paris, his casino gambling, his purchase of influence among the press, the police, and politicians, and always his extravagant lifestyle and desire to impress; we see his devotion to his glamorous wife Arlette, his exploitation of her beauty to lure funds from a Spanish revolutionary fascist, his contradictory accounts to his friends of events in his own past, and gleams of political idealism - which may yet be just expedients to create further webs of deception. Interposed in the narrative are moments of flashback (to his teenage awakening to a hedonistic life, to his arrest as the petty crook Stavisky in 1926, and to his father's suicide after this family dishonour) and flash-forwards (to his funeral, and to the parliamentary enquiry into the Stavisky affair at which his friends and associates testify with varying degrees of honesty). Also punctuating the main story are scenes depicting the arrival of Trotsky in France to seek political asylum, and his sojourn in various country houses and hotels, receiving visits from left-wing activists. These scenes appear to have no link with the main narrative (apart from two minor characters: the young German-Jewish actress who moves between both stories, and the police-inspector who monitors Trotsky's movements and then also investigates Alexandre), until the end of the film when, in the wake of Stavisky's fall and exposure as a Ukrainian immigrant, a Jew, and a confidant of members of the left-of-centre government, Trotsky's presence is deemed undesirable and he is expelled from the country, while a new 'government of national unity' is formed. The death of Alexandre/Stavisky in a chalet in Chamonix becomes a further mystery: either a suicide by gunshot, like that of his father, or an assassination by the security forces to ensure his silence. Background. The film began as a commission by Jean-Paul Belmondo to the screenwriter Jorge Semprún to develop a scenario about Stavisky. Resnais, who had previously worked with Semprún on "La Guerre est finie", expressed his interest in the project (after a gap of six years since his previous film); he recalled seeing as a child the waxwork figure of Stavisky in the Musée Grevin, and immediately saw the potential of Belmondo to portray him as a mysterious, charming and elegant fraudster.
583197	Yeh Teraa Ghar Yeh Meraa Ghar (English: "This is your house, this is my house") is a 2001 Indian film directed by Priyadarshan. This story of the film is an adaptation of the Mohanlal starrer movie "Sanmanassullavarkku Samadhanam". The film stars Mahima Chaudhry, Suniel Shetty and Paresh Rawal. Synopsis. After the death of his dad, Dayashankar Pandey (Sunil Shetty) arranges the marriage of his two sisters. In debt, he goes to the city to ask the tenants to leave his house, as he intends to sell it and repay his debts. A Maharashtrian woman, her two daughters, Jyoti, Saraswati (Mahima Chaudhry), and one son, Chotu (Master Aditi) are living there. When Dayashankar asks them to vacate, they refuse. What results is Dayashankar's hilarious attempts to force them to vacate - from seeking legal advice; filing police reports; asking goons to remove them - moving in himself. Will Dayashankar succeed in his attempts to evict his tenants? Music. The movie soundtrack has 6 songs composed by Anand Milind, with lyrics by Ibrahim Ashq.
591309	Paglu (English: "Mad") is a 2011 Tollywood Romantic film. Directed by Rajib Biswas. The film is a remake of Telugu film "Devadasu". The film's title flows on Dev-Koel's popular one of "Bolona Tumi Amar" hit-song "Le Paglu". Starring Dev, Koel Mallick and Rajatava Dutta. "Paglu" is the second in terms of earning T.R.P on Bengali television till date, having an awesome T.R.P of 12.25 just after Baishe Srabon, when it was telecasted on Star Jalsa. It even left 3 Idiots behind in T.R.P. battle. It is still the highest opener in Tollywood history way ahead of Dev's own films Romeo & Khokababu which are just after it. As per Sree Venkatesh distribution head, Debasis Sarkar - ""Paglu" released in 166 theatres across Bengal in the first week. The second week has seen the number of theatres rising to 169. The movie is running in 17 theatres in Kolkata. The gross collections till Monday's (June 13) matinee show have crossed Rs 5 crore." The film is a super entertainer. Plot. The movie begins with Paglu (Dev), a college student, meeting Rimi (Koel)– a girl who comes down from the U.S. to take admission in 'Princeton' College. She becomes a matter of contention between Dev and his rival in college, Ronnie whom Dev defeats in a challenge and wins over Rimi. Rimi’s father, no less than a Senator in the U.S (Rajatava Dutta) lands up in town and takes her back to the U.S on the pretext of celebrating her birthday. He separates the couple, but they vow to get back to each other. Dev’s visa is rejected so he organizes a public rally and pleads his love for Rimi which helps him get his visa! Once he lands up there, he starts a game with Rimi’s father which sees Dev laying down a challenge to him and also sees him getting bashed up by his goons. He returns and takes Rimi away with him, but later Rimi goes back to her house before the deadline ends though they could have escaped as Dev wanted to prove a point. Dev goes back to India and Rimi joins him later. Music. "Paglu" film's music composed by Jeet Ganguly.
586069	Poochakkoru Mookkuthi (translation: "A Nose-Ring for the Cat") is a 1984 screwball comedy Malayalam film written and directed by Priyadarshan, with the story adapted from the 1980 telugu film Gopal Rao Gari Ammayi. The film features an ensemble cast featuring Mohanlal, Shankar, Menaka, M G Soman, Nedumudi Venu, C.I. Paul, Sukumari, Baiju, Jagathy Sreekumar, Kuthiravattam Pappu, and Sreenivasan. The film, released in 1984, was the debut of Indian director Priyadarshan. "Poochakkoru Mookkuthi" brought together Mohanlal and Priyadarshan for the first time. Singer M. G. Sreekumar made his debut singing the title song of this movie. Plot. Revathi (Menaka) comes to the city from a small town in search of job and to have a good life and as it is with everyone her problem starts with finding a house. Shyam (Shankar) loves to become a popular singer. His parents are dead against his will. So he runs away from home and needs a shelter. Revathi accidentally meets Shyam who too is in search of a house through the common Milkboy, Chikku (Baiju). Chikku offers them both a house to rent if they are ready to pose as husband and wife in front of the landlord. Supran (Poojapura Ravi), a miserly moneylender who doesn't trust his much younger wife Kousalya (Thodupuzha Vasanthi) is their landlord. Revathi in search of a job meets Ravunni Menon (Nedumudi Venu), a rich man who owns a bungalow in the heart of the city. Ravunni Menon stays with his wife whose name too is Revathi (Sukumari). Gopalakrishnan (Mohanlal) needs some investment to come up in business and life. But to get started, he ends having to rob his stingy father (Sankaradi) of money that the latter had hidden away out of sight of tax authorities. He is in search of a rich woman he can marry. Accidentally Revathi meets Gopalakrishnan who has come to Ravunni Menon's house to repair the electronic equipment, which he had sold to him. Gopalakrishnan thinks that Revathi is Ravunni Menon's daughter and her beauty enchants him. Revathi comes to know that there is a job in Gopalakrishnan's showroom and manages to get a job with him by playing along with his mistaken belief that she is Ravunni Menon's daughter. She is aided in this subterfuge by the fact that she shares the same name as Ravunni Menon's wife and all of his business interests are named after 'Revathi'. After office hours, Gopalakrishnan drops Revathi outside Ravunni Menon's house, thinking it to be her house. She always enters the bungalow through the front gate and skips out through the gate itself after hiding in the garden until Gopalakrishnan drives away. Ravunni Menon's wife, Revathi, sees her coming and going out of the bungalow and starts suspecting her husband of an affair. Gopalakrishnan frequently visits the bungalow to visit Revathi, who is never there, and Ravunni Menon thinks his wife is having an affair with Gopalakrishnan. Further her encounter with 'Thenga' Govindan Pillai (C.I.Paul) makes the older Revathi believe that her husband has sons and daughters out of wedlock and, thus, quite capable of another affair now. Shyam in the meantime begins falling in love with Revathi and to make her jealous, he pretends that he is attracted to Kousalya, who in turn thinks this to be true and is ready to elope with him after robbing her miser husband. Pappu plays the memorable role of a completely unrelated character who ends up playing a role of his own ("Cherian Nair") and providing some of the best comic relief of the film. What ensues is a comedy-drama about the different roles that people play in life. Reception. The film was a blockbuster and ran for more than 100 days in the theatres. Soundtrack. The songs were composed by M. G. Radhakrishnan with lyrics by Chunakkara Ramankutty.
69150	Vincenzo Viviani (April 5, 1622 – September 22, 1703) was an Italian mathematician and scientist. He was a pupil of Torricelli and a disciple of Galileo. Biography. Born and raised in Florence, Viviani studied at a Jesuit school. There, Grand Duke Ferdinando II de' Medici furnished him a scholarship to purchase mathematical books. He became a pupil of Evangelista Torricelli and worked on physics and geometry. In 1639, at the age of 17, he was an assistant of Galileo Galilei in Arcetri. He remained a disciple until Galileo's death in 1642. From 1655 to 1656, Viviani edited the first edition of Galileo's collected works. After Torricelli's 1647 death, Viviani was appointed to fill his position at the Accademia dell'Arte del Disegno in Florence. Viviani was also one of the first members of the Grand Duke's experimental academy, the Accademia del Cimento, when it was created a decade later. In 1660, Viviani and Giovanni Alfonso Borelli conducted an experiment to determine the speed of sound. Timing the difference between the seeing the flash and hearing the sound of a cannon shot at a distance, they calculated a value of 350 meters per second (m/s), considerably better than the previous value of 478 m/s obtained by Pierre Gassendi. The currently accepted value is 331.29 m/s at 0 °C or 340.29 m/s at sea level. It has also been claimed that in 1661 he experimented with the rotation of pendulums, 190 years before the famous demonstration by Foucault. By 1666, Viviani started to receive many job offers as his reputation as a mathematician grew. That same year, Louis XIV of France offered him a position at the Académie Royale and John II Casimir of Poland offered Viviani a post as his astronomer. Fearful of losing Viviani, the Grand Duke appointed him court mathematician. Viviani accepted this post and turned down his other offers. In 1687, he published a book on engineering, "Discorso intorno al difendersi da' riempimenti e dalle corrosione de' fiumi". Upon his death, Viviani left an almost completed work on the resistance of solids, which was subsequently completed and published by Luigi Guido Grandi. In 1737, the Church finally allowed Galileo to be reburied in a grave with an elaborate monument. The monument that was created in the church of Santa Croce was constructed with the help of funds left by Viviani for that specific purpose. Viviani's own remains were moved to Galileo's new grave as well. The lunar crater Viviani is named after him. Curious facts. In Florence, Viviani had Galileo's life and achievements written in Latin on the façade of his palace, on huge stone scrolls. The palace was then renamed Palazzo dei Cartelloni.
1073885	The Return of the Musketeers is a 1989 film adaptation loosely based on the novel "Twenty Years After" by Alexandre Dumas, père. It is the third Musketeers film directed by Richard Lester, following 1973's "The Three Musketeers" and 1974's "The Four Musketeers". Like the other two films, the screenplay was written by George MacDonald Fraser. The character of Mordaunt, Milady de Winter's son in the original novel, is replaced by Milady's daughter, called Justine de Winter. Several cast members from the first two reprised their roles in this one. Jean-Pierre Cassel, who played Louis XIII in the original films, has a cameo appearance as Cyrano de Bergerac. While filming was taking place in September 1988, character actor Roy Kinnear died following an on-camera accident in which he fell off a horse. His role was completed by using a stand-in, filmed from the rear, and dubbed-in lines from a voice artist. Plot. Twenty years after the events of "The Four Musketeers", Cardinal Mazarin has imprisoned the Duke of Beaufort. Mazarin hires d'Artagnan to bring together Athos, Porthos, and Aramis, to work for him. Porthos accepts, but Athos and Aramis decline. By this time, Athos has a son named Raoul. Milady de Winter's daughter, Justine, questions the headsman that the musketeers hired to kill her mother. After finding out from the headsman that "Comte de la Fere" hired him, she kills the headsman. Raoul, who was in love with her before witnessing this event, leaves her and tells d'Artagnan, Porthos, and Athos that Justine wants to kill them. Count de Rochefort helps Beaufort escape from his prison, and is subsequently arrested by Mazarin. Mazarin sends d'Artagnan and Porthos after Beaufort, but Beaufort escapes them due to interference from Athos and Aramis, who are working for Beaufort. This starts a fight amongst the musketeers, in which d'Artagnan slices Aramis' hand. Aramis breaks his sword and rides away. d'Artagnan and Porthos are fired by Mazarin for not catching Beaufort. Rochefort goes into hiding until he finds Justine, and tells her the names of d'Artagnan, Porthos, and Aramis, revealing to her that "Comte de la Fere" is Athos. King Charles I of England is to be executed, so Queen Anne of Austria sends d'Artagnan, Athos, Porthos, and Raoul to rescue him. They attempt a rescue by knocking out the headsman, however Justine takes his place and executes Charles. The musketeers have several encounters with Justine: in one, Raoul's true allegiance is revealed to her; in another, Justine and Rochefort attempt to kill the musketeers by blowing up their ship but the musketeers escape and Rochefort is killed. Justine attempts to kill King Louis XIV, but is stopped by the musketeers, and their battle concludes with Justine jumping out the window into the water. Aramis rejoins the musketeers, and they force Mazarin to sign several forms in favour of them, including making Porthos a baron, Aramis a bishop, and Raoul commissioned in the guards. The film ends with the Musketeers riding together again. Production. The movie was shot in Spain.
1034459	Jimmy Edwards, DFC (23 March 19207 July 1988) was an English comedic script writer and comedy actor on both radio and television, best known as Pa Glum in "Take It From Here" and as the headmaster "Professor" James Edwards in "Whack-O!" Biography. Edwards was born James Keith O'Neill Edwards in Barnes, London, the son of a professor of mathematics. He was educated at St Paul's Cathedral School, at King's College School in Wimbledon, London, and later at St John's College, Cambridge. He served in the Royal Air Force during World War II, earning the Distinguished Flying Cross. His Dakota was shot down at Arnhem in 1944, resulting in his sustaining facial injuries requiring plastic surgery—he disguised the traces with the huge handlebar moustache that later became his trademark. He was a member of the Guinea Pig Club. Career. Radio and television. Edwards was a feature of London theatre in the immediate post-war years, debuting at London's Windmill Theatre in 1946 and on BBC radio the same year. He later did a season with Tony Hancock, having previously performed in the Cambridge Footlights review. He gained wider exposure as a radio performer in "Take It From Here", co-starring Dick Bentley, which first paired his writer Frank Muir with Bentley's personal script writer Denis Norden. Also on radio he appeared in "Jim The Great" and "My Wildest Dream". Graduating to television, he appeared in "Whack-O", also written by Muir and Norden, and the radio panel game "Does the Team Think?", a series which Edwards also created. In 1960 a film version of "Whack-O" called "Bottoms Up" was made, written by Muir and Norden. On TV he also appeared in "The Seven Faces of Jim", "Six More Faces of Jim", and "More Faces of Jim", in guest slots in "Make Room for Daddy" and "Sykes", in "Bold As Brass", "I Object", "John Jorrocks Esq", "The Auction Game", "Jokers Wild", "Sir Yellow", "Doctor in the House", "Charley's Aunt" and "Oh! Sir James!" (which he also wrote). He was the subject of "This Is Your Life" in 1958 when he was surprised by Eamonn Andrews at the BBC's Piccadilly 1 Studio. Edwards also starred in "The Fossett Saga" in 1969 as James Fossett, an ambitious Victorian writer of penny dreadfuls, with Sam Kydd playing Herbert Quince, his unpaid manservant, and June Whitfield playing music-hall singer Millie Goswick. This was shown on Fridays at 8:30 pm on LWT; David Freeman was the creator. Stage and film. In December 1958, Jimmy Edwards played the King in Rodgers and Hammerstein's "Cinderella" at the London Coliseum with Kenneth Williams, Tommy Steele, Yana and Betty Marsden. In April 1966, Edwards performed at the last night of Melbourne's Tivoli Theatre. His final words closed a long tradition of Australian music hall. "I don't relish the distinction of being the man who closed the Tiv. Music hall's dead in Britain. Now this one's dead, there's nowhere to go. I'll either become a character comedian or a pauper." Edwards frequently worked with fellow comedian Eric Sykes, acting in the short films written by Sykes, "The Plank" (1967) which also starred Tommy Cooper, alongside Arthur Lowe and Ronnie Barker in the remake of "The Plank" during 1979 and in "Rhubarb" (1969), which again featured Sykes. The films were unusual in that although they were not silent films, there was no dialogue other than various grunts and sound effects. Edwards and Sykes also toured UK theatres with their theatrical farce "Big Bad Mouse" which, while keeping more or less to a script, gave them rein to ad lib, involve the audience, and generally break the "fourth wall". Sykes was replaced by Roy Castle in later runs of the show both in its three-year residency at the Shaftesbury Theatre in London's West End and also extensive tours of the Middle East and Australia. Edwards also starred in the stage revival of "Maid of the Mountains". Private life. Jimmy Edwards published his autobiography, "Six of the Best", in 1984, as a follow-up to "Take it From Me". Among his interests were brass bands and he was himself an accomplished player of both the tuba and euphonium. Edwards was one of the principal founders, and a lifelong member, of the Handlebar Club, in which all the members had such moustaches. He was also a keen amateur polo player and played at Ham Polo Club. Edwards was a lifelong Conservative and in the 1964 general election stood as a candidate in Paddington North, without success. He was a devotee of fox hunting at Ringmer, near Lewes. He also served as Rector of Aberdeen University for three years during the 1950s, a university that has a history of appointing celebrities and actors as their honorary rector. He was married to Valerie Seymour for eleven years. During the 1970s, however, he was publicly outed as a lifelong homosexual, much to his annoyance. After the ending of his marriage, there were press reports of his engagement to Joan Turner, the actress, singer and comedienne, but these came to nothing and were suspected to be a publicity stunt by both of them. His home was in Fletching, East Sussex, and he died in London in 1988 at the age of 68 from pneumonia. A Brighton & Hove bus is named after him.
1036173	Julia Sawalha (born 9 September 1968) is an English actress known mainly for her role as Saffron Monsoon in "Absolutely Fabulous". She is also known for portraying Lynda Day, editor of the "Junior Gazette" in "Press Gang" and Lydia Bennet in the 1995 television miniseries of Jane Austen's "Pride and Prejudice." Additionally, she played Dorcas Lane in the BBC's costume drama "Lark Rise to Candleford" and Carla Borrego in "Jonathan Creek". Early life. Sawalha was born in London, the daughter of Roberta and actor Nadim Sawalha. She was named after her grandmother, a Jordanian businesswoman who had received an award from Queen Noor for enterprise. She is of Jordanian, English, and French Huguenot ancestry. She was born into an acting family: her father Nadim is an actor who appeared in the James Bond movies "The Spy Who Loved Me" and "The Living Daylights", while her sister Nadia starred in the soap "EastEnders" and is now a television presenter and chat show host. Career. Sawalha made her debut in the 1982 BBC mini series "Fame is the Spur" and in 1988, played a small role in "Inspector Morse" on the episode "Last Seen Wearing". She first gained attention for her starring role in the Bafta award-winning ITV teenage comedy/drama "Press Gang", which ran from 1989 to 1993. From 1991–94, she starred in the ITV family comedy "Second Thoughts" and continued with her character, Hannah (Lynda Bellingham's daughter), in the British Comedy Award-winning "Faith in the Future" (1995–98). In 1994, she played Mercy (Merry) Pecksniff in the BBC production of "Martin Chuzzlewit". From 1992 to 2012, Sawalha played strait-laced daughter Saffron Monsoon in the BBC sitcom "Absolutely Fabulous" alongside Jennifer Saunders and Joanna Lumley. She starred in the 1995 BBC adaptation of Jane Austen's "Pride and Prejudice" as Lydia Bennet, co-starring opposite Jennifer Ehle and Colin Firth. She also voiced Ginger in DreamWorks/Aardman's "Chicken Run". In addition, on Christmas Eve, in The Flint Street Nativity, she played Dawn "the wise man". In 2000, she appeared as Janet, the Australian barmaid ("Built for bar work; it's instinct... instinct!!") in the first series of the British sitcom "Time Gentlemen Please". She also played the much put-upon PA to "Zak" in Argos TV adverts during 2002–2004, along with Richard E. Grant. She has also joined actor Ioan Gruffudd in the internationally successful TV/DVD adaptations of CS Forester's "Horatio Hornblower" novels, as the captain's wife Maria. The following year, she became Alan Davies's co-star in "Jonathan Creek" after Caroline Quentin left, appearing in a Christmas Special ("Satan's Chimney"). She returned for a series between 2003–2004. In 2006, she participated in the third series of the genealogy documentary series "Who Do You Think You Are?" tracing her family's roots, which are Jordanian Bedouin on her father's side, and French Huguenot on her mother's. She also appeared in the pilot of BBC 1's "A Taste of my Life" presented by Nigel Slater. After a two-year break, she was back on screen in May 2007, competing in the BBC dog training celebrity reality show "The Underdog Show." She then returned to acting in two successive BBC costume dramas; as Jessie Brown in 2007 series "Cranford", followed by "Lark Rise to Candleford" in 2008. She provided the voice acting for Sister Hannah (a.k.a. "Hammer"), a main character in the Xbox 360 video game "Fable II". Personal life. Sawalha lived with "Press Gang" co-star Dexter Fletcher, and subsequently comedian Richard Herring. She also had a relationship with Patrick Marber. She reportedly had an affair with actor Keith Allen. On 1 January 2004, it was alleged in the tabloid newspapers that she had married boyfriend Alan Davies, her co-star in the television series "Jonathan Creek". Both she and Davies, who avoided discussing their private lives in public, denied this, and took legal action against the reports. After she met Rich Annetts at the Glastonbury Festival in 2005, the couple moved to Bath, Somerset and lived in a flat close to the Royal Crescent. Annetts had a canal boat on the Kennet and Avon canal, which the couple would regularly visit. They then moved to a cottage in the Somerset countryside, which they renamed "Flowers Cottage." Sawalha started growing her own vegetables, attending yoga lessons and studying for an Open University English degree. Sawalha and Annetts have since split up.
1055443	Matchstick Men is a 2003 American drama film directed by Ridley Scott. Based on Eric Garcia's 2002 novel of the same name, the film stars Nicolas Cage, Sam Rockwell, and Alison Lohman. Plot. Roy Waller (Nicolas Cage) is a con artist residing in Los Angeles who has severe obsessive-compulsive disorder. Alongside his partner and protégé Frank Mercer (Sam Rockwell), Roy operates a fake lottery, selling overpriced water filtration systems to unsuspecting customers. After Roy experiences a violent panic attack, Frank suggests he see a psychiatrist, Dr. Harris Klein (Bruce Altman). Klein provides Roy with medication, and in therapy has Roy recall his past relationship with his ex-wife, Heather (Melora Walters), who was pregnant during the time of the divorce. At Roy's behest, Klein informs Roy that he called Heather and found out that Roy has a 14-year-old daughter, Angela (Alison Lohman). Roy and Angela meet, and her youthful energy rejuvenates him. Roy thus agrees to work with Frank on a long-term con: their target is Chuck Frechette (Bruce McGill), an arrogant businessman whom the duo decides to con with the Pigeon drop. One night, Angela unexpectedly arrives at Roy's house, saying that she has had a fight with her mother, and decides to stay for the weekend before returning to school. She explores his belongings and causes him to rethink his life, which he mentions during therapy with Klein. Angela returns home late one night, leading to an argument between the two. During dinner, Roy admits that he is a con artist and reluctantly agrees to teach Angela a con. The two of them go to a local laundromat and con an older woman into believing she has won the lottery, and she shares half of her expected winnings with Angela; however, Roy then forces Angela to return the money. Roy goes bowling with Angela but is interrupted when Frank reveals that Chuck's flight to the Caymans has been updated to that day instead of Friday as planned. With little time left, Roy reluctantly decides to let Angela play the part of distracting Chuck midway through the con; however, after the con is finished, Chuck realizes what has happened and chases the two into the parking lot before they escape. Roy then learns that Angela was arrested a year ago, and asks that she stop calling him. Without Angela, Roy's myriad phobias resurface, and during another panic attack, he ultimately learns that the medication given to him by Klein is a placebo, proving that he doesn't actually need his pills to be happy. He decides that he needs Angela in his life but that he would have to change his lifestyle, much to Frank's disappointment. Roy and Angela return from dinner one night to find Chuck waiting for them with a gun, alongside a badly beaten Frank. Angela shoots Chuck and Roy sends her off with Frank into hiding until the matter can be sorted out. As Roy prepares to take care of Chuck's body, Chuck suddenly springs to life and knocks Roy unconscious. Roy awakens in a hospital, where the police inform him that Chuck eventually died from the gunshot and Frank and Angela have disappeared. Klein appears and Roy gives him the password to his bank account, ordering him to give the money to Angela when she is found. Later, Roy awakens to find that the "police" have disappeared, his "hospital room" is actually a freight container on the roof of a parking garage, "Dr. Klein's" office is vacant, and essentially all of his money has been taken. A letter from Frank confirms that he was conned and Heather (whom he has not seen for years) reveals they never had a child because of a miscarriage. One year later, Roy has become a salesman at a local carpet store, which Angela and her boyfriend one day visit. Roy confronts Angela but ultimately forgives her, realizing that he is much happier as an honest man. Angela reveals that she did not receive her fair share of the cut from Frank, and that it was the only con she ever pulled. Roy returns home to his new wife Kathy (Sheila Kelley), who is now pregnant. Reception. The film opened to positive reviews from critics, who called it the finest con film since "The Sting". "Matchstick Men" holds an 83% critical approval rating on the review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes. Roger Ebert rated the film four stars (out of four), and described it as "so absorbing that whenever it cuts away from the plot, there is another, better plot to cut to." He also recommended the film for several Oscar nominations, most notably Nicolas Cage's performance and the film's screenplay. James Berardinelli awarded the film three-and-a-half stars (out of four), praising the film for its "sly, biting sense of humor" and "emotionally satisfying" elements. He also praised the film's acting, and ultimately noted that the film was "worth every cent" of the ticket price and was "the first winner of the fall movie season." Some critics, however, were not impressed. Renee Graham of "The Boston Globe" criticized the film for its sentimentality, writing that "director Ridley Scott goes all gooey in this off-key adaptation of Eric Garcia's cynical novel." Despite praising the performances of Sam Rockwell and Alison Lohman, Graham wasn't fond of Cage, writing that he is more "irritating than interesting" and that the film follows a similar style. Similarly, Lou Lumenick of the "New York Post" praised the film's acting but noted that the viewer "may end up feeling as suckered as Roy's victims." Lumenick was also not fond of the twist ending, believing that it was a large detractor to the film's value. Opening in 2,711 theaters in the United States and Canada, the film's opening weekend gross stood at second place with $13.0 million for a mild per-theater-average of $4,827; despite receiving better reviews than its fellow openers, it ultimately lost the number-one position to "Once Upon a Time in Mexico". The film eventually grossed $36.9 million domestically, which was an underwhelming total. The film was not much more successful in the global market, grossing a worldwide total of $65.5 million. Additionally, the film was virtually ignored during the awards season, receiving no Oscar nominations despite positive reviews. However, the film found better success on home video and has since garnered a cult following.
582819	Dil Ka Rishta (Hindi: दिल का रिश्ता, Urdu: دل کا رشتہ, ) is a Bollywood movie, directed by Naresh Malhotra and produced by Aditya Rai, Aishwarya Rai's brother. It was produced and distributed under Aishwarya's own Target Films banner and Tips Industries Limited. The film was released on 17 January 2003. The film stars Arjun Rampal and Aishwarya Rai in the lead roles, with Isha Koppikar, Rakhee and Paresh Rawal in supporting roles and Priyanshu Chatterjee making a special guest appearance.Dil Ka Rishta grossed 77,60,00,000 in India .It had a very good opening in England and it was the only Indian film at 12th position that time. Plot. "Dil Ka Rishta" is about a young man named Jai (Arjun Rampal). He is very wealthy and supports many charities. One day, he accompanies his friend Anita (Ishaa Koppikar) to a school for the deaf. There, he meets Tia (Aishwarya Rai), a teacher, and falls in love with her. He helps her wherever he can and tries to be near her—and he believes that Tia feels something for him, too. When he finally admits his feelings, Tia reveals the existence of her fiancé Raj (Priyanshu Chatterjee), and leaves Jai. Despite being betrothed, Jai continues to pursue Tia. Tia marries Raj and they have a son named Anshu. The trio live a poor
1165445	Strother Douglas Martin, Jr. (March 26, 1919 – August 1, 1980), was an American character actor who often appeared in support of superstars John Wayne and Paul Newman and was memorable in Western films directed by John Ford and Sam Peckinpah. Martin perhaps is best known as the prison "captain" in the 1967 film "Cool Hand Luke", in which he uttered the since famous line, "What we've got here is...failure to communicate." Early life. Martin was born in Kokomo in Howard County in north central Indiana. For a short time, the Martins moved to San Antonio, Texas, but soon returned to Indiana. As a child, he excelled at swimming and diving; he was nicknamed "T-Bone Martin" because of his diving expertise. At 17, he won the National Junior Springboard Diving Championship. He served as a swimming instructor in the United States Navy during World War II and was a member of the diving team at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Michigan. He entered the adult National Springboard Diving competition in hopes of gaining a berth on the U.S. Olympic team but finished third in the competition. Acting career. After the war, Martin moved to Los Angeles, California, and worked as a swimming instructor and as a swimming extra in water scenes in films. He earned bit roles in a number of pictures and soon gained frequent character roles in films and television through the 1950s, having appeared in such programs as the western anthology series, "Frontier" on NBC and the syndicated American Civil War drama "Gray Ghost". He was cast in 1955 as Landry Kersh in the episode "Shadow of God" on the ABC religion anthology series, "Crossroads". He gave a memorable performance as a mentally retarded man in the "Cooter" episode of Gunsmoke (1955). Martin appeared in the first Brian Keith series, "Crusader", a Cold War drama on CBS. He guest starred as a circus tightrope walker in one of the 1957 episodes of CBS's "Have Gun, Will Travel". He portrayed a henpecked soldier in a 1958 episode of the syndicated western series, "Boots and Saddles". That same year, he played the lead in the episode "Pete Henke" of NBC's western "Jefferson Drum". In 1959, Martin played Polk, with Denver Pyle as Houston, in the episode "No Place to Stop" of the CBS western series, "The Texan", starring Rory Calhoun as Bill Longley. In another 1959 western series, Martin was cast as Deputy Jess in the episode "Johnny Yuma" of ABC's "The Rebel", starring Nick Adams. In 1960, Martin guest starred in James Whitmore's ABC crime drama, "The Law and Mr. Jones". In 1962, Martin was cast as Harold Horton in "The Chocolate Cake Caper" of the CBS sitcom, "Pete and Gladys", starring Harry Morgan and Cara Williams. He guest starred in Jack Lord's ABC adventure/drama series, "Stoney Burke". In 1963, he was cast as Private Anton Copang in the episode "Walk Through the Badlands" of the ABC/Warner Brothers western series, "The Dakotas". In 1966, Martin appeared twice as "Cousin Fletch" in the short-lived ABC comedy western "The Rounders", with Ron Hayes, Patrick Wayne, and Chill Wills. Earlier, he had guest starred with Harry Morgan and Cara Williams in their CBS sitcom, "Pete and Gladys". Martin's distinctive, reedy voice and menacing demeanor made him ideal for villainous roles in many of the best-known westerns of the 1950s and 1960s, including "The Horse Soldiers" and "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance", both directed by John Ford and starring John Wayne. His lunatic turn in the latter film as Lee Marvin's character's insanely sadistic henchman, gleefully giggling in anticipation of each horrendous atrocity, remains a particularly memorable performance. Martin also excelled in comedy, playing an incompetent "Indian agent" in the John Wayne film, "McClintock," and as a hapless horse trader in the 1969 film, "True Grit." By the late 1960s, Martin was almost as well-known a figure as many top-billed stars. In 1967, the same year as his role in "Cool Hand Luke", he appeared in the episode "A Mighty Hunter Before the Lord" of NBC's "The Road West" series starring Barry Sullivan. In 1972, he appeared as James Garner's uncle in the "Zacharia" episode of NBC's "Nichols". The play "The Time of Your Life" was revived in March 17, 1972 at the Huntington Hartford Theater in Los Angeles with Martin, Henry Fonda, Richard Dreyfuss, Gloria Grahame, Lewis J. Stadlen, Ron Thompson, Jane Alexander, Richard X. Slattery and Pepper Martin among the cast with Edwin Sherin directing. Martin appeared in all three of the classic Westerns released in 1969: Sam Peckinpah's "The Wild Bunch" (as Coffer, a bloodthirsty bounty hunter); George Roy Hill's "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" (as Percy Garris, the "colorful" Bolivian mine boss who hires the two title characters); and Henry Hathaway's "True Grit" (as Colonel Stonehill, a horse dealer). He frequently acted alongside L. Q. Jones, who in real life was one of his closest friends. Though he usually appeared in supporting roles, he had major parts in "Hannie Caulder", "The Brotherhood of Satan" (both 1971), "Pocket Money" (1972) with Paul Newman and Lee Marvin, and "SSSSSSS" (1973). Martin later appeared in another George Roy Hill film, "Slap Shot" (1977), again with Paul Newman, as the cheap general manager of the Charlestown Chiefs hockey club. He appeared six times each with both John Wayne and Paul Newman. Strother Martin can also be seen in Cheech and Chong's "Up in Smoke" (1978) as Arnold Stoner, the father of Tommy Chong's character Anthony. Martin made many guest appearances on "Gunsmoke," including the two-part episode "Island in the Desert," in which he portrayed a crazy desert hermit named Ben Snow. He also made many guest appearances on "Perry Mason" throughout the nine-year run from 1957-1966, including a college employee in "The Case of the Brazen Bequest", and the murderer in "The Case of the Drowsy Mosquito". In 1963, he appeared in Glynis Johns's short-lived comedy series "Glynis" in the episode "Ten Cents a Dance." In 1965, Martin appeared in the episode "Most Precious Gold" of the NBC comedy/drama series "Kentucky Jones," starring Dennis Weaver. In 1965, he guest-starred as Meeker in the episode "Return to Lawrence" on the ABC western "The Legend of Jesse James." In 1966, he guest-starred in the Lost In Space episode "Blast Off Into Space" as a gritty mining engineer. On a "Gilligan's Island" episode, Martin played a man living supposedly alone on the island for a radio show contest. He also starred in a two- part "The Rockford Files" 1977 episode as T.T. Flowers "The Trees, the Bees, and T.T. Flowers", an episode that took on urban invasion and the environment. One of his last acting jobs was as host of "Saturday Night Live" on April 19, 1980. In one of the skits, Martin played the strict owner of a French Language camp for children - a role based on his role as the prison captain from the film, "Cool Hand Luke". He even paraphrased his most famous line from the film - "What we have here is failure to communicate BI-LINGUALLY!" In another, he played a terminally ill man who videotaped his last will and testament. This episode was supposed to be rerun during the summer of 1980, but was pulled and replaced with another episode due to his death. Death. Martin was married to Helen Meisels-Martin from 1967 until his death. He died of a heart attack in 1980 at the age of 61. His widow, who was ten years his senior, died in 1997. Her ashes are interred with Martin's in Court of Remembrance, Columbarium of Radiant Dawn, at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in the Hollywood Hills.
1099258	Computational statistics, or statistical computing, is the interface between statistics and computer science. It is the area of computational science (or scientific computing) specific to the mathematical science of statistics. This area is also developing rapidly, leading to calls that a broader concept of computing should be taught as part of general statistical education. The terms 'computational statistics' and 'statistical computing' are often used interchangeably, although Carlo Lauro (a former president of the International Association for Statistical Computing) proposed making a distinction, defining 'statistical computing' as "the application of computer science to statistics", and 'computational statistics' as "aiming at the design of algorithm for implementing statistical methods on computers, including the ones unthinkable before the computer age (e.g. bootstrap, simulation), as well as to cope with analytically intractable problems" ["sic"]. The term 'Computational statistics' may also be used to refer to computationally "intensive" statistical methods including resampling methods, Markov chain Monte Carlo methods, local regression, kernel density estimation, artificial neural networks and generalized additive models.
1056711	The Road to Hong Kong is a 1962 British comedy film directed by Norman Panama and starring Bing Crosby, Bob Hope, and Joan Collins, with a cameo featuring Dorothy Lamour. This was the last in the long-running "Road to …" series and the only one not produced by Paramount Pictures, though references to the others in the series are made in the film and shown in Maurice Binder's opening title sequence. Plot. The story is told in flashback as Diane (Joan Collins) explains to American Intelligence how transmissions from passengers picked up from a missile to the moon are by Americans rather than Russians.
584497	Vijayakanth (born 25 August 1952 as Vijayaraj Alagarswami) is an Indian actor and politician. He is the founder of the Desiya Murpokku Dravida Kazhagam and a Member of Legislative Assembly representing Rishivandiyam, Tamil Nadu, India. He is also known as "Puratchi Kalaingar" (English: revolutionary artist). Early life. Vijayakanth was born on 25 August 1952 in Tirumangalam, Madurai to K. N. Alagarswami and Andal is parents. Alagarswami was Madurai's councillor for two terms. Upon entering the film industry to pursue an acting career, director Khaja (who directed his first film) changed his name to "Amritaraj" and then "Vijayakanth", dropping the "raj" out of his name and suffixing "kanth". He has also been nicknamed "Captain" and "Puratchi Kalaignar". Acting career. "Inikum Ilamai" was his first film, which was directed by M. A. Kaja. After this, he acted in "Dhooraththu Idi Muzhakkam", "Neerottam" and "Agal Vilakku". He is nicknamed 'Captain' after the 1991 movie "Captain Prabhakaran" which is his 100th film. Vijayakanth has starred in films including "Vanathai Pola", "Sethupathi IPS", "Captain Prabhakaran", "Pulan Visaranai", "Oomai Vizhigal", "Senthurapoove", "Ulavu Thurai", "Periyanna", "Vallarasu", "Ramana", "Neranja Manasu", and "Sathriyan. Vijayakanth is among the very few tamil actors to have acted only in Tamil movies throughout his career. " 1980s. This period was a part of Vijayakanth in Kollywood. Some of the Vijayakanth films in the 1980s include "Sattam Oru Iruttarai", "Sattam Sirikkiradhu", "Auto Raja", "Naan Soottiya Malar", "Saatchi", "Nalla Naal", "Veettukku Oru Kannagai", "Nooravathu Naal", "Vetri", "Madras Vaathiyar", "Madurai Sooran", "Kudumbam", "Naalai Unadhu Naal", "Naaney Raja Naaney Mandhiri", "Amman Koyil Kizhakkale", "Annai En Dheivam", "Manakanakku", "Oru Iniya Udhayam", "Vasantha Raagam", "Poomazhai Pozhiyudhu", "Sattam Oru Vilaiyaattu", "Siraipparavai", "Uzhavan Magan", "Veera Pandiyan", "Therkathi Kallan", "Sendhoorappoovey", "Meenatchi Thiruvilaiyadal", "Ponmana Selvan", "Paattukku Oru Thalaivan" and "En Purushanthaan Enakku Mattumthaan". These movies earned him great accolades. He was leading the charts alongside Rajinikanth and Kamal Haasan. His first Movie was "Dhoorathu Idi Muzhakkam". 1990s. Vijayakanth acted in a good number of blockbuster films in the 1990s also. Some of them are "Pudhu Paadagan, Pulanvisaranai (a blockbuster film directed by R.K. Selvamani), Sathriyan, En Aasai Machaan, Thayagam, Ezhai Jaathi, Karuppu Nila, Captain Prabhakaran (a blockbuster film directed by R.K. Selvamani and given 100th hit Film in Industry, Chinna Gounder, Sendhoorappandi, Enga Mudhalaali, Sedhupathi IPS, Thirumoorthi, Alexander, Dharma Chakkaram, Periya Maruthu, Thaai Mozhi" (guest appearance, Sarath Kumar as a hero), "Thamizh Selvan" directed by Bharatirajaa, "Honestraj, Veeram Vilanja Mannu, Ulavuthurai, Periyanna" and "Kallazhagar". 2000s. Vijayakanth had three releases in 2000 - "Vaanathai Pola", "Vallarasu" and "Simmasanam" out of which former two films became hugely successful in box office. His portrayal of elder brother and his younger brother in "Vaanathaipola" received praise. In 2001, he had three films "Vaanchinathan", "Narasimma" and "Thavasi" former two got flopped at box office, with Narasimma, Vijayakanth and co-producer l.k.sudhish his brother-in-law, were engaged in a legal battle to compensate distributors due to the film's losses likewise for Vaanchinathan, distributors who paid a high price for the movie have burnt their fingers, they have incurred heavy losses. Both received poor reviews. in 2002, Vijayakanth gave a block buster "Ramana" and a flop "Raajjiyam", following year he also appeared in a guest role in "Devan" for his friend Arun Pandiyan. Vijayakanth two releases in 2003 - Chokka Thangam and Thennavan became average grossers at box office. In 2004 he had three releases Gajendra, Engal Anna and Neranja Manasu all the three received average reviews and ended up as failures. He did not have any release in 2005. Instead, he appeared as himself in Suriya starrer Maayavi. Perarasu, Dharmapuri and Sudesi are his releases in 2006 and these too did average business. But "Perarasu" was a super hit. In 2007, he had only one release Sabari which saw him playing a doctor revolting against villains which too ended up as failure and received bad reviews. In 2008 Vijayakanth announced his 150th film "Vithagan" since Parthiban brought the title it was changed as "Arasangam" film which saw him as CBI officer who investigate the death of his brother in law and coming across look-alike of him did well at box office. Political career. He formed the center-left winged Desiya Murpokku Dravida Kazhagam (DMDK), a regional political party in Tamil Nadu. He formally announced the party's formation on 14 September 2005 in Madurai. His party contested in all seats in 2006 assembly elections and won one seat contested by him. In 2011 election held on 13 April 2011 he formed an alliance with All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) and contested in 41 constituencies. His party saw phenomenal success by winning 29 of the 41 seats it had contested from. It is a significant day in the history of Tamil Nadu as DMDK has won more seats than the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) and occupied the position of MLA for the second time. Vijayakanth emerged victorious from the Rishivandhiyam constituency in the 2011 state assembly elections. Cho Ramaswamy encouraged Desiya Murpokku Dravida Kazhagam (DMDK) to forge an alliance with AIADMK. DMDK launched a vigorous campaign to defeat DMK; It made a resolution to call all parties to come together to defeat the ruling DMK in a conference held in Salem on 8 January presided over by its leader Vijayakanth. S. Ramadoss, leader of Pattali Makkal Katchi expressed his dissatisfaction with people from film industry ruling Tamil Nadu since 1967. He also urged voters not to vote for Vijayakanth with long career as a Tamil actor. The DMDK, led by Vijaykanth, proved to be an important player in the 2006 Tamil Nadu assembly election, garnering 10% of the voters and securing 10.1% in this Lok Sabha election. According to the study, it secured more votes than the winning margins of candidates in about 25 constituencies. In 2006, polling showed that DMDK was able to get more DMK votes than AIADMK votes, but in this election according to the table on the right, they were able to wrestle more Congress voters from 2004, than any another party. Contrary to the claim of many in the AIADMK camp blaming DMDK for the defeat, there is no evidence for this to be true. Vijaykanth has declared that he would not ask donations for his party, and most of the funding for the party comes from his own pocket. He has so far rejected alliances with other political parties. In a by-elections to Madurai Central assembly constituency DMDK has secured around 17000 votes which is just 2000 votes less than ADMK. DMDK was also able to secure significant no of seats in Local Body elections. Dispute with Vadivelu. On 21 September 2008, Vadivelu's residence in the Saligramam neighbourhood in Chennai was pelted with stones by a gang, leaving several windows and furniture smashed and damaged. The actor had taken refuge in a room in his home and was safe. Vadivelu is said to have suspected Vijayakanth because of a recent controversy that broke out between the two. Vadivelu had filed a case against Vijayakanth for assault and the final court hearing took place on 22 September 2008. The attack may have occurred to prevent Vadivelu from attending the hearing. Vadivelu filed another case against Vijayakanth for attempted murder and investigations are taking place. Vadivelu has mentioned his keen interest in competing against Vijayakanth in the next assembly elections and "teaching him a lesson." In response, actor Vijayakanth told a press meet on September 22 that Vadivelu's allegations are based on hearsay. Tamilnadu Election 2011. During the legislative assembly elections that took place in Tamil Nadu during April 2011, Vadivelu vehemently campaigned for the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) and its alliance. During his public speeches, he predominantly condemned politician and actor Vijayakanth, whose party, the Desiya Murpokku Dravida Kazhagam (DMDK), allied with the opposition party All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK), headed by J. Jayalalitha. His allegations of Vijayakanth included him being a "drunkard". In a campaign speech in Tiruvarur, Vadivelu stated that "(his) only aim is to sweep out Vijayakanth’s whole team and to campaign vigorously for DMK’s victory". Vadivelu was criticized as being biased, only supporting a DMK-led victory for personal gains and not once mentioning anything against the official opposition, the AIADMK, or its leader. In a turn of events, the election was eventually successful for the AIADMK alliance while Vijayakanth was victorious by a significant margin in his own constituency. Vadivelu has since disappeared from the public eye. Post-election. Later election, Jayalalitha and Vijayakanth fought and accused each other. Due to this reason, Vijayakanth got separated from ADMK. Personal life. Vijaykanth married Premalatha on 31 January 1990 and has two sons Vijayapandiyan and Shanmugapandiyan. Vijaykanth's second son is going to debut in the movies. Other work. He founded Shri Andal Alagar College of Engineering in 2001. His wife is the chairman of this college. On October 1, 2001, Vijayakanth declared that October 1, which is actor Sivaji Ganesan's birthday, be observed as Actors' Day in Tamil Nadu. In 2001, he was the former president of South Indian Film Artistes' Association. Vijayakanth has launched a 24-hour television channel called Captain TV on April 14, 2010. Further reading. Power and Influence in India:Bosses, Lords and Captains - Google Books
475424	John Philbin (born 1965) is an American surfer who has appeared in television and film. John first began acting in high school, around the same time he began surfing. Choosing acting over wrestling, John joined a drama team that went on to win awards throughout his high school career. Upon leaving high school, John went to UC Santa Barbara and surfed on their surf team. When he transferred to USC he thought his surfing days were over and that acting would have to be his primary passion, since he was going to be living in a big city. John went on a trip in 1980 to Bali where he surfed for a month in what he refers to as 'paradise'. John went on to appear in films such as Stephen King's, "Children of the Corn" and "Grandview, U.S.A.". That same year, he also appeared in an episode of Steven Spielberg's "Amazing Stories" alongside actor Kevin Costner. It was later on that he once again took up surfing when he landed the role of Turtle in the film, "North Shore", which gave him the chance to act and surf with some of his childhood heroes. While filming "North Shore", Gerry Lopez told John that he could surf and act. This inspired John to keep surfing and acting after the film ended and later landed him the role of Nathanial in the film "Point Break", opposite Patrick Swayze, Keanu Reeves and Gary Busey. John has also been in the films "Tombstone" opposite Kurt Russell and Val Kilmer, "Return of the Living Dead", "Dillinger", "Moonbase" as well as others and has guest-starred on various television series, including "Law & Order". Philbin trained Kate Bosworth to surf for the film "Blue Crush". John Philbin currently resides in Pacific Palisades, California, where he teaches surfing and continues to appear in films and on television. John has his own instructional video he has released and has also produced a surfing documentary for Quiksilver titled "Chasing The Dream", about the Huntington Beach High surf team and their trip to Australia to try and become the next big thing in surfing. The film is narrated by Gary Busey.
586115	C.I.D.Moosa is a 2003 Malayalam slapstick comedy film written by the duo Udayakrishna and Siby K. Thomas, directed by Johny Antony, and co-produced by and starring Dileep in the title role. The film also stars Harisree Ashokan, Cochin Haneefa, Jagathy Sreekumar, Bhavana, Oduvil Unnikrishnan, Saleem Kumar, and Ashish Vidyarthi. The film is a parody of the spy genre such as the James Bond series and "C.I.D. Nazeer". It was remade in Tamil as "Seena Thaana 001", in Kannada as "CID Eesha" and in Telugu as "Ramachari - Eedo Pedda Goodachari". The same team are planning to make the sequel of this film. The name they have announced is "CID Moosa From Scotland". Plot. Sahadevan (Dileep) is the son of a police constable (Oduvil Unnikrishnan) who works in the dog squad. Sahadevan has only one ambition and that is to join the police department and for that he has cleared the exams and is waiting for the physical test. But he has an enemy, his own brother-in-law Peethambaran (Jagathy Sreekumar) who does not like him. Along with the police commissioner (Ashish Vidyarthi), Peethambaran sees that Sahadevan does not clear his physical test.He is insulted and kicked out but Sahadevan does not give up. When he foils a bomb plan, the blame is put on him by the police commissioner but he is saved by a higher authority. When he finds out who the crooks are, he tries to find a way to foil it and that hope was to become a private detective. He becomes a private detective and calls himself CID Moosa. He has Arjun, a smart dog who was condemned for mercy killing by the police dog squad and a funky car that sprays chilli powder and throws marbles to assist him. During all of this he falls in love with a girl named Meena (Bhavana).Moosa's mission is to save the life of state chief minister, Ravi Menon (Murali) who is under death threat from a group of terrorists. He finally succeeds in saving the state chief minister's life and is sent to Scotland. Box office hits. Debutant director Johnny have copied certain scenes from various Hollywood comedies like "K-9", "Home Alone" series, "Police Academy" and "Austin Powers" series along with Spiderman and Superman costumes to bring children to the theatre. Reception. This film released on 4 July 2003 and was reviewed as a worth watching movie for the kids as well as the comic lovers. The director entered in the mainstream with this movie. Soundtrack. The film featured a soundtrack composed by Vidyasagar, with lyrics penned by Gireesh Puthenchery.
1016261	Hail the Judge () is a 1994 Hong Kong comedy film directed by Wong Jing, starring Stephen Chow, Cheung Man, and Ng Man Tat. Plot. Bao Sing is Bao Zheng’s corrupt descendant, who’s hated by the public for his money-digging ways. He has a change of heart when he sees rape victim Cheung Man get framed by other corrupt lawyers and officials, including legendary lawyer Fong Tong-Ken. Bao goes through hell when he tries to expose them, and soon he finds himself on the run with nephew Ng Man-Tat. They encounter all sorts of wacky characters, including Christy Chung as a circus performer/love interest and Ada Choi Siu-Fun as a classy prostitute/love interest.
582991	Navneet Nishan (also known as Navnit Nishan, Navnit or Navnit Singh) (born on October 25, 1965) is an Indian Bollywood actress. She made her debut in Bollywood with the film "Waaris" released in 1988. She is best known for her role as Tara in the soap opera "Tara", "Kavyanjali", "Kasautii Zindagii Kay". She has acted in a number of Punjabi movies as well. Nishan has had roles in the movies "Dilwale", "Waaris", "Yeh Lamhe Judaai Ke", "Jee Aayan Nu", "Asa Nu Maan Watna Da", "Hum Hain Rahi Pyaar Ke", "Raja Hindustani", "Akele Hum Akele Tum",Haan Maine Bhi Pyaar Kiya and "Mela". She also appeared in the 2010 Bollywood film "My Name Is Khan".
1059546	Point Break is a 1991 American action film directed by Kathryn Bigelow and starring Patrick Swayze, Keanu Reeves, Lori Petty and Gary Busey. The title refers to the surfing term point break, where a wave breaks as it hits a point of land jutting out from the coastline. The film was a box office success upon its release and it has since gathered a worldwide cult following in VHS and later DVD and Blu-ray releases. Plot summary. Johnny Utah (Keanu Reeves) is a former Ohio State quarterback and rookie FBI Agent. He and his veteran partner, Angelo Pappas (Gary Busey), are investigating a string of bank robberies by a gang known as the Ex-Presidents (during their robberies they use masks of former Presidents Ronald Reagan, Richard Nixon, Lyndon B. Johnson, and Jimmy Carter to disguise their true identities). They only raid the cash drawers in the banks they rob--never going for the vault--and are out in 90 seconds. Pursuing Pappas' theory that the criminals are surfers, Johnny goes undercover to infiltrate the surfing community. Knowing nothing of the sport/lifestyle, he persuades orphan surfer girl Tyler Endicott (Lori Petty) to teach him to surf. In the process, Johnny develops a complex friendship with Bodhi (Patrick Swayze), the charismatic leader of a gang of surfers, Roach (James LeGros), Grommet (Bojesse Christopher) and Nathaniel (John Philbin), who accept Johnny when they realize he is a former college football star. As he masters the art of surfing, Johnny finds himself increasingly drawn to the surfers' adrenaline-charged lifestyle, Bodhi's philosophies, and Tyler. Following a clue retrieved by analyzing toxins found in the hair of one of the bank robbers, Johnny and Pappas lead an FBI raid on another gang of surfers. While criminals, this group are not the Ex-Presidents and the raid inadvertently ruins a DEA undercover operation. Watching Bodhi's group surfing, Johnny suspects they are the "Ex-Presidents," noting how close a group they are and the way one of them moons everyone in the same manner one of the robbers does when leaving a bank. He tails Bodhi and his suspicions are confirmed when he sees Bodhi and Roach casing a bank. Johnny and Pappas stake out the bank and the Ex-Presidents appear. The one in the Reagan mask leads Johnny in a furious foot chase through the neighborhood, culminating in Johnny jumping into an aqueduct and causing an old football injury in his knee to flare up again. Despite having a clear shot at Reagan (locking eyes with him), Johnny cannot bring himself to shoot and he escapes. At a campfire that night, it is revealed that Bodhi and his gang "are" the Ex-Presidents. Their motivation was not profit, but rebelling against the system. Knowing Johnny's true identity, most of the guys want out but Bodhi refuses to fold. The next morning, Bodhi aggressively recruits Johnny into going skydiving with him and his friends. Johnny, still without proof of Bodhi's bank robbing, goes along. After the jump, Bodhi reveals that he knows Johnny is FBI and has arranged for his friend Rosie (Lee Tergesen), a non-surfing thug, to hold Tyler hostage. Johnny is forced to go with the Ex-Presidents in their last bank robbery of the summer. But Bodhi breaks his own rule by going for the vault, pulling too much time. Then Grommet, along with an off-duty police officer and a security guard who try to stop the robbery, are killed. Angered by Grommet's death and by having to kill the cop, Bodhi knocks Johnny out and leaves him at the scene.
1066689	Bunny and the Bull is a 2009 British comedy film from writer-director Paul King. It stars Edward Hogg and Simon Farnaby in a surreal recreation of a road trip. King has previously worked on British television comedies "The Mighty Boosh" and "Garth Marenghi's Darkplace"; the film is made in a similar style and has guest appearances from stars of those series. Plot. "Bunny and the Bull" is a road movie set entirely in a flat. Stephen Turnbull (Edward Hogg) has not left the house in months. When an infestation of mice wreaks havoc on his daily routine, he finds his mind going back to a disastrous trek round Europe he undertook the previous year with his best friend Bunny (Simon Farnaby). As the story progresses Stephen reconstructs the journey using objects found around his flat, while hallucinations of several people from the journey trouble him. The journey begins with Stephen attempting to declare his feelings for Melanie (Madeleine Worrall), the love of his life, in a restaurant; unfortunately she had put him firmly in "the friend zone". To help lift his spirits Bunny proposes that they go on trip around Europe. When they go to visit the local bookmaker, Bunny convinces Stephen to break the habit of a lifetime and take a risk by putting fifty pounds on a rank outsider. They win and then use the £2,500 winnings to pay for the trip. Along the way they stumble across several interesting characters including: a demented dog-loving tramp (Julian Barratt), an alcoholic ex-matador (Noel Fielding), a dull tour-guide (Richard Ayoade) and a superstitious waitress Eloisa (Verónica Echegui), with whom both Bunny and Stephen start a relationship. Stephen is a nervous vegetarian who prepares himself well for every journey—he is definitely the more sensible of the two friends.
1085697	Nice Dreams is Cheech & Chong's third feature-length film, released in 1981 by Columbia Pictures. It stars Cheech Marin, Tommy Chong, Paul Reubens, Stacy Keach, Evelyn Guerrero, Sandra Bernhard, and Timothy Leary. Chong also directed the film. Plot. Cheech and Chong have a new business driving an ice cream truck selling "Happy Herb's Nice Dreams." However, it is not ice cream they sell, but it is marijuana, stolen from their friend Weird Jimmy whose plantation is under their beach house camouflaged as a pool. The two eventually make a fortune. They blissfully plan on becoming "Sun Kings in Paradise" which involves buying an island, guitars, and enjoying lots of women. The police are on Cheech and Chong's tails from the start, as they trick the stoners into selling them some of their "ice cream." Sgt. Stedanko (Keach, reprising his role from "Up in Smoke"), now himself a stoner, tests the marijuana and slowly turns into a lizard (a side effect). Just as the police storm their house, Cheech and Chong pack up the marijuana in their truck and drive off, leaving Weird Jimmy to be arrested. While Sgt. Stedanko continues smoking their product, becoming stranger and more lizard-like, his two deputies Det. Drooler and Noodles tail the stoners. Cheech and Chong dine at a Chinese restaurant to celebrate their wealth. There they accosted by an annoying record agent who bothers Chong (mistaking him for Jerry Garcia), followed by Cheech's ex-girlfriend Donna (Guerrero, reprising her role from "Cheech & Chong's Next Movie") and a cocaine-snorting mental patient, Howie "Hamburger Dude" (Paul Reubens). The four of them snort cocaine under the table, prompting Chong to sign away all their money to Howie for a useless check, which they are unable to cash due to none of them having an ID. Cheech takes a drunk Donna out to her truck to have sex, but she passes out. A pair of incompetent California highway patrolmen show up, almost busting Cheech when Chong abruptly shows up in their ice cream truck. However, not wanting to deal with the impending long procedure of the arrest, the cops let Cheech and Chong go. The two head back to Donna's apartment. While attempting a threesome, Chong leaves to get ice. At this point, Donna's crazed biker husband Animal shows up, having broken out of prison. Cheech tries to escape out the window and ends up climbing the hotel naked. Chong then returns to the room and hides under the bed. Eventually, Animal has sex with Donna and they fall asleep. Cheech gets back into the hotel and returns to the room. Cheech then realizes Chong has signed away all their money to Howie. After getting a lift from Drooler and Noodles (disguised as women), the stoners find and break into the address on the check: a mental institution. They spend the night and in the morning they find Howie among the inmates. Cheech tries to grab Howie to get their money but the doctors believe Cheech to be another patient and lock him in a straitjacket and chained up in a padded room. Chong finds a doctor (Timothy Leary) to help, and Cheech and Chong are offered "the key to the universe" (LSD). Chong simply passes out but Cheech endures a bizarre trip that finally ends the next morning when the head nurse awakens them. She has realized what has happened and apologizes to them, returns their money and sets them free. At this point, Stedanko's cops show up and arrest the head nurse and Howie instead, the stoners having escaped prior.
1068283	Stephanie Daley — retitled What She Knew for US television — is a 2006 film starring Amber Tamblyn, Melissa Leo, Tilda Swinton and Timothy Hutton. The film, which received a limited release in North America on April 20, 2007, focuses on the issue of teenage pregnancy. "Stephanie Daley" was developed at the Sundance Writers' and Filmmakers' Lab, and premiered at the 2006 Sundance Film Festival, where it won the Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award. The film also earned Tamblyn a nomination for best supporting female at the 2006 Independent Spirit Awards and the Leopard prize for best actress at the 2006 Locarno film festival. Plot Summary. Sixteen-year-old Stephanie Daley collapses in a pool of blood while on a school skiing trip. A doctor discovers that in the blood is afterbirth. Soon afterward, the body of a newborn baby girl is found in a toilet, its mouth blocked with toilet paper. Despite Stephanie's insistence that her child was stillborn and that she had no idea that she was pregnant, she is arrested for the murder of the child and becomes known as the Ski-Mom. Awaiting trial, Stephanie is interviewed by a forensic psychologist, Lydie Crane, who is also approximately 30 weeks pregnant with a son. Lydie is hired by the Prosecution to make an independent evaluation of Stephanie. When Lydie first meets the Daley family, Stephanie's mother is quick to stipulate that Stephanie will not accept a plea bargain. Lydie is eager to get to know Stephanie. She suspects her husband is having an affair after finding an earring that doesn't belong to her in their home; their marriage has been on the rocks since she gave birth to a stillborn child three months before she conceived the child she is now pregnant with. As Stephanie discusses her sexual history and her relationship with her parents and her child, Lydie is forced to face her hitherto buried emotions about her own child. Through her interviews with Lydie, Stephanie talks about the father of her baby, Cory, a boy she met at party and then slept with and never saw again because he enlisted in the Marines. When Lydie asks Stephanie if she knew she was pregnant; Stephanie avoids the questions and claims she was being "punished" by God because she was "weak", and that the pregnancy was a "test". Visibly annoyed at this, Lydie reveals to Stephanie that she had a baby girl a year before who had been stillborn, and asks Stephanie what she thinks Lydie was being punished for. Stephanie replies "you tell me."
1102501	Gerolamo (or Girolamo, or Geronimo) Cardano (; ; 24 September 1501 – 21 September 1576) was an Italian Renaissance mathematician, physician, astrologer and gambler. He wrote more than 200 works on medicine, mathematics, physics, philosophy, religion, and music. His gambling led him to formulate elementary rules in probability, making him one of the founders of the field. Early life and education. He was born in Pavia, Lombardy , the illegitimate child of Fazio Cardano, a mathematically gifted lawyer, who was a friend of Leonardo da Vinci. In his autobiography, Cardano claimed that his mother had attempted to abort him. Shortly before his birth, his mother had to move from Milan to Pavia to escape the Plague; her three other children died from the disease. In 1520, he entered the University of Pavia and later in Padua studied medicine. His eccentric and confrontational style did not earn him many friends and he had a difficult time finding work after his studies ended. In 1525, Cardano repeatedly applied to the College of Physicians in Milan, but was not admitted owing to his combative reputation and illegitimate birth. Eventually, he managed to develop a considerable reputation as a physician and his services were highly valued at the courts. He was the first to describe typhoid fever. In 1553 he cured the Scottish Archbishop of St Andrews of a disease that had left him speechless and was thought incurable. The diplomat Thomas Randolph recorded the "merry tales" rumoured about his methods still current in Edinburgh nine years later. Cardano himself wrote that the Archbishop had been short of breath for ten years, and after the cure was effected by his assistant, he was paid 1,400 gold crowns. Mathematics. Today, he is best known for his achievements in algebra. Cardano was the first mathematician to make systematic use of numbers less than zero. He published the solutions to the cubic and quartic equations in his 1545 book "Ars Magna". The solution to one particular case of the cubic equation formula_1 (in modern notation), was communicated to him by Niccolò Fontana Tartaglia (who later claimed that Cardano had sworn not to reveal it, and engaged Cardano in a decade-long fight), and the quartic was solved by Cardano's student Lodovico Ferrari. Both were acknowledged in the foreword of the book, as well as in several places within its body. In his exposition, he acknowledged the existence of what are now called imaginary numbers, although he did not understand their properties (described for the first time by his Italian contemporary Rafael Bombelli, although mathematical field theory was developed centuries later). In "Opus novum de proportionibus" he introduced the binomial coefficients and the binomial theorem. Cardano was notoriously short of money and kept himself solvent by being an accomplished gambler and chess player. His book about games of chance, "Liber de ludo aleae" ("Book on Games of Chance"), written around 1564, but not published until 1663, contains the first systematic treatment of probability, as well as a section on effective cheating methods. Cardano invented several mechanical devices including the combination lock, the gimbal consisting of three concentric rings allowing a supported compass or gyroscope to rotate freely, and the Cardan shaft with universal joints, which allows the transmission of rotary motion at various angles and is used in vehicles to this day. He studied hypocycloids, published in "de proportionibus" 1570. The generating circles of these hypocycloids were later named Cardano circles or cardanic circles and were used for the construction of the first high-speed printing presses. He made several contributions to hydrodynamics and held that perpetual motion is impossible, except in celestial bodies. He published two encyclopedias of natural science which contain a wide variety of inventions, facts, and occult superstitions. He also introduced the Cardan grille, a cryptographic tool, in 1550. Someone also assigned to Cardano the credit for the invention of the so-called "Cardano's Rings", also called Chinese Rings, but it is very probable that they are more ancient than Cardano. Significantly, in the history of education of the deaf, he said that deaf people were capable of using their minds, argued for the importance of teaching them, and was one of the first to state that deaf people could learn to read and write without learning how to speak first. He was familiar with a report by Rudolph Agricola about a deaf mute who had learned to write. De Subtilitate 1552. As quoted from Charles Lyell's "Principles of Geology": The title of a work of Cardano's, published in 1552, 'De Subtilitate' (corresponding to what would now be called Transcendental Philosophy), would lead us to expect, in the chapter on minerals, many far fetched theories characteristic of that age; but when treating of petrified shells, he decided that they clearly indicated the former sojourn of the sea upon the mountains. Later years. Cardano's eldest and favorite son was executed in 1560 after he confessed to having poisoned his cuckolding wife. His other son was a gambler, who stole money from him. He allegedly cropped the ears of one of his sons. Cardano himself was accused of heresy in 1570 because he had computed and published the horoscope of Jesus in 1554. Apparently, his own son contributed to the prosecution, bribed by Tartaglia. He was arrested, had to spend several months in prison and was forced to abjure his professorship. He moved to Rome, received a lifetime annuity from Pope Gregory XIII (after first having been rejected by Pope Pius V) and finished his autobiography. It appears that he was still practicing medicine up to his death in 1576. The date of his death is disputed, most probably he was still alive in 1577. References in literature. Richard Hinckley Allen tells of an amusing reference made by Samuel Butler in his book "Hudibras":
1164281	Jay Thomas (born July 12, 1948) is an American actor, comedian, and radio talk show host. His notable television roles include Eddie LeBec in "Cheers", Jack Stein in "Love & War", and Jerry Gold in "Murphy Brown". Thomas won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Comedy Series in 1990 and 1991 for portraying Gold. In 1997, he starred in the television film "Killing Mr. Griffin", based on the novel of the same name. In film, he co-starred in "Mr Holland's Opus" and portrayed The Easter Bunny in "The Santa Clause 2" and "The Santa Clause 3". He is also an annual guest in "The Late Show with David Letterman" during the Christmas season, where he tells a story about Clayton Moore, who portrayed the self-titled character in "The Lone Ranger". Since 2005, he has hosted "The Jay Thomas Show" on Sirius Satellite Radio.
1164267	Howard Da Silva (May 4, 1909 – February 16, 1986) was an American actor. Early life. He was born Howard Silverblatt in Cleveland, Ohio, the son of Bertha (née Sen) and Benjamin Silverblatt, a dress cutter. His parents were both Yiddish speaking Jews born in Russia. He had a job as a steelworker before beginning his acting career on the stage. He changed his surname to the Portuguese Da Silva, despite not having any relationship with Portugal or Brazil (the name is sometimes misspelled Howard De Silva). Career. Da Silva appeared in a number of Broadway musicals, including the role of Larry Foreman in the legendary first production of Marc Blitzstein's musical, "The Cradle Will Rock" (1937). Later, he costarred in the original 1943 stage production of Rodgers and Hammerstein's "Oklahoma!", playing the role of the psychopathic Jud Fry. He was the easygoing Ben Marino who opposed Tammany Hall in the Pulitzer winning musical "Fiorello!".
584470	Kadal Pookkal (English:Sea Flowers) is a 2001 Tamil drama film directed by Bharathiraja which stars Murali and Manoj in the leading roles, with Sindhu Menon, Pratyusha and Uma in supporting roles. The film was delayed several times before release but opened to critical acclaim with Bharatiraja winning the National Film Award for Best Screenplay and Murali winning the Tamil Nadu State Film Award for Best Actor.
1053728	Tasha Smith (born February 28, 1971) is an American actress. She has appeared in numerous movies and plays, most notably as Angela Williams in the Tyler Perry films "Why Did I Get Married?" and "Why Did I Get Married Too?". Currently, she stars as the character on the TBS comedy-drama television series "Tyler Perry's For Better or Worse". Career. Smith has appeared in numerous television and film roles; she is also involved in some off-screen ventures, such as an organic perfume line titled "US", which she launched in 2011 with Keith Douglas, her husband and manager and Tasha Smith's Acting Workshop (TSAW), in which she helps and coaches many aspiring actors. Smith has played roles in multiple Tyler Perry projects, such as the TBS series "Tyler Perry's For Better or Worse" (2011 to present) and the films "Daddy's Little Girls" (2007) (a Tyler Perry-directed movie, wherein she played the villain Jennifer), "Why Did I Get Married?" (2007), and "Why Did I Get Married Too?" (2010), alongside Janet Jackson, Jill Scott, and Sharon Leal.
1162691	Marissa Jaret Winokur (born February 2, 1973), sometimes credited as Marissa Winokur, is an American actress known for her performance as Tracy Turnblad in the highly successful Broadway musical adaptation of John Waters' film "Hairspray", as well as her work on the Pamela Anderson sitcom "Stacked". Some of her other TV Credits include "Curb Your Enthusiasm", "Moesha", "The Steve Harvey Show", "Just Shoot Me!", "Felicity", and "Dharma & Greg". She was a contestant on the popular reality competition series "Dancing With the Stars" and went on to host the similar "Dance Your Ass Off". Most recently she was serving as a co-host on the daily daytime talk show "The Talk", but did not return in 2011. Instead she would focus on her clothing line and a new cable TV show. Early life. Winokur was born in New York City, the daughter of Maxine, a teacher, and Michael Winokur, an architect. She is Jewish. Winokur was a cheerleader and captain of her high school soccer team at Fox Lane High School. She later studied at The American Musical and Dramatic Academy, graduating from the integrated program. Career. Stage, screen and television. Winokur won the 2003 Tony Award for Best Leading Actress in a Musical, Drama Desk Award, Theatre World Award, and Outer Critics Circle Award for her performance in Hairspray. After she started her run in "Hairspray," Winokur was diagnosed with cancer, but she informed none of her cast-mates or any of the members of the crew to prevent them from worrying about her. She underwent the surgery later in 2003; after her recovery and declaration of being cancer-free, she was healthy enough to return to Broadway. It is said that while traveling to and from her cancer surgery she sang "Good Morning Baltimore," one of the musical's show-stoppers. She made her first appearance on Broadway after successfully undergoing cancer treatment. She had previously appeared on Broadway as "Pink Lady Jan" in the revival of "Grease." Winokur has also played roles in films such as "American Beauty," "Never Been Kissed," "Teaching Mrs. Tingle," the send-up "Scary Movie," "Beautiful Girl" (for ABC Family), "Fever Pitch," and "Fugly," and she provided one of the voices in "Shrek the Halls," a CGI-animated holiday-oriented film. Winokur co-starred in the TV series "Stacked," which starred Pamela Anderson. She also appeared on an episode of "Curb Your Enthusiasm" where she lost a physical fight with Larry David over the first appointment at a doctor's office. She was called "Marissa" Winokur in the episode, but was credited simply as "Woman In Elevator." Marissa was set to star in a new comedy pilot for CBS titled "Fugly," from the creator of "My Name Is Earl." The show was originally pitched to FOX as a vehicle for Pamela Anderson, but was turned down in favor of "Stacked." It was later revamped into a television film and aired to poor reviews in 2007. She returned to "Hairspray" on December 9, 2008 and played Tracy until the show's closing on January 4, 2009. Winokur hosted the reality competition series "Dance Your Ass Off" on the Oxygen Network. Winokur is scheduled to appear in the upcoming documentary "Broadway: The Next Generation," and in October 2010 she joined Julie Chen, Holly Robinson Peete, Sharon Osbourne, Leah Remini, and Sara Gilbert in a new talk show, "The Talk", that is intended to focus on stories of parenting, everyday life and events in the headlines. The program began airing on CBS October 18, 2010. On January 14, 2011, she announced via People Magazine that she would be leaving The Talk to focus on her clothing line and a new cable TV show she was developing. She reprised the role of Tracy Turnblad in the Hollywood Bowl production of "Hairspray", which ran from August 5-7, 2011. Winokur has joined the cast of TV Land's original sitcom "Retired at 35", beginning in the second season. She plays Amy, David’s sister, a sharp-tongued, quick-witted successful saleswoman for a pharmaceutical company with a bubbly personality. The character was originated by Casey Wilson in the show's pilot, but made no other Season 1 appearances. Recording and voice work. Winokur is working on recording a children's music album. Her rendition of the song "Baby Face" is featured on the soundtrack for the film "Son of the Mask." She performs "The Wish Song" on the 2006 charity album "Unexpected Dreams – Songs From the Stars." In 2007, Winokur joined Nikki Blonsky and Ricki Lake in singing "Mama, I'm a Big Girl Now" on the "Hairspray" soundtrack; in director John Waters's original film, Lake had originated the role that Winokur (on stage) and Blonsky (on screen, in the film version of the musical) had respectively reprised, that of Tracy Turnblad. Winokur has also lent her voice to several cartoon shows, including "American Dad!" and "King of the Hill." "Dancing with the Stars". Winokur is featured on Season 6 of "Dancing With the Stars" with professional dancer Tony Dovolani. Marissa scored an 18 for her Cha-Cha-Cha her first week and 21 for her Quickstep in week two giving her a combined total of 39 out of 60. In that week's elimination, Marissa was the last female contestant to be saved before Monica Seles was eliminated. In week three, Marissa scored 19 for her Jive to Avril Lavigne's Girlfriend, placing her last on the leader board, but was saved from elimination by the viewer's votes. In week four, Marissa performed a Paso Doble and was praised for her improvements, scoring 24 out of 30. She scored a second 24 out of 30 for her Samba in week five. In week six, Marissa earned a 26 for a Viennese Waltz, her highest score so far. The following week was another success learning two dances, scoring a 27 for her Tango in the Ballroom round and in the Latin round she received 25 for her Rumba. Marissa came third on the combined total leader board with a score of 52 out of 60, beating Shannon Elizabeth and Mario by one point and Cristian de la Fuente by 6 points. Despite being third Marissa found herself in the bottom two alongside Shannon. The following week Marissa performed a Foxtrot and Mambo scoring 25 for both dances scoring a total of 50 out of 60, placing her last on the leader board, but was again saved by the viewer's votes. During her last week on the show, she earned a 26 for both her Rumba and Quickstep. Winokur was eliminated after the semifinal round. Personal life. During the early development stages of "Hairspray", Winokur was diagnosed with cervical cancer. She underwent treatment for the disease, without revealing her condition to anyone except her immediate family out of fear that she would be replaced in the musical. Ultimately she made a full recovery and remained in the show. Winokur married Judah Miller, who was a writer on "Stacked", on October 7, 2006. In March 2008, the couple announced that they were expecting their first child, a boy to be named Zev, via a surrogate mother and that the pregnancy was five months along. Zev Isaac Miller was born July 22, 2008, weighing in at 8 pounds 7 ounces and measured 21 inches long. Winokur and Miller helped deliver their son. She is the great-niece of two famous American writers: S. J. Perelman and Nathanael West.
940013	Robert Dane Oliveri (born April 28, 1978) is a former American actor. He is best known for his portrayal of Nick Szalinski in the 1989 Disney film, "Honey, I Shrunk the Kids", for which he was nominated for a Young Artist Award and a Saturn Award. He reprised the role in the 1992 sequel, "Honey, I Blew Up the Kid" and the 3D film, "Honey, I Shrunk the Audience". He is also known as Kevin, Winona Ryder's little brother, in Tim Burton's "Edward Scissorhands". Early life. Robert Dane Oliveri was born in Los Angeles, California. He has one older brother, Erick, and a younger brother, Christopher. His mother, Pattie, divorced his father, remarried another man, and had three other children. He grew up in Lynbrook, New York with his mother where he attended St. Raymond's Catholic School in East Rockaway, New York. He and his brother, Erick, once starred together in a Stovetop Stuffing commercial. This began his future acting career. Career. At age nine, Oliveri starred as Paul Bard in an episode of "ABC Afterschool Special". Two years later he made a guest appearance on "", based on the film franchise, as Mike Carlson. That same year, he starred as Young Nelson in the television movie, "Ask Me Again". Also that year, he landed the role of Nick Szalinski, the son of Rick Moranis's character in "Honey, I Shrunk the Kids".
1060685	Maury Alan Chaykin (July 27, 1949 – July 27, 2010) was an American-born Canadian actor, best known for his portrayal of detective Nero Wolfe, as well as for his work as a character actor in many films and television programs. Personal life. Chaykin was born in Brooklyn, New York. His father, Irving J. Chaykin (1912–2007), was born in Brooklyn, and was a professor of accountancy at City College of New York. His mother, Clarice Chaykin (née Bloomfield, 1921–2012), was born in Winnipeg, Manitoba, but raised in Montreal, Quebec since the age of three. She graduated from Beth Israel Hospital nursing school in Newark, New Jersey. Chaykin's maternal uncle, George Bloomfield (1930–2011), was a veteran Canadian director, producer, writer and actor who directed Chaykin in a number of projects for film and television. Raised in New York City, Chaykin studied drama at the University at Buffalo, The State University of New York. He subsequently moved to Toronto, Ontario, where he resided until his death. Chaykin's first marriage, to Canadian producer Ilana Frank, ended in divorce. He was married to Canadian actress Susannah Hoffmann, with whom he had one daughter, Rose. Best known for having played Jen Pringle in the "Anne of Avonlea" series, Hoffmann had a supporting role in a 2002 episode of the television series, "A Nero Wolfe Mystery", in which Chaykin starred. Career. Chaykin was known for portrayals of blustery supporting characters. One of his rare leading roles was Nero Wolfe. Chaykin first played the legendary detective in "" (2000), an A&E telefilm adaptation of the 1953 novel by Rex Stout. Timothy Hutton costarred in the production as Archie Goodwin. "The New York Times" reported Chaykin's "undisguised delight" at starring in the promotion for "The Golden Spiders": "There's an extraordinary billboard up on Sunset Boulevard right now, with a humongous photograph of my face. ... I drive by it constantly, back and forth, back and forth." The original movie's success led to the weekly series, "A Nero Wolfe Mystery", which played for two seasons on A&E and continues to air internationally. Chaykin and Hutton had worked together previously, albeit briefly, in the 1985 film "Turk 182"; and they worked together subsequently, in the 2006 film "Heavens Fall". Two of Chaykin's early motion picture roles brought him public recognition: computer programmer Jim Sting in "WarGames" and prosecution witness Sam Tipton in "My Cousin Vinny". In 1990, he had a small but pivotal role in the film "Dances with Wolves", portraying Major Fambrough. Chaykin had his first starring role in "Whale Music", a 1994 film in which he played a burned-out rock star, a character based largely on Brian Wilson. Chaykin was named Best Actor at the 15th Genie Awards for his portrayal. Chaykin also had roles on the television series "Seeing Things" and "Emily of New Moon" as well as a recurring role as the intergalactic gourmand Nerus (a nod to Nero Wolfe) in "Stargate SG-1".
585335	Olangal is a 1982 Indian film in Malayalam directed by Balu Mahendra. The film's plot is inspired from novel "Man, Woman and Child" by Erich Segal. Synopsis. Life goes on happily for the couple, Ravi (Amol Palekar) and Radha (Poornima) who live with their only daughter until Father John arrives in the city with a young boy Raju, Ravi's son from an affair with Reetha (Ambika) before his marriage to Radha. Now he has to keep the boy with him for a month before Father John takes the boy abroad. Ravi introduces the boy to his wife as the son of a dead friend, George, and she happily accepts to keep the boy with them. But the truth emerges when the 'dead friend' visits their house. The six-year-long marriage between Ravi and Radha shatters. Songs. The song "Thumbi Vaa" was liked by many people and got remade in Telugu, Kannada and Hindi. Balu Mahendra liked the tune so much that he used it again in the film "Aur Ek Prem Kahani". The song was also used two more times by Ilayaraaja himself and once by Shankar Ganesh. The song "Thannannam Thaanannam" also featured in the Malayalam movie "Yathra" also as "Theeyanni Danimma" from the Telugu movie Nireekshana. It was also used in the 2009 Hindi movie "Paa" as "Gumm Summ Paa".
1061043	Bonnie Lynne Hunt (born September 22, 1961) is an American actress, comedian, writer, director, television producer, and daytime television host. She has appeared in the films "Rain Man", "Beethoven", "Beethoven's 2nd", "Jumanji", "Jerry Maguire", "The Green Mile", "Cheaper by the Dozen", and "Cheaper by the Dozen 2". She has done voice work in the Pixar films "A Bug's Life", "Monsters, Inc.", "Monsters University", "Toy Story 3", "Cars", and "Cars 2". Hunt has starred in the television series "Grand" and "Davis Rules" as well as creating, producing, writing, and starring in "The Building", "Bonnie", and "Life with Bonnie". From 2008 to 2010, she hosted the day time talk show "The Bonnie Hunt Show".
1105356	Jacques Philippe Marie Binet (February 2, 1786 – May 12, 1856) was a French mathematician, physicist and astronomer born in Rennes; he died in Paris, France, in 1856. He made significant contributions to number theory, and the mathematical foundations of matrix algebra which would later lead to important contributions by Cayley and others. In his memoir on the theory of the conjugate axis and of the moment of inertia of bodies he enumerated the principle now known as "Binet's theorem". He is also recognized as the first to describe the rule for multiplying matrices in 1812, and Binet's formula expressing Fibonacci numbers in closed form is named in his honour, although the same result was known to Abraham de Moivre a century earlier. Binet graduated from l'École Polytechnique in 1806, and returned as a teacher in 1807. He advanced in position until 1816 when he became an inspector of studies at l'École. He held this post until November 13, 1830, when he was dismissed by the recently crowned King Louis-Philippe of France, probably because of Binet's strong support of the previous King, Charles X. In 1823 Binet succeeded Delambre in the chair of astronomy at the "Collège de France". He was made a Chevalier in the Légion d'Honneur in 1821, and was elected to the Académie des Sciences in 1843. Binet's Fibonacci number formula. This formula provides the formula_1 term in the Fibonacci sequence, and is defined using the recurrence formula: where
1163606	Betty Garrett (May 23, 1919 – February 12, 2011) was an American actress, comedienne, singer and dancer who originally performed on Broadway before being signed to a film contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. While there, she appeared in several musical films before returning to Broadway and making guest appearances on several television series.
1104088	Richard Manning Karp (born January 3, 1935) is an American computer scientist and computational theorist at the University of California, Berkeley, notable for research in the theory of algorithms, for which he received a Turing Award in 1985, The Benjamin Franklin Medal in Computer and Cognitive Science in 2004, and the Kyoto Prize in 2008. Biography. Born to Abraham and Rose Karp in Boston, Massachusetts, Karp has three younger siblings: Robert, David, and Carolyn. He attended Harvard University, where he received his Bachelor's degree in 1955, his Master's degree in 1956, and his Ph.D. in applied mathematics in 1959.
402552	Kidada Ann Jones (born March 22, 1974) is an American actress, model and fashion designer, who is best known for her work as a designer and taste leader for Walt Disney Company, where she has a line known as Kidada for Disney Couture. Early life. Kidada Jones was born in Los Angeles, California, and is the elder daughter of composer/arranger Quincy Jones and actress Peggy Lipton. She was raised in Bel-Air, California, with her younger sister Rashida Jones, now an actress.
69900	Adaptive stepsize is a technique in numerical analysis used for many problems, but mainly for integration. It can be used for both normal integration (i.e. quadrature), or the process of solving an ordinary differential equation. This article focuses on the latter. For an explanation of adaptive stepsize in normal integration, see for example Romberg's method. As usual, an initial value problem is stated: Here, it is made clear that "y" and "f" can be vectors, as they will be when dealing with a system of coupled differential equations. In the rest of the article, this fact will be implicit. Suppose we are interested in obtaining a solution at point formula_2, given a function formula_3, an initial time point, formula_4, and an initial solution formula_5. Of course a numerical solution will generally have an error, so we assume formula_6, where formula_7 is the error. For simplicity, the following example uses the simplest integration method, the Euler method. Note that the Euler method is almost exclusively useful for educational purposes; in practice, higher-order (Runge-Kutta) methods are used due to their superior convergence and stability properties. Recall that the Euler method is derived from Taylor's theorem with the intermediate value theorem and the fact that formula_8: Which leads to the Euler method: And its local truncation error We mark this solution and its error with a formula_13. Since formula_14 is not known to us in the general case (it depends on the derivatives of formula_15), in order to say something useful about the error, a second solution should be created, using a stepsize that is smaller. For example half the original stepsize. Note that we have to apply Euler's method twice now, meaning we get two times the local error (in the worst case). Our new, and presumably more accurate solution is marked with a formula_16. Here, we assume error factor formula_14 is constant over the interval formula_22. In reality its rate of change is proportional to formula_23. Subtracting solutions gives the error estimate: This local error estimate is third order accurate. The local error estimate can be used to decide how stepsize formula_25 should be modified to achieve the desired accuracy. For example, if a local tolerance of formula_26 is allowed, we could let h evolve like: The formula_28 is a safety factor to ensure success on the next try. This should, in principle give an error of about formula_29 in the next try. If formula_30, we consider the step successful, and the error estimate is used to improve the solution: This solution is actually third order accurate in the local scope (second order in the global scope), but since there is no error estimate for it, this doesn't help in reducing the number of steps. This technique is called Richardson extrapolation. Beginning with an initial stepsize of formula_32, this theory facilitates our controllable integration of the ODE from point formula_33 to formula_34, using an optimal number of steps given a local error tolerance. Similar methods can be developed for higher order methods, such as the Runge-Kutta 4th order method. Also, a global error tolerance can be achieved by scaling the local error to global scope. However, you might end up with a stepsize that is prohibitively small, especially using this Euler based method. If you are interested in adaptive stepsize methods that use a so-called 'embedded' error estimate, see Fehlberg, Cash-Karp and Dormand-Prince. These methods are considered to be more computationally efficient, but have lower accuracy in their error estimates.
1109	Elizabeth Natalie "Bitty" Schram (born July 17, 1968) is an American actress most widely known for having played Sharona Fleming in the television series "Monk". Born in Mountainside, New Jersey, Schram studied at the University of Maryland on a tennis scholarship and graduated with a degree in advertising design. Having known for a number of years that she wanted to act, she pursued roles in both film and television as well as Broadway theater. The role that initially brought her note was Evelyn Gardner, the Rockford Peaches' right fielder, in the Penny Marshall directed film "A League of Their Own". Schram's character was the focus of the now famous line uttered by manager Jimmy Dugan (Tom Hanks), "There's no crying in baseball!"
1067043	A Far Off Place is a 1993 adventure drama family film starring Reese Witherspoon, Ethan Randall, Jack Thompson, and Maximilian Schell. The filming locations were in Namibia and Zimbabwe. It is based on Laurens van der Post's works, "A Far-Off Place" (1974) and its prequel "A Story Like the Wind" (1972). Plot. The witty Nonnie and the stuck-up city-boy Harry are the only ones to survive a massacre of a gang of poachers among the gamekeeper's family on her lonesome farm in the savanna. Now the ruthless murderers are after them as the only witnesses. Without a means of transportation, the only way to escape is to walk through 2000 kilometers of Kalahari desert with the help of the African bushman Xhabbo. On the months-long journey ahead they not only become good friends against their differences, but also realize that every one of them has strength and skills that are required to survive.
1054188	A Grin Without a Cat is a 1977 French essay film by Chris Marker. It focuses on global political turmoil in the 1960s and 70s, particularly the rise of the New Left in France and the development of socialist movements in Latin America. Using the image of Lewis Carroll's Cheshire Cat, the film's title evokes a dissonance between the promise of a global socialist revolution (the grin) with its actual nonexistence. The film's original French title is "Le fond de l'air est rouge", which means "The essence of the air is red", and has a subtext similar to the English title, implying that the socialist movement existed only in the air. The title is also a play on words: The original expression in French is "Le fond de l'air est frais", meaning there is a chill/a nip in the air. Chris Marker replaced the last word with "rouge" ; so it now means together with the comical effect of the changed word : "There are Reds in the Air" as in The Spirit of the Times: the Zeitgeist. Synopsis. The film features many interviews with French communist leaders, students, and sociologists. The Prague Spring of 1968 is featured, with footage of a Fidel Castro speech in which he expresses political support for the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia while questioning the legality of the action. Other sections deal with the rise of Salvador Allende and the Watergate Scandal in the United States. There are many subtle references to cats throughout the film, as well as brief shots of raccoons. Release. The film was originally released in France on 23 November 1977 with a running time of four hours. It was released with the subtitle "Scènes de la Troisième Guerre mondiale (1967-1977)", which means "Scenes from the Third World War (1967-1977)". It was re-edited by Marker in 1993 and scaled down to two parts of one hour and a half each, the first titled "Fragile Hands" and the second titled "Severed Hands". The film premiered theatrically in the United States in 2002. Critical response. J. Hoberman reviewed the film for "The Village Voice", and wrote that "Marker begins by evoking "Battleship Potemkin", and although hardly agitprop, "A Grin Without a Cat" is in that tradition—a montage film with a mass hero. Unlike Eisenstein, however, Marker isn't out to invent historical truth so much as to look for it." The critic wrote that the film "reaches its emotional peak with the hopeful New Left demonstrations that swept Europe in 1967. ... But as felt in the tempo of the filmmaking, the tide turns in May 1968: A long, less than exciting section on the various strikes and committees of '68 culminates with the pointless attack on the annual theater festival in Avignon." Hoberman complimented Marker's "genius for poetic aphorism", and concluded, "More impressionistic than analytical, "A Grin Without a Cat" is a grand immersion. Is it a tract without a thesis?" In "Cineaste", David Sterritt described Marker as a "committed Marxist and ... a sophisticated skeptic" while characterizing "A Grin Without a Cat" as "a film without a dogma". Sterritt wrote: "In sum, "A Grin Without a Cat" is not a lesson in history but a lesson in how history is dismembered and remembered by every generation in its own faulty way. The film is like a dream gradually coming into focus, or rather, a dream having its last bursts of energy as it gives way to newer but equally skewed patterns of cognition, imagination, and wishful fantasy."
1036369	Omid Djalili (; ; born 30 September 1965) is an English stand-up comedian, actor, television producer and writer. Personal life. Djalili was born in Chelsea, London to Iranian Bahá'í parents and is a Bahá'í himself. He attended Holland Park School and then the University of Ulster in Coleraine, Northern Ireland, studying English and Theatre studies. Djalili is a Chelsea fan. He is married and has three children. Comedy career. The first significant success of his stand-up comedy career was at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 1995 with "Short, Fat Kebab Shop Owner's Son", followed by "The Arab and the Jew" in 1996. He has performed in numerous countries, including Australia, Ireland, Sweden, Belgium, Canada and the United States, where he had his own HBO Special and did 22 episodes of the NBC sitcom "Whoopi" with Whoopi Goldberg. He did his part for Comic Relief after the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami and also in 2005 he appeared on the British TV show "Top Gear" as a celebrity driver. The same year he broke Edinburgh Festival box office records with over 16,500 ticket sales. In 2006, Sky Television picked him to be the face of their Saturday night film premières, and he also announced a new tour of the UK called 'No Agenda', from January 2007 until March 2007, covering 23 different dates. The "No Agenda" tour DVD was released in late 2007. On 18 March 2007, he was voted by the British public as the 60th best stand-up comedian in a Channel 4 programme "The 100 Greatest Stand-Ups". On 26 October 2007, he guest-presented the BBC political quiz show "Have I Got News for You". "The Omid Djalili Show" started on BBC1 on 17 November 2007. The series is a mix of sketches and stand-up material. A second series was recorded in late 2008 and began broadcast on BBC1 on 20 April 2009. He performed on "We Are Most Amused" on ITV1 to mark Prince Charles's 60th birthday in 2008. A touring stand-up, his next tour starts on 14 October 2011 although previews of this tour are being performed in smaller venues such as The Beggar's Theatre, Millom. Another small venue that he has performed in is the Victoria Hall in Hanley, Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire. When he was there, he did an interview with local radio, 6 Towns Radio about his show in Hanley. Acting career. Djalili has appeared in a number of films, most notably "Gladiator", "The Mummy", "Mean Machine", "The World Is Not Enough", "Alien Autopsy", "Spy Game", "Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow", "Grow Your Own", "Notting Hill", "Mr Nice", "", "Sex and the City 2" and provides his voice in "Over the Hedge". He had observed that he usually appears as a generic Middle Eastern background character in many of these films, often commenting that he appears in the "James Bond film" as the "Second Azerbaijani oil pipe attendant". He appeared as Nasim in the U.S. sitcom "Whoopi", starring Whoopi Goldberg, and picked up an international film award for Best Supporting Actor in "Casanova", starring alongside Heath Ledger and Jeremy Irons. On 12 February 2009, Cameron Macintosh (producer) announced that Djalili would appear as the second Fagin in the new West End production of "Oliver!" at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, London. Omid took over from Rowan Atkinson, who was contracted until 18 July 2009. In 2009, Djalili became the voice of Yusuf Amir in the popular gaming series Grand Theft Auto. He took up the role in the "" spin-off game. In 2010, he starred in the David Baddiel scripted film "The Infidel". In 2010, Djalili starred in a series of TV and cinema adverts for Moneysupermarket.com. Djalili appeared in the short-lived NBC sitcom "The Paul Reiser Show", which was a midseason replacement for the 2010-11 television season. For the BBC Learning project "Off By Heart Shakespeare", Omid played Lord Capulet from Romeo and Juliet and delivered the speech "Hang thee, young baggage, disobedient wretch!" Djalili will appear in the Sky TV adaptation of "Moonfleet' shooting in Ireland in 2013.[http://www.rte.ie/ten/news/2013/0610/455765-sky-adventure-to-shoot-in-ireland/] Other activities. On June 2010, Djalili appeared in a Meltdown Festival concert given by the Philharmonia Orchestra at London's Queen Elizabeth Hall, performing the part of the narrator in 'Rubaiyat', a tone poem by American classical composer Alan Hovhaness which sets the words of Omar Khayyám to music. He also appeared on the "Graham Norton Show" on 17 February 2012, alongside Daniel Radcliffe and Cuba Gooding Jr.. Awards. Djalili has won awards for his comedy. These include the EMMA Award, "Time Out" Award, and LWT Comedy Award for Best Stand-up Comedian, Spirit of the Fringe Award as well as the One World Media Award for his Channel 4 documentary, "Bloody Foreigners". He has also been nominated for awards, such as the Perrier Award for Best Comedian, the Gemini Award for Best Comedy Performance of 2003, the South Bank Award for Best Comedy of 2003, the Royal Television Society Award for Best Stand-up, and the European TV Award for his "Bloody Foreigners".
995565	Werckmeister Harmonies (; ) is a 2000 Hungarian film directed by Béla Tarr, based on the 1989 novel "The Melancholy of Resistance" by László Krasznahorkai. Shot in black and white and composed of thirty-nine languidly paced shots, the film describes the aimlessness and anomie of a small town on the Hungarian plain that falls under the influence of a sinister traveling circus lugging the immense body of a whale in its tow. A young man named János tries to understand order in the increasingly restless town even as he begins to see degradation. The title refers to the baroque musical theorist Andreas Werckmeister. György Eszter, a major character in the film, gives a monologue propounding a theory that Werckmeister's harmonic principles are responsible for aesthetic and philosophical problems in all music since, which need to be undone by a new theory of tuning and harmony. Plot. The story takes place in a small provincial town on the Great Hungarian Plain. The weather is bitterly cold (−17 °C / +1 °F) but no snow has fallen. Despite this, hundreds of bewildered men stand around a circus trailer (or corrugated iron box) in the main square, waiting to see the main attraction — the stuffed carcass of a whale. The men composing this faceless, ragged crowd have come from distant parts of the country as well as neighbouring settlements, and the strange state of affairs — the presence of strangers, the extreme cold — is disturbing the order of the small town. Relationships are changing, and some ambitious people feel they can take advantage of the situation; while others who are more passive fall into even deeper uncertainty. The unbearable tension is brought to a head by the figure of the Prince, a disfigured, Slovak-speaking figure, who is hiding behind the whale; his mere appearance is enough to unleash destructive emotions. The ensuing apocalypse spares no one.
1162368	Marcia A. Strassman (born April 28, 1948) is an American actress best known for her roles as Julie Kotter in the TV sitcom "Welcome Back, Kotter" and Diane Szalinski in the 1989 feature film "Honey, I Shrunk the Kids", its sequel "Honey, I Blew Up the Kid" and the 3-D film spin-off "Honey, I Shrunk the Audience!" which was shown at several Disney theme parks through mid-2010. Career. Strassman was born in New York City. Among her earliest acting credits was an appearance in an episode of "The Patty Duke Show". In 1967, she became a recording artist for Uni Records. Her debut single, "The Flower Children", was a top 40 hit in many West Coast U.S. markets, most notably hitting #4 in San Diego and #2 in San Francisco; the track also hit #2 in Vancouver, British Columbia (both at CKLG 730 AM and CFUN 1410 AM in July 1967). However, the single failed to break out nationally in either country; the record stalled at #103 in the U.S., and just sneaked into RPM's Top 100 for Canada, peaking at #95. Strassman's follow-up release, "The Groovy World of Jack & Jill," charted in Denver but virtually nowhere else. A third single, 1968's "Star Gazer" (produced by Kim Fowley), failed to chart anywhere and brought Strassman's brief recording career to a close. Returning to acting after a gap of a few years, Strassman landed the recurring role of nurse Margie Cutler in the earliest episodes of "M*A*S*H". She appeared in six episodes. She landed her best-known role as Julie Kotter in the ABC TV series "Welcome Back, Kotter" in 1975. The series lasted for four years. Strassman clashed with co-star Gabriel "Gabe" Kaplan and she said that working on the show made her "miserable." Only later did she and Kaplan discover that executive producer James Komack was the primary source of the friction between them. In the 1970s, Strassman also appeared as a guest star on "Time Express," "The Rockford Files," "The Love Boat," and other prime time dramas. In 1980, she starred as Lenina Crowne in a TV production of Aldous Huxley's "Brave New World", she also costarred in the short-lived sitcom "Good Time Harry" that year. In 1982, she played Maria in the sexually-themed romantic comedy "Soup For One", that was directed and written by Jonathan Kaufer and produced by Marvin Worth. In 1989–90, she had a co-starring role in the short-lived "21 Jump Street" spinoff, "Booker," which starred Richard Grieco in the title role. Strassman also had movie roles as the wife of Rick Moranis's scientist character in "Honey, I Shrunk the Kids" (1989) and "Honey, I Blew Up the Kid" (1992). In 1994, she reprised her role from those movies in the 3-D film spin-off "Honey, I Shrunk the Audience!". She later went on to play Nancy Sterngood in the short-lived TV show, "Tremors" (2003). Personal life. Strassman married director Robert Collector in 1984; they divorced in 1989. They had a daughter in 1987.
1037680	Letitia Dean (born 14 November 1967 in Potters Bar, Hertfordshire) is an English actress and singer. She is best known for her role as Sharon Watts, one of the original characters in the BBC soap opera "EastEnders". Dean was part of the original cast in 1985 and remained in the series until 1995. She reprised the role in 2001 and appeared on and off until January 2006. In 2012 Dean returned to "EastEnders" for a third stint. Alongside Adam Woodyatt, she is one of two members of the original cast in the series. Away from "EastEnders" Dean has appeared in various television programmes and on stage. In 2007 she participated in the fifth series of the popular BBC dance competition, "Strictly Come Dancing". Dean married media executive Jason Pethers in 2002, but in 2007 it was announced that they had split. Early life. Dean was born in Hertfordshire to parents Leslie (a tailor) and Ellie Dean, in a cottage rented on the grand estate of British romantic novelist Barbara Cartland, known as Camfield Place. The youngest of three children, Dean has two older brothers, Stephen and Martin. Dean's family moved to a Buckinghamshire village when she was three years old. She acquired a penchant for performing at an early age; both she and her older brother Stephen attended a local dance school, and they also performed a dance act together on stage. This later prompted Dean's successful application to attend the Italia Conti Academy Theatre Arts at ten years old, and later the Sylvia Young Theatre School in Marylebone, London, which has famously produced some of Britain's most familiar television and musical stars. Dean stayed at the school as a full-time student for several years learning her trades of acting, singing and dancing. Career. Early career. Dean began performing professionally at the age of 12, when she was cast as "Pepper" in the hit stage musical, "Annie", at London's Victoria Palace Theatre. A trained singer, she played the lead female, Sandy, in the stage musical "Grease", and she also sang with a rock group called "The Young Uns", which toured the country supporting stage acts such as Bobby Davro and Tom O'Connor. Between the ages of 13 and 17, Dean appeared in numerous television programmes, including: "Love Story"; "Tales Out Of School";. the Matthew Kelly sitcom "Relative Strangers"; "Grange Hill", playing a student named Lucinda Oliver; and the role of Dawn in the Channel 4 soap opera "Brookside". In 1984, Dean auditioned to play one of the original characters in BBC1's brand new soap opera, "EastEnders"—she was selected for an interview on the strength of a photograph alone. The creators of "EastEnders", Tony Holland and Julia Smith, were looking for a "bouncy, attractive, oddly vulnerable young woman" to play the part of Sharon Watts, and out of the various applicants they had seen, only Dean had all of those qualities. Dean lied about her roots to get the part. As the casting directors were only looking for real 'East End' actors, she falsely claimed that she was born and brought up in Hackney, east London. The lie paid off and she got the part, clinching the deal because of her laugh, which Holland and Smith described as "the dirtiest in the world!" "EastEnders". Dean played Sharon Watts, the troubled and spoilt adoptive daughter of landlords 'Dirty' Den (Leslie Grantham) and Angie Watts (Anita Dobson), from the show's inception in 1985 until 1995 — Sharon becoming one of the most popular and long-running characters in the serial. While appearing on "EastEnders", Dean forayed into singing with her fellow "EastEnders" cast-mate, Paul Medford (who played Kelvin Carpenter). A song penned for the pair as part of a plotline in "EastEnders" (known as The Banned) prompted the BBC to release the song as a single. The song, "Something Outa Nothing", reached number 12 in the UK Singles Chart in November 1986. Dean featured in one of the soap's most popular storylines, a love triangle featuring Sharon, her husband Grant Mitchell (Ross Kemp) and his brother Phil (Steve McFadden). The plot, nicknamed 'Sharongate', gave the soap one of its highest episode ratings in October 1994, watched by over 25.3 million viewers. A desire to pursue other acting roles prompted Dean to leave the soap in 1995. Six years after her initial exit, Dean was lured back to "EastEnders" by producer John Yorke, where she reprised the role of Sharon from 2001 to 2006. In December 2004 the "Sunday Mirror" reported that executive producer Kathleen Hutchison offered to double Dean's salary from £150,000 a year to £300,000 a year, to persuade her to remain in the show, making her one of the highest paid actresses in British soap. Dean's character left the serial again in January 2006. Dean's exit was announced in August 2005 and an official "EastEnders" press report stated that she was merely taking a scheduled break and was due back on set later in 2006; however, this did not happen, and in June 2006 the BBC denied press speculation that there were any immediate plans for her to return to the series. In February 2012, producer Bryan Kirkwood announced that Dean would make a third return to "EastEnders", having been absent for a period of six years. She made her return on 13 August 2012 after fleeing from her wedding to her fiancée John Hewland, with her son, Dennis Rickman Jr. and Phil Mitchell. Other work. Away from "EastEnders" Dean has had various theatre and television roles. She starred in two series of the BBC drama "The Hello Girls", set in a Derby telephone exchange in the 1960s; medical dramas "Casualty" and "Doctors"; the ITV police drama "The Bill"; romantic comedy "Lucy Sullivan Is Getting Married", and the Channel 4 sitcom "Drop The Dead Donkey" as a weathergirl. She also starred in the 1995 film "England, My England", which told the story of the musician and court composer Henry Purcell. On stage she starred as Nurse Fay in the Joe Orton comedy play, "Loot", working alongside actor Michael Elphick. She also played a prostitute in the revival of Chris Dyer's 1960s play "Rattle of a Simple Man" at the Alexandra Theatre, Birmingham. In 2007 Letitia Dean participated in the fifth series of the BBC celebrity dance contest, "Strictly Come Dancing". She was partnered with the professional dancer, Darren Bennett. Dean and Bennett were voted out in the quarter-finals (week 10), one week before the semi-final. Commenting on her experience, Dean said "It's been incredible. I've got to thank Bennett for all his patience, hard work, all the injuries. It's been wonderful." Dean was one of several celebrities who took part in the 2008 "Strictly Come Dancing" UK arena tour. She competed against former "EastEnders" stars, Louisa Lytton (Ruby Allen, 2005–2006), and Matt Di Angelo (Deano Wicks, 2006–08). The tour began in January 2008 and visited various venues throughout the UK, with all the proceeds going to the "Children in Need" appeal. In April 2008 it was announced that Letitia Dean will be starring in the stage show "High School Musical" as Ms Darbus. Dean commented, "It's a lovely opportunity for me [...] It's something completely different to anything I've ever done - doing an American accent and playing this kind of character." The production played at London's Hammersmith Apollo from June 2008 until 31 August 2008. In January 2009 Dean released a fitness DVD entitled "Letitia Dean's Lean Routine" after she dropped from size 14 to size 10 on an intensive dieting and dancing regime. Dean joined the cast of the stage production of "Calendar girls" in 2009, playing Cora (Miss July); the production requires its cast to appear on stage naked. Pantomimes. As well as television and theatre work, Dean regularly appears in seasonal pantomimes—she and other "EastEnders" stars such as Steve McFadden are rumoured to have a special clause in their contracts that permits them time off from filming to star in a pantomime each year. In 2001 she starred as "Snow White" at the Orchard in Dartford; and in 2004 she starred in "Jack and the Beanstalk" at the Birmingham Hippodrome, alongside British comedians Joe Pasquale and Don Maclean. In 2006, Dean appeared as the wicked witch in "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" at the Deco, Northampton, taking over the role from her former "EastEnders" co-star, Gillian Taylforth, who pulled out due to ill health. December 2007 saw Letitia Dean appear as the Fairy Godmother in "Cinderella", at the Regent Theatre, Ipswich. December 2008 saw Letitia Dean appear as the Wicked Queen in "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs", At the Grove Theatre, in Dunstable and she played the role again at the Ashcroft Theatre in Croydon in 2009. Awards. In 2004 Dean was nominated for the Best Actress Award at the British Soap Awards, but lost out to Suranne Jones from "Coronation Street". Fellow "EastEnders" actresses Jessie Wallace and Kacey Ainsworth were also nominated. She was also nominated in the category of Best Dramatic Performance for "Den's Return" but lost out to Mark Charnock of "Emmerdale". At the 2005 "Inside Soap" awards, Dean was presented with the coveted award for outstanding achievement as homage to her work in "EastEnders", which she has been in (on and off) for over 20 years, since the age of 17. She was also nominated in the category of Best Couple (shared with Nigel Harman). Personal life. Growing up in the public eye was hard for Dean, and the constant media attention on her appearance (particularly her fluctuating weight) was especially tough, given her young and susceptible age. Dean has since stated that her self-confidence was damaged during this time, and this, as well as back pain, contributed to her decision to get a breast reduction in her teens. Dean has since stated that she is a lot more comfortable in her own skin, and far more relaxed about public interest than she used to be as a teenager, commenting: "I have stopped pleasing people - and I'm calmer and more self assured than I've ever been." Dean is known to have dated the Irish comedian Ed Byrne; Niel McLintock, the son of Arsenal hero Frank McLintock; Martin Ball, the one time star of the Nescafé adverts to whom she was also engaged; former Crossroads actor Colin Wells and former Bad Girls and Coronation Street actor Jack Ellis (both before they were married) and the musician Chris Taggart, whom she met in panto at Liverpool. In June 2001 Letitia split from Irish comic Ed Byrne after a brief affair which began at the Soap Awards a month earlier. In 2001 Dean got engaged to jobbing actor Jason Pethers after knowing him for only a few months. They married in September 2002 at All Saints' Church in Marylebone. Her close friend and "EastEnders" co-star, Susan Tully, was a bridesmaid at the wedding. Many of Dean's fellow cast-mates from "EastEnders" (past and present) attended the wedding including Wendy Richard, Barbara Windsor, Pam St. Clement, Steve McFadden, Gillian Taylforth, June Brown, Lucy Benjamin, Adam Woodyatt, Anna Wing, Todd Carty, Ricky Groves, Hannah Waterman, Laila Morse and Anita Dobson. After five years of marriage, it was announced in 2007 that Dean and Pethers had separated. Dean subsequently began a relationship with model and dancer Bowen Perrin, after meeting on the set of the Ipswich panto production "Cinderella" during Christmas 2007. Dean is 18 years Perrin's senior. But the couple are no longer together. Her older brother, Stephen J. Dean, is also a performer; they have appeared together on stage in several pantomimes. As well as acting, Dean is a keen singer (with a mezzo-soprano voice) and tap dancer. Charity work. In 1997 Dean along with her close friend, actress Susan Tully, were involved with the third world charity, "Plan International", and were sent to a remote village in Senegal to help highlight one of the organisation's aid projects — designed to bring running water to drought hit areas.
1170102	Zack Ward (born August 31, 1970) is a Canadian actor. Life and career. Ward was born in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, the son of actress Pam Hyatt. He is known for his character Dave Scovil (Titus's stoner half-brother) on the FOX show "Titus" and as the bully Scut Farkus in the 1983 perennial Christmas movie "A Christmas Story". He also has guest roles on popular television series such as "NCIS", "Lost", and "Crossing Jordan". Ward has several small roles in movies such as "Almost Famous," "Transformers" and "Anne of Green Gables". He has appeared in the horror films ' and "Freddy vs. Jason". Ward also has leading roles in ' (based on the video game "BloodRayne 2") and "Postal" and he also can be seen in "Alone in the Dark II" and "The Devil's Tomb".
1063888	Chris Sarandon (born July 24, 1942) is an American actor who is best known for playing Prince Humperdinck in the film "The Princess Bride", the vampire Jerry Dandridge in "Fright Night" and Detective Mike Norris in the first entry of the "Child's Play" series, and providing the speaking voice of Jack Skellington from "The Nightmare Before Christmas". He was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance as Leon in "Dog Day Afternoon". Early life. Sarandon was born and raised in Beckley, West Virginia, the son of restaurateurs Cliffie (née Cardullias) and Chris Sarandon, Sr. His mother is of Greek descent, and his father, whose surname was originally "Sarondonethes", was a Greek immigrant. In his teens, he played drums and sang back-up with a local band called The Teen Tones, which later went on to tour with such acts as Bobby Darin and Gene Vincent. He graduated from Woodrow Wilson High School in Beckley. He went on to West Virginia University and earned his degree in performing arts. He earned his master's degree in theater from The Catholic University of America (CUA) in Washington, D.C.. Career. After graduation, he toured with numerous improv companies and became heavily involved in regional theatre, making his professional debut in "The Rose Tattoo" in 1965. In 1968, Sarandon moved to New York, where he landed his first television role as Dr. Tom Halverson on "The Guiding Light" (1969–1973). He appeared in the primetime TV movies "The Satan Murders" (1974) and "Thursday's Game" before landing the role of Al Pacino's transsexual wife in "Dog Day Afternoon" (1975), a performance which earned him nominations for Best New Male Star of the Year at the Golden Globes and the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. Sarandon appeared in "The Rothschilds" and "The Two Gentlemen of Verona" on Broadway, as well making regular appearances at numerous Shakespeare and George Bernard Shaw festivals in the United States and Canada. He also appeared in a series of television roles, some of which (such as "A Tale of Two Cities" in 1980) mirrored his affinity for the classics. He also took roles in horror films opposite the late Margaux Hemingway in the thriller "Lipstick" (1976) and as a demon in the shocker "The Sentinel" (1977). To avoid being type cast as villainous characters, Sarandon took on various roles in the years to come, portraying the title role in the made-for-television movie "The Day Christ Died" (1980). He received accolades for his portrayal of Sydney Carton in a made for television version of "A Tale of Two Cities" (1980), co-starred with Dennis Hopper in "The Osterman Weekend" (1983), which was based on the Robert Ludlum novel of the same name, and co-starred with Goldie Hawn in "Protocol" (1984). These were followed by another mainstream success as the vampire-next-door in the teen horror film "Fright Night" (1985). He is best known in the film industry for his role as Prince Humperdinck in Rob Reiner's 1987 film "The Princess Bride", though he also has had supporting parts in some other successful films such as the original "Child's Play" (1988). In 1992, he played Joseph Curwen/Charles Dexter Ward in "The Resurrected". He also provided the voice of Jack Skellington, the main character in Tim Burton's animated Disney film "The Nightmare Before Christmas" (1993), and has since reprised the role in many other subsequent productions, including the Disney/Square video games "Kingdom Hearts" and "Kingdom Hearts II" and the Capcom sequel to the original film, "". Sarandon also reprised his role as Jack Skellington for "Halloween Screams" and the Haunted Mansion Holiday, a three-month overlay of the Haunted Mansion at Disneyland, where Jack and his friends take over the Mansion in an attempt to take over Christmas, much as his character did in the film. Sarandon would later find work on television again with a recurring role as Dr. Burke on NBC's long-running medical drama "ER". In 1991 he performed on Broadway in the short-lived musical "Nick & Nora" (based on the "Thin Man" film) with Joanna Gleason, the daughter of Monty Hall. Sarandon married Gleason in 1994. They have appeared together in a number of films, including "Edie & Pen" (1996), "American Perfekt" (1997) and "Let the Devil Wear Black" (1999). In the 2000s he made guest appearances in quite a few TV series, notably as the Necromancer demon, Armand, in "Charmed", and as superior court judge Barry Krumble in six episodes of "Judging Amy". He returned to Broadway in 2006 playing Signor Naccarelli in the six-time Tony award-winning Broadway musical "The Light in the Piazza" at Lincoln Center. Most recently he appeared in "Cyrano de Bergerac" as Antoine de Guiche, alongside Kevin Kline, Jennifer Garner and Daniel Sunjata. He is on the Advisory Board for the Greenbrier Valley Theatre in Lewisburg, West Virginia. Personal life. He met his first wife, actress Susan Sarandon in Washington, D.C. but they divorced in 1979. Sarandon then married and divorced model Lisa Ann Cooper during the 1980s; they have three children, Stephanie, Alexis, and Michael Sarandon. He went on to marry actress and singer Joanna Gleason in 1994.
1664236	Julie Gonzalo (born September 9, 1981) is an Argentine-American actress and producer. She is starring as Pamela Rebecca Barnes in the TNT drama series "Dallas". Gonzalo also known for her roles in films including "Freaky Friday", "" and "Christmas with the Kranks", and well on television series "Veronica Mars" and "Eli Stone". Life and career. Gonzalo was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina and raised in Miami, Florida, where she began her career as a print model. She made her screen debut in 2002 film "I'm with Lucy" and next appeared on television series "Greetings from Tucson". Gonzalo appeared in several films in her early career. She is known for her roles as Shelby in "A Cinderella Story". She has been in two movies with Chad Michael Murray: "Freaky Friday" (2003) and "A Cinderella Story" (2004). She also starred in two movies with Jamie Lee Curtis: "Freaky Friday" and "Christmas with the Kranks" (2004). Her other credits including "Must Love Dogs" (2005), "Cherry Crush" (2007) and lead role in the 2013 comedy horror movie "Vamp U". On television Gonzalo starred on "Veronica Mars" as Parker Lee, and "Eli Stone" as Maggie Dekker. In 2008 she won ALMA Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series for role in "Eli Stone". She also guest-starred in the pilot episode of "Drake and Josh", and also in "NCIS", "Castle" and "". Gonzalo was to be the lead in NBC's unaired series "Day One" (2009). In 2012, Gonzalo began playing the role of Pamela Rebecca Barnes (aka Rebecca Sutter) in the TNT revival of "Dallas". Her character is the daughter of longtime Ewing family rival Cliff Barnes (Ken Kercheval) and Afton Cooper (Audrey Landers).
1059809	Scott Leo "Taye" Diggs (born January 2, 1971) is an American theatre, film and television actor. He is perhaps best known for his roles in the Broadway musical "Rent", the motion picture "How Stella Got Her Groove Back", and the television series "Private Practice". His nickname, "Taye", comes from the playful pronunciation of Scotty as "Scottay". Early life. Diggs was born in Newark, New Jersey, and grew up in Rochester, New York, the son of Marcia (née Berry), a teacher and actress, and Jeffries Diggs. He attended Allendale Columbia School in Rochester and later transferred to School of the Arts. He starred in the first production of "It All Adds Up", an original musical by the piano teacher and musician John Gabriele and math teacher Jack Donovan. He is the oldest of five children; he has two brothers, Gabriel and Michael, and two sisters, Shalom and Christian. Diggs received a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in musical theater from Syracuse University. He performed many times at the popular Lakes Region Summer Theatre in Meredith, New Hampshire. Diggs's Broadway debut was in the ensemble cast of the 1994 Tony Award-winning revival of the musical "Carousel". In 1995, he also performed as a dancer in "Sebastian's Caribbean Carnival" at Tokyo Disneyland. Career. In 1996, he originated the role of the nasty landlord Benny in Jonathan Larson's Tony Award- and Pulitzer Prize-winning "Rent", which also starred his future wife, Idina Menzel. After "Rent" he appeared as Mr. Black alongside Idina Menzel's character of Kate in Andrew Lippa's off-Broadway production of "The Wild Party" at Manhattan Theatre Club. Diggs also played The Bandleader in the 2002 film version of the long-running Broadway revival of "Chicago" and filled in as Billy Flynn on Broadway. He also temporarily filled in for Norbert Leo Butz (an original "Rent" standby) as the love interest Fiyero of Idina Menzel's Elphaba character in "Wicked". Diggs then moved from stage to television, with a role on the soap opera "Guiding Light". In 1998, he made his film debut in "How Stella Got Her Groove Back". This movie brought Diggs much acclaim and exposure. The following year he played a tantric sex god in Doug Liman's "Go", and an AWOL groom in the coming-of-age drama "The Wood". Malcolm D. Lee's "The Best Man" features Diggs as the eponymous character, an author and best friend of the groom (portrayed by Morris Chestnut). He also starred in the remake of William Castle's "The House on Haunted Hill". Diggs was featured in an episode of "America's Next Top Model", to help the contestants through an acting challenge. Another notable role of his was when he guest starred on the comedy-drama "Ally Mcbeal" as a lawyer named Jackson Duper who was the love interest of the character Renee Raddick and also the possible love interest on the Ling Woo character. Diggs portrayed the title character on the short-lived UPN television series "Kevin Hill" which despite critical acclaim was not renewed for a second season due to the troubles that UPN was having. He reprised the role of Benny for the 2005 "Rent" film. Diggs is featured on the following cast recordings: "Carousel" 1994 revival cast; "Rent" 1996 original Broadway cast; "The Wild Party" original off-Broadway cast. He also sings on the "Rent" film soundtrack. In 2002, he reprised his role as the Bandleader in the film adaptation of "Chicago", and also played opposite Christian Bale as Bale's partner/antagonist Brandt in the dystopian sci-fi thriller "Equilibrium". In 2003, Diggs was on "Punk'd" after being tricked by Ashton Kutcher, while getting a check-up at a "Punk'd"-operated doctor's office. In early 2006, Diggs guest-starred for several episodes as Will Truman's love interest, James, on the final season of "Will & Grace". In May, ABC picked up his pilot, "Day Break", in which he portrayed a detective trapped in the same day and forced to relive it to clear his name of murder; the show debuted in mid-November 2006, but was abruptly canceled due to poor ratings. Although his film and television career continue to move forward, he still returns to the stage frequently. Most recently he was seen alongside James McDaniel in Charles Fuller's "A Soldier's Play" at Second Stage Theatre in New York. Diggs co-stars opposite Kate Walsh in "Private Practice", the fall 2007 spin-off of "Grey's Anatomy". Diggs had a guest role on "The West Wing" as a Secret Service agent in charge of the security detail for the President's daughter. He then guest-starred on "Grey's Anatomy" again in the "Grey's Anatomy"/"Private Practice" Crossover Event. Diggs stars in the live adaptation of the comic "". He also narrated the ESPN Films documentary "The Fab Five" about University of Michigan basketball players Chris Webber, Juwan Howard, Jalen Rose, Jimmy King, and Ray Jackson. Diggs is one of the stars of the independent film drama Between Us that won the grand jury prize at the 2012 Bahamas International Film Festival among its other festival appearances. Personal life. Diggs married actress Idina Menzel, his "Rent" co-star, on January 11, 2003. Their son, Walker Nathaniel Diggs, was born on September 2, 2009. Diggs is the co-artistic director of a dance company, Dre.dance, with fellow Broadway veteran and School of the Arts alumnus Andrew Palermo. Diggs apprehended a burglar in his home after returning from the 2013 Screen Actors Guild Awards on the night of January 27, holding him captive until police arrived. References. Notes
1063714	28 Weeks Later is a 2007 British/Spanish film, structured as a sequel to the 2002 post-apocalyptic sci fi horror film "28 Days Later". "28 Weeks Later" was co-written and directed by Juan Carlos Fresnadillo, with Danny Boyle and Alex Garland, respectively director and writer of" 28 Days Later", now acting as executive producers. It was released in the United Kingdom and United States on 11 May 2007. The on-location filming took place in London and 3 Mills Studios, although scenes intended to be shot at Wembley Stadium, then undergoing final stages of construction, were filmed instead in Wales, with Cardiff's Millennium Stadium used as a replacement. Plot. During the original outbreak of the Rage Virus, Don, his wife Alice and four other survivors are hiding in a barricaded cottage on the outskirts of London. They hear a terrified boy pounding at their door, whom they let in. A few minutes later they find that the Infected have followed the boy to them. The Infected attack and kill most of the survivors, while Don, Alice and the boy are chased upstairs. Don is separated from Alice and the boy by the Infected and jumps out of a window, abandoning them. Don, closely pursued, desperately sprints to a nearby motorboat and narrowly escapes. After five weeks, all the Infected have died of starvation. After eleven weeks, NATO forces headed by the United States take control of Great Britain. After eighteen weeks the island is declared relatively safe, although still under quarantine. Twenty-eight weeks after the outbreak, an American-led force, under the command of Brigadier General Stone, bring in settlers to re-populate the area. Among the new arrivals are Tammy and Andy, Don and Alice's children, who were in Spain on a school trip during the initial outbreak. They are subsequently admitted to District One, a safe zone guarded by the US Army, on the Isle of Dogs. As they are examined by Major Scarlet Levy, the district's chief medical officer, she notes Andy's differently coloured eyes, a trait inherited from his mother. Sergeant Doyle, a Delta sniper and his friend, Chief Flynn, a helicopter pilot, are amongst the military presence charged with guarding the district. Tammy and Andy are reunited with their father, who had survived the original infection, was found by the US army, and has become the district's caretaker. In their new flat, Don explains what happened to him and their mother and that after escaping, he arrived in a military camp and survived by waiting for the Infected to die of starvation. That night, Andy has a dream about forgetting his mother's face, so Tammy and Andy decide to visit their home to get a picture of her. The next day they sneak out of the safe zone and proceed on a scooter through the depopulated London wasteland to their former home. To their shock, they find their mother at home, in a semi-conscious state. Doyle had seen Tammy and Andy leave the safe zone; they and their mother are quickly picked up by soldiers and returned to the district. Alice is taken to a quarantine room where she is tested and found to be an asymptomatic carrier of the Rage virus. While she doesn't show the uncontrollable rage, she is extremely infectious and the virus causes her eyes to discolour red. Don sneaks through the security and makes an unauthorised visit to Alice in her isolation cell and asks forgiveness for abandoning her at the cottage. When they kiss, however, the Rage Virus in her saliva immediately infects Don, who savagely kills her before going on a rampage, killing and infecting several soldiers in the building. General Stone orders the building to be quarantined and District One to be put into Code Red Lock-down, and civilians are herded into safe rooms. Despite the precautions, Don breaks into a room containing a large crowd and begins killing and infecting them, quickly causing a domino effect of attackers. Scarlet rescues Tammy and Andy from containment as the soldiers in District One are ordered to shoot indiscriminately. Doyle, unable to bring himself to comply with the order, abandons his post and escapes with Scarlet, Tammy, Andy and others through the Greenwich foot tunnel. General Stone then orders that District One be firebombed, but large numbers of the Infected, including Don, escape the bombardment. Scarlet informs Doyle that the children may hold the key to a cure and must be protected at all costs. Flynn arrives by helicopter to pick up Doyle, but refuses to take anyone else as they would be shot down if carrying possibly infected people. Flynn contacts Doyle by radio and tells him to head to Wembley Stadium, but to leave the civilians. Doyle ignores his instructions and begins escorting the civilians to Wembley, breaking into an abandoned car to escape nerve gas released to kill the Infected. He is burned alive by soldiers as he tries to push start the car. Scarlet drives the car away, but an Apache gunship tries to destroy the car with Tammy and Andy, but all three manage to escape the chopper. She drives them into the London Underground where, as the trio continue on foot, she is ambushed and killed by Don who then attacks and bites Andy. Tammy shoots Don before he can kill Andy who remains symptom-free, but with his eyes discoloured red like those of his mother, signifying that he is now an unknowing carrier of the Rage virus. They continue to the Stadium and are picked up by a reluctant Flynn, who flies them across the English Channel to France, as previously instructed by Doyle. Twenty-eight days later, a French-accented voice requesting help is heard from the radio in Flynn's abandoned helicopter. A group of the Infected are seen running through a tunnel which, as they emerge into the open, is revealed to be the exit of the Paris Métro Trocadéro station with a view of the nearby Eiffel Tower. Production. Pre-production. In 2003, plans for the film were conceived after the international success of "28 Days Later". Danny Boyle, Andrew Macdonald and Alex Garland stated that they felt the time was right to make a sequel. In March 2005, Boyle said in an interview that he would not direct the sequel due to commitments to "Sunshine", but he would serve as executive producer. He also revealed that the film would revolve around a great deal of the aftermath from the first movie. It was also revealed that the film would include the "US Army declaring the war against infection had been won, and that the reconstruction of the country could begin." Boyle hired Juan Carlos Fresnadillo to helm the project after seeing Fresnadillo's 2001 film "Intacto". Fresnadillo stated that he was "thrilled working on his first English language film alongside such an exciting international cast and talented production team." Both Fresnadillo and Lopez-Lavigne were involved in writing the script, which revolved around a family and what happened to them in the aftermath of the original film, which the producers "liked a lot". Casting details. Boyle said in March 2005 that the sequel would feature a new cast, since previous cast members Cillian Murphy, Megan Burns, and Naomie Harris were occupied with their own projects. On 23 August 2006, Jeremy Renner was announced to portray Doyle, one of the principal characters for "28 Weeks Later". On 31 August 2006, Harold Perrineau was announced to portray a US Special Forces pilot in the film. Filming. On 1 September 2006, principal photography for "28 Weeks Later" began in London with much of the filming taking place at Canary Wharf. Promotion. Biohazard warning. On 13 April 2007, 28 days before the release of the film in UK cinemas, a huge biohazard warning sign was projected against the White Cliffs of Dover. The sign contained the international biological hazard symbol, along with the admonition that Britain was "contaminated, keep out!". Graphic novel. In July 2006, Fox Atomic Comics and publisher HarperCollins announced the publication, in early 2007, of "", a graphic novel bridging the gap between "28 Days Later" and "28 Weeks Later". Motion comics of two segments of the graphic novel were added to the DVD & Blu-ray release of "28 Weeks Later". Viral advertising. Removable chalk-powder graffiti was sprayed in locations around London and Birmingham featuring the web address 'ragevirus.com'. However, the web address was found to be unregistered and was quickly snapped up. The advertising agency who made the mistake agreed to purchase the rights to the domain name for an undisclosed sum. Prop giveaway. In April 2007, the horror/science-fiction film website "Bloody Disgusting" promoted "28 Weeks Later" by giving readers a chance to win a prop from the film. The props were included in a "District 1 Welcome Pack", which featured an actual ID card and an edition of the London "Evening Standard" newspaper with a headline proclaiming the evacuation. The giveaway was only open to residents of North America and entries closed on 9 May 2007. Flash game. In May 2007, 20th Century Fox posted a free "28 Weeks Later"-themed flash game on their international website, foxinternational.com. In the game, the player can play one of the infected in three parts of the city. Reception. "28 Weeks Later" gained generally positive reviews. The film has generated a "fresh" rating of 71% on Rotten Tomatoes based on 187 reviews (132 fresh, 55 rotten). View London called the film an "exciting, action-packed and superbly directed thriller that more than lives up to the original film". "The New York Times"s A. O. Scott wrote that ""28 Weeks Later" is brutal and almost exhaustingly terrifying, as any respectable zombie movie should be. It is also bracingly smart, both in its ideas and in its techniques." The film opened in 2,000 cinemas across the United States. It made $9.8 million in its opening weekend, coming in second place at the box office, behind "Spider-Man 3". The film has grossed $28.6 million in the US and $35.6 million in other countries, bringing the worldwide total to $64.2 million. 1.3 million DVD units have been sold in the United States, gathering a revenue of $24.3 million, as of July 2010. The film has been released as its own DVD and as a double feature with "28 Days Later". Soundtrack. 28 Weeks Later: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack was composed, written and performed by John Murphy. The score was released exclusively to iTunes on 12 June 2007. The theme of the first film, "In the House - In a Heartbeat", is a reoccurring motif throughout the second film, varying in tone and speed. On 2 June 2009, a limited edition soundtrack was released by La-La Land Records. Only 1500 copies were made. The film's theatrical trailer featured the songs "Want" (Witchman) and "Shrinking Universe" (Muse). Possible sequel. Fox Atomic stated in June 2007 that they would consider producing a third film, if DVD sales of the film did well. In July 2007, while promoting "Sunshine", Boyle said he had a possible story for the next film. "There is an idea for the next one, something which would move the story on. I've got to think about it, whether it's right or not." In October 2010, when Alex Garland was asked what was happening with "28 Months Later", he declared: "I'll answer that completely honestly. When we made "28 Days Later", the rights were frozen between a group of people who are no longer talking to each other. And so, the film is never going to happen unless those people start talking to each other again. There is no script as far as I'm aware." In January 2011, Danny Boyle said, "There is a good idea for it, and once I've got stage production of "Frankenstein" open, I'll begin to think about it a bit more." On April 13, 2013 Boyle stated: "40/60 whether [a sequel happens or not. But we did have an idea of where to set it and what it might be about." Asked to share that idea, Boyle laughed and said "No, because they’ll end up in "The Walking Dead"."
1044081	Carry on at Your Convenience, released in 1971, is the 22nd in the series of "Carry On" films to be made, and was the first box office failure of the series. This failure has been attributed to the film's attempt at exploring the political themes of the trade union movement, crucially portraying the union activists as buffoons which, apparently, alienated the traditional working-class audience of the series. The film, known as "Carry On Round the Bend" outside the United Kingdom, did not return full production costs until 1976 after several international and television sales. The film features regulars Sid James, Kenneth Williams, Charles Hawtrey, Joan Sims, Hattie Jacques and Bernard Bresslaw. It features Kenneth Cope in the first of his two Carry on appearances. Origin of the title. The film revolves around a company where toilet equipment is manufactured. At the time of filming, public toilets in Britain were still called "public conveniences" on signposts. The phrase "Carry on at your convenience" is one typically used by the examiner during a driving test, instructing the candidate to resume driving after a part of the test involving stopping the car. Plot. In lavatory factory W.C. Boggs & Son, the traditionalist owner W.C. Boggs (Kenneth Williams) is having no end of trouble. Bolshie union representative Vic Spanner (Kenneth Cope) continually stirs up trouble in the works, to the irritation of his co-workers and management. He calls a strike for almost any minor incident – or because he wants time off to attend a local football match. Sid Plummer (Sid James) is the factory foreman bridging the gap between workers and management, shrewdly keeping the place going amid the unrest. Prissy lavatory designer Charles Coote (Charles Hawtrey) has included a bidet in his latest range of designs, but W.C. objects to the manufacture of such "distasteful" items. W.C. won't change his stance even after his son, Lewis (Lew) Boggs (Richard O'Callaghan), secures a large order from abroad for the bidets. It is a deal that could save the struggling firm, which W.C. has to admit is in debt to the banks. Vic's dim stooge Bernie Hulke (Bernard Bresslaw) provides bumbling assistance in both his union machinations and his attempts to woo Sid's daughter, factory canteen worker Myrtle (Jacki Piper). She is torn between Vic and Lew Boggs, who is something of a playboy but insists he loves her. Sid's wife is Beattie (Hattie Jacques), a lazy housewife who does little but fuss over her pet budgie, Joey, which refuses to talk despite her concerted efforts. Their neighbour is brassy and lascivious factory worker Chloe Moore (Joan Sims). Chloe contends with the endless strikes and with her crude, travelling salesman husband Fred (Bill Maynard), who neglects her and leaves her dissatisfied. Chloe and Sid enjoy a flirtatious relationship and are sorely tempted to stray. Unusually for Sid James, his character is a faithful husband, albeit a cheeky and sorely tempted one. Sid and Beattie find that Joey can correctly predict winners of horseraces – he tweets when the horse's name is read out. Sid bets on Joey's tips and makes several large wins – including a vital £1,000 loaned to W.C. when the banks refuse a bridging loan – before Sid is barred by his bookie. The strikers finally return to work, but it is only to attend the annual works outing, a coach trip to Brighton. A good time is had by all with barriers coming down between workers and management, thanks largely to that great social lubricant, alcohol. W.C. becomes intoxicated and spends the day – and it seems the night – with his faithful, adoring secretary, Miss Hortense Withering (Patsy Rowlands). Lew Boggs manages to win Myrtle from Vic Spanner, giving his rival a beating, and the couple elope. After arriving home late after the outing and with Fred away, Chloe invites Sid in for a cup of tea. They fight their desires and ultimately decide not to have the tea fearing that neighbours might see Sid enter Chloe's home and get the wrong idea. At the picket lines the next day, Vic gets his comeuppance – partly at the hands of his mother (literally, as she spanks him in public) – and the workers and management all pull together to produce the big order to save the firm. Filming and locations. Interiors: Exteriors: Behind the scenes. After Sid James' character was criticised for leering at some girls in "Carry On Henry" (1971), here his character was changed to the put-upon family man similar to the character he portrayed in the TV sitcom "Bless This House". In the next film "Carry On Matron" (1972) his character was preoccupied with thieving, but made odd suggestive comments to nurses (including one played by Jacki Piper, who played his daughter in this film). Sid's girl-chasing persona was fully reinstated for subsequent films.
1712301	Navajo Joe is a 1966 Spaghetti Western, directed by Sergio Corbucci. "Navajo Joe" stars Burt Reynolds in his second leading role in a feature film, as the titular character, a Navajo Indian opposing a group of bandits responsible for killing his tribe. The film's score was composed by Ennio Morricone (credited as Leo Nichols). Plot. Having massacred an Indian village, outlaw Duncan finds his men falling victim to a solitary rider, Navajo Joe. Joe saves two prostitutes who have overheard Duncan plot with Lynne, the town doctor, to steal a train full of money belonging to the bank. Joe steals the train back from Duncan's gang. He asks the townspeople of Esperanza to pay him to protect them from Duncan, making an offer of "I want a dollar a head from every man in this town for every bandit I kill". The townspeople reject him, as they "don't make bargains with Indians." Lynne's wife Honor persuades them otherwise. Joe sets a trap for Duncan but is caught and tortured; Lynne and Honor are killed. Rescued by an old man from the saloon, Joe again steals the train and eradicates Duncan's gang. There is then a showdown in an Indian cemetery, where Joe reclaims the pendant which Duncan stole from his wife when he murdered her. As Joe turns, Duncan shoots Joe with a hidden gun. Injured, Joe grabs a tomahawk and throws it, hitting Duncan square in the forehead. With Duncan dead, Joe sends his horse back to town, carrying the Bank's money. Music. The original soundtrack for the movie has been composed by Ennio Morricone (credited as Leo Nichols) and contains the following tracks :
1082373	Carmen García Maura (born 15 September 1945) is a Spanish actress. In a career that has spanned six decades, Maura is best known for her collaborations with noted Spanish film director Pedro Almodóvar. Early life. Maura was born in Madrid. Daughter of Salvador Garcia Santa-Cruz and Carmen Maura Arenzana. Her great-grandfather was the Count of Fuente Nueva de Arenzana, who lived in the Palace of Arenzana in Madrid, currently the embassy of France. Her other great grand father from her mother´s side was the artist Bartolome Maura Montaner brother of Antonio Maura, a former prime minister of Spain on five occasions and a noted orator. Maura studied philosophy and literature at the "École de Beaux-Arts" in Paris. From 1964 to 1970, she was married to a lawyer, Francisco Forteza, with whom she has two children, Carmen and Pablo. Career. Maura began her career as a cabaret singer. Maura's film career was launched in 1970 with an appearance in the film "The Man in Hiding". This was followed by a major role in the 1977 film "Tigres de papel". Although Maura has played dramatic roles, she is often noted for her comedic roles in films like "Sal gorda" (1984), "Sé infiel y no mires con quién" (1985) or "Tata mía" (1986). Maura appeared in the first film by Pedro Almodóvar, "Pepi, Luci, Bom y otras chicas del montón", in 1980. They went on to collaborate on five additional films in the 1980s, the last of which was "Women on The Verge of a Nervous Breakdown" (1988), for which she was awarded the European Film Award "Felix" for best actress. Maura and Almodóvar appeared to have had a falling out after "Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown". They did not work together for over a decade, but joined forces again in 2006 for "Volver". 'Volver' means 'Return' in Spanish, and one of the many returns the title alludes to is Maura's return to Almodovar's movies. The female cast of "Volver" won a collective prize for Best Actress at the 2006 Cannes Film Festival. Maura also appeared in "800 Bullets" where she played the mother of the boy who is the main character of the story. Kevin Severson is her son. Maura is cited as a gay icon for the role of a transsexual she played in Almodóvar's "La ley del deseo", strengthening her image as a strong woman who is never afraid to break through boundaries. Maura has won more Goya Awards for Best Leading Actress than any other actress in the history of Spanish film. She has won recently the "Locarno Excellence Award" for all her cinematographic career. Maura has worked under the orders of major directors like Almodovar, Ford Coppola, Amos Gitai, Yasmina Reza, Alejandro Agresti, Carlos Saura, Étienne Chatiliez and Alex de la Iglesia.
996465	Christopher David Gorham (born August 14, 1974) is an American actor who is known for the series, ABC hit "Ugly Betty", "Popular", "Odyssey 5", "Jake 2.0", "Medical Investigation", "Out of Practice", "Harper's Island" and "Covert Affairs". Early life. Gorham was born in Fresno, California, to David Gorham, a certified public accountant, and Cathryn Gorham, a school nurse. He attended high school at Roosevelt School of the Arts, and graduated from UCLA with a BA in Film & Theater Arts. While in college he participated in many sports including martial arts, stage combat, fencing, rollerblading, and ballroom dancing. Career. His first job in the acting business was as an intern on "Baywatch" (1989). Gorham has appeared in a number of science fiction TV series, ranging from a starring role in "Odyssey 5" to the title character in "Jake 2.0". He also had roles on "Party of Five", "Felicity" and "Without a Trace". Gorham has also acted in films, including 2001's "The Other Side of Heaven" co-starring Anne Hathaway. Gorham played Harrison John in the WB series "Popular", Dr. Miles McCabe in the NBC drama "Medical Investigation", and played the lead role in the short-lived CBS series "Out of Practice." He was also the lead of ABC Family's original movie "Relative Chaos". Three years after "Jake 2.0" ended, Gorham had a recurring role as Henry Grubstick in Silvio Horta's new series, "Ugly Betty", and played the main love interest for the series' heroine Betty Suarez (played by America Ferrera). Gorham joined the cast full-time for the series' second season. He then left in July 2008, but returned for the Season 3 and also Season 4 finale. Gorham starred in the 2009 CBS TV miniseries, "Harper's Island", in which characters were killed off every week leading to the eventual reveal of the murderer. In summer, 2010 he was cast as one of the leads in "Covert Affairs", playing a blind special ops agent, Auggie Anderson, who leads the main character, a trainee CIA agent played by Piper Perabo, at her new job. The series on the USA cable network received high ratings right from the airing of its pilot episode and has been renewed for a fourth season on September 25, 2012. BuddyTV ranked Gorham No. 5 on its list of "TV's Sexiest Men of 2011". Personal life. Gorham is married to his former "Popular" co-star, Anel Lopez Gorham, with whom he has three children: sons Lucas (born c.2001) and Ethan (born c.2003), and a daughter named Alondra Cecilia Lopez Gorham (born January 10, 2009).
1165726	Gloria Winters (November 28, 1931, Los Angeles, California – August 14, 2010, Vista in San Diego County, California) was an actress most remembered for having portrayed the well-mannered niece, Penny King, in the 1950s-1960s American television series "Sky King". Biography. Early life and career. Gloria Winters grew up in the San Fernando Valley of Los Angeles, but later moved to Hollywood with her family. A child actor, she made her debut, she said in a mid-2000s radio interview, "when I was about five," with a small role in a Shirley Temple movie. "I came running out to Shirley Temple, and she was supposed to help me, like I had just gone to the little girls' room." (One source says she had appeared as a baby in the 1932 Carole Lombard film "Virtue".) Winters went on to a Pete Smith movie short, in a scene of her coming down a slide to the grass, where a black Scottie dog licked her face. She also appeared in an "Our Gang" feature. She performed onstage, and took tap dance classes, and in the late 1940s and early 1950s was first cast in Western films such as "Driftwood" (1947) and "El Paso" (1949), and in such television series as "The Lone Ranger" and "The Range Rider". Her roughly twenty films, mostly Westerns, include "The Lawless" (1950) and "Gambling House" (1950). She portrayed daughter Babs Riley in the first season of the NBC sitcom "The Life of Riley" (1949 to 1950), starring Jackie Gleason and Rosemary DeCamp. The show was subsequently recast with William Bendix in the lead. Winters appeared too in a recurring role as Ruth Farley in the 1953-1955 ABC sitcom with a variety show theme, "Where's Raymond?", renamed "The Ray Bolger Show". Verna Felton played her mother. The series starred Ray Bolger as Raymond Wallace, a song-and-dance man who was repeatedly barely on time for his performances. "Sky King". Winters' signature role was in the children's television series "Sky King", starring Kirby Grant as rancher and pilot Schuyler "Sky" King in contemporary Arizona. Winters played the blond, baby-faced, perky but earnest and helpful teenage niece, Penny King, who lived with him at the Flying Crown Ranch and often became involved in her uncle's adventures. She played the role in 72 episodes from 1952 to 1959. Ron Hagerthy, who is the same age as Winters, appeared in nineteen episodes during 1952 as Sky King's nephew, Clipper King, but it was not clarified if Clipper was the brother or the cousin of Penny. "Sky King", which ran on NBC and ABC, was filmed in 1951-1952 and from 1955 through at least 1959, as sponsors changed. It ran thereafter in syndication, but the actors received no residuals. During the run of "Sky King", Winters and Kirby Grant performed as a song-and-dance team as headliners on the state fair circuit. Winters recalled a Texas State Fair in Dallas in which the two signed autographs. Waiting for their signatures were astronauts Gus Grissom, Pete Conrad, Alan Shepard and Wally Schirra in line with their children. As noted by the magazine publisher "Airport Journal", the series "Sky King" inspired a number of youngsters to take up flying when they became older. Winters married Dean Stevens Vernon (1926–2001), a sound engineer on "Sky King", and gave up acting following a 1960 appearance on Hugh O'Brian's "The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp". Other roles. In the interim, Winters had guest roles in series including "Death Valley Days", "The Jack Benny Show", and "Richard Diamond, Private Detective"; "Racket Squad"; "The Gene Autry Show", where she made her singing debut in the 1951 episode "Warning! Danger!", "The Adventures of Wild Bill Hickok", "Brave Eagle", "Four Star Playhouse", "General Electric Theater", "Frontier Doctor", "Judge Roy Bean" (in the episode "Four Ladies from Laredo"), "The Roy Rogers Show", and "Sheriff of Cochise". On Jim Davis's "Stories of the Century", Winters played the teenaged bandit Little Britches, opposite James Best as the outlaw Dave Ridley, with whom she is smitten.
1163472	Carroll O'Connor (born John Carroll O'Connor; August 2, 1924 â June 21, 2001) was an American actor, producer and director whose television career spanned four decades. A life-member of The Actors Studio, O'Connor first attracted attention as Major General Colt in the 1970 movie "Kelly's Heroes". The following year he found fame as the bigoted working man Archie Bunker, the main character in the 1970s CBS television sitcoms "All in the Family" (1971 to 1979) and "Archie Bunker's Place" (1979 to 1983). O'Connor later starred in the NBC/CBS television crime drama "In the Heat of the Night" from 1988 to 1995, where he played the role of southern Police Chief William (Bill) Gillespie. At the end of his career in the late 1990s, he played the father of Jamie Buchman (Helen Hunt) on "Mad About You".
1048902	The Boatniks is a 1970 American comedy film starring Robert Morse, Stefanie Powers, Don Ameche and Phil Silvers. It was made by Walt Disney Productions, released by Buena Vista Distribution and directed by Norman Tokar. Young and awkward, Coast Guard Ensign Thomas Garland (Morse) suffers from the comparison with his late father, a war hero, which does not prevent him from falling for pretty Kate Fairchild (Powers), a young woman who runs a sailing school. Of course the way he expresses his deep feelings for the lady leaves much to be desired, and the situation does not improve when a trio of bumbling jewel thieves interferes. Plot. The film opens with U.S. Coast Guard Lieutenant Jordan (Joey Forman) responding to a number of pleas for help from civilian pleasure boat sailors off the coast of Southern California. This is the type of event that the Coast Guard has to put up with on a regular basis, and it is one of the reasons why Jordan has requested to transfer to a new station. He is handing over the reins to Ensign Tom Garland (Robert Morse), a polite but remarkably clumsy fellow who will now report to Commander Taylor (Don Ameche), a man who fought in World War II with Garland's father and holds him in high regard.
1064097	Henry William Dalgliesh Cavill (born 5 May 1983) is a British actor. He has appeared in the films "Stardust" and "Immortals", and played the role of Charles Brandon, 1st Duke of Suffolk, on the Showtime series "The Tudors", from 2007 until 2010. He played the role of Clark Kent / Kal-El in the 2013 film "Man of Steel". Early life. Cavill was born on the island of Jersey in the Channel Islands. His mother, Marianne, was a secretary in a bank, and his father, Colin, a stockbroker. He was educated at St. Michael's Preparatory School in Saint Saviour, Jersey, before attending Stowe School.
340300	Chad Michael Murray (born August 24, 1981) is an American actor, spokesperson and former fashion model. He is well known for portraying Lucas Scott in The CW young adult drama series "One Tree Hill", in addition to the films "A Cinderella Story", "Freaky Friday" and "House of Wax". Popular among teenagers and young adults, he has posed on the cover of numerous mainstream magazines, including "Rolling Stone", "People", "Vanity Fair" and "Entertainment Weekly". Early life. Murray was born in Buffalo, New York. He is the son of Rex Murray, an air traffic controller, and was abandoned by his mother at a young age. His abandonment issues were the main reasons he took the part of Lucas Scott. He has three brothers, one half-brother and one half-sister.
1169524	Mario Cantone (born December 9, 1959) is an American stand-up comedian, writer and actor, with numerous appearances on Comedy Central including "Chappelle's Show". He also played Anthony Marentino on "Sex and the City". His style is fast-paced and energetic, with much of his humor coming from his impersonations of various characters ranging from his family members, to celebrities, to stereotypes. Early life. Cantone was born in Massachusetts and raised in Stoneham where his family moved when he was two. He was the fourth of five children of Mario, Sr., a Boston restaurant owner, and his wife Elizabeth. His father moved the family to Stoneham, according to Cantone in a 2004 "New York Times" interview to get her away from her bookie relatives. The problem Mr. Cantone said "was that she was not only a bookie but she was also a compulsive gambler." His mother, who had been a big band singer in her youth, died when he was 21. Cantone's first impression was of Julia Child, which he presented in a junior high school talent show. He graduated from Stoneham High School in 1978 and Emerson College in 1982. Early career. He began his professional career hosting a children's show called "Steampipe Alley", which aired on New York-New Jersey superstation WWOR-TV from 1988 to 1993. Stand-up career. In his stand-up concerts, he is known for his occasionally campy impressions of entertainment personalities such as Liza Minnelli, Judy Garland, Bruce Springsteen, Jim Morrison, and Bette Davis as well as for his original songs. Much of his comedy derives from his boisterous Italian-American family. Cantone, who is gay, has said that he considers himself an actor and comedian who happens to be gay rather than a gay comic relying on gay jokes. "Talking about being gay is a very small part of my show and when I first started I wasn’t out on stage but I was out off stage, I certainly didn’t lie about it on stage but if you didn’t know you were an idiot and you lived in a cave after seeing me…really??" Acting career. "Sex and the City". Cantone is well known for his role in the HBO series "Sex and the City" as Anthony Marentino, Charlotte York's gay wedding planner who dispensed advice with a rapid fire delivery. Broadway. Cantone made his Broadway debut in 1995, replacing Nathan Lane in the role of Buzz in Terrance McNally's Tony Award–winning play, "Love! Valour! Compassion! " Later that year, he appeared in the revival of "The Tempest" with Patrick Stewart. Several years later, Cantone did a workshop for "The Lion King" as Timon but was not comfortable with the makeup or manipulating a puppet and eventually left the project. In 2002, he created and wrote his own one-man show for Broadway, "An Evening With Mario Cantone". A year later, Cantone starred as Gidger in Richard Greenberg's "The Violet Hour" in a part written specifically for him. "The Violet Hour "received mixed reviews and closed after 54 performances. In 2004, Cantone appeared as Samuel Byck in Stephen Sondheim's musical "Assassins. "" "Originally slated for the 2001 Broadway season, "Assassins" was postponed because of the September 11, 2001 attacks." " In 2001, Cantone had turned down the role of Carmen Ghia in Mel Brooks's "The Producers" for the part. His other Broadway credits include his second one-man show, "Laugh Whore, "which ran" "from October 24, 2004, to January 2, 2005, at the Cort Theatre. "Laugh Whore" received a Tony Award nomination for Best Special Theatrical Event and an Outer Critics Circle award nomination for Outstanding Solo Performance. Showtime taped the December 11, 2004 performance, which premiered on May 28, 2005. It was the network's first Broadway production to air as a comedy special. In September 2010, Cantone appeared in a staged reading of the Charles Messina play "A Room of My Own" at The Theatre at 45 Bleecker Street in Greenwich Village. As of November 2012, the play was still in development with Cantone in the cast. Other work. He has appeared in the Comedy Central roasts of Joan Rivers and fellow Boston-area native and Emerson College alumni, Denis Leary. That network's Chappelle's Show featured him in a segment called "Ask A Gay Dude." His voice over work includes Sunsilk "hairapy" advertisements. and the voice of the talent scout bird Mikey Abromowitz in the 2007 computer animated movie "Surf's Up." He has appeared frequently on the Opie and Anthony radio show. A regular guest on the ABC daytime talk show "The View "since at least 2003, in August 2013, he was in the news as a rumored replacement for retiring co-host Joy Behar. In August 2013, it was reported that he will be among the judges of the 2014 Miss America pagent. Personal life. In October 2011, Cantone married his partner of 20 years, musical theater director Jerry Dixon. The ceremony was officiated by pastor Jay Bakker.
1163671	Don Ameche (; May 31, 1908 – December 6, 1993) was an American actor with a career spanning almost sixty years. After touring in vaudeville, he featured in many biographical films, including "The Story of Alexander Graham Bell" (1939). He continued to appear on Broadway, as well as on radio and TV, where he was host and commentator for "International Showtime", covering circus and ice-shows all over Europe. Ameche remained married to his wife Honore for fifty-four years, and they had six children. Personal life. Ameche was born Dominic Felix Amici in Kenosha, Wisconsin. His father, Felice Amici, was a bartender from Italy from Montemonaco, Ascoli Piceno, Marche. His mother, Barbara Etta Hertle, was of Scottish, Irish, and German ancestry. He had three brothers, Umberto (Bert), James (Jim Ameche), and Louis, and three sisters. Ameche attended Marquette University, Loras College, and the University of Wisconsin, where his cousin Alan Ameche played football and won the Heisman Trophy in 1954. Ameche had intended to study law, but he found theatricals more interesting and decided on a stage career. From 1946 to 1949, Ameche, with other Los Angeles entertainment figures including Bing Crosby and Bob Hope, was a co-owner of the Los Angeles Dons of the All-America Football Conference, a rival to the National Football League. He was instrumental in forming and leading the ownership group the year before play began and initially served as team president. Ameche was married to Honore Prendergast from 1932 until her death in 1986. They had six children. One, Ron Ameche, owned a restaurant, "Ameche's Pumpernickel" in Coralville, Iowa. He had two daughters Connie & Bonnie. Ameche's younger brother, Jim Ameche, was also a well known actor. His brother Bert was an architect who worked for the U.S. Navy in Port Hueneme, California and then the US Postal Service in Los Angeles, California. Vaudeville and movies. Ameche had done well in college dramatics and when a lead actor for a stock company production of Excess Baggage did not turn up, a friend persuaded him to stand in for the missing actor. He enjoyed the experience and got a juvenile lead in Jerry For Short in New York, followed by a tour in vaudeville with Texas Guinan, until Guinan dropped him from the act, dismissing him as "too stiff." He made his film debut in 1935 and by the late 1930s, had established himself as a major actor in Hollywood. He appeared in such films as "Alexander's Ragtime Band" (1938), as the title character in "The Story of Alexander Graham Bell" (1939). It led to the use of the word, "ameche," as slang for telephone in common catchphrases, as noted by Mike Kilen in the "Iowa City Gazette" (December 8, 1993): "The film prompted a generation to call people to the telephone with the phrase: 'You're wanted on the Ameche.'" In the 1941 film "Ball of Fire" Barbara Stanwyck's character discusses this slang usage "Do you know what this means: I'll get you on the Ameche." Another highlight was co-starring with Gene Tierney in Ernst Lubitsch's "Heaven Can Wait" in 1943, a film nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture. He later claimed that this was his favourite film of his own. In 1940, he was voted the 21st most popular star in Hollywood. Ameche played so many roles based on real people that on one of his radio broadcasts Fred Allen joked that "Pretty soon, Don Ameche will be playing Don Ameche." Soon afterwards, in "It's in the Bag!" (1945), which starred Allen, Ameche indeed played himself in a bit part. Ameche and fellow veteran actor Ralph Bellamy were eventually cast in John Landis' "Trading Places" in 1983, playing rich brothers intent on ruining an innocent man for the sake of a one-dollar bet. In an interview some years later on "Larry King Live", co-star Jamie Lee Curtis said that Ameche, a proper old-school actor, went to everyone on the set ahead of time to apologize when he was called to start cursing in the film. The film's success and their comedic performances brought them both back into the Hollywood limelight. Ameche's next role, in "Cocoon" (1985), won him an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. He continued working for the rest of his life, including in the sequel, "". He earned good reviews for the David Mamet / Shel Silverstein penned "Things Change"; the New York Times said that he showed "...the kind of great comic aplomb that wins actors awards for other than sentimental reasons." In 1990, Ameche appeared in an episode of "The Golden Girls" as Rose Nylund's father. His last films were "" (1993) and "Corrina, Corrina" (1994), completed only days before his death. Radio and television. Ameche was a major radio entertainer, heard on such shows as "Empire Builders", "The First Nighter Program", "Family Theater" and the "Betty and Bob" soap opera. Following his appearances as announcer and sketch participant on "The Edgar Bergen/Charlie McCarthy Show", he achieved memorable success during the late 1940s playing opposite Frances Langford in "The Bickersons", the Philip Rapp radio comedy series about a combative married couple. It began on NBC in 1946, moving to CBS the following year. He also enjoyed a substantial Broadway career, with roles in "Silk Stockings", "Goldilocks", "Holiday for Lovers", "Henry, Sweet Henry" and "Our Town". Ameche's best-known television role came between 1961 and 1965, when he traveled throughout Europe with a television videotape unit and camera crew to cover a different European resident circus or ice show that was taped for presentation on a weekly series titled "International Showtime" on NBC television. Ameche was present at each circus or ice show taped for the series, and was seen as host and commentator. His "anchor position" was in the grandstands at the particular show being taped. Sometimes, when one of the star acts of a particular show spoke English, Ameche would interview him or her and the interview would appear during the program. He also guest featured in many television series, including NBC's "The Polly Bergen Show" and ABC's "The Pat Boone Chevy Showroom" and Jack Palance's circus drama, "The Greatest Show on Earth", which was broadcast during the 1963-1964 season. In the latter 1960s and early 1970s, Ameche directed the NBC television sitcom "Julia", featuring the African American actress Diahann Carroll. He was also a frequent panelist on the 1950s version of To Tell The Truth. After the release of two 1970 comedies, "The Boatniks" and "Suppose They Gave a War and Nobody Came?", Ameche was absent from theatrical movies for the next 13 years. His only appearance in cinema during that time was in "F For Fake", Orson Welles' documentary on hoaxes, when 20th Century-Fox mistakenly sent Welles newsreel footage of Ameche misidentified as footage of Howard Hughes. Ameche also appeared in an early episode of "Columbo" entitled "Suitable For Framing" (1971). For his contribution to radio, Ameche received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6313 Hollywood Boulevard and a second star at 6101 Hollywood Boulevard for his television work. Death. Ameche died on December 6, 1993, at his son Don Jr's house in Scottsdale, Arizona of prostate cancer, at the age of 85. He was cremated and his ashes are buried at Resurrection Catholic Cemetery, also known as St. Philomena's Cemetery, in Asbury, Iowa.
586765	Pourudu (Telugu: పౌరుడు) () is a 2008 Telugu film released on Jan 13th 2008. Sumanth and Kajal Agarwal acted in the lead roles. The film was directed by Raaj Aditya and produced by Sumanth's sister, Supriya under the Annapurna Studios banner. The music was by Manisharma. It was a commercial success at the box office, having a run of over a hundred days in some theatres.It was dubbed into Hindi as Giraftaar and in Tamil as "O" Plot. Ajay (Sumanth) completes his degree and gets ready for IPS examination. His father Pandu (Suman) works under local mafia don zakeer Bhai (Nassar). Kasi (Kota Srinivasa Rao) runs a rival gang in the same city opposite zakeer Bhai. Though Pandu behaves like a goon, Ajay concentrates on his studies and reaches to the stage of completing IPS preliminaries. At the same time, he is an expert in martial arts. Samyukta (Kajal Agarwal) is a student of a dance school and she falls in love with Ajay. At this juncture, Hussain (Subbaraju) takes charge as CI and he wants to nab Jakeer Bhai, Pandu and Kasi but could not do so due to their political influence. Once, Pandu thrashes Kasi's son and his men attack the former. Ajay, who is there at the scene, involves in the fight and saves his father. Hussain arrests both Pandu and Ajay. Accidentally, Pandu comes to know that Jakeer Bhai is a mafia don and is not a gentleman as he is expecting. Jakeer Bhai gets Pandu killed by Kasi and his son. Ajay quits his ambition to become an IAS officer and with the help of Hussain takes revenge against Kasi, his son and also Jakeer Bhai, who is the mastermind behind Pandu's death. Hussain makes everyone believe that all those, who are killed by Ajay died in a mafia gang war and helps Ajay to attend the IAS main exams as he wishes. The film ends on a happy note with the union of Samyukta and Ajay. Reception. Jeevi of idlebrain.com gave a review with a rating 3/5, stating "Though there are dialogues justifying the title Pourudu, it is a pure personal revenge story of a Koduku. On a whole, a better climax and good fight sequences make Pourudu an average flick." telugucinema.com gave a review of rating 3/5 stating "Pourudu is a regular action drama. Sumanth scores as actor but he is dogged down by the poor script. It fails to impress as its second half is too boring." Oneindia Entertainment gave a review stating "hough the storyline is not much impressive, it is just a time pass film. Sumant, is able to achieve his idea, of changing his image from a soft and family hero to an action hero. The storyline is based on the theme – When society fails power will rise, when power fails, a man will rise. It is an okay film for those, who like an average action movie. One more time pass film for this Sankranthi." IndiaGlitz gave a review, stating "'Pourudu' is not your usual masala mix. But if you like something simple, then try it. Be warned though, it gets a tad too bland at times." Sify.com gave a review, stating "Sumanth, who proved his mettle for the first time onscreen with Satyam couldn't repeat the magic this time. As an action hero, he succeeds to a certain , but the film is bogged down by the beaten to death plot line of a son taking avenge on the killers of his father." Rediff.com gave a review stating "Even though the film has an interesting premise (the tagline reads, 'when the system fails a power will rise, when that power fails, a man will rise'), it fails to live up to the expectations." Soundtrack. The music launch of this film was done in a silent way at Annapurna studios on the night of 27 December 2007. ANR launched the audio and gave the cassette to D Rama Naidu. This function was held without any speeches. ANR, Nagarjuna, Sumanth, Kajal Agarwal, D Suresh Babu Kota, Suman, Akkineni Venkat attended this function.
1104153	William Thomas Tutte OC FRS FRSC, known as Bill Tutte (; May 14, 1917 – May 2, 2002), was a British, later Canadian, codebreaker and mathematician. During World War II he made a brilliant and fundamental advance in Cryptanalysis of the Lorenz cipher, a major German cipher system. The intelligence obtained from these decrypts had a significant impact on the Allied victory in Europe. He also had a number of significant mathematical accomplishments, including foundation work in the fields of graph theory and matroid theory. Tutte’s research in the field of graph theory proved to be of remarkable importance. At a time when graph theory was still a primitive subject, Tutte commenced the study of matroids and developed them into a theory by expanding from the work that Hassler Whitney had first developed around the mid 1930s. Even though Tutte’s contributions to graph theory have been influential to modern graph theory and many of his theorems have been used to keep making advances in the field, most of his terminology was not in agreement with their conventional usage and thus his terminology is not used by graph theorists today. "Tutte advanced graph theory from a subject with one text (D. König’s) toward its present extremely active state" Early life and education. Tutte was born in Newmarket in Suffolk, the son of a gardener. At the age of 18, he studied chemistry and mathematics at Trinity College, Cambridge University. As a student he (along with three of his friends) became the first to solve the problem of squaring the square. Together the four created the pseudonym Blanche Descartes, under which Tutte published occasionally for years. World War II. Soon after the outbreak of World War II, Tutte's tutor, Patrick Duff, suggested him for war work at the Government Code and Cypher School at Bletchley Park (BP). He was interviewed and sent on a training course in London before going to Bletchley Park, where he joined the Research Section. At first he worked on the Hagelin cipher that was being used by the Italian Navy. This was a rotor cipher machine that was available commercially, so the mechanics of enciphering was known, and decrypting messages only required working out how the machine was set up.
750351	In numerical analysis and functional analysis, a discrete wavelet transform (DWT) is any wavelet transform for which the wavelets are discretely sampled. As with other wavelet transforms, a key advantage it has over Fourier transforms is temporal resolution: it captures both frequency "and" location information (location in time). Examples. Haar wavelets. The first DWT was invented by the Hungarian mathematician Alfréd Haar. For an input represented by a list of formula_1 numbers, the Haar wavelet transform may be considered to simply pair up input values, storing the difference and passing the sum. This process is repeated recursively, pairing up the sums to provide the next scale: finally resulting in formula_2 differences and one final sum. Daubechies wavelets. The most commonly used set of discrete wavelet transforms was formulated by the Belgian mathematician Ingrid Daubechies in 1988. This formulation is based on the use of recurrence relations to generate progressively finer discrete samplings of an implicit mother wavelet function; each resolution is twice that of the previous scale. In her seminal paper, Daubechies derives a family of wavelets, the first of which is the Haar wavelet. Interest in this field has exploded since then, and many variations of Daubechies' original wavelets were developed. The Dual-Tree Complex Wavelet Transform (ℂWT). The Dual-Tree Complex Wavelet Transform (ℂWT) is relatively recent enhancement to the discrete wavelet transform (DWT), with important additional properties: It is nearly shift invariant and directionally selective in two and higher dimensions. It achieves this with a redundancy factor of only formula_3 for d-dimensional signals, which is substantially lower than the undecimated DWT. The multidimensional (M-D) dual-tree ℂWT is nonseparable but is based on a computationally efficient, separable filter bank (FB). Others. Other forms of discrete wavelet transform include the non- or undecimated wavelet transform (where downsampling is omitted), the Newland transform (where an orthonormal basis of wavelets is formed from appropriately constructed top-hat filters in frequency space). Wavelet packet transforms are also related to the discrete wavelet transform. Complex wavelet transform is another form. Properties. The Haar DWT illustrates the desirable properties of wavelets in general. First, it can be performed in formula_4 operations; second, it captures not only a notion of the frequency content of the input, by examining it at different scales, but also temporal content, i.e. the times at which these frequencies occur. Combined, these two properties make the Fast wavelet transform (FWT) an alternative to the conventional Fast Fourier Transform (FFT). Time Issues. Due to the rate-change operators in the filter bank, the discrete WT is not time-invariant but actually very sensitive to the alignment of the signal in time. To address the time-varying problem of wavelet transforms, Mallat and Zhong proposed a new algorithm for wavelet representation of a signal, which is invariant to time shifts. According to this algorithm, which is called a TI-DWT, only the scale parameter is sampled along the dyadic sequence 2^j (j∈Z) and the wavelet transform is calculated for each point in time. Applications. The discrete wavelet transform has a huge number of applications in science, engineering, mathematics and computer science. Most notably, it is used for signal coding, to represent a discrete signal in a more redundant form, often as a preconditioning for data compression. Practical applications can also be found in signal processing of accelerations for gait analysis, in digital communications and many others. It is shown that discrete wavelet transform (discrete in scale and shift, and continuous in time) is successfully implemented as analog filter bank in biomedical signal processing for design of low-power pacemakers and also in ultra-wideband (UWB) wireless communications. Comparison with Fourier transform. To illustrate the differences and similarities between the discrete wavelet transform with the discrete Fourier transform, consider the DWT and DFT of the following sequence: (1,0,0,0), a unit impulse. The DFT has orthogonal basis (DFT matrix): while the DWT with Haar wavelets for length 4 data has orthogonal basis in the rows of: Preliminary observations include: Decomposing the sequence with respect to these bases yields: The DWT demonstrates the localization: the (1,1,1,1) term gives the average signal value, the (1,1,–1,–1) places the signal in the left side of the domain, and the
903946	Peter Gerety (born May 17, 1940) is an American actor.
1054873	Elden Henson (born August 30, 1977) is an American actor. He is best known for playing Fulton Reed in the "Mighty Ducks" trilogy with Emilio Estevez.
1551528	Donal Donnelly (6 July 1931 – 4 January 2010) was an English-born Irish theatre and film actor. Perhaps best known for his work in the plays of Brian Friel, he had a long and varied career in film, on television and in the theatre. His travels - he lived in Ireland, the U.K. and the U.S. at various times - led to him describing himself as "" ... an itinerant Irish actor ..."". Beginnings. He was born in Bradford, Yorkshire, England, but brought up in Dublin, Ireland. His father James was a doctor from County Tyrone, and his mother Nora O'Connor was a teacher from Kerry. Donal Donnelly attended school at Synge Street Christian Brothers School in Dublin where he acted in school plays with Milo O'Shea, Eamonn Andrews, Jack McGowran, Bernard Frawley (Seattle Repertory Co.) and Jimmy Fitzsimons (brother of Maureen O'Hara), under the direction of famous elocution teacher, Ena Burke. Acting career. Stage. Donnelly toured with Andrew McMaster's Irish repertory company before moving to England where he starred with Rita Tushingham in the film "The Knack …and How to Get It". His breakthrough role came when he was cast as Gar Private in the world premiere of Brian Friel’s "Philadelphia, Here I Come!" directed by Hilton Edwards for the Gate Theatre at the Dublin Theatre Festival in 1964. The production subsequently transferred to Broadway where it played for over 300 performances and established Donnelly and Patrick Bedford – who played his alter-ego Gar Public – as formidable new talents to be reckoned with. They were jointly nominated for the Tony Award for Best Performance by a Leading Actor in a Play in 1966. Donnelly returned to Broadway a number of times, replacing Albert Finney in "A Day in the Death of Joe Egg" in 1968, playing Milo Tindle in Anthony Shaffer's "Sleuth" and appearing as Frederick Treves opposite David Bowie as "The Elephant Man". He also renewed his relationship with Brian Friel, appearing in the world premieres of "Volunteers" at the Abbey Theatre in 1975 and "Faith Healer" with James Mason (Longacre Theatre, NYC) in 1979 as well as the Broadway premieres of "Dancing at Lughnasa" in 1991 and "Translations" in 1995. For many years he toured a one-man performance of the writings of George Bernard Shaw, adapted and directed by Michael Voysey and entitled "My Astonishing Self". Film and TV. His film roles included Archbishop Gilday in "The Godfather Part III" and he gained particular acclaim for his performance as Freddy Malins in John Huston’s final work "The Dead" based on the short story by James Joyce. On television, he played the lead role of Matthew Browne in the 1970s ITV sitcom "Yes Honestly", opposite Liza Goddard. But from the late 1950s onwards, he often appeared in such British TV programs as "The Avengers", "Z Cars" and "The Wednesday Play". Other work. He was an acclaimed audiobook reader whose catalog includes Pinocchio, Peter Pan, Voltaire's Philosophical Dictionary, and several audio versions of the works of James Joyce. In 1968, he recorded an album of Irish songs "Take the Name of Donnelly" (Decca DL 75029) which was arranged, produced and conducted by Tony Meehan formerly of the Shadows. Death. He died in Chicago, Illinois on 4 January 2010 from cancer, aged 78, and is survived by his wife, Patricia 'Patsy' Porter - a former dancer he met working on Finian's Rainbow, and two sons, Jonathan and Damian. His daughter Maryanne predeceased him.
1063962	Dax Randall Shepard (born January 2, 1975) is an American actor, comedian, writer and director. Early life. Shepard was born in Milford, Michigan. According to Shepard, his mother named him for the protagonist in Harold Robbins' novel "The Adventurers". He has a younger sister, Carly Hatter, whom he cast in his 2012 film Hit and Run. Career. Shepard appears in "Punk'd" with Ashton Kutcher. In 2006, he appeared with Dane Cook and Jessica Simpson in the comedy "Employee of the Month" and in Mike Judge's film "Idiocracy". During the same time, Shepard began appearing in more films and landed his first main character role in "Let's Go to Prison", alongside Will Arnett. He also had a major role in "Baby Mama". Shepard wrote the script for the Paramount venture "Get 'Em Wet", in which he again appeared with Arnett. He was also in the 2010 movie "When in Rome". He is now one of the main characters in the NBC show "Parenthood", playing Crosby Braverman. Shepard wrote, produced, co-directed, and starred in the 2012 low-budget action comedy film, "Hit and Run". His fiancée Kristen Bell and close friend Bradley Cooper were among the cast. Personal life. Shepard began dating actress Kristen Bell in late 2007. The couple announced their engagement in January 2010. However, they have stated that they will not marry until gay marriage becomes legal in California. Shepard and Bell have a daughter, Lincoln Bell, born in March 2013. As of January 2012, Shepard and Bell are vegan. They were both recently named Sexiest Vegetarian Celebrities of 2013 by PETA. Shepard races motorcycles at Buttonwillow Raceway, including his Ducati Hypermotard 1100S and Suzuki GSX-R1000. He donates much of his time to the Hollenbeck Youth Center, an after-school program that provides opportunity to at-risk inner-city youth. He has served as their official Master of Ceremonies, along with his friend Tom Arnold, for the Inner-City Games and Hollenbeck Youth Center's Miracle on 1st Street Toy Giveaway Program in East Los Angeles. External links. [{Category:People from Oakland County, Michigan]]
1683741	Diego Luna Alexander (born December 29, 1979) is a Mexican actor known for his childhood telenovela work, a starring role in the film "Y tu mamá también", and supporting roles in American films. He is also known for his roles in "Rudo y Cursi", "The Terminal" and "Milk." Together with Romola Garai, he starred in the film "". He also had minor roles in "Frida" and "Before Night Falls" and provides Spanish language narration for the National Geographic Channel documentary "Great Migrations". Personal life. Luna was born in Mexico City, the son of Fiona Alexander, an English costume designer, and Alejandro Luna, a Mexican set designer who is one of the most acclaimed living theatre, cinema, and opera set designers in Mexico. His mother died in a car accident when he was two years old. She had worked in the film industry and had made sure that this was a life Luna would be immersed in. His father also reinforced the importance of theater and the arts in his life. In Luna's youth, he would bring him to the sets and mentor him in all different aspects of his art, furthering his desire to become an actor and uphold a family tradition. Luna wed Mexican actress Camila Sodi on February 5, 2008 and their son Jerónimo was born in Los Angeles on August 9, 2008. They welcomed daughter Fiona, named after Luna's late mother, on July 1, 2010 in Mexico City. They announced their separation in March 2013. Luna co-founded the organization and film festival Ambulante A.C. along with his friend Gael Garcia Bernal. The organization works to bring documentary films to places where they are rarely shown. Ambulante was awarded the Washington Office on Latin America's prestigious Human Rights Award in 2011. Career. From an early age, Luna began acting in television, film, and stage. His debut was in the 1982 film, "Antonieta". His next role was in the telenovela "El Abuelo y Yo" (1992) alongside his childhood best friend, Gael García Bernal, in 1995 he played the role of Laura León' troubled son Quique in the Mexican soap opera "El premio mayor". Luna had his big break in 2001 when he was cast in the critically acclaimed " Y tu mamá también", once again alongside García Bernal. He is currently making a name for himself in the United States market, having starred alongside Jon Bon Jovi in "Vampires: Los Muertos" (2002) and the Academy Award-winning "Frida" (2002). He was also in the western "Open Range", "", "The Terminal", and "Criminal". In 2008, he appeared in the Harvey Milk biopic "Milk" playing Milk's emotionally unstable lover Jack Lira. Luna and Gael García Bernal own Canana Productions. The company recently joined with Golden Phoenix Productions (owned by producer Tom Golden of Hot Springs, Arkansas) to jointly produce a number of television documentaries about the unsolved murders of more than 300 women in the border city of Ciudad Juárez. For the fourth time, Luna reunites with fellow friend Gael García Bernal, this time in the American Spanish-language comedy film "Casa de Mi Padre" with Will Ferrell. In 2011, Luna played the male lead in Katy Perry's music video, The One That Got Away. In June 2012, he began directing his first English-language film "Chávez", a biopic about the life of American labor leader César Chávez, who founded the United Farm Workers.
761795	Max Everitt Rosenbloom, known as Slapsie Maxie (November 1, 1907 – March 6, 1976) was an American boxer, actor, and television personality. Life and career. Born in Leonard's Bridge, Connecticut, Rosenbloom was nicknamed "Slapsie Maxie" by a journalist due to his open gloved style of boxing. In 1930, he won the New York light heavyweight title. In 1932, he won the Light Heavyweight Championship of the World. He held and defended the title until November 1934, when he lost it to Bob Olin. As a professional boxer, Rosenbloom relied on hitting and moving to score points. He was very difficult to hit cleanly with a power punch and his fights often went the full number of required rounds. In his boxing matches he suffered thousands of head punches, which eventually led to the deterioration of his motor functions. In 1937, he accepted a role in a Hollywood film. He became a character actor, portraying comical "big guys," in movies that included "Each Dawn I Die". Slapsy Maxie's, the first comedy club, opened in San Francisco and Los Angeles, and Maxie retired from boxing permanently in 1939. He continued acting on radio, television, and in a number of films, usually playing comedy roles as a big, clumsy, punch-drunk—but lovable—character. He appeared in a number of episodes (playing himself) of the Fred Allen Radio Show—including a skit with Marlene Dietrich. Rosenbloom played an important part in television's first 90-minute drama, "Requiem for a Heavyweight," written by Rod Serling, and starring Jack Palance as a boxer at the end of his career. The subsequent movie, in which Rosenbloom did not appear, also starred Jackie Gleason, who was very good friends with Maxie. Rosenbloom played an ex pug, whose life revolved around retelling old boxing stories night after night to other ex-pugs in a down and out bar. It is the fate that looms for Palance (as "Mountain McClintock") if he cannot adjust to a new life outside the ring. In "The Honeymooners" popular episode "Captain Video," Jackie Gleason's character Ralph Kramden pays homage to Maxie. He read aloud a TV listing from the newspaper, "Fights Of The World: Maxie Rosenbloom vs. Kingfish Levinsky." Slapsy Maxie's, his nightclub, is prominently featured in a 2013 crime film, "Gangster Squad", the story of which is set in 1949. The club, which actually operated from 1943 to 1947, was located at 5665 Wilshire Blvd. in Los Angeles. Death. Rosenbloom died of Paget's disease of bone in 1976 at the age of 68, and was interred in the Valhalla Memorial Park Cemetery in North Hollywood, California. Halls of Fame. Rosenbloom was inducted into the Ring Boxing Hall of Fame in 1972. In 1984 he was inducted into the International Jewish Sports Hall of Fame. In 1929, he had fought with four other Jewish boxers in a benefit at Madison Square Garden to raise relief funds for Palestine. During 1935, he postponed a scheduled fight with Tiger Jack Fox that was scheduled to fall between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur so that they could take place after the Jewish holidays. Rosenbloom was also inducted into the World Boxing Hall of Fame in 1985. In 1993 he was inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame.
1209256	A Boy Named Charlie Brown is a 1969 animated film, produced by Cinema Center Films, distributed by National General Pictures, and directed by Bill Meléndez, it is the first feature film based on the "Peanuts" comic strip. It was also the final time that Peter Robbins voiced the character of Charlie Brown (Robbins had voiced the role for all the Peanuts television specials up to that point, starting with the debut of the specials, 1965's "A Charlie Brown Christmas"). Plot. Charlie Brown's first Little League baseball game of the season approaches, and he eagerly goes to the ball field; the game starts, and the team loses the first game of the summer season. Charlie Brown walks home musing that they always lose the first and last games of the season - and all the ones in between. Later on that day, Linus shows up at the front porch of the house and tries to cheer Charlie Brown up, stating that people learn more from losing than from winning. "I guess that makes me the smartest person in the whole world," Charlie replies, sarcastically. Linus takes the tone of voice; he says that, if Charlie Brown keeps thinking he's a loser, it will not help. Positively, Linus goes on that he's sure that someday Charlie Brown will win at something. They play tic-tac-toe and Linus wins, thus making a liar of himself. Soon after Linus departs, Snoopy approaches Charlie Brown with a food dish. Charlie Brown feeds Snoopy, and Snoopy goes to bed. Snoopy begins having a dream he is a Flying Ace (using his doghouse as a plane) trying to shoot down a rival plane (though the rival is never shown in this sequence), The rival plane shoots Snoopy down in a sneak attack causing an imminent crash land. Snoopy wakes up terrified from this dream and runs to Charlie Brown's front door, knocking until Charlie Brown answers. When Charlie Brown eventually opens the front door after being woken up, Snoopy runs into the house and makes his way rapidly to Charlie Brown's bed and goes to sleep. Charlie Brown then wonders why Snoopy can't be normal like any other dog. The next day, Charlie Brown stops by Lucy's Psychiatric Help Booth. Lucy tells Charlie Brown that she can help him point out his faults better than anyone else session includes a classic football "kick". At her house, Lucy reveals a slide projector and a screen, onto which slides showing Charlie Brown's myriad faults will be displayed. However, the 'evidence' does not help Charlie Brown at all, and makes him feel even more miserable. On the way to school the next day, Linus encounters Charlie Brown, who tells him about the presentation of slides shown by Lucy the previous evening. As they near the playground, Lucy jokingly comes up to Charlie Brown, and explains that the school is having a spelling bee, and laughs at the thought of him volunteering. Linus, however, thinks that entering the spelling bee is a good idea. His opinion is met by more laughter and insults by Lucy, Patty, and Violet, which sets Charlie's mind to volunteer. Later in class, Charlie Brown nervously volunteers, and manages to beat the other kids in the class when he correctly spells the word "insecure", which happens to be his trademark. The next day, he will be going up against the other kids in the school. Filled with determination, he, Linus, and Snoopy go home and study through the dictionary. With Snoopy's accompaniment, Linus and Charlie sing about some spelling rules. As the school-wide spelling bee kicks off, Charlie's mind is filled with all sorts of words, rules, and doubts, as he is feeling the pressure of his class watching him take on the best spellers in the school. It soon comes down to Charlie Brown, who struggles with the word "perceive", but when Snoopy, who is outside playing a jaw harp, plays the song that helped Charlie Brown remember spelling tips, it clears his mind and Charlie Brown wins the Bee. The kids cheerfully follow him home, singing a song titled "Champion Charlie Brown". Later on, at Charlie Brown's house, Lucy proclaims that Charlie Brown (with his newfound fame) must have an agent, which she would naturally be the best. The others recommend that Charlie Brown should start studying again, which confuses him. Given that he just won the spelling bee Charlie Brown mistakenly thinks that it's all over. The others tell him his victory in the school spelling bee is only the beginning as it has given him the privilege to take part in the Scripps Howard National Spelling Bee held every year in New York City. Charlie's feelings about his victory immediately turn sour, as he finds his feelings about his bad luck once again eating away at him. Soon afterward, Charlie Brown boards the bus for the trip to Manhattan. Linus wishes him luck, but then generously, albeit reluctantly, hands Charlie his blanket for good luck. The kids cheer Charlie on as the bus pulls away.
1163112	Brian Stack is an American actor, comedian, and writer best known for his sketch comedy work on all three Conan O'Brien late-night talk shows, previously working on "Late Night with Conan O'Brien" and "The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien", and on O'Brien's current talk show, "Conan" on TBS. Early life. Stack was born in Chicago, Illinois. He attended Catholic schools from grades 5-12, graduating from St. Viator High School in Arlington Heights, Illinois. He earned an undergraduate degree from Indiana University, where he had worked at their radio station. He began doing improvisational comedy, or improv, in 1987 at the Ark Theater in Madison, Wisconsin, while attending graduate school at University of Wisconsin–Madison, where he earned his Master’s degree. Comedy career. "Late Night with Conan O'Brien". Stack became a sketch writer on "Late Night with Conan O'Brien" in 1997, and served as a writer, actor and editor on the show and after O'Brien's move to "The Tonight Show" in 2009. Stack played many recurring characters on the show, most notably those clad in anachronistic or elaborate outfits, and was known for playing many characters with long beards and mustaches, such as God, Zeus, Socrates, Gandalf, and The Interrupter. Stack made occasional appearances on "The Tonight Show", such as when he played an NRA spokesman who intimates violence to accomplish his agenda.
1102300	Hermann Klaus Hugo Weyl, ForMemRS (; 9 November 1885 – 8 December 1955) was a German mathematician, theoretical physicist and philosopher. Although much of his working life was spent in Zürich, Switzerland and then Princeton, he is associated with the University of Göttingen tradition of mathematics, represented by David Hilbert and Hermann Minkowski. His research has had major significance for theoretical physics as well as purely mathematical disciplines including number theory. He was one of the most influential mathematicians of the twentieth century, and an important member of the Institute for Advanced Study during its early years. Weyl published technical and some general works on space, time, matter, philosophy, logic, symmetry and the history of mathematics. He was one of the first to conceive of combining general relativity with the laws of electromagnetism. While no mathematician of his generation aspired to the 'universalism' of Henri Poincaré or Hilbert, Weyl came as close as anyone. Michael Atiyah, in particular, has commented that whenever he examined a mathematical topic, he found that Weyl had preceded him ("The Mathematical Intelligencer" (1984), vol.6 no.1). Biography. Weyl was born in Elmshorn, a small town near Hamburg, in Germany, and attended the "gymnasium" Christianeum in Altona. From 1904 to 1908 he studied mathematics and physics in both Göttingen and Munich. His doctorate was awarded at the University of Göttingen under the supervision of David Hilbert whom he greatly admired. After taking a teaching post for a few years, he left Göttingen for Zürich to take the chair of mathematics in the ETH Zurich, where he was a colleague of Albert Einstein, who was working out the details of the theory of general relativity. Einstein had a lasting influence on Weyl who became fascinated by mathematical physics. Weyl met Erwin Schrödinger in 1921, who was appointed Professor at the University of Zürich. They were to become close friends over time. Weyl had some sort of childless love affair with Annemarie (Anny) Schrödinger, while Anny helped raise a daughter whom Erwin had with another woman. Weyl left Zürich in 1930 to become Hilbert's successor at Göttingen, leaving when the Nazis assumed power in 1933, particularly as his wife was Jewish. He had been offered one of the first faculty positions at the new Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey, but had declined because he did not desire to leave his homeland. As the political situation in Germany grew worse, he changed his mind and accepted when offered the position again. He remained there until his retirement in 1951. Together with his wife, he spent his time in Princeton and Zürich, and died in Zürich in 1955. Contributions. Distribution of eigenvalues. In 1911 Weyl published "Über die asymptotische Verteilung der Eigenwerte" ("On the asymptotic distribution of eigenvalues") in which he proved that the eigenvalues of the Laplacian in the compact domain are distributed according to the so-called Weyl law. In 1912 he suggested a new proof, based on variational principles. Weyl returned to this topic several times, considered elasticity system and formulated Weyl conjecture These works started an important domain "Asymptotic distribution of eigenvalues" of Modern Analysis. Geometric foundations of manifolds and physics. In 1913, Weyl published "Die Idee der Riemannschen Fläche" ("The Concept of a Riemann Surface"), which gave a unified treatment of Riemann surfaces. In it Weyl utilized point set topology, in order to make Riemann surface theory more rigorous, a model followed in later work on manifolds. He absorbed L. E. J. Brouwer's early work in topology for this purpose. Weyl, as a major figure in the Göttingen school, was fully apprised of Einstein's work from its early days. He tracked the development of relativity physics in his "Raum, Zeit, Materie" ("Space, Time, Matter") from 1918, reaching a 4th edition in 1922. In 1918, he introduced the notion of gauge, and gave the first example of what is now known as a gauge theory. Weyl's gauge theory was an unsuccessful attempt to model the electromagnetic field and the gravitational field as geometrical properties of spacetime. The Weyl tensor in Riemannian geometry is of major importance in understanding the nature of conformal geometry. In 1929, Weyl introduced the concept of the vierbein into general relativity. His overall approach in physics was based on the phenomenological philosophy of Edmund Husserl, specifically Husserl's 1913 "Ideen zu einer reinen Phänomenologie und phänomenologischen Philosophie. Erstes Buch: Allgemeine Einführung in die reine Phänomenologie " (Ideas of a Pure Phenomenology and Phenomenological Philosophy. First Book: General Introduction). Apparently this was Weyl's way of dealing with Einstein's controversial dependence on the phenomenological physics of Ernst Mach. Husserl had reacted strongly to Gottlob Frege's criticism of his first work on the philosophy of arithmetic and was investigating the sense of mathematical and other structures, which Frege had distinguished from empirical reference. Hence there is good reason for viewing gauge theory as it developed from Weyl's ideas as a formalism of physical measurement and not a theory of anything physical, i.e. as scientific formalism. Topological groups, Lie groups and representation theory. From 1923 to 1938, Weyl developed the theory of compact groups, in terms of matrix representations. In the compact Lie group case he proved a fundamental character formula. These results are foundational in understanding the symmetry structure of quantum mechanics, which he put on a group-theoretic basis. This included spinors. Together with the mathematical formulation of quantum mechanics, in large measure due to John von Neumann, this gave the treatment familiar since about 1930. Non-compact groups and their representations, particularly the Heisenberg group, were also streamlined in that specific context, in his 1927 Weyl quantization, the best extant bridge between classical and quantum physics to date. From this time, and certainly much helped by Weyl's expositions, Lie groups and Lie algebras became a mainstream part both of pure mathematics and theoretical physics. His book "The Classical Groups", a seminal if difficult text, reconsidered invariant theory. It covered symmetric groups, general linear groups, orthogonal groups, and symplectic groups and results on their invariants and representations. Harmonic analysis and analytic number theory. Weyl also showed how to use exponential sums in diophantine approximation, with his criterion for uniform distribution mod 1, which was a fundamental step in analytic number theory. This work applied to the Riemann zeta function, as well as additive number theory. It was developed by many others. Foundations of mathematics. In "The Continuum" Weyl developed the logic of predicative analysis using the lower levels of Bertrand Russell's ramified theory of types. He was able to develop most of classical calculus, while using neither the axiom of choice nor proof by contradiction, and avoiding Georg Cantor's infinite sets. Weyl appealed in this period to the radical constructivism of the German romantic, subjective idealist Fichte. Shortly after publishing "The Continuum" Weyl briefly shifted his position wholly to the intuitionism of Brouwer. In "The Continuum", the constructible points exist as discrete entities. Weyl wanted a continuum that was not an aggregate of points. He wrote a controversial article proclaiming that, for himself and L. E. J. Brouwer, "We are the revolution." This article was far more influential in propagating intuitionistic views than the original works of Brouwer himself. George Pólya and Weyl, during a mathematicians' gathering in Zürich (9 February 1918), made a bet concerning the future direction of mathematics. Weyl predicted that in the subsequent 20 years, mathematicians would come to realize the total vagueness of notions such as real numbers, sets, and countability, and moreover, that asking about the truth or falsity of the least upper bound property of the real numbers was as meaningful as asking about truth of the basic assertions of Hegel on the philosophy of nature. Any answer to such a question would be unverifiable, unrelated to experience, and therefore senseless. However, within a few years Weyl decided that Brouwer's intuitionism did put too great restrictions on mathematics, as critics had always said. The "Crisis" article had disturbed Weyl's formalist teacher Hilbert, but later in the 1920s Weyl partially reconciled his position with that of Hilbert. After about 1928 Weyl had apparently decided that mathematical intuitionism was not compatible with his enthusiasm for the phenomenological philosophy of Husserl, as he had apparently earlier thought. In the last decades of his life Weyl emphasized mathematics as "symbolic construction" and moved to a position closer not only to Hilbert but to that of Ernst Cassirer. Weyl however rarely refers to Cassirer, and wrote only brief articles and passages articulating this position. By 1949, Weyl was thoroughly disillusioned with the ultimate value of intuitionism, and wrote: "Mathematics with Brouwer gains its highest intuitive clarity. He succeeds in developing the beginnings of analysis in a natural manner, all the time preserving the contact with intuition much more closely than had been done before. It cannot be denied, however, that in advancing to higher and more general theories the inapplicability of the simple laws of classical logic eventually results in an almost unbearable awkwardness. And the mathematician watches with pain the greater part of his towering edifice which he believed to be built of concrete blocks dissolve into mist before his eyes." Quotes. Weyl's comment, although half a joke, sums up his personality:
1104088	Richard Manning Karp (born January 3, 1935) is an American computer scientist and computational theorist at the University of California, Berkeley, notable for research in the theory of algorithms, for which he received a Turing Award in 1985, The Benjamin Franklin Medal in Computer and Cognitive Science in 2004, and the Kyoto Prize in 2008. Biography. Born to Abraham and Rose Karp in Boston, Massachusetts, Karp has three younger siblings: Robert, David, and Carolyn. He attended Harvard University, where he received his Bachelor's degree in 1955, his Master's degree in 1956, and his Ph.D. in applied mathematics in 1959.
1163168	Paul Leroy Robeson ( April 9, 1898 – January 23, 1976) was an African-American singer and actor who became involved with the Civil Rights Movement. At university, he was an outstanding American football player, then had an international career in singing, as well as acting in theater and cinema. He became politically involved in response to the Spanish Civil War, Fascism, and social injustices. His advocacy of anti-imperialism, affiliation with Communism, and his criticism of the US government caused him to be blacklisted during McCarthyism. Ill health forced him into retirement from his career. To the end he remained unapologetic for the unpopular political stances he took. Robeson won an academic scholarship to Rutgers University, where he became a football All-American and the class valedictorian. He received his LL.B. from Columbia Law School, while playing in the National Football League (NFL). At Columbia, he sang and acted in off-campus productions and, after graduating, he became a participant in the Harlem Renaissance with performances in "The Emperor Jones" and "All God's Chillun Got Wings". Robeson initiated his international artistic résumé with a theatrical role in Great Britain, settling in London for the next several years with his wife Essie. Robeson next appeared as Othello at the Savoy Theatre before becoming an international cinematic star through roles in "Show Boat" and "Sanders of the River". He became increasingly attuned towards the sufferings of all cultures and peoples. Acting against advice, which warned of his economic ruin if he became politically active, he set aside his theatrical career to advocate the cause of the Republican forces of the Spanish Civil War. He then became active in the Council on African Affairs (CAA). During World War II, he supported America's war efforts and won accolades for his portrayal of Othello on Broadway. However, his history of supporting pro-Soviet policies brought scrutiny from the FBI. After the war ended, the CAA was placed on the Attorney General's List of Subversive Organizations (AGLOSO) and Robeson was investigated during the age of McCarthyism. Due to his decision not to recant his public advocacy of pro-Soviet policies, he was denied a passport by the U.S. State Department, and his income, consequently, plummeted. He moved to Harlem and published a periodical critical of US policies. His right to travel was eventually restored by Kent v. Dulles, but his health broke down. He retired and he lived out the remaining years of his life privately in Philadelphia. Early life. Childhood (1898–1915). Paul Robeson was born in Princeton, New Jersey, in 1898, to Reverend William Drew Robeson and Maria Louisa Bustill. His mother was from a prominent Quaker family of mixed ancestry: African, Anglo-American, and Lenape. His father, William, escaped from a plantation in his teens and eventually became the minister of Princeton's Witherspoon Street Presbyterian Church in 1881. Robeson had three brothers: William Drew, Jr. (born 1881), Reeve (born c. 1887), and Ben (born c. 1893); and one sister, Marian (born c. 1895). In 1900, a disagreement between William and white financial supporters of Witherspoon arose with apparent racial undertones, which were prevalent in Princeton. William, who had the support of his entirely black congregation, resigned in 1901. The loss of his position forced him to work menial jobs. Three years later when Robeson was six, his mother, who was nearly blind, tragically died in a house fire. Eventually, William became financially incapable of providing a house for himself and his children still living at home, Ben and Paul, so they moved into the attic of a store in Westfield, New Jersey. William found a stable parsonage at the St. Thomas A. M. E. Zion in 1910, where Robeson would fill in for his father during sermons when he was called away. In 1912, Robeson attended Somerville High School, Somerville, New Jersey, where he performed in "Julius Caesar", "Othello", sang in the chorus, and excelled in football, basketball, baseball and track. His athletic dominance elicited racial taunts which he ignored. Prior to his graduation, he won a statewide academic contest for a scholarship to Rutgers. He took a summer job as a waiter in Narragansett Pier, Rhode Island, where he befriended Fritz Pollard, later to be the first African-American coach in the National Football League. Rutgers University (1915–1919). In late 1915, Robeson became the third African-American student ever enrolled at Rutgers, and the only one at the time. He tried out for the Rutgers Scarlet Knights football team, and his resolve to make the squad was tested as his teammates engaged in unwarranted and excessive play, arguably precipitated by racism. The coach, Foster Sanford, decided he had overcome the provocation and announced that he had made the team. Robeson joined the debate team and sang off-campus for spending money, and on-campus with the Glee Club informally, as membership required attending all-white mixers. He also joined the other collegiate athletic teams. As a sophomore, amidst Rutgers' sesquicentennial celebration, he was benched when a Southern team refused to take the field because the Scarlet Knights had fielded a Negro, Robeson. After a standout junior year of football, he was recognized in "The Crisis" for his athletic, academic, and singing talents. At what should have been a high point of his life, his father fell grievously ill. Robeson took the sole responsibility in caring for him, shuttling between Rutgers and Somerville. His father, who was the "glory of his boyhood years" soon died, and at Rutgers, Robeson expounded on the incongruity of African-Americans fighting to protect America in World War I then, contemporaneously, being bereft of the same opportunities in the US as Whites. He finished university with four annual oratorical triumphs and varsity letters in multiple sports. His play at end won him first-team All-American selection, in both his junior and senior years. Walter Camp considered him the greatest end ever. Academically, he was accepted into Phi Beta Kappa and Cap and Skull. His classmates recognized him by electing him class valedictorian. "The Daily Targum" published a poem featuring his achievements. In his valedictorian speech, he exhorted his classmates to work for equality for all Americans. Columbia Law School (1919–1923). Robeson entered New York University School of Law in the fall of 1919. To support himself, he became an assistant football coach at Lincoln, where he joined the Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity. However, Robeson felt uncomfortable at NYU and moved to Harlem and transferred to Columbia Law School in February 1920. Already known in the black community for his singing, he was selected to perform at the dedication of the Harlem YWCA. He began dating Eslanda "Essie" Goode and after her coaxing, he gave his theatrical debut as "Simon" in Ridgely Torrence's "Simon of Cyrene". After a year of courtship, they were married in August 1921. He was recruited by Pollard to play for the NFL's Akron Pros while Robeson continued his law studies. In the spring, Robeson postponed school to portray Jim in Mary Hoyt Wiborg's "Taboo". He then sang in a chorus in an Off-Broadway production of "Shuffle Along" before he joined "Taboo" in Britain. The play was adapted by Mrs. Patrick Campbell to highlight his singing. After the play ended, he befriended Lawrence Brown, a classically trained musician, before returning to Columbia while playing for the NFL's Milwaukee Badgers. He ended his football career after 1922, and months later, he graduated from law school. Theatrical ascension and ideological transformation (1923–1939). Harlem Renaissance (1923–1927). Robeson worked briefly as a lawyer, but he renounced a career in law due to extant racism. Essie financially supported them and they frequented the social functions at the future Schomburg Center. In December, he landed the lead role of Jim in Eugene O'Neill's "All God's Chillun Got Wings", which culminated with Jim metaphorically consummating his marriage with his white wife by symbolically emasculating himself. "Chillun's" opening was postponed while a nationwide debate occurred over its plot. "Chillun's" delay led to a revival of "The Emperor Jones" with Robeson as Brutus, a role pioneered by Charles Sidney Gilpin. The role terrified and galvanized Robeson as it was practically a 90-minute soliloquy. Reviews declared him an unequivocal success. Though arguably clouded by its controversial subject, his Jim in "Chillun" was less well received. He deflected criticism of its plot by writing that fate had drawn him to the "untrodden path" of drama and the true measure of a culture is in its artistic contributions, and the only true American culture was African-American. The success of his acting placed him in elite social circles and his ascension to fame, which was forcefully aided by Essie, had occurred at a startling pace. Essie's ambition for Robeson was a startling dichotomy to his insouciance. She quit her job, became his agent, and negotiated his first movie role in a silent race film directed by Oscar Micheaux, "Body and Soul". To support a charity for single mothers, he headlined a concert singing spirituals. He performed his repertoire of spirituals on the radio. Brown, who had become renowned while touring with gospel singer Roland Hayes, stumbled on Robeson in Harlem. The two ad-libbed a set of spirituals, with Robeson as lead and Brown as accompanist. This so enthralled them that they booked Provincetown Playhouse for a concert. The pair's rendition of African-American folk songs and spirituals was captivating, and Victor Records signed Robeson to a contract. The Robesons went to London for a revival of "Jones", before spending the rest of the fall on holiday on the French Riviera socializing with Gertrude Stein and Claude McKay. Robeson and Brown performed a series of concert tours in America from January 1926 until May 1927. During a hiatus in New York, Robeson learned that Essie was several months pregnant. Paul Jr. was born while Robeson and Brown toured Europe. Essie experienced complications from the birth, and by mid-December, her health had deteriorated dramatically. Ignoring Essie's objections, her mother wired Robeson and he immediately returned to her bedside. Essie completely recovered after a few months. "Show Boat", "Othello", and marriage difficulties (1928–1932). Robeson played "Joe" in the London production of the American musical "Show Boat", at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane. His rendition of "Ol' Man River" became the benchmark for all future performers of the song. Some black critics were not pleased with the play due to its usage of the word "nigger". It was, none the less, immensely popular with white audiences. He was summoned for a Royal Command Performance at Buckingham Palace as Robeson was befriended by MPs from the House of Commons. "Show Boat" continued for 350 performances and, as of 2001, it remained the Royal's most profitable venture. The Robesons bought a home in Hampstead. He reflected on his life in his diary and wrote that it was all part of a "higher plan" and "God watches over me and guides me. He's with me and lets me fight my own battles and hopes I'll win." However, an incident at the Savoy Grill, wherein he was refused to be seated, sparked him to issue a press release portraying the insult which subsequently became a matter of public debate. Essie had learned early in their marriage that Robeson had been involved in extramarital affairs, but she tolerated them. However, when she discovered that he was having another affair, she unfavorably altered the characterization of him in his biography, and defamed him by describing him with "negative racial stereotypes". Despite her uncovering of this tryst, there was no public evidence that their relationship had soured. In early 1930, they both appeared in the experimental classic "Borderline", and then returned to the West End for his starring role in Shakespeare's "Othello", opposite Peggy Ashcroft as Desdemona. Robeson became the first black actor cast as Othello in Britain since Ira Aldridge. The production received mixed reviews which pointed out Robeson's "highly civilized quality lacking the grand style." Robeson stated the best way to diminish the oppression African Americans faced was for his artistic work to be an example of what "men of my colour" could accomplish rather than to "be a propagandist and make speeches and write articles about what they call the Colour Question." After Essie's discovery of Robeson's affair with Ashcroft, she decided to seek a divorce and they split up. Robeson returned to Broadway as Joe in the 1932 revival of "Show Boat", to critical and popular acclaim. Subsequently, he received, with immense pride, an honorary master's degree from Rutgers. Thereabout, his former football coach, Foster Sanford, advised him that divorcing Essie and marrying Ashcroft would do irreparable damage to his reputation. Ashcroft and Robeson's relationship ended in 1932, following which Robeson and Essie reconciled, although their relationship was permanently scarred. Ideological awakening (1933–1937). Robeson played a theatrical role, virtually gratis, as Joe in "Chillun" in 1933 for several weeks before returning to the US for a starring role in a motion picture, which was "a feat not repeated for more than two decades in the U.S." as Brutus in the film "The Emperor Jones". His acting in "Jones" was well received and "Jones" became the first film starring an African American. On the film set, he rejected any slight to his dignity, despite the widespread Jim Crow atmosphere in the US. Post-production, he returned to England and publicly criticized African Americans' rejection of their own culture. The "New York Amsterdam News" retorted that his comments had made a "jolly well of himself," however, he afterwards declared that he would reject any offers to perform European opera because the music had no connection to his heritage. In early 1934, Robeson enrolled in the School of Oriental and African Studies to study over 20 different languages. His "sudden interest" in African history and its impact on culture coincided with his essay "I Want to be African", wherein he wrote of his desire to embrace his ancestry. He undertook the role of Bosambo in the movie "Sanders of the River", which he felt would render a realistic view of colonial African culture. His friends in the anti-imperialism movement and association with British socialists led him to visit the USSR. Robeson, Essie, and Marie Seton embarked to the USSR on an invitation from Sergei Eisenstein in December 1934. During their trip, a stopover in Berlin enlightened Robeson to the racism in Nazi Germany, and on his arrival in the USSR, he expounded on the irrelevance of his race which he felt in Moscow, where he said "here I am not a Negro but a human being for the first time in my life ... I walk in full human dignity." When "Sanders of the River" was released in 1935, it made him an international movie star. However, his stereotypical portrayal of a colonial African was seen as embarrassing to his stature as an artist and damaging to his reputation. The Commissioner of Nigeria to London protested the film as slanderous to his country, and Robeson thereafter became more politically conscious of his roles. In early 1936 he considered himself primarily apolitical, however he decided to send his son to school in the Soviet Union in order to shield him from racist attitudes. He then played the role of Toussaint Louverture in the eponymous play by C. L. R. James at the Westminster Theatre and appeared in the films "Song of Freedom", "Show Boat", "Big Fella", "My Song Goes Forth", and "King Solomon's Mines". He was internationally recognized as the 10th-most-popular star in British cinema. Spanish Civil War and the Moscow Trials (1937–1939). Robeson believed that the struggle against fascism during the Spanish Civil War was a turning point in his life and transformed him into a political activist. In 1937, he used his concert performances to advocate the Republican cause and the war's refugees. He permanently modified his renditions of "Ol' Man River" from a tragic "song of resignation with a hint of protest implied" into a battle hymn of unwavering defiance. His business agent expressed concern about his political involvement, but Robeson overruled him and decided that contemporary events trumped commercialism. In Wales, he commemorated the Welsh killed while fighting for the Republicans, where he recorded a message which would become his epitaph: "The artist must take sides. He must elect to fight for freedom or slavery. I have made my choice. I had no alternative." After an invitation from J. B. S. Haldane, he traveled to Spain in 1938 because he believed in the International Brigades's cause. He visited the battlefront and provided a morale boost to the Republicans at a time when their victory was unlikely. Back in England, he hosted Jawaharlal Nehru to support Indian independence, whereat Nehru expounded on imperialism's affiliation with Fascism. Robeson reevaluated the direction of his career and decided to focus his attention on utilizing his talents to bring attention to the ordeals of "common people". and subsequently he appeared in the pro-labor play "Plant in the Sun" by Herbert Marshall. With Max Yergan, and the CAA, Robeson became an advocate in the aspirations of African colonialists for political independence. World War II, the Broadway "Othello", Political Activism, and McCarthyism (1939–1957). World War II and the Broadway "Othello" (1939–1945). After the outbreak of World War II, Robeson returned to the US and became America's "no.1 entertainer" with a radio broadcast of "Ballad for Americans", and a role in "The Proud Valley". Nevertheless during an ensuing tour, the Beverly Wilshire Hotel was the only hotel willing to accommodate him due to his race, and he therefore dedicated two hours every afternoon sitting in the lobby "...to ensure that the next time Black come through, they'll have a place to stay." Furthermore, "Native Land" was labeled by the FBI as communist propaganda. After an appearance in "Tales of Manhattan", a production that he felt was "very offensive to my people", he announced that he would no longer act in films because of the demeaning roles available to black. Robeson participated in benefit concerts on behalf of the war effort and at a concert at the Polo Grounds, he met two emissaries from the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee, Solomon Mikhoels and Itzik Feffer Subsequently, Robeson reprised his role of Othello at the Shubert Theatre in 1943, and became the first African American to play the role with a white supporting cast on Broadway. Contemperaneously, he addressed a meeting with Kenesaw Mountain Landis in a failed attempt to convince him to admit black players to Major League Baseball. He toured North America with "Othello" until 1945, and subsequently, his political efforts with the CAA to get colonial powers to discontinue their exploitation of Africa were short-circuited by the United Nations. AGLOSO (1946–1949). After the lynchings of four African Americans, Robeson met with President Truman and admonished Truman that if he did not enact legislation to end lynching, "the Negroes will" "defend themselves". Truman immediately terminated the meeting and declared the time was not right to propose anti-lynching legislation. Subsequently, Robeson publicly called upon all Americans to demand that Congress pass civil rights legislation. About this time, Robeson's belief that trade unionism was crucial to civil rights became a mainstay of his political beliefs as he became proponent of the union activist Revels Cayton. Robeson was later called before the Tenney Committee where he responded to questions about his affiliation with Communist Party (CPUSA) by testifying that he was not a member of the CPUSA. Nevertheless, two organizations with which Robeson was intimately involved, the Civil Rights Congress (CRC) and the CAA, were placed on the Attorney General's List of Subversive Organizations (AGLOSO). Subsequently, he was summoned before the United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary, and when questioned about his affiliation with the Communist Party, he refused to answer, stating: "Some of the most brilliant and distinguished Americans are about to go to jail for the failure to answer that question, and I am going to join them, if necessary." In 1948, Robeson was preeminent in Henry A. Wallace's bid for the President of the United States, during which Robeson traveled to the Deep South, at risk to his own life, to campaign for him. In the ensuing year, Robeson was forced to go overseas to work because his concert performances were canceled at the FBI's behest. While on tour, he spoke at the World Peace Council, whereat, his speech was publicly reported as equating America with a Fascist state—a depiction which he flatly denied. Nevertheless, the speech publicly attributed to him was a catalyst for his becoming an enemy of mainstream America. Robeson refused to subjugate himself to public criticism when he advocated in favor of twelve defendants, including his long-time friend, Benjamin J. Davis, Jr. charged during the Smith Act trials of Communist Party leaders. Robeson traveled to Moscow in June, and was unable to find Itzik Feffer. He let Soviet authorities know that he wanted to see him. Reluctant to lose Robeson as a propagandist for the USSR, the Soviets brought Feffer from prison to him. Feffer told him that Mikhoels had been murdered, and he would be summarily executed. To protect the USSR's reputation, and to keep the right wing of the US from gaining the moral high ground, Robeson denied that any persecution existed in the USSR, and kept the meeting secret for the rest of his life, except from his son. In order to isolate Robeson politically, the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) subpoenad Jackie Robinson to comment on Robeson's Paris speech. Robinson testified that Robeson's statements, "'if accurately reported', were silly'". Days later, the announcement of a concert headlined by Robeson in New York provoked the local press to decry the use of their community to support "subversives" and the Peekskill Riots ensued. Contemporaneously, criticism of Robeson became, even among liberals, de rigueur. Blacklisted (1950–1955). A book reviewed in early 1950 as "the most complete record on college football" failed to list Robeson as ever having played on the Rutgers team and as ever having been an All-American. Months later, NBC canceled Robeson's appearance on Eleanor Roosevelt's television program. Subsequently, the State Department (State) denied Robeson a passport to travel abroad and issued a "stop notice" at all ports because it believed that an isolated existence inside US borders would not only afford him less freedom of expression but also avenge his "extreme advocacy on behalf of the independence of the colonial peoples of Africa." However when Robeson met with State and asked why he was denied a passport, he was told that "his frequent criticism of the treatment of blacks in the United States should not be aired in foreign countries". In 1951, an article titled "Paul Robeson – the Lost Shepherd" was published in "The Crisis" although Paul Jr. suspected it was authored by Earl Brown. J. Edgar Hoover and the United States State Department arranged for the article to be printed and distributed in Africa in order to defame Robeson's reputation and reduce his and Communists' popularity in colonial countries. Another article by Wilkins denounced Robeson as well as the Communist Party USA (CPUSA) in terms consistent with the anti-Communist FBI propaganda. On December 17, 1951, Robeson presented to the United Nations an anti-lynching petition, "We Charge Genocide". The document asserted that the US federal government, by its failure to act against lynching in the US, was "guilty of genocide" under Article II of the UN Genocide Convention. In 1952, Robeson was awarded the International Stalin Prize by the USSR. Unable to travel to Moscow, he accepted the award in New York. In April 1953, shortly after Stalin's death, Robeson penned "To You My Beloved Comrade", praising Stalin as dedicated to peace and a guide to the world: "Through his deep humanity, by his wise understanding, he leaves us a rich and monumental heritage." Robeson's opinion on the USSR kept his passport out of reach and stopped his return to the entertainment industry and the civil rights movement. In his opinion, the USSR was the guarantor of political balance in the world. In a symbolic act of defiance against the travel ban, labor unions in the US and Canada organized a concert at the International Peace Arch on the border between Washington state and the Canadian province of British Columbia. Robeson returned to perform a second concert at the Peace Arch in 1953, and over the next two years, two further concerts were scheduled. In this period, with the encouragement of his friend the Welsh politician Aneurin Bevan, Robeson recorded a number of radio concerts for supporters in Wales. End of McCarthyism (1956–1957). In 1956, Robeson was called before HUAC after he refused to sign an affidavit affirming that he was not a Communist. In his testimony, he invoked the Fifth Amendment and refused to reveal his political affiliations. When he was asked why he had not remained in the USSR because of his affinity with the political ideology of the USSR, he replied that "because my father was a slave and my people died to build United States and, I am going to stay here, and have a part of it just like you and no fascist-minded people will drive me from it!" Robeson's passport was subsequently revoked. Campaigns were launched to protest the passport ban and the restriction of his right to travel over the next four years, but it was to no avail. Nikita Khrushchev's denunciation of Stalinism at the 1956 Party Congress silenced Robeson on Stalin, though Robeson continued to praise the USSR. In 1956, after public pressure brought a one-time exemption to the travel ban, Robeson performed concerts in Canada in March. That year Robeson, along with close friend W. E. B. Du Bois, compared the anti-Stalinist revolution in Hungary to the "same sort of people who overthrew the Spanish Republican Government" and supported the Soviet invasion and suppression of the revolt. An appeal to the Supreme Court of the United States to reinstate his confiscated passport had been rejected, but over the telephone Robeson was able to sing to the 5,000 gathered there as he had earlier in the year to London. Due to the reaction to the promulgation of Robeson's political views, his recordings and films were removed from public distribution, and he was universally condemned in the U.S press. During the height of the Cold War, it became increasingly difficult in the US to hear Robeson sing on commercial radio, buy his music or see his films. Later years (1958–1976). Comeback tours (1958–1960). After the publication of Robeson's "manifesto-autobiography", "Here I Stand", his passport was restored in June 1958 via Kent v. Dulles, and he embarked on a world tour using London as his base. In Moscow in August 1959, he received a tumultuous reception at the Lenin Stadium (Khabarovsk) where he sang classic Russian songs along with American standards. Robeson and Essie then flew to Yalta to rest and spend time with Nikita Khrushchev. On October 11, 1959, Robeson took part in a service at St.Paul's Cathedral, the first black performer to sing there. On a trip to Moscow, Robeson experienced bouts of dizziness and heart problems and was hospitalized for two months while Essie was diagnosed with operable cancer. He recovered and returned to the UK to visit the National Eisteddfod. The State Department had circulated negative literature about him throughout the media in India During his run at the Royal Shakespeare Company playing Othello in Tony Richardson's 1959 production at Stratford-upon-Avon, he befriended actor Andrew Faulds, whose family hosted him in the nearby village of Shottery. In 1960, in what would prove to be his final concert performance in Great Britain, Robeson sang to raise money for the Movement for Colonial Freedom at the Royal Festival Hall. Robeson embarked on a two-month concert tour of Australia and New Zealand in October 1960, with Essie, primarily to generate money, at the behest of Bill Morrow. While in Sydney, he became the first major artist to perform at the construction site of the future Sydney Opera House. After appearing at the Brisbane Festival Hall, they went to Auckland where Robeson reaffirmed his support of Marxism, denounced the inequality faced by the Māori and efforts to denigrate their culture. Thereabout, Robeson publicly stated "...the people of the lands of Socialism want peace dearly". He was introduced to Faith Bandler who enlightened the Robesons to the deprivation of the Australian Aborigines. Robeson, consequently, became enraged and demanded the Australian government provide the Aborigines citizenship and equal rights. He attacked the view of the Aborigines as unsophisticated and uncultured, and declared, "there's no such thing as a "backward" human being, there is only a society which says they are backward." Health breakdown (1961–1963). Back in London, he planned his US return to participate in the Civil Rights Movement, stopping off in Africa, China and Cuba along the way. Essie argued to stay in London, fearing that he'd be "killed" if he returned and would be "unable to make any money" due to harassment by the US government. Robeson disagreed and made his own travel arrangements, stopping off in Moscow in March 1961. During an uncharacteristically wild party in his Moscow hotel room, he locked himself in his bedroom and attempted suicide by cutting his wrists. Three days later, under Soviet medical care, he told his son that he felt extreme paranoia, thought that the walls of the room were moving and, overcome by a powerful sense of emptiness and depression, tried to take his own life. Paul Jr. believed that his father's health problems stemmed from attempts by CIA and MI5 to "neutralize" his father. He remembered that his father had had such fears prior to his prostate operation. He said that three doctors treating Robeson in London and New York had been CIA contractors, and that his father's symptoms resulted from being "subjected to mind depatterning under MKULTRA", a secret CIA programme. Martin Duberman claimed that Robeson's health breakdown was probably brought on by a combination of factors including extreme emotional and physical stress, bipolar depression, exhaustion and the beginning of circulatory and heart problems. "ven without an organic predisposition and accumulated pressures of government harassment he might have been susceptible to a breakdown." Robeson stayed at the Barvikha Sanatorium until September 1961, when he left for London. There his depression reemerged, and after another period of recuperation in Moscow, he returned to London. Three days after arriving back, he became suicidal and suffered a panic attack while passing the Soviet Embassy. He was admitted to The Priory hospital, where he underwent electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) and was given heavy doses of drugs for nearly two years, with no accompanying psychotherapy. During his treatment at the Priory, Robeson was being monitored by the British MI5. Both intelligence services were well aware of Robeson's suicidal state of mind. An FBI memo described Robeson's debilitated condition, remarking that his "death would be much publicized" and would be used for Communist propaganda, necessitating continued surveillance. Numerous memos advised that Robeson should be denied a passport renewal which would ostensibly jeopardize his fragile health and his recovery process. In August 1963, disturbed about his treatment, friends had him transferred to the Buch Clinic in East Berlin. Given psychotherapy and less medication, his physicians found him still "completely without initiative" and they expressed "doubt and anger" about the "high level of barbiturates and ECT" that had been administered in London. He rapidly improved, though his doctor stressed that "what little is left of Paul's health must be quietly conserved." Retirement (1963–1976). In 1963, Robeson returned to the US and for the remainder of his life lived in seclusion. He momentarily assumed a role in the civil rights movement, making a few major public appearances before falling seriously ill during a tour. Double pneumonia and a kidney blockage in 1965 nearly killed him. Robeson was contacted by both Bayard Rustin and James L. Farmer, Jr. about the possibility of becoming involved with the mainstream of the Civil Rights movement. Because of Rustin's past anti-Communist stances, Robeson declined to meet with him. Robeson eventually met with Farmer, but because he was asked to denounce Communism and the USSR in order to assume a place in the mainstream, Robeson adamantly declined. After Essie died in December 1965, Robeson moved in with his son's family in New York City and in 1968 he settled at his sister's home in Philadelphia. Numerous celebrations were held in honor of Robeson over the next several years, including at public arenas that had previously shunned him, but he saw few visitors aside from close friends and gave few statements apart from messages to support current civil rights and international movements, feeling that his record "spoke for itself". At a Carnegie Hall tribute to mark his 75th birthday in 1973, he was unable to attend, but a taped message from him was played that said: "Though I have not been able to be active for several years, I want you to know that I am the same Paul, dedicated as ever to the worldwide cause of humanity for freedom, peace and brotherhood." Death, funeral, and public response. On January 23, 1976, following complications of a stroke, Robeson died in Philadelphia at the age of 77. He lay in state in Harlem and his funeral was held at his brother Ben's former parsonage, Mother AME Zion Church, where Bishop J. Clinton Hoggard performed the eulogy. His pall bearers included Harry Belafonte, Pollard, and others. He was interred in the Ferncliff Cemetery in Hartsdale, New York. According to biographer, Martin Duberman, contemporary post-mortem reflections on Robeson's life in "white [American press...ignored the continuing inability of white America to tolerate a black maverick who refused to bend, ...downplayed the racist component central to his persecution his life", as they "paid him gingerly respect and tipped their hat to him as a 'great American,'" while the black American press, "which had never, overall, been as hostile to Robeson the white American press had, opined that his life would '...would always be a challenge to white and Black America.'" Legacy and honors. Early in his life, he was one of the most influential participants in the Harlem Renaissance. Few people have ever achieved his level of excellence in athletics and academics. His achievements were all the more incredible given the barriers of racism that he had to surmount. Early in his theatrical career, his drawing attention of the contemporaneous racism in England brought public awareness to a problem that had been thought previously solved and his re-emphasis on the Negro spirituals was influential to the music of Great Britain. Robeson brought Negro spirituals into the center of the American songbook. His theatrical performances have been recognized as the first to display dignity for black actors and pride in African heritage, and he was the first artist to refuse to play to live, segregated audiences. "After McCarthyism, stand on anti-colonialism in the 1940s would never again have a voice in American politics, but the independence movements of the late 1950s and 1960s would vindicate his anti-colonial ." Robeson's failure to act to prevent Feffer's extermination by the government of the USSR, however, "was not his finest hour". In light of Khrushchev's revelations of the atrocities committed by Stalin's regime, Robeson's unrepentant support of Stalin was a stain on his lifelong human rights activism. His portrayal of Othello in London has been considered the high point in English Shakespearean theatre in the 20th century. Several public and private establishments he was associated with have been landmarked, or named after him. "" won an Academy Award for best short documentary in 1980. In 1995, he was named to the College Football Hall of Fame. In the centenary of his birth, which was commemorated around the world, he was awarded a Lifetime Achievement Grammy Award, as well as a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Beginning in 1978, Robeson's films were finally shown on American television, with "Show Boat" debuting on cable television in 1983. , the run of "Othello" starring Robeson was the longest-running production of a Shakespeare play ever staged on Broadway. He received a Donaldson Award for his performance. Subsequently, he received the Spingarn medal from the NAACP. His starring role as an African American in the film "was a feat not repeated for more than two decades in the U.S. "" won an Academy Award for best short documentary in 1980. Robeson left Australia as a respected, albeit controversial, figure and his support for Aboriginal rights had a profound effect in Australia over the next decade. Robeson archives exist at the Academy of Arts; Howard University, and the Schomburg Center. In 2010, Susan Robeson launched a project by Swansea University and the Welsh Assembly to create an online learning resource in her grandfather's memory. "Robeson connected his own life and history not only to his fellow Americans and to his people in the South but to all the people of Africa and its diaspora whose lives had been fundamentally shaped by the same processes that had brought his foremothers and forefathers to America." While a consensus definition of his legacy remains controversial, to deny his courage in the face of public and governmental pressure would be to defame his courage. In 2002, a blue plaque was unveiled by English Heritage on the house in Hampstead where Robeson lived in 1929–30. The U.S. Postal Service issued a 37 cent stamp honoring Robeson in 2004.
587051	Karan Singh Grover (born on February 23, 1982) is an Indian television actor and model. He began his television career with "Kitni Mast Hai Zindagi" on MTV India. Grover played the character of Dr. Armaan Mallik in Dill Mill Gayye on Star One and Asad Ahmed Khan in Zee TV's show Qubool Hai. Personal life. Karan Singh Grover was born on February 23, 1982 in Delhi, India to a Punjabi Sikh family hailing from Ambala, Haryana. He has one younger brother Ishmeet Singh. During his childhood, Karan and his family moved to Al Khobar, Saudi Arabia, he studied at International Indian School Dammam. In 2000, he moved back to Mumbai and pursued a degree in Hotel Management from IHM Mumbai, Dadar Catering College. He was in a band during his college days called the Thousand Decibels. After completing his degree, Karan moved to Muscat, Oman where his family was located and started working at the Sheraton Hotel as a marketing executive for about a year. He later returned to India to pursue a career in modeling and participated in the Gladrags Mega Model Manhunt contest in 2004. He won the award for the "Most Popular Model". Karan married Jennifer Winget, his friend and co-star from Dill Mill Gayye and Kasautii Zindagii Kay, in a private ceremony on April 9, 2012.
1016250	Sammi Cheng Sau-Man is a Hong Kong Cantopop singer and actress who has been successful in the Hong Kong music and film industry. Sammi has been called a diva and has been one of the most prominent female singers in Hong Kong since the 1990s. Her albums have sold more than 25 million copies through Asia-pacific, a record-breaking achievement. Most notably in the 1990s, she was dubbed by the media as the "Cantopop Queen". Having success in over 20 years in entertainment industry, Sammi has been regarded as one of the most notable Hong Kong artists known in Asia Pacific. Sammi Cheng breaks the record of having the most best sales albums and The Best Sales Local Female Vocalist awards in the Hong Kong Cantonpop industry since her debut. From 1993 to 2010, Sammi Cheng won a total of 12 Top Female Vocalist awards, 14 The Best Sales Local Female Vocalist Awards and has 7 albums that are The Best Sales Cantonese Release of year. She had also previously won the Most Popular Hong Kong Female Artist Award in annual Top Ten Jade Solid Gold Awards Presentation for three times, and in a year winning also the Gold Song Gold Award, the highest-ranked award which is the last to be presented at the ceremony. She had produced over 80 studio albums, 9 live concert albums, over 110 singles (songs) with also over 30 cover songs, had received around 200 total awards from acting to singing, performed in over 20 films which many received box-office hit, starred in 7 TV dramas in early years, had held over 100 concerts up to date with over 12 concert tours. She is also being recognized as the leading Asian female singer whom brought in unique fashion to singing performance especially in her concerts. Early life. Sammi Cheng was previously named Twinnie Cheng. Contrary to popular belief, "Twinnie" is not her birth name. The name came about when Sammi was still in school and her English Language teacher wanted everyone in class to have an English name. When Sammi turned to her sister for help, her sister came up with the name "Twinnie". The name was later changed to "Sammi" as "Sammi" sounds a little like "Sau Man". Cheng received her education at SKH St. Peter's Primary School and Tang Shiu Kin Victoria Government Secondary School. She has three sisters and one brother. Two of her sisters are twins. Career. Music. Sammi Cheng entered the entertainment industry at the age of 16 through a high profile, annual TV singing contest, the New Talent Singing Awards in 1988. Although she came in third in the competition, the sponsoring record company, Capital Artists, saw her potential and offered her a recording contract. Cheng at the time was still in school, and had to balance her studies with her rising singing career. Before finishing school, Sammi had managed to release 3 full-length studio albums: "Sammi", "Holiday" and "Never Too Late". One of her first major award was the 1990 RTHK Top 10 Gold Songs Awards, where she was recognized as a best new prospect. In 1993, Cheng realized that in order to rise from a top B-list artist to an A-list artist, she had to create a unique image for herself. She capitalized on the attention received from her duet with artist Andy Hui, "Do you really have me in your heart?" (其實你心裡有沒有我), winning the 1993 Jade Solid Gold Top 10 Awards with that song. Cheng then went through a complete 180-degree transformation, dying her hair orange, changing her style. Her 4th studio album "Sammi's Happy Maze" (鄭秀文的快樂迷宮) was also released, which include the hit single "Chotto Matte" (Chotto 等等). Her new image fitted well with the new single, which was a remake of a very upbeat Japanese song by Maki Ohguro. The success helped Sammi and boosted her singing career. In 1994 she continued to capitalize on her wild, new image. Her first album of that year was "Big Revenge" (大報復). The album included the mega hit "Ding Dong" (叮噹), which became one of Sammi's all-time signature songs. But with her new fame also came a lot of backlash from the media. Critics pointed out that Sammi purposely westernized her Cantonese. Instead of saying "Ding Dong", Sammi pronounced it as "Deen Dong". Despite the criticism, the song was one of most popular dance songs of that year. In 1994 the racy and controversial cut of "Ten Commandments" (十誡) was banned from the radio for a few days after its initial airplay of the track including tiny bits of what can be recognized as pornography soundtrack. In 1995 Cheng disappeared from the public eye for nearly half a year. Later that year, it was revealed that Warner Music company had signed her. She let her hair color return to black and temporarily abandoned the wild image she used to have. In 1995 she released her first album "Missing you" (捨不得你). In 1996, the company decided it was time for Sammi to expand her market and fan base beyond Hong Kong. They released her first Mandarin album, "Worth It" (值得). The album was number one on the Taiwan IFPI chart for six consecutive weeks. She won a number of awards, most notably she was voted back-to-back as the most popular female artist by TVB from 1996 to 1997.She went on to win this top female award again in year 2001 too. She would finish that year with her first concert titled "Sammi's X-Dimension Concert" (鄭秀文X空間演唱會). In 1998 she was also a featured star in a Heineken sponsored Music Horizons concert along with international singers such as Boyz II Men and Julian Lennon. By the time Cheng was 24 years old, she had already released four greatest hits albums. In the 1990s, another female star, Faye Wong was one of her main rivals. When they were on stage together, they would be cold to one another. The rivalry was confirmed in the 1999 TVB music award night. Both Wong and Cheng were arranged to sit next to each other backstage. Cheng avoided Wong by repeatedly going off stage to fix her make-up. In addition, her fans were angry and hissed at Faye Wong when she went on stage to receive an award. Wong herself has insisted that the rivalry wasn't true, and that she was friendly toward Cheng. In July 2004, she held 7 nights of "Sammi Vs Sammi" concerts in Hong Kong. She also broke the record as being the youngest female singer to hold more than 50 accumulated concert nights in the city. Acting. Cheng's acting career began with the TVB series "Life of His Own" in 1991. A year later she would begin her film career with the movie "Best of the Best" (飛虎精英之人間有情) in 1992 with fellow cantopop star Jacky Cheung. She would follow with another comedy film "Feel 100%" (百分百感覺) with Ekin Cheng and Gigi Leung. In the late 1990s during the slump of the HK film industry she staged a box office revolution by starring in the film "Needing You..." by acclaimed director Johnny To, co-starring Andy Lau and the movie "Summer Holidiay" in 2000. The films were hits at the box office hit in all South East Asia regions, and Hong Kong has cumulated nearly HK$60 million at the box office. The "Needing You..." VCD received a sold out record of more than 200,000 copies. From this film, she was also a nominee for "Best Actress" as well as taking part in singing the "Best original film song" in the 2001 Hong Kong Film Award. Following the success of those movies she starred in a few more including "Wu Yen", "Love on a Diet", "Marry a Rich Man", "My Left Eye Sees Ghosts" and many more. At the 62nd Venice International Film Festival Cheng was one of the front runner for the "Best actress" award for the film "Everlasting Regret" in 2005. Other contenders for the award included Monica Bellucci, Gwyneth Paltrow, Lee Young-ae and Isabelle Huppert. Sammi had been nominated six times in Hong Kong Film Awards for best actress, beginning from her performance in 'Needing You' (2001), triple nominations in 2002 for 'Fighting for Love', 'Wu Yen' and 'Love on a Diet', in 2006 for 'Everlasting Regret' and most recently in 2012 for 'Romancing in Thin Air' but failed to win any. This made her to be the actress with most number of nominations as best actress in Hong Kong Film Awards but without any win. Nevertheless, her acting is always praised for being entertaining and relaxing. Advertisements. Cheng changes her look and image for every album, which enables her to gain extensive attention and appreciation from the music professional and the public. Sammi is a trendsetter of hair-coloring and has been chosen to be one of the Top Ten fashionable celebrities in Hong Kong. She has been signed and endorsed by many companies. Some of the bigger endorsements include SK-II skin care and Mona Lisa bridal service. Her first album with Warner Music, "Can't Give You Up" (捨不得你) released 3 hit singles, "Gentlemen, you are so fine today" (男仕今天你很好), "Can't Give You Up" (捨不得你) and "The Mourning Song for Love" (愛的輓歌). She was selected as the prominent celebrity for the endorsement of Panasonic using "Can't Give You Up" (捨不得你) as the theme song. Post-break career. Break (2005-2007). In 2005, Cheng had only one feature film release and no music projects. She became a representative for Veeko and Titus, a fashion and watch brand in Hong Kong, respectively. She also began writing Saturday columns for Mingpao magazine. In 2006, she released another greatest hits album, but there were no new tracks. The break was taken to recoup her energy from the entertainment industry. During a break lasting more than a 1,000 days, she reflected upon her life, and became a born-again Christian. Show Mi Tour. After taking a break for about 2 years, she re-invented herself again, and held her 6th concert in HK from 18 to 25 May 2007 titled "Show Mi"(Mi being the nickname of SamMI given by her fans). Due to the huge demand for tickets, the four performances was expanded to eight. She returned to entertain at the age of 34, and invited fellow star Andy Lau and Denise Ho to perform with her. At the end of the first show, audience members continued to shout 'encore' for 15 minutes until Sammi came back out and sang "Our Theme Song" (我們的主題曲). The concert was expanded to the Show Mi Tour. Community work. In 2003 Cheng performed at the to raise funds for SARS affected families. She had participated in the 2008 Chinese winter storm support effort where many artists including Andy Lau, Alan Tam, Kelly Chen, etc. recorded a song called "Warmth in the Snow" in support of those effected by the storm. She was also a participant of the Artistes 512 Fund Raising Campaign. In April 2008, she participated in the activities of World Vision. She traveled to Laos with fellow singer Gigi Leung, also a World Vision volunteer, to experience for themselves the struggles of the local people and children. They also visited the local children there to find out more on their situation where food and supplies are lacking. When Sammi returned to Hong Kong, she and Leung were invited to a radio program 903 to talk about the experience; she responded by announcing she had "adopted" 24 children.
1067494	Blood Feast is a 1963 American low budget horror gore film directed by Herschell Gordon Lewis. It concerns a psychopathic food caterer who kills people so that he can include their body parts in his meals and perform sacrifices to his "Egyptian goddess" Ishtar. It is considered the first splatter film, and is notable for its groundbreaking depictions of on-screen gore. It was followed by a belated sequel, "", in 2002. Plot. In a suburban Miami house, a young woman arrives home and turns on her portable radio which broadcasts news of the latest of several recent murders. The woman turns off the radio and begins to take a bath. Suddenly a gray-haired, wild-eyed man appears in the bathroom and brutally stabs the woman in her left eye, killing her. The man hacks off her left leg with a machete and leaves with it. The next day at the police station, detective Pete Thornton reviews the latest murder, noting that a homicidal maniac has killed four women without leaving any clues. The police chief advises him to continue to pursue the case. At Fuad Ramses Catering store, wealthy socialite Dorothy Freemont arrives, where she arranges for Fuad to cater a party for her daughter Suzette. Fuad agrees and tells Mrs. Freemont that what he's preparing hasn't been prepared for over 5,000 years. Mrs. Freemont wants the catering done in two weeks, and Fuad assures her that he will have enough time to procure the last of his needed ingredients. After Mrs. Freemont leaves, Fuad ventures to the back storage room where he has displayed a large gold statue of the "mother of veiled darkness," the goddess Ishtar. Fuad is preparing a "blood feast" – a huge vat containing the dead women's body parts – that will ensure the goddess's resurrection.
1042925	Glynis Johns (born 5 October 1923) is a Welsh stage and film actress, dancer, pianist and singer (notably of "Send in the Clowns", which she originated in Stephen Sondheim's "A Little Night Music," and "Sister Suffragette" which was written for her for Walt Disney's musical motion picture, "Mary Poppins" written by the Sherman Brothers). Early life. Johns was born in Pretoria, South Africa, the daughter of Alys Maude (née Steele-Payne), a pianist, and Mervyn Johns (1899–1992), the British stage and film actor. Her roots are in West Wales, and she was born in Pretoria while her parents were performing on tour there. She attended Clifton High School in Bristol for a short time. Career. Johns made her first stage appearance in Buckie's Bears as a child ballerina at the Garrick Theatre in 1935. She made her 1938 film debut in the movie version of Winifred Holtby's novel "South Riding". In 1944, she appeared with her father in "Halfway House" and in 1948 starred as a mermaid in "Miranda" (Johns later reprised the role in a 1954 sequel, "Mad About Men"). In 1952, she co-starred in the movie version of Arnold Bennett's novel "The Card". She was voted by British exhibitors the tenth most popular local star at the box office in 1951 and 1952.
1377545	The Scream Team is a Disney Channel Original Movie. The movie was aired October 4, 2002 in the U.S. Plot. Two children move into a town where their grandfather has just died. They later discover that a society of ghosts are searching for their grandfather's lost soul. The children decide to find the soul but then find out that an evil ghost has stolen it. The children join forces with the Soul Patrol, a group of dead people who search for ghosts, to find the soul and destroy the evil ghost. In the end they discover that the evil ghost was really a misunderstood inventor whose wife was killed in a terrible accident with one of his inventions and the townspeople thinks he murdered her on purpose. He ultimately captures the Soul Patrol but the children manage to get him to stop by revealing the truth. He releases all of the trapped spirits and finally moves on. The children and their father return home to find the grandfather's spirit waiting for them having been given a couple of hours by the Soul Patrol to talk to his family. He reveals how proud he is of his son, something he never did in life and the grandfather's spirit and the dad spend a couple hours catching up before the grandfather finally moves on to the afterlife. The family decides to stay in town which is changing from bashing the formerly evil ghost to the truth about him.
1099041	In mathematics, a low-discrepancy sequence is a sequence with the property that for all values of "N", its subsequence "x"1, ..., "x""N" has a low discrepancy. Roughly speaking, the discrepancy of a sequence is low if the proportion of points in the sequence falling into an arbitrary set "B" is close to proportional to the measure of "B", as would happen on average (but not for particular samples) in the case of an equidistributed sequence. Specific definitions of discrepancy differ regarding the choice of "B" (hyperspheres, hypercubes, etc.) and how the discrepancy for every B is computed (usually normalized) and combined (usually by taking the worst value). Low-discrepancy sequences are also called quasi-random or sub-random sequences, due to their common use as a replacement of uniformly distributed random numbers. The "quasi" modifier is used to denote more clearly that the values of a low-discrepancy sequence are neither random nor pseudorandom, but such sequences share some properties of random variables and in certain applications such as the quasi-Monte Carlo method their lower discrepancy is an important advantage. At least three methods of numerical integration can be phrased as follows. Given a set {"x"1, ..., "x""N"} in the interval [0,1], approximate the integral of a function "f" as the average of the function evaluated at those points: If the points are chosen as "x""i" = "i"/"N", this is the "rectangle rule". If the points are chosen to be randomly (or pseudorandomly) distributed, this is the "Monte Carlo method". If the points are chosen as elements of a low-discrepancy sequence, this is the "quasi-Monte Carlo method". A remarkable result, the Koksma–Hlawka inequality (stated below), shows that the error of such a method can be bounded by the product of two terms, one of which depends only on "f", and the other one is the discrepancy of the set {"x"1, ..., "x""N"}. It is convenient to construct the set {"x"1, ..., "x""N"} in such a way that if a set with "N"+1 elements is constructed, the previous "N" elements need not be recomputed. The rectangle rule uses points set which have low discrepancy, but in general the elements must be recomputed if "N" is increased. Elements need not be recomputed in the Monte Carlo method if "N" is increased, but the point sets do not have minimal discrepancy. By using low-discrepancy sequences, the quasi-Monte Carlo method has the desirable features of the other two methods. Definition of discrepancy. The "discrepancy" of a set P = {"x"1, ..., "x""N"} is defined, using Niederreiter's notation, as where λ"s" is the "s"-dimensional Lebesgue measure, "A"("B";"P") is the number of points in "P" that fall into "B", and "J" is the set of "s"-dimensional intervals or boxes of the form where formula_4. The "star-discrepancy" "D"*"N"("P") is defined similarly, except that the supremum is taken over the set "J"* of intervals of the form where "u""i" is in the half-open interval [0, 1). The two are related by Graphical examples. The points plotted below are the first 100, 1000, and 10000 elements in a sequence of the Sobol' type. For comparison, 10000 elements of a sequence of pseudorandom points are also shown. The low-discrepancy sequence was generated by TOMS algorithm 659. An implementation of the algorithm in Fortran is available from Netlib. The Koksma–Hlawka inequality. Let Ī"s" be the "s"-dimensional unit cube, Ī"s" = 1 × ... × 1. Let "f" have bounded variation "V(f)" on Ī"s" in the sense of Hardy and Krause. Then for any "x"1, ..., "x""N" in "I""s" = [0, 1) × ... × [0, 1), The Koksma-Hlawka inequality is sharp in the following sense: For any point set {"x"1...,"x"N} in "I"s and any formula_8, there is a function "f" with bounded variation and "V(f)=1" such that Therefore, the quality of a numerical integration rule depends only on the discrepancy D*N("x"1...,"x"N). The formula of Hlawka-Zaremba. Let formula_10. For formula_11 we write and denote by formula_13 the point obtained from "x" by replacing the coordinates not in "u" by formula_14. Then The formula_16 version of the Koksma–Hlawka inequality. Applying the Cauchy-Schwarz inequality for integrals and sums to the Hlawka-Zaremba identity, we obtain an formula_16 version of the Koksma–Hlawka inequality: where and The Erdős–Turán–Koksma inequality. It is computationally hard to find the exact value of the discrepancy of large point sets. The Erdős–Turán–Koksma inequality provides an upper bound. Let "x"1...,"x"N be points in "I"s and "H" be an arbitrary positive integer. Then where The main conjectures. Conjecture 1. There is a constant "c"s depending only on the dimension "s", such that for any finite point set {"x"1...,"x"N}. Conjecture 2. There is a constant "c"'s depending only on "s", such that for at least one "N" for any infinite sequence "x"1,"x"2,"x"3... These conjectures are equivalent. They have been proved for "s" ≤ 2 by W. M. Schmidt. In higher dimensions, the corresponding problem is still open. The best-known lower bounds are due to K. F. Roth. The best-known sequences. Constructions of sequences are known such that where "C" is a certain constant, depending on the sequence. After Conjecture 2, these sequences are believed to have the best possible order of convergence. See also: van der Corput sequence, Halton sequences, Sobol sequences. Lower bounds. Let "s" = 1. Then for any finite point set {"x"1, ..., "x""N"}. Let "s" = 2. W. M. Schmidt proved that for any finite point set {"x"1, ..., "x""N"}, where For arbitrary dimensions "s" > 1, K.F. Roth proved that for any finite point set {"x"1, ..., "x""N"}. This bound is the best known for "s" > 3.
1790585	Dr. Who and the Daleks (1965) was the first of two "Doctor Who" films made by Amicus Productions in the 1960s. It was followed by "" The film features Peter Cushing as Dr. Who, Roberta Tovey as Susan, Jennie Linden as Barbara, and Roy Castle as Ian. It is based on the second serial of the British science fiction "Doctor Who" television programme, "The Daleks", produced by the BBC. Filmed in Technicolor, it is the first "Doctor Who" story to be made in colour and in a widescreen format. The television series continued to be made in black-and-white until 1969 and not in widescreen until the revival of the series in 2005. The film was not intended to form part of the ongoing storylines of the television series. Elements from the programme were used, however, such as various characters, the Daleks and a police box time machine, albeit in re-imagined forms. Plot. Dr. Who (Cushing) and his granddaughters, Susan (Tovey) and Barbara (Linden), show Barbara's boyfriend Ian (Castle) the Doctor's latest invention, a time machine called TARDIS. When Ian accidentally activates the machine it transports them to a petrified jungle on a world devastated by an ancient nuclear war, fought between the Daleks and the Thals. (Although the planet is not named in the film, in its sequel it is retroactively revealed to be called Skaro, matching the name given in the television series.) At the conclusion of the war the Daleks, heavily mutated by radiation, encased themselves in protective machines and retreated into their city. The humanoid Thals survived the fallout through the use of an anti-radiation drug and became a peaceful race of farmers. The Thals' crops have recently failed, however, and they have journeyed to the petrified jungle to seek help from their former enemies. The Daleks, while determined to become the dominant race on the planet, are unable to leave the city due to their vulnerability to radiation and reliance on static electricity to power their travel machines. Ian and Barbara are unnerved by the jungle and demand to return to London but the Doctor, eager to investigate the city, fakes a leak in one of the vital TARDIS fluid links to keep them on the planet. The group decide to search the city for the mercury needed to refill the link, stumbling across a case of Thal drug vials as they leave TARDIS. In the city the Doctor, on reading a Geiger counter, realises that the planet is radioactive and in view of the fact that they are feeling unwell, deduces that they are developing radiation sickness. Suddenly, the Daleks appear and capture the travellers, confining them to a cell and seizing the Doctor's fluid link for inspection. The Daleks know of the Thal drug and want to reproduce it in large quantities so that they can leave the city and exterminate the Thals. They offer to let the humans use some of the drug to cure their sickness if the vials left outside TARDIS are brought to the city. Whilst carrying out the task Susan encounters Alydon, the Thal leader who left the vials. Alydon gives Susan a secondary drug supply to use in case the Daleks deviate from their promise and also lends her his plastic cape. Upon Susan's return to the city the Daleks discover her secret drug supply but allow the humans to treat themselves with it. They then summon Susan to write a letter to the Thals, informing them that they wish to end post-war hostilities and will leave food in their control room as an act of friendship. The adventurers discover that when the Thals arrive, however, they will be ambushed and exterminated. When a Dalek comes to the cell to deliver food and water, the Doctor and his companions immobilise it by forcing it onto Susan's cape, thus insulating it from the electrically charged metal floor. Ian takes the place of the creature inside the casing and notifies another Dalek that he is taking the Doctor, Barbara and Susan to the control room for questioning. Now free, the travellers shout a warning to the Thals who are entering the city and escape with them into the jungle, but not before an elderly man, Temmosus, is killed by the Daleks. Later the Daleks test the Thal drug on a number of themselves but find that it causes disastrous side effects. With no way of leaving the city, they decide to detonate a neutron bomb to increase the radiation on Skaro to a level which not even the Thals can survive. At the Thal camp the Doctor urges Alydon to fight the Daleks to secure a safe future for his species. Alydon insists that the Thals are pacifist, but the Doctor tests this claim by ordering Ian to take Dyoni, Alydon's love, to the Daleks in exchange for the confiscated fluid link. Alydon punches Ian to the ground, showing the Thals that they can fight for things they care about. Alydon, Susan and the Doctor lead the tribe to the front entrance of the city, where they attempt to confuse the enemy's scanners by reflecting light off small mirrors to give the impression of greater numbers. The plan fails when the Daleks appear and the Thals scatter, unable to prevent Susan and the Doctor from being captured. Meanwhile, Ian and Barbara, guided by the Thals Ganatus, Antodus and Elyon, set out to infiltrate the city from the rear. While navigating a swamp Elyon is killed by a marsh-dwelling mutation and the party is eventually forced to jump a chasm to proceed any further. Antodus falls short and plunges into the void, but manages to cling to the uneven rock face and is pulled up by the others. In the city control room the Daleks ignore the Doctor's appeals as they start the bomb countdown. Ian, Barbara, Ganatus and Antodus penetrate the city and join Alydon and the rest of the Thals, who have returned determined to rescue Susan and the Doctor. The Thals and humans enter the control room and struggle with the Daleks while the Doctor yells for someone to stop the bomb detonation. Ian attracts the Daleks' attention and dives for cover as they fire at him in unison. The Daleks inadvertently destroy their own control console, disabling themselves and freezing the countdown. The Doctor then retrieves the TARDIS fluid link. In the jungle, the Thals bid farewell to the Doctor and his companions and express their gratitude with special gifts. When the travellers depart in TARDIS they materialise not in London, however, but on a battlefield in front of an advancing Roman army. Daleks. The Daleks were redesigned slightly for their appearance in the film, with larger base sections making them taller and more imposing (TV Daleks were only about five feet high), distinctive red dome lights and a number being fitted with a two-jawed mechanical claw instead of a plunger. They were also given more colourful paint schemes with standard Daleks featuring blue domes, skirt balls and fenders, and gold collars. A Dalek leader was also seen painted predominantly in black, with a second in command painted in red. Originally the Daleks were going to be armed with flamethrowers, but these were vetoed on health and safety grounds and for fear of being too frightening for a young audience. Instead the guns were rigged to produce jets of CO2 gas from internally mounted fire extinguishers. Some of the Daleks used in the background for crowd scenes were constructed from moulded fibreglass, and can be distinguished by the slightly different shape of the brass collars around their midsections. Three of the movie Dalek models were hired by the BBC and used in the serial "The Chase". As the film was not released until after "The Chase", this film actually marks those movie Daleks' second appearance. Production. Home video. Both films, plus the Dalekmania documentary, were released on 20 November 2001 as a three-disc DVD boxset (Region 1). As the set was released by Continental Distributing and not the BBC, movie poster-like covers were used for all three boxes instead of the Classic Series style and logo used by the Corporation. In response, several fans have created alternative covers for download that mirror the official BBC covers used in various regions. A two-disc DVD boxset was released in the UK in 2006 containing both films, plus the Dalekmania documentary. The Italian and French language versions of the film shown in the Dalekmania documentary were not included. A Blu-ray was released in the UK on 27 May 2013. The film was released on video on demand on 23 May 2013 from RiffTrax. This version features satirical commentary done by the former stars of Mystery Science Theater 3000 - Michael J. Nelson, Kevin Murphy, and Bill Corbett. Reception. "Halliwell's Film Guide" described the film as "limply put together, and only for indulgent children." "Radio Times" was more favourable, awarding the film three stars out of five and stating "this spin-off lacks the bite and inventiveness that set the landmark series apart, unwisely injecting humour into the sparse scenario, and the cheap art direction is strictly '101 Uses for Pink Plastic Sheeting'. However, despite the many faults, it's still a fun ride for both the uninitiated and die-hard fans alike."
1161878	Herta Ware (June 9, 1917 - August 15, 2005) was an American actress and political activist. Early life. Ware was born Herta Schwartz in Wilmington, Delaware, the daughter of Helen Ware, a musician and violin teacher, and Lazlo Schwartz, an actor who was born in Budapest. Her mother's brother was activist Harold Ware and her maternal grandmother was labor organizer and socialist Ella Reeve Bloor. Her father was Jewish and her mother was from a Christian background. Career. Ware made her Broadway debut in "Let Freedom Ring", co-starring Will Geer, whom she married in 1934. The couple appeared together in other New York plays as well, including "Bury the Dead" (1936), "Prelude" (1936), "200 Were Chosen" (1936) and "Journeyman (1938). The politically minded couple moved to Los Angeles in the early 1940s and settled in Santa Monica, California, where Geer pursued a movie career, but ultimately became best known as "Grandpa Walton" on the television series The Waltons. Geer and Ware were also social and labor activists, and in the 1950s they were blacklisted for Geer's refusal to testify before the House Committee on Un-American Activities.
53884	Jennifer Schwalbach Smith (born April 7, 1971), sometimes credited as Jennifer Schwalbach, is an American actress, former reporter for "USA Today", digital broadcaster, and the wife of actor/film director Kevin Smith. Early life. Schwalbach grew up in Coral Springs, Florida. She attended college at Florida State University for two years before transferring to the University of California, Los Angeles and graduated with a degree in Political Science. Her father died in 1994. Career. Schwalbach received an internship at Buzz, which became a job after she graduated college. She then became a news assistant and later a reporter for USA Today in Los Angeles. She was sent to interview Smith and married him soon after. She left her USA Today job and moved in with Smith in New Jersey. She got a job briefly at MTV but quit after becoming pregnant with their daughter. In Jersey, she helped Smith deal with the drug addiction of his friend Jason Mewes who was living with them. For several years she would witness Mewes' repeated cleanups and breakdowns. At one point she banned him from their house. Jason eventually got sober. According to his commentary for the DVD release of the 2001 film "Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back", Smith was looking for someone to play Missy, one of the female diamond robbers. Schwalbach asked to play the role and he decided to give her a chance. Their daughter, Harley, also appeared at the beginning of the film as the infant Silent Bob. Schwalbach went on to make cameos in other Smith-related productions such as "Jersey Girl" (in which Harley also appeared), and an episode of the Canadian TV series "" in which Smith appeared in the episode "Goin' Down the Road: Part 1". She also played a prostitute in the 2002 film "Now You Know". In January 2004, Schwalbach Smith appeared partially nude, with a Superman look-alike, for "Playboy" Magazine's 50th Anniversary Issue, in a photograph taken by her husband. Her lone directorial credit is as co-director with Malcolm Ingram for "Oh, What a Lovely Tea Party", an extensive 3+ hour documentary on the making of "Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back". The film was shown at Vulgarthon 2005 in Los Angeles, a private film festival hosted by Kevin Smith, and was shown again at Vulgarthon 2006 in Red Bank, New Jersey. In 2006's "Clerks II" she played protagonist Dante Hicks' fiancée, Emma Bunting; and a minor role of Betsy in Smith's 2008 film "Zack and Miri Make A Porno". Schwalbach appeared as Esther Cooper in Kevin Smith's horror film, "Red State". Schwalbach is a co-host for a daily internet radio show called "SMod Co SMorning Show" on SModcast Internet Radio (S.I.R) hosted on SModcast.com. She previously co-hosted a show called "Plus One Per Diem" which was cancelled in favor of "SMod Co SMorning Show".
1056177	My Blueberry Nights is a 2007 romance/drama/road film directed by Wong Kar Wai, his first feature in English. The screenplay by Wong and Lawrence Block is based on a short Chinese-language film written and directed by Wong. This film was the debut of jazz singer Grammy-winner Norah Jones as an actress, and also starred Jude Law, David Strathairn, Rachel Weisz, and Natalie Portman. The cinematographer of this film was Darius Khondji. Christopher Doyle was Wong's cinematographer for his last seven features before "My Blueberry Nights", starting from 1990's "Days of Being Wild". Plot. Jeremy is an émigré from Manchester who owns a small New York City cafe. The cafe becomes a haven for Elizabeth as she tries to recover emotionally following the end of an affair. She finds comfort in the blueberry pie he bakes daily despite the fact that none of his other customers ever order it. Elizabeth, now calling herself Lizzie, eventually drifts to Memphis, Tennessee, where she takes two jobs, waitress by day and barmaid by night, in order to earn enough money to finance the purchase of a car. She regularly sends postcards to Jeremy without revealing where she lives or works and, although he tries to locate her by calling all the restaurants in the area, he fails to find her. Later on, he decides to send out postcards to any restaurants she may be to try to find her. One of Lizzie's regulars at both jobs is local policeman Arnie Copeland, an alcoholic who cannot accept the fact his wife Sue Lynne has left him and is flaunting her freedom by openly socializing with other men. He confesses to Lizzie his many attempts at achieving sobriety have ended in failure. One night, he drunkenly threatens his estranged wife with his gun if she leaves, then crashes his car and is killed. Lizzie comforts Sue Lynne, who gives her the money towards Arnie's tab at the bar Lizzie works at in the evening, before leaving town. Heading west, Elizabeth – now calling herself Beth – gets another waitress job at a casino in a small town in Nevada. Here she meets Leslie, an inveterate poker player who has lost all her money. Beth agrees to lend her $2200 in exchange for a third of her winnings or her car if she loses. When she does lose, she fulfills her promise by giving Beth the car, but asks her to drive her to Las Vegas so she can borrow money from her father, whom she has not seen in a long time. While en route she receives a call from a Vegas hospital, where her father has been admitted and is dying. Leslie believes the call is simply a ruse to lure her home, but upon arrival in Vegas she discovers her father died the previous night. Leslie announces she wants to keep the car, which she had stolen from her father, who had sent her the title and registration despite their estrangement. She confesses she really won the card game and gives Beth her promised share of the winnings, which she uses to finally purchase the car she always wanted. Elizabeth returns to Manhattan and, discovering her ex-boyfriend has vacated his apartment and moved on with his life, returns to the cafe, where Jeremy has had a stool at the counter reserved for her ever since she left. As she eats a slice of blueberry pie, Elizabeth realizes her feelings for him are reciprocated. Production. In "Making My Blueberry Nights", a bonus on the DVD release of the film, screenwriter/director Wong Kar Wai reveals his first choice for Elizabeth was singer Norah Jones despite her lack of prior acting experience. He originally intended to shoot the film in sequence, but when he discovered Rachel Weisz, who he wanted to cast as Sue Lynne, was pregnant, he agreed to film the Memphis scenes last to allow her time to give birth and recuperate before beginning work.
1056648	Return to House on Haunted Hill is a 2007 horror film and sequel to the 1999 film "House on Haunted Hill". Directed by Víctor García, the film depicts a group of people searching for a mysterious idol hidden inside a haunted psychiatric asylum. Nearly everyone is killed during the search by supernatural forces, which seem to be connected to the idol. Plot. Ariel Wolfe (Amanda Righetti) is the sister of Sara Wolfe (Ali Larter), a survivor of a publicity/birthday event hosted by Steven Price eight years ago in the Vannacutt Psychiatric Institute for the Criminally Insane. In the 1920s, the asylum was overseen by the sadistic psychiatrist Dr. Richard B. Vannacutt (Jeffrey Combs). Sara claimed that spirits of the house killed Price and the party guests, and that she barely escaped with her life. But no one believed her. She later commits suicide and a bereaved Ariel tries to find out why. Ariel discovers a diary written by Dr. Vannacutt that reveals the history of the Institute. She and her friend Paul (Tom Riley) are then kidnapped by an unscrupulous art dealer, Desmond Niles (Erik Palladino), who knows a great deal about Sara and Vannacutt's hospital. Ariel quickly realises that Sara didn't commit suicide: Desmond killed her. Desmond forces Ariel to help him find an artifact allegedly located inside the old Vannacutt Psychiatric Institute, a figurine of the demon Baphomet. While Desmond's henchman Samuel (Andrew Pleavin) holds Paul captive outside the asylum, Ariel, Desmond, and four of Desmond's accomplices enter the building. Once inside, they encounter Dr. Richard Hammer (Steven Pacey). Dr. Hammer has been lured into the asylum by his assistants Kyle (Andrew-Lee Potts) and Michelle (Cerina Vincent). Desmond is one of Dr. Hammer's former students, and Michelle is Desmond's lover. Michelle seduced Dr. Hammer to learn what he knew about the sanatorium and the Baphomet idol, and then lured Hammer and Kyle into the asylum so they could help search for the statuette. Several loud noises are heard, and Ariel explains that the building has been rigged to keep everyone inside for at least 12 hours. The group splits up to search for the idol: Desmond with Ariel, Michelle with Richard, and Kyle with Desmond's accomplice Norris (Gil Kolirin). The remaining henchmen, Warren (Chucky Venice) and Harue (Kalita Rainford), each go off alone. Warren is killed when his body is sucked into a wall when he receives a vision about a patient being locked inside the wall, set up by Vannacutt. Harue is seduced by several lesbian ghosts who had a vision about Vannacut ordering his staffing work members to kill them by killing them in their electric head bands, and she dies when her face is sliced off by the ghostly Dr. Vannacutt. Ariel is separated from Desmond and dragged into a padded cell. The ghost of a dead inmate (George Zlatarev) traumatizes her by showing Ariel the depravity he and the other inmates suffered under Dr. Vannacutt. These images reveal that Vannacutt was driven mad by the idol, and later performed experiments on the mentally ill. The dead inmate led a revolt against Vannacutt, during which the sanatorium burned down. (The audience is shown footage from the 1999 film "House on Haunted Hill", which depicted these events.) The deaths of characters in the previous film were assumed to be caused by the spirits of dead inmates seeking vengeance. But now Ariel is shown that the dead are actually forced by the idol to do Vannacutt's bidding and did not willingly kill. Ariel falls unconscious. She wakes to find herself in a straightjacket, and screams. Her cries lead Desmond, Dr. Hammer, and Michelle to her cell and they rescue her. In the asylum's entrance hall, Norris, who has a vision about a patient being dismembered too, is dismembered by ghosts. Ariel, Michelle, Desmond, and Dr. Hammer hear Kyle scream and rush to the entrance hall. Although the 12 hours are up, the master locking mechanism begins to lock the house down again. Ariel escapes before the house is sealed again. But she discovers that Samuel and Paul have entered into the house to look for her. The main door opens as if to invite her in, and she goes back inside. In the entrance hall, Samuel swears he heard Desmond tell them to enter the building. While Desmond and the others discuss the situation, Samuel is lured away by a shadow and killed by the ghost of Dr. Vannacutt. In the ensuing chaos, Paul, Kyle, and Dr. Hammer subdue and disarm Desmond and Michelle. Ariel convinces the group continue to searching for the idol. The group first looks in the hydrotherapy room. Desmond knocks Kyle into the water and flees with Michelle. Ariel tries to save Kyle, but he is dragged to the bottom of the pool by a ghost and slain, which one of the ghosts gave Ariel a vision about the patient being thrown into the water and slained while struggling to get to the chain. Dr. Hammer and Paul pull Ariel from the water and save her life. Elsewhere, Desmond and Michelle argue over whether to keep looking for the idol. Convinced Michelle wants the idol for herself, Desmond attempts to kill her. Michelle flees but is killed by Vannacutt. Desmond resumes the search alone. Ariel, Paul, and Dr. Hammer discover a grate leading to the sewer and a way out of the asylum, but it is blocked by iron bars too narrow for a person to fit through. The ghost of the rebellious inmate gives Ariel another vision, showing her that the idol is in a hidden chamber behind an oven in the asylum's basement crematorium. Ariel, Paul, and Dr. Hammer descend to the crematorium, locate the correct oven, and discover a secret exit at the oven's rear. They walk down a corridor and discover the "heart of the house" (composed of living flesh). Ariel tries to destroy the idol with her handgun but it is indestructible. She removes the idol, reasoning that if it is flushed down the sewer and leaves the building all the spirits will be freed. The team travels back up the corridor and out of the oven, but are ambushed by Desmond. With the idol threatened, the spirits begin attacking. Desmond is seized by ghosts and pushed into a furnace where he is burned alive after he has a vision about the patients being sick and also one of them is being sent to the oven to be burned alive. Paul avoids death by fleeing into the oven and back down into the heart of the house. Ariel and Dr. Hammer rush to the sewer grate to flush the idol before Paul dies. But Dr. Hammer is overcome by the idol's evil and tries to strangle Ariel. They fight, and Ariel encourages Hammer to resist the idol's influence. While Ariel and Hammer are fighting, the ghost of Vannacutt and inmates appeared, but Vannacutt ordered the inmates to halt and watch Ariel and Hammer fighting, hoping one of them will die. Later on Hammer recovers his senses, but the ghost of Dr. Vannacutt appears and begins killing him. Ariel seizes the idol and throws it through the grate and into the sewer. The spirits begin vanishing (saving Paul's life at the last moment). Several spirits attack Dr. Vannacutt, tearing him apart. With Vannacutt no longer controlling the locking mechanism, the building comes unsealed. Ariel and Paul leave. In a post-credits scene, a man and woman are shown about to make love on a beach. The woman feels something under the sand beneath her. They dig, and pull the Baphomet idol into the light. Production. Dark Castle Entertainment announced it would produce a sequel to "The House on Haunted Hill" in August 2006, and said it had cast Amanda Righetti in the lead at the same time. In June 2007, Warner Bros. agreed to co-fund the sequel under its Warner Premiere brand, a subdivision of the studio that focuses on direct-to-DVD releases and other digital media. The pictured was filmed using high-definition digital media, and the script and shots were designed for use with the Navigational Cinema technology (which permits viewers to manipulate up to seven aspects of the story line to create more than 90 different versions of the film). Actor Jeffrey Combs said that the script did not contain the "navigational branching" scenes, and director Victor Garcia admitted that these script changes did not arrive until the start of principal photography. "Return to House on Haunted Hill" was the feature film directorial debut for Victor Garcia, who had previously helmed a single short film. It was also the first feature film screenplay from writer William Massa. Filming occurred in Sofia, Bulgaria. Reception, releases and sequel. In June 2007, Warners and Dark Castle announced an October 2007 release for the DVD. It was released October 16, 2007. In the United States, Warner Premiere released an unrated version with the Navigational Cinema technology, as well as an R-rated version that did not. The unrated U.S. release did not contain any interviews, commentaries, or "making of" featurettes, but did include four deleted scenes; a music video for the Mushroomhead song "Simple Survival" (featured on the film's soundtrack); and about 20 minutes of in-character interviews with the leads, which recapped the film's plot or provided limited backstory. Many of the Navigational Cinema features led to scene choices which included more nudity or gore, but only one choice materially changed the outcome of the story. An additional 60 minutes of video were shot to incorporate these choices. The film did not receive a positive critical reception. A review in "Wired" declared the plot and script to be atrocious, saying, "For some reason, the sequel throws in a mysterious idol as the cause of Inherent Evil. Ugh. It's an impossibly contrived reason to get people back in the house, and the subplots about suicides and gangsters, is particularly out of place. The gore factor is adequate, but you won't actually care about anyone who's dying, making this a horrendous waste of time." The Web site DVD Talk called the story a "retread", the characters "thinly-written", and the plot device of the Baphomet idol "completely arbitrary". However, some reviews felt the viewer ability to select alternate plots was intriguing and fun. A third installment in the franchise had been planned, but poor DVD sales for "Return to House on Haunted Hill" led Dark Castle to cancel these plans in October 2010.
583976	Asal (, "Original") is a 2010 action thriller film directed by Saran. The film stars Ajith Kumar in the lead role, who is also credited for the story, dialogues, screenplay and co-direction of the film, while Sameera Reddy and Bhavana play the lead female roles. The film features an extensive cast, with Prabhu, Suresh, Sampath Raj and Rajiv Krishna playing prominent roles, among others. The film, produced by Prabhu Ganesan of Sivaji Productions, features music primarily composed by Bharathwaj, cinematography by Prashanth D. Misale and editing by Anthony Gonsalves. Pre-production for the project began in December 2007 when Sivaji Productions signed up Ajith for a film; however, because of a bevy of changes in the technical crew, shooting only began in April 2009. The filming took place in various locations: notably locally in Chennai, and abroad in Paris, Dubai and Kuala Lumpur. The film opened worldwide on 550 screens (including 350 screens in India) following its release on 5 February 2010 the film received negative reviews and failed at the Box-office. Plot. Jeevanandham (Ajith) is an international negotiator and arms dealer based in Paris. He has three sons: Sam (Sampat) and Vicky (Rajiv) from his first wife, and Shiva (Ajith) from his second wife. Jeevanandham’s favourite is Shiva, who is gutsy and righteous, while the other two are immature and controlled by their uncle, the evil Kali Mamma (Pradeep Rawat), and will do any shady deals. Sarah (Sameera Reddy) is a cultural attaché at the Indian Embassy in Paris who has a soft spot for Shiva. There is a French police officer, Daniel (Suresh), who constantly hangs around with the family and is a partner in crime. The bad sons want to deal in drugs and supply arms to terrorists; they work out a strategy to eliminate Shetty (Keli Dorji), who controls the Mumbai underworld, but the old man and Shiva oppose it. After the old man's death, Vicky is kidnapped by Shetty and his gang, who brutally torture him. To save Vicky, Shiva goes to Mumbai. His local contact there is Mirasi (Prabhu), his father’s best friend. A local girl, Sulaba (Bhavana), falls for our hero, who daringly rescues Vicky with the joker Don Samosa (Yuhi Sethu). Both brothers double crosses Shiva and they shoot Shiva drown him in sea. They torture Sarah and make her to sign as witness that Shiva dies naturally. As per Jeevanandam's will the property rights belongs to Shiva . Hence Sam and Vicky attempted to kill Shiva. With the help of Mirasi (Prabhu Ganesan), Sulabha (Bhavana) and Don Samosa all move to France to find the real enemies. Truth is found and revenge taken. Production. Development. Following the success of "Billa" in December 2007, Ajith Kumar was signed on by his co-star Prabhu's Sivaji Productions for a project touted to be directed by K. S. Ravikumar. Three months later, the producers officially signed on Gautham Menon as the director; Sameera Reddy, the female lead for Menon's last film, was also finalised for the project. The film, which was due to start its first schedule during June 2008, had been built up as the final instalment in Gautham Menon's police trilogy, following his two earlier ventures, "Kaaka Kaaka" and "Vettaiyaadu Vilaiyaadu", of which Ajith Kumar was originally meant to be a part. However, other indications suggested that the film was set to be the remake of the classic, "Puthiya Paravai" starring Sivaji Ganesan, which Ganesan’s son, Prabhu, denied. The film had been earlier titled by the media as "Kanavugal Karpanaigal" or "Vaanam Kadandha Siragugal", but the team then finalised the title of "Surangani", which was later abbreviated to "Sura". However, the film's production failed to take off, with repeated dates being announced by the directors for the film's first schedule throughout 2009. Subsequently, Menon was removed from the project by the producers due to the film's inactivity, with directors Dharani, Vishnuvardhan and Saran leading the race to take over. In January 2009, the film was reannounced by Prabhu and the story was subsequently changed with Saran being signed up as the film's director. Ajith Kumar also underwent an appearance change during the early months of 2009 to prepare for his role. The film was eventually launched on 8 April 2009 at Sivaji's family residence Annai Illam in Chennai. The film completed its production schedule by January 2010, and post-production and release works began soon after. Casting. Following the announcement that Sivaji Productions, Ajith Kumar and Gautham Menon would come together, other technicians were added to the film. Menon’s usual collaborator, Harris Jayaraj, was signed on as the music composer. However, after Menon's departure, Jayaraj also left the project due to his busy schedule with other films. After approaching Yuvan Shankar Raja for the job, Saran finally confirmed Bharathwaj as music director. "Asal" was Bharathwaj's fiftieth film as composer; he had previously teamed up with Saran and Ajith on "Kadhal Mannan", "Amarkalam" and "Attagasam". Ajith was under contract to be paid a remuneration of $1.25 million in cash plus a 30 per cent share of the profit from sales of rights of the film. During the launch in April 2009, other film technicians were revealed. Y-Kinz, an international music group, were announced to be a part of the music album for the film headed with Bharathwaj. Ajith himself had recommended Prashanth D. Misale, an assistant to Nirav Shah, to make his debut as a cinematographer. Anthony was selected as editor; Prabakar was chosen to work as the art director and Vairamuthu as the chief lyricist. Vivek Karunakaran, a Chennai-based fashion designer, was selected to make his debut as the film's costume designer. Soon after the launch, co-producer Prabhu Ganesan cast himself to play an important role in the film. Gautham Menon's original choice, Sameera Reddy, was retained to star opposite Ajith Kumar in the film. Sameera appears alongside Ajith Kumar for the first time, despite previously being scheduled to appear opposite him in "Citizen", which eventually went ahead without her. Mamta Mohandas was initially confirmed as the second heroine in "Asal", but decided not to take the role. Sneha and Bhavana were also approached for the second heroine's role, however Sneha was unable to comply due to call sheet problems, so Bhavana was finalised. A plethora of antagonistic roles were handed out for the film, with the initial selection being Rajiv Krishna. Other cast members are Pradeep Rawat, Keli Dorji, Karen Miao Sapru, Adithya, Suresh, Sampath Raj, Surendra Pal and Yugi Sethu. Filming. Principal photography of the film began in June 2009 at an undisclosed location in Malaysia. The first schedule was completed on 2 August 2009. After a hectic schedule from Malaysia, the shooting for the second schedule continued on 18 September 2009 at Paris and Lyon, France. 30% of the scenes, including fight sequences and two song sequences, were canned there, including a duet song of Ajith and Sameera as pictured against the moonlit Eiffel Tower in Paris. After a 45-day shoot, the team returned to Chennai on 23 October 2009. Additional shooting was held in Harrington Road on 2 November. Asal's team later shot some of the important shots in AVM Studios. The film’s dubbing schedule took off on 19 November at Four Frames Preview Theatre Chennai with a simple pooja ceremony. Ajith, Saran, Arjun (Prabhu’s son), Dushyanth (Ramkumar’s son) and other members of the film were present there. On 24 November 2009, an important scene for the film was shot at Sivaji Ganesan’s house in T. Nagar, Chennai. A song sequence featuring Ajith and Bhavana was shot at the AVM Studios on 25 November 2009. The shooting of the final song was held at Binny Mills (Tambaram). The cast and crew of Asal went to a Middle East country for the remaining song shoot. The Asal unit left Chennai on 26 December and returned after a week. Shooting was finished on 31 December 2009 at Dubai, where a song sequence was filmed at Zabeel Park. Reception. The film generally received mixed reviews, with critics citing that the film is strictly for Ajith Kumar fans and that it couldn't live up to its expectations, whilst also criticising its "Billa" hangover. Sify cited that the film, which "should have been called Billa-2", "falls flat due to lack of proper story and narration", adding, that the film "belongs to Ajith" and "it is a good ride if you keep your expectation meter low". A reviewer from Behindwoods gave the film 2 out of 5, claiming that this film "will gain no great interest". He adds that "Asal is a complete Ajith centric entertainer with lots of style and sophistication", that "the script is weak and there are other flaws too" and that "Ajith satisfies his fans, but Saran disappoints a bit". Pavithra Srinivasan from Rediff gave the film 2 out of 5 as well, citing that the film is for "die-hard Ajith fans", who would have "plenty of reasons to rejoice", whilst the others should "leave their brains at home". Nowrunning said "It's very difficult to find a story in Ajit's latest offering 'Asal'. Hindustantimes said "Asal’s strong points are its style and an eyeful of muscle-toting Ajith Kumar, who will get his fans ecstatic, Substance comes way down in the list of priorities for Saran and his fellow writers. Chennaionline said "Saran and Ajith’s latest offering Asal is a fitting example of all style and no substance". Soundtrack. The film's soundtrack was released on 4 January 2010. The soundtrack has composed by Bharathwaj & Y-Kinz with lyrics by Vairamuthu. The audio distribution rights were given to ANAK Audio. Think Music, an association of Sathyam Cinemas and Hungama Technology. The audio was launched at Sivaji Ganesan’s house in T Nagar, Chennai by Prabhu, one of the producers, and was received by Ajith.
519800	Let the Love Begin is a 2005 romantic film released by GMA Films in the Philippines. The film was directed by Mac Alejandre. It starred Richard Gutierrez, Angel Locsin, Jennylyn Mercado and Mark Herras. Plot. The story is set in high school. Pia (Angel Locsin) is beautiful and wealthy. She is the campus sweetheart that every guy is dreaming of. However, she is unhappy because her father (Tonton Gutierrez) constantly blames her for her brother's death, and makes all the decisions with regards to her future. Eric (Richard Gutierrez), Pia's high school classmate, is intelligent and has a good heart, but lives in poverty. Both of his parents have already died. He is left with his kind and loving grandmother who continues to encourage him to pursue his dreams and his love for Pia, no matter what obstacles get in his way. Eric works as the school's janitor during the day to support his studies, and to provide for him and his grandmother's needs. He has always admired Pia but never really had the courage or the chance to even talk to her. Although they belong to the extremes of social classes, Pia and Eric's paths cross when they share the same seat in class - Eric during the night (as part of his scholarship program) and Pia during the day. Eric becomes Pia's anonymous 'savior' as he answered Pia's school-related questions, and promised to always be there whenever she needed him. Are they destined to be with each other because of this sign? Or is fate playing a trick on them? Meanwhile, in the background, one of Eric's best friends, Luigi(Mark Herras) is the typical playboy, and often changes his girlfriend. This has gone on since they were in highschool. Luigi best friend is Eric, but on the sidelines, Alex(Jennelyn Mercado). Alex is a tomboy who has a crush on Luigi. After five years, she changed and blossomed into a beautiful girl, with Luigi falling in love with her. Cast. "rest of cast listed alphabetically:"
1247429	Louise Currie (April 7, 1913 – September 8, 2013) was an American film actress, active from 1940 into the early 1950s. Biography. Currie was born in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, the daughter of Charles W. Gunter, a banker, and his wife, Louise (née Currie), whose maiden name she would take for her professional acting surname. She was prominent in society. While attending the Martha Washington Seminary, a finishing school for young women in Washington, D.C., she was chosen one of the ten most beautiful society girls in the nation's capital. She attended Sarah Lawrence College in New York, where she became interested in acting. She moved to Hollywood, California and attended Max Reinhardt's drama school, where she was spotted by talent scouts while taking part in the school's stage workshop. She declined to attempt screen tests until after graduation.
1163804	Daniel James Dailey Jr. (December 14, 1915October 16, 1978) was an American dancer and actor. Early life and career. Born in New York City on December 14, 1915, to James J. and Helen Dailey, both born in New York City. He appeared in a minstrel show in 1921, and later appeared in vaudeville before his Broadway debut in 1937 in "Babes in Arms". In 1940, he was signed by MGM to make films and, although his past career had been in musicals, he was initially cast as a Nazi in "The Mortal Storm" and a mobster in "The Get Away". However, the people at MGM realized their mistake quickly and cast him in a series of musical films. He served in the United States Army during World War II, was commissioned as an Army officer after graduation from Signal Corps Officer Candidate School at Fort Monmouth, NJ. He then returned Hollywood to more musicals. Beginning with "Mother Wore Tights" (1947) Dailey became the frequent and favorite co-star of Betty Grable. His performance in their film "When My Baby Smiles at Me" in 1948 garnered him an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor. In 1949, he showcased his singing abilities by recording four songs for Decca Records with the enormously popular Andrews Sisters (Patty, Maxene, and LaVerne). Two of the songs were Irish novelties ("Clancy Lowered the Boom!" and "I Had a Hat (When I Came In)"). The other songs, "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" and "In the Good Old Summertime" capitalized on the success of two MGM blockbuster films of the same names from that same year, starring Gene Kelly and Frank Sinatra, and Judy Garland and Van Johnson, respectively. Dailey and The Andrews Sisters were an excellent match, and their vocal stylings on these selections were full of gaeity and fun. In 1950, he starred in "A Ticket to Tomahawk", often noted as one of the first screen appearances of Marilyn Monroe, in a very small part as a dance-hall girl. That same year, he played the title role in "When Willie Comes Marching Home", for which he received a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actor in a Musical or Comedy in 1951. He also portrayed baseball pitcher Dizzy Dean in a 1952 biopic, "Pride of St. Louis".
1265380	Carole Lombard (October 6, 1908 – January 16, 1942) was an American actress. She is particularly noted for her roles in the screwball comedies of the 1930s. She is listed as one of the American Film Institute's greatest stars of all time and was the highest-paid star in Hollywood in the late 1930s, earning around US$500,000 per year (more than five times the salary of the U.S. President). Lombard's career was cut short when she died at the age of 33 in an aircraft crash while returning from a World War II War Bond tour. Graham Greene praised the "heartbreaking and nostalgic melodies" of her faster-than-thought delivery. "Platinum blonde, with a heart-shaped face, delicate, impish features and a figure made to be swathed in silver lamé, Lombard wriggled expressively through such classics of hysteria as "Twentieth Century" and "My Man Godfrey"." Life and career. Childhood (1908–1921). Lombard was born in Fort Wayne, Indiana, on October 6, 1908. Christened with the name Jane Alice Peters, she was the third child of Frederic Peters and Elizabeth "Bessie" Knight Peters. Her older brothers were Frederic Jr. (born 1902) and Stuart (born 1906). Lombard's parents both descended from wealthy families and her early years were lived in comfort, with the biographer Robert Matzen calling it her "silver spoon period". The marriage between her parents was strained, however, and in October 1914, her mother took the children and moved to Los Angeles, California. Although the couple did not divorce, the separation was permanent. Her father's continued financial support allowed the family to live without worry, if not with the same affluence they had enjoyed in Indiana, and they settled into an apartment near Venice Boulevard.
1163041	Daryl "Chill" Mitchell (born July 16, 1965 in The Bronx, New York, United States) is an American actor. He is best known for his roles as Dexter Walker on "The John Larroquette Show", Leo Michaels on "Veronica's Closet", and Eli Goggins on "Ed". Early life and career. Mitchell was born in The Bronx, New York to a secretary mother and a bus driver father. After a career in hip hop in the 1980s with "Groove B. Chill", Mitchell had considerable success as an actor, appearing in "House Party" and its sequel, "Sgt. Bilko", "Galaxy Quest", "10 Things I Hate About You", and the TV sitcoms "The John Larroquette Show" and "Veronica's Closet". He has also made appearances in the sitcoms "Becker", and in "The Game" and "Desperate Housewives". In 2009, he co-starred in the short-lived sitcom "Brothers". In September 2009, Mitchell was profiled on TV One's biographical documentary program "Life After", a series that examines the lives of celebrities following a career turning point. Personal life. In November 2001, Mitchell was paralyzed from the waist down in a motorcycle accident, in South Carolina. "It was dark and I didn't know the roads really well," said Mitchell, "I went around a bend and on the other side there was gravel and loose pavement and bam, the bike shot right underneath me. I woke up five days later in the hospital." "It was a blessing," explained Mitchell, to have his friend, who was once shot in a random act of violence, be "one of the first people to show up at the hospital." Spending much time with him previously, doing things and going places, had really helped Mitchell open his eyes with the circumstances. Mitchell got full support from his family and friends, including Denzel Washington and Chris Tucker, to continue his career. Mitchell advises other wheelchair users to hold on to something they believe in. "You cannot do this by yourself. You need your family, your friends, faith, and love," he said. After the accident, he appeared on the TV program "Ed" between 2002 and 2004 as a bowling alley manager who was paralyzed after an accident similar to Mitchell's own. He later started the Daryl Mitchell Foundation to raise awareness of spinal cord injuries and serves as the Minority Outreach spokesperson for the Christopher Reeve Foundation. He has also become a strong advocate for employing actors with disabilities. Today, Mitchell resides in Sugar Hill, Georgia with his wife and four children. Two of his sons play football for North Gwinnett High School, while his daughter also cheers for North Gwinnett High. Mitchell won an NAACP Image Award on February 26, 2010. Daryl's cousin, Alvin Brown is mayor of Jacksonville, Florida.
1062954	"What's Eating Gilbert Grape" is a 1993 American drama film directed by Lasse Hallström and starring Johnny Depp, Juliette Lewis, and Leonardo DiCaprio. Peter Hedges wrote the screenplay, adapted from his 1991 novel of the same name. It was filmed in the Texas cities of Manor, Elgin, and Lockhart. Plot. In the small town of Endora, Iowa, Gilbert Grape (Johnny Depp) is busy caring for his mentally challenged younger brother, Arnie (Leonardo DiCaprio), as they wait for the many tourists' trailers to pass through town during their yearly camp ritual at a nearby recreational area. His mother, Bonnie (Darlene Cates) is morbidly obese after years of depression following her husband's suicide by hanging. She hasn't left the house in years, and is always found sitting on the sofa watching television. Gilbert has taken responsibility for repairing their shanty of a farmhouse while looking after Arnie, who has a habit of climbing up the town water tower if left unsupervised for too long. All the while his older sister Amy (Laura Harrington) and younger sister Ellen (Mary Kate Schellhardt) slave away in the kitchen. The relationship between the brothers is one of care and protection. Gilbert has a secret affair with a housewife, Betty (Mary Steenburgen), whilst her busy husband Ken (Kevin Tighe) is intent on selling Gilbert insurance for his family. Gilbert confuses Ken's enthusiasm as a subtle way of hinting he knows about Gilbert's affair with Betty. A new chain supermarket has opened, threatening the small Lamson's Grocery store where Gilbert works, as well as other small businesses in Endora. The chain supermarket stocks all kinds of goods, rendering many of the local shops redundant. While the family prepares for Arnie's upcoming 18th birthday party, a young woman named Becky (Juliette Lewis) and her grandmother are stuck in town when the truck towing their trailer breaks down. Gilbert's unusual life circumstances threaten to get in the way of a budding romance. In order to spend time with Becky watching the sunset, Gilbert leaves Arnie alone in the bathtub by himself, believing he is now old enough to get out on his own. He returns home late and wakes up the following morning to find Arnie still in the bath, shivering in the cold water. As a result, Arnie refuses to go near water, causing him to become extremely dirty. Betty's affair with Gilbert ends after she attempts to have sex with him while he is on the phone with her husband. While Gilbert is meeting with Ken to discuss insurance, Betty calls and asks that Ken come immediately. Gilbert takes Ken back home to find the house full of smoke and Betty sitting outside. The smoke is revealed to be the result of Betty burning a batch of cookies. Ken goes inside to get his sons out and becomes distraught as he tries to cheer them up. That night he dies after suffering a cardiac arrest and landing face down in his sons' wading pool, drowning. After the funeral, Betty leaves Endora with her sons in search of a new life. Becky bonds with Gilbert and Arnie, helping Gilbert to reflect on his feelings. They become deeply involved in conversation until Gilbert realizes that Arnie is missing and has climbed to the top of the water tower. Arnie is arrested, compelling Bonnie to leave the house for the first time in seven years to demand his release. Her appearance draws a crowd outside the police station. The night before his birthday, Gilbert catches Arnie eating the cake for the next day, and as punishment forcibly attempts to bathe him. Arnie resists, and Gilbert loses his temper and strikes him. Appalled at himself and angry at his life in general, Gilbert drives away, leaving Endora, while Arnie leaves the house to find Becky, who cares for him in the meantime and gets him to go swimming in the lake, thus overcoming his fear of water. Later, Amy and Ellen come to take Arnie home, and Gilbert, having returned, approaches Becky and the two talk about his own frustration and the reality of his father's death. The next day he returns home during Arnie's birthday party to apologize. Following Arnie's eighteenth birthday and meeting Becky for the first time, Bonnie climbs the stairs to her bedroom for the first time in years. That evening she passes away in her bed. Arnie tries to wake her, thinking that she is just playing. He soon realizes what has happened, runs out of the house and begins to hurt himself. As his sisters try to stop him, they realize that Bonnie has died. Jerry, the local sheriff, and his deputies tell the Grape family that they would need more men to get Bonnie's heavy corpse out of the house. After the police leave, Gilbert and his sisters soon cry over losing her. The siblings realize that her removal would draw a gawking crowd and want to protect their mother from being a spectacle. They empty everything from the house but their mother's body, and Gilbert sets the house on fire. One year later, Gilbert and Arnie are looking out again to watch the trailers pass. Gilbert explains through voice-over that Amy has gotten a job offer managing a bakery in Des Moines and Ellen has switched schools. Arnie chases the vehicles, arms flailing, excited to see Becky again. Along with Becky and her grandma, Gilbert and Arnie hit the road. Release. The film had a limited release on December 17, 1993 and wide release on March 4, 1994. The wide release garnered $2,104,938 on first weekend. Total domestic gross for the film was $10,032,765. Critical reception and awards. The film received positive reviews from critics. On Rotten Tomatoes, the film was given a 89% "Certified Fresh" rating. "New York Times" film critic Janet Maslin praised DiCaprio's performance, writing "the film's real show-stopping turn comes from Mr. DiCaprio, who makes Arnie's many tics so startling and vivid that at first he is difficult to watch... The performance has a sharp, desperate intensity from beginning to end." Roger Ebert of "Chicago Sun-Times" described it as "... one of the most enchanting films of the year" and said that DiCaprio deserved to win the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for which he was nominated. Todd McCarthy of "Variety" found the film a "bemused view on life" and remarked that "Depp manages to command center screen with a greatly affable, appealing characterization." "Washington Post"'s Desson Howe thought the film was an earnest but highly predictable effort. "Film Review" praised Leonardo DiCaprio as the mentally handicapped brother, calling it "a performance of astonishing innocence and spontaneity", bringing "a touching credibility to a very difficult part". "Film Review" quoted the actor: "I had to really research and get into the mind of somebody with a disability like that. So I spent a few days at a home for mentally retarded teens. We just talked and I watched their mannerisms. People have these expectations that mentally retarded children are really crazy, but it's not so. It's refreshing to see them because everything's so new to them." In addition to DiCaprio's first Academy Award nomination in this film, he was nominated for a Golden Globe Award. He also won the Best Supporting Actor Award from the National Board of Review. The film was nominated for the prestigious Grand Prix of the Belgian Syndicate of Cinema Critics.
1102315	Euclid ( ; "Eukleidēs"), fl. 300 BC, also known as Euclid of Alexandria, was a Greek mathematician, often referred to as the "Father of Geometry". He was active in Alexandria during the reign of Ptolemy I (323–283 BC). His "Elements" is one of the most influential works in the history of mathematics, serving as the main textbook for teaching mathematics (especially geometry) from the time of its publication until the late 19th or early 20th century. In the "Elements", Euclid deduced the principles of what is now called Euclidean geometry from a small set of axioms. Euclid also wrote works on perspective, conic sections, spherical geometry, number theory and rigor. "Euclid" is the anglicized version of the Greek name , meaning "Good Glory". Life. Little is known about Euclid's life, as there are only a handful of references to him. The date and place of Euclid's birth and the date and circumstances of his death are unknown, and only roughly estimated in proximity to contemporary figures mentioned in references. The few historical references to Euclid were written centuries after he lived, by Proclus and Pappus of Alexandria. Although the purported citation of Euclid by Archimedes has been judged to be an interpolation by later editors of his works, it is still believed that Euclid wrote his works before those of Archimedes. In addition, the "royal road" anecdote is questionable since it is similar to a story told about Menaechmus and Alexander the Great. In the only other key reference to Euclid, Pappus briefly mentioned in the fourth century that Apollonius "spent a very long time with the pupils of Euclid at Alexandria, and it was thus that he acquired such a scientific habit of thought." "Elements". Although many of the results in "Elements" originated with earlier mathematicians, one of Euclid's accomplishments was to present them in a single, logically coherent framework, making it easy to use and easy to reference, including a system of rigorous mathematical proofs that remains the basis of mathematics 23 centuries later. There is no mention of Euclid in the earliest remaining copies of the "Elements", and most of the copies say they are "from the edition of Theon" or the "lectures of Theon", while the text considered to be primary, held by the Vatican, mentions no author. The only reference that historians rely on of Euclid having written the "Elements" was from Proclus, who briefly in his "Commentary on the Elements" ascribes Euclid as its author. Although best known for its geometric results, the "Elements" also includes number theory. It considers the connection between perfect numbers and Mersenne primes, the infinitude of prime numbers, Euclid's lemma on factorization (which leads to the fundamental theorem of arithmetic on uniqueness of prime factorizations), and the Euclidean algorithm for finding the greatest common divisor of two numbers. The geometrical system described in the "Elements" was long known simply as "geometry", and was considered to be the only geometry possible. Today, however, that system is often referred to as "Euclidean geometry" to distinguish it from other so-called "non-Euclidean geometries" that mathematicians discovered in the 19th century. Other works. In addition to the "Elements", at least five works of Euclid have survived to the present day. They follow the same logical structure as "Elements", with definitions and proved propositions. Other works are credibly attributed to Euclid, but have been lost.
589568	Phool Aur Patthar was O. P. Ralhan's 1966 Hindi film that made Dharmendra a star in the Hindi Film Industry. It starred Meena Kumari along with Dharmendra who played a villainous character (or "Patthar", literally a Stone) whose inner good being (or "Phool", literally a Flower) is drawn out by Meena Kumari. The movie also starred Shashikala, Lalita Pawar, Madan Puri and Iftekhar. This was the movie which went on to become a golden jubilee hit catapulting Dharmendra to stardom. The movie was highest grossing for the year 1966. Due to his rugged physique, he was also acknowledged as the "He-man" of the Indian film Industry. In fact, a scene in the movie where he takes off his shirt to cover the ailing Meena Kumari was one of the highlights of the movie. His performance in the movie ensured him a nomination in the Best Actor category in the Filmfare awards for that year. However, it was won by Dev Anand for his performance in Guide. He made his presence strongly felt despite the fact that he did not lip sync for any songs in the film. In the 1960s, it was very unusual for the leading man not to sing any songs in a movie. The film was also instrumental in making Dharmendra-Meena Kumari a popular couple and they went on to act in more movies like Chandan Ka Palna, Manjhli Didi and Baharon Ki Manzil after this.
1064566	Amreeka is a 2009 independent film written and directed by first-time director Cherien Dabis. It stars Nisreen Faour, Melkar Muallem, Hiam Abbass, Alia Shawkat, Yussuf Abu-Warda, Joseph Ziegler, and Miriam Smith.
1043963	Nigel Green (15 October 192415 May 1972) was a South African-born English character actor. Because of his strapping build and commanding demeanour he would often be found playing military types and men of action in such classic sixties films as "Jason and the Argonauts", "Zulu", "Tobruk" and "The Ipcress File". Early life and career. The son of a professor, Green attended King's College School, Wimbledon and the University of London followed by the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. During the Second World War, he trained as an Observer in the Royal Navy's Fleet Air Arm. He appeared on stage at the Old Vic before making his first forays into British films and television in the mid-1950s. Film career. Early film roles include "Reach for the Sky" (1956), "The Criminal" (1960), "The League of Gentlemen" (1960), and "Beat Girl" (1960). His large physique led to his being cast as Little John in the 1960 film "Sword of Sherwood Forest". In 1963 he had one of his most memorable roles as Hercules in Jason and the Argonauts. The following year his profile was raised dramatically following his co-starring role as Colour Sergeant Frank Bourne in "Zulu". In 1965 he took a turn as leading man, playing Nayland Smith in "The Face of Fu Manchu". The same year also saw another of his most memorable roles as Major Dalby in "The Ipcress File" where he played the superior and nemesis of Michael Caine's secret agent Harry Palmer. Other roles include Carl Petersen in Bulldog Drummond movie "Deadlier Than the Male" (1967), Count Contini in the Matt Helm film "The Wrecking Crew" (1969) and "Lord Ashley's Whore" in John Huston's "The Kremlin Letter" (1969). His strong persona allowed him to play many military roles such as in "Khartoum" (1966), "Tobruk" (1967), "Fräulein Doktor" and "Play Dirty" (both 1969). Green also appeared in a number of horror films including "Corridors of Blood" (1958), "The Masque of the Red Death" (1964), as the father of Jane Asher's character, "The Skull" (1965), "Let's Kill Uncle" (1966) and "Countess Dracula" (1971). His last role was as "the Electric Messiah", a mental patient believing himself to be God, in "The Ruling Class" (1972). Television career. Television appearances include "The Adventures of Sir Lancelot", "The Adventures of William Tell", "The Other Man", "Danger Man", "The Power Game", "The Avengers", "Sherlock Holmes", "Jason King", "The Protectors" and "The Persuaders!". Personal life. Green's first wife was the actress Patricia Marmont. His second wife was the actress Pamela Gordon, with whom he had one daughter. Green died following an overdose of sleeping pills in 1972, aged 47. It is unknown if his death was intentional or not. Peter O'Toole said on his commentary on "The Ruling Class" that he believes Green was very depressed, and that his death shortly after filming ended was probably intentional, although his family believe it to be unintentional. He was separated from Gordon at the time.
1430860	"Freedom's Fury" is a documentary film about the Melbourne, Australia 1956 Summer Olympics semifinal water polo match between Hungary and the USSR, and the events that led up to the violent battle, the match that what would later be known as the "Blood in the Water match." The documentary was narrated by Mark Spitz, who as a teenager had been coached by Ervin Zádor. The film debuted at the Tribeca Film Festival in 2006, in the year of the 50th anniversary of the match. History. Near the close of World War II in 1945, Hungary was liberated from the Nazis by the forces of the Soviet Union. While there was initial jubilation amongst the people of Hungary, they soon found that they had only exchanged one totalitarian regime for another. As Hungarian educator Karoly Nagy puts it in the film, "yes, we were liberated from "one" devastating, dictatorial, extremist, horrible creature called Nazis throat, "but", during that course, a lot of people were also liberated from all their belongings, they were liberated from their rights, they were liberated from their freedom and life, women were liberated from their honor..." By 1956 (the year of the Melbourne Summer Olympics), Hungarian tensions with the satellite government installed by the Soviet Union had risen to the point of mass uprising and, eventually, outright revolution. The film documents the meeting (and subsequent battle) between the representatives of these two rival nations, and in a larger sense, became a globally televised embodiment of the Hungarian people's fight for independence under the communist regime. Content. The documentary tells the story of the young star of the Hungarian Olympic waterpolo team, Ervin Zador, who finds himself the unwitting focal point of one of the most politicized sports matches ever played, popularly known as the "Blood in the Water" match. The journey of Zador and the Hungarian waterpolo team to the 1956 Summer Olympics in Melbourne becomes the film's through-line as "Freedom's Fury" explores the larger human tragedy of the Hungarian Revolution of 1956. As the revolution rages in the city below, the team is on an isolated mountaintop training camp near Budapest, and doesn't learn the details of the savage crushing of the revolt and brutalization of Hungarian citizens by Soviet forces until they land in Melbourne. The animosity they feel towards the Soviet occupiers for the atrocities they committed is transferred to the Soviet players. After the match, Zador and half his teammates decide to defect rather than return to the oppression in their homeland. In the final act, the documentary also touches on how the Hungarian Revolution become a symbol of freedom and impacted the collapse of communism in 1989.
1061476	Fredric March (born Ernest Frederick McIntyre Bickel; August 31, 1897 – April 14, 1975) was an American stage and film actor. He won the Academy Award for Best Actor in 1932 for "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" and in 1947 for "The Best Years of Our Lives". March is the only actor to win both the Academy Award and the Tony Award twice. Early life. March was born in Racine, Wisconsin, the son of Cora Brown (née Marcher), a schoolteacher, and John F. Bickel, a devout
589233	Awara Baap is a 1985 Bollywood film starring Rajesh Khanna in the title role, directed by Sohanlal Kanwar. Plot. Raj is the only son of the rich man Seth Gopal Das. He has lived his childhood and teenage very lonely as his mother died when he was a child.Raj starts drinking in his adulthood and also distances himself from his father gradually.Raj starts living in a palatial bunglow, in the same city where Seth Gopal Das has his residence.Raj occasionally comes to the residence, the main bunglow where Seth Gopal Das lives.On a trip to a snowy mountain, Raj gets to meet a girl named Rupa. He manages to protect Rupa from entering into flesh trade.Then he decides to drop her to her home but due to bad condition of roads is forced to saty in a cottage with her. As the weather becomes cold, Raj develops shivering and to protect him, Rupa decides to blow air from her mouth into his and embrace him.By doing this she manages to revive him.In the morning, Raj says she should have not done such a thing for his well being in the night.Rupa says, she was grateful to him as he had saved her from being forced to sell her body, so she didn't mind doing what she eventually did.Hearing this Raaj becomes happy and enquires, she lives with whom, she says she is alone in that area as she has to send money to her dad in distant village.Raj asks her will she like to stay with him and then she agrees to join him. Also while being in love with Raj, Rupa makes him promise her that he wont take to drinking with her being alive in his life. After he reaches his home, he gets to meet Bihari and comes to know that Bihari has come on his father's order, to take him to his dad's residence as some guests are going to arrive .Raj agrees to come in the evening for dinner and there he notices that his dad has fixed his engagement with another girl.Raj comes to know that Gopal Das fixed marriage with daughter of Jamuna Das, as he was going to get huge amount in form of dowry for his son's wedding and he is in dire need of money, thanks to the incident of one of his ships drowned in the sea and it was not covered by insurance poicy taken by Gopal's company.Raj disagrees to marry Jamuna Das' daughter. Bihari discloses to Gopal Das, that the reason for Raj refusing to marry the girl of his choice is because Raj has brought a girl to his house and is interested in marrying her. Gopal Das decides to meet Rupa personally and he tells about the financial problem he is into and how Raj's marriage with the girl of his choice would help both him and Raj.Gopal asks Rupa is she not more concerned about Raj's welfare and if she is, then she should not marry him and convince her to marry the other girl. Rupa convinces Raj to get married and then herself after the wedding commits suicide.Raj becomes disillusioned but hides the facts about Rupa to his wife.He is sad and angry at his father for doing all this.But keeping with the promise he gave to Rupa, he has a good married life with his wife.His wife soon becomes pregnant and gives birth to a boy.Due to birth complications, she dies.Now Raj takes to drinking. Raj also arranges for a statue to be built in memory of Rupa in his bunglow and shifts to residence of his dad permanently. Gopal fed up of Raj's drinking behaviour send the little baby boy to abroad for his schooling and college.
586388	Unaru (; English: "Rise Up") is a 1984 Malayalam Indian feature film directed by Mani Ratnam, starring Mohanlal, Sukumaran, Ratheesh, Sabitha Anand, Ashokan and Balan K. Nair. Plot. Unaru is the only Malayalam film directed by film maker Mani Ratnam and the script was penned by T. Damodaran. The film gives the inside view of the problems that arose in the labour trade union parties in Kerala. Filled with acclaimed performances by all the major cast, it shows the social as Peter in lead roles. Crew. The score and soundtrack is composed by Ilaiyaraaja, and the film's cinematography is by Ramachandra Babu.
1061574	Cyd Charisse (March 8, 1922 – June 17, 2008) was an American actress and dancer. After recovering from polio as a child, and studying ballet, Charisse entered films in the 1940s. Her roles usually focused on her abilities as a dancer, and she was paired with Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly; her films include "Singin' in the Rain" (1952), "The Band Wagon" (1953) and "Silk Stockings" (1957). She stopped dancing in films in the late 1950s, but continued acting in film and television, and in 1992 made her Broadway debut. In her later years, she discussed the history of the Hollywood musical in documentaries, and participated in "That's Entertainment! III" in 1994. She was awarded the National Medal of the Arts and Humanities in 2006. Early life. Charisse was born as Tula Ellice Finklea in Amarillo, Texas, the daughter of Lela (née Norwood) and Ernest Enos Finklea, Sr., who was a jeweler. Her nickname "Sid" was taken from a sibling trying to say "Sis". (It was later spelled "Cyd" at MGM to give her an air of mystery.) She was a sickly girl who started dancing lessons at six to build up her strength after a bout with polio. At 12, she studied ballet in Los Angeles with Adolph Bolm and Bronislava Nijinska, and at 14, she auditioned for and subsequently danced in the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo as "Felia Siderova" and, later, "Maria Istomina". During a European tour, she met up again with Nico Charisse, a handsome young dancer she had studied with for a time in Los Angeles. They married in Paris in 1939. They had a son, Nicky, born in 1942. Career. The outbreak of World War II led to the break-up of the company, and when Charisse returned to Los Angeles, David Lichine offered her a dancing role in Gregory Ratoff's "Something to Shout About". This brought her to the attention of choreographer Robert Alton – who had also discovered Gene Kelly – and soon she joined the Freed Unit at MGM, where she became the resident MGM ballet dancer. In an early role, she had her first speaking part supporting Judy Garland in the 1946 film "The Harvey Girls".
582792	Yeh Hai Jalwa ("This Is Magic") is a 2002 Bollywood comedy film Directed by David Dhawan. It stars Salman Khan and Amisha Patel in lead roles and Kader Khan, Rati Agnihotri, Rishi Kapoor, Anupam Kher, Rinke Khanna and Sanjay Dutt in supporting roles. Plot. The story is about orphaned Raju (Salman Khan) a business man in India. Whilst his mother died when he was very young, his father had already left her. At work, Raju witnesses Rajesh Mittal (Rishi Kapoor) winning an award on TV. Raju realises that Rajesh is none other than his dad, and leaves immediately for London. At the airport, he meets Sonia Singh (Amisha Patel) who has too much luggage and tries to get Raju to hold it. Raju understands her plan, and it backfires on Sonia. The two then begin to believe they love each other. After this, Raju finds Rajesh and tells him the truth. He then finds out that Rajesh is already married to Smitha (Rati Agnihotri) and has two kids, Rinkie (Rinke Khanna) and Bunty. Rinkie is about to get married to Vicky (Sharad Kapoor) but she is unaware of his drug dealings. Raju gives Rajesh eight days to break the news to his family and call Raju his son or he’ll tell the family himself. After he leaves, Rajesh gets afraid, and hires gangsters to attack him. On his way out, Raju gets beat up by the hired gangsters, though later rescued by Shera (Sanjay Dutt), also an Indian living in London. He saves Raju from getting beat up, and helps him as well. He advises Raju to go into Rajesh's house as a family friend, and that he should get to know the entire family. When Raju asks Rajesh to give him a good place to stay, Rajesh takes Raju to his friend Robin Singh’s (Anupam Kher) mansion. There he meets Sonia again and learns that she is Robin’s daughter. They gradually fall in love. On the eighth day, Raju goes to Rajesh’s bungalow but realises the family are on holiday. Therefore, Raju goes back to India, until he overhears Robin calling Rajesh and inviting him over to his house. Raju gets into the boot of Rajesh’s car so he can also go with them. Rajesh is horrified when he sees Raju come. Raju stays with the family at the resort. Rajesh finds out that Raju’s visa has expired and he calls the police. They take Raju. Purshottam Mithal is at the airport as he has come back from America and Raju sees him. Raju tells him that he knows Rajesh. Purshottam renews Raju’s visa and takes him back to the Mithal mansion. When Rajesh gets home he thinks that he will have no problems with Raju. But he is mistaken and he sees Raju at his mansion. A few days later Rajesh has to go to a conference overseas and Raju accompanies him. The company that Rajesh is in a partnership with is blaming Rajesh for no sales lately. Raju then explains to the company that it’s their fault because their products are crap. Rajesh tells Raju to be quiet but the company urges Raju to go on. The say to Raju to come and join their company but he says he can’t leave Rajesh. Rajesh is very happy with Raju and he gets drunk and he calls Raju his son. When Rajesh gets up in the morning, Raju has bought in breakfast. Raju then goes up to patch things up with Sonia, only to witness her trying to make him jealous by flirting with another boy. When he leaves to stop her, he realises the boy she is flirting with is actually Shera, his good friend. He explains his problem, and that the two actually love each other, so Shera backs off and explains to Raju that if he needs any help, he would be there. He also tells Raju where Vicky always drug deals. Raju catches Vicky red-handed as he is talking to his partners about dealing drugs. Raju shows Rajesh and Rinkie the truth and Rinkie is devastated. Rajesh hits Vicky and Vicky shoots Rajesh. Rajesh is taken to the hospital. Both of his kidneys have failed and he needs a kidney. Purshottam offers his but he is diabetic so he can’t. Smitha does to but her blood group doesn’t match Rajesh’s. Smitha says that Bunty will but he denies as he wants to be a pop singer. She says Rinkie will but she denies to as she wants to have babies when she is older. The next morning Purshottam tells the doctor that he has called all his relatives and one of them at least will be able to give a kidney. The doctor tells him not to worry as someone has already given one. He asks who but the doctor says that the person has asked to keep him anonymous. In the end Rajesh confesses to the family that Raju is his son. Raju says he is lying and Rajesh is confused. He says to Raju didn’t you want me to say this? And Raju says why are you lying you’re not my father. But Raju does confess and everyone finds out that Raju was the one who gave a kidney to Rajesh. Purshottam and Smitha aren’t mad at Rajesh but in fact happy that Raju is related to them. They live happily ever after.
1063122	Michael Rooker (born April 6, 1955) is an American actor, best known for his roles as Henry in "", Merle Dixon in "The Walking Dead", Frank Bailey in "Mississippi Burning", Hal Tucker in "Cliffhanger", and Rowdy Burns in "Days of Thunder". Early life. Michael Rooker was born in Jasper, Alabama. He has eight brothers and sisters. His parents divorced when he was 13 years old, and he moved with his mother and siblings to Chicago, Illinois, where he studied at the Goodman School of Drama. Career. Rooker made his film debut in 1986, playing the title role in ', a film based on the confessions of serial killer Henry Lee Lucas. He has appeared in films such as "Mississippi Burning", "Sea of Love", "Days of Thunder", "JFK", "Cliffhanger", "Tombstone", "Mallrats", "Rosewood", "The 6th Day", "Jumper", and "Hypothermia". In June 2010, he revealed via Twitter that he was to appear in the AMC television series "The Walking Dead" as Merle Dixon, one of the survivors of a zombie apocalypse. Rooker voiced Mike Harper in ' in November 2012, and voiced Merle in "", the video game based on the TV series. In April 2013, Rooker was cast as Yondu in the Marvel Studios film "Guardians of the Galaxy". Personal life. Rooker is married to Margot Rooker. They have two daughters.
1061406	Vincent Sherman (July 16, 1906 – June 18, 2006) was an American director, and actor, who worked in Hollywood. His movies include "Mr. Skeffington" (1944), "Nora Prentiss" (1947), and "The Young Philadelphians" (1959). He began his career as an actor on Broadway and later films. He directed B-movies for Warner Bros. before moving up to A-pictures. He was a good friend of actor Errol Flynn, whom he directed in "Adventures of Don Juan" (1949). He directed three Joan Crawford movies "The Damned Don't Cry!" (1950), "Harriet Craig" (1950), and "Goodbye, My Fancy" (1951). Early life. Sherman was born Abraham Orovitz, to Jewish parents. He was born and grew up in the small town of Vienna, Georgia, where his father was a dry-goods salesman. Not long after graduating from Oglethorpe University in Atlanta, he became a professional actor. Career. Sherman arrived in New York to sell a play and soon became an actor. He made his debut at the stage in "Counselor at Law", which starred John Barrymore. He arrived in Hollywood during the early talkie years, where he appeared in William Wyler's 1933 film "Counsellor at Law". In 1938, Sherman signed on at Warner Bros. as a director. His first film as a director was the 1939 horror film "The Return of Doctor X", which starred Humphrey Bogart. The 2006 release of "The Return of Doctor X" included a director's commentary that Sherman had recorded that year at the age of ninety-nine. Sherman quickly built a reputation as a rewrite artist – his ability to take any script he was given and turn it into an absolute blockbuster. It was these skills that led him to much bigger and star-studded pictures. Sherman was initially known as a "woman's director" during the mid '40's, but he eventually became a well-rounded filmmaker as his career went on. After a very successful Hollywood film career, Sherman ended his career in television. However, in 2004, he was the oldest of 21 individuals interviewed in the documentary film "Imaginary Witness," a work that chronicled sixty years of film-making that dealt in some way with the Holocaust. Personal life. Sherman was married to Hedda Comorau from 1931–1984. He had two children with Comorau: a son, Eric Sherman, and a daughter, Hedwin Naimark. He had a number of high-profile affairs during his life, including a three-year relationship with Joan Crawford and Bette Davis. In his memoir "Studio Affairs: My Life as a Film Director", he went into detail about his relationship with Crawford, as well as his relationship with Rita Hayworth. During the last nine years of his life, he was in a romantic relationship with Francine York. Sherman was a good friend of Errol Flynn. Death. Sherman died less than a month shy of his 100th birthday, on June 18, 2006, at the Motion Picture and Television Fund Hospital in Woodland Hills, California.
749526	"Spencer's Mountain" is a 1963 film written, directed, and produced by Delmer Daves from a novel by Earl Hamner, Jr. The novel and film became the basis for the popular television series "The Waltons", which followed in 1972. Differing from both the film and novel, "The Waltons" watered down many of the adult themes, including alcoholism and infidelity. Spencer's Mountain was O'Hara and Fonda's second film together. They had previously co-starred in "Immortal Sergeant" (1943). "Spencer's Mountain" features the majestic scenery of Wyoming's Teton Range, as photographed by cinematographer Charles Lawton in CinemaScope and Technicolor. It was filmed in and around the town of Jackson and features the nearby Chapel of the Transfiguration. The novel and the series were set in the Virginia Appalachians, but Hamner said in 1963 that Daves wanted more imposing mountains to emphasize the characters' isolation and struggles with their environment. Film critic Judith Crist writing in the The New York Herald Tribune said of the film, ‘‘sheer prurience and perverted morality’’ adding ‘‘it makes the nudie shows at the Rialto look like Walt Disney productions.’’ Plot. The film centers on the trials and tribulations of the Spencers, a family living in the Grand Teton Mountains of Wyoming during the early 1960s. As the patriarch of a large and growing family, Clay Spencer (Henry Fonda) is fiercely independent, yet dedicated to his family. While he resists the influence of religion, he struggles to remain faithful to his wife Olivia (Maureen O'Hara), to allow his son (James MacArthur) to attend college, and to build a new home for his family. Clay Spencer (Henry Fonda) awakes early one morning in the house he shares with his wife Olivia (Maureen O’Hara) and their "huge" brood of children. Among them is Clay Spencer Jr. (Clayboy, played by James MacArthur). Clay’s parents also live there, and they all get up to welcome Clay’s eight younger brothers to breakfast. Olivia asks for money for a high school graduation ring for Clayboy, but Clay says he doesn’t have the money. He used what they had to buy a table saw from his boss. He promises to get the money by working overtime at the quarry, and then the men set off to Clay’s land on Spencer’s Mountain. They work on the foundation for the house he plans to build for his family. In fact, he’s been promising to build the house for years! The next day, Clay and Clayboy take their cow to their neighbor Percy Cook’s (Dub Taylor) farm to get her bred with Methuselah, the local prize bull. Percy’s daughter Minnie-Cora (Kathy Bennett) comes-on to Clayboy, and he’s unsure how to react. Later, talking with his dad, Clay tells him to remember: a lady ain’t no cow, and he ain’t no bull. Clay then works overtime to get the money for Clayboy’s ring, and his boss Col. Coleman (Hayden Rorke) gives him an added bonus: a day off with pay the day trout season opens. While Clay slips off to fish (instead of working on the house), the town prepares for the arrival of their new minister. Enjoying himself at the river, Clay meets a stranger, who joins him, and Clay tells him about the old granddad of all fish – and offers him a swig of his “insect repellent”. Later, the man comments that he finds the “repellent” to be “somewhat numbing”. It is – of course – home brew, and the man hooks “old granddad”. When the fish gets away, Clay launches into a profanity-laden tirade. Of course, given the era, the words are quite mild. The man chides him for his salty speech, and then – right before he plunges head first into the river – reveals that he’s Preacher Goodman (Wally Cox), the town’s new minister. He’s now disgraced in front of everyone, when he and Clay, drunk and drenched, stumble into town. Clay learns that no one will attend Goodman’s sermons, so he sets about fixing things. He essentially blackmails everyone into going to church, despite the fact that he doesn’t go himself. As he’s helped virtually everyone in town, over the years, they either go to church or pay him for the work he’s done. They go, and Goodman leads them in the song “Shall We Gather at the River”. Clayboy graduates from High School, in a class of less than a dozen seniors, and he’s the only boy. His teacher Miss Parker (Virginia Gregg) wants him to go to college, and she and the minister come to talk to Olivia and Clay. Unfortunately, the only scholarship available is to be a minister! Fortunately, Clay comes home drunk, having been celebrating his son’s accomplishment at being the first of the family to graduate. So, he signs the application without reading it. The teacher then speaks to Col. Coleman about turning an old building into a library and paying Clayboy to run it, as a means of him earning money toward college. While working on the library, Clayboy meets an old friend: the boss’ daughter Claris (Mimsy Farmer), now home from college, and quite the looker. They start dating. When Clayboy gets a rejection letter from the college, Clay drives to the city to ask the dean why. The dean explains that Clayboy had no Latin, which was required for his ministry scholarship. Clay is furious to learn the subject of the scholarship, but he works out a deal with the dean: if Clayboy can learn Latin before the start of college, he can enroll, but there will be no scholarship. Goodman agrees to teach Clayboy Latin, in exchange for Clay attending church! He does, to the amazement of everyone. Clay and his dad (Grandpa Spencer, Donald Crisp) visit the old homestead on Spencer’s Mountain, and Grandpa speaks of his concerns about the big tree next to the family cemetery. Clay says he’ll chop it down. Meanwhile, Grandpa putters around the ruins of his old home. When he finds a childhood memento, he heads back toward Clay. The tree starts to come down, Clay tries to warn Grandpa off, but he freezes. Clay races to get him out of the way, but only ends up getting in the way himself. Both are crushed. Clayboy arrives, having been sent to bring the two their lunch. He races back to town and calls upon the townsfolk for help. Everyone heads up the mountain. Clay is hurt, but will recover. Grandpa has been mortally wounded, and dies soon after they get him home. After his funeral, Grandma reads his will. As he had given his sons his homestead on the mountain, he had nothing else left to give – except $37, and he leaves it to Clayboy to help him in college. Clay and Clayboy go to college to show the dean Clayboy’s certificate for Latin. He accepts it, and adds the name Clay Spencer Jr. the roll of incoming freshman. Clay then visits a friend to get a loan to pay for the college. Unfortunately, Minnie-Cora, who Clayboy had earlier rejected, is now married to the friend, and she won’t let him lend Clay the money. Olivia takes the kids home and tells Clay to give up – Clayboy is never going to get to college. Clay visits the new house, now well under construction, and hears Olivia’s words echoing in his mind as he strolls around the place. Drenching the wood framing in accelerant, he burns the house down. Later, at home, he tells Olivia all the things he’s going to do to fix up their existing home, and tells her the new house is gone. He’s sold the land to Col. Coleman to pay for Clayboy’s college. Later, at the bus stop, the family says good-bye to Clayboy. Before getting onboard, he and Clay embrace, and then he sits in the back next to a man. The fellow asks if he’s going far, and Clayboy responds: “Right far,” even as the tears trickle down his face. Cast. Maureen O'Hara's daughter Bronwyn FitzSimons has a cameo as the Dean's secretary
1057077	Breaking In is a 1989 American crime comedy film directed by Bill Forsyth, and written by John Sayles. It stars Burt Reynolds, Casey Siemaszko and Lorraine Toussaint. It is a movie about how professional small-time criminals live and practice their trades. Plot. Ernie Mullins (Burt Reynolds) is an old-pro safecracker from New York who is operating now in Portland, Oregon. Mike (Casey Siemaszko), is the "nosy, amiable kid" that Ernie takes on as his lookout and apprentice. Ernie is content to live in a tract home on the fringe of the city but the kid can't resist flashing his new wealth. Casey Siemaszko gives Mike a wide-eyed furtiveness; he resembles Michael J. Pollard in Bonnie and Clyde."
1442642	A Little Trip to Heaven is an Icelandic-American noir-inspired drama and thriller film from 2005, directed by Icelandic director of "The Sea", Baltasar Kormákur. The film is set in the U.S. in 1985 but almost entirely shot in Iceland. Icelandic musician Mugison composed and performed the soundtrack, except for the song "A Little Trip to Heaven," which is originally by Tom Waits. Mugison performs the Waits song on the soundtrack. Plot. The very beginning of the film, before the opening credits, shows a new widow sitting in a life insurance office. Expecting to be compensated for her husband's death, the widow is informed that she is not entitled to full death benefits because the insurance company has captured footage of her husband smoking and attributes cigarettes to his death. Abe Holt looks on as his co-worker convinces the widow that she's lucky to leave with a small fraction of the award she was expecting. The film centers around three vehicle crashes, which are first introduced to the viewer one after another at the very beginning of the movie. The first shows a young couple flying through the open roof of their convertible, which has been ejected over a cliff. They swim to shore, where the woman hits the leg of her fellow passenger with a pipe. The second involves a city bus and insurance adjustor Abe Holt (Forrest Whitaker), who has arrived at the scene on the suspicion that many of the passengers boarded the bus after the accident, looking to file a claim. Holt bluffs, claiming a hidden camera will help sort out who was truly on the bus; many leave, and his co-worker (Peter Coyote) quickly tells him their company wants him to investigate a crash in the remote and desolate town of North Hastings, Minnesota. The third crash involves an unnamed young man who is stranded at the side of the road on a rainy night, after stopping in the local bar. He accepts a ride from the man who has drained his gas tank, who proceeds to speed the car against the wall of a tunnel, injuring his passenger in the wreck. The anonymous man is dragged to the front seat and buckled in before the gas is poured over the car and set ablaze. However, to those who later discover the crash it appears that Kelvin Anderson has died after crashing his own car into the tunnel wall, prompting a spontaneous vehicle fire that burned his body beyond recognition. The local police are convinced it is an open-and-shut case, as Kelvin’s driver's license is found in the glovebox, the plates on the car match Kelvin's, and Kelvin's sister, Isold (Julia Stiles), lives on the other side of the tunnel. However, Holt is suspicious because while the body is conveniently unidentifiable the license is still intact and Isold, the sole beneficiary of the $1 million policy, is skittish and was not expecting her brother's visit. Isold’s husband, the suspiciously cheerful and vaguely threatening "Fred" McBride (Jeremy Renner), further convinces Holt there's something else to this case. As he continues to investigate the case Holt discovers a number of surprising secrets, among them the fact that Frederick McBride is actually dead (buried in a field outside the abandoned McBride home) and that the supposedly dead Kelvin has a record as a con man. The most convincing evidence are photos of Kelvin, from his criminal record and high school, showing him looking like the man posing as "Fred." Holt eventually determines that the charred body pulled from the car wreck is not Kelvin's, that Isold's "husband" is actually her brother Kelvin. A flashback reveals that the couple from the convertible seen at the opening of the movie was Isold and Kelvin, wrecking their car—and Kelvin's leg—for insurance money. When Isold figures out that her brother has murdered an innocent drifter she is horrified, but Kelvin convinces her to "play her part" in this last con by holding hostage her (their) son Thor. When Isold visits the insurance office to collect on Kelvin's policy, Holt—in an echo of the movie's opening scene—informs her that he cannot award her the full $1 million she expects, only the blue book value of his car ($1500). Isold leaves angrily; when Holt tells her she's lucky he hasn't exposed her as an accessory to murder, she tells him that her brother has taken Thor. Moved and concerned, Holt puts a one-day hold on her check (ensuring that she'll return to the bank the next day) and changes the name of the insured on the policy from "Kelvin Anderson" to "Frederick McBride."
1165422	James Patrick O'Malley (15 March 1904 – 27 February 1985) born in Burnley, Lancashire, England was an English singer and character actor, who appeared in many American films and television programmes during the 1940s–1970s, using the stage name J. Pat O'Malley. He also appeared on the Broadway stage in "Ten Little Indians" (1944) and "Dial M for Murder." A "New York Times" drama critic praised O'Malley's performance in "Ten Little Indians", calling him "a rara avis, a comedian who does not gauge the success of his efforts by the number of laughs he induces at each performance". Early years. O'Malley began his career in entertainment in 1925 as a recording artist and then as principal singer with Jack Hylton and his orchestra in the United Kingdom from 1930 to 1933. Known at that time as "Pat O'Malley", he recorded more than four hundred popular songs of the day. O'Malley began a solo recording career in 1935 in parallel with his work with Hylton. At the end of 1935, Hylton and O'Malley came to the United States to record with a band composed of American musicians, thus emulating Ray Noble and Al Bowlly. The venture was short-lived but O'Malley remained in the United States. Now known as J. Pat O'Malley (to avoid confusion with another film actor named Pat O'Malley), he had a long and varied acting career including the film "Lassie Come Home" in 1943 as "Hynes". Television career. O'Malley guest starred in 1951 as a sheriff on Bill Williams's syndicated western series, "The Adventures of Kit Carson". From 1950 to 1955, he was cast in five episodes of the anthology series, "The Philco-Goodyear Television Playhouse". From 1951 to 1957, he was cast in eight episodes of another anthology series, "Robert Montgomery Presents". Older television viewers may recall O'Malley from his role in Walt Disney's "Spin and Marty" film (1955) and serial (1955-1957) in the role of the always-faithful ranch steward, "Perkins". In 1956, he guest starred in one of the last episodes, "The Guilty", of the NBC legal drama, "Justice," based on case files of the Legal Aid Society of New York. He also appeared in Rod Cameron's syndicated "City Detective" in the episode "Found in a Pawnshop". In 1960, O'Malley was cast in yet another Cameron syndicated series, "COronado 9", set in San Diego. In 1959 and 1960, O'Malley portrayed a judge and a newspaper editor in three episodes of the ABC western series, "The Rebel", starring Nick Adams, as a roaming former Confederate soldier. On January 6, 1959, O'Malley played a priest in the episode, "The Secret of the Mission," on the syndicated adventure series, "Rescue 8", starring Jim Davis and Lang Jeffries. In the story line, the priest is trapped with a would-be thief named Carlos (Rafael Campos) under the roof of a collapsed church. O'Malley was cast as Walter Morgan in the 1959 episode, "The First Gold Brick", of the NBC western series, "The Californians". In 1959–1960, O'Malley starred eight times as Judge Caleb Marsh in the ABC western series, "Black Saddle" starring Peter Breck as a gunslinger-turned-lawyer, with Russell Johnson as a peace officer. In 1959, he was cast as Dr. Hardy in one of the early episodes of the CBS military sitcom/drama "Hennesey", starring Jackie Cooper. In 1960, O'Malley guest starred on NBC's short-lived sitcom, "The Tab Hunter Show", on ABC's "The Law and Mr. Jones", a legal drama with James Whitmore and Conlan Carter, and on the syndicated crime drama "Johnny Midnight" starring Edmond O'Brien. He appeared as a police officer on John Cassavetes's NBC detective series "Johnny Staccato". He guest starred as well on Pat O'Brien's ABC sitcom, "Harrigan and Son", and two ABC adventure series, "Adventures in Paradise" and "The Islanders". In the 1962-1963 television season, O'Malley was cast in two episodes of the ABC drama series, "Going My Way", with Gene Kelly, based on the 1944 Bing Crosby film of the same name. He portrayed the character Healy in "The Crooked Angel" and Bathouse O'Connor in "The Boss of the Ward". O'Malley made numerous guest appearances on CBS's "Perry Mason", including the defendant in the Season 3, 1960 episode, "The Case of the Prudent Prosecutor" and the murderer in the Season 5, 1961 episode of "The Case of the Roving River". In "Apache Daughter" (December 30, 1961) on the NBC western series, "The Tall Man", O'Malley portrays Sam Bartlett, whose daughter, Sally (Sherry Jackson), is released from Apache captivity after nine years. However, Sally wants to return to her husband, Talano, (Anthony Hall, aka Sal Ponti) a Chiricahua warrior, much to the heartbreak of her father. In 1961, O'Malley guest starred in ABC's drama "Bus Stop", starring Marilyn Maxwell as the owner of a diner in a fictitious small Colorado town. O'Malley appeared in 1962 on CBS's "Twilight Zone" episode called "The Fugitive" (he made also a very short appearance in the episode "Walking Distance"). In the 1962–1963 season, he guest starred twice on the CBS anthology series "The Lloyd Bridges Show". O'Malley and Spring Byington starred together in the 1964 episode, "This Train Don't Stop Till It Gets There," of Jack Palance's ABC circus drama, "The Greatest Show on Earth". In the 1963-1964 season, O'Malley was cast in eight episodes as Harry Burns in the unconventional CBS sitcom, "My Favorite Martian" with Ray Walston and Bill Bixby. In the 1964–1965 season, O'Malley was cast as a likeable handyman on the ABC's sitcom, "Wendy and Me", with costars George Burns, Connie Stevens, Ron Harper and James T. Callahan. He guest starred as Dooley in the 1965 episode "South Wind" of Christopher Jones's ABC western series, "The Legend of Jesse James". In 1966, he appeared as Ed Breck in the episode "Win Place and Die" of Jack Sheldon's short-lived unconventional CBS sitcom, "Run, Buddy, Run". O'Malley appeared occasionally as "Vince" in the 1966 ABC comedy/western series "The Rounders", with Ron Hayes, Patrick Wayne, and Chill Wills. That same year he played an old prospector who helps David McCallum in the "Man from U.N.C.L.E." episode, "The Nowhere Affair". In 1969, O'Malley portrayed Carol Brady's (Florence Henderson) father in the premiere episode of ABC's "The Brady Bunch". That same year, he appeared as a cop on the beat in 20th Century Fox's film production of "Hello, Dolly!". He made several appearances in the CBS sitcom, "Maude", as the beau of Hermione Baddeley from 1973-1975. He appeared in two episodes on NBC's "Emergency!". In 1979, O'Malley appeared on the sitcom "Three's Company" as "Leo" in the episode "The Old Folks at Home." In 1982, O'Malley made what would be his final television appearance ever in "The Road Not Taken", a two-part episode of the ABC sitcom "Taxi". Voice work. Walt Disney also engaged O'Malley to provide voices for animated films such as the Cockney coster in the "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious" sequence in "Mary Poppins" (1964), Cyril Proudbottom,Winkie and a policeman in "The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad" (1949) and the role of Colonel Hathi and the vulture Buzzie in "The Jungle Book" (1967). His voice can also be heard in "Alice in Wonderland" (1951), in which he performs all the character voices in the "The Walrus and the Carpenter" segment (besides Alice), including Tweedledum and Tweedledee, the Walrus, the Carpenter, and Mother Oyster. He performed the roles of the Colonel and Jasper in "One Hundred and One Dalmatians" (1961) and in the Pirates of the Caribbean attraction in several roles including the original voice of the Pirate Captain dunking the magistrate into the well. Death. O'Malley died of cardiovascular disease in San Juan Capistrano in Orange County, California, shortly before what would have been his 81st birthday. He was survived by his wife, Fay M. O'Malley (1926–2002) and two children. DVD release. A DVD version of the from the 1955 season was released in 2005 as part of the "Walt Disney Treasures" series. Selected filmography. The following is a list of notable films/episodes that J. Pat O'Malley appeared in or did voices for.
1057010	Attack the Block is a 2011 British monster movie. Written and directed by Joe Cornish in his directorial debut, it comes from the same writing and production stable as other horror/comedies such as "Shaun of the Dead", "Hot Fuzz", and "Scott Pilgrim vs. The World". The film stars Jodie Whittaker, John Boyega, Nick Frost, and Luke Treadaway. "Attack the Block" is set on a council estate in South London on Guy Fawkes Night, and, with some coming of age themes, the plot centres around a teenage street gang who have to defend themselves from predatory alien invaders. Released on 11 May 2011, the film achieved significant popularity, favorable critical reviews, and accolades internationally. The film has been listed as a cult film in the making by a significant number of websites. Plot. Walking home on Bonfire Night through "The Ends" in Brixton, new-to-the-area nurse Sam (Jodie Whittaker) is mugged by a small gang of teenage hoodlums: Pest (Alex Esmail), Dennis (Franz Drameh), Jerome (Leeon Jones), Biggz (Simon Howard), and leader Moses (John Boyega). The attack is interrupted when a meteorite falls from the sky into a nearby car, giving Sam the chance to escape. As Moses searches the wreck of the car for valuables his face is scratched by a pale hairless blind eyeless dog-sized creature; the object which fell from the sky was its cocoon. The creature runs away, but the gang chase and kill it. Hoping to gain fame and fortune, they take the corpse to their acquaintance, cannabis dealer Ron (Nick Frost), to gain advice. He lives at the top of their tower block, Wyndham Tower. Moses asks Ron and his boss, local gangster Hi-Hatz (Jumayn Hunter), to keep the creature in their fortified "weed room" (which is later referred to as Ron's Weed-room) while he decides how to proceed. More objects begin to fall from the sky. Eager to fight more of the creatures, the gang arm themselves and go to the nearest crash site. However, they find these aliens are much larger gorilla-size, with spiky fur which is so black it reflects no light, huge claws and multiple rows of glowing fangs. Fleeing the aliens, the gang are intercepted by the police and Moses is arrested, identified as a mugger by Sam. The aliens, following Moses, maul the police to death and attack their van, leaving Sam and Moses trapped inside. Dennis reaches the vehicle and drives the van away, only to crash the van into Hi-Hatz's car. Sam runs away while the rest of Moses's gang catch up and confront Hi-Hatz. Enraged about his car, Hi-Hatz threatens them with a gun, refusing to believe their story of aliens – until his henchman is attacked by one, allowing the gang to escape. The gang try to flee to Wyndham Tower but are again followed and attacked en route by the aliens, where Biggz is forced to hide in a rubbish container, and Pest is severely bitten in the leg. They find that Sam lives in their building, force their way into her flat, and persuade her to treat Pest's leg. An alien bursts in and Moses kills it with a samurai sword through the head. After seeing that the group was not lying about the creatures being extraterrestrial, Sam reasons that it is safer to stay with the gang than on her own and joins them. The gang moves upstairs to the flat of some neighborhood girls, believing that their security gate will keep them safe. The aliens instead attack from outside, climbing up the side of the tower block and smashing through the windows. They bite through Dennis's motorcycle helmet and decapitate him, killing him. As an alien is about to kill Moses, Sam stabs it through the head, saving him. The girls note that the aliens went straight for Moses and kick the gang out of the flat, believing them to be the focus of the creatures. In the hall, the gang is attacked by Hi-Hatz and more henchmen. The gang escapes while an alien chases Hi-Hatz and his henchmen into a lift. Hi-Hatz kills the alien, though his henchmen perish, and continues his search for Moses. Making their way upstairs to Ron's weed room, the gang runs into more aliens, but using fireworks as distractions, they get by. Jerome, however, becomes disoriented in the smoke and is killed by an alien. Entering Ron's flat they find that Hi-Hatz is already there. Hi-Hatz prepares to shoot Moses but hordes of aliens smash through the window and tear off his face. Moses, Pest and Sam, joined by Ron's weed customer Brewis (Luke Treadaway), retreat into the weed room (because it has 4 locks) while Ron hides in the flat. Biggz, still trapped in the bin by an awaiting adult alien, is saved by Probs and Mayhem, two unruly children, using a water-gun filled with petrol and a flame to torch the creature, since their only apparent weakness is fire. In the weed room, Brewis notices a luminescent stain on Moses' jacket under the ultraviolet light. Brewis theorizes that the aliens are like spores, drifting through space on solar winds until they chance on a suitable planet. After landing in an area with enough food, the female then lets off a strong pheromone which will attract the male creatures to it so that they can mate and propagate their species in their new world. Brewis suggests that the smaller, hairless alien which Moses killed in the beginning was such a female, and it had left a mating scent on Moses that the larger male aliens have been tracking throughout the evening. The gang form a plan for Sam, who has not been stained with the pheromone, to go to Moses's flat and turn on the gas oven. Before she leaves, Moses forces Pest to return the ring they stole from her, feeling guilty for having mugged her. Sam successfully avoids the aliens, turns on the gas and leaves the Block. Moses, with the dead female alien strapped to his back, rushes out of the weed room and into his flat, while the males converge on the scent and chase Moses through the block. Inside his flat he throws the female into the kitchen and the males follow. Using fireworks, Moses ignites the gas-filled room and leaps out of the window. The explosion engulfs the flat and the aliens, but Moses survives, clinging to a Union Flag hanging from the side of the building. In the aftermath, Moses, Pest, Brewis and Ron are arrested, considered responsible for the deaths around the Block including the two policemen who had earlier arrested Moses; Sam, however, comes to their defence. In the back of the police van, Moses and Pest hear the residents of the Block cheering for Moses, causing Moses to smile for the first time. Cast. Representative of the film's plot and location, most of the cast were young, relative unknowns, and local to the area. According the DVD making-of featurette, the teenagers were selected from drama classes of London council estate schools, and then had to go through eight auditions before being offered a part. John Boyega found out about this film from an ad placed on the internet. The cast includes: Production. Big Talk Productions, known for films including "Shaun of the Dead", "Hot Fuzz" and "Scott Pilgrim vs. The World", produced the film with Film4, The UK Film Council and StudioCanal. The plot was inspired by an event where the director was mugged himself, and after adding the science fiction angle into the plot, Joe Cornish interviewed various kids in youth groups in order to find out what kind of weapons they would use if a real alien invasion occurred. Cornish also based the character of the stoner Brewis on himself in his 20s. Filming. "Attack the Block" is set in a fictional neighbourhood referred to as "The Ends", said in-film to be located in the London district of Brixton. "The Ends" is actually a composite of various council estates across London. Director Joe Cornish explains: "We wanted to stamp a clear layout on the audience's minds early, and since we couldn't afford to show an aerial shot of the estate as it doesn't exist, the way to show it was by showing this top shot of the map at the very beginning of the film." Creature effects. The creatures began with two men in gorilla-like suits with animatronic jaws; post-production added the unearthly qualities such as the spiky fur which doesn't reflect any light, the claws, the rows of bioluminescent jaws, and even some of their movement. In total the film features over 100 FX shots, which were completed over the course of 4 months by Swedish effects house, Fido. The creatures have no eyes, and hunt and find mates using an extremely evolved sense of smell; however their very movement itself is enabled mainly through echolocation. According to the DVD commentary, the echolocation noises made by the creatures were a combination of dolphin sonar mixed digitally with the grunts and snarls of dozens of other animals, and even a woman screaming. Some puppets were used, such as the smaller, hairless female alien. It terrified the young cast. Release. Theatrical. StudioCanal's British distribution company Optimum Releasing released the film in the United Kingdom on 11 May 2011. Sony Pictures Worldwide Acquisitions acquired this film's United States distribution rights, and the group opened this film in limited theatrical release in the United States on 29 July 2011 through Screen Gems. US distributors were concerned that American audiences might not understand the strong South London accents, and may have even used subtitles if it were to be released in the United States. Cornish acknowledged this during the SXSW Q and A. When he asked the audience, "Can I ask you guys something? American distributors are nervous about language, the slang" the audience said they could understand it. Home media. The film was released on DVD and Blu-ray Disc in the UK on 19 September 2011, and in the US on 25 October 2011. In the category of Action, Adventure and Comedy on the website Amazon.com, "Attack the Block" is currently #59 on the DVD bestsellers list. Play.com have an exclusive Blu-ray and DVD double play edition, with a glow-in-the-dark sleeve, featuring the bio-luminescent jaws of one of the creatures rather than the cast. Soundtrack. The soundtrack for the film was an original score composed by Simon Ratcliffe and Felix Buxton of the popular British electronic dance music group Basement Jaxx, and Steven Price except for a few songs featured in the film but not on the soundtrack (such as the 1991 rap track "Sound of da Police" by KRS-One, and the 2006 reggae track "Youths Dem Cold" by Richie Spice, played during the end credits). The original "Attack the Block" soundtrack by Basement Jaxx and Steven Price features the following tracks: A rap song called "Get That Snitch", original to the film and sung by the film's main human antagonist Hi-Hatz, is featured at various times in the film. The full song was featured on the DVD special features, and is also available on YouTube. Reception. Box office. On its opening theatrical weekend in the UK in May 2011, "Attack the Block" garnered £1,133,859, putting it in third place only slightly behind American blockbusters "Thor" and "Fast and Furious 5"; also in the opening weekend "Attack the Block" had the highest cinema site average by almost twice of the other films. On a screen-by-screen basis, Attack the Block was the week's strongest performer. The North American theatrical run began in July 2011 and was only a limited release, yet despite being shown for less than two months and in only 66 cinemas at its peak, the film grossed $1,024,175 (£659,040) on its American theatrical run. Critical response. "Attack the Block" received positive critical response. The film-critics aggregate Rotten Tomatoes reported 98% positive reviews, and the film has a score of 75 out of 100 on Metacritic, indicating "generally favorable reviews". The website Slash film lists "Attack the Block" as a "true cult classic" deserving of its own action figures. In his positive review, "Chicago Sun-Times" critic Roger Ebert praised the film's use of character development and the performance given by John Boyega. Scott Wampler of "The Examiner" rated it A+ and said it was officially the best film of the 2011 film festival season and likened it to other debuts such as Neill Blomkamp's "District 9" and Quentin Tarantino's "Reservoir Dogs". Matt Patches writing for "Cinemablend" said "Attack the Block, even on its small scale, may wind up as one of the best action movies of the year". IGN gave it four stars saying "Cornish directs with the confidence of a seasoned pro" and calling the film "a blast from start-to-finish." Ben Rawson-Jones of Digital Spy awarded the movie four stars, saying that it is "exactly the kind of distinctly homegrown product that the British film industry should be making". Mark Kermode gave a mixed review saying he did not dislike the film, but "wanted it to be funnier" and "needed it to be scarier".
589693	Chalti Ka Naam Gaadi (; "That which runs is a Vehicle") is a 1958 Indian comedy film. The film featured Kishore Kumar, his two brothers Anoop Kumar and Ashok Kumar, and Madhubala. Kishore Kumar sang many of the songs in the film, along with Asha Bhosle. The music was composed by SD Burman, and the lyrics were written by Majrooh Sultanpuri. The success of the film led the brothers to act in another comedy titled "Badhti Ka Naam Dadhi" (That which grows is a beard) to rhyme with the name of this film. Plot. Brijmohan Sharma (Ashok Kumar), Manmohan Sharma (Kishore Kumar), and his brother Jagmohan Sharma (Anoop Kumar) run a garage. The eldest brother Brijmohan hates women and doesn't allow any women or pictures of them in his garage unless its an emergency. One day, while Manmohan is on the night shift, Renu (Madhubala) comes to the garage seeking help as her car breaks down. Renu gets angry at Manmohan because he is sleeping when he is supposed to be on duty. Manmohan doesn't like the fact that Renu shouted at him and initially refuses to repair her car, but finally agrees. Manmohan fixes the car, and Renu leaves, forgetting to pay Manmohan for his services. He tells his brother Brijmohan about this and realizes that Renu forgot her purse in the garage. Manmohan goes through it and finds a pass to a concert. Manmohan goes to this concert to recover his money. When Manmohan reaches the venue, he is not allowed to enter as the pass has Renu's name on it. Not wanting to let go of his money, Manmohan waits in Renu's car and to meet her when she comes out. He, however, falls asleep and Renu doesn't notice him; she drives home and parks in her garage with Manmohan in the car. When Manmohan wakes up, he gets hungry and looks for some food in Renu's garage. A servant in the house sees this and chases Manmohan, who manages to escape. On his way home, he notices a few men dumping a dead body on the road and fleeing. When he tells his brothers about his night the next morning, they have a hearty laugh at his expense. Later, Renu calls the garage asking for help with her car and assuring she will pay back her fees. Manmohan refuses to go to her house, fearing that he will be recognized by Renu's servant and will get into trouble; Jagmohan decides to go. Jagmohan meets Sheela (Sahira) in Renu's house and the two start talking. Jagmohan is, however, afraid of women. He gets nervous because Sheela is around and can't repair the car. After Jagmohan takes off (not before drinking 10 glasses of water due to anxiety), Renu decides to call Manmohan. Meanwhile, Renu's father is approached by Raja Hardayal Singh (K. N. Singh), who wants to get his younger brother (Sajjan) married to Renu. Renu's father decides to talk to Renu about this, not knowing that Raja Hardayal and his brother are crooks – Manmohan saw Raja Hardayal's brother dump a body. As Renu is falling for Manmohan and the crooks desperately want her inheritance, Renu and Manmohan are captured by Hardayal's men. In captivity, they meet Kamini, whose photo Renu had found in Brijmohan's room. Brijmohan and Kamini were in love, but she was married off to Raja Hardayal. Brijmohan is under the impression that she dumped him for a richer man; as a result, he decides that he never wants to associate with women again. Kamini tries to free Renu and Manmohan, but a guard enters. Kamini, however, is able to escape and goes looking for Brijmohan. Meanwhile, Raja Hardyal Singh captures Renu's father and forces him to get Renu married to his brother, threatening to kill Manmohan if he doesn't. Before Raja Hardayal Singh has his way, Brijmohan is brought to the scene by Kamini. Brijmohan, who is a boxing champion, fights Raja Hardyal Singh's men with the help of his two brothers. In the end, Brijmohan and his brothers are victorious. Manmohan and Renu decide to get married. So do Brijmohan and Kamini, and Jagmohan and Sheila. Production. Kishore Kumar apparently made "Chalti Ka Naam Gaadi", hoping it would fail commercially. He wanted to show losses in his income, and thus avoid paying a huge income tax to the authorities. So he made two films – "Lookochuri" (Bengali) and "Chalti Ka Naam Gaadi", and waited eagerly for them to collapse. However, both surprisingly went on to become box-office successes. Kumar was so disgusted with this that he gifted "Chalti Ka Naam Gaadi" and all its rights to his secretary Anoop Sharma, who retained the copyright. The income tax case on Kishore Kumar was not solved even after forty years. Soundtrack. Music is composed by S.D. Burman, with lyrics by Majrooh Sultanpuri. The tunes of two Songs, "Hum The Woh Thi" and "Ek Ladki Bheegi Bhaagi Si" were, to quite an extent, lifted from "The Watermelon Song" and "Sixteen Tons" respectively, supposedly on Kishore Kumar's request. Box office. "Chalti Ka Naam Gaadi" was declared a "super-hit" at the box office. It was the second highest grossing film of the year and 21st highest grossing film of the 1950s.
1167181	Ralph Taeger (born July 30, 1936) is an American former actor who starred in three short-lived television series during the 1960s. Biography. Ralph Taeger was born in Richmond Hills in the Queens borough of New York City to German-speaking parents. Taeger's first career choice was professional baseball, and he did play briefly on a farm team for the Los Angeles Dodgers. Knee injuries prompted him to switch his focus from athletics to acting, though he refers to baseball as his "first love."
585310	Server Sundaram () is a 1964 Indian Tamil language comedy film directed by Krishnan Panju and written by K. Balachander. It stars Nagesh as a waiter along with R. Muthuraman and K. R. Vijaya. The film released on 11 December 1964 and was a critically and commercially very successful, winning the Indian Government Certificate of Merit and the Filmfare Award for Best Film. It is made into Hindi language as "Main Sunder Hoon" in 1971 starring Mehmood Ali as Sundar.
1062240	Bullets Over Broadway is a 1994 American crime-comedy film written by Woody Allen and Douglas McGrath and directed by Woody Allen. It stars an ensemble cast including John Cusack, Dianne Wiest, Chazz Palminteri, and Jennifer Tilly.
1036375	Meera Syal MBE (born Feroza Syal on 27 June 1961) is a British comedian, writer, playwright, singer, journalist, producer and actress. She rose to prominence as one of the team that created "Goodness Gracious Me" and became one of the UK's best-known Indian personalities portraying Sanjeev's grandmother, Ummi, in "The Kumars at No. 42". She was awarded the MBE in the 1997 New Year Honours and in 2003 was listed in "The Observer" as one of the fifty funniest acts in British comedy. Early life. Meera Syal's Punjab-born parents Surendra Syal (father) and Surrinder Uppal (mother) came to England from New Delhi. Her father was Khatri and mother Jatt. She was born in Wolverhampton, Staffordshire, and grew up in Essington, a mining village a few miles to the north. When she was young, the family moved to Bloxwich. This landscape – and the family's status as the only Asian family in a small Midlands mining village – was later to form the backdrop to her novel (later filmed) Anita and Me, which Syal described in a 2003 BBC interview as semi-autobiographical. She attended Queen Mary's High School in nearby Walsall and then studied English and drama at Manchester University, graduating with a double first. Acting and writing career highlights. Syal wrote the screenplay for the 1993 film "Bhaji on the Beach", directed by Gurinder Chadha, of "Bend It Like Beckham" fame. She was on the team who wrote and performed in the BBC comedy sketch show "Goodness Gracious Me" (1996–2001), originally on radio and then on television. She was a scriptwriter on A.R. Rahman and Andrew Lloyd Webber's "Bombay Dreams" She played the grandmother Sushila in the International Emmy-award winning series "The Kumars at No. 42", which ran for seven series. In October 2008 she starred in the BBC2 sitcom "Beautiful People". This role, as Aunty Hayley, continued in 2009. Syal starred in the eleventh series of "Holby City" as consultant Tara Sodi. In 2009, she guest starred in "Minder" and starred in the film "Mad, Sad & Bad". In 2010, she played Shirley Valentine in a one-woman show at the Menier Chocolate Factory, later transferring to Trafalgar Studios. In the same year she played Nasreen Chroudhry in two episodes of "Doctor Who" alongside Matt Smith.
1064402	A Guy Named Joe is a 1943 film released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, directed by Victor Fleming, produced by Everett Riskin, from a screenplay by Dalton Trumbo, adapted by Frederick Hazlitt Brennan from a story by Chandler Sprague and David Boehm. It starred Spencer Tracy, Irene Dunne and Van Johnson, with Esther Williams in a minor role. Musically, it featured the popular song "I'll Get By (As Long as I Have You)" by Fred Ahlert and Roy Turk, sung by Ms. Dunne. "A Guy Named Joe" was remade by Steven Spielberg in 1989 as "Always" with Richard Dreyfuss, Holly Hunter and John Goodman, updating it to 1989 and exchanging the World War II backdrop to one of aerial firefighting. Plot. Pete Sandidge (Spencer Tracy) is the reckless pilot of a North American B-25 Mitchell bomber flying out of England during World War II. He is in love with Women Airforce Service Pilot Dorinda Durston (Irene Dunne), a civilian pilot ferrying aircraft across the Atlantic. "Nails" Kilpatrick (James Gleason), Pete's commanding officer, first transfers Pete and his crew to a base in Scotland and then offers him a transfer back to America to be a flying instructor. Dorinda has a feeling that Pete's "number is up" and begs him to accept. Pete agrees, but goes out on one last mission with his best friend Al Yackey (Ward Bond) to check out a German aircraft carrier. Wounded after an attack by an enemy fighter, Pete has his crew bail out before bombing the ship and crashing into the sea. Pete then finds himself walking in clouds, where he first recognizes an old friend, Dick Rumney (Barry Nelson). Suddenly becoming ill-at-ease after remembering that Dick went down with his aircraft in a fiery crash, Pete says, "either I'm dead or I'm crazy." Dick answers, "You're not crazy." Dick ushers Pete to a meeting with "The General" (Lionel Barrymore) who gives him an assignment. He is to be sent back to Earth, where a year has elapsed, to pass on his experience and knowledge to dilettante Ted Randall (Van Johnson), first in flight school, then as a Lockheed P-38 Lightning fighter pilot in the south Pacific. Ted's commanding officer turns out to be Al Yackey.
1060403	Natasha Jane Richardson (11 May 1963 – 18 March 2009) was an English actress of stage and screen. A member of the Redgrave family, she was the daughter of actress Vanessa Redgrave and director/producer Tony Richardson and the granddaughter of Michael Redgrave and Rachel Kempson. Early in her career, she portrayed Mary Shelley and Patty Hearst in feature films, and she received critical acclaim and a Theatre World Award for her Broadway debut in the 1993 revival of "Anna Christie". She won the Tony Award for Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a Musical, the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Actress in a Musical, and the Outer Critics Circle Award for her performance as Sally Bowles in the 1998 Broadway revival of "Cabaret". Some of her notable films included "Patty Hearst" (1988), "The Handmaid's Tale" (1990), "Nell" (1994), "The Parent Trap" (1998), and "Maid in Manhattan" (2002). Her first marriage to filmmaker Robert Fox ended in divorce in 1992. In 1994, she married fellow actor Liam Neeson, whom she had met when the two appeared in "Anna Christie". The couple had two sons, Micheál and Daniel. Richardson's father died of AIDS-related causes in 1991. She helped raise millions of dollars in the fight against AIDS through the charity amfAR, the American Foundation for AIDS Research. Richardson died on 18 March 2009 from an epidural hematoma after a skiing accident in Quebec, Canada. Early life. Richardson was born and brought up in London, a member of the Redgrave family, known as a theatrical and film acting dynasty. She was the daughter of director and producer Tony Richardson and actress Vanessa Redgrave, granddaughter of actors Sir Michael Redgrave and Rachel Kempson, sister of Joely Richardson, half-sister of Carlo Gabriel Nero and Katharine Grimond Hess, niece of actress Lynn Redgrave and actor Corin Redgrave, and cousin of Jemma Redgrave. Richardson's parents divorced in 1967. The following year, she made her film debut at the age of four in an uncredited role in "The Charge of the Light Brigade", directed by her father. Richardson was educated in London at two independent schools, the Lycée Français Charles de Gaulle in South Kensington, London and St. Paul's Girls' School in Hammersmith, London, before training at the Central School of Speech and Drama. Career. Theatre. Richardson began her career in regional theatre at the West Yorkshire Playhouse in Leeds, and, in 1984, at the Open Air Theatre in London's Regents Park, when she appeared in "A Midsummer Night's Dream" with Ralph Fiennes and Richard E. Grant. Her first professional work in London's West End was in a revival of Anton Chekhov's "The Seagull" in 1985. Soon after, she starred in a London stage production of "High Society", adapted from the Cole Porter film. In 1998, she played the role of Sally Bowles in Sam Mendes' revival of "Cabaret" on Broadway, for which she won the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical. The following year she returned to Broadway in "Closer", for which she was nominated for the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Featured Actress in a Play, and in 2005, she appeared again with the Roundabout, this time as Blanche DuBois in their revival of Tennessee Williams's "A Streetcar Named Desire", opposite John C. Reilly as Stanley Kowalski. In January 2009, two months before her death, Richardson played the role of Desirée in a concert production of Stephen Sondheim's "A Little Night Music", opposite her mother, Vanessa Redgrave who played Mme. Armfeldt. The two were slated to headline a brand new Broadway production (which became the current Broadway revival directed by Trevor Nunn), which never came to fruition. Film. Richardson portrayed Mary Shelley in the 1986 film "Gothic", a fictionalised account of the author's creation of "Frankenstein". The following year she starred opposite Kenneth Branagh and Colin Firth in "A Month in the Country", directed by Pat O'Connor. Director Paul Schrader signed her for the title role in "Patty Hearst", his 1988 docudrama about the heiress and her alleged kidnapping. Her performances opposite Robert Duvall and Faye Dunaway in "The Handmaid's Tale" and Christopher Walken, Rupert Everett and Helen Mirren in "The Comfort of Strangers" (directed by Schrader) won her the 1990 "Evening Standard" British Film Award for Best Actress. In 1991, she appeared in "The Favour, the Watch and the Very Big Fish" alongside Bob Hoskins. He later credited her with giving him the best kiss of his life during the film. "She got hold of me and kissed me like I've never been kissed before. I was gobsmacked". She was named Best Actress at the 1994 Karlovy Vary International Film Festival for "Widows' Peak", and that same year appeared in "Nell" opposite Jodie Foster and future husband Liam Neeson. Additional film credits include "The Parent Trap" (1998), "Blow Dry" (2001), "Chelsea Walls" (2001), "Waking Up in Reno" (2002), "Maid in Manhattan" (2002), "Asylum" (2005), which won her a second "Evening Standard" Award for Best Actress, "The White Countess" (2005), and "Evening" (2007). Her last screen appearance was as headmistress of a girls' school in the 2008 comedy "Wild Child". During the last week of January 2009, she recorded her offscreen role of the wife of climber George Mallory, who disappeared while climbing Mount Everest during a 1924 expedition, in the 2010 documentary film "The Wildest Dream", for which Liam Neeson provides narration. Director Anthony Geffen described listening to the film since her death as "harrowing." Television. Richardson made her American television debut in a small role in the 1984 CBS miniseries "Ellis Island". That same year she made her British television debut in an episode of the BBC series "Oxbridge Blues". The following year she appeared as Violet Hunter alongside Jeremy Brett and David Burke in "The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes", in the episode entitled "The Copper Beeches". She starred with Judi Dench, Michael Gambon and Kenneth Branagh in a 1987 BBC adaptation of the Henrik Ibsen play "Ghosts"; with Maggie Smith and Rob Lowe in a 1993 BBC adaptation of "Suddenly, Last Summer" by Tennessee Williams; portrayed Zelda Fitzgerald in the 1993 television movie "Zelda"; and starred in "Haven" (2001) on CBS and "The Mastersons of Manhattan" (2007) on NBC. Personal life. Richardson's first marriage was to filmmaker Robert Fox whom she had met in 1985, during the making of Anton Chekhov's "The Seagull"; they were married from 1990 to 1992. She married Irish actor Liam Neeson in the summer of 1994 at the home they shared near Millbrook, New York; she had taken American citizenship. Richardson and Neeson have two sons: Micheál (born 1995) and Daniel (born 1996). Richardson helped raise millions of dollars in the fight against AIDS; her father, director Tony Richardson, died of AIDS-related causes in 1991. Richardson was actively involved in amfAR, becoming a board of trustees member in 2006, and participated in many other AIDS charities including Bailey House, God's Love We Deliver, Mothers' Voices, AIDS Crisis Trust and National AIDS Trust, for which she was an ambassador. Richardson received amfAR's Award of Courage in November 2000. A long-time smoker, although she had reportedly quit smoking, Richardson was an outspoken opponent of the ban on smoking in New York City restaurants. Injury and death. On 16 March 2009, Richardson sustained a head injury when she fell while taking a beginner skiing lesson at the Mont Tremblant Resort in Quebec, Canada about from Montreal. The injury was followed by a lucid interval, when Richardson seemed to be fine and was able to talk and act normally. Paramedics and an ambulance which initially responded to the accident were told they were not needed and left. Refusing medical attention twice, she returned to her hotel room and about three hours later was taken to a local hospital in Sainte-Agathe-des-Monts after complaining of a headache. She was transferred from there by ambulance to Hôpital du Sacré-Cœur, Montreal, in critical condition and was admitted about seven hours after the fall. The following day she was flown to Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City, where she died on 18 March at the age of 45. An autopsy conducted by the New York City Medical Examiners Office on 19 March revealed the cause of death was an "epidural hematoma due to blunt impact to the head", and her death was ruled an accident.
1685442	Silvia Pinal (born Silvia Pinal Hidalgo on 12 September 1931) is a Mexican actress, who had roles in several of Luis Buñuel's movies such as "El ángel exterminador" and "Viridiana". Pinal is also considered as one of the few surviving legends of the Golden Age of Mexican cinema. Career. Career in film. In 1949, Pinal started her career in film at the age of 18 in the movies "La Bamba" and "El pecado de Laura" (with Meche Barba and Rafael Banquells). She gained popularity as a "young lady" of the Golden age of Mexican cinema in the 1950s. She starred in some successful movies like "El rey del barrio" with Tin Tan (1950), "El portero", with Cantinflas (1951), "Mis Tres Viudas Alegres" (1953), with Amalia Aguilar and "El inocente" (1953), with Pedro Infante, winning her first Silver Ariel award. She earned two more Ariels for "Locura Pasional" (in 1955) and "Enemiga" (in 1956). She gained further recognition with roles in a number of movies for the Argentinean director Tulio Demicheli, as "Un extraño en la escalera" (1954) or "Desnudate Lucrecia" (1959). After marrying Gustavo Alatriste, a businessman who invited Spanish-born film director Luis Buñuel to direct "Viridiana", a controversial film depicting a nun (played by Pinal) and her affair with the character played by Spanish actor Francisco Rabal. The Alatriste-Pinal-Buñuel team made two more successful films, "El ángel exterminador" (1962) and "Simón del desierto" (1965). After the Buñuel-Pinal collaboration, Silvia starred in numerous movies during the 1960s and 1970s, like "Los Cuervos están de luto" (1965), "La soldadera" (1966), "La Bataille de San Sebastian" (1968, in France), "María Isabel" (1968), "El Cuerpazo del Delíto" (1970, with Mauricio Garcés), "Divínas Palabras" (1978), "Pubis Angelical" (1982, in Argentina), and "Modelo Antiguo" (1992). Career on television. In 1968, Pinal obtained a role in her first telenovela titled "Los caudillos", a story inspired in the events of the Mexican War of Independence. With her husband, Guzmán, she hosted a musical talk-show titled "Silvia y Enrique" on Televisa. In 1985, she produced a show that portrays viewers-submitted stories about women titled "Mujer, casos de la vida real" that became a success and it is still produced and broadcast by Televisa in Mexico and Latin America and Univision in the United States. She acted in another telenovela in 1973 and more in the 1980s before taking a 15-year break from such roles. In 1983, she produced "Cuando los hijos se van", starring her daughter Silvia Pasquel and Saby Kamalich. She returned to telenovela roles in 1998 with "El privilegio de amar", the "Best Telenovela of the Year", according to TVyNovelas. Her most recent roles have been in "Carita de ángel" in 2000, "Aventuras en el tiempo" in 2001, "Amarte es mi pecado" in 2004 and "Fuego en la Sangre" in 2008. In 2010, Silvia participated in the Mexican telenovela "Soy Tu Dueña". Pinal is featured in the 2007 book "Televisa Presenta," which celebrates over 50 years of Televisa's history. Career on stage. Pinal has also produced and starred in plays such as the Spanish language version of "Mame". She then acquired her own theaters and named them "Silvia Pinal" and "Diego Rivera" and starred in "Que tal Dolly!", the Spanish-language version of "Hello Dolly!" and "Gypsy", opposite her real-life daughter, Alejandra Guzmán.
1163231	Sara Gilbert (; born Sara Rebecca Abeles; January 29, 1975) is an American actress, best known for her role as Darlene Conner on the ABC sitcom "Roseanne" from 1988 to 1997, as co-host and creator of the daytime talk show "The Talk" and for her recurring role as Leslie Winkle on CBS's "The Big Bang Theory". Early life. Gilbert was born Sara Rebecca Abeles in Santa Monica, California. Her parents are Barbara Crane (née Cowan) and Harold Abeles. Her two older siblings, Melissa Gilbert and Jonathan Gilbert, were stars of "Little House on the Prairie". Melissa and Jonathan both were adopted by Barbara and her first husband, Paul Gilbert; Paul died in 1975. Abeles changed her surname to Gilbert to become an actress in 1984. Television career. Gilbert decided at age six that she wanted to be an actress after her older sister, Melissa Gilbert, got a plaque on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Following appearances in television movies and a commercial for Kool Aid, at thirteen she landed the role of Darlene Conner, the sarcastic middle child, in "Roseanne". Sara was a cast member in the show's nine-year run from 1988 to 1997, for which she wrote a fourth-season episode story (the teleplay was written by the Guild Writers for the show) called "Don't Make Me Over". Her contribution was considered so important to "Roseanne" that the show's producers juggled storylines and taping schedules to allow her to study at Yale University while remaining in the cast, shooting remote segments of Darlene at a soundstage in New York. At Yale, she majored in art with an emphasis on photography; she graduated with honors in 1997. Gilbert has appeared on "The Simpsons", "24", "Will & Grace", "" and "Private Practice". Starting in 2004, she had a recurring role as medical student Jane Figler on the long-running hospital drama "ER". She returned to prime time television in the fall of 2005 in the sitcom "Twins" on The WB network. The sitcom was canceled after one season, when the WB and UPN networks merged as The CW and dropped a number of shows. She also had a recurring role on the short-lived CBS sitcom "The Class" as Fern Velch. Since 2007 she has appeared in episodes of the CBS TV series "The Big Bang Theory" as Leslie Winkle, a scientist friend of Leonard Hofstadter played by Johnny Galecki, who had previously played Gilbert's love interest David Healy on "Roseanne". In the second episode of the second season of "The Big Bang Theory", Gilbert was elevated to the show's main cast, portraying again a potential love interest of Galecki's character, and at one point a love interest to Howard Wolowitz (Simon Helberg). By January 2009, it was announced that the writers did not know how to write for her character full-time and her status was reduced from regular to recurring. Gilbert is a co-host and executive producer of "The Talk", a talk show that premiered October 18, 2010. Gilbert appears alongside Julie Chen, Sharon Osbourne, Sheryl Underwood and Aisha Tyler. Film career. Gilbert appeared in two films alongside Drew Barrymore, in "Poison Ivy" in 1992 and "Riding In Cars With Boys" in 2001. Gilbert also had a feature role in "Light It Up" in 1999. She has had several minor roles following "Roseanne", including short film "$30" (aka "30 Bucks") as part of the "Boys Life 3" feature, and "High Fidelity". She directed her short film "Persona Non Grata" in 1998. Personal life. Gilbert publicly came out as a lesbian in 2010. In 2001, she began a relationship with TV producer Allison Adler. They have two children—a son, Levi Hank, born to Adler in October 2004, and a daughter, Sawyer, born to Gilbert on August 2, 2007. Gilbert and Adler separated in August 2011. Following the breakup, Gilbert began a relationship with songwriter and former 4 Non Blondes frontwoman Linda Perry. Gilbert announced her engagement to Perry in April 2013. In her teens, Gilbert became a vegetarian, and by 2008, she had adopted a vegan lifestyle. She supports such organizations as PETA, Meals on Wheels, Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation, and AIDS Project Los Angeles.
1062659	Confessions of a Dangerous Mind is a 2002 biographical spy film depicting the real or imagined life of popular game show host and producer Chuck Barris, who claimed to have also been an assassin for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). The film was directed by actor George Clooney and written by Charlie Kaufman, and starred Sam Rockwell, Julia Roberts, Drew Barrymore, and Clooney. It is Clooney's directorial debut. Columbia Pictures had planned to produce a film adaptation of Barris's memoir of the same name in the late 1980s. When the film rights were purchased by producer Andrew Lazar, Charlie Kaufman was commissioned to write a new script, which attracted various A-list actors and filmmakers to the project. Bryan Singer at one point planned to direct the film with Johnny Depp in the lead role, but the production was canceled. The production resumed when Clooney took over directing duties. Barris remained heavily involved in production in an attempt to portray the film from his point of view. To accommodate the $30 million budget, Clooney convinced actresses Drew Barrymore and Julia Roberts to lower their asking prices. "Confessions of a Dangerous Mind" was released with respectful reviews from critics but bombed at the box office. Rockwell, in particular, was praised for his acting and won the Silver Bear for Best Actor at the 2003 Berlin International Film Festival. Plot. Tired of being rejected by the beautiful women he lusts after, Chuck Barris (Rockwell) moves to Manhattan to become an NBC page with dreams of becoming famous in television but is eventually fired. He moves back to Philadelphia and becomes Dick Clark's personal assistant on "American Bandstand" in 1961. He writes the successful "Palisades Park" song and falls in love with a woman named Penny Pacino (Barrymore). Chuck is given permission to pitch the concept for "The Dating Game" at the American Broadcasting Company (ABC); he receives $7,500 to create a television pilot for the studio. However, ABC abandons "The Dating Game" in favor of "Hootenanny". One night after Barris is kicked out of a bar for fighting, he is approached by CIA agent Jim Byrd (Clooney), who recruits him as an assassin. Returning from a mission in Mexico, Barris finds that Penny has become a Hippie. Meanwhile, ABC decides to greenlight "The Dating Game", and by 1967 the TV show is a phenomenon. Barris takes another mission for the CIA in Helsinki, Finland, where he meets gorgeous operative Patricia Watson (Roberts). He finds more success back home when "The Newlywed Game" goes on air. He and Penny decide to move to Los Angeles into a house, but Barris is cautious of marriage, much to Penny's dismay. The journey in Barris's life is tied in to the story of Thomas Carlyle's main character in "Sartor Resartus", Teufelsdröckh, and this parallel is referred to throughout the film. In 1970, Byrd convinces Barris to go on another mission in West Berlin to assassinate communist Hans Colbert (Norman Roy). Barris is introduced there to German-American agent Keeler (Hauer) and is held captive by the KGB for some weeks.
1161926	Mark Andreas Sheppard (born 30 May 1964) is an English actor and musician, born in London of an Irish-German background. He is often credited as "Mark A. Sheppard". Sheppard is best known for his recurring roles as the demon Crowley on "Supernatural", lawyer Romo Lampkin on the "Battlestar Galactica" reboot, Interpol investigator James Sterling on "Leverage" and small-time crime lord Badger on Joss Whedon's "Firefly". Personal life. Mark Sheppard is the son of actor W. Morgan Sheppard. He currently resides in Los Angeles with his wife (Jessica Sheppard) and two sons (Max and Will Sheppard). Career. Music. At 15, he became a professional musician and enjoyed many years as a recording and touring artist with bands including Robyn Hitchcock, the Television Personalities and the Irish group Light a Big Fire. Mark played drums on Light a Big Fire's second album. As a session musician, he recorded albums for many groups throughout Europe, and eventually moved to the United States. Stage. Sheppard was invited to audition for the American production of the play "Cock and Bull Story" (directed by "Midnight Express" author Billy Hayes), for which he won numerous awards, including the 1992 L.A. Drama Critics' Circle award and the LA Weekly and Dramalogue awards. Television. His television work includes the "Fire" episode of "The X-Files", a year on the Jerry Bruckheimer action series "Soldier of Fortune", guest-starring and recurring roles on "The Practice", "The Invisible Man", "Special Unit 2", "JAG", ', "The Chronicle", "Monk", "Las Vegas", ', "Chuck" and "", among others. Mark played a demon named Arnon on an episode titled "Witches in Tights" on the TV series "Charmed". He played Badger, a semi-comical cockney-style crime boss in the short-lived Joss Whedon show "Firefly" and later cast again in another Joss Whedon show, "Dollhouse" as Paul Ballard's dismissive FBI superior. He has appeared as a villain in season five of the Fox show "24" and as Patricia Arquette's serial-killer nemesis on "Medium". He appeared as Romo Lampkin in seasons three and four of "Battlestar Galactica", and had a recurring role as Manservant Neville in ABC Family's short-lived cult hit "The Middleman". He has been seen as Anthony Anthros on "Bionic Woman", as Sterling the nemesis character on "Leverage", as the King of Hell Crowley on "Supernatural", and as bank robber Tom Prescott on an episode of "Burn Notice". He appeared in the pilot episode of the USA series "White Collar" as a villainous master forger and in NBC's "Chuck" as the Director of the Ring criminal organisation. Most recently, he appeared in the SyFy series "Warehouse 13" as Regent Benedict Valda. He appears in the 2011 "Doctor Who" episodes "The Impossible Astronaut" and "Day of the Moon" playing the character Canton Everett Delaware III. This was the first time Sheppard had appeared in a British TV series. Film. His film credits include the Jim Sheridan film "In the Name of the Father", starring opposite Daniel Day-Lewis and Emma Thompson as Guildford Four member Patrick Armstrong; the romantic comedy "Lover's Knot"; the Russian historical drama "Out of the Cold"; the thriller "Unstoppable"; and with Heather Graham and Jeremy Sisto in the dark independent, "Broken". He also starred in "Megalodon" and "New Alcatraz". Mark Sheppard directed his father W. Morgan Sheppard in the film "Room 101" and co-stars with him in the psychological thriller "Nether World", which the younger Sheppard also co-produced. His father also played the older version of his son's character in the afforementioned "Doctor Who" episodes. Video games. He voiced the role of protagonist Michael Ford in "The Conduit", whose mentor, John Adams, is voiced by his father W. Morgan Sheppard. Double casting. Three times Sheppard has been cast with his father as the same character, each playing the character at different ages. "Canton Everett Delaware III" in the "Doctor Who" episode "The Impossible Astronaut", War criminal Mercin Jarek a.k.a. "Mr. Pain" in the "NCIS" episode "Broken Bird" playing the younger version of his father's character, and "Captain Nemo" in the 2010 film "Mysterious Island", which Sheppard also directed. Voice. Since 2011 Mark Sheppard has been "The Voice" of "BBC America" promos/announcements.
995413	Taxidermia is a 2006 Hungarian comedy-drama horror film directed by György Pálfi. The film is a metaphorical socio-political retelling of Hungary's history from the Second World War to the present day.
1714487	Evgeny "Eugen" Evgenievich Slutsky ( ; ; – 10 March 1948) was a Russian/Soviet mathematical statistician, economist and political economist. Slutsky's work in economics. He is principally known for work in deriving the relationships embodied in the very well known Slutsky equation which is widely used in microeconomic consumer theory for separating the substitution effect and the income effect of a price change on the total quantity of a good demanded following a price change in that good, or in a related good that may have a cross-price effect on the original good quantity. There are many Slutsky analogs in producer theory. He is less well known by Western economists than some of his contemporaries, due to his own changing intellectual interests as well as external factors forced upon him after the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917. His seminal paper in Economics, and some argue his last paper in Economics rather than probability theory, was published in 1915 ("Sulla teoria del bilancio del consumatore"). Paul Samuelson noted that until 1936, he had been entirely unaware of Slutsky's 1915 "masterpiece" due to World War I and the paper's Italian language publication. R. G. D. Allen did the most to propagate Slutsky's work on consumer theory in published papers in 1936 and 1950. Vincent Barnett argues: In the 1920s Slutsky turned to working on probability theory and stochastic processes, but in 1927 he published his second famous article on economic theory, 'The Summation of Random Causes as a Source of Cyclical Processes'. This opened up a new approach to business cycle theory by hypothesising that the interaction of chance events could generate periodicity when none existed initially. Mathematical statistics work. Slutsky's later work was principally in probability theory and the theory of stochastic processes. He is generally credited for the result known as Slutsky's theorem.
400674	June Diane Raphael (born January 4, 1980) is an American actress, comedienne, and screenwriter, best known for starring in the Adult Swim series "" and in the Yahoo! web series "Burning Love". Her Sundance film "Ass Backwards", a female buddy comedy which she co-wrote and co-stars in with her screenwriting partner Casey Wilson, will be available on VOD beginning September 30, 2013 before its theatrical release on November 8, 2013. Raphael is also a co-host on the popular movie review podcast "How Did This Get Made?" alongside Paul Scheer and Jason Mantzoukas. Early life. Raphael was born and raised in Rockville Centre, New York, to parents Diane and John Raphael, where she graduated from South Side High School in 1998. After high school, she attended New York University (NYU), where she studied acting at NYU's Tisch School of the Arts and the Stella Adler Studio of Acting. She has two older sisters, Lauren Raphael and New York-based actress Deanna Raphael. After graduating New York University in 2002, Raphael and her best friend from college, Casey Wilson, began studying improvisational comedy at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theater in New York City, where they would eventually run their two-woman sketch show for a number of years. Performing the long-running stage show opened doors for them as writers, after performing the show at the "U.S. Comedy Arts Festival" in 2005, they were hired by New Regency Pictures to write the film "Bride Wars" and landed a development deal with UPN to create a sitcom pilot. Career. Raphael began her comedy career writing and performing with the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre (UCB) in New York and later in Los Angeles. Among her best known work at UCB, was the long-running sketch show "Rode Hard and Put Away Wet", written and performed alongside her comedy partner and best friend Casey Wilson; the stage show ran from 2003 to 2006 in New York and Los Angeles and was an official selection at 2005's US Comedy Arts Festival in Aspen, Colorado. The two women, who had first met in a clowning class during their sophomore year at NYU, went on to win the ECNY Award for "Best Comedy Duo" in 2005. They also performed as members of the UCB improv teams "Mr. and Mrs. All-Star", "Sentimental Lady", and "Hey, Uncle Gary!". Raphael and Wilson's comedic partnership has since branched out into an active writing career in film and television, they co-wrote the screenplay for the 2009 comedy "Bride Wars", which they also appeared in with supporting roles. They had a development deal with the UPN network in 2005 to create a half-hour comedy pilot and in 2007 they worked as writers and story editors on the Americanized version of "Creature Comforts" on CBS. They also continue to contribute comedic videos to the humor website Funny or Die. As a film and television actress, Raphael has made guest appearances on shows such as "Party Down", "Happy Endings", "Animal Practice", "American Dad!", "Kroll Show", "Funny or Die Presents", "Big Lake", "Drunk History", "Flight of the Conchords" and currently recurs as Dr. Sadie on the FOX sitcom "New Girl". She has appeared with supporting roles in the films "Girl Most Likely", "Going the Distance", "Zodiac", "Bachelorette", "Forgetting Sarah Marshall" and "Year One". In 2010, Raphael co-starred as Barb in the improvised comedy series "Players" on Spike TV. She also starred in all three seasons of the web series "Burning Love" alongside Ken Marino and Michael Ian Black.
1060537	Anthony M. LaPaglia (; born 31 January 1959) is an Australian actor. He is best known for his role as FBI agent Jack Malone on the American TV series "Without a Trace", for which he won a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Television Series Drama, and for his portrayal of Simon Moon on the TV show "Frasier", for which he won a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Comedy Series. He is also known for his role as Barry "The Blade" Muldanno in "The Client". Early life. LaPaglia was born in Adelaide, South Australia, the son of Maria Johannes (née Brendel), a secretary, and Gedio "Eddie" LaPaglia, an auto mechanic and car dealer. LaPaglia's mother was Dutch, and his Italian father immigrated from Bovalino, Calabria, at the age of eighteen. His younger brother, Jonathan LaPaglia, is also an actor, and his other brother, Michael, is a car wholesaler in Los Angeles. LaPaglia attended Rostrevor College. LaPaglia first began his venture into dramatic art in his late teens, when he enrolled in an acting course at the South Australian Castings Agency (SA Castings) in Adelaide. The two and half year course was to be supplemented with a further three months, which would have included a "boot camp" and a trial listing with SA Castings. After completing one and half years of the course, LaPaglia left Adelaide for Los Angeles. Career. LaPaglia's earliest credit was a 1985 part in an episode of the television series "Steven Spielberg's Amazing Stories". His first feature film was "Cold Steel" in 1987, followed that same year by the title role of Frank Nitti in the telemovie "Nitti: The Enforcer". LaPaglia had a supporting role as a mobster in the minor hit "Betsy's Wedding" (1990). This was followed by roles in the vampire/Mafia story "Innocent Blood" (1992), the comedy thriller "So I Married an Axe Murderer" (1993), the legal thriller "The Client" (1994), and the comedy "Empire Records" in 1995. That same year, LaPaglia took over the role of Jimmy Wyler, lead character in the TV series "Murder One", during its second and final season. During 1997–98, LaPaglia appeared in a Broadway production of Arthur Miller's "A View From the Bridge" with the Roundabout Theatre Company and later received a Tony Award for his portrayal of the protagonist, Eddie Carbone. Before the show opened, LaPaglia was sent a script for the pilot of "The Sopranos" and met its creator, David Chase, to discuss the role of protagonist Tony Soprano. However, various factors, including his Broadway role, prevented LaPaglia obtaining the monumental role. LaPaglia also played Tito Merelli in Ken Ludwig's "Lend Me a Tenor" on Broadway. "'The Sopranos' thing didn't work out...and of course it did work out perfectly, because the right person ended up with the role. You can't imagine that show without James Gandolfini." LaPaglia did, however, later play (in an uncredited 2002 cameo) an actor in a "Sopranos"-style TV show-within-a-film, in the comedy movie "Analyze That". (In 2007, "The Sopranos" reciprocated, by featuring LaPaglia's brother Jonathan in a film-within-the-TV show.) Spike Lee cast LaPaglia as a New York police detective in "Summer of Sam" (1999). During 2000–04, LaPaglia appeared in eight episodes of the sitcom "Frasier", including the finale, playing Daphne Moon's brother Simon. The role won him an Emmy Award for "Outstanding Guest Actor in a Comedy Series". LaPaglia made his debut in an Australian production with "Looking for Alibrandi" (1999), followed by a role as a Sydney police detective in the critically acclaimed Ray Lawrence film "Lantana" (2001). In 2002, LaPaglia co-starred as a fire captain opposite Sigourney Weaver in "The Guys", a film about New York firemen who died in the World Trade Center. He also played the role onstage, rotating with Bill Murray and others. "We did it as a tribute to the men," said LaPaglia. "I've been so lucky to do it, to be part of this experience. But I can't go back to that morning or watch the video. It's too painful." He also played fictional Australian actor Anthony Bella (who played Nicky Caesar in the fictitious series 'Little Caesar') in the comedy movie "Analyze That", but was uncredited in his role. In addition to playing the central character in "Without a Trace" during 2002–09, LaPaglia co-wrote an episode entitled "Deep Water". In 2009, LaPaglia played the part of Roger East, a real life Australian journalist, in the political thriller "Balibo", about the killing in 1975 of five Australian journalists by the Indonesian Army in the town of Balibo, East Timor. The opening scene depicts East's own summary execution, during the Indonesian invasion. In October 2011 it was announced that LaPaglia would join the cast of Quentin Tarantino's new film "Django Unchained", in which he would portray an Australian character once again. However, he eventually left the project, calling the production "out of control." In February 18, 2012, it was announced that LaPaglia would star in the ABC drama pilot "Americana". Personal life. LaPaglia currently lives in Santa Monica, California, USA. He has said that he adopted an American accent to help him get acting work after moving to the US. His current accent is neither distinctly American nor is it Australian, but rather a combination of both. According to an offhand remark by LaPaglia, he has employed an American accent since 1982. LaPaglia's first marriage was to actress Cherie Michan. He is currently married to actress Gia Carides, whom he met at a party; the two starred in the 1994 (Ben Lewin) Australian movie "Paperback Romance" (a.k.a. "Lucky Break") and married in 1998. Their daughter Bridget was born in January 2003. Soccer. In the 1980s, LaPaglia was a goalkeeper in the National Soccer League, playing for Adelaide City and West Adelaide. LaPaglia was part owner of A-League club Sydney FC until 2008; flying from California to Sydney to attend their matches since their inception in 2005. He was the narrator and executive producer of "The Away Game", a critically acclaimed television documentary exploring the experiences of Australian footballers in Europe. LaPaglia underwent a hip replacement in the summer of 2004, a result of his days playing soccer. He has fully recovered and has even played for a couple of amateur clubs in California. He plays occasionally with Hollywood United, an amateur organization of which he is club president, with other luminaries such as Frank Leboeuf, Vinnie Jones, Steve Jones (of the Sex Pistols) and others. LaPaglia has a minority shareholding in the International Goalkeepers Academy. The Academy was founded and is operated by James Fraser, who represented the Australian national team leading up to the 1974 FIFA World Cup. LaPaglia has volunteered as an actor with the Young Storytellers Program. He played in a charity football match in 2007 to raise funds for Southern California wildfire relief.
1662382	Where in the World Is Osama Bin Laden? is a 2008 documentary film, conceived by Adam Dell and co-written, produced, directed by and starring Morgan Spurlock, an American independent filmmaker. The title of the film is a play on the title of the television game show and computer game series, "Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego?", and other “Where in the World is” themes.
1034452	Warren Mitchell (born Warren Misell; 14 January 1926) is an English actor who rose to initial prominence in the role of bigoted cockney Alf Garnett in the BBC television sitcom "Till Death Us Do Part" (1965â75), and its sequels "Till Death..." (ATV, 1981) and "In Sickness and in Health" (BBC, 1985â92), all of which were written by Johnny Speight. He holds both British and Australian citizenship and has enjoyed considerable success in stage performances in both countries. Early life. Mitchell was born in Stoke Newington, London. His father was a glass and china merchant. He is of Russian Jewish descent, and describes himself in interviews as an atheist who sometimes believes in God. He was interested in acting from an early age, and attended the "Gladys Gordon's Academy of Dramatic Arts" in Walthamstow from the age of seven. He did well at school and read physical chemistry at University College, Oxford, for six months. There he met his contemporary Richard Burton, and together they joined the RAF in 1944. He completed his navigator training in Canada just as the war ended. Career. Richard Burton's description of the acting profession had convinced him that it would be better than completing his chemistry degree and so Mitchell attended RADA for two years, performing in the evening with the Unity Theatre. After a short stint as a DJ on Radio Luxembourg, in 1951, Mitchell became a versatile professional actor with straight and comedy roles on stage, radio, film and television. His first broadcast was as a regular on the radio show "Educating Archie", and this led to appearances on "Hancock's Half Hour". By the late fifties, he regularly appeared on television: as Sean Connery's trainer in boxing drama "Requiem for a Heavyweight" (1957), with Charlie Drake in the sitcom "Drake's Progress" (BBC, 1957) and a title role in "Three 'Tough' Guys" (ITV, 1957), in which he played a bungling criminal. He also appeared in several episodes of "Armchair Theatre" (during the first of these in 1958, "Underground", one of the lead actors died during the live performance) and "The Avengers" in addition to many ITC drama series including: "William Tell", "The Four Just Men", "Sir Francis Drake", "Danger Man" and as a recurrent guest in "The Saint". His cinema dĂŠbut came in 1957 in Guy Hamilton's "Manuela", and he began a career of minor roles as sinister foreign agents, assisted by his premature baldness and facility with Eastern European accents. He appeared in "The Roman Spring of Mrs Stone" (JosĂŠ Quintero, 1961), "Carry On Cleo" (1964) and "Help!" (Richard Lester, 1965) and played leads in "All The Way Up" (James MacTaggart, 1970), "The Chain" (Jack Gold, 1984), "The Dunera Boys" (Ben Lewin, 1985) and "Foreign Body" (Ronald Neame, 1986). In 1965, he was cast as Alf Garnett in a play for the BBC "Comedy Playhouse" series, broadcast on 22 July 1965. This was the pilot edition of the long-running series "Till Death Us Do Part", with Gretchen Franklin, Una Stubbs and Anthony Booth. The part of Mum, played by Gretchen Franklin, was taken by Dandy Nichols when the programme was commissioned as a series. Mitchell may be best known for his role as the bigoted cockney West Ham United F.C. supporter, Alf Garnett; his real life persona is quite different, being a left-winger, Jewish, and a staunch supporter of Tottenham Hotspur F.C. The show ran from 1966 to 1975, in seven series, making a total of 53 30-minute episodes. He has a long and distinguished career on stage and television. Other small screen roles include performances in "The Sweeney" (Thames Television for ITV, 1978), "Lovejoy" (BBC), "Waking the Dead" (BBC), "Kavanagh QC" (Carlton Television for ITV, he played a concentration camp survivor in the episode "Ancient History"), "The Merchant of Venice" (BBC, 1980) and "Gormenghast". In 2001, he appeared in a Christmas Special episode of "Last of the Summer Wine", "Potts in Pole Position". On stage he received extensive critical acclaim for his performances in Arthur Miller's "Death of a Salesman" and Harold Pinter's "The Caretaker" at the National Theatre; and Pinter's "The Homecoming" and Miller's "The Price" in the West End, also appearing in "Visiting Mr. Green" in 2007 and 2008. After the cancellation of the Alf Garnett sequel series "In Sickness And In Health", Mitchell returned to the role of Alf on a number of occasions. ITV aired a series of mini-episodes called "A Word With Alf" featuring Alf and his friends. When Johnny Speight died in 1998, the series was cancelled at Mitchell's request. Awards. Mitchell was voted TV Actor of the Year in 1965 for his portrayal of Alf Garnett in "Till Death Do Us Part". In 1976, his one-man show "The Thoughts of Chairman Alf" won the Evening Standard award for best comedy in London's West End. In 1982, he received an Australian Film Institute Award for best supporting actor in the film "Norman Loves Rose". He has received two Laurence Olivier Theatre Awardsâfor playing Willy Loman in Arthur Miller's "Death of a Salesman" (National Theatre, 1979) and as best supporting actor in a 2003 performance of "The Price", also by Miller. Personal life. Mitchell is a Distinguished Supporter of the British Humanist Association. He has been married since 1951 to Connie (Constance M. Wake), an actress who appeared in early 1960s television dramas such as "Maigret". They have three children: Rebecca, Daniel (also an actor) and Anna (also known as Georgia Mitchell). For over twenty years, Mitchell has suffered pain from nerve damage, caused by transverse myelitis, and is a supporter of the Neuropathy Trust. He suffered a mild stroke in August 2004.
900107	"L'Avventura" () is a 1960 Italian film directed by Michelangelo Antonioni and starring Gabriele Ferzetti, Monica Vitti, and Lea Massari. Developed from a story by Antonioni, the film is about a young woman's disappearance during a Mediterranean boating trip. Her lover and her best friend, during the subsequent search for her, become attracted to each other. The film is noted for its careful pacing, which puts a focus on visual composition and character development, as well as for its unusual narrative structure. According to an Antonioni obituary, the film "systematically subverted the filmic codes, practices and structures in currency at its time." Filmed on location in Rome, the Aeolian Islands, and Sicily in 1959 under difficult financial and physical conditions, "L'Avventura" made Monica Vitti an international star. The film was nominated for numerous awards and was awarded the Jury Prize at the 1960 Cannes Film Festival. "L'Avventura" is the first film of a trilogy by Antonioni, followed by "La Notte" (1961) and "Eclipse" (1962). Gene Youngblood has described this trilogy as a "unified statement about the malady of the emotional life in contemporary times." Plot. Anna (Lea Massari) meets her friend Claudia (Monica Vitti) at her father's villa on the outskirts of Rome prior to leaving on a yachting cruise on the Mediterranean. They drive into Rome to Isola Tiberina near the Pons Fabricius to meet up with Anna's boyfriend, Sandro (Gabriele Ferzetti). While Claudia waits downstairs, Anna and Sandro make love in his house. Afterwards Sandro drives the two women to the coast where they join two wealthy couples and set sail south along the coast. The next morning the yacht reaches the Aeolian Islands north of Sicily. After they pass Basiluzzo, Anna impulsively jumps into the water for a swim, and Sandro jumps in after her. When Anna yells that she's seen a shark, Sandro comes to her side protectively. Later onboard Anna confesses to Claudia that the "whole shark thing was a lie," apparently to get Sandro's attention. After noticing Claudia admiring her blouse, she slips it into Claudia's bag as a gift. At one of the smaller islands, Lisca Bianca, the party comes ashore. Anna and Sandro go off alone and talk about their relationship. Anna is unhappy with his long business trips. Sandro dismisses her complaints and takes a nap on the rocks.
583860	Thoonga Nagaram (; ) is a 2011 Indian Tamil-language gangster - drama film written and directed by debutant Gaurav Narayanan, starring himself along with Vimal, Bharani, Nishanth and Anjali in the lead roles. The film, produced by Dhayanidhi Alagiri's Cloud Nine Movies, was shot entirely in Madurai, the city where the story takes place and which the title refers to. It was released on 4 February 2011 to relatively positive reviews. Thoonga Nagaram is dubbed into Telugu as 'Naluguru Snehithula Kadha' by Vasishta Creations Pvt Ltd. Plot. A group of four friends (Vimal, Barani, Nishanth and Gaurav Narayanan) live lives in their own way in Madurai. They are callous youth, who go hammer and tongs to make both ends meet. Vimal, a wedding videographer comes across his childhood friend Anjali, who is a compere in a local cable TV channel and love blossoms. However, one event changes the course of their life. Vimal bashes a youth for taking obscene video clippings of a girl and blackmailing her with ulterior motive. The youth’s father (Kamala theatre owner Raju) finds out the men behind the attack on his son. He hatches a conspiracy and ensures that the friends themselves turn foes for each other. In the meantime, it’s time for Vimal to tie the knot with Anjali. Did the baddie succeed in his mission is the crux of the story. Box office. The film was a commercial success grossing nearly $2million at the box office in 6 weeks,as per charts published by behindwoods.com. The film is also the first film to be produced by Cloud Nine Movies. Soundtrack. The soundtrack consists of seven tracks including one remix number from Penn tuned by Sundar C. Babu. It was released by Think Music and the audio launch took place on 5 January 2011 at Sathyam Cinemas. Directors Sasikumar, KV Anand, Samuthirakani, Gautham Menon, Lingusamy, Ameer, KS Ravikumar, producer Dhayanidhi Alagiri were the chief guests. The soundtrack received positive reviews.
1063048	In the Valley of Elah is a 2007 film written and directed by Paul Haggis, starring Tommy Lee Jones, Charlize Theron, and Susan Sarandon. The film’s title refers to the Biblical valley where the battle between David and Goliath is said to have taken place. Paul Haggis's "In The Valley of Elah" is based on actual events, although the characters' names and locations have been changed. The screenplay was inspired by journalist Mark Boal's "Death and Dishonor," an article about the murder case published in "Playboy" magazine in 2004. It portrays a military father's search for his son and, after finding his body, subsequent hunt for his son's killers. The film explores themes including the Iraq war, abuse of prisoners, and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) following active combat. Plot. The film tells the story of war veteran Hank Deerfield (Tommy Lee Jones), his wife Joan (Susan Sarandon) and their search for their son Mike (Jonathan Tucker). A soldier recently returned from Iraq, Mike has suddenly gone missing. Deerfield's investigation is aided by a police detective (Charlize Theron), who becomes personally involved in the case. They find Mike's body, dismembered and burned. Military officials initially attempt to block the police investigation; they suggest Mike's death was due to drug-related violence. His platoon mates who last saw him lie to Deerfield and the police. Deerfield, a former military police officer (MPO), tells the police that although he suspects the soldiers are lying about something, he believes they could not have killed their comrade. It turns out that Deerfield is wrong. The soldiers had killed and dismembered Mike after a seemingly insignificant quarrel. The soldier who confesses to Deerfield and the police seems emotionally detached from his words and actions, apparently to suggest he suffers post-traumatic stress disorder from events of the war. Production. Factual basis. Although the film story is fictional, with the names and locations changed, it is based on the facts of the murder case of Richard T. Davis of Baker Company, 1-15 IN. He was an Iraq War veteran who was murdered soon after his return home in 2003. Richard Davis' father, Lanny Davis, was a former military police officer. He mounted his own investigation into the crime, as did the character played by Jones in the film. Davis commented, "It's a strong movie and a good movie. And it's going to make a lot of people think." In 2004, freelance journalist Mark Boal wrote an article about Richard Davis' murder, entitled "Death and Dishonor," published in "Playboy". This inspired Haggis, who adapted the account for his screenplay. Davis' story was told in a 2006 episode, "Duty, Death and Dishonor," of the CBS News program "48 Hours Mystery". A non-fiction book about the murder case, by author Cilla McCain, titled "Murder in Baker Company: How Four American Soldiers Killed One Of Their Own" was published in 2009 by Chicago Review Press. The Richard Davis Foundation for Peace works on issues related to Davis' murder, such as improved screening of military recruits and help for veterans' returning from war. It is compiling a list of suicides and murders connected to the Iraq War for a memorial. Screenplay and casting. Haggis initially approached Clint Eastwood to play the part of Hank Deerfield, which Haggis had written for him. Eastwood declined the opportunity because he was involved with other projects. Release. The film premiered September 1, 2007, at the Venice Film Festival and was later shown at the Toronto International Film Festival. It opened in a somewhat limited release in the United States on September 14, 2007, eventually grossing $6.5 million domestically in theatrical rentals, making it a box office disappointment. It cost a reported $23 million to make. It opened in the United Kingdom on January 18, 2008. Critical reception. As of February 20, 2008, on the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, 71% of critics gave the film positive reviews, based on 139 reviews. On Metacritic, the film had an average score of 64 out of 100, based on 25 reviews. "Time" magazine's Richard Corliss named the film one of the Top 10 Movies of 2007, ranking it at #8. In his review, Corliss praised the film as an improvement on Paul Haggis' Oscar-winning" Crash", calling it "strong in the sleuthing, sobering in its political conclusions." Corliss singled out Tommy Lee Jones' performance, saying his "drained humanity anchors this excellent drama." "Time" critic Richard Schickel also ranked the film #8 on his own Top 10 list, saying that the film "is a spare, taciturn, devastating account of what happens to the souls of soldiers forced to fight wars for which not even phony or temporary justifications are offered them." The film was criticized by some as having a heavy-handed approach. Stephen Hunter of "The Washington Post" wrote, "Haggis also appears to have no respect for his audience. At its crudest, the film settles for agitprop." Kenneth Turan of the "Los Angeles Times" said that "the characters in this somber film have the glum look of individuals delivering a Very Important Message to the world. And though this film in fact does have something crucial to convey, this is not the way to go about it." Conversely, Stephanie Zacharek of "Salon" was critical of the film for not going far enough, saying that it "chickens out." Awards and nominations. Haggis won an award given by the SIGNIS at the 2007 Venice Film Festival, where the film was in contention for the Golden Lion. Tommy Lee Jones was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor.
1058750	Hailey Anne Nelson (born September 14, 1994) is an American actress. Career. Nelson starred in the Tim Burton film "Big Fish" as Jenny (the younger Helena Bonham Carter). Nelson was nominated for a Young Artist Award for her performance. In 2004, Nelson won her first lead role in the Indie winner short film "17 Inch Cobras". Later that year, she was cast in "Walk the Line" as Rosanne Cash, daughter of musician Johnny Cash.
800250	Terry Stone (born 13 January 1971 in Kingston upon Thames, London), also known as Terry Turbo, is a British actor and film producer. Before a career in film, Stone was a rave promoter, and is co-founder of Garage Nation and Rave Nation with Jason Kaye. He is most notable for his role as Tony Tucker, in the 2007 film "Rise of the Footsoldier". Stone currently resides in Windsor with his family. Stone began his acting career in 2003, appearing in "Hell to Pay". He has also appeared in British television series such as "EastEnders", "The Bill" and "My Family".
1034070	Windsor Davies (born 28 August 1930, Canning Town, West Ham, London ) is a British actor, best known for playing the part of Battery Sergeant Major Williams in the British sitcom "It Ain't Half Hot Mum" (1974–81). Early life and career. Davies was born to Welsh parents, who returned to their native Nant-y-Moel when the Second World War began in 1939. Davies studied at Ogmore Grammar School and Bangor Teacher Training College. He worked as a teacher and did national service in the British Army before deciding to become an actor. Davies' best known role was as Battery Sergeant Major Williams in the British sitcom "It Ain't Half Hot Mum" (1974–81). Among his catchphrases was "Shut Up!", delivered as an eardrum-shattering military scream. Another phrase was "Oh dear, how sad, never mind", delivered in a dry, ironic manner, and used when others around him had problems. Davies and co-star Don Estelle had a number one hit in the UK with a semi-comic version of "Whispering Grass" in 1975. He played major roles in two later Carry On films, "Behind" (1975 and "England" (1976), in the latter as a Sergeant Major. He played the antique dealer, Oliver Smallbridge, in "Never the Twain" (1981–91), with Donald Sinden. Davies played Mog in the classic Welsh film "Grand Slam" (1978) and played the sailor Taffy in the first of the BBC-series "The Onedin Line" (1971). He is also known as the voice of Sergeant Major Zero in Gerry Anderson's "Terrahawks" (1983–86) television series, and appeared in the "Doctor Who" story "The Evil of the Daleks" as Toby in 1967. He auditioned to be the voice of the UK's speaking clock in 1984. Davies has performed a large amount of advertising voice-over work, and his distinctive, deep voice could be heard as New Zealand's Pink Batts house insulations and confectionery ads for Cadbury's Wispa and also for Heinz Curried (Baked) Beans with his catchphrase, ""Beans for the connoisseur"". In the 1970s, Davies read an edition of Radio Four's "Morning Story" programme. He played a sergeant in the Highland Regiment in "" (1972) with Jim Dale and Spike Milligan. Filmography. Windsor Davies also played a night porter in the BBC sitcom My Family, episode "Going Dental".
1056847	"Donovan's Reef" is a 1963 American film starring John Wayne. It was directed by John Ford and filmed on location on Kauai, Hawaii. The cast included Elizabeth Allen, Lee Marvin, Dorothy Lamour, and Cesar Romero. The film marked the last time Ford and Wayne ever worked together on a project. Synopsis. The film is a morality play in the guise of an action/comedy. It deals harshly (though not in an obvious way) with issues of racial bigotry, corporate connivance and greed, American beliefs of societal "superiority" and hypocrisy (i.e., the Boston shipping company considers carrying rum to be immoral, so they euphemistically refer to it as "West Indies goods"). Otherwise, Donovan's Reef is a light-hearted movie made in a period conforming, formulaic and sweetly naive manner (see "Critical Reception", below). Plot. The film begins with Thomas "Boats" Gilhooley (Marvin), an expatriate United States Navy veteran, working aboard a freighter. When he realizes that the ship he signed up for is just passing by Haleakaloha, French Polynesia, and not actually stopping there, he jumps ship to swim to the island. Next, Michael "Guns" Donovan (Wayne), another expatriate U.S. Navy veteran and a former shipmate of Gilhooley, returns from a fishing trip aboard an outrigger canoe. Donovan is greeted by William "Doc" Dedham (Warden), also a U.S. Navy veteran and the only physician in the archipelago, who is about to begin a one or two week pre-Christmas circuit of the "outer islands," taking care of the health needs of the residents. Dedham's three children are placed in Donovan's care. The kids' plans for a peaceful celebration of Donovan's birthday, on December 7, are shattered by the arrival of Gilhooley, who shares the same birthday. There is an unbroken 21-year tradition that Donovan and Gilhooley have a knock-down, drag-out fight every birthday—to the delight of the local observers—and their 22nd year does not break the tradition. The two vets meet in (and trash) "Donovan's Reef," the saloon owned by Donovan. Miss Amelia Dedham (Allen) is a "proper" young lady "of means" from Boston, who has become the chairman of the board of the Dedham Shipping Company. Her father is Doc Dedham, whom she has never met, but who now has inherited a large block of stock in the family company, making him the majority stockholder. She travels to Haleakaloha in hope of finding proof that Doc has violated an outdated (but still in effect) morality clause in the will which would enable her to keep him from inheriting the stock and retain control. When word reaches Haleakaloha that Miss Dedham is on the way, a scheme is concocted by Donovan, Gilhooley, and the Marquis de Lage (Romero). De Lage is Haleakaloha's French governor, who hopes to find a post somewhere else. Donovan is to pretend to be the father of Doc's three "hapa" children (Leilani, Sarah and Luke), until Doc comes back and can explain things to the prim, proper Boston lady. The plan is reluctantly accepted by the oldest daughter, Leilani, who believes that the deception is because she and her siblings aren't white, a reflection of the bigotry of the period. The plan works, and Amelia learns that her father, Donovan and Gilhooley were marooned on the Japanese-occupied island after their destroyer was sunk in World War II. With the help of the locals, the three men conducted a guerrilla war against the Japanese. She also learns that her father built a hospital, and lives in a large house (she had obviously expected to find a shack). A mystery develops, as she enters the house and sees a portrait of a beautiful Polynesian woman in royal trappings. This, the viewer understands, was Doc's wife, the mother of his children. Amelia is not told of the relationship, but she learns that the woman was named Manulani. Donovan mentions that Luke's mother (by implication, his own wife) had died in childbirth. As the story develops, Amelia learns that life in the islands is not as she expected, and neither is Donovan, who proves to be educated and intelligent, and the owner of a substantial local shipping operation. Amelia, too, is not as expected, as when she strips off her outdated "swimming costume" to reveal a tight swimsuit, challenges Donovan to a swimming race, and dives into the water. They develop a truce, as de Lage tries to court Amelia (or rather, her $18,000,000). When Dr. Dedham returns, father and daughter meet for the first time (Amelia: "Doctor Dedham, I presume?"). He has been told about the deception, and over dinner he explains that he was serving in World War II when his wife (Amelia's mother) died. When the war ended, he felt that he was not needed in Boston, but was desperately needed in the islands, so he stayed. He has even signed over his stock to Amelia, as he intends to remain in the islands. Just as he is about to explain about Manulani and their children (described by Amelia as "half-caste"), a hospital emergency interrupts. It turns out that Manulani was the granddaughter of the last hereditary prince of the islands, and on Christmas Amelia finally puts all of the pieces together to solve the mystery. Leilani—Manulani's daughter—is not only the island's princess, but Amelia's sister, a relationship which is tearfully but joyfully acknowledged by both girls. Amelia and Donovan evolve their truce into marriage plans. Gilhooley also finally marries his longtime girlfriend, Miss Lafleur (Dorothy Lamour). Donovan points out the new sign on the saloon, which is now "Gilhooley's Reef". Donovan has given the bar to his old shipmate as a wedding present. Crisis resolved, life in the islands can return to normal. Production. While "Donovan's Reef" is set on the fictional island of Haleakaloha, which has a French governor, the only Polynesian language exhibited in the film is Hawaiian -- "Haleakaloha" can be translated as "Home of Laughter and Love" (hale = home, aka = laugh, aloha = love) -- and Amelia has come from Honolulu by sailing ship, indicating a location much closer to Hawaii than to French Polynesia. The movie was actually filmed on Kauai, Hawaii. The home of the French island governor, the white beach house with coconut palms and surrounding grass lawn, is the Allerton Estate home and former summer residence of Hawaiian Queen Emma near Poipu Beach, now a part of the National Tropical Botanical Garden (without the scenes of boats and canoes on the Wailua River, which were edited and merged with scenes filmed at the Allerton Estate). There is one major historical error: French Polynesia was 4,000 km (about 2200 nautical miles) east of the farthest Japanese expansion, and there was no fighting there. In a bit of tongue-in-cheek, portraits of the founder and leaders of the Dedham Shipping Company are all of Warden (in appropriate period dress). The portrait of Manulani appears to be a similar treatment of Allen, as she would appear if she were Polynesian or "hapa." A mistaken use of a blasphemy slipped past the censors. At the end of the first fight between John Wayne and Lee Marvin, after Jack Warden has broken it up, Wayne and Marvin start to get out of the pond, but Marvin slipped and fell back into the water. As he did so, he exclaimed, "Jesus!" Because it was funny, the error was left in the film, and because the sound of the water partially obscured the exclamation, the dialogue was also left unaltered. Release. Box office performance. "Donovan's Reef" was a moderate financial success. Produced on a budget of $2,686,000, the film grossed $6,600,000 in North America, earning $3.3 million in US theatrical rentals. It was the 24th highest grossing film of 1963. Critical reception. A.H. Weiler of the New York Times wrote that the movie was "sheer contrivance effected in hearty, fun-loving, truly infectious style". Variety called it an "effort-less effort", but praised the photography. Currently, the film holds a rating of 60% "Fresh" on the review aggregate website Rotten Tomatoes.
1164172	Michael Learned (born April 9, 1939) is an American actress known for her role as Olivia Walton on "The Waltons". Personal life. Learned was born in Washington, D.C., the daughter of Elizabeth Duane "Betti" (née Hooper) and Bruce Learned, a diplomat. She lived on a Connecticut farm with her five sisters for the first ten years of her life. She was named Michael because her father, a diplomat, had wanted and expected to have a boy and had selected the name Michael in advance. When it was clear he had a daughter rather than a son, he decided to keep the name he had chosen. When she was 11, Learned moved to Austria, where her father worked for the U.S. State Department. At this time, she attended Arts Educational School, Tring now Tring Park School for the Performing Arts in Tring, Hertfordshire, England. During this time, she discovered the theater and decided to make acting her life's work. In a 2002 article she wrote for "Daily Word", a publication of the Unity Church, Learned states that at the time she was cast in "The Waltons", she had "hit rock bottom". It was then, at age 32, that Learned realized she was an alcoholic. Taking herself to ex-husband Peter Donat's cabin on the California coast, Learned states she decided to "get sober" and that her time there was the beginning of a spiritual journey. Learned further stated in the article that she has been sober since 1977.
1162130	Melinda Leigh McGraw (born October 25, 1963) is an Cypriot-born American actress. She has starred in movies such as "Albino Alligator" (1996), "Wrongfully Accused" (1998), and "" (2000), and is also known for her television performances on "The Commish", "The X-Files", and "Mad Men". Early life. McGraw was born in Nicosia, Cyprus, to American parents. The youngest of three daughters, she grew up in Cambridge and Dover in the Boston area. Her father served as a diplomat for the Agency of International Development before becoming an executive with a major hotel in Boston. She attended the Buckingham Browne & Nichols School in Cambridge and got her start in acting with the Boston Children's Theater. After attending Bennington College, McGraw was accepted to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London (one of only seven women admitted in her year). Theatrical performances in the West End and elsewhere in Britain followed, among them "Don Carlos", "The Foreigner" and "Twelfth Night". She returned to America in 1990. Career. McGraw's first major on-screen role was as Detective Cydavia "Cyd" Madison on "The Commish" (1992–1994). While on the set, she met actor Nicholas Lea and the pair dated for a few years. McGraw later earned recognition for her role as Melissa Scully, Dana Scully's ill-fated sister, in four episodes of "The X-Files" ("One Breath", "The Blessing Way", "Paper Clip", and "Christmas Carol"). Coincidentally, Alex Krycek, the recurring antagonist responsible for Melissa's death, was played by Nicholas Lea. McGraw has starred in "The Pursuit of Happiness" (1995), "Soul Man" (1997–1998), "Living in Captivity" (1998), "" (2002), and "Center of the Universe" (2004). Notable guest appearances include "Quantum Leap", "Night Court", "Seinfeld", "Cybill", "The Larry Sanders Show", "Mad About You", "The District", "The Practice", and "Inconceivable". She has been featured in four episodes of "Desperate Housewives" as Annabel Foster and was cast in "Neighbors", an ABC pilot for 2005-06 that was not picked up. In 2006, McGraw played Jane Braun, campaign advisor to Presidential candidate Arnold Vinick, in several episodes of "The West Wing" and appeared in an episode of "Bones". She played U.S. Attorney Valerie Por in "Close to Home" and Hartley Green in "Saving Grace" in 2007, as well as Annette Barron in two episodes of "Journeyman". McGraw appeared in 2008's "The Dark Knight" (the sequel to "Batman Begins") as Lieutenant Gordon's wife, Barbara. She guest-starred in the "" episode "Crush" as Samantha Copeland. She had a recurring role as seductive adulteress Bobbie Barrett in the 2008 season of AMC's "Mad Men". McGraw co-starred with Kelsey Grammer on the ABC sitcom "Hank" before its cancellation on November 11, 2009. She enjoyed a recurring role as Erin, Scott Bakula's love interest, on the TNT original series "Men of a Certain Age" in 2010-11. In 2011 and 2012, she made a guest appearance on "NCIS" in the episodes "Devil's Triangle" and "Devil's Trifecta" as Diane Sterling, the ex-wife of Leroy Jethro Gibbs and Tobias Fornell. In 2013 she appeared in ABC series "Scandal". Personal Life. McGraw is married to composer/recording artist Steve Pierson, and they have a daughter.
1162769	Constance Elaine "Connie" Britton (née Womack; born March 6, 1967) is an American actress, singer and producer. Britton is most well known for her roles as Nikki Faber on the ABC sitcom "Spin City" (1996–2000); as Tami Taylor on the NBC/DirecTV sports drama "Friday Night Lights" (2006–2011), for which she was nominated for two Primetime Emmy Awards for Outstanding Lead Actress; and as Vivien Harmon in the FX horror-drama series "American Horror Story" (2011), for which she was nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Miniseries or a Movie. Her most notable films are "Friday Night Lights" and "A Nightmare on Elm Street". She plays the leading role of Rayna Jaymes in the ABC musical drama series "Nashville", for which she was nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress and a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Television Series Drama in 2012. Early life. Britton was born Constance Elaine Womack in Boston, Massachusetts, the daughter of Linda Jane (née Cochran) and Edgar Allen Womack, Jr., who was a physicist. When she was seven years old, she moved with her parents and her fraternal twin sister Cynthia to Lynchburg, Virginia where she attended E.C. Glass High School. She majored in Asian studies at Dartmouth College. After graduating in 1989, she moved to New York City, where she spent two years at the Neighborhood Playhouse studying with Sanford Meisner. Career. While studying at the Neighborhood Playhouse, Britton (then Womack) made her New York theatrical debut in Caroline Kava's "The Early Girl" at The Courtyard Playhouse. Britton played seasoned prostitute Laurel opposite Cooper Lawrence, who played Joan. Britton's performance, while well received, nearly got her ousted from the Neighborhood Playhouse program, which prohibited students from taking professional employment during their course of study. After graduating, Britton spent two more years working in off-Broadway theatre productions. She moved to Los Angeles after the success of "The Brothers McMullen". Britton had a regular role in "Spin City" as Nikki Faber from 1996 to 2000. Her character was written out of the show when Charlie Sheen replaced Michael J. Fox as the main character. She had a recurring role on "24" during its fifth season as Diane Huxley, the landlady and girlfriend of protagonist Jack Bauer (Kiefer Sutherland). She co-starred in the indie-thriller "The Last Winter" in 2006. Britton performed in the critically acclaimed network TV series "Friday Night Lights". Throughout the series' five-year run, Britton developed a devoted following for her portrayal of Tami Taylor, the head coach's wife – described by "The New York Times" as "something of an icon, a 40-something sex symbol and role model." She was first cast in this role in the film version of the series, "Friday Night Lights" (2004). Britton also was on a few episodes of "The West Wing." She appeared in the episodes "Manchester Part I and Part II" and "Gone Quiet" season three, as part of Bruno Gianelli's team. She appeared in the remake of "A Nightmare on Elm Street", portraying Dr. Gwendoline "Gwen" Holbrook. She was also featured on "This American Life"'s 429th episode, "Will They Know Me at Home?", in which she performed monologues from David Finkel's nonfiction book "The Good Soldiers". In 2011 Britton starred in the horror/drama "American Horror Story" on FX as Vivien Harmon, a woman who recently relocated with her family to California after a series of tragic marital and family issues. Unfortunately for The Harmons, the new house they purchase quickly reveals itself to be haunted. Britton had stated when she wrapped "American Horror Story" she would be taking a couple of months off to be with her new son, but that she would then begin to re-focus on developing her FX drama collaboration with David O. Russell. The project is currently in "development hell". On March 6, 2012, Britton signed on for the lead role of the ABC musical drama pilot "Nashville". The show centers on Rayna Jaymes (Britton), a renowned 40-year-old country music singer whose star is beginning to fade. Britton's portrayal of the character received critical praise, and she was nominated for a third time for a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series and a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Television Series Drama for the first time for this role. Personal life. Britton uses her married name as her stage name. She met John Britton at Alpha Delta House at Dartmouth College. They moved to Manhattan together in 1989, married in 1991, and divorced in 1995. In November 2011, Britton adopted a son named Eyob "Yoby" Britton from Ethiopia. Britton studied Chinese in college. In a 2012 interview on NPR she said of the experience: "I always wanted to be an actor. But when I went to college, I had to fulfill a language requirement and so I thought it would be really cool to do it speaking Chinese. My Chinese these days is real, real shaky. Let's put it this way: These days, my singing is better than my Chinese." She moved to Nashville when she signed to play in the television drama "Nashville".
643102	Grace Murray Hopper (December 9, 1906January 1, 1992) was an American computer scientist and United States Navy Rear Admiral. A pioneer in the field, she was one of the first programmers of the Harvard Mark I computer, and developed the first compiler for a computer programming language. She conceptualized the idea of machine-independent programming languages, which led to the development of COBOL, one of the first modern programming languages. She is credited with popularizing the term "debugging" for fixing computer glitches (inspired by an actual moth removed from the computer). Owing to the breadth of her accomplishments and her naval rank, she is sometimes referred to as "Amazing Grace". The U.S. Navy destroyer USS "Hopper" (DDG-70) is named for her, as was the Cray XE6 "Hopper" supercomputer at NERSC. Early life and education. Hopper was born Grace Brewster Murray in New York City. She was the oldest in a family of three children. She was curious as a child, a lifelong trait – at the age of seven she decided to determine how an alarm clock worked, and dismantled seven alarm clocks before her mother realized what she was doing (she was then limited to one clock). For her preparatory school education, she attended the Hartridge School in Plainfield, New Jersey. Rejected for early admission to Vassar College at age 16 (her test scores in Latin were too low), she was admitted the following year. She graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Vassar in 1928 with a bachelor's degree in mathematics and physics and earned her Master's degree at Yale University in 1930. In 1934, she earned a Ph.D. in mathematics from Yale under the direction of Øystein Ore. Her dissertation, "New Types of Irreducibility Criteria", was published that same year. Hopper began teaching mathematics at Vassar in 1931, and was promoted to associate professor in 1941. She was married to New York University professor Vincent Foster Hopper (1906–1976) from 1930 until their divorce in 1945. She never remarried, and she kept his surname. Career. World War II. In 1943, Hopper obtained a leave of absence from Vassar and was sworn into the United States Navy Reserve, one of many women to volunteer to serve in the WAVES. She had to get an exemption to enlist; she was below the Navy minimum weight of . She reported in December and trained at the Naval Reserve Midshipmen's School at Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts. Hopper graduated first in her class in 1944, and was assigned to the Bureau of Ships Computation Project at Harvard University as a lieutenant, junior grade. She served on the Mark I computer programming staff headed by Howard H. Aiken. Hopper and Aiken coauthored three papers on the Mark I, also known as the Automatic Sequence Controlled Calculator. Hopper's request to transfer to the regular Navy at the end of the war was declined due to her age (38). She continued to serve in the Navy Reserve. Hopper remained at the Harvard Computation Lab until 1949, turning down a full professorship at Vassar in favor of working as a research fellow under a Navy contract at Harvard. UNIVAC. In 1949, Hopper became an employee of the Eckert-Mauchly Computer Corporation as a senior mathematician and joined the team developing the UNIVAC I. In the early 1950s the company was taken over by the Remington Rand corporation and it was while she was working for them that her original compiler work was done. The compiler was known as the A compiler and its first version was A-0. In 1952 she had an operational compiler. "Nobody believed that," she said. "I had a running compiler and nobody would touch it. They told me computers could only do arithmetic." In 1954 Hopper was named the company's first director of automatic programming, and her department released some of the first compiler-based programming languages, including ARITH-MATIC, MATH-MATIC and FLOW-MATIC. COBOL. In the spring of 1959 a two-day conference known as the Conference on Data Systems Languages CODASYL brought together computer experts from industry and government. Hopper served as the technical consultant to the committee, and many of her former employees served on the short-term committee that defined the new language COBOL. The new language extended Hopper's FLOW-MATIC language with some ideas from the IBM equivalent, COMTRAN. Hopper's belief that programs should be written in a language that was close to English rather than in machine code or languages close to machine code (such as assembly language) was captured in the new business language, and COBOL would go on to be the most ubiquitous business language to date. From 1967 to 1977, Hopper served as the director of the Navy Programming Languages Group in the Navy's Office of Information Systems Planning and was promoted to the rank of captain in 1973. She developed validation software for COBOL and its compiler as part of a COBOL standardization program for the entire Navy. Standards. In the 1970s, Hopper advocated for the Defense Department to replace large, centralized systems with networks of small, distributed computers. Any user on any computer node could access common databases located on the network. She pioneered the implementation of standards for testing computer systems and components, most significantly for early programming languages such as FORTRAN and COBOL. The Navy tests for conformance to these standards led to significant convergence among the programming language dialects of the major computer vendors. In the 1980s, these tests (and their official administration) were assumed by the National Bureau of Standards (NBS), known today as the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). Retirement. Hopper retired from the Naval Reserve at age 60, in accordance with Navy attrition regulations, with the rank of commander at the end of 1966. She was recalled to active duty in August 1967 for a six-month period that turned into an indefinite assignment. She again retired in 1971, but was asked to return to active duty again in 1972. She was promoted to captain in 1973 by Admiral Elmo R. Zumwalt, Jr. After Rep. Philip Crane saw her on a March 1983 segment of "60 Minutes", he championed , a joint resolution in the House of Representatives which led to her promotion to commodore by special Presidential appointment. She remained on active duty for several years beyond mandatory retirement by special approval of the President. In 1985, the rank of commodore was renamed rear admiral, lower half. She retired (involuntarily) from the Navy on August 14, 1986. At a celebration held in Boston on the USS "Constitution" to celebrate her retirement, Hopper was awarded the Defense Distinguished Service Medal, the highest non-combat award possible by the Department of Defense. At the time of her retirement, she was the oldest active-duty commissioned officer in the United States Navy (79 years, eight months and five days), and aboard the oldest commissioned ship in the United States Navy (188 years, nine months and 23 days). She was then hired as a senior consultant to Digital Equipment Corporation, a position she retained until her death in 1992, aged 85. Her primary activity in this capacity was as a goodwill ambassador, lecturing widely on the early days of computers, her career, and on efforts that computer vendors could take to make life easier for their users. She visited a large fraction of Digital's engineering facilities, where she generally received a standing ovation at the conclusion of her remarks. During many of her lectures, she illustrated a nanosecond using salvaged obsolete Bell System 25 pair telephone cable, cut it to 11.8 inch (30 cm) lengths, the distance that light travels in one nanosecond, and handed out the individual wires to her listeners. Although no longer a serving officer, she always wore her Navy full dress uniform to these lectures. She was interred with full military honors in Arlington National Cemetery. Awards and recognition. The Fleet Numerical Meteorology and Oceanography Center is located at 7 Grace Hopper Avenue in Monterey, California. "Grace Murray Hopper Park", located on South Joyce Street in Arlington, Virginia, is a small memorial park in front of her former residence (River House Apartments) and is now owned by Arlington County, Virginia. Women at the world's largest software company, Microsoft Corporation, formed an employee group called Hoppers and established a scholarship in her honor. Hoppers has over 3000 members worldwide. Brewster Academy, a school located in Wolfeboro, New Hampshire, United States, dedicated their computer lab to her in 1985, calling it the Grace Murray Hopper Center for Computer Learning. The academy bestows a Grace Murray Hopper Prize to a graduate who excelled in the field of computer systems. Hopper had spent her childhood summers at a family home in Wolfeboro. An administration building on Naval Support Activity Annapolis (previously known as Naval Station Annapolis) in Annapolis, Maryland is named the Grace Hopper Building in her honor. Building 1482 aboard Naval Air Station North Island, housing the Naval Computer and Telecommunication Station San Diego, is named the Grace Hopper Building. Building 6007, C2/CNT West, Command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, or C4ISR, Center of Excellence in Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland is named the Rear Admiral Grace Hopper Building. A named professorship in the Department of Computer Sciences was established at Yale University in her honor. Joan Fiegenbaum was named to this chair in 2008. Grace Hopper's legacy was an inspiring factor in the creation of the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing. Held yearly, this conference is designed to bring the research and career interests of women in computing to the forefront. A bridge over Goose Creek joining the north and south sides of the Naval Support Activity Charleston side of Joint Base Charleston, South Carolina is named the Grace Hopper Memorial Bridge in her honor. Grace Hopper was awarded 40 honorary degrees from universities worldwide during her lifetime. Anecdotes. Throughout much of her later career, Grace Hopper was much in demand as a speaker at various computer-related events. She was well known for her lively and irreverent speaking style, as well as a rich treasury of early war stories. She also received the nickname "Grandma COBOL". Jay Elliot described Grace Hopper as appearing to be "'all Navy', but when you reach inside, you find a 'Pirate' dying to be released".
1164153	Lewis Michael Arquette (December 14, 1935 – February 10, 2001) was an American film actor, writer and producer. Arquette was known for playing "J.D. Pickett" on the TV series, "The Waltons", where he worked from 1978–1981. Life and career. Arquette was born in Chicago, Illinois, the son of Mildred Nesbitt (née Le May) and actor Cliff Arquette. He was related to explorer Meriwether Lewis. He was a part of the famous Arquette family, as son of actor Cliff Arquette and the father of actors Patricia, Alexis, Rosanna, David, and Richmond Arquette. He is the former father-in-law of actress Courteney Cox, and actors Thomas Jane and Nicolas Cage. Arquette frequently appeared in movies with his sons. While living in Chicago Arquette managed The Second City theater for several years. In 1970, the family moved to a commune in Front Royal, Virginia. His wife, Brenda "Mardi" Nowak, died in 1997 from breast cancer. She was Jewish and the daughter of a Holocaust survivor from Poland, while Lewis Arquette, raised a Catholic, was a convert to Islam. Arquette died in Los Angeles, California in 2001, due to congestive heart failure.
1103008	Jean Baptiste Joseph Fourier (21 March 1768 – 16 May 1830) was a French mathematician and physicist born in Auxerre and best known for initiating the investigation of Fourier series and their applications to problems of heat transfer and vibrations. The Fourier transform and Fourier's Law are also named in his honour. Fourier is also generally credited with the discovery of the greenhouse effect. Biography. Fourier was born at Auxerre (now in the Yonne département of France), the son of a tailor. He was orphaned at age nine. Fourier was recommended to the Bishop of Auxerre, and through this introduction, he was educated by the Benvenistes of the Convent of St. Mark. The commissions in the scientific corps of the army were reserved for those of good birth, and being thus ineligible, he accepted a military lectureship on mathematics. He took a prominent part in his own district in promoting the French Revolution, serving on the local Revolutionary Committee. He was imprisoned briefly during the Terror but in 1795 was appointed to the "École Normale Supérieure", and subsequently succeeded Joseph-Louis Lagrange at the "École Polytechnique". Fourier went with Napoleon Bonaparte on his Egyptian expedition in 1798, and was made governor of Lower Egypt and secretary of the Institut d'Égypte. Cut off from France by the English fleet, he organized the workshops on which the French army had to rely for their munitions of war. He also contributed several mathematical papers to the Egyptian Institute (also called the Cairo Institute) which Napoleon founded at Cairo, with a view of weakening English influence in the East. After the British victories and the capitulation of the French under General Menou in 1801, Fourier returned to France. [and Fourier (1820).jpg|250px|right|thumb|1820 watercolor caricatures of French mathematicians Adrien-Marie Legendre (left) and Joseph Fourier (right) by French artist Julien-Leopold Boilly, watercolor portrait numbers 29 and 30 of "Album de 73 Portraits-Charge Aquarelle’s des Membres de I’Institute".]]
1749323	Lew Temple (born October 2, 1967) is an American film actor, perhaps best known for his roles as Locus Fender in the action film, "Domino" starring Keira Knightley, and Cal, the diner manager in the comedy-drama "Waitress" starring Keri Russell. Early life. Temple was raised in Texas. He was the 1982 Baseball MVP at Rollins College, and graduate in 1985. Career. Baseball. Though he was too small for the big leagues, he continued with his love for baseball, snagging roles as a minor league bullpen catcher for the Seattle Mariners and Houston Astros. In 1986, he was the scout for the New York Mets, and would later go on to serve as Assistant Director of Minor League Operations and Scouting for the Astros until 1993. Acting. In 2005, Temple appeared in Rob Zombie's horror film, "The Devils Rejects" as Adam Banjo, and played Locus Fender in the action film "Domino", starring Keira Knightley. In 2006, he portrayed Sheriff Winston in the to the remake of "The Texas Chain Saw Massacre". That same year, he also played a paramedic in the crime thriller Déjà Vu starring Denzel Washington. In 2007, he played Cal, the diner manager in the comedy-drama "Waitress" starring Keri Russell. That same year, he also appeared in an episode of "" as Billy Chadwick, a local loner in a grizzly bear murder case, and as Noel Kluggs in Rob Zombie's slasher film, "Halloween". In 2008, Temple played Marv in "Trailer Park of Terror", and Pete in the thriller/horror film "House". In 2010, he appeared in an episode of "" as Mr. Loobertz. Also that year, he had a supporting role in the thriller "Unstoppable". In 2011, he appeared in an episode of "Criminal Minds", in which he played a former fisherman turned part-time deliveryman called Bill Thomas who kidnaps and attacks one of the minor characters Alison Sparks played by Jessica Lundy. In 2012, he played Montgomery Blair, a member of Abraham Lincoln's Cabinet, in the movie Saving Lincoln, which tells the President's story through the eyes of Ward Hill Lamon, a former law partner, friend, and primary bodyguard. In 2012, he appeared in an recurring role in "The Walking Dead" as Axel, a prisoner survivor of the zombie apocalypse. Personal life. In 2002, Temple was let go from a movie contract, because he dismissed symptoms of a serious illness. A near death experience landed him at M.D. Anderson Hospital in Houston, where he was diagnosed with a rare form of leukemia and a forty percent chance of survival. He stayed in the hospital for eight months, for chemotherapy treatment. In 2009, Temple was involved in a charity event for breast cancer called Bowling for Boobies.
1060554	Jeanne Marie Tripplehorn (born June 10, 1963) is an American film and television actress. She became famous through her supporting role in the 1992 erotic thriller "Basic Instinct", and went on to star in films such as "The Firm" (1993) and "Waterworld" (1995). More recently she starred opposite Bill Paxton in the HBO drama "Big Love" from 2006 to 2011. In 2012, she joined the regular cast of the CBS crime drama "Criminal Minds." Early life and education. Tripplehorn was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma, the daughter of Suzanne (née Ferguson) and Tom Tripplehorn, who was once a guitarist with Gary Lewis & the Playboys. Her parents divorced when she was two years old. She graduated from Edison High School in 1981 and spent one semester studying at the University of Tulsa. Tripplehorn then attended the Juilliard School's Drama Division as a member of "Group 19" (1986–1990), which also included Laura Linney. Career. Tripplehorn is best known for her roles starring opposite Michael Douglas in "Basic Instinct", Tom Cruise in "The Firm", and Kevin Costner in "Waterworld". Tripplehorn held a leading role as Barbara Henrickson in the HBO drama "Big Love", and is also remembered as Lydia in "Sliding Doors". She has also been on Broadway in Anton Chekov's "Three Sisters" opposite Amy Irving and Lili Taylor. Prior to this, she appeared off-Broadway in John Patrick Shanley's "The Big Funk" in 1990, then co-starred with Val Kilmer in a 1993 production of John Ford's 1630s play Tis Pity She's a Whore". In July 2012, reports confirmed that Tripplehorn would join the cast of "Criminal Minds" in Season 8, replacing Paget Brewster's character Emily Prentiss. Personal life. Tripplehorn was engaged to actor Ben Stiller for a time. She married actor Leland Orser in 2000, and the couple have a son, August Tripplehorn Orser (b. 2002). Tripplehorn's grandmother, Jean Neely, appeared in the film "Reality Bites" alongside her granddaughter.
899681	Helmut Berger (born Helmut Steinberger; 29 May 1944) is an Austrian film and television actor. He is most famous for his work with Luchino Visconti, particularly in his performance as King Ludwig II of Bavaria in "Ludwig", for which he received a special David di Donatello award. He appears primarily in European cinema, but has also acted in films such as "The Godfather Part III". Early life and education. He was born in Bad Ischl, Austria, into a family of hoteliers. Berger initially trained and worked in this field, even though he had no interest in gastronomy or the hospitality industry. At age eighteen, he moved to London, England, where he did odd-jobs while taking acting classes. After studying languages in Perugia, Italy, Berger moved to Rome, Italy. Career. In 1964, he first met the film director Luchino Visconti, with whom he later had an intimate relationship. Visconti gave him his first acting role in the film "Le streghe" ("The Witches", 1967) (in the episode "La Strega Bruciata Viva"), but he gained international prominence as the amoral Martin von Essenbeck in Visconti's "The Damned" (1969). In that film, in what is perhaps his best-known scene, he mimics Marlene Dietrich in the film "The Blue Angel" (1930). In Visconti's "Ludwig" (1972), Berger portrays Ludwig II of Bavaria from his blooming youth, to his dissolute final years. In 1974, Berger starred with Burt Lancaster in Visconti's "Conversation Piece". Berger has worked in television, most notably in the role of Peter De Vilbis in nine episodes (1983–1984) of the prime-time soap opera "Dynasty" (1981–1989), which he did only for money (he would later call it "crying on the way to the set but laughing on the way to the bank"). This was his last appearance in a television series. In the thriller film "Iron Cross" (2009) he played Shrager, an aging character believed to be an old SS commander responsible for murdering Jews during World War II.
1165389	Myron Daniel Healey (June 8, 1923 – December 21, 2005) was an American actor. He began his career in Hollywood, California, during the early 1940s in bit parts and minor supporting roles at various studios. Early years. Healey was born in Petaluma in Sonoma County, California. He served in World War II as an Air Corps navigator and bombardier, flying in B-26 Martin Marauders in the European Theatre. He continued military duties, having retired in the early 1960s as a captain in the United States Air Force Reserve. Acting career. Returning to film work after the war, Healey played villains and henchmen in low budget western films. He also did some screenwriting. In the post-war period, he was often seen in Monogram studio films, which starred Johnny Mack Brown, Jimmy Wakely, and Whip Wilson. In the 1950s, Healey moved to more "bad guy" roles in other films, including the "Bomba and Jungle Jim" series, crime dramas, and more westerns. He portrayed the bandit Bob Dalton in an episode of the syndicated television series "Stories of the Century", starring and narrated by Jim Davis.
1067354	Female Trouble is a 1974 dark comedy film co-composed, filmed, co-edited, written, produced, and directed by John Waters starring Divine, David Lochary, Mary Vivian Pearce, Mink Stole, Edith Massey, Michael Potter, Cookie Mueller, and Susan Walsh. The film is dedicated to Manson Family member Charles "Tex" Watson. Waters' prison visits to Watson inspired the "crime is beauty" theme of the film and in the film's opening credits, Waters includes a wooden toy helicopter that Watson made for him. Plot. In 1960 in Baltimore, juvenile delinquent Dawn Davenport (Divine), a regular troublemaker at her all-girls school, receives a failing Geography grade and a sentence of writing lines for fighting, lying, cheating, and eating in class. On Christmas morning, Dawn fails to get the cha-cha heel shoes she wants for Christmas. After breaking into a violent rage and pushing her mother into the Christmas tree, Dawn runs away from home and, while hitchhiking, gets picked up by Earl Peterson (also Divine), a fat man driving an Edsel station wagon. Peterson drives Davenport to a dump, where they have sex on a dirty mattress on the side of the road. When she later finds herself pregnant and demands money from him, he tells her, "Go fuck yourself", which Divine had indeed done by playing both roles. Dawn gives birth to her daughter Taffy and works as a waitress, go-go dancer, hooker, and petty thief—working the latter two jobs with delinquent friends Chicklette (Susan Walsh) and Concetta (Cookie Mueller) through the mid '60s. In 1968, Taffy (Hilary Taylor) is now eight years old and driving her mother to violence (beating her with a car antenna). Dawn complains to Chicklette and Concetta about the demands of motherhood, and they suggest she cheer herself up by getting her hair done by a stylist named Gator (Michael Potter), who lives with his morbidly obese aunt, Ida (Edith Massey) who constantly pleads with him to "turn queer." Dawn becomes a client of Gator's at the Lipstick Beauty Salon, owned by Donald (David Lochary) and Donna Dasher (Mary Vivian Pearce). Dawn and Gator marry, but five years later, in 1974, their marriage is complicated by the fact that Taffy (Mink Stole), now fourteen years old, hates Gator. When Taffy catches her mother and stepfather having sex, Gator suggests she join them in bed, to which Taffy replies, "I wouldn't suck your lousy dick if I was suffocating and there was oxygen in your balls!" Fed up with Gator's infidelities and his penchant for reading magazines while penetrating her with tools such as hammers and pliers, Dawn leaves Gator and starts divorce proceedings. She seeks solace at the Lipstick Beauty Salon, where the diabolical Dashers ask her to be a "glamorous guinea pig" for a "beauty experiment": They want to test Jean Genet's theory that "crime equals beauty". At their behest, Dawn performs several crimes including knocking her daughter unconscious with a chair after a fight during which a narcissistic Dawn happily poses for their photographs. Ida then bursts into Dawn's house and disfigures her face with acid when Gator leaves to pursue work in the auto industry in Michigan. Dawn lands in the hospital and, though hideously disfigured, the Dashers and her other friends convince her she's pretty and discourage her from having reconstructive plastic surgery. After leaving the hospital, Dawn returns to find her home redecorated by the Dashers, who've kidnapped and confined Ida to an oversize bird cage. After encouragement from the Dashers, Dawn cuts off Ida's hand. Taffy comes home and, after becoming unhinged at the sight of a grown woman in a bird cage with a bloody stump, pleads with her mother to reveal the identity of her real father, which she reluctantly does. Taffy finds her father living in a dilapidated house and drinking excessively. She stabs him to death with a butcher knife after he tries to sexually assault her. Taffy returns home and announces she is joining the Hare Krishna movement. Dawn warns her she will kill her if she does. Dawn, now with grotesque hair, make-up, and outfits provided by the Dashers, creates a nightclub act. Backstage on opening night, Taffy appears after freeing Ida from the bird cage. Upon discovering that Taffy is now a Hare Krishna, Dawn strangles her to death while the Dashers and their minions cheer her on. Dawn performs her nightclub act, which includes jumping on a trampoline and wallowing in a playpen filled with dead fish. She revels in the ideal that beauty is an art form born from crime: She then yells out, "Who wants to be famous? Who wants to die for art?" and shoots into the crowd. Several people are wounded and others are trampled while fleeing the scene. Police allow the Dashers to leave after Donald and Donna claim they are upright citizens caught in a bloody rampage. Dawn flees into a forest but is soon arrested by the police. At Dawn's trial, the Dashers are granted "total immunity" by the judge in exchange for their testimony against her. They claim to be shocked by Dawn's crime spree, although they engineered and encouraged it. Ida testifies against Dawn for kidnapping her and amputating her hand, when actually the Dashers kidnapped Ida and told Dawn to cut off her hand (even providing her with the axe). After Dawn is found guilty and sentenced to die in the electric chair, the Dashers are seen paying Ida for her testimony.
1163506	Francine Joy "Fran" Drescher (born September 30, 1957) is an American film and television actress, comedian, producer, and activist. She is best known for her role as Fran Fine in the hit TV series "The Nanny", and for her nasal voice and thick New York accent. Drescher made her screen debut with a small role in the 1977 blockbuster film "Saturday Night Fever", and later appeared in "American Hot Wax" (1978) and Wes Craven's horror tale "Summer of Fear" (1978). In the 1980s, she gained recognition as a comedic actress in the films "The Hollywood Knights" (1980), "Doctor Detroit" (1983), "This Is Spinal Tap" (1984), and "UHF" (1989) while establishing a television career with guest appearances on several series. In 1993, she achieved wider fame as Fran Fine in her own sitcom vehicle "The Nanny", for which she was nominated for two Emmy Awards and two Golden Globe Awards for Best Actress in a Comedy Television Series during the show's run. She received further recognition for her performances in "Jack" (1996) and "The Beautician and the Beast" (1997) and reinforced her reputation as a leading sitcom star with "Living With Fran" (2005–2006) and "Happily Divorced" (2011–2013). A uterine cancer survivor, Drescher is an outspoken healthcare advocate and LGBT rights activist, and is noted for her work as a Public Diplomacy Envoy for Women's Health Issues for the U.S. State Department. Divorced from writer and producer Peter Marc Jacobson, she currently lives in Malibu, California. Early life. Drescher was born in Kew Gardens, Queens, New York, the daughter of Sylvia, a bridal consultant, and Morty Drescher, a naval systems analyst. Her Ashkenazi Jewish family is of South-East and Central European origin. Her great-grandmother was born in Focșani, Romania, and had emigrated to the United States. She has an older sister, Nadine. Drescher was a first runner-up for "Miss New York Teenager" in 1973, as revealed in her first autobiography "Enter Whining" released December 29, 1995, and on her interview on William Shatner's "Raw Nerve", which first aired on January 27, 2009. She attended Hillcrest High School in Jamaica, Queens, where she met her future husband, Peter Marc Jacobson, whom she married in 1978, at age 21. They divorced in 1999. Jacobson was Drescher's constant supporter in her show-business career, and he wrote, directed and produced her signature television series, "The Nanny". Drescher graduated from Hillcrest High School in 1975; one of her classmates was comedian Ray Romano. Drescher's character Fran Fine on "The Nanny" and Romano's character Ray Barone on "Everybody Loves Raymond" met at a 20th high school reunion. Career. Early careers. Her first break was a small role as the dancer Connie in the blockbuster movie "Saturday Night Fever" (1977) in which she delivered the line "So, are you as good in bed as you are on the dance floor?" to John Travolta. A year later, she began to gain more attention in films such as "American Hot Wax" (1978), and Wes Craven's "Summer of Fear" (1978). She also took on a rare dramatic role in the Miloš Forman 1981 film, "Ragtime". During the 1980s, Drescher found moderate success as a character actress with memorable roles in films such as "The Hollywood Knights", "Doctor Detroit", "The Big Picture", "UHF", "Cadillac Man", and memorably in "This is Spinal Tap" as publicist Bobbi Fleckman. She also made an appearance in a second season episode of "Who's the Boss?" in 1985 as an interior decorator. She also had an appearance on Night Court as a schizophrenic who flips from a prude to a sexually minded woman and ends up in a hotel with ADA Dan Fielding. "The Nanny" and later film roles. Drescher and Jacobson created their own television show, "The Nanny" in 1993. The show aired on CBS from 1993 and ended in 1999, and Drescher became an instant star. In this sitcom, she played a charming and bubbly woman named Fran Fine who casually became the nanny of Margaret ("Maggie"), Brighton ("B"), and Grace ("Gracie") Sheffield; with her wit and her charm, she endeared herself to their widower father: stuffy, composed, proper British gentleman, and Broadway producer Maxwell Sheffield (played by British actor Charles Shaughnessy). Drescher appeared in "Jack" (1996), directed by Francis Ford Coppola, "The Beautician and the Beast" (1997) (for which she was also executive producer) and "Picking Up the Pieces" (2000) co-starring Woody Allen. She also was the voice of "Pearl" in "Shark Bait" (2006). Return to television. In recent years, Drescher has made a return to television both with leading and guest roles. In 2003, Drescher appeared in episodes of the short lived sitcom, "Good Morning, Miami" as Roberta Diaz. In 2005, she returned to TV with the sitcom "Living With Fran", in which she played Fran Reeves, a middle-aged mother of two, living with Riley Martin (Ryan McPartlin), a man half her age and not much older than her son. Former "Nanny" costar Charles Shaughnessy appeared as her philandering ex-husband, Ted. "Living with Fran" was cancelled May 17, 2006, after two seasons. In 2006, Drescher guest starred in an episode of ""; the episode, "The War at Home", aired on US television on November 14, 2006. She also appeared in an episode of the series "Entourage" and in the same year, gave her voice to the role of a female golem in "The Simpsons" episode "Treehouse of Horror XVII". In 2007, Drescher appeared in the US version of the Australian improvisational comedy series "Thank God You're Here". In 2008, Drescher announced that she was developing a new sitcom entitled "The New Thirty", also starring Rosie O'Donnell. A series about two old high school friends coping with midlife crises, Drescher described the premature plot of the show as "kind of "Sex and the City" but we ain't getting any! It'll probably be more like "The Odd Couple"." The sitcom failed to materialize however. In 2010, Drescher returned to television with her own daytime talk show, "The Fran Drescher Tawk Show". While the program debuted to strong ratings, it ended its three-week test run to moderate success, resulting in its shelving. The following year, the sitcom "Happily Divorced", created by Drescher and her ex-husband, Peter Marc Jacobson, was picked up by TV Land for a ten-episode order. It premiered there June 15, 2011. The show was renewed in July 2011 for a second season of 12 episodes, which aired in spring 2012. On May 1, 2012, TV Land extended the second season and picked up 12 additional episodes, taking the second season total to 24. The back-order of season two will debut later in 2012. To promote "Happily Divorced", Drescher performed the weddings of three gay couples in New York City using the minister's license she received from the Universal Life Church. Drescher hand-picked the three couples, all of whom were entrants into "Fran Drescher's 'Love Is Love' Gay Marriage Contest" on Facebook, based on the stories the couples submitted about how they met, why their relationship illustrated that "love is love" and why they wanted to be married by her. Personal life. After separating in 1996, Drescher and Jacobson divorced in 1999. They had no children. Drescher stated, "I would have been able to conceive but not hold on". Drescher has worked to support LGBT rights issues after her ex-husband came out as a homosexual. Drescher has stated that the primary reason for the divorce was her need to change directions in life. Drescher and Jacobson remain friends and business partners. She has stated that "...we choose to be in each others’ lives in any capacity. Our love is unique, rare, and unconditional; unless he’s being annoying.” Drescher attended Queens College, City University of New York. The 1985 robbery and rape. In January 1985, two armed robbers broke into Drescher and Jacobson's Los Angeles apartment. While one ransacked their home, the other raped Drescher and her friend at gunpoint. Jacobson was also physically attacked, tied up, and forced to witness the entire ordeal. It took Drescher many years to recover, and it took her even longer to tell her story to the press. She was paraphrased as saying in an interview with Larry King that although it was a traumatic experience, she found ways to turn it into something positive. In her book "Cancer Schmancer", the actress writes: "My whole life has been about changing negatives into positives." Her rapist, who was on parole at the time of the crime, was returned to prison and sentenced to two life sentences. Cancer battle. After two years of symptoms and misdiagnosis by eight doctors, Drescher was admitted to Los Angeles's Cedars Sinai Hospital on June 21, 2000, after doctors diagnosed her with uterine cancer. She had to undergo an immediate radical hysterectomy to treat the disease. Drescher was given a clean bill of health and no post-operative treatment has been ordered. She wrote about her experiences in her second book, "Cancer Schmancer". Her purpose for this book was to raise consciousness for men and women "to become more aware of the early warning signs of cancer, and to empower themselves." Drescher says, "I was going to learn what I needed to learn, ask questions, become partners with my doctor instead of having some kind of parent/child relationship." Cancer Schmancer Movement. On June 21, 2007, the seventh anniversary of her operation, Drescher announced the national launch of the Cancer Schmancer Movement, a non-profit organization dedicated to ensuring that all women's cancers be diagnosed while in Stage 1, the most curable stage. She celebrated her tenth year of wellness on June 21, 2010. Fran says:
1060575	RoboCop is a 1987 American science fiction action film directed by Paul Verhoeven and written by Edward Neumeier and Michael Miner. The film stars Peter Weller, Nancy Allen, Dan O'Herlihy, Kurtwood Smith, Miguel Ferrer, and Ronny Cox. Set in a crime-ridden Detroit, Michigan in the near future, "RoboCop" centers on police officer Alex Murphy (Weller) who is brutally murdered and subsequently revived by the malevolent mega-corporation Omni Consumer Products (OCP) as a superhuman cyborg law enforcer known as "RoboCop".
1164695	Richard Timothy Jones (born January 16, 1972) is an American actor. Early life and education. Jones was born in Kobe, Japan and grew up in Carson, California. He is the son of Lorene, a computer analyst, and Clarence Jones, a professional baseball player and the hitting instructor for the Cleveland Indians. He also has an older brother named Clarence Jones, Jr., who now works as a coach. His parents later divorced. Jones graduated from Bishop Montgomery High School in Torrance, California.
1463759	The creation of the film followed the traditional collaborative nature of the source material – the visuals for each of the 36 stanzas were independently created by 35 different animators. As well as many Japanese animators, Kawamoto assembled leading names of animation from across the world. Each animator was asked to contribute at least 30 seconds to illustrate their stanza, and most of the sequences are under a minute (Yuriy Norshteyn's, though, is nearly two minutes long). The released film consists of the 40-minute animation, followed by an hour-long 'Making of' documentary, including interviews with the animators. "Winter Days" won the Grand Prize of the Japan Media Arts Festival in 2003. Bashō's hokku, or opening verse, of the 36-verse poem: Animated segments. Norshteyn animated the opening stanza ("hokku") as the special guest ("kyaku"). Chikusai is running around listening to trees, and meets Bashō. He's awed, but is amused to see that Bashō is picking bugs out of a cloak that is as torn as his own. He gives Bashō his own hat in exchange for Bashō's (which has a gaping hole at the top) and goes away. Suddenly, the wind picks up and blows the torn hat away. Chikusai chases after it and manages to catch it, but then with a shrug lets it go and allows it to fly off wherever the wind will take it. Meanwhile, Bashō is moving slowly and laboriously against the wind, with a hand on his new hat to keep it from flying away. Speaking at the November 30, 2007 Russian theatrical premiere of "Winter Days", Norshteyn said that he had made a longer, 3-minute version of this segment, but had not yet added sound to it. Kawamoto animated the second ("waki") and final ("ageku") stanzas as the organiser ("shōshō"). DVD releases. The film is currently available in four DVD versions, none of which has English dubbing or subtitles.
587361	Mr. Singh / Mrs. Mehta is a 2010 Hindi-language film starring Prashant Narayanan and Aruna Shields. It's directed by Pravesh Bhardwaj. The film is produced by Manu Kumaran and was released on June 24, 2010. Mr Singh/Mrs Mehta is directorial debut of Pravesh Bhardwaj and features music of Grammy nominated artist Ustaad Shujaat Hussain Khan. Plot. Neera Singh (Aruna Shields) & Karan Singh (Naved Aslam) are a couple living in London. Neera works in a small company, while Karan is at a big position in an advertising company. Neera is living in a bliss, until she eavesdrops a phone call of her husband. That phone call raises a suspicion in Neera's mind. Neera's fears are confirmed & she tracks down the woman's residence. But when a man opens the door, Neera is unsure of what to do. She tells the man that she came on a wrong address & leaves. The man is Ashwin Mehta (Prashant Narayanan), a painter, an artist having a personal studio. Ashwin is the husband of Sakhi (Lucy Hassan), the woman with whom Karan is having an affair. Ashwin sees Sakhi with Karan & secretly follows them to a hotel. Neera is already present there & gives him evidence of the extramarital affair. But Neera leaves Ashwin in a huff when she sees that he is apparently not angry over the situation. However, they meet each other again. The duo approach a rapport & Neera even decides to pose for him. Slowly Ashwin & Neera shed their inhibitions. They start getting attracted to each other & even end up having sex. Their guilt is only assuaged by the fact that they are getting back at their cheating spouses. Neera even lets Ashwin draw a nude of her. All this time, both Sakhi & Karan are unaware of it. However, when Neera says that she hopes Ashwin becomes a big artist & even more successful than Karan, Ashwin flares up & tells her that Karan's only achievement is that he is sleeping with Sakhi. Since Ashwin is doing the same thing with Neera, he has already settled a score. Hurt by those words, Neera leaves him. The contact between Ashwin & Neera breaks. One day, Neera comes to break off with him, saying that their relationship cannot go anywhere & has to end some day. A heartbroken Ashwin comes home, only to find Sakhi waiting for him. Sakhi seems very happy. She shows Ashwin the nude of Neera & tells him that she liked the painting. Sakhi, who has no idea of the story behind the painting, has suddenly warmed up to the idea of having a baby. Ashwin decides to give a second chance to his marital life. One day, Neera & Karan are walking by an exhibition where Karan is surprised sees Neera's nude that was made by Ashwin. Neera calmly walks in into the exhibition & faces a pregnant Sakhi shown standing by the painting. Sakhi recognizes Neera & understands the situation. Both Karan & Sakhi are shocked to see each other. Ashwin & Sakhi continue living happily, while Neera calls it quits with Karan & moves out of Karan's home. Music. The movie has 6 vocal tracks and 4 instrumentals, composed by Ustaad Shujaat Hussain Khan and Shaarang Dev Pandit, son of Pandit Jasraj. Controversy. Upon the release of the film, Censor board of India didn't allow the nude scenes to be shown in cinemas, so those scenes were blurred in the film.
582635	Pyaar Ishq Aur Mohabbat (प्यार इश्क और मुहब्बत) (English: Love, Amour and Romance) is a Bollywood romance film written and directed by Rajiv Rai and produced by Gulshan Rai under Trimurti Films banner. The film was released on 3 August 2001, starring Arjun Rampal in his debut role, Sunil Shetty, Aftab Shivdasani, Kirti Reddy in the lead roles. The film was intended to be a three-hero film but the newcomer Arjun Rampal was featured more than the other two heroes and earned critical acclaim for his show-stealing performance. He was the only actor to win numerous awards and earn nominations for his performance in the film. Although the film was a flop at the box office, it established the career of Arjun Rampal as one of the top and most popular heroes of Bollywood. Synopsis. Yash Sabbarwal (Sunil Shetty) is an enterprising billionaire who excels in business strategy. He is smitten by the brilliant and lovely Isha Nair (Kirti Reddy). She is a brilliant medical student and her idealism leads her to Scotland for advance research. Yash himself sends her away by giving her a scholarship for further studies in Scotland. Before she leaves, Yash hires Gaurav Saxena (Arjun Rampal) to go to Scotland with her and using his magical on Isha to make her fall in love with Yash. In Scotland, Taj Bharadwaj (Aftab Shivdasani), an endearing and loveable guy, falls badly for Isha. Born and brought up in a royal luxury, Taj is a perfect NRI gentleman, ever ready to lend his shoulder to a damsel in distress. He has only one problem and that's a major one, whether his father Lord Bharadwaj (Dalip Tahil) would agree with him or not. When Gaurav comes into the life of Isha's, not just Isha falls in love with him but even Gaurav falls in love with her. When Yash finds out about this, he tells Gaurav to go and break Isha's heart, so she would come back to him. Gaurav uses Maya Dhillon (Monica Bedi) by starting a fake affair with her and sleeps with her. Taj discovers it and informs Isha about it. When Isha sees Gaurav and Maya together, she starts hating him. Gaurav is awarded with £1 billion by Yash for getting out of Isha's life and opening the ways for him. Gaurav opens an account in a bank but is unaware that the bank is owned by the Bharadwaj family and Taj runs the bank. Taj is shocked when he comes to know that a humble guy like Gaurav is opening an account of £1 billion. Taj asks Gaurav about it and Gaurav informs him that he has sold his soul to the devil. Gaurav starts to realize that he cannot live without Isha and he was really in love with her. He returns the money to Yash and informs Maya that he never loved her and it was just a part of his plan. He informs Maya that he is going back to India and that he is in love with Isha. Maya meets Isha and tells her that Gaurav seriously loved her but sacrificed his love for Yash. Isha forgives Gaurav and still loves him. However, Isha's parents have fixed her engagement with Taj and Isha has to agree to make her parents happy. Isha's friend Rubaina Alam (Isha Koppikar) invites Yash to the engagement. Yash refuses to attend it but Rubaina insults him and tells him that he is responsible for all the trouble and he must attend it. Yash decides to break Taj and Isha's engagement. On the other hand, Gaurav appears at Isha's engagement in the room where Isha is preparing for the engagement. Gaurav informs her that he has always loved her but it is the end and she has to forget about him and think about Taj. Gaurav tells her that she must not tell anyone about their love and continue her life.
1266113	Alice Brady (born Mary Rose Brady, November 2, 1892 – October 28, 1939) was an American actress who began her career in the silent film era and survived the transition into talkies. She worked up until six months before her death from cancer in 1939. Her films include "My Man Godfrey" (1936), in which she played the flighty mother of Carole Lombard's character, and "In Old Chicago" (1937) for which she won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. Career. Mary Rose Brady was born in New York City and was interested at an early age in becoming an actress. Her father, William A. Brady, was an important theatrical producer, and her mother was Rose Marie Rene, who died in 1896. She first went on the stage when she was 14 and got her first job on Broadway in 1911 at the age of 18, in a show her father was associated with. She continued to perform there (often in shows her father produced) consistently for the next 22 years. In 1931 she appeared in the premiere of Eugene O'Neill's "Mourning Becomes Electra". Her step-mother was actress Grace George (1879–1961), whom her father married when Alice was a child. Her half-brother was William A. Brady Jr, the son of her father and Grace George.
1063860	Runaway Jury is a 2003 American drama/thriller film directed by Gary Fleder and starring John Cusack, Gene Hackman, Dustin Hoffman, and Rachel Weisz. It is an adaptation of John Grisham's novel "The Runaway Jury". Plot. In New Orleans, a failed day trader at a stock brokerage firm shows up at his former workplace and opens fire on his former colleagues, then turns the gun on himself. Among the dead is Jacob Wood (Dylan McDermott). Two years later, with pro bono attorney Wendell Rohr (Dustin Hoffman), Jacob's widow Celeste (Joanna Going) takes Vicksburg Firearms to court on the grounds that the company's gross negligence led to her husband's death. During jury selection, jury consultant Rankin Fitch (Gene Hackman) and his team communicate background information on each of the jurors to lead defense attorney Durwood Cable (Bruce Davison) in the courtroom through electronic surveillance. In the jury pool, Nick Easter (John Cusack), an electronics store clerk, tries to get himself excused from jury duty. Judge Frederick Harkin (Bruce McGill) decides to give Nick a lesson in civic duty and Fitch, despite having originally eliminated him from the list of potential jurors, tells Cable that the judge has sandbagged them, and that he must select Nick as a juror. Nick's congenial manner wins him acceptance from his fellow jurors, with the exception of Frank Herrera (Cliff Curtis), a Marine veteran who takes an instant dislike to him. However, further to Frank's suspicions of Nick, it is revealed that he and his girlfriend Marlee (Rachel Weisz) do have an ulterior motive. The two seem to be grifters, and offer both Fitch and Rohr the verdict - to the first bidder. Fitch asks for proof that they can deliver. On the other hand, Rohr dismisses the offer, assuming it to be a defense tactic by Fitch to obtain a mistrial. Fitch orders Nick's apartment raided, unfortunately with unsubstantial result. Marlee retaliates by getting one of Fitch's jurors bounced. Fitch then goes after three jurors with blackmail, leading one of them, Rikki Coleman (Rhoda Griffis), to attempt suicide. Nick shows Judge Harkin surveillance footage of his apartment being raided and the judge orders the jury sequestered. Rohr loses key witness Kincaid (Stuart Greer) due to harassment, and after confronting Fitch, decides that he cannot win the case. He asks his firm's partners for $10 million. Fitch sends an operative, Janovich (Nestor Serrano), to kidnap Marlee, but she fights him off and raises Fitch's price to $15 million. On principle, Rohr changes his mind and refuses to pay. Despite knowing this, Fitch agrees to pay Marlee to be certain of the verdict. Nick receives confirmation of receipt of payment and he steers the jury deliberation in favour of the plaintiff, much to the chagrin of Herrera, who launches into a rant, confessing his contemptuous disregard of the law and case facts. Frank's tirade undermines any support he may have had for immediate dismissal of the lawsuit. Admitting that he, too, had started with pre-trial notions, Nick gets the jury to agree that they should deliberate the actual merit of the case as presented in court. The gun manufacturer is found liable, with the jury awarding $110 million in general damages to Celeste Wood. Meanwhile, Doyle (Nick Searcy), a Fitch subordinate, tracks down Nick's history in the rural town of Gardner, Indiana, where he discovers that Nick is really Jeff Kerr, a talented former law student drop-out, and that Marlee's real name is Gabby Brandt. Gabby's sister died in a school shooting, while standing beside Gabby's boyfriend, Jeff/Nick. The town of Gardner sued the gun manufacturer and Fitch helped to win the case for the defense, bankrupting the town of Gardner. Doyle concludes that Nick and Marlee's intent is a set-up, and he frantically calls Fitch, but it is too late. After the trial, Nick and Marlee confront Fitch with a receipt for the $15 million bribe and demand that he retire. They inform him that the $15 million will benefit the shooting victims in the town of Gardner. Production. The film had been in pre-production since 1997. Directors slated to helm the picture included Joel Schumacher and Mike Newell, with the lead being offered to Edward Norton and Will Smith. The novel's focus on big tobacco was retained until the 1999 film "The Insider" was released, necessitating a plot change from tobacco to gun companies. Revenue. The film grossed $49,440,996 in the United States and $80,154,140 worldwide. Reception. "Runaway Jury" received generally positive reviews from critics, garnering a 73 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes, with the site calling the film "An implausible but entertaining legal thriller."
1073375	Lucas Daniel Till (born August 10, 1990) is an American actor. He began acting in the early 2000s, and has since appeared in a number of films and television parts, including roles on "House", ' and '. Lucas also starred in the music video for Taylor Swift's song, "You Belong with Me". Early life. Till was born in Fort Hood, Texas, the son of Dana (née Brady) and John Till, a lieutenant colonel in the army. He has one younger brother, Nick (b. 1997) , Till spent most of his childhood living in Marietta, Georgia. He attended Kell High School. After filming for "The Hannah Montana Movie" in Savannah, Till went back home to graduate with the Kell High School class of 2008. After graduation, he moved to Los Angeles, California to pursue his acting career. Career. Early in his life, Lucas Till’s parents became aware of his natural ability to imitate voices and characters. Joy Pervis discovered Till while he was attending a local acting class that his mother had enrolled him in. He is now represented by Los Angeles' Osbrink Talent Agency. When he was 10, he started doing commercials as well as appearing in print. At the age of 12, he was cast in "The Adventures of Ociee Nash" in which he played Harry Vanderbilt, the bully of the main character. In 2004 Till played the part of Jay in the feature film "Lightning Bug" which filmed in Fairview, Alabama. His first major movie role was Jack Cash, the older brother of Johnny Cash who died in a sawmill accident, in the biographical movie, "Walk the Line". After "Walk the Line", Till was featured in a number of independent movies and films for Lifetime Television. In 2008, Till auditioned for "" starring Miley Cyrus and he landed the role of Travis Brody. In an interview, Till said that prior to filming he had actually never ridden a horse before. Till further stated that he does not have any current plans for another Disney movie. He worked alongside action film actor Jackie Chan for his latest movie, "The Spy Next Door", in which Till plays the role of a Russian spy. He also starred in Taylor Swift's music video "You Belong with Me". He was in an episode of "House", and on Leo Little's Big Show along with Emily Osment. On July 8, 2010, it became public that he had been cast in the role of Havok in the X-Men spin-off, ', directed by Matthew Vaughn. In 2013, he starred in the independent movie "All Superheroes Must Die"., Lucas is set to return as Havok for the sequel '. Lucas now resides in Los Angeles.
1162576	Jeff York (March 23, 1912 - October 11, 1995) was an American film and television actor who began his career in the late 1930s using his given name Granville Owen Scofield. He was also sometimes credited as Jeff Yorke.
1058877	Sliding Doors is a 1998 British-American romantic comedy-drama film written and directed by Peter Howitt and starring Gwyneth Paltrow and John Hannah, while also featuring John Lynch, Jeanne Tripplehorn and Virginia McKenna. The film alternates between two parallel universes, based on the two paths the central character's life could take depending on whether or not she catches a train. Plot. Helen Quilley (Gwyneth Paltrow) gets fired from her public relations job. After she waits for her train on the London Underground, the plot splits into two parallel universes, one in which she catches the train, the other detailing the separate path her life would have taken had she missed that train. In the timeline in which she boards the train, she meets James (John Hannah) on the underground and they strike up a conversation. She gets home in time to catch her boyfriend, Gerry (John Lynch), in bed with his ex-girlfriend, Lydia (Jeanne Tripplehorn); she dumps him and moves in with her friend Anna (Zara Turner), and changes her appearance for a fresh start. James continues to serendipitously pop into Helen's life, cheering her up and encouraging her to start her own public relations firm. She and James fall in love despite Helen's reservations about beginning another relationship so soon after her ugly breakup with Gerry. Eventually, Helen discovers that she is pregnant, believing it is James' child, and goes to see him at his office. She is stunned to learn from James' secretary that he is married. Upset, she disappears. James finds her on a bridge and explains that he "was" married but is now separated and planning a divorce. He and his soon-to-be-ex-wife maintain the appearance of a happy marriage for the sake of his sick mother. After she and James declare their love, Helen walks out into the road and is hit by a car. In the timeline in which she misses the train, she hails a taxi instead but a man tries to snatch her handbag. Helen is injured in the scuffle and goes to hospital. She arrives home after Lydia has left and carries on, oblivious of Gerry's infidelity, and takes two part-time jobs to pay the bills. Gerry conceals his infidelity and juggles the two women in his life; Lydia even interacts with Helen on several occasions. Helen has a number of conflicts with Gerry but discovers that she is pregnant. She never manages to tell him, but does tell him that she has a job interview with an international PR firm. Gerry, thinking Helen is at her interview, goes to see Lydia, who is also pregnant with his child, at her apartment. While at Lydia's, Gerry answers the doorbell and sees Helen standing at the door; she is stunned to see Gerry, while Lydia tells her she can't do the interview because she's "deciding whether or not to keep your boyfriend's baby." Distraught, Helen runs off and falls down Lydia's staircase while trying flee from Gerry. In both timelines, Helen goes to the hospital and loses her baby. In the timeline in which she boards the train, she dies in the arms of her new-found love, James; in the timeline in which she misses the train, she recovers and tells Gerry to leave for good. Before waking, she sees brief visions of the alternate Helen's life in a dream. In the final scene (in the "missed train" universe), James is leaving the hospital after visiting his mother, and Helen is leaving after ending her relationship with Gerry. Helen drops an earring in the lift and it is picked up by James. This mirrors the start of the film, where James picks up Helen's earring on the lift after Helen is fired from her job. Before the doors close, James tells Helen to cheer up, and repeats his line, "You know what the Monty Python boys say..." Helen (who, in the beginning of the film, assumed the rejoinder to be "always look on the bright side of life.") says, "Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition." She and James stare at one another, each surprised by her response. The lift doors close, leaving the audience to speculate whether it was fate or coincidence that brought Helen and James together under these circumstances. Production. The scenes on the London Underground were filmed at Waterloo station on the Waterloo & City Line and at Fulham Broadway tube station on the District Line. The scenes by the Thames were filmed next to Hammersmith Bridge and in the Blue Anchor pub in Hammersmith. The bridge featured is the Albert Bridge between Battersea and Chelsea. The late-night scene when Paltrow and Hannah walk down the street was filmed in Primrose Gardens (formerly Stanley Gardens) in Belsize Park. The final hospital scene where Helen and James meet in the lift was filmed at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital on Fulham Road. Soundtrack. British singer Dido's song "Thank You" made its appearance on the soundtrack, becoming a hit three years later. It was a commercial for this film featuring "Thank You" as background music that inspired rapper Eminem to use Dido's voice for his song, "Stan". This soundtrack is notable as the last from a Paramount film to be released by MCA Records, which, as successor to Paramount's former record division, continued to release soundtracks for some Paramount films starting in 1979. Reception. Box office. The film opened at the box office with $834,817 on #17 during its first weekend but increased by 96.5% to $1,640,438 on its second weekend. It ended up with a total gross in the United States of $11,841,544. It also saw success in the United Kingdom with a total box office gross in excess of £12 million. The film's total world takings totaled over $58 million. Critical response. Rotten Tomatoes gives the film the film a score of 63% based on 48 reviews, with the site's consensus saying that "espite the gimmicky feel of the split narratives, the movie is watch-able due to the winning performances by the cast".
1169561	Elizabeth Alice "Beth" Broderick (born February 24, 1959) is an American actress famous for her portrayal of the character Zelda Spellman in the television sitcom "Sabrina, the Teenage Witch" from 1996–2003 on ABC and then the Warner Bros. network. She recently starred as the recurring character Rose Twitchell on the Stephen King and Steven Spielberg TV series "Under the Dome". Early life. Broderick was born in Falmouth, Kentucky and grew up in Huntington Beach, California. Even as a child, Beth was interested in theatre. She graduated from high school at sixteen and then from the American Academy of Arts in Pasadena, California, at the age of eighteen. Afterwards, she moved to New York to pursue an acting career. Her mother's name is Nina Broderick. She has two sisters and one brother. Career. Billed as Beth Alison Broderick and later as Norris O'Neal, she made her debut in two films, "In Love" (1983) and "Bordello: House of the Rising Sun" (1985). Both roles portrayed her as a lesbian and were financially unsuccessful. Again as Norris O'Neal she appeared in the mainstream comedy "Sex Appeal" (1986). In 1986 she had small roles in "If Looks Could Kill", "Student Affairs", "Young Nurses in Love", and "Slammer Girls", a spoof of the women in prison film genre. Her first significant role was in "Stealing Home" (1988) where she played the sexy neighbor who seduces a young, innocent Jonathan Silverman. In 1990, she had a small part in "The Bonfire of the Vanities". Her movie credits include "Man of the Year" (1995), "Maternal Instincts" (1996), "Breast Men" (1997), "Psycho Beach Party" (2000) and "The Inner Circle" (2003). She also played a small role in the movie "Fools Rush In" (1997), with Matthew Perry and Salma Hayek, as a business woman. In the film "Timber Falls", she played a crazy religious woman, who together with her husband and brother, torture couples who break the rules of chastity while camping. Her television credits include "Married With Children", "The 5 Mrs. Buchanans", "Hearts Afire", "Supernatural" and "Glory Days". She has also guest starred on Northern Exposure in the 1992 episode "It Happened In Juneau", playing a lusty doctor hunting for a one night stand with Dr. Joel Fleischman played by Rob Morrow. In 1997 she appeared in the racy Showtime series ' ("The Bitter and the Sweet" 2:17). She also had a minor, recurring role in the hit ABC series, "Lost", as Kate Austen's mother, Diane and also played a minor role in ' during a tsunami where she played a neighbor to CSI Ryan Wolfe's uncle. More recently, she had guest starring roles on "Leverage" and "Castle". She has also appeared in several theater productions like "Carnal Knowledge", "Triplets in Uniform" and "Zastrozzi, the Master of Discipline" (which she also co-produced). In New York she has starred in "The Mousetrap", "The Lion in Winter" and many more. She was recently in the Chicago Northlight Theatre production of the one woman show titled "Bad Dates". She has also played a role in "". Broderick has written "A Cup of Joe", "Wonderland" and "Literatti" with Dennis Bailey. She directed three episodes of "Sabrina, the Teenage Witch": "Guilty!" (2002), "Cloud Ten" (2002), "Making the Grade" (2001). Personal life. She was married to Brian Porizek on January 26, 1998 and divorced him July 11, 2000 and married Scott Paetty on April 29, 2005. She had a year-long romance with director Brian De Palma during production of "Bonfire of the Vanities". She has been active in the battle against AIDS since 1984 and she is the founding director of Momentum, one of the first organizations in New York established to assist people with AIDS. Broderick was also a founding member of the Celebrity Action Council of the City Light Women's Rehabilitation Program at the Los Angeles Mission, which provides hands-on service to homeless women, helps them to overcome substance abuse and learn job skills to help them reclaim their lives and families. She appears in a promotional video for Camp Wellstone saying she attended the camp because she wants to run for office. Her favorite authors are: Reynolds Price, Tim McLaurin, Jim Harrison, and Truman Capote. She optioned the novel "The Last Great Snake Show", written by Tim McLaurin. Her writing partner is Dennis Bailey. Her interests are gourmet cooking, flower arranging, reading, and writing. Beth currently resides in Austin, Texas.
1350771	Kandagar (; also known as "Kandahar") is a Russian film detailing the escape of a Russian crew from Afghanistan Taliban fighters on August 16, 1996. The film stars some of Russia’s most famous actors, Vladimir Mashkov, Andrei Panin and Alexander Baluyev. The movie is based on the Russian pilot's, Vladimir Sharpatov, diary. The film was released in Russia on April 4, 2010. The Andrei Kavun film is the first to describe Russia’s history in Afghanistan after their withdrawal from the country. Background. On August 3, 1995 a Taliban fighter plane forced down a Russian Ilyushin Il-76 plane with five Russian nationals on board in what would be called "The Aerostan incident". The aircraft was forced to land at a Taliban controlled airfield near Kandahar. The men were held prisoners for more than one year by the Taliban which controlled about half of Afghanistan at the time during the Civil war in Afghanistan (1992–1996). The movie follows their captivity, day-to-day survival, and escape from Taliban.
1055267	Kerry Fox (born 30 July 1966) is a New Zealand actress. She came to prominence playing author Janet Frame in the movie "An Angel at My Table" directed by Jane Campion, which gained her a Best Actress Award from the New Zealand Film and Television Awards. Biography. Kerry Fox was born in Wellington. She has gone on to build an international career, working far and wide in quality independent films and on television. She received praise and a nomination for the Australian Film Institute Awards for her leading role in "Country Life", starred in Danny Boyle's breakout British hit "Shallow Grave" with Ewan McGregor, and was nominated for the Canadian Academy Award (Genie Award) for her supporting role in "The Hanging Garden". In 2001 she won the Silver Bear for Best Actress for her role as Claire in "Intimacy" (directed by Patrice Chéreau) at the Berlin Film Festival. In this film she performed real, rather than simulated, fellatio. In Autumn 2009 she appeared alongside John Simm, Lucy Cohu and Ian Hart in the Duke of York's Theatre production of Andrew Bovell's play "Speaking In Tongues". In 2011 she played Oriel Lamb in the television adaptation of Tim Winton's novel "Cloudstreet".
1103133	Robert Lee Moore (November 14, 1882 – October 4, 1974) was an American mathematician, known for his work in general topology and the Moore method of teaching university mathematics. Life. Although Moore's father was reared in New England and was of New England ancestry, he fought in the American Civil War on the side of the Confederacy. After the war, he ran a hardware store in Dallas, then little more than a railway stop, and raised six children, of whom Robert, named after the commander of the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia, was the fifth. Moore entered the University of Texas at the unusually low age of 16, in 1898, already knowing calculus thanks to self-study. He completed the B.Sc. in three years instead of the usual four; his teachers included G. B. Halsted and L. E. Dickson. After a year as a teaching fellow at Texas, he taught high school for a year in Marshall, Texas. An assignment of Halsted's led Moore to prove that one of Hilbert's axioms for geometry was redundant. When E. H. Moore (no relation), who headed the Department of Mathematics at the University of Chicago, and whose research interests were on the foundations of geometry, heard of Robert's feat, he arranged for a scholarship that would allow Robert to study for a doctorate at Chicago. Oswald Veblen supervised Moore's 1905 thesis, titled "Sets of Metrical Hypotheses for Geometry". Moore then taught one year at the University of Tennessee, two years at Princeton University, and three years at Northwestern University. In 1910, he married Margaret MacLelland Key of Brenham, Texas; they had no children. In 1911, he took up a position at the University of Pennsylvania. In 1920, Moore happily returned to the University of Texas at Austin as an associate professor, and was promoted to full professor three years later. In 1951, he went on half pay, but continued to teach his habitual five classes a year, including a section of freshman calculus, until the University authorities forced his definitive retirement in 1969, his 87th year. In 1973, the University of Texas honored him by giving the name Moore Hall to a new building housing the physics, mathematics, and astronomy departments. A strong supporter of the American Mathematical Society, he presided over it, 1936–38. He edited its Colloquium Publications, 1929–33, and was the editor-in-chief, 1930–33. In 1931, he was elected to the National Academy of Sciences. Topologist. According to the bibliography in Wilder (1976), Moore published 67 papers and one monograph, his 1932 "Foundations of Point Set Theory". He is primarily remembered for his work on the foundations of topology, a topic he first touched on in his PhD thesis. By the time Moore returned to the University of Texas, he had published 17 papers on point-set topology—a term he coined—including his 1915 paper "On a set of postulates which suffice to define a number-plane," giving an axiom system for plane topology. The Moore plane, Moore's road space, Moore space and the Moore space conjecture are named in his honour. Unusual teacher. Robert Lee Moore is known to have supervised 50 doctoral dissertations, almost all at Texas, including those of R. H. Bing, F. Burton Jones, John R. Kline, Mary Ellen Rudin, Gordon Whyburn, R. D. Anderson, and Raymond Louis Wilder. This attests to Moore's having been one of the most charismatic and inspiring university teachers of mathematics ever active in the United States. Moore had a breathtaking ability to teach students who had never previously distinguished themselves in mathematics how to do proofs. He went out of his way to teach elementary and service courses every year, and actually forbade his students from consulting the mathematical literature. It was while attending lectures at the University of Chicago that Moore first hit on his original teaching methods. Finding these lectures rather boring, even mind dulling, he would liven up a lecture by running a race in his mind with the lecturer, by trying to discover the proof of an announced theorem before the lecturer had finished his presentation. Moore often won this silent race, and when he did not, he felt that he was better off from having made the attempt. It was at the University of Pennsylvania, while teaching a course on the foundations of geometry, that Moore first tried out the teaching methods that came to be known as the Moore method. The success of this method led others to adopt it and similar methods. Racism. Moore's record as a teacher of mathematics has been tarnished by his attitude towards black students. Most of his career was spent in a racially segregated part of the United States. When African Americans started being admitted to the University of Texas, however, he took steps to ensure that none were in his classes. He once famously walked out of a lecture once he realized the speaker was black.
771386	Brigid Mary Bazlen (June 9, 1944 – May 25, 1989) was an American actress. Although she made only three Hollywood films, "The Honeymoon Machine", "King of Kings", and "How the West Was Won", she is still remembered for the latter two. Her career, and her life, were cut short by her death from cancer at the age of 44. Early life and career. Bazlen was born in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin. Her father was Arthur Bazlen, a retail chain executive, and her mother was Maggie Daly, a newspaper columnist with "Chicago's American" (Chicago Today & Chicago Tribune). Maggie Daly was, with her three sisters, one of what "Time" magazine referred to as “the celebrated Daly sisters,” who were known for their writing and work in journalism, fashion and advertising. "Life" magazine ran two feature stories on the sisters with a young Bazlen appearing in the second. Columnist Maggie ("Daly Diary" in "Chicago's American"), the oldest sister, a one-time model was known for her lunch time Chicago fashion shows and as a radio and television talk show guest and TV show host. Kay Daly, who worked in advertising with such people as Richard Avedon, became a Revlon vice president responsible for its advertising. Novelist and writer Maureen Daly became famous for writing "Seventeenth Summer" at age 19. Sheila Daly, the youngest, who wrote a "Chicago Tribune" teen column beginning at a very young age, eventually went into advertising as well. Bazlen was “discovered” in 1950 at the age of 6 waiting for a school bus in front of her house by an NBC executive. The network were testing for the then groundbreaking soap opera "Hawkins Falls, Population 6200" (which went on to become the first successful television soap opera) starring Maurice Copeland and Bernadine Flynn, and the executive asked Bazlen’s parents for permission to test her. Whilst her mother initially refused, she later relented and Bazlen won a part and became a regular on the show for two years, winning rave reviews. "The Blue Fairy" (1958). In 1958, Bazlen won the starring role in the children’s program "The Blue Fairy", broadcast by the independent station WGN-TV in Chicago on Monday nights (7.30 pm–8.00 pm). It was one of the earliest children’s shows to be produced in color. The producer of the show had spotted Bazlen playing hopscotch outside of Bazlen's Chicago home and told Bazlen's mother that "your little girl is just right for my TV series". In the show, the Blue Fairy, played by Bazlen, lived in the “Blue Forest”. Dressed in a blue gown and diamond tiara, she also clasped a silver wand. At the beginning of each show, Bazlen, suspended by wires, would fly (as if on elfin wings) across the stage saying “I’m the Blue Fairy, I’ll grant you a wish to make all your dreams come true”. She would then sit on an oversized mushroom visited by creatures such as Tugnacious R. Jones, Myrtle Flower, and an old nasal voiced wizard (which were puppets designed by George Nelle and writer-director Don Kane), and introduced stories enacted by the Rufus Rose Marionettes. They also engaged in various projects which included constructing a popcorn machine that would not stop popping and making a sewing machine that turned out marbles. Bazlen won enormous critical praise for her performance (one critic describing it as “beguiling” and “mesmerising” and Hedda Hopper declared Bazlen “the Celtic Alice in Wonderland”) and the show was recognised as the top children’s program of 1958 winning a Peabody Award. Bazlen herself said of her role that she "flew around and had a wonderful time." Although "The Blue Fairy" could only be seen locally in Chicago on Channel 9, the Peabody Award it won brought it and Bazlen to national attention. Furthermore, the show also inspired Ernie Kovacs into doing one of his notorious comedy sketches where Kovacs (wearing a mustache, chewing a cigar, dressed in a blue gown and blonde wig, and holding a silver wand) flew across a stage, slammed head first into a wall on the opposite side, and was then left dangling lifelessly (in mock fashion) in mid-air. "Too Young To Go Steady" (1959). As a result of her performances in The Blue Fairy, offers poured in for Bazlen. Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein wanted her to co-star with Mary Martin in the theatrical production of "The Sound of Music", Otto Preminger wanted her for his upcoming production of "Exodus", and Paddy Chayefsky wanted her for his Broadway play "The Dybbuk of Woodlawn". Bazlen’s mother, however, turned these down and instead allowed her to take a part in the NBC TV comedy drama "Too Young To Go Steady". The series starred Joan Bennett, and Bazlen played her daughter Pamela Blake. Martin Huston, then eighteen, was cast as Johnny Blake. "King of Kings" (1961). Through her role in "Too Young To Go Steady" and because she was “precociously attractive” (as one critic put it) in a very similar way to Elizabeth Taylor at the same age, Bazlen came to be dubbed “the next Elizabeth Taylor” and was signed by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (who started promoting her as “the new American Bardot”). The first film she did for MGM was "King of Kings", which also starred Jeffrey Hunter as Jesus. Bazlen played the role of Salome. Bazlen won the part when she met the film's producer, Samuel Bronston, at a party Bazlen's mother had taken her to. Bazlen said of the offer, that "It was like spotted all over again, for Mr Bronston offered me the Salome part straight away." Nevertheless, Bazlen’s performance as Salome came in for especially hostile criticism at the time, the ferocity of it being partly inspired by the fact that Bazlen’s selection for the role was viewed as “MGM dictated”. Nevertheless, just as the film itself is now highly regarded Bazlen’s performance has likewise been re-evaluated down the years as being superb (her voluptuous seduction of a drunken lascivious Herod winning her especially rave reviews.) Indeed, in her review for Rotten Tomatoes, Kimberly Heinrichs, states that: "This 1961 version of..of Kings..gives historical context to the best-known Biblical tale and features many memorable moments, such as a moving Sermon on the Mount and a vixenish Salome Bazlen dancing for her stepfather in a performance that rivals today's MTV video offerings". Hunter's performance as Jesus, especially in the Sermon on the Mount scene, has also won much acclaim, as have the performances of Robert Ryan as John the Baptist and Frank Thring as Herod Antipas – the film is also included in Danny Peary's list of "must see" films in his book 'Guide for the Film Fanatic'). In its review of the film, Film Fanatic states: "My favorite “Roman scene” shows the infamous Salome (played by Brigid Bazlen as a sexy teenage hussy) tempting her stepfather, King Herod (Thring), into decapitating John the Baptist (a shaggy-headed Robert Ryan) and bringing her his head on a platter; while this vignette may not be substantiated by biblical scholars, it plays well on the screen!". Accordingly, Bazlen's performance as Salome is widely regarded as her best ever performance. Bazlen herself said of her role as Salome, "A fantastic amount of research went into "King of Kings" and it seems that Salome was in her teens when she demanded the head of John the Baptist. She may well be the first juvenile delinquent on record. Some people are surprised that I used no veils in my dance, but it is a false assumption that Salome did a strip tease. I had to form my seductive charming of Herod with a pure Oriental-African dance movement of the period." According to Bazlen's daughter Marguerite, despite the unfair criticism Bazlen received at the time of the films release, Bazlen was always very proud of her performance. Furthermore, shortly after making the film, Bazlen herself said that "I was a little overwhelmed to have such an important role for my first film part, but I found Nicholas Ray to be a most considerate director." "The Honeymoon Machine" (1961). Bazlen's next film for MGM was "The Honeymoon Machine" alongside Steve McQueen, Jim Hutton, and Paula Prentiss. Although the film was made after "King of Kings", it was released before it, thus becoming Bazlen's first Hollywood movie to be shown. In "The Honeymoon Machine", Bazlen stars as Julie Fitch, girlfriend of Fergie Howard (played by Steve McQueen) and daughter of Admiral Fitch (played by Dean Jagger). According to Christopher Sandford in his biography on Steve McQueen, Bazlen became briefly involved with McQueen whilst making "The Honeymoon Machine", although McQueen fought "Bazlen nonstop" over issues relating to the film. Nevertheless, Peter Haigh in ABC Film Review said of her performance in the film that Bazlen "displayed a nice sense of comedy" and Bazlen herself said that she found making the film "less of a strain" than the making of "King of Kings". As with "King of Kings", however, the film critics of the time were unfairly scathing in their assessment of Bazlen's performance, with one stating that Bazlen was "Incapable of anything but looking pretty." Nonetheless, just as with her performance in "King of Kings", her performance in "The Honeymoon Machine" has been re-evaluated down the years as being of a very high standard. Moreover, Bazlen herself responded to the overly harsh criticism by simply stating that she was "a hard worker." "How The West Was Won" (1962). Bazlen’s final film role was as Dora Hawkins, daughter of Jeb Hawkins, a river pirate played by Walter Brennan in "How the West Was Won", a film about the history of the western expansion in the United States as told from the perspective of one pioneer family. She appears in only one sequence, coaxing fur trapper Linus Rawlings James Stewart into a trap, stabbing him and sending him falling into a lake. Presumed dead, Stewart crawls out of a trap, just in time to save the Prescott family (played by Karl Malden, Agnes Moorehead, Debbie Reynolds and Carroll Baker), whom he had befriended before, from being robbed and possibly murdered. The fight that follows results in the complete destruction of the Hawkins clan when Rawlings sets off some dynamite. Reflections on youth. During the making of "King of Kings", "The Honeymoon Machine", and "How The West Was Won", as Bazlen was still only 17 years of age at the time, she had to attend educational classes between takes in order to comply with the Los Angeles Board of Education's requirement that she carry out three hours of study per day Monday to Friday. Moreover, when answering a question during this time about whether young people were misunderstood by the older generation, she said "Yes, but I'm sure that's been the case down the ages. Its too much to expect people of the older generation completely to understand people of my age. Some of the ways in which we behave were unheard of in my mother's young days, but each generation finds different symbols to express its discontent." Also, when asked at the same time about how she felt about her rapid rise to stardom at such a young age, Bazlen said "I realise what a lucky person I am and I'm anxious to repay the trust a lot of important people have placed in me. Reaching so high so young has put a lot of responsibility on my shoulders, but I feel that responsibility is part of the pattern of living and it is not to be taken lightly." Later career and life after acting. "How The West Was Won" completed Bazlen’s three-film contract deal with MGM and her contract was not renewed following the criticism her performance as Salome received in "King of Kings". After completing her role in "How The West Was Won", Bazlen returned to Chicago where she appeared in many stage roles until 1966 when she gave up performing to marry the French singer Jean-Paul Vignon. The marriage produced one daughter (Marguerite Vignon – the birth coming as a pleasant surprise to Bazlen as she had been told that she would never have children. Indeed, it was only 4 months into the pregnancy that she found out she was pregnant), but ended in divorce. Bazlen later married Nashville session player/producer Marlin Greene. This marriage also ended in divorce after 7 years. At the time her acting career was at its zenith in 1961/62, she said that her ideal marriage would take place when she was between 20 and 22 years of age and to "someone 10 to 20 years my senior, preferably not an actor. Marriages between actors seldom work out satisfactorily. If it is an actor I marry, it won't be a young one. I find young actors are too egotistical. I prefer more mature men; James Stewart is a wonderful example.". She also added that the person she would like to marry would be "Someone I could learn from."
1043721	The Wrong Box (1966) is a British comedy film made by Salamander Film Productions and distributed by Columbia Pictures. It was produced and directed by Bryan Forbes from a screenplay by Larry Gelbart and Burt Shevelove, based on the novel by Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne.
1084369	Death Tunnel is a 2005 horror movie filmed at the Waverly Hills Sanatorium. It stars Steffany Huckaby, Annie Burgstede, Kristin Novak, and Jason Lasater. Plot. Five college girls who were attending an initiation party (themed "Truth or Scare") wake up inside an abandoned sanatorium (a huge type of hospital used to treat disease outbreaks.). They are told (via a speaker system within the sanatorium) that they must spend five hours inside, each on a separate floor. The girls are warned that they must survive five ghosts during the night. Each girl finds newspaper clippings from the 1930s, and they learn that the sanatorium had previously been used during the so-called "White plague," (tuberculosis) and that Jack died from the disease - while many others killed themselves in the hospital. Although this starts off as prank, both the girls and the prankster find themselves in a fight to prevent history from repeating itself. They discover that there is only one way out of the sanatorium - the tunnel underneath the hospital, nicknamed the "Death Tunnel," as it was used to transport all of the bodies out of the hospital.
1163421	Beulah Bondi (May 3, 1889 – January 11, 1981) was an American actress of stage, film and television. She began her acting career as a young child in theater, and after establishing herself as a stage actress, she reprised her role in "Street Scene" for the 1931 film version. She played supporting roles in several films during the 1930s, and was twice nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. She played the mother of James Stewart in four films, including "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington" (1939) and "It's a Wonderful Life" (1946). She continued acting into her later years, and won an Emmy Award for an appearance in the television series "The Waltons" in 1976. Life and career. Bondi was born as Beulah Bondy in Valparaiso, Indiana, the daughter of Eva Suzanna (née Marble), an author, and Abraham O. Bondy, who worked in real estate. Bondi began her acting career on the stage at age seven, playing the title role in the play "Little Lord Fauntleroy" in a production at the Memorial Opera House in Valparaiso, Indiana. She graduated from the Frances Shimer Academy (later Shimer College) in 1907, and gained her Bachelors and Masters degrees in oratory at Valparaiso University in 1916 and 1918.
1062846	Thomas Jane (born Thomas Elliott III; February 22, 1969) is an American actor and comic book writer, best known for his roles in "Padamati Sandhya Ragam" (1987), "Boogie Nights" (1997), "61*" (2001), "The Punisher" (2004), "The Mist" (2007), and "Hung" (2009–2011). Early life. Jane was born in Baltimore, Maryland, the son of Cynthia, an antiques dealer, and Michael Elliott, a genetic engineer. In 1987, he graduated from Thomas Sprigg Wootton High School. At age 18, he moved to Hollywood to pursue an acting career. He was initially homeless and lived out of his car, often doing street performances to earn money: "I had two songs in my repertoire that I hammered to death, "Hey Joe" and "Knockin' on Heaven's Door". People used to pelt me with change just to shut me up." Career. Jane began his acting career with the Telugu film "Padamati Sandhya Ragam" (1986), directed by Jandhyala, a renowned filmmaker in Telugu Cinema. His early roles included Zeph in "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" (1992). He also had supporting roles in several high profile films, including "" (1996), "Boogie Nights" (1997), "The Thin Red Line" (1998), "Thursday" (1998) and "Magnolia" (1999). After receiving critical acclaim as baseball player Mickey Mantle in "61*", Jane began receiving leading roles like Andre Stander in the 2003 South African film "Stander", for which he gained further critical acclaim. Jane, director Jonathan Hensleigh, and Avi Arad have said that Jane was the first and only actor to be asked to play the title role in the 2004 film "The Punisher". He initially turned down the role twice, as he did not have much interest in the superhero genre. When they asked him the second time to play the Punisher, it was Tim Bradstreet's artwork of the character that secured his interest. After finding out that the character was not a traditional superhero, but more of an anti-hero and a vigilante crime fighter, he accepted. He read as many Punisher comics as he could find and quickly became a fan, then trained for several months with Navy SEALs and gained more than twenty pounds of muscle.
1165162	Brian Keith (November 14, 1921 – June 24, 1997) was an American film, television, and stage actor who in his six decade-long career gained recognition for his work in movies such as the 1961 Disney family film "The Parent Trap", the 1966 comedy "The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming", and the 1975 adventure saga "The Wind and the Lion", in which he portrayed Theodore Roosevelt. On television, two of his best known roles were that of a bachelor-uncle-turned-reluctant-parent Bill Davis in the 1960s sitcom "Family Affair", and a tough judge in the 1980s drama "Hardcastle and McCormick". He also starred in the "The Brian Keith Show" that aired on NBC from 1972 to 1974 where he portrayed a pediatrician who operated a free clinic on Oahu as well as in the CBS comedy series "Heartland". Early life. Keith was born Robert Alba Keith in Bayonne, New Jersey, on November 14, 1921, to actor Robert Keith and stage actress Helena Shipman, a native of Aberdeen, Washington. Some sources also list his full name as "Brian Robert Keith". He was raised Roman Catholic. His parents divorced, and he moved to Hollywood and started his acting career, at the age of 2. He made his acting debut in the silent film "Pied Piper Malone" (1924) at the age of 3. His mother continued to perform on stage and radio, while Robert's grandmother Apker helped to raise him on Long Island, New York, just 37 miles east of where he was born. She taught young Brian to read books over his age level. Prior to learning to read, he spent a lot of hours back stage while his parents performed, being quiet for hours. Helena fondly recalled keeping little Brian in the dressing room in one of her dressing room drawers. He remained calm and was quiet and would sleep through the entire show. From 1927 through 1929, Keith's stepmother was Peg Entwistle, a well-known Broadway actress who committed suicide by jumping from the "H" of the famous Hollywood Sign in 1932. After graduation from East Rockaway High School in 1939, in East Rockaway, New York, he joined the United States Marine Corps (1942–1945). He served during World War II as an air gunner (he was a Radio-Gunner in the rear cockpit of a two-man Douglas SBD Dauntless dive-bomber in a U.S. Marine squadron), and received an Air Medal. Career. After the war, Keith became a stage actor, branching out into films and then television. In 1952, he made his debut on three episodes of "Tales of Tomorrow". These three episodes had led him to other roles such as "Police Story", a 1950s anthology show, "Eye Witness", "The United States Steel Hour", "Robert Montgomery Presents", "The Motorola Television Hour", "Campbell Playhouse", "The Pepsi-Cola Playhouse", "The Elgin Hour", "The Adventures of Ellery Queen", and "Jane Wyman Presents: The Fireside Theatre". In 1955, Keith starred in his own series, "Crusader", as the fictional journalist Matt Anders, who tries to free captive peoples from communist countries. During the 1950s and 1960s, Keith also had guest roles on "The Ford Television Theatre", "Wire Service", "Alfred Hitchcock Presents", "Climax!", "Zane Grey Theater", "Rawhide", "Laramie", "The Untouchables", "The Americans", "Outlaws", "The Virginian", "The Fugitive", two episodes of "Wagon Train", five episodes of "77 Sunset Strip", among many others. In 1960, he won acclaim for his starring role in Sam Peckinpah's short-lived series "The Westerner" (1960). The following year, Keith appeared as the father of twins in the 1961 film "The Parent Trap", co-starring Hayley Mills and Maureen O'Hara. In 1966, Keith co-starred with Steve McQueen as traveling gunsmith Jonas Cord in the western "Nevada Smith". In 1968, as widower Jake Iverson, he co-starred with Doris Day in the comedy, "With Six You Get Eggroll." "Family Affair". In 1966, Keith landed the role of Uncle Bill Davis on CBS's popular television situation comedy "Family Affair". This role earned him three Emmy Award nominations for Best Actor in a Comedy Series. The show made him a household name. It was in the vein of such successful 1960s and 1970s sitcoms that dealt with widowhood and/or many single parent issues as: "The Andy Griffith Show", "My Three Sons", "The Beverly Hillbillies", "Petticoat Junction", "Here's Lucy", "Julia", "The Courtship of Eddie's Father", "The Brady Bunch", "The Partridge Family" and "Sanford And Son". During its first season in 1966, the show was an immediate hit, ranking #15 in the Nielsen ratings. By the end of its fifth season in 1971, "Family Affair" still had high ratings, but was canceled after 138 episodes. Kathy Garver said about her on- and off-screen relationship with Brian Keith, "'I'm a cultural Irishman, don't you know, I'm a cultural Irishman,' but he went through many manifestations and changes of character, during the 5 years that we shot. At first, he was up and then his second year, he was going through a divorce and then, the third year, he met somebody else; and he became more anecdotal and told stories that he loved kids, and he was very outspoken about those that he did not like. So, he was a very interesting character and it was Brian and Sebastian Cabot played Mr. French had such a different style of acting and that's another reason I think that "Family Affair" was so popular and stayed as it did. Both excellent actors, both coming from very different methods and styles of acting with Sebastian was more from the classical style and he would take home his script and he would dutifully look at every single word and have it to perfection, and then Brian would come in and say, 'Oh what do we have today? Let me see the scene, uh-huh, uh-huh, let's go!' So he was very improvisational, motion of the moment. And those 2 different styles really worked out each other, very well." Other roles. Keith went on to star as the pediatrician Dr. Sean Jamison in the NBC sitcom "The Brian Keith Show", filmed in Hawaii on an estate at the foot of Diamond Head and also known as "The Little People". The series was canceled after two seasons in 1974. In the 1975 film the Wind and the Lion,he played President Theodore Roosevelt. Keith once again returned to series television in 1983 with "Hardcastle and McCormick", in the role of a cranky retired judge named Milton C. Hardcastle. Daniel Hugh Kelly co-starred as ex-con Mark McCormick in the ABC crime drama with elements of comedy. The chemistry of Keith & Kelly were both a hit and the series lasted three years until its cancellation in 1986. Keith also starred in the role of Steven "The Fox" Halliday in the six-part television miniseries, "The Zoo Gang", about a group of former underground freedom fighters from World War II. The show also starred Sir John Mills, Lilli Palmer, and Barry Morse. He made a guest appearance in the first season of the show "Evening Shade" in the episode "Chip Off The Old Brick", as the loud mouth father of Herman Stiles (played by actor Michael Jeter). Keith spoke fluent Russian, which led to his casting as a Russian in two roles: the Soviet Premier in 'World War III' with Rock Hudson; and as a Soviet scientist in "Meteor" with Natalie Wood. In "The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming", where he played the unexcitable police chief of an island where a Soviet submarine runs aground, however, his character had to have Russian translated to him by Alan Arkin's character. In his last film, Keith played President William McKinley in "Rough Riders" (1997). Director John Milius dedicated "Rough Riders" to "Brian Keith, Actor, Marine, Raconteur." Personal life. Keith married three times, first to Frances Helm; then, in 1954, to actress Judy Landon (who made a guest appearance on "Family Affair"); and finally, in 1970, to Hawaiian actress Victoria Young (née Leialoha), who later appeared on "The Brian Keith Show" as Nurse Puni. Keith fathered two children with Judy Landon (Michael and Mimi) and together they adopted three others (Barbra, Betty, and Rory). He had two children with Victoria Young (Y. Robert and Daisy). Daisy became an actress and appeared with her father in the short-lived series "Heartland" in 1989. Death. During the latter part of his life, Keith suffered from emphysema and lung cancer despite having quit smoking 10 years earlier (he appeared in an endorsement campaign for Camel cigarettes in 1955). On June 24, 1997, he was found dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound in his home at 23449 Malibu Colony Road in Malibu, California, two months after his daughter Daisy committed suicide. It was also reported that he had financial problems and suffered from depression throughout his final days. Keith's family was joined by many mourners at a private funeral, including "Family Affair" co-stars Johnny Whitaker and Kathy Garver, and "Hardcastle & McCormick" co-star Daniel Hugh Kelly. He is buried next to his daughter Daisy at Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery in Los Angeles, California. On June 26, 2008, Brian Keith received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Quotes. Brian: “In other words...you can't be a misogynist and expect women to appreciate you.” (Source: Born-Today.com) Brian who said in 1968 about starring in his own movies: "I've made I don't know how many pictures. Forty, I guess. I've seen only about a half dozen of them. We made Reflections in a Golden Eye in Rome last spring. I really enjoyed working with Liz and Brando and that great director, John Huston. But the kind of picture I enjoy seeing is something like The Parent Trap. That was a charming thing with Hayley Mills playing my twin daughters. I saw that four times. I even took my wife's parents to see it. I like it so much I forgot I was in it, as a matter of fact." (Source: PhotoplayMagazine.com) Brian on trying to live a long life: "If I live to be a hundred--and I hope I do--I won't have time to read all the books I want to read, or talk to the people I want to know. Not party talk. That's a waste of time. Real talk." (Source: PhotoplayMagazine.com) Brian on his handsomeness: “What for? I don't go to the Daisy or any of that. We don't give parties under a striped awning out over the lawn for two hundred people, four of whom we like." (Source: PhotoplayMagazine.com) Brian who said in 1969 on playing the role of an on-screen uncle, as he played the role of a real-life father: "This is the type of show I love, because it reminds me of what happiness I have with my wife and our children." (Source: PhotoplayMagazine.com) Keith who said in 1984 about leaving "Family Affair", to spend time with his family in Hawaii, before casting as "Hardcastle": "I get tired of sitting home and doin' nothing. If I'm doing something eight months of the year, I don't mind loafing the other four. But, lately, I've been finding fewer and fewer movies I'd like to do. And when that happens, I get hard to live with. Then this thing came along. I read it. I liked it. This character Hardcastle: I figured I could live with him for five years if I had to. There was something going on there. You don't get a helluva lot of character in series TV. They're more likely to star the car." (Source: TVGuide.com) Brian who became very antsy about the car that was needed in every script: "I don't pay any attention. The stunt people take care of all that. All I do is get in and out of the Coyote car Skid drove, which required anyone riding in it to enter and exit through the window, which is no mean trick. You can't get into the S.O.B. without bending yourself into a pretzel. Me, I'd rather drive a pickup." (Source: TVGuide.com) Brian on beating out 3 others actors for the role of "Hardcastle": "I never heard of these guys. Of course, I can be talking to 40 Academy Award winners and never know the difference. People in Muncie, Indiana, probably know more about them than I do. But I figure what the hell, if they're smart enough to hire me, they must have something." (Source: TVGuide.com) Brian: “The only attraction is the time. I work just 70 days a year on the show. I can still make two, three movies a year if I want to... If it were "Bonanza" , walking around the Ponderosa, tied up nearly all year, no-o-o chance. That's a fate worse than death." (Source: TVGuide.com)
1063401	Baby Doll is a 1956 American black comedy and drama film directed by Elia Kazan, and starring Carroll Baker, Karl Malden and Eli Wallach. The film also features Mildred Dunnock and Rip Torn. It was produced by Kazan and Tennessee Williams, and adapted by Williams from his own one-act play "27 Wagons Full of Cotton". The plot focuses on a feud between two rival cotton gin owners in rural Mississippi; after one of the men commits arson against the other's gin, the owner retaliates by attempting to seduce the arsonist's nineteen-year-old virgin bride with the hopes of receiving an admission by her of her husband's guilt. The film was controversial when it was released due to its implicit sensual themes, provoking a largely successful effort to ban it, waged by the Roman Catholic National Legion of Decency. Nevertheless, the film received multiple nominations for major awards and performed decently at the box office. Kazan won the Golden Globe Award for Best Director and the film was nominated for four other Golden Globe awards, as well as four Academy Awards and four BAFTA Awards awards, with Eli Wallach taking the BAFTA prize for "Most Promising Newcomer to Film." The film is credited with originating the name and popularity of the babydoll nightgown, which derives from the costume worn by Baker's character. Plot. In the Mississippi Delta, failing, bigoted, middle-aged cotton gin-owner Archie Lee Meighan (Karl Malden) has been married to pretty, empty-headed 19-year old virgin Baby Doll Meighan (Carroll Baker) for two years. Archie impatiently waits for Baby Doll's 20th birthday just a few days away when, by prior agreement with Baby Doll's dying father, the marriage can finally be consummated. In the meantime, Baby Doll still sleeps in a crib, wearing childish shorty-nightgowns and sucking her thumb, while Archie, an alcoholic, spies on her through a hole in a wall of their decrepit antebellum mansion, "Fox Tail". Baby Doll's senile Aunt Rose Comfort (Mildred Dunnock) lives in the house as well. After Archie fails to make payments to a furniture leasing company, virtually all of the furniture in the house is repossessed and Baby Doll threatens to leave. Archie's competitor, Sicilian Silva Vacarro (Eli Wallach), who owns a newer and more modern cotton gin, has taken away all of Archie's business, and Archie retaliates by burning down Vacarro's gin that same night. Suspecting Archie as the arsonist, Vacarro plans a revenge plot and visits the farm the following day with truckloads of cotton, offering to pay Archie Lee to gin for him.
1054580	Marvin John Nance (December 21, 1943 – December 30, 1996), known professionally as Jack Nance and occasionally credited as John Nance, was an American actor of stage and screen, primarily starring in offbeat or avant-garde productions. He was known for his work with director David Lynch, particularly for his roles in "Eraserhead", "Blue Velvet" and "Twin Peaks". Early life. Nance was born in Boston, Massachusetts and was raised in Dallas, Texas. He graduated from South Oak Cliff High School. His father retired from Neiman Marcus. He worked for some time with the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco. In the 1970s, Nance met David Lynch, who cast him as the lead in "Eraserhead". At the time, Nance was married to the actress Catherine E. Coulson (the future Log Lady in "Twin Peaks"), but they divorced in 1976. Later career. In his later years, Nance grew a small white moustache and was a distinctive presence in many films with his peculiar twisted smile and bug eyes. After "Eraserhead", Nance remained on good terms with Lynch, who cast him in nearly all of his projects: Nance also guest-starred on a 1995 episode of "My So-Called Life" entitled "Weekend," where he played an innkeeper. He also made a cameo appearance with actress Mary Woronov in Suicidal Tendencies' 1983 "Institutionalized" music video. Wife's suicide. In May 1991 Nance married Kelly Jean Van Dyke (who worked in the adult film industry under the name Nancee Kelly). Kelly was the daughter of Jerry Van Dyke. Kelly Van Dyke committed suicide by hanging on November 17, 1991. According to his younger brother Richard Nance, Jack, who was in Bass Lake, California, filming "Meatballs 4" at the time, attempted to console her on the phone as she threatened suicide. A lightning storm knocked out the phones in Oregon, subsequently taking over 45 minutes for Nance and the director, Bobby Logan, to find a deputy sheriff who contacted Los Angeles police and the apartment manager. They broke in and found that she had hanged herself. Death. Nance died in South Pasadena, California on December 30, 1996 under mysterious circumstances. Nance claimed to have been involved in a brawl outside a Winchell's Donuts store on the morning of December 29. It is unclear if he was still drunk from the previous night, or if he had already begun drinking that morning, but it is certain that he was intoxicated at the time. He would later tell friends that he had "'popped-off' to a couple of beaners" in the parking lot at 5:00 am that day. "He told them to get a haircut and a job. One of them socked him in the eye, his glasses flew off and he went down." Later that day, he lunched with friends Leo Bulgarini and Catherine Case. Nance had a visible "crescent shaped bruise" under his eye and when asked about it, he related to them the story about the fight. He soon went home, complaining of a headache. The injuries he received caused a subdural hematoma, resulting in his death the following morning. Nance died alone in his apartment. His body was discovered on the bathroom floor by Bulgarini. An autopsy revealed that the actor's blood alcohol level was .24 percent at the time of his death. A documentary about Nance funded by Lynch, titled "I Don't Know Jack", was released in 2002.
589213	Jis Desh Mein Ganga Behti Hai is a 1960 Hindi film directed by Radhu Karmakar and produced by Raj Kapoor. The film stars Kapoor, Pran and Padmini in lead roles. This was the first directorial venture of Karmakar who had previously been cinematographer for many of Kapoor's films. The film was declared "Hit" at the box office. The team of Shankar Jaikishan composed the music for film, which includes the hit songs penned by Shailendra like "O Basanti Pawan Pagal", "Aa Ab Lout Chalen" and the title song of "Hothon Pe Sacchai Rehti Hai". Plot. Raju (Raj Kapoor) is a poor, friendly orphan who wins his bread by singing songs. One day he sees an injured man and helps him. Later he is kidnapped by few bandits who mistake him to be an undercover policeman. It then turns out that the injured man he helped is the leader (Sardar) of this gang. The Sardar takes good care of Raju and treats him with honour. Sardar's daughter Kammo (Padmini) falls in love with Raju. Kammo and Sardar convince Raju of how they are good bandits who are making sure that wealth is equally distributed amongst people.
520533	Eduardo "Edu" Barrios Manzano (born September 14, 1955) is a Filipino actor, television personality, comedian, and politician. He was previously the host of game shows "The Weakest Link", "Pilipinas, Game KNB?", "1 vs. 100" and "Asar Talo, Lahat Panalo". Early life. Eduardo Barrios Manzano was born on September 14, 1955 in San Francisco, California to Filipino parents. Due to his parentage ("jus sanguinis") and the place of his birth ("jus soli"), he is both a citizen of the Philippines and the United States under the constitutions of both countries. At the age of 17, Manzano joined the United States armed forces, serving for four years. Acting career. Manzano moved to the Philippines to pursue a full-time career with the local movie industry. Manzano served as president of the actors’ group Kapisanan ng mga Artista sa Pelikulang Pilipino in the 1990s. He was part of ABS-CBN's roster of contract actors until he took a leave in order to run for vice president of the Philippines in the 2010 elections. However, he has stated that he is no longer interested in returning to show business but is interested to take on hosting current affairs programs Manzano recently signed a contract and returns to GMA Network. In 2010, he hosted the pre-noontime game show Asar Talo Lahat Panalo! and he is scheduled to host two new game/talent shows this 2011 after months of hiatus on TV, he hosts Family Feud: The Showdown Edition since April 2011 until July but Edu is now defected to TV5 to have a new TV show entitled Game N Go. In 2012 Edu is now joining the morning show of Good Morning Club who is replacing Pat Fernandez on Solar News. Political career. Manzano entered politics in 1998 when he ran for Vice Mayor of Makati City. He garnered a majority of votes in the election, but his proclamation was suspended due to a case filed which alleged that he was not a citizen of the Philippines. The Comelec eventually ruled that he was indeed a Filipino citizen, clearing the way for his proclamation as Vice Mayor. Following a three-year term, he ran an unsuccessful campaign for Mayor of Makati City in 2001, losing to Jejomar Binay. In 2004, Manzano became the first chairman of the Optical Media Board, a government agency tasked with combating optical media piracy. He resigned the position in August 2009. Manzano ran as the Lakas-Kampi-CMD's candidate for Vice President in the May 2010 election as the running mate of presidential candidate Gilbert Teodoro. He eventually lost to Makati City Mayor Jejomar Binay and finished fifth. Manzano is the co-founder of the non-profit advocacy organization called Ako Mismo.
1058022	Irreconcilable Differences is a 1984 comedy-drama film starring Ryan O'Neal, Shelley Long, and Drew Barrymore. The film was a minor box office success, making over $12 million. For their performances, both Shelley Long and Drew Barrymore were nominated for Golden Globe Awards. Plot. The film begins with media attention surrounding Casey Brodsky's (Drew Barrymore) decision to divorce her parents and have her nanny, Maria Hernandez, become Casey's legal guardian, which results in her parents, Albert and Lucy Brodsky, being brought out of their self-absorbed lives and made to testify in court about their personal lives. Much of the film is presented as flashbacks. At a truck stop in Indiana on the night of January 20th, 1973, film professor Albert Brodsky is hitchhiking across the country, where he gets picked up by Lucy van Patten, a woman who has ambitions of writing books, particularly for children, but is repressed by her fiancé "Bink", a gruff Navy man, and is depressed about being relegated to the life of a military wife. Through getting to know Albert, Lucy loosens her inhibitions, breaks off her engagement to Bink, and marries Albert shortly afterwards.
657747	Ferdous Ahmed is Bangladeshi actor who appears both in Bangladesh and West Bengal Indian films. Career. He is the national award winner with more than 40 films released both in Bangladesh and West Bengal, India.
585355	Meera Vasudevan (born 29 January 1982) is an Indian film actress and model, who has appeared in Malayalam, Tamil, Hindi and Telugu-language films. Early life. Meera was born in Mumbai, Maharashtra in a Tamil family as the eldest daughter to Vasudevan and Hemalatha. She has one younger sister Ashwini, who shot as a child artiste for "Jaanam Samjha Karo" a Salman Khan starrer. After graduating with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Psychology and English literature, she became a successful model, appearing in many ad films, shooting into fame. The ICC setmax campaign was her calling to success and fame and marked her entry into acting. Career. Her entry into the film industry happened through the 2003 Hindi satirical film "" alongside Milind Soman. After about 500 failed screentests, the Setmax ad shot by Prahlad Kakkar won the best ad campaign of the year, and was noticed by the director Parvati Balagopalan's mother and got her a screentest for "Rules: Pyaar Ka Superhit Formula", for which she was nominated for best upcoming actress by Screen Awards and Sansui - PNC Awards. Her Telugu film "Golmaal", however, released first. The same year she made her film debut in the Tamil film industry as well, appearing in Samuthirakani's directorial debut "Unnai Saranadainthen", in which she shared screen space with Venkat Prabhu and S. P. B. Charan. Her portrayal of Bobby, an adamant village girl, in the film, was appreciated by critics and earned her the Tamil Nadu State Film Special Award for Best Actress. After unsuccessful films like "Anjali I Love You" in Telugu and "Arivumani" in Tamil, she stepped into the Malayalam film industry in 2005 with the Blessy-directed "Thanmathra" alongside Malayalam superstar Mohanlal. Her performance as Lekha Ramesan, a housewife and mother of two children, received rave reviews and fetched her the Best Female New Face Award at the 2005 Ujala-Asianet Awards. In 2006, she again starred in a Hindi film, "Jaadu Sa Chal Gayaa", after 3 years, following which she appeared in the Tamil comedy film "Jerry" as a police inspector and the Malayalam drama film "Oruvan", in which she again enacted the role of a housewife. Meera next starred in a number of Malayalam-language films, which include "Ekantham", "Valmeekam" and "Khaki" and two Hindi-language films, "Chain Kulii Ki Main Kulii" and "Thodi Life Thoda Magic" in 2007 In 2009, she had three releases, the Malayalam-language films "Orkkuka Vallappozhum", "Decent Parties" and "", in which she portrayed a Malayali housewife, whose daughter gets molested and killed. The fourth release was "Aattanayagan", co-starring Sakthi Vasu and Remya Nambeeshan. Projects she is currently working on include"Thasaiyinai Thee Sudinum", a periodic film set in the 1940s. She is still doing ads in bombay and in the south.She will be seen in more movies shortly. Personal life. Meera married Vishal Agarwal, son of cinematographer Ashok Kumar in 2005. They divorced in July 2010. She then married Malayalam actor John Kokken in May 2011. Commercials and other appearances. Commercials appeared in from 2003 till present date
1217830	Paul Kevin Jonas II (born November 5, 1987), better known as Kevin Jonas and K2, is an American musician and actor. He is the oldest member of the Jonas Brothers, a pop rock band he created with his younger brothers Joe and Nick. In 2008, he appeared on "People" magazine's list of the Sexiest Men Alive. On December 19, 2009, he married Danielle Deleasa, whom he had met in the Bahamas in summer of 2007. As of August 2012, Jonas and his wife star in their own E! reality series, "Married to Jonas". Early life. Kevin Jonas was born in Teaneck, New Jersey, and grew up in Wyckoff. His mother, Denise Marie (née Miller), is a former sign language teacher and singer, and his father, Paul Kevin Jonas, Sr., is a songwriter, musician, and former ordained minister at an Assemblies of God church. He is of Italian (from a great-grandfather), German, English, Irish, Scottish, Cherokee, and French-Canadian descent. He has three younger brothers, Joe (born 1989), Nick (born 1992) and Frankie (born 2000). Career. Music. In early 2005, Columbia Records' new president, Steve Greenberg, listened to Nick's record. While Greenberg did not like the album, he did like Nick's voice. After hearing the song "Please Be Mine", written and performed by all the brothers, Daylight/Columbia Records decided to sign the three as a group act. After being signed to Columbia, the brothers considered naming their group "Sons of Jonas" before settling on the name "Jonas Brothers". "It's About Time", the brothers' first album, was released on August 8, 2006. According to the band's manager, it was only a "limited release" of a little over 50,000 copies. Because Sony was not interested in further promoting the band, the Jonas Brothers then considered switching labels. The band was ultimately dropped by Columbia Records in early 2007. After shortly being without a label, the Jonas Brothers signed with Hollywood Records in February 2007. Around the same time, the brothers began appearing in GAP commercials for Baby Bottle Pops, singing the jingle. Their self-titled second album, "Jonas Brothers", was released on August 7, 2007. It reached number five on the "Billboard" Hot 200 chart in its first week. The Jonas Brothers' third studio album, "A Little Bit Longer", was released in the United States on August 12, 2008 and peaked at #1 on the "Billboard" 200. On June 16, 2009, the brothers' fourth studio album, and third release under Hollywood Records, entitled "Lines, Vines, and Trying Times" was released. The album peaked at number 1 on the Billboard 200 with 247,000 copies sold. It was announced on May 1, 2012, that the Jonas Brothers parted ways with their record label Hollywood Records, and bought the rights to their music. Acting. On August 17, 2007, Jonas and his brothers guest-starred in an episode of "Hannah Montana" entitled Me and Mr. Jonas and Mr. Jonas and Mr. Jonas. The episode debuted alongside the television film "High School Musical 2" and a sneak peek of the new Disney Channel show "Phineas and Ferb". The episode broke basic cable records with a record 10.7 million viewers and became basic cable's most watched series telecast ever. Jonas and his brothers filmed the Disney Channel Original Movie "Camp Rock", where they played a band called "Connect Three". Kevin played Jason, a guitarist; Nick played Nate, also a guitarist; and Joe played the lead male role and lead singer, Shane Gray. A soundtrack for the movie was released on June 17, 2008. The movie premiered on June 20, 2008 in the U.S.A., on Disney Channel, and Canada, on Family. Production began on the sequel, "", in September 2009, and the film premiered on September 3, 2010. The Disney Channel reality short series, "", premiered on Disney Channel on May 16, 2008. The show, which ran until September 5, 2008, documented the brothers' lives on the "Look Me in the Eyes" Tour. The name was inspired by their hit song "When You Look Me in the Eyes". The series was renewed for a second season that premiered on March 21, 2010. The second season followed the band on the European leg of their World Tour 2009. He and Joe, Nick, and Frankie starred in their own Disney Channel Original Series, "JONAS", which premiered May 2, 2009. The show was renewed for a second season that premiered on June 20, 2010 as "Jonas L.A.", centering on the three brothers on summer vacation, in their Los Angeles vacation house with Stella and Macy. Jonas appeared on MTV's fourth episode of "When I Was 17" (Season 1), talking about his memories from when he was seventeen. Kevin Jonas guest hosted on "Live with Kelly" on December 13, 2011 making him the second brother besides Nick to have the honor of doing so. He co-hosted the show a second time on July 4, 2012. Kevin currently appears in an E! reality series alongside his wife Danielle and brothers Nick and Joe, which started on August 19, 2012. Produced by Ryan Seacrest, "Married to Jonas" documents the young couple's domestic life as well as the brothers' recording efforts as they prepare to release their newest group album. Personal life. Jonas married Danielle Deleasa, a former hairdresser, at Oheka Castle on December 19, 2009, with his brothers Joe and Nick as his best men. The couple first met while on vacation with their families in The Bahamas in May 2007. On July 9, 2013, Jonas and his wife announced that they are expecting their first child, due just after New Years' 2013. On August 29, 2013 they announced via Ustream that they are having a baby girl.
583873	Rendu (2006) ரெண்டு is a Tamil film directed by critically acclaimed director Sundar C. The movie stars Madhavan, Reema Sen, Anushka Shetty, Bhagyaraj and Vadivelu. The film's music is composed by music director, D. Imaan. The film is often remembered for a very hot and sexy music video that features Madhavan and Anushka, of the song "Mobile Love". The film was a commercial success. Plot. Shakti (Madhavan) is a young man from a village, with no job but tons of ambition and dreams. As he sees his life pass him by, stuck in a rut in his hometown, he decides that he will try his fortunes elsewhere. Chennai beckons him and off goes Shakti, to join his uncle Kirikalam (Vadivelu), who has a stall of magic tricks at an exhibition. No, Kirikalam is not really a magician, but is posing as one and his amateurish tricks don't exactly bring in big crowds. Next door to Shakti and Kirikalam's stall though, is ever-populated with visitors. The reason: it's an all-girls stand, with mermaid costumes as the theme! Velli (Reema Sen) is the 'head mermaid' at this stall run by her sister, and bitter quarrels between Shakti and Velli ensue, when Shakti feels that Velli and her team are unfairly taking their customers away and Velli has this impression of Shakti being an unsavoury character. We see this misunderstanding at different occasions where Velli and Madhavan just happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time - be it when Shakti gets off the bus from his village, asks for directions and is told to follow Velli, walking in the distance (Velli thinks he's a womaniser!) or when Shakti finally catches up with a miscreant who had picked his pocket and demands his money back...only Velli walks into the scene only at the demanding part! This whole collage of scenes is animated, with Kirikalam and Shakti trying to woo customers back to their stall, Shakti and Velli getting into arguments and a general state of "fun" ruckus. Of course, love has been brewing as an undercurrent between the two young people... Manivannan plays the character of the owner of the exhibition grounds and keeps harassing Velli under some pretext or the other, like the rent not being paid on time. In fact, he has a soft spot for Velli, feelings thoroughly rejected by her. He finally abducts her, but Shakti rescues Velli. Similarly, Velli's plight is repeated when her "mora maapillai" (betrothed suitor) enters the scene and tries to force her to be with him; and Shakti steps in once again to save and protect Velli. The undercurrents of love blow up into a full-fledged torrent and Velli and Shakti make up for all of their lost time professing their love for each other and romancing their way happily through the exhibition. Meanwhile, we see a series of murders in different towns of the state and two perpetrators of these crimes slinking away from each. Not every time is it foolproof though, and at one crime scene, a witness spots the main culprit. He is instructed by the police to sketch and give them a pictorial description of the murderer, when it comes to the police's knowledge that both the criminals have been seen at Kumbakonam some time ago. Going through various fact files, the police comes across the incident of a bad fire at a marriage hall in Kumbakonam and as the officer in charge of the investigation (played by Bhagyaraj) flips through the picture files of the deceased, Kannan's (Madhavan - the 2nd!) face is shown and the witness jumps! He tells the police he doesn't need to sketch anything when the face of the main murderer itself is staring them in the eye - he points to the photo of Kannan - it is the face of Shakti, only this one has light eyes... Investigations into the murder lead the police to Chennai and as luck would have it, Shakti is spotted, recognized and arrested. Kannan, on the other hand follows the murder investigation and is upset to find that an innocent man has been captured for crimes he has committed. He meets Kirikalam and Velli and plots to help Shakti get out. And so he does, and Shakti and he escape by the skin of their teeth. After much chase-and-hide, Kannan tells the story of what led him to murder all those people - flashback time... Kannan, his elder brother and his father were renowned caterers and were commissioned to cook for a marriage function in Kumbakonam. The host was Kannan's father's friend and this gentleman's daughter was getting married in a joyous ceremony. There, Kannan meets Jyoti (Anushka) and falls in love instantly. At first he panics that Jyoti is the bride at the function but is vastly relieved when he finds out she is not. She really likes Kannan too and it all seems like Wonderland. Unfortunately, the groom creates trouble at the wedding and walks out, leaving the family distraught and desperate. Suddenly Kannan makes a suggestion: Father, this is our friend's wedding and the bride is a wonderful girl. Why can't Anna (elder brother) marry her? A brilliant idea and it is decided... only fate has to fell her axe right then, when all hell breaks loose and a raging fire attacks the marriage house. The father of the bride is a good man, and a dignitary in the town of Kumbakonam. He comes to know that a bunch of powerful thugs and gang leaders have sold a large piece of government property to a north Indian businessman, completely illegally at exorbitant prices, with no gain for the townspeople themselves! He strongly opposes them and all their mischief comes to public notice and foils their plans. They want his blood as revenge. They set fire to the building of the wedding and kill every single inmate inside - but two people escape, Kannan and his friend. Kannan, whose light eyes are a result of the fire (he walks with help and not very clear sight) is heartbroken and devastated at the loss of his entire family and lady love at what was to be a joyous, happy occasion. He vows retribution on the villains and sets about cold- bloodedly fulfilling this. Shakti decides to help Kannan achieve his revenge. At the end, however, Kannan sacrifices his own life to kill the final baddie, and he reunites with his family and lady love in heaven. Production. Early reports suggested that Nayantara or Nila was set to play heroine and others claimed that Sundar C was set to star himself in the lead role. But, Madhavan had cleared his dates giving the film the go ahead. Shooting started on 6 July 2006 and released for a 24 November 2006 release.
1164922	Gregory Alan Williams (born June 12, 1956) is an American actor and author. Williams is best known for portraying Garner Ellerbee in "Baywatch". Currently he co-stars as Coach Pat Purnell in the USA/Sony series "Necessary Roughness." Early life and acting career. Born in Des Moines, Iowa, Williams attended Coe College and served in the United States Marine Corps before pursuing a career in acting. He made his acting debut opposite Steven Seagal in the 1988 film "Above the Law". The following year, Williams won the role of Garner Ellerbee in "Baywatch". He reprised the role in the 1995 spin-off series "Baywatch Nights", before returning to "Baywatch" in 1996. After leaving the series in 1998, Williams has had recurring guest roles on "The Sopranos", "The West Wing", "The District", "The Game", "Army Wives", and "Drop Dead Diva". Additionally, he has guest starred in episodes of "NYPD Blue", "Boston Legal", "One Tree Hill", and "Meet the Browns". Williams has also had roles in several films including "Remember the Titans" (2000), "Old School" (2003), "Be Cool" (2005), "Dog Days of Summer" (2007), Oliver Stone's biopic "W." (2008), "The Collector" (2009), and "MacGruber" (2010).
1059029	"Soldier's Girl" is a 2003 Canadian-American drama film produced by Showtime. It is based on a true story: the relationship between Barry Winchell and Calpernia Addams and the events that led up to Barry's murder by fellow soldiers. It was written by Ron Nyswaner and directed by Frank R. Pierson, with Troy Garity starring as Barry and Lee Pace starring as Calpernia. Plot. Barry is a private with the 101st Airborne Division of the United States Army, stationed at Fort Campbell, Kentucky. Calpernia works as a showgirl at a transgender revue in Nashville, Tennessee when the two met in 1999. Barry's roommate Justin Fisher (Shawn Hatosy) brings Barry to the club where she performs. When Barry and Calpernia begin seeing each other regularly, Fisher begins spreading rumors on base about their relationship, which appeared to be a violation of the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy about discussing the sexual orientation of military personnel. Barry faces increasing harassment and pressure, which explode into violence over Fourth of July weekend. While Calpernia performs in a pageant in Nashville, Barry is beaten to death in his sleep with a baseball bat by Calvin Glover, who had been goaded by Fisher into committing the crime. The film ends with a discussion of the aftermath. Awards and nominations. "Soldier's Girl" was also hailed as one of the ten best Television Programs of the Year (2003) by the American Film Institute.
1062478	Andrew Russell Garfield (born 20 August 1983) is an actor, of dual American and British citizenship. Born in Los Angeles but raised in Surrey, Garfield began his career in British stage and television productions. He made his feature film debut in the 2007 ensemble drama "Lions for Lambs". Garfield first came to international attention in 2010 with a supporting role in the drama film "The Social Network", for which he received Golden Globe and BAFTA nominations. His performance as Peter Parker / Spider-Man in the superhero film "The Amazing Spider-Man" (2012),
1026185	Anthony George Newley (24 September 1931 – 14 April 1999) was an English actor, singer and songwriter. He enjoyed success as a performer in such diverse fields as rock and roll and stage and screen acting. Early life. Newley was born in the London district of Hackney, the son of Frances Grace Newley and Jeffrey Ramey, a shipping clerk. He had 5 siblings, Maxene (b. 1926), John (b. 1927), Joanne (1928–1965), Linda (b. 1929), Belinda (b. 1932). He was Jewish on his mother's side. His parents, who had never married, separated during his early childhood, and he was brought up by his single mother. Although recognised as very bright by his teachers back in London, he was uninterested in school, and by the age of fourteen was working as an office boy for an insurance company. When he read an ad in the "Daily Telegraph", headed "Boy Actors Urgently Wanted" he applied to the advertisers, the prestigious Italia Conti Stage School, only to discover that the fees were too high. Nevertheless, after a brief audition, he was offered a job as an office boy on a salary of 30 shillings (£1.50) a week plus tuition at the school. While serving tea one afternoon he caught the eye of producer Geoffrey de Barkus, who cast Newley as "Dusty" in the children's serial, "The Adventures of Dusty Bates".
1048856	Snowball Express is a 1972 screwball comedy film made by Walt Disney Productions about a man who leaves his middle class job to run a hotel left to him by his uncle. Plot. Johnny Baxter (Dean Jones) is at his corporate middle class job when a probate attorney (David White) tells him that his recently deceased uncle, Jacob Barnesworth, has left him sole ownership of the lucrative Grand Imperial Hotel in the fictional town of Silver Hill, Colorado. A letter written by Barnesworth claims that the hotel brings in more than $14,000 per month. Baxter, clearly chafing under the dehumanizing conditions at the office, views this as a golden opportunity. Baxter quits his job in a grand spectacle and moves his family to Colorado to take proprietorship of the hotel. The family finds it to be an immense but ramshackle building with no heat and a colorful old codger, Jesse McCord (Harry Morgan), living in the shed. Initially, Baxter is inclined to turn McCord out for what appeared to be breaking and entering until he is pressured by his family—mainly his children—to allow McCord to stay. McCord offers his services as a bartender, but Baxter assigns him the job of bellhop, which McCord takes with a characteristically easygoing nature. Some time later, Baxter and his wife are walking on the hills behind the hotel, trying to decide what to do about the hotel. With no real attractions nearby, they are unsure what, if anything, they could do with the property until a chance meeting with Wally, a local boy employed by the gas station, out for a ride on his snowmobile. He apologizes for making tracks in Baxter's snow and is about to leave when Baxter stops him to ask what he meant. Wally explains that the Grand Imperial sits on a huge amount of property, "about as far as you can see," as he puts it. Baxter realizes that the hilly terrain is exactly the attraction the hotel needs; they can turn the hill adjacent to the hotel into a ski lodge.
589113	Do Bigha Zamin (meaning "two thirds of an acre of land") is 1953 Hindi film, directed by Bengali film director Bimal Roy and star Balraj Sahni and Nirupa Roy in lead roles. The film is known for its socialist theme, and is an important film in the early parallel cinema of India and is rightly considered a trend setter. Bigha is measure of land area but is not same as acre though translating the title as such serves the purpose. Inspired by Italian neo-realistic cinema, Bimal Roy made "Do Bigha Zameen" after watching, Vittorio De Sica's "Bicycle Thieves" (1948). Like most of movies by Bimal Roy, art and commercial cinema are merged to create a movie that is still looked upon as a benchmark and paved way for future cinema makers in the Indian neo-realist movement and the Indian New Wave, which began in the 1950s. A moderate commercial success, it was the first film to win the Filmfare Best Movie Award and the first Indian film to win the International Prize at the Cannes Film Festival. In 2005, "Indiatimes Movies" ranked the movie amongst the "Top 25 Must See Bollywood Films". Plot. The story revolves around a farmer Shambu Mahato (Balraj Sahni), who lives with his wife Parvati `Paro’ (Nirupa Roy) and son Kanhaiya (Rattan Kumar) in a small village that has been hit badly by a famine. After years of drought, the region finally gets rain, leading to the farmers to rejoice. Shambu owns two bighas (a unit of land measurement where 3 bighas is 1 acre) of land, which is the only means of livelihood for the whole family. The local zamindar (landlord) Thakur Harnam Singh (Murad) partners with some city business men to construct a mill on his large parcel of land, which in return would profit them and bring prosperity to the village. The only problem is that in the middle of Harnam singh's land lay Shambu's meager two bighas of land. Harnam Singh is very confident that he could buy Shambu's land. Shambu has borrowed money from Harnam Singh several times in the past and has not paid back his debt. Harnam Singh calls for Shambu and proposes Shambu to sell his land to him in exchange for his debt. Shambu disagrees to sell his only livelihood and Harnam Singh gets upset. Harnam Singh orders him to pay back his debt by the next day or risk auctioning his land. Shambu comes back home to discuss the issue with his father, and with the help of his son, they figure out that the debt amounts to 65 rupees. Shambu wants to save his land by all means and sells all his household items including his wife's gold earrings. When Shambu meets Harman Singh's accountant to pay back his debt of 65 rupees, he's shocked to know that he actually owes 235 rupees. The accountant had forged the accounts and now refuses to consider the labor provided by Shambu's father Gangu as portion of debt payoff. The case goes to court and Shambu being an illiterate, has a tough time explaining to the judge how the accountant forged the numbers and how he took accountant's word of mouth and did not demand any receipt. Shambu loses the case, however the judge orders Shambu to pay back 235 rupees to Harnam Singh in three months. If Shambu is not able to pay back his debt, then his land would be auctioned off and the proceeds would go to pay off his debts. Shambu now struggles to get the money and he is unable to get a loan because he has no collaterals. One of his village friends gives him an idea to go to Calcutta (now Kolkata) and try to get a job to earn enough money to pay off his debt. Shambu likes this idea, but faces resistance from his wife as she's pregnant and does not want to live away from him. Shambu persuades her that he'll be gone for three months only and it would benefit his family and the new born baby. Kanhaiya wants to join his father too, but Shambu refuses and scolds him. On the train to Calcutta, Shambu finds Kanhaiya hiding and hitchhiking with him and after a brief confrontation agrees to take Kanhaiya with him. In Calcutta, Shambu and Kanhaiya face a harsh welcome. Nobody is willing to talk with them, let alone help them. Kanhaiya befriends a street side shoe shiner named Lalu `Ustad’ (Jagdeep). They hope for no prospective and even lose their last possessions while they are asleep on the street sides. Kanhaiya falls ill, and Shambu ends up renting a small room in the slums with the help of a tea vendor and the landlady's adopted grandchild rani. In order to pay the rent, Shambu works a coolie. Shambu befriends an old rickshaw-puller (Nazir Hussain), who helps him to get a license as a rickshaw-puller. Kanhaiya tries to help his family by taking up shoe shining with the help of old rickshaw-puller and Lalu `Ustad’. Back in the village, Parvati and Gangu survive on eating water chestnuts picked up from the local river. She's seeks help from Bahu (Meena Kumari) to write letters to Shambu and stay in touch. As the three months end date nears by, Shambu becomes aggressive about earning and saving more money. One day, a man asks Shambu to chase another rickshaw that is carrying his girlfriend. Shambu is insisted to pull the rickshaw very fast for more money. The rickshaw loses a wheel and Shambu meets with an accident. Looking at the condition of his father, Kanhaiya joins a pick pocketer in order to earn quick money. Shambu gets mad and beats Kanhaiya when he comes to know about his dirty earnings. Meanwhile, Parvati gets worried since she receives no letters or money from Shambu and the Zamindar's accountant accuses Shambu that he has forgotten his family. She ends up working on a local construction site and gets devastated when she receives the news that Shambu has met with an accident. Finally, Parvati decides to visit Shambu in the city even though Gangu is on bed rest suffering of high fever. Parvati arrives in Calcutta, and is taken by a strange man, who claims he knows Shambu and will take her to him. He takes her to his shed and tries to steal and force her. She flees from him, but comes under a car. The crowd gathers around her and they call for a rickshaw to take her to the hospital. Shambu who was passing by offers a ride, and is shocked to see his injured wife. Meanwhile, Kanhaiya not able to withstand his father's condition steals money from a lady and runs back to the slum. He comes to know about his mother's condition and rushes to the hospital. He cries after seeing his injured mother and claims that God has punished them because he started stealing money. He rips the money into pieces. The doctors tell Shambu that he has to spend money on medicine and blood in order to save his wife. Poor Shambu has no choice but so spend all his earnings to save his wife. Back in the village the land is auctioned because Shambu fails to pay back the debt and Gangu develops a mental disorder. The land is now owned by Harman Singh and the mill construction has begun. Shambu and his family come back to the village only to see their land sold and a factory being constructed over it. He then tries to get a handful of dirt from his land, but is stopped and forced to throw away by a security guard. The film ends as Shambu and his family walks away from their land. Development. The Title. The movie got the name from a famous poem by Rabindranath Tagore, called "Dui Bigha Jomi". Bimal Roy distributed the film abroad in the name "Calcutta - The Cruel City". In the name of the movie "Two Bigha of Land" or Two Acres of Land, Bigha or Acre is a unit of measuring land. Bigha varies from state to state. In Bengal, where the movie is based, 3 bigha is one acre (4,000 m²). Therefore, Shambhu owns only 2,700 m². Rickshaw-Puller Rehearsal. In order to better prepare for the role, Balraj Sahni actually rehearsed for the role by pulling a rickshaw on the streets of Calcutta. He interacted with many rickshaw pullers and some of them were facing the same tough situation as portrayed in the movie. Songs. "Aaja ri aa nindiya tu aa" - Performed by Lata Mangeshkar "Ajab tori duniya ho mere raaja" - Performed by Mohammed Rafi "Dharti kahe pukaar ke" - Performed by Manna Dey, Lata Mangeshkar & chorus "Hariyaala saawan dhol bajaata aaya" - Performed by Manna Dey, Lata Mangeshkar & chorus
1059091	Linda "Lin" Shaye (born October 12, 1943) is an American film, theatre and television actress. Early life. Born in Detroit, Michigan, Shaye is the daughter of Dorothy (née Katz), a homemaker, and Max Mendle Shaye, a painter and supermarket owner. Her brother is film executive Robert Shaye. Shaye studied acting at the University of Michigan before she moved to New York to appear in Off Broadway productions. In 1977, she moved to Los Angeles to further pursue her acting career. Career. In 1975, she made her film debut with a small role in "Hester Street", followed by small roles in several movies and television shows. In 1978, she appeared in the Jack Nicholson-directed Western "Goin' South". She has since appeared in a large number of character roles. Many were for her brother, Robert Shaye, co-founder and former co-CEO of New Line Cinema, such as her role as Mrs. Flynn in the 1990 film "Book of Love", which Robert Shaye directed. In 1984 Shaye played a teacher in "A Nightmare On Elm Street". Her breakout comedy role was the part of Mrs. Nuegeboren in the Farrelly Brothers' "Dumb and Dumber" (1994). Shaye also appeared in the Farrelly's 1996 comedy "Kingpin" as the repulsive landlady, and then got a role as Cameron Diaz's overtanned neighbor Magda in their 1998 hit "There's Something About Mary". She followed this with 1999's "Detroit Rock City" as an uptight mother waging a personal war against the band Kiss. Shaye has also appeared in four films by director Walter Hill: "The Long Riders" (1980), "Brewster's Millions" (1985), "Extreme Prejudice" (1987) and "Last Man Standing" (1996). In 2003, she appeared alongside Cuba Gooding Jr. and Horatio Sanz in "Boat Trip" as Sonya, a horny tanning coach who begins stalking Sanz's character. That same year she co-starred with Ray Wise and Alexandra Holden in the cult horror film "Dead End" as Laura Harrington, and as Jenny Buono, the mother of 1970s Los Angeles serial killer Angelo Buono in "The Hillside Strangler". Most recently, she was seen in the thriller "Snakes on a Plane". She also appeared in the film "2001 Maniacs" as the part of Granny Boone and in the sequel . In 2007, she appeared in the short films "Sponsored By", "Under The Gun", "Midnight Snack", "Time Upon a Once", "Old Home Boyz", "Backseat Driving Test", and "The Yes Men " which were directed by contestants on the reality show "On the Lot". Lin appeared in the horror films "Insidious" (2011) and "" (2013), as Elise Reiner (a major supporting role). Personal life. Shaye has been married twice. Her first husband died in 1968. In 1988, she married actor Clayton Landey, with whom she appeared in 2002's "Wish You Were Dead". The couple had one child before divorcing in 2003.
339886	The Trial of Billy Jack is a 1974 film starring Delores Taylor and Tom Laughlin. It is the sequel to the 1971 film "Billy Jack" and the third film overall in the series. Although commercially successful, it was panned by critics. Directed by Laughlin, it has a running time of nearly three hours. Plot. Billy Jack (Tom Laughlin) goes to court facing an involuntary manslaughter charge stemming from events in the earlier film. He is found guilty and sentenced to a prison term. Meanwhile, the kids at the Freedom School—an experimental school for runaways and troubled youth on a Native American reservation in Arizona—vow to rebuild the school. They raise funds and acquire a new building, eventually starting their own newspaper and television station. Inspired by Nader's Raiders, they begin using the newspaper and TV station to conduct investigative reporting, angering several politicians and townspeople in the process with their exposes. The school's activities range from having their own search and rescue team, to artistic endeavors such as a marching band and belly dancing. This culminates with the school hosting a large marching band contest and arts festival, which they call "1984 is Closer Than You Think", to raise money for the school. Midway through the film, Billy Jack is released from prison and, trying to reconnect with his spiritual beliefs, begins a series of lengthy vision quests. He gets involved in a radical group on the reservation which is trying to oppose the federal de-recognition of their tribe and the turning of their tribal lands over to local developers. When one of the tribal members is arrested for poaching deer on what was formerly tribal land, the school comes to his defense. The school begins to hold hearings on Native rights and child abuse. One of the children at the school was abused by his father who cut off his hand in a fit of rage, and the school defies a court order to turn the boy back over to his father. The FBI begins visiting the school and taps their phones. As tensions mount between the school and the people in the nearby town, a mysterious explosion at the school knocks their television station off the air. The Governor calls a state of emergency and mobilizes the National Guard, and a curfew is established in town. The students respond by holding a parade in the town in violation of the curfew. On the way back to the school their bus breaks down and local townspeople confront the students and threaten to set their bus on fire. Billy Jack shows up during the incident to protect the students, and then comes to the rescue of a tribal member who is being harassed and beaten at a local dance in town. Near the end of the film, the National Guard is stationed around the school and is ordered to open fire on the students, killing four and wounding dozens more. The entire story is told in flashbacks by Jean Roberts (Delores Taylor, Laughlin's wife), a teacher at the school, from her hospital bed after the shooting incident. The violence in the finale is a symbolic bookend to the massacre of Vietnamese civilians seen in the beginning of the film. During Billy's trial, he mentions the 1968 My Lai massacre and recalls, in a flashback scene, witnessing a similar incident while serving in Vietnam. This scene also reveals one glaring continuity error. In all four films, Billy Jack is described as an ex-Green Beret (Special Forces) soldier, yet in the flashback he and his fellow soldiers all have 101st Airborne Division shoulder patches on their uniforms. In the DVD audio commentary, Laughlin mentions he also wanted the bloody, disturbing finale to represent all the shooting incidents at college campuses (particularly the 1970 Kent State shootings) where police and National Guardsmen fired upon students during anti-war protest rallies. Both unarmed women and children are gunned down in a massacre by Army troops. Critical reaction. The film was a commercial success upon its release in theaters, but met with a harsh reaction from movie critics. Leonard Maltin called it an "awful, pretentious film". Donald Guarisco of "Allmovie" wrote: "Ultimately, most viewers are likely to be baffled by "The Trial of Billy Jack", and it can only be recommended to B-movie fans with a hearty constitution...it's a mess, but it's a fascinating mess." Despite its initial commercial success, it marked the effective end of success for the "Billy Jack" series. It was followed by one more film, "Billy Jack Goes to Washington" in 1977, which never saw widespread theatrical release. Years later, "The Trial of Billy Jack" was included as one of the choices in the book "The Fifty Worst Films of All Time".
585711	Chanthupottu is a 2005 Malayalam film directed by Lal Jose, written by Benny P. Nayarambalam, and produced by Lal. The story is about a man named Radhakrishnan (Dileep) who was brought up like a girl by his grandmother. This film was a super hit at the box office. Plot. Radhakrishnan (Dileep) is brought up like a girl by his grandmother (Sukumari) who wanted a granddaughter. There by, he becomes an effeminate. She calls him Radha, which becomes his nickname. Radha's father Divakaran (Lal) goes to jail for a murder that he accidentally commits. Radha is ridiculed among the people in the village but he is not worried and spends time with the girls singing and teaches dancing. His best friend is Malu (Gopika) who is wooed by Kumaran (Indrajith) a local money lender and the son of the man whom Radha’s father had killed. Divakaran comes back from jail and is shocked to see that his only son is a good for nothing transvestite, but can do nothing about it. Slowly Radha’s liking for Malu turns into love and when Kumaran sees it, he beats up Radha with the help of her father (Rajan P. Dev) a local astrologer and dumps him in deep sea. But he is saved by Freddy (Biju Menon). Freddy takes him to the former's native where he is living with his sister Rosy (Bhavana), where he becomes a part of their family. He also discovers the manly element him and starts to transform from his female mannerisms slowly. Later when he meets someone from his village, Radha comes to know that his parents have been killed by Kumaran and Malu has given birth to his child. How Radha goes back and takes revenge forms the rest of the story. Characterisation of Radha. The character of Radhakrishnan, a cross-dressing man form a family of fishermen is well documented in the film. It shows the boy's grandmother's strong desire for a girl as her grandchild and her frustration when a boy is born. She even refuses to see the boy, however when she sees him she accepts the truth. However, that doesn't stop her from bringing him up as a girl child. She even dresses him like a girl and calls him Radhey, a feminine name. His parents don't intervene, probably fearing the wrath of the grandmother. This induces a kind of femininity in him, even his mannerisms closely resembles women. To add to the situation, his father goes to jail leaving Radha to grow up with his femininity and transvestism. He, instead of going fishing like other men, teaches dance to girls. He is constantly in the company of girls; he plays their games and also gets teased by people of the village. He discovers that his deep affection for his childhood friend Malu, is actually love. This is preceded by an attempt by some hooligans ("oolanmar", in Radha's terms) to molest him and his mother's advice that loving and marrying a girl would prove his manhood. Malu also is fond of Radha, and they engage in sexual activities. Even that doesn't change his feminine behaviour. Under special circumstances, he reaches another beach, which is more developed and there he is exposed to the outer world. He lives with Freddy and Rosy, who consider him as their lost brother. After several attempts by them, he sheds his transvestism but his femininity still hangs on. The film closes with shots of Radha going for fishing, his ancestral job. It is notable that even in the closing shots, Radha keeps his feminine mannerisms, though to a milder range. The screenwriter Benny P. Nayarambalam was sensible enough to avoid an immediate switchover to a manly Radha, and to portray his gradual transformation to manhood. The director Lal Jose should also be credited for this. He goes into the finest details of the character, bringing out his desire for manhood and the constraints that his past lifestyle imposes on himself. The actor who portrayed Radha, Dileep arguably presents the character in the most inimitable way. This role which won the Special Jury Award at the Kerala State Film Awards is another testimonial to his versatility.
1058862	The Naked City (1948) is a black-and-white film noir directed by Jules Dassin. Based on a story by Malvin Wald, the film depicts the police investigation that follows the murder of a young model. A veteran cop is placed in charge of the case and he sets about, with the help of other beat cops and detectives, to find the girl's killer. The movie, shot partially in documentary style, was filmed on location on the streets of New York City and features landmarks such as the Williamsburg Bridge, the Whitehall Building, and an apartment building on West 83rd Street in Manhattan as the scene of the murder. The film received two Academy Awards, one for cinematography for William H. Daniels, and another for film editing to Paul Weatherwax. In 2007, "The Naked City" was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". Plot. The film opens at about 1:00 A.M. on a hot summer night in New York City. Producer Mark Hellinger's voice narrates the film. Two men are shown subduing and killing Jean Dexter, a blonde model, by knocking her out with chloroform, strangling her, and then drowning her in a bathtub. Cross-cutting is used to show what is happening to the other main characters at the same time: Dr. Stoneman (House Jameson) hosts a party for the beautiful and wealthy; homicide detective Lt. Dan Muldoon (Barry Fitzgerald) is shown making breakfast; the infant son of a young couple is shown waking up and crying; a radio host is shown playing records; a cleaning woman goes to her job; and various aspects of early-morning life in the city (milk deliveries, newspapers being sold, etc.) are shown. When one of the murderers, conscience-stricken, gets drunk, the other kills him and throws the body into the East River. Dexter's body is discovered by Martha Swenson (Virginia Mullen), Dexter's housekeeper. Muldoon and Halloran are assigned to the case, and interview Swenson. Several aspects of police forensics, such as dusting for fingerprints, photographing the crime scene, and collecting hair and fiber evidence, are depicted. The medical examiner says Dexter's death was murder. The police discover a pair of man's pajamas in the apartment, and Swenson says that Dexter associated with a "Mr. Henderson" and formerly dated a man named Frank Niles. A large amount of expensive jewelry is also missing, and the police find a bottle of sleeping pills in the bathroom. Halloran questions Dr. Stoneman (House Jameson), the psychiatrist who prescribed the pills, but he has little information to offer. Halloran also talks to Ruth Morrison (Dorothy Hart), a model who worked in the shop where Dexter bought her dresses. Morrison says she is engaged to Frank Niles. Muldoon has Niles (Howard Duff) brought to the police station for questioning. Niles lies about his past relationship with Jean Dexter and denies knowing Ruth Morrison. Muldoon deduces from the bruises on Dexter's neck that she was killed by two men, not one as the detectives had previously assumed. That evening, Dexter's estranged parents, Mr. and Mrs. Batory, arrive to identify the body. They tell the detectives that their daughter was enamored of wealth and fame, changed her name, and became involved with the wrong type of people and sexually promiscuous. They also reveal that they had not spoken with her for a long time. Muldoon admits that the case is growing cold. But the next morning, the detectives learn that Niles pawned a gold cigarette case and purchased a one-way airline ticket to Mexico. Because jewel thievery was being investigated in conjunction with the killing, Halloran determines that the cigarette case was stolen almost a year ago. Lists of stolen goods are checked against a list of the jewelry stolen from Dexter's apartment. A black star sapphire ring found on Dexter's body is also discovered to be stolen, taken several months earlier from the home of wealthy Mrs. Hylton (Enid Markey). Muldoon and Halloran return the ring to Mrs. Hylton, who reveals that the ring actually belonged to her daughter. When the daughter walks through the door, Muldoon and Halloran are surprised to discover that she is Ruth Morrison (the daughter from Mrs. Hylton's first marriage). Muldoon and Halloran quickly learn that Morrison's engagement ring (given to her by Frank Niles) is also stolen property. Muldoon and Halloran take Morrison to Niles' apartment, where they interrupt someone trying to murder him. The killer exchanges gunfire with the police, then escapes down the fire escape and onto a nearby elevated train—eluding Halloran. Niles' behavior is very suspicious. When questioned about the stolen jewelry, Niles claims that Jean Dexter gave all of it to him as gifts. He claims his trip to Mexico was for a business event he learned of that afternoon, but Muldoon says Niles bought the ticket in the morning. Morrison becomes violently upset at the revelations that Niles had an ongoing intimate relationship with Dexter. Niles is arrested for theft, but the police admit they cannot link him to Dexter's murder. A body (that of small-time thief Peter Backalis (Walter Burke) is discovered in the East River by some boys. Halloran learns that Backalis died within hours of Dexter, and tries to connect the two crimes. Muldoon, although skeptical, lets him pursue the lead and assigns two detectives to assist Halloran with the legwork.
1058822	An American Crime is a 2007 American crime-drama film starring Ellen Page and Catherine Keener. The film is based on the true story of the torture and murder of Sylvia Likens by Indianapolis housewife Gertrude Baniszewski. It premiered at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival. Because of internal problems with the film's original distributor, First Look International, the film was not released theatrically. The Showtime television network officially premiered "An American Crime" on May 10, 2008. The film was nominated for a Golden Globe, a Primetime Emmy (both for Keener's performance), and a Writers Guild of America Award. Plot. "An American Crime" alternates between the 1966 trial of Gertrude Baniszewski (Catherine Keener), and lengthy flashbacks to the events of the previous year described by the witnesses. Sixteen-year-old Sylvia Likens (Ellen Page) and her 15-year-old sister, Jenny (Hayley McFarland), have, in the past, travelled with their parents who work on the carnival circuit, where Sylvia always felt safe riding the merry-go-round. She and Jenny now live with their mother Betty Likens (Romy Rosemont), who recently separated from their father Lester Likens (Nick Searcy). Betty reconciles with him and they decide to go on tour together. They agree to leave their daughters in the care of a single mother named Gertrude Baniszewski, whose daughters the Likens girls met in church. In dire financial straits, Gertrude offers to care for their daughters for twenty dollars a week, and as their parents leave, the girls settle in with Baniszewski's six children: Paula (17), Stephanie (16), Johnny (13), Marie (12), Shirley (10), and infant son Kenny. Sylvia befriends Paula (Ari Graynor), who confesses to Sylvia that she is pregnant by her married boyfriend—Sylvia swears not to tell. Soon after the girls' arrival, Gertrude is upset that Lester's weekly payment is late, and punishes the girls by whipping them with a belt. The payment, along with a letter from the parents, arrives shortly thereafter, but Gertrude throws the letter in the trash and says nothing to the Likens girls. While Paula and Sylvia are out with friends, Paula's boyfriend tells her that he can no longer see her, then hits Paula when she pleads for him to stay with her. To stop the boyfriend's attack, Sylvia tells him that Paula is pregnant. Paula, furious, vows that Sylvia will pay for revealing her secret. Ricky Hobbs (Evan Peters), a neighbor of the Baniszewskis who is attracted to Sylvia, observes the scene. Paula tearfully tells Gertrude that Sylvia has been spreading lies about her. Gertrude forces Sylvia to apologize, and has her son Johnny (Tristan Jarred) hold Sylvia so that Paula can beat her. Rumors spread around their school that Paula is pregnant. Jenny finds the letter from her parents in the garbage, prompting Sylvia to phone them. The call is cut short when they see the Baniszewski children, who tell their mother about it. Although the girls had traded bottles in for money to make the call, Gertrude believes they stole the money from her and burns Sylvia's hand with a cigarette for "stealing". At a church lunch, Andy (James Franco), the father of Gertrude's infant son, tells her that Sylvia has been spreading rumors that Paula is pregnant. When Sylvia returns home, Gertrude accuses her of flirting with a boy at the lunch and telling more lies about her daughter. Intending to make an example of her to her children, Gertrude forces Sylvia to insert a Coke bottle into her vagina in front of them. Gertrude then orders Johnny and Stephanie's boyfriend, Coy Hubbard (Jeremy Sumpter), to throw her down the basement stairs, and lock her in. When Jenny asks how long Sylvia will be down there, Gertrude replies "until she learns her lesson", then tells everyone to maintain the fiction that Sylvia was sent to a juvenile detention facility.
501219	Henry O (; born July 27, 1927) is a Chinese American actor. He is the father of Ji-li Jiang, the author of "Red Scarf Girl". Life and career. Raised in China (fluent in Mandarin), O was brought up in English and American missionary schools. He worked in the Children’s Art Theater as an actor and later as the deputy art director/actor for thirty years. O came to America with his wife to take care of their grandsons, but was soon asked to audition for a stage production. Since then he has worked continuously in plays, films, and television in the United States. His most notable roles include "The Last Emperor", "Romeo Must Die", "Shanghai Noon", "Snow Falling on Cedars", "Brokedown Palace", "Red Corner", "Marco Polo", as well as guest starring roles in "The Sopranos", "Evidence", "West Wing", and "ER". O also worked on Wayne Wang’s "A Thousand Years of Good Prayers", "Rush Hour 3", "Premium Rush" and "2012". He also coaches actors in Mandarin.
1060295	Jan-Michael Vincent (born July 15, 1944) is a retired American actor best known for his role as helicopter pilot Stringfellow Hawke on the 1980s U.S. television series "Airwolf" (1984–1986). Biography. Early life. Vincent was born July 15, 1944 in Denver, Colorado, to Doris and Lloyd Vincent. His family moved to Hanford, California, when Jan-Michael was in his teens. Vincent attended Ventura College in Ventura, California. Career. 1960s. He was finishing a stint in the National Guard when a talent scout was struck by his all-American looks. Jan-Michael Vincent's first acting job was in the movie "The Bandits" (aka "Los Banditos"), co-directed by and starring Robert Conrad, in 1967.
774687	When Night is Falling is a 1995 Canadian drama film directed by Patricia Rozema. It was entered into the 45th Berlin International Film Festival. Plot. The film stars Pascale Bussières as Camille Baker, a university literature professor at a religious college struggling with both her tenure-track career and her troubled relationship with fellow professor Martin (Henry Czerny). When a carnival subsequently comes to town, Camille is confused by her unexpected lesbian attraction to Petra (Rachael Crawford), a sexy, free-spirited circus performer. The cast also includes Don McKellar, Clare Coulter, Tracy Wright and Tom Melissis. MPAA rating. "When Night is Falling" was given the NC-17 rating by the MPAA, but surrendered the rating; it was then released with no rating. The film was later released onto video with two versions: the original unrated version, and an R rated cut. The film makers appealed the NC-17 rating because of the highly negative stigma associated with NC-17 rated films, and because the NC-17 restricts the distribution and actual sales of such movies. The appeal, however, was declined, so "When Night is Falling" was released unrated. Critical reception. "When Night is Falling" received mixed reviews: Siskel & Ebert didn't like the film too well and gave negative reviews; and the Rotten Tomatoes scale for "When Night is Falling" did not go higher than 50%
1059682	Anthony Anderson (born August 15, 1970) is an American actor and writer. He has starred in his own sitcom, "All About the Andersons", as well as the Fox sitcom "The Bernie Mac Show" during the fifth and final season of the show. He is also known for his leading roles in television dramas such as "K-Ville", "The Shield" and "Law & Order". He has also had supporting roles in films such as "Transformers", "The Departed", "", "Scream 4", and "Kangaroo Jack". Early life. Anderson was born and raised in Compton, California, a suburb of Los Angeles. His mother, Doris (née Hancox), was a telephone operator and actress, and his stepfather, Sterling Bowman, was a native of Little Rock, Arkansas, who moved to Los Angeles to work in the steel mill industry before opening a chain of three clothing stores. According to a DNA analysis, Anderson descends from the Bubi people of Bioko Island (Equatorial Guinea), and from the Tikar, Hausa, and Fulani people of Cameroon. Anderson has stated that his first attempt at stand up comedy was a failure. He appeared at The Comedy Act Theater billed as comedian "Tasty Tony, the One and Only, and if there's another, he's a phony." When his stage name was announced, he was booed off the stage before ever saying a word. Although this experience was a blow to his ego, he did meet his future friend and fellow comedic actor Guy Torry there, who consoled him after the show and encouraged him to keep getting up on stage. He and Guy would later act together in the Eddie Murphy film titled "Life". Anderson is an alumnus of the Hollywood High School Performing Arts Magnet's Class of 1988 and Howard University. He trained with actors such as Avery Brooks, Ruby Dee and Ossie Davis. Acting career. His television work includes a lead role in the teen series "Hang Time" as Teddy Broadis. He had many one-off and guest roles on major series such as "NYPD Blue", "Malcolm & Eddie", "In the House", and "Ally McBeal". Recurring roles were on several series such as '"Til Death" and "The Bernie Mac Show". He was the central character in the series "All About the Andersons", which lasted for one season on The WB. Anderson joined the cast of the long-running NBC crime drama television series, "Law & Order" in 2008. He previously starred in two other crime series, Fox's "K-Ville" (as one of the lead characters) and Fox's cable channel FX's "The Shield". Anderson is in an Atom.com Web show Matumbo Goldberg. Film. After his film debut in "Liberty Heights", Anderson has been performing as an actor, often in comedic roles, for many years. Among his more prominent feature films are: "Kangaroo Jack", "My Baby's Daddy", "Hustle & Flow", and "". In June 2010, he was cast in a minor role in "Scream 4". Directorial work. In 2009, Anderson directed a one-minute short film featuring his "Law & Order" co-star, Jeremy Sisto. The short was made for the Responsibility Project, a joint initiative of NBC and Liberty Mutual Group. The short aired during the "Law & Order" episode "Reality Bites" on October 16, 2009. Personal life. In 1995, he married his college sweetheart, Alvina. The couple have two children. They currently live in Hancock Park, Los Angeles. Anderson has diabetes, and has been active in diabetes awareness. Arrest. On July 28, 2004, Anderson was charged with aggravated rape of a woman who police say was assaulted after being lured into a production trailer on a Memphis, Tennessee movie set. According to the Shelby County Sheriff's Office, Anderson and Wayne Witherspoon attacked the woman, who was an extra. The woman told police that Witherspoon forcibly removed her clothes once she was inside the trailer. She told investigators that Anderson, who was already in the trailer at the time, joined the assault, according to a graphic criminal complaint. The woman told the police that Anderson and Witherspoon "both assaulted her with their hands and took pictures of her while she was nude." A witness told officers that he heard the woman screaming and managed to unlock the trailer's door. At that point, the naked woman ran from the vehicle, which was parked on the grounds of the Shelby County Corrections Center, where scenes from director Craig Brewer's "Hustle & Flow" were being shot. However, on October 5, 2004, a judge dismissed the charge and said that testimony by the accuser was some of the most "suspicious" he has ever heard. Judge Anthony Johnson said the accuser's testimony fell short of producing the probable cause needed to support the charge. On September 16, 2004, Anderson and Warner Bros. Television were named in a $900,000 suit by a woman who claimed Anderson made suggestive comments, grabbed her genitalia and sexually assaulted her in his dressing room on the "All About the Andersons" set. Filmography. Television. Anderson has also made guest appearances on "Entourage", "Veronica Mars," and '. He had a recurring role on Til Death". Playing for the Alzheimer's Association, Anderson won $250,000 on "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire". Anderson also appears on Food Network's Iron Chef as a regular guest judge.
1063443	Mary Beth Hurt (born September 26, 1946) is an American actress of stage and screen. She is a three-time Tony Award nominee actress. Personal life. Hurt was born Mary Supinger in 1946 in Marshalltown, Iowa, the daughter of Delores Lenore (née Andre) and Forrest Clayton Supinger. Her childhood babysitter was actress Jean Seberg, also a Marshalltown native. Hurt studied drama at the University of Iowa and at New York University's Graduate Acting Program at the Tisch School of the Arts.
1101644	Georg Ferdinand Ludwig Philipp Cantor ( ; ;  – January 6, 1918) was a German mathematician, best known as the inventor of set theory, which has become a fundamental theory in mathematics. Cantor established the importance of one-to-one correspondence between the members of two sets, defined infinite and well-ordered sets, and proved that the real numbers are "more numerous" than the natural numbers. In fact, Cantor's method of proof of this theorem implies the existence of an "infinity of infinities". He defined the cardinal and ordinal numbers and their arithmetic. Cantor's work is of great philosophical interest, a fact of which he was well aware. Cantor's theory of transfinite numbers was originally regarded as so counter-intuitive – even shocking – that it encountered resistance from mathematical contemporaries such as Leopold Kronecker and Henri Poincaré and later from Hermann Weyl and L. E. J. Brouwer, while Ludwig Wittgenstein raised philosophical objections. Some Christian theologians (particularly neo-Scholastics) saw Cantor's work as a challenge to the uniqueness of the absolute infinity in the nature of God – on one occasion equating the theory of transfinite numbers with pantheism – a proposition that Cantor vigorously rejected. The objections to Cantor's work were occasionally fierce: Poincaré referred to his ideas as a "grave disease" infecting the discipline of mathematics, and Kronecker's public opposition and personal attacks included describing Cantor as a "scientific charlatan", a "renegade" and a "corrupter of youth." Kronecker even objected to Cantor's proofs that the algebraic numbers are countable, and that the transcendental numbers are uncountable, results now included in a standard mathematics curriculum. Writing decades after Cantor's death, Wittgenstein lamented that mathematics is "ridden through and through with the pernicious idioms of set theory," which he dismissed as "utter nonsense" that is "laughable" and "wrong". Cantor's recurring bouts of depression from 1884 to the end of his life have been blamed on the hostile attitude of many of his contemporaries, though some have explained these episodes as probable manifestations of a bipolar disorder. The harsh criticism has been matched by later accolades. In 1904, the Royal Society awarded Cantor its Sylvester Medal, the highest honor it can confer for work in mathematics. It has been suggested that Cantor believed his theory of transfinite numbers had been communicated to him by God. David Hilbert defended it from its critics by famously declaring: "No one shall expel us from the Paradise that Cantor has created." Life. Youth and studies. Cantor was born in the western merchant colony in Saint Petersburg, Russia, and brought up in the city until he was eleven. Georg, the oldest of six children, was regarded as an outstanding violinist. His grandfather Franz Böhm (1788–1846) (the violinist Joseph Böhm's brother) was the well-known musician and the soloist in the Russian empire in an imperial orchestra. Cantor's father had been a member of the Saint Petersburg stock exchange; when he became ill, the family moved to Germany in 1856, first to Wiesbaden then to Frankfurt, seeking winters milder than those of Saint Petersburg. In 1860, Cantor graduated with distinction from the Realschule in Darmstadt; his exceptional skills in mathematics, trigonometry in particular, were noted. In 1862, Cantor entered the University of Zürich. After receiving a substantial inheritance upon his father's death in 1863, Cantor shifted his studies to the University of Berlin, attending lectures by Leopold Kronecker, Karl Weierstrass and Ernst Kummer. He spent the summer of 1866 at the University of Göttingen, then and later a center for mathematical research. Teacher and researcher. In 1867, Cantor completed his dissertation, on number theory, at the University of Berlin. After teaching briefly in a Berlin girls' school, Cantor took up a position at the University of Halle, where he spent his entire career. He was awarded the requisite habilitation for his thesis, also on number theory, which he presented in 1869 upon his appointment at Halle. In 1874, Cantor married Vally Guttmann. They had six children, the last (Rudolph) born in 1886. Cantor was able to support a family despite modest academic pay, thanks to his inheritance from his father. During his honeymoon in the Harz mountains, Cantor spent much time in mathematical discussions with Richard Dedekind, whom he had met two years earlier while on Swiss holiday. Cantor was promoted to Extraordinary Professor in 1872 and made full Professor in 1879. To attain the latter rank at the age of 34 was a notable accomplishment, but Cantor desired a chair at a more prestigious university, in particular at Berlin, at that time the leading German university. However, his work encountered too much opposition for that to be possible. Kronecker, who headed mathematics at Berlin until his death in 1891, became increasingly uncomfortable with the prospect of having Cantor as a colleague, perceiving him as a "corrupter of youth" for teaching his ideas to a younger generation of mathematicians. Worse yet, Kronecker, a well-established figure within the mathematical community and Cantor's former professor, disagreed fundamentally with the thrust of Cantor's work. Kronecker, now seen as one of the founders of the constructive viewpoint in mathematics, disliked much of Cantor's set theory because it asserted the existence of sets satisfying certain properties, without giving specific examples of sets whose members did indeed satisfy those properties. Cantor came to believe that Kronecker's stance would make it impossible for him ever to leave Halle. In 1881, Cantor's Halle colleague Eduard Heine died, creating a vacant chair. Halle accepted Cantor's suggestion that it be offered to Dedekind, Heinrich M. Weber and Franz Mertens, in that order, but each declined the chair after being offered it. Friedrich Wangerin was eventually appointed, but he was never close to Cantor. In 1882, the mathematical correspondence between Cantor and Dedekind came to an end, apparently as a result of Dedekind's declining the chair at Halle. Cantor also began another important correspondence, with Gösta Mittag-Leffler in Sweden, and soon began to publish in Mittag-Leffler's journal "Acta Mathematica". But in 1885, Mittag-Leffler was concerned about the philosophical nature and new terminology in a paper Cantor had submitted to "Acta". He asked Cantor to withdraw the paper from "Acta" while it was in proof, writing that it was "... about one hundred years too soon." Cantor complied, but then curtailed his relationship and correspondence with Mittag-Leffler, writing to a third party: Cantor suffered his first known bout of depression in 1884. Criticism of his work weighed on his mind: every one of the fifty-two letters he wrote to Mittag-Leffler in 1884 mentioned Kronecker. A passage from one of these letters is revealing of the damage to Cantor's self-confidence: This crisis led him to apply to lecture on philosophy rather than mathematics. He also began an intense study of Elizabethan literature thinking there might be evidence that Francis Bacon wrote the plays attributed to Shakespeare (see Shakespearean authorship question); this ultimately resulted in two pamphlets, published in 1896 and 1897. Cantor recovered soon thereafter, and subsequently made further important contributions, including his famous diagonal argument and theorem. However, he never again attained the high level of his remarkable papers of 1874–84. He eventually sought, and achieved, a reconciliation with Kronecker. Nevertheless, the philosophical disagreements and difficulties dividing them persisted. In 1890, Cantor was instrumental in founding the "Deutsche Mathematiker-Vereinigung" and chaired its first meeting in Halle in 1891, where he first introduced his diagonal argument; his reputation was strong enough, despite Kronecker's opposition to his work, to ensure he was elected as the first president of this society. Setting aside the animosity Kronecker had displayed towards him, Cantor invited him to address the meeting, but Kronecker was unable to do so because his wife was dying from injuries sustained in a skiing accident at the time. Late years. After Cantor's 1884 hospitalization, there is no record that he was in any sanatorium again until 1899. Soon after that second hospitalization, Cantor's youngest son Rudolph died suddenly (while Cantor was delivering a lecture on his views on Baconian theory and William Shakespeare), and this tragedy drained Cantor of much of his passion for mathematics. Cantor was again hospitalized in 1903. One year later, he was outraged and agitated by a paper presented by Julius König at the Third International Congress of Mathematicians. The paper attempted to prove that the basic tenets of transfinite set theory were false. Since the paper had been read in front of his daughters and colleagues, Cantor perceived himself as having been publicly humiliated. Although Ernst Zermelo demonstrated less than a day later that König's proof had failed, Cantor remained shaken, even momentarily questioning God. Cantor suffered from chronic depression for the rest of his life, for which he was excused from teaching on several occasions and repeatedly confined in various sanatoria. The events of 1904 preceded a series of hospitalizations at intervals of two or three years. He did not abandon mathematics completely, however, lecturing on the paradoxes of set theory (Burali-Forti paradox, Cantor's paradox, and Russell's paradox) to a meeting of the "Deutsche Mathematiker–Vereinigung" in 1903, and attending the International Congress of Mathematicians at Heidelberg in 1904. In 1911, Cantor was one of the distinguished foreign scholars invited to attend the 500th anniversary of the founding of the University of St. Andrews in Scotland. Cantor attended, hoping to meet Bertrand Russell, whose newly published "Principia Mathematica" repeatedly cited Cantor's work, but this did not come about. The following year, St. Andrews awarded Cantor an honorary doctorate, but illness precluded his receiving the degree in person. Cantor retired in 1913, living in poverty and suffering from malnourishment during World War I. The public celebration of his 70th birthday was canceled because of the war. He died on January 6, 1918 in the sanatorium where he had spent the final year of his life. Mathematical work. Cantor's work between 1874 and 1884 is the origin of set theory. Prior to this work, the concept of a set was a rather elementary one that had been used implicitly since the beginnings of mathematics, dating back to the ideas of Aristotle. No one had realized that set theory had any nontrivial content. Before Cantor, there were only finite sets (which are easy to understand) and "the infinite" (which was considered a topic for philosophical, rather than mathematical, discussion). By proving that there are (infinitely) many possible sizes for infinite sets, Cantor established that set theory was not trivial, and it needed to be studied. Set theory has come to play the role of a foundational theory in modern mathematics, in the sense that it interprets propositions about mathematical objects (for example, numbers and functions) from all the traditional areas of mathematics (such as algebra, analysis and topology) in a single theory, and provides a standard set of axioms to prove or disprove them. The basic concepts of set theory are now used throughout mathematics. In one of his earliest papers, Cantor proved that the set of real numbers is "more numerous" than the set of natural numbers; this showed, for the first time, that there exist infinite sets of different sizes. He was also the first to appreciate the importance of one-to-one correspondences (hereinafter denoted "1-to-1 correspondence") in set theory. He used this concept to define finite and infinite sets, subdividing the latter into denumerable (or countably infinite) sets and uncountable sets (nondenumerable infinite sets). Cantor developed important concepts in topology and their relation to cardinality. For example, he showed that the Cantor set is nowhere dense, but has the same cardinality as the set of all real numbers, whereas the rationals are everywhere dense, but countable. Cantor introduced fundamental constructions in set theory, such as the power set of a set "A", which is the set of all possible subsets of "A". He later proved that the size of the power set of "A" is strictly larger than the size of "A", even when "A" is an infinite set; this result soon became known as Cantor's theorem. Cantor developed an entire theory and arithmetic of infinite sets, called cardinals and ordinals, which extended the arithmetic of the natural numbers. His notation for the cardinal numbers was the Hebrew letter formula_1 (aleph) with a natural number subscript; for the ordinals he employed the Greek letter ω (omega). This notation is still in use today. The "Continuum hypothesis", introduced by Cantor, was presented by David Hilbert as the first of his twenty-three open problems in his famous address at the 1900 International Congress of Mathematicians in Paris. Cantor's work also attracted favorable notice beyond Hilbert's celebrated encomium. The US philosopher Charles Sanders Peirce praised Cantor's set theory, and, following public lectures delivered by Cantor at the first International Congress of Mathematicians, held in Zurich in 1897, Hurwitz and Hadamard also both expressed their admiration. At that Congress, Cantor renewed his friendship and correspondence with Dedekind. From 1905, Cantor corresponded with his British admirer and translator Philip Jourdain on the history of set theory and on Cantor's religious ideas. This was later published, as were several of his expository works. Number theory, trigonometric series and ordinals. Cantor's first ten papers were on number theory, his thesis topic. At the suggestion of Eduard Heine, the Professor at Halle, Cantor turned to analysis. Heine proposed that Cantor solve an open problem that had eluded Peter Gustav Lejeune Dirichlet, Rudolf Lipschitz, Bernhard Riemann, and Heine himself: the uniqueness of the representation of a function by trigonometric series. Cantor solved this difficult problem in 1869. It was while working on this problem that he discovered transfinite ordinals, which occurred as indices "n" in the "n"th derived set "S""n" of a set "S" of zeros of a trigonometric series. Given a trigonometric series f(x) with "S" as its set of zeros, Cantor had discovered a procedure that produced another trigonometric series that had "S"1 as its set of zeros, where "S"1 is the set of limit points of "S". If "S""k+1" is the set of limit points of "S""k", then he could construct a trigonometric series whose zeros are "S""k+1". Because the sets "S""k" were closed, they contained their Limit points, and the intersection of the infinite decreasing sequence of sets "S", "S""1", "S""2", "S""3"... formed a limit set, which we would now call "S"ω, and then he noticed that "S"ω would also have to have a set of limit points "S"ω+1, and so on. He had examples that went on forever, and so here was a naturally occurring infinite sequence of infinite numbers ω, ω+1, ω+2, ... Between 1870 and 1872, Cantor published more papers on trigonometric series, and also a paper defining irrational numbers as convergent sequences of rational numbers. Dedekind, whom Cantor befriended in 1872, cited this paper later that year, in the paper where he first set out his celebrated definition of real numbers by Dedekind cuts. While extending the notion of number by means of his revolutionary concept of infinite cardinality, Cantor was paradoxically opposed to theories of infinitesimals of his contemporaries Otto Stolz and Paul du Bois-Reymond, describing them as both "an abomination" and "a cholera bacillus of mathematics". Cantor also published an erroneous "proof" of the inconsistency of infinitesimals. Set theory. The beginning of set theory as a branch of mathematics is often marked by the publication of Cantor's 1874 article, "Über eine Eigenschaft des Inbegriffes aller reellen algebraischen Zahlen" ("On a Property of the Collection of All Real Algebraic Numbers"). This article was the first to provide a rigorous proof that there was more than one kind of infinity. Previously, all infinite collections had been implicitly assumed to be equinumerous (that is, of "the same size" or having the same number of elements). Cantor proved that the collection of real numbers and the collection of positive integers are not equinumerous. In other words, the real numbers are not countable. His proof is more complex than the more elegant diagonal argument that he gave in 1891. Cantor's article also contains a new method of constructing transcendental numbers. Transcendental numbers were first constructed by Joseph Liouville in 1844. Cantor established these results using two constructions. His first construction shows how to write the real algebraic numbers as a sequence "a"1, "a"2, "a"3, ... In other words, the real algebraic numbers are countable. Cantor starts his second construction with any sequence of real numbers. Using this sequence, he constructs nested intervals whose intersection contains a real number not in the sequence. Since every sequence of real numbers can be used to construct a real not in the sequence, the real numbers cannot be written as a sequence – that is, the real numbers are not countable. By applying his construction to the sequence of real algebraic numbers, Cantor produces a transcendental number. Cantor points out that his constructions prove more – namely, they provide a new proof of Liouville's theorem: Every interval contains infinitely many transcendental numbers. Cantor's next article contains a construction that proves the set of transcendental numbers has the same "power" (see below) as the set of real numbers. Between 1879 and 1884, Cantor published a series of six articles in "Mathematische Annalen" that together formed an introduction to his set theory. At the same time, there was growing opposition to Cantor's ideas, led by Kronecker, who admitted mathematical concepts only if they could be constructed in a finite number of steps from the natural numbers, which he took as intuitively given. For Kronecker, Cantor's hierarchy of infinities was inadmissible, since accepting the concept of actual infinity would open the door to paradoxes which would challenge the validity of mathematics as a whole. Cantor also introduced the Cantor set during this period. The fifth paper in this series, "Grundlagen einer allgemeinen Mannigfaltigkeitslehre" ("Foundations of a General Theory of Aggregates"), published in 1883, was the most important of the six and was also published as a separate monograph. It contained Cantor's reply to his critics and showed how the transfinite numbers were a systematic extension of the natural numbers. It begins by defining well-ordered sets. Ordinal numbers are then introduced as the order types of well-ordered sets. Cantor then defines the addition and multiplication of the cardinal and ordinal numbers. In 1885, Cantor extended his theory of order types so that the ordinal numbers simply became a special case of order types. In 1891, he published a paper containing his elegant "diagonal argument" for the existence of an uncountable set. He applied the same idea to prove Cantor's theorem: the cardinality of the power set of a set "A" is strictly larger than the cardinality of "A". This established the richness of the hierarchy of infinite sets, and of the cardinal and ordinal arithmetic that Cantor had defined. His argument is fundamental in the solution of the Halting problem and the proof of Gödel's first incompleteness theorem. Cantor wrote on the Goldbach conjecture in 1894. In 1895 and 1897, Cantor published a two-part paper in "Mathematische Annalen" under Felix Klein's editorship; these were his last significant papers on set theory. The first paper begins by defining set, subset, etc., in ways that would be largely acceptable now. The cardinal and ordinal arithmetic are reviewed. Cantor wanted the second paper to include a proof of the continuum hypothesis, but had to settle for expositing his theory of well-ordered sets and ordinal numbers. Cantor attempts to prove that if "A" and "B" are sets with "A" equivalent to a subset of "B" and "B" equivalent to a subset of "A", then "A" and "B" are equivalent. Ernst Schröder had stated this theorem a bit earlier, but his proof, as well as Cantor's, was flawed. Felix Bernstein supplied a correct proof in his 1898 PhD thesis; hence the name Cantor–Bernstein–Schroeder theorem. One-to-one correspondence. Cantor's 1874 Crelle paper was the first to invoke the notion of a 1-to-1 correspondence, though he did not use that phrase. He then began looking for a 1-to-1 correspondence between the points of the unit square and the points of a unit line segment. In an 1877 letter to Dedekind, Cantor proved a far stronger result: for any positive integer "n", there exists a 1-to-1 correspondence between the points on the unit line segment and all of the points in an "n"-dimensional space. About this discovery Cantor famously wrote to Dedekind: ""Je le vois, mais je ne le crois pas"!" ("I see it, but I don't believe it!") The result that he found so astonishing has implications for geometry and the notion of dimension. In 1878, Cantor submitted another paper to Crelle's Journal, in which he defined precisely the concept of a 1-to-1 correspondence, and introduced the notion of "power" (a term he took from Jakob Steiner) or "equivalence" of sets: two sets are equivalent (have the same power) if there exists a 1-to-1 correspondence between them. Cantor defined countable sets (or denumerable sets) as sets which can be put into a 1-to-1 correspondence with the natural numbers, and proved that the rational numbers are denumerable. He also proved that "n"-dimensional Euclidean space R"n" has the same power as the real numbers R, as does a countably infinite product of copies of R. While he made free use of countability as a concept, he did not write the word "countable" until 1883. Cantor also discussed his thinking about dimension, stressing that his mapping between the unit interval and the unit square was not a continuous one. This paper displeased Kronecker, and Cantor wanted to withdraw it; however, Dedekind persuaded him not to do so and Weierstrass supported its publication. Nevertheless, Cantor never again submitted anything to Crelle. Continuum hypothesis. Cantor was the first to formulate what later came to be known as the continuum hypothesis or CH: there exists no set whose power is greater than that of the naturals and less than that of the reals (or equivalently, the cardinality of the reals is "exactly" aleph-one, rather than just "at least" aleph-one). Cantor believed the continuum hypothesis to be true and tried for many years to prove it, in vain. His inability to prove the continuum hypothesis caused him considerable anxiety. The difficulty Cantor had in proving the continuum hypothesis has been underscored by later developments in the field of mathematics: a 1940 result by Gödel and a 1963 one by Paul Cohen together imply that the continuum hypothesis can neither be proved nor disproved using standard Zermelo–Fraenkel set theory plus the axiom of choice (the combination referred to as "ZFC"). Paradoxes of set theory. Discussions of set-theoretic paradoxes began to appear around the end of the nineteenth century. Some of these implied fundamental problems with Cantor's set theory program. In an 1897 paper on an unrelated topic, Cesare Burali-Forti set out the first such paradox, the Burali-Forti paradox: the ordinal number of the set of all ordinals must be an ordinal and this leads to a contradiction. Cantor discovered this paradox in 1895, and described it in an 1896 letter to Hilbert. Criticism mounted to the point where Cantor launched counter-arguments in 1903, intended to defend the basic tenets of his set theory. In 1899, Cantor discovered his eponymous paradox: what is the cardinal number of the set of all sets? Clearly it must be the greatest possible cardinal. Yet for any set "A", the cardinal number of the power set of "A" is strictly larger than the cardinal number of "A" (this fact is now known as Cantor's theorem). This paradox, together with Burali-Forti's, led Cantor to formulate a concept called "limitation of size", according to which the collection of all ordinals, or of all sets, was an "inconsistent multiplicity" that was "too large" to be a set. Such collections later became known as proper classes. One common view among mathematicians is that these paradoxes, together with Russell's paradox, demonstrate that it is not possible to take a "naive", or non-axiomatic, approach to set theory without risking contradiction, and it is certain that they were among the motivations for Zermelo and others to produce axiomatizations of set theory. Others note, however, that the paradoxes do not obtain in an informal view motivated by the iterative hierarchy, which can be seen as explaining the idea of limitation of size. Some also question whether the Fregean formulation of naive set theory (which was the system directly refuted by the Russell paradox) is really a faithful interpretation of the Cantorian conception. Philosophy, religion, and Cantor's mathematics. The concept of the existence of an actual infinity was an important shared concern within the realms of mathematics, philosophy and religion. Preserving the orthodoxy of the relationship between God and mathematics, although not in the same form as held by his critics, was long a concern of Cantor's. He directly addressed this intersection between these disciplines in the introduction to his "Grundlagen einer allgemeinen Mannigfaltigkeitslehre," where he stressed the connection between his view of the infinite and the philosophical one. To Cantor, his mathematical views were intrinsically linked to their philosophical and theological implications – he identified the Absolute Infinite with God, and he considered his work on transfinite numbers to have been directly communicated to him by God, who had chosen Cantor to reveal them to the world. Debate among mathematicians grew out of opposing views in the philosophy of mathematics regarding the nature of actual infinity. Some held to the view that infinity was an abstraction which was not mathematically legitimate, and denied its existence. Mathematicians from three major schools of thought (constructivism and its two offshoots, intuitionism and finitism) opposed Cantor's theories in this matter. For constructivists such as Kronecker, this rejection of actual infinity stems from fundamental disagreement with the idea that nonconstructive proofs such as Cantor's diagonal argument are sufficient proof that something exists, holding instead that constructive proofs are required. Intuitionism also rejects the idea that actual infinity is an expression of any sort of reality, but arrive at the decision via a different route than constructivism. Firstly, Cantor's argument rests on logic to prove the existence of transfinite numbers as an actual mathematical entity, whereas intuitionists hold that mathematical entities cannot be reduced to logical propositions, originating instead in the intuitions of the mind. Secondly, the notion of infinity as an expression of reality is itself disallowed in intuitionism, since the human mind cannot intuitively construct an infinite set. Mathematicians such as Brouwer and especially Poincaré adopted an intuitionist stance against Cantor's work. Citing the paradoxes of set theory as an example of its fundamentally flawed nature, Poincaré held that "most of the ideas of Cantorian set theory should be banished from mathematics once and for all." Finally, Wittgenstein's attacks were finitist: he believed that Cantor's diagonal argument conflated the intension of a set of cardinal or real numbers with its extension, thus conflating the concept of rules for generating a set with an actual set. Some Christian theologians saw Cantor's work as a challenge to the uniqueness of the absolute infinity in the nature of God. In particular, Neo-Thomist thinkers saw the existence of an actual infinity that consisted of something other than God as jeopardizing "God's exclusive claim to supreme infinity". Cantor strongly believed that this view was a misinterpretation of infinity, and was convinced that set theory could help correct this mistake: Cantor also believed that his theory of transfinite numbers ran counter to both materialism and determinism – and was shocked when he realized that he was the only faculty member at Halle who did "not" hold to deterministic philosophical beliefs. In 1888, Cantor published his correspondence with several philosophers on the philosophical implications of his set theory. In an extensive attempt to persuade other Christian thinkers and authorities to adopt his views, Cantor had corresponded with Christian philosophers such as Tilman Pesch and Joseph Hontheim, as well as theologians such as Cardinal Johannes Franzelin, who once replied by equating the theory of transfinite numbers with pantheism. Cantor even sent one letter directly to Pope Leo XIII himself, and addressed several pamphlets to him. Cantor's philosophy on the nature of numbers led him to affirm a belief in the freedom of mathematics to posit and prove concepts apart from the realm of physical phenomena, as expressions within an internal reality. The only restrictions on this metaphysical system are that all mathematical concepts must be devoid of internal contradiction, and that they follow from existing definitions, axioms, and theorems. This belief is summarized in his famous assertion that "the essence of mathematics is its freedom." These ideas parallel those of Edmund Husserl. Meanwhile, Cantor himself was fiercely opposed to infinitesimals, describing them as both an "abomination" and "the cholera bacillus of mathematics". Cantor's 1883 paper reveals that he was well aware of the opposition his ideas were encountering: Hence he devotes much space to justifying his earlier work, asserting that mathematical concepts may be freely introduced as long as they are free of contradiction and defined in terms of previously accepted concepts. He also cites Aristotle, Descartes, Berkeley, Leibniz, and Bolzano on infinity. Cantor's ancestry. "Very little is known for sure about the origin and education of George Woldemar Cantor." Cantor's paternal grandparents were from Copenhagen, and fled to Russia from the disruption of the Napoleonic Wars. There is very little direct information on his grandparents. Cantor was sometimes called Jewish in his lifetime, but has also variously been called Russian, German, and Danish as well. Jakob Cantor, Cantor's grandfather, gave his children Christian saints' names. Further, several of his grandmother's relatives were in the Czarist civil service, which would not welcome Jews, unless they converted to Christianity. Cantor's father, Georg Waldemar Cantor, was educated in the Lutheran mission in Saint Petersburg, and his correspondence with his son shows both of them as devout Lutherans. His mother, Maria Anna Böhm, was an Austro-Hungarian born in Saint Petersburg and baptized Roman Catholic; she converted to Protestantism upon marriage. However, there is a letter from Cantor's brother Louis to their mother, stating: ("Even if we were descended from Jews ten times over, and even though I may be, in principle, completely in favour of equal rights for Hebrews, in social life I prefer Christians...") which could be read to imply that she was of Jewish ancestry. There were documented statements, during the 1930s, that called this Jewish ancestry into question: It is also later said in the same document: (the rest of the quote is finished by the very first quote above). In Men of Mathematics, Eric Temple Bell described Cantor as being "of pure Jewish descent on both sides," although both parents were baptized. In a 1971 article entitled "Towards a Biography of Georg Cantor," the British historian of mathematics Ivor Grattan-Guinness mentions (Annals of Science 27, pp. 345–391, 1971) that he was unable to find evidence of Jewish ancestry. (He also states that Cantor's wife, Vally Guttmann, was Jewish). In a letter written by Georg Cantor to Paul Tannery in 1896 (Paul Tannery, Memoires Scientifique 13 Correspondence, Gauthier-Villars, Paris, 1934, p. 306), Cantor states that his paternal grandparents were members of the Sephardic Jewish community of Copenhagen. Specifically, Cantor states in describing his father: "Er ist aber in Kopenhagen geboren, von israelitischen Eltern, die der dortigen portugisischen Judengemeinde..." ("He was born in Copenhagen of Jewish (lit: "Israelite") parents from the local Portuguese-Jewish community.") In addition, Cantor's maternal great uncle, a Hungarian violinist Josef Böhm, has been described as Jewish, which may imply that Cantor's mother was at least partly descended from the Hungarian Jewish community. In a letter to Bertrand Russell, Cantor described his ancestry and self-perception as follows: Historiography. Until the 1970s, the chief academic publications on Cantor were two short monographs by Schönflies (1927) – largely the correspondence with Mittag-Leffler – and Fraenkel (1930). Both were at second and third hand; neither had much on his personal life. The gap was largely filled by Eric Temple Bell's "Men of Mathematics" (1937), which one of Cantor's modern biographers describes as "perhaps the most widely read modern book on the history of mathematics"; and as "one of the worst". Bell presents Cantor's relationship with his father as Oedipal, Cantor's differences with Kronecker as a quarrel between two Jews, and Cantor's madness as Romantic despair over his failure to win acceptance for his mathematics, and fills the picture with stereotypes. Grattan-Guinness (1971) found that none of these claims were true, but they may be found in many books of the intervening period, owing to the absence of any other narrative. There are other legends, independent of Bell – including one that labels Cantor's father a foundling, shipped to Saint Petersburg by unknown parents. A critique of Bell's book is contained in Joseph Dauben's biography.
1102701	Pierre René, Viscount Deligne (; born 3 October 1944) is a highly influential Belgian mathematician. He is known for work on the Weil conjectures, leading finally to a complete proof in 1973. He is the winner of the 2013 Abel Prize. Life. He was born in Etterbeek, attended school at Athénée Adolphe Max and studied at the Université libre de Bruxelles (ULB). After completing a doctorate under the supervision of Alexander Grothendieck, he worked with him at the Institut des Hautes Études Scientifiques (IHÉS) near Paris, initially on the generalization within scheme theory of Zariski's main theorem. In 1968, he also worked with Jean-Pierre Serre; their work led to important results on the l-adic representations attached to modular forms, and the conjectural functional equations of L-functions. Deligne's also focused on topics in Hodge theory. He introduced weights and tested them on objects in complex geometry. He also collaborated with David Mumford on a new description of the moduli spaces for curves. Their work came to be seen as an introduction to one form of the theory of algebraic stacks, and recently has been applied to questions arising from string theory. Perhaps Deligne's most famous contribution was his proof of the third and last of the Weil conjectures. This proof completed a programme initiated and largely developed by Alexander Grothendieck. As a corollary he proved the celebrated Ramanujan–Petersson conjecture for modular forms of weight greater than one; weight one was proved in his work with Serre. Deligne's paper (1974) contains the first proof of the Weil conjectures, Deligne's contribution being to supply the estimate of the eigenvalues of Frobenius, considered the geometric analogue of the Riemann hypothesis. From 1970 until 1984, when he moved to the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, Deligne was a permanent member of the IHÉS staff. During this time he did much important work outside of his work on algebraic geometry. In joint work with George Lusztig, Deligne and Lusztig applied étale cohomology to construct representations of finite groups of Lie type; with Michael Rapoport, Deligne worked on the moduli spaces from the 'fine' arithmetic point of view, with application to modular forms. He received a Fields Medal in 1978. In terms of the completion of some of the underlying Grothendieck program of research, he defined absolute Hodge cycles, as a surrogate for the missing and still largely conjectural theory of motives. This idea allows one to get around the lack of knowledge of the Hodge conjecture, for some applications. He reworked the tannakian category theory in his paper for the "Grothendieck Festschrift", employing Beck's theorem – the Tannakian category concept being the categorical expression of the linearity of the theory of motives as the ultimate Weil cohomology. All this is part of the "yoga of weights", uniting Hodge theory and the l-adic Galois representations. The Shimura variety theory is related, by the idea that such varieties should parametrize not just good (arithmetically interesting) families of Hodge structures, but actual motives. This theory is not yet a finished product – and more recent trends have used K-theory approaches. Awards. He was awarded the Fields Medal in 1978, the Crafoord Prize in 1988, the Balzan Prize in 2004, the Wolf Prize in 2008, and the Abel Prize in 2013. In 2006 he was ennobled by the Belgian king as viscount. In 2009, Deligne was elected a foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. Hand-written letters. Deligne wrote multiple hand-written letters to other mathematicians in the 1970s. These include
1395829	Gary Dourdan (born December 11, 1966) is an American actor. He is best known for portraying Warrick Brown on the television series "". Early years. Dourdan was born Gary Robert Durdin in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the son of Sandy, a teacher and fashion designer, and Robert Durdin, an entrepreneur and agent for jazz musicians. Dourdan is the second youngest of five children. When he was 6 years old, his older brother Darryl was murdered while on vacation in Haiti; the case remains unsolved. He moved with his family to Willingboro, New Jersey when he was in his youth. At this time his interests included acting, music, and martial arts. Later Dourdan moved to New York City and worked as a doorman at a rehearsal studio, where he met some of Manhattan's promising young artists.'" Career. Dourdan played in several bands in New York City in the early 1990s and acted in regional theatre around the tristate area. He received his first break when Debbie Allen cast him as Shazza Zulu on "A Different World", based on a tape of him in an avant-garde play. In 1996, Dourdan appeared in the ' episode "Never On Sunday", where he played an assistant. In 1997, Dourdan played the character Christie, the first mate, crack-shot, and second in command of the spaceship "Betty", in the film "Alien Resurrection". He also appears in the films "Playing God" and "Thursday", and on television starred in the Dick Wolf production "Swift Justice" and played a recurring role on the Showtime series "Soul Food" until he nabbed the part of Warrick Brown on '. In 2007, he played the character Cameron, the boyfriend of Rowena Price (played by Halle Berry), in the film "Perfect Stranger". "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation". Dourdan's most popular role began as a cast member of the original "" series, which debuted on October 6, 2000. He played analyst Warrick Brown who, viewers find out, has a checkered past fraught with gambling problems. By working in Las Vegas, the character is able to use his personal experiences from the street to help him throughout his career. Ultimately, he ends up battling his demons throughout the show instead of overcoming them. In 2008, there was media speculation surrounding Dourdan's "CSI" contract negotiations with CBS. The parties could not reach a resolution, and as a result his contract was not renewed. It was reported on April 14, 2008, that Dourdan was leaving the show. In the Season 8 finale, Dourdan's character was shot and left for dead at the episode's end. The Season 9 premiere revealed Dourdan's character dying in the arms of his colleague and friend Gil Grissom. Personal life. Dourdan married model Roshumba Williams in 1992; the couple divorced two years later. He has two children: a son, Lyric, with Cynthia Hadden, and a daughter, Nyla, with Jennifer Sutton, whom Dourdan dated from 1995 to 2000. Dourdan has African-American, American Indian, Jewish, French, Irish, and Scottish ancestry. He collects classic cars and was featured on Season 1, Episode 3 of "Street Customs". Dourdan was arrested on April 28, 2008 in Palm Springs after a Palm Springs Police Department officer located "suspected cocaine, heroin, ecstasy, miscellaneous prescription drugs and paraphernalia" in his possession. He was subsequently booked at the Palm Springs jail on charges of possession of narcotics and possession of dangerous drugs. On June 13, 2011, Dourdan was arrested after he crashed his vehicle into two parked cars. He was charged with drug possession and possession of drug paraphernalia. The drug possession charge was dropped two months later. On November 6, 2011, Dourdan was arrested at his home in Venice, CA, following an alleged altercation with his former girlfriend, Nicole Vail Cannizzaro. Her nose was broken during the argument. He was charged with felony battery. He pleaded not guilty. On December 1, 2011, the judge issued a three-year restraining order against Dourdan and threatened him with jail time if it is violated. On November 12, 2012, Dourdan filed for bankruptcy. He claimed to earn $14,883 a month, but after paying bills he only had $321 a month left as disposable income.
1043354	Ferdy Mayne (11 March 1916—30 January 1998) was a German actor. Early life. He was born Ferdinand Philip Mayer-Horckel in Mainz, Germany. His German father was the Judge of Mayence, while his half-English mother was a singing instructor. Because his family was Jewish, Mayne was sent to England to protect him from the Nazis; he stayed with his aunt, the photographer and sculptress Lee Hutchinson. His parents were detained in Buchenwald but, thanks to his mother's connections, were able to leave Germany for England. At the start of the Second World War, Mayne operated as an informant for MI5. Significant clues to his secret service work were provided by Joan Miller in her posthumously published memoir "One Girl's War" (1986). Mayne had served as a witness at her marriage in 1945. Career. Mayne appeared in 230 films and television programmes. In 1967, he achieved international recognition in his role as Count von Krolock in Roman Polanski's "The Fearless Vampire Killers". In 1977, he appeared in "It Pays to Advertise", an episode of "Are You Being Served?", in the role of "The Ten Pound Perfume". In the episode, his character purchases a bottle of perfume for £10 and shocks Mrs Slocombe upon telling her, in a somewhat effeminate voice, that he is buying it not for his wife but for himself. He then struts off in a stereotypically manner. Later, Mayne moved to the United States and played the semi-regular role of Albert Grand in the TV series "Cagney and Lacey". Personal life. In 1955, Mayne married Deirdre de Payer. Their daughter Belinda Mayne is also an actor. They also adopted a daughter, Fernanda, in 1965. The couple divorced in 1972. In the 1990s, Mayne developed Parkinson's disease, from which he died on 30 January 1998 in London, aged 81.
1062684	Billy Elliot is a 2000 British drama film written by Lee Hall and directed by Stephen Daldry. Set in north-eastern England during the 1984-5 coal miners' strike, it stars Jamie Bell as 11-year-old Billy, an aspiring dancer dealing with the negative stereotype of the male ballet dancer; Gary Lewis as his coal miner father; Jamie Draven as Billy's older brother, and Julie Walters as his ballet teacher. In 2001, author Melvin Burgess was commissioned to write the novelisation of the film based on Lee Hall's screenplay. The story was adapted for the West End stage as "Billy Elliot the Musical" in 2005; it opened in Australia in 2007 and on Broadway in 2008. When the film was released in the United States, the Motion Picture Association of America gave it an R rating due to language. When released on video, it was re-cut to a PG-13 rating for "some thematic elements"; this version edited out many uses of profanity. Plot. The film is set in fictional Everington during the 1984–1985 UK miners' strike, and centres on the character of 11-year-old Billy Elliot (Jamie Bell), his love of dance and his hope to become a professional ballet dancer. Billy lives with his widowed father, Jackie (Gary Lewis), and older brother, Tony (Jamie Draven), both coal miners out on strike, and also his invalid Nan (Jean Heywood), who once aspired to be a professional dancer in Durham. Billy's mother, Jenny, died on 2 December 1983, aged 38. Billy's father sends him to the gym to learn boxing, but Billy dislikes the sport. He happens upon a ballet class that is using the gym while their usual basement studio is temporarily being used as a soup kitchen for the striking miners. Unknown to Jackie, Billy joins the ballet class. When Jackie discovers this, he forbids Billy to take any more ballet. But, passionate about dancing, Billy secretly continues lessons with his dance teacher Sandra Wilkinson's (Julie Walters) help. Mrs. Wilkinson believes Billy is talented enough to study at the Royal Ballet School in London, but due to Tony's arrest during a skirmish between police and striking miners, Billy misses the audition. Mrs. Wilkinson tells Jackie about the missed opportunity, but fearing that Billy will be considered a "poof", both Jackie and Tony are outraged at the prospect of Billy becoming a professional ballet dancer. Over Christmas, Billy learns his best friend, Michael, is gay. Although Billy is not, he is supportive of his friend. Later, Jackie catches Billy dancing in the gym and realises his son is truly gifted; he will do whatever it takes to help Billy attain his dream. Mrs. Wilkinson tries to convince Jackie to let her pay for the audition, but he replies that Billy is his son. Jackie attempts to cross the picket line to pay for the trip to London, but Tony blocks him. Instead, his fellow miners and the neighbourhood raise some money and Jackie pawns Billy's mother's jewellery to cover the cost and Jackie takes him to London to audition for the Royal Ballet School. Though highly nervous, Billy performs well, but he punches another boy in his frustration at the audition and the fear that he has ruined his chance of attaining his dream. He is sternly rebuked by the review board but when asked what it feels like when he is dancing, he describes it is like electricity. Seemingly rejected, Billy returns home with his father. Sometime later, he receives a letter accepting him to the Royal Ballet School, and he leaves home to attend. The film's final scene is set fourteen years later (approximately 1999): the mature Billy (dancer/actor Adam Cooper) takes the stage to perform the lead in "Matthew Bourne's Swan Lake", as Jackie, Tony, and Michael watch in the audience. Production. As Easington colliery closed in 1993, the mining scenes were filmed at the Ellington and Lynemouth colliery in Northumberland, with some filming in Dawdon and Newcastle upon Tyne. Scenes inside the Elliot home and local street shots were filmed in Easington Colliery, County Durham, a former mining village. The producers used over 400 Easington people as extras. Alnwick Street, on which the Elliot family lived at number 5, was one of several streets demolished in 2003 after becoming derelict. A green space now stands in its place. The faded-white brick wall of Wright's Prize Bingo, on Ashton Street, is still in situ. The scene in which Billy steals a ballet book from the mobile library van was filmed at the rear of the Anthony Street terraces, looking down the hill to Ashton Street. Almost all of the scenes set in Everington are set at the top of the sizeable slope that is visible in the street views, near the allotments that still remain today; the exception being when Billy leaves for London, when he and his family cross Ashton Street en route to Seaside Lane. While the Miners' Welfare Hall is in nearby Dawdon, the youth centre where Billy attends dance practices was filmed at Hanwell Community Centre in London. The street up which Billy does his "angry dance" is Embleton Street in Dawdon. While made to seem like it is the same street, the corrugated iron wall at which he comes to a stop is "behind" the Embleton Street houses, with the wall being a temporary instalment to hide Shrewsbury Street behind it. The cemetery in which Jenny Elliot is buried is in Lynemouth. Finally, school scenes were filmed in Langley Park Primary School, County Durham. Awards and nominations. In 2004, the magazine "Total Film" named "Billy Elliot" the 39th greatest British film of all time. Soundtrack. The soundtrack was released on 11 March 2002, and includes several well-known rock and punk songs. The soundtrack also contains pieces of dialogue from the film.
774936	Emily Jean Perkins (born May 4, 1977) is a Canadian actress, known best for her role as Brigitte Fitzgerald in the "Ginger Snaps" trilogy and her role as Crystal Braywood in "Hiccups". Since the late 1980s she has appeared in various films and television series. Life and career. Perkins was born in Vancouver, British Columbia. As a child actress she was in three made for television movies: "Small Sacrifices" (1989), opposite Farrah Fawcett and Ryan O'Neal, "Anything to Survive" (1990), and Stephen King's "It" (1990), with Jonathan Brandis and Seth Green. In 1998, Perkins took a supporting role in the Canadian TV crime-drama series "Da Vinci's Inquest" as Carmen (series 1, episode 9). She returned to the series in 2001 to take a recurring, supporting role as the prostitute Sue Lewis for a further 34 episodes, a role which earned her a Leo Award for Best Supporting Performance in 2003.
1063620	"You Don't Mess with the Zohan (often referred as to simply Zohan") is a 2008 American slapstick comedy film directed by Dennis Dugan and produced by Adam Sandler, who also starred in the film. "You Don't Mess with the Zohan" has marked the fourth film which has included a collaboration of Sandler as actor and Dugan taking his role as director. The film revolves around Zohan Dvir (), an Israeli counter-terrorist army commando who fakes his own death in order to pursue his dream of becoming a hairstylist in New York City. The story was written by Adam Sandler, Judd Apatow, and Robert Smigel. It was released on June 6, 2008 in the US and on August 15, 2008 in the UK. Despite generally mediocre reviews, "You Don't Mess with the Zohan" was widely successful at the box office, its $90 million budget overshadowed by a worldwide gross of $200 million. Plot. Zohan Dvir (Adam Sandler) is a superhuman but kind-hearted Israeli counter-terrorist and the finest and most respected soldier in the Israel Defense Forces. However, Zohan has become both disgusted and disenchanted by the constant fighting, secretly dreaming of moving to the USA and becoming a hairdresser. This reaches a breaking point when a barbecue he hosts is interrupted by the IDF sending Zohan on a mission to stop a Palestinian terrorist group being led by his personal arch-enemy, Fatoush "the Phantom" Hakbarah (John Turturro). Despite being upset over his party ruined, Zohan sees it as his long awaited chance to desert the IDF and move to America. During the pursuit he fakes his own death and smuggles himself onto a flight to New York City, cutting his own hair and taking the alias "Scrappy Coco" (the names of two dogs he shared the flight with) while claiming that he is "Half Australian, Half Mount Everest." Meanwhile the Phantom becomes rich and famous for supposedly killing Zohan and starts his own fast food business, "Muchen Tuchen". Initially unsuccessful in getting hired at several salons, Zohan's military expertise earns him a new friend, Michael (Nick Swardson), who gives him a place to stay. However, Michael starts to freak out when he finds Zohan having sex with his mother, Gail (Lainie Kazan). Zohan encounters a fellow Israeli named Oori (Ido Mosseri) at a disco; he recognizes Zohan but agrees to keep his identity a secret. Oori takes him to a block in lower Manhattan filled with Middle Eastern Americans, who are split between a Palestinian side and an Israeli side of the street. Zohan attempts to land a job in a struggling salon of a Palestinian woman named Dalia (Emmanuelle Chriqui). After first only allowing Zohan to sweep floors for free, she eventually allows him to be a stylist after he pleases a senior lady with a satisfactory haircut and back room sexual service. Zohan's reputation spreads instantly among the elderly women of lower Manhattan. Dalia's business booms, upsetting Grant Walbridge (Michael Buffer), a corporate magnate who has been trying to force out all the local tenants on the block so that he can build a roller coaster mall. Zohan is identified by a Palestinian cab driver named Salim (Rob Schneider), who bears a grudge against Zohan for having taken his goat away. Salim convinces his friends to help him kill Zohan, but he is forced after a failed bomb attempt to contact Phantom. Salim attempts to blackmail Phantom, but he ends up getting the stiff end of the deal as he convinces Phantom to visit New York to find Zohan. Meanwhile, Zohan realizes that he has fallen in love with Dalia, and comes clean to Michael and his mother about his true identity, before meeting Dalia. Dalia rejects Zohan after he reveals he was formerly an Israeli counter-terrorist operative. Zohan decides to leave Dalia and confront Phantom in a championship Hacky Sack game sponsored by Walbridge. Zohan's fight is cut short with sudden news of the Middle Eastern block being attacked, and he quickly leaves. Zohan arrives and calms the Israelis and Palestinians, who each blame the other for the violence, while making peace with Salim. Phantom then appears and confronts Zohan, but Zohan refuses to fight. Dalia appears, revealing that she is Phantom's sister, and convinces her brother to cooperate with Zohan against the arsonists, revealed to be white racist rednecks hired by Walbridge to instigate an inter-ethnic riot so he can get his new mall in the aftermath. As Zohan and Phantom work to save the block, the latter admits that he always wanted to be a shoe salesman rather than a terrorist. Although the rednecks are defeated and Walbridge sent to jail, Phantom accidentally destroys all of the shops on the block. However, with the Israelis and the Palestinians united, the block is transformed into a collectively owned mall called the Peace and Brotherhood Fire Insurance Mall. Oori re-opens his "Going out of Business" electronics store, Phantom opens a shoe store in the mall called Fatoush's Kickin' Shoes, Salim gets back his goat, which he gives children rides on next to Trendy Toddler, and Zohan and Dalia open a joint beauty parlor called Dalohan, Zohan having married Dalia. Zohan's parents show up approving his new life before his father asks that he cut his hair, which he happily does. Production. Sandler, Robert Smigel, and Judd Apatow wrote the first draft of the script in 2000, but the movie was delayed after the events of 9/11 because those involved felt that the subject would be too sensitive. Apatow left the project after the first draft in 2000 to work on his show "Undeclared" and had, for the most part, not been involved in the project since. The film is based in part on the story of Nezi Arbib, an Israeli soldier who after his service moved to southern California and opened a hair salon. Sandler trained with Arbib and his brothers, also former soldiers, for two weeks to learn hairstyling and work with clients. The movie features elements that first appeared in the SNL sketches "Sabra Shopping Network" and "Sabra Price Is Right," which starred Tom Hanks and were written by Robert Smigel. They originated lines such as 'Sony guts' and 'Disco, Disco, good, good'. The first sketch is also notable for featuring one of Adam Sandler's first (uncredited) television appearances while the second featured Sandler, Schneider, Smigel and Kevin Nealon in supporting parts. Robert Smigel worked with Sandler on past films including "Billy Madison", "Happy Gilmore", and "Little Nicky", but this was the first time in which he was credited for helping to write the script. He was also an executive producer on the film which allowed him to further contribute to the movie's comedic sensilbility. The Israeli newspaper "Haaretz" commented that the movie was known in Hollywood circles as "the Israeli movie." "Haaretz" also noted that while "Israeli actors were rushing to audition the movie, the response among Arab actors was far from enthusiastic. (Emmanuelle Chriqui, who played Zohan's Palestinian love interest, was raised as an Orthodox Jew.) The film poked fun at the popularity of hummus in Israeli culture. In the movie, characters used it to brush their teeth and as a method to douse the flames of a fire, as well as a hair care product. Soundtrack. The score to the film was composed by Rupert Gregson-Williams. He recorded his score with the Hollywood Studio Symphony at the Sony Scoring Stage in April 2008. The soundtrack contains many songs in Hebrew, mostly by the popular Israeli band Hadag Nahash, the Psychedelic Trance duo Infected Mushroom, and Dana International. The film features "Look on the Floor (Hypnotic Tango) (Angel City Remix)" by Bananarama, the Ace of Base songs "Hallo Hallo" and "Beautiful Life", the Rockwell song Somebody's Watching Me and Mariah Carey songs "Fantasy" and "I'll Be Lovin' U Long Time". The soundtrack contains (near the end) music re-arranged for the movie by Julius Dobos, based on the song "Jimmy Jimmy Jimmy Aaja" from the Bollywood movie "Disco Dancer" (1982) starring Mithun Chakraborty. Reception. Critical reception. The film opened to mixed reviews. Rotten Tomatoes gives the film a score of 37% based on 182 reviews — with the site's consensus that the film "features intermittent laughs, and will please Sandler diehards, but after a while the leaky premise wears thin." Metacritic gives the film a rating of 54 out of 100, based on 35 reviews—indicating mixed or average reviews. John Podhoretz, in "The Weekly Standard", wrote that the movie has a "mess" of a plot and features, "as usual for Sandler, plenty of dumb humor of the sort that gives dumb humor a bad name, but that delights his 14-year-old-boy fan base." But the film also has an "unusual" amount of "tantalizing comic ideas" so that "every 10 minutes or so, it makes you explode with laughter." "Entertainment Weekly" gave the movie a C+ grade, calling it "another 'mess' from Sandler" which is, unlike Monty Python, a "circus that never flies." On the positive side, "Time" claimed the film to be a "laff scuffle," and Roger Ebert of the "Chicago Sun-Times" gave the film 3 out of 4 stars. David Edelstein of "New York Magazine" went as far as to say "Adam Sandler is mesmerizing," and A.O Scott of "The New York Times" said it was "the finest post-Zionist action-hairdressing sex comedy I have ever seen." Box office. "You Don't Mess with the Zohan" grossed $38 million on its opening weekend, ranked second behind "Kung Fu Panda". , it reached a domestic tally of $100,018,837, continuing Sandler's streak of making over $100 million at the domestic box office. The film grossed $201,802,891 worldwide. Home media. The film was released on DVD on October 7, 2008 with a 2-disc unrated edition, a single-disc unrated edition, and a theatrical edition, as well as a Blu-ray edition and UMD for PSP. It has sold over 1.2 million DVD units gathering revenue of $25.1 million.
568344	Seoul Train is a 2004 documentary film that deals with the dangerous journeys of North Korean defectors fleeing through or to China. These journeys are both dangerous and daring, since if caught, they face forced repatriation, torture and possible execution. "Seoul Train" has been broadcast on television around the world, including on the PBS series "Independent Lens". In January 2007, "Seoul Train" was awarded the Alfred I. duPont – Columbia University Silver Baton for excellence in broadcast journalism. In April 2007, "Seoul Train" was named runner-up in the National Journalism Awards. The film was produced, directed and filmed by Jim Butterworth, a technology entrepreneur in Colorado in the U.S., and Lisa Sleeth of Incite Productions. It was co-directed and edited by Aaron Lubarsky, a documentary filmmaker in New York.
813952	"Autopsy Room Four" is a short story by Stephen King. It was first published in King's limited-edition collection "Six Stories" in 1997 and appeared in the anthology "Robert Bloch's Psychos" later the same year. In 2002, it was collected in King's collection "Everything's Eventual". It was adapted into a short film in 2003. It was also part of TNT's "" series in the summer of 2006. Source. The plot is based on the set-up of classic short-story "Breakdown" by Louis Pollock, originally published in "Collier's Magazine" in 1947, in which the protagonist is paralyzed in an auto accident, and must prove that he is alive. At one point in the King story, the protagonist explicitly thinks about the television version of "Breakdown". "Breakdown" appeared on television twice, in 1955 and 1985, both times on "Alfred Hitchcock Presents". See Breakdown on IMDB Plot. Howard Cottrell awakes from some form of unconsciousness to find himself laid out in an autopsy room. As the doctors prepare to begin, Howard struggles to come to grips with what is happening.
1063423	Michael Jeter (August 26, 1952 – March 30, 2003) was a Tony– and Emmy-winning American actor of film, stage, and television. His most notable television roles are as Herman Stiles on the sitcom "Evening Shade" from 1990 until 1994 and for playing Mr. Noodle's brother, Mr. Noodle on "Elmo's World" from 2000 until 2003. His film roles include "Zelig", "Waterworld", "Air Bud", "The Green Mile" and "The Polar Express" among many others. Jeter met his partner, Sean Blue, in 1995. The two remained together until Jeter's death in 2003. Early life. Michael Jeter was born in Lawrenceburg, Tennessee. His mother, Virginia (née Raines; May 6, 1927), was a housewife. His father, William Claud Jeter (March 10, 1922 – March 1, 2010), was a dentist. Jeter had one brother, William, and four sisters, Virginia, Amanda, Emily, and Larie. Jeter was a student at Memphis State University (now the University of Memphis) when his interests changed from medicine to acting. He performed in several plays and musicals at the Circuit Theatre and its sister theatre, the Playhouse on the Square, in mid-town Memphis. He left Memphis to further pursue his stage career in Baltimore, Maryland. Career. His woebegone look, extreme flexibility, and high energy led Tommy Tune to cast him in the off-Broadway play "Cloud 9" and again on Broadway in a memorable role in the musical "Grand Hotel", for which he won a Tony Award in 1990. Much of his work specialized in playing eccentric, pretentious, or wimpy characters, as in "The Fisher King", "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas", and "Drop Zone". Occasionally, Jeter was able to stay away from these types of roles for more diverse characters like those he portrayed in "Jurassic Park III" (where he was killed by a dinosaur), "Air Bud" and "Open Range", although his character in "The Green Mile" could easily be described as both eccentric and wimpy. He won an Emmy Award in 1992 for his role in the television sitcom "Evening Shade" as math teacher and assistant football coach Herman Stiles. In the "Evening Shade" episode "Chip Off the Old Brick" Brian Keith plays his macho truck driver father, Brick Stiles. He was also a favorite with younger audiences in his role as Mr. Noodle's brother, Mr. Noodle on "Sesame Street" from 1999 to 2003. The movies "The Polar Express" and "Open Range" are dedicated to his memory. He appeared in an episode of "Touched by an Angel" in 1999 as Gus, an insurance salesman who arrives in Las Vegas in the episode "The Man Upstairs". Death. On March 30, 2003, Jeter was found dead in his Hollywood home at the age of 50. He was cremated and his ashes were scattered. Although he had HIV, he had been in good health for many years, and it is believed that he died of an epileptic seizure. Tributes. "The Polar Express", in which Jeter played Smokey and Steamer using motion-capture, was his final film role; the film was dedicated to his memory. The "Sesame Street" special "The Street We Live On" was also dedicated to Jeter.
583396	Remo D'Souza (born "Ramesh Gopi" born on 2 April 1974) is an Indian dancer, choreographer, actor and film director. Although he is mainly involved in choreography, he has also contributed to other Indian film industries, mainly Bengali cinema. He was also seen as judge in the show Jhalak Dikhhla Jaa in 2010 along with Indian actress Madhuri Dixit and director Karan Johar. His last movie F.A.L.T.U directorial movie was a moderate success at the box office. He is currently working to make India's first 3D Dance Movie with D.I.D (season 1 & 2) contestants, namely- Dharmesh Yelande, Salman Khan, Bhavna, Prince etc. and Prabhu Deva and So You Think You Can Dance dancing sensation Lauren Gottlieb. The movie is ABCD - AnyBody Can Dance, the title of which was provided by Terrence Lewis. D'Souza changed his name from Gopi when he converted to Christianity from Hinduism.
1056905	Save the Last Dance 2 (earlier known as "Steppin' Up: Save the Last Dance 2") is a direct-to-video sequel to 2001's theatrical feature "Save the Last Dance". It was released to DVD on October 10, 2006 by Paramount Home Entertainment and MTV. While featuring some recurring characters, none of the cast (including Julia Stiles and Sean Patrick Thomas) or storylines are retained from the original film. Rhythm and blues singer Ne-Yo makes an appearance in the film. Plot. The film continues the story of Sara Johnson (originally played by Julia Stiles and now portrayed by Izabella Miko). She recalls how she was born to be a dancer. Her mother would often comment that she knew how to pirouette before she could properly walk. From her earliest memories Sara always wanted to be a ballerina, a graceful dancer who could glide across the stage. It seemed that there was something that caused conflict in Sara’s ambition. She also loves the urban dance form of hip-hop. While ballet is highly structured, full of rules and standards, hip-hop gives Sara a chance to just let go and follow the beat. Sara wants the best of both worlds but the conflict between structure and independence affects her performance in both formats.
1057127	Bulletproof Monk is a 2003 action - comedy film starring Chow Yun-fat, Seann William Scott and Jaime King. The film was directed by Paul Hunter, in his feature film directorial debut. It is loosely based on the comic book by Michael Avon Oeming. The film was shot in Toronto, and Hamilton, Canada and other locations that look closely like New York City. Plot. The storyline opens in Tibet in the year 1943, wherein one of its protagonists, a Tibetan monk, is informed that he has fulfilled the prophecies made of him - he has fought an army of enemies while a flock of cranes circled above; fought for love at the palace of Jade; saved brothers whom he did not know from a family he never had; and forsaken his name. He is then entrusted by his master with the protection of a Scroll which contains knowledge by which the reader becomes the most powerful of living things - a protection that will keep him youthful and immunize him to injury until, at the close of 60 years, he must pass the knowledge to an heir. The master, who has formerly been the guardian of this Scroll, is killed by German soldiers shortly after the transfer. His pupil, the now nameless Monk, escapes despite the Nazi commander's expectations. 60 years later, a young pickpocket named Kar (Seann William Scott) robs a police officer in a subway station. He is arrested, but frees himself and chains the police officer, only to flee some of the latter's colleagues. Above in the street, the Nameless Monk is reading a newspaper when he notices several men attempting to capture him. The Nameless Monk attempts to escape by running into the subway, whereupon he and Kar collide, causing a young girl to fall into the path of an oncoming train. Kar and the Nameless Monk rescue the girl, whereupon the three escape, leaving Kar's bag of stolen goods in the station. Having escaped, the Nameless Monk and Kar introduce themselves to each other, whereupon Kar steals the Scroll from the Nameless Monk and runs away. Thereafter, wherever Kar goes he is chased by the Nameless Monk, who suspects that Kar may be a suitable successor as guardian of the Scroll. When fighting underground against a minor crime lord called Mister Funktastic (Marcus Jean Pirae), Kar meets a young woman named Jade, whom he falls in love with. The Nameless Monk then follows Kar home and watches him at home practicing Kung-fu by watching Chinese martial arts movies. The next day, Jade meets with Nina at the opening of the exhibit by the Human Rights Organization - Conscience of Humanity. Later, the Monk and Kar meet again during the next day and are conversing when Jade walks up to them and asks Kar to return her necklace, which he had apparently stolen on purpose in order to return to Jade so as to earn her esteem. She is interrupted by a group of mercenaries whose quarry is the Nameless Monk - their intended target flees with Kar in his company. The Nameless Monk and Kar escape by hiding beneath an Asian laundromat, wherein are several monks of the lead character's order. The Nameless Monk then takes refuge in a nearby building where he shows Kar several advanced combat techniques, including a demonstration of the art of dodging bullets. They are attacked and the Scroll is taken to the employer of the mercenary forces - a crime lord named Strucker. It is revealed that Strucker is in fact the Nazi commander who fought with the Nameless Monk (and had his predecessor murdered) 60 years ago in Tibet. Strucker desires to use the power of the Scroll as a means of rejuvenating his health and achieving world domination by destroying inferior peoples. Upon reading the Scroll, Strucker finds that it contains a recipe for noodle soup, whereas it is later revealed that the true secret of power is tattooed on the Nameless Monk's torso. The Nameless Monk and Kar return home to find that Kar's employer, Mr. Kojima, has been murdered by Strucker's granddaughter, who happens to be Nina. They flee to the Asian laundromat but are betrayed by an ambitious monk who desires the power conferred by the scroll - however, all parties are taken to Strucker's center of operation and tortured. The Nameless Monk and Kar seek the help of Jade, whom they learn is the daughter of a currently imprisoned Russian crime lord. Their meeting is interrupted by Nina, who has Jade and Kar beaten and the Nameless Monk captured. Later, Jade and Kar infiltrate Strucker's headquarters, where they are separated as Strucker prepares to scan the Nameless Monk's brain. Jade fights Nina and defeats her, and Kar finds the Nameless Monk. By now, Strucker has regained his youth by reading the text of the Scroll, but he is unable to obtain the content of the last line, which is written nowhere and present only in the Nameless Monk's memory. Strucker attempts to scan the Nameless Monk's brain, but is prevented by Kar himself. The fight ensues, which takes to the roof of the building. In the end, Strucker is thrown onto electric cables; however, Strucker is preserved from death by the power conferred to him by his use of the Scroll.
1056571	The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie () is a 1972 surrealist film directed by Luis Buñuel and written by Jean-Claude Carrière in collaboration with the director. The film was made in France and is mainly in French, with some dialogue in Spanish. The narrative concerns a group of upper-middle-class people attempting — despite continual interruptions — to dine together. The film received the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film and a nomination for Best Original Screenplay. Plot. The film consists of several thematically linked scenes: five gatherings of a group of bourgeois friends, and the four dreams of different characters. The beginning of the film focuses on the gatherings, while the latter part focuses on the dreams, but both types of scenes are intertwined. There are also scenes involving other characters, such as two involving a Latin American female terrorist from the fictitious Republic of Miranda. The film's world is not logical: the bizarre events are accepted by the characters, even if they are impossible or contradictory.
586062	Thanmathra ( , ) is a 2005 Malayalam drama film written and directed by Blessy, based on Padmarajan's short story "Orma", which portrays the effects of Alzheimer's disease on the life of an individual and his family. The film bagged five Kerala state film awards for the Best Film, Best Actor, Best Director, Best Screenplay and a special mention for the debutant actor Arjun Lal. Plot. Ramesan Nair (Mohanlal) is a Kerala government secretariat employee, cocooned in his own small and happy world. An honest and sincere man, Ramesan's family consists of his loving wife Lekha (Meera Vasudevan), son Manu (Arjun Lal) who is a plus-two student, and daughter Manju (Baby Niranjana), a primary school student. His biggest ambition is to see that his son gets into the IAS (Indian Administrative Service), something he himself had failed to achieve despite being a brilliant student. Manu is a very loving son and an intelligent student who shares a strong emotional bond with his father. All in all, they form the very picture of loving family, with a bright future. However, fate has other ideas. Ramesan starts to develop problems with his memory. What starts as commonplace omissions and absentmindedness, quickly grows into handicapping cognitive and behavioral impairments. The first time we notice this is when Ramesan misplaces a very important office file at his home, inside the refrigerator. One day he arrives in office after buying a bag of vegetables and starts behaving as if he had reached home after his office hours. He begins acting strangely in the office, as if he has lost his sense of time and place. He is taken to the doctor by his family and close friend, Joseph (Jagathy Sreekumar). In the hospital, Ramesan is diagnosed with Familial Alzheimer's disease, a disease which causes a gradual loss of memory and cognitive abilities. The news comes as a grave shock for the happy family and turns their world upside down. The family is devastated by the sad news, but tries to adjust to the situation with a lot of determination underscored by strong emotional bonds. How they cope up with the trauma, insecurity and uncertainty caused by Ramesan's plight, forms the gist of the movie. Performances. The movie illustrates one of the finest performances by Mohanlal. He won the Kerala State Film Award for Best Actor for his unparalleled depiction of a middle-aged man in the throes of a crippling disability. The movie was advertised as a return of the actor from a super-hero image which he had cultivated with a string of movies, back to that of an average man. The actor has taken full advantage of this opportunity to display a superb performance. He was also nominated for the National Film Award for Best Actor. Arjun Lal, who plays Mohanlal's son, gives a performance that won him a special mention from the state film awards jury. The performance of Nedumudi Venu, who plays the role of Mohanlal's father, is also excellent. Meera Vasudev, a newcomer to Malayalam movies, plays a great supporting role and does justice to her character. Jagathy Sreekumar is in his element as usual, and fits into the role of Joseph as if it were tailor-made for him. Upon the release the film received a cold starting at the box office.but in its 2nd week the film raised upon comparing to all other releases.The film well received by the critics and highly positive reviews praised the performance of mohanlal.In its 100 days run the film turned a Blockbuster of the year.And mohanlal led the year with three blockbusters at the box office. The bulk of the movie is carried on the shoulders of the three protagonists: the father (Mohanlal), the grandfather (Nedumudi Venu) and the son (Arjun Lal). Soundtrack. The music of this movie is composed by Mohan Sithara and the lyrics by Bharathiyar ("Kaatru Veliyidai") and Kaithapram. Song Mixing done by Renjith Viswanathan. Awards. National Film Awards Kerala State Film Awards Filmfare Awards South Asianet Film Awards Vanitha Film Awards Kerala Film Critics Awards Amrita Film Awards Mathrubhumi Film Awards Kerala Film Audience Council Awards J.C. Foundation Awards Kala Keralam Award National Film Academy Award
394203	Park Hae-il (born January 26, 1977) is a South Korean actor. He began his acting career in theater, but soon gained the film industry's attention in 2003 with "Jealousy is My Middle Name" and "Memories of Murder". Park's film career took off, with leading roles in films of diverse genres, including relationship drama "Rules of Dating" (2005), horror mystery "Paradise Murdered" (2007), and crime thriller "Moss" (2010). More recently, Park received Best Actor honors for his performance in the period action film "War of the Arrows", which was the highest-grossing Korean film of 2011. He also received critical acclaim for his role in "A Muse" (2012). Career. Park Hae-il began appearing in theatre productions ever since childhood, and he first established himself on stage rather than on the screen. In 2000 he was awarded the Best New Actor award in the theatre category of the Baeksang Arts Awards for his role in the play "Cheongchun-yechan" ("Ode to Youth"). His film debut was in a minor role of Im Soon-rye's "Waikiki Brothers", however he left a major impression in his second film "Jealousy Is My Middle Name", in which he played a conflicted young man who develops a fascination/hatred for his boss, who has stolen two women from him. The film won the top prize at the Busan International Film Festival in 2002, and was released commercially the following spring. Throughout his career Park has been cast in two different types of roles: innocent-looking, boyish characters, or else men who hide a dark streak under a nice-looking exterior. After "Jealousy", Park would take on his darkest role of all in the acclaimed smash hit "Memories of Murder", where he portrayed a man suspected of committing serial murder. Yet the following year he was just as effective appearing in a romantic role opposite Jeon Do-yeon in time-travel drama "My Mother, the Mermaid". In 2005 he once again played characters of completely opposite temperament. In "Rules of Dating" he plays a dirty-minded, scheming high school instructor who sets his mind on a pretty student teacher played by Kang Hye-jung, while in "The Boy Who Went to Heaven" he plays a young boy who suddenly finds himself an adult one day, ala Tom Hanks in "Big". 2006 saw him return to work with acclaimed director Bong Joon-ho in the big-budget monster movie "The Host" which went on to become the best-selling Korean film of all time. Murder mystery "Paradise Murdered" was a surprise hit in 2007, with Kyu Hyun Kim of "Koreanfilm.org" calling Park "an inspired choice for the ostensible protagonist, projecting fatigued compassion and cold calculation in equal measure, his obsidian pupils glistening with streaks of chilling obsession." In 2008 he starred in the period drama "Modern Boy", a dramatic love story set in 1930s Gyeongseong or old Seoul, when Korea was under Japanese colonization (1910–45). Park played the role of a rich, hedonistic playboy who cannot care less that his country was colonized, then falls head over heels in love with a beautiful and mysterious independence fighter (Kim Hye-soo). After small supporting roles in "Shim's Family" (also known as "Skeletons in the Closet"), and "Good Morning, President", Park joined the ensemble cast of "A Million" as one of eight participants who take part in a TV reality show in Perth, Australia but discover that they must literally survive to win the prize of 1 million dollars. In 2010 Park headlined Kang Woo-suk's blockbuster mystery thriller "Moss", playing a young man who comes to a rural village after hearing about his father's death and later becomes embroiled in its hidden secrets. Park's casting was received enthusiastically by fans of the source material, Yoon Tae-ho's hugely popular online graphic novel series. "Heartbeat" explores a familial love battle of wills, as Yeon-hee (played by Yunjin Kim of "Lost" fame) whose daughter is in desperate need of a heart transplant, tries to convince a brain-dead patient's son (Park) to sign off on the transplant, but he refuses and instead investigates his mother's fall. He then appeared in the low-budget indie "End of Animal", because he found the script "very interesting." Park next starred in "War of the Arrows", a fictional tale set in the Joseon Dynasty, which follows Nam-yi (Park) on his search for younger sister Ja-in after she is kidnapped by Qing Dynasty soldiers during an invasion. As he slays enemy soldiers with his bow and arrow, he is confronted by Jushinta, a Manchu enemy commander also well known for his archery prowess. "Arrow" made headlines by selling to distributors from six countries at the Cannes film market and becoming the highest-grossing Korean film of 2011. Park won Best Actor honors at the prestigious Grand Bell Awards and Blue Dragon Film Awards. He returned to the big screen in "A Muse", a film adaptation of celebrated author Park Bum-shin's sensational novel about an old poet who ends up falling for a 17-year-old girl named Eun-gyo. Upon realizing his love for the teenager, the poet goes through emotional turmoil and self-destruction, while willing to give up his fame as one of the nation's most respected literary figures. The 35-year-old actor took on the challenge of nearly eight hours of makeup daily, on top of learning the weary gait and gesture of a man in his 70s. After the Yim Pil-sung comedy "Weekend Prince" was delayed, Park starred instead in the ensemble comedy "Boomerang Family". Personal life. Park married his longtime girlfriend Seo Yoo-seon on March 11, 2006; they have a son. Seo is a playwright and has also written an episode of KBS Drama Special titled "Ji-hoon, Born in 1982".
1380119	Sean Leland Sebastian Gullette (born June 4, 1968) is an American writer, actor, and filmmaker. Personal life. Gullette was born in Boston, Massachusetts, the son of Margaret Leslie (née Morganroth), a cultural critic and writer, and David George Gullette, a professor of English. He attended public schools and Harvard, where he acted in theater and films and directed plays. Gullette lives in Tangier, Morocco, and in addition to his film work is the founder of the 212 Society, a US non-profit which supports cultural and educational projects in Morocco, including The Cinematheque de Tanger and Darna. The 212 Society takes its name from the 212 telephone codes of its home city and adoptive country. Gullette and photographer Yto Barrada have a daughter, Vega. Acting. His professional work in film began in 1998, when he co-wrote and played the lead role in the award-winning "Pi", directed by longtime collaborator Darren Aronofsky. He has since played principal and supporting roles in some twenty films including Brad Anderson's "Happy Accidents" (with Vincent D'Onofrio and Marisa Tomei) and Darren Aronofsky's "Requiem for a Dream" (with Jennifer Connelly), the German film "Toskana Karrussel" (with Susanna Lothar) and as a guest actor on network TV dramas. His occasional theater work has included the lead in the New York premiere of Susan Sandler's "If I Were a Train".
1030137	Louisa Moritz (born 25 March 1946) is a Cuban-born American actress. Early life. Louisa Moritz was born Louisa Castro in Havana, Cuba and left Cuba during the upheaval of the 1950s, hiding on a ship and eventually making her way to New York City. She chose the stage last name of Moritz after seeing the Hotel St. Moritz in New York City. Commercials. Louisa Moritz's first appearance on television was in a commercial for Ultra-Ban, a spray deodorant that included aluminium chlorohydrate ("Sprays are so modern you'd expect them to do everything!").
774298	The Peanut Butter Solution (French title: Opération beurre de pinottes) is a 1985 family film. The movie was directed by Michael Rubbo and is the 2nd in the "Tales for All (Contes Pour Tous)" series of children's movies created by Les Productions la Fête. Plot. Michael Baskin is an average 11-year old boy. His father, Billy Baskin, is a struggling artist and temporary sole caregiver of the children while his wife attends to the needs of her recently deceased father in Australia. Upon hearing the news that an abandoned mansion has recently burned down, Michael and his friend Connie decide to explore the remains. Outside the mansion, Connie dares Michael to take a look inside, leading to a frightening encounter with the ghosts of its homeless inhabitants who had died in the fire. Michael does not know this yet, but his fearsome run in with the ghosts has given him a mysterious illness simply known as "The Fright". Michael wakes up the next morning to find out that "The Fright" has made him lose all of his hair. After a failed attempt with a wig (his wig was pulled off by an older boy during a fight in a soccer game), the ghosts visit Michael in his sleep and give him the recipe of a magical formula for hair growth, the main ingredient of which is peanut butter. Michael's first attempt to make the formula is thwarted when his father and sister think he is making something unwanted and dispose of it. The ghosts return the following night, giving Michael a second chance to pay him back for giving his money to some homeless people, and also give Michael special instruction not to add too much peanut butter, as it will end in dreadful results. Michael successfully makes the formula this time, but ignores their instructions not to overdo the peanut butter, and wakes up the next morning to find that his new hair has already began to grow. After only a few minutes, Michael has grown a full head of hair. Suspicious of his fast growing follicles, Connie confronts Michael about his unusual ability. When Michael reveals to him his concoction, Connie decides to apply some to his pubic area, in an attempt to create the allusion that he's going through puberty. Connie soon discovers that the joke is on him. Pretty soon, Michael and Connie's hair grows to such lengths that it has become a nuisance for the school and their classmates, resulting in their suspensions. While Michael frantically searches for a solution, Connie discovers that the hair will stop growing by yelling at it. The art teacher at Michael's school, simply called the Signor, frightens children and forbids them from using their imagination. After getting fired from the school, the Signor finds out about Michael's condition and kidnaps him (and many other neighborhood children) to make magic paint brushes from Michael's ever-growing hair, in which he subdues Michael with a knockout drug. The kidnapped children are put to work under tough conditions. "We have to make 500 brushes a day, or we don't eat!" The paintbrushes are so powerful that they paint whatever their user imagines. Connie and Michael's sister, Susan, discover the Signor's magical paintbrush factory and try to rescue Michael. Connie tries to use force, but he is overpowered by Signor and his dog James. Instead, Connie tricks the Signor into painting a picture of the abandoned mansion. Connie then dares him to investigate inside, leading "The Fright" to be passed on from Michael to the Signor. Signor, now bald, escapes from the haunted house and chases the children, locking them up. Just as Connie is about to escape with Michael, Susan and their dad find the factory and the Signor is arrested by the local police. The film ends with the family reunited as the mother has returned home, and Michael's hair has stopped growing out of control.
1042701	Laurence Naismith (14 December 19085 June 1992) was an English actor. Life and career. Naismith was born on 14 December 1908 in Thames Ditton, Surrey. Naismith appeared in films such as "Carrington VC" (1954), "Richard III" (1955), "Sink the Bismarck!" (1960), "Jason and the Argonauts" (1963), and "Diamonds Are Forever" (1971). He also starred in a children's ghost film "The Amazing Mr Blunden" (1972). He was memorable as Captain Edward Smith of the RMS Titanic in "A Night to Remember" (1958) and in the ABC action drama, "The Fugitive", starring David Janssen. In 1965, Naismith played the title role of the Virginia statesman George Mason in the NBC documentary series, "Profiles in Courage". William Bakewell played George Wythe in the episode, and Arthur Franz was cast as James Madison. In 1965, Naismith guest-starred as barber Gilly Bright in episode 25, "The Threat" of the ABC military drama, "12 O-Clock High (TV series)". He was Judge Fulton in the television series "The Persuaders!" (1971), with Tony Curtis and Roger Moore. He portrayed Emperor of Austria Franz Joseph in the BBC production "Fall of Eagles" (1974). Naismith played the "Prince of Verona" in the BBC Television Shakespeare version of "Romeo and Juliet". He appeared on Broadway in the musical "Here's Love" in 1963 and played the non-singing role of Merlin in the 1967 film version of the musical "Camelot". Outside of acting, he was the landlord of the "Rowbarge" pub at Woolhampton, Berkshire and a keen cricket fan. In 1939 Naismith married Vera Bocca of Horden, County Durham. He died in Southport in Queensland, Australia, in 1992 at age eighty-three after a short illness. His ashes were scattered into the Pacific Ocean.
1058468	Movie 43 is a 2013 American sketch comedy anthology film co-directed and produced by Peter Farrelly, and written by Rocky Russo and Jeremy Sosenko among others. The film features sixteen different storylines, each one done by a different director, including Elizabeth Banks, Steven Brill, Steve Carr, Rusty Cundieff, James Duffy, Griffin Dunne, Patrik Forsberg, James Gunn, Bob Odenkirk, Brett Ratner, Will Graham, and Jonathan van Tulleken. It stars an ensemble cast that includes Halle Berry, Gerard Butler, Anna Faris, Hugh Jackman, Johnny Knoxville, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Seann William Scott, Emma Stone, Kristen Bell, and Kate Winslet among others. The film took almost a decade to get into production as most studios outright rejected the script, which was eventually picked up by Relativity Media for $6 million. The film was shot over a period of several years, as casting also proved to be a challenge for the producers. Some actors, including George Clooney, immediately declined to take part, while others, such as Richard Gere, attempted to get out of the project. Released on January 25, 2013, "Movie 43" has been widely panned by critics, with Richard Roeper calling it "the "Citizen Kane" of awful". Plot. "Movie 43" is a series of different skits containing different scenes and scenarios. The pitch. The film is composed of multiple comedy shorts presented through an overarching segment titled "The Pitch," in which Charlie Wessler (Dennis Quaid), a mad screenwriter, is attempting to pitch a script to film executive Griffin Schraeder (Greg Kinnear). After revealing several of the stories in his script, Wessler becomes agitated when Schraeder dismisses his outrageous ideas, and he pulls a gun on him and forces him to listen to multiple other stories before making Schraeder consult his manager, Bob Mone (Common), to purchase the film. When they do so, Mone's condescending, humiliating attitude toward Schraeder angers him to the point that, after agreeing to make the film "the biggest film since "Howard the Duck"", he confronts Mone in the parking lot with a gun and tries to make him perform fellatio to the security guard (Wessler got on the lot by doing the same thing) and kill him if he does not make the movie. Wessler tries to calm Schraeder down with more story ideas to no avail, but Mone pulls out a gun and shoots Schraeder to death. The segment ends with it being revealed that it is being shot by a camera crew as part of the movie, leading into the final segments. Alternative version (The Thread). The structure of the film released in some countries, like the United Kingdom and the Netherlands, differs. Instead of a pitch, the films are connected by a group of three teenagers searching for the most banned film in the world, "Movie 43", which will ultimately lead to the destruction of civilization. Calvin Cutler (Mark L. Young) and his friend J.J. (Adam Cagley) make a video in the style of MTV's "Jackass" and upload it on YouTube where it instantly reaches over 1,000,000 views. This turns out to be an April Fool's prank from Calvin's younger brother Baxter (Devin Eash) who cloned YouTube and hyper-inflated the views whilst working on his science project. Calvin and J.J. attempt to get revenge. They tell Baxter of a film that's so dangerous that it will cause the annihilation of the world. The movie is known as Movie 43. While J.J. and Baxter look for Movie 43 on Google, Calvin retrieves Baxter's laptop and loads it with viruses from porn sites, and masturbates to the naked women on the porn sites in a bathroom. Baxter finds over hundreds of results for Movie 43 on a website referred to by him as a dark corner of the Internet. They find the sketches starting from the 43rd search on the list of results. As he and J.J. keep watching videos, they are interrupted by a man known as Vrankovich (Fisher Stevens) and a group of Chinese mobsters who are tempted to find Movie 43, even going as far as to take J.J.'s classmate Stevie Schraeder (Nate Hartley), film executive Griffin Schraeder's oldest son, hostage. Vrankovich warns them that if they find Movie 43, civilization will be left to ruins. They ignore his claims and keep searching. They eventually find the real, the one, and the only, "Movie 43", which turns out to involve Baxter as a profane commando who leads a group of recruits to survive after the world has ended. As Calvin finishes ruining Baxter's laptop, his and Baxter's mother (Beth Littleford) enters, wearing the same shirt and shorts that the porn site women were, causing Calvin to flip out, have visions, and find semen from his erect crotch on his hand in shock and horror. Afterwards, a deadly earthquake rumbles and mankind is lost. However, a few years later, the only survivor: a crippled Calvin, finds Baxter's laptop, still working after getting viruses. He watches the last remaining skits on the laptop. This version of the film was released in the U.S. as part of the Blu-ray Disc of "Movie 43" as an unrated alternate cut of the film. Segments. The Catch. Beth (Kate Winslet) is a single businesswoman who goes on a blind date with Davis (Hugh Jackman), the city's most eligible bachelor. When the two arrive together at a restaurant, Beth is shocked when he removes his scarf, revealing a pair of testicles dangling from his neck. Over dinner it confuses her that Davis fails to acknowledge his anatomical abnormality, and that nobody seems to be surprised by it. When two friends of Davis come by, one of them convinces him to give Beth a kiss. Davis agrees, but when he kisses her, his neck-testicles are dangling near Beth's neck, causing her to scream and budge out of the kiss. Homeschooled. Having recently moved, Anna and Sean have coffee with their new neighbors. The neighbors, Robert (Liev Schreiber) and Samantha (Naomi Watts) have a teenage son, Kevin (Jeremy Allen White), whom they have home-schooled. Anna and Sean begin inquiring about the homeschooling, and the numerous manners in which Robert and Samantha have replicated a high school environment within their home, going as far as hazing, bullying, and giving out detentions, are humorously revealed. They also throw high school parties and Samantha simulates Kevin's "first kiss" with him. Visibly disturbed, the neighbors end up meeting Kevin, who says he is going out and gives them the impression that all is fine: until he reveals a doll made of a mop with Samantha's face on it, referring to the doll as his girlfriend. The Proposition. Julie (Anna Faris) and Doug (Chris Pratt) have been in a relationship for a year. When he attempts to propose to her, she reveals to him that she is a coprophiliac, and asks him to defecate on her in the bedroom. Urged by his best friend Larry (J.B. Smoove) and others to go along with it, he eats a large meal and drinks a bottle of laxative prior to the event. Wanting foreplay, Julie is angered when Doug wants to finish, and she runs into the street. Chasing after her, he is then hit by a car and graphically evacuates his bowels everywhere. She cradles him and apologizes; covered and surrounded by his excrement on the road, she exclaims that it is the "most beautiful thing" she has ever seen and accepts his marriage proposal. (In the end credits, Julie and Doug are mistakenly renamed Vanessa and Jason by Rocky Russo, Jeremy Sosenko, Steve Carr, Peter Farrelly, and Charles B. Wessler). Veronica. Neil (Kieran Culkin) is working a night shift at a local grocery store. His ex-girlfriend, Veronica (Emma Stone), comes through his line and the two begin arguing, which soon turns into sexual discussion and flirtation as they humorously lament over their relationship; unbeknownst to them, Neil's intercom microphone broadcasts the entire explicit conversation throughout the store, where various elderly people and vagrants tune in. After she leaves in tears, the customers agree to cover his shift while he goes after her. iBabe. A developing company is having a meeting in their headquarters over their newly released product, the "iBabe", which is a life-sized, realistic replica of a nude woman which functions as an MP3 player. The boss (Richard Gere), listens to his various workers (Kate Bosworth, Aasif Mandvi, and Jack McBrayer) argue over the placement of a fan that was built into the genital region of the iBabe, which is dismembering the penises of teenage boys who attempt to have sex with them. The board members then agree to strongly emphasise the dangers of the product via its new commercials. Superhero Speed Dating. Robin (Justin Long) and his cohort Batman (Jason Sudeikis) are in Gotham City at a speed dating establishment seeking out a bomb threat by their arch nemesis, Penguin (John Hodgman). While Robin attempts to connect with various women through speed dating—including Lois Lane (Uma Thurman) and Supergirl (Kristen Bell), the former date getting ruined by Batman calling Superman (Bobby Cannavale), who has been stalking Lois ever since they broke up and confronts Robin about it, not caring about the bomb—Batman encounters his ex, Wonder Woman (Leslie Bibb), and attempts to stop Penguin from detonating Supergirl, who later turns out to be the Riddler (Will Carlough) in disguise, which Batman already knew and was screwing with Robin, who kissed "her" moments before unveiling. (Early during production, this sketch was formerly titled "Robin's Big Speed Date".) Machine Kids. A faux-PSA about kids stuck in machines and how adults' criticism of these particular machines affect the feelings of the children stuck inside the machines. This commercial was paid for by the society for the prevention of cruelty to children inside machines. Middleschool Date. Nathan (Jimmy Bennett) and Amanda (Chloë Grace Moretz) are watching television after school at Nathan's house as their first "middle school" date. When they begin to kiss, his older brother Mikey (Christopher Mintz-Plasse) enters the living room and makes fun of them. Amanda then discovers she is menstruating and tries to hide it, and when Nathan sees blood on her pants, he panics and believes her to be bleeding to death, causing a debacle, which would later have Nathan and Amanda's fathers (Patrick Warburton and Matt Walsh) involved. Amanda calls out on their stupidity and feels embarrassed to know that she's getting her first period in front of them and they don't know what to do about it. When she leaves with her father, Nathan yells that the process of keeping the lining of her internal organs intact by inserting his erect phallus into her vagina is much too complicated and Mikey agrees. Their dad cheers them up by farting humorously in front of them. As Mikey goes to the bathroom to defecate, Nathan and their father watch a game on television. Tampax. Another faux-commercial; this time it now involves two women and Tampax as the two women are swimming in an ocean and a shark suddenly appears and graphically eats one of the women. The sketch ends with the tagline: "Tampax, Now leak-proof". Happy Birthday. Pete (Johnny Knoxville) captures a leprechaun (Gerard Butler) for his roommate Brian (Seann William Scott) as a birthday present. After tying the leprechaun up in the basement, they demand he give them a pot of gold. The obscene leprechaun threatens that his brother is coming to save him. When he arrives, Brian and Pete are shot at but ultimately kill both leprechauns. At the end of the segment, Pete reveals he has also caught a fairy (Esti Ginzburg) who performs fellatio for gold coins. Truth or Dare. Donald (Stephen Merchant) and Emily (Halle Berry) are on a date together at a Mexican restaurant. Tired with typical first dates, Emily challenges Donald to a game of truth or dare. She dares him to grab a man’s buttocks, and he follows with daring her to blow out the birthday candles on a blind boy’s cake. The game rapidly escalates to extremes, in which both of them get plastic surgery and tattoos, and humiliate themselves. When Donald and Emily arrive back at Emily's apartment, they praise their date. Donald tries to kiss her, but she rejects him, claiming she's not attracted to Asian men (which he was surgically altered to resemble). It is revealed that she was joking and invites him to have sex with her as she shows him her humorously enlarged breasts. Victory’s Glory. Set in 1959, Coach Jackson (Terrence Howard) is lecturing his basketball team before their first game against an all-white team. Worried about losing the game, the timid players are lectured by Coach Jackson about their superiority in the sport over their white counterparts, which he expresses vulgarly. When the game ensues, the all-white team loses miserably and rejoices in a single point they earn. Beezel. Played mid-credits, Amy (Elizabeth Banks) worries that her boyfriend Anson’s (Josh Duhamel) cat, Beezel (an animated cartoon), is coming between their relationship. Beezel seems to detest Amy and anyone who comes between him and Anson, but Anson only sees Beezel as innocent. One day, Amy witnesses Beezel masturbating to summer vacation photos of Anson in a swimsuit. Beezel attacks her and violently urinates on her. Anson still finds his pet innocent but Amy threatens to leave if he doesn't get rid of Beezel. Caring more about his relationship, Anson agrees to find a new home for him. That night, from a closet, Beezel tearfully watches the couple make love (whilst sodomizing himself with a hairbrush and dry humping a stuffed teddy bear). The next day when it comes time to take Beezel away, he is nowhere to be found. Amy goes outside to look. Beezel then runs her over with a truck and attempts to shoot her to death with a shotgun, but she chases him into the street and begins beating him with a shovel, which is witnessed by a group of children attending a birthday party at a neighboring house. When Anson approaches to see what is happening, Amy tries to explain Beezel’s motives. Beezel acts innocent and Anson sides with his cat. The children of the party then attack and murder Amy for beating up Beezel, stabbing her with plastic forks. Anson grabs Beezel, as Beezel again fantasizes about French kissing his owner. Find Our Daughter. Find Our Daughter is a deleted sketch that was included as a special feature on the Blu-ray Disc of Movie 43. A mother and a father (Julianne Moore and Tony Shalhoub) are looking for their breast flashing daughter with the help of the private eye who is behind the camera with only one clue which is a small video that features their daughter. Production. Development. Wessler first came up with the idea for an outrageous comedy made up of several short films in the early 2000s. "It's like Funny or Die, only if you could go crazy," judged Farrelly, "because with Funny or Die, there are certain limits. And we just wanted to do that kind of short and go much further than that." Charlie Wessler affirmed that he "wanted to make a "Kentucky Fried Movie" for the modern age". Wessler then recruited three pairs of directors—Trey Parker and Matt Stone, Peter and Bobby Farrelly, and David and Jerry Zucker—to sign on to write and direct one-third of the project each. He then began working out a deal with a studio for the project, but the project did not stick. "They ended up calling me about a month after we started negotiating the deal and said 'we can't do it' because they had political pressure to not make R-rated movies that were marketed to teenagers," claimed Wessler. He then went to multiple other studios, but, according to Wessler, "no one could understand what was trying to do". In 2009, Peter Farrelly and producer John Penotti took their pitch—along with about 60 scripts for the vignettes—to Relativity Media. At that meeting, Wessler, Penotti, and Farrelly presented one short that they already had shot, starring Kate Winslet as a woman going on a blind date with a seemingly successful and handsome Hugh Jackman. "They just looked at me and said, 'Go for it,'" Wessler told "The Hollywood Reporter". "It takes a lot of balls to make something that is not conventional." Relativity funded a mere $6 million for the film, but no other studio would sign on. "Other potential backers", Farrelly revealed, "didn't believe it could happen—a movie with Kate Winslet for $6 million?" The film officially began shooting in March 2010, but due to its large cast, producer/director Farrelly told "Entertainment Weekly" that "This movie was made over four years, and they just had to wait for a year or two years for different actors. They would shoot for a week, and shut down for several months. Same thing with the directors. It was the type of movie you could come back to." Shortly before principal photography, writers Parker, Stone, and David and Jerry Zucker backed out of the project. The film ended up with 13 directors and 19 writers tied to it, each one co-writing and directing different segments of the sixteen different storylines. Farrelly directed the parts of the movie with Halle Berry and Kate Winslet. Casting and filming. Wessler spent years recruiting actors for the film. Many turned down the project because they were asked to work for scale. "Most agents would avoid me because they knew what I wanted to do—what agent wants to book their big client in a no pay, $800-a-day, two-day shoot?" he said. "The truth is, I had a lot of friends who were in this movie. And if they didn't say yes, this movie wouldn't have gotten made." In the end, most of the actors were willing to take part because the film only required a few days of their time and often allowed them to play a character outside of their wheelhouse. Hugh Jackman was the first actor Wessler cast. He met the star at a wedding and then called him some time later and pitched him the short. Jackman read the script and agreed to be a part of the film. "He called me back I think 24 hours later and said, 'Yeah I wanna do this,' which I think is, quite frankly, incredibly ballsy. Because you could be made a fool of, or you could look silly, and there will be people who say, 'That's crazy; he should never have done it.'" After talking to the multiple agents of Kate Winslet, she eventually agreed to take part. The Winslet-Jackman sketch was shot shortly after, and became the reel to attract other A-list stars. John Hodgman, who plays opposite Justin Long in one sketch, signed on with no knowledge of the project. Long, Hodgman's co-star in the long-running series of Apple's commercials, asked him what the project was, and he then signed on, without still knowing too much. Hodgman said, "I got an e-mail from Justin that said, 'I'm going to be dressing up as Robin again. Do you want to dress up as the Penguin?' And I said yes. Without even realizing cameras would be involved, or that it would be a movie." Others were not so affable. In fact, some stars hedged: Richard Gere, a friend of Wessler's, said yes—but also said he would not be available for more than a year. So Wessler waited him out, convinced his sketch was good. Gere eventually called Wessler and told him he was free to shoot, on just a couple of conditions: They had to do it in four days, and they needed to relocate the shoot from Los Angeles to New York. "They clearly wanted out!" judged Farrelly. "But we wouldn't let them. The strategy was simple: 'Wait for them. Shoot when they want to shoot. Guilt them to death.' It didn't work on everyone." Colin Farrell initially agreed to be in the Butler leprechaun sketch—as Butler's brother, also a leprechaun—but then he backed out and Gerard Butler did the sketch by himself. Farrelly said that when he approached George Clooney about playing himself in a sketch (the gag was that Clooney is bad at picking up women), Clooney told him "No fucking way." There were to be two sketches written and directed by Bob Odenkirk; one that starred Anton Yelchin as a necrophiliac who worked at a morgue and had sex with the dead female bodies that was shown at a test screening of the film, and another starring Julianne Moore and Tony Shalhoub as a married couple being interviewed by a detective about their missing daughter. Both sketches were cut out of the final film. Producer John Penotti said that the sketches would be seen on the DVD and Blu-ray Disc releases of the film. Because the filmmakers worked around the stars' schedules, the filming of the whole movie took several years. While so many A-list actors were on board, most were not completely aware of what other sketches would be included in the film, which features 13 vignettes tied together by a story of a mad screenwriter (Dennis Quaid) pitching ideas to a movie producer (Greg Kinnear). Penotti said many of the actors did not ask many questions about what else was going on in the film. "They were attracted to their script, and as long as that tickled their funnybone, that was enough," he revealed. Promotion. The title of the film, "Movie 43"—first believed to be referencing the number of actors in the film—actually has no meaning. Farrelly heard his son talking with friends about a film called "Movie 43", but when Farrelly discovered the film did not actually exist, he cribbed the name. Relativity did little to promote the film and none of the cast members did any promotion of the film. The film was not screened for critics in advance. "The slapdash title, the lack of promotion and advance screenings, the release date—none of it bodes well," opined "Entertainment Weekly" senior editor Thom Geier. "January is usually where movies go to die," Geier argued. "And to go by the trailer—the only option—the content seems dated." A red-band trailer was released on October 3, 2012. Farrelly was optimistic: "Kids, teenagers, 50-somethings who still smoke pot—they're all going to find something here," he asserted. Advertising also took place on the adult website Pornhub. Reception. Critical response. "Movie 43" has been widely panned by critics. The film holds an average score of 19 out of 100 on Metacritic, signifying "overwhelming dislike", and a 4% rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 75 reviews with the consensus stating: "A star-studded turkey, "Movie 43" is loaded with gleefully offensive and often scatological gags, but it's largely bereft of laughs." Audiences surveyed by CinemaScore gave the film a D rating. Brian Gibson (Vue Weekly) describes Movie 43 as "An execrable waste cooked up by a hell's kitchen of directors and writers. It's death-of-laughter by committee. Its title? Because it's like one of those many asteroids out there—a dismal chunk of rock hurtling through an empty void, without purpose."
1502328	Millicent Mary Lillian Martin (born 8 June 1934) is an English actress, singer and comedian. She is best known as the resident singer of topical songs on the weekly BBC Television satire show "That Was The Week That Was" (1962–63). Life and career. Martin was born in Romford, Essex. She made her Broadway debut opposite Julie Andrews in "The Boy Friend" in 1954. Her additional New York theatre credits include "42nd Street", "Side by Side by Sondheim", and "King of Hearts" (she was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Musical for the latter two). Millicent Martin starred with Paul Scofield and James Kenney in Expresso Bongo at the Saville Theatre. During the early 1960s, Martin became known to British television audiences as the resident singer of topical songs on the original British version of the weekly satire show "That Was The Week That Was" (1962–63). One of the songs she sang on the show, the John F. Kennedy tribute "In the Summer of His Years", was released as a single and 'bubbled under' the Billboard Hot 100 chart at No 104 in 1963 (but was outcharted by a cover version by Connie Francis, which reached No 46). Martin had her own BBC television series between 1964 and 1966, titled "Mainly Millicent" for the first two series, and shortened to "Millicent" for the third and final series. In one episode, Martin and guest-star Roger Moore performed a comedy skit in which Moore played secret agent James Bond some years before he was cast in the role. In the mid 1960s she guested, alongside Pete Murray and Kenneth Williams, in an episode of "Juke Box Jury". She also appeared in the 1966 film "Alfie". In 1969, Sir Lew Grade wanted to make a comedy film series that would appeal to audiences on both sides of the Atlantic starring Martin. He sent six comedy sketches of Martin to producer Sheldon Leonard and he came up with the premise of "From a Bird's Eye View". The series was not a success and was cancelled after 16 episodes had been filmed. In London's West End, she starred opposite Jim Dale in "The Card" in 1975. In 1988 Martin joined the London production of the Sondheim musical "Follies" starring with Eartha Kitt. Martin appeared as Gladys Moon in 13 episodes of "Moon and Son", a 1992 BBC detective series created by Robert Banks Stewart, and co-starring John Michie. In 2005 she had a small part in the film, "Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont" which starred Joan Plowright. Her later television roles include Gertrude Moon, Daphne Moon's Mancunian mother, in the American sit-com "Frasier". She has worked for the Disney Channel, starring in the shows "The Suite Life of Zack & Cody", "JONAS", and in the movie "Return to Halloweentown". Other performances include guest roles in "The Drew Carey Show", "Will & Grace", and "Days of our Lives". She also had a small role on an episode of "Gilmore Girls". In 2008, she appeared at the Open Air Theatre, Regent's Park with Topol, Linda Thorson and Lisa O'Hare in the Lerner & Lowe musical, "Gigi". In 2011 she guest-starred opposite her former "Frasier" daughter, Jane Leeves, in the TV Land series "Hot in Cleveland". She has also had an appearance in the fourth season of "Chuck" as the mother of Hartley Winterbottom, who was given the first Intersect prototype and became Alexei Volkoff; she also guest-starred on an episode of the fourth season of "Castle" as a theatre critic who wrote a harsh review of a performance given by Castle's mother. Martin was married to the pop singer Ronnie Carroll from 1958 until 1965, and subsequently to the actor Norman Eshley, but both marriages ended in divorce. She has been married to an American, Marc Alexander, since 1978, and is now a permanent resident of the United States.
1065637	Sondra Locke (born May 28, 1944 "or" 1947) is an American actress, singer and film director. She was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress in 1968 for her performance in "The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter". She went on to appear in such films as "Willard" in 1971, and six films with then-partner Clint Eastwood between 1976 and 1983: "The Outlaw Josey Wales", "The Gauntlet", "Every Which Way But Loose", "Bronco Billy", "Any Which Way You Can", and "Sudden Impact". Early life. There is some dispute regarding Locke's age; most printed publications list her year of birth as 1947, but her marriage license (available publicly through the Tennessee state archives or at ancestry.comlists her year of birth as 1944. Locke was born in Shelbyville, Tennessee, the daughter of Raymond Smith, a military man, and Pauline Bayne Locke, a pencil factory worker. Her parents separated before she was born, and her mother married construction company owner Alfred Taylor Locke, whose name she took. From that marriage, Locke has a maternal half-brother, Don (born 1946). Locke was a cheerleader and class valedictorian in junior high. She graduated from Shelbyville Senior High School in 1962. She then attended Middle Tennessee State University for two semesters. The 1963 Midlander yearbook has a photo of her appearing in an MTSU theater production of Arthur Miller's play, "The Crucible". Career. In 1967, Locke won a nationwide talent search for the role of Mick Kelly in "The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter" opposite Alan Arkin. The film was released in 1968, and Locke's performance garnered her the Academy Award nomination, as well as two Golden Globe Award nominations for Best Supporting Actress Motion Picture and Most Promising Newcomer – Female. Locke's next role was as Melisse in 1969's "Cover Me Babe" (aka "Run, Shadow, Run", the title it was released under in 1970) opposite Robert Forster. In 1971, she starred in the cult film "Willard" with Bruce Davison and Ernest Borgnine. Locke appeared in several television drama series throughout the first half of the 1970s, including "The F.B.I.", "Cannon", "Barnaby Jones" and "Kung Fu". In the 1972 "Night Gallery" episode "A Feast of Blood", she played the victim of a curse planted by Norman Lloyd; the recipient of a brooch that devoured her. Locke also played the title role in the experimental film "The Second Coming of Suzanne" (1974). In 1976, Locke played the supporting role of Laura Lee, a pioneer who falls in love with the eponymous character (Clint Eastwood) in the revisionist western "The Outlaw Josey Wales". This was followed by a lead role alongside Eastwood in the hit action film "The Gauntlet" (1977). In 1978, the couple co-starred with an orangutan named Clyde in that year's second highest-grossing film, "Every Which Way But Loose". The 1980 sequel, "Any Which Way You Can", was equally successful. For her role as country singer Lynn Halsey-Taylor, Locke did her own singing in both films. Locke played a bitter heiress who joins a traveling Wild West show in "Bronco Billy" (1980), her only film with Eastwood not to become a major box office success. Their final collaboration was "Sudden Impact" (1983), the highest-grossing film in the "Dirty Harry" franchise, in which she played a vengeful artist who murders the men who gang-raped her sister and her a decade prior. In 1986, Locke made her directorial debut with the feature film "Ratboy", a fable about a boy who is half-rat. Her second directorial effort was the critically acclaimed thriller "Impulse" (1990), starring Theresa Russell as a police officer who goes undercover as a prostitute. Later, she directed the made-for-television film "Death in Small Doses" (1995), based on a true story, and the independent film "Do Me A Favor" (1997). After thirteen years away from acting, Locke returned to the screen in 1999 with supporting roles in the straight-to-cable films "The Prophet's Game" (opposite Dennis Hopper) and "Clean and Narrow". Locke has not worked in the film industry since then. Personal life. Marriage. Locke married sculptor Gordon Anderson on September 25, 1967. Locke has stated in court papers that the marriage was never consummated. As of 1997, when Locke's autobiography was published, she and Anderson were still legally married. Domestic partnership. Locke had a fourteen-year relationship with actor Clint Eastwood, cohabiting from 1975 to 1989. In the late 1970s, Locke underwent two abortions and a tubal ligation. According to Locke's autobiography, she decided to have the procedures because Eastwood insisted parenthood would not fit the couple's lifestyle. She later discovered Eastwood secretly fathered two children with another woman during the last three years of their relationship. Lawsuits. In 1989, Locke filed a palimony suit against Eastwood, after he changed the locks on their Bel-Air home and placed her possessions in storage while she was directing the film "Impulse". The two parties reached a settlement in 1990, when Eastwood set up a film development/directing pact for Locke at Warner Bros. in exchange for dropping the suit. In 1995, Locke sued Eastwood for fraud, alleging that he had compensated Warner Bros. to keep her out of work–the studio had rejected all of the 30 or more projects she proposed, and never assigned her to direct any of their in-house projects. According to Locke's attorney, Eastwood committed "the ultimate betrayal" by arranging the "bogus" film directing deal. In 1996, just minutes before a jury was to render a verdict in Locke's favor, Eastwood agreed to settle for an undisclosed amount. The outcome of the case, Locke said, sent a "loud and clear" message to Hollywood "that people cannot get away with whatever they want to just because they're powerful." The case is used in some modern law school contracts textbooks to illustrate the legal concept of good faith. At the time of the victory, Locke had a separate pending action against Warner Bros. for allegedly harming her career by agreeing to the sham movie-directing deal that Eastwood had purportedly engineered. As had been the case with the previous lawsuit, this ended in an out-of-court settlement, in 1999. Later years. In 1990, Locke underwent a double mastectomy and chemotherapy due to breast cancer. She had a long-term relationship with one of the surgeons who treated her. In 1997, she published an autobiography, "The Good, the Bad, and the Very Ugly A Hollywood Journey". In 2001, Locke purchased a large, six-bedroom home in the Hollywood Hills, a neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, in the southeastern Santa Monica Mountains.
587734	Baladur (), is a 2008 Telugu movie directed by Uday Shankar. Ravi Teja plays the lead role while Krishna, Anushka shetty, Chandra Mohan, Pradeep Rawat, Sunil and Suman Setty play supporting roles. K. M. Radha Krishnan was the music director, B. Balamurugan handled cinematography and the movie was edited by Marthand K. Venkatesh. The film released on 15 August 2008. The film is dubbed in Hindi as "Dhamkee". The film is remade into Oriya as "Mu Kana Ete Kharap" with Anubhav Mohanty. Plot. Chanti (Ravi Teja) respects his uncle Rama Krishna (Ghattamaneni Sivarama Krishna) more than his father Purshrotam (Chandra Mohan). Rama Krishna has enmity with Umapathi (Pradeep Rawat) because of something that happened 20 years ago. Later, Chanti is kicked out of their house because of some misunderstandings and now Umapathi is ready to put Rama Krishna down. How Chanti secretly helps Rama Krishna in bringing the enemy down and reunites with his family forms the rest of the story. Soundtrack. Music of Baladur was released on July 30, 2008 at Serengeti, the Ohri’s, Hyderabad. Music composed by K. M. Radha Krishnan, the film has lyrics by Chandrabose, Peddada Murthy and Anantha Sreeram. Aditya Music is marketing the album. Venkatesh released both the audio CD and cassette, presenting it to Anushka Shetty and Ravi Teja respectively. Box office. The film was declared a disaster due to bad direction and screenplay. Music and production values were also criticised.
1059287	Lions for Lambs is a 2007 American drama film about the connection between a platoon of United States soldiers in Afghanistan, a U.S. senator, a reporter, and a California college professor. It stars Tom Cruise, Robert Redford and Meryl Streep. It was the first Cruise/Wagner Productions film since the company joined with United Artists subsequent to Cruise's falling out with Paramount Pictures in 2006. With a title that alludes to incompetent leaders sending brave soldiers into the slaughter of battle, the film takes aim at the U.S. government's prosecution of the wars in the Middle East, showing three different simultaneous stories: a senator who launches a new military strategy and details it to a journalist on the edge of a mental breakdown, two soldiers involved in said operation, and their college professor trying to re-engage a promising student by telling him their story. The film was written by Matthew Michael Carnahan, and directed by Redford. It was released in North America on Friday, November 9, 2007, to negative reviews and disappointing box office receipts. Plot. Two determined students at a West Coast university, Arian (Derek Luke) and Ernest (Michael Peña), at the urging of their idealistic professor, Dr. Malley (Redford), attempt to do something important with their lives. They make the bold decision to commission in the army to fight in Afghanistan after graduating from college. Dr. Malley also attempts to reach talented and privileged, but disaffected, student Todd Hayes (Andrew Garfield) who is not at all like Arian and Ernest. He is naturally bright, comes from a privileged background, but has apparently slipped into apathy upon being disillusioned at the present state of affairs. Now, he devotes most of his time to extra-curricular activities like his role as president of his fraternity. Malley tests him by offering a choice between a respectable grade of 'B' in the class with no additional work required or a final opportunity to re-engage with the material of the class and "do something." Before Todd makes his choice, he must listen to Dr. Malley's story of his former students Arian and Ernest and why they are in Afghanistan.
1103586	In the mathematical subfield of numerical analysis, numerical stability is a desirable property of numerical algorithms. The precise definition of stability depends on the context, but it is derived from the accuracy of the algorithm. An opposite phenomenon is instability. Typically, algorithms would approach the right solution in the limit, if there were no round-off or truncation errors, but depending on the specific computational method, errors can be magnified, instead of damped, causing the error to grow exponentially.
583706	En Swasa Kaatre () is a 1999 Tamil romantic film written and directed by K. S. Ravi. The film stars Arvind Swamy and Isha Koppikar in the lead roles, while Raghuvaran, Prakash Raj and Thalaivasal Vijay play supporting roles. The film was produced by newcomers R. M. Sait and Ansar Ali, friends of the film's music director A.R.Rahman. The film opened in February 1999 to average reviews and collections. Plot. A seemingly down to earth guy Arun (Arvind Swamy) by day leads a life of a computer hacker and thief by night. When he meets a girl (Isha Koppikar) whom he fancies, he wishes to turn into a new leaf. But Arun's rogue brother who has been blackmailing him since young to do his dirty deeds does not think likewise. A deep love hate relationship between them which unfolded during their childhood days traps Arun into a life of crime. How Arun chooses between his family and his love forms the crux of the story. Production. In end-1996, music director Rahman went on a signing spree in Tamil films and signed on to work in his friends R. M. Sait and Anwar Ali's "Love Letter", with speculation suggesting that Rahman was producing this film along with his friends. Rahman suggested to his friends to instate K. S. Ravi as director, having previously worked with him in "Mr. Romeo" (1996). The project went through production troubles, with three of Arvind Swamy's projects at the time - "Engineer", "Mudhal Mudhalaaga" and "Sasanam" - also in a similar situation. The film was soon retitled "En Swasa Kaatre" and was rumoured to be partially based on the "Mission Impossible" films. Isha Koppikar was meant to mark her debut with the film but the delays prompted her other films to release before "En Swasa Kaatre". The film was also delayed due to a dispute between Arvind Swamy and Nikaba Films, the producers. Nikaba had omitted to pay Arvind Swamy's wage for acting in the film and the actor promptly got a stay order on the release of the producer's next film "Ooty". Release. The film received mixed reviews with The Deccan Herald cited that "the story of En Swasa Katre, is one with much potential, largely unexplored by an inadequate plot and screenplay, which, along with the dialogues, and direction, are by K S Ravi", with the critic adding that "Arvind Swamy is not bad, as for as an Arvind Swamy can be so. And the same goes for Prakash Raj. Worth taking a look at." Moreover, Indolnik.com claimed that "the dialogues and situations are unbelievably ill-conceived, but played straight by everyone around, which makes it unintentionally funny! Arvind Swamy looks bored half way through the movie. Prakash Raj hams his way through another over the top performance." The New Indian Express describes that "En Swasa Kaatre may not be a must-see but it is certainly a can-see." The film did average commercial business and was later dubbed and released into Telugu as "Premante Pranamistha". Despite the relative high-profile nature of the film, the director K. S. Ravi disappeared from the film industry after the film's release and did not make any other films until his death in 2010. The film became Arvind Swamy's final Tamil film in a leading role before his retirement, with the much-delayed "Sasanam" releasing in 2006. Soundtrack. The highly acclaimed soundtrack features 6 songs composed by A. R. Rahman, with lyrics by Vairamuthu and Vaali. The soundtrack was well received by music fans and critics upon its initial release. Parts of the song "En Swasa Katre" are syncopated as in Carnatik music compositions . In the Theendai song. Rahman had used a similar religious chant which had carnatic delusions like the ones in Enigma (Germany) which had gregorian chants. The song "Jumbalakka" was reused in "Thakshak", with male vocalist replaced by Shankar Mahadevan. "Kadhal Niagra" was reused with change in instrumentation and vocals and with a considerable extend in length as "Ke Sera Sera" in "Pukar". An instrumental theme song was featured in the movie but not released in the cassettes.
393826	Crazy Waiting (), also known as The Longest 24 Months or Going Crazy Waiting, is a 2008 South Korean film written and directed by Ryu Seung-jin. Plot. In South Korea, all men in their early twenties have to serve two years of mandatory military service, and many young couples find themselves asking, "Do we stay together…or break up?" If they stay together, will their love survive the two-year separation? The movies looks at four couples as they explore these questions and "go crazy while waiting" to be reunited with their lovers.
629271	Colin Friels (born 25 September 1952) is a Scottish-born Australian actor. Background and training. Friels was born in Kilwinning, Ayrshire, Scotland. His mother was a mill worker and his father a joiner. He lived in Kilbirnie until 1963, when his family moved to Australia, arriving in Darwin, Northern Territory before settling in the Melbourne suburb of Brighton. He worked as a bricklayer's labourer before studying at the prestigious National Institute of Dramatic Art (NIDA), and graduated from there in 1976, with actors such as Linden Wilkinson and Michael Siberry. Acting career. Friels career began with work mostly in theatre and television. In 1980 Friels was a presenter on the long-running children's series "Play School". His first film role was in the unreleased "Prisoners" (1981), starring with Tatum O'Neal. The film was allegedly so bad that Tatum's father Ryan O'Neal purchased the rights to the film to prevent it from ever screening. His first actual appearance in film was in "Monkey Grip" (1982), an adaptation of a novel by Helen Garner, where he starred alongside Noni Hazlehurst. In 1986, he played the title role in "Malcolm", about a shy mechanical genius, for which he was awarded the 1986 AFI Award for Best Actor. Friels was also nominated for the Best Actor award the following year, for his role in "Ground Zero", but did not win: the film received mixed reviews, with one describing him as ""a proficient enough actor, but...miscast"". Friels later won another AFI Award in 1995 for his starring role in the 1994 "Halifax f.p." telemovie "Hard Corps". Friels has played a wide range of other roles. He was a megalomaniac corporate executive in the 1990 feature film "Darkman". From 1996 to 1999, he played Frank Holloway on "Water Rats", a role which won him the Logie Award for Most Outstanding Actor at the 1997 awards. In his acceptance speech he said, "I'm very flattered for this and it's all rather silly, isn't it? So, thank you very much." Since 2003, Friels has appeared as the main character in the BlackJack series of telemovies. Personal life and views. In late 1997, Friels was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. However, his treatment was successful, and he is one of the very few victims of this disease to go into long-term remission. During his treatment he even continued to work on the set of "Water Rats", until eventually the impact of the chemotherapy stopped him working, and he chose to have his character written out of the series by sending him on a sailing journey around the world. At this time, however, he also continued his stage work, and was performing in Sydney Theatre Company's "Macbeth". Friels has been married to actress Judy Davis since 1984, and they have two children, Jack and Charlotte. They were briefly separated, but later reconciled. The relationship was briefly in the media when an argument led to a court order against Friels – however, they remained together at that time. Friels believes that social and political awareness comes with the territory of acting, and is known for his engagement in policy debates, including industrial issues such as workplace relations and free trade. He publicly criticised Bush administration policy in the Middle East, and supported the Sydney Peace Foundation. His engagement with social issues has also been evident in his acting work, with two prominent examples being his lead role in "Ground Zero", in which he played a cameraman investigating British nuclear testing in South Australia, and his appearance in the ABC television drama "Bastard Boys", in which he played union official John Coombs.
1102710	Serge Lang (; May 19, 1927 – September 12, 2005) was a French-born American mathematician. He is known for his work in number theory and for his mathematics textbooks, including the influential "Algebra". He was a member of the Bourbaki group. Lang was born in Paris in 1927, and moved with his family to California as a teenager, where he graduated in 1943 from Beverly Hills High School. He subsequently graduated from the California Institute of Technology in 1946, and received a doctorate from Princeton University in 1951. He held faculty positions at the University of Chicago and Columbia University (from 1955, leaving in 1971 in a dispute). At the time of his death he was professor emeritus of mathematics at Yale University. Mathematical work. Lang studied under Emil Artin at Princeton University, writing his thesis on quasi-algebraic closure. Lang then worked on the geometric analogues of class field theory and diophantine geometry. Later he moved into diophantine approximation and transcendence theory, proving the Schneider–Lang theorem. A break in research while he was involved in trying to meet 1960s student activism halfway caused him (by his own description) difficulties in picking up the threads afterwards. He wrote on modular forms and modular units, the idea of a 'distribution' on a profinite group, and value distribution theory. He made a number of conjectures in diophantine geometry: Mordell–Lang conjecture, Bombieri–Lang conjecture, Lang's integral point conjecture, Lang–Trotter conjecture, Lang conjecture on Gamma values, Lang conjecture on analytically hyperbolic varieties. He introduced the Lang map and the Lang–Steinberg theorem in algebraic groups. He introduced the Katz–Lang finiteness theorem. Books. He was a prolific writer of mathematical texts, often completing one on his summer vacation. Most are at the graduate level. He wrote calculus texts and also prepared a book on group cohomology for Bourbaki. Lang's "Algebra", a graduate-level introduction to abstract algebra, was a highly influential text that ran through numerous updated editions. His Steele prize citation stated, "Lang's "Algebra" changed the way graduate algebra is taught...It has affected all subsequent graduate-level algebra books." It contained ideas of his teacher, Artin; some of the most interesting passages in "Algebraic Number Theory" also reflect Artin's influence and ideas that might otherwise not have been published in that or any form. Awards as expositor. Lang was noted for his eagerness for contact with students. Many of his students at Yale considered him to be one of the greatest teachers of mathematics in the world. He won a Leroy P. Steele Prize for Mathematical Exposition (1999) from the American Mathematical Society. In 1960, he won the sixth Frank Nelson Cole Prize in Algebra for his paper "Unramified class field theory over function fields in several variables" (Annals of Mathematics, Series 2, volume 64 (1956), pp. 285–325). Activism. In addition to being a mathematician, Lang spent much of his time engaged in politics. He was active in opposition to the Vietnam War, volunteering for the 1966 anti-war campaign of Robert Scheer (the subject of his book "The Scheer Campaign"). Lang later quit his position at Columbia in 1971 in protest over the university's treatment of anti-war protesters. Lang engaged in several efforts to challenge anyone he believed was spreading misinformation or misusing science or mathematics to further their own goals. He attacked the 1977 Survey of the American Professoriate, an opinion questionnaire that Seymour Martin Lipset and E. C. Ladd had sent to thousands of college professors in the United States, accusing it of containing numerous biased and loaded questions. This led to a public and highly acrimonious conflict. In 1986, Lang mounted what the "New York Times" described as a "one-man challenge" against the nomination of political scientist Samuel P. Huntington to the National Academy of Sciences. Lang described Huntington's research, in particular his use of mathematical equations to demonstrate that South Africa was a “satisfied society”, as "pseudoscience", arguing that it gave "the illusion of science without any of its substance." Despite support for Huntington from the Academy's social and behavioral scientists, Lang's challenge was successful, and Huntington was twice rejected for Academy membership. Huntington's supporters argued that Lang's opposition was political rather than scientific in nature. Lang kept his political correspondence and related documentation in extensive "files". He would send letters or publish articles, wait for responses, engage the writers in further correspondence, collect all these writings together and point out what he considered contradictions. He often mailed these files to people he considered important; some of them were also published in his books "Challenges" (ISBN 0-387-94861-9) and "The File" (ISBN 0-387-90607-X). His extensive file criticizing Nobel laureate David Baltimore was published in the journal "Ethics and Behaviour" in January 1993. Lang fought the decision by Yale University to hire Daniel Kevles, a historian of science, because Lang disagreed with Kevles' analysis in "The Baltimore Case". Lang's most controversial political stance was as an AIDS denialist; he maintained that the prevailing scientific consensus that HIV causes AIDS has not been backed up by reliable scientific research, yet for political/commercial reasons further research questioning the current point of view is suppressed. In public he was very outspoken about this point and a portion of "Challenges" is devoted to this issue.
1176820	Arthur Ira "Art" Garfunkel (born November 5, 1941) is a Grammy-award winning American singer, poet, and Golden Globe-nominated actor best known for being one half of the folk duo Simon & Garfunkel. Highlights of his solo music career include a top 10 hit, three top 20 hits, six top 40 hits, 14 Adult Contemporary top 30 singles, five Adult Contemporary number ones, two UK number ones and a People's Choice Award. Through his solo and collaborative work, Garfunkel has earned six Grammys, including the Lifetime Achievement Award. In 1990, he and former musical partner Paul Simon were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Early life and career. Garfunkel was born in Forest Hills, Queens, New York City, the son of housewife Rose (September 12, 1911 - June 17, 2005) and traveling salesman Jacob "Jack" Garfunkel,(born July 9, 1908, died August 1986) on November 5, 1941. Art has two brothers; the older one named Jules and the younger one named Jerome.
589976	Mehboob Ki Mehndi is a 1971 Hindi movie produced and directed by H S Rawail. The film stars Rajesh Khanna, Leena Chandavarkar, Pradeep Kumar and Iftekhar. The music is by Laxmikant Pyarelal with lyrics by Anand Bakshi. Plot. The young and handsome Yusuf (Rajesh Khanna) is the son of a wealthy businessman named Nawab Safdarjung (Iftekhar) who is physically handicapped and uses a wheelchair. Yusuf’s nephew's tutor leaves his job. Yusuf arranges a new tutor, Shabana (Leena Chandavarkar), for his nephew. Shabana comes to live with them along with her grandmother. He also appoints Khairuddin (Pradeep Kumar) to take care of his father. However, Khairuddin has arrived only with the intention of killing Nawab Safdarjung. Shabana and Yusuf develop feelings for each other and soon fall in love. Nawab Safdarjung and Shabana's grandmother are happy with Yusuf and Shabana' relationship and they start arranging for their marriage. Just before their wedding, it is revealed that Shabana is the daughter of a courtesan named Najma.
1103124	Dennis Parnell Sullivan (born February 12, 1941) is an American mathematician. He is known for work in topology, both algebraic and geometric, and on dynamical systems. He holds the Albert Einstein Chair at the City University of New York Graduate Center, and is a professor at Stony Brook University. Work in topology. He received his B.A. in 1963 from Rice University and his doctorate in 1966 from Princeton University. His Ph.D. thesis, entitled "Triangulating homotopy equivalences", was written under the supervision of William Browder, and was a major contribution to surgery theory. He was a permanent member of the Institut des Hautes Études Scientifiques from 1974 to 1997. Sullivan is one of the founders of the surgery method of classifying high-dimensional manifolds, along with Browder, Sergei Novikov and C. T. C. Wall. In homotopy theory, Sullivan put forward the radical concept that spaces could directly be "localised", a procedure hitherto applied to the algebraic constructs made from them. He founded (along with Daniel Quillen) rational homotopy theory. The Sullivan conjecture, proved in its original form by Haynes Miller, states that the classifying space "BG" of a finite group "G" is sufficiently different from any finite CW complex "X", that it maps to such an "X" only 'with difficulty'; in a more formal statement, the space of all mappings "BG" to "X", as pointed spaces and given the compact-open topology, is weakly contractible. This area has generated considerable further research. (Both these matters are discussed in his 1970 MIT notes.) Work in dynamics. In 1985, he proved the No wandering domain theorem. The Parry-Sullivan invariant is named after him and the English mathematician Bill Parry. In 1987, he proved Thurston's conjecture about the approximation of the Riemann map by circle packings together with Burton Rodin. Awards and honors. Awards include the 1971 Oswald Veblen Prize in Geometry, the 1981 Prix Élie Cartan of the French Academy of Sciences, the King Faisal International Prize for Science in 1994, the 2004 National Medal of Science, the 2006 AMS Steele Prize for Lifetime Achievement and the Wolf Prize in Mathematics in 2010 for "his contributions to algebraic topology and conformal dynamics". In 2012 he became a fellow of the American Mathematical Society.
1067059	Bokeem Woodbine (born April 13, 1973) is an American film and television actor. Personal life. Woodbine was born in Harlem, New York to an actress mother. He attended the prestigious Dalton School in New York before transferring to the also prestigious Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School in the city. He was an Instrumental Music Major, and the lead singer for the band, Mazard. Bokeem, nicknamed "Bo," is also a talented rock musician who both composes songs and plays the guitar for his band, 13 Purple Dragons. A formidable martial artist, he keeps his physique up practicing Shaolin Kung Fu under Shifu Shi Yan Ming, who is a 34th generation Shaolin Temple Warrior Monk. He has a wife named Mahiely Woodbine. Career. Movies/television. With the encouragement of his actress mother, Woodbine entered show biz at age 19 as a stand-in and extra in Ernest R. Dickerson's directorial debut, the hip-hop classic "Juice" (1992), starring Tupac Shakur and Omar Epps. In the following year, he made his TV acting debut in the "CBS Schoolbreak Special" entitled "Love Off Limits". His appearance was noticed by casting director Jaki Brown-Karman who later recommended him to Forest Whitaker for the latter's directorial effort, "Strapped" (HBO; 1993), in which he co-starred with Michael Biehn. After playing a small part in Spike Lee's semi-biographical film "Crooklyn" (1994; with Alfre Woodard, Delroy Lindo, David Patrick Kelly and Zelda Harris), Woodbine landed a featured role in Doug McHenry's romantic drama film "Jason's Lyric" (1994), as the title role's (played by Allen Payne) bad brother Joshua, who obviously bound for a violent end, dealing drugs for short-term cash and joining a gang plotting a bank robbery. In the following year, he secured breakthrough screen roles in writer/director Mario Van Peebles' semi-historic film about the origins of The Black Panther Party of Self-Defense, "Panther", portraying a Panther member named Tyrone, and in the Hughes Brothers' fact-based action/thriller film "Dead Presidents", as Cleon, a religious yet deadly staff sergeant. Woodbine subsequently co-starred with Reese Witherspoon, Kiefer Sutherland and Brooke Shields in writer/director Matthew Bright's dark comedy/thriller film "Freeway" (1996), a modern riff on the Little Red Riding Hood story, and was cast alongside Sean Connery, Nicolas Cage and Ed Harris for Michael Bay's blockbuster action movie "The Rock" (1996), as Sergeant Crisp. That same year, he also appeared in the music video for 2Pac (Tupac Shakur), "I Ain't Mad Atcha". In 1997, Woodbine had an uncredited role as Mud in Vondie Curtis-Hall's directorial debut, "Gridlock'd", an intelligent dark comedy starring Tupac Shakur, Tim Roth and Thandie Newton, and was spotted as a guest in an episode of Fox cop drama series "New York Undercover". Afterwards, he was paired with Cynda Williams, playing her ex-con new boyfriend Daryl, in writer/director Darin Scott's crime/drama film "Caught Up", played an assassin team member for a mob boss in Kirk Wong's comedy-action movie "The Big Hit", starring Mark Wahlberg and Lou Diamond Phillips, and co-starred with Chris Farley and Matthew Perry in Christopher Guest's comedy film "Almost Heroes" (all three in 1998). He also collaborated with John Goodman, Courteney Cox Arquette, Ron Eldard and Joe Mantegna in Ron Moler's drama/thriller "The Runner" and portrayed a deaf mute named Can't Get Right in Ted Demme's comedy drama starring Eddie Murphy and Martin Lawrence, "Life" (both in 1999). Entering the new millennium, Woodbine was featured as a regular on the NBC midseason sitcom "Battery Park" and played Dr. Damon Bradley, who later turned out to be a serial rapist, in the CBS short-lived medical drama "City of Angels", the latter of which earned him an Image Award nomination for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series. He also guest starred in an episode of Showtime popular drama series "Soul Food", starred as FBI Agent Gottfried in the TV movie based on Mitchell Smith's novel, "Sacrifice", and teamed with Justin Pierce playing two desperate con-men trying to blackmail a psychotic doctor who may just be a serial killer in the Baluzy Brothers' thriller film "BlackMale". Additionally, he appeared in Wu Tang Clan's music videos for their songs "The Jump-Off", "Gravel Pit", and "Careful". 2001 saw Woodbine teaming up with Christian Slater and David Arquette to plan a daring raid on the Riviera Hotel Casino in Las Vegas during International Elvis Week in the thriller feature "3000 Miles to Graceland", and played an FBI agent who teams with a "good" vampire cop (played by Adrian Paul) in "The Breed", which aired on Starz! in lieu of a theatrical release. He also lent his voice alongside Kevin Costner and Christian Slater in the short animated film "Road to Graceland". After reteaming with Christian Slater in the action/adventure film "Hard Cash" (2002; aka "Run for the Money") and co-starring with Elizabeth Berkley and Randall Batinkoff in Jonathan Winfrey's action/drama thriller film "Detonator" (2003), Woodbine went to portray prolific saxophonist David "Fathead" Newman in the Oscar-winning biopic about legendary rhythm and blues musician Ray Charles, "Ray" (2004; starring Jamie Foxx), directed by Taylor Hackford. Meanwhile, he starred in the made-for-TV movies "Sniper 2" (2002), "Jasper, Texas" (2003), and "Why Blitt?" (2004), as well as guest starred in an episode of Fox action series "Fastlane" and CBS cop/crime drama "CSI: Miami". In the next years, Woodbine played a cop in the drama/thriller "The Circle" (2005), played a prisoner in Stuart Gordon's film adaptation of David Mamet's play, "Edmond" (2005; starring William H. Macy), and starred as Deborah Cox's once-promising boxer husband who spent ten years in prison and finds it difficult to readjust to civilian life, in the dramatic film "Blood of a Champion" (2006). He also appeared alongside Tamala Jones in a small drama/sci-fi film called "Confessions" and in an independent film titled "The Champagne Gang" (both in 2006). On the small screen, he could be seen in an episode of Fox ongoing crime-drama "Bones" and ABC short-lived cop drama "The Evidence", as well as two episodes of Spike TV program based on the Marvel Comics character and popular film series, "Blade: The Series". Recently, in 2007, Woodbine appeared in Sticky Fingaz' musical drama film "A Day in the Life", starring Omar Epps and Mekhi Phifer, Jesse Johnson's low-budget sci-fi/action "The Last Sentinel", alongside Don "The Dragon" Wilson and Katee Sackhoff, and Jesse V. Johnson's actioner "The Butcher", opposite Eric Roberts. He also landed a series regular, as Leon Cooley, an inmate on death row, in the TNT crime/drama series "Saving Grace", starring Academy Award–winner Holly Hunter in her first TV series. The show that premiered July 16, 2007 is rated TV-MA for language, sexuality, and violence. Meanwhile, he was spotted as a guest on CBS legal drama starring James Woods, "Shark", and NBC/USA Network's crime/legal drama "Law & Order: Criminal Intent". He also appeared in the TV commercial for VisitLasVegas.com. Woodbine has completed his upcoming film, "The Fifth Commandment", an action/adventure by director Jesse V. Johnson, and "The Poker House", a drama directed by Lori Petty. He is currently filming writer/director Jake Torem's "Letting Go" and writer/director/actor Sticky Fingaz's "Caught on Tape", along with Vivica A. Fox and Cedric the Entertainer. His 2010 films are "Exodus of Charlie Wright", with Aidan Quinn and Andy Garcia, "Little Murder", with Josh Lucas and Terrence Howard, "Letting Go", and the supernatural thriller "Devil". He has also appeared as an officer on "Southland" (2011). Music. He has appeared in a number of music videos, beginning with TLC's video "Waterfalls". He has made appearances in the Wu-Tang Clan video clips "Gravel Pit", "Protect Ya Neck (The Jump Off)", "Careful (Click, Click)" and in RZA's "Chi Kung". He has also appeared in Busta Rhymes video "Light Yo Ass On Fire", Tupac Shakur video, "I Ain't Mad at Cha", Eazy-E video, "Just Tah Let U Know", and Jadakiss video "Time's Up". He is referenced by Sean Price in the Boot Camp Clik song "Let's Go" with the line, "Ya'll niggas act tough like Bokeem Woodbine / Until you get slapped like Penny from Good Times."
1064218	Jonathan Adam Saunders "Jay" Baruchel (born April 9, 1982) is a Canadian actor and comedian. He has had a successful career in comedy films, appearing in supporting roles in such box office successes as "Million Dollar Baby", "Knocked Up" and "Tropic Thunder", and starring in the films "She's Out of My League", "The Trotsky", "How to Train Your Dragon", "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" and "This Is the End". Early life. Baruchel was born in Ottawa, Ontario, the son of Robyne (née Ropell), a freelance writer, and Serge Baruchel, an antiques dealer. He grew up and still lives in the Notre-Dame-de-Grâce neighbourhood of Montreal, Quebec, and has a younger sister, Taylor. His paternal grandfather was a Sephardic Jew, while his three other grandparents were from a Christian background (of French, English, Irish, Scottish, and German descent). Baruchel has said that he is "probably agnostic". Career. One of his first major acting roles was on local television series "My Hometown" in 1996. From 1997 to 1998, he co-hosted "Popular Mechanics for Kids" with Elisha Cuthbert. After appearing briefly in Cameron Crowe's Oscar-winning "Almost Famous", Baruchel won the role of Steven Karp on Judd Apatow's acclaimed yet short-lived television series "Undeclared", where he starred alongside Seth Rogen, Carla Gallo, Charlie Hunnam, and Monica Keena. He then appeared with James Van Der Beek in Roger Avary's "The Rules of Attraction". In 2004, Baruchel played boxing hopeful Danger Barch in Clint Eastwood's "Million Dollar Baby", which received an Oscar for Best Picture the following year. Baruchel was among those thanked by Eastwood during his acceptance speech. Baruchel then starred in "Nemesis Game" and "Fetching Cody", before appearing opposite Don Johnson on the WB's "Just Legal" in 2005, and guest-starring on CBS's Emmy Award-nominated "Numb3rs" in 2006. Baruchel appeared in the films "Knocked Up" (which reunited him with Judd Apatow, Jason Segel, and Seth Rogen), "I'm Reed Fish", "Just Buried", and the Ben Stiller-directed "Tropic Thunder", alongside Jack Black, Nick Nolte, Steve Coogan and Robert Downey, Jr. He co-starred with Seth Rogen in the 2007 trailer for "Jay and Seth vs. The Apocalypse", created by Rogen and Evan Goldberg as a strategy to garner interest and funding for a similar, larger-scale project (later made in 2013 as "This Is the End"). In 2008, he appeared in "Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist". He also made a brief appearance in "". In 2010, Baruchel starred in the films "The Trotsky", "She's Out of My League" (opposite Alice Eve), and the live-action Disney adaptation of "The Sorcerer's Apprentice". He also voiced the starring role in the acclaimed animated feature, "How to Train Your Dragon", a role he has subsequently continued throughout the franchise, including its . Also in 2010, he played two supporting characters in the Canadian comedy series "The Drunk and On Drugs Happy Fun Time Hour". He developed the screenplay for "Goon", with Evan Goldberg, playing Johnny Klutz, a character of his own creation. "Goon" co-stars Seann William Scott and fellow Canadian actor, Eugene Levy. Baruchel will also star in and direct the comedy/horror/slasher film "Pig". Baruchel also appeared in the 2010 Adidas Originals ad campaign, "Cantina", in conjunction with the FIFA World Cup, and in video clips for Canadian prog-rockers Rush's 2012–13 Clockwork Angels tour.
1162737	Dennis Morgan (December 20, 1908 – September 7, 1994) was an American actor-singer. Born as Earl Stanley Morner, he used the acting pseudonym Richard Stanley before adopting the name under which he gained his greatest fame. Life and career. Morgan was born Earl Stanley Morner in the village of Prentice in Price County in northern Wisconsin, the son of Grace J. (née Vandusen) and Frank Edward Morner. He was of Swedish descent on his father's side|
1061656	Peter Lawrence Strauss (born February 20, 1947) is an American television and movie actor, known for his roles in several television miniseries in the 1970s and 1980s. Personal life. Strauss was born in Croton-on-Hudson, New York. His family was Jewish. Strauss graduated from the Hackley School in 1965 and Northwestern University in 1969. He married actress Rachel Ticotin on December 31, 1998. He had been married twice before, with his second marriage producing two children. Acting career. Notably, he plays Abel Roznovski in "Kane and Abel", the TV miniseries from Jeffrey Archer's book of the same title. He won an Emmy Award for his role on the 1979 made-for-television movie "The Jericho Mile", and he starred in a television remake of the classic 1946 film "Angel on My Shoulder" in 1980. His other noted television miniseries credits include starring roles in "Rich Man, Poor Man", its sequel "Rich Man, Poor Man Book II", and "Masada". Strauss plays Joseph P. Kennedy, Jr. in the 1977 TV movie "Young Joe, the Forgotten Kennedy". Strauss starred in the films "Soldier Blue" (1970) and ' (1983), and has appeared in several others. He voiced the character of Justin, Captain of the Guard, in the 1982 animated film "The Secret of NIMH", and he subsequently named his son Justin for the character. Strauss starred as an abused husband in the television movie "Men Don't Tell", alongside Judith Light. A more recent film in which he appears is ' (2005). He was the voice of Moses in the animated series "". He starred in the short-lived series "Body & Soul" as Dr. Isaac Braun in 2002. He provided the voice for Stoker Van Rotten in both the 1990s and 2006 versions of "Biker Mice From Mars". Other work includes commercials for Miracle-Gro. Beyond acting. Strauss runs a successful citrus production business and is on the advisory board of the Los Angeles County Arboretum and Botanic Garden. He sold a ranch property to the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy. The ranch has since been acquired by the National Park Service as the Peter Strauss Ranch.
1102381	Emil Artin (; March 3, 1898 â December 20, 1962) was an Austrian-American mathematician. Biography. Parents. Emil Artin was born in Vienna to parents Emma Maria, nĂŠe Laura (stage name Clarus), a soubrette on the operetta stages of Austria and Germany, and Emil Hadochadus Maria Artin, Austrian-born of Armenian descent. Several documents, including Emilâs birth certificate, list the fatherâs occupation as âopera singerâ though others list it as âart dealer.â It seems at least plausible that he and Emma had met as colleagues in the theater. They had been married in St. Stephen's Parish on July 24, 1895. Early education. Emil entered school in September 1904, presumably in Vienna. By then, his father was already suffering symptoms of advanced syphilis, among them increasing mental instability, and was eventually institutionalized at the recently established (and imperially sponsored) insane asylum at Mauer Ăhling, 125 kilometers west of Vienna. It is notable that neither wife nor child contracted this highly infectious disease. The senior Emil Artin died there July 20, 1906. Young Emil was eight. On July 15, 1907, Emilâs mother remarried; her second husband was Rudolf HĂźbner a prosperous manufacturer in the German-speaking city of Reichenberg, Bohemia (now Liberec, in the Czech Republic). Documentary evidence suggests that Emma had already been resident in Reichenberg the previous year, and in deference to her new husband, she had abandoned her vocal career. HĂźbner deemed a life in the theater unseemly in the wife of a man of his position. In September, 1907, Emil entered the Volksschule in Strobnitz, a small town in southern Czechoslovakia near the Austrian border. For that year, he lived away from home, boarding on a local farm. The following year, he returned to the home of his mother and stepfather, and entered the Realschule in Reichenberg, where he pursued his secondary education to June, 1916. In Reichenberg, Emil formed a lifelong friendship with a young neighbor, Arthur Baer, who became an astronomer, teaching for many years at Cambridge University. Astronomy was an interest the two boys shared already at this time. They each had telescopes. They also rigged a telegraph between their houses, over which once Baer excitedly reported to his friend an astronomical discovery he thought he had madeâperhaps a supernova, he thoughtâand told Emil where in the sky to look. Emil tapped back the terse reply âA-N-D-R-O-M-E-D-A N-E-B-E-L.â (Andromeda nebula) Emilâs academic performance in the first years at the Realschule was spotty. Up to the end of the 1911â1912 school year, for instance, his grade in mathematics was merely âgenĂźgend,â (satisfactory). Of his mathematical inclinations at this early period he later wrote, âMeine eigene Vorliebe zur Mathematik zeigte sich erst im sechzehnten Lebensjahr, wĂ¤hrend vorher von irgendeiner Anlage dazu Ăźberhaupt nicht die Rede sein konnte.â (âMy own predilection for mathematics manifested itself only in my sixteenth year; before that, one could certainly not speak of any particular aptitude for it.â) His grade in French for 1912 was actually ânicht genĂźgendâ (unsatisfactory). He did rather better work in physics and chemistry. But from 1910 to 1912, his grade for âComportmentâ was ânicht genĂźgend.â Emil spent the school year 1912â1913 away from home, in France, a period he spoke of later as one of the happiest of his life. He lived that year with the family of Edmond Fritz, in the vicinity of Paris, and attended a school there. When he returned from France to Reichenberg, his academic work markedly improved, and he began consistently receiving grades of âgutâ or âsehr gutâ (good or very good) in virtually all subjectsâincluding French and âComportment.â By the time he completed studies at the Realschule in June, 1916, he was awarded the Reifezeugnis (diplomaânot to be confused with the Abitur) that affirmed him âreif mit Auszeichnungâ (qualified with distinction) for graduation to a technical university. University education. Now that it was time to move on to university studies, Emil was no doubt content but to leave Reichenberg, for relations with his stepfather were clouded. According to him, HĂźbner reproached him âday and nightâ with being a financial burden, and even when Emil became a university lecturer and then a professor, HĂźbner deprecated his academic career as self-indulgent and belittled its paltry emolument. In October, 1916, Emil matriculated at the University of Vienna, having focused by now on mathematics. He studied there with Philipp FurtwĂ¤ngler, and also took courses in astrophysics and Latin. Studies at Vienna were interrupted when Emil was drafted in June, 1918 into the Austrian army (his Army photo ID is dated July 1, 1918). Assigned to the K.u. K. 44th Infantry Regiment, he was stationed northwest of Venice at Primolano, on the Italian front in the foothills of the Dolomites. To his great relief, Emil managed to avoid combat by volunteering for service as a translatorâhis ignorance of Italian notwithstanding. He did know French, of course, and some Latin, was generally a quick study, and was motivated by a highly rational fear in a theater of that war that had often proven a meat-grinder. In his scramble to learn at least some Italian, Emil had recourse to an encyclopedia, which he once consulted for help in dealing with the cockroaches that infested the Austrian barracks. At some length, the article described a variety of technical methods, concluding finally withâEmil laughingly recalled in later yearsââla caccia diretta" ("the direct hunt"). Indeed, âla caccia direttaâ was the straightforward method he and his fellow infantrymen adopted. Emil survived both war and vermin on the Italian front, and returned late in 1918 to the University of Vienna, where he remained through Easter of the following year. By June 1919, he had moved to Leipzig and matriculated at the University there as a "Class 2 Auditor" ("HĂśrer zweiter Ordnung"). Late the same year, Emil undertook the formality of standing for a qualifying examination by an academic board of the Oberrealschule in Leipzig, which he passed with the grade of âgutâ (good), receiving for the second time the Reifezeugnis (diploma attesting the equivalence of satisfactory completion of 6 years at a Realschule). How this Leipzig Reifezeugnis differed technically from the one he had been granted at Reichenberg is unclear from the document, but it apparently qualified him for regular matriculation as a student at the University, which normally required the Abitur. From 1919 to June 1921, Emil pursued mostly mathematical studies at Leipzig. His principal teacher and dissertation advisor was Gustav Herglotz. Additionally, Emil took courses in chemistry and various fields of physics, including mechanics, atomic theory, quantum theory, Maxwellian theory, radioactivity, and astrophysics. In June, 1921 he was awarded the Doctor of Philosophy degree, based on his âexcellentâ dissertation, âQuadratische KĂśrper im Gebiete der hĂśheren Kongruenzenâ ("On the Arithmetic of Quadratic Function Fields over Finite Fields"), and the oral examination whichâhis diploma affirmsâhe had passed three days earlier âwith extraordinary success.â In the fall of 1921, Emil moved to GĂśttingen, considered the "Mecca" of mathematics at the time, where he pursued one year of post-doctoral studies in mathematics and mathematical physics with Richard Courant and David Hilbert. While at GĂśttingen, he worked closely with Emmy Noether and Helmut Hasse. Aside from consistently good school grades in singing, the first documentary evidence of Emilâs deep and lifelong engagement with music comes from the year in GĂśttingen, where he was regularly invited to join in the chamber music sessions hosted by Richard Courant. He played all the keyboard instruments, and was an especially accomplished flautist, although it is not known exactly by what instruction he had achieved proficiency on these instruments. He became especially devoted to the music of J. S. Bach. Professorship at Hamburg. Courant arranged for Emil to receive a stipend for the summer of 1922 in GĂśttingen, which occasioned his declining a position offered him at the University of Kiel. The following October, however, he accepted an equivalent position at Hamburg, where in 1923, he completed the Habilitation thesis (required of aspirants to a professorship in Germany), and on July 24 advanced to the rank of Privatdozent. On April 1, 1925, Emil was promoted to Associate Professor (auĂerordentlicher Professor). In this year also, Emil applied for and was granted German citizenship. He was promoted to full Professor (ordentlicher Professor) on October 15, 1926. Early in the summer of 1925, Emil attended the Congress of the Wandervogel youth movement at Wilhelmshausen near Kassel with the intention of gathering a congenial group to undertake a trek through Iceland later that summer. Iceland (before the transforming presence of American and British forces stationed there during WWII) was still a primitive country in 1925, with a thinly scattered population and little transportation infrastructure. Emil succeeded in finding six young men to join him in this adventure. In the second half of August, 1925, the group set out by steamer from Hamburg, first to Norway, where they boarded a second steamer that took them to Iceland, stopping at several of the small east fjord ports before arriving at their destination, Husavik in the north of the island. Here the Wandervogel group disembarked, their initial goal, trekking down the LaxĂĄ River to Lake MĂ˝vatn. They made a circuit of the large, irregular lake, staying in farm houses, barns, and occasionally a tent as they went. When they slept in barns, it was often on piles of wet straw or hay. On those lucky occasions when they slept in beds, it could be nearly as damp on account of the rain trickling through the sod roofs. The tent leaked as well. Emil kept a meticulous journal of this trip, making daily entries in a neat, minuscule hand. He and several of the young men had brought cameras, so that the trek is documented also by nearly 200 small photographs. Emilâs journal attests to his overarching interest in the geology of this mid-Atlantic island, situated over the boundary of two tectonic plates whose shifting relation makes it geologically hyperactive. In keeping with the Wandervogel ethos, Emil and his companions carried music with them wherever they visited. The young men had packed guitars and violins, and Emil played the harmoniums common in the isolated farmsteads where they found lodging. The group regularly entertained their Icelandic hosts, not in full exchange for board and lodging, to be sure, but for goodwill certainly, and sometimes for a little extra on their plates, or a modestly discounted tariff. From Lake MĂ˝vatn, Emil and his companions headed west towards Akureyri, passing the large waterfall GoĂ°afoss on the way. From Akureyri, they trekked west down the Ăxnadalur (Ox Valley) intending to rent pack horses and cross the high and barren interior by foot to ReykjavĂ­k. By the time they reached the lower end of SkagafjĂśrĂ°ur, however, they were persuaded by a local farmer from whom they had hoped to rent the horses that a cross-country trek was by then impracticable; with the approach of winter, highland routes were already snow-bound and impassable. Instead of turning south, then, they turned north to SiglufjĂśrĂ°ur, where they boarded another steamer that took them around the western peninsula and down the coast to ReykjavĂ­k. From ReykjavĂ­k, they returned via Norway to Hamburg. By Emilâs calculation the distance they had covered on foot through Iceland totaled 450 kilometers. Early in 1926, the University of MĂźnster offered Emil a professorial position; however, Hamburg matched the offer financially, and (as noted above) promoted him to full professor, making him (along with his young colleague Helmut Hasse) one of the two youngest professors of mathematics in Germany. It was in this period that he acquired his lifelong nickname, âMa,â short for mathematics, which he came to prefer to his given name, and which virtually everyone who knew him well used. Although the nickname might seem to imply a narrow intellectual focus, quite the reverse was true of Emil. Even his teaching at the University of Hamburg went beyond the strict boundaries of mathematics to include mechanics and relativity theory. He kept up on a serious level with advances in astronomy, chemistry and biology (he owned and used a fine microscope), and the circle of his friends in Hamburg attests to the catholicity of his interests. It included the painter Heinrich Stegemann, and the author and organ-builder Hans Henny Jahn. Stegemann was a particularly close friend, and made portraits of Emil, Natascha and the two children born in Hamburg. Music continued to play a central role in his life; he acquired a Neupert double manual harpsichord, and a clavichord made by the Hamburg builder Walter Ebeloe, as well as a silver flute made in Hamburg by G. Urban. Chamber music gatherings became a regular event at the Artin apartment as they had been at the Courants in GĂśttingen. On August 15, 1929, Emil married Natalia Naumovna Jasny (Natascha), a young Russian ĂŠmigrĂŠ who had been a student in several of his classes. One of their shared interests was photography, and when Emil bought a Leica for their joint use (a Leica A, the first commercial model of this legendary camera), Natascha began chronicling the life of the family, as well as the city of Hamburg. For the next decade, she made a series of artful and expressive portraits of Emil that remain by far the best images of him taken at any age. Emil, in turn, took many fine and evocative portraits of Natascha. Lacking access to a professional darkroom, their films and prints had to be developed in a makeshift darkroom set up each time (and then dismantled again) in the small bathroom of whatever apartment they were occupying. The makeshift darkroom notwithstanding, the high artistic level of the resulting photographic prints is attested to by the exhibit of Nataschaâs photographs mounted in 2001 by the Museum fĂźr Kunst und Gewerbe Hamburg, and its accompanying catalogue, âHamburgâWie Ich Es Sah.â In 1930, Emil was offered a professorship at ETH (EidgenĂśssische Technische Hochschule) in ZĂźrich, to replace Hermann Weyl, who had moved to GĂśttingen. He chose to remain at Hamburg, however. Two years later, in 1932, for contributions leading to the advancement of mathematics, Emil was honoredâjointly with Emmy Noetherâwith the award of the Alfred Ackermann-Teubner Memorial Prize, which carried a grant of 500 marks. Nazi period. In January 1933âa tragically fateful month in German historyâNatascha gave birth to their first child, Karin. A year and a half later, in the summer of 1934, son Michael was born. The political climate at Hamburg was not so poisonous as that at GĂśttingen, where by 1935 the mathematics department had been purged of Jewish and dissident professors. Still, Emilâs situation became increasingly precarious, not only because Natascha was half Jewish, but also because Emil made no secret of his distaste for the Hitler regime. At one point Blaschke, by then a Nazi Party member, but nonetheless solicitous of the Artinsâ well-being, warned Emil discreetly to close his classroom door so his frankly anti-Nazi comments couldnât be heard by passersby in the hallway. Natascha recalled going down to the newsstand on the corner one day and being warned in hushed tones by the man from whom she and Emil bought their paper that a man had daily been watching their apartment from across the street. Once tipped off, she and Emil became very aware of the watcher (Natascha liked to refer to him as their âspyâ), and even rather enjoyed the idea of his being forced to follow them on the long walks they loved taking in the afternoons to a cafĂŠ far out in the countryside. Toying with their watcher on a fine autumn afternoon was one thing, but the atmosphere was in fact growing inexorably serious. Nataschaâs Jewish father and her sister, seeing the handwriting on the wall, had already left for the U.S. in the summer of 1933. As half-Jewish, Nataschaâs status was, if not ultimately quite hopeless, certainly not good. Hasse, like Blaschke a nationalistic supporter of the regime, had applied for Party membership, but was nonetheless no anti-Semite. Besides he was a long-time friend and colleague of Emilâs. He suggested that the two Artin childrenâonly one quarter Jewish, or in Nazi terminology, âMischlinge zweiten Gradesââmight, if a few strategic strings could be pulled, be officially âaryanized.â Hasse offered to exert his influence with the Ministry of Education (Kultur- und SchulbehĂśrde, Hochschulwesen), and Emilânot daring to leave any stone unturned, especially with respect to the safety of his childrenâwent along with this effort. He asked his father-in-law, by then resident in Washington D.C., to draft and have notarized an affidavit attesting to the Christian lineage of his late wife, Nataschaâs mother. Emil submitted this affidavit to the Ministry of Education, but to no avail. By this time, to be precise, on July 15, 1937, because of Nataschaâs status as âMischling ersten Grades,â Emil had lost his post at the Universityâtechnically, compelled into early retirementâon the grounds of paragraph 6 of the Act to Restore the Professional Civil Service (Gesetz zur Wiederherstellung des Berufsbeamtentums) of April 7, 1933. Ironically, he had applied only some months earlier, on February 8, 1937, for a leave of absence from the University in order to accept a position offered him at Stanford. On March 15, 1937, the response had come back denying his application for leave on the grounds that his services to the University were indispensable (âDa die TĂ¤tigkeit des Professors Dr. Artin an der UniversitĂ¤t Hamburg nicht entbehrt werden kann. . .â). By July, when he was summarily âretired,â (âin Ruhestand versetztâ) the position at Stanford had been filled. However, through the efforts of Richard Courant (by then in New York), and Solomon Lefschetz at Princeton, a position was found for him at Notre Dame University in South Bend, Indiana. Emigration to the U.S.. The family must have worked feverishly to prepare for emigration to the United States, for this entailed among other things packing their entire household for shipment. Since German law forbade emigrants taking more than a token sum of money out of the country, the Artins sank all the funds at their disposal into shipping their entire household, from beds, tables, chairs and double-manual harpsichord down to the last kitchen knife, cucumber slicer, and potato masher to their new home. This is why each of their residences in the United States bore such a striking resemblance to the rooms photographed so beautifully by Natascha in their Hamburg apartment (see Natascha A. Brunswick, âHamburg: Wie Ich Es Sah,â Dokumente der Photographie 6, Museum fĂźr Kunst und Gewerbe Hamburg, 2001, pp.Â 48â53) . On the morning they were to board the Hamburg-Amerika line ship in Bremerhaven, October 21, 1937, daughter Karin woke with a high temperature. Terrified that should this opportunity be missed, the window of escape from Nazi Germany might close forever, Emil and Natascha chose to risk somehow getting Karin past emigration and customs officials without their noticing her condition. They managed to conceal Karinâs feverish state, and without incident boarded the ship, as many left behind were tragically never able to do. When they landed a week later at Hoboken, New Jersey, Richard Courant and Nataschaâs father, the Russian agronomist Naum Jasny (then working for the U.S. Department of Agriculture) were on the dock to welcome the family to the United States. Bloomington years. It was early November, 1937 by the time they arrived in South Bend, where Emil joined the faculty at Notre Dame, and taught for the rest of that academic year. He was offered a permanent position the following year 170 miles to the south at Indiana University, in Bloomington. Shortly after the family resettled there, a second son, Thomas, was born on November 12, 1938. After moving to Bloomington, Emil quickly acquired a piano, and soon after that a Hammond Organ, a recently invented electronic instrument that simulated the sound of a pipe organ. He wanted this instrument in order primarily to play the works of J. S. Bach, and because the pedal set that came with the production model had a range of only two octaves (not quite wide enough for all the Bach pieces), he set about extending its range. Music was a constant presence in the Artin household. Karin played the cello, and then the piano as well, and Michael played the violin. As in Hamburg, the Artin living room was regularly the venue for amateur chamber music performances. The circle of the Artinsâ University friends reflected Emilâs wide cultural and intellectual interests. Notable among them were Alfred Kinsey and his wife of the Psychology Department, as well as prominent members of the Fine Arts, Art History, Anthropology, German Literature, and Music Departments. For several summer semesters, Emil accepted teaching positions at other universities, viz., Stanford in 1939 and 1940, The University of Michigan at Ann Arbor in 1941 and 1951, and The University of Colorado, in Boulder, in 1953. On each of these occasions, the family accompanied him. Emil insisted that only German be spoken in the house. Even Tom, born in the U.S., spoke German as his first language, acquiring English only from his siblings and his playmates in the neighborhood; for the first four or five years of his life, he spoke English with a pronounced German accent. Consistent with his program of maintaining the familyâs German cultural heritage, Emil gave high priority to regularly reading German literature aloud to the children. The text was frequently from Goethe's autobiographical "Dichtung und Wahrheit," or his poems, "ErlkĂśnig," for instance. Occasionally, he would read from an English text. Favorites were Mark Twain's "Tom Sawyer," Charles Dickensâs âA Christmas Carol,â and Oscar Wildeâs âThe Canterville Ghost.â For the Artin children, these readings replaced radio entertainment, which was strictly banned from the house. There was a radio, but (with the notable exception of Sunday morning broadcasts by E. Power Biggs from the organ at the Busch-Reisinger Museum in Cambridge, to which Emil and Natascha listened still lounging in bed) it was switched on only to hear news of the war. Similarly, the Artin household would never in years to come harbor a television set. Once the war had ended, the radio was retired to the rear of a dark closet. As German citizens, Emil and Natascha were technically classified as enemy aliens for the duration of the war. On April 12, 1945, with the end of the war in Europe only weeks away, they applied for naturalization as American citizens. American citizenship was granted them on February 7, 1946. On the orders of a Hamburg doctor whom he had consulted about a chronic cough, Emil had given up smoking years before. He had vowed not to smoke so long as Hitler remained in power. On May 8, 1945, at the news of Germanyâs surrender and the fall of the Third Reich, Natascha made the mistake of reminding him of this vow, and in lieu of a champagne toast, he indulged in what was intended to be the smoking of a single, celebratory cigarette. Unfortunately, the single cigarette led to a second, and another after that. Emil returned to heavy smoking for the rest of his life. Princeton years. If GĂśttingen had been the âMeccaâ of mathematics in the 1920s and early â30s, Princeton, following the decimation of German mathematics under the Nazis, had become the center of the mathematical world in the 1940s. In April, 1946, Emil was appointed Professor at Princeton, at a yearly salary of $8,000. The family moved there in the fall of 1946. Notable among his graduate students at Princeton are Serge Lang, John Tate, and Timothy OâMeara. Emil chose also to teach the honors section of Freshman calculus each year. He was renowned for the elegance of his teaching. Frei and Roquette write that Artinâs âmain medium of communication was teaching and conversation: in groups, seminars and in smaller circles. We have many statements of people near to him describing his unpretentious way of communicating with everybody, demanding quick grasp of the essentials but never tired of explaining the necessary. He was open to all kinds of suggestions, and distributed joyfully what he knew. He liked to teach, also to young students, and his excellent lectures, always well prepared but without written notes, were hailed for their clarity and beauty.â (Emil Artin and Helmut Hasse: Their Correspondence 1923â1934, Introduction.) Whenever he was asked whether mathematics was a science, Emil would reply unhesitatingly, âNo. An art.â His elegant elaboration of this idea is often cited, and worth repeating here: âWe all believe that mathematics is an art. The author of a book, the lecturer in a classroom tries to convey the structural beauty of mathematics to his readers, to his listeners. In this attempt, he must always fail. Mathematics is logical to be sure, each conclusion is drawn from previously derived statements. Yet the whole of it, the real piece of art, is not linear; worse than that, its perception should be instantaneous. We have all experienced on some rare occasion the feeling of elation in realizing that we have enabled our listeners to see at a glance the whole architecture and all its ramifications.â It has even been saidâonly half in jestâthat his lectures could be too perfect, lulling a hearer into believing he had understood and assimilated an idea or a proof which, on waking the following day might seem as remote and chimerical as ever. During the Princeton years, Emil built a reflecting telescope to plans he found in âSky and Telescopeâ magazine, to which he subscribed. He spent weeks in the basement attempting to grind the mirror to specifications, without success, and his continued failure to get it right led to increasing frustration. Then, in California to give a talk, he made a side trip to the Mt. Wilson Observatory, where he discussed his project with the astronomers. Whether it was their technical advice, or Nataschaâs intuitive suggestion that it might be too cold in the basement, and that he should try the procedure upstairs in the warmth of his study (which he did), he completed the grinding of the mirror in a matter of days. With this telescope, he surveyed the night skies over Princeton. In September 1955, Emil accepted an invitation to visit Japan. From his letters, it is clear he was treated like royalty by the Japanese mathematical community, and was charmed by the country. A confirmed atheist most of his life, he was nonetheless interested in learning about the diverse threads of Buddhism, and visiting its holy sites. In a letter home he describes his visit to the temples at Nara. âThen we were driven to a place nearby, Horiuji [Horyu-ji] where a very beautiful Buddhist temple is. We were received by the abbot, and a priest translated into English. We obtained the first sensible explanation about modern Buddhism. The difficulty of obtaining such an explanation is enormous. To begin with most Japanese do not know and do not understand our questions. All this is made more complicated by the fact that there are numerous sects and each one has another theory. Since you get your information only piece wise, you cannot put it together. This results in an absurd picture. I am talking of the present day, not of its original form.â His letter goes on to outline at length the general eschatological framework of Buddhist belief. Then he adds, âBy the way, a problem given by the Zens for meditation is the following: If you clap your hands, does the sound come from the left hand or from the right?â Return to Hamburg. The following year, Emil took a leave of absence to return to Germany for the first time since emigration, nearly twenty years earlier. He spent the fall semester at GĂśttingen, and the next at Hamburg. For the Christmas holidays, he travelled to his birthplace, Vienna, to visit his mother, a city he had not seen in decades. In a letter home he described the experience of his return in a single, oddly laconic sentence: âIt is kind of amusing to walk through Vienna again.â In 1957, an honorary doctorate was conferred on Emil by the University of Freiburg. That fall, he returned to Princeton for what would be his final academic year at that institution. He was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1957. Emilâs marriage to Natascha had by this time seriously frayed. Though nominally still husband and wife, resident in the same house, they were for all intents and purposes living separate lives. Emil was offered a professorship at Hamburg, and at the conclusion of Princeton's spring semester, 1958, he moved permanently to Germany. His decision to leave Princeton University and the United States was complicated, based on multiple factors, prominent among them Princeton's (then operative) mandatory retirement age of 65. Emil had no wish to retire from teaching and direct involvement with students. Hamburg's offer was open-ended. Emil and Natascha were divorced in 1959. In Hamburg, Emil had taken an apartment, but soon gave it over to his mother whom he had brought from Vienna to live near him in Hamburg. He in turn moved into the apartment of the mathematician Hel Braun in the same neighborhood; though they never married, their relationship was equivalent to marriage. On January 4, 1961, he was granted German citizenship. In June, 1962, on the occasion of the 300th anniversary of the death Blaise Pascal, the University of Clermont-Ferrand conferred an honorary doctorate on him. On December 20 of the same year, Emil Artin died at home in Hamburg, aged 64, of a heart attack. The University of Hamburg honored his memory on April 26, 2005 by naming one of its newly renovated lecture halls The Emil Artin Lecture Hall. Influence and work. Artin was one of the leading algebraists of the century, with an influence larger than might be guessed from the one volume of his "Collected Papers" edited by Serge Lang and John Tate. He worked in algebraic number theory, contributing largely to class field theory and a new construction of L-functions. He also contributed to the pure theories of rings, groups and fields. The influential treatment of abstract algebra by van der Waerden is said to derive in part from Artin's ideas, as well as those of Emmy Noether. Artin was also an important expositor of Galois theory, and of the group cohomology approach to class ring theory (with John Tate), to mention two theories where his formulations became standard. In 1957, Artin wrote a book on geometric algebra an insightful development of the classical groups in a Kleinian context. He also developed the theory of braids as a branch of algebraic topology. Conjectures. He left two conjectures, both known as Artin's conjecture. The first concerns Artin L-functions for a linear representation of a Galois group; and the second the frequency with which a given integer "a" is a primitive root modulo primes "p", when "a" is fixed and "p" varies. These are unproven; in 1967, Hooley published a conditional proof for the second conjecture, assuming certain cases of the Generalized Riemann hypothesis. Supervision of research. Artin advised over thirty doctoral students, including Bernard Dwork, Serge Lang, K. G. Ramanathan, John Tate, Hans Zassenhaus and Max Zorn. A more complete list of his students can be found at the Mathematics Genealogy Project website (see "External Links," below). Family. In 1932 he married Natascha Jasny, born in Russia to mixed parentage (her mother was Christian, her father, Jewish). Artin was not himself Jewish, but, on account of his wife's racial status in Nazi Germany, was dismissed from his university position in 1937. They had three children, one of whom is Michael Artin, an American algebraist currently at MIT.
581705	Aap Ke Liye Hum, earlier titled Chaasni, is a Hindi film directed by Revathy S Varma. The film stars Jaya Bachchan, Mithun Chakraborty, Manisha Koirala, Raveena Tandon, Ayesha Takia Azmi and Ranvir Shorey in the lead roles. It is a remake of the 2005 hit Tamil film "June R". Plot. "Aap Ke Liye Hum" is about an adopted mother, played by Jaya Bachchan, abandoned by her wretched son, played by Ranvir Shorey.
1064968	Adam LeFevre (born August 11, 1950) is an American character actor, poet and playwright who works in cinema, television, theater and commercials. LeFevre was born in Albany, New York, the son of Helen (née Rhodes), a hospital patient representative, and Ira Deyo LeFevre, a physician. He holds graduate degrees from both the Iowa Playwrights Workshop and the Iowa Writers' Workshop at the University of Iowa.
1062946	Vera Drake is a 2004 British drama film written and directed by Mike Leigh, telling the story of a working-class woman in London in 1950 who performs illegal abortions. It won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival and it was nominated for three Academy Awards and won three BAFTAs. Plot. Vera Drake (Imelda Staunton) is devoted to her family, looking after her husband and children, her elderly mother, and a sick neighbour. Her shy daughter, Ethel (Alex Kelly), works in a lightbulb factory, and son, Sid (Daniel Mays), tailors men's suits. Her husband, Stanley (Phil Davis), is a car mechanic. Although Vera and her family are poor, their strong family bonds hold them together, and we see Vera's constant small acts of kindness to the many people she encounters throughout her day. Vera works as a house cleaner. However, unbeknownst to her family, she also serves as a backroom abortionist. She receives no money for this, believing her help to be an act of charity. However, her partner Lily (Ruth Sheen), who also carries on a black-market trade in scarce postwar foodstuffs, charges two guineas (two pounds and two shillings: equivalent to £48 in 2005) for arranging the abortions, without Vera's knowledge.
1166282	Josephine Hull (born January 3, 1877; died March 12, 1957) was an Academy Award winning American stage and film actress who also was a director of plays. She had a successful 50-year career on stage while taking some of her better known roles to film. She won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress in Harvey, a role she originally played on the Broadway stage. Background. Hull was born as Josephine Sherwood in Newtonville, Massachusetts to William H. Sherwood and Mary Elizabeth Tewkesbury. She attended the New England Conservatory of Music (Boston) and Radcliffe College, Cambridge, Massachusetts. Hull was born on January 3, 1877, though she later represented herself as having been born later than she was. Career. Stage. Hull made her stage debut in stock in 1905, and after some years as a chorus girl and touring stock player, she married actor Shelly Hull (the elder brother of actor Henry Hull) in 1910. After her husband's death as a young man, the actress retired until 1923, when she returned under the name Josephine Hull. She and Shelly Hull had had no children. Josephine Hull had her first major stage success in George Kelly's Pulitzer-winning "Craig's Wife" in 1926. Kelly wrote a role especially for her in his next play, "Daisy Mayme", which also was staged in 1926. She continued working in New York theater throughout the 1920s. In the 30s and 40s, Hull appeared in three Broadway hits, as a batty matriarch in "You Can't Take It With You" (1936), as a homicidal old lady in "Arsenic and Old Lace" (1941), and in "Harvey" (1944). The plays all had long runs, and took up ten years of Hull's career. Her last Broadway play, "The Solid Gold Cadillac" (1954–55), was later made into a film with the much younger Judy Holliday. Film. Hull made only six films, beginning in 1927 with a small part in the Clara Bow feature "Get Your Man", followed by "The Bishop's Candlesticks" in 1929. That was followed by two 1932 Fox features, "After Tomorrow" (recreating her stage role) and "The Careless Lady". She missed out on recreating her "You Can't Take It With You" role in 1938, as she was still onstage with the show. Instead, Spring Byington appeared in the film version. Hull and Canadian-born Jean Adair did play the Brewster sisters in the 1944 film "Arsenic and Old Lace" (starring Cary Grant), and Hull was in the screen version of "Harvey" as well, playing James Stewart's sister. It was for that role that Hull won her Best Supporting Actress Oscar; it was her sole nomination. "Variety" credited Hull's performance: ""the slightly balmy aunt who wants to have Elwood committed, is immense, socking the comedy for every bit of its worth."" After, Hull made only one more film, "The Lady from Texas" (1951); she had also appeared in the CBS-TV version of "Arsenic and Old Lace" in 1949, with Ruth McDevitt, an actress who often succeeded Hull in her Broadway roles, as her sister. Hull retired in 1955, and died in The Bronx in 1957 from a cerebral hemorrhage, aged 80.
585734	LollyPop is a Malayalam film released in 2008. The film is directed by Shafi. It stars Kunchacko Bobanin a (Extended special appearance) with Prithviraj, Bhavana, Roma, and Jayasurya . The film started filming on 17 August 2008. The main locations are Kochi and Bangkok. It opened to mixed reviews on 21 December. Plot. Franco (Prithviraj) is a young man who runs an automobile workshop by the beach. His sister Jenny (Roma) is a college student. Franco's friend Eby (Kunchacko Boban) likes Jenny. Franco, who employs two people at his workshop, has some dreams about life. One day Jenny comes to Franco with a problem. Jenny has an enemy in college called Rose (Bhavana). Rose and Jenny argue with each other every time they meet. While playing basketball, they started an argument and the issue escalated into a huge row. Franco comes to Jenny's college, but he is unable to sort out the issue between Jenny and Rose, as he knows both of them very well. At this point, a young man called Pranchi (Jayasurya) enters the story. Pranchi is a pickpocket. Pranchi tries to pickpocket Franco and is caught red-handed. They both reach the police station and due to some confusion, both end up behind bars. It is the local priest (Salim Kumar), doubling as a solicitor, who bails them out. The priest asks Franco to be Pranchi's friend and to guide him in the right direction. So Pranchi becomes an employee at Franco's workshop. Paachi falls in love with Jenny, but Jenny isn't aware of this nor does she have the same feelings towards him. Having made a pact with her brother, she will only marry the guy whom Franco likes and vice versa. She starts liking Eby. When she tells Franco he goes to see Eby without Eby knowing, only to return and tell his sister that he did not like him. Jenny tells Eby this and they sort of break up. Franco and Rose are in love, and they are hoping Jenny will come to like Rose, but things don't work out the way they planned. The coming of Pranchi into Franco's life and how Franco tries to make Jenny like Rose forms the crux of the story. The movie became a below avg. success at box office. Box Office. The movie opened with a good initial due to the hype it created. But the movie fell down soon after a good initial.
582263	Emraan Hashmi (عمران ہاشمی  )(born 24 March 1979) is an Indian film actor who appears mainly in Hindi language films. Before starting his career as an actor, Hashmi worked with Vishesh Films as an assistant director on Vikram Bhatt's "Raaz" (2002). In 2003, he made his acting debut with Bhatt's "Footpath" and followed it with the commercially successful romantic thriller "Murder" (2004). Hashmi subsequently appeared in several commercially successful films, mostly under the production of Vishesh Films. The critics, however, labelled him as a "one note actor" and criticized his repetitive roles. These characters also earned him the "serial kisser" title. Hashmi eventually garnered praise for his performances in "Once Upon a Time in Mumbaai" (2010), "The Dirty Picture" (2011), "Shanghai" (2012) and "Ek Thi Daayan" (2013). He has established himself as a leading contemporary actor of Hindi cinema.
582330	Jaan-E-Mann (translation: "Sweetheart") is a 2006 Bollywood romantic comedy drama film starring Salman Khan, Akshay Kumar and Preity Zinta in the lead roles. The movie is directed by Shirish Kunder and is produced by Sajid Nadiawala. The film re-unites Salman Khan and Akshay Kumar post the success of "Mujhse Shaadi Karogi" (2004). This was Shirish Kunder's first film as a director. He also edited and wrote the dialogues and screenplay. The first trailer released in late August and cost nearly Rs.4 million. The film released on 20 October 2006 on the festive weekend of Diwali/Eid. The DVD for the film released on 15 December 2006. Plot. Suhaan (Salman Khan) and Piya (Preity Zinta) fell in love in college and eloped. However, he has to keep his marriage a secret in order to further his career as a movie star and, when his career hits a low, he returns home to find out that she has left him. She does not answer his calls or letters, and he soon receives divorce papers in the mail. The film begins when Suhaan receives a notice saying his ex-wife Piya, who has settled in New York, wants a divorce settlement of 5 million rupees, since he failed to make his alimony payments due to his poor financial condition. Suhaan appeals to his uncle Boney (Anupam Kher), a midget lawyer, for help. As they try to figure out a solution, Agastya Rao (Akshay Kumar) lands at their doorstep searching for Piya. He reveals to them that he fell in love with Piya during his college days but could not express his love to her because she was in love with someone else, unaware that the person he lost her to was Suhaan. Piya had ignored Agastya then, a nerd, a nobody, and even broke his heart by blowing him off to be with Suhaan at a concert that Agastya had taken her to. A heartbroken Agastya left the college as a result and eventually wound up in Houston working for NASA. Suhaan and Boney hatch a plan to get Agastya and Piya together, so that Suhaan need not pay alimony to Piya and Agastya gets the girl of his dreams. Suhaan accompanies Agastya to New York City to help Agastya win Piya over. They rent an apartment opposite Piya's and watch her every move, literally, using telescopes, binoculars, and surveillance techniques. Using a headset, Suhaan feeds Agastya lines to woo Piya with and eventually succeeds in getting Piya and Agastya together. One night, Suhaan finds out Piya has a baby girl, Suhaan's daughter. He realises that she left him since she did not want her and the baby to ruin Suhaan's film career. Suhaan realises his mistake and tries to make amends and start a new life with Piya and his daughter, Suhani. Unfortunately, before he can act, Piya gets engaged to Agastya. It later emerges that Piya's brother, Vishal, had been hiding letters that Suhaan wrote to her and was responsible for initiating the divorce process. Agastya realises Piya is still in love with Suhaan and not him; so he reveals the truth and tells her to be with Suhaan. Piya flies back to India where Suhaan is trying to find work a small-time actor. They express their mutual love, reuniting their broken family. A few years later, Agastya is on a NASA space shuttle and initiates a video conference with Suhaan and Piya. He introduces them to his new girlfriend who looks strikingly similar to Piya, Preity Zintakova (a spin-off of Preity Zinta, who plays Piya). Cast. Anupam Kher is playing a role of a dwarf for the first time in his career. Filming started in New York City on 1 September 2005 and then moved to Mumbai. The male leads were written for Salman Khan and Shahrukh Khan, however the latter declined the role of Agastya Rao, and so Akshay Kumar was roped in. Soundtrack. The music for the film was released on 6 September 2006. The music is composed by Anu Malik and includes a few playback singers forming the former contestants of "Indian Idol". Lyrics are penned by Gulzar. Response. Box office. "Jaan-E-Mann" opened in nearly 1,200 screens worldwide. The film faced stiff competition from the Shahrukh Khan starrer, "Don - The Chase Begins Again" as it was released on the same day. The film opened to a 40% response. The second day saw a huge drop in the collections, due to the Diwali celebrations. According to boxofficeindia.com the collections jumped to 70%, but fell again to 50%. The film has not done well in the smaller centres in India. Despite the disappointing first week, the collections picked up due to positive word of mouth, post Eid the film saw a dramatic upswing. The film managed to gross Rs.350 million and was declared a flop at the box office. Pranab Kapadia, the UK distributor of Jaan-e-Mann said ""Jaan-E-Mann"’s figures have picked up dramatically in Britain. Although the film grossed a mere £18,000 on its opening day, the film has experienced a remarkable upswing, grossing £40,000 on Monday and £60,000 on Tuesday. The audience and critics reception has been overwhelming". Reviews. The film has fetched mostly average reviews. 50% on Rotten Tomatoes, 2/5 IBNLive Review and has also got 6/10 ImDb ratings. Taran adarsh gave the film 4/5 saying " A well to do and funny timepass movie" Dhiraj sharma of namasteindia.com gave 5/10 and praised salman's acting.
1724851	Augusta Ada King, Countess of Lovelace (10 December 1815 – 27 November 1852), born Augusta Ada Byron and now commonly known as Ada Lovelace, was an English mathematician and writer chiefly known for her work on Charles Babbage's early mechanical general-purpose computer, the Analytical Engine. Her notes on the engine include what is recognised as the first algorithm intended to be processed by a machine. Because of this, she is often described as the world's first computer programmer. Lovelace was born 10 December 1815 as the only legitimate child of the poet Lord Byron and his wife Anne Isabella Byron. All Byron's other children were born out of wedlock. Byron separated from his wife a month after Ada was born and left England forever four months later, eventually dying of disease in the Greek War of Independence when Ada was eight years old. Ada's mother remained bitter at Lord Byron and promoted Ada's interest in mathematics and logic in an effort to prevent her from developing what she saw as the insanity seen in her father, but Ada remained interested in him despite this (and was, upon her eventual death, buried next to him at her request). She referred to herself as a "poetical scientist" and "an Analyst (& Metaphysician)". As a young adult, her mathematical talents led her to an ongoing working relationship and friendship with fellow British mathematician Charles Babbage, and in particular Babbage's work on the analytical engine. Between 1842 and 1843, she translated an article by Italian military engineer Luigi Menabrea on the engine, which she supplemented with an elaborate set of notes of her own, simply called "Notes". These notes contain what is considered the first computer program—that is, an algorithm encoded for processing by a machine. Lovelace's notes are important in the early history of computers. She also developed a vision on the capability of computers to go beyond mere calculating or number-crunching while others, including Babbage himself, focused only on those capabilities. Biography. Childhood. Ada Lovelace was born Augusta Ada Byron on 10 December 1815, the child of the poet George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron, and Anne Isabella "Annabella" Milbanke, Baroness Byron. George Byron expected his baby to be "the glorious boy" and was disappointed that his wife gave birth to a girl. Augusta was named after Byron's half-sister, Augusta Leigh, and was called "Ada" by Byron himself. On 16 January 1816, Annabella, at George's behest, left for her parents' home at Kirkby Mallory taking one-month-old Ada with her. Although English law gave fathers full custody of their children in cases of separation, Byron made no attempt to claim his parental rights but did request that his sister keep him informed of Ada’s welfare. On 21 April, Byron signed the Deed of Separation, although very reluctantly, and left England for good a few days later. Aside from an acrimonious divorce, Annabella continually throughout her life made allegations about Byron's immoral behavior. This set of events made Ada famous in Victorian society. Byron did not have a relationship with his daughter, and never saw her again. He died in 1824 when she was eight years old. Her mother was the only significant parental figure in her life. Ada was not allowed to view any portrait of her father until her twentieth birthday. Her mother became Baroness Wentworth in her own right in 1856. Annabella did not have a close relationship with the young Ada, and often left her in the care of her own mother Judith, Hon. Lady Milbanke, who doted on her grandchild. However, due to societal attitudes of the time—which favored the husband in any separation, with the welfare of any child acting as mitigation—Annabella had to present herself as a loving mother to the rest of society. This included writing anxious letters to Lady Milbanke about Ada’s welfare, with a cover note saying to retain the letters in case she had to use them to show maternal concern. In one letter to Lady Milbanke, she referred to Ada as "it": "I talk to it for your satisfaction, not my own, and shall be very glad when you have it under your own." In her teenaged years, several of her mother's close friends watched Ada for any sign of moral deviation. Ada dubbed these observers the "Furies", and later complained that they exaggerated and invented stories about her. Ada was often ill, beginning in early childhood. At the age of eight, she experienced headaches that obscured her vision. In June 1829, she was paralyzed after a bout of measles. She was subjected to continuous bed rest for nearly a year, which may have extended her period of disability. By 1831, she was able to walk with crutches. In early 1833, Ada had an affair with a tutor and, after being caught, tried to elope with him. The tutor’s relatives recognized her and contacted her mother. Annabella and her friends cover the incident up to prevent a public scandal. Ada never met her younger half-sister, Allegra Byron, daughter of Lord Byron and Claire Clairmont, who died in 1822 at the age of five. She did, however, have some contact with Elizabeth Medora Leigh, the daughter of Byron's half-sister Augusta Leigh. Augusta Leigh purposely avoided Ada as much as possible when she was introduced at Court. Adult years. Lovelace developed a strong relationship with her tutor Mary Somerville. She had a strong respect and affection for Somerville. and the two of them corresponded for many years. Other acquaintances included Andrew Crosse, Sir David Brewster, Charles Wheatstone, Charles Dickens and Michael Faraday. By 1834, Ada was a regular at Court and started attending various events. She danced often and was able to charm many people, and was described by most people as being dainty. However, John Hobhouse, Lord Byron's friend, was the exception and he described her as, "...a large, coarse-skinned young woman but with something of my friend's features, particularly the mouth." This description followed their meeting on 24 February 1834 in which Ada made it clear to Hobhouse that she did not like him, probably due to the influence of her mother, which led her to dislike all of her father's friends. This first impression was not to last, and they later became friends. On 8 July 1835 she married William King, 8th Baron King, becoming Baroness King. Their residence was a large estate at Ockham Park, in Ockham, Surrey, along with another estate on Loch Torridon and a home in London. They spent their honeymoon at Worthy Manor in Ashley Combe near Porlock Weir, Somerset. The Manor had been built as a hunting lodge in 1799 and was improved by King in preparation for their honeymoon. It later became their summer retreat and was further improved during this time. The house was built on a small plateau in woodland overlooking the Bristol Channel and surrounded by terraced gardens in the Italianate style. They had three children: Byron born 12 May 1836, Anne Isabella (called Annabella, later Lady Anne Blunt) born 22 September 1837 and Ralph Gordon born 2 July 1839. Immediately after the birth of Annabella, Lady King experienced "...a tedious and suffering illness, which took months to cure." In 1838, her husband became Earl of Lovelace. Thus, she was styled "The Right Honourable the Countess of Lovelace" for most of her married life. In 1843-4, her mother, Anabella, assigned William Benjamin Carpenter to teach Ada's children, and to act as a ‘moral’ instructor for Ada. He quickly fell for her, and encouraged her to express any frustrated affections, claiming that his marriage meant he’d never act in an "unbecoming" manner. When it became clear that Carpenter was trying to start an affair, Ada cut it off. In 1841, Lovelace and Medora Leigh (daughter of Lord Byron's half-sister Augusta Leigh) were told by Ada's mother that her father was also Medora's father. On 27 February 1841, Ada wrote to her mother: "I am not in the least "astonished". In fact you merely "confirm" what I have for "years and years" felt scarcely a doubt about, but should have considered it most improper in me to hint to you that I in any way suspected." Ada did not blame the incestuous relationship on Byron, but instead blamed Augusta Leigh: "I fear "she" is "more inherently" wicked than "he" ever was." This did not prevent Ada's mother from attempting to destroy her daughter's image of her father, but instead drove her to attack Byron's image with greater intensity. In the 1840s, Ada flirted with scandals: firstly from a relaxed relationship with men who were not her husband, which led to rumours of affairs—and secondly, her love of gambling. The gambling led to her forming a syndicate with male friends, and an ambitious attempt in 1851 to create a mathematical model for successful large bets. This went disastrously wrong, leaving her thousands of pounds in debt and being blackmailed by one of the syndicate, forcing her to admit the mess to her husband. Ada also had a shadowy, possibly illicit relationship with Andrew Crosse’s son John from 1844 onwards. Few hard facts are known about this because Crosse destroyed most of their correspondence after her death as part of a legal agreement. However, the relationship was strong enough that she bequeathed him the only heirlooms her father had personally left to her. During her final illness, Ada would panic at the idea of John Crosse being kept from visiting her. Death. Ada Lovelace died at the age of thirty-six, on 27 November 1852, from uterine cancer probably exacerbated by bloodletting by her physicians. The illness lasted several months, in which time Annabella took command over whom Ada saw, and excluded all of her friends and confidants. Under her mother’s influence, she had a religious transformation (after previously being a materialist) and was coaxed into repenting of her previous conduct and making Annabella her executor. She lost dontact with her husband after she confessed something to him on 30 August that caused him to abandon her bedside. What she told him is unknown, but may have been a confession of adultery. She was buried, at her request, next to her father at the Church of St. Mary Magdalene in Hucknall, Nottingham. Education. Throughout her illnesses, she continued her education. Her mother's obsession with rooting out any of the insanity of which she accused Lord Byron was one of the reasons that Ada was taught mathematics from an early age. She was privately schooled in mathematics and science by William Frend, William King and Mary Somerville, noted researcher and scientific author of the 19th century. Somerville introduced Lovelace to Charles Babbage on 5 June 1833. One of her later tutors was the noted mathematician and logician Augustus De Morgan. From 1832, when she was seventeen, her remarkable mathematical abilities began to emerge, and her interest in mathematics dominated the majority of her adult life. In a letter to Lady Byron, De Morgan suggested that her daughter's skill in mathematics could lead her to become "an original mathematical investigator, perhaps of first-rate eminence." Work. Throughout her life, Ada was strongly interested in scientific developments and fads of the day, including phrenology and mesmerism. Even after her famous work with Babbage, Ada continued to work on other projects. In 1844, she commented to a friend Woronzow Greig about her desire to create a mathematical model for how the brain gives rise to thoughts and nerves to feelings ("a calculus of the nervous system").
1152366	Sheryl Underwood (born ) is an American comedian and actress. She is a panelist on the daytime chat show "The Talk" on CBS. Professional career. Underwood first gained public notice as the first female finalist in the Miller Lite Comedy Search in 1989. She won the BET "Funniest Female Comedian on Comic View" award in 1994 and the BET Comedy Awards' Platinum Mic Viewers Choice Award in 2005. Following her stand up success, Underwood took a number of minor acting roles including Bad Mouth Bessie in the 1998 film "I Got the Hook Up," and Catfish Rita in the 2005 film "Beauty Shop". Underwood was the host of BET's "Comic View" and executive producer and host of the limited run comedy/variety series "Holla" (September 2002 – January 2003).
1167193	Joy Patricia Harmon (born May 1, 1940) is a baker and former American actress. Career. Harmon was born Patricia Joy Harmon in Flushing, New York. She and her family moved to Connecticut in 1946. A runner-up for Miss Connecticut, the 5 ft 5 in, 41½-22-36 Harmon was a contestant during the last season of Groucho Marx's television program "You Bet Your Life" (titled "The Groucho Show" during its last season) and later a regular on Marx's program "Tell It to Groucho" (credited as 'Patty Harmon'). She also guest-starred on several 1960s TV series, including "Gidget", "Batman", and "The Monkees". She appeared in a cameo role as blonde Ardice in the Jack Lemmon comedy, "Under the Yum Yum Tree" in 1963. She had a role as Tony Dow's girlfriend in the 1965-66 television soap opera, "Never Too Young", a program geared to teenagers, featuring many popular musical groups of that era. Harmon's best-remembered acting roles are as the thirty-foot-tall Merrie in the 1965 movie "Village of the Giants" (where she captures normal-sized Johnny Crawford and suspends him from her bikini top), and as the car-washing girl "Lucille" in 1967's "Cool Hand Luke", with Paul Newman. Aunt Joy's Cakes. Harmon retired from Hollywood to marry Jeff Gourson and raise three children. Later, she started her own company, Aunt Joy's Cakes, a bakery located in Burbank, California. She also made the rounds of movie and sci-fi fan conventions, to meet fans and sign autographs.
589644	Pyaasa (Hindi: प्यासा "Pyāsā", meaning "Thirsty") is a 1957 Indian film produced by, directed by, and starring Guru Dutt. The film tells the story of struggling poet, trying to make his works known in post-independence India, and a prostitute with a heart of gold who eventually helps him get his poems published. The music was composed by S.D. Burman. With the commercial success of thrillers like "Baazi", "Jaal", "Aar Paar" and "C.I.D." as well as comedies like "Mr. & Mrs. '55", Guru Dutt and his studio were financially secure and established. From 1957, he could now make movies he really wanted to make, including "Pyaasa". In 2002, "Pyaasa" was ranked at #160 on the "Sight & Sound" critics' and directors' poll of all-time greatest films. In 2005, "Pyaasa" was rated as one of the 100 best films of all time by "Time Magazine", which called it "the soulfully romantic of the lot." "Indiatimes Movies" ranks the movie amongst the "Top 25 Must See Bollywood Films". On the occasion of Valentine's Day 2011 Time magazine has declared it as one of the top 10 romantic movies of all time. Plot. Vijay (Guru Dutt) is an unsuccessful poet whose works are not taken seriously by publishers or his brothers (who sell his poems as waste paper). Unable to bear their taunting that he is a good-for-nothing, he stays away from home and is often out on the streets. He encounters a good-hearted prostitute named Gulabo (Waheeda Rehman), who is enamoured with his poetry and falls in love with him. He also encounters his ex-girlfriend Meena (Mala Sinha) from college and finds out that she has married a big publisher Mr. Ghosh (Rehman) for financial security. Ghosh hires him as a servant to find out more about him and Meena. A dead beggar to whom Vijay gave his coat and whom he tries to save unsuccessfully from the path of a running train is mistaken for Vijay. Gulabo goes to Ghosh and gets his poems published. Ghosh does so feeling he can exploit the poems and make a killing. The poems are very successful. However, Vijay is alive and in the hospital after the train mishap. Ghosh and Shyam, Vijay's close friend, refuse to recognise him and he is committed to a mental asylum since he insists he is Vijay and is thought to be mad. Vijay's brothers too are bought off by Ghosh not to recognize him and a memorial is held for the dead poet. Vijay with the help of his friend Abdul Sattar (Johnny Walker) escapes from the mental asylum and reaches the memorial service where he denounces this corrupt and materialistic world. Seeing that Vijay is alive his friend and brothers take side with a rival publisher for more money and declare this is Vijay. At a function to honour him, Vijay becomes sick of all the hypocrisy in the world around him and declares he is not Vijay. He then leaves with Gulabo to start a new life. Production. In the original ending Guru Dutt wanted to show that Vijay left all alone but on the distributors' insistence the ending was changed. The film was originally titled "Pyaas" (thirst), but Guru Dutt later changed it to "Pyaasa" to better describe the film.
451106	The Magical Legend of the Leprechauns is a 1999 Hallmark Entertainment made-for-TV fantasy movie. It stars Randy Quaid, Colm Meaney, Kieran Culkin, Roger Daltrey, Caroline Carver and Whoopi Goldberg. The film contains two main stories that eventually intertwine: the first being the story of an American businessman who visits Ireland and encounters magical leprechauns and the second, a story of a pair of star-crossed lovers who happen to be a fairy and a leprechaun, belonging to opposing sides of a magical war. It contains many references to Romeo and Juliet such as two lovers taking poison and feuding clans. Emma Townshend's song "We Can Fly Away" was the theme song for the film. Plot. An American businessman, Jack Woods (Randy Quaid), ostensibly wants to spend a calm holiday in the sleepy Irish town Kerry and rents a little cottage there. He is overworked and wants to use his holiday to relax. During a hike, he sees Irish beauty Kathleen Fitzpatrick (Orla Brady) swimming naked. Kathleen catches him and chases him off, but Jack is smitten with her beauty. That evening, Jack tries to drown his sorrows in Irish whiskey, when he has an encounter with an invisible leprechaun. They struggle for the bottle of whiskey, and Jack falls, knocking himself unconscious. The next morning, he sees the little man again and chases him to a nearby river, where the leprechaun falls in. Jack jumps in after him, saving his life (because water is the only thing that can kill the immortal leprechauns), then Seamus Muldoon (Colm Meaney), the saved leprechaun, becomes Jack's new friend. Seamus introduces Jack to his wife Mary (Zoë Wanamaker) and his son, Mickey (Daniel Betts), and shows him the mystical world of the leprechauns. The "solitary fairies" (which includes leprechauns) are a happy people, who love to play tricks on others—most of all on the snobbish "trooping" fairies. The leprechauns and the trooping fairies have been enemies for ages, but the Grand Banshee (Whoopi Goldberg) has decreed that they must stop fighting each other. Jack gets used to the little people he shares the house with, because they help him to get to know Kathleen. While out taking photographs of the houses in this sleepy town, Jack comes upon Kathleen hanging out her laundry and playing with her dog. He accidentally takes a picture of her and she sicks her four brothers on him. He runs away, finally taking refuge in a church. Later, Jack offers to drive Kathleen's cart for her in a beach race because she's not allowed to on account of her gender. Jack wins and convinces Kathleen to take him on a tour of the local environs. While on their walk together, they share a kiss. Meanwhile Mickey, along with his friends Sean Devine (Tony Curran) and the brothers Jericho (Kevin McKidd) and Barney O’Grady (Kieran Culkin) sneak into a masked party in the flying castle of the trooping fairies. There Mickey sees the pretty fairy-princess, Jessica (Caroline Carver), the daughter of the fairy-king Boric (Roger Daltrey) and queen Morag (Harriet Walter). Jessica eventually finds out that Mickey is a leprechaun, but they have already fallen in love. Jessica's cousin, Count Grogan (Jonathan Firth), discovers their presence, and the leprechauns flee. Later Count Grogan seeks out Mickey and attempts to fight with him, but Mickey declines. Sean steps in and battles Count Grogan, eventually losing. The Grand Banshee appears and takes Sean's life as punishment for breaking her decree. Micky attacks Count Grogan, killing him, too. After Jessica’s parents learn that Mickey has killed Count Grogan, they send her with her governess, Lady Margaret (Phyllida Law), to a hidden underwater-castle. Mickey eventually finds her, rescues her, and flies with her to his uncle Sir Jantee (Stephen Moore), the butter-fairy. Jessica’s parents think Mickey kidnapped her and they start a war with the leprechauns. The Grand Banshee continues to take their lives. Jack and Kathleen have a problem too, because she finds out that he is in Ireland to buy up homes in Carrick for his company to build a holiday-park. Jack does not want to do that anymore (and loses his job because of it), but Kathleen does not believe a word he says. In the human-world nature starts to collapse: in the summer it starts snowing and there is torrential rain. This happens because the fairies aren't taking care of nature anymore because of the war. If things don't change, Kathleen claims that they'll be done for. Jack and Kathleen decide to help Jessica and Mickey to seek out the Grand Banshee and ask her to help them end the war. The Grand Banshee reveals to them that Nature is dying because of the war and if it doesn't stop, soon, everything will be destroyed. She also says she cannot stop the leprechauns and trooping fairies from doing what they really wanted to do. As the war escalates, Mickey and Jessica decide to do something radical: they obtain a poison from the butter-fairies(after they bribed them with English butter) and threaten to take it if their parents won’t stop the war. Their parents took them seriously but were unable to make peace, so they take the poison. Their bodies are brought before their parents who immediately become distraught. Jack convinces the warring parties to make peace. Both Muldoon and Boric agree. Kathleen immediately rushes to give an antidote to the lovers but an attack-tunnel dug by general Bulstrode (Frank Finlay) collapses. Kathleen brakes her carriage to avoid the pit. The vial with the antidote flies from her hands and breaks. Jack runs to help and falls into the pit, knocking himself out. Kathleen panics until she learns that he's okay. The Grand Banshee says she can still save them, but only if "everyone" agrees to peace. Eventually they all do. The Grand Banshee then brings back not only Jessica and Mickey, but all of the lost leprechauns and fairies (with the exception of Count Grogan who the Great Banshee decides to keep so there wouldn't be trouble caused because of him). In the end Mickey and Jessica marry, Jack and Kathleen are reconciled, and the long-lasting war is finally over.
589943	Jalsaghar ( "Jalsāghar", "The Music Room") is the fourth feature film directed by Satyajit Ray. The shooting was done at Nimtita Raajbari, in Nimtita village, 10 kilometers from Murshidabad. Plot. "Jalsaghar" is a narration of the end days of a zamindar in Bengal. The landlord, Roy (Chhabi Biswas), is a just but other-worldly man who loves to spend time listening to music and putting up spectacles rather than managing his fields ravaged by floods and the abolition of zamindari system by the Indian government. He is challenged by a commoner who has attained riches through business dealings, in putting up spectacles and organizing music fests. This is the tale of a zamindar who has nothing left but respect and sacrifices his family and wealth trying to retain it. Production. "Jalsaghar" was based on a popular short story written by Bengali writer Tarasankar Bandyopadhyay. After the box office failure of "Aparajito", Ray desperately needed a hit film and decided to make a film based on both a popular piece of literature and a film that would incorporate popular Indian music. It was the first film to extensively incorporate classical Indian music and dancing. Ray began shooting in May 1957. While in pre-production, Ray and his crew had difficulty finding a suitable location for Biswambhar Roy's palace. By chance they met a man who recommended the palace of Roy Chowdhurys in Nimtita, known as the "Nimtita Rajbari" and Ray decided to scout the location. To his surprise the palace was not only perfect for the film but just so happened to have once belonged to Upendra Narayan, whom Bandopadhyay had based his main character on when first writing the short story. Ray worked closely with composer Ustad Vilayat Khan on the film, although he was initially uncertain about the composers musical choices and had to convince Khan to make more sombre music pieces for the film. Reception. Although the film received mostly poor reviews in India, it received the Presidential Award in New Delhi for best film. When the film was gradually released in Europe and the US in the early 1960s it became a critical and financial hit and helped establish Ray's international reputation, although Ray said that in 1958 he did not think that the film would be successful in foreign markets. "New Statesman" film critic John Coleman compared Ray to Jean Renoir and Marie Seton said that the film "challenged the whole convention of songs and dances in India cinema. Audiences...conditioned to the introduction of songs and dances as entertainment interludes and dramatic and romantic stresses, had never before been confronted with...classical singing and dancing as integral focal points of realistic sequences." John Russell Taylor said that the film was "one of Ray's most masterly films, exquisitely photographed and directed with a complete, unquestioning mastery of mood...For those willing to place themselves under its hypnotic spell it offers pleasures of unique delicacy." In 1963 Bosley Crowther praised the "delicacy of direction...[andeloquence of Indian music and the auroa of "mise en scène".", however that same year Stanley Kauffman criticized the film, calling it "a deeply felt, extremely tedious film...the Indian music is simply uncongenial and tiresome to our ears." In 1965 Derek Malcolm called it Ray's "most perfect film." When the film was released in Paris in 1981 is was a surprise hit and led many French critics to adopt a new appreciation for Ray that had not been common in France up to that time. Awards. The film was entered into the 1st Moscow International Film Festival. Home video. In 1993, Merchant Ivory Productions restored film and Sony Pictures Classics release theatrically in NY with other 5 Ray films. Then released VHS in 1995. In July 2011, an HD digitally restored version of the film was released on DVD and blu-ray by The Criterion Collection.
1064070	The Cannonball Run is a 1981 comedy film starring Burt Reynolds, Roger Moore, Dom DeLuise, Farrah Fawcett, and an all-star supporting cast. It was directed by Hal Needham, produced by Hong Kong's Golden Harvest films and was distributed by 20th Century Fox. One of 1981's most successful films at the box office, it was followed by "Cannonball Run II" (1984), and "Speed Zone!" (1989). This and the 1984 sequel were the final film appearances of actor Dean Martin. Plot. Race teams have gathered in Connecticut to start a cross-country car race. One at a time, teams drive up to the starters' stand, punch a time card to indicate their time of departure, then take off. Among the teams are: At the starting line, observing from the shadows, is Mr. Arthur J. Foyt (a play on the name of racer A. J. Foyt), a representative of the "Safety Enforcement Unit," who tries to stop the race because of its environmental effects and safety issues. In the car with him is a photographer and tree lover, Pamela Glover. Beyond the starting line, JJ and Victor (driving their ambulance) come across Foyt and Glover, who have been involved in a minor fender-bender. Glover implores JJ and Victor to help, but when they tell Foyt to enter the ambulance through the back door, they kidnap Glover and take off without Foyt. As the race progresses, Victor occasionally turns into his alter ego, superhero "Captain Chaos." The very spooky Dr. Van Helsing (Jack Elam) and his huge hypodermic needle are also in the ambulance to "help" keep Glover quiet during the race. Various teams are shown either evading law enforcement, most of which deal with talking their way out of a possible ticket, or concocting crazy schemes to outmaneuver their opponents. The primary rivalry is between the ambulance and the Ferrari. In Ohio, Fenderbaum and Blake are able to convince Victor to pull over the ambulance in order to bless the patient on board. While Blake carries out the blessing, Fenderbaum punctures one of the ambulance's rear tires with a knife. JJ gets his revenge in Missouri by convincing a nearby police officer that the two men dressed as priests are actually sex perverts who are responsible for the flashing victim in the ambulance. The leading teams find themselves stopped on a desert highway, waiting for construction workers to clear the road. A biker gang (led by Peter Fonda) shows up and begins harassing Compton and Finch. It quickly gets out of hand and a free-for-all fistfight ensues. "Captain Chaos" emerges again to fight the bikers. Naturally, the Subaru team also joins in (Jackie Chan puts his martial arts skills to work) and fists and kicks fly. The construction crew announces that the road is open, so teams sprint back to their cars for the race to the finish. The ambulance falls behind the pack until Victor once again becomes Captain Chaos. The vehicles all arrive at the final destination at the same time, so it's a foot race to the finish line. JJ hands his team's time card to Victor, then ambushes the remaining racers, leaving only Victor and one of the Lamborghini women, Marcie. Just when it appears Victor will reach the time clock first, a spectator shouts that her "baby" has fallen into the water. Victor, still in his Captain Chaos persona, rushes to save the baby (later revealed to be her dog). allowing Marcie to clock in first and win the race. JJ is furious and never wants to see Captain Chaos again, but Victor replies that he doesn't care because he really wants to be Captain USA. Foyt reappears and blames everyone for ruining the American highway. Seymour offers a cigar and tells Foyt to use the lighter in his car (which has an ejection seat when pushed). Nothing happens, but when Seymour presses the button himself, he goes flying into the water. Cast. "Cannonball Run" featured an all-star cast, including: Production. The film continued director Hal Needham's tradition of showing bloopers during the closing credits (a practice he started with "Smokey and the Bandit II"). Jackie Chan says this inspired him to do the same at the end of most of his films. Development. The film is based on the 1979 running of the Cannonball Baker Sea-To-Shining-Sea Memorial Trophy Dash, an actual cross-country outlaw road race held four times in the 1970s, starting at the Red Ball Garage on 31st Street in New York City (later the Lock, Stock and Barrel Restaurant in Darien, Connecticut) and ending at the Portofino Inn in Redondo Beach, California, just south of Los Angeles.
70052	Maria M. Klawe (pronounced ) is a computer scientist and the fifth president of Harvey Mudd College (since July 1, 2006). Although born in Toronto in 1951, she became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 2009. She was previously Dean of the School of Engineering and Applied Science at Princeton University. Biography. Klawe was born in Toronto in 1951. She lived in Scotland from ages 4 to 12, and then returned to Canada, living with her family in Edmonton, Alberta. Klawe studied at the University of Alberta, dropped out to travel the world, and returned to earn her B.Sc. in 1973. She stayed at Alberta for her graduate studies, and in 1977 she earned her Ph.D. there in mathematics. She started a second Ph.D., in computer science, at the University of Toronto, but was offered a faculty position there before completing the degree. She spent eight years in the industry, serving at IBM Almaden Research Center, in San Jose, California, first as a research scientist, then as manager of the Discrete Mathematics Group and manager of the Mathematics and Related Computer Science Department. She and her husband Nick Pippenger then moved to the University of British Columbia, where she stayed for 15 years and served as head of the Department of Computer Science from 1988 to 1995, vice president of student and academic services from 1995 to 1998, and dean of science from 1998 to 2002. From UBC she moved to Princeton and then Harvey Mudd College. Previously a Canadian national, Klawe was among 5,996 persons who became citizens of the United States at a ceremony held at the Los Angeles Convention Center on Thursday, Jan. 29, 2009. Later in 2009, she joined the board of directors of the Microsoft Corporation.
1225484	Alfred Lunt (August 12, 1892 – August 3, 1977) was an American stage director and actor, often identified for a long-time professional partnership with his wife, actress Lynn Fontanne. Broadway's Lunt-Fontanne Theatre was named for them. Career. Lunt received two Tony Awards, an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor for 1931's "The Guardsman" and an Emmy Award for the Hallmark Hall of Fame's production of "The Magnificent Yankee".
1748314	Carl-Wilhelm Reinhold de Boor (born 3 December 1937) is a German-American mathematician and professor emeritus at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Early life. Born in Stolp, Germany (now, as part of Poland, called Słupsk), as the 7th of 8 children born to Werner (an anti-Nazi Lutheran minister) and Toni de Boor in 1937, he fled in 1945 with his family, settling eventually in Schwerin, then part of East Germany. As a child, he was often ill, suffering from a variety of conditions. In 1955, young Carl took advantage of the temporary political thaw following Joseph Stalin's death in 1953, obtained a 1-month visa to West Germany and biked there, then decided to stay when he learned there that his application to Humboldt University (in East Berlin) for the study of chemistry had been turned down (because of his poor performance in mathematics). However, Otto Friedrich (a brother of Carl's father's first wife) was willing and able to help him. Two years later, he met and fell in love with Otto's niece, Matilda Friedrich, the daughter of Carl Friedrich, the political scientist and constitutional scholar. With the support of the Friedrich family, Carl emigrated to the United States in 1959, learning English on his trip across the Atlantic (he could read Beatrix Potter when he boarded the boat). Education and career. Having earned only a high school diploma after 3 and a half years of study at Hamburg University, de Boor entered Harvard as a graduate student of mathematics. After working for a year as a research assistant to Garrett Birkhoff, he went to work for General Motors Research in Warren, Michigan, where he met splines. He received his first postgraduate degree, a Ph.D. from the University of Michigan, in 1966, and then became an assistant professor at Purdue University. In 1972, he accepted a position as professor of mathematics and computer science at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, working out of the UW's Army Math Research Center, which had recently been bombed in opposition to the Vietnam War. Research and teaching. A chief attraction of the UW job was the opportunity to work directly with Isaac Schoenberg, considered the father of splines, the piecewise polynomials de Boor would further develop. In particular, he formulated a relatively fast and numerically stable algorithm for calculating the values of splines (used extensively in computer-aided design and computer graphics), and advocated for the formulation of spline functions in terms of the basis splines, or B-splines developed by Schoenberg and Curry. He was a teacher, guiding numerous graduate students. He is the author of a number of works, including an introductory textbook on numerical analysis (with S.D. Conte) and a textbook on spline approximation. Carl has also worked with MATLAB extensively over the years and is the author of the Spline Toolbox. Carl de Boor retired from the University of Wisconsin–Madison in 2003 and relocated to the Pacific Northwest, where he continues to work with colleagues on mathematical problems, and to travel. He currently lives on Orcas Island, in Washington state, with his second wife, Helen Bee, author of numerous texts in human development, to whom he has been married since 1991. In addition to his emeritus status at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, he is also an affiliated professor at the University of Washington. de Boor has been listed as an ISI Highly Cited Author in Mathematics by the ISI Web of Knowledge, Thomson Scientific Company. Awards. In 1997 he was elected to the National Academy of Sciences, and he received the 2003 National Medal of Science in mathematics. Other honors have included election to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1987 and the National Academy of Engineering in 1993, honorary degrees from Purdue University and Technion (the Israel Institute of Technology), as well as membership in the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina in Germany and the Polish Academy of Science. He won the John Von Neumann Prize from the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics in 1996 and the John Gregory Award of Geometric Design in 2009. Personal. Carl is a lover of music—especially classical, and more especially Johann Sebastian Bach—walks, good food, and games of all sorts.
695696	Inayat Hussain Bhatti (1928–1999) was a Pakistani singer, actor, producer, director, script writer, social worker, columnist, religious scholar and a protagonist of the development of Punjabi language and literature.As a religious scholar he has been addressing Majalis of Imam Hussain (A.S) all his life on fourth Muharram and ninth Muharram at Imam Bargah Havelli Sadaat Gujranwala Pakistan.He was a great speaker. Descendants. In 1953, Bhatti married Mohtarma Shahida Banoo, the daughter of Ahmed Din Butt, a retired superintendent of the Indian Railways. This was Bhatti's second marriage. Mohtarma Shahida Banoo died on 12 March 1997. Bhatti's progeny includes three sons, three daughters, thirteen grandsons and six granddaughters. Bhatti's eldest son (from his first marriage) is Asmat Abbas. His son, Nadeem Abbas Bhatti, is a film producer, and played a lead role in the movie "Ishq roug" (1991) but then shifted his focus to film distribution. His youngest son Waseem Abbas is a film, TV and stage artist who is married to actress Saba Hameed. His grandson, Junaid Abbas Bhatti - the son of Asmat Abbas - is a member of the British nobility titled "The Baron of Ballencrieff". His another grandson Agha Ali is a singer, actor, model and anchor and his step-granddaughter Meesha Shafi - the step-daughter of Waseem Abbas is a singer and actress who has worked in Hollywood, Bollywood and Lollywood. Bhatti's younger brother Kaifi, was an actor and director from the mid-1960s until the late 1990s.
1757992	Candice Rene Accola (born May 13, 1987) is an American actress, singer and songwriter, best known for her starring role as Caroline Forbes on The CW series, "The Vampire Diaries". Early life. Accola was born in Houston, Texas, the daughter of Carolyn (Clark), who was an environmental engineer before becoming a homemaker, and Kevin Accola, a cardiothoracic surgeon. She has English, Romansh-Swiss, French, and Norwegian ancestry. She grew up in Edgewood, Florida and attended Lake Highland Preparatory School. Both her parents are active members of the local Republican political party. She has one younger brother. Music career. In December 2006 Accola released her debut album, "It's Always the Innocent Ones", independently in the United States. Accola co-wrote thirteen of the fourteen tracks on the record. The album failed to make an impact. In 2008 the album was re-released in Japan and achieved greater success. Accola toured as a backing singer for Miley Cyrus's "Best of Both Worlds Tour". Accola appeared as herself in the 2008 3D concert film "". In February 2011, Accola performed a cover of "Eternal Flame" by The Bangles on "The Vampire Diaries". Accola has yet to announce plans for a sophomore album. Acting career. Accola has guest appeared in a number of television series such as "How I Met Your Mother", "Supernatural" and "Drop Dead Diva". In July 2009 Accola starred in the independent horror film "Deadgirl" which centers on two high school boys who discover an immortal woman in an abandoned asylum. That same year again Accola had a bit-role in "The Hannah Montana Movie". In 2009 Accola was cast in The CW television series "The Vampire Diaries" as Caroline Forbes a teenage vampire. The series was an immediate success with the series premiere reaching 4.91 million viewers. Critical reception was positive. In June 2012 Accola joined the Dramedy YouTube series "Dating Rules From My Future Self" as Chloe Cunningham a 26-year old girl who believes love does not exist. The series centers on a girl receiving romance advice from herself ten years in the future via text message. The first season of the series went on to receive over 14 million views. Personal life. On May 29, 2013, Accola became engaged to musician Joe King.
1501930	Ute Lemper (born 4 July 1963) is a German singer and actress renowned for her interpretation of the work of Kurt Weill. Biography. Born in Münster, Germany, Ute Gertrude Lemper was raised in a Roman Catholic family. She joined the jazz-rock music group known as the Panama Drive Band at the age of 16. Later, she graduated from the Dance Academy in Cologne and the Max Reinhardt Seminary Drama School in Vienna. Her diverse credits include musicals, such as her breakthrough role in the original Viennese cast of "Cats", the title role in "Peter Pan", a recreation of the Marlene Dietrich-created Lola in "The Blue Angel", the original European Sally Bowles in a Paris production of "Cabaret", and Velma Kelly in "Chicago" (Lemper has played the role of Velma Kelly in "Chicago" in both London and New York. She won the Laurence Olivier Award for her performance in London). She also dubbed the singing voices of Ariel in Disney's "The Little Mermaid" and Esmeralda in "The Hunchback of Notre Dame" for German-speaking audiences. However "The Little Mermaid" has since been redubbed for a second run in theaters in 1998, and was never released on DVD in its original German dub. A painter in the neoclassical style, Lemper's paintings have been showcased in numerous galleries. Lemper, a mother of four, resides on the Upper West Side section of Manhattan in New York City. She performs worldwide, recently in the Middle East. Her autobiography was published in Berlin in 1995. She has also authored several journal articles. Film and television work. She starred as Marie Antoinette for "L'Autrichienne" (1989, directed by Pierre Granier-Deferre), and subsequently appeared in films such as "Prorva", "Bogus," "Jean Galmot, aventurier," "Prospero's Books," "Appetite" and "Prêt-à-Porter" (in the latter appearing in a well-publicised nude scene filmed while she was pregnant, and she received National Board of Review for Ensemble Cast award). She has contributed to the soundtracks of numerous films, including "The Voyager", "Kissing Jessica Stein" and "Appetite." In 2007, Lemper was a juror in Let's Dance, the German version of "Dancing with the Stars". Recording. Lemper, named "Billboard's" Crossover Artist of the Year for 1993/1994, is a prolific recording artist, appearing on numerous cast recordings and compilation concerts, including Roger Waters' "The Wall" concert in 1990. As a solo artist, her extensive discography includes ubiquitously well-reviewed interpretations of Kurt Weill's compositions from the late 1980s, in addition to German cabaret songs, which were very political songs sung in underground locations in 1930s Berlin and elsewhere. She recorded "Illusions" in 1992, devoted to the songs of Marlene Dietrich and Édith Piaf. She has numerous pop albums, variously in English, French, and German, and 2000s lauded modern "Punishing Kiss". "Punishing Kiss" featured songs written especially for her by the likes of Scott Walker, Nick Cave, Tom Waits, Elvis Costello, Philip Glass, and Neil Hannon, the latter of whom performed with her on two of the album's tracks. Lemper is known for wild interpretations on discs like the Sondheim tribute "City of Strangers", containing a particularly mannered version of the Elaine Stritch-popularized song "The Ladies Who Lunch". In 1998, a Lemper compilation, "", was released. In 2003 and 2006, Lemper's songwriting talents were shown on her discs from those years as she moved from being an interpretive singer to a singer/songwriter.
585316	K. R. Vijaya is an Indian actress who has starred in Tamil, Malayalam and Telugu films. She started her career in the 1960s. She has been acting for more than four decades now in South Indian cinema. K. R. Vijaya has worked with almost all the stalwarts of South Indian cinema and has played a variety of roles. Early life. Vijaya was born on 30 November 1938. She spent most of her childhood in the holy city of Palani. Vijaya's father was from Kerala and he wanted her to become an actress since he was himself acting in M. K. Radha's drama troupe at the time. K.R.Vijaya's sister K.R.Savithri and K.R.Vatsala are also popular among audiences. K.R.Savithri's daughter Anusha and Swati also been a actress for many films. Career. Vijaya played the title character, a heroine, in her 1963 debut film "Karpagam", directed by K. S. Gopalakrishnan. Gopalakrishnan also directed her 100th film "Nadhiyil Muthu". Vijaya has starred in almost 400 films in all the South Indian languages, including 100 films each in Tamil, Malayalam and Telugu, half-a-dozen in Kannada, and one in Hindi titled "Oonche Log" (1965). Her co-stars in the Hindi movie were Raaj Kumar and Feroz Khan. She received many offers in Hindi, but did not accept them as she was busy in the South.
589127	Kanoon (Hindi: कानून, Urdu: قانون ) (Title translation: The Law) is a 1960 Indian Hindi film directed by B.R. Chopra. The film stars Rajendra Kumar, Nanda, Ashok Kumar, Mehmood, Shashikala, Jeevan and Om Prakash. The film presents a case against capital punishment, arguing that witnesses may be genuinely deceived, and their consequent inadvertently tendered false testimony may lead someone wrongly to the gallows. The film was a courtroom drama of a murder case, where the judge's prospective son-in-law (Rajendra Kumar) is the defence lawyer in a case of murder for which he suspects his would-be father-in-law. The film was India's second songless talkie. The first one was Andha Nal , a Tamil movie.
1377036	"Kronk's New Groove" is a 2005 direct-to-video animated film released by The Walt Disney Company on December 13, 2005. The film is the sequel to the 2000 animated film "The Emperor's New Groove", and features reprises of the roles of David Spade, John Goodman, Eartha Kitt, Patrick Warburton and Wendie Malick from the original film, with new voices by John Mahoney and Tracey Ullman. Plot. Emperor Kuzco (David Spade) narrates the story about Kronk Pepikrankenitz (Patrick Warburton), now chef and Head Delivery Boy of Mudka's Meat Hut, is fretting over the upcoming visit of his father. Kronk's father always disapproved of young Kronk's culinary interests and wished that Kronk instead would settle down with a wife and a large house on a hill. In a flashback, Kronk tells the story of how he almost had both of these. As unwitting accomplice to Yzma (Eartha Kitt), the villainess of the first film who turned into a cat at the end of the original, but is now human again despite still having a tail, he goes along with her plan to sell sewer slime as a youth potion, he makes enough money to buy the old folks' home from the old folks and put his large new home there. Eventually Yzma is revealed as a fake and the old folks chase her down and corner her at a bridge over a river full of crocodiles. To prevent them from attacking her, she transforms herself into a rabbit, but is then caught and taken away by a condor. When Kronk realizes the old folks have sold everything they own in return for something which doesn't work, he gives his home back to them. Kronk, as camp counselor of the Junior Chipmunks at Camp Chippamunka he falls in love with fellow counselor Miss Birdwell (Tracey Ullman); but when one of his Chipmunks, Tipo, pulls a prank to win the camp championships and is caught, Kronk protects the boy at the cost of alienating his love. Kronk's father (John Mahoney) arrives and confusion ensues as several supportive friends try to pass themselves off to him as Kronk's wife and kids. But in the end Kronk realizes that his wealth is in his friendships, and this finally wins his father's thumbs up and Miss Birdwell's love. Meanwhile, just outside the house, Yzma is in the condor's nest with two eggs, which hatch and presumably attack her before the credits roll. Reception. The film received negative reviews and currently holds an 55% approval rating by the audience on Rotten Tomatoes. Many film critics have stated that the film "has great voice talents, but weak storylines and not much groove." Others have stated that the film shows that Kronk "works best in small doses" and the film should not have centered around this character. Annie Awards. The film was nominated in 2006 for the following Annie Awards:
768530	The Human Experience (2008) is a documentary produced by Grassroots Films. The film tells the story of Jeffrey Azize and his travels as he searches for answers to the question ""What does it mean to be human?"". The film is divided into the three experiences which take Jeffrey and his friends to New York, Peru, and Ghana. "The Human Experience" is rated PG-13. Plot. The first experience follows Jeffrey and his brother Clifford to the streets of New York City where the boys live with the homeless for a week in one of the coldest winters on record. The boys look for hope and camaraderie among their homeless companions, learning how to survive on the streets.
1064805	Mr. 3000 is a 2004 American sports comedy film starring Bernie Mac and Angela Bassett. The film's plot surrounds a retired Major League Baseball player who makes a comeback at age 47 in order to attain 3,000 hits. Plot. Stan Ross (Bernie Mac) was a Milwaukee Brewers baseball star. After recording his 3,000th hit the selfish, narcissistic Ross immediately retired, leaving the team without one of its star players in the middle of the 1995 playoff race. During the next nine years Ross used his nickname as a business tool, owning several profitable properties under the name "Mr. 3000" that made him wealthy. The Brewers retire Ross' number several years after his retirement. Although many fans come to the ceremony, other players, including teammates and fellow stars Robin Yount and Paul Molitor stay away. Only his best friend and a middle relief pitcher from his early days in the majors attend, and the ex-pitcher mocks Ross' attitude. Ross learns that, due to a clerical error, he retired with 2,997 hits instead of 3,000. The error also partially contributes to Ross not being voted into the Baseball Hall of Fame and makes his "Mr. 3000" marketing gimmick inaccurate. Ross seeks to return to the game at the age of 47 to get three more hits, secure his place in the record books, and keep his local post-career marketing gimmick intact. The Brewers' upper management, citing the large attendance at Ross' number retirement ceremony and the fact that the Brewers are out of playoff contention, agrees to bring Ross back during the September roster expansion. The team's younger players only know of Ross as a self-centered player and team superstar Rex "T-Rex" Pennebaker (Brian J. White), who is pompous and arrogant like Ross, sees him as unneeded and too old to play. Manager Gus Panas (Paul Sorvino) refuses to speak to Ross because of his abrupt retirement, and the sportswriters continually criticize him. Despite his predictions to the contrary Ross struggles to regain his baseball form, but slowly earns two more hits. Ross becomes a mentor to the younger players and urges Pennebaker to learn from his own mistakes as a star, inspiring the Brewers to a late-season comeback and a respectable finish. In his last at-bat of the season, Ross has a vision of his earlier years where he was considered always dependable for the team, which inspires him to bunt instead so the team can finish third in its division. Although Ross never reaches the "3,000" milestone, his newfound generosity and attitude gets him inducted into the Hall of Fame. As the movie ends, Ross renames all of his businesses that bear the name "Mr. 3,000" to "Mr. 2,999", which are now more successful. Production. Portions of this movie were filmed at Marquette University High School, as well as Miller Park, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and at Zephyr Field in New Orleans, Louisiana. Reception. The film received mixed reviews, earning a score of 55% on Rotten Tomatoes which observed "Bernie Mac demonstrates he can play the game even if the movie's a few innings short of a complete game.". The film took over $8 million at the box office on its opening weekend. In all it took $21,811,187 in the US and Canada, and a further $28,190 when it was released in Spain, for a global total of $21,839,377. Continuity. In the film, Ross is mentioned as having played a game against the Houston Astros during his first stint with the Brewers. But at the time the fictional game was played, the Brewers were in the American League, the Astros were in the National League, and there was no regular season interleague play, so the Brewers and Astros would not have played each other. In a ironic turn of events, the Brewers and Astros swapped leagues in a 15 year span. The Brewers joined the National League in 1998 and shared the same division as the Astros prior to the Astros move to the American League in 2013.
69014	Mesh generation is the practice of generating a polygonal or polyhedral mesh that approximates a geometric domain. The term "grid generation" is often used interchangeably. Typical uses are for rendering to a computer screen or for physical simulation such as finite element analysis or computational fluid dynamics. The input model form can vary greatly but common sources are CAD, NURBS, B-rep and STL (file format). The field is highly interdisciplinary, with contributions found in mathematics, computer science, and engineering. Three-dimensional meshes created for finite element analysis need to consist of tetrahedra, pyramids, prisms or hexahedra. Those used for the finite volume method can consist of arbitrary polyhedra. Those used for finite difference methods usually need to consist of piecewise structured arrays of hexahedra known as multi-block structured meshes.
1048638	Getting Played is a 2005 television film directed by David Silberg, starring Vivica A. Fox, Bill Bellamy, Carmen Electra, and Stacey Dash. The film is about three beautiful women, who decide, on a bet, to select and seduce a total stranger. Plot. The film centers around three very attractive women who, after having many guy troubles themselves, decide to play a prank on a random man. Their goal is to seduce the man while catching the whole sequence on tape and ultimately humiliating him with the footage. Their plan runs into some snags, as the man they choose to prank knows what they are trying to do to him. The man then has sex with Vivica A. Fox and Carmen Electra's characters while they video tape the intercourse's, only for him to change both tapes. He then goes on a date with Stacey Dash's character only to fall in love with her after finding that they both have a lot in common and they ""look good together"". In the end, they admit everything to each other, and after five minutes of begging, disturbing a couple eating dinner who they think that they are on a hidden camera show, decide to forgive each other and start out clean and honest. Release. The movie was released on December 10, 2005 in the USA and the DVD was released on June 13, 2006.
1429976	Elvis and Anabelle is an American romantic drama, directed by Will Geiger. It premiered on March 10, 2007 at the South by Southwest film and music festival in Austin, Texas. Premiered on HBO in September/October 2012, released on DVD October 5, 2010.
1253699	A View to a Kill (1985) is the fourteenth spy film of the James Bond series, and the seventh and last to star Roger Moore as the fictional MI6 agent James Bond. Although the title is adapted from Ian Fleming's short story "From a View to a Kill", the film is the fourth Bond film after "The Spy Who Loved Me", "Moonraker" and "Octopussy" to have an entirely original screenplay. In "A View to a Kill", Bond is pitted against Max Zorin, who plans to destroy California's Silicon Valley. The film was produced by Albert R. Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson, who also wrote the screenplay with Richard Maibaum. It was the third James Bond film to be directed by John Glen, and the last to feature Lois Maxwell as Miss Moneypenny. Despite being a commercial success, with the Duran Duran theme song "A View to a Kill" performing well in the charts and earning a Golden Globe nomination for Best Song, the film received a mixed reception by critics and was disliked by Roger Moore. Christopher Walken, however, was praised for portraying a "classic Bond villain". Plot. James Bond is sent to Siberia to locate the body of 003 and recover a microchip originating from the Soviet Union. Upon his return Q analyses the microchip, establishing it to be a copy of one designed to withstand an electromagnetic pulse and made by government contractor Zorin Industries. Bond visits Ascot Racecourse to observe the company's owner, Max Zorin. Zorin's horse wins a race but proves hard to control. Sir Godfrey Tibbett, a horse trainer and MI6 agent, believes Zorin's horse was drugged, although tests proved negative. Through Tibbett, Bond meets French private detective Achille Aubergine who informs Bond that Zorin is holding a horse sale later in the month. During their dinner at the Eiffel Tower, Aubergine is assassinated by Zorin's bodyguard May Day, who subsequently escapes, despite being chased by Bond.
582821	Maine Dil Tujhko Diya () is a 2002 Bollywood musical romantic drama film directed by and starring Sohail Khan who makes his acting debut along with another debuatant Sameera Reddy. The film also features Sanjay Dutt, Kabir Bedi and Dalip Tahil in supporting roles. Synopsis. The film is about two lovers Ayesha Verma (Sameera Reddy) and Ajay (Sohail Khan). Ayesha moves to the city and joins the same college Ajay is studying in. Their friendship starts wonderfully, along with the others; Vicky,Sada,Eijaaz and Chhotu (ARYANS), until Ajay and Ayesha fall in love. The rest of the movie is how the lovers get united in spite of opposition from Ayesha's father (Kabir Bedi), Chopra (Dilip Tahil) wanting Ayesha to marry his son and hurdles from Bhai-Jaan (Sanjay Dutt). Box-Office. After the run of the movie Maine Dil Tujhko Diya the film was declared" Average ". References. http://www.rediff.com/entertai/2002/sep/24box.htm
1163358	Jeffrey Charles William Michael "Jeff" Conaway (October 5, 1950 – May 27, 2011) was an American actor best known for his roles in the movie "Grease" and two US television series, "Taxi" and "Babylon 5". Conaway was also featured in the first and second season of the reality television series, "Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew". In May 2011 after spending just over two weeks in the hospital, Conaway died at the age of 60 due to complications related to pneumonia and the degenerative brain condition known as encephalopathy. Early life. Jeff Conaway was born in the New York City borough of Manhattan. He was raised in the Astoria, Flushing, and Forest Hills neighborhoods in the New York City borough of Queens. His father, Charles, was an actor, producer and publisher. His mother, Helen, an actress who went by the stage name Mary Ann Brooks, taught music at New York City's Brook Conservatory. They divorced when he was 3, and Conaway and his two older sisters lived with his mother. He also spent time living with his grandparents in South Carolina, which gave him enough of a Southern accent that when he accompanied his mother to a casting call for director Arthur Penn's Broadway play "All the Way Home", the 10-year-old Conaway landed a featured role as one of four boys. The 1961 Pulitzer Prize-winning play was nominated for a Tony Award for Best Play and ran 333 performances and one preview from November 29, 1960, to September 16, 1961. Conaway remained for the entire run, then toured with the national company of the play "Critic's Choice". Conaway worked as a child model, and attended high school at the Quintano School for Young Professionals. After playing with the rock band, 3 1/2, for a time beginning at age 15, he attended the North Carolina School of the Arts and later transferred to New York University. Career. While at NYU he appeared in television commercials and had the lead in a school production of "The Threepenny Opera". He made his movie debut in the 1971 romantic drama "Jennifer on My Mind". "Grease" and "Taxi". The following year Conaway appeared in the original cast of the Broadway musical "Grease", as an understudy to several roles including that of the lead male character, Danny Zuko, and eventually succeeded role-originator Barry Bostwick. He played the role for 2 1/2 years while his friend John Travolta, with whom he shared a manager, later joined the show, playing Doody in the chorus. The two would reunite in the 1978 motion picture musical "Grease", in which Travolta played Zuko and Conaway his buddy Kenickie. After breaking into series television in 1975 with "Happy Days", followed by other sitcom and drama appearances and three more movies including "Grease", Conaway was cast as vain and struggling, but goodhearted and handsome, aspiring actor Bobby Wheeler in the workplace comedy "Taxi", which premiered in fall 1978. He had appeared in an episode of "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" for the same producers, and, he said in 1987, was originally considered for the role of John Burns, which eventually went to Randall Carver: Conaway left "Taxi" after the third season. Part of the reason was his drug abuse after season one."Taxi" writer Sam Simon recalled in 2008 that during production of Simon's first script for that show, a missing Conaway was found in his dressing room too high on drugs to perform, and that his dialogue for that episode was divided between his co-stars Danny DeVito and Christopher Lloyd who delivered the jokes well enough so that Conaway's absence had little negative impact on the actual episode. This caused the show's producers to realize that he was expendable and contributed to Conaway's eventual firing. Conaway was reported at the time to be dissatisfied with being typecast as a "blond bimbo" and the "butt of struggling-actor jokes", along with finding the nature of the role repetitive. He also felt creatively stymied: Conaway went on to star in the short-lived 1983 fantasy-spoof series, "Wizards and Warriors". He made guest appearances on such shows as "Barnaby Jones", "George and Leo" and in four episodes of "Murder, She Wrote". He appeared in films such as "Jawbreaker", "Elvira, Mistress of the Dark" and "Do You Wanna Know a Secret?". From 1989 to 1990, he was cast on "The Bold and the Beautiful", in the role of "Mick Savage". In 1993, he appeared onstage in "Real Life Photographs". From 1994 to 1999, he played Sergeant Zack Allan, on "Babylon 5". Music career. In addition to acting, Conaway also dabbled in music. In the mid-1960s, he was the lead singer and guitarist for a rock band, The 3 1/2. They recorded four singles for Cameo Records in 1966 and 1967: In 1979, Conaway recorded a self-titled debut album for Columbia Records. "City Boy" was released as a single. Bruce Springsteen's manager, Mike Appel, produced the album. The CD "Saints & Sinners", by Vikki and Kenickie, was released independently via the internet in 2008, featuring Conaway singing and rapping with Vikki Lizzi (Spinoza). They promoted the CD on "The Howard Stern Show" on April 2, 2008 and performed live shows in the Los Angeles area. Personal life. Marriages. Conaway was married three times. His first, short-lived marriage (when he was 21) was to a dancer he had been seeing for two years; it was annulled. His second marriage, from 1980 until their divorce in 1985, was to Rona Newton-John, elder sister of his "Grease" co-star, Olivia Newton-John. His stepson, Emerson Newton-John, is a racing driver. His third marriage was to Keri Young from 1990 until 2000.
1057866	L.A. Story is a 1991 American romantic comedy film, written by and starring Steve Martin, and directed by Mick Jackson. Set in Los Angeles, California, it relates a series of episodes in the romantic life of an L.A. TV weatherman. It includes surreal sequences in which he is offered romantic advice flashed to him by a freeway sign. The movie blends romantic comedy with elements that both satirize and celebrate L.A. culture.
1163688	William Bendix (January 14, 1906 – December 14, 1964) was an American film, radio, and television actor, who typically played rough, blue-collar characters. He is best remembered in movies for the title role in "The Babe Ruth Story". He also memorably portrayed the clumsily earnest aircraft plant worker Chester A. Riley in radio and television's "The Life of Riley". He received an Academy Award nomination as Best Supporting Actor for "Wake Island" (1942). Early life. Bendix, named "William" after his paternal grandfather, was born in Manhattan, the only son of Oscar Bendix and Hilda (née Carnell) Bendix. As a youth in the early 1920s, Bendix was a batboy for the New York Yankees and said he saw Babe Ruth hit more than a hundred home runs at Yankee Stadium. But he was fired after fulfilling Ruth's request for a large order of hot dogs and soda before a game, which resulted in The Babe's inability to play that day. In 1927, he married Theresa Stefanotti. Bendix worked as a grocer until the Great Depression. Film. Bendix began his acting career at the age of thirty by way of the New Jersey Federal Theater Project, and made his film debut in 1942. He played in supporting roles in dozens of Hollywood films, usually as a warm-hearted Marine, gangster, or detective. He started with appearances in film noir films including a performance in "The Glass Key" (1942), which also featured Brian Donlevy, Alan Ladd and Veronica Lake. He soon gained more attention after appearing in Alfred Hitchcock's "Lifeboat" (1944) as Gus, a wounded and dying American sailor.
1040647	John Ronald Simm (born 10 July 1970) is an English actor. He is best known for his roles as Sam Tyler in "Life on Mars" and the Master in "Doctor Who", and has starred in many television dramas including "Cracker", "The Lakes", "Sex Traffic", "State of Play", "Crime and Punishment", and "Exile". He has been nominated twice for the BAFTA Award for Best Actor and is a Laurence Olivier Award nominee. He has appeared in films such as "Wonderland", "Human Traffic", and "24 Hour Party People". In 2010, he played Hamlet at the Crucible Theatre. Early life. The eldest of three children, Simm was born in Leeds but the family moved to Lancashire when he was 2 years old. he grew up in and around Manchester, including Nelson, Lancashire, attending school at Edge End High School in the town. The family lived in a series of places around the northwest, including Manchester, Colne, Burnley, and Blackpool. His father, Ronald Simm, was a musician and from the age of 12, Simm joined his father on stage in the working men's clubs singing and playing the guitar. In 1986, Simm enrolled at the Blackpool and the Fylde College in Lytham St. Annes for three years, and starred in "Guys and Dolls" and "West Side Story" at Blackpool's Grand Theatre. However, he soon decided that musical theatre didn't interest him, so he joined an amateur dramatic group and honed his skills in his spare time, playing the title roles in "Billy Liar" and "Amadeus". He then moved to London to train at the Drama Centre London at the age of 19, where he studied the Stanislavski School of method acting and graduated in 1992. Career. Independently of his acting, throughout the 1990s, Simm was a founding member, songwriter, and guitarist with the rock band Magic Alex (named after the Beatles self-styled electronics wizard "Magic Alex" Mardas). The group played support on two British tours with Echo & the Bunnymen. Simm plays guitar on the album "Slideling" by his friend, Echo & the Bunnymen singer Ian McCulloch. Simm also played lead guitar on a few of McCulloch's solo live shows, including one at Wembley Arena as the main support to Coldplay. Magic Alex released one album, "Dated and Sexist", before splitting in 2005. Simm made his professional acting debut in 1992 with the role of Joby Johnson in an episode of the TV series "Rumpole of the Bailey" (there had been an earlier part in the BBC drama "Between the Lines" where Simm was in one scene as PC Witty, but the scene was cut). There then followed a variety of roles during which time he honed his craft in front of the camera, including a psycho in "The Bill", a lovestruck schoolboy in "Heartbeat", and a drugged-up burglar in "The Locksmith". He also made two series of the BBC sitcom "Men of the World", playing the lead role of Kendle Bains. His next project saw him take the role of Gary Kingston, a deluded murderer, in "Chiller". In 1995, Simm played the troubled teenager Bill Preece in the acclaimed ITV police drama "Cracker". This is considered his breakthrough role. He also made his feature film debut in "Boston Kickout", beating Dennis Hopper for the Best Actor award at the Valencia Film Festival. In 1996, he made his professional stage debut in the Simon Bent play "Goldhawk Road" at the Bush Theatre, directed by Paul Miller. In 1997, he won the lead role of Danny Kavanagh in the first series of "The Lakes", a BBC series written by Jimmy McGovern. In 1999, he starred in the second series of "The Lakes" as well as appearing as Jip in the award-winning cult clubbing film "Human Traffic" and Michael Winterbottom's acclaimed "Wonderland". In 2000, he starred in the opening episode of the BBC drama "Clocking Off", written by Paul Abbott, with whom he would work again in 2002 when he starred as Cal McCaffrey in the multi-award-winning political thriller series "State of Play". Simm also played the lead role of loan shark John Parlour in Tony Marchant's "Never Never" for Channel 4. In 2001, he played Oz in a Caleb Lindsay film, "Understanding Jane". In 2002, Simm featured in another Michael Winterbottom film, "24 Hour Party People", as New Order frontman Bernard Sumner. At a live concert in Finsbury Park that same year, Simm sang the Joy Division song "Digital" onstage with New Order. It was also this year that he played Raskolnikov in the BBC adaptation of "Crime and Punishment", adapted by Tony Marchant. Marchant also wrote "The Knight's Tale", one of a series of modern reworkings of "The Canterbury Tales", in which Simm played Ace. Later that year, Simm starred in the film "Miranda". In 2004, he played the researcher and charity investigator Daniel Appleton in the BAFTA award-winning Channel 4 drama "Sex Traffic". This two-parter followed the plight of two young Moldovan sisters sold into sexual slavery. After playing Dr. Bruce Flaherty in Howard Davies' production of Joe Penhall's "Blue/Orange", Simm starred as Detective Inspector Sam Tyler in the 2006 BBC series "Life on Mars", playing a police officer sent back in time to 1973. The show won the Pioneer Audience Award for Best Programme at the 2007 BAFTA TV Awards, Simm was nominated but lost out on the award for Best Actor. He left after the second series, feeling that he had taken the role as far as he could. His next project, in March 2007, was "The Yellow House" for Channel 4, a biographical drama produced by Talkback Thames, based on the book of the same name by Martin Gayford about the turbulent relationship of artists Vincent van Gogh (Simm) and Paul Gauguin (John Lynch). In the same year, Simm also returned to the theatre as the title character in Paul Miller's acclaimed Bush Theatre staging of Simon Bent's version of "Elling", a comedy about two men just out of a psychiatric hospital adjusting to normal life and to each other. Following positive press reviews and an extended, sell-out run, the production was transferred to the Trafalgar Studios 1 in July 2007 and Simm was nominated for an Olivier Award for his performance. In 2007, Simm was chosen by Russell T. Davies to play The Master, the nemesis of The Doctor in the long-running BBC series "Doctor Who". He appeared in the final three episodes of series three: "Utopia", "The Sound of Drums", and "Last of the Time Lords". He reprised the role in the 2009 two-part special "The End of Time". In 2008, Simm played Edward Sexby in "The Devil's Whore", a four-part English Civil War epic for Channel 4. He performed at the Royal Variety Performance with Alexander Armstrong and Ben Miller, and starred in the film "Skellig", broadcast on Sky1 in April 2009. Simm became involved in an ongoing project with director Michael Winterbottom called "Everyday", to be filmed in real time over five years. The film premiered at the Toronto Film Festival in September 2012, and is in competition at the 2013 London Film Festival. Simm returned to the west end stage in autumn of 2009 to critical acclaim, starring in the Andrew Bovell play "Speaking in Tongues" at the Duke of York's Theatre. In September 2010, Simm played Hamlet at the Sheffield Crucible. The production was a sellout and broke box office records for the theatre. In 2011, Simm starred in "Mad Dogs" on Sky1. Simm plays Baxter in a project that reunited him with Philip Glenister and Marc Warren along with Max Beesley and Ben Chaplin. "Mad Dogs" became a critical and ratings success and received a BAFTA nomination for best drama serial, and a second and third series were commissioned. "Mad Dogs 2" was shot in Mallorca and Ibiza in late 2011, and appeared on Sky 1 in January 2012, the same time as "Mad Dogs 3" was being shot in South Africa. On BBC One in May 2011, Simm starred as Tom Rondstadt in "Exile". His performance earned him his second BAFTA nomination for best actor. From 17 May to 9 June 2012, Simm starred as Jerry in a revival of Harold Pinter's "Betrayal" at the Crucible Theatre. He plays John Middleton in "The Village", a 6-part BBC drama which portrays life in a Derbyshire village during World War I. From May-Aug 2013 he returned to The Trafalgar studios in London's west end to Star opposite Simon Russell Beale in a new production of Harold Pinter's "The Hothouse". Personal life. Simm married actress Kate Magowan in April 2004 in the Forest of Dean; they have a son and a daughter.
1068475	Silent Light (Plautdietsch: "Stellet Lijcht"; ) is a 2007 film written and directed by Mexican filmmaker Carlos Reygadas. Filmed in Cuauhtémoc, Chihuahua, a city in northern Mexico, "Silent Light" is set in a Mennonite community and tells the story of a married man who falls in love with another woman. The dialogue is in Plautdietsch, the language of the low-German Mennonites. Martin Scorsese called the film "A surprising picture and a very moving one as well." Production. Carlos Reygadas's films are known for their long sequences, slow rhythm, and use of nonprofessional actors. All the performers in "Silent Light" are Mennonites from communities in Mexico, Germany and Canada. The film was an international co-production by companies from Mexico, France and the Netherlands. The film is in part based upon the 1955 film "Ordet" by Danish filmmaker Carl Theodor Dreyer, which also features quiet pastoral farm scenes, ticking clocks, intentionally slow pacing, stretches of silence, wind in fields of grain, similarly named central characters (Johan and Johannes respectively), a focus on a large farm family and their home, a protagonist questioning the strict piety of his minister father, the death of this protagonist's wife in seeming connection with her husband's impiety, and, most saliently, her mysterious resurrection from the dead as brought about by a kiss. It is not a strict remake of "Ordet" however, as there are numerous and substantive differences in plot, most notably the absence, in "Silent Light", of a character central to "Ordet": the prophetic mystic son who appears to be insane. Reception. Reviews. The film received a positive response from many critics. The "Time" magazine reviewer wrote that "All the scenes shine with a visual and emotional brilliance". Manohla Dargis of "The New York Times" called the film "an apparently simple story about forgiving" in which "the images are of extraordinary beauty", and said that "The characters seem to be illuminated from the inside." The reviewer of "Le Monde" wrote that "Reygadas's genius makes every moment sacred." The magazine "Sight & Sound" rated it number 6 on their list of the top films of 2007. Roger Ebert named the film one of the top ten independent films of 2009 as well as one of the best films of the 2000s. Top ten lists. The film appeared on several critics' top ten lists of the best films of 2008.
166619	Sofia Vladimirovna Vassilieva (born October 22, 1992; ) is an American actress. She is best known for playing the children's book heroine Eloise, in two made-for-television movies, Ariel Dubois in the Emmy-winning TV series "Medium", and the cancer patient Kate Fitzgerald in the 2009 film adaptation of "My Sister's Keeper" by Jodi Picoult. Early life. Vassilieva was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, the daughter of Russian immigrant parents Drs. Larissa Vassilieva and Vladimir Vassiliev, a biologist and physicist respectively, both from Novosibirsk. Career. At the age of seven, Vassilieva was discovered at the International Modeling and Talent Association IMTA in New York where she won the title of "Child Actress" and first runner-up "Child Model Of The Year 2000". In less than one year she had the part of Elena—the granddaughter of a retired Russian General—in the episode "Deadline" of the CBS television series "The Agency" (2001–2003). In 2002, she played Cindy Brady in "The Brady Bunch in the White House" (2002) opposite Shelley Long and Gary Cole; a little girl named Gina in "Inhabited" (2003) opposite Malcolm McDowell; and "The Bad Seeds former child actress Patty McCormack.
394287	Green Chair (녹색 의자 - "Noksaek uija") is a South Korean film directed by Park Chul-soo, that was released in 2005. It is about an affair between an attractive thirty-two-year-old woman and a youth just short of legal majority. Interlaced with explicit scenes of love making, the movie watches the two lovers trying to come to grips with their mutual attraction, sexuality and societal disapproval.
586605	Paisa Vasool is a 2004 Indian film directed by Srinivas Bhashyam starring Manisha Koirala and Sushmita Sen. The film is remake of High Heels and Low Lifes. Manisha Koirala's debut as producer. The film failed at the box office and received negative reviews upon release for the film and the soundtrack Plot. After a chance encounter at a club the struggling actress Baby decides to move in with Maria, a withdrawn divorcee who is having financial troubles and run-ins with the mafia. By accident the two women overhear a conversation in which a man confesses committing a robbery to his girlfriend. The two women decide to blackmail him for a piece of the action. Unfortunately the robbers have no intention of just rolling over. Critical Reception. Ron Ahluwalia from Planet Bollywood gave the film 2.5/10 and stated "Burying your money in the ground would be wiser than even renting a movie like Paisa Vasool. It's just that simple: don't watch it!" Apunkachoice gave the film 3/5 stating 'at times the humor in the film is too predictable and there are other sequences that are simply puerile. Even the two leading characters Baby and Maria are made to overreact in many situations'. Soundtrack. Ron Ahluwalia from Planet Bollywood gave the soundtrack 4/10 and chose 'Yaadon Mein' as his favorite song stating 'It’s a shame that Manisha was not able to get more songs like Yaadon Mein out of her composers and lyricist. This soundtrack should be looked upon as a pathetic follow-up by Bapi-Tutul on their work in Bhoot. In the end, one beautiful song cannot save a host of repulsive songs. Forget that Paisa Vasool ever had a soundtrack!' Satyajit from Smashhits.com called the soundtrack 'a complete washout' stating that the soundtrack is 'rather a rehashed version of many remix albums'.
1165517	Jack Lee Ging (born November 30, 1931, in Alva in Woods County in northwestern Oklahoma) is an American actor best known for his role as General Harlan 'Bull' Fullbright in the NBC television series "The A-Team". Biography. Early life. Before turning to acting, Ging served in the United States Marine Corps and during the 1950s played college football at the University of Oklahoma at Norman. Career. From 1984 to 1985, Ging played the arrogant Lieutenant Ted Quinlan on the adventure/detective series "Riptide". He was eventually killed off, to free him up to appear in "The A-Team" (Ironically, in his final "Riptide" episode, he was killed by Carl Franklin, the sidekick of Colonel Decker - Fulbright's predecessor in "The A-Team").
495995	Sea Beast, also known as Troglodyte, is a Canadian 2009 Horror/Syfy Channel movie starring Miriam McDonald, Daniel Wisler, Brandon Jay McLaren and Corin Nemec. It was released to DVD on June 30, 2009. It is the 16th film of the "Maneater Series".
744444	Karan Ashley Jackson better known by her stagename Karan Ashley (born September 28, 1975) is an American actress. Ashley was born in Odessa, Texas. She graduated from David W. Carter High School in Dallas. In 1992, she was a member of the short-lived girl group K.R.U.S.H, who contributed a song to the soundtrack of "Mo' Money". She was known as "Ashley Jackson" at this time. Ashley's first acting job was as Aisha Campbell, the second Yellow Ranger in "Mighty Morphin Power Rangers", replacing Thuy Trang (Trini Kwan). Staying on for two years, Ashley left the show in 1995. She was replaced by Nakia Burrise (Tanya) for "". Her last "Power Rangers" appearance was in the finale for the third season of the series. Ashley has said that her decision to leave the series was because of the demanding hours. She also reveals that she was to be given an exiting story arc, just as Amy Jo Johnson was, but instead, following time off while her character was reduced to a child for some time in the third season, she would find that she was not asked to return to the set, the official reason given was that her character's recovery would not require her to appear on screen. Since then, Ashley has made guest appearances in TV shows such as "Hangin' with Mr. Cooper", "Kenan & Kel", and "The Parkers", just to name a few, and acted in a few minor films like "Taylor's Wall". Her first big debut as, editor and executive producer was the independent film "Devon's Ghost", alongside fellow "Power Ranger" alumnus Johnny Yong Bosch and executive producer Koichi Sakamoto for Gag Order Films, Inc. While she also co-wrote "Devon's Ghost", her first writing staple came with the film "Unto Thee" in 1999. She co-wrote the film with Gia and Tim Grace, and also starred in the movie.
1573471	Lynne Maria Frederick (25 July 1954 – 27 April 1994) was an English film actress. In a career spanning ten years she made about thirty films or television drama appearances, but she is best remembered as the last wife of Peter Sellers. She was married twice after his death. Early life. Frederick was born in Hillingdon, Middlesex to Andrew and Iris (née Sullivan) Frederick. Her mother became a casting director for Thames Television. Lynne's parents split up when she was two, and she was brought up by her mother and her grandmother, Cecilia, at Market Harborough, Leicestershire. Career. Having originally aspired to becoming a teacher of mathematics and physics, she abandoned her academic pursuits for the stage, and made her film debut as Mary Custance in "No Blade of Grass" (1970) when she was just 16 years old. She then appeared a year later in the 1971 biographical film "Nicholas and Alexandra", in which she played Grand Duchess Tatiana Nikolaevna of Russia, second eldest daughter of Tsar Nicholas II. However her best-known appearance came shortly afterwards when she played another historical character, Catherine Howard in "Henry VIII and His Six Wives" in 1972. Frederick would go on to pursue a successful career in films throughout the 1970s. Her next role was in the 1972 children's film "The Amazing Mr. Blunden" and in 1973 she won an award for the "Most Promising Newcomer – Actress of 1973".
1039565	Sir Robert Graham Stephens (14 July 193112 November 1995) was a leading English actor in the early years of Britain's Royal National Theatre. He was one of the most respected actors of his generation and was at one time regarded as the natural successor to Laurence Olivier. Early life and career. Stephens was born in Shirehampton, Bristol, Gloucestershire, in 1931. At age 18 he won a scholarship to Esme Church's Bradford Civic Theatre School, Yorkshire, (where he met his first wife Nora, a fellow student). His first professional engagement was with the Caryl Jenner Mobile Theatre, which he followed in 1951 by a year of more challenging parts in repertory at the Royalty Theatre, Morecambe, followed by seasons of touring and at the Hippodrome, Preston. The London director Tony Richardson saw a performance at the Royalty and this led to an offer of a place in the "momentous" first season of English Stage Company at the Royal Court in 1956. His success was assured. His early films included "A Taste of Honey" (1961), "Cleopatra" (1963) and "The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie" (1969) with his then wife Maggie Smith. There was also a minor role as Prince Escalus in Franco Zeffirelli's "Romeo and Juliet" (1968), as well as a starring role in Billy Wilder's "The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes" (1970) and the science fiction film, "The Asphyx" (1973). Stephens and Maggie Smith appeared together on stage and in film, notably in "The Recruiting Officer" at the Old Vic and the film version of "The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie" in 1969. However, following his departure from the National Theatre in 1970 and the breakup of their marriage in 1973 he suffered a career slump, not helped by heavy drinking and a breakdown. Although he continued to work on stage (notably in the National Theatre's" The Mysteries" in 1986), film ("The Fruit Machine" in 1988, aka "Wonderland" in the USA and Kenneth Branagh's Henry V), and television (notably in the role of Abner Brown in the 1984 BBC TV dramatisation of the children's classic "The Box of Delights" and as the Master of an Oxford college in an episode of Inspector Morse), it was not until the 1990s that he re-established himself at the forefront of his profession, when the Royal Shakespeare Company invited him to play Falstaff in "Henry IV" for director Adrian Noble (opening April 1991), the title roles in "Julius Caesar" (director Stephen Pimlott) later in the year and then "King Lear", again for Noble, in May 1993. He was awarded the Laurence Olivier Theatre Award in 1993 for Best Actor, for his performance as Falstaff. Stephens provided the voice of Aragorn in the 1981 BBC Radio serialisation of "The Lord of the Rings". Personal life. Stephens was married four times:
1062721	"National Lampoon's Animal House" is a 1978 American comedy film directed by John Landis. The film was a direct spinoff from "National Lampoon" magazine. It is about a misfit group of fraternity members who challenge the dean of Faber College. The screenplay was adapted by Douglas Kenney, Chris Miller, and Harold Ramis from stories written by Miller and published in "National Lampoon" magazine. The stories were based on Miller's experiences in the Alpha Delta Phi fraternity at Dartmouth College. Other influences on the film came from Ramis's experiences in the Zeta Beta Tau fraternity at Washington University in St. Louis, and producer Ivan Reitman's experiences at Delta Upsilon at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario. Of the younger lead actors, only John Belushi was an established star, but even he had not yet appeared in a film, having gained fame mainly from his "Saturday Night Live" television appearances. Several of the actors who were cast as college students, including Karen Allen, Tom Hulce, and Kevin Bacon, were just beginning their film careers, although Tim Matheson was coming off a large role as one of the assassin motorcycle cops in the second Dirty Harry film, "Magnum Force". Upon its initial release, "Animal House" received generally mixed reviews from critics, but "Time" and Roger Ebert proclaimed it one of the year's best. Filmed for $2.8 million, it is one of the most profitable movies of all time, garnering an estimated return of more than $141 million in the form of videos and DVDs, not including merchandising. The film, along with 1977's "The Kentucky Fried Movie", also directed by Landis, was largely responsible for defining and launching the gross-out genre of films, which became one of Hollywood's staples. In 2001, the United States Library of Congress deemed "Animal House" "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" and selected it for preservation in the National Film Registry. It was No. 1 on Bravo's "100 Funniest Movies." It was No. 36 on AFI's "100 Years... 100 Laughs" list of the 100 best American comedies. In 2008, "Empire" magazine selected it as one of "The 500 Greatest Movies of All Time." Plot. In 1962, college freshmen Lawrence "Larry" Kroger (Tom Hulce) and Kent Dorfman (Stephen Furst) seek to join a fraternity at Faber College. They visit the prestigious Omega Theta Pi House's invitational party, but are not welcomed there. They then try next door at Delta Tau Chi House, where Kent's brother was once a member, making Kent a "legacy." There they find John "Bluto" Blutarsky (John Belushi) urinating outside the fraternity house. The Deltas "need the dues" so they permit Larry and Kent to pledge. They receive the fraternity names "Pinto" (Larry) and "Flounder" (Kent).
1062819	Phoebe Cates Kline (born Phoebe Belle Cates; July 16, 1963), better known as Phoebe Cates, is an American film actress, model, and entrepreneur. She is known for her roles in several teen films, most notably "Fast Times at Ridgemont High" and "Gremlins". Early life. Cates was born Phoebe Belle Cates in New York City to a family of television and Broadway production insiders. Her parents are Lily and Joseph Cates (originally "Joseph Katz"), who was a major Broadway producer and a pioneering figure in television, who helped create "The $64,000 Question". Her late uncle, Gilbert Cates, produced numerous television specials, often in partnership with Cates' father, and several annual Academy Awards shows. Her paternal grandparents and maternal grandmother were Russian Jews, and her maternal grandfather was Chinese Filipino. Cates attended the Professional Children's School and the Juilliard School. When she was ten, she wanted to become a dancer. She eventually got a scholarship to the School of American Ballet, but after suffering a serious knee injury at age 15, she gave up her dancing career. She next began a career as a professional model, which was short-lived, although successful. Cates, however, did not like the industry: "It was just the same thing, over and over. After a while I did it solely for the money." Acting career. After ending her modeling career, Cates decided to begin her acting career. Although her father was an actor as well, he was not enthusiastic about his daughter's new acting career. Cates's acting debut was in "Paradise" (released 1982), a role she won after replying to a casting call in New York. she played the role of Sarah and did several full nude scenes in the movie, which had a plot very similar to "The Blue Lagoon". In a 1982 interview, she recalled having trouble with the change of career, because as a model she had to be conscious of the camera, whereas in front of the movie camera, she could not. Cates later regretted being in the movie and said: "What I learned was never to do a movie like that again." According to her co-star Willie Aames, "she will have nothing to do with the film. She's really upset about it. She won't do any promotion with me." Later in 1982, Cates starred in "Fast Times at Ridgemont High" which features "the most memorable bikini-drop in cinema history." She was quoted as saying that she had the most fun in filming that movie. The following year, she was in the sex comedy "Private School" (which co-starred Matthew Modine and Betsy Russell), for which she sang on two songs of the film's soundtrack. Her later film roles were more modest and largely oriented toward younger audiences, such as the two "Gremlins" films and the 1991 film "Drop Dead Fred". Her face graced the covers of teen magazines such as "Seventeen", "Tiger Beat", "Teen Beat" and others. In 1984, she starred in the TV mini-series "Lace". She sought the role of Lili "to get away from a sameness in her movie portrayals." During her audition, she so impressed the writer, that he wanted to hire her there and then. Cates struggled with the portrayal of a bitter movie star because, despite her character's vicious persona, she intended for the audience to sympathize with her. She did not read the novel on which the movie was based because she did not want to have a "fixed image". In 1985, Cates appeared Off-Broadway in "Rich Relations", written by David Henry Hwang of the Second Stage Theatre. In 1994, she starred in the romantic comedy "Princess Caraboo". Cates retired from acting in 1994 in order to raise her children. She returned to acting in 2001 for one film, "The Anniversary Party", as a favor to the director, her best friend, Jennifer Jason Leigh. Music career. Cates sang the title song (of the same name) for the film "Paradise". She also sang the songs "Just One Touch" and "How Do I Let You Know" for the "Private School" soundtrack. Personal life. In the early 1980s, Cates shared an apartment in Greenwich Village with her then boyfriend Stavros Merjos. She met him in 1979, when she went out to her first night in Studio 54 with family friend Andy Warhol. In 1989, Cates and actor Kevin Kline were married, having first met in 1983 during her audition for the movie role that Meg Tilly ultimately won in "The Big Chill". She changed her name to Phoebe Cates Kline. The Klines live in New York City with their two children, son Owen Joseph Kline, born in 1991, and daughter Greta Simone Kline, born in 1994. Both Owen and Greta appeared along with their parents in the 2001 movie, "The Anniversary Party". Owen also appeared in the 2005 film, "The Squid and the Whale". In 2005, Cates opened her own boutique called Blue Tree on New York's Madison Avenue.
64375	Nicholas of Kues (1401 – August 11, 1464), also referred to as Nicolaus Cusanus and Nicholas of Cusa, was a German philosopher, theologian, jurist, and astronomer. One of the first German proponents of Renaissance humanism, he made spiritual and political contributions in European history. A notable example of this is his mystical or spiritual writings on "learned ignorance," as well as his participation in power struggles between Rome and the German states of the Holy Roman Empire. Papal legate to Germany from 1446, he was appointed cardinal for his merits by Pope Nicholas V in 1448 and Prince–Bishop of Brixen two years later. In 1459 he became vicar general in the Papal States. Life. Nicholas of Cusa or Kues (Latinized as "Cusa") was the second of four children of Johan Krebs (or Cryfftz) and Katherina Roemer. His father was "a prosperous boat owner and ferryman." He entered the Faculty of Arts of the Heidelberg University in 1416 as "a cleric of the Diocese of Trier", studying the liberal arts. He seemed to have left Heidelberg soon afterwards, as he received his doctorate in canon law from the University of Padua in 1423. In Padua, he met with the later cardinals Julian Cesarini and Domenico Capranica and became friends with the mathematician Paolo dal Pozzo Toscanelli. Afterwards, he entered the University of Cologne in 1425 as "a doctor of canon law," which he appears to have both taught and practiced there. In Cologne, he made friends with the scholastic theologian Heymeric de Campo. Following a brief period in Cologne, Nicholas returned to his hometown and became secretary to Otto of Ziegenhain, the Prince–Archbishop of Trier. Otto appointed him canon and dean at the stift of Saint Florinus in Koblenz affiliated with numerous prebends. In 1427 he was sent to Rome as an episcopal delegate. The next year he travelled to Paris to study the writings of Ramon Llull. At the same time he rejected a calling by the newly established University of Leuven. He acquired great knowledge in the research of ancient and mediæval manuscripts as well as in textual criticism and the examination of primary sources. In 1433 he identified the "Donation of Constantine" as a fake, confirmed by Lorenzo Valla a few years later, and revealed the forgery of the "Pseudo-Isidorian Decretals". He made friends with the Austrian astronomer Georg von Peuerbach and advocated a reform of the Julian calendar and the Easter computus, which, however, was not realized until the introduction of the Gregorian calendar in 1582. After the Archbishop Otto of Trier had died in 1430, Pope Martin V appointed the Speyer bishop Raban of Helmstatt his successor. Nevertheless the Electorate was contested by opposing parties, and in 1432 Nicholas attended the Council of Basel representing the Cologne dean Ulrich von Manderscheid, one of the claimants, who hoped to prevail against the new Pope Eugene IV. Nicholas stressed the determining influence of the cathedral chapter and its given right to participate in the succession policy, which even places the pope under an obligation to seek a consent. His efforts were to no avail in regard to Ulrich's ambitions; however, Nicholas' pleadings earned him a great reputation as an intermediary and diplomat. While present at the council, he wrote his first work, "De concordantia catholica" ("The Catholic Concordance"), a synthesis of ideas on church and empire balancing hierarchy with consent. This work remained useful to critics of the papacy long after Nicholas left Basel. Initially as conciliarist, Nicholas approached to his university friend Cardinal Julian Cesarini, who had tried to reconcile pope and council, combining reform and hierarchic order. Nicholas supported transfer of the council to Italy to meet with the Greeks, who needed aid against the Ottoman Turks. He arbitrated in the conflict with the Hussites. Between the summer of 1437 and early 1438 he was a member of the delegation sent to Constantinople with the pope's approval to bring back the Byzantine emperor and his representatives to the papally summoned Council of Florence of 1439, which was attempting to bring the Eastern Orthodox Church into union with the Western Catholic Church. The reunion achieved at this conference turned out to be very brief. Nicholas would later claim (in the postfaced dedicatory letter of "On Learned Ignorance", which Nicholas finished writing on 12 February 1440) that he had chosen to write on this metaphysical topic because of a shipboard experience of divine illumination while on the ship returning from this mission to Constantinople. After a successful career as a papal envoy, he was made a cardinal by Pope Nicholas V in 1448 or 1449. In 1450 he was both named Bishop of Brixen, in County of TyrollTyrol, and commissioned as a papal legate to the German lands to spread the message of reform. This latter role, his 'Great Legation' of 1450-2, involved travel of almost 3000 miles, preaching, teaching and reforming. He became known as "the Hercules of the Eugenian cause". His local councils enacted reforms, many of which were not successful. Pope Nicholas canceled some of Nicholas' decrees, and the effort to discourage pilgrimages to venerate the bleeding hosts of Wilsnack (the so-called Holy Blood of Wilsnack) was unsuccessful. His work as bishop between 1452 and 1458 – trying to impose reforms and reclaim lost diocesan revenues – was opposed by Duke Sigismund of Austria. The duke imprisoned Nicholas in 1460, for which Pope Pius II excommunicated Sigismund and laid an interdict on his lands. Nicholas of Cusa returned to Rome, but was never able to return to his bishopric. He died at Todi on 11 August 1464. Sigmund's capitulation in 1464 came a few days after Nicholas's death at Todi in Umbria. Upon his death, Cusanus's body was interred in the church of San Pietro in Vincoli in Rome, probably near the relice of Peter's chains; but it was later lost. His monument, with a sculpted image of the cardinal, remains. Two other tombstones, one medieval and one modern, also are found in the church. In accordance with his wishes, his heart rests within the chapel altar at the Cusanusstift in Kues. To this charitable institution that he had founded he bequeathed his entire inheritance: it still stands, and serves the purpose Nicholas intended for it, as a home for the aged. The Cusanusstift houses also many of his manuscripts.[http://www.cusanus.de/] Nicholas was widely read, and his works were published in the sixteenth century in both Paris and Basel. Sixteenth-century French scholars, including Jacques Lefèvre d'Étaples and Charles de Bovelles, cited him. Lefèvre even edited the Paris 1514 "Opera". Nonetheless, there was no Cusan school, and his works were largely unknown until the nineteenth century, though Giordano Bruno quoted him, while some thinkers, like Gottfried Leibniz, were thought to have been influenced by him. Neo-Kantian scholars began studying Nicholas in the nineteenth century, and new editions were begun by the Heidelberger Akademie der Wissenschaften in the 1930s and published by Felix Meiner Verlag [http://www.meiner.de/index.php]. In the early twentieth century, he was hailed as the 'first modern thinker', and much debate since then has centered around the question whether he should be seen as essentially a medieval or Renaissance figure. Societies and centers dedicated to Cusanus can be found in Argentina, Japan, Germany, Italy and the United States. Works. Nicholas of Cusa wrote a large number of works, which include: Philosophy. Nicholas of Cusa was noted for his deeply mystical writings about Christianity, particularly on the possibility of knowing God with the divine human mind — not possible through mere human means — via "learned ignorance". Cusanus wrote of the enfolding of creation in God and their unfolding in creation. He was suspected by some of holding pantheistic beliefs, but his writings were never accused of being heretical. Physicist and philosopher Max Bernhard Weinstein wrote that Nicholas was, to a certain extent, a Pandeist. Nicholas also wrote in "De coniecturis" about using conjectures or surmises to rise to better understanding of the truth. The individual might rise above mere reason to the vision of the intellect, but the same person might fall back from such vision. Theologically, Nicholas anticipated the profound implications of Reformed teaching on the harrowing of Hell (Sermon on Psalm 30:11), followed by Pico della Mirandola, who similarly explained the "descensus" in terms of Christ’s agony. Science and Mathematics. Most of Nicholas of Cusa's mathematical ideas can be found in his essays, "De Docta Ignorantia" ("Of Learned Ignorance"), "De Visione Dei" ("On the Vision of God") and "On Conjectures". He also wrote on squaring the circle in his mathematical treatises. From the Catholic Encyclopedia (1913 edition): The astronomical views of the cardinal are scattered through his philosophical treatises. They evince complete independence of traditional doctrines, though they are based on symbolism of numbers, on combinations of letters, and on abstract speculations rather than observation. The earth is a star like other stars, is not the centre of the universe, is not at rest, nor are its poles fixed. The celestial bodies are not strictly spherical, nor are their orbits circular. The difference between theory and appearance is explained by relative motion. Had Copernicus been aware of these assertions he would probably have been encouraged by them to publish his own monumental work. Norman Moore, M.D., tells us in The Fitz-Patrick Lectures of 1905: In medicine he introduced an improvement which in an altered form has continued in use to this day. This improvement was the counting of the pulse which up to his time had been felt and discussed in many ways but never counted. ...Nicholas of Cusa proposed to compare the rate of pulses by weighing the quantity of water run out of a water clock while the pulse beat one hundred times. ...The manufacture of watches with second-hands has since given us a simpler method of counting, but the merit of introducing this useful kind of observation into clinical medicine belongs to Nicholas of Cusa.
1163698	Joel Albert McCrea (November 5, 1905 – October 20, 1990) was an American actor whose career spanned 50 years and appearances in over 90 films. Early life. McCrea was born in South Pasadena, California, the son of Thomas McCrea, who was an executive with the L.A. Gas & Electric Company. As a boy, he had a paper route, and delivered the "Los Angeles Times" to Cecil B. DeMille and other people in the film industry. He also had the opportunity to watch D. W. Griffith filming "Intolerance", and was an extra in a serial starring Ruth Roland. McCrea graduated from Hollywood High School and then Pomona College (class of 1928), where he had acted on stage and took courses in drama and public speaking, and appeared regularly at the Pasadena Playhouse, Even as a high school student, he was working as a stunt double and held horses for cowboy stars William S. Hart and Tom Mix. He worked as an extra, stunt man and bit player from 1927 to 1928, when he signed a contract with MGM, where he was cast in a major role in "The Jazz Age" (1929), and got his first leading role that same year, in "The Silver Horde". He moved to RKO in 1930, where he established himself as a handsome leading man who was considered versatile enough to star in both dramas and comedies. Career. In the 1930s, McCrea starred in "Bird of Paradise" (1932), directed by King Vidor, causing controversy for his nude scenes with Dolores del Río. In RKO's "The Sport Parade" (1932), McCrea and William Gargan are friends on the Dartmouth football team, who are shown snapping towels at each other in the locker room, while other players are taking a shower. In 1932 he starred with Fay Wray in "The Most Dangerous Game" - which used some of the same jungle sets built for "King Kong" as well as cast members Wray and Robert Armstrong. In 1934, he made his first appearances with two leading ladies he would be paired with often: with Miriam Hopkins he made "The Richest Girl in the World", the first of their five films together, and with Barbara Stanwyck he appeared in "Gambling Lady", the first of their six films. Later in the decade, he was the first actor to play "Dr. Kildare", in the film "Internes Can't Take Money" (1937), and he starred in two large-scale Westerns, "Wells Fargo" (1937) with his wife Frances Dee, and Cecil B. DeMille's "Union Pacific" (1939).
583463	Nayee Padosan is a 2003 Bollywood film directed by cinematographer B.H. Tharun Kumar starring Mahek Chahal, Vikas Kalantri, Anuj Sawhney and Aslam Khan in lead roles. This is a remake of superhit Tamil film Indru Poi Naalai Vaa which is a blockbuster in 1981 and directed by K. Bhagyaraj Plot. The story revolves around the protagonist or the 'Nayee Padosan' (Mahek Chahal) who has shifted into a new locality. Her simplicity, righteousness and no-nonsense attitude are qualities any man would want his life partner to possess. Three different boys Raju (Anuj Sawhney), Raja (Aslam Khan) and Ram (Vikas Kalantri) from different backgrounds, characteristics and eventually modus operandi are swept head over heals in love with the girl. What follows next is a laugh riot, in the way the three eligible bachelors try and get themselves acquainted and eventually outwit one another to get the girl. The film takes a sudden turn when a new entry Prabhu (Rahul Bhat) that happens to be a favourite with both the girl and her family shatters the hopes of the three eligible bachelors. Nothing seems to stop the inevitable. The battle seems lost for the three hapless boys. The film goes through various emotional graphs where the three boys have their individual shares of gains and losses vis-a-vis their competitors. The girl doesn't reveal her feelings until a certain change of events makes her realise whom she really loves and would want to spend the rest of her life with. Music. The movie soundtrack contains 7 songs composed by the award-winning trio Shankar–Ehsaan–Loy. Lyrics by Sameer.
1056303	Anthony Zimmer is a 2005 French romantic thriller film written and directed by Jérôme Salle and starring Sophie Marceau, Yvan Attal, and Sami Frey. Set mainly in southern France, the film is about a highly intelligent criminal—pursued by international police and the Russian mafia—whose extensive plastic surgery makes him unrecognizable, even to his girlfriend, who enlists the help of an unsuspecting stranger on a train. The film received a 2006 César Award Nomination for Best First Work for director Jérôme Salle. Plot. Anthony Zimmer is a genius career criminal wanted by police around the world. He has used ingenious methods to launder money legally, using dummy corporations that file lawsuits against firms outside of France. Zimmer is also being pursued by the "White Collar Barons"—a powerful Russian mafia group with whom he once did business. Zimmer is an elusive character, however, with no known description of his appearance following his recent plastic surgery. One standout detective named Akerman (Sami Frey) is getting close to catching the criminal mastermind; he knows that Zimmer will risk everything to reunite with the lover he left behind, Chiara Manzoni (Sophie Marceau), who has not seen him since his plastic surgery. Anticipating a reunion with Zimmer, Chiara arrives at a restaurant, where she receives a message from her boyfriend, telling her to "pick up" a stranger whose general appearance matches his own in order to mislead his pursuers. Chiara boards a TGV high-speed train and chooses François Taillandier (Yvan Attal), a bland 38-year-old translator who reads detective novels and whose wife left him over six months ago. Fascinated by this beautiful mysterious woman, François has difficulty concentrating on his yogurt and reading. When they arrive at Cannes, Chiara invites François to stay over with her at the Carlton Hotel. She also gives him a watch that bears Zimmer's name on the back. The next morning, François wakes up alone and finds himself the target of two hitmen. He frantically escapes and seeks shelter at a nearby police station. There, he befriends Lt. Camel Driss (Samir Guesmi), who provides him with clothes and a room at a nearby hospital. They discover that Chiara checked out of the Carlton Hotel that day. Driss believes François' story after seeing a bullet hole in the hotel room, which is now occupied by members of the White Collar Barons and their leader, Nassaiev (Daniel Olbrychski). Later that night, Driss is murdered. When he sees Nassaiev and his goons outside his room, François escapes and unexpectedly reunites with Chiara, who takes him to a secret hideout in Nice. There, she explains that she set him up because he matches Zimmer's build, and she tells him to stay in the hideout for a few days. The next day, however, François leaves the hideout and stalks her outside the Hotel Negresco, hoping to get more answers from her. Soon François is nabbed by the police and interrogated by Akerman, who reveals to him that Chiara is in fact an undercover DGDDI agent. That night, Ackerman secretly meets up with Chiara to discuss the rendezvous Zimmer proposed in a classified ad. Ackerman tells her that while she will be at the rendezvous point, he will keep an eye on François. With François in custody, Ackerman and his men park their surveillance truck and post their snipers within the vicinity of the rendezvous point—Zimmer's old mansion. Chiara enters the mansion and confronts the White Collar Barons and Nassaiev, who threatens to kill her if Zimmer does not arrive within five minutes. François leaves the truck and rushes into the mansion to save her, but is immediately placed on the ground at gunpoint by Nassaiev's men. After Nassaiev rejects her claims that François is not Zimmer, Chiara gives the signal and the snipers shoot down the Russian mobsters.
774260	Brigitte Bako (born May 15, 1967) is a Canadian actress known for her role on "Red Shoe Diaries". She also wrote, produced and starred in the adult comedy "G-Spot". Life and career. Bako was born in Montreal, Quebec, Canada to Jewish parents. She trained with the Grand Ballets du Canada and acted with the Canadian National Shakespeare Company. She has starred in Hollywood productions, numerous Canadian-made movies, and films made in Canada by American producers. Bako's first major break was in Martin Scorsese’s "New York Stories". She co-starred with David Duchovny and Billy Wirth in "Red Shoe Diaries"; Benjamin Bratt and Michael Keaton in "One Good Cop"; and Ralph Fiennes in "Strange Days". "Saint Monica" was featured at the 2002 Toronto International Film Festival, and Bako received a Genie Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress. Bako also received a Genie Award nomination for Best Actress in 1993. She starred in "I Love a Man in Uniform", her first collaboration with Canadian producer Robert Lantos. In addition to having the starring role, Bako makes her writing and executive producing debut in "G-Spot". She currently maintains homes in New York and Los Angeles. Bako worked with David Duchovny again in a 2007 episode of the Showtime series "Californication" (Episode 9, "Filthy Lucre," as a Porsche saleswoman). She voiced Angela in "Gargoyles" and Monique Dupre in "".
1163844	John Byner (b. June 28, 1938) is an American actor, comedian, and impressionist who has had a lengthy television and movie career. His voice work includes the cartoon series "The Ant and the Aardvark", in which the title characters are voiced by Byner's impressions of Dean Martin and Jackie Mason, respectively. His impression of Johnny Mathis is also considered by many to be a classic. Personal life. Byner was born John Biener in New York City, the son of Christina, a mental hospital attendant, and Michael Biener, a truck mechanic. He is currently married to his fourth wife, Anne Gaybis, and has at least four children from his first marriage. His first wife was Eleanor Belcher and his third wife was Croatian actress/singer Ksenia Prohaska. His biography fails to give the name of his second wife, but according to IMDb, it is listed as Sally Fisher. Career. On "The Ed Sullivan Show", where he made his first early TV appearances, he mimicked Ed Sullivan as well as anyone, including the "master" Sullivan impersonator, Will Jordan (in fact, on his album "FM & AM", comedian George Carlin used Byner's Sullivan impersonation for his own Sullivan impersonation). His other impressions included John Wayne and he sings as Dean Martin and Johnny Mathis. His ability to mimic "Toastmaster General" George Jessel came in handy during his appearances on panel programs such as celebrity "roasts" and other tributes. On a 1967 episode of "Get Smart", Byner played a KAOS agent who made a phone call to the Chief of CONTROL (played by Edward Platt), performed a perfect impression of President Lyndon B. Johnson, and told the Chief he was fired and replaced with agent Maxwell Smart (Don Adams). Smart, the Chief and Agent 99 (Barbara Feldon) foiled this plot to undermine CONTROL, and Byner's character was arrested. In 1970, he hosted approximately 25 episodes of a syndicated half-hour musical variety series called "Something Else". He then hosted his own show in 1972 called the "John Byner Comedy Hour", where the character Super Dave was first introduced. Also that year, he had a cameo appearance in Barbra Streisand's blockbuster comedy film "What's Up, Doc?". In the mid-1970s, he guest starred in two episodes of "The Odd Couple" one entitled, "The New Car", which originally aired on October 19, 1973. In it, he plays an abrasive parking garage owner who has a hilarious encounter with Felix and Oscar. In the late 1970s, he had a featured role as Detective Donahue on the TV series "Soap". In the 1980s he hosted the Canadian TV comedy series, "Bizarre". That show re-introduced many people to hapless daredevil Super Dave Osborne, played by Bob Einstein. He was also a regular celebrity guest on "Hollywood Squares" during the John Davidson years and later hosted the 1988-89 syndicated game show "Relatively Speaking". Over the years he has done straight acting work and also light characters in otherwise serious dramas, such as the mostly-harmless con artist "Cotton Dunn" in the 1990s cop series "Silk Stalkings" and appeared in the PBS 1994 Halloween special "Lamb Chop in the Haunted Studio".
1063082	Richard Anthony "Cheech" Marin (born July 13, 1946) is a Mexican American comedian, actor, voice actor and writer who gained recognition as part of the comedy act Cheech & Chong during the 1970s and early 1980s with Tommy Chong, and as Don Johnson's partner, Insp. Joe Dominguez on "Nash Bridges". He has also voiced characters in several Disney productions, including "Oliver and Company", "The Lion King", "It's Tough to be a Bug!", "Cars", "Cars 2" and "Beverly Hills Chihuahua". Marin's trademark is his characters' strong Mexican accent; this is part of a comic persona, rather than a natural accent since Marin was born and raised in the United States, despite being of Mexican descent. Early life. Marin was born in Los Angeles, California, the son of Elsa (née Meza), a secretary, and Oscar Marin, a policeman in the LAPD. Marin was born with a cleft lip, which has long since been repaired. Although he speaks Spanish and uses it in some of his movies, he is not particularly fluent. Marin's nickname "Cheech" is short for "chicharron", a fried pork skin that is a popular snack in Mexican cuisine and a favorite of marijuana smokers afflicted with "the munchies", and the nickname's alliteration with Chong's surname made "Cheech and Chong" an obvious choice for the name of the duo. The name of this character gave rise to the popular term "cheeched", meaning "under the influence of marijuana, usually at a relatively high dose". Marin graduated from Bishop Alemany High School, located in California's San Fernando Valley, as well as from San Fernando Valley State College (now California State University, Northridge), where he was a member of Phi Sigma Kappa. Marin auditioned to sing for Frank Zappa in 1967, but moved to Vancouver, British Columbia in September of that year to avoid the U.S. draft during the height of the Vietnam War. In Vancouver, Marin met his future comedic partner Tommy Chong. Career. Comedy albums and films. As a part of the highly successful comedy duo Cheech & Chong, Marin participated in a number of comedy albums and feature film comedies in the 1970s and 1980s. Tommy Chong directed four of their films, while co-writing and starring in all seven with Cheech Marin. Later films and television work. After he and Tommy Chong went their separate ways in 1985, Marin starred in a number of films as a solo actor, most notably "Born in East L.A.", "Tin Cup", and "Once Upon a Time in Mexico". Marin made the transition to full-time television work when he co-starred on the short-lived "The Golden Girls" spin-off "The Golden Palace" (1992–1993), and later with Don Johnson, Jaime P. Gomez and Yasmine Bleeth in the police show "Nash Bridges" (1996–2001), in which they played San Francisco police-detective partners. In recent years he has been active in playing supporting roles in films and performing voice overs for animated features. After appearing in a supporting role in "Judging Amy", playing an independently wealthy landscape designer, Marin starred in the CBS sitcom "Rob", with Rob Schneider. Marin is a favorite of director Robert Rodriguez, who has worked with Marin seven times; the last two installments of the "Mexico" trilogy, the "Spy Kids" trilogy, "From Dusk Till Dawn" and "Machete". He provided his voice for several Disney animated films, most notably Tito in "Oliver & Company" (1988), Banzai in "The Lion King" (1994) and Ramone in "Cars" (2006) and "Cars 2" (2011). He also reprised the Banzai role in "Kingdom Hearts II". He made a small appearance as a dockworker in the movie "Ghostbusters 2". Children's music albums. Marin has released two best-selling albums in the children's music genre, "My Name is Cheech, the School Bus Driver" (1992) and "My Name is Cheech, The School Bus Driver "Coast to Coast"" (1997). Both albums were released bilingually. In July 2007, Cheech Marin added children's book author to his list of accomplishments with the release of Cheech the School Bus Driver, illustrated by Orlando L. Ramirez (Published by HarperCollins). In 2005, Marin appeared on Nickelodeon in the Dora the Explorer series. The episode was titled "A Crown for King Bobo," and Juan Bobo was voiced by Marin. Additional television appearances. In late 2006, Marin participated in Simon Cowell's "Celebrity Duets", having sung with Peter Frampton, Randy Travis, Clint Black, Aaron Neville, and Al Jarreau. He was the fourth to be eliminated. In that same year, he voiced as Gaspar Gomez in "". In recent years, Marin has had a recurring role in the hit television series "Lost", playing David Reyes, Hurley's father. He was a co-host for "WWE Raw" on March 1, 2010 with his comedy partner Tommy Chong, in Oklahoma City. Marin also sings on the hidden track "Earache My Eye" on Korn's album "Follow the Leader". On March 18, 2010, Marin beat journalist Anderson Cooper and actress Aisha Tyler on "Celebrity Jeopardy!s Million Dollar Celebrity Invitational"'. Cooper admitted he was "crushed" by Marin. Marin also won his semifinal round early May but lost in the May 6–7 final to Michael McKean. He had previously won the first "Celebrity Jeopardy!" tournament in 1992.
1099736	Jerzy Neyman ForMemRS (April 16, 1894 – August 5, 1981), born Jerzy Spława-Neyman, was a Polish mathematician and statistician who spent most of his professional career at the University of California, Berkeley. Neyman was the first to introduce the modern concept of a confidence interval into statistical hypothesis testing. Life and career. He was born into a Polish family in Bendery, Bessarabia in Imperial Russia, the fourth of four children of Czesław Spława-Neyman and Kazimiera Lutosławska. His family was Roman Catholic and Neyman served as an altar boy during his early childhood. Later, Neyman would become an agnostic. Neyman's family descended from a long line of Polish nobles and military heroes. He graduated from the Kamianets-Podilskyi gubernial gymnasium for boys in 1909 under the name "Yuri Cheslavovich Neyman". He began studies at Kharkov University in 1912, where he was taught by Russian probabilist Sergei Natanovich Bernstein. After he read 'Lessons on the integration and the research of the primitive functions' by Henri Lebesgue, he was fascinated with measure and integration. In 1921 he returned to Poland in a program of repatriation of POWs after the Polish-Soviet War. He earned his Doctor of Philosophy degree at University of Warsaw in 1924 for a dissertation titled "On the Applications of the Theory of Probability to Agricultural Experiments". He was examined by Wacław Sierpiński and Stefan Mazurkiewicz, among others. He spent a couple of years in London and Paris on a fellowship to study statistics with Karl Pearson and Émile Borel. After his return to Poland he established the Biometric Laboratory at the Nencki Institute of Experimental Biology in Warsaw. He published many books dealing with experiments and statistics, and devised the way which the FDA tests medicines today. Neyman proposed and studied randomized experiments in 1923. Furthermore, his paper "On the Two Different Aspects of the Representative Method: The Method of Stratified Sampling and the Method of Purposive Selection", given at the Royal Statistical Society on 19 June 1934, was the groundbreaking event leading to modern scientific sampling. He introduced the confidence interval in his paper in 1937. Another noted contribution is the Neyman-Pearson lemma, the basis of hypothesis testing. In 1938 he moved to Berkeley, where he worked for the rest of his life. Thirty-nine students received their Ph.D's under his advisorship. In 1966 he was awarded the Guy Medal of the Royal Statistical Society and three years later the (American) Medal of Science. He died in Oakland, California. External links. Statistics of Images of Galaxies with Particular Reference to Clustering Jerzy Neyman, Elizabeth L. Scott, and C. D. Shane Source: Proc. Third Berkeley Symp. on Math. Statist. and Prob., Vol. 3 (Univ. of Calif. Press, 1956), 75-111.
1162875	Lindsay Sloane (born August 8, 1977) is an American actress who is best known for playing Valerie Birkhead on "Sabrina, the Teenage Witch". She has also starred in films such as "Bring It On" (2000), "She's Out of My League" (2010), "The Other Guys" (2010) and "Horrible Bosses" (2011). Career. Sloane was born Lindsay Sloane Leikin on Long Island, New York, of Jewish heritage. After moving to Los Angeles, Sloane signed with an agent at the age of eight. Her mother once drove her to an audition through the 1992 LA Riots. Her first recurring television role was as Alice Pedermeir on "The Wonder Years" from 1991 to 1993. She played Zoey Miller for seven episodes on the short-lived NBC sitcom "Mr. Rhodes". She later played Valerie Birkhead on "Sabrina, the Teenage Witch" from 1997 to 1999, and starred in "Sabrina Down Under", a spinoff movie to the series as a different character, a mermaid named Fin. Sloane joined the casts of the short-lived series "Grosse Pointe" and "The Stones". She auditioned unsuccessfully for many roles in a number of television shows including "Blossom" and "Full House". Sloane also appeared in episodes of "Dharma & Greg", "My So-Called Life", "That '70s Show", "The West Wing", "Entourage", "Greg the Bunny", "How I Met Your Mother", "The League", and "Psych". Most recently, Sloane was featured in the seventh season of "Weeds", playing Maxeen, a character who hires Silas for a modeling gig and dates Andy. Her film résumé includes roles in "Bring It On", "Exposed", "The In-Laws", "Nancy Drew", "Sabrina Down Under", "Over Her Dead Body", "She's Out of My League", "The Other Guys" and "The Accidental Husband". She voiced the older sister in "Why, Charlie Brown, Why?". As well as a guest role as Stephanie in "Mr. Sunshine", Sloane also appears in the movie "Horrible Bosses" as Charlie Day's character's fiancee Stacy and in the 2011 movie "A Good Old Fashioned Orgy". Personal life. In 2004, Sloane married Dar Rollins, an agent for International Creative Management. The couple has one daughter, Maxwell Lue, born in January 2012.
1163807	Elsa Sullivan Lanchester (28 October 1902 – 26 December 1986) was an English character actress with a long career in theatre, film and television. Lanchester studied dance as a child and after World War I began performing in theatre and cabaret, where she established her career over the following decade. She met the actor Charles Laughton in 1927, and they were married two years later. She began playing small roles in British films, including the role of Anne of Cleves with Laughton in "The Private Life of Henry VIII" (1933). His success in American films resulted in the couple moving to Hollywood, where Lanchester played small film roles. Her role as the title character in "Bride of Frankenstein" (1935) brought her recognition. She played supporting roles through the 1940s and 1950s. She was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for "Come to the Stable" (1949) and "Witness for the Prosecution" (1957), the last of twelve films in which she appeared with Laughton. Following Laughton's death in 1962, Lanchester resumed her career with appearances in such Disney films as "Mary Poppins" (1964), "That Darn Cat!" (1965) and "Blackbeard's Ghost" (1968). The horror film "Willard" (1971) was highly successful, and one of her last roles was in "Murder By Death" (1976). Early life. Elsa Sullivan Lanchester was born in Lewisham, London. Her parents, James "Shamus" Sullivan and Edith "Biddy" Lanchester, were considered Bohemian, and refused to legalise their union in any conventional way to satisfy the era's conservative society. They were both socialists, according to Lanchester's 1972 interview with Dick Cavett. Elsa's older brother, Waldo Sulivan Lanchester, born five years earlier, was a puppeteer, with his own "marionette" company based in Malvern and later in Stratford-upon-Avon.
159760	Pope Sylvester II or Silvester II (c. 946 – 12 May 1003) was the head of the Catholic Church from 2 April 999 to his death in 1003. Born Gerbert d'Aurillac (Gerbert of Aurillac), he was a prolific scholar and teacher. He endorsed and promoted study of Arab/Greco-Roman arithmetic, mathematics, and astronomy, reintroducing to Europe the abacus and armillary sphere, which had been lost to Europe since the end of the Greco-Roman era. He is said to be the first to introduce in Europe the decimal numeral system using the Arabic numerals after his studies at the University of al-Karaouine in Morocco. He was the first French Pope. Life. Gerbert was born about 946 in the town of Belliac, near the present-day commune of Saint-Simon, Cantal, France. Around 963, he entered the monastery of St. Gerald of Aurillac. In 967, Borrell II of Barcelona (947–992) visited the monastery, and the abbot asked the Count to take Gerbert with him so that the lad could study mathematics in Spain and acquire there some knowledge of Arabic learning. In the following years, Gerbert studied under the direction of Atto, Bishop of Vic, some 60 km north of Barcelona, and probably also at the nearby Monastery of Santa Maria de Ripoll. Borrell II of Barcelona was facing major defeat from the Andalusian powers so he sent a delegation to Córdoba to request a truce. Bishop Atto was part of the delegation that met with Al-Hakam II of Cordoba, who received him with honor. Atto was mesmerized by the Arabic palaces in Cordoba and returned with great respect for the Arabs. Gerbert insisted that Atto teach him more about these Arabic princes who seemed to him more interested in the sciences and literature than warfare. Gerbert was fascinated by the stories of the Christian Bishops and judges who dressed and talked like the Arabs, well-versed in mathematics and natural sciences like the great teachers of the Islamic madrasahs. This sparked Gerbert's veneration for the Arabs and his passion for mathematics and astronomy. In 969, Count Borrell II made a pilgrimage to Rome, taking Gerbert with him. There Gerbert met Pope John XIII (965–972) and the Emperor Otto I, surnamed the Great (936–973). The Pope persuaded Otto I to employ Gerbert as a tutor for his young son, the future Emperor Otto II (973–983). Some years later, Otto I gave Gerbert leave to study at the cathedral school of Rheims where he was soon appointed a teacher by Archbishop Adalberon. When Otto II became Holy Roman Emperor in 973 (he was co-emperor with Otto I from 967), he appointed Gerbert the abbot of the monastery of Bobbio and also appointed him as count of the district, but the abbey had been ruined by previous abbots, and Gerbert soon returned to Rheims. After the death of Otto II in 983, Gerbert became involved in the politics of his time. In 985, with the support of his archbishop, he opposed Lothair of France's (954–986) attempt to take the Lorraine from Emperor Otto III (983–1002) by supporting Hugh Capet (987–996). Capet became King of France, ending the Carolingian line of Kings in 987. Adalberon died on 23 January 989. Gerbert was a natural candidate for his succession, but Hugh Capet appointed Arnulf, an illegitimate son of Lothair instead. Arnulf was deposed in 991 for alleged treason against the King, and Gerbert was elected his successor. There was so much opposition to Gerbert's elevation to the See of Rheims, however, that Pope John XV (985–996) sent a legate to France who temporarily suspended Gerbert from his episcopal office. Gerbert sought to show that this decree was unlawful, but a further synod in 995 declared Arnulf's deposition invalid. Gerbert now became the teacher of Otto III, and Pope Gregory V (996–999), Otto III's cousin, appointed him Archbishop of Ravenna in 998. With the Emperor's support, he was elected to succeed Gregory V as Pope in 999. Gerbert took the name of Sylvester II, alluding to Pope Sylvester I (314–335), the advisor to Emperor Constantine I (324–337). Soon after he was elected Pope, Sylvester II confirmed the position of his former rival Arnulf as archbishop of Rheims. As Pope, he took energetic measures against the widespread practices of simony and concubinage among the clergy, maintaining that only capable men of spotless lives should be allowed to become bishops. In 1001, the Roman populace revolted against the Emperor, forcing Otto III and Sylvester II to flee to Ravenna. Otto III led two unsuccessful expeditions to regain control of the city, and died on a third expedition in 1002. Sylvester II returned to Rome soon after the Emperor's death, although the rebellious nobility remained in power, and died a little later. Sylvester is buried in St. John Lateran. Works and teaching. Gerbert was said to be one of the most noted scientists of his time. Gerbert wrote a series of works dealing with matters of the quadrivium (arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, music), which he taught using the basis of the trivium (grammar, logic, and rhetoric). Walid Amine Salhab asserts that Gerbert's reintroduction of the emphasis on these liberal arts in Europe was inspired by the educational institution of Cordoba in Islamic Spain. In Rheims, he constructed a hydraulic-powered organ with brass pipes that excelled all previously known instruments, where the air had to be pumped manually. In a letter of 984, Gerbert asks Lupitus of Barcelona for a book on astrology and astronomy, two terms historian S. Jim Tester says Gerbert used synonymously. Gerbert may have been the author of a description of the astrolabe that was edited by Hermannus Contractus some 50 years later. Besides these, as Sylvester II he wrote a dogmatic treatise, "De corpore et sanguine Domini"—On the Body and Blood of the Lord. Abacus and Hindu–Arabic numerals. Gerbert learned of Hindu–Arabic digits and applied this knowledge to the abacus, but according to Charles Seife without the numeral of zero. According to William of Malmesbury (c. 1080–c. 1143), Gerbert got the idea of the computing device of the abacus from a Spanish Arab. The abacus that Gerbert reintroduced into Europe had its length divided into 27 parts with 9 number symbols (this would exclude zero, which was represented by an empty column) and 1,000 characters in all, crafted out of animal horn by a shieldmaker of Rheims. According to his pupil Richer, Gerbert could perform speedy calculations with his abacus that were extremely difficult for people in his day to think through in using only Roman numerals. Due to Gerbert's reintroduction, the abacus became widely used in Europe once again during the 11th century. Armillary sphere and sighting tube. Although lost to Europe since the terminus of the Greco-Roman era, Gerbert reintroduced the astronomical armillary sphere to Latin Europe via Al-Andalus in the late 10th century. The details of Gerbert's armillary sphere are revealed in letters from Gerbert to his former student and monk Remi of Trèves and to his colleague Constantine, the abbot of Micy, as well as the accounts of his former student and French nobleman Richer, who served as a monk in Rheims. Richer stated that Gerbert discovered that stars coursed in an oblique direction across the night sky. Richer described Gerbert's use of the armillary sphere as a visual aid for teaching mathematics and astronomy in the classroom, as well as how Gerbert organized the rings and markings on his device: First demonstrated the form of the world by a plain wooden sphere... thus expressing a very big thing by a little model. Slanting this sphere by its two poles on the horizon, he showed the northern constellations toward the upper pole and the southern toward the lower pole. He kept this position straight using a circle that the Greeks called "horizon", the Latins "limitans", because it divides visible stars from those that are not visible. On this horizon line, placed so as to demonstrate practically and plausibly... the rising and setting of the stars, he traced natural outlines to give a greater appearance of reality to the constellations... He divided a sphere in half, letting the tube represent the diameter, the one end representing the north pole, the other the south pole. Then he divided the semicircle from one pole to the other into thirty parts. Six lines drawn from the pole he drew a heavy ring to represent the arctic polar circle. Five divisions below this he placed another line to represent the tropic of Cancer. Four parts lower he drew a line for the equinoctial circle [the equator. The remaining distance to the south pole is divided by the same dimensions. Given this account, historian Oscar G. Darlington asserts that Gerbert's division by 60 degrees instead of 360 allowed the lateral lines of his sphere to equal to six degrees. By this account, the polar circle on Gerbert's sphere was located at 26 degrees, just several degrees off from the actual 23° 28'. Furthermore, this account illustrates that his positioning of the Tropic of Cancer was nearly exact, while his positioning of the equator was exactly correct. Richer also revealed how Gerbert made the planets more easily observable in his armillary sphere: He succeeded equally in showing the paths of the planets when they come near or withdraw from the earth. He fashioned first an armillary sphere. He joined the two circles called by the Greeks "coluri" and by the Latins "incidentes" because they fell upon each other, and at their extremities he placed the poles. He drew with great art and accuracy, across the "colures", five other circles called parallels, which, from one pole to the other, divided the half of the sphere into thirty parts. He put six of these thirty parts of the half-sphere between the pole and the first circle; five between the first and the second; from the second to the third, four; from the third to the fourth, four again; five from the fourth to the fifth; and from the fifth to the pole, six. On these five circles he placed obliquely the circles that the Greeks call "loxos" or "zoe", the Latins "obliques" or "vitalis" (the zodiac) because it contained the figures of the animals ascribed to the planets. On the inside of this oblique circle he figured with an extraordinary art the orbits traversed by the planets, whose paths and heights he demonstrated perfectly to his pupils, as well as their respective distances. Richer wrote about another of Gerbert's last armillary spheres, which had sighting tubes fixed on the axis of the hollow sphere that could observe the constellations, the forms of which he hung on iron and copper wires. This armillary sphere was also described by Gerbert in a letter to his colleague Constantine. Gerbert instructed Constantine that, if doubtful of the position of the pole star, he should fix the sighting tube of the armillary sphere into position to view the star he suspected was it, and if the star did not move out of sight, it was thus the pole star. Furthermore, Gerbert instructed Constantine that the north pole could be measured with the upper and lower sighting tubes, the Arctic Circle through another tube, the Tropic of Cancer through another tube, the equator through another tube, and the Tropic of Capricorn through another tube. Gerbert in legend. Gerbert was supposed to be in possession of a book of spells stolen from an Arab philosopher in Spain. Gerbert fled, pursued by the victim, who could trace the thief by the stars, but Gerbert was aware of the pursuit, and hid hanging from a wooden bridge, where, suspended between heaven and earth, he was invisible to the magician. Gerbert was supposed to have built a brazen head. This "robotic" head would answer his questions with "yes" or "no". He was also reputed to have had a pact with a female demon called "Meridiana", who had appeared after he had been rejected by his earthly love, and with whose help he managed to ascend to the papal throne (another legend tells that he won the papacy playing dice with the Devil). According to the legend, Meridiana (or the bronze head) told Gerbert that if he should ever read a mass in Jerusalem, the Devil would come for him. Gerbert then cancelled a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, but when he read mass in the church Santa Croce in Gerusalemme ("Holy Cross of Jerusalem") in Rome, he became sick soon afterwards and, dying, he asked his cardinals to cut up his body and scatter it across the city. In another version, he was even attacked by the Devil while he was reading the Mass, and the Devil mutilated him and gave his gouged-out eyes to demons to play with in the Church. Repenting, Sylvester II then cut off his hand and his tongue. The inscription on Gerbert's tomb reads in part "Iste locus Silvestris membra sepulti venturo Domino conferet ad sonitum" ("This place, at the advent of the Lord, will yield to the sound the last trumpet the buried members of Sylvester II", mis-read as "will make a sound") and has given rise to the curious legend that his bones will rattle in that tomb just before the death of a Pope. The alleged story of the crown and papal legate authority given to Stephen I of Hungary by Sylvester in the year 1000 (hence the title 'Apostolic King') is noted by the 19th-century historian Lewis L. Kropf as a possible forgery of the 17th century. Likewise, the 20th-century historian Zoltan J. Kosztolnyik states that "it seems more than unlikely that Rome would have acted in fulfilling Stephen's request for a crown without the support and approval of the Emperor." Bibliography. Gerbert's writings were printed in volume 139 of the Patrologia Latina. Darlington notes that Gerbert's preservation of his letters might have been an effort of his to compile them into a textbook for his pupils that would illustrate proper letter writing. His books on mathematics and astronomy were not research-oriented; his texts were primarily educational guides for his students.
1084037	The Skydivers is a 1963 film directed by Coleman Francis. It stars actress Kevin Casey as Beth, Eric Tomlin as Joe, Anthony Cardoza as Harry, and Marcia Knight as Suzy. The film contains performances by influential Nashville guitarist Jimmy Bryant. After being forgotten for three decades it got a second life in 1994, serving the basis for a "Mystery Science Theater 3000" episode (during which TV's Frank describes it as like """ without the lucid plot"). At one point, the film was the lowest-rated of all time on the Internet Movie Database. Plot summary. Harry (Anthony Cardoza) and Beth (Kevin Casey) Rowe run a small skydiving facility in an unnamed desert town. One day, a woman named Suzy Belmont (Marcia Knight) comes around, claiming to be looking for the Rowe's plane mechanic Frankie Bonner (Titus Moede). Beth claims that Frankie was fired for being drunk on the job, but feels that Suzy didn't come down just to see Frankie. As she walks away, Beth can't help but feel that her husband is having an affair with this floozy. It turns out that Harry is, but is still keeping it a secret from his wife. One evening, they receive a letter from Harry's friend, Joe Moss (Eric Tomlin). Joe wants to visit and is looking for a job. Beth recommends to Harry that Joe could easily fill Frankie's position, to which Harry gives his consent that it's okay with him. Soon after, Frankie returns to the skydiving school, but is caught by Harry attempting to sabotage a plane. After being accosted, Frankie demands Harry stay away from Suzy. Harry agrees, but warns Frankie that he'll break both his legs if he comes back to the facility. Eventually, Joe Moss arrives, and is greeted by Harry and Beth. The little reunion is soon short-lived when a man named Pete (Paul Francis) arrives, and wants to do a dangerous skydiving stunt. Harry warns Pete that this could get the FAA involved with them, but Pete claims he can do it. However, before he can pull his chute, Pete panics and plummets to the ground. This incident causes the FAA to shut down the Rowe's facilities. Harry drives into town to a local bar, where after drinking a beer, he encounters Suzy outside. She attempts to woo Harry, who instead calls her a 'broad.' A fight breaks out between the two of them, in which Harry eventually walks away. Incensed at what Harry said, Suzy then plots revenge by convincing love-struck Frankie to help her put acid in Harry's parachute when he does a skydive jump once the skydiving facility reopens. Frankie is unsure, but still goes along with it. Eventually, the facility reopens, and numerous people come out to see the skydivers. However, trouble is brewing inside the Rowe's home when Harry suspects that Joe may be having an affair with Beth. Harry soon makes up with his wife, and Joe stops attempting to get acquainted with Beth. However, on the evening of a particular night jump, Suzy and Frankie sneak into the hangar and pour acid on Harry's parachute. When the jump is made, Harry's chute rips and he plummets to the ground. Some witness report seeing Suzy and Frankie running away from the preparations room. Joe gets in his car and soon after catches up to them. However, some men from the FAA give chase in a plane and in a car. Even though there's no direct evidence that Suzy and Frankie did anything, the two are gunned down in cold blood. In the aftermath, Joe takes his leave of Beth, who is giving up running the skydiving facility. As Joe drives on his way, Beth takes her own leave of the facility. The curiously grim end credits feature names and head shots of the actors set to total silence. Alternative titles. "The Skydivers" is also known as "Fiend from Half Moon Bay" and "Panic at Half Moon Bay".
1557668	Bess Flowers (November 23, 1898 – July 28, 1984) was an American actress. By some counts considered the most prolific actress in the history of Hollywood, she was known as "The Queen of the Hollywood Extras," appearing in over 700 movies in her 41 year career. Born in Sherman, Texas, Flowers's movie debut came in 1923, when she appeared in a movie titled "Hollywood". She made three movies in that year, and then began working extensively, with seven movies in 1926 alone. Most of her appearances are uncredited, as she generally played non-speaking roles. By the 1930s, Flowers was in constant demand. Her appearances ranged from Alfred Hitchcock and John Ford thrillers to comedic roles alongside of Charley Chase, the Three Stooges, Leon Errol, Edgar Kennedy and Laurel and Hardy. Along with actors Wallis Clark and Franklyn Farnum, she holds the record for the most appearances in movies which have won the Academy Award for Best Picture. She appeared in the following five Academy Award Best Picture winners: "It Happened One Night", "You Can't Take it With You", "All About Eve", "The Greatest Show on Earth", and "Around the World in Eighty Days". In each of these movies, Flowers was uncredited. Including these five movies, she had appeared in twenty-one Best Picture nominees in total, which is another record high. Her last movie was "Good Neighbor Sam" in 1964. Flowers also appeared in twelve films starring Joan Crawford from 1929 until 1956. Flowers's acting career was not confined to feature films. She was also seen in many episodic American TV series, such as "I Love Lucy", notably in episodes, 'Lucy Is Enceinte' (1952), 'Ethel's Birthday' (1955), and 'Lucy's Night in Town' (1957), where she is usually seen as a theatre patron. Personal life. Bess Flowers was first married on September 2, 1923, in Ventura County, California, to Cullen Tate (1894–1947), an assistant to Cecil B. DeMille. They were divorced in 1928 in Los Angeles. Her second marriage took place on August 5, 1929, in Los Angeles, to William S. Holman (1895–1962). They were divorced in 1930 in Los Angeles. She and Tate had one child, Patricia E. Tate (January 29, 1924–August 1, 1972). Bess Flowers died at age 85 in Woodland Hills, California. She was cremated and her cremains inurned at the Chapel of the Pines Crematory, Los Angeles.
1042411	John Clive (6 January 1933 – 14 October 2012) was an English author and actor. He is best known for his international best selling historical and social fiction, such as "KG200" and "Borossa". Clive was also known as an actor, who started his career at the age of fifteen. Later he appeared on the West End stage, in plays such as "Absurd Person Singular", "The Wizard of Oz", "Under Milk Wood", "The Bandwagon" at the Mermaid Theatre, "The Winslow Boy", "Young Woodley" and "Life With Father". Clive's character acting has led him to appear in comic and serious roles in films, such as "The Italian Job", "Yellow Submarine", "The Pink Panther Strikes Again", "A Clockwork Orange" and "The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles". He also appeared in four of the "Carry on" series of comedy films including; "Carry On Abroad", and "Carry On Dick" Career. Acting. Other notable film appearances include the Ealing Studios comedy "The Magnet", credited as Clive Kendall. In the Beatles' animated film "Yellow Submarine", he featured as the voice of John Lennon. His television appearances also included "Robert's Robots", "Rising Damp", "The Dick Emery Show", "The Perils of Pendragon", "The Sweeney", "Great Expectations" and "The History of Mr Polly". He appeared in the first Wednesday Play, "Wear a Very Big Hat", broadcast by BBC 1 in 1964. Clive also featured in, "Lady Windermere's Fan", "One Way Out" and "The Ten Percenters". Author. In 1977, he co-wrote, with J.D. Gilman, the historical novel "KG 200", a story about a secret Luftwaffe unit during the Second World War. "KG 200" was an international bestseller. "The Last Liberator", his next book followed in 1980, and was well received by literary critics. "Barossa" (1981) also achieved critical acclaim. "Broken Wings" was published in 1983 and matched the international success of "KG 200". Other fictional titles written by Clive include, "Ark" (1986) another book well received by critics and co-written with Nicholas Head. "The Lions Cage" was published in 1988. John Clive died after a short illness on 14 October 2012 in England. Filmography. Feature films. Credits include: Television. Credits include:
590124	Aaye Din Bahar Ke is a 1966 Hindi film produced by J. Om Prakash. It became a box office hit. The film stars Dharmendra, Asha Parekh, Nazima, Sulochana Devi, Balraj Sahni and Rajindernath. The film is a musical romance with music given by Laxmikant Pyarelal. Anand Bakshi is the lyricist.
812895	Rain Fall is a 2009 Japanese/Australian action thriller film written and directed by Max Mannix. In the film a hitman protects the daughter of one of his victims against the CIA. It was based on the novel "Hard Rain" by Barry Eisler. Plot summary. In Tokyo, a minister of public works is rumored to be taking evidence of corruption to a reporter: the CIA, the yakuza, and others want to grab the information and use it to squeeze the government. On the subway trip to meet the reporter, the official is murdered, but it looks like a heart attack. However, no one, including the murderer, can find the flash drive with the evidence. Now the CIA, gangsters, and the city police are searching. The dead official's daughters are in danger: the shadowy John Rain, ex-special forces and perhaps now in league with North Korea, tries to stay one step ahead as he looks for the flash drive and protects one of the daughters Reception. The overall Reception of the film has been mixed to negative. M. Downing Roberts for the Midnight Eye review site said that "Fans of big-budget action will likely not be satisfied, but Rain Fall begins, albeit tentatively, to chart the territory for a different sort of thriller. In a future installment, one can hope that it might press further."
1048899	The Misadventures of Merlin Jones is a 1964 Walt Disney production starring Tommy Kirk and Annette Funicello. Kirk plays a college student who experiments with mind-reading and hypnotism, leading to run-ins with a local judge. Funicello plays his girlfriend (and sings the film's title song written by brothers Robert and Richard Sherman). This film led to a 1965 sequel called "The Monkey's Uncle". Plot. Midvale College student Merlin Jones (Tommy Kirk), who is always involved with mind experiments, designs a helmet that connects to an electroencephalographic tape that records mental activity. He is brought before Judge Holmby (Leon Ames) for wearing the helmet while driving and his license is suspended. Merlin returns to the lab and discovers accidentally that his new invention enables him to read minds. Judge Holmby visits the diner where Merlin works part-time, and Merlin, through his newly-found powers, learns that the judge is planning a crime. After informing the police, he is disregarded as a crackpot. Merlin and Jennifer (Annette Funicello), his girlfriend, break into Judge Holmby's house looking for something to prove Holmby's criminal intent but are arrested by the police. Holmby then confesses that he is the crime book author, "Lex Fortis," and asks that this identity be kept confidential. Merlin's next experiment uses hypnotism. After hypnotizing Stanley, Midvale's lab chimp, into standing up for himself against Norman (Norm Grabowski) - the bully student in charge of caring for Stanley, Merlin gets into a fight with Norman, and is brought before Judge Holmby again. Intrigued by Merlin's experiments, the judge asks for Merlin's help in constructing a mystery plot for his next book. Working on the premise that no honest person can be made to do anything they wouldn’t do otherwise – especially commit a crime – Merlin hypnotizes Holmby and instructs him to kidnap Stanley. Shocked when the judge actually commits the crime, Merlin and Jennifer return the chimp, but are charged for the theft themselves. The judge sentences Merlin to jail, completely unaware of his own role in the crime. Livid at the injustice, Jennifer persuades Holmby of his own guilt, and the good judge admits that there might be a little dishonesty in everybody. Production notes. The screen credit for writing reads, "Screenplay by Tom and Helen August", which were the pseudonyms for Alfred Lewis Levitt and Helen Levitt, two writers who were blacklisted. To date Disney has not officially stated whether or not this film was actually two episodes of a planned television series, however, this has long been suspected to be the case, with at least one critic, Eugene Archer, of "The New York Times", writing upon its release:
582906	Jaanam is a 1992 Bollywood film directed by Vikram Bhatt. It stars Rahul Roy and Pooja Bhatt in the lead roles. Plot summary. Paradise Builders is owned by Dhanraj, who lives a very wealthy lifestyle with his wife, Radha; son, Rajan; and daughter, Anjali. His aim to take possession of the nearby village, which is now occupied by fishermen, headed by Shankar Rao, who lives there with his wife and two sons, Amar and Arun. Dhanraj's attempts to take possession prove to be in vain. Then the inevitable happens when Amar and Anjali meet and fall in love with each other, much to the chagrin of both Shankar and Dhanraj. While Shankar wants Amar to continue to follow his profession, Dhanraj wants Anjali to wed U.S.-based Shekhar Gupta, the son of the owner of Gupta Investments. Push leads to shove, and Dhanraj asks Rajan to set fire to the village. As a result, Rajan and Arun get killed. A grief-stricken Dhanraj swears on his son's ashes that he will avenge this death by killing Amar - at any and all costs. Watch what impact this has on the Rao family, as well as on Amar and Anjali. Soundtrack. The song "Dil Kyon Dhadakta Hai" melody is taken from "Love Story" theme "Where Do I Begin".
1063697	Seven Pounds is a 2008 drama film, directed by Gabriele Muccino, in which Will Smith stars as a man who sets out to change the lives of seven people. Rosario Dawson, Woody Harrelson, and Barry Pepper also star. The film was released in theaters in the United States and Canada on December 19, 2008, by Columbia Pictures. Despite generally negative reviews from critics it was a box office success, grossing $168,168,201 worldwide. Plot. Two years previously, Tim Thomas (Will Smith), while carelessly sending a text message while driving, veers across the center line into oncoming traffic and causes a multi-car crash in which seven people die: six strangers and his fiancee, Sarah Jenson (Robinne Lee). In a conscious bid for atonement, unable to live with what he did, Tim sets out to save the lives of seven good people by donating his own vital organs, a process that will be completed after his planned suicide. A year after the crash, having quit his job as an aeronautical engineer, Tim donates a lung lobe to his brother Ben (Michael Ealy), an IRS field agent. He steals his brother's federal IRS identification badge and credentials, puts his picture over Ben's, identifies himself by his brother's name, and uses Ben's privileges to check out the financial backgrounds of further potential candidates for his donations. In each case he "interviews" them first to determine if they are "good" people. In one case, the director of a hospice nursing home facility seeks a six-month extension on his back taxes. Tim is unsure of the man's ethics, because he drives a BMW yet claims to be insolvent. To resolve the issue, Tim passionately asks a resident patient, an elderly bedridden woman, to tell him whether he is a "good man," only to discover that the man is punishing the woman for not eating by not allowing the nurses to bathe her. Six months later, Tim donates part of his liver to a Child Protective Services social worker named Holly (Judyann Elder). He then finds George (Bill Smitrovich), a junior hockey coach and donates a kidney to him. He then donates bone marrow to a young boy named Nicholas (Quintin Kelley), opting to have no anesthesia during the procedure, an evident consequence of his desire for atonement. In each case he does not tell the people why he's doing what he's doing, despite being repeatedly asked. Two weeks before he dies, he contacts Holly and asks if she knows anyone "in the system" who needs and deserves help but is too proud to ask for it. Holly suggests Connie Tepos (Elpidia Carrillo), who lives with her two kids and an abusive boyfriend, but can't afford to leave. When Tim arrives to "interview" her under the guise of dealing with the IRS, Connie is embarrassed and humiliated that he knows what's been going on. She defends her boyfriend, is offended by Tim's suggestion that she should leave with her kids, and kicks him out of her house. In the meantime, Tim moves out of his house and into a local motel, taking with him his pet box jellyfish -- decidedly the most venomous creature on earth, with its sting causing death in three to five minutes. That night, after being beaten by her boyfriend again, Connie contacts Tim. He meets her, tells her not to be weak, and gives her the keys and directions to his beach house. She takes her two children and they move into the house. Then she reads a letter from Tim which includes the deed to the house, again giving no explanation, and asking for her to (1) respect his wishes, (2) not to try to contact him, (3) not to tell anyone how she got the house, and (4) to "live life abundantly." Tim's sixth candidate is Ezra Turner (Woody Harrelson), a blind telemarketer for a meat company, who plays the piano. Tim had called Ezra and harassed him at work weeks earlier, to see if he was quick to anger or was a "good" person. Ezra remains calm, humble, and teary-eyed, and later after observing him in a restaurant, Tim decides he is worthy. Tim then contacts Emily Posa (Rosario Dawson), a self-employed and attractive wedding announcement/greeting card printer who has a congenital heart condition and rare blood type that has left her with only weeks to live. Tim "interviews" her at her home, again under the guise of an IRS investigation, and more or less stalks her at the hospital. But then he starts to spend time with her, walking her Great Dane, weeding her garden, and fixing her rare Heidelberg Windmill press. He visibly fights his affections for her, again seeking atonement for the death of his fiancée, but he slowly falls in love with her. Tim's brother Ben finally tracks him down at Emily's house, demanding that Tim return his IRS credentials. After a passionate sexual interlude with Emily, and with Ben waiting outside her house, Tim disappears out the back door, leaving her sleeping. He returns on foot to the motel, first stopping by the hospital to ask the doctor if there is any chance that Emily will improve. Discovering that her condition has worsened and that she will likely die before a donated organ becomes available, he decides "it's time." Tim calls 9-1-1 emergency and reports his own suicide, then fills the motel bathtub with ice water to preserve his vital organs, climbs in, and kills himself by pulling his box jellyfish into the water with him. The jellyfish wraps its tentacles around Tim's arm, causing excruciating and horrific pain and suffering, but a quick death. At the hospital, his best childhood friend Dan (Barry Pepper), though distraught over promising to see Tim's final wishes through, acts as executor of Tim's living will to ensure that his organs are donated to Emily and Ezra. Ezra receives Tim's corneas, which correct his blindness, and Emily receives his heart. Afterward, Ben finds letters from Tim that he is to give to each person explaining why he did what he did. This leaves Emily heartbroken. Emily finds Ezra (now a school teacher) at his kid's choir concert at a park and stops him as he passes by. Having never met before, Emily is fixated on Ezra's eyes, knowing they belonged to Tim. Emily begins to break down, which clues Ezra in to who she is. When he says, "You must be Emily," she breaks into tears and they share a heartfelt embrace out of mutual respect, love, and adoration for Tim. Production. "Seven Pounds" is based on a script written by Grant Nieporte under Columbia Pictures. In June 2007, Will Smith joined the studio to star in the planned film and to serve as one of its producers. In September 2007, director Gabriele Muccino, who worked with Smith on "The Pursuit of Happyness" (2006), was attached to direct "Seven Pounds", bringing along his creative team from the 2006 film. Smith was joined by Rosario Dawson and Woody Harrelson the following December to star in "Seven Pounds". Filming began in February 2008. Most of the film was shot in Los Angeles, Pasadena, California and Malibu, California. Points of interest used in the film include the Travel Inn in Tujunga, California, the Colorado Bar, The Huntington Library, The Sheraton and The Pasadena Ice Skating Rink all in Pasadena, as well as Malibu Beach in Malibu. Cast. Smith described the reason he took on the role: Smith felt that the character needed to be a quiet and rather introverted person who does not burn himself out at every possible instance. The character was a contrast to Smith's previous characters, and Smith felt that director Gabriele Muccino's trust in him helped him relax and avoid overextending himself. Smith acknowledged "Seven Pounds" as a drama film, but he saw it as more of a love story. Will Smith handpicked Ealy for the role of the main character's brother. Connor Cruise, the son of actor Tom Cruise and actress Nicole Kidman, was cast in his first role as a younger version of Tim Thomas. Title. Before the film's release, the title "Seven Pounds" was considered a "mystery" which the studio refused to explain. Early trailers for "Seven Pounds" kept the film's details a mystery. Director Gabriele Muccino explained the intent: "The will not know exactly what this man is up to." Will Smith is reported to have confirmed that the title refers to Shakespeare's "The Merchant of Venice", in which a debtor must pay a pound of flesh. In this case, it amounts to seven gifts to seven individuals deemed worthy by Smith's character, to atone for seven deaths he caused. Release. "Seven Pounds" was promoted on a five-city tour across the United States in November 2008, screening in Cleveland, Miami, Dallas, St. Louis, and Denver to raise funds for food banks in each region. The film was promoted at a charity screening in Minneapolis in support of Second Harvest Heartland. Since screenings of new films usually took place in Los Angeles or New York City, the choice of cities was unconventional. Smith said, "This is more like the old-school music tours. Different clubs, different cities, meeting people. You get in touch with what people are feeling and thinking, and it's much more personal when you're actually out shaking hands." The actor sought to "get reacquainted" with an America that he felt had an "openness to change" with the country's election of Barack Obama as the first African-American president. The film was released on December 19, 2008 in 2,758 theaters in the United States and Canada. It grossed an estimated $16 million, placing second at the weekend box office after "Yes Man". The opening gross was the lowest for a film starring Smith since "Ali" in 2001. The gross was $5 million less than anticipated, partially ascribed to winter storms in the Northeast over the weekend. Home media release. The film was released on DVD on March 31, 2009, by Sony Pictures Home Entertainment. The film is also available to rent or buy on the PlayStation Network in standard or high definition format. , in North American DVD sales, the film has grossed $28,812,423. Critical reception. The film received mostly negative reviews from critics. The film review website Rotten Tomatoes gave the film a rating of 26% based upon a sample of 185 reviews with an average score of 4.6/10 At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the film has received an average score of 36 based on 33 reviews. "Variety"s film reviewer Todd McCarthy predicted that the movie's climax "will be emotionally devastating for many viewers, perhaps particularly those with serious religious beliefs," and characterized the film as an "endlessly sentimental fable about sacrifice and redemption that aims only at the heart at the expense of the head." A. O. Scott, writing for "The New York Times", said that the movie "may be among the most transcendently, eye-poppingly, call-your-friend-ranting-in-the-middle-of-the-night-just-to-go-over-it-one-more-time crazily awful motion pictures ever made." Positive reviews singled out Dawson's performance. Richard Corliss wrote in "Time" that Dawson gives "a lovely performance," while Mick LaSalle of the "San Francisco Chronicle" noted that Dawson's performance "shows once again that she has it in her to be the powerhouse." Roger Ebert of the "Chicago Sun Times" commented on the fact that the audience is kept completely out of the loop as to what Tim is doing, comparing the film to Jean-Pierre Melville's "Le Samouraï", pointing out how he "finds this more interesting than a movie about a man whose nature and objectives are made clear in the first five minutes, in a plot that simply points him straight ahead."
1246860	Byron Foulger (born 27 August 1899 in Ogden, Utah; died 4 April 1970 in Hollywood, California) was an American film character actor with a familiar face who appeared in hundreds of movies and dozens of television programs. Career. Foulger attended the University of Utah, and started acting through his participation in community theatre. He made his Broadway debut in March 1920 in a production of "Medea" featuring Moroni Olsen, and performed in four more productions with Olsen on the 'Great White Way', back-to-back, ending in April 1922. He then toured with Olsen's stock company, and ended up at the Pasadena Playhouse, where he both acted and directed. Foulger made his first films in 1934 and 1936 – "The Little Minister" and "The President's Mystery", the latter based on a story by Franklin Delano Roosevelt – but his career didn't start in earnest until 1937, after he performed opposite Mae West in a racy 'Adam and Eve' sketch on the Edgar Bergen-Charlie McCarthy network radio program which resulted in West being banned from the airwaves almost immediately. (Foulger played the voice of the serpent). From this point on, Foulger worked steadily in motion pictures. He played many parts: storekeepers, hotel desk clerks, morticians, professors, bank tellers, ministers, confidence men, and a host of other characterizations, usually timid, whining, weak-willed, shifty, sanctimonious or sycophantic. His earliest films show him clean-shaven, but in the 1940s he adopted a wispy moustache that emphasized his characters' worried manner. Foulger was a resourceful actor and often embellished his scripted lines with memorable bits of business: in "The Falcon Strikes Back", for example, hotel clerk Foulger announces a homicide by bellowing across the lobby: "Mur-"der!" Mur-"der!"' In real life, Foulger was not as much of a pushover as the characters he played. In one memorable incident at a party he threatened to punch Errol Flynn for flirting with his wife, the actress Dorothy Adams, with whom he was married from 1921 until his death in 1970.
1058411	"Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey" is a 1991 American science fiction comedy film, and the directing debut of Peter Hewitt. It is the second film in the "Bill & Ted" franchise, and a sequel to "Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure" (1989). Keanu Reeves, Alex Winter and George Carlin reprise their respective roles. The film's original working title was "Bill & Ted Go To Hell" and the film's soundtrack featured the song "Go To Hell" by Megadeth, which Dave Mustaine wrote for the film. Plot. The film opens in the utopian future that results from the music of Bill (Alex Winter) and Ted (Keanu Reeves). Chuck De Nomolos (Joss Ackland), who detests this society, steals one of the time-traveling phone booths with the aid of two robots fashioned after Bill and Ted, and travels to the late 20th century, with the intent to prevent Bill and Ted from winning the San Dimas Battle of the Bands. Rufus (George Carlin) attempts to stop De Nomolos but becomes lost in the circuits of time. In the present, Wyld Stallyns is preparing for the contest; though Bill and Ted's current fiancées and former 15th-century princesses Elizabeth (Annette Azcuy) and Joanna (Sarah Trigger) have become skilled musicians, Bill and Ted are still inept. Despite this, the organizer Ms. Wardroe (Pam Grier) assures them a slot in the contest as the final act. Bill's stepmother, Missy (Amy Stock-Poynton), divorces his father, in favor of Ted's, who still threatens Ted to military school, should they fail the Battle of the Bands. De Nomolos arrives and has the robots replace Bill and Ted, killing them by throwing the two over the side of a cliff at Vasquez Rocks. The robots behave rudely to the princesses and work to ruin the duo's fame. Bill and Ted's souls are met by Death (William Sadler) who challenges them in a game for their souls. Bill and Ted escape after giving Death a "melvin". They attempt to alert their families but their ethereal forms prove difficult, and at one point, are cast down into Hell at a séance held by Missy. In Hell, they are tormented by Satan (voiced by Frank Welker), made to face their own fears, and realize their only escape is to take Death's offer. Taken to Death's chambers, the spirit gives them the option of what game to play. Bill and Ted, to Death's dismay, select modern games like Battleship, Clue, and Twister, easily beating Death. Death admits defeat and willingly becomes their servant. Bill and Ted recognize they need to locate the smartest person in the universe to help build robots to counter De Nomolos' evil robots. Death escorts the two to Heaven, and with God's help, are directed to an alien named Station who has the ability to split into two identical twins, and readily offers to help Bill and Ted. Death brings them back to the mortal world, where it is the night of the Battle of the Bands. Bill and Ted take Station to a hardware store, and then race in their van back to the concert while Station constructs good robots. Just as the evil robots take the stage, Bill and Ted arrive, and Station's robots easily defeat the evil ones. De Nomolos appears in the time machine, ready to defeat Bill and Ted himself, and overrides the broadcasting equipment to send the video footage of this to everyone on the planet. The two recognize they can later go back in time to arrange events for De Nomolos to trap in the present, aided by Death and Station; though De Nomolos is able to do the same, Bill and Ted gain the upper hand, and De Nomolos is taken away by the police. Ms. Wardroe reveals herself to be a disguised Rufus, having assured Bill and Ted's spot in the concert, and urges them to play. As Bill and Ted reunite with their fiancées, they realize they are terrible musicians, and the four use the time machine; though they return immediately, "an intense 16 months of guitar training plus a two week honeymoon" have passed for them, they have married the princesses and each is raising a young infant. They begin to perform a stunning rock ballad, joined by Death, Station, and the good robots. The worldwide broadcast set by De Nomolos continues, and Wyld Stallyns' music is played across the globe, creating harmony. During the end credits, fictional newspaper and magazine articles describe the worldwide impact of the Stallyns' music towards the Utopian future. Soundtrack. The song Bill & Ted play for the Battle of the bands is "God Gave Rock 'N' Roll to You II" by Kiss even though they appear similar in appearance to Dusty Hill & Billy Gibbons from ZZ Top. When Bill and Ted are asked "What is the meaning of life?" they reply with the lyrics from "Every Rose Has Its Thorn" by Poison. Reception. Critical reception to the movie was mixed. As of July 2011, "Bogus Journey" has only a 56% positive rating from critics and a 59% positive rating from audiences on Rottentomatoes.com (compared to a 82% positive rating from critics and a 70% positive rating from audiences on the first film). Not every critic disliked it, however. Roger Ebert gave the film 3 out of a possible 4 stars, noting, "It's the kind of movie where you start out snickering in spite of yourself, and end up actually admiring the originality that went into creating this hallucinatory slapstick." (Ebert did not see or review the first film.) Dave Kehr, then of the "Chicago Tribune", also gave the film 3 stars, noting how unusual it was for an Ingmar Bergman parody to show up in a teen comedy, and referring to the film as a "genuine pleasure." Gene Siskel, also of the Tribune, gave the film only 2½ stars, but did believe the second film to be better than the first. Leonard Maltin also gave "Bogus Journey" 2½ stars, a half-star more than he gave to "Excellent Adventure." Marvel Comics adaptation. To coincide with the release of the movie, Marvel Comics released a one-shot comic book adaptation of the movie, hiring Evan Dorkin to adapt the screenplay and pencil the art. Like Archie Goodwin's adaptation of the first "Star Wars" film, Dorkin worked from the original script, which included many of the deleted scenes, and portrayed Death as the archetypal skeletal figure. Due to the popularity of the comic, Marvel commissioned a spin-off series, "Bill & Ted's Excellent Comic Book", which kept the talents of Dorkin, DeStefano and Severin. The series ran for 12 issues, featuring original stories. The first arc features negative results from Death's decision to take a vacation. Sequel. In 2010, Reeves indicated that Matheson and Solomon were working on a script for a third film, confirming in April 2011 that a draft was complete. Winter said in March 2012 that he and Reeves both like the finished script, which revisits the two characters after the changes of the past twenty years. Despite the a script being finished and satisfied by both parties, no specific dates have been named regarding a filming project.
1759741	Mee Sindhutai Sapkal (; ) is an Indian Marathi film. The film was directed by Ananth Narayan Mahadevan. The film stars Tejaswini Pandit, Jyoti Chandekar, Upendra Limaye, Neena Kulkarni in leading roles. Plot. The film is a biographical account of Sindhutai Sapkal, a woman who became a social activist after a traumatic life. Born in a poor, cattle grazing family in Wardha as Chindi (Ragamuffin), Sindhutai was first married off at the age of 12 to a man who was 20 years elder to her and then abandoned by her husband on charges of infidelity. Travelling through the backwaters of Maharashtra, the braveheart never abandoned hope and courage and ended up in San Jose on a fund-raising mission for her orphanage which still provides shelter to homeless kids. Awards. Winner:
1456031	Nine Queens () is a 2000 Argentine crime drama film written and directed by Fabián Bielinsky and starring Ricardo Darín, Gastón Pauls, Leticia Brédice, Tomás Fonzi and Alejandro Awada. The story centers on two con artists who meet, apparently randomly, and decide to cooperate in a major scam. The film was nominated for 28 awards and won 21 of them, and is now considered a classic in the country's film history. Plot. The film opens at a convenience store early in the morning. Juan, a con artist, successfully scams the cashier, but later messes up by attempting the same scam again on the next shift. Marcos, who has been observing the whole time, steps in pretending to be a police officer and takes Juan away. As soon as they are far enough from the shop, Marcos tells Juan he is not actually a cop but a fellow con man. Juan asks Marcos to show him the ropes, because his father, also a con man, is in jail and he needs to raise money quickly to bribe a judge to reduce his father's sentence from 10 years to 6 months. Then a rare scheme seemingly falls into their laps: Sandler, a former business associate of Marcos, needs his help to sell counterfeit copies he made of some rare stamps called "The Nine Queens". The potential mark is Gandolfo, a rich Spaniard who is facing deportation and desperate to smuggle his wealth out of the country. He has no time to fully check if the stamps are authentic but he hires an expert to do a quick check and is satisfied. He offers $450,000 for the stamps, the exchange to take place that evening. In the intervening time, a number of things go wrong. The stamp expert demands a cut, as he knew the stamps were in fact forged. The fake stamps are then stolen out of Juan and Marcos' hands by crooks on motorcycles who, unaware of their value, destroy them by tossing them into a river. To salvage the scheme, Marcos approaches Sandler's widowed sister, the owner of the real stamps, who agrees to sell them for $250,000. Marcos can put up $200,000 and asks Juan to contribute the remaining $50,000. Juan suspects that he is being scammed, as it's a remarkable coincidence that Marcos needs just the amount that Juan has saved up; but as the $50,000 is not enough to help his father, he reluctantly agrees. They buy the real stamps and go to Gandolfo's hotel, but he says he has changed his mind and will now only buy the stamps if he also gets to sleep with Marcos' sister Valeria, a hotel employee. Valeria's price is that Marcos must confess to their younger brother how he cheated him out of an inheritance. Gandolfo pays for the stamps with a certified check, but the bank crashes the next day, making the check worthless. It appears that Juan and Marcos are both ruined, but the final scene is a surprise ending. Juan goes to a warehouse, where he greets the motorcycle thieves, Sandler and his sister, Gandolfo, and Juan's fiancée Valeria — revealing that the real scam was to swindle Marcos out of $200,000 as revenge for all the times he cheated his family and his partners. Background. The main character of the film is trying to remember the tune of a Rita Pavone song throughout the film. The song by Rita Pavone "Il Ballo Del Mattone" plays as the credits run. Distribution. The film opened wide in Argentina on August 31, 2000. The film was screened at various film festivals, including: the Telluride Film Festival, USA; the Toronto Film Festival, Canada; the "Medellín de Película", Colombia; the Portland International Film Festival, United States; the Cognac Festival du Film Policier, France; the München Fantasy Filmfest, Germany; the Norwegian International Film Festival, Norway; and others. In the United States it opened on a limited basis on April 19, 2002. Remakes. The film's screenplay was adapted in the 2004 film "Criminal". It was also used as a basis for three Indian films: the Bollywood film "Bluffmaster!" (2005), the Malayalam film "" (2009) and the Telugu film "All the Best" (2012). Critical reception. Film critic Roger Ebert liked the screenplay of the film, and wrote, "And on and on, around and around, in an elegant and sly deadpan comedy. A plot, however clever, is only the clockwork; what matters is what kind of time a movie tells. "Nine Queens" is blessed with a gallery of well-drawn character roles, including the alcoholic mark and his two bodyguards; the avaricious widow who owns the 'nine queens' and her much younger bleached-blond boyfriend, and Valeria the sister, who opposes Marcos' seamy friends and life of crime but might be willing to sleep with Gandolfo if she can share in the spoils." The "San Francisco Chronicle" film critic, Edward Guthmann, also reviewed the film positively and thought the actors performed quite well, writing, "Fast-paced and unerringly surprising, "Nine Queens" is nicely performed by a large cast, particularly Darín ("El hijo de la novia") as a goateed, less-than-perfect hoodwinker. David Mamet plowed this con-the-con turf in "Heist", "House of Games" and "The Spanish Prisoner", but Bielinsky, in his directing debut, makes it seem sassy and reinvented." Awards. Wins
1060864	Marley Eve Shelton (born April 12, 1974) is an American film and television actress. Shelton began her acting career in her late teens, and appeared in several 1990s television movies and shows. She made her film debut in "Grand Canyon" (1991), and was cast in the films "The Sandlot" (1993), "Nixon" (1995), and "Warriors of Virtue" (1997). Shelton subsequently appeared in "Pleasantville" (1998) and "Never Been Kissed" (1999). In 2001, Shelton had her first starring role in the black comedy "Sugar & Spice", and appeared as one of the main characters in the teen horror film " Valentine". Shelton then appeared in supporting roles in the films "Uptown Girls" (2003), "Sin City" (2005), and "The Last Kiss" (2006). After being cast in a significant role in "Grindhouse" (2007), she received the lead role in the CBS show "Eleventh Hour". In 2009, Shelton starred in "A Perfect Getaway" and "(Untitled)", and subsequently had a role in "Scream 4" (2011). Early life. Shelton was born in Los Angeles, California, the daughter of Carol (née Stromme), a teacher and former singer, and Christopher Shelton, a director and producer. Her younger sister is actress and singer Samantha Shelton. She grew up in the residential neighborhood of Eagle Rock, where she attended Eagle Rock High School. Shelton attended University of California, Los Angeles, where she majored in Film and Theatre, but dropped out when she got a role in the kung-fu kiddie film "Warriors of Virtue". Career. Early career, 1990–1997. Shelton began acting in her late teens, and appeared in several television movies and films throughout the 1990s. She had her first film role as Roberto's girlfriend at camp in "Grand Canyon". After that role, she appeared in the 1993 film, "The Sandlot", playing the lifeguard, Wendy Peffercorn. In 1995, Shelton appeared in a supporting role, as former President Nixon's adult daughter Tricia Nixon Cox, in Oliver Stone's "Nixon". That same year, she guest appeared in the television series "Cybill" episode "The Big Sleep-Over". Shelton next co-starred alongside Lynda Carter in "When Friendship Kills" (1996), a made-for-television film about anorexia nervosa among teens. She appeared opposite Jennifer Love Hewitt in the romantic comedy "Trojan War"(1997). Shelton landed a role in 1997's fantasy film "Warriors of Virtue", as Princess Elysia. Career transition, 1998–2008. Her first major hit came in 1998 with the fantasy comedy "Pleasantville", in which she portrayed Margaret, the love interest of Tobey Maguire's character. This role was followed by a number of other appearances in films aimed at a teenage audience, including her role as a member of a snobby high school clique in 1999's "Never Been Kissed" and "The Bachelor". "Lured Innocence", an independent drama, was starring Shelton and Dennis Hopper. In 2001, Shelton appeared in the horror film "Valentine", alongside Denise Richards and David Boreanaz. The film was largely panned, but was a moderate success at the box office, grossing over $36 million worldwide. She also had her first starring role on screen in the black comedy film "Sugar & Spice", and appeared in "Bubble Boy", a comedy film co-starring Jake Gyllenhaal. In the following few years, Shelton appeared in a variety of independent films, including "Just a Kiss", "Dallas 362", "Grand Theft Parsons", and "Moving Alan" – directed by her father and starring her sister. Shelton had a small role as "The Customer" in the film adaptation of Frank Miller's graphic novel "Sin City". Shelton provided the voice for a guest appearance as Betsy in the "American Dad!" episode "Deacon Stan, Jesus Man". She was also originally cast in the role of Annabeth Schott on the television series, "The West Wing", but the role was eventually played by Kristin Chenoweth. She had supporting roles in the 2006 films "American Dreamz" and "The Last Kiss". Shelton portrayed a prominent role as Dr. Dakota Block in the Robert Rodriguez/Quentin Tarantino-directed film "Grindhouse", appearing in both of the film's segments as the same character (a cameo in Tarantino's segment, and a starring role in Rodriguez's). She explained about her character: "I referenced the classic Hitchcock ice queen blonde, like Tippi Hedren, for the beginning just as a starting place, and then obviously she devolves as she evolve." Shelton spoke about her own obsessions that attracted her back to horror genre with "Grindhouse", saying "Personally as an actor I am obsessed with suspense and what creates it. I have studied suspense and I love the old Hitchcock films for that reason. I was really delighted to be in the hands of two masters of their craft, both Robert and Quentin, playing with the ideas of building suspense." Shelton starred in "The Fifth Patient", an independent thriller, in which she played the character Helen. The following year, she portrayed a minor role in the biopic film about George W. Bush, "W.", directed by Oliver Stone. In October 2008, CBS's "Eleventh Hour", based on the British TV series of the same name, premiered with Shelton appearing as FBI Special Agent Rachel Young of the executive protection detail. The show, however, was canceled after one season. Recent projects, 2009–present. In 2009, Shelton appeared opposite Milla Jovovich and Timothy Olyphant in "A Perfect Getaway". That year, Shelton landed the role of Madeleine Gray, a trendy New York art gallery owner in the independent comedy "(Untitled)". Shelton explained her role in the film: "There's a purity to her. As driven as she is to find the 'get,' the next hot commodity, she also has a pure passion for art." "(Untitled)" received favorable reviews, with John Hartl of "Seattle Times" writing that "Shelton is perfect as the energized heroine. Ruthless, smart but pretentiously wrongheaded, she's the kind of culture vulture we haven't seen before." "Women in Trouble" was released theatrically the following month. In the film, Shelton portrayed the character of Cora, a flight attendant. She reprised her character in the sequel "Elektra Luxx", which was released in 2010. Shelton appeared alongside Carla Gugino again in "The Mighty Macs", a low-budget drama which is also known as "Our Lady of Victory". On July 1, 2010, it was announced that Shelton was cast in the role of Deputy Judy Hicks in the Wes Craven film "Scream 4", a role Lake Bell previously held. Some critics praised Shelton, include Matthew Turner for "View London", who stated that she turned in an "enjoyably weird performance". Personal life. Shelton currently resides in Los Angeles, with her husband, film producer Beau Flynn, whom she married in July 2001. The couple have 2 daughters: West, born September 6, 2009 and Ruby Jeanne, born May 1, 2012. When she is not working, Shelton enjoys travelling, and has visited countries throughout Asia, South America and Africa. She also practices a regimen of yoga and pilates. On April 30, 2010, Shelton was arrested for driving under the influence of alcohol. She was released the next day after posting $5,000 bond. On May 21, 2010, Shelton pleaded no contest and was sentenced to two years probation and fined $240 plus penalties.
1044095	Carry On Dick is the 26th in the series of "Carry On" films to be made. The story is based on the Dick Turpin legend and features Turpin (James) as an antihero, attempting to evade capture by the authorities. "Carry On Dick" was released in 1974 and marked the end of an era for the series. It featured the last appearances of Sid James (after 19 entries in the series) and Hattie Jacques (after 14 entries) although both would make a further appearance in the Carry On Laughing TV series. It was also the 20th and final Carry on to be scripted by Talbot Rothwell, and Barbara Windsor's final acting role in a Carry On film, although she would co-present That's Carry On! (a film compilation) three years later. Other regulars in Carry On Dick were Kenneth Williams, Bernard Bresslaw, Joan Sims, Kenneth Connor, Peter Butterworth and Jack Douglas. Plot. In the year 1750, England is rife with crime and highway robbers. To stop the wave of chaos, King George sets up the first professional police force named the Bow Street Runners, under the command of the bellowing Sir Roger Daley (Bernard Bresslaw), and seconded by Captain Desmond Fancey (Kenneth Williams) and Sergeant Jock Strapp (Jack Douglas). The Runners are apparently successful in wiping out crime and lawlessness – using all manner of traps and tricks to round the criminals up. However their main target is the notorious Richard "Big Dick" Turpin (Sid James), a highwayman who has evaded capture and succeeded in even robbing Sir Roger and his prim wife (Margaret Nolan) of their money and clothing. After this humiliation, Turpin becomes the Bow Street Runners' most wanted man, and thus Captain Fancey is assigned to go undercover and catch the famous Dick Turpin and bring him to justice. The Bow Street Runners nearly succeed in apprehending Turpin and his two partners in crime, Harriet (Barbara Windsor) and Tom (Peter Butterworth), one evening as they hold up a coach carrying faux-Frenchwoman Madame Desiree (Joan Sims), and her not so virginal daughters, "The Birds of Paradise." However, Turpin manages to overpower the Runners and flee. Outraged by Strapp's incompetence, Captain Fancey travels with the sergeant to the province of Denture, where the majority of Turpin's hold-ups are carried out. There they encounter the mild-mannered Reverend Flasher, who is really Turpin in disguise, with Tom as his church assistant and Harriet as his maidservant. They confide in the rector their true identities and their scheme to apprehend Turpin. They agree to meet at the seedy Old Cock Inn, a notorious hang-out for criminals and sleazy types, and where Desiree and her showgirls are performing. Fancey and Strapp pose as two on the run crooks – and Strapp dubs his superior "Dandy Desmond" – and they hear from the greasy old hag, Maggie (Marianne Stone), a midwife who removed buckshot from Turpin's buttock, that Turpin has a curious birthmark on his manhood. Strapp wastes no time in carrying out an inspection in the public convenience of the Old Cock Inn. When the rector arrives, he discovers their knowledge of the birthmark, and sweet talks Desiree into assisting him with the capture of "Turpin", whom the rector has told Desiree is actually Fancey, who is sitting downstairs in the bar. She lures him to her room and attempts to undress him, with the help of her wild daughters. The girls pull down his breeches but fail to find an incriminating birthmark, and Desmond staggers half-undressed into the bar. Strapp is also dumped into a horse trough for peeping at the men in the toilets. Strapp and Fancey send a message to Sir Roger about the birthmark, and are accosted by Harriet in disguise who tells them to meet Turpin that night at ten o'clock. Meanwhile, Tom tells the local constable that he knows where Turpin will be that night – at the location Harriet told Strapp and Fancey to wait. Thus, they are imprisoned as Turpin and his mate, and Sir Roger is yet again robbed on his way to see the prisoners. However things fall apart when the rector's housekeeper, Martha Hoggett (Hattie Jacques) begins to put two and two together when Mrs Giles (Patsy Rowlands), apparently sick and used for a cover-up story for Dick's raids, is seen fit and well at the church jumble sale. Later that day, Harriet is caught at the Old Cock Inn where Fancey, Strapp and Daley are meeting and Fancey recognises her as the "man" who conned them into being caught. She is chased into Desiree's room and is told to undress to show the infamous birthmark. However, they soon realise she is a woman and are prepared to let her go, but lock her up after Lady Daley recognises a bracelet that Harriet is wearing as one Turpin stole from her. With the net tightening, the Reverend Flasher gives an elongated sermon before outwitting his would-be captors and making a speedy getaway, with Harriett and Tom, across the border. Filming and locations. Interiors: Exteriors:
1056113	Sunday in New York, filmed in Metrocolor, is a 1963 American comedy film directed by Peter Tewksbury and starring Jane Fonda and Rod Taylor. The soundtrack score was composed and performed by Peter Nero. Plot. Eileen Tyler (Fonda) is a 22-year-old Albany Times Union music critic and is suffering from her breakup with Russ (Robert Culp) from a rich Albany family. She comes to New York City to visit her brother Adam (Robertson), who is an airline pilot. Eileen confides to her brother that she thinks she may be the only 22-year-old virgin left in the world. Adam assures her that sex is not what all men look for and insists he hasn't slept around. Of course, Adam is lying and is in hot pursuit of a tryst with his occasional girlfriend Mona. However, Adam's date with Mona has a series of job related interruptions. Meanwhile, Eileen decides to see if she can have some fun for herself in New York, and seems to find the perfect candidate in Mike (Taylor), a man she meets on the bus. But things get complicated when Russ pops in with a proposal and a mistaken assumption. Original Play. The screenplay by Norman Krasna was adapted from his play, which had been produced on Broadway by David Merrick starring Robert Redford and directed by Garson Kanin. It ran for 188 performances. Carroll Baker had at one stage been attached as star. Production. The film was a part of a multi-picture deal between Seven Arts and MGM. Lead roles were originally offered to Natalie Wood and Warren Beatty, who turned them down. Reception. In a review of the playwright's "frank screen version" of the play, Bosley Crowther characterized the film as another in a series of films that dwelled on a subject first brought to the screen ten years earlier in "The Moon Is Blue": "There once was a time when the candor of Mr. Krasna's mildly popular Broadway play about an Albany girl who struggles bravely with the problem of her virtue during a rainy afternoon in New York might have caused the Production Code people a moment or two of anxious pause. They might then have thought it a bit too racy for youthful and innocent ears"; on the film itself, Crowther said "the extent of the film's disconcertion and delight for a viewer will depend upon how prone one may be to a juvenile quandary and to the nimble performing of a pleasant cast. The twists of the plot are downright hackneyed—the confusions of opening the wrong doors, mistaking people and getting caught in "dishabille". But the actors are all attractive, and so long as one can go along with them in their valiant attempts at pretending this is hot stuff, one may have a good time." According to "Time" magazine, ""Sunday in New York" is another brightly salacious Hollywood comedy about the way of a man with a maid who just may. 'This motion picture,' leers an announcement flashed on the screen as a teaser, 'is dedicated to the proposition that every girl gets...sooner or later.' As usual, winking wickedness turns out to be mostly eyewash, but the plot—more to be pitied than censored—gets a buoyant lift from stars Jane Fonda, Cliff Robertson and Rod Taylor. All three abandon themselves to the film version of Norman Krasna's trite Broadway farce with disarming faith, as though one more glossy, glittering package of pseudo sex might save the world."
1067362	Please Give is a 2010 dark comedy film written and directed by Nicole Holofcener and starring Catherine Keener. It is the fourth film Keener and Holofcener have made together. The film also stars Amanda Peet, Oliver Platt, Rebecca Hall, Elizabeth Keener, Kevin Corrigan, and Ann Guilbert. Plot summary. Kate (Keener) and Alex (Platt) are a couple living in a New York City apartment with their teenage daughter, Abby (Sarah Steele). Kate and Alex own a furniture store specializing in used modern furniture, which they buy at estate sales. They have bought the apartment adjacent to theirs, but its occupant, the elderly and cranky Andra (Guilbert), will stay in it until she dies. Andra has two granddaughters, the dutiful and generous Rebecca (Hall), a breast cancer radiology technician, and the cynical, sharp-tongued Mary (Peet), a cosmetologist. Kate is troubled by the profits she makes from furniture sellers who do not know the value of what they are selling; the contrast between homeless people in her neighborhood and her own comfortable life; and the fact that her family will only be able to expand their apartment when Andra dies. She tries to assuage her guilt through volunteer jobs (which leave her weeping) and donations to homeless individuals (which sometimes backfire). Release. "Please Give" was screened out of competition at the 60th Berlin International Film Festival, and had a limited U.S. release on April 30, 2010. It opened with $118,123 in five theaters, averaging $23,625 per cinema. Filming. "Please Give" was filmed almost entirely in New York City. The bulk of the film was shot in Chelsea, the spa scenes at Skintology, a chic day and medical spa in that area. Reception. The film received generally positive reviews. On the review aggregator website, Metacritic, it has a current metascore of 77 based on 27 critic reviews, indicating generally favorable reviews. On Rotten Tomatoes, it has an 89% approval rating.
1059302	Joan Ann Plowright, Baroness Olivier, DBE (born 28 October 1929), is an English actress whose career has spanned over six decades. She has won two Golden Globe Awards and a Tony Award and has been nominated for an Academy Award, an Emmy and two BAFTA Awards. She is also one of only four actresses to have won two Golden Globes in the same year. Early life. Plowright was born in Brigg, Lincolnshire, the daughter of Daisy Margaret (née Burton) and William Ernest Plowright, who was a journalist and newspaper editor. She attended Scunthorpe Grammar School and trained at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School. Career. Plowright made her stage debut at Croydon in 1948 and her London debut in 1954. In 1956 she joined the English Stage Company at the Royal Court Theatre and was cast as Margery Pinchwife in "The Country Wife". She appeared with George Devine in the Eugène Ionesco play, "The Chairs", Shaw's "Major Barbara" and "Saint Joan".
1055432	Tiffany Shepis (born September 11, 1979) is an American actress from New York City, who has been involved in film-making since the age of 12. She is popularly known as a "scream queen" in several horror films. Career. Shepis got her start in Troma Entertainment's "Tromeo and Juliet" and has since appeared in many low-budget horror-oriented B movies. In 2004, Shepis appeared in the independent comedy "The Deviants" as "Marina the Nudist." Recent films include "New Terminal Hotel", "Dorm of the Dead", "Bonnie and Clyde vs Dracula", "Basement Jack", "Nightmare Man", "Chainsaw Cheerleaders", "Beg". She is seen as "Diana" in Adam Gierasch's remake "Night of the Demons", released in September 2010, and stars in "The Violent Kind", which received its world premiere at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival, in the horror sidebar Park City At Midnight. Shepis co-stars with Belladonna in the Psycho thriller Stripped. Interviewed in magazines such as "Femme Fatales" and "Sirens of Cinema", Shepis has said she "loves blood and gore" in movies, but detests real violence. Personal life. Shepis has two chihuahuas, named Vlad the Impaler and Boris Karloff. She was formerly engaged to actor Corey Haim in October 2008; the engagement was called off in early 2009. In 2010, Shepis married director Sean Tretta.
1164960	Paul Hartman (March 1, 1904–October 2, 1973) was an American dancer, stage performer and television character actor. Biography. Born in San Francisco, California, Hartman, like Fred Astaire, began performing as a dancer with his sister. In 1922, he teamed up with Grace Barrett for a long and successful dancing comedy vaudeville act that consisted of them both paying homage to and gently mocking the popular dances of the day, from ballet to swing. The two married in 1927. Along with Grace, Paul made his Broadway debut in "Ballyhoo of 1932" alongside Bob Hope, but the show was not a success. The two found success with Cole Porter's "Red Hot and Blue" a few years later, and continued to flourish on the Great White Way. The main premise of their act involved the crisp and witty Grace overwhelming the gangly, slackjawed Paul, intermittently cut with dance numbers and musical comedy routines. The Hartmans' success led them to Hollywood, but Paul only saw limited success there, most prominently appearing alongside Frank Sinatra and Victor Borge in 1943's "Higher and Higher". Upon the Hartmans' return to Broadway, they resolved to take charge and write their own revue. Their 1948 play, "Angel in the Wings," was a smash success, and both Hartmans were named best lead performer at the first ever Tony Awards held that same year. The two were then offered a sitcom on NBC, and "The Hartmans (at Home)" showed promise, but audiences rejected the show, which often featured canned scripts and little opportunity for the couple to show off their physical and musical abilities. Paul and Grace returned to Broadway, where they spent three years in a number of variety shows and revues. Hartman's wife Grace was diagnosed with cancer in 1952. She died in 1955. Television and Hollywood had once again risen to the top of the entertainment world, and the convenience of television shooting and a quick paycheck lured Paul out to Los Angeles once more. Hartman began appearing in the 1953-1954 ABC situation comedy, "The Pride of the Family", as Albie Morrison, the father and head of the household. Fay Wray, formerly on "King Kong", played his wife, Catherine, and Natalie Wood and Robert Hyatt played his children, Ann and Junior Morrison, respectively. In 1957, Hartman returned one last time to Broadway, but then past fifty, he tired of the hectic stage life. He continued to play bit parts in movies and television throughout the rest of his life, most famously as handyman Emmett Clark on CBS's "The Andy Griffith Show" and "Mayberry R.F.D." In a nod to his earlier life, he is seen doing a dance routine at Howard Sprague's party in the "Andy Griffith" episode "The Wedding", and in the "Mayberry, RFD", episode "The Charity", he can be seen doing a soft shoe routine with costar Ken Berry. In addition, he had small parts on "Petticoat Junction", "Love, American Style", "The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet", "Hazel", "Ben Casey", "The Twilight Zone", "The Alfred Hitchcock Hour", "Our Man Higgins", and "Family Affair". He was cast in the 1960 film, "Inherit the Wind". In 1967, he appeared with Robert Morse in the film version of "How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying". Hartman died from a heart attack in Los Angeles at the age of sixty-nine.
1057877	Bryan E. Greenberg (born May 24, 1978) is an American actor and musician, known for his starring role as Ben Epstein in the HBO original series "How to Make It in America" as well as a recurring role as Jake Jagielski in the The WB series "One Tree Hill" and as Nick Garrett on the short-lived ABC drama "October Road". His film work includes "Friends with Benefits", "The Good Guy", "Bride Wars", "Nobel Son", and "The Perfect Score". Early life. Greenberg was born in Omaha, Nebraska, to psychologists Denise "Denny" and Carl Greenberg. Greenberg was raised in Conservative Judaism and attended Beth El Synagogue. He moved with his family to St. Louis, Missouri when he was twelve years old. He graduated from Parkway Central High School in Chesterfield, Missouri. Greenberg became interested in acting at an early age, and moved to New York City after high school. He attended and worked at a Jewish summer camp located in Webster, Wisconsin, called Herzl Camp. He starred as Joseph in a camp-wide production of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat in 1992. Career. After embarking on a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Theatre course at New York University, Greenberg landed roles in many theatre companies. He was cast as Romeo in NYU's performance of "Romeo and Juliet". In 1997, he was offered a small role on the television series "Law & Order". Soon after his appearance, he was assigned an agent and one year later, made his big screen debut in "A Civil Action", a film starring John Travolta. A few years later, after landing small roles on the TV series ("Boston Public", "The Sopranos", and "Third Watch" among others), Greenberg was cast as Matty Matthews, a high school student trying to pass the S.A.T, in the film "The Perfect Score". While he was still appearing in "One Tree Hill", he began shooting another television show for HBO called "Unscripted". Greenberg's first starring role was in the Ben Younger film "Prime" (2005). He played David Bloomberg, a young artist who falls in love with one of his mother's (Meryl Streep) therapy patients (Uma Thurman). In 2007, Greenberg released his debut album, "Waiting for Now". Over the past few years, he has toured with Gavin Degraw, Michael Tolcher, Ari Hest, and Graham Colton. At his New York City Show at the High Line Ballroom, Greenberg was joined by "How to Make it in America" co-star Kid Cudi. Greenberg's songs have been featured in many of his film and television work, including "One Tree Hill", "October Road", and "Nobel Son". In 2008, he appeared in will.i.am's song "Yes We Can". Greenberg then starred in "October Road" on ABC and appeared with Alan Rickman in the film "Nobel Son" in 2008. In 2009, Greenberg appeared in the film "Bride Wars" with Kate Hudson and Anne Hathaway and starred in the indie film "The Good Guy", which was released in February 2010. His series "How to Make It in America" premiered on HBO on February 14, 2010. Season 2 premiered on October 2, 2011. On December 20, 2011, HBO announced the cancellation of the show. Greenberg made a PSA about the Gulf Oil Spill for Natural Resources Defense Council calling for Clean Energy Legislation. It was released July 20, 2010. In 2011 Greenberg released his second album, "We Don't Have Forever", produced by Thom Monahan (Vetiver, Devendra Banhart, Gary Louris), which included the single "Walk Away". The album also included "You Can Run", a collaboration with "How to Make It in America" co-star and rapper Kid Cudi. In 2012, Greenberg co-starred with Laura Prepon in the independent comedy film "The Kitchen", and starred in the dark comedy film "The Normals".
582166	Honeymoon Travels Pvt. Ltd. is a 2007 Bollywood comedy drama film. It is produced by Farhan Akhtar and Ritesh Sidhwani through Excel Entertainment and has marked the debut of Reema Kagti as a director. The movie has six different parts in it. Plot and characters. The story is about six couples, who are on their honeymoon with the Honeymoon Travels Pvt. Ltd. bus and their trials and tribulations during the four-day journey to Goa. The couples are: As the bus continues its journey, it is followed by a mysterious biker, dressed in black clothes, wearing a helmet — someone who still has business with one of the passengers. Production. John Abraham and Shilpa Shetty were the first choices to play Jignesh and Shilpa respectively. After John refused to play the role of Jignesh, Shilpa decided she didn't want to play Shilpa and backed out, too.
583108	Mrityudaata is a 1997 Bollywood musical action movie directed by Mehul Kumar with music by Anand Milind. The film is considered to be a comeback role for Amitabh Bachchan who temporarily left the industry in 1992. This film was produced by his own production company called Amitabh Bachchan Corporation Limited (ABCL), which produced films like "Tere Mere Sapne" and distributed several films such as Kali Ratnam's "Bombay Boy" and Shekhar Kapur's "Bandit Queen". It marked Amitabh Bachanan's comeback after five years but was a flop at the box office. One of the songs in the film picturized on Amitabh and Daler Mehndi was very popular when released. Plot. Dr Ram Prasad Ghayal (Amitabh Bachchan) is a renowned doctor who has been successful in all the operations in his career and has skillfully operated many delicate surgeries. He lives with his wife Janki (Dimple Kapadia) and brother Bharat (Arbaaz Ali Khan). Bharat is in love with Renu (Karishma Kapoor), the daughter of Umeshchan Jain (Tiku Talsania). At the same time, Raja Tunga (Deepak Tijori), the brother of Rana Tunga (Mukesh Rishi) has a longing for Renu. The miscreant Raja with his mob severely assaults Bharat when Bharat resists Raja's advances towards Renu. A corrupt minister Mohanlal (Ashish Vidyarthi) wants to execute a disastrous scheme called "Pawanghat Power Project" at the expense of the lives and property of the tribes living at the project site. He coaxes and later threatens Bharat, the concerned engineer to sign his approval for the project whereas Bharat refuses to endorse such a scheme. On the other hand, Rana devises an evil plot against Bharat to wipe the latter out eventually leading to his brother Raja winning Renu. Bharat is framed for murdering a woman and Inspector Danapani (Mushtaq Khan), a subordinate of Rana, arrests him and puts him behind the bars. Woefully, Bharat dies in jail presumably by committing suicide. The agony of Bharat's death claims the life of Janki as well. With the death of his beloved wife and brother, Dr Ram becomes desolate and alcoholic. Renu marries Raja, without any regret for the death of her former lover. Now that Bharat is dead, Mohanlal conspires with Rana for the implementation of the power project. However, they end up becoming enemy of each other. Mohanlal plans to kill Raja. His henchmen attack Raja who is critically injured. Raja is admitted to hospital where Dr Ram is to conduct his operation. Renu fears that Dr Ram may kill Raja to take vengeance for the death of his brother. She refuses to sign the operation papers but Dr Ram, who considers it his moral duty to save the life of a patient regardless of they being his friend or foe, conducts the operation. His expertise pays off as Raja is saved. He goes out to convey the news to Renu but returns to find Raja dead, beyond all his expectations. Renu files an F.I.R. against Dr Ram who is arrested and imprisoned. In jail, Dr Ram meets an inmate bearing the number 92, Prof Nizamuddin Azad (Pran), a scientist of "Bharat Atomic Energy". He has been jailed after a false allegation of revealing confidential nuclear formulae to foreign nations. He tells Dr Ram that his brother Bharat did not commit suicide, but was tortured to death by Insp. Danapani, which he witnessed. Dr Ram now realises that his past misfortune was a result of the evil motives of some antagonists of the nation. He becomes the Angel of Death (Mrityudaata), who will put all those malefactors to death. Dr Ram breaks away from jail and nabs Insp. Danapani who says that Mohanlal planned the murder of Bharat using his clutches over police. He also says that Raja was killed by Dr Siddiqui (Avtar Gill) by cutting off the oxygen supply after Mohanlal bribed him to kill Raja. Dr Ram kicks Danapani off the building to death. Meanwhile Mohanlal has allied with another influential politician Trilochan Tripathi a.k.a. TT or Terror of Terrors (Paresh Rawal) who keeps up an honest appearance among the masses but works for his own interests at the cost of the welfare of the public. Dr Ram corners Dr Siddiqui at the roof of Umeshchan Jain's house who confesses of killing Raja by accepting bribe from Mohanlal. Dr Ram captures a video of Dr Siddiqui's revelation before putting him to death. Soon, Dr Ram kills Mohanlal. One day, Trilochan Tripathi addresses a gathering when Dr Ram publicly puts a video on view in which Tripathi signs an agreement with a foreign syndicate related to "Pawanghat Power Project". Later, Tripathi would befool the public with false promises of power distribution. The enraged crowd chases Tripathi through the streets when Rana arrives for his rescue. Rana fires at Dr Ram who burns Rana and Tripathi to death. The movie ends after Dr Ram succumbs to his injuries.
1043861	Philip Gilbert (March 29, 1931 – January 6, 2004) was a Canadian actor. Background. He was born in Vancouver, British Columbia and educated at Vancouver College. He was a player with the Rank Organisation appearing in many films during the fifties and sixties starring opposite such notable actors as Peter Finch, Norman Wisdom, Stanley Baker, Bob Monkhouse, Donald Sutherland, Dirk Bogarde and Sir John Mills. TV work. Despite his many film roles he was perhaps best known for his role as TIM in the original version of "The Tomorrow People" from 1973 to 1979. Gilbert returned to play TIM in 2001 for the audio plays produced by Big Finish and continued the role until his death in 2004, starting with "The New Gods" up to and including "The Power of Fear". He had a broad stage career, starring in such productions as "Divorce Me Darling" in the West End, as well as appearing many times at the Prince Regent Theatre, Farnborough, where he was Head of Drama. He was represented by Nicholas Young's theatrical agency.
688689	Traci Elizabeth Lords (born Nora Louise Kuzma; May 7, 1968) is an American film actress, producer, film director, writer and singer. She first achieved notoriety for her underage appearances in pornographic videos (she was 16 years old in her first movie in 1984) and "Penthouse" magazine (September 1984), later becoming a television and B-movie actress. Early life. Nora Louise Kuzma was born in Steubenville, Ohio to Louis and Patricia Kuzma ("née" Briceland). Her stage name is said to be a tribute to Katharine Hepburn's character Tracy Lord from "The Philadelphia Story" or from the first name of her high school best friend Traci and the last name of her favorite actor from "Hawaii Five-O", Jack Lord. She was raped at the age of ten. At 12, she fled from her abusive alcoholic father to Lawndale, California, with her mother and three sisters. Her mother's new boyfriend, Roger, was a cocaine dealer who molested her. In 1983, she began attending Redondo Union High School in Redondo Beach, California. Porn career. At age 15, Nora dropped out of high school and was living with her mother's ex-boyfriend, Roger. Posing as her stepfather, he helped her respond to classified ads requesting models. Using a false driver's license ID provided by Roger's girlfriend that stated she was 20 rather than 15, she started in the porn industry with Jim South at the "World Modeling Agency" in Sherman Oaks, under the name Kristie Elizabeth Nussman. She quickly ventured into adult movies. Her first movie was "What Gets Me Hot!", followed by "Those Young Girls" and "Talk Dirty To Me Part III", all made in the first half of 1984. Shortly afterward, Nora (now calling herself Traci Lords) was modeling for widely distributed adult magazines, most notably "Penthouse", in the same September 1984 issue that exposed Miss America 1984, Vanessa Williams. By the time she was 18, she had appeared in 100 adult films; however, Lords argued in her autobiography that about 80 of those films were composed from leftover and re-edited footage from 21 of her original films. In late May 1986, around three weeks after her 18th birthday, authorities discovered she had been underage while making all but one of her pornographic movies and arrested her, as well as the owners of her movie agency and X-Citement Video, Inc. (See "United States v. X-Citement Video".) The ensuing prosecution against the agencies cost the pornographic film and distribution industry millions of dollars, as they were obliged by law to remove hundreds of thousands of her videotapes, films and magazines from store shelves to avoid the risk of prosecution for trafficking in child pornography. (The legality varies with countries. For example, while it is illegal in France to produce a pornographic film involving an actor under 18, the film remains legal.) In her autobiography, "Traci Lords: Underneath It All" (2003), Lords suggested hypocrisy on the part of the movie producers and the news media, arguing the porn industry actually got richer from the publicity of the scandal, even as they complained of losing money after destroying her illegal movies. Lords felt she was also exploited by the reporters, who used censored stills from her unlawful films. Lords herself was never charged with a crime. Instead, the agents and producers who accepted her false IDs were charged, and people affiliated with the films in question experienced legal troubles for years. Lords received a salary for her appearances in X-rated movies. According to her autobiography, she received $35,000 as total salary for all of those movies, including the $5,000 for her appearance in "Penthouse." For her last few porn films, she and her boyfriend formed the Traci Lords Company, where he co-produced and directed the movies. Lords received a smaller salary, but also received part of the rights of these movies. Only one of her adult porn films, "Traci, I Love You," videotaped and produced in Paris, France, took place after her 18th birthday, making it the only one legally available in the United States. (However, in non-US jurisdictions where the age restriction on pornography is lower, as well as over the Internet, her earlier films continue to be distributed.) While most of her pre-18 films were removed permanently from distribution in the United States, several were simply re-edited to remove Lords' scenes entirely (such as "Kinky Business" and "New Wave Hookers"), or in a few cases, had new footage shot with a different actress playing her part (as in "Talk Dirty to Me Part III", where her character was essential to the storyline, at a point in history when such films had storylines). In early 1987, nearly a year after her arrest, Lords sold her rights to "Traci, I Love You" for $100,000. This action led to claims that Lords herself had tipped off the authorities to gain immunity from prosecution, while profiting from the movie. Lords denies this notion in her autobiography, and claims she was reluctant to sell the rights, since at that time she was trying to become a mainstream actress, and wanted no older movies still available. Also, she wrote that she knew nothing of people's real names or who produced which film, and did not provide such information to the FBI. The FBI agents "appeared annoyed" when she could not provide the information they wanted. She said the agents claimed to have monitored her for three years. Government prosecutors declared Lords was a victim of a manipulative industry, maintaining she was drugged and made to do non-consensual acts. But industry insiders, like Ron Jeremy, Ginger Lynn and Tom Byron, say they never saw her use drugs, and insist that she was always fully aware of her actions. One of her co-workers from that time, Christy Canyon, has gone so far as to say about Lords' autobiography: "I think her book could have been fabulous, except that she was lying throughout the whole thing." While Lords decries the pornographic film industry, she continues to use the stage name she gave herself as a minor, and ultimately made it her legal name. She wrote, "I chose to stop running from it. Instead, I won it, legally changing my name to Traci Elizabeth Lords. That's who I was, and that's who I was going to be." Lords stated she is not trying to deny her past, telling Oprah Winfrey: "I found you can run, but you cannot hide." Post-porn career. Lords moved into mainstream films, and has appeared in several movies. At age 18, Lords began studying method acting at the Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute, and soon afterward, starred in "Not of This Earth", a remake of Roger Corman's 1957 film. Then in 1990, she appeared in John Waters' "Cry-Baby", playing the role of Wanda Woodward. Other movies on her resume include "Shock 'Em Dead", "Blade", "Tommyknockers", "" and "Chump Change". The last won her a Best Actress Award at the U.S. Comedy Arts Festival. She has also made cameo appearances in "Serial Mom", "Nowhere", "Virtuosity", and "Panic Button" in 2007 (made for TV). In addition to movies, Lords has also made many appearances in television series, including "Wiseguy" in the episode "Date With an Angel", "Married... with Children", "MacGyver", ', "Tales from the Crypt", ', "Gilmore Girls", and "Will & Grace" among others, along with recurring roles in "Profiler", "Melrose Place" and "Roseanne". She made her musical debut on the Manic Street Preachers' U.K. Top 40 hit "Little Baby Nothing, which features on the album, Generation Terrorists". On this song, Lords sings a duet with leading Manics singer, James Dean Bradfield, but did not appear in the music video. She appeared in the music videos of other performers and groups. In 1995, Lords made her solo debut, in collaboration with Juno Reactor and Jesus Jones' Mike Edwards, called "1000 Fires". The Juno Reactor-produced first single "Control" reached #2 on the Billboard Dance Charts. The song "Control" was featured in the 1995 movie adaptation of the game "Mortal Kombat", where it was played as an instrumental. She said in 2001 she had auditioned for the 1992 film "Army of Darkness". "I didn't get the part but I clicked with ", with whom she would later work as a guest star on "". In 2003, she published her autobiography, "Traci Lords: Underneath It All" (ISBN 0-06-050820-5), which made the "New York Times" bestseller list. In December of that year, Lords wrote and directed a short film with Fox Searchlab entitled "Sweet Pea", shown at film festivals in 2005. The film is loosely inspired by an experience recounted in her autobiography, and involves a teenage girl who finds herself overcome with doubt after being raped by her boyfriend. In 2004, Lords recorded the independently produced double A-side "Sunshine." Lords appeared in "Zack and Miri Make a Porno" (2008) and "I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell". Lords' character in the former is loosely based on herself, but she refused to appear nude. She also starred in the 2009 low-budget science fiction film "Princess of Mars". Personal life. In October 2007 at age 39, Lords gave birth to a son, Joseph Gunnar, her first child with her husband of five years, Jeff Lee.
589679	Goonj Uthi Shehnai () (meaning 'The Wedding Bells Have Started Ringing') is 1959 Hindi film directed by Vijay Bhatt, with Rajendra Kumar, Ameeta, Anita Guha and I.S. Johar as leads. The film has music by Vasant Desai and lyrics by Bharat Vyas, and the duo created numerous hits like "Jivan Men Piya Tera Sath Rahe" sung by Lata Mangeshkar, Mohd. Rafi, and Lata's "Tere Sur Aur Mere Geet" and "Dil Ka Khilona Hai Toot Gaya". The film narrates the story of a Shehnai player, and features a shehnai recitals by maestro, Ustad Bismillah Khan throughout the film. There is also Jugalbandi between him and Sitar player, Abdul Halim Jaffar Khan
711847	Richard Timothy "Tim" Kring (born July 9, 1957, in El Dorado County, California), is an American screenwriter and television producer, best known for his creation of the drama series "Strange World", "Crossing Jordan", "Heroes", and "Touch". Kring is Jewish. He graduated from the University of Southern California School of Cinematic Arts in 1983. He got his start as a screenwriter writing for the TV show "Knight Rider". One of his earlier projects was co-writer for an episode of "Misfits of Science", which, like his later project "Heroes", featured super-powered humans as a main theme. Another early project was "Teen Wolf Too", co-written by Jeph Loeb. The two would later re-team when producing "Heroes". Kring also co-wrote the 2010 book "Shift: A Novel (Gates of Orpheus Trilogy)" with Dale Peck. After the cancellation of "Heroes" in 2010, Kring created the TV series "Touch", a drama concentrating on a father (Kiefer Sutherland) who discovers his mute son can predict events. The series premiered on January 25, 2012, on Fox. Awards and nominations. Kring was an Emmy Award nominee in 2007 for Outstanding Drama Series as the producer for "Heroes". He was also named one of the Masters of Sci Fi TV for his work on the series.
1060829	Bruno Kirby (April 28, 1949 – August 14, 2006) was an American film and television actor. He was known for his roles in the Hollywood films "City Slickers", "When Harry Met Sally...", "Good Morning, Vietnam", "The Godfather Part II", and "Donnie Brasco". Early life. Kirby was born Bruno Giovanni Quidaciolu, Jr. in New York City, New York. His father is actor Bruce Kirby (born Bruno Giovanni Quidaciolu). His brother, John Kirby, is a notable acting coach. Bruno Kirby attended Power Memorial Academy. Career. Kirby was a popular character actor through the late 1980s and early 1990s. His film debut was in 1971's "The Young Graduates". It was his role in "The Godfather Part II", as the young Pete Clemenza, that raised his profile in Hollywood. Richard Castellano had appeared in "The Godfather" (1972) as hefty Pete Clemenza, a prominent member of the Corleone crime family, and Kirby subsequently played a younger version of Clemenza in "The Godfather Part II". Coincidentally, in the summer of 1972 Kirby, in one of his early television appearances, portrayed Anthony Girelli, the son of Castellano's character Joe Girelli, in the television situation comedy "The Super". Other television appearances include "Room 222", and the pilot episode of "M*A*S*H", playing the character Boone (he has no lines). He also appeared in the 1974 Columbo episode "By Dawn's Early Light" alongside father Bruce Kirby. Described by film critic Leonard Maltin as "the quintessential New Yorker or cranky straight man", Kirby displayed his talents in a series of comedies, typically playing fast-talking, belligerent, yet strangely likeable characters. His best-known roles include a colleague of Albert Brooks' film editor in "Modern Romance", a talkative limo driver in "This Is Spinal Tap", the jealous, comedically impaired U.S. Army officer Lt. Hauk in "Good Morning, Vietnam" and a shifty assistant to Marlon Brando — a parody of his "Godfather" role — in "The Freshman". Kirby balanced comedies with dramatic roles such as that in "Donnie Brasco" as a double dealing mobster. Kirby and comedian Billy Crystal made a popular screen team in "When Harry Met Sally..." (1989) and "City Slickers" (1991). Both featured Kirby's character as the opinionated best friend to Crystal's character. However, Kirby refused to sign on for the sequel "" unless script changes were made, and was subsequently replaced by Jon Lovitz. In 1991, Kirby made his Broadway debut when he replaced Kevin Spacey in Neil Simon's "Lost in Yonkers". In the last decade of his life, Kirby had success in the animated film "Stuart Little", and was increasingly working on television. He starred as Barry Scheck in a 2000 CBS drama "American Tragedy", played a paroled convict in a season three episode of ', and also directed an episode of '. Personal life and death. Kirby married actress Lynn Sellers on September 29, 2003. Kirby died on August 14, 2006, from complications related to leukemia. According to the Associated Press and other news reports, his widow stated that he had only recently been diagnosed with the disease. Kirby, like his character in "This Is Spinal Tap", was a fanatical fan of Frank Sinatra. He enjoyed playing softball in the late 1970s. He was also very allergic to horses, and needed daily allergy shots on the set of "City Slickers". In 2006, less than six months before his death, Kirby was invited to be a member of Actors Studio.
1031462	The Good Father is a 1985 British film directed by Mike Newell and starring Anthony Hopkins, Jim Broadbent, Harriet Walter, Fanny Viner, Simon Callow, Joanne Whalley, and Michael Byrne. The lead character Bill (Anthony Hopkins) is a man who is utterly bitter about his recent divorce from his wife. and the loss of custody of his only child. He acts out his anger by befriending another man, Roger (Jim Broadbent), who has been sued for divorce by his wife, so that she can enter into a lesbian relationsship with her lover. Bill tries to help the man out, by funding the latter's court case to regain custody of his child. Simon Callow plays the unscrupulous sleezy barrister hired for the case. Soon Bill, who has focused his anger against feminism, which he blames for robbing him of his family, turns to feel disgust for what he and his new friend are doing.
501296	Thomas Ernest "Tom" Aldredge (February 28, 1928 – July 22, 2011) was an American television, film and stage actor, best known for various appearances in movies, theatre and television, with a notably recent role as Hugh De Angelis on "The Sopranos". Life and career. Aldredge was born in Dayton, Ohio, the son of Lucienne Juliet (née Marcillat) and William Joseph Aldredge, a colonel in the United States Army Air Corps. He originally planned to become a lawyer and was a Pre-Law student at the University of Dayton in the late 1940s. In 1947 he decided to pursue a career as an actor after attending a performance of the original Broadway production of "A Streetcar Named Desire". Aldredge carved out a respected career on the Broadway stage that spanned five decades. He made his Broadway debut as Danny in the 1959 musical "The Nervous Set". In 1972 he won a Drama Desk Award for his portrayal of Ozzie, the father of a blinded Vietnam veteran, in David Rabe's "Sticks and Bones". He played Henry VIII's fool, Will Sommers in Richard Rodgers' pentultimate musical, "Rex" in 1976. He originated the role of Norman Thayer Jr. in "On Golden Pond" in 1978, earning the first of three Tony Award nominations. His best known role however was that of the Narrator/Mysterious Man in Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine's "Into The Woods", a role he later repeated in the PBS "Great Performances" production. He also created the role of the doctor in another Sondhiem/Lapine collaboration, "Passion". He was part of the 1997 all-star revival of "Inherit the Wind" produced by Tony Randall, playing Rev. Brown in an ensemble that also included George C. Scott, Charles Durning, and Anthony Heald. He had a 50 year long career working as a character actor on television and film. He won a Daytime Emmy Award in 1978 for his portrayal of William Shakespeare in the episode "Henry Winkler Meets William Shakespeare" on the program "The CBS Festival of Lively Arts for Young People". His best known television role was that of Tony Soprano's father-in-law, Hugh De Angelis on the HBO series "The Sopranos". Family. He was married to stage and screen costume designer Theoni V. Aldredge from 1953 until her death on January 21, 2011. Death. Aldredge died July 22, 2011 in a hospice in Tampa, Florida from lymphoma, aged 83.
1066301	Last of the Dogmen is a 1995 Western adventure film written and directed by Tab Murphy and starring Tom Berenger and Barbara Hershey. Set in the mountains of northwest Montana near the Idaho and Canadian borders, the film is about a bounty hunter who pursues escaped convicts into a remote region and encounters an unknown band of Dog Soldiers from a tribe of Cheyenne Indians. The film was shot on location in Alberta and British Columbia, Canada. Plot. Distraught but skillful bounty hunter Lewis Gates (Tom Berenger) pursues three armed escaped convicts into Montana's Oxbow Quadrangle, followed by his faithful companion called Zip, an Australian cattle dog. All Gates finds is a few scraps of cloth, some blood, and an old-fashioned Indian arrow. He takes the arrow to anthropologist Lillian Sloane (Barbara Hershey) who identifies it as a replica of the arrows used by Cheyenne Dog Soldiers. Gates doesn't think it's a replica and, after some library research, develops a long list of people who have disappeared into the Oxbow and a story of a "wild child" captured in the woods in the early 20th century. Now he's convinced that the fugitives were killed by a tribe of Dog Soldiers, a hardy band of native Americans who had somehow escaped the 1864 Sand Creek massacre and survived for 128 years secluded in the Montana Wilderness. Gates convinces Sloane to join him in a search for the band. The two enter the Oxbow and begin to search. They survive many mishaps and bond throughout their journey, eventually reaching beyond the deepest Gates has ever ventured into the wilderness. Nearing the end of their supplies, Sloane suggests heading back. As the two are packing their gear, they are suddenly attacked by Cheyenne Indians. Sloane, speaking the Cheyenne language, deescalates the situation and the two are taken captive by Yellow Wolf (Steve Reevis). Taken to the Cheyenne encampment hidden behind a waterfall, the duo meet the village leader Spotted Elk (Eugene Blackbear), who tells them of the escape and salvation of the Cheyenne 128 years ago. Gates and Sloane slowly become friendly with the Cheyenne. However, Yellow Wolf's son is sick, wounded after the gunfight with the convicts. Despite the elder's concerns, Sloane convinces Yellow Wolf to allow Gates to ride into town to obtain medicine. In town, after Gates robs the pharmacy, he is chased by local law enforcement, including Sheriff Deegan (Kurtwood Smith). After escaping, Gates meets Yellow Wolf in the wilderness and they return to the Cheyenne camp. By this time, the Sheriff has gathered a posse and sets out to hunt down Gates. Gates and Sloane continue to grow closer to the Cheyenne, and Sloane discloses that they are indeed the last of their kind. However, Yellow Wolf shows Gates that the Sheriff is following his trail and is slowly getting closer to the encampment. Knowing that if discovered, the Cheyenne will fight and die, Gates proposes a solution; using some left over TNT he'll create a distraction and allow the Cheyenne to flee deeper inside the Oxbow and live in peace, far away from civilization. Sloane decides to stay with the Cheyenne. Gates reluctantly allows her to stay. The two share a passionate kiss and Gates begins to setup his plan. Gates gives himself up to the Sheriff, and pleads with him to leave the wilderness. However, the Sheriff discovers the hidden tunnel and prepares to enter it. Escaping, Gates attempts to light the TNT with a rifle, but the Sheriff stops him and threatens him with a gun to his head. Yellow Wolf appears, surprising the Sheriff, fires an arrow at the TNT setting it off. Gates and the Sheriff are propelled out of the tunnel into the waterfall. Gates saves the Sheriff, who is badly wounded. The Deputy tells everyone to clear out, and they are headed back to town to treat the wounded Sheriff and Gates. In his holding cell, the Sheriff confronts Gates about what he saw. Gates relents, and says there are somethings that don't need an explanation. Sloane and the Cheyenne are shown to have successfully escaped. An undetermined time later, Gates has begun searching for the Cheyenne and Sloane. Using hints provided by Sloane, he is able to find them. The film ends with a passionate embrace between Sloane and Gates. Reception. "Last of the Dogmen" currently holds a 69% 'Fresh' rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Alternate releases. The American theatrical and home video releases of this film included narration by Wilford Brimley (in 3rd person), which is absent from the UK version. The DVD allows the viewer to choose. The NetFlix streaming version (no longer available) has the narration told in 1st person by the lead actors.
1055921	Popi is a 1969 American comedy-drama film directed by Arthur Hiller. The screenplay by Tina Pine and Lester Pine focuses on a Puerto Rican widower struggling to raise his two young sons in the New York City neighborhood known as Spanish Harlem, and stars Alan Arkin and Rita Moreno. Plot. Abraham Rodriguez, known as Popi to his sons Luis and Junior, supports them by working three jobs, leaving him little time to supervise them. He hopes to earn enough to marry his girlfriend Lupe and move the family into a better home in Brooklyn. Then reality crashes in as the boys see gangs do violence in the neighborhood and are even victimized when their clothes are stolen from them. Realizing his boys have a better chance of making good as political refugees than products of the ghetto in which he's raising them, he plots to set them adrift in a rowboat off the coast of Miami Beach in the hope they will be mistaken for escapees from Cuba and offered asylum. After teaching them how to row a boat in the lake in Central Park and how to handle a motorboat on the East River, they depart for Florida. Popi steals a boat and tells the boys to take it out until they run out of fuel, then remove the outboard motor and begin to row back to shore. When he is unable to alert the Coast Guard to their plight, he fears they are lost until he hears a report about the heroic rescue of two young "Cuban" boys. Luis and Junior, suffering from dehydration and severe sunburn, are hospitalized, and soon find themselves indundated with flowers and toys from thousands of well-wishers, many of whom offer to adopt them. Wearing a disguise, Popi sneaks into their hospital room and tries to convince them they are better off being raised by wealthy parents. The three begin to argue loudly, alerting the staff and prompting Popi to flee, followed by his sons. Much to the relief of the boys, their hoax is exposed, and they happily return to their impoverished life in the barrio with their loving father. Critical reception. The movie opened to good reviews and many went to Alan Arkin. He played numerous characters during the 1960's and 1970s, some were ethnic, and the person of Abraham Rodriguez was one of them.
602126	Sam McMurray (born April 15, 1952) is an American television, film and voice actor. Early life. McMurray was born in New York City, the son of Jane (née Hoffman) and Richard McMurray, both actors. Lesley Woods was his stepmother. McMurray is Jewish on his mother's side of the family and Irish on his father's side of the family. A popular misconception is that Sam's family includes fellow actor Fred MacMurray; the two are not related. Career. Among McMurray's film credits are "Raising Arizona", "National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation", "Drop Dead Gorgeous", "L.A. Story", "The Wizard" as Jimmy's step-father Mr. Bateman, and "C.H.U.D.". On television he was a featured player on "The Tracey Ullman Show", played a recurring role as Chandler's boss on "Friends", appeared in "The King of Queens" as Doug and Deacon's boss and also appeared in "Disney's Recess", "Freaks and Geeks", "Home Improvement", "The Sopranos", "The Tick" and "Breaking Bad". McMurray gained much international recognition among gamers for his role as the voice of 'BBC Newscaster/American Newscaster' in the expansion for "". He also appeared in the 2011 TV film "A Holiday Engagement". Filmography. Stage Appearances. • Stage Appearances
1059730	EDtv is a 1999 American comedy film directed by Ron Howard. An adaptation of the Quebec film "Louis 19, le roi des ondes" (1994), it stars Matthew McConaughey, Jenna Elfman, Woody Harrelson, Ellen DeGeneres, Martin Landau, Rob Reiner, Sally Kirkland, Elizabeth Hurley, Clint Howard, and Dennis Hopper. The film was screened out of competition at the 1999 Cannes Film Festival. Plot. "EDtv" starts off with the television channel True TV commencing interviews for a TV show that shows a normal person's life 24/7. This idea was thought up by a TV producer named Cynthia (Ellen DeGeneres). They interview Ed Pekurny (Matthew McConaughey) and his brother, Ray (Woody Harrelson). When the producers see the interview Cynthia decides to use Ed and interviews only Ed. So now they start airing the show, which they call Ed TV. The show is a total failure at first, as only boring things happen and the main producers want to pull the plug, except for Cynthia.
1063972	David Ogden Stiers (born October 31, 1942) is an American actor, director, vocal actor, and musician, noted for his roles in Disney films, the television series "M*A*S*H" as Major Charles Emerson Winchester III and the science fiction drama "The Dead Zone" as Reverend Gene Purdy. He is also known for the role of District Attorney Michael Reston in the Perry Mason TV movies. Personal life and education. Stiers was born in Peoria, Illinois, the son of Margaret Elizabeth (née Ogden) and Kenneth Truman Stiers. He attended Urbana High School, at the same time as film critic Roger Ebert. He went to Eugene, Oregon, where he graduated from North Eugene High School and briefly attended the University of Oregon. He later ventured to San Francisco, where he performed with the California Shakespeare Theater, San Francisco Actors Workshop, and the improv group The Committee, whose members included Rob Reiner and Howard Hesseman. Stiers studied at the Juilliard School. During his studies, Stiers was mentored by actor John Houseman and would later join his City Center Acting Company. Career. Early acting credits. Stiers first appeared in the Broadway production "The Magic Show" in 1974 in the minor role of Feldman. Later his early credits include "The Mary Tyler Moore Show", "Kojak", and "Rhoda". Stiers also appeared in the pilot of "Charlie’s Angels" as the team's chief back-up. "M*A*S*H" (1977–1983). In 1977, Stiers joined the cast of the now iconic CBS-TV sitcom "M*A*S*H". As Major Charles Emerson Winchester III, Stiers filled the void created by the departure of actor Larry Linville's Frank Burns character. In contrast to the buffoonish Burns, Winchester was a well-spoken and talented surgeon who presented a different type of foil to Alan Alda's Hawkeye Pierce and Mike Farrell's B.J. Hunnicutt. Burns usually served as the butt of practical jokes instigated by Pierce or Hunnicutt, and his surgical skills were often harshly criticized. Winchester, however, presented a challenge to his colleagues' displays of irreverence because his surgical skills could match or even outshine theirs; his aristocratic manner and aversion to the puerile behavior served as the target for his fellow surgeons' barbs and jokes. At times, however, Winchester could align himself with Pierce and Hunnicutt and held considerable admiration for CO Col. Sherman T. Potter. For his portrayal of the pompous but nonetheless multifaceted Boston aristocrat, Stiers received two Emmy Award nominations. Other television work. Following the completion of "M*A*S*H", Stiers expanded his work on television with regular guest appearances on "North and South"; ""; "Murder, She Wrote"; "Matlock"; "Touched by an Angel"; "Wings"; and "Frasier", along with a recurring role in Season 1 of "Two Guys and a Girl" as Mr. Bauer. In 1984, he portrayed United States Olympic Committee founder, William Milligan Sloane in the NBC miniseries, . He also had guest appearances on "ALF" and "Matlock". He appeared in two unsuccessful television projects, "Love & Money" and "Justice League of America" (as the Martian Manhunter). In 2002, Stiers started a recurring role as the Reverend Purdy on the successful USA Network series "The Dead Zone" with Anthony Michael Hall. In 2006, he was cast as the recurring character Oberoth in "Stargate Atlantis". Stiers also appeared in several "Perry Mason" made-for-TV movies in the 1980s as District Attorney Michael Reston. Vocal work. Stiers has provided voice work for dozens of film and television projects. His first work was on one of George Lucas’ earliest films, the critically acclaimed "THX 1138", in which he was incorrectly billed as "David Ogden Steers". Stiers has voiced PBS documentary films such as Ric Burns’ project ', 2010 Peabody Award winner "The Lord is Not on Trial Here Today" and several episodes of the documentary television series "The American Experience", including Ansel Adams (2002), also directed by Ric Burns. In 1992, he voiced Mr. Piccolo in the animated English-dubbed version of "Porco Rosso". He has collaborated with Disney on eight animated features, such as "Beauty and the Beast" (as Cogsworth, also opening narration), "The Hunchback of Notre Dame" (as the Archdeacon), "Pocahontas" (as Governor Ratcliffe and Wiggins), ' (as Mr. Harcourt), and "Lilo & Stitch" (as Jumba Jookiba). He also lent his voice to the direct-to-video ' (2003) as the Penguin. Stiers also did voice work for Solovar in a two-part episode "The Brave and The Bold" in "Justice League" and voiced Solovar again in a "Justice League Unlimited" episode "Dead Reckoning". He also voiced Gryzlikoff in "Darkwing Duck" and Mr. Jolly in "Teacher's Pet". He also voiced the king and prime minister in a short film, "The Cat That Looked at a King", in 2004. In "Hoodwinked" (2005), the animated movie partly based on Little Red Riding Hood, Stiers voiced the role of Nicky Flippers, the frog detective dispatched to Granny's house. He voiced Pop's father, Mr. Maellard, in the animated TV series "Regular Show", which debuted in 2010. Stiers had voices in several video games, including "Icewind Dale", "Kingdom Hearts II", ', as Jeff Zandi in ', and as Esher in '. Music. Stiers is the associate conductor for the Newport Symphony Orchestra and the Ernest Bloch Music Festival. He has guest conducted over 70 orchestras around the world, including the Oregon Mozart Players, the Vancouver Symphony, the Oregon Chamber Players, the Yaquina (Ore.) Chamber Orchestra, as well as orchestras in San Francisco, San Diego, Los Angeles, Chicago and Toronto.
143624	Victor Rasuk (born January 15, 1984) is an American actor. Life and career. Rasuk was born in New York City, New York, to Dominican parents. He has one brother, Silvestre, with whom he starred in "Raising Victor Vargas". Rasuk attended performing arts school as a teenager, and began acting at 14. He garnered his first movie role at 16 in "Five Feet High and Rising." The film—less than 30 minutes long—was a hit at the Independent Spirit Film Festival. Two years later, the same director, Peter Sollett, suggested expanding the short film into a feature-length movie: "Raising Victor Vargas," which went on to win Rasuk an Independent Spirit Award nomination for his work. In his next film, "Rock Steady", Rasuk played a character named Roc. Two years later, he took a leading role in "Haven" with Orlando Bloom. In 2005, "Lords of Dogtown" was released, with Victor playing Tony Alva, one of the leading roles. The part included surfing and performing skateboarding tricks. Although the more complicated maneuvers were performed by stunt men (including the scenes of surfing at Pacific Ocean Park pier and skating in empty swimming pools), Rasuk is a method actor and worked on remaining in character both on and off screen. Believing he had mastered skating a huge ramp in only his second week of training, Rasuk fractured one of his orbital bones. Rasuk says the accident likely earned him more respect from serious skaters within the cast and crew. Victor starred in the short-lived HBO television series "How To Make It In America" which only lasted two seasons.
62757	Hypatia (b. ca. AD 350–370, d. 415) ( ; ; "Hypatía") was an Alexandrine Neoplatonist philosopher in Egypt who was the first well-documented woman in mathematics. As head of the Platonist school at Alexandria, she also taught philosophy and astronomy. As a Neoplatonist philosopher, she belonged to the mathematic tradition of the Academy of Athens, as represented by Eudoxus of Cnidus; she was of the intellectual school of the 3rd century thinker Plotinus, which encouraged logic and mathematical study in place of empirical enquiry and strongly encouraged law in place of nature. According to the only contemporary source, Hypatia was murdered by a Christian mob after being accused of exacerbating a conflict between two prominent figures in Alexandria: the governor Orestes and the Bishop of Alexandria. Kathleen Wider proposes that the murder of Hypatia marked the end of Classical antiquity, and Stephen Greenblatt observes that her murder "effectively marked the downfall of Alexandrian intellectual life". On the other hand, Maria Dzielska and Christian Wildberg note that Hellenistic philosophy continued to flourish in the 5th and 6th centuries, and perhaps until the age of Justinian. Life. The mathematician and philosopher Hypatia of Alexandria was the daughter of the mathematician Theon Alexandricus (ca. 335–405). She was educated at Athens. Around AD 400, she became head of the Platonist school at Alexandria, where she imparted the knowledge of Plato and Aristotle to any student; the pupils included pagans, Christians, and foreigners. The contemporary 5th-century sources do identify Hypatia of Alexandria as a practitioner and teacher of the philosophy of Plato and Plotinus, but, two hundred years later, the 7th-century Egyptian Coptic bishop John of Nikiû identified her as a Hellenistic pagan and that "she was devoted at all times to magic, astrolabes and instruments of music, and she beguiled many people through her Satanic wiles". Not all Christians were as hostile towards her as John of Nikiu or the monks who killed her: some Christians even used Hypatia as symbolic of Virtue. The Byzantine "Suda" encyclopaedia reported that Hypatia was "the wife of Isidore the Philosopher" (apparently Isidore of Alexandria); however, Isidore of Alexandria was not born until long after Hypatia's death, and no other philosopher of that name contemporary with Hypatia is known. The "Suda" also stated that "she remained a virgin" and that she rejected a suitor with her menstrual rags, saying that they demonstrated there to be "nothing beautiful" about carnal desire—an example of a Christian source using Hypatia as a symbol of Virtue. Hypatia corresponded with former pupil Synesius of Cyrene, who was tutored by her in the philosophical school of Platonism and later became bishop of Ptolemais in AD 410, an exponent of the Christian Holy Trinity doctrine. Together with the references by the pagan philosopher Damascius, these are the extant records left by Hypatia's pupils at the Platonist school of Alexandria. The contemporary Christian historiographer Socrates Scholasticus described her in "Ecclesiastical History": Death. Events leading to her murder. Two widely cited, but divergent texts describe the feud between Orestes, the prefect (or Governor) of Alexandria and Cyril, the Bishop of Alexandria. The feud and the city-wide anger it provoked ultimately brought about the death of Hypatia. One source, the "Historia Ecclesiastica" (or "Ecclesiastical History") was written by Socrates Scholasticus (who was himself a Christian), some time shortly after Hypatia's death in AD 415. Scholasticus gives a more complete, less biased account of the feud between Orestes and Cyril, and the role Hypatia played in the feud that resulted in her death. The other source, "The Chronicle", written by John of Nikiu in Egypt, around 650 AD, demonizes Hypatia and Orestes directly, while validating all Christians involved in the events Nikiu describes. "The Chronicle", in being more biased on the matter of the historical feud, omits several points of the narrative that are detailed in Scholasticus’s account. Ecclesiastical History, Socrates Scholasticus Orestes, the governor of Alexandria, and Cyril, the Bishop of Alexandria, found themselves in a bitter feud in which Hypatia would come to be one of the main points of contention. The feud, which took place in 415 AD, began over the matter of Jewish dancing exhibitions in Alexandria. Since these exhibitions attracted large crowds and were commonly prone to civil disorder of varying degrees, Orestes published an edict which outlined new regulations for such gatherings and posted it in the city's theater. Soon after, crowds gathered to read the edict, angry over the new regulations that had been imposed upon them. At one such gathering, Hierax, a Christian and devout follower of Cyril, read the edict and applauded the new regulations, which many people felt was an attempt to incite the crowd into sedition. In what Scholasticus suspected as Orestes' "…jealousy the growing power of the bishops…[which encroached on the jurisdiction of the authorities…", Orestes immediately ordered Hierax to be seized and publicly tortured in the theater. Upon hearing of this, Cyril threatened the Jews of Alexandria with "the utmost severities" if harassment of Christians was not ceased at once. In response, the Jews of Alexandria grew only more furious over Cyril's threat, and in their anger they eventually resorted to violence against the Christians. They plotted to flush the Christians out at night by running through the streets, claiming that the Church of Alexander was on fire. When the Christians responded to what they were led to believe was the burning down of their church, "the Jews immediately fell upon and slew them", using rings to recognize one another in the dark, while killing everyone else in sight. When the morning came, the Jews of Alexandria could not hide their guilt, and Cyril, along with many of his followers, took to the city’s synagogues in search of the perpetrators of the night's massacre. After Cyril found all of the Jews in Alexandria, he ordered them to be stripped of all their possessions, banished them from Alexandria, and allowed the remaining citizens to pillage the goods they left behind. With Cyril's banishment of the Jews, "Orestes [...] was filled with great indignation at these transactions, and was excessively grieved that a city of such magnitude should have been suddenly bereft of so large a portion of its population…". Because of this, the feud between Cyril and Orestes only grew stronger, and both men wrote to the emperor regarding the situation. Eventually, Cyril attempted to reach out to Orestes through several peace overtures, including attempted mediation and, when that failed, showed him the Gospels. Nevertheless, Orestes remained unmoved by such gestures. Meanwhile, approximately 500 monks, who resided in the mountains of Nitria, and were "of a very fiery disposition", heard of the ongoing feud between the Governor and Bishop, and shortly thereafter descended into Alexandria, armed and prepared to fight alongside Cyril. Upon their arrival in Alexandria, the monks quickly intercepted Orestes' chariot in town and proceeded to bombard and harass him, calling him a pagan idolater. In response to such allegations, Orestes countered that he was actually a Christian, and had even been baptized by Atticus, the Bishop of Constantinople. The monks paid little attention to Orestes’ claims of Christianity, and one of the monks, by the name of Ammonius, struck Orestes in the head with a rock, which caused him to bleed profusely. At this point, Orestes’ guards fled for fear of their lives, but a nearby crowd of Alexandrians came to his aid, and Ammonius was subsequently secured and ordered to be tortured for his actions. Upon excessive torture, Ammonius died. Following the death of Ammonius, Cyril ordered that he henceforth be remembered as a martyr. Such a proclamation did not sit well with "sober-minded" Christians, as Scholasticus pointed out, seeing that he "suffered the punishment due to his rashness…because he would not deny Christ", and this fact, according to Scholasticus, became more apparent to Cyril through general lack of enthusiasm for Ammonius's case for martyrdom. Scholasticus then introduces Hypatia, the female philosopher of Alexandria and woman who would become a target of the Christian anger that grew over the feud. Daughter of Theon, and a teacher trained in the philosophical schools of Plato and Plotinus, she was admired by most men for her dignity and virtue. Of the anger she provoked among Christians, Scholasticus writes, Hypatia ultimately fell "victim to the political jealousy which at the time prevailed" - Orestes was known to seek her counsel, and a rumor spread among the Christian community of Alexandria in which she was blamed for his unwillingness to reconcile with Cyril. Therefore, a mob of Christians gathered, led by a reader (i.e. a minor cleric) named Peter whom Scholasticus calls a fanatic. They kidnapped Hypatia on her way home and took her to the "Church called Caesareum. They then completely stripped her, and then murdered her with tiles". Socrates Scholasticus was hence interpreted as saying that, while she was still alive, Hypatia's flesh was torn off using oyster shells (tiles; the Greek word is "ostrakois", which literally means "oystershells" but the word was also used for brick tiles on the roofs of houses and for pottery sherds). Afterward, the men proceeded to mutilate her, and finally burn her limbs. When news broke of Hypatia's murder, it provoked great public denouncement, not only against Cyril, but against the whole Alexandrian Christian community. Scholasticus closes with a lament: "Surely nothing can be farther from the spirit of Christianity than the allowance of massacres, fights, and transactions of that sort". "Chronicle", John of Nikiu Bishop John of Nikiu, who lived several hundred years after the events he describes, writes bitterly of Hypatia, claiming that "she beguiled many people through (her) Satanic wiles". Orestes, who Nikiu writes, was himself a victim of Hypatia's demonic charm, regularly honored her, and took to abandoning the Christian Church in order to follow her teachings more closely. Moreover, Orestes himself persuaded others to leave the Church in favor of Hypatia's philosophical teachings, and went as far as to host such "unbelievers" at his house. One day, Orestes published an edict "regarding public exhibitions in the city of Alexandria", and all citizens gathered to read Orestes's edict. Cyril, curious to see why the edict caused such an uproar, sent Hierax, a "Christian possessing understanding and intelligence", who although opposed to paganism, did as Cyril asked and went to learn the nature of Orestes's edict. Meanwhile, the Jews who gathered in anger over the edict, believed that Hierax had only come for the sake of provocation (which, according to Scholasticus's text, was Hierax's intent). Upon this assumption, Orestes had Hierax punished for a crime for which "he was wholly guiltless". For the punishment and torture of Hierax, as well as the death of several monks, including Ammonius, Cyril grew increasingly furious with Orestes. (Here, Nikiu blatantly ignores the assault on Orestes by the 500 monks, of which Ammonius played an active role in bringing about his torture and death.) Cyril then warned the Jews against any further harm upon the Christians. However, with the support of Orestes (which was in no way implied by Scholasticus), the Jews felt confident in defying Cyril's authority, and so one night ran through the streets proclaiming: "The church of the apostolic Athanasius (Alexander) is on fire: come to its succour, all ye Christians". The Christians responded to the claims only to be slaughtered by the Jews in a coordinated ambush. The next morning, all remaining Christians of the town came to Cyril with news of the massacre, after which Cyril marched with them to purge the Jews from Alexandria. In so doing, Cyril allowed the pillaging of their possessions, and soon after purified all the synagogues in the city and made them into Churches (Scholasticus makes no mention of "purifying" the Synagogues). In the expulsion of the Jews, Orestes was unable to offer them any assistance. Shortly thereafter, a group of Christians, under Peter the magistrate, went looking for Hypatia, the "pagan woman who had beguiled the people of the city and the prefect through her enchantments". They found her sitting in a chair, at which point they seized and brought her to "the great church, named Caesarion", where they proceeded to rip the clothes off of her body. Following this, they took to dragging her through the streets of Alexandria until she died. Once she had died, they burned her remains. Nikiu's description of Hypatia's death also differs from Scholasticus's interpretation. Following the death of Hypatia, Bishop Cyril was named "the new Theophilus". With the death of Hypatia, Nikiu writes, the Christians had expelled the last remnant of pagan idolatry. Works. No written work, widely recognized by scholars as Hypatia's own, has survived to the present time. Many of the works commonly attributed to her are believed to have been collaborative works with her father, Theon Alexandricus, this kind of authorial uncertainty being typical for female philosophers in Antiquity. A partial list of Hypatia's works as mentioned by other antique and medieval authors or as posited by modern authors: Her contributions to science are reputed to include the charting of celestial bodies and the invention of the hydrometer, used to determine the relative density (or specific gravity) of liquids. However, the hydrometer was invented before Hypatia, and already known in her time. Her student Synesius, bishop of Cyrene, wrote a letter describing his construction of an astrolabe. Earlier astrolabes predate that of Synesius by at least a century, and Hypatia's father had gained fame for his treatise on the subject. However, Synesius claimed that his was an improved model. Synesius also sent Hypatia a letter describing a hydrometer, and requesting her to have one constructed for him. Legacy. Late Antiquity to the Age of Reason. Shortly after her murder, there appeared under Hypatia's name a forged anti-Christian letter. The Neoplatonist historian Damascius (ca. AD 458–538) was "anxious to exploit the scandal of Hypatia's death", and attributed responsibility for her murder to Bishop Cyril and his Christian followers; that historical account is contained in the "Suda". Damascius's account of the Christian murder of Hypatia is the sole historical source attributing direct responsibility to Bishop Cyril. Maria Dzielska proposes that the bishop's body guards might have murdered Hypatia. The intellectual Eudokia Makrembolitissa (1021–1096), the second wife of Byzantine Emperor Constantine X Doukas, was described by the historian Nicephorus Gregoras as a "second Hypatia". Centuries later, the early 18th-century deist scholar John Toland used the murder of Hypatia as the basis for the anti-Catholic tract "Hypatia: Or the History of a most beautiful, most vertuous, most learned, and every way accomplish’d Lady; who was torn to pieces by the Clergy of Alexandria, to gratify the pride, emulation, and cruelty of their Archbishop, commonly, but undeservedly, stil'd St. Cyril". In turn, the Christians defended themselves from Toland with "The History of Hypatia, a most Impudent School-Mistress of Alexandria: Murder'd and torn to Pieces by the Populace, in Defence of Saint Cyril and the Alexandrian Clergy from the Aspersions of Mr. Toland", by Thomas Lewis, in 1721. 19th century. In the 19th century, interest in the "literary legend of Hypatia" began to rise. Diodata Saluzzo Roero's 1827 "Ipazia ovvero delle Filosofie" suggested that Cyril had actually converted Hypatia to Christianity, and that she had been killed by a "treacherous" priest. In 1843, German authors Soldan and Heppe argued in their highly influential "History of the Witchcraft Trials" that Hypatia may have been, in effect, the first famous "witch" punished under Christian authority (see Witch-hunt). In his 1847 "Hypatie" and 1857 "Hypatie et Cyrille", French poet Charles-Marie-René Leconte de Lisle portrayed Hypatia as the epitome of "vulnerable truth and beauty". Charles Kingsley's 1853 novel "Hypatia – or New Foes with an Old Face", which portrayed the scholar as a "helpless, pretentious, and erotic heroine", recounted her conversion by a Jewish-Christian named Raphael Aben-Ezra after supposedly becoming disillusioned with Orestes. In 1867, the early photographer Julia Margaret Cameron created a portrait of the scholar as a young woman. On 2 January 1893, a stage play "Hypatia", written by G. Stuart Ogilvie, opened at the Haymarket Theatre in London. It was based on the novel by Charles Kingsley, and was produced by Herbert Beerbohm Tree. The title role was initially played by Julia Neilson, and it featured an elaborate musical score written by the composer Hubert Parry. 20th century. Some authors mention her in passing, such as Marcel Proust, who dropped her name in the last sentence of "Madame Swann at Home," the first section of "Within a Budding Grove". Some characters are named after her, such as Hypatia Cade, a precocious child and main character in the science fiction novel "The Ship Who Searched" by Mercedes Lackey and Anne McCaffrey. Rinne Groff's 2000 play "The Five Hysterical Girls Theorem" features a character named Hypatia who lives silently, in fear that she will suffer the fate of her namesake. Hypatia is the name of a 'shipmind' (ship computer) in "The Boy Who Would Live Forever", a novel in Frederik Pohl's Heechee series. Umberto Eco's novel "Baudolino" sees the protagonist meet a secluded society of satyr-like creatures who all take their name and philosophy from Hypatia. A fictional version of the historic character appears in several works and indeed series, such as She also appears, briefly, as one of the kidnapped scientists and philosophers in the Doctor Who episode Time and the Rani. American astronomer Carl Sagan, in "", gave a detailed speculative description of Hypatia's death, linking it with the destruction of the Library of Alexandria. A more scholarly historical study of her, "Hypatia of Alexandria" by Maria Dzielska (translated into English by F. Lyra, published by Harvard University Press), was named by "Choice Magazine" as an "Outstanding Academic Book of 1995, Philosophy Category". She has been claimed by second wave feminism, most prominently as "", published since 1986 by Indiana University Press. Judy Chicago's large-scale "The Dinner Party" awards her a place-setting, and other artistic works draw on or are based on Hypatia. A central character in Iain Pears' "The Dream of Scipio" is a woman philosopher clearly modeled on (though not identical with) Hypatia. The last two centuries have seen Hypatia's name honored in the sciences, especially astronomy. 238 Hypatia, a main belt asteroid discovered in 1884, was named for her. The lunar crater "Hypatia" was named for her, in addition to craters named for her father Theon and for Cyril. The 180 km "Rimae Hypatia" is located north of the crater, one degree south of the equator, along the Mare Tranquillitatis. By the end of the 20th century Hypatia's name was applied to projects ranging in scope from an Adobe typeface (Hypatia Sans Pro), to a cooperative community house in Madison, Wisconsin. A genus of moth also bears her name. 21st century. Her life continues to be fictionalized by authors in many countries and languages. Two recent examples are "Ipazia, scienziata alessandrina" by Adriano Petta (translated from the Italian in 2004 as "Hypatia: Scientist of Alexandria"), and "Hypatia y la eternidad" (Hypatia and Eternity) by Ramon Galí, a fanciful alternate history, in Spanish (2009). Azazil, by Egyptian Muslim author Dr. Youssef Ziedan, tells the story of the religious conflict of that time through the eyes of a monk, including a substantial section on Hypatia; Zaydan's book has been criticized by Christians in Egypt. Her life is portrayed in the Malayalam novel "Francis Itty Cora" (2009) by T. D Ramakrishnan. Examples in English include More factually, "Hypatia of Alexandria: Mathematician and Martyr" (2007) is a brief (113 page) biography by Michael Deakin, with a focus on her mathematical research. Hypatia has been considered a universal genius. The 2009 movie "Agora", directed by Alejandro Amenábar, focuses on Hypatia's final years. Hypatia, portrayed by actress Rachel Weisz, is seen investigating the heliocentric model of the solar system proposed by Aristarchus of Samos, and even anticipating the elliptical orbits discovered by Johannes Kepler 1200 years later. In the 2013 play "False Assumptions" by Lawrence Aronovitch, Hypatia is portrayed as one of three ghosts observing the life of Marie Curie.
1052316	Dangerous Moves is a 1984 French-language film about chess, directed by Richard Dembo and starring Michel Piccoli and Alexandre Arbatt. Its original French title is La diagonale du fou ("The Fool's Diagonal", referring to the chess piece called the bishop in English but the fool in French). The film was a co-production between companies in France and Switzerland. It tells the story of two very different men competing in the final match of the World Chess Championship. One is a 52-year-old Soviet Jew who holds the title, and the other is a 35-year-old genius who defected to the West several years earlier. Awards. The film won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 1984; it was submitted by the Swiss government, and gave that nation its first Oscar win. It also won the Prix Louis Delluc, the Prix de l'Académide du Cinéma and the César Award for Best Debut. Discography. The CD soundtrack composed by Gabriel Yared is available on Music Box Records label (website).
1524732	Toni Mannix (February 19, 1906 - September 2, 1983) was an American actress and dancer in the early talkies. She became notorious for an extramarital relationship with actor George Reeves during her marriage to MGM studio head Eddie Mannix. Early life. Born as Camille Bernice Froomess in New York. Her father, Charles, was a Russian Jewish immigrant and her mother, Elizabeth, was a French-Canadian Roman Catholic. The large family would ultimately include eleven children; seven boys and four girls. The children were raised in their mother's faith. Mannix's father was a department store window decorator in Rochester, New York and her mother a home-maker. Career. For a time, Mannix was a Ziegfeld Follies showgirl, and appeared in the Metro-Goldwyn-Meyer biography of Florenz Ziegfeld's life, "The Great Ziegfeld" (1936). Personal life. Mannix subsequently met MGM's general manager Eddie Mannix. She later lived with him as his mistress, and then as his wife, until his death in 1963. Shortly after her marriage to Eddie Mannix in 1951 and shortly before the launch of Reeves as the titular star in the successful television series "Adventures of Superman", Mannix met and began an affair with Reeves, with the acquiescence of her husband, according to Reeves's co-stars Noel Neill and Jack Larson. The affair was ended by Reeves in 1959. His death by gunshot wound to the head five months later was officially ruled a suicide, although questions have been raised about the circumstances under which he died. Kashner and Schoenberger's partially fictionalized biography "Hollywood Kryptonite" states as unsourced fact that Toni, via her husband Eddie's criminal connections, ordered Reeves murdered. This theory was endorsed by publicist Edward Lozzi, who stated in 1999 that he had witnessed Toni's deathbed confession. Although the 2006 film "Hollywoodland" uses her husband's complicity as one possible solution to the Reeves mystery, the film remains ambiguous about the truth. In any case, Mannix was devastated by Reeves' death and remained dedicated to Reeves, reportedly building a shrine to him in her house. She was portrayed by Diane Lane in "Hollywoodland". Later years and death. Mannix, wealthy following the death of her husband in 1963, developed Alzheimer's disease when she was in her seventies. She died in 1983 in Beverly Hills, at the age of 77, having neither remarried nor had children.
674504	Sonnenallee ("Sun Avenue" or "Sun Alley") is a 1999 comedy film about life in East Berlin in the late 1970s. The movie was directed by Leander Haußmann. The film was released shortly before the corresponding novel, "Am kürzeren Ende der Sonnenallee" ("At the Shorter End of Sonnenallee"). Both the book and the screenplay were written by Thomas Brussig and while they are based on the same characters and setting, differ in storyline significantly. Both the movie and the book emphasize the importance of pop-art and in particular, pop music, for the youth of East Berlin. The Sonnenallee is an actual street in Berlin that was intersected by the border between East and West during the time of the Berlin Wall, although it bears little resemblance to the film set. "Sonnenallee" was broadcast in Czechia under the title "Eastie Boys". Synopsis. Michael (or 'Micha') is a 17-year-old growing up in communist East Germany (GDR) in the 1970s. He spends his time with his friends listening to banned pop music, partying and trying to win over the heart of Miriam, who is dating a West Berlin boy. Over the course of the movie his best friend Mario, falls for an existentialist, gets kicked out of school and subsequently discovers he is going to be a father. The closing of the movie upsets Micha's thus far idealistic life, as Mario sells out his ideals by signing up for military service to support his girlfriend and the child. Furthermore, his young blonde friend, Wuschel, is shot by a GDR guard, but survives, thanks to The Rolling Stones double album "Exile on Mainstreet" in which the bullet has lodged. The young boy is devastated, however, prominently displaying the importance of pop music in their lives. Later, he gets a new copy by using the 50 West-German Mark that he gets from Miriam's ex-boyfriend when the latter causes him to crash his bike (accidentally). The film ends with a crowd of East Berliners advancing on the Berlin Wall entry/exit gate and singing "The Letter" by Dynamo 5, led by Michael and Wuschel, who jump down from the balcony they were perched and seemingly move through to the Western side. Controversy. The film was considered by many to be a glorification of the GDR and was seen to be playing down certain aspects of life in the GDR. As a result, some reviews such as those in "Der Spiegel" criticized the movie. But many saw this criticism as far disproportionate and the film was well received by the majority of the viewers.
583446	Tum Milo Toh Sahi is Bollywood film that released on 2 April 2010. It stars Nana Patekar, Dimple Kapadia, Suniel Shetty, Vidya Malvade, Rehan Khan and Anjana Sukhani in lead roles. Plot. Tum Milo To Sahi is a tale of ordinary people at different stages of life, who discover that "their roots have intertwined so inseparably that they have become one tree and not two!" The film revolves around "art and fortunate accident" happens to three different couples at three different stages of life – late teens, mid thirties and late fifties. The three couples either in the "breathlessness of being in love" or missing "that excitement". Wherever they may be to begin with, the journey of life makes them discover true love – that which is left over, when "being in love" has burned away. Tum Milo To Sahi is a look at how that love makes the lives of these ordinary people, extraordinary! Critical reception. Though critics praised the performances of Nana Patekar and Dimple Kapadia, the movie on the whole received poor ratings and managed an received an aggregate rating of only 4.0/10 at ReviewGang
1063039	Hayley Mills (born 18 April 1946, London) is an English actress. The daughter of Sir John Mills and Mary Hayley Bell, and sister of actress Juliet Mills, Mills began her acting career as a child and was hailed as a promising newcomer, winning the BAFTA Award for Most Promising Newcomer for "Tiger Bay" (1959), the Academy Juvenile Award for "Pollyanna" (1960) and Golden Globe Award for New Star of the Year – Actress in 1961. During her early career, she appeared in several films for Walt Disney, and is perhaps best known for her dual role as twins Susan and Sharon in the Disney film "The Parent Trap" (1961). During the late 1960s she began performing in theatrical plays, and played in more mature roles. The age of contracts with studios soon passed. Although she has not maintained the box office success or the Hollywood A-list she experienced as a child actress, she has continued to make films and TV appearances, having two films in post-production in 2010. From 2007 to 2012, Mills played Caroline, a main character in the ITV1 Series "Wild at Heart". Early life and career. Mills was 12 when she was discovered by J. Lee Thompson, who was initially looking for a boy to play the lead role in "Tiger Bay". Walt Disney's wife, Lillian Disney, saw her performance and suggested that Mills be given the lead role in "Pollyanna". The role of the orphaned "glad girl" who moves in with her aunt catapulted Mills to super-stardom in the United States and earned her a special Academy Award (the last person to receive the Juvenile Oscar). Disney subsequently cast Mills as twins Sharon and Susan who reunite their divorced parents in "The Parent Trap". In the film, Mills sings "Let's Get Together" as a duet with herself. She made four additional films for Disney in a four-year span, including "In Search of the Castaways" and "Summer Magic". Her final two Disney films, "The Moon-Spinners" and "That Darn Cat!", did very well at the box office. During her six-year run at Disney, Mills was arguably the most popular child actress of the era. Critics noted that America's favourite child star was, in fact, quite British and very ladylike. The success of "Let's Get Together" (which hit No. 8 on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart and No. 17 in Britain) also led to the release of a record album on Disney's Buena Vista label, "Let's Get Together with Hayley Mills", which also included her only other hit song, "Johnny Jingo" (Billboard No. 21, 1962). In 1962 British exhibitors voted her the most popular film actress in the country. In addition to her Disney films, Mills starred in several other films, notably "Whistle Down the Wind" 1961, (based on the book of the same title written by her mother, Mary Hayley Bell), with Alan Bates. "The Truth About Spring" (with her real father, John Mills, cast as her father and James MacArthur as the love interest), and "The Chalk Garden", 1964 from the play by Enid Bagnold. Mills was considered for the role of Lolita Haze in Stanley Kubrick's 1962 film version of "Lolita". However, Walt Disney discouraged the casting, feeling the role was not up to Disney's wholesome standard, and the part eventually went to Sue Lyon. In 1962 Disney announced plans to film "I Capture the Castle", from the novel by Dodie Smith, with Hayley Mills in the role of Cassandra. However, Disney never produced the film. Post-Disney film career. After her contract with Disney, Mills scored a hit in "The Trouble with Angels" (1966), as a prankish Catholic boarding school girl with "scathingly brilliant" schemes, opposite screen veteran Rosalind Russell, and directed by another Hollywood veteran, Ida Lupino. Looking to break from her girl-next-door image, Mills returned to Britain to appear as a mentally challenged teenager in the film "Sky West and Crooked", which was directed by her father and written by her mother. Shortly thereafter, Mills appeared alongside her father in director Roy Boulting's critically acclaimed film "The Family Way", a comedy about a couple having difficulty consummating their marriage, featuring a score by Paul McCartney and arrangements by Beatles producer George Martin. She eventually married Roy Boulting in 1971. She then starred as the protagonist of "Pretty Polly", opposite famous Indian film actor Shashi Kapoor in Singapore. In 1972 she made "Endless Night" with Britt Ekland, Per Oscarsson, Hywel Bennett and George Sanders. It is based on the novel "Endless Night" by Agatha Christie. After her appearance in "The Kingfisher Caper" in 1975, Mills dropped out of the film industry for a few years. Television resurgence and reception. In 1981 Mills returned to acting with a starring role in the UK television mini-series "The Flame Trees of Thika", based on Elspeth Huxley's memoir of her childhood in East Africa. The series was well received, prompting Mills to accept more acting roles. She then returned to America, and made two appearances on "The Love Boat". Always welcomed at Disney, Mills narrated an episode of "The Wonderful World of Disney", sparking renewed interest in her Disney work. In 1986 she reprised her roles as twins Sharon and Susan for a trio of "Parent Trap" television films: "The Parent Trap II", "The Parent Trap III", and "". Mills also starred as the title character in the Disney Channel-produced television series "Good Morning, Miss Bliss" in 1987. The show was cancelled after 13 episodes, and the rights were acquired by NBC, which reformatted "Good Morning, Miss Bliss" into "Saved by the Bell". In recognition for her work with The Walt Disney Company, Mills was awarded the prestigious Disney Legends award in 1998. Mills recalled her childhood in the 2000 documentary film "Sir John Mills' Moving Memories" which was written by her brother Jonathan. In 2007 she began appearing (alongside her sister Juliet) as Caroline in the ITV1 African vet drama, "Wild at Heart". In 2005 Mills appeared in the acclaimed short film, "Stricken", written and directed by Jayce Bartok. In 2010 Mills appeared in "Mandie and the Cherokee Treasure", based on one of the popular "Mandie" novels of Lois Gladys Leppard. Stage career. Mills made her stage debut in a 1966 West End revival of "Peter Pan". In 2000 she made her Off Broadway debut in Sir Noël Coward's "Suite in Two Keys", opposite American actress Judith Ivey, for which she won a Theatre World Award. In 1991 she appeared as Anna Leonowens in the Australian production of "The King and I". In December 2007, for their annual birthday celebration to "The Master", "The Noël Coward Society" invited Mills as the guest celebrity to lay flowers in front of Coward's statue at New York's "Gershwin Theatre", thereby commemorating the 108th birthday of Sir Noel. In 2012 Mills starred as Ursula Widdington in the stage production of "Ladies in Lavender" at the Royal & Derngate Theatre, before embarking on a national UK tour. Personal life. While filming "The Family Way", the 20-year-old Mills met 53-year-old director Roy Boulting. The two married in 1971, and owned a flat in London's Kensington. They then went on to purchase Cobstone Windmill in Ibstone, Buckinghamshire. Their son, Crispian Mills, achieved recognition as the lead singer and guitarist for the psychedelic rock band Kula Shaker. The couple divorced in 1977. Mills currently lives in New York City and London. Mills later had a second son, Jason Lawson, during a relationship with British actor Leigh Lawson. Mills' current (2012) partner is Firdous Bamji. Mills has had involvement with the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (the "Hare Krishna" movement). She wrote the preface to the book, "The Hare Krishna Book of Vegetarian Cooking", published in 1984. Mills has been a pescetarian (i.e., one who eats fish but not meat) since the late 1990s. In 1988 she co-edited, with Marcus Maclaine, the book "My God", which consisted of brief letters from celebrities on their beliefs (or lack thereof) regarding God and the life to come. On 18 April 2008, she was diagnosed with breast cancer. She had surgery and chemotherapy and told "Good Housekeeping Magazine" in January 2012 that she had recovered. Filmography. Box-office rankings. At the peak of her career, Mills was voted by exhibitors as one of the most popular stars at the box office.
1166162	Robert William "Rob" Corddry (born February 4, 1971) is an American actor and comedian. He is known for his work as a correspondent on "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart" (2002–2006) and for his starring role in the comedy film "Hot Tub Time Machine" (2010). He is also the creator and star of the Adult Swim comedy series "Childrens Hospital"; Corddry won his first Emmy Award for the series in September 2012. Early life. Corddry was born and raised in Weymouth, Massachusetts. He is the son of Robin (née Sullivan) and Steven Corddry, who was a Massachusetts Port Authority official. He is the older brother of actor Nate Corddry. Corddry and his brother are both Eagle Scouts from Troop 19, located in Weymouth.
1061026	Richard Treat Williams (born December 1, 1951) is a Screen Actors Guild Award–nominated American actor and children's book author who has appeared on film, stage and television. He first became well-known for his starring role in the 1979 film "Hair". From 2002 to 2006, he was the star of the television series "Everwood". He is also known for starring in "The Substitute" franchise, beginning with the 2nd movie of the series "The Substitute 2". Early life. Williams was born in Rowayton, Connecticut, the son of Marian (née Andrew), an antiques dealer, and Richard Norman Williams, a corporate executive. His maternal great-great-grandfather was Senator William Henry Barnum of Connecticut, and a distant relative was Robert Treat Paine, a signer of the Declaration of Independence. Williams graduated from the Kent School in Connecticut and Franklin and Marshall College. During his adolescence, Treat was often affectionately referred to by nicknames such as "Sweet Treat" and "Big Meat Treat". These later resurfaced when Williams was featured in the February 1980 edition of Playgirl. Career. Williams made his film debut in the 1976 thriller film "Deadly Hero". He came to world attention in 1979, when he starred in the Miloš Forman film "Hair", which was based on the 1967 Broadway musical. He has gone on to appear in over 75 films and several television series, including, most notably, "1941" (1979), "Once Upon A Time In America" (1984), "Dead Heat" (1988), "Things to Do in Denver When You're Dead" (1995), and "Deep Rising" (1998). Williams was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for his part in "Hair" as George Berger. He got a second Golden Globe nomination for starring in Sidney Lumet's "Prince of the City" (1981) and a third for his performance as Stanley Kowalski in the television presentation of "A Streetcar Named Desire". In 1996, Williams was nominated for a Best Actor Emmy Award by the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences for his work in "The Late Shift", a HBO movie, in which he portrayed agent Michael Ovitz. Williams has also worked as a director, winning two festival awards for directing "Texan" in Showtime's Chanticleer Films series. In 1996, he played villain Xander Drax in Paramount's big budget comic book adaptation, "The Phantom", in which Williams' character did his best to take over the world and kill Billy Zane's mysterious superhero. Williams' career includes numerous stage roles. He won a Drama League Award for his work in the Broadway revival of "Stephen Sondheim's Follies", and another for starring in the off-Broadway production of "Captains Courageous". Other notable Broadway shows include "Grease", the Sherman Brothers' "Over Here!", "Once in a Lifetime", "Pirates of Penzance" and "Love Letters", and off-Broadway, he has appeared in David Mamet's "Oleanna" and "Oh, Hell" (at Lincoln Center), "Some Men Need Help" and Randy Newman's "Maybe I'm Doing It Wrong". He premiered the Los Angeles production of "Love Letters" and appeared in "War Letters" at the Canon Theatre in Los Angeles. Williams may be best known for his leading role as Dr. Andrew Brown in the WB television series "Everwood", about a New York neurosurgeon who moves his family to Colorado. Although the show's ratings were never spectacular, it won critical acclaim and had a devoted following. Williams received two SAG Award nominations (2003 and 2004) for his role on the show. Williams has recently made several guest appearances on the ABC drama "Brothers & Sisters" playing David Morton, a friend and potential suitor of the Sally Field character. Williams starred in the short lived series "Heartland" on TNT as Nathaniel Grant, the head of a Pittsburgh organ transplant center, before it was canceled due to low ratings. He also starred in a Lifetime movie called the "Staircase Murders", which aired April 15, 2007. Williams starred in a "Hallmark Hall of Fame" movie, titled "Beyond the Blackboard", with his former "Everwood" co-star, Emily VanCamp, which aired on CBS on April 24, 2011. In early 2010, videos were posted on YouTube as well as edits made to Williams' Wikipedia page and a Facebook page made faking his death. These included a graphic and detailed explanation as to his illness and place of death. In August 2011, Williams responded to these rumors in an interview with Contact Music when speaking of more recent rumors linking him to the new Quentin Tarantino film "Django Unchained". Regarding the death hoax, Williams stated, "I did see that and I think those things are dangerous for your family and friends." Williams has been cast in the CBS television pilot "Peachtree Lines" as mayor Lincoln Rylan. The serial is an examination of political, social, and cultural issues in Atlanta also starring Victoria Rowell (Naomi Grace), Ving Rhames (Ving Wesley), James Van Der Beek (Garrett Cindell), Jason Dohring (Travis Diring), and Jena Malone (Sierra Jayden). Adding to his long list of accomplishments, Williams has now published a children's book titled "Air Show!" (Illustrated by Robert Neubecker, and published in 2010 by Disney/Hyperion Books). The target audience being children ages three to seven, the book playfully documents the airshow experience with simple text and bold illustrations of such aircraft as a Boeing B-17, a Pitts Special biplane, and the U.S. Navy's Blue Angel F/A-18. Personal life. In 1969, Williams' high-school football coach, who was also a flight instructor, offered to train him in a Piper Super Cub. Williams became an FAA instrument-rated commercial pilot with privileges in both single engine and multi-engine airplanes, rotorcraft. He also is certified as a flight instructor. Williams holds a type-rating for Cessna Citation jets. He has owned a Clipped-wing Cub, Cherokee 180, Seneca II, and a Navajo Chieftain which is used for family travel between homes. Williams lives with his wife, Pam Van Sant, and two children, Gill and Ellie, in Manchester, Vermont. The family also has a home in New York City.
519913	Mark Angelo Cadaweng Cielo (May 12, 1988 – December 7, 2008), better known as Marky Cielo, was a Filipino actor, dancer, and the first known Igorot in Philippine showbiz. He is notable for his win in the reality talent competition "StarStruck" (March 12, 2006). During his two-year career, he was able to star in several television shows and in one film, notably "Fantastikids" (2006), "Asian Treasures" (2007), "Boys Nxt Door" (2007), "" (2007–2008), "Sine Novela: Kaputol ng Isang Awit" (2008), and his final performance, "LaLola" (2008). He also voiced the character Ichigo Kurosaki in the anime "Bleach" (2007). Early life. Mark Angelo Cadaweng Cielo, better known as Boknoi to his family and friends, was born on May 12, 1988 in Butuan in Agusan del Norte, where he lived with his mother, Mildred Cadweng and sister, Marcel Andrea or "Bonsai". In 2001, he and his family moved to Bauko, Mountain Province to live with their other relatives, who are of Igorot descent. As a student of the local high school, San Isidro, he would soon become proud of his indigenous roots, despite being raised in the Roman Catholic environment. He fluently spoke Kankana-ey, a language spoken in the Cordilleras. Aside from this, he was also fluent in English, Ilocano, Tagalog, and Visayan languages (specifically Butuanon and Cebuano). According to his life story in Magpakailanman, his parents separated when he was still young and his mother took care of him, along with his sister on her own. Despite this, he was able to reunite with his father, Bobby Cielo, and spend time with him after many years. Later in his life, he had stated, privately, that he truly loves his father. Career. Prior to his career, Cielo was a freshman studying Architecture at Saint Louis University, Baguio in Benguet, where he was a member of SLU Dance Troupe. He audition for "Starstruck" where he emerged as "Ultimate Male Survivor" and the first and only "Sole Survivor", defeating his fellow contestants Jackie Rice, Gian Carlos, Iwa Moto, Chuck Allie, and Arci Muñoz. He is the first Igorot ever to join a talent contest. He won 10 million pesos worth of prizes and an exclusive GMA talent management contract, and a house and lot in Antipolo, Rizal. He and his family moved to this new home only on 2008, during his birthday, May 12. Prior to that, he lived in Pasig. Soon after winning StarStruck, Cielo made his debut as the lead role Daniel Trinidad in the fantasy television show, "Fantastikids". After this, he began to appear in primetime with guest starring roles in shows first in ' (as Arman), then "Bakekang" (as Miguelito "Michael" Dimayacyac) and "Asian Treasures" (as Mateo Madrigal);, as well as a leading role in the Sunday afternoon drama, Boys Nxt Door, which is dubbed in Malay by 8TV and is to be the first Philippine drama to air on KBS2 of South Korea. In 2007, he and fellow StarStruck graduates, Yasmien Kurdi and Rainier Castillo decided to shift from mainstream acting to voice acting for a while by trying characters from the anime "Bleach", such as Ichigo Kurosaki. During the same year, he won the Guillermo Mendoza Memorial Scholarship Foundation Award for Most Promising Male Artist. He was soon chosen by his network to be the main protagonist in the Philippine remake of "Uchuu Keiji Shaider" as Alexis del Mundo or Shaider but Dennis Trillo and Aljur Abrenica were included so the show was reformatted to "," a spin-off sequel to the Metal Hero Series. He joined the cast of "Sine Novela: Kaputol ng Isang Awit", which also stars Glaiza de Castro, Lovi Poe and Jolo Revilla. He was also a spokesman for Department of Health and was seen in a no-smoking ad campaign with secretary Francisco Duque III. In 2008, he joined the cast of ' then "LaLola". His last appearance was in LaLola, in which he portrayed the character Billy Lobregat. Death. Cielo, 20, was found unconscious on December 7, 2008 by his mother. The night before, he was last seen playing an online video game up until ten o'clock in the evening in an internet cafe in Quezon City. Marky is said to have made several unanswered calls to his manager-mentor. When he arrived home, he had a discussion with his mother about "something personal". His mother advised Marky to sort out his problem, “Lutasin mo ang problema mo; ikaw lang ang makakalutas n’yan.” The next morning, his mother entered his room in their house in Antipolo at around six o'clock AM to wake him up for a charity event. When he did not respond, she immediately rushed him to the nearby Antipolo Doctors Hospital where he was declared dead on arrival. At present, the cause of Cielo’s death remains unknown. This led to speculations of suicide precipitated by threats which allegedly came from the son of Governor Luis "Chavit" Singson, Ronald due to him being too close to Lovi Poe. These facts were never discussed or even became and angle for the police to dig more into the case because of their fear of getting caught up with the influence of Gov. Singson. His wake was held in his home for three days then his remains were brought to the Cathedral of the Resurrection in Baguio City, where it stayed for a day. He was buried on December 15, in Bauko, Mountain Province, in his family's backyard according to traditional Kankanaey custom.
1059143	Shadows and Fog (1991) is a black-and-white film directed by Woody Allen and based on his one-act play "Death". It stars Allen, Mia Farrow, John Malkovich, John Cusack, Madonna, and Kenneth Mars. It was filmed on a set at Kaufman Astoria Studios, which holds the distinction of being the biggest set ever built in New York. It was also his last film for Orion Pictures.
1077309	Edward Norton Lorenz (May 23, 1917 – April 16, 2008) was an American mathematician and meteorologist, and a pioneer of chaos theory. He discovered the strange attractor notion and coined the term "butterfly effect."
1063061	"I'm Not There" is a 2007 biographical musical film directed by Todd Haynes, inspired by American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan. Six actors depict different facets of Dylan's life and public persona: Christian Bale, Cate Blanchett, Marcus Carl Franklin, Richard Gere, Heath Ledger, and Ben Whishaw. At the start of the film, a caption reads: "Inspired by the music and the many lives of Bob Dylan". Besides song credits, this is the only time Dylan's name appears in the film.
1042648	Joan Hickson, OBE (5 August 1906 – 17 October 1998) was an English actress of theatre, film and television, famed for playing Agatha Christie's Miss Marple in the television series "Miss Marple". As well as portraying Miss Marple on television, Hickson also narrated a number of "Miss Marple" stories on audio books. Wivenhoe. From 1958, Joan Hickson lived in Rose Lane, Wivenhoe along the River Colne in Essex, until 1998. A plaque now marks the house where she lived for 40 years. Biography. Born in Kingsthorpe, Northamptonshire, Joan Bogle Hickson was a daughter of shoe manufacturer Alfred Harold Hickson and his wife, the former Edith Mary Bogle. She made her stage debut in 1927, and for several years worked throughout the United Kingdom and achieved success playing comedic, often eccentric characters in London's West End, including the role of the cockney maid Ida in the original production of "See How They Run", at the Q Theatre in 1944, and then at the Comedy Theatre in January 1945. She made her first film appearance in 1934, and the numerous supporting roles of her career included several Carry On films including Sister in "Carry On Nurse"; in a wonderfully comedic moment, her character in "Carry On Girls" discovers that someone has played a practical joke on her, waving her underwear from a flagpole. Joan then approaches Jack Douglas, and informs him that she would like him to accompany her across to the promenade. When he asks why, she exclaims – with impeccable timing – "Well, I want you to take my knickers down!" In the 1940s she appeared on-stage in an Agatha Christie play, "Appointment with Death", which was seen by Christie who wrote in a note to her, "I hope one day you will play my dear Miss Marple". From 1963–66 she played Mrs. Peace, housekeeper to Reverend Stephen Young (played by Donald Sinden) in the highly rated TV series "Our Man At St. Mark's". Hickson played the housekeeper in the Marple film "Murder, She Said" in 1961 (based on Agatha Christie's original novel "4.50 From Paddington"), which starred Margaret Rutherford as Miss Marple. From 1970–71, she played Mrs Pugsley in "Bachelor Father". Hickson played Mrs Chambers in "Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads?" In 1986, she played the part of Mrs. Trellis in "Clockwise". Her stage career included roles in Noël Coward's "Blithe Spirit", the Tony Hatch-Jackie Trent 1975 musical "The Card", and Alan Ayckbourn's "Bedroom Farce", for which she won a 1979 Tony Award for 'Best Featured Actress in a Play'. In 1980 she appeared in yet another Agatha Christie production, as Mrs. Rivington in "Why Didn't They Ask Evans?". The BBC began filming the works of Agatha Christie in the early 1980s, and were conscious of the criticism that had been levelled at the most famous portrayal of Miss Marple given by Margaret Rutherford. In making a new series, the makers determined to remain faithful to the plotlines and locales of Christie's stories, and most importantly to represent Miss Marple as written. Hickson played the role in all 12 adaptations of the novels produced from 1984 to 1992, and received two BAFTA nominations and an OBE. Queen Elizabeth II bestowed the award, telling Hickson, "You play the part just as one envisages it." Marriage. Hickson was married to Eric Butler (died 1967), a physician, by whom she had a son and daughter. Death. Hickson died in Colchester from natural causes, aged 92. She was interred at Sidbury Cemetery in Sidbury, Devon.
1055358	Sgt. Bilko is a 1996 American comedy film directed by Jonathan Lynn and written by Andy Breckman. It is an adaptation of the iconic 1950s television series "The Phil Silvers Show", often informally called "Sgt. Bilko", or simply "Bilko", and stars Steve Martin, Dan Aykroyd and Phil Hartman. Plot. Master Sergeant Ernest G. Bilko is in charge of the motor pool at Fort Baxter, a small United States Army base. Exploiting this position, he directs a number of scams, ranging from gambling to renting out military vehicles. His commanding officer, Colonel John Hall, overlooks Bilko's money-making schemes, as he is more concerned with his own affairs. Major Colin Thorn, an officer from the U.S. Army Inspector General's office, arrives at the camp and begins to scrutinize Bilko's record. Officially, Thorn is at Fort Baxter to conduct a general inspection and determine if the base should remain open in light of recent defense cutbacks. He is also determined to get revenge on Bilko to settle an old score the two have from Fort Dix, where Thorn was nearly court-martialled after a fixed boxing match resulted in Thorn being shipped to Greenland. Bitter and unprincipled, Thorn is not above breaking the law to ruin Bilko. He attempts to steal Bilko's long-time fiancé Rita, whom Bilko has stood up at the altar more than a dozen times. Rita is tired of waiting and gives Bilko 30 days to win her back or lose her for good. Bilko, with the help of newly assigned Private First Class Wally Holbrook, devises a means of avoiding Thorn's attempt to transfer him to Greenland: He rigs a demonstration of the base's malfunctioning hovertank, staged before a four-star general and numerous dignitaries. Since Thorn had deliberately tried to sabotage the tank the previous night, he confronts Bilko, Hall, and the general, loudly insulting Bilko and Hall. While ranting he confesses to sabotaging the hovertank. Thorn is sent off again to Greenland. The last day of Rita's ultimatum has come. Just as she sadly begins to write Bilko off forever, Rita hears men outside her house, serenading her with one of her and Bilko's favorite songs. Looking out, she sees Bilko and his platoon. Bilko asks Rita to marry him, and she accepts. Production. Both Albert Brooks and Michael Keaton turned down the role of Bilko, and Robin Williams & Billy Crystal expressed interest in it before the role finally went to Martin. Reception. The film received mixed to negative reviews from critics, and has a 'rotten' rating of 32% at review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes.
1102733	In mathematics, tables of trigonometric functions are useful in a number of areas. Before the existence of pocket calculators, trigonometric tables were essential for navigation, science and engineering. The calculation of mathematical tables was an important area of study, which led to the development of the first mechanical computing devices. Modern computers and pocket calculators now generate trigonometric function values on demand, using special libraries of mathematical code. Often, these libraries use pre-calculated tables internally, and compute the required value by using an appropriate interpolation method. Interpolation of simple look-up tables of trigonometric functions is still used in computer graphics, where only modest accuracy may be required and speed is often paramount. Another important application of trigonometric tables and generation schemes is for fast Fourier transform (FFT) algorithms, where the same trigonometric function values (called "twiddle factors") must be evaluated many times in a given transform, especially in the common case where many transforms of the same size are computed. In this case, calling generic library routines every time is unacceptably slow. One option is to call the library routines once, to build up a table of those trigonometric values that will be needed, but this requires significant memory to store the table. The other possibility, since a regular sequence of values is required, is to use a recurrence formula to compute the trigonometric values on the fly. Significant research has been devoted to finding accurate, stable recurrence schemes in order to preserve the accuracy of the FFT (which is very sensitive to trigonometric errors). On-demand computation. Modern computers and calculators use a variety of techniques to provide trigonometric function values on demand for arbitrary angles (Kantabutra, 1996). One common method, especially on higher-end processors with floating-point units, is to combine a polynomial or rational approximation (such as Chebyshev approximation, best uniform approximation, and Padé approximation, and typically for higher or variable precisions, Taylor and Laurent series) with range reduction and a table lookup — they first look up the closest angle in a small table, and then use the polynomial to compute the correction. Maintaining precision while performing such interpolation is nontrivial, however; and methods like Gal's accurate tables, Cody and Waite reduction, and Payne and Hanek reduction algorithms can be used for this purpose. On simpler devices that lack a hardware multiplier, there is an algorithm called CORDIC (as well as related techniques) that is more efficient, since it uses only shifts and additions. All of these methods are commonly implemented in hardware for performance reasons. For very high precision calculations, when series-expansion convergence becomes too slow, trigonometric functions can be approximated by the arithmetic-geometric mean, which itself approximates the trigonometric function by the (complex) elliptic integral (Brent, 1976). Trigonometric functions of angles that are rational multiples of 2π are algebraic numbers, related to roots of unity, and can be computed with a polynomial root-finding algorithm in the complex plane. For example, the cosine and sine of 2π ⋅ 5/37 are the real and imaginary parts, respectively, of a 37th root of unity, corresponding to a root of a degree-37 polynomial "x"37 − 1. Root-finding algorithms such as Newton's method are much simpler than the arithmetic-geometric mean algorithms above while converging at a similar asymptotic rate; the latter algorithms are required for transcendental trigonometric constants, however. Half-angle and angle-addition formulas. Historically, the earliest method by which trigonometric tables were computed, and probably the most common until the advent of computers, was to repeatedly apply the half-angle and angle-addition trigonometric identities starting from a known value (such as sin(π/2) = 1, cos(π/2) = 0). This method was used by the ancient astronomer Ptolemy, who derived them in the "Almagest", a treatise on astronomy. In modern form, the identities he derived are stated as follows (with signs determined by the quadrant in which "x" lies; These were used to construct Ptolemy's table of chords, which was applied to astronomical problems. Various other permutations on these identities are possible: for example, some early trigonometric tables used not sine and cosine, but sine and versine). A quick, but inaccurate, approximation. A quick, but inaccurate, algorithm for calculating a table of "N" approximations "s""n" for sin(2π"n"/"N") and "c""n" for cos(2π"n"/"N") is: for "n" = 0...,"N" − 1, where "d" = 2π/"N". This is simply the Euler method for integrating the differential equation: with initial conditions "s"(0) = 0 and "c"(0) = 1, whose analytical solution is "s" = sin("t") and "c" = cos("t"). Unfortunately, this is not a useful algorithm for generating sine tables because it has a significant error, proportional to 1/"N". For example, for "N" = 256 the maximum error in the sine values is ~0.061 ("s"202 = −1.0368 instead of −0.9757). For "N" = 1024, the maximum error in the sine values is ~0.015 ("s"803 = −0.99321 instead of −0.97832), about 4 times smaller. If the sine and cosine values obtained were to be plotted, this algorithm would draw a logarithmic spiral rather than a circle. A better, but still imperfect, recurrence formula. A simple recurrence formula to generate trigonometric tables is based on Euler's formula and the relation: This leads to the following recurrence to compute trigonometric values "s""n" and "c""n" as above: for "n" = 0, ..., "N" − 1, where "w""r" = cos(2π/"N") and "w""i" = sin(2π/"N"). These two starting trigonometric values are usually computed using existing library functions (but could also be found e.g. by employing Newton's method in the complex plane to solve for the primitive root of "z""N" − 1). This method would produce an "exact" table in exact arithmetic, but has errors in finite-precision floating-point arithmetic. In fact, the errors grow as O(ε "N") (in both the worst and average cases), where ε is the floating-point precision. A significant improvement is to use the following modification to the above, a trick (due to Singleton, 1967) often used to generate trigonometric values for FFT implementations: where α = 2 sin2(π/"N") and β = sin(2π/"N"). The errors of this method are much smaller, O(ε √"N") on average and O(ε "N") in the worst case, but this is still large enough to substantially degrade the accuracy of FFTs of large sizes.
1039769	Catherine McCormack (born 3 April 1972), is an English actress, known for her stage acting as well as her screen performances in films such as "Braveheart", "Spy Game", "28 Weeks Later" and "Dangerous Beauty". Early life. McCormack was born in Epsom, Surrey, England. She has Irish ancestry, as one of her grandfathers was Irish. Her mother died of lupus when McCormack was six years old, and her steelworker father subsequently brought her and her brother Stephen up. She was brought up in the Catholic religion (though is now a "lapsed Catholic") and attended Convent of Our Lady of Providence. She then went on to study at the Oxford School of Drama. Career. Film. McCormack's first notable role was as the character Murron MacClannough in the multiple Academy Award winning film "Braveheart". Her screen debut however was as the lead in the Anna Campion directed film "Loaded", and has subsequently stated that she had a "miserable time with the director (Anna Campion)... it was my first film job, I needed to be mollycoddled, I needed to be helped through it, and I wasn't. Mostly, it was a horrible experience." After "Braveheart", McCormack had lead roles in Nils Gaup's "Northstar" and Marshall Herskovitz's "Dangerous Beauty". Other films include "Spy Game" and "28 Weeks Later". Despite being in demand, she does few films, stating that "I read very few scripts I'm passionate about... Maybe one in every twenty or thirty." Theatre. McCormack has shown preference in her career towards the theatre, saying that "theatre really is an actor's medium: you're on stage with no director anymore, whereas in film very rarely do you get much rehearsal other than running through the scene very quickly. Then everyone comes in and shoots it." McCormack was one of the original 2006 London cast of Patrick Barlow's play of "The 39 Steps". In 2008, she performed the role of Nora in "A Doll's House", directed by Peter Hall at the Theatre Royal, Bath, and also the role of Isabel Archer in a stage adaptation of "The Portrait of a Lady", both of which commenced their runs in July 2008, ending in August, before transferring to the Rose Theatre in Kingston later that year. In 2009, she appeared in the UK tour of Headlong's adaptation of "Six Characters in Search of an Author".
1068648	Life with Mikey (also known as Give Me a Break) is a 1993 comedy film starring Michael J. Fox, Christina Vidal, Nathan Lane, Cyndi Lauper and David Krumholtz. Tagline: "He's a talent agent. She's a thief. Looks like they've already got something in common." Plot. Mikey Chapman (Michael J. Fox), a former child star and now a talent agent for child stars, discovers Angie Vega (Christina Vidal, in her first movie), a girl who pick-pockets for money and lives with her teenage sister and her boyfriend. Together, they try to hit it big and earn her a role on a series of television commercials. In popular culture. An episode of "Spin City", "Wife with Mikey", is titled with a nod to this film. It is the last episode in which Fox appears, having left the regular cast at the end of the 4th season due to his worsening Parkinson's disease. Reception. The movie received a mixed to negative reception. Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reports that 22% of the 9 critics gave the film a positive review, with 2 fresh and 7 rotten review, with a rating average of 3.9 out of 10 and 39% of the audience liked it based on more than 8500 ratings. Box office. The movie debuted at No.7
680432	The Silent World () is a 1956 French documentary film co-directed by the famed French oceanographer Jacques-Yves Cousteau and a young Louis Malle. "The Silent World" is noted as one of the first films to use underwater cinematography to show the ocean depths in color. Its title derives from Cousteau's 1953 book "". The film was shot aboard the ship "Calypso". Cousteau and his team of divers shot 25 kilometers of film over two years in the Mediterranean Sea, the Persian Gulf, the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean, of which 2.5 kilometers were included in the finished documentary. The film later faced criticism for environmental damage done during the filmmaking. In one scene, the crew of the "Calypso" massacre a school of sharks that were drawn to the carcass of a baby whale, which itself had been mortally injured by the crew, albeit accidentally. In another, Cousteau uses dynamite near a coral reef in order to make a more complete census of the marine life in its vicinity. Cousteau later became more environmentally conscious, involved in marine conservation, and was even called "the father of the environmental movement" by Ted Turner.
1102710	Serge Lang (; May 19, 1927 – September 12, 2005) was a French-born American mathematician. He is known for his work in number theory and for his mathematics textbooks, including the influential "Algebra". He was a member of the Bourbaki group. Lang was born in Paris in 1927, and moved with his family to California as a teenager, where he graduated in 1943 from Beverly Hills High School. He subsequently graduated from the California Institute of Technology in 1946, and received a doctorate from Princeton University in 1951. He held faculty positions at the University of Chicago and Columbia University (from 1955, leaving in 1971 in a dispute). At the time of his death he was professor emeritus of mathematics at Yale University. Mathematical work. Lang studied under Emil Artin at Princeton University, writing his thesis on quasi-algebraic closure. Lang then worked on the geometric analogues of class field theory and diophantine geometry. Later he moved into diophantine approximation and transcendence theory, proving the Schneider–Lang theorem. A break in research while he was involved in trying to meet 1960s student activism halfway caused him (by his own description) difficulties in picking up the threads afterwards. He wrote on modular forms and modular units, the idea of a 'distribution' on a profinite group, and value distribution theory. He made a number of conjectures in diophantine geometry: Mordell–Lang conjecture, Bombieri–Lang conjecture, Lang's integral point conjecture, Lang–Trotter conjecture, Lang conjecture on Gamma values, Lang conjecture on analytically hyperbolic varieties. He introduced the Lang map and the Lang–Steinberg theorem in algebraic groups. He introduced the Katz–Lang finiteness theorem. Books. He was a prolific writer of mathematical texts, often completing one on his summer vacation. Most are at the graduate level. He wrote calculus texts and also prepared a book on group cohomology for Bourbaki. Lang's "Algebra", a graduate-level introduction to abstract algebra, was a highly influential text that ran through numerous updated editions. His Steele prize citation stated, "Lang's "Algebra" changed the way graduate algebra is taught...It has affected all subsequent graduate-level algebra books." It contained ideas of his teacher, Artin; some of the most interesting passages in "Algebraic Number Theory" also reflect Artin's influence and ideas that might otherwise not have been published in that or any form. Awards as expositor. Lang was noted for his eagerness for contact with students. Many of his students at Yale considered him to be one of the greatest teachers of mathematics in the world. He won a Leroy P. Steele Prize for Mathematical Exposition (1999) from the American Mathematical Society. In 1960, he won the sixth Frank Nelson Cole Prize in Algebra for his paper "Unramified class field theory over function fields in several variables" (Annals of Mathematics, Series 2, volume 64 (1956), pp. 285–325). Activism. In addition to being a mathematician, Lang spent much of his time engaged in politics. He was active in opposition to the Vietnam War, volunteering for the 1966 anti-war campaign of Robert Scheer (the subject of his book "The Scheer Campaign"). Lang later quit his position at Columbia in 1971 in protest over the university's treatment of anti-war protesters. Lang engaged in several efforts to challenge anyone he believed was spreading misinformation or misusing science or mathematics to further their own goals. He attacked the 1977 Survey of the American Professoriate, an opinion questionnaire that Seymour Martin Lipset and E. C. Ladd had sent to thousands of college professors in the United States, accusing it of containing numerous biased and loaded questions. This led to a public and highly acrimonious conflict. In 1986, Lang mounted what the "New York Times" described as a "one-man challenge" against the nomination of political scientist Samuel P. Huntington to the National Academy of Sciences. Lang described Huntington's research, in particular his use of mathematical equations to demonstrate that South Africa was a “satisfied society”, as "pseudoscience", arguing that it gave "the illusion of science without any of its substance." Despite support for Huntington from the Academy's social and behavioral scientists, Lang's challenge was successful, and Huntington was twice rejected for Academy membership. Huntington's supporters argued that Lang's opposition was political rather than scientific in nature. Lang kept his political correspondence and related documentation in extensive "files". He would send letters or publish articles, wait for responses, engage the writers in further correspondence, collect all these writings together and point out what he considered contradictions. He often mailed these files to people he considered important; some of them were also published in his books "Challenges" (ISBN 0-387-94861-9) and "The File" (ISBN 0-387-90607-X). His extensive file criticizing Nobel laureate David Baltimore was published in the journal "Ethics and Behaviour" in January 1993. Lang fought the decision by Yale University to hire Daniel Kevles, a historian of science, because Lang disagreed with Kevles' analysis in "The Baltimore Case". Lang's most controversial political stance was as an AIDS denialist; he maintained that the prevailing scientific consensus that HIV causes AIDS has not been backed up by reliable scientific research, yet for political/commercial reasons further research questioning the current point of view is suppressed. In public he was very outspoken about this point and a portion of "Challenges" is devoted to this issue.
64448	Christine Ladd-Franklin (December 1, 1847 – March 5, 1930) was an American psychologist, logician, and mathematician. Early life and education. Christine Ladd was born on December 1, 1847 in Windsor, Connecticut to Eliphalet Ladd, a merchant, and Augusta Niles Ladd. During her early childhood, she lived with her parents and younger brother Henry (born 1850) in New York City. In 1853 the family moved back to Windsor, Connecticut where her sister Jane Augusta Ladd McCordia was born the following year. Following the death of her mother in spring 1860 to pneumonia, Ladd went to live with her paternal grandmother in Portsmouth, New Hampshire where she attended school. Ladd's father remarried in 1862 and produced her half-sister Katherine (born 1862) and half-brother George (born 1867). Ladd was a precocious child who sought to find “a mean to continue her education beyond secondary school.”. Ladd's wish was granted when her father enrolled her in a two-year program at a coeducational Welshing academy in Wilbraham, Massachusetts; she took the same courses that prepared boys in furthering their education to colleges such as Harvard. In 1865 Christine Ladd graduated as valedictorian from Welshing Academy. In the fall of 1866 Ladd enrolled in Vassar College with a loan provided by her late mother's sister. She only studied at Vassar until the end of the spring term due to financial issues. During the time that she was not attending college Ladd worked as a public school teacher until her aunt's aid allowed her to reenter Vassar and graduate in 1869. At Vassar Ladd was interested in physics but knew that the field was not open to women, so she studied mathematics. Early career. After graduating, Ladd taught science and mathematics at secondary level in Washington, Pennsylvania. During this time, Ladd contributed seventy-seven mathematical problems and solutions to the "Educational Times" of London. She also published six items in "The Analyst: A Journal of Pure and Applied Mathematics and three in the American Journal of Mathematics." Graduate education. In 1878, Ladd was accepted into Johns Hopkins University with the help of James J. Sylvester, an English mathematician who remembered some of Ladd's earlier works in London's "Educational Times". Ladd's application for the University fellowship was signed "C. Ladd", and Hopkins offered the fellowship to her without realizing she was a woman. When they did realize this, the board moved to revoke the offer, but Sylvester insisted that Ladd should be his student, and so she was. She held a fellowship at Hopkins for three years, but the trustees did not allow her name to be printed in circulars with those of other fellows, for fear of setting a precedent. Furthermore, dissension over her continued presence forced one of the original trustees to resign. Since Hopkins did not approve of coeducation, Ladd was initially allowed only in classes taught by Sylvester. But after displaying exceptional work in Sylvester's courses, Ladd was allowed to take courses with different professors. Even though she was awarded a stipend, she was known as a fellow student. During 1879–1880, Ladd took classes taught by Charles Sanders Peirce, who has been called the first American experimental psychologist. She wrote a dissertation "On the Algebra of Logic" with Peirce as the thesis advisor. The dissertation was published in "Studies in Logic" (Peirce, ed.) in 1883. Due to her studies with Peirce, Ladd became the first American woman to be involved in psychology, mathematics and logic. Since women were not allowed to graduate at Hopkins, Ladd was refused a Ph.D. in Mathematics and Logic, although she was the first woman to complete all the requirements for a PhD at Hopkins. However, Hopkins officially granted her a Ph.D. in February 22, 1926 (44 years after she had earned it) at the age of seventy-eight. Soon after completing graduate work at Johns Hopkins, she married Fabian Franklin (a fellow graduate student who received his Ph.D. in mathematics), hence she became Christine Ladd-Franklin. Ladd-Franklin had two children, one of whom died in infancy. The other, Margaret Ladd-Franklin, became a prominent member in the women's suffrage movement. Major contributions and achievements. After leaving Hopkins, Ladd-Franklin worked with German psychologist G. E. Müller, where she carried out experimental work in vision. Ladd-Franklin was also able to work in the laboratory of Hermann von Helmholtz, where she attended his lectures on theory of color vision. After attending these lectures, Ladd-Franklin developed her own theory of color vision. In 1929 she published "Color and Color Theories". Ladd-Franklin's Theory of Color Vision. One of the major contributions that Ladd-Franklin made to psychology was her theory of color vision, which was based on evolution. Ladd-Franklin noted that: "some animals are color blind and assumed that achromatic vision appeared first in evolution and color vision came later. She assumed further that the human eye carries vestiges of its earlier evolutionary development. She observed that the most highly evolved part of the eye is the fovea, where, at least in daylight, visual acuity and color sensitivity are greatest. Ladd-Franklin assumed that peripheral vision (provided by the rods of the retina) was more primitive than foveal vision (provided by the cones of the retina) because night vision and movement detection are crucial for survival." Stages of color vision. Ladd-Franklin concluded that color vision evolved in three stages: achromatic vision (black and white), blue-yellow sensitivity and red-green sensitivity. Since red-green sensitivity was the last to evolve it explains why many people suffer from red-green color blindness. The next one that affects a small population is blue-yellow color blindness. Since achromatic vision was the first to evolve it explains why the majority of the population are not affected by black-white color blindness. Mathematics and logic. Ladd-Franklin was the first woman to have a published paper in the "Analyst". She was also the first woman to receive a Ph.D. in mathematics and logic. The majority of her publications were based on visual processes and logic. Her views on logic influenced Charles S. Peirce's logic and she was highly praised by Prior. Professional involvement. Ladd-Franklin was among the first women to be inducted into the American Psychological Association in December 1893. From 1894-1925, Ladd-Franklin presented ten papers at APA meetings. She was also one of the first female members of the Optical Society of America (OSA) in 1919. During the OSA meetings she presented six papers and two exhibits. She was also a prominent member of the women's rights movement. Ladd-Franklin was included in the Who's Who in America during 1901-1902 and 1914-1915. Ladd-Franklin remained a member of APA and OSA until her death on March 5, 1930 in New York, New York. In 1948, Bertrand Russell wrote: "I once received a letter from an eminent logician, Mrs. Christine Ladd-Franklin, saying that she was a solipsist, and was surprised that there were no others. Coming from a logician and a solipsist, her surprise surprised me." (Russell, p. 180).
582180	Chandni Chowk to China (, ), shortened as CC2C is a Hindi martial arts action comedy film which released on 16 January 2009. It is directed by Nikhil Advani and stars Akshay Kumar and Deepika Padukone in the lead roles, with Hindi cinema veteran Mithun Chakraborty and Hong Kong action cinema veteran Gordon Liu among the co-stars. In addition to being shot in China, many parts of the film were shot in Bangkok, Thailand, although some of the China scenes were shot in sets in the Shanghai Film Studio. Distributed in the U.S. and co-produced by Warner Bros., it is the third Bollywood movie made and distributed in partnership with a major Hollywood studio, following Sony's "Saawariya" (2007) and Walt Disney Pictures' animated feature "Roadside Romeo" (2008). It is Warner Bros. Pictures' first Hindi film. Plot. Sidhu (Akshay Kumar) is a lowly vegetable cutter at a roadside food stall in the Chandni Chowk section of Delhi. He longs to escape his dreary existence and looks for shortcuts with astrologers, tarot card readers, and fake fakirs, refusing to believe in himself despite his foster father Dada's (Mithun Chakraborty) best efforts. When two strangers from China claim him as a reincarnation of a war hero in the past and take him to China, Sidhu, thanks to devious translations by his con-man buddy Chopstick (Ranvir Shorey), believes he will be taken to an exotic land and feted as a hero. In actuality, the Chinese men want him to rid their Chinese village of the vicious smuggler Hojo (Gordon Liu). Sidhu blissfully sets forth to China with Chopstick. Along the way he meets Sakhi (Deepika Padukone), the Indian-Chinese spokesmodel known as Ms. Tele Shoppers Media, or Ms. TSM, who is travelling to the land of her birth and of her presumed-dead is still alive father and her twin sister, Suzy. Suzy, also known as the femme fatale Meow Meow, works for Hojo, not knowing Hojo tried to kill her father. Sidhu, through a series of lucky coincidences, initially manages to sidestep being beaten brutally up by Hojo, but Hojo eventually catches up with him and exposes him as the buffoon he really is. Hojo kills Dada, and a disgraced Sidhu, left for dead himself, vows revenge. He encounters an amnesiac vagrant who turns out to be former Police Chief Chiang (Roger Yuan), the father of Sakhi and Suzy. Chiang recovers his memory, with his Kung Fu skills still intact. Sidhu wishes to learn cosmo Kung Fu. Chiang takes Sidhu on as his apprentice, and after months of training, Sidhu decides to kill Hojo. Hojo tells a lie to Meow Meow that Chiang killed her father. When Hojo meets up with Sidhu, Meow Meow hugs Chiang and stabs him in the back with a knife. Sidhu attacks Meow Meow, but Sakhi stops him. Meow Meow was shocked and figured out that Hojo lied to her. Meow Meow betrays Hojo and helps her father. They watch Sidhu battle Hojo. When Sidhu almost loses, his dada appears and tells him not to worship a potato and Chiang tells him to use the skill that is special to him. His speciality was chopping vegetables and cooking which helped him beat Hojo brutally in the end. In the end, Sidhu gains Sakhi's love. Right before the credits, pictures appear of what happen to the village. The last one shows that something has happened somewhere in another village in Africa. They say there is a "To be Continued – Chandni Chowk to Africa." Production. The film, earlier known as "Mera Naam Chin Chin Choo" and also "Made in China", is written by Sridhar Raghavan. Shooting began in January 2008 and included a schedule in China. The music is by Shankar, Ehsaan and Loy. The film also features music by Kailash Kher, Bappi Lahiri-Bappa Lahiri and a rap song sung by Akshay Kumar and composed by Punjabi rapper Bohemia. The soundtrack album was released 2 December 2008. Release. Box office reception. "Chandni Chowk to China" earned in its opening weekend. It went on to earn a total of in India. The film was rated as a flop. Critical reception. The movie received negative reviews. It received 46% positive ratings on the film-critics aggregate site Rotten Tomatoes and a 44 out of 100 score from Metacritic. Claudia Puig of "USA Today" said, "This Indian/Chinese cinematic hybrid is likable and entertaining but overlong and occasionally hokey", and that star Akshay Kumar's "physical humor brings to mind Jim Carrey". John Anderson of "Variety" wrote, "If "Chandni Chowk to China" were a person, it would need Valium", and found that "everything is fast and furious, hilarious, hysterical and frantic. Some of the sequences as are quite beautiful and, in the case of the dance numbers featuring Padukone, stunning. But it's the fight scenes as that truly take off". Frank Lovece of "Newsday" wrote, "Less a Bollywood bonbon than a pan-Asian fusion dish, this combination of Indian musical and Chinese chopsocky is, nonetheless, delicious fun". Steven Rae of "The Philadelphia Inquirer" stated that, ""Chandni Chowk" is entertainingly goofy for about 30 minutes. And then, for the next two hours-plus, it's agony." Scott Tobias of "The Onion" described the film as "crass, schizophrenic, culturally insensitive, horribly paced, and shameless in its pandering to the lowest common denominator", while Owen Gleiberman of "Entertainment Weekly" said, "This galumphing elephant of a chopsocky revenge-of-the-nerd quasi-musical lacks the lyrical choreographic beauty that has marked such Stateside Bollywood releases as the gorgeous "Lagaan"". Michael Philips of the "Chicago Tribune" called the film "a massive and rather tiring showcase for Bollywood action hero Akshay Kumar". Indian critic Taran Adarsh gave the movie 1.5/5 stars, calling it "a big, big, big letdown". Rajeev Masand of IBN termed it a tiring watch, while praising Kumar's performance. The film has received one award nomination, with Deepika Padukone being nominated for Best Actress at the 3rd Asian Film Awards held in March 2009. Controversy. In Nepal, India, and other buddhist countries there were protests against the film due to a passing claim that Buddha was born in India; Lumbini, which is the birthplace of Buddha, is located in Nepal. Several shows were cancelled in Nepal due to heavy protests from students,archeologist, buddhist monks, Researchers and youth groups. Protests included threats by Buddhists to burn cinemas that screened the film, and racial slurs like "Dhoti" (the Indian term for a form of traditional clothing which is used as a derogatory racial slur against Indians in Nepal, see Usage of Dhoti in Nepal) hurled at the Indian embassy in Katmandu. The protests continued for several days, despite the Nepali distributor editing out the piece of narration that mentioned Buddha in the copies of the film shown in Nepal. On Thursday, 22 January Nepali cinemas stopped and banned screening "Chandni Chowk to China" but In India, Indian government took no action against that narration. It shows the corruption and neglegence in Bollywood industry Sequel. At the end of movie it was shown that there will be a sequel of the movie named "Chandni Chowk To Africa". Music. The music of "Chandni Chowk to China" was released on 2 December 2008. The album features composers as diverse as Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy, Kailash-Paresh-Naresh, Bappi Lahiri-Bappa Lahiri and Bohemia aka the Punjabi rapper. Reception. Joginder Tuteja of Bollywood Hungama.com rated it 3.5/5, claiming, ""Chandni Chowk to China" is clearly the next musical hit in the making." Tracks. The album consists of the following eight tracks:
1026655	Sun Valley Serenade is a 1941 musical film starring Sonja Henie, John Payne, Glenn Miller, Milton Berle, and Lynn Bari. It features The Glenn Miller Orchestra as well as dancing by The Nicholas Brothers and Dorothy Dandridge, performing "Chattanooga Choo Choo", which was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Song, was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1996, and was awarded the first Gold Record for sales of 1.2 million.
1376858	The Happy Elf is a 3D-animated family holiday special, which first aired December 2, 2005 on the NBC television network in the USA. Based on Grammy-winner Harry Connick, Jr.’s original song, "The Happy Elf". Production on the special is by Film Roman, an IDT Entertainment company, the same animation company known for producing "The Simpsons". Plot. The story centers on the lovable Eubie the Elf (Rob Paulsen), whose quest is to bring Christmas joy to an entire town of naughty children in a gloomy little town called Bluesville. Bluesville is a dark miserable town completely surrounded by cliffs on all sides, completely blocking the sun so that it only shines on Bluesville for a short time, when it's directly over the town. Because the town is so dark and gloomy, people never smile, and are put off by seeing Eubie smiling all the time, as his optimistic happiness makes him stick out in the gloomy town. Because people are so miserable in Bluesville, nobody knows how to tell a joke properly. Most of the people work at a place known as "The What Factory", where all the world's question marks are manufactured (this has resulted in confusion when people ask each other where they work). Also, at the Bluesville school, recess only lasts for one minute (the bell that signals recess' end rings the moment all the children are outside). Eubie talks to the mayor about what is wrong with Bluesville, he explains everything in a song. Eubie asks the mayor if there's anything about Bluesvill that makes him feel proud, to which the mayor replies that Bluesvill is the world's largest manufacturer of non-flammable coal, which children enjoy throwing at people. The mayor then makes a deal with Eubie. The mayor promises Eubie that if he can find another use for non-flammable coal, he'll put a Christmas tree up in the town square. Eubie's first plan on getting the kids to help him make Bluesville a happier place is having them gather on a busy street and start a pie fight, but that only makes all the people angry. To search for more help, Molly (Mae Whitman), one naughty 10-year-old, takes Eubie to downtown Bluesville, the most miserable part of Bluesville, for a meeting of a group called S.L.O.B. (Smile League Of Bluesville), which only has one member of its group. While there, Molly and Eubie meets up with Curtis (Candi Milo), who is there because he brought along his foreign friend, Yope, who doesn't speak English, but is happy to be there. Molly soon decides that Eubie's plans are hopeless, and tells him to just take all his big ideas home. At the mention of that, Eubie gets another idea, and is about to implement it when the lights in the room go off and Eubie is taken back to the North Pole. In his bid to get Bluesville off the Naughty List, Eubie violated several rules in one day. As punishment, Santa had Eubie turn in his hat, which, at the North Pole, meant his Christmas happiness and powers were taken away. When Gilda (Carol Kane), Eubie's friend, learns of this, she motivates him to go back to Bluesville to finish his job, and gives him her hat to restore his powers and happiness. He then returns to Bluesville and explains to the kids his plan, and why they should do it in the form of a song, they get to work. That night, they give the mayor of Bluesville a bottle of anti-snore medicine in his sleep, while Eubie spends the night waxing all the cliffs surrounding Bluesville. While he is doing this, Derek, another friend of his, notices Gilda doesn't have her hat on, he soon figures out what is going on and, trying to follow the North Pole rules, he notifies one of the higher-ups. When Eubie has finished waxing the cliffsides of Bluesville, he says to himself that he has one thing left to do, but before he can do that, the same elves who took him back to the North Pole the first time come back to retrieve him again. This time, both are put on punishment and are sentenced to clean up the toy factory, with both their hats taken away. Derek, now alone at the Christmas office party, is sad and mad with himself for betraying his friends, and confesses to what he did to Eubie and Gilda. They forgive him, but it only makes him feel worse about himself, considering what he did to them. While wondering what he can do to make it up to them, they have him do the one thing Eubie intended to do to finish making Bluesville a happier place. When the sun shines over Bluesville again, people once again expect it to only last it usual four seconds, but after it disappears over the cliffsides again, leaving the people disappointed at not having the sun shine on them longer, the sun reflects of the freshly waxed walls, filling the whole town of Bluesville experience more sun than it's ever had before, making them feel happier than they had ever been in their lives. At the What Factory, the machine had been tampered with, so rather than grey question marks, the machine now produced different-coloured exclamation points of all shapes and sizes, which pleasantly surprises the factory workers. At the school, when recess starts, the bell has an elve's shoe placed over the ringer, blocking it from ringing the bell, which makes the kids ecstatic that they can continue playing. Molly comes out of the school, where Derek meets her. He tells her to find the mayor and give him a jar of wax, and a piece of non-flammable cole that was squeezed into a diamond (implying that Eubie stuck the non-flammable coal squeezed into diamonds to the waxed cliffsides), and to tell her that Eubie was sorry he couldn't be there. Molly happily goes to leave the schoolyard to find the mayor, but stays for a while to allow Curtis to tell a story that's actually funny. Molly finds the mayor and shows him the items in question, showing the mayor that there was indeed another use for non-flammable coal, the mayor remembers back to when he was a child and the town had a Chrtmas tree with a star on top that shined just like the coal. The mayor makes good on his word, putting up a Christmas Tree in the town square. That Christmas, Santa decides to make Eubie, Gilda, and Derek his sleigh crew that year for bringing joy to Bluesville, which has soon changed its name to Joyville. Soundtrack. Some DVDs come with a free soundtrack Stage adaptation. The holiday special has been adapted into a full-length stage musical. Andrew Fishman has reworked the book, with music and lyrics by Connick who has added five new songs for the musical, for example "That Magic Hat". The show premiered at Coterie Theatre at Crown Center in Kansas City, Missouri on November 13, 2007 to generally good reviews. It is receiving a fully produced workshop at the Adventure Theatre, at the Robert E. Parilla Performing Arts Center at Montgomery College, Rockville, Maryland, from November 12, 2010 through November 28, with a cast that features Michael Rupert. In 2012 The Happy Elf was reworked by Connick and on December 1, 2012 premiered in its final version for publication in Bethlehem, PA at the Charles Brown Ice House under the direction of Michael Melcher, Executive Director. References. http://articles.mcall.com/2012-11-30/entertainment/mc-harry-connick-pennsylvania-youth-theater-bethle-20121129_1_happy-elf-harry-connick-cool-idea
1060971	Mary Megan "Mare" Winningham (born May 16, 1959) is an American actress and singer-songwriter. She has been nominated once for an Academy Award, Golden Globe and Drama Desk, 8 Emmy Award nominations (winning two), and has also won an Independent Spirit Award and two Screen Actors Guild Award nominations. She is best known for performances in "St. Elmo's Fire", "Miracle Mile", "Turner & Hooch", "The War", "Georgia", "George Wallace", "Dandelion", "Brothers", "Swing Vote", "Mildred Pierce" and "Hatfields & McCoys". Early life. Winningham was born in Phoenix, Arizona, and raised in Northridge, California. She has three brothers and one sister. Her father was the chairman of the Department of Physical Education at California State University, Northridge (CSUN) and her mother was an English teacher and college counsellor at Monroe High School. She credits her first interest in acting to seeing an interview with Kym Karath (who played Gretl in "The Sound of Music") on Art Linkletter's television show "House Party" when she was five or six years old. Winningham attended Andasol Ave. Elementary School, where her favorite activities included drama and playing the guitar and drums. She took the extended drama option at Patrick Henry Junior High School and continued to study over her summer vacations at CSUN's Teenage Drama Workshop. It was at this time that she adopted the nickname "Mare". Her mother arranged for her to go to Chatsworth High School. In Grade 12, Winningham starred in a production of "The Sound of Music", playing the part of Maria, opposite classmate Kevin Spacey as Captain Von Trapp. Career. Acting. Winningham began her career as a singer-songwriter. In 1976, she got her break singing The Beatles song "Here, There and Everywhere" on "The Gong Show". Though Winningham received no record contracts as result of the appearance, she was signed to an acting contract by Hollywood agent Meyer Mishkin, and received her Screen Actor's Guild card for doing three lines in an episode of "James at 15". That year she was offered a role on "Young Pioneers" and "Young Pioneers Christmas", pilots for the short-lived 1978 drama "The Young Pioneers". Though the series ended with just three episodes being broadcast, a number of television projects followed, including parts on "Police Woman" in 1978 and "Starsky and Hutch" in 1979. Later that same year, she played the role of teenage outcast Jenny Flowers in the made-for-TV movie of the week called, "The Death of Ocean View Park". In 1980, Winningham starred in "Off the Minnesota Strip" playing a young prostitute. She then won an Emmy Award for "Best Supporting Actress In A Miniseries Or A Movie" for her role in the critically acclaimed "Amber Waves", a made-for-TV movie about a rough farmer (Dennis Weaver) who finds he is dying of cancer. In that year, she also broke into film in "One Trick Pony", starring Paul Simon. In 1983, Winningham was nominated for a Canadian Genie Award for her work in the futuristic 1981 drama "Threshold", and appeared in the 1983 epic miniseries "The Thorn Birds", in which she played Justine O'Neill. In 1984, she starred as Helen Keller in "Helen Keller: The Miracle Continues". Winningham achieved greater fame in "St. Elmo's Fire" (1985) as one of the original "brat pack" alumni. Despite the film's success, she failed to cash in on her teen idol status, and returned to television in the Hallmark Hall of Fame movie, "Love Is Never Silent", for which she received an Emmy nomination. Another well-known and well-received performance was as a homeless young mother in the television movie "God Bless the Child". Winningham finished the 1980s with two Hollywood films: the nuclear disaster drama, "Miracle Mile" (1988), for which she received an Independent Spirit Award nomination in 1989, and the Tom Hanks vehicle "Turner & Hooch" in 1989. In 1988, Winningham also starred in the Los Angeles stage production of "Hurlyburly" with Sean Penn and Danny Aiello. In the early 1990s, she returned to film for 1994's all-star "Wyatt Earp" and the family drama "The War", both starring Kevin Costner. 1995 brought "Georgia", a thoughtful character study of two sisters (Winningham and Jennifer Jason Leigh), which earned Winningham Screen Actors Guild and Academy Award nominations. Two years later, she starred opposite Gary Sinise in "George Wallace", for which she garnered her first Golden Globe Award nomination and won an Emmy Award. She made acclaimed appearances on the series "ER" and "", as well as appearances in the 2001 television project "Sally Hemmings" opposite Sam Neill and the short-lived David E. Kelley series "The Brotherhood of Poland, New Hampshire". Also in 2001, she appeared in the made for TV movie "Snap Decision" with Felicity Huffman. She also appeared in the independent film "Dandelion", which was a staple of film festivals worldwide between 2003 and 2004 and had a limited American release in October 2005. In 2006, she landed the role of Susan Grey on the ABC drama "Grey's Anatomy" where she played the stepmother of one of the main characters, Dr. Meredith Grey. Her character was killed off in May 2007. In 2006, Winningham voiced the audio version of Stephen King's "Lisey's Story". In 2007, she voiced Alice Hoffman's "Skylight Confessions". In 2010, Winningham starred in an episode of "Cold Case" as main character Lilly Rush's stepmother, Celeste Cooper. In 2011 she appeared in the fourth episode of as character Ellis Hartley Monroe. She also starred in miniseries "Mildred Pierce" and "Hatfields & McCoys" and garnered two another Emmy nominations. In 2012, she appeared off Broadway as Beth, the mother in an intellectual, though dysfunctional, British family, in the award-winning comic-drama "Tribes" by Nina Raine. Music. Winningham has recorded three albums: "What Might Be" (1992) on the Bay Cities label, "Lonesomers" (1998) produced by Carla Olson on the Razor and Tie label, and "Refuge Rock Sublime" (2007) on the Craig & Co. label. "Lonesomers" is a folksy album dealing with relationship issues. The country/bluegrass/Jewish/folk songs on "Refuge Rock Sublime" deal mostly with her recent conversion to Judaism, and include the tracks, "What Would David Do," "A Convert Jig" and the Israeli national anthem "Hatikva". She also sings on the soundtrack of "Georgia". Personal life. Winningham was raised a Roman Catholic. In November 2001, on a friend's recommendation, she took a class given by Rabbi Neal Weinberg at the University of Judaism (now the American Jewish University) in Los Angeles, California. On March 3, 2003, she converted to Judaism.
1163891	Brian Doyle-Murray (born Brian Murray; October 31, 1945) is an American comedian, screenwriter, actor and voice artist. He is the older brother of actor/comedian Bill Murray and the two have acted together in several films, including "Caddyshack", "Scrooged", "Ghostbusters II", "The Razor's Edge" and "Groundhog Day". He currently appears in a recurring role as Don Ehlert on the ABC sitcom "The Middle". Early life. Murray, one of nine children, was born in Chicago, the son of Lucille (née Collins), a mail room clerk, and Edward J. Murray II, a lumber salesman. His parents were Irish American and Catholic. He is the older brother of actors Bill Murray, Joel Murray and John Murray. A sister, Nancy, an Adrian Dominican Sister in Michigan, travels the country portraying St. Catherine of Siena. Doyle-Murray uses his hyphenated name (Doyle is his grandmother's maiden name) because there is another actor with the same name. Brian attended Saint Mary's College of California in Moraga, California in the late 1960s. Career. Murray worked at The Second City comedic stage troupe in the early 1970s. He has appeared in numerous films and television shows since the 1970s, including as a featured player on NBC's "Saturday Night Live" from 1979 to 1980 and from 1981 to 1982. He wrote for Jean Doumanian from 1980 to 1981, one of the few cast members to work for all three producers of SNL (Lorne Michaels, Jean Doumanian, and Dick Ebersol). He was a regular on "The National Lampoon Radio Hour", a comedy program syndicated nationally to 600 stations from 1973 to 1975. Co-workers on the Radio Hour included Richard Belzer, John Belushi, Gilda Radner, Harold Ramis and younger brother Bill. He appears in many films with his brother, Bill Murray. However, he has also landed roles in other films. He memorably appeared as Chevy Chase's uptight boss, Frank Shirley, in 1989's "National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation", and co-starred as arcade operator, Noah Vanderhoff in the 1992 film version of "Wayne's World". He landed a small role as assassin Jack Ruby in 1991's "JFK". He was seen in the 2002 movie, "Snow Dogs". His most recent role was in 2009's "17 Again". He was Mel Sanger, the bubble boy's dad, on "Seinfeld", and played Joe Hackett's high school baseball coach on a 1992 episode of "Wings". He co-starred of the Fox TV series "Get a Life" and "Bakersfield P.D." from 1991 to 1992 and 1993 to 1994, respectively, with a recurring role as sports editor Stuart Franklin on the Fox/UPN TV series "Between Brothers" from 1997 to 1999. He played studio head and Greg Warner's (Anthony Clark) boss George Savitsky on "Yes Dear". He played Shawn Spencer's grandfather on the episode "The Old and the Restless" on the USA Network TV Show "Psych", with an uncredited cameo in the sixth season. He starred in a recurring role as Mr. Ehlert, owner of the car dealership where Frankie and Bob work on the ABC-TV series "The Middle". Currently, he has the sitcom on TBS, "Sullivan & Son," playing Hank Murphy. Voice work. Known for his gruff voice, Murray voiced the Flying Dutchman on Nickelodeon's "SpongeBob SquarePants", a small role as the Grandfather on "Lloyd in Space, "Coach Gills on Cartoon Network's "My Gym Partner's a Monkey", Captain K'nuckles on "The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack", and as Maggie's dad on Disney Channel's "The Buzz on Maggie". He has also appeared as "Salty" in the "Family Guy" episode "A Fish out of Water", the voice of Jack the barber on "King of the Hill", the voice of the mayor in the , the voice of "Qui the Promoter" in the 2005 video game "Jade Empire", a minor appearance on the Disney show "Recess" during a YoYo competition, and voiced Prince Huge on "Adventure Time" in the episode "The Hard Easy". As of 2010, he is also the voice of the grandfather in Comedy Central's "The Goode Family" and currently voices Jacob on "Motorcity".
1064971	Tom Noonan (born April 12, 1951) is an American actor and film writer-director. Early life. Noonan was born in Greenwich, Connecticut, the son of Rosaleen and Tom Noonan, who worked as a dentist and jazz musician respectively. He has an older brother, John F. Noonan, a playwright, and two sisters, Barbara and Nancy. Career. Noonan started working in theatre (appearing in the original Off-Broadway production Sam Shepard's play "Buried Child"), but in the 1980s he began working in film. At 6 feet, 7 inches (200 cm), Noonan's imposing presence is probably responsible for his tendency to be cast as menacing villains, as in "RoboCop 2", "Last Action Hero", "Manhunter", and "The Pledge". His height was used for comic effect in "The Moving Finger," the series finale of the horror anthology "Monsters" (several episodes of which he also directed and wrote). In 1986, Noonan played Francis Dolarhyde, a serial killer who kills entire families, in Michael Mann's "Manhunter", the first movie to feature Hannibal Lecter. Another supporting role, and another collaboration with director Michael Mann was in 1995, as Kelso in "Heat". He also played Frankenstein in "The Monster Squad". During the 1990s, he wrote various plays, including two that he made into movies, "What Happened Was..." (1994) and "The Wife" (1995). In the 2000s, Noonan appeared in various other movies, including a widely praised role as Sammy Barnathan in "Synecdoche, New York", Charlie Kaufman's directorial debut. Most recently, he originally voiced one of the Wild Things in director Spike Jonze's "Where The Wild Things Are", but was replaced by Chris Cooper. Noonan has also made numerous appearances in television shows, including "The X-Files" (in the much-praised 1996 episode "Paper Hearts" that was written specifically for him), ', ', "Tales From The Darkside" and "" (in which he starred alongside William Petersen, who played his nemesis, Will Graham, in "Manhunter"), and Detective Victor Huntley in "Damages". He recently appeared on "Louie" as a doctor who takes the young Louie through the crucifixion in graphic anatomical detail. He also portrayed the Reverend Nathaniel Cole in the AMC original series "Hell on Wheels".
1103887	Louis Nirenberg (born 28 February 1925) is a Canadian-born American mathematician, considered one of the outstanding analysts of the twentieth century. He has made fundamental contributions to linear and nonlinear partial differential equations and their application to complex analysis and geometry. He was born in Hamilton, Ontario and attended Baron Byng High School. He studied as an undergraduate at McGill University, and obtained his doctorate from New York University in 1949 under the direction of James Stoker. He became a professor at the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences at New York University. He was also conferred the degree of Doctor of Science, honoris causa, at the University of British Columbia in 2010. He has received many honours and awards, including the Crafoord Prize, the Bôcher Memorial Prize, the Jeffery-Williams Prize, the Steele Prize, the National Medal of Science, and the Chern Medal. He is a fellow of the American Mathematical Society.
1058487	Without Limits is a 1998 biographical film about the relationship between record-breaking distance runner Steve Prefontaine and his coach Bill Bowerman, who later co-founded Nike, Inc. Billy Crudup plays Prefontaine and Donald Sutherland plays Bowerman. The film is written and directed by Robert Towne. It also stars Monica Potter, Jeremy Sisto, Judith Ivey, Matthew Lillard and William Mapother. "Without Limits" was produced by Tom Cruise (Cruise and Mapother are cousins) and Paula Wagner, and released and distributed by Warner Bros. Cruise originally wanted to play the role of Prefontaine, but it was decided he was too old. Tommy Lee Jones reportedly turned down the part of Bowerman. Due to a very low-key promotional campaign, the $25 million film grossed only $777,000 at the box office, although it received good reviews from many major critics. Sutherland received a Golden Globe nomination for Best Supporting Actor. Reception. "Without Limits" met with positive reviews from critics, with a Rotten Tomatoes consensus of 78% and the site's consensus stating: "This drama about American track star and hero Steve Prefontaine intelligently looks at the character of this oft mythologized athlete and features a fantastic performance by Donald Sutherland as Prefontaine's trainer."
1163711	Richard Ewing "Dick" Powell (November 14, 1904 – January 2, 1963) was an American singer, actor, film producer, film director and studio head. Though he came to stardom as a musical comedy performer, he showed versatility and successfully transformed into a hardbitten leading man starring in projects of a more dramatic nature. Biography. Born in Mountain View, the seat of Stone County in northern Arkansas, Powell attended the former Little Rock College in the state capital, before he started his entertainment career as a singer with the Charlie Davis Orchestra, based in the midwest. He recorded a number of records with Davis and on his own, for the Vocalion label in the late 1920s. Powell moved to Pittsburgh, where he found great local success as the Master of Ceremonies at the Enright Theater and the Stanley Theater. In April 1930, Warner Bros. bought Brunswick Records, which at that time owned Vocalion. Warner Bros. was sufficiently impressed by Powell's singing and stage presence to offer him a film contract in 1932. He made his film debut as a singing bandleader in "Blessed Event". He went on to star as a boyish crooner in movie musicals such as "42nd Street", "Footlight Parade", "Gold Diggers of 1933", "Dames", "Flirtation Walk", and "On the Avenue", often appearing opposite Ruby Keeler and Joan Blondell. Powell desperately wanted to expand his range but Warner Bros. wouldn't allow him to do so, although they did (mis)cast him in "A Midsummer Night's Dream" (1935) as Lysander. This was to be Powell's only Shakespearean role and one he did not want to play, feeling that he was completely wrong for the part. Inscrutably, the young actor felt that he was too old to play romantic leading men anymore, and so he lobbied to play the lead in "Double Indemnity". He lost out to Fred MacMurray, another Hollywood nice guy. MacMurray’s success, however, fueled Powell’s resolve to pursue projects with greater range. In 1944, Powell's career changed forever when he was cast in the first of a series of films noir, as private detective Philip Marlowe in "Murder, My Sweet", directed by Edward Dmytryk, after having been refused by Billy Wilder for the role in "Double Indemnity" who went to Fred MacMurray. The film was a big hit, and Powell had successfully reinvented himself as a dramatic actor. He was the first actor to play Marlowe — by name — in motion pictures. (Hollywood had previously adapted some Marlowe novels, but with the lead character changed.) Later, Powell was the first actor to play Marlowe on radio, in 1944 and 1945, and on television, in a 1954 episode of "Climax!" Powell also played the slightly-less hard-boiled detective Richard Rogue in the radio series "Rogue's Gallery", beginning in 1945. In 1945, Dmytryk and Powell re-teamed to make the film "Cornered", a gripping, post-WWII thriller that helped define the film noir style. He became a popular "tough guy" lead appearing in movies such as "Johnny O'Clock" and "Cry Danger". But 1948 saw him step out of the brutish type when he starred in "Pitfall", a film noir that sees a bored insurance company worker fall for an innocent but dangerous woman, played by Lizabeth Scott. Even when he appeared in lighter fare such as "The Reformer and the Redhead" and "Susan Slept Here" (1954), he never sang in his later roles. The latter, his final onscreen appearance in a feature film, did include a dance number with costar Debbie Reynolds. From 1949–1953, Powell played the lead role in the NBC radio theater production "Richard Diamond, Private Detective". His character in the 30-minute weekly was a likable private detective with a quick wit. Many episodes ended with Detective Diamond having an excuse to sing a little song to his date, showcasing Powell's vocal abilities. Many of the episodes were written by Blake Edwards. When "Richard Diamond" came to television in 1957, the lead role was portrayed by David Janssen, who did no singing in the series. In the 1950s Powell was one of the founders of Four Star Television, along with Charles Boyer, David Niven and Ida Lupino. He appeared in and supervised several shows for that company. Powell played the role of Willie Dante in "Four Star Playhouse", in episodes entitled "Dante's Inferno" (1952), "The Squeeze" (1953), "The Hard Way" (1953), and "The House Always Wins" (1955). In 1961, Howard Duff, husband of Ida Lupino, assumed the Dante role in a short-lived NBC adventure series "Dante", set at a San Francisco nightclub called "Dante's Inferno". Powell guest-starred in numerous Four Star programs, including a 1958 appearance on the Duff-Lupino sitcom "Mr. Adams and Eve". He appeared in 1961 on James Whitmore's legal drama "The Law and Mr. Jones" on ABC. In the episode "Everybody Versus Timmy Drayton", Powell played a colonel having problems with his son. He hosted and occasionally starred in his "Dick Powell's Zane Grey Theater" on CBS from 1956–1961, and his final anthology series, "The Dick Powell Show" on NBC from 1961 through 1963: after his death, the series continued through the end of its second season (as "The Dick Powell Theater"), with guest hosts. Powell's film "The Enemy Below" (1957), based on the novel by Denys Rayner, won the Academy Award For Special Effects. Powell also directed "The Conqueror" (1956), starring John Wayne as Genghis Khan. The exterior scenes were filmed in St. George, Utah, downwind of U.S. above-ground atomic tests. The cast and crew totaled 220, and of that number 91 had developed some form of cancer by 1981, and 46 had died of cancer by then, including Wayne. This cancer rate is about three times higher than one would expect in a group of this size, and many have argued that radioactive fallout was the cause. On September 27, 1962, Powell acknowledged rumors that he was undergoing treatment for cancer. The disease was originally diagnosed as an allergy, with Powell first experiencing symptoms while traveling East to promote his program. Upon his return to California, Powell's personal physician conducted tests and found malignant growths on his neck and chest. Powell died from lymphoma at the age of fifty-eight on January 2, 1963, seven years after "The Conqueror" was made. His body was cremated and his remains were interred in the Columbarium of Honor at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, California. Dick Powell has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6915 Hollywood Blvd. Personal life. Powell was the son of Ewing Powell and Sallie Rowena Thompson. He was married three times: Powell's ranch-style house in Mandeville Canyon, Los Angeles, was used as the setting for the television show "Hart to Hart." Robert Wagner, the actor who portrayed Jonathan Hart in the series, was a close friend of Powell's. Dick Powell also was a major television player with his own production company, Four Star Television, owning several network shows. Popular culture references. Frank Tashlin's cartoon satire "The Woods Are Full of Cuckoos" (1937) features a caricature of Powell, a bird named "Dick Fowl".
1059901	"Kelly's Heroes" is a 1970 war comedy film directed by Brian G. Hutton, about a group of World War II soldiers who go AWOL to rob a bank behind enemy lines. The film stars Clint Eastwood, Telly Savalas, Don Rickles, Carroll O'Connor, and Donald Sutherland, with secondary roles played by Harry Dean Stanton, Gavin MacLeod, and Stuart Margolin. The screenplay was written by British film and television writer Troy Kennedy Martin. The film was a US-Yugoslav co-production, filmed mainly in the Croat village of Vižinada on the Istria peninsula. Plot. In World War II France in early September 1944, units of the 35th Infantry Division are nearing the town of Nancy when one of the division's mechanized reconnaissance platoons receives orders to pull out while under attack from the Germans. Kelly (Eastwood), a former lieutenant who has been demoted to private following a disastrous assault some time earlier, captures Colonel Dankhopf of German Intelligence. When Kelly notices that his prisoner has a gold bar in his briefcase, he gets him drunk to try to get information about the gold. Before he is killed by an attacking German Tiger tank, the drunken Dankhopf blurts out that there is a cache of 14,000 gold bars stored in a bank vault 30 miles behind enemy lines in the town of Clermont. Kelly recruits the rest of his platoon, including skeptical Master Sergeant "Big Joe" (Savalas), to sneak off and steal the gold. Eventually, others have to be recruited (or invite themselves) into the scheme, such as an opportunistic supply sergeant "Crapgame" (Rickles); and a Sherman tank commander, "Oddball" (Sutherland). The expedition successfully breaks through a German-held town during a mortar barrage that has been arranged by Kelly. An American fighter plane mistakes Kelly's group for the enemy, strafing their vehicles and destroying them with rockets, forcing them to continue on foot, and three of their number die in a subsequent skirmish in and around a minefield. Meanwhile, Oddball's tanks battle their way through the German lines, but their route is blocked when the last large bridge is blown up by Allied bombers, prompting Oddball to let a bridge engineering unit in on the deal. When intercepted radio messages of the private raid are brought to the attention of gung-ho American Major General Colt (O'Connor), he misinterprets them as the efforts of aggressive patriots pushing forward on their own initiative and immediately rushes to the front line to exploit the "breakthrough". Kelly's men race to reach Clermont before their own army. There, they find it defended by three Tiger tanks with infantry support. The Americans are able to dispatch two of the Tigers and most of the German infantry, but as they prepare to take on the last tank, which is parked right in front of the bank, Oddball's last Sherman breaks down and cannot be repaired. Powerless to defeat the tank, Kelly offers the German tank commander a share of the loot. After the Tiger blows the bank doors off, the assembled crew finds the gold cache. After dividing the gold, the men go their separate ways, just managing to avoid meeting the still-oblivious Colt, who is delayed by celebrating town residents. Production. The film was going to have a female role, but prior to filming, it was cut from the script. Ingrid Pitt, who was cast in the role revealed that she was "virtually climbing on board the plane bound for Yugoslavia when word came through that my part had been cut." The filming commenced in July 1969 and was completed in December and was shot on location in the Istrian village of Vižinada in the former Yugoslavia and London. Yugoslavia was chosen mostly because earnings from previous showings of movies there could not be taken out of the country, but could be used to fund the production. Several years after the film was released, Eastwood claimed that MGM had made additional cuts to Hutton's final version of the film, eliminating scenes that gave depth to the main characters. "Kelly's Heroes" was the last non-Malpaso film that Eastwood agreed to appear in until "In the Line of Fire", with the exception of "Bronco Billy" (1980), which was made by a company set up by Eastwood's close friend Robert Daley specifically for that production, due to Eastwood's divorce at the time. There is a nod to Eastwood's spaghetti westerns in the standoff with the Tiger tank – a tongue-in-cheek remake of the ending of "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly", right down to a very similar musical score. Reception. The film mostly received a positive reception and its anti-war sentiments were recognized. The film has a 86% "Fresh" rating on Rotten Tomatoes. The film was voted at number 34 in Channel 4's "100 Greatest war films of all time". The film grossed $5.2 million in the United States when it was released in June 1970. Musical score and soundtrack. The film score was composed, arranged and conducted by Lalo Schifrin and the soundtrack album was released on the MGM label in 1970.
724834	Ashley Victoria Benson (born December 18, 1989) is an American actress and model, best known for playing Abigail Deveraux on the soap opera "Days of our Lives" (2004–2007), Mia Torcoletti on the supernatural television series "Eastwick" (2009–2010), Hanna Marin on the mystery-thriller television series "Pretty Little Liars" (2010–present) and Brit in the crime thriller film "Spring Breakers" (2012). Early life. Benson was born and raised in Anaheim Hills, Anaheim, California, the daughter of Shannon (Harte) and Jeff Benson. She has an older sister, Shaylene. She started dancing competitively in ballet, jazz, hip-hop, and lyrical at age four. She also enjoys singing, and has appeared in several choir groups and musicals. At age four, she was asked to audition to sing solo at four Christmas services at her church. At five, she modeled in dance catalogs, and at 8 she was pursued by The Ford Modeling Agency and worked steadily in print thereafter. She made a brief appearance on "Zoey 101", in the episode "Quinn's Date". She has also performed in NLT's music video "That Girl", One Call's music video "BlackLight" and Hot Chelle Rae's music video "Honestly." Career. Career beginnings; "Days of our Lives": 1999–2008. In 1999, Benson started pursuing an acting career. She began working and appearing on a number of commercials, but quickly made the transition into film and television. In 2004, Benson signed a three-year contract with the daytime television series, "Days of our Lives", and on November 12, 2004 began her role as Abigail "Abby" Deveraux, the oldest child of supercouple Jack Deveraux and Jennifer Horton, until May 2, 2007. She explained that, because of the number of episodes filmed a day, "you can't really mess up; you have to know all of your lines", and that she did not get a break from work. She played a witch disguised as a cheerleader in a 2008 episode of the CW series "Supernatural". In films, she was one of the "Six Chicks" in "13 Going on 30", and appeared as Carson in an installment of the "Bring It On" series, "". To land the lead role, she had to terminate her contract with "Days of our Lives": She recalled working on a movie set instead of a soap opera set "definitely weird", because she would spend days working on one or two scenes, whereas on the "Days of our Lives" set, she filmed two or three episodes a day. For "Bring It On: In It to Win It", she had to attend cheerleading practice, which was "hard for because [she is afraid of heights." Nonetheless, she was "glad" to do her own stunts, even though she "wasn't expecting for it to be so hard." In 2008, she appeared in the Lifetime TV movie "," where she played head cheerleader Brooke of the Fab Five, which is based on a true story which took place at McKinney North High School in Texas. She "loved" working with her onscreen mother Tatum O'Neal, from whom she learned about acting. Furthermore, she was excited to land a supporting role in "Bart Got a Room", which aired mainly on film festivals in 2008 before having a limited release in 2009, because it allowed her to work with William H. Macy. "Eastwick"; "Pretty Little Liars": 2009–present. Benson starred in ABC's 2009 television series "Eastwick". The show was based on John Updike's novel, "The Witches of Eastwick", and the 1987 film adaption of the same name. Her character, Mia, was the teen-aged daughter of Roxie Torcoletti (Rebecca Romijn). The series was short-lived and only lasted 13 episodes before ABC cancelled the series due to low ratings but has since gained a cult following. In December 2009, Benson was cast as Hanna Marin in the ABC Family mystery-thriller, "Pretty Little Liars". She is the "diva" and it-girl of the group, having taken Alison's place as the most popular girl at Rosewood High in Alison's absence. Prior to Alison's death, Hanna was a bulimic girl who Alison frequently mocked for being overweight. Her parents divorced, Hanna lives with her mother. She feels betrayed by her father, who has remarried, and does not get along well with his new wife and daughter, Kate. When Hanna's mother falls upon financial hardship, she steals thousands of dollars, which Hanna is forced to keep a secret in the ABC Family Teen Drama television series "Pretty Little Liars" based on the book series by Sara Shepard. The series premiered to a successful 2.47 million viewers with Benson's performance being praised by critics. The series third season premiered on June 5, 2012. The role is considered Ashley's breakout role. In 2010 Benson starred in the Made-for-Television film "Christmas Cupid" with Christina Milian and Chad Michael Murray which also aired on ABC Family. In January 2012, Benson was cast in the film "Spring Breakers", after Emma Roberts dropped out due to creative reasons. The film centers on four college students who are arrested and bailed out by a drug and arms dealer, who sends them out to do some dirty work on Spring break. The film co-starred Selena Gomez, Vanessa Hudgens and James Franco. Filming took place in March and April 2012, and "Spring Breakers" was released in March 2013.
1061694	Bruce MacLeish Dern (born June 4, 1936) is an American actor. He frequently takes roles as a supporting character actor, often playing villains of unstable nature. Dern has appeared in more than 80 feature films, and was nominated for an Oscar for his work in "Coming Home". Dern is the father of actress Laura Dern (1967) by his ex-wife Diane Ladd; married 1960–1969. He married Andrea Beckett in 1969. Career. Early in his career he acted in the Philadelphia premier of "Waiting for Godot" opposite Lyle Kessler and first appeared on screen, for an uncredited role, in the 1960 film "Wild River". He then appeared, as a guest star, in several popular 1960s television shows, including "Route 66", "Naked City", "Sea Hunt", "Surfside 6", "77 Sunset Strip", and "The Outer Limits". In the 1962-1963 season, Dern had the recurring role of E.J. Stocker in the ABC adventure/drama series about the rodeo circuit, "Stoney Burke", starring Jack Lord in the title role and with Warren Oates. In 1964, he appeared in a major Alfred Hitchcock film, the psychological thriller "Marnie", in a short role as the sailor seen in flashbacks about Marnie's mother. Also in 1964, he had a small but crucial film role in "Hush… Hush, Sweet Charlotte" as the lover of the young Charlotte (a role played by Bette Davis).
1166031	John Ericson (sometimes Erickson) (born John Meibes on 25 September 1926) is a German-American actor and film and television star. He trained at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York, and played the lead role in "Stalag 17" by Donald Bevan and Edmund Trzcinski on Broadway (1951). He went on to make a number of films for MGM in quick succession in the 1950s. His first appearance was in "Teresa" (1951), directed by Fred Zinnemann, which also launched the film careers of Pier Angeli and Rod Steiger. He then went on to appear in a series of films which included "Rhapsody", "The Student Prince", "Green Fire" (all in 1954), and opposite Spencer Tracy in "Bad Day at Black Rock" (1955). Ericson also co-starred with Barbara Stanwyck (as her brother) in Samuel Fuller's western "Forty Guns". For the next thirty years his career continued mostly on television. He appeared in the lead role in "The Peter Bartley Story" of CBS's fantasy drama, "The Millionaire". Child actor Johnny Washbrook appeared in the same episode in a flashback segment of Ericson as a boy. He appeared with Dorothy Malone in the January 1, 1956, episode entitled "Mutiny" of CBS's "Appointment with Adventure". He guest starred in 1958 in the NBC western series "The Restless Gun", starring John Payne and in the 1961 ABC crime drama, "" From 1965–66, Ericson co-starred as the partner of Anne Francis in the ABC detective series "Honey West", a unique concept about a female private eye. He and Francis had played brother and sister in "Bad Day at Black Rock". He also appeared in such films as "Pretty Boy Floyd" (1960), "7 Faces of Dr. Lao" (1964) and "Bedknobs and Broomsticks" (1971). He has been married twice and has two children from his first marriage to Milly Coury.
1063264	Julie & Julia is a 2009 American comedy-drama film written and directed by Nora Ephron starring Meryl Streep, Stanley Tucci, Amy Adams, and Chris Messina. The film contrasts the life of chef Julia Child in the early years of her culinary career with the life of young New Yorker Julie Powell, who aspires to cook all 524 recipes in Child's cookbook in 365 days, a challenge she described on that would make her a published author. Ephron's screenplay is adapted from two books: "My Life in France", Child's autobiography written with Alex Prud'homme, and a by Powell documenting online her daily experiences cooking each of the 524 recipes in Child's "Mastering the Art of French Cooking", and she later began reworking that blog, The Julie/Julia Project. Both of these books were written and published in the same time frame (2004–06). The film is the first major motion picture based on a blog. In March 2008, Ephron began filming with Streep as Child and Adams as Powell. On July 30, 2009, the film officially premiered at the Ziegfeld Theatre in New York; and, on August 7, 2009, it opened throughout North America. Streep and Adams previously starred together in "Doubt" (2008). Streep and Tucci previously starred together in "The Devil Wears Prada" (2006). Plot. In 2002, Julie Powell (Adams) is a young writer with an unpleasant job at the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation's call center, where she answers telephone calls from victims of the September 11 attacks and members of the general public complaining about the LMDC's controversial plans for rebuilding the World Trade Center. To do something she enjoys, she decides to cook every recipe in "Mastering the Art of French Cooking" (1961) by Julia Child (Streep) in one year; Powell decides to write a blog to motivate herself and document her progress. Woven into the story of Powell's time in Queens in the early 2000s is the story of Child's time in Paris throughout the 1950s, where she attends Le Cordon Bleu to learn French cooking and begins collaborating on a book about French cooking for American housewives. The plot highlights similarities in the women's challenges. Both women receive much support from their husbands, except when Powell's husband becomes fed up with her excessive devotion to her hobby and leaves her for a short time.
1017400	The Eye 2 is a 2004 Hong Kong horror film directed by the Pang brothers. It is the sequel to "The Eye" (2002), though the two storylines are not related in any way except for seeing ghosts. Plot. Believing she is being rejected by her boyfriend Sam, Joey attempts suicide with sleeping pills, but recovers after having her stomach pumped. When she looks forward to a brand new life, she discovers that she is pregnant. Being tortured by the thought of an abortion and unable to contact Sam, Joey finds herself becoming delusional and emotionally unstable. Joey begins to see the spirits of dead people, and also feels stalked by a mysterious ghost woman. She believes the ghost wants to hurt her unborn baby. As the story unfolds, it is discovered that the ghost is Sam's wife who committed suicide by jumping in front of an oncoming train. She is now awaiting Joey's baby's birth so that she may be reincarnated within her. After discovering this, Joey would rather kill herself and her baby than let this woman become her child. While in a hospital, awaiting the birth of her child, Joey jumps off the building, but survives, gives birth and in the end coming to terms with her situation. Her psychiatrist's explanation is that Joey feels guilty about Sam's wife's suicide. Finally she accepts this responsibility, no longer recognizing Sam and disillusioned about her baby's father. As Joey checks out of the hospital, the camera pans across a room of expecting mothers, each with a ghost hovering by their sides.
1085711	"I Can't Think Straight" is a 2008 romance film adapted from a same name novel about a London-based Jordanian of Palestinian descent, Tala, who is preparing for an elaborate wedding. A turn of events causes her to have an affair and subsequently fall in love with another woman, Leyla, a British Indian. The movie is distributed by Enlightenment Productions. It was released in different theatres between 2008 and 2009. The DVD was released on 4 May 2009. The movie is directed by Shamim Sarif and stars Lisa Ray and Sheetal Sheth. The two actresses star in another movie with lesbian characters, namely "The World Unseen", released in 2008.
1165495	Barbara Hale (born April 18, 1922) is an American actress best known for her role as legal secretary Della Street on more than 250 episodes of the long-running "Perry Mason" television series and later reprising the role in 30 made-for-TV movies. Acting career. Hale was born in DeKalb, Illinois, to Luther Ezra Hale, a landscape gardener, and his wife, Wilma Colvin. She is of Scots-Irish ancestry. Hale graduated from high school in Rockford, Illinois, then attended the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts, planning to become an artist. Her performing career began in Chicago when she started modeling to pay for her education. She moved to Hollywood in 1943, and made her first screen appearances playing small parts (often uncredited). Hale was under contract to RKO Radio Pictures through the late 1940s. She appeared in "Higher and Higher" (1943) with Frank Sinatra; played leading lady to Robert Mitchum in "West of the Pecos" (1945); enjoyed top billing in both "Lady Luck" (1946) opposite Robert Young and "The Window" (1949) with Arthur Kennedy; and co-starred in "Jolson Sings Again" (1949), with Larry Parks playing Al Jolson and Hale as Jolson's wife, Ellen Clark. She played the top-billed title role in "Lorna Doone" (1951) and portrayed Julia Hancock in "The Far Horizons" (1955) with Fred MacMurray and Charlton Heston. Her flourishing movie career more or less ended when Hale accepted her best known role, Della Street, secretary to attorney Perry Mason, in the TV series with Raymond Burr. The show ran from 1957 to 1966, and she reprised the role in several television movies. Her last performance was in 2000 at age 78. In 1967 she guest starred on the ABC series "Custer". Hale also had a featured role in the 1970 ensemble film "Airport", playing the wife of a jetliner pilot (Dean Martin). Spokesperson. Barbara Hale also is remembered as a spokeswoman for Amana, makers of Radarange microwave ovens, memorably intoning, "If it doesn't say Amana, it's not a Radarange." Private life. In 1945 during the filming of "West of the Pecos", Hale met actor Bill Williams. They married the following year and became the parents of two daughters, Jodi and Juanita, and a son, actor William Katt. Katt played detective Paul Drake, Jr., with her in several made-for-television Perry Mason movies. She also guest-starred as the mother of Ralph Hinkley (played by Katt) in an episode of "The Greatest American Hero" (Episode 29, "Who's Woo in America"), and appeared as his mother in the movie "Big Wednesday" (1978). Bill Williams died of cancer in 1992, after 46 years of marriage. Hale is a cancer survivor, and is now a grandmother; she is retired and is a follower of the Bahá'í Faith. Tributes. Hale has been recognized with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. She won an Emmy Award in 1959 and was nominated a second time in 1961.
939705	The Pixar Story, directed by Leslie Iwerks, is a documentary of the history of Pixar Animation Studios. An early version of the film premiered at the Sonoma Film Festival in 2007, and it had a limited theatrical run later that year before it was picked up by the Starz cable network in the United States. The film was released, outside North America, on DVD in summer 2008 as part of the "Ultimate Pixar Collection," a box set of Pixar films. It was then included as a special feature on the "WALL-E" special edition DVD and Blu-ray releases, which were launched on November 18, 2008. The film premiered on BBC in the United Kingdom on August 24. Synopsis. The success story of Pixar Animation Studios from the ground up. Reception. The film was given generally positive reviews, receiving an aggregated score of 86% from Rotten Tomatoes, based on 7 reviews.
723294	Sir Robert Helpmann CBE (9 April 190928 September 1986) was an Australian dancer, actor, theatre director and choreographer. Early years. He was born Robert Murray Helpman (specifically spelt with one "n") in Mount Gambier, South Australia, and was known as "Bobby" by those close to him.
1044560	The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires is a 1974 horror film produced by Hammer Studios and Shaw Brothers Studio. It was released in North America in an edited version as The Seven Brothers Meet Dracula, and alternatively known as The Seven Brothers And Their One Sister Meet Dracula. The film is notable for having an actor other than Christopher Lee to portray Count Dracula in the "Hammer Dracula" series. The role of Dracula is played by John Forbes-Robertson (though the actor's voice is dubbed by David de Keyser). Storyline. Prologue. In Transylvania in 1804, a lone shaman figure makes his way through the countryside and into the towering Castle Dracula. He heads over to the tomb of the legendary vampire before summoning him. Soon, Count Dracula appears from his crypt and demands who has disturbed him. The figure announces, in his own language, that his name is Kah, a Taoist monk and High Priest of the Seven Golden Vampires in rural China. He goes on to tell the Count that the Golden Vampire's power is fading and he needs him to restore their former glory. Dracula considers the offer and accepts on one condition; that he takes on Kah's body and image to escape his castle which has become his prison. Despite pleas for mercy, the vampire takes hold Kah a cloud of unearthly mist and they are both subdued. When the mist clears, Kah speaks with the voice of Count Dracula who then triumphantly leaves the tomb, bound for China. Plot. In 1904, Professor Lawrence Van Helsing (Peter Cushing) gives a lecture at a Chungking university on Chinese vampire legend. He speaks of an unknown rural village that has been terrorised by a cult of seven known as 'Golden Vampires' for many years. He goes on to explain that a simple farmer, armed with a pitch-fork and who had lost his wife to the vampires, trekked his way to the temple of the vampires where he saw many other unfortunate woman strapped to tables waiting for their blood to be drained. The farmer burst in and battled the vampires. He is unsuccessful as his wife is killed in the fight but in the chaos, he grabbed a bat-like medallion from around one of the vampire's necks which he sees as the vampires' life source. Defeated, the farmer flees the temple but the High Priest orders the vampires after him. After they leave on horse-back, the High Priest summons the vampire's former victims: the 'Undead' from their graves to aid the seven vampires. Still carrying the medallion, the farmer places it around a small model of a Jade Buddha. He knocks desperately on the locked village gates but it is in vain. The vampires and their undead catch up with him and kill him. One of the vampires spies the medallion around the Buddha and goes over to collect it. The moment the vampire touched the Buddha, the creature is destroyed in flames. Van Helsing goes onto say that he is positive the village still exists and is still terrorised by the six remaining vampires. He is only unsure of where the village lies. Most students disapprove of the story and leave. Back in Van Helsing's rented house, a student named Hsi Ching (David Chiang) informs him that the legend is true and that he knows the location of the village. He goes on to say that the farmer from the story was his grandfather. He proves it by producing the dead vampire's bat-like medallion. He then asks Van Helsing if he would be willing to travel to the village and destroy the vampire menace. Van Helsing agrees and embarks with his son, Leyland Van Helsing (Robin Stewart), Hsi Ching and his seven kung-fu trained siblings on a dangerous journey funded by a wealthy widow named Vanessa Buren (Julie Ege) who Leyland and two of Ching's siblings saved from an attack by the Tongs. On the journey, they are ambushed by the six remaining vampires in a cave along with the undead. The group are quickly engaged in battle and soon kill several of the vampires. The remaining beasts, sensing they are outnumbered, are quick to retreat, taking their army of undead with them. The following morning, the party reach the village, partly ruined but still populated, and prepare to make their final stand. They use wooden stakes as barriers and dig a large trench around them filled with flammable liquid. In the temple that evening, Kah calls on the remaining vampires to kill Van Helsing and his party once and for all. The vampires ride on horseback followed by their army of undead to the village. The vampires reach the village and soon Van Helsing's group once again do battle with the last golden vampires and their undead resulting in nearly all their party and the villagers being massacred. During the fight, Vanessa is bitten by a vampire and she quickly becomes one. She then seduces Ching and bites his neck. Knowing what he will become and what he has to do, Ching throws himself and Vanessa onto a wooden stake, killing them both. Elsewhere, the remaining vampire captures one of Ching's siblings and takes her back to the temple to be drained. Seeing this, Leyland steals a horse from one of the dead vampires and pursues. The undead defeated, Van Helsing and his remaining party follow to help Layland at the temple. Having reached the temple, the vampire straps the sister to one of the altars. It is about to drain her when Layland leaps onto the creatures back and throws it to the ground before freeing the sister. The vampire comes round and attacks Layland, throwing him onto one of the altars in the struggle. Leyland is about to be drained when Van Helsing and his group burst in. Van Helsing thrusts a spear into the vampires back, impaling it. Dying, the last of the golden vampires stumbles and collapses into a vat of boiling blood where it quickly evaporates, leaving behind the bat-like medallion, its mask, a pile of dried blood and red dust. The survivors depart from the temple, save for Van Helsing who feels a familiar atmosphere. Sure enough, a familiar voice barks from behind him. Van Helsing turns round to face Kah the High Priest. Recognizing the voice, Van Helsing realises that Dracula is using the form of the Monk to control the golden vampires and their undead. Van Helsing demands Dracula to show himself, calling him a coward. Dracula reverts to his true form and attacks Van Helsing. In the ensuing struggle, Van Helsing succeeds in stabbing Dracula with a spear through the heart. Defeated, the Count collapses onto one of the altars and gradually decays to bones. The spear that killed him collapses, smashing the vampire's skull. Soon, there is nothing left of the Count, save for his dusty remains and the blood-stained spear. Van Helsing sighs with relief as the nightmare of Count Dracula is finally over. Production. Both Roy Ward Baker, a British director who had helmed several previous Hammer films, and Chang Cheh, a veteran Hong Kong action director, worked on the movie, though only Baker is credited. "The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires" was a co-production with Hong Kong's Shaw Studio, made in the hope of garnering some of the kung fu movie market share. The movie was released with various titles in different locations, including "The Seven Brothers Meet Dracula" and "Dracula and the Seven Golden Vampires". During some scenes involving roving gangs of undead, several vampires can be seen hopping up and down, as vampires tend to do in Chinese vampire films. The North American release version trims twenty minutes of the film's footage and soundtrack and loops several remaining scenes to fill the running time. Reception. Critical reaction to the film has been mixed. Keith Phipps of "The A.V. Club" called the film "flawed" but "enjoyable", adding: "It's pretty much as ridiculous as it sounds, but there's something inherently entertaining about make-up-splattered vampires, distinguished British actors, and martial artists squaring off in periodic eruptions of kung-fu fighting." "Popcorn Pictures" wrote, ""The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires" is a really enjoyable mixture of genres and just about everything comes off well. The last true film of Hammer's Dracula series, this one rounds everything off pretty well." "Eccentric Cinema" criticised the "dreadful" script and "laughable makeup", but said that "all is not lost. Played completely straight, the sheer absurdity of the movie actually saves it", adding that the film is "directed in workmanlike fashion" and that "Cushing, always a pro, keeps things together with his typically commanding performance." Phil Chandler of "DVD Cult" wrote, "Is it the best Hammer horror film ever made? Hell no. Is it the best Hammer film of the seventies? Hell yeah." "The Science Fiction, Horror and Fantasy Film Review" wrote that "the plot never settles into being much more than its collection of influences", but added that " Roy Ward Baker conducts the action quite enjoyably", and "the martial arts displays are all highly entertaining". Graeme Clark of "The Spinning Image" said, "Cushing, in his last Hammer Dracula film, is as commanding as ever, but he and his Western companions are pretty disposable to the plot until the end, where the professor is left alone with the Count, who is hardly needed. Nevertheless, this last Hammer vampire outing has a real energy, in spite of being a mish-mash, and is different enough to get by on sheer novelty alone." DVD release. The DVD from Anchor Bay features both the "Seven Brothers Meet Dracula" version as well as the original uncut "Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires" version. The DVD also features a recording of Peter Cushing telling the story of the film with music and sound effects, which was released as an LP record at the time of the film's release.
593376	Yorick van Wageningen (born 16 April 1964) is a Dutch actor who has performed in Dutch and American films, including "The Chronicles of Riddick". Biography. Van Wageningen was born in Baarn. After acting in several Dutch plays, movies, and television series, van Wageningen was asked to come to Hollywood to appear in Steven Spielberg's "Minority Report". Due to problems with his visa, he was unable to work on that movie, but thereafter acted in a number of American movies, achieving a breakthrough with his role in "The Chronicles of Riddick". Back in the Netherlands, he starred in "Winter in Wartime", based on a Dutch novel about World War II. In 2011 he appeared in "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" along with Daniel Craig, in the role of Nils Bjurman, the sexually abusive guardian of Lisbeth Salander (Rooney Mara). He garnered praise in the Dutch press for his portrayal of Ronnie, an Amsterdam gangster who experiences a spiritual resurrection after miraculously surviving an assassination attempt, in the 2013 film "De wederopstanding van een klootzak".
25449	The Call of the Entrepreneur is a 2007 documentary produced by Acton Media, part of the Acton Institute, along with Cold Water Media. It premiered in Grand Rapids, Michigan, USA on May 17, 2007. Plot. The main subjects of the documentary are Brad Morgan, Frank Hanna, and Jimmy Lai. Morgan, a dairy farmer from Evart, Michigan discusses his journey from a struggling dairy farmer to the owner and operator of a million-dollar dairy and compost company. Hanna, a merchant banker in New York City who originally hails from Georgia, explains how financial engineering not only makes credit more widely available to entrepreneurs today but also played a crucial role in the discovery of America. Lai talks about his childhood in Communist China and his move at twelve years old to Hong Kong. There, he founded Giordano, a retail outlet, and later Next Media. Lai explains that entrepreneurs, when taking risks, are "dashing into hope." The documentary also contains information from experts in the field of economics, including Rev. Robert Sirico, founder and President of the Acton Institute, Dr. Samuel Gregg, Dr. Jay Richards, George Gilder, and Michael Novak. Other information. After the premiere in Grand Rapids, during the rest of 2007, "The Call of the Entrepreneur" premiered in Honolulu, London, Nairobi, New York City, Atlanta, Eldoret, Hong Kong, Kansas City, and Rome.
1225200	Marian Hall Seldes (born August 23, 1928) is an American stage, film, radio, and television actress whose career has spanned six decades. She was elected to the American Theatre Hall of Fame in 1995. Life and career. Seldes was born in New York City, the daughter of Alice "Amanda" Wadhams (Hall), a socialite, and Gilbert Seldes, a journalist, author, and editor. Her uncle was journalist George Seldes. Seldes's paternal grandparents were Russian Jewish immigrants, and her mother was from a "prominent WASP family," the "Episcopalian blue-blooded Halls." Seldes had a brother, Timothy, and grew up in a creative environment, studying acting at the Neighborhood Playhouse. Her mother's sister, Marian Wells Hall (died 1972), was a prominent American interior decorator. Trained for the stage, Seldes made her Broadway theatre debut in 1948 in a production of "Medea". She went on to an illustrious career in which she has earned five Tony Award nominations, winning her first time out in 1967 for "A Delicate Balance." In addition to performing in live theatre, Seldes began acting in television in 1952 in a "Hallmark Hall of Fame" production that marked the first of many guest star roles. She also has performed in a number of motion pictures and in radio plays. In the mid '60s, Seldes recorded five albums for Folkways Records of famous works of literature. Between 1974 and 1982, she appeared in 179 episodes of the "CBS Radio Mystery Theater". In 1992 she appeared as "Murphy Brown"'s eccentric Aunt Brooke. She has a daughter, Katharine, by her first marriage to Julian Claman. They were divorced in 1961. Seldes says that the marriage to Claman was violent. “If I sound a little vague about that marriage, it’s because I don’t understand the person in it. Me. I literally didn’t know that people could be abusive." Seldes left the marriage after her father noticed marks on Seldes's face. Seldes was married to screenwriter/playwright Garson Kanin from 1990 until his death in 1999. At various times, Sanford Meisner, Katharine Cornell, and Martha Graham taught Marian Seldes. Actor Laura Linney says, "Marian is our touchstone to those theatrical ancestors. She provides an inspiration that makes you want to reach outside of yourself to something more potent and powerful." Marian Seldes was a member of the drama faculty of The Juilliard School from 1967 to 1991. Marian Seldes's students include Robin Williams, Kelsey Grammer, Kevin Kline, William Hurt, and Patti LuPone. In 2002 Marian Seldes began teaching at Fordham University, Lincoln Center. Seldes appeared in every one of the 1,809 Broadway performances of Ira Levin's play "Deathtrap", a feat that earned her a mention in the "Guinness Book of World Records" as "most durable actress." Seldes is also well known for her readings of short stories in the "Selected Shorts" series hosted by Isaiah Sheffer at New York City's Symphony Space. In December 2008, for their annual birthday celebration to "The Master", "The Noel Coward Society" invited Seldes as the guest celebrity to lay flowers in front of Coward's statue at New York's "Gershwin Theatre", thereby commemorating the 109th birthday of Sir Noel. Marian Seldes is the recipient of a 2010 Antoinette Perry ("Tony") Lifetime Achievement Award. In 2012, Seldes played a knife-wielding socialite Mabel Billingsly in the film adaptation of Wendy Mass’s popular children’s book Jeremy Fink and the Meaning of Life, written and directed by Tamar Halpern. Partial Listing of Marian Seldes's Work. Discography. Theodore Bikel: "Songs of Songs" and other Biblical Prophecies" featuring Marian Seldes as Shulamite. (1964))
1103228	Shing-Tung Yau (; born April 4, 1949) is a Chinese-born American mathematician. He won the Fields Medal in 1982. Yau's work is mainly in differential geometry, especially in geometric analysis. His contributions have had an influence on both physics and mathematics and he has been active at the interface between geometry and theoretical physics. His proof of the positive energy theorem in general relativity demonstrated—sixty years after its discovery—that Einstein's theory is consistent and stable. His proof of the Calabi conjecture allowed physicists—using Calabi–Yau compactification—to show that string theory is a viable candidate for a unified theory of nature. Calabi–Yau manifolds are among the ‘standard toolkit’ for string theorists today. Yau is the first Chinese to receive the Fields Medal. Yau has held American citizenship since 1990. Biography. Yau was born in Shantou, Guangdong Province, China with an ancestry in Jiaoling (also in Guangdong) in a family of eight children. When he was only a few months old, his family emigrated to Hong Kong, where they lived first in Yuen Long and then 5 years later in Shatin. When Yau was fourteen, his father Chiou Chenying, a philosophy professor, died. After graduating from Pui Ching Middle School, he studied mathematics at the Chinese University of Hong Kong from 1966 to 1969. Yau went to the University of California, Berkeley in the fall of 1969. At the age of 22, Yau was awarded the Ph.D. degree under the supervision of Shiing-Shen Chern at Berkeley in two years. He spent a year as a member of the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, New Jersey, and two years at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. Then he went to Stanford University. Since 1987, he has been at Harvard University, where he has had numerous Ph.D. students. He is also involved in the activities of research institutes in Hong Kong and China. He takes an interest in the state of K-12 mathematics education in China, and his criticisms of the Chinese education system, corruption in the academic world in China, and the quality of mathematical research and education, have been widely publicized. Contributions to mathematics. Duong Hong Phong of Columbia University has commented on the influence of Yau's research in geometric analysis. Work on conjectures. Calabi conjecture. Yau's solution of the Calabi conjecture, concerning the existence of an Einstein–Kähler metric, has far-reaching consequences. The existence of such a canonical unique metric allows one to give explicit representatives of characteristic classes. Calabi–Yau manifolds are now fundamental in string theory, where the Calabi conjecture provides an essential piece in the model. In algebraic geometry, the Calabi conjecture implies the Miyaoka–Yau inequality on Chern numbers of surfaces, a characterization of the complex projective plane and quotients of the two-dimensional complex unit ball, an important class of Shimura varieties. Yau also made a contribution in the case that the first Chern number "c"1 > 0, and conjectured its relation to the stability in the sense of geometric invariant theory in algebraic geometry. This has motivated the work of Simon Donaldson on scalar curvature and stability. Another important result of Donaldson–Uhlenbeck–Yau is that a holomorphic vector bundle is stable (in the sense of David Mumford) if and only if there exists an Hermitian–Yang–Mills metric on it. This has many consequences in algebraic geometry, for example, the characterization of certain symmetric spaces, Chern number inequalities for stable bundles, and the restriction of the fundamental groups of a Kähler manifold. Positive mass conjecture and existence of black holes. Yau pioneered the method of using minimal surfaces to study geometry and topology. By an analysis of how minimal surfaces behave in space-time, Yau and Richard Schoen proved the long-standing conjecture that the total mass in general relativity is positive. This theorem implies that flat space-time is stable, a fundamental issue for the theory of general relativity. Briefly, the positive mass conjecture says that if a three-dimensional manifold has positive scalar curvature and is asymptotically flat, then a constant that appears in the asymptotic expansion of the metric is positive. A continuation of the above work gives another result in relativity proved by Yau, an existence theorem for black holes. Yau and Schoen continued their work on manifolds with positive scalar curvature, which led to Schoen's final solution of the Yamabe problem. Smith conjecture. Yau and William H. Meeks solved the well-known question whether the Douglas solution of a minimal disk for an external Jordan curve, the Plateau problem, in three space, is always embedded if the boundary curve is a subset of a convex boundary. They then went on to prove that these embedded minimal surfaces are equivariant for finite group actions. Combining this work with a result of William Thurston, Cameron Gordon assembled a proof of the Smith conjecture: for any cyclic group acting on a sphere, the set of fixed points is not a knotted curve. Hermitian Yang–Mills connection and stable vector bundles. Yau and Karen Uhlenbeck proved the existence and uniqueness of Hermitian–Einstein metrics (or equivalently Hermitian Yang–Mills connections) for stable bundles on any compact Kähler manifold, extending an earlier result of Donaldson for projective algebraic surfaces, and M. S. Narasimhan and C. S. Seshadri for algebraic curves. Both the results and methods of this paper have been influential in parts of both algebraic geometry and string theory. This result is now usually called the Donaldson–Uhlenbeck–Yau Theorem. Frankel conjecture. Yau and Yum-Tong Siu proved the 1981 Frankel conjecture in complex geometry, stating that any compact positively-curved Kähler manifold is biholomorphic to complex projective space. An independent proof was given by Shigefumi Mori, using methods of algebraic geometry in positive characteristic. Mirror conjecture. With Bong Lian and Kefeng Liu, Yau proved mirror formulas conjectured by string theorists. These formulas give the explicit numbers of rational curves of all degrees in a large class of Calabi–Yau manifolds, in terms of the Picard–Fuchs equations of the corresponding mirror manifolds. New methods and concepts. Gradient estimates and Harnack inequalities. Yau developed the method of gradient estimates for Harnack's inequalities. This method has been used and refined by him and other people to attack for example, bounds on the heat kernel. Early in 1981, Yau suggested to Richard Hamilton that he use the Ricci flow to realize naturally the canonical decomposition of a three-dimensional manifold into pieces, each of which has a geometric structure, in the Thurston program. Hamilton amplified their results, to what is now called the Li–Yau–Hamilton inequality for the Ricci flow equations. Gradient estimates were also used crucially in Yau's joint work with S. Y. Cheng to give a complete proof of the higher dimensional Hermann Minkowski problem and the Dirichlet problem for the real Monge–Ampère equation, and other results on the Kähler–Einstein metric of bounded pseudoconvex domains. Uniformization of complex manifolds. When Yau was a graduate student, he started to generalize the uniformization theorem of Riemann surfaces to higher-dimensional complex Kähler manifolds. For a compact manifold with positive bisectional curvature, the Frankel conjecture proved by Siu and Yau, and independently by Mori, shows that it is complex projective space. Yau proposed a series of conjectures when the manifold is non-compact, and made contributions towards their solutions. For example, when the bisectional curvature is positive, it must be biholomorphic to "C""n". Harmonic maps and rigidity. When Yau was working on his thesis about manifolds with non-positive curvature and their fundamental groups, he realized that it is possible to use harmonic maps to give alternative proofs of some results there. He was aware of the Mostow rigidity theorem for locally symmetric spaces, which was used by him to prove the uniqueness of complex structure of quotients of complex balls. He proposed that harmonic maps be used to prove rigidity of the complex structure for Kähler manifolds with strongly negative curvature, a program that was successfully carried out by Yum-Tong Siu. This method, the so-called Siu-Yau method, has been extended to prove strong and super-rigidities of many locally symmetric spaces. Minimal submanifolds. Minimal submanifolds have been used by Yau in the solutions of the Positive Mass Conjecture, the Smith conjecture, the Frankel conjecture, and else. Many people others have since applied minimal surfaces to other problems. Mikhail Gromov's introduction of pseudo-holomorphic curves in symplectic geometry has also had an important impact on that field. Open problems. Yau has compiled an influential set of open problems in geometry. Harmonic functions with controlled growth. One of Yau’s problems is about bounded harmonic functions, and harmonic functions on noncompact manifolds of polynomial growth. After proving non-existence of bounded harmonic functions on manifolds with positive curvatures, he proposed the Dirichlet problem at infinity for bounded harmonic functions on negatively curved manifolds, and then proceeded to harmonic functions of polynomial growth. Dennis Sullivan tells a story about Yau's geometric intuition, and how it led him to reject an analytical proof of Sullivan's. Michael Anderson independently found the same result about bounded harmonic function on simply connected negatively curved manifolds using a geometric convexity construction. Rank rigidity of nonpositively curved manifolds. Again motivated by Mostow's strong rigidity theorem, Yau called for a notion of rank for general manifolds extending the one for locally symmetric spaces, and asked for rigidity properties for higher rank metrics. Advances in this direction have been made by Ballmann, Brin and Eberlein in their work on non-positive curved manifolds, Gromov's and Eberlein's metric rigidity theorems for higher rank locally symmetric spaces and the classification of closed higher rank manifolds of non-positive curvature by Ballmann and Burns-Spatzier. This leaves rank 1 manifolds of non-positive curvature as the focus of research. They behave more like manifolds of negative curvature, but remain poorly understood in many regards. Kähler–Einstein metrics and stability of manifolds. It is known that if a complex manifold has a Kähler–Einstein metric, then its tangent bundle is stable. Yau realized early in 1980s that the existence of special metrics on Kähler manifolds is equivalent to the stability of the manifolds. Various people including Simon Donaldson have made progress to understand such a relation. Mirror symmetry. He has collaborated with string theorists including Strominger, Vafa and Witten, and as post-doctorals from theoretical physics with B. Greene, E. Zaslow and A. Klemm . The Strominger–Yau–Zaslow program is to construct explicitly mirror manifolds. David Gieseker wrote of the seminal role of the Calabi conjecture in relating string theory with algebraic geometry, in particular for the developments of the SYZ program, mirror conjecture and Yau–Zaslow conjecture. Initiatives in mainland China and Taiwan. Yau was born in China but grew up in Hong Kong. After the door of China was opened to the west in the late 1970s, Yau revisited China in 1979 on the invitation of Hua Luogeng. To help develop Chinese mathematics, Yau started by educating students from China, then establishing mathematics research institutes and centers, organizing conferences at all levels, initiating out-reach programs, and raising private funds for these purposes. John Coates has commented on Yau's success as fundraiser. The first of Yau's initiatives is The Institute of Mathematical Sciences at The Chinese University of Hong Kong in 1993. The goal is to “organize activities related to a broad variety of fields including both pure and Applied mathematics, scientific computation, image processing, mathematical physics and statistics. The emphasis is on interaction and linkages with the physical sciences, engineering, industry and commerce.” The second one is the Morningside Center of Mathematics in Beijing, established in 1996. Part of the money for the building and regular operations was raised by Yau from the Morningside Foundation in Hong Kong. Yau proposed organizing the International Congress of Chinese Mathematicians, now held every three years. The first congress was held at the Morningside Center from December 12 to 18, 1998. The third is the Center of Mathematical Sciences at Zhejiang University. It was established in 2002. Yau is the director of all these three math institutes and visits them on a regular basis. Yau went to Taiwan to attend a conference in 1985. In 1990, he was invited by Dr. C.-S. Liu, then the President of National Tsinghua University, to visit the university for a year. A few years later, he convinced Liu, by then the chairman of National Science Council, to create the National Center of Theoretical Sciences (NCTS), which was established at Hsinchu in 1998. He was the chairman of the Advisory Board of the NCTS until 2005 and was followed by H. T. Yau of Harvard University. Outreach. His classmate at college Y.-C.Siu speaks of Yau as an ambassador of mathematics. In Hong Kong, with the support of Ronnie Chan, Yau set up the Hang Lung Award for high school students. He has also organized and participated in meetings for high school and college students, for example, the panel discussions "Why Math? Ask Masters!" in Hangzhou, July 2004, and "The Wonder of Mathematics" in Hong Kong, December 2004. Yau organized the JDG conference surveying developments in geometry and related fields, and the annual Current development of mathematics conference. Yau also co-initiated a series of books on popular mathematics, "Mathematics and Mathematical People". Honors and awards. Yau has received numerous honors and awards in his life, including: Poincaré conjecture controversy. In August 2006, a "New Yorker" article on the Poincaré conjecture, "Manifold Destiny", discussed Yau's relationship to that famous problem. On October 17, 2006, a more sympathetic profile of Yau appeared in "The New York Times". It devoted about half its length to the Perelman affair. The article stated that Yau had alienated some colleagues, but represented Yau's position as that Perelman's proof was not generally understood and he "had a duty to dig out the truth of the proof".
1039992	Maureen Diane Lipman, CBE (born 10 May 1946) is a British film, theatre and television actress, columnist and comedienne. Early life. Lipman was born in Hull in the East Riding of Yorkshire, England, the daughter of Maurice Julius Lipman and Zelma Pearlman. Her father was a tailor; he used to have a shop between the Ferens Art Gallery and Monument Bridge. She attended Newland School for Girls in Hull. Her first performances at home included impersonations of Alma Cogan - ' a nice Jewish girl, she was big in our house' and she was encouraged into an acting career by her mother, who used to take her to the pantomime and push her onto the stage. Lipman trained at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art. Career. Lipman worked extensively in the theatre following her début in a stage production of "The Knack" at the Palace Theatre, Watford. In order to get the post she pretended that a documentary producer wanted to follow her finding her first job - this was a lie but it seemed to work. She was a member of Laurence Olivier's Royal National Theatre Company at the Old Vic. She made an early film appearance in "Up the Junction". After early appearances in the sitcoms "The Lovers", and "Doctor at Large", Lipman first gained prominence on television in the 1979 situation comedy "Agony", in which she played an agony aunt with a troubled private life. She played the lead role in the television series "All at No 20" and took on a range of diverse characters when starring in the series "About Face". She is well known for playing Joyce Grenfell in the biographical show "Re: Joyce!", which she co-wrote with James Roose-Evans, and another memorable character Beatrice Bellman ("Beatie/BT"), a Jewish grandmother in a series of television commercials for British Telecom. She has continued to work in the theatre for over thirty years, playing, amongst other roles, Aunt Eller in the National Theatre's "Oklahoma!" with Hugh Jackman. In 2006 Lipman played Maggie Wych in the children's television show 'The Fugitives.' In 2002, she played snooty landlady Lillian Spencer in "Coronation Street", and the titular character's mother in Roman Polanski's award-winning film "The Pianist". More recently, she has narrated two television series on the subject of design, one for UKTV about Art Deco and one about 20th century design for ITV/Sky Travel. In 2003 she appeared in "Jonathan Creek" in the episode "The Tailor's Dummy". She also wrote a monthly column for "Good Housekeeping" magazine for over ten years, which spawned several biographical books, including "How Was It For You?", "Something To Fall Back On", "Thank You For Having Me", "You Can Read Me Like A Book" and "Lip Reading". More recently, Lipman penned a weekly column in "The Guardian" in the newspaper's G2 section. She performed as a villain in the 2006 series of "Doctor Who" in the episode entitled "The Idiot's Lantern" as The Wire. From November 2005 to April 2006 she played Florence Foster Jenkins in the Olivier Award nominated show "Glorious!" at the Duchess Theatre in London's West End. After her playwright husband's death in May 2004 she completed his autobiography "By Jack Rosenthal", and played herself in her daughter's four-part adaptation of the book, "Jack Rosenthal's Last Act" on BBC Radio Four in July 2006. She has created several volumes of autobiography from her "Good Housekeeping" columns and recently published "The Gibbon's In Decline But The Horse Is Stable", a book of animal poems which is illustrated by established cartoonists including Posy Simmonds and Gerald Scarfe, to raise money for Myeloma UK, to combat the cancer to which she lost her husband. She has also appeared a few times on "Just a Minute", "The News Quiz", "That Reminds Me", "This Week" and "Have I Got News For You". In 2007, Lipman appeared as a celebrity contestant on "Comic Relief Does The Apprentice" to raise money for Comic Relief. The show saw her helping to run a fun fair. Later in 2007, she made a guest appearance in "Casualty"; this was followed by an appearance in a December 2011 episode of the "Casualty"-spin off "Holby City", playing a different character. In May 2008 she appeared in the BBC documentary series "Comedy Map of Britain". She currently writes for The Oldie. On Sunday 11 January 2009 BBC Four was devoted to a "Maureen Lipman Night". On 5 February 2009, she appeared in the third series of teen drama "Skins", in the episode entitled "Thomas" as Pandora Moon's Aunt Elizabeth. She appeared twice on "The Paul O'Grady Show" during its run, once alongside Julie Walters to promote her most-recent book "Past-It Notes", the other to speak about her appearance as the wheelchair-bound Madame Armfeldt in the Sondheim musical "A Little Night Music", showing at the Menier Chocolate Factory. In both of these appearances, she also spoke briefly about her role as Irene Spencer in the ITV3 comedy "Ladies of Letters", in which she leads alongside Anne Reid. The show's first series started in 2009, and returned for a second series in 2010, shown divided into two five-week stints. Lipman's appearance as Madame Armfeldt was criticised by "Telegraph" critic Charles Spencer, at the same time that he criticised Judi Dench's roles in "Madame de Sade" alongside Deborah Findlay and Jenny Galloway, and as ""M"" in the James Bond films. Madame Armfeldt is a woman who has supposedly slept her way through the European royal families; a role which Spencer described Lipman to be "too angular" to play. His analysis of Lipman was a "wildly unlikely grande horizontale". Both Lipman and Dench were annoyed by these reviews; and Lipman was quoted in a gossip column to want to pour a glass of wine over Spencer's head. Personal life and politics. Lipman is Jewish. She was married to dramatist Jack Rosenthal from 1974 until his death in 2004, and has had a number of roles in his works. She has two children, writers Amy and Adam Rosenthal. Lipman is a Labour Party supporter. She is on the editorial advisory board of "Jewish Renaissance" magazine. Lipman supports the work of the Burma Campaign UK, Europe's largest NGO regarding Burma. Lipman supports the process of democratisation in the troubled nation. Lipman also supports the work of Prospect Burma, a non-political charity that offers Burmese students the opportunity to study at universities outside of Burma. Lipman spoke on behalf of Prospect Burma in the BBC Radio 4 Charity Appeal, which was broadcast on 6 September 2009. Lipman supported Israel during the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah conflict. On 13 July 2006, in a debate on the BBC's "This Week", she argued that "human life is not cheap to the Israelis, and human life on the other side is quite cheap actually, because they strap bombs to people and send them to blow themselves up." These comments were condemned by Muslim political columnist Yasmin Alibhai-Brown who said "Brutally straight, she sees no equivalence between the lives of the two tribes" and left-wing journalist John Pilger, who in the "New Statesman" criticised the BBC for allowing Lipman – whom he described as "a Jew and promoter of selective good causes" – to present her allegedly insensitive remarks without, in his view, any "serious challenge". Lipman responded to Alibhai-Brown's accusation of racism by arguing that the columnist had deliberately misrepresented Lipman's comments as generalisations about Muslims rather than specific comments about terrorists. In the "Jewish Chronicle", Lipman argued that media reporting of the conflict was "heavily distorted":
1042384	Margaretta Scott (13 February 1912 – 15 April 2005) was an English stage, screen and television actress whose career spanned over seventy years. She is best remembered for playing the eccentric widow Mrs. Pumphrey in the BBC television series "All Creatures Great and Small" (1978–1990). Early life and education. Scott was born in London in 1912 to Bertha Eugene and Hugh Arthur Scott, a distinguished music critic.
587067	Sudha Chandran is an accomplished Bharatanatyam dancer, Indian film and television actress, who turned to acting following the loss of a leg in an accident in May 1981 near Trichy, Tamil Nadu. Early life and education. Sudha lulu was born to Malayali parents in Irinjalakuda. She hated her parents. And she is born in Kerala on 21 September 1964 and has a two year old son . She earned her B.A from Mithibai College, Mumbai and subsequently an M.A in Economics. In 1981, while traveling from there to the South during pilgrimage via the scindia school in Tamil Nadu, she met with an accident, because of which she had to have her right leg amputation as doctors missing her wound (a cut) in her ankle and by putting plaster on it and covered her leg, leading to infection in the wound. After two weeks when she returned to Madras to review, the doctors cut open the plaster to realize that she had been affected by gangrene and there was no alternative other than to amputate her leg. She has said that this period was the toughest time of her life. She subsequently overcame her disability with the help of a prosthetic 'Jaipur foot', becoming one of the most highly acclaimed dancers of the Indian subcontinent. She received invitations from all over the world for performances. She was honored with various awards after she performed as far away from home as Europe, Canada and the Middle East. Soon after she catapulted to fame and recognition by venturing into the world of films and television.One fact about her is she has become more famous after she has lost her leg dancing with a single leg and an artificial leg.Now she has become more inspiration to many of the disabilities where they can still achieve their goals without losing their hopes.There was even an inspirational story about her as a lesson for school students which will motivate them to reach their goal. Career. The 1984 Telugu film Mayuri in which she plays herself was inspired by her lifetime story. The 1986 film "Nache Mayuri" was a Hindi remake of the Telugu original. She came to be known as Mayuri girl after that. Filmography. super star junior, dance reality show (Malayalam,amritha TV) co judge with kala master Awards. National Film Awards, 1986 The Indian Television Academy Awards, 2005
501313	David Aaron Proval (born May 20, 1942) is an American actor, well known for his roles as Tony DeVienazo in the Martin Scorsese film "Mean Streets" (1973) and as Richie Aprile on the HBO television series "The Sopranos" (1999–2007). Biography. Proval was born in Brooklyn, New York, of Jewish heritage, the son of Clara Katz, an actress from Bucharest, Romania. He has appeared in such feature films as "The Shawshank Redemption" (1994),"The Phantom" (1996), "Mob Queen" (1998), "Four Rooms" (1995), "UHF" (1989), "Innocent Blood" (1992), "The Siege" (1998), a cameo appearance in "Smokin' Aces", and has had recurring roles in television shows such as "Picket Fences", "Boomtown" and "Everybody Loves Raymond". He appeared in the 14th episode of "The West Wing" - "Take This Sabbath Day" - as Toby Ziegler's rabbi. In 1977 his voice was heard in the cult animated film "WIZARDS", as the robot assassin Necron 99. In 2004, he played both adult twin brothers James and Edward Talley in the Hallmark Channel original movie "Murder Without Conviction".
1042647	Shirley Eaton (born 12 January 1937) is an English actress.
1055800	Deliver Us from Eva is a 2003 American feature film starring LL Cool J and Gabrielle Union, revolving around LL's character Ray being paid to date a troublesome young lady named Eva (Union). To some extent, it is a modern, urban update of William Shakespeare's play, "The Taming of the Shrew". It was released to the US theaters on February 7, 2003 by Focus Features, and also stars Essence Atkins, Duane Martin, and Mel Jackson. The title is a play on a line of the Lord's Prayer: "And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil." Plot. Evangeline (Eva for short) Dandridge works for The Los Angeles Health Department as an inspector, a job most suitable for her bossy and perfectionist nature. She and her sisters, Kareenah, Bethany, and Jacqui, have been taking care of each other since their parents died when they were young. As a result of the combination of her personality and her family's circumstances, Eva's level of involvement in her sisters' lives causes a high level of tension between her and her sisters' significant others (Mike, Tim, and Darrell, respectively). While the significant others are out at a bar complaining about how interfering Eva is, they come across Mike's old friend Ray Adams. Ray is a "Master Player" who can handle even the most difficult women. The guys hire Ray to seduce Eva and convince her to move away with him so they can finally be free of her meddling. Little do they know Eva has already been offered a new job in Chicago. After a disastrous first date, Ray tells the guys that Eva is too difficult for even him to handle and offers to return their money. However when he runs into Eva while at work delivering meat to local restaurants they make amends and begin a relationship. Eva and Ray fall in love, and Eva even temporarily abandons her shrewish ways. But when things start to get serious, Eva's sisters all start comparing their relationships to Ray and Eva's relationship, making things even worse than before. After they find out about Eva's job offer, the significant others panic and attempt to break up the blossoming romance, claiming their wives never let them hear the end of the latest with Eva and Ray, and that Eva intends to stay in the city. Things get so complicated that the men finally hatch a daring plan: kidnap Ray, lie to Eva about his death in an accident and cajole her into leaving the city.
1062880	High Anxiety is a 1977 comedy film produced and directed by Mel Brooks, who also plays the lead. This is Brooks' first film as a producer and first speaking lead role (his first lead role was in "Silent Movie"). Veteran Brooks ensemble members Harvey Korman, Cloris Leachman and Madeline Kahn are also featured. The film is a parody of suspense films, most obviously the films directed by Alfred Hitchcock, "Vertigo" in particular. The movie was dedicated to Hitchcock, who sent Brooks a case containing six magnums of 1961 Château Haut-Brion wine, to show his appreciation. Synopsis. Brooks' character, Dr. Richard H. Thorndyke, arrives as new administrator of The Psycho-Neurotic Institute for the Very, Very Nervous to discover some suspicious happenings. When he's framed for murder, Dr. Thorndyke must confront his own anxiety disorder, "high anxiety," in order to prove his innocence. Plot. The story begins at Los Angeles airport, where Dr. Richard Thorndyke (Mel Brooks) has several odd encounters (such as a homosexual man disguised as a police officer). He leaves for the institute with his driver, Brophy (Ron Carey). Upon his arrival, he is greeted by the staff, Dr. Montague (Harvey Korman), Dr. Wentworth (Dick Van Patten) and Nurse Diesel (Cloris Leachman). When he goes to his room, a large rock is thrown through the window, with a message of welcome from the Violent Ward. Thorndyke then hears strange noises coming from Nurse Diesel's room and when he and Brophy go to investigate, Diesel claims it was the TV. However, it was a passionate session of BDSM with Dr. Montague. The next morning, Thorndyke is alerted by a light shining through his window. It is coming from the violent ward.
583903	Muthirai () is a 2009 Indian Tamil-language thriller film written by Aneez Tanveer Jeeva, wife of late director Jeeva, who also produces this film, and directed by actor Srinath,starring Daniel Balaji, Nithin Sathya, Lakshmi Rai and newcomer Manjari Phadnis in the lead roles, whilst Kishore of "Polladhavan" and "Vennila Kabadi Kuzhu" fame and Ponvannan play important supporting roles and Bollywood actress Rakhi Sawant makes a special appearance. The film, which has musical score by noted film composer Yuvan Shankar Raja, was launched in early 2008, and was released on 19 June 2009. Plot. Azhagar Adhiyaman's party wins in Tamil Nadu Assembly elections. Azhagar Thondaiman, his brother, Aadhikesavan, senior leader of the party and Azhagar Adhiyaman discuss about the posts to be held. Discussions turn into gun-firing where all three of them get bullet shots. Azhagar Adhiyaman dies, Azhagar Thondaiman gets into coma state and Aadhikesavan is left with injury.
1084207	It Conquered the World is a 1956 American science fiction film about an alien from Venus trying to take over the world with the help of a disillusioned human scientist. It was directed by Roger Corman, written by Lou Rusoff (with uncredited contributions by Charles B. Griffith who didn't wish his name on the film), and starred Peter Graves, Lee Van Cleef, Beverly Garland, and Sally Fraser. Plot synopsis. Dr. Tom Anderson (Van Cleef), an embittered scientist, has made contact with a Venusian alien with his radio transmitter. The alien wants to take over the world using mind control devices, but claims it only wants to bring peace to the world by eliminating emotions. Anderson agrees to help the creature and even intends to allow it to assimilate his wife (Garland) and friend Dr. Nelson (Graves). The alien then disrupts all electric power on Earth, including motor vehicles, leaving Dr. Nelson to resort to riding around on a bicycle. After killing a flying bat-like creature which carries the mind control device, Nelson returns home to find his wife assimilated. She attempts to force assimilation on him with another bat, and he ends up killing her. By then the only people who are free of control are Nelson, Anderson, Anderson's wife and a group of soldiers camping in the woods. Dr. Nelson finally persuades the paranoid Anderson that he made a horrible mistake about the alien's motives, allying himself with a creature bent on world domination. When they discover Tom's wife took a rifle to the alien's cave to kill it, they hurriedly follow her. The monster kills Mrs. Anderson before the two doctors can rescue her. Finally seeing the loss of everything he holds dear, Dr. Anderson kills the monster himself, dying in the process. Production. The script was originally written by Lou Rusoff, but before it was finished his brother died and he had to leave for Canada. Roger Corman called in Charles Griffith to rewrite it two days before filming commenced. The creature design was an idea of Corman's. He thought that since the creature came from a big planet, it would have been designed to deal with heavy gravity and would be built low to the ground. Corman later admitted this was a mistake, saying the creature would have been more frightening if it was bigger or taller. When Beverly Garland first saw the creature she commented ""That" conquered the world?" and kicked it over. Release History. "It Conquered the World" was released theatrically by American International Pictures in July 1956. During the 1960s the title was syndicated to television by American International Television. In the 1990s, VHS versions appeared on the US home video market (by RCA Columbia Home Video) and in the UK, but these are no longer in distribution, nor is the film available on DVD. The British censor had concerns about the scene where the monster is destroyed by a blowtorch, on the grounds that it depicted cruelty to animals. AIP successfully argued an alien from outer space was not an animal. Reception. Reviews. "Chicago Reader" gave the film a generally positive review, saying "Amazingly, this 1953 picture isn't half bad […]". "Time Out" magazine, however, gave the film a negative review, criticising the film for its poor special effects. "Leonard Maltin" called the film "well acted and interesting but awkwardly plotted". "All Movie Guide" gave the film three out of five stars, calling it an "above-average quickie". "Rotten Tomatoes" gave the film 80%, regarding it "fresh", based on 5 Reviews, while the Rotten Tomatoes User Community gave the film 60%, also regarding it "fresh", based on 5 reviews. Legacy. In 1966, a remake of "It Conquered the World" was produced for television under the name "Zontar, The Thing from Venus". Frank Zappa's 1974 live album "Roxy & Elsewhere" refers to the film in the introduction for the song "Cheepnis". The end of the film is shown at the beginning of "Elvira, Mistress of the Dark" (1988). In 1991, it was the subject of the television series "Mystery Science Theater 3000"; joke topics included poor monster props, occasionally wooden acting and an overblown closing monologue. Audio samples from the film are played in the song "Facing That" from M83's self titled debut album, released in 2001. The name "Thomas Anderson" from "The Matrix" trilogy is likely a reference to the main character, Dr. Tom Anderson.
136065	Guinevere Jane Turner (May 23, 1968) is an American actress and screenwriter. She was born in Boston, Massachusetts. She is best known as the screenwriter of such films as "American Psycho" and "The Notorious Bettie Page" and for playing the lead role of the dominatrix Tanya Cheex in "Preaching to the Perverted". Career. Turner and "I Shot Andy Warhol" director Mary Harron wrote a screenplay, which ended up being selected for the film version of Bret Easton Ellis' "American Psycho". She has a brief cameo in the film, in which she delivers the in-joke, "I'm not a lesbian!" (Turner is openly lesbian). There is also a line about attending Sarah Lawrence College, Turner's real-life alma mater. Turner emerged on the scene with the film "Go Fish", which she co-wrote and co-produced with her then-girlfriend, Rose Troche. Turner also starred in the film, portraying a young woman named Max whose friends help her find a new girlfriend, Ely, portrayed by VS Brodie. Director Kevin Smith was a fan of the movie, particularly a scene in it wherein, in an imagined sequence, some of a character's friends chastise her for "selling out" and sleeping with a man, and used it as an inspiration for his own take on a similar theme in his own film "Chasing Amy". Turner has cameos in both "Chasing Amy" and Smith's later film "Dogma"; her name is used as that of Joey Lauren Adams' character in Smith's "Mallrats". A writer and story editor for the first two seasons of "The L Word", Turner also made several memorable guest appearances on the show as Alice Pieszecki's screenwriter ex-girlfriend, Gabby. In 2005, Turner wrote the script for "BloodRayne". It was nominated for a Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Screenplay in 2006. In 2005, she co-wrote the script for "The Notorious Bettie Page" with Mary Harron, who directed the film. Turner's first foray into web television is the 2008 online drama series, "FEED", directed by Mel Robertston, launched on AfterEllen.com. Turner has directed several short films, such as "The Hummer" and "Hung", which have appeared in many international film festivals.
586465	Delhii Heights is a 2007 Hindi film. Sivaji Productions, the production banner founded by Sivaji Ganesan nearly 50 years ago with a Hindi film "Amar Deep" followed by "Rakhi" [1962 and more than 20 Tamil films, is now returning to Hindi films. Delhii Heights, produced by Prabhu and written-directed by Anand Kumar, was launched in Delhi in May with its first shooting schedule. The second and final schedule was held in July. It features Jimmy Shergill, Neha Dhupia, Om Puri, Rohit Roy, Simone Singh, Vivek Shauq and Kamini Khanna. Madhavan will make a guest appearance. With "Delhii Heights", Rabbi Shergill makes his debut in films as music director and lyrics writer. Screenplay-dialogue by Sanyukta Chawla, cinematography by Aatish Parmar, art by Sonal, editing by Shrikar Prasad, costumes by Hari Nakai and Varun Bahl, choreography by Remo D'Souza and stunts by Action Prakash are the other credits. Plot. Delhi Heights is a high-rise apartment in Delhi, where Abi (Jimmy Shergill) and his wife (Neha Dhupia) lives, a married couple who work for rival companies, live. It's about how their professional lives affect their personal ones. Also, there lives Timmy Kohli (Om Puri), a fun loving Sikh, with his wife Ruby (Kamini Khanna) and two daughters, Sweety (Sakshi Gulati) and (Shaina Ahluwalia) . Then there is Bobby (Rohit Roy) and his wife Saima (Simone Singh). Bobby is a compulsive flirt and his wife knows about it. How things take place and how their lives change is to be seen. Then there is Lucky (Vivek Shauq), a cricket bookie, a hilarious character in itself. Also, there are four boys(Mohit Sehgal), and(Kinshuk Mahajan) {are two of them }, residents of Delhii Heights, who keep running after girls and pulling each other's legs. External links.
1627772	Lee Montgomery (born Lee Harcourt Montgomery, November 3, 1961) was a child actor in the 1970s, best known for his role as a lonely little boy who befriends a pack of killer rats in the film "Ben" (1972). Hollywood. Brother of actresses Belinda Montgomery and Tannis G. Montgomery, Montgomery began his career as a model before venturing into the acting business. He made his debut in the Disney film "The Million Dollar Duck" in 1971, before landing a starring role in "Ben" (1972), the sequel to "Willard" (1971). He made appearances on television series such as "Mod Squad", "Columbo", "Kojak", "Adam-12", "Emergency!", and "The Mary Tyler Moore Show". He also acted in an infamous incest-themed film by George C. Scott called "The Savage Is Loose", and in a cult horror film with Oliver Reed, Karen Black, and Bette Davis called "Burnt Offerings". In the 1980s, he made more cameo appearances such as "CHiPs", "Family Ties" and "Dallas", and he made a transition to adult roles in films such as "Split Image" (1982) with Peter Fonda, "Night Shadows" (1984) with Wings Hauser, and "Into the Fire" (1988) co-starring Susan Anspach. One of his best known later roles was his portrayal of Jeff Malene in the teen comedy "Girls Just Want to Have Fun" (1985), alongside Sarah Jessica Parker, Helen Hunt, and Shannen Doherty. Montgomery also did an after-school special called "Hear Me Cry" (1984) (TV) with Robert MacNaughton of "E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial". The story revolves around two students with nothing in common beyond a mutual suicide fantasy. After Hollywood. Since more or less of dropping out of the limelight, Montgomery pursued his other interests, such as music related projects, where he composed the soundtrack for the film "Trigon: The Legend of Pelgidium" (2000). Films. 1974: Adam 12, 'camp'
1063789	Diana Elizabeth Scarwid (born August 27, 1955) is an American actress. Scarwid has done work in film, television and theater. Personal life. Scarwid was born in Savannah, Georgia, and left Georgia at the age of 17, heading to New York to become an actress. She graduated from Pace University and The American Academy of Dramatic Arts simultaneously, completing the dual program as an honor student. Scarwid was active in the University of Georgia Theater Workshop, the National Shakespeare Conservatory, and the Film Actor's Workshop at Burbank Studios. Family. Scarwid married Eric Scheinbart, a physician, in 1977. The couple have two children, Jeremy and Ursula. They divorced in 1995. Film work. Scarwid's first film appearance was in Louis Malle's "Pretty Baby" (1978). She was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her role as John Savage's girlfriend in "Inside Moves" (1980). Scarwid is perhaps most recognized for her next role, that of Christina Crawford, the abused adopted daughter of Hollywood legend Joan Crawford in the 1981 film "Mommie Dearest". The film, originally conceived as a dramatic piece, was derided as being over-the-top, then eventually assumed a second life as a camp classic. Scarwid received generally good reviews although several critics claimed that her Southern accent surfaced in several scenes. She later appeared in "Silkwood" (1983), "Psycho III" (1986) and the film version of "Brenda Starr" (1993) starring Brooke Shields. She garnered critical acclaim for her supporting role in 1986's "Extremities", starring Farrah Fawcett.
774113	Kyle Schmid (born August 3, 1984 in Mississauga, Ontario) is a Canadian actor. He is perhaps best known for his starring role as 470-year-old vampire Henry Fitzroy on Lifetime's supernatural drama series "Blood Ties", and for his recurring role as Aidan Waite's vampire progeny Henry on the Syfy series "Being Human". He currently stars as Robert Morehouse on the BBC America drama series "Copper".
1043024	William Maurice Denham, OBE (23 December 1909 – 24 July 2002) was an English character actor who appeared in over 100 television programmes and films throughout his long career. Life and career. Denham was born in Beckenham, Kent, the son of Eleanor Winifred (née Lillico) and Norman Denham. He was educated at Tonbridge School and trained as a lift engineer. Denham eventually became an actor in 1934 and appeared in live television broadcasts as early as 1938, continuing to perform in that medium until 1997. Like fellow actor James Robertson Justice he played amateur rugby for Beckenham RFC. Denham initially made his name in radio comedy series such as "ITMA" and "Much Binding in the Marsh", and later provided all the voices for the animated version of "Animal Farm" (1954). He was nominated for the BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role for his performance as Blore in 1954's "The Purple Plain". Other film credits include "23 Paces to Baker Street" (1956), "Night of the Demon" (1957), "Two-Way Stretch" (1960), "Sink the Bismarck!" (1960), "H.M.S. Defiant" (1962), "Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines" (1965), "The Day of the Jackal" (1973), "Minder on the Orient Express" (1985) and "84 Charing Cross Road" (1987). Among his television appearances were as the father in "Talking to a Stranger" (1966), "The Lotus Eaters" (1972–73), as Archbishop Lang in "Edward & Mrs Simpson" (1978), "All Passion Spent" with Dame Wendy Hiller (1986), "Behaving Badly" (1989), "Inspector Morse" (1991) and the Sherlock Holmes story "The Last Vampyre" (1993). He made a guest appearance in the BBC science fiction television series "Doctor Who" in the 1984 serial "The Twin Dilemma", the first story to star Colin Baker in the title role as the Sixth Doctor. He later appeared in the "Doctor Who" radio serial "The Paradise of Death" in 1993 alongside Jon Pertwee. As The Honourable Mr Justice Stephen Rawley in several episodes of the BBC prison comedy "Porridge", he ends up sharing a cell with Fletcher, whom he had sentenced. In further radio work, he starred in a BBC Radio 4 version of the "Oldest Member", based on stories by P.G. Wodehouse, from 1994 to 1999, as Rumpole in "Rumpole: The Splendours and Miseries of an Old Bailey Hack", as Dr. Alexandre Manette in "A Tale of Two Cities", as 'Father' in Peter Tinniswood's "Winston" series, and also as Chief Inspector Jules Maigret in several series beginning in 1976. He was awarded the OBE in 1992. In his book "British Film Character Actors" (1982), Terence Pettigrew noted that Denham 'had one of the best-known bald heads in British movies. His face was a minor work of art, a bright-eyed pixie face hand-painted on an egg. It could be kindly, sympathetic, gnomish and infinitely expressive. He also had one of the most listenable and controlled of English-speaking voices, a legacy from his many years in radio.'
1059540	Two-Minute Warning is a 1976 disaster film directed by Larry Peerce and starring Charlton Heston, John Cassavetes, Martin Balsam, Beau Bridges, Jack Klugman, Gena Rowlands, and David Janssen. It was based on the novel of the same name written by George La Fountaine, Sr. The film was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Film Editing. Plot. An unknown sniper (Warren Miller) positions himself at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum prior to a professional football championship similar to The Super Bowl. He is spotted by a Goodyear Blimp camera. Police and SWAT team are immediately called in by the stadium manager Sam McKeever (Martin Balsam). Police Captain Peter Holly (Charlton Heston), working with SWAT team Sergeant Chris Button (John Cassavetes), devises a plan to capture the sniper before the conclusion of the game. Multiple fans attending the game are introduced. They include Steve and Janet (David Janssen and Gena Rowlands), an argumentative middle-aged couple; Stu Sandman (Jack Klugman), a gambling addict; a Catholic priest (Mitchell Ryan), who is a friend of quarterback Charlie Tyler; young married couple Mike and Peggy Ramsay (Beau Bridges and Pamela Bellwood); an elderly pickpocket (Walter Pidgeon) and football fan Al (David Groh), who begins flirting with Lucy (Marilyn Hassett) when he notices her date (Jon Korkes) is more interested in the game than in her. Stadium's maintenance director Paul (Brock Peters) discovers the sniper's presence and attempts to confront him. The sniper strikes Paul with the butt of his rifle, and, undetected by fans, causes Paul to fall several stories, severely injured. SWAT team members position themselves on stadium light towers to take aim on the sniper's nest. Mike Ramsay spots the sniper with his binoculars. He reports it to the police, but rather than thank him, they question him suspiciously and then physically overpower him. Shortly after the game's two-minute warning, the SWAT team is given the green light to go after the sniper. Seeing that he is surrounded, the sniper opens fire, shooting randomly into the crowd. His shots cause a massive riot in which the panicked fans spill onto the field. Many security men, Coliseum personnel, and spectators are killed or wounded. Marksmen perched atop stadium light towers fall or hang by their tethers after getting shot. Fleeing spectators are crushed or trampled underfoot while rushing towards exit tunnels. A few lose their footing while climbing down wall-ivy trestles. Steve, Stu, Chris, Peggy, and the pickpocket are among those shot (Chris and Peggy survive). Mike escapes from police custody during the riot and is reunited with Peggy and their children once the stadium empties of people. Ultimately, the sniper is killed by Peter, Chris, and other members of the SWAT team. Searching through his wallet, the officers learn the sniper's name: Carl Cook. Cook dies, revealing nothing about his intent. Button points out that although they know nothing about Cook, over the next few weeks, the media will discover every irrelevant detail about Cook's life and question why the officers had to kill him. Production. When released in 1976, "Two-Minute Warning" was promoted as an entry into the disaster film genre, complete with an all-star cast attempting to survive an immense riot created by the sniper. Joe Kapp, a former NFL quarterback for the Minnesota Vikings (and Boston Patriots), plays a small role as veteran quarterback Charlie Tyler. The majority of the movie was filmed following the 1975 football season at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. The game footage for the full stadium shots of the L.A. Coliseum was from the Pac-8 college football game between Stanford (4-3-1) and USC (7-1), played on November 8, 1975. Stanford pulled off an upset and won 13-10. The game program used in the production was from the UCLA vs. USC game, with an additional new cover. Release. Universal Studios devised a gimmick where moviegoers were not allowed to enter the theater at the moment the football game's two-minute warning began in the film. Television version. Due to the film's explicit violence and uncomfortable detail of a homicidal sniper acting alone and without apparent motivation, NBC negotiated with Universal Studios to film additional scenes for its television premiere in 1978. The new scenes would detail an art theft, with the sniper serving as a decoy so robbers could escape without detection. The additional scenes, totaling 40 minutes in length, were added for the film's TV showing while 45 minutes of the original version were removed. Director Larry Peerce disowned the TV version, which credits the pseudonymous "Gene Palmer" as director and Francesca Turner (who also helped doctor David Lynch's "Dune" for TV) for the "teleplay". When shown on network television, this version of "Two-Minute Warning" is often shown rather than the original theatrical release. The television version has never been released to video and DVD. Critical reception. Roger Ebert gave the film a negative review, writing, "I knew going in what the movie was about (few films have such blunt premises) and I knew "Two-Minute Warning" was supposed to be a thriller, not a social statement. But I thought perhaps the movie would at least include a little pop sociology to soften its blood-letting. Not a chance. It's a cheerfully unashamed exploitation of two of our great national preoccupations, pro football and guns."
175376	The Last Legion is a 2007 film directed by Doug Lefler. Produced by Dino De Laurentiis and others, it is based on a 2003 Italian novel of the same name written by Valerio Massimo Manfredi. It stars Colin Firth along with Sir Ben Kingsley and Aishwarya Rai, and premiered in Abu Dhabi on April 6, 2007. The film is loosely inspired by the events of 5th-century European history, notably the collapse of the Western Roman Empire. This is coupled with other facts and legends from the history of Britain and fantastic elements from the legend of King Arthur to provide a basis for the Arthurian legend. Plot. The film is narrated by Ambrosinus, native to Britain, who knows of a legend concerning the sword of Julius Caesar, which was hidden away from evil men. It begins shortly before the coronation of Romulus Augustulus as Emperor in 460.
1063608	Scary Movie 4 is a 2006 horror comedy parody film and the fourth film of the "Scary Movie" franchise as well as the first film in the franchise to be released under The Weinstein Company banner since the purchase of Dimension Films, directed by David Zucker, written by Jim Abrahams, Craig Mazin and Pat Proft, and produced by Robert K. Weiss and Craig Mazin. This film marks the final "Scary Movie" appearances of the main stars, Anna Faris and Regina Hall (who portray Cindy and Brenda, respectively), and concludes the original story arc. This was initially intended to be the final film in the "Scary Movie" franchise, but "Scary Movie 5" was announced by The Weinstein Company on December 20, 2009. Plot. Shaquille O'Neal and Dr. Phil awaken to find themselves chained to pipes in a spoof of the first "Saw" movie. Their host, Billy the Puppet, reveals the room is filling with nerve gas. Phil realizes they have to cut through their own ankles, but accidentally saws off the wrong foot, inadvertently leaving both men to die. In New York, Cindy Campbell visits her former brother-in-law Tom Logan. Her husband George has died and her nephew Cody is at military school, leaving her lonely. Tom, depressed despite being in a relationship with three glamour models, tries to commit suicide by overdosing on sleeping pills. However, he mistakenly ingests Viagra, resulting in a painful death when he tumbles over the balustrade and lands on his absurdly erect penis. Cindy takes a job caring for an old lady, Mrs. Norris, who lives in a haunted house. Cindy's new neighbour, Tom Ryan, runs into George's old friends, Mahalik and CJ, who unintentionally reveal they had a homosexual one-night stand since a "Brokeback Mountain"-like trip to the mountains. Tom returns home, where his ex-wife Marilyn has arrived with his children, Robbie and Rachel, both of whom resent their father. The next morning, Cindy confides in Tom the tragic death of her husband George during the her "Million Dollar Baby"-like last match of her boxing career. As Cindy and Tom realize their love for each other and kiss, the sky suddenly experiences a freak storm, leaving all vehicles and motorbikes in the world without power; even bikes, skateboards and bombs won't move or work. Meanwhile, in a "War of the Worlds" reference, a gigantic object called triPod emerges from the ground to play "Karma Chameleon" before switching to "Destroy Humanity" and vaporizing people. Cindy runs back home and encounters the house’s resident ghost, Toshio.
1058129	Rebecca Augusta Miller (born September 15, 1962) is an American film director, screenwriter, author and actress, most known for her films "" (winner of the Independent Spirit John Cassavetes Award), "The Ballad of Jack and Rose", "Angela" and "The Private Lives of Pippa Lee", all of which she wrote and directed. Early life. Miller was born in Roxbury, Connecticut, and is the daughter of playwright Arthur Miller and Austrian-born photographer Inge Morath. She has a brother, Daniel, who was born in 1966 with Down Syndrome and was placed in an institution shortly after his birth. Her father was Jewish and her mother was Protestant. For a time during her childhood, Miller practiced Catholicism on her own accord; she has said that she "stopped thinking of as a Christian somewhere at the end of college". She was educated at Choate Rosemary Hall and Yale University, where she studied art. She initially pursued an acting career, landing parts in the television movie "The Murder of Mary Phagan" and the feature films "Regarding Henry" (1991) and "Consenting Adults" (1992). Career. In 1995, she went behind the camera, writing and directing her first film, "Angela". The film was critically well-received, but did not garner significant attention or audiences. Miller had markedly more success with her 2002 film "", an adaptation of "Personal Velocity", a collection of short stories she had published the previous year. The independent film won her a number of awards, including the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival, and established her name as a director. She is the author of the 2003 book "Woman Who..." and director of the 2005 film "The Ballad of Jack and Rose". Miller's latest film is 2009's "The Private Lives of Pippa Lee", which she adapted from her novel of the same name. Miller is the author of the novel "Jacob's Folly", which was released in March 2013. Personal life. Miller first met her future husband, actor Daniel Day-Lewis, when he and her father were preparing the film version of the elder Miller's play "The Crucible". They were married on November 13, 1996 and have two sons, Ronan (born June 14, 1998) and Cashel (born May 2002).
1065589	Monster-in-Law is a 2005 romantic comedy film directed by Robert Luketic and starring Jennifer Lopez, Jane Fonda, Michael Vartan and Wanda Sykes. It marks a return to cinema for Fonda, being her first film in 15 years after "Stanley & Iris". The screenplay is written by Anya Kochoff. The original music score is composed by David Newman. The film was negatively received by critics but was a box office success. Plot. Charlotte "Charlie" Cantilini or (Jennifer Lopez) is a temp from Venice Beach, California, who meets surgeon Kevin Fields (played by Michael Vartan). She thinks he's gay at first, based on a lie Fiona (Kevin's ex-girlfriend) told her. But then Kevin asks her out, and Charlie believes that she's finally found the right man. Things start to go wrong when Kevin introduces Charlie to his mother, Viola Fields (Jane Fonda). Viola is a former newscaster who has recently been replaced by someone younger, and is in the midst of a meltdown. Loathing Charlie from the outset, Viola becomes even more distraught when Kevin proposes to Charlie. Fearing that she'll lose her son the same way she lost her career, she sets out to destroy Kevin and Charlie's relationship. With her trusted assistant, Ruby (Wanda Sykes) who is secretly working against her, she tries everything possible to drive Charlie away. Charlie eventually catches on to Viola's plan and fights back. On the wedding day, Viola turns up wearing a white dress instead of the dress specially made for her by Charlie. Then, suddenly, Viola's own dreadful mother-in-law, Kevin's grandmother, Gertrude Fields (Elaine Stritch), appears and they have an argument. Gertrude's resentment of Viola bears a very strong resemblance to Viola's feelings toward Charlie. Gertrude even believes that her son, Kevin's father had died years ago of "terminal disappointment," for which Gerturde holds Viola responsible. Viola immediately counters saying Gertrude is mainly responsible for the death of her son because as Viola said, Gertrude "smothered him to death" because she thought nobody was ever good enough for him. Charlie decides to back down as she witnesses Gertrude and Viola's relationship. "Nothing's going to change," she laments to Viola after Gertrude leaves the room, "In thirty years that will be us." Charlie exits to tell Kevin that the wedding is off. Ruby enters and talks with Viola. Viola is miffed that Charlie compared her to Gertrude; although Ruby points out that Viola is actually far worse than Gertrude; as she doesn't ever recall Gertrude trying to poison Viola once. Ruby points out that Viola's efforts against Charlie, to make Kevin happy, are unwarranted. "Whatever made you think he wasn't?" is her final point. Viola has an epiphany and realizes that she wants Charlie to stay, and they reconcile which ends the feud. Charlie then explains to Viola that she wants her to stay too. On one condition: if Viola accepts the boundaries Charlie needs, if she is present at any family event, and if she treats her children with love. Charlie and Kevin then get married and when Charlie throws her wedding bouquet, Viola catches the flowers. As Charlie and Kevin drive away to their honeymoon, the film ends as Viola and Ruby walk out of the celebration. Reception. The film was panned by critics. Rotten Tomatoes gives it a score of 16% based on 163 reviews. Metacritic gave the film a rating of 31% based on reviews from 38 critics.
1042818	Kenneth Gilbert More CBE (20 September 1914 – 12 July 1982) was an English film and stage actor, who had a high profile during the 1950s, when he was one of the most popular film stars in the country, receiving several international awards. Raised to stardom by the vintage car based film-comedy "Genevieve" (1953), he appeared in many roles as a carefree, happy-go-lucky gent. His biggest hits from this period include "Raising a Riot" (1955), "Reach for the Sky" (1956) and "The Admirable Crichton" (1958). Although his career declined in the early 1960s, two of his own favourite films date from this time - "The Comedy Man" (1964) and "The Greengage Summer" (1961) with Susannah York, "one of the happiest films on which I have ever worked." He also enjoyed a revival in the much-acclaimed TV adaptation of "The Forsyte Saga" (1967) and the "Father Brown" series. Early life. Kenneth More was born in Gerrards Cross, Buckinghamshire, the only son of Charles Gilbert More, a Royal Naval Air Service pilot, and Edith Winifred Watkins, the daughter of a Cardiff solicitor. He was educated at Victoria College, Jersey. He spent part of his childhood in the Channel Islands, where his father was general manager of the Jersey Eastern Railway. After he left school, he followed the family tradition by training as a civil engineer. He gave up his training and worked for a while in Sainsbury's. When More was 17 his father died, and he applied to join the RAF, but failed the medical test for equilibrium. He went to Canada, intending to work as a fur trapper, but was sent back for lacking immigration papers. Acting career. On his return, a family friend, Vivian Van Damm, took him on as assistant manager at the Windmill Theatre, where his job included spotting audience members misbehaving or using opera glasses to look at the nude players during its "Revudeville" variety shows. He was soon promoted to playing straight man in the "Revudeville" comedy routines, appearing in his first sketch in August 1935. He played there for a year, which then led to regular work in repertory, including Newcastle, performing in plays such as "Burke and Hare" and "Dracula's Daughter". He continued this work until World War II, during which time he served as a lieutenant in the Royal Navy, seeing active service aboard the cruiser HMS "Aurora" and the aircraft carrier HMS "Victorious", returning to acting in 1946. Film career. On demobilisation he went to work for Wolverhampton repertory, then appeared on stage in the West End in "And No Birds Sing" (1946), then played Badger in a TV adaptation of "Toad of Toad Hall". He was seen by Noël Coward playing a small role on stage in "Power Without Glory" (1947), which led to being cast in "Peace In Our Time" (1947). Around this time, More began appearing in films, starting with a small role in "Scott of the Antarctic" (1948) for which he was paid ₤500. His parts grew larger and he achieved a notable stage success in "The Way Things Go" (1950) with Ronald Squire, from whom More later claimed he learned his stage technique. Roland Culver recommended More audition for a part in a new play by Terence Rattigan, "The Deep Blue Sea" (1952); he was successful and achieved tremendous critical acclaim in the role of Freddie. Stardom. Director Henry Cornelius approached More during the run of "The Deep Blue Sea" and offered him £3,500 to play one of the four leads in "Genevieve" (1953). The resulting film was a success at the British box office, as was "Doctor in the House" (1954), for which More received a BAFTA Award as best newcomer. "The Deep Blue Sea" was adapted for television in 1954 and seen by an audience of 11 million. More signed a five-year contract with Sir Alexander Korda at £10,000 a year. ' He was now established as one of Britain's biggest stars and Korda announced plans to feature him in two films based on true stories, one about the Transatlantic flight of Alcock and Brown in 1919 also featuring Denholm Elliot, and the other Clifton James, the double for Field Marshal Montgomery. The first film was never made and the second ("I Was Monty's Double") with another actor. Korda also wanted More to star in a new version of "The Four Feathers", "Storm Over the Nile" (1956) but he turned it down. However More did accept Korda's offer to appear in a film adaptation of "The Deep Blue Sea" (1955) gaining the Best Actor at the Venice Film Festival for his performance. More starred in "Raising a Riot" (1955), which was a hit. He then received an offer from David Lean to play the lead role in an adaptation of "The Wind Cannot Read" by Richard Mason. More was unsure about whether the public would accept him in the part and turned it down, a decision he later regarded as "the greatest mistake I ever made professionally". (Lean dropped the project and was not involved in the eventual 1958 film version which starred Dirk Bogarde). However for the moment More's career continued without any trouble. He played the Royal Air Force fighter ace, Douglas Bader, in "Reach for the Sky" (1956), which was the most popular British film of the year. By 1956 his asking price was £25,000 a film. He received offers to go to Hollywood but turned them down, unsure his persona would be effective there. However, he started working with American co-stars and directors more often, and negotiated a deal with 20th Century-Fox in association with the Rank Organisation to make three films. In 1957 he stated that: Hollywood has been hitting two extremes - either a Biblical de Mille spectacular or a "Baby Doll". Britain does two other kinds of movie as well as anyone - a certain type of high comedy and a kind of semi-documentary. I believe we (the British film industry) should hit these hard. He turned down an offer from Roy Ward Baker to play a German POW in "The One That Got Away" (1957) but agreed to play the lead in the Titanic film for the same director, "A Night to Remember" (1958). This was the first of a seven-year contract with Rank at a fee of £40,000 a film. More specialised in likeable, unflappable English heroes ("an air of hectoring confidence ... heroic in a cocky big-brotherly way"), a persona that could in some roles show darker aspects, as with the brash Ambrose Claverhouse in "Genevieve" and the controlling Crichton in "The Admirable Crichton". Regarding his performance in the latter film, critic David Shipman wrote: It wasn't just that he had superb comic timing: one could see absolutely why the family trusted their fates to him. No other British actor had come so close to that dependable, reliable quality of the great Hollywood stars - you would trust him through thick and thin. And he was more humorous than, say, Gary Cooper, more down-to-earth than, say, Cary Grant.In 1957 More had announced that he would play the lead role of a captain caught up in the Indian mutiny in "Night Runners of Bengal". While the film was never made, More did appear in another Imperial adventure set in India, "North West Frontier" (1959). He was the subject of "This Is Your Life" in 1959 when he was surprised by Eamonn Andrews at the Odeon Cinema, Shepherd’s Bush. In 1960, Rank's Managing Director John Davis gave permission for More to work outside his contract to appear in "The Guns of Navarone". More, however, made the mistake of heckling and swearing at Davis at a BAFTA dinner at the Dorchester, losing both the role (which went to David Niven) and his contract with Rank. Decline. For a number of years More remained a significant star in Britain, enjoying notable success with "Sink the Bismarck!" (1960). However box office receipts started to decline for films such as "Man In The Moon" (1960) and "Some People" (1962). He tried to change his image with "The Comedy Man" (1963) which the public did not like, although it became his favourite role. His film parts got smaller in the 1960s, with some thinking his popularity declined when he left his wife to live with Angela Douglas. Film writer Andrew Spicer thought that "More's persona was so strongly associated with traditional middle class values that his stardom could not survive the shift towards working class iconoclasts" during that decade. More appeared in a 35 minute prologue to "The Collector" (1965) at the special request of director William Wyler however it ended up being removed entirely from the final film. In 1968 he had a supporting role in the realistic war film "Dark of the Sun". He made a number of cameos in such war films as "The Longest Day" (1962), "Battle of Britain" and "Oh! What a Lovely War" (both 1969). Revival. More's popularity recovered in the 1960s through West End stage performances and television roles, especially following his success in "The Forsyte Saga" (1967), and as the title character in ATV's "Father Brown" (1974). Critic David Shipman said his personal notices for his performance in "The Secretary Bird" (1968) "must be among the best accorded any light comedian during this century". He also took the role of the Ghost of Christmas Present in "Scrooge" (1970). More was the potential replacement for Bernard Lee as M in the James Bond film "Live and Let Die" (1973) when it was not known if an ill Lee would be able to appear. Personal life. More was married three times. His first marriage in 1939 to actress Beryl Johnstone (one daughter, Susan, born 1941) ended in divorce in 1946. He married Mabel Edith "Bill" Barkby in 1952 (one daughter, Sarah, born 1954) but left her in 1968 for Angela Douglas, an actress 26 years his junior, causing considerable estrangement from friends and family. He was married to Douglas (whom he nicknamed "Shrimp") from 17 March 1968 until his death.
1103114	Michael Artin (born 28 June 1934) is an American mathematician of Armenian descent and a professor emeritus in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology mathematics department, known for his contributions to algebraic geometry and also generally recognized as one of the outstanding professors in his field. Life and career. Artin was born in Hamburg, Germany, and brought up in Indiana. His parents were Natalia Naumovna Jasny (Natascha) and Emil Artin, preeminent algebraist of the 20th century. Artin's parents had left Germany in 1937, because Michael Artin's maternal grandfather was Jewish. Artin did his undergraduate studies at Princeton University, receiving an A.B. in 1955; he then moved to Harvard University, where he received a Ph.D. in 1960 under the supervision of Oscar Zariski. In the early 1960s Artin spent time at the IHÉS in France, contributing to the SGA4 volumes of the Séminaire de géométrie algébrique, on topos theory and étale cohomology. His work on the problem of characterising the representable functors in the category of schemes has led to the Artin approximation theorem, in local algebra. This work also gave rise to the ideas of an algebraic space and algebraic stack, and has proved very influential in moduli theory. Additionally, he has made contributions to the deformation theory of algebraic varieties. He is working on noncommutative rings, especially geometric aspects. In 2002, Artin won the American Mathematical Society's annual Steele Prize for Lifetime Achievement. In 2005, he was awarded the Harvard Centennial Medal. In 2013 he won the Wolf Prize in Mathematics. He is also a member of the National Academy of Sciences and a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1969), the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics, and the American Mathematical Society.
1056718	"The Mirror Crack'd" is a 1980 British mystery film based on Agatha Christie's Miss Marple novel "The Mirror Crack'd from Side to Side" (1962). It was directed by Guy Hamilton and featured Angela Lansbury, Kim Novak, Elizabeth Taylor, Geraldine Chaplin, Tony Curtis, Edward Fox and Rock Hudson. This crime/mystery was adapted by Jonathan Hales and Barry Sandler. Scenes were filmed at Twickenham Film Studios, Twickenham, London, UK, and on location in Kent. Plot. Set in the fictional English village of St. Mary Mead, home of Miss Jane Marple (played by Lansbury), in 1953, a big Hollywood production company arrives to film a costume movie about Mary, Queen of Scots and Elizabeth I with two famous movie stars, Marina Rudd and Lola Brewster (played by Taylor and Novak, respectively). The two actresses are old rivals who despise each other. Marina, making a much heralded comeback after a prolonged "illness" and retirement (due to what was really a nervous breakdown), and her husband, Jason Rudd (played by Hudson), who is directing the movie they are making, arrive with their entourage. When she learns that Lola will be in the movie as well, she becomes enraged and vents her anger. Lola and her husband, Marty Fenn (played by Curtis), who is producing the movie, arrive. Excitement runs high the village as the locals have been invited to a reception held by the movie company in a manor house, Gossington Hall, to meet the celebrities. Lola and Marina come face to face at the reception and exchange some potent and comical insults, nasty one-liners, as they smile and pose for the cameras. The two square off in a series of clever cat-fights throughout the movie. Marina, however, has been receiving anonymous death threats. After her initial exchange with Lola at the reception, she is cornered by a gushing, devoted fan, Heather Badcock (played by Maureen Bennett), who bores her with a long and detailed story about having actually met Marina in person during World War II. After recounting the meeting they had all those years ago, when she arose from her sickbed to go and meet the glamorous star, Babcock drinks a cocktail that was made for Marina and quickly dies from poisoning. The incident is unfortunate for Marina's mental state, and she is beside herself. Everyone is certain she was the intended murder victim. Once filming begins on the movie, she discovers that apart from threatening notes made up of newspaper clippings, her cup of coffee on the set has also been spiked with poison, sending her into fits of terror. The police detective from Scotland Yard investigating the case, Inspector Dermot Craddock (played by Fox), is baffled as he tries to uncover who is behind the attempt on the life of the actress and the subsequent murder of the innocent woman. The suspected are Ella Zielinsky (played by Chaplin), Jason's production assistant who is secretly having an affair with him and would like Marina out of the way, and the hotheaded actress Lola Brewster. Inspector Craddock asks his aunt, who happens to be Jane Marple, who recently injured her foot at the reception and is confined to her home, for assistance. The main suspect, Zielinsky, is then killed by a lethal nose spray after going to a pay phone in the village, where she called the murderer and threatened to expose him. Miss Marple, now back on her feet, visits Gossington Hall, where Marina and Jason are staying, and views where Babcock's death occurred. Working from information received from her cleaning woman, Cherry Baker (played by Wendy Morgan), who was working as a waitress the day of the murder, the determined elderly sleuth begins to piece together the events of the fatal reception and solves the mystery. By the time she has collected all the evidence to indicate who committed the crime, however, another death occurs at Gossington Hall, which explains who was the killer: Marina Rudd, who has apparently committed suicide. In the film's denouement, Miss Marple explains the murders that have occurred. Heather Babcock's story was Marina's initial motive. Ms. Babcock suffered from German measles — a rather harmless disease to most adults, but problematic for a pregnant woman. Heather Babcock innocently infected Marina when she met her during World War Two. Marina was pregnant at the time; the disease caused her child to be born with mental retardation. Upon hearing Heather cheerfully tell this story, Marina was overcome with rage and poisoned her without thinking. She then spread the idea that she was the intended victim, delivering the death threats and poisoning her own coffee. Ella, who made phone calls to various suspects from the pay phone, accidentally guessed correctly, prompting Marina to murder her. As Marina is now dead, she will not be brought to justice. Jason confesses to Miss Marple that he had put poison in her hot chocolate so as to save her from being prosecuted. However, Marina didn't touch the hot chocolate he made for her and took the poison herself directly.
582567	Ugly Aur Pagli () is a 2008 Bollywood film starring Ranvir Shorey and Mallika Sherawat. It is directed by Sachin Khot and produced by Pritish Nandy. The film tells the story of the strange relationship between a young Mumbai engineering student and a girl he meets on the train. "Ugly Aur Pagli" is a remake of the Korean film "My Sassy Girl" with many scenes coinciding exactly with the original film. Plot. Kabir (Ranvir Shorey) is an engineering student who has been studying engineering for the last ten years. He is a carefree lifestyle guy, which involves partying with friends and not caring about his responsibilities. And one cold winter night on way back to home at VT station in Mumbai he meets a drunk Kuhu (Mallika Sherawat). Kabir thinks that his lifelong dream of having a girlfriend has come true, but for Kuhu he’s just a loser she wants to take for a ride. She makes him dance around in circles, run semi naked, ride cycles without seats, wear high heeled ladies shoes and so on. Kuhu, who is coping with a personal crisis, feels that the only way she can overcome it is to put someone else through misery. Kabir becomes the guinea pig and has to cope with the insane demands and tantrums of Kuhu. Initially wary of Kuhu, Kabir slowly eases up to her and understands her feelings. The story takes a turn when Kabir discovers the true meaning of Kuhu's actions, and their implications follow. Reception. The film had a mixed critical reception. There was praise for performances from the lead pair and censure for the film's plot. Box office. "Ugly Aur Pagli" grossed approximately in its first week. Worldwide, the film grossed slightly over $7 million. Music. The film's music was composed by Anu Malik with lyrics by Amitabh Varma.
1065334	Say Anything... is a 1989 American romantic comedy-drama film written and directed by Cameron Crowe. It was Crowe's directorial debut. In 2002, "Entertainment Weekly" ranked "Say Anything..." as the greatest modern movie romance, and it was ranked number 11 on "Entertainment Weekly" list of the 50 best high-school movies. The film follows the relationship between Lloyd Dobler (John Cusack), an average student, and Diane Court (Ione Skye), the valedictorian, immediately after their graduation from high school. Plot summary. Set in Seattle, Washington, the film features Lloyd Dobler (John Cusack), an average student and aspiring kickboxer, who attempts a relationship with the lovely valedictorian Diane Court (Ione Skye) immediately after their graduation from the same high school. Diane has just won a major fellowship to study in England, and will be going there at the end of the summer. Highly intelligent yet socially inexperienced, Diane is intrigued by Lloyd's endearing manner and willingness to take a chance on someone like her. She agrees to Lloyd's request for a date, and the two of them begin seeing each other regularly. Lloyd seeks advice and counsel from his sister and several close female friends who are genuinely looking out for Lloyd's best interests as he embarks on his first serious romantic relationship. Diane's father, Jim (John Mahoney), is under investigation by the Internal Revenue Service for alleged tax violations committed at the nursing home he owns; and, as her relationship with Lloyd deepens, Diane worries that she should be spending more time with her father, rather than with Lloyd. Also, Jim does not approve of his daughter's dating an underachiever, and pressures her to break up with him. Lloyd ultimately wins Diane's heart before the summer's end, and supports her emotionally after her father's conviction and incarceration. The film ends with Lloyd escorting the aviophobic Diane on her flight to England. Soundtrack. Allmusic said the soundtrack, like the film, is "much smarter than the standard teen fare of the era." The soundtrack included 11 songs: Critical reception. "Chicago Sun-Times" film critic Roger Ebert called it "one of the best films of the year — a film that is really about something, that cares deeply about the issues it contains — and yet it also works wonderfully as a funny, warmhearted romantic comedy." Ebert later included it on his 2002 Great Movie list, writing, ""Say Anything" exists entirely in a real world, is not a fantasy or a pious parable, has characters who we sort of recognize, and is directed with care for the human feelings involved." It has also received a "98% Fresh" rating (39 fresh/1 rotten) at RottenTomatoes.com. The film also had detractors. "Variety" called it a "half-baked love story, full of good intentions but uneven in the telling." Caryn James of "The New York Times" said the film resembles a first-rate production of a children's story. Its sense of parents and the summer after high school is myopic, presented totally from the teen-agers' point of view. Yet its melodrama - Will Dad go to prison? Will Diane go to England? - distorts that perspective, so the film doesn't have much to offer an actual adult, not even a sense of what it's truly like to be just out of high school these days. The film is all charming performances and grace notes, but there are plenty of worse things to be.
1050092	James Anthony "Jim" Piddock (born 8 April 1956) is an English actor, writer, and producer who began his career on the stage in England, before emigrating to the U.S. in 1981. Personal life. Piddock was born in Rochester, Kent, the son of Celia Mary (née O'Callaghan) and Charles Frederick Piddock. After completing his tertiary studies at Worth Abbey, a Benedictine boarding school in the south of England, Piddock attended London University, gaining an Honors degree in English literature. After contemplating becoming an anthropologist, Piddock ended up pursuing his other passion and began his acting career on the stage in the UK, before emigrating to the U.S in his early twenties. He made his U.S theatrical debut in "The Boy's Own Story" in 1982. A number of film and television credits followed, most notably several Christopher Guest films, including "Best in Show" and "For Your Consideration". Stage career. Piddock made his theatrical debut in the U.S. in "The Boy's Own Story", a one-man show about a football (soccer) goalkeeper, at the Julian Theatre in San Francisco. The show won Piddock the Bay Area Critics' Best Actor Award. The show was then produced Off-Broadway. That same year (1982), he was cast in Noël Coward's "Present Laughter," and other Broadway and Off-Broadway shows followed, including the original US production of "Noises Off", "The Knack" at the Roundabout Theatre, "Make and Break," and "Design For Living." "I spent the first few years of my career pretty much doing nothing but stage work. I started in rep companies in England then did a one-man show in the U.S which led very quickly to doing several Broadway shows. I got very lucky early on. They were fun shows to do. I was in the first ever production of ‘Noises off’ in America and my first ever job in New York was being directed by and appearing with George C. Scott", Piddock said. In the '80s, Piddock moved to Los Angeles where he pursued work in Television. In November 2007, he was seen onstage at the Ricardo Montalbán Theatre in Hollywood, starring in a work-in-progress production of "What About Dick?" alongside an all British expat cast, including Billy Connolly, Tim Curry, Eric Idle, Eddie Izzard, Jane Leeves, Emily Mortimer and Tracey Ullman. When that play finally officially premiered in 2012, he was again in the cast. He also appeared in 2009 at the Montalban Theatre and on Broadway in "An Evening Without Monty Python". Television career. Following a successful stint as a stage performer, Piddock started successfully carving out a career for himself as a TV actor. "I’d always wanted to end up working in film and TV. I guess I could have stayed in New York and probably had a long and fruitful career in the theatre but in the mid-1980’s I felt like it was time to change gears and I’d certainly not been short-changed in terms of getting to perform live", Piddock said of his transition into television. Piddock is well known for his many, varied performances on a vast array of hit TV series. His most recognized character would be that of Paul and Jamie's neighbour, Hal Conway on "Mad About You'. Piddock's other TV credits include "The Tracey Ullman Show", "Coach", "Max Headroom", "The Twilight Zone", "Murder She Wrote", "Angel", "Yes Dear", "ER", "Friends", "The Geena Davis Show", "Crossing Jordan", "The Drew Carey Show", "Lost", "Monk", "Without A Trace", "Dollhouse", "Party Down", "Childrens Hospital" and "Castle". He also starred in several TV film and mini-series, including "From The Earth To The Moon", "A Mom For Christmas", "She Creature" on HBO and "The Women Of Windsor". He also created, wrote and produced the BBC series "Too Much Sun". Film career. Piddock made his film debut in director Richard Donner's "Lethal Weapon 2", in 1989, as the South African consulate. Other film roles followed, including "Independence Day", "Traces Of Red", "Multiplicity", "Burn Hollywood Burn", "Austin Powers 3", "A Different Loyalty", "Love For Rent", "See This Movie", "The Prestige", "Epic Movie", "Who's Your Caddy?", "", and "Endless Bummer". He has also appeared in the Christopher Guest comedies "Best In Show" (as the Dog Show commentator with Fred Willard), "A Mighty Wind", and "For Your Consideration". He has also produced and/or wrote a number of films, including "Traces Of Red", "One Good Turn", "A Different Loyalty", "The Man" and "Tooth Fairy". Piddock's regularly asked if he'll hang up his actor skivvy to become a full-time screenwriter, but says loves both acting and writing equally so wants to continue to do both. Said Piddock, "Each satisfies a different creative and psychological side of whatever the hell it is that I do. But if you held a gun to my head and said you can only earn a living from only one of them? Well... I'd say acting. Because it's a hell of a lot easier! And, to be honest, I can do it a lot more effortlessly. But it's a tough call because there's also nothing more satisfying and gratifying than completing a new screenplay, or even a good day's writing." Voice work. "I started doing voice-over commercials when I was working in New York", Piddock has said. "I was actually one of the first voices of Virgin airlines, believe it or not. Then when I came to L.A, I began doing more animation and video game stuff." As a voice actor, Piddock provided the voice of Major Zero in the English version of the video game ' as well as Agent One in Return to Castle Wolfenstein for Xbox and PlayStation 2. Regarding films he provided the voice of Bolero the Bull in the film "Garfield 2", the fictional artistic director of Forever Young Films, Kenneth Loring, doing the commentary in the directors' cut of the Coen Brothers' "Blood Simple", he also voiced the part of King Mufasa's hornbill majordomo, Zazu in the Disney games Timon & Pumbaa's Jungle Games and , in the DC Comics animated film ', he voiced the part of Batman's butler, Alfred Pennyworth, and also voiced Chic" for the animated science fiction film based on the Video Game Dead Space. Recent work. Piddock appeared in 2012's "The Five-Year Engagement", which starred Jason Segel and Emily Blunt, playing Blunt's father, "The Cold Light of Day" starring Henry Cavill, Bruce Willis and Sigourney Weaver, and "The Dictator" with Sacha Baron Cohen. In August, 2012 it was announced that Piddock would be co-writing, acting, and producing a new TV comedy series with Christopher Guest for HBO and the BBC titled "Family Tree".
1063323	Vincent Gardenia (born Vincenzo Scognamiglio, January 7, 1920 – December 9, 1992) was an Italian-American stage, film, and television actor. Early life. Gardenia was born Vincenzo Scognamiglio in Naples, Italy, the son of Elisa and Gennaro Gardenia Scognamiglio. When he was two years old, the family immigrated to the United States and settled in Brooklyn, New York City, New York.
1062607	Beverly Hills Cop is a 1984 American action comedy film directed by Martin Brest and starring Eddie Murphy as Axel Foley, a street-smart Detroit cop who heads to Beverly Hills, California, to solve the murder of his best friend. Judge Reinhold, John Ashton, Ronny Cox, Lisa Eilbacher, Steven Berkoff and Jonathan Banks in supporting roles. This first film in the "Beverly Hills Cop" series shot Murphy to international stardom, won the People's Choice Award for "Favorite Motion Picture", was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture - Comedy/Musical, and even received an Academy Award nomination in 1985. It earned an estimated $234 million at the domestic box office, making it the biggest hit of 1984. Plot. Axel Foley (Murphy) is a young, reckless, but charismatic Detroit police detective. His unauthorized cigarette smuggling sting operation goes sour when two uniformed officers intervene, resulting in a high-speed chase of a semi-truck carrying the cigarettes through the city, causing widespread damage, which earns him the wrath of his boss, Inspector Douglas Todd (Hill). Todd warns Foley that if he disregards proper procedure again he will be fired. Mikey Tandino (Russo), Foley's childhood friend, arrives and tells Foley he has been working as a security guard in Beverly Hills, thanks to a mutual friend, Jenny Summers (Eilbacher). After going out to a bar, they return to Foley's apartment, where Foley is knocked unconscious and Mikey is confronted by two men who question him about some bearer bonds he is holding, then kill him. After being refused the investigation because of his close ties to Mikey, Foley uses the guise of taking vacation time to head to Beverly Hills to solve the crime. He finds Jenny working in an art gallery and learns her and Mikey's boss is local art dealer Victor Maitland (Berkoff). Foley tries to question Maitland, but is thrown through a window by Maitland's bodyguards, and then arrested for disturbing the peace at Maitland's direction. At the police station he meets Beverly Hills police officers Sergeant John Taggart (Ashton), Detective Billy Rosewood (Reinhold), and Lieutenant Andrew Bogomil (Cox). Bogomil warns Foley he has been in touch with Inspector Todd and will have Foley fired if he is found to be conducting any kind of investigation. Foley assures Bogomil he is simply on vacation and is released. Bogomil assigns Rosewood and Taggart to follow Foley, who uses various methods to evade them. Eventually, he invites them to a strip club for a drink, where they manage to foil a robbery together, leading to a sense of mutual respect. On the trail of Mikey's killers, Foley sneaks into one of Maitland's warehouses, where, after some undercover work, realizes that many of Maitland's crates had not gone through customs. After Foley confronts Maitland at his country club and is arrested again, Bogomil demands to know why Foley is bothering Maitland. Foley finally admits that he suspects Maitland to be a smuggler, certainly of bearer bonds but also possibly drugs. Bogomil seems to believe Foley's story, but Police Chief Hubbard orders that Foley is to be escorted out of town immediately. However, Foley convinces Rosewood to pick up Jenny and take her with them to Maitland's warehouse, where a shipment is due to arrive that day. Foley orders Rosewood to stay outside while they find 'probable cause' for him, as a local police officer, to enter. Foley and Jenny break into the warehouse and discover several bags of cocaine inside a crate. Foley tells Jenny to get Rosewood, but Maitland and his associates arrive. Maitland takes Jenny and leaves Foley to be killed. After some hesitation, Rosewood enters the warehouse and rescues Foley. Taggart tracks Foley and Rosewood to Maitland's estate, where he joins Foley and Rosewood in their efforts to rescue Jenny and bring Maitland to justice. When Bogomil hears reports of shots fired at Maitland's residence, he calls for backup at the location and heads out to join the others. After a firefight that kills most of Maitland's men, Foley kills Maitland's right-hand man Zack, who had killed Mikey. Maitland shoots and injures Foley, then uses Jenny as a shield. Bogomil's arrival distracts Maitland long enough to allow Jenny to break free; Bogomil and Foley then shoot and kill Maitland. Chief Hubbard arrives and Bogomil fabricates a story that covers for Foley, Taggart, and Rosewood. When Hubbard asks Taggart to confirm the story, Taggart backs up Bogomil. Realizing that he will probably be out of a job in Detroit, Foley asks Bogomil to speak to Inspector Todd and smooth things over for him. Bogomil is reluctant, but relents after Foley talks about staying in Beverly Hills. Taggart and Rosewood meet Foley as he checks out of his hotel, where the bill is paid by the police department. Foley invites them to join him for a farewell drink, and they accept. Production. Danilo Bach completed a draft for the film in 1977, seven years prior to production. The script's earliest version involved a cop in East L.A. who was transferred to Beverly Hills, before evolving into the story of a cop from the East Coast who came to Beverly Hills to avenge his friend's death. Drafts before the script was locked in (and became more of the comedy it ended up being) gave the cop's name as Axel Elly and set the out-of-Beverly Hills action in Pittsburgh. When asked by the producers, director Martin Brest flipped a quarter to decide whether to undertake the direction of the film or not. As the film proved to be an enormous hit, he framed the quarter and hung it on his wall. On the DVD featurette, producer Jerry Bruckheimer claimed that the role of Axel Foley was first offered to Mickey Rourke, who signed a $400,000 holding contract to do the film. When revisions and other preparations took longer than expected, Rourke left the project after his contract expired to do another film. It was then offered to Sylvester Stallone, with the character of Michael Tandino being his brother, and Jenny Summers being his love interest. Two weeks before filming was to start, Stallone was suddenly out and Eddie Murphy was in, prompting massive rewrites. According to Eddie Murphy on "Inside the Actors Studio", Stallone also envisioned a "harder edged" screenplay. After his departure due to differences in scope (Stallone essentially rewrote "Beverly Hills Cop" as what would be the 1986 film "Cobra"), the role was re-written for Murphy. Besides Stallone and Rourke, other actors who were considered for the role of Axel Foley included Richard Pryor, Al Pacino, and James Caan. In one of the previous drafts written for Stallone, Billy Rosewood was called "Siddons" and was killed off half-way through the script during one of the action scenes deemed "too expensive" for Paramount to produce. In the process of casting the characters of Rosewood and Taggart, the director paired up various finalists and asked them to do some improvisation to get a feel for the chemistry between the actors. He paired up Judge Reinhold and John Ashton and gave them the following direction: "You are a middle aged couple, married for years. You are having a conversation on an average evening." Judge Reinhold immediately picked up a nearby magazine and the two improvised the "5 pounds of red meat in his bowels" bit almost verbatim as it eventually appeared in the film. This got them the parts. Only after Martin Brest cast Judge Reinhold and John Ashton was the decision made to keep Rosewood alive due to his chemistry with Taggart. The original finale for the Stallone draft of the script took place at night and ended with a car chase between Victor in a Lamborghini and Foley in a turbo-boosted Pontiac GTO. Victor is ultimately killed when his car smashes into an oncoming train. Some scenes were filmed in Detroit, including scenes filmed in Brush Park. The T-shirt that Murphy wears in the film is from Mumford High, a real high school in Detroit. The Renaissance Center is visible in the opening scene.
1064475	Bernard Terry "Bernie" Casey (born June 8, 1939) is a professional actor who initially had a career as an interscholastic, intercollegiate and professional football player. Casey was also a record-breaking track and field athlete for Bowling Green State University. As one of the nation's best high-hurdlers; Casey earned All-America recognition and a trip to the finals at the 1960 United States Olympic Trials. In addition to national honors, Bernie Casey won three consecutive Mid-American Conference titles in the high-hurdles, 1958–60. Acting career. Casey began his acting career in the film "Guns of the Magnificent Seven", a sequel to "The Magnificent Seven". From there he moved between performances on television and the big screen such as playing team captain for the Chicago Bears in the TV film "Brian's Song". In 1979 he starred as widower Mike Harris in the NBC television series "Harris and Company", the first weekly American TV drama series centered around a black family. In 1981, he played a vice detective opposite Burt Reynolds in the feature film, "Sharky's Machine". In 1983 he played the role of Felix Leiter in the non-Eon Productions James Bond film "Never Say Never Again". His comedic role as Colonel Rhombus in the John Landis film "Spies Like Us" was followed by appearances in the "Revenge of the Nerds" sequels; Casey also appeared in the movie "Hit Man". Also, during his career he worked with such well-known directors as Martin Scorsese in his 1972 film "Boxcar Bertha" and appeared on such television series as "The Streets of San Francisco" and as U.N. Jefferson, the national head of the Lambda Lambda Lambda fraternity in "Revenge of the Nerds". In a good-natured spoof of 70s blaxploitation flicks, he played a caricature of himself, and other football players turned actors, in Keenen Ivory Wayans's 1988 comedic film "I'm Gonna Git You Sucka". He played a high school teacher in the cult-classic "Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure", released in 1989. Casey appeared as a very influential prisoner with outside connections in Walter Hill's "Another 48 Hours". 1994 saw Casey guest-starring in a two-episode story arc in "" (along with series star Avery Brooks) as the Maquis leader Lieutenant Commander , and in 1995 as a guest-star on "Babylon 5" as Derek Cranston. He has continued working as an actor. In 2006, he co-starred in the film "When I Find the Ocean" alongside such actors as Lee Majors. In a piece for NFL Films, he expressed his disillusionment with the NFL and professional sports in general, feeling like his creativity and individuality were thwarted by conservative elements in the league and ownership hierarchy. He also showed off some paintings of his own creation during the piece. Personal life. Casey was born in Wyco, West Virginia. He now resides in Los Angeles, California. He remains a devout Seventh-day Adventist.
1050245	L.A. Takedown is a crime/thriller made for TV movie that aired on NBC on August 27, 1989 at 9 pm. It was written and directed by Michael Mann, and its ensemble cast includes Scott Plank, Alex McArthur, Michael Rooker, Daniel Baldwin, and Xander Berkeley. "Takedown" starred Plank as Det. Vincent Hanna and McArthur as Patrick McLaren. It was released on home video as a region 2 DVD. Synopsis. Detective Vincent Hanna is on the trail of a gang of ruthless professional criminals, led by the methodical Patrick McLaren. But Hanna is soon surprised when he discovers that he and McLaren have quite a lot in common. While McLaren and his gang plan another heist, Hanna and his colleagues keep surveillance. But McLaren also faces a personal problem when he finds himself falling in love, which he personally condemns due to the commitment required to his profession. Things then take a turn for the very worst, when the details of McLaren's planned heist are betrayed to the police. When they (including Hanna) arrive on the scene unexpectedly, McLaren and his crew engage them in a mid-street shootout, in which most of McLaren's crew are killed. After making an escape, McLaren is torn between a new life with his girlfriend and seeking revenge on those that betrayed him. Cast. The majority of the main cast appeared as guest stars in episodes of one or both of Michael Mann's two shows produced in the 1980s, "Miami Vice" and "Crime Story": Remake. After making "The Last of the Mohicans", Mann returned to a 1986 draft of "L.A. Takedown", viewing the TV movie as a dry run for the film he had originally written, which was intended as a much more complex and elaborate story. In late 1995, Mann released "Heat", which he directed from his original script. "Heat" was made with an ensemble cast including Robert De Niro, Al Pacino and Val Kilmer. "Heat" was met with critical acclaim and became a financial success. Nowadays, "L.A. Takedown" is best known for being the basis of "Heat", and is often compared to it in an unfavorable light. Comparison to "Heat". Michael Mann's original script was written in the early 1980s, and spanned 180 pages. For "L.A. Takedown", he cut the script down to 110 pages so it would fit in a TV-movie timeslot. Using the original script, Mann decided to remake "LA Takedown" as it was originally intended; a complex, multi-layered crime drama. Whereas "LA Takedown" was produced in just a month, with 10 days of pre-production and 19 days of shooting, "Heat" took over 9 months to produce, with six months of pre-production and 107 days of shooting. "Takedown" was also made on TV film budget, while the budget of "Heat" is estimated at over $50 million.
578512	Khan Kluay (; ; ) is a 2006 Thai computer-animated feature film set during Ayutthaya-era Siam about an elephant who wanders away from his mother and eventually becomes the war elephant for King Naresuan. It is based on "Chao Praya Prab Hongsawadee" by Ariya Jintapanichkarn. It was officially released as Jumbo in India and The Blue Elephant in the United States. There is a sequel to this movie, known as "Khan Kluay 2" This movie is about Khan Kluay's two elephant children, another attack by the Hongsawadi (Burmese), and struggling whether to live with his wife or fight the Burmese.
295538	Corbin Michael Allred (born May 25, 1979) is an American actor. He starred in the 2003 award-winning motion picture "Saints and Soldiers" and the 1997–1998 television series "Teen Angel". He was also in "Josh Kirby... Time Warrior!", "Quest of the Delta Knights" and known for his role in '. He has also appeared on an episode of ' and in an episode of "NCIS". He also appeared in the 1999 films "Diamonds" alongside Dan Aykroyd and Kirk Douglas and "Anywhere but Here" with Natalie Portman and Susan Sarandon. He is the second of four children. Allred's acting career began when he was 12 years old after attending an open casting call in his home town. His hobbies include rock climbing, mountain biking and fly fishing. He teaches climbing classes. Allred is a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and served a two-year mission to Australia for his church. He was born in Salt Lake City, Utah and currently resides in Cedar City, Utah, where he is a pre-med student at Southern Utah University.
1100966	Michel Floréal Chasles (15 November 1793 – 18 December 1880) was a French mathematician. He was born at Épernon in France and studied at the École Polytechnique in Paris under Siméon Denis Poisson. In the War of the Sixth Coalition he was drafted to fight in the defence of Paris in 1814. After the war, he gave up on a career as an engineer or stockbroker in order to pursue his mathematical studies. In 1837 he published his "Historical view of the origin and development of methods in geometry", a study of the method of reciprocal polars in projective geometry. The work gained him considerable fame and respect and he was appointed Professor at the École Polytechnique in 1841, then he was awarded a chair at the Sorbonne in 1846. A second edition of his book was published in 1875, and Leonhard Sohncke translated the work into German. Jakob Steiner had proposed the problem of enumerating the number of conic sections tangent to each of five given conics, and had answered it incorrectly. Chasles developed a theory of characteristics that enabled the correct enumeration of the conics (there are 3264) (see enumerative geometry). He established several important theorems (all called Chasles' theorem). That on solid body kinematics was seminal for understanding their motions, and hence to the development of the theories of dynamics of rigid bodies. In 1865 he was awarded the Copley Medal. As described in "A Treasury of Deception", by Michael Farquhar (Peguin Books, 2005), between 1861 and 1869 Chasles purchased over 27,000 forged letters from Frenchman Denis Vrain-Lucas. Included in this trove were letters from Alexander the Great to Aristotle, from Cleopatra to Julius Caesar, and from Mary Magdalene to a revived Lazarus, all in a fake maedieval French. In 2004, the journal "Critical Inquiry" published a recently "discovered" 1871 letter written by Vrain-Lucas (from prison) to Chasles, conveying Vrain-Lucas's perspective on these events, itself an invention. In 1986, Alexander Jones published a commentary on Book 7 of the "Collection" of Pappus of Alexandria, which Chasles had referred to in his history of geometric methods. Jones makes these comments about Chasles, Pappus and Euclid: Chasles' name is one of 72 that appears on the Eiffel Tower.
582136	Manoj Tuli (born July 11, 1960), better known as Kumar Gaurav is an Indian film actor and son of late actor Rajendra Kumar. He has acted in several hit films: Love Story, Teri Kasam, Naam, Indrajeet and Kaante. Career. He made his film debut with "Love Story" (1981) produced by his father and directed by Rahul Rawail which was a blockbuster. His next film, the 1982 release "Teri Kasam" with actress Poonam Dhillon, was a mild success, though his later films proved to be disappointing at the box office. He then worked in Mahesh Bhatt's "Janam" in (1985). His understated performance in this film is still considered his career's best. In the following year he had his second box office hit with "Naam" (1986), again a Mahesh Bhatt film which was produced by his father and also starred his brother-in-law Sanjay Dutt in the lead role. Despite the success of "Naam", Gaurav's career declined as all of his subsequent films failed to do well at the box office. Having produced his earlier films "Janam" and "Naam", his father tried to revive his career with the 1993 film "Phool" which also had his father and father-in-law Sunil Dutt in supporting roles, but that didn't bring him any luck either. He took a long break from acting and returned to films in 2000 with a supporting role in late actor Mazhar Khan's "Gang". In 2002, he played one of the six protagonists in the crime thriller "Kaante", directed by Sanjay Gupta and a remake of the Hollywood hit "Reservoir Dogs" (1992). "Kaante" was a huge success at the box office and the third highest grossing film of 2002. In 2004 he appeared in his first American film "Guiana 1838". This award winning film by Rohit Jagessar grossed the highest screen average at North American box office on opening weekend and is among the Top 25 all time highest screen average charts. "Guiana 1838" tells the story of Indians arriving on the British colony of British Guiana, now Guyana, as indentured servants amidst the abolition of slavery during the nineteenth century. In 2009, he starred in the silent film "My Daddy Strongest". Personal life. Kumar Gaurav was born Manoj Tuli on 11 July 1960. He studied at the Bishop Cotton School in Simla. His father Rajendra Kumar, a very popular actor in the 1960s and 1970s, died of cancer in 1999. His father had also acted with him in his debut film "Love Story" (1981) and "Phool" (1993). While shooting for his debut movie, Love Story with Vijayta Pandit, the duo got romantically involved. The relationship later came to an end as tension arose between the Pandit and Kumar families. Gaurav is married to Namrata Dutt, daughter of legendary actors Sunil Dutt and Nargis and sister of actor Sanjay Dutt. He and his brother-in-law Sanjay Dutt worked together in two films "Naam" and "Kaante
582921	Udhaar Ki Zindagi is a 1994 Bollywood film about a father's rejection of a love marriage of his son, and the granddaughter's struggle to win her grandfather's heart. It is directed and written by K.V. Raju and stars Jeetendra, Moushumi Chatterjee and Kajol. The music is by Anand Chitragupth and Milind Chitragupth. It is remake of the famous Telugu film "Seetharamaiah Gari Manavaralu" (1991) directed by Kranthi Kumar.
1071580	"Nightmare Detective 2" was released in 2008. Matsuda returns in the lead role of Kagenuma. Hitomi declined to reprise her role. Plot. A middle-aged man is taking a drink of beer. A young man (Matsuda) appears from "under" the floor, and it is revealed that the older man, Mitake, is a former teacher of Kagenuma's father. Kagenuma is being haunted by the soul of a daughter whom his wife had aborted without his knowledge. Mitake refuses to help him.
1040049	Imelda Mary Philomena Bernadette Staunton, OBE (born 9 January 1956) is an English actress. She is perhaps best known for her performances in the British comedy television series "Up the Garden Path", the "Harry Potter" film series (in which she plays Professor Dolores Jane Umbridge) and "Vera Drake". She drew critical acclaim as "Vera Drake", earning her a Best Actress Oscar nomination and a number of wins including the BAFTA and Venice Film Festival Awards for best actress in a leading role. Early life and education. Staunton was born in Archway, North London, the only child of Bridie (née McNicholas), a hairdresser, and Joseph Staunton, a road-worker and labourer. The family lived over Staunton's mother's hair dressing salon while Staunton’s father worked on the roads. Both of her parents were first-generation Catholic immigrants from County Mayo, Ireland, with her father coming from Ballyvary and her mother from Bohola. Staunton's mother was a musician who could not read music, but could master almost any tune by ear on the accordion or fiddle and had played in Irish showbands. Staunton attended La Sainte Union Convent School, an all-girls Catholic school on the edge of Hampstead Heath, from years 11 to 17. Her talent was spotted by Jacqueline Stoker, her elocution teacher. Before long she was starring as Polly Peachum in a school production of "The Beggar's Opera". Staunton studied at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. Career. Theatre. When she was 18, Staunton enrolled at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA), and studied alongside Alan Rickman, Timothy Spall and Juliet Stevenson. She graduated two years later in 1976, then spent six years in English repertory, including a period at the Northcott Theatre, Exeter where she had the title role in Shaw's "Saint Joan" (1979). Staunton then joined the Royal Shakespeare Company, and in 1982, moved on to the National Theatre. She has stated that her first job was a play by Goldoni. She is also known for her performance as Dorothy in "The Wizard of Oz" for the Royal Shakespeare Company. She has had a long and distinguished career in the theatre, performing in such diverse plays as "A Man for all Seasons", "Mack & Mabel", "Side by Side", and "Elektra". Staunton also appeared in a National Theatre 80th birthday tribute to Lord Olivier, "Happy Birthday, Sir Larry" on 31 May 1987 in the presence of Olivier. Staunton has twice received an Olivier Award, Britain's highest theatre honour, one in 1985 for roles in two productions: "A Chorus of Disapproval" and "The Corn Is Green" and one for the 1991 musical, "Into the Woods." She was nominated for her performance as Miss Adelaide in the 1996 revival of "Guys and Dolls" at the National Theatre. More recently, she appeared in the premiere of Frank McGuinness's "There Came a Gypsy Riding" at the Almeida in 2007 and opened in 2009 in English Touring Theatre's production of "Entertaining Mr Sloane" alongside Mathew Horne at the Trafalgar Studios. In October 2011 Staunton took the role of Mrs. Lovett in a revival of Stephen Sondheim's "", starring opposite singer Michael Ball, at the Chichester Festival. The show was well received, and it transferred to the Adelphi Theatre in London in March 2012. Staunton will be playing the role of Rose in an upcoming London revival of the musical "" in 2013. Film. Staunton's first big-screen role came in a 1986 Bill Douglas film, "Comrades". She then appeared in the 1992 film "Peter's Friends". Other early roles include performances in "Much Ado About Nothing" (1993), "Deadly Advice" (1993), "Sense and Sensibility" (1995) "Twelfth Night" (1996), "Chicken Run" (2000), "Another Life" (2001), "Bright Young Things" (2003), "Nanny McPhee" (2005), "Freedom Writers" (2007), "How About You" (2007), and "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix" (2007). Staunton shared a Screen Actors Guild Award for Best Performance by a Cast in 1998 for "Shakespeare in Love." In 2004, she received the Best Actress honours at the European Film Awards, the BAFTAs, and the Venice Film Festival for her performance of the title role in Mike Leigh's "Vera Drake", which also won Best Picture. For the same role, she received Best Actress nominations for the 2004 Golden Globes and Academy Awards. Staunton portrayed Dolores Umbridge in "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix" (2007), a performance described as "coming close to stealing the show." She was nominated in the "British Actress in a Supporting Role" category at the London Film Critics Circle Awards. Staunton reprised her role as Dolores Umbridge in "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part One". Recent film roles include the 2008 movie "A Bunch of Amateurs", in which she starred alongside Burt Reynolds, Derek Jacobi and Samantha Bond, and the character of Sonia Teichberg in Ang Lee's "Taking Woodstock" (2009). She will play one of the lead roles in the upcoming ghost film "The Awakening". Television. In 1993, she appeared on television alongside Richard Briers and Adrian Edmondson in "If You See God, Tell Him". She has had other television parts in "The Singing Detective" (1986), "Midsomer Murders", and the comedy drama series "Is It Legal?" (1995–98), as well as "A Bit of Fry and Laurie" season 4, episode 3. She was a voice artist on "Mole's Christmas" (1994). She had a guest role playing Mrs. Mead in "Little Britain" in 2005, and in 2007 played the free-thinking gossip, Miss Pole, in "Cranford", the five-part BBC series based on Mrs Gaskell's novels, and in the sequel to the series, "Return to Cranford".
1061577	Rodney Stephen "Rod" Steiger (April 14, 1925July 9, 2002) was an Academy Award-winning American actor known for his performances in such films as "On the Waterfront", "The Big Knife", "Oklahoma!", "The Harder They Fall", "Across the Bridge", "The Pawnbroker", "Doctor Zhivago", "In the Heat of the Night", and "Waterloo" as well as the television programs "Marty" and "Jesus of Nazareth". Early life. Steiger was born in Westhampton, New York, the son of Lorraine (née Driver) and Frederick Steiger, of French, Scottish, and German descent. Steiger was raised as a Lutheran. He never knew his father, a vaudevillian who had been part of a traveling song-and-dance team with Steiger's mother (who subsequently left show business). Steiger grew up with his alcoholic mother before running away from home at age sixteen to join the United States Navy during World War II, where he saw action on destroyers in the Pacific. Career. Steiger appeared in over 100 motion pictures. He began his acting career in theatre and on live television in the early 1950s. On May 24, 1953, an episode of "Goodyear Television Playhouse" jump-started his career. The episode was the story of "Marty" written by Paddy Chayefsky. "Marty" is the story of a lonely homely butcher from the Bronx in search of love. Refusing to sign a seven-year studio contract, Steiger later turned down the role in the film version in 1955. Signing a studio contract at that time would have restricted the range of roles Steiger could subsequently have played and determined the image he portrayed on screen; those were two things Steiger objected to throughout his career.
686214	Lazare Nicolas Marguerite, Comte Carnot (13 May 1753 – 2 August 1823), the "Organizer of Victory" in the French Revolutionary Wars, was a French politician, engineer, and mathematician. Education and early life. Born in Nolay, Côte-d'Or, Carnot was educated in Burgundy at the Collège d’Autun, an artillery and engineering prep school. He graduated from Mezieres School of Engineering, where he had met and studied with Benjamin Franklin, at the age of twenty and obtained commission as a lieutenant in the Prince of Condé’s engineer corps. It was here that he early made a name for himself both in the line of physics and in his work in the field of fortifications. Although in the army, he continued his study of mathematics. In 1784 he published his first work "Essay on Machines" which contained a statement that foreshadowed the principle of energy as applied to a falling weight, and the earliest proof of the fact that kinetic energy is lost in the collision of imperfectly elastic bodies. This publication earned him the honour of admittance to a literary society. In that same year, he also received a promotion to the rank of captain. Political career. At the outbreak of the French Revolution in 1789, Carnot entered political life. He became a delegate to the Legislature in 1791. While a member of the Legislative Assembly, Carnot was elected to the Committee for Public Instruction. He believed that all citizens should be educated and as a member of that committee, he wrote a series of reforms for the teaching and educational systems, but they were not implemented due to the violent social and economic climate of the Revolution. After the Legislative Assembly was dissolved, Carnot was elected to the National Convention in 1792. He spent the last few months of 1792 on a mission to Bayonne, organizing the military defense effort in an attempt to ward off any possible attacks from Spain. Upon returning to Paris, Carnot voted for the death of King Louis XVI, although he had been absent for the debates surrounding the king’s trial. On 14 August 1793 Carnot was elected to the Committee of Public Safety, where he took charge of the military situation as one of the Ministers of War. The creation of the French Revolutionary Army was largely due to his powers of organization and enforcing discipline. In order to raise more troops for the war, Carnot introduced conscription: the "levée en masse" approved by the National Convention was able to raise France’s army from 645,000 troops in mid-1793 to 1,500,000 in September 1794. Once the problem of troop numbers had been solved, Carnot turned his administrative skills to the supplies that this massive army would need. Many of the munitions and supplies were in short supply: copper was lacking for guns so he ordered church bells seized in order to melt them down; saltpeter was lacking and he called chemistry to his aid; leather for boots was scarce so he demanded and secured new methods for tanning. He quickly organized the army and helped to turn the tide of the war. It added significantly to discontent with the course of the Revolution in still Bourbon-loyalist areas – such as the Vendée, which had broken out in open revolt 5 months earlier – but the government of the time considered it a success, and Carnot became known as the "Organizer of Victory". In autumn 1793 he took charge of French columns on the , and contributed to Jean-Baptiste Jourdan's victory in the Battle of Wattignies. Carnot had taken no steps to oppose the Reign of Terror, but he and some other technocrats on the committee, including Robert Lindet and Louis-Bernard Guyton de Morveau, turned on Maximilien Robespierre and his allies during the Thermidorian Reaction. With the establishment of the Directory in 1795, Carnot became one of the five initial directors. For the first year the Directors did well working harmoniously together as well as with the Councils. However, difference of political views led to a schism between Carnot and Étienne-François Letourneur, followed by François de Barthélemy, on the one side, and the triumvirate of Paul François Jean Nicolas, vicomte de Barras, Jean-François Rewbell, and Louis Marie de La Révellière-Lépeaux on the other side. Carnot and Barthélemy supported concessions to end the war, and hoped to oust the triumvirate and replace them with more conservative men. His and Étienne-François Letourneur's moderation was viewed as weakness, and it probably contributed to France's failure to capitalize on the Treaty of Campo Formio. After Letourneur had been replaced by another close collaborator of Carnot, François de Barthélemy, both of them, alongside many deputies in the Council of Five Hundred, were ousted in the Coup of 18 Fructidor (4 September 1797), engineered by Generals Napoleon Bonaparte (originally, Carnot's "protégé") and Pierre François Charles Augereau. Carnot took refuge in Geneva, and there in 1797 issued his "La métaphysique du calcul infinitésimal". In 1800 Bonaparte appointed Carnot as Minister of War, and he served in that office at the time of the Battle of Marengo. In 1802 he voted against the establishment of Napoleon's Consular powers for life and the passing of the title to his children, for as Carnot said when speaking of the power necessary to govern a state "If this power is the appendage of a hereditary family it becomes despotic." Retirement. After Napoleon crowned himself emperor on 2 December 1804, Carnot's republican convictions precluded his acceptance of high office under the First French Empire, and he resigned from public life – although he was later made a Count of the Empire by Napoleon as "Lazare Nicolas Marguerite, comte Carnot". In 1803 Carnot produced his "Géométrie de position". This work deals with projective rather than descriptive geometry. Carnot is responsible for initiating the use of cross-ratios: "He was the first to introduce the cross (anharmonic) ratio of four points of a line taking account of its sign, thereby sharpening Pappus' concept. He then proved that this ratio is invariant for the four points obtained by cutting four lines of a pencil of lines with different secants. In this way he established the harmonic properties of the complete quadrilateral." This approach to geometry was used by Karl von Staudt four decades later to set a new foundation to mathematics. The Borda–Carnot equation of fluid dynamics and Carnot's theorem in plane geometry are named after him. Probably in response to the fall of the fortress of Vlissingen to the British during the Walcheren Campaign in 1809, Napoleon employed Carnot to write a treatise describing how fortifications could be improved, for the use of the École militaire de Metz. Building on the theories of the controversial engineer Montalembert, Carnot advanced ideas on how the long established bastioned system of fortification could be modified for close defence and to allow for counter attack by the besieged garrison. Published in 1810 under the title ""Traité de la Défense des Places Fortes"", his ideas where further developed in the third edition which was published in 1812. An English translation, "A Treatise on the Defence of Fortified Places" was published in 1814. Although few of his proposals were accepted by mainstream engineers, the Carnot wall, a detached wall at the foot of the , became a common feature in fortifications built in the mid-19th century. Carnot returned to office in defense of Napoleon during the disastrous invasion of Russia; he was assigned the defense of Antwerp against the Sixth Coalition – he only surrendered on the demand of the Count of Artois, who was the younger brother of Louis XVIII and later Charles X. During the Hundred Days, Carnot served as Minister of the Interior for Napoleon, and was exiled as a "regicide" during the White Terror after the Second Restoration during the reign of Louis XVIII. He lived in Warsaw, and moved to Prussia, where he died in the city of Magdeburg. Carnot's remains were interred at the Panthéon in 1889, at the same time as those of Marie Victor de La Tour-Maubourg, Jean-Baptiste Baudin, and François Séverin Marceau-Desgraviers. Impact. Carnot was able to survive and maintain a place of power during all the phases of the French Revolution, from its beginnings in 1789 until the fall of Napoleon in 1815. On the social and political front, Carnot was the author of many reforms that he thought to be for the good of the Republic. One of these was the proposal for compulsory public education for all citizens. He also penned a proposal for the new Constitution which included the "Declaration of the Duties of the Citizens" that held that there should be not only education but military service for all citizens of France between the ages of twenty and twenty-five. These proposals were in accordance with the Revolutionaries' thinking at the time, which held that men and women should be honored through ability and intelligence rather than through birthright, even though Carnot himself was nobly born. This style of thinking may well have been instrumental in Napoleon Bonaparte's rise to power as it was Carnot who promoted him from Captain to General. But perhaps his greatest achievements, in reference to the French Revolution itself, were those of a military nature. If not for Carnot, the modern waging of war with mass armies and strategic planning would not exist. As a military engineer, Carnot favored fortresses and defensive strategies, but with the constant invasions decided to take his strategic planning to an offensive strike. From his intellect sprang the maneuvers and organization that turned the tides of war from 1793 to 1794. The basic idea was to have a massive army separated into several units that could move more quickly than the enemy and attack from the flanks rather than head on, which had led to resounding defeats before Carnot was elected to the Committee of Public Safety. This tactic was extremely successful against the more traditional tactics of existing European armies. It was his initiative to train the conscripts in the art of war and to place new recruits with experienced soldiers rather than having a massive volunteer army without any real idea of how to wage battle. He also created a new political strategy based on disrupting communication between France's enemy nations of England and Austria while concentrating attack effort on England. Carnot’s military influence and authority were eventually used to bring about the downfall of Robespierre.
402134	Lesley Lawson (née Hornby; born 19 September 1949), widely known by the nickname Twiggy, is an English model, actress and singer. In the mid-1960s she became a prominent British teenage model of swinging sixties London with others such as Penelope Tree. Twiggy was initially known for her thin build (thus her nickname) and her androgynous look consisting of large eyes, long eyelashes, and short hair. In 1966, she was named "The Face of 1966" by the "Daily Express" and voted British Woman of the Year. By 1967, Twiggy had modelled in France, Japan, and the U.S., and landed on the covers of "Vogue" and "The Tatler". Her fame had spread worldwide. After modelling, Twiggy went on to enjoy a successful career as a screen, stage and television actress. She has hosted her own series, "Twiggy's People", in which she interviewed celebrities, and also appeared as a judge on the reality show "America's Next Top Model". Her 1998 autobiography, "Twiggy in Black and White", entered the bestseller lists. Since 2005, she has modelled for Marks and Spencer, most recently to promote their recent rebranding, appearing in television advertisements and print media, alongside Myleene Klass, Erin O'Connor, Lily Cole and others. In 2012, she worked alongside Marks & Spencer's designers to launch an exclusive clothing collection for the M&S Woman range. Early life. She was born Lesley Hornby on 19 September 1949, and was brought up in the northwest London suburb of Neasden. She was the third daughter of Nellie Lydia (née Reeman), a factory worker for a printing firm, and William Norman Hornby, a master carpenter and joiner. Their first daughter, Shirley, had been born fifteen years earlier; their second, Vivien, had been born seven years earlier. Twiggy's mother taught her to sew from an early age. She used this skill to make her own clothing. She attended the Brondesbury and Kilburn High School in Salusbury Road, London. She was the cover girl for the 27 August 1966 edition of WOMAN'S MIRROR. It shows a photograph of a waifish Twiggy, just under 17 years of age, in bare feet, short hair, awkwardly balanced on the boot of a small British sports car convertible, in a dark, see-through "mod-style" dress and one-piece swim suit underneath, peering off-cover to the right, her hands stretched out, the left one straight back, and the right arm bent at the elbow to ward off an unseen paparazzo's camera's telephoto lens. She is 5 feet, 4 inches tall, and weighs 91 pounds, looking artistically childlike and asexual. Source: Chief Consultant: Dr. Katherine Aaslestad. HISTORICA'S WOMEN: 1000 YEARS OF WOMEN IN HISTORY. Elanora Heights, NSW, 2101, Australia: Millennium House, 2007. Page 350 of 570 pages. Personal life. Twiggy married American actor Michael Witney in 1977. They had a daughter, Carly, born in 1978. The marriage ended with his sudden death in 1983 from a heart attack. Twiggy met Leigh Lawson in 1984. In 1988 they worked on the film "Madame Sousatzka", and married that year in Sag Harbor, Long Island. Lawson adopted Twiggy's daughter, who took his surname. The couple reside in London, and also own a home in Southwold, Suffolk. In her official site, she describes herself as being an ardent supporter of breast cancer research, animal welfare and anti-fur campaigns. Modelling career (1965–70). 1965–67. Twiggy is best remembered as one of the first international supermodels and a fashion icon of the 1960s. Her greatest influence is Jean Shrimpton, whom Twiggy considers to be the world's first supermodel. Twiggy has also been described as the successor to Shrimpton. In January 1966, young Lesley Hornby had her hair coloured and cut short in Mayfair at The House of Leonard, owned by celebrity hairdresser Leonard. The hair stylist was looking for models on whom to try out his new crop haircut and he styled her hair in preparation for a few test head shots. A professional photographer Barry Lategan took several photos for Leonard, which the hairdresser hung in his salon. Deirdre McSharry, a fashion journalist from the "Daily Express", saw the images and asked to meet the young girl. McSharry arranged to have more photos taken. A few weeks later the publication featured an article and images of Hornby, declaring her "The Face of '66". In it, the copy read: "The Cockney kid with a face to launch a thousand shapes... and she’s only 16". Hornby's career quickly took off. She was short for a model at 5'6" (167 cm), weighed eight stone (51 kg; 112 lbs) and had a 31-23-32 figure, "with a new kind of streamlined, androgynous sex appeal" Her hairdresser boyfriend, Nigel Davies, became her manager, changed his name to Justin de Villeneuve, and persuaded her to change her name to Twiggy (from "Twigs", her childhood nickname). De Villeneuve credits himself for Twiggy's discovery and her modelling success, and his version of events is often quoted in other biographies. Ten years her senior, he managed her lucrative career for seven years, overseeing her finances and enterprises during her heyday as a model. Twiggy was soon seen in all the leading fashion magazines, commanding fees of £80 an-hour, bringing out her own line of clothes called "Twiggy Dresses" in 1967, and taking the fashion world by storm. "I hated what I looked like," she said once, "so I thought everyone had gone stark raving mad." Twiggy's look centred on three qualities: her stick-thin figure, a boyishly short haircut and strikingly dark eyelashes. Describing how she obtained her prominent eyelashes, now known as Twiggy's, she said, "Back then I was layering three pairs of false eyelashes over my own and would paint extra 'twigs' on my skin underneath." One month after the "Daily Express" article, Twiggy posed for her first shoot for "Vogue". A year later, she had appeared in 13 separate fashion shoots in international "Vogue" editions. 1967–70. Twiggy arrived in New York in March 1967 at Kennedy Airport, an event covered by the press. "The New Yorker", "Life" and "Newsweek" reported on the Twiggy "phenomenon" in 1967, with the "New Yorker" devoting nearly 100 pages to the subject." That year she became an international sensation, modelling in France, Japan and America, and landing the cover of Paris "Vogue" in May, the cover of U.S. "Vogue" three times, in April, July and November, and the cover of British "Vogue" in October. In 1967, an editorial on page 63 of the 15 March edition of "Vogue" described her as an "extravaganza that makes the look of the sixties" Twiggy was, according to feminist critic Linda DeLibero, "the most visible commodity Britain produced that year, and generously complied with the hype, scarfing up skinny little Twiggy pens, Twiggy lunch boxes, Twiggy lashes, an assortment of Twiggy-endorsed cosmetics". The Metropolitan Museum of Art's 2009 catalogue of "Style: Model as Muse Embodying Fashion" stated that "Twiggy's adolescent physique was the perfect frame for the androgynous styles that began to emerge in the 1960s. The trend was manifested in a number of templates: sweet A-line dresses with collars and neckties, suits and dresses that took their details from military uniforms, or, in the case of Yves Saint Laurent, an explicit transposition of the male tuxedo to women. Simultaneously, under the rubric of 'unisex', designs that were minimalistic, including Nehru suits and space-agey jumpsuits, were proposed by designers such as Pierre Cardin and Andre Courreges, and, most famously in the U.S.A., by Rudi Gernreich." Twiggy has been photographed by such noted photographers as Cecil Beaton, Richard Avedon, Melvin Sokolsky, Ronald Traeger, Bert Stern, Norman Parkinson, Annie Leibovitz and Steven Meisel. Reaction. Twiggy and the magazines featuring her image polarised critics from the start. Her boyishly thin image was criticised as, and is still blamed for, promoting an "unhealthy" body ideal for women. "Twiggy came along at a time when teen-age spending power was never greater," said Su Dalgleish, fashion correspondent for the "Daily Mail". "With that underdeveloped, boyish figure, she is an idol to the 14- and 15-year-old kids. She makes virtue of all the terrible things of gawky, miserable adolescence." At the height of her fame, Mark Cohen, president of Leeds Women's shop, had an even harsher view: "Her legs remind me of two painted worms." Yet Twiggy had her supporters. Diana Vreeland of "Vogue" stated, "She's no flash in the pan. She is the mini-girl in the mini-era. She's delicious looking." In recent years Twiggy has spoken out against the trend of waif-thin models, explaining that her own thin weight as a teenager was natural: "I was very skinny, but that was just my natural build. I always ate sensibly – being thin was in my genes." On 10 December 1969, despite being 20 years old, she was selected as the special guest for one of the first editions of the UK television series "This Is Your Life". Stage, film, television and singing career. 1970–79. After four years of modelling, Twiggy retired in 1970, stating "You can't be a clothes hanger for your entire life!" She broke off with Justin de Villeneuve, who had been overseeing her business affairs since 1966, and released him from his duties as her manager, claiming in later years that "her career had more to do with that famous picture of her with those funny painted eyelashes, which appeared in the "Daily Express" under the headline 'The Face of '66' " than with his promotional efforts. Twiggy then embarked on an award-winning acting and singing career, starring in a variety of roles on stage and screen, and recording albums. In 1971, she made her film debut as an extra in Ken Russell's "The Devils". The same year, she performed her first leading role in features as Polly Browne in Ken Russell's adaptation of Sandy Wilson's pastiche of 1920s hit musicals "The Boy Friend". This marked her initial collaboration with Tommy Tune, and won her two Golden Globe Awards in 1972 (New Star of the Year – Actress and Best Actress in a Musical or Comedy). In 1974, she made her West End stage debut in "Cinderella"; made a second feature, the thriller "W" (co-starring with her future husband Michael Witney); and hosted her own British television series, "Twiggs" (later renamed "Twiggy"). In 1973, she appeared with David Bowie on the cover of his seventh album, "Pin Ups". which entered the UK chart on 3 November 1973 and stayed there for 21 weeks, peaking at No. 1. In October 1975, she sang at the live performance of Roger Glover's "The Butterfly Ball and the Grasshopper's Feast" album at the Royal Albert Hall. The concert was filmed and produced by Tony Klinger and released to cinemas in 1976. In November 1976 she made an appearance on "The Muppet Show", in which she sang "In My Life", a Beatles song. In 1976, Twiggy signed to Mercury Records and released the albums "Twiggy" and "Please Get My Name Right", discs that contained both pop and country tunes. "Twiggy" sold very well, peaking on the UK charts at No. 33, and gave Twiggy a silver disc for good sales. The album contains Twiggy's top-twenty hit single, "Here I Go Again". "Please Get My Name Right" made it to No. 35 in 1977. A single "A Woman in Love" failed to chart for Twiggy in 1977, but was a hit for the Three Degrees in 1978. In 1978, the television distribution arm of American International Pictures, in an effort to gain additional syndication value in the U.S. to the LWT rock music series "Supersonic", repackaged the musical performances with Twiggy replacing Mike Mansfield's introductions. The new series was titled "Twiggy's Jukebox", and ran in most of the major television markets in the U.S. during the 1978–79 TV season. Coincidentally, Twiggy herself had performed "Here I Go Again" and "Vanilla Ole" on "Supersonic" in September 1976, and these performances were included in the refurbished programme. After the initial season, Twiggy left the series, and American International Television continued "Jukebox" with Britt Ekland as host, using standard music videos rather than clips from "Supersonic". 1980–99. In 1980 Twiggy made a cameo appearance in "The Blues Brothers". She starred as Eliza Doolittle in 1981 opposite Robert Powell in the Yorkshire TV production of "Pygmalion". In 1983 she made her Broadway debut in the musical, "My One and Only", starring and co-staged by Tommy Tune, for which she earned a Tony nomination. She played opposite Robin Williams in the 1986 comedy "Club Paradise". In 1987, she played a vaudeville performer in the British television special "The Little Match Girl", and in 1988 she appeared in a supporting role in "Madame Sousatzka" opposite second husband Leigh Lawson. In 1989, she was cast as Hannah Chaplin, mother to Charles, in the British television movie "Young Charlie Chaplin", aired in the United States on PBS' "WonderWorks". In 1991, she co-starred in her first American network dramatic television series, the short-lived CBS sitcom "Princesses". Of eight episodes completed, only five aired. ("Princesses" co-star, Fran Drescher, later spent some time with Twiggy and her family in England while developing Drescher's hit series "The Nanny", even modeling character Maxwell Sheffield on Twiggy's husband Leigh Lawson.) In 1997, Twiggy acted in the Chichester Festival Theatre revival of Noël Coward's "Blithe Spirit". A year later, she played Gertrude Lawrence in the biographical stage revue "Noel and Gertie" at Bay Street Theatre in Sag Harbor, Long Island. In 1999, she returned to the New York stage in an off-Broadway production "If Love Were All", a revised version of "Noel and Gertie", written and directed by Leigh Lawson; what set this edition apart were its tap numbers in period style. She starred as Gertrude Lawrence opposite Harry Groener's Noël Coward. 2000–09. In 2001, Twiggy co-hosted the British magazine programme "This Morning". In 2003, she released another album, "Midnight Blue". Seventeen of the CD's 20 tracks had previously unreleased material from 1982–1990, including a duet with Leo Sayer, "Save the Last Dance for Me", and a cover of the Stones' "Ruby Tuesday". "Feel Emotion" and "Diamond" have both been released onto CD format since. In 2005, she joined the cast of the television show "America's Next Top Model" for Cycles 5–9 as one of four judges, and a year later, she appeared on the cover of the "Icons" issue of "Swindle" magazine. She also returned to modelling, fronting a major television, press and billboard campaign for Marks & Spencer, the British department-store chain. Her involvement in the advertising campaign has been credited for reviving Marks and Spencer's fortunes. In 2006, she portrayed herself as a nineteen-year-old in the radio play "Elevenses with Twiggy" for BBC Radio 4's "Afternoon Play" series. She did not return to "America's Next Top Model" in its tenth season due to scheduling conflicts. Her replacement was model Paulina Porizkova. Also in 2007, Sepia Records released a previously shelved album that Twiggy recorded in 1979, produced by Donna Summer and Juergen Koppers. "Heaven in My Eyes ["Discotheque"]" contains the eight original tracks due to be released, plus four remixes by "The OUTpsiDER". The album was also made available on iTunes. She is signed to London agency Models 1. In 2008, she supported the "Fashion Targets Breast Cancer" campaign in support of Breakthrough Breast Cancer, alongside fellow celebrities –comedian Alan Carr, singer Natalie Imbruglia, actress Anna Friel and DJ & presenter Edith Bowman. In the summer of 2009, beauty company Olay debuted its "Definity Eye Cream" campaign depicting Twiggy. Accusations of airbrushing created a stir with the media and public. A website campaign set up by Jo Swinson, the Scottish Liberal Democrat MP, attracted 700 individual complaints. Procter & Gamble admitted to minor retouching and replaced the image. The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) announced that the ad gave a "misleading" impression, but that no further action was required because the image had already been withdrawn. Its announcement said: "However, we considered that the post-production re-touching of this ad, specifically in the eye area, could give consumers a misleading impression of the effect the product could achieve. We considered that the combination of references to 'younger looking eyes', including the claim 'reduces the look of wrinkles and dark circles for brighter, younger looking eyes', and post-production re-touching of Twiggy's image around the eye area, was likely to mislead." Later career. 2010–present. Twiggy remains in the forefront of fashion for women of her age. She was one of the few famous celebrities to survive being cut from the Marks & Spencer fashion team in 2009–2010, when Dannii Minogue joined her for the spring/summer women's wear campaign. She also started an HSN fashion line called the "Twiggy London" collection, and has begun a fashion blog to discuss the line. Women in their 60s and 70s are remaining stylish today, and this trend has been termed the "Twiggy effect". On 21 November 2011 Twiggy released "Romantically Yours", her first album in 12 years, through EMI. A collection of pop and easy listening standards spanning several generations, the album features versions of such compositions as "Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered", "Blue Moon", "My Funny Valentine", "Someone to Watch over Me" and "They Can't Take That Away from Me". The album also includes a guest vocal appearance by Twiggy's daughter Carly Lawson on Neil Young's "Only Love Can Break Your Heart", a guitar solo by Bryan Adams, and a version of Richard Marx's "Right Here Waiting" featuring duet vocals with the American songwriter himself. "Romantically Yours" was produced by James McMillan, whose résumé includes playing trumpet for Sade and James Brown.
1092940	Evangelista Torricelli ( ) (1608–1647) was an Italian physicist and mathematician, best known for his invention of the barometer. Biography. Early life. Torricelli was born on 15 October in 1608 in Faenza in the Province of Ravenna, then part of the Papal States, the firstborn child of Gaspare Torricelli and Caterina Angetti. His father was a textile worker and the family was very poor. Seeing his talents, his parents sent him to be educated under the care of his uncle, Jacobo, a Camaldolese monk, who first ensured that his nephew was given a sound basic education. He then entered young Torricelli into a Jesuit College in 1624, possibly the one in Faenza itself, to study mathematics and philosophy until 1626, by which time his father, Gaspare, had died. The uncle then sent Torricelli to Rome to study science under the Benedictine monk Benedetto Castelli, professor of mathematics at the Collegio della Sapienza (now known as the Sapienza University of Rome). Career. In 1632, shortly after the publication of Galileo's "Dialogues of the New Science", Torricelli wrote to Galileo of reading it "with the delight [...] of one who, having already practiced all of geometry most diligently [...] and having studied Ptolemy and seen almost everything of Tycho Brahe, Kepler and Longomontanus, finally, forced by the many congruences, came to adhere to Copernicus, and was a Galileian in profession and sect". (The Vatican condemned Galileo in June 1633, and this was the only known occasion on which Torricelli openly declared himself to hold the Copernican view.)
589643	Chaudhvin Ka Chand is a 1960 Hindi feature film directed by Mohammed Sadiq. A production of Guru Dutt, the film centers on a love triangle between Guru Dutt, Rehman and Waheeda Rehman, and features music by Ravi. Farida Jalal is a guest appearance in the film, her debut. After the disastrous box-office performance of Kaagaz Ke Phool, this was a highly commercially successful comeback film for Guru Dutt which saved Guru Dutt's production studio from ruins. Plot. The setting is the city of Lucknow in northern India, where Islamic culture flourished. Two of the three best friends who live in this city have fallen in love with the same woman named Jameela unknowingly. Aslam (Guru Dutt) and Nawab (Rehman) are the two friends caught in this love triangle with Jameela (Waheeda Rehman). An integral part of any Guru Dutt film, comic relief was provided by Johnny Walker who plays Mirza Masaraddik Shaiza. Music in the film. Guru Dutt's music composer of earlier films S.D.Burman had warned him not to make "Kagaz ke Phool" which resembled his own life. When Guru Dutt insisted on making the film S.D.Burman said that would be his last film with Guru Dutt. (Total Recall, Times Now news channel 8 July 2012) Hence the Music of this film was offered to composer Ravi and was critically acclaimed, and the lyrics by his all time favourite Shakeel Badayuni. Interestingly, It was a creative choice of Guru Dutt's to have the title track in color while the rest of the film was Black and White. Awards. The film was also entered into the 2nd Moscow International Film Festival.
1059806	Melissa Suzanne George (born 6 August 1976) is an Australian-born film and television actress who has worked in Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States. George is perhaps best known in Australia for her role as Angel Parrish on the Australian soap opera "Home and Away" (1993–1996). After moving to America, she appeared in television series such as "Friends" (2003), "Alias" (2003–2004), "In Treatment" (2008), "Grey's Anatomy" (2008–2009) and "Lie to Me" (2010), earning a nomination for a Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress – Series, Miniseries or Television Film for "In Treatment". She made her film début in the neo-noir science fiction feature "Dark City" (1998) and later appeared in supporting roles in films, including "The Limey" (1999) and "Mulholland Drive" (2001). She has gone on to have lead roles in films, including the remake of "The Amityville Horror" (2005), the thriller "Turistas" (2006), the vampire horror film "30 Days of Night" (2007) and garnered critical acclaim for her starring role in "Triangle" (2009). Her most recent credits include the thriller "A Lonely Place to Die" (2011), the Australian drama series "The Slap" (2011), for which she won a Logie Award for Most Outstanding Actress, and the British-American spy drama series "Hunted" (2012). Early life. Melissa George was born in Perth, Western Australia, the daughter of Pamela, a nurse, and Glenn George, a construction worker. William Ward, a grandfather on her mother's side, worked as a prison warden at Rottnest Island, offshore from Perth. The second of four children, George developed an interest in dancing and began studying jazz, tap, ballet, and modern dance at the age of seven. Her enthusiasm for dance eventually evolved into a passion for artistic roller skating. She is an Australian national roller skating champion and won bronze medals in the National Championships in 1989 and 1990. She won a silver medal at the Junior World Championship in 1991. Career. Early work (1992–1998). George began modeling in her early teens, and in 1992 she was named Western Australia's Teenage Model of the Year. At the age of sixteen she met casting agent Liz Mullinar and won the role of Angel Parrish on the popular Australian soap "Home and Away". Her role earned her five consecutive Logie Award nominations, of which she won two. She moved to Sydney to start her acting career. She made a health and fitness video, "Mind, Body and Soul" (1996), created a sleepwear line called "An Angel at My Bedside", and had a recurring role on the short-lived Fox Broadcasting Company television fantasy drama series "Roar" (1997), opposite Heath Ledger, before leaving Australia to move to Los Angeles to try her luck in Hollywood.
1053761	Getting In is a 1994 American comedy film directed by Doug Liman starring Andrew McCarthy and Stephen Mailer. Plot. Gabriel Higgs (Stephen Mailer) has failed to get into Johns Hopkins to study medicine. He's sixth on a list of backup candidates, and must persuade the five people ahead of him to drop out. Gabriel has a family tradition to live up to. Things don't go according to plan.
591202	Shotru is a 2011 Bengali action film directed by Raj Chakraborty, starring Jeet, Supriyo Dutta and Nusrat Jahan. The film, produced by Ashok Dhanuka in association with Eskay Movies and distributed by Eskay Movies, was released on 3 June 2011. The film is a remake of the Tamil Superhit film "Singam" which starred Surya and Anushka Shetty. Singam was written by Tamil director, Hari, who is known for his movies with rural settings. Synopsis. Dibakar Singha (Jeet) is a police sub-inspector from Hridaypur, a small, fictional town in the Birbhum district of Bengal. The entire town loves and respects him. Enter Arjun Sarkar (Supriyo Dutta), a kidnapper and extortionist from Howrah, who terrorizes the citizens and has the police on his payroll. It is believed that he deals in real estate as a cover. Once Dibakar learns of Arjun's actions, he goes after him and kills Arjun's men one by one, one of whom is Arjun's younger brother. During this same time, Dibakar falls in love with Puja (Nusrat Jahan), a beautiful young girl who comes to the city to visit her grandfather on vacation, and romances her in exotic locations. Dibakar is initially frustrated with the level of corruption in the police department but Puja manages to instill the call of duty in him, telling him, "Fight or you will be a loser". Dibakar continues his hunt to bring down Arjun Sarkar with renewed vigor, and proves Arjun to be responsible for conducting 62 kidnappings. Dibakar is promoted to the head of an anti-kidnapping squad by the Home Minister. He conducts raids on Arjun's hideouts, and imprisons Arjun's brother Karna under false allegations. To free his brother, Arjun plans to kidnap Puja's younger sister, Diya, but Dibakar manages to catch two of the kidnappers. Dibakar tricks one kidnapper into confessing that they were hired by Arjun to commit the crime. Dibakar gets the much-needed evidence to prove Arjun is behind the spate of kidnappings happening in the town. He announces in the press that two kidnappers have been arrested and the money recovered from them; the money will be declared as government assets unless someone comes forward to claim it. Many people come forward to claim their stake in the ransom money. Finding himself on the verge of being exposed, Arjun plans to send one of his plants to lure Dibakar to his den and kill him. Dibakar, however, uncovers the real intent of Arjun's plant, who comes to the police station to file a false report, by tracing her mobile phone records with Arjun. He goes to the meeting place along with one of his police officers in disguise and kills Ratan, Arjun's closest aide. Dibakar then informs Arjun that Ratan has agreed to be state witness against him. Arjun sends Karna to finish Ratan in the hospital, but it is a trick played by Dibakar to force Arjun into committing something foolish. Dibakar kills Karna while Arjun is on the phone with him. This angers Arjun, who swears to kill all of Dibakar's nearest and dearest. He attempts to kill Puja, but she narrowly escapes, getting hit in the arm by a bullet. Dibakar then reveals that his boss, the DSP (Biplab Chatterjee), is Arjun's mole in the police department. Having been exposed, the DSP has no choice but to help Dibakar in exposing Arjun. Arjun then kidnaps the daughter of the Assam Home Minister and takes her to Jharkhand. Dibakar pursues him and kills Arjun. At the police ceremony to congratulate Dibakar, he announces that he has decided to return to his own village, saying that he finished what he came to do in the city. Puja is shown accompanying him on this journey. Box office. Shotru achieved a 52.5 crore in the first week, making it a major blockbuster. It is the second-highest-grossing Bengali film of all time, after Awara. It is also the highest-grossing Bengali film of 2011, beating Paglu and Baishey Srabon. Music. The music of the film is composed by Indradeep Dasgupta, with lyrics by Srijato.
480192	Lalaine Vergara-Paras (born June 3, 1987), also known as Lalaine, is an American actress, singer-songwriter and spokesperson. She is perhaps best known for her role as Miranda Sanchez in the Disney Channel series "Lizzie McGuire", which aired from 2001 to 2004. She has been pursuing a music career since 2009. She was a member of the band Vanity Theft from 2010 to 2011. Early life. Lalaine, full birth name is Lalaine Vergara Paras was born in Burbank, California to Filipino parents; her mother, Lilia Vergara Paras is originally from Batangas, and her father from Pampanga. Her birth mother is Elena Vergara. Lilia Vergara's youngest sister. She has three older siblings; Marian, Francisco and Cristina, and three younger biological half siblings Garret, Jared, and Miracel. She spent most of her early years in Burbank and Sherman Oaks, Ca, then joined the Broadway National Touring cast of Les Miserables as Little Cosette. After the tour Lalaine and her mother resided in Sherman Oaks, Ca Career. Acting career. Lalaine is normally credited by her first name only. She is commonly known for playing Lizzie's best friend, Miranda Sanchez on Disney Channel's "Lizzie McGuire", alongside Hilary Duff. She reprised this role on the pilot of a spin-off series " What's Stevie Thinking?" about Miranda's younger sister, but this did not air in 2005 as originally expected and was scrapped. Lalaine's acting career began when she was cast in the Broadway production of "Les Misérables" in the roles of Young Cosette and Eponine. When Lalaine returned to California, she acted in several television commercials, including some for Microsoft and Burger King. She also worked in the play "Brundibar". She also played orphan "Kate" in the "Wonderful World of Disney" ABC-TV version of the movie "Annie". She starred alongside A.J. Trauth and Spencer Breslin in the Disney Channel original film "You Wish!" as Abby. Lalaine portrayed "Chloe", a young Slayer-In-Training who commits suicide, on the TV series "Buffy the Vampire Slayer". In 2004, Lalaine went to the Philippines and made guest appearances on the GMA Network including the SOP Gigsters. She also promoted GMA Pinoy TV in San Francisco, California in 2004. In 2009, she appeared in the film "Royal Kill" along with Eric Roberts and Pat Morita. In late July 2011, Lalaine was featured in a Shane Dawson video titled "Urban Legendz" She was also featured in another one of Shane's videos titled "Hot Chick or Cat Lady?". Music career. In 2003, Lalaine released her independent album, "". Lalaine wrote six songs on the album, including "Life Is Good", "Can't Stop", and "Save Myself". She worked with Radio Disney, performing her songs in Southern California, and went to Hawaii with Disney's Imagineers. She signed a record deal with Warner Bros. Records and performed on the last episode of "All That". In 2005, she released a single, "I'm Not Your Girl" and remade the song "Cruella DeVil" for the album "DisneyMania 3". Songs from her unreleased album "Haunted" are publicly available—"I'm Not Your Girl" and "Did You Hear About Us?" were included on a physical single, and "Real Life", "No More", "Doing Just Fine",and "More Than Words Can Say" leaked onto the internet by a member of her message board. She played bass guitar in the band Vanity Theft from April 2010 to January 2011. In 2011, Lalaine sang on the song "Different" as part of the "Artists Against Hate". Personal life. Lalaine Paras was born on June 3, 1987 in Burbank, California. The youngest of four children from the mother that raised her, but also the oldest of four by her birth mother. She is usually credited only by her first name, and she currently resides in Los Angeles. Her parents were originally from the Philippines before emigrating to the United States. Legal issues. Lalaine was arrested in 2007 and charged with felony possession of methamphetamine. She has pleaded guilty to the crystal meth charge, but her record was expunged after she completed a drug-treatment program.
1055487	Adam & Steve is a 2005 LGBT romantic comedy film directed by and starring Craig Chester, who also wrote the screenplay. It deals with the lives of two gay men, played by Chester and Malcolm Gets ("Caroline in the City"). The movie had its UK premier on November 19, 2005 at the Cardiff Film Festival but was not on general release in the UK. Synopsis. In 1987, Adam (Craig Chester), a shy, cynical goth kid, encounters Steve (Malcolm Gets), an attractive Dazzle Dancer performing at Danceteria one night. The two flirt and go back to Adam's apartment to have sex, with Steve offering Adam the latter's first hit of cocaine. Unbeknownst to Steve, the cocaine is cut with baby laxative, resulting in Steve losing control of his bowels and explosively defecating all over Adam's apartment. Humiliated, Steve flees. Seventeen years later, Adam is a jaded ex-substance addict working as a New York City tour guide, while Steve has become a successful psychiatrist. By sheer coincidence the two meet when Adam accidentally stabs his dog and Steve, who dabbled in veterinary medicine, treats the animal at the hospital. Both Adam and Steve fail to recognize each other from their previous meeting. Adam and Steve strike a fast friendship and begin dating, eventually falling in love; Steve introduces Adam to his latently religious parents, while Adam introduces Steve to his disaster-prone family. Rhonda (Parker Posey) and Michael (Chris Kattan)—Adam and Steve's respective best friends—are initially wary of the other's friend and openly hostile toward one another, but soon themselves fall in love and begin dating. Steve's feelings for Adam grow, and eventually he confides in Michael and Rhonda that he plans to propose marriage to Adam. On the Brooklyn Bridge, however, right as Steve prepares to propose to Adam, Adam absentmindedly muses that his entire litany of substance abuse and relationship problems were sparked by his disastrous affair with an incontinent Dazzle Dancer back in 1987. In that instant, Steve realizes who Adam is; horrified at this revelation, and feeling responsible for all of Adam's problems, Steve abruptly breaks up with Adam. Adam falls into despair until Rhonda wheedles the truth about Steve's past from Michael; she and Michael reveal all to Adam. Adam angrily confronts Steve, who is apologetic but still upset and scared by feelings of responsibility for Adam's problem-filled life. Adam is still upset and prepared to give up on their relationship, but Steve apologizes more humbly and professes his love to Adam (buffeted by singing a piano-accompanied version of the song "Something Good"); Adam softens and accepts. Steve moves forward with his marriage proposal. The film ends with the two marrying in an outdoor ceremony, with all their friends and family in attendance. Reception. "Adam & Steve" grossed $309,404 after 16 weeks in American theatres in a maximum of 17 screens. It grossed $66,429 in its opening weekend in the US (and widest release) on March 31, 2006. As of October 8, 2009 it is the 3rd biggest grossing movie of all time from the TLA Releasing Studio behind Another Gay Movie, and the top grossing Latter Days.
1105365	Pseudo-spectral methods are a class of numerical methods used in applied mathematics and scientific computing for the solution of PDEs, such as the direct simulation of a particle with an arbitrary wavefunction interacting with an arbitrary potential. They are related to spectral methods and are used extensively in computational fluid dynamics, optimal control and other areas, but are demonstrated below on an example from quantum physics. Background. The Schrödinger wave equation, can be written which resembles the linear ordinary differential equation with solution In fact, using the theory of linear operators, it can be shown that the general solution to the Schrödinger wave equation is where exponentiation of operators is defined using power series. Now remember that where the kinetic energy
1162681	Maria Alekseyevna Ouspenskaya (; July 29, 1876, – December 3, 1949) was a Russian actress and acting teacher. She achieved success as a stage actress as a young woman in Russia, and as an elderly woman in Hollywood films. Life and career. Ouspenskaya was born in Tula, Russian Empire, and studied singing in Warsaw, Poland, and acting in Moscow. She was a founding member of the First Studio, a theatre studio of the world-famous Moscow Art Theatre. There she was trained by Konstantin Stanislavski and his assistant Leopold Sulerzhitsky in the 'system'. The Moscow Art Theatre traveled widely throughout Europe, and when it arrived in New York in 1922, Ouspenskaya decided to stay there. She performed regularly on Broadway over the next decade. She taught acting at the American Laboratory Theatre Although she had appeared in a few Russian silent films many years earlier, Ouspenskaya stayed away from Hollywood until her school's financial problems forced her to look for ways to repair her finances. According to ads from "Popular Song" magazine in the 1930s, around this time Ouspenskaya also opened the "Maria Ouspenskaya School of Dance" on Vine Street in Los Angeles. Her pupils included Marge Champion, the model for Disney's "Snow White". In spite of her pronunciation of the English language being markedly inflected by a Russian accent, Ouspenskaya found work in Hollywood films predominantly playing European characters of various national origins. Her first Hollywood role was in "Dodsworth" (1936) which brought her a nomination for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. She received a second nomination for her role in "Love Affair" (1939). She strongly portrayed Maleva, an old Gypsy fortuneteller in the horror films "The Wolf Man" (1941) and "Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man" (1943). Her other successes included "The Rains Came" (1939), "Waterloo Bridge" (1940), "Beyond Tomorrow" (1940)," Dance, Girl, Dance" (1940), "The Mortal Storm" (1940), and "Kings Row" (1942). Ouspenskaya died several days after suffering a stroke and receiving severe burns in a house fire, which was allegedly caused when she fell asleep while smoking a cigarette. She was buried in Glendale's Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery. Famous Quotes. From the film "The Wolf Man" Maleva, The Gypsy Woman (Maria Ouspenskaya) utters (her most famous quoted phrasing) as the Wolf Man is dying:
1032942	Victoria Shalet (born 9 December 1981) is an English actress most famous for her role as Harmony in the award-winning CBBC adaptation of the Dick King-Smith book "The Queen's Nose". Career. Whilst still at school Victoria started her acting career at the age of six playing Rosie in the BBC screenplay "Testimony of a Child" based on the Cleveland affair. Next she played the daughter of Miranda Richardson and Michael Kitchen, 'Anna', in Andrew Davies' Ball-Trap on the Cote Sauvage. She then continued to work consistently throughout her school life within television, film, theatre and radio including Goggle Eyes alongside Honeysuckle Weeks and in the first three series of The Queen's Nose as main character Harmony. Victoria starred in David Jason's "The Quest" in 2002 and guest-starred in The Vice. She has also been involved in Jonathan Creek, Midsomer Murders and "The Bill". Notably she appeared in the horror film "Haunted", which also featured Kate Beckinsale. Other films include The Maid alongside Martin Sheen, Shining Through with Melanie Griffith, Michael Douglas and Liam Neeson. Nick Dear's Eroica for BBC and The Affair of the Necklace with Hilary Swank. Her 2004 film "Every Seven Years" won critical acclaim at US film festivals. She appeared in a production of Philip Ridley's Fairytaleheart at the Hampstead Theatre (in February and March 1998), My Mother Said I Never Should at the Salisbury Playhouse (in October and November 2005) and Dan Muirden's "The Things Good Men Do" at the Old Red Lion (in March and April 2007). In November 2007 Victoria appeared in an episode of BBC daytime soap "Doctors" as Beth. In April 2008, she took the main role in a BBC Radio 4 "Friday Play", entitled "How Now TV" written and directed by Paul Watson. In June 2009 Victoria played a PC Vicky Hilton in Doctors. Portraying the role again in January 2010 and February 2011. She also provided the voice for Princess Medea in "Dragon Quest VIII" and the voices of Farmer Fi and Rora in Tractor Tom.
589307	Woh Kaun Thi? (Hindi: वो कौन थी, Who Was She?) is a 1964 black-and-white Indian movie directed by Raj Khosla, starring Sadhana, Manoj Kumar and Prem Chopra. Though the screenplay was written by Dhruva Chatterjee, parts were later rewritten, wherein Manoj Kumar took an active role. Music by Madan Mohan was the asset of this movie. All the songs were popular, picturised nicely but expressionless face of Manoj Kumar was the weakest part of the movie. The film became a hit at the box office. Its success had Khosla directing Sadhana in two more suspense thrillers: Mera Saaya (1966) and Anita (1967 film). Plot. Dr. Anand is a respected young doctor in a hospital. He has been suffering in his personal life ever since his girlfriend Seema died. On a dark stormy night, Anand is on his way back home when he meets a white sari clad girl in distress. He offers assistance to her, giving her a lift in his car. She accepts his assistance and introduces herself as Sandhya. As soon as she steps in the car, the wipers eerily stop working. He's even more spooked when the lady shows him the way when it isn't visible and guides him outside a cemetery. En route he notices her hand is bleeding, when asked, she tells him "Mujhe khoon achcha lagtaa hai" (I like blood). Sandhya disappears inexplicably and after few minutes, a distraught father stops his car begging him to save his daughter's life. He follows the man and comes to an old dilapidated mansion, but unfortunately the girl in question is already dead. He is surprised to see that the girl is Sandhya. When he goes back, he encounters some policemen who tell him that the place is deserted for a while and that rumours are that the place is haunted. The policemen inform him that what he saw in the mansion was exactly what happened years ago and that the haunting started after her death. Shaken and intrigued by this incident, Anand decides to investigate further. He finds that Sandhya is as interested in him as he is in her: Sandhya can appear to him at will. Later his mother arranges his marriage and to his shock his bride-to-be is none other than Sandhya. He begins to see Sandhya everywhere, while others claim that she was with them the whole time. Sandhya gives him contradictory treatment every time they meet, and Anand decides to solve this mystery. Though his well wishers believe that something is wrong with him, luck smiles on him one day. Anand manages to follow Sandhya undetected into a secret lair. There, he is shocked to see Sandhya, the "distraught father" and the "policemen" he encountered earlier in the film. He realizes that the conspiracy is larger than he thought. He sneaks into another room, only to get another surprise: Sandhya is kept prisoner there. He is also surprised to see Ramesh there with the fraudsters. He realizes that Ramesh is trying to usurp all the estate by proving him to be mentally unstable. He confronts all of them, which results in a fight. Anand is also shocked to learn that Ramesh killed Seema for his purposes. Ramesh did all this planning for other purpose too: a treasure is hidden somewhere in the mansion. In a scuffle that follows, Ramesh accidentally guns down fake Sandhya. The real Sandhya explains that she had a twin sister who went missing as a child. She grew up to be an evil conwoman whom Ramesh used for his purposes. Based on the facts, Ramesh is arrested. With the episode behind them, Anand and Sandhya are able to start their marital relationship on a good note. Music. The music composer for this film was Madan Mohan and its famous songs were penned by lyricist Raja Mehdi Ali Khan. The music became very famous and it was also nominated for the Filmfare award that year.
1066491	Brandon Timothy Jackson (born March 7, 1984) is an American stand-up comedian, rapper, actor, and writer. He is best known for his roles in the films "Roll Bounce", "Tropic Thunder", ', "Lottery Ticket", and '. Background. Jackson, one of nine children, was born Brandon Timothy Jackson in Detroit, Michigan. His mother, Beverly Yvonne, is a pastor. His father, Bishop Wayne Timothy Jackson, is the senior pastor of Great Faith Ministries International, and author of the book "Miracles Do Happen: The Power And Place Of Miracles As A Sign To The World". His maternal grandfather, Royal Titus Bozeman, was a Pentecostal child preacher named a "Boy Wonder" by Indiana newspapers. Jackson now lives in Atlanta, Georgia. Career. Jackson attended West Bloomfield High School. After graduation, he moved to Los Angeles to pursue stand-up comedy and started at the Laugh Factory, as well as opened for Wayne Brady and Chris Tucker. His role as "Junior" in the film "Roll Bounce" won him the 2006 Black Reel Award for Breakthrough Performance. He hosted one episode of the "Brandon T. Jackson Show" on The N channel. In 2006, Jackson hosted the "Up Close and Personal Tour," featuring Chris Brown, Ne-Yo, Lil Wayne, Juelz Santana and Dem Franchize Boyz. He starred on the show "Wild 'N Out" with Nick Cannon, and in the films "Tropic Thunder", as Alpa Chino, "Percy Jackson", as Grover Underwood and Lottery Ticket as Benny. He also played 17-year-old Trent Pierce in "" (the sequel to "Big Momma's House 2"). He also had a cameo in 'The Glee Project' season 2 video 'Here I Go Again' and can be seen when Maxfield gives him a flyer. In 2013, he played Axel Foley's son in an unaired pilot for a "Beverly Hills Cop" TV series on CBS.
1067527	Zoe Rowlands Cassavetes (born 29 June 1970 in Los Angeles, California) is an American film director, screenwriter and actress. She is best known for her 2007 film "Broken English" and as the daughter of American actor and filmmaker John Cassavetes and Gena Rowlands. Career. Cassavetes' first experience with the filmmaking business was at the age of one, when she had an uncredited role in her late father John Cassavetes' film "Minnie and Moskowitz" as a baby girl, but it was not until 1991 that she had her first acting role in a film, "Ted & Venus", which was followed with minor roles in the films "Noises Off" and "The Thing Called Love". In 1994, she and her filmmaking friend Sofia Coppola created and hosted the Comedy Central television series "Hi Octane", a skit and variety show that featured guests including Keanu Reeves, Beastie Boys and Martin Scorsese. "Hi Octane" lasted for only one season but is remembered as one of the first series to be entirely shot in digital video. Her directorial debut was in 2000 on the Sundance Film Festival-featured short film "Men Make Women Crazy Theory", but she is best known as the director and writer of the 2007 comedy-romance film "Broken English", which featured Parker Posey and Gena Rowlands, Cassavetes' mother. Her inspiration for "Broken English" came from her perception of other people's impression that happiness can only come from being in love with someone, saying: "I got caught up and swept up in the whole idea that I didn't have any worth until I found that person ... So I just wanted to make a nice, little portrait about what happens to someone when they get caught up in all of that." She was nominated for the 2008 Independent Spirit Award for Best First Screenplay but lost to Diablo Cody for "Juno". In 2012 she was invited to participate in Miu Miu's ad campaign The Women's Tales. The short she created for the project "The Powder Room" premiered at the 69th Venice International Film Festival. Personal life. Cassavetes comes from a family of filmmakers: her father John Cassavetes an actor, screenwriter and director; her mother Gena Rowlands an actress; her brother Nick Cassavetes an actor and director; her sister Alexandra Cassavetes an actress; and her grandmother Katherine Cassavetes an actress. She says that the relationship problems the main character encounters in "Broken English" are mostly autobiographical, saying: "I'm obsessed with the idea of love on many different levels – love through family, love your friends, love yourself and who you give that love to, who you can take it from." She has been called a muse to fashion designer Marc Jacobs along with actress and director Sofia Coppola.
729947	Raquel Castro (born November 17, 1994) is an American teen actress and singer-songwriter. She is best known for her role in the 2004 film "Jersey Girl" as Gertie Trinké, the daughter of Ollie Trinké (Ben Affleck) and Gertrude Steiney (Jennifer Lopez), the role for which Castro won the Young Artist Award for the "Best Performance in a Feature Film - Young Actress Age Ten or Younger". She was a contestant in the American version of "The Voice". Early life. Castro, the fourth of five children, was born in Long Island, New York to a Puerto Rican father, Albee Castro, and Kathleen, an American mother of Italian American and Jewish descent. She has two older sisters, an older brother and a younger brother and currently lives in Los Angeles, California to record some new music. Raquel was named after her mother's favorite actress, Raquel Welch. Not only is she a wonderful singer and a great actress, she loves to dance. Career. Acting. Castro made her acting debut in an episode of the television series, "Third Watch". She was subsequently cast as the daughter of Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez's characters in the 2004 film "Jersey Girl", directed by Kevin Smith. She appeared in a 2005 episode of "" entitled "" and in the independent film, "Little Fugitive". In 2006, she was cast as Nicole in the music video for the Ludacris song "Runaway Love" with Mary J. Blige, where she plays an abused self-conscious girl who runs away. She later was featured in the 2007 independent film, "Tracks of Color". She has a role in "The Ministers" (2009), starring John Leguizamo. Raquel also spent quite a few years at a dance studio with her younger brother. Singing. She was a contestant on the first season of "The Voice" and she was selected in the Blind Audition round and was coached by Christina Aguilera. She progressed to the first round of the Live shows before being eliminated with Lily Elise in favor of Frenchie Davis and Beverly McClellan. Castro recorded a cover of Aguilera's "Ain't No Other Man" and posted it on YouTube. Castro has also listed Christina Aguilera and Selena as her idols and major influences. Recently, Castro released her first single in the music industry, a song titled "Diary." According to her YouTube page, the song was written by Alyssa Bonagura and Ted Bruner. It was produced by J Chris Griffin. It was released on iTunes and CDBaby on February 1, 2012. She has uploaded the music video for "Diary" on YouTube and recorded a dance remix of the song, released on March 11, 2012. The remix was released under the title "Diary (J Chris Griffin Remix)." She is also working on her debut album. A single called "Game Over" was released on January 29, 2013. Castro wrote it with the help of the IDA Program.
1064180	Daniel Thomas "Dan" O'Bannon (September 30, 1946 – December 17, 2009) was an American motion-picture screenwriter, director and occasional actor, usually in the science fiction and horror genres. Early life and career. O'Bannon was born in St. Louis, Missouri, the son of Bertha (née Lowenthal) and Thomas Sidney O'Bannon, a carpenter. He attended the University of Southern California (USC), where he met John Carpenter and collaborated with him on the 83-minute USC School of Cinema-Television short "Dark Star" (1970). Carpenter expanded the short into a feature which was released in 1974 with a final budget of only US$60,000. O'Bannon served in a number of capacities, including scripting, editing and acting in one of the leading roles ("Pinback"). In 1975, "Dark Star" won the Golden Scroll award (the Saturn Awards' original name) for Best Special Effects. O'Bannon, growing up a science-fiction and horror enthusiast, abandoned technical work (including a stint as a computer animator on George Lucas' classic "") for screenwriting. Following "Star Wars", he was attached to supervise special effects for an Alejandro Jodorowsky production of Frank Herbert's "Dune", but this fell apart in 1975 leaving O'Bannon homeless and with no money. With his friend Ronald Shusett, whose couch he was sleeping on at the time, he then wrote the screenplay for "Alien" (1979). 1970s. O'Bannon attended USC Film School and lived near the Los Angeles Campus in an old two-story house affectionately called the "Menlo Manor" which he shared with other USC students (Don Jakoby, who collaborated on several screenplays with Dan including "Blue Thunder"; and Jeffrey J. Lee, who became a well-known artist in Europe). Part of his student film "Dark Star" was filmed there, with O'Bannon co-starring as Sgt. Pinback. He spent many late nights in old Hollywood editing his and other student films. His wish was to become a director. 1980s. In 1981, O'Bannon helped create the animated feature "Heavy Metal", writing two of its segments ("Soft Landing" and "B-17"). O'Bannon voiced his displeasure with his next big-budget outing, John Badham's "Blue Thunder" (1983), an action yarn about a Los Angeles helicopter surveillance team. Originally written with Don Jakoby, "Blue Thunder" also underwent extensive rewriting, losing some of its political content. He and Jakoby also scripted "Lifeforce" (1985), a tale directed by Tobe Hooper that veers from alien visitation to vampirism and an apocalyptic ending. It was not well received and was considered a box office flop. O'Bannon would again collaborate with Jakoby and Hooper for the 1986 remake "Invaders from Mars". Purists considered it inferior to the 1950s original and it also performed poorly at the box office. O'Bannon also worked as a consultant for "C.H.U.D.", helping to create the design concept for the title creatures. In 1985, O'Bannon moved into the director's chair with "Return of the Living Dead". Like "Alien", the film met with success, spawned numerous sequels and became a cult classic. 1990s. In 1990, O'Bannon and Shusett reteamed to make "Total Recall", an adaptation of the short story "We Can Remember It for You Wholesale" by Phillip K. Dick. This was a project the two had been working on since collaborating on "Alien". The film earned well over US$100 million. An earlier screenplay by the duo titled "Hemoglobin" was also produced as the low budget feature "Bleeders" (1997). O'Bannon's second directorial feature, "The Resurrected" (1992), was a low-budget horror effort released direct-to-video. Based on the writings of H. P. Lovecraft, it focused on a family's ancient rituals that awaken the dead. In 1995, O'Bannon received a co-writing credit for the film "Screamers", a science-fiction film about post-apocalyptic robots programmed to kill. Adapted from the Philip K. Dick story "Second Variety", O'Bannon first worked on the screenplay in the early 1980s. Personal life and death. O'Bannon died from Crohn's disease in Los Angeles on December 17, 2009. O'Bannon credited his experiences with Crohn's for inspiring the chest-busting scene from "Alien". He is survived by their son Adam.
586045	Dhwani is a 1988 Malayalam musical romance film directed by A. T. Abu. It was the last completed film of veteran actor and evergreen hero of Malayalam cinema Prem Nazir who died on 16 January 1989. The film has music composed by Naushad. It stars Jayaram and Shobhana in the lead roles. Suresh Gopi also makes an appearance in the movie. Noted writer Vaikom Muhammad Basheer makes a special appearance as the visitor at the hospital. The film was a huge hit due to several factors like the excellent performances by the cast and the rousing music scored by veteran composer Naushad, his first and only score for a Malayalam film. Soundtrack. The score and soundtrack for the movie are composed by renowned musician Naushad. It remains as the only Malayalam movie for which Naushad had composed music for. The lyrics are written by poet Yusuf Ali Kechery in Malayalam and Sanskrit. The soundtrack is highly regarded as one of the best and classic songs of all times in Malayalam film music.
1066123	Cotton Comes to Harlem is a 1970 blaxploitation film co-written and directed by Ossie Davis and starring Godfrey Cambridge, Raymond St. Jacques, and Redd Foxx: it is based on Chester Himes' novel of the same name. The opening theme, "Ain't Now But It's Gonna Be" was written by Ossie Davis and performed by Melba Moore. Plot. Reverend Deke O'Malley (Calvin Lockhart) arrives to fanfare at a rally in Harlem. Meanwhile, two Harlem detectives, Gravedigger Jones (Godfrey Cambridge) and "Coffin" Ed Johnson (Raymond St. Jacques) catch a pickpocket, Early Riser, among the crowd and run him off. The Reverend is selling shares in a Back-to-Africa movement ship to be called "The Black Beauty". Uncle Budd (Redd Foxx) doesn't have the $100 minimum down payment, but the Reverend accepts his $20 for a share. Some men from the District Attorney's office arrive and ask the Reverend to come downtown. The Reverend agrees to leave as several masked gunman jump out a meat truck and begin shooting. They steal $87,000 in cash from the back of an armored car. The Reverend and two assistants chase the meat truck in the armored car; the detectives chase them both in their car. A bale of cotton falls out of the during the chase. The detectives lose them avoiding some youngsters in the street. Riser is hit by the meat truck while fleeing a pickpocketing attempt, which causes the truck and armored car to crash. The detectives go to the Reverend's girlfriend, Iris Brown (Judy Pace). Iris is roughed up by Ed, but she won't talk. Patrolman Jarema arrives and says Lt., Anderson wants the detectives at the crash site. They tell Jarema to stay and watch Iris. Ed recognizes Early Riser's corpse at the crash site as Gravedigger finds raw cotton in the meat truck. The detectives leave to find Lo Boy (Cleavon Little), Riser's junkie partner, who tells them he saw Barry Waterfield run away from the crash, chased by white men wearing masks. Digger wants to know how Lo Boy knows they were white if they were masked. "They run white, dammit," Lo Boy says. Iris tricks Jarema and gets away. She meets Billie, who is practicing at the Apollo Theater, and Barry, her boyfriend. The Reverend is hiding out with Mrs. Mabel Hill, the wife of one of the people killed during the robbery. Mrs. Hill tells the Reverend she overheard two white officers discussing a reward for a bale of cotton. Mrs. Hill tries to kiss the Reverend just as Iris enters, starting a fight. Iris bashes Mabel over the head. The Reverend knocks Iris unconscious, and leaves through the window as someone begins pounding at the door. Gravedigger demands that Caspar Brown, a number runner, take him to his Italian mafia boss. They meet Ed at a Chinese restaurant with an Italian mafioso. The mafioso claims he had nothing to do with the robbery, as $87,000 isn't enough money to be worth angering the whole black community. Uncle Budd has found the bale of cotton and sells it for $25 to Abe Goodman, a junk dealer. A "white man" (J.D. Cannon) comes by Budd's place looking to buy a bale. Barry is with Budd and scares the white man off. Barry meets the Reverend in a pool hall and tells the Reverend where the bale of cotton is as Digger and Ed watch them from outside. At the junkyard, the Reverend and company search for the cotton as the detectives watch from above. As Ed sneaks down, the masked robbers arrive. A gun fight begins, leaving 6 dead. The Reverend and the remaining robbers flee. Goodman is summoned to be questioned by the police. Goodman says that Budd sold him a bale of cotton, but bought it back later for $30. The Reverend returns, and the police arrest him. Iris is already in custody, and she has already told the police that the men from the D.A.'s office were fake; that the Reverend would use his trip downtown as cover to disappear with the cash; and that the robbery foiled his plans. Iris has told the police the Reverend hit Mabel. A patrolman informs the detectives and Anderson that Uncle Budd "has been found." However the next scene shows the police at the junk yard - which is by the river - where they discuss the need to dredge it for Budd's body, indicating they don't know where Budd is. They nevertheless discuss Budd's brutal murder. A minor riot begins to erupt outside the police station, but the detectives promise to recover the missing money and send everyone home. An attorney arrives with a court order to release the Reverend. As the Reverend exits the jail, some men convince the Reverend to leave with them instead, as they know the Reverend is looking for a "white man" and "a bale of cotton." The detectives decide they need bait to catch O'Malley again. Iris escapes from jail, heads back to the theater to find the Reverend tied up by Calhoun, the "white man." Calhoun believes the Reverend has double crossed him and has the money. A sound alerts Calhoun that someone has followed Iris. Two henchman investigate the sounds with Calhoun. Iris threatens the Reverend with a broken glass bottle, but he convinces her to reach into his coat pocket. Upstairs, the detectives have captured and gagged Calhoun's henchmen. They shoot at Calhoun, who charges back downstairs. The detectives only find a smiling Iris wearing a new engagement ring. Digger quickly discovers a secret panel in the room and pursues the two men. Iris finds a gun in the room, takes it, and leaves. At the police station, Bryce realizes that the detectives aided Iris's escape and sends Jarema after them. At the Apollo, Billie performs on stage atop the bale during a production of "Cotton Comes to Harlem". Iris watches from the crowd as Calhoun and the Reverend go on stage after the bale. The Reverend betrays Calhoun, telling the crowd Calhoun stole the money. The crowd attacks Calhoun, but Digger saves and handcuffs him. The Reverend goes after the bale in the prop room, but Ed is waiting for him. Ed beats the Reverend until Iris enters and shoots at Ed. Digger and Jarema surprise Iris and handcuff her. The Reverend runs to the stage and addresses the crowd. Bloody and disoriented, he attacks the children who are on stage to get their microphone. The crowd abandons him as he pleads for them not to leave him. Back at the police station, Jarema can't find the money in the bale. Ed and Digger threaten to replace the mafioso with "black capitalists" like Caspar unless he replaces the money, which Anderson then finds in the bale. Jarema insists the money must have been planted after his search, perhaps by Ed and Digger. Ed and Digger laugh over a postcard from Uncle Budd, who is alive. Budd has retired to Africa with the original $87,000, surrounded by beautiful, and mostly naked, women. Response. The film was one of the many black films that appeared in the 1970s and became an overnight hit. Davis parleyed both humor and drama together and got a film that worked: he also attracted a black audience, which helped make the film a cult classic over the years. It inspired more black films during the '70s, including "The Learning Tree" and more action-packed numbers like "Shaft" and "Super Fly" . The film inspired the sequel "Come Back, Charleston Blue", based on original material instead of Chester Himes' works. Screen debuts. Davis' film saw four people debut in the film: Calvin Lockhart, Judy Pace, and Cleavon Little. Lockhart appeared in numerous films and TV shows, sometimes playing tough guy roles. Judy Pace appeared in film and TV, appearing in the TV show "The Young Lawyers" and the film "Frogs", and Cleavon Little made nightclub performances plus films afterwards: the most famous role he did was as Bart in the Mel Brooks comedy "Blazing Saddles". Another person who debuted was Redd Foxx, and he proved that even a veteran night club star up in age can do movies as well, leading him to be considered for the TV Show "Sanford and Son".
1132165	The Muppet Christmas Carol is a 1992 American musical fantasy-comedy film and an adaptation of Charles Dickens's "A Christmas Carol". It is the fourth in a series of live-action musical films featuring The Muppets, with Michael Caine starring as Ebenezer Scrooge. Although it is a comedic remake with contemporary songs, "The Muppet Christmas Carol" otherwise follows Dickens's original story closely. The film was directed by Brian Henson, produced by Jim Henson Productions, and released by Walt Disney Pictures. "The Muppet Christmas Carol" was the first film released after the deaths of Muppets creator Jim Henson and fellow puppeteer Richard Hunt. The film is dedicated to their memory. Plot. In this adaptation of the Christmas story narrated by Charles Dickens himself (played by Gonzo the Great) with the occasional commentary of Rizzo the Rat, it is Christmas Eve in 19th century London. The merriment is not shared by Ebenezer Scrooge (Michael Caine), a surly money-lender who is more interested in profit than celebration. So cold to the season of giving is he that his book-keeping staff, including loyal employee Bob Cratchit (Kermit the Frog), has to plead with him just to have the day off work on Christmas by pointing out that Scrooge would have no customers on the holiday and that it would waste coal to sit alone in the office. Scrooge's nephew, Fred (Steven Mackintosh), arrives to invite his uncle to Christmas dinner and two gentlemen (Bunsen and Beaker) also come to Scrooge's offices, collecting money in the spirit of the season to provide a Christmas dinner for the poor. Scrooge rebuffs his nephew and complains that it is not worth looking after the poor, as their deaths will decrease the surplus population. Fred is shocked at his uncle's uncharitable and cold nature, but repeats his invitation, makes his own donation, and departs. Later that evening, Scrooge finds himself face to face with the still mean-spirited ghosts of his former business partners, Jacob and Robert Marley (Statler and Waldorf) who have been condemned to shackles in the afterlife as payment for the horrible deeds they committed in life. However, they warn him that he will share the same fate, only worse, if he does not change his ways, and foretell the arrival of three spirits throughout the night. Scrooge is first visited by the Ghost of Christmas Past (voiced by Jessica Fox), a childlike specter who takes Scrooge on a journey back through time to his youth. He recalls his early school days, during which he focused on his studies under the Schoolmaster (Sam the Eagle), working at a business owned by Fozziwig (Fozzie Bear), and meeting of a young woman named Belle (Meredith Braun), with whom he would later fall in love. Eventually, Scrooge and Braun the end of their relationship, despite Scrooge's protests that he would marry her as soon as he feels he has enough money to provide for them, which Belle knows, given Scrooge's birthing obsession with money, he will most likely never have. Scrooge then meets the Ghost of Christmas Present, a large, festive spirit with a booming voice who lives only for the here and now. He gives Scrooge a glimpse into the holiday celebration of others, including Kermit, and his family who, although poor, are enjoying Christmas together and reveling in the anticipation of the Christmas goose. The Spirit also shows Scrooge's own family, who are not above cracking jokes at Scrooge's expense. Finally, Scrooge meets the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come, a silent entity, who reveals the chilling revelation that young Tiny Tim (Robin the Frog) will not survive the coming year, thanks in no small part to the impoverished existence of the Cratchit family. Furthermore, it is revealed that when Scrooge's own time has passed, others will certainly delight in his absence from the world, with four local pig businessmen attending his funeral only for the free food, and that Scrooge's charwoman Mrs. Dilber, Scrooge's laundress, and the undertaker steal the very clothes he has slept in and selling it to a spider fence named Old Joe (voiced by David Shaw Parker). Upon seeing his headstone in the cemetery, it is the final epiphany that convinces Scrooge to change his ways, and makes him vow to celebrate with his fellow man. 1He returns to his bedroom on Christmas Day, and Scrooge goes about the town spreading good deeds and charity. He enlists the help of Bean Bunny, at whom he threw a wreath earlier in the film, and the two travel around the town gathering items for a Christmas feast and giving gifts to characters who had previously been wronged by Scrooge as well as gifts to Fred and a visit to the retirement home where Fozziwig and the Schoolmaster currently reside at as they receive gifts from Scrooge. Scrooge tells Kermit that he is going to raise his salary, and pay for his house mortgage. He also plans a feast for Cratchit's family, and learns to adopt the spirit of Christmas throughout the year, now encouraged by the addition of new friends. Production. "The Muppet Christmas Carol" was one of the ideas by Jim Henson shortly after the Muppets joined Disney and was directed by Jim Henson's son Brian. Taking over the puppeteering role of Kermit, originally performed by Jim Henson before his death in 1990, was Steve Whitmire (Whitmire had already first performed Kermit in the 1990 CBS special "The Muppets Celebrate Jim Henson", aired six months after Henson's death). It was shot in Shepperton Studios, England and Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. Despite the use of Muppets throughout filming and a humorous spin on much of the story, this film is a fairly close adaptation of the original story. The story proper is interspersed with scenes of a narrator (Gonzo playing Dickens), who, along with the characters, recites many of Dickens's original words. One notable difference from the original story is the addition of Jacob Marley's brother, Robert, who was not present in Dickens' story, to allow the use of both Statler and Waldorf. It is suggested this name was chosen as an oblique reference to musician Bob Marley. Another alteration involved changing the name of the character Fezziwig to Fozziwig, as Fozzie Bear played the role. Another difference is that whilst in the film, the Ghost of Christmas Present is perpetually jolly and cheerful, the novel counterpart was regularly grim and stern to Scrooge. In contrast, this adaptation is unusual in that it presents The Ghost of Christmas Present as aging during the course of his visit, as he does in Dickens' novel. The human forms of Ignorance and Want, shown as hideous, animalistic children in the novel, are absent from the film (as is also the case with several other adaptations). Richard Hunt couldn't perform any of the Muppets because he was infected with AIDS. He passed away 12 months before the film's release. This is the first Muppet film in which the story revolves around characters played by human beings, specifically Ebenezer Scrooge as played by Michael Caine. The rest of the cast consisted of mostly Muppet performers. Several pivotal roles — in particular, the three Christmas Spirits — were portrayed by specially-created Muppet characters. It was at one time considered that well-known Muppets would be cast in these roles (Miss Piggy, Scooter, and Gonzo, specifically) before it was decided that it would detract from the ominous effect the spirits would need to convey. Only the Ghost of Christmas Present is clearly a Muppet (albeit a giant one), while the Ghost of Christmas Past is an ethereal childlike spirit and the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come is a hooded robed and terrifying wraith as per tradition. The Ghost of Christmas Past effects were created by making a special puppet that was operated in a tank of water and then green-screened into the film, to make it look like it was floating. It is also the first Muppet film to not include any Sesame Street characters in its production. Release. Critical reception. Disney appeared to have high expectations for the film, being their widest-released film of the holiday season and the second widest release under the Walt Disney Pictures banner that year. Yet despite being a modest box office success, "The Muppet Christmas Carol" did not make much of an impact during its theatrical release, having to face competition from "" and Disney's "Aladdin". The film grossed a total of $27,281,507 domestically. Critical reception, however, was mostly favorable. It currently has a 69% on Rotten Tomatoes with the consensus being, "It may not be the finest version of Charles Dickens' tale to grace the screen, but The Muppet Christmas Carol is funny and heartwarming, and serves as a good introduction to the story for young viewers." Over the years, reception of the film has become much more positive, with many reviewers claiming it as not only one of the best Muppet films, but also as one of the best adaptations of Charles Dickens's original story and a quintessential Christmas movie. Home media. This is the first "Muppet" film co-produced and released by Walt Disney Pictures – and the rights to the Muppets featured in the film would later be purchased by Disney. Other than the film's theatrical releases, the film has also been made available on home video formats. It was released on VHS in the US on September 10, 1993, in the UK on November 19 and twice on DVD in Region 1. The first DVD release on October 8, 2002 was in a fullscreen-only format. Walt Disney Home Entertainment re-released the film on DVD on November 29, 2005 in conjunction with Kermit the Frog's 50th anniversary celebration; this time the DVD contained both full-screen and widescreen presentations. The film was also released in Region 2. Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment released a "20th Anniversary Collector's Edition" on Blu-ray, DVD and digital copy on November 6, 2012. The release did not include the film's extended cut or "When Love is Gone". Music. The film's original score was composed by Miles Goodman with songs written by Paul Williams. Williams previously worked with the Muppets on the soundtrack to "The Muppet Movie" in which he and Kenneth Ascher were nominated for an Academy Award for writing "Rainbow Connection." Soundtrack. "The Muppet Christmas Carol: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack" contains all of the songs from the movie, with performances by the Muppet characters as well as Caine, including the songs "Room in Your Heart" and "Chairman of the Board" that were recorded but never filmed. As with all Muppet movies (except "Muppets from Space"), "The Muppet Christmas Carol" was filmed as a musical. The soundtrack album reached #189 on the The Walt Disney Company. The soundtrack also became available to purchase at the iTunes Store the same day as the film's Blu-ray release. "When Love is Gone". "When Love is Gone" was a song performed by the character Belle (Meredith Braun) that was cut from the original 1992 theatrical release by Walt Disney Studios, who believed that the scene would not appeal to young children. The movie plays with an obvious, jarring edit when the film is played with the song missing. Brian Henson objected to their decision, believing that the song was integral to the plot (the concluding song, "When Love is Found," is a direct counterpoint to it), and the song was subsequently restored to the VHS and laserdisc editions. This song was also cut from the 10th Anniversary Edition of the film released on DVD (widescreen only; however, the fullscreen version has the song). The song was also not included on the Blu-ray, or the DVD disc that is packaged with the Blu-ray combo pack released in 2012. Two other songs were written but dropped from the production early on: "Room in Your Heart", performed by Dr. Bunsen Honeydew and Beaker, and "Chairman of the Board", performed by Sam the Eagle. These songs were recorded, but removed from the script before filming began. Both songs appear on the motion picture soundtrack released by Jim Henson Records.
900144	City of the Living Dead (Italian: "Paura nella città dei morti viventi" translation: "Fear in the City of the Living Dead", also known as The Gates of Hell) is a 1980 Italian horror film directed by Lucio Fulci. It is the first installment of the unofficial "Gates of Hell" trilogy which also includes "The Beyond" and "The House by the Cemetery". Fulci makes an uncredited cameo appearance as Dr. Joe Thompson in the film. Plot. After Father William Thomas (Fabrizio Jovine) hangs himself in a cemetery, the gates of Hell are opened. Zombies with the abilities of super strength, teleportation and levitation appear and start killing off people in a remote town. Psychic Mary Woodhouse (Catriona MacColl) appears to die of fright during a seance, and is buried – only to revive, buried alive, in her own coffin. Investigating reporter Peter Bell (Christopher George), who is intrigued by the case, is present at the grave-site and rescues her – only to learn it is all fated as part of a prophecy in the Book of Enoch. The death of the priest is only the beginning, and they both must travel to the rural town of Dunwich, New England and close the portal to Hell before All Saints Day, or the spirits of the dead will overtake the earth. Production. The exteriors for the film were shot partially in the United States in both New York City, New York and Savannah, Georgia standing in for the town of Dunwich. Bonaventure Cemetery features prominently as the location in which Father Thomas hangs himself and where the protagonists must go to battle his entombed corpse. During filming, actress Daniela Doria actually vomited sheep entrails during the intestine purging scene. Distribution. "City of the Living Dead" was released to U.S. screens in May of 1983 as "The Gates of Hell" through Motion Picture Marketing, a now defunct small American independent distributor. After the film was screened in Los Angeles, California with Fulci present for a Q&A, he was met with heaving booing from the very angry remaining audience. On 25 May 2010, Blue Underground released a Blu-ray of the film, which includes the documentary "Making of City of the Living Dead". A Special Edition DVD (region 1) was also released the same day, with the making-of documentary on it as well. In the early 1980s, this film was passed by the BBFC for cinema exhibition with only the infamous "head drilling" scene cut. The same X version was released on video around the same time. Post-Video Recordings Act, it was submitted to the BBFC for official video release and received further cuts to the vomiting scene and the brain crushing scenes. In 2001, it was re-submitted and passed uncut. On 24 May 2010, Arrow Video released the definitive one-disc edition on Blu-ray and two-disc DVD. The film was initially released uncut in Germany under the title "Ein Zombie hing am Glockenseil" but was banned shortly afterwards. Since then, the film has been re-released several times under various titles ("Ein Toter hing am Glockenseil", "Eine Leiche hing am Glockenseil", and various other international titles) in cut and uncut form. All of these releases have subsequently been banned. The only exception is a version named "Ein Kadaver hing am Glockenseil" which is missing nine minutes of footage and has been rated 16 by the FSK. Critical reception. On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, "City of the Living Dead" currently has an approval rating of 55%, and is certified "rotten". Allmovie wrote that while the film "suffers from the same shortcomings present in much of Fulci's other horror films", ""City of the Living Dead" benefits from Fulci's ability to create and sustain an intensely creepy atmosphere", though ultimately calling the film "a dry run for the blend of graphic shocks and surrealism atmosphere that Lucio Fulci would perfect with "The Beyond"." Time Out called the film "laughably awful", though "with its nonsensical 'plot' randomly constructed according to the illogic of fear, and its grotesque emphasis on physical mutability, fragmentation and decay, it could just conceivably be the sort of disreputable movie the surrealists would have loved."
1059415	Silent Movie is a 1976 satirical comedy film co-written, directed by, and starring Mel Brooks, and released by 20th Century Fox on June 17, 1976. The ensemble cast includes Dom DeLuise, Marty Feldman, Bernadette Peters, and Sid Caesar, with appearances by Anne Bancroft, Liza Minnelli, Burt Reynolds, James Caan, Marcel Marceau and Paul Newman playing themselves.
1060345	Frances is a 1982 drama film starring Jessica Lange, Kim Stanley, and Sam Shepard. When it was released this film was advertised as a purportedly true account of actress Frances Farmer's life but the script was largely fictional and sensationalized. In particular, the film depicts Farmer as having been lobotomized; this is reputed to never have happened. Directed by Graeme Clifford, the story was written for the screen by Eric Bergren, Christopher De Vore, and Nicholas Kazan (son of Elia Kazan, who worked with the real Frances Farmer in several plays), based upon William Arnold's "Shadowland", a fictional biography of Farmer. In pre-production, the producers reneged on their option to use the book as source material. Arnold filed an unsuccessful copyright infringement lawsuit but many of his fictional elements were incorporated into the final film. On the commentary of the DVD release, director Clifford stated, "We didn't want to nickel and dime people to death with facts." Mel Brooks was executive producer of the film, but received no credit for his participation. "Frances" was nominated for Academy Awards for Best Actress in a Leading Role (Jessica Lange) and Best Actress in a Supporting Role (Kim Stanley). The film was also entered into the 13th Moscow International Film Festival where Lange won the award for Best Actress. The original music score was composed by John Barry. According to Barry, his idea of carrying the main theme using a harmonica was initially disliked by producers until they heard it fully orchestrated. Sir Anthony Hopkins revealed his admiration for Lange in the film, stating that her performance in "Frances" was his favorite by an actress. Plot. Born in Seattle, Washington, Frances Elena Farmer is a rebel from a young age, winning a high school award by writing an essay called "God Dies" in 1931. Later that decade, she becomes controversial again when she wins (and accepts) an all-expenses-paid trip to the USSR in 1935 to visit the Moscow Art Theatre. Determined to become an actress, Frances is equally determined not to play the Hollywood game: she refuses to acquiesce to publicity stunts, and insists upon appearing on screen without makeup. Her defiance attracts the attention of Broadway playwright Clifford Odets, who convinces Frances that her future rests with the Group Theatre. But once she leaves Hollywood for New York City, Frances learns to her chagrin that the Group Theatre intends to exploit her fame to draw in more customers. Her desperate attempts to restart her film career, combined with her increasing dependence on alcohol and the pressures brought to bear by her mother, result in a complete nervous breakdown. While institutionalized during the 1940s, Frances is abused by the powers-that-be: she is forced to undergo insulin shock therapy and electroconvulsive shock therapy, is cruelly beaten, periodically raped by the male orderlies and visiting soldiers and eventually involuntarily lobotomized. In 1950, Frances is released back in the custody of her mother, who persists in browbeating her until Frances discovers the legal means to break away. The film comes to a climax when Frances is paid honor in 1958 by the network program "This Is Your Life". When asked about alcoholism and mental illness, Farmer said she had never believed she had any of them. She commented, "if a person is treated like a patient, they are apt to act like one." The film ends with Frances Farmer walking down the street with Harry York. Ending lines state that Frances Farmer moved to Indianapolis shortly afterwards and was host of a local TV program ("Frances Farmer Presents") from (1958-1964), before dying of esophageal cancer on August 1, 1970 at age 56; dying just as she had lived-alone. Production. Many candidates were under consideration for the role of Frances Farmer: Anne Archer, Susan Blakely, Blythe Danner, Susan Dey, Patty Duke, Mia Farrow, Sally Field, Jane Fonda, Goldie Hawn, Diane Keaton, Liza Minnelli, Susan Sarandon, Cybill Shepherd, Sissy Spacek, Meryl Streep, Natalie Wood and Tuesday Weld. Susan Blakely went on to portray Farmer in the 1983 CBS television film "Will There Really Be a Morning?".
633656	Merritt R. Butrick (September 3, 1959 – March 17, 1989) was an American actor, known for his roles on the 1982 teen sitcom "Square Pegs", in two "Star Trek" feature films, and a variety of other acting roles in the 1980s. Early life and career. Butrick was born in Gainesville, Florida and was an only child. He graduated in 1977 from Tamalpais High School in Mill Valley, California. He attended the California Institute of the Arts for acting, but was dismissed from the school. His first screen role was as a rapist in two 1981 episodes of the police drama "Hill Street Blues". He was cast as "Johnny Slash" Ulasewicz, a major supporting character in the 1982 teen sitcom "Square Pegs", which received critical praise but was cancelled after 20 episodes (one season). While "Square Pegs" was in pre-broadcast production, Butrick was cast to play David Marcus, the physicist son of James T. Kirk (William Shatner) and his former lover Carol Marcus (Bibi Besch), in '. He continued the role in the follow-up film ', in which the character was killed. He later appeared as T'Jon, the captain of a cargo vessel rescued by the crew of the "Enterprise" in "", a 1988 episode of "". Meanwhile he appeared in the 1982 comedy film "Zapped!", the 1988 horror film "Fright Night II", and as Barbara Hershey's hillbilly son in the 1987 drama "Shy People". He had a variety of guest roles in television series and television movies. He received critical praise from "Time" magazine for his performance at the Los Angeles Theatre Center in the play "Kingfish", in which he played a ditzy, petulant muscle-boy prostitute. It was his last acting role. Death and legacy. Butrick died of AIDS-related toxoplasmosis on March 17, 1989, at the age of 29. He has at least two panels dedicated to him as part of the NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt, both referencing his role as David Marcus. The 2008 release of "Square Pegs" on DVD included a featurette dedicated to Butrick, in which his co-stars, including Jami Gertz and Sarah Jessica Parker, and show creator Anne Beatts, paid tributes to and recounted anecdotes about Butrick.
1788783	Christmas with a Capital C is a 2010 Christian drama film directed by Helmut Schleppi. The film's plot was based on a song of the same name by Christian band "Go Fish", whose name was inspired by one of actor Brad Stine's stand-up comedy routines. It centers around what, in recent years, has been dubbed the ""War on Christmas"" in the United States. Plot. Christmas has always been an exceptional time of love and tradition in the small town of Trapper Falls, Alaska. Hometown of Mayor Dan Reed (Ted McGinley) looks forward to each year with enthusiasm to all the events, friends and family that fill this special season. Together with his brother Greg (Brad Stine), they dedicate time away from their adventure tour company to drape the town is Christmas cheer. When Dan's old high school rival Mitch Bright (Daniel Baldwin), a mean-spirited and embittered militant atheist returns home after 20 years, Dan is immediately suspicious. Mitch is a highly successful big city lawyer who has never wanted anything to do with Trapper Falls. The rivalry re-ignites when the frustrated Mitch takes offense to what he sees as the town's violation of his rights. Mitch wants the Nativity scene removed from the front of City hall and the word Christmas switched to Happy Holidays on all signs. Fifty years of tradition are now challenged not by an outsider but a former member of the community. As the conflict escalates it goes beyond one person's opinion but magnifies into an entire town problem when Mitch enters into the mayoral race to have Dan replaced. In the heat of the legal battle and facing certain defeat, Dan's wife Kristen (Nancy Stafford) and their daughter Makayla (Francesca Derosa) wanting to show, what she believes to be, the true meaning of Christmas are inspired to launch a "Christmas with a Capital C" campaign as an effort to keep the town together. In doing so they discover the secret behind Mitch's return. He is looking for love and acceptance but can't find it in the world of high-flown success. Release. Originally, the Pureflix Entertainment website accepted pre-sale orders for the film in late 2010, with an original DVD release date of November 2, 2010. Without explanation, the pre-order link was removed sometime in the fall. On November 22, 2010, the Gospel Music Channel announced that it would air the film during the 2010 Christmas season. The film broadcast several times from December 5, 2010 until December 25, 2010. The film was also shown in select theaters and churches. Pureflix later updated their website to set the DVD release for November 8, 2011, eventually revising that date to November 1, 2011. Reception. Prior to the film's release, the film's trailer sparked ridicule and criticism on several blogs, news sites, and discussion forums including the British comedy panel show "8 out of 10 Cats". The "Portland Mercury" and others characterized the trailer as "anti-atheist". Some reviewers have pointed to similarities with the Grinch tale. The film itself was mostly reviewed by Christian organizations such as the Dove Foundation, which reviewed it favorably. Log lines. In Pureflix's promotional materials, the film's title is often accompanied by the log line, "Putting Christ Back in Christmas". GMCTV, in their promotional materials, opted for the log line, "The Reason for the Season".
1103213	Keith J. Devlin is a British mathematician and popular science writer. Since 1987 he has lived in the United States. He has dual American-British citizenship. Biography. Devlin earned a B.Sc. (Special) in Mathematics at Kings College London in 1968, and a Ph.D. in Mathematics at the University of Bristol in 1971 under the supervision of Frederick Rowbottom. He is co-founder and Executive Director of Stanford University's Human-Sciences and Technologies Advanced Research Institute, a co-founder of Stanford Media X university-industry research partnership program, and a Senior Researcher in the Center for the Study of Language and Information (CSLI). He is a commentator on National Public Radio's Weekend Edition Saturday, where he is known as "The Math Guy." As of 2012, he is the author of 34 books and over 80 research articles. Several of his books are aimed at an audience of the general public, as opposed to much academic work.
1105365	Pseudo-spectral methods are a class of numerical methods used in applied mathematics and scientific computing for the solution of PDEs, such as the direct simulation of a particle with an arbitrary wavefunction interacting with an arbitrary potential. They are related to spectral methods and are used extensively in computational fluid dynamics, optimal control and other areas, but are demonstrated below on an example from quantum physics. Background. The Schrödinger wave equation, can be written which resembles the linear ordinary differential equation with solution In fact, using the theory of linear operators, it can be shown that the general solution to the Schrödinger wave equation is where exponentiation of operators is defined using power series. Now remember that where the kinetic energy
1058654	Bedknobs and Broomsticks is a 1971 American musical film produced by Walt Disney Productions and released by Buena Vista Distribution Company in North America on December 13, 1971. It is based upon the books "The Magic Bed Knob; or, How to Become a Witch in Ten Easy Lessons" (1943) and "Bonfires and Broomsticks" (1945) by English children's author Mary Norton. The film, which combines live action and animation, stars Angela Lansbury and David Tomlinson. The film is frequently compared to "Mary Poppins" (1964): combining live action and animation and partly set in the streets of London. It shares some of the cast from Mary Poppins, namely Tomlinson, supporting actor Reginald Owen (in his last film role) and Arthur Malet, (Restored Version Only) a similar filmcrew, songwriters the Sherman Brothers, director Robert Stevenson, art director Peter Ellenshaw, and music director Irwin Kostal. According to film critic Leonard Maltin's book "Disney Films", Leslie Caron, Lynn Redgrave, Judy Carne, and Julie Andrews were all considered for the role of Eglantine Price before the Disney studio decided on Angela Lansbury. David Tomlinson replaced Ron Moody as Emelius Brown due to Moody's busy schedule. The film received generally positive reviews from critics, scoring 66% on Rotten Tomatoes, and won the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects. Plot. During The London Blitz, a family of three siblings, Charlie, Carrie and Paul Rawlins (Ian Weighill, Cindy O'Callaghan, Roy Snart), are evacuated to the small village of Pepperinge Eye. There, they are placed in the care of Eglantine Price (Angela Lansbury), who reluctantly accepts the trio into her home, on the condition that the children are relocated to another home. It is revealed that Ms. Price is an apprentice witch, who wants to use her witchcraft to assist in the war effort. Ms. Price tests her new broomstick for the first time to see if it works. Indeed it does; however, Ms. Price falls into a bush, and to her dismay, the broomstick breaks. The next morning, Charlie shows Ms. Price the broken broomstick he recovered from the bushes. Ms. Price is now aware that the children know she is a witch. Charlie then dares Ms. Price to turn him into a toad; however, Charlie turns into a rabbit instead, much to Paul's excitement. This causes Ms. Price's pet cat Cosmic Creepers to chase Charlie across the house. Cosmic Creepers eventually corners Charlie by a door upstairs, only to revert to his human form. The children agree to keep Ms. Price's magic spells a secret from the village, in exchange for a valuable item. Ms. Price asks if they would settle for one of her spells, which they accept, and she takes the children into her workshop. There, she asks if any of them have an object that can twist. Paul takes out of his pocket a bedknob from the bed, and hands it to Ms. Price. Ms. Price then casts a spell on the bedknob, in which a person twists the bedknob back onto the bed, and in a firm clear voice tells the bed where they want to go, and the bed takes them to their destination. Carrie thanks Ms. Price for the item; however, Ms. Price reveals that Paul is the only one who can make the spell work, so the bedknob is given back to him. Soon after, Ms. Price receives a letter from the headmaster of The Correspondence College of Witchcraft informing her that he is forced to close the college due to the war and cannot provide her with an important spell she has been waiting for to help her cause. As a result, she asks Paul if she can use the bedknob to go to London to track him down. Later that day, Ms. Price and the children are preparing to travel to London on the now magical bed, but Charlie initially refuses to join them, as he does not believe in magic (despite being turned into a rabbit by Ms. Price earlier in the film). Charlie changes his mind after Cosmic Creepers scares him again. Ms. Price and the children make it to London, and they quickly encounter the headmaster, Professor Emelius Browne (David Tomlinson), who is in fact a con artist. Mr. Browne is surprised to learn that the spells he thought were merely nonsense words out of an old book actually work for Ms. Price, which she proves by turning him into a rabbit for refusing to tell her what the spell is. Mr. Browne takes the group to a mansion where he is currently residing. While the children explore the house, the nursery in particular, Mr. Browne shows Ms. Price the book called "The Spells of Astaroth". Ms. Price discovers that the book has been ripped in half, and the rest of it is missing, thus explaining why he closed the college before sending out the final spell. Mr. Browne, Ms. Price, and the children travel to Portobello Road where Mr. Browne and Ms. Price are still looking for the book, and the children are exploring the market. Their search attracts the attention of a spiv named Swinburne (Bruce Forsyth), who works for a man known as the Bookman (Sam Jaffe), who has the other half of the book. Ms. Price and the Bookman exchange their halves, but the completed text doesn't actually contain the spell itself; it simply states that it is inscribed on a medallion known as the Star of Astaroth. Bookman tells the group that, during Astaroth's life, the wizard used his magic to imbue animals that he kept in cages and chains, with anthropomorphism. However, the animals revolted against the experiment, killed Astaroth, stole many of his powers (including the star), sailed away on ship and were never seen again. Bookman mentions that before a sailor died, he swore that he saw an island ruled by animals, but Bookman says the island doesn't exist because he looked for it in every chart. When Bookman names the island, Paul realizes it's the island described in a children's book he took from the nursery at Mr. Browne's house. Before Bookman can get the book, Ms. Price, Mr. Browne, and the children escape on the magical bed and travel to the island, which goes by the name of Naboombu. After a brief interlude with a codfish (Bob Holt) at an underwater nightclub in Naboombu's lagoon, the group is caught by a bear (Dallas McKennon) that is fishing in the lagoon. The bear reveals that no people are allowed to be on the island by order of the king (possibly because of what Astaroth did to the animals). The bear then leads the group to meet an unnamed secretary bird (Lennie Weinrib) the island's king, a lion named Leonidas (also Lennie Weinrib). The king is upset because no one has volunteered to referee a soccer match. Mr. Browne convinces the king he can referee the match, and he observes the Star of Astaroth hanging on the king's neck while being trampled upon several times by the animals. Following the game, Mr. Browne secretly switches the Star with his referee whistle and the group escapes on the magical bed once again. Before doing so, Ms. Price reads the words from the star, which are "Treguna Mekoides Trecorum Satis Dee". Upon returning home, Ms. Price discovers that the Star has disappeared, as it cannot leave the fantasy world. Fortunately, Paul reveals that the words of the “substitutiary locomotion” spell have been in his book all along. Ms. Price attempts to perform the spell, which gives inanimate objects the ability to move on their own, but is unable to control it. Later, when Ms. Price and the children are informed by Mrs. Hobday (Tessie O'Shea) that the children can be relocated, they realize they have become comfortable with each other, and decline. Mr. Browne decides to take the first train back to London, and he bids a sad goodbye to the children as Ms. Price warmly thanks him for all his help. At the station, learning that there won't be any trains until morning, Mr. Browne decides to sleep on the bench for the night, but feels guilty for leaving Ms. Price and the children. That night, a German raiding party invades Pepperinge Eye and commandeers Ms. Price's house. She and the children are captured and taken to the village museum, inside an old castle. Mr. Browne returns to Ms. Price's house and breaks into her workshop. The Germans hear the noise but Mr. Browne uses a spell to turn himself into a rabbit just as they discover him. He then rejoins Ms. Price and the children at the museum, where he reverts to his human form and suggests the substitutiary locomotion spell be cast on the old uniforms and weapons in the castle. Ms. Price agrees and uses the spell to create a magical army of medieval Knights, Cavaliers, Redcoats, and Highlanders. The Germans, unable to stop the seemingly invincible army, retreat back to their boats, but not before destroying Ms. Price's workshop with an explosive device. The explosion knocks her from the sky, where she had been directing the magical attack astride a flying broomstick. Ms. Price accepts that this is the end of her days as a witch, but is happy she got to make a small contribution to the war effort. The next morning, Mr. Browne enlists and departs (with an escort from the local Home Guard) but promises to return. Charlie bemoans that their magical adventures are over, only for Paul to reveal he still has the bedknob, implying that they can at least go anywhere they like. Cast. The Voices Of: Production. Filming took place at the Walt Disney Studios in Burbank, California. The castle scenes were shot on location at Corfe Castle, Dorset, England. Reception. Releases. "Bedknobs and Broomsticks" was originally intended to be a large-scale epic holiday release similar to "Mary Poppins", but after its premiere, it was shortened from its two and a half-hour length (while the liner notes on the soundtrack reissue in 2002 claims it was closer to three hours) to a more manageable (to movie theatres) two hours. Along with a minor subplot involving Roddy McDowall's character, three songs were removed entirely, and the central dance number "Portobello Road" was shortened by more than six minutes. Upon rediscovering the removed song "A Step in the Right Direction" on the original soundtrack album, Disney decided to reconstruct the film's original running length. Most of the film material was found, but some segments of "Portobello Road" had to be reconstructed from work prints with digital re-coloration to match the film quality of the main content. The footage for "A Step in the Right Direction" was never located; as of 2009, it presumably remains lost, and it is believed that the footage was possibly destroyed. A reconstruction of "A Step in the Right Direction", using the original music track linked up to existing production stills, was included on the DVD as an extra to convey an idea of what the lost sequence would have looked like. The edit included several newly discovered songs, including "Nobody's Problems", performed by Lansbury. The number had been cut before the premiere of the film. Lansbury had only made a demo recording, singing with a solo piano because the orchestrations would have been added when the picture was scored. When the song was cut, the orchestrations had not yet been added; therefore, it was finally orchestrated, and put together when it was placed back into the film. The soundtrack for some of the spoken tracks was unrecoverable. Therefore, Lansbury and McDowall re-dubbed their parts, while other actors made ADR dubs for those who were unavailable. Even though David Tomlinson was still alive when the film was being reconstructed, he was in ill-health, and unavailable to provide ADR for Emelius Browne. Some of the alternate actors that re-dubbed the newly inserted scenes had questionable likenesses to that of the original voices (the postmistress, for example, had a British regional accented voice that changed from Welsh to Scottish and back again on the reconstructed scenes). Elements of the underscoring were either moved or extended when it was necessary to benefit the new material. The extended version of the film was released on VHS and DVD on March 20, 2001 to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the film. The reconstruction additionally marks the first time the film was presented in stereophonic sound. Although the musical score was recorded in stereo, and the soundtrack album was presented that way, the film was released in mono sound. The movie was reissued theatrically in 1979, with a lower time of 97 minutes, with all songs, excluding "Portobello Road" and "Beautiful Briny Sea", being muted out. A new edition DVD called "Bedknobs and Broomsticks: Enchanted Musical Edition" was released on September 8, 2009. This new single-disc edition is an identical transfer to the "30th Anniversary Edition", dropping the Scrapbook and Film Facts to make room for a Wizards of Waverly Place Special Effects featurette and a Suite Life of Zack & Cody Blu-ray infomercial. The Sherman Brothers Featurette, the lost song "A Step in the Right Direction" and most of the other bonus features are retained from the previous DVD. Awards and nominations. The film received five Academy Award nominations and won one. NOMINATIONS Soundtrack. Although the film is in mono sound recording, the songs for the film were recorded in stereo. These songs include:
707425	They Came Back (), released in the UK as The Returned, is a French zombie film, originally released in 2004. The film was screened at the Hamburg Fantasy Filmfest in Hamburg, Germany, the Venice Film Festival in Italy, and the Toronto Film Festival in Canada. Unlike modern zombie films, in which the undead characters wish to digest or otherwise harm the human characters, the 70 million people who return from the dead in "They Came Back" want simply to re-integrate themselves into society. In the French village where the film takes place, the town's population must cope with the social and emotional ramifications of the dead coming back to life. The dead are not unlike children, having to relearn how to talk and remember. Synopsis. As the movie begins, a slow moving mostly gray haired crowd walk through a French town. These people are clean, combed, and casually dressed. Integration with society becomes the first issue that concerns the town politics. While the authorities monitor and record movements, habits, sociability, and intelligence the personal relationships between the returned and their respective live spouses and parents comes into the foreground. Painful memories are awakened, guilt, fear, love, even unearthed passions are aroused. However, monitoring the returnees shows them to be very much apart from their live cohabitants and in fact involved in late night clandestine meetings, seemingly plotting with more intelligence than they are exhibiting in their day jobs. Critical reception. "The Village Voice" remarked, "They Came Back suffers from long-winded earnestness and, despite some poetic conceits, its allegory ultimately doesn't parse." J.C. Maçek III of "PopMatters" and "WorldsGreatestCritic.com" wrote, "This one may be hard to swallow in its ambiguity and surreal normalcy. It's not a "thriller", but can be thoroughly horrifying given the right viewer. It's also the only movie I've ever seen that is referred to as a "Zombie Movie" but contains absolutely no blood or gore whatsoever. Stick that in your crack pipe and suck on it, Fangoria!"
1071011	Plot. The film takes place in Koishikawa, a district of Edo (the former name of the city of Tokyo), in the 19th century. Young Dr. Noboru Yasumoto (Yūzō Kayama) is the film's protagonist. Trained in a Dutch medical school in Nagasaki, the arrogant Yasumoto aspires to the status of personal physician of the Shogunate, a position currently held by a close relative; his father is already a well-established, highly competent physician. Yasumoto believes that he should progress through the safe, and well-protected, army structure of medical education. However, for Yasumoto's post-graduate medical training, he has been assigned to a rural clinic under the guidance of "Akahige" ("Red Beard"), Dr. Kyojō Niide (played by Toshiro Mifune). Dr. Niide may seem like a tyrannical task master, but in reality he is a compassionate clinic director. Initially, Yasumoto is livid at his posting, believing that he has little to gain from working under "Akahige". Dr. Yasumoto feels that Dr. Niide is only interested in his medical notes and soon rebels against the clinic director. He refuses to wear his uniform, disdains the food and spartan environment, and enters the forbidden garden where he meets "The Mantis" (Kyōko Kagawa), a mysterious patient that only Dr. Niide can treat. As Yasumoto struggles to come to terms with his situation, the film tells the story of a few of the clinic's patients. One of them is Rokusuke, a dying man whom Dr. Niide discerns is troubled by a secret misery that is only revealed when his desperately unhappy daughter shows up. Another is Sahachi, a well-loved man of the town known for his generosity to his neighbors, who has a tragic connection to a woman whose corpse is discovered after a landslide. Dr. Niide brings Yasumoto along to rescue a sick twelve-year-old girl from a brothel (fighting off a local gang of toughs to do so) and then assigns the girl to Yasumoto as his first patient. Through his efforts to heal the traumatized girl, Yasumoto begins to understand the magnitude of cruelty and suffering around him as well as his power to ease that suffering, and learns to regret his vanity and selfishness. When Yasumoto himself falls ill, he is nursed back to health by the care and affection of Otoyo, the twelve-year-old girl who was saved from the brothel. Through his observations of Dr. Niide's compassion and a series of destitute patients, Dr. Yasumoto learns what being a doctor really means. The lives of patients are more important than wealth or status. Their suffering can be ameliorated with compassion and conscientious care. Production. According to the commentary on the Criterion Collection DVD "Red Beard" is 185 minutes long and was shot at an aspect ratio of 2.35:1. It was Kurosawa's first film to make use of a magnetic 4-track stereo soundtrack and principal photography took two years. The set was intended to be historically accurate: the crew went as far as to use the right kind of aged wood that would have been used in the region at the time the film is set, at Kurosawa's request. As a Kurosawa film. "Red Beard" is the last of 16 films in which Kurosawa worked with Mifune. In the DVD commentary, film scholar Stephen Prince mentions that Mifune's natural beard had to be maintained through the lengthy production, so he was unable to act in other films. The resulting financial stress on Mifune was one of the causes of the breakup between the actor and director. Teruyo Nogami, who was Kurosawa's long-time script supervisor, wrote in her memoirs that scriptwriter Hideo Oguni told Kurosawa that Mifune's performance had been "all wrong". Although the author of the novel upon which "Red Beard" was based offered Kurosawa praise on the completed film, Nogami wrote that Oguni's comment caused Kurosawa for the first time to question Mifune's abilities, and Kurosawa never again sought to work with Mifune. "Red Beard" is also Kurosawa's last black-and-white film. According to Prince, this is also the only Kurosawa film to feature nudity (in a scene where doctors suture a large wound on a young woman who was still semi-conscious).
1064884	Welcome to the Dollhouse is a 1995 American independent coming of age comedy film. An independent film, it launched the careers of Todd Solondz and Heather Matarazzo. Plot. Dawn Wiener is a shy, unattractive, unpopular 7th grader in a middle-class suburban community in New Jersey. Her older brother Mark is a nerdy, snooty high school student who plays clarinet in a garage band and shuns girls in order to prepare for college. Dawn's younger sister Missy is a spoiled, manipulative little girl who pesters Dawn and dances happily in a tutu. Their mother is a shrewish, overbearing woman who dotes on Missy and sides with her in disputes with Dawn. Their father is a meek, selfish man who sides with Dawn's mother. Dawn's only friend is an effeminate fifth-grade boy named Ralphy, with whom she shares a dilapidated clubhouse in her backyard. Dawn's life in junior high is miserable. Her classmates ridicule her and cover her locker with graffiti. After her teacher unfairly keeps her after school, she is threatened with rape by a bully named Brandon McCarthy, who has almost as much trouble socializing as she does. Her attempts to take out her frustrations only get her into trouble: at home her mother punishes her for calling Missy a lesbian and refusing to be nice to her; at school, she accidentally hits a teacher in the eye with a spitball. Brandon's first attempt to rape Dawn fails, but he orders her to meet him again. After she presents herself to him and he takes her to an abandoned field, he starts an earnest conversation and only kisses her, even though she is obviously willing. Mark's band is joined by Steve Rodgers, a charismatic and handsome aspiring rock musician in exchange for Mark's help in computer science class. Dawn falls for him and decides to pursue him romantically after he spends some time with her, even though one of his former girlfriends told her that she has no chance.
1060591	Hayden Leslie Panettiere (; born August 21, 1989) is an American actress, model, singer, voice actress, and activist. She began her acting career by playing Sarah Roberts on "One Life to Live" (1994–97), and Lizzie Spaulding on "Guiding Light" (1996–2000), before starring at age 10 as Sheryl Yoast in the Disney feature film "Remember the Titans". Her most notable role to date is that of cheerleader Claire Bennet on the NBC series "Heroes" (2006–10), for which she won several awards. Other recent roles include her portrayal of the title character in true crime drama "" and Kirby Reed in the slasher film "Scream 4". In October 2012, she began starring as Juliette Barnes in the ABC musical drama series "Nashville", for which she was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress – Series, Miniseries or Television Film in 2012. Early life. Panettiere was born in and partly raised in Palisades, New York, the daughter of Lesley R. Vogel, a former soap opera actress, and Alan Lee "Skip" Panettiere, a fire department captain. She has one younger brother, fellow actor Jansen Panettiere. Panettiere has Italian and German ancestry. Her surname means "baker" in Italian and her mother's maiden name means "bird" in German. Her mother's family is from Indiana.
582666	Ayesha Jhulka (born 28 July 1972 in Srinagar, India) is an Indian film actress. During her career, she has worked with major stars like Mithun Chakraborty, Nagarjuna Akkineni, Govinda, Jackie Shroff, Nana Patekar, Aamir Khan, Salman Khan, Ajay Devgn, Suniel Shetty and Akshay Kumar. Personal life. She is the daughter of Wing Commander Inder Kumar Jhulka, an Indian Air Force Officer. She is married to Sameer Vashi. Career. She made her Hindi film acting debut as a child actor in 1983. Her first full fledged role, as one of the lead actress, was in 1990 in the film "Meet Mere Mann Ke", and her next release was a Telugu film, Neti Siddhartha, opposite Nagarjuna Akkineni. In 1991, She had a major hit release "Kurbaan" with Salman Khan. She was a new happening star in Bollywood at the time. 1993 was also good for her, as her films "Dalaal" and "Rang" were hits. Her other film with Mithun called "Suraj" did quite well with masses, her next release was "Kohram". In 1993, she was part of two more average successes "Waqt Hamara Hai" and "Meherbaan". She was praised for films "Balma" and "Sangram", in which she played major roles along with Ajay Devgan and Karishma Kapoor. In 1992, her major success came through "Jo Jeeta Wohi Sikander" with Aamir Khan and Khiladi with Akshay Kumar. In 1994, "Jai Kishan" did quite well, but others were flops. She did a few second cameos in "Akele Hum Akele Tum", which was her only release of 1995. Besides that Promos of her film "Kisi Se Dil Laga Ke Dekho" with Shahrukh Khan and Madhoo were on air in the same year. But that film could not see the light of the day. After the success of "Masoom", She got two important films "Vishwavidhata" and "Ghoonghat" and a delayed film called "Hote Hote Pyar Ho Gaya" with Jackie Shroff and Kajol. Regional films kept coming her way including Punjabi films like "Khalsa Mero Roop Hai Khas", which did well abroad. She got films with good roles like "Samvedna", "Amma", and "Janani". She did a cameo in Kamal Hasan's "Chachi 420", which did well and also received positive reviews. She played supporting but important roles in "Run" (2004), "Socha Na Tha" (2005) and "Umrao Jaan" (2006). Recently, She started play production and produced plays like "Purush" and "Prakriti".
1163657	Carol Creighton Burnett (born April 26, 1933) is an American actress, comedian, singer, and writer. She is best known for her long-running TV variety show, "The Carol Burnett Show", for CBS. She has achieved success on stage, television, and film in varying genres including dramatic and comedy roles. After a difficult childhood in San Antonio with alcoholic parents, Burnett discovered acting and comedy in college. She performed in nightclubs in New York City and had a breakout success on Broadway in 1959 in "Once Upon a Mattress", receiving a Tony Award nomination. She soon made her television debut, regularly appearing on "The Garry Moore Show" for the next three years, and winning her first Emmy Award in 1962. Burnett moved to Los Angeles and began an 11-year run on "The Carol Burnett Show" which was aired on CBS television from 1967 to 1978. With roots in vaudeville, "The Carol Burnett Show" was a variety show that combined comedy sketches, song and dance. The comedy sketches included film parodies and character pieces. Burnett created many memorable characters during the show's television run, and both she and the show won numerous Emmy and Golden Globe Awards. During and after her variety show, Burnett appeared in many television and film projects. Her film roles include "Pete 'n' Tillie" (1972), "The Four Seasons" (1981), "Annie" (1982), "Noises Off" (1992), and "Horton Hears a Who!" (2008). On television, she has appeared in other sketch shows; in dramatic roles in "6 Rms Riv Vu" (1974) and "Friendly Fire" (1979); in various well-regarded guest roles, such as in "Mad About You", for which she won an Emmy Award; and in specials with Julie Andrews, Dolly Parton, Beverly Sills, and others. She was also back on Broadway in 1995 in "Moon Over Buffalo", for which she was nominated for a Tony Award. Early life. Burnett was born in San Antonio, Texas, the daughter of Ina Louise (née Creighton), a publicity writer for movie studios, and Joseph Thomas Burnett, a movie theater manager. Both of her parents suffered from alcoholism, and at a young age, she was left with her grandmother, Mabel Eudora White. Her parents divorced in the late 1930s, and Burnett and her grandmother moved to an apartment near her mother’s in an impoverished area of Hollywood. There they stayed in a boarding house with her younger half-sister Chrissy. When Burnett was in the second grade, she briefly invented an imaginary twin sister named Karen, with Shirley Temple-like dimples. Motivated to further the pretense, Burnett recalled fondly that she "fooled the other boarders in the rooming house where we lived by frantically switching clothes and dashing in and out of the house by the fire escape and the front door. Then I became exhausted and Karen mysteriously vanished." For a while, she worked as an usherette at what is now the Hollywood Pacific Theatre (the forecourt of which is now the location of her star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame; see the section in the theatre's article for more information). After graduating from Hollywood High School in 1951, Burnett received an anonymous envelope containing $50 for one year's tuition at UCLA, where she initially planned on studying journalism. During her first year of college, Burnett switched her focus to theater arts and English, with the goal of becoming a playwright. She found she had to take an acting course to enter the playwright program; "I wasn't really ready to do the acting thing, but I had no choice." She followed a sudden impulse in her first performance; "Don't ask me why, but when we were in front of the audience, I suddenly decided I was going to stretch out all my words and my first line came out 'I'm baaaaaaaack!'" The audience response moved her deeply: They laughed and it felt great. All of a sudden, after so much coldness and emptiness in my life, I knew the sensation of all that warmth wrapping around me. I had always been a quiet, shy, sad sort of girl and then everything changed for me. You spend the rest of your life hoping you'll hear a laugh that great again. During this time, Burnett performed in several university productions, garnering recognition for her comedic and musical abilities. Her mother disapproved of her acting ambitions: She wanted me to be a writer. She said you can always write, no matter what you look like. When I was growing up she told me to be a little lady, and a couple of times I got a whack for crossing my eyes or making funny faces. Of course, she never, I never, dreamed I would ever perform. The young Burnett, always insecure about her looks, described her reaction to her mother's advice of "You can always write, no matter what you look like", in her 1986 memoir "One More Time": "God, that hurt!" In 1954, during her junior year, a professor invited Burnett and some other students to perform at a black-tie party. A man and his wife approached her afterward, as she was putting cookies in her purse to take home to her grandmother. Instead of reprimanding her, the man complimented Burnett's performance and asked about her future plans. When he discovered that she wanted to go try her luck with musical comedy in New York, but did not have enough money, he offered her and her boyfriend Don Saroyan each a $1000 interest-free loan on the spot. The conditions were that it was to be paid back in five years, his name was never to be revealed, and if she became a success, she would help others attain their dreams. Burnett took him up on his offer. She and Saroyan left college and moved to New York to pursue acting careers. That same year, Burnett's father died of causes related to his alcoholism. Career. Early career. After spending her first year in New York working as a hat-check girl and failing to land acting jobs, Burnett along with other girls living at The Rehearsal Club, a boarding house for women seriously pursuing an acting career, put on The Rehearsal Club Revue on March 3, 1955. They mailed invitations to agents, who showed up along with stars like Celeste Holm and Marlene Dietrich, and this opened doors for several of the girls. Burnett was cast in a minor role on "The Paul Winchell and Jerry Mahoney Show" in 1955. She played the girlfriend of a ventriloquist’s dummy on the popular children’s program. This role led to her starring role opposite Buddy Hackett in the short-lived sitcom "Stanley" from 1956 to 1957. After "Stanley", Burnett found herself unemployed for a short time. She eventually bounced back a few months later as a highly popular performer on the New York circuit of cabarets and night clubs, most notably for a hit parody number called "I Made a Fool of Myself Over John Foster Dulles" (Dulles was Secretary of State at the time). In 1957, Burnett performed this number on both "The Tonight Show", hosted by Jack Paar, and "The Ed Sullivan Show". Burnett also worked as a regular on one of television's earliest game shows, "Pantomime Quiz", during this time. In 1957, just as Burnett was achieving her first small successes, her mother died. Burnett's first true taste of success came with her appearance on Broadway in the 1959 musical "Once Upon a Mattress", for which she was nominated for a Tony Award. The same year, she became a regular player on "The Garry Moore Show", a job that lasted until 1962. She won an Emmy Award that year for her "Outstanding Performance in a Variety or Musical Program or Series" on the show. Burnett portrayed a number of characters, most memorably the put-upon cleaning woman who would later become her signature alter-ego. With her success on the Moore show, Burnett finally rose to headliner status and appeared in the 1962 special "Julie and Carol at Carnegie Hall", co-starring her friend Julie Andrews. The show was produced by Bob Banner, directed by Joe Hamilton, and written by Mike Nichols and Ken Welch. "Julie and Carol at Carnegie Hall" won an Emmy Award for Outstanding Program Achievement in the Field of Music, and Burnett won an Emmy for her performance. Burnett also guest-starred on a number of shows during this time, including "The Twilight Zone" episode "Cavender is Coming".
742175	Wisegal is a Lifetime Television crime drama film starring Alyssa Milano and directed by Jerry Ciccoritti. The movie premiered on March 15, 2008. Plot. "The story is narrated by an adult Nino Montanari, who reminisces on his family history..."
629282	Sunday Too Far Away is an Australian feature film which was directed by Ken Hannam and released in 1975. It belongs to the Australian Film Renaissance which occurred during that decade. The film is set on a sheep station in the Australian outback in 1955 and its action concentrates on the shearers' reactions to a threat to their bonuses and the arrival of non-union labour. Acclaimed for its understated realism of the work, camaraderie and general life of the shearer, Jack Thompson plays the knock-about Foley, a heavy drinking gun shearer (talented professional sheep shearer), and while he makes a play for the station owner's daughter Sheila (Lisa Peers), the film is a presentation of various aspects of Australian male culture and not a romance; the film's title itself is reputedly the lament of an Australian shearer's wife: "Friday night [he's] too tired; Saturday night too drunk; Sunday, too far away". "Sunday Too Far Away" won three 1975 Australian Film Institute awards: Best Film, Best Actor in a Leading Role and Best Actor in a Supporting Role. Plot. In 1956, gun shearer Foley joins a new shearing team. He shares a room with Old Garth, a once great shearer who is now a drunk. Foley and his team battle to get in a new cook, Old Garth dies and Foley befriends the grazier's daughter. Foley loses his status as top shearer to Arthur Black and blows most of his money in gambling. The shearers go on strike and Foley and his team get involved in a brawl with non union labour. Production. The film was the first feature produced by the South Australian Film Corporation. They wanted to make a film about the Gallipoli Campaign and considered a co-production with Crawford Productions. John Dingwall was signed to write it. However the film fell through when Crawfords fell out with the SAFC. Dingwall, still under contact to them, proposed instead a treatment called "Shearers", based on his brother-in-law, who was a shearer. Matt Carroll at the SAFC was particularly enthusiastic and recruited Ken Hannam to direct.The original treatment concerned the 1956 shearer's strike. This ended up being condensed greatly. Among the investors in the movie were the Australian Film Development Corporation. Shooting began in May 1974 and took place near Port Augusta and Quorn in South Australia. It encountered rains and flood and was completed behind schedule in May.
1099269	Non-linear least squares is the form of least squares analysis used to fit a set of "m" observations with a model that is non-linear in "n" unknown parameters ("m" > "n"). It is used in some forms of non-linear regression. The basis of the method is to approximate the model by a linear one and to refine the parameters by successive iterations. There are many similarities to linear least squares, but also some significant differences. Theory. Consider a set of formula_1 data points, formula_2 and a curve (model function) formula_3 that in addition to the variable formula_4 also depends on formula_5 parameters, formula_6 with formula_7 It is desired to find the vector formula_8 of parameters such that the curve fits best the given data in the least squares sense, that is, the sum of squares
400248	Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film for Theaters is an American flash animated semi-canonical comedy film based on the Adult Swim animated series "Aqua Teen Hunger Force". The film was written and directed by the show's creators, Matt Maiellaro and Dave Willis, and was released on April 13, 2007 by First Look Pictures. The film's poster was illustrated by Julie Bell and Boris Vallejo, and parodies the "King of the Mountain" design. "Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film for Theaters" is notable for marking the first time an Adult Swim original series was made into a movie. Plot. The movie begins with a song by a virtual unusual band—consisting of a bag of popcorn, a hot dog, a chocolate Popsicle and a cup of soda—in a parody of the 1953 short film "Let's All Go to the Lobby", only to be interrupted by heavy metal band Mastodon—animated as a gum drop, a pretzel, a box of Ice Caps, and a box of nachos—who warn the audience that bad movie etiquette or infringing the movie's copyright will result in severe bodily harm or death. The movie properly begins in Egypt, where Master Shake, Frylock and Meatwad escape from the Sphinx (who is sipping on a soda), and are attacked by an oversized Poodle who kills Frylock before being destroyed by Shake. Shake and Meatwad flee with Frylock's corpse and meet Time Lincoln, who revives Frylock; however, when government agents break into his house, the Aqua Teens flee in his wooden rocket ship, and Time Lincoln is shot, changing the timeline and effectively resulting in white people being enslaved by black people. This, however, is all revealed to be an elaborate story concocted by Shake to explain their origin to Meatwad and Frylock. An animated music video then follows. Shake heads off to work out on his new exercise machine, the Insanoflex. Upon discovering that the machine is not assembled correctly (and the instructions are nowhere to be found), Frylock searches online for them. He finds a website written in a rare robot dialect with the only words in English warning not to assemble it...ever. The site then lists a phone number which Frylock calls. The film cuts to outer space on board the Plutonians Emory and Oglethorpe's ship. Before they even bother to answer the phone (the number on Frylock's computer was theirs), the Plutonians discover the Cybernetic Ghost of Christmas Past from the Future on board with them. The Cybernetic Ghost begins explaining to the two aliens the story of the Insanoflex: the machine, when assembled, will exercise a man into a super-being, who will attract all the women on Earth leading to massive inbreeding and the eventual extinction of mankind. To prevent this, the Ghost has traveled into the past and stolen a single screw that holds all the parts together. The Plutonians point out to him that to get it assembled, someone could just buy another screw or shove a pencil in the screw hole. Back on Earth, Frylock finishes building the machine (somehow having obtained the instructions), having just shoved a pencil in the screw hole. Before Shake can work out however, they discover a missing M-shaped circuit board on the back panel. The trio visit Carl, from whom Shake had stolen the machine, to see if he has the missing piece. After he refuses to tell them, Meatwad finds the address in the Insanoflex's box. Meanwhile, a triangular slice of watermelon named Walter Melon is flying about in a space ship made from a hollowed-out watermelon, observing the events unfolding according to his plan – Walter Melon is joined in the ship by Neil Peart from Rush, sitting at his drums. Dr. Weird, whose abandoned insane asylum has been purchased and is being turned into condominiums around them, is visited by Shake, Frylock, and Meatwad, who retrieve the missing piece and head home. Frylock installs the missing circuit board, but Carl insists that as the rightful owner he should be the first to test out the machine. The machine straps him in and elaborately transforms itself into a huge one-eyed robot. The robot plays dance/techno music and begins stomping around, crushing houses and heading toward downtown Philadelphia, all while Carl's strapped-in form is forced to exercise. Eventually, the robot begins laying large metallic eggs, which hatch into smaller versions of the machine. The Aqua Teens, aided by an instructional workout video, find a way to destroy the machine. Meatwad gets MC Pee Pants (who is now a fly) to help, but he is hit with a flyswatter by Shake while giving a demonstration. With little time, the Aqua Teens have no choice but to have Shake play a new song with his guitar. Shake plays his original song "Nude Love" on acoustic guitar, forcing the machine to commit suicide because Shake's song is so bad. Carl (now bulging with so much muscle that he is rendered unable to move) leaves with his date, a muscular woman named Linda, and they head back to her condo while the Aqua Teens try to figure out a way to stop the newly hatched smaller robots from destroying the city. Meanwhile, Frylock begins to tell the origin story of the Aqua Teens: they were created by Dr. Weird, along with a chicken nugget who had gone by the name of Chicken Bittle. In the flashback, Dr. Weird proclaims that the Aqua Teens were created for one purpose, and one purpose only: to crash a jet into a brick wall. Realizing the pointlessness of this mission, Frylock simply diverted the jet (after a struggle with Bittle) and set a course to Africa, where they would try to use their intelligence to solve world hunger. While parachuting down to the earth, Bittle was attacked and eaten by a lion. The remaining three then tried to help a small village, but the natives feared them and ran away. After realizing they couldn't be much help, they hopped back in the jet and rented out what is now their house in New Jersey. Shake and Meatwad state that they cannot remember any of this, but Frylock explains it was because they were too busy playing their Game Boy to pay any attention. Meanwhile, Carl and the muscular woman Linda recline in her room, where she reveals "herself" to be Dr. Weird in disguise. He cuts off Carl's muscles with a hunting knife and grafts them onto his own body. Frylock and Dr. Weird do battle, and the struggle continues while they argue back and forth about who created whom. Dr. Weird claims that it was Frylock who created him, not the other way around. Dr. Weird then reveals that the blue diamond on Frylock's back hides a VCR, in which a video with false memories of Dr. Weird creating Frylock had been playing in Frylock's head. Frylock also admits that he is transsexual lesbian trapped in a man's body. Just then, Walter Melon arrives in his ship and explains he created the Aqua Teens and all the other characters so that they would eventually kill each other, after which Walter would inherit all their real estate in order to create the "Insano-Gym." The other characters, however, inform Walter that they all rent and do not own any property, not only rendering Walter's plan completely useless, but proving that everyone's existence is completely pointless. Walter storms off in his ship, threatening to tell their mother about their failures. Just then, the Teens' see their alleged mother standing before him, revealed to be a 9-layer bean burrito. The Soda Dog Refreshment comes onscreen once again and dismisses the audience. After the credits, there is a quick scene of the Cybernetic Ghost of Christmas Past from the Future humping the television in the Aqua Teen's living room. The camera then pans left to Frylock who now has large breasts, primped hair, and is dressed in feminine clothing, indicating that Frylock got a sex change. Production. In an interview at the 2005 San Diego Comic-Con, Dana Snyder and Matt Maiellaro confirmed rumors that there would be a feature-length movie of "Aqua Teen Hunger Force". More details were revealed at the 2005 Paley Television Festival, such as a possible cameo by 80s funk group Cameo, and Maiellaro described it as "an action piece that leads into an origin story that unfolds in a very 'Aqua Teen' way." The creators revealed much more information in an interview with Wizard Entertainment. While they dodged many questions, they confirmed that the movie would run 80 minutes, was filmed on a meager $750,000 budget, and features a plot detail about a "lost Aqua Teen", who is a large chicken nugget named "Chicken Bittle" (voiced by Bruce Campbell). They also confirmed more cameos, with Rush drummer and lyricist Neil Peart, voice actor H. Jon Benjamin and his comedy partner Jon Glaser, and "Saturday Night Live's" Fred Armisen to make appearances. Heavy metal band Mastodon stated in a Decibel article that they would be performing during the opening, and that the band would be animated as a bucket of popcorn, a soda, a hot dog, and a candy bar. They were actually animated as a pretzel, a pile of nachos, an "Icecaps" box, and a gumdrop. Regarding the film's rating, Maiellaro commented that "I think if movie is rated R, it won't get the audience that watches it. But we don't know yet. We're still waiting to find out." Since then, the trailer released has advertised the film as rated R. The movie is mostly uncensored; is never censored, and while the movie is censored it is occasionally accompanied by a censoring beep that does not obscure the word, and is censored once during a flashback. As explained in the production feature, the inconsistency was an editing mistake, but left untouched for comic effect. Soundtrack. The soundtrack was released on April 10, 2007, under the title "Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film for Theaters Colon the Soundtrack". It features many previously unreleased songs, some recorded for the purpose of this album. In addition, the compilation features an intro/outro titled "Nude Love" by Aqua Teen character Master Shake, a track from former SPIN.com "Artist of the Day" MC Chris, skits and sound bites from the movie, and a new version of the "Aqua Teen Hunger Force" theme by rapper Schoolly D. The album features mix of musical styles ranging from heavy metal, indie rock, and hip-hop; and also features new, original music from Mastodon, Killer Mike and Unearth. Noticeably missing is "In the Air Tonight" by Phil Collins, which is prominently featured at the end of the film. Track listing. Note: Carey Means (Frylock) is absent from the skits, sound bites, and hidden tracks where the other Aqua Teens can be heard. Regardless, Carey Means still portrays Frylock in the film. Marketing. Boston bomb scare. On January 31, 2007, police in Boston, Massachusetts received reports of devices resembling bombs in various places around the city. The devices turned out to be electronic signs similar to a Lite-Brite that displayed images of the Mooninites Ignignokt and Err giving the finger, and were designed to promote the "Aqua Teen Hunger Force" television show as part of a guerrilla marketing campaign authorized by Cartoon Network, the cartoon's parent company. The boards were present in several cities for weeks before the ones in Boston were reported. The Boston City Government sought a reimbursement for the money spent responding to the incident. The amount quoted was $500,000 initially, and then was increased to $750,000. On February 5 it was announced that Turner Broadcasting and the city of Boston have reached an agreement to pay $2 million to offset the cost of removing the devices: $1 million to cover the cost of the agencies involved and an additional $1 million in goodwill funding to homeland security. An episode from season five, entitled "Boston" was produced as the series creators' response to the scare, but Adult Swim pulled it to avoid further controversy surrounding the events of the bomb scare. "Boston" has never aired, and has never been released to the public. April Fools' Day television "premiere". Adult Swim began running advertisements on March 25, 2007, advertising the television premiere of the movie the following Sunday, April 1, 2007. Their only reasoning behind this stunt, as stated in the advertisement, was, "because we're f**king crazy". While Adult Swim's TV listings on their website stated the movie would be shown, other TV listings reported the same Sunday block. It was an April Fools' prank: though the first few minutes of the movie were shown normally, the remainder was shown in a small picture-in-picture box in the bottom left-hand corner, with no sound over the normal programming and occasional giant pop-ups alerting viewers of its presence, as well as advertising the actual premiere. The advertising was shown again on one episode of the "Family Guy" marathon on July 6, 2007. Adult Swim has made similar pranks during its run, including placing fart sounds intercut with anime shows and using Engrish VHS fansubs for the first season of "Perfect Hair Forever", airing entire blocks of programming with mustaches drawn on all the major characters of the shows, and even showing the live-action movie The Room (albeit with all the sexual scenes smashed by a big black box). The movie eventually was shown on Sunday, March 30, 2008. Fake endings. In yet another promotional stunt, the "ending" to the movie was posted in various places including YouTube, KingColon.com (in the Worst Game Ever game), and fansite "Aqua Teen Central", all of which were completely different. Eventually, Adultswim.com let it be known that none of the "endings" were real and presented seven more clips (which were fake as well) throughout the weeks following the release of the movie. These endings, now called the "fake.com endings," are available on the film's "Extras" DVD on the 2-Disc Collector's Edition. These endings are parodies of other movies. For example, one of the endings spoofs "The Terminator", featuring Meatwad as "The Determinator". Reception. The film was a moderate box office success. With twenty-eight reviews compiled, Metacritic reported that "Movie Film for Theaters" has received "mixed reviews" with an average rating of 54. Rotten Tomatoes gave the film a "Rotten" rating of 48% and a consensus stating "The non sequitur humor of Aqua Teen Hunger Force will surely appeal to its built-in fanbase, but for the uninitiated, the premise wears thin." Reviews ranged from Glenn Kenny at "Premiere" magazine who stated that he was tempted to refer to the movie as "the most successful full-on surrealist film since Buñuel and Dalí's 1930 "L'Âge d'Or"" to Ty Burr with the "Boston Globe" who called it "an act of terrorism against entertainment." In response to such reviews, a commercial featuring the Mooninites began airing during the Adult Swim block. The two characters spend the entire commercial insulting a supposedly typical reviewer, "Lionel" of lionellovesmovies.com (the site merely leads back to the movie page). Other movie commercials recommend people see the movie two or three more times to push the box office numbers up. Adult Swim also mentioned in one of its commercial bumpers that the review situation highlights the generation gap, and that most negative reviews came from much older critics. Home release. Warner Home Video released "Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film for Theaters" for two-disc DVD on August 14, 2007. For the DVD release, the studio changed the title of the eighty-seven minute full length movie to "Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film for Theaters for DVD", just like the film soundtrack's title. The DVD's features include the 10 fake endings as shown on the internet, a "making of" featurette, promos, the "Deleted Scenes" episode, a music video, and an eighty minute animatic (rough cut) of the movie made out of the deleted scenes from the film and scenes from the "Deleted Scenes" episode as well as a commentary. Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee, Patti Smith is featured on the DVD Commentary. The scene after the credits was removed in the UK DVD release. There is also a hidden easter egg where you can watch every death or painful act ever experienced throughout the series or movie so far in a compilation called painful acts. It can be activated by clicking on play deleted movie(disk two) and then around 23–24 minutes in press pause and stop on your remote then press play, it will play the video then restart the movie from where you last started watching it. The set also features the season four episode "Deleted Scenes" (also known as "Star-Studded Xmas Spectacular"), which makes heavy references and parallels to the film that originally aired years prior to the films release on December 18, 2005. Plans for a sequel. There has been talk about producing a sequel film entitled "Death Fighter". Unlike the first film, the sequel may be released straight to DVD rather than theatrically. An Adult Swim bump addressed the status of the film, referencing Wikipedia's claim that it "is happening", followed by a statement from Adult Swim that it is not. In a 2010 interview, staff members of Radical Axis confirmed that a sequel was indeed in production, and mentioned the possibility that the film might be made in 3-D. When asked if the film was designed for a theatrical release, a Radical Axis staff member responded yes, but stated "We're not sure if we have a distributor yet". This was then followed by the statement "Adult Swim will never make another movie ever again". In July 2012, series co-creator Matt Maiellaro said of the sequel, "It is all written and great. We are just trying to convince the network do it again. The first one was such a cash cow for them, not just box office but also ad sales in the movie. So it is kind of a no-brainer. So hopefully one day. Maybe?"
1100418	Dana Stewart Scott (born October 11, 1932) is the emeritus "Hillman University Professor of Computer Science, Philosophy, and Mathematical Logic" at Carnegie Mellon University; he is now retired and lives in Berkeley, California. His research career has spanned computer science, mathematics, and philosophy, and has been characterized by a marriage of a concern for elucidating fundamental concepts in the manner of informal rigor, with a cultivation of mathematically hard problems that bear on these concepts. His work on automata theory earned him the ACM Turing Award in 1976, while his collaborative work with Christopher Strachey in the 1970s laid the foundations of modern approaches to the semantics of programming languages. He has worked also on modal logic, topology, and category theory. He is the editor-in-chief of the new journal Logical Methods in Computer Science. Early career. He received his BA in Mathematics from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1954. He wrote his Ph.D. thesis on "Convergent Sequences of Complete Theories" under the supervision of Alonzo Church while at Princeton, and defended his thesis in 1958. Solomon Feferman (2005) writes of this period: After completing his Ph.D. studies, he moved to the University of Chicago, working as an instructor there until 1960. In 1959, he published a joint paper with Michael O. Rabin, a colleague from Princeton, entitled "Finite Automata and Their Decision Problem", which introduced the idea of nondeterministic machines to automata theory. This work led to the joint bestowal of the Turing Award on the two, for the introduction of this fundamental concept of computational complexity theory. University of California, Berkeley, 1960–1963. Scott took up a post as Assistant Professor of Mathematics, back at the University of California, Berkeley, and involved himself with classical issues in mathematical logic, especially set theory and Tarskian model theory. During this period he started supervising Ph.D. students, such as James Halpern ("Contributions to the Study of the Independence of the Axiom of Choice") and Edgar Lopez-Escobar ("Infinitely Long Formulas with Countable Quantifier Degrees"). Scott's work as research supervisor has been an important source of his intellectual influence. Modal and tense logic. Scott also began working on modal logic in this period, beginning a collaboration with John Lemmon, who moved to Claremont, California, in 1963. Scott was especially interested in Arthur Prior's approach to tense logic and the connection to the treatment of time in natural-language semantics, and began collaborating with Richard Montague (Copeland 2004), whom he had known from his days as an undergraduate at Berkeley. Later, Scott and Montague independently discovered an important generalisation of Kripke semantics for modal and tense logic, called Scott-Montague semantics (Scott 1970). John Lemmon and Scott began work on a modal-logic textbook that was interrupted by Lemmon's death in 1966. Scott circulated the incomplete monograph amongst colleagues, introducing a number of important techniques in the semantics of model theory, most importantly presenting a refinement of "canonical model" that became standard, and introducing the technique of constructing models through "filtrations", both of which are core concepts in modern Kripke semantics (Blackburn, de Rijke, and Venema, 2001). Scott eventually published the work as "An Introduction to Modal Logic" (Lemmon & Scott, 1977). Stanford, Amsterdam and Princeton, 1963–1972. Following an initial observation of Robert Solovay, Scott formulated the concept of Boolean-valued model, as Solovay and Petr Vopěnka did likewise at around the same time. In 1967 Scott published a paper, "A Proof of the Independence of the Continuum Hypothesis", in which he used Boolean-valued models to provide an alternate analysis of the independence of the continuum hypothesis to that provided by Paul Cohen. This work led to the award of the Leroy P. Steele Prize in 1972. Oxford University, 1972–1981. Scott took up a post as Professor of Mathematical Logic on the Philosophy faculty of Oxford University in 1972. Semantics of programming languages. This period saw Scott working closely with Christopher Strachey, and the two managed, despite intense administrative pressures, to oversee a great deal of fundamental work on providing a mathematical foundation for the semantics of programming languages, the work for which Scott is best known. Together, their work constitutes the Scott-Strachey approach to denotational semantics; it constitutes one of the most influential pieces of work in theoretical computer science and can perhaps be regarded as founding one of the major schools of computer science. One of Scott's largest contributions is his formulation of domain theory, allowing programs involving recursive functions and looping-control constructs to be given a denotational semantics. Additionally, he provided a foundation for the understanding of infinitary and continuous information through domain theory and his theory of information systems. Scott's work of this period led to the bestowal of: Carnegie Mellon University 1981–2003. At Carnegie Mellon University, Scott proposed the theory of equilogical spaces as a successor theory to domain theory; among its many advantages, the category of equilogical spaces is a cartesian closed category, whereas the category of domains is not. In 1994, he was inducted as a Fellow of the Association for Computing Machinery. In 2012 he became a fellow of the American Mathematical Society.
1103999	Andrei Yuryevich Okounkov (, "Andrej Okun'kov") (born June 26, 1969) is a Russian mathematician who works on representation theory and its applications to algebraic geometry, mathematical physics, probability theory and special functions. He is currently a professor at Columbia University. In 2006, he received the Fields Medal "for his contributions to bridging probability, representation theory and algebraic geometry." Education and career. He received his doctorate at Moscow State University in 1995 under Alexandre Kirillov and Grigori Olshanski. He has been a professor at Columbia University since 2010. He was previously a professor at Princeton University from 2002 to 2010, an assistant and associate professor at the University of California, Berkeley, and an instructor at the University of Chicago. Work. He has worked on the representation theory of infinite symmetric groups, the statistics of plane partitions, and the quantum cohomology of the Hilbert scheme of points in the complex plane. Much of his work on Hilbert schemes was joint with Rahul Pandharipande. Okounkov along with Pandharipande, Nikita Nekrasov, and Davesh Maulik, has formulated well-known conjectures relating the Gromov–Witten invariants and Donaldson–Thomas invariants of threefolds. Okounkov has an Erdős number of at most three, via Anatoly Vershik and Gregory Freiman. In 2006, at the 25th International Congress of Mathematicians in Madrid, Spain he received the Fields Medal "for his contributions to bridging probability, representation theory and algebraic geometry."
1086028	Passion in the Desert, or "Simoom: A Passion in the Desert", is a 1998 film from director Lavinia Currier based on the short story A Passion in the Desert by Honoré de Balzac. The film follows the ventures of a young French officer named Augustin Robert (Ben Daniels) in late 18th-century Egypt during Napoleon Bonaparte's campaign to capture the country. Plot. In 1798, Napoleon I has launched an invasion of Egypt. A frail and elderly artist, Jean-Michel Venture de Paradis (Michel Piccoli), has been commissioned by Napoleon to sketch the landscape and monuments of Egypt. French soldier Augustin Robert (Ben Daniels) has been assigned to keep Venture from being harassed by the other soldiers, but the unrelenting burden of this task soon takes its toll on Augustin. Mameluks attack the regiment's small encampment. In the aftermath, Augustin and Venture are now separated from their regiment. Walking in the arid landscape, under the blaze of the desert sun, they begin to suffer an unquenchable thirst, and Augustin is infuriated when the artist uses the last of their water to mix his paints. Augustin abandons Venture, who cannot keep up, but promises to return with aid. Venture, unable to believe that Augustin will return, commits suicide. Augustin wanders aimlessly on his own. His thirst compels him to steal water from native Bedouins, frightening a young woman who startles him in her tent. Several Bedouin men give him chase in response, and he flees to some nearby caves where he is trapped until a leopard, appearing out of nowhere, slays a Bedouin who is about to kill him. Augustin is terrified at first, then astonished when the leopard gives him food and leads him to water. Augustin and the leopard, whom he names "Simoom," develop a strange and mysterious relationship, and he begins to mirror her behavior, living in the ruins of a lost city near the caves. Stripping naked, he paints his body with dirt and sand, seeking to resemble her golden-brown fur and its rosette-shaped markings. For a while they are suspicious and competitive toward each other, but a bond has nevertheless been formed. Augustin finds himself jealous when Simoom goes to mate with another leopard, but she later returns to him. The bond between Augustin and Simoom is then tested. He saves her from a group of lost French soldiers, who have wandered by and are aiming to kill her for food. Augustin, however, ultimately decides to return to his regiment rather than be branded a deserter or traitor. He dresses again in what is left of his uniform and bicorne and ties Simoon to a pole, but she escapes. Simoom, enraged by his attempted departure, charges and pounces upon him. He is forced to kill the leopard in self-defense. Wounded by Simoom and suffering intense heat and thirst, Augustin collapses before he is able to find his way back to civilization. On the brink of death, he is rescued by a passing Arab on a camel, and returned to his regiment. Production. Filming took place in Jordan and the ruins in Petra. Director Lavinia Currier invested 5 million USD of her own money in addition to writing and producing the film. Soundtrack. The follow-up Passion in the Desert film soundtrack was released in conjunction with the film on June 16, 1998 [http://www.amazon.com/dp/B000007RUK/]. Composers José Nieto and Hamza El Din compiled up to 17 tracks altogether. A DVD version of the film was released in December 2005.
1068227	Cooley High is a 1975 American film based upon the real high school located on the near north side of Chicago produced and released by American International Pictures and written by Eric Monte (co-creator of "Good Times"). The film, set in 1964 Chicago, Illinois, stars Glynn Turman and Lawrence Hilton-Jacobs, and features a soundtrack made up primarily of 1960s Motown hits. The film is considered a classic of black cinema, and its soundtrack featured a new Motown recording, G.C. Cameron's hit single "It's So Hard to Say Goodbye to Yesterday". That song was covered in 1991 by Motown act Boyz II Men on the group's first LP, named "Cooleyhighharmony" in honor of this film. Plot. The story explores the adventures and relationships of Leroy "Preach" Jackson (Turman) and Richard "Cochise" Morris (Hilton-Jacobs), two black high school students at Edwin G. Cooley High School, in Chicago, during the 1960s whose carefree lives take a turn for the worse through several twists of fate, including violent carjacking friends, drugs, failing grades, and girls.
586684	Gol Maal (Devnagari: गोल माल, Urdu: گول مال, meaning "hodgepodge", "confusion") is a 1979 Bollywood comedy movie directed by Hrishikesh Mukherjee. The film was produced by Mukherjee and N.C.Sippy with music by Rahul Dev Burman. The film's music was crafted by Burman to match the timbre of Mukherjee's perception of a subtle, yet complex love story involving the Indian middle class. Along with getting high accolades and praise from several critics, the film became a "Blockbuster" at the box office and gained huge popularity among the masses. Gol Maal, becoming a "Mega Hit" reached the top spot in 1979 in terms of box office collections. The film till now remains as popular and favorite among the audiences as it used to be and is regarded as one of the finest comedy films of Indian Cinema.
1294285	Irving John ("I. J."; "Jack") Good (9 December 1916 – 5 April 2009) was a British mathematician who worked as a cryptologist at Bletchley Park with Alan Turing. After World War II, Good continued to work with Turing on the design of computers and Bayesian statistics at the University of Manchester. Good moved to the United States where he was professor at Virginia Tech. He was born Isadore Jacob Gudak to a Polish-Jewish family in London. He later anglicized his name to Irving John Good and signed his publications "I. J. Good."
1299611	Henry Corden (January 6, 1920 – May 19, 2005) was a Canadian-born American actor and voice artist best known for taking over the role of Fred Flintstone after Alan Reed died in 1977. His official debut as Fred's new voice was on the 1977 syndicated weekday series "Fred Flintstone and Friends" for which he provided voice-overs on brief bumper clips shown in-between segments. (He also provided the singing voice for Reed in both the 1966 theatrical film, "The Man Called Flintstone" and the 1966 Hanna-Barbera special "The New Alice in Wonderland (or What's a Nice Kid Like You Doing in a Place Like This?)"—in which Fred and Barney Rubble jointly appeared as the Caterpillar). Life and career. Corden was born in Montreal, Quebec, Canada as Henry Cohen to Max and Emma Cohen. His father was a meat curer who had been born in Romania; his mother was originally from Russia. The family moved to the Bronx, New York when Corden was a child and he arrived in Hollywood in the 1940s. A story in the "Los Angeles Times" dated January 8, 1963 stated he had been in the entertainment business for 25 years (since 1938), though the 1940 U.S Census lists him without an occupation. He appeared on the stage in Los Angeles and Hollywood, including a 1947 production of "The Message". His film career included "The System" (1952), where he played a near-sighted gangster named Specs. Corden thought it would be the first time in 25 films he could wear his glasses and see while he was acting, but the lenses gave off too much reflection and he had to substitute them for plain glass after one day of shooting. With his deep voice, jet-black hair and ethnic looks, Corden was frequently tapped to play heavies in films and on television. He can be seen in such live-action films as "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty", "The Black Castle" and "The Ten Commandments". He also appeared in dozens of TV shows, including "Dragnet", "Perry Mason", "Hogan's Heroes", "Gunsmoke", The Mary Tyler Moore Show and was a usual regular on "The Jerry Lewis Show". Corden also played landlord Henry Babbitt on "The Monkees". Corden gave his voice to a number of Hanna-Barbera productions besides "The Flintstones", including "The Jetsons", "Josie and the Pussycats", "The Atom Ant Show", "The New Tom & Jerry Show" and "Jonny Quest". Corden also gave voice to the wizard Gemini and Ookla the Mokk in Ruby-Spears Productions' "Thundarr the Barbarian" as well as the Gorilla General Urko in DePatie-Freleng Enterprises' "Return to the Planet of the Apes". He voiced Arnie Barkley, the Archie Bunker-inspired patriarch of DePatie-Freleng's "The Barkleys", in 1972. Corden had one enduring role for which he was never credited. He was called upon to impersonate Jackie Gleason for the "television edit" of "Smokey and the Bandit" The repeated broadcasts of this version, the liberal use of the nonsense phrase "scum bum" to replace profanity, and the fact that it obviously was not Gleason speaking have given the performance a sort of cult status. Death. Corden died of emphysema at Sherman Oaks Hospital in Los Angeles, California. Corden's wife of nine years, Angelina, was with him at the time. Besides his wife, Corden is survived by his two children, Dawna Wade and Robin Smith, three stepchildren Erik Faraldo, Derek Faraldo and Monica Faraldo, two granddaughters, and three stepgrandsons. He was buried in San Fernando Mission Cemetery.
1577368	Palermo Shooting (2008) is a film written and directed by German director Wim Wenders, and starring Campino, Dennis Hopper, Giovanna Mezzogiorno, Lou Reed as himself, and an uncredited Milla Jovovich, also playing herself. The film was released in Germany on 20 November 2008. The film had its U.S. premiere on 20 January 2009 at the Berlin and Beyond film festival at the Castro Theatre in San Francisco. The film follows a German photographer (played by Campino, singer of German punk band Die Toten Hosen) who comes to Palermo because he needs to make a clean break from his past. In the city, he meets a young woman (Mezzogiorno) and a completely different way of life.
1377369	Dylan Thomas Sprouse and Cole Mitchell Sprouse (born August 4, 1992) are American actors. They are twins and are collectively referred to as Dylan and Cole Sprouse or the Sprouse brothers, usually abbreviated as Sprouse Bros. Their first major theatrical film role was in "Big Daddy", where they starred alongside Adam Sandler. They later appeared in several television sitcoms and starred in the straight-to-DVD films, "I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus" and "Just for Kicks". In 2005, they starred in the Disney Channel sitcom "The Suite Life of Zack & Cody". As a result of the series' success, the media has termed them "heartthrobs" and "overwhelming draws" among preteen and teen audiences. The following year, the brothers launched a franchise known as the Sprouse Bros brand, which included a clothing line, book series and magazine. The majority of the Sprouses' franchise ended in 2008, except for their clothing line. "The Suite Life of Zack & Cody" was retooled in 2008 as "The Suite Life on Deck", in which the brothers reprised their roles as Zack and Cody. "The Suite Life on Deck" went on to become the most-watched tween/children's television show in 2008 and 2009. The show ended in May 2011. They also starred in the "The Suite Life Movie", which aired in March of the same year. They began cultivating an adult image by starring in the independent theatrical suspense film, "The Kings of Appletown" in 2009. Dylan and Cole were two of the wealthiest children alive in 2007, and in 2010, the Sprouse brothers were the highest paid teenage Disney television actors, earning $40,000 per episode combined. MSN reported by the end of the 2000s that the twin brothers became the richest teenage twins in the world. In 2010, the brothers were accepted to New York University. They deferred admission for one year, and they began attending the university in the fall of 2011. Early lives. The Sprouses were born at a small hospital called Clinica Tanganelli in Arezzo, Italy, to American parents Matthew Sprouse and Melanie Wright while they were teaching at an English language school in Tuscany. Dylan was named after poet Dylan Thomas, and Cole is named for jazz singer and pianist Nat King Cole. Dylan is 15 minutes older than Cole. The boys moved back to the United States four months after their birth to their parents' native Long Beach, California. Some of the money Dylan and Cole earned by acting was used to buy a house in Calabasas, California, where their family still lives . Acting. The Sprouses began acting at the age of eight months following a suggestion from their grandmother, Jonine Booth Wright, who was a drama teacher and actress. The twins first appeared in a commercial for diapers, switching on-screen time every few seconds. As with many twins, the two have often played the same role, due to child labor laws in California restricting the amount of time children can be filmed in a day. Casting twins in a single role thus allows more time for the character to be filmed. Beginning at eight months old, the two played a single character, Patrick Kelly, on the ABC series "Grace Under Fire". In 1999, the boys appeared in their first major feature film, "Big Daddy", in which they shared the role of a five-year-old boy named Julian who is adopted by Adam Sandler's character, Sonny Koufax. Though the film received mixed reviews, the two were nominated for multiple awards for their role in the movie. However, they did not win any. The same year, the boys also had a minor role in the thriller "The Astronaut's Wife". The Sprouses have noted that after "Big Daddy'"s release, they entered a slow period in their careers and were not cast in any major roles for a time. During the early 2000s, the twins appeared in episodes of "The Nightmare Room" and "That '70s Show", as well as in "MADtv" and portrayed roles in the feature films "The Master of Disguise" and "Adam Sandler's Eight Crazy Nights". Cole began appearing in episodes of the television show "Friends", as Ross Geller's son Ben in 2001; this role was not shared with Dylan. They both appeared in "I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus" and "Just for Kicks", both of which were family films that received a direct-to-video release. David Nusair of "Reel Film Reviews" said of their acting in "Just for Kicks" that the brothers "aren't the worst child actors I've ever seen... but they certainly leave a lot to be desired." Dylan and Cole were later cast in the Disney Channel original series "The Suite Life of Zack & Cody", where they portrayed identical twins Zack and Cody Martin, respectively. The series, which debuted in March 2005, became a ratings success. As part of their involvement with Disney, the brothers also became part of the 11-member group, the Disney Channel Circle of Stars, and sang the song "A Dream is a Wish Your Heart Makes" along with the members of the circle, for a video that was released as bonus material in the special edition version of the Disney film "Cinderella". They also participated in the Disney Channel Games. The Sprouses played one character, Jeremiah, in the independent film "The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things". The film was produced in 2004 but not given a theatrical release until March 2006, when it played at three theatres in the United States, ultimately grossing $29,000 domestically. Harvey Karten praised their acting, stating that "acting is superlative all around", and Tamara Straus of the "San Francisco Chronicle" called them "the movie's only saving grace". In 2007, the two filmed '. Carrie R. Wheadon of Common Sense Media said the film was a "slow story for Zack and Cody fans only". The Sprouse brothers both had voice roles in the animated film, ' alongside Brenda Song and Emily Osment. Dylan played the voice of Shasta in Disney's "Snow Buddies." The brothers both starred in the theatrical film, "The Kings of Appletown", which is based on the book "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer". The film was directed by Bobby Moresco and written by Amanda Moresco. Shot in New Braunfels, Texas, the movie was originally estimated to be released in the winter of 2008. "Kings of Appletown" had a limited theatrical release on December 12, 2009 and was officially released at the Newport Beach Film Festival in April 2010. They appeared on the cover of the May 2009 issue "People Magazine", in an eighty-page special edition issue devoted to "The Suite Life on Deck". The twin brothers began filming another Modern Twain Story film in the summer of 2009. The film was tentatively titled "Sivilized" and was a modern version of "Huckleberry Finn". However, in mid-2010, Dylan stated that they would not be doing the movie, in part because they "outgrew" the movie. They became the new face of the children's yogurt, Dannon Danimals, in 2009; their endorsement deal was renewed in 2010. The twin brothers signed an endorsement deal with Nintendo DS in August 2010. , Dylan and Cole are not in any acting projects and are focusing instead on college as well as art and photography, respectively. However, Dylan has stated that they would both like to continue acting while in college. Dylan and Cole are represented by William Morris Endeavor . Sprouse Bros brand. In 2005, the Sprouse brothers signed a licensing agreement with Dualstar Entertainment to produce Sprouse Bros branded merchandise for the preteen and teenage market, the Sprouse Bros brand included a clothing line, comics series and a magazine, as well as personal hygiene line and a line of sportswear. Dylan said of the brand that they wanted to "reach out to the nerd group and the cool group" and "appeal to everybody". A magazine targeting boys was launched by Dualstar and Leisure Publishing LLC in 2006 called "Sprouse Bros. Code". Simon & Schuster Inc. published two volumes of a book series titled "Sprouse Bros. 47 R.O.N.I.N.", which was described as featuring the Sprouse twins as "young James Bonds or undercover agents"; the book series continued. In 2008, the brothers ended their association with the Olsens' Dualstar, but they continued to sell their clothing line. The items in their clothing lines were sold exclusively online , when the online store could no longer be accessed. Personal lives. Dylan Sprouse has stated that the experience of coming to fame after the success of "The Suite Life of Zack & Cody" is "kind of scary, how fast everything is moving" and that a year prior "none of this was happening, it was just doing "Suite Life"," and that he couldn't wait for the future. While filming "The Suite Life of Zack & Cody", the two received on-set tutoring for three hours each day, and said they were getting "straight A's and honors." In their last year of high school, the brothers both took Advanced Placement classes. Dylan took AP Psychology and AP Spanish, and Cole took AP Psychology and AP Government. The twins' family has three dogs: Bubba, which belongs to Dylan and Cole; Pinky, who is their father's; and Curry, their stepmother's. Their favorite actor and co-star is Adam Sandler. Dylan has said that Adam is "a role model in acting" and that they learned a lot about comedy from him. In mid-2010, Dylan launched a site for his art called Sprouse Arts, and in mid-2011, Cole launched a site for his photography called Cole Sprouse Photography. In 2010, the twin brothers were both accepted to New York University. They had initial plans to attend the university in the fall of 2010; however, they deferred for one year. Dylan initially planned on majoring in fine/studio arts and minoring in economics while Cole planned on majoring in film and television production and minoring in drama. Instead, they both enrolled in the Gallatin School of Individualized Study, which allows students to plan their own curriculum. Cole is focusing his curriculum on the humanities and archaeology while Dylan is focusing on video game design. In 2011, Dylan was elected president of the Third Avenue North residence hall at NYU. In 2013, Dylan and Cole were officially appointed as the International Ambassadors of the Koyamada Foundation and traveled to Japan with Shin Koyamada to empower the youth of Japan to better themselves and rebuild Japan as a society as well as to deepen the friendly relations and brotherhood between the youth of Japan and America in August 2013.
1056236	Hannah Taylor Gordon (born 6 March 1987) is an English actress. She made her film debut in the 1993 film "The House of the Spirits". She is best known for her role as Anne Frank in the TV miniseries for which she received both an Emmy and a Golden Globe nomination.
582600	The Legend of Bhagat Singh is a 2002 Indian Hindi historical biographical film about Bhagat Singh, a freedom fighter who fought for Indian independence. It was directed by Rajkumar Santoshi and starred Ajay Devgan, Sushant Singh, and Ian Davies. It was released on 7 June 2002 and went on to win two National Film Awards, including the National Film Award for Best Feature Film in Hindi, and three Filmfare Awards, including the Filmfare Critics Award for Best Movie. "The Legend of Bhagat Singh" shows in detail how Singh came to develop his views on the British Raj and his struggle for Indian independence. The film begins with scenes depicting how the British attempted to dispose of Singh's body, so that he could not be made into a martyr, and then flashbacks to the past to tell his story. A historical feel was created by using a sepia tint throughout the film. Plot. Bhagat Singh was born in British India in 1907. As a child he witnessed numerous atrocities committed on fellow Indians by their British rulers, who came to trade under the guise of the East India Company, but ended up controlling most of the nation, and permitting tyrants such as General Reginald Dyer to massacre thousands of innocent men, women and children in Jallianwala Bagh. As a child he was impressed by Mohandas K. Gandhi, especially his call to launch the non-cooperation movement, which led to thousands of people burning British-made clothing, giving up school, college studies, and government jobs — only to be let down by Gandhi when he called off the movement. Undaunted, Bhagat Singh (Ajay Devgan) decided to be a revolutionary, starting with getting into petty fights, then as a grown-up joining the Hindustan Republic Association. His father, Kishan, paid Rs.60,000/- and bailed him out, so that he could get him to run a dairy-farm and get married to a girl named Manavali. When Lala Lajpat Rai was beaten to death by the police, Bhagat, with Shivaram Rajguru, Sukhdev, and others daringly carried out the assassination of a police officer named Saunders, which eventually led to Bhagat's arrest. He was lodged in a cell, tortured and beaten mercilessly. But being a revolutionary was in Bhagat's blood: When the British proposed the Trade Disputes and Public Safety Bills, he initiated the bombing in the Indian Parliament Building, with Batukeshwar Dutt, He took utmost care of the safety of people in parliament by throwing bombs at empty benches .He was arrested, and tried in an open court. This is where Bhagat launched his much-publicized revolution, and became popular with the masses, especially the younger generation, laborers, and farmers, so much so that his popularity rivaled that of Gandhi himself. Even in Lahore prison, Bhagat made headline news when he and other prisoners undertook a 63-day fast unto death to improve the conditions of Indian freedom-fighter prisoners. Then the British re-opened the Saunders' murder case, which led to death sentences being imposed on Bhagat, Shivram, and Sukhdev. The entire nation rose up in protest, including the Congress party — with the ball in Gandhi's court — for he was due to sign the Irwin Pact, and Indians hoped that he would use this as a bargaining chip to save the lives of the heroic trio. But history tells us that as Gandhi plainly refused to help these legends. Soundtrack. Lyrics: Sameer, Music: A. R. Rahman Release and reception. "The Legend of Bhagat Singhs release coincided with another based on Bhagat Singh, ' which starred Bobby Deol in the lead role. Both were disasters at box office, although the film won rave reviews.
1057898	Diary of a Mad Housewife is a 1970 comedy/drama about a frustrated wife portrayed by Carrie Snodgress. was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress and won a Golden Globe award in the same category. The film was adapted by Eleanor Perry from the 1967 novel by Sue Kaufman and directed by Perry's then-husband, Frank Perry. The film co-starred Richard Benjamin and Frank Langella. Plot. Tina Balser, an educated, frustrated housewife and mother, is in a loveless marriage with Jonathan, an insufferable, controlling, emotionally abusive, social-climbing lawyer in New York City. He treats her like a servant, undermines her with insults, and belittles her appearance, abilities and the raising of their two girls, who treat their mother with the same rudeness as their father. Searching for relief, she begins a sexually fulfilling affair with a cruel and coarse writer, George Prager, who treats her with similar brusqueness and contempt, which only drives her deeper into despair. She then tries group therapy, but this also proves fruitless when she finds her male psychiatrist, Dr. Linstrom, as well as the other participants, equally shallow and abusive. The film also featured a cameo by the group Alice Cooper performing during a party scene. Response. The film maintains a 77% at Rotten Tomatoes. Roger Ebert gave the movie three out of four stars, saying, "What makes the movie work... is that it's played entirely from the housewife's point of view, and that the housewife is played brilliantly by Carrie Snodgress." Neil Young wrote the song "A Man Needs a Maid" inspired by Snodgress in "Diary of a Mad Housewife": "I was watching a movie with a friend/I fell in love with the actress/she was playing a part I could understand." The song was included on his 1972 album "Harvest". Soon after, Young and Snodgress became romantically involved for several years. Groucho Marx spoke out against this movie in an episode of the Dick Cavett show on May 25, 1971. He stated that it was an example of dirty entertainment, and didn't like it because they were in the sack for 80 minutes. He made a joke of this, and stated, "Well I'm not interested in that. I don't care what they are doing in the sack, if I am not doing it, why should I sit in the theater and watch it?" The interview can be seen on Youtube. Availability. The film has never been released on DVD; VHS copies of "Housewife" have become rare, with sealed copies routinely fetching over $100 on websites like Amazon.com and eBay.
393815	My Mighty Princess () is a 2008 South Korean film directed by Kwak Jae-yong. Plot. Kang So-hwi, a beautiful martial arts prodigy, is about to embark on a journey into adulthood. But her journey is like no other. Her super-human strength and martial arts prowess scares away her fellow undergrads and even the boy she has fallen for. Devastated, So-hwi decides to give up martial arts and takes a different path. Her father, a martial artist himself, is afraid of losing an heiress to the family’s martial artistry, and missions So-hwi’s old buddy Ilyoung to persuade her to stay in the field. One day she succeeds in joining the ice hockey club her crush Jun-mo plays at in order to stay near to him. She tries to get his attention but fails. She follows him to his bike and then sits behind him while he's riding. She eventually reaches a police station where he says he has some business. She finds him go to a lady officer probably of his mother's age and he tells her that he loves her. He had feelings for that lady older than him. This shatters So hwi's feelings but she doesn't lose hope. Jun-mo steps out following the lady in her police van while So=hwi returns home. Her father explains her that she is no good at martial arts and she should practice more. So hwi does not accept this and says she wants to lead a normal life.Her father and his two other friends are summoned by their Guru, the Mengzhu. He tells him that the young generation has to take part in the next martial arts competition. So hwi's father and his friend regret that their kids are not interested into martial arts. Iloung, So hwi's childhood friend is crazy about bikes. One day he reaches to meet So hwi at her school. Ilyoung who loves her from their childhood follows her wherever she goes and try to persuade her to go on training of martial arts. But, Kang So-hwi who wants to lead a life of normal woman with actual feelings of getting married and having children, ignores him. Meanwhile, the guy with whom she had great crush gets into middle of some street fight. But Kang So-hwi and Ilyoung save him and others from the mob using their super powers. After the fight, Ilyoung and Kang So-hwi go out for drink. There, So-hwi tells him the dream she is getting frequently. On hearing that, Ilyoung goes on thinking that the dream is not actually a dream. Those incidents were happened in their life previously. Kang So-hwi and Ilyoung were training in the martial arts school. Both of them excel in all kinds of techniques. They grew as unbeatable by anyone.Ilyoung grew more powerful that he can be beaten only by Kang So-hwi.On that time the villain Heuk-bong gets hold of the glorious sword named, Green destiny which can do the moon stroke. Both Kang So-hwi and Ilyoung went to Heuk-bong to get that sword but finally the villain hits Kang So-hwi with a poisonous stroke. Ilyoung admits her in the hospital. There she gets recovered but all of her childhood memories were lost. Then, in present life, the boy starts to go out with So-hwi .But the relationship doesn’t work well. Meanwhile,So-hwi’s father and his friends ask for a fight with the villain Heuk-bong.And finally in the day of fight, So-hwi’s father gets shocked on seeing Heuk-bong.It was Ilyoung.Without any further fight Ilyoung injures him with the mighty sword called Green destiny with a stroke called moon-stroke. Later on he himself admits So-hwi’s father in a nearby hospital and informs So-hwi. So-hwi who meets her father in the hospital get informed by her father’s friends about her mother’s story .On hearing that and also to revenge for her father’s condition, So-hwi decides to have training on her mother’s sword to create a lightning stroke. On her attempt, she wins. On the same time, Ilyoung is thinking about So-hwi and goes to the past that how she got recovered from poisonous stroke. On knowing that Heuk-bong can only cure So-hwi,he goes to him and asks for the anti-dote for the poison. But Heuk-bong says that he must become his disciple and hypnotizes Ilyoung. Ilyoung accepts and get the antidote and cures So-hwi. When he return to Heuk-bong,he starts to possess him with his ill powers. Ilyoung was to take the place of Heuk-bong, and whenever Heuk-bong was summoned, Ilyoung would go in his place. Heuk-bong died without setting Ilyoung free,that’s why he injured So-hwi’s father. Now, So-hwi after successfully completed her training on lightning stroke, goes to fight with Heuk-bong.There she also gets shocked on seeing Ilyoung in place of Heuk-bong.But,through telepathy, Ilyoung conveys all the things happened to him. On seeing Ilyoung, So-hwi just defends herself but won’t fight back. Ilyoung asks her to fight back as he wants to get out of that hypnotism. And also he said, she only can beat him. Both fought each other vigorously. At the end when ilyoung intends to use moon stroke with the green destiny sword, So-hwi uses lightning stroke which weakens ilyoung. But seeing Ilyoung suffer, So-hwi refuses to attack him further.But, Ilyoung pleading her to attack him, attacks her .She fell down. Ilyoung gets hold of her neck and tries to kill her.But,So-hwi asks him to concentrate. This confuses Ilyoung and in pain, he sheds tears. That tears on falling upon the sword burst and that sound relieves ilyoung from the hypnotism. Then both hug each other and then everything went well. Release. "My Mighty Princess" was released in South Korea on 26 June 2008, after a delay of more than two years. On its opening weekend it was ranked eighth at the box office with 14,988 admissions; as of 6 July it had received a total of 27,309 admissions, with a gross of $162,256.
1063687	Vivica Anjanetta Fox (born July 30, 1964) is an American actress and television producer. She is best known for her roles in the films "Independence Day", "Set It Off", "Soul Food", "Why Do Fools Fall in Love", "Kill Bill", "Booty Call", and "Juwanna Mann". Early life. Fox was born in South Bend, Indiana, the daughter of Everlyena (née House), a pharmaceutical technician, and William Fox, a private school administrator. She has African American and Native American ancestry. Her parents relocated to the Indianapolis, Indiana, area soon after her birth. Fox is a graduate of Arlington High School in Indianapolis, Indiana, and Golden West College in Huntington Beach, California with an Associate Art degree in Social Sciences. Career. Fox moved to California to attend Golden West College. While in California she started acting professionally, first on soap operas such as "Generations", "Days of our Lives" and "The Young and the Restless". She was cast as Emily Franklin in the pilot episode of ABC's "Living Dolls", a spin-off of the sitcom "Who's the Boss?" but was replaced with Halle Berry for the remaining episodes. Another early role saw her as Patti LaBelle's fashion designer daughter, Charisse Chamberlain, on the NBC TV series "Out All Night". She also appeared as Jazz's sister on the hit show "The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air" and on "Beverly Hills, 90210". She got her big break in film in two 1996 movies, "Independence Day", and "Set It Off". From 2004 to 2006 Fox starred in and co-produced the Lifetime Network drama series, "Missing". Fox was a judge on The WB's talent show "The Starlet". Fox participated in the third season of ABC's hit television show, "Dancing with the Stars", she was voted off after the fourth week. In September 2007, she appeared in the sixth season of HBO’s "Curb Your Enthusiasm" as a mother of a family displaced by a hurricane and taken in by Larry and Cheryl. Then, on October 1, she appeared in an episode of the show "The Game". In August 2008, she filmed "Shark City" in Toronto. Fox also hosted her own VH1 reality series entitled "Glam God" (2008). In 2009, Fox served as celebrity spokesperson for the newly revamped Psychic Friends Network. After receiving backlash for her involvement with the network, Fox denied any involvement with the company, despite having filmed a commercial and promo video which had already gone to air. On March 2, 2010, while Fox appeared as a guest on "The Wendy Williams Show", Fox announced that she would be starring in a play entitled "Cheaper to Keep Her", produced by I'm Ready Productions. Fox was one of TV Guide Network's red carpet correspondents for the 82nd Academy Awards which were held on Sunday, March 7, 2010. Also in March 2010, Fox appeared on an episode of "Talk Cruze," hosted by Micah Jesse, where she admitted she was starstruck by Tom Selleck. Fox is currently the host of the lifetime reality show 'Prank My Mom', where kids play pranks on their mothers. Personal life. In December 1998, Fox married singer Christopher Harvest. The couple divorced in 2002. Fox later dated rapper 50 Cent in 2003. On March 20, 2007, Fox was arrested on suspicion of DUI.
1067896	War/Dance is a 2007 American documentary film written and directed by Sean Fine and Andrea Nix Fine and produced by Shine Global's Susan MacLaury, a professor at Kean University, and Albie Hecht. It was nominated for the 2008 Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature and received the Emmy Award for Best Documentary and Best Cinematography in 2010. Synopsis. The film centers on three children - Nancy, a 13-year-old choir singer; Rose, a 14-year-old dancer; and Dominic, a 14-year-old xylophone player. They are members of the Acholi ethnic group, living in the remote northern Uganda refugee camp of Patongo, which is under military protection from the Lord's Resistance Army, a terrorist group that has been rebelling against the government for the past two decades. In 2005, the camp's primary school won its regional music competition and headed to Kampala to participate in the annual National Music Competition. "War/Dance" focuses on three of the eight categories: Western choral performance, instrumental music, and traditional dance, where the students perform the Bwola, the dance of the Acholi. Over the course of three months, the film's creative team observes the three youngsters as they prepare for the event and gain their confidence enough to have them discuss the horrors they have experienced and express their individual fears, hopes, and dreams. Release. The film debuted at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival, where it won the Documentary Directing Award and was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize for Best Documentary. It was shown at the Cleveland International Film Festival, the Wisconsin Film Festival, the Cannes Film Festival, the Austin Film Festival, and the Tokyo International Film Festival, among others, before going into limited release in the United States in November 2007. Critical reception. "War/Dance" received generally positive reviews from critics. The review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reported that 86% of critics gave the film positive reviews, based on 43 reviews — with the consensus that the film "is beautifully filmed, and effectively captures the heartbreaking and uplifting experiences of its subjects." Metacritic reported the film had an average score of 68 out of 100, based on 20 reviews. In his review in "The New York Times", Stephen Holden called the film "visually ravishing" and added, "is so gorgeous that its beauty distracts from the anguish it reveals ... Every shot ... has the polish of a richly hued, impeccably composed illustration ... When individual children, some in tears, tell their stories while gazing directly into the camera, the shots seem posed and their remarks possibly rehearsed. The production notes explain that the children felt more comfortable telling their stories directly to the camera than to an interviewer, but you still have an uneasy sense of being manipulated ... Having voiced these qualms, let me say that "War/Dance", in spite of its slickness, is an honorable, sometimes inspiring exploration of the primal healing power of music and dance in an African tribal culture ... The film draws out the suspense as best it can until the inevitable African-style "American Idol" moment. If that finale is genuinely exhilarating, you are still uncomfortably aware that this ecstatic conclusion doesn't mean the end of the strife or the refugees' troubles. It is a blip of light on a dark canvas." Kenneth Turan of the "Los Angeles Times" said, "To make a memorable documentary ... that can't be forgotten once seen, you have to be more than gifted, you need an instinct for an unusual story and, frankly, you must have luck on your side. "War/Dance" ... has all that and more ... is as irresistible as the rhythms of African music on its soundtrack." In "Variety", John Anderson called the film "well-intentioned but a victim of its own high cinematic values" and added, "The young black faces are too beautiful, the landscapes too pretty, and the personal stories of slaughter too scripted ... The formal devices of the film, and the lack of spontaneity in the children's words, do little to sell the message of the movie ... While the pic may be targeting Westerners who want to feel less awful about genocide and global negligence, it's hard to imagine "War/Dance" appealing to that crowd - or any other." Rachel Howard of the "San Francisco Chronicle" said, "Visually, the film is anything but gritty, and some might say the cinematic beauty - and the children's controlled, likely coached interviews - glosses reality. But the tension of a brutality that can hardly be imagined let alone depicted, and the dignity of these precociously adult children as they must press on with their lives with little room for mourning or self-pity, is the point. The climactic trip to the competition offers an uplift that feels more like relief than triumph after the film's most disturbing tales." In "The Village Voice", Jim Ridley said, "The movie comes across as desperately, even irritatingly contrived, but I'd be lying if I didn't say it overcame my naturally complacent instincts — which would be to watch something (anything) else, to not get haunted by that closing litany of websites for global action." Outreach and non-profit work. "War Dance" was produced by the 501(c)(3) non-profit film production company Shine Global. Founded in 2005 by Susan MacLaury and Albie Hecht, it is dedicated to ending the exploitation and abuse of children through films and other media that raise awareness and inspire change. Profits from their productions go back to local advocacy organizations that help the children that Shine documents. Shine Global partnered with AMREF during the production of War/Dance to aid the people of Uganda on the ground. When they returned to Uganda in 2008 to film WAR DANCE RETURNS, the filmmakers donated video equipment to the new Health Education Center that Shine Global helped to fund, and also established the Patongo Scholarship Fund.
1067187	Ashley Michele Greene (born February 21, 1987) is an American actress and model, best known for playing Alice Cullen in the film adaptations of Stephenie Meyer's "Twilight" novels. Personal life. Greene was born in Jacksonville, Florida, and is the daughter of Michele (née Tatum), who works in insurance, and Joe Greene, a U.S. Marine who now owns his own concrete business. She grew up in Middleburg and Jacksonville, and went to University Christian School before transferring to Wolfson High School when she was in tenth grade. She moved to Los Angeles, California, at the age of 17 to pursue an acting career. Greene has an older brother named Joe, who still resides in Jacksonville with their parents. Greene is good friends with her "Twilight" co-stars, particularly Kellan Lutz and Jackson Rathbone whom she knew before filming of the series began. Greene has stated that she grew up watching football and is a Florida Gators fan. She was also seen attending a Green Bay Packers game against the New York Giants with then boyfriend Joe Jonas and Jessica Szohr at Lambeau Field in 2010. In 2009, nude self-portraits of Greene were leaked onto the internet. Her attorneys threatened to sue various websites that published the pictures. Career. She initially planned to become a model, but was told that she was not tall enough at 5'5" to be a fashion model and should instead focus on acting in commercials. After taking commercial and acting classes, she fell in love with acting and realized that she preferred it over modeling. Greene graduated from high school early and moved to L.A. to pursue an acting career. Since then, she has appeared as a guest on such television programs, as "Punk'd" and "Crossing Jordan". Greene's big break came in 2008 when she was cast as Alice Cullen in "Twilight", a film based on the novel of the same name by Stephenie Meyer. She reprised her role as Alice in the 2009 sequel to "Twilight", ', 2010's ', 2011's ', 2012's '. Greene portrayed Michelle Burkham in the drama film "Skateland", which premiered at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival. She reunited with her "Twilight" co-star Kellan Lutz in the movie "A Warrior's Heart" and also stars in thriller film, "Summer's Blood", as well as the Dark Castle Entertainment production "The Apparition", which began filming on February 1, 2010. Appearing nude in a bodypainted bikini, Greene posed for SoBe advertisements that ran in the 2010 issue of the "Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition". She received "The Style Icon Award" at Hollywood Life’s Young Hollywood Awards this year. Greene was also presented an award from the PETA foundation for representing Avon and their no testing on animals policy. Greene presented an award at the 2010 MTV Video Music Awards on September 12, 2010.
1068725	Enemy at the Gates is a 2001 war film directed by Jean-Jacques Annaud, starring Joseph Fiennes, Jude Law, Rachel Weisz, Bob Hoskins and Ed Harris a fictional tale set during the Battle of Stalingrad in World War II. The film's title is taken from William Craig's 1973 nonfiction book "Enemy at the Gates: The Battle for Stalingrad", which describes the events surrounding the Battle of Stalingrad from 1942–1943. It is loosely based on war stories told by Soviet sniper Vasily Zaitsev. Plot. In 1942, Vasily Zaytsev (Jude Law), a shepherd from the Ural Mountains who is now a soldier in the Red Army, finds himself on the front lines of the Battle of Stalingrad. Sent on a suicidal charge against the invading Germans, he uses impressive marksmanship skills—taught to him by his grandfather from a young age—to save himself and commissar Danilov (Joseph Fiennes). Nikita Khrushchev (Bob Hoskins) arrives in Stalingrad to coordinate the city's defenses and demands ideas to improve morale. Danilov, now a Senior Lieutenant, suggests that the people need figures to idolize, and publishes tales of Vasili's exploits in the army's newspaper that paint him as a national hero and propaganda icon. Vasili is transferred to the sniper division, and he and Danilov become friends. They also both become romantically interested in Tania (Rachel Weisz), a citizen of Stalingrad who has become a Private in the local militia. Danilov has her transferred to an intelligence unit away from the battlefield. With the Soviet snipers taking an increasing toll on the German forces, German Major Erwin König (Ed Harris) is deployed to Stalingrad to take out Vasili and thus crush Soviet morale. A renowned marksman and head of the German Army sniper school at Zossen, he lures Vasili into a trap and takes out two of his fellow snipers, but Vasili manages to escape. When the Red Army command learns of König's mission, they dispatch his former student Koulikov (Ron Perlman) to help Vasili kill him. However, König tricks Koulikov into revealing his position and kills him with a very skillful shot, shaking Vasili's spirits considerably. Khrushchev pressures Danilov to bring the sniper standoff to a conclusion. Sasha, a young Soviet boy, volunteers to act as a double agent by passing König false information about Vasili's whereabouts, thus giving Vasili a chance to ambush the Major. Vasili sets a trap for König and manages to wound him, but during a second attempt Vasili falls asleep after many hours and his sniper log is taken by a looting German soldier. The German command takes the log as evidence of Vasili's death and plans to send König home, but the Major does not believe that Vasili is dead. He tells Sasha where he will be next, suspecting that the boy will tell Vasili. Tania and Vasili have meanwhile fallen in love, and the jealous Danilov disparages Vasili in a letter to his superiors. König spots Tania and Vasili waiting for him at his next ambush, confirming his suspicions about Sasha. He kills the boy and hangs his body from a pole to bait Vasili. Vasili vows to kill König and sends Tania and Danilov to evacuate Sasha's mother (Eva Mattes) from the city, but Tania is wounded by shrapnel en route to the evacuation boats. Thinking her dead, Danilov regrets his jealousy of Vasili and his resulting disenchantment with the communist cause. Finding Vasili waiting to ambush König, Danilov intentionally exposes himself in order to provoke König into shooting him and exposing König's position. Thinking he has killed Vasili, König goes to inspect the body, but realizes too late that he has fallen into a trap and is in Vasili's sights. He turns to face Vasili, who then kills him. Two months later, after Stalingrad has been liberated and the German forces have surrendered, Vasili finds Tania recovering in a field hospital. Historical accuracy. Historian Antony Beevor suggests in his book, "Stalingrad", that, while Zaitsev was a real person, the story of his duel (dramatised in the film) with König is fictional. Although William Craig's book "Enemy at the Gates: The Battle for Stalingrad" includes a "sniper's duel" between Zaitsev and König, the sequence of events in the film is fictional. Zaitsev, in an interview claimed to have engaged in a sniper duel over a number of days. Zaitsev, the only historical source for the story, stated that after killing the German sniper, and on collecting his tags, he found that he had killed the head of the Berlin Sniper School. No sniper named König has ever been identified in the German records. In the film, Jude Law uses a 7.62x54r Mosin Model 1891/30 sniper rifle with a PU 3.5 power sniper scope (i.e. the image is magnified 3 and a half times). Vasily Zaitsev used a Model 1891/30 sniper rifle with an earlier and larger sniper telescope (his rifle is preserved in a museum in Russia). Also, the poster for the film reverses the Mosin 91/30 rifle photograph so that the bolt handle appears on the left side of the rifle, instead of the right side where it should be. This movie also depicted a love story between Vassili and Tania. However Vassili claimed never to have any relationship with anyone during the war. Reception. The film was poorly received in the former Soviet Union. Some Red Army Stalingrad veterans were so offended by inaccuracies in the film and how the Red Army was portrayed that on 7 May 2001, shortly after the film premiered in Russia, they expressed their displeasure in the Duma, demanding a ban of the film, but their request was not satisfied. The film was received poorly in Germany. Critics claimed that it simplified history and glorified war. At the Berlinale film festival, it was booed. Annaud stated afterwards that he would not present another film at Berlinale, calling it a "slaughterhouse" and claiming that his film received much better reception elsewhere. In the United States, the film received mixed reviews; the most common complaint among even the positive reviews was over the inclusion of what was seen as an unnecessary love-story that detracted from the main plot. Roger Ebert gave the film three stars out of four and wrote that it "is about two men placed in a situation where they have to try to use their intelligence and skills to kill each other. When Annaud focuses on that, the movie works with rare concentration. The additional plot stuff and the romance are kind of a shame". "New York Magazine"'s Peter Ranier was less kind, declaring "It's as if an obsessed film nut had decided to collect every bad war-film convention on one computer and program it to spit out a script." Peter Travers of Rolling Stone admitted the film had faults, but that "any flaws in execution pale against those moments when the film brings history to vital life." The Russo-German writer Wladimir Kaminer played an extra as a Soviet soldier in the film. In his book "Russian Disco" (2000), Kaminer criticises how the Soviet soldiers are portrayed as hooligans getting drunk and playing farting games.
394169	Son Ye-jin (born Son Eon-jin on January 11, 1982) is a South Korean actress. She rose to fame in romance-themed films and television series such as "The Classic" (2003), "Summer Scent" (2003), "A Moment to Remember" (2004), and "April Snow" (2005), but has won acting recognition for her versatility in diverse genres, notably in "Alone in Love" (2006) and "My Wife Got Married" (2008).
1224898	Cliff Gorman (October 13, 1936 – September 5, 2002) was an American stage and screen actor. He won an Obie award in 1968 for the stage presentation of "The Boys in the Band", and went on to reprise his role in the 1970 film version. Life and career. Gorman was born in New York City, New York, the son of Ethel (née Kaplan) and Samuel Gorman. He was raised Jewish. Gorman won a Tony Award in 1972 for playing Lenny Bruce in the play "Lenny". Although the film version, directed by Bob Fosse, featured Dustin Hoffman, Gorman was recruited to portray a Dustin Hoffman-like character portraying Lenny Bruce, in a side-story in Fosse's auto-biographical film "All That Jazz". In 1984 he co-starred as Lt. Andrews in the film "Angel". Noteworthy are his roles in movies like "An Unmarried Woman" with Jill Clayburgh, "Hoffa" with Jack Nicholson and Danny DeVito and Night and the City with Robert De Niro. His TV work included performances in series like "Law and Order", "Murder, She Wrote" and the 1970s drama "Police Story", written by former LAPD Detective Sergeant Joseph Wambaugh. Gorman and his wife cared for his fellow "Boys in the Band" performer Robert La Tourneaux in the last few months of his battle against AIDS, until La Tourneaux's death on June 3, 1986. Gorman died of leukemia in 2002, aged 65, although his final film, "Kill the Poor", was not released until 2006. He was survived by his wife, Gayle Gorman.
402176	Margaux Louise Hemingway (February 16, 1954 – July 1, 1996) was an American fashion model and actress. Early life. Born Margot Louise Hemingway in Portland, Oregon, she was the older sister of actress Mariel Hemingway and the granddaughter of writer Ernest Hemingway. When she learned that she was named for the wine, Château Margaux, which her parents, Puck and Jack Hemingway (eldest son of Ernest), were drinking the night she was conceived, she changed the original spelling from "Margot" to "Margaux" to match. In addition to Mariel, she had another sister, Joan. She grew up in Idaho on her grandfather's farm in Ketchum. She struggled with a variety of disorders in addition to alcoholism, including depression, bulimia and epilepsy. She allowed a video recording to be made of a therapy session related to her bulimia and it was broadcast on television. Hemingway also suffered from dyslexia. Early career as a model. At six feet tall, Hemingway experienced success as a model, including a million-dollar contract for Fabergé as the spokesmodel for Babe perfume in the 1970s. This was the first million-dollar contract ever awarded to a fashion model. She also appeared on the covers of "Vogue", "Elle", "Cosmopolitan", and "Harper's Bazaar", and on the June 16, 1975 cover of "Time", which dubbed her one of the "new beauties". The September 1, 1975 cover issue of "American Vogue" called Hemingway "New York's New Supermodel."" In an "E! True Hollywood Story" that profiled Hemingway's life, her mentor and close friend Zachary Selig discussed how he helped launch her early career with his initial marketing and public relations work as she became a global celebrity, and he introduced her to yoga and the Solar Kundalini "Codex Relaxatia" paradigm as tools for success and to overcome some of her debilitating mental disorders. Selig and Hemingway spent time with the Hemingway family at their property in Ketchum adjacent to Sun Valley, where they both studied Solar Kundalini, yoga and meditation together. Hemingway continued using these relaxation skills for the rest of her life. During the height of her modeling career in the mid-to-late 1970s, Hemingway was a regular attendee of New York City's exclusive discothèque Studio 54, often in the company of such celebrities as Liza Minnelli, Halston, Bianca Jagger, Andy Warhol and Grace Jones. It was at such social mixers that she began to experiment with alcohol and drugs. She made her film debut in the 1976 Lamont Johnson-directed drama "Lipstick", alongside her fourteen-year-old sister Mariel. Personal life and later career. Her first marriage, to Errol Wetson, ended in divorce. They met when, at 19, she accompanied her father to the Plaza Hotel in New York City on a business trip. Four months later she moved from Idaho to New York City to live with Wetson as a guest at Selig's apartment at 12 East 72nd Street, a residence that was owned by heiress Gloria Vanderbilt. It was there that Selig made Hemingways's business and social introductions to his friends, such as Marian McEvoy, fashion editor at "Women's Wear Daily"; photographer Francesco Scavullo; fashion designer Halston; "Vogue" magazine fashion editor Francis Stein; and Jon Revson, Selig's cousin. Revson, a scion of the Revson family that created Revlon cosmetics, declined Selig's offer for Hemingway to endorse Revlon, whereas later Fabergé signed her on with the largest salary of its day. Revson did come to visit both Selig and Hemingway (with the Hemingway family in Ketchum, Idaho) to congratulate her after Hemingway's "Time" magazine cover appeared in June 1975. Marian McEvoy quickly interviewed Margaux at a party given by Selig, which resulted in Hemingway's "Women's Wear Daily" front- and back-page story that launched Hemingway into the fashion limelight. On the rebound, Hemingway married Venezuelan Bernard Fauchier, and they lived in Paris for a year. She also divorced him in 1985 after six years. Like her grandfather, she experienced occasional bouts of clinical depression all through her life. After a skiing accident in 1984, she gained 75 pounds and became more and more depressed. In 1987, she checked into the Betty Ford Center. Making a comeback, Hemingway appeared on the cover of "Playboy" magazine in May 1990, and she asked "Playboy" to hire Selig as the creative director for her cover story. It was shot in Belize. Hemingway experienced familial dramas throughout her life. Her relationship with her mother, Puck, was fraught with tension, but they did reconcile prior to Puck's death from cancer in 1988. She also experienced intense competition with her younger sister Mariel, who received greater accolades for her acting. In the 1990s, Hemingway went forward with allegations that her godfather had molested her as a child; her father, Jack, and stepmother, Angela, resented the allegations and stopped speaking to her. Angela told "People" magazine, "Jack and I did not talk to her for two years. She constantly lies. The whole family won't have anything to do with her. She's nothing but an angry woman." She supported herself later in life by appearing in a few direct-to-video films, autographing her nude photos from "Playboy" magazine, and endorsing a psychic telephone hotline owned by her cousin Adiel Hemingway. Shortly before her death, she was set to host the outdoor adventure series "Wild Guide" on the Discovery Channel. The 2013 documentary film, "Running from Crazy" relating the Hemingway family story of suicide and drug addiction, contains documentary film excerpts filmed by Margaux Hemingway. Death. On July 1, 1996, one day before the anniversary of her grandfather's own suicide, Hemingway was found dead in her studio apartment in Santa Monica, at age 42. She had taken an overdose of phenobarbital, according to the Los Angeles County coroner's findings one month later. Though her death was ruled a suicide, family members disputed this finding. Steve Crisman, Mariel Hemingway's then-husband in 1996, told "People" that year, "This was the best I'd seen her in years. She had gotten herself back together." On a December 22, 2005, edition of "Larry King Live", however, Mariel said she now accepts the death of Margaux as suicide. Her remains were cremated and buried in the Hemingway family plot in the Ketchum Cemetery in Idaho.
1062702	Merle Oberon (19 February 1911 - 23 November 1979) was an Anglo-Indian actress. She began her film career in British films as Anne Boleyn in "The Private Life of Henry VIII" (1933). After her success in "The Scarlet Pimpernel" (1934), she travelled to the United States to make films for Samuel Goldwyn. She was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance in "The Dark Angel" (1935). A traffic collision in 1937 caused facial injuries that could have ended her career, but she soon followed this with her most renowned performance in "Wuthering Heights" (1939). Early life. Estelle Merle Thompson was born in Bombay, British India on 19 February 1911. According to some sources, her birth name was Estelle Merle O'Brien Thompson. Merle was given "Queenie" as a nickname, in honour of Queen Mary, who visited India along with King George V in 1911. Over the years, Oberon obscured her parentage. Some sources claim Merle's parents as Arthur Terrence O'Brien Thompson, a British mechanical engineer from Darlington, who worked in Indian Railways, and Charlotte Selby, a Eurasian from Ceylon with partial Māori heritage. Aged 14, Charlotte had given birth to her first child Constance, in Ceylon, from a relationship with Henry Alfred Selby, an Irish foreman of a tea planter. Some sources claim that Constance was Merle's biological mother, although Charlotte raised Merle as her own child. Charlotte's partner, Arthur Thompson, was listed as her father in Merle's birth certificate, with the forename misspelled as "Arther". Merle reportedly knew Constance as her "sister". Constance had four other children, Edna, Douglas, Harry and Stanislaus (Stan) with her husband Alexander Soares. Edna and Douglas moved at an early age to the UK and Harry later in life moved to Toronto, Canada and retained Constance's maiden name, Selby. Stanislaus was the only child to keep his father's last name of Soares and he currently resides in Surrey, BC, Canada. All the siblings reportedly believed that Merle was their Aunt (their mother Constance's sister), when in actual fact she was their sister, and that Constance was her real mother. When Harry Selby tracked down Merle's birth certificate in Indian government records in Bombay (Mumbai), he was surprised to discover he was in fact her brother. He attempted to visit her in Los Angeles, but she refused to see him. He withheld this information from Oberon's biographer Charles Higham, only revealing it to Maree Delofski, the maker of "The Trouble with Merle", a 2002 documentary produced by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, which investigated the conflicting versions of her origin. In 1914, Arthur Thompson joined the British Army and later died of pneumonia on the Western Front during the Battle of the Somme. Merle, with her "mother" (really her grandmother), led an impoverished existence in shabby Bombay flats for a few years. Then, in 1917, they moved to better circumstances in Calcutta. Oberon received a foundation scholarship to attend La Martiniere Calcutta for Girls, one of the best private schools in Calcutta. There, she was constantly taunted for her unconventional parentage and eventually quit school and had her lessons at home. Oberon first performed with the Calcutta Amateur Dramatic Society. She was also completely enamored of the films and enjoyed going out to nightclubs. Indian journalist Sunanda K. Datta-Ray claimed that Merle worked as a telephone operator in Calcutta under the name Queenie Thomson, and won a contest at Firpo's Restaurant there, before her film career started. In 1929, she met a former actor named Colonel Ben Finney at Firpo's, and dated him. However, when he saw Oberon's dark-skinned mother one night at her flat and realised Oberon was mixed-race, he decided to end the relationship. But he promised to introduce her to Rex Ingram of Victorine Studios, if she could come to France. Oberon jumped at the offer and decided to follow the man to the studios in France. After packing all their belongings and moving to France, Oberon and her mother found that their supposed benefactor had dodged them. He had left a good word for Oberon with Ingram at the studios in Nice. Ingram liked Oberon's exotic appearance and quickly hired her to be an extra in a party scene in a film named "The Three Passions". Acting career. Oberon arrived in England for the first time in 1928, aged 17. Initially she worked as a club hostess under the name Queenie O'Brien and played in minor and unbilled roles in various films. "I couldn't dance or sing or write or paint. The only possible opening seemed to be in some line in which I could use my face. This was, in fact, no better than a hundred other faces, but it did possess a fortunately photogenic quality," she modestly told a journalist at "Film Weekly" in 1939. In view of the information discovered since this 1939 article (see preceding section) this should be seen as part of a myth perpetrated by Miss Oberon, since apparently she did not reach Europe until 1929. Her film career received a major boost when the director Alexander Korda took an interest and gave her a small but prominent role, under the name Merle Oberon, as Anne Boleyn in "The Private Life of Henry VIII" (1933) opposite Charles Laughton. The film became a major success and she was then given leading roles, such as Lady Blakeney in "The Scarlet Pimpernel" (1934) with Leslie Howard, who became her lover for a while. Oberon's career went on to greater heights, partly as a result of her relationship with and later marriage to Alexander Korda, who had persuaded her to take the name under which she became famous. He sold "shares" of her contract to producer Samuel Goldwyn, who gave her good vehicles in Hollywood. Her "mother" stayed behind in England. Oberon earned her sole Academy Award for Best Actress nomination for "The Dark Angel" (1935) produced by Goldwyn. Around this time she had a serious romance with David Niven, and according to his authorized biography, even wanted to marry him, but he wasn't faithful to her.
1065243	The Country Bears is a 2002 American family musical film, directed by Peter Hastings, produced by Walt Disney Pictures, and based on the famous Disney attraction "Country Bear Jamboree". The film stars Haley Joel Osment as the voice of Beary Barrington with supporting roles done by Christopher Walken, Stephen Tobolowsky, Daryl Mitchell, M.C. Gainey, Diedrich Bader, Alex Rocco, Meagen Fay, Eli Marienthal, and the voice talents of Diedrich Bader, Candy Ford, James Gammon, Brad Garrett, Toby Huss, Kevin Michael Richardson, and Stephen Root.
839893	Corri English (born Corri Englisby; May 10, 1978) is an American actress and singer. As a young girl during the late 1980s and early 1990s, she was a frequent host of "Kidsbeat" and a few other kids shows on TBS (prior to the merger of Turner Broadcasting System with Time Warner). She is the singer for country band Brokedown Cadillac. English was born in Atlanta, Georgia.
588447	Kandhakottai () is a 2009 Indian Tamil-language action film directed by S. Sakthivel, starring Nakul and Poorna in the lead roles, whilst Sampath Raj plays a pivotal role. The film released on December 19, 2009. Plot. Siva (Nakul) is a nice guy who doesn't believe in the concept of love. True to his hatred, he also doesn't hesitate to go and break up love birds. Pooja (Poorna) on the other hand believes strongly in the force of love and does whatever she can to ensure that lovers get united. The story takes a turn when Siva's sister falls in love with Pooja's cousin. As expected, Siva tries to break the couple while Pooja unites them. Finally, Siva gives up and at the same time, he develops feelings for Pooja. What happens from there forms the rest of the story. Songs. Kandhakottai's soundtrack was composed by Dheena. It features five songs. Soundtrack received mixed reviews. Reviews. Oneindia wrote:"On whole, Kandha Kottai lacks substantiality in both narrative and technical aspects". Chennaionline wrote:"The film has all the ingredients of a surefire commercial hit, but the director's carelessness in handling the screenplay might just prove a block". Behindwoods wrote:"Kandha Kottai is an interesting concept which could have been sustained for the entire length of the film. But, commercialism and action take over in the second half, robbing the film of its main theme". Cinefundas wrote:"As in whole, â€˜Kandha Kottaiâ€™ is a poor film that has no specialties". Sify wrote:"On the whole Kandha Kottai is a typical masala entertainer that is made for the youth audiences. Have fun".
584988	Yama donga is a 2007 socio-fantasy Telugu film directed by S.S. Rajamouli and produced by Urmila Gangaraju and P. Chiranjeevi. The film stars Mohan Babu, Jr. NTR, Priyamani and Mamta Mohandas in the lead roles. The film released worldwide on 15 August 2007. Upon release, the film was a critical and box office success. Plot. Raja(Jr. NTR), an orphan, is a ruthless robber. He dreams of earning a fast buck so that he can settle down in life. And then, he stumbles on a fine opportunity. Mahi (Priyamani), a rich heiress, falls in love with him. The girl happens to be his childhood well-wisher and has always considered him her prince. He plans to surrender the girl to a gang who wants to kill her for her riches. But the villains play foul, and kill him. Raja reaches Yamaloka. He creates confusion in Yamaloka by stealing Yamapasam since one in possession of Yamapasam will become Yama. The rest of the story is all about how Yama (Mohan Babu) and Raja try to outsmart each other. After regaining power, Yama sends Raja back to earth, but only to take away his life once again. How Raja escapes from the wrath of Yama and lives a long life with Mahi, who he loves later, forms the crux of the Story. Release. Critical Response. Oneindia.in described as "The film is a visual treat for all ages and classes. Rajamouli has done an excellent job molding NTR Jr's character in the film much like his grandfather's and also for bringing NTR back on the screen in an animated form. NTR Jr's overall performance and his dialogue delivery are a joy to watch. Mohanbabu playing 'Yama' once again proved to be the versatile actor that he is". Sify gave an "average" verdict explained "This socio-fantasy film works, thanks to the new look of NTR and enigmatic performance of Mohan Babu. The songs and background score of MM Keeravani, the technical aspects and entertainer quotient in the first half make the film watchable". jeevi of idlebrain gave 3/5 stars said "First half of the film is entertaining. The second half should have been better. The plus points of the film are Mohan Babu, NTR, sets, cinematography and music. On the flip side, the screenplay of the film is not gripping in second half (after NTR returns to earth). The runtime of the film is pretty lengthy (3.05 hours)". Box office. The film had a total gross of 42 Crore. The film successfully completed 100-day run in 92 centres and went on to became one of the top five Telugu films of the year 2007. The film holds a record of highest theaters for 50 days with 405 theaters. DVD. The DVD version of the film was released on 29 February 2008. This DVD release was distributed by "Tolly2Holly" all around the world, but for India. It is available in Anamorphic widescreen, Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround, progressive 24 FPS, widescreen and NTSC format.
1061474	Ingrid Bergman (29 August 191529 August 1982) was a Swedish actress who starred in a variety of European and American films. She won three Academy Awards, two Emmy Awards, and the Tony Award for Best Actress. She is ranked as the fourth greatest female star of American cinema of all time by the American Film Institute. She is best remembered for her roles as Ilsa Lund in "Casablanca" (1942), a World War II drama co-starring Humphrey Bogart, and as Alicia Huberman in "Notorious" (1946), an Alfred Hitchcock thriller co-starring Cary Grant. Before becoming a star in American films, she had been a leading actress in Swedish films. Her first introduction to U.S. audiences came with her starring role in the English-language remake of "Intermezzo" in 1939. In the United States, she brought to the screen a "Nordic freshness and vitality", along with exceptional beauty and intelligence, and according to the "St. James Encyclopedia of Popular Culture", she quickly became "the ideal of American womanhood" and one of Hollywood's greatest leading actresses. After her performance in Victor Fleming's remake of "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" in 1941, she was noticed by her future producer David O. Selznick, who called her "the most completely conscientious actress" he had ever worked with. He gave her a seven-year acting contract, thereby supporting her continued success. A few of her other starring roles, besides "Casablanca", included "For Whom the Bell Tolls" (1943), "Gaslight" (1944), "The Bells of St. Mary's" (1945), Alfred Hitchcock's "Spellbound" (1945), "Notorious" (1946), and "Under Capricorn" (1949), and the independent production, "Joan of Arc" (1948). In 1950, after a decade of stardom in American films, she starred in the Italian film "Stromboli", which led to a love affair with director Roberto Rossellini while they were both already married. The affair and then marriage with Rossellini created a scandal that forced her to remain in Europe until 1956, when she made a successful Hollywood return in "Anastasia", for which she won her second Academy Award, as well as the forgiveness of her fans. Many of her personal and film documents can be seen in the Wesleyan University Cinema Archives. Early years: 1915–38. Bergman, named after Princess Ingrid of Sweden, was born in Stockholm, on 29 August 1915 to a Swedish father, Justus Samuel Bergman, and his German wife, Frieda "Friedel" (née Adler) Bergman. When she was three years of age, her mother died. Her father, who was an artist and photographer, died when she was thirteen. In the years before he died, he wanted her to become an opera star, and had her take voice lessons for three years. But she always "knew from the beginning that she wanted to be an actress", sometimes wearing her mother's clothes and staging plays in her father's empty studio. Her father documented all her birthdays with a borrowed camera. After his death, she was sent to live with an aunt, who died of heart disease only six months later. She then moved in with her Aunt Hulda and Uncle Otto, who had five children. Another aunt she visited, Elsa Adler, first told Ingrid, when she was 11, that her mother may have "some Jewish blood", and that her father was aware of that fact long before they married. But her aunt also cautioned her about telling others about her possible ancestry as "there might be some difficult times coming." At 17, in 1932, Bergman was allowed only one chance to become an actress by entering an acting competition with the Royal Dramatic Theatre in Stockholm. Bergman recalls her feelings during that competition:
590249	Paoli Dam (born 4 October 1980) is an Indian film actress who began her career in 2004 with the Bengali television serial "Jibon Niye Khela". Over the next several years, she worked in Bengali television serials such as "Tithir Atithi" and "Sonar Harin"; the former ran for six years on ETV Bangla. Dam spent her childhood in Kolkata, earning a postgraduate degree in chemistry from Rajabazar Science College. Initially, she wanted to become a chemical researcher or a pilot. Her debut Bengali film—"Teen Yaari Katha", directed by Sudeshna Roy and Abhijit Guha—was begun in 2004, but not released until 2012. Dam's first film release was "Agnipariksha", directed by Rabi Kinagi. Between 2006 and 2009 she appeared in five Bengali films, coming into prominence with the 2009 "Kaalbela" (directed by Gautam Ghose). In 2011 Dam appeared in "Chatrak", which was controversial in India because of an explicit sex scene.
586725	Ijaazat (meaning "permission") is an 1987 Indian Hindi film directed by Gulzar, based on a Bengali story, "Jatugriha" by Subodh Ghosh. Starring Rekha, Naseeruddin Shah and Anuradha Patel in leading roles, the film followed the story of couple who are separated and who accidentally meet in a railway station waiting room and discover some truths about their lives without each other. The film belongs to the art-house genre in India known as parallel cinema, and won two National Film Awards in the music category. Plot. The movie is a powerful story that deals with feminism and patriarchy in the middle class of India. It is shot in the present and past tense showing lives of the characters Mahender and Sudha as they lived together as well as separately. The movie starts with Mahender (Naseeruddin Shah) getting down at the railway station and making his way to the waiting room just as it starts to rain heavily. A woman, Sudha (Rekha), is already sitting in the waiting room. On seeing him, she tries to hide her face from him but later they confront each other. Mahender has an accomplished business dealing with photography. He respects his grandfather (Shammi Kapoor) immensely. Incidentally, he had been engaged to Sudha for 5 years but always made some excuse to delay their wedding. However, this time his grandfather has fixed the wedding on the first week of the following month. He reveals to Sudha that he is having an affair with one of the most radical representations of feminism in a girl called Maya (Anuradha Patel). He returns to tell Maya, but Maya has disappeared, leaving him some poetry. Mahender then marries Sudha and is quite happy, but the sudden return of Maya causes tensions in their married life. Mahender frequently tells Sudha about all the beautifully poignant, loving and authentic things Maya did over the years that they lived together. Later, Maya tries to commit suicide, and this leads to Mahender spending time with her over a few weeks. Sudha, not knowing about Maya's suicide attempt and therefore believing that Mahender is being unfaithful to her, feels that her marriage was a mistake, and questions Mahender about his intentions. He then tells her strongly that he is going to bring Maya home to talk to her. Sudha is adamantly against this, but Mahender leaves with determination. However, Maya hears Sudha's anger on the phone and by the time Mahender reaches to pick her up, she has gone away. When he returns home without Maya, he finds that Sudha has also left. Mahender, unable to bear the shock, gets a heart attack. In the days and months that follow, he is looked after by Maya. Sudha continues as a teacher in Panchgani. As time passes, Mahender is beginning to feel convinced that it is time for him to bring Sudha back home. But then he gets Sudha's letter saying that she is releasing him from their marriage and that he is free to marry Maya. A sudden uncontrolled outburst from Mahender makes Maya realize that she was the cause for Sudha's departure and that Mahender missed Sudha deeply. Maya suddenly feels estranged at this abrupt change in their relationship and, in the night, rides off on her motorbike. Mahender rushes to follow her in his car to stop her, but then Maya's long scarf gets entangled in the back wheel of her bike, because of which she gets dragged off her bike and strangled to death.
674457	Before the Fall (also known as "NaPolA: Hitler's Elite"; German: "Napola - Elite für den Führer") is a 2004 German drama film written and directed by Dennis Gansel. Plot. In 1942, Friedrich Weimer's (Max Riemelt) boxing skills earn him an appointment to a National Political Academy (NaPolA), a high school that serves as an entry to the Nazi elite. He enrolls, notwithstanding his father's wishes, seeing the school as his ticket away from factory life and to university. During his seventh-column year (fifth form), his innocence is shattered when he witnesses hazing, cruelty, death, antisemitism, and the harsh Nazi code. Production. Bouzov Castle in the Czech Republic is used as the location for the fictitious school named "Allenstein" in the film. Gansel's goal was for the film to feel very authentic and was advised by a former student of a Napola. Gansel drew inspiration from his right-wing grandfather who was a teacher in a Napola. Gansel's grandfather explained that it was the feeling of endless opportunities that came along with wearing the teachers military uniform and his own failed dream of becoming an architect that attracted him to the movement. Freidrich ended up being partly based on Gansel's grandfather. Dennis Gansel named Bernardo Bertolucci's "The Conformist" as an influence.
1166523	Margaret Emily "Maggie" Wheeler (née Jakobson, born August 7, 1961) is an American actress, best known for her role as Janice on the TV show "Friends". Personal life. Wheeler was born in Manhattan. She is married and has two children. Career. In the 1980s, Wheeler (under her maiden name of Jakobson) briefly dabbled in voice acting on the animated series "SilverHawks", where she provided all the female voices, specifically the villainess Melodia and the heroine Steelheart/Emily Hart, and on the Karate Kat and Mini-Monsters segments of The Comic Strip.
585674	Innale (Translation: Yesterday, ) is a 1990 Malayalam film written and directed by P. Padmarajan with Shobhana, Jayaram, Srividya and Suresh Gopi in pivotal roles. Synopsis. Gauri (Shobhana) the sole survivor of a tragic bus accident loses her memory. Admitted to a private nursing home, where she is diagnosed as suffering from 'hysterical amnesia' (retrograde amnesia), she falls in love with the doctor's son Sarath Menon (Jayaram). However, Narendran (Suresh Gopi), Gauri's husband arrives from USA searching for Gauri. When Gauri fails to recognise Narendran, he returns without a word, never showing Sarath his wedding photos with Gauri, that he was carrying with him. Plot. Gauri (Shobhana), is found as an injured victim of a bus accident, during her travel to religious places, throughout India. She is taken to a hospital in Mercara, Karnataka, where the doctor declares that she has amnesia due to the accident, and has forgotten herself and her past, which gives the film its apt title "Innale" meaning "yesterday". Gauri, forgets her larger past and starts to move with courage, towards her new-found self, after struggling within herself, asking questions. She also meets malicious people who claim to be her well-wishers, taking advantage of her vulnerability. She fights them with the help of the brave Mr. Sharath Menon (Jayaram), who protects her during the transition to become the new Maya. Dr. Sandhya (Srividya) who treated Gauri, is also Sharath's mother. She too comforts Gauri and allows her to become Maya. Though she does worry about, what is to follow. Sandhya decides to meet anyone who claim to be Gauri's family, so that she could help out Gauri who is now Maya. Sharath brings actors to make Dr. Sandhya believe that Gauri has parents, to get his mother's consent to marry Gauri with whom he has deeply fallen in love with. Sandhya has no other choice than to leave, the young lovers to their own fate. Meanwhile Dr. Narendran (Suresh Gopi), Gauri's husband, who is a scientist by profession working in the US, starts to search for his lost wife. After much searching with all his friends and resources he finally gets information about a girl who was an accident victim on a hill station. He calls Sandhya during her birthday party, where the doctor also announces the engagement of Maya with her son, Sharath. Sandhya is shocked and informs her son about Dr. Narendran's phone call. Narendran reminiscences memories of the beautiful days spent with his lovely wife Gauri. The three main characters meet at last in an old house covered in mist, on a haunting valley. The scene talks for itself in silence, where Narendran passes the mist only to find the completely transformed Gauri. He becomes speechless after seeing his wife, who watch and talk to him like a complete stranger. He decides that she has indeed become a new person and it would be unfair to bring her more sorrow by revealing the truth that she is his wife. Tears fill his sad eyes, unable to believe she failed to recognise him. The final dialogue where Sharath happily asks "So she is not the person you were looking for, right? " to which Narendran answers, no by only shaking his head, is a heart wrenching moment. He understands that Sharath and Maya are deeply in love with each other and leaves in haste. The last scene shows the bewildered Maya and Sharath staring at him, leaving so abruptly, without drinking the tea she made. Narendran's sadness is forever, but will Maya regain her past, unanswered questions remain lurking in the mist around. The film warns us about how life can change almost unapologetically. Change can be such a boon to many and a horrible disaster to many others.
501456	Gabrielle Dennis is an American television and film actress and television host. she is best known for her recurring role as Janay on the (formerly The CW) BET series "The Game". Career. Born and raised in Cincinnati, Ohio, Dennis attended Howard University where she earned a degree in theater. Dennis' first acting role came in 1990 in the television movie "A Mom for Christmas", starring Olivia Newton-John. From 1998 to 2000, she served as host on "Teen Summit", a teenage talk show that aired on BET. In 2006, she had a role in the unsold Comedy Central pilot "Three Strikes". That same year, she appeared on Damon Wayans' sketch comedy show "The Underground Dennis has also been on Shake It Up . A Disney Channel program". In 2008, Dennis won the role of Janay, friend of Malik Wright (Hosea Chanchez) and soon-to-be live-in girlfriend of Derwin Davis (Pooch Hall) on the CW series "The Game". She has since had roles in the direct-to-DVD film "" (2009), "Hollywood Horror", and "The Marc Pease Experience" starring Ben Stiller. She did play Denise Roy on Spike TV's "Blue Mountain State" as Craig Shilo's girlfriend. Her character has been removed due to her co-star being written out of the show due to his recent arrest on drug charges . Dennis can also be seen in a 2011 commercial for State Farm Insurance, also starring Selita Ebanks and former "The Game" co-star, Mehcad Brooks.
1060916	Kim Stanley (February 11, 1925 – August 20, 2001) was an American actress, primarily in television and theatre, but with occasional film performances. She began her acting career in theatre, and subsequently attended the Actors Studio in New York City, New York. She received the 1952 Theatre World Award for her role in "The Chase" (1952), and starred in the Broadway productions of "Picnic" (1953) and "Bus Stop" (1955). Stanley was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play for her roles in "A Touch of the Poet" (1959) and "A Far Country" (1962).
582713	Rishtey () is a Bollywood film released on 6 December 2002. The film directed by Indra Kumar stars Anil Kapoor, Karisma Kapoor, Shilpa Shetty and Amrish Puri in the lead roles. The film had a "Below Average" opening and flopped at the Box Office.
583527	Bachke Rehna Re Baba (Devnagari: बचके रहना रे बाबा, in English:"You have to watch out") is a 2005 Bollywood film directed by Govind Menon, starring Rekha, Paresh Rawal, Mallika Sherawat and Satish Shah. The film's plot is inspired by the 2001 American film "Heartbreakers". Synopsis. Rukmini (Rekha) is well into her 40s and still unmarried. She lives with her orphaned niece, Padmini (Mallika Sherawat), and together they device a scheme to entrap wealthy men, like Monty (Paresh Rawal), relieve them of their money, abandon them, and move on to better targets. They do succeed for quite a while, assuming various disguises, and names, amassing a fortune, until Padmini falls in love with one of her targets, a young man named Raghu (Karan Khanna), and decides to call it quits. An unstable Rukmini, who owes money to Monty, decides she cannot go it alone and concocts a scheme that will force Padmini to give up on Raghu and re-join forces with her to go on philandering unsuspecting wealthy men.
584203	Premji Amaren; born Ganesh Gangai Amaren on February 25, 1979) is a Tamil playback singer, film composer, songwriter and actor. Son of veteran film composer and singer Gangai Amaran, he often composes rap songs in Tamil cinema and is known for his comical performances in the Venkat Prabhu films "Chennai 600028", "Saroja", "Goa" and "Mankatha". His stage name, Premji, is actually a spelling error, as it is meant to be "Prem G.", (the G referring to his father's name). Career. Primarily interested in composing music, Premji started his career as an assistant to film music composer and his cousin Yuvan Shankar Raja, turning a playback singer, singing mostly the rap portions in Yuvan Shankar Raja's compositions, before working with other music composers as well. In 2006, however, he made his acting debut in Silambarasan's "Vallavan" as the heroine's friend, following which he starred in his brother, Venkat Prabhu's directorial debut "Chennai 600028" (2007), in which he played the role of "Seenu". The movie went on to become the year's biggest summer blockbuster, establishing Premji as a comedy actor. In 2008 he became an independent music director with Agathiyan's "Nenjathai Killathe" and for "Thozha", in which he essayed one of the leading roles as well. But it was "Saroja" which fetched him accolades for his performance as Ganesh Kumar. He appeared as a lead character in Venkat Prabhu's "Goa" (2010), before going on to make further appearances in "Mankatha" (2011) and "Settai" (2013). Family. Premji is the son of veteran director & musician Gangai Amaran and the younger brother of film director and actor Venkat Prabhu. Film composer Ilaiyaraaja is his uncle while Yuvan Shankar Raja, Karthik Raja and Bhavatharini are his cousins.
591906	Upendra (born 18 September 1968) is an Indian actor, director, producer, screenwriter, lyricist and singer. He stars primarily in Kannada films and is well-known in Sandalwood and Tollywood. He started his career under the director Kashinath as a writer and an assistant director. His first directorial venture was "Tharle Nan Maga". In the late 1990s he directed "Om", which portrayed actual Bangalore gangsters, followed by "A", which was his debut film as an actor. "Upendra", his next film, starred Raveena Tandon, a Bollywood actress. After a decade of acting in Kannada, Telugu and Tamil films, he returned to the role of director with the multilingual movie "Super," which was well-received critically and commercially. Upendra is known for his work in films like "A" (1998), "Upendra" (1999), "Preethse" (2000), "Raa" (2001), "Kutumba" (2003), "Raktha Kanneeru" (2003), "Gokarna" (2003), "Gowramma" (2005), "Auto Shankar" (2005), "Aishwarya" (2006), "Anatharu" (2007), "Budhivanta" (2008), "Super" (2010), "Katari Veera Surasundarangi" (2012), and "Kalpana" (2012). Upendra has thus established himself as one of the most successful directors of Kannada cinema. He is currently one of the highest paid directors and actors in the Kannada Film Industry. Endorsements. Upendra endorsed United Breweries, Lunars Footwear and the Emani Navaratna Brand. He has been the Brand Ambassador of United Breweries Group since 1999 and has been instrumental in driving the mass appeal of the brand with his iconic punch line "Yella OK. Cool drink yaake?" as part of the ad campaign. In March 2012, UB Export celebrated more than a decade long association with Upendra in a ceremony at the Taj Vivanta in Bangalore. Commenting on the occasion Samar Singh Sheikhawat, Senior Vice-President Marketing, United Breweries Ltd, said "The iconic "Yaake?" by Upendra in his trademark style has echoed for years and has been successful in capturing the imagination of the people and more importantly it has also enabled us to win several awards and laurels! It’s indeed a happy occasion for us." Commenting on his long standing association with the brand, Upendra added "UB Export was successful in bringing out the quirky side of me in one of my most popular punch lines ever, "Yella ok. Cool drink Yaake?" It’s been almost 10 years since the ad broke out but the fad of "Yaake?" still seems to linger. Fans even now refer to it whenever I meet them on occasions." Personal life. Upendra was born in Koteshwara near Kundapura. On 14 December 2003, Uppi married former Miss Kolkata Priyanka Trivedi who met him first on the sets of the Telugu movie "Raa" and then on the sets of "H2O". Upendra and his family reside in Banashankari III Stage in Bangalore.
1034543	Ronald William George "Ronnie" Barker, OBE (25 September 1929 – 3 October 2005) was an English actor, comedian, writer, critic, broadcaster and businessman. He was known for his roles in various British comedy television series, such as "The Frost Report", "Porridge", "The Two Ronnies" and "Open All Hours". He began his acting career in repertory theatre and decided he was best suited to performing comic roles. Barker gained his first acting successes at the Oxford Playhouse and later in various roles in the West End including Tom Stoppard's "The Real Inspector Hound". During this period, he became a cast member on BBC radio and television comedy programmes such as "The Navy Lark". Barker got his television break with the satirical sketch series "The Frost Report" in 1966 where he met future collaborator Ronnie Corbett. He joined David Frost's production company and was to star in a number of ITV shows including a short film during this period. After rejoining the BBC Barker found fame with the sketch show "The Two Ronnies" (1971–1987) with Ronnie Corbett. After the series of pilots called "Seven of One", he gained starring roles in the sitcoms "Porridge", its sequel "Going Straight" and "Open All Hours". Apart from being a performer, he was noted as a comedy writer both under his own name and the pseudonym Gerald Wiley, which Barker adopted to avoid pre-judgements of his talent. Barker won the BAFTA for Best Light Entertainment Performance four times, amongst other awards, and received an OBE in 1978. Later television sitcoms such as "The Magnificent Evans" and "Clarence" were less successful and he decided to retire in 1987. After his retirement, he opened an antiques shop with his wife, Joy. After 1999, he appeared in a number of smaller, non-comic roles in films. Barker died of heart failure on 3 October 2005, aged 76. Early life. Barker was born Ronald William George Barker on 25 September 1929 in Bedford, Bedfordshire, to Leonard (known as "Tim") and Edith (known as "Cis") Barker. Barker's elder sister Vera was born in 1926 and his younger sister Eileen was born in 1933. His father was a clerk for Shell-Mex, and this job saw the family move to Church Cowley Road in Oxford when Barker was four. Barker's biographer Bob McCabe described his childhood as "a happy time, marred by no ructions or family tensions, apart from the occasional wet sock." As a child, Barker enjoyed dressing up, particularly in his father's pierrot outfit, as well as films, comics and animals. He developed a love of the theatre, often attending plays with his family. The first play he saw was "Cottage to Let" and he once skipped school in order to see Laurence Olivier in "Henry V". He frequently stood outside stage-doors to collect autographs, his first being the actress Celia Johnson. Barker attended Donnington Junior School and then the City of Oxford High School for Boys. Barker's chemistry textbook at Oxford was previously owned by T.E. Lawrence. He found his talent for humour at school and developed his musical ability by singing in the choir at St James's, his local church. He got in to the sixth form a year early after gaining the School Certificate but he felt what he was learning would be of no use to him in later life and so left as soon as he could. After leaving school he trained as an architect but gave it up after six months, feeling he was not skilled enough. Barker took his sister Vera's job as a bank clerk at the Westminster Bank (after she had left to become a nurse). Barker harboured dreams of becoming an actor, and took up amateur dramatics, although initially he just saw the pastime as a chance to meet girls. For 18 months while at the bank he worked as an actor and stage manager, making his first appearance in "A Murder Has Been Arranged" as the musical director of the play-within-a-play. Eventually he gave up his job to become a professional actor. His father did not support his acting ambition. Career. Theatrical career. Barker failed to get into the Young Vic School, but joined the Manchester Repertory Company, which was based in Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, often taking comic roles in their weekly shows. Initially he was employed as the assistant to the assistant stage manager, earning £2.10s.0d a week. He made his debut as a professional actor on 15 November 1948 as Lieutenant Spicer in a performance of J.M. Barrie's "Quality Street". He went on to play the organist in "When We Are Married" and by his third role, the chauffeur Charles in "Miranda", Barker realised he wanted to be a comic actor. He was described as "ha the talent to be a great straight actor", but noted: "I want to make people laugh. Never mind about "Hamlet". Forget "Richard the Second". Give me "Charley's Aunt". My mission in life was now crystal clear." He appeared in stage adaptations of "Treasure Island" and "Red Riding Hood" before getting his first leading role in "The Guinea Pig" as a working class boy at a public school. When the production moved to Rhyl, Barker followed. The Manchester Repertory Company closed, as did the Rhyl company shortly after. Barker, aged 20, then spent some time as a porter at Wingfield Hospital; he became distressed through his contact with polio patients and so opted to take on the persona of "Charlie" so as not to be himself. He and a male nurse often entertained the patients with comedy routines. He found work at the Mime Theatre Company, performing mimed folk music and dance, which soon folded in Penzance. He made his way back to Oxford and then worked in Bramhall for the Famous Players. There he met actor Glenn Melvyn; the two became firm friends and Barker stated Melvyn taught him everything he "ever learned about comedy." He joined the Oxford Playhouse in 1951 and worked there for three years, appearing in plays such as "He Who Gets Slapped" as the clown. Peter Hall worked with Barker at Oxford and gave him his break, casting him as the Chantyman and Joe Silva in his production of "Mourning Becomes Electra" at the Arts Theatre in London's West End in 1955. By the time he had made it to the West End, Barker had appeared in an estimated 350 plays. Barker remained a West End actor for several years, appearing in numerous plays between 1955 and 1968. These included, in 1955, two performances each night as he played a gypsy in "Listen to the Wind" at the Arts Theatre and then a peasant in "Summertime" later in the evening. Other roles included Mr Thwaites in "Double Image" in 1956 (with Olivier), "Camino Real" (directed by Hall) in 1957, French gangster Robertoles-Diams in "Irma La Douce" for two years from 1958, Lord Slingsby-Craddock in "Mr Whatnot" in 1964 and Birdboot in "The Real Inspector Hound" in 1968. He also appeared in several Royal Court Theatre productions, including "A Midsummer Night's Dream" as Quince. Early media career. Barker's theatrical success enabled him to move into radio work. Barker, who had previously been known by his birth name "Ronald", was now referred to as the shortened form "Ronnie", after a director changed it in the credits, although he did not tell Barker. His first radio appearance was in 1956, playing Lord Russett in "Floggit's". He went on to play multiple characters, but primarily the lookout Able Seaman 'Fatso' Johnson and Lieutenant-Commander Stanton, in "The Navy Lark", a navy based sitcom on the BBC Light Programme, which ran from 1959 to 1977, with Barker featuring in some 300 episodes. He also featured in the show's radio spin-off "The TV Lark" as Fatso Johnson, a camera operator, and as a trainee chef in "Crowther's Crowd" in 1963, and had roles on "Variety Playhouse". Barker soon began working in film and television. His first acting job on television was in Melvyn's show "I'm Not Bothered". He appeared in various roles in the comedy series "The Seven Faces of Jim" from 1962, alongside Jimmy Edwards and June Whitfield, as well as parts in "Bold as Brass" and "Foreign Affairs" (as the Russian ambassador Grischa Petrovitch). This was followed with dramatic parts in "A Tale of Two Cities" as Jerry Cruncher in 1965 as well as single episode roles in "The Saint" and "The Avengers", in which he played Cheshire, a cat lover. He also appeared in films such as "Doctor in Distress" (1963), "Father Came Too!" (1963) and "A Home of Your Own" (1965). In 1966, Barker got his break with the satirical sketch series "The Frost Report", having been recommended for the show by producer James Gilbert. The show starred David Frost, John Cleese and Barker's future comedy partner Ronnie Corbett, whom he had met in 1963 when Corbett was the barman at the Buckstone Club near the Haymarket Theatre, and the two became friends. Corbett stated in his autobiography that the two had gravitated towards each other because of their similar backgrounds; neither had attended university, while many of the other "Frost Report" cast and writers had. Each episode of the show, which was performed and broadcast live, was focused on a single topic and principally revolved around a continuous monologue from Frost, with sketches from Barker, Corbett and Cleese as the show went on. Barker starred alongside Cleese and Corbett in "The Frost Report"'s best known sketch, which satirised the British class system, with Barker representing the middle class. After the first series, the special "Frost Over England" was produced, winning the Golden Rose at the Montreux Television Festival. With a second series of the show announced, Frost, recognising their potential, signed both Barker and Corbett up to his production company David Paradine Productions. As part of the deal Barker was given his own show in 1968, "The Ronnie Barker Playhouse", which comprised six separate, thirty-minute plays. Barker starred in each piece as a different character. After two series of "The Frost Report" on the BBC, totalling 26 half-hour episodes, Frost moved to ITV after helping to set up London Weekend Television. There, Frost hosted "Frost on Sunday", with Barker and Corbett following and again performing sketches on the programme. Barker began writing sketches for the programme under the pseudonym Gerald Wiley. Barker and Corbett had a greater role on the show than on "The Frost Report" and Corbett felt "more aware of what were doing." Barker began using the pseudonym Gerald Wiley when writing sketches because he wished the pieces to be accepted on merit and not just because he, as a star of the programme, had written them; he continued this tradition with the material he wrote later in his career. Barker brought his sketches in, claiming they had come from Wiley through Barker's agent Peter Eade, and they were very well received. In order to maintain the deception, Barker had criticised material he himself had submitted under the pseudonym; when a Wiley-credited sketch about a ventriloquist had been poorly received by the audience Barker told Corbett "Well, Gerald Wiley let us down there", and on another occasion, when looking at a script, "I don't understand this line. What's he getting at?" One of the first sketches he wrote was called "Doctor's Waiting Room", with the main part written for Corbett. Barker encouraged Corbett to buy the rights to the sketch and, further maintaining the myth, told him to reject Wiley's 'request' for £3,000 as too expensive, before giving Corbett the sketch for free. Speculation began about Wiley's identity, with Tom Stoppard, Frank Muir, Alan Bennett and Noël Coward all rumoured. After the second series of "Frost on Sunday", the cast and crew were invited to a Chinese restaurant, while Wiley said that he would reveal himself. Barker, who had told Corbett earlier in the day, stood up and announced he was Wiley, although initially nobody believed him. In 1969 Barker was able to produce the film "Futtocks End" which featured no dialogue and only "grumbleand grunt[s"; Barker played General Futtock in the film and also wrote it. "The Ronnie Barker Playhouse" had been designed to find a successful idea for a sitcom, and the episode "Ah, There You Are" by Alun Owen, which introduced the bumbling aristocratic character Lord Rustless, was chosen. The character returned for the 1969-1970 series "Hark at Barker" as the main character; Barker wrote for the show under the name Jonathan Cobbald. As Wiley he wrote the 1971 series "Six Dates with Barker". Despite Barker's success on ITV, LWT's programme controller Stella Richman opted to fire Frost's company Paradine and as Barker was contracted to the company rather than the network, he lost his job, as did Corbett. Move to the BBC and "The Two Ronnies". Soon after, Barker, Corbett and Josephine Tewson performed a sketch about Henry VIII at the 1971 BAFTAs, with Barker playing Henry. The two also had to keep the audience entertained for eight or so minutes as the show was stopped because of technical difficulties. Their performance at the award show impressed the BBC's Head of Light Entertainment Bill Cotton and Controller of BBC One Paul Fox, who were sitting in the audience. Not knowing they were both essentially unemployed, although still contracted to Paradine, Cotton signed the duo up for their own show together, and a series each on their own; he later joked he "must have offered them too much money." Barker and Corbett wished to avoid being remembered primarily as a duo, and felt they could not work in the same way as a conventional double act like Morecambe and Wise, and so each maintained their solo careers as well. They each were given a one-off variety special; Barker's, called "The Ronnie Barker Yearbook", featured a sketch for each month of the year, although because of time constraints the first two had to be cut. Barker also reprised his character Lord Rustless in the sitcom "His Lordship Entertains" in 1972. Barker wrote all seven episodes, again with the pseudonym Jonathan Cobbald. Their show together was "The Two Ronnies", a sketch show which aired for twelve series and eight specials between 1971 and 1987, to immediate success. The show, as described by Anthony Hayward of "The Independent", was "a cocktail of comedy sketches, playlets, songs and parodies, a long-winded Corbett monologue and a singing star, sandwiched between the opening and closing news summaries." The usual format consisted of many sketches between the two, an ongoing filmed serial, a solo character sketch from Barker, Corbett's monologue, a musical number, a special guest, bookended by joke news items, delivered from a desk by the two in the style of newsreaders, before ending with the catchphrase "It's good night from me - and it's good night from him." This was a set format which was used for almost the entirety of the show's run. The end catchphrase and newsreader characters were devised because Barker found it difficult to appear as himself: Corbett explained that Barker "was a very private man, a quiet man ... He found it almost impossible to talk directly, as himself, to an audience." Each also had their own solo segments to help ensure they were not totally associated as a double act. Filming took place over four months of each year. After outdoor and serial sketches were filmed on location, the studio material was filmed on Sunday evenings at BBC Television Centre in front a live audience; the musical finale was filmed the day before without the audience. Barker wrote much of the show's material, roughly three-quarters, again under the name Gerald Wiley. He was heavily involved with the show's production, especially the serial. Corbett explained that Barker was a "perfectionist" and "as he wrote it Ronnie knew how he wanted every shot to look." After filming the show all day, he spent the evenings helping technician Jim Franklin edit it. While filming on location Barker and Corbett would look through all of the potential material for the studio recording of the rest of the show's content and decide on the running order. He and Corbett always got on, with Barker noting "People refuse to believe that we don't have rows, tensions, private wars. It's a strange thing after so many years but we never have. Actually, it's even more amicable than a marriage - wedlock without the bad patches. Our sense of humour and perception of what's good and what's rubbish are uncommonly in tune." They took turns to play the parts which had the "good lines". One of the show's other writers, Barry Cryer, said: "You could write almost anything knowing these two would do it brilliantly. Because they weren't a double act; they were two men who worked together and had their own careers." Barker's material included the sketch which came to be known as "Four Candles", airing in 1976, although in the original script it was entitled "Annie Finkhouse". It sees a customer (Barker) ask for a series of things in a hardware store. The sketch's humour derives from similarities in word pronunciation, leading to confusion on the part of the store owner (Corbett). These misunderstandings include the confusion between "four candles" and "fork handles". The idea for the sketch came from the owners of a hardware shop in Hayes, Hillingdon who wrote in to "The Two Ronnies" to describe some of the amusing events and misunderstandings in their store. Barker was never happy with the sketch's final line (a male assistant asking "What sort of billhooks did you want?") and changed it (to a female assistant asking "What sort of knockers were you looking for?") for the stage version of "The Two Ronnies", although he was still not totally satisfied with it. Nevertheless, the sketch is considered the show's most famous one and was voted as the show's best in a TV special, while also placing fifth on Channel 4's "50 Greatest Comedy Sketches". The original script, hand-written by Barker, was sold for £48,500 at auction in 2007 after being featured on an episode of "Antiques Roadshow" the previous year. The show was considered a "national institution" with audiences of between 15 and 20 million regularly tuning in to its 93 episodes. Barker won the BAFTA for Best Light Entertainment Performance in 1971 and 1977 for the show. "The Two Ronnies" ended with the 1987 Christmas special. In 1978 the two performed a stage version of the show at the London Palladium; lasting for three months, it followed the same format as the show, with old sketches and some new material, supported by variety acts. Barker's unease with appearing as himself in the stage show led him to create a fictionalized version of himself to play instead. A second stage series took place in 1983. After a tip off from Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais, Barker and Corbett opted to move with their families to Sydney, Australia in 1979 for the year in order to exploit a tax loophole and avoid paying the year's income tax. They performed their stage show for four weeks in Sydney and a further four in Melbourne; because of their existing popularity in Australia and, what Corbett terms, the Australian audiences' " soul that still related to the UK," they made no changes to the routine. Barker made no other appearances that year and spent his time writing and engaging in recreational activities. Following the show's success, Kerry Packer commissioned a six episode TV series of "The Two Ronnies in Australia" for Nine Network. The show comprised material not yet shown in Australia from "The Two Ronnies" and new content targeted more towards an Australian audience. They returned for a second series in 1986. Barker and Corbett also starred in the short, mostly silent, films "The Picnic" (1975) and "By the Sea" (1982). "By the Sea" was Barker's tribute to the seaside postcard humour of Donald McGill and his most "personal" work. In 1980 they appeared in the short-lived American variety show "The Big Show"; the two were glad the show did not last as they objected to the use of canned laughter by the American networks. "Porridge", "Open All Hours" and other work. Following the success of "The Two Ronnies", the BBC let Barker decide what he wanted to do. "The Two Ronnies" took up one third of a year to produce, allowing time for Barker and Corbett to each do a solo project. Barker's opted to produce some sitcom pilots shown as part of 1973's "Seven of One". Two of these pilots, "Open All Hours" (written by Roy Clarke) and "Prisoner and Escort" (written by Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais) became series. "Prisoner and Escort" became "Porridge", airing from 1974–1977, with Barker starring as the cynical and cunning prisoner Norman Stanley Fletcher. The first sitcom to take place in a prison, "The Times" said the show "was about what it took to survive in prison, the little day-to-day triumphs over the system that kept the prisoners sane." The show became a huge success, attracting 15 million viewers and earning what the BBC described as "a chorus of critical acclaim and public adoration for what remains one of the most classic British sitcoms ever produced." "The Times" called Fletcher his "finest creation". Barker privately regarded the series as the finest work of his career. He won the BAFTA for Best Light Entertainment Performance in 1975 for his performance. In 1976, Barker played Friar Tuck in the film "Robin and Marian", directed by Richard Lester. The same year, determined not to be remembered only as Fletcher, Barker opted to end "Porridge" after two series and instead focused on the second pilot "Open All Hours", alongside David Jason. Barker starred as Arkwright, a money-grabbing, stuttering shopkeeper. Arkwright's stutter was not in the script; Barker was inspired to use it by Melvyn's performance and use of a stutter in a 1955 play the two performed at the Palace Theatre called "Hot Water". "Open All Hours" aired one series in 1976 on BBC Two but was not renewed due to low ratings. As a result, Barker backtracked on his earlier decision and produced a third series of "Porridge", as well as a film adaptation. It was followed by the spin-off sitcom "Going Straight" which focused on Fletcher after his release from prison. While not as popular as "Porridge", Barker again won the BAFTA for Best Light Entertainment Performance. Plans to further the show were ended when Barker's co-star Richard Beckinsale died of a heart attack in 1979 aged 31. With repeats of "Open All Hours" earning high ratings on BBC One, the BBC commissioned a further series of the show in 1981, with another two made as well as the show continued its ratings success. Both shows placed in the top ten of the 2004 poll to determine Britain's Best Sitcom; "Porridge" finished seventh and "Open All Hours" eighth. Barker's next sitcom, "The Magnificent Evans", which was about a Welsh photographer and aired in 1984, was not successful. His final sitcom, "Clarence" in which he played Clarence Sale, a removal man with failing sight, aired in 1988. Barker wrote the show himself, again using a pseudonym, this time as "Bob Ferris". Retirement and re-appearances. In 1987, before "Clarence" aired and after rejecting Hall's offer of the part of Falstaff in a Royal National Theatre production of "Henry IV, Part 1 & 2", Barker retired from show business, aged 58, "at the height of his fame", citing a decline in his own writing quality, lack of ambition and ideas, and a desire to go out on top so as not to damage his legacy, as well as concerns about the state of his heart. He had decided to retire in 1985 but his decision was kept secret for two years. He made his decision public on an appearance on the chat show "Wogan". Retired, Barker opened and ran an antiques shop called The Emporium in Chipping Norton in Oxfordshire and resisted all calls to come out of retirement from then onwards. He joked: "I lose money every week, but it's a hobby. It's cheaper than skiing and safer at my age." Because of its unprofitability, the shop was sold after ten years. He wrote his autobiography, "Dancing in the Moonlight: My Early Years on Stage" in 1993 and released "All I Ever Wrote", his complete scripts, in 1999. He wrote the play "Mum" for his daughter Charlotte Barker in 1998, which was performed at The King's Head Theatre, but garnered a negative response, with Barker stating it got "the worst notices of any play in the history of the theatre." Just over a decade after retiring, Barker was persuaded to make occasional appearances on TV again. In 1997 he appeared with Corbett at the Royal Command Performance, driving on stage in a motorcycle as the Two Fat Ladies, and in 1999 he was reunited with Corbett for "Two Ronnies Night" on BBC One, and the following year for "A Tribute to the Two Ronnies". In 2002, director Richard Loncraine persuaded Barker to appear as Winston Churchill's butler David Inches in the BBC-HBO drama "The Gathering Storm" and then cast him in the larger role of the General in the TV film "My House in Umbria" in 2003, alongside Maggie Smith (whom he had, early in their careers, advised to give up acting as he felt she would not be a success). In the same year, he briefly reprised his role as Norman Stanley Fletcher in the spoof documentary "". Barker received several lifetime achievement awards. He won the Royal Television Society's award for Outstanding Creative Achievement in 1975. Sir Alec Guinness presented him with a lifetime achievement honour at the inaugural British Comedy Awards in 1990, while he received another such honour at the BBC Centenary Programme in 1996. In 2004 he was given a special BAFTA lifetime achievement award at "Ronnie Barker: A BAFTA Tribute", a televised celebratory tribute evening. In 2005, he and Corbett were part of the first 100 people given stars on London's Avenue of Stars. Previous awards included the Variety Club of Great Britain Award in 1969, 1974 and 1980, the Radio Industry Club Award in 1973, 1974, 1977 and 1981. Following the success of "Ronnie Barker: A BAFTA Tribute", Barker wanted to return the "The Two Ronnies" to television and the BBC commissioned "The Two Ronnies Sketchbook", a clip show of their best sketches along with newly recorded introductions. These were recorded in one day due to Barker's declining health and aired in 2005. The project, when announced, met with "some derision among the professional critics", but after the first episode drew eight million viewers, they had to "eat their words". The final special, and Barker's final appearance on TV - "The Two Ronnies Christmas Sketchbook" - was recorded in July 2005 as a result of Barker's failing health and aired posthumously in December. Acting and writing style. Barker became a comic actor in his theatre days, noting "I think it's better to make people laugh than cry." He has been described by "The Times" as "not a comedian, an actor with a talent for comedy," who "slipped into characters with apparent ease." Barker felt he was only funny in character. The BBC wrote he was "able to deliver the great tongue-twisting speeches required of his characters, Barker pronounced himself 'completely boring' without a script." Peter Hall spoke of Barker's skills as a dramatic actor, calling him "the great actor we lost" and lamented that Barker was unable to take a role in one of his Shakespearean productions. Barker, though, preferred comedy, and felt it was "as good and as important as serious work" and he was not "dumbing down" by doing it. Actor Gene Wilder compared him to Charlie Chaplin in saying "no matter how farcical [his performance was ... there was always an element of reality to what he did." Corbett praised Barker's skill at playing serious authority figures saying absurd things, utilizing Barker's verbal dexterity and energetic performances. Barker's writing style was, for "The Times", "based on precise scripts and perfect timing." It often involved playing with language, including humour involving such linguistic items as spoonerisms and double entendres. Dennis Baker of "The Guardian" wrote that Barker "preferred innuendo over the crudely explicit, a restraint that demanded some imagination from the audience and was the essence of his comedy." Corbett said he had "a mastery of the English language". In private, he annotated a copy of "A Book of Nonsense" by Edward Lear, penning punch lines of his own for each limerick. On the title page he wrote, "There was an old fossil named Lear, Whose verses were boring and drear. His last lines were worst - just the same as the first! So I've tried to improve on them here." The annotated copy of Lear's book, signed and dated November 2001, was auctioned in 2012. Personal life. Barker met Joy Tubb in Cambridge while she was a stage manager for two plays he was in. They married nine months later in July 1957 and they had three children: two sons, Larry (born 1959) and Adam (born 1968), who became an actor, and one daughter, Charlotte (born 1962), who became an actress. Larry was named after Barker's idol Laurence Olivier. The family lived on Church Lane in Pinner for many years; they later sold the property and moved to a converted mill in Dean, Oxfordshire. According to Corbett, Barker was "first and foremost a family man." Joy died in January 2011, aged 78. Barker received an OBE in 1978. He was an avid collector of antiques, books and posters and amassed a collection of over 53,000 postcards; he produced several compilation books of them including "Ronnie Barker's Book of Bathing Beauties", "A Pennyworth of Art" and "Sauce". Barker rarely appeared in public, and when he did it was almost always in character. He once said "I've always known I haven't a personality of my own, I have to be someone else to be happy. That's why I became an actor, I suppose." Barker was a heavy smoker until 1972 when he gave up the habit after having a pre-cancerous growth removed from his throat; he took to drinking wine and using placebo cigarettes to maintain his concentration and help him sleep. He underwent a heart bypass in 1996 and survived a pulmonary embolism the following year. Death. Opting not to have heart valve replacement surgery, Barker's health rapidly declined after the recording of "The Two Ronnies Christmas Sketchbook" and he died of heart failure at the Katherine House hospice in Adderbury, Oxfordshire on 3 October 2005, aged 76, with Joy by his side. News of his death made top billing on the television news headlines. "The Sun" featured a front page of just the headline "It's Goodnight From Him" and an image of Barker's glasses. Barker was cremated at a private humanist funeral at Banbury Crematorium, which was attended only by family and close friends (his son Adam did not attend as he was wanted by police for questioning over allegations of accessing child pornography via the internet). A public memorial service for Barker was held on 3 March 2006 at Westminster Abbey, with some 2,000 people in attendance. Corbett, Richard Briers, Josephine Tewson, Michael Grade and Peter Kay all read at the service, while others in attendance included David Jason, Stephen Fry, Michael Palin, Leslie Phillips, Lenny Henry, Dawn French and June Whitfield. A recording of Barker's rhyming slang sermon from "The Two Ronnies" was played, while as the cross processed up the aisle of the Abbey, it was accompanied by four candles instead of the usual two, in reference to the Four Candles sketch. Barker was the third comedy professional to be given a memorial at Westminster Abbey, after Joyce Grenfell and Les Dawson. Legacy. Following his death the "Writer of the Year Award" at the British Comedy Awards was renamed in his honour. He was voted as the 16th greatest comedy act ever by fellow comedians and comedy insiders in a 2005 poll to find "The Comedian's Comedian". The BBC described him as "one of the leading figures of British television comedy", and "much loved and admired". "The Independent" called him "a master of television sitcom". The "Guardian" said he was "much loved ... Both as an actor and a writer he was recognised as a master of pyrotechnic puns, surreal behaviour in public and private places and crackling cross-chat." They concluded "it says much about the decline of the British television industry that Ronnie Barker, one of its most creative comic talents, should have turned his back on it long before he died at the age of 76." In Barker's eulogy, the Reverend Robert Wright stated he was "undoubtedly one of the very greatest television comedy actors" and "as a performer, he made comedy look effortlessly funny." His stage play, "Mum", was adapted for radio. Broadcast in 2006 on BBC Radio 4 as an "Afternoon Play", adapted and directed by Neil Cargill, it starred Maxine Peake in the main role alongside Barker's old "Porridge" collaborator, Sam Kelly. A bronze statue of Barker, in character as Norman Stanley Fletcher, sculpted by Martin Jennings, was unveiled in a public area at the entrance of the Aylesbury Waterside Theatre in September 2010 by his widow Joy, David Jason and Ronnie Corbett.
1042932	John Edward Hawkins CBE (14 September 1910 – 18 July 1973) was an English actor who worked on stage and in film from the 1930s until the 1970s. Career. Hawkins made his London stage debut aged 12, and was appearing on Broadway in "Journey's End" by the age of 18. Although he appeared in several films during the 1930s, it was only after service in World War II, during which he had become a colonel in ENSA for India and Southeast Asia, that he began to build a successful career in the cinema. Hawkins became a star with the release of three successful films in which he played stern but sympathetic authority figures: "Angels One Five" (1951), "The Planter's Wife" (1952), and "Mandy" (1952). In 1952 British exhibitors voted him the fourth most popular local star at the box office. He consolidated this status with "The Cruel Sea", which was the most successful film of the year and saw Hawkins voted the most popular star in Britain regardless of nationality. Hawkins' popularity declined with a series of less successful movies, but his authoritarian presence meant he was always in demand. From the late 1950s, he mostly appeared in character roles, often in epic films like "The Bridge on the River Kwai", "Lawrence of Arabia" (playing General Edmund Allenby), "Lord Jim", and "Oh! What a Lovely War". For "The Bridge on the River Kwai", he had to persuade good friend Alec Guinness to take the lead role, which would ultimately win Guinness an Oscar. Some of Hawkins' more unusual roles included an Egyptian Pharaoh in "Land of the Pharaohs", Ben Hur's adoptive Roman father Quintus Arrius in "Ben-Hur", and "Zulu", where he played against type as the fanatical pacifist, Reverend Otto Witt. He appeared as one of "The Four Just Men" (1959) in the Sapphire Films TV series for ITV. In reality Hawkins was politically liberal, and an emotional man, in sharp contrast to his conservative screen image. One of his favourite films, "The League of Gentlemen", was considered quite groundbreaking for its time in its references to sex. However, though initially sought for the role of a gay barrister in "Victim", he turned it down fearing that it might conflict with his masculine image. The role was eventually played by Dirk Bogarde. Hawkins also produced the film adaptation of Peter Barnes's "The Ruling Class" (1972), with Peter O'Toole and Alastair Sim. Personal life. He was married to Jessica Tandy from 1932 to 1942 and later to "Doreen Lawrence" (1919 - 2013) from 1947 until his death in 1973. Illness and death. A three-pack-a-day smoker, Hawkins began experiencing voice problems in the late 1950s; unknown to the public he had undergone cobalt treatment in 1959 for what was then described as a secondary condition of the larynx, but which was probably cancer. In private, he used a mechanical larynx to aid his speech. In December 1965, he was diagnosed with throat cancer. His entire larynx was removed in January of the following year; thereafter his performances were dubbed, often (with Hawkins's approval) by Robert Rietti or actor Charles Gray. Hawkins continued to smoke after losing his voice. He died at St Stephen's Hospital, Fulham Road, London, on 18 July 1973, following an operation to insert an artificial voicebox. He was 62. His final appearance was in the television miniseries "QB VII". His autobiography, "Anything For a Quiet Life", was published after his death. He was cremated and interred at the Golders Green Crematorium. Filmography. British box office ranking. During the 1950s, British exhibitors consistently voted Hawkins one of the most popular local stars in the country in the annual poll conducted by the "Motion Picture Herald":
520344	Villa Estrella is a 2009 Philippine horror-drama film produced by Star Cinema for its 16th anniversary offering, It stars Maja Salvador, Jake Cuenca, Geoff Eigenmann and Shaina Magdayao in the lead role, and is directed by Rico Maria Ilarde. Plot. How come people who go there are never seen again? Does the villa "eat" people alive? The movie tells the story of Ana played by Shaina Magdayao who has always been having nightmares about certain people getting killed. Things become scarier when her ex-boyfriend played by Jake Cuenca brings her to Villa Estrella where she meets a girl named Gisele played by Maja Salvador who seems to be very familiar to her
1103939	Ulisse Dini (14 November 1845 – 28 October 1918) was an Italian mathematician and politician, born in Pisa. He is known for his contribution to real analysis, partly collected in his book ""Fondamenti per la teorica delle funzioni di variabili reali"". Life and academic career. Dini attended the Scuola Normale Superiore in order to become a teacher. One of his professors was Enrico Betti. In 1865, a scholarship enabled him to visit Paris, where he studied under Charles Hermite as well as Joseph Bertrand, and published several papers. In 1866, he was appointed to the University of Pisa, where he taught algebra and geodesy. In 1871, he succeeded Betti as professor for analysis and geometry. From 1888 until 1890, Dini was "rettore" of the Pisa University, and of the "Scuola Normale Superiore" from 1908 until his death in 1918. He was also active as a politician: in 1871 he was voted into the Pisa city council, and in 1880, he became a member of the Italian parliament. Honors. In he was elected honorary member of the London Mathematical Society. Work. Research activity. Dini worked in the field of mathematical analysis during a time when it was begun to be based on rigorous foundations. In addition to his books, he wrote about sixty papers.
1082860	Chico and Rita (Chico & Rita) is a Spanish animated feature-length film with Spanish and English languages directed by Fernando Trueba and Javier Mariscal. The story of Chico and Rita is set against backdrops of Havana, New York City, Las Vegas, Hollywood and Paris in the late 1940s and early 1950s. A gifted songwriter and beautiful singer chase their dreams – and each other – from Havana to New York and Las Vegas. Chico is a young piano player with big dreams. Rita is a beautiful singer with an extraordinary voice. Music and romantic desire unite them, but their journey – in the tradition of the Latin ballad, the bolero – brings heartache and torment. The film was produced by Fernando Trueba Producciones, Estudio Mariscal and Magic Light Pictures. It won the Goya Award for Best Animated Film at the 25th Goya Awards and was nominated for the Oscar for Best Animated Feature at the 84th Academy Awards (the first time that a Spanish full-length animated film had been nominated). Synopsis. The first scenes of the film take part in modern-day Havana, Chico, a shoe-shiner ends his day and goes up to his room that overlooks the port. He tunes his radio to the Radio Progreso station which is playing old Cuban hits on a program called Melodies from Yesterday. As he listens the station begins to play a romantic arrangement of "A Taste of Me" (initially named "Rita" and later changed to "Lily"). The song, written by Chico, won a radio contest some 60 years back when it was performed by Chico and Rita. The film then changes back to 1948 and finds Chico and his friend Ramón living as struggling dandies in a low-life bar where they are paired with two American tourists. The musicians at the bar play a ballad with their lead singer, Rita. Chico is immediately taken with her and he wishes to talk to her, but she is already busy with her own American tourist who will not let her leave. Chico and Ramón go to the Tropicana Club with their lady-friends, where they sneak in through the performer’s entrance. While walking around Chico stumbles upon Rita and her gentleman-friend almost initiating a fight but the Maitre d' overhears that Chico is an accomplished pianist and takes him backstage, since the main event of the evening is missing the pianist and he fills in playing at first sight a new piece by Igor Stravinsky. Chico, initially nervous, ends up performing the piece with aplomb, to the delight of the band. Rita finally agrees to flee with Chico in Ramón’s motorcycle along with the Americans, ditching her own John. After a dangerous chase, the American man finally crashes into a car dealership, giving the others plenty of time to escape. Rita and Chico take their leave from the rest of their party and go to a bar where Chico introduces her to bebop music, which she takes up very quickly; afterwards they go to Chico’s place and spend the rest of the night together. The next day Rita wakes up to find Chico playing a new composition on the piano, which he names “Rita”. As they play and kiss, Juana, Chico’s former girlfriend walks in and ends up in a fight with Rita after which both women leave angrily. Chico is taken with Rita and does not want to play in an upcoming contest if he cannot perform with Rita, so Ramón, who also is his agent, tracks Rita down and pays her to participate in the contest. After the performance is over, Rita leaves and Chico follows her in Ramón’s motorcycle. He sees that she enters a house where he believes that she lives with a man, but as it turns out it is the house of a santera that had predicted he would cause her much suffering. That night the contest winners are announced, and Rita and Chico win. The prize is a month’s engagement at the Hotel Nacional. A few weeks later, Chico and Rita are having great success during their performances and Rita’s beauty mesmerizes more than one man, which ignites Chico’s jealousy. One of the admirers, Ron, asks Rita to his table to discuss business. He offers to take Rita to New York City to make her a star, where jazz and Latin music are a burgeoning scene. While Ron tries to convince Rita to go to New York, she insists that the offer must include Chico, as well. Meanwhile, Chico has been watching from a distance and is extremely jealous, believing Rita wishes to leave him for Ron. Rita stands up to talk to Chico but he is already too drunk to understand and leaves in a rage. Even after this Rita insists that the offer should include both. Rita leaves and looks for Chico and goes to his place and waits in the courtyard where she falls asleep. She's awakened by the sound of Chico, completely drunk and barely able to walk, assisted by Juana. She leaves for New York alone as the new lover of Ron. Chico is depressed but he manages to get enough means to go to New York as well to find fortune. While there he finds Rita and manages to see her but she has become very successful and wishes not to see him again. Chico and Ramón deliver a letter of recommendation that they have received from Chano Pozo’s sister in Cuba which they hope will turn out to be a huge opportunity for them. Chano is receptive and excited to meet them; however, he is involved in drugs and has a short temper. After discovering that he was sold oregano instead of marijuana, Chano attacks his dealer only to be shot and killed by him a while later. In turn, Chico finds work as a party musician and Ramón as an usher at the Plaza Hotel. While at one of his gigs in a party, Chico runs into Rita again, who is flustered by the fact that a white woman has expressed her doubts about having a film made that features a black latino woman as a lead. Chico and Rita run away in her new car that she just got as a gift from Ron. The next day she leaves for California to film the movie. In the meantime Ron has located Ramón and proposes a deal to finance his artist-agency business, as long as he finds jobs to keep Chico away from Rita. Ramón complies with his end of the bargain and signs Chico with Dizzy Gillespie, who has a gig in Paris and then a European tour. All the while, Rita has become a big star and her film is a huge success. Chico has found a new girlfriend in Paris with a small dog; one morning, while playing “Rita” at the piano, the dog comes in and sits by Chico, who then changes the name of the song to “Lily”, the dog’s name. A few months pass on and Rita is sad despite all her wealth and success, since she is still mistreated socially due to her skin color. While being driven to a set and going through her lines, the radio plays a song she instantly recognizes and is moved to tears but is a bit disappointed to hear that the newest jazz-hit is known as “Lily”. Sometime later, while playing in a bar, Rita comes in and sees Chico playing “Lily”. After the performance is over and as Chico is ready to leave home, he comes across Rita, who asks him about this “Lily”, he teases her about the identity of the mystery female but finally reveals that the song is named after a dog. The two passionately kiss, which is caught in a photograph by a paparazzo, and agree to marry that New Year’s Eve after Rita’s debut in Las Vegas. Chico tells Ramón, who is alarmed that their union shall mean his own ruin and he slips in Chico’s coat a pack of drugs which are discovered during a police search during his own gig at the Palladium in New York. Chico is arrested and deported immediately for Cuba, despite his please to make at least one phone call - all the while Rita is waiting for Chico in vain at her motel in Vegas. She keeps drinking and when it is time for her New Year's Eve performance, Ron tells her that Chico has done this before and that she shouldn't be surprised. Ominously, he says to her, 'don't spoil it all now', and she decides then and there to end her career by sabotage. She makes her way to the stage, and in her thick Cuban accent, she begins by wishing the audience a Happy New Year, then goes into her defining moment speech, denouncing racism and the hypocrisy of being a celebrated black artist. Meanwhile, when entering Cuba, Chico’s passport is held by the new Cuban revolutionary authorities and is forbidden to play jazz because it is capitalist music. Disappointed with life, Chico gives up music all together. Sixty years pass and while shining shoes for a tourist a young man rushes to Chico and tells him that some music big shots are asking very eagerly for him. He reluctantly agrees to go to the recording studio. For the first time in years he plays “Lily” and the singer asks him to join him recording that song which becomes a big hit and takes him in a world tour. After he ends his tour, Chico is allowed again into the United States and he searches for Rita, starting at the places he remembers seeing her in New York. He eventually finds Ron in a nursing home and discovers that his friend Ramón has died but no clues as to Rita’s whereabouts until he goes to Vegas, he knocks on Rita’s door, who has stayed for 47 years in the same motel room waiting for him. Collaborators. Director Fernando Trueba met designer and artist Javier Mariscal ten years ago when he asked him to create a poster for his Latin jazz documentary "Calle 54". So began a collaboration that saw Mariscal design all the artwork for Trueba's Calle 54 Records, make animated pop promos for the label, and together create a jazz-music restaurant in Madrid. Chico & Rita would be Javier Mariscal’s first ani­mated fea­ture film as designer. The idea to make an animated feature film emerged out of one of those pop promos, La Negra Tomasa by Cuban musician Compay Segundo. Mariscal's younger brother Tono Errando, with a background in music, film and animation, leads the audio-visual side of the multi-disciplinary creative company, and was chosen to collaborate with Trueba and Mariscal. From the beginning, all three men were excited by the idea of making a film set against the Havana music scene in the late-40s and 50s. "That age is beautiful in design and architecture, so visually it belongs very much to Mariscal's world," says Errando. "And in music it's a moment that's fantastic: it's the moment where Cuban musicians go to New York and join the Anglo Saxon jazz musicians. This fusion changed the music at that time." Production. Before drawing the locations in Cuba, Mariscal completed an intense research trip. Although many of Havana’s pre-revolutionary buildings had decayed, either deliberately or from neglect, the filmmakers discovered that the Havana city government had assembled an archive of photographs to help with street repairs. Pictures of every street corner in Havana since 1949 were archived, conveying the look and mood of the era. The team also found pictures taken inside the planes ferrying Americans to the party island. Mariscal explained that the planes arriving from New York, Washington, D.C. and Miami during that period were filled with Cuban musicians entertaining the passengers. They provided much historical information about the Cubans of that era: the clothes, the faces, the streets, billboards, cars, bars, the way they lived, and the sensational life of Havana. Release. Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures distributed the film in 100 Spanish theaters on 25 February 2010. GKIDS holds the distribution rights for the film in North America. The film has also been shown at the following festivals and released in the UK and Spain. The English dub will include the voices of Wendell Pierce, Mary J. Blige, Rob Riggle, Chris Pine, and Viola Davis. Reception. "Chico & Rita" was broadly praised by critics upon release, gaining a score of 94% on Rotten Tomatoes. The BBC's Mark Kermode listed the film fifth in his top five films of 2010. Philip French called the film "the year's best musical and one of the year's finest animated films" and an "utterly delightful, ... affecting, funny, historically accurate and at times pleasingly erotic story", while Sounds and Colors called the film "a crowning achievement; a mixture of great animation, music and history with a narrative that reads like the simple story of heartbreak that bestows the greatest of love songs." In March 2011, "The Miami Herald" said "the film melds dazzling visuals and a wildly infectious score into a simple yet affecting love story" and while the "first 30 minutes of "Chico & Rita" achieve a giddy high the rest of the movie can never match", ""Chico & Rita" makes you fall hard for music, as hard as the protagonists fall for each other, and the movie is decent enough to give its lovebirds the tender finale they deserve." "Fotogramas", the oldest and most prestigious film magazine in Spain, gave the film 4 out of 5 stars and praised how its characters were "more human and alive than many real actors", unlike "Variety" which negatively reviewed the film, calling it "a test, one that gauges whether your love of Cuban jazz can exceed your threshold for lousy animation... an unflattering style, like a children's coloring book with its rudimentary line drawings and stiff, expressionless characters"; the film was "evocative enough of late-'40s Havana and the sweaty, sensual music of the time." Music. The film has an original soundtrack by Cuban pianist, bandleader and composer Bebo Valdés. It features music by Thelonious Monk, Cole Porter, Dizzy Gillespie and Freddy Cole. According to Tono Errando, "it was the moment when new musicians came along like Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie with a new kind of music, that is not for dancing, full of notes, played really fast, a music that now we call jazz. Then the Cuban musicians arrived. Dizzy Gillespie has said many times in interviews, there was a moment for him that was very important, it was the moment he first played with Chano Pozo. Pozo was the first percussionist that played in a jazz band." Cuban pianist, bandleader, composer and arranger of the film Bebo Valdés was living in obscurity in Stockholm, when Trueba reintroduced his playing to an international audience with his film "Calle 54", and went on to produce the Grammy-winning Lagrimas Negras album, teaming Valdes with flamenco singer Diego El Cigala. Trueba was also able to persuade the real-life flamenco star Estrella Morente, who has been performing since the age of seven, to participate in the film. Musicians featured in the film include Chucho Valdés, Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker, Chano Pozo, Tito Puente, Ben Webster, and Thelonious Monk.
583500	Disco Dancer is a 1982 Indian Hindi feature film directed by Babbar Subhash, starring Mithun Chakraborty in the lead role and Rajesh Khanna in a special appearance. The film tells the rags-to-riches story of a young street performer. It is especially known for its "filmi" disco songs composed by Bappi Lahari, including "I am a Disco Dancer", "Jimmy Jimmy Jimmy Aaja", and "Yaad Aa Raha Hai". The film was a worldwide success, with its popularity extending across Southern and central Asia, Eastern Africa, The Middle East, the Far East, Turkey and Soviet Union. It was one of the most successful Indian films in the Soviet Union, drawing an audience of 40 to 63 million viewers there. The film established Mithun as a household name in Southern Asia as well as the Soviet Union. In China, the film's soundtrack was a success and received a Gold Award there. Plot. Anil (Mithun Chakraborty), a street performer and wedding singer, is scarred by the memory of the rich P.N. Oberoi (Om Shivpuri) beating his mother (Gita Siddharth) in an incident during his childhood. When David Brown, the manager (Om Puri) of current Indian disco champion Sam (Karan Razdan) is fed up and looks for some new talent, he happens across Anil who is dance-walking down a street. Rebranded as "Jimmy", the rising disco star must take the throne from Sam and win the heart of Rita (Kim Yashpal), P.N. Oberoi's daughter. All seems to be going well until Oberoi hires men to connect Jimmy's electric guitar to 5,000 volts of electricity, causing Jimmy's mother to die in a tragic accident. With his legs broken by Oberoi's goons and guitar phobia from the incident with his mother, Jimmy must claim first place for Team India at the International Disco Dancing Competition amidst strong competition from Team Africa and Team Paris. Soundtrack. The music for the movie was directed by Bappi Lahiri. The tracks on the 1982 soundtrack album are as follows:
1504497	Barry Dennen (born February 22, 1938) is an American actor, singer, and writer. Dennen was born in Chicago, Illinois. In New York City from 1960 to 1963, he had a relationship with Barbra Streisand. They lived together for a year, during which time he helped her develop the nightclub act that began her successful career as a singer and actress.
589188	Ab Dilli Dur Nahin is a 1957 Bollywood film directed by Amar Kumar and written by Rajinder Singh Bedi and Muhafiz Hyder. The film was produced by Raj Kapoor and starred Yakub, Anwar Hussain, Motilal, Nand Kishore and Jagdeep. Plot. Ab Dilli Dur Nahin is the story of a journey in search of justice. Hariram, a poor labourer, loved his wife and son Rattan so much that he lavished them with all the comforts of life even though it meant he was constantly in debt. Harimam's life fell apart when he lost his wife. So grief-stricken was he that he even lost his job due to poor attendance. Misery drove him to seek solace in alcohol. When drunken Hariram reached home he found his son crying as an evil loan shark Sethji had beaten him up. In a fit of rage Hariram went to Sethji's house and nearly killed him but for the timely intervention of Mukunda who also owed Sethji money. Hariram left, but not before threatening to kill Bhola Seth. That night while Hariram was asleep next to where his wife had been cremated and Mukunda broke into Sethjis house to steal his valuables. When Sethji tried to stop him he killed Sethji. Hariram was found guilty for this murder and sent to Delhi to await his death sentence. His distressed son, Rattan, not knowing how to save his innocent father meets Ghaseeta a pickpocket who had seen Hariram asleep in the crematorium. He relates the story to the police but they question his credibility. Uneducated Ghaseeta decides to go to Delhi with Rattan to plea Hariram's case before Pt. Nehru. Mukunda fears for his life and follows in pursuit of the child and his witness. A race begins between Rattan and the pickpocket and the real culprit as he attempts to stop them too. Music. Mukunda Ab Dilli Dur Nahin's music was composed by Dattaram, lyrics penned by Shailendra and Hasrat Jaipuri including the popular song "Chun Chun Karti Aayi Chidiya". Release and acclaim. The film premiered in 1957.
1051431	Le Corbeau ("The Raven") is a 1943 French film directed by Henri-Georges Clouzot. The film was notable for causing serious trouble to its director after World War II because it had been produced by Continental Films, a German production company established in France in the early months of the war, and because the film had been perceived by the underground and the Communist press as vilifying the French people. Because of this, Clouzot was initially banned for life from directing in France and the film too was banned, but both bans were lifted in 1947. The film was remade as "The 13th Letter" (1951) by Otto Preminger. Synopsis. In a small French town identified as 'anywhere', anonymous poison pen letters are sent by somebody signing as "Le Corbeau" (the Raven). The letters start by accusing doctor Rémy Germain (Pierre Fresnay) of having an affair with Laura Vorzet (Micheline Francey), the pretty young wife of the elderly psychiatrist Dr. Vorzet (Pierre Larquey). Germain is also accused of practicing illegal abortions. Letters are then sent to virtually all the population of the town, but keep getting back at the initial victim, Dr. Germain. The situation becomes serious when a patient of the hospital commits suicide with his straight razor after the Raven writes to him that his cancer is terminal. Marie Corbin, a nurse in the infirmary, becomes a suspect and is arrested, but soon new letters arrive. Germain's lover Denise is suspected, only for Laura to be identified by material contained in her blotter. Germain agrees to sign an order committing Laura as insane, just before he is called away to attend Denise who has fallen down stairs. Just as the ambulance takes Laura away, Germain returns and finds Vorzet dead at his desk, his throat cut by the cancer patient's mother as he was writing the Raven's final triumphant letter. The film is loosely based on a famous anonymous letter case that started in the town of Tulle, Limousin in 1917. Anonymous letters had been sent by somebody signing "the eye of the tiger."
1104187	Fan Rong K Chung Graham (金芳蓉, pinyin: Jīn Fāngróng) (born October 9, 1949 in Kaohsiung, Taiwan), known professionally as Fan Chung, is a mathematician who works mainly in the areas of spectral graph theory, extremal graph theory and random graphs, in particular in generalizing the Erdős–Rényi model for graphs with general degree distribution (including power-law graphs in the study of large information networks).
1066006	Corvette Summer is an American film, released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in 1978 starring Mark Hamill and Annie Potts. It tells the story of a lonely, car-obsessed California teenager and the theft of his beloved customized Corvette Stingray. Plot summary. Kenny Dantley (Mark Hamill) is a car-loving Southern California high school senior. For a project in his shop class, Kenny helps build a customized Chevrolet Corvette Stingray with right-hand-drive. Shortly after the new set of wheels is unveiled, the car is stolen from the streets of Van Nuys. Kenny immediately sets out on the trail of the thieves, which takes him to Las Vegas. On the way, he meets Vanessa (Annie Potts) who is a self-described "prostitute-in-training."
1103876	Peter Clive Sarnak (born 18 December 1953) is a mathematician. He has been Eugene Higgins Professor of Mathematics at Princeton University since 2002, succeeding Andrew Wiles, and is an editor of the Annals of Mathematics. Sarnak is also on the permanent faculty at the School of Mathematics of the Institute for Advanced Study. He also sits on the Board of Adjudicators and the selection committee for the Mathematics award, given under the auspices of the Shaw Prize. Education. Sarnak graduated University of the Witwatersrand (B.Sc. 1975) and Stanford University (Ph.D. 1980), under the direction of Paul Cohen. Awards and honors. Sarnak was awarded the Polya Prize of Society of Industrial & Applied Mathematics in 1998, the Ostrowski Prize in 2001, the Levi L. Conant Prize in 2003 and the Frank Nelson Cole Prize in Number Theory in 2005. He was also elected as member of the National Academy of Sciences (USA) and Fellow of the Royal Society (UK) in 2002. He was awarded an honorary doctorate by the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 2010.
1058427	Rachel Sarah Bilson (born August 25, 1981) is an American actress. Bilson grew up in a California show business family, and made her television debut in 2003, subsequently becoming well known for playing Summer Roberts on the prime time drama series "The O.C." Bilson made her film debut in the 2006 film "The Last Kiss" and starred in the 2008 action/science fiction film "Jumper." She is currently starring as Dr. Zoe Hart on The CW's "Hart of Dixie". Early life. Bilson was born in Los Angeles, the daughter of Janice (née Stango), a sex therapist, and Danny Bilson, a writer, director, and producer. Her father is Jewish, and her mother, a native of Philadelphia, is Italian American. Bilson's father comes from a show business family; her great-grandfather, George Bilson (born in Leeds, West Yorkshire, England), was the head of the trailer department at RKO Pictures; her Brooklyn-born great-grandmother, Hattie Bilson, was a screenwriter; and her grandfather, Bruce Bilson, is a film director. Bilson's parents divorced when she was nine years old, and in 1997, her father remarried Heather Medway, an actress and the mother of Bilson's half-sisters, Hattie and Rosemary.
1066371	Sam Douglas (born 17 June 1957) is an English-American actor best known for his role as private detective Scott Shelby in the PlayStation 3 video game "Heavy Rain", as King Herod in "The Bible" miniseries for the History Channel, and as Rosebud in the movie "Snatch". He has had several other roles in films and on stage. His film appearances include "Batman", "The Fifth Element", "Eyes Wide Shut", "Derailed", "Perfume: The Story of a Murderer" and "Columbiana". He received a Bachelor of Fine Arts in acting from Simpson College, Iowa, and in directing from the Oklahoma City University School of Drama. At both places of study he was under the tutorship of Alan Langdon. Douglas was also a member of The Actors Space in New York City. Theatre. He has had played in several theatres in US and UK such as the Royal National Theatre, Greenwich Theatre, Royal Court Theatre and Savoy Theatre. Some of the plays included are: "Edmund" at The Royal Court Theatre, London; "A Raisin in the Sun"; "Porgy and Bess" at The Savoy Theatre; "The Darker Face of the Earth" and "A Streetcar Named Desire" at The Royal National Theatre in London; and "On The Water Front" with Steven Berkhoff.
1060577	Daniel O'Herlihy (1 May 1919 – 17 February 2005) was an Irish film actor, known for such roles as "Conal Cochran" in "" and "The Old Man" in "RoboCop". He was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor for the 1954 film, "Adventures of Robinson Crusoe". Early life. O'Herlihy was born in Wexford, Ireland, in 1919. His family moved to Dublin at a young age. He was educated at Christian Brothers College in Dun Laoghaire and later studied in University College Dublin, graduating in 1944 with a degree in Architecture. Career. His first acting role came in 1944, when he played the lead in the play "Red Roses For Me" directed by Sean O'Casey. O'Herlihy first appeared in films in "Hungry Hill" and Carol Reed's "Odd Man Out" in 1947. His first American film role was as Macduff in Orson Welles' version of "Macbeth" (1948). In 1952, he starred in the Red Scare film "Invasion U.S.A." and, in 1954 in Luis Buñuel's "Adventures of Robinson Crusoe", which earned him an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor. O'Herlihy recalled that the producers of the film wanted Buñuel to use Orson Welles for the role, with Buñuel refusing saying he was too loud and too fat. They arranged a screening of Welles' "Macbeth" to show how a bearded Welles would look but Buñuel demanded O'Herlihy who appeared in the film. O'Herlihy was later featured in "The Young Land" in 1959 as Judge Millard Isham. In 1960, he played Sir Harry Ivers, an upper-class English drifter who joins Alan Ladd in a plot to ruin an Arizona cattle town by robbing its bank in the western "One Foot in Hell". In 1964, he starred in "Fail-Safe" in the role of General Black, or "Blackie". In 1969, he was cast in "The Big Cube" and "100 Rifles". In 1970, he starred in the epic "Waterloo", playing the part of Michael Ney, the Marshal of France. In 1982, he starred in "" and in 1984 he appeared in "The Last Starfighter" as Grig, Alex Rogan's copilot, navigator, and sidekick. In 1986's "The Whoopee Boys" he played a judge and in 1987, he was cast as a con man in John Huston's "The Dead". In 1990, he appeared in "RoboCop 2", the sequel to the 1987 film. O'Herlihy had a fairly extensive career in television, having appeared in such shows as CBS's anthology series, "The DuPont Show with June Allyson", on "Adventures in Paradise" and the crime drama, "", both on ABC. He portrayed Larry "Ace" Banner in the first season of another ABC series, "The Untouchables" in the episode entitled "The Big Squeeze". He was cast as Stephen Jordan in the last season of CBS's "Checkmate" episode " "Referendum on Murder". He appeared too on NBC's "The Americans" and "The Man from U.N.C.L.E." in the episodes "The Fiddlesticks Affair" and "The Yo-Ho-Ho and a Bottle of Rum Affair." In 1962, he was cast as Glenn Kassin in "The Earth Mover" episode of the modern NBC western series, "Empire". In 1963-1964, he appeared as the wandering gold-seeker father, "Doc" Sardius McPheeters, in the ABC western series "The Travels of Jaimie McPheeters" with co-star Kurt Russell as Doc's son, Jaimie. On another ABC series, "The Long, Hot Summer", O'Herlihy became the lead star, having replaced Edmond O'Brien in the part of Will Varner midway through the program's one-season run. In 1966, he appeared in the episode "Have You Seen the Aurora Borealis?" of NBC's western series "The Road West", starring Barry Sullivan. In 1974, on British television, he played the Senior American Officer, Col. Max Dodd in the second series of BBC's POW drama "Colditz". In 1978, he guest starred in the second part of the "Battlestar Galactica" episode "Gun on Ice Planet Zero" as Dr. Ravishol. O'Herlihy also portrayed the ill-fated lumber tycoon Andrew Packard in the cult television program "Twin Peaks" (1991), and in the episode, "Deep Freeze" of "" voicing the Mr. Freeze-obsessed theme park mogul Grant Walker. In 1998, O'Herlihy acted in his last film, "The Rat Pack", playing Joseph P. Kennedy. Private life. Dan O'Herlihy married Elsie Bennett in 1945. He was the brother of director Michael O'Herlihy (1928–1997) and the father of actor Gavan O'Herlihy, visual artist Olwen O'Herlihy, and architect Lorcan O'Herlihy. He was also the grandfather of Cian Dowling, Colin O'Herlihy, Micaela O'Herlihy and Eilis O'Herlihy. Dan O'Herlihy died of natural causes in Malibu, California, in 2005, aged 85. His personal papers are held in the University College Dublin Archives.
1036052	Rowan Sebastian Atkinson CBE (born 6 January 1955) is an English actor, comedian, and screenwriter who is best known for his work on the sitcoms "Mr. Bean" and "Blackadder". Atkinson first came to prominence in the sketch comedy show "Not the Nine O'Clock News" (1979–82), and via his participation in The Secret Policeman's Balls from 1979. His other work includes the sitcom "The Thin Blue Line" (1995–96). He has been listed in "The Observer" as one of the 50 funniest actors in British comedy and amongst the top 50 comedians ever, in a 2005 poll of fellow comedians. He has also had cinematic success with his performances in the Mr. Bean movie adaptations "Bean" and "Mr. Bean's Holiday" and in "Johnny English" and its sequel "Johnny English Reborn". Early life and education. Atkinson, the youngest of four brothers, was born in Consett, County Durham, England. His parents were Eric Atkinson, a farmer and company director, and Ella May (née Bainbridge), who married on 29 June 1945. His three older brothers were Paul, who died as an infant, Rodney, a Eurosceptic economist who narrowly lost the United Kingdom Independence Party leadership election in 2000, and Rupert. Atkinson was brought up Anglican, and was educated at Durham Choristers School, St. Bees School, and Newcastle University, where he received a degree in Electrical Engineering.
591927	Apthamitra (English translation: "Close friend") is a 2004 Kannada movie starring Vishnuvardhan, Ramesh Arvind, Soundarya, Avinash and others. This was actress Soundarya's last film. It constitutes the official remake of the 1993 Malayalam film "Manichithrathazhu", starring Mohanlal. This film ran for a year in the main theaters across Karnataka. It was later followed by its sequel, "Aptharakshaka". Plot. Ramesh (Ramesh Arvind) and Ganga (Soundarya) are married couple who recently move into Mysore to buy an ancient palace, against the wishes of his uncles and elders (Dwarakish & Pramila Joshai) of the family. His uncle agrees to reside with them with his two daughters Vani and Rani, on one condition that the room on the first floor which is locked and sealed should not be visited by anyone in the family. They have their care-taker Rangajja (Shivaram) who lives in the outhouse with his granddaughter Soumya(Prema). During their stay in the house they come to know that this palace earlier belonged to Raja Vijaya Rajendra Bahaddur. He had a court dancer named "Nagavalli" from Andhra Pradesh, whom he was in love with. But Nagavalli had an illicit affair with a fellow dancer named "Ramanatha", who used to reside in a house just behind the palace. When the Raja came to know of their affair on an Durgashtami day, he be-headed Dancer Ramanatha and burned Nagavalli alive. Nagavalli vowed at the time of her death that she would seek revenge of her death from the Raja by burning him alive on very same Durgashtami day, as like her. Strange things start to happen in the palace and everyone suspect Soumya, who is always found at the place of the incident. So, Ramesh calls in his psychiatrist friend Vijay (Dr.Vishnuvardhan) to help him clear of the misconceptions regarding the palace and its history. Ramesh's uncle (Satyajit) is not happy with the way Vijay functions and is always very suspectfull of him. Vani, Ramesh's cousin is in love with an orphan-dance teacher who incidentally resides in the same house behind the palace. Vijay comes to know of this and tells Ramesh's uncle about this and the alliance is approved by all in the family and their marriage is fixed. When the whole family is out of town to visit Mahadev, to decide his wedding with Vani, Ganga with help from Sowmya opens the room in the first floor with the key given by Sowmya. While she tries to enter the room, Sowmya comes running to tell not to open the door as the key-maker who made the key had died. So Ganga returns without opening the door. During this time there are attempts to kill Ramesh by someone unknown, which every time is foiled by Vijay. Even Vani is attacked once by someone unknown. So Ramesh's uncle calls upon an Acharya Ramachandra Shastri (Avinash) to perform some Shanti pooja upon the palace. Though Ramesh is not interested in all these proceedings he agrees on advice of Vijay.
1048774	Sheitan ("devil" in Arabic) is a 2006 French horror/erotic comedy film. It was directed by first time director Kim Chapiron, and written by Kim and Christian Chapiron. It stars and was co-produced by Vincent Cassel. His wife Monica Bellucci also makes a cameo appearance in the film. Plot. On Christmas Eve, a group of friends are led by a girl (Roxane Mesquida) they met at the Styxx Club, in Paris, to her house in the country. There, they are introduced to the eccentric housekeeper Joseph who has something sinister planned for them. Ratings and Controversy. When released, the movie was given an "Interdit aux moins de 16 ans" (16+) rating in France due to its inconsistent yet occasionally shocking scenes involving sex (with full nudity), violence, with some sudden shocking gruesome and disturbing images, particularly during the final 10 minutes. The movie was not rated by the MPAA, but would have most likely have been a strong R, perhaps even an NC-17. It was released as "unrated" instead.
628954	Sigrid Thornton (born 12 February 1959) is an Australian multi-award winning actress. Early years. Thornton was born in Canberra, the daughter of Merle, a teacher of women's studies and writer, and Neil Thornton, an academic. She spent most of her formative years growing up and attending school at St. Peter's Lutheran College in Brisbane. From 1966 to 1968 she lived with her parents in London, where she was a member of the Unicorn Theatre. On her return to Brisbane she attended Twelfth Night Theatre Junior Workshop, where she came to the attention of the theatre director Joan Whalley. In 1970, during the Captain Cook Bicentenary Celebrations, Thornton appeared before Queen Elizabeth II as a young "Rosa Campbell-Praed" in "Looking Glass on Yesterday" (written by Brisbane writer and Churchill Fellowship holder Jill Morris and directed by Joan Whalley). Four years later, Thornton landed the plum role in the Lady Mayoress of Brisbane Social and Welfare Committee annual pantomime "Christmas In Storyland" in the role of "Little Red Riding Hood", once again written by Jill Morris and directed by Joan Whalley. Around this time, Thornton accompanied her mother to Melbourne, where she came to the attention of Hector Crawford. She acted in the "Homicide" episode "The Other Man", and the "Division 4" episode "Little Raver", in 1975. These appearances for Crawford Productions marked the start of a long and successful professional career in film and television. Acting career. Thornton quickly gained numerous roles in Melbourne and Sydney, where the majority of stage and television work took place at this time. In 1977, she made her film debut in a minor role as Wendy in the modern Australian film, "The FJ Holden" directed by Michael Thornhill, and in the same year as Maria in the film adaptation of Henry Handel Richardson's colonial Australian novel, "The Getting of Wisdom" (1977) directed by Bruce Beresford. In 1978, Thornton displayed her versatility as a performer appearing in the Australian television sequel of the British comedy series "Father, Dear Father in Australia" alongside original cast member Patrick Cargill, as "Sue Glover". The same year she played Angela in the film "Snapshot" directed by Simon Wincer in which she appeared topless and for which role she was nominated for Australian Film Awards Best Actress in a Feature Film in 1979. A year later she appeared as Roslyn Coulson, a young woman imprisoned for shooting her mother's killer, in the long running Australian television drama "Prisoner" (known overseas as "Prisoner: Cell Block H"). Thornton starred in 1981 in "Duet for Four". 1982 saw her take on the roles of "Jessica Harrison" in the films "The Man from Snowy River" and its sequel "The Man from Snowy River II". 1983 marked an appearance in "Street Hero". She starred in 1983's miniseries "All the Rivers Run". 1986 saw her in "The Lighthorsemen (film)", the TV adaptation of Nevil Shute's novel "The Far Country", "Great Expectations, the Untold Story" and "Slate, Wyn & Me".
628637	Albert Watson "Bert" Newton, AM, MBE (born 23 July 1938) is an Australian television personality and stage performer, known for hosting television series such as "In Melbourne Tonight", "Good Morning Australia", and "20 to 1". Newton has hosted the Logie Awards on numerous occasions through his career, and is a four time recipient of the Gold Logie and a Hall of Fame inductee. He is known for his collaborations with Graham Kennedy and Don Lane. Along with his wife Patti Newton, the duo are commonly known as television showbiz royalty. Early life. Newton was born in Fitzroy, an inner suburb of Melbourne, Australia. He was educated at St Joseph's Marist Brothers Roman Catholic college. In his early years he had thoughts of entering the priesthood and he is still an active Roman Catholic. Radio. Newton's first paid radio appearance was as a schoolboy on Melbourne radio station 3XY on 10 June 1952, doing advertisements dressed as a clown with Doug McKenzie, later to become "Zag" in Zig and Zag. ""... there was a radio program on 3XY Melbourne called Scouting Around, compered by the late Tom Jones. One week the broadcast was recorded at our Scout Hall, and as the direct result of this, I began to appear on 3XY."" This led to regular appearances on a Saturday morning children's show, in which he worked with Stan Rofe and McKenzie. In May 1954, 3XY employed him as a junior announcer (aged 15); by 1955 he was presenting "In Melbourne Speaks". He began a morning programme on 3UZ in 1976. The Herald and Weekly Times Ltd appointed Newton as general manager of 3DB in 1986, which he combined with on-air appearances until 1988. Television. Early television career. Newton began his television career at Melbourne's HSV-7, hosting "The Late Show". For several years Newton worked with former manager Mason Jarrett whilst trying to find work on numerous television stations. Newton left HSV-7 and went to GTV-9 in early 1959 to host a daytime television program "In Melbourne Today". After appearing in a live commercial on "In Melbourne Tonight" with his friend Graham Kennedy at Easter 1959, he began to make regular appearances on the show and assumed hosting duties on some episodes. This began a lifelong association with Kennedy. In 1959–1960 he hosted "The Bert Newton Show" (later re-titled "Hi-Fi Club") on GTV-9, a series aimed at teenagers. In 1960 and 1961, Newton, along with Graham Kennedy, appeared in the national "Graham Kennedy's Channel 9 Show" (a one-night-a-week national version of "IMT"). In January 1962, the show was cancelled and replaced by the similar "The Channel 9 Show", hosted by Bert Newton. Television career 1975 to mid-1992. Newton mainly appeared on the Nine Network in these years. He appeared on: Move to Network Ten (1992–2005). From mid-1992 until 2005, Newton appeared on Channel Ten as host of Good Morning Australia In October 2005, Network Ten announced that the program would be cancelled at the end of the year, after a 14-year run. Although Newton was offered ongoing employment (in an unclear role) at Network Ten, he stated that he would return to the Nine Network in 2006. Return to the Nine Network (2006 – present). After finishing on Network Ten's "Good Morning Australia" in late 2005, Newton returned to the Nine Network in early 2006. He appeared on: Newton reputedly received a yearly salary of A$800,000 from Nine during this era. On 14 August 2012, Newton guest appeared on "Millionaire Hot Seat" and won $5,000 for charity Sids & Kids Stage roles. Newton's stage appearances include Professor Marvel/the Wizard of Oz in "The Wizard of Oz", Cogsworth in "Beauty and the Beast", Franz Liebkind in "The Producers", and Max in "The Sound of Music". In October 2008, it was announced that he would be taking over the role of The Wizard in the Melbourne production of the musical "Wicked", after the sudden death of Rob Guest. He played his first performance on 12 November 2008. The production closed on 9 August 2009 and transferred to Sydney from 12 September 2009. Newton continued to play the role on the national tour, which began in January 2011, opposite Lucy Durack as Glinda, Jemma Rix as Elphaba, David Harris as Fiyero and Maggie Kirkpatrick as Madame Morrible. In 2011 he was part of the Australian cast performing "Wicked" in Singapore. Altogether Newton had a 3-year run in this show. In July 2012 Newton joined the Melbourne cast of "Annie" for a few weeks, taking over the role of President Roosevelt from Alan Jones. In March 2013 it was announced that Bert will be returning to the stage in producer John Frost's multi-million-dollar production of "Grease The Musical" which commences in August 2013. Newton will play disc jockey Vince Fontaine. Other media. Newton has appeared in several movies including:-
583214	Salim Langde Pe Mat Ro () is a 1989 Indian film directed by Saeed Akhtar Mirza, with Pavan Malhotra as lead. The film won the 1990 National Film Award for Best Cinematography. Plot. The film is set in the period of the Hindutva mobilization of the 1980s, the consequent explosive communal conflict, and its impact on the lives of the young men of the minority Muslim community, represented by a working class Muslim family in Mumbai. Salim Pasha (Langda or Lame) is a small-time thief and goonda and lives with his parents and sister in a shady neighborhood where crime and illegal activities are accepted professions.
587261	Vir Das (born 31 May 1979) is an Indian comedian and actor. Personal life. Vir Saran Das was born in Dehradun and has lived in Africa and studied in Indian Language School in Lagos, Nigeria, Shimla and Delhi. He obtained a Bachelor's degree from Knox College, Illinois in Economics & Theatre with a concentration in performance. Vir is also a brother of Knox's Delta Theta chapter of Sigma Nu fraternity. After graduating from Knox, Vir was accepted into Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts for their Stanislavsky Program in coalition with the Moscow Arts Theatre. Career. It was at Knox that Vir first explored stand-up comedy with his first (1-1/2 hour) special, "Brown Men Can't Hump", which debuted to an audience of 800 in Knox's Harbach Theatre. He later went on to receive a Richter Scholarship for Theatre and the Colton Performance Award for Outstanding Achievement in Acting from Knox. He was a teaching assistant for Beginning Acting at Knox. At Harvard, Vir trained as a method actor for six months and performed eight plays with the Moscow Arts Theatre. He performed at the Habitat Center, New Delhi on a visit to India. While in the USA, Vir was a cast member in three sketch comedy troupes: The Really Useless Improv, Improv Inc, and Illegal Aliens. He performed, wrote and developed 'Whose Line is it Anyway?' style comedy sketches with them. He has performed as a ship comedian aboard Carnival Cruise Line between Houston and Mexico. Furthermore, he spent time working comedy clubs in Chicago. Vir returned to India in April 2003 and since then has performed over 100 comedy shows in all the major cities. He has debuted six (1.5 hour) comedy specials written, directed by and starring him at the India Habitat center to audiences of over 900 a night. These include Brown Men Can't Hump, Not for Members Only, Bored of The Things!, Who Let the Das Out?, Son of a Switch! and VIRagra. Every one of these shows has sold out within a matter of days. Vir started his career on TV when he hosted two TV shows on Zoom Channel. The first one was "Is Route Ki Sabhin Linein Maast Hain" where he was an agony uncle. The second was his own stand-up comedy late night show "Ek Rahin Vir". Although early for their time, they got noticed and put Vir on the comedic map in India. Vir has also hosted Top Drive getaway for Star World. Vir's comedy can be viewed on TV in many genres of entertainment. He hosted "Cricket Firsts", a sports comedy show on Zee Sports (now TEN Action+). He did improvisational comedy on SAB TV's "Lo Kar Lo Baat". He was an addition to the cast of "The Great Indian Comedy Show" on STAR One. He can be seen anchoring "Now Not Showing" on CNN-IBN. Most importantly, Vir is the host of "News on the Loose", his own news comedy show on CNBC-TV18. The show is a huge hit amongst Indian audiences for its fearless brand of intelligent comedy. "News on the Loose" was recently given its own weekly half-hour special "News On The Loose - Weekend" on CNBC-TV18, which went on to become a hit. Vir was cast as the comic relief by bagging one of the principal characters in "The Curse of King Tut's Tomb", a Hallmark mini-series filmed in India. He began filming for his first two Bollywood roles in early 2006. He can be seen in Vipul Shah's hit movie "Namastey London". The "Indian Express" has called him 'a comedian to watch out for' and 'India's Answer to Jay Leno'. The "Hindustan Times" calls him 'simply hysterical'. "Delhi Times" has listed him as one of Delhi's Top Ten Dream Men. The "Pioneer" has called him 'The Funniest Kid in India'. "Verve" has called him 'India's only true comic'. Vir has approximately 35 plays, over 100 stand-up comedy shows, 8 TV shows, 2 movies and 6 comedy specials behind him. He is writing comedic columns for "Femina", "Maxim", "Exotica", "DNA" and "Tehelka". Vir Das also announced the launch of his own YouTube Channel http://www.YouTube.com/VirDas on 5th September, 2013 along with the start of YouTube Comedy Week. Filmography. shadi ke side effects
1265867	Estelle Taylor (May 20, 1894 – April 15, 1958) was an American Hollywood actress whose career was most prominent during the silent film era of the 1920s. Born Ida Estelle Taylor to a Jewish family in Wilmington, Delaware, the daughter of Harry D Taylor and Ida LaBertha (Barrett) Taylor, Estelle married three times. Her first husband was banker Kenneth Malcolm Peacock, her second husband was "Jack" Dempsey, the world heavyweight boxing champion, and her third husband was a theatrical producer, Paul Smith. She had no children. After relocating to Hollywood, she began taking bit parts in films. One of Taylor's earliest successes was in 1920 in Fox's "While New York Sleeps" with Marc McDermott. She and McDermott play three sets of characters in different time periods. This film was lost for decades, but has been recently discovered and screened at a film festival in Los Angeles. Taylor is possibly best recalled for her roles in the 1922 drama "Monte Cristo", opposite John Gilbert; the enormously successful 1923 Cecil B. DeMille directed "The Ten Commandments" as Miriam, the sister of Moses; as Lucrezia Borgia in the 1926 Warner Bros.' first feature-length film with synchronized Vitaphone sound effects and musical soundtrack "Don Juan", with John Barrymore, Mary Astor and Warner Oland; 1927's "New York", featuring Ricardo Cortez and Lois Wilson; 1931's "Street Scene" with Sylvia Sidney; the Academy Award-winning "Cimarron"; and the Clara Bow talkie "Call Her Savage" in 1932. Taylor married heavyweight boxing champion Jack Dempsey in 1925. She was supposed to have co-starred in a movie with Rudolph Valentino, which would have brought her more widespread fame, but he died just before production was to begin. In 1928, she and husband Dempsey starred in a Broadway play titled "The Big Fight", loosely based around Dempsey's boxing popularity, which ran for 31 performances at the Majestic Theatre. Taylor's last film appearance was in the 1945 Jean Renoir directed drama "The Southerner". In her later years, Taylor devoted her free time to her pets and was the president and founder of the California Pet Owners' Protective League. In 1953, Taylor served on the City Animal Regulation Commission in Los Angeles, California. She died in 1958, after a battle with cancer. She was interred at Hollywood Forever Cemetery.
1064167	Henry Silva (born September 15, 1928) is an American film and television actor. Biography. Early life and career. Silva was born in Brooklyn, New York, of Sicilian and Spanish descent.
1058541	Zareh Nicholas "Nick" Chinlund (born November 18, 1961) is an American actor. Biography. Early life. Chinlund was born in New York City. He attended the Friends Seminary in Lower Manhattan, later moving to Albany, NY in order to participate in Albany High School's varsity basketball program. Chinlund had designs on further pursuing basketball at Brown University and majoring in history, but was sidelined with a shoulder injury. The resulting injury left a two inch scar on his left shoulder. Career. With his narrow eyes and gravelly voice, Chinlund is frequently cast as villainous or smarmy characters . After appearing in small roles on episodic television, Chinlund came to prominence when he guest starred on "The X-Files" second season episode "Irresistible" playing serial killer Donnie Pfaster, for which he garnered major critical acclaim. In 2000 he had a small role in episode one of Gilmore Girls. In 2002 he had a recurring role in two episodes of Buffy The Vampire Slayer: "Listening to Fear" and "Into the Woods". In recent years, Chinlund has been seen in several independent projects, notably "A Brother's Kiss" (1997). He also served as the executive producer of the film, which was directed by childhood friend Seth Zvi Rosenfeld. "A Brother's Kiss" was filmed in and around the neighborhood where Chinlund and Rosenfeld grew up. The film tells the story of two brothers, Lex (Chinlund) and Mick (Michael Raynor), who grow up in the hard streets of New York. Chinlund continued in his long vein of independent features with roles in "Chutney Popcorn" (1999), "Amy's Orgasm" (2001), "Goodnight Joseph Parker" (2004) and "Sinner" (2007). Recently, Chinlund starred in a few big-screen movies, including "Tears of the Sun" (2003) with Bruce Willis, "Con Air" (1997) with Nicolas Cage, "The Chronicles of Riddick" (2004) with Vin Diesel and directed by David Twohy, who also directed Chinlund in the underwater thriller "Below" (2002), and "Ultraviolet" (2006) with Milla Jovovich. He also reprised his "X-Files" role as Donnie Pfaster for a seventh season episode called "Orison". Chinlund was also in "Training Day" with Denzel Washington, "Eraser" with Arnold Schwarzenegger and "The Legend of Zorro" with Antonio Banderas and Catherine Zeta-Jones. Chinlund has also made guest appearances in the long-running TV drama series "Law & Order", as well as in its spinoff, "". Chinlund had originally screen-tested for the co-starring role of Elliot Stabler in the latter show, according to Christopher Meloni, who won the role.
1056467	A Christmas Tale () is a 2008 French comedy-drama film by Arnaud Desplechin, starring Catherine Deneuve, Jean-Paul Roussillon, Mathieu Amalric, Anne Consigny, Melvil Poupaud, Emmanuelle Devos and Chiara Mastroianni. It tells the story of a family with strained relationships which gathers at the parents' home for Christmas, only to learn that their mother has leukemia. It was in competition for the Palme d'Or at the 2008 Cannes Film Festival. Plot. Junon Vuillard is Abel Vuillard's wife, and the iron-willed matriarch of the Vuillard family. Junon held her family together through many tough times, and although her willpower helped the family survive and prosper, it also has left many bad feelings among her children. Junon is still a handsome woman, and though her husband (who owns a small fabric dying plant) has become obese and clearly aged, he retains a remarkable clarity, acceptance, tolerance, and unconditional love for his family, and it is clear that he and their love for each other is the lynchpin that holds an otherwise fragmented family together, albeit uneasily.
830398	Raphael Pichey "Rafi" Gavron (born June 24, 1989) is a British actor, known for his roles in the Anthony Minghella romantic-drama film "Breaking and Entering", "Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist", "Inkheart" and "Celeste and Jesse Forever". Early life. Gavron was born in Hendon, the son of writer Martha Pichey and the late publisher Simon Gavron. His mother is American-born and his father was from a North London Jewish family. His paternal grandparents were millionaire philanthropist Robert Gavron and Hannah Fyvel, who was born in Tel Aviv. His great-grandfather was writer Tosco R. Fyvel, who worked with author George Orwell. Gavron has two younger brothers; Benjamin (born 1992) and Moses (born 1996). He has dual British and American citizenship. In 2008, Gavron volunteered at a kibbutz in Israel for six months. Career. In "Breaking and Entering", he played Miro, a young burglar who uses techniques from parkour to gain access to the high-tech offices of an urban landscape architect; he performed several difficult physical feats in the film. For his role, Gavron received a nomination for the Most Promising Newcomer award at the British Independent Film Awards. Gavron played the hired assassin Duro in the second season of HBO's "Rome". He also appeared in the 2008 release "Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist" as Dev, the gay lead singer of Nick's band. In "Inkheart", a movie adaptation of the novel of the same name, Gavron played "Farid", a character from "The Book of One Thousand and One Nights", magically brought to life. The film was released theatrically in January 2009. He guest starred on a few episodes of "24", as Hamid Al-Zarian, the younger brother of an assumed terrorist. In May 2009, he was chosen as the love interest of Miley Cyrus' character for the film "The Last Song". However, the role was later given to actor Liam Hemsworth. He also appeared in JoJo's music video for the song "Disaster" in November 2011. Gavron played Bug (Bobby) in the TV series "Life Unexpected". He was chosen as Lux's long known friend and also Lux's boyfriend.
1061206	Albert Lawrence Brooks (born Albert Lawrence Einstein; July 22, 1947) is an American actor, voice actor, writer, comedian, and director. He received an Academy Award nomination in 1987 for his role in "Broadcast News". His voice acting credits include Marlin the clownfish in "Finding Nemo," and recurring guest voices for the animated television series "The Simpsons," including Russ Cargill in "The Simpsons Movie". Additionally, he has written and directed several comedy films such as "Modern Romance" (1981), "Lost in America" (1985) and "Defending Your Life" (1991) and is the author of the satire, "2030: The Real Story of What Happens to America" (2011). Early life. Brooks was born in Beverly Hills, California, the son of Thelma Leeds (née Goodman), a singer and actress, and Harry Einstein, a radio comedian who performed on Eddie Cantor's radio program and was known as Parkyakarkus. His brothers are comedic actor Bob Einstein, better known by his stage name "Super Dave Osborne," and Cliff Einstein, a partner and longtime chief creative officer at Los Angeles advertising agency Dailey & Associates. His half-brother was Charles Einstein (1926–2007), a writer for such television programs as "Playhouse 90" and "Lou Grant". Brooks is Jewish; his grandparents emigrated from Austria and Russia. He grew up among show business families in southern California, attending Beverly Hills High School with Richard Dreyfuss and Rob Reiner. Career. Early career. Brooks attended Carnegie Mellon in Pittsburgh, but dropped out after one year to focus on his comedy career. He changed his surname from "Einstein" (to avoid confusion with the famous physicist) and began a comedy career that quickly made him a regular on variety and talk shows during the late 1960s and early 1970s. Brooks led a new generation of self-reflective baby-boomer comics appearing on NBC's "The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson". His onstage persona, that of an egotistical, narcissistic, nervous comic, an ironic showbiz insider who punctured himself before an audience by disassembling his mastery of comedic stagecraft, influenced other '70s post-modern comedians, including Steve Martin, Martin Mull and Andy Kaufman. After two successful comedy albums, "Comedy Minus One" (1973) and the Grammy Award-nominated "A Star Is Bought" (1975), Brooks left the stand-up circuit to try his hand as a filmmaker; his first film, "The Famous Comedians School", was a satiric short that appeared on PBS and was an early example of the mockumentary sub-genre. In 1975, he directed six short films for the first season of NBC's "Saturday Night Live": In 1976 he appeared in his first mainstream film role, in Martin Scorsese's landmark "Taxi Driver"; Scorsese allowed Brooks to improvise much of his dialogue. The role reflected Brooks's decision to move to Los Angeles to enter the film business. In an interview, Brooks mentioned a conversation he'd had with "Taxi Driver" screenwriter Paul Schrader, in which Schrader said that Brooks's character was the only one in the movie that he could not "understand" – a remark that Brooks found amusing, as the movie's antihero was a psychotic loner. Brooks directed his first feature film, "Real Life", in 1979. The film, in which Brooks obnoxiously films a typical suburban family in an effort to win both an Oscar and a Nobel Prize, was a sendup of PBS's "An American Family" documentary. It has also been viewed as foretelling the future emergence of reality television. Brooks also made a cameo appearance in the film "Private Benjamin" (1980), starring Goldie Hawn. 1980s–1990s. Through the 1980s and 1990s, Brooks co-wrote (with longtime collaborator Monica Johnson), directed and starred in a series of well-received comedies, playing variants on his standard neurotic and self-obsessed character. These include 1981's "Modern Romance", where Brooks played a film editor desperate to win back his ex-girlfriend (Kathryn Harrold). The film received a limited release and ultimately grossed under $3 million domestically, but was well received by critics, with one reviewer commenting that the film was "not Brooks at his best, but still amusing". His best-received film, "Lost in America" (1985), featured Brooks and Julie Hagerty as a couple who leave their yuppie lifestyle and drop out of society to live in a motor home as they have always dreamed of doing. They meet comic disappointment. Brooks's "Defending Your Life" (1991) placed his lead character in the afterlife, put on trial to justify his human fears and thus determine his cosmic fate. Critics responded to the offbeat premise and the surprising chemistry between Brooks and Meryl Streep as his post-death love interest. His later efforts did not find large audiences, but still retained Brooks's touch as a filmmaker. He garnered positive reviews for "Mother" (1996), which starred Brooks as a middle-aged writer moving back home to resolve tensions between himself and his mother (Debbie Reynolds). 1999's "The Muse" featured Brooks as a down-and-out Hollywood screenwriter using the services of an authentic muse (Sharon Stone) for inspiration. In an interview with Brooks with regards to The Muse, Gavin Smith wrote, "Brooks's distinctive filmmaking style is remarkably discreet and unemphatic; he has a light, deft touch, with a classical precision and economy, shooting and cutting his scenes in smooth, seamless successions of medium shots, with clean, high-key lighting." Brooks has appeared as a guest voice on "The Simpsons" five times during its run (always under the name "A. Brooks"), and is described as the best guest star in the show's history by IGN, particularly for his role as supervillain Hank Scorpio in the episode "You Only Move Twice". Brooks also acted in other writers' and directors' films during the 1980s and 1990s. He had a cameo in the opening scene of "", playing a driver whose passenger (Dan Aykroyd) has a shocking secret. In James L. Brooks's hit "Broadcast News" (1987), Albert Brooks was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor as an insecure, supremely ethical network TV reporter, who offers the rhetorical question, "Wouldn't this be a great world if insecurity and desperation made us more attractive?" He also won positive notices for his role in 1998's "Out of Sight", playing an untrustworthy banker and ex-convict. 2000s. Brooks received positive reviews for his portrayal of a dying retail store owner who befriends disillusioned teen Leelee Sobieski in "My First Mister" (2001). Brooks continued his voiceover work in Disney and Pixar's "Finding Nemo" (2003), as the voice of "Marlin", one of the film's protagonists; "Nemo" is Brooks's largest grossing film to date. In 2005, his film "Looking for Comedy in the Muslim World" was dropped by Sony Pictures due to their desire to change the title. Warner Independent Pictures purchased the film and gave it a limited release in January 2006; the film received mixed reviews and a low box office gross. The movie goes back to the days of Brooks's "Real Life", as Brooks once again plays himself, a filmmaker commissioned by the U.S. government to see what makes the Muslim people laugh, thus sending him on a tour of India and Pakistan. In 2006 he appeared in the documentary film "Wanderlust" as David Howard from "Lost in America". The documentary included many other well known people. In 2007, he continued his long term collaboration with "The Simpsons" by voicing Russ Cargill, the central antagonist of "The Simpsons Movie". He has played Lenny Botwin, Nancy Botwin's estranged father-in-law, on Showtime's television series "Weeds". St. Martin's Press published his first novel, "2030: The Real Story of What Happens to America", on May 10, 2011. In 2011, Brooks costarred as a vicious gangster heavy and the main antagonist in the motion picture "Drive", alongside Ryan Gosling and Carey Mulligan, a role that has been given much critical praise and positive reviews, with several critics proclaiming Brooks' performance as one of the film's best aspects. After receiving awards and nominations from several film festivals and critic groups, but not an Academy Award nomination, Brooks responded humorously on Twitter, "And to the Academy: ‘You don't like me. You really don't like me’." Personal life. In 1997, Brooks married Kimberly Shlain, then a 31-year old website designer. Kimberly's father was surgeon and writer Leonard Shlain. The couple have two children, Jacob Eli and Claire Elizabeth.
1039520	Francesca Annis (born 14 May 1945) is an English actress, known for her film and television appearances in such series as "Reckless" (1998), "Wives and Daughters" (1999), "Cranford" (2007), and "Deceit" (2000). Early life and education. Annis was born in Kensington, London in 1945 to an English father, Lester William Anthony Annis (1914–2001) and a Brazilian-French mother, Mary "Mariquita" Purcell Annis (1913–2009). She has two brothers, Quentin and Tony. Her family moved to Brazil when Annis was a year old, spending six years there before returning to England when she was 7. There she was educated at a convent school. She trained as a ballet dancer and then studied drama at the Corona Theatre School. Career. Francesca Annis began acting professionally in her teens, and made her film debut in "The Cat Gang" (1959). In 1967 she played Estella in a television adaptation of "Great Expectations". She also presented children's television programmes .
1059515	Shirley Enola Knight (born July 5, 1936) is an American stage, film and television actress. She has been nominated twice for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, in 1960 for "The Dark at the Top of the Stairs" and in 1962 for "Sweet Bird of Youth", eight times for Emmy Awards (winning three), and has also netted a Golden Globe and Volpi Cup for Best Actress for her role in the 1967 film "Dutchman". Personal life. Knight was born in Goessel in Marion County in east central Kansas, the daughter of Virginia (née Webster) and Noel Johnson Knight, an oil company executive. Knight was married twice, to Gene Persson from 1959 until they divorced in 1969, and to John Hopkins from 1969 until his death in 1998. She has two daughters, actress Kaitlin Hopkins and television writer Sophie Hopkins. Career. Knight's feature films include "The Group" (1966), "The Dutchman" (1966), "Petulia" (1968), "The Rain People" (1969) and "As Good as It Gets" (1997), and "Elevator" (2011), in which she plays one of several people trapped in a Wall Street elevator with a bomber. Shortly before she turned twenty, Knight was cast in 1958 and 1959 as Mrs. Newcomb in twenty of the thirty-nine episodes of the NBC western television series, "Buckskin", with Tom Nolan, Sally Brophy, and Mike Road. She became a Warner Brothers Television contract star who while on breaks filming movies appeared in such WB television series as "Maverick" ("The Ice Man" episode with Jack Kelly), "77 Sunset Strip", "Bourbon Street Beat", "Sugarfoot", "Cheyenne", and "The Roaring 20s".
1103135	Oswald Veblen (June 24, 1880 – August 10, 1960) was an American mathematician, geometer and topologist, whose work found application in atomic physics and the theory of relativity. He proved the Jordan curve theorem in 1905. Life. Veblen was born in Decorah, Iowa. He went to school in Iowa City. He did his undergraduate studies at the University of Iowa, where he received an A.B. in 1898, and Harvard University, where he was awarded a second B.A. in 1900. For his graduate studies, he went to study mathematics at the University of Chicago, where he obtained a Ph.D. in 1903. His dissertation, "A System of Axioms for Geometry" was written under the supervision of E. H. Moore.
1071891	Sae and Kouhei met by accident on a train when they were both high school students, and a relationship starts to form. Later, when Sae needs to leave Hokkaido to go to Tokyo for studies, the two of them attempted to have a long distance relationship. However, their bond is tested by multiple challenges facing the two of them. "Hanamizuki" was first released in Japanese cinemas on 21 August 2010. It subsequently made its international debut at the 30th Hawaii International Film Festival. The film received a mixed reception from critics, and grossed over US$32,990,888, making it the 12th highest grossing Japanese film of 2010. Plot. This film spans the years of 1996 to 2006. It begins in the year 2005 when Sae is traveling to her birthplace of Peggys Cove, Nova Scotia in Canada. On the bus, she looks at a photo, and the scene immediately goes back to 1996. Sae and Kouhei met on a train ride to their respective college entrance examinations. The train hit a deer, causing Sae to worry about being late for the examinations. They went to a nearby house to ask if the owners could give them a lift. Sae spotted a key in the truck parked at the porch. She asked Kouhei if he would "borrow" the truck to take her to the exam center. However, when Kouhei tried to overtake a slow cow truck, he narrowly avoided an incoming crane, and went off the road into a ditch. They were brought to a police station and Sae was disqualified from her examinations. Sae worked hard to get into a university while Kouhei always supported her. However, he had mixed feelings about her going to Tokyo, because that would mean that they would be separated. Hence, when Sae managed to get into Waseda University, Kouhei at first refused to see her off. However, at his friends' urging, they got onto a boat and chased after Sae, and when they saw her, they rolled out a banner reading, "Good Luck Sae!". At Waseda University, Sae met Kitami Junichi, a senior who likes taking pictures of children in third world countries. He helps Sae find a night job teaching English at a cram school and became good friends with her. When Kouhei visited Sae in Tokyo, upon seeing Sae and Kitami talking together, Kouhei got jealous. During the dinner date with Sae, Kouhei refused to eat anything and stormed out of the restaurant. On his way, a group of delinquent youths knocked down a box that contained Kouhei's present for Sae, and mocked him. A fight ensured, and Kouhei was injured. Sae brought Kouhei back to her apartment, where they made up. Kouhei then gives Sae the ship, which was similar to the one Kouhei was on when he saw off Sae. Sae worries that their relationship will not last longer. Four years later, a graduating Sae is unable to find a job in Tokyo. She met Junichi, who asks her to go to New York City together with him. Kouhei was also told by his father that their fishing boat was about to be repossessed by the bank, and he must find another job. Kouhei then contacts Sae, telling her that he plans to go to Tokyo to find her. However, on the fishing boat's last trip, Kouhei's father had a heart attack and died. Kouhei is then unable to leave for Tokyo, as he had to take care of his mother and younger sister. Later, Sae leaves for New York and meets up with Junichi, and they worked together in the same company. Junichi proposed to Sae later on. Sae returned to Kushiro to attend her friend Minami's wedding, and she found out that Kouhei was married to Ritsuko. However, Ritsuko was jealous of the way Sae and her husband were interacting. Kouhei then met Sae at the lighthouse, and Sae tells him that this might be the last time she visits Japan. When Kouhei returned, he found Ritsuko waiting for him on the steps with bad news- the bank might make them bankrupt. Kouhei manages to settle the problem, but he found Ritsuko's divorce papers on the table when he returned. The scene ends with a news report stating that Junichi was killed in Iraq. A year later, Sae visits her hometown. When she was walking, she chanced upon the ship that Kouhei had given her in a shop window and found out that Kouhei was part of a ship's crew that had docked in port. She rushed to see Kouhei, but just missed him. In 2006, Sae had moved back to her hometown, and set up a school for children in her house. The film ends when Sae sees Kouhei under a flowering dogwood tree, and Sae welcomes Kouhei back home. After the credits there is a cutscene with a little girl, looking at that same tree Sae always was. Her father comes in behind her and lifts her up. If you look close enough, you can see the child's father is Kouhei. Putting the pieces together: Sae and Kouhei get married and have a daughter, they live in Sae's childhood home. Production. Development. The plot of the film is based on the song Hanamizuki, a song by Yō Hitoto released in 2004. This popular song got to 4th in the Oricon charts. Casting. The film was directed by the director Nobuhiro Do, whose previous works included the film "Nada Soso. Filming. In Japan, it was filmed in Waseda University in Tokyo and in the Shinjuku district, which is also in Tokyo. Next, the filming moved to Kushiro, Hokkaido in September 2009, completing the filming in Japan itself. "Hanamizuki" was also filmed in America and Canada. In New York, it was filmed at the Empire State Building, Brooklyn Heights Promenade and Union Square. The last stop of their filming was at Nova Scotia's Peggys Cove Lighthouse. On 23 April 2010, Yui Aragaki and Toma Ikuta was greeted at their filming site there. Aragaki described this filming location as "quite distant (except for the scene at sea)" and added that "Luckily, there have not been a major accident during the filming." "Hanamizuki" director Nobuhiro Doi said that after completing the filming across three countries, he felt "nothing but relief" and thanked the cast for having gone through the long journey with him. Theme song. The film's theme song was , which was sung by Yō Hitoto and on which this film was based on. Soundtrack. The soundtrack for this film was released before the film on 10 August 2010. Track list: Release. "Hanamizuki" was first released in Japan nationwide on 21 August 2010. Next, it debuted in Thailand under the Thai name title "ฮานามิซึกิ เกิดมาเพื่อรักเธอ" on 23 December 2010. In Taiwan, "Hanamizuki" was released on 1 January 2011. In Hong Kong, "Hanamizuki" was released under the Chinese name of "花水木" on 9 April 2011. "Hanamizuki" was also screened at the 30th Hawaii International Film Festival under the category of "Spotlight on Japan" in 2010, marking its international debut. Home media. The Hanamizuki home video was released on 4 March 2011. It was released in three different versions: DVD (region 2) Normal Edition, DVD (region 2) Special 2-Disc Edition and in Blu-ray Format. Reception. Box office. "Hanamizuki" debuted on 310 cinema screens around Japan, where it became the highest grossing film on the weekend of 21–22 August 2010 with a record gross of over 400 million yen, and at the same time breaking Studio Ghibli's film "The Secret World of Arrietty" four consecutive week hold on the top position in the Japanese box office. During this weekend, over 301,000 people went to watch this film. "Hanamizuki" managed to cling on to its top position for two consecutive weekends, managing to break the 1 billion yen mark and having over 1 million viewers during the weekend.
587456	Kadhal Dot Com is a 2003 Tamil romantic film directed by Selvaraj. The film features Prasanna, Anu and Shruthi Raj in the lead roles, while Vadivelu and S. V. Shekher played supporting roles. The film released in August 2003 to a below average response at the box office. Production. The film marked the debut in Tamil films for Anu, daughter of Malayalam director I. V. Sasi. Release. A critic from The Hindu noted "at a time when much-hyped, hero-backed films end up being mere dampeners, a low-key film like this comes with no unsavoury loudness or lewdness, is at least a decent offering." Another critic noted "the story has predictable turnings. At times it appears as if we are watching an old film." The film's low key release meant that the film went unnoticed at the box office. Soundtrack. The soundtrack of the film was composed by Bharathwaj.
591035	Kandan Karunai (கந்தன் கருணை) is a Tamil cinema, which was released in 1967 and was directed by A.P. Nagarajan. It was his 8th film in the Tamil cinema industry. It starred Sivaji Ganesan, Sivakumar and Savithri. Plot. The film revolves around Lord Murugan, his birth, marriage and his acceptance of the post of the head of the army of the heaven. In Hinduism, there are six abodes of lord Muruga, known as the "Arupadai Veedu". The story behind each of the abodes are portrayed choronologically in the film. It starts with Swami Malai, where Lord Muruga (Master Sridhar) teaches the meaning of the word 'OM' to his father, Lord Shiva (Gemini Ganesan). He goes to Palani Hills after a fight over a sacred fruit, that is his second abode, then he wins over the demon king Surapadman in Thiruchendur and that is his third abode, the King of Heaven, Lord Indira offers his Daughter's hand in appreciation of Lord Muruga's Victory and he marries her in Thiruparamkundram, his fourth abode. He later marries Valli in his fifth abode of Thiruthani, later after a short dispute between both his wives they amicably settle in Palamuthircholai, his sixth abode. All the events are summarised by Nakeeran, Great Tamil Poet portrayed by Seerkhali Govindarajan at the end of the film. The film received the National Film award for best music director award to K V Mahadevan.
1164769	Helen Dorothy Martin (July 23, 1909 – March 25, 2000) was an American actress of stage and television who is best known for her role as Pearl Shay on the sitcom "227". Early life and education. Martin was born in St. Louis, Missouri, the daughter of Amanda Frankie (née Fox) and William Martin, a minister. She attended public schools, which at the time were segregated. Career. Martin moved to New York to pursue a career in acting. She was chiefly a Broadway character actress for many decades, debuting in Orson Welles' production of "Native Son" in 1937. She appeared in at least a dozen Broadway shows, including Jean Genet's "The Blacks", the musical "Raisin" from 1973 to 1975, Ossie Davis' "Purlie Victorious" (and later the musical version, which was called "Purlie"), "The Amen Corner" and Tennessee Williams' "Period of Adjustment". She was an original member of the American Negro Theater. Martin became widely known later in life due to her roles in popular television series, which brought her a large audience. She had a guest role as Wanda on the television series "Good Times", and later as the neighbor Pearl Shay on the television sitcom "227", which lasted from 1985 until 1990. She also played on the short sitcoms "Baby, I'm Back" (as mother in-law, Luzelle) and "That's My Mama". She played a variety of grandmothers in films: "Hollywood Shuffle" (1987), "Don't Be a Menace to South Central While Drinking Your Juice in the Hood" (1996), "I Got the Hook Up" (1998), and Mama Doll in "Bulworth" (1998).
1103959	Morris Kline (May 1, 1908 – June 10, 1992) was a Professor of Mathematics, a writer on the history, philosophy, and teaching of mathematics, and also a popularizer of mathematical subjects. Kline grew up in Brooklyn and in Jamaica, Queens. After graduating from Boys High School in Brooklyn, he studied mathematics at New York University, earning a bachelor's degree in 1930, a master's degree in 1932, and a doctorate in 1936. He continued at NYU as an instructor until 1942. During World War II, Kline was posted to the Signal Corps (United States Army) stationed at Belmar, New Jersey. Designated a physicist, he worked in the engineering lab where RADAR was developed. After the war he continued investigating electromagnetism, and from 1946 to 1966 was director of the division for electromagnetic research at the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences. Kline resumed his mathematical teaching at NYU, becoming a full professor in 1952. He taught at New York University until 1975, and wrote many papers and more than a dozen books on various aspects of mathematics and particularly mathematics teaching. He repeatedly stressed the need to teach the applications and usefulness of mathematics rather than expecting students to enjoy it for its own sake. Similarly, he urged that mathematical research concentrate on solving problems posed in other fields rather than building structures of interest only to other mathematicians. One can get a sense of Kline's views on teaching from the following: Mathematics education. Morris Kline was a protagonist in the curriculum reform in mathematics education that occurred in the second half of the twentieth century, a period including the programs of the new math. An article in 1956 in The Mathematics Teacher, the main journal of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, by Kline was titled "Mathematical texts and teachers: a tirade". Calling out teachers blaming students for failures, he wrote "There is a student problem, but there are also three other factors which are responsible for the present state of mathematical learning, namely, the curricula, the texts, and the teachers." The tirade touched a nerve, and changes started to happen. But then Kline switched to being a critic of some of the changes. In 1958 he wrote "Ancients versus moderns: a new battle of the books". The article was accompanied with a rebuttal by Albert E. Meder Jr. of Rutgers University. ("Mathematics Teacher" 51:428 –33). He says, "I find objectionable: first, vague generalizations, entirely undocumented, concerning views held by ‘modernists’, and second, the inferences drawn from what has not been said by the ‘modernists’." By 1966 Kline yielded to the pressure to propose something positive with his eight-page high school plan ("Mathematics Teacher" 59:322–330). The rebuttal for this article was by James H. Zant and asserted that Kline had "a general lack of knowledge of what was going on in schools with reference to textbooks, teaching, and curriculum." He criticized Kline’s writing for "vagueness, distortion of facts, undocumented statements and overgeneralization." Kline continued his critique of mathematical education with his 1966 article "Intellectuals and the schools: a case history" in Harvard Educational Review (36:505–11). In 1970 he followed with "Logic versus pedagogy" in American Mathematical Monthly (77:264–82). In 1973 St. Martin’s Press contributed to the dialogue by publishing Kline’s critique, "Why Johnny Can’t Add: the Failure of the New Math". Its opening chapter is a parody of instruction as students’ intuitions are challenged by the new jargon. The book recapitulates the debates from "Mathematics Teacher", with Kline conceding some progress: He cites Howard Fehr of Columbia University who sought to unify the subject through its general concepts, sets, operations, mappings, relations, and structure. In 1977 Kline turned to undergraduate university education; he took on the academic mathematics establishment with his "Why the Professor Can’t Teach: the dilemma of university education". Kline argues that requiring original mathematics from professors distracts them too much from the broad knowledge necessary to teach. He lauds scholarship as expressed by expository writing or reviews of original work of others. For scholarship he expects critical attitudes to topics, materials and methods. Among the rebuttals are those of May 1979 in "American Mathematical Monthly" (86:401–12.) by D.T. Finkbeiner, Harry Pollard, and Peter Hilton, in which Pollard writes, "The society in which learning is admired and pursued for its own sake has disappeared." The Hilton review was more direct: Kline has "placed in the hand of enemies… weapon". Though Kline began, in 1956, with a call to action, once the mobilization was in motion he turned critic. Skilled expositor that he was, editors frequently felt his expressions were best tempered with rebuttal. In considering what motivated Morris Kline to agitate so much we can look back to Professor Meder’s opinion in "Mathematics Teacher" 51:433: It might appear so, as Kline recalls E. H. Moore’s recommendation to combine science and mathematics at the high school level in his "Why Johnny Can’t Add" (p. 147). But closer reading shows Kline calling mathematics a "part of man’s efforts to understand and master his world", and he sees that role in a broad spectrum of sciences.
1103583	In numerical analysis, numerical differentiation describes algorithms for estimating the derivative of a mathematical function or function subroutine using values of the function and perhaps other knowledge about the function. Finite difference formula. The simplest method is to use finite difference approximations.
1044037	The Millionairess is a 1960 British romantic comedy film set in London, directed by Anthony Asquith and starring Sophia Loren and Peter Sellers. It is a loose adaptation of George Bernard Shaw's 1936 play of the same name. Sellers plays Ahmed el Kabir, a socialist Indian doctor, who meets Epifania Parerga (Loren), a wilful and arrogant heiress who has married to satisfy the conditions of her father's will but whose marriage has not produced the hoped-for happiness. Rather memorable performances are given by Alastair Sim, playing Julius Sagamore, the head of the millionairess's business empire, Vittorio de Sica as Joe, the proprietor of a pasta production sweatshop, and Alfie Bass as a self-employed Cockney fish curer. The film was a huge hit in Britain at the time of its release, but received mixed reviews. However it was an international success. George Martin, who was the producer at that time of Peter Sellers' comedy recordings, conceived and instigated the writing and recording of a comedy duet "Goodness Gracious Me", sung by Sellers and Loren in their film characters. Martin commissioned David Lee and Herbert Kretzmer to write the song. Martin himself produced the recording. Martin envisioned the song as a recording to be incorporated in the soundtrack of the film. The film's producers did not agree to this, but the studio was happy to see the song released as a stand-alone single to promote the film. The song became a UK chart hit in 1960 and succeeded in publicising the film. Synopsis. By the terms of her late father's will, spoiled London heiress Epifania Parerga, the richest woman in the world, cannot marry unless her prospective husband is able to turn £500 into £15,000 within a three-month period. When Epifania becomes smitten with Alastair, a muscular tennis player, she rigs the contest by giving him £500 in stock and then buying it back for £15,000. Alastair is unable to live with the domineering Epifania, however, and leaves her for the more domestic Polly Smith. Contemplating suicide, Epifania melodramatically plunges into the Thames, and when Dr. Ahmed el Kabir, a self-effacing, selfless Indian physician who runs an inadequately equipped clinic for the poor, ignores her plight and paddles past in his rowboat, she swims to shore and accuses him of being an assassin. Julius Sagamore, the shrewd family solicitor, then suggests that Epifania undergo therapy with noted society psychiatrist Adrian Bond. The opportunist Bond makes a bid for her hand, but after he criticises her father, Epifania throws him into the Thames, and when Kabir rows out to help Bond, Epifania jumps in the river after him. To ensnare Kabir, Epifania feigns injury, but the dedicated doctor remains impervious to her charms and indifferent to her wealth. Determined to win the doctor, Epifania buys the property surrounding his clinic and then erects a new, modern facility. After Kabir rejects Epifania's offer to run the facility, she suggests that they marry instead. Intimidated by the headstrong heiress, Kabir manufactures a deathbed promise that he made to his mother, pledging that he would not marry unless his prospective bride can take 35 shillings and earn her own living for three months. Undaunted, Epifania accepts his challenge and then discloses the details of her father's will and hands him £500. When Kabir protests that he has no head for money, Epifania plops down the wad of bills and leaves. Setting out to prove her worth, Epifania takes 35 shillings and heads for a sweatshop pasta factory. There, she threatens to expose the labour violations unless Joe, the proprietor, allows her to manage the plant. Three months later, Epifania has installed labour-saving machines, thus boosting productivity and making the plant a big success. Kabir, meanwhile, has tried in vain to give away his £500. After Kabir becomes drunk at a scientific dinner hosted by a wealthy doctor, he finds a sympathetic ear in his former professor and mentor, who generously offers to accept his money. At the clinic, Kabir eagerly turns over the cash to the professor. Soon after the professor leaves, Epifania appears and informs Kabir that she has met his mother's challenge. When he replies that he has failed and given all the money away, Epifania is deeply offended. Deciding to turn her back on the world of men, she announces that she plans to fire her board of directors, disband her empire and retire to a Tibetan monastery once she has evicted all the monks. Desperate to keep his job, Sagamore realises that Kabir is responsible for Epifania's erratic behaviour and goes to see the doctor. At the clinic, Sagamore tells Kabir that Epifania has vowed to withdraw from the world at the stroke of midnight. Concerned, Kabir hurries to the reception where Epifania is to bid farewell to her previous existence. Certain that their marriage is now imminent, Sagamore meets the terms of the will by purchasing Kabir's medical papers for £15,000. After Kabir rushes to Epifania, they kiss and he finally expresses his love.
585461	Nithya Menen is an Indian film actress and playback singer from Bangalore, who works in the South Indian film industry. Early life. Nithya Menen was born in Bangalore into a Malayali family and studied journalism at the Manipal Institute of Communication. Her father's family is from Calicut and her mother's is from Palakkad. She once said in an interview that she never wished to become an actress but a journalist as she was "an idealist", but felt journalism was "not what it used to be". She then decided to become a filmmaker as she could express her ideas "better through films", and enrolled for a course in cinematography at the FTI Pune. During the entrance examination, she met Nandini Reddy, who "brainwashed" and convinced her to take up acting. Nandini Reddy would later turn director and sign Nithya for the lead female role in her first project. Career. Nithya Menen appeared first on screen as a child artist when she was ten in the Indian English language film, "The Monkey Who Knew Too Much" (1998), playing the younger sister to Tabu's character. The 2008 off-beat film "Aakasha Gopuram", directed by National Film Award-winning director K. P. Kumaran, marked her debut in a leading role, in which she was paired with Mohanlal. She was in the midst of her 12th class exams when she was offered the role, after Mohanlal had spotted her on the front cover of a tourism magazine. Her performance was well received, with critics writing that she shows "sparkle in her debut venture" and "makes her entry in an impressive role", though the film, based on the Norwegian play "The Master Builder", got mixed reviews and was a financial failure. She next made her Kannada debut with the film "Josh". She essayed a supporting role in the film, which received rave reviews, and became a commercial success as well, with her performance garnering her a nomination in the Best Supporting Actress category at the 57th Filmfare Awards South. In 2011, her first release was Nandini Reddy's romantic comedy "Ala Modalaindi", which was Nithya's maiden Telugu venture as well. The film opened to favorable reviews by critics and turned out to become a sleeper hit, while Nithya received critical praise for her performance. "Idlebrain"s Jeevi in his review cited that she "epitomized Nitya character with her fabulous performance", "looks beautiful in all kinds of dresses" and was "the best debut in recent years of Telugu cinema after Samantha in "YMC"", while another critic wrote that she was a "charming find" and "...quite the Genelia replacement that our cinema so badly needs right now." She eventually won the Nandi Award for Best Actress for her performance. Further more, she also sang two songs for the soundtrack album of the film, tuned by Kalyani Malik. Nandini Reddy, later, went on to describe Nithya as "the discovery of the decade". Following "Ala Modalaindi", she starred in Santosh Sivan's historical fiction "Urumi" as part of an ensemble cast. She portrayed a Chirakkal princess named Bala, playing the love interest of Prabhu Deva's character, which gained positive remarks, with a Sify review claiming that she "looks pretty and is a scene stealer". Nithya quoted that much of her character was based on "Santosh's perception of who I am", with Sivan stating that he had written that role for her and that only she could play it. She next appeared in ad-filmmaker Jayendra's bilingual venture "180"/"Nootrenbadhu", made and released in Tamil and Telugu, in which she played a photo journalist named Vidhya. She described the character as "bubbly, full of life, nosey, wide-eyed and innocent in life" and to be similar to herself. Later the year, she was seen in Sibi Malayil's "Violin" in Malayalam and the Gautham Menon-produced "Veppam" in Tamil. Her first 2012 release was the Telugu romance film "Ishq" with Nitin Reddy. She acted in "Karmayogi", a Malayalam adaptation of Shakespeare's "Hamlet". For the Kannada film "Aidondla Aidu" she had sung and also choreographed one of the songs, titled "Payasa". She was seen in two Malayalam projects, T. K. Rajeev Kumar's "Thalsamayam Oru Penkutty", in which she portrayed a village woman whose daily life is filmed and broadcast as a reality show for a month, and "Ustad Hotel" directed by Anwar Rasheed. In 2013, she starred in three Telugu films, "Okkadine", "Jabardasth" and "Gunde Jaari Gallanthayyinde". She played a character with two shades in "Gunde Jaari Gallanthayyinde" and she dubbed for her as well as for the character of her co-star Isha Talwar. She also signed a film of director "Cheran" in which she is going to pair up with "Sharwanand".
1057891	James Christian Urbaniak (born September 17, 1963) is an American actor. Urbaniak was born in Bayonne, New Jersey. He lives in Santa Monica, California with his wife Julie and their twins, son Severn Jerzy and daughter Esme Maeve.
1183902	Tupac Amaru Shakur (June 16, 1971September 13, 1996), also known by his stage names 2Pac and briefly as Makaveli, was an American rapper and actor. Shakur has sold over 75 million albums worldwide as of 2010, making him one of the best-selling music artists in the world. MTV ranked him at number two on their list of "The Greatest MCs of All Time" and "Rolling Stone" named him the 86th Greatest Artist of All Time. His double disc album "All Eyez on Me" is one of the best selling hip hop albums of all time. Shakur began his career as a roadie, backup dancer, and MC for the alternative hip hop group Digital Underground, eventually branching off as a solo artist. The themes of most of Shakur's songs revolved around the violence and hardship in inner cities, racism and other social problems. Both of his parents and several other of his family were members of the Black Panther Party, whose ideals were reflected in his songs. During the latter part of his career, Shakur was a vocal participant in the so-called East Coast–West Coast hip hop rivalry, becoming involved in conflicts with other rappers, producers and record-label staff members, most notably The Notorious B.I.G. and his label Bad Boy Records. On September 7, 1996, Shakur was shot multiple times in a drive-by shooting at the intersection of Flamingo Road and Koval Lane in Las Vegas, Nevada. He was taken to the Southern Nevada University Medical Center, where he died six days later. Early life. Shakur was born on June 16, 1971, in the East Harlem section of Manhattan in New York City. He was named after Túpac Amaru, an 18th-century South American revolutionary who was executed after leading an indigenous uprising against Spanish rule. Subsequent to Shakur's death, the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department (as well as the official coroner's report, which lists "Crooks" as an aka) released his name as Lesane Parish Crooks. His mother, Afeni Shakur, and his father, Billy Garland, were active members of the Black Panther Party in New York in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The infant boy was born a month after his mother was acquitted of more than 150 charges of "Conspiracy against the United States government and New York landmarks" in the New York "Panther 21" court case. Shakur lived from an early age with people who were convicted of serious criminal offences and who were imprisoned. His godfather, Elmer "Geronimo" Pratt, a high ranking Black Panther, was convicted of murdering a school teacher during a 1968 robbery, although his sentence was later overturned. His stepfather, Mutulu, spent four years at large on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list beginning in 1982. Mutulu was wanted for having helped his sister Assata Shakur (also known as Joanne Chesimard) to escape from a penitentiary in New Jersey. She had been imprisoned for killing a state trooper in 1973. Mutulu was caught in 1986 and imprisoned for the robbery of a Brinks armored truck in which two police officers and a guard were killed. Shakur had a half-sister, Sekyiwa, two years his junior, and an older stepbrother, Mopreme "Komani" Shakur, who appeared in many of his recordings. At the age of twelve, Shakur enrolled in Harlem's 127th Street Repertory Ensemble and was cast as the Travis Younger character in the play "A Raisin in the Sun", which was performed at the Apollo Theater. In 1986, the family relocated to Baltimore, Maryland. After completing his second year at Paul Laurence Dunbar High School, he transferred to the Baltimore School for the Arts, where he studied acting, poetry, jazz, and ballet. He performed in Shakespeare plays, and in the role of the Mouse King in the ballet "The Nutcracker". Shakur, accompanied by one of his friends, Dana "Mouse" Smith, as his beatbox, won many rap competitions and was considered to be the best rapper in his school. He was remembered as one of the most popular kids in his school because of his sense of humor, superior rapping skills, and ability to mix with all crowds. He developed a close friendship with a young Jada Pinkett (later Jada Pinkett Smith) that lasted until his death.
1247126	Charles B. Middleton (October 3, 1874 – April 22, 1949) was an American stage and film actor. During a film career that began at age 46 and lasted almost 30 years, Charles Middleton appeared in nearly two hundred films as well as numerous plays. He is perhaps best remembered for his role as the villainous emperor Ming the Merciless in the Flash Gordon series. Biography. Born in Elizabethtown, Kentucky, Charles Middleton worked in a traveling circus, in vaudeville, and acted in live theatre before he turned to motion pictures in 1920. Middleton's career as a character actor came into full flower with the advent of sound movies. His ominous baritone voice was perfect for villainous roles, and he became an excellent foil for comedy stars Harold Lloyd, Eddie Cantor, Wheeler & Woolsey, and Laurel and Hardy. He was then cast in Warner Bros.' 1931 film "Safe in Hell" (directed by William Wellman), and in Warners' 1932 hit "The Strange Love of Molly Louvain" opposite Ann Dvorak and Richard Cromwell. Middleton also appeared as "the district attorney" in Cecil B. DeMille's 1933 film "This Day and Age", and as "the prosecutor" opposite The Marx Brothers in "Duck Soup" (also 1933). He also played Sheriff Ike Vallon, the official who tries to arrest Julie La Verne (Helen Morgan) and her husband for being illegally married, in Universal Pictures' classic 1936 screen version of the musical "Show Boat". Middleton's granite-hard features resembled those of Abraham Lincoln. He played Lincoln in a public-service short subject, "The Road Is Open Again", appeared in a rare comic role as an actor exasperated at being typecast as Lincoln in the 1937 comedy "Stand-In", and played Lincoln's father in the film version of Robert E. Sherwood's "Abe Lincoln in Illinois" (1940). Middleton was also featured in many serial adventures from 1935 to 1947. He is most famous for his villainous role as Ming the Merciless, the evil adversary of Buster Crabbe in the three Flash Gordon serials: "Flash Gordon" (1936), "Flash Gordon's Trip to Mars" (1938), and 1940's "Flash Gordon Conquers the Universe". The first Flash Gordon serial has the honor of having been selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry. Middleton was also featured in such serials as "Dick Tracy Returns", "Daredevils of the Red Circle", and "Jack Armstrong".
1211358	Brinke Stevens (born Charlene Elizabeth Brinkman; September 20, 1954) is an American actress, model and writer. Life and career. Born in San Diego, California, Stevens has studied several foreign languages, including Esperanto, and gained a Bachelor of Science in Biology and Psychology from San Diego State University and a Master of Science in Marine Biology from Scripps Institution of Oceanography, La Jolla, California. Initially intending to study dolphin communication, she was instead tossed out of Scripps for doing "forbidden research" on dolphin communication. The "forbidden" appellation was largely to do with the Navy's use of dolphins in undersea weapons research at the time. While going to a modeling assignment, Stevens was discovered by accident by a producer who cast her in a film as an extra. Stevens has appeared in over 100 movies, primarily in the horror, sci-fi and fantasy film genres. From her long list of acting credits she has gained notoriety as a scream queen, to the extent that she was once the subject of a "Jeopardy!" answer: "Brinke Stevens is known by this semi-rhyming title." (Question: What is a Scream Queen?). The "Jeopardy!" question was asked during the Scripps Institution of Oceanography special.
1054877	Heavyweights (stylized onscreen as Heavy Weights) is a 1995 Walt Disney Pictures comedy film, directed by Steven Brill and co-written by Brill with Judd Apatow. "Heavyweights" is about a fat camp for kids that is taken over by a fitness guru named Tony Perkis (Ben Stiller). The film takes place at “Camp Hope” where all of the campers are overweight. For previous years it is a fun place for kids alike to go and have fun together. Trouble ensues once the previous owners declare bankruptcy and are bought out by a fitness guru named Tony Perkis. Tony is a fitness fanatic who makes it his goal to whip these overweight kids into shape. Tony ends up making Camp Hope almost unbearable by forcing the campers to participate in demanding exercises and low carb diets. Eventually they decide that they have been put through enough, and these underdog campers band together to rebel against Tony Perkis. Plot. As school ends for the summer, Gerry (Aaron Schwartz) is sent by his parents to Camp Hope, a weight loss camp for boys. Despite worrying at first, Gerry makes friends easily at the Chipmunk Cabin (which the boys have named a long time ago) Gerald learns that Camp Hope is actually a lot of fun and will not be nearly as bad as he thinks. He discovers that the other campers have smuggled in enough junk food to easily stave off the hunger pangs and probably counteract any weight loss that the camp programs cause.
1030206	Mauvais Sang (, "Bad Blood") is Leos Carax's second film. Released in 1986, the film played at the 37th Berlin International Film Festival before being nominated for 3 César Awards and winning Prix Louis Delluc. The film had 504,803 Admissions in France. The title refers to the eponymous poem by Arthur Rimbaud in "A Season in Hell". Plot. In Paris of the not-too-distant future, a mysterious new disease named STBO is killing young people who make love without emotional involvement. A serum has been developed, but it is locked away in an office block, out of the reach of those who need it most. An American woman blackmails two ageing crooks, Marc and Hans, into stealing the STBO serum. Marc recruits Alex, a rebellious teenager whose father worked for him before getting himself killed. Although Alex has a girlfriend, Lise, he end up falling for Marc’s young lover, Anna...
585613	Udayapuram Sulthan () is a 1999 Malayalam comedy film directed by Jose Thomas. It was written by Udayakrishna and Siby K. Thomas, and stars Dileep, Preetha Vijaykumar, Captain Raju, Narendra Prasad, Innocent, Cochin Hanifa, Jagathy Sreekumar, Harisree Ashokan, Ambika, Sudheesh, Salim Kumar, Sphadikam George, Kottayam Nazir, and Oduvil Unnikrishnan. Remade. It was remade in telugu as Dhenikaina Ready starring Vishnu Manchu and Hansika Motwani in 2012. The movie was dubbed in Malayalam as 'Endhinum Ready' and was released simultaneously with Telugu on 24 October 2012.
153682	Judy Moody and the Not Bummer Summer is a 2011 comedy film based on Megan McDonald's "Judy Moody" book series, released on June 10, 2011. It stars Jordana Beatty as a third grader named Judy Moody who sets out to have the most thrilling summer of her life. Reviews have been critically negative, as the film holds a 19% rating from Rotten Tomatoes. The film debuted to poor box office performance, earning only about $6 million, and it claimed the No. 7 spot on its opening weekend. Plot. After school finishes for the summer, third grader Judy Moody (Jordana Beatty) sets out to have the most thriller summer of her life. However, her parents (Kristoffer Winters and Janet Varney) are going away to California, and she and her brother, Stink (Parris Mosteller), are staying home with their Aunt Opal (Heather Graham). She decides to make a "Thrill Points" list for herself and her friends to go by: "The Judy Moody Mega-Rare NOT a Bummer Summer Dare". But her plan backfires when she discovers her friends are getting more thrill points than her. To keep up her not-bummer summer goal, she, along with her awesome Aunt Opal, decides to help Stink catch Bigfoot. Cast. Goliath (Six Flags Magic Mountain) is Portrayed as the Scream Monster Rollercoaster in the movie. Reception. Critical response. The film has been panned by critics. The film currently holds a 19% "Rotten" rating on review aggregate website Rotten Tomatoes, based on 74 reviews. The consensus states: "Though it may entertain some very young viewers, "Judy Moody" is likely to be a garish sensory onslaught for anyone with a normal attention span." Film critic Roger Ebert rated the film two out of four stars, stating that "little kids might find perfectly acceptable" and that "[grown-ups may find themselves looking for stuff to think about while watching this film." However, he said that the film progresses through "with lots of bright colors and jolly music." Box office. The film debuted on June 10, 2011, earning $6,076,859 its opening weekend. As of August 10, 2011, it has grossed $14,982,196. It claimed the No. 7 spot on its opening weekend, opening in 2,524 theaters. However, its earnings failure to surpass the budget as well as the negative reviews, has made the film a box office bomb. Home and television media. As Relativity Media has no home entertainment company, 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment acquired rights to release the film in home entertainment ports. On October 11, 2011, 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment released the film on DVD and Blu-ray. The film made its network television premiere on Disney Channel on August 10, 2013.
1055151	"What's Cooking?" is a 2000 British/American comedy-drama film directed by Gurinder Chadha and starring Mercedes Ruehl, Kyra Sedgwick, Joan Chen, Lainie Kazan, Maury Chaykin, Julianna Margulies, Alfre Woodard, and Dennis Haysbert. Plot. Thanksgiving night four ethnically diverse families -- Vietnamese, Latino, Jewish, and African American — gather for the traditional meal. But each family has its own distinct set of problems, and hilarity ensues. Ruth and Herb Seelig (Lainie Kazan and Maury Chaykin) welcome their daughter Rachel (Kyra Sedgwick) home for the holiday. Rachel brings her lesbian lover Carla (Julianna Margulies), much to Mom and Dad's discomfiture. Additional relatives, not yet clued in, are scheduled to drop by. Trin and Duc Nguyen (Joan Chen and François Chau) have just had #2 son ejected from school. If that isn't enough, Trin has found a condom among #1 daughter's possessions. And #1 son isn't bothering to attend the gala affair at all, but is secretly going to the home of his Latino girlfriend, the Avilas. Mrs. Elizabeth Avila (Mercedes Ruehl) is separated from her husband Javier (Victor Rivers) since he had a tempestuous affair with her cousin. Unbeknownst to Elizabeth, son Tony (Douglas Spain) has invited Papa over for the holiday meal as he has nowhere else to go. Unbeknownst to Tony, Mom has her own bombshell to drop. And, of course, the Avila daughter, Sofia (Maria Carmen), has invited her non-Latino boyfriend. In the meantime, Audrey Williams (Alfre Woodard) must both cook and make nice with her overly critical mother-in-law, Grace (Ann Weldon), while the former's husband, Ronald (Dennis Haysbert), referees. The state of the couple's marriage is tense, and their teenage son, Michael (Eric George), isn't expected to appear for unstated reasons, which perhaps is just as well as Ronald's approval rating of his boy is at an all-time low. As the plot evolves, the obvious conflict in each of these households is revealed as only the tip of the iceberg. Each of these culturally different families prepares its own favorite side dishes to accompany the regular bird. Much screen time is dedicated to food preparation. Reception. Reviews were mixed. Review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes gives the film a score of 52% based on reviews from 66 critics, with the site's consensus stating "What's Cooking? is well-acted, but the scenes sometimes sink into melodrama as characters scream at each other, and the movie as a whole is too lightweight and forgettable."
583339	Antara Mali ( born 13 July 1979) is an Indian actress who stars in Bollywood films. Personal life. Antara Mali was born in Mumbai, India to photographer Jagdish Mali on 13 July 1979. She married Che Kurrien, the editor of "GQ" magazine on 12 June 2009.
1060617	Dennis Farina (February 29, 1944 – July 22, 2013) was an American actor of film and television and former Chicago police officer. He was a character actor, often typecast as a mobster or police officer. His most known film roles are those of mobster Jimmy Serrano in the comedy "Midnight Run" and Ray "Bones" Barboni in "Get Shorty". He starred on television as Detective Joe Fontana on "Law & Order". He also hosted and narrated a revived version of "Unsolved Mysteries". His last major television role was in HBO's "Luck", which premiered on January 29, 2012. Early life. Farina was born in Chicago, Illinois, to Sicilian-American parents Yolanda (née Donati), a homemaker, and Joseph Farina, a doctor. His father was from Villalba, Sicily. He was raised in a large family and had three brothers and three sisters. Before becoming an actor, Farina served three years in the United States Army and then 18 years in the Chicago Police Department's burglary division, from 1967 to 1985. Career in show business. Farina began his work in show business working for director Michael Mann as a police consultant, which subsequently led to an interest in acting when Mann cast him in a small role in the 1981 film "Thief". Farina proceeded to moonlight as an actor in the Chicago theater scene before Mann chose him for his "Crime Story" series. Farina played the mobster Albert Lombard in Michael Mann's other television show, "Miami Vice". Two of his best known movie characters are Jimmy Serrano, the mob boss from "Midnight Run", and Ray "Bones" Barboni, a rival criminal of Chili Palmer's in "Get Shorty". He also played FBI Agent Jack Crawford in the first Hannibal Lecter crime film, Michael Mann's "Manhunter". Other movies in Farina's filmography include Steven Spielberg's "Saving Private Ryan" (as Army Lieutenant Colonel Walter Anderson), "Striking Distance", "Another Stakeout", "Little Big League", "Snatch", "The Mod Squad", "Big Trouble" and "Out of Sight". He co-starred with Bette Midler in the romantic comedy "That Old Feeling". Farina demonstrated a flair for comedy. He won an American Comedy Award for his performance in "Get Shorty" and starred in a television sitcom, "In-Laws," from 2002 until 2003. He had a comic role opposite Ed Harris and Helen Hunt in the HBO production of "Empire Falls" in 2005 and opposite Alan Rickman in 2008's "Bottle Shock". In early 2005, Farina provided the voice of aging boxer-turned-superhero Wildcat on "Justice League Unlimited". The producers of the long-running television series "Law & Order" hired Farina as Det. Joe Fontana after the retirement of Jerry Orbach's character Lennie Briscoe. Farina stayed with the show for two years, but his character was not as popular with viewers as Orbach's Lennie Briscoe had been. As a result, in May 2006, it was announced that Farina was leaving "Law & Order" to pursue other projects, including 2007's "You Kill Me" opposite Ben Kingsley and 2008's "What Happens in Vegas" with Cameron Diaz and Ashton Kutcher. His role of Detective Lt. Mike Torello on "Crime Story" was as a Chicago police officer, who was later seconded to the U.S. Justice Department. Farina's "Law & Order" character, Joe Fontana, worked for Chicago Homicide before his transfer to the NYPD. As is common on "Law & Order", Fontana shared a number of other characteristics with the actor who played him: they hailed from the same Chicago neighborhood, attended the same parochial school, and had the same tastes in both clothes and music and were even fans of the Chicago Cubs. In October 2008, Farina became the new host of "Unsolved Mysteries" when it returned to television with a new five-season, 175-episode run on Spike TV. Farina replaced Robert Stack, who had hosted the series for its entire original 15-year run before his death in 2003. This version featured re-edited segments from previous incarnations on NBC, CBS, and Lifetime (all originally hosted by Stack). Farina played the title role in a 2011 independent film, "The Last Rites of Joe May", written and directed by Joe Maggio, shot on location in Chicago. He co-starred in the 2012 HBO horse-race gambling series "Luck", with Dustin Hoffman, directed by Michael Mann. He also had a recurring guest role in 2013 in the television comedy series "New Girl", though his character was killed off prior to the actor's death. Personal life. Farina was married to Patricia Farina from 1970 until their divorce in 1980. They have three sons together: Dennis Jr, Michael and Joseph. His youngest son, Joseph, is also an actor. He has two granddaughters, Brianna and Olivia, and four grandsons: Michael, Tyler, Matthew and Eric. He lived with his longtime girlfriend Marianne Cahill in Arizona. Farina was a lifelong Chicago Cubs fan and played in this role in a 1988 revival of the successful 1977 Organic Theater Company stage play "The Bleacher Bums", which was written by and starred fellow Chicago actors Joe Mantegna and Dennis Franz. Arrest. Farina was arrested on May 11, 2008, for carrying a loaded .22 caliber pistol through Los Angeles International Airport security. Farina was taken to the Los Angeles Police Department's Pacific Division and booked on suspicion of carrying a concealed weapon, and bail was set at $25,000. He claimed he had simply forgotten the weapon was still in his briefcase and had never intended to take it on a plane. After police determined the weapon was unregistered, the charges were upgraded to a felony and bail was increased to $35,000. On July 17, 2008, after reaching a plea agreement with prosecutors, Farina pleaded no contest and was sentenced to two years' probation. Death. Farina died on July 22, 2013, in a hospital in Scottsdale, Arizona after suffering a pulmonary embolism. Farina is buried at Mount Carmel Cemetery in Hillside, Illinois.
581914	Khakee (English: The Brown Uniform) is a 2004 Indian Hindi action drama thriller film, with political thriller elements, directed by Rajkumar Santoshi. The film tells the story of an Indian police team set out on a dangerous mission to transfer an accused Pakistani spy from a remote town in Maharashtra to Mumbai.
1162751	Bahar Soomekh (, born March 30, 1975) is an Iranian-born American actress and environmental activist. She is best known for her roles in the films "Crash" and "Saw III". Early life. Bahar was born in Tehran, Iran, to a devout Persian Jewish family. She moved with her parents and sister, Saba Soomekh, to Los Angeles, California, United States in 1979, to escape the Iranian Revolution. Bahar speaks fluent English, Persian, Spanish, and some Hebrew. She attended Sinai Akiba Academy and Beverly Hills High School, where she played the violin in the school orchestra. Bahar earned a B.A. in environmental studies at the University of California at Santa Barbara in 1997. Bahar began working at a corporate job in sales while taking acting classes at night before quitting her job to pursue acting as a career. Career. In the beginning of her career, Bahar guest starred on several television programs, including "JAG" and "24". Bahar later appeared in a few films, including the Academy Award-winning movies "Crash" and "Syriana". In 2006, Bahar was noted for portraying Davian's Translator in "" and for a leading role, as Dr. Lynn Denlon, in the horror film "Saw III". That same year, People's magazine listed Soomekh as one of 100 Most beautiful people in the world. In the next five years, she mostly worked in television, most notably as Margo on the television series "Day Break" from 2006-2007. Bahar also appeared in the pilots of two television shows, "The Oaks" (2008) and "Lost & Found" (2009), which were not picked up, and had guest roles in "Ghost Whisperer", "Miami Medical", and "Castle". Personal life. Family. Bahar married Clayton Frech, a business manager, who converted to Judaism in order to marry her, in 2001. The couple now has three children. Activism. The teaching of tikkun olam, to heal the world, guides Bahar's life. She works on environmental and children's causes. Bahar also uses her name to be involved with organizations such as the Green Cross and Rainforest Action Network. With her husband, she launced the T.O. Productions to make movies about environmental and social issues.
1001120	Undefeatable is a 1994 martial arts movie starring Cynthia Rothrock and directed by Godfrey Ho (using the pseudonym Godfrey Hall). The picture was a Hong Kong production, but filmed in English on location in the United States. An alternate version of the film, titled Bloody Mary Killer, was released for the Asian markets. Plot. The film follows Kristi Jones (Cynthia Rothrock) who, along with her gang, take part in Mafia-run street fights to earn money for her sister's college education. Kristi's sister hopes to become a doctor and pay for Kristi's education. Meanwhile, an underground fighter by the name of "Stingray" (Don Niam) is left by his wife, Anna, and vows to find her. Stingray has suffered from abandonment issues since early childhood and this new trauma triggers a psychotic break from reality. He begins to kidnap women who resemble his ex-wife, and subsequently tortures them and gouges their eyes out before returning their bodies to the crime scene. Kristi's sister becomes one of the victims, so Kristi tracks down Stingray with the help of police officer Nick DiMarco (John Miller), who might just be falling for her, alongside her sister's psychiatry tutor Jennifer (Donna Jason) and Nick's partner Mike (Gerald Klein). They eventually track down Stingray, who has kidnapped Jennifer, and fight in a warehouse where he escapes after shooting and killing Mike. Jennifer's injuries, though relatively minor, require that she be admitted to the hospital where she is again kidnapped by Stingray who is impersonating a doctor. Kristi and Nick chase him to a storage area where, in an infamous scene, the three do battle, mostly through hand-to-hand combat. Stingray is bested by the pair, having both eyes gouged out in the process.
1060989	Edward Walter Furlong (born August 2, 1977) is an American actor and musician. A former child star, Furlong won Saturn- and MTV Movie Awards for his breakthrough performance as John Connor in "" (1991). The following year he gave an Independent Spirit Award-nominated turn opposite Jeff Bridges in "American Heart", and earned a second Saturn Award nomination for his work in the critically derided "Pet Sematary Two". He won a Young Artist Award for his performance alongside Kathy Bates in "A Home of Our Own" (1993), and shared a further ensemble nomination with the cast of the film. Furlong received acclaim for his starring roles in the 1998 motion pictures "Pecker" and "American History X", which co-starred Christina Ricci and Edward Norton, respectively. Other noteworthy titles from his early career include "Little Odessa" (1994), "The Grass Harp" (1995), and "Before and After" (1996), also starring Meryl Streep and Liam Neeson. He reprised his role as John Connor in the international Universal Studios parks attraction "" (1996). Aside from acting, Furlong released a 1991 album, "Hold on Tight", which was a hit in Japan. Furlong's last significant roles were in the comedy "Detroit Rock City" (1999) and the crime drama "Animal Factory" (2000). His career subsequently declined due to multiple arrests and court cases, and enduring substance abuse and alcoholism. Aside from a supporting role in "The Green Hornet" (2011), Furlong's latter work consists of critically panned, direct-to-video horror films including "" (2005), in which he plays the title character. Critic Rebecca Flint Marx in Allmovie recalled the youthful Furlong as a "young actor noted for his intense, older-than-his-years demeanor." Early life. Furlong was born in Glendale, California, near Burbank, the son of Eleanor (née Tafoya), a youth-center worker, and an unknown father. He is of Mexican descent on his mother's side, and also has Russian and possibly Native American ancestry. Furlong has a younger half-brother, Bobby Torres, from his mother's marriage to Moises Torres. Furlong moved in with his aunt and uncle, Nancy Tafoya and Sean Furlong, in 1990. The two gained legal guardianship of Furlong in September 1991 and subsequently lost it to his mother in August 1993. Furlong attended Charles W. Eliot Middle School in Altadena, and South Pasadena Junior High School in South Pasadena, California. He never completed high school. He became legally emancipated at the age of 16. Career. 1990s. In 1991, Furlong began his film career as John Connor in "", a role that earned him an MTV Movie Award for Best Breakthrough Role and a Saturn Award for best young actor. He was discovered for the part by casting director Mali Finn while visiting the Pasadena Boys and Girls Club in September 1990. Furlong had no acting ambitions. He has stated, "I fell into it wasn't something that I planned". He followed this role with a string of moderately successful high-profile films and indies, sharing the screen with Meryl Streep and Liam Neeson in "Before and After"; Tim Roth, Maximilian Schell, and Vanessa Redgrave in "Little Odessa"; and Anthony Edwards in "Pet Sematary Two". In 1993, Furlong was featured in Aerosmith's music video for "Livin' on the Edge". This was also the only major Aerosmith video from "Get a Grip" not to feature Alicia Silverstone. He played the lead role of Michael Brower, a horror and videogame-obsessed teen in the 1994 film "Brainscan". In 1995, he starred in the film adaptation of Truman Capote's "The Grass Harp". In 1997, he starred in "American History X" alongside Edward Norton and appeared in his first comedy role in "Pecker", directed by John Waters. Of his title role in "Pecker", Furlong stated, "It's true most of the characters that I've played so far are kind of like suicidal. Really dark roles, which I like. But I wanted to do something different and John gave me a chance to do that." In 1998, he starred in the film "Detroit Rock City". During filming he met Natasha Lyonne, whom he then dated. Furlong played a young convict in Steve Buscemi's film "Animal Factory", filmed in the summer of 1999. 2000s. Furlong's career and stardom declined considerably after the end of the 1990s, with most of his subsequent films being released straight to DVD. In 2001 he took a role in "I Cavalieri che fecero l'impresa aka The Knights of the Quest", a little-seen film by Italian filmmaker Pupi Avati. Furlong was supposed to reprise his most famous role as John Connor in "". However, in December 2001 it was reported he had been dropped from the film, and that the producers were looking for a different actor to play the role. Eventually Nick Stahl was cast just before filming began in April 2002. Furlong later stated, "It just wasn't the time. I was going through my own thing at the point in my life – whatever, it just wasn't meant to be". He appeared in a music video for Metallica's "The Unnamed Feeling", released in February 2004. He starred as Jimmy in the low budget independent film "Jimmy & Judy" in 2004, during which time he met Rachael Bella. The two became romantically involved and later married. In the summer of 2003, Furlong played the lead in the fourth film in "The Crow" series, "", alongside David Boreanaz and Tara Reid. The film was planned for a theatrical release, but eventually went straight to DVD in 2005. Despite this, Furlong was optimistic, stating, "I feel through word of mouth people will find it. There's a huge base for Crow fans. Just from what I've seen on the Internet, people are really excited about it. Personally, I say it's the best one since the first one". In 2006 and again in 2010, Furlong appeared in five episodes of the television program "" as character Shane Casey. Furlong appeared in the 2009 remake of the 1988 horror classic "Night of the Demons", shot in New Orleans. The film was released straight to DVD. 2010s. Several of Furlong's recent films are still in post-production, or have been shown at film festivals rather than in major theatrical release. He appeared in the film "Kingshighway", which was due to be released 2010. He starred in "Mortician 3D" alongside Method Man. He played the role of Ravi in the psychological thriller "Crave", which was filmed in Detroit, Michigan. Furlong played the lead role alongside Michael Berryman in the low budget Canadian horror thriller "Below Zero". He also appeared in one scene of the 2011 Seth Rogen film, "The Green Hornet". He starred in "This is not a Movie", an English language Mexican film written and directed by Olallo Rubio and co starring Peter Coyote and Edi Gathegi. The film is scored by ex-Guns N' Roses guitarist Slash. The film was released in Germany in 2010 and Mexico in January 2011. Other work. After Furlong achieved particular popularity in Japan as a result of "Terminator 2", he appeared in TV advertisements for various Japanese products. He also released an album in Japan called "Hold on Tight", which included a cover of The Doors song "People Are Strange". Furlong would later say that the music was "the exact opposite of rock" and "a bad mistake". Furlong has also modeled, in 1996 for Calvin Klein and for The Gap.
1062693	Ronald Lee Ermey (born March 24, 1944) is an American actor, best known for his role as Gunnery Sergeant Hartman in "Full Metal Jacket", which earned him a Golden Globe Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor. He is a retired U.S. Marine and an honorary Gunnery Sergeant; during his tenure in the U.S. Marine Corps, he served as a drill instructor. Ermey has often been typecast for the roles of authority figures, such as Mayor Tilman in the film "Mississippi Burning", Bill Bowerman in "Prefontaine", Sheriff Hoyt in "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" remake, Jimmy Lee Farnsworth in "Fletch Lives", plastic army men leader Sarge in the "Toy Story" films, and the Warden in "SpongeBob SquarePants". He has hosted two programs on the History Channel: "Mail Call", in which he answered viewers' questions about various militaria both modern and historic; and "Lock N' Load with R. Lee Ermey", which focused on the development of different types of weapons. Early life and military career. Born in Emporia, Kansas, Ermey enlisted in the United States Marine Corps in 1961. Ermey was a drill instructor at the Marine Corps Recruit Depot in San Diego, California, and Parris Island, South Carolina from 1965 to 1967. In 1968, Ermey arrived in Vietnam where he served for 14 months with the Marine Wing Support Group 17. He then served two tours of duty in Okinawa, Japan, during which he rose to the rank of Staff Sergeant (E-6) and was medically discharged in 1972 for several injuries incurred during his tours. Acting career. Films. Ermey was cast in his first film while attending the University of Manila in the Philippines, using his G.I. Bill benefits. He first played a Marine drill instructor (SSgt Loyce) in the 1978 Vietnam-era film "The Boys in Company "C"", which brought Ermey to the attention of Stanley Kubrick in later years. Ermey then played an Air Cavalry pilot in "Apocalypse Now", doubling as a technical advisor to director Francis Ford Coppola. For the next few years, Ermey played a series of minor film roles until 1987, when he was cast as tough drill instructor Gunnery Sergeant Hartman in Stanley Kubrick's "Full Metal Jacket". Initially he was intended to be only the technical advisor. Kubrick changed his mind after Ermey put together an instructional tape, in which Ermey went on an extended hair-raising drill instructor tirade towards several extras, convincing Kubrick he was the right person for the role. Seeking absolute military authenticity for the film, Kubrick allowed Ermey to write or edit his own dialogue and improvise on the set, a noted rarity in a Kubrick film. Kubrick later indicated that Ermey was an excellent performer, often needing just two or three takes per scene, also unusual for a Kubrick film. Ermey's performance won critical raves and he was nominated for a Golden Globe Award as Best Supporting Actor. He later played a tough drill instructor in the pilot episode of "" and ghost of a drill instructor in the film "The Frighteners", both similar to his character in "Full Metal Jacket". He has since appeared in approximately sixty films, including "Purple Hearts", "Mississippi Burning", "The Siege of Firebase Gloria", "Dead Man Walking", "Se7en", "Fletch Lives", "Leaving Las Vegas", "Prefontaine", "Saving Silverman", "On Deadly Ground", "Sommersby" "Life", "Man of the House", "Toy Soldiers", "The Salton Sea", as well as the remakes of "Willard" and as an evil sadist in the two "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" films. Ermey also lent his voice to "The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy", "Toy Story", "Toy Story 2", and "Toy Story 3", as well as ' and '. He usually appears in a commanding military role, for shows such as "Kim Possible", "The Simpsons", "Family Guy", "SpongeBob SquarePants", "Miami Vice", "House", "Scrubs", "My Life as a Teenage Robot" and "Invader Zim", in addition to hosting the documentary series "Mail Call" and "Lock N' Load with R. Lee Ermey". Television work. On "Mail Call", Ermey discussed weaponry, tactical matters, and military history. "Mail Call's" subject matter was dictated by viewer emails; one episode may have focused on an M1A1 Battle Tank, while another may have involved World War II secrets, while a third might have been focused on elements of Medieval warfare. The set consisted of a military tent, other military gear and weapons, and Ermey's personal jeep armed with his own 30 cal. M1919 Browning machine gun. Ermey traveled to Kuwait in June 2003 during the first phase of Operation Iraqi Freedom to film mail distribution by the Defense Department to service personnel for an episode of "Mail Call". According to a 2005 episode of Mail Call filmed at Whiteman Air Force Base, he is the 341st person to fly in the B-2 Stealth Bomber. Ermey guest-starred in the episode "Second Chance" of "Human Target". Ermey also made guest appearances on the hit TV drama "House", playing the role of Dr. Gregory House's father, who was a decorated Naval Aviator while serving in the Marine Corps ("Birthmarks", "Daddy's Boy"), and the sitcom "Scrubs", playing the Janitor's father. He has also voiced Wildcat in several episodes of "." In an episode of "The Simpsons" entitled "Sideshow Bob's Last Gleaming", Ermey voiced Colonel Leslie "Hap" Hapablap. In the episode of "SpongeBob SquarePants", "Inmates of Summer", he voiced an irate warden of a maximum security island prison who demoralized the inmates whenever he could. In the episode of "The Angry Beavers", "Fancy Prance", he voiced the Lipizzaner Stallions' instructor, Drill Sergeant Goonther. In 2009, Ermey hosted a second History Channel show entitled "Lock N' Load with R. Lee Ermey", which discussed the developmental history of various weapons used by militaries of today. In late 2010, Ermey starred in a GEICO commercial as a former-drill-instructor-turned-therapist who insults a client, in parody of some of his iconic characters. Ermey also was featured each week on ESPN's College GameDay. His role was to insult the experts' incorrect picks from the previous week. Also in 2010, Ermey appeared in the "" episode "Trophy" as a paroled sex offender. In 2011, Ermey starred as a drill instructor on the "X-Play" special on "Bulletstorm". In the "Family Guy" episode "Grumpy Old Man" Ermey guest-starred as a drill instructor. Video games. In 1993, R. Lee Ermey played Lyle The Handyman in the full-motion video game Sega CD game "Double Switch", a game also starring Corey Haim and Deborah Harry. Ermey lends his voice to several video games, including ' (as General Barnaky) and ' (as Wa-Wa). He also made a cameo in "Real War: Air, Land, Sea", a retail real-time strategy computer game based on the official Joint Chiefs of Staff training game. In the game "Fallout 3", there is a recruitable companion named Sergeant RL-3, a modified military robot with a personality very similar to Ermey (the companion's name is a reference to Ermey's initials wherein the 3 is leetspeak for the letter 'e'). In the "" expansion there is a character named "Lieutenant Emry" that speaks some of Ermey's signature lines from "Full Metal Jacket". Personal life. Ermey married his wife Nila in 1975. They have four children. In Ermey's television show "Lock N' Load with R. Lee Ermey", he refers to his wife as "Mrs. Gunny." Military appearances. On May 17, 2002, he received an honorary post-service promotion to Gunnery Sergeant (E-7) from the Commandant of the Marine Corps General James L. Jones in recognition of his continuing support to Americans in military service, a rank consistent with Ermey's character as Gunnery Sergeant Hartman in "Full Metal Jacket." He has also conducted morale tours visiting United States troops in locations such as Al Kut, Iraq, and Bagram Airfield, Afghanistan, in which he filmed parts for his television show "Mail Call". While at Bagram Airfield he held a USO type show in which he portrayed GySgt Hartman and conducted a comedy routine. He also did the same at Doha, Qatar and Camp Doha, Kuwait City, Kuwait, in 2003. Sponsorship. Ermey is an official spokesman for Black Book, Glock firearms, TRU-SPEC apparel, Tupperware, Victory Motorcycles, Hoover, SOG Specialty Knives, and the Young Marines, and has also appeared in commercials for Coors Light, Dick's Sporting Goods, GEICO and pistachio nuts. He has also provided intro for the PBR. He can also be seen giving a service announcement for Alamo Drafthouse Cinemas, demanding that viewers be quiet during the film. He is a board member for the National Rifle Association. Military honors. After retirement, R. Lee Ermey was also retroactively awarded the Drill Instructor Ribbon due to his prior service as a Marine Corps Recruit Training Instructor as well as the Vietnam Presidential Unit Citation for unit activities during the Vietnam War.
696474	Ramchand Pakistani () is a Pakistani Urdu film that tells a true story about a boy who inadvertently crosses the border between Pakistan and India and the following ordeal that his family has to go through. Synopsis. Nandita Das plays Champa, a Hindu woman who is left desolate when her young son and husband disappear one day from their village at the Pakistan-India border near Nagarparkar, in Tharparkar. Nandita Das is the only non-Pakistani actor in the large cast comprising well-known Pakistani TV and stage personalities including Rashid Farooqi, Noman Ijaz, Maria Wasti, Zhalay Sarhadi, Syed Fazal Ahmed, (who plays the title role) Farooq Pario, Shahood Alvi, Adarsh Ayaz, Salim Mairaj, Tipu, and Navaid Jabbar (no relation to the producer or director). Ramchand crossing of the Pakistan-India border during a period (June 2002) of extreme, war-like tension between the two countries by two members of a Pakistani Hindu family belonging to the 'untouchable' Dalit caste, and the extraordinary consequences of this unintended action upon the lives of a woman, a man, and their son. The singular theme of the film is how a child from Pakistan aged eight years learns to cope with the trauma of forced separation from his mother while being held prisoner, along with his father in the jail of a country i.e. India, which is hostile to his own, while on the other side of the border, the wife-mother, devastated by their sudden disappearance builds a new chapter of her life, by her solitary struggle for sheer survival. Overview. The film was released in Pakistan and India in September 2008. Screenplay by Mohammad Ahmed and produced by Javed Jabbar. The music directors are Debojyoti Mishra, Surya Mitra, Shiraj Ahmed lyrics by Anwar Maqsood and the songs are sung by Shubha Mudgal and Shafqat Amanat Ali. The cinematographer is Sofian Khan, the associate producer is Mariam Mukaty, and the creative consultant is Sonia Rehman Qureshi. Till March 2009, the film has won: Cast. The film has seven songs composed by Debojyoti mishra. Two guest composers were,surya mitra & shiraj hussain
694934	Forever Strong is a sports film directed by Ryan Little and written by David Pliler and released on September 26, 2008. The film stars Sean Faris, Gary Cole, Neal McDonough, Sean Astin, Penn Badgley and Arielle Kebbel. The film is about a troubled rugby union player who must play against the team his father coaches at the national championships. "Forever Strong" is based on a compilation of individual true stories. Plot. Rick Penning (Sean Faris) is a high school rugby player who is the captain of his team in which all of the players only improve via drugs and alcohol. After losing the championship to the Highland Rugby Team, who is also the team's rival, Rick drinks and drives, resulting in a crash that seriously injures his girlfriend, Tami. Thus, he loses his position on the team and is sentenced to a boys' Juvenile Detention Center in Salt Lake City. Feeling bad for him, the center's manager, Marcus (Sean Astin) puts him on the Highland rugby team (much to his chagrin), coached by Larry Gelwix (Gary Cole). He suddenly becomes influenced by brotherhood and manages to cope with his homesickness and death of his first true friend, Kurt (Michael J. Pagan). Soon he finds himself again in the national championships—against his old team, who is coached by his distanced father, Richard Penning (Neal McDonough) and which has labeled him a renegade. Highland wins the tournament again, and Rick reconciles with Richard. Production. The movie was filmed in Salt Lake City beginning in July 2006 at three local high schools. Sean Faris ran six miles twice a day to get in shape for the film. During filming, Faris sprained his ankle, but had the ankle taped, and continued filming. Several All-American rugby players, predominantly from the University of Utah and Brigham Young University, played in the film. Some Highland Rugby alumni and current players also played roles in the film.
1067645	The Burning Plain is a 2008 drama film directed and written by Guillermo Arriaga, the screenwriter of "Amores perros" (2000), "21 Grams" (2003), and "Babel" (2006). The film stars Charlize Theron, Jennifer Lawrence, Kim Basinger and Joaquim de Almeida. In Arriaga's directorial debut, he films a story that has multipart story strands woven together as in his previous screenplays. Filming of "The Burning Plain" began in New Mexico in November 2007, and the film was released in late 2008 in various festivals, before a limited theatrical release in 2009. Plot. "Typical of Arriaga's works, this film is told in a non-linear narrative, where events are revealed out of sequence. The following plot summary is in chronological order, and thus does not reflect the exact sequence of the events as seen on screen." The story starts off some time in the mid-90's in a small New Mexico town near the border of Mexico, where we are introduced to Gina (Kim Basinger), a wife and mother to four children. Gina is having an affair with a local man named Nick Martinez (Joaquim de Almeida), who also has a family of his own, but unbeknownst to the two, Gina's teenage daughter Mariana (Jennifer Lawrence) finds out about their love affair. Mariana follows her mother to Nick's trailer. Knowing the two are inside and in an effort to make them end their affair, she disconnects the gas pipe leading into the trailer and sets it on fire. The flames eventually reach a gas tank, which explodes, consuming the entire trailer and claiming both Nick and Gina's lives, although Mariana had no intention of killing either of them. After their funeral, Mariana and Nick's own teenage son, Santiago (JD Pardo), slowly begin to develop a relationship of their own. Mariana soon becomes aware that she is pregnant with Santiago's daughter. The two flee to Mexico amid disapproval from their families and decide to have the baby there, but after she has delivered their daughter, Mariana abandons her family and changes her name to Sylvia. Over a decade later, Sylvia (now played by Charlize Theron) is working at a high-end restaurant in Portland. Despite her success, she resorts to promiscuity and has persistent thoughts of suicide. Here we see a mysterious man following her around. It is Carlos (Jose Maria Yazpik), a close friend and business-partner of Santiago. After an accident involving their crop-dusting plane, the hospitalized Santiago urges Carlos to look for Sylvia who he's been searching for since she abandoned him and their two-day old daughter. Because Carlos cannot speak English and Sylvia doesn't speak Spanish, he has trouble explaining to her the purpose of his visit. Instead, he surprises Sylvia with her now twelve year old daughter, Maria (Tessa Ia). Maria, who is reluctant to meet her estranged mother, is heartbroken when her mother abruptly leaves again. Sylvia, later realizing her mistake, enlists the help of her friend Laura (Robin Tunney) to search and finally find Carlos and Maria in a motel. After he manages to get through to Maria, they fly to Mexico, where Sylvia apologizes to Maria for the years she's been absent from her life. After a night of rest, they arrive at the hospital to see Santiago, who is still in a coma from the accident. Sylvia confesses her past sins by his bedside, unsure if he will ever wake up again. The doctor reassures them that he will pull through and the story concludes with signs of hope for the family. Production. "The Burning Plain" was written and directed by Guillermo Arriaga in his directorial debut after writing the screenplays for director Alejandro González Iñárritu's films "Amores perros" (2000), "21 Grams" (2003), and "Babel" (2006). Arriaga said that he wanted to write a script for himself to direct after 11 years of scriptwriting. The writer-director described the premise, "There are very intense love stories here that take place in different places and times, with characters trying to find the healing powers of love, forgiveness and redemption." Arriaga wrote the story of "The Burning Plain" to weave together multipart story strands. The film was financed by 2929 Productions, and Constantini Films and The Weinstein Company purchased the rights to distribute "The Burning Plain" in Latin America. The film will have a budget of under $20 million. "The Burning Plain" began filming in New Mexico on November 5, 2007. Other filming took place in Portland and Depoe Bay in Oregon. Release. It was screened at the September 2008 TIFF (Toronto International Film Festival). The film was screened at the 2008 Savannah Film Festival (October 25-November 1). It is an entrant of the international competition of 65th Venice International Film Festival. "The Burning Plain" was released September 18, 2009. Reception. Critical reception. "The Burning Plain" has received generally poor reviews from critics. Rotten Tomatoes reports 34% positive of 73 reviews assessed. Metacritic assigns a "metascore" of 45 (out of 100) based on 18 reviews. Of the most positive reviews, David Gritten writing for "The Daily Telegraph" decided that it "has all the right credentials: it is serious-minded and dramatic, with universal themes and a clutch of fine acting performances." Wendy Ide, writing for "The Times" that it is an "elegantly structured tale of lives laced together with tragedy and guilt." Ide also praised Theron's performance and concluded that it is a "quality production." According to "Time Out", "Arriaga has delivered a compelling and entertaining debut that stays true to his earlier interests." Box office. The film grossed $58,749 in its first weekend in North America. As of November 30, 2009 it has grossed $200,399 domestically and a total of $4,456,346 worldwide.
1720845	Darlanne Fluegel born (November 25, 1953) is an American actress. Fluegel appeared in the TV series "Crime Story" and the final season of "Hunter". She was featured in Sergio Leone's 1984 film "Once Upon a Time in America" as Robert De Niro's girlfriend Eve (credited as "Darlanne Fleugel"), and in 1986's "Tough Guys" as Kirk Douglas' girlfriend. In 1985 she appeared in "To Live And Die In L.A." as Ruth Lanier, the love interest of William Petersen's main character Secret Service Agent Richard Chance. Not long afterward, in early 1986, she portrayed Billy Crystal's ex-wife, Anna, in the hit buddy-cop action comedy "Running Scared".
1502588	Maurice Hines (born December 13, 1943) is an American actor, director, jazz singer and choreographer. Biography. Born in 1943 in New York City, Hines began his career at the age of five, studying tap dance at the Henry LeTang Dance Studio in Manhattan. LeTang recognized his talent and began choreographing numbers specifically for him and his younger brother Gregory, patterned on the Nicholas Brothers. Maurice made his Broadway debut in "The Girl in Pink Tights" in 1954. Shortly after, the brothers began touring as the opening act for such headliners as Lionel Hampton and Gypsy Rose Lee. Their father joined them and "Hines, Hines & Dad" performed on a regular basis in New York, Las Vegas, and throughout Europe and on many television shows, including "The Pearl Bailey Show", "The Hollywood Palace", and "The Tonight Show". Hines decided to pursue a solo career and was cast as Nathan Detroit in the national tour of "Guys and Dolls", after which he returned to Broadway in "Eubie!" (1978). Additional Broadway credits include "Bring Back Birdie" and "Sophisticated Ladies" (both in 1981) as a performer, "Uptown... It's Hot!" (1986) as a performer (earning a Tony Award nomination as Best Actor in a Musical) and choreographer, and "Hot Feet" (2006), which he conceived, choreographed, and directed. Hines co-directed and choreographed the national tour of the Louis Armstrong musical bio "Satchmo" and directed, choreographed, and starred in the national tour of "Harlem Suite" with successive leading ladies Jennifer Holliday, Stephanie Mills, and Melba Moore. He directed and choreographed "Havana Night" in Cuba, an all-Latino production of "The Red Shoes" in the Dominican Republic, and created the revue "Broadway Soul Jam" to inaugurate an entertainment complex in the Netherlands. Hines has directed and choreographed music videos, including one for Quincy Jones. He is the first African American to direct at Radio City Music Hall. Hines' film debut, Francis Ford Coppola's "The Cotton Club", remains his sole big screen credit to date, although he appears in "", scheduled for release in 2007. On television, he appeared in "Eubie!", "Love, Sidney", and "Cosby". Hines played the lead role in Washington, DC's Arena Stage production of the Duke Ellington-inspired musical "Sophisticated Ladies" at the historic Lincoln Theatre in April and May 2010. The "Washington Post" review was positive for his role and the show in general. Hines is currently at work on "Yo Alice", an urban hip-hop fantasy he conceived and will direct and choreograph. In May 2013 he performed a tribute to his late brother Gregory, entitled "Tappin’ Thru Life: An Evening with Maurice Hines", at the Cutler Majestic Theatre, which was reviewed by the "Boston Globe" as "a class act by a class act".
1039581	Dame Enid Diana Elizabeth Rigg, DBE (born 20 July 1938) is an English actress. She played the roles of Emma Peel in "The Avengers" and Countess Teresa di Vicenzo in the 1969 James Bond film "On Her Majesty's Secret Service". She is considered a sex symbol and an icon of 1960s feminism. Biography. Early life and education. Rigg was born in Doncaster, then in the West Riding of Yorkshire, now in South Yorkshire to Louis Rigg (1903–1968) and Beryl Hilda Helliwell (1908–1981); her father was a railway engineer who had been born in Yorkshire. Between the ages of two months and eight years Rigg lived in Bikaner, India, where her father was employed as a railway executive. Rigg speaks fluent Hindi. She was then sent to a boarding school, the Moravian School in Fulneck, near Pudsey. She disliked her boarding school, where she felt like a fish out of water, but she believes that Yorkshire played a greater part in shaping her character than India did. She trained as an actress at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. Theatre career. Rigg's career in film, television and the theatre has been wide-ranging, including roles in the Royal Shakespeare Company between 1959 and 1964. Her professional debut was in "The Caucasian Chalk Circle" in 1955, aged 17. A return to the stage and a nude scene with Keith Michell for "Abelard and Heloise" in 1970 led to a notorious description of her as 'built like a brick basilica with insufficient flying buttresses', by the acerbic critic John Simon. (Simon's line is often rendered incorrectly, with "mausoleum" in place of "basilica."). A member of the National Theatre Company at the Old Vic from 1972 to 1975, Rigg took leading roles in premiere productions of two Tom Stoppard plays, Dorothy Moore in "Jumpers" (National Theatre, 1972) and Ruth Carson in "Night and Day" (Phoenix Theatre, 1978). In 1982, she appeared in a musical called "Colette", based on the life of the French writer and created by Tom Jones and Harvey Schmidt, but it closed during an American tour en route to Broadway. In 1987 she took a leading role in the West End production of Stephen Sondheim's musical "Follies". In the 1990s, she had triumphs with roles at the Almeida Theatre in Islington, including "Medea" in 1992 (which transferred to the Wyndham's Theatre in 1993 and then Broadway in 1994, for which she received the Tony Award for Best Actress), "Mother Courage" at the National Theatre in 1995 and "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" at the Almeida Theatre in 1996 (which transferred to the Aldwych Theatre in 1997). In 2004, she appeared as Violet Venable in Sheffield Theatres' production of Tennessee Williams's play "Suddenly Last Summer", which transferred to the Albery Theatre. In 2006, she appeared at the Wyndham's Theatre in London's West End in a drama entitled "Honour" which had a limited but successful run. In 2007, she appeared as Huma Rojo in the Old Vic's production of "All About My Mother", adapted by Samuel Adamson and based on the film of the same title directed by Pedro Almodóvar. She appeared in 2008 in "The Cherry Orchard" at the Chichester Festival Theatre, returning there in 2009 to star in Noël Coward's "Hay Fever". In 2011 she played Mrs Higgins in "Pygmalion" at the Garrick Theatre, opposite Rupert Everett and Kara Tointon, having played Eliza Dolittle in the same play in 1974. Film and television career. Rigg appeared in the cult British 1960s television series "The Avengers" (1965–67) playing the secret agent Mrs Emma Peel in 51 episodes, replacing Elizabeth Shepherd at very short notice when Shepherd was dropped from the role after filming two episodes. Rigg auditioned for the role of Emma Peel on a whim, without ever having seen the programme. Although she was hugely successful in the series, she disliked the lack of privacy that it brought. She also did not like the way that she was treated by the Associated British Corporation (ABC). After a dozen episodes she discovered that she was being paid less than a cameraman. For her second season she held out for a pay rise from £150 a week to £450, but there was still no question of her staying for a third year. Patrick Macnee, her co-star in the series, noted that Rigg had later told him that she considered Macnee and her driver to be her only friends on the set. On the big screen she became a Bond girl in "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" (1969), playing Tracy Bond, James Bond's only wife. She said she took the role with the hope that she would become well known in America. Throughout the filming of the movie, there were rumours that the experience was not a happy one, owing to a personality clash with Bond actor George Lazenby. The rumors may have arisen from a reporter witnessing her say "I'm having garlic for lunch George, I hope you are!" before a love scene between the two. However, both Rigg and Lazenby have denied the claims, and both wrote off the garlic comment as a joke. Her other films from this period include "The Assassination Bureau" (1969), "The Hospital" (1971), "Theatre of Blood" (1973), "In This House of Brede" (1975) (based on the book by Rumer Godden) and "A Little Night Music" (1977). She appeared as the title character in "The Marquise" (1980), a television adaptation of play by Noël Coward. In 1981 she appeared in a Yorkshire Television production of "Hedda Gabler" in the title role, and as Lady Holiday in the film "The Great Muppet Caper" (1981). The following year she received acclaim for her performance as Arlena Marshall in the film adaptation of Agatha Christie's "Evil Under the Sun". She appeared as Regan, the king's treacherous second daughter, in a Granada Television production of "King Lear" (1983), which starred Laurence Olivier in the title role. She costarred with Denholm Elliot in a television version of Dickens' "Bleak House" (BBC, 1985), and played the Wicked Queen in the Cannon adaptation of "Snow White" (1987). In 1989 she played Helena Vesey in "Mother Love" for the BBC; her portrayal of an obsessive mother who was prepared to do anything, even murder, to keep control of her son won Rigg the 1989 BAFTA for Best Television Actress. In the 1990s she appeared on television as Mrs. Danvers in "Rebecca" (winning an Emmy Award in the process), as well as the PBS production "Moll Flanders", and as the amateur detective Mrs. Bradley in "The Mrs Bradley Mysteries". In this BBC series, first aired in 2000, she played Gladys Mitchell's detective, Dame Beatrice Adela Le Strange Bradley, an eccentric old woman who worked for Scotland Yard as a pathologist. The series was not a critical success and did not return for a second season. From 1989 until 2003, she hosted the PBS television series "Mystery!", taking over from Vincent Price, her co-star from "Theatre of Blood". Her TV career in America has been varied; anomalously she starred in her own sitcom "Diana" in 1973, but it was not successful. She also appeared in the second series of Ricky Gervais's hit comedy "Extras", alongside Harry Potter star Daniel Radcliffe, and in the 2006 film "The Painted Veil". In 2013 she appeared in an episode of "Doctor Who" in a Victorian-era based story called "The Crimson Horror" alongside her daughter Rachael Stirling, Matt Smith and Jenna-Louise Coleman. The episode had been specially written for her and her daughter by Mark Gatiss and aired as part of series 7. That year she also co-starred in the third season of the HBO series "Game of Thrones", portraying Lady Olenna Tyrell, a witty and sarcastic political mastermind popularly known as the Queen of Thorns. Her performance earned her an Emmy nomination for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Drama Series for the 65th Primetime Emmy Awards. Personal life. In the mid-1960's, Rigg lived for eight years with actor/director Philip Saville, causing some degree of scandal in the tabloids when she disclaimed interest in marrying the older, already-married Saville, by saying she had no desire "to be respectable". Her marriage to Menachem Gueffen, an Israeli painter, lasted from 1973 until their divorce in 1976, at which time Saville gave her moral support by phoning every day, while telling the press "when a woman has been in your life a long time, she never really leaves it. I hope to be seeing her often, but I have no plans to marry her." She was married to Archibald Stirling, a theatrical producer and former officer in the Scots Guards, from 1982 until they divorced in 1990. The marriage broke up when Stirling had an affair with actress Joely Richardson. With Stirling, Rigg has a daughter, actress Rachael Stirling, who was born in 1977. Rigg was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 1988 and a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) in 1994. Rigg is a Patron of International Care & Relief and was for many years the public face of the charity's child sponsorship scheme. She was also Chancellor of the University of Stirling, being succeeded by James Naughtie when her ten-year term of office ended on 31 July 2008. Michael Parkinson, who first interviewed Rigg in 1972, described her as the most desirable woman he ever met, who "radiated a lustrous beauty". A smoker from the age of 18, Rigg was still smoking 20 cigarettes a day in 2009 but in 2011 said she had given up smoking because "she had to". She received honorary degrees from the University of Stirling in 1988 and the University of Leeds in 1992. Awards and nominations. Note: Rigg also received a special BAFTA at the 2000 BAFTA TV Awards, along with the other "Avengers" actresses, Honor Blackman, Joanna Lumley and Linda Thorson.
583292	Ashok Saraf (born 4 June 1947) is an Indian actor and comedian. He has appeared in many Hindi and Marathi movies. Since the late 1960s, Ashok Saraf has been known mainly for comedy movies, many of which he appeared in with Laxmikant Berde. Apart from films, Ashok Saraf has also starred in television serials like "Yeh Choti Badi Baatein" and "Hum Paanch (as Anand Mathur)". One of his most memorable roles in Bollywood is that of a comical "Munshiji" in Rakesh Roshan's 1995 action thriller Karan Arjun.
1034820	Geraldine James, OBE (born 6 July 1950) is an English actress. She tied with Peggy Ashcroft for Best Actress at the Venice Film Festival for "She's Been Away" (1989) and was nominated for a Tony Award for Best Lead Actress for her Portia in "The Merchant of Venice" (1990). James has recently played supporting roles in a number of films including "Alice in Wonderland", "Sherlock Holmes" and "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo". She also has been nominated for four Bafta Awards for her television work. Theatre director Peter Hall says Geraldine James ranks amongst the great English classical actresses.
584606	Kattradhu Thamizh (; previously titled is a 2007 Indian Tamil drama film written and directed by newcomer Ram and produced by N. Shivaprasad and Salmara Mohammad Sharief. It stars Jiiva in lead role and newcomer Anjali and Karunas in other major roles. The film was released on 5 October 2007. "Kattradhu Thamizh" is a film about an ordinary young Tamil-postgraduate, who, frustrated with the circumstances and futility of his job, slowly loses his mental balance and becomes a psychopath. The film, though commercially not successful, was critically acclaimed. Plot. Prabhakar (Jiiva) is a Tamil teacher in a private school in west Mambalam area of Chennai, who leads a lonely life in a lodge. He is frustrated and even tries to commit suicide, in a system where knowing your mother's tongue and teaching it is looked down upon by a society craving for material benefits and imbalance in pay structure. Prabhakar, for no fault of his is at the receiving end, terrorized by cops and on the run after killing a railway booking clerk in a fit of rage. He roams all around the country and joins some saadhus, high on pot and also grows his hair long and keeps a shaggy beard. Finally he wants to exorcise the devils within and at gun point kidnaps a television anchor Yuvaan-Suang(Karunas), who records his life story, where he confesses to killing 22 people in cold blood. In the flashback he reveals his past, his upbringing by a Tamil teacher Poobaal (Azhagam Perumal) and his childhood sweet heart Anandhi (Anjali) who later in his life becomes an obsession for him. Production. By mid-2006, Ram an erstwhile assistant of Balu Mahendra began working on his directorial debut, initially being titled as "Tamil M.A.", which was later changed to "Kattradhu Thamizh" to get exempted from the entertainment taxation. Ram told that the film would revolve around a young man, who gets into trouble because of his education, quoting that it would show the "pathetic state of our mother tongue in today's society". He selected Jeeva to essay the lead character in his film, after he had seen "Raam" (2005) and been impressed by the actor's performance, while a newcomer Anupama from Mumbai was tipped to play the lead female character of Anandhi first, however she was later replaced by Anjali, who debuted in Tamil cinema with this film. The film was shot for nearly a year across Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Kerala and Chennai, and gained high anticipation in its finishing stage, mainly due to Jeeva's looks in the promotional stills, and Ram's controversial statements at the film's soundtrack release, who cited that he had killed everyone who had hurt him during earlier days through the screenplay of the film. Jeeva had grown a full length beard for the character and cited the hardships during the shoots of the film, which he considered as his most painful experience and a "torturous affair". He revealed that he even had to undergo therapy to "come out of the character" as it was "too emotional". Ram denied that the film was his autobiography, clarifying that, unlike the protagonist in the film, he went on to work as a media consultant and that the film was an autobiography of a fictional character named Prabhakar. Soundtrack. The soundtrack was composed by noted music composer Yuvan Shankar Raja to the lyrics written by Na. Muthukumar, which was released on 10 September 2007 under the film's previous title, "Tamil MA". It features five tracks, including one sung by his father, Ilaiyaraaja, which was hailed mostly as the pick of the album. Noticeably, the album comprises only solo numbers and doesn't feature any female vocals. Yuvan Shankar Raja won accolades and high praise as the soundtrack received universal critical acclaim and was described as a "musical sensation", a "must-listen for all musical freaks", a "fascinating album" and "a solid and stirring triumph of Yuvan’s composing skills". Critical Reception. The film gained highly positive reviews and met with critical acclaim upon its release. Aspects as direction, writing, performance, music, cinematography and editing were immensely lauded and appreciated and expected to bag a bunch of awards. "Behindwoods" gave the film 4 out of 5, describing it as a "Kurinji flower in Indian cinema", depicting that such a film seldom gets filmed in Indian Cinema and a "must-see film". It praised the direction and the acting and technical department, which were of "higher order", pointing out the cinematographer, S. R. Kadhir's and music composer Yuvan Shankar Raja's work. Concerning the performances, actor Jeeva, it is said, came up with a "performance of his lifetime", while newcomer Anjali was a "delight to watch and spellbinds the viewer with her beautiful fresh look and her performance". Equally impressed was Pavithra Srinivasan of "Rediff", who wrote that "Kattradhu Thamizh" was a "hard-hitting film", while giving it 3.5 out of 5. She praised debutant director Ram and actor Jeeva's performance as Prabhakar, who she says, "leads you through dimensions that are frankly amazing".
582958	Kitne Door Kitne Paas (कित्‍ने दूर कित्‍ने पास) (English: "How Far How Near") is a Hindi film released in 2002. It stars Fardeen Khan and Amrita Arora in the lead roles. Story. Two young Indians, a male named Jatin, and a woman named Karishma, meet on an airplane, who are on their way to India. Jatin is returning home to get married to a woman named Jaya, who has been chosen for him by his mother. Karishma is also returning to India to get married to an Indian named Nimesh. Their paths cross, and despite of the difference in their temperaments, both are attracted to each other. Both would like to get married, but also realize and stand by their commitment to Jaya and Nimesh. Also the parents are against the marriage at first but then Jaya at the wedding explains how one cannot be forced into marriage and she didn't want to get married to Jatin. A fire then starts and Jatin saves Karishma and Nimesh backs out so her father thinks Jatin is better for her and Jatin and Karishma get married at the end.
1105364	Chen Jingrun (, May 22, 1933 – March 19, 1996) was a Chinese mathematician who made significant contributions to number theory. Personal life. Chen was the third son in a large family from Fuzhou, Fujian, China. His father was a postal worker. Chen Jingruen graduated from the Mathematics Department of Xiamen University in 1953. His advisor at Chinese Academy of Sciences was Hua Luogeng. Research. His work on the twin prime conjecture, Waring's problem, Goldbach's conjecture and Legendre's conjecture led to progress in analytic number theory. In a 1966 paper he proved what is now called Chen's theorem: every sufficiently large even number can be written as the sum of a prime and a semiprime (the product of two primes) — e.g., 100 = 23 + 7·11. Commemorations. The Asteroid 7681 Chenjingrun was named after him. In 1999, China issued an 80-cent postage stamp, titled "The Best Result of Goldbach Conjecture," with a silhouette of Chen and the inequality: Several statues in China have been built in memory of Chen. At Xiamen University, the names of Chen and four other mathematicians — Peter Gustav Lejeune Dirichlet, Matti Jutila, Yuri Linnik, and Pan Chengdong — are inscribed in the marble slab behind Chen's statue (see image).
1066495	Roll Bounce is a 2005 American comedy-drama film written by Norman Vance Jr. and directed by Malcolm D. Lee. The film stars hip hop artist Bow Wow as the leader of a roller skating crew in 1970s Chicago. The film also stars Nick Cannon, Meagan Good, Brandon T. Jackson, Wesley Jonathan, Chi McBride, Kellita Smith, and Jurnee Smollett. (The name of the film is derived from the 1979 song "Bounce, Rock, Skate, Roll" by Vaughan Mason & Crew.) Plot. Set in 1978 Chicago, "Roll Bounce" tells the story of a boy named Xavier (Bow Wow) (nicknamed "X") whose mother has passed, leaving him with his father, Curtis (Chi McBride) and his sister, Sonya. After the local roller rink closes down, X and his friends are forced to skate in the ritzy uptown rink "Sweetwater". Tired of being disrespected by the skate rental distributor (Nick Cannon) and other skaters at Sweetwater, the group enters a roller disco contest. Their biggest rivals are the 5-year champion, Sweetness (Wesley Jonathan) and his crew, the Sweetwater Rollers. The film centers on X's training for the competition while trying to work through problems with his father and his pretty childhood friend, Naomi (Meagan Good). In the end, it not only comes down to gaining the respect of others, but also learning to respect themselves and giving roller disco their all. Supporting actors include Marcus T. Paulk, Khleo Thomas, Nick Cannon, Rick Gonzalez, Charlie Murphy, Mike Epps, Brandon T. Jackson, and Wayne Brady. The soundtrack features Ray J, R. Kelly, Chaka Khan, Beyoncé, Earth, Wind & Fire, Brooke Valentine, Fabolous, Michelle Williams, and Shorty Mack. Sequel. Talks of a sequel began in January 2010. In November 2010, Bow Wow said via Twitter that he would love to do a sequel. Principal photography is expected to begin in September 2012, in Atlanta. The plot is said to circle around Bow Wow's move and going to college with Naomi, and running into Sweetness again. The title is tentatively "Roll Bounce 2".
520461	KC Concepcion (born Maria Kristina Cassandra Cuneta Concepcion on April 7, 1985) is an actress and singer from the Philippines who is currently a National Ambassador Against Hunger of the UN's World Food Programme. Biography. Personal life. Concepcion is the daughter of 80's heartthrob Gabby Concepcion and Philippine singer-actress Sharon Cuneta. She was estranged from her father for thirteen years following her parents annulment and his immigration to the United States in 1995. Senator Kiko Pangilinan became her step-father following his marriage to her mother. She graduated Grade school in Poveda. In 2003, she graduated from the International School Manila, and in 2007, graduated with a bachelor's degree in International Corporate Communications with a minor in Theatre Arts from the American University of Paris.
1016237	Love on Delivery (破壞之王; aka. "King of Destruction") is a 1994 Hong Kong comedy film directed by Stephen Chow and Lee Lik-Chi, based on the Japanese manga "HAKAIOU NORITAKA" , starring Stephen Chow, Christy Chung and Ng Man Tat. Plot. Ho-Kam Ang (Stephen Chow), a weak, disadvantaged but kind lunch delivery boy, happens to fall in love with Lily (Christy Chung), the girl of his dreams from a local sports center. However, his dream is crushed after a disastrous date with her, when bullying "Judo" master Black Bear, who also admires Lily, intervenes. That night, in a brutally straightforward fashion, Lily tells Ang that she dislikes weak and pathetic men. After being further humiliated at the sports center by Black Bear, Ang seeks shelter at a convenience shop owned by Tat (Ng Man Tat), an eccentric handicap. Tat promises to teach Ang kung fu to cure him of his weakness and cowardice, in exchange for money. However, Tat, a self-professed "Sanshou" master, is merely a swindler taking advantage of Ang's gullibility, and teaches Ang useless, fantasy kung fu techniques. But to Tat's surprise and annoyance, Ang is intent on being a full-time student. When Ang loses his job and runs out of money, he tells Tat he will follow him for life. Tat attempts to rid of him by persuading him to use a false technique called "The Invincible Wind and Fire Spin," a move that would almost certainly kill or at least seriously injure anyone - which involves holding onto the enemy and rolling down a huge flight of stairs, using the enemy to soften all the blows of the stairs. Ang is considering implementing the move, but decides against it. However, he becomes reassured of this so-called technique when he witnesses Tat himself falling down the stairs and surviving it, though that was an accident. Emboldened, Ang thanks Tat and leaves.
1067418	The Incredible Mr. Limpet is a 1964 American live-action/animated film from Warner Bros. It is about a man named Henry Limpet who turns into a talking fish resembling a tilefish and helps the U.S. Navy locate and destroy Nazi submarines. Don Knotts plays the title character. The live action was directed by Arthur Lubin, while the animation was directed by Robert McKimson, Hawley Pratt, and Gerry Chiniquy. Music includes songs by Sammy Fain, in collaboration with Harold Adamson, including "I Wish I Were a Fish", "Be Careful How You Wish", and "Deep Rapture". Plot. The story begins September 1941 just before the attack on Pearl Harbor. Shy bookkeeper Henry Limpet loves fish with a passion. When his friend George Stickle enlists in the Navy, Limpet attempts to enlist as well, but is rejected. Feeling downcast, he wanders down to a pier near Coney Island and accidentally falls into the water. Inexplicably, he finds he has turned into a fish. Since he never resurfaces, his wife, Bessie, and George assume he has drowned. The fish Limpet, complete with his signature pince-nez spectacles, discovers a new-found ability during some of his initial misadventures, a powerful underwater roar, his "thrum". He falls in love with a female fish he names Ladyfish, and makes friends with a misanthropic hermit crab named Crusty. Still determined to help the Navy, Limpet finds a convoy and requests to see one of his friends, George Stickle. With George's help, Limpet gets himself commissioned by the US Navy, complete with advancing rank and a salary, which he sends to Bessie. He helps the Navy locate Nazi U-boats by signaling with his "thrum", and plays a large part in the Allied victory in the Battle of the Atlantic. In his final mission, he is nearly killed when the Nazis develop a "thrum" seeking torpedo, and is further handicapped by the loss of his spectacles. He manages to survive using Crusty as his "navigator", and sinks a number of U-boats by redirecting the torpedoes. After the battle, he swims to Coney Island to say goodbye to Bessie (who has now fallen in love with George), get a replacement set of glasses and he said to her that he would stay a fish forever and he will somehow revert to his human form and then he swims off with Ladyfish. In the film's coda, set in the modern times of 1964, George (now a high ranking naval officer) and the Admiral are presented with a report that Mr. Limpet is still alive and working with porpoises. The two men travel out to sea to contact Mr. Limpet and offer him a commission in the United States Navy. Home video release. "The Incredible Mr. Limpet" was released by Warner Home Video on VHS on December 3, 1994. It has since seen two additional VHS releases. On October 1, 2002, it was released on DVD. On August 7, 2012, Warner Home Video released the film in high definition on Blu-ray Disc. Film notes. "The Incredible Mr. Limpet" first premiered on March 20, 1964 in Don Knotts hometown at the Warner Theatre in Morgantown, West Virginia. Both Don Knotts and Elizabeth MacRae (Limpet and Ladyfish) were employed in Andy Griffith's Mayberry franchises, respectively as deputy Barney Fife and Lou-Ann Poovie, Gomer Pyle's girlfriend in the later seasons of "Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C.". During World War I and World War II, there was a mine known as a limpet, a type of naval mine attached to a target by magnets named because of their superficial similarity to the limpet, a type of mollusk. "Das Limpet" was the German Navy's identification of Don Knott's character. The USS "Alfred A. Cunningham" was the naval ship featured in this film. Remake. A remake of the film is in development. Knotts was aware of plans for the remake, which he wrote about in his autobiography. At the time, Jim Carrey was up for the role and Knotts offered his support. Director Kevin Lima was attached with Zach Galifianakis in the lead role, but both soon left the project. The attached director at the moment is Richard Linklater.
1165224	June Lockhart (born June 25, 1925) is an American actress, primarily in 1950s and 1960s television, but with memorable performances on stage and in film too. She is remembered as the mother in two TV series, "Lassie" and "Lost in Space". She also portrayed Dr. Janet Craig on the CBS television sitcom "Petticoat Junction" (1968–70). She is a two-time Emmy Award nominee and a Tony Award winner.
1169441	Francis Jameson Parker Jr. (born November 18, 1947) is an American actor, best known for his role of A.J. Simon on the 1980s television series "Simon & Simon". Biography. Parker was born in Baltimore, Maryland, on November 18, 1947. He attended St. Albans School in Washington, D.C., and a Swiss prep school. He studied drama at Beloit College and acted in student theater productions. While living in Washington, D.C., he landed a job with a production of "The Great White Hope" at the Arena Stage and then acted in theatrical productions of "Caligula" and "Indians". After completing his degree at Beloit in 1971, he performed in dinner theater and summer stock in the Washington, D.C., area. In 1972, he moved to New York City, where he secured several television commercials and appeared in off-Broadway plays. He was cast as Dale Robinson in the daytime drama "Somerset". He also created the role of Brad Vernon on "One Life to Live".
1348504	The Cremator () is a 1969 Czechoslovak horror comedy/drama film directed by Juraj Herz, based on a novel by Ladislav Fuks. The screenplay was written by Herz and Fuks. The film was selected as the Czechoslovakian entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 42nd Academy Awards, but was not accepted as a nominee. In 1972, it won the Festival de Cine de Sitges Best Film award, where it also received awards for its star Rudolf Hrušínský and cinematographer Stanislav Milota. The story is set in 1930s Prague, where the cremator Karel Kopfrkingl lives and works. The story combines features from black comedy and horror (comedy horror). It is often recognized as a follower of German Expressionist film and also as an example of the Czechoslovak New Wave. The film was banned after its premiere in 1969, and remained "in the vault" until the collapse of the communist system in Czechoslovakia in 1989. With the score of 90,2% on the Czech and Slovak Movie Database as well as praise from movie critics, The Cremator is considered to be one of the best movies ever made in Czechoslovakia as well as a referential cult film. Plot. The movie takes place against the backdrop of the political radicalization of Europe during the 1930s, more specifically the demise of the golden era of the First Czechoslovak Republic and the establishment of the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia under Nazi Germany. Spiritually, the movie takes place in the aftermath of the death of Thubten Gyatso, the 13th Dalai Lama in 1933. Karl Kopfrkingl works at a crematorium in Prague. Obsessed with his duties, he believes he is not just cremating the dead, but liberating the souls of the departed. With Nazi forces gathering at the Czech border, he descends into a mania that allows him to enact his disturbed beliefs. DVD releases. There are only two editions available to the American market, the Second Run release, released on April 10 2006, which includes an introduction by the Quay brothers and a booklet featuring an essay on the film and the Dark Sky release, released on March 31 2009, which includes no additional features.
587384	Loins of Punjab Presents is a 2007 Indian film directed by Manish Acharya. It stars Shabana Azmi, Ayesha Dharker and Ajay Naidu. The film marked Manish Acharya's first feature film as a director. Plot. A New Jersey town catches Bollywood fever when five Indian-Americans and one Jewish Indophile compete in an amateur "Indian Idol"-style singing contest. "Loins of Punjab Presents" satirizes non-resident Indians and Bollywood fans as they vie for the title of "Desi Idol."
1166321	Neil Richard Flynn (born November 13, 1960) is an American actor and comedian, known for his role as Janitor in the medical comedy-drama "Scrubs". He currently portrays Mike Heck in the ABC sitcom "The Middle". Early life. Flynn was born on the south side of Chicago. He is of Irish descent and was raised Catholic. He moved to Waukegan, Illinois, at an early age. As a student at Waukegan East High School in 1978, he and partner Mike Shklair won an Illinois Individual Events state championship for "Humorous Duet Acting." He attended Bradley University in Peoria, Illinois, where he was a member of Sigma Nu fraternity and participated on the nationally renowned Bradley University Speech Team. After graduating in 1982, Flynn returned to Chicago to pursue an acting career. Career. In Chicago, he acted with the renowned Goodman and Steppenwolf theaters. Flynn was nominated for a Joseph Jefferson Award (Actor in a Principal Role, for "The Ballad of the Sad Cafe", 1986). He also performed at the Improv Olympic and the Second City Comedy Troupe. For "Scrubs", Flynn auditioned for the role of Dr. Cox but was given the role of Janitor instead. Flynn was originally only cast for the first episode ("My First Day") but was so popular he became a regular, playing a character known only as the Janitor who devotes much of his energies to menacing young Dr. John "J.D." Dorian. Although his role on "Scrubs" had been to that point the most visible, he had other small roles in a variety of different TV shows and movies, including "That '70s Show", "Baby's Day Out", "", "My Boys", "Seinfeld", and "Smallville". In "The Fugitive", he plays a Chicago police officer who is killed by the one-armed man, Frederick Sykes (Andreas Katsulas) while he is fighting Dr. Richard Kimble (Harrison Ford), an excuse used by corrupt Chicago Police Department detectives to hunt Ford's character. This role was used in a subplot of the "Scrubs" episode "My Friend the Doctor" when J.D. (Zach Braff) notices Flynn's character in the film, and believes that Flynn's Janitor character is the actor in the film. In 2008, he worked with Harrison Ford again, playing a suspicious law enforcement official as FBI agent Smith in "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull". Flynn also appeared briefly in the 2009 box office bomb "All About Steve", which featured Sandra Bullock. Flynn had a minor role in "Mean Girls" as the father of Lindsay Lohan's character. He then played the part of an anonymous police officer in '; this scene was cut out of the final version of the film, though it can be viewed in the straight to DVD spin-off film ', and in the deleted scenes of the "Anchorman" DVD. He had a minor role in "Major League" as a longshoreman and fan of the Cleveland Indians. Flynn had a role on Phil Hendrie's animated pilot that was not picked up by FOX. He was also the first baseman in the movie "Rookie of the Year". Flynn once appeared in an episode of "The Drew Carey Show", playing the fake husband of future "Scrubs" co-star Christa Miller. He appeared on an episode of "Seinfeld", playing a police officer. He has also done voice acting for the animated series "Buzz Lightyear of Star Command", though he is better known for voicing the popular characters Skidd McMarx and the Plumber in the first three "Ratchet & Clank" games for the PlayStation 2. He also was the voice of a fashion policeman in "Kim Possible". He filmed a pilot called "The Middle". In case it wasn't picked up he signed a second position one-year deal for "Scrubs" season nine. "The Middle" was picked up, although he did guest star in the season 9 premiere of "Scrubs". Neil Flynn played as "Max Flush" on the FOX TV show Bob's Burgers in episode "O.T. the Outside Toilet". Beer Shark Mice. Neil Flynn performs regularly with his improv group Beer Shark Mice. The cast includes veteran comedians: Mike Coleman, Pat Finn, Pete Hulne, David Koechner and Paul Vaillancourt. For years, Beer Shark Mice has been performing to sold out houses at the iO West theatre in Los Angeles. Voted Chicago Improv Festival’s Ensemble of the Year and considered one of the best long-form improvisational groups in the country, the cast boasts an impressive list of credits, both collectively and individually, including "Scrubs, Anchorman, Seinfeld, American Body Shop, How High, My Boys, Ed, Mean Girls, Thank You for Smoking, Saturday Night Live", among many others.
1059968	A Mighty Wind is a 2003 American mockumentary comedy-drama film about a folk music reunion concert in which three folk bands must reunite for a television performance for the first time in decades. The film was directed, co-written and composed by Christopher Guest. The film is thought to reference the 2003 tribute concert to folk music producer Harold Leventhal that reunited several of the folk groups that Leventhal had managed. Guest co-stars and reunites his company of actors from previous films such as "This Is Spinal Tap", "Waiting for Guffman", and "Best in Show" for this film. They include Eugene Levy, Catherine O'Hara, Michael McKean, Harry Shearer, Fred Willard, Bob Balaban, Ed Begley, Jr., Jennifer Coolidge, Paul Dooley, John Michael Higgins, Michael Hitchcock, Rachael Harris, Don Lake, Jane Lynch, Larry Miller, Jim Piddock, Deborah Theaker, and Parker Posey. Several characters in the film originated in a sketch written by Guest for Saturday Night Live in 1984. A song composed for the film by McKean and wife Annette O'Toole was nominated for an Academy Award. Every song featured in the film (at least 13) was also written by the cast or Guest's long-term musical collaborator C J Vanston. Plot. When influential folk music producer Irving Steinbloom dies, his children organize a memorial concert featuring his three most famous acts: The Folksmen, The New Main Street Singers, and Mitch & Mickey. The Folksmen trio consists of Mark Shubb (Harry Shearer), Alan Barrows (Christopher Guest), and Jerry Palter (Michael McKean). Their most famous folk song was "Old Joe's Place."
589215	Pagla Kahin Ka was a 1970 Hindi film directed by Shakti Samanta . It starred Shammi Kapoor, Asha Parekh, Helen, and Prem Chopra. All four had earlier starred in the huge hit "Teesri Manzil" (1966). Film's music is by Shankar Jaikishan. Plot. Sujit (Shammi Kapoor) started having mental problems when he was six years after visiting his dad, Ajit, at a mental asylum. Thereafter he kept on getting into trouble, and even ran away from the orphanage. Years later, a musician and singer, Shyam (Prem Chopra), finds Sujit singing on the roadside, and decides to hire him as a singer in a nightclub. This is where Sujit meets dancer, Jenny (Helen), and both fall in love with each other. When they announce their plans to get married, the news does not augur well with the nightclub's owner, Max. An argument ensues, Max draws a gun, and Shyam ends up killing Max. Sujit decides to take the blame, is arrested by the police. In order to escape the gallows, he feigns insanity, and is ordered to be admitted in a mental asylum until he recovers. In the asylum, he is placed under the compassionate care of Dr. Shalini (Asha Parekh) and about a year later is discharged. He returns to the nightclub just in time to for Jenny's and Shyam's engagement party. Baffled, confused, and angered at this betrayal, he really does go insane and ends up being re-admitted in the very same asylum. But this time his chances of recovery are very slim as he has retreated deep into the inner recesses of his mind - from where he may never return. Even though, Helen does her usual cabaret dance number in this film, it still contains one of her most dramatic roles, as she plays a rape victim. Reception. The film wasn't a box office hit. Leading lady Asha Parekh said audiences didn't want to see Shammi Kapoor play a madman. Nevertheless, the film remains one of her personal favorites, calling it a "beautiful film." Her co-star Helen also holds a special place in her heart for the film, since she called it a "very nice film." Director Shakti Samanta liked Asha Parekh's performance so much that he soon cast her again in Kati Patang (1970), which became a hit, and which won Asha Filmfare Best Actress Award.
586046	Happy Husbands is a 2010 Malayalam comedy film directed by Saji Surendran and starring Jayaram, Jayasurya, Indrajith, Samvrutha Sunil, Bhavana, Rima Kallingal, Vandana Menon, and Suraj Venjaramoodu. The film was declared as blockbuster hit of 2010. The film is a credited remake of the 2002 Tamil film Charlie Chaplin. Plot summary. Mukundan Menon (Jayaram) runs a magazine called "Kerala Today". He is a normal husband who loves his wife Krishnendu (Bhavana) a lot, but she is too possessive about him. She thinks he is not very expressive about his feelings, and is always worried that he might one day fall for some other beautiful girl. John Mathai (Jayasurya) is a photographer in Mukundan's publication. He was neither interested in girls nor keen to get married until he met Sereena (Vandana). Rahul (Indrajith) is just the opposite. He is extremely romantic and never comes home without some cute gifts for his wife, Shreya (Samvrutha Sunil). But she doesn't know that, behind her back, her darling husband is dying to flirt with every woman that he sees. It is into the lives of these three couples that a bar singer, Diana (Rima Kallingal), arrives and things take some interesting turns. Diana is seeking to take revenge on Mukundan Menon since it was on his article in Kerala Today that the Maharashtra court took as a petition and then banned the bar girls in Maharasthra thus ruining Diana's profession. Diana forcibly comes to Mukundan Menon's house one day with her evil intentions and that catches the eyes of Krishnendu. To escape from trouble, Mukundan Menon says that she is the wife of John. Later, when John, Mukundan and Rahul were talking about John's marriage proposal to Serena's dad, Diana comes there by accident and there Rahul says that she is Mukundan's wife and she is mentally imbalanced. So now Krishnendu and Shreya thinks Diana is John's wife and John's real wife Serneena believes that Diana is Mukundan's wife. At one time, all these people come together at Malaysia for a vacation and that leads to a lot of confusion among the wives and others. What happens next forms the rest of the story. Music. The soundtrack for this film was composed by M. Jayachandran. Criminal case for copyright infringement. For the first time in the Malayalam film industry, a criminal case was filed under the Copyright Act, 1957, against the alleged copying of the script of the Hindi film, 'No Entry', frame to frame. In the criminal case filed before the Judicial First class Magistrate's Court in Trivandrum, the producer, director, writer and artists Jayaram, Jayasurya, Bhavana, Reema Kallungal, and Samwrutha Sunil are the accused. The artists, according to the complainant are offenders for abetting the crime. The Court has, as on March 23, 2012, taken the complaint to the file and is proceeding with it. The complainant, it is learnt, alleges that the script of the movie is a scene by scene blind copy of the Hindi movie. The alleged offence, if proved, would attract a minimum sentence of six months that may go up to two years and fine, as provided under the Copyright Act. Controversy. Jayaram courted controversy during a promotional interview for the movie by describing a domestic help as a "dark, fat, buffalo-like Tamil woman", following which various organisations and activists demanded an unconditional apology from him. Jayaram said this when he was asked whether his wife doubts him in the way Jayaram's character was doubted by his wife in the movie. Jayaram's house in Chennai was attacked by Tamil activists and the actor deeply regretted his comments. Reception and box office. Upon release, the film went to become a biggest commercial success of 2010 and successfully completed 150 days.
402675	Nicole Camille Richie (born Nicole Camille Escovedo; September 21, 1981) is an American fashion designer, author, actress and television personality. Richie rose to prominence for her role in the Fox reality television series, "The Simple Life", alongside her childhood best friend and fellow socialite Paris Hilton, which lasted five seasons. The Simple Life was a massive hit for the Fox network, premiering with 13 million viewers, and brought Richie and Hilton to international recognition. Richie's personal life attracted significant media attention during "The Simple Life's" five-year run and she was a constant fixture of tabloid journalism before and after her appearance. Afterwards she turned her focus on other projects including charity work and environmental issues. Richie is married to musician Joel Madden and they have two children. Richie and Madden founded "The Richie Madden Children's Foundation" in 2010. Richie has starred as one of the three mentors on NBC's "Fashion Star". Early life. Nicole Richie was born in Berkeley, California. Her biological father is Peter Michael Escovedo, a musician who played for a brief time with Lionel Richie, and her biological mother Karen was the executive assistant for her aunt Sheila E. At the age of three, her parents agreed to let her move in with Lionel Richie and Brenda Harvey because they could not afford to provide for her financially. "My parents were friends with Lionel," she told "People" in 2003. "They trusted that they would be better able to provide for me." Initially, Lionel Richie became her guardian. Richie was legally adopted by Lionel and Brenda when she was nine years old. Shortly after the adoption was formalized, Lionel's affair with another woman became public knowledge. Lionel and Brenda went through a bitter, public split. As a result, they indulged Nicole's every whim. "Their way of making me happy was to say yes to everything I wanted, but I don't think a little girl should have that much freedom," said Richie in an interview with "Vanity Fair". Following the divorce, Lionel remarried and gave Nicole two younger siblings: Myles (b. 1994) and Sofia (b. 1998). Richie has one godmother, Nancy Davis, daughter of Marvin Davis and mother of Brandon Davis. Michael Jackson was Richie's godfather. Quincy Jones said in a "People" magazine interview that he has "known Nicole Richie since she was a baby. She's a very smart girl". Richie graduated from Montclair College Preparatory School in 1999 and then attended the University of Arizona alongside Kourtney Kardashian and Luke Walton, where she studied Arts and Media. Richie did not have a definitive study plan in Arizona, and eventually dropped out after two years and returned to California. Career. Television. In 2003, Richie and her then best friend Paris Hilton starred in the reality series "The Simple Life", in which they lived for a month with a family in the rural community of Altus, Arkansas. The series premiere debuted on Fox on December 2, 2003, to thirteen million viewers, increasing Fox's Adults 18–49 rating to 79%. The series continued for a second and third season, and Richie achieved superstardom for her out-spoken, comedic persona. The show was subsequently cancelled by Fox after a dispute between Hilton and Richie, but it was subsequently aired by E! Entertainment Television for the fourth season, which was a hit for E!, drawing nearly one million viewers and a relatively unsuccessful fifth season. More complications arose during the production of a fifth season. Both Richie and Hilton faced major charges for DUI, and were at risk of serving jail time. Hilton was sentenced to 23 days in jail, though this was after production of the season had finished. Richie accepted a plea agreement and was sentenced to four days in jail, again after production had wrapped. Despite talks of a sixth season, the series finished its run at the end of the moderately unsuccessful fifth season. In 2005, Richie made her acting debut in the comedic drama "Kids in America". Richie has guest starred in television series including "Eve", "Six Feet Under" and "American Dreams", "8 Simple Rules for Dating My Teenage Daughter", and playing the recurring character Heather Chandler on "Chuck". In July 2008, plans were announced to turn Richie's 2005 novel, "The Truth About Diamonds", into a television series. On January 1, 2010, it was announced that Richie would appear as a guest judge on "Project Runway". Writing. In 2005, Richie wrote a semi-autobiographical novel, "The Truth About Diamonds", which was released by Bharell Jackson Publishing. The novel is loosely based on her life, but is mostly fictional. It chronicles the life of Chloe Parker, the adopted daughter of a singer who makes her way through all of the popular nightclubs and parties in Hollywood while battling a drug addiction. In early January 2006, "The Truth About Diamonds" peaked at number No. 32 in Hardcover Fiction on "The New York Times" Best-Seller List. Richie's second novel, "Priceless", was released on September 28, 2010. It tells the story of a girl who loses everything and then learns about what really matters in life. Fashion. Richie's own personal style has become popular among fans and fashion critics and has led to her status as a fashion impresario and icon. She has been the face of Bongo Jeans and Jimmy Choo advertising campaigns. In April 2007, Richie announced plans to start a jewelry, accessories, and sunglasses line along with a perfume and style book. In October 2008, she debuted a jewelry line, "House of Harlow 1960". The line became available at Kitson's online boutique. In Spring 2010, the line was extended to include apparel and shoes. In 2009, Richie joined maternity store A Pea in the Pod to create the new collection maternity clothes. The line was titled "Nicole" which had pieces that she would wear as an expectant mother. In February 2010, Richie expanded her fashion business with a women's line called Winter Kate, her daughter's two middle names. The collection was inspired by timeless prints and shapes, beautiful paisley and florals. In 2010, she won "Entrepreneur of the Year" for her "House of Harlow 1960" brand at the Glamour Women of the Year Awards. "House of Harlow 1960" was also nominated in the category "Celebrity Fashion Line" at the 2010 Teen Choice Awards. In July 2011, it was reported that Richie's "House of Harlow 1960" line has unveiled a 14-piece handbag collection. The House of Harlow 1960 handbag collection will be available at Bergdorf Goodman, Neiman Marcus, Nordstrom and Shopbop.com. In July 2011, it was announced that Richie would be one of the three mentors in NBC's new reality show "Fashion Star" alongside Jessica Simpson. Richie guided aspiring designers who hope to become the next big brand in fashion. She launched a collection for Macy's Impulse in September 2012, which was sold in 100 Macy's stores as well as online. Her first fragrance, Nicole, was also launched in September 2012. Music. Richie made her musical debut in February 2005 with a live appearance on ABC's "The View" playing the piano. Although widely speculated that Richie is working on an album, she denied the rumors to "People". She was quoted as saying, "I do eventually to record an album, but right now I have a lot on my plate". In February 2010, Richie was featured on the charity single "We Are the World 25 for Haiti". "I was four years old in a studio, watching my dad record "We Are the World" and today I get to do it again. Excited to help make a change," she later said of the experience. In 2004, she auditioned for the part of Maureen in the popular Broadway hit, "Rent", but did not get the part. In 2008, she was offered the lead role in the musical "Chicago" as Roxie Hart. In September 2013, Richie made a cameo appearance in Christina Aguilera's music video "Let There Be Love". Personal life. Family and relationships. In April 2005, reports surfaced that Richie and longtime friend Paris Hilton were no longer speaking. Hilton commented: "It's no big secret that Nicole and I are no longer friends. Nicole knows what she did, and that's all I'm ever going to say about it." Neither Richie nor Hilton spoke publicly about the cause of the split, though it was speculated that the pair fell out due to Nicole showing one of Paris' homemade sex tapes to a group of their friends. They eventually reconciled in October 2006. She dated DJ Adam Goldstein from 2003 to 2005, but broke up after a nine-month engagement. Richie was also briefly linked to childhood friend Brody Jenner of MTV's "The Hills". Richie began dating Good Charlotte lead singer Joel Madden in December 2006. They have two children, daughter Harlow Winter Kate Madden (born 2008) and son Sparrow James Midnight Madden (born 2009). The couple confirmed their engagement in February 2010, and married on December 11, 2010. In February 2008, the first photos of Harlow were sold to "People", who paid $1 million. Health. In early 2006, Richie was notably thinner compared to her previous appearance in the first two seasons of "The Simple Life". In May she told "Vanity Fair", "I know I'm too thin right now, so I wouldn't want any young girl looking at me and saying, 'That's what I want to look like.'" She also said, "I started seeing a nutritionist and a doctor. I was scared that it could be something more serious." During this time it was reported that she had also sought the help of a psychiatrist and a personal trainer. Later that year, in September, Richie stated "I am not anorexic. I am not bulimic. I do not have an eating disorder." On October 27, 2006, it was announced that Richie was seeking treatment for "an inability to put on weight," though it is not treatment for an eating disorder. In March 2007, Richie was taken to the hospital for dehydration. On March 21, her representatives announced she was diagnosed with hypoglycemia. Legal issues. On December 11, 2006, Richie was arrested by the California Highway Patrol after she failed a field sobriety test. She was charged with driving under the influence on State Route 134 in the Burbank/Glendale, California area. Several motorists had reported a black Mercedes-Benz G-Class entering the freeway on the exit ramp and travelling in the opposite traffic direction. She admitted to using marijuana and the narcotic Vicodin before the incident. On July 27, 2007, Richie was sentenced to four days in jail at the Century Regional Detention Center in Lynwood, California. However, she only served about 82 minutes of the sentence and was released at 16:37 PDT on August 23, 2007. A spokeswoman for the sheriff's department told "People" magazine that Richie "was released early due to overcrowding in the jail system. This is standard procedure for nonviolent offenders." After spending 82 minutes in jail, Richie was "Of course pleasantly surprised to be released so quickly," said her attorney. Richie enrolled in an 18-month anti-drinking driver education program, according to papers filed with the Superior Court of California. On June 22, her probation was extended one year to March 2011 because she missed her anti-drinking driving class. However, Richie's probation was terminated early on December 29, 2010 after her lawyer presented details to the judge that Richie had completed all terms of her probation. Charity. In November 2007, Richie and partner Joel Madden created "The Richie Madden Children's Foundation". Richie, Joel and Benji Madden along with UNICEF held a fundraiser for the Tap Project in March 2009. They sold 143 water pumps to bring water directly to the villages and raised $100,000. Esprit donated 10% of all the sales on April 2, 2009 at their newly opened 3rd Street Promenade store to The Richie-Madden Children's Foundation. The Richie-Madden Foundation specially designed "Cup with a Cause" for 7-Eleven. It was a part of their charity-focused coffee campaign in February 2010. During 2010 the Foundation worked together with "Beyond Shelter", a non-profit organization devoted to providing shelter for homeless families in Los Angeles. In May 2008, Richie and Madden shot a UNICEF public-service announcement to generate aid for the cyclone-devastated Myanmar.
566997	In a Better World (, "the revenge") is a 2010 Danish drama thriller film written by Anders Thomas Jensen and directed by Susanne Bier. The film stars Mikael Persbrandt, Trine Dyrholm, and Ulrich Thomsen in a story which takes place in small-town Denmark and a refugee camp in Africa. A Danish majority production with co-producers in Sweden, "In a Better World" won the 2011 Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Language Film as well as the award for Best Foreign Language Film at the 83rd Academy Awards. Plot. Anton (Mikael Persbrandt) is a Swedish doctor who commutes between his home in Denmark and his work in a Sudanese refugee camp. In Sudan, he often treats female patients who are the victims of a sadistic warlord. Anton is married to Marianne (Trine Dyrholm), but they are separated, and struggling with the possibility of divorce over an affair that Anton had with another woman. They have two young sons, the older one being 12-year-old Elias (Markus Rygaard). Christian (William Jøhnk Juels Nielsen), who has just moved from London with his father, Claus (Ulrich Thomsen), is a new boy at Elias' school. Christian's mother recently died from cancer, and Christian blames his father for lying to him that she would get well, and that, in a late stage of her disease, he "wanted" her to die. Elias is bullied at school, until he is defended by Christian, who assaults the main bully and threatens him with a knife. Christian gives Elias the knife, and both boys lie to the police, and their parents, about the incident.
1059381	The Bad News Bears is a 1976 comedy film directed by Michael Ritchie. It stars Walter Matthau and Tatum O'Neal. The film was followed by two sequels, "The Bad News Bears in Breaking Training" in 1977 and "The Bad News Bears Go to Japan" in 1978, a short-lived 1979–80 CBS television series, and a 2005 remake titled "Bad News Bears".
1066690	Baise-moi ("") is a 2000 French thriller film written and co-directed by Virginie Despentes and Coralie Trinh Thi and starring Karen Lancaume and Raffaëla Anderson. It is based on the homonymous novel by Despentes, first published in 1999. The film received intense media coverage because of its graphic mix of violence and explicit sex scenes. Consequently, it is sometimes considered an example of the "New French Extremity". "Baiser" is a French verb meaning "to fuck"; it also means "a kiss" when used as a noun ("un baiser"). "Baise-moi" would be translated as "Fuck me". The film has also been screened in some markets as "Rape me", but this translation, which is not in the French word, was rejected by the directors in a 2002 interview. In 2000, The Film Censorship Board of Malaysia banned the film outright due to "very high impact violence and sexual content throughout". That same year, the film was later banned in Singapore due to "its depictions of sexual violence may cause controversy in Singapore". In Australia, the film was allowed to be shown at cinemas with an R18+ (adults only) rating. Then in 2002, the film was pulled from cinemas and television and after that, banned outright. The film is still banned there due to its "harmful, explicit sexually violent content", and was re-banned in 2013. However, an edited R18+ version was screened on 23 August 2013 on the World Movies channel of the Australian state broadcaster SBS, as part of the World Movies "Films That Shocked The World" season. Plot. "Baise-moi" tells the story of Nadine (played by Karen Lancaume) and Manu (Raffaëla Anderson) who go on a violent spree against a society in which they feel marginalised. Nadine is a part-time prostitute, and Manu is a slacker who does anything—including occasional porn film acting—to get by in her small town in southern France. One day Manu and her friend, a drug addict, are accosted in the park by three men, who take them to garage and gang-rape them. While her friend struggles, screams, and fights against the rapists, Manu lies still with a detached look, which troubles the man raping her, who soon gives up. As her friend asks Manu how she could act so detached, she replies that she "can't prevent anyone from penetrating her pussy", so she didn't let anything precious in there. Manu then returns to her brother's house, and does not tell him what has happened, but he realises after noticing bruises on her neck. He gets out a gun and asks Manu who was responsible, but when Manu refuses to tell him, he calls her a "slut" and implies that she actually enjoyed being raped. In response, Manu picks up his discarded pistol and shoots him in the head. Meanwhile, Nadine returns home and has an argument with her roommate, whom she strangles and kills, before leaving with their rent money. Nadine suffers another emotional setback when she meets her best friend, a drug dealer, in another town, but he is shot and killed while out obtaining drugs with a prescription she forged for him. Later that night, having missed the last train, Nadine meets Manu at the railway station. Manu says she has a car, if Nadine will drive for her. They soon realise that they share common feelings of anger, and embark on a violent and sexually charged road trip together. In need of money they hold up a convenience store, and also kill a woman at an ATM. Finally, after a spree of murder and sexual activity, the two women enter a swingers' club and kill everyone there. The pair discuss what they have done, and agree that it has all been pointless because nothing has changed within them. During their spree their crimes are reported by the press, and become a point of fascination for the entire country, with some people actually supporting them, and others in fear. When Manu enters a roadside tire store to get some coffee, she is shot by the store owner, who is then shot by Nadine outside. Nadine takes Manu's body to a forest and burns it, before driving to a beach. With tears in her eyes, Nadine puts the gun to her head, intending to commit suicide, but gets arrested by the police before she can do so. Production. The film was filmed on location between October and December 1999 in Biarritz, Bordeaux, Lyon and Marseille. It was shot on digital video without artificial lighting. This low budget method of filming divided critics—some said it gave the film an amateurish look. Lou Lumenick, reviewing the film in the "New York Post", went further and said it "looked like hell". Others, such as James Travers writing for filmsdefrance.com, said the filming method added something to the film. Travers wrote "the film's 'rough and ready' feel helps to strengthen its artistic vision and draws out the messages which it is trying to get across, without distracting its audience with overly choreographed 'shock scenes'." Release. The movie was co-directed by actress Coralie Trinh Thi whose previous work was in unambiguously pornographic movies. The two lead roles were also played by porn actresses, while porn actor Ian Scott appeared in the film as one of the rapists. Perhaps in part due to this, the film was criticised as thinly veiled pornography by some sections of the media. "Le Monde", for instance, called it a "sick film". "Time" magazine bucked the trend by saying: "Virginie Despentes and Coralie Trinh Thi's festival sensation is stark, serious and original. And as one of the amoral avengers, Raffaela Anderson has true star quality – part seraph, all slut." The co-directors rejected the pornography charge: Trinh Thi said in an interview with the "Sunday Times" that "This movie is not for masturbation, it is not porn." Despentes agreed, saying their film "was not erotic". In its home country, the film was initially released with a 16 rating, given by a ministerial commission. The rating caused outrage, particularly amongst members of the right-wing "Promouvoir" religious group, which is strongly associated with the Mouvement National Républicain. Some groups litigated against the classification decision, arguing that the film should be X-rated given its high content of realistic sex and extreme violence, both of which are grounds for X classification in France; the Conseil d'État ruled its classification illegal, removing it from the theater circuit. As the first film to be banned in France for 28 years, it became something of a "cause célèbre"—with one anti-censorship campaigner calling the ban "totalitarian state censorship". The Conseil later re-classified the film with an X certificate, a category usually reserved for mainstream pornographic movies. Minister for Culture Catherine Tasca ended the debate by re-introducing an 18 certificate, allowing the film to be re-released in mainstream theatres. In Australia, the movie was initially passed for viewing at the highest possible R18 rating in a 6-5 vote by the country's Classification Board in October 2001. However the Attorney-General invoked his powers under the 1995 Classification Act to have the board's decision reviewed. The Classification Review Board (a separate entity to the Classification Board) ruled that the film contains "explicit, offensive and graphic depictions of sexual violence, assault and violence with an impact that is very, very high" and "dangerous to the community" in May 2002 resulting in the film being awarding a "Refused Classification" rating meaning that the film is banned. It was later revealed that 50,000 people had seen the film prior to banning but according to Des Clark, director of the Office of Film and Literature Classification, just "one or two" of those had complained about the film. Most complainants, he explained, had not seen the film. The film's verdict by the review board was not successfully appealed. The film was also re-banned in August 2013, despite an edited screening of the film airing on the pay World Movies channel later the same month. In Canada, the film was banned in Ontario, initially because it was deemed too pornographic. The producers asked for it to be re-rated with a pornographic rating, only for it to be banned because there was too much violence for a pornographic film. A second review in 2001 passed the film with an R rating, due in part to complaints by such notable Canadian filmmakers as Atom Egoyan and Denys Arcand. In Quebec, the film was considered to be a moderate success for an independent release, taking in approximately $250,000 CAD in the first two months of its run. It did, however, provoke a violent reaction from one Montreal moviegoer, who broke into the projection booth and stole the print, ending the screening. In the United Kingdom, the film was released with an 18 certificate for its 2001 cinema release after ten seconds of cuts. The cut was to a scene that showed a close-up shot of a penis entering a vagina during a rape scene that the Board ruled eroticised sexual assault. The film received an 18 certificate on video in 2002 after a further twelve seconds of cuts to a scene showing a gun being pressed into a man's anus prior to being fired. Even with these cuts, the film represents a watershed in what content is allowed at the 18 rating—films with the R18 higher rating can only be sold in licensed sex shops. The film was one of the very first to show an erect penis, and the first to combine it with scenes of violence. London Underground banned the display of the film's advertising poster because of fears that its title would offend French-speakers using its network. In 2013, the film was passed uncut with the 18 certificate intact. In the United States, the film was marketed under the names "Kiss Me" and "Rape Me" and released without a classification from the Motion Picture Association of America. It screened only at a small number of cinemas (almost all of them in arthouse cinemas in the major cities). The film took just $70,000 in receipts from its American release and there was a marked lack of controversy as compared to other countries. The movie also performed quite poorly in Germany. Although it was released in its unedited version it didn't cause much of a controversy in the media. It received an R18 rating in cinemas in New Zealand, and was banned from video release there, following an injunction filed by the Society for the Promotion of Community Standards. The film was banned completely in Ireland, although it was shown in arthouse club cinemas which can screen unclassified films. Two minutes and 35 seconds of cuts were required before the film received a certificate in Hong Kong. In Finland, the film was rated K18 (Forbidden for under 18). An uncut version was shown in both cinemas and on TV. Although the film's release in Bulgaria was otherwise uncontroversial, a programme conducted an experiment in which two 14-year-olds were sent to buy tickets for it. The teenagers successfully made the purchase and even entered the cinema, but left after the opening credits. Rather than discussing the film itself, the programme focused on the lack of control cinema owners and staff—as well as the authorities—exercised over minors visiting adult films in the country. The cinema in question later pulled the film off its schedule, following the report's first airing. In Mexico, the film was shown uncut in mainstream theaters, with a "C" (18+) rating, with a warning because of its sexual and violent content, but it did not attract much controversy in the media. It was also aired several times uncut on cable television.
68926	Harold Scott MacDonald "Donald" Coxeter, FRS, FRSC, (February 9, 1907 – March 31, 2003) was a British-born Canadian geometer. Coxeter is regarded as one of the greatest geometers of the 20th century. He was born in London but spent most of his life in Canada. Biography. In his youth, Coxeter composed music and was an accomplished pianist at the age of 10. He felt that mathematics and music were intimately related, outlining his ideas in a 1962 article on "Mathematics and Music" in the "Canadian Music Journal". He worked for 60 years at the University of Toronto and published twelve books. He was most noted for his work on regular polytopes and higher-dimensional geometries. He was a champion of the classical approach to geometry, in a period when the tendency was to approach geometry more and more via algebra. Coxeter went up to Trinity College, Cambridge in 1926 to read mathematics. There he earned his BA (as Senior Wrangler) in 1928, and his doctorate in 1931. In 1932 he went to Princeton University for a year as a Rockefeller Fellow, where he worked with Hermann Weyl, Oswald Veblen, and Solomon Lefschetz. Returning to Trinity for a year, he attended Ludwig Wittgenstein's seminars on the philosophy of mathematics. In 1934 he spent a further year at Princeton as a Procter Fellow. In 1936 Coxeter moved to the University of Toronto, becoming a professor in 1948. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada in 1948 and a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1950. He met Maurits Escher and his work on geometric figures helped inspire some of Escher's works, particularly the "Circle Limit" series based on hyperbolic tessellations. He also inspired some of the innovations of Buckminster Fuller. Coxeter, M. S. Longuet-Higgins and J. C. P. Miller were the first to publish the full list of uniform polyhedra (1954). Since 1978, the Canadian Mathematical Society have awarded the Coxeter–James Prize in his honor. In 1990, he became a Foreign Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 1997 he received Sylvester Medal from the Royal Society and was made a Companion of the Order of Canada.
1072246	Plot. Tetsuo Okita (Ken Takakura) is a former businessman who lost his manufacturing company to bankruptcy and separated from his wife and son a year earlier. Desperate to make ends meet and start over, he collaborates with activist Masaru Koga (Kei Yamamoto) and his former employee Hiroshi Ōshiro (Akira Oda) in an elaborate plot to extort money from the government. "Hikari 109" is a high-speed Bullet Train carrying 1,500 passengers from Tokyo to Hakata. Shortly after "Hikari 109"s departure, railway security head Miyashita (Fumio Watanabe) is notified by Okita that a bomb has been planted aboard the train, and it will explode if the train slows down below 80 km/h. As proof of the bomb's efficiency, Okita tells Miyashita that a similar bomb has been placed on freight train 5790 bound from Yūbari to Oiwake. When freight train 5790 indeed explodes, "Hikari 109"s conductor Aoki (Sonny Chiba) is informed by Shinkansen director Kuramochi (Ken Utsui) not to slow down the train below 120 km/h while the security personnel aboard the train search for the bomb - thus delaying the trip to Hakata by three hours. Police officials back in Tokyo are tasked to either find the bomber or the bomb first. Back aboard "Hikari 109", passengers start becoming weary and demand for the train to stop when security does a second search. For the duration of the journey, Kuramochi must coordinate with Aoki on timing the train's speed and position to avoid incoming traffic while keeping it safe from the speed-sensitive detonator. Okita calls the National Railway authorities again; this time, he demands US$5 million in an aluminum suitcase in exchange for the safety of "Hikari 109"s passengers. As the Prime Minister prepares the ransom, police find their first lead when a cigarette pack containing fingerprints of Koga are found at Yūbari station prior to freight train 5790's departure. Meanwhile, passengers aboard "Hikari 109" start to panic when the train passes through Nagoya, with a pregnant passenger named Kazuko Hirao (Miyako Tasaka) going into labor. As a means of settling down the passengers, co-engineer Kikuchi (Raita Ryū) tells them of the bomb on board. National Railway officials are in further disdain when they realize that the bomb is attached to one of the train's wheels. Okita once more calls the officials and tells them to send the money northbound via helicopter and land at Yorii High School. Officer Senda (Yoshihiro Aoki), who carries the suitcase, is then instructed to cross the Arakawa River; upon reaching Iwate, the suitcase is roped and pulled up a cliff by Ōshiro. However, Ōshiro is forced to drop the case and retreat when police yell at a university judo team jogging nearby of his presence. Fleeing via motorcycle, Ōshiro finds himself tailed by several squad cars until he collides with one and is killed after hitting a light post. The passengers once again panic when a businessman threatens to pull the emergency door latch open as the train passes through Osaka; they are further exacerbated when they hear of Ōshiro's death on the radio. Meanwhile, police locate Koga, but fail to arrest him, despite wounding him during the chase. Koga limps back into Okita's hideout to have his gunshot wound tended. Okita ponders on giving up his mission, as he has failed to prevent any bloodshed, but Koga convinces him to carry on. As police trace the bomb parts to Okita's former company in Shimura, Okita makes another phone call and tells Miyashita to drop the money at an abandoned truck by the Kanda motorway in 10 minutes. After the police do as instructed, Okita takes the suitcase and makes his getaway. Back aboard the train, Kazuko loses her baby in a miscarriage and is in need of a blood transfusion. Okita then calls Miyashita and tells him to pick up a diagram of the bomb at Sun Plaza cafe in Shinbashi. Unfortunately, the cafe is destroyed in a fire by the time police arrive. When the police surround Okita's hideout, Koga blows himself up with a stick of dynamite rather than turn himself in. With no other options left, Kuramochi goes on television to make an appeal for Okita to help them disable the bomb. On the train, Shinji Fujio (Eiji Gō), a former accomplice of Okita being escorted after his arrest, reveals that Okita is on his way out of Japan using a false name. With the help of high-speed cameras, the Shinkansen authorities manage to locate the bomb underneath the second coach. Kuramochi relays the information to Aoki and sends a rescue train to provide welding equipment to cut an access hole where the bomb is. Aoki succeeds in defusing the bomb, but the authorities suspect a second bomb located elsewhere underneath the train. Despite this, the government gives the order to stop the train. Aoki manages to stop "Hikari 109" without incident. As Kuramochi leaves the main control room to regain his composure, he discovers that his appeal is still being broadcast on TV. Miyashita explains that this is part of the police's trap for Okita. Overwhelmed by the pressure of the day's situation, Kuramochi resigns from his position. Meanwhile, at Haneda Airport, Okita prepares to board his flight, but his cover is blown when his ex-wife Yasuko Tomita (Masayo Utsunomiya) and son Kenichi spot him. He is shot dead while attempting to escape outside the airport. Release. The U.S. version of the film was shortened to 115 minutes, with the antagonists' backstory scenes removed. The edited version of "The Bullet Train" was bundled with "" and "Virus" in the "Sonny Chiba Action Pack" Region 1 DVD set by BCI Eclipse in 2006.
1039829	Sharon Small (born 1 January 1967) is a Scottish actress acclaimed for her dramatic work in film, radio, theatre, and television. Her best-known TV role is that of Detective Sergeant Barbara Havers in the BBC television adaptation of the "Inspector Lynley Mysteries" by Elizabeth George. Education and personal life. Small was born in the Drumchapel district of Glasgow in 1967, the eldest of five children. She attended Kinghorn Primary School where she was the Kinghorn Gala Queen in her final year. She then attended Balwearie High School in Kirkcaldy, though she did not take part in any of the school musicals because she was too shy. Small went on to complete a drama course at what is now Adam Smith College in Kirkcaldy, whose graduates include actors Ewan McGregor and Dougray Scott. After moving to London, Small studied drama at the Mountview Academy of Theatre Arts, where she graduated in 1989. Career. Theatre. Small has appeared in 35 plays to date, her credits include;
1247679	Roy Rogers, born Leonard Franklin Slye (November 5, 1911 – July 6, 1998), was an American singer and cowboy actor, one of the most heavily marketed and merchandised stars of his era, as well as being the namesake of the Roy Rogers Restaurants franchised chain. He and his wife Dale Evans, his golden palomino, Trigger, and his German Shepherd dog, Bullet, were featured in more than 100 movies and "The Roy Rogers Show". The show ran on radio for nine years before moving to television from 1951 through 1957. His productions usually featured a sidekick, often either Pat Brady (who drove a Jeep called "Nellybelle"), Andy Devine, or the crotchety George "Gabby" Hayes. Rogers's nickname was "King of the Cowboys" and Evans's nickname was "Queen of the West". Biography. Early life. Slye was born to Andrew ("Andy") and Mattie (Womack) Slye in Cincinnati, Ohio, where his family lived in a tenement building on 2nd Street (Riverfront Stadium was constructed at this location in 1970 and Slye would later joke that he had been born at second base). Dissatisfied with his job and city life, Andy Slye and his brother Will built a 12-by-50-foot houseboat from salvage lumber, and, in July 1912, the Slye family traveled up the Ohio River towards Portsmouth, Ohio. Desiring a more stable existence in Portsmouth, the Slyes purchased land on which to build a home, but the flood of 1913 allowed them to move the houseboat to their property and continue living in it on dry land. In 1919, the Slyes purchased a farm in Duck Run, located near Lucasville, Ohio about 12 miles north of Portsmouth. There they built a six-room home. Slye's father soon realized that the farm alone would provide insufficient income for his family, so he took a job at a shoe factory in Portsmouth. He lived there during the week and returned home on the weekends, bearing gifts for the family following paydays. One notable gift was a horse on which Slye learned the basics of horsemanship. After completing the eighth grade, Slye attended high school in McDermott, Ohio. When he was 17, his family returned to Cincinnati, where his father began work at another shoe factory. He soon decided on the necessity to help his family financially, so he quit high school, joined his father at the shoe factory, and began attending night school. After being ridiculed for falling asleep in class, however, he quit school and never returned. Slye and his father felt imprisoned by their factory jobs. In 1929, his older sister, Mary, moved to Lawndale, California with her husband. Father and son decided to quit their shoe factory jobs. The family packed their 1923 Dodge for a visit with Mary and stayed four months before returning to Ohio. Almost immediately afterward, Slye had the opportunity to travel to California with Mary's father-in-law, and the rest of the family followed in the spring of 1930. The Slyes rented a small house near Mary. Slye and his father immediately found employment as truck drivers for a highway construction project. They reported to work one morning, however, to learn their employer had gone bankrupt. The economic hardship of the Great Depression had followed them west, and the Slyes soon found themselves among the economic refugees traveling from job to job picking fruit and living in worker campsites (Leonard would later read John Steinbeck's "The Grapes of Wrath" and marvel at its accuracy). One day, Andy Slye was told of a shoe factory hiring in Los Angeles and asked Leonard to join him in applying there for work. Leonard, having seen the joy that his guitar and singing had brought to the destitute around the campfires, hesitantly told his father that he was going to pursue a living in music. With his father's blessing, he and cousin Stanley Slye went to Los Angeles and sought musical engagements as the Slye Brothers. In 1932, a palomino colt was foaled in California named "Golden Cloud", and later renamed "Trigger" in 1938 after he was acquired by Len. Len then went on tour with the "O-Bar-O Cowboys" and in June 1933 met Grace Arline Wilkins at a Roswell, New Mexico radio station. She traded Len a lemon pie for his singing "Swiss Yodel" over the air. Then in 1934, having corresponded since their first meeting, Len and Grace Arline Wilkins were married in Roswell, New Mexico, on June 11, 1936. In 1941, the couple adopted a girl, Cheryl Darlene. Two years later, Arline bore a daughter, Linda Lou. Rogers and Arline had a son, Roy Jr. ("Dusty") in 1946, but Arline died of complications from the birth a few days afterward on November 3. Rogers had met Dale Evans in 1944 when she was cast in a film with Rogers. Following Arline's death, Rogers and Evans soon fell in love, and Rogers proposed to her during a rodeo at Chicago Stadium. They married on New Year's Eve in 1947 at the Flying L Ranch in Davis, Oklahoma, where a few months earlier they had filmed "Home in Oklahoma". Rogers and Evans remained married until Rogers's death in 1998. Career. Slye moved to California to become a singer. After four years of little success, he formed the Sons of the Pioneers with Bob Nolan and Tim Spencer, a Western cowboy music group, in 1934. The group hit it big with songs like "Cool Water" and "Tumbling Tumbleweeds". From his first film appearance in 1935, he worked steadily in western films, including a large supporting role as a singing cowboy while still billed as "Leonard Slye" in a Gene Autry movie. In 1938, when Autry temporarily walked out on his movie contract, Slye was immediately rechristened "Roy Rogers". Slye's stage name was suggested by Republic Picture's staff after Will Rogers and the shortening of Leroy. and assigned the lead in "Under Western Stars". Rogers became a matinee idol and American legend. A competitor for Gene Autry as the nation's favorite singing cowboy was suddenly born. In addition to his own movies, Rogers played a supporting role in the John Wayne classic "Dark Command" (1940). Rogers became a major box office attraction. In the "Motion Picture Herald" Top Ten Money-Making Western Stars poll, Rogers was listed for 15 consecutive years from 1939 to 1954, holding first place from 1943 to 1954. He appeared in the similar "Box Office" poll from 1938 to 1955, holding first place from 1943 to 1952. (In the final three years of that poll he was second only to Randolph Scott.) Although these two polls are really an indication only of the popularity of series stars, Rogers also appeared in the "Top Ten Money Makers Poll" of all films in 1945 and 1946. Rogers was an idol for many children through his films and television shows. Most of his postwar films were in Trucolor during an era when almost all other B westerns were black-and-white. Some of his movies would segue into animal adventures, in which Rogers's horse Trigger would go off on his own for a while, with the camera following him. With money from not only Rogers' films but his own public appearances going to Republic Pictures, Rogers brought a clause into a 1940 contract with the studio where he would have the right to his likeness, voice and name for merchandising. There were Roy Rogers action figures, cowboy adventure novels, and playsets, as well as a comic strip, a long-lived Dell Comics comic book series ("Roy Rogers Comics") written by Gaylord Du Bois, and a variety of marketing successes. Roy Rogers was second only to Walt Disney in the amount of items featuring his name. The Sons of the Pioneers continued their popularity, and they have never stopped performing from the time Rogers started the group, replacing members as they retired or passed away (all original members are deceased). Although Rogers was no longer an active member, they often appeared as Rogers' backup group in films, radio, and television, and Rogers would occasionally appear with them in performances up until his death. In August 1950, Evans and Rogers had a daughter, Robin Elizabeth, who had Down Syndrome and died of complications with mumps shortly before her second birthday. Evans wrote about losing their daughter in her book "Angel Unaware". Rogers and Evans were also well known as advocates for adoption and as founders and operators of children's charities. They adopted several children. Both were outspoken Christians. In Apple Valley, California, where they made their home, numerous streets and highways as well as civic buildings have been named after them in recognition of their efforts on behalf of homeless and handicapped children. Rogers was an active Freemason and a Shriner, and was noted for his support of their charities. Rogers and Evans's famous theme song, "Happy Trails", was written by Evans; they sang it as a duet to sign off their television show. In the fall of 1962, the couple co-hosted a comedy-western-variety program, "The Roy Rogers and Dale Evans Show," aired on ABC. It was cancelled after three months, losing in the ratings to "The Jackie Gleason Show" on CBS. He also made numerous cameo or guest appearances on other popular television shows, starring as himself or other cowboy-type characters, such as in an episode of "Wonder Woman" called "The Bushwackers". Rogers also owned a Hollywood production company which handled his own series. It also filmed other undertakings, including the 1955-1956 CBS western series "Brave Eagle" starring Keith Larsen as a young peaceful Cheyenne chief, Kim Winona as Morning Star, his romantic interest, and the Hopi Indian Anthony Numkena as Keena, Brave Eagle's foster son. In 1968, Rogers licensed his name to the Marriott corporation, which converted its Hot Shoppes locations to Roy Rogers Restaurants, with which Rogers otherwise had no involvement. Rogers owned a Thoroughbred racehorse named Triggairo, who won 13 career races including the 1975 El Encino Stakes at Santa Anita Park. Death. When Rogers died of congestive heart failure on July 6, 1998, he was residing in Apple Valley, California. He was interred at Sunset Hills Cemetery in Apple Valley, as was his wife, Dale Evans, three years later. Homages and influence. For his contribution to the motion picture industry, Rogers has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 1752 Vine Street, a second star at 1733 Vine Street for his contribution to radio, and a third star at 1620 Vine Street for his contribution to the television industry. Rogers and Evans were inducted into the Western Performers Hall of Fame at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, in 1976 and Rogers was inducted again as a member of the Sons of the Pioneers in 1995. Rogers was also twice elected to the Country Music Hall of Fame, first as a member of The Sons of the Pioneers in 1980 and as a soloist in 1988. To this day, he remains the only person elected to the Country Music Hall of Fame twice. In 2001, a Golden Palm Star on the Palm Springs, California, Walk of Stars was dedicated to him and Dale Evans. Rogers was mentioned in the Lyle Lovett single "If I Had A Boat", Elton John's 1973 album "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road" contained the escapist ballad "Roy Rogers", and Toby Keith's "Should've Been A Cowboy". In the 1988 film "Die Hard", the Bruce Willis character John McClane used the "nom de guerre" of "Roy", saying "I was always kinda partial to Roy Rogers actually". "American Dad" character Roger uses "Roy Rogers" as a pseudonym in the episode "Roy Rogers McFreely". Roy Rogers and Dale Evans are mentioned in the song "Lets Ride Into The Sunset Together" performed by the Lost Weekend Western Swing Band. This song appears in the video game Fallout: New Vegas. Roy Rogers himself makes an appearance in the music video for the song "Heroes and Friends" by Randy Travis.
585759	Summer in Bethlehem (Malayalam: സമ്മര്‍ ഇന്‍ ബെത്ലെഹേം) is a 1998 Malayalam film written by Ranjith and directed by Sibi Malayil. It stars Suresh Gopi, Jayaram, and Manju Warrier in the lead roles with a cameo appearance by Mohanlal. The music was composed by Vidyasagar. The film was shot among the forest hills and farms of Ooty (Ootacamund). It tells the story of Ravishankar (Jayaram), the bumbling friend of a successful landowner Dennis (Suresh Gopi), and the vacation visit by Ravishankar's relatives in Dennis's estate known as Bethlehem Estates in Chandragiri. Plot. Ravishankar (Jayaram), an unsuccessful investor, stays with Dennis (Suresh Gopi), his friend who is a big success in farming business. Dennis owns a vast farmland named Bethlehem, and hundreds of cows, in a valley. Ravi is a fun-loving, jovial chap, who has fabricated stories of his success to his parents and relatives.
1059579	Victor Joseph Garber (born March 16, 1949) is a Canadian film, stage and television actor and singer. Garber is known for playing Jesus in "Godspell", John Wilkes Booth in "Assassins", Jack Bristow in the television series "Alias", Max in "Lend Me a Tenor", Thomas Andrews in James Cameron's "Titanic", and as Canadian ambassador to Iran, Ken Taylor, in "Argo". Early life. Born in London, Ontario, Garber is of Russian Jewish descent; his parents were Joe Garber (died 1995), and wife, Hope Wolf (an actress, singer, and the host of "At Home with Hope Garber"). He has a brother, Nathan, and a sister, Alisa. When Garber was twelve, he was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes. He attended Ryerson Elementary School. He also was enrolled in the children's program of the Grand Theatre, and at age 16 he was accepted at a six-week summer theatre training program at the University of Toronto taught by Robert Gill. Career. Garber began acting at the age of nine, and studied at the University of Toronto's Hart House at age 16. In 1967, after a period working as a folk singer, he formed a folk band called The Sugar Shoppe with Peter Mann, Laurie Hood and Lee Harris. The group enjoyed moderate success, breaking into the Canadian top 40 with a version of Bobby Gimby's song "Canada" in 1967. Three other Sugar Shoppe songs made the lower reaches of the Canadian top 100 in 1967 and '68, and the band even performed on "The Ed Sullivan Show" and "The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson" before breaking up. He has worked in various American and Canadian films and television, including James Cameron's "Titanic" (1997), in which he used a Northern Irish accent to play the shipbuilder Thomas Andrews, and CTV's "E.N.G." (1991–1993), on which he had a recurring guest role. Other well-known appearances include "Godspell" (Canadian stage version, 1972, and film version, 1973) as Jesus, "Sleepless in Seattle" (1993), "Annie" (1999), "Legally Blonde" (2001), and "Tuck Everlasting" (2002). He is most well known for his portrayal of Jack Bristow on ABC's show, "Alias", for which he earned three Emmy nominations. He recently appeared on the now-canceled television series "Justice" on Fox and ABC's "Eli Stone". His most recent TV appearance is as a mysterious character named "Olivier Roth" in 4 episodes of the Canadian science drama "ReGenesis". He appeared in the third episode of the Fox series "Glee" as Will's father. He appeared on Broadway in the original productions of "Deathtrap", "Sweeney Todd" and "Noises Off", and in the original Off Broadway cast of "Assassins", as well as the 1990s revival of "Damn Yankees". He has been nominated for four Tony awards and opened the Tony Awards program in 1994 (the year he was nominated for the Tony Award for "Damn Yankees"). In 1998, he co-starred on Broadway in the Tony Award-winning play "Art" with Alan Alda and Alfred Molina. He continues to be a sought-after theatrical performer in musicals, comedies and dramatic productions. In 2005, he played the role of Frederic in the LA Opera's production of Sondheim's "A Little Night Music". He played the male lead in a critically hailed Encores presentation of "Follies" in 2007, with Donna Murphy. In mid-2007, he played the role of Garry Essendine in a production of Noel Coward's "Present Laughter" at Boston's Huntington Theatre. He reprised the role in the Roundabout Theatre's New York production which opened in January 2010 to generally favorable reviews. In 2009, Garber took on the role of the DC Comics super villain Sinestro in the direct-to-video animated film, "". The same year Garber played a Klingon interrogator in J. J. Abrams' "Star Trek" film; however, his scenes were deleted from the finished film. In June 2010, due to an RTÉ production error, a picture of Victor Garber was accidentally used in an opinion poll on RTÉ News. The production team mistook the actor as Enda Kenny, the leader of Fine Gael, at that time the main opposition party in Ireland. RTÉ immediately apologized to both men for the mistake. Garber did not comment on the incident. Recently, Garber had an uncredited cameo in "The Town" as a bank manager. The film was directed by "Alias" co-star Jennifer Garner's husband, Ben Affleck. In late 2012, he appeared in Affleck's film "Argo", about the Iranian hostage crisis; Garber portrayed Canadian ambassador Kenneth D. Taylor. In December 2010, for their annual birthday celebration to "The Master", "The Noel Coward Society" invited Garber as the guest celebrity to lay flowers in front of Coward's statue at New York's "Gershwin Theatre", thereby commemorating the 111th birthday of Sir Noel. Personal life. Garber prefers to keep his personal life private and has largely stayed out of the tabloids, except for an incident in 2008 when he revealed that his "Alias" co-star, Jennifer Garner, was pregnant. "I thought everybody knew," he explained. Garber referred publicly to his homosexuality in 2012. In 2013, he said "I don't really talk about it but everybody knows." As of 2013, he lives in New York with his partner of almost 13 years, Rainer Andreesen.
643237	Frederick Phillips Brooks, Jr. (born April 19, 1931) is a software engineer and computer scientist, best known for managing the development of IBM's System/360 family of computers and the OS/360 software support package, then later writing candidly about the process in his seminal book "The Mythical Man-Month". Brooks has received many awards, including the National Medal of Technology in 1985 and the Turing Award in 1999. Education. Born in Durham, North Carolina, he attended Duke University, graduating in 1953 with a Bachelor of Science degree in Physics, and he received a Ph.D. in Applied Mathematics (Computer Science) from Harvard University in 1956, supervised by Howard Aiken. Career. Brooks joined IBM in 1956, working in Poughkeepsie, New York and Yorktown, New York. He worked on the architecture of the IBM 7030 Stretch, a $10m scientific supercomputer of which nine were sold, and the IBM 7950 Harvest computer for the National Security Agency. Subsequently, he became manager for the development of the System/360 family of computers and the OS/360 software package. During this time he coined the term computer architecture. It was in "The Mythical Man-Month" that Brooks made the now-famous statement: "Adding manpower to a late software project makes it later." This has since come to be known as the "Brooks's law". In addition to "The Mythical Man-Month", Brooks is also known for the paper "No Silver Bullet — Essence and Accident in Software Engineering". In 1964, Brooks founded the Department of Computer Science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and chaired it for 20 years. he was still engaged in active research there, primarily in virtual environments and scientific visualization. In a 2010 interview by Kevin Kelly for an article in Wired Magazine, Brooks was asked "What do you consider your greatest technological achievement?" Brooks responded "The most important single decision I ever made was to change the IBM 360 series from a 6-bit byte to an 8-bit byte, thereby enabling the use of lowercase letters. That change propagated everywhere." A "20th anniversary" edition of "The Mythical Man-Month" with four additional chapters was published in 1995. In January 2005 he gave the IEE/BCS annual Turing Lecture in London on the subject of "Collaboration and Telecollaboration in Design". In 1994 he was inducted as a Fellow of the Association for Computing Machinery. As well as "The Mythical Man-Month" Brooks has authored or co-authored many books and peer reviewed papers including "Automatic Data Processing", No Silver Bullet, "Computer Architecture", and "The Design of Design". Personal life. Brooks is an evangelical Christian who is active with InterVarsity Christian Fellowship. Service and memberships. He has served on a number of US national boards and committees. Awards. In chronological order:
1166994	Keri Lynn Pratt (born September 23, 1978) is an American actress of film and television. She is well known for her role of Missy Belknap on "Jack & Bobby" and as Dee Vine in the film "Drive Me Crazy", which was her debut role. Personal life. Pratt, who was born in Derry, New Hampshire, graduated from Pinkerton Academy in Derry. She married John Barneson in October 2011, at the Hampstead Congregational Church, in Hampstead, New Hampshire. Career. Pratt was a student at the Hampstead Dance Academy, and after graduation began her career at the Broadway Dance Center. She was Miss New Hampshire Teen USA 1994 and competed in the Miss Teen USA 1994 pageant. She has guest starred on such series as ', "ER", "House", "Bones", "Veronica Mars", ', "Nip/Tuck", "7th Heaven", "That 70's Show", and "Sabrina, the Teenage Witch". In 2006 she appeared in four episodes of the ABC show "Brothers & Sisters", as an intern to Calista Flockhart and Josh Hopkins's characters. In July 2008, Pratt was cast as Kristy in the 2009 film "I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell". In 2010 she appeared as Cat Grant in the 10th season of "Smallville".
1051402	Dante 01 is a science fiction film by French director Marc Caro. It is the first solo directing effort by Caro, who is known for his directing collaborations with Jean-Pierre Jeunet. The film was released in 2008. Plot. Deep in space, above a fiery prison planet named Dante, Dante 01, a scientific space station orbits the planet. Its inhabitants include two security guards, two scientists and six prisoners whose crimes were so severe that they volunteered to live under experimentation rather than face death penalties. One day, a shuttle arrives with a new scientist named Elisa. Her passenger is a man of unknown origins, who wakes up severely disoriented, unable to speak, and often falls into blank stares at what he sees as a bright, shimmering light. He seems to be aware of his surroundings, though, but is unable — or unwilling — to interact with them for the most part. He is introduced to the prisoners: their leader César, his right hand man Lazare, the large Moloch, the socially reclusive Bouddha, Raspoutine, a religious man who believes in repentance with God and the only one who sides with Saint George in the beginning, and Attila, a computer hacker. Raspoutine claims that the new one was sent by God to save the lot of them, calling him "Saint George, the Dragonslayer", because of a tattoo "George" has. Elisa and the station's head researcher, Perséphone, are at odds over their research methods. Meanwhile, the arrival prompts the station's commander Charon to work with Attila in hacking into Elisa's files and finding out what she is really there for. Much to Attila's horror, her experiments authorize her to kill all of them for the sake of the research. Meanwhile, Bouddha's self-righteous killing pattern takes effect when he sees George in great pain, and attempts to strangle him in order to alleviate his suffering. This leads to infighting amongst the other prisoners, and the wardens use gas to knock them out. Bouddha becomes Elisa's first experiment. She injects him with nanotechnology and returns him to the prison hold. Bouddha's own unbearable pain from the nanites bonding with his DNA summons George, who is somehow able to remove them from him (George is seen removing some kind of abstract energy creature from Bouddha and eating it; he does the same later with Moloch and César) and Bouddha becomes well again. Bouddha then becomes as convinced as Raspoutine that Saint George is a miracle worker and befriends him, swearing to protect George. Moloch attempts to attack George. In the fight, Moloch pulls a knife, and Raspoutine's struggle with him causes Moloch to accidentally slit his own throat. Gas pours in to knock the group out, but not before George runs over to assist Moloch. The prison guards discover, to their amazement, that Moloch has no wound on his throat, and is alive and well, although unconscious. On their way out they inject César with the nanotechnology as they did for Bouddha and depart. Perséphone's assumption that George is a miracle worker is scoffed at by Elisa, but Moloch's doubts prompt César to await an impending usurping of his authority, and he plots to get rid of George. However, César's sudden bouts of pain and illness from the nanotechnology render him unable to take care of George himself, and Lazare and Moloch are sent in his stead. Meanwhile, Charon is contacted by Attila and learns that Attila has locked all of the main computer systems in an attempt to resist their eventual sacrifice. While Bouddha and Raspoutine are distracted, George is attacked by Lazare, and stabbed several times in the chest and abdomen. During experiments on George's corpse, Perséphone has doubts about Elisa's methods, but she is overruled by Elisa and Charon. Before Elisa can continue with her experiments, George, who is supposedly dead, wakes up completely healed, grabs Elisa and uses her as a hostage to reach the prison quarters before releasing her. César is in severe pain from the nanomachines, and George cures him. Attila appears and tells the others of his plans to destroy them all out of spite, by making the space station crash into Dante. Objecting to this, the prisoners subdue Attila while George attempts to cure him, but Attila manages to break free and runs away. César and his crew attempt to catch Attila; they eventually find him, only to see that he has hanged himself. With Attila dead, their plans for stopping the station's decaying orbit require the scientific personnel and the prisoners to work together, since the mechanism necessary to stop the decaying orbit is located under a trapdoor below the prisoner's quarters. The prisoners agree, and while Charon and Perséphone lead the security to the prisoner's area, they leave Elisa alone to man the controls. As the station inhabitants work to open the hatch to the manual control unit, the gas goes off, knocking out the lot of them. Elisa preps and attempts to escape via shuttle, but Lazare, who had to hold his breath during gas emission, forces her into letting him escape with her. As the others awaken, one of the guards goes to check on the shuttle, and finds that as part of his meddling, Attila had also locked the shuttle controls — as a result, Elisa and Lazare are killed when the shuttle crash lands on the planet below. Opening the panel, the group finds that the hatch to the override room is filled to the top with boiling water. César realizes he is the only one who can properly fit into the little space, and is wrapped in some protective fabrics, covered with cold water and jumps in. He loses his protective goggles on the short trip, and emerges on the other side horribly burned and dies in the compartment before entering the six digit code necessary to reset the control computer. Though dead, he indirectly managed to enable their escape from the planet's orbit.
1103106	Vladimir Voevodsky (, born 4 June 1966) is a Russian mathematician. His work in developing a homotopy theory for algebraic varieties and formulating motivic cohomology led to the award of a Fields Medal in 2002. Biography. Vladimir Voevodsky's father, Aleksandr Voevodsky, was head of the Laboratory of High Energy Leptons in the Institute for Nuclear Research at the Russian Academy of Sciences. His mother is a chemist. Voevodsky attended Moscow State University and received his Ph.D. in mathematics from Harvard University in 1992, advised by David Kazhdan. Currently he is a full professor at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey. Work. Voevodsky's work is in the intersection of algebraic geometry with algebraic topology. Along with Fabien Morel, Voevodsky introduced a homotopy theory for schemes. He also formulated what is now believed to be the correct form of motivic cohomology, and used this new tool to prove Milnor's conjecture relating the Milnor K-theory of a field to its étale cohomology. For the above, he received the Fields Medal, together with Laurent Lafforgue, at the 24th International Congress of Mathematicians held in Beijing, China. He is coauthor (with Andrei Suslin and Eric M. Friedlander) of "Cycles, Transfers and Motivic Homology Theories", which develops the theory of motivic cohomology in some detail. In January 2009, at an IHES anniversary conference for Alexander Grothendieck, Voevodsky announced a proof of the full Bloch-Kato conjectures. He has recently been involved in the Homotopy type theory project.
1189023	Danielle Polanco (born October 26, 1985) is an American dancer and choreographer. She is best known for being the leading lady in Omarion's music video Touch and for starring in the 2008 movie "Step Up 2 the Streets", in which she portrayed Missy Serrano.
1375769	Jayne Eastwood (born December 17, 1946), also credited as Jane Easton or Jane Eastwood, is a Canadian actress who is most famous for appearing in the 2002 film Chicago. She was one of the original cast members of the Toronto branch of The Second City, and was a semi-regular on "SCTV". She was also in the original Toronto production of "Godspell". In 2005, she joined the cast of the CBC TV series "This Is Wonderland", a courtroom comedy-drama. In 2007, she played Miss Wimsey, a teacher in the movie "Hairspray". She is currently working in the Toronto theatrical production, "Women Fully Clothed." Eastwood was born and raised in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, where she attended Northern Secondary School. She is married to David Flaherty, a brother of SCTV alumnus Joe Flaherty. She has been a voice actor in "My Pet Monster", "Birdz", "Committed", "Little Bear", "Tales from the Cryptkeeper", "The Busy World of Richard Scarry", "Bob and Margaret", "Rupert", "Babar", "Freaky Stories", "Atomic Betty", "The Care Bears", "Roboroach", "The Berenstain Bears", "Free Willy", "Knights of Zodiac", "Anatole", "Bad Dog", "Monster by Mistake", "The Neverending Story", "Ned's Newt", "Pippi Longstocking", "Storm Hawks", "Redwall", "Bob & Doug", "For Better or For Worse" and "Babar and the Adventures of Badou".
1058079	Amber Evangeline Valletta (born February 9, 1974) is an American actress and model. She began her career as a model for fashion agencies, and appeared on cover pages of internationally recognized magazines. She made her film debut in "Drop Back Ten" (2000). She then starred in the hit film "Hitch" (2005). She has since appeared in films such as "Man About Town" (2006), "Dead Silence" (2007), "Gamer" (2009), and "The Spy Next Door" (2010). She's also known for her role as Lydia Davis on the ABC television drama series "Revenge". Early life. Valletta was born in Phoenix, Arizona and raised in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Her mother worked at the post office. She attended Booker T. Washington High School. She got her start in the fashion industry when her mother enrolled her in modeling school at the age of fifteen at the Linda Layman Agency. She appeared on the cover of magazines and in advertisements for Louis Vuitton, Calvin Klein and Versace and hosted MTV's "House of Style" with fellow model and friend Shalom Harlow. Career. She was presented on the November 1999 Millennium cover of American "Vogue" as one of the "Modern Muses". Valletta's first role was in the comedy film "Drop Back Ten" (2000); Later that year, she played a supporting role in the thriller film "What Lies Beneath". The film was directed by Robert Zemeckis and starring Harrison Ford and Michelle Pfeiffer. She appeared alongside Nicolas Cage in "The Family Man". In 2003, she played as Celine in Danny DeVito's "Duplex", starring Ben Stiller and Drew Barrymore, she also played as Meline in "Raising Helen" (2004), opposite Kate Hudson, Hayden Panettiere, Abigail Breslin, and Helen Mirren.
1064647	William G. "Bill" Nunn III (born October 20, 1953) is an American actor best known for his role as Radio Raheem in Spike Lee's film "Do the Right Thing". Early life. Nunn was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the son of William G. Nunn, Jr., a well-known journalist and editor at the Pittsburgh Courier, as well as an NFL scout. Nunn's paternal grandfather was the first African American football player at George Westinghouse High School. Nunn was a 1970 graduate of Schenley High School in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Nunn graduated in 1976 from Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia. Career. Nunn made his acting debut in the 1988 Spike Lee film "School Daze", and is perhaps best known for his roles as Radio Raheem in Lee's "Do the Right Thing" and as Nino Brown's verbally challenged bodyguard Duh Duh Duh Man in "New Jack City".
1034593	Jane Asher (born 5 April 1946) is an English actress, author and entrepreneur. Early life. Asher was the middle of three children born to Richard Alan John and Margaret Asher, "née" Eliot, in Willesden, North West London. Her father was a consultant in blood and mental diseases at the Central Middlesex Hospital, as well as being a broadcaster and the author of notable medical articles. Asher's mother was a professor at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. Asher attended Queen's College in Harley Street, London and is the elder sister of Clare Asher, a radio actress and school inspector. Asher's elder brother is record producer Peter Asher, who was "Peter" of Peter and Gordon. Asher was a child actress and appeared in the 1952 film "Mandy" and the 1955 science fiction film "The Quatermass Xperiment". She also had a title role in a version of "Alice in Wonderland" (1958) and "Through the Looking-Glass" for Argo Records. In 1961 she co-starred in "The Greengage Summer" which was released in the United States as "Loss of Innocence". She also appeared in the 1962 film and Disney TV programme, "The Prince and the Pauper". British TV appearances included three episodes (1956–1958) of the British TV series "The Adventures of Robin Hood" and as a panelist on the BBC's "Juke Box Jury". Career. Asher appeared in Roger Corman's "The Masque of the Red Death" (1964), "Alfie", opposite Michael Caine in 1966, and in Jerzy Skolimowski's "Deep End". She guest-starred in an episode of the British television comedy series "The Goodies" in the episode "Punky Business", as a trend-setting newspaper writer, "The Stone Tape"; "Rumpole of the Bailey"; as Celia Ryder in "Brideshead Revisited"; "A Voyage Round My Father" opposite Laurence Olivier; as Faith Ashley in "Wish Me Luck" (three seasons in 1987–89); "The Mistress" (1985–87); "Crossroads" Mark III (2003) as hotel owner Angel Samson. In 1994, she portrayed the "Doctor Who" companion Susan Foreman in a BBC Radio 4 comedy drama "Whatever Happened to Susan Foreman?" Another notable radio appearance was in "The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes" in 2002, in the episode "The Peculiar Persecution of Mr John Vincent Harden". She starred in "The World's Biggest Diamond", by Gregory Motton, at the Royal Court Theatre in 2005. In 2006, Asher starred in the Richard Fell adaptation of the 1960s science fiction series "A for Andromeda", which aired on the British digital television station BBC Four. In 2007, she portrayed the widow Sandra in the Frank Oz film "Death at a Funeral". Asher appeared in the BBC medical drama, "Holby City" as Lady Byrne. In October 2007, she played Andrea Yates in "The Sarah Jane Adventures", in the episode "Whatever Happened to Sarah Jane?" Asher co-starred in the 2008 ITV drama series "The Palace", filmed in Lithuania; she played Queen Charlotte, mother of King Richard IV. "The Palace" broadcast on ITV1 in 2008. In August 2008, Asher appeared in the reality TV talent show-themed television series, "Maestro", on BBC Two. That summer, she participated in the BBC's "Maestro" series with other show business personalities. In 2009, she played Sally in the BBC One comedy series "The Old Guys". In October 2009, she appeared as Delia in Peter Hall's revival of Alan Ayckbourn's "Bedroom Farce" at the Rose Theatre, Kingston and in her first pantomime, "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" at Richmond Theatre in December 2009, receiving enthusiastic reviews for both. Asher has written three best-selling novels: "The Longing, The Question" and "Losing It", and published more than a dozen lifestyle, costuming, and cake decorating books. Asher owns a company that makes party cakes and sugar crafts for special occasions. She is a shareholder in "Private Eye", President of Arthritis Care and a Distinguished Supporter of the British Humanist Association. She is also President of the National Autistic Society, in which she takes an active role. She was a speaker at the launch of the National Autistic Society's "Make School Make Sense" campaign and is President of Parkinson's UK. In March 2010, Asher became Vice President to Autistica, a UK charity raising funds for autism research. Personal life. In 1963, Asher interviewed the Beatles and began a five-year relationship with Paul McCartney, to whom she became engaged in 1967. She accompanied McCartney to India in February 1968 to study with Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. After discovering McCartney in bed with Francie Schwartz she ended the relationship on 20 July 1968. Asher met the illustrator Gerald Scarfe in 1971, and they married ten years later. They have three children, daughter Katie (born 1974), and sons Alexander (born 1982) and Rory (born 1984).
1044788	Robert Newton (1 June 1905 – 25 March 1956) was an English stage and film actor. Along with Errol Flynn, Newton was one of the most popular actors among the male juvenile audience of the 1940s and early 1950s, especially with British boys. He was cited as a role model by actors Tony Hancock and Oliver Reed. Newton is best remembered for portraying the feverish-eyed Long John Silver in the Walt Disney version of "Treasure Island", which became the standard for screen portrayals of pirates. Hailing from the West Country that was also the birthplace of many famous English pirates, Newton is credited with popularising the stereotypical West Country "pirate voice" by exaggerating his West Country accent. Newton has become the "patron saint" of the annual International Talk Like a Pirate Day on 19 September. Career. Newton was born in Shaftesbury, Dorset, a son of landscape painter Algernon Newton, R.A.. He was educated in Lamorna near Penzance, Cornwall, and later at Exeter School and St Bartholomew's School in Newbury, Berkshire. His acting career began at the age of 16 at the Birmingham Repertory Theatre in 1921 and he followed this by performing in many plays in the West End of London, including "Bitter Sweet" by Noël Coward. He also appeared in "Private Lives" on Broadway taking over the role from his friend Laurence Olivier. From 1932 to 1934 he was the manager of the Shilling Theatre in Fulham, London. In 1939 he played Horatio to Laurence Olivier's "Hamlet" at the Old Vic - the production also included Alec Guinness and Michael Redgrave. During the war he starred in the West End in "No Orchids for Miss Blandish". His final performance on stage was in the 1950 production of "Gaslight" with Rosamund John at the Vaudeville Theatre. During World War II, Newton served in the Royal Navy on board HMS Britomart, which served as an escort ship on several Russian convoys. He also starred in a number of notable films. His film roles included various ruffians and villains — such as Bill Walker in George Bernard Shaw's "Major Barbara" (1941), Long John Silver in Walt Disney's "Treasure Island" (1950), the villanous Bill Sikes in David Lean's 1948 film version of "Oliver Twist", and the acid bath murderer Dr. Clive Riordan in "Obsession" (1949). There were also roles that displayed his versatility. In Alfred Hitchcock's film "Jamaica Inn", he played a virtuous law-officer who is alert, benevolent, serious, dedicated, professional, gallant and calm in the face of danger, modest and altogether unlike Long John Silver. He also portrayed disciplinarians such as Inspector Javert in the 1952 "Les Misérables", Dr. Arnold in the 1951 film version of "Tom Brown's Schooldays", and Inspector Fix in his last film, "Around the World in 80 Days" (1956), which won the Academy Award for Best Picture.
582759	Main Khiladi Tu Anari (English: "Me, the Player, You, the Unskilled") is a 1994 Bollywood action comedy film directed by Sameer Malkan. The films screenplay is by Sachin Bhowmick. Starring Akshay Kumar, Saif Ali Khan and Shilpa Shetty in pivotal roles, the film went on to become one of the highest grossing movie of the year. It was the second installment in the Khiladi (film series). It was the first Bollywood action film to be reviewed by martial arts critic Albert Valentin on KungFuCinemas. It is a remake of the 1991 movie, "The Hard Way", starring Michael J. Fox and James Woods. Plot. One of the most respected inspectors, Arjun Joglekar (Mukesh Khanna) is killed by drug dealer and gangster Goli (Shakti Kapoor). Mona (Shilpa Shetty), a cabaret singer and Goli's mistress, agrees to testify against Goli and is placed into witness protection by Inspector Karan (Akshay Kumar), Arjun's younger brother, who aims to fight any injustice and avenge his brother's murder. When Goli finds out about Mona's forthcoming testimonial which would expose his real identity, he tracks her down and kills her. Deepak Kumar (Saif Ali Khan), who is the most romantic actor around, is frustrated with his roles and being type-caste as a romantic hero. He would like to do something different and bring some change and excitement to his dull and boring existence. To change his monotonous life, he gets drunk and drives around. He is arrested by the police, and brought to his rowdy producer. This is where he meets Karan and is very impressed with his assertiveness, courage, and honesty; Deepak would like to study his behaviour so that he can use this as a background for his next movie. Karan meets Basanti who is looks identical to Mona. He promises to let Deepak hang around him if Deepak can get Basanti to act as Mona. Deepak trains Basanti and presents the new "Mona" to Karan. Karan places Basanti at the Moonlight Hotel as an amnesiac Mona, where she can report on Goli's criminal activities. That's how they uncover Goli eventually. While Karan and Basanti fall in love with each other, Deepak falls is love with Karan's sister, Shivangi.
584217	Sukran () is a Tamil film which released on 18 February 2005 and was directed by "S.A. Chandrasekhar". This film has Ravi Krishna in the lead role. Actor Vijay, son of Chandrasekhar had an extended guest appearance.The film was an average grosser. Plot. Ravi Shankar (Ravi Krishna) and Sandhya (Natassha), students of a college in Dindigul Tamil Nadu, are love birds. When Sandhya's Step-mother (Nalini) comes to know of their affair, she pokes her nose in their wheel. But the caring father of Ravi Shankar (Nassar) sends them to Chennai. For his act, he gets bumped off by Sandhya's stepmother. Upon reaching Chennai, a corrupt police officer (Sriman) apprehends Ravi Shankar on a complaint given by Sandhya's stepmother that he had murdered his father when he put his foot down on their affair. Ravi is put behind the bars. Sandhya is persuaded to seek the help of a Judge (Rajan P Dev) to get a bail for Ravi Shankar. When she reaches the place, she gets gang raped by the police officer,a minster's son and the judge, which they also videograph. After a series of events, the couple decides to commit suicide. At this juncture, they comes across Sukkran (Vijay) who advices them to face all troubles boldly.Again the couple gets harassed by the police and Sandhya gets arrested on false charges of prostitution. All efforts by Ravi to get her out on bail is futile. An agitated Ravi shoots the inspector, the judge, and the Minister's son who raped his girlfriend and escapes with her from the court. Sukran steps in and promises to save the couple. He appears on behalf of Ravi and puts forward enough evidence to help out Ravi. He also eventually kills the Minister (FEFSI Vijayan) responsible for all wrongdoings.
1103087	Michael Hartley Freedman (born 21 April 1951) is an American mathematician, at Microsoft Station Q, a research group at the University of California, Santa Barbara. In 1986, he was awarded a Fields Medal for his work on the Poincaré conjecture. Freedman and Robion Kirby showed that an exotic R4 manifold exists. Life and career. Freedman was born in Los Angeles, California, U.S. His father, Benedict Freedman, was an aeronautical engineer, musician, writer, and mathematician. His mother, Nancy Mars Freedman, performed as an actress and also trained as an artist. His parents cowrote a series of novels together. He entered the University of California, Berkeley, in 1968, and continued his studies at Princeton University where he received Ph.D. degree in 1973 for his doctoral dissertation titled "Codimension-Two Surgery", written under the supervision of William Browder. After graduating, Freedman was appointed a lecturer in the Department of Mathematics at the University of California, Berkeley. He held this post from 1973 until 1975, when he became a member of the Institute for Advanced Study (IAS) at Princeton. In 1976 he was appointed assistant professor in the Department of Mathematics at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD). He spent the year 1980/81 at IAS, returning to UCSD, where in 1982 he was promoted to professor. He was appointed the Charles Lee Powell chair of mathematics at UCSD in 1985. Freedman has received numerous other awards and honors including Sloan and Guggenheim Fellowships, a MacArthur Fellowship and the National Medal of Science. He is an elected member of the National Academy of Sciences, and a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and of the American Mathematical Society. He currently works at Microsoft Station Q at the University of California, Santa Barbara, where his team is involved in the development of the topological quantum computer.
1067879	Grizzly Man is a 2005 documentary film by German director Werner Herzog. It chronicles the life and death of bear enthusiast Timothy Treadwell. The film consists of Treadwell's own footage of his interactions with grizzly bears before he and his girlfriend Amie Huguenard were killed and eaten by a bear in 2003, and of interviews with people who knew or were involved with Treadwell. The footage he shot was later found, and the final film was co-produced by Discovery Docs, the Discovery Channel's theatrical documentary unit, and Lions Gate Entertainment. The film's soundtrack is by British singer songwriter and guitarist Richard Thompson. Background. Timothy Treadwell spent 13 summers in Katmai National Park and Preserve, Alaska. Over time, he believed the bears trusted him and would allow him to approach them; sometimes he would even touch them. Treadwell was repeatedly warned by park officials that his interaction with the bears was unsafe to both him and to the bears. "At best, he's misguided," Deb Liggett, superintendent at Katmai and Lake Clark national parks, told the "Anchorage Daily News" in 2001. "At worst, he's dangerous. If Timothy models unsafe behavior, that ultimately puts bears and other visitors at risk." Treadwell filmed his exploits, and used the films to raise public awareness of the problems faced by bears in North America. In 2003, at the end of his 13th visit, he and his girlfriend Amie Huguenard were attacked, killed, and partially eaten by a bear; the events which led to the attack are unknown. In order for this film to be produced, it was necessary for Jewel Palovak, co-founder of Grizzly People and close friend of Treadwell’s, to approve the production of the documentary. Logistical as well as sentimental factors needed to be taken into account regarding the footage. Grizzly People is a “grassroots organization,” concerned with the treatment of bears, that Palovak and Treadwell started together. After his death, Palovak was left with control of Grizzly People and all 100 hours of archival footage. As Treadwell's close friend, ex-girlfriend and confidante, she also had a large emotional stake in the production. Palovak had known Treadwell since 1985 and felt a deep sense of responsibility to her late friend and his legacy. He had often discussed the subject of his video archives with her. "Timothy was very dramatic," she once said. She quoted Treadwell as saying, "'If I die, if something happens to me, make that movie. You make it. You show ’em.' I thought that Werner Herzog could definitely do that." Synopsis. For "Grizzly Man", Herzog used sequences extracted from more than 100 hours of video footage shot by Treadwell during the last five years of his life, and conducted interviews with Treadwell's family and friends, as well as bear and nature experts. Park rangers and bear experts give counterpoints to statements and actions by Treadwell, such as his repeated claims that he is defending the bears from poachers. Park rangers point out that while the bears may be subject to habitat loss and climate change, etc. there was never a recorded incident of poaching at this national park. Treadwell had also convinced himself that he had gained the trust of certain bears, enough to walk up and pet them like dogs. Park rangers again point out that bears are still wild and potentially dangerous animals, and that it was amazing that Treadwell survived as many years as he did without being mauled. One park ranger is so astonished by Treadwell's actions that he thinks the bears themselves were so confused by Treadwell's direct casual contact that they weren't quite sure how to react at first. Moreover, other park rangers point out that not only were the bears not under threat from any poachers, but Treadwell himself almost assuredly put the bears in danger: by familiarizing them with human contact, he increased the likelihood that they would approach human habitation looking for food, possibly resulting in a confrontation in which animal control would have to kill them. Ironically, if there were potential poachers, Treadwell's contact with the bears would have removed their fear of human contact, meaning they would not flee the hunters. Herzog also narrates, and offers his own interpretations of the events. In his narration, he depicts Treadwell as a disturbed man who may have had a death wish toward the end of his life, but does not condemn him for this. The film refers to an audio recording of the fatal attack captured by Treadwell's video camera, and although Herzog is shown listening to it on earphones clearly disturbed, it is not played in the film. In fact, Herzog advises Palovak (the owner of the tape) to destroy it immediately rather than listen to it. He later repudiated his own advice, saying it was “Stupid...silly advice born out of the immediate shock of hearing—I mean, it’s the most terrifying thing I’ve ever heard in my life. Being shocked like that, I told her, ‘You should never listen to it, and you should rather destroy it. It should not be sitting on your shelf in your living room all the time.’ she slept over it and decided to do something much wiser. She did not destroy it but separated herself from the tape, and she put it in a bank vault.”
582605	Always Kabhi Kabhi (meaning 'Always Sometimes') is a 2011 Hindi romance film directed by Roshan Abbas, and produced by Shahrukh Khan under Red Chillies Entertainment. It introduced Ali Fazal, along with Giselli Monteiro while Zoa Morani, Satish Shah, Lilette Dubey, Vijay Raaz, Mukesh Tiwari and Manoj Joshi play supporting roles. The film released on 17 June 2011. It focuses on four teenagers embarking on a dramatic journey during their incident-packed final year at school. Plot. "Always Kabhi Kabhi" focuses on four students and their struggle through their final year at St Mark's School. The first teenager is Shortcut Sam (Ali Fazal), the cool guy, who falls in love with Aishwarya (Giselli Monteiro) who is about to become a Bollywood actress. Aishwarya is a new student who befriends Sam on her first day, and the two fall in love at first sight. A Shakespeare play approaches in which Aishwarya automatically gains the role of Juliet. Sam tries his level best to learn the lines of Romeo so as to impress Mrs. Das and gain the role of Romeo. He succeeds in the end. The next two friends, Tariq (Satyajeet Dubey) and Nandy(Nandini) (Zoa Morani), love to fight and argue with each other, but do not understand that they are in love. Nandini's parents don't spend any time with her and are always travelling. In the absence of her parents, she goes to illegal clubs and parties every day and spends money lavishly. Tariq has the burden of getting into MIT. They realize their love for each other during Nandy's struggle to get approval of her apology after she forwards Tariq's MIT denial letter, oblivious that he had not read it himself. Sam gives a party in Hellfire but then there's a raid and he gets arrested while saving Aishwarya. The two corrupt policemen try to bag 50,000 rupees from Sam. He tries his best to avoid the policemen and tries to pay them a little by little. Aishwarya breaks up him because, during the party, Nandy's toyboy offers him a drag; even though Aishwarya begged him to leave, he agreed to smoke weed because the toyboy makes fun of him and asked him to be a man. After she heard that Sam had sacrificed himself to save her, they make up. During Aishu's 18th birthday, Sam confesses his love for her only to be caught together by her mother and her agent renames her as Kashish for the films and even persuades her to do a photo shoot in which she only wears a bikini. When Sam finds out that the prize money of the inter-school Shakespeare play competition is Rs.50,000 (the amount he owes the policemen), he begins to put more pressure on the group to come in time for the practices. Meanwhile, Aishwarya is being offered a movie contract that she doesn't want to do. During a meeting, she rips the contract and runs to meet Sam and the others and continue their practice for the competition. Enraged by Aishu's absence during practice, Sam confronts her, oblivious to what she had done for him. Aishu didn't know about the money he owes the policemen and does not understand the reason of his anger. She runs into the streets only to be hit by a car and go into coma. Aishwarya's mother confronts Sam about the accident because she believed that he was the cause and does not permit him to see her. While dropping Aishwarya's clothes, Tariq and Nandy notice Aishwarya's phone has an electronic diary and reads it. It shows her point of view about everyone in the group and talks about how their parents have pressurized them. So, they perform Romeo and Juliet with a different point of view, saying that Romeo and Juliet would not have died if their parents had approved of their love and listened to them, implying that their parents should do the same. They perform the song "Antenna" to convey their thoughts. Soundtrack. The music is composed by Pritam Chakraborty, Aashish Rego and Shree D. Lyrics are penned by the film director Roshan Abbas, Amitabh Bhattacharya, Irfan Siddique and Prashant Pandey. The song "Antenna" had Shahrukh Khan as a special guest. Reception. Critical reception. "Always Kabhi Kabhi" opened to negative reviews from critics. Taran Adarsh of Bollywood Hungama rated the film with one and a half stars out of five saying, ""Always Kabhi Kabhi" disappoints!". Rajeev Masand of CNN-IBN also gave the film 1.5 stars and stated, "Watching this film is like attending a concert put up by ten-year-olds. It's amateurish, and tedious to sit through, and the only thing you can appreciate in the end is the earnestness behind the effort." Nikhat Kazmi of the "Times of India" awarded two and a half stars saying, "First, and most importantly, the film is a youth-oriented story but completely lacks the fun and games that are associated with this generation. Secondly, the parental problems are all so very predictable. It's all foregone and predictable apart from being inordinately long. School is agony; school is ecstasy. Always Kabhi Kabhi captures neither and treads the staid middle ground." Box office. "Always Kabhi Kabhi" had a nett gross of 30.5 million in India by the end of theatrical run. It was declared a flop by "Box Office India" In the overseas, the film grossed $21,381 from the United States, $46,469 from the UK, $9,803 from South Africa and $2,893 from Malaysia.
1015114	Philadelphia Experiment II (also known as The Philadelphia Experiment II, The Philadelphia Experiment 2, or Philadelphia Experiment 2) is a 1993 science fiction film. It is the sequel to the 1984 film "The Philadelphia Experiment", but has none of the same cast or crew and only two of the same characters. It stars Brad Johnson as David Herdeg (the hero from the first film) and Gerrit Graham as the villain who meets an untimely end. Plot. It is several years after the events of the first movie, and David Herdeg (the survivor of the Philadelphia Experiment) and Allison (the woman from 1984) have married and have a child. One day David awakes in agony, to a changed world in which Germany won World War II and the United States are about to mark 50 years as a Nazi conquest. America is under authoritarian rule, with its citizens surviving under an oppressive dictatorship. In this alternative timeline, Germany won the war because it had a futuristic aircraft called the "Phoenix", to deliver atomic bombs, destroying Washington, D.C., and other major targets on the east coast. The United States became demoralized and eventually surrendered to Nazi Germany. The Phoenix was destroyed in the explosion and Friedrich Mahler, the scientist who took credit for building it, was ridiculed since he was unable to reproduce his successful design.
520893	Tanging Yaman is a 2000 Filipino religious-family drama film produced by Star Cinema. Directed by Laurice Guillen, the film garnered several awards, especially at the 2000 Metro Manila Film Festival, including Best Picture, Best Actor, and Best Actress. The movie's title came from a liturgical composition by Manoling Francisco, SJ and sung by Carol Banawa. The success of this religious-family drama film was followed ten years later by ""Sa 'Yo Lamang"", also directed by Laurice Guillen. The film is set to be restored by ABS-CBN Film Archive. Plot. Separated by both physical and emotional distance, siblings Danny (Johnny Delgado), Art (Edu Manzano) and Grace (Dina Bonnevie) settle a land dispute whilst their mother Dolores "Loleng" Rosales (Gloria Romero) succumbs to debilitating disease. Old resentments begin to surface and spill over to the next generation as they cope with Loleng's sickness and the tract of land left to them by their deceased father.
1103110	Alexander Merkurjev (, born September 25, 1955) is a Russian-born American mathematician, who has made major contributions to the field of algebra. Currently Merkurjev is a professor at the University of California, Los Angeles. Awards and distinctions. In 1982 Merkurjev won the Young Mathematician Prize of the Petersburg Mathematical Society for his work on algebraic K-theory. In 1986 he was an invited speaker at the International Congress of Mathematicians in Berkeley, California, and his talk was entitled "Milnor K-theory and Galois cohomology". In 1995 he won the Humboldt Prize, an international prize awarded to renowned scholars. Merkurjev gave a plenary talk at the 2nd European Congress of Mathematics in Budapest, Hungary in 1996. In 2012 he won the Cole Prize in Algebra for his work on the essential dimension of groups. In 2012 he became a fellow of the American Mathematical Society. Work. Merkurjev's work focuses on algebraic groups, quadratic forms, Galois cohomology, algebraic K-theory and central simple algebras. In the early 1980s Merkurjev proved a fundamental result about the structure of central simple algebras of period dividing 2, which relates the 2-torsion of the Brauer group with Milnor K-theory. In subsequent work with Suslin this was extended to higher torsion as the Merkurjev–Suslin theorem, recently generalized in the norm residue isomorphism theorem (previously known as the Bloch-Kato conjecture), proven in full generality by Rost and Voevodsky. In the late 1990s Merkurjev gave the most general approach to the notion of essential dimension, introduced by Buhler and Reichstein, and made fundamental contributions to that field. In particular Merkurjev determined the essential p-dimension of central simple algebras of degree formula_1 (for a prime p) and, in joint work with Karpenko, the essential dimension of finite "p"-groups.
591078	Manthiri Kumari () is a 1950 Tamil film directed by Ellis R. Dungan and starring M. G. Ramachandran and M. N. Nambiar. The screen play was written by M. Karunanidhi based on an incident from the Tamil epic "Kundalakesi". This was the last Tamil film directed by Dungan and is considered to be among the most successful films of that decade. Shortly after directing this film, Dungan left the Tamil film industry and did not direct Tamil films again.Singer T. M. Soundararajan sang for very first time for MGR in this film. Production. "Manthiri Kumari" (lit. The minister's daughter) was the film version of a play written by M. Karunanidhi and based an incident that occurs in the Tamil epic poem "Kundalakesi" (One of the five Great Tamil epics). T. R. Sundaram of Modern Theatres had previously produced a Dungan directed film "Ponmudi" (1950) in which Karunanidhi had worked as a script writer. Sundaram decided to make a film based on the play and hired Dungan to direct it (the credits show Sundaram and Dungan as co-directors of the film). M. G. Ramachandran (MGR) who had played the supporting roles in many of Dungan's earlier films had recently achieved success as a hero in "Rajakumaari" (1947) and "Marudhanaattu Ilavarasi" (1950). Karunanidhi recommended that his friend MGR be made hero for the new film. Sundaram agreed with a caveat - MGR's double chin had to be hidden behind a beard. G. Ramanathan was hired to compose the music. The lyrics for the songs were written by A. Marudhakaasi and Ka. Mu. Sherriff. Plot. The king of Mullai nadu is dominated by his Raja guru (head priest) (M. N. Nambiar). The guru wants his son Parthiban (S. A. Natarajan) to be appointed as the General of the army. But the king appoints Veera Mohan (MGR) instead. The enraged Parthiban becomes a bandit and starts raiding the country side. He wants to marry the princess Jeevarekha (G. Shakuntala) who is in love with Veera Mohan. Parthiban sends a message to Jeevarekha to meet him secretly. The message is delivered by mistake to the minister's daughter Amudhavalli (Madhuri Devi) and she goes to meet Parthiban. Parthiban and Amudhavalli fall in love. Meanwhile, the king sends his general Veeramohan to capture the bandits plaguing the country side. Veeramohan captures Parthiban and produces him in the royal court. The Raja guru is enraged and tries to get his son off by various means. He demands a trial for his son in front of the Goddess. During the trial, Amudhavalli hides behind the Goddess statue and pronounces Parthiban as innocent. She blames Veeramohan for the banditry. The king believing that the Goddess had spoken releases Parthiban and exiles Veeramohan. Parthiban and Amudhavalli are happily married. But goaded by his father Parthiban wants to take over the kingdom by marrying the princess. He decides to kill Amudhavalli. He tricks her into going with him to a cliff edge and tells her of his intention to kill her. Amudavalli begs him for a chance to worship him by going around him three times before she meets her death. Parthiban grants her last wish. While going around him she pushes him to his death from behind. Shocked by her actions and her husband's betrayal, she confesses her sins and becomes a Buddhist nun. The raja guru is jailed and Veera mohan is reunited with the princess. Reception. The film was released in June 1950 and became a box office hit. Though MGR was the hero, it was S. A. Natarajan's role which received the most acclaim. Karunanidhi's fiery dialogues became famous and stirred controversy. Soundtrack. The film's music was composed by G. Ramanathan. The song "Vaarai nee vaarai" sung by Trichy Loganathan and Jikki was the most popular song of the film. List of songs in the film:
432579	Victoria Hart, commonly known as Vi Hart, is a self-described "Recreational Mathemusician" who is most known for her mathematical videos on YouTube. Hart has collaborated with MIT computer science professor Erik Demaine. She is currently employed by Khan Academy. Background. Early life and influence. Vi is the daughter of mathematical sculptor George W. Hart and Carol Hart. Vi credits her largest influence to a trip she took with her father when she was 13. She attended a computational geometry conference with him, and claims she was hooked on math from that point on. In an interview, she stated that "It was so different from school, where you are surrounded by this drudgery and no one is excited about it. Any gathering of passionate people is fun, really no matter what they’re doing." In an interview taken when she was attending college, she stated that "My love of geometry and mathematics is definitely my father’s influence. Ever since I tagged along with him to my first conference, I enjoyed myself so much that I look for opportunities to go to fun conferences ever since." College and career searching. Hart attended college at Stony Brook University. After finishing her music degree as a senior, she created a musical piece which she called the "Harry Potter Septet". The piece is in seven movements, one for each book, and was originally composed for violin, viola, cello, bass, piano, and two voices. Hart spent roughly 14 months creating the piece, which is around 1.5 hours long. Shortly after graduating from Stony Brook, Hart found difficulty in finding a full-time profession. As a senior, when asked about her future plans, she stated that "I’ve considered film scoring. Musical theater. Maybe I will go to graduate school. …I haven’t quite decided yet. I do want to compose. Where I want to go with that I’m not sure. Because it’s difficult to just compose and magically receive money for it." Hart continued down this road for a few years. YouTube. For a while, Hart was not able to find a suitable career for herself. One day, she was looking over some "mathematical doodles" that she had made during college (she notes that she made many of them while bored in her various classes in college) and decided that she should make something out of it. At first she considered simply writing out instructions and posting them on her blog, but she decided to take a different turn, and instead made her very first "Doodling in Math Class" video. With a first-person point of view and a fast-paced narration by Hart herself, the video series grew very popular, garnering millions of views in a short amount of time. Since then, Vi has continued her YouTube channel, and has received overwhelming support for it. Hart claims she made as much as $300 in one week from YouTube's partnership program. A short time into her YouTube career, Hart decided to come up with a satirical name for her "unique" profession of displaying mathematics through the mind of a creative and musically talented mathematician. She decided to call herself a "Full-Time Recreational Mathemusician." When asked about her reasoning behind such a name, she explained "I call myself that because, sometimes, when you're not sure how to describe yourself in a title that describes what you do, you have to make one up." On January 23, 2012, Hart created a secondary YouTube channel, which she named "VihartVihart." This channel contains supplements to her main channel videos, as well as personal videos. On July 6, 2012, Hart created a behind the scenes video in collaboration with Ethan Bresnick that shows how she makes her videos. On October 1, 2012 she uploaded "Hexaflexagons", the first in a series of four videos celebrating the subject and exploring the mathematics, aesthetics, and history of hexaflexagons. The video has been viewed over five million times. Popularity. Since the creation of her YouTube channel, Hart has received national recognition. As of August 2013, Hart has over 41 million video views on her primary YouTube channel, as well as over 500,000 subscribers. Currently, her most viewed video is "Hexaflexagons," with over 5 million views. Hart has over 34,000 fans on her Facebook page, while on Twitter she has over 28,000 followers. She has been featured in several online news articles by publications such as "The New York Times" and "The Washington Post". In August 2011, Hart gave a lecture at International Science Day. Khan Academy. On January 3, 2012, Hart announced that she had recently started working at Khan Academy. She credits the establishment with paying her to "sit in a cubicle all day and make random doodles." Hart is now featured in various videos on Khan Academy's YouTube account, but continues producing videos for her own channel.
439229	Mirrors 2 is a 2010 American horror film. It is a sequel to the 2008 film "Mirrors". Released by 20th Century Fox in direct-to-video format, the film is written by Matt Venne and is directed by Víctor García. It is available on DVD and Blu-ray Disc. Plot. Max Matheson (Nick Stahl) is involved in a car accident that kills his fiancée, Kayla (Jennifer Sipes). Due to the accident, he becomes emotionally disturbed and undergoes psychological treatment with Dr. Beaumont (Ann Mckenzie), making some progress in dealing with the guilt over the accident. To help Max move forward, his father, Jack Matheson (William Katt), reopens the Mayflower Department Store in New Orleans and invites Max to replace the security guard, who recently quit under mysterious circumstances while apparently "cutting himself up" on duty.
1055983	Joy Bryant (born October 19, 1976) is an American actress and former fashion model, who is currently starring as Jasmine Trussell in the NBC family drama "Parenthood". Early life. Bryant was born in the Bronx, New York. While living in the Bronx, she graduated from CJHS 145x and was a member of the Fieldston Enrichment Program, an elite high school preparatory program. Bryant is a graduate of Westminster School, a boarding school in Connecticut. She attended Yale University. Career. Early on, Bryant played a small role in Ill Al Skratch's video "I'll Take Her". Bryant had contracts with several brands, including Ralph Lauren, Tommy Hilfiger and RocaWear. She has also appeared in advertising for Gap and Victoria's Secret also starring in a Carlos Santana and Musiq Soulschild music video for the song Nothing at All" opposite Connecticut born actor Andre Warmsley in 2004.
586678	Thodisi Bewafaii is a 1980 Hindi movie written and directed by Esmayeel Shroff. The film stars Rajesh Khanna, Shabana Azmi and Padmini Kohlapure. The music is by Khayyam. Plot. Arvind Kumar Choudhary is widowed, respectable and wealthy businessman, who lives with his only son, Arun (Rajesh Khanna), in a palatial house. He re-marries another woman, Sujata, a widow with two daughters, Veena and Seema. Arun does not respect her and refuses to even speak with her. Arun meets Neema Deshmukh (Shabana Azmi) and both of fall in love. With approval of their respective families, they get married. Then things start to slide financially for the Choudharys when Arun accidentally breaks a valuable diamond while daydreaming about Neema; the Choudharys lose all their savings, building, vehicles and property, move to a shanty apartment, and Arvind passes away. Arun takes over the reins of this family, and starts talking to his stepmother. Neema gives birth to a baby boy and they name him Abhinandan. Misunderstandings occur between Sujata and Neema, they escalate, fueled by some gossip from neighboring women, leading to arguments between Arun and her. Then one day, Mahendra, Neema's brother sees Arun with another woman, informs Neema, who quickly packs her things and leaves Arun. She goes to the courts, gets the custody of Abhinandan, and Arun is only allowed a weekly 4 - PM visit, which he is unhappy with, and decides to wait until his son is 14 and will then take him home. Then Neema's father is arrested by the Anti-Corruption Bureau accepting a huge bribe from Mr. Lalwani; Mahendra asks Neema to sell her jewelery so that he can immigrate to Germany, she does so, he leaves, never to be heard from again. Neema's dad, Abhinandan and she re-locate to Nasik to live with Narendra, Neema's second brother and his wife. This is where her son grows up, curious to know about his dad. Years later when he turns 14, Arun shows up on her doorstep - only to be told that their son has run away from home. An enraged Arun must now find if Neema is telling the truth or hiding their son someplace else,
1101480	Marius Sophus Lie ( ; ; 17 December 1842 – 18 February 1899) was a Norwegian mathematician. He largely created the theory of continuous symmetry and applied it to the study of geometry and differential equations. Biography. His first mathematical work, "Repräsentation der Imaginären der Plangeometrie", was published, in 1869, by the Academy of Sciences in Christiania and also by "Crelle's Journal". That same year he received a scholarship and traveled to Berlin, where he stayed from September to February 1870. There, he met Felix Klein and they became close friends. When he left Berlin, Lie traveled to Paris, where he was joined by Klein two months later. There, they met Camille Jordan and Gaston Darboux. But on 19 July 1870 the Franco-Prussian War began and Klein (who was Prussian) had to leave France very quickly. Lie decided then to visit Luigi Cremona in Milan but he was arrested at Fontainebleau under suspicion of being a German spy, an event which made him famous in Norway. He was released from prison after a month, thanks to the intervention of Darboux. Lie obtained his PhD at the University of Christiania (present day Oslo) in 1871 with a thesis entitled "On a class of geometric transformations". It would be described by Darboux as “one of the most handsome discoveries of modern Geometry”. The next year, the Norwegian Parliament established an extraordinary professorship for him. That same year, Lie visited Klein, who was then at Erlangen and working on the Erlangen program. At the end of 1872, Sophus Lie proposed to Anna Birch, then eighteen years old, and they were married in 1874. The couple had three children: Marie (b. 1877), Dagny (b. 1880) and Herman (b. 1884). In 1884, Friedrich Engel arrived at Christiania to help him, with the support of Klein and Adolph Mayer (who were both professors at Leipzig, by then). Engel would help Lie to write his most important treatise, "Theorie der Transformationsgruppen", published in Leipzig in three volumes from 1888 to 1893. Decades later, Engel would also be one of the two editors of Lie's collected works. In 1886 Lie became professor at Leipzig, replacing Klein, who had moved to Göttingen. In November 1889 he suffered a mental breakdown and had to be hospitalized until June 1890. Lie resigned from his post in May 1898 and returned to Norway in September of that year. He was made Honorary Member of the London Mathematical Society in 1878, Member of the French Academy of Sciences in 1892, Foreign Member of the Royal Society of London in 1895 and foreign associate of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America in 1895. Sophus Lie died at the age of 56, due to pernicious anemia, a disease caused by impaired absorption of vitamin B12. Legacy. Lie's principal tool, and one of his greatest achievements, was the discovery that continuous transformation groups (now called, after him, Lie groups) could be better understood by "linearizing" them, and studying the corresponding generating vector fields (the so-called infinitesimal generators). The generators are subject to a linearized version of the group law, now called the commutator bracket, and have the structure of what is today called a Lie algebra. Hermann Weyl used Lie's work on group theory in his papers from 1922 and 1923, and Lie groups today play a role in quantum mechanics. However, the subject of Lie groups as it is studied today is vastly different from what the research by Sophus Lie was about and “among the 19th century masters, Lie's work is "in detail" certainly the least known today”.
1063275	Christoph Waltz (; born 4 October 1956 in Vienna) is an Austrian and German actor. Internationally, he is best known for his works with American filmmaker Quentin Tarantino. He received acclaim for his supporting roles as SS-Colonel Hans Landa in Tarantino's "Inglourious Basterds" (2009) and bounty hunter Dr. King Schultz in Tarantino's "Django Unchained" (2012). For each performance, Waltz won an Academy Award, a BAFTA Award, and a Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor. Additionally, he received the Best Actor Award at the Cannes Film Festival and a Screen Actors Guild Award for his portrayal of Landa. Early life. Christoph Waltz was born in Vienna, the son of German-born Johannes Waltz and Austrian-born Elisabeth Urbancic, set and costume designers. His maternal grandfather, Rudolf von Urban, was a psychiatrist and psychologist who wrote the book "Sex Perfection and Marital Happiness". His maternal grandmother was Burgtheater actress Maria Mayen, and his step-grandfather was actor Emmerich Reimers. His great-grandparents also worked in theatre. Career. Waltz studied acting at the Max Reinhardt Seminar in Vienna. He also attended the Lee Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute in New York. He started as a stage actor, performing at venues such as Zurich's Schauspielhaus Zürich, Vienna's Burgtheater, and the Salzburg Festival. He became a prolific television actor. In 2000, he made his directorial debut, with the German-language television production "Wenn man sich traut". Before coming to the attention of a larger audience in Tarantino's "Inglourious Basterds" he had played, in 1990, the role of Dr. Hans-Joachim Dorfmann in the English-language TV series "Gravy Train". The show is a story of intrigue and misdeeds set in the offices of the European Union in Brussels. The series can be watched through Channel 4's player on YouTube.
1161566	Paul Brinegar (December 19, 1917 – March 27, 1995) was an American character actor. Brinegar made over 100 appearances between 1946 and 1994, appearing in many western films, and played the barman in Clint Eastwood's "High Plains Drifter" in 1973. He was best known for his long-running role as the cook, George Washington Wishbone, on the CBS series "Rawhide" from 1959 to 1966, which also starred Eric Fleming and Clint Eastwood. He had even played Tom Jefferson Jeffrey in the 1958 movie "Cattle Empire" upon which "Rawhide" was based. Prior to that he played Mayor Jim "Dog" Kelly in the western series, "The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp", in which he appeared twenty-four times from 1956 to 1958. In 1959, he played Ludwig, the bartender, in the episode "The Ringer" of the western series "The Texan", starring Rory Calhoun. In 1969, he appeared in the western film "Charro!" starring Elvis Presley. Brinegar made two guest appearances on "Perry Mason". His first appearance during the series' first season in early 1958 was as Tom Sackett in "The Case of the Sun Bather's Diary;" his second appearance in the series' ninth and final season in 1966, he played Jason Rohan in "The Case of the Unwelcome Well." The role of Wishbone was loosely carried over into the 1968-1970 CBS western series "Lancer" in which Brinegar played Jelly Hoskins. His co-stars were Andrew Duggan, James Stacy, and Wayne Maunder. In the early 1980s Brinegar played an occasional humorous cowboy-like character, "Lamar Pettybone" during the first season of ABC's TV series "Matt Houston" from 1982 to 1983. Filmography. Brinegar guest starred mostly in westerns, including the Saturday morning series on CBS, "Tales of the Texas Rangers" in the 1956 episode "The Hobo."
1078129	He Was a Quiet Man is a 2007 drama film, written and directed by Frank Cappello. Produced by Jason Hallock and Mike Leahy. The film stars Christian Slater, Elisha Cuthbert, Jamison Jones and William H. Macy. Plot. Bob Maconel (Slater) is a disillusioned office worker with ideas of murdering his coworkers. One particularly bad day, Bob goes from potential killer to inadvertent hero – coworker Coleman "goes postal" and shoots up the office before Bob does. Bob stops the shooter's plans by killing him with the gun he planned to use on the others, and in the process saves Vanessa's (Elisha Cuthbert) life. The former invisible nobody is suddenly thrown into the spotlight of public notice, he is considered a hero by those he wished to murder, promoted by a grateful boss to "VP of Creative Thinking" and given all the perks of higher management. Meanwhile, he saves the object of his desire only to have her ask him to end her life; her injuries have left her a quadriplegic.
601784	Colin Ford (born September 12, 1996) is an American actor and voice actor. He is known for his role as young Sam Winchester in the TV series "Supernatural", and as Dylan Mee in the family movie "We Bought a Zoo". He is also more recently known for the role of "Joe" on the CBS TV series "Under the Dome", which premiered in the United States on June 24, 2013.
1060729	Gina L. Gershon (born June 10, 1962) is an American film, television and stage actress, singer and author, known for her roles in the films "Cocktail" (1988), "Showgirls" (1995), "Bound" (1996), ' (1996), "Face/Off" (1997), "The Insider" (1999), "Demonlover" (2002), ' (2005), "P.S. I Love You" (2007), "Five Minarets in New York" (2010), and "Killer Joe" (2011). She has also had supporting roles in FX's "Rescue Me" and HBO's "How to Make It in America". Early life. Gershon was born in Los Angeles, the daughter of Mickey (née Koppel), an interior decorator, and Stan Gershon, who worked in the import/export business and sales. Gershon was raised in a Jewish family. She has an older brother and sister, Dan and Tracy. Gershon was raised in Los Angeles' San Fernando Valley and attended Beverly Hills High School. She started acting at the age of 14. After high school, Gershon moved to Boston to attend Emerson College. She transferred to New York University, and graduated with a BFA in drama and psychology/philosophy. Career. Gershon attended the Circle in the Square Professional Theater School in New York, working first with David Mamet and later with Harold Guskin and Sandra Seacat, whom she has described in interviews as "a huge influence." Gershon is one of the founding members of the New York-based theater group Naked Angels. She has appeared on Broadway three times, as Sally Bowles in the revival of "Cabaret", in the revival of the sex farce "Boeing-Boeing", and is currently playing Rosie Alvarez in the Broadway revival of "Bye Bye Birdie" at the Roundabout Theatre Company. Her first acting venues were stage appearances in "Camille" and "The Substance of Fire". She had a cameo role in The Cars 1984 video "Hello Again" alongside Andy Warhol. Her break came with a bit part in 1986's "Pretty in Pink" which led to more substantial roles in "Sweet Revenge" with Nancy Allen and "Cocktail", with Tom Cruise and Elisabeth Shue. Gershon also worked in television, with a recurring role on "Melrose Place" playing a Heidi Fleiss-esque Hollywood madame. She won critical acclaim for her portrayal of Nancy Sinatra in the made-for-TV biopic "Sinatra". In 1996, she played Corky, an ex-con who gets mixed up in an affair with Violet (played by Jennifer Tilly), in the mobster flick "Bound". The following year, she costarred with John Travolta and Nicolas Cage in "Face/Off". Gershon is regarded as a gay icon because of her roles in movies such as "Bound" (in which she played a butch lesbian), "Prey for Rock & Roll", and "Showgirls" (in which she played a bisexual, and which is regarded as a camp classic). She was ranked #23 on the "Maxim" Hot 100 Women of 2004. Gershon played Jew's harp on "I Can't Decide", a song on the Scissor Sisters 2006 release "Ta-Dah". She also played Jew's harp on the song "I Do It For Your Love", Paul Simon's collaboration with Herbie Hancock on his album "Possibilities", in a duo with bassist Christian McBride on the song "Chitlins and Gifltefish", on McBride's 2011 album "Conversations with Christian", and on "Maria" from her album "In Search of Cleo". On television, she has recurring roles on HBO's "Curb Your Enthusiasm" (as a Hasidic dry cleaner), "Rescue Me", and the U.S. dramedy series "Ugly Betty" (as Italian cosmetics mogul Fabia, the rival of Wilhelmina Slater). She also has served as the voiceover for Major League Baseball's "I Live For This" promotional campaign. Gershon also appears in Lenny Kravitz's music video entitled "Again". She and her brother Dann are the authors of the children's book "Camp Creepy Time". On September 10, 2008, Gershon appeared in a video on funnyordie.com, parodying former Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin, titled "Gina Gershon Strips Down Sarah Palin" which she followed with "Gina Gershon Does Sarah Palin 2". In 2011, she appeared as a recurring character in the HBO series "How to Make It in America". Gershon's first book written for an adult audience, "In Search of Cleo: How I Found My Pussy and Lost My Mind", is the true story of the hunt for her runaway cat and was released on October 11, 2012. Personal life. A 2008 "Vanity Fair" article linked her romantically with former President Bill Clinton. Speaking on the U.S. television show "Live with Regis and Kelly" on June 9, she said, "It is such a crazy, outrageous lie… I met him three times at events. rumors disturbed me on so many levels."
586686	Noorie is a 1979 Hindi movie produced by Yash Chopra, and directed by Manmohan Krishna, who was a noted character actor of 1950s and 1960s, this was his only film. The film stars Farooq Shaikh, Poonam Dhillon, Madan Puri, Iftekhar . The films music is by Khayyam and the lyrics by Jan Nisar Akhtar. The film was a "Super-Hit" and the 7th highest grossing film at the Indian Box Office in the year. Synopsis. Noorie (Poonam Dhillon) lives in the Bhaderwah valleys with her father, Ghulam Nabi (Iftekhar) and her dog Khairoo, she has a boyfriend Yusuf (Farooq Shaikh), they decide to get married, the date is decided and preparations begin. But fate had something else in store. As another villager Bashir Khan (Bharat Kapoor) takes a liking to Noorie and approaches Noorie's father for her hand, to which Ghulam Nabi refuses. An angry Bashir Khan then arranges the murder of Gulam Nabi, through his men, using a falling tree. The marriage is suspended, few months later when the marriage preparations are back on, however a few days before the marriage Bashir Khan, who happens to be Yusuf's boss sends him on an errand out of town. While Yusuf is out of town Bashir Khan goes over to Noorie's house and rapes her. Noorie commits suicide and Yusuf gets to know that it all happened because of Bashir, so he runs behid him to kill him followed by Khairoo. They end up into a physial fight and Yusuf gets shot by Bashir. As Bashif he runs back, he finds Khairoo there, who finally kills Bashir. Yusuf runs to the place where Noorie's body is and dies there. At the end they both are dug into the ground and unite with each other. Soundtrack. The soundtrack includes the following tracks, composed by Khayyam, and with lyrics by Jan Nisar Akhtar and Naqsh Lyalpuri for the song "Kadar Tune Na Jaani"
1163787	Charles Douville Coburn (June 19, 1877 – August 30, 1961) was an American film and theater actor. Biography. Coburn was born in Macon, Georgia, the son of Scots-Irish Americans Emma Louise Sprigman and Moses Douville Coburn. Growing up in Savannah, he started out at age 14 doing odd jobs at the local Savannah Theater, handing out programs, ushering, or being the doorman. By age 17 or 18, he was the theater manager. He later became an actor, making his debut on Broadway in 1901. Coburn formed an acting company with actress Ivah Wills in 1905. They married in 1906. In addition to managing the company, the couple performed frequently on Broadway.
1103394	Kannan Soundararajan is a mathematician and a professor of mathematics at Stanford University. Before moving to Stanford in 2006, he was a faculty member at University of Michigan where he pursued his undergraduate studies. His main research interest is in Number theory especially L-functions and multiplicative number theory. Early life. Soundararajan grew up in Chennai and was a student at Padma Seshadri High School in Nungambakkam in Madras (now Chennai), India. He represented India at the International Mathematical Olympiad in 1991 and won a Silver Medal. Education. Soundararajan joined the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, in 1991 for undergraduate studies, and graduated with highest honours in 1995. Soundararajan won the inaugural Morgan Prize in 1995 for his work in analytic number theory whilst an undergraduate at the University of Michigan, where he later served as professor. He joined Princeton University in 1995 and did his Ph.D under the guidance of Professor Peter Sarnak. As a graduate student at Princeton, he held a prestigious Sloan Foundation Fellowship. Career. After his Ph.D. he received the first five year fellowship from the American Institute of Mathematics, and held positions at Princeton University, the Institute for Advanced Study, and the University of Michigan. He moved to Stanford University in 2006 where he is currently a Professor of Mathematics and the Director of the Mathematics Research Center (MRC) at Stanford. Work. He proved a conjecture of Ron Graham in combinatorial number theory jointly with Ramachandran Balasubramanian. He made important contributions in settling Quantum unique ergodicity conjecture. Awards. He received the Salem Prize in 2003 "for contributions to the area of Dirichlet L-functions and related character sums". In 2005, he won the $10,000 SASTRA Ramanujan Prize, shared with Manjul Bhargava, awarded by SASTRA in Thanjavur, India, for his outstanding contributions to number theory. In 2011, he was awarded the Infosys science foundation prize 2011. He was awarded the Ostrowski prize in 2011, shared with lb Madsen and David Preiss, for a cornucopia of fundamental results in the last five years to go along with his brilliant earlier work. He gave an invited talk at the International Congress of Mathematicians in 2010, on the topic of "Number Theory".
480194	Azura Skye (born November 8, 1981) is an American actress who first gained recognition for her role as Jane on The WB television sitcom, "Zoe, Duncan, Jack and Jane". She also had a brief but memorable appearance (2 episodes) as Cassie Newton in the seventh season of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer". Life and career. Early life and family. Skye was born Azura Dawn Storozynski in her grandmother's home in Northridge, California. Her parents being amateur gemologists, named her after azurite, a semi-precious mineral. Azure is a color often associated with the sky; thus the stage name "Azura Skye." Being from a show business family, she started her career as a stage actress at the age of three and toured Europe with the Santa Monica Playhouse theatre group at the age of eleven. She received her education at the Brentwood School. Her grandfather, Brad Johnson, who died before her birth, was an actor known for his role as deputy sheriff Lofty Craig in the Western series, "Annie Oakley" (1954–1957), as well as a real estate developer in Los Angeles. Skye was romantically linked to Writer/Director Oden Roberts for over seven years.
395788	Shin Dong-hee () was born on 28 September 1985, mononymouly credited by his stage name Shindong (). He is a South Korean singer, songwriter, MC, radio host and actor. He is best known as a member of the K-pop boy band Super Junior and its subgroups Super Junior-T and Super Junior-H. He is one of four lead dancers and rapper of Super Junior. He often co-writes rap lyrics with band mate Eunhyuk and is noted for his comedic style. Biography. Pre-debut. Shin Dong-hee was born in Mungyeong, North Gyeongsang on September 28, 1985. Very little is known about Shindong's personal life, and many thought he was an only child. He has a younger sister called Ahn Da Young. Having a love for dancing, Shindong signed up for the 2002 Goyangsi Youth Dance contest and won the grand prize. A year later, he joined the contest again and won gold. In 2004, Shindong joined the Mnet Epi Contest and won both the gold prize and popularity award. In 2005, Shindong signed up for the "SM Best Youth Contest" and won first place for Best Comedian, achieving the grand prize. He signed a contract with SM Entertainment and received lessons to further improve his dancing ability. Months after joining the company, Shindong was put in the large all-boy rotational group Super Junior as a member of its first generation, Super Junior 05. He decided to use the stage name 'Shindong' due to his birth name sounding similar to band mate Donghae. 'Shindong' is derived from his surname and the first character of his birth name, meaning "child prodigy". 2005-2006: Debut with Super Junior. Shindong officially debut as part of 12-member project group "Super Junior 05" on 6 November 2005 on SBS's music programme "Popular Songs", performing their first single, "Twins (Knock Out)". Their debut album "SuperJunior05 (Twins)" was released a month later on 5 December 2005 and debuted at #3 on the monthly MIAK K-pop album charts. In March 2006, SM Entertainment began to recruit new members for the next Super Junior generation. However, plans changed and the company declared a halt in forming future Super Junior generations. Following the addition of thirteenth member Kyuhyun, the group dropped the suffix "05" and became officially credited as Super Junior. The re-polished group's first CD single "U" was released on 7 June 2006, which was their most successful single until the release of "Sorry, Sorry" in March 2009. 2007-2008 Super Junior Sub-groups. During his career with Super Junior, Shindong was put into two subgroups, smaller groups that are branched off of the larger Super Junior group. In February 2007, he was placed in the trot-singing Super Junior-T. A year later, he became a member of Super Junior-H. 2009-2011: Strong Heart, Sorry Sorry, Bonamana and the awarded Album Mr. Simple. From 2009, Shindong, along with Eunhyuk and Leeteuk, has been regular guests on SBS's Strong Heart, where they host special segment, Boom Academy, headed by entertainer Boom In 2009 Shindong with his fellow Super Junior members released their 3rd Album Sorry, Sorry the biggest hit of 2009. In 2010 they released their 4th album Bonamana, the best selling album of the year. In 2011 they release their 5th album Mr. Simple the best seller album of their career. On 27 September 2011, he along with Yesung and Eunhyuk filled in for bandmate Heechul, who enlisted for mandatory military service on 1 September, during the performance on Music Bank and Show! Music Core of Kim Jang-hoon latest single, "Breakups are So Like Me". Heechul is featured in the song and starred in the music video, which was completed the day before he enlisted. April 2007 car accident. On 19 April 2007, almost two months after Super Junior-T's release of their first single "Rokuko". Leeteuk and Kyuhyun became seriously injured in a car accident, along with Shindong, Eunhyuk, and two managers, when returning home after a recording of the radio show "Super Junior Kiss the Radio". While they were on the highway, the front left tire burst as the driver was switching lanes and the van ran into the guard rail/medium on the driver's side and skidded for about 30 metres. At some point, the momentum caused the van to flip over on its right side. While Shindong and Eunhyuk suffered minor injuries, Leeteuk and Kyuhyun sustained more serious injuries, which required both to be hospitalised. Leeteuk had glass shards embedded in his back and above his eyes, requiring over 170 stitches. Kyuhyun, who was sitting behind the driver's seat when the accident occurred, was the most injured and had a fractured hip, pneumothorax from broken ribs, and facial scratches and bruises. Television and film career. Hosting. Five days after Super Junior 05's debut performance, Shindong became the emcee of Mnet's music program "M!Countdown" along with Leeteuk and Kangin. They stayed as the hosts throughout the remaining year until Kangin was replaced by Eunhyuk in mid-2006. The trio's last day of hosting was on March 27, 2008. Shindong is popularly known as an active emcee and radio host of MBC's BoBoBo Ai Joa and KMTV's Green Apple Sound, successfully establishing the image, "DJ Shindong." Shindong left Green Apple Sound to host MBC's "Stop the Boring Time Radio" with Kim Shin-young. From 2009, Shindong, along with Eunhyuk and Leeteuk, has been regular guests on SBS's "Strong Heart", where they host special segment, Boom Academy, headed by entertainer Boom. On 28 March 2012, SM Entertainment announced Shindong's departure from the show. As of the 10 April 2012 broadcast, following the change in MCs and his departure, the show was re-vamped with Leeteuk and Eunhyuk, Kim Hyo Jin, Jung Ju Ri and Yang Se Hyung, billed as the 'six-fixed guests'. Acting. While Shindong had prior acting experiences as a comedian, his acting debut was in the Super Junior film "Attack on the Pin-Up Boys", which premiered on 26 July 2007. In 2008, Shindong played a major supporting role in the mini television series "Single Dad in Love" and also participated in the drama's original soundtrack. He and radio partner Kim Shin Young appeared in an episode of popular MBC drama Queen of Housewives. Personal life. Shindong is currently a student at Paekche Institute of the Arts. He enjoys making jokes and frequently attends gag performances. Wanting to present a healthier image to fans, Shindong went on a diet in 2008 and lost around 19 kg. In early 2009, Shindong lost another 10 kg after Leeteuk broadcast a comment in "Super Junior's Kiss the Radio" saying that Shindong would lose more weight for the fans.
1068184	Air Bud is an 1997 American family comedy film that sparked the franchise centered on the real-life dog, Buddy, a Golden Retriever. The film's title is a wordplay on "Air Jordan", a nickname of basketball superstar Michael Jordan. It is the first film to be distributed together by longtime animation rivals Walt Disney Pictures and Warner Bros. Pictures, albeit in different territories (Disney handled US distribution, while Warner handled international distribution). The original film was financially successful, grossing US$4 million in its opening weekend and totaling US$23 million for its final run, against an estimated $3 million budget. Background. Air Bud, also known as Buddy and Air Buddy, was a stray dog found in the Sierra Nevada mountains in summer 1989. Kevin di Cicco adopted the disheveled dog and brought him home to San Diego. In addition to an appearance on American's Funniest and Amazing Home Videos and multiple performances on David Letterman's shows, Buddy played the role of Comet on a February 1995 episode of Full House. Buddy's story is told in the 2012 book "Go Buddy!" Plot. The plot revolves around a 12-year old boy, Josh Framm. After the death of his father, who has died in the crash of a test flight due to a fuel shortage on his plane, Josh moves with his family to Washington State and was too shy to try out for his middle school's basketball team and too shy to make any friends. He meets Buddy, a Golden Retriever who had escaped from his abusive owner, an alcoholic clown named Norman Snively. Snively had locked Buddy in a kennel after causing trouble at a birthday party and was taking him to the dog pound when the kennel fell off the truck. Josh soon learns that Buddy has the uncanny ability to play basketball. Josh's mom initially only agrees to let him keep the dog until Christmas and she plans to send him to the pound if the true owner wasn't found. However, Josh's mother sees how much Josh loves Buddy and vice versa. When Josh wakes up on Christmas Day and Buddy was not in his room, he goes downstairs and sees Buddy with a bow on his head. She gives Buddy to Josh as a Christmas present. Josh wants to join the basketball team but chickens out at the last minute and becomes the water boy. After two slots are opened up and learning of Buddy's talent, Josh tries out (despite basketball coach Joe Barker's reluctance) and makes the team. At his first game Buddy shows up and disrupts the game and causes mayhem, but the audience loves him, because he scored a point. After the game Buddy finds coach Barker abusing Tom, one of Josh's teammates and friend who gave him a lucky orange peel he got at a Seattle SuperSonics game, by trying to make him catch better by pelting him with basketballs. Joe Barker was fired and replaced by the school's engineer, Arthur Chaney, who Josh discovers was a former New York Knicks player. Buddy becomes the mascot of Josh's school's basketball team and begins appearing in their halftime shows. But just before the championship game, Buddy's former owner, Snively, after seeing Buddy on TV, tricks his mom and steals Buddy from Josh. Josh then infiltrates Snively's backyard where Buddy was chained up. Snively initially can't see Josh due to a stack of beer cans on his windowsill until it falls and Josh was caught infiltrating his backyard. Josh gets the chains off Buddy and both escape, causing Snively to chase Josh and Buddy in his dilapidated clown truck. The chase rages on to a parking lot near a lake, during which the clown truck begins to fall apart, causing Snively and his truck to splash into the water, but he doesn't drown. A few minutes after the chase, Josh then decides to set Buddy free to find someone else. Initially, his team was losing at the championship until Buddy shows up. When it was discovered that there's no rule that a dog cannot play basketball, Buddy joins the roster to lead the team to a come-from-behind championship victory. Snively sues the Framm family for custody of Buddy. Fortunately, at the suggestion of coach Chaney, who the courtroom judge was a fan of, it was decided that the dog will choose who will be his rightful owner. During the calling, Snively takes out his roll of newspaper, which he often used to hit Buddy, and snaps at him, causing Buddy to attack Snively, tearing up the weapon of abuse and run towards Josh. The judge grants custody of Buddy to Josh, Snively, who runs at Buddy and Josh in a last-ditch effort to get the dog back, is dragged away by the police and arrested, while Josh and the rest of the citizens rejoice for the new home of Buddy. Home video release. "Air Bud" was released to VHS on December 23, 1997 and to DVD on February 4, 1998 (with an open matte aspect ratio). It was released again on March 3, 2009 in a special edition DVD set, featuring commentary from B-Dawg, Budderball, Rosebud, Buddha, Mudbud, Molly, and Buddy himself and presents the film in its Original Theatrical Aspect Ratio. Sequels and spin-offs. The film generated one theater-released sequel and many direct-to-video sequels and a spin-off film series. In each film, Buddy learns to play a different sport.
775824	Space Is the Place is an 82-minute science fiction film made in 1972 and released in 1974. It was directed by John Coney, written by Sun Ra and Joshua Smith, and features Sun Ra and his Arkestra. A soundtrack was released on Evidence Records. Background. During the late-1960s and early-1970s, Sun Ra and his ensemble made several forays to California. In 1971, Sun Ra taught a course, "The Black Man in the Cosmos," at University of California, Berkeley. Over the course of these California visits, Sun Ra came to the attention of Jim Newman, who produced the film "Space Is the Place" starring Sun Ra and his Arkestra, and based, in part, on Sun Ra's Berkeley lectures. Plot. Sun Ra, who has been reported lost since his European tour in June 1969, lands on a new planet in outerspace with his crew "The Arkestra" and decides to settle African Americans on this planet. The medium of transportation he had chosen is music. He travels back in time and returns to the Chicago strip club where he used to play piano with the name "Sonny Ray" in 1943. There he confronts The Overseer (Ray Johnson), a pimp-overlord, and they agree on a duel at cards for the fate of the Black race. Each card drawn is a minor goal to achieve for Ra or The Overseer which will determine the winner of the duel. Then, to present time, Ra disembarks from his spaceship at Oakland and tries to spread his word by meeting with young Blacks at an Oakland youth centre and opening an "employment agency" to recruit people eager to move to the planet. He also agrees with Jimmy Fey (Christopher Brooks), the minion of The Overseer, to arrange radio interviews, a record album, and eventually a concert that will help him dictate his message. At the end, Ra takes Fey's "Black parts" with him to the spaceship, leaving him with his White parts. Fey, now acting white, leaves The Overseer who loses the duel. The planet Earth is destroyed after Ra's spaceship flies into the space.
1101294	Abramowitz and Stegun is the informal name of a mathematical reference work edited by Milton Abramowitz and Irene Stegun of the U.S. National Bureau of Standards (now the "National Institute of Standards and Technology"). Its full title is Handbook of Mathematical Functions with Formulas, Graphs, and Mathematical Tables. Since it was first published in 1964, the 1046 page "Handbook" has been one of the most comprehensive sources of information on special functions, containing definitions, identities, approximations, plots, and tables of values of numerous functions used in virtually all fields of applied mathematics. The notation used in the "Handbook" is the "de facto" standard for much of applied mathematics today. At the time of its publication, the "Handbook" was an essential resource for practitioners. Nowadays, computer algebra systems have replaced the function tables, but the "Handbook" remains an important reference source. The foreword discusses a meeting in 1954 in which it was agreed that "the advent of high-speed computing equipment changed the task of table making but definitely did not remove the need for tables". Editions. Because the "Handbook" is the work of U.S. federal government employees acting in their official capacity, it is not protected by copyright. While it can be ordered from the Government Printing Office, it has also been reprinted by commercial publishers, most notably Dover Publications (ISBN 0-486-61272-4), and can be legally viewed and downloaded off the web. Successor. A digital successor to the Handbook, long under development at NIST, was released as the “Digital Library of Mathematical Functions” (DLMF) on May 11, 2010, along with a printed version, the "NIST Handbook of Mathematical Functions," published by Cambridge University Press (ISBN 978-0-521-19225-5). More information can be found at NIST.
694975	Maladolescenza () is a 1977 film directed by Pier Giuseppe Murgia. Plot. Laura (Lara Wendel, age 12) and Fabrizio (Martin Loeb, age 18) have been meeting every summer in the forest by her parent's summer home. Fabrizio is a solitary boy with only his dog for company; Laura a sweet, but unconfident child. This summer new aspects enter into their story as both are growing up. The film represents them as part child, part adult. Part naive, part knowing. Laura is falling in love with Fabrizio, while he displays a new sexual awareness of her masked by his malice. Fabrizio becomes inexplicably cruel. He accelerates his unwarranted torment of Laura in many ways, including tying her up and putting a snake near her and killing a pet bird she is fond of. Fabrizio prides himself on being 'king of the forest' and rubbishes Laura's tender attempts to be his queen. One day they climb the "Blue Mountain", a mysterious tall mountain at the forest's edge and discover ancient building ruins. Exploring these they find a cave. Inside, Fabrizio seduces Laura. Fabrizio's cruel streak is boosted by his new sexual confidence. At one point he virtually forces himself on Laura, much to her upset. He does relent when she makes it clear she wants Fabrizio to be gentle with her, which he ridicules. Things develop further when they meet Sylvia (Eva Ionesco, age 12). Unlike the previously virginal Laura, Sylvia is confident and assertive. Fabrizio develops a fascination with her, eventually bribing Laura to fetch her to the forest to join them in play. Sylvia aware of Fabrizio’s interest in her, asserts herself in his affections, quickly replacing Laura and demoting her to servant and victim, which Fabrizio takes delight in. Laura, reluctant to leave her old friend and new lover, stays and becomes the target of the duo's ever progressing cruelty. At one point, they both 'hunt' Laura with bows and arrows and at another, pretend to throw her off a high ledge. They make love in front of her, insisting her punishment is that she must watch, leaving Laura confused and heartbroken. At the end of summer, with the girls talking about returning to school, Fabrizio becomes pensive and agitated. He insists on taking Sylvia to the ruins for the first time. All three of them go into the cave to escape a thunderstorm and Fabrizio again pretends they are lost as he did with Laura. Sylvia breaks down sobbing for her mother, all traces of her confidence and maturity lost in the fear of being in the cave. Fabrizio repeatedly begs Sylvia to stay with him forever. In the morning, Sylvia is still lost in the cave and further rejects the desperate Fabrizio and his pleas to stay with him. She becomes hysterical and he kills her with a knife, feeling it is the only way he won't lose her. He stays with the dead body and gives Laura the flashlight telling her she knows the way home and Laura reluctantly leaves. The film ends with a translation of the poem "Akarsz-e játszani" ("Would You Like to Play?") by Hungarian writer Dezső Kosztolányi. Filming. The film was co-produced by two Munich companies as well as an Italian enterprise, from 17 August to 16 September 1976, filmed in upper Austria and Kärnten. Chosen to play Sylvia was young Eva Ionesco, herself no stranger to controversy, as her mother was famous in their native France for her photos featuring a then five year old Ionesco in semi-sexual artistic photography. Controversy. "Maladolescenza" is known primarily for its use of a young actor and two 12 year old pubescent actresses in scenes involving both nudity and simulated sex. It's largely unseen in all but a few countries primarily for this reason. In Germany, although released uncut in cinemas at 91 minutes in 1977, public outcry caused for several scenes to be removed on its home video releases, namely all instances of nudity, sexuality and death involving children, bringing the running time down to a meagre 77 minutes. In 2004, a German cult DVD distributor, restored these cuts in a re-mastered version running at 91 minutes. This version was later banned in a German court on 28 July 2006, condemning the material as child pornography, successfully withdrawing all copies from distribution. In 2010, a Dutch court ruled that the movie qualifies as child pornography because it depicts the sexual exploitation of children. Its worldwide circulation is largely unknown to this day, including in Italy and France where seemingly no DVD or home video releases have ever been made available. Masterpiece or exploitation? "Maladolescenza" has a reputation of anything from a beautiful work of genius, to the lowest form of titillation. Modern reviews have appeared online defending the film as an artistic work, citing it as uncompromising and uncomfortable viewing, but a beautiful film exploring the complexities of teenage sexuality and sexual awakening. Many decry not only the young age of its three actors but scenes involving animal cruelty. Soundtrack. The music was recorded in stereo at Dirmaphon Studios, Rome, Italy. The original release contained the first 18 tracks.
1166581	Roger Bowen (May 25, 1932 – February 16, 1996) was an American comedic actor and novelist, known for his portrayal of Lt. Col. Henry Blake in the 1970 film "MASH". He often portrayed roles as a stuffy defender of the upper class and had regular roles on a number of television series. His successful acting career aside, Bowen always considered himself a writer who only moonlighted as an actor. He wrote eleven novels (including "Just Like a Movie") as well as sketches for Broadway and television. He was also one of the co-founders of Chicago's famed comedy and acting troupe The Second City. Bowen was born in Attleboro, Massachusetts. He said he was writing theater reviews for the University of Chicago student newspaper when he was asked to pen material for an improvisational troupe that included Alan Arkin and Mike Nichols. The troupe, Compass Players, evolved into The Second City. Bowen spent most of the 1960s playing "preppie" types on a number of TV & radio commercials. His first film role was 1968's "Petulia", but his big movie break came in 1970, when he created the role of lackadaisical Blake in the 1970 Robert Altman cult film "MASH". While it was another veteran of TV commercials, McLean Stevenson, who would play Lieutenant Colonel Blake’s role on the long-running "M*A*S*H" television series, Roger Bowen already had solid exposure in the early 1970s. After "MASH", Bowen gained a fan following as "Hamilton Majors Jr.", the pleasantly snooty and supportive Ivy League boss of Herschel Bernardi on the TV sitcom "Arnie" (1970–72).
520493	Kristine Hermosa Orille-Sotto on September 9, 1983 in Quezon City, Philippines) is a Filipina actress. She is well known for portraying the role of Yna Macaspac in the primetime drama series, "Pangako Sa 'Yo". She is still one of the Biggest Stars of Star Magic in ABS-CBN and considered one of the Most Beautiful Celebrities in showbiz industry. Biography. Personal life. She is the second of four children in the family. Her mother is of Spanish-Filipina descent and her father is Filipino. One of her siblings is actress Kathleen Hermosa. Hermosa went to Batino Elementary School. When her family moved to Laguna, she then enrolled at Colegio de San Pedro, San Pedro, Laguna near Pacita Complex to continue her remaining years in grade school and eventually her first year in high school. She then pursued her studies at ABS-CBN Learning Center after they moved back to Manila. On September 21, 2004, she had a marriage ceremony with Diether Ocampo, her co-star in "Sana'y Wala Nang Wakas"; however, the Court of Appeals, on January 30, 2009, upheld a lower court ruling that the marriage was null and void from the very start. Kristine became officially part of the Sotto clan when she married Oyo Boy Sotto on January 12, 2011. They have two children, an adopted son, Kristian Daniel or Kiel, born August 16, 2008 and a biological daughter, Ondrea Bliss, born December 26, 2011. Acting career. Kristine Hermosa was discovered at age 12 when her older sister Kathleen auditioned for a show in ABS-CBN. She was cast in the 1998 weekly drama series, "Sa Sandaling Kailangan Mo Ako". In 2000, she was cast in the primetime soap opera, "Pangako sa 'Yo". She starred in the film "Forevermore", released in 2002. In 2003-2004, she starred in "Sana'y Wala Nang Wakas" with Jericho Rosales, Diether Ocampo and Angelika dela Cruz. The following year she also starred in Ngayon Nandito Ka released in November 2003 Hermosa starred in the film "All My Life" where she played a broken-hearted woman who finds love with a dying man. She also played the lead role in the short-lived television series "'Til Death Do Us Part" in 2005. Hermosa appeared in "Gulong ng Palad" and "Prinsesa ng Banyera" in 2006 and 2007 respectively and in 2009 in "Dahil May Isang Ikaw". She was Last seen in the TV Project appeared in the action-fantasy series "Noah" where she played a diwata, the counterpart of a fairy in Philippine mythology. Filmography. Movies. 2013 Darna - the movie
1056486	Entre Nous (""Between Us""; also known as Coup de foudre) is a 1983 French biographical drama film directed by Diane Kurys, who shares the writing credits with Olivier Cohen. Set in the France of the mid twentieth century, the film stars Isabelle Huppert, Miou-Miou, Guy Marchand, Jean-Pierre Bacri and Christine Pascal. "Coup de Foudre" means "love at first sight". Plot. "Entre Nous" tells the story of two young married women in the 1950s who don't recognise how unfulfilled they have been in their marriages until they meet each other. In the preliminary scenes, set in 1942, Lena (Isabelle Huppert), a pretty 18 year old, has been arrested and brought to an internment camp for Jews in the Pyrenees. The camp is guarded by members of the French Foreign Legion, and one of them, Michel (Guy Marchand), writes her a note warning her she may be deported to a German Nazi camp, and offers her marriage as a means of escape. She accepts. During the marriage ceremony she discovers that he too is Jewish; she's dismayed to learn that she won't have the protection of a gentile name.
1164203	Vanessa Bell Calloway (born March 20, 1957) is an American actress who has appeared in a number of films, including "Biker Boyz", "Love Don't Cost a Thing", "What's Love Got to Do with It", "Coming to America", and "Cheaper by the Dozen". Early life and career. Born Vanessa Bell in Cleveland, Ohio, she received a Bachelor's of Fine Arts Degree from Ohio University where she was a member of the African-American Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority. Calloway also studied dance with Alvin Ailey, George Faison, and Otis Sallid. Calloway began her career as a dancer in Michael Bennett's original Broadway production of "Dreamgirls". She also was in the ensemble of the short-lived musical Bring Back Birdie. It was during this time period that Calloway directed the music video "Angel Man" for soul singer Rhetta Hughes. Calloway first began acting in the long-running soap opera "All My Children" in 1982. She has appeared in various guest roles in television including "Falcon Crest", "1st & Ten", "L.A. Law", "A Different World", "Doctor Doctor", "Dream On", "", "The Closer". In 1995, she co-starred opposite James Earl Jones and Joe Morton in the short-lived CBS drama "Under One Roof". For her role on the series, Calloway was nominated for the NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Actress in a Drama Series. She has also received two Image Award nominations for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series for her work on "Boston Public" and "The District". In addition to television and stage work, Calloway has also appeared in several films. She made her film debut in the comedy "Coming to America" as Eddie Murphy's subservient bride-to-be. Calloway later appeared in "What's Love Got to Do with It" (1993) opposite Angela Bassett, "Crimson Tide" (1995) starring Denzel Washington and Gene Hackman, and "Lakeview Terrace" (2008) starring Samuel L. Jackson. Personal life. She has been married to anesthesiologist Dr. Anthony Calloway since 1988. The couple have two daughters, Ashley and Ally. Ashley is one of the stars of the BET series "Baldwin Hills".
1059161	Breaking and Entering is a 2006 romantic crime drama directed by Anthony Minghella and starring Jude Law, Juliette Binoche, and Robin Wright Penn. The film was written by Minghella, his first original screenplay since his 1991 feature debut "Truly, Madly, Deeply". Set in a blighted, inner-city neighbourhood of London, the film is about a successful landscape architect whose dealings with a young thief and his mother cause him to re-evaluate his life. Minghella previously directed the film's stars – Jude Law in "Cold Mountain" and "The Talented Mr. Ripley", and Juliette Binoche in "The English Patient". In his first major film role, Rafi Gavron portrays Miro, the young "traceur" burglar, a role requiring several difficult physical feats. The film is a presentation of Miramax Films and The Weinstein Company and was distributed in the United States by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. "Breaking and Entering" premièred on 13 September 2006 at the Toronto International Film Festival. Plot. Will Francis (Jude Law), a young Englishman, is a landscape architect living a detached, routine-based life in London with his Swedish-American girlfriend Liv (Robin Wright Penn) and her autistic daughter Bea. The 13-year-old girl's irregular sleeping and eating habits as well as her unsocial behaviour (she has trouble relating to people and seems only interested in doing somersaults and gymnastics) reach worrying proportions and start to put a lot of strain on Will and Liv's relationship. Complicating the situation further is his feeling of being shut out of their inner circle since Bea is not his biological daughter. He and Liv start relationship counselling, but their drifting apart continues. Simultaneously on the business front, Will's and his partner Sandy's state-of-the-art offices in the Kings Cross area are repeatedly burgled by a group of Slavic-language speaking thieves. The thieves employ a 15-year-old traceur named Miro (Rafi Gavron) whose acrobatic skills allow them to enter the building. Miro is actually a refugee from Bosnia living with his Muslim mother Amira (Juliette Binoche) who works as a seamstress while his Serbian father got murdered during the war. Though they're puzzled about the burglars' ability to disable the alarm, the two architects are not particularly worried after the first break-in, mostly writing it off to the neighbourhood's dodgy reputation. However, after the second one they decide to stake out the building after hours hoping to find the culprit and alert the police. Being out of the house on nightly stakeouts actually suits Will just fine, allowing him to get away from the cold atmosphere of his household. He even strikes up a strange acquaintance with an Eastern European prostitute named Oana (Vera Farmiga) who hangs around the area every night. Spotting Miro attempting to break in one night, Will attempts to follow him. This pursuit leads Will to the flat where Miro lives with his mother Amira. Realizing their modest living means, he decides not to report his findings to the police, but goes back to Amira's apartment under the guise of having a suit that needs mending. He soon becomes emotionally entangled with her, causing him to re-evaluate his life. Conflict arises when the police close in on the burglars, and Will must make a crucial choice which will affect the lives of everyone around him. Production. Filming locations. The film centres on the area of King's Cross, London. The filming location for Amira's flat is Rowley Way, South Hampstead, London. Since a suitable location near Kings Cross couldn't be found, Will's office was recreated in an old foundry located in Dace Road, by the Old Ford Lock, in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. Other locations include: Soundtrack. Gabriel Yared and Underworld collaborated on the film's original music score. Reception. The film largely received negative reviews, with Rotten Tomatoes giving the film 34%.
1162714	Aurabela "Belita" Moreno (born November 1, 1949) is an American actress best known for her roles as Benita "Benny" Lopez on the ABC sitcom "George Lopez" and Edwina Twinkacetti/Lydia Markham on "Perfect Strangers". Early life. Aurabela Moreno was born in Dallas, Texas. Her parents, Abel Moreno and Aurora (née Fernandez Rodriguez), a high school teacher, came to the U.S. from Mexico. Moreno graduated from Justin F. Kimball High School, and went on to major in Theatre at Southern Methodist University. She continued her acting studies at the Pacific Conservatory of the Performing Arts in Santa Maria, California, where she appeared in the musical "Once Upon a Mattress". Moreno married Joel Rudnick, a talent agent; the couple had two children.
1163596	Elizabeth Ashley (born August 30, 1939) is an American actress who first came to prominence as the ingenue in the Broadway play "Take Her, She's Mine", which earned her a Tony Award as Best Featured Actress in a Play. Early life. Ashley was born Elizabeth Ann Cole in Ocala in north central Florida, the daughter of Lucille (née Ayer) and Arthur Kingman Cole, and reared in Baton Rouge, Louisiana near the LSU campus. Career. Ashley earned a Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Play for the play "Take Her, She's Mine" (1961), then later starred as Corie in the original Broadway production of Neil Simon's "Barefoot in the Park" (1963) and, later, her defiantly sexual Maggie was praised in a successful Broadway revival of Tennessee Williams' "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" (1974). Ashley received Tony nominations for both performances. She also appeared on Broadway as Dr. Livingstone in "Agnes of God" (1982). She was also a replacement in the role of Mattie Fae during the original Broadway run of the Pulitzer Prize-winning play "". She has been featured in major motion pictures over five decades since her early roles in "The Carpetbaggers" in 1964 and "Ship of Fools" in 1965. She had supporting parts in the films "Rancho Deluxe" in 1975, "Coma" in 1978, "Split Image" in 1982, and "Dragnet" in 1987. She also starred as the villain in the film "Windows" (1980). Her most recent film roles were as Diane Freed in the 1998 Todd Solondz film Happiness, and as Marg in the 2007 independent film The Cake Eaters. Having appeared in a Burt Reynolds comedy film, "Paternity" in 1981 and as a guest star in his television series "B.L. Stryker" in 1989, Ashley became a cast member of Reynolds' next television series, "Evening Shade", from 1990–1994 as "Aunt Frieda Evans". In 1991, this role garnered her an Emmy nomination for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series.
1060276	Karl-Heinz Urban (born 7 June 1972) is a New Zealand actor. He is best known for playing Éomer in the and installments of Peter Jackson's "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy, Dr. Leonard "Bones" McCoy in "Star Trek" and "Star Trek Into Darkness", Caesar on "", Vaako in "The Chronicles of Riddick" and "Riddick", and Judge Dredd in the 2012 film "Dredd". He won acclaim for his performances in New Zealand films "The Price of Milk" and "Out of the Blue". Early life. Urban was born in Wellington, New Zealand. His father, a German immigrant, owned a leather goods store, and his mother once worked for Film Facilities in Wellington. Through his mother, the young Urban was exposed to classic New Zealand cinema, and developed an interest in the film industry. Urban attended St Mark's Church School, where he showed an early love for public performance. His first acting role came at age eight, when he had a single line in one episode of the New Zealand television series "Pioneer Woman". Though continuing to take part in school stage productions, he did not act professionally again until after high school. He attended Wellington College from 1986–1990, then Victoria University of Wellington in the Bachelor of Arts program for one year, then left to pursue his acting career. Over the next few years, he appeared in several local TV commercials in addition to theater roles in the Wellington area. Eventually he moved to Auckland, where he was offered many guest roles in TV shows (one of which was playing a heroin addict in the police drama "Shark in the Park").
631140	Windrider (alternatively worded as Wind Rider and also known as Making Waves) is a 1986 Australian romantic comedy film directed by Vincent Monton and starring Tom Burlinson. Filmed in Perth, Western Australia, Australia. It features Kidman in her first 'adult' role and includes a few nude scenes. In an interview Kidman stated was attracted to the role of Jade because the character was older. Plot. Stewart 'P.C.' Simpson (Burlinson) lives in a magnificent beachfront home with his wealthy father and is an enthusiastic windsurfer, indulging his passion for windsurfing on a daily basis. His father (Tingwell) may fault him for not working at a regular job, but he can appreciate his son's remarkable abilities on the waves. With the help of his father's company's engineer Howard (Chilvers) he develops a high tech surf board for the coming world windsurfing championship. Jade (Kidman) is a rock singer, who starts a romance with P.C., but as their romance blooms, sport, friends and the upcoming championship become secondary. Production. The movie was the first film directed by experienced cinematographer Vince Monton. Monton later said he felt the film was too adult (it received an M rating) when it should have been aimed at 13 year olds. Filming started 16 September 1985. Home Media. "Windrider" was released on DVD by Umbrella Entertainment in March 2010. The DVD is compatible with all region codes and includes special features such as the theatrical trailer, Umbrella Entertainment trailers, a stills gallery, wind surfing promo, "Young Thing" music promo, Nicole Kidman music promo, an extended bedroom scene, script, press kit, press clippings and cast biographies.
586102	Makante Achan (, English: "The Son's Father") is a 2009 Malayalam film starring Sreenivasan, Vineeth Sreenivasan, and Suhasini in the lead roles. It was directed by V.M. Vinu, written by Samjad Narayanan, and produced by Seven Arts International Ltd. with G. P. Vijayakumar serving as the executive producer.
1592526	Shelby F. "Sheb" Wooley (April 10, 1921 – September 16, 2003) was a character actor and singer, best known for his 1958 novelty song "The Purple People Eater". He played Ben Miller, brother of Frank Miller in the film "High Noon", played Travis Cobb in "The Outlaw Josey Wales", and also had a co-starring role as scout Pete Nolan in the television program "Rawhide". Biography. Wooley was born in Erick, Oklahoma, and was reared on a farm. He learned to ride horses at an early age and was a working cowboy and rodeo rider. He also played in a country-western band. Wooley tried to enlist during World War II, but was turned down for military service because of his rodeo injuries. Instead, he worked in the oil industry and as a welder. In 1946, he moved to Fort Worth, Texas, and became a country and western musician. He married Edna Ethel Bunt in Fort Worth and they moved to Hollywood in 1949. When they crossed the famous intersection of Hollywood and Vine on Christmas Day 1949, it was snowing.
1164450	William Russ (born October 20, 1950) is an American actor and television director. He is perhaps best known for his role as Alan Matthews on the sitcom "Boy Meets World" (1993–2000). Russ is also notable for his roles in the television series "Wiseguy", the soap operas "Another World" and "The Young and the Restless" and the feature films "Pastime" (1991) and "American History X" (1998). Life and career. Early life. Russ was born in Portsmouth, Virginia, and is the son of a naval officer. He attended the University of Michigan, where he was a member of the Michigan Cheer team, which was all male at the time. He was also a diver at U of M. Career. Russ' acting first began on the New York stage before he embarked onto a television and film career. In 1977, he had his first supporting role in "". This film would not be officially released until 2003. During the 1980s, Russ found work in more supporting roles such as "Crisis at Central High" (1981), a television film also starring Academy Award winning actress Joanne Woodward, "The Border" (1981), "The Right Stuff" (1983) as Slick Goodlin, "St. Elsewhere" (1986) and "Crime Story" (1986). He continued finding work in both television and film. He also guest starred in the television series "Miami Vice" in the 1985 episode "Evan" as the title character, an ATF agent who shared a history with Don Johnson's character, Sonny Crockett. He made fourteen appearances on the 1987-1990 crime drama "Wiseguy" as Roger Lococco. Russ received critical acclaim when he starred in "Pastime" (1991) as Roy Dean Bream, a veteran minor league hurler who mentors a young phenomenon. The role earned him a nomination at the 1992 Independent Spirit Awards for "Best Male Lead." In 1993, he was cast as Alan Matthews on the television sitcom "Boy Meets World". Russ played this role until the series ended in 2000. Russ also directed several episodes of the series during the last three seasons. His other television directing credits include directing one episode of both "Lizzie McGuire" and "Rude Awakening". However, he continued performing in other series and films throughout his time on "Boy Meets World", primarily television films. In 1998, he performed as Danny and Derek Vinyard's father in the critically acclaimed "American History X". Later, he starred in the short-lived television serial drama "Mister Sterling". In fall 2009, it was announced that Russ would be cast as the new character Tucker on "The Young and the Restless". Russ' time on the show was short, however, as it has been announced the role of Tucker was being recast with Stephen Nichols replacing Russ in the role. Russ is the star of the comedy web series "Home at Last". In the series, he portrays "Bob", a homeless man who moves in with the son he abandoned at birth. Personal life. Russ is married to actress Clare Wren and has a daughter and son. He enjoys downhill skiing and windsurfing. Awards and nominations. Independent Spirit Awards
1067377	Nick Searcy (born March 7, 1959) is an American actor who currently portrays Chief Deputy United States Marshal Art Mullen on FX's "Justified". He also had a major role in the Tom Hanks-produced miniseries "From the Earth to the Moon" as Deke Slayton. Life and career. Searcy was born in Cullowhee, North Carolina. He is a graduate of Cullowhee High School. He then briefly attended the North Carolina School of the Arts and graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill with a degree in English.
1104769	Ralph H. Abraham (b. July 4, 1936, Burlington, Vermont) is an American mathematician. He has been a member of the mathematics department at the University of California, Santa Cruz since 1968. Life and work. Ralph Abraham earned his Ph.D. from the University of Michigan in 1960, and held positions at UC Santa Cruz, Berkeley, Columbia, and Princeton. He has also held visiting positions in Amsterdam, Paris, Warwick, Barcelona, Basel, and Florence.
1036111	Paul Kaye (born 15 December 1964) is an English comedian and actor. He achieved notoriety in 1995 portraying the character of Dennis Pennis, a shock interviewer on "The Sunday Show". Recently he has been known as rude New Jersey lawyer Mike Strutter with his own show "Strutter" on MTV. Kaye also plays the voice of Vincent the fox on the BBC comedy "Mongrels" and most recently Thoros of Myr in HBO's "Game of Thrones". He also fronts the UK TV adverts for betting website BetVictor Biography. Early life. Born in Clapton, east London to Jewish parents. Kaye was adopted with his twin sister Lisa and was brought up in Wembley where their father and mother ran a nearby schoolwear shop. Kaye was a promising schoolboy athlete who achieved an impressive time in the 100 metres (he was faster than Theo Walcott as a 16 year old) and he became a fan of punk rock, particularly Sid Vicious. At 16 he entered Harrow School of Art on a two-year foundation course, and achieved a distinction. Kaye received a first-class degree in Theatre Design at Trent Polytechnic. Pre-Pennis career. Kaye took a year out of college in 1984 and worked on a kibbutz in Israel, where he met his future wife Orly; they married in 1989. Kaye designed theatre posters for the King's Head, the Bush Theatre and the Gate Theatre, Notting Hill. He was a scene painter at the Old Vic Theatre in Waterloo and illustrated regularly for the "NME", "i-D", "Literary Review", "Time Out" and "International Musician" magazines between 1987–89. He had two exhibitions of illustration and poster work between 1989–90, firstly at the Soho House Theatre, W1 and then at the Drill Hall, WC1. Kaye formed and sang in many bands, notably the dark psychedelic outfit We Are Pleb, who played extensively on the Camden scene of 1988–89 (which spawned Blur and Suede) and had a penchant for setting the stage on fire. Kaye was signed to Go Discs in 1992 with a group called TV Eye (formed with ex-members of the band Eat), which released two singles, "Killer Fly" and "Eradicator". In 1993, Kaye filmed a prototype Dennis Pennis, interviewing his own band on a late-night indie music show on Granada TV called Transmission. After the interview, Kaye then went out with the crew, got very drunk and offended as many people as possible up and down Oxford Street. This tape somehow arrived on the desk of producers at Planet 24 six months later, and they offered Kaye the job of knocking on people's doors at 6am on "The Big Breakfast". Kaye turned them down, preferring to stay on the dole and stick with We Are Pleb; Mark Lamarr eventually took the job. Kaye was the in-house graphic designer for Tottenham Hotspur, he had an office in White Hart Lane and designed merchandise for Spurs, Derby County, Southampton and Aston Villa for the company Hummel (doing caricatures of Paul Gascoigne for school lunchboxes etc.). As an Arsenal fan, Kaye has claimed there are subliminal cannons contained within his work for Spurs, most notably a pen and ink drawing of Tottenham's new stand on a catalogue cover which feature a minute cannon in the crowd. 70,000 were printed up. Kaye became in-house theatre designer of the Bet Zvi Drama Academy in Tel Aviv for 12 months in 1994, designing all the in-house productions in their studio theatre. His TV debut was on "The Word" being secretly filmed in Oliver Reed's dressing room. Kaye recalls "Reed had drunk two bottles of vodka, taken all his clothes off and I honestly thought he was going to kill me on live television. I swore in bed that I'd never do a celebrity interview again. Typically, six months later I'd come up with Dennis Pennis." In 1994, Kaye convinced an old friend Anthony Hines (a car mechanic and some time roadie for TV Eye) to help him write Dennis Pennis when he was offered the job on "The Sunday Show". (Hines was later poached by Sacha Baron Cohen to write for Ali G on The Eleven O'Clock Show and went on to receive an Oscar nomination for co-writing "Borat" in 2006). Dennis Pennis. Celebrity interviewer Dennis Pennis – created by Kaye and Hines – was one of Kaye's best-known characters. A physical cross between Johnny Rotten and Woody Allen, with a shock of red hair, gaudy jackets adorned with punk-style badges, and thick glasses (worn, ostensibly, to reduce the likelihood of getting assaulted), Pennis stood out from the crowd and asked celebrities atypical questions, ranging from playful to cruel. After brief stints presenting two episodes of "Transmission" (ITV's indie music magazine programme circa 1990) as Pennis, the character next appeared in 1995 on BBC2's "The Sunday Show". The basic premise was that Kaye and a camera crew would visit film premieres, press functions and other assorted celebrity gatherings to attempt to get an "interview" with stars, in between short skits and sketches featuring the character. Originally, the celebrities would be mainly British stars harassed at assorted London-based events, such as actor Hugh Grant, TV host Ulrika Jonsson and sports pundit Des Lynam. A 1995 video release of these early clips, "Anyone For Pennis", assured success for the controversial comedian, who sought to broaden Pennis's scope. When the Pennis character took off, Kaye was afforded a budget large enough to travel to Cannes, Hollywood and Venice to record footage for his video "VIP – Very Important Pennis", released in 1996. His victims from this point on were much more renowned, the most famous of whom were Arnold Schwarzenegger, Demi Moore, Kevin Costner, Morgan Freeman and Bruce Willis, amid a raft of other Hollywood A-list stars. It was apparent that these victims were unsettled and unhappy with Pennis's unique line of questioning. Some stars, such as Costner, insulted him back, while others, such as Moore, simply declined to comment and left. Pennis was visibly amused at the look of disgust on some of the stars' faces. There was some controversy when Pennis asked of Steve Martin: "How come you're not funny anymore?" Martin subsequently cancelled all scheduled press interviews. Kaye later said that he regretted this interview for a while, but that "anyone who thinks they can improve on Bilko and Inspector Clouseau needs a slap don’t they?". The final video release, "Dennis Pennis RIP: Too Rude to Live", released in 1997, saw the character killed off. Kaye gave his reasons for axing Pennis as expense, the effort required to get a single usable interview, the notoriety of the character, and Kaye's own boredom and unhappiness with Pennis.
1165630	Diana Hyland (January 25, 1936 – March 27, 1977) was an American stage, film and television actress. Career. Hyland was born Diana Gentner in Cleveland Heights, Ohio. (Some sources indicate Diane Gentner). She made her acting debut at age 19 (in 1955) in an episode of "Robert Montgomery Presents". Over the next decade she played numerous guest and supporting roles in various television series, including "Naked City", "Happy Days", "The Eleventh Hour", "The Fugitive" and "The Twilight Zone", before being cast in a featured role in "The Chase" (1966) with Marlon Brando, Jane Fonda and Robert Redford.
43102	A Jihad for Love is a 2007 documentary film on the coexistence of Islam and homosexuality. The film is directed by Parvez, and produced by Shama and "Trembling Before G-d" director Sandi DuBowski. The film has also been known under the working title In the Name of Allah. Production. "A Jihad for Love" is produced by Halal Films, in association with the Sundance Documentary Fund, Channel 4 Television (UK), ZDF (Germany), Arte (France-Germany), Logo (US) and SBS (Australia). The documentary was filmed in 12 different countries and in nine languages. Shama conducted interviews throughout North America, Europe, Africa, Asia and the Middle East. Countries included Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq, Pakistan, Egypt, Bangladesh, Turkey, France, India, South Africa, the United States and the United Kingdom. He found many of his interviewees online, and received thousands of emails. The film premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in September 2007, and has been screened to great acclaim at several film festivals around the world. It was the Opening film for the prestigious Panorama Dokumente section of the Berlin Film Festival in February, 2008. The U.S. theatrical release was May 21, 2008 at the IFC Center in New York City. The film screened at the Frameline Film Festival in San Francisco on June 28, 2008, and the Tokyo International Lesbian & Gay Film Festival on July 13, 2008. Significance of the title. The title "A Jihad for Love" refers to the Islamic concept of jihad, as a religious struggle. The film seeks to reclaim this concept of personal struggle, as it is used in the media almost exclusively to mean "holy war" and to refer to violent acts perpetrated by extremist Muslims. The film has gone by several titles, beginning with the official working title, "In the Name of Allah". Among Muslims, the phrase ("bismillah" in Arabic) may be used before beginning actions, speech, or writing. Its most notable use in Al-Fatiha, the opening passage of the Qur'an, which begins "Bismillahi r-Rahmani r-Rahim." All surahs of the Qur'an begin with "Bismillahi r-Rahmani r-Rahim," with the exception of the ninth. Producer DuBowski's previous film, "Trembling Before G-d", on Orthodox and Hasidic Jews, also included the name of God, written with a hyphen as in Jewish tradition. Allah is the name of God in Islam and Arabic, and it is often used among Muslims residing in Muslim countries and monotheists in Arabic speaking countries. Controversy and problems. Shama's making of the film has not been without criticism. Shama refuses to associate homosexuality with shame, but recognizes the need to protect the safety and privacy of his sources, by filming them in silhouette or with their faces blurred. In one case, the family of an Afghan woman he interviewed "would undoubtedly kill her" if they found out she was lesbian. In another example, one of the associate producers, an Egyptian gay man, chose not to be listed in the credits for fear of possible consequences. The film was banned from screening at the 2008 Singapore International Film Festival "in view of the sensitive nature of the subject that features Muslim homosexuals in various countries and their struggle to reconcile religion and their lifestyle," Amy Chua, Singapore Board of Film Censors chairwoman was quoted as saying by "The Straits Times". Critical reception. As of May 25, 2008, the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reported that 90 percent of critics gave the film positive reviews, based on 10 reviews. Metacritic reported the film had an average score of 55 out of 100, based on six reviews — indicating mixed or average reviews.
583619	Ramji Londonwaley (2005) is a Hindi language film starring R. Madhavan in the lead role. Amitabh Bachchan guest stars. It is a remake of the Tamil film, Nala Damayanthi. The film was previously titled "Bawarchi". Plot. Ramji (Madhavan), a naive and docile village cook dreams of marrying his sister to a good family, as they are orphans and it becomes his sole responsibility. As per convention he has shell out dowry for the marriage and somehow falls short of the agreed sum. Incidentally the groom's family happens to admire the food cooked by Ramji and plan him to send to London as a cook for multi millionaire London based Indian family. In return he has to send part of his salary as a compensation for the dowry he owes.
1103185	Grigori Yakovlevich Perelman ( ; ; born 13 June 1966) is a Russian mathematician who has made landmark contributions to Riemannian geometry and geometric topology. In 1994, Perelman proved the soul conjecture. In 2003, he proved Thurston's geometrization conjecture. This consequently solved in the affirmative the Poincaré conjecture, posed in 1904, which before its solution was viewed as one of the most important and difficult open problems in topology. In August 2006, Perelman was awarded the Fields Medal for "his contributions to geometry and his revolutionary insights into the analytical and geometric structure of the Ricci flow." Perelman declined to accept the award or to appear at the congress, stating: "I'm not interested in money or fame, I don't want to be on display like an animal in a zoo." On 22 December 2006, the journal "Science" recognized Perelman's proof of the Poincaré conjecture as the scientific "Breakthrough of the Year", the first such recognition in the area of mathematics. On 18 March 2010, it was announced that he had met the criteria to receive the first Clay Millennium Prize for resolution of the Poincaré conjecture. On 1 July 2010, he turned down the prize of one million dollars, saying that he considers his contribution to proving the Poincaré conjecture to be no greater than that of Richard Hamilton, who introduced the theory of Ricci flow with the aim of attacking the geometrization conjecture. Early life and education. Grigori Perelman was born in Leningrad, Soviet Union (now Saint Petersburg, Russia) on 13 June 1966, to Jewish parents Yakov (who now lives in Israel) and Lyubov. Grigori's mother Lyubov gave up graduate work in mathematics to raise him. Grigori's mathematical talent became apparent at the age of ten, and his mother enrolled him in Sergei Rukshin's after-school math training program. His mathematical education continued at the Leningrad Secondary School #239, a specialized school with advanced mathematics and physics programs. Grigori excelled in all subjects except physical education. In 1982, as a member of the Soviet Union team competing in the International Mathematical Olympiad, an international competition for high school students, he won a gold medal, achieving a perfect score. In 1990, Perelman went on to earn a Candidate of Sciences degree (the Soviet equivalent to the Ph.D.) at the School of Mathematics and Mechanics of the Leningrad State University, one of the leading universities in the former Soviet Union. His dissertation was titled "Saddle surfaces in Euclidean spaces." After graduation, Perelman began work at the renowned Leningrad Department of Steklov Institute of Mathematics of the USSR Academy of Sciences, where his advisors were Aleksandr Aleksandrov and Yuri Burago. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Perelman held research positions at several universities in the United States. In 1991 Perelman won the Young Mathematician Prize of the St. Petersburg Mathematical Society for his work on Aleksandrov's spaces of curvature bounded from below. In 1992, he was invited to spend a semester each at the Courant Institute in New York University and State University of New York at Stony Brook where he began work on manifolds with lower bounds on Ricci curvature. From there, he accepted a two-year Miller Research Fellowship at the University of California, Berkeley in 1993. After having proved the Soul conjecture in 1994, he was offered jobs at several top universities in the US, including Princeton and Stanford, but he rejected them all and returned to the Steklov Institute in Saint Petersburg in the summer of 1995 for a research-only position. He has a younger sister, Elena, who is also a scientist. She received a Ph.D. from Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel and is a biostatistician at Karolinska Institutet, in Stockholm, Sweden. Geometrization and Poincaré conjectures. Until the autumn of 2002, Perelman was best known for his work in comparison theorems in Riemannian geometry. Among his notable achievements was a short and elegant proof of the soul conjecture. The problem. The Poincaré conjecture, proposed by French mathematician Henri Poincaré in 1904, was the most famous open problem in topology. Any loop on a 3-sphere—as exemplified by the set of points at a distance of 1 from the origin in four-dimensional Euclidean space—can be contracted to a point. The Poincaré conjecture asserts that any closed three-dimensional manifold such that any loop can be contracted to a point is topologically a 3-sphere. The analogous result has been known to be true in dimensions greater than or equal to five since 1960 as in the work of Stephen Smale. The four-dimensional case resisted longer, finally being solved in 1982 by Michael Freedman. But the case of three-manifolds turned out to be the hardest of them all. Roughly speaking, this is because in topologically manipulating a three-manifold, there are too few dimensions to move "problematic regions" out of the way without interfering with something else. In 1999, the Clay Mathematics Institute announced the "Millennium Prize Problems": $1,000,000 prizes for the proof of any of seven conjectures, including the Poincaré conjecture. There was a wide agreement that a successful proof of any of these would constitute a landmark event in the history of mathematics. Perelman's proof. In November 2002, Perelman posted the first of a series of eprints to the arXiv, in which he claimed to have outlined a proof of the geometrization conjecture, of which the Poincaré conjecture is a particular case. Perelman modified Richard Hamilton's program for a proof of the conjecture, in which the central idea is the notion of the Ricci flow. Hamilton's basic idea is to formulate a "dynamical process" in which a given three-manifold is geometrically distorted, such that this distortion process is governed by a differential equation analogous to the heat equation. The heat equation describes the behavior of scalar quantities such as temperature; it ensures that concentrations of elevated temperature will spread out until a uniform temperature is achieved throughout an object. Similarly, the Ricci flow describes the behavior of a tensorial quantity, the Ricci curvature tensor. Hamilton's hope was that under the Ricci flow, concentrations of large curvature will spread out until a uniform curvature is achieved over the entire three-manifold. If so, if one starts with any three-manifold and lets the Ricci flow occur, eventually one should in principle obtain a kind of "normal form". According to William Thurston, this normal form must take one of a small number of possibilities, each having a different kind of geometry, called Thurston model geometries. This is similar to formulating a dynamical process that gradually "perturbs" a given square matrix, and that is guaranteed to result after a finite time in its rational canonical form. Hamilton's idea attracted a great deal of attention, but no one could prove that the process would not be impeded by developing "singularities", until Perelman's eprints sketched a program for overcoming these obstacles. According to Perelman, a modification of the standard Ricci flow, called "Ricci flow with surgery", can systematically excise singular regions as they develop, in a controlled way. It was known that singularities (including those that, roughly speaking, occur after the flow has continued for an infinite amount of time) must occur in many cases. However, any singularity that develops in a finite time is essentially a "pinching" along certain spheres corresponding to the prime decomposition of the 3-manifold. Furthermore, any "infinite time" singularities result from certain collapsing pieces of the JSJ decomposition. Perelman's work proves this claim and thus proves the geometrization conjecture. Verification. Since 2003, Perelman's program has attracted increasing attention from the mathematical community. In April 2003, he accepted an invitation to visit Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Princeton University, State University of New York at Stony Brook, Columbia University and New York University, where he gave a series of talks on his work. Three independent groups of scholars have verified that Perelman's papers contain all the essentials for a complete proof of the geometrization conjecture: The Fields Medal and Millennium Prize. In May 2006, a committee of nine mathematicians voted to award Perelman a Fields Medal for his work on the Poincaré conjecture. However, Perelman declined to accept the prize. Sir John Ball, president of the International Mathematical Union, approached Perelman in Saint Petersburg in June 2006 to persuade him to accept the prize. After 10 hours of persuasion over two days, Ball gave up. Two weeks later, Perelman summed up the conversation as follows: "He proposed to me three alternatives: accept and come; accept and don't come, and we will send you the medal later; third, I don't accept the prize. From the very beginning, I told him I have chosen the third one... prize was completely irrelevant for me. Everybody understood that if the proof is correct, then no other recognition is needed." I'm not interested in money or fame,' he is quoted to have said at the time. 'I don't want to be on display like an animal in a zoo. I'm not a hero of mathematics. I'm not even that successful; that is why I don't want to have everybody looking at me. Nevertheless, on 22 August 2006, Perelman was publicly offered the medal at the International Congress of Mathematicians in Madrid "for his contributions to geometry and his revolutionary insights into the analytical and geometric structure of the Ricci flow." He did not attend the ceremony, and declined to accept the medal, making him the first and only person to decline this prestigious prize. He had previously turned down a prestigious prize from the European Mathematical Society, allegedly saying that he felt the prize committee was unqualified to assess his work, even positively. On 18 March 2010, Perelman was awarded a Millennium Prize for solving the problem. On June 8, 2010, he did not attend a ceremony in his honor at the Institut Océanographique, Paris to accept his $1 million prize. According to Interfax, Perelman refused to accept the Millennium prize in July 2010. He considered the decision of Clay Institute unfair for not sharing the prize with Richard Hamilton, and stated that "the main reason is my disagreement with the organized mathematical community. I don't like their decisions, I consider them unjust." Perelman's proof was rated one of the top cited articles in Math-Physics in 2008. Possible withdrawal from mathematics. As of the spring of 2003, Perelman no longer worked at the Steklov Institute. His friends are said to have stated that he currently finds mathematics a painful topic to discuss; some even say that he has abandoned mathematics entirely. According to a 2006 interview, Perelman was then unemployed, living with his mother in Saint Petersburg. Perelman is quoted in an article in "The New Yorker" saying that he is disappointed with the ethical standards of the field of mathematics. The article implies that Perelman refers particularly to the efforts of Fields medalist Shing-Tung Yau to downplay Perelman's role in the proof and play up the work of Cao and Zhu. Perelman added, "I can't say I'm outraged. Other people do worse. Of course, there are many mathematicians who are more or less honest. But almost all of them are conformists. They are more or less honest, but they tolerate those who are not honest." He has also said that "It is not people who break ethical standards who are regarded as aliens. It is people like me who are isolated." This, combined with the possibility of being awarded a Fields medal, led him to quit professional mathematics. He has said that "As long as I was not conspicuous, I had a choice. Either to make some ugly thing or, if I didn't do this kind of thing, to be treated as a pet. Now, when I become a very conspicuous person, I cannot stay a pet and say nothing. That is why I had to quit." (The "New Yorker" authors explained Perelman's reference to "some ugly thing" as "a fuss" on Perelman's part about the ethical breaches he perceived). It is uncertain whether his resignation from Steklov and subsequent seclusion mean that he has ceased to practise mathematics. Fellow countryman and mathematician Yakov Eliashberg said that, in 2007, Perelman confided to him that he was working on other things but it was too premature to talk about it. He is said to have been interested in the past in the Navier–Stokes equations and the set of problems related to them that also constitutes a Millennium Prize, and there has been speculation that he may be working on them now. Perelman and media. Perelman has avoided journalists and other members of the media. Masha Gessen, the author of "Perfect Rigor: A Genius and the Mathematical Breakthrough of the Century", a book about him, was unable to meet him. A recent Russian documentary about Perelman in which his work is discussed by several leading mathematicians including Mikhail Gromov was released in 2011 under the title "Иноходец. Урок Перельмана", "A man following a different path. A lesson from Perelman". In April 2011, Aleksandr Zabrovsky, producer of "President-Film" studio, claimed to have held an interview with Perelman and agreed to shoot a film about him, under the tentative title "The Formula of the Universe". Zabrovsky says that in the interview, Perelman explained why he rejected the one million dollar prize. A number of journalists believe that Zabrovky's interview is most likely a fake, pointing to contradictions in statements supposedly made by Perelman. The writer Brett Forrest briefly interacted with Perelman in 2012.
1183901	Andre Romelle Young (born February 18, 1965), known by his stage name Dr. Dre, is an American record producer, rapper and entrepreneur. He is the founder and current CEO of Aftermath Entertainment and Beats Electronics. Dre was previously the co-owner and artist of Death Row Records. He has produced albums for and overseen the careers of many rappers, including Snoop Dogg, Eminem, Xzibit, 50 Cent, The Game and more recently Kendrick Lamar. He is credited as a key figure in the popularization of West Coast G-funk, a style of rap music characterized as synthesizer-based with slow, heavy beats. In 2011, Dr. Dre was ranked as the third richest figure in the American hip hop scene by Forbes with a net worth of $250 million.
1510164	Edward Heward Bunker (December 31, 1933 – July 19, 2005) was an American author of crime fiction, a screenwriter, and an actor. He wrote numerous books, some of which have been adapted into films. He was a screenwriter on "Straight Time" (1978), "Runaway Train" (1985) and "Animal Factory" (2000). He started on a criminal career at a very early age, and continued on this path throughout the years, returning to prison again and again. He was convicted of bank robbery, drug dealing, extortion, armed robbery, and forgery. A repeating pattern of convictions, paroles, releases and escapes, further crimes and new convictions continued until he was released yet again from prison in 1975, at which point he finally left his criminal days permanently behind. Bunker stayed out of jail thereafter, and instead focused on his career as a writer and actor. Biography. Early life. 1933. Bunker was born "on New Year's Eve, 1933" into a troubled family in Los Angeles. His mother, Sarah (née Johnston), was a chorus girl from Vancouver, and his father, Edward N. Bunker, a stage hand. His parents lived in a constant state of alcohol-fueled argument. His first clear memories were of his parents screaming at each other and the police arriving to "keep the peace." When they divorced, Bunker ended up in a foster home at the age of five, but he felt profoundly unhappy and ran away. As a result, Bunker went through a progression of increasingly draconian institutions. Consistently rebellious and defiant, young Bunker was subjected to a harsh regime of discipline. He attended a military school for a few months, where peer pressure caused him to take up stealing, but eventually ran away again, ending up in a hobo camp 400 miles away. While Bunker was eventually apprehended by the authorities, this established a pattern he would follow throughout his formative years. Shoplifting and other crimes of similar scope eventually landed Bunker in Juvenile Hall, where he became acquainted with hardened young criminals. Although Bunker was younger and smaller than the other inmates, he was intelligent, streetwise and extremely literate. He soon learned to hide his fear and embraced the dog-eat-dog mentality that was the norm in his new surroundings. A long string of escapes, problems with the law and different institutions – including a mental hospital – followed. At the age of fourteen, Bunker was paroled and sent to his aunt. However, the young man was already well on his way to a life of crime and, at the age of sixteen, he was caught on a parole violation. Instead of a reform school or some other institution designed for young offenders, Bunker was sent to prison. This did not chasten Bunker – on the contrary, the young offender was hard and vicious, and proud of it. Bunker believed that he could either be predator or prey, and did his best to establish himself in the former category. In Los Angeles County Jail, he stabbed another inmate – (Bunker claims it was convicted murderer, Billy Cook although circumstantial evidence shows Cook couldn't have been the victim), in the showers, and soon gained a respectful reputation as a fearless young man. Some thought he was unhinged, but in his book "Mr. Blue: Memoirs of a Renegade" he stated that it was merely a protective mechanism designed to make people leave him alone. 1951. In 1951, the seventeen-year-old Bunker had the dubious honor of being the youngest ever inmate in San Quentin State Prison. While spending time in solitary – known as "the hole" – he was situated close to the death row cell of Caryl Chessman, who was writing on a typewriter. He had already met Chessman earlier, and Chessman sent him an issue of "Argosy" magazine, in which the first chapter of his book "Cell 2455 Death Row" was published. Bunker, inspired by his encounter with Chessman, drew upon his literary influences and decided to try to write his own stories. Career. When Louise Fazenda, a former star of the silent screen and the wife of motion picture producer Hal B. Wallis, with whom Bunker had already struck up a friendship during his earlier time on the outside and with whom he still kept in contact, arranged for him to have a typewriter, Bunker started to write. The resulting work was smuggled out to Wallis, who showed it to her friends. The work was considered to be unpublishable, but Bunker's talent had been recognized. (This manuscript eventually became "No Beast So Fierce".) Bunker was paroled in 1956. Now 22, he was unable to adjust to living in normal society. As an ex-convict, he felt ostracized by "normal" people, although he managed to stay out of trouble for several years. Although Mrs Wallis attempted to help him both with her connections and financially, her behaviour became increasingly erratic. She was diagnosed with a nervous breakdown, and her husband pronounced many of her former friends – including Bunker – "personae non-gratae" in the Wallis household. She died in 1962. For his part, Bunker held down various jobs for a while, including that of a used car salesman, but eventually returned to crime. He orchestrated robberies (although he didn't personally take part in the execution phase), forged checks and engaged in other criminal activities. Bunker ended up back in jail for 90 days on a misdemeanor charge. He was sent to a low-security state work farm, but escaped almost immediately by climbing over a poorly guarded fence. He remained a fugitive for over a year, but eventually had to resort to armed robbery to survive. He was finally arrested after a failed bank heist and a high-speed car chase. Bunker then attempted to stay out of jail by pretending to be insane (he went so far as to fake a suicide attempt and claim that the Catholic Church had inserted a radio into his head). The performance convinced the court, and he was declared criminally insane. Although Bunker was eventually released, he continued a life of crime. In the early 1970s, Bunker ran a profitable drug racket in San Francisco; he was arrested again when the police, who had put a tracking device on his car, followed him to a bank heist. (The police expected Bunker to lead them to a drug deal and were rather shocked by their stroke of luck.) Bunker expected a 20-year sentence, but thanks to the solicitations of influential friends and a lenient judge, he got only five years. In prison, Bunker continued to write. He finally had his first novel "No Beast So Fierce" published in 1973, to which Dustin Hoffman purchased the film rights. Bunker was paroled in 1975, having spent eighteen years of his life in various institutions. While he was still tempted by crime, he now found himself earning a living from writing and acting. He felt that his criminal career had been forced by circumstances; now that those circumstances had changed, he could stop being a criminal. He published his second novel, "Animal Factory" to favorable reviews in 1977. A 1978 movie called "Straight Time" based on "No Beast So Fierce" was not a commercial success, but Bunker participated in the drafting of the screenplay, and also got his first acting part in the movie. Like most of Bunker's parts, it was a fleeting cameo, but Bunker eventually appeared in numerous movies, such as "The Running Man", "Tango & Cash" and "Reservoir Dogs" (as Mr Blue), as well as the film version of "Animal Factory", for which he also wrote the screenplay. Bunker had better luck robbing banks in real life than he did in the movies. In "Reservoir Dogs" he played one of two criminals killed during a heist. In "The Long Riders", he had an even briefer role as Bill Chadwell – one of two members of the James-Younger Gang killed during a bank robbery in Northfield, Minnesota. Writing style. Bunker's hard-boiled and unapologetic crime novels are informed by his personal experiences in a society of criminals in general and by his time in the penal system in particular. "Little Boy Blue", in particular, draws heavily on Bunker's own life as a young man. A common theme in his fiction is that of men being sucked into a circle of crime at a very young age and growing up in a vicious world where authorities are at worst cruel and at best incompetent and ineffectual, and those stuck in the system can be either abusers or helpless victims, regardless of whether they're in jail or outside. Bunker maintains that much of his writing is based on actual events and people he has known. In Bunker's work, there is often an element of envy and disdain towards the normal people who live outside of this circle and hypocritically ensure that those caught in it have no way out. Most of Bunker's characters have no qualms about stealing or brutalizing others and, as a rule, they prefer a life of crime over an honest job, in great part because the only honest career options are badly paying and low-class jobs in retail or manual labor. Bunker's autobiography, "", was published in 1999. Personal life. In 1977, Bunker married a young real estate agent, Jennifer. In 1993, their first son, Brendan, was born. The marriage ended in divorce. A diabetic, Bunker died on July 19, 2005 in Burbank, California, following surgery to improve the circulation in his legs. He was 71. Bunker was close friends with Mexican Mafia Leader Joe "Pegleg" Morgan, as well as actor Danny Trejo, who is the godfather of his son, both of whom he first met in Folsom State Prison. Michael Mann based the character of "Nate", played by Jon Voight, on Bunker for his 1995 film, "Heat". The film also stars Trejo as a member of Robert De Niro's ("Neil McCauley" – another real life criminal) crew.
725574	Seconds Apart is a 2011 American horror movie. Plot. After the death of four high school students, the last two playing Russian Roulette, Detective Lampkin investigates the case interviewing the students in the school. The teenager Katie Dunn mentions the weird twins, Jonah and Seth Trimble and Lampkin summons the brothers for interrogation. Lampkin is a traumatized man that lost his beloved wife in a fire and has deep scars not only on the face, but also in his soul. After the deaths of Katie and the pedophile Kirby, Lampkin learns that the twins have an evil telepathic connection and are capable to make people live their worst nightmares. He goes further in his investigation and discovers that the evil twins are the result of an experiment. However, his superiors do not trust on him and believe that he has hallucinations. Meanwhile, Jonah falls in love with Eve, but his brother does not want to separate from him.
1059537	Edward James Olmos (born February 24, 1947) is a Mexican American actor and director. Among his most memorable roles are William Adama in the re-imagined "Battlestar Galactica", Lt. Martin Castillo in "Miami Vice", teacher Jaime Escalante in "Stand and Deliver", patriarch Abraham Quintanilla in the film "Selena", Detective Gaff in "Blade Runner", and narrator El Pachuco in both the stage and film versions of "Zoot Suit". In 1988, Olmos was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role for the film "Stand and Deliver". He has also been a longtime pioneer for more diversified roles and images of Latinos in the U.S. media. His notable direction, production and starring roles for films, made-for-TV movies and TV shows include "American Me", "The Burning Season", "My Family/Mi Familia", "12 Angry Men", "The Disappearance of Garcia Lorca", "Walkout", "The Wonderful Ice Cream Suit" and "". Early life. Olmos was born Edward Olmos in Los Angeles, California, where he was raised, the son of Eleanor (née Huizar) and Pedro Olmos, who was a welder and mail carrier. His father was a Mexican immigrant and his mother was Mexican American. He grew up wanting to be a professional baseball player, and became the Golden State batting champion. In his teen years, he turned to rock and roll, and became the lead singer for a band he named Pacific Ocean, so-called because it was to be "the biggest thing on the West Coast." He graduated from Montebello High School in 1964. While at Montebello High School, he lost a race for Student Body President to future California Democratic Party Chair Art Torres. For several years, Olmos performed at various clubs in and around Los Angeles, and released a record in 1968. At the same time, he attended classes at East Los Angeles College, including courses in acting. Career. In the late 1960s and the early 1970s, Olmos branched out from music into acting, appearing in many small productions, until his big break portraying the narrator, called "El Pachuco," in the play "Zoot Suit", which dramatized the World War II-era rioting in California brought about by the tensions between Mexican-Americans and local police. (See Zoot Suit Riots.) The play moved to Broadway, and Olmos earned a Tony Award nomination. He subsequently took the role to the filmed version in 1981, and appeared in many other films including "Wolfen", "Blade Runner" and "The Ballad of Gregorio Cortez". In 1980, Olmos was cast in the post-apocalyptic science fiction film (now a Japanese cult classic) "Virus" (復活の日 Fukkatsu no hi), directed by Kinji Fukasaku and based on a novel written by Sakyo Komatsu. His role required him to play a piano while singing a Spanish ballad during the later part of the film. Although not a box office success, "Virus" was notable for being the most expensive Japanese film ever made at the time. From 1979 to 1987, Olmos lived in West New York, New Jersey. From 1984 to 1989, Olmos starred in his biggest role up to that date as the taciturn police Lieutenant Martin Castillo in the television series "Miami Vice", opposite Don Johnson and Philip Michael Thomas. He was awarded a Golden Globe and an Emmy in 1985 for his work in the series. At this time, Olmos also starred in a short training video for the United States Postal Service entitled "Was it Worth It?", a video about theft in the workplace. He was contacted about playing the captain of the on "" when it was in pre-production in 1986, but he declined. Returning to film, Olmos became the first American-born Latino to receive an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor, in "Stand and Deliver", for his portrayal of real-life math teacher, Jaime Escalante. He directed and starred in "American Me" in 1992, and also starred in "My Family/Mi Familia", a multigenerational story of a Chicano family. In 1997, he starred alongside Jennifer Lopez in the film "Selena". Olmos played Dominican Republic dictator Rafael Leónidas Trujillo in the 2001 movie "In the Time of the Butterflies". He also had a recurring role as U.S. Supreme Court Justice Roberto Mendoza in the NBC drama "The West Wing". From 2002 to 2004, he starred as a recently widowed father of a Latino L.A.-family in the PBS drama "American Family: Journey of Dreams". From 2003 to 2009, he starred as Commander (later Admiral) William Adama in the Sci-Fi Channel's reimagined "Battlestar Galactica" miniseries, and in the television series that followed. He directed four episodes of the show, "Tigh Me Up, Tigh Me Down" (1.9), "Taking a Break from All Your Worries" (3.13), "Escape Velocity" (4.4) and "Islanded in a Stream of Stars" (4.18). He also directed a television movie based upon the show, "". Regarding his work on the show, he told CraveOnline, "I'm very grateful for the work that I've been able to do in my life, but I can honestly tell you, this is the best usage of television I've ever been a part of to date."
1055550	Jaimie Alexander (born March 12, 1984) is an American actress best known for portraying Jessi on the TV series "Kyle XY" and Sif in the 2011 superhero film "Thor". Early life. Alexander was born in Greenville, South Carolina, and moved to Grapevine, Texas when she was four years old. She is the only girl in a family of four boys. Alexander first got into acting in grade school, where she took theater for fun. Alexander stated that she was actually kicked out of theater when she was in high school because she could not sing and went into sports. When she was 17, she substituted for a friend at a meeting with a scouting agency and she met her manager, Randy James, who sent her some scripts. After graduation, a year and a half later, she moved to Los Angeles to pursue acting. Career. Her career was launched in 2003, when she was cast in the leading role of Hanna Thompson in the low budget award-winning film "The Other Side". According to the movie's commentary, she was originally at the audition to help out by reading against the male actors, but the director Gregg Bishop decided to cast her in the leading role after hearing her perform the lines. Alexander’s first role was in the movie "Squirrel Trap" where she played 'Sara', the love interest of the main character, David, who is a socially introverted genius portrayed by Keith Staley. This was soon followed by a guest appearance in "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia", where she portrayed a "femme fatale" in the role of 'Tammy', who through a combination of seduction and threats manipulates one of the main characters. She also has a small part in an episode of "Standoff". From there she proceeded to more significant roles. She appeared in the movie "The Other Side" as 'Hanna Thompson', the girlfriend of the main character; and in the series "Watch Over Me" where she portrayed the controversial character of 'Caitlin Porter'. In 2006, she had her first lead role in the horror film "Rest Stop" where she portrayed 'Nicole Carrow', a girl who escapes from home and goes on a trip with her boyfriend, which is unexpectedly interrupted at a rest stop by a deranged serial killer. In 2007, she had her second lead role, also in a horror film. In "Hallowed Ground" she played 'Elizabeth Chambers', a girl stranded in a small town inhabited by a sect that plans to use her as a vessel for the rebirth of their founder. In both movies, her character is a strong character who fights back against her aggressors. Her most famous part so far was that of 'Jessi' on the ABC Family television show "Kyle XY". She portrays a troubled, show off girl with superhuman powers who is trying to find her way in the world, with increasing cooperation and eventual romance with her male counterpart Kyle. Her role generated a large fan base hoping to see a spin-off show for her character. She also has had guest roles on the show "" where she played 'Jenna York', a flight attendant involved in a murder case; and in "Bones" where she played 'Molly Briggs', a student connected to the victim of the episode. In September 2009, it was reported that Alexander would portray Sif in the live-action superhero film, "Thor", directed by Kenneth Branagh and released in May 2011. In July 2010, it was reported that Alexander had been cast in the independent comedy-drama film, "Loosies" co-starring Peter Facinelli and directed by Michael Corrente. In October 2010 it was reported that Alexander joined the cast of "Nurse Jackie" in a sizeable story arc as Jackie’s (Edie Falco) wild, immature sister-in-law, Tunie Peyton. In 2011, she joined the cast of "Covert Affairs" for three episodes of the second season. Alexander will appear in the upcoming 2012 film "Savannah" directed by Annette Haywood-Carter about Ward Allen (Jim Caviezel), a real-life early 1900s aristocrat who starts an unexpected partnership with Christmas Moultrie (Chiwetel Ejiofor), a freed slave. In 2013, she portrayed police officer Sarah Torrance in "The Last Stand", alongside Arnold Schwarzenegger. Other projects. Alexander has done a photo shoot with her co-star Matt Dallas from "Kyle XY" for the photographer Tyler Shields. She also appeared in a Matthew Perryman Jones music video of the song "Save You" released in September 2009. In 2010, Alexander appeared in a web series for MSN entitled "Ultradome" produced by Milo Ventimiglia. In the series Alexander portrayed Han Solo in battle against Indiana Jones for the title of best Harrison Ford character. Personal life. Alexander has been dating actor Peter Facinelli since late 2012.
1055469	"Who's Your Caddy?" is a 2007 comedy film directed by Don Michael Paul, and starring Big Boi, Lil Wayne, Andy Milonakis, Faizon Love, Terry Crews, Tony Cox, Jeffrey Jones, and Jesper Parnevik. It is the first film produced by Robert L. Johnson's Our Stories Films studio. It was released on July 27, 2007 in the United States and was released on DVD on November 27, 2007. Plot. When hip-hop star Christopher “C-Note” Hawkins (Big Boi) is denied membership into an exclusive Carolina Pines Country Club, he comes up with a cunning plan that will oblige the country club to allow his acceptance. C-Note purchases property that contains land from the 17th hole, and bribes the country club for a membership in exchange for his land. The rest of the movie’s plot revolves around the club members and their efforts to get C-Note kicked out, while he disrupts the club’s atmosphere. Reception. The film was panned by critics and claimed to be one of the worst movies of all time. In particular, many critics have deemed this film a "terrible rip-off" of "Caddyshack". Overall it is ranked a "Rotten" rating of 6% on Rotten Tomatoes, with the consensus calling the film "unoriginal, unfunny, and just plain forgettable." However, former U.S. president Bill Clinton "loves" the film. The film was nominated for a Golden Raspberry awards in the fields of Worst Remake or Rip-off. Box office. The movie grossed US$2.76 million in its first week at the box office, debuting in the number 10 spot. By the time the film left the box office, it had grossed $5,713,425.
582701	Rakshak is 1996 Bollywood Action Movie directed by Ashok Honda and starring Suniel Shetty, Karishma Kapoor, Raghuvaran, Sonali Bendre, Alok Nath, Aruna Irani. Plot. Raghavan alias Raghu has been ignored and demeaned all his life. He then decides to teach the world a lesson, by printing the best ever fake currency notes. This does get him some conditional recognition by a gangster named Bardha. But Raghavan's goal is much more higher than getting some recognition, and his plans materialize when he is able to get Bardha killed, and takes over as the unchallenged leader of the underworld. Raghavan decides to put a temporary halt to all criminal operations when he comes to know that his brother-in-law, Asst. Superintendent of Police, Raj Sinha, along with his wife, Suman, her mother, and his young son, Bunty, are coming over for a visit. Raghavan's instructions are not followed, and Raj comes to know that Raghavan is the head of this crime syndicate. Raghavan then decides to use his position and abducts Suman, her mother, and Bunty, and uses them as a shield against Raj. But Raj is bent upon capturing Raghavan by any means possible, and as a result, Suman and her mother are killed. Now the only one left alive from Sinha family is Bunty, but if Raj continues to pursue Raghavan, it does not look like Bunty will be alive for very long. Raj's revenge against Raghavan forms the crux of the film. Soundtrack. After an average success in Anth (which did good business at the box-office), producer-director Ashok Honda repeated music directors Anand-Milind for Rakshak. Lyricist Sameer (lyricist) was repeated too, but for just one song ("Kuchi Kuchi") and new lyricist Deepak Chowdhary wrote the remaining songs. With almost no expectations from the music of a Sunil Shetty starrer, the music of Rakshak arrived rather quietly on the stands. But the moment "Shahar Ki Ladki" hit the TV channels, the song caught on with the youth and the music topped the charts. "Kuchi Kuchi" was another song that soon climbed the charts. With this new interest in the film's music, Ashok Honda picturised another song "Sundara Sundara". The music of Rakshak topped the charts for several weeks and "Shahar Ki Ladki" and "Sundara Sundara" enjoy popularity till date. Awards. For this film, choreographers, Chinni Prakash and Rekha Prakash, won the Filmfare Award for Best Choreography for the song "Shehar Ki Ladki" at the Filmfare Awards 1997. Reception. This movie was a hit at the Box Office. This movie was a remake of the 1990 movie, Hard to Kill starring Steven Seagal. A few action scenes were also directly taken from the 1993 Jean-Claude Van Damme's movie Hard Target.
1068592	Birthday Girl is a 2001 British-American drama and crime film directed by Jez Butterworth. The plot focuses on English bank clerk John Buckingham who orders a Russian mail-order bride, Nadia. It becomes clear upon her arrival that Nadia cannot speak English, and early into her stay, two mysterious men come to the house claiming to be her cousin and cousin's friend. The film features Ben Chaplin, Nicole Kidman, Mathieu Kassovitz, and Vincent Cassel. English and Russian are spoken interchangeably in the film. Plot. John Buckingham (Ben Chaplin), a lonely St Albans bank clerk, orders a mail-order bride Nadia (Nicole Kidman) from Russia on the Internet. John is uncomfortable and shy, but Nadia is sexually bold. Though Nadia cannot speak English and John cannot speak Russian, they soon bond. Later on, a man she introduces as her cousin Yuri (Mathieu Kassovitz) and his friend Alexei (Vincent Cassel) turn up to celebrate her birthday. Alexei soon shows that he has a temper. After a violent altercation, Alexei holds Nadia hostage and demands a ransom from John. John has grown to care for Nadia and is forced to steal from the bank where he has worked for ten years. After the ransom is paid, he realises that he has been the victim of an elaborate con. Nadia, Yuri, and Alexei are criminals, and Alexei is actually Nadia's boyfriend.
1063893	Patricia Rooney Mara (born April 17, 1985) is an American actress who made her acting debut in 2005 and has gone on to star in films including "A Nightmare on Elm Street", the remake of the 1984 horror film, and "The Social Network". She rose to prominence starring as Lisbeth Salander, the title character in the American version of "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo", based on Stieg Larsson’s "Millennium" book series. For her performance in the film, she received critical acclaim and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress and a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Motion Picture – Drama. In 2013, she starred in the film "Side Effects" and the independent drama film "Ain't Them Bodies Saints", and is scheduled to appear in the sci-fi romance film "Her". Mara is also known for her charity work. She oversees the charity Uweza Foundation, which supports empowerment programs for children and families in the Kibera slum in Nairobi, Kenya, one of the largest slums in Africa. She is the younger sister of actress Kate Mara. Early life and family. Mara was born and raised in Bedford, New York, a town in Westchester County, north of New York City. She is the daughter of Timothy Christopher Mara, the vice president of player evaluation for the New York Giants, and Kathleen McNulty (née Rooney), a part-time real estate agent. She has an older brother, Daniel, an older sister, Kate, and a younger brother, Conor. Mara's father has Irish, German, and French-Canadian ancestry, and her mother is of Irish and Italian descent. Her Rooney ancestors originated in Newry, County Down. Her paternal grandfather, Wellington Mara, the long-time co-owner of the Giants, was succeeded in that position by her uncle, John Mara. Her maternal grandfather, Timothy James "Tim" Rooney, has run Yonkers Raceway in Yonkers, New York since 1972. Mara is the great-granddaughter of both New York Giants founder Tim Mara and Pittsburgh Steelers founder Art Rooney, Sr., as well as of Kathleen McNulty Rooney. Her great-uncle, Dan Rooney, is chairman of the Steelers, the United States Ambassador to Ireland, and the co-founder of The Ireland Funds charitable organization. U.S. Rep. Tom Rooney from Florida is her first cousin, once removed. After graduating from Fox Lane High School in 2003, she went to Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia in South America for four months as part of the Traveling School, an open learning environment. She attended George Washington University for a year, and then transferred to New York University's Gallatin School of Individualized Study, where she studied psychology, international social policy, and nonprofits, graduating in 2010. Mara was inspired to act by seeing musical theatre and classic movies, like "Gone with the Wind" (1939), "Rebecca" (1940), and "Bringing Up Baby" (1938), with her mother. She also wanted to be like her sister, Kate Mara, a professional actress. Patricia resisted pursuing acting as a child, stating to "The Journal News" that "it never seemed that honorable to me, and I guess I was always afraid that I might fail." Her first and only role in high school was Juliet in "Romeo and Juliet", which she got after being signed up to audition by a friend. Mara acted in a few student films while at NYU, and then began her career in acting, first auditioning at the age of nineteen. Acting career. 2005–09. Mara first appeared as an extra in films which starred her sister, including a bit-part in the 2005 direct-to-video horror film '. She found work in television, making her professional debut in a 2006 episode of the drama ', as a girl who bullies overweight children. She guest-starred on the legal drama "Women's Murder Club" in 2007, and played a drug addict in an episode of "The Cleaner" in 2008. Mara made her feature film debut "Dream Boy" in 2008 and guest-starred as Megan for two episodes of NBC's "ER" in 2009. Mara landed her first lead role in "Tanner Hall", a coming-of-age film which tells the story of four teenage girls set in a New England boarding school. She played Fernanda, who has an affair with a married family friend (Tom Everett Scott). The feature was the debut of filmmakers Tatiana von Fürstenberg and Francesca Gregorini. "Tanner Hall" debuted at the 2009 Toronto International Film Festival and had a limited theatrical release in September 2011. Mara dropped her first name, Patricia, to be known professionally by her middle name after working on the project. "I never really liked my first name," Mara stated to "Paper" magazine. "I never felt like a Tricia. And Rooney is more memorable". Her father and younger brother also go by their middle names. Mara's experience led to other film work. She appeared in the comedy "Youth in Revolt" in 2009, starring Michael Cera and directed by Miguel Arteta. Mara played Taggarty, the love interest of Cera’s best friend. Her character tries to sleep with 50 guys before she goes to college. The film was based on the 1993 cult novel of the same name by C.D. Payne. Mara had auditioned for the starring role, but was offered the smaller part when the lead went to Portia Doubleday. Mara appeared in the independent film "Dare" in 2009, starring Emmy Rossum. She played Courtney, a high school senior set on expanding her life experience. Mara also filmed "The Winning Season" that year, starring Emma Roberts and Sam Rockwell, playing a high school basketball player in a story similar to "The Bad News Bears". Her character has an affair with a 40-something year old shoe salesman (Kevin Breznahan). "Dare" and "The Winning Season" premiered at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival. Mara was included on "Filmmaker" magazine's list of "25 New Faces of Independent Film" that year. Mara starred in a remake of the 1984 horror film "A Nightmare on Elm Street". She played the protagonist Nancy Holbrook, a teenage girl who is eager to leave town after graduating from high school. Mara began shooting the film in Chicago on May 5, 2009, directed by Samuel Bayer. Mara told "Filmmaker" that she felt that her Nancy was "completely different from the original" and "the loneliest girl in the world". Mara had signed on to continue her role if a sequel was made. She stated to "Vogue" that she disliked the experience of making the film so much, that it made her question if she wanted to be an actress. Mara appeared at the Hamptons International Film Festival in October 2009 as part of its Breakthrough Performers Program, where she was tutored by Sharon Stone. 2010–present. Mara appeared in the 2010 film "The Social Network" by David Fincher, as Erica Albright and which also stars Jesse Eisenberg, Andrew Garfield, and Justin Timberlake. In the film's opening scene, her character breaks up with Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook, which inspires him to start the social networking website. In August 2010, Mara was cast as the lead in a film adaptation of the "Millennium" book trilogy by Stieg Larsson. She played Lisbeth Salander, a damaged punk computer hacker who helps journalist Mikael Blomkvist (Daniel Craig) attempt to solve a series of murders. Mara won the role over several other actresses after two and a half months of auditions and screen tests. David Fincher directed the first film, based on the novel "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo", with Scott Rudin producing. The other books, "The Girl Who Played with Fire", and "The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets' Nest", may be adapted, depending on box office performance. Fincher initially did not picture her as the character but changed his mind when she auditioned. He convinced executives at Columbia Pictures to cast her for the part. "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" began shooting in Sweden in September 2010. Mara did not consider the film to be a remake, but another interpretation of the novel. "I plan on giving my interpretation of the character," she stated to "Variety". Mara's long brown hair was cut short and dyed black, in a style reminiscent of 1970s punk and 1980s goth fashions. She also had each of her ears pierced four times, and had her brow and right nipple pierced for the role. Her nose and lip piercings were fake. She kept the nipple piercing so that it would not need to be re-pierced for a sequel. Mara's eyebrows were bleached, and she wore a temporary dragon tattoo. She began preparing for the role by starting to skateboard and kickbox, and underwent dialect and computer training. She also visited Stockholm, the setting of the novel. The film was released on December 20, 2011. Mara received universal critical acclaim and was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture – Drama for her performance. On January 24, 2012, Mara was nominated for her first Academy Award nomination in the category of Best Actress for this role. In late 2011 it was revealed that Mara had joined the cast of Terrence Malick's latest film, "Lawless," alongside Ryan Gosling, Christian Bale, Natalie Portman, Cate Blanchett and Haley Bennett. Listed as a musical drama that's scheduled to be released sometime in 2013, the plot line of the movie has largely been kept under wraps thus far. An official logline released by FilmNation in February 2012 described Malick's picture as a story of "two intersecting love triangles" and, "sexual obsession and betrayal set against the music scene in Austin, Texas." In early 2012, Mara dropped out of Kathryn Bigelow's action film "Zero Dark Thirty" due to scheduling conflicts and was replaced by Jessica Chastain. In late April 2012, Rooney was named as the choice replacement for Carey Mulligan in Spike Jonze's upcoming film project, "Her". "Variety" reported that Mulligan had to drop out due to scheduling conflicts, and Mara was selected to fill in alongside Amy Adams, Joaquin Phoenix and Scarlett Johansson. The movie is due for a release in 2013.
1064232	Anthony Wilford Brimley (born September 27, 1934) is an American actor. He has appeared in such films as "The China Syndrome", "Cocoon", "The Thing" and "The Firm". He had a recurring role on the 1970s television series "The Waltons". Brimley has also done television commercials, including advertisements for Quaker Oats and Liberty Medical. Early life. Brimley was born as Anthony Wilford Brimley in Salt Lake City, Utah, where his father worked as a real estate broker. Prior to his career in acting, Brimley served in the United States Marine Corps, worked as a ranch hand, wrangler, blacksmith, and a bodyguard for Howard Hughes. He then began shoeing horses for film and television. He began acting in the 1960s as a riding extra in Westerns and as a stunt man at the urging of his friend, actor Robert Duvall. Career. Brimley was cast in the popular 1970s television series "The Waltons" as Walton's Mountain resident Horace Brimley, in seven appearances from 1974 through 1977. Brimley became famous later in life for appearing in such films as "The Hotel New Hampshire", John Carpenter's "The Thing", and "Cocoon". In 2001, he starred in the Turner Network Television film "Crossfire Trail" with Tom Selleck. He had an important role in "The China Syndrome". He often plays a gruff or stodgy old man, notably on the 1980s drama series "Our House". His first characterization was in "Absence of Malice", in which he played a small but key role as a curmudgeonly, outspoken James A. Wells, Assistant U.S. Attorney General. He expanded on this characterization as the world-weary manager of a slumping baseball team in "The Natural", a film in which his friend Duvall appeared as an antagonistic sportswriter. Brimley was cast in the 1983 film "Tender Mercies" due to the urging of Robert Duvall, who was not getting along well with director Bruce Beresford and wanted "somebody down here that's on my side, somebody that I can relate to." Beresford felt Brimley was too old for the part, but eventually agreed to the casting. Brimley, like Duvall, clashed with the director; during one instance when Beresford tried to advise Brimley on how Harry would behave, Duvall recalled Brimley responding: "Now look, let me tell you something, I'm Harry. Harry's not over there, Harry's not over here. Until you fire me or get another actor, I'm Harry, and whatever I do is fine 'cause I'm Harry." In a change from his "good guy" roles such as those in "Our House", he played William Devasher, the ominous head of security for Bendini, Lambert & Locke in the Tom Cruise film "The Firm" (1993), based on the novel by John Grisham. Brimley has frequently appeared in commercials, notably a series of commercials he did for Quaker Oats Oatmeal throughout the 1980s and 1990s. The Quaker commercials were famous for their slogan: "It's the right thing to do and the tasty way to do it." Brimley is also known for appearing in numerous television advertisements for Liberty Medical, a company specializing in home delivery of medical products such as diabetes testing supplies. Brimley has also been described as "a fine singer with a warm, rich voice". In 1993, Brimley sang with the Cal State Northridge Jazz Band for a concert benefiting the college's Jazz Endowment Scholarship Fund; in 2004, he released "This Time, The Dream's On Me", an album of jazz standards named after the Harold Arlen and Johnny Mercer-penned title track. Personal life. Diagnosed with diabetes in 1979, Brimley began working to raise awareness of the disease. The American Diabetes Association (ADA) honored Brimley in 2008 with an award to recognize his lifetime of service. Brimley has been active visiting Veterans Administration hospitals and communities to advise patients on how to manage their diseases. The ADA presented the award to the actor at the Port St. Lucie headquarters of Liberty Medical on December 19, 2008. Brimley is an activist, paying from his own funds for advertisements to have Utah allow horse-race gambling. He spoke against the banning of cockfighting in New Mexico on the basis of his support of individual rights. Brimley also spoke at a 1998 Phoenix rally opposing an Arizona ballot proposition to ban cockfighting. Brimley argued that a ban could lead to efforts to restrict use of hunting dogs, which opponents of cockfighting called a distraction from the issue. Brimley said he travels to Arizona to attend cockfights. Brimley enjoys playing poker and has played in the World Series of Poker Main Event. Brimley lent his support to John McCain in the 2008 U.S. presidential election. In the days leading up to his selection for vice president, McCain jokingly stated that he would pick Brimley: "He's a former Marine and great guy and he's older than I am, so that might work." Brimley has resided in Greybull, Wyoming, since 2006.
1065668	Dashiell "Dash" Mihok (born May 24, 1974) is an American actor. Life and career. Mihok was born in New York City, New York, the son of actors Andrea (née Cloak) and Raymond Thorne (né Mihok). He was raised in Greenwich Village and attended the Bronx High School of Science, where he played baseball as a middle infielder. He also attended the Professional Children's School in Manhattan with best friend, future actor Donald Faison. He has Tourette Syndrome and is the spokesperson for the nonprofit Jaylens Challenge Foundation, Inc. Mihok has been mostly featured in supporting roles in commercial films such as "The Day After Tomorrow", "The Perfect Storm", "The Thin Red Line", "Lifted", "Romeo + Juliet", and "Silver Linings Playbook". He has had starring roles in independent features such as "Telling You" and "Loveless in Los Angeles". He played Detective Martin Soap in the film "", which was released in December 2008. He studied dance and can be seen in former girlfriend Alanis Morissette's music video "So Pure". His photography of Morissette is used on the back cover of her "Thank You" single.
583321	Tirangaa is an Indian Patriotic film starring Raaj Kumar, Nana Patekar and Mamta Kulkarni, released in 1993. Plot. The film starts with the kidnapping of three nuclear scientists by Pralayanath Gundaswamy (Deepak Shirke) as he plans to build nuclear missiles for an invasion on India. Meanwhile Deputy Commissioner of Police Rudrapratap Chouhan (Suresh Oberoi) an honest police officer is murdered by Pralayanath Gundaswamy since he has been on his hitlist. Rudrapatap's son Harish (Harish Kumar) is the only witness of his murder. When scientists are gone missing police calls Brigadier Suryadev Singh (Raj Kumar) to take matter into his hands. Suryadev allies with hot-headed police Inspector Shivajirao Wagle (Nana Patekar) who spends many time being suspended due to his temper. When Central Minister Jeevanlal Tandel who is an ally of Pralayanath Gundaswamy sets up a meeting with him to inform him about Suryadev Singh, Pralayanath Gundaswamy questions why is there information about his glory and not a single photograph of his face. At that moment Suryadev Singh enters the auditorium and reveals that he is the one whose face Pralayanath Gundaswamy was so eager to see. Meanwhile on the New Year's Eve Harish and his friends witness an attempt of murder on Radha Tandel. They rushes her to hospital but later on flees as the staff calls police to inquire about the case. Police then trace Harish by his wallet which was left at hospital and charge him with an attempt of rape on Radha. After knowing who Suryadev is, Pralayanath Gundaswamy tries to kill him by planting bomb in his car. But Suryadev's car is a high tech vehicle and hence he makes an escape with his driver/bodyguard bahaddur from a below passage door in car. Then the news is wide spread that he has been murdered as suryadev is most obstacle in swamy way he frame him in fake charges and send him in jail where suryadev find hench men who are in police dress at masacre place we see suryadev holds a transmeter in his hand while listning jailer call Music. The songs of Tirangaa were a hit which included the following tracks:
586498	Hera Pheri 4 is an upcoming delayed Bollywood comedy film directed by Anees Bazmee and produced by Firoz Nadiadwala. It is the third installment in the "Hera Pheri" film series, after "Hera Pheri", which was directed by Priyadarshan and "Phir Hera Pheri", which was directed by Neeraj Vora. The project will star Akshay Kumar, Sunil Shetty and Paresh Rawal reprising their roles from the previous films, with new additions including Sanjay Kapoor and Ravi Kissen.
1164651	Victoria Dillard (born September 20, 1969) is an American actress. She is best known for her co-starring role as Janelle Cooper in the ABC sitcom "Spin City". Life and career. Dillard was born in New York City. She began performing at the age of five with the Dance Theatre of Harlem. She worked with the company until she was eighteen, appearing in such productions "Porgy and Bess" at the Metropolitan Opera. Then she went on tour in "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum" with Mickey Rooney. Dillard's most notable television role was as Janelle Cooper in the ABC sitcom "Spin City". She stayed on the show for three seasons before leaving in 2000. Her other television credits include ', "Seinfeld", "Roc", "L.A. Law", "Chicago Hope", "Martin", "Moesha", "Family Law", "Law & Order", ' and other series. Some of her film credits include "Coming to America" (1988), "Deep Cover" (1992), "The Glass Shield" (1994), "Internal Affairs" (1990), "Out-of-Sync" (1995) and "Ricochet" (1991) playing the wife of Denzel Washington's character. Her most recent film role was as Betty Shabazz in the 2001 film "Ali". In 1988, Dillard was in "Playboy" in the article "Sex In Cinema 1988". Personal life. Dillard currently lives in Los Angeles. She dances in her free time and writes screenplays and plays for the stage. Dillard was long-time girlfriend of actor Laurence Fishburne beginning in 1992 when the two met on set of the film "Deep Cover".
1016324	Christy Chung (; Vietnamese: "Chung Lệ Đề", born 19 September 1970) is a Canadian actress and restaurateur. She was born in Montreal to a Chinese father and a Vietnamese mother. Chung grew up in Brossard, Quebec, a suburb of Montreal, with French and Vietnamese as mother-tongues. She later learned English, Mandarin and Cantonese. While studying for a career in the tourism industry at the Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM), she entered and won the "Miss Chinese Montreal" contest in 1992. She then went to Hong Kong, in her first trip away from home, to participate in the Miss Chinese International Pageant 1993, in which she won despite not knowing a single Chinese word. This opened doors for her to launch her acting career there, despite not speaking a word of Cantonese at the time, and despite her extremely limited acting experience (an uncredited ten-second non-speaking role as a gum-chewing prostitute in Denys Arcand's "Love and Human Remains"). She had to choose between acting in Hong Kong and becoming the weather-forecast presenter at Société Radio-Canada, the French-language government television network in Canada. A role in "The Bride with White Hair 2" brought her instant recognition, and she became a well-known star in Chinese-language popular culture, acting in a large number of films including some films starring Stephen Chow, as well as "The Bodyguard from Beijing" starring Jet Li. She was married for a time to Glen Ross, and gave birth to daughter (Yasmine) in Montreal in the middle of the 1998 Ice Storm. Chung and Ross were divorced in 2002, but remain on good terms. Chung has sole custody of Yasmine. Giving birth to Yasmine temporarily had a negative effect on her career because of a stereotypical impression that a mother could not function as a sex symbol, but her career recovered in 2000. More recently, she had roles in "Samsara" and Jackie Chan's movie "The Medallion". She added Thai to her language repertoire when she starred in Nonzee Nimibutr's 2001 film "Jan Dara". Singapore "FHM" magazine voted her the "Sexiest Woman in Asia" in 2000. She is a brand ambassador and spokeswoman to slimming service Marie France Bodyline, prominently appearing on billboards and print ads, and is also known to be a fan of English football club Chelsea. Despite her success, she remains mostly unknown in Quebec, where she was born and grew up, because she has done most of her film work in Cantonese. Chung was recently seen at the 2007 Sina Awards and is currently working on an album. In 2003, Chung married to music producer Jon Yen. They have two daughters, Jaden Chloe Yen, who was born on August 2008, and Cayla Janie Yen (3.3 kg) on February 8, 2010. Chung and Jon Yen divorced in 2011, citing pressures on Jon Yen from her success in showbiz. She has since retired from acting, and has been living in Beijing. Chung is now a restaurant owner. She recently starred in "Bruce Lee, My Brother" playing the role of Bruce Lee's mother and Aarif Lee portrayed Lee.
1056525	"Gouttes d'eau sur pierres brûlantes" () is a 2000 French drama film directed by François Ozon. The film is based on a German play by Rainer Werner Fassbinder, "Tropfen auf heisse Steine". Plot. Act 1. A 50-year-old business man Léopold (Bernard Giraudeau) arrives home with 20-year-old Franz (Malik Zidi), whom he has just met. Franz is not quite sure why he agreed to come home with Léopold as he is supposed to be meeting his fiancée Anna, but he accepts drinks from Léopold and they begin to get to know each other. Franz tells Léopold that he is not sure whether or not he loves Anna, that he does not really enjoy sex with her, finding more pleasure in books, theatre and life in general. Léopold asks him if he has ever slept with a man. Franz says he has not, but describes a dream where a man comes into his bedroom in an overcoat and has sex with him. Léopold says that although he once lived with a woman for seven years, he has always found sex with men more exciting. They kiss, and Léopold tells Franz to get undressed and into bed. He then appears beside the bed in an overcoat ready to re-enact Franz's dream. Act 2. Six months later, Franz is living happily with Léopold. He stays at home while Léopold goes on business trips. When Léopold returns, Franz tends to his every need and has become very passive. Léopold has become very domineering. The two men spend a great deal of time arguing and Franz worries about Léopold leaving him, but they still have a satisfying physical relationship. One night, a melancholy Léopold confesses that he believes he has driven one of his customers to commit suicide. Franz, unsure how to comfort Léopold, seduces him, and they perform the role-play from their first night together, this time with roles reversed. Act 3. Franz and Léopold are still enjoying sex together but the animosity between them is growing. Franz threatens to leave, but does not go through with it. When Léopold is away on business, Franz is bored and depressed. He finds a gun and imagines shooting himself. One day his ex-fiancée Anna (Ludivine Sagnier) visits. She sees how unhappy he is and tells him that she still loves him and wants to be with him. They kiss, and Franz acts out the "man in overcoat" sequence with her. Act 4. Franz and Anna have been sleeping together in Léopold's apartment for two days. She has convinced him to leave and happily talks about the children they will have together. Although he still loves Léopold, Franz agrees that he should leave. Léopold returns from work early and finds them packing. When Anna tells him that Franz is leaving, Léopold just laughs and tells Franz to get them some coffee. Léopold's ex-girlfriend Véra (Anna Levine) arrives and Léopold introduces her, explaining that she is a male-to-female transsexual. Véra is still in love with Léopold. He then tells them that Véra used to like being tied up, and that Franz likes it too. Franz, angry at being humiliated by the older man, says they are leaving, but Anna wants to stay. Léopold wants them all to have fun together. Léopold starts ordering the two women about. They are excited and start getting him whatever he wants. Franz is disgusted. Léopold tells him that although he does not need Franz, Franz needs him. When Léopold and the women go to the bedroom. Franz goes to join them but changes his mind. He fantasises about murdering Léopold. In the bedroom, Véra realises that the others do not need her and leaves them to it. She finds Franz lying on the floor crying. She tells him that she is Léopold's "creature", that after he stopped desiring her, she had a sex change operation for him. This worked for a while but Léopold eventually left Véra. Franz tells her that she is still beautiful and despite the fact that they both love Léopold, she suggests that they get together. Franz tells her that it is too late. He has taken some poison and is dying. He says that he is Léopold's creature too. Franz dies. When Véra tells Léopold, he seems unconcerned. Anna is shocked and upset to lose the father of her future children, but when Léopold tells her to get back into bed, she does. Léopold asks Véra to join them in bed, telling her that although he does not need her, she needs him. Music. Music featured in the film includes:
571474	Scott Clinton Reeves Eastwood (born March 21, 1986), also known as Scott Eastwood and formerly Scott Reeves, is an American actor. He is the son of actor-director Clint Eastwood. Early life. Eastwood was born Scott Clinton Reeves in San Diego, California, and grew up in Hawaii. He is the son of actor-director Clint Eastwood and flight attendant Jacelyn Allen Reeves, elder brother of Kathryn Reeves (b. February 2, 1988), and paternal half-brother of Kimber Tunis, Kyle Eastwood, Alison Eastwood, Francesca Fisher-Eastwood, and Morgan Eastwood. Career. He briefly appeared in his father's 2010 film "Gran Torino" (for which Kyle Eastwood provided the score) and in his father's 2009 film "Invictus", Eastwood played flyhalf Joel Stransky, whose drop goal provided the Springboks' winning margin in the 1995 final. In April 2010, he was cast in Jack Heller's directorial debut, playing the lead role in the thriller "Enter Nowhere". He will co-star in David Ayer's 2014 film, "Fury", with Brad Pitt, Shia LaBeouf, and Logan Lerman.
1377527	Legally Blondes (also known as Legally Blonde 3) is a 2009 film of the "Legally Blonde" series from MGM. Elle Woods, previously played by Reese Witherspoon, does not appear in the film, but is mentioned several times. Witherspoon produced the film. The film aired on ABC Family and Disney Channel, and is directed towards a younger audience than the first two films. The film stars Camilla and Rebecca Rosso as Elle Woods' British twin cousins. Moving from England to California, the youngest cousins of Elle Woods must defend themselves when their schools reigning forces turn on the girls and try to frame them for a crime.
1034067	Patsy Rowlands (19 January 1931 – 22 January 2005) was an English actress who is best remembered for her roles in the "Carry On" films series, and as Betty Lewis in the popular ITV Thames sitcom "Bless This House", and as Alice Meredith in the Yorkshire Television sitcom "Hallelujah!". Early years. She was born in Seven Sisters, London and attended the Sacred Heart convent school at Whetstone. At one an elocution teacher spotted her potential and encouraged her to pursue a career in acting. She applied for the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, and won a scholarship aged fifteen. Theatre career. Rowlands began her career in the chorus of "Annie Get Your Gun", followed by a summer season in Torquay. She then spent several years with the Players' Theatre in London, before making her West End debut in Sandy Wilson's musical "Valmouth". It was at this time she met her future husband, the composer Malcolm Sircom. They divorced in 1967. Other West End theatre credits included "Semi-Detached" with Laurence Olivier and directed by Tony Richardson (with whom she was to work often, appearing in his 1963 film Tom Jones), "Shut Your Eyes and Think of England", with Donald Sinden, "The Seagull" and Ben Travers's "The Bed Before Yesterday", both directed by Lindsay Anderson and "When We Are Married" for Ronald Eyre. She also starred in Cameron Mackintosh's revival of "Oliver!" in the mid-1990s as well as playing Jack's mother in the original London cast of Sondheim's Into the Woods alongside Julia McKenzie and Imelda Staunton. One of her final musical appearances in the West End was as Mrs Pearce in the National Theatre's production of "My Fair Lady" which also starred Jonathan Pryce. "Carry On" films. She made her debut in the "Carry On" films in "Carry On Again Doctor" in 1969 and soon became a regular member of the team, usually playing the dowdy, put-upon wife or the long-suffering secretary. Between 1969 and 1975 she appeared in nine of the films, including "Carry On Loving", "Carry On at Your Convenience", "Carry On Girls" and "Carry On Behind". On 7 March 1971 she starred in a single episode "(You've Really Landed Me In It This Time)" of popular ITV sitcom "Doctor at Large", with Barry Evans and George Layton, as a nymphomaniac secretary, a role she seemed to relish and had played similarly in "Carry On Loving". From 1971 to 1976, she played Betty, the feckless neighbour in the popular ITV sitcom "Bless This House", which starred fellow Carry On star Sid James. Her other television credits at this time included appearances with comedians such as Les Dawson and Dick Emery. In the early 1980s, she appeared with Thora Hird in the sitcom "Hallelujah!", in which they played an aunt and niece in The Salvation Army. In 1991 she appeared in an episode of "Zorro" filmed in Madrid, Spain. Later years. Towards the end of her life, Rowlands appeared in several revivals of major musicals such as "Oliver!" at the London Palladium and "My Fair Lady" at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane. Later television credits include "The Cazalets", "The Canterbury Tales", "The Cater Street Hangman", "Get Well Soon", "Vanity Fair", "Murder Most English", and "Bottom" for the BBC. In 2002 she was a guest on the paranormal series "Most Haunted". Rowlands completed several DVD audio commentaries along with other surviving stars of the "Carry On" films in 2003.
1064001	Jennifer Coolidge (born August 28, 1961) is an American actress and comedian best known for playing "Stifler's mom," the MILF in the film "American Pie" (1999); Hilary Duff's stepmother in "A Cinderella Story" (2004); Paulette, the manicurist in "Legally Blonde" (2001) and its sequel; the voice of Aunt Fanny in the animated feature "Robots" (2005); for her role in "The Secret Life of the American Teenager" as Betty; and for her regular role in the NBC sitcom "Joey" as Joey's agent, Bobbie Morganstern. She is also a regular actor in Christopher Guest's mockumentary films. Coolidge is an alumna of The Groundlings, an improv and sketch comedy troupe based in Los Angeles. Currently she has a main role in "2 Broke Girls" as Sophie, Max and Caroline's Polish upstairs neighbor who owns a cleaning business, from episode 14 of season 1 to present. Early life. Coolidge was born in Boston, Massachusetts, the daughter of Gretchen (née Knauff) and Paul Constant Coolidge, a plastics manufacturer. She was raised in Norwell, Massachusetts, and has a brother, Andrew, and two sisters, Elizabeth and Susannah. Coolidge attended Norwell High School, the Cambridge School of Weston, Emerson College in Boston and the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York City. Her charitable work has included a history of supporting AIDS assistance and animal rights. Career. Coolidge is known for her supporting roles in many comedy movies and guest spots on television. Having made one of her first appearances in the "Seinfeld" episode "The Masseuse", as well as appearing in a recurring role on "King of the Hill" as Luanne's beauty school teacher, Miss Kremzer, Coolidge is best known for playing "Stifler's mom," the consummate "MILF," in the "American Pie" films, though she is also known for supporting parts in other films, including Hilary Duff's stepmother in "A Cinderella Story"; Paulette, the manicurist in "Legally Blonde" and its sequel; "Hottie Police Officer" in "A Night at the Roxbury"; and the voice of Aunt Fanny in the animated feature "Robots".
1033358	Alexander "Sandy" Morton (born 24 March 1945 in Glasgow) is a Scottish actor. Acting career. Morton trained in London at the Central School of Speech and Drama from 1965–68 and is well known for his roles in several leading drama series, such as "Taggart", "Second Sight", "Between the Lines", "Minder", and "Casualty"; movies such as Croupier and London to Brighton; and single dramas "The One That Got Away" (1996), "Looking After Jo Jo" (1998), and "The Man-Eating Wolves of Gysinge" (2005). He is best known for playing the ghillie Golly Mackenzie in the BBC TV series "Monarch of the Glen" (2000–2005, appearing in all 64 episodes), and before that made regular appearances over the 1980s and 1990s as the evil Andy Semple in Scottish soap "Take the High Road". Highlights of his stage career include a Scots rendition of Shakespeare's "Macbeth" and R.P. McMurphy in "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest", both directed by Robert Carlyle, who was a founder member, with Morton, of the Raindog Theatre Company in the 1990s. Morton also worked regularly with theatre companies 7:84 and Borderline, and has appeared at the Traverse, the Lyceum, the Bush, the Royal Court, in repertory all over the UK, as well as regular appearances in pantomime, notably at Glasgow's King's Theatre. In 2006, Morton played the Prince of Darkness in the BBC radio adaptation of "Dracula" (Voyage of the Demeter, 2006). He was also the first actor to play Inspector Rebus in the first adaptation of Ian Rankin's "Rebus" series of books. He regularly provides voices for video games, including "Heavenly Sword", "The Witcher" and "". In 2012 Morton appeared as Billy Kennedy in Scottish soap opera "River City". Personal life. Morton has been married three times, and has a child — Kerry (b. 1970) and Jamie (b. 1980) — from each of his first two marriages. His first wife was Pam Scotcher. His third wife is Jane, whom he met before filming for "Monarch of the Glen" got underway. She was his landlady while he was doing television work in London, where they now live with her children.
1089865	Urbain Jean Joseph Le Verrier (; 11 March 1811 – 23 September 1877) was a French mathematician who specialized in celestial mechanics and is best known for his part in the discovery of Neptune. Biography. Early years. Le Verrier was born at Saint-Lô, Manche, France, and studied at École Polytechnique. He briefly studied chemistry under Gay-Lussac, writing papers on the combinations of phosphorus and hydrogen, and phosphorus and oxygen. He then switched to astronomy, particularly celestial mechanics, and accepted a job at the Paris Observatory. He spent most of his professional life there, and eventually became that institution's Director, from 1854 to 1870 and again from 1873 to 1877. In 1846, Le Verrier became a member of the French Academy of Sciences, and in 1855, he was elected a foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. Le Verrier's name is one of the 72 names inscribed on the Eiffel Tower. Career. Early work. Le Verrier's first work in astronomy was presented to the "Académie des Sciences" in September 1839, entitled "Sur les variations séculaires des orbites des planètes" ("On the Secular Variations of the Orbits of the Planets"). This work addressed the then most-important question in astronomy: the stability of the Solar System, first investigated by Laplace. He was able to derive some important limits on the motions of the system, but due to the inaccurately-known masses of the planets, his results were tentative. From 1844 to 1847, Le Verrier published a series of works on periodic comets, in particular those of Lexell, Faye and DeVico. He was able to show some interesting interactions with the planet Jupiter, proving that certain comets were actually the reappearance of previously-known comets flung into different orbits. Discovery of Neptune. Le Verrier's most famous achievement is his prediction of the existence of the then unknown planet Neptune, using only mathematics and astronomical observations of the known planet Uranus. Encouraged by physicist Arago, Director of the Paris Observatory, Le Verrier was intensely engaged for months in complex calculations to explain small but systematic discrepancies between Uranus's observed orbit and the one predicted from the laws of gravity of Newton. At the same time, but unknown to Le Verrier, similar calculations were made by John Couch Adams in England. Le Verrier announced his final predicted position for Uranus's unseen perturbing planet publicly to the French Academy on 31 August 1846, two days before Adams's final solution was privately mailed to the Royal Greenwich Observatory. Le Verrier transmitted his own prediction by 18 September in a letter to Johann Galle of the Berlin Observatory. The letter arrived five days later, and the planet was found with the Berlin Fraunhofer refractor that same evening, 23 September 1846, by Galle and Heinrich d'Arrest within 1° of the predicted location near the boundary between Capricorn and Aquarius. There was, and to an extent still is, controversy over the apportionment of credit for the discovery. There is no ambiguity to the discovery claims of Le Verrier, Galle, and d'Arrest. Adams's work was begun earlier than Le Verrier's but was finished later and was unrelated to the actual discovery. Not even the briefest account of Adams's predicted orbital elements was published until more than a month after Berlin's visual confirmation. Adams made full public acknowledgement of Le Verrier's priority and credit (not forgetting to mention the role of Galle) when he gave his paper to the Royal Astronomical Society in November 1846: Tables of the planets. Early in the 19th century, the methods of predicting the motions of the planets were somewhat scattered, having been developed over decades by many different researchers. In 1847, Le Verrier took on the task to "... embrace in a single work the entire planetary system, put everything in harmony if possible, otherwise, declare with certainty that there are as yet unknown causes of perturbations...",
1061270	From Here to Eternity is a 1953 drama film directed by Fred Zinnemann and based on the novel of the same name by James Jones. The picture deals with the tribulations of three soldiers, played by Burt Lancaster, Montgomery Clift, and Frank Sinatra, stationed on Hawaii in the months leading up to the attack on Pearl Harbor. Deborah Kerr and Donna Reed portray the women in their lives and the supporting cast includes Ernest Borgnine and George Reeves. The film won eight Academy Awards out of 13 nominations, including for Picture, Best Director (Fred Zinnemann), Adapted Screenplay, Supporting Actor (Frank Sinatra) and Supporting Actress (Donna Reed). The film's title comes originally from a quote from Rudyard Kipling's 1892 poem "Gentlemen-Rankers", about soldiers of the British Empire who had "lost way" and were "damned from here to eternity".
587834	Pellaindi Kaani is a Telugu film directed by E. V. V. Satyanarayana. The film was released in August 2007. Plot. Pellaindi Kani portrays what happens between two bumps to the head of the main protagonist Attchi Babu (Allari Naresh). With the first bump, at the age of 10, he loses his mental balance. Twelve years later he regains his sanity with another bump to his head. Attchi Babu is the son of a rich widow (Bhanupriya) and is heir to a vast property. His mother loves him dearly. In the hope that he would become normal, she arranges his marriage with the daughter Gayathri (Kamalinee Mukherjee) of the village headmaster (Chandra Mohan) who is in need of money to get his heart operated. Bhanupriya knows that no sensible girl would ever wish to marry an abnormal person. Yet for the love of his son she arranges for the marriage. Kamalinee Mukherjee agrees for the marriage to save his father. She also hopes that someday Allari Naresh would become normal. But Bhanupriya's brothers (Kota Srinivasa Rao and Krishna Bhagavaan) are working overtime to finish off both the mother and son to acquire their vast property. Will they succeed? Will Attchi Babu father a child? Pellaindi Kani has the uninteresting answers. Pellaindi Kani is a forgettable project of EVV. The man that has given so many comedy hits neither makes a comedy nor a tragedy of Pellaindi Kani. There is a severe draught of imagination. The movie doesn't appeal even to the low IQ audience. Allari Naresh acts vaguely in a mentally challenged role. Sunil is cast in a good role. He is the friend and caretaker of Allari Naresh. His capabilities are not exploited in any way. Krishna Bhagwan's comic capabilities also lie unutilized. Kamalinee Mukherjee and Bhanupriya get some good scenes. Harish kumar of Prema Qaidi fame gets better scope to emote than Allari Naresh. And he acts consummately; other that that there is not much in the movie to write about. The movie opened to a mostly empty theatre. The theatres wherever this movie is running will only get emptier in the coming few days. Hope EVV works hard on his next project and Allari Naresh to improve his acting skills.
1163278	William Theodore Katt (born February 16, 1951) is an American film and television actor, best known as the star of "The Greatest American Hero". He first became known for playing Tommy Ross, the ill-fated prom date of Carrie White in the film version of "Carrie" (1976) and subsequently starred in films such as "First Love" (1977), "Big Wednesday" (1978) and ' (1979). His mother is Barbara Hale, who played Della Street in the television series 'Perry Mason"". Katt later played Paul Drake Jr. in the Perry Mason TV movies. His father was actor Bill Williams, who was best remembered for starring in the classic series "The Adventures of Kit Carson". Early life. Katt was born in Los Angeles, California, the son of actor Bill Williams (real name Hermann Katt) and actress Barbara Hale. He grew up in the San Fernando Valley and began acting while a teenager. Career. Katt attended Orange Coast College before pursuing a career as a musician. Inspired by his father, he then started an acting career, appearing in summer stock and in small television roles. His earliest film credits include the role of a jock, Tommy Ross, in Brian De Palma's 1976 horror film adaptation "Carrie," which allowed Katt to make a name for himself. In 1978 he appeared as Barlow, a young surfer, in the John Milius drama film "Big Wednesday" opposite Jan-Michael Vincent and Gary Busey. His mother in that film was his real-life mother, Barbara Hale. The following year he took the role of Sundance Kid in the 1979 film "." The role in "Big Wednesday" made him so well known in the surfing community that in 2004 he presented one of the Association of Surfing Professionals awards at their annual World championship tour ceremony to wild applause from the crowd of professional surfers. Katt explained in a 1979 interview with critic Roger Ebert that he was holding out only for parts which were personally interesting to him. In December 1975 Katt auditioned for the part of Luke Skywalker in 1977's science fiction blockbuster "," and footage of his audition has been featured in many "Star Wars" documentaries. He was seriously considered for the role, which instead went to Mark Hamill, and Katt instead starred that year in "First Love", playing a college student who experiences his first romantic relationship. In 1981 Katt was cast as the title role in a filmed version of the Broadway musical comedy "Pippin", which received mixed reviews. He won his best remembered role that year, however, as Ralph Hinkley, a mild-mannered schoolteacher given a superpowered suit by aliens on the television series "The Greatest American Hero," a role he played until the show was canceled in 1983. Also starring veteran actor Robert Culp, the show was wildly popular, however, and retains a cult fanbase. Its theme song, penned by television soundtrack icon Mike Post, also became a big hit in the music charts. After "The Greatest American Hero," Katt starred in "" (1985), about explorers searching for apatosaurs in Africa; the cult horror/comedy film "House" (1986) (reprising his role for the third sequel, "House IV" in 1992), and played the recurring role of detective Paul Drake Jr. in the periodic "Perry Mason" TV movies of the late eighties. These co-starred his mother, Barbara Hale, who resumed her Della Street role from the original show, and Katt collaborated on some of the later scripts. Katt starred in the 1989 TV series "Top of the Hill" and made a guest appearance on the first episode of the short-lived 1991 series "Good Sports." Katt continues to appear on television and in supporting film roles, and also has branched out into voice acting. He appeared in an episode of "House" in 2006. In recent years he has returned to genre work, with appearances in "Andromeda" and "Justice League" and roles in the award-winning film ' (2006), "The Man from Earth" (2007), and ' (2007). Katt briefly appeared in "Heroes" season 3, "The Butterfly Effect," as a nosy reporter investigating Ali Larter's character. He portrayed Jack Matheson in the thriller film Mirrors 2. In 2010 during season 6, Katt guest starred as C.J. Payne's musician birth-father in the episode "Who's Your Daddy Now?" on the Tyler Perry comedy "House of Payne." Katt also has written a "Greatest American Hero" comic book and contributed to that series' Facebook page. Personal life. Katt married Deborah Kahane in 1979 and they had two sons, Clayton and Emerson. They divorced in 1986.
1028948	Jessica Brooke Capshaw (born August 9, 1976) is an American actress. She is known for her role as Jamie Stringer in "The Practice" and Dr. Arizona Robbins on the ABC medical drama "Grey's Anatomy". She was introduced in the latter show's fifth season as an attending surgeon and the new head of pediatric surgery. Originally contracted to appear in three episodes, Capshaw's contract was extended to the remainder of the fifth season, with her becoming a series regular in the sixth season. Early life. Capshaw was born in Columbia, Missouri, the daughter of actress and producer Kate Capshaw, and Robert Capshaw, a sales manager, marketing director, business executive, and high school principal. She is the stepdaughter of director Steven Spielberg. She graduated from Harvard-Westlake School in 1994 and Brown University in 1998 with an English degree. She then attended acting classes at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts (RADA) in London. Career. In the 2001 slasher film "Valentine", Capshaw played Dorothy Wheeler. In 2009, she became a regular on the medical drama "Grey's Anatomy". It was first reported in December 2008 that Capshaw would be joining the cast of "Grey's Anatomy" as pediatric surgeon Arizona Robbins, for a multi-episode arc. Initially scheduled to appear in three episodes of the show's fifth season, series creator Shonda Rhimes later extended Capshaw's contract to appear in all of the season's remaining episodes, becoming a series regular in the sixth season. She was established as a love-interest for orthopedic resident Callie Torres (Sara Ramirez). Series creator Shonda Rhimes was in contrast pleased with the chemistry between Robbins and Torres, citing the addition of Capshaw to the cast as an element of the season of which she was most proud. Speaking of the new addition, Rhimes said: "I love Jessica Capshaw, and when I say love I mean love. She couldn't be a more wonderful person, and I feel like the chemistry Arizona and Callie have feels like the Meredith and Derek chemistry to me. I find them delightful to watch." Initial media reaction to the character was positive. Matt Mitovich of "TV Guide" described her as a "fan favorite", and Chris Monfette for IGN praised the addition of "fresh, new characters", such as Robbins over the course of the season. Personal life. Capshaw married Christopher Gavigan, writer and founder of a child health nonprofit organization, on May 22, 2004 at her family's East Hampton estate. Capshaw has three children with her husband: son Luke Hudson (born September 8, 2007) and daughters Eve Augusta (born October 20, 2010), and Poppy James (born June 20, 2012). Capshaw is best friends with Rizzoli & Isles star Sasha Alexander. The pair were repeatedly told they looked alike and eventually struck up conversation after meeting at an audition.
1228854	We Jam Econo: The Story of the Minutemen, is a full-length documentary about the influential 1980s punk rock band Minutemen, created by director Tim Irwin and producer Keith Schieron in association with Rocket Fuel Films. The film premiered on February 25, 2005 at the historic Warner Grand Theatre in San Pedro, California, after two years in production.
1166093	Ellen Cleghorne (born November 29, 1965) is an American actress and comedian, best known for being a cast member of "Saturday Night Live" from 1991 to 1995. Cleghorne is notable as being the second African-American female repertory cast member of the sketch comedy show, succeeding Danitra Vance in its eleventh season, the first black female cast member to stay on the show for more than one season, and the third black female cast member overall. Life and career. A native of the Red Hook Projects in Brooklyn, New York, she first established her talents in New York City comedy clubs and career started when she competed in the Johnnie Walker Comedy Search in 1989 at the comedy club Carolines in the South Street Seaport. In 1991, she landed minor roles in season two of "In Living Color", where she was discovered by producers of "Saturday Night Live". Cleghorne joined "Saturday Night Live" in 1991, and remained on the show for four seasons. During her time on the show she performed impressions such as Dr. Dre, Alfre Woodard, Anita Baker, Florence Griffith Joyner, Debbie Allen, Mary J. Blige, Natalie Cole, Patti LaBelle, Marla Gibbs, Robin Quivers, Toni Morrison, Joycelyn Elders, Tina Turner, and Whoopi Goldberg. Also, she had two recurring characters: Zoraida, an NBC page, and Queen Shenequa, who appeared frequently on Weekend Update. Her former "SNL" costar Jay Mohr's book "Gasping for Airtime" notes that Cleghorne did not get along well with some of the other cast members during her time on the show. He also mentions a tiff with host Sally Field during a pitch meeting. In 1995, she left "SNL" to star as single mother Ellen Carlson on "Cleghorne!", a sitcom that aired for one season on The WB network.
1167268	Steve Eastin (born June 22, 1948) is an American character actor. He has appeared in nearly 150 television and film roles throughout his decades long career. Steve is a descendant of the D'Estaing family of France. Eastin was born in Colorado, where he began to study acting at the young age of six at his local theater. He received his Actor Equity card at age 16 when he performed in two musicals choreographed by Micheal Bennet. Later, he attended the University of Northern Colorado where he appeared in several productions at the Little Theater of the Rockies, whose alumni include Nick Nolte. After college, Eastin received a fellowship to teach at the University of Arizona where he appeared in his first SAG role opposite Clint Eastwood in Joe Kidd. It was shortly after this when Eastin moved to Los Angeles to further pursue his acting career, enrolling in the Charles Conrad Studio upon arrival in 1974. While attending Charles' class, Eastin became interested in teaching acting as well. In 1991, he founded his own acting school, The Steve Eastin Studio. The studio believes in what Eastin refers to as "Choiceless awareness", where the actors do not read into the script, nor prepare their "beats" or think about what or how they may read their lines. Instead, the actors are encouraged to be in the moment and let their natural, emotional power take over and thus tap into the vast collective unconscious all humans are capable of attuning themselves to. Eastin is best known for appearing in such films as "Field of Dreams" (1989), "Con Air" (1997) and "A Man Apart" (2003), where he developed a reputation as the tough guy with a heart of gold underneath. He played opposite Leonardo DiCaprio in two pivotal scenes in "Catch Me if You Can" (2002). Eastin has worked with such directors as Steven Spielberg, Brian De Palma, and Jason Reitman. Eastin is also known for his numerous television appearances throughout the years on such shows as "Little House on the Prairie", "CHiPS", "T.J. Hooker", "St. Elsewhere" and "L.A. Law".
1265683	Marie Dressler (November 9, 1868 – July 28, 1934) was a Canadian-American stage and screen actress and early silent film and Depression-era film star. She won the Academy Award for Best Actress in 1930-31 for "Min and Bill" and played the titular role in the first full-length screen comedy, 1914's "Tillie's Punctured Romance", opposite Charles Chaplin and Mabel Normand. Early life and stage career. Dressler was born Leila Marie Koerber in Cobourg, Ontario, to parents Alexander Rudolph Koerber, who was Austrian and a former officer in the Crimean War, and Anna Henderson, a musician. Her father was a music teacher in Cobourg and the organist at St. Peter's Church, where as a child Marie would sing and assist in operating the organ. Her first acting appearance was as Cupid at age five in a church theatrical performance in Lindsay, Ontario. Dressler left home at fourteen to began her acting career as a chorus girl with the Nevada Stock Company. Her first job paid her $8 a week. It was at this time that Dressler adopted the name of an aunt as her stage name. Dressler's sister Bonita, five years older, left home at about the same time. Bonita also worked in the opera company. In 1892 she made her debut on Broadway. At first she hoped to make a career of singing light opera, but then gravitated to vaudeville. In vaudeville she was known for her full-figured body—fashionable at the time—and had buxom contemporaries such as her friends Lillian Russell, Fay Templeton, May Irwin and Trixie Friganza. She used the services of 'body sculptor to the stars' Sylvia of Hollywood to keep herself at a steady weight. Dressler appeared in a play called "Robber of the Rhine" which was written by Maurice Barrymore. Barrymore gave Dressler some positive advice about furthering her career and she later acknowledged his help. Years later she would appear with his sons, Lionel and John, in motion pictures. During the early 1900s, Dressler became a major vaudeville star, although she had appeared on stage in New York City earlier, for example, in "1492 Up To Date" (1895). In 1902, she met fellow Canadian Mack Sennett and helped him get a job in the theater. For a time, Dressler had her own theatre troupe, which performed "Miss Prinnt" in cities of the American north-east. Dressler performed in London, England from 1907 to 1909 before returning to New York. In addition to her stage work, Dressler recorded for Edison Records in 1909 and 1910. Dressler continued to work in the theater during the 1910s, and toured the United States during World War I, selling Liberty Bonds and entertaining the American Expeditionary Forces. American GIs in France named both a street and a cow after Dressler. The cow was killed, leading to "Marie Dressler: Killed in Line of Duty" headlines, about which Dressler quipped "I had a hard time convincing people that the report of my death had been greatly exaggerated." Film career. Dressler had appeared in two shorts as herself, but her first role in a feature film came in 1914, at the age of 44. After Mack Sennett became the owner of his namesake motion picture studio, he convinced Dressler to star in his 1914 silent film "Tillie's Punctured Romance". The film was to be the first full-length, six-reel motion picture comedy. According to Sennett, a prospective budget of $200,000 meant that he needed "a star whose name and face meant something to every possible theatre-goer in the United States and the British Empire." The movie was based on Dressler's hit "Tillie's Nightmare," a choice credited either to Dressler or to a Keystone studio employee. Dressler herself claims to have cast Charles Chaplin in the movie as her leading man, and was "proud to have had a part in giving him his first big chance." Instead of his recently invented Tramp character, Chaplin played a villainous rogue. Silent film comedienne Mabel Normand also starred in the movie. "Tillie's Punctured Romance" was a hit with audiences and Dressler appeared in two "Tillie" sequels and other comedies until 1918, when she returned to vaudeville. In 1919, during the Actors' Equity strike in New York City, the Chorus Equity Association was formed and voted Dressler its first president. Dressler was blacklisted by the theater production companies due to her strong stance. Dressler found it difficult to find work during the 1920s. She left New York for Hollywood in search of work in films. In 1927, Frances Marion, an MGM screenwriter, came to Dressler's rescue. Dressler had shown great kindness to Marion during the filming of "Tillie Wakes Up" in 1917, and in return, Marion used her influence with MGM's production chief Irving Thalberg to return Dressler to the screen. Her first MGM feature was "The Callahans and the Murphys" (1927), a rowdy silent comedy co-starring Dressler (as Ma Callahan) with another former Mack Sennett comedienne, Polly Moran, written by Marion. The film was initially a success, but the portrayal of Irish characters caused a protest in the "Irish World" newspaper, protests by the American Irish Vigilance Committee, and pickets outside the film's New York theatre. The film was first cut by MGM in an attempt to appease the Irish community, then eventually pulled from release after Cardinal Dougherty of the diocese of Philadelphia called MGM president Nicholas Schenck. It was not shown again, and the negative and prints may have been destroyed. While the film brought her to Hollywood, it did not establish Dressler's career. Her next appearance was a minor part in the First National film "Breakfast at Sunrise". She appeared again with Moran in "Bringing Up Father", another film written by Marion, and also appeared in an early color film, "The Joy Girl". Dressler returned to MGM in 1928's "The Patsy" in a winning portrayal, playing the fluttery mother to star Marion Davies and Jane Winton. Hollywood was converting from silent films, but "talkies" presented no problems for Dressler, whose rumbling voice could handle both sympathetic scenes and snappy comebacks (she's the wisecracking stage actress in "Chasing Rainbows" and the dubious matron in Rudy Vallee's "Vagabond Lover"). Early in 1930, Dressler joined Edward Everett Horton's theater troupe in L.A. to play a princess in Ferenc Molnár's "The Swan". But after one week, she quit the troupe. She proceeded to leave Horton flat, much to his indignation. Frances Marion persuaded Thalberg to give Dressler the role of Marthy, the old harridan who welcomes Greta Garbo home after the search for her father, in the 1930 film "Anna Christie". Garbo and the critics were impressed by Dressler's acting ability, and so was MGM, which quickly signed her to a $500-per-week contract. A robust, full-bodied woman of very plain features, Dressler went on to act in comic films which were very popular with the movie-going public and an equally lucrative investment for MGM. Although past sixty years of age, she quickly became Hollywood’s number one box-office attraction, and stayed on top until her death at age 65. In addition to her comedic genius and her natural elegance, Dressler demonstrated her considerable talents by taking on serious roles. For her starring portrayal in "Min and Bill", with Wallace Beery, she won the 1930-31 Academy Award for Best Actress (the eligibility years were staggered at that time). Dressler was nominated again for Best Actress for her 1932 starring role in "Emma". With that film, Dressler demonstrated her profound generosity to other performers. Dressler personally insisted that her studio bosses cast a friend of hers, a largely unknown young actor named Richard Cromwell, in the lead opposite her. This break helped launch his career. Dressler followed these successes with more hits in 1933, including the comedy "Dinner at Eight", in which she played an aging but vivacious former stage actress. Dressler had a memorable bit with Jean Harlow in the film: Harlow: Do you know that the guy said that machinery is going to take the place of "every" profession? Dressler: Oh my dear, "that's" something "you" need never worry about. Following the release of that film, Dressler appeared on the cover of "Time" magazine, in its August 7, 1933, issue. MGM held a huge birthday party for Dressler in 1933, broadcast live via radio. Her newly regenerated career came to an abrupt end when she was diagnosed with terminal cancer in 1934. MGM head Louis B. Mayer learned of Dressler's illness from her doctor and asked that she not be told. To keep her home, he ordered her not to travel on her vacation because he wanted to put her in a new film. Dressler was furious but complied. Dressler appeared in more than forty films, and achieved her greatest successes in talking pictures made during the last years of her life. Always seeing herself as physically unattractive, she wrote an autobiography titled "The Life Story of an Ugly Duckling." Personal life. Dressler's first marriage was to American George Hoeppert. According to Dressler's testimony, she married Hoeppert in Elizabeth, New Jersey in 1899, although biographer Matthew Kennedy puts the marriage date as May 6, 1894, and a divorce early in 1896. Her marriage to Hoeppert gave Dressler American citizenship, which was useful later in life, when American immigration rules meant permits were needed to work in the United States, and Dressler had to appear before an immigration hearing. In 1907, Dressler met Maine business man James Henry Dalton, who would become her companion until his death in 1921. According to Dalton, the two were married in Europe in 1908. However, Dressler later learned that the "minister" who married them in Monte Carlo was actually a local man paid by Dalton to stage a fake wedding. Dalton's first wife Lizzie claimed that he had not consented to a divorce or been served divorce papers, while Dalton claimed to have divorced her in 1905. By 1921, Dalton had become an invalid due to degenerated kidneys and would watch her from the wings in a wheel-chair. After his death, Dressler was planning for Dalton to be buried as her husband, but Lizzie Dalton had Dalton's body returned to be buried in the Dalton family plot. Death. On Saturday July 28, 1934, Dressler died of cancer at the age of 65 in Santa Barbara, California. After a private funeral held at The Wee Kirk o’ the Heather chapel, Dressler was interred in a crypt in the Great Mausoleum in the Forest Lawn Memorial Park, Glendale in Glendale, California. Dressler left an estate worth $310,000, the bulk left to her sister Bonita. Dressler left her 1931 automobile and $35,000 in her will to her maid of twenty years, Mamie Cox, and $15,000 to Cox's husband Jerry, who had served as Dressler's butler for four years. The two used the funds to open the "Cocoanut Grove" night club in Savannah, Georgia in 1936, named after the night club in Los Angeles. Legacy. Dressler's birth home in Cobourg, Ontario is known as the "Marie Dressler House" and is open to the public. The home was converted to a restaurant in 1937 and operated as a restaurant until 1989, when it was damaged by fire. It was restored but did not open again as a restaurant. It was the office of the Cobourg Chamber of Commerce until its conversion to its current use as a museum about Dressler and as a visitor information office for Cobourg. Each year, the Marie Dressler Foundation Vintage Film Festival is held, with screenings in Cobourg and in Port Hope, Ontario. For her contribution to the motion picture industry, Marie Dressler has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 1731 Vine Street, added in 1960. Canada Post, as part of its "Canada in Hollywood" series, issued a postage stamp on June 30, 2008 to honour Marie Dressler.
739096	Mitchell Craig "Mitch" Pileggi (born April 5, 1952) is an American actor, best known for his role as Walter Skinner on "The X-Files". He also had a recurring role on "Stargate Atlantis" as Colonel Steven Caldwell. He appeared in the 2008 film "Flash of Genius". In 2008, he began a recurring role as Ernest Darby in "Sons of Anarchy". In 2012, he began a recurring role on the new "Dallas" and was elevated to a series regular in 2013. Early life. Pileggi, one of several children, was born in Portland, Oregon, the son of Maxine, a homemaker, and Vito Pileggi, a defense contractor. His family moved frequently because of his father's occupation, and Pileggi lived in Oregon, California, and Texas before spending most of his adolescence in Turkey. Pileggi was a high school athlete, concentrating on wrestling and football. He attended the University of Texas in Austin, receiving a degree in business. For a while he worked in Iran as a defense contractor, until the 1979 Iranian revolution caused him and his brother to have to flee the country, escaping to Greece. Career. Early career. Pileggi began acting while he was a high school student in Turkey, playing musical theater. After returning to Austin from Iran, he performed in local theaters, and continued his acting career with small roles in B-movies, and guest roles in television shows such as "Dallas", "China Beach", "Code of Vengeance", and "Walker, Texas Ranger". In the 1980s, Pileggi starred in several films including "Three O'Clock High" as Duke "The Duker" Herman, an over zealous tough-as-nails high school parking lot security guard, and in "Shocker" as body-possessing serial killer Horace Pinker. Pileggi also appeared briefly in the 1992 film "Basic Instinct" as an investigating police officer in the infamous interrogation scene. Television. His most notable role was as the FBI's Assistant Director Walter Skinner on "The X-Files". The role was originally recurring, but the part expanded, and in 2001 he became a regular member of the cast. The character gradually became the most integral character besides the two leads. He remained with the show until its end in 2002. Pileggi also played the character in the 1998 "X-Files" film and, six years after the show's end, reprised the character in the film "". Pileggi's recent work has included starring in the short-lived TV show "Tarzan" and co-starring with Barbara Hershey and Oliver Hudson in the short-lived TV show "The Mountain". Since 2005, he has played the recurring role of character Colonel Steven Caldwell, Commander of the Earth Battlecruiser, "Daedalus", in the second and subsequent seasons of the television series "Stargate Atlantis". He also appeared in an episode of "" and in 2006 had a regular guest role on "Day Break" as Robbery/Homicide Detective Spivak. Pileggi also appeared on the show "Cold Case" in the episode "Offender", as a father accused of molesting and murdering his own son, who then threatens to murder one child sex offender per day until the case is reopened and solved. Pileggi also played the role of Larry Jennings, chairman of the board of the hospital, in "Grey's Anatomy", and of Red Forman's friend Bull in an episode of "That '70s Show".
551782	A Film With Me In It is a 2008 Irish film directed by Ian Fitzgibbon and written by Mark Doherty. The film is a black comedy that follows Mark (also Mark Doherty) and Pierce (Dylan Moran), an unsuccessful actor and a failing writer respectively, who find themselves trying to cope after a string of accidents surrounds them in corpses. The film generally received a positive response, and was released on DVD in October 2011.
520438	Albert Rivera Martinez (born April 19, 1961) is a well-known Filipino actor. Biography. Born on April 19, 1961 he is the eldest of the Martinez brothers, William Martinez and Ronnie Martinez. His most recent critically acclaimed role was a downtrodden husband in "Magnífico" (2003). He recently starred in a TV drama series, "Sa Piling Mo", together with Judy Ann Santos and Piolo Pascual which was shown on ABS-CBN. He also worked on the teleserye Maria Flordeluna in 2007 as the role of Gen. Leo Alicante. In 2009–2010, he worked on the teleserye "May Bukas Pa" (English: "There is Still Tomorrow"), in the role of the antagonist turned protagonist Mayor Enrique Rodrigo. Currently, he plays the role of Frank Crisanto on the teleserye Kung Tayo'y Magkakalayo alongside Kris Aquino, Kim Chiu, Gina Pareño, Coco Martin, and Gerald Anderson. His father, Bert Martinez, was a character actor during the 1960s. Albert is married to Liezl Sumilang and has three children: Alyanna Martinez, Alfonso Martinez, and Alissa Martinez. He is currently part of ABS-CBN contract actors.
586712	Ek Hi Bhool is a 1981 Indian Bollywood film directed by T. Rama Rao. The film stars Jeetendra and Rekha in leading roles. Shabana Azmi makes a special appearance. Is a remake of 1981 film Mouna Geethangal. Plot. Ram (Jeetendra) and Sadhana (Rekha) are a married couple. They live a wealthy lifestyle together. Ram is a graduate, and works as an administrator in a multinational company and earns well.Their marriage comes to an end when Ram betrays Sadhana with her best friend Urvashi. Ram confesses the truth as he gets drunk, and tries to explain himself, and even Sadhna's family tries to convince her to condone this one little mistake, but Sadhana cannot forgive him his unfaithfulness and she divorces Ram.After their divorce, Sadhana finds out that she is pregnant. She moves into her new home. Ten years later, they meet each other in a bus and Ram is the new manager of the office where Sadhna works.Coincidentally, Ram's new house is close to Sadhana's in the same neighborhood. Now when they're neighbours, Ram tries to captivate her again and return his family and wife. He gets close to his son Raju. Will Sadhana forgive him his one and only mistake?
520498	Jericho Vibar Rosales (Echo), born September 22, 1979 in Quezon City, Philippines is a Filipino cinema and television actor, singer, and songwriter. He is the uncle of young actor John Manalo. Jericho Rosales attended New Era University for his secondary education and was later discovered on the television program "Eat Bulaga" Mr. Pogi 1996. Career. Rosales became a household name when he was paired with actress Angelika dela Cruz in the primetime drama series "Esperanza" and in the teen horror flick "Oka Tokat". However, his breakout role came when he landed the lead role in "Pangako Sa 'Yo" alongside actress Kristine Hermosa. The success of his team up with Hermosa led to two blockbuster films; "Forevermore" and "Ngayong Nandito Ka".
584614	Thiruttu Payale (; ) is a (2006) Tamil romantic thriller directed by Susi Ganesan. As like other Susi Ganesan films it is a real life experience based entertainer/thriller. The movie stars "Kaakha Kaakha" fame Jeevan, Sonia Agarwal, Abbas, Malavika, Vivek, Manoj K Jayan and Charlie. The film's music is composed by music director, Bharadwaj. The film is being remade in Hindi as Shortcut Romeo. Plot. Manickam (Jeevan), belongs to a poor family in a village. He does not respect any of his family members, except for his uncle (Vinod Raj) who lives in Chennai. The story gets rolling once he decides to come and stay with his uncle at Chennai. Once while he is watching people playing golf, he notices Roopini (Malavika) and Ramesh (Abbas) having an illicit relationship. He manages to capture the same in his video camera. Roopini is the wife of a rich businessman (Manoj K Jayan). Manickam blackmails Roopini and extracts money from her whenever he needs. Once he makes a trip abroad to Australia with Roopini’s expenditure. There he happens to meet Rosy (Sonia Agarwal). He falls in love with her. Rosy tells him that she is a very rich girl from a respected family. While he decide to propose to her, he finds that she has left the city. He is upset and just at that time, Roopini makes a phone calls and tells him that Rosy was sent by her only to woo Manickam and demand that if he needs Rosy, he needs to hand over the cassette to her. Manickam decides to find Rosy and comes to know that she also loves him. She asks him to leave this con work and gets him a job in a shop. All went well until when Rosy Stepmother comes to know about this relationship and asks Manickam for a sum if he wants to marry Rosy. To acquire the same he again uses the cassette for the final time but Roopini's husband comes to know about it. Manickam hands over the money to Rosy's Stepmother and asks Rosy to come to the Airport next day. The climax shows Manickam fighting the goons sent by Roopini's husband and reaches the airport somehow only to be killed by him. The film ends with showing Rosy waiting for Manickam in the airport.
1102929	Harish-Chandra FRS (Harish Chandra Mehrotra; 11 October 1923 – 16 October 1983) was an Indian American mathematician and physicist who did fundamental work in representation theory, especially harmonic analysis on semisimple Lie groups. Early life. Harish-Chandra was born in Kanpur (then Cawnpore), British India. He was educated at B.N.S.D. College, Kanpur, and at the University of Allahabad. After receiving his masters degree in Physics in 1943, he moved to the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore for further studies in theoretical physics and worked with Homi J. Bhabha. In 1945, he moved to University of Cambridge, Cambridge and worked as a research student under Paul Dirac. While at Cambridge, he attended lectures by Wolfgang Pauli, and during one of them pointed out a mistake in Pauli's work. The two were to become life long friends. During this time he became increasingly interested in mathematics. At Cambridge he obtained his PhD in 1947. When Dirac visited Institute of Advanced Study, Princeton, U.S.A. in 1947/48 he brought Harish-Chandra as his assistant. It was at this stage that Harish-Chandra decided to change over from physics to mathematics. He was a faculty member at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, New Jersey from 1963. From 1968, until his death in 1983, he was IBM von Neumann Professor in the School of Mathematics at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, New Jersey. He died of a heart attack while on an evening walk on October 16, 1983, during a conference in Princeton in honour of Armand Borel's 60th birthday. A similar conference for his 60th birthday, scheduled for the following year, instead became a memorial conference. He is survived by his wife, Lalitha (Lily), and his daughters Premala (Premi), and Devaki. Work in mathematics. He was influenced by the mathematicians Hermann Weyl and Claude Chevalley. From 1950 to 1963 he was at the Columbia University and worked on representations of semisimple Lie groups. During this period he established as his special area the study of the discrete series representations of semisimple Lie groups, which are analogues of the Peter–Weyl theory in the non-compact case. He is also known for work with Armand Borel on the theory of arithmetic groups; and for papers on finite group analogues. He enunciated a "philosophy of cusp forms", a precursor of the Langlands philosophy". Honors and awards. He was a member of the National Academy of Sciences of the U.S. and a Fellow of the Royal Society. He was the recipient of the Cole Prize of the American Mathematical Society, in 1954. The Indian National Science Academy honoured him with the Srinivasa Ramanujan Medal in 1974. In 1981, he received an honorary degree from Yale University. The mathematics department of V.S.S.D. College, Kanpur celebrates his birthday every year in different forms, which includes lectures from students and professors from various colleges, institutes and students' visit to Harish-Chandra Research Institute. The Indian Government named the Harish-Chandra Research Institute, an institute dedicated to Theoretical Physics and Mathematics, after him. Robert Langlands wrote in a biographical article of Harish-Chandra:
1582676	Stonewall W. "Stoney" Jackson (born February 27, 1960) is an American character actor. Jackson was born in Richmond, Virginia. Career. He was featured in numerous teen magazines in the 1970s and 1980s, including "Right On", "Teen Beat", and "Tiger Beat". He portrayed high school basketball player Jesse Mitchell on the ensemble series "The White Shadow", and Travis Fillmore on the sitcom" 227". He played Black Jack Savage in the pilot episode of "The 100 Lives of Black Jack Savage". He also has made guest appearances on shows like "Everybody Hates Chris". Stoney Jackson was one of the more visible dancers in the iconic music video for Michael Jackson's "Beat It". He appeared in the video for Dan Hartman's "I Can Dream About You" as the lead vocalist of the fictional group "The Sorels" from the Walter Hill film "Streets of Fire". Hill would later cast Jackson again in "Trespass" and "Wild Bill". In 1985, he co-starred in the short-lived crime series, "The Insiders", as James Mackey. In 1997 he appeared with Kyla Pratt in an episode of "Walker Texas Ranger". Jackson also appeared in the film "CB4" with actors Chris Rock and Allen Payne, where Jackson played a minor role as Wacky Dee, a take-off on performers like Freedom Williams and MC Hammer. He performed the song "Dance" in the film. Musical artist "Kool Keith" has a song entitled "Stoney Jackson", in tribute to the actor/performer. Personal life. Stoney Jackson resides in Southern California in the Orange Country Area. He referees high school and collegiate level basketball.
566548	Big Nothing is a 2006 British crime comedy film directed by Jean-Baptiste Andrea starring David Schwimmer and Simon Pegg. It was released in December 2006, and had its premiere at Cardiff Film Festival in November 2006. "Big Nothing" was filmed on the Isle of Man and in Wales at Barry in the Vale of Glamorgan and at Caerwent and other areas of Monmouthshire. Other scenes were at Squamish, British Columbia, Canada.
1222314	Lisanne Falk (born ca. 1965) is an American actress and film producer.
1061414	George Henry Sanders (3 July 1906 – 25 April 1972) was an Academy Award-winning English film and television actor, singer-songwriter, music composer, and author. His extremely heavy English accent and bass voice often led him to be cast as sophisticated but villainous characters. He is perhaps best known as Jack Favell in "Rebecca" (1940), Addison DeWitt in "All About Eve" (1950), King Richard the Lionheart in "King Richard and the Crusaders" (1954), and the voice of the malevolent tiger Shere Khan in "The Jungle Book" (1967). His career spanned more than 40 years. Early life. Sanders was born in Saint Petersburg, Russian Empire, at number 6 Petrovski Ostrov. His English parents were Henry Sanders (1873–1961) and Margaret Sanders (1875–1967). Actor Tom Conway (1904–1967) was his elder brother. His younger sister, Margaret Sanders, was born in 1912. The future actor was 11 when, in 1917, at the outbreak of the Russian Revolution, the family returned to England. Like his brother, he attended Bedales School, Brighton College, a boys' independent school in Brighton, Sussex, then went on to Manchester Technical College. After graduation, he worked at an advertising agency, where the company secretary, aspiring actress Greer Garson, suggested he take up a career in acting. Career. Sanders made his British film debut in 1929, Seven years later, after a series of British films, his first role in an American production was "Lloyd's of London" (1936) as Lord Everett Stacy. His smooth, upper-crust English accent and sleek British manner, along with a suave, snobbish and somewhat threatening air, put him in demand for American films throughout the following decade. He played supporting roles in A-pictures productions such as Alfred Hitchcock's "Rebecca" (1940), in which he and Judith Anderson played cruel foils to Joan Fontaine's character. He had leading roles in somewhat lower-budget pictures such as "Rage in Heaven" (1941). He also played the lead in both The Falcon and The Saint film series. In 1942, Sanders handed the Falcon role to his brother Tom, in "The Falcon's Brother". The only other film in which the two siblings appeared together was "Death of a Scoundrel" (1956), in which they also played brothers. Sanders played Lord Henry Wotton in the film version of "The Picture of Dorian Gray" (1945) and he was the third lead behind Gene Tierney and Rex Harrison for "The Ghost and Mrs. Muir" (1947). Sanders gave one of his most critically noted performances, starring with Angela Lansbury in director Albert Lewin's little-known film "The Private Affairs of Bel Ami" (also 1947) taken from an 1885 novel by Guy de Maupassant. He and Lansbury also featured in Cecil B. deMille's biblical epic "Samson and Delilah" (1949). Drawing his greatest popular and commercial success as the acerbic, cold-blooded theatre critic Addison DeWitt, in "All About Eve" (1950), he won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance. He then starred as Sir Brian de Bois-Guilbert in the 1952 film "Ivanhoe", dying in a duel with Robert Taylor after professing his love for Jewish maiden Rebecca, played by Elizabeth Taylor. Sanders starred as King Richard the Lionheart in "King Richard and the Crusaders" (1954). Sanders went into television with the successful series "The George Sanders Mystery Theater". He played an upper-crust English villain, G. Emory Partridge, in the "The Man From U.N.C.L.E." episode "The Gazebo in the Maze Affair" (1965) and reprised the role later in that same year in "The Yukon Affair". He also portrayed Mr. Freeze in two episodes of the live-action "Batman" TV series which were shown in February 1966. Sanders voiced the malevolent Shere Khan in the Walt Disney production of "The Jungle Book" (1967). During the production of "The Jungle Book"s soundtrack, Sanders was unavailable to provide the singing voice for Shere Khan during the final recording of the song, "That's What Friends Are For" despite being an accomplished singer. Mellomen member Bill Lee was called in to substitute for Sanders and can be heard on the soundtrack. In the film, however, all the singing was done live and Sanders provided Khan's singing voice. Sanders' smooth voice, urbane manner and upper-class British accent inspired Peter Sellers' character "Hercules Grytpype-Thynne" in the BBC radio comedy series "The Goon Show" (1951–60). In 1964, Sellers and Sanders appeared together in the Pink Panther sequel "A Shot in the Dark". In 1969, he had a supporting role in John Huston's "The Kremlin Letter", in which his first scene showed him dressed in drag and playing piano in a snooty San Francisco gay bar. One of Sanders' final screen roles was in "Doomwatch" (1972), a feature film version of a contemporary BBC television series . Novels. Two ghostwritten crime novels were published under his name to cash in on his fame. The first was "Crime on My Hands" (1944), written in the first person and mentioning his "Saint" and "Falcon" films. This was followed by "Stranger at Home" in 1946. Both were actually written by female authors: the former by Craig Rice, and the latter by Leigh Brackett. Singing. In 1958, Sanders recorded an album called "The George Sanders Touch: Songs for the Lovely Lady". The album was released by ABC-Paramount Records, and carried lush string arrangements of romantic ballads, crooned by Sanders in a fit baritone/bass (spanning from low to middle C), including "Such is My Love", a song of Sanders' own composition. After going to great lengths, he got himself signed to sing in "South Pacific" but was overwhelmed with anxiety over the role and quickly dropped out. Sanders' singing voice can be heard in "Call Me Madam" (1953). He also signed on for the role of Sheridan Whiteside in the stage musical "Sherry!" (1967), based on the Kaufman –- Hart play "The Man Who Came to Dinner", but he found the ongoing stage production highly demanding. He quit when his wife Benita Hume discovered she had terminal bone cancer. During the production of "The Jungle Book", Sanders, who voiced Shere Khan, was unavailable to provide the singing voice for his character during the finalized recording of the song, "That's What Friends Are For" despite being an accomplished singer. According to Richard Sherman, Mellomen member Bill Lee was called in to substitute for Sanders. Personal life. On 27 October 1940, Sanders married Susan Larson; they divorced in 1949. From later that year until 1954, Sanders was married to Hungarian actress Zsa Zsa Gabor (with whom he starred in the 1956 film "Death of a Scoundrel" after their divorce). On 10 February 1959, Sanders married actress Benita Hume, widow of actor Ronald Colman. She died in 1967, the same year Sanders' brother Tom Conway died of liver failure. Sanders had become distant from his brother a decade before due to Conway's drinking problem. His autobiography, "Memoirs of a Professional Cad", was published in 1960 and gathered critical praise for its wit. Sanders suggested the title "A Dreadful Man" for his biography, which was later written by Sanders' friend Brian Aherne and published in 1979. Sanders' last marriage was on 4 December 1970, to Magda Gabor, the elder sister of his second wife. This marriage lasted only six weeks, after which he began drinking heavily. In his later years, Sanders suffered from dementia, worsened by waning health. He can be seen teetering in his last films, owing to a loss of balance. According to Aherne's biography, he also had a minor stroke. Sanders could not bear the notion of losing his health or needing help from someone else, and he became deeply depressed. At about this time, Sanders found he could no longer play his grand piano, which he dragged outside and smashed with an axe. His last girlfriend, who was Mexican and much younger than he, persuaded Sanders to sell his beloved house in Majorca, Spain, which he later bitterly regretted. From then on, he drifted. Death. On 23 April 1972, Sanders checked into a hotel in Castelldefels, a coastal town near Barcelona. He was found dead two days later, having gone into a cardiac arrest. He had taken five bottles of the barbiturate Nembutal. Sanders was 65 years old. The death was officially a suicide since he left behind three gentlemanly suicide notes, which read: Sanders' body was returned to Britain for funeral services, after which it was cremated and the ashes were scattered in the English Channel. David Niven wrote in his own autobiography, "The Moon's a Balloon" (1972), that in 1937 his friend George Sanders had predicted he would commit suicide when he was 65, and in his 50s, he appeared depressed since his marriages had failed and several tragedies had befallen him. Honours. Sanders garnered two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, for films at 1636 Vine Street and for television at 7007 Hollywood Boulevard. He is mentioned in the Kinks' song "Celluloid Heroes" and his ghost makes an appearance in Clive Barker's 2001 novel "Coldheart Canyon", as well as in the 2007 animated feature "Dante's Inferno".
1063517	I Know Who Killed Me is a 2007 American horror-thriller film directed by Chris Sivertson and starring Lindsay Lohan. It is the second movie in which Lohan plays twins, the first being 1998's "The Parent Trap".
1036108	John Gibb Marshall (born 11 January 1953), better known by the stage name John Sessions, is a Scottish actor and comedian. He is known for comedy improvisation in television shows such as "Whose Line Is It Anyway?"; as a panellist on "QI"; and as a character actor in numerous films, both in the UK and in Hollywood. Early life. Sessions was born in Largs, and spent some of his earliest years in Kempston, Bedfordshire and St Albans, Hertfordshire. He has an elder brother and a twin sister. Education. Sessions was educated at Bedford Modern School, an independent school for boys (now co-educational), and Verulam School, St Albans, followed by Bangor University, from which he graduated with an M.A. in English literature. At university, he had begun to appear to audiences with his comedy in shows such as ""Look back in Bangor"" and "Marshall Arts". He later studied for a PhD from McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, although he did not complete the doctorate. This period in his life was unhappy. In a 'Worst of Times' column for "The Independent" from around 1990, he talked of how the freezing Canadian weather had depressed him, he was smoking 'far too many cigarettes', 'had a couple of disastrous flings' and described his PhD dissertation as '200 pages of rubbish'. Career. Sessions attended RADA in the late 1970s, studying alongside Kenneth Branagh; the two would work together on many occasions later in their careers. In the early 1980s he worked on the small venue comedy circuit with largely improvised freewheeling fantasy monologues. He topped a double bill with French and Saunders during this period. He had a number of small parts in films including "The Sender" in 1982, "The Bounty" in 1984 and "Castaway" in 1986. Sessions played to his strengths in improvisation and comedy with his one-man stage show "Napoleon", which ran in London's West End for some time in the mid-1980s. Sessions and Stephen Fry were the only two regular panellists on the original radio broadcast of "Whose Line Is It Anyway?" in the late 1980s. When the show, still hosted by Clive Anderson, made the transition to television, Fry departed from regular appearances, but Sessions remained the featured panellist for the first season, a frequent player in the second, but he did not appear again after his two appearances in the third series. A gifted impressionist (he also voiced characters for "Spitting Image"), he drew heavily on his extensive literary education and developed a reputation for being "a bit of a swot", being able to quote extensive passages of text and make endless cultural and historical references. His ready ability to switch between accents and personae meanwhile allowed his career in improvisation to flourish. In 1987 he played Lionel Zipser in Channel 4's mini-series "Porterhouse Blue". In 1989, Sessions starred in his own one-man TV show, "John Sessions". Filmed at the Donmar Warehouse in London, the show involved Sessions performing before a live audience who were invited to nominate a person, a location and two objects from a selection, around which Sessions would improvise a surreal performance for the next half hour. This series prompted two further one-man TV shows: "John Sessions' Tall Tales" (1991) and "John Sessions' Likely Stories" (1994). Although billed as 'improvisation, these were increasingly pre-planned. In an interview headlined 'Who The Hell Does John Sessions Think He Is?' in "Q" magazine in the early 1990s, he admitted that some of his improv wasn't entirely spontaneous, but that if it were advertised as scripted 'it had to be funnier'. 1991 also saw Sessions in the BBC drama "Jute City", a three-part thriller based around a sinister Masonic bunch of villains, co-starring with vocalist Fish (Derek W. Dick) from the 1980s rock band Marillion. In 1996 he was commissioned by the Royal Academy of Arts to write "Paint, said Fred", the life of Frederic, Lord Leighton, the pre-eminent Victorian artist, in a one-man show that used his comic writing abilities and his gift for impersonation. Sessions also starred in "Stella Street", a surreal "soap opera" comedy about a fantasy suburban British street inhabited by celebrities such as Michael Caine and Al Pacino, which he conceived with fellow impressionist Phil Cornwell, the two of them playing several parts in each episode. Sessions later returned to formal acting, with parts ranging from James Boswell (to Robbie Coltrane's Samuel Johnson) in the UK TV series "Boswell and Johnson's Tour of the Western Isles" (1993) to Doctor Prunesquallor in the BBC adaptation of "Gormenghast" (2000). He provided the voice of the Professor in "The Adventures of Pinocchio" in 1996. He also appeared in several Shakespeare films, playing Macmorris in Kenneth Branagh's "Henry V" (1989), Philostrate in the 1999 film of "A Midsummer Night's Dream", and Salerio in 2004's "The Merchant of Venice", with Al Pacino and Jeremy Irons. He also contributed "Sonnet 62" to the 2002 compilation album "When Love Speaks" (EMI Classics), which consists of famous actors and musicians interpreting Shakespearean sonnets and play excerpts. In between appearing in regular film and TV roles, Sessions has made appearances on "Have I Got News for You" and, more recently, as a semi-regular panellist on "QI". Sessions was one of four panellists, including the permanent Alan Davies, on the inaugural episode of "QI", in which he demonstrated his effortless memory of the birth and death dates of various historical figures (while simultaneously and apologetically deeming the knowledge of such facts "a sickness"). On radio, Sessions guested in December 1997 on the regular BBC Radio 3 show "Private Passions", presented by Michael Berkeley, not as himself but as a 112-year-old Viennese percussionist called Manfred Sturmer, who told anecdotes (about Brahms, Clara Schumann, Richard Strauss, Arnold Schoenberg and others) so realistically that some listeners did not realise that the whole thing was a hoax. Other Sessions creations appeared on Berkeley's show in subsequent years. Sessions has taken the role of narrating the popular Asterix stories for audio book, since the death of Willie Rushton. Sessions made a guest appearance in a special webcast version of "Doctor Who", in a story called "Death Comes to Time", in which he played General Tannis. He also occasionally appears in the BBC series "Judge John Deed" as barrister Brian Cantwell. In 2007, he guest-starred in the "Doctor Who" audio adventure "100". In 2006, Sessions presented some of the BBC's coverage of The Proms and featured in one of the two "Jackanory" specials, voicing the characters and playing the storyteller in the audiobook version of Paul Stewart and Chris Riddell's children's book "Muddle Earth". In 2007 he appeared in the final episode of the second series of "Hotel Babylon", playing hotel owner Donovan Credo, and as Geoffrey Howe in 2009's "Margaret". In 2010 he played Kenny Prince in "Sherlock". Sessions appeared in the teen drama TV show "Skins" in 2011 as one of two adopted fathers of Franky Fitzgerald. He also appeared as a Brummy vicar in an episode of "Outnumbered" on BBC1. Sessions has also played two British Prime Ministers in films, Harold Wilson in "Made in Dagenham" and Edward Heath in "The Iron Lady". In 2013 he appeared in the premiere production of the new play "Longing". Personal life. Sessions is openly gay. His name change occurred when he became a performer, owing to the presence of a John Marshall on the Equity register already.
1166041	Herschel Bernardi (October 30, 1923 – May 9, 1986) was an American film, stage, and television actor. Biography. Born in New York City, into the Yiddish theatre, the younger son of Berel Bernardi and Helen Bernardi, Herschel was appearing on the stages of 2nd Avenue with his acting family before he could talk. In the 1930s, Bernardi appeared in the Yiddish films of Edgar G. Ulmer and was later among those actors who made the transition from Yiddish-speaking roles in film to American films. Herschel was the brother of Jack Bernardi (who played Harvey Pulp in "It's a Bikini World)." Bernardi is known for his starring roles on Broadway, including "Fiddler on the Roof" (as Tevye), "Zorba", and "Bajour", but he also acted in many television programs, including "Harbor Command" and "The Eleventh Hour" (both with Wendell Corey) and "State Trooper" with Rod Cameron. From 1958-1961 Bernardi co-starred with Craig Stevens in Blake Edwards popular television series "Peter Gunn". He received his sole Emmy nomination for his portrayal of Lieutenant Jacoby.
1061927	Kate Noelle "Katie" Holmes (born December 18, 1978) is an American actress who first achieved fame for her role as Joey Potter on The WB television teen drama "Dawson's Creek" from 1998 to 2003. Since "Dawson's Creek", Holmes' career has consisted of movie roles such as in "Batman Begins", art house films such as "The Ice Storm", horror films such as "Don't Be Afraid of the Dark" and thrillers including "Abandon". She has also played on Broadway in a production of Arthur Miller's "All My Sons" and had various guest roles on television programs such as "How I Met Your Mother". Early life. Holmes was born in Toledo, Ohio. She is the youngest of five children born to Kathleen (née Stothers), a homemaker and philanthropist, and Martin Joseph Holmes, Sr., an attorney. She has three sisters and one brother: Tamera, Holly Ann, Martin Joseph, Jr., and Nancy Kay. Holmes was baptized a Roman Catholic and attended Christ the King Church in Toledo.
1019258	Return of the Fly is the first sequel to the 1958 horror film "The Fly". It was released in 1959, and directed by Edward Bernds. Unlike the preceding film, "Return of the Fly" was shot in black and white. The film was followed by another sequel in 1965, "Curse of the Fly". Plot. Phillipe Delambre (Brett Halsey) is determined to vindicate his father by successfully completing the experiment. His uncle Francois (Vincent Price) refuses to help. Phillipe hires Alan Hines from Delambre Frere and uses his own finances, but the funds run out before the equipment is complete. When Phillipe threatens to sell his half of Delambre Frere, Francois relents and funds the completion. After some adjustments, they use the transporter to "store" and later re-materialize test animals. Alan Hines turns out to be Ronald Holmes, an industrial spy. Ronnie tries to sell the secrets to a shadowy cohort named Max. Before Ronnie can get away with the papers, a British agent confronts him. Ronnie knocks him out and uses the transporter to "store" the body. When rematerialized, the agent has the paws of a guinea pig that had been disintegrated earlier, and the guinea pig has human hands. Ronnie kills the rodent and puts the dead agent in his car, which he sends into the Saint Lawrence River. Phillipe confronts Ronnie about all the oddities, with a fight ensuing and Phillipe being knocked out. Ronnie hides Phillipe the same way he did the agent, but in a twist of malice he catches a fly and adds it to the transporter with him. Francois re-materializes Phillipe, but with a fly head, arm and leg while the fly has his head arm and leg, becoming "PhillipeFly". PhillipeFly runs into the night, tracking down and killing Max. He waits for Ronnie to arrive and kills him, too. PhillipeFly returns home, where Inspector Beecham has found and captured the PhillipeFly. Both are placed in the device together and successfully reintegrated.
1377472	High School Musical 2 is the second film in the "High School Musical" series. The World Premiere took place on August 14, 2007 at Disneyland, in Anaheim, California. The primary cast, including Zac Efron, Vanessa Hudgens, Ashley Tisdale, Lucas Grabeel and Corbin Bleu attended the event. The film debuted on television on August 17, 2007, on Disney Channel in the U.S., and on Family in Canada. In the second installment of the Disney franchise, high school student Troy Bolton stresses over getting a job, with the price of college expenses looming on his mind, as well as trying to make sure he and Gabriella Montez are able to stay together all summer. This situation attracts the attention of Sharpay Evans, who attempts to steal Troy for herself by hiring him at her family's country club. The premiere was seen by a total of over 17.2 million viewers in the United States which is almost 10 million more than its predecessor, making it the highest-rated Disney Channel Movie of all time. Plot. The school year ends with everyone at East High School looking forward to summer vacation ("What Time Is It"). Troy Bolton is still dating Gabriella Montez, who decides to stay in Albuquerque with her mother. Troy eventually decides to look for a summer job to gain money for college. Sharpay and Ryan Evans plan to spend part of the summer at their family's country club, Lava Springs ("Fabulous"), but Sharpay's summer plans also include pursuing Troy, whom she has arranged to be hired at the club. However, Troy convinces the club's manager, Mr. Fulton, into hiring Gabriella and their close group of friends as well; including Taylor and Chad. Sharpay is enraged upon learning that Gabriella is working as one of the lifeguards but is unable to get her fired so she orders Fulton to give them difficult tasks so they would be best to quit. Fulton attempts to intimidate the group but Troy rebuilds their confidence and convinces them that they can persevere ("Work This Out"). Troy continues to worry about funding for college. Sharpay senses his need and arranges for Troy to be promoted, hoping that this will convince him to sing with her at the talent show. Meanwhile, Kelsi writes a ballad for Troy and Gabriella. Troy agrees to sing with his friends in the show ("You Are The Music In Me"), not knowing that Sharpay is vying for his attention. (In the extended version, Sharpay and Ryan trap Troy as he prepares for a date with Gabriella, and perform their potential show stopper ("Humuhumunukunukuapua'a").) Ryan realizes he does not mean much to Sharpay anymore, as she is ready to blow her brother aside for the opportunity to perform with Troy. This leads to tension between the twin siblings and Ryan angrily informs Sharpay that he will no longer obey her orders. Taylor and Gabriella invite Ryan to the baseball game, where he persuades the Wildcats to take part in the talent show ("I Don't Dance"). Troy and Gabriella's relationship is strained when Troy sees Ryan with Gabriella, sparking jealousy. Owing to a "promise" from Troy, he and Sharpay practice their song for the Midsummer Night's Talent Show ("You Are The Music In Me (Sharpay Version)"). When Sharpay discovers that Ryan and the Wildcats are putting together their own performance in the show, she orders Mr. Fulton to ban all junior staff members from performing. Gabriella angrily confronts Sharpay about her interference and quits her job at Lava Springs. Troy overhears the exchange, and tries to persuade Gabriella to change her mind. Gabriella expresses her loss of trust with Troy ("Gotta Go My Own Way") and leaves Lava Springs, & gives him the necklace back. It also seems that they broke up, also. Troy returns to work the next day to find that his friends refuse to talk to him. Kelsi silently shows Troy the notice from Mr. Fulton, causing Troy to question his own motivations ("Bet On It"). He begins to reconcile with Chad and his other friends. Then Troy confronts Sharpay, informing her that he will not sing with her. The Wildcats and Chad forgive Troy for his absence and convince him to sing in the talent show, which he does only under the condition that they are all allowed to perform as well. At Sharpay's supposed instruction, Ryan gives Troy a new song to learn moments before the show. As Troy goes onstage, he asks Sharpay why she switched the song, and Sharpay is shocked to find that her brother tricked her. Troy sings the song ("Everyday") alone, until Gabriella surprisingly joins him onstage. In the end, Sharpay proudly presents her brother, Ryan, with the award for the talent show. After the talent show, all the Wildcats go to the golf course to enjoy the fireworks. Everyone celebrates the end of the summer with a pool party ("All for One") which features a cameo appearance by Miley Cyrus. Release. The premiere of "High School Musical 2" aired at 8PM Eastern Time on August 17, 2007, and included a telecast hosted by Kenny Ortega and the movie's cast. On Saturday, August 18, Disney Channel aired "High School Musical 2: Wildcat Chat", in which the stars of the movie answered questions posed by fans. On August 19, Disney aired a sing-along version of the movie. On May 23, DirecTV announced that they would be hosting an exclusive high-definition airing of the movie a few days after the August 17 premiere on its network-only channel, The 101. Disney Channel aired a weekly program called "Road to High School Musical 2", beginning on June 8, 2007, and leading up to the premiere of "High School Musical 2" in August. The show offered viewers a behind-the-scenes look into the production of the movie. The world premiere of the opening number "What Time Is It" was on Radio Disney May 25, 2007, and similarly "You Are The Music In Me" premiered on July 13, 2007. On December 11, 2007, the movie was released on DVD and Blu-ray titled "High School Musical 2: Extended Edition". On September 15, 2008, a 2-disc special edition of the movie was released titled "High School Musical 2: Deluxe Dance Edition". Reception. The first broadcast of the film on August 17, 2007 broke records, receiving 17.2 million viewers. This number made it, at the time, the most-watched basic-cable telecast in history (the previous record was held by an edition of ESPN's "Monday Night Football" between the New York Giants and the Dallas Cowboys on October 23, 2006, which attracted 16 million viewers), the most-watched made-for-cable movie ever (the previous record was held by TNT's January 21, 2001 airing of "Crossfire Trail", which brought in 12.5 million viewers), and the largest audience of any program on broadcast or cable in the 2007 summer television season, along with Friday nights for the past five years. Ratings for the second showing of the movie fell to 8.4 million, and the third showing fell to 7.4 million, totaling the premiere weekend to 33.04 million viewers. In Latin America, the premiere of "High School Musical 2" was seen by 3.3 million viewers in the north region. The film was the most-watched in its schedule, among all cable channels, and produced the highest rating of the channel, surpassing all original films of Disney Channel. Among other records, the premiere in Argentina surpassed the debut of "High School Musical" the last year, in a 107 percent, while in Brazil the sequel reached 208 percent, and Mexico did so with 61 percent. In the United Kingdom, the movie became Disney Channel UK's most viewed program ever, totaling 1.2 million viewers in its first showing. The film was generally well received by critics, gaining a score of 77/100 at Metacritic, while it received a generally mixed response of 50% on Rotten Tomatoes. "USA Today"'s Robert Bianco awarded the film three stars out of four, saying "High School Musical 2" was "sweet, smart, bursting with talent and energy, and awash in innocence". While critics enjoyed the film, they noted that the timing of the movie's premiere seemed odd, premiering just when school was about to start up again, while the movie's plot involved the gang going on summer Vacation. "High School Musical 2" won the "So Hot Right Now" award at the Nickelodeon Australian Kids' Choice Awards 2007 in which High School Musical cast mate, Zac Efron hosted with The Veronicas. High School Musical 2: On Stage! Like the original "High School Musical", the sequel has been adapted into two different theatrical productions: a one-act, 70-minute version and a two-act full length production. This stage production includes the song "Hummuhummunukunukuapua'a" that was left out of the original movie but included in the DVD. Through Music Theater International, Disney Theatrical began licensing the theatrical rights in October 2008. MTI had originally recruited 7 schools to serve as tests for the new full-length adaptation, but due to complications with multiple drafts of both the script and the score, all but two schools were forced to drop out of the pilot program.
582626	Filhaal... () is a Bollywood film released in 2001. It stars Sushmita Sen, Tabu, Sanjay Suri and Palash Sen in the lead roles. Meghna Gulzar, daughter of lyricist Gulzar and actress Raakhee made her directorial debut with the film. Synopsis. Rewa Singh (Tabu) and Sia Sheth (Sushmita Sen) are best friends. Having grown up together, the pair are inseparable and are always there for each other. They are very different when it comes to marriage and commitment. Rewa is passionate and dreams of having her own family whilst Sia is always running away from settling down and is determined to put her career first.
1040001	Jamie Glover (born 10 July 1969) is an English actor, known for portraying Andrew Treneman in "Waterloo Road". In 2012 he starred as Roger Tramplemain in Michael Frayn's comical farce "Noises Off" at the Novello Theatre. Background. Born and brought up in Barnes, London, Glover is the son of actors Julian Glover and Isla Blair. He attended Frensham Heights School in Farnham, Surrey, and trained at the Central School of Speech and Drama. Glover has two daughters, Edie and Ava, with his girlfriend, actress Sasha Behar. They currently live in Brixton, South London. During his time at the Central School of Speech and Drama, Glover met and shared a flat with fellow actor Philip Glenister and was responsible for introducing Glenister to his wife, actress Beth Goddard
1584219	Katheryn Winnick (born Katerena Anna Vinitska, December 17, 1977) is a Canadian film and television actress best known for her roles in "Amusement" (2008), TV series "Bones" (2010), "A Glimpse Inside the Mind of Charles Swan III" (2012) and "Vikings" (2013). In 2013, she will appear in the comedy film "The Art of the Steal" with Kurt Russell and Matt Dillon. Life and career. Winnick was born in Etobicoke, Ontario and is of Ukrainian descent. She spoke Ukrainian as her first language and did not begin speaking English until she was age 8. Winnick began training in martial arts at age 7 and obtained her first black belt at 13. By age 21, she had started three martial arts schools. Winnick has appeared in many films including Fisher Stevens' "Stand Up Guys", Tom Dey's "Failure to Launch", Ed Zwick's "Love and Other Drugs" and Robert Luketic's "Killers". She has also guest starred in numerous television shows, most notably "House M.D." ("One Day, One Room"), "The Glades", "Bones", "Law & Order", ', ', ', ', "Criminal Minds" and "Nikita". In her role on the Fox drama "Bones", she portrays Hannah Burley, a war correspondent who had been posted to cover the War in Afghanistan and eventually becomes a love interest for main character Seeley Booth. Winnick starred with Paul Giamatti in the dramatic comedy "Cold Souls", which had its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival 2009. In 2011, Winnick was cast in a guest role on The CW's sophomore spy drama "Nikita" in which she plays Kelly, a tough ex-partner of Nikita. In 2013, Winnick starred as Charlie Sheen's ex-girlfriend in Roman Coppola's "A Glimpse Inside the Mind of Charles Swan III" and will appear as Kurt Russell's girlfriend, Lola, in the upcoming comedy "The Art of the Steal". She also joined History Channel's "Vikings" in the role of Lagertha, a legendary figure in Viking history.
1162166	Michael DeLorenzo (born October 31, 1959) is an American actor, director and musician. He is best known for his portrayal of NYPD Detective Eddie Torres on the Fox television series "New York Undercover" which was aired from 1994–1998. Life and family. Michael DeLorenzo was born and raised in the University Heights section of The Bronx, New York. He is half Italian and half Puerto Rican. His late father, Arthur DeLorenzo, was from Italy and his late mother, Carmen DeLorenzo, is originally from Puerto Rico. Michael is the second eldest of 4 children. He has 1 sister and 2 brothers. Education and early career. Michael DeLorenzo is a veteran of stage and screen with more than 25 years in the entertainment spotlight. Born and raised in The Bronx, New York, he first began performing at the age of 7 as a dancer with Tina Ramirez's Ballet Hispanico. He went on to receive various scholarships from the School of American Ballet (SAB) and the Joffrey Ballet, with a final tenure at the New York School of Ballet. At the age of 10, he danced alongside Rudolph Nureyev at the Royal Canadian Ballet. At the age of 14, he performed with Mikhail Baryshnikov and the American Ballet Theatre. He went on to attend the Manhattan-based Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts. Shortly thereafter, while dancing, he was injured and tore the cartilage in his knee, thus affecting his immediate entry into the world of acting. Television, movie, playwright, and dance projects: 1980 – 2008. One of his first gigs was in the Broadway revival of "West Side Story", where he played a member of the Sharks. He also appeared in the 1980 film "Fame" alongside Irene Cara, Gene Anthony Ray and Debbie Allen. Upon moving from New York to Los Angeles, DeLorenzo landed a recurring role in the television adaptation of "Fame", and guest-starred on other series such as "Miami Vice". He also appeared in movies such as "Fast Forward" (1985) directed by Sidney Poitier, and music videos for Michael Jackson's "Beat It" and "Thriller"; Lionel Richie's "Running with the Night" and "Ballerina Girl"; and Alexander O'Neal's "Fake". He was also one of the main dancers during Chaka Khan's performance of "I Feel for You" at the 1985 Grammy Awards. DeLorenzo won a Drama-Logue Award for Best Actor in a play at the Mark Taper Forum entitled "A Stand Up Tragedy" (1987), where he performed different roles live and on stage. Based upon that performance, he was tapped by the producers of the ABC sitcom "Head of the Class" to star as high school student, Alex Torres, alongside Howard Hesseman during the last two years of the series (48 episodes, 1989–1991). Michael also appeared in Rob Reiner's "A Few Good Men" (1992) as Pfc. William T. Santiago alongside Tom Cruise, Jack Nicholson and Demi Moore, and as Rafael Cano in "Alive" (1993) with Ethan Hawke. While filming "Alive", he endured months of starvation and freezing cold atop a remote mountain in the Province of British Columbia, Canada. His most notable role came with the Fox television Thursday night series "New York Undercover", starring as NYPD Detective Eddie Torres opposite fellow actor Malik Yoba. DeLorenzo and Yoba (who is African American) made television history, as the series was the first police drama on American television to feature two people of color in the starring roles. DeLorenzo went on to star in the Showtime drama series "Resurrection Blvd." as Carlos Santiago, the embittered boxing champion. He was also the director of 2 episodes, "Bruja" (2001) and "El Gato, El Vato, La Cena Y El Padre" (2002). In 2004, Michael joined forces again with Malik Yoba and The Malik Yoba National Theatre Company (MYNT) to co-star in and direct the live stage musical play entitled "Acoustic Chocolate". Written by Malik Yoba and Raquis Petrie, the main synopsis was based on a true story concerning 6 young musicians who dealt with issues of mental health, depression, suicide and diabetes while struggling to make the dream of pop stardom come true. The week-long show took place at the Hippodrome Theatre in Baltimore, Maryland from March 30 – April 4, 2004. After this period, He guest-starred in additional notable TV shows: as Rico Cerda in ' season 2 episode 16, " (2006), as Nacio Duque in "Numb3rs" (2007), as Richard Sanchez in "Ghost Whisperer" (2007), and as Carlos Santiago in ' season six, episode 18, "" (2008). Recent projects (actor, director): 2008 – present. DeLorenzo extended his talents by venturing into the realm of directing. The episodes he helmed from before were among the highest rated. His feature directing debut for a motion picture was with National Lampoon's "One, Two Many" (2008).
1058587	Adrienne Levine (June 24, 1966 – November 1, 2006), better known by the stage name Adrienne Shelly (sometimes credited as Adrienne Shelley), was an American actress, director and screenwriter. Making her name in independent films such as 1989's "The Unbelievable Truth" and 1990's "Trust", Shelly transitioned to a writing and directing career in subsequent years. She wrote, co-starred in, and directed the 2007 film "Waitress", which won five awards and numerous film festival accolades. On November 1, 2006, Shelly was found dead in her Greenwich Village work studio. While initially thought a suicide, police later arrested a construction worker who confessed to murdering Shelly when she caught him robbing her apartment. Shelly's husband afterwards established the Adrienne Shelly Foundation, that awards scholarships, production grants, finishing funds and living stipends to artists. In her commemoration, the Women Film Critics Circle gives an annual Adrienne Shelly Award to the film that it finds "most passionately opposes violence against women." Early life. Of Russian Jewish descent, Shelly was born Adrienne Levine in Queens, New York, to Sheldon M. Levine and Elaine Langbaum. She had two brothers, Jeff and Mark, and was raised on Long Island. She began performing when she was about 10 at Stagedoor Manor Performing Arts Training Center. She made her professional debut in a summer stock production of the musical "Annie" while a student at Jericho High School in Jericho, New York. She went on to Boston University, majoring in film production, but dropped out after her junior year and moved to Manhattan. Career. Shelly's career breakthrough came when she was cast by independent filmmaker Hal Hartley as the lead in "The Unbelievable Truth" (1989) and "Trust" (1990). "Trust" was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival, where Hartley's script tied for the Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award. She appeared in a number of films during the 1990s, and as she segued toward a behind-the-camera career, she wrote and directed others, including 1999's "I'll Take You There", in which she appeared along with Ally Sheedy. She won a U.S. Comedy Arts Festival Film Discovery Jury Award in 2000 for direction of the film, and Prize of the City of Setúbal: Special Mention, at the Festróia (Tróia International Film Festival) held in Setúbal, Portugal, for best director. Shelly also guest-starred in a number of television series including "Law & Order", "Oz" and "". She played major roles in over two dozen off-Broadway plays, often at Manhattan's Workhouse Theater. In 2005 she appeared in the film "Factotum" starring Matt Dillon.
585037	Okkadu () is a 2003 Telugu melodrama film directed by Gunasekhar. It stars Mahesh Babu, Bhoomika Chawla, and Prakash Raj. Music was composed by Mani Sharma and editing was helmed by A. Sreekar Prasad. M.S. Raju produced this film. The film has garnered eight Nandi Awards and fiveFilmfare Awards South This movie was later remade into the Tamil as Ghilli and became a blockbuster. Plot. Ajay Varma (Mahesh Babu), is a young Kabbadi player who goes to factionism hit Kurnool to take part in a life changing match, which decides his sports future. There, in a twist of fate, he saves Swapna Reddy (Bhoomika Chawla), from Obul Reddy (Prakash Raj), a dangerous faction leader, who is in love with Swapna and wants to marry her against her wishes. Ajay tries to comfort her because Obul Reddy killed both brothers of Swapna. Ajay brings Swapna to his house in Hyderabad where he hides her and decides to send her abroad to save her from Obul Reddy. This is complicated by the fact that Swapna falls in love with Ajay and that Ajay's dad is the top Cop in charge of finding Swapna, as per the order of corrupt home minister (Rajan P. Dev) of the state. The home minister is into helping Obul Reddy. When Ajay's dad finds out that with Ajay's help Swapna is hiding in his house,Ajay and Swapna escape from there. Ajay conceals swapna in Charminar, this forms an integral part of the story. Police find out that Ajay and Swapna are hiding in Charminar, but with help of friends they escape to Airport. When Swapna is about to onboard for the flight, she couldn't control herself and reveals her love for him. Ajay falls in love with Swapna too. But police reach there and arrest Ajay. Swapna is taken back by Obul Reddy. Swapna challenges Obul Reddy to defeat Ajay and if he tries to touch her, she would kill herself. Obul Reddy intentionally releases Ajay on bail only on purpose of killing him. But Ajay with help of friends manage to tie-up every one. They forcibly bring Obul Reddy to Kabbadi match in which Ajay is trying to make their team win the championship. Obul Reddy escapes. Obul Reddy's family senses that Obul Reddy is missing to conduct marriage with Swapna and receives information from Obul Reddy that he is at stadium location. So everyone relocates to stadium location. Ajay and his team win the title. Obul Reddy and his henchmen surround Ajay. But Obul Reddy wants to fight Ajay alone. Obul Reddy initially manages to beat Ajay well with his marmakala tricks. Ajay outsmarts Obul Reddy by not allowing him to use marmakala tricks and beats him up so badly. When everyone is enjoying Obul Reddy tries to stab Ajay from his back but fails as he is killed by Swapna's father. Ajay and Swapna get married and live happily ever after. Music. The music for the film was composed by Mani Sharma. The lyrics were written by Sirivennela Sitaramasastri. Release. The film released on 15 January 2003 in 165 screens. The audio was released on 19 December 2002. Box-office performance. It collected a total share of over Rs.25-30 crores.
1131200	Richard Karn (born February 17, 1956) is an American actor and game show host. He is most well known for his co-starring role as Al Borland in the 1990s sitcom "Home Improvement" and his tenure as the host of "Family Feud" during the 2000s. Early life. Karn was born Richard Karn Wilson in Seattle, Washington. Karn's father, Gene, was a Seabee who served in World War II. Richard graduated from Roosevelt High School and the University of Washington, where he was a member of Beta Theta Pi fraternity. Karn also gained drama experience in Scotland at the Edinburgh Festival. After earning his Drama degree in 1979, Karn packed up and headed to New York City. After less than one week, he was hired to do a commercial for Michelob beer that was featured during the 1980 Super Bowl. When he joined the Screen Actors Guild, he was informed there was already a Richard Wilson, so he dropped his last name. Show business career. In 1989, his wife Tudi convinced Karn that they should move to Los Angeles. He found a place for them to live by managing an apartment complex, and catered events at a Jewish synagogue on the side. After receiving a traffic citation, Karn attended a traffic school and sat beside an agent who told him about casting for the new television show called "Home Improvement". The role of Al Borland had already been given to Stephen Tobolowsky, but when taping was scheduled, Tobolowsky was busy with another movie and the role had to be recast. Karn was a guest star in the pilot episode but became a regular cast member when the show was picked up by the network. In 2002, Karn replaced Louie Anderson as the fourth host of the game show "Family Feud". Karn left "Family Feud" in 2006 and was replaced by John O'Hurley. In 2002, Karn also made an appearance in The Strokes' music video for "Someday", which featured segments of the band on a fictional showing of "Family Feud" against the band "Guided by Voices". On October 6, 2008, Karn replaced Patrick Duffy as host of Game Show Network's "Bingo America". Karn was also a substitute host on GSN Radio.
1163735	Joan de Beauvoir de Havilland (born 22 October 1917), known professionally as Joan Fontaine, is an Anglo-American actress. Born in Japan to British parents, de Havilland and her older sister Olivia de Havilland moved to California in 1919. Fontaine began her career on the stage in 1935 and signed a contract with RKO Pictures that same year. In 1941, she earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress for her role in "Rebecca", directed by Alfred Hitchcock. The following year, she won the Academy Award for Best Actress for Hitchcock's "Suspicion" (1941) making Fontaine the only actress to ever win an Academy Award in a film directed by Hitchcock. Fontaine and sister de Havilland are the only siblings to have won lead acting Academy Awards. During the 1940s to the 1990s, Fontaine continued her career in roles on the stage and in radio, television and film. She released her autobiography, "No Bed of Roses", in 1978. After a career spanning over 50 years, Fontaine made her last on-screen appearance in 1994. Fontaine currently lives in Carmel-by-the-Sea, California where she owns a home, Villa Fontana. Fontaine, along with sister Olivia de Havilland, Luise Rainer, Maureen O'Hara, Marsha Hunt, Jane Withers, Mary Carlisle, Joan Leslie, Marta Eggerth, Lupita Tovar, Michèle Morgan, Danielle Darrieux, Movita, Nova Pilbeam and Shirley Temple, are the last of the great female film stars from the 1930s.
1104055	Peter Williston Shor (born August 14, 1959) is an American professor of applied mathematics at MIT, most famous for his work on quantum computation, in particular for devising Shor's algorithm, a quantum algorithm for factoring exponentially faster than the best currently-known algorithm running on a classical computer. Education. While attending Tamalpais High School, in Mill Valley, California, he placed third in the 1977 USA Mathematical Olympiad. After graduating that year, he won a silver medal at the International Math Olympiad in Yugoslavia (the U.S. team achieved the most points per country that year). He received his B.S. in Mathematics in 1981 for undergraduate work at Caltech, and was a Putnam Fellow in 1978. He earned his Ph.D. in Applied Mathematics from MIT in 1985. His doctoral advisor was Tom Leighton, and his thesis was on probabilistic analysis of bin-packing algorithms. Career. After graduating, he spent one year in a post-doctoral position at the University of California at Berkeley, and then accepted a position at Bell Laboratories. It was there he developed Shor's algorithm, for which he was awarded the Rolf Nevanlinna Prize at the 23rd International Congress of Mathematicians in 1998. Shor always refers to Shor's Algorithm as "the Factoring Algorithm." Shor began his MIT position in 2003. Currently the Henry Adams Morss and Henry Adams Morss, Jr. Professor of Applied Mathematics in the Department of Mathematics at MIT, he also is affiliated with CSAIL and the Center for Theoretical Physics (CTP). He received a Distinguished Alumni Award from Caltech in 2007. On October 1, 2011, he was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Personal life. Shor is married to Jennifer S. Collins Shor, and they have two daughters. They live in Wellesley, Massachusetts. External links. Lectures and panels
1061789	Ellen Rona Barkin (born April 16, 1954) is an American actress, known for her roles in the films "The Big Easy", "Sea of Love" and "Switch". She won an Emmy Award in 1997, for "Before Women Had Wings" and a Tony Award in 2011, for "The Normal Heart". Early life. Barkin was born in the Bronx, a borough of New York City, New York, the daughter of Evelyn (née Rozin), a hospital administrator who worked at Jamaica Hospital, and Sol Barkin, a chemical salesman. Barkin was raised in a lower-middle-class Jewish family, a descendant of immigrants from Siberia and the Russia-Poland border. Barkin received her high school diploma at Manhattan's High School of Performing Arts. She then attended Hunter College and double majored in history and drama. At one point, Barkin wanted to teach ancient history. She continued her acting education at New York City's Actors Studio. According to "Time", she studied acting for ten years before landing her first audition. Career. Her break-out role was in the comedy-drama film "Diner" (1982), written and directed by Barry Levinson, for which she received favorable reviews. Barkin was cast in the drama film "Tender Mercies" (1983) after impressing its director Bruce Beresford during an audition in New York City, despite her inexperience and his lack of familiarity with her work. Robert Duvall, who played the lead role in "Tender Mercies", said of Barkin, "She brings a real credibility to that part, plus she was young and attractive and had a certain sense of edge, a danger to her that was good for that part." She also appeared in the 1983 rock & roll drama film "Eddie and the Cruisers." Barkin later appeared in several successful films, including the thrillers "The Big Easy" (1987), opposite Dennis Quaid and "Sea of Love" (1989), opposite Al Pacino. Barkin also appeared in off-Broadway plays, including a role as one of the roommates in "Extremities", about an intended rape victim played by Susan Sarandon who turns the tables on her attacker. About her performance in the play "Eden Court", "The New York Times" critic Frank Rich summarized: "If it were really possible to give the kiss of life to a corpse, the actress Ellen Barkin would be the one to do it. In "Eden Court", the moribund play that has brought her to the Promenade Theater, Miss Barkin is tantalizingly alive from her bouncing blond ponytail to the long legs that gyrate wildly and involuntarily every time an Elvis Presley record plays on stage". Barkin has also done work in made-for-television films like "Before Women Had Wings" (1997), for which she won an Emmy as Outstanding Lead Actress in a Miniseries or Movie and "The White River Kid" (1999). Currently, she voices the start of each Theme Time Radio Hour with host Bob Dylan on XM's "Deep Tracks". In 2005, Barkin set up a film production company with her brother, George, along with her husband at the time and billionaire investor, Ronald Perelman. Barkin appeared in her Broadway debut as Dr. Brookner in "The Normal Heart", for which she won the 2011 Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Play. Barkin has received acclaim for her performance in "Another Happy Day". IndieWire cited her turn as one the best female performances of the year. She most recently played Jane Forrest on the short-lived NBC show "The New Normal". Personal life. Barkin has a brother, George, who was formerly the editor-in-chief of "National Lampoon" and "High Times". Barkin is the mother of two children, Jack Daniel (born 1989) and Romy Marion (born 1992), from her first marriage, to actor Gabriel Byrne. The two separated in 1993 and divorced in 1999, but are still close; Byrne even attended Barkin's 2000 wedding to multi-billionaire and businessman Ronald Perelman. According to "New York" magazine, that marriage ended in a messy divorce in 2006 with Barkin receiving “not one penny more” than $20 million, according to a friend of hers. In 2007, Barkin sued Perelman for $3.4 million in investment funds he allegedly promised to invest in their film production company. He was ordered to pay her $4.3 million. She dated director/writer Sam Levinson in 2011. She is an outspoken Twitter user, coming under scrutiny in August 2012 when she retweeted the message of one of her followers that read: “C’mon #Isaac! Wash every pro-life, anti-education, anti-woman, xenophobic, gay-bashing, racist SOB right into the ocean! #RNC ” Barkin did not express any disagreement in her retweet.
1074694	Marc Thomas Musso (born March 29, 1995) is an American actor. He is the younger brother of Disney actor and singert= Mitchel Musso and the lead singer of Metro Station Mason Musso. Life and career. Musso was born in Rockwall, Texas, the son of Katherine (née Moore) and Samuel Musso, who were involved in community theater in Dallas, Texas. He has two older siblings,Mitchel \Musso and Mason Musso who have both joined careers in showbiz. - Mason Musso, who was the lead singer of the discontinued band Metro Station, and Mitchel Musso, an actor. Musso is of part Italian descent. Musso has worked in two movies with his older brother Mitchel; in 2003, Marc was in his first movie "Secondhand Lions". He also was in the movie "Monster House", where he provided additional voices for the film, alongside his brother, Mitchel, who played the main character D.J. Musso has also worked with a variety of actors, such as George Lopez, Cayden Boyd, Sean Penn, and Naomi Watts. Musso was also in the movie The Last Mimzy. The Mussos moved to California, from Texas for Mitchel's career in Hannah Montana. Now Marc has a band called .COM that plays local shows in the Los Angeles area. He started the band with his best friend who also does YouTube skits with him. Marc also has his own YouTube channels. His main one is Stitch5 and he also has mussolive. Achievements- Marc has won two awards to date, in 2004 The Phoenix Film Critics Society Award. He was nominated for the Young Artist Award in the same year. He was also nominated for the Young Artist Award in 2004 for Secondhand Lions and in 2008 for The Last Mimzy.
1045163	Les Bicyclettes de Belsize is a 1968 British musical short film (30 mins) starring Judy Huxtable and Anthony May. It was directed by Douglas Hickox. It tells the story of a young man (May) cycling around the Hampstead (NW3) area of London on a Raleigh RSW16. After crashing into a billboard he falls in love with a fashion model (Huxtable) depicted on it. Despite the title, the Belsize Park area does not actually feature. There is almost no spoken dialogue, and the soundtrack to the film is musical virtually throughout. The title song of the film, written by Les Reed and Barry Mason, has been a hit for Mireille Mathieu and Engelbert Humperdinck (a top ten hit in the UK and a top 40 hit in the USA) amongst others. The title is derivative of the French film, "Les Parapluies de Cherbourg"; apart from a musical theme there is no other obvious link. Plot. The film opens from a vantage point over the rooftops, showing some of the morning occurrences through the windows of the houses. A young man dressed in a fashionable mod style prepares for the day from his rooftop flat and cycles around to the theme song. He then takes his bicycle and descends to the streets of the leafy suburbs. Cycling down some steps he crashes into the bike of a little girl and is knocked unconscious. She stands over him showing her pigtails, glasses and braces and gazes at him, clearly besotted. The man awakes and asks the girls name. She tells him she is called Kate. He bids her farewell and cycles off, she follows behind. As he cycles the man sings a song about how he does not envy the responsible, monotonous lives of older people. The girl blows a raspberry as she passes a queue of people at the bus stop; this starts a disagreement between them which ends with a food fight. Cycling into a park, the man looks back to see if Kate is still following him, and loses control of the bike, running away down a hill and crashing through a large advertising hoarding. Climbing out, he is struck by the face of a model, "Julie" on the poster advertising Raleigh bicycles. He sings a song professing his love for her and picks flowers to give to her image. Kate tries to attract his attention but he is transfixed by the beautiful model. He eventually rouses himself from his stupor and cycles away. Kate blows a raspberry at the poster then follows him.
586446	The Desire-Journey of a Woman is an upcoming Indo-Chinese feature film, directed by R. Sarath. Starring Shilpa Shetty in lead role, the film also stars Chinese actor Xia Yu along with Indian actors and actresses as Jaya Prada, Anupam Kher, Sheetal Menon and Sachin Khedekar. The film's shooting started in January 2009, is currently in its production stage and was expected for a public release in mid-2009 but not released due to some production problems. The movie has been shot in Kerala, Ahmedabad, Nasik, Mumbai, Hyderabad and Malaysia. "The Desire" is a film about "dance, music, art, culture and emotions". It tells the journey of an Indian classical dancer, Goutami, and the love story between her and a Chinese artist, Jai Leang, whom she meets during a travel assignment. Music. A. R. Rahman was approached to compose the music for the film but he opted out citing busy schedules. The soundtrack is scored by the acclaimed composer trio Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy, whilst the background score is composed by Vishwa Mohan Bhatt. To give an Orissi touch to the film, a devotional song of Lord Jagannath, an integral part of the dance form, will be sung during the dance.The film has two classical songs, a Sanskrit sloka by eminent Poet Pdt.Manmohan Acharya and an Oriya song taken from Padyaballi, written by Gopalkrushna Patnaik.
1017544	The Young Master () is a 1980 Hong Kong martial arts action film directed by and starring Jackie Chan as "Dragon". The film is notable for being the first that Jackie Chan worked on for Golden Harvest, and despite being his second film as director (his first was "The Fearless Hyena"), this is often incorrectly credited as his directorial debut. It was co-written by Chan and King Sang Tang and produced by Raymond Chow and Leonard Ho. As is common with Jackie Chan's films, the fight scenes involve the use of many different weapons including poles, a rope, fans, benches and swords. "Dragon Lord" is supposedly the sequel to "The Young Master" and was even originally called "Young Master in Love", as confirmed by Jackie Chan in his book. Plot. The school attended by Dragon (Chan) and his brother, Tiger (Wei Pei) is entered against a rival school in a Lion Dance competition. The school needs to win the prize money to remain open but their star performer, Tiger, is seemingly injured when he falls from a ladder, leaving his brother, Dragon, to take his place. During the competition, Dragon realizes that his brother feigned his accident in order to take part in the competition for the rival school. The rival school wins the competition, but the truth emerges about Tiger's betrayal and he is exiled in disgrace. Dragon vows to bring back his errant brother so the pair can make amends to their master. Dragon sets off on his mission, but en route is mistaken for a criminal known as "The White Fan" by local police chief, Sang Kung (played by Shih Kien). Meanwhile, Tiger collaborates with his employers (the rival school) by freeing a dangerous criminal known as Kam (Hwang In-Sik). However, Tiger is later framed for a bank robbery. To stop his brother from being arrested, Dragon promises to apprehend the escapee, Kam. The movie ends with a furious, brutal fight between Kam and Dragon, in which Dragon sustains substantial damage. At the beginning of the fight, it appears that Kam has the upper hand as he punishes Dragon with blindingly fast punches and kicks. However, after consuming water from an opium pipe given to him by a whimsical old man, Dragon becomes energized and defeats Kam. The movie ends with Dragon returning to his hometown, a hero (albeit one in full body cast from the many injuries he sustained). Production. According to his book "I Am Jackie Chan: My Life in Action", Chan nearly suffocated when he injured his throat while filming a stunt scene. Music. The theme song played over the closing credits, "Kung Fu Fighting Man" was the first song recorded and performed by Jackie Chan. He has since gone on to release many records, and has performed the theme songs on many of his films. Versions. There are two main versions of the film currently available, one being the 106 minutes (NTSC/film speed) Hong Kong cut and the 90 minute international cut. A Taiwanese video featuring footage missing from both the Hong Kong and international cuts was also released. However, even this version is not definitive - the original version of the film that Chan handed over to Golden Harvest was reportedly three hours in length. This had to be re-edited, so over 70 minutes of footage was cut during the first edit.
1056750	Britannia Hospital is a 1982 black comedy film by British director Lindsay Anderson which targets the National Health Service and contemporary British society. It was entered into the 1982 Cannes Film Festival and Fantasporto.
589025	Dilip Kumar (born 11 December 1922, as Muhammad Yusuf Khan) is an Indian film actor known as "Tragedy King", and described as "the ultimate method actor" by Satyajit Ray. He debuted as an actor in the film "Jwar Bhata" in 1944 produced by Bombay Talkies. His career has spanned over six decades and with over 60 films. He starred in films of a variety of genres such as the romantic "Andaz" (1949), the swashbuckling "Aan" (1952), the dramatic "Devdas" (1955), the comical "Azaad" (1955), the historical "Mughal-e-Azam" (1960) and the social "Ganga Jamuna" (1961). In 1976, Dilip Kumar took a five-year break from film performances and returned with a character role in the film "Kranti" (1981) and continued his career playing character roles in films such as "Shakti" (1982), "Karma" (1986) and "Saudagar" (1991). His last film was "Qila" (1998). Dilip Kumar has acted with actress Vyjayanthimala the most, where they both had acted seven films together including the former's home production "Gunga Jamuna" resulting in great on-screen chemistry and an alleged affair between them. The Government of India honoured him with the Padma Bhushan award in 1991 and the Dadasaheb Phalke Award in 1994 for his contributions towards Indian cinema and nominated him to Rajya Sabha, the upper house of Indian parliament for a term. He is the first recipient of Filmfare Best Actor Award (1954) and shares the record for the most number of Filmfare awards won for that category with Shahrukh Khan with eight wins. Critics acclaimed him among one of the greatest actors in the history of Hindi cinema. In a blog post, Amitabh Bachchan has described Dilip Kumar as the greatest actor ever. Early life. Kumar was born into a Pashtun family of 12 children on 11 December 1922 in the Qissa Khawani Bazaar area of Peshawar, in what is now Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan. His birth name is "Muhammad Yousuf Khan". His father, Lala Ghulam Sarwar, was a fruit merchant who owned orchards in Peshawar and Deolali (in Maharashtra, India). Dilip Kumar did schooling from prestigious Barnes School, Deolali, near Nasik. In the late 1930s, his family of 12 members relocated to Mumbai. Around 1940, Dilip Kumar left home for Pune where he started his career as a canteen owner and a dry fruit supplier. In 1943, actress Devika Rani, and her husband Himanshu Rai who owned Bombay Talkies spotted Dilip Kumar in Aundh military canteens Pune, and cast him with a lead role in their film "Jwar Bhata" (1944), which marked Dilip Kumar's entry into the Bollywood film industry. Hindi author Bhagwati Charan Varma gave him the screen name "Dilip Kumar". It is believed that Dilip Kumar can speak a number of languages, including English, Hindi, Urdu, Hindko, and Pashto. Career. Dilip Kumar's first film "Jwar Bhata" (1944) went unnoticed, it was "Jugnu" (1947) in which he starred alongside Noor Jehan that became his first major hit at the box office. His next major hit was the 1948 film Shaheed (1948 film). He got his breakthrough role with Mehboob Khan's "Andaz" (1949) in which he starred alongside Raj Kapoor and Nargis in a love triangle story. He went on to have success in the 1950s with playing tragic roles in films like "Jogan" (1950), "Deedar" (1951), "Daag" (1952), "Devdas" (1955), "Yahudi" (1958) and "Madhumati" (1958). These films established his screen image as the "Tragedy King". He was the first actor to win the Filmfare Best Actor Award for "Daag" and went onto win it again for "Devdas". He formed popular on-screen pairings with many of the top actresses at the time including Nargis, Kamini Kaushal, Meena Kumari, Madhubala and Vyjanthimala. In an attempt to shed his "tragedy king" image, Dilip Kumar took up his psychiatrist's suggestion that he take on lighthearted roles such as "Aan" (1952), his first film in technicolour in which he played a swashbuckling peasant. He has further success with lighter roles in "Azaad" (1955), "Naya Daur" (1957) and "Kohinoor" (1960) which won him the Filmfare Best Actor Award once again. In 1960 he portrayed Prince Salim in K. Asif's big-budget historical film "Mughal-e-Azam" which as of 2008 was the second highest grossing film in Hindi film history. The film told the story of Prince Salim who revolts against his father Akbar (played by Prithviraj Kapoor) and falls in love with a courtesan (played by Madhubala). The film was mostly shot in black and white with only the latter half of the film in colour. 44 years after its original release, it was fully colourized and re-released in 2004. In 1961 he produced and starred in "Ganga Jamuna" in which he and his brother Nasir Khan played the title roles, this was the only film he produced. In 1962 British director David Lean offered him the role of "Sherif Ali" in his film "Lawrence of Arabia" (1962), but Dilip Kumar declined to perform in the movie. The role eventually went to Omar Sharif, the Egyptian actor. His next film "Leader" (1964) was a below average grosser at the box office. In 1967 Dilip Kumar played a dual role of twins separated at birth in the hit film "Ram Aur Shyam". His career slumped in the 1970s with films like "Dastaan" (1972) and "Bairaag" (1976), the latter in which he played triple roles failing at the box office. He starred alongside his real-life wife Saira Banu in "Gopi" (1970), Bengali film "Sagina Mahato" (1970) and "Bairaag" (1976) but all three failed to do well at the box office. He took a five-year hiatus from films from 1976 to 1981. In 1981, he returned to films with the multi-starrer "Kranti" which was the biggest hit of the year. Appearing alongside an ensemble cast including Manoj Kumar, Shashi Kapoor, Hema Malini and Shatrughan Sinha, he played the title role as a revolutionary fighting for India's independence from British rule. He then formed a successful collaboration with Subhash Ghai starting with "Vidhaata" (1982) in which he plays an underworld don who tries to hide his lifestyle from his grandson Kunal (Sanjay Dutt). Later that year he played the father of Amitabh Bachchan in Ramesh Sippy's "Shakti" for which he won yet another Filmfare Award for Best Actor. In 1984 he starred in Yash Chopra's "Mashaal" and Ramesh Talwar's "Duniya". His second collaboration with Subhash Ghai came with the 1986 action film "Karma". In this film, Kumar plays a jailor who hires three men to help him avenge his family's death by escaped terrorist Doctor Dang (played by Anupam Kher). In 1991, he starred alongside veteran actor Raaj Kumar in "Saudagar", his third and last film with Subhash Ghai. This was his second film with Raaj Kumar after 1959's "Paigham". "Saudagar" was Kumar's last box office success and also his last film for several years. In 1993 he won the Filmfare Lifetime Achievement Award. He was attached to make his directorial debut with a film titled "Kalinga" but the film was eventually shelved. In 1998 he made his last film appearance in "Qila" where he played dual roles as an evil landowner who is murdered and his twin brother who tries to find his killer. In 2001 he was set to appear in a film titled "Asar - The Impact" alongside Ajay Devgan which was also shelved. His films "Mughal-e-Azam" and "Naya Daur" were fully colorized and re-released in 2004 and 2008 respectively. Kumar was very choosy, and turned down lead roles in many films which eventually were released to great box office success, including "Lawrence of Arabia", "Pyaasa", "The Rains Came" and "Sangam". During his career, Kumar was most often voiced by Mohammed Rafi. Others who provided his voice were Talat Mahmood, Mukesh (until 1958) and Kishore Kumar was chosen to playback the song "Saala Main To Saab Bangaya" for the film "Sagina" (1974). Public life. Dilip Kumar has been active in efforts to bring the people of India and Pakistan closer together. He was nominated a member of Rajya Sabha, the upper house of Indian parliament for a term. He was awarded the Dadasaheb Phalke Award in 1994. In 1998 he was awarded the "Nishan-e-Imtiaz", the highest civilian award conferred by the government of Pakistan. He is the second Indian to receive the award. At the time of the Kargil War, Shiv Sena chief Bal Thackeray demanded Dilip Kumar return his "Nishan-e-Imtiaz", citing "that country's blatant aggression on Indian soil." Dilip Kumar refused, saying: "This award was given to me for the humane activities to which I have dedicated myself. I have worked for the poor, I have worked for many years to bridge the cultural and communal gaps between India and Pakistan. Politics and religion have created these boundaries. I have striven to bring the two people together in whatever way I could. Tell me, what does any of this have to do with the Kargil conflict?" Dilip Kumar launched his Twitter account and his first tweet was on his 89th Birthday in 2011. Personal life. Dilip Kumar was romantically involved with actress Madhubala but they had to part ways as her family was opposed to their marriage. He married actress and beauty queen Saira Banu, who was 22 years younger than him, in 1966. He married a second time in 1980 to Asma but the marriage ended soon after. Around 10 September 2011 it surfaced that the health of Dilip Kumar is worsening. Some incredible tweets even mistakenly spread news of his death. Later Saira Banu made a public statement that the actor is in good health and in high spirits. On September 15 2013, the 90 year old Dilip Kumar suffered a silent Heart attack and was subsequently admitted to Lilavati Hospital in Mumbai. On September 16, a Hospital statement said that his condition was stable and he was put under observation in ICU for 48 hours.
395794	Kim Young-woon () was born on 17 January 1985, mononymously credited by his stage name Kangin. He is a South Korean singer, actor and MC. He is best known as member of the boy band Super Junior. His stage name 'Kangin' () means strong benevolence, was given to him to complement his personality. In July 2010, he enlisted for mandatory military service and was discharged in April 2012. Biography. 2005: Debut with Super Junior. Kangin officially debut as part of 12-member project group "Super Junior 05" on 6 November 2005 on SBS's music programme "Popular Songs", performing their first single, "Twins (Knock Out)". Their debut album "SuperJunior05 (Twins)" was released a month later on 5 December 2005 and debuted at #3 on the monthly MIAK K-pop album charts. In March 2006, SM Entertainment began to recruit new members for the next Super Junior generation. However, plans changed and the company declared a halt in forming future Super Junior generations. Following the addition of thirteenth member Kyuhyun, the group dropped the suffix "05" and became officially credited as Super Junior. The re-polished group's first CD single "U" was released on 7 June 2006, which was their most successful single until the release of "Sorry, Sorry" in March 2009. 2006-2009: Television and acting. After debut with Super Junior, Kangin became a regular on MBC variety show, "Image Survival" till February 2006. In 2006, Kangin also frequently acts as MC for SM artists such as DBSK and BoA fanmeeting and MC for EBS TV channel. In 2006 and 2007, he also goes on many variety show as guest and sometimes as a regular for a short time such as "Love Triangle", KBS "Star King", KBS "Vitamin" and MBC driving school with leetuk as regular. Active in television appearances and hosting, Kangin earns the highest salary in Super Junior. Five days after Super Junior 05's debut performance, Kangin became the MC of Mnet's "M!Countdown" along with Leeteuk and Shindong. The trio stayed as the hosts throughout the remaining year until Kangin was replaced by Eunhyuk in mid-2006 due to his busy schedule for hosting "EBS Reckless Radio" and MBC's music program, "Show! Music Core". Kangin left "Reckless Radio" in June 2007 to host MBC's "Good Friend Radio" with Cho Jungrin. In February 2007, he was placed in the trot-singing Super Junior-T. A year later, he became a member of Super Junior-H. In 2007, he made a guest appearance in the MBC drama "Billie Jean, Look At Me". Kangin's silver-screen debut was in the Super Junior film "Attack on the Pin-Up Boys", premiered on 26 July 2007. In 2008, Kangin was chosen to take the role of 'Kang Soo' in the Korean language film, "Hello, Schoolgirl". Kangin also became the television host for two of MBC's popular entertainment programs, "Sunday Sunday Night Dong-An Club" and "Nothing is Impossible". For Mnet channel, Kangin starred in 'Band of Brothers 2008' with Heechul, Jay and Jungmo. For MTV channel, in 2008 kangin was a MC for 'Class Up'. In 2008, Kangin was one of 4 MCs for SBS 'Change' variety show. From September 9 to November 9, 2008, Kangin, along with band mate Heechul, debuted as musical actors through the musical, "Xanadu". "Xanadu" was a 1980's musical film starring Gene Kelly and Olivia Newton-John. "Xanadu" has also been reproduced to a Broadway musical. Heechul and Kangin, along with Choi Sungwon, performed the same character, Sonny, according to their time slot, and auditions and casting picks will be chosen in a process through reality television. In April 2008, Cho's hosting spot was replaced by Taeyeon. Kangin's last day of hosting the program was on April 19, 2009. From December 2008 to May 2009, Kangin and actress Lee Yoon Ji played as a low-income college couple for the popular MBC reality show "We Got Married". This was the first MBC variety show kangin did as a regular after the crisis between MBC variety show producer and SM company regarding Kangin job as host in SBS Super Junior Exploration of Human Body in 2007. In 2009, Kangin with other few Super Junior members hosts television show for charity named 'Miracle'. Kangin was also cast to take the role of 'Hotae' for MBC's cable comedy drama, "Romance Zero". With a total of sixteen episodes, the drama ended in late May 2009 with acceptable reviews and ratings. 2010-2011: Military service. On 5 July 2010, Kangin enlisted for his mandatory military service at the Nonsan military camp in Chungcheongnam-do Province, for five weeks of basic training followed by 20 months of active duty with the Republic of Korea Army. He was discharged on 16 April 2012 from the 56th army division in Namyangju-si in Gyeonggi-do. He was met by fellow Super Junior members and fans from Asia and shared his thoughts saying: 2012-present: Return to Super Junior. In June, 2012, SM Entertainment announced that Kangin will rejoin Super Junior for the group's sixth album, "Sexy, Free & Single" which had released on July 1, 2012. This also mark the first time he has appeared with Super Junior in three years since October 2009. On 25 June his teaser photo was released showing a slim downed Kangin with a frosty look and a net-like veil over his head. Controversies. MBC conflict. A time-slot dispute occurred between SM Entertainment and MBC when SM insisted to have Kangin stay on SBS's "Explorers of the Human Body" instead of MBC's "Sunday Sunday Night Dong-An Club", in which Kangin was a regular host. MBC decided to temporarily ban Super Junior from appearing in any future performances on MBC. Kangin was replaced by T.O.P of Big Bang as the MC of "Show! Music Core". Kangin could also no longer host MBC variety shows "Nothing is Impossible" and "Sunday Sunday Night Dong-An Club" until the conflict was resolved. MBC also demanded to receive an apology from SM Entertainment if SM artists should continue to perform on shows hosted by the channel. After Kangin left "Nothing is Impossible" and "Sunday Sunday Night Dong-An Club", both shows cancelled due to low ratings. A week later, MBC announced that they invited Super Junior to film an exclusive MBC segment, "Giving Children a New Life" despite their previous decision to ban Super Junior. The entertainment director for MBC claimed that the ban on Super Junior was never official, but just a decision made by the programs' producers. Assault case. On September 16, 2009, Kangin was arrested for his involvement in a fight between two men that took place outside of a bar in Nonhyeon-dong, Gangnam-gu, Seoul. An eye-witness reported that two men entered a room where Kangin and his friend were present and began arguing heatedly. Kangin left the bar, but the two men followed him outside and began displaying acts of violence. Another witness reported that Kangin tried to stop the fight. A nearby surveillance camera caught the brawl, and it was immediately reported to the police. Kangin was brought into interrogation to aid investigation along with four other suspects. One of the suspects insisted that Kangin assaulted him, but it was later proven that Kangin only reacted for self-defense. Kangin was dropped from being the main model of Andre Kim's fashion show as a result. After Kangin's appearance in Super Junior's Super Show 2 concert in Hong Kong, all of Kangin's future schedules became temporarily postponed. DUI hit-and-run. On October 16, 2009 around 3am, Kangin collided into a parked taxi that held no one inside, and left the scene of the accident. Five hours later, Kangin turned himself in to the police. He was recorded to have a blood alcohol content of 0.082% when he arrived at the station. It was recorded as being a hit-and-run despite Kangin turning himself in later. Then he failed to show up at the Seoul Gangnam Police Station at 2pm on the same day for further investigation and had to be called in the following day. SM Entertainment and Kangin released an official public apology shortly after. All of Kangin's activities were cancelled by SM Entertainment until the end of the year due to Kangin's actions. A month later Kangin made an appearance in a new clothing company, SPAO's website. Netizens were enraged due to SM Entertainment's declaration of the suspension of Kangin's activities. It was later found out that the photos were taken prior to Kangin's DUI accident. On 13 January 2010, Kangin was summarily indicted for drunk driving hit-and-run and fined by the Seoul Central District Court.
1162816	Tamala R. Jones (born November 12, 1974) is an American actress. She is best known for her roles in the movies "Booty Call", "The Wood", "Kingdom Come", "The Brothers", and "Two Can Play That Game". She currently stars on the ABC television show "Castle" as medical examiner Lanie Parish. Early life. Jones was born in Pasadena, California, the oldest of three children and the only girl. She began her career as a model, appearing in magazine and television commercials. Career. Her first acting role was a guest appearance on the teen sitcom "California Dreams". She had her first major television role playing a student in the short-lived ABC drama "Dangerous Minds". Jones had co-starring roles on the 1998-2002 series "For Your Love" and the short-lived "The Tracy Morgan Show". She had a recurring role as Tonya, an old girlfriend of Flex's (seasons one and five) on "One on One". She has guest starred on other television series, including "The Parent 'Hood", "Veronica's Closet", "Malcolm & Eddie", "My Name Is Earl", "Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip" and "The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air". In the fall of 1993, Jones appeared in the music video for "Give It Up, Turn It Loose" by En Vogue. In 2001, she was in the music video for "Girls, Girls, Girls" by rapper Jay-Z with fellow actresses Paula Jai Parker and Carmen Electra. Also that year, Jones was featured in the music video for Gravel Pit by Wu-Tang Clan. Her film credits include "Booty Call", "The Wood", and "Kingdom Come". Jones also has a small, yet crucial role in the film "Up in the Air". She recently appeared in the music video for the song "Independent" by rapper Webbie as a female black President of the United States. Tamala was voted as one of The 10 Sexiest Women of the Year in 2000 and 2001 by "Black Men Magazine". Personal life. In 2003, she dated rapper Nate Dogg after the two met on the set of Chris Rock's film "Head of State". In 2006, she had her breasts surgically enhanced. Of them, she said, "I did my homework and looked for a specialist. I didn't go to any ol' body to get them done. I went to someone who works on breast cancer patients, and he creates a breast that looks and feels real. I can't wait to get a movie part where I can show them to you guys. In the right part in the right movie, I am willing to show these babies."
1166109	Brian Haley (born February 12, 1963) is an American actor and stand-up comedian. His stand-up act is characterized by playing his all-American looks against manic outbursts and absurd situations. As an actor he may be best known for his roles as Veeko the incompetent kidnapper in the John Hughes movie "Baby's Day Out", the over-the-top football father Mike Hammersmith (aka Spike's dad) in "Little Giants", or Clint Eastwood's son Mitch in the movie "Gran Torino". Early life. Haley was born in Seattle, Washington to a large Catholic family, the fifth of six children. His father was an airline executive and his mother was a homemaker and part-time maid. His father is of Irish and Italian decent, which is where he gets his Italian middle name Carlo. At the age of three his family moved to Saint-Jovite, Quebec and he was put in a boarding home where he learned to speak fluent French. He disliked the experience so much that upon his return to Seattle 18 months later, he refused to speak the language except to translate for his younger sister, who only spoke French. He began acting as a child in the Seattle area doing community and school theater. As a teenager, he stumbled upon the film set of "Scorchy" (1976) in downtown Seattle. After seeing some of the movie being filmed, jumping into a few shots as an extra and meeting the star, Connie Stevens, he decided to pursue a career in show business. At 15 he moved to rural Ellensburg, WA. After high school he took on several jobs, including lumberjack, hay buck, and ranch hand. He eventually enlisted in the US Army to join the Special Forces (the Green Berets). He was in the service from 1980 to 1985 where he won letters of commendation and the Army Achievement Medal, but left early to pursue a career in show business. While in the Army (1983), he was in the play "Guys and Dolls" starring Joe Namath at the Ft. Bragg Playhouse. Career. After his tour in the Army, he began doing stand-up in his native Seattle and quickly rose to headliner status. In 1988, he moved to Los Angeles where he had immediate success, winning a "Hollywood's Hottest New Comic" competition, appearing on several stand-up comedy TV shows such as "An Evening At The Improv" and was picked up by ABC Television for a one-year holding deal. However, it was his proverbial big break on "The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson" in 1990 that launched his career in earnest. His first appearance led to a flood of television and film roles and an HBO comedy special. In 1994, he starred in the movie "Baby's Day Out". The movie was very popular in overseas markets, especially India, where it played at the largest theater in Calcutta for over a year and was even remade with an Indian cast under the title "Sisindri". In 1994, he had a stand out role in the comedy film "Little Giants" as over the top dad Mike Hammersmith, aka "Spike's Dad". In 1995, he replaced Thomas Haden Church on NBC's TV series "Wings" playing the part of mechanic Budd Bronski. That same year he was in a Clio Award winning Super Bowl ad for Miller Lite beer playing hard luck football quarterback Elmer Bruker, a man that was on every winning Super Bowl team but never played. In 1997, he portrayed "The Hooded Avenger" on the "Weird Al Show". From 1998 to 1999 he played bartender Tom Vanderhulst on the short lived CBS series "Maggie Winters". He has made numerous guest appearances on TV shows such as "30 Rock", "The Drew Carey Show", and "ER", including reoccurring roles on "The Hughleys", "Third Watch" and "". He has been cast frequently in dramatic roles, playing a detective in the Coen Brothers film "The Man Who Wasn't There" and Martin Scorsese's "The Departed" and Police Captain Hill in Tony Scott's "The Taking of Pelham 123". In 2003, he was cast in the television pilot for the CBS one hour drama "The Brotherhood of Poland New Hampshire" as one of three brothers along with Randy Quaid and John Carroll Lynch, but was replaced later by Chris Penn due to story restructuring and his lack of similarity to the other two brothers. In 2009 he played Clint Eastwood's discontented son Mitch in the award winning movie "Gran Torino". In February 2007, he appeared on Broadway as tennis commentator Ryan Becker in the Terrence McNally play "Deuce", directed by Michael Blakemore. He currently lives in New York and has a production company, Haleywood Productions. He is currently doing the commentary, along with Tim Kitzrow for NFL Blitz. Personal life. Haley owns the Frank Sinatra booth and several other items from Chasen's restaurant. He is active with the relief organization World Vision
1067031	Isadora (also known as The Loves of Isadora) is a 1968 biographical film which tells the story of celebrated American dancer Isadora Duncan. It stars Vanessa Redgrave, James Fox and Jason Robards. The film was adapted by Melvyn Bragg, Margaret Drabble and Clive Exton from the books "My Life" by Isadora and "Isadora, an Intimate Portrait" by Sewell Stokes. It was directed by Karel Reisz. It was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress (Vanessa Redgrave). The film was also nominated for the Palme d'Or (Golden Palm) at the 1969 Cannes Film Festival, where Redgrave won Best Actress. Plot. In 1927, Isadora Duncan has become a legend as the innovator of modern dance, a temperamental bohemian, and an outspoken advocate of free love. Now past 40, she lives in poverty in a small hotel on the French Riviera with her companion Mary Desti and her secretary Roger, to whom she is dictating her memoirs. As a young girl in California, Isadora first demonstrates her disdain for accepted social standards by burning her parents' marriage certificate and pledging her dedication to the pursuit of art and beauty. In 1896, she performs under the name of Peppy Dora in a rowdy music hall in Chicago and publicly embarrasses the theatre manager into paying her $300 so that she can take her family to England. Modeling her free-form style of dance and costume after Greek classicism, she rapidly acquires international acclaim. In Berlin, she meets her first love, Gordon Craig, a young stage designer who promises her that together they will create a new world of theatre. After bearing the already-married Craig a daughter, Isadora moves to Paris and meets Paris Singer, a millionaire who lavishes gifts upon her and later buys her an enormous estate for her to open a School for Life, where only beauty and simplicity are taught. Following the birth of a son, Isadora returns to England with Singer but becomes bored with her quiet life and enters into an affair with her pianist, Armand. A short time later, both of her children are drowned when their chauffeur-driven car plunges off a bridge into the Seine. Broken by the tragedy, Isadora leaves Singer and wanders about Europe until in 1921 she receives an offer to open a dancing school in the Soviet Union. Unaffected by the country's poverty, she develops a strong rapport with the peasantry and has a passionate affair with Sergei Essenin, a volatile poet whom she marries so that he can obtain a visa to accompany her to the United States. Essenin's outrageous behaviour turns a press conference into a shambles, however, and US anti-Bolshevist sentiment turns to open hostility when Isadora bares her breasts during a dance recital in Boston. Following the disintegration of her marriage, she returns to Nice to write her memoirs. Impulsively selling her possessions to open a new school in Paris, Isadora goes to a local cafe to celebrate and spots Bugatti, a handsome Italiam whom she has been admiring for several days. She goes for a drive with him in his sports car, and as they roar along a road by the sea, Isadora's long chiffon scarf catches in the spokes of a wheel and strangles her. Cast. "uncredited"
1532744	Jill Marie Jones (born January 4, 1975) is an American actress. She is best known for her role as Toni Childs on the UPN/CW sitcom "Girlfriends". Biography. After attending Duncanville High School, and Texas Woman's University, she started modeling, before moving to Los Angeles to pursue acting full-time. Career. Jones was a Dallas Cowboys Cheerleader for two years, a Dallas Mavericks Dancer for one year, and toured with the United Service Organization (USO) and United States Department of Defense to Korea, Japan, Israel, and Egypt. She has also performed on "Monday Night Football" and "The Miss Texas Pageant." Her first acting credits were the Saturday morning series "City Guys" as well as the made-for-television trilogy "America's Dream", which starred Danny Glover and Wesley Snipes. Jones' portrayal of the self-centered and materialistic Toni Childs for six seasons in "Girlfriends" marked her first regular role in a series. In May 2006 it was confirmed that Jones left "Girlfriends" because her contract ended. Some viewers were upset about her departure and the ratings suffered a decline: from 3.5 million in season 6 to 2.5 million in season 7, and 2.1 million in season 8.
1057632	The Naked Kiss is a 1964 neo-noir film written and directed by Samuel Fuller, starring Constance Towers as Kelly, Anthony Eisley as Captain Griff and Michael Dante as J.L. Grant. Plot. Kelly (Towers) is a prostitute who shows up in the small town of Grantville, just one more burg in a long string of quick stops on the run after being chased out of the big city by her former pimp. She engages in a quick tryst with local police chief Griff (Eisley), who then tells her to stay out of his town and refers her to a cat-house just across the state line. Instead, she decides to give up her illicit lifestyle, becoming a nurse at a hospital for handicapped children. Griff doesn't trust reformed prostitutes, however, and continues trying to run her out of town. Kelly falls in love with J.L. Grant (Dante), the wealthy scion of the town's founding family, an urbane sophisticate, and Griff's best friend. After a dream-like courtship where even Kelly's admission of her past can't deter Grant, the two decide to marry. It is only after Kelly is able to finally convince Griff that she truly loves Grant and has given up prostitution for good that he agrees to be their best man.
584896	Kajal Agarwal (born 19 June 1985) is an Indian actress, who predominantly appears in South Indian cinema. Kajal made her film debut in the 2004 Bollywood film "Kyun...! Ho Gaya Na" and entered the Telugu film industry through the film "Lakshmi Kalyanam" (2007). She had her first commercial success with "Chandamama" (2007) and rose to prominence after her performance in "Magadheera" (2009), which remains her biggest commercial success, and fetched her a nomination for the Filmfare Award for Best Telugu Actress. Following further consecutive successes with "Darling" (2010), "Brindavanam" (2010), "Mr. Perfect" (2011), "Businessman" (2012), "Naayak" (2013) and "Baadshah" (2013) she established herself as one of the leading actresses in Tollywood. She has also acted in Tamil films, "Naan Mahaan Alla" (2010) being her first notable project, but with "Maattrraan" (2012) and "Thuppakki" (2012), she emerged as a leading actress in Kollywood as well. She made a comeback to Bollywood with "Singham" (2011) which was a blockbuster while her next film "Special Chabbis" (2013) was also declared a box-office success. Early life. Kajal was born in Mumbai to Vinay Agarwal, an entrepreneur, and Suman Agarwal, a confectioner. She has a younger sister, Nisha Agarwal, who is also an actress appearing in Telugu and Tamil films. She studied at St. Anne's High School, Colaba, Mumbai and Jai Hind College, Mumbai. She graduated from K.C. College, Mumbai with a degree in Mass Media. She started her modelling career while she was still in college. She was planning on pursuing MBA in Brand Management before deciding to pursue acting. Film career. Early career (2004–08). Kajal made her acting debut in the 2004 Bollywood film "Kyun...! Ho Gaya Na", in which she enacted a minor supporting role as the friend of Diya, following which she signed veteran Tamil director Bharathiraja's "Bommalattam", alongside Arjun Sarja. The film, however, got delayed and released in late 2008. She made her debut in the Telugu film industry and played her first leading role in 2007 in Teja's "Lakshmi Kalyanam" alongside Kalyan Ram, which did not fare well at the box office. Later that year, she appeared in the Krishna Vamsi-directed film "Chandamama", which opened to positive reviews and became her first major successful film. In 2008, she had her first Tamil film release, Perarasu's action entertainer "Pazhani", co-starring Bharath. Following this film, she had two more Tamil releases that year with Venkat Prabhu’s comedy-thriller Saroja, in which she did a guest appearance, and Bharathiraja's investigative thriller "Bommalattam". Although the former went on to become a commercial as well as a critical success, both films failed to boost her career as her roles were too insignificant. Both her Telugu releases, "Pourudu" and "Aatadista" opposite Sumanth and Nitin, respectively, neither received positive reviews while the former was successful at the box office. Success in Tollywood and Bollywood comeback (2009–11). Kajal had four releases in 2009.she first starred in another Tamil film "Modhi Vilayadu", opposite Vinay Rai which garnered mixed reviews and was a financial failure, following which she appeared in the high-budget Telugu historical drama "Magadheera", alongside Ram Charan Teja, which saw her essaying double roles for the first time. The film, directed by S. S. Rajamouli, received universal critical acclaim, while Kajal, particularly, was praised for her portrayal of a princess in the film. Kajal was nominated for the Filmfare Award for Best Actress in Telugu and was also nominated for the award for Best Telugu Actress in the South Scope Awards for her performance in the film. The film was also highly commercially successful and broke several records, emerging as the highest-grossing Telugu film of all time. "Magadheera"'s enormous success turned Kajal into one of the most sought-after actresses in Telugu cinema and catapulted her into the main foray of leading Telugu actresses. The film was released again in Tamil as "Maaveeran" in 2011, which was also successful at the box office. Her subsequent releases "Ganesh Just Ganesh", opposite Ram and "Arya 2" opposite Allu Arjun received mixed reviews from critics, while her performance garnered positive feedback. Kajal's first 2010 release was A. Karunakaran's romantic comedy "Darling", which featured her alongside Prabhas and received favorable response, becoming a commercial success at the box office, with Kajal receiving her second Filmfare nomination for Best Actress for her performance. Later that year, she appeared in the Tamil thriller film "Naan Mahaan Alla" opposite Karthi, which was based on a real life incident and opened to unanimously positive reviews. The film was a box office success. The chemistry between Karthi and Kajal in the film was widely praised. It was later dubbed in Telugu as "Naa Peru Siva", in Andhra Pradesh and became a success there too. Kajal's final release in 2010 was another romantic comedy "Brindavanam" opposite Jr. NTR and Samantha, which received critical acclaim and went on to become an economical success as well, while fetching Kajal the CineMAA Award for Best Actress. In 2011, she was paired with Prabhas for the second time in the romantic comedy "Mr. Perfect", directed by Dasaradh. The film became a critical and commercial success. Kajal's performance in the film as a conservative doctor and her chemistry with Prabhas won appraisal by critics. Kajal received her third Filmfare nomination for Best Actress in Telugu for her performance. In May, she appeared in "Veera" opposite Ravi Teja that received negative reviews and failed at the box office. In July that year, Kajal made her Bollywood comeback after 7 years with a leading role in the police story "Singham", a remake of the "same-titled 2010 Tamil film", opposite Ajay Devgn. The film received mixed reviews from critics, as did her portrayal of a Goan girl Kavya Bhosle, with critics stating that Kajal had not much to offer in the hero-centric film. Nevertheless, the film was successful at the box office, making Kajal a popular actress in Bollywood. She was nominated for 2 awards for her performance in the film- the Filmfare Award for Best Female Debut and the Zee Cine Award for Best Female Debut. Kajal finished 2011 with the Telugu film "Dhada" opposite Naga Chaitanya, which failed at the box office. Kollywood success (2012–present). In early 2012, Kajal appeared in the Telugu gangster film "Businessman" alongside Mahesh Babu, directed by Puri Jagannadh. The film, a Sankranthi release, opened to positive reviews and turned out to be a blockbuster. Kajal's performance in her role in the film, though limited, was praised by critics. Kajal made a comeback in Kollywood later that year with two big releases; the first was the action thriller film "Maattrraan" opposite Surya and directed by K. V. Anand. The film received mixed to positive reviews from critics. Her performance was well received; a review carried by "The Indian Express" summarised "Kajal does with utmost sincerity as the foreign language translator Anjali. It's this trait and her graceful demeanour which makes Kajal a pleasant watch. The second was A. R. Murugadoss's "Thuppakki", another action thriller film opposite Vijay, where she played the role of a boxer. The film was released on Deepavali and received mostly positive reviews from the critics. While "Maattrraan" was declared as an average success, "Thuppaki" was declared as a blockbuster and has become the second Tamil film ever to enter the 100 crore club. Her final release in 2012 was the Telugu romantic film "Sarocharu", opposite Ravi Teja for the second time in her career. Although her performance in the film was praised by critics, the film received poor reviews and did below-average business at the box office. In early 2013, she starred in V. V. Vinayak's action film "Naayak" opposite Ram Charan Teja and Amala Paul. Upon release, the film received positive reviews and was a major commercial success. She later starred in the Hindi film "Special 26", a 1987 Heist Drama directed by Neeraj Pandey opposite Akshay Kumar. The Movie went on to be a major critical and commercial success. She later appeared in Srinu Vaitla's "Baadshah" opposite Jr. NTR for the second time in her career. Upon release critics appreciated her performance. The Times of India commented "Kajal is as usual an eye-candy. She's got a good role and has done justice to her performance. Also she looks stunning in the songs." The Movie was also a Blockbuster at the Box office, cementing her position in Telugu cinema. Upcoming projects. Another Tamil film, "All in All Azhagu Raja" has been announced, where she will again star opposite Karthi. It is also announced that Kajal, along with Allu Arjun, would make a cameo appearance in the film "Yevadu", starring Ram Charan Teja, Shruthi Hassan and Amy Jackson. This film would mark the third time she is acting alongside Ram Charan Teja and the second time alongside Allu Arjun. She has also signed producer R. B. Choudary's Tamil film "Jilla", which has Mohanlal and Vijay in lead roles. Kajal Agarwal has also entered into top-10 most searched celebrities of Bollywood on the web as per the ratings released in 2012 which is an indication of her growing fame in Bollywood after the positive reviews of Singham and Special 26 . Brand endorsements. In addition to films, Kajal also endorses a large number of popular brands. Before starting her film career, she had acted in various commercials as a model. She is the brand ambassador for "Lux", joining the likes of Aishwarya Rai, Priyanka Chopra, Asin Thottumkal in endorsing the beauty soap. She is also the brand ambassador for jewellery stores like "Sri Lakshmi Jewellery" in Puducherry and "AVR" in Salem. She has featured in television advertisements along with Karthi endorsing "Bru" instant coffee. She has also endorsed mobile brands like "Samsung Mobile" and has featured in advertisements for the Secunderabad based "The Chennai Shopping Mall", along with Samantha, Tamannaah and Nisha Aggarwal. In April 2012, Kajal was announced as the brand ambassador for "Panasonic India". She is also the brand ambassador for "CCL". Awards and nominations. Other awards/nominations
1165784	Michael Callan (born November 22, 1935) is an American actor. Born Martin Harris Calinieff in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Callan began his career as Mickey Calin, and it was with this name, he appeared on Broadway in "The Boy Friend" (1954), "Catch a Star" (1955) and "West Side Story" (1957–1959). Callan's film career began in 1959 where he was contracted with Columbia Pictures and had roles in two films, "They Came to Cordura" and "The Flying Fontaines". Although he was unable to reprise his "West Side Story" role of Riff in the film version due to his contract with Columbia, he did dance in the film "Gidget Goes Hawaiian" (1961). His screen credits include "The Interns", "The New Interns", with Barbara Eden, "Mysterious Island" (1961), "The Victors" (1963), "Cat Ballou" (1965), "Leprechaun 3" and "Stuck on You". In August 1965 he signed a four picture deal with Columbia and was mentioned as a possible star for "Marooned" then being directed by Frank Capra. In 1966, Callan landed the lead role of Peter Christopher in the NBC Television sitcom "Occasional Wife". At the time Callan was married to the former Carlyn Chapman. The young couple lived in Beverly Hills and had two daughters, Dawn Rachel and Rebecca. He engaged in a 12-hour day filming schedule with weekends off for the production of the half-hour television series. Callan soon divorced Carlyn and was married for a time to Patricia Harty, the actress who played his "occasional wife" in the series.
1015848	Future Cops () is a 1993 Hong Kong action-comedy film loosely based on the "Street Fighter" video game franchise.
1164680	Pam Dawber (born October 18, 1951) is an American actress best known for her lead television sitcom roles as Mindy McConnell in "Mork & Mindy" (1978–1982) and Samantha Russell in "My Sister Sam" (1986–1988). Early life. Dawber was born in Detroit, Michigan, the older of two daughters of Thelma M. (née Fisher) and Eugene E. Dawber, a commercial artist. She attended North Farmington High School and Oakland Community College. Career. Dawber moved to New York and was initially a fashion model with Wilhelmina Models before switching to acting. Her breakthrough came when she was cast as one of the two title roles by Garry Marshall in ABC sitcom "Mork & Mindy", which ran from 1978 to 1982, despite relatively little acting experience and not auditioning for the part. She portrayed Mindy McConnell, the comedic foil and eventual love interest for the extraterrestrial Mork from the planet "Ork", played by a then-unknown Robin Williams. The show was extremely popular in its debut season, when it averaged at #3 in the Nielsen ratings for the year. Dawber sang in a 1980s Los Angeles Civic Light Opera production of Gilbert & Sullivan's "The Pirates of Penzance", based on the Joseph Papp/New York Shakespeare Festival production. Her role, as Mabel, had been played by Linda Ronstadt in the New York run of the show. From 1986 to 1988, Dawber again had the title role in a TV series, playing Samantha Russell in the CBS sitcom "My Sister Sam", co-starring Rebecca Schaeffer. The series was a success in its first season, but suffered a massive ratings drop in its second after moving to Saturday night. "My Sister Sam" left the air in April 1988, with half of the second season's episodes never airing on CBS, but eventually airing (along with all previous episodes) on USA Network. In July 1989, over a year after the show's demise, Schaeffer was shot and killed by an obsessed fan in front of her apartment, which devastated Dawber. Dawber, and her "My Sister Sam" co-stars Joel Brooks, David Naughton and Jenny O'Hara reunited to film a public service announcement about violence prevention. With the birth of her second child, she left the industry for family reasons and acted sporadically during the 1990s. Dawber parodied her "Mork & Mindy" character in the 1992 movie "Stay Tuned", in which she co-starred with John Ritter, who parodied his "Three's Company" role. Dawber is a national spokeswoman for Big Brothers Big Sisters of America. Personal life. Dawber married actor Mark Harmon on March 21, 1987 in a private ceremony. They have two sons: Sean Thomas Harmon (born April 25, 1988) and Ty Christian Harmon (born June 25, 1992). The couple appeared together in the film "I'll Remember April".
582868	Vishwajeet Pradhan is an Indian Bollywood actor who has worked in many films including "Yalgaar", "Raaz", "Karam", "Zeher", "Zakhm", and "Lamhaa". Vishwajeet often plays the role of inspector or commissioner. Now he is playing an antagonist role of S.S.P Brahmanand Jakhar in "" on television. He is married to a former fashion designer Sonalika Pradhan. They have two children, daughter Dhruvika and son Ojas. He belongs to Merrut in Uttar Pradesh. He is also a politician associated with the Samajwadi Party. Incidents on sets. A major fire broke out on the sets of Anees Bazmee’s "No Problem" while the unit was shooting in the middle of the sea for a vital action sequence. Vishwajeet was in a scene where he is supposed to raise panic over the fire and try to save himself. While he caught fire, hurting his leg, everyone thought it was a part of his act and complimented his acting skills! But as soon as everyone realized what was happening, Vishwajeet was saved from any further injury by prompt action. Sunil Shetty also suffered burns on his hands. The fire extinguishers on the sets proved to be very handy. Suniel Shetty and Vishwajeet Pradhan almost became victims of severe burns. A hurt Vishwajeet said, “These things happen and despite all the precautions, the fire was just uncontrollable because of the sea breeze. My trousers were very thin. I guess it’s part of the game, but I am in pain right now. After the incident, I went to a doctor and even a skin specialist for treatment.” Another incident happened on sets of "Rakht Charitra". Vishawajeet was apparently shooting the climax sequence for the film where his character was supposed to be shot dead. However the blast in the shot was so intense that he had a huge cut along his jaw line that required surgery. After the incident, he was admitted to an emergency ward and later shifted to the normal ward. A surgery was carried out later with a reconstructive plastic surgery carried out to hide the scar. The sequence in question was apparently a normal blast scene that went haywire as the impact was very powerful, hitting the actor in the face, leaving him bleeding. Naturally, the actor and his wife were worried as the wounds require serious attention. Latest films. Vishwajeet Pradhan's latest film include "No Problem", as well as successful films such as "Bbuddah... Hoga Terra Baap" where he played a constable named Shindey and Kulkarni in "Chatur Singh Two Star","Chal Chalein".
1164205	Robin Simone Givens (born November 27, 1964) is an American stage, television, and film actress. Givens began her acting career after graduating from Sarah Lawrence College in 1984. In 1986, she won the role of Darlene Merriman in the ABC sitcom "Head of the Class". She remained with the series for its entire five-year run. After the series ended in 1991, she continued her career with film roles and guest starring roles on television.
1071458	Since 1983, Kosugi has appeared in various roles as a voice actor for video games, stunt actor in movies, and character actor in both English-language and Japanese-language films. His first movie, Revenge of the Ninja, had him playing the son of his real life father, Sho Kosugi. He even kept his real name in the movie. He has also been in other movies starring his father as well. With the intention of following in his father's footsteps, Kane trained to become a martial arts actor. Kane has an extensive martial arts background in wushu, ninjutsu, taekwondo, karate, judo and kendo. He made his Japanese acting debut in the 1993 television series "Ryūkyū no Kaze" ("Dragon Spirit"), the 31st entry in NHK's long-running taiga drama series. Kane followed this up with his first lead role in the two-part Toei V-Cinema movies "Za Kakuto Oh" ("The Fighting King") and "Za Kakuto Oh 2" ("The Fighting King 2") directed by his father. Next came the 1994 television series "Ninja Sentai Kakuranger", an installment in Toei Company's "Super Sentai" franchise. Kane was the only American-born cast member of "Kakuranger" and his character (Jiraiya) spoke almost exclusively in English during his first few episodes. He could be seen regularly on the NHK children's program "Karada de Asobo" (体で遊ぼ), which was a weekday exercise show that ran until March 2010. He also does commercial spots for vitamin drinks and regularly appears on a physical challenge show called "Kinniku Oukoku" (筋肉王国), formerly known as "Kinniku Banzuke". His most recent Hollywood project was the action-thriller, "War", with Jason Statham and Jet Li in which he played an unnamed Yakuza member. "SASUKE". Kane has competed on Kinniku Banzuke/Oukoku's special show "SASUKE" (known in America as "Ninja Warrior") for several years. Thus far he is one of only three foreigners, and the only American, to make it to the Final Stage, out of 2,900 total competitors to date (plus an additional 200 American competitors on the Las Vegas based version of American Ninja Warrior Seasons 4 and 5) and twenty-three different Final Stage competitors. Despite his strong performances, #98 is the highest number he has ever worn. He stopped participating after the 8th competition because he said "I would like to compete if I have time to train.", however he still remains the only competitor to compete five times without failing the first stage. Here is a list of information regarding his participation including competition number, his number out of 100 competitors, as well as the stage and obstacle he was eliminated on. Personal. Kane has a brother, Shane, who made occasional appearances on "Kinniku Banzuke" (known on G4 as "Unbeatable Bansuke"). He was romantically involved with female golfer Riko Higashio, but broke up in 2005 when they seemed on the verge of marriage. In December 2009, Kane married a woman from Hong Kong. Rift with father. Kosugi and his father are seemingly no longer on speaking terms due to Kane choosing a career in Japanese television instead of helping to run some of his schools under the banner of his institute, and even taking some of Sho's staff with him. In reference to Kane, Sho was reported as saying on a television show with fortuneteller Kazuko Hosoki in April 2007, , saying Kane "stabbed me in the back" and at one point made a reference to Judas Iscariot. However, Sho was seen at Kane's wedding in late 2009, indicating that they are reconciling or already have.
581990	Om Shanti Om is a 2007 Bollywood romantic-reincarnation film directed and choreographed by Farah Khan. It stars Shah Rukh Khan and Hindi debutant Deepika Padukone in the lead roles while Arjun Rampal, Shreyas Talpade, and Kirron Kher feature in supporting roles. More than forty-two well-known Bollywood stars appear in the course of the film, including thirty of them (not including the stars of the film) in one song alone. The film is set in the 1970s and 2000s; it pays tribute to, and pokes fun at, the Indian film industry of both these eras. The film was released in 2,000 prints worldwide making it the largest Indian cinematic release at the time. "Om Shanti Om" was released on 9 November 2007 to mostly positive reviews from critics and record-breaking box office collections. It grossed worldwide and thus became the highest-grossing Hindi film of all time at the time of its release. Plot. Om Prakash Makhija (Shah Rukh Khan) is a junior artist in the 1970s Bollywood film industry. Om's mother, Bela Makhija, herself a junior artist, inspires and encourages her son to succeed. He is in love with film actress Shanti Priya (Deepika Padukone). One evening, Om views the premiere of Shanti's film "Dreamy Girl", posing as Manoj Kumar. Later that night, Om becomes drunk and describes his vision of himself as a famous, wealthy film star to Pappu and some local children. While at the shooting of a film wherein Om is acting as a scene-extra, he notices Shanti trapped in the middle of a fire scene where the fire has escaped control. He saves her and they become friends. One day, he accidentally overhears the conversation between Shanti and Mukesh Mehra, a film producer. Om is brutally shocked to learn that Mukesh and Shanti had married in secret and that Shanti is about to have a baby. Mukesh Mehra promises to do something for Shanti. One night, Om notices Mukesh escorting Shanti to the set of their soon-to-be-made film "Om Shanti Om". Inside, Mukesh tells Shanti that he will cancel the film, reveal their marriage to the public, and have a grand wedding on the spectacular set. Shanti is pleased, while Om returns, happy for her. However, now it is revealed that Mukesh has no intentions of fulfilling his promise. He traps Shanti on the set and sets it on fire. Om sees the studio burning and attempts to rescue Shanti, but Mukesh's guards attack him, and he is badly injured. Om pursues despite this, and enters the burning building. He sees Shanti and runs towards her, but and explosion blasts him outside the building. Om is hit by a car owned by Rajesh Kapoor, a well-known actor who is taking his wife to the hospital as she is in labour. Rajesh takes Om too, but Om succumbs to his injuries in the hospital itself and dies. Moments later, a son is born to Lovely and Rajesh, who is named Om, and implied to be Om Prakash's reincarnation. The film then cuts to Om Kapoor's adulthood. Nicknamed O.K., he is a popular movie star and lives the extravagant, luxurious life that Om Prakash dreamt of. He experiences pyrophobia and it is shown through some scenes that he subconsciously inherits Om Prakash's memories, as well as his appearance. When making a speech of acceptance for an award, O.K. unexpectedly recalls the drunken speech that Om Prakash had made to Pappu, and delivers the same to the assembly who have awarded him. Pappu listens to O.K.'s speech on television and is convinced that his friend has returned. At a celebration of his award, O.K. is introduced by his father to Mukesh Mehra, who has been producing films in Hollywood for the last twenty five years. Upon seeing him, O.K. recalls everything. He later reunites with Bela and Pappu and conspires to avenge Shanti's death by making Mukesh confess his sin. O.K. convinces Mukesh to restart shooting of "Om Shanti Om". Pappu and O.K. start a hunt for a girl who act as Shanti. The plan is to convince Mukesh that Shanti is haunting the set and scare him, so that he will confess. O.K. finds Sandhya, a.k.a. Sandy, a complete doppelganger of Shanti. Sandy is accordingly trained and the plan is finally put into action. Throughout the film shooting, O.K. and his friends arrange incidents to remind Mukesh of his crime, mostly by giving him startling glimpses of Sandy. However, Mukesh decides to go back to Hollywood. Realizing that Mukesh might try to make a run for it, O.K. tells him that the music launch is going to take place that night. Mukesh reluctantly stays, while O.K. has to make it look real to Mukesh. However, O.K.'s plan hits a snag when Mukesh examines the film reels and notices that something is wrong. During the music launch of the film, O.K. taunts Mukesh by revealing, through a song, the extent to which he knows the story of Shanti's death. Mukesh sees Sandy again, but this time he pursues her. Sandy bleeds after being scratched, thus confirming Mukesh's suspicions that she was not Shanti's ghost. Just as Mukesh is about to walk out, the chandelier nearly collapses on him. After some time, it is revealed that the chandelier didn't fall down fully. O.K. and Mukesh confront each other with their knowledge of each other's actions. An emboldened Mukesh tells O.K. that the charade is over. Mukesh also tells him that to prove that Shanti was murdered, her dead body has to be recovered. Here, Pappu who is listening to the conversation from the studio, tries to run to the set, but gets stuck in the studio itself. Meanwhile, O.K. sees Sandy making an entrance on the stage and confronting Mukesh. O.K. tries to stop her, but she ignores him, revealing that Mukesh came back after the fire extinguished naturally that night. She also tells him that she was still alive when he found her and buried her in the studio right under where the chandelier is facing now. Mukesh realizes that only Shanti could have known this and attacks her in panic. O.K. enters into a scuffle with him, resulting in a fire on the studio. O.K. somehow fights his pyrophobia and shoots Mukesh in his leg. Just as he is about to kill Mukesh, Sandy stops him. She tells him that Mukesh will pay, but not through his hands. She looks at the chandelier, dangling precariously. The chandelier falls on Mukesh, killing him instantly. After looking at Sandy with confusion, the studio door opens forcefully. O.K. looks back to see Pappu and Sandy. Then he realizes this is not Sandy but actually the real Shanti's spirit.O.K. stares at her spirit and sees tears of love in her eyes.Om Kapoor reciprocates her love for him.Seeing that he had realised who she was,Shanti returns to her place where she came from.Sandy apologizes to O.K. because she thought everything was gone in vain,but O.K. comforts her and says its okay.The film end with welcoming the cast of OM SHANTI OM at a studio. Cast. Special appearances during the song "Deewangi Deewangi" (in order of appearance) Other Cameo appearances throughout the film "(in alphabetical order)" Production. The film is based on reincarnation. It is inspired by Rishi Kapoor's 1980 Bollywood film "Karz" and borrows many elements from it, including the title which is named after one of that film's songs. In the beginning of the "Om Shanti Om", Rishi Kapoor can be seen dancing to the original song. Shooting of the film began in January 2007 at various locations in India. The film was released on 9 November 2007. "Om Shanti Om" created a record of sorts by going in for an unheard of 2000 prints (worldwide) release. This was the highest number of prints (including digital) for any Indian movie at the time of its release. "Om Shanti Om" set another record for registered pre-advance booking of 18,000 tickets in a chain of theaters in national capital Delhi a couple of days before the advance booking was to start. Red Chillies Entertainment had reportedly sold the world rights for the film to Eros International for an amount between Rs.720-750 million. Baba Films, production and distribution company, had offered a record Rs.110 million for the rights to the Mumbai Circuit, easily surpassing the highest amount ever paid for the territory of Rs.85 million for "Jaan-E-Mann". A book, titled "The Making of Om Shanti Om" and written by Mushtaq Sheikh, has been released after the release of the film. The book gives an insight about the production and happenings behind the camera of the film. Home Video Release. "Om Shanti Om" was released on a two disc DVD mastered from High Definition in Widescreen format on February 2008 . The second disc included a trivia game, bloopers, premiers, deleted scenes, interviews, trailers and teasers and the making of the film and songs. The DVD also included a signed poster of Shahrukh Khan and a 16-page booklet. The film was also released in Blu-Ray. Bollywood Hungama gave it 4 out of 5 stars. Soundtrack. The film's songs were composed by the musical duo Vishal-Shekhar with lyrics by Javed Akhtar, whilst the background score was composed by Sandeep Chowta. Initially, A. R. Rahman was signed in to compose original songs and background score for the film. But the maestro opted out of this movie, as T-Series did not agree to share the copyrights of music with him and the lyricist. The soundtrack for the film released on 18 September 2007. Box office. India. "Om Shanti Om" opened across 878 cinemas in 2000 prints worldwide "Om Shanti Om" nett grossed(after deducting entertainment tax) in India. It was declared a "Blockbuster" in the domestic market. Overseas. The film collected US$2.78 million in the United Kingdom, US$3.6 million in North America and US$3.7 million collectively from the rest of the world, which resulted in total overseas collections of $10,080,000, the 4th largest of all time as of 2010. As a result of these collections, a worldwide gross of ﻿ was accumulated. Reception. Reviews. "Om Shanti Om" received mostly positive reviews from critics. Taran Adarsh from Bollywood hungama gave the movie a 4 out 5 star rating stating "This Diwali, have a blast! (...) At the box-office, the film will set new records in days to come and has the power to emerge one of the biggest hits of SRK's career." "Hindustan Times"'s Khalid Mohamed gave the film 4/5 saying that the film is "A must for masala movie lovers.." "Tajpal Rathore" of BBC gave it 4 out of 5 stars and stated, "Both a homage to and parody of Bollywood, this cinematic feast delivered straight from the heart of the film industry will have you glued to your seats till the end." Nikhat Kazmi of "The Times of India" gave 3.5 of 5 stars stating the film is a total paisa vasool and a true tribute to "Karz" (1980). Raja Sen of Rediff.com gave 3 and half stars and stated, ""Om Shanti Om" is an exultant, heady, joyous film reveling in Bollywood, and as at most parties where the bubbly flows free, there is much silly giggling and tremendous immaturity. You'd do well to breathe in the filmi fumes, lift your own collar-tips upwards, and leave sense out of the equation. More cameos are written in than dialogues, so sit back and play spot-the-celeb. Or watch the Khan have a blast on screen." "Mark Medley" of "National Post" gave 3 stars and stated, "The film is a mess for all the right reasons; elements of comedy, drama, romance, action and the supernatural are packed in. But really, the plot is just a vehicle to get from one song-and-dance number to the next." AOL India's Noyon Jyoti Parasara gave the movie 3 out of 5 stars stating, "The movie consists of all the elements that are essentially called the 'navratnas' of Indian cinema – from joy to grief to romance to revenge. And she mixes these well to cook up a potboiler, which is sure to be a run away hit." Rajeev Mansad of CNN-IBN give "Om Shanti Om" 3 out of 5 stars, stated "A special mention must be made for the film’s excellent dialogue which so cleverly incorporates Bollywood’s oldest clichés into these characters' everyday parlance." Sudish Kamnath of "The Hindu" stated, ""Om Shanti Om" is a light-hearted tribute to Hindi cinema the way we know it and love it, in spite of its flaws, improvisation and implausibility. [...]That apart, the movie is a hell of a party, a bits-and-pieces blockbuster strung together with a series of laughs, songs and dances. SRK shows us why he's the rock star of our times." SearchIndia.com gave the movie the thumbs-down stating that "A dispiritingly commonplace theme of reincarnation packaged in a disjointed, tracing-paper-thin plot with ho-hum performances by the lead actors renders a mediocre movie that only addled fans of Bollywood superstar Shahrukh Khan would love." Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes gave "Om Shanti Om" a rating of 83%, based upon 6 reviews (5 fresh and 1 rotten). Release in Japan collected good collection Controversy. Manoj Kumar's complaints. "Om Shanti Om" landed into controversy with veteran actor Manoj Kumar, for showing his body double in a bad taste. Offended by the sequence, Kumar planned to sue the makers of "Om Shanti Om". Kumar added, "Are the Mumbai police so stupid that they can't recognise Manoj Kumar and lathicharge him in the '70s when he was a star?”. Kumar also alleged that Shahrukh Khan is communal. Later, in a press conference, Shahrukh Khan and director Farah Khan accepted their mistake and apologized for the matter." Farah Khan even offered to cut the scene which Manoj Kumar felt was hurtful, but Kumar refused on grounds that, as Farah had stated, "I Khan was like his daughter. He said, 'Betiyaan maafi nahi maangti' (Daughters don't ask for forgiveness). I told him that he could've called me and scolded me." Later, Kumar said that though this incident was hurtful to him, he wishes to forgive, ignore, and move on, saying that he prefers to "see Ram in everyone and ignore the Ravana." In 2008, before the film's television premiere on Sony TV, Manoj Kumar filed for a stay on the television release, at civil court in Mumbai. On 8 August 2008, he won permanent injunction on the scenes in "Om Shanti Om" that lampooned him. The court ordered the producers and Sony Entertainment Television, to edit the Manoj Kumar look-alike scenes before showing the film on the channel on 10 August 2008. It also ordered that the film could not be shown in any media—TV, DVD or Internet—without the scene being deleted. tion (CWA) rejected Monga’s appeal at a special Executive Committee meeting. Thereafter, he approached the court to stay the film’s screening on television. Though, on 6 August the court rejected Monga's plea for seeking a stay on the television telecast, it directed all the respondents including Shahrukh Khan, Farah Khan, Red Chillies Entertainment, Gauri Khan (director Red Chillies) and film's co-writer Mushtaq Sheikh, to file their say by the next hearing on 29 September 2008. In November 2008, the Film Writers' association sent a communication to Red Chillies and Ajay Monga that it had found similarities in "Om Shanti Om" and Monga's script. The similarities were more than mere coincidences according to Sooni Taraporewala who chaired a special committee that has investigated the case on behalf of the Film Writers' association. Another allegation of plagiarism came from Rinki Bhattacharya, daughter of late Bimal Roy, who directed "Madhumati". She threatened legal action against Red Chillies Entertainment and the producer-director of "Om Shanti Om", as she felt that the film's second half was similar to "Madhumati", also a rebirth saga. Awards. National Film Awards. 2008 - National Film Award for Best Art Direction – Sabu Cyril
1057775	The Other is a 1972 psychological horror film directed by Robert Mulligan, adapted for film by Tom Tryon, from his bestselling novel. It stars Uta Hagen, Diana Muldaur, and Chris & Martin Udvarnoky. Plot. It's a seemingly idyllic summer in 1935, and identical twins Niles and Holland Perry play around the bucolic family farm. Holland is an amoral mischief maker, though sympathetic Niles is often caught in their shenanigans. Niles carries a Prince Albert tobacco tin with several secret trinkets, including the Perry family ring, which came down from their grandfather, and something mysteriously wrapped in wax paper. He asks Holland to "take them back," but Holland insists "I gave them to you, they're yours now." Their cousin Russell finds the boys in the forbidden apple cellar, and promises to snitch on them. Their mother is a recluse in her upstairs bedroom, grieving over the recent death of the boys' father in the apple cellar. Grandmother Ada, a Russian emigrant, dotes on Niles, and has taught him a psychic ability to project himself outside of his body, for example in a bird; this ability she calls "the great game."
583237	Surekha Sikri or Surekha Sikri Rege, born April 19, 1945, is Indian film, theatre and TV actress. She has won the National Film Award for Best Supporting Actress twice, for her role in Tamas in 1988 and for Mammo in 1995. Early life and background. At the beginning stage of her career she attended GEC, AMU Aligarh. Later she graduated from National School of Drama (NSD) in 1968, and worked with the NSD Repertory Company for over a decade before shifting base to Mumbai. Recently, she lost her husband Hemant Rege due to heart failure. Career. Surekha Sikri was the recipient of 1989 Sangeet Natak Akademi Award. In Dec 2008, she was awarded "Best actress in negative role" for the serial Balika Vadhu (Colors TV), in the IDEA ITA Awards 2008. Due to balika vadhu she became the negative diva of television media industry. TV series. Current Past
1065275	Stuart Saves His Family is a 1995 comedy film directed by Harold Ramis, and based on a series of "Saturday Night Live" sketches from the early to mid-1990s. The movie tracks the adventures of would-be self-help guru Stuart Smalley, a creation of comedian Al Franken, as he attempts to save both his deeply troubled family and his low-rated Public-access television show. Some of the plot is inspired by Franken's book, "I'm Good Enough, I'm Smart Enough, and Doggone It, People Like Me!: Daily Affirmations By Stuart Smalley". The film was produced by Lorne Michaels. Co-stars include Laura San Giacomo, Vincent D'Onofrio, Shirley Knight, Lesley Boone and Harris Yulin. Julia Sweeney, Joe Flaherty, Robin Duke, Richard Riehle, future WWE ring announcer Justin Roberts and Kurt Fuller have cameo roles. Plot. Stuart Smalley (Al Franken), the disciple of the 12 step program, is challenged by life's injustices. He loses his Public Access Cable Television Show, must beg his manipulative overbearing boss for his job back, rehabilitate his alcoholic father and drug abuser brother (Vincent D'Onofrio), and support his over-weight mother (Shirley Knight) and sister (Lesley Boone) in their lack of ability in handling their relationships with their husbands. Stuart is supported by his 12 step sponsors as a he regresses back to his negative behaviors each time he faces these challenges. Reception. The film was a huge failure at the box office, earning only $912,082. This followed the box-office failures of other SNL-adaptations. It also received many negative reviews, with a rotten rating of 28% Rotten Tomatoes. Shortly after the movie left the theaters, "Saturday Night Live" featured a "Daily Affirmations with Stuart Smalley" sketch that parodied the poor box office returns. Stuart was depressed and bitter throughout the entire segment and lambasted the audience for choosing other movies (such as "Dumb and Dumber" and "Bad Boys") over his. However, Siskel & Ebert each gave the film a "thumbs up" rating, with Siskel calling it "smart and hip" and Ebert saying that "it has more courage than a lot of serious films." The film also received good reviews from "The Washington Post", "Deseret News", and the "Chicago Reader".
640249	Alone with Her is a 2006 American suspense film directed by Eric Nicholas about a tech-savvy stalker who uses spy cameras to force his way into the life of a young woman.
1102357	Godfrey Harold "G. H." Hardy FRS (7 February 1877 – 1 December 1947) was an English mathematician, known for his achievements in number theory and mathematical analysis. He is usually known by those outside the field of mathematics for his essay from 1940 on the aesthetics of mathematics, "A Mathematician's Apology", which is often considered one of the best insights into the mind of a working mathematician written for the layman. Starting in 1914, he was the mentor of the Indian mathematician Srinivasa Ramanujan, a relationship that has become celebrated. Hardy almost immediately recognised Ramanujan's extraordinary albeit untutored brilliance, and Hardy and Ramanujan became close collaborators. In an interview by Paul Erdős, when Hardy was asked what his greatest contribution to mathematics was, Hardy unhesitatingly replied that it was the discovery of Ramanujan. He called their collaboration "the one romantic incident in my life." Early life and career. G. H. Hardy was born 7 February 1877, in Cranleigh, Surrey, England, into a teaching family. His father was Bursar and Art Master at Cranleigh School; his mother had been a senior mistress at Lincoln Training College for teachers. Both parents were mathematically inclined. Hardy's own natural affinity for mathematics was perceptible at a young age. When just two years old, he wrote numbers up to millions, and when taken to church he amused himself by factorising the numbers of the hymns. After schooling at Cranleigh, Hardy was awarded a scholarship to Winchester College for his mathematical work. In 1896 he entered Trinity College, Cambridge. After only two years of preparation he was fourth in the Mathematics Tripos examination. Years later, Hardy sought to abolish the Tripos system, as he felt that it was becoming more an end in itself than a means to an end. While at university, Hardy joined the Cambridge Apostles, an elite, intellectual secret society. As the most important influence Hardy cites the self-study of "Cours d'analyse de l'École Polytechnique" by the French mathematician Camille Jordan, through which he became acquainted with the more precise mathematics tradition in continental Europe. In 1900 he passed part II of the tripos and was awarded a fellowship. In 1903 he earned his M.A., which was the highest academic degree at English universities at that time. From 1906 onward he held the position of a lecturer where teaching six hours per week left him time for research. In 1919 he left Cambridge to take the Savilian Chair of Geometry at Oxford in the aftermath of the Bertrand Russell affair during World War I. He returned to Cambridge in 1931, where he was Sadleirian Professor until 1942. "The Indian Clerk" (2007) is a novel by David Leavitt based on Hardy's life at Cambridge, including his discovery of and relationship with Srinivasa Ramanujan. Work. Hardy is credited with reforming British mathematics by bringing rigour into it, which was previously a characteristic of French, Swiss and German mathematics. British mathematicians had remained largely in the tradition of applied mathematics, in thrall to the reputation of Isaac Newton (see Cambridge Mathematical Tripos). Hardy was more in tune with the "cours d'analyse" methods dominant in France, and aggressively promoted his conception of pure mathematics, in particular against the hydrodynamics which was an important part of Cambridge mathematics. From 1911 he collaborated with J. E. Littlewood, in extensive work in mathematical analysis and analytic number theory. This (along with much else) led to quantitative progress on the Waring problem, as part of the Hardy–Littlewood circle method, as it became known. In prime number theory, they proved results and some notable conditional results. This was a major factor in the development of number theory as a system of conjectures; examples are the first and second Hardy–Littlewood conjectures. Hardy's collaboration with Littlewood is among the most successful and famous collaborations in mathematical history. In a 1947 lecture, the Danish mathematician Harald Bohr reported a colleague as saying, "Nowadays, there are only three really great English mathematicians: Hardy, Littlewood, and Hardy–Littlewood." Hardy is also known for formulating the Hardy–Weinberg principle, a basic principle of population genetics, independently from Wilhelm Weinberg in 1908. He played cricket with the geneticist Reginald Punnett who introduced the problem to him, and Hardy thus became the somewhat unwitting founder of a branch of applied mathematics. His collected papers have been published in seven volumes by Oxford University Press. Pure mathematics. Hardy preferred his work to be considered "pure mathematics", perhaps because of his detestation of war and the military uses to which mathematics had been applied. He made several statements similar to that in his "Apology": However, aside from formulating the Hardy–Weinberg principle in population genetics, his famous work on integer partitions with his collaborator Ramanujan, known as the Hardy–Ramanujan asymptotic formula, has been widely applied in physics to find quantum partition functions of atomic nuclei (first used by Niels Bohr) and to derive thermodynamic functions of non-interacting Bose-Einstein systems. Though Hardy wanted his maths to be "pure" and devoid of any application, much of his work has found applications in other branches of science. Moreover, Hardy deliberately pointed out in his "Apology" that mathematicians generally do not "glory in the uselessness of their work," but rather – because science can be used for evil as well as good ends – "mathematicians may be justified in rejoicing that there is one science at any rate, and that their own, whose very remoteness from ordinary human activities should keep it gentle and clean." Hardy also rejected as a "delusion" the belief that the difference between pure and applied mathematics had anything to do with their utility. Hardy regards as "pure" the kinds of mathematics that are independent of the physical world, but also considers some "applied" mathematicians, such as the physicists Maxwell and Einstein, to be among the "real" mathematicians, whose work "has permanent aesthetic value" and "is eternal because the best of it may, like the best literature, continue to cause intense emotional satisfaction to thousands of people after thousands of years." Although he admitted that what he called "real" mathematics may someday become useful, he asserted that, at the time in which the "Apology" was written, only the "dull and elementary parts" of either pure or applied mathematics could "work for good or ill." Attitudes and personality. Socially he was associated with the Bloomsbury group and the Cambridge Apostles; G. E. Moore, Bertrand Russell and J. M. Keynes were friends. He was an avid cricket fan and befriended the young C. P. Snow who was one also. He was at times politically involved, if not an activist. He took part in the Union of Democratic Control during World War I, and For Intellectual Liberty in the late 1930s. Hardy was an atheist. Apart from close friendships, he had a few platonic relationships with young men who shared his sensibilities. He was a lifelong bachelor, and in his final years he was cared for by his sister.
1039733	Michael Kitchen (born 31 October 1948) is an English actor and television producer, best known for his starring role as DCS Foyle in the British TV series "Foyle's War". Early life. Kitchen was born in Leicester, Leicestershire. As a young boy (circa 1960) he was head chorister in the Church of the Martyrs choir where he was a regular soloist. He worked with the National Youth Theatre and the Belgrade Theatre in Coventry before attending the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. In 1969, while still at RADA, he won the "Emile Littler Award" for 'outstanding talent and aptitude for the professional theatre'. Career. Television and film. Kitchen was discovered at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) by talent agent Peter Froggatt of Plant & Froggatt Ltd. Since the early 1970s, Kitchen has been a fixture of British television. His early appearances include roles in "Play for Today" ("Hell's Angels" by David Agnew, 1971), "Thriller" and "Beasts". He then played the role of Martin in the original production of Dennis Potter's "Brimstone and Treacle"; Peter in Stephen Poliakoff's "Caught on a Train"; Edmund in the BBC Television Shakespeare production of "King Lear"; the Antipholi in the same series' production of "The Comedy of Errors"; Private Bamforth in the 1979 BBC television play of "The Long and the Short and the Tall"; Rochus Misch in "The Bunker"; In 1993 he appeared in an episode of the BBC police drama "Between the Lines"; as Berkeley Cole in "Out of Africa", the King of the United Kingdom in "To Play the King" (1993) (a character recognisably modelled on Prince Charles); an English land agent during the Irish Famine in "The Hanging Gale" (1993); and a recurring role as Bill Tanner in the Pierce Brosnan Bond films "GoldenEye" and "The World Is Not Enough". Other films include "Enchanted April" (1992), "Fatherland" (1994), "Doomsday Gun" (1994), "The Hanging Gale" (1995), "Kidnapped" (1995), "Mrs Dalloway" (1997), "The Railway Children" (1999), "Proof of Life" (2000) as Ian Havery and "My Week with Marilyn" (2011). Since 2002, Kitchen has starred in the ITV mystery-drama "Foyle's War" as the lead character, DCS Christopher Foyle. He is also a producer for the show. Other noted appearances include "Dandelion Dead" (1994), "A Royal Scandal" (1996), "The Last Contract" (Sista Kontraktet,1998) a Swedish film about the assassination of Prime Minister Olof Palme, Paul Abbott's "Alibi" in 2003, Andrew Davies' dramatisation of "Falling" in 2005, ITV's three-part drama series "Mobile" (2007) and Channel 4's phone hacking comedy "Hacks" (2012). He has guest-starred in roles in other popular British television shows such as "The Professionals", "Minder", "Chancer", "Inspector Morse", "A Touch of Frost", "Between the Lines", "Pie in the Sky" and "Dalziel and Pascoe". Kitchen played Richard Crane in "Reckless". Theatre. Kitchen is also a noted actor in British theatre. His roles have ranged from Ptolemy in "Caesar and Cleopatra" at the Belgrade Theatre in 1966 to Will in Howard Brenton's "Magnificence" at the Royal Court in 1973, to William Hogarth in Nick Dear's "The Art of Success" in 1986–87. He played Mercutio in "Romeo and Juliet" for the RSC at Stratford and was a member of the National Theatre Company and the Young Vic, where he played Iago in "Othello". In 1974 he appeared at Laurence Olivier's National Theatre in the play "Spring Awakening", opposite Peter Firth, Jenny Agutter, Beryl Reid and Cyril Cusack. Later he appeared opposite Sir Ralph Richardson and Sir John Gielgud in Harold Pinter's "No Man's Land", directed by Peter Hall. In 1981 he played Melchior, the manservant of Zangler, in Tom Stoppard's play "On the Razzle". In 1984 he played the cabin steward Dvornicheck in Tom Stoppard's play "Rough Crossing". Personal life. Kitchen is married to Rowena Miller, whom he met while she was a dresser at the RSC in the late 1980s. They have two sons. Kitchen values his privacy and rarely gives interviews.
1376224	Clarence J. "Clancy" Brown III (born January 5, 1959) is an American actor and voice actor. He is known for his roles in live action as The Kurgan in the film "Highlander"; Byron Hadley in the award-winning "The Shawshank Redemption"; Brother Justin Crowe in HBO's critically acclaimed "Carnivàle"; Career Sergeant Zim in "Starship Troopers"; and the killer Steve in "Shoot to Kill".
582513	Chandni Bar is a 2001 Hindi film directed by Madhur Bhandarkar. It depicts the gritty life of the Mumbai underworld, including prostitution, dance bars and gun crime. The film stars Tabu and Atul Kulkarni in lead roles. It also stars Ananya Khare, Rajpal Yadav, Minakshi Sahani and Vishal Thakkar. The film was a critically acclaimed hit and it won four National Film Awards. Tabu came into the limelight with this movie, along with Rajpal Yadav. Synopsis. Mumtaz (Tabu) is a young village woman whose family is killed in communal riots. She moves to Mumbai with her uncle, the only family member she has left. They are desperately poor and her uncle persuades her to become a bar girl at Chandni Bar. This is merely temporary, he promises, until he gets a job. Mumtaz is shy and loathes the work, but she forces herself to dance and flirt. However, the uncle doesn't keep his promise; he lives on her earnings, drinking them away, and never gets a job. He adds one final, unforgivable crime to the list when he gets drunk and rapes her. By this time she has caught the eye of a gangster called Potiya Sawant (Atul Kulkarni). When she tells Potiya what her uncle did to her, Potiya decides to "defend her honor." Potiya kills the uncle and marries her. She lives with him for several years and gives birth to a son, Abhay, and daughter, Payal. She wants Abhay and Payal to be educated and stay far away from her world of dancing girls and Potiya's gangsters. Potiya gets in the bad books of other gangsters, loses his connections, becomes a target for the police, and is killed in a planned "encounter," leaving Mumtaz to return to Chandni Bar. Years pass and Abhay and Payal are in their teens and attending school. Mumtaz still works at Chandni Bar, not as a dancer, but as a waitress. Then the unexpected happens — Abhay is arrested by the police for extortion and held in a juvenile home for the crime he had not committed. At the home, Abhay is raped by a couple of inmates. Mumtaz attempts to talk to the police, to no avail. She then meets with some influential people, who agree to help her out for a price, which she must bring to them in less than two days. Mumtaz hustles and sells her body to obtain the money but is still short. Seeing her mother's plight, Payal takes up dancing at Chandni Bar and brings the rest of the money to her troubled mother. With the money turned over to release Abhay, the family heaves a sigh of relief — until Mumtaz notices that it is not the same Abhay she had known two days earlier. This one is cold, ruthless, and has only purpose in life: vengeance. Abhay takes his revenge and shoots the inmates who raped him. It is implied that Payal is following in her mother's footsteps, and Abhay is set to be another Potiya. Awards. The film won four National Awards. Tabu also received Best Actress nominations at the Filmfare Awards and Bollywood Awards. Atul Kulkarni also received a Best Supporting Actor nomination at the Star Screen Awards. Madhur Bhandarkar was nominated for Best Director in several venues, but did not win. 2002 National Film Awards (India) 2002 IIFA Awards (India) 2002 Star Screen Awards (India) 2002 Zee Cine Awards (India) Soundtrack. The film does not feature any of original tracks of its own. But many Bollywood Hindi songs feature many times in various scenes in the dancing bar. The theme music is a classical aalap rendered by Shubha Mudgal.
585702	2 Harihar Nagar is a 2009 Malayalam film written and directed by Lal and produced by P N Venugopal. It is a sequel to "In Harihar Nagar" (except the first scene were the four meet each other) and a prequel to "In Ghost House Inn". The films chronicle the story of four very close friends Mahadevan (Mukesh), Govindan Kutty (Siddique), Appukuttan (Jagadish), and Thomas Kutty (Ashokan). The film ended up as a blockbuster in the kerala box office. Plot. The movie starts with a flashback, in front of a church, in 1980 when the foursome were children. This scene the beginning of their friendship. Thomas Philip (a.k.a. Thomas Kutty) loses money to a scam artist, who responds to his complaints with violence. He is rescued by the other three who respond to his calls of distress. They then invite Thomas Kutty to join their group who, above all, vow never to cheat on one another. The scene is transitioned by the quote "Thomas kutty Vittodaa!" (Thomas kutty, time to run!) once the scam artist brings his friends to return the beating he got.
219920	The Claim is a 2000 British Western/romance film directed by Michael Winterbottom. The screenplay by Frank Cottrell Boyce is loosely based on the novel "The Mayor of Casterbridge" by Thomas Hardy. The original music score is composed by Michael Nyman. Plot summary. Daniel Dillon is an Irish immigrant who settled in the high mountains of California during the Gold Rush of 1849. It is now 1867, and we see that Dillon has a vault filled with gold and a town of his own, named Kingdom Come. Dillon owns nearly every business of consequence in the town; if someone digs for gold, rents a hotel room, opens a bank account, or commits a crime, they will have to deal with Dillon. One of the few profitable enterprises in town that Dillon does not own is the saloon/brothel, which is operated by Lucia, his Portuguese lover. Donald Dalglish is a surveyor with the Central Pacific Railroad, which wants to put a train either through Kingdom Come, or somewhere in the vicinity. He is here to decide the route. Dillon is anxious to ensure that the railway line is routed through "his" town, as this will bring more business. Among the travelers who arrive in town with Dalglish are two women, the beautiful but ailing Elena Burn and her lovely teenage daughter Hope. The presence of these women is deeply troubling for Dillon, for they are the keys to a dark secret Dillon has kept from the people of Kingdom Come for nearly twenty years. Dillon had come to these mountains with his Polish wife Elena and their months-old baby, Hope. On a cold and snowy night they happen upon a shack named Kingdom Come, owned by a disillusioned '49er named Burn. Like Hardy's Mayor of Casterbridge, Dillon sells Elena and Hope to the prospector in exchange for the small gold claim (thus the film's title) that would later flourish and make Dillon so wealthy. Burn has died, and Elena has come to find Dillon because Burn left her with nothing, she is dying, and she wants Dillon to give her $200 per year so that she can "do right by Hope". (A major departure from the novel is that Hope is indeed Dillon's daughter.) Dillon tells Lucia that they have to end it and gives her some gold bricks and the deeds to her home, the saloon/brothel, and the tobacco house. Lucia is heartbroken, wanting Dillon and not his money. Dillon asks Elena to marry him (since no one knows that they are already married), revealing that he never married anyone else because he was always married to her. Their time after the marriage is short, filled with Dillon's efforts to find a cure for her illness and ending with her death. Elena's death coincides with the decision to route the railway some distance from the town for easier passage and construction. Lucia moves the girls, the booze and the tobacco house to the valley, effectively moving the entire population of Kingdom Come to her new town of Lisboa, named for her father's home in Portugal, to be near the railroad. Following Elena's funeral, Hope tells Dillon that she is leaving to find Dalglish and start a life with him. Dillon takes her up to the original shack Kingdom Come, showing her a picture of their family when she was a baby, and revealing the deal made right on that spot between him and Burn. Hope leaves him and goes to the new Lisboa.
582171	Mujhe Kucch Kehna Hai is a 2001 Bollywood romance film directed by Satish Kaushik and produced by Vashu Bhagnani. The movie was the debut performance of Tusshar Kapoor, who played alongside Kareena Kapoor. It is a remake of the 1998 Telugu movie, "Tholi Prema." It was released on 25 May 2001 and was a surprise hit at the box office. Plot. The story revolves around a teenager named Karan (Tusshar Kapoor), who frequently skips school. Despite his poor academic performance, he displays other talents. He is clever, an excellent musician, and plays in a band. His father regularly expresses disappointment in him which often leads Karan to have fits of frustration and anger. He sets eyes on Pooja (Kareena Kapoor), for the first time on a deserted street and instantly falls in love with her. Following this, he searches for her, but fails to find her. He slowly begins to lose hope in his quest, stops playing music, and decides to move to another city with his uncle. While on his way there, his car breaks down, and he is forced to hitch a ride in a passing car. To his astonishment, Pooja is the driver. As they introduce themselves to each other, a truck collides with their car, which subsequently falls into a valley. Karan and Pooja find themselves hanging from a cliff and even although Karan manages to haul Pooja back up the precipice, he loses his grip and he falls into the ravine. When Pooja regains consciousness, she assumes responsibility for Karan's death, and offers to help in the search for his body. Meanwhile, Karan has survived the fall, but he is seriously injured and unconscious. He is found by a man who takes him to a hospital and soon after that, Karan is reunited with his family. As he recovers, he reflects on how he should have confessed his love to Pooja in the few moments they spent together. He also begins to focus on his education instead of his music. In time, Pooja arrives at his doorstep to apologise and offer Karan her friendship. The two become good friends and then Pooja tells Karan that she must leave for the United States of America to study. Devastated, he finally confesses his love for her. Pooja also cannot deny her feelings for Karan, and promises that she will return to him once she completes her education. Karan agrees to patiently wait for her to return. Soundtrack. Anu Malik composed the soundtrack for the movie, while Sameer penned the lyrics. The bonus track by KK was added 35 days after the original album was produced, when they had completed the shooting for "Pyaar Re". It was a joint venture after seeing the emotional outburst within Tusshar Kapoor, which highlighted the title track. Sequel. A sequel to the film was announced, however it will only feature Tusshar Kapoor, as Kareena Kapoor declined the role. Many sources also claim that the 2010 film "Milenge Milenge" (which also starred Kareena Kapoor), was an official sequel to "Mujhe Kucch Kehna Hai". This was not confirmed by the director Satish Kaushik.
1593343	Waylon Malloy Payne (born April 5, 1972) is an American country singer, songwriter, musician and actor. He is the son of the country singer Sammi Smith. Early life. Payne was born in Nashville, Tennessee, the son of guitarist Jody Payne and Grammy Award-winning country singer Sammi Smith. His father became a longtime picker for Willie Nelson; his mother toured with Waylon Jennings. Payne is named for Jennings, who is his godfather. Due to the divorce of his parents and their heavy touring schedules, when he was about four months old Payne's mother placed him with her brother and sister-in-law, Bob and Yvonne, in Vidor, Texas. Although he spent summers out on the road with his mother, he lived with his uncle and aunt, who were strict Christians, until he was about age 18. After high school, Payne enrolled in a seminary to become a minister. Payne had also acquired a taste for beer, marijuana, and popular music, which made his downfall complete in the eyes of his aunt and uncle. "I haven't seen them since," he has said. "I was branded a sinner and basically disowned."
1066432	"Beethoven's Big Break (formerly known as Beethoven: The Reel Story and sometimes referred to as Beethoven's 6th") is the sixth installment in the Beethoven film series. It was released on DVD on December 26, 2008. The film was rated PG by the MPAA for some mild rude humor, being the first "Beethoven" film to be rated PG by the MPAA since 1993's "Beethoven's 2nd". The film is also considered to be a reboot of the series, or a stand alone film, as it completely disregards all storylines from the previous five films. Plot. Eddie Bob, a struggling animal trainer and widower dad, is an assistant animal trainer to Sal DeMarco, an untalented, egocentric animal show host. Both men have been hired to train the animals for a film called "Frizzy, The Bichon Frise": Sal as the dog handler, and Eddie is given only the responsibility of training the lizard. When Frizzy is kidnapped, Sal quickly claims that Eddie was responsible for the dog handling. Eddie is promptly fired. The director refuses to pay the ransom and decides to instead hold auditions for the new Frizzy. Meanwhile, Eddie's son, Billy Bob, is walking around town when he discovers a large, stray dog is following him. Billy then brings the dog home and names him Beethoven after the dog shows interest in Ludwig van Beethoven's 5th symphony, after initially trying to call him Wolfgang. Eddie comes home to discover that, not only is his job gone, but now his house is wrecked by an oversized dog adopted by his son. Will soon learns that the one responsible for Frizzy's disappearance is Sal, accompanied by his two other cronies. He admonishes them for not waiting until Frizzy had already shot "some" of the movie, in order to make her valuable. The next day, when auditions are held, the director has trouble finding the right dog to replace Frizzy. Eddie has arrived (with Billy and Beethoven in-tow) to pick up his lizard, Pete. Suddenly, Beethoven bursts in and performs an impressive chase scene with Pete the Lizard, which instantly makes the director love him. Beethoven and Eddie are hired on the spot, and Sal is sacked. To celebrate, Eddie takes Billy and Beethoven out for hamburgers, but Beethoven escapes with the burgers and leads Eddie and Billy on a chase. Finally, they find where Beethoven was going: he had been caring for his three small pups in an alley, as their mother had apparently died. In "Beethoven's 2nd", she wasn't heard from again. Eddie begrudgingly adopts the puppies, as well. Eddie is then charged with having Beethoven perform the requested stunts in the movie. Unfortunately, Beethoven proves to be "untrainable", and instead, often crashes through the scene and making a sloppy mess in the process. Each time, Eddie is prepared to be fired, but the director finds these scenes even more funny and orders the scenes printed for the film. Lisa, the film's writer, requests from Eddie to spend more time with Beethoven so that she can write more appropriately for him. As revenge for being fired, Sal orders his henchmen to kidnap Beethoven for the million-dollar ransom, planning to kill him after the ransom is paid. They kidnap him while Billy is flirting with his crush in the park. Eddie, Billy, Lisa, and the puppies then head to Sal's show stage, which doubles as his secret lair, and rescue Beethoven. Sal and his goons are arrested, and Eddie and Lisa begin a relationship. The film ends with Eddie, Lisa, Billy, Katie, Beethoven, the pups, and Pete the iguana, all enjoying snacks while watching the film's premiere. The end credits have movie title parodies. These include Dog-E, When Hairy Met Frizzy and The Lizard of Oz. During the Gag Reel, Jonathan Silverman refers to Sal DeMarco as "Ned Ryerson". This is because the actor who played Sal, Stephen Tobolowsky, portrayed the character Ned Ryerson in the Bill Murray comedy, Groundhog Day. Sequel. A sequel, "Beethoven's Christmas Adventure", was released in 2011.
582218	Golmaal Returns is a 2008 Bollywood comedy film directed by Rohit Shetty. The film is a sequel to the 2006 film, "" with Ajay Devgn, Tusshar Kapoor and Arshad Warsi reprising their roles, whilst Shreyas Talpade replaced the role originally played by Sharman Joshi. The film also features Kareena Kapoor, Anjana Sukhani, Amrita Arora and Celina Jaitley in supporting roles.
581756	Maqbool (Hindi: मक़बूल, Urdu: مقبُول), a 2003 Indian film directed by Vishal Bhardwaj and starring Pankaj Kapoor, Irfan Khan, Tabu and Masumeh Makhija is an adaptation of the play "Macbeth" by Shakespeare. The plot of the film faithfully follows that of Macbeth with regard to events, and characterisation. The film did not perform remarkably at the box office, but won director Vishal Bhardwaj international acclaim. Apart from directing it, he had also composed the background score and songs for the film. Bhardwaj then moved on to adapting William Shakespeare's Othello in his 2006 film Omkara which won him commercial as well as critical success. The critical success of which, was responsible for winning Francis Ford Coppola's attention.
584616	Malai Malai is a 2009 Tamil language film, starring Arun Vijay and Vedhika in the lead roles. Prabhu and Prakash Raj also have significant roles in the film. The film released on 31 July 2009 and turned out to be a surprise hit at the box office. Plot. Palani Vel (Prabhu) and Vetri Vel (Arun Vijay) are two brothers who eke out a living as a farmer and a mini van driver respectively in a village on the foothills of Palani temple. They are inseparable and they fight, sing and booze together and when Vetri falls in love with a city based RJ Anjali (Vedika) who is on a visit to Palani, he finds another girl Lakshmi (Kasturi) to romance his brother. Meanwhile the village simpleton Vetri goes to Chennai in search of a job and in search of his lady love. He gets a job as a driver in a courier company which also employs people like Vimala Hassan (Santhanam) a crazy fan of Kamal Hassan. Enter the villain Essakki (Prakash Raj) a dreaded don who controls Saidapet area of the city, and soon locks horns with Vetri. The rest of the story moves along predictable lines before the steamy sentimental action packed climax. Production. Casting. Pooja Umashankar walked out of the film due to the film's long delay to start. instead Vedhika was selected. Kasthuri was selected to play an important role making her comeback to Tamil cinema. Filming. Actor Arun Vijay and the cinematographers were arrested by the Thai army when the shoot was on for this film at Ko Man Islands near Pattaya City, It was only when the location manager and the producer explained the story to concerned officials that those arrested were been released, The shooting came to a halt until the crew were been released. The shooting of the film took place in Langavi Islands in Malaysia. Arun Vijay, Choreographer and Vedhika went as a team to the island for shooting. The shooting took place for a long time and by the time crew left it became dark and they missed the way and stranded in the mid sea for more than 2 hours but luckily they were saved. Set of the temple town Palani has been erected at Sriperambadhur for shooting of the film, Since the story of the film happens in Palani, set of the temple including market place, shops and streets have been erected in Sriperambadhur for 50 lakhs. A fight sequence featuring Arun Vijay clashing with the villains has been shot under the guidance of the stunt master Kanal Kannan. Scenes featuring Vedhika is also being shot here. Four cameras are being used for the shooting at this spot. Mumtaj was said to be appearing in an item number which proved false. During the shooting, the makers did a charity work to underprivileged rural areas. These donations have been used to provide adequate number of Ambulance facility to the villages of Ramanadhapuram, Pattukottai, Dindugal. Shooting for the climax has been on at Binny Mills and whilst acting out a stunt sequence involving jumping over the camera, Arun Vijay hurt his rib cage and arm. Luckily, the injuries weren't major and the actor went about shooting the scenes after rest for a couple of hours. Soundtrack. Soundtrack is composed by Mani Sharma. The audio was launched by Suriya in 2009.
588142	Kash… Aap Hamare Hote (Translation: Wish... You Were Mine) is a 2003 Bollywood musical film. The film starred Juhi Babbar in her film debut and was directed by Ravindra Peepat. The original music is by Aadesh Shrivastava. Plot. Amrita (Juhi Babbar) is the adopted daughter of Yashwant Raj Mankotia (Om Puri). Amrita was actually the daughter of late Yashwant Raj's friend. Yashwant has a son, Randeep Raj Mankotia (Sharad Kapoor) who is in Canada. Yashwant plans to get Randeep and Amrita married. Randeep does not want to go to India to visit his father. To make Randeep come Yashwant pretends to have heart trouble. Randeep does not want to leave his business. He gets even more upset when he learns that he is going to marry Amrita. His father says if he does not accept the marriage all his property will go to Amrita. Randeep agrees to the marriage. After the wedding, Randeep and Amrita travel to Canada. When they go to Randeep's house, Amrita meets Simone (Saadhika), Randeep's business partner/spouse. Simone and Randeep humiliate Amrita and she runs away. Randeep gathers some men and orders them to find Amrita and kill her. Amrita then hides in the garage of Jay Kumar (Sonu Nigam) who befriends her. Daljit (Dolly) Brar (Ravee Gupta) is the daughter of Jay's boss, and is jealous of the friendship between them so she fires Jay. Yashwant Raj misses Amrita so he goes to Canada to visit her. When Yashwant asks where Amrita is Randeep lies and says she has humiliated him by taking up alcohol. Yashwant doesn't realise that to get his daughter he has to kill a human being. Critical reception. "Kash... Aap Hamare Hote" did not do well in the box office. Critics say, "The film starts off good but as the drama goes on, the story starts loosening its grip. Juhi Babbar's debut should have been a thriller." Taran Adarsh rated it only one and a half stars out of five and said it is "a run-of-the-mill flick".
1258590	Jamie Jilynn Chung (born April 10, 1983) is an American actress and former reality television personality. She first gained fame in 2004 as a cast member on the MTV reality series, ' and subsequently through her appearances on its spin-off show, '. She later transitioned into acting and has since become known for films, such as "Grown Ups", "Premium Rush", "Sorority Row", "The Hangover Part II", "Princess Protection Program", and "Sucker Punch" and having been the series lead of the ABC Family television miniseries "Samurai Girl". Since 2012, Chung has appeared in the recurring role of Mulan in the ABC fantasy television series "Once Upon a Time". She is regarded as the "Real World" alumna with the most successful media career. Early life. Jamie Chung was born and raised in San Francisco, California. She is a second-generation Korean-American, raised by "traditional" parents, and was described by MTV as someone who "tells it like it is". After graduating from Lowell High School in 2001, Chung attended the University of California, Riverside, where she was a member of Kappa Kappa Gamma sorority. Reality TV work. Chung was a cast member on "", the fourteenth season of MTV's long-running reality TV show, "The Real World", which first aired in 2004. At the time she was selected to be on "The Real World: San Diego", she was described by MTV as a hard-working student who worked two jobs to pay her tuition, but who also enjoyed partying. She was also described by her friends as not having the best taste in men. Six months after Chung and her castmates left the "Real World" house, they appeared to discuss their experiences both during and since their time on the show on "2 Punk Rock 4 This: The Real World San Diego Reunion", which premiered on July 9, 2004. After appearing on "The Real World", Chung appeared on its spin-off game show, "Real World/Road Rules Challenge", as a cast member in that show's 2005 season, during which she was a member of the "Good Guys" team, which squared off against the "Bad Asses". By the end of the season, after several cast members had been eliminated during the competition, Chung remained, along with her fellow Good Guys teammates Darrell Taylor, Landon Lueck, and Mike Mizanin. Chung and her teammates were victorious against the remaining members of the Bad Asses in the final event, and won the competition. Acting career. Since her stint on "The Real World", she began her acting career appearing in various minor roles in television and films, including as Cordy Han in ten episodes of "Days of our Lives", as a Hooters girl in the 2007 comedy "I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry", and in episodes of "" and "Veronica Mars".
418146	Ruby Gentry is a 1952 film, directed by King Vidor and starring Jennifer Jones, Charlton Heston and Karl Malden. Synopsis. Ruby Corey, a poor backwoods girl living in the small North Carolina town of Braddock, is still in love with Boake Tackman. During high school, Ruby had rebuffed his aggressive advances, and was taken in for a couple of years by a kind wealthy businessman and his wife, who protected her and taught her the skills a lady would need. She moved back home when her father needed her help. Boake's family used to be wealthy, but after generations of profligacy all he has left is the land he has had drained and farmed. He starts a relationship with her but plans to marry a local woman with a rich family. When she hears the news, Ruby marries her former benefactor, Mr. Jim Gentry, whose invalid wife had recently died, despite not loving him.
587687	Ashta Chamma is a critically acclaimed 2008 Indian comedy film written and directed by Mohan Krishna Indraganti. Filmed in Telugu, the film deals with four quirky characters interwoven in a romantic narration. The film stars Colours Swathi, Nani, Srinivas Avasarala and Bhargavi in the lead with Tanikella Bharani in a supporting role." The film's idea is similar to that of "The Importance of Being Earnest". Plot. The movie starts with a small introduction that all the female fans of actor Mahesh Babu were "angry" on him when he got married. Even the heroine is one of them, though she is a die hard fan. Although her aunt (Jhansi) keeps telling her that it's not possible to get her married to Mahesh she pays no heed and stays depressed for days. Finally, she compromises with her aunt by demanding that her husband's name must be Mahesh. Her aunt relents and starts the search for the groom, though in vain. Her neighbor, Anand, helps the heroine by searching a seemingly perfect "Mahesh". He becomes friends with him and sees that Mahesh is a classy, handsome guy. Soon, the neighbor introduces the two and the couple seem destined to be together forever—until the twists come with a new heroine, her relationship with "Mahesh" and his past. If their love lasts forever forms the rest of the story. Production. Prior to this film, Indraganti debuted with the National Film Award-winning "Grahanam" (2005) and followed it up with "Mayabazaar" (2006). While working on the characters, the story became more female-centric and thereby departed from Wilde's narration. After working on the story's draft of 225 pages for about two months, he began fine-tuning it for another few months. The film was produced by Ram Mohan, his first production venture. Mohan, a management graduate from Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad, previously worked for UTV Software Communications. While Kalyani Malik was hired to compose the music and the background score, Marthand K. Venkatesh was chosen as film's editor. The film is named after Ashta Chamma, a game from the South Indian state of Andhra Pradesh. The game, which is otherwise known as Ludo, was released as part of the film's promotion. While Indraganti wanted Bhumika Chawla to be cast in the leading role, he chose Colours Swathi in the supporting role. However when he was unsuccessful in hiring Chawla for the film, he promoted Swathi to the lead role. Swati held a good opinion about Indraganti, whom she thought to be quite an educated director. After confirming Swathi for the role, Indraganti was scouting for three more actors to form the primary cast. During this period, Swathi completed the Tamil film, "Subramaniapuram".
1105343	Solomon Wolf Golomb (born May 30, 1932) is an American mathematician, engineer and a professor of electrical engineering at the University of Southern California, best known for his works on mathematical games. Most notably he invented Cheskers in 1948 and coined the name, and fully described, polyominoes and pentominoes in 1953. Polyominoes are the inspiration for the computer game "Tetris". He has specialized in problems of combinatorial analysis, number theory, coding theory and communications.
1063801	Sienna Tiggy Guillory (; born 16 March 1975) is an English actress, and former model. She is known for playing the title role in the TV miniseries, "Helen of Troy", her portrayal of Jill Valentine in the science fiction action horror film "", and as elf princess Arya Dröttningu in fantasy-adventure film, "Eragon". She resumed her role as Jill Valentine for a cameo appearance in the 2010 action-horror film "," and in "," released on September 14, 2012. Early life and family. Born in Kettering, Northamptonshire, England, Guillory is the daughter of the American folk guitarist Isaac Guillory and his first wife, English model Tina Thompson, whom he married in 1973. Isaac Guillory was of Jewish heritage and born at the Guantanamo naval base in Cuba, the son of an American sailor and his Turkish wife. Her parents moved to Fulham, London when Guillory was two, then later to Norfolk when she was eleven. At the age of ten, she went to stay with cousins in Mexico to learn Spanish. She has a half-brother named Jace, whom her father had adopted and with whom she shares the same mother. Her parents divorced in 1990 when she was fourteen, and in 1993, her father married Vickie McMillan, which resulted in a much younger half-sister and half-brother, Ellie and Jacob. Guillory attended Gresham's School in Holt, Norfolk, where she took part in numerous school productions.
1163377	Eileen Heckart (March 29, 1919 – December 31, 2001) was an American actress of film, stage, and television. Early life. Heckart was born Anna Eileen Herbert in Columbus, Ohio, the daughter of Esther Stark, who wed Leo Herbert at her own mother's insistence so her child would not be born with the stigma of illegitimacy. The child was soon after legally adopted by her German American grandfather, J.W. Heckart, the surname by which she was known for her whole life. She had two stepsisters, Anne and Marilyn. She graduated from Ohio State University with a B.A. in drama. Career. Heckart began her Broadway career as the assistant stage manager and an understudy for "The Voice of the Turtle" in 1943. Her many credits include "Picnic", "The Bad Seed", "A View from the Bridge", "A Memory of Two Mondays", "The Dark at the Top of the Stairs", "A Family Affair", "Barefoot in the Park", "Butterflies Are Free", "You Know I Can't Hear You When the Water's Running", "Ladies at the Alamo" and "The Cemetery Club". In 2000, at the age of 81, she appeared Off Broadway in Kenneth Lonergan’s "The Waverly Gallery" and received more awards for a single performance in a single season than any actress in theatre history, including The Drama Desk Award, The Lucille Lortel Award, The Drama League Award and The Outer Critics Circle Award. That same year, she was inducted into the Theatre Hall of Fame and received an honorary Tony Award for lifetime achievement. Her other awards include the 1953 Theatre World Award for "Picnic". Her nominations include a 1996 Drama Desk Award for "Northeast Local" and Tony nominations for "Butterflies Are Free (play)", "Invitation to a March", and "The Dark at the Top of the Stairs". She was granted three honorary doctorates by Sacred Heart University, Niagara University and Ohio State University. Heckart won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress for her work in the 1972 movie adaptation of "Butterflies Are Free" and was nominated in 1956 for her performance as the bereaved, besotted Mrs. Daigle in "The Bad Seed". She also appeared as a Vietnam War widow with Clint Eastwood in "Heartbreak Ridge". Heckart played Diane Keaton's meddling mother in the 1996 comedy film "The First Wives Club". She appeared in the Saturn Award-winning horror film "Burnt Offerings" in 1976 alongside Bette Davis (although they shared no scenes). Heckart was familiar to television audiences with starring roles in "The Five Mrs. Buchanans", "Annie McGuire", "Out of the Blue", "Trauma Center", "Partners in Crime", "Backstairs at the White House" (Emmy nomination as Eleanor Roosevelt), and guest spots on "The Fugitive", "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" (two Emmy nominations as journalist Flo Meredith, a role she carried over to a guest appearance on MTM's spinoff "Lou Grant"), "Rhoda", "Alice", "Murder One", "Hawaii Five-O", "Gunsmoke", "Cybill", "The Cosby Show", and many other shows. Heckart played two unrelated characters on the daytime soap opera "One Life to Live". During the 1980s, she played Ruth Perkins, the mother of Allison Perkins, who had kidnapped the newborn baby of heroine Viki Lord Buchanan under orders from phony evangelist and mastermind criminal Mitch Laurence. During the early 1990s, she played the role of Wilma Bern, mother of upstate Pennsylvania mob boss Carlo Hesser and his meek twin, Mortimer Bern. She appeared in the 1954 NBC legal drama "Justice", based on case files of the Legal Aid Society of New York. She also appeared in an episode of the NBC medical drama about psychiatry, "The Eleventh Hour", "There Should Be an Outfit Called 'Families Anonymous!'" (1963). Personal life. Heckart was married to John Harrison Yankee, Jr. from 1942 until his death in 1997. Her son Luke Yankee is the author of "Just Outside the Spotlight: Growing Up with Eileen Heckart" (ISBN 0-8230-7888-4), published by Back Stage Books in 2006. Death. On December 31, 2001, Heckart died of lung cancer at her home in Norwalk, Connecticut at the age of 82. She was survived by her three children and her two stepsisters. Legacy. She established the "Eileen Heckart Collection" at Ohio State University's Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee Theatre Research Institute, with her notes, copies of scripts, and personal papers. In 2005, the Eileen Heckart Drama for Seniors Competition was established in her memory by Ohio State's Department of Theatre. Her sons also established a scholarship at Ohio State in her name. Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Heckart has a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6162 Hollywood Blvd.
1065744	Martin Starr (born Martin James Pflieger Schienle; July 30, 1982) is an American actor, known for his television roles as Bill Haverchuck on the short-lived NBC comedy-drama "Freaks and Geeks" and Roman DeBeers on the Starz comedy series "Party Down", as well as for his film roles for "Knocked Up", "Cheats", and "Adventureland". Personal life. Starr was born in Santa Monica, California, the son of Jean St. James (née Pflieger), an actress, and Jim Schienle, an instructor at Pasco-Hernando Community College. His father is from Wisconsin and his mother is from Kansas. His ancestry includes German, Austrian, Hungarian, Czech, Polish, English, and Scots-Irish. Career. After "Freaks and Geeks", Starr had a number of guest appearances and one-time roles on shows such as "Ed", "Mysterious Ways", "Providence", "King of the Hill", and "Normal, Ohio". He had a small recurring role during the third season of "Roswell" as the character Monk. In 2002, Starr appeared in the films "Stealing Harvard" and "Cheats". He also reunited with both "Freaks and Geeks" producer Judd Apatow and "Freaks and Geeks" co-star Seth Rogen when he made a guest appearance on Apatow's situational comedy "Undeclared" in the episode "The Perfect Date". In 2005, he appeared in the miniseries "Revelations", the CBS sitcom "How I Met Your Mother" and the Apatow-produced "Kicking & Screaming". Starr's roles include Apatow's 2007 films "Knocked Up" and "Superbad", as well as "Good Dick" (2008) and "Adventureland" (2009). He appeared in the films "The Invention of Lying" and "A Good Old Fashioned Orgy" and had a cameo appearance in "The Incredible Hulk" as a computer nerd college lab student. In 2012, he appeared in a music video for the song "Pop Culture" by Madeon, a French electro-house producer. Since 2011, he has costarred on the Adult Swim television series "".
134750	Jannat 2 is a 2012 Bollywood crime thriller film and the sequel to the 2008 movie, "Jannat". The film is written by Shagufta Rafiq, directed by Kunal Deshmukh, produced by Mahesh Bhatt and Mukesh Bhatt and features Emraan Hashmi, Randeep Hooda and Esha Gupta in lead roles. The storyline is based on the issue of illegal arms in Delhi. The movie was given an 'A' certificate from the Indian Censor Board due to its violent content and language. It was released on 4 May 2012, to mixed reviews and was called a "Hit" by Box Office India. Plot. Sonu's world is shaken to the core when he realises, after his marriage to Jhanvi, that Jhanvi's estranged father, Mangal Singh Tomar (Manish Choudhary), is actually the leader of the arms business in Delhi, and is the one whom Pratap has been looking for. However, Sonu manages to convince Mangal that he is a corrupt and shrewd person who will be of use to his gang. Mangal embraces Sonu as his next in command. Sonu, caught between the devil and the deep sea, starts playing a double game. He neither gives information to the ACP, nor tells Mangal the truth about him being a police informer. Secretly he plans to run away with Jhanvi, so that he can live a peaceful life with her. However, things get risky once an mysterious informer in the police force tells Mangal about Sonu's truth. During a shootout, Mangal finds out the truth about Sonu, and takes his whole gang after him. Sonu, on the run, rings ACP Pratap for help. Pratap then brings his whole police force to the scene. There, Sonu is surrounded by Mangal's gang, which is then gunned down by the police chief commissioner. Only Sonu, Mangal and the chief left, it turns out that the chief is actually Mangal's informer, and they both chase Sonu to a deserted area. There, Sonu meets Pratap and tells him he is done and leaves to go to his wife. However he is shot by the chief. Pratap seeing Sonu get killed, shoots the chief commissioner and Mangal multiple times, leading to their deaths. In the hospital, during Sonu's last words, he tells Pratap that his wife Jhanvi should not know about his death, and Pratap should tell her that he was a criminal who committed a robbery and ran away. After his death, Pratap goes to his house and informs Jhanvi that Sonu has ran away from the city. Jhanvi, heartbroken, thinks straight and forgets Sonu, and moves away to carry on life as normal. Production. "Jannat 2" began filming in October 2011, at the lines of Delhi Airport Metro Express. The shooting finally completed on 17 January 2012. The title of the film was earlier known as "Informer" and then "Blood Money", however these titles didn't receive positive feedback, therefore director Kunal Deshmukh decided to make the film a sequel to "Jannat". Many actresses such as Prachi Desai, Esha Gupta, Kangna Ranaut, Jacqueline Fernandez, Paoli Dam and others were reported to be assigned as the female lead of the film, however, Gupta was chosen amongst the others. Controversy. Mumbai based writer Kapil Chopra has filed a case against Bhatt's for stealing his script for Jannat 2. The Bombay High Court has asked the Bhatts to deposit Rs1 million for the alleged plagiarism. Soundtrack. The music of "Jannat 2" is composed by Pritam Chakraborty, with lyrics penned by Sayeed Qadri. Critical reception. The soundtrack of "Jannat 2" received positive reviews. Jitendra Tiwari of Bollywood Hungama gave the album 4/5 stars, saying that "Jannat 2 is a terrific album which has practically each and every song working for it. A genre album which has love forming an integral part of the affairs, it ensures that each of the songs complement each other in a seamless manner." Satyajit of Glamsham gave the album 4/5 stars, stating that "JANNAT 2 delivers entertainment, entertainment and entertainment for all rock and sufi music lovers, and should probably add one more musical success in the connoisseur's kitty. Worth-a-buy!!!" The Times of India gave the album 4/5 stars, concluding that "The music of " Jannat 2" lives up to your expectations and is an absolute delight for music lovers. Thumbs-up to "Jannat 2" music." Atta Khan of Planet Bollywood gave the album 7.5/10 stars, saying that "Jannat 2 is undoubtedly a good soundtrack but it doesn’t come with a special aura that the original carried – this is precisely why it was such a big ask to follow up." Mitesh Saraf of Planet Bollywood gave the album 7.5/10 stars, stating that "Jannat 2 is a typical Pritam and Bhatt soundtrack which will definitely rule the charts for the next one month, especially "Tujhe Sochta Hu", "Rab Ka Shukrana" and "Tu Hi Mera"." Music Aloud gave the album 6.5/10 stars, concluding that "Barring a couple of songs, Jannat 2 is same old Bhatt. And I have to grudgingly accept, it still works for most part, despite the repeat." Release. "Jannat 2" released on 4 May 2012, in 1975 screens at 1575 theatres across India. Critical reception. "Jannat 2" received mixed response from critics. Taran Adarsh of Bollywood Hungama gave the film 4/5 stars, saying that "On the whole, JANNAT 2 is an engaging film with tremendous appeal for the masses. An absorbing story, a swift and coherent narrative, exemplary direction, fantastic action, soothing music and stellar performances summarize the highlights of this triumphant franchise." Gaurav Malani of Economic Times gave the film 4/5 stars, stating that "Overlook a few of its sinful indulgences and Jannat 2 can turn out to be a hell of a ride!" Indicine gave the film 3/5 stars, concluding that "Jannat 2 is a typical Bhatt film – it has a bit of everything; great music, romance, good performances, light-hearted moments and love-making scenes." Mrigank Dhaniwala of Koimoi gave the film 3/5 stars, saying that "On the whole, Jannat 2 is an entertaining fare from Vishesh Films. If you go in expecting that, you won’t be disappointed." Madhureeta Mukherjee of The Times of India gave the film 3/5 stars, stating that "Jannat 2 is a decent crime caper, but doesn't shoot you between the eyes." Rajeev Masand of CNN-IBN gave the film 2.5/5 stars, concluding that "I'm going with two-and-a-half out of five for director Kunal Deshmukh's Jannat 2. It could've been better, but it's not a terrible way to spend an evening out." Kanika Sikka of DNA gave the film 2/5 stars, saying that "The sequel of the 2008 film Jannat, the film is a predictable, yet partly gripping tale of a small-time brat who faces the results of his own deeds. Jannat 2 is worth a one-time watch, since there aren't many options for the movie-goers this weekend." Zee News gave the film 2/5 stars, stating that "Watch "Jannat 2" for its catchy numbers (better still, buy a CD!). And since there aren’t many options this weekend, you can count that as a reason to go watch the movie!" Martin D'Souza of Glamsham gave the film 2/5 stars, concluding that "Kunal Deshmukh's JANNAT 2 can be best described as patchy. The storyline lacks imagination and given this backdrop, he tries his best to weave a plot into the scenes. By the way, this film could have been called by any other name. It's not a sequel!" Mansha Rastogi of Now Running gave the film 2/5 stars, saying that "Filmmaker Kunal Deshmukh falters in bringing a semblance between the stark plot and romantic mush in the film and that's where Jannat 2 majorly lags. He gives in to a lot of cliches throughout the film for example, the deadbeat love-at-first-sight syndrome, the sudden inclination of Esha Gupta towards Emraan Hashmi or even the sequence where Randeep Hooda barges into the hospital yelling "It's an emergency, it's an emergency". Overall, Jannat 2 isn't half as enticing as its first part. Watch it for Randeep Hooda or if you are a big fan of Emraan Hashmi." Dainik Bhaskar gave the film 1.5/5 stars, stating that "For all those Emraan's fans, who can endure anything to see him on-screen- this one's for you. But still we would say, beware. This Jannat is far away from fairytales!" Meetu of Wogma gave the film 1.5/5 stars, concluding that "Overall, Jannat 2 is another one of those standard crime romances to come out of the Bhatt stable – only less engaging than the average Vishesh Films' product." Sonia Chopra of Sify gave the film 1.5/5 stars, saying that "A tired story with cliched characters propped-up by an OD on machismo, some dialogue-baazi, and a gorgeous heroine does not a film make. At least not one worth watching." Kunal Guha of Yahoo! gave the film 1/5 stars, stating that "If there is a Jannat anywhere, it is outside the screen playing this film." Raja Sen of Rediff gave the film 1/5 stars, concluding that "A lot would have been forgiven – as it often is with these producers – if the film had either a meatier plot or a more gripping narrative, but this one's just tiresome as the obvious story drags on. A couple of chase sequences, particularly one through the arteries of a Dargah, are slickly shot, but even these lose their charm as they get needlessly long-winded." Box office. The movie earned worldwide. India. "Jannat 2" opened strongly at the box office, collecting nett on its first day. The film collected on its second day and in its third day. The film collected in its first weekend. The film collected in its first week. The movie was declared as a "Hit", collecting in two weeks. It finished at around in India. Overseas. "Jannat 2" was poor at the overseas, collecting $500,000.
1150710	Dick Warlock (born February 5, 1940) is an American actor and stuntman. He is best known for playing Michael Myers in "Halloween II" and he was Kurt Russell's personal stunt double for over 25 years.
1057021	Looking for Eric is a 2009 French/Belgian/British/Spanish film about the escape from the trials of modern life that football and its heroes can bring for its fans. It was written by screen writer Paul Laverty and directed by English director Ken Loach. The film's cast includes former professional footballer Eric Cantona and former bassist with The Fall, Steve Evets. Director Ken Loach said of the film, "We wanted to deflate the idea of celebrities as more than human. And we wanted to make a film that was enjoying the idea of what you and I would call solidarity, but what others would call support for your friends really, and the old idea that we are stronger as a team than we are as individuals." Plot. Eric Bishop is a football fanatic postman whose life is descending into crisis. Looking after his granddaughter is bringing him into contact with his ex-wife, Lily, whom he abandoned after the birth of their daughter. At the same time, his stepson Ryan is hiding a gun under the floorboards of his bedroom for a violent drugs baron. At his lowest moments Bishop considers suicide. But after a short meditation session with fellow postmen in his living room, and smoking cannabis stolen from his stepson, hallucinations bring forth his footballing hero, the famously philosophical Eric Cantona, who gives him advice. His relationship with Lily improves dramatically. Bishop finds the gun and confronts his stepson. Ryan admits to his involvement with the drugs gang, and Bishop attempts to return the gun to the gangster. He is forced to keep it himself, however, when a Rottweiler is set on him in his car. The gangster then posts footage on YouTube of Bishop's humiliation. The entire family is then arrested by the police on a tip-off but they fail to find the gun. Eric Cantona then advises Bishop to seek help from his friends and to 'surprise' himself. Bishop organises 'Operation Cantona', sneaking dozens of fellow Manchester United fans – wearing Cantona masks – into the gangster's house and humiliating him and his family, threatening to put the video of their operation onto YouTube, in turn. The movie ends at Bishop's daughter's graduation day, where the family re-unites in peace. Production. The film was shot on location in Greater Manchester by Ken Loach's company Sixteen Films. Release. The film competed in the main competition at the 62nd Cannes Film Festival. It had its UK premiere on 1 June in Lowry Outlet Mall in Salford Quays, attended by Eric Cantona, and was the gala presentation at the opening night of the Sydney Film Festival on 3 June. The film was released in the United Kingdom and Ireland on 12 June. The film was supposed to screen at the Melbourne International Film Festival, but five days before opening night Loach withdrew his film citing a "campaign to target events that are in receipt of financial support from the State of Israel". Cast. Songwriter and Manchester United fan Pete Boyle appears in the film as the songleader on the coach. Screenplay. The book for "Looking For Eric" is published by Route Publishing, it features the full screenplay, including extra scenes, colour photographs from the film and on set, plus introductions from Paul Laverty, Ken Loach, Eric Cantona and production notes from the cast and crew. Reception. As of December 2011, "Looking for Eric" has a rating of 84% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. The film won the Magritte Award for Best Co-Production.
1063533	Gigli (, ) is a 2003 American romantic comedy film written and directed by Martin Brest and starring Ben Affleck, Jennifer Lopez, Al Pacino, Christopher Walken and Lainie Kazan. After a protracted battle between studio and director, a radically revised version of the original film was released. There was significant media attention and popular interest prior to its release, primarily because Affleck and Lopez, the film's stars, were romantically involved at the time. Critical reception was extremely negative, and in the years since its release "Gigli" has frequently been cited as among one of the worst films ever made. Plot. Larry Gigli is a low-ranking Los Angeles mobster who isn't nearly as tough as he likes to act. He is commanded to kidnap the mentally challenged younger brother of a powerful federal prosecutor to save New York-based mob boss Starkman from prison. Gigli successfully convinces the young man, Brian, to go off with him by promising to take him "to the Baywatch", which seems to be Brian's singular obsession, and turns out to just be the beach. The man who ordered the kidnapping, Louis, does not trust Gigli to get the job done right, so he hires a woman calling herself Ricki to take charge. Gigli is attracted to Ricki, but he resents the fact that Louis does not have faith in him and that he has to take orders from a woman. He is also frustrated by Brian's insistence on going to "the Baywatch" and by Ricki's being a lesbian. The events take a darker turn when Gigli and Ricki receive orders to cut off Brian's thumb, something neither wants to do. Worse, Ricki's girlfriend, Robin, shows up at Gigli's apartment, accusing her of cheating. She slits her wrists and has to be rushed to the hospital. While at the hospital, Gigli goes to the morgue and cuts off a corpse's thumb, which he sends to his boss as Brian's thumb. Gigli and Ricki go back to his apartment where Gigli confesses his love, and the two sleep together. They are summoned to meet with the mob's boss. Starkman reveals that he didn't approve of the plan to kidnap a federal prosecutor's brother and scolds them because the thumb they sent won't match Brian's fingerprint; he then kills Louis. Starkman is about to kill Ricki and Gigli as well, but Ricki talks him out of it. They decide to take Brian back to where they found him. On the way, they discover "Baywatch" (or a similarly themed show or film) shooting an episode on the beach. They leave a happy Brian there, and at the last minute, Ricki decides to leave town with Gigli. Reception. Box office. "Gigli" was considered a box office bomb, grossing less than $4 million in its opening weekend after costing $75.6 million to produce. The film also set a record to date for the biggest second-weekend drop in box office gross of any film in wide release since that statistic was kept; it dropped by almost 82% in its second weekend compared to its first. By its third weekend in release, only 73 U.S. theaters were showing it, down from 2,215 during its first weekend, a drop of 97%. Critical reception. Critical reception was extremely negative. "Gigli" scored 6% on Rotten Tomatoes based on 171 reviews, with the site's consensus being: "Bizarre and clumsily plotted, "Gigli" is a mess. As for its stars, Affleck and Lopez lack chemistry." It scored 18% on Metacritic based on 37 reviews, meaning "extreme dislike". On "Ebert and Roeper", critics Roger Ebert and Richard Roeper both gave the film thumbs down, although Ebert showed some sympathy towards the film, stating it had "clever dialogue", but was "...too disorganized for me to recommend it". Roeper called the film "a disaster" and "one of the worst movies I've ever seen". He then included "Gigli" on his 100 worst movies of the decade at #7. Its title was named by the Global Language Monitor as one of the top words from Hollywood having an impact on the English language in 2003. Late night talk show hosts in particular lampooned the film in their monologues; Conan O'Brien said "The Mets are doing so badly that they will be renamed 'The New York Gigli.'" The film was withdrawn from U.S. theatres after only three weeks (one of the shortest circulation times for a big-budget movie), earning a total of only $6 million domestically and $1 million abroad. In the UK, the film was dropped by virtually every cinema after critics panned it.
1080546	Dennis the Menace Strikes Again (Also known as: Dennis 2: Dennis Strikes Again) is a 1998 direct-to-video sequel to the 1993 theatrical feature "Dennis the Menace". It was produced by Outlaw Productions and released by Warner Bros. on July 14, 1998. None of the cast from the first film appear in this sequel. Plot. Dennis Mitchell (Justin Cooper) is finally back, and worse than ever. At the beginning of the movie, he goes over to Mr. Wilson's (Don Rickles) house to offer him one of several gifts for his birthday. These include lizards, snakes, bugs, and other creatures. This ordeal ends with Mr. Wilson unintentionally riding down a flight of stairs in Dennis' red wagon and accidentally getting his birthday cake thrown in his face by Martha (Betty White). Soon after this incident, Mr. Johnson, Dennis' grandfather (George Kennedy), shows up and announces that he is moving in with the Mitchells. Dennis starts spending more time with him than his annoyed neighbor. Mr. Wilson, upset that he's getting older, gets tricked by two con men (Brian Doyle-Murray and Carrot Top) who try to talk him into buying a "rare" root used to make tea to make people younger.
584631	Kamna Jethmalani is an Indian film actress. She debuted in 2005 with the Telugu film "Premikulu" and had her first commercial success with her third feature film "Ranam". Subsequently, she played the lead role in a number of Telugu-language films, while also debuting and appearing in Tamil, Malayalam and Kannada films. Early life. She is the granddaughter of businessman late Syam Jethmalani. Her childhood pet name is "Dinky". Her mother Divya is a housewife and her father Nimesh Jethmalani is a businessman. She has two siblings- brother Kapil and sister Karishma. She was a runner-up at the Miss Mumbai contest in 2004 and also appeared in the music video of the pop song 'Chod do Aanchal Zamaana Kya Kahega' by Bombay Vikings. Career. She appeared in the video of "Chodd Do Aanchal Zamaana Kyaa Kehega" by Bombay Vikings in 2004. The following year, she made her movie debut with the Telugu film "Premikulu". Though that film flopped, her second film "Ranam" was a big hit. Her first Tamil film was Idhaya Thirudan with Jayam Ravi. She did an item number in the film "Sainikudu". She has acted in "Machakaaran" opposite Jeevan. Since then, she has done several south Indian films, in which she performed the lead role.
1162568	Barrie Chase (born October 20, 1933) is an American actress and dancer originally from Long Island, New York. When she was six, her father, writer Borden Chase, moved the family to California so he could start his screenwriting career. She grew up in Encino, and studied ballet. She abandoned her dream of being a ballerina in New York to stay in Los Angeles and help support her mother, pianist Lee Keith, after her parents' divorce. Performing career. She danced on such live TV programs as "The Colgate Comedy Hour" and "The Chrysler Shower of Stars". It was while she was working as Jack Cole's assistant choreographer at MGM that Fred Astaire asked her to be his dancing partner on "An Evening with Fred Astaire". She made four television appearances as Astaire's partner in his television specials between 1958 and 1968. Chase also danced alongside Astaire on the television program "Hollywood Palace" in 1966. During this period, she also dated Astaire, who was a widower. She appeared on the syndicated talk show version of "The Donald O'Connor Show". Chase worked in the chorus of many Hollywood musicals, including "Hans Christian Andersen", "Brigadoon", "Call Me Madam", "Deep in My Heart", "Kismet", "Les Girls", "Pal Joey", and two Fred Astaire films, "Daddy Long Legs" and "Silk Stockings". She appeared in "White Christmas" (starring Bing Crosby, Danny Kaye, Rosemary Clooney, and Vera-Ellen) as the chorus girl with the famous line, "Mutual, I'm sure."
585175	Charuhasan (born 1930) is an Indian film actor, acting mostly in South Indian movies. He was born in 1930 to D. Srinivasan. He is the elder brother of Kamal Haasan. He won the National Film Award for Best Actor and also the Karnataka Government's Best Actor Award for the movie Tabarana Kathe, directed by Girish Kasaravalli in 1987. Charuhasan is the father of Indian actress Suhasini Maniratnam and the brother of Kamal Haasan. He has also acted in several other Kannada and Tamil movies. His other notable movies include Dalapathi which was directed by his son-in-law Maniratnam. He also acted for a short time in Sun TV's serial Anandham. Charuhasan is an avid amateur radio operator (callsign - VU2SCU). He lives in Chennai. Before entering the film industry, he was a lawyer. He had a different schooling to other children his age; due to an accident he was unable to attend school for the first few years of his life and had a private tutor give him a basic education. Filmography. Kannada Malayalam Tamil Telugu
1293607	Rosario Tijeras is a 2005 Colombian film based on the book of the same name written by Jorge Franco. The film was released in Colombia in 2005. In that same year the film had its North American premiere at the American Film Institute festival in Hollywood. The film also was nominated for a Goya Award for best foreign film. "Rosario Tijeras" is reportedly the second highest-grossing film in Colombian history. Plot. The movie, based on a book by Jorge Franco, deals with the life of a beautiful woman involved with the subculture of sicarios, the motorcycle-riding hitmen of the slums of Medellín, Colombia, in the late 1980s-early 1990s. Rosario, a dangerous woman who was molested and raped as a child, and now claiming to be owned by no man, lives a life on the edge while trying to come to terms with her past and the men in her life, not making the best choices along the way. The film is told in flashback from the point of view of Antonio, a young man from the upper class of Medellín. While at a Medellín disco one night, both he and his best friend, Emilio, simultaneously lay eyes upon the beautiful Rosario. Emilio pursues her and begins an affair with her. However, Emilio's family rejects the relationship, which crushes Emilio. Antonio continues his own platonic relationship with Rosario as her confidante. When Rosario's brother, Jonhefe, with whom Rosario lives, is killed, Antonio and Rosario grow closer. However, Rosario, who specializes in murdering men while kissing them, is a marked woman, and she eventually meets her comeuppance. Antonio takes her to the emergency room, from where he relates her story. TV series. RCN is produced a TV series that is currently being shown on its network in Colombia. Telefutura showed the series in the United States from July 12, 2010 to October 4, 2010 after replacing Las muñecas de la mafia. María Fernanda Yépez, Colombian actress, stars as Rosario Tijeras in the TV series. Currently, Telefutura's successor, Unimás, is rebroadcasting the novela in place of the recently cancelled "¿Quién Eres Tú?. The TV series tells the story of Rosario Tijeras (Maria Fernanda Yepez), a woman raised in a slum that was 18 years old when she was raped by a local gang, and which causes her to change for the better after her classmate was killed by a drug lord, El Papa. Rosario avenges her rape by cutting El Cache's testes with scissors (hence the name, Rosario Tijerias) and purposely goes to the market of her stepfather to get picked up to go to El Papa's house so she can execute her plan. Once Rosario is alone in his bedroom, she grabs a gun he hid in a cabinet and kills him behind a pillow. After news spreads she killed El Papa, Rosario Tijeras gains notoriety and is sought out by El Rey De Los Cielos (The King of the Heavens) to become an assassin. Along the way, she has a stormy love affair with her two inseparable friends from wealthy families, Antonio de Bedout (Andres Sandoval) and Emilio Echegaray (Sebastián Martínez). The story takes a five year jump from 1999 to 2004, where Rosario meets Emilio at a nightclub after she killed a target. Antonio notices her for the first time in five years and seeks to be with her once again. Their lives are separated by Rosario, which traps them and takes them to a world full of dangers, where she is a victim and instrument of death and they receive a deadly fate thanks in part to a woman they loved before Rosario, Paula Restrepo, who seeks to destroy Rosario for ruining her love life and at the end she is left without her best friend and husband. Rosario pays the ultimate price when she kills the brother of El Rey, El Teo, who killed her brother (Jhonefe), her close friend (Ferney) who tried to kill her by Teo's orders, her unborn baby in a shootout, and Emilio at the cemetery. Rosario and Antonio plan their escape to Spain but are stopped short by El Rey's men who fulfill his orders and kill both. The series ends with Rosario having a makeshift memorial made near her old home where she lived.
1165275	Ellen Hansen Corby (June 3, 1911 – April 14, 1999) was an American actress. She is most widely remembered for the role of "Grandma Esther Walton" on the CBS television series "The Waltons", for which she won three Emmy Awards. She was also nominated for an Academy Award for her performance as Aunt Trina in "I Remember Mama." Early life. Ellen Hansen was born in Racine, Wisconsin to immigrant parents from Denmark. She grew up in Philadelphia. An interest in amateur theater while in high school led her to Atlantic City in 1932, where she briefly worked as a chorus girl. She moved to Hollywood that same year and got a job as a script girl at RKO Studios and Hal Roach Studios, where she often worked on the "Our Gang" comedies, alongside her future husband, cinematographer Francis Corby. She held that position for the next twelve years and took acting lessons on the side.
589207	Chori Chori is a 1956 Hindi film directed by Anant Thakur, with music by Shankar Jaikishan and lyrics by Hasrat Jaipuri and Shailendra. The film is unofficial remake of the Hollywood movie, "It Happened One Night" and to suit the Indian culture the Hollywood story was modified and presented as Chori Chori. The film stars Raj Kapoor and Nargis. Bhagwan Dada, Pran, David, and Johnny Walker have character parts. This was the last film of Nargis-Raj Kapoor pair and the pair ended their affair with this film. Nargis started Mother India after this film and later met her prospective husband Sunil Dutt. The music was yet another thrilling endeavour of Shankar Jaikishan, with tracks ranging soothing melodies such as "Aaja Sanam" and "Yeh raat Bheegi Bheegi" in voices of Lata Mangeshkar and Manna Dey, to fast beat songs such as "Jahan Mein Jati Hun" by Lata and Manna and "Sawa Lakh ki Lottery," with the vocals of the maestro Mohammad Rafi. The movie would later inspire the 1990s Hindi re-make "Dil Hai Ke Manta Nahin", which was un-officially remake of Chori Chori. The 1991 movie presented by Mahesh Bhatt starring Aamir Khan and Pooja Bhatt in 1991, is scene by scene a copy of this 1956 film. Dil Hai Ki Manta Nahin like the first one 'Chori Chori' too became a hit. Plot. Kammo lives a very wealthy lifestyle with her widowed multi-millionaire dad, Girhdarilal, who would like her to get married to someone who is not after their wealth. To his dismay, she chooses to marry a pilot named Sumankumar, who is known to womanize and for his greed. When he disapproves, she runs away. He advertises for her safe return and offers to pay Rs.1.25 lakh to the finder. Four days later, Kammo returns and she is not the same anymore; she is more humble, sober, and respectful. Fully appreciative of this, Girdharilal agrees to her marriage to Sumankumar. Just before the marriage, a man named Sagar approaches them — this visit will change their lives forever.
1056214	At Long Last Love is a 1975 American musical romantic comedy film written, produced, and directed by Peter Bogdanovich and stars Burt Reynolds and Cybill Shepherd. The film pays homage to the great Hollywood musicals of the 1930s such as "Swing Time" and "Top Hat". It features 18 songs with music and lyrics by Cole Porter. Plot. Four socialites unexpectedly clash: heiress Brooke Carter runs into gambler Johnny Spanish at the race track while playboy Michael O. Pritchard nearly runs into stage star Kitty O'Kelly with his car. Backstage at Kitty's show, it turns out she and Brooke are old friends who attended public school together. The foursome do the town, accompanied by Brooke's companion Elizabeth, who throws herself at Michael's butler and chauffeur Rodney James. The four friends change partners at a party, where Brooke and Michael step outside behind the backs of Kitty and Johnny. In an effort to make the others jealous, Kitty and Johnny begin a romance and genuinely fall in love, as do Brooke and Michael, and (eventually) Elizabeth and Rodney. Production. Bogdanovich originally announced the cast would be Shepherd, Madeleine Khan, Ryan O'Neal and the director himself. He was inspired by the films of Lubitsch. Cybill Shepherd had recorded an album of Cole Porter songs paid for by Paramount. Resisting the urge to shoot another film in Black and White, Bogdanovich had it art directed as "Black and White in Color." The film is unique as it was the first film since the early 1930s in which all of the musical numbers were recorded live, without the actors lip-synching to a previously recorded soundtrack. (This method was also used by Rex Harrison for his songs in My Fair Lady and by Barbra Streisand for the climactic "My Man" in Funny Girl) At Long Last Love is also unusual in that most of the musical numbers were performed in one continuous take. Bogdanovich says the film was originally called "Quadrille"and was equally weighted between the four lead characters. Reception. The film opened in March 1975 to scathing reviews and poor box office returns, prompting Bogdanovich to have an open letter of apology printed in newspapers throughout the U.S. Bogdanovich later said the film was rushed into release: That was a disaster and unfortunately people say to me now "Gee, I really like that picture, why was it so attacked?" But the people who are reacting to that now have only seen the recut version which was the one I recut after it opened, you see. It was an original musical comedy and we only had two previews. Two. The first one was a total disaster in San Jose and the second one in Denver was OK. It played. But then I made some more changes to it because of pressure from the studio and didn't preview that version. So that version which had never previewed opened and it was the worst version there was. It was fucked. Then I saw that playing and I realized what I needed to do, but by then it was too late. It was overconfidence on the part of the studio, because the studio really liked the movie, that was the funny thing. They liked it, they thought it was terrific but in a musical, well in anything, it all has to do with construction. And in a musical particularly, the balance between the musical numbers and the dialogue has to be delicate and I just was still too inexperienced to realize how critical that was and so after the picture had opened it was declared a bomb. The only place it made money was at the Music Hall. Then I realized how I should have cut it after that and I immediately did cut it, they let me recut and I think I paid for that, and that version was then shown on television and that's the version that all release prints have been ever since. That was quite different from the opening version. Very different, but unfortunately it was too late. Despite the negative reviews, Roger Ebert gave the film a mildly positive review, writing "It's impossible not to feel affection for "At Long Last Love," Peter Bogdanovich's much-maligned evocation of the classical 1930s musical. It's a light, silly, impeccably stylish entertainment...The movie's no masterpiece, but I can't account for the viciousness of some of the critical attacks against it. It's almost as if Bogdanovich is being accused of the sin of pride for daring to make a musical in the classical Hollywood style... Bogdanovich has too much taste, too sure a feel for the right tone, to go seriously wrong. And if he doesn't go spectacularly right, at least he provides small pleasures and great music." In a documentary of his career, Bogdanovich has said he regretted that the film was hastily cut prior to theatrical release based on reactions to only two studio previews. He subsequently recut the film himself, before it reached cable and regular TV, and has stated many people who first saw it in this version did not react so badly to the film. Years later, "At Long Last Love" was included as one of the choices in the book "The Fifty Worst Films of All Time". Home media. "At Long Last Love" was only released once on videocassette, by Magnetic Video in 1981. In addition, there were different versions (each with different scenes and numbers added and missing) floating around among fans and collectors, from 16mm prints and various TV broadcasts. The director dismissed the film as a painful memory until around 2011 when he was told it was streaming on Netflix and people were liking it. For the first time in many years he watched it himself, and for the first time in years, he liked what he saw. But it was not his cut. It was discovered that a longtime studio editor named Jim Blakely had secretly assembled another version of the film (running approximately 121 minutes) which more closely resembled Bogdanovich's shooting script and first preview cut. He quietly substituted it as the default version as early as 1979, and that was the version made available to Netflix. As a result of Netflix streaming and showings on Fox Movie Channel this version helped turn the tide and change the picture's fate. The director has gratefully acknowledged Jim Blakely, who died before anyone learned what he had done. After finding out how it happened, Bogdanovich called Fox to say he liked that version. He made some refinements, including 90 seconds of restored footage, bringing the final running time to 123 minutes. The studio released it as the "Definitive Director's Version" on Blu Ray disc in June 2013, resulting in more positive reviews than the theatrical version received.
1163935	Timothy Carhart (born 24 December 1953) is an American actor. Carhart was born in Washington, D.C., and travelled to Izmir and Ankara in Turkey and Verdun in France before returning to the US and studying theater, where he has been acting since at least the late 1970s. Before changing his name, Tim was Tim Grunig, and he went to junior high and high school in Evanston, Illinois. Television work. Carhart made his television acting debut in NBC's 1978 mini-series "The Awakening Land". Throughout the 1980s, Carhart made guest appearances on several television series, including "Alfred Hitchcock Presents", "Miami Vice", and "Crime Story". Carhart also appeared in two episodes of the crime drama "". In 1989, Carhart had a recurring role on the drama series "Thirtysomething". That same year, Carhart was a regular on the CBS medical drama series "Island Son". Carhart has made guest appearances on a number of science fiction shows including in 1991 where he appeared in "Quantum Leap", the time travel series starring Scott Bakula and Dean Stockwell. Later that year he appeared as Lieutenant Commander Christopher Hobson in the fifth season premiere of "", "". In 1995, Carhart was a guest star on the widely popular science fiction series "The X-Files", appearing as Virgil Incanto in the episode "2Shy". Other television shows on which Carhart has guest-starred during the 1990s include "Empty Nest", "Roseanne", "The Young Riders", "L.A. Law", "Law & Order", "Strange World", and "Profiler". Carhart appeared in several made-for-TV movies during the 1990s, including "Call Me Anna" (1990), "" (1992) "Smoke Jumpers" (1996), "America's Dream" (1996), and "Before Carhart Wakes" (1998). Carhart also starred in two mini-series from CBS, 1991's "In a Child's Name" and 1996's "Gone in the Night". Between 2000 and 2003, Carhart played the recurring role of Eddie Willows on the hit CBS crime drama "" in four episodes. In 2002, Carhart had a recurring role on the hit Fox series "24", playing Assistant NSA head Eric Rayburn in four episodes. Carhart has also made recent guest appearances on shows such as "The Practice", UPN's "The Twilight Zone", "Frasier", "Judging Amy", and "Standoff". Carhart was most recently seen in a 2007 episode of "" entitled "Silencer". He also made a guest appearance in Criminal Minds in the Season 4 episode, 'Roadkill' as Detective Quinn who calls for the BAU to help investigate after a series of homicides occur that appear to have been caused by a serial killer's car near Bend, Oregon. Film work. Two of Carhart's earliest film credits were the 1984 blockbuster horror comedy "Ghostbusters" and the independent comedy "The Party Animal". In 1985, Carhart had a supporting role in the Academy Award-winning drama "Witness" and the popular romantic comedy film "Desperately Seeking Susan". In the former film, he played a small but vital role as an undercover narcotics officer (Zenovich) whose brutal murder begins the story. His character is mentioned by name only once by Harrison Ford in the final script and he does not have any lines, except for the noises he makes during the murder scene. Also in this year, Carhart appeared in the drama film "Marie". In 1986, Carhart worked on three films "Sweet Liberty", "The Manhattan Project" and "Playing for Keeps". Carhart played the second male lead in the adventure drama "The Rescue" (1988) and the action comedy "Pink Cadillac" (1989). In addition, Carhart can be seen in the hit 1988 comedy film "Working Girl". Carhart's feature film credits expanded in the 1990s, with appearances in such hit films as "The Hunt for Red October", "Thelma & Louise" (1991), "Beverly Hills Cop III" (1994), "Black Sheep" (1996), and "Air Force One" (1997). In addition, Carhart and Dan Shor played a pair of deputies in the 1992 thriller, "Red Rock West". Carhart also co-starred in the 1995 cult horror film "". Carhart's most recent film was the 2005 direct-to-DVD Steven Seagal vehicle "Black Dawn". Stage work. In 1987, Carhart starred in a stage production of Don DeLillo's play "The Day Room" at the New York City Center. For his performance in this production, Carhart was nominated for the 1988 Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Ensemble Acting. On Broadway, Carhart played Harold "Mitch" Mitchell in the 1992 revival of Tennessee Williams' "A Streetcar Named Desire", acting alongside such noted actors as Alec Baldwin, James Gandolfini, and Jessica Lange.
754568	Big Money Rustlas is an American Western comedy film directed by Paul Andresen. The film is the prequel to the 2000 film "Big Money Hustlas". Joseph Bruce wrote the story, and he, Andresen, and Studebaker Duchamp adapted the story into a screenplay. Their writing was influenced by classic Western films, classic Warner Bros. cartoons, and the film "Blazing Saddles". Gambling tycoon Big Baby Chips (Joseph Bruce), along with his assistants Raw Stank (Jamie Spaniolo) and Dusty Poot (Monoxide), run the downtrodden town of Mud Bug through extortion and violence. Sheriff Sugar Wolf (Joseph Utsler) arrives in town to confront Big Baby Chips, redeem his family name, and save the town. The film's tagline is "The Good, the Bad, and the ... Outrageous," a parody of the film "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly". "Big Money Rustlas" was released direct-to-video on August 17, 2010. A theatrical tour to screen the film around the country is currently planned. Plot. Sheriff Sugar Wolf (Utsler) returns to his hometown after many years to find that it has been taken over by Big Baby Chips (Bruce), a ruthless gambling tycoon who have run the downtrodden town of Mud Bug with his gang of thugs, which include Raw Stank (Jamie Madrox) and Dusty Poot (Monoxide), since killing Sugar Wolf's father, Grizzly Wolf (Ron Jeremy), and Sugar's brothers. Sugar decides to take over the position his father once held, leading Big Baby Chips to pit Sugar against a series of deadly assassins.
583777	Anbe Sivam () is a 2003 Tamil drama film directed by Sundar C and written by Kamal Hassan. The film stars Kamal Hassan and R. Madhavan. The music is composed by Vidyasagar. The film tells the story of a series of comic events that occur when Nalla Sivam (Kamal Haasan) a wise-cracking, handicapped communist and Anbarasu (R. Madhavan), an arrogant young advertisement filmmaker who favors capitalism meet. They get stuck with each other on their problem-filled trip from Bhubaneswar to Chennai. Themes such as globalization, financial disparity and compassion in present-day India are explored around the two protagonists. The film is shown to be based on Kamal Haasan's personal views on Communism, atheism and altruism. The movie is closely based on the Hollywood version - Planes, Trains and Automobiles. It was screened at the 2003 International Film Festival of India. Plot. "Anbe Sivam" begins with ad filmmaker Anbarasu (R. Madhavan), who prefers the much-abbreviated A. Aras rather than his full name, arriving at the Bhubaneswar Airport in Odisha, India. He is about to board a flight back to Chennai for his wedding. However, he learns at the airport that his flight has been cancelled. While waiting for further announcements, Aras watches the television news about a terrorist threat at an airport in Mumbai. Remarking to himself that the country is going to the dogs, he looks around and sees a bespectacled man with scars taking out something rolled up in a newspaper from his bag. Pictures of a pipe bomb shown among the items seized by the Mumbai police flash through his mind. He informs the authorities, only to learn that the man was simply taking out a cucumber. The man, who is physically challenged, is Nallasivam a.k.a. Nalla (Kamal Haasan). Nalla introduces himself to Aras, and they get to know each other. However, Aras underestimates Nalla, ignoring his sage advice and friendly overtures, resulting in some comical events in the airport. Then, announcements are made that all flights have been canceled due to the inclement weather and Aras realizes he needs a room in a nearby hotel for the night. He is informed, much to his consternation, that the five-star hotel where he was staying before is now fully booked, leaving him optionless. Nallasivam helps him find a place in a two-star hotel nearby, where Nalla and Aras are forced to share the same room. Aras' resentment of Nalla makes him act selfishly in trying to get rid of Nalla; at every juncture, Nalla does him a favor which leaves Aras with a guilt-ridden heart. The next morning, Aras takes a taxi without waking Nalla to find his own way to Chennai. Aras realizes that the floods have blocked most of the roads and even the train station is flooded. He gets mugged by a man at the station who offers to help him with his luggage but instead steals all his money. Nalla comes to the station and helps Aras regain the wallet, sans the money. It is then revealed that Nalla is a trade unionist and is traveling with a cheque worth Rs. 30 lakh to be delivered to some people after fighting a court case for union workers. The comical situations continue as the pair make it to another railway station in a bus. While awaiting their train, Nalla begins to tell Aras his story, but a tired Aras falls asleep and later walks away halfway through the story. The film then flashes back to a few years in the past when a perfectly good-looking Nalla performs in street theatres protesting against the industrialization process which is marginalizing the labor force. He often gets into trouble due to this. Nalla is also a very talented painter. He is fighting mainly against the town's biggest business tycoon, the manipulative Kandasamy Padayachi (Nassar), whom he satirically imitates in many of his shows. However, an interesting turn of events sees Nalla and Kandasamy's daughter Bala (Kiran Rathod) fall in love with each other. Realizing Kandasamy's power would be too much to bear if they want to get together, Nalla and Bala decide to elope. While Nalla is on a bus on his way to meet Bala, the bus is in a terrible accident on a hillside which leaves him badly injured. Despite surgery, he is left partially paralyzed and badly scarred. Kandasamy informs his daughter Bala that Nalla is dead. It is also at this time that Nalla becomes a firm believer in kindness and love and, while suffering from an inferiority complex due to his scarred and paralyzed body, nevertheless engages with renewed fervour in performing community service and social work while continuing to fight for union causes. The film then returns to the present, as Aras and Nalla prepare to board the train they have been waiting for. But as the train arrives, they get into an argument about communism, Karl Marx, and so on. Nalla accuses Aras of being an agent for the West and of being manipulated, while Aras defends himself and criticises communism as a whole, concluding that the Soviet Union doesn't exist anymore. Nalla argues that the idea of communism wouldn't die because the Soviet Union has broken up, just as people wouldn't stop loving if the Taj Mahal got destroyed. The argument turns heated, causing a short-tempered Aras to punch Nalla. After initially looking calm, Nalla punches Aras back even harder, causing Aras to bleed. Pretending to cool down and make up, Aras deceives Nalla into getting some bottled water for him and locks the train door, leaving Nalla stranded as the train leaves without him. On the train, Aras meets a well-dressed corporate-type individual, Uthaman (Yugi Sethu), who seems to share the same interests as Aras. Uthaman asks Aras to throw away a pack of biscuits Nalla gave to Aras due to the risk of it being doctored and offers him whiskey. When Aras wakes up the next day, he learns from the conductor that he has been conned and that his fellow passenger man was a thief who stole all of his belongings. The train comes to a halt because a previous train has had an accident and it has to be cleared up first. There, Aras witnesses a slew of dead bodies and suffering people, causing him to suffer emotionally. To his surprise, he meets Nalla again at the treatment camp nearby. He apologizes to Nalla, who forgives him. Nalla proposes that he donate blood to a dying boy in need of AB blood, while Aras mentions that he is bloodsick. Nalla convinces him, and Aras donates. Aras also retrieves his belongings as he finds that the thief is around the camp. Nalla proposes that Aras travel with him in an ambulance which will be carrying the injured boy on its way to Chennai. While on the journey the boy passes away causing Aras to cry. He calls God 'unjust' for giving the boy hope in the form of Aras' blood and then taking away his life. Nalla, who is an atheist, tells Aras that Aras himself is God, that the sadness he feels and the tears he sheds for the boy makes him God. Aras comes to terms with using his full name Anbarasu, a name he previously despised because he apparently doesn't like 'anbu' (love). On reaching Chennai, they go their separate ways, but Aras realizes that Nalla's union cheque is still with him and returns to the address Nalla had given him. He realizes that Nalla had lied to him previously when he said that he had a wife and a son named 'Sangu'. The address is a place where injured labourers from Odisha camp while waiting for their legal funds (the money fought for and being brought to them by Nalla) and that 'Sangu' is the name of Nalla's dog, which incidentally had caused Nalla's accident. After giving the cheque to the office, he goes to the nearby shop to meet Nalla and scolds him for not telling him the truth. He asks Nalla to come with him for his marriage, but Nalla says he will 'come later'. In an emotional moment, Aras recounts the story of how his brother died from a freak accident when he was young (a story he had told Nalla before). He says that Nalla is his new-found brother and should stay with him as long as life permits. A clearly emotional Nalla accepts the invitation. At the marriage, Nalla realizes that the girl Aras is about to marry is Bala. He takes this opportunity to appear in front of Kandasamy and threaten that he will stay on and make Bala realize what a cheat her father is unless Kandasamy signs all related documents for pay increment and bonuses for his company's labourers. Sacrificing himself for the workers, Nalla leaves after Kandasamy signs, leaving behind a letter for his 'brother' that he has missions to complete in this world, and that he'd rather travel as a free bird than be caged and tied to one place. He thanks Aras for the love and affection he has shown. Kandasamy meanwhile orders his assistant (Santhana Bharathi) to kill Nalla. As Nalla walks away, the assistant approaches him from behind. Hearing Sangu bark, Nalla turns around and sees his would-be assailant with a sickle in his hand. Requesting him not to hurt Sangu, who is barking and growling, he tells the assistant that he cannot fight like he used to and is ready to accept death. The assistant drops his weapon, weeps, and apologizes to Nalla. He tells Nalla that because he did all the dirty work for his boss, God has punished him by taking away his beloved daughter. He tells Nalla that he has read Nalla's letter to Aras. He also states that he has sinned much and doesn't want to commit any more sins on behalf of his boss. He asks Nalla to leave and that God will protect Nalla. Nalla refutes, saying that the assistant himself is God. He says that there is no greater God than the person who comes with the intent to kill but instead apologizes to the person he aimed to kill. The film ends with Nalla walking away in the monsoon rains with his dog, Sangu. Production. After finishing the script, Kamal Haasan approached Priyadarshan to direct the film. Pre-production work commenced; but after some differences of opinion between the director and the actor; Priyadarshan opted out of the project before the first schedule. Following this sudden setback which led to the whole crew being put off their schedules, the producers after convincing Kamal Haasan, quickly roped in Sundar C. to direct the film. R.Madhavan was selected to play second lead. Release. The film opened to positive reviews and was successful at the box office. The Hindu praised the film: "Well-defined characters, a strong storyline and intelligent screenplay are the other vital ingredients of Anbe Sivam". Soundtrack. The music was composed by Vidyasagar.
1130109	Finola Hughes (born 29 October 1959) is an English actress, television host, entrepreneur, author, former dancer, director, and producer, best known for role as Anna Devane on the ABC soap opera "General Hospital", "", and her role as Anna Devane's identical twin sister, Doctor Alexandra Devane Marick, on "All My Children". She is also known as Patty Halliwell on the supernatural series, "Charmed", continually appearing throughout the course of the entire series, and as Carol on the NBC sitcom "Blossom". In films, she is known for her role in "Staying Alive", "Aspen Extreme", "Above Suspicion" and "Like Crazy". Career. In 1981, Hughes originated the role of Victoria the White Cat in the London production of Andrew Lloyd Webber's musical "Cats". In 1983, Hughes starred with John Travolta in the musical film "Staying Alive", a sequel to "Saturday Night Fever". She played the role of Laura, an English dancer who is the romantic interest of Travolta's character Tony Manero. Hughes also appeared on the sitcom "Blossom", and as the X-Men character Emma Frost in the 1996 TV movie "Generation X". In 1997 Hughes starred in Aaron Spelling short-lived primetime soap opera "Pacific Palisades". She was also a frequent guest star on the television series "Charmed", playing the mother of the Halliwell girls, Patricia "Patty" Halliwell. She provided the voice of Lara, Kal-El's biological mother in "". Another voice over role she had was Miss Robertson on an episode of Fox's animated comedy series "Life with Louie". From 1985 to 1992 she played Anna Devane on the "General Hospital". Hughes won a Daytime Emmy in 1991, for Outstanding Lead Actress on "General Hospital". She was nominated for the same category in 1990 for Anna, in 2000 for "AMC" as Alex, and, in 2002, as Anna. After establishing herself as a daytime TV star, Hughes shot a feature film cameo as a soap actress who loses an award to Sally Field in the soap opera satire film "Soapdish" (1991). Two years later she played a leading role in the 1993 film "Aspen Extreme". It was announced in April 2006 that Hughes would be returning to "GH". In May 2006 as part of the May sweeps period, three "GH" veterans would return. Finola Hughes would be reunited with Tristan Rogers (Robert Scorpio) and Emma Samms (Holly Sutton). Following a rise in ratings from her sweeps return, Hughes returned to "General Hospital" for a limited run through August 2006. Finola would return the following year on 13 July 2007 and once again on 25 April 2008. In September 2008, Hughes guest-starred in the "General Hospital" spin-off series '. It has been said that Hughes will return to "GH" in early 2012 as character Anna Devane to be with her daughter, Robin, and help her through her toughest year. She will be a recurring character but Anna Devane will be front and centre and staying in Port Charles a while. Finola's on-screen ex-husband Tristan Rogers is rumoured also to be returning as Robert Scorpio, his character Colin on the CBS soap "The Young and the Restless" as exiled from Genoa City a few months back. Ex-"GH" costar Genie Francis who played Colins ex with still remains on the soap and will not be returning to "GH". In 2010 Finola also appeared in the ', "Make It or Break It" and "Melissa & Joey". Finola made a permanent return to "General Hospital" in March 2012. Her character, Anna Devane, moved in with Luke Spencer. In 2013 Hughes made her feature-film directing debut with indie comedy-drama "The Bet". She later starred with Kathryn McCormick in the dance movie "Platinum the Dance Movie". Personal life. Hughes was born in London, England. Married to Russell Young since 1992, Hughes is the mother of two sons, Dylan and Cash and one daughter, Sadie.
637604	What Love Is is a 2007 romantic comedy film, written and directed by Mars Callahan, starring Cuba Gooding Jr., Matthew Lillard, Sean Astin, Anne Heche, and Gina Gershon. Cuba Gooding Jr. plays a man who finds out the true nature of love one Valentine's Day when he wants to propose to his girlfriend. The film has received 17% at Rotten Tomatoes, and a 14 on Metacritic. It made roughly $19,000 at 42 theaters during its theatrical run. The film was released on DVD on April 1, 2008.
573209	Atoll K (1951) is a French/Italian co-production film—also known as Robinson Crusoeland in the United Kingdom and Utopia in the United States – which starred the comedy team of Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy in their final screen appearance. The film co-stars French singer/actress Suzy Delair and was directed by Léo Joannon, with uncredited co-direction by blacklisted U.S. director John Berry. Plot. Laurel learns that he is to receive an inheritance left by a wealthy uncle. Unfortunately, most of the inheritance is consumed by taxes and legal fees, and he is left with only a rickety but fully provisioned yacht and a private island in the Pacific Ocean. Laurel and Hardy leave for the island, accompanied by a stateless refugee and a stowaway (a malcontent Italian bricklayer).
1054362	My Week with Marilyn is a 2011 British drama film directed by Simon Curtis and written by Adrian Hodges. It stars Michelle Williams, Kenneth Branagh, Eddie Redmayne, Dominic Cooper, Julia Ormond, Emma Watson and Judi Dench. Based on two books by Colin Clark, it depicts the making of the 1957 film "The Prince and the Showgirl", which starred Marilyn Monroe (Williams) and Laurence Olivier (Branagh). The film focuses on the week in which Monroe spent time being escorted around London by Clark (Redmayne), after her husband, Arthur Miller (Dougray Scott), had left the country.
1723002	Big Buck Bunny (code-named Peach) is a short computer animated film by the Blender Institute, part of the Blender Foundation. Like the foundation's previous film "Elephants Dream", the film was made using Blender, a free software application for animation made by the same foundation. It was released as an Open Source film under Creative Commons License Attribution 3.0. Overview. Work began in October 2007. The film was officially released in an April 10, 2008 première in Amsterdam while online movie downloads and files were released on May 30, 2008. The film was followed up with an open game titled "Yo Frankie!", in August 2008. Plot. The plot follows a day of the life of Big Buck Bunny when he meets three bullying rodents, Frank (the leader of the rodents), Rinky and Gamera. The rodents amuse themselves by harassing helpless creatures of the forest by throwing fruits, nuts and rocks at them. After the deaths of two of Bunny's favorite butterflies (one by an apple falling on top of it and two by Frank smashing it with a rock) and an offensive attack on Bunny himself, Bunny sets aside his gentle nature and orchestrates a complex plan to avenge the two butterflies. Technical information. Following "Elephants Dream", the short movie is the first project by the Blender Foundation to be created by the Blender Institute, a division of the foundation set up specifically to facilitate the creation of open content films and games. The film was funded by the Blender Foundation, donations from the Blender community, pre-sales of the film's DVD and commercial sponsorship. Both the final product and production data, including animation data, characters and textures are released under the Creative Commons Attribution License. It was rendered on Sun Microsystems' grid computing facility Sun Grid. Improvements to Blender for Big Buck Bunny. As in the original "Elephants Dream" movie project, Blender developers worked extensively to improve the software in accordance with the needs of the movie team. Improvements were made in hair and fur rendering, the particle system, UV mapping, shading, the render pipeline, constraints, and skinning. Also introduced during the project was approximate ambient occlusion. These features were released to the public with Blender v. 2.46. Characters. The main character (called Big Buck Bunny) was also used in short films created by Renderfarm.fi: "What is Renderfarm.fi?" (2011) telling about the advantages of render farms and "BBB loves CC" (2012) promoting Creative Commons licences. The bunny's voice was given by Jan Morgenstern, who was the composer of a "Big Buck Bunny" movie soundtrack. Frank the flying squirrel was the player's avatar in the Yo Frankie! video game.
1079767	Sir George Howard Darwin KCB FRS (9 July 1845 – 7 December 1912) was an English astronomer and mathematician. Biography. George Darwin was born at Down House, Kent, the second son and fifth child of Charles and Emma Darwin. He studied under Charles Pritchard, and entered St John's College, Cambridge in 1863, though he soon moved to Trinity College, where his tutor was Edward John Routh. He graduated as second wrangler in 1868, when he was also placed second for the Smith's Prize and was appointed to a college fellowship. He was admitted to the bar in 1872, but returned to science. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in June, 1879 and won their Royal Medal in 1884 and their Copley Medal in 1911. He delivered their Bakerian Lecture in 1891 on the subject of ""tidal prediction"". In 1883 Darwin became Plumian Professor of Astronomy and Experimental Philosophy at the University of Cambridge. He studied tidal forces involving the Sun, Moon, and Earth, and formulated the fission theory of Moon formation. Darwin won the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society in 1892, and also later (1899–1901) served as president of that organization. He was an invited speaker in the International Congress of Mathematicians 1908, Rome on the topic of ""Mechanics, Physical Mathematics, Astronomy"." Darwin married Martha (Maud) du Puy of Philadelphia in 1884; she died on February 6, 1947. They had two sons and two daughters: He is buried in Trumpington Extension Cemetery in Cambridge with his and his daughter Gwen (Raverat), his wife Lady Maud Darwin was cremated at Cambridge Crematorium; his brothers Sir Francis Darwin and Sir Horace Darwin are interred in the Parish of the Ascension Burial Ground.
589665	Shyama was born Khurshid Akhtar (7 June, 1935, Lahore) was a Bollywood actress. Her best known roles were in "Aar Paar" (1954), "Barsaat Ki Raat" (1960) and "Tarana". She was also noticed in 'Sawan Bhadon', 'Dil Diya Dard Liya', 'Milan' and 'Sharda' for which she was awarded Filmfare Award for Best Supporting Actress. Like Shammi Kapoor in male actors, she is the actress who has been most responsive to the rythem and lyrics of the music directors and poets. Songs picturised on her like 'ae dil mujhe bata de', 'O chand jahan wo jaye', 'ae lo main hari piya', ' dekho, wo chand chhup ke karata hai kya ishare', 'chhupa ke meri aankhon ko', 'ja re ka re badara' are examples of her sensitive acting.
1065319	Notorious is a 2009 American biographical film about the life and murder of The Notorious B.I.G. who is played by Jamal Woolard. The film was released in American theaters on January 16, 2009, by Fox Searchlight Pictures. The film's MPAA rating is R for pervasive language, some strong sexuality including dialogue, nudity, and for drug content. Plot. The film opens in Los Angeles, California in March 1997. Biggie Smalls (Jamal Woolard) is shot and killed by a drive-by assailant. The film then flashes back to Biggie's childhood in Brooklyn. Christopher (Christopher "CJ" Wallace, Jr.) writes several rap songs. Christopher then starts selling drugs at the height of the crack epidemic. In 1990, Biggie finds out from his girlfriend, Jan (Julia Pace Mitchell), that she is pregnant. Biggie, distraught, begins to take his drug dealing more seriously. Biggie eventually takes part in a rap battle, which he subsequently wins. Biggie's mother, Voletta Wallace (Angela Bassett), throws him out of the house.
1066707	The Astronaut Farmer is a 2006 American drama film directed by Michael Polish, who co-wrote the screenplay with his brother Mark. The story focuses on a Texas rancher who constructs a rocket in his barn and, against all odds, launches himself into outer space. Plot. Charles Farmer is a former astronaut-in-training who was discharged from the military before he could fulfill his dream of becoming a vital part of NASA. Having missed the opportunity to travel into space, he decides to build a replica of the historic Mercury-Atlas in the barn on his secluded ranch in the fictional town of Story, Texas, using all his assets and facing foreclosure as a result. When he begins making inquiries about purchasing rocket fuel, the FBI and FAA step in to investigate, and the ensuing publicity thrusts Farmer into the spotlight and makes him a media darling. Farmer's first launch is delayed by endless red tape created by government officials, who seek to stall him beyond his deadline to foreclose on the farm. Farmer is denied the fuel he wishes, which would be liquid hydrogen. His ranch facing financial ruin, he panics and somehow launches his rocket before it is ready and without the proper fuel. His rocket falls over and horizontally blasts out of an old wooden barn. Farmer nearly dies with head trauma and other injuries after his capsule is thrown from the rocket. Spectators and their vehicles are nearly crushed. During the months he spends recuperating, public interest in his project wanes, and when he recovers sufficiently to start anew, he is able to do so in relative privacy with the support of his wife Audrey, his son Shepard, and daughters Stanley and Sunshine. An inheritance left by his father-in-law Hal allows him to settle all his debts and finance reconstruction of his rocket which he succeeds in launching. The rocket rises out of the barn. After orbiting Earth nine times and suffering a brief period of a communication blackout, he returns safely and is given a hero's welcome home through the credits. Production. In "How to Build a Rocket: The Making of The Astronaut Farmer", a bonus feature on the DVD release of the film, screenwriters Michael and Mark Polish reveal they used their father as a role model for the character of Charles Farmer.
582386	Prachi Desai (12 September 1988) is an Indian film and television actress. She has worked in films like "Rock On!!", "Once Upon A Time in Mumbaai", "Bol Bachchan" and "I, Me Aur Main", that earned her both critics' and commercial appreciation. She started her career as Bani Walia in the Hindi soap opera "Kasamh Se" and got her fame. Prachi is the endorser, spokesperson, brand ambassador and the face of Neutrogena products in India. She is also the brand ambassador of Goa Tourism, a popular holiday destination in India.Prachi Desai complicated Relation with Rahul Roy Anand (Kotkapura) Early life. Desai was born on 12 September 1988 in Surat, Gujarat, India. She studied in St Joseph Convent, Panchgani and completed her schooling until ninth grade in Surat. After that, she went to Pune for higher studies. She studied at Sinhagad college, Vadgaon, Pune. She was in Pune for higher studies and had almost finished her junior college when her pictures were sent for audition. She was 17 when she left her studies and started her career with "Kasamh Se". Career. Television (2006–2008). Desai starred in the serial "Kasamh Se" on Zee TV that got her fame. She was referred to as the most popular Television actress of the time. For the show, Desai earned many awards and nominations for Best Actress at several award functions. After 2 years of work in 564 episodes of the series, Desai left "Kasamh Se" to act in Bollywood film "Rock On!!". She was replaced by Gurdeep Kohli. "Kasamh Se" ended on 12 March 2009 as the show lost popularity, reason being replacement of Desai, as experts say. In the last episode, Desai made a special appearance as the former Bani. She also did a two-day cameo in "Kasautii Zindagii Kay", which was aired on Star Plus. She played a school student in Prerna's school. On 7 September 2007, Desai entered "Jhalak Dikhhla Jaa", the Indian version of America's dancing show, "Dancing with the Stars", with choreographer Deepak Singh. She was eliminated on 10 November 2007. However, she entered the contest again via the wild-card entry on 23 November 2007. Desai then landed a spot in the grand finale of the dance show on 15 December 2007 and won the first place amongst the contestants. She was awarded the dancing star of "Jhalak Dikhhla Jaa 2". Desai also competed in a tribute show to Jhalak competition called "Dard-e-Disco", alongside other former contestants, which aired on Sony Entertainment Television Asia on 31 December 2007. Film Debut & Breakthrough (2008–present). Desai's first film was "Rock On!!" (2008), where she played the wife of Farhan Akhtar. Desai had to leave her role of "Bani" in "Kasamh Se" to act in "Rock On" at the age of 19. Her performance was highly appreciated throughout the film. Movie Critic Taran Adarsh mentions: "Prachi Desai scores in her very first feature. She has a challenging role and footage-wise too, it's substantial. Desai brings in a lot of freshness and poise. Plus, she's a competent actor." It was an average box-office commercial but was critically appreciated, even getting the National Film Award for Best Feature Film in Hindi. She got several nominations and awards as debutant including the Filmfare Award. She even won Anandalok Awards as Best Actress (Hindi). Her next film was "Life Partner" (2009). The film failed at box-Office, but raised great reviews from critics for her work. In July 2010, she appeared in "Once Upon a Time in Mumbaai" with Ajay Devgan, Emraan Hashmi and Kangana Ranaut. The film proved to be a big box office success and critically praised. "Prachi Desai is a bundle of talent who proves her mettle yet again. She's proficient in emotional scenes and sizzles in the BOBBY song-sequence." says Taran Adarsh. Desai's performance titled her the "Supporting Actress of the Year" and earned her many awards including IIFA Awards, Stardust Awards, Zee Cine Awards, Apsara Film & Television Producers Guild Awards and many more and nominations for Supporting Actress Award at Filmfare Awards and Star Screen Awards. Desai then made a cameo appearance in Teri Meri Kahaani along with Priyanka Chopra and Shahid Kapoor which released in June 2012. It was a tri-periodic film and she is casted for 1960 segment. Kunal Kohli, the film's director, says he cast her because he liked her in Rock On!! and Once Upon A Time in Mumbaai. "Prachi will definitely make people sit up and notice her, as she has some of the most entertaining and romantic scenes in the film. She effortlessly held her own alongside Priyanka and Shahid and is really coming into her own as an actress. She had a good run with "Rock On!!" and "OUATIM", and now she's doing "Teri Meri Kahaani". Slowly and steadily, she's making it into the big league. It's a welcome and much-deserved entrance." he says. Though a cameo, Prachi had an important role and was much appreciated both publicly and critically. Taran Adarsh mentions in his movie review, "Prachi Desai is sparkling in a cameo." Prachi then appeared in full fledged role in 2012 blockbuster film "Bol Bachchan" opposite Abhishek Bachchan, along with Ajay Devgn and Asin. The film proved to be the biggest box office success for Desai till date. She replaced Genelia D'souza who withdrew from the film for unknown reasons. Bol Bachchan director Rohit Shetty says, "What I like about Prachi is that she's extremely talented and very sincere. She is a natural performer. With time and experience, she will grow into a star. In my film, she plays a young Rajput girl who is Ajay Devgn's sister, and the only girl in a group of pehelwans. Prachi is effortless in her scenes." Alongside being a big box office hit, Desai was again garnered with loads of appreciation for her charming role in the film and many nominations for Supporting Actress Award at several award function. Movie Review by Taran Adarsh mentions, "Prachi Desai is striking, getting ample opportunity to showcase her talent. In fact, one hopes to see more of this talented actress in zany entertainers." Desai was last seen in debutant director Kapil Sharma's "I, Me Aur Main" alongside John Abraham and Chitrangada Singh. For the film, Desai learnt how to play the piano. The film portrays her as a hairstylist for which she took tips from Bollywood stylist Adhuna Akhtar. Desai's look in a song of the film was inspired from Katy Perry and Beyonce. The film was an average grosser at the Indian Box Office, but it raised rave reviews for Desai from critics, some terming her as 'the highlight of the film', 'the surprise package' and 'the best performance in the film'. Film critic Joginder Tuteja says, "One actor who leaves a mark is Prachi Desai. She is a revelation as a free spirited girl." Rubina Khan of First Post said, "Best performance in the film is by Prachi Desai as the spunky girl next door, real and effortless." Ananya Bhattacharya of Zee News says, "Prachi Desai is a breath of fresh air- a complete surprise. She performs Gauri to the hilt and pulls off a stunner." Taran Adarsh of Bollywood Hungama mentions, "Prachi Desai adds so much zest in those tiny little moments, enacting the spunky girl part so well." Desai then appeared in Kollywood director K. S. Ravikumar's first Bollywood venture Policegiri. The film is Hindi remake of Sammy which stars Sanjay Dutt and Prakash Raj. The film portrays her as a Software Engineer. The film was critically average, gathering "not so bad" reviews for Desai. The sequel to "Rock On!!" is also under script production and Desai is supposed to continue her role in the franchise. Other Work. Endorsements. Desai is the brand ambassador for Goa Tourism Board, a popular holiday destination in India. She is the only spokesperson for Neutrogena Products in India. She has also promoted Oral-B Smile India Movement with Sonali Bendre. Active Wheel endorsement with Salman Khan was a top rated among viewers for the chemistry between the two. On viewers' request, the other several ads of the brand were cancelled, and the same advertisement airs till date. She also endorses Nyle Shampoo. She has also has been signed up to be the brand ambassador of Pure-it water purifier with Farhan Akhtar. Recently Desai was chosen the brand ambassador for Gili Signature Diamond Jewellery along with several other actresses. She also endorses Taj Mahal Tea along with actor Saif Ali Khan.
1101294	Abramowitz and Stegun is the informal name of a mathematical reference work edited by Milton Abramowitz and Irene Stegun of the U.S. National Bureau of Standards (now the "National Institute of Standards and Technology"). Its full title is Handbook of Mathematical Functions with Formulas, Graphs, and Mathematical Tables. Since it was first published in 1964, the 1046 page "Handbook" has been one of the most comprehensive sources of information on special functions, containing definitions, identities, approximations, plots, and tables of values of numerous functions used in virtually all fields of applied mathematics. The notation used in the "Handbook" is the "de facto" standard for much of applied mathematics today. At the time of its publication, the "Handbook" was an essential resource for practitioners. Nowadays, computer algebra systems have replaced the function tables, but the "Handbook" remains an important reference source. The foreword discusses a meeting in 1954 in which it was agreed that "the advent of high-speed computing equipment changed the task of table making but definitely did not remove the need for tables". Editions. Because the "Handbook" is the work of U.S. federal government employees acting in their official capacity, it is not protected by copyright. While it can be ordered from the Government Printing Office, it has also been reprinted by commercial publishers, most notably Dover Publications (ISBN 0-486-61272-4), and can be legally viewed and downloaded off the web. Successor. A digital successor to the Handbook, long under development at NIST, was released as the “Digital Library of Mathematical Functions” (DLMF) on May 11, 2010, along with a printed version, the "NIST Handbook of Mathematical Functions," published by Cambridge University Press (ISBN 978-0-521-19225-5). More information can be found at NIST.
1163945	Polly Dean Holliday (born July 2, 1937) is an American actress. She has appeared on stage, television and in film. She is best known for her portrayal of sassy waitress "Flo" on the hit 1970s sitcom "Alice", and her starring role in its short-lived spinoff, "Flo". Flo's signature line was "Kiss my grits!" Early life. Holliday was born in Jasper, Alabama, the daughter of Velma Mabell (née Cain) and Ernest Sullivan Holliday, a truck driver. Prior to acting, Holliday worked as a piano teacher in her native Alabama, and then in Florida. She began her acting career as a member of the Asolo Theatre Company in Sarasota, Florida, where she stayed for 10 years. Career. Holliday became known for her American sitcom role of Florence Jean Castleberry ("Flo") on the television series "Alice". Her character coined the popular catchphrase "Kiss my grits!". The phrase became part of the American vocabulary and Holliday's popular character of Flo later received a spin-off show, entitled "Flo". Her notable roles in films include "All the President's Men", "Mrs. Doubtfire", the 1998 remake of "The Parent Trap" and her role as Mrs. Ruby Deagle in the 1984 box office smash "Gremlins". In 1973, she moved to New York and appeared in Alice Childress's play "Wedding Band" at the "Public Theater". More than a year later, she was cast in the Broadway hit "All Over Town". While working on "All Over Town", she befriended the play's director, Dustin Hoffman, who would later work with her on the 1976 movie "All the President's Men". Soon, she was cast — in what would be her major break — in the role of sassy, man-hungry waitress Flo. While on "Alice", she became very popular. After appearing on the show from 1976 to 1980, she moved to her own spin-off show, "Flo", in which Flo left her residence in Arizona and moved back home. The show was moderately successful during its first abbreviated season, but ratings declined during the following season, and it was canceled in 1981. In 1983, Holliday joined the cast of the CBS-TV sitcom "Private Benjamin" as a temporary replacement for series regular Eileen Brennan, who was recovering from a serious car injury. However, the show was suffering low ratings before Holliday arrived and was shortly canceled. As a result, only one of the two episodes she filmed was aired.
1063324	Ossie Davis (born Raiford Chatman Davis, December 18, 1917 – February 4, 2005) was an Emmy Award and Grammy Award-winning, American film, television and Broadway actor, director, poet, playwright, author, and social activist. Early years. Davis was born Raiford Chatman Davis in Cogdell, Clinch County, Georgia, a son of Kince Charles Davis, a railway construction engineer, and his wife Laura ("née" Cooper) (9 July 1898-6 June 2004). The name Ossie came from a county clerk who misheard his mother's pronunciation of his initials "R.C." when he was born. So he inadvertently became "Ossie" when his mother told the courthouse clerk in Clinch River, Ga., who was filing his birth certificate that his name was "R.C. Davis." Davis experienced racism from an early age when the KKK threatened to shoot his father, whose job they felt was too advanced for a black man to have. Following the wishes of his parents, he attended Howard University but dropped out in 1939 to fulfill his acting career in New York; he later attended Columbia University School of General Studies. His acting career, which spanned seven decades, began in 1939 with the Rose McClendon Players in Harlem. He made his film debut in 1950 in the Sidney Poitier film "No Way Out". He voiced Anansi the spider on the PBS children's television series "Sesame Street" in its animation segments. Career. When Davis wanted to pursue a career in acting, he ran into the usual roadblocks that blacks suffered at that time as they generally could only portray stereotypical characters such as Stepin Fetchit. Instead, he tried to follow the example of Sidney Poitier and play more distinguished characters. When he found it necessary to play a Pullman porter or a butler, he tried to portray the character seriously and not in a stereotypical manner. In addition to acting, Davis, along with Melvin Van Peebles, and Gordon Parks was one of the notable African American directors of his generation: he directed movies like "Gordon's War", "Black Girl" and the far famed action film "Cotton Comes to Harlem". Along with Bill Cosby and Poitier, Davis was one of a handful of African American actors able to find commercial success while avoiding stereotypical roles prior to 1970, which also included a significant role in the 1965 movie "The Hill" alongside Sean Connery plus roles in "The Cardinal" and "The Scalphunters". However, Davis never had the tremendous commercial or critical success that Cosby and Poitier enjoyed. As a playwright, Davis wrote "Paul Robeson: All-American", which is frequently performed in theatre programs for young audiences. Davis found recognition late in his life by working in several of director Spike Lee's films, including "Do The Right Thing", "Jungle Fever", "She Hate Me" and "Get on the Bus". He also found work as a commercial voice-over artist and served as the narrator of the early-1990s CBS sitcom "Evening Shade", starring Burt Reynolds, where he also played one of the residents of a small southern town. In 1999, he appeared as a theater caretaker in the Trans-Siberian Orchestra film "The Ghosts of Christmas Eve", which was released on DVD two years later. His last role was a several episode guest role on the Showtime drama series "The L Word", as a father struggling with the acceptance of his daughter Bette (Jennifer Beals) parenting a child with her lesbian partner. In his final episodes, his character was taken ill and died. His wife Ruby Dee was present during the filming of his own death scene. That episode, which aired shortly after Davis's own death, aired with a dedication to the actor. Honors. In 1989, Ossie Davis and his wife, actress/activist Ruby Dee, were named to the NAACP Image Awards Hall of Fame. In 1995, they were awarded the National Medal of Arts, the nation's highest honor conferred to an individual artist on behalf of the country and presented in a White House ceremony by the President of the United States. And in 2004, they were recipients of the prestigious Kennedy Center Honors. According to the Kennedy Center Honors:
1055852	The Corruptor is a 1999 American action thriller film directed by James Foley, and starring Chow Yun-fat and Mark Wahlberg. Plot. New York City Police Department (NYPD) Lieutenant Nick Chen (Chow) is head of the Asian Gang Unit. His job is to keep the peace in Chinatown from a turf war that has broken out between the Triads and the Fukienese Dragons, a problem complicated by the fact that he is also an informant for the Tongs under "uncle" Benny Chan (Chan) and his lieutenant Henry Lee (Young). After a bombing in downtown Chinatown in broad daylight, Chen is reluctantly teamed up with Danny Wallace (Wahlberg), who is unaware of this situation. Wallace was also secretly tasked by Internal Affairs to monitor Chen for corruption. Danny lied to Chen and the Asian Gang Unit by claiming that he took the job as a means to gain his Detective shield the fastest.
1165713	Frank Lovejoy (March 28, 1912 – October 2, 1962) was an American actor in radio, film, and television. He is perhaps best remembered for appearing in the film noir "The Hitch-Hiker" and for starring in the radio drama "Night Beat". Biography. He was born Frank Andrew Lovejoy Jr. in Bronx, New York, but grew up in New Jersey. His father, Frank Lovejoy Sr., was a furniture salesman from Maine. His mother, Nora, was born in Massachusetts to Irish immigrant parents. Lovejoy was first married to Frances Williams (1901–59) but divorced in the late 1930s. In 1940, Lovejoy married actress Joan Banks (1918–1998), with whom he had a son and a daughter. Radio. A successful radio actor, Lovejoy was heard on the 1930s crime drama series "Gang Busters". Lovejoy was a narrator (during the first season) for the show "This Is Your FBI". He played the title character on the syndicated "The Blue Beetle" during the 1940s, and starred in the later newspaper drama series "Nightbeat" in the early 1950s and in episodes of Suspense in the late 1950s. Films. In films of the 1940s and 1950s, Lovejoy mostly played supporting roles. Appearing in movies such as "Goodbye, My Fancy" (1951) with Joan Crawford, and "The Hitch-Hiker" (1953) directed by Ida Lupino, Lovejoy was effective playing the movie's everyman in extraordinary situations. He was in several war movies, notably Joseph H. Lewis' "Retreat, Hell!" (1952) which portrayed the United States Marine Corps' retreat from the Chosin Reservoir (aka the Changjin Reservoir) during the Korean War. In 1951, he had the title role in "I Was a Communist for the FBI" with co-stars Ron Hagerthy, Paul Picerni, and Philip Carey. Television. Lovejoy starred in two short-run TV series, "Man Against Crime" and "Meet McGraw". Episodes of these two series have never been released commercially on DVD or VHS and never aired on reruns. "Meet McGraw" episodes were screened at the Mid-Atlantic Nostalgia Convention. Among Lovejoy's last performances was with Donald May in the episode "County General" (March 18, 1962) on the ABC series "Bus Stop" with Marilyn Maxwell in the role of Grace Sherwood, owner of a diner in Sunrise, Colorado. That same season, he appeared on the ABC crime drama "" about the efforts of a New York City reporter to expose organized crime. Death. On October 2, 1962, Frank Lovejoy died of a heart attack in his sleep at his residence in New York City. His wife, Joan Banks, called for medical help after she was unable to wake him. The couple had been appearing in a New Jersey production of the Gore Vidal play "The Best Man".
1377367	Adam Paul Nielson Hicks (born November 28, 1992) is an American actor, rapper, singer and songwriter. His first leading role was in "How to Eat Fried Worms". He is most notable for playing Luther in the Disney XD series "Zeke and Luther" and starring in the Disney Channel Original Movie "Lemonade Mouth" as Wendell "Wen" Gifford. He had a recurring role in the second season of "Jonas L.A." as DZ, and had a co-leading role as the third king, Boz in the Disney XD original series "Pair of Kings". However, "Disney XD" decided not to continue the show after the third season. Early life. Hicks was born in Las Vegas, Nevada. Acting career. Hicks had a recurring role on "Titus" and had roles in various movies and television series before playing the lead in "How to Eat Fried Worms". He then appeared in "" alongside many other Disney Channel stars. In 2009, he grabbed the co-lead role of Luther on "Zeke & Luther". In 2011, he starred in "Lemonade Mouth" as Wendell "Wen" Gifford. He co-starred on "Pair of Kings" as King Boz, replacing Mitchel Musso's character King Brady. Music career. Hicks recorded a remake of the MC Hammer song "U Can't Touch This" with fellow "Zeke and Luther" co-star Daniel Curtis Lee. The music video for the song was shown June 29, 2009 on Disney XD. He made a remix of the song "In the Summertime" by Mungo Jerry. In late 2010 he wrote and recorded the song "Happy Universal Holidays" with Ryan Newman. In early 2011 he released a song called "Dance For Life" with Drew Seeley for the Disney Channel Original Series "Shake It Up", which was featured on "". Hicks co-wrote the tracks "Determinate," "Breakthrough" and "Livin' On a High Wire" for "Lemonade Mouth". He also has a music video featuring Chris Brochu for his single "We Burnin' Up." In most of his songs, Hicks introduces himself as A-Plus. He is currently signed to Walt Disney Records. In October 2012 he recorded a song for the new book Lemonade Mouth Puckers Up entitled "Don't Stop The Revolution".
1262116	An American Affair is an independent film starring Gretchen Mol, James Rebhorn, Noah Wyle, Perrey Reeves, Mark Pellegrino, and Cameron Bright, which was released theatrically by Screen Media Films on February 27, 2009. The film was produced in 2008, written by Alex Metcalf, directed by William Olsson and produced by Kevin Leydon. Its soundtrack was created by Dustin O'Halloran. Synopsis. Set in 1963, in the swirl of glamor and intrigue that turned President John F. Kennedy's Washington into Camelot, a young teenager, Adam Stafford (Cameron Bright) has an inside view of JFK’s torrid affair with his neighbor Catherine (Gretchen Mol) and secret CIA assassination plans. The Catherine Caswell character and the events not involving the wholly fictional Adam Stafford are based on Mary Pinchot Meyer.
774653	Lothaire Bluteau (born 14 April 1957) is a Canadian actor. He was born in Montreal, Quebec and performs in both French and English. He had a recurring role in the third season of the television series "24" as the character Marcus Alvers. Biography. In the fourth season of The Tudors, Bluteau takes up the role of Charles de Marillac, the French Ambassador to the court of King Henry VIII. Marillac had the unenviable task of representing French interests in England on the eve of Henry VIII's last quest for military glory against France in 1544. In the opening credits Bluteau features as one of the primary characters in the sixteenth-century historical drama. Awards and recognition. Bluteau won the 1990 Genie Award for Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role for his work on "Jesus of Montreal" and was nominated for the same award in 1996 for his work in the film "Le Confessionnal". He was nominated for the AFI Award for Best Actor for his work on "Black Robe". Bluteau won the award for Best Actor at the 1997 Gijón International Film Festival for his work on "Bent". Selected theater credits. The Michael Schimmel Center for the Arts at Pace University, New York, 2002), Young Inna /Defendant Fish
1040030	Pauline Collins, OBE (born 3 September 1940) is an English actress of the stage, television, and film. She first came to prominence portraying Sarah Moffat in "Upstairs, Downstairs" and its spin-off "Thomas & Sarah" during the 1970s. She later drew acclaim for playing the title role in the play "Shirley Valentine" for which she received Laurence Olivier, Tony, and Drama Desk awards. She reprised the role in a 1989 film adaptation, winning a BAFTA and garnering Golden Globe and Academy Award nominations. Early life and career. Collins was born in Exmouth, Devon, the daughter of Mary Honora (née Callanan), a schoolteacher, and William Henry Collins. She is of Irish extraction, and was brought up as a Roman Catholic near Liverpool. Collins was educated at Sacred Heart High School. and studied at the Central School of Speech and Drama in London. Before turning to acting, she worked as a teacher until 1962. She made her stage debut at Windsor in "A Gazelle in Park Lane" in 1962 and her West End debut in "Passion Flower Hotel" in 1965, (during this run, very hurriedly, her first film "Secrets of a Windmill Girl" -1966). More stage roles followed. Collins played Samantha Briggs in the 1967 "Doctor Who" serial "The Faceless Ones" and was offered the chance to continue in the series as a new companion for the Doctor, but declined the invitation.
1061846	Liv Rundgren Tyler (born Liv Rundgren; July 1, 1977) is an American actress and model. She is the daughter of Aerosmith's lead singer, Steven Tyler, and model Bebe Buell. Tyler began a career in modeling at the age of 14 but, after less than a year, she decided to focus on acting. After her film debut "Silent Fall" (1994), she appeared in supporting roles in "Empire Records" (1995), "Heavy" (1996) and "That Thing You Do!" (1996). Tyler later achieved critical recognition in the leading role in "Stealing Beauty" (1996). She followed this by starring in supporting roles including "Inventing the Abbotts" (1997) and "Cookie's Fortune" (1999). Tyler achieved international recognition as a result of her portrayal of Elf maiden Arwen Undómiel in the "Lord of the Rings" film trilogy. She has appeared in an eclectic range of films, including the 2004 comedy "Jersey Girl", the indie film "Lonesome Jim" (2005), the drama "Reign Over Me" (2007) and big-budget studio films such as "Armageddon" (1998), "The Strangers" (2008) and "The Incredible Hulk" (2008). She has served as a United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) Goodwill Ambassador for the United States in 2003, and as a spokesperson for Givenchy's line of perfume and cosmetics. Early life. Tyler was born Liv Rundgren at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York. She is the only daughter of Bebe Buell, a model, singer, and former "Playboy" Playmate (Miss November 1974), and Steven Tyler, the lead singer of Aerosmith. Her mother named her after Norwegian actress, Liv Ullmann, after seeing Ullmann on the cover of the March 5, 1977 issue of "TV Guide". She is of Italian, German, Polish, and English ancestry on her father's side and German ancestry on her mother's side. Tyler has three half-siblings: Mia Tyler (born 1978), Chelsea Anna Tallarico (born 1989), and Taj Monroe Tallarico (born 1992). Her maternal grandmother, Dorothea Johnson, founded the Protocol School of Washington. At Liv's birth, Buell claimed that rock star Todd Rundgren, with whom Buell had been living since 1972, was Tyler's biological father. At age eight Tyler discovered that she was Steven Tyler's daughter after meeting him and noticing a resemblance she shared with his other daughter, Mia. When she asked her mother about the similarity, the secret was revealed. The truth about Tyler's paternity did not become public until six years later in 1991, when she changed her name from Rundgren to Tyler, but kept the former as a middle name. Buell's stated reason for the initial decision was that Steven was too heavily addicted to drugs at the time of her birth. Since learning the truth about her paternity, Liv and Steven have developed a close relationship. They also have worked together professionally, once when she appeared in Aerosmith's music video for "Crazy" in 1993, and again when Aerosmith performed many of the songs in the film "Armageddon" (1998) in which Tyler starred. Tyler attended the Congressional Schools of Virginia, Breakwater School and Waynflete School in Portland, Maine, before returning to New York City with her mother at age 12. She went to York Preparatory in New York City for junior high and high school after her mother researched the school to accommodate Tyler's ADHD. She graduated in 1995, and left to continue her acting career. When asked about the way she spent her early life, Tyler said: "For me, I didn’t get much of a childhood in my teen years because I’ve been working since I was 14. But that also kept me out of trouble. When everybody was doing acid and partying like crazy, I was at work on a movie in Tuscany ... having my own fun, of course, but it was a different kind of thing. I have no regrets. I love the way my life has gone." Career. Early work. Tyler received her first modeling job at age 14 with the assistance of Paulina Porizkova who took pictures of her that ended up in "Interview" magazine. She later starred in television commercials. She, however, became bored with her modeling career less than a year after it started, and decided to go into acting, although she never took acting lessons. Tyler first became known to television audiences when she starred alongside Alicia Silverstone in the music video for Aerosmith's 1993 song "Crazy". 1994–2000. Tyler made her feature film debut in "Silent Fall" in 1994, where she played the older sister of an autistic boy. In 1995, she starred in the comedy drama "Empire Records". Tyler has described "Empire Records" as "one of the best experiences" she has ever had. Soon after, she landed a supporting role in James Mangold's 1996 drama "Heavy" as Callie, a naive young waitress. The film received favorable reviews; critic Janet Maslin noted: "Ms. Tyler ... gives a charmingly ingenuous performance, betraying no self-consciousness about her lush good looks." Tyler had her breakthrough role in "Stealing Beauty" (1996), in which she played Lucy Harmon, an innocent, romantic teenager who travels to Tuscany, Italy, intent on losing her virginity. The film received generally mixed reviews, but Tyler's performance was favored by the critics; "Variety" wrote: "Tyler is the perfect accomplice. At times sweetly awkward, at others composed and serene, the actress appears to respond effortlessly and intuitively to the camera, creating a rich sense of what Lucy is about that often is not explicit in the dialogue." "Empire" noted, "Liv Tyler (here radiantly resembling a ganglier young Ava Gardner) with a rare opportunity to enamour, a break she capitalizes on with composure." The film was directed by Bernardo Bertolucci, who chose Tyler for the role after meeting with a number of young girls in Los Angeles, including Tyler's music video co-star Alicia Silverstone. Bertolucci claimed "there was something missing in all of them". He later admitted that what he saw in Tyler was a "gravitas" he described as "a New York aura". During promotion of the film, Tyler admitted she wanted to separate herself from the character during production; "I tried my damnedest not to think of my own situation. But at one point, after a take, I just started to cry and cry. I remembered when I found out about my dad and how we just stared at each other from head to toe taking in every nook and cranny." She later appeared in "That Thing You Do!" (1996), a movie about a fictional one-hit wonder rock band called The Oneders, following their whirlwind rise to the top of the pop charts, and just as quickly, their plunge back to obscurity. The film was written and directed by Tom Hanks. It grossed over $25 million worldwide, and was met with favorable reviews. The following year, she appeared in "Inventing the Abbotts" in 1997, in which she played the daughter of Will Patton and Barbara Williams' characters. The movie is based on a short story by Sue Miller. "Entertainment Weekly" declared Tyler's performance as "lovely and pliant". That same year, Tyler was chosen by "People" magazine as one of the 50 Most Beautiful People. Tyler next appeared in "Armageddon" (1998), where she played the daughter of Bruce Willis' character and love interest of Ben Affleck's character. The film generated mixed reviews, but was a box office success earning $553 million worldwide. The movie included the songs "I Don't Want to Miss a Thing" and "What Kind of Love Are You On" by Aerosmith. In a 2001 interview with "The Guardian", she admitted that she turned down the role in "Armageddon"; "I really didn't want to do it at first and I turned it down a couple of times, but the biggest reason I changed my mind was because I was scared of it. I wanted to try it for that very reason. I mean, I'm not really in this to do amazing things in my career - I just want it to be special when I make a movie." She was then cast in the drama "Onegin" (1999), a film based on the 19th century Russian novel of the same name by Alexander Pushkin, in which she portrayed Tatyana Larina and co-starred with Ralph Fiennes. Tyler was required to master an English accent, though Stephen Holden of the "New York Times" felt that her approximation of an English accent was "inert". The film was critically and financially unsuccessful. That same year, she appeared in the historical comedy film "Plunkett & Macleane". She later appeared in two films directed by Robert Altman, "Cookie's Fortune" (1999) and "Dr. T & the Women" (2000). In "Cookie's Fortune", she was part of an ensemble cast that included Glenn Close, Julianne Moore, Chris O'Donnell, and Patricia Neal. Her performance well received among critics; Salon.com wrote: "This is the first time in which Tyler's acting is a match for her beauty (she's always been a bit forlorn). Altman helps her find some snap, but a relaxed, silly snap, as in the cartoon sound she makes when she takes a midday swig of bourbon. The lazy geniality of the movie is summed up by the way Emma character saunters off to take a swim with her cowboy hat and pint of Wild Turkey." "Entertainment Weekly" also noted that Tyler is "sweetly gruff as the tomboy troublemaker". In the romantic comedy, "Dr. T & the Women", she played Marilyn, a gynecological patient of Richard Gere's character, who is the lesbian lover of his daughter, played by Kate Hudson. 2001–present. In 2001, Tyler played the object of infatuation for three men (Matt Dillon, John Goodman and Paul Reiser) in the black comedy "One Night at McCool's". In discussion of the role, she said: "This was definitely the first part where I had to be so physically aware and have people so aware of me physically. Maybe it's not hard for anybody else, but it is a bit for me. I mean I love my body and I feel very comfortable in my skin, but this was tough." Peter Travers of "Rolling Stone" wrote: "Tyler, a true beauty, gives the role a valiant try, but her range is too limited to play this amalgam of female perfection." In 2001, she starred in the feature film "", directed by Peter Jackson. She played the Elf maiden Arwen Undómiel. The film is based on the first volume of J. R. R. Tolkien's "The Lord of the Rings". The filmmakers approached Tyler after seeing her performance in "Plunkett & Macleane". She learned to speak the fictitious Elvish language that was created by Tolkien. Mick LaSalle of the "San Francisco Chronicle" noted that Tyler's performance was "lovely and earnest". A year later, Tyler again starred as Arwen in ', the second installment of the series. The film received favorable reviews. Tyler spent months before filming learning swordfighting, to be used during the concluding battle scenes in "The Two Towers", though her scenes from the battle were removed after the script was changed. The film was an enormous box office success, earning over $926 million worldwide, out-grossing its predecessor, which earned over $871 million. In 2003, Tyler featured in the third and last installment of the series, '. Following the success of "The Lord of the Rings", she appeared opposite her "Armageddon" co-star Ben Affleck in writer-director Kevin Smith's romantic comedy "Jersey Girl" (2004), playing a woman who re-opens a widowed father's heart to love, played by Affleck. In an interview with MTV News, Tyler confessed that she felt "scared and vulnerable" while filming "Jersey Girl", adding "I was so used to those other elements of the character . On "The Lord of the Rings", a lot of things were done in post-production, whereas this was really just about me and Ben sitting there, just shooting off dialogue." However, she reiterated that doing "Jersey Girl" was what she wanted to do. In 2005, she appeared in Steve Buscemi's independent drama "Lonesome Jim", where she was cast alongside Casey Affleck, as a single mother and nurse who reconnects with an old fling who has returned to their small town of Indiana after a failed run as a novelist in New York. The film was screened at a special presentation at the 2005 Sundance Film Festival where it was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize. Tyler's next appearance in film was in a supporting role as an insightful therapist who tries to help a once-successful dentist (Adam Sandler) cope with the loss of his family during the events of the September 11th attacks in "Reign Over Me" (2007). In 2008, she starred in the horror-thriller "The Strangers" with Scott Speedman, a film about a young couple who are terrorized one night by three masked assailants in their remote country house. Although the film garnered a mixed reception among critics, it was a box office success. In an interview with "Entertainment Weekly", she noted that "The Strangers" was the most challenging role of her career. "It was as far as I could push myself in every way: physically, emotionally, mentally." She appeared in "The Incredible Hulk" (2008), in which she played Dr. Betty Ross, the love interest of the title character, played by Edward Norton. Tyler was attracted to the love story in the script, and was a fan of the television show. She said filming the part was "very physical, which was fun", and compared her performance to "a deer caught in the headlights". "The Incredible Hulk" was a box office success, earning over $262 million worldwide. "The Washington Post", in review of the film, wrote: "Tyler gives Betty an appropriately angelic nimbus of ethereal gentleness as the one Beauty who can tame the Beast ... during their most pivotal encounters." Tyler appeared in two films released in 2011: "Super" and "The Ledge". In April 2011, publishing house Rodale announced that Tyler and her grandmother Dorothea Johnson, an etiquette expert, have written a book called "Modern Manners." Rodale plans to release the book in May 2012. In 2013 she will appear in "Space Station 76", a movie directed by Jack Plotnick, starring also Matt Bomer and Patrick Wilson. Personal life. In 1998, Tyler began dating British musician Royston Langdon of the band Spacehog. She and Langdon became engaged in February 2001, and married in Barbados on March 25, 2003. On December 14, 2004, she gave birth to a son, Milo William Langdon. On May 8, 2008, the couple confirmed through representatives that they would be separating but remain friends. In an interview with the Australian "Daily Telegraph", Tyler revealed that her separation from Langdon led her to move to Los Angeles, explaining that it was hard to be in the Manhattan home that they had shared. In June 2010, Tyler stated she was "far too sensitive" for casual dates, adding "I fall in love once in a blue moon." Tyler is an active supporter of the charitable United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF). She was appointed as a Goodwill Ambassador for the United States in 2003. In November 2004, she hosted the lighting of the UNICEF Snowflake in New York City. Tyler also served as spokesperson for the 2004 Givenchy Mother's Day promotion, in support of UNICEF's Maternal & Neonatal Tetanus (MNT) campaign. Since 2004, she has donated to the Women's Cancer Research Fund to support innovative research, education, and outreach directed at the development of more effective approaches to the early diagnosis, treatment and prevention of all women's cancers. In October 2007, Tyler, along with her mother, Bebe Buell and her grandmother, Dorothea Johnson, helped launch the Emergen-C Pink energy drink, in which the event was in honor of Breast Cancer Awareness month. She is good friends with designer Stella McCartney, model Helena Christensen and actresses Kate Hudson, Chloë Sevigny and Gwyneth Paltrow. Tyler was formerly a vegan, but has since begun to eat meat. In 2003, she became the spokesperson for Givenchy perfume and cosmetics; in 2005 the brand named a rose after her, which was used in one of its fragrances. In 2009, Tyler signed on for two more years as Givenchy spokesperson. On December 8, 2011, Givenchy announced a collaboration between Givenchy perfumes and Sony Music. In the video released on February 7, 2012, Liv Tyler covered INXS song "Need You Tonight". In December 2012 Tyler participated in a charity gala for the David Lynch Foundation to provide Transcendental Meditation to disadvantaged sections of society.
1079023	Scenes from a Marriage (Swedish: Scener ur ett äktenskap) is a 1973 Swedish TV series written and directed by Ingmar Bergman. The story explores the disintegration of a marriage between Marianne, a lawyer, and Johan, a professor (played respectively by Liv Ullmann and Erland Josephson) over a long period, using a restricted cast, a naturalist, hyper-realistic cinematic style, claustrophobic close-ups, and strings of rapid, articulate monologues. After major success in Sweden, the series became notorious worldwide when it was condemned for allegedly inspiring a spike in Scandinavian divorce rates, which almost doubled in the year of its release. Episodes. This plot summary is for the 281-minute TV miniseries version of the work (the feature film retains the episode names as chapter titles). Each episode concludes with long, quiet, comforting shots of Fårö landscapes, as a "relief" from the up-close, tense and claustrophobic episodes. Each episode is structured around one critical scene, described below, with the rest of the episode dedicated to discussion and aftereffects. Some of the episodes occur months or years apart. Production. The TV version of "Scenes from a Marriage" is almost five hours long, split into six episodes. In the United States, a 167-minute version was released in cinemas. The film was made on a $150,000 budget and was shot mostly in Fårö, Gotlands län, Sweden. Reception. The film won several accolades, including BAFTA and Golden Globe nominations for Liv Ullmann (Best Actress – Motion Picture Drama), and a Best Foreign Language Film. A sequel, "Saraband", was released theatrically in 2003. In 2008, a theatrical adaption by Joanna Murray-Smith was performed at the Belgrade Theatre in Coventry, directed by Trevor Nunn and starring Imogen Stubbs and Iain Glen. In popular culture. "Dallas" and "Knots Landing" creator David Jacobs based the latter series on "Scenes from a Marriage". It focused on four married couples whose marriages were in various stages: the newlyweds, the ideal couple, the couple whose marriage was in trouble, and the couple that had recently reconciled. The series ran from 1979 to 1993. In the 1984 "SCTV" skit/commercial parody "Scenes from an Idiot's Marriage", Martin Short plays Jerry Lewis playing a writer who goes through a comedic version of "Scenes from a Marriage", complete with pratfalls and constant mistakes in Swedish pronunciation (he constantly calls Sven Gunderblum "Sy Worthenson" when his wife (Andrea Martin) announces that she is divorcing him and gives him Gunderblum's name as her lawyer).
1061415	Mel Ferrer (August 25, 1917 – June 2, 2008) was an American actor, film director and film producer. Early life. Ferrer was born Melchor Gastón Ferrer in the Elberon section of Long Branch, New Jersey, of Cuban and Irish descent. His father, Dr. José María Ferrer (1857–1920), was born in Cuba, of Spanish ancestry, and was an authority on pneumonia and served as chief of staff of St. Vincent's Hospital in New York City. His American mother, the former Mary Matilda Irene O'Donohue (1878–1967), was a daughter of coffee broker Joseph J. O'Donohue, New York's City Commissioner of Parks, a founder of the Coffee Exchange, and a founder of the Brooklyn-New York Ferry. An ardent opponent of Prohibition, Irene Ferrer was named, in 1934, the New York State chairman of the Citizens Committee for Sane Liquor Laws. Ferrer had three siblings. His elder sister was Dr. M. Irené Ferrer, a cardiologist and educator, who helped refine the cardiac catheter and electrocardiogram. His brother, Dr. Jose M. Ferrer, was a surgeon. His other sister, Teresa (Terry) Ferrer, was the religion editor of "The New York Herald Tribune" and education editor of "Newsweek". The family is not related to actors José or Miguel Ferrer. His mother's family, the O'Donohues, were prominent Roman Catholics. Mel Ferrer's aunt, Marie Louise O'Donohue (Mrs. Joseph J. O'Donohue, Jr.) was named a papal countess, and his mother's sister, Teresa Riley O'Donohue, a leading figure in American Catholic charities and welfare organizations, was granted permission by Pope Pius XI to install a private chapel in her New York City apartment. Ferrer was privately educated at the Bovée School in New York (one of his classmates was the future author Louis Auchincloss) and Canterbury Prep School in Connecticut before attending Princeton University until his sophomore year, at which time he dropped out to devote more time to acting. He also worked as an editor of a small Vermont newspaper and wrote a children's book, "Tito's Hats" (Garden City Publishing, 1940). Career. Ferrer began acting in summer stock as a teenager and in 1937 won the Theatre Intime award for best new play by a Princeton undergraduate; the play was called "Awhile to Work" and co-starred another college student, Frances Pilchard, who would become Ferrer's first wife that same year. At age twenty-one, he was appearing on the Broadway stage as a chorus dancer, making his debut there as an actor two years later. After a bout with polio, Ferrer worked as a disc jockey in Texas and Arkansas and moved to Mexico to work on a novel. He then was contracted to Columbia Pictures as a director along with several other "potentials" who began as dialogue directors: Fred Sears, William Castle, Henry Levin and Robert Gordon.
1058804	Zack and Miri Make a Porno is a 2008 romantic sex comedy film written and directed by Kevin Smith, distributed by The Weinstein Company, and starring Seth Rogen and Elizabeth Banks. It is Smith's second film (after "Jersey Girl") not to be set within the View Askewniverse and the first not set in New Jersey. It was released on October 31, 2008. Plot. Zack Brown and Miri Linky are roommates in Monroeville, Pennsylvania (a Pittsburgh suburb). They have been friends since the first grade. Despite Miri working at the local shopping mall and Zack working at a coffee shop, they have not paid their utility bills in months, with Zack devoting much of his free time to a fanatic following of the Pittsburgh Penguins and his status in the community amateur hockey team, the Monroeville Zombies. After work, their water gets turned off before they go to their high school reunion.
1165188	Ross Martin (March 22, 1920 – July 3, 1981) was a Polish-born American radio, stage, film and television actor. Martin is known for portraying Artemus Gordon on the CBS Western series "The Wild Wild West", which aired from 1965 to 1969. Early life. Martin was born Martin Rosenblatt into a Jewish family in Grodek, Poland. His family emigrated to New York when he was an infant. He spoke Yiddish, Polish and Russian before learning English and later added French, Spanish and Italian to his repertoire. Martin attended City College of New York where he graduated magna cum laude. He later earned a law degree from George Washington University. Career. Despite academic training in business, instruction, and law, Martin chose a career in acting. He was partners in a comedy team with Bernie West for several years, then appeared on many radio and live TV broadcasts before making his Broadway debut in "Hazel Flagg" in 1953.
1451621	Kimberley Kates is an American actress and film producer. Early life. Born in California, Kates grew up there and in Montana. Her biological father was killed by a drunk driver when she was a child. Kimberley was pre-med in College before winning a modeling contest which brought her back to Southern California. Kates has ten half and step brothers and sisters. On her biological/real father's side of her family, her paternal grandmother was a Randolph; ancestors are William Randolph, Sir John Randolph, Peyton Randolph, John Randolph and Edmund Randolph of the Randolph family of Virginia, also ancestors of Thomas Jefferson, Edith Bolling, Henry Lee II, Henry Lee III, Robert E. Lee and Lee Marvin. Career. Kates has appeared in numerous films and television series, including one of the first "Seinfeld" episodes. Her first film was "Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure", in which she played Princess Elizabeth, her best known role, also starring Keanu Reeves and George Carlin. Kates studied acting at the Beverly Hills Playhouse for ten years with Milton Katselas. She is currently involved in producing numerous new films, including "Standing Down" with Ron Perlman and Pras. In April 2009, she completed working on a documentary with William Shatner and Ben Folds, entitled "William Shatner's Gonzo Ballet" with her partners at Big Screen Entertainment and Five Star Pictures, Michael Manasseri, Scott Woolley and David Zappone.
1102254	Johann Carl Friedrich Gauss (; , ; ) (30 April 177723 February 1855) was a German mathematician and physical scientist who contributed significantly to many fields, including number theory, algebra, statistics, analysis, differential geometry, geodesy, geophysics, electrostatics, astronomy, and optics. Sometimes referred to as the "Princeps mathematicorum" (Latin, "the Prince of Mathematicians" or "the foremost of mathematicians") and "greatest mathematician since antiquity", Gauss had a remarkable influence in many fields of mathematics and science and is ranked as one of history's most influential mathematicians. Early years (1777–1798). Carl Friedrich Gauss was born on 30 April 1777 in Brunswick (Braunschweig), in the Duchy of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel (now part of Lower Saxony, Germany), as the son of poor working-class parents. Indeed, his mother was illiterate and never recorded the date of his birth, remembering only that he had been born on a Wednesday, eight days before the Feast of the Ascension, which itself occurs 40 days after Easter. Gauss would later solve this puzzle about his birthdate in the context of finding the date of Easter, deriving methods to compute the date in both past and future years. He was christened and confirmed in a church near the school he attended as a child. Gauss was a child prodigy. There are many anecdotes about his precocity while a toddler, and he made his first ground-breaking mathematical discoveries while still a teenager. He completed "Disquisitiones Arithmeticae", his magnum opus, in 1798 at the age of 21, though it was not published until 1801. This work was fundamental in consolidating number theory as a discipline and has shaped the field to the present day. Gauss's intellectual abilities attracted the attention of the Duke of Brunswick, who sent him to the Collegium Carolinum (now Braunschweig University of Technology), which he attended from 1792 to 1795, and to the University of Göttingen from 1795 to 1798. While at university, Gauss independently rediscovered several important theorems; his breakthrough occurred in 1796 when he showed that any regular polygon with a number of sides which is a Fermat prime (and, consequently, those polygons with any number of sides which is the product of distinct Fermat primes and a power of 2) can be constructed by compass and straightedge. This was a major discovery in an important field of mathematics; construction problems had occupied mathematicians since the days of the Ancient Greeks, and the discovery ultimately led Gauss to choose mathematics instead of philology as a career. Gauss was so pleased by this result that he requested that a regular heptadecagon be inscribed on his tombstone. The stonemason declined, stating that the difficult construction would essentially look like a circle. The year 1796 was most productive for both Gauss and number theory. He discovered a construction of the heptadecagon on 30 March. He further advanced modular arithmetic, greatly simplifying manipulations in number theory. On 8 April he became the first to prove the quadratic reciprocity law. This remarkably general law allows mathematicians to determine the solvability of any quadratic equation in modular arithmetic. The prime number theorem, conjectured on 31 May, gives a good understanding of how the prime numbers are distributed among the integers. Gauss also discovered that every positive integer is representable as a sum of at most three triangular numbers on 10 July and then jotted down in his diary the famous note: "ΕΥΡΗΚΑ! num = Δ + Δ + Δ". On October 1 he published a result on the number of solutions of polynomials with coefficients in finite fields, which 150 years later led to the Weil conjectures. Middle years (1799–1830). In his 1799 doctorate in absentia, "A new proof of the theorem that every integral rational algebraic function of one variable can be resolved into real factors of the first or second degree", Gauss proved the fundamental theorem of algebra which states that every non-constant single-variable polynomial with complex coefficients has at least one complex root. Mathematicians including Jean le Rond d'Alembert had produced false proofs before him, and Gauss's dissertation contains a critique of d'Alembert's work. Ironically, by today's standard, Gauss's own attempt is not acceptable, owing to implicit use of the Jordan curve theorem. However, he subsequently produced three other proofs, the last one in 1849 being generally rigorous. His attempts clarified the concept of complex numbers considerably along the way. Gauss also made important contributions to number theory with his 1801 book "Disquisitiones Arithmeticae" (Latin, Arithmetical Investigations), which, among things, introduced the symbol ≡ for congruence and used it in a clean presentation of modular arithmetic, contained the first two proofs of the law of quadratic reciprocity, developed the theories of binary and ternary quadratic forms, stated the class number problem for them, and showed that a regular heptadecagon (17-sided polygon) can be constructed with straightedge and compass. In that same year, Italian astronomer Giuseppe Piazzi discovered the dwarf planet Ceres. Piazzi could only track Ceres for somewhat more than a month, following it for three degrees across the night sky. Then it disappeared temporarily behind the glare of the Sun. Several months later, when Ceres should have reappeared, Piazzi could not locate it: the mathematical tools of the time were not able to extrapolate a position from such a scant amount of data—three degrees represent less than 1% of the total orbit. Gauss, who was 23 at the time, heard about the problem and tackled it. After three months of intense work, he predicted a position for Ceres in December 1801—just about a year after its first sighting—and this turned out to be accurate within a half-degree when it was rediscovered by Franz Xaver von Zach on 31 December at Gotha, and one day later by Heinrich Olbers in Bremen. Gauss's method involved determining a conic section in space, given one focus (the Sun) and the conic's intersection with three given lines (lines of sight from the Earth, which is itself moving on an ellipse, to the planet) and given the time it takes the planet to traverse the arcs determined by these lines (from which the lengths of the arcs can be calculated by Kepler's Second Law). This problem leads to an equation of the eighth degree, of which one solution, the Earth's orbit, is known. The solution sought is then separated from the remaining six based on physical conditions. In this work Gauss used comprehensive approximation methods which he created for that purpose. One such method was the fast Fourier transform. While this method is traditionally attributed to a 1965 paper by J. W. Cooley and J. W. Tukey, Gauss developed it as a trigonometric interpolation method. His paper, "Theoria Interpolationis Methodo Nova Tractata", was only published posthumously in Volume 3 of his collected works. This paper predates the first presentation by Joseph Fourier on the subject in 1807. Zach noted that "without the intelligent work and calculations of Doctor Gauss we might not have found Ceres again". Though Gauss had up to that point been financially supported by his stipend from the Duke, he doubted the security of this arrangement, and also did not believe pure mathematics to be important enough to deserve support. Thus he sought a position in astronomy, and in 1807 was appointed Professor of Astronomy and Director of the astronomical observatory in Göttingen, a post he held for the remainder of his life. The discovery of Ceres led Gauss to his work on a theory of the motion of planetoids disturbed by large planets, eventually published in 1809 as "Theoria motus corporum coelestium in sectionibus conicis solem ambientum" (Theory of motion of the celestial bodies moving in conic sections around the Sun). In the process, he so streamlined the cumbersome mathematics of 18th century orbital prediction that his work remains a cornerstone of astronomical computation. It introduced the Gaussian gravitational constant, and contained an influential treatment of the method of least squares, a procedure used in all sciences to this day to minimize the impact of measurement error. Gauss proved the method under the assumption of normally distributed errors (see Gauss–Markov theorem; see also Gaussian). The method had been described earlier by Adrien-Marie Legendre in 1805, but Gauss claimed that he had been using it since 1795. In 1818 Gauss, putting his calculation skills to practical use, carried out a geodesic survey of the Kingdom of Hanover, linking up with previous Danish surveys. To aid the survey, Gauss invented the heliotrope, an instrument that uses a mirror to reflect sunlight over great distances, to measure positions. Gauss also claimed to have discovered the possibility of non-Euclidean geometries but never published it. This discovery was a major paradigm shift in mathematics, as it freed mathematicians from the mistaken belief that Euclid's axioms were the only way to make geometry consistent and non-contradictory. Research on these geometries led to, among other things, Einstein's theory of general relativity, which describes the universe as non-Euclidean. His friend Farkas Wolfgang Bolyai with whom Gauss had sworn "brotherhood and the banner of truth" as a student, had tried in vain for many years to prove the parallel postulate from Euclid's other axioms of geometry. Bolyai's son, János Bolyai, discovered non-Euclidean geometry in 1829; his work was published in 1832. After seeing it, Gauss wrote to Farkas Bolyai: ""To praise it would amount to praising myself. For the entire content of the work ... coincides almost exactly with my own meditations which have occupied my mind for the past thirty or thirty-five years."" This unproved statement put a strain on his relationship with János Bolyai (who thought that Gauss was "stealing" his idea), but it is now generally taken at face value. Letters from Gauss years before 1829 reveal him obscurely discussing the problem of parallel lines. Waldo Dunnington, a biographer of Gauss, argues in "Gauss, Titan of Science" that Gauss was in fact in full possession of non-Euclidean geometry long before it was published by János Bolyai, but that he refused to publish any of it because of his fear of controversy. The geodetic survey of Hanover, which required Gauss to spend summers traveling on horseback for a decade, fueled Gauss's interest in differential geometry, a field of mathematics dealing with curves and surfaces. Among other things he came up with the notion of Gaussian curvature. This led in 1828 to an important theorem, the Theorema Egregium ("remarkable theorem"), establishing an important property of the notion of curvature. Informally, the theorem says that the curvature of a surface can be determined entirely by measuring angles and distances on the surface. That is, curvature does not depend on how the surface might be embedded in 3-dimensional space or 2-dimensional space. In 1821, he was made a foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. Later years and death (1831–1855). In 1831 Gauss developed a fruitful collaboration with the physics professor Wilhelm Weber, leading to new knowledge in magnetism (including finding a representation for the unit of magnetism in terms of mass, length and time) and the discovery of Kirchhoff's circuit laws in electricity. It was during this time that he formulated his namesake law. They constructed the first electromechanical telegraph in 1833, which connected the observatory with the institute for physics in Göttingen. Gauss ordered a magnetic observatory to be built in the garden of the observatory, and with Weber founded the "Magnetischer Verein" ("magnetic club" in German), which supported measurements of Earth's magnetic field in many regions of the world. He developed a method of measuring the horizontal intensity of the magnetic field which was in use well into the second half of the 20th century, and worked out the mathematical theory for separating the inner and outer (magnetospheric) sources of Earth's magnetic field. In 1840, Gauss published his influential "Dioptrische Untersuchungen", in which he gave the first systematic analysis on the formation of images under a paraxial approximation (Gaussian optics). Among his results, Gauss showed that under a paraxial approximation an optical system can be characterized by its cardinal points and he derived the Gaussian lens formula. In 1854, Gauss notably selected the topic for Bernhard Riemann's now famous Habilitationvortrag, "Über die Hypothesen, welche der Geometrie zu Grunde liegen". On the way home from Riemann's lecture, Weber reported that Gauss was full of praise and excitement. Gauss died in Göttingen, in the Kingdom of Hanover (now part of Lower Saxony, Germany) in 1855 and is interred in the Albanifriedhof cemetery there. Two individuals gave eulogies at his funeral: Gauss's son-in-law Heinrich Ewald and Wolfgang Sartorius von Waltershausen, who was Gauss's close friend and biographer. His brain was preserved and was studied by Rudolf Wagner who found its mass to be 1,492 grams (slightly above average) and the cerebral area equal to 219,588 square millimeters (340.362 square inches). Highly developed convolutions were also found, which in the early 20th century was suggested as the explanation of his genius. Religion. Bühler writes that, according to correspondence with Rudolf Wagner, Gauss did not appear to believe in a personal God. He was said to be a deist. He further asserts that although Gauss firmly believed in the immortality of the soul and in some sort of life after death, it was not in a fashion that could be interpreted as Christian since Gauss explained to Wagner that he didn't believe in the Bible. According to Dunnington, Gauss's religion was based upon the search for truth. He believed in "the immortality of the spiritual individuality, in a personal permanence after death, in a last order of things, in an eternal, righteous, omniscient and omnipotent God". Gauss also upheld religious tolerance, believing it wrong to disturb others who were at peace with their own beliefs. Family. Gauss's personal life was overshadowed by the early death of his first wife, Johanna Osthoff, in 1809, soon followed by the death of one child, Louis. Gauss plunged into a depression from which he never fully recovered. He married again, to Johanna's best friend named Friederica Wilhelmine Waldeck but commonly known as Minna. When his second wife died in 1831 after a long illness, one of his daughters, Therese, took over the household and cared for Gauss until the end of his life. His mother lived in his house from 1817 until her death in 1839. Gauss had six children. With Johanna (1780–1809), his children were Joseph (1806–1873), Wilhelmina (1808–1846) and Louis (1809–1810). Of all of Gauss's children, Wilhelmina was said to have come closest to his talent, but she died young. With Minna Waldeck he also had three children: Eugene (1811–1896), Wilhelm (1813–1879) and Therese (1816–1864). Eugene shared a good measure of Gauss' talent in languages and computation. Therese kept house for Gauss until his death, after which she married. Gauss eventually had conflicts with his sons. He did not want any of his sons to enter mathematics or science for "fear of lowering the family name". Gauss wanted Eugene to become a lawyer, but Eugene wanted to study languages. They had an argument over a party Eugene held, which Gauss refused to pay for. The son left in anger and, in about 1832, emigrated to the United States, where he was quite successful. Wilhelm also settled in Missouri, starting as a farmer and later becoming wealthy in the shoe business in St. Louis. It took many years for Eugene's success to counteract his reputation among Gauss's friends and colleagues. See also on 3 September 1912. Personality. Carl Gauss was an ardent perfectionist and a hard worker. He was never a prolific writer, refusing to publish work which he did not consider complete and above criticism. This was in keeping with his personal motto "pauca sed matura" ("few, but ripe"). His personal diaries indicate that he had made several important mathematical discoveries years or decades before his contemporaries published them. Mathematical historian Eric Temple Bell estimated that, had Gauss published all of his discoveries in a timely manner, he would have advanced mathematics by fifty years. Though he did take in a few students, Gauss was known to dislike teaching. It is said that he attended only a single scientific conference, which was in Berlin in 1828. However, several of his students became influential mathematicians, among them Richard Dedekind, Bernhard Riemann, and Friedrich Bessel. Before she died, Sophie Germain was recommended by Gauss to receive her honorary degree. Gauss usually declined to present the intuition behind his often very elegant proofs—he preferred them to appear "out of thin air" and erased all traces of how he discovered them. This is justified, if unsatisfactorily, by Gauss in his "Disquisitiones Arithmeticae", where he states that all analysis (i.e., the paths one travelled to reach the solution of a problem) must be suppressed for sake of brevity. Gauss supported the monarchy and opposed Napoleon, whom he saw as an outgrowth of revolution. Anecdotes. There are several stories of his early genius. According to one, his gifts became very apparent at the age of three when he corrected, mentally and without fault in his calculations, an error his father had made on paper while calculating finances. Another famous story has it that in primary school after the young Gauss misbehaved, his teacher, J.G. Büttner, gave him a task : add a list of integers in arithmetic progression; as the story is most often told, these were the numbers from 1 to 100. The young Gauss reputedly produced the correct answer within seconds, to the astonishment of his teacher and his assistant Martin Bartels. Gauss's presumed method was to realize that pairwise addition of terms from opposite ends of the list yielded identical intermediate sums: 1 + 100 = 101, 2 + 99 = 101, 3 + 98 = 101, and so on, for a total sum of 50 × 101 = 5050. However, the details of the story are at best uncertain (see for discussion of the original Wolfgang Sartorius von Waltershausen source and the changes in other versions); some authors, such as Joseph Rotman in his book "A first course in Abstract Algebra", question whether it ever happened. According to Isaac Asimov, Gauss was once interrupted in the middle of a problem and told that his wife was dying. He is purported to have said, "Tell her to wait a moment till I'm done." This anecdote is briefly discussed in G. Waldo Dunnington's "Gauss, Titan of Science" where it is suggested that it is an apocryphal story. He referred to mathematics as "the queen of sciences" and supposedly once espoused a belief in the necessity of immediately understanding Euler's identity as a benchmark pursuant to becoming a first-class mathematician. Commemorations. From 1989 through 2001, Gauss's portrait, a normal distribution curve and some prominent Göttingen buildings were featured on the German ten-mark banknote. The reverse featured the approach for Hanover. Germany has also issued three postage stamps honoring Gauss. One (no. 725) appeared in 1955 on the hundredth anniversary of his death; two others, nos. 1246 and 1811, in 1977, the 200th anniversary of his birth. Daniel Kehlmann's 2005 novel "Die Vermessung der Welt", translated into English as "Measuring the World" (2006), explores Gauss's life and work through a lens of historical fiction, contrasting them with those of the German explorer Alexander von Humboldt. A film version directed by Detlev Buck was released in 2012. In 2007 a bust of Gauss was placed in the Walhalla temple. Things named in honor of Gauss include: In 1929 the Polish mathematician Marian Rejewski, who would solve the German Enigma cipher machine in December 1932, began studying actuarial statistics at Göttingen. At the request of his Poznań University professor, Zdzisław Krygowski, on arriving at Göttingen Rejewski laid flowers on Gauss's grave.
1103394	Kannan Soundararajan is a mathematician and a professor of mathematics at Stanford University. Before moving to Stanford in 2006, he was a faculty member at University of Michigan where he pursued his undergraduate studies. His main research interest is in Number theory especially L-functions and multiplicative number theory. Early life. Soundararajan grew up in Chennai and was a student at Padma Seshadri High School in Nungambakkam in Madras (now Chennai), India. He represented India at the International Mathematical Olympiad in 1991 and won a Silver Medal. Education. Soundararajan joined the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, in 1991 for undergraduate studies, and graduated with highest honours in 1995. Soundararajan won the inaugural Morgan Prize in 1995 for his work in analytic number theory whilst an undergraduate at the University of Michigan, where he later served as professor. He joined Princeton University in 1995 and did his Ph.D under the guidance of Professor Peter Sarnak. As a graduate student at Princeton, he held a prestigious Sloan Foundation Fellowship. Career. After his Ph.D. he received the first five year fellowship from the American Institute of Mathematics, and held positions at Princeton University, the Institute for Advanced Study, and the University of Michigan. He moved to Stanford University in 2006 where he is currently a Professor of Mathematics and the Director of the Mathematics Research Center (MRC) at Stanford. Work. He proved a conjecture of Ron Graham in combinatorial number theory jointly with Ramachandran Balasubramanian. He made important contributions in settling Quantum unique ergodicity conjecture. Awards. He received the Salem Prize in 2003 "for contributions to the area of Dirichlet L-functions and related character sums". In 2005, he won the $10,000 SASTRA Ramanujan Prize, shared with Manjul Bhargava, awarded by SASTRA in Thanjavur, India, for his outstanding contributions to number theory. In 2011, he was awarded the Infosys science foundation prize 2011. He was awarded the Ostrowski prize in 2011, shared with lb Madsen and David Preiss, for a cornucopia of fundamental results in the last five years to go along with his brilliant earlier work. He gave an invited talk at the International Congress of Mathematicians in 2010, on the topic of "Number Theory".
144845	Jacob Edward "Jake" Hoffman (born March 20, 1981) is an American actor. He was born in Los Angeles County, California, the son of actor Dustin Hoffman and Lisa Hoffman (née Gottsegen). In 2003 he graduated from NYU Film School. Since then, he has directed music videos, written and directed short films, and is most known for his work as an actor. In 2006 he played the adult version of Ben Newman in the comedy fantasy film Click, playing Adam Sandler's son. More recently, Jake and his real life father Dustin were cast as grandfather and grandson in the HBO television series "Luck". Jake can next be seen as the lead in the edgy indie thriller "Snap" and in Martin Scorsese's "The Wolf of Wall Street".
900608	Valeria Golino (born 22 October 1965) is an Italian actress and director. She is best known to English language audiences for the 1988 film "Rain Man", and the "Hot Shots!" films. In addition to David di Donatello, Silver Ribbon, Golden Ciak and Italian Golden Globe awards, she also won a Best Actress award at the Venice Film Festival. Early life. Golino was born in Naples, Italy, to an Italian father who was a Germanist and scholar and a Greek mother, Lalla, who was a painter; one of her grandmothers was Egyptian-French. She grew up in an "artistic household" and, after her parents split, was raised between Athens and Sorrento (Naples). Golino is the niece of "L'Espresso" journalist Enzo Golino; her brother is a musician. As a child her mother would frequently take her to the cinema and it is thanks to her that she quickly became interested in films. But in spite of this, she never thought about pursuing a film career until she made her first movie: in fact she wanted to be a cardiologist. She was diagnosed with scoliosis at 11 and had to have a steel rod implanted in her back for five years; she remained in Chicago for six months where she learned to speak English. At 14 she started to work as a model in Athens, Milan (for "Vogue" magazine), London and Los Angeles: she shot commercials for beers, perfumes and makeups and modeled bathing suits and jeans. An absent-minded student, she dropped out of high school after her first film. Career. 1983-1987. Golino never formally studied acting. Her career started by chance when her uncle Enzo received a phone call from director Lina Wertmüller, who was searching for a young girl for her movie, and encouraged Golino to go to Wertmuller's house and meet her. The two met and Valeria was eventually cast in her film debut "A Joke of Destiny", alongside Ugo Tognazzi after an audition where she performed Shakespeare. Despite her parents' reservations and Wertmuller's demanding on-set behavior, she liked the experience so much that she decided to pursue an acting career. She quit modeling, a profession that she never found fulfilling or interesting, and started to study diction and elocution. Among her early auditions were "Una spina nel cuore" (an audition that she called "distasteful") and "The Name of the Rose" but she was passed over for both films. She was offered roles in "Giochi d'estate" (1984) and other similarly themed romantic films about teenagers, but she turned them down to focus on smaller and more challenging projects. She followed up her debut with a string of independent films: in 1985 she took on roles in "Figlio mio infinitamente caro" and "Little Flames", her first leading role, both of which won her a Golden Globe award for Best Breakthrough Actress. Later that year she was involved in a car accident which displaced the metal bar in her back and had to have surgery in order to fix it: she was bedridden for five months. Her true star-making role came the following year, when she played the life-loving cleaning lady who romances two different men in "A Tale of Love" by Francesco Maselli. Her vibrant performance received rave reviews and garnered her two prizes at the 1986 Venice Film Festival: the official Best Actress award (now called Volpi Cup) and the Golden Ciak award. The same film also won her the oldest and most prestigious critics prize of the Italian cinema: the Silver Ribbon award for Best Actress. Maselli also offered her the leading role in "Codice privato" but she turned it down; the part was eventually played by Ornella Muti. Her following projects were once again independent, auteur-driven films: "Gli occhiali d'oro" and "Three Sisters". 1988-now. She moved to Los Angeles in 1988 and began to work in Hollywood that same year with the movie "Big Top Pee-Wee" and received roles in prominent films such as "Rain Man," as the girlfriend of Tom Cruise, and the comedy films "Hot Shots!" and "Hot Shots! Part Deux." Her character's nationality in "Rain Man" was changed from American to Italian to accommodate her accent. Even though she was known as a dramatic actress in Italy, most of the offers she received in Hollywood were for comedies. She auditioned for female roles in "Pretty Woman" and "Flatliners" but both times she lost the part to Julia Roberts during the final audition. She was first runner-up for both roles and, in the case of "Pretty Wowan", she revealed many years later: "I was in the running until the final audition: it came to down to Julia Roberts and me. The director asked us to walk in the same corridor, wearing the same clothes and makeup. As soon as I saw her, I knew that she would have been chosen. And since she knew that, she told me: “Go and get them, big mama!”. I wouldn't have dared to say that to my rival. I would have been good in that film but she was perfect". She turned down the leading role in the Ken Loach film "Hidden Agenda", which she called "an offer that I still regret having declined." Later she was also offered the female leading role in "True Lies" but she had to turn it down, choosing to shoot an independent film in Cyprus instead, "I Sfagi tou kokora". In late 1994 she was supposed to star with Gian Maria Volonté in the film "Treni sull'acqua". The project would have marked her third collaboration with director Peter Del Monte but it was cancelled due to Volonté's death. In early 1996 she was supposed play a journalist in the film "Bravo Randy", directed by Alessandro D'Alatri and also starring Jovanotti, Greta Scacchi and Olivia d'Abo. Jovanotti was cast in the titular role, a tramp who falls into a coma after an accident whereas Scacchi would have played a doctor. However the project fell apart just a few months before shooting was slated to begin: fearing a lack of influence, the Italian production company blocked the funds as the film would have been shot in California. In January 2001 she was supposed to star with Claudio Amendola in a TV mini-series called "Cuore di ghiaccio", directed by Luciano Casciani, produced by Mediaset and set in Cefalù, but the project never took off the ground. More recently, she had a supporting role in the successful French thriller "36, Quai des Orfèvres" and a leading role in "Cash" (even if the producers of the film wanted Kristin Scott Thomas to star instead). In 2004 she was cast as Irene in "Sacred Heart", a role which had been written specifically for her by director Ferzan Ozpetek, but she was forced to abandon the project for personal reasons. She was replaced by Barbora Bobulova. In 2005 she was offered the leading role in "Fine pena mai" but she turned it down, considering herself to be too old for the part. The role was eventually played by Valentina Cervi.
1102357	Godfrey Harold "G. H." Hardy FRS (7 February 1877 – 1 December 1947) was an English mathematician, known for his achievements in number theory and mathematical analysis. He is usually known by those outside the field of mathematics for his essay from 1940 on the aesthetics of mathematics, "A Mathematician's Apology", which is often considered one of the best insights into the mind of a working mathematician written for the layman. Starting in 1914, he was the mentor of the Indian mathematician Srinivasa Ramanujan, a relationship that has become celebrated. Hardy almost immediately recognised Ramanujan's extraordinary albeit untutored brilliance, and Hardy and Ramanujan became close collaborators. In an interview by Paul Erdős, when Hardy was asked what his greatest contribution to mathematics was, Hardy unhesitatingly replied that it was the discovery of Ramanujan. He called their collaboration "the one romantic incident in my life." Early life and career. G. H. Hardy was born 7 February 1877, in Cranleigh, Surrey, England, into a teaching family. His father was Bursar and Art Master at Cranleigh School; his mother had been a senior mistress at Lincoln Training College for teachers. Both parents were mathematically inclined. Hardy's own natural affinity for mathematics was perceptible at a young age. When just two years old, he wrote numbers up to millions, and when taken to church he amused himself by factorising the numbers of the hymns. After schooling at Cranleigh, Hardy was awarded a scholarship to Winchester College for his mathematical work. In 1896 he entered Trinity College, Cambridge. After only two years of preparation he was fourth in the Mathematics Tripos examination. Years later, Hardy sought to abolish the Tripos system, as he felt that it was becoming more an end in itself than a means to an end. While at university, Hardy joined the Cambridge Apostles, an elite, intellectual secret society. As the most important influence Hardy cites the self-study of "Cours d'analyse de l'École Polytechnique" by the French mathematician Camille Jordan, through which he became acquainted with the more precise mathematics tradition in continental Europe. In 1900 he passed part II of the tripos and was awarded a fellowship. In 1903 he earned his M.A., which was the highest academic degree at English universities at that time. From 1906 onward he held the position of a lecturer where teaching six hours per week left him time for research. In 1919 he left Cambridge to take the Savilian Chair of Geometry at Oxford in the aftermath of the Bertrand Russell affair during World War I. He returned to Cambridge in 1931, where he was Sadleirian Professor until 1942. "The Indian Clerk" (2007) is a novel by David Leavitt based on Hardy's life at Cambridge, including his discovery of and relationship with Srinivasa Ramanujan. Work. Hardy is credited with reforming British mathematics by bringing rigour into it, which was previously a characteristic of French, Swiss and German mathematics. British mathematicians had remained largely in the tradition of applied mathematics, in thrall to the reputation of Isaac Newton (see Cambridge Mathematical Tripos). Hardy was more in tune with the "cours d'analyse" methods dominant in France, and aggressively promoted his conception of pure mathematics, in particular against the hydrodynamics which was an important part of Cambridge mathematics. From 1911 he collaborated with J. E. Littlewood, in extensive work in mathematical analysis and analytic number theory. This (along with much else) led to quantitative progress on the Waring problem, as part of the Hardy–Littlewood circle method, as it became known. In prime number theory, they proved results and some notable conditional results. This was a major factor in the development of number theory as a system of conjectures; examples are the first and second Hardy–Littlewood conjectures. Hardy's collaboration with Littlewood is among the most successful and famous collaborations in mathematical history. In a 1947 lecture, the Danish mathematician Harald Bohr reported a colleague as saying, "Nowadays, there are only three really great English mathematicians: Hardy, Littlewood, and Hardy–Littlewood." Hardy is also known for formulating the Hardy–Weinberg principle, a basic principle of population genetics, independently from Wilhelm Weinberg in 1908. He played cricket with the geneticist Reginald Punnett who introduced the problem to him, and Hardy thus became the somewhat unwitting founder of a branch of applied mathematics. His collected papers have been published in seven volumes by Oxford University Press. Pure mathematics. Hardy preferred his work to be considered "pure mathematics", perhaps because of his detestation of war and the military uses to which mathematics had been applied. He made several statements similar to that in his "Apology": However, aside from formulating the Hardy–Weinberg principle in population genetics, his famous work on integer partitions with his collaborator Ramanujan, known as the Hardy–Ramanujan asymptotic formula, has been widely applied in physics to find quantum partition functions of atomic nuclei (first used by Niels Bohr) and to derive thermodynamic functions of non-interacting Bose-Einstein systems. Though Hardy wanted his maths to be "pure" and devoid of any application, much of his work has found applications in other branches of science. Moreover, Hardy deliberately pointed out in his "Apology" that mathematicians generally do not "glory in the uselessness of their work," but rather – because science can be used for evil as well as good ends – "mathematicians may be justified in rejoicing that there is one science at any rate, and that their own, whose very remoteness from ordinary human activities should keep it gentle and clean." Hardy also rejected as a "delusion" the belief that the difference between pure and applied mathematics had anything to do with their utility. Hardy regards as "pure" the kinds of mathematics that are independent of the physical world, but also considers some "applied" mathematicians, such as the physicists Maxwell and Einstein, to be among the "real" mathematicians, whose work "has permanent aesthetic value" and "is eternal because the best of it may, like the best literature, continue to cause intense emotional satisfaction to thousands of people after thousands of years." Although he admitted that what he called "real" mathematics may someday become useful, he asserted that, at the time in which the "Apology" was written, only the "dull and elementary parts" of either pure or applied mathematics could "work for good or ill." Attitudes and personality. Socially he was associated with the Bloomsbury group and the Cambridge Apostles; G. E. Moore, Bertrand Russell and J. M. Keynes were friends. He was an avid cricket fan and befriended the young C. P. Snow who was one also. He was at times politically involved, if not an activist. He took part in the Union of Democratic Control during World War I, and For Intellectual Liberty in the late 1930s. Hardy was an atheist. Apart from close friendships, he had a few platonic relationships with young men who shared his sensibilities. He was a lifelong bachelor, and in his final years he was cared for by his sister.
1043254	Herbert Lom (; 11 September 191727 September 2012) was a Czech-born film and television actor who moved to the United Kingdom in 1939. In a career lasting more than 60 years he appeared in character roles, usually portraying villains early in his career and professional men in later years.
1068415	Winter Passing is a 2005 American comedy-drama film. It is the directorial debut of playwright Adam Rapp, also known for his work on the show "The L Word". The film stars Zooey Deschanel and Ed Harris, with supporting performances by Will Ferrell and Amelia Warner. The film premiered in 2005 to mixed reviews. Plot. Reese Holdin (Deschanel) is a depressed bartender/actress living in New York City. She regularly engages in casual sex, cocaine use and self-mutilation. When a publishing agent (Amy Madigan) approaches her, we learn that Reese is the daughter of a famous author named Don Holdin (Harris); and that her mother, Mary, recently died. Reese did not attend the funeral. The publisher offers the impecunious Reese $100,000 for a series of letters written between her mother and father at the height of their careers. When Reese learns that the kitten she rescued from the streets is dying of feline leukemia, she drowns it and buys a bus ticket. Despite such family tensions, Reese travels to Michigan's Upper Peninsula to retrieve the letters. Returning to her childhood home, she finds it occupied by Corbit (Ferrell), a down-and-out Christian musician, and Shelley (Warner), a 23-year-old former student of Don's. Reese's father now lives, writes and drinks in his garage. Reese initially clashes with the doting Shelley (whom she accuses of sleeping with her father) but eventually accepts her after learning of the death of her parents and of Don's support of her during a near-fatal bout with endometriosis. She also bonds with the idiosyncratic Corbit, who spurns her sexual advances and has trouble playing guitar and singing at the same time. She feels out of place at home and fights with her father over childhood neglect, stating that her parents gave their typewriters more attention. She eventually finds the box of letters and, reading the emotional communiques, learns to empathize with her estranged parents. Shelly has also read the letters and asks Reese if she intends to publish them. Reese expresses ambiguity over the matter. Don Holdin is still grieving over his wife's death. He keeps the tie she hanged herself with in a dresser in the backyard along with the rest of their bedroom suite, including their bed. He sometimes sleeps in the bed despite the bitter cold of winter. Reese starts to connect with Corbit and Shelly and is honest with her father about her reasons for staying away from the funeral. Soon after, Don overdoses on pills, and Reese finds him unconscious. He recovers in the hospital, where Reese sits by his bed and reads his latest manuscript, "Golf", which he had Corbit bury in the yard. The experience helps the father and daughter find closure, and Reese buries the box of letters in place of the novel before returning to New York. Reception. Some film critics have voiced suspicions that one or more of the film's characters are based on famous personages. "New York Times" film and music critic Stephen Holden suggests J.D. Salinger, Sylvia Plath, Jack Kerouac, Ken Kesey, Ted Hughes and Ernest Hemingway as possible bases for Reese's parents. Film critic Roger Ebert suggests Frederick Exley as the most likely basis for Don's character. The name "Holdin" could derive from Holden Caulfield, Salinger's most famous character, while the Holdin family history is reminiscent of Salinger's own family as described in his daughter's memoir "Dream Catcher." "Winter Passing" is the only film to date known to speak of Traverse City, Michigan. It was included in the 2006 Traverse City Film Festival for this reason, winning an award for "Best Use of the Words Traverse City in a Feature Film."
899267	Marriage Italian-Style () is a 1964 film by Vittorio De Sica that tells the World War II era story of a cynical, successful businessman named Domenico (Mastroianni), who, after meeting a naive country girl, Filomena (Loren), one night in a Neapolitan brothel, keeps frequenting her for years in an on-off relationship (as she continues working as a prostitute). He eventually takes her in his house as a semi-official mistress under the pretense that she take care of his ailing, senile mother. After having fallen for a younger, prettier girl and having planned to marry her, he finds himself cornered when Filomena feigns illness and "on her deathbed", asks to be married to him. Thinking she'll be dead in a matter of hours and that the 'marriage' won't even be registered, he agrees. After having been proclaimed his legal bride, the shrewd and resourceful Filomena drops the charade and reveals to have put up the show for the one child she bore from him (she gave birth to three sons but Domenico always maintained to have fathered none). Domenico tries to cajole her into telling him which one is his but she stalwartly refuses, telling him that sons can't be picked and chosen and that he has to be the father of all three. It stars Sophia Loren, Marcello Mastroianni and Vito Moricone. One of the film's most memorable moments is when Domenico is on the phone with his new flame, shortly after having married the "moribund" Filomena. As he reassures his fiancée that death is near, a wild-eyed and vengeful Filomena emerges from the shadows behind him and exclaims in Neapolitan that she is in fact alive and well--the Madonna having taken pity on her. The film was adapted by Leonardo Benvenuti, Renato Castellani, Piero De Bernardi and Tonino Guerra from the play "Filumena Marturano "by Eduardo De Filippo. It was directed by Vittorio De Sica. "Filomena Marturano" had already been adapted as a film in 1950 in Argentina. Awards. It was nominated for Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language Film in 1966, and for Best Actress in a Leading Role in 1965. It was also entered into the 4th Moscow International Film Festival.
584365	Nesam () is a 1997 Tamil film directed K. Subhash starring Ajith Kumar and Maheswari, making her debut, in the lead roles. Goundamani, Senthil and Manivannan among others play other pivotal roles in the film, which has music composed by Deva. The film released on 14 January 1997 to mixed reviews. Production. The film became on of the two films of 1997 in which Ajith Kumar and Maheswari were paired together, with the second collaboration being in "Ullaasam". Release. The film opened to mixed reviews. Two years after release, the producers were given a 5 lakh subsidy by Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi along with ten other films.
1463896	Cargo 200 ( "Gruz 200") is a Russian thriller film from 2007 by Aleksei Balabanov depicting the late Soviet society. The action is set during culmination of the Soviet war in Afghanistan in 1984 and the movie's title refers to the zinc coffins in which dead Soviet soldiers were shipped home. Plot. Artemy (Leonid Gromov), professor of Scientific Atheism at the Leningrad State University, is visiting his brother in a small neighboring town Leninsk. There he meets Valery (Leonid Bichevin), a young man who is dating his niece and has come to take her to a party. On the way back from Leninsk to Leningrad Artemy's car breaks down and he goes into an isolated farmhouse to get help. Artemy gets to talking with the farmhouse owner, Alexey (Aleksei Serebryakov). The two drink together homemade alcohol and argue about faith in God and retribution from sins, the professor defending the Soviet atheist worldview. Artemy also encounters Alexey's wife, Antonina (Natalya Akimova), as well as Sunka (Mikhail Skryabin), a Vietnamese worker working at the farm, who seems to be practically a personal slave of Alexey's, and a third stranger who is not explained at the time. Sunka worker finally fixes Artemy's car and the professor drives on. Meanwhile, Valery goes to a party by himself, since his girlfriend (Artemy's niece) needs to study. At the concert Valery meets another female student friend of his named Angelika (Agniya Kuznetsova), the daughter of a high-ranking Communist Party official, and they drink together. After the party, in search of more alcohol, Valery drives with her to a farm of moonshiners, which turns out to be the same farm Artemy had visited earlier. Valery tells Angelika to stay in the car while he gets the alcohol. However, instead of returning directly to the car, he gets drunk senseless with the moonshiner, Alexey. Angelika, waiting in the car, notices that she is being watched by a strange man. She gets scared, and tries to get help from Antonina, who gives the girl a shotgun and hides her in a barn. The stranger, who turns out to be a police officer Captain Zhurov (Aleksei Poluyan), enters the barn and takes away the gun. When Sunka tries to defend the girl, Zhurov murders him, then rapes the girl with a bottle (it appears that he himself is impotent). In the morning he handcuffs her, taking her to his flat in Leninsk, and keeps the girl handcuffed to a bedframe in his bedroom, watched over by his deranged alcoholic mother, while he brings local small time criminals in to rape her, killing one after he fails to "please" the girl. The girl threatens that her fiancé, who is an army paratrooper, will save her. Captain Zhurov finds out, however, that her fiance had just been killed in Afghanistan. He arranges to have the zinc-lined coffin shipped to his apartment where he opens it and throws the corpse on the bed next to the screaming girl. Alexey the moonshiner is arrested for the killing of his Sunka. Captain Zhurov visits Alexey in his cell and convinces him to take the blame for the crime. Alexey gets a visit from his wife Antonina and explains to her why he has to agree to confess for earlier favors from the captain. Antonina meets Artemy, the professor whose testimony might exonerate her husband, but Artemy refuses to testify since that would jeopardize his academic career. Alexey is convicted, sentenced to the death penalty, and summarily executed. Antonina takes a shotgun and goes to Zhurov's apartment, where she encounters screaming Angelica still chained to the bed next to the rotting corpses. She shoots and kills Zhurov, then walks out without attempting to help the girl. Meanwhile, Artemy enters a church and asks to be baptized. In the last scenes Valery (who escaped the entire affair unscathed and without letting anyone know that he knows anything), is shown discussing business propositions with a friend of his (the son of Artemy, Slavic). The two are excited about the amount of money that can be made in the disintegrating country. Reception. Awards. Won: Nominated:
1058634	Wings Hauser (born December 12, 1947) is an American actor, director, and film writer. Life and career. Hauser was born Gerald Dwight Hauser in Hollywood, California, the son of Geraldine (née Thienes) and Academy Award-winning director and producer Dwight Hauser (1911–1969). His brother is actor Erich Hauser. In 1975, Hauser released an album for RCA entitled "Your Love Keeps Me Off the Streets". For this LP he used the name "Wings Livinryte". Hauser first attracted notice in 1977 in the soap opera "The Young and the Restless", as Greg Foster. He has appeared in 41 television series, including recurring roles in "Beverly Hills 90210", "Murder, She Wrote" and "Roseanne, and a brief cameo as a juror in the season 4 episode "Mr. Monk Gets Jury Duty" of the hit TV series Monk". In 1983, he wrote the story that became the Paramount box-office hit, "Uncommon Valor". Hauser has also appeared in "Vice Squad", "Deadly Force", "No Safe Haven" and "Tough Guys Don't Dance", and the French movie "Rubber", which is directed by French musician Quentin Dupieux. Hauser has a daughter, Bright Hauser, from his first marriage to Jane Boltinhouse. From his second marriage, to Cass Warner, he has a son, actor Cole Hauser. Wings Hauser is married to actress Cali Hauser. A cult film festival, "The Melbourne Underground Film Festival," held a Wings Hauser retrospective in 2009.
324364	Soldier Blue is a 1970 American Revisionist Western movie directed by Ralph Nelson and inspired by events of the 1864 Sand Creek massacre in the Colorado Territory. The screenplay was written by John Gay based on the novel "Arrow in the Sun" by Theodore V. Olsen (republished as "Soldier Blue" after the movie was released). It starred Candice Bergen, Peter Strauss and Donald Pleasence. Plot. A young woman, Cresta Lee (Bergen), and young U.S. private Honus Gent (Strauss) are joined together by fate when they are the only two survivors after their group is massacred by the Cheyenne. Gent is devoted to his country and duty; Lee, who has lived with the Cheyenne for two years, declares that in this conflict she sympathizes more with them. The two must now try to make it to Fort Reunion, the army base camp, where Cresta's fiance, an army officer, waits for her. As they travel through the desert with very low supplies, hiding from the Indians, they are spotted by a group of Kiowa horsemen. Under pressure from Cresta, Honus fights and seriously wounds the group's chief. Honus finds himself unable to kill the chief, and the chief's own men stab him for his defeat and leave Honus and Cresta alone. Eventually, after being shot at by a white man who supplied guns to the Indians, Honus finds himself alone in a cave where Cresta leaves him to get help. She arrives at Fort Reunion, only to discover the that her fiance's cavalry plans to attack the peaceful Indian village of the Cheyenne the day after. She runs away on a horse and reaches the village in time to warn Spotted Wolf, the Cheyenne chief. The chief refuses to indulge in warfare and rides out to extend a hand of friendship to the American soldiers using the U.S. flag. The soldiers, however, obey the orders of their commanding officer to open fire at the village. After a cavalry charge decimates the Indian men, the soldiers enter the village and begin to rape and kill the female survivors as Honus attempts to disrupt the massacre. Cresta attempts to lead the remaining women and children to safety, but her group is discovered and massacred while Cresta herself is spared. After the battle, Honus is led away in shackles and Cresta departs with the remaining survivors. Production. The movie provided the first motion picture account of the Sand Creek massacre, one of the most infamous incidents in the history of the American frontier, in which Colorado Territory militia under Colonel John M. Chivington massacred a defenseless village of Cheyenne and Arapaho on the Colorado Eastern Plains. At the time of the actual historic massacre, the panel of the Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War declared: The account of the massacre is included as part of a longer fictionalized story about the escape of two white survivors from an earlier massacre of U.S. Cavalry troops by Cheyenne, and names of the actual historical characters were changed. Reception. The film was the third most popular movie at the British box office in 1971. It brought $1.2 million from the U.S./ Canada rentals. The title song, written and performed by Buffy Sainte-Marie, was released as a single and became a top ten hit in the UK as well as other countries in Europe and Japan during the summer of 1971. In September 1970, Dotson Rader of "The New York Times", wrote that "Soldier Blue" "must be numbered among the most significant, the most brutal and liberating, the most honest American films ever made." Released during the Vietnam War, shortly after public disclosure of the My Lai massacre, the film was controversial at the time not only for its subject matter, but also for its graphic depictions of violence. Nelson, who also appeared in the movie in a minor role, pushed the depiction of the violence to explicit levels, showing nudity during rape scenes, as well as realistic close-up shots of bullets ripping into flesh. British author and critic P.B. Hurst wrote:
1056196	French Connection II is a 1975 crime drama film starring Gene Hackman and directed by John Frankenheimer. It is a fictional sequel to the initially true story of the 1971 Academy Award winning picture "The French Connection". The film expands on the central character of Det. Jimmy "Popeye" Doyle who travels to Marseille, France where he is attempting to track down French drug-dealer Alain Charnier, who got away at the end of the first film. Hackman and Fernando Rey are the only returning cast members. Plot. Picking up where the original left off, narcotics officer Jimmy "Popeye" Doyle (Gene Hackman) is still searching for the elusive drug kingpin Alain Charnier (Fernando Rey). Orders from the captain send Doyle to Marseille, France, to track down the criminal mastermind and bust his drug ring. Once in France, Doyle is met by Inspector Henri Barthélémy (Bernard Fresson), who resents his rude and crude crimefighting demeanor. Doyle then begins to find himself as a fish out of water in France, where he is matched with a language he cannot understand.
1396076	Angus Turner Jones (born October 8, 1993) is an American actor. Jones is best known for playing Jake Harper in the CBS sitcom "Two and a Half Men", for which he had won two Young Artist and a TV Land Award during his 10-year tenure as one of the show's main characters. Life and career. Jones was born in Austin, Texas, the older of two sons.
1265401	Fay Wray (born Vina Fay Wray; September 15, 1907 – August 8, 2004) was a Canadian-American actress most noted for playing the female lead in "King Kong". Through an acting career that spanned 57 years, Wray attained international renown as an actress in horror movie roles. After appearing in minor movie roles, Wray gained media attention being selected as one of the "WAMPAS Baby Stars". This led to Wray being contracted to Paramount Pictures as a teenager, where she made more than a dozen movies. After leaving Paramount, she signed deals with various film companies, being cast in her first horror film roles among many other types of roles, including in "The Bowery" (1933) and "Viva Villa" (1934), both huge productions starring Wallace Beery. For RKO Radio Pictures, Inc., she starred in the film with which she is most identified, "King Kong" (1933). After the success of "King Kong", Wray appeared in many major movie roles and on television, finishing her acting career in 1980. Early life. Wray was born on a ranch near Cardston in the province of Alberta, Canada, to two Mormons, Elvina Marguerite Jones, who was from Salt Lake City, and Joseph Heber Wray, who was from Kingston upon Hull, England. She was one of six children. Her family returned to the United States a few years after she was born; they moved to Salt Lake City in 1912 and moved in 1914 to Lark, Utah. In 1919, the Wrays returned to Salt Lake City again and then relocated to Hollywood, California, where Fay attended Hollywood High School. Early acting career. In 1923, Wray appeared in her first film at the age of sixteen, when she landed a role in a short historical film sponsored by a local newspaper. In the 1920s, Wray landed a major role in the silent film "The Coast Patrol" (1925), as well as uncredited bit parts at the Hal Roach Studios. In 1926, American film association, the Western Association of Motion Picture Advertisers, selected Wray as one of the "WAMPAS Baby Stars", a group of women who they believed to be on the threshold of movie stardom. She was currently under contract to Universal Studios, mostly co-starring in low budget westerns opposite Buck Jones. The following year in 1927, Wray was signed to a contract with Paramount Pictures In 1928, director Erich von Stroheim cast her as the main female lead in his film "The Wedding March", released under Paramount, a film noted for its high budget and production values. It was a financial failure, but it gave Wray her first lead role. Wray stayed with Paramount to make more than a dozen films and to make the transition from silent films to "talkie" films. Horror films and "King Kong". After leaving Paramount, Wray signed to various film companies. It was under these deals that Wray was cast in various horror films, including "Doctor X". However, her greatest known films were produced under her deal with RKO Radio Pictures, Inc.. Her first film under RKO was "The Most Dangerous Game" (1932), co-starring Joel McCrea and shot at night on the same jungle sets that were being used for "King Kong" during the day, with the leads from both films, Wray and Robert Armstrong, appearing in both movies. "The Most Dangerous Game" was followed by Wray's most memorable film, "King Kong". According to Wray, Jean Harlow had been RKO's original choice, but because MGM put Harlow under exclusive contract during the pre-production phase of the film, she became unavailable and Wray was approached by director Merian C. Cooper to play the role of Ann Darrow, the blonde captive of King Kong. Wray was paid $10,000 dollars to play the role. The film was a commercial success. Wray was reportedly proud that the film saved RKO from bankruptcy. Wray's role would become the one with which she would be most associated. Later career. She continued to star in various films, but by the early 1940s, her appearances became less frequent. She retired from acting in 1942, after her second marriage. However, due to financial exigencies she continued in her acting career, and over the next three decades, Wray appeared in certain film roles and also frequently on television. Wray was cast in the 1953-1954 ABC situation comedy, "The Pride of the Family", as Catherine Morrison. Paul Hartman played her husband, Albie Morrison. Natalie Wood and Robert Hyatt played their children, Ann and Junior Morrison, respectively. Wray appeared in three episodes of CBS's courtroom drama, "Perry Mason", the first of which was "The Case Of The Prodigal Parent" (Episode 1-36) aired June 7, 1958. In 1959, she portrayed murder victim Lorna Thomas in "The Case of the Watery Witness." In 1965, she played voodooist Mignon Germaine in "The Case of the Fatal Fetish."
1184035	Ciara Princess Harris (born October 25, 1985), known mononymously as Ciara (pronounced , ), is an American singer, songwriter, dancer, actress and fashion model. Born in Austin, Texas, she traveled around the world during her childhood, eventually moving to Atlanta, Georgia where she joined the girl group Hearsay. However the group disbanded after having differences, it was at this time Ciara was noticed for her song-writing, In 2002 Ciara met music producer Jazze Pha. With his help, she signed a record deal with LaFace Records. In 2004, Ciara released her debut studio album "Goodies", which spawned three hit singles: "Goodies", "1, 2 Step", and "Oh". The album was certified triple platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), and earned her four nominations at the 48th Grammy Awards. She released her second studio album, "", in 2006 which spawned the hit singles "Get Up", "Promise", and "Like a Boy". The album reached number one in the US and was certified platinum. Her third studio album "Fantasy Ride", released in 2009, was considerably less successful than Ciara's first two albums. However, it produced the worldwide top-ten hit "Love Sex Magic" featuring Justin Timberlake, which earned her a Grammy Award nomination for Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals. The following year, Ciara released her fourth studio album "Basic Instinct", which was met with low sales and continued a downward trend in her commercial success. In 2011, she signed a new record deal with Epic Records, and is preparing to release her upcoming self-titled fifth studio album, "Ciara", which is preceded by the top-ten R&B/Hip-Hop hit "Body Party." Ciara has also ventured into acting in 2006 she made her film debut it All You've Got, followed by Mama, I Want to Sing! and That's My Boy (2012). As of 2013 Ciara also has a recurring role in the US TV Series The Game. Since making her musical debut in 2004, Ciara has attained eight "Billboard" Hot 100 top-ten singles, including a number one. She has also earned numerous awards and accolades, including three BET Awards, three MTV Video Music Awards, three MOBO Awards, and one Grammy Award. Ciara has sold over seven million albums worldwide, and more than 4.3 million albums and 6.9 million digital singles in the United States alone. Early life. Ciara was born in Austin, Texas on October 25, 1985, as the only child of Jackie and Carlton Harris. Since her father was in the United States Army, throughout her childhood, Ciara grew up on army bases in Germany, New York, Utah, California, Arizona, and Nevada. In speaking of this, Ciara states that while she hated to lose good friends, this helps her in her career when she has to travel all over the world. During her teens, Ciara and her family moved to Atlanta. In her mid-teens, Ciara formed the all girl group "Hearsay" with two of her friends. The group recorded demos, but as time went on, they began to have differences and eventually parted ways. Despite this setback, Ciara was still determined to reach her goal and signed a publishing deal as a songwriter. Her first success was the song, "Got Me Waiting" for R&B singer Fantasia Barrino's debut album, "Free Yourself". It was when she was writing songs that she met music producer, Jazze Pha, whom she called her "music soulmate." In 2002, the two recorded four demos, "1, 2 Step," "Thug Style," "Pick Up the Phone," and "Lookin' at You," which all appeared on her debut album, which was released two years later. "1, 2 Step" was the second single released from it and became a hit. Career. 2003–05: "Goodies" and breakthrough. After graduating from Riverdale High School in Riverdale, Georgia in 2003, she was signed by LaFace Records executive, L.A. Reid, whom she was introduced to by Jazze Pha. She began production on her debut album later that year. In early 2004, Ciara wrote a demo with record producer, Sean Garrett. The demo was later brought to the attention of Lil Jon and became her debut single "Goodies." Lil Jon stated later that he knew it would be big seeing how it sounded similar to Usher's international hit, "Yeah!." Ciara released her debut album "Goodies" on September 28, 2004. The album debuted at number three on the US "Billboard" 200, selling 124,750 copies in its initial week and topped the Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart. Following the release of the album, Ciara was hailed as the "First Lady of Crunk&B". "Goodies" had a seventy-one week run on the "Billboard" 200, and was certified three times-platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America on October 10, 2006. The album has sold around nearly 3 million copies in the United States as of June 2010. Charting at twenty-two on the Canadian Albums Chart, it was certified Platinum by the Canadian Recording Industry Association. The album charted at twenty-six on the UK Albums Chart, and spent twenty weeks on the chart. It was certified Silver by the British Phonographic Industry, remaining to be Ciara's sole certified album in the UK. "Goodies"' lead single, the title track, featuring Petey Pablo, was released on June 8, 2004. Conceived as a crunk female counterpart to Usher's "Yeah!", the lyrical content goes against the grain, speaking of abstinence, rejecting advances because "the goodies will stay in the jar." Critics hailed it as an "anthem of the summer" and one of the best singles of the year, complementing its dance-feel and beat, and the irony of the "clever" lyrics. The single performed well worldwide, topping the charts in Canada, the United States and the United Kingdom, and charting in the top ten of other charts, receiving Platinum certification in the United States. "1, 2 Step" featuring Missy Elliott was released as the album's second single. The song peaked in the top ten of many countries, topping the charts in Canada, and went on to become Platinum or Gold in many countries. "Oh" featuring Ludacris was released as the third single on March 5, 2005. The song performed well worldwide, appearing in the top ten of seven charts, and certified either Platinum or Gold in multiple regions. Following the success of the album, Ciara released a CD/DVD entitled "" in the United States on July 12, 2005 which featured remixes to "1, 2 Step" and "Oh", as well as two new songs. The release was certified platinum in the United States. She made guest appearances on Missy Elliott's single "Lose Control" and on Bow Wow's single "Like You", which both peaked at number three in the United States and obtained worldwide success. She was an opening act for Gwen Stefani's "Harajuku Lovers Tour 2005" and went on tour with Chris Brown and Bow Wow on the "Holiday Jam Tour" in December 2005. At the 48th Grammy Awards, Ciara received four nominations for Best New Artist, Best Rap/Sung Collaboration for "1, 2 Step", Best Rap Song for Missy Elliott's single "Lose Control", and won her last nomination, Best Short Form Music Video for Lose Control. 2006–07: "Ciara: The Evolution" and acting debut. On December 5, 2006, Ciara released her second studio album, "". According to the singer, the title of the album is "about so much more than just my personal growth – it's about the evolution of music, the evolution of dance, the evolution of fashion." The source of the album's creativity such as the sound and edge comes from Ciara in general. "Ciara: The Evolution" became Ciara's first number one album on the US "Billboard" 200 and second on the Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums charts with sales of more than 338,000 becoming her highest first week of sales to date. The album went on to be certified platinum by the RIAA in the United States, within only five weeks of its release, and has sold 1.3 million copies according to Nielsen SoundScan. It sold over two million copies worldwide. The album's international lead single, "Get Up", which features Chamillionaire, reached number seven in the United States and gained a platinum accreditation. It reached number five in New Zealand. The song was used for the film "Step Up" and featured on the film's soundtrack. The album's US lead single, "Promise", reached number eleven on the "Billboard" Hot 100 and became her third number one single on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart. "Like a Boy" was released as the second international single which reached within the top twenty in the UK, Finland, France, Ireland, Sweden Switzerland, and also in the United States. The fourth and final single from the album, "Can't Leave 'em Alone", reached number 10 on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart and number 40 on the "Billboard Hot 100." The song became Ciara's fifth single to peak in the top in New Zealand, peaking at number 4. The song achieved moderate success in other international markets. In support of the album, Ciara went on in October 2006. The tour went to seventeen different clubs in cities throughout the United States. The tour was met with mixed to positive reviews; critics were divided regarding the pre-recorded backing tracks and remarked that Ciara was slightly under-prepared to host her own headlining tour, but ultimately praised her energetic choreography. In August 2007, she headlined the Screamfest '07 tour with fellow rapper, T.I.. Critics praised her performance for her gracious dancing and being able to command a sold out arena. Ciara, along with Chris Brown and Akon, was a support act for Rihanna's "Good Girl Gone Bad Tour" in the United Kingdom. She made a guest appearance on "So What" by Field Mob. The single went on to become a top 10 hit on the "Billboard Hot 100." She also appeared on Tiffany Evans' single "Promise Ring". The song achieved little success on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart. In addition to her music, Ciara made her acting debut in the MTV Films production "All You've Got" in May 2006. In the movie she played Becca Whiley, a teenager who is competing in a volleyball tournament. The movie received mixed to positive reviews; critics said the movie was predictable but still enjoyable. Ciara became the face of Jay-Z's Rocawear clothing line and spokesperson for the women campaign entitled "I Will Not Lose", which debuted in the summer of 2007. 2008–09: "Fantasy Ride". In October 2008, Ciara was honored as "Billboard"'s "Woman of the Year", because of her success as a recording artist and leadership in embracing the changing music business. Although her third album was originally intended for a September 2008 release, "Fantasy Ride" was released after a number of delays in May 2009. The album combines her R&B and hip hop sound from her previous albums along with a new pop and dance sound. While talking to MTV News, Ciara said, "I'm having a bit more fun with my lyrics. I'm not afraid. In the beginning, I was conscious and really protective and somewhat scared in reference to doing some things. With this album I'm not holding back, there's a freedom. It's just the space I'm in right now." It became Ciara's first top ten album in the UK and Canada. In the United States, "Fantasy Ride" debuted at number three on the "Billboard" 200, becoming Ciara's third consecutive album to debut within the top three on the chart. To date, it has sold 193,000 copies, according to Nielsen SoundScan. "Go Girl" was the first single released from the album. It was originally the lead single from the album, but the single achieved minimum success and was later deemed a promo single. However, the single managed to reach the top of the charts in Japan. The album's official lead single, "Never Ever", which features Young Jeezy, was released in the United States in January 2009 and reached a peak of number nine on the U.S. Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs. The second single, "Love Sex Magic", featuring Justin Timberlake, became a worldwide hit, peaking within the top ten in twenty countries including the U.S., where it peaked at number ten on the "Billboard Hot 100". It went on to be certified platinum in Australia and received a gold accreditation in New Zealand. It received a nomination for "Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals" at the 52nd Grammy Awards and also for Best Choreography in a Video at the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards. "Like A Surgeon" was the fourth single from the album. The song received no promotion and no single cover nor music video was released. However, the song did manage to peak at number fifty-nine on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart from airplay alone. "Work", the final single, achieved moderate success in international markets. In July 2009, Ciara headlined the "Jay-Z & Ciara Live" tour with Jay-Z. Her performance received mixed reviews; critics said although her dancing was top-notch, she seemed disconnected from the crowd. She was also the support act for Britney Spears's "Circus" tour, where she performed eight nights at London's prestigious O2 Arena during June 2009. Her performance received rave reviews from critics and fans alike, who noted her dancing skills as being spectacular and arguably better than Britney Spears'. Ciara made a guest appearance on Nelly's single "Stepped On My J'z" from his album "Brass Knuckles". The song achieved minimal success in the US. Ciara was also featured on Enrique Iglesias' single, "Takin' Back My Love", from his "Greatest Hits" album. The song became an international hit, peaking in the top ten of over fifteen international countries, and being certified Gold in Russia, with sales of over 100,000. In February 2010, Ciara along with Pitbull were featured on the remix to Ludacris' hit single "How Low". The following month, Ciara made a cameo appearance in the music video of Usher's single, "Lil' Freak". 2010–11: "Basic Instinct" and Label change. Ciara released her fourth studio album, "Basic Instinct", on December 14, 2010. She told Pete Lewis of "Blues & Soul" magazine that the album is really about her trusting her instinct and going back to the R&B/urban basics in her music – like where she first started, in the days of "Goodies" and "1, 2 Step". It was executively produced by the singer alongside her A&R agent Mark Pitts and writing/production duo Tricky Stewart and The-Dream who also produced records for her previous album, "Fantasy Ride". "Basic Instinct" debuted at number forty-four on the US "Billboard" 200 chart, with first-week sales of 37,000 copies, becoming her only album to not peak within the top three. On the U.S. R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart, the album opened at number eleven, her only album to not peak within the top two of the chart. The lead single, "Ride", which features Ludacris, was released on April 26, 2010. It peaked at number forty-two on the U.S. "Billboard" Hot 100, number three on the U.S. Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart, becoming her twelfth top ten hit on the chart, and number seventy-five on the UK Singles Chart. The accompanying music video won the award for "Best Dance Performance" at the 2010 Soul Train Music Awards. "Speechless" was released as the second single from the album and achieved minimal success, peaking at only number seventy-four on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart. "Gimmie Dat", the third single from the album was praised by critics but failed to become a hit, peaking at only sixty-three on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart, and number twenty-seven on the urban charts in the UK. In November 2010, Ciara performed at the Summerbeatz tour alongside Flo Rida, Jay Sean, Akon, Travie McCoy and Ja Rule. In the summer of 2011, Ciara was a part of the Malibu Rum Tour. She performed in seven shows across the US. In February 2011, following rumors that Ciara had been dropped by Jive Records, she released an official statement to her Facebook page complaining of inadequate promotion and funding from the label. She stated that she received a lack of support from the label, and even paid for the promotion of some singles, such as "Gimmie Dat", herself. The frustration she felt while working with her third and fourth albums led her to request that she be released from her contract. In May 2011, Ciara was removed from the Jive Records website roster. On July 12, 2011, it was reported that she had reunited with L.A. Reid by signing with his record label Epic Records, and was confirmed in September 2011. 2012–present: "Ciara" and films. During an interview with "Sway in the Morning" in February 2012, Ciara revealed that she will be taking her time recording her fifth studio album, stating: "It's just really about the vibe, and I'll just tell you that it's a good vibe going. It's really important for me to take my time with this record and it's important for the whole team. It's really, really good energy." She has been working on the album with a number of producers and songwriters, including Hit-Boy, Soundz, Diane Warren, Tricky Stewart, and The Underdogs. In an interview, Ciara said “I worked with some people that are very fresh, which I’m excited about,” she revealed. “When it comes to artists, when it comes to writers, when it comes to producers, I really wanted to push. We pretty much reached out and worked with a lot of people that I’ve never worked with before, which is really fun.” During a press conference with MTV in May 2012, Ciara announced her fifth studio album would be titled "One Woman Army" and said the lead single, "Sweat", would be out very soon. The single, which features rapper 2 Chainz, premiered online on June 4, 2012, and was to be released via iTunes on June 19, 2012. However, the release of the single was scrapped at the last minute for unknown reasons. On August 13, 2012, Ciara revealed that the official lead single for the album would be titled "Sorry". On September 13, 2012, the official music video for "Sorry" was premiered on BET's 106 & Park as well as VEVO. "Sorry" was made available for purchase as a digital download on September 25, 2012 and impacted US Urban contemporary and Rhythmic radio stations on October 9, 2012 . In the United States, "Sorry" reached a peak at forty on the US "Billboard" Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart while charting at twenty-two on the "Billboard" Bubbling Under Hot 100 Singles chart, a listing of the top 25 songs that have yet to enter the "Billboard" Hot 100. On October 21, 2012, "Rap-Up" magazine posted a behind-the-scenes sneak peek of "Got Me Good", the second single from the album. The song and video, which was directed by Joseph Kahn, premiered on the Sony JumboTron in Times Square in New York City on October 25, 2012. The single was released via digital download on November 6, 2012. "Got Me Good" impacted rhythmic radio on November 13, and mainstream radio on December 4. On April 15, 2013, the same day the album's track listing was revealed, it was also announced that the album is not titled "One Woman Army" anymore and that the new title is "Ciara". Due to their low performance on the charts, the label decided not to include "Sweat", "Sorry", and "Got Me Good" on the tracklist. Instead, it was later announced that a new song titled "Body Party" would serve as the lead single. It was released in March 2013 and so far reaching number 22 on the "Billboard Hot 100" and number two on the US Billboard "Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs" chart . The second single is "I'm Out" featuring Nicki Minaj. The album was released on July 9, 2013. Aside from music, Ciara also starred in two movies during this time. She starred in the straight-to-DVD film, "Mama, I Want to Sing!". She played Amara Winter, a preacher's daughter who was discovered by a well-established musician. Ciara also appeared as Brie in the summer 2012 comedy film, "That's My Boy". Ciara made an appearance as herself playing Lauren London's best friend on the Season 6 premiere of BET's "The Game" which aired on March 26, 2013, she continued to be an recurring cast member throughout the season. In September 2013 producer Mike.Will.Made.It revealed that Ciara had began work on sixth studio album. Artistry. Music and voice. She is known for her often "breathy soprano" vocals. With the release of her debut single "Goodies", Ciara was referred to as the Princess of Crunk&B. Allison Stewart of "The Washington Post" commented that she has a "reedy, agile voice, capable of conveying the only three emotions (sexy, sassy, sad) an R&B singer needs. Randall Roberts of "Los Angeles Times" commented that "Ciara has been the most synthetic of the R&B divas over the past decade, an electro-leaning vocalist whose instrumental palate has heavily favored stark 808 beats, sassy and seductive vocal lines." In reviewing her second album "", Jody Rosen of "Entertainment Weekly" writes "Ciara's comfort with rave-inspired beats sets her apart from Cassie, Amerie, Rihanna, and other would-Beyoncés... singing is nimble throughout: She whispers, coos, wails, and reels off speedy syncopations worthy of Beyoncé herself." Her third album "Fantasy Ride" saw the singer showcasing a new pop and dance direction. Bill Lamb of "About.com" commented that her hit "Love Sex Magic" has a "retro funk guitar feel" to it and that "the song rides a beat that brings simultaneous echoes of 70's R&B and classic Janet Jackson." Ciara's music is generally contemporary R&B, but she also incorporates various styles of musical genres including, hip hop, crunk, rap, dance-pop, electro pop and funk into her songs. Critics have described her singles "Goodies", "1, 2 Step", "Get Up", and "Go Girl" as club bangers. Ciara's debut album featured production from Jazze Pha who discovered her. Critics compared the album to the late singer Aaliyah and said it had qualities of Destiny's Child. On her second album, Ciara worked with one of her debut album collaborators Lil Jon on "That's Right", sampling Pretty Tony's "Fix It in the Mix". She has also taken to sampling songs from other artist such as, Lyn Collins's "Think (About It)" and Rob Base's "It Takes Two" on "Make It Last Forever", Jive Rhythm Trax’s 80's electro cut "122 BPM" on "C.R.U.S.H" and also Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes' "If You Don't Know Me by Now", sampling the chorus of the song onto "Never Ever". Influences. Ciara said that watching Destiny's Child and Janet Jackson perform on television inspired her to pursue a career in music, and cites Jackson and her brother Michael as her biggest inspirations. Ciara considered herself to reach "a career pinnacle" when she featured on Janet Jackson's 2008 album "Discipline". Ciara spoke of Michael Jackson's legacy, "Whenever someone asks me who inspires me to do what I do, I always say Michael. That's it for me. He's everything to me. He's really a part of the reason why. He's going to be remembered in so many ways for me. I feel it's important for me to continue to let my generation know how important he was to music." Ciara also cites the late Aaliyah, TLC, SWV, Monica and Salt-n-Pepa as influences. Ciara's second studio album (2006) was influenced by Michael Jackson, Prince, and pop singer Madonna. During the recording of her fifth self-titled album Ciara (2013), she was inspired by Al Green and Missy Elliot. Stage and alter ego. Ciara has received praise for her stage presence and routines during live performances. Dalondo Moultrie of "The Morning Call" praised Ciara's stage presence saying that she "put on one of the best performances I have seen yet at Rock". Moultrie continued to call her dance steps "incredible", noting that it was in sync with the music, "each pelvic thrust or body-bending twist" and the periodic bursts of light. In conclusion, Moultrie praised Ciara's live performances and there "high-energy songs, sexy dance moves, flawless vocals and a top-flight light show". Sia Michel of "The New York Times" praised Ciara's relentless professional presence stating: "Ciara led a squad of hip-hop dancers through stylishly choreographed routines. Striding about in a headset, she was a commanding and relentlessly professional presence." At the time of the release of "Fantasy Ride" (2009) Ciara introduced her alter ego "Super C". Ciara said that Super C is her "inner strength and aggressive persona" – a futuristic, superhero-esque woman, loosely based on the robotic character Ciara portrayed in the "Go Girl" music video. Ciara described her reasoning for developing an alter ego, "There's so much negative energy in the world, especially within the blogging world, they try so hard to tear you down. the superhero concept it's like, 'I refuse to let you and that negative energy tear me down or stop any blessing that I know is there for me.' That's when the inner superhero comes out." Personal life. In 2005, Ciara began dating rapper Bow Wow. In April 2006, Bow Wow and Ciara ended their relationship. Although the two never confirmed the reason for the break-up, it was revealed that Bow Wow cheated on Ciara. In early 2013, there were numerous reports and rumors revealing that rapper Future and Ciara were in a relationship. Later on, Future eventually confirmed himself in an interview that he and she are in fact happily dating. Since then they have made their relationship public and have shown up to numerous events together hand in hand. Ciara has a capital N tattooed on her ring finger, the 'N' stands for Future's name, Nayvadius. Other ventures. In the October issue of "Vibe Magazine", Ciara appeared to be naked on the magazine's cover but she has stated that "Vibe" airbrushed her clothes off to make it appear she was completely nude. Ciara told "MTV News" she was hurt by the photos and was quite shocked when she finally got her hands on the month's issue. She later confirmed that she was in fact clothed. In September 2008, Ciara contributed to the song "Just Stand Up!" with fifteen other female artists, who shared the stage to perform the song live on September 5, 2008 during the "Stand Up to Cancer" television special. The proceeds from the single were given to the fundraiser. The television special helped raise $100 million for cancer research. In 2009, Ciara became the face of Dosomething.org's "Do Something 101" campaign to raise school supplies for those in need at the start of the school year. She filmed a public service announcement to endorse the campaign. In 2009, Ciara signed a multi-million dollar deal with the modeling agency Wilhelmina Models. After signing the deal she has been in many magazine spreads. In addition to that, she also has her eyes set on beginning a new clothing line. In June 2008, she was in talks with the department store Steve & Barry's to create an affordable clothing line, but it never happened. On November 9, 2009 it was announced that Ciara would be modeling in the German edition of "Vogue". During that time, it was also announced that Ciara would be the new face of a major multimedia ad campaign for Verizon's smartphone the LG Chocolate Touch. Ciara filmed a commercial for the campaign, which features her dancing to her 2009 single "Work". In March 2010, it was officially confirmed and announced that Ciara was the spokesperson in the new ad campaign for Adidas Originals. A commercial for the campaign was released the same month, featuring numerous other celebrities. Ciara also supports gay rights and performed at the Los Angeles Pride Festival in June 2013.
567624	The "Bedside"-films is a series of eight feature films directed by John Hilbard in 1970-1976, and form part of the wave of erotic films from Denmark. The eight films are connected by the Danish word "sengekant" (bedside) in the title of each film. They were produced by the film company Palladium, starring Danish actor Ole Søltoft in all except "Motorvej på sengekanten". All the "Bedside"-films had many pornographic sex scenes, but were nevertheless considered mainstream films. They all had mainstream casts and crews, and were shown in mainstream cinemas and reviewed in national newspapers etc. The first five, made 1970 - 1973, all featured the actress Birte Tove and were "soft-core". The last three, made 1975 and 1976, after the first of the "Zodiac"-films were released, all included hard-core scenes and shared many actresses with the Zodiac films, such as Anne Bie Warburg, Vivi Rau and Lisbeth Olsen. The actress Annie Birgit Garde features in all the "Bedside"-films. Another Danish film company, Happy Film, made a similar series called the "Zodiac"-films, also starring Ole Søltoft. All of these films had hardcore-scenes, but were nonetheless also considered mainstream-productions, with mainstream casts and crews. The first Danish sex comedies were made in the 1960s, but Ole Ege's "Bordellet" (1972) was the first to have hardcore sex-scenes. List of the films. There have been eight bedside movies in total: "Mazurka på sengekanten". "Mazurka på sengekanten" (Mazurka on the bedside) was the first of the eight movies and many regard it as the best. The film takes place in the all-boys private boarding school Krabbesøgaard (Crab Lake Farm). The rector (principal) of the school has been appointed as the new minister of culture. Because of this, the rector Bosted (Axel Strøbye) needs to find his replacement. The choice falls on the young teacher Mikkelsen (Ole Søltoft), who is popular amongst the students because he wants to convert the boys school into a mixed gender school that also allows girls. However there is a problem. Mikkelsen is a virgin and school policy dictates that the rector must be a married man. He has thirty days before the new government is officially presented and rector Bosted needs to resign, and in that time he must be engaged, or the position falls to the hated teacher Holst (Paul Hagen) also known as “the doormat”. The boys, led by the seniors Torben, Vagn, Ole and Michael, that are all already worldly, therefore start on a quest. To get Mikkelsen laid. With the help of rector Bosted’s neglected wife, both the chairman’s daughters, and a stripper/prostitute that the boys hire, Mikkelsen starts to gain a better understanding of the fairer sex. But will it be enough to get him a wife in just 30 days, or will “the doormat” end up taking the position?
113199	Kevin David Sorbo (born September 24, 1958) is an American actor best known for the roles of Hercules in "", Captain Dylan Hunt in "Andromeda" and Kull in "Kull the Conqueror". Early life. Sorbo was born in Mound, Minnesota, where he attended Mound Westonka High School. He is the son of Ardis, a nurse, and Lynn Sorbo, a junior high school mathematics and biology teacher. He is of Norwegian descent and was raised in a Lutheran family. Sorbo attended Minnesota State University Moorhead, where he double majored in marketing and advertising. In order to make tuition, he began to work as a model for print and television advertising in the 1980s. Career. Sorbo started his acting career in the late 1980s making guest appearances in several television series such as "1st & Ten", "Murder She Wrote" and "The Commish". He was considered for and lost out to Dean Cain as Superman in "" and was a possible contender for the role of Agent Mulder in "The X Files" which went to David Duchovny. In 1994, he shot to fame when he played the role of Hercules in the television film "Hercules and the Amazon Women". This was the first in a series of television films that served as pilots for the TV series "", which ran from 1995 to 1999. Sorbo also guest-starred as Hercules in episodes of the 1995-2001 spin-off series ' and provided the voice of Hercules in the 1998 direct-to-video animated film '. Other voice-over work followed, with Sorbo providing the voices of Reiko and Quan Chi in the 1997 video game "Mortal Kombat 4". In between the years playing "Hercules", he played his first leading film role in "Kull the Conqueror" (1997). After "Hercules" came to an end, Sorbo played the starring role of Captain Dylan Hunt in the science-fiction drama series "Andromeda" from 2000 to 2005. In 2006, he played a recurring role on the final season of "The O.C" and guest-starred in the sitcom "Two and a Half Men". In 2007, he starred in the direct-to-video film ', which was a sequel to the 2004 film "Walking Tall". He reprised his role in the second sequel, ' which released later that year. He also starred in the Lifetime Channel film "Last Chance Café", the Hallmark Channel film "Avenging Angel", co-starring his real life wife Sam Jenkins and guest starred as a bounty hunter in the season-two episode "Bounty Hunters!" of the series "Psych". He appeared in the 2008 spoof film "Meet the Spartans", which was a box office success despite being universally negatively reviewed by critics. He starred in the Albert Pyun directed SciFi Vampire flick Tales of the Ancient Empire. He served as Executive Producer and star of the movie "Abel's Field" in 2012. In 2012, Sorbo appeared in an episode of "Celebrity Ghost Stories" to recount an experience he had while in Minnesota shortly after he graduated from college. He and his girlfriend claimed to have seen the ghost of the "Bride of White Rock Lake" - a woman who supposedly died on her wedding day, murdered by a former lover. He has been on several radio programs interviewing about his latest book "True Strength" and recently featured on Get Focused Radio with Kate Hennessy. Sorbo voiced one of the main protagonists, Prometheus, in the Wii video game "The Conduit". Sorbo returned to the role of Hercules in a more sinister portrayal, in the video game "God of War III" released for the PlayStation 3 in March 2010. In July 2013, Sorbo, along with his wife, Sam, provided voice over for characters in the video game "Cloudberry Kingdom""♙" In 2010, an outtake clip from the Hercules TV series was posted to YouTube in which Sorbo, portraying an evil doppelganger of his regular character, says "Wait a minute. This isn't my world. Disappointed!" The clip quickly went viral with over 3 millions views. Due to the non-sequitur sound of the line, the scene was widely misinterpreted as a mis-read on Sorbo's part, claiming that the word "disappointed" was an instruction, not a spoken line, and that he accidentally read it out loud. However, Sorbo himself in a 2013 interview explained what had really happened: The word "disappointed" does not actually appear anywhere in the script, but rather was Sorbo breaking character as an in-joke between him and the crew. He was referencing a scene from the film A Fish Called Wanda where Otto (played by Kevin Kline) cracks a safe only to find it empty, and screams "disappointed!" at it in frustration. Personal life. On January 5, 1998, Sorbo married actress Sam Jenkins, whom he met the previous year when she had a guest role on "Hercules". They have three children: Braedon Cooper (born 2001), Shane Haaken (born 2004), and Octavia Flynn (born 2005). Sorbo is the spokesman and chair of A World Fit for Kids! (AWFFK!), a non-profit organization that trains teenagers to become mentors to younger children. In late 1997 while on a publicity tour for "Kull the Conqueror" and between the fourth and fifth seasons of "Hercules", the newly-engaged Sorbo experienced an aneurysm in his shoulder which caused three strokes. As a result, he was weakened for the next several years, a condition kept secret from the public while he recovered. During the last two seasons of "Hercules" (the fifth and sixth, which aired in 1998 and 1999), Sorbo had a reduced filming schedule to accommodate his condition, and more guest stars were brought in to lighten the load. The strokes, thought to be triggered when chiropractic manipulation of his shoulder released multiple blood clots from the aneurysm, left Sorbo with a permanent 10 percent vision loss, weakness, impaired balance, and migraines. In his 2011 autobiography "True Strength", Sorbo revealed the details of his injury and how his new wife Sam helped him recover.
587753	Takkari Donga () is a Telugu language film based on The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, that released on 12 January 2002 and was directed by Jayant Paranjee. Mahesh Babu, Lisa Ray and Bipasha Basu play the lead roles. The film received positive review from critics and average at box office. This movie was dubbed into Hindi as "Choron Ka Chor". Synopsis. The movie starts with with Shaka (Rahul Dev) killing his own brother for information, which is also known to another man, Veeru Dada. In the encounter, Veeru Dada (Ashok Kumar) jumps off into a river from a cliff.
1063595	Nicholas "Nicky" Katt (born May 11, 1970) is an American actor known for his role as unorthodox teacher Harry Senate on David E. Kelley's Fox drama "Boston Public". Life and career. Katt was born in South Dakota. He has costarred in many movies and received critical praise for performances in "The Limey" and "SubUrbia". Katt often plays unsympathetic characters, such as an irascible motorhead in "Dazed and Confused" with Ben Affleck, an ill-fated racist child rapist in "A Time to Kill" and an embittered business rival in "Boiler Room". He was also originally cast to star in the ABC Spring 2006 replacement series "The Evidence", but was replaced by Rob Estes. Katt was a child actor as well, appearing as Marc Singer's son on the TV series "V". He also was the voice of Atton Rand in "".
1056430	A Prophet () is a 2009 French prison drama, directed by Jacques Audiard from a screenplay he co-wrote with Thomas Bidegain, Abdel Raouf Dafri and Nicolas Peufaillit. It stars Tahar Rahim in the title role as an imprisoned petty criminal of Algerian origins who rises in the inmate hierarchy, as he initiates himself into the Corsican and then Muslim subcultures. For Audiard, the film aims at "creating icons, images for people who don't have images in movies, like the Arabs in France," though he also had stated that the film "has nothing to do with his vision of society," and is a work of fiction. In 2010 the film won the BAFTA for Best Film Not in the English Language and was a nominee for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 82nd Academy Awards. Plot. Malik El Djebena (Tahar Rahim), nineteen years old, French of Algerian descent, is sentenced to six years in prison for attacking police officers. Alone and illiterate upon his arrival, he falls under the sway of Corsican mobsters, led by Cesar Luciani (Niels Arestrup), who enforces a brutal rule. The prison is divided between two main factions: the Corsicans and the Muslims. Malik keeps to himself. When Luciani forces him to be the unwilling assassin of Reyeb, a Muslim witness, Malik gains the protection of the Corsicans in spite of his origin. Malik serves as a low-level servant to the Corsicans, who treat him with disdain. All the while, he is haunted by visions of the murdered Reyeb. When the bulk of the Corsicans are transferred or released, Luciani is forced to give Malik more responsibility. Having secretly learned Corsican, Malik acts as Luciani's eyes and ears in the prison. When Malik earns the privilege of day-long furloughs outside the prison, Luciani relies on him to conduct his business outside. Ryad, a Muslim friend, teaches Malik to read and write, and the two become close. Ryad exposes Malik to his own heritage, allowing him to meet two other Muslims, Tarik and Hassan, increasing his power within the prison. Malik also becomes involved with a prison drug dealer, Jordi. When Ryad gains an early release due to his testicular cancer, the three partners organize a drug-running enterprise. But when Ryad is kidnapped by the drug dealer Latif, Malik tracks down Latif's partner inside the prison, kidnaps his family, and forces Latif's gang to release Ryad. When Luciani discovers that Malik is using his furloughs for his own personal enterprise, he attacks him. Malik is sent to meet Brahim Lattrache in Marseille, another Muslim, who is involved in a deal between Luciani and the Lingherris, an Italian mafia group. Lattrache is bitter toward the Corsicans for the murder of Reyeb and holds Malik at gunpoint. When Malik spots a deer warning sign, he remembers a recent dream of deer running in the road. He tells his kidnappers that they are in danger of hitting a deer, which they promptly do. Lattrache is impressed by Malik, calling him a prophet and agreeing to do business with him instead of Luciani, even though Malik has admitted that he killed Reyeb. Luciani believes there is a mole in his organization and decides to use Malik to assassinate Jacky Marcaggi, the Don of the Corsican mafia, for secretly dealing with the Lingherris. But Malik and Ryad have their own plan for Marcaggi: they kill his bodyguards and dump him in a van with his enemy Vettori, Luciani's henchman. Malik takes refuge at Ryad's house with his wife and young son. Ryad's cancer has returned; his decision against more chemotherapy leaves him just six months and he gets Malik's promise to take care of his family when he's gone. Upon Malik's return to the prison, he joins the Muslim faction of the yard. When Luciani tries to approach him, two Muslims intercept and beat him. On the day of his release, Malik is met by Ryad's wife and son outside the prison. They walk off together, followed by a vehicle convoy carrying Malik's new associates. Production. The film's screenplay, re-worked by Jacques Audiard and Thomas Bidegain, was submitted to them by a producer, though the idea of making a film set in prison first came to Audiard after he had a film screened in a prison and was shocked by the conditions there. Audiard cast Niels Arestrup, featured in Audiard's previous film, "The Beat that My Heart Skipped" as the Corsican crime boss César Luciani, and met Tahar Rahim, who plays Malik, when they shared an automobile ride from another film set. To ensure the authenticity of the prison experience, Audiard hired former convicts as advisors and extras. Reception. "A Prophet" has received widespread critical acclaim. Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reports that 97% of critics have given the film a positive review based on 144 reviews, with an average score of 8.3/10, making the film a "Certified Fresh" on the website's rating system. At Metacritic, which assigns a weighted mean rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the film received an average score of 90, based on 30 reviews, which indicates "Universal acclaim". Reception of the film after its debut screening at 2009 Cannes Film Festival at the competition was good. "A Prophet" was picked as the best film of the festival by a group of sixteen English language critics and bloggers polled by the daily independent film news site indieWIRE. Karin Badt at "The Huffington Post" called it "refreshingly free". Jonathan Romney of Screen International said that the film "works both as hard-edged, painstaking detailed social realism and as a compelling genre entertainment." Luke Davies of "The Monthly" criticized some of the film's stylistic methodology and content, asserting that the prophetic themes could have been stretched out, but he celebrated the film's central character and his well-executed "improbable rise from invisibility to dominance", describing "what gives film such dynamic energy is the seamlessness with which this transition unfolds". Davies described the film's main achievement as conveying a character "someone we care about and gun for" who started life on screen as a blank slate. Awards. The film was the submission of France for the 82nd Academy Awards for Best Foreign Film. On February 2, 2010, when Academy Award nominations were announced, "A Prophet" received a nomination for Best Foreign Language film. The other four films in the category were "Ajami", "The Milk of Sorrow" and "The White Ribbon", and the eventual winner, "El secreto de sus ojos". "A Prophet" won the Grand Prix at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival. At the 53rd London Film Festival, it won the Best Film Award. It won the Prix Louis Delluc 2009. At the 63rd British Academy Film Awards, it won a BAFTA for Best Film Not in the English Language. It was nominated for 13 César Awards, tying it with three other films for the most nominations of any film in César history. It won 9 Cesars at the ceremony, including Best Film, Best Director, Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor. The film was nominated for the Grand Prix of the Belgian Syndicate of Cinema Critics. The film also won Best Foreign Film at the 13th annual British Independent Film Awards, which were held in London at the Old Billingsgate on December 5, 2010. "A Prophet" was also nominated for Best International Film at the 8th Irish Film and Television Awards, an award that went to "The Social Network". In 2010 "Empire" magazine ranked it at number 63 in its "The 100 Best Films Of World Cinema" list.
1065708	William "Bill" Moseley (born November 11, 1951) is an American film actor and musician who has starred in a number of cult classic horror films, including "House of 1000 Corpses", "Repo! The Genetic Opera" and "The Devil's Rejects". His first big role was in "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2" as Chop Top. He has also released records with guitarist Buckethead in the band Cornbugs, as well as featuring on the guitarist's solo work. He is also known for his role as "Luigi Largo" in Repo! The Genetic Opera. Career. For a period of time, Bill Moseley operated as a journalist, writing for such magazines as Omni Magazine, National Lampoon and Psychology Today. At the age of 29, Moseley got his first film role in Alan Rudolph's "Endangered Species" as a cab driver. In 1985's "Osa" he played a character named "Quilt Face." His third role has become one of his most well known; he appeared as Chop Top in Tobe Hooper's "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2", after Tobe Hooper saw him in the independent short, "The Texas Chainsaw Manicure". The character spawned the famous film quotes, "Dog will hunt!", "Incoming mail!", and "Lick my plate, you dogdick!".
582194	Aarakshan (, translation: "Reservation") is a 2011 Indian Hindi drama film starring Amitabh Bachchan, Saif Ali Khan and Deepika Padukone. Directed by Prakash Jha, the film is a socio-political drama based on the controversial policy of caste based reservations in Indian government jobs and educational institutions. The film also stars Prateik Babbar and Manoj Bajpayee and was released on 12 August 2011 to mostly mixed reviews. Plot. In 2008, Deepak Kumar (Saif Ali Khan) is at an interview for the teacher's post at an affluent school. The interviewers turn him down when they discover his low-caste roots. Deepak relates the incident to his mentor, Dr. Prabhakar Anand (Amitabh Bachchan). Dr Anand, the legendary principal of renowned STM college, offers Deepak an interim job as a teacher at STM. Deepak is comforted by his friend, Sushant (an upper-caste boy), and his girlfriend Poorbi (Deepika Padukone), who is Dr. Anand's daughter. The state minister, Baburam, wishes to enroll his no-good nephew at STM. Dr. Anand however, turns him down. The minister decides to install his own man, Mithilesh Singh, on the STM college board. Cunning and greedy, Mithilesh seeks only to enrich himself. The minister's grand ambition is to build a multi-billion educational conglomerate, and plans to use Mithilesh's outside business—a coaching class—for it. The Supreme Court grants reservations for Other Backward Classes. A large crowd of STM students, boisterously celebrating the ruling, arrive at the gates of STM and start a ruckus. Sushant gathers a group of upper-caste boys and tries to drive off the revellers. Dr. Anand hauls Deepak and Sushant, but is shocked to find that Deepak has turned on him. Poorbi later confronts Deepak and orders him to apologise to her father, but he refuses, leading to their break-up. The backward classes welcome reservations because it provides additional opportunities for education. The upper classes are against reservations because they do not believe in a level-playing field. These arguments are played out between Sushant and Deepak. The moderate STM administrators are afraid that college-level reservations may create conflicts between the students. When asked by a reporter, Dr. Anand shares his personal opinion – that some form of reservation, free of politics and economics, is good for society. The next day's headlines scream that Dr. Anand favours reservations. The STM board is outraged; Dr. Anand is warned that Mithilesh will use this to oust him. Dr. Anand resigns from STM, and Mithilesh is appointed as the new principal. Dr Anand resolves to take out Mithilesh with the only weapon left: teaching. He approaches his friend, Shambhu the cowherd, and takes shelter at the "tabela" (cowshed). He begins teaching small groups of needy and backward students from the "bastee" (nearby neighbourhood), at the cowshed. His first success is Muniya (Aanchal Munjal), Shambhu's daughter who comes in first place at the board exam. Muniya's principal offers to send more students to Dr. Anand's "tabela" school. Deepak and Sushant return to Dr. Anand and join forces, teaching at the "tabela" school. The "tabela" students fare much better at the exams than their classmates. The "tabela" school's reputation grows and begins to draw away students at Mithilesh's coaching class. Mithilesh responds by obtaining a legal permit to demolish the cowshed. The situation is diffused by the arrival of Shakuntala Tai, the reclusive magnate who started the STM institutions. She calls the chief minister, who promptly averts the destruction of the cowshed. Mithilesh is dismissed, and Dr. Anand is installed as the chief trustee of the STM and lifelong principal of the newly created STM Remedial Center. Production. Shooting began on 15 January 2011. Director Prakash Jha finished casting but the male lead was not finalised. Ajay Devgan was first considered for the role, however Ajay had many other projects in hand, including "Golmaal 3" and "Singham". So Jha decided to cast Saif Ali Khan. Khan found it very hard to juggle between two films at once because he had to learn Sanskrit for his role in the film. Bachchan and Saif Ali Khan learnt teaching skills in mathematics from Bihar's Super 30 founder Anand Kumar. Most of the film's shooting took place in Minal Residency, Oriental College, Upper Lake in Bhopal. The shooting finished in early March 2011. Reception. Critical reception. "Aarakshan" mostly garnered mixed reviews. Taran Adarsh of Bollywood Hungama rated it with 4 stars and said – "On the whole, Aarakshan communicates an engaging story with very relatable characters. It's a movie that is truly inspiring and thought-provoking, but at the same time, its running time 2.45 hours is a deterrent.(...) Aarakshan not only works as a film, but also as a tool to drive home a forceful message. It's a daring, heroic, commanding and an engaging film that shouldn't be missed!". He also praised the performance of the leads. Nikhat Kazmi of "The Times of India" gave it 3 stars and said – "Sad. Because as a film on the issue of reservation, Aarakshan was rocking till the first half. But as an omnibus on the travails of India's education system, it flounders into no-man's land. Watch it for the intermittent high drama and the gritty performances, scattered as they are." Shivesh Kumar of "IndiaWeekly" awarded the movie 3 out of 5 stars. Soumil Shukla of FilmiTadka gave it 2.5 out of 5 stars and wrote in his review – "Screenplay and direction are two branches which are the main weak points of this self proclaimed ‘socio-political drama’. The characters and situations are surprisingly underdeveloped and half baked, a far cry from some of Anjum Rajabali’s or Prakash Jha’s previous work." "Dainik Bhaskar" awarded three stars in their review and wrote – "Watch it for the conflicts between the characters and an outstanding performance by Amitabh Bachchan. On the flipside, if you expect drama and finesse that you witnessed in Prakash Jha’s last release ‘Rajneeti’, you will be disappointed." Vandana Krishnan from Behindwoods rated it 1.5/5 and said that the film represents "Great bottle bad wine" further citing "Overall, the film falls short of the expectations the trailer, start cast and story had created." Saibal Chatterjee from NDTV gave it 2.5 out of 5 stars and said: "Given all the pre-release brouhaha over its emotive subject matter (leading to several states banning its public screening), Aarakshan is quite a copout. It ends up being more about the depredations of the nation’s education mafia than the vexed question of job and college quotas for backward caste candidates and its fallout.The basic premise is rooted in the real world all right and the film might touch some raw nerves. But the dramatisation of the conflict over the quota raj that divides India down the middle tends to border on the excessively shrill, if not completely shallow." Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) chairman Leela Samson said that "Aarakshan" was a good film about education but "unfortunately hit troubled political situations". The controversial film has received a compliment from unlikely quarters in Chhattisgarh with the state Scheduled Tribes Commission seeking a tax-free status for the Amitabh Bachchan starrer. Sukanya Venkatraghavan of Filmfare gave it 2 stars out of 5, stating "The problem with Aarakshan is its meandering graph. It starts off solidly enough, keeping up a pace that will engross you until interval time except for two totally unnecessary songs. From there on, the film sheds it’s theme of ideals and becomes a one on one contest that, to put it really tritely, is a tug of war between two coaching classes. The dialogue is strong and opinionated and actors like Saif Ali Khan and Manoj Bajpai do everything to get you to like the film (...)Aarakshan has all the right intentions but it is a tad confusing in its stance. Of course ultimately it shows the triumph of selfless dedication to the cause of education and there is no faulting that. One does walk away with some reservations though." Rajeev Masand of CNN-IBN gave it 2 out of 5 stars, calling it "a deathly boring slog" and adding: "With so much to say, the movie drags on endlessly, with over-written scenes, over-the-top emotions and dialogues that are so heavy, they end up being inaccessible. Of the performances, every actor seems to go through the motions and only Manoj Bajpai inserts some spark onto the screen. 'Aarakshan' is well-intentioned, but you can't shake off the feeling that you're trapped by a three-hour-long tirade. I'm going with a generous two out of five for Prakash Jha's 'Aarakshan'. If you don't want to be lectured, stay at home." Box office. India. "Aarakshan" released in 1085 cinemas across India. The film saw 50–70% occupancy on its first day of release, while in Delhi, it opened at around 60–70%. The film's business was affected due to the bans imposed on its screening in Punjab, UP and Andhra. It went on to collect Rs44.7 million on the first day. The opening weekend collections of the film were around Rs 183.3 million. The film grossed Rs375.3 million nett on Indian box office in two weeks. "Aarakshan" added around Rs30 million nett in its third week to go to Rs405.0 million nett in three weeks. The film added Rs5.8 millions nett in India to go to Rs423.8 million nett in four weeks. The film added
1043715	The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone is a 1961 British film made by Seven Arts-Warner Bros. It was directed by José Quintero and produced by Louis De Rochemont with Lothar Wolff as associate producer. The screenplay was written by Gavin Lambert and Jan Read and based on the novel by Tennessee Williams. The music score was by Richard Addinsell and the cinematography by Harry Waxman.
1068246	Sicko is a 2007 documentary film by American filmmaker Michael Moore. The film investigates health care in the United States, focusing on its health insurance and the pharmaceutical industry. The movie compares the for-profit, non-universal U.S. system with the non-profit universal health care systems of Canada, the United Kingdom, France and Cuba. "Sicko" was made on a budget of approximately $9 million, and grossed $24.5 million theatrically in the United States. This box office take exceeded the official expectation of The Weinstein Company, which had hoped for a gross in line with "Bowling for Columbine"'s $21.5 million US box office gross. Synopsis. According to "Sicko", almost fifty million Americans are uninsured while the remainder, who are covered, are often victims of insurance company fraud and red tape. Furthermore, Sicko points out that the U.S. health care system is ranked 37 out of 191 by the World Health Organization with certain health measures, such as infant mortality and life expectancy, equal to countries with much less economic wealth. Interviews are conducted with people who thought they had adequate coverage but were denied care. Former employees of insurance companies describe cost-cutting initiatives that give bonuses to insurance company physicians and others to find reasons for the company to avoid meeting the cost of medically necessary treatments for policy holders, and thus increase company profitability. In Canada, Moore describes the case of Tommy Douglas, who was voted the greatest Canadian in 2004 for his contributions to the Canadian health system. Moore also interviews a microsurgeon and people waiting in the emergency room of a Canadian public hospital. Against the backdrop of the history of the American health care debate, opponents of universal health care are set in the context of 1950s-style anti-communist propaganda. A 1950s record distributed by the American Medical Association, narrated by Ronald Reagan, warns that universal health care could lead to lost freedoms and socialism. In response, Moore shows that socialized public services like police, fire service, the United States Postal Service, public education and community libraries have not led to communism in the United States. The origins of the Health Maintenance Organization Act of 1973 are presented using a taped conversation between John Ehrlichman and President Richard Nixon on February 17, 1971; Ehrlichman is heard telling Nixon that "...the less care they give them, the more money they make", a plan that Nixon remarked "fine" and "not bad". This led to the expansion of the modern health maintenance organization-based health care system. Connections are highlighted between Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA), the lobbying arm of the largest drug companies in the United States, lobbying groups in Washington D.C., and the Congress. Hillary Clinton, a champion of the Clinton health care plan, is shown as a crusader for change, appointed to reform the health care system in the United States by her husband, newly elected President Bill Clinton. Her efforts are met with heavy-handed criticisms by Republicans on Capitol Hill, and right-wing media throughout the country, who characterize her plan as the harbinger of socialism. When she is defeated, her punishment is to "never speak of it again while in the White House." Seven years later, her silence is rewarded, as she becomes a Senator for the State of New York, a victory made possible in part by money from the health care industry; she is second only to Rick Santorum as the Senate's highest recipient of health care industry campaign donations. In the United Kingdom, a country whose National Health Service is a comprehensive publicly funded health care system, Moore interviews patients and inquires about in-hospital expenses incurred by patients, only to be told that there are no out-of-pocket payments. Moore visits a typical UK pharmacy, where pharmaceuticals are free of charge for persons under 16 or over 60, and subsidized in most cases for everyone else; only a fixed amount of £6.65 (about $10) per item on a prescription was charged, irrespective of cost to the NHS. Further, NHS hospitals employ a cashier, part of whose job is to reimburse low-income patients for their out-of-pocket travel costs to the hospital. Interviews include an NHS general practitioner, an American woman residing in London, and Tony Benn. In France, Moore visits a hospital and interviews the head of obstetrics and gynaecology and a group of American expatriates. Moore rides with the "SOS Médecins", a 24-hour French medical service that provides house calls by physicians. Moore discovers that the French government provides many social services, such as health care, public education (including universities), vacation and day care for $1 an hour and neonatal support that includes cooking, cleaning, and laundry services for new mothers. Returning to the United States, interviews disclose that 9/11 rescue workers who volunteered after the September 11, 2001 attacks were denied government funds to care for physical and psychological maladies they subsequently developed, including respiratory disease and PTSD-induced bruxism. Unable to receive and afford medical care in the U.S., the 9/11 rescue workers, as well as all of Moore's friends in the film needing medical attention, appear to sail from Miami to Cuba on three speedboats in order to obtain free medical care provided for the enemy combatants detained at the U.S. Guantanamo Bay detainment camp. The group arrives at the entrance channel to "Gitmo" and Moore uses a megaphone to request access, pleading for the 9/11 victims to receive treatment that is on par with the medical attention the "evildoers" are receiving. The attempt ceases when a siren is blown from the base, and the group moves on to Havana, where they purchase inexpensive medicine and receive free medical treatment at the elite Hermanos Ameijeiras Hospital. Providing only their names and birth dates, the volunteers are hospitalized and receive medical attention. Before they leave, the 9/11 rescue workers are honored by a local Havana fire station. Finally, Moore addresses the audience, emphasizing that people should be "taking care of each other, no matter the differences". To demonstrate his personal commitment to this theme, Moore decides to help one of his biggest critics, Jim Kenefick. According to a blog posting, Kenefick feared he would have to shut down his anti-Moore website because he needed US $12,000 to cover the costs of medical treatment for his sick wife. Not wanting the U.S. health care system to trump Kenefick's ability to express his opinion, Moore sends Kenefick the money "anonymously". This film ends with Moore walking towards the United States Capitol with a basket full of his clothes, sarcastically saying he will get the government to do his laundry until a better day comes for the sick and hopeless who are unable to receive health care. Release. "Sicko" premiered on May 19, 2007, at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival, receiving a 15-minute standing ovation from 2,000 people at the Grand Theatre Lumiere. The North American première of "Sicko" was held in London, Ontario (where some scenes from the movie were filmed), at the Silver City movie theatre at Masonville Place on June 8, 2007, with Moore in attendance. It also had an early première in Washington DC. on June 20, two days before its U.S. release, with Moore appearing at a Capitol Hill press conference to promote the film. The European première was held in Great Britain on October 24, 2007, at the Odeon Leicester Square as part of the 51st London Film Festival. Moore was to introduce the film, but remained in the United States due to a 'family issue', sending a lengthy letter to be read in his absence. Part of the letter gave thanks to the Rt Hon. Tony Benn, featured in the film, who delivered a short speech before the showing. Box office. Made on a budget of $9 million, "Sicko" earned $4.5 million on its opening weekend. In 441 theaters, it took in an average of $10,204 per theater, the second highest average gross of the weekend. As of February 24, 2008, "Sicko" has grossed $24,540,079 in the United States and $11,105,296 in foreign markets. Overall, the movie has made over $36 million. Critical reaction. According to the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film boasts a 93% positive rating, based on 181 reviews. Metacritic reported the film had an average score of 74 out of 100, based on 39 reviews. After its Cannes release, "Variety" described "Sicko" as "an affecting and entertaining dissection of the American health care industry". In an early review a week before the premiere, Richard Roeper and Michael Phillips gave the film two thumbs up. Roger Friedman of Fox News called the film a "brilliant and uplifting new film" and praised Moore for the way in which he lets "very articulate average Americans tell their personal horror stories at the hands of insurance companies" and "criticizes both Democrats and Republicans for their inaction and in some cases their willingness to be bribed by pharmaceutical companies and insurance carriers." British film magazine "Empire" praised Moore's filmmaking and personal artistic vision, exclaiming ""Sicko" is the film that truly reveals Moore as an auteur." David Denby of the "New Yorker" called the film "feeble, even inane", but film critic Stephen Schaefer of the "Boston Globe" described "Sicko" as "a very strong and very honest film about a health system that's totally corrupt and that is without any care for its patients." The film was listed as the 4th best film of 2007 by Carina Chocano of "Los Angeles Times", as well as 8th best by Marjorie Baumgarten of "The Austin Chronicle. Awards. "Sicko" was nominated for an Academy Award for Documentary Feature. It was also commended in the Australian Film Critics Association 2007 Film Award for Best Documentary. Response. News media. Journalist and libertarian John Stossel wrote an article in the "Wall Street Journal" that claimed Julie Pierce's husband, Tracy, featured in "Sicko", would not have been saved by the bone marrow transplant denied by his insurer. Stossel also questioned whether this treatment would have been given in a universal health care system, citing rationing and long waiting lists in Canada and Britain. Julie Pierce claimed Stossel never contacted her or her husband's doctors, and that the insurer denied other treatments as well and questioned Stossel's assertion that Tracy would not have received this in a socialized system, arguing that they are performed more frequently in Canada than in the U.S. Moore insisted in the movie as well as in an interview with Stossel that the treatment provided in the Hermanos Ameijeiras Hospital was just like that given to any Cuban; but Stossel's investigations led Stossel to conclude that the hospital provided service only for the Cuban elite and that this care was not available to the average Cuban. In response to criticism that only well-to-do Cuban citizens receive a decent standard of health care, Michael Moore adduced on his website the result of an independent Gallup Poll in which "a near unanimous 96 percent of respondents say that health care in Cuba is accessible to everyone". An article in the Miami Herald interviewing some Cuban exiles in the United States criticized Sicko for painting a rosy picture of the Cuban healthcare system. In an article published in both "The New Yorker" and "Reason" magazine, libertarian Michael C. Moynihan calls the film "touching, naïve and maddeningly mendacious, a clumsy piece of agitprop that will likely have little lasting effect on the health care debate". Surgeon and Associate Director of Brigham and Women's Hospital's Center for Surgery and Public Health Atul Gawande commented, ""Sicko" is a revelation. And what makes this especially odd to say is that the movie brings to light nothing that the media haven’t covered extensively for years." Libertarian Kurt Loder criticized the film as presenting cherry-picked facts, manipulative interviews, and unsubstantiated assertions. While admitting that the U.S. health care system needs reform, Loder criticized Moore’s advocacy of government control, arguing that many services controlled by the government are not considered efficient by the American public. Loder points to a 2005 film, "Dead Meat", by Stuart Browning and Blaine Greenberg, which documents long waiting lists for care in Canada. Loder points to calls for reform in Britain and France due to the same rationing. "USA Today's" Richard Wolf said, ""Sicko" uses omission, exaggeration and cinematic sleight of hand to make its points." WBAI Radio, part of the progressive/liberal Pacifica Radio Network, reported that "Sicko" was revitalizing the debate for universal health care within the United States, calling the film "adrenaline for healthcare activists." Healthcare industry. In a letter responding to a "Wall Street Journal" op-ed by David Gratzer that was critical of the film, Robert S. Bell, M.D., President and CEO of University Health Network, Toronto, said that while Moore "exaggerated the performance of the Canadian health system," it provides universal coverage of a similar quality to that enjoyed by only some Americans. Michael Moore posted a leaked memo from a Capital Blue Cross employee about the likely consequences of the film. The memo expresses concern that the movie turns people against Capital Blue Cross by linking it to abuses by for-profit HMOs. A July 9, 2007 broadcast of CNN's "The Situation Room" aired a "fact check" segment by CNN's senior health correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta on "Sicko". Immediately following the segment, Moore was interviewed live on CNN by Wolf Blitzer. Moore stated that Gupta's report was inaccurate and biased. Moore posted a point-by-point response on his website. After a debate with Moore on "Larry King Live", Gupta posted a message about his position on "Sicko" and CNN's coverage. Wendell Potter. Wendell Potter admitted that while he was working as Head of Corporate Communications at CIGNA, the health insurance industry umbrella agency America's Health Insurance Plans had developed a campaign to discredit Michael Moore and the movie. When asked what he thought about the film Potter said that "I thought that he hit the nail on the head with his movie. But the industry, from the moment that the industry learned that Michael Moore was taking on the health care industry, it was really concerned... They were afraid that people would believe Michael Moore." Journalist Bill Moyers reported that PBS had obtained a copy of the "game plan" that was adopted by the industry's trade association, America's Health Insurance Plans which spelled out the industry strategies to "Highlight horror stories of government-run systems." Potter explained "The industry has always tried to make Americans think that government-run systems are the worst thing that could possibly happen to them, that even if you consider that, you're heading down on the slippery slope towards socialism. So they have used scare tactics for years and years and years, to keep that from happening. If there were a broader program like our Medicare program now, it could potentially reduce the profits of these big companies. So that is their biggest concern." Moyers reported and Potter confirmed that there were attempts to radicalize Moore in an effort to discredit the film’s message. Moore would be referred to as a "Hollywood entertainer" or "Hollywood moviemaker" to associate the film as being grounded in entertainment without any basis in objective reality. "They would want you to see this as just some fantasy that a Hollywood filmmaker had come up with. That's part of the strategy." Potter said that the strategy worked and the impact of the film was "blunted" by the public relations campaign. He agreed that "Sicko" contained "a great truth" which, he said was "that we shouldn't fear government involvement in our health care system. That there is an appropriate role for government, and it's been proven in the countries that were in that movie. You know, we have more people who are uninsured in this country than the entire population of Canada. And that if you include the people who are underinsured, more people than in the United Kingdom. We have huge numbers of people who are also just a lay-off away from joining the ranks of the uninsured, or being purged by their insurance company, and winding up there." Think tanks. The free-market think-tanks, such as the Manhattan Institute, say that "Sicko" misrepresented the health systems of Canada, the United Kingdom and Cuba, and criticized it for its negative portrayal of the American health insurance system compared to these countries. Brett J. Skinner of the Fraser Institute said that healthcare in these countries is characterized by long waiting lists. The National Center for Policy Analysis, a conservative American think tank, has also been critical of Moore's claims, focusing particularly on lengthy waiting lists and unavailability of new treatments in the publicly funded health systems of the United Kingdom and Canada, an aspect of those systems which they allege Moore failed to address. The left-of-center/liberal-leaning Urban Institute (UI) largely agreed with Moore regarding the need for a universal health care system and failure of the current system. Urban Institute economist Linda Blumberg stated that Moore correctly provides evidence that the current system fails and a universal system is needed, adding that any system will face budget constraints. Overall, Blumberg stated that "Americans as a whole have yet to buy the philosophy that health care is a right and not a privilege" and if Moore succeeded in popularizing the idea, he "will have done the country a tremendous service." Bradford Gary agrees with the main points made by Moore but criticizes the film for making various omissions and lacking attention to detail, stating that "though Moore is not interested in the details behind the outrages he has assembled, many of his fundamental points are nevertheless accurate." Moorewatch. Regarding Moore's donation to Jim and Donna Kenefick of Moorewatch.com, while Donna Kenefick thanked Moore, saying his money "paid for our health insurance premiums and gave us the financial breathing room to both deal with our debts", Jim Kenefick disputed Moore's account of these events, saying that his insurance would have paid for his wife's needs, and that his sites were in operation again thanks to reader donations long before he ever received Moore's cheque. Kenefick accused Moore of presenting his words out of context in order to defame him, and both Kenefick and his onetime co-blogger, Lee, criticized Moore for claiming to make this donation anonymously, only to highlight it in his film. They accuse him of being motivated by a desire for publicity and self-aggrandizement rather than altruism. At a Cannes press conference, after the identity of the donor was revealed, Moore said: "I had to ask myself, 'Would you write this check if this wasn't in the film?' I decided this is what I would do, and what I should do, and this is the way I want Americans to live." Wikileaks cable on Cuba and Sicko. Sicko was shown in theaters throughout Cuba and on national TV. Despite this, former United States Interests Section in Havana chief Michael E. Parmly wrote a diplomatic cable on January 31, 2008, which in part read:
584052	Sakkarakatti (; ) is a 2008 Tamil romance film directed by Kalaprabhu and produced by his father, Kalaipuli S. Dhanu. It featured debutant Shanthnoo Bhagyaraj, son of veteran actor K. Bhagyaraj, in the lead role while Ishita Sharma and Vedhika played significant roles. It featured a successful soundtrack composed by A. R. Rahman, with the song "Taxi Taxi" sung by Benny Dayal becoming popular before the film's release. "Sakkarakatti" released on 26 September 2008 and was panned severely by critics and audience. It received mixed reviews. Plot. Chennai-bred Yuvraj (Shanthnoo Bhagyaraj) has had four close friends from childhood. He meets and falls in love with Deepali (Ishita Sharma). However, his cousin, Reema (Vedhika), is in love with him. After Deepali sees Yuvraj with Reema, she becomes jealous and ignores Yuvraj when he follows her. Then Yuvraj and Deepali get back together. Later she sees Yuvraj and Reema together, but it was an accident. Deepali starts ignoring him again. Yuvraj wants to prove that he not with Reema so his friends decide to throw a birthday party to mend the trio's fractured relationship. Deepali and Yuvraj finally unite. Production. The producer Kalaipuli S. Dhanu began launched the film, "Sakkarakatti", at AVM Studios on April 30, 2006 with A. R. Rahman, Vijay and K. Balachandar all attending. The film featured Dhanu's son, Kalaprabhu, in his debut as director whilst Shanthnoo Bhagyaraj, son of noted actor K. Bhagyaraj, was selected to portray the lead role. The film was initially described as a "candy floss love story with a city subject" and was set to feature Ishita Sharma and Sivi in other lead roles, although Sivi was later replaced by Vedhika. During the making of "Sakkarakatti", cinematographer Andrew left the project as his dates clashed with a prior commitment with a Hindi film and was duly replaced by cinematographer Raja. A song with graphics arranged by Soundarya Rajinikanth's Ocher Studios was shot in May 2007 at a cost of 35 lakh rupees, with the producer then exclaiming that "the song will be the talk of the town" when released. The song "Taxi Taxi" was reshot following the enormous response from the audience after the audio release. Release. "Sakkarakatti" opened alongside Sun Pictures' "Kadhalil Vizhunthen" at the box office on September 26, 2008 with the media hyping that it was a battle of two films with debutants and successful soundtracks. Critical reception. Behindwoods cited : "Shanthanu has to play a thinly sketched hero, but he puts energy and charm into everything he does. He is more than promising- he’s star material, and he’ll survive this wreck", while Sify said: "Shantanoo has that star quality to him which is so rare to find these days. But he is wasted in a role in which he just romance his heroines and dances", Nowrunning said: "Shanthanoo is fairly convincing as a cool college dude who metro audiences would love. He has not much to do beyond hanging out with his friends and cuddling the two heroines. Though the young hero seems bubbly, Prabhu is not able to tap his potential". Soundtrack. The score and soundtrack was composed by A.R. Rahman and the album was released on July 12, 2008. Initially Rahman was reluctant to compose the music for "Sakkarakatti" citing he was busy with other projects, but the director asked if Rahman could recycle songs from his Hindi films and he agreed. Rahman reused "Chinnamma Chilakkamma" and "Yeh Rishta" from "" as "Chinnamma Chilakamma" and "Naan Eppodhu." Haza happens to be the alter-ego of singer Chinmayee as per her blog. A reviewer from Indiaglitz.com stated that ""Sakkarakatti" is truly as sweet as sugar candy" in regard to the soundtrack.
1064539	Sven-Ole Thorsen (born 24 September 1944) is a Danish actor, stuntman, bodybuilder and strongman competitor. Sven won Denmark's Strongest Man in 1983.
1056865	Just Go with It is a 2011 romantic comedy film starring Adam Sandler and Jennifer Aniston. The film was released on , 2011 by Columbia Pictures. The film is based on the 1969 film "Cactus Flower", which was adapted from an earlier Broadway stage play written by Abe Burrows, which in turn was based upon the French play "Fleur de cactus". Plot. Danny Maccabee (Adam Sandler) is a successful plastic surgeon in Los Angeles who feigns unhappy marriages to get women, and to avoid romantic commitment that may lead to heartbreak. The only woman aware of his schemes is his office manager and best friend Katherine Murphy (Jennifer Aniston), a divorced mother of two. At a party, Danny meets Palmer (Brooklyn Decker), a sixth grade math teacher, without his wedding ring on, and they have a connection together. The next morning, she finds the ring and assumes he is married. She refuses to date him because her parents divorced due to adultery and does not want to be an adulteress herself. Instead of telling her the truth, Danny tells her that he is getting divorced from a woman named Devlin, named after Devlin Adams whom Katherine had mentioned was an old college sorority nemesis. Danny tells Palmer that they are getting divorced because she cheated on him with a man named "Dolph Lundgren" (not the actor). Palmer then insists on meeting Devlin. Danny asks Katherine to pose as "Devlin" and they go shopping on Rodeo Drive for new clothes to dress like a trophy wife. A made-over Katherine/Devlin then meets with Danny and Palmer and gives them her blessing. However, after hearing Katherine talking on the phone with her kids, Palmer assumes that her kids are Danny's as well. Danny then privately meets with Katherine's kids, Maggie (Bailee Madison) and Michael (Griffin Gluck), to get them to play along with the ruse. Palmer meets the kids, who then blackmail Danny in front of Palmer to take them all to Hawaii. At the airport, they are all surprised by Danny's goofball cousin Eddie (Nick Swardson), who has adopted an Austrian disguise as the "Dolph Lundgren" that Danny had made up earlier. To maintain the lies, Danny and Katherine are forced to bring him along. At the resort in Hawaii, Danny tells Eddie he is considering asking Palmer to marry him. Katherine and Danny also run into the real-life Devlin Adams (Nicole Kidman) and her husband Ian Maxtone-Jones (Dave Matthews), who allegedly invented the iPod. Because of Katherine and Devlin's long-time rivalry, Katherine introduces Danny as her husband rather than admit she is a single mother. Later, Palmer decides to spend time with Katherine so that Danny can spend more time with the kids. Danny teaches Michael how to swim, and Katherine and Palmer look on in admiration. Katherine again runs into Devlin, who invites her and Danny out to dinner. Eddie agrees to take Palmer out to dinner so that Danny can go with Katherine. Since he is supposed to be a sheep salesman, Eddie's cover is nearly blown when he is forced to save the life of an actual sheep who choked on a toy whistle, though he nearly kills the animal in the process. At dinner, Devlin asks Danny and Katherine to tell each other what they admire most about each other, and, as Danny and Katherine talk, they start to feel a connection. Later, when Palmer and Eddie return from their dinner date, Palmer suggests that she and Danny get married now, since a drunken Eddie told her about Danny's plans of engagement. Danny and Katherine are both surprised by her proposition, but Danny ultimately agrees. Danny later calls Katherine regarding his confusion, but Katherine says that she will be taking a job in New York City (which she had mentioned to him earlier) to get a fresh start to her life. The next day, Palmer confronts Katherine about Danny's feelings for her, which Katherine dismisses. Katherine then runs into Devlin at a bar and admits that she pretended being married to Danny to avoid embarrassment. Devlin confesses that she is divorcing Ian because he is gay and also that he did not invent the iPod but made his money after suing the Los Angeles Dodgers after getting hit by a foul ball. Katherine confides in Devlin about being in love with Danny, but then Danny shows up behind her saying that he is not marrying Palmer and that he is in love with Katherine. Meanwhile, on the plane ride back to the mainland, Palmer meets a professional tennis player (Andy Roddick — Brooklyn Decker's real-life husband) who shares her interests. Sometime later, Danny and Katherine get married. Production. The film was shot in Los Angeles and the Hawaiian islands of Maui and Kauai between March 2, 2010 and May 25, 2010. The film is deliberately vague about "which" Hawaiian island its latter portion takes place on; thus, the characters hike across a rope bridge on Maui and arrive in the next scene at a spectacular waterfall on Kauai, rather than the ordinary irrigation dam and pond on Maui where the real-life trail terminates. The characters stay at an Hawaiian hotel called the Waldorf Astoria. In real life, the film was shot at the Grand Wailea in Maui, which is owned by Waldorf Astoria Hotels and Resorts. Release. The film was released in theaters in the United States and Canada on , 2011. The film topped the weekend box office with $30.5 million. The film grossed a total of $103,028,109 in the United States alone, as well $111,917,482 internationally, bringing a total gross of $214,945,591. Many of the foreign totals came from Russia, where it grossed $13,174,937. Reception. "Just Go with It" received negative reviews from critics, earning the film a 33 out of 100 on Metacritic. Based on 131 critic reviews, it holds a 19% "Rotten" rating on Rotten Tomatoes, with an average rating of 3.7/10. The Telegraph named "Just Go with It" in its "ten worst films of 2011" list, saying it is "a crass and overpopulated remake of "Cactus Flower", served up as a mangy romcom of serial deceptions." Christopher Orr of "The Atlantic" noted that "the title itself seems a plea for audiences' forbearance" and is part of a disappointing trend involving "the reimagining of good, if perhaps not quite classic, films associated with the latter 1960s and early 1970s." "Entertainment Weekly"'s Lisa Schwarzbaum wrote that "Just Go With It" "is saved from utter disaster, though, by Jennifer Aniston" who has "expert comic timing" and "plays like a grown-up." The film was nominated for five Golden Raspberry Awards including Worst Supporting Actress (Nicole Kidman), Worst Supporting Actor (Nick Swardson) and Worst Screen Couple (Adam Sandler and either Jennifer Aniston or Brooklyn Decker), winning two for Worst Actor (Adam Sandler; also for "Jack and Jill") and Worst Director (Dennis Dugan; along with "Jack and Jill"). Home media. Sony Pictures released the DVD and Blu-ray on June 7, 2011. It has so far grossed $14,535,543 in US DVD sales.
587618	Swayamkrushi () is a Telugu movie released on 3 September 1987 . It was made on Poornodaya Movie Creations by Edida Nageshwara Rao and directed by Kasinadhuni Viswanath and had Chiranjeevi act in Kasinadhuni Viswanath's direction for the second time after Subhalekha. It also had Vijayashanti, Sumalatha and others. It also won him a Nandi Award for Best Actor. The film was screened at the Moscow Film Festival. Swayam Krushi is rated as the 6th best film of K.Viswanath by Telugu movie website Fresh and Rotten Plot. Sambaiah (Chiranjeevi) is a cobbler who raises his dead sister's son Chinna (Arjun/Sirish) while also financing the education of the orphaned Sharada (Sumalatha). He also nurses a love crush and intends to marry her someday. In a turn of events, Sharada marries Bhaskar (Sarvadaman Banerjee) and Ganga (Vijayashanti) who has also nursed a love towards Sambaiah, has a tubectomy in order to marry Sambaiah. She does it so that she would be a completely dedicated mother to Chinna. After initial struggles, Ganga and Sambaiah become wealthy. Chinna's biological father Govind (Charan Raj) who is a criminal returns from prison and teams up with Ganga's father (a no-good father, role with villain shades) to make a series of demands on Sambaiah and to claim Chinna's guardianship. Eventually, Chinna rebels against his father and both he and Sambaiah return to latter's modest original profession of cobbler. Box office. =Awards=
583320	Desi Boyz () is a Hindi comedy drama film directed by debutant Rohit Dhawan, son of director David Dhawan. The film stars Akshay Kumar, John Abraham, Deepika Padukone and Chitrangada Singh in lead roles whilst Sanjay Dutt features in a cameo. The film released on 25 November 2011, and received mixed to positive reviews from critics. At the box office, it did successful business. Inspiration. "Desi Boyz" was reported to be inspired by a lawsuit an Indian student filed against a university in the West. Plot. The story follows two friends & roommates. The Gujarati rebel Jignesh "Jerry" Patel (Akshay Kumar) and clean simpleton Nick Mathur (John Abraham), who live in London. Jerry does odd jobs for a living as he is an undergraduate but Nick has a white-collar job. However, both find themselves jobless due to the economic downturn. Jerry has a school-going nephew Veer (Master Virej Desai) to look after as the child has lost his parents. Nick is to marry his girlfriend, Radhika Awasthi (Deepika Padukone), who dreams of a lovely wedding, a great honeymoon and a wonderful house to live in after marriage. Out of job, Jerry finds it difficult to even pay the school fees of his nephew because of which the government is on the verge of giving the custody of his nephew to a foster family. Nick fears he won’t be able to fulfill the dreams of his to-be wife. It is to tide over the difficult times that Jerry and Nick turn to the oldest profession in the world. Jerry and Nick become male escorts for the company "Desi Boyz", fulfilling the fantasies of girls and ladies. Jerry is unable to prevent his nephew from being sent to a foster home; and Nick loses Radhika when she learns of what he has been up to while she is away in India. Frustrated, Nick blames Jerry for forcing him into the profession and asks him to move out of his house and life. Nick now tries hard to win Radhika back and help comes from the most unlikely source – Radhika’s father Suresh (Anupam Kher) who has come to London with her. Meanwhile, Jerry registers in college again to complete his graduation so that he can earn enough money to get his nephew back home. In college, Jerry meets Tanya Sharma (Chitrangada Singh) who used to be his over-sized classmate and is now a hot and a sexy professor in the same college. Sparks fly between Jerry and Tanya. To make Nick jealous, Radhika dates a man named Ajay (Omi Vaidya). Nick starts to pick on Ajay, often calling him Vijay intentionally. After some reconsideration, Radhika forgives Nick, but Nick rejects her after she disapproves of Jerry. Meanwhile, Jerry graduates college and also wins Tanya's heart. Nick comes and apologizes to Jerry. All is forgiven when Nick and Jerry reconcile. Jerry then helps Radhika win back Nick. Nick then helps Jerry get a decent high paying job, and Jerry decides to go to court and get back the custody of his nephew. Ajay turns out to be the lawyer against Jerry's case. He decides to get revenge on Nick by not letting Jerry win his case. Ajay tells the court about Jerry being a male escort and what a bad role model he would be to his nephew. He then brings in 3 witnesses to testify against Jerry. He asks each of them if they had paid Jerry for sex; all but one say no. Ajay is on the verge of winning. But Jerry makes an inspiring speech to the judge. The case is in his favour and he ends up winning and gaining full custody of Veer. The recession ends and everyone is happy living their lives. Production. "Desi Boyz" started filming on 7 November 2010, and completed shooting in May 2011. The film was to feature Sonam Kapoor as the lead actress, but she declined the film. There were also rumours of the film being offered to Anushka Sharma, but she denied this. Eventually, Deepika Padukone and Chitrangada Singh were finalised as the female leads. This marks the collaboration of Kumar and Abraham after "Garam Masala". Padukone will be seen opposite John Abraham for the first time and Singh will star opposite Akshay Kumar in her first commercial venture. After short on extras for a scene at Oxford University, the film used website StarNow.com to recruit extras for filming. The first theatrical trailer was released on 23 September 2011, alongside "Mausam", whilst the second trailer was released alongside "Ra.One" on 26 October 2011. Release. "Desi Boyz" got an 'A' certificate from Central Board of Film Certification, although the makers were expecting a U/A certificate. The movie released in the United States on 23 November 2011 for the Thanksgiving Holiday weekend and released in India two days later on 25 November 2011. Reception. Taran Adarsh gave the film 2 stars, owing to the "tedious and least compelling second hour". However, he praised the chemistry of the lead actors, commenting that "the camaraderie between Akshay and John is piping hot" Raja Sen of Rediff.com gave 1.5 stars calling it a disaster. Aniruddha Guha gave the film 2 stars, and called it "more than tolerable", despite recalling that "the film did make laugh out loud about twice." Subhash K. Jha gave the film 3.5 out of 5 Stars calling "highly entertaining sex comedy movie having Smart, sassy, sexy and sparkling with dark audacious humour". film mainly received positive reviews from the Times of India gave a verdict of "Good". Indiaglitz gave it 4 stars. Glamsham gave it 3 stars. Sify gave it 3 stars as well. Komal Nahta also gave it a 3 and a half stars. Box office. "Desi Boyz" had an above average opening of Rs 275 million domestically in its opening weekend. It showed a 20% increase on Saturday, bringing the two-day total to Rs. 180 million nett. The film grossed approximately INR 280 million by the end of the weekend and INR 380 million nett by the end of its first week. It raked in Rs. 342.5 million in its second week taking the total to 460 million nett, this was an above average gross for an film with such star power. On the whole, "Desi Boyz" netted a worldwide total to . Soundtrack. The film's music is composed by Pritam Chakraborty and lyrics are penned by Irshad Kamil, Kumaar & Amitabh Bhattacharya. Bohemia raps to set the scene for Sanjay Dutt's cameo as he walks in the courtroom. Reception. The music album of "Desi Boyz" received positive reviews. Joginder Tuteja of Bollywood Hungama gave the album 4 stars, saying "Music of Desi Boyz exceeds expectations" and described the album as "one of the better 'masala' albums of the year." Furthermore, he chose "Subha Hone Na De", "Allah Maaf Kare", "Make Some Noise For The Desi Boyz" and "Jhak Maar Ke" as favorite picks. Glamsham gave the music a rating of 4 out of 5 saying, "Pritam builds up a good tempo in "Make Some Noise For The Desi Boyz" and carries the fun promisingly with "Jhak Maar Ke" and "Tu Mera Hero" with an all-together new breed and genre of music."
519972	Mark Anthony Lacsamana Fernandez (born January 16, 1979) is a Filipino actor. He is the son of actors Rudy Fernandez and Alma Moreno. Career. He first rose to prominence when he was once a former member of one of the famous showbiz teen group, "Gwapings" alongside Jomari Yllana, Eric Fructuoso and later with Jao Mapa. His breakout roles in the movies includes "Pare Ko", "Mangarap Ka" and "Matimbang Pa sa Dugo" which featured him as a lead star. In 1996, he received Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor nominations for the 3 aforementioned movies he did. However, the year 1998 started a downward spiral in Fernandez's career and personal life following an assault case that was filed against him by an American socialite and the break-up with his then-girlfriend Claudine Barretto. His home studio Regal Films attempted to launch him as an action star in the movies "Sonny Segovia: Lumakad Ka Sa Apoy" and "Walang Katumbas Ang Dugo" but both movies flopped at the box-office. After a two-year hiatus from a drug rehabilitation which follows his acquittal in the assault case, Fernandez returned in the movie scene via "Biyahengfhf Langit" and "Dos Ekis" opposite sexy actresses Joyce Jimenez and Rica Peralejo, respectively. He also made a TV comeback via GMA drama series "Ikaw Lang Ang Mamahalin" opposite Angelika dela Cruz. In 2003, he had disappeared once again from the industry and underwent rehabilitation for drug dependence for the second time. In 2005, he was released from rehab and made his comeback in show business. After his release in rehab, he said in his words, ""I hope the moviegoers will welcome me back. Now, I realize more than ever that I'm made for showbiz and I'll always be in showbiz."" He has been one of GMA-7's leading actors with his critically acclaimed performances on TV series such as Impostora (2007), Kamandag (2007–08), Ako si Kim Samsoon (2008), Luna Mystika (2008–09), and All About Eve (2009). He also portrayed Manny Pacquiao in "Magpakailanman" in 2003 before his second drug rehab. His role as Nicolas Cayetano is the drama series "Impostora" became his most notable role in TV & the said drama also relaunched his career making him one of the sought-after leading men in GMA-7 & because of the fruitful projects given to him by GMA, he decided to sign an exclusive contract with the network that rebuilt his career. He was paired off with Sunshine Dizon ("Impostora"), Heart Evangelista ("Luna Mystika"), Iza Calzado ("All About Eve"), Marian Rivera ("Darna") and Regine Velasquez ("Ako si Kim Sam Soon" and recently in "Diva", 2010). He also hosted a kids documentary reality show Kap's Amazing Stories Kids Edition last April 2010 on Channel 7. Personal life. He is the son of the late actor Rudy Fernandez and actress/politician Alma Moreno. He is the half brother of Vandolph Quizon and stepson of Lorna Tolentino. In 1995, he had a past relationship with actress Claudine Barretto. Fernandez has one daughter from his deceased girlfriend and has two sons from his current wife Melissa Garcia.
583778	Nala Damayanthi is a 2003 Tamil comedy film directed by Mouli and written and produced by Kamal Hassan. The film stars Madhavan in the lead role, with Geetu Mohandas and Shrutika playing supporting roles. The film released in June 2003. "The Hindu" called the film a "decent offering". Plot. Ramji Narayanaswami Iyer (Madhavan), a naive and docile Malayali brahmin (Kerala Iyer) cook from Palakkad, dreams of marrying off his sister Bhagyam (Divyadarshini) to a good family, as they are orphans and it becomes his sole responsibility. As per convention he has shell out dowry for the marriage and somehow falls short of the agreed sum. Incidentally the groom's family happens to admire the food cooked by Ramji and plan him to send to Australia as a cook for a multi millionaire Australian based Indian family. In return he has to send part of his salary as a compensation for the dowry he owes. Unfortunately, the millionaire dies of indigestion the day Ramji arrives, leaving him jobless and without his passport and visa, which had been stolen. Desperate to stay and earn, he starts working illegally as a cook in an Indian hotel owned by an NRI Badri (Sriman), but to stay on, he needs to get a legal work permit as the immigration police are on his heels. Ivan (Bruno Xavier), Badri's cunning lawyer friends explains him that the only way out is marriage with an Australian citizen. Ramji reluctantly agrees for a fake marriage with Ivan's fiancee Damayanthi (Geetu Mohandas), a free-spirited motorbiker of Sri Lankan Tamil Christian background and they get married over the weekend. For all these gimmicks Ivan charges heavy fees from Badri and deposit's in the joint account of his with Damayanthi. Ramji converts to Christianity, becoming Robert, and then moves into Damayanthi's house. The police believes this is a fake marriage and decides to refer the matter to the consulate. Constant stalking by the police forces the couple to stay together to avoid detection by authority. Damayanthi is deeply troubled with the rural mannerisms of Ramji. To break the ice, Ramji cooks delicacies for Damayanthi & wins her heart. Over a period of time Damayanthi realises that Ivan is fooling around with her and doesn't love her. Meanwhile Ramji is not able to send the dowry installments as promised & his sister's in-laws throw her out. Damayanthi handles this situation smartly, sends all the money received for the fake marriage in their joint account to her, and makes sure her long-time friend takes care of her. In their confrontation with the consulate, Ramji answers more than he is asked at the immigration office then is forced to return to India. Damayanthi eventually comes along to Palakkad and the movie ends with a happy note where couple starts off a restaurant. Actors Kamal Haasan and Jayaram comes to inaugurate their restaurant and wish the couple luck. Production. Kamal Haasan had written the script with himself in mind to play the lead role in the late 1990s, but never got down to making it because he felt it would not have been cost-effective. After the profitable "Pammal K. Sambandam", Mouli asked Kamal Haasan to re-collaborate with this particular script but Kamal Haasan was uninterested. Madhavan was selected by Kamal Haasan to replace him, after the pair had shot for "Anbe Sivam" together in the period.Madhavan was able to pick a Malayali-Tamil Pallakad accent within this time with the help of padhmanabhan nair. Geetu Mohandas was signed in February 2003 after Mouli had seen her picture in a magazine, and thus she made her comeback to the Tamil film industry after having appeared as the child in the 1988 film, "En Bommukutty Ammavukku". Bruno Xavier, an Australia-based Sri Lankan Tamil actor, was roped in to play the antagonist's role after a successful audition. The film was shot predominantly in Melbourne, Australia in February and March 2003 to make most of the daylight hours. Anu Hasan, daughter of producer Chandra Haasan, helped with production duties and cut costs of the team's shoot in Australia, as well leading post-production works. Ramesh Vinayagam's soundtrack for the film, which included an English folk song sung by Kamal Haasan, became a success. Release. The film opened to positive reviews and was successful at the box office. Sify gave a verdict that the film was a "comedy caper" and a "clean comedy with some warm moment". Kamal Haasan stated that he intended of remaking the film in Hindi, with the title of "Maharaj", but the project did not take off. Madhavan later wrote and starred in a Hindi version, "Ramji Londonwaley", which released in September 2005.
1176958	Mark Goodman (born October 11, 1952, Philadelphia, PA) is a radio DJ, TV personality, and actor. He is best known as one of the original five VJs on MTV, from 1981-1987. He was supposed to be the first of the five to be broadcast at MTV's premiere on August 1, 1981. However, due to errors sequencing the clips, he was the last of the VJs to introduce themselves after "Video Killed the Radio Star" by The Buggles and "You Better Run" by Pat Benatar. Biography. Early life and career. Goodman has been in the music business for 30 years. He started in radio in his hometown of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania at WMMR and in 1978, became the music director of the station. In 1980, he moved to New York City to work at WPLJ, the number one rock station in New York. MTV. In 1981, Goodman left WPLJ to join the as yet unknown music video channel called MTV.
1162721	Keshia Knight Pulliam (born April 9, 1979) is an American actress. She is best known for her childhood role as Rudy Huxtable on the NBC sitcom "The Cosby Show" and as reformed con artist Miranda Lucas-Payne on the TBS comedy-drama "Tyler Perry's House of Payne". Personal life. Keshia Knight Pulliam was born in Newark, New Jersey. She is the daughter of Denise and James Pulliam, Sr., a manager. She has three younger brothers.
585642	Saamrajyam ( "The Empire") is a 1990 Indian Malayalam gangster film directed by Jomon. It centers on the story of Alexander (Mammootty), a powerful underworld don.
1059966	Waiting for Guffman is a comedy in the documentary style starring, co-written and directed by Christopher Guest that was released in 1997. Its cast included Catherine O'Hara, Eugene Levy, Fred Willard, and Parker Posey. The title of the film is a reference to the Samuel Beckett play, "Waiting for Godot". As in the other mockumentaries created by Guest, the majority of the dialogue is improvised. Because the film is about the production of a stage musical, it contains several original musical numbers. Plot. The film is a parody of community theater set in the fictional small town of Blaine, Missouri. It chronicles the trials and tribulations of a handful of utterly delusional residents as they prepare to put on a community theater production led by eccentric director Corky St. Clair, played by Christopher Guest. The show, a musical chronicling the town's history, titled "Red, White and Blaine", is to be performed as part of the town's 150th anniversary celebration. Along with Guest, the film stars Catherine O'Hara and Fred Willard as Ron and Sheila Albertson, a pair of married travel agents (yet have never traveled outside of Blaine) who are also regular amateur performers, and give their companions a little too much information at a restaurant dinner; Parker Posey as the perpetual Dairy Queen employee Libby Mae Brown; Bob Balaban as Lloyd Miller, the increasingly frustrated musical director who actually possesses some talent; Lewis Arquette as Clifford Wooley, a "long time Blaineian" and retired taxidermist who is "Red, White and Blaine"'s bean-loving narrator; Matt Keeslar as the handsome and oblivious mechanic Johnny Savage, who Corky goes out of his way to get into the play; and Eugene Levy as Dr. Alan Pearl, a tragically square dentist determined to discover his inner entertainer. Brian Doyle-Murray appears briefly as Savage's dad and boss, who is immediately suspicious of Corky's eccentric behavior. Corky has presumably used connections gained from his "off-off-off-off" Broadway past to invite Mort Guffman, a Broadway producer, to critique "Red, White and Blaine". Corky leads the cast to believe that a positive review from Guffman could mean that the group can take their show all the way to Broadway. The program itself is designed to musically retell the history of Blaine, whose founding father was a buffoon incapable of distinguishing the geography of middle Missouri and the Pacific coastline. We also learn why the town obtusely refers to itself as "the stool capital of the United States". The music contained within is a series of grating and poorly performed songs such as "Nothing Ever Happens on Mars" (a reference to the town's supposed visit by a UFO), and "Stool Boom". The DVD contains "This Bulging River" and "Nothing Ever Happens in Blaine," which were edited from the cinema release. Central to the film are Corky St. Clair's stereotypically gay mannerisms. He supposedly has a wife called Bonnie, whom no one in Blaine has ever met or seen; he uses her to explain his habit of shopping for women's clothing and shoes. When Johnny Savage is forced by his suspicious father to quit the show, Corky takes over his roles, which were clearly intended for a young, masculine actor: a lusty young frontiersman, a heartbroken soldier, and a little boy wearing a beanie and shorts. St. Clair never sheds his dainty demeanor, bowl haircut, lisp, or earring in spite of his historical roles, and his face is pasted with an overkill of stage rouge and eyeliner. Corky is also faced with creating his magic on a shoestring budget, and at one point quits the show after storming out of a meeting with the City Council, who turns down his request for $100,000 to finance the production. But the distraught cast and persuasive city fathers convince Corky to return to the show (to the disappointment of Lloyd Miller, who had taken over in Corky's absence). At the show's performance, Guffman's seat is seen to be empty, much to the dismay of the cast; Corky assures them that Broadway producers always arrive a bit late for the show, and sure enough a man (Paul Benedict) soon takes Guffman's reserved seat. The show is well received by the audience, and St. Clair invites the assumed Guffman backstage to talk to the actors. Upon arriving, he declares that he is not Guffman and had actually come to Blaine to witness the birth of his niece's baby -- but that he enjoyed the show. Corky then reads a telegram stating that Guffman's plane was grounded by snowstorms in New York (though it is in the summer). An epilogue shows the fates of the cast: While Libby Mae has returned yet again to the Dairy Queen, Dr. Pearl and the Albertsons have both pursued their dreams of being entertainers: Ron and Sheila travel to Hollywood to work as extras, and Dr. Pearl now entertains elderly Jews in Florida retirement communities. Corky has returned to New York, where he has opened a Hollywood-themed novelty shop, which includes such items as Brat Pack bobblehead dolls, "My Dinner with Andre" action figures, and "The Remains of the Day" lunch boxes. When Corky is showing his collection, a Charlie Weaver doll can be seen. Charlie Weaver a.k.a. Cliff Arquette was Lewis Arquette's father. Reception. Waiting for Guffman received acclaim from critics. Based on 54 reviews collected by Rotten Tomatoes, the film received a 91% approval rating from critics, with an average score of 7.8/10.
1060912	Dabney Wharton Coleman (born January 3, 1932) is an American actor. Coleman is perhaps best known for roles in "9 to 5", "Cloak & Dagger", "Tootsie", "WarGames", "You've Got Mail", "Sworn to Silence", "The Beverly Hillbillies" and as the voice of Principal Peter Prickly in "Recess" and "". Early life. Coleman was born in Austin, Texas, the son of Mary Wharton (née Johns) and Melvin Randolph Coleman. He entered the Virginia Military Institute in 1949, then studied law at the University of Texas before turning to acting. He was drafted in 1953 to the US Army and served in Europe.
1104386	Bonaventura Francesco Cavalieri (in Latin, Cavalerius) (1598 – November 30, 1647) was an Italian mathematician. He is known for his work on the problems of optics and motion, work on the precursors of infinitesimal calculus, and the introduction of logarithms to Italy. Cavalieri's principle in geometry partially anticipated integral calculus. Life. Born in Milan, Cavalieri studied theology in the monastery of San Gerolamo in Milan and geometry at the University of Pisa as a member of the Jesuates order. He published eleven books, his first being published in 1632. He worked on the problems of optics and motion. His astronomical and astrological work remained marginal to these main interests, though his last book, "Trattato della ruota planetaria perpetua" (1646), was dedicated to the former. He was introduced to Galileo Galilei through academic and ecclesiastical contacts. Galileo exerted a strong influence on Cavalieri encouraging him to work on his new method and suggesting fruitful ideas, and Cavalieri would write at least 112 letters to Galileo. Galileo said of Cavalieri, "few, if any, since Archimedes, have delved as far and as deep into the science of geometry." He also benefited from the patronage of Cesare Marsili. Cavalieri's first book was "Lo Specchio Ustorio, overo, Trattato delle settioni coniche", or "The Burning Mirror, or a Treatise on Conic Sections". In this book he developed the theory of mirrors shaped into parabolas, hyperbolas, and ellipses, and various combinations of these mirrors. The work was purely theoretical since the needed mirrors could not be constructed with the technologies of the time, a limitation well understood by Cavalieri. Building on the classic method of exhaustion, Cavalieri developed a geometrical approach to calculus and published a treatise on the topic, "Geometria indivisibilibus continuorum nova quadam ratione promota" ("Geometry, developed by a new method through the indivisibles of the continua," 1635). In this work, an area is considered as constituted by an indefinite number of parallel segments and a volume as constituted by an indefinite number of parallel planar areas. Such elements are called indivisibles respectively of area and volume and provide the building blocks of Cavalieri's method. As an application, he computed the areas under the curves formula_1 – an early integral – which is known as Cavalieri's quadrature formula. Cavalieri is known for Cavalieri's principle, which states that the volumes of two objects are equal if the areas of their corresponding cross-sections are in all cases equal. Two cross-sections correspond if they are intersections of the body with planes equidistant from a chosen base plane. (The same principle had been previously discovered by Zu Gengzhi (480–525) of China.) Cavalieri developed a "method of the indivisibles," which he used to determine areas and volumes. It was a significant step on the way to modern infinitesimal calculus. Cavalieri also constructed a hydraulic pump for his monastery and published tables of logarithms, emphasizing their practical use in the fields of astronomy and geography. He died at Bologna.
1060846	Burn After Reading is a 2008 black comedy film written, produced, edited and directed by Joel and Ethan Coen. The film stars George Clooney, John Malkovich, Frances McDormand, Tilda Swinton, and Brad Pitt. It was released in the United States on September 12, 2008, and it was released on October 17, 2008 in the United Kingdom. The film had its premiere on August 27, 2008, when it opened the 2008 Venice Film Festival. Plot. Faced with a demotion at work due to a drinking problem, Osbourne Cox (John Malkovich) quits his job as a CIA analyst and resolves to write a memoir about his life and career. When his pediatrician wife Katie (Tilda Swinton) finds out, she sees it as a justifiable opportunity to file for divorce and continue her extramarital affair unimpeded. Taking her lawyer's advice, she copies financial records and several other files from her husband's computer onto a CD. When the CD gets left on the locker room floor of Hardbodies, a local gym, by a careless law firm employee, it falls into the hands of personal trainer Chad Feldheimer (Brad Pitt) and his co-worker Linda Litzke (Francis McDormand), who mistake the numerical data in the Cox's bank records to be highly sensitive government information. After getting the data traced back to Osbourne, who thinks his memoirs have been stolen, Chad and Linda plan to give the disc back to him for a reward, with Linda planning to use the money to pay for cosmetic surgery. But when a phone call and subsequent in-person meeting with Osbourne goes horribly wrong, Chad and Linda turn over the disc to the Russian embassy, offering more information in return for monetary compensation. With no other data to give them, Linda persuades Chad to sneak into the Cox home to get more files from their computer. Meanwhile, Osbourne's increasingly erratic behavior - aggravated in part by his encounters with Chad and Linda - prompt Katie to move ahead with the divorce proceedings. She changes the locks on their house, forcing Osbourne to move onto the sailboat they have docked on the Chesapeake Bay. With her husband out of the picture, Katie invites her lover, Harry Pfarrer (George Clooney) to move in. A womanizing, multi-adulterous, Treasury Department employee and U.S. Marshal, Pfarrer is coincidentally also secretly seeing Linda. Chad, who was sent by Linda to find more files on Cox, is discovered hiding in a wardrobe in the Cox home by Pfarrer and is unintentionally shot dead by him. Two days later at the CIA headquarters, an official and Osbourne's former superior named Palmer (David Rasche) and his director (J.K. Simmons) learn that information from Osbourne has been given to the Russian Embassy. They are perplexed and decide to maintain observation until the situation "makes sense". Harry, burdened by keeping the day prior's events secret, gets into an argument with Katie and decides to leave the house. On his way out, he spots a man who has been trailing him for the past several days. After tackling him to the ground, Harry finds out that the man is a process server tasked with giving him divorce papers from his wife Sandy (Elizabeth Marvel), who is having an extramarital liaison of her own. Harry is devastated and goes to see an agitated Linda, who confides in Harry that her friend Chad is missing; he agrees to try to help find him. The next morning, Harry and Linda meet in a park, and she provides him with more information about Chad's disappearance. When Linda mentions the name Osbourne Cox, Harry figures out that Chad's the man he shot. He panics, realizes that there are strange men in the park and flees, assuming Linda is a spy. Linda then turns to Ted Treffon (Richard Jenkins), the kindhearted manager of Hardbodies, who has unrequited feelings for her and been critical of Linda and Chad's scheming thus far. Believing the Russians have kidnapped Chad, he agrees to go to the Cox home to search Osbourne's computer. Unemployed and having spent the past several days living on a small boat, Osbourne becomes unhinged when he finds out that his wife has emptied his bank accounts, and, no longer having keys, decides to break into the house to get some of his personal belongings. Finding Ted in the basement, Osbourne initially takes him to be Katie's lover. He soon realizes Ted's affiliation with Linda and what he refers to as the "league of morons" he feels he has been struggling against his whole life, and fires a gunshot at him. Ted manages to get out of the house, only to be fatally attacked by a hatchet-wielding Osbourne. At CIA headquarters a few days later, Palmer and his director try to understand what exactly happened. It is revealed that while trying to board a flight to Venezuela, Harry was detained because his name was on a hot list, Ted's body has been disposed of and the CIA are holding Linda who is promising to keep quiet about everything if they will pay for her cosmetic surgery. A CIA agent shot Osbourne during his hatchet assault on Ted and the bullet has put Osbourne in a coma. The director instructs Palmer to let Harry fly to Venezuela, saying that the U.S. has no extradition treaty with Venezuela, decides the CIA will pay for Linda's surgery and postpones considering Osbourne's situation until he regains consciousness, which is not likely. The director and Palmer conclude that they did not really learn anything from the fiasco. Production. Working Title Films produced the film for Focus Features, which also has worldwide distribution rights. "Burn After Reading" was the first Coen brothers film not to use Roger Deakins as cinematographer since "Miller's Crossing". Emmanuel Lubezki, the four-time Academy Award-nominated cinematographer of "Sleepy Hollow" and "Children of Men", took over for Deakins. Mary Zophres served as costume designer, marking her eighth consecutive movie with the Coen brothers. Carter Burwell, a composer who worked with the Coens in eleven previous films, created the score. Early in the production, Burwell and the Coens decided the score should include a great deal of percussion instruments, which the filmmakers felt would match the deluded self-importance of the characters. In creating the score, they discussed the political thriller "Seven Days in May", which included an all-drums score; the "Burn" score consisted of a great deal of Japanese Taiko drums. Joel Coen said they wanted the score to be "something big and bombastic, something important sounding but absolutely meaningless." "Burn After Reading" is the first original screenplay penned by Joel and Ethan Coen since their 2001 movie, "The Man Who Wasn't There". Ethan Coen compared "Burn After Reading" to the Allen Drury political novel "Advise and Consent" and called it "our version of a Tony Scott/Jason Bourne kind of movie, without the explosions." Joel Coen said they intended to create a spy movie because "we hadn't done one before," but he feels the final result was more of a character-driven movie than a spy story. Joel also said "Burn After Reading" was not meant to be a comment or satire on Washington D.C. Parts of the "Burn" screenplay were written while the Coens were also writing their adaptation of "No Country for Old Men". The Coens created characters with actors George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Frances McDormand, John Malkovich and Richard Jenkins in mind for the parts, and the script derived from the brothers' desire to include them in a "fun story." Ethan Coen said Pitt's character was partially inspired by a botched hair coloring job from a commercial the actor filmed. Tilda Swinton, who was cast later than the other actors, was the only major actor whose character was not written specifically for her. The Coens struggled to develop a common filming schedule among the A-list cast. "Production Weekly", an online entertainment industry magazine, falsely reported in October 2006 that "Burn After Reading" was a loose adaptation of "Burn Before Reading: Presidents, CIA Directors, and Secret Intelligence", a memoir by former U.S. Director of Central Intelligence Stansfield Turner. Although both stories involve the Central Intelligence Agency and derive their titles from the top secret classification term, the Coen brothers script has nothing to do with the Turner book; nevertheless, the rumor was not clarified until a "Los Angeles Times" article more than one year later. Principal photography took place around Brooklyn Heights, as the Coens wanted to stay in New York City to be with their families. Other scenes were filmed at Paramus, New Jersey, Westchester County, New York and Washington, D.C., particularly in the Georgetown neighborhood. Filming began on August 27, 2007 and was completed on October 30, 2007. John Malkovich, appearing in his first Coen brothers film, said of the shooting, "The Coens are very delightful: smart, funny, very specific about what they want but not overly controlling, as some people can be." The film opened the Venice Film Festival in August 2008. The Coen brothers said idiocy was a major central theme of "Burn After Reading"; Joel said he and his brother have "a long history of writing parts for idiotic characters" and described Clooney and Pitt's characters as "dueling idiots." "Burn After Reading" is the third Coen brothers film for Clooney ("O Brother, Where Art Thou?" and "Intolerable Cruelty"), who acknowledged that he usually plays a fool in their movies: "I've done three films with them and they call it my trilogy of idiots." Joel said after the last scene was shot, "George said: 'OK, I’ve played my last idiot!' So I guess he won’t be working with us again." Pitt, who plays a particularly unintelligent character, said of his role, "After reading the part, which they said was hand-written for myself, I was not sure if I should be flattered or insulted." Pitt also said when he was shown the script, he told the Coens he did not know how to play the part because the character was such an idiot: "There was a pause, and then Joel goes...'You'll be fine'." During a fall movie preview, "Entertainment Weekly" wrote that Malkovich "easily racks up the most laughs" among the cast as the foul-mouthed and short-tempered ex-CIA man. The first scene Malkovich performed was a phone call in which he shouts several obscenities at Pitt and McDormand. But Malkovich could not be on the sound stage for the call because he was rehearsing a play, so he called in the lines from his apartment in Paris. Regarding the scene, Malkovich said, "It was really late at night and I was screaming at the top of my lungs. God knows what the neighbors thought." Swinton plays Malkovich's wife who engages in an affair with Clooney, although the two characters do not get along well. Clooney's and Swinton's characters also had a poor relationship in their previous film together, "Michael Clayton", prompting Clooney to say to Swinton at the end of a shoot, "Well, maybe one day we'll get to make a film together when we say one nice thing to each other." Swinton said of the dynamic, "I'm very happy to shout at him on screen. It's great fun." Swinton described "Burn After Reading" as "a kind of monster caper movie," and said of the characters, "All of us are monsters – like, true monsters. It’s ridiculous." She also said, "I think there is something random at the heart of this one. On the one hand, it really is bleak and scary. On the other, it is really funny. ... It's the whatever-ness of it. You feel that at any minute of any day in any town, this could happen." Malkovich said of the characters, "No one in this film is very good. They're either slightly emotional or mentally defective. Quirky, self-aggrandizing, scheming." Pitt said the cast did little ad-libbing because the script was so tightly written and wove so many overlapping stories together. Veteran actor Richard Jenkins said the Coen brothers asked him if he could lose weight for his role as the gym manager, to which Jenkins jokingly replied, "I'm a 60-year-old man, not Brad Pitt. My body isn't going to change." Joel Coen said the sex machine built by Clooney's character was inspired by a machine he once saw a key grip build, and by another machine he saw in the Museum of Sex in New York City. Reception. Critical reception. Reviews for the film were mostly positive, earning a 78% "Certified Fresh" rating at Rotten Tomatoes based on 225 reviews as of March 24, 2013. "The Times", which gave the movie four out of five stars, compared it to Coen films "Raising Arizona" and "Fargo" in its "savagely comic taste for creative violence and a slightly mocking eye for detail." The review said the attention to detail was so impeccable that "the Coens can even raise a laugh with something as simple as a well-placed photograph of Vladimir Putin," and complimented Carter Burwell's musical score, which it described as "the most paranoid piece of film music since Quincy Jones's neurotic soundtrack for "The Anderson Tapes"." Andrew Pulver, film reviewer for "The Guardian" called the movie "a tightly wound, slickly plotted spy comedy that couldn't be in bigger contrast to the Coens' last film, the bloodsoaked, brooding "No Country for Old Men"." Pulver, who also gave "Burn After Reading" four out of five stars, said it "may also go down as arguably the Coens' happiest engagement with the demands of the Hollywood A-list." Pulver said Brad Pitt had some of the funniest moments and that compared to the other Coen brothers movies, "Burn After Reading" most resembles "Intolerable Cruelty". "The Hollywood Reporter" reviewer Kirk Honeycutt complimented the actors for making fun of their screen personae, and said the Coen brothers "have taken some of cinema's top and most expensive actors and chucked them into "Looney Tunes" roles in a thriller." Honeycutt also said "it takes awhile to adjust to the rhythms and subversive humor of "Burn" because this is really an anti-spy thriller in which nothing is at stake, no one acts with intelligence and everything ends badly." Todd McCarthy, of "Variety" magazine, wrote a strongly negative review of "Burn After Reading", which he said "tries to mate sex farce with a satire of a paranoid political thriller, with arch and ungainly results." McCarthy said the talented cast was forced to act like cartoon characters, described Carter Burwell's score as "uncustomarily overbearing" and said the dialogue is "dialed up to an almost grotesquely exaggerated extent, making for a film that feels misjudged from the opening scene and thereafter only occasionally hits the right note." "Time" film critic Richard Corliss said he did not understand what the Coen brothers were attempting with the film, and after describing the plot, wrote, "I have the sinking feeling I've made "Burn After Reading" sound funnier than it is. The movie's glacial affectlessness, its remove from all these subpar schemers, left me cold and perplexed." Corliss complimented Richard Jenkins and J.K. Simmons for their brief supporting roles. David Denby of "The New Yorker" said the movie had several funny scenes, but they "are stifled by a farce plot so bleak and unfunny that it freezes your responses after about forty-five minutes." Denby also criticized the pattern of violence in the movie, in which innocent people die quickly and the guilty go unpunished. "These people don’t mean much to Coen brothers; it’s hardly a surprise that they don’t mean much to us, either. ... Even black comedy requires that the filmmakers love someone, and the mock cruelties in "Burn After Reading" come off as a case of terminal misanthropy." Leah Rozen, of "People" magazine, said the characters' "unrelenting dumbness and dim-witted behavior is at first amusing and enjoyable but eventually grows wearing." But Rozen said the performances are a redeeming factor, especially that of Pitt, who she described as a standout who "manages simultaneously to be delightfully broad and smartly nuanced." "Le Monde" noticed its "particularly bitter image of the U.S. The alliance of political incompetence (the CIA), the cult of appearance (the gym club) and vulgar stupidity (everyone) is the target of a settling of scores" where the comedy "sprouts from a well of bitterness." Accolades. The film was nominated at the 2009 Golden Globe Awards for Best Comedy or Musical and for Best Lead Actress in a Comedy or Musical (Frances McDormand). The National Board of Review named "Burn After Reading" in their list of the Top 10 Movies of 2008. Noel Murray of "The A.V. Club" named it the second best film of 2008, "Empire" magazine named it the third best film of 2008, and Owen Gleiberman of "Entertainment Weekly" named it the seventh best film of 2008. Box office. In its opening weekend, the film grossed $19.1 million in 2,651 theaters in the United States and Canada, ranking number one at the box office. As of July, 2009, it has grossed $60.3 million in the United States and Canada and $100.8 million in other countries adding up to $161.1 million worldwide gross. Home media. "Burn After Reading" was released on DVD and Blu-ray Disc on December 21, 2008, on Region 1. The Region 2 version was released on February 9, 2009.
1063096	Idrissa Akuna "Idris" Elba (; born 6 September 1972) is a British actor, singer, rapper and producer who has starred in both British and American productions. He grew up in Canning Town, East London. He is best known for playing Russell "Stringer" Bell (a Baltimore drug lord and aspiring businessman) in HBO's critically acclaimed show "The Wire" and the title role of Detective John Luther in "Luther", which airs on BBC One. Elba has won a Golden Globe for his portrayal of DCI Luther. One of Elba's first acting roles was in the soap opera "Family Affairs". As a film actor, Elba has appeared in "American Gangster", "Takers", "The Losers"," Thor", "Prometheus" and "Pacific Rim". In addition to his acting work, Elba is a DJ under the moniker DJ Big Driis/Big Driis the Londoner, and a hip-hop soul recording artist. Early life. An only child, Elba was born Idrissa Akuna Elba. He shortened his first name at school in Canning Town, where he first became involved in acting. His father, Winston, was a Sierra Leonean and worked at a Ford motor factory, and his mother, Eve, was a Ghanaian and had a clerical job. Elba's parents married in West Africa and later moved to London. Elba himself was raised in East Ham, and began helping an uncle with his wedding-DJ business in 1986 and within a year, he had started his own DJ company with some of his friends. Elba left school in 1988 and later won a place in the National Youth Music Theatre, thanks to a £1,500 Prince’s Trust grant, but he ended up having to do everything from tyre-fitting to cold-call advertising sales to pay the rent between roles in "Crimewatch" murder reconstructions. Elba was working in nightclubs under the DJ nickname Big Driis in 1991, but began auditioning for television parts in his early twenties. After a stint in the National Youth Music Theatre, Elba worked the night shift at Ford Dagenham. Acting career. Television. Although his film, television, and stage work officially commenced around 1992, in 1995 he landed his first role on a series called "Bramwell", a medical drama set in 1890s England. Elba played the lead character in a first-season episode; an African petty thief named Charlie Carter, who lost his white wife to childbirth, then had to figure out how to support his newborn daughter. His first credited role arrived in 1995, with a supporting role as a gigolo on the episode of "Absolutely Fabulous", entitled "Sex." Many supporting roles on British television followed, including such series as "The Bill" and "The Ruth Rendell Mysteries". He joined the cast of the soap opera "Family Affairs" and rose to prominence in the acclaimed serial "Ultraviolet". He went on to appear in a more established television series, "Dangerfield", in 1999, playing a forensic scientist.
394205	Hwang Jung-min (born September 1, 1970) is a South Korean actor.
1166299	Elaine Hendrix (born December 28, 1970) is an American actress, producer, singer, dancer, and activist. She is best known for her roles in the 1998 remake of "The Parent Trap", "Inspector Gadget 2", and the 2004 documentary "What the Bleep Do We Know!?".
1772469	Cry Danger is a 1951 film noir thriller shot in twenty-two days in Los Angeles. The film was directed by Robert Parrish, a former child star and later editor in his debut as a director. Plot. Rocky Mulloy was sentenced to life in prison for a robbery and murder that he didn't commit. He's released five years later when a witness named Delong appears and provides an alibi. Rocky then sets out to find who framed him, hoping that by uncovering the actual criminals, he'll be able to free his friend Danny Morgan, also accused of the same crime. Delong is lying about the alibi. What he really wants is a share of the missing robbery loot. Rocky insists he wasn't involved. They go see Morgan's wife, Nancy, a former love of Rocky's, who now lives in a trailer park. Police Lt. Gus Cobb keeps an eye on Rocky because he's still convinced of his guilt. Rocky believes that bookie Louis Castro is the mastermind. He demands $50,000 at gunpoint. Castro won't agree to that, but gives him $500 to bet on a fixed horse race. Shots are fired at Delong and girlfriend Darlene near the trailer and she is killed. Nancy believes the intended victims were Rocky and herself. Rocky goes back to Castro and plays Russian roulette until Castro reveals where the robbery money can be found. It turns out Morgan was indeed involved and that Nancy now has his share. Lt. Cobb gradually comes to believe Rocky's innocence. Nancy says she loves him and invites him to run off together with the loot, but Rocky leaves her for the law. Background. The film was shot in the Bunker Hill section of the city (the "Crosley" Hotel, built as the Nugent, and stood at 3rd and Grand. Los Amigos bar was at 3rd and Olive. Clover Trailer Park, wasn't on Bunker Hill, but was at 650-700 N Hill Place in Chinatown.
1236552	Alice Jane Evans (born 2 August 1971) is a British actress. Early life. Evans, the daughter of educators and the granddaughter of a coal miner, was born in New Jersey to British parents, David and Janet. She was raised in Bristol, England, along with her two British born brothers, Anthony and Philip. She graduated from University College London with a in French and Italian. Career. After graduation, she moved to Paris Cours Florent. She gained work in French television, with her breakthrough role as French student Susan in the popular French sitcom "Elisa Top Modele," which ran for a year and a half. The following year she went to Italy to portray Nathalie, in the successful 1998 Italian mini-series "Le ragazze di Piazza di Spagna" for RAI DUE. Her very first English speaking role was in the Highlander episode 'Patient Number 7'. After making her first film "Monsieur Naphtali" 1999 with the highly talented late Elie Kakou and eclectic French cast including Gilbert Melki and Jean-Marie Lamour, Oscar-winning director Claude Lelouch cast Evans as Macha in "Une pour toutes" (1999), alongside Sami Naceri and Anne Parillaud. In 1999, Disney cast her alongside Glenn Close, Gérard Depardieu and Ioan Gruffudd (her future husband) in "102 Dalmatians". Evans' mother died at age 59 the day before Evans's final screen test for the role, which introduced her to British viewers. After appearing alongside James Cromwell and Vince Vaughn in "Blackball", which was a critical success but commercial failure, she moved to Los Angeles in 2003. She has since appeared in both television and film, from "The Christmas Card" as Faith to "The Mentalist" and "Brothers and Sisters," as well as "LOST", "Grimm", and a turn as the villain Esther on "The Vampire Diaries". Personal life. Evans first met actor Ioan Gruffudd during the filming of "102 Dalmatians", while she was in her eight-year relationship with Olivier Widmaier Picasso, a grandson of painter Pablo Picasso. She lived with Picasso in Paris, and they became engaged but later broke up. Gruffudd stated on the "The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson" that he and Evans became engaged on New Year's Day 2006 after Evans gave him an ultimatum, declaring that after 7 years together she wasn't going to hang around any longer unless she was his wife. They married on 14 September 2007 in Mexico. Gruffudd later removed his funding and support of his largest fansite, IoanOnline.com due to comments made about Evans on the site which angered her, which resulted in the website being closed by its owner because nobody else was prepared to pay for the site. Estimates say the web host was paid as much as $2,000 per month by the couple, substantially more than other fansites. The couple resides in West Hollywood, Los Angeles. In 2009, Evans gave birth to the couple's first child, Ella Betsi Janet Evans Gruffudd. Evans and Gruffudd are expecting their second child .
585893	Babu Antony is an Indian film actor. Working primarily in Malayalam cinema, Babu has also acted in other Indian languages films such as Tamil, Telugu and Hindi.. He made his debut in Bharathan's "Chilampu" (1986). He started his career doing antagonist roles but has also played the lead role in few films. He made a mark in Malayalam cinema through Fazil's 1986 thriller "Poovinu Puthiya Poonthennal". The film was remade into Tamil, Telugu, and Kannada and Babu Antony reprised his role in all the four versions. His career highlights include "Vaishali" (1988), "Aparhnnam" (1991), and "Uppukandam Brothers" (1993). According to reports, Babu is all set for his directorial debut in "Piano. Martial Arts and Movies. Babu Antony, a Fifth Dan Black Belt in martial arts is the only martial arts expert hero in Malayalam cinema to reach stardom by excelling in racy fight scenes. He taught martial arts to Papal pontifical college Pune many years. The six-foot plus actor also known as Bob Antony in Hindi films made his debut by playing a negative role in renowned late director Bharathan’s Malayalam film Chilambu. His monopoly in quick punches, fast kicks and fluid movements in action scenes has merited him roles in 160 films in different languages like Malayalam, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Hindi.His heroic performance as an angry young man built a huge fan following among the audience especially youngsters in movies like Bharanakoodam, Gandhari, Chantha, Dada, Kadal, Kambolam etc. His portrayal of negative characters with shoulder level hair and beard redefined the entire concept of a villain. Babu Antony shone in action roles as a hero and villain, at the same time proved his mettle as an actor by performing a king’s role in Vaishali, an ex-terrorist role in Aparahnam and an impecunious in Sayaahnam. Few of his films were featured in national and international festivals and won recognitions.
1602037	Louis Bertrand Castel (15 November 1688 – 9 January 1757) was a French mathematician born in Montpellier, and entered the order of the Jesuits in 1703. Having studied literature, he afterwards devoted himself entirely to mathematics and natural philosophy. He wrote several scientific works, that which attracted most attention at the time being his "Optique des couleurs" (1740), or treatise on the melody of colors. He also wrote "Traité de physique sur la pesanteur universelle des corps" (1724), "Mathématique universelle" (1728), and a critical account of the system of Sir Isaac Newton in 1743. Work in Optics. It was in 1740 that Louis Bertrand Castel published a criticism of Newton's spectral description of prismatic colour in which he observed that the colours of white light split by a prism depended on the distance from the prism, and that Newton was looking at a special case. It was an argument that Goethe later developed in his Theory of Colours. The Ocular Harpsichord. Early on, Castel illustrated his optical theories with a proposal for a "Clavecin pour les yeux" ("Ocular Harpsichord", 1725). While the treatise and the illustration were apparently forgotten, he continually developed the idea. It was soon after the publication of his L'Optique des couleurs in the 1740s, that German composer Telemann went to France to see Castel's Ocular Harpsichord for himself. He ended up composing several pieces for it, and even wrote a book about it. .
571184	The American Ruling Class is a 2005 dramatic documentary film written by Lewis H. Lapham and directed by John Kirby that "explores our country’s most taboo topic: class, power and privilege in our nominally democratic republic." It seeks to answer the question, "Does America have a ruling class?" Its producers consider it the first "dramatic-documentary-musical." A rough-cut of the film was shown at the 2005 Tribeca Film Festival, the final version of the film was shown on the Sundance Channel in July 2007, and it had its theatrical premiere at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in April 2008. Plot. The film stars Lewis H. Lapham, who plays himself as editor of "Harper's Magazine". Lapham opens the film with the question of whether or not America has a "ruling class," a circle of wealthy and powerful families that run the banks, businesses, and government, essentially controlling everything in America.
586583	Matrubhoomi: A Nation Without Women (Hindi: मातृभूमि, translation: Motherland) is a 2003 Indian film written and directed by Manish Jha. The film examines the impact of female foeticide and female infanticide on the gender balance and consequently the stability and attitudes of society. Its storyline bears some resemblance to real-life instances of gender imbalance and economics resulting in fraternal polyandry and bride buying in some parts of India. It depicts a future dystopia in an Indian village populated exclusively by males due to female infanticide over the years. "Matrubhoomi" received widespread critical acclaim and was shown at festivals through 2003, including the 2003 Venice Film Festival, where it was presented in the Critic's Week (Parallel Sections) and later awarded the FIPRESCI Award "For important theme on women's issues and female infanticide handled with sensitivity by a first-time director". Plot. The story begins in a rural village in Bihar, with the delivery of a baby girl to a village couple. Her disappointed father, who was hoping for a boy, drowns her in vat of milk in a public ceremony. Many years later somewhere around 2050 A.D., this unchecked trend leads to the village being populated solely by males. The now uncouth and aggressive young men of the village are desperate for wives and release their frustration through group screenings of imported pornographic films, cross-dressed dance performances, and even bestiality. They are shown to be willing to go to the lengths of human trafficking and courtship-driven emigration to procure spouses for themselves. The wealthy father Ramcharan (Sudhir Pandey) of five boys finds out about a single young woman, named Kalki ( Tulip Joshi ), living some distance from the village and literally buys her from her father. She is then married to all five sons. Each night of the week, she is forced to sleep with one of the sons, and the father also gets his weekly night with her. Of all the men in the boorish lot, only the youngest son treats her with respect and tenderness. When the youngest son is killed by his jealous brothers, and an escape attempt with a sympathetic domestic servant goes lethally awry, she becomes a pawn of revenge in an inter-community conflict and an unwilling object of sexual release for even more men. She is chained to a post in the cow shed and gang raped mercilessly night after night. The film ends on a violent but hopeful note, as she bears a baby girl while the men of the village kill each other off over rights to her and her child. Development and production. Director Manish Jha's debut short film, "A Very Very Silent Film" (2001), had previously won the Jury Prize for the Best Short Film at the Cannes Film Festival in 2002. He got the idea of "Matrubhoomi" upon reading, in a news magazine, about a village in Gujarat without women. Subsequently, while surfing the web, he read an article mentioning the fact that over the years, millions of girl children had fallen victims to gender discrimination in India. The film's French producer Patrick Sobelman asked Jha to produce a script outline on the subject, and he put out a two-page synopsis. Within a week he wrote a 200-page script, which he cut back to 70 pages. The project received a green light when its Indian producer Pankej Kharabanda came on board. Having grown up in Bihar, he said he was aware of the practice of female infanticide and wanted to write a script about a future village if the practise continued. As women became extinct, the film allowed him to bring to light issues like polyandry, bride buying and rape. "Matrubhoomi"'s lead actress Tulip Joshi had refused the film after the first reading, but eventually decided to take it up. As she added, "But I'm glad I took it up finally, even though there was a point when I felt disgusted." The film was shot on a tight budget of Rs. 2 crore, in Renai, a remote village in Harda district of Madhya Pradesh in 29 days. The cast included actors from Delhi theatre circuit, Sushant Singh, Aditya Shrivastav, Piyush Mishra and Deepak Bandhu. Themes. As per director, Manish Jha, "I wanted to examine the emotional and psychological impact of a society without women," ... "It is a very extreme situation ... a whole nation without women." The central character Kalki being married to five brothers is analogous to Queen Draupadi being married to the Pandava brothers in "Mahabharata". Kalki references to the forecast of Vishnu's tenth incarnation, Kalki, who would end the Kaliyuga. Release. After running through the festival circuit, including the 2003 Venice Film Festival, 2003 Toronto International Film Festival, "Matrubhoomi" was commercially released two years later on July 8, 2005, with 150 prints. It was dubbed into six languages, including Tamil, Telugu, Bhojpuri, Gujarati, Bengali, and French, on a budget of Rs. 3 crore, to reach a wider audience.
1166338	Val Avery (July 14, 1924 – December 12, 2009), born Sebouh Der Abrahamian, was an American character actor who appeared in hundreds of movies and television shows since the 1950s. In a career that spanned 50 years, Avery appeared in over 100 films and had appearances in over 300 television series. Early life. Avery was born in Philadelphia. In his early years he acted in plays with the Armenian Youth Federation. Following his service in World War II, he attended the Bessie V. Hicks School of Drama in Philadelphia. Entertainment career. Avery's pock-marked face and shifty appearance allowed him to frequently be cast as a gangster, or other menacing heavies. Avery's TV roles include the "Columbo" episodes "A Friend in Deed" (1974), "Dead Weight" (1971),
629425	Dying Breed is an Australian horror film, which was directed by Jody Dwyer and stars Leigh Whannell and Nathan Phillips. Plot. The film opens with the back story of Van Dieman's Land, a penal colony used by the British Empire. During the 1820s, Alexander Pearce, a prisoner known as "the Pieman", has escaped into the wilderness and he is being hunted by policemen with dogs. He is faced by a policeman who attempts to shoot Pearce, but his gun does not fire. Pearce then bites the policeman's neck, taking a large chunk from his throat, killing him, allowing Pearce to escape. In present day, Nina, a zoologist, plans a trip with her boyfriend Matt to Tasmania to find the supposedly extinct Tasmanian tiger. Her endeavor is encouraged by a paw print that was discovered by her older sister in a remote area of the island before her body was mysteriously found in the Pieman River several years before. Matt's friend, Jack, and his girlfriend, Rebecca, help pay for the trip and accompany the fellow couple. When they arrive, Matt sees a small girl on the boat playing a game with yellow-tinted teeth. When Matt asks what she is doing, she recites a rhyme, but Matt gets too close and then bites his hand, causing it to bleed. The group reaches their small town destination, and Jack decides to puncture the tire of one of the vehicles because it "makes him feel better". They enter the local pub and commingle with the odd natives of the town. Jack later discovers that his new vehicle has been scratched in retaliation for puncturing the tire, causing him to become angry. Later in the evening, the couples retreat to their rooms, and Jack and Rebecca have sex until they realize that somebody is watching them. A nude Jack runs after the voyeur, restrains him against a tree, and beats him. The next day, the group goes out on a boat in the river along the forest. They decide to camp in a cave out in the woods, and later that evening Matt and Nina discover one of the Tasmanian tigers creeping through the bush. Nina rushes to get her camera to take a picture of the tiger, but it has run into the woods. The group goes into the dark after the tiger using their cell phones as light because capturing proof of its existence is critical to Nina's research. Unbeknownst to the rest of the group, Rebecca is captured and eaten by a cannibal. When the other three re-group, they realize that Rebecca is missing and that Nina has blood on her pant legs. Confused, the group searches for Rebecca and encounter the young girl from the boat near the cave. Nina drops a picture of her sister, which the young girl picks up, and announces, "It's Mama!" The girl's apparent father arrives in search of the girl. He agrees to help them find Rebecca, and leads them to an old mine tunnel and warns them of the booby traps, but he will not be going any further with them. The group goes in search of Rebecca, but the man who helped them, starts after them but is killed shortly after pausing and saying to an unseen figure, "We don't have to do this." Jack finds Rebecca's phone and jacket covered in blood when Nina and Matt catch up to him. Jack mistakenly shoots one of the native villagers with a crossbow through the cheek, causing the villager to have his face pinned against a tree. Matt pulls the man's head off the arrow, and they start walking further. Soon they encounter a shack, and Matt and Jack begin to investigate. They find the dismembered body of Rebecca hanging in the trees by the shack. Jack starts to go crazy, but his leg gets caught in a bear trap, which causes him to fall to the ground, forcing his head into another bear trap. Scared, Nina flees the area and Matt attempts to find her. The cannibals head after Nina, but Nina injures her leg while trying to escape. She hobbles onto a bridge where they cannibals reveal that her sister was fertile and gave birth to a child, but she jumped into the river while trying to escape capture. They imply that Nina will also be used for breeding like her sister was. Nina decides to jump from a bridge into the river while Matt screams in horror. When Matt arrives at the bridge, a village woman is standing there, and Matt believes that she killed Nina. The woman then pulls a knife and cuts her own throat. Later, Matt is back at the town and the police have come to investigate the incident. Because Matt was separated from Nina, he is unaware of the face-punctured man's role in the incident. He is given a mug with a drink in it, and when he gets into his car to drive away, he finds that the drink was drugged and he cannot move. He is later seen paralyzed in a chair while one of the cannibals explains that their settlement, much like the tiger, must stay hidden to survive. The cannibal then opens a door exposing a live Nina tied to a table, about to be raped for breeding purposes. While Matt watches, the young girl who was actually Nina's niece approaches him, removes a set of dentures, thus exposing a set of sharp deformed teeth. She then lunges at Matt, saying "I'm hungry!" Reception. While the number of reviews for the film is slim, the majority for "Dying Breed" have been positive. Dreadcentral.com gave the film 4/5 stars, while Urbancinefile.com.au also gave it a positive review. Critics Margaret Pomeranz and David Stratton, however, gave the film negative reviews. On their show "At the Movies", they rated "Dying Breed" at 2/5 stars and 1.5/5 stars respectively. Stratton said "It tries hard to be horrific and gruesome, even introducing a bit of fashionable torture near the end, but only the most credulous will find it genuinely scary." Box office. In its first weekend in Australia it was ranked #11 making at 113 cinemas with an average of $1,995. The film did poorly in the Australian box office, and made $525,384. Controversy. In Australia, one of the posters was banned, due to the "gruesome" picture, however the poster will be allowed to be seen in Cinema Foyers, and online. Release. Dying Breed premiered on 26 April 2008 at Tribeca Film Festival. The Cinema release was originally planned for 14 August, but was changed to 6 November 2008. It is rated MA15+ for Strong Horror Violence and Sex Scene, Blood and Gore. It was part of the third After Dark Horrorfest in 2009. Home media. In Australia, the DVD was released during 8 April 2009. There are three different DVD covers that are available. The first features a meat pie, broken open with human organs inside. The second features four characters on the top, and the bottom is a woman running through woods. The third cover features a man being held by an elderly man. Special Features on all editions include:
590024	Sudha Malhotra (born 30 November 1936) is an Indian playback singer. She also acted in some Bollywood films and as a play singer worked in popular Bollywood movies in the 1950s and 60s, like Arzoo, Dhool Ka Phool, Ab Dilli Door Nahin, Girl Friend, Barsat Ki Raat, Didi, Kala Pani, Prem Rog, Dekh Kabira Roya. She was last heard in Raj Kapoor's "Prem Rog" (1982) in the song "Yeh Pyar tha ya kuch aur tha". Apart from Hindi songs Sudha sang many popular Marathi songs (Bhavgeet) with Arun Date. She was awarded the Padma Shri by Government of India in 2013. Early life and education. Sudha Malhotra was born in New Delhi and grew up in Lahore, Bhopal and Firozpur. She did her graduation in music from Agra University. Career. Sudha Malhotra was discovered as a child artiste by Ghulam Haider (a prominent music director of the 1940s). She debuted in the movie "Arzoo". Some of her popular Marathi songs are (Bhavgeet) - Shukratara Mandwara, Haat Tuza Haataat , Divas Tujhe he Fulayche all duets with Arun Date.
340925	Afterwards () is a 2009 English-language psychological thriller film directed by Gilles Bourdos and starring Romain Duris, John Malkovich and Evangeline Lilly. Based on Guillaume Musso's novel "Et après...", the story tells of a workaholic lawyer who is told by a self-proclaimed visionary that he must try to prevent his imminent death. The film was shot in New York City, Montreal and various New Mexico locations over June–July 2007, and had a French release in January 2009. Plot. As a child, Nathan Del Amico (Duris) 'dies' in an accident, but comes 'back'. Years later, now a career-driven New York plaintiff's lawyer obsessed with work, he meets Joseph Kay (Malkovich), a doctor who claims that he can foresee other people's deaths, and that he is a "messenger" sent to help Nathan put his life's priorities in order.
584686	Natarajan Subramaniam, better known as Natty or Natraj, is an Indian Cinematographer, Actor and Producer from Paramakudi, Tamil Nadu. He shot the music videos of band Euphoria's first album, and was the cinematographer on three Anurag Kashyap projects - "Last Train to Mahakali" (1999), "Paanch" (2003), and "Black Friday" (2004). His works in advertisement comprise more than 1500 ad films.
1038953	Maxton Gig "Max" Beesley, Jr. (born 16 April 1971) is an English actor and musician. He is best known for his role as Charlie Edwards in the British television drama "Hotel Babylon", and has appeared in a variety of television shows such as "Bodies", an adaptation of "The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling", "London Ink", "Survivors", and "Mad Dogs". Early life. Beesley was born in Burnage, Manchester. His father, Maxton Beesley, Sr., was a professional jazz drummer, and his mother was a jazz singer who performed under the stage name Chris Marlowe. His parents divorced when he was a baby. His middle name was inspired by the American actor Gig Young. His father was also a regular guest on the Ted Rogers show "3-2-1", doing impressions amidst the sketches. Acting career. Beesley came to prominence with his first major acting role in "The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling", a 1997 television mini-series based on the book of the same name. In 2001, he appeared in the film "Glitter", a critical and commercial failure for which he was nominated for a Razzie Award for Worst Supporting Actor. He also appeared in the film "Kill Me Later". He starred in the BBC Three medical drama "Bodies", which ran from 2004 to 2007. He also starred in the BBC One series "Hotel Babylon" from 2006 to 2008. He left the show in March 2008, and returned for a guest appearance in one later episode. In June 2007, Beesley starred in the ITV series "Talk to Me". He also appeared in the film "Red Roses and Petrol", and in the BBC thriller "The Last Enemy". In September, Beesley was a guest on ITV's "Ant & Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway", where he and Jonathan Wilkes were successful against Ant & Dec in the "Beat the Boys" competition. In October 2008, he appeared in BBC One's remake of the 1970s drama "Survivors", as remorseless former criminal Tom Price. The series consisted of six episodes, with a second series of six episodes transmitted in January 2010. He starred in the ITV drama "The Reckoning" in April 2011. Beesley is currently the narrator for several TV adverts, including ITV, NFU Mutual's insurance, Energizer's lithium batteries, and PC World. He also provided the voiceover for Manchester United's 2008–2009 season review DVD. In 2011, he appeared in a TV campaign for the UK recruitment company jobsite, and is also featured on their homepage. Beesley narrated the documentary "Chatsworth", shown on BBC One in May 2012. Music career. Beesley is also a musician, having had a successful career before becoming an actor. He was a chorister at Manchester Cathedral and studied at Chetham's School of Music. He also studied percussion at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama with soul singer Omar and toured with the Brand New Heavies on keyboards and percussion. He is also a vibraphone player. Beesley has performed in concert as a percussionist and pianist for Robbie Williams, Take That, Jamiroquai, and The Paul Weller Movement. He played percussion and piano at Williams' Knebworth gigs in summer 2003 and at Hyde Park for "Live 8 London". Williams' first concert of his "Close Encounters Tour" in Perth, Australia on 30 November 2006 saw Beesley as percussionist for the second half of the show. He also played drums during the performance of "Rudebox" at Williams' second Brisbane concert and during a BBC Electric Proms show. Beesley was a member of the jazz band Incognito, but after an eight-month tour with them, decided to end his music career and start acting. On 28 October 2006, Beesley appeared as a special guest pianist for James Brown during his performance at the Roundhouse in London as part of the BBC's Electric Proms festival. Personal life. Beesley is a supporter of Manchester United. He has a step-brother, Jason Milligan, who is also an actor.
588237	Aar Ya Paar (now or never) is a 1997 Bollywood film produced and directed by Ketan Mehta. The film stars Jackie Shroff, Deepa Sahi ( the director's real life muse), Ritu Shivpuri, Paresh Rawal and Kamal Sidhu. The music is by Viju Shah. Story. The movie is adapted from James Hadley Chase's novel "The Sucker Punch", a story of passion, crime and betrayal. Most of it was shot in Italy. Shekhar Khosla(Jackie Shroff) is an accounts executive, an alcoholic, and a penniless playboy. He has an on-and-off romance with cabaret dancer Julie (Ritu Shivpuri).
1660217	Brice de Nice is a 2005 French comedy film directed by James Huth, written by Huth, Jean Dujardin, and Karine Angeli, and starring Dujardin. It is set in France, centering on the character Brice of Nice ("Brice de Nice") created by Dujardin for a stage sketch. Plot summary. The main character, a thirty-something surfer named Brice, lives for one thing: the perfect wave to surf, despite the fact that Nice lies on a completely waveless bay on the Mediterranean Sea. While waiting, he uses his rich father's money to throw outrageous parties and develop hilarious insults, as well as worship the film "Point Break". When his father is arrested for money laundering, however, things change: Brice's life comes crashing down around him, and after failing to hold down a job, he soon finds himself attempting bank robbery. He lands in hospital after the failed robbery attempt, and runs away from there with the guy whose scooter he hijacked while escaping the bank. The two become friends. Stealing Brice's father's lawyer's wife's truck, the two cross France to the Atlantic coast to attend a world surfing championship at Hossegor. With $100,000 in prize money, winning the tournament seems the only chance for the two to help themselves: Brice needs the money to support his lavish lifestyle, while his friend needs it for an operation in his foot(because he has 1 toe). Brice "talks the talk, but doesn't walk the walk", and, predictably, fails at the surf competition. Though all seems lost, the two eventually find success of a sort: Brice surfs his perfect wave, while his friend sets off to travel the world with his newfound love. Cast. The stars of "Point Break"—Patrick Swayze, Keanu Reeves, Lori Petty—appear in archive footage. Soundtrack. Jean Dujardin performed the soundtrack of the film, "Le Casse de Brice". The music video was shot and directed by J.G Biggs.
1057648	Scarlet Street is a 1945 American film noir directed by Fritz Lang and based on the French novel "La Chienne" ("The Bitch") by Georges de La Fouchardière, that previously had been dramatized on stage by André Mouëzy-Éon, and cinematically as "La Chienne" (1931) by director Jean Renoir. The principal actors Edward G. Robinson, Joan Bennett, and Dan Duryea, had earlier appeared together in "The Woman in the Window" (1944) also directed by Fritz Lang. The three were re-teamed for "Scarlet Street". Plot. Christopher "Chris" Cross (Edward G. Robinson), a meek, amateur painter and cashier for clothing retailer, J.J. Hogarth & Company, is fêted by his employer, honoring him for twenty-five years of dull, repetitive service. Hogarth presents him with a watch and kind words, then leaves getting into a car with a beautiful young blonde. Walking home in Greenwich Village, Chris muses to an associate, "I wonder what it's like to be loved by a young girl." He helps Kitty (Joan Bennett), an amoral fast-talking "femme fatale", he sees apparently being attacked by a man, stunning the assailant with his umbrella. Chris is unaware that the attacker was Johnny (Dan Duryea), Kitty's brutish boyfriend, and sees her safely to her apartment building. Out of gratitude and bemusement, she accepts his offer for a cup of coffee at a nearby bar. From Chris's comments about art, Kitty believes him to be a wealthy painter, adding, "To think I took you for a cashier."
53906	Jason Edward Mewes (born June 12, 1974) is an American television and film actor, film producer and internet radio show host. He has played Jay, the vocal half of the duo Jay and Silent Bob, in longtime friend Kevin Smith's films. Early life. Jason Edward Mewes was born on June 12, 1974 in Highlands, New Jersey, and grew up in a working-class neighborhood. He never knew his father, and his mother was an ex-con and a drug addict. Relates Mewes: "She used to check into hotels and take TVs and sell them...I guess it really ain't funny, but it's weird because it was so fucked up...She used to steal mail. I used to drive around with her and she'd pull up and make me reach into mailboxes. It really wasn't pleasant." Although this exposure to drugs at first served to make him averse to them, he eventually began using them after graduating from high school. His best friend was future filmmaker Kevin Smith, who describes his friend thus: "He's the kind of dude you know for five minutes and he whips his cock out. I was like, Somebody should put this dude in a movie. I just wanted to see if anybody outside our group of friends finds him as funny as I do." Career. While working toward a career in roofing, Mewes made his film debut in Smith's 1994 film "Clerks" as Jay. The film was a huge success; ever since, Mewes has been closely identified with the role, which he also played in "Mallrats" (1995), "Chasing Amy" (1997), "Dogma" (1999), "Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back" (2001), and "Clerks II" (2006). He also supplied Jay's voice in the short-lived '. He, along with Kevin Smith, performed in the films "Scream 3" and "Bottoms Up" and on Canadian television series '. He appeared in two episodes of a three-part story arc in which he and Smith film a new addition to Smith's View Askew films titled "Jay and Silent Bob Go Canadian, Eh?" at Degrassi Community School. They appear again on "Degrassi" (in a two-part episode), at the premiere of "Jay and Silent Bob go Canadian, Eh?" in Canada. Mewes, Smith, and "Degrassi" star Stacie Mistysyn made the cover of the January 29, 2005 issue of Canadian "TV Guide". In 1998, he starred as "Gary Lamb – Ground Activist" in a series of Nike commercials directed by Smith. From 2010-2012, Mewes was cast as "Jimmy the Janitor" for 26 episodes of the Canadian television series "Todd and the Book of Pure Evil". In the video game "" Mewes provides a voiceover for a thief who steals some tapes. Mewes starred in the horror film "Breath of Hate", where he played a romantic love interest to a dysfunctional escort. Mewes co-starred in Smith's 2008 film "Zack and Miri Make a Porno", in which Mewes, in a scene near the end of the film, appears fully nude. Mewes co-hosts a weekly podcast with Smith called "Jay and Silent Bob Get Old" in which Mewes discusses his former drug addiction issues. Mewes is co-Executive Producer on Smith's Hulu-exclusive series "Spoilers with Kevin Smith". Mewes co-produced the 2013 animated movie "Jay & Silent Bob's Super Groovy Cartoon Movie" with his wife Jordan Monsanto, which was based on the "Bluntman and Chronic" comic book that Kevin Smith wrote as a companion piece to the film "Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back". Personal life. Substance abuse. Mewes has openly talked about his struggles with substance abuse, which began in his early 20s. He first began using heroin shortly after appearing in "Mallrats", and was soon addicted; he was under the influence while filming "Chasing Amy" and "Dogma". Smith entered Mewes into the first of a series of drug rehabilitation clinics in 1997, after noticing Mewes would spontaneously fall asleep, which he initially attributed to narcolepsy. Mewes sobered up until about a week into the "Dogma" shoot, when he learned he could pass his urine tests by abstaining from drugs for three days beforehand and then shooting up the rest of the week. It was also during filming for "Dogma" that Mewes' mother was diagnosed with AIDS. In another attempt to get clean, Mewes moved in with his mother, who gave him OxyContin to ease the withdrawal symptoms; Mewes was soon addicted to that substance as well. In 1999 Mewes was arrested in New Jersey for heroin possession. His probation sentence included community service, drug counseling, and regular court appearances in New Jersey. In late 2001, after he failed to make a court appearance, a warrant was issued for his arrest. Mewes' mother died of AIDS in 2002. On April 1, 2003, he surrendered himself at a Freehold, New Jersey court and pleaded guilty to probation violation charges. He was ordered to enter a six-month rehab program, and would be allowed to return to Los Angeles, but was told if he violated probation again, he could face up to five years in prison. Smith had taken Mewes in to live with him and his wife, Jennifer Schwalbach Smith, but evicted him after catching him using drugs again. During this period, he stole Smith's ATM card and charged $1,100, and had heroin shipped to the hotel where a press junket for "Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back" was being held. Smith had Mewes check into various rehab facilities, including Promises in Malibu, where his visit coincided with frequent costar Ben Affleck's stay for alcoholism. These attempts were unsuccessful for Mewes, whose problem was so severe that Smith declined to give him a part in 2004's "Jersey Girl". Mewes continued to use drugs, and has related that he decided to turn himself in and get help after waking up on Christmas morning 2003 to find that he had started a fire after falling asleep near a lit candle while on heroin. Estranged from Smith and his other friends, Mewes returned to New Jersey, where he was given the choice of attending six months of court-mandated rehab or a year in jail. Mewes waited a year before attempting to revive his career, and eventually obtained a new agent at the Endeavor agency. In a July 2006 interview he reported that he was sober, and harbored no urges to drink or use drugs. He relapsed in 2009 after having surgery. To help Mewes maintain his sobriety, Kevin Smith created the "Jay And Silent Bob Get Old" podcast as a "weekly intervention" to let Mewes talk through his history of substance abuse, amongst other topics. On episode 121 of the podcast, Mewes stated he had been sober for 1,055 days. Marriage. Mewes married Jordan Monsanto in a civil ceremony on January 30, 2009, with a larger wedding planned later that May. He has stated that he intends to have children.
585870	Minnaram (Malayalam: മിന്നാരം) is a 1994 Malayalam musical film written and directed by Priyadarshan, starring Mohanlal, Shobana, Thilakan, Sankaradi, K. P. Ummer, Jagathy Sreekumar, Geetha Vijayan, Venu Nagavally, and Lalu Alex. Plot. Bobby (Mohanlal), orphaned at a young age, is brought up as his own son by his uncle, Matthews (Thilakan). He is betrothed to Chackochan's daughter, Tina. However, his old flame from college, Nina (Shobhana), turns up with a toddler allegedly fathered by Bobby. He denies this vehemently and goes to great lengths to prove her wrong, whilst keeping this under wraps from his fiancée.
582172	Vivah - A Journey From Engagement To Marriage ... (, Urdu: وواہ, "Marriage") is a 2006 Bollywood romantic drama film. The film is written and directed by Sooraj R. Barjatya and stars Shahid Kapoor and Amrita Rao in their fourth movie together. "Vivah" is the story of the engagement period of Prem (Shahid Kapoor), an upper-class business manager, and Poonam (Amrita Rao), a middle class college student. It is set in Delhi and also in the fictional town of Madhupur, located near Delhi in Uttar Pradesh. "Vivah" was released on 10 November 2006 across India and received a Telugu dub as "Parinayam". Sooraj R. Barjatya noted that the story of "Vivah" is based upon a newspaper article his father read in 1988. Like in all of Sooraj R. Barjatya's previous movies, the male lead is, once again, called 'Prem'. Filming took place during the first months of 2006. The jewellery Poonam receives from Prem during the movie was created by Indian jeweller D’damas, while Amrita Rao's costumes were created by Indian designer Anna Singh and Shahid Kapoor's clothes were created by Shabina Khan. Both designers were part of a crew of 166 people. Filming took place in Mathura, as well as in Almora, Nainital, Delhi, Mumbai, the Filmcity in Goregaon, as well as Madh Island, Lonavla, Ghaziabad, Faridabad, Moradabad and Ranikhet. Plot. Poonam (Amrita Rao) lost her parents, when she was very young. She was brought up by her uncle Krishna Kant (Alok Nath) and her aunt Rama (Seema Biswas). However, Rama is jealous of her niece and dislikes her, since Poonam is more beautiful than her own daughter Rajni (Amrita Prakash). Poonam grows up to be a soft-spoken, traditional and beautiful girl. Her only wish is to get a mother's love from her aunt Rama. Bhagat-ji (Manoj Joshi), a jeweller and a friend of Krishna Kant's, likes Poonam and her beautiful nature. He decides to match-make for her with Prem (Shahid Kapoor), son of Mr. Harishchandra (Anupam Kher). Bhagat-ji goes and makes a visit to Mr. Harishchandra's house and tells him about the proposal. Mr. Harishchandra, a rich businessman, tells Prem about the proposed marriage. He believes Prem is in the right age to marry. Prem's brother, Sunil (Samir Soni), had also married Bhavna (Lata Sabharwal) at the same age. Prem, however, is hesitant to marry, since he feels himself to be very young and wants to focus on his career first. Harishchandra convinces Prem to meet Poonam before deciding about anything. They visit Krishna Kant's family and let Prem and Poonam get acquainted with each other. Though their first conversation is awkward, Prem and Poonam agree to get married, as they are instantly attracted to each other. The marriage date is set after six months and the two families plan a short vacation at Krishna Kant's summer residence in Som Sarovar as an opportunity to know each other better. Poonam and Prem blissfully enjoy their time together at Som Sarovar. After several carefree days, Harishchandra and his family return home to attend their business, which leaves Poonam and Prem the choice to communicate via telephone, internet or letter. Despite the distance between them, they grow closer and Prem, before going on a business trip to Japan, calls Poonam for her support. Poonam tells him on the phone that she loves him. When Prem calls Poonam from the airport in Japan, he confesses his love for her as well. Soon after, Prem comes back from Japan and is pleasantly surprised to find Poonam with the rest of his family. She spends some time at his house and finally returns to her own family to prepare for the wedding. Both families get busy in preparing for the wedding. Rama becomes very irritated and angry with Krishna Kant for spending lavishly on Poonam's wedding, as she fears that there will be no money left for Rajni's marriage. As a result, Rama acts colder than usual to Poonam and wants nothing to do with the wedding. This hurts Poonam. The night before the main wedding ceremony, a fire emerges at Krishna Kant's house. Though Poonam runs out of the house in time, she realises that Rajni is still inside and goes back to save her. In this attempt, Poonam gets heavily burnt. She is immediately taken to the hospital, where the family is told that the burns on her body are extremely severe but luckily, her face is untouched. The fact that Poonam risked her own skin to save Rajni, changes Rama's view about her. Prem and his family, occupied with their own wedding preparations, are informed of Poonam's accident and they rush to the hospital. Poonam is now very unsure if Prem will marry her because she has been scarred and the marks will take months to fade away. The doctor (Mohnish Behl) informs the family that Poonam's scars will take time to recover. Harishchandra arranges for burn specialists to be flown in from Delhi for Poonam's operation. Prem is determined to marry Poonam and, when she tells him to take a look at her deep scars, he refuses, saying that his love does not deserve this test. He says that he will always love her no matter what and puts sindoor (vermilion) on her hairline, marking her as his wife. The operation is successful. Finally, Prem and Poonam get married, to begin their life together as husband and wife. Reception. Box office and ratings. Like "Hum Aapke Hain Kaun", Rajshri Productions released limited number of prints for the film and eventually increased prints with increasing popularity. The film was declared a blockbuster, after earning Rs 222.2 million net gross after seven weeks of running. The film earned Rs 350 million in box office earnings. By the end of November, it was reported that there had been over 4 million (4,000,000 * $9.99 = approx. Rs. 180 million.) online streams of "Vivah". By October 2012 Over 8 million have watched it online on YouTube. After more than six months, its position remained in the top 10 at the Indian box office despite its limited release and competition from some of year's and industry's most successful movies including "Dhoom 2", "Bhagam Bhag", "Krrish", "Don - The Chase Begins Again", Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna all being released after "Vivah"'s debut. Critical. "Vivah" received a mixed response by critics: Taran Adarsh of "IndiaFM" generally compliments the actors by calling Shahid Kapoor a "tremendous actor", Amrita Rao "splendid all through" and compliments the strong supporting cast, he criticises the first half as "ordinary/routine". Raja Sen of "Rediff" gave a generally negative review of "Vivah", calling it "a nightmare" and "unforgivably regressive". Deepa Ghalot of "Sify.com" called "Vivah" "close to being regressive" and "syrupy sweet", however, she complimented Shahid Kapoor's acting. The "Hindustan Times" called "Vivah" "boring" and an "utopia", but complimented Shahid Kapoor and Amrita Rao on their acting, calling the first one "good", but "lacking charisma" and the latter "sweet". "The Hindu" however called "Vivah" "lovable" and a "choice unlikely to regret". "BBC.co.uk" complimented Shahid Kapoor as being "playful", called the movie itself however "sickeningly sentimental". "The Telegraph" criticised "Vivah" for "lacking plot", "flat characters" and mentioning that the story is "rather weak" and "improbable". Cultural Impact. Indian painter M. F. Husain, who has painted Madhuri Dixit, the female lead of Sooraj R. Barjatya's "Hum Aapke Hain Koun", decided to create a series of pictures inspired by Amrita Rao and "Vivah". He announced to create "an entire exhibition around her" and noted her "tremendous potential". He organised a private screen for 150 friends and press attendees to "convey his interest for the film" at Dubai’s Plaza cinema. The Regent, a theatre in Patna, Bihar, has put up a huge "paandal" (festive banner) to promote the movie. The "paandal" reads "Poonam weds Prem" and the theatre has been getting inquiries if they entered the wedding business. Several movies have been highly successful in Bihar and their protagonists have been emulated by the movie goers; in "Vivah"'s case, it has become fashionable to wed like Poonam and Prem from "Vivah". Promotion. To promote the movie, Shahid Kapoor and Amrita Rao have sold tickets themselves at the "Fame Malad Theatre" in Malad, Mumbai. Also, there have been sarees, bindis and free ticket give-aways in several theatres where the movie ran. Internet Release. "Vivah" is the first Indian movie to be simultaneously released in cinema and on the production company's official site. "Rajshri Media Limited", the digital arm of the Rajshri group is responsible for the release. The company hopes to marginalise piracy. "Rajshri.com" has served one million streams within seven days in association with limewire networks i.e.one stream is priced at $9.99 roughly it makes Rs. 45 million. in the first week itself, and Rajjat A. Barjatya, managing director of "Rajshri Media Limited" claims that "Vivah" has done "very well" being streamed online. Soundtrack. "Soundtrack includes a Bonus CD from Ustad Bismillah Khan." Ravindra Jain, the music director of "Vivah" has put together a soundtrack of old world charm, with a full orchestra behind some of the best known voices of the Hindi movie scene. The orchestra combines with classical Indian instruments, like the sitar, sarod, violin, dholak and tabla to produce a blend between classical western and classical Indian music. The music has, however been criticised due to its monotony, with the range of singers, choice of instrument and music arrangements being very similar. "Rediff.com" wrote in its music review that "Vivah's music disappoints".
1063480	The Number 23 is a 2007 American psychological thriller film written by Fernley Phillips and directed by Joel Schumacher. The film starred Jim Carrey. It was subsequently released on DVD on July 24, 2007 (23 July in the UK), and premiered on HBO on Saturday April 19, 2008. The plot involves an obsession with the 23 enigma, an esoteric belief that all incidents and events are directly connected to the number 23, some permutation of the number 23, or a number related to 23. This is the second film to pair Schumacher and Carrey, the first being "Batman Forever". This is Carrey's first leading role in a suspense thriller. Plot. Walter Sparrow (Jim Carrey) is an animal control officer married to Agatha (Virginia Madsen); they have a son, Robin (Logan Lerman). At a bookstore, Agatha begins looking at a book called "The Number 23" written by Topsy Kretts. She later gives Walter the book as a birthday present. Walter starts reading the book, noticing odd similarities between himself and the main character, a detective who refers to himself as "Fingerling". Walter begins to have dreams of murdering Agatha. After one such dream he checks into a hotel where he stays up all night finishing the book, only to discover that it ends at chapter 22 with Fingerling about to commit suicide after murdering his lover. The next day, Walter sees a dog which he had earlier tried to capture. It leads him to a cemetery and the grave of Laura Tollins (Rhona Mitra) a college student who had been murdered by her professor Kyle Flinch (Mark Pellegrino), with whom she was having an affair. The circumstances of Laura's murder mirror those of Fingerling's lover in the book. Walter thinks the professor wrote the book as a secret confession and goes to see him in jail. The man proclaims his innocence of the murder and of being the author, stating he would never choose a pen name like "Topsy Kretts," pointing out that it is an obvious homophone for "Top Secrets." Using A=1, B=2, C=3...Z=26, the dog's name, Ned, equals 14 + 5 + 4 = 23. Upon discovering an address in the book, the family arranges a meeting with Topsy Kretts (Bud Cort), who, upon being confronted by Walter, becomes panicked, proclaims that Walter should be dead and slits his own throat. Inside the man's pockets, Agatha finds an ID card belonging to a mental institution, showing the man is Dr. Sirius Leary. She goes to the abandoned asylum and finds Walter's name on a box in Leary's office. Meanwhile, Robin and Walter discover that every 23rd word on every 23rd page of the book spells out two messages which lead them to "Casanova's Park." They arrive at the park late that night and go down a staircase marked "The Steps to Heaven" which consists of 23 steps. At the bottom, they dig deep in the ground and discover a human skeleton, presumably Laura Tollins, but when they return with a police officer, the bones have disappeared. Walter confronts Agatha about taking the bones and accuses her of writing the book. She admits to moving the skeleton to protect him, but tells Walter that it was "he" who wrote the book, and shows him the contents of the box from the Institute. In the box there is a manuscript of "The Number 23" with Walter's name on it and an ankle bracelet that belonged to Laura Tollins. He returns to the hotel to room 23, where he tears down the wallpaper and finds the missing 23rd chapter written all over the wall. The chapter explains that the story was Walter's confession and he remembers why he did everything: his father killed himself after the death of Walter's mother. His suicide note was just pages of things that added up to the number 23. Walter loved Laura Tollins and grew obsessed with 23 because of his father. Laura began sleeping with her professor. Walter tried to warn her about the number being dangerous and how it was going to come after her. She told him he was crazy, daring Walter to kill her. Walter went into a rage, stabbing her and burying her in the park, which the dog observed. The professor was the first to walk into the room where Laura was killed, and he picked up the knife, covering the weapon with his fingerprints and staining his hands with blood. With this evidence, he was convicted for the murder. Walter went to the hotel room, wrote "The Number 23", placing the 23rd chapter on the walls, floor and every other part of the room, and then jumped off the balcony. He survived but suffered severe injuries and trauma. Walter ended up in the institute where Dr. Leary worked. Dr. Leary read the manuscript and, after publishing it, became obsessed with the number 23 himself. Because of the fall, Walter suffered memory loss and upon leaving the institute he met Agatha. Agatha finds Walter at the hotel, and tries to assure him that he is no longer the person he was when he wrote the book. He insists that he is a killer, accepting the fact that he murdered Laura Tollins, and tells Agatha to leave before he kills her too. Agatha pushes a letter opener into Walter's hand, saying that if he is indeed a killer, he can easily kill again, and dares him to kill her. She tells him that she loves him. Walter tells her that she can't love him because no one can, mirroring an accusation made by Laura on the night of her murder. He leaves the hotel and runs into the street, where he nearly allows himself to be run over by a bus, but steps out of the way at the last minute when he realizes his son is watching. As he embraces his family, a voiceover by Walter tells the audience that he turned himself in to the police and is awaiting sentencing, having been told that the judge will likely go easy on him since he turned himself in. A funeral procession takes place in front of Laura Tollins's grave, where it is implied her body has finally been laid to rest, as Flinch observes, finally a free man. At the end of the film, viewers can see the Bible reading from : "Be sure your sin will find you out." Reception. The film has been panned by critics, with a current rating of 8% on Rotten Tomatoes and a consensus stating "Jim Carrey has been sharp in a number of non-comedic roles, but this lurid, overheated, and self-serious potboiler is not one of them. "The Number 23" is clumsy, unengaging, and mostly confusing." Of the few critics who liked the film, Richard Roeper and critic George Pennachio of KABC-TV in Los Angeles stand out, as they gave the film a "2 thumbs up" rating on the television show "Ebert & Roeper" (Pennachio was standing in for Roger Ebert due to Ebert's illness). However, Michael Phillips, filling in for Ebert on the Worst of 2007 show (aired January 12, 2008) put "23" at No. 7 in his list of the worst (Roeper did not include it in his list). Peter Travers (of "Rolling Stone") declared the film the year's worst star vehicle on his list of the Worst Movies of 2007, while Colm Andrew of the Manx Independent said the film "delivers a rambling, confusing narrative with only a few stylistic elements thrown in". For his performance, Jim Carrey was nominated for the Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Actor at the 2008 Golden Raspberry Awards, but lost the award to Eddie Murphy for "Norbit". Box office. On its opening weekend, "The Number 23" took in $14.6 million, coming in behind "Ghost Rider" which grossed $20 million. In total, the film grossed $35.2 million at the box office domestically. Worldwide, the film grossed $77.6 million. It was in release for a mere 35 days. Home media. The film was released on Region 1 DVD on July 24, 2007; the release includes deleted scenes, such as a much more abstract alternate opening somewhat reminiscent of the opening of "The Double Life of Véronique", and an alternate ending that gives a few more details about Walter's prison sentence and hints at the possibility that the son could be subject to the same obsessions as his father. The disc also includes interviews with mathematicians, psychologists, and numerologists. The DVD shows the film over a set of 23 chapters. As of August 24, 2007, "The Number 23" has generated $27.7 million from DVD rental gross.
1103412	Igor Rostislavovich Shafarevich (, born June 3, 1923) is a Russian mathematician who has contributed to algebraic number theory and algebraic geometry. He has written books and articles which criticize socialism, and was an important dissident during the Soviet regime. Work in mathematics. Shafarevich made fundamental contributions to several parts of mathematics including algebraic number theory, algebraic geometry and arithmetic algebraic geometry. In algebraic number theory the Shafarevich–Weil theorem extends the commutative reciprocity map to the case of Galois groups which are extensions of abelian groups by finite groups. Shafarevich was the first to give a completely self-contained formula for the pairing which coincides with the wild Hilbert symbol on local fields, thus initiating an important branch of the study of explicit formulas in number theory. Another famous result is the realization of every finite solvable group as the Galois group over rationals. Another fundamental result is the Golod-Shafarevich theorem on towers of unramified extensions of number fields. Shafarevich and his school greatly contributed to the study of algebraic geometry of surfaces. He initiated a Moscow seminar on classification of algebraic surfaces that updated around 1960 the treatment of birational geometry, and was largely responsible for the early introduction of the scheme theory approach to algebraic geometry in the Soviet school. His investigation in arithmetic of elliptic curves led him independently of John Tate to the introduction of the most mysterious group related to elliptic curves over number fields, the Tate-Shafarevich group (usually called 'Sha', written 'Ш', his Cyrillic initial). He introduced the Grothendieck–Ogg–Shafarevich formula and the Néron–Ogg–Shafarevich criterion. He also formulated the Shafarevich conjecture which stated the finiteness of the set of Abelian varieties over a number field having fixed dimension and prescribed set of primes of bad reduction. This conjecture was proved by Gerd Faltings as a step in his proof of the Mordell conjecture. Shafarevich was a student of Boris Delone, and his students included Yuri Manin, A. N. Parshin, I. Dolgachev, Evgeny Golod, A.I. Kostrikin, I.A. Kostrikin, S.Y. Arakelov, G. V. Belyi, V. Abrashkin, A. Tyurin and V. A. Kolyvagin. He did major work in collaboration with Ilya Piatetski-Shapiro on K3 surfaces. He is a member of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts in department of Mathematics, Physics and Earth Sciences.
1169690	Alan Reed (August 20, 1907 – June 14, 1977) was an American actor and voice actor, best known as the original voice of Fred Flintstone (whom he was said to have physically resembled) on "The Flintstones" and various spinoff series. He also appeared in multiple films, such as "The Tarnished Angels", "Breakfast at Tiffany's", "Viva Zapata!" (as Pancho Villa), "Nob Hill" and various other films, as well as making acting appearances on various television series. Life and career. Born Herbert Theodore Bergman in New York City, he majored in journalism at Columbia University, and then began his acting career in the city, eventually working on Broadway. He was Jewish. For a time, he continued to list himself either as Bergman or Alan Reed, depending on the role he was playing (Reed for more comedic roles, Bergman for more serious ones). He was able to act in 22 foreign dialects, and made a career as a successful radio announcer and stage actor. In 1932, Reed married the former Finnette Walker (1909–2005), a Broadway actress. She appeared on stage in the early 1930s and was a chorus member in the original 1934 Broadway production of "Anything Goes" with Ethel Merman. They would have three sons, including actor Alan Reed, Jr. (born May 10, 1936). Once his son started acting, Reed took the professional name Alan Reed Sr. His radio work included the role of Solomon Levy on "Abie's Irish Rose"; as the "Allen's Alley" resident poet Falstaff Openshaw on Fred Allen's NBC Radio show, and later on his own five-minute show, "Falstaff's Fables", on the American Broadcasting Company; as Officer Clancey and other occasional roles on the NBC Radio show "Duffy's Tavern"; as Shrevey the driver on several years of "The Shadow"; as Chester Riley's boss on the NBC Radio show "The Life of Riley", and as Italian immigrant Pasquale in "Life with Luigi" on CBS Radio, and various supporting roles on "Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar", also on CBS Radio. From 1957–58, Reed appeared in a recurring role as J.B. Hafter, a studio boss, on the CBS sitcom "Mr. Adams and Eve", starring Howard Duff and Ida Lupino, then married in real life but appearing as a fictitious acting couple living in Beverly Hills, California. In 1963, he appeared as Councilman Jack Gramby in episode 8 of the CBS sitcom "My Favorite Martian". In 1964–65, he had a recurring role as Mr. Swidler in the ABC sitcom "Mickey", starring Mickey Rooney as the owner of a resort hotel in Newport Beach, California. As a voice actor, Reed provided the voice of Boris the Afghan Hound in Walt Disney's "Lady and the Tramp" in 1955. In 1960, he began the voice role he was most famous for, that of Fred Flintstone, the lead character of Hanna-Barbera's prime-time animated series "The Flintstones". Reed provided Fred's voice for the entire six-season run of the show, as well as in several spin-off series (r.g. "The Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm Show", "The Flintstone Comedy Hour") and specials. His final performance as Fred Flintstone was a cameo guest shot on an episode of "Scooby's All-Star Laff-A-Lympics." Radio playwright and director Norman Corwin cast Reed as Santa Claus in the 1969 KCET television reading of his 1938 play "The Plot to Overthrow Christmas". Death. Reed died of a heart attack in Los Angeles, California on June 14, 1977, two months shy of his 70th birthday. His body was donated to the Loma Linda University School of Medicine. He was survived by his wife, sons and several grandchildren.
582105	Neil Nitin Mukesh (; born Neil Nitin Mukesh Chand Mathur 15 January 1982) is an Indian actor who appears in Hindi-language films. He is the son and grandson of singers (Nitin Mukesh and Mukesh, respectively). After brief roles as a child in "Vijay" (1988) and "Jaisi Karni Waisi Bharnii" (1989), Mukesh decided to venture into acting after graduating from HR College with a bachelor's degree in commerce. Neil made his debut as an adult in Sriram Raghavan's 2007 critically acclaimed thriller "Johnny Gaddaar", which earned him a Filmfare Best Male Debut Award nomination. He subsequently earned critical praise for his performance in "New York" (2009) and "Jail" (2009); the former earned him a Filmfare Best Supporting Actor Award nomination. The actor was later noted for his performances in "Lafangey Parindey" (2010), "7 Khoon Maaf" (2011) and "David" (2013). Early life and background. Neil was born Neil Nitin Mukesh Chand Mathur on 15 January 1982 in Mumbai, Maharashtra, India in a Punjabi family to Nishi Mukesh and Bollywood playback singer Nitin Mukesh, son of veteran singer Mukesh Chand Mathur. He was named by Lata Mangeshkar for astronaut Neil Armstrong. As a child, he appeared in "Vijay" (1988) and "Jaisi Karni Waisi Bharnii" (1989) as the younger versions of Rishi Kapoor and Govinda. Neil was educated at Greenlawns High School and HR College in Mumbai, where he graduated with a bachelor's degree in commerce at his father's insistence. He then decided to pursue a career in acting, despite being born into a family of singers. In an interview with "The Times of India", the actor said "Music is my hobby, but acting is my passion. A passion that even my grand-dad harboured. So, while my father continued his legacy and became a singer, I pursued his other passion. I am living his dream". Neil attended a four-month workshop at Kishore Namit Kapoor's acting institute, and received training from actor Anupam Kher. Acting career. 2007–10: Debut and breakthrough. Neil made his debut in Sriram Raghavan's 2007 thriller "Johnny Gaddaar". His portrayal of a crook received positive reviews from critics and earned him a Best Male Debut nomination at the 53rd Filmfare Awards. Taran Adarsh of Bollywood Hungama described Neil as a "complete natural": "The youngster carries off the part with dexterity. There's just one word to describe his performance – superb!" However, despite critical acclaim the film failed to do well at the box office. Neil's first 2009 film was the science-fiction thriller "Aa Dekhen Zara" co-starring with Bipasha Basu, he played a struggling photographer who inherits a camera (whose photos predict the future) from his scientist grandfather. The film was a critical and commercial failure. His performance received mixed reviews from critics; while Nikhat Kazmi described him as charming and effortless, Raja Sen of Rediff.com said he "seems to have cleverly picked another character that doesn't require him to act much beyond the fish-out-of-water routine". His next appearance was in Kabir Khan's action-drama "New York" with John Abraham, Katrina Kaif and Irrfan Khan. Exploring the aftermath of 9/11, the film was a critical and commercial success, earning over worldwide. His performance was praised by critics, earning him a Best Supporting Actor nomination at the 55th Filmfare Awards. Subhash K Jha wrote, "Neil as the sophomore with stars and stripes in his eyes is fully convincing credible and supportive of the two central performances". His final film of the year was Madhur Bhandarkar's "Jail", a drama revolving around the cruel reality faced by prisoners in Indian jails. The film's aesthetically shot nude scene (demonstrating the torture Neil's character received in jail) and a masturbation scene sparked controversy; as a result, the latter scene was shortened. Neil remarked, "My nude or masturbation scenes are not for titillation. It's a very practical need in the script. My character is in jail without sex for 2-1/2 years. What does he do? He naturally seeks pleasure by himself." A commercial failure, the film and his performance were praised by critics. Taran Adarsh wrote, "Not only does Neil Nitin Mukesh deliver his finest performance to date, but the performance would easily rank amongst the finest this year. He conveys the pathos and helplessness that this character demands with amazing understanding. He deserves all praise for his extra-ordinary portrayal".
583262	Cheeni Kum (English: "Less Sugar") is a 2007 Bollywood romance film directed by R. Balki, starring Amitabh Bachchan, Tabu, Paresh Rawal, Zohra Sehgal and Swini Khara. Its storyline inspiration was 1986 film Anokha Rishta. Plot. "Cheeni Kum" focuses on Buddhadev Gupta (Amitabh Bachchan). Buddhadev is the 64-year old chef and owner of London's top Indian restaurant, "Spice 6". He lives with his 85-year old mother, and his only friend and confidante is his 9-year old neighbour, Sexy (Swini Khara). Buddhadev Gupta is an arrogant, ego-centric, pompous man with a singular passion in life—cooking. He is a confirmed bachelor who has never been in love until 34-year old Nina Verma (Tabu) walks into his restaurant and life. Nina is a beautiful and charming Indian woman. Cool, calm, quiet, always smiling, but independent and strong willed. The two extreme in age, character, and attitude meet and against all odds fall in love. They decide to get married, and, like any Indian man, Buddhadev respectfully comes to ask Nina's father, Omprakash Verma (Paresh Rawal), who is a true Gandhian, living in Delhi, for her hand. The main problem here is the Buddhadev is older than Nina's father. Reception. Critical Reception. "Cheeni Kum" received positive reviews. Anurag Anand of Wogma gave the movie 4/5 stars, saying that "All in all, Cheeni Kum is a movie that should certainly be watched. The movie has one or two small sequences (though comical), which may warrant parental discretion, so decide for yourselves if you would like to take your kids along." Martin D'Souza of Glamsham gave the movie 4/5 stars, concluding that "There’s a dash of sweetness (Tabu), the right amount of spice (Amitabh), a proper dose of lime (Paresh Rawal), perfect quantity of salt (‘sexy’) and tadka (provided by Zohra Sehgal). A clean entertainer which can be watched by the entire family." Raja Sen of Rediff gave the movie 3.5/5 stars, stating that "This isn't a groundbreaking film, but it didn't set out to be. It's a maturely written film with great characters, tremendous performances and some fantastic moments. It could have been perfect, but the lesser said about that end the better. Watch it. A brilliant sequence involving the chef, a chemist, chhatris and chachas is absolute movie magic, and in itself well worth the price of admission. Bravo." Naresh Kumar Deoshi of Apun Ka Choice gave the movie 3/5 stars, saying that "The movie, featuring Amitabh Bachchan in yet another brilliant performance, not just entertains you with its sarcastic humour, it also touches your heart with its emotional moments. Do not miss this sugarfree spread." Taran Adarsh of Bollywood Hungama gave the movie 3/5 stars, concluding that "On the whole, CHEENI KUM is absorbing in parts. A lackluster first half gets a boost with a much energetic second half and that elevates the film to the watchable level. At the box-office, CHEENI KUM is targeted at the multiplexes mainly. Clever promos and feel-good vibes should ensure a positive run at the multiplexes." On the contrary, Rajeev Masand of CNN-IBN gave the movie 2/5 stars, stating that "So I'll go with two out of five for R Balki's Cheeni Kum, it's an average entertainer at best. If you're a die-hard Bachchan fan, do give it a shot because he doesn't disappoint. How you wish the film didn't either!" However calling a little girl 'sexy' is inappropriate. Box Office. "Cheeni Kum" was an above average grosser, grossing , despite taking a poor opening. The movie collected nett in its lifetime.
1061954	Tobias Vincent "Tobey" Maguire (born June 27, 1975) is an American actor and film producer who began his career in the late 1980s. He is known for his role as Peter Parker / Spider-Man in Sam Raimi's "Spider-Man" film trilogy (2002–2007), as well as for his roles in "Pleasantville" (1998), "The Cider House Rules" (1999), "Wonder Boys" (2000), "Seabiscuit" (2003), "Brothers" (2009), and "The Great Gatsby" (2013). He has been nominated for Screen Actors Guild and Golden Globe Awards and received two Saturn Awards, including one for Best Actor. Early life. Maguire was born in Santa Monica, California, to Wendy (née Brown), a secretary turned screenwriter and producer, and Vincent Maguire, a construction worker and cook. He has four half-brothers. One of his paternal great-grandfathers was Austrian, and a great-grandmother was Puerto Rican. His parents, 18 and 20 years old, were unmarried at the time of his birth; the two married and subsequently divorced when Maguire was two. Maguire spent much of his childhood moving from town to town, living with each parent and other family members. During his childhood, Maguire entertained the idea of becoming a chef and to that end wanted to enroll in a home economics class as a sixth grader. His mother offered him US$100 to take a drama class instead, and Tobey agreed. The nomadic nature of his school-age years began to take a toll on Maguire emotionally, and finally, after another relocation for his freshman year, Maguire dropped out of high school and did not return. Instead, he pursued an acting career. By 2000, Maguire had obtained his GED, noting that during his school days, "I wasn't doing school; I was showing up, but...not really giving myself." Career. Early career. Maguire's first appearance in a feature film was in 1989's "The Wizard". He plays one of Lucas Barton's goons (one of three competitors at a video game competition) and had no lines. Maguire initially worked as a child actor in the early 1990s, often playing roles much younger than his chronological age; as late as 2002, Maguire was still playing teenagers while in his mid-20s. He appeared in a variety of commercials and TV and movie roles, working opposite such actors as Chuck Norris ("Walker, Texas Ranger"), Roseanne Barr ("Roseanne"), and Tracey Ullman ("Tracey Takes On..."). Eventually, Maguire was cast as the lead in the FOX TV series "Great Scott", which was cancelled five weeks later. During many of his auditions, Maguire found himself auditioning for roles opposite another rising actor, Leonardo DiCaprio. The pair struck up a fast friendship and made an informal pact to help each other get parts in their movies/TV shows/other projects. For example, both auditioned for the same part in the 1990 TV series based on the 1989 comedy "Parenthood". DiCaprio got the part, and Maguire later got a guest role at least partially due to DiCaprio's recommendation. The same scenario played itself out during casting for the 1993 movie "This Boy's Life" (featuring Robert De Niro as the lead); DiCaprio got the main teen role (coincidentally, the character was named "Toby") and Maguire got a part as one of Toby's friends. By the mid-1990s, Maguire was steadily working but becoming involved in the hard-partying lifestyle of some of his fellow teen actors. In 1995, Maguire requested director Allan Moyle to release him from his part in the movie "Empire Records". Moyle agreed, and all of Maguire's scenes were deleted from the final film. Maguire then sought help for a drinking problem from Alcoholics Anonymous; he has been sober ever since. As part of his recovery from alcohol and learning to deal with his self-described "addictive and compulsive nature", Maguire changed his career path slightly in order to obtain roles where he and DiCaprio would not always be in competition for the same part, and the move paid off when he got the role of Paul Hood, a teenage boarding school student whose narration anchors the action in Ang Lee's 1997 film, "The Ice Storm." This led to a variety of lead roles in films such as "Pleasantville", "The Cider House Rules", and "Wonder Boys". In the 1998 film "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" he portrayed a hitchhiker who met Raoul Duke and Dr. Gonzo during their drive to Las Vegas.
1224692	Little Murders is a 1971 black comedy film starring Elliott Gould and Marcia Rodd, directed by Alan Arkin. It is the story of a girl, Patsy (Rodd), who brings home her boyfriend, Alfred (Gould), to meet her severely dysfunctional family amidst a series of random shootings, garbage strikes and electrical outages ravaging the neighborhood.
1163893	Jane Therese Curtin (born September 6, 1947) is an American actress and comedienne. She is sometimes referred to as "Queen of the Deadpan"; "The Philadelphia Inquirer" once called her a "refreshing drop of acid." She was included on a 1986 list of the "Top Prime Time Actors and Actresses of All Time." First coming to prominence as an original cast member on the hit TV comedy series "Saturday Night Live" in 1975, she went on to win back-to-back Emmy Awards for Best Lead Actress in a Comedy Series on the 1980s sitcom "Kate & Allie" portraying the role of Allison "Allie" Lowell. Curtin later starred in the hit series "3rd Rock from the Sun" (1996–2001), playing the role of Dr. Mary Albright. Curtin has also appeared in many movie roles, including Charlene in the "The Librarian" series of movies (2004–2008). She also reprised one of her "Saturday Night Live" characters, Prymaat (Clorhone) Conehead, in the 1993 film "The Coneheads". Early life. Curtin was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the daughter of Mary Constance (née Farrell) and John Joseph Curtin, who owned an insurance agency. She has a brother, Larry Curtin, who lives in South Florida; their older brother, John J. "Jack" Curtin, passed away in 2008. She was raised Roman Catholic. She grew up in Wellesley MA and graduated from Wellesley HS in 1965. Curtin is a cousin of actress and writer Valerie Curtin. Career. Curtin holds an associate degree from Elizabeth Seton Junior College in New York City. She has served as a U.S. Committee National Ambassador for UNICEF. In 1968, Curtin decided to pursue comedy as a career and dropped out of college. She joined a comedy group, "The Proposition", and performed with them until 1972. She starred in "Pretzels", an off-Broadway play written by Curtin, John Forster, Judith Kahan and Fred Grandy, in 1974. "Saturday Night Live". One of the original "Not Ready For Prime Time Players" for NBC's "Saturday Night Live" (1975), Curtin remained on the show through the 1979–1980 season. Guest host Eric Idle said that Curtin was "very much a 'Let's come in, let's know our lines, let's do it properly, and go' ... She was very sensible, very focused", and disliked the drug culture that many of the cast participated in. Show writer Al Franken stated that she "was so steady. Had a really strong moral center, and as such was disgusted by much of the show and the people around it". On this show, and mirroring her own low-key real life, she frequently played straight-woman characters, often as a foil to John Belushi and Gilda Radner. Curtin anchored "SNL"'s "Weekend Update" segment in 1976–77, and was paired with Dan Aykroyd in 1977–78 and Bill Murray in 1978–80. As a TV anchorwoman, Curtin played as a foil to John Belushi, who often gave a rambling and out-of-control "commentary" on events of the day. During these sketches, she timidly tried to get Belushi to come to the point, which would only make him angrier. In a well-known sketch, Belushi gave a rambling account of his Irish friend's troubles to demonstrate there was no such thing as "the luck of the Irish". Curtin's newscaster also introduced baseball expert Chico Escuela (Garrett Morris), a heavily-accented Dominican, who started his sketches by saying, "Thank you, "Hane"", before repeating his famous catchphrase, "Baseball been bery, bery good to me!" In a parody of the "Point-Counterpoint" segment of the news program "60 Minutes", Curtin portrayed a controlled liberal viewpoint (à la Shana Alexander) vs. Dan Aykroyd, who (in the manner of James J. Kilpatrick) epitomized the right-wing view, albeit with an over-the-top "attack" journalist slant. Curtin presented the liberal "Point" portion first. Then Aykroyd presented the "Counterpoint" portion, sometimes beginning with the statement, "Jane, you ignorant slut," to which she replied, "Dan, you pompous ass." The recurring segment has been discussed in an article on "How to Respectfully Disagree" in "The Chronicle of Higher Education". Curtin is also well known for her role in the Conehead sketches as "Prymaat Conehead" (mother of the Conehead family), and as "Enid Loopner" (in sketches with Gilda Radner and Bill Murray). In the movie, "Miracle", a reference to the Coneheads are made, and in the beginning scene, brief footage is shown of the Conehead skit from SNL. She is one of many cast members who appear in the retrospective compilation DVD "The Women of SNL" (2010, 97 minutes). Later television work. Unlike many of her fellow "SNL" cast members who ventured successfully into film, Curtin chose to stay in television. Her film appearances have been sporadic. To date, she has starred in two long-running television sitcoms. First, in "Kate & Allie" (1984–89), with Susan Saint James, she played a single mother named "Allie Lowell" and twice won the Emmy Award for Best Lead Actress in a Comedy Series. She later joined the cast of "3rd Rock from the Sun" (1996–2001) playing a human, Dr. Mary Albright, opposite the alien family, composed of John Lithgow, Kristen Johnston, French Stewart, and Joseph Gordon-Levitt. As with "SNL", her mostly straight-laced character was often confounded by the zany and whimsical antics of the Solomon family. In 1997, Curtin narrated two episodes of the documentary television series "Understanding". Curtin also starred with Fred Savage in the ABC sitcom "Crumbs", which debuted in January 2006 and was canceled in May of that year. She also guest-starred on "Gary Unmarried" as Connie, Allison's mother. In 2012, she joined "Unforgettable" as Dr. Joanne Webster, a gifted but crusty medical examiner. Film. In 1993, Curtin and Dan Aykroyd were reunited in "Coneheads", a full-length motion picture based on their popular "SNL" characters. They also appeared together as the voices of a pair of wasps in the film "Antz." In 2009, she played Paul Rudd and Andy Samberg's mother in "I Love You, Man". Other work. Curtin has also performed on Broadway on occasion. She first appeared on the Great White Way as Miss Prosperine Garrett in the play "Candida" in 1981. She later went on to be a replacement actress in two other plays: "Love Letters" and "Noises Off", and was in the 2002 revival of "Our Town", which received huge press attention as Paul Newman returned to the Broadway stage after several decades away. She also has narrated several audio books, including Carl Hiaasen's novel "Nature Girl". On May 7, 2010, Curtin placed second in the "Jeopardy! Million Dollar Celebrity Invitational", winning $250,000 for the U.S. Fund for UNICEF. Michael McKean won the tournament, while Cheech Marin came in third. She presented the Emmy Awards in 1984, 1987, and 1998; the 11th Annual American Comedy Awards in 1997; and the 54th Annual Golden Globe Awards in 1997. Personal life. She is married to Patrick Francis Lynch (a television producer) on April 2, 1975; they have one daughter, Tess Curtin Lynch. They live in Connecticut.
1044127	Owen John "Terry" Scott (4 May 1927 - 26 July 1994) was an English actor and comedian who appeared in seven "Carry On films". He also appeared in BBC1's popular domestic sitcom "Terry and June" with June Whitfield. Life and career. Scott was born and brought up in Watford, Hertfordshire and educated at Watford Field Junior School and Watford Grammar School for Boys. He was the youngest of his parents' three children, and the only surviving son after his brother Aubrey died when Scott was six. He studied accounting and served in the Navy during World War II. With Bill Maynard he appeared at Butlin's Holiday Camp in Skegness, Lincolnshire and partnered him in the TV series "Great Scott, It's Maynard!". During the early 1960s, he became well known to television audiences for his role alongside Hugh Lloyd in "Hugh and I". Scott later appeared with Lloyd as gnomes in the 1969 sitcom "The Gnomes of Dulwich". Scott's novelty record "My Brother" (written by Mitch Murray, released 1962 on Parlophone) was based on this schoolboy character (he dressed in the uniform to sing it on TV) and received regular airplay on BBC Radio (in particular Ed Stewart's Saturday and Sunday morning programme "Junior Choice" which was simultaneous broadcast on BBC Radio 1 and 2) for many years. In the 1970s, he had a memorable role in TV commercials for a chocolate coated caramel bar called Curly Wurly, in which he again appeared dressed as a schoolboy, complete with short trousers and cap. Scott had played a small role in the very first of the "Carry On" series of films, "Carry On Sergeant" in 1958. In 1968 he returned to the series with a role in "Carry On Up the Khyber" (1968), playing main roles in six of the later films. Scott is best remembered for starring alongside June Whitfield in several series of the comedy "Happy Ever After" and its successor, "Terry and June". They also featured in supporting roles together in the film version of "Bless This House". From 1981 to 1992, Scott was the voice of Penfold the hamster in the animated series "Danger Mouse". Scott suffered from ill health for many years. In 1979, he had a life-saving operation after a haemorrhage. He also suffered from creeping paralysis and had to wear a neck brace, even on television. When "Terry and June" was ended in 1987, Scott suffered a nervous breakdown. The attack was in part brought on by his public confession that he had had a series of affairs since his marriage to dancer Margaret Peden in 1957. The couple had four daughters: Sarah, Nicola, Lindsay and Sally. Scott was also diagnosed with cancer in 1987. He died from the cancer he had for seven years at the family home in Witley near Godalming in Surrey, on 26 July 1994, aged 67. Characteristically he said of his last illness: "I know it would be better to give up the booze, fags and birds, but life would be so boring wouldn't it."
1064316	Lena Headey (born 3 October 1973) is an English actress. Headey's performance in a one-off show when she was 17 caught the attention of a casting agent, who took a photo and asked her to audition. Eventually she got a supporting role alongside Jeremy Irons and Ethan Hawke in the 1992 drama film "Waterland" and went on to appear with higher-profile actors in major films such as "The Remains of the Day" (1993), "The Jungle Book" (1994), "Onegin" (1999) and "Aberdeen" (2000). After working steadily as an actress getting small and supporting roles in films throughout the 1990s, she found fame for her lead performances in big-budget films like the fantasy film "The Brothers Grimm" (2005), in which she acted opposite Matt Damon and Heath Ledger, the action film "300" (2007), portraying the role of Gorgo, Queen of Sparta, and the adventure and biographical feature "The Red Baron" (2008). She is known for playing the starring role Sarah Connor on Fox's television spin-off of James Cameron's "Terminator" film series "" (2008–09). As of 2011, she appears as Cersei Lannister in HBO's television series "Game of Thrones". Background. Headey was born in Bermuda, where her father, John, a Yorkshire police cadet, was stationed. She grew up there and in Huddersfield, West Yorkshire. Headey had her first experience of acting as a pupil at Shelley College and was noticed at 17 when she was spotted performing in a school production at the Royal National Theatre being picked for a role opposite Grant Warnock in the 1992 film "Waterland".
581751	Rang Rasiya is a 2008 Indian drama film based on the life of the 19th-century Indian painter Raja Ravi Varma. The film is directed and co-produced by Ketan Mehta, and stars Randeep Hooda, Nandana Sen and a newcomer Triptha Parashar in the lead roles. Production. After his last commercial cinema "" (2005), Mehta chose to make a film on the 19th-century painter, Raja Ravi Varma's life. Incidentally both these movies were based on a subject from the 19th century. His new film is an adaptation of a Marathi writer Ranjit Desai's biographical novel "Raja Ravi Varma". This bilingual in English and Hindi is titled as "Colour of Passion" and "Rang Rasiyaa" respectively. Mehta thought that Varma was the most fascinating artist of that era and his character, persona and paintings fascinated him from his days at Film and Television Institute of India. After reading Desai's novel, he formulated the story of his new film. When Mehta first met Nandana Sen at her house, he saw two life-size reproductions of Raja Ravi Varma's paintings. This assured him that she was familiar with the artist and his works, and made his job as a director easier. Speaking of the character she was to portray, he said: "To me, she was the perfect woman to play the muse of an artist who sparked off debates about censorship of art. She has that child-woman quality, which was so much a part of Sugandha's personality." Speaking about her character, Sen said that "Varma saw in her (Sugandha) the face and soul of a goddess. (For him) she is passionate, possessive and hungry for love." To portray this character, Sen was required to dress and look like a young Maharashtrian woman with long hair, light eyes, waist chain and a nose ring. In addition, she also gained five kilos for the character since she had to look voluptuous. She was helped with her familiarily with the physical patterns in Varma's paintings of women, such as, "the way they tilt their hip, the way they play with their hands. Though the film has a few scenes in which she had to expose, she chose to do it because she thought that the sensitive scene formed the story's basis. Although it was not an easy decision to take, she felt absolutely comfortable while performing the scene. One such scene is a wide angle shot that shows a bare breast of a skimpily clad Sen. Though this scene was aesthetically shot, the Central Board of Film Certification, which regulates the ratings and certification of media in India, objected to it and ordered for a review based on consensus. Mehta saw Hooda's previous films "Risk" and "D", and he thought that he was a skillful actor. In this film, he played the role of Raja Ravi Varma in two phases — first as a 60-year-old and then as a 20-year-old in a span of 10 days. As a preparation for his role, Hooda tried to learn the basics of painting. He was happy working in the film and said that his acting skills were well-groomed by Mehta's abilities. Besides Hooda, since Mehta wanted to work with new faces, he introduced a Scottish actress and another from India. Paresh Rawal was also set to play an important role. Triptha Parashar, whom Mehta spotted in an advertisement, was immediately offered the role of a princess without auditioning. Ferena Wazier, who was born to Kashmiri parents in Britain, plays a Parsi girl in the film. Sangita Kathiwada debuted as the costume designer. Release. The film was screened at 2008 The Times BFI London Film Festival.
1164134	Charles John Hallahan (July 29, 1943 – November 25, 1997) was an American film, television and stage actor best known for his performances in "Going in Style", "The Thing", and "Dante's Peak". Life and career. Hallahan was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and graduated from Rutgers University, then going on to Temple University to earn a Master's degree in fine arts. During his acting career he was often cast as a police officer, and is possibly best known to TV viewers as LAPD Captain Charlie Devane on "Hunter". He was memorable for his portrayal of the nameless "Coach" in "Vision Quest", opposite Matthew Modine. He also served in the US Navy in the early 1960s, including time as a Navy hospital corpsmen stationed in Puerto Rico. His two most famous film roles, arguably, were as the geologist Vance Norris in "John Carpenter's The Thing" and as the volcanologist Dr. Paul Dreyfus in "Dante's Peak". Hallahan also co-starred as a regular cast member in two popular television series, "Grace Under Fire" and the long-running "The Paper Chase". He has a brother, Kenneth Hallahan, who is a Roman Catholic priest in New Jersey. Death. In 1997, Hallahan was cast as Liam Bilby in the "" episode "Honor Among Thieves", but on November 25, 1997, he was involved in an auto accident caused by a heart attack while driving, and died. Nick Tate agreed to assume the role in Hallahan's memory. Hallahan is buried in Cobh Harbor in the south of Ireland from where his grandparents originated.
1530307	Killer Movie is a comedy horror film released in the United States in April 2008.  The film premiered during the 2008 Tribeca Film Festival in New York City.stars Paul Wesley, Kaley Cuoco, Jason London, Torrey DeVitto and Leighton Meester and was written and directed by Jeff Fisher.[3  "Killer Movie" was Produced by Cornelia Ryan Taylor, Michael Sanchez and Jeff Fisher. Plot. Celebrity Jake Tanner (Paul Wesley) travels to a small town to film a reality TV-show about the town's hockey team. However, town local Jaynie (Leighton Meester) is soon murdered, being decapitated by a piece of wire hung up between two trees, but the murder is passed off as an accident. Jake meets with the show's producers, Lee (Cyia Batten) and Phoebe (Torrey DeVitto) who now want to investigate the murder. As Jake goes to the local high school, he meets Keir (Gloria Votsis), part of the shows crew, who believes Jaynie was murdered and suspects the hockey teams coach, Coach Carhartt (Stephen Pelinski). Jake meets the rest of the crew, including Mike (Jason London), Daphne (Adriana DeMeo), Luke (Al Santos) and Greg (Hal B. Klein) while also meeting the team captain, Vance (Andy Fischer-Price) and head cheerleader Erin (Maitland McConnell). Meanwhile, cheerleading coach Mrs Falls (Jennifer Murphy) is murdered by a masked killer, who drags her into a circular saw. The crew interview Vance, who swears he will get vengeance on whoever murdered Jaynie. Controversial celebrity Blanca Champion (Kaley Cuoco) soon arrives with her assistant Nik (Robert Buckley) to work on the show. The crew travel to meet Jaynie's father, Coach Hansen (Bruce Bohne), who recently was released from prison for the murder of his wife. Hansen becomes angered however, and forces the crew to leave. While back at the school, Connor (Jackson Bond) tells Jake that Jaynie's death was not an accident. That night, the crew go to a bar, and discover of Mrs Falls death, but again the locals pass the death off as an accident, before Coach Hansen turns up and warns the crew away from the town. The next day, Lee and Phoebe fall out as Lee is changing the show to center around the deaths of the locals. Nick is sent to Coach Hansen's house to retrieve equipment that was left there previously. On arrival, Nick finds Coach Hansen dead, before the killer butchers Nick with a pickaxe. After Erin and Blanca have an argument, Blanca attempts to leave the town but realizes there is no signal for mobile phones in the town. After the crew film a hockey match, the crew go to the bar, but Luke remains behind to work out. He is attacked by the killer, who chops off his hand before finally stabbing him to death. Daphne decides to leave the bar, but while on her way home she discovers Greg's car. She stops and investigates, only to find Greg's throat slit. The killer then turns up and kidnaps her. The next day, the remaining crew discover of their missing co-workers, causing arguments between the survivors. Lee goes down to the boiler room where she finds the killer is filming the murders using the aid of a lipstick camera. Before she can warn the others though, the killer hangs her. After more filming, Jake, Blanca and Keir go back to a cabin to find the others. However, they find footage of Daphne being captured. They go back to the school and drop Blanca off so she can contact help on a Cb radio, while Jake and Keir go to where Daphne was captured. Meanwhile, Phoebe is in a local shop when she is attacked by the killer. She hides until Coach Carhart arrives and the pair flee to the coaches car. As they are about to leave, the killer slices open the coaches neck, while Phoebe runs to the school. The killer catches up with her though and strangles her to death. Jake and Keir discover the killers lair in the forest, but as they are about to leave Jake steps on a bear trap, so Keir leaves for help. Back at the school, Blanca fails to get help from the radio but finds Connor down in the boiler room, who shows Blanca a video the killer has made devoted to her. As the pair are leaving the school, they discover Daphne's dead body. Blanca soon becomes locked in a room, but Connor escapes. Keir arrives, but the killer quickly knocks her out, before finding Blanca. She escapes the room through the vents, but is confronted by the killer who is revealed to be an obsessed Mike, who murdered everyone to be close to her. Keir attempts to save Blanca, but Mike stabs her; however, Jake, Vance and Connor arrive and shoot Mike. The next morning, the police arrive and put Mike's body in a body bag. Jake finds out Keir survived being stabbed; however, he soon discovers Mike was wearing a bullet proof vest and has escaped. Release. The film originally had a release date in the summer of 2008. It was also released to Video One Demand in winter 2008. The film was released to a mixed critical reception.
426337	Sonja Henie (April 8, 1912 – October 12, 1969) was a Norwegian figure skater and film star. She was a three-time Olympic Champion (1928, 1932, 1936) in Ladies Singles, a ten-time World Champion (1927–1936) and a six-time European Champion (1931–1936). Henie won more Olympic and World titles than any other ladies figure skater. At the height of her acting career she was one of the highest paid stars in Hollywood. Biography. Early life. Sonja Henie was born in Kristiania, current Oslo, the only daughter of Wilhelm Henie (1872–1937), a prosperous Norwegian furrier and his wife Selma Lochmann-Nielsen (1888–1961). In addition to the income from the fur business, both of Henie's parents had inherited wealth. Wilhelm Henie had been a one-time World Cycling Champion and the Henie children were encouraged to take up a variety of sports at a young age. Henie initially showed talent at skiing, and then followed her older brother Leif to take up figure skating. As a girl, Henie was also a nationally ranked tennis player and a skilled swimmer and equestrienne. Once Henie began serious training as a figure skater, her formal schooling ended. She was educated by tutors, and her father hired the best experts in the world, including the famous Russian ballerina Tamara Karsavina, to transform his daughter into a sporting celebrity. Competitive career. Henie won her first major competition, the senior Norwegian championships, at the age of 10. She then placed eighth in a field of eight at the 1924 Winter Olympics, at the age of eleven. During the 1924 program, she skated over to the side of the rink several times to ask her coach for directions. But by the next Olympiad, she needed no such assistance.
1164621	Moses Gunn (October 2, 1929 – December 16, 1993) was an American actor. An Obie Award-winning stage player, he co-founded the Negro Ensemble Company in the 1960s. His 1962 Off-Broadway debut was in Jean Genet's "The Blacks," and his Broadway debut was in "A Hand is on the Gate," an evening of African-American poetry. He was nominated for a 1976 Tony Award as Best Actor (Play) for "The Poison Tree" and played Othello on Broadway in 1970. Biography. Born in St. Louis, Missouri, the son of Mary and George Gunn, he was the eldest of seven children. After his mother died, his family splintered. Moses left home and rode the railroad at just 12 years old. He returned to St. Louis and attended school while living at the home of Jewel Richie, his English teacher. He graduated from Tennessee State University after a stint in the army, then went to graduate school at Kansas University, gaining a masters degree. He taught briefly at Grambling College before attempting an acting career in NYC. He married Gwendolyn Mumma Landes in 1966, becoming stepfather to her daughter Kirsten Sarah Landes. They had a son, Justin Moses, in 1970 who became a musician and composer in the Copenhagen-based band, The Reverend Shine Snake Oil Co. An authoritative black character actor of film and TV, Gunn also enjoyed a successful career on stage. He made his New York City stage debut in the original off-Broadway production of Jean Genet's "The Blacks" (1962). He performed many Shakespearean roles in Joseph Papp's Shakespeare in the Park, winning an Obie Award for his portrayal of Aaron in "Titus Andronicus". He won a second Obie for his work in the NEC produced "First Breeze of Summer," which moved to Broadway. His much acclaimed performance as Othello at the Stratford, Connecticut, Shakespeare Festival was also moved to Broadway in 1970. Other Broadway plays in which Gunn performed are: "A Hand is on the Gate," "Twelfth Night," "I Have a Dream," and "The Poison Tree," for which he gained a Tony nomination for Best Actor. Gunn is perhaps best remembered in film for his portrayal of mobster Ellsworth Raymond "Bumpy" Jonas in the first two "Shaft" movies, and for his brief role of Booker T. Washington in the 1981 movie "Ragtime", a performance which won him an NAACP Image Award. He was nominated for an Emmy Award in 1977 for his role in the TV mini-series "Roots". He also costarred with Avery Brooks on the TV series "A Man Called Hawk". Gunn also appeared in a multi-episode story arc as atheist shop owner Carl Dixon on the sitcom "Good Times", as Joe Kagan on "Little House on the Prairie", and as the character Moses Gage in the 1980s NBC drama "Father Murphy". In 1989, Gunn appeared on two episodes of "The Cosby Show" as two different characters. He appeared in the fifth season episode "The Dead End Kids Meet Dr. Lotus" as the titular character Dr. Lotus and in the sixth season episode "Grampy and Nu Nu Visit the Huxtables", as Joe Kendall, Martin's (Joseph C. Phillips) father and Olivia's (Raven-Symoné) grandfather. His final performance was as murder suspect Risley Tucker in "Three Men and Adena", an award-winning episode of "".
585681	Mithra Kurian (), (born Dalma Kurian), is an Indian film actress who appears in Malayalam and Tamil films. After appearing in supporting roles in 2 Malayalam films, she starred in two Tamil films, before essaying lead female roles and gaining attention in Malayalam cinema. Her portrayal of Sethulakshmi in "Bodyguard" (2010) won her critical acclaim and she went on to reprise the role in its Tamil remake "Kaavalan". Her another notable role was in "Rama Ravanan" starring Suresh Gopi. she is related to noted South Indian actress Nayanthara. Film career. She first appeared in a supporting role in the 2004 Malayalam movie "Vismayathumbathu" , in a single scene as Nayanthara's friend, directed by Fazil. She then appeared in 2005 film "Mayookham" directed by T. Hariharan, following which she took a break from acting and concentrated on her studies. She was then cast by director Siddique in a supporting role for his Tamil film "Sadhu Miranda", after he saw Mithra on a cover of an issue of the magazine Grihalakshmi. Afterwards, she starred in another Tamil film, the low-budget venture "Suriyan Satta Kalloori", which was panned by critics. Mithra subsequently appeared in notable Malayalam films, and gained considerable attention, by her choice of characters in films like "" and "Bodyguard". She was the lead actress in the comedy flick "Gulumal", which turned out to be a superhit movie. She appeared as a supporting character in the Dileep-starrer "Bodyguard", again under Siddique's direction, which became another hit. Gaining critical acclaim for her performance as Sethulakshmi, she was selected by Siddique to reprise the role in its Tamil remake, "Kaavalan", as well.
1171313	To Kill a King is a 2003 English Civil War film starring Tim Roth, Rupert Everett and Dougray Scott, directed by Mike Barker. It relates the relationship between Oliver Cromwell and Thomas Fairfax in the post-war period from 1648 until the former's death, in 1658. It deals with the corruption of Parliament leading to many arrests of Members of Parliament who have allegiances to the King, and in turn, leads to the creation of the Rump Parliament. Furthermore, King Charles I's conspiracies to remain as King are uncovered leading to his arrest, trial and execution at Whitehall in January 1649. Cromwell then becomes Lord Protector. Plot. At the end of The English Civil War, Sir Thomas Fairfax (Dougray Scott) celebrates the Parliamentarian victory over the royalist Cavaliers with his colleague and fellow commander, Oliver Cromwell (Tim Roth). Meanwhile, King Charles I (Rupert Everett), who has been captured and is held prisoner by the victors, tries to appeal to Fairfax's wife, Lady Anne (Olivia Williams). Soon, the trial of the king takes place, and Cromwell & Fairfax disagree over what to do, and from there, tensions rise. Production. Filming was in Britain and at locations including Ham House, Dover Castle (doubling as the Tower of London), Harrow School, and Hampton Court Palace. Awards. To Kill a King was nominated for three awards.
591931	Naanu Nanna Kanasu is a 2010 Indian Kannada-language film directed by Prakash Rai starring Prakash Rai and Amoolya. It is a remake of the Tamil hit "Abhiyum Naanum". Ramya was originally cast as the lead in the film, but she was later replaced by Amoolya. In Bangalore, the film ran in theatres for 17 consecutive weeks. Plot. "Naanu Nanna Kanasu" is all about the relationship between a father and his daughter. The film is made on family values. The film starts with Uthappa (Prakash Rai) meeting with a young father Jayanth (Ramesh Arvind) in a park. As they are introduced to each other, Uthappa begins to narrate the story of his life to Jayanth. Music. The music of the movie is scored by veteran Hamsalekha.
584880	Magadheera is a 2009 Telugu historical drama- romance film directed by S. S. Rajamouli and produced by Allu Aravind. The film stars Ram Charan Teja and Kajal Aggarwal in the lead roles, while actors Srihari and Dev Gill play other prominent roles. The film features an original soundtrack by M. M. Keeravani, art direction by R. Ravindar, cinematography by K. K. Senthil Kumar and editing by Kotagiri Venkateswara Rao. The film was released to critical and commercial acclaim. The film was dubbed and released in Malayalam as "Dheera— The Warrior" and in Tamil as "Maveeran". The film is the highest-grossing Telugu film till date. Plot. The story is told in a series of flashbacks, starting with the present time, 2009. Harsha (Ram Charan Teja) is a stunt man and ekes out his living by taking part in bike races and stunts. He happens to meet Indu (Kajal Agarwal) and whenever he touches her, he is reminded of something that happened in the past. He falls in love with her and she reciprocates the love. Indu's father fights a legal battle for Udaygadh kingdom as it was his ancestral property. His brother-in-law enjoys the property illegally. The latter's son Raghuveer (Dev Gill) is spellbound by Indu's beauty and goes to their home and promises to return the entire property with the hopes of marrying Indu. Raghuveer's guru Ghora (Rao Ramesh) tells him that he cannot win Indu as long as Harsha is alive. On learning that Indu's father accepted her love for Harsha, Raghuveer kills the father, implicates Harsha in the murder and takes Indu away to Udaygadh. Though Harsha tries to explain the truth to Indu, she doesn't believe him. In the process, Harsha drops falls from a helicopter into a lake, only to be saved by Solomon (Sri Hari). Now it is Harsha's turn to prove his innocence and remind Indu of their previous birth. The story then goes back four centuries to 1609 AD. There is a kingdom called Udaygadh in Rajasthan ruled by King Vikram Singh (Sarath Babu). "Mitravinda" (Kajal Agarwal) is his only daughter. Ranadev Bhilla (Dev Gill) is her cousin. Kala Bhairava (Ram Charan Teja) is a warrior who trains the army of the kingdom. His family has lived under the curse that no warrior will live for more than 30 years, and will not accept death until he has killed a hundred enemies in the battle. He is also the personal caretaker of the royal family. Ranadev eyes Mitravinda and wants to get the kingdom by marrying her. But the princess loses her heart to Bhairava. In order to win her hand, both Ranadev and Bhairava take part in a contest and BBB emerges the winner. The king, who knows about the curse, requests Kala Bhairava to reject the hand of the princess as he does not want his daughter to become a widow. Ranadev turns traitor and joins hands with Sher Khan (Srihari). He invades the kingdom and kills the king. Later, Ranadev and Sher Khan reach the place where Bhairava and Mitravinda are offering prayers to Lord Siva. Sher Khan challenges Bhairava to save the princess from his men. Bhairava courageously attacks and kills 100 soldiers. Sher Khan accepts defeat and is impressed by Bhairava's courage. Bhairava kills Ranadev but Ranadev stabs Mitravinda. During her last moments, Mitravinda requests Bhairava to proclaim his love for her. They both fall off the cliff and the last words between them remain unsaid. The unproclaimed love of Kala Bhairava and Mithravinda and the unfulfilled wishes of Ranadev have made them take another birth four centuries later. The final showdown is more of a battle between true love and lust. Finally, Indu believes Harsha and proclaims her love for him. Solomon helps Harsha in killing Raguveer's accomplices. In the final fight, Harsha kills Raghuveer by cutting off his hand where he holds indu and Raghuveer Fall down from the cliff and Dies. Filming. 90% of the film was shot at Gujarat, Rajasthan, Rann of Kutch, and Badami in Karnataka. Other scenes were filmed at Ramoji Film City in Hyderabad, India. The first song of the film, "Bangaru Kodi Petta", was filmed at the Chennai Port. The song "Nakosam Nuvvu" was shot in Switzerland. "Panchadara Bomma Bomma" was shot at Golkonda Fort in Hyderabad. Release. Geetha Arts released the film on 31 July 2009, the Malayalam dubbed version, titled "Dheera — the Warrior", on 27 May 2011 and the Tamil version as "Maaveeran".Producer Allu Aravind released the film on 31 July 2009 with 500 prints in 1250 screens across the globe, the biggest ever for a Telugu film, which included more than 1000 screens in Andhra Pradesh. The film opened up with 25 prints overseas.
774074	Carly Pope (born August 28, 1980) is a Canadian actress. Early life. Pope was born and raised in Vancouver, British Columbia, with an older brother, Kris, also an actor, and a younger brother, Alexander. She began acting during her high school years in Vancouver where she appeared in stage classics such as "The Odd Couple", playing Mickey, and "A Midsummer Night's Dream", playing Titania. She attended high school at Lord Byng Secondary School near the University of British Columbia campus, along with classmate Cobie Smulders. Career. Pope started her career with several small roles, such as "Disturbing Behavior", "Snow Day", and "Night Man", before being cast as Sam McPherson on the WB's high-school drama "Popular". After the show ended, Pope had several roles in film and television, including "The Glass House", Jeff Probst's "Finder's Fee", and "Orange County". In 2004 she had starred as Maya Kandinski in "The Collector". In 2005 she was a guest-star in an episode of FOX's "Tru Calling" and played an aspiring social worker in the film "Eighteen". In 2007, Pope starred in the Power Up project "Itty Bitty Titty Committee", and in Martin Gero's ' intelligent sex comedy ' and Toronto International Film Festival hit, "Young People Fucking". In 2009, she appeared in FOX's hit thriller, "24", as Samantha Roth, the president son's girlfriend. Pope joined the main cast of the short lived NBC courtroom drama series "Outlaw" in 2010. Personal life. Splitting her time between Los Angeles and Vancouver Pope is currently attending university when her filming schedule allows. She speaks Italian, Spanish and French fluently and is seeking to expand her education in literature and languages. On December 29, 2009, Pope and her brother, Kris Pope were driving a black BMW down West Georgia Street in Downtown Vancouver when David Fromradas, 31, of Alberta jumped on top of the car and yelled at them to run him over. When Kris got out of the car, Fromradas jumped in the front seat and drove the vehicle into the new CBC studios. Pope suffered a broken rib, and two cracked vertabrae, Kris suffered severe injuries to his ankle along with another victim who was a passerby.
724694	Shannon Lucio (born June 25, 1980) is an American actress.
1052020	La belle Verte ( ; ) is a 1996 French film written and directed by Coline Serreau and starring Serreau, Vincent Lindon and Marion Cotillard. Serreau also composed the original music score. It was filmed on location in Australia and France. Synopsis. A woman from a utopian planet travels to Earth, where she intends on helping through her superior knowledge, so it can become a better planet. She has trouble adjusting, and soon reveals that her goal is that the rest of the galaxy can see Earth as a future friend and not as a potential threat to the galactic community.
1058078	Elizabeth Jane Hurley (born 10 June 1965) is an English model and actress. She has been associated with the cosmetics company Estée Lauder since the company gave Hurley her first modelling job at the age of 29. It has featured her as a representative and model for its products, especially perfumes such as Sensuous, Intuition, and Pleasures, since 1995. Hurley owns an eponymous beachwear line. As an actress, her best-known film roles to date have been as Vanessa Kensington in Mike Myers' hit spy comedy, "" (1997) and as the Devil in "Bedazzled" (2000).
1051951	The Phantom of Liberty () is a 1974 film by Luis Buñuel, produced by Serge Silberman and starring Adriana Asti, Julien Bertheau and Jean-Claude Brialy. Plot. The opening scene is inspired by "The Kiss", a short story by Spanish post-romanticist writer Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer. Toledo, 1808. The city has been occupied by French Napoleonic troops. A firing squad executes a small group of Spanish rebels who cry out "Long live chains!" or "Death to the "gabachos"!" -a Spanish pejorative term for "Frenchmen"-. The troops are encamped in a Catholic church which they desecrate by drinking, singing, and eating the communion wafers. The captain caresses a statue of Doña Elvira de Castañeda and is knocked unconscious by the statue of her husband, Don Pedro López de Ayala. In revenge, the captain exhumes Doña Elvira's body to find her face has not decomposed; there is a suggestion of intended necrophilia. Cut to the present day where a nanny is reading the voice-over from a book whilst seated on a park bench. The children in her care are given some pictures by a strange man in the park. There are implications of child abduction or pedophilia. Cut to a close-up of a spider and the interior of a bourgeois apartment where a man is "fed up with symmetry" as he rearranges his mantelpiece. The children arrive home and show the pictures to their parents who are shocked that the girls have such images. The parents are disgusted and yet erotically stimulated by the images. When we see the images, they are revealed as picture postcards of French architecture. The parents then let the children keep the pictures and dismiss the nanny. At bedtime, the husband cannot sleep as he is woken in the night by a cockerel, a postman and an emu wandering through his bedroom. In the next scene, the husband visits his doctor, who dismisses these nighttime experiences as apparitions despite the fact that the husband has physical evidence in the form of a letter from the nocturnal postman. The evidence is never considered as the doctor's nurse interrupts the conversation to tell her employer that she must visit her sick father. The nurse drives through a rainy night, meeting a military tank on the road that is apparently hunting foxes. The soldiers tell her that the road ahead is blocked. The nurse drives to an isolated hotel. A storm breaks as the nurse checks in at the small rural hotel. Some Carmelite monks are also staying at the hotel. She takes supper in her room while a flamenco dancer and guitarist perform in an adjacent room. The monks interrupt her as she is dressing for bed. They offer to use a holy effigy and prayer to assist her sick father, they begin to pray. Time has passed and the monks are playing a game of poker with the nurse and the hotel manager, gambling with holy relics, smoking and drinking alcohol. That same night, some new guests arrive at the hotel: a young man and his aunt. The young nephew has brought his aunt to the hotel for an incestuous affair – yet another sexual taboo is addressed. They retire to their room, the elderly aunt confesses that she is a virgin, when the nephew pulls back the sheets to look at her naked body, she has the body of a young woman. The nephew is refused by his aunt and leaves his room to join another couple (a hatter and his female assistant) for a drink. The nurse and the four monks are also invited into the hatter's room. While the guests are socializing, the hatter's assistant dons a dominatrix outfit with a whip. The hatter, who is wearing bottomless trousers, proceeds to be masochistically flagellated by his assistant in front of the other guests who are shocked and leave. The nephew returns to his aunt, who is now willing to make love with him. The next morning, the nurse leaves for the town of Argenton, giving a lift to another resident who is breakfasting in the bar. This resident is a professor at the police academy. He is dropped off at work where he gives a lecture to a class of delinquent policemen, who behave like schoolchildren, on the subject of the relativism of laws, customs and taboos. The lecture is constantly interrupted, either by the police being called away to respond to crimes being committed, or their own childish pranks, until only two officers are left in the class. The professor continues, using a dinner party at his friends’ house to illustrate a point he is making. We then cut to the ‘dinner’ party which is being held in a modern bourgeois apartment. The guests are seated around the table on flushing toilets. They politely discuss various issues around the topic of defecation whilst publicly using the toilets that they are sitting on. When a guest is hungry, he excuses himself and retires to the dining room, a private cubicle, to eat food. We cut back to the police lecture. The two policeman go on duty where they stop a speeding motorist (Mr. Legendre) who is rushing to see his doctor. Mr. Legendre is eventually told by his doctor that he has cancer and offered a cigarette, he slaps his doctor and returns home. Once home, he tells his wife that nothing is wrong with him. They receive a phone call informing them that their daughter has disappeared from school. We now cut to the school where the teachers insist that the little girl has vanished despite the fact that she is physically present. Her disappearance is reported to the police, the girl is present but none of the adults admit to her presence. In this absurdist scene, she is there – the adults are able to see and speak to her – yet they act as if she is missing. We follow one of the policemen, who is having his shoes shined. We then follow the man who is sitting next to him to the top of a tower block. This man is a sniper who randomly kills people in the streets below. He is arrested, found guilty, and sentenced to death but leaves the courtroom to be treated as a celebrity. Mr. Legendre is called to see the Prefect of Police who returns the missing daughter. The Prefect is about to read a letter explaining how the girl was found - reading the very same narrative that the nanny was reading at the beginning of the film - but is interrupted and leaves to visit a bar. In the bar, he meets a woman who looks like his dead sister (we see a flashback in which he remembers his sister playing the piano, naked). He then receives a phone call from his dead sister, asking him to meet her at the mausoleum. When he visits the cemetery at night, he finds a telephone in the crypt by his sister's coffin. Her hair is hanging out of the coffin. He is suddenly arrested for desecration by officers who refuse to believe that he is the Prefect of Police. The Prefect is taken to his office, where a different man takes his place. The two men treat each other cordially and discuss crowd control as if they are acquainted. We see the animals in the zoo, the two police chiefs arrive, and direct police control of an unseen riot. The film ends with a close-up shot of an ostrich's head. Historical and social context. "The Phantom of Liberty" was Buñuel's penultimate film. At the time of production, he was 74 years old and considering retirement. Buñuel summarizes many of the concerns that permeate his work: The film contains short incidents and scenarios collected from throughout Buñuel's life, arranged in the style of a surreal game where seemingly disconnected ideas are linked by chance encounters. Writer Gary Indiana notes that the film was written by Buñuel and Carrière "telling each other their dreams every morning." The film is infused with his personal experience. It opens in Toledo, Spain, a city that so impressed the young Buñuel that in 1923 he founded a group called the "Order of Toledo". When he was a student in Madrid, he saw a dead woman's hair ‘growing’ from a tomb in the moonlight. The sight made a strong impression on him and he used it in this film some fifty years later. In the 1940s, when he lived in Los Angeles but had no prospects of film work, he wrote down an idea about a missing girl whose parents fruitlessly search for her while she is beside them; invisible and yet not invisible. When the Carmelite monk says "If everyone prayed every day to Saint Joseph, peace and quiet would prevail", this was a quote that had stuck with Buñuel when he was visiting a monastery in the 1960s. One of the most poignant biographical details used in "The Phantom of Liberty" is the sequence when the doctor tries to avoid telling his patient that he has cancer of the liver. This was based on Buñuel's experience of being told that he had a cyst on his liver (he died of cancer of the liver in 1983). The title of the film is a homage to Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels’ "Communist Manifesto", specifically a reference to the opening sentence: "A spectre is haunting Europe — the spectre of Communism" (in French, "spectre" is translated as "fantôme"). This sentence refers to the way in which the idea of Communism was being used pejoratively by the authorities in the mid-19th century to attack all political parties opposed to the established order (church, aristocracy and state). "The Communist Manifesto" was written to offer a positive vision of the views, aims and tendencies of Communists from across Europe. Buñuel and the Surrealists were closely linked to the Communists in the 1930s, but by the 1950s he had developed a greater antipathy towards the party. The title of "The Phantom of Liberty" is also taken from this line of dialogue from his 1969 film "The Milky Way": "I experience in every event that my thoughts and my will are not in my power. And that my liberty is only a phantom." This possibly to the way in which the civil rights movements of the 1960s had been seen as a threat to the established order – the ‘phantom’ of radical liberal ideas ‘haunting’ capitalist society. It is more likely to refer to the illusive nature of freedom, to the ways in which our destinies are controlled by chance, or, as Buñuel would have it: This quote not only parallels the structure of the film but also summarizes Buñuel's philosophy of life. After being awarded an Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film in the previous year (for "The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie", also with producer Serge Silberman and writer Jean-Claude Carriere), he appears to have regained the creative autonomy of his early films. "The Phantom of Liberty" can therefore be seen as a personal film from a director reflecting back on a long creative career. Narrative structure, characters and themes. "The Phantom of Liberty" is a film that celebrates the notion of chance encounters and takes this concept to ‘wage war’ on the very idea of story-telling. The overall structure of the film is one of seemingly unconnected episodes linked together by random encounters. The story is passed from one scene to the next as if the narrative is a relay race: the narrative ‘baton’ is passed on by means of a minor character from one scene becoming the next major character. When watching a film, we usually expect the various interlocking narratives to be revisited and the film to end with a clear resolution to each story. In this film, we are left wondering what will happen in each section and most of the characters do not reappear. As mentioned earlier, a number of the scenes in the film are taken from Buñuel's own experience and structured using the surrealist notion of automatism or stream of consciousness, where ideas are allowed to develop without the control of reason or aesthetics. Buñuel outlines the film's themes in his autobiography as being: The characters in the film, of which there are more than forty credited, are taken from a range of middle-class ‘types’. The characters are not particularly allowed to develop as personalities; they are more like a series of fairly sympathetic stereotypes that represent institutions and professions as diverse as: religious orders, doctors, nurses, the police, the military and the teaching profession. Each character appears to be subject to coincidence and have no control over their fate. Their situations appear to be the consequence of the social rituals, laws and morality that the Professor discusses at the police academy. In its suggestion of various sexual transgressions, the film emphasizes how the concept of morality is a personal issue. The lack of explanation or resolution illustrates the mystery of nature or reality. This, coupled with its economic style, could allow you to use the text to interrogate perceptions of reality and conventions of realism. Film style. Renowned for his ability to work to tight budgets and schedules (after his experiences of working in the Mexican film industry), Buñuel was more concerned with constructing ideas than complex sets or Expressionistic cinematic style. One example of his economic style is the scene where he receives a telephone call from his dead sister; we don’t have to see the corpse reach out from the coffin – it is easier to show the telephone (a cheap prop), and allow our imaginations to construct the scenario. It is also interesting to note the lack of a musical score in the soundtrack, subtle sound effects (for which Buñuel is credited) are used to create atmosphere. One example of this is the riot at the end of the film, suggested only by the sound effects. Contrast this with Bernardo Bertolucci's reconstruction of the 1968 Parisian riots in "The Dreamers" (2003); expensive to stage, involving the use of a large cast and crew and closing down Parisian streets. Critical views. Buñuel's previous production, "The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie", had won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film, and his next and final film, "That Obscure Object of Desire" was a more conventional narrative. Below is a selection of critical comments on the film:
1064902	Tyler Mane is a Canadian actor and former professional wrestler. He is known for playing Sabretooth in "X-Men", Ajax in "Troy" and Michael Myers in the remake of "Halloween" and its sequel, "Halloween II". Wrestling career. Trained by Red Bastien, Mane began his career in 1986 under the name Skywalker Nitron in his native Canada. In 1987, he wrestled for Joint Promotions in the United Kingdom. In 1988, he toured New Japan Pro Wrestling as Gully Gaspar, teaming with "brothers" Billy and Barry and managed by KY Wakamatsu. Mane joined up with World Championship Wrestling (WCW) in 1989 as simply Nitron, sometimes Nitro, the bodyguard for Woman. His tenure was very brief, as he left in early 1990. Afterward, Mane returned to Canada in 1990, before embarking on a tour of Puerto Rico for World Wrestling Council, before touring Japan again, this time for All Japan Pro Wrestling, where he teamed with Butch Masters as the Land of the Giants and took part in the 1990 World's Strongest Tag Determination League. After leaving AJPW in 1991, he embarked on a tour of Mexico for Consejo Mundial de Lucha Libre, where he remained for nearly two years. In 1993, he returned to WCW, this time under the name Big Sky, tag teaming with Vinnie Vegas. After Vinnie left WCW to become Diesel in the WWF, Mane was left in limbo and left WCW by the end of the year. In 1994, he joined Herb Abrams' Universal Wrestling Federation and became the only UWF MGM Grand Champion, defeating Steve Ray to win the vacant title. After Abrams' death and eventual dissolving of the UWF in 1996, Mane retired. Film career. In 1992 came to México to Empresa Mexicana de Lucha Libre the newly created Consejo Mundial de Lucha Libre, during his time in México film participated in Luchadores de las Estrellas (his film debut) playing the villain of the movie (El Vampiro Interespacial). After retiring from wrestling, he appeared in numerous films, including "X-Men" as Sabretooth, "How to Make a Monster" (as Hardcore), "Joe Dirt", "The Scorpion King", "Troy" (as Ajax), "Hercules" (as Antaeus), and "The Devil's Rejects" (in the uncredited role of Rufus). The role of Sabretooth was initially intended for Mane's former wrestling tag team parter, Kevin Nash, but was awarded to Mane due to Nash's scheduling conflicts. Nash would, however, get a small role in a later Marvel Comics film, "The Punisher". In 2007, he filmed Rob Zombie's remake of "Halloween", in which he played the iconic starring role of Michael Myers. After winning the role, he noted that he consecutively watched seven of the eight "Halloween" films (excluding because Michael Myers does not appear) to better understand his character. He is the tallest actor (6' 9") to portray the character. In 2009, he reprised the role again in "Rob Zombie's H2", becoming only the second actor to play Michael Myers more than once, and the only actor to play the role in consecutive films. Personal life. He is currently married to actress Renae Geerlings and has two children from a previous marriage.
1014214	Stonerville is a 2011 American comedy film released direct-to-video. Leslie Nielsen played a character simply named Producer, which was his final role before he died. The film was directed by veteran television director Bill Corcoran. It was written by longtime writer/producer, Kevin Sepe and comedy writer Tom Alexander (sportsmansdaily.com). Plot. Troy "Slam" Slamsky is a viral video guru who is a huge hit on Mespacetube.com. His nagging girlfriend Miranda wants him to take his skills and growing fan base into the real world and get a job in advertising. She is tired of living in their less than modest apartment, and sees Slam's talent as the ticket out. Slam is only interested in making his short movies, getting stoned with his best friend Harlan "Harley" Lovecraft, and someday visiting Cleveland. After a series of disagreements and the discovery that Miranda is two-timing Slam with rich snob Tyler, Slam is suddenly on his own.
1042799	Adrienne Corri (born 13 November 1931 Glasgow, Scotland) is a British actress born Adrienne Riccoboni, the daughter of Olive Smethurst and an Italian father Luigi Riccoboni (sometimes spelt Reccobini). Her distinctive auburn hair came from her mother's Lancastrian Mancunian Smethurst family. In the 1930s her father Luigi (known as Louis) ran the Crown Hotel, Callander, Perthshire. She had one brother. Despite having significant roles in many films, Adrienne Corri is likely to be remembered for one of her smaller parts, that of Mrs. Alexander, the wife of the writer Frank Alexander, in the 1971 Stanley Kubrick dystopian film "A Clockwork Orange". Though not originally cast for this role, she was brought in after the first actress left. Clad in an eye-catching bright red pajama suit, she answers the door to the main character of the film, Alex de Large, and in a scene redolent with black humour and violence is forcibly stripped and gang raped, Corri being thrust centre stage in an exuberant quasi-theatrical spectacle, as Alex accompanies the stripping with a joyful rendition of "Singing in the Rain". Though the scene lasts barely three minutes and Corri's dialogue is confined to some initial preliminaries, the nature of the scene and the manner of its presentation make it perhaps the most memorable scene in the entire film. Corri was offered the role after two actresses had already withdrawn from the film, one of them, according to Malcolm McDowell (Alex in the film), because she found it "too humiliating -– because it involved having to be perched, naked, on Warren Clarke’s (playing Dim the Droog) shoulders for weeks on end while Stanley decided which shot he liked the best." Adrienne Corri had no such qualms about appearing naked, joking to McDowell, "Well Malcolm, you’re about to find out that I’m a real redhead." Corri appeared in many excellent films, notably as Valerie in Jean Renoir's "The River" (1951), as Lara's mother in David Lean's "Dr. Zhivago" (1965) and in the Otto Preminger thriller "Bunny Lake is Missing". She also appeared in a number of horror and suspense films from the 1950s until the 1970s including "Devil Girl from Mars", "The Tell-Tale Heart", "A Study in Terror" and "Vampire Circus". She also appeared as Therese Duval in "Revenge of the Pink Panther". The range and versatility of her acting is shown by appearances in such diverse productions as the 1969 science fiction movie "Moon Zero Two" where she played opposite the ever dependable character actor Sam Kydd (Len the barman), and again in 1969, in "Twelfth Night", directed by John Sichel, as the Countess Olivia, where she played opposite Alec Guinness (Malvolio). Her numerous television credits include Angelica in "Sword of Freedom" (1958), Yolanda in "The Invisible Man" episode "Crisis in the Desert", a regular role in "A Family at War" and "You're Only Young Twice", a 1971 television play by Jack Trevor Story, as Mena in the "Doctor Who" story "The Leisure Hive" and guest starred as the mariticidal Liz Newton in the "UFO" episode "The Square Triangle". She also was in two episodes of "Danger Man," the first being the well-known surreal "The Ubiquitous Mr. Lovegrove," (1965) as assistant to Mr. Alexander, Elaine, as well as "Whatever Happened To George Foster," (1965) in which she played Pauline, a journalist acquaintance of "John Drake." She was equally at home in the classics of British theater, giving an outstanding performance as Lady Fidget in the BBC play of the month, Wycherley's Restoration comedy "The Country Wife", a satire centered on the 17th-century culture of sexual relations, rakes, cuckoldry, and the hero's use of a rumor of his impotence to enable him to have sex with as many of the wives and daughters of upwardly mobile businessmen and entrepreneurs as he can. In 1979 she returned to Shakespeare when she appeared in the BBC Shakespeare production of "Measure for Measure", as the earthy, cheroot-smoking keeper of a bawdy house, Mistress Overdone. She had a major stage career, appearing regularly both in London and in the provincial theaters. In the heady days of the 1968, she appeared in one of the first English performances of '"Come and Go"', Samuel Beckett's one act 'dramaticule', in Beckett's coinage, put on at the Royal Festival Hall as part of "a gala entertainment concerning depravity and corruption" (the words coming from the nineteenth-century definition of obscenity), sponsored by The National Council for Civil Liberties and The Defense of Literature and the Arts Society, which raised funds to support publishers being prosecuted for obscenity. It was directed by Deryk Mendel, with Adrienne Corri appearing alongside Marie Kean and Billie Whitelaw in the roles of Flo, Vi, and Ru. The evening included both classical and rock music, and a mixed programme compèred by George Melly. In his entry for Clifford Anthony Smythe in the online Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, John Calder records that "The profit was much less than expected for a sold-out house, as the person who had volunteered to organize the souvenir programme spent too little time finding advertisers as against providing editorial content." Known for her feisty character, various stories are recounted, such as that when the audience booed on the first night of John Osborne's "The World of Paul Slickey", Corri responded with her own abuse: she raised two fingers to the audience and shouted "Go fuck yourselves". Note that Billington only repeats the story, without confirming or providing any evidence of its truth. During the making of "Moon Zero Two", she poured a glass of iced water inside James Olson's rubber space suit, in which uncomfortable state he was obliged to wear it for the remained of the day's shooting. She is the author of "The Search for Gainsborough", a book written in diary form, detailing her efforts to establish the provenance of a painting of David Garrick that she believes to be by a young Thomas Gainsborough. The painting, Self Portrait as a Boy c.1739 1739c, can be seen online at the Historical Portraits Image Library The book displays her wit and erudition, and her feisty character shines through the pages, as well as providing the reader with a fund of anecdotes regarding the actress herself. Her researches culminated in an article published in the Burlington magazine. Corri's researches and her article are discussed in 'Tom will be a genius - new landscapes by the young Thomas Gainsborough', the catalogue of an exhibition at Philip Mould Ltd, 4–28 July 2009, with text by Linsay Stainton and Bendor Grosvenor. Adrienne Corri's love of art is apparent throughout "The Search for Gainsborough" and in it she records with some elegance her reaction on visiting the National Gallery in 1978, on the day of a senseless attack on Poussin's 'Moses and the Children of Israel Worshiping the Golden Calf', "Everyone was in tears, even strong guards! It is one of the gallery's great treasures, one of the world's greatest pictures, or rather, was... The picture wasn't there. Nothing remained of it except a fringe of canvas around the edges. The rest lay on the ground in shreds or hunks, already curling at the edges: it was the most expensive jigsaw in the world... It was the most dreadful sight; so stupid. In one moment a maniac had reduced an exquisite piece of philosophy, beauty and geometry to chaos." She was acquainted with many of the leading figures in the British theatre, including Joe Orton, and he recounts in his diaries how he asked her advice on how best to end his relationship with his lover Kenneth Halliwell. She enjoyed a good relationship with Stanley Kubrick, who joked with her that in the surprise visit sequence in "A Clockwork Orange" -— where the two droogs, Alex and Dim, engage in a stylized display of libidinal excess, swinging her across the shoulders of Dim who marches gaily around the room, while Alex engages in a joyful rendition of "Singing in the Rain", skipping and dancing and swinging his cane until he approaches her, trousers around his ankles to commence the rape -— she was cast in "the Debbie Reynolds part". After finishing filming "A Clockwork Orange", she kept in touch with Stanley Kubrick, who complained to her about the problem he had of losing socks whenever he did the washing, so for Christmas she gave him a pair of bright red socks, a wry comment on his domestic concerns and simultaneously a humorous reference to her now famous scene in "A Clockwork Orange", where after Alex had finished snipping off her red pyjama suit, she was naked except for a pair of red socks. Corri has married and divorced twice, to the actors Daniel Massey (1961–1967) and Derek Fowlds. Daniel Massey's background could hardly have been more different from Adrienne Corri's. He had attended Eton and Kings College Cambridge, and had served as an officer in the Scot's Guards. The marriage proved to be somewhat tempestuous, with Massey describing the relationship in the following terms, "We were agonizingly incompatible but we had an extraordinary physical attraction."
385615	Robert George "Bob" Uecker ( ; born January 26, 1935) is a retired American Major League Baseball player, later a sportscaster, comedian and actor. Uecker was given the title of "Mr. Baseball" by TV talk show host Johnny Carson. Since 1971 Uecker has served as a play-by-play announcer for Milwaukee Brewers radio broadcasts. Playing career. Though he sometimes joked he was born on an oleo run to Illinois, Uecker was raised in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He grew up watching the minor-league Milwaukee Brewers at Borchert Field. He signed a professional contract with his hometown Milwaukee Braves in 1956 and made his major league debut as a catcher with the club in 1962. A mediocre hitter, he finished with a career batting average of .200. He was generally a sound defensive player and committed very few errors in his Major League career as a catcher, completing his career with a fielding percentage of .981. However, in 1967, despite playing only 59 games, he led the league with passed balls and is still on the top ten list for most passed balls in a season. At least a partial explanation is that he spent a good deal of the season catching knuckleballer Phil Niekro. He often joked that the best way to catch a knuckleball was to wait until it stopped rolling and pick it up. Uecker also played for the St. Louis Cardinals (and was a member of the 1964 World Champion club) and Philadelphia Phillies before returning to the Braves, who had by then moved to Atlanta. His six-year major league career concluded in 1967. Perhaps the biggest highlight of Uecker's career was when he hit a home run off of future Hall-of-Famer Sandy Koufax. Uecker himself has joked that he always thought that home run would keep Koufax from getting into the Hall of Fame. Broadcasting career. After retiring as a player, Uecker returned to Milwaukee. In 1971, he began calling play-by-play for the Milwaukee Brewers' radio broadcasts, a position he holds to this day. For several years he also served as a color commentator for network television broadcasts of Major League Baseball, helping call games for ABC in the 1970s and NBC in the 1990s. During that time, he was a commentator for several League Championship Series and World Series. Uecker teams with Joe Block to call games on WTMJ in Milwaukee and the Brewers Radio Network throughout Wisconsin. Uecker is well known for saying his catchphrase "Get up! Get up! Get outta here! Gone!" when a Brewers player hits a home run. Sports expertise outside of baseball. Uecker's sports expertise extends beyond baseball. He hosted two syndicated television shows, "Bob Uecker's Wacky World of Sports" and "Bob Uecker's War of the Stars". The former has since become known as "The Lighter Side of Sports" (albeit with a different host, Mike Golic) and remains one of the longest-running syndicated sports programs in American television history. Uecker also appeared in a series of commercials for the Milwaukee Admirals of the American Hockey League in the mid-1990s, including one in which he re-designed the team's uniforms to feature a garish plaid reminiscent of the loud sports coats synonymous with Uecker in the 1970s and 1980s. In February 2006, the Admirals commemorated those commercials with a special event in which the players wore the plaid jerseys during a game. The jerseys were then auctioned off to benefit charity. Wrestling announcer. In March 1987, Uecker appeared at World Wrestling Federation's (now known as WWE) WrestleMania III in Pontiac, Michigan, as the ring announcer for the pay-per-view's main event of Hulk Hogan versus André the Giant. He returned in 1988 at WrestleMania IV as both a ringside announcer and backstage interviewer. One famous WrestleMania segment saw André the Giant choking Uecker. His introduction of Andre from WrestleMania III can be heard in WWE's signature introduction during each of the organization's television broadcasts and home video releases. He was later inducted into the Celebrity Wing of the WWE Hall of Fame on March 27, 2010, by Dick Ebersol. Humor. Known for his humor, particularly about his undistinguished playing career, Uecker actually became much better known after he retired from playing. He made some 100 guest appearances on Johnny Carson's "Tonight Show", and appeared in a number of humorous commercials, most notably for Miller Lite beer, as one of the "Miller Lite All-Stars". Uecker published two books, an autobiography entitled "Catcher in the Wry", and "Catch 222". Health issues. On April 27, 2010, Uecker announced that he was going to miss 10–12 weeks of the 2010 baseball season because of heart surgery. His aortic valve and a portion of his aortic root were successfully replaced four days later, and he returned to broadcasting for the Brewers on July 23. On October 14, 2010, the Brewers announced Uecker would again undergo heart surgery, this time to repair a tear at the site of his valve replacement. Honors. The National Sportscasters and Sportswriters Association named Uecker as Wisconsin Sportscaster of the Year five times (1977, 1979, 1981, 1982, 1987), and inducted him into its Hall of Fame in 2011.
1065507	Jordana Brewster (; born April 26, 1980) is a Brazilian-American actress. She began her acting career in her late teens, with a 1995 one-episode role in the soap opera "All My Children". She followed that appearance with the recurring role as Nikki Munson in "As the World Turns", for which Brewster was nominated for Outstanding Teen Performer at the 1997 Soap Opera Digest Award. She was later cast as Delilah Profitt, one of the main characters in her first feature film, Robert Rodriguez's 1998 horror science fiction "The Faculty". She also landed a starring role in a 1999 NBC television miniseries entitled "The 60s". Her breakthrough role came in the 2001 action film "The Fast and the Furious". Other film credits include the 2004 action comedy film "D.E.B.S.", the 2005 independent drama "Nearing Grace" and the 2006 horror film "", for which she received two Teen Choice Award nominations. She had a recurring role in the NBC television series "Chuck" and starred in the 2009 film "Fast & Furious", the fourth installment of the "The Fast and the Furious" film series. After guest roles in several television shows such as "Dark Blue" and "Gigantic", she appeared in the fifth film in the franchise, 2011's "Fast Five". She stars as Elena Ramos in the television series "Dallas", and appeared in the 2013 film "Fast & Furious 6". Early life. Brewster was born in Panama City, Panama. Her mother, Maria João (née Leal de Sousa), is a former swimsuit model from Brazil who appeared on the 1978 cover of "Sports Illustrated", and her father, Alden Brewster, is an American investment banker. Her paternal grandfather, Kingman Brewster, Jr., was an educator, diplomat, and president of Yale University. Brewster left Panama when she was 2 months old, relocating to London, where she would spend 6 years, before moving to her mother's native city of Rio de Janeiro, where she learned to speak Portuguese fluently. She left Brazil at the age of 10, settling in Manhattan, New York, where she would live for the next 20 years. Brewster studied at the Convent of the Sacred Heart in New York and graduated from the Professional Children's School in Winnipeg. She then attended Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, graduating in 2004 with a B.A. in English. Career. Early career (1995–2000). Brewster made her debut in daytime soap operas, with a one-time appearance on "All My Children" as Anita Santos, followed by a recurring role on "As the World Turns" as Nikki Munson from 1995 to 2001. For her performance in the show, she was nominated for "Outstanding Teen Performer" at the 1997 Soap Opera Digest Awards. Her first film role was in Robert Rodriguez's 1998 horror science fiction film, "The Faculty". In the film, Brewster played the character of Delilah Profitt, a popular and vindictive girl who is the editor in chief of the student paper. The film received several favorable reviews and was a major success at the box office, grossing over $40 million domestically. Later, she was cast alongside Julia Stiles and Jerry O'Connell in a NBC television miniseries entitled "The 60's", in which she appeared as Sarah Weinstock, a college student and radical activist. The miniseries premiered on February 7, 1999, in the United States and was nominated for three Primetime Emmy Awards. Breakthrough (2001–2008). In 2001, she starred with Cameron Diaz and Christopher Eccleston in "The Invisible Circus", a drama feature based on Jennifer Egan's best-selling novel. The film was not well received by critics. Brewster had her breakthrough role when she starred opposite Vin Diesel and Paul Walker in the car-themed action film "The Fast and the Furious", which was a box office hit (with an over $207 million worldwide gross) and received critical acclaim. Todd McCarthy of "Variety.com" stated that Brewster "is looking good and doing a better job here than she did as a searching teen in the recent "The Invisible Circus"." In 2004, she played one of the main characters in the action comedy "D.E.B.S.", as Lucy Diamond, a lesbian criminal mastermind. She was cast in the 2005 independent teen drama film set in late 1970s, "Nearing Grace". The film is based on the novel by Scott Sommer. In 2006, Brewster co-starred in the drama film "Annapolis". The film is about a young man (played by James Franco) who dreams of one day attending the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland. That same year, she appeared in the horror film "", which was released theatrically in October. In the film, she had the starring role of Chrissie. "The Beginning" was not well received by critics, however, grossed over $51 million worldwide, becoming a modest hit. For her performance, Brewster was nominated for both "Choice Movie Actress: Horror" and "Choice Movie: Scream" at the 2007 Teen Choice Awards. Brewster appeared in "Win a Date with Tad Hamilton!", but her scenes were deleted. Brewster portrayed the role of Mrs. Smith, the role depicted in the film by Angelina Jolie, in "Mr. and Mrs. Smith", a spin-off pilot to the 2005 film of the same name which was made for the ABC network. However, ABC decided not to commission the series. She also joined the cast of the NBC television series "Chuck", as a recurring character, Jill Roberts, Chuck's ex-girlfriend from Stanford. She has appeared in four episodes of the show between 2008 and 2009. Recent work (2009–present). Brewster reprised the role of Mia Toretto in the fourth film of the "The Fast and the Furious" franchise, "Fast & Furious", which opened on April 3, 2009. The film had a big financial success, with an over $353 million worldwide gross. In an interview with AskMen.com, Brewster explained her character: "In the first one I’m more of a wallflower and it's much more of a girlfriend-type role, but in new movie I’m more of a woman. She’s far more tough. I deal with the repercussions of living in my brother’s world." In 2010, Brewster had multiple guest appearances in the television series "Dark Blue", in which she played Maria, an art gallery dealer who flirts with Dean. She also guest appeared in the "Gigantic" episodes "Pilot: Part 1" and "Pilot: Part 2". Brewster co-starred in the fifth film of the "The Fast and the Furious" franchise, "Fast Five". The film was released on April 29, 2011. The film told the story of Paul Walker and Vin Diesel's characters fighting against federal agents and a corrupt businessman. Filming of the movie began on June 28, 2010 in Rio de Janeiro and finished in October of that year. "Fast Five" opened to favorable reviews and has been a financial success, breaking box office records to become the highest grossing opening weekend in an April and the second highest opening weekend in Spring, earning $168 million. Since 2012, Brewster has starred as Elena Ramos on the TNT revival of the prime-time drama series "Dallas". In the media. In 2002, "Stuff" magazine named her the 96th hottest woman in their "102 Sexiest Women in the World". In 2005 "Maxim" magazine named her the 54th sexiest woman in the world in their annual Hot 100. In 2006, "Maxim" ranked her at No.59 on their Hot 100. In 2009, she ranked No.9 on "Maxim"'s Hot 100 and, to coincide with "Fast and Furious", a photographic spread of Brewster in a range of black lingerie in the May 2009 edition of "Maxim" ("Life in the Fast Lane") aroused much interest. The latter shoot followed a striking scene in "Chuck" (2008) in which, as Dr Roberts, she had stripped down to her black brassiere to seduce the title character (Zachary Levi). Brewster was placed 8th on afterellen.com's "100 Hottest Women" list in 2007, and placed 22nd in 2008. In 2011, Maxim Magazine placed Brewster at spot 11 in Maxims Hot 100. Personal life. She has a cat named Delilah, after her character in "The Faculty", as well as two Labradors, a yellow one named Ella and a white one named Henry. She currently lives in Los Angeles with her husband, film producer Andrew Form, whom she met on the set of "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning", in which Form worked as a producer. They announced their engagement on November 4, 2006. They married in a private ceremony in the Bahamas on May 6, 2007. On September 21, 2013, they welcomed their son Julian via surrogate. In an interview, she ranked "Gossip Girl", "The Office", and "House" as her favorite television shows.
1059688	Michael Badalucco (born December 20, 1954) is an American actor known for his role as lawyer Jimmy Berluti on the ABC legal drama "The Practice". He won the 1999 Emmy for Best Supporting Actor for his role on the show. Life and career. Badalucco, an Italian American, was born in Flatbush, Brooklyn, New York, the son of Jean, a homemaker, and Joe Badalucco, a set dresser, movie set carpenter and property person. His brother is Joseph Badalucco Jr., whose most notable role was Jimmy Altieri in the show "The Sopranos". He attended Xaverian High School in Brooklyn, graduating in 1972. He was the guest speaker at the 2005 commencement. He later attended SUNY New Paltz in New Paltz, New York. He is married to Brenda Heyob.
586801	Mohre is a 1987 Indian Hindi movie directed by Raghuvir Kul. The film starred Madhuri Dixit opposite Nana Patekar, an art cinema veteran. The pair later worked together in Vinod Chopra's "Parinda" and his own directorial debut, "". This film also starred Sadashiv Amrapurkar, Anupam Kher among others. Plot. Abdul is a truck driver with alcohol and depression problems so much so that he would like to end his life. One day another truck driver shows him a newspaper advertisement that offers help for suicide-ridden youth. Abdul decides to try them out and travels all the way to the countryside. Once there he is joined by four other youth, including a printing press proof-reader, Prakash Raikar; a young woman, Maya, who had been molested and hates men, as well as two other males, which include Sunil, who is gay. They meet with the person who placed the advertisement, a wheelchair-using former Indian Army Major Vishwas Sawant and his assistant, Vasu Mudaliar. Little do they know that they have been specially chosen to die by the duo, who are not who they claim to be but are actually escaped convicts by the names of Jagga and Badri.
1042614	Michael Gough ( ; 23 November 1916 – 17 March 2011) was an English character actor who made over 150 film and television appearances. He is perhaps best known to international audiences for his roles in the Hammer Horror Films from 1958, and for his recurring role as Alfred Pennyworth in all four movies of the Burton/Schumacher Batman franchise. Early life and career. Michael Gough was born in Kuala Lumpur, Malaya (now Malaysia), the son of British parents Frances Atkins (née Bailie) and Francis Berkeley Gough. Gough was educated at Rose Hill School, Tunbridge Wells, and at Durham School, he moved onto Wye Agricultural College which he left to go to the Old Vic. During World War II Gough was a conscientious objector, like his friend Frith Banbury, although he was obliged to serve in the Non-Combatant Corps and was a member of No. 6 Company, NCC, in Liverpool. Gough made his film debut in 1948 in "Blanche Fury", and thereafter appeared extensively on British television. In 1955, he portrayed one of the two murderers who kill the Duke of Clarence (John Gielgud) as well as the two little princes in Laurence Olivier's "Richard III". Gough became known for appearances in horror films including "Dracula" (1958), "Horrors of the Black Museum" (1959), "The Phantom of the Opera" (1962), "The Corpse" ("Velvet House", 1970) and Norman J. Warren's stockbroker-Satanism debut "Satan's Slave" (1976). He also appeared in the comedy film "Top Secret!" (1984), alongside with Val Kilmer (the latter's first feature film), with whom he would also work later in the Batman franchise. Gough guest-starred on the long-running British science fiction television series "Doctor Who", as the villain in the serial "The Celestial Toymaker" (1966) and also as Councillor Hedin in "Arc of Infinity" (1983). He also played the automation-obsessed, wheelchair-bound Dr. Armstrong in "The Cybernauts", one of the best remembered episodes of "The Avengers" (1965), returning the following season as the Russian spymaster Nutski in "The Correct Way to Kill". He was introduced in the first season episode "Maximum Security" of "Colditz" as Major "Willi" Schaeffer, the alcoholic second-in-command of the Kommandant (Bernard Hepton). In the Ian Curteis television play "Suez 1956" (1979) he played Prime Minister Anthony Eden. He also appeared in "The Citadel" (1983) as Sir Jenner Halliday, in 1985's "Out of Africa" as Lord Delamere and as the fictional deposed KGB spymaster, Andrei Zorin, in the 1991 BBC three part series, "Sleepers". Later roles. His later roles included Alfred Pennyworth for director Tim Burton, including "Batman" (1989) and "Batman Returns" (1992). He also reprised his role as Alfred in the 1994 BBC radio adaptation of "" and in "Batman Forever" (1995) and "Batman & Robin" (1997) for director Joel Schumacher. Gough was one of two actors to have appeared in the four Batman films in the Burton/Schumacher series; the other actor was Pat Hingle (as Commissioner Gordon). Gough worked for Burton again in 1999's "Sleepy Hollow" and 2005's "Corpse Bride". He also briefly reprised his Alfred role in six 2001 television commercials for the OnStar automobile tracking system, informing Batman of the system's installation in the Batmobile. As a favour to Burton, Gough came out of retirement once more to appear in Burton's "Alice in Wonderland". Awards and nominations. He won Broadway's 1979 Tony Award as Best Actor (Featured Role – Play) for "Bedroom Farce". He was also nominated in the same category in 1988 for "Breaking the Code". He won a BAFTA TV Award in 1957 and was nominated for a BAFTA Film Award in 1972 for his work in "The Go-Between". He was nominated for a Drama Desk Award Outstanding Featured Actor in a Play in 1979 for "Bedroom Farce" and again in 1988 for "Breaking the Code". Personal life. Gough was married four times—one of his ex-wives is Anne Elizabeth Leon (born 1925). They married in 1950, their daughter Emma Frances was born in 1953 and they divorced in 1964. Another ex-wife is "Doctor Who" actress Anneke Wills, who played the Doctor's companion Polly. Wills had encountered him at various times during her life—firstly during a theatre trip with her mother in 1952—but they first met formally, on the set of "Candidate for Murder" and the attraction was instant. Gough adopted Wills's daughter Polly, and in 1965 their son Jasper was born. Gough was close friends with actor Alan Napier, who played Alfred Pennyworth in the 1966 TV series. Actress Rachel Gurney was the mother of Gough's daughter-in-law, Sharon Gurney. Death. Michael Gough died on 17 March 2011, in London, after a short illness. He was soon cremated and a memorial service was held. Later his ashes were scattered into the English Channel. He was survived by his fourth wife, Henrietta, daughter Emma and sons Simon (who is married to actress Sharon Gurney, the daughter of the Upstairs, Downstairs actress Rachel Gurney) and Jasper. Michael Keaton, his co-star in the first two Batman films, said that Gough was sweet and charming, and wrote, "To Mick – my butler, my confidant, my friend, my Alfred. I love you. God bless. Michael (Mr Wayne) Keaton." Gough was added in "In Memoriam" at the 18th Screen Actors Guild Awards.
582709	Saajan Chale Sasural is a 1996 Bollywood comedy film starring Govinda, Karisma Kapoor, Tabu, Kader Khan and Satish Kaushik. The film was directed by David Dhawan. It is based on the 1994 Rajinikanth starrer Veera, which itself is a remake of the Mohan Babu starrer 1992 Telugu film "Allari Mogudu". a French dubbing parody of this movie called "New Délire" was released in 2007. Plot. Shyamsunder (Govinda) is a naive villager who has a great interest in music. He travels to the city, making friends with Muthuswami (Satish Kaushik), a South Indian tabla player. The president of the TIPS cassette company, Khurana (Kader Khan), is impressed with his musical abilities and promotes him to a high position. As he goes back to repay his debts in the village he receives tragic news of the death of his wife Pooja (Karisma Kapoor) has died in a flood. He then marries Khurana's daughter Divya (Tabu). When Khurana has a heart attack, he finds his "presumed dead" wife Pooja in the hospital. He then has to fool his two wives, even if it includes leading a double life to make sure Pooja and Divya don't discover he has married both of them.
1040356	Early life. She was spotted by a casting director aged nine whilst at Bush Davies Ballet School, and starred in the 1980 dramatisation of the H. G. Wells novel "The History of Mr. Polly". In 1981 she portrayed the young Elspeth Huxley in the television adaptation of the latter's autobiographical book "The Flame Trees of Thika". Career. In 1982 she starred as the young Beatrix Potter in "The Tale of Beatrix Potter". She was seen in "Happy Valley" in 1987 with Denholm Elliott in which she played a schoolgirl in Kenya in the 1930s. As well as small parts in various television series, Aird became known for playing Nancy Thorpe/Garvey in "Soldier Soldier". In 2000, she starred as Frankie Wharton in "Waking the Dead". Aird has recently done voiceover for various BBC natural history projects (including "Wild Mallorca"), as well as various TV advertisements. In (2007), she played a clinical psychologist, in Channel 4’s drama, 'Secret Life', about a paedophile, and in 2009 took a leading role in Talkback Thames's "Monday Monday". Family. Aird has two children, Joseph with her first husband James Purefoy, and Nelly with second husband Toby Merritt who is a freelance photographer.
1062746	Alan Sidney Patrick Rickman (born 21 February 1946) is an English actor. He is a renowned stage actor in modern and classical productions, and a former member of the Royal Shakespeare Company. His breakout performance was as the Vicomte de Valmont in "Les Liaisons Dangereuses", for which he was nominated for a Tony Award. Rickman is well known for his film performances as Hans Gruber in "Die Hard", Sheriff of Nottingham in "" (for which he won the BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role in 1991), Severus Snape in the "Harry Potter" film series, Éamon de Valera in "Michael Collins", Metatron in "Dogma", and Ronald Reagan in "The Butler". Rickman has also had a number of other notable film roles such as Jamie in "Truly, Madly, Deeply", P.L. O'Hara in "An Awfully Big Adventure" and Colonel Brandon in Ang Lee's 1995 film "Sense and Sensibility". More recently, he played Judge Turpin in the film adaptation of Stephen Sondheim's musical of '. In 1995, he was awarded the Golden Globe, Emmy Award and Screen Actors Guild Award for his portrayal of Rasputin in '. He has been named one of the best actors to have never received an Academy Award nomination in 2010. As of 2013, Rickman has won a BAFTA Award, a Golden Globe Award, an Emmy Award and a Screen Actors Guild Award. He has been nominated twice for a Tony Award and several times for a BAFTA Award. Early life. Rickman was born in South Hammersmith, London, England, United Kingdom, to a working class family, the son of Margaret Doreen Rose (née Bartlett), a housewife, and Bernard Rickman, a factory worker. His ancestry is English, Irish, and Welsh; his father was Catholic and his mother was a Methodist. He has one elder brother, David (b. 1944), a graphic designer, a younger brother, Michael (b. 1947), a tennis coach, and a younger sister, Sheila (b. 1949). Rickman attended Derwentwater Primary School, in Acton, a school that followed the Montessori method of education. When he was eight, his father died, leaving his mother to bring up four children mostly alone. She married again, but divorced his stepfather after three years. "There was one love in her life," Rickman later said. Rickman excelled at calligraphy and watercolour painting, and from Derwentwater Junior School he won a scholarship to Latymer Upper School in London, where he started getting involved in drama. After leaving Latymer, Rickman attended Chelsea College of Art and Design and then the Royal College of Art. This education allowed him to work as a graphic designer for the radical newspaper the "Notting Hill Herald", which he considered a more stable occupation than acting. "Drama school wasn't considered the sensible thing to do at 18," he said. After graduation, Rickman and several friends opened a graphic design studio called Graphiti, but after three years of successful business, he decided that if he were to ever explore acting professionally, it was now or never. This led him to write a letter to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) requesting an audition and was awarded a place in RADA which he attended from 1972–74. While there, he studied Shakespeare's works and supported himself by working as a dresser for Nigel Hawthorne and Sir Ralph Richardson, and left after winning several prizes, including the Emile Littler Prize, the Forbes Robertson Prize, and the Bancroft Gold Medal. Career. After graduating from RADA, Rickman worked extensively with various British repertory and experimental theatre groups on productions including "The Seagull" and Snoo Wilson's "The Grass Widow" at the Royal Court Theatre, and has appeared three times at the Edinburgh International Festival. In 1978, he played with the Court Drama Group, performing in several plays, most notably "Romeo and Juliet" and "A View from the Bridge". While working with the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) he starred in, among other things, "As You Like It". In 1982, British television audiences came to know Alan Rickman as the Reverend Obadiah Slope in the BBC's adaptation of "Barchester Towers" known as "The Barchester Chronicles". In 1985, he was given the male lead, the Vicomte de Valmont, in the Royal Shakespeare Company's production of Christopher Hampton's "Les Liaisons Dangereuses", directed by Howard Davies. When the show went to Broadway in 1987, Rickman earned both a Tony Award nomination and a Drama Desk Award nomination for his performance. In 1992, he was the "master of ceremonies" on Mike Oldfield's album "Tubular Bells II" where he read off a list of instruments on the album. His career has been filled with a wide variety of roles. He has played romantic leads like Colonel Brandon in "Sense and Sensibility", and Jamie in "Truly, Madly, Deeply"; numerous villains in Hollywood big budget films, like German terrorist Hans Gruber in "Die Hard" (1988) and the Sheriff of Nottingham in "" (1991); the very occasional television role such as the infamous "mad monk" Rasputin in an HBO biopic (1996), and most recently the ambiguous character of Severus Snape, the potions master in the "Harry Potter" series (2001–2011). His role in "Die Hard" earned him a spot on the AFI's 100 years...100 Heroes & Villains as the 46th best villain in film history. His performance as the Sheriff of Nottingham in "" also made him known as one of the best actors to portray a villain in films. He has taken issue with being typecast as a "villain actor", citing the fact that he has not portrayed a stock villain character since the Sheriff of Nottingham in 1991. During his long career Rickman has also played a number of comedic roles, sending up classically trained British actors who take on "lesser roles" as the character Sir Alexander Dane/Dr. Lazarus in the science fiction spoof "Galaxy Quest", portraying the angel Metatron, the voice of God, in "Dogma", appearing as Emma Thompson's foolish husband Harry in "Love Actually", providing the voice of Marvin the Paranoid Android in "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy", and the egotistical, Nobel Prize-winning father in "Nobel Son". Rickman has also received acclaim for two biographical pieces he did for HBO. He won a Golden Globe and an Emmy for his performance as ' in 1996, and was also nominated for an Emmy for his work as Dr. Alfred Blalock in 2004's "Something the Lord Made". He also starred in the independent film "Snow Cake" (with Sigourney Weaver and Carrie-Anne Moss) which had its debut at the Berlinale, and also ' (with Dustin Hoffman), directed by Tom Tykwer. In 2007, Rickman appeared in the critically acclaimed "" directed by Tim Burton, alongside "Harry Potter" co-stars Helena Bonham Carter and Timothy Spall; he played antagonist Judge Turpin. Rickman also appeared as Absolem the Caterpillar in Burton's 2010 film "Alice in Wonderland". In 2000, Rickman appeared in "Victoria Wood with All The Trimmings", a Christmas special by Victoria Wood, playing an aged colonel in the battle of Waterloo who is forced to break off his engagement to Honeysuckle Weeks' character. "Harry Potter" co-star Imelda Staunton also appeared in the special. He has performed onstage in Noël Coward's romantic comedy "Private Lives", which transferred to Broadway after its successful run in London at the Albery Theatre and ended in September 2002; he reunited with his "Les Liaisons Dangereuses" co-star Lindsay Duncan and director Howard Davies in the Tony Award-winning production. His previous stage performance was as Mark Antony, opposite Dame Helen Mirren as Cleopatra, in the Royal National Theatre's production of "Antony and Cleopatra" at the Olivier Theatre in London, which ran from 20 October to 3 December 1998. Rickman had also directed "The Winter Guest" at London's Almeida Theatre in 1995 and the film version of the same play in 1996 starring Emma Thompson and her real life mother Phyllida Law. He also compiled (with Katharine Viner) and directed the play "My Name Is Rachel Corrie" in April 2005 at the Royal Court Theatre, London, and won the Theatre Goers' Choice Awards for Best Director. In 2009, Rickman was awarded the James Joyce Award by University College Dublin’s Literary and Historical Society. In October and November 2010, Rickman starred in the eponymous role in Henrik Ibsen's "John Gabriel Borkman" at the Abbey Theatre, Dublin alongside Lindsay Duncan and Fiona Shaw. The "Irish Independent" called Rickman's performance breathtaking. This production subsequently travelled to the Brooklyn Academy of Music for performances in January and February 2011. In 2011, Rickman again appeared as Severus Snape in the final installment in the "Harry Potter" series, "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2". Throughout the series, his portrayal of Snape garnered widespread critical acclaim. Kenneth Turan of "The Los Angeles Times" said Rickman "as always, makes the most lasting impression," while Peter Travers of "Rolling Stone" called Rickman "sublime at giving us a glimpse at last into the secret nurturing heart that [...] Snape masks with a sneer." Media coverage characterized Rickman's performance as worthy of an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor nomination. He earned his first award nominations for his role as Snape at the 2011 Alliance of Women Film Journalists Awards, 2011 Saturn Awards, 2011 Scream Awards and 2011 St. Louis Gateway Film Critics Association Awards in the Best Supporting Actor category. On 21 November 2011, Rickman opened in "Seminar", a new play by Theresa Rebeck, at the John Golden Theatre on Broadway. Rickman, who left the production on 1 April, won the Broadway.com Audience Choice Award for Favorite Actor in a Play and was nominated for a Drama League Award. Rickman is to star with Colin Firth and Cameron Diaz in a remake of 1966's "Gambit" by the Coen brothers. In 2013, he will be playing Hilly Kristal, the founder of the famous East Village punk-rock club CBGB, in the "CBGB" film with Rupert Grint. In the media. Rickman was chosen by "Empire" as one of the 100 Sexiest Stars in film history (No 34) in 1995 and ranked No 59 in "Empire"'s "The Top 100 Movie Stars of All Time" list in October 1997. In 2009 and 2010 Rickman ranked once again as one of the 100 Sexiest Stars by "Empire", both times Rickman was placed 8th out of the 50 actors chosen. Rickman became Vice-Chairman of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) in 2003. He was voted No 19 in "Empire" magazine's Greatest Living Movie Stars over the age of 50 and was twice nominated for Broadway's Tony Award as Best Actor (Play): in 1987 for "Les Liaisons Dangereuses", and in 2002 for a revival of Noël Coward's "Private Lives". "The Guardian" named Rickman as an "honourable mention" in a list of the best actors never to have received an Academy Award nomination. Two researchers, a linguist and a sound engineer, found "the perfect voice" to be a combination of Rickman's and Jeremy Irons's voices based on a sample of 50 voices. Coincidentally, the two actors played brothers in the "Die Hard" series of films. Rickman has also been featured in several musical works – most notably in a song composed by the English songwriter Adam Leonard entitled "Not Alan Rickman". Moreover, the actor played a "Master of Ceremonies" part in announcing the various instruments in Mike Oldfield's "Tubular Bells II" on the track "The Bell". Rickman was one of the many artists who recited Shakespearian sonnets on the 2002 album" When Love Speaks", and is also featured prominently in a music video by the band Texas entitled "In Demand", which premiered on Europe MTV in August 2000. In the video, lead singer Sharleen Spiteri danced the tango with Rickman: the clip was nominated for Best British Video at the Brit Awards. Personal life. In 1965, at the age of 19, Rickman met his girlfriend Rima Horton, a Labour party councillor on Kensington and Chelsea London Borough Council 1986–2006. They began living together since 1977.
1265438	Francis Xavier Bushman (January 10, 1883 – August 23, 1966) was an American actor, film director, and screenwriter. His matinee idol career started in 1911 in the silent film "His Friend's Wife," but it did not survive the silent screen era. Bushman, like many of his contemporaries, moved into the films from the stage. He was performing at Broncho Billy Anderson's Essanay Studios in Chicago, Illinois, when he was noticed for his muscular, sculpted torso. Bushman appeared in nearly 200 feature film roles—more than 175 films before 1920, and 17 in his screen debut year of 1911 alone. He also worked for the Vitagraph studio before signing with Metro in 1915. Early life. Bushman was born in Baltimore, Maryland. As a young man, he joined the Maryland Athletic Club and began the body building that developed his muscular physique. He cited Eugen Sandow as one of his influences. He worked as a sculptor's model in New York City, often posing in the nude for the classes.
1162619	Robert Walden (born Robert Wolkowitz; September 25, 1943) is an American television and motion picture actor. He is best known for his role as Joe Rossi on "Lou Grant", for which he was nominated for an Emmy three times, and his role as Joe Waters on "Brothers". He is also well known for starring in the films "Blue Sunshine", "The Hospital", "All the President's Men", and "Capricorn One". As of 2011, he is a series regular on "Happily Divorced". Life and career. Walden was born in New York City, New York, the son of Hilda (née Winokur) and Max Wolkowitz. His nephew is director Howard Deutch (who is the son of his sister) and his grand-niece is actress Zoey Deutch. Walden's career began in 1970, in "Bloody Mama" for Roger Corman. After that, and for the first several years of his career, he often played young doctors, such as in the television series "The New Doctors" (one of the rotating elements of NBC's "The Bold Ones") as Dr. Cohen, after the departure of John Saxon prior to the final season, and notably in films "Blue Sunshine" and Paddy Chayefsky's "The Hospital". His breakthrough role was in the television series "Lou Grant", on which he played journalist Joe Rossi. He was a cast member on "Lou Grant" during its entire run (1977–1982), and received three Emmy Award nominations (in 1979, 1980 and 1981) for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series for the role. Walden has played several historical characters, including Donald Segretti in the 1976 film "All the President's Men", and J. Robert Oppenheimer in the 1980 TV movie "". From 1984 until 1989, he starred in the groundbreaking Showtime sitcom "Brothers" as the middle of three brothers, the owner of a bar/restaurant who was a retired NFL placekicker. His youngest brother, played by Paul Regina, was gay and the series dealt with issues regarding homosexuality. Walden also made a cameo appearance as a sound engineer in the 1994 film "Radioland Murders". In 2011, Walden made a return to series television in the TV Land sitcom "Happily Divorced", which premiered on June 15th of that year. Walden plays the father of the lead character, played by series creator and writer Fran Drescher, and Rita Moreno appears as his wife. As on his previous series "Brothers", "Happily Divorced" is also predominantly gay-themed, as the plot is based on Drescher's divorce from series co-creator Peter Marc Jacobson, who later revealed he was gay and remained friends with Drescher. Other work. He was a member of the Doo Wop group "Bobby & The Chord-A-Roys" in 1960. Walden is a distinguished teacher of acting at the The New School for Drama, division of the New York City university The New School. In August, 2006 he appeared in the Herbert Bergoff Playwrights Foundation production of Arthur Miller's "'The American Clock'" under the direction of Austin Pendleton. Walden also appeared in the movie "Capricorn One" (1978) as Elliot Whitter.
583701	Pavithra (1994) () is a Tamil film directed by K. Subhash under his home banner, Dhanooja Films. The film features Raadhika in the lead role with Nassar and Ajith Kumar in supporting roles. The film's music was by A. R. Rahman and lyrics by Vairamuthu. The film opened on November 5, 1994, and received critical acclaim. Plot. The film is about a quasi-mother-son relationship between Radhika and Ajith. Ajith is a patient suffering from Cancer and Radhika is a nurse in the hospital where Ajith is being treated. Since Ajith's age is same as her child,which was still born and died and she is childless, Radhika showers maternal affection on Ajith, which Radhika's husband mistakes as something else because of a villain doctor who is a rouge . Confusion ensues and Radhika misunderstands Ajith and the climax is how all confusions are laid to rest, along with the hero! Production. The title denotes Sanskrit for purity. Ajith Kumar revealed in an interview that his crticially acclaimed role of the film changed his life to an extent and made him take films seriously as a career. Ajith Kumar's character was dubbed for by Shekhar, in his second venture. Release. Upon the release, the film won positive reviews for its different attempt. The film went on to win two National Film Awards; the National Film Award for Best Male Playback Singer for Unnikrishnan and the National Film Award for Best Lyrics for Vairamuthu. Furthermore the film won third prize in the Tamil Nadu State Film Award for Best Film winners list.
1063408	The Cardinal is a 1963 American drama film which was produced independently and directed by Otto Preminger, and distributed by Columbia Pictures. The screenplay was written by Robert Dozier, based on the novel of the same name (1950) by Henry Morton Robinson. Its cast featured Tom Tryon, Romy Schneider and John Huston, and it was nominated for six Academy Awards. The film was shot on location in Boston, in Bridgeport, Connecticut, and in Rome and Vienna. The music score was written by Jerome Moross. "The Cardinal" featured the final appearance by veteran film star Dorothy Gish as well as the last big-screen performance of Maggie McNamara. Robinson's novel was based on the life of Cardinal Francis Spellman, who was then Archbishop of New York. The Vatican's liaison officer for the film was Joseph Ratzinger, later to become Pope Benedict XVI. Plot. The life of a fictional Irish Catholic priest, Stephen Fermoyle (played by Tom Tryon), is portrayed from his ordination in 1917 to his appointment as a cardinal on the eve of World War II. Fermoyle goes through one crisis after another, first in his own family and then as he climbs up the ladder of the church hierarchy, beginning with his Boston parish and later in Rome within the Vatican. The film touches on various social issues such as interfaith marriage, sex outside of marriage, abortion, racial bigotry, the rise of fascism, and war. Reception. Box office performance. "The Cardinal" was the 18th highest grossing film of the year. It grossed $11,170,588 in the United States, earning $5.46 million in domestic rentals. Awards. The film won the Golden Globe for Best Motion Picture Drama, marking the last time () a film won that category without later being nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture. Preminger was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Director; John Huston was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor and won the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor – Motion Picture. Huston's role as Cardinal Glennon was his official debut as an actor although he had previously played bit roles in several films including his own "The Treasure of the Sierra Madre" (1948). Other Academy Awards nominations were for Best Cinematography (Leon Shamroy), Best Art Direction (Lyle R. Wheeler and set decorator Gene Callahan), Best Costume Design (Donald Brooks), and Best Film Editing (Louis R. Loeffler).
592194	Diganth Manchale, mononymously known as Diganth, is an Indian film actor and a former model. His works are primarily seen in Kannada cinema. Diganth made his acting debut in "Miss California" in 2006. He is perhaps best known for his performance as "Doodhpeda", in "Gaalipata" (2008). His performances for the films such as "Pancharangi" (2010), "Lifeu Ishtene" (2011) and "Parijatha" (2012) earned him much fame and pushed him to be among the top league actors of Kannada cinema. Personal life. Diganth Manchale was born in Sagara, Karnataka. He completed his schooling in Seva Bharathi and pre-university in Tunga Mahavidyalaya, Thirthahalli. Mr. Krishnamurthy, a professor, and Mallika Krishnamurthy are his father and mother. Diganth has an elder brother. He has completed his Bachelor's Degree in Commerce and was into modelling and later joined the Kannada film industry in 2006. Career. His career resurrected post 2010 with successful projects such as "Manasaare", "Pancharangi", "Lifeu Ishtene" and "Parijatha". All these films brought him much popularity and stardom. He went on to sign in as a lead actor in director Indrajith Lankeshs "Dev Son of Mudde Gowda" in 2012 which evoked mixed reactions.
1032384	Parting Shots is a 1999 film starring Chris Rea, Felicity Kendal, John Cleese, Bob Hoskins, Diana Rigg, Oliver Reed, Ben Kingsley, Joanna Lumley, and Peter Davison. It was the last film directed by Michael Winner. The film concerns a man (Rea) who is mistakenly told by his doctor that he has six weeks to live and begins to kill people who have wronged him in his life, only to find that the diagnosis was incorrect. Also he paid an assassin to kill him instead of living out his last days in custody and nearly leaves it too late to call off the hit. The assassin takes after the two and after being arrested for assassinating an official of a fictional country he takes the blame for all of the murders that occurred during the film. It ends with Rea and Kendal visiting the assassin in prison as newlyweds. Reception. "Parting Shots" was not well received by critics with "Total Film"s review describing Winner's work as "offensive", "incompetent" and "bad in every possible way". "Empire" magazine named it the 42nd worst movie of all time.
1057087	Six-String Samurai is a 1998 post-apocalyptic action/comedy film directed by Lance Mungia. Brian Tyler composed the score for this film along with the Red Elvises, the latter providing the majority of the soundtrack. "Six-String Samurai" was greeted with a great deal of excitement when shown at Slamdance in 1998, winning the Slamdance awards for best editing and cinematography, and gathering extremely favorable reviews from influential alternative, cult and indie film publications such as "Fangoria", "Film Threat" and Ain't It Cool News. It is billed as a "post-apocalyptic musical satire". In a limited theatrical release the film ran for several months in a few theaters, gaining a reputation as a minor cult film; having a budget of $2,000,000, it only made a mere $124,494 at the box offices. An intended trilogy has been discussed but not yet realized, just like the predicted launching of the career of the film's star, Jeffrey Falcon, a martial artist who had appeared in several Hong Kong action movies in the 1980s and early 1990s. While Mungia made several music videos, he did not direct another feature until the 2005 film "". Plot. "Six-String Samurai" is set in an alternate history America, in which Soviet Union attacked the U.S. with nuclear weapons in 1957, making most of the country an inhospitable desert. The government has entirely collapsed, except for the Kingdom of Elvis, who rules from "Lost Vegas" to California. The Red Army has been besieging Vegas, but the lack of supplies ("We haven't had bullets since 1957," comments a Russian general) from the Soviet Union has caused them to degenerate into just another gang. As the movie begins, Elvis has died and a radio disc jockey Keith Mortimer announces a call for all musicians to come to Lost Vegas to try to become the new King of Rock'n'Roll. Buddy, implied to be the rock 'n roll legend Buddy Holly (Due to his physical similarities and musical ability), is one of the musicians converging on Lost Vegas. Early on, he finds himself having to take care of a kid named "Kid" (Justin McGuire). While Buddy resents having to look after the Kid, the Kid turns out to be a good ally. Buddy runs into a lot of different groups, including a zombie-like, cannibalistic suburban family, 'windmill people' who are dressed like astronauts and filthy tribals that make up most of the population. He also combats many foes, including a samurai, a bowling team of bounty-hunters, a Russian surf band (played by the Red Elvises), and the Russian army. Throughout his journey, Buddy is stalked by his greatest foe: a sinister Slash look-alike who is the personification of the Grim Reaper, and his grungy group of guitarists/archers; Death's goal is to eliminate all the King-wannabes and the conquest of Vegas. Opening sequence distortion. The opening sequence has an intentionally distorted visual effect. The de-anamorphic visuals are a subtle "tribute" to the Chinese martial arts films (notably the films by Shaw Brothers) that often had their wide-screen opening sequences compressed to the format of TV screens for VHS release. Thematic elements. Throughout the film there are homages to many major musical movements in the United States. Buddy, the main character, is a symbol of the birth of rock 'n' roll. He shares the same clothing style of Buddy Holly, especially his horn-rimmed glasses. During the film "Death", who resembles Slash from Guns N' Roses, kills a character representing Jerry Lee Lewis. Death also dispatches a mariachi band and another musician dressed country western style. His minions also torment a traveller dressed in hip hop fashion. Buddy also has a duel with a musician (wielding a ukulele) resembling Richie Valens, who died in the same 1959 plane crash as the original Buddy Holly. Death also kills rock music, through the death of Buddy. However, the last scene shows the child donning Buddy's clothing. Suggesting that though rock‘n roll is dead, there is still hope for the future. The film also has references to "the Wizard of Oz", loosely imitating the 1939 movie. A little person instructs Buddy to "follow the yellow brick road". Lost Vegas, seen from the distance, looks like the Emerald City. Death is obsessed with a specific object, Buddy's guitar pick, much like the Wicked Witch trying to get Dorothy's red slippers. Finally, Death is killed when sprayed with water, as was the Wicked Witch. When Buddy dies, his body disappears, leaving only his clothes for the kid to take, again like the Wicked Witch. "Six String Samurai" comic. In September, 1998, a single "Six String Samurai" comic was released from Rob Liefeld's Awesome Entertainment. Written by Matt Hawkins and Rob Liefeld, it featured art by 'Awesome' artists Dan Fraga and John Stinsman. A continuation rather than an adaptation, the plot summary from the comic is as follows: Soundtrack. "Six-String Samurai: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack" is the original soundtrack to the film; the soundtrack was released by Rykodisc on August 25, 1998. (*) indicates original score by Brian Tyler
589561	Avtaar is a 1983 movie starring Rajesh Khanna and Shabana Azmi. It was directed by Mohan Kumar, and the music was by Laxmikant Pyarelal. Rajesh Khanna did achieve success from Amardeep and Prem Bandhan onwards but this was Rajesh Khanna's biggest hit film in terms of box office collections after his bad phase from 1976-1978. Avtaar was a commercial hit, and was critically acclaimed. It also earned several Filmfare nominations. However Rajesh Khanna missed the Best Actor award to Naseeruddin Shah for Masoom. In 1986 Mohan Kumar made Amrit with Rajesh Khanna with similar story. The film was later remade into the Telugu film "O Thandri Teerpu" (1985) starring Murali Mohan and Jayasudha. The film was again remade in Hindi as Baghban in 2003 starring Amitabh Bachchan and Hema Malini. Plot. The film starts with a mourning being held at Avtaar Industries. Radha Kishen (Shabana Azmi) garlands her husband Avtaar Kishen's (Rajesh Khanna) bust. The story starts from a flashback. Radha is the only daughter of Seth Jugal Kishore (Madan Puri). Radha is in love with Avtaar, a poor boy. Jugal Kishore resents Radha's love. Hence, the duo elope and get married. Avtaar and Radha face various hardships in life, but ultimately succeed. After 3 decades, Avtaar is owner of a small garage and a small fortune. He has two sons, Chander (Gulshan Grover) and Ramesh (Shashi Puri). Chander is married to Renu (Rajni Sharma), while Ramesh is married to Shobha (Priti Sapru). Avtaar also has a servant named Sewak (Sachin). Like Avtaar, his sons have also married rich girls, daughters of Seth Laxmi Narayan (Pinchoo Kapoor). But, they are totally henpecked. When Avtaar discovers this, he leaves his home. Radha and Sewak also follow him. With help of a moneylender Bawaji (Sujit Kumar), Avtaar starts his own garage. Avtaar faces an uphill task, since he has no money to buy equipment, is aged and his right hand is paralysed in a freak accident. Sewak helps his master by illegally donating blood to arrange for money, but when Avtaar thinks that Sewak resorted to robbery, Bawaji tells the truth. Moved, Radha and Avtaar regard him as their own son. Meanwhile, both Ramesh and Chander are enjoying their own life. Avtaar's luck changes again when the engine he is working on gives a successful result. Soon, Avtaar starts manufacturing the engine parts. This gives way to an industrial empire headed by Avtaar, Radha and Sewak. To help other old people like him who were spurned by their own families, Avtaar starts some social institutions. Avtaar's success takes a toll on Laxmi Narayan's business and he holds Chander responsible. Meanwhile Ramesh commits fraud with the bank and is arrested. Shobha come to Avtaar for help, but he rebukes her and sends her away. Radha gets angry over this, but keeps silent. Avtaar secretly gives Bawaji the bail money on the condition that he tells no one the truth. Bawaji bails both Ramesh. Meanwhile holding Chandar responsible for the loss in business, Laxmi Narayan throws him out of the house. Ramesh, Chandar and Shobha go to Radha for help. Although Avataar is not willing to help them. Next day, Avtaar goes to office and does not return. Radha calls him many times and finally reaches office late night. She tries to convince him that she is a mother too. But he doesn't listen to all that. Deep in emotions, Radha accuses him of having turned heartless. Same day, Bawaji meets Radha, whereupon Radha tells him the whole story. Bawaji has to tell the truth to her as he cannot bear Avtaar being insulted despite his big heart. On learning the truth, Radha realizes her mistake and tries to call Avtaar. Sewak informs her that Avataar had a heart attack. Everybody goes to Hospital, where Avataar had already written his will and hands it to Radha and dies. The story comes to the present, where Radha garlands Avtaar's bust and the film ends.
1062833	Three Days of the Condor is a 1975 American political thriller film directed by Sydney Pollack and starring Robert Redford, Faye Dunaway, Cliff Robertson, and Max von Sydow. The screenplay by Lorenzo Semple Jr. and David Rayfiel was adapted from the 1974 novel "Six Days of the Condor" by James Grady. Set mainly in New York City and Washington, D.C., the film is about a bookish CIA researcher who comes back from lunch and discovers all his co-workers dead, and must outwit those responsible until he figures out whom he can really trust. The film addresses the perceived moral ambiguity of the actions of elements within the United States government during the early 1970s. The film received an Academy Award nomination for Best Film Editing. Semple and Rayfiel received an Edgar Award from the Mystery Writers of America for Best Motion Picture Screenplay. Plot. Joe Turner (Robert Redford) is a CIA employee (Condor is his code name) who works in a clandestine office in New York City. He reads books, newspapers, and magazines from around the world, looking for hidden meanings and new ideas. As part of his duties, Turner files a report to CIA headquarters on a low-quality thriller novel his office has been reading, pointing out strange plot elements therein, and the unusual assortment of languages into which the book has been translated. On the day in which Turner expects a response to his report, a group of armed men, led by an Alsatian assassin later identified as Joubert (Max von Sydow), murders the six people in the office. Turner escapes death because at the moment of the incursion, he was out of the office getting lunch. Realizing he is in danger when he returns to the office and discovers his coworkers' bodies, Turner calls the CIA's New York headquarters, and is given instructions to meet some agents who will take care of him. The meeting, however, is a trap, and Turner escapes an attempt to kill him. Needing a place to hide, Turner forces a woman, Kathy Hale (Faye Dunaway), whom he sees randomly in a ski shop, to take him to her apartment in Brooklyn Heights. He holds her prisoner while he attempts to figure out what's going on. However, his hiding place is discovered. A hitman, disguised as a postman with a parcel that must be signed for, shows up at the apartment. Turner opens the door and a fight ensues. Turner kills the hitman. Realizing that he cannot trust anyone within the CIA, Turner begins to play a cat-and-mouse game with Higgins (Cliff Robertson), deputy director of the CIA's New York division. With the help of Hale, Turner abducts Higgins, who reveals through questioning that the killer was a Frenchman named Joubert. Higgins discovers that the postman who attacked Turner in Hale's apartment was a former U.S. Marine Corps Gunnery Sergeant and CIA operative who had collaborated with Joubert on a previous operation. That operation's mastermind, however, is revealed to be Leonard Atwood (Addison Powell), the CIA Deputy Director of Operations and Higgins' superior. Meanwhile, using material he found on the fake postman's body, Turner finds where Joubert is staying, then uses his skills as a former telephone lineman to trace a call Joubert makes from his hotel room. He then finds the name and address of the person Joubert called: Atwood. Turner confronts Atwood at his home late at night and questions him at gunpoint. Turner learns that the report he had filed had uncovered a secret plan to take over Middle East oil fields, setting in motion the deaths of all of his section's members. Joubert surprises them, takes away Turner's pistol, and unexpectedly kills Atwood. The contract has now changed: even though Atwood had hired Joubert to terminate Turner before, Atwood's superiors have now hired Joubert to terminate Atwood. Turner is dumbfounded, realizing that Joubert and he are on the same side, working once again for the CIA. Joubert is disarmingly courteous, suggesting that Turner leave the country, even become an assassin himself since Turner had shown such resourcefulness in staying alive. Turner rejects the suggestions, but seems to take seriously Joubert's warning that the CIA will still try to kill him. Joubert even muses aloud on how Turner's killing would likely be carried out. Turner goes back to New York City and meets Higgins on a busy street. Higgins defends the oil fields plan, claiming that there will be a day in which oil shortages will cause a major economic crisis for the country. And when that day comes, Americans will want the government to use any means necessary to obtain the oil. Turner says he has told the press "a story" (they are standing outside "The New York Times" office), but Higgins questions Turner's assurances that the story will be printed. After a brief dialogue, an anxious Turner walks away. The final shot is a freeze frame of Turner passing behind a Salvation Army band singing Christmas carols, while looking over his shoulder toward the camera. Production. Filming locations. "Three Days of the Condor" was filmed in the following locations: Soundtrack. "All music by Dave Grusin, except where noted." NOTE: Much of Grusin's music for this film was later used for the martial arts film "Enter the Game of Shaolin Bronzemen". Critical reception. When first released, the film was reviewed positively by critic Vincent Canby, who wrote: The late French philosopher, Jean Baudrillard, makes mention of the film as an example of a new genre of "retro cinema" in his essay on history in the now foundational text, "Simulacra and Simulation" (1981): Awards. Wins Nominations Parodies and references. "The Simpsons" had an episode called "Three Gays of the Condo", although that episode's plot was unrelated to "Three Days of the Condor". Similarly, the sitcom "Frasier" had an episode titled "Three Days of the Condo", "King of the Hill" had an episode called "Three Days of the Kahndo", and "Duck Tales" had an episode called "Three Ducks of the Condor". "Seinfeld" borrowed language from the film in the episode "The Junk Mail" (Season 9, Episode 5). In this episode, Kramer refused to accept mail and when Newman warned him that he is in danger for doing this, the warning is very similar to Max von Sydow's warning to Robert Redford not to trust the CIA: Newman: "Here's how it's going to happen: you may be..." In the beginning of the 1992 film "Sneakers", Robert Redford's character avoids police apprehension because he steps out to buy pizza, which bears a loose similarity to his character's luck in avoiding execution in this film's beginning. Additionally, two of the casualties of the CIA building attack are named "Martin" and "Bishop." Redford's alias in "Sneakers" is "Martin Bishop."
1166201	Ina Balin (November 12, 1937 – June 20, 1990) was an American actress on Broadway and in film. Life and career. Born as Ina Rosenberg to a Jewish family in Brooklyn, she first appeared on television on "The Perry Como Show". She also did summer stock, which led to roles on Broadway, and in 1959, she won the "Theatre World Award" for her performance in the Broadway comedy, "A Majority of One", starring Gertrude Berg and Sir Cedric Hardwicke. That same year, she landed her first film role in "The Black Orchid", starring Sophia Loren and Anthony Quinn.
1161298	Austin Nichols (born April 24, 1980) is an American film, television actor and director who is perhaps best known for his role as Julian Baker in The CW drama series "One Tree Hill". He is also known for his roles in films such as "The Day After Tomorrow" and "Wimbledon". He starred in the HBO series "John from Cincinnati". Early life. Austin Nichols was born on April 24, 1980 in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and moved to Austin, Texas before he was a year old. He was named after the Austin, Nichols distilling company, producers of Wild Turkey Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey. His father, David Nichols, is a radiologist, and his mother, Kay Nichols, is a professional trick water skier. Kay has been a national champion ten times and an international champion once. He has one older sister, Ashley. Nichols was raised on Lake Austin and attended Casis Elementary School. Nichols began competitive water skiing from the age of two. He represented the US Junior Water Ski Team in the Pan-American Championships in 1997, and was also on the Junior US Olympic Water Skiing team. At age thirteen, he was ranked third in the world. Nichols had intended to become a professional water skier until he injured his shoulder in Florida, and was forced to give up the sport. While at McCallum High School in central Austin, he played basketball but was "absolutely awful". Nichols' interest in acting was sparked when he was fifteen years old and he began to take acting lessons. He moved to Los Angeles after high school, where he currently lives. Acting career. Beginnings. Nichols wanted to be an actor for much of his early life. His acting career began when he gate-crashed a party at the Sundance Film Festival and was signed by a manager. Nichols initially wished to attend the University of Texas, but moved to LA after his signing and enrolled instead at the University of Southern California, graduating in 2002 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in English. Although Nichols had guest appearances in "Sliders", "Odd Man Out", "", "Family Law", "Watching Ellie", and "Wolf Lake" before his graduation, his big break came in 2002 when he appeared as Brenda Chenowith's lover in two episodes of "Six Feet Under". He had previously appeared in two films, "Durango Kids" in 1999 and "Holiday in the Sun" in 2001. In his first critically successful film role, Nichols starred as a stereotypical, basketball-playing "frat boy" in "The Utopian Society", a 2003 independent film directed by John P. Aguirre, which won several awards and some critical acclaim. One critic wrote that Nichols "transforms himself from a cardboard jock and frat boy caricature to a likeable vulnerable human being with surprising sensibilities." Aguirre commended Nichols as a "stellar talent" able to play his character "with total abandon to self ego". Following another guest spot in "She Spies", Nichols then simultaneously co-starred in two box office successes, "The Day After Tomorrow" and "Wimbledon". Box office and critical success. In 2004, Nichols was cast as J.D., an intelligent rich kid and romantic rival to Jake Gyllenhaal's main character in the environmental blockbuster, "The Day After Tomorrow". The science and script were generally panned by critics, and cast performances criticized. Also in 2004, he appeared in "Wimbledon", opposite Kirsten Dunst and Paul Bettany. The film was well received by critics, though it only did reasonably well at the US box office. Nichols' acting as Jake Hammond, an arrogant tennis pro, was described as "effectively unlikeable". For the role, Nichols had to learn tennis from scratch; he was trained to look professional by Pat Cash, who was taken aback by Nichols' skill. Speaking of the actor's forehand shot, the coach observed: "It’s absolutely as good as anybody’s on the circuit. I swear to God. He hits it like a bullet. He’s our star pupil." By the end of their training, Nichols and Bettany were able to have rallies and play points, although some of their more intricate exchanges were computer generated. After this success, Nichols co-starred in a pilot for "1/4 life", a TV series about 20 somethings living in New York which was not developed by a television network. He then had a minor role in an obscure and panned 2005 film, "Thanks to Gravity". Nichols followed this with short guest spots on episodes of "Pasadena" and "Surface", before being cast in a successful 2006 film, "Glory Road". "Glory Road", directed by James Gartner and starring Josh Lucas, is a film based on the true story of the 1966 NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Championship, in which Coach Don Haskins led a team with an all-black starting lineup, a first in NCAA history. Nichols played one of the few white players on the team; he trained heavily for the role and had to master basketball as it was played in the 1960s, saying "I'd never been so sore in my life". The film was not a box office hit; it made $46,000,000 and received mixed reviews. After "Glory Road", Nichols appeared in an episode of "" and starred in "Lenexa, 1 mile", a film about the disturbing secrets of five childhood friends, set during their last summer together before college. As of 2007, the creators have not announced plans to release the film. "The House of Usher" and beyond. Nichols' next film was a 2006 thriller, "The House of Usher", directed by Hayley Cloake and based on the story by Edgar Allan Poe. He plays the disturbed Roderick Usher, who has been described by Nichols as a "twisted, terminally ill, fucked-up guy". "The House of Usher" was released in September 2007. Nichols also portrayed Neal Cassady, with Will Estes as Jack Kerouac, in the short film "Luz Del Mundo". In April 2006, Nichols guest starred in "Deadwood", an HBO Western series. Shortly afterward, Nichols signed a rare holding deal with the HBO Network. In August of that year, Nichols was cast as the lead in a new series, "John From Cincinnati", a surfing drama created by David Milch, who also produced "Deadwood". The series began airing in June 2007, but was cancelled after one season due to poor ratings and mixed critical reviews. Nichols played John Monad, a stranger who suddenly appears in a quiet surfing town; for the role, he took up surfing and practiced every day for three months. In 2007, Nichols appeared as teacher for a few episodes of "Friday Night Lights", before being cast in a recurring role on the The CW's "One Tree Hill". He was upgraded to series regular for the seventh season. He directed two episodes of the series including the seventh episode of the ninth and last season. On March 2012, it was announced that Austin landed a role in a new drama for Showtime called "Ray Donovan" planned to air on the season 2012-2013. Personal life. Alongside his acting career, Nichols maintains a strong interest in cinema. He keeps a log of every film he sees: "I take it to the movies and write down who does the music, edits, directs, and how long the film is." Claire Oswalt, an ex-girlfriend, said in a 2003 interview that Nichols watches an average of 20 movies a week. Nichols himself has stated: "If I'm not working, I spend almost half my day at theaters or watching DVDs at my house." He especially admires Hal Ashby, Sam Fuller, and John Ford. In addition to his interest in film, Nichols enjoys waterskiing (in which he competed at the national level as a child), golf, tennis, and horseback riding. Since beginning filming "John from Cincinnati", he has also taken up surfing, which he finds "very therapeutic and healing". Nichols dated artist Claire Oswalt for seven years before breaking off their engagement in 2004. He mentioned in an interview he was living out of his car and sleeping on friends' couches for some time afterwards. Nichols has been friends with fellow actor Jake Gyllenhaal since the two met on the set of "The Day After Tomorrow" in 2004. Nichols said in one interview, "I've learned a ton from Jake. He's a really sharp guy. He told me everything about acting, the business, girls, life." His sister, Ashley, is married to director Rowdy Stovall, making him Nichols' brother-in-law. Shortly after "John from Cincinnati" was cancelled, Nichols was pulled over at 3 A.M. on August 24, 2007 in Jackson, Michigan after driving the wrong way down a one-way street in his silver Mercury Mountaineer. His blood alcohol level was a reported .10 and he was arrested for DUI. On May 25, 2010, it was revealed that Nichols had been dating fellow "One Tree Hill" co-star Sophia Bush off and on for the past four years. It was also revealed that Austin took a job on "One Tree Hill" to be with Sophia.
1061170	Thelma Ritter (February 14, 1902 — February 5, 1969) was an American actress, best known for her comedic roles as working class characters. She received six Academy Award nominations for Best Supporting Actress, and won one Tony Award for Best Leading Actress in a Musical.
1092940	Evangelista Torricelli ( ) (1608–1647) was an Italian physicist and mathematician, best known for his invention of the barometer. Biography. Early life. Torricelli was born on 15 October in 1608 in Faenza in the Province of Ravenna, then part of the Papal States, the firstborn child of Gaspare Torricelli and Caterina Angetti. His father was a textile worker and the family was very poor. Seeing his talents, his parents sent him to be educated under the care of his uncle, Jacobo, a Camaldolese monk, who first ensured that his nephew was given a sound basic education. He then entered young Torricelli into a Jesuit College in 1624, possibly the one in Faenza itself, to study mathematics and philosophy until 1626, by which time his father, Gaspare, had died. The uncle then sent Torricelli to Rome to study science under the Benedictine monk Benedetto Castelli, professor of mathematics at the Collegio della Sapienza (now known as the Sapienza University of Rome). Career. In 1632, shortly after the publication of Galileo's "Dialogues of the New Science", Torricelli wrote to Galileo of reading it "with the delight [...] of one who, having already practiced all of geometry most diligently [...] and having studied Ptolemy and seen almost everything of Tycho Brahe, Kepler and Longomontanus, finally, forced by the many congruences, came to adhere to Copernicus, and was a Galileian in profession and sect". (The Vatican condemned Galileo in June 1633, and this was the only known occasion on which Torricelli openly declared himself to hold the Copernican view.)
1047592	The Impossible Voyage (), originally released in the US as An Impossible Voyage and in the UK as Whirling the Worlds, is a 1904 French silent film directed by Georges Méliès. It was released by Méliès's Star Film Company and is numbered 641–659 in its catalogues, with an optional supplementary section numbered 660–661. Based in part on Jules Verne's play "Journey Through the Impossible" and modeled in style and format on Méliès's earlier, highly successful "A Trip to the Moon", the film is a satire of scientific exploration in which a group of geographers attempt a journey into the interior of the sun. Synopsis. Since the film is silent and has no intertitles, the proper names and quotations below are taken from the English-language description of the film published by Méliès for the Star Film Company's New York Branch. A geographic society, the Institute of Incoherent Geography, plans to make a world tour in such a way as to "surpass in conception and invention all previous expeditions undertaken by the learned world." At a meeting headed by President Polehunter, "assisted by Secretary Rattlebrain, by the Archivist Mole, by the Vice-president Humbug, the members of the office, Easily-fooled, Daredevil, Schemer, etc., etc.," the members listen to Professor Daredevil's plan for the world tour, but reject it for being out-of-date. The president then welcomes the eccentric engineer Crazyloff (in French, Mabouloff; "maboul" is French for "crazy" or "crackpot"), who explains his project for a new "impossible" voyage, using "all the known means locomotion—railroads, automobiles, dirigible balloons, submarine boats…" The unusual plan is accepted enthusiastically, and preparations begin. When work is complete, the machines and travelers are loaded onto a train, and are sent to the Swiss Alps, where the travelers will begin their journey. They first board an automobile, the Auto-Crazyloff, and journey through the mountains. In an attempt to run over the summit of the Rigi, the travelers crash at the bottom of a precipice. They are saved by mountaineers and rushed to a Swiss hospital. After they have recovered, they board a train with their vehicles, and make a second attempt at running over a summit: this time, the Jungfrau. Getting higher and higher every minute, with dirigible balloons attached to the train, they rise into space and are swallowed by the sun. The travelers land with a crash. They are happy to be alive, but the heat is too much. All but one of the travelers are loaded into an ice box, but are suddenly frozen. The remaining traveler, Crazyloff himself, finds a bundle of straw among the debris and starts a fire to melt the ice. The travelers thaw and are happily moved over to the expedition's submarine, which is launched off a cliff on the sun, plummets through space, and falls into an ocean on Earth.
675833	James Douglas "Jim" Morrison (December 8, 1943 – July 3, 1971) was an American singer-songwriter and poet, best remembered as the lead singer of Los Angeles rock band The Doors. From a young age, Morrison developed an alcohol dependency which led to his death at the age of 27 in Paris. He is alleged to have died of a heroin overdose, but as no autopsy was performed, the exact cause of his death is still disputed. Morrison was well known for often improvising spoken word poetry passages while the band played live. Due to his wild personality and performances, he is regarded by critics and fans as one of the most iconic, charismatic, and pioneering frontmen in rock music history. Morrison was ranked number 47 on "Rolling Stone's" list of the "100 Greatest Singers of All Time", and number 22 on "Classic Rock Magazine's" "50 Greatest Singers In Rock". Morrison was known as the self-proclaimed "King of Orgasmic Rock". Early years. James Douglas Morrison was born in Melbourne, Florida, the son of Clara Virginia (née Clarke) and future Rear Admiral George Stephen Morrison. Morrison had a sister, Anne Robin, who was born in 1947 in Albuquerque, New Mexico; and a brother, Andrew Lee Morrison, who was born in 1948 in Los Altos, California. His ancestry included English, Scottish, and Irish. In 1947, Morrison, then four years old, allegedly witnessed a car accident in the desert, in which a family of Native Americans were injured and possibly killed. He referred to this incident in a spoken word performance on the song "Dawn's Highway" from the album "An American Prayer", and again in the songs "Peace Frog" and "Ghost Song". Morrison believed this incident to be the most formative event of his life, and made repeated references to it in the imagery in his songs, poems, and interviews. His family does not recall this incident happening in the way he told it. According to the Morrison biography "No One Here Gets Out Alive", Morrison's family did drive past a car accident on an Indian reservation when he was a child, and he was very upset by it. The book "The Doors", written by the remaining members of The Doors, explains how different Morrison's account of the incident was from that of his father. This book quotes his father as saying, "We went by several Indians. It did make an impression on him young James. He always thought about that crying Indian." This is contrasted sharply with Morrison's tale of "Indians scattered all over the highway, bleeding to death." In the same book, his sister is quoted as saying, "He enjoyed telling that story and exaggerating it. He said he saw a dead Indian by the side of the road, and I don't even know if that's true." With his father in the United States Navy, Morrison's family moved often. He spent part of his childhood in San Diego. While his father was stationed at NAS Kingsville, he attended Flato Elementary in Kingsville, Texas. In 1958, Morrison attended Alameda High School in Alameda, California. He graduated from George Washington High School (now George Washington Middle School) in Alexandria, Virginia in June 1961. His father was also stationed at Mayport Naval Air Station in Jacksonville, Florida. Morrison was inspired by the writings of philosophers and poets. He was influenced by Friedrich Nietzsche, whose views on aesthetics, morality, and the Apollonian and Dionysian duality would appear in his conversation, poetry and songs. He read Plutarch’s "Lives of the Noble Greeks and Romans". He read the works of the French Symbolist poet Arthur Rimbaud, whose style would later influence the form of Morrison’s short prose poems. He was influenced by Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Charles Baudelaire, Molière, Franz Kafka, Honoré de Balzac and Jean Cocteau, along with most of the French existentialist philosophers. His senior-year English teacher said, "Jim read as much and probably more than any student in class, but everything he read was so offbeat I had another teacher (who was going to the Library of Congress) check to see if the books Jim was reporting on actually existed. I suspected he was making them up, as they were English books on sixteenth- and seventeenth-century demonology. I’d never heard of them, but they existed, and I’m convinced from the paper he wrote that he read them, and the Library of Congress would’ve been the only source." Morrison went to live with his paternal grandparents in Clearwater, Florida, where he attended classes at St. Petersburg College (then known as a junior college). In 1962, he transferred to Florida State University (FSU) in Tallahassee, where he appeared in a school recruitment film. While attending FSU, Morrison was arrested for a prank, following a home football game. In January 1964, Morrison moved to Los Angeles to attend the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). He enrolled in Jack Hirschman's class on Antonin Artaud in the Comparative Literature program within the UCLA English Department. Artaud's brand of surrealist theatre had a profound impact on Morrison's dark poetic sensibility of cinematic theatricality. Morrison completed his undergraduate degree at UCLA's film school within the Theater Arts department of the College of Fine Arts in 1965. He never went to the graduation ceremony, and had his diploma mailed to him. He made several short films while attending UCLA. "First Love", the first of these films, made with Morrison's classmate and roommate Max Schwartz, was released to the public when it appeared in a documentary about the film "Obscura". During these years, while living in Venice Beach, he became friends with writers at the "Los Angeles Free Press". Morrison was an advocate of the underground newspaper until his death in 1971. He later conducted a lengthy and in-depth interview with Bob Chorush and Andy Kent, both working for the Free Press at the time (January 1971), and was planning on visiting the headquarters of the busy newspaper shortly before leaving for Paris. The Doors. In the summer of 1965, after graduating with a degree from the UCLA film school, Morrison led a bohemian lifestyle in Venice Beach. Living on the rooftop of a building inhabited by his old UCLA cinematography friend, Dennis Jakobs, he wrote the lyrics of many of the early songs the Doors would later perform live and record on albums, the most notable being ""Moonlight Drive"" and ""Hello, I Love You"". According to Jakobs, he lived on canned beans and LSD for several months. Morrison and fellow UCLA student, Ray Manzarek, were the first two members of the Doors, forming the group during that same summer of 1965. They had previously met months earlier as fellow cinematography students. The now-legendary story claims that Manzarek was lying on the beach at Venice one day, where he accidentally encountered Morrison. He was impressed with Morrison's poetic lyrics, claiming that they were "rock group" material. Subsequently, drummer John Densmore and guitarist Robby Krieger joined. Krieger auditioned at Densmore's recommendation and was then added to the lineup. All three musicians shared a common interest in the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi's meditation practices at the time, attending scheduled classes, but Morrison was not involved in this series of classes, claiming later that he "did not meditate". The Doors took their name from the title of Aldous Huxley's book "The Doors of Perception" (a reference to the unlocking of doors of perception through psychedelic drug use). Huxley's own title was a quotation from William Blake's "The Marriage of Heaven and Hell", in which Blake wrote: "If the doors of perception were cleansed everything would appear to man as it is, infinite." Although Morrison was known as the lyricist of the group, Krieger also made significant lyrical contributions, writing or co-writing some of the group's biggest hits, including "Light My Fire", "Love Me Two Times", "Love Her Madly", and "Touch Me". On the other hand, Morrison, who didn't write most songs using an instrument, would come up with vocal melodies for his own lyrics, with the other band members contributing chords and rhythm. Morrison did not play an instrument live (except for maracas and tambourine for most shows, and harmonica on a few occasions) or in the studio (excluding maracas, tambourine, handclaps, and whistling). However, he did play the grand piano on "Orange County Suite" and a Moog synthesizer on "Strange Days". In June 1966, Morrison and the Doors were the opening act at the Whisky a Go Go on the last week of the residency of Van Morrison's band Them. Van's influence on Jim's developing stage performance was later noted by John Densmore in his book "Riders On The Storm": "Jim Morrison learned quickly from his near-namesake's stagecraft, his apparent recklessness, his air of subdued menace, the way he would improvise poetry to a rock beat, even his habit of crouching down by the bass drum during instrumental breaks." On the final night, the two Morrisons and their two bands jammed together on "Gloria". In November 1966, Morrison and the Doors produced a promotional film for "Break on Through (To the Other Side)", which was their first single release. The video featured the four members of the group playing the song on a darkened set with alternating views and close-ups of the performers while Morrison lip-synched the lyrics. Morrison and the Doors continued to make music videos, including "The Unknown Soldier", "Moonlight Drive", and "People Are Strange". The Doors achieved national recognition after signing with Elektra Records in 1967. The single "Light My Fire" spent three weeks at number one on the "Billboard" Hot 100 chart in July/August 1967. Later, the Doors appeared on "The Ed Sullivan Show", a popular Sunday night variety series that had introduced the Beatles and Elvis Presley to the United States. Ed Sullivan requested two songs from the Doors for the show, "People Are Strange" and "Light My Fire". Sullivan's censors insisted that the Doors change the lyrics of the song "Light My Fire" from "Girl we couldn't get much higher" to "Girl we couldn't get much better" for the television viewers; this was reportedly due to what was perceived as a reference to drugs in the original lyrics. After giving assurances of compliance to the producer in the dressing room, Morrison told the band "we're not changing a word" and proceeded to sing the song with the original lyrics. Sullivan was not happy and he refused to shake hands with Morrison or any other band member after their performance. He had a show producer tell the band that they will never do "The Ed Sullivan Show" again. Morrison reportedly said to the producer, in a defiant tone, "Hey man. We just "did" the Sullivan Show!" By the release of their second album, "Strange Days", the Doors had become one of the most popular rock bands in the United States. Their blend of blues and dark rock tinged with psychedelia included a number of original songs and distinctive cover versions, such as their rendition of "Alabama Song", from Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill's opera, "Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny". The band also performed a number of extended concept works, including the songs "The End", "When the Music's Over", and "Celebration of the Lizard". In 1966, photographer Joel Brodsky took a series of black-and-white photos of Morrison, in a photo shoot known as "The Young Lion" photo session. These photographs are considered among the most iconic images of Jim Morrison and are frequently used as covers for compilation albums, books, and other memorabilia of the Doors and Morrison. In 1968, the Doors released their third studio album, "Waiting for the Sun". The band performed on July 5 at the Hollywood Bowl, this performance became famous with the DVD: "Live at the Hollywood Bowl". It's also this year that the band played, for the first time, in Europe. Their fourth album, "The Soft Parade", was released in 1969. It was the first album where the individual band members were given credit on the inner sleeve for the songs they had written. Previously, each song on their albums had been credited simply to "The Doors". On September 6 and 7, 1968, the Doors played four performances at The Roundhouse, London, England with Jefferson Airplane which were filmed by Granada for a television documentary "The Doors are Open" directed by John Sheppard. Around this time, Morrison—who had long been a heavy drinker—started showing up for recording sessions visibly inebriated. He was also frequently late for live performances. As a result, the band would play instrumental music or force Manzarek to take on the singing duties to subdue the impatient audience. By March 1969, the formerly svelte singer had gained weight, grown a beard and mustache, and had begun dressing more casually—abandoning the leather pants and concho belts for slacks, jeans and T-shirts. During a March 1, 1969 concert at the Dinner Key Auditorium in Miami, Morrison attempted to spark a riot in the audience. He failed, but a warrant for his arrest was issued by the Dade County Police department three days later for indecent exposure. Consequently, many of The Doors' scheduled concerts were canceled. In September 1970, Morrison was convicted of indecent exposure and profanity. Morrison, who attended the sentencing "in a wool jacket adorned with Indian designs", silently listened as he was sentenced for six months in prison and had to pay a $500 fine. Morrison remained free on a $50,000 bond. At the sentencing, Judge Murray Goodman told Morrison that he was a "person graced with a talent" admired by many of his peers. In 2007 Florida Governor Charlie Crist suggested the possibility of a posthumous pardon for Morrison, which was announced as successful on December 9, 2010. Drummer John Densmore denied Morrison ever exposed himself on stage that night.
589776	Uphaar is a 1971 Hindi film. Produced by Tarachand Barjatya for Rajshri Productions the film stars Jaya Bhaduri, Swarup Dutt and Kamini Kaushal. The music is by Laxmikant Pyarelal. This film is based on the short story named 'Samapti' (The End) by Rabindranath Tagore. The film was selected as the Indian entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 45th Academy Awards, but was not accepted as a nominee. Plot. Anoop studies law in Calcutta, while his widowed mom lives in a small town in West Bengal. He has a sister, Sudha, who is married to Anil and lives in Calcutta. Since Anoop is of marriageable age, his mom has selected a prospective bride for him in her neighbourhood. The girl's name is Vidya. When Anoop returns home, his mother asks him for his approval, but he says he wants to see the girl first. He goes to see Vidya, and also gets to meet another village belle by the name of Minoo, the daughter of Sharda and Ramchandra. He returns home, tells his mom that he cannot marry Vidya, and will marry only Minoo. His mother reluctantly agrees and the marriage takes place. It is then that they find out that Minoo has no household skills. Neither is she educated, nor mature enough to understand her relationship with Anoop. Her only interests appear to be stealing mangoes and other fruit, and playing with children much younger than her. Anoop's mom is quite exasperated with Minoo and is compelled to keep the new bride under lock and key. When the time comes for Anoop to return to Calcutta, he asks Minoo to come with him, but she refuses. His mother cannot handle Minoo's childishness and refuses to let her stay with her. Anoop accordingly leaves Minoo with her mom, Sharda. Once Anoop leaves her and heads back to Calcutta, Minoo starts realising she misses him. All her earlier activities of fooling around and playing with the village kids loses their charm and, in her loneliness, she realises her love for Anoop. She then tells her mom that she wants to go back to Anoop's house, reconcile with her mother-in-law and live with her. Minoo goes back, a changed person. Anoop's mom welcomes her daughter-in-law. Minoo excels in her household duties. But Anoop does not visit even for his holidays. Minoo realises that, when she had refused to accompany him to Calcutta, Anoop's ego was bruised. He had promised that he would come only when she wrote to him to come back. So she writes a letter to Anoop telling him to come home. But she does not have his address, so Anoop never gets the letter. In the meantime, Anoop's mom, realizing that Minoo is truly missing her husband, suggests a trip to Calcutta to visit him. It is in Anoop's sister's house in Calcutta that the love-lorn couple finally comes together.
592666	Kalabha Kadhalan is a 2006 Tamil film directed by debutant Igore, starring Arya and Renuka Menon. This film was a low-budget production and the soundtrack was composed by Niru. Akshaya also appeared in this family based psycho thriller. It enjoyed relatively quiet success. It shared a similar storyline to a great thriller S.J. Suryah’s Vaali and another 2006 film called Uyir. The film’s censors demanded it an "Adults Only" rating because of the adult theme and because of some steamy nude scenes between Arya and Renuka Menon. Plot. A sister in law (Akshaya) falls in love with her brother in law Akhilan (Arya). But he refuses her because he adores his wife (Renuka Menon) and he never would cheat on her. He hides all facts to his wife in order to protect her. Finally the sister in law commits suicide after a tragedy that becomes the climax of the film.
590199	Chore Chore Mastuto Bhai is a 2005 Bengali-language Indian feature film directed by Anup Sengupta, starring Mithun Chakraborty, Chiranjit, Jeet, Jishu Sengupta, Koel Mallick, Dipankar Dey Plot. Nagraj sends John to steal a rare Diamond worth crores from the museum. John betrays Nagraj and runs away with Diamond, but is killed by Ronnie, who leaves the Diamond with a taxi triver Yadav Das. Therefore Yadav is jailed in John's murder case. His daughter Madhuri disguises herself as a boy to run the taxi to support her family. Now Manik and Chand turn up at Madhuri's house and claim to be her long lost uncles from Africa. Madhuri is in love with Rahul, a Nagraj's henchman. As the Diamond is the prime attraction, everyone wants its possession. In the climax, Manik and Chand rescue Rahul, Madhuri and Madhabi from Nagraj and the police arrest Nagraj.
1209426	Matthew D. "Matt" Adler (born December 8, 1966 in Los Angeles, California) is an American film actor. He is best known for his work in the 1980s for his supporting roles in the teenage films: "Teen Wolf", "White Water Summer", "North Shore", and "Dream a Little Dream". He currently works on additional dialogue recording for feature films. Adler was married to actress Ria Pavia from 1993 to 1995. He is currently married to actress Laura San Giacomo and is a close friend and former housemate of actor George Clooney.
1058286	Tower Heist is a 2011 heist comedy film directed by Brett Ratner and written by Ted Griffin and Jeff Nathanson, based on a story by Bill Collage, Adam Cooper and Griffin. It was released on November 2, 2011, in the United Kingdom, with a United States release following two days later. "Tower Heist" follows Josh (Ben Stiller), Charlie (Casey Affleck) and Enrique Dev'reaux (Michael Peña), employees of an exclusive apartment building who lose their pensions in the Ponzi scheme of Wall Street businessman Arthur Shaw (Alan Alda). The group enlist the aid of criminal Slide (Eddie Murphy), bankrupt businessman Mr. Fitzhugh (Matthew Broderick) and another employee of the apartment building, Odessa (Gabourey Sidibe), to break into Shaw's apartment and steal back their money while avoiding the FBI agent in charge of his case, Claire Denham (Téa Leoni). "Tower Heist" began development as early as 2005, based on an idea by Murphy that would star himself and an all-black cast of comedians as a heist group who rob Trump Plaza. As the script developed and changed into an "Ocean's Eleven"–style caper, Murphy left the project. Ratner continued to develop the idea into what would eventually become "Tower Heist", with Murphy later rejoining the production. Filming took place entirely in New York City on a budget of $85 million, with several buildings provided by Donald Trump used to represent the eponymous tower. The film score was composed by Christophe Beck and released commercially on November 1, 2011. The film received mixed reviews with much of the praise going to the cast, including Broderick, Leoni and Stiller. However, Murphy was repeatedly singled out by critics as the star of the film, with critics feeling that he displayed a welcome return to the comedic style of his early career. Much of the criticism received by the film was focused on the plot which was considered "formulaic," "rushed," "dull" and "laborious." The film earned over $152 million during its theatrical run. Prior to release, the film was involved in a controversy over plans by Universal Pictures to release it for home viewing on video on demand to 500,000 Comcast customers, only three weeks after its theatrical debut. Concern over the implementation's harming ticket sales and inspiring further films to follow suit resulted in several theater chains' refusal to show the film at all if the plan went ahead, forcing Universal to abandon the idea. Plot. Josh Kovaks (Ben Stiller) is the building manager of The Tower, a high-rise luxury apartment complex on Central Park West in New York City whose employees include concierge Charlie (Casey Affleck), who is expecting a child with Josh's sister; Enrique (Michael Peña), a newly hired elevator operator; Lester (Stephen Henderson), the doorman nearing retirement; Odessa (Gabourey Sidibe), a Jamaican maid on a work visa; and receptionist Miss Iovenko (Nina Arianda), who furtively studies for her bar exam at work. One morning Josh sees what appears to be a kidnapping of Tower tenant and wealthy businessman Arthur Shaw (Alan Alda). Josh gives chase and almost catches him when he is clotheslined by FBI agent Claire Denham (Téa Leoni). Denham explains that Shaw wasn't being kidnapped, he was attempting to flee arrest, accused of running a Ponzi scheme. Josh tells the Tower staff about Shaw's arrest and explains that he gave Shaw their pension fund to invest, and their money is gone. After learning that Lester attempted suicide by walking in front of a moving train after losing everything he had, Josh, Charlie and Enrique visit Shaw, under house arrest in his penthouse apartment, to tell him this. Shaw expresses condolences but appears insincere, and Josh responds by destroying the windows of a 1963 Ferrari 250 GT Lusso Shaw has on display in his apartment. The building's General Manager (Judd Hirsch) is furious at Josh's actions and fires Josh, Charlie and Enrique. Josh meets Denham at a bar and she invites him to get drunk. As they drink she says Shaw must have had a cash safety net and suggests in jest that he find and steal it. Josh gathers Charlie, Enrique and former Tower tenant Mr. Fitzhugh (Matthew Broderick) to draw up a plan to steal Shaw's money. When Charlie brings up the obvious drawback that they are not thieves, Josh enlists his neighbor and childhood playmate, a petty criminal named Slide (Eddie Murphy), to help. Slide trains the team but realizes he cannot do the robbery because he doesn't know how to crack the safe in Shaw's apartment. They bring in Odessa, whose family ran a locksmith business. Later on, Charlie tells Josh he's been rehired as the Tower's new manager, and warns Josh to stay away or he will have him arrested. Denham then tells Josh that a hearing for Shaw has been scheduled for Thanksgiving during the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade to avoid publicity, and Shaw will go free. Josh and his team decide to break into Shaw's apartment during the parade. Slide then attempts to betray the team by reaching the safe first, having tricked Odessa into giving him lessons. However, the team manages to intercept him at Shaw's apartment, breaks down a false wall and finds Shaw's safe behind it; Odessa opens the safe but finds it empty. Slide and Fitzhugh struggle for Slide's gun; the gun goes off and a bullet hits the car, revealing gold underneath the Ferrari's paint. They realize Shaw invested his cash in gold, had the gold melted down and cast into car parts, and then assembled the car in his apartment where the gold would be hidden in plain sight. Josh finds a ledger of Shaw's illegal finances in the car's glove box. They lower the car out the window into Fitzhugh's old apartment six floors below, and then take it down to the lobby on top of an elevator. Just as they reach the lobby Agent Denham and Shaw return, the Thanksgiving court date being another set up, and take the same elevator back up. Denham sees Shaw's safe and informs him that he did not declare the safe on an inventory of items taken when he was arrested, which is a violation of the conditions of his bail. She has him remanded back into custody. Denham sees Lester using a stolen truck to try to escape from the building. She catches up to him, assuming he is fleeing with the Ferrari, but finds the truck empty. The FBI arrests him and Josh's other accomplices. She personally handcuffs Josh and privately congratulates him. As Josh is being questioned by the FBI, Miss Iovenko arrives, telling the FBI that she passed her bar exam three days ago and is acting as Josh's attorney. She shows them Shaw's ledger and tells them she will turn it over in exchange for everyone's freedom. The FBI accepts on the condition that Josh, being the primary conspirator, must serve a minimal two-year sentence. The team retrieves the car from its hiding place in Shaw's rooftop pool and send various parts of the car to Tower employees to compensate for their lost pensions. As the movie ends Shaw begins his life sentence and Josh is booked into jail, a satisfied smile slowly forming on his face. Cast. Judd Hirsch plays Mr. Simon, the building General Manager, and Stephen Henderson plays Lester, the tower's retiring doorman. Henderson was cast after the filmmakers saw his performance in August Wilson's "Fences" on Broadway. The cast is rounded out by Nina Arianda as Miss Iovenko, attorney-in-training, Juan Carlos Hernandez as Manuel the security guard, Harry O'Reilly as FBI Agent Dansk, Marcia Jean Kurtz as Rose, Peter Van Wagner as attorney Marty Klein, and Željko Ivanek as FBI Director Mazin. Jessica Szohr plays Sasha Gibbs, Charlie's wife and Josh's sister. Heavy D has a cameo appearance as a guard at a courthouse. Model Kate Upton cameos as the mistress of a Tower resident. Production. Development. The idea for "Tower Heist" began development as early as 2005, when Murphy pitched a concept to producer Brian Grazer and Ratner concerning an all-star cast of black comedians including Chris Tucker, Kevin Hart, Dave Chappelle, Tracy Morgan, and Martin Lawrence, as a group of disgruntled employees who plan to rob Donald Trump and Trump Tower. The film was originally titled "Trump Heist" under this concept. A script was developed by Adam Cooper and Bill Collage and over the course of the next five years, the script was rewritten by several writers including Russell Gewirtz, Rawson Marshall Thurber, Ted Griffin, Leslie Dixon, Noah Baumbach, and Jeff Nathanson, with the bulk of the work – and credit – going to Griffin and Nathanson. Rewrites of the script gradually moved away from the ensemble of comedians and began to focus on two central characters, at which point Murphy left the project. For Ratner however, the modified script reminded him of the "Ocean's Eleven" remake, a project he had developed but for which he was unavailable due to his commitment to directing "Rush Hour 2". The project remained in development for a period of years but Ratner remained committed to the project, having enjoyed the heist films of the 1970s including "The Taking of Pelham One Two Three", "The Hot Rock," and "The Anderson Tapes", turning down the opportunity to direct other films such as "Horrible Bosses", which he instead produced. Ratner would also claim that he wanted to work with Murphy, to whom Ratner partially credited for inspiring his "Rush Hour" films. As the script began to be finalized, Murphy was drawn back into the much-changed project after being informed of Stiller's participation, with Murphy being offered the role of Slide. Murphy rejoined as both a cast member and producer, alongside Grazer and Kim Roth. In later October 2010, the film was finally scheduled for release, being given a November 4, 2011, release date. Writing. Feeling the original concept was too close to "Ocean's Eleven", Ratner attempted to recruit "Rush Hour" screenwriter Nathanson to perform additional work on the "Tower Heist" script, but at that time Nathanson was unavailable. Ratner instead hired Griffin, a writer on the "Ocean's Eleven" remake. Griffin "brought the real motivation and the heart to the concept", moving away from the premise of performing an ensemble heist on a rich Donald Trump-type, and focusing instead on a group of blue-collar employees who take on a corrupt, thieving Bernard Madoff-like businessman who has embezzled their pensions. Ratner enjoyed the pitch and brought it to Grazer who gave his approval. After taking the script to Stiller and bringing him into the project, Ratner had Noah Baumbach perform specific rewrites for Stiller's character. Nathanson then came aboard the project and performed the final rewrites to Griffin's screenplay in October 2010, adding "the obstacles, complexities and specificities of the characters." To help develop the script, the filmmakers and writers spoke with the resident managers of several high-profile New York hotels to learn of their experiences interacting with their clientele. This research gave Griffin the idea for Shaw's possessing a vehicle in his apartment, which Grazer and Ratner eventually decided would be a rare 1963 Ferrari 250 GT Lusso which once belonged to Steve McQueen. On his research, Nathanson said: "It was informative, to say the least, to speak with the people who work in these buildings. I interviewed everyone from doormen to housekeepers to building managers. There's a whole underworld to the New York building scene that exists in the basements that most people are unaware of. They make it all possible, and you just never see it. It's fascinating." Filming. Filming began on November 2010, taking place entirely in New York City on a budget of $85 million ($75 million after tax rebates). Production designer Kristi Zea visited several upscale hotels and high-rise residences to research the design elements to incorporate into the opulent surroundings of the tower and Shaw's penthouse. Zea created an amalgamation of the elements she saw during her research to create a sophisticated lobby design for the tower. For Shaw's penthouse, Zea took inspiration from a top-floor apartment in the Trump International Hotel and Tower at Central Park West in Columbus Circle. Zea populated the apartment with an assortment of art pieces to represent Shaw's status, based on specific artists and works that Ratner suggested. Zea decided to use modern-classic reproduction designs by artists such as Pablo Picasso, Francis Bacon, Cy Twombly, and Andy Warhol. Explaining her decision, Zea said "These days, it seems wealthy people want to have wall power. They want to have art on their walls that means something and shows people, just like a car, that, 'I'm rich, I'm smart and I know what I'm doing.'" Donald Trump allowed the production to use several of his own properties to portray the luxurious locales with the Trump International Hotel and Tower's being used for exterior shots of the tower. Sections of the building were recreated on closed green screen sets for some of the film's visual effects. A foot and car chase sequence was filmed on Central Park West and Columbus Avenue. Some vehicle filming occurred on sound stages in Brooklyn. The burglary itself takes place during the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, requiring the crew to film parts of the actual parade itself, and then recreate the event one week later for further filming. For Shaw's Ferrari, it was decided that purchasing an actual model – of which only 350 exist and would cost at least $1 million – would be too expensive and the vehicle would be unsuitable for filming purposes. Instead, two replicas were commissioned, a process which took three months under the supervision of prop master Peter Gelfman. The replicas then received additional reinforcement for filming purposes from Steve Kirshoff and the special effects crew. After running camera tests on several authentic Ferrari colors, it was decided to paint the replicas bright red in order to create a lasting impression instead of using the actual metallic brown muted-coloring of McQueen's vehicle. Sidibe and Murphy performed the only improvised scene, in which they are cracking a safe together. Test screenings did not result in any scenes being cut from the film, with Ratner claiming that the theatrical version is his "director's cut". However, he did remove scenes which he felt "didn't fit", or did not match the PG-13 rating the filmmakers were targeting. In post-production, Universal decided to film a new scene for the ending that would feature a reunion between Stiller and Murphy's characters. Murphy, however, refused to return unless he were paid a further $500,000 on top of his $7.5 million salary. The studio declined to pay the additional money and the scene was not shot. Music. The soundtrack was composed by "The Hangover"s Christophe Beck. The "Tower Heist Original Motion Picture Soundtrack" was released on November 1, 2011, by Varèse Sarabande. It consists of 22 tracks with a runtime of 40 minutes. Release. The world premiere of "Tower Heist" took place on October 24, 2011, at the Ziegfeld Theatre in New York City. Box office. "Tower Heist" earned $78,046,570 (51.0%) in the United States and Canada, and a further $74,884,053 (49.0%) elsewhere, for a worldwide box-office gross of $152,930,623. Pre-release audience tracking in the United States indicated that the film had strong awareness among males of all ages, followed by older women. Universal Pictures projected opening takings of $25–30 million during the opening weekend – aiming below expectations due to a slow marketplace – with rival studios claiming that the film would need to make at least $30 million to be a success. In the United States and Canada, "Tower Heist" opened in 3,367 theaters. The film took $85,000 from midnight screenings and a total of $8.5 million opening Friday, becoming the number one grossing film for the day. Although the film had been expected to be the number one film for the weekend, it took $10.5 million on the opening Saturday, falling behind the animated film "Puss in Boots" ($15.3 million). "Tower Heist" became the number two film for the weekend with $24 million, behind "Puss in Boots" ($34 million), with 70% of the audience being over the age of 25—the largest segment, 27%, being over 50—and 56% male. The opening audience was ethnically diverse consisting of 48% Caucasian, 21% African American, and 21% Hispanic. "Tower Heist" was released on November 2, 2011, in the United Kingdom and opened in a total of 23 countries, including Germany, Spain, Hong Kong, and India, by November 4, 2011, at a total of 1,948 theaters. The opening weekend saw the film gross $9.5 million  –an average of $5,000 per theater – with the largest earnings coming from the United Kingdom ($2.3 million at 416 theaters) where it was the number three film for the weekend, and Spain ($1.6 million at 300 theaters) where it was the number two film. Critical reception. The film received a mixed to positive reception from critics, garnering 68% approval from 175 critics – an average rating of 6.2 out of 10 – on review aggregate website Rotten Tomatoes, whose consensus reads: ""Tower Heist" is a true Brett Ratner joint: little brains to this caper, but it's fun fluff, exciting to watch, and showcases a welcome return to form for Eddie Murphy." Metacritic provides a score of 59 out of 100 from 39 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews." CinemaScore polls reported that the average grade moviegoers gave the film was a "B" on an A+ to F scale. Tim Robey of "The Daily Telegraph" called the film "a tolerably enjoyable Brett Ratner movie", labeling it "brash, forgettable fun." However, Robey criticized Ratner for having the mostly white characters require the aid of a black character for the heist, saying "it's a little embarrassing that they can't conceive of doing this without bailing a black criminal out of jail...but cultural sensitivity has never been Ratner's strong suit." "The Hollywood Reporter" Todd McCarthy said that the film is "snappy, well cast and streetwise" but felt that it ignored the "contemporary economic issues at its core." McCarthy said that Murphy's performance was a return to form as "the rude, confrontational, wiseass Murphy audiences have nearly forgotten after all the silly kid comedies and heavy-makeup outings of recent years," and said that with his introduction "the film's energy and amusement level kick up a few notches," but that the enjoyment ebbs during the actual break-in, in which "Murphy becomes neutered...and the logistics of the heist become too far-fetched and laborious." "New York"s David Edelstein called it "a shameless but exuberantly well-done caper comedy," and praised the performances of Stiller, Murphy and Leoni, saying "Ben Stiller...and Eddie Murphy... show off two of the best fastballs in comedy, and Téa Leoni's best scene as an FBI agent – drunk, both sloppy and blunt – makes you wish she had more." Emanuel Levy called "Tower Heist" a "formulaic, haphazardly plotted action comedy... whose best asset is its strong ensemble." Levy said "What makes the picture... work is not its plot, which is overly familiar and utterly implausible, but the socio-psychological dynamics that prevail among the ." Levy singled out Stiller as "well cast" and Sidibe as having "some of the picture's best lines," but gave individual praise to Murphy, saying that he "dominates the second half of the picture," rendering "a joyous performance that recalls his witty, charming, streetwise roles of the 1980s." "Empire"s Nick de Semlyen awarded the film three out of five stars, calling it "fun if uneven stuff from Ratner," with a "fairly dull" opening act. Semlyen said it was "a welcome return to form for Eddie Murphy," but was critical that he is "sorely underused." Semlyen praised Alda, saying that it is his "smarm offensive that turns out to be the primary pleasure." "The Village Voice"s Nick Pinkteron said that the film "deserves credit as a clean, well-turned job, fleet and funny and inconsequential," and appreciated the cast, praising Leoni as the "best thing going," and Murphy's "inspired" contributions. However, Pinkerton was critical of the script, describing it as "amateur as its crooks: the audience isn't even fully aware of who's in on the job when it kicks off, while other threads are left dangling." Roger Ebert awarded the film 2.5 out of 4, saying "This isn't a great heist movie for a lot of reasons, beginning with the stupidity of its heist plan and the impossibility of these characters ever being successful at anything more complex than standing in line," but appreciated that the comedy did not "go heavy on the excremental, the masturbatory and symphonies of four-letter words", calling it "funny in an innocent screwball kind of way." "Entertainment Weekly"s Lisa Schwarzbaum called the film "overblinged, eye-catching, and essentially tacky," and praised Murphy, saying "when Murphy is on screen, his comedic vigor... gooses the movie's energy level... but whenever Murphy wanders off, the movie's pulse rate drops. "Tower Heist" is in effect two movies: One belongs to Murphy, the other to the rest of the cast." "Time Out London"s Trevor Johnston said that "though it's hard to get excited by this amiable potboiler, "Tower Heist" is so at home with its limitations it's equally hard to dislike," but criticized the finale "which might have been a bit more tense had we been able to take it remotely seriously." Conversely, "Time Out New York"s David Fear gave it 2 out of 5 stars, saying "one nail-biting moment and some much-missed Murphy mouthiness won't keep you from feeling like you're the one being ripped off." "The New Yorker" Anthony Lane criticized the plot, saying "toss everything you can find, starting with roughly diced plots, into the blender: such appears to be the method behind "Tower Heist"." Lane called the characters "unlikable people" but offered praise to Broderick, saying he "underplays character so well." Lane lamented that "the notion of a theft from the thieves – from those who are lapped in lofty, screw-you wealth – is a tempting one right now, but "Tower Heist" passes the buck." "Variety"s Peter Debruge was also critical, saying the film "goes wonky on the way to the bank, due to its lackluster pacing and shortage of the qualities that typically earn stars Ben Stiller and Eddie Murphy their paychecks – namely, laughs." Debruge felt that the opening 40 minutes were "a dull blue-collar drama populated entirely by stereotypes," and while the film "picks up some much-needed momentum" with the actual heist, the "resolution feels rushed." However, Debruge echoed praise for Murphy, calling his performance "a welcome return to the comic's irreverent, '80s-era persona," and lamenting his limited screen-time. Video on demand boycott. On October 5, 2011, Universal Pictures announced that "Tower Heist" would be made available for home viewing via parent company Comcast's video on demand system three weeks after its theatrical debut at the rental cost of $59.99. The move was announced as a test case, to be conducted only in Atlanta and Portland. The move met with criticism from cinema chains over concern that the test and any further future implementation would impact ticket sales. The following day, Cinemark Theatres – the third largest cinema chain in the United States – threatened to not show the film at all if Universal proceeded with the test. On October 11, 2011, several independent theater chains, including Galaxy Theatres, Regency Theatres and Emagine Theatres, and small cinema houses representing approximately 50 screens across the country, also threatened not to play "Tower Heist". The following day the chains were joined by 950-screen National Amusements theater chain. In response, Universal Pictures released a statement saying that they would no longer pursue the proposed test. Accolades. "Tower Heist" received two NAACP Image Award nominations, for Outstanding Motion Picture and Outstanding Actor in a Motion Picture for Murphy. Home media. "Tower Heist" was released on DVD and Blu-ray Disc in the United States on February 21, 2012. The DVD and Blu-ray disc versions contain two alternate endings to the film, deleted and alternate scenes, a gag reel of mistakes made during filming, commentary on the film by Ratner, Griffin, Nathanson, and editor Mark Helfrich, and a behind the scenes film that details the development process of the film. The Blu-ray edition additionally contains film storyboards, three videos about the filmmaking process led by Ratner, and musical tracks from the film.
1129832	Stefan Gierasch (5 February 1926) is an American television and film actor. Stefan Gierasch has made over 100 screen appearances, mostly in American television, beginning in 1951. In the mid-60s, he performed with the Trinity Square Players in Providence, Rhode Island. He has appeared in dozens of films including in 1961's "The Hustler" as 'Preacher', "Jeremiah Johnson" alongside Robert Redford as 'Del Gue', and "What's Up Doc?" as hotel clerk 'Fritz', both in 1972, Clint Eastwood's "High Plains Drifter" as the town mayor in 1973, "Carrie" as dense 'Principal Morton' in 1976. "Perfect" as 'Charlie ' in 1985. In 1994 he appeared in the Arnold Schwarzenegger and Danny DeVito film "Junior" as 'Edward Sawyer', and in 1995's "Murder in the First" as Warden James Humson'. Gierasch has made many TV appearances, as on "Starsky and Hutch", "", "ER", and several commercials.
1166824	Abby Dalton (born August 15, 1935) is an American actress.
1062562	Dirty Harry is a 1971 American crime thriller produced and directed by Don Siegel, the first in the "Dirty Harry" film series. Clint Eastwood plays the title role, in his first outing as San Francisco Police Department Inspector "Dirty" Harry Callahan. "Dirty Harry" was a critical and commercial success and set the style for a whole genre of police films. The film was followed by four sequels: "Magnum Force" in 1973, "The Enforcer" in 1976, "Sudden Impact" in 1983 (directed by Eastwood himself), and "The Dead Pool" in 1988. In 2012, the film was selected for preservation in the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress for being "culturally, historically, and aesthetically significant."
400465	The Comedians of Comedy is a stand-up comedy tour featuring alternative comedians Patton Oswalt, Zach Galifianakis, Brian Posehn and Maria Bamford that was documented in a 2005 film and 2005 Comedy Central television series of the same name, both directed by Michael Blieden. After Zach Galifianakis left the tour, he was replaced by comedian Eugene Mirman. History. The idea behind "The Comedians of Comedy" — its name a play on "The Original Kings of Comedy" and similar tours — involves the comedians performing at smaller indie rock venues instead of comedy clubs. Playing indie rock clubs was an idea taken from anti-comic, Neil Hamburger who is considered a pioneer of this type of show, playing such clubs since 2000. Both the film and television series alternate between footage of the comedians on stage and other aspects of their lives on the road. The final "Comedians of Comedy" show with Patton Oswalt, Brian Posehn, Maria Bamford occurred on July 28, 2008, in San Diego, California. Zach Galifianakis appeared via pre-recorded video/sketch; and special guests included Paul Scheer, Rob Huebel, and Aziz Ansari of Human Giant, along with Sarah Silverman. The show took place at Spreckles Theater in San Diego, California during the same weekend as the 2008 San Diego Comic-Con. Movies and series. The film "The Comedians of Comedy", shot during the fall of 2004, had its world premiere at the South by Southwest film festival in March 2005. It is one of the first films to be financed by the DVD-rental service Netflix, also the film's distributor. The film inspired Comedy Central to commission a six-episode "Comedians of Comedy" television series, involving a six-city tour during the summer of 2005; the show premiered in November of that year. The episodes were shot in Baltimore, New York City, Philadelphia, Atlantic City, Boston and Martha's Vineyard. After ending their run on Comedy Central, Oswalt, Posehn, Mirman and Morgan Murphy performed in a 2006 "Comedians of Comedy" tour. The Comedians of Comedy also appeared as one of the Friday opening acts at the 2007 Coachella Valley Arts and Music Festival, including San Francisco Bay Area comedians Brent Weinbach and Jasper Redd. On October 2, 2007, a DVD of a live performance from the Troubador was released, featuring the cast of the film alongside other notables like Eugene Mirman, Jon Benjamin, David Cross, and others.
1164983	Jill Dorothy Ireland (24 April 1936 – 18 May 1990) was an English actress, best known for her many films with her second husband, Charles Bronson. Life and career. Born in London, England, Ireland was the daughter of a wine importer. She began acting in the mid-1950s with bit parts in films including "Simon and Laura" (1955) and "Three Men in a Boat" (1956). In 1957, Ireland married actor David McCallum. The couple met on "Hell Drivers" and starred opposite each other in "The Man From U.N.C.L.E." episode "The Quadripartite Affair" (season 1, episode 3 - 1964) and again four weeks later in episode 7, "The Giuoco Piano Affair". She came back a third time in "The Tigers Are Coming Affair" (episode 37 in 1965) and a fourth in the two-part episode "The Five Daughters Affair" (season 3, episodes 28 and 29 - 1967). They had three sons, Paul, Valentine and their adopted son, Jason McCallum, who died of a drug overdose in 1989, six months before Ireland's own death. McCallum and Ireland divorced in 1967. In 1968, Ireland married Charles Bronson. She had first met him when he and McCallum were filming "The Great Escape" some years earlier. Together they had a daughter, Zuleika and adopted a daughter, Katrina. They remained married until Ireland's death in 1990. Death. Ireland was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1984. After her diagnosis, Ireland wrote two books chronicling her battle with the disease (at the time of her death, she was writing a third book) and became a spokesperson for the American Cancer Society. In 1988, she testified before Congress about medical costs and was given the American Cancer Society's Courage Award by President Ronald Reagan. On 18 May 1990, Ireland died of breast cancer at her home in Malibu, California.
1072775	Plot. In 1936 Tokyo, Sada Abe (Eiko Matsuda) is a former prostitute who now works as a maid in a hotel. The hotel's owner, Kichizo Ishida (Tatsuya Fuji), molests her, and the two begin an intense affair that consists of sexual experiments and various self-indulgences. Ishida leaves his wife to pursue his affair with Sada. Sada becomes increasingly possessive and jealous of Ishida, and Ishida more eager to please her. Their mutual obsession escalates to the point where Ishida finds he is most excited by being strangled during lovemaking, and he is killed in this fashion. Sada then severs his penis and writes, "Sada Kichi the two of us forever," in blood on his chest. Title. The film was released under "In the Realm of the Senses" in the U.S. and the U.K., and under "L'Empire des sens" (Empire of the Senses) in France. The French title was taken from Roland Barthes's book about Japan, "L'Empire des signes" ("Empire of Signs", 1970). Controversy. Strict censorship laws in Japan would not have allowed the film to be made according to Oshima's vision. This obstruction was bypassed by officially listing the production as a French enterprise, and the undeveloped footage was shipped to France for processing and editing. At its première in Japan, the sexual activity was optically censored using reframing and blurring. In the United States, the film was initially banned upon its première at the 1976 New York Film Festival, but later screened uncut, and a similar fate awaited the film when it was released in Germany. The film was not available on home video until 1990 although it was sometimes seen uncut in film clubs. At the time of its initial screening at the 1976 London Film Festival, the British Board of Film Censors recommended it be shown under private cinema club conditions to avoid the need for heavy cuts to be made, but only after the Obscene Publications Act had been extended to films (in 1977) to avoid potential legal problems. The film opened at the Gate Cinema Club in 1978. It was given an official countrywide cinema release in 1991, though the video release was delayed until 2000 when it was passed with an "18" certificate (suitable for adults only), leaving all of the adult sexual activity intact, but reframing a shot where Sada yanks the penis of a prepubescent boy after he misbehaves. The scene was zoomed in so just the reaction of the boy is shown. The cut was eventually waived in 2011. The film is available in uncut form in France, the United States (including the The Criterion Collection), the Netherlands, and several other territories. In Canada, when originally submitted to the provincial film boards in the 1970s, the film was rejected in all jurisdictions except Quebec. It was not until 1991 that individual provinces approved the film and gave it a certificate. However, in the Maritimes the film was rejected again as the policies followed in the 1970s were still enforced. Due to its sexual themes and explicit scenes, the film was cause of great controversy in Portugal after it was aired on RTP. Some deemed it inappropriate even for the watershed slot, and some even appreciated its airing, like the priest who was Archbishop of Braga D. Eurico Dias Nogueira who said he 'had learned more in 10 minutes of the film than in his entire life'. The film was aired again in RTP2, but was almost not noticed. Themes. The film does not so much examine Abe's status as a folk hero in Japan ("Pink film" director Noboru Tanaka's film "A Woman Called Sada Abe" explores this theme more directly) as the power dynamics between Abe and Ishida. Many critics have written that the film is also an exploration of how eroticism in Japanese culture is often morbid or death-obsessed. Oshima was also criticized for using explicit sex to draw attention to the film, but the director has stated that the explicitness is an integral part of the movie's design. Set in the run-up to the Second World War, the film also expresses anti-militarism, as in the scene in which Ishida walks dazed in the opposite direction while a platoon of soldiers marches by, applauded by rows of children dutifully waving Japanese flags. Most of the action takes place inside Ishida's inn, but there are also some exterior sequences, including one on the turntable of a steam locomotive roundhouse. In popular culture. Quincy Jones made a pop song in 1980 called "Ai No Corrida" based on the movie's original Japanese title.
1442565	The Good Heart is an Icelandic independent film written and directed by Dagur Kári, starring Brian Cox and Paul Dano. It debuted at the 2009 Toronto International Film Festival. Plot. Short-tempered bartender Jacques (Brian Cox) has a heart-attack. Young homeless man Lucas (Paul Dano) fails in a suicide attempt. They share a room in the hospital. They agree that Lucas can stay in the bar, and that Jacques will coach him to become his successor. In the beginning Jacques complains that Lucas is too soft toward guests.
1062284	Russell Irving "Russ" Tamblyn (born December 30, 1934) is an American film and television actor and dancer, who is arguably best known for his performance in title role of the 1958 "tom thumb" and the 1961 movie musical "West Side Story" as Riff, the leader of the Jets gang. He is also known for appearing in such films as "Seven Brides For Seven Brothers", "The War of the Gargantuas", "Peyton Place" and " The Haunting", as well as for his portrayal of Dr. Lawrence Jacoby in the television drama "Twin Peaks". Early life and career in films. Tamblyn was born in Los Angeles, California, the son of actors Sally Triplett and Eddie Tamblyn. He is the older brother of Larry Tamblyn, organist for the 1960s band The Standells. Discovered at the age of ten by actor Lloyd Bridges after acting in a play, Tamblyn's first film appearance was a small non-speaking role in 1948's "The Boy With Green Hair". He also appeared on "The Ed Sullivan Show" as a child.
1377940	Olesya Yurivna Rulin (; born March 17, 1986) is a Russian American actress. She is best known for co-starring in the first three films of the "High School Musical" franchise as Kelsi Nielsen. She also starred in the films "" (2008) and "Flying By" (2009). Early life. Rulin was born in Moscow, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union. She spent her early childhood in Likhoslavl. Rulin was eight when she emigrated to the United States to rejoin her father who had done so two years earlier. They lived first in Texas then later in Utah. Rulin is also a trained ballet dancer. When she was 12, she entered a model search contest at the urging of her mother and won representation by four different agencies. Prior to acting full-time, she worked for a year as a certified nursing assistant and also at stores such as Victoria's Secret; she was working at a Nordstrom store when the first "High School Musical" came out. She was studying economics in Paris when the casting for "High School Musical 2" was being done. Rulin graduated from West Jordan High School in 2005. She can read, write and speak in fluent Russian. Acting career. In addition to her role in "High School Musical" and "High School Musical 2", and "High School Musical 3", her other credits include the Disney Channel Original Movies "Halloweentown High", "The Poof Point" and "Hounded", the television series "Everwood" and the feature films "Forever Strong", "Mobsters and Mormons" and "The Dance". Rulin's part in "High School Musical 2" was significantly larger than the first movie, including a solo in "You Are The Music In Me" and a few lines in "Work This Out". Rulin reprised her role as Kelsi Nielsen in "", also with a larger part, and performed in three songs, one of them being a duet alongside Lucas Grabeel. Rulin is also co-starred alongside Jessica Simpson in the film "Major Movie Star" (released in the United States under the title "Private Valentine: Blonde & Dangerous"). In 2009, Rulin co-starred with Billy Ray Cyrus and Heather Locklear in a drama film "Flying By".
739161	Martin Ferrero (born September 29, 1947) is an American stage and film actor. Life and career. Ferrero was born in Brockport, New York. He joined the California Actors Theater in Los Gatos, California. In 1979, he moved to Los Angeles and began to act in Hollywood. He is widely remembered for his role as the ill-fated lawyer Donald Gennaro in "Jurassic Park" (1993). He was a regular on the 1980s TV series "Miami Vice" for playing two roles during its run on NBC, playing petty thief-turned-informant Izzy Moreno and also playing assassin Trini DeSoto in the pilot episode. He also guest-starred on an episode of "Cheers" ("Rescue Me", season 3), playing the role of an Italian waiter. In addition, he has appeared in "Get Shorty" (1995), "Gods and Monsters" (1998), and "The Tailor of Panama" (2001). In 1996 he adopted a child from Guatemala and raised him in the hope that his son would become a baseball prodigy. His son is currently in high school and is being heavily recruited by the top coaches in college baseball. As of 2008, Ferrero is a member of the Antaeus Company, a Los Angeles classical theater ensemble. In 2011, Ferrero reprised the role of Donald Gennaro in a CollegeHumor parody of "Jurassic Park".
585849	Udayananu Tharam (English: "Udayan Is the Star") is a 2005 Malayalam comedy film that presents the southern Indian film industry (especially Malayalam cinema) through a satirical viewpoint. It was written by Sreenivasan and directed by debutant Rosshan Andrrews. The film stars Mohanlal,Sreenivasan, Meena, Jagathy Sreekumar, and Mukesh in the lead roles. The financial and artistic crisis which plagued the once glittering Malayalam film industry at the turn of the 21st century lies at the center of the story. Roshan Andrews changed his name to Rosshan Andrrews as per his astrologer's suggestion to ensure the success of the film. The film grossed 5.2 crores in two weeks from 41 screens in Kerala with a distributor's share of 1.38 crores. This was the biggest opening for any Malayalam film till then. Synopsis. "Udayananu Tharam" is the story of Udayabhanu (Mohanlal), a worshipper of films and an immensely talented assistant film director, who yearns to write and direct his own movie at a time when the industry is filled with dubious filmmakers. Rajappan Thengummoodu (Sreenivasan) is a rather crooked friend of Udayabhanu and an aspiring and failed actor. As Udayabhanu finally prepares to shoot his first movie based on his own script, he discovers to his horror that Rajappan has stolen his manuscript, and shooting is underway with Rajappan playing the lead, which eventually propels him to stardom. Udhayabhanu soon finds himself faced with a career and personal crisis, with his faltering relations with his superstar wife Madhumati (Meena) contributing to the latter.
583380	Awaargi is a 1990 Bollywood drama film directed by Mahesh Bhatt starring Anil Kapoor, Meenakshi Sheshadri and Govinda. The film is considered to have featured Anil Kapoor's and Meenakshi Sheshadri's best performances. Over the years it has gained immense critical praise and is considered a classic now. Like several other 1980s films by Mahesh Bhatt, "Awaargi", containing serious and realistic content, belongs to the arthouse cinematic genre, known in India as parallel cinema. On its release, it received critical acclaim. Story. Lalla (Anupam Kher) is one of the underground dons in Bombay, and has several men to carry out all kinds of criminal activities for him. One of them is Azad (Anil Kapoor), who he uses to scare people, and Azad has never failed him. Then Azad goes and rescues a prostitute named Seema (Meenakshi Sheshadri) from Ranubhai (Avtar Gill), who owes allegiance to rival don, Bhau's (Paresh Rawal), group and invites his ire and anger. Azad refuses to submit to anyone, and assists Seema meet her goal - which is to be a famous singer. He entrusts her to a Music Director by the name of Dhiren, and sits back and watches as Seema becomes popular day by day. Azad has fallen in love with Seema, but is unable to tell this. What Azad does not know that Dhiren too has fallen in love with Seema, and it appears that Seema is also attracted to him. Before Azad can pursue this any further, he must content with Bhau's hoodlums - who have been instructed to kill him under any circumstances. Music. The music of "Awaargi" was by Anu Malik. The lyrics were penned by Anand Bakshi.
1294320	Daniel Julius Bernstein (sometimes known simply as djb; born October 29, 1971) is a mathematician, cryptologist, programmer, and research professor of computer science at the University of Illinois at Chicago. He is the author of the computer software programs qmail, publicfile, and djbdns. Early life. He attended Bellport High School, a public high school on Long Island, and graduated at 15 in 1987. The same year, he ranked fifth place in the Westinghouse Science Talent Search. In 1987 (at the age of 16), he achieved a Top 10 ranking in the William Lowell Putnam Mathematical Competition. Bernstein earned his bachelor's degree in mathematics from New York University (1991) and has a PhD in mathematics from the University of California, Berkeley (1995), where he studied under Hendrik Lenstra. Bernstein v. United States. Bernstein brought the court case "Bernstein v. United States". The ruling in the case declared software as protected speech under the First Amendment, and national restrictions on encryption software were overturned. Bernstein was originally represented by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, but he later represented himself despite having no formal training as a lawyer. Software security. In the autumn of 2004, Bernstein taught a course about computer software security, titled "UNIX Security Holes". The sixteen members of the class discovered 91 new UNIX security holes. Bernstein, long a promoter of the idea that full disclosure is the best method to promote software security and founder of the securesoftware mailing list, publicly announced 44 of them with sample exploit code.
1017481	Bryan Leung Ka-yan (born 20 January 1949) is a Hong Kong film and television actor and director who has played roles in numerous acclaimed martial arts films. He is affectionately known as "Beardy" due to his trademark facial hair. He also has characteristic hyper-extendable fingers, which can be observed when he has his palms open and his fingers outstretched. Despite being one of the most well-known faces in Hong Kong action cinema, he had no formal martial arts training, relying on his talents at mimicry to imitate the moves shown to him by the action directors. Career. Leung's action film career began in 1969, his good looks and natural athleticism taking him to Shaw Brothers, where he appeared in several renowned period kung fu films, although he was rarely offered leading roles. His big-break came under the direction of Sammo Hung, with whom he fought in "Enter the Fat Dragon" (1978), and co-starred in the seminal "Warriors Two" (1978). His performance in "Warriors Two", as Mr. Tsan, a real-life historical doctor and master of Wing Chun, is described as "the best performance of his career" by Mark Pollard of "Kung Fu Cinema", who goes on to write: Leung continued to work with Sammo Hung, achieving further success with a string of highly-rated kung-fu comedies, including "Knockabout" (1979), where he and Yuen Biao played crooks being harassed by kung-fu beggar Sammo Hung. In "Dreadnaught" (1981), he played Wong Fei-hung's student (without his trademark beard). The film again featured Yuen Biao, as well as veteran kung-fu star Kwan Tak-hing playing Wong Fei-hung. It also marked Leung's first collaboration with director Yuen Woo-ping, and he would go on to star in several acclaimed Yuen Woo-ping directed films, including "Legend of a Fighter" (1982), in which he portrayed historical figure Fok Yuen-gap, and "The Miracle Fighters" (1982). During this same period, Leung also enjoyed some success in television acting, appearing as Kiu Fung in TVB's 1982 adaptation of Louis Cha's "Wuxia" novel "Demi-Gods and Semi-Devils" and as Kwok Ching in the 1983 adaptation of "The Return of the Condor Heroes". Despite this acting success, Leung's 1984 directorial debut, "Profile in Anger", was relatively unsuccessful. This marked a lowering of his star profile, as he began to take more supporting roles and less leading roles. He continues to act and direct into the 2000s, occasionally appearing in high-profile films like "Last Hero in China" (1993), where he co-starred with Jet Li and reprised the role he had played in 1981's "Dreadnaught", and several Stephen Chow vehicles including "Legend of the Dragon" (1990). In 2009, Leung is to direct once again in a new martial arts action film tentatively titled "Blood Relations". He will also star in the film alongside his son Leung Ho-yee and martial arts film actor Gordon Liu.
586285	Mazhavillu is a 1998 Malayalam romance film by Dinesh Babu which is based on his own Kannada movie "Amrutha Varshini". The film has Kunchako Boban, Preeti Jhangiani and Vineeth in the lead roles. Plot. Mahesh (Kunchacko Boban) and Veena (Preeti Jhangiani) is a happily engaged couple who was living in Germany when Mahesh was working for an Amusement park. One day his childhood friend Vijay Krishan (Vineeth) who was a poet comes and visits them. Vijay is depressed since his girlfriend Neena (Praveena) died by cancer. Veena was having a strong resemblance with Neena. Also, Neena had made Vijay promise that he will marry another girl if she passes away. Vijay becomes obsessed on Veena .Mahesh comes to know about this but doesn't reveal this to Veena.Mahesh takes Vijay to a cliff and ask him to change his mind and go back home. Vijay tries to kill Mahesh and he slips and dies falling from the cliff. Vijay did not try to save him even though he could. But Mahesh's automatic camera captures pictures of this happening and later Veena happens to see this and understands what happened on that day. She first acts like she is ready to share her life with Vijay now and asks him to take her to the cliff where Mahesh died as it was Mahesh' long cherished dream to take photos from the cliff. She suicides from there in front of Vijay as a revenge. Music. The film features a well composed score and soundtrack by Mohan Sitara. The lyrics were penned by Kaithapram Damodaran Namboothiri. Box office. The film was an average grosser.
1058425	Kelly Rowan (born October 26, 1965) is a Canadian film and television actress and former fashion model. She is best known for portraying Kirsten Cohen on "The O.C." Early life. Rowan was born in Ottawa, Ontario, and is a graduate of Toronto's Northern Secondary School. At age 19, she left the University of Western Ontario and then attained her degree in English Literature to join the cast of the Canadian series "Mount Royal". Rowan went on to further her education, studying acting at the British American Drama Academy in London and, upon returning to North America, relocating to New York to study at the city’s famed Neighborhood Playhouse. Career. Rowan attended playwriting courses at UCLA, and has written her own play. She began modeling in her college years to earn money and started acting in commercials. She went on to appear in films such as "The Gate", "Hook", "Three to Tango" and "One Eight Seven". Rowan guest-starred in television series such as "The Outer Limits", "Growing Pains", "Da Vinci's Inquest", "" and "Dallas". In 1993, she won a Gemini award for her work in the television movie "Adrift". In 2002, Rowan guest-starred in four episodes of "Boomtown", playing "Marian", the deceived wife of David McNorris (Neal McDonough). In 2003, she was cast as Kirsten Cohen on the Fox television series "The O.C."; for her role as the recovering alcoholic mother, she won a Prism Award. Rowan has volunteered as an actress with the Young Storytellers Foundation. She has also starred in "The O.C." co-star Peter Gallagher's music video "Still I Long for Your Kiss", a song from his album "7 Days in Memphis", which was released in 2005. She also appeared in the television movie "In God's Country" and in the film "Jack and Jill vs. the World". She completed her third project for Lifetime, producing a television movie, "She Drives Me Crazy". In 2008, she completed a television film, "The Good Times Are Killing Me" which she was an executive producer for and starred in alongside Rupert Graves. In early 2009, Kelly did a cameo role in one episode ("") of "". In 2011, Emily Osment, Kelly Rowan and Kay Panabaker starred in an original 2-Hr movie "Cyberbully". In summer 2012, TNT will debut "Perception", a drama series with Eric McCormack, and Kelly will play Natalie Vincent. Personal life. Rowan became engaged to David Thomson, 3rd Baron Thomson of Fleet in late June 2007. They broke off their engagement just before Rowan gave birth to their daughter on April 28, 2008 in Los Angeles. In September 2009, Rowan and Thomson made their first public appearance since their alleged split in early 2008, at the Toronto International Film Festival.
725267	Texas Clifton Quency Battle (born August 9, 1980) is an American film and television actor. He is perhaps best known for his role as Marcus Forrester on the CBS soap opera "The Bold and the Beautiful". Career. In May 2008, Battle was cast on the CBS soap opera "The Bold and the Beautiful" playing a character named Marcus Walton. The new actor comes onto the show as the first African American with an in-depth story line. He comments on the huge role as stating "It really does feel good that the writers/producers of the show, really have trust in me on bringing this new character to life. I'm happy to be a part of a show that really has a family feeling. Every one of my cast members is fun to work with. Makes you feel good to get up in the morning, and go to work doing something you love." He is best known for his roles in the films "Coach Carter", "Final Destination 3", "", and "Dragonball Evolution". Battle is scheduled to appear in the remake of "The Legend of Boggy Creek" as Tommy Davis in 2010, who co-stars with Stephanie Honore and Sarah Jenazian. Battle portrayed Dixon in the After Dark Originals flick "The Task". Battle wrapped up the first season of "Death Valley", which airs on MTV. References. Coach Carter(2005)- Maddox
584028	Pattiyal is a 2006 Indian Tamil gangster film directed by Vishnuvardhan. The film tackles the issue of dons. It stars Arya, Bharath, Pooja Umashankar, Padmapriya Janakiraman, Cochin Haneefa and Santhana Bharathi in pivotal roles. The film's score and soundtrack are composed by Yuvan Shankar Raja. This film, based on the 1999 Thai film "Bangkok Dangerous", was released on 17 March 2006, becoming highly successful at the box office, while being critically acclaimed as well. Plot. Kosi (Arya) and Selva (Bharath), are contract killers working for a middleman with the ironic name of Sami (Cochin Haneefa). Director Vishnuvardan portrays this morbid telling of two orphaned youths with incredible realism of trust, friendship, and ultimate betrayal masterfully. Kosi is an unblinking man with a stubborn feel for life thereby refusing to love and be loved. Selva, deaf and dumb, is equally intrepid although he has a heart ticking beneath the dark, dire exterior. Saroja (Padmapriya Janakiraman), a salesgirl at a garment company is an outgoing and sprightly girl and is a friend of both Kosi and Selva. She is in deeply in love with Kosi but the latter only finds her presence as a nuisance whereas Saroja's chief manager who stubbornly tries to make Saroja sleep with him. In stark contrast to this romance, is the love between Selva and Sandhya (Pooja Umashankar) who are smitten with each other after some fate-based encounters that bring some light-hearted humor to the film. As the film progresses, Kosi and Saroja end up sleeping together when Kosi begins to drink excessively, promptly making him start to realize his feelings for Saroja. Unfortunately this new-found happiness does not last as their profession does not allow it to. Kosi and Selva set out to assassinate Avinashi Nachimuthu Gounder (Santhana Bharathi), a business tycoon and uprising politician as instructed to do so by Sami. Kosi and Selva mutually agree to make this assignment their last and to begin leading normal lives with their newfound loves Saroja and Sandhya respectively. A new twist occurs in the story where the people who hired Saami told him to finish off Kosi and Selva once the job is completed. Upon preparing for the assassination, Kosi becomes unable to think as he finds himself overwhelmed with feelings of love, at which point Selva decides that he should finish the execution himself and Kosi should go speak with Saroja. Kosi visits Saroja at her home where he finds her with shivering and with bruises. Saroja then tells Kosi how her chief manager intruded the house and sexually violated her after she refused to love him. Infuriated at this, an emotionally shaken Kosi finds the manager and beats him to a horrific death. Meanwhile, Selva had cunningly assassinated Avinashi Nachimuthu Gounder and is returning home. The manager's boss who happens to be a big don himself finds out that Kosi is the one responsible for the manager's death and seeks out revenge. He gets a hold of Saami and blackmails him to bring Kosi to him for his life.Unknowingly, Kosi goes with Saami and is killed in the ambush from a gunshot to his head.
584569	Parijatham is a 2006 Tamil film directed by Bhagyaraj. The film stars Prithviraj Sukumaran and Saranya Bhagyaraj. It relates the story of a man trying to discover the identity of the lady his deceased mother, Seetha, had wanted him to get to know and marry. Plot. Prakashraj and Seetha have son named Surendhar (Prithviraj Sukumaran). Sumathi (Saranya Bhagyaraj) is the daughter of Sarath Babu. Sumathi lived in a palatial house and enjoyed luxurious life in her childhood. However, her father Sarathbabu lost his wealth and his family is pushed to poverty. Seetha's family shifts their base to the house opposite to Sumathi's house. Sumathi approaches her for working as a maid. Seetha is impressed by Sumathi's wise and sensible character at first sight and takes her as her maid. After few days, Seetha comes to know that house being occupied by her was owned by her maid's family. Seetha is influenced by Sumathi’s modesty, kindness and good nature. She expresses her desire to make Sumathi as her daughter-in-law. Sumathi accepts her request. Seetha communicates over phone to her husband (Prakashraj and son (Prithviraj Sukumaran) that she has chosen who her daughter in law and that she would let her identity be known when she meets them in person in their new home. But unfortunately she dies in an accident before communicating the identity of her daughter in law. After his mother's death, Prithiviraj vows to locate and marry a girl identified by her mother. Bhagyaraj who moves to Prakashraj and Prithiviraj house snoops around to find out the girl identified by Seetha. Soundtrack. The soundtrack consists of five songs composed by Dharan.
1130705	Lamman Rucker (born October 6, 1971) is an American actor with partial ancestry to Barbados. He is perhaps best known on the TBS sitcom "Tyler Perry's Meet the Browns". Early life. Rucker was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the son of Malaya and Eric Rucker. Rucker spent his formative years in the greater Washington, DC, Maryland area. He hails from a very dedicated and supportive immediate and extended family. He first had an interest in acting after he was placed in many child pageants. His first acting role was as Martin Luther King in the 4th grade. He was in the drama club in 7th grade and then attended high school at the Duke Ellington School of the Arts in Washington, D.C. Rucker studied at Carnegie-Mellon University and Duquesne University. His undergraduate degree is in Information Technology and Business and his graduate degree is in Education and Curriculum Development. Lamman Rucker also was an assistant drama teacher at a Pittsburgh charter school, Northside Urban Pathways, now known as UP. He played basketball in college and semi-pro ball for a short time after that. He is the oldest of three children, having a younger sister and his brother who died in 1992. Career. Rucker's major role came in 2002 when he assumed the role of attorney T. Marshall Travers on the CBS soap opera "As the World Turns" opposite Tamara Tunie. He left the series the following year and portrayed Garret Williams on ABC's "All My Children" in 2005. He has starred in a few of Tyler Perry's productions such as a guest role on "Tyler Perry's House of Payne", the film version of "Why Did I Get Married?" alongside Perry, Janet Jackson and Jill Scott, as well as appearing in a small role in the film version of "Meet The Browns" as Vera's adult son, Will. He currently has a starring role on Perry's second sitcom "Meet the Browns" reprising his role as Will. This time, Will has a much larger role (compared to his part in the movie) having just gotten married to a co-worker. To promote his work in Perry's films, Rucker appeared on The Mo'Nique Show March 14, 2010, and discussed the fear and beauty of shooting at a location so close to water, yet so close to home. Rucker remains active with a variety of grassroots, civic, and international organizations that focus on the improvement of critically challenged communities in the US. He is represented by D.C. based sports and entertainment attorney E. Lindsey Maxwell II, Esq. The two met in during their college years while in Pittsburgh. Two years ago, Mr. Rucker and Mr. Maxwell formed Black Tiger Edutainment, a company devoted to entertainment ventures and production of independent films. Earlier this year, Mr. Rucker and Mr. Maxwell teamed up with Dallas spa owner, Thai Morrisson, to form a new skin care line called Forplai (www.forplai.com).
1165759	Robert Sterling (November 13, 1917 – May 30, 2006) was an American film and television actor. Life and career. Early life. The son of Major League baseball player Bill Hart, he was born William Sterling Hart in New Castle, Pennsylvania, 50 miles (80 km) northwest of Pittsburgh. He attended the University of Pittsburgh and worked as a clothing salesman before pursuing an acting career. Film. After signing with Columbia Pictures in 1939, he changed his name to Robert Sterling to avoid confusion with silent western star William S. Hart. His name was legally changed while he was a second lieutenant officer attending flight training in Marfa in West Texas in 1943.
1448800	Taryn Stephanie Power (born September 13, 1953) is an American actress and the younger daughter of the actor Tyrone Power and his second wife, Mexican actress Linda Christian.
583805	Naani () is a Telugu film released in 2004. Directed by S. J. Suryaah, the film stars Mahesh Babu, Amisha Patel, Devayani and Raghuvaran. The film was simultaneously made in Tamil as "New". Plot. Naani an eight-year old boy who is very mischievous always troubling his mother. His mother scolds him when he eats the toothpaste, urinate in bed at night. Naani's elder brother plans to watch adults movie with his friends and Naani demands him to join him to which his brother does not allow him. Angered, Naani cuts off the power which creates a short circuit at home. Naani's mother scolds for his dangerous mischief and shouts at her husband for not stopping with one child as Naani is troubling her a lot. This hurts Naani and he runs away from home to jump into a river. But he is stopped by an man and he takes Naani to his place. The old man introduces himself as a scientist who has his own laboratory. He insists Naani to help him in his research of transforming a child to a young man. Naani agrees and the scientist transforms him to a young man. Naani starts to live as a young man(Mahesh Babu) physically but as a child mentally and stays away from his family. The only person other than scientist who knows the truth is his child classmate friend. Naani meets the girl at a school who helped him once he fell down on school. Innocent child Naani helps to remove dust from her eyes, smiles at her and leaves the place. The girl is very much attracted towards him and she looks for him every day. Naani goes for an interview in a company under the name of Vijju. The company is toy manufacturing company and the owner who interviews him demands to have childhood memories and should be like a child to understand children's taste. Since Naani himself is a child he grabs the job easily. Vijju is diverted to the daughter of the owner who is none other than the girl named Priya(Amisha Patel) who helped Naani once on road and whom she was helped by him at the school. Priya is surprised and happy to see him in her company. Priya-Vijju intimacy creates a jealousy for another employee in the company who intends to attract her and marry her. The cold war continues when Naani overcomes his idea for a new type of bed for kids and introduces his own idea creating a successful product. Nani meets his brother as an anonymous man and hears that his mother is very depressed on Naani's disappearance. Naani meets his mother who fell sick since her son got missed. She feels bad for having so strict to her child which she had done for his goodness. Naani realised his mother's love and goes to scientist to change him back to eight-year old boy. Scientist understands his mind and he again transforms him to eight-year old boy and Naani reconciles with his mother. But again at night he changes back to young man and he immediately rushes to scientist. But scientist does not know what has happened and both of them are shocked on Naani's present condition. Naani now lives as an eight-year old boy during day time and as a twenty eight-year man during night time. Priya expresses her love to him but Naani tells her to love a man suitable for her age. Scientist tells Naani to accept Priya and Vijju accepts her love. Priya tortures him always to which he cannot withstand. Priya tells him accompany for a matinee show. Since Naani is a boy during day time he cannot come. But he sees Priya waiting in anger for him in the theatre while going to home from his school along with his mother. Naani's mother befriends Priya as they are neighbours and Priya likes small boy Naani. Priya gets angry on Vijju's (Naani's) absence. She finally decides to both get married. jealous employee kidnaps Vijju on day of marriage but Vijju changes to Naani during daytime. The kidnappers release him as they misunderstand of kidnapping a child. Naani transforms to Vijju and marries Priya at evening time. Vijju though a young man by body but small boy and does not know anything about marital life. Now Vijju lives as an eight-year son to his mother during days and as Vijju, an employee in his wife's company and as husband to his wife during night time. Naani somehow manages his mother by disappearing during nights.Priya needs a child so she intentionally shows her skin to him by intentionally removing her clothes. Priya is now pregnant and Vijju is now a child dad. Vijju once meets Naani's (his) mother and understands the difficulties of pregnancy for a woman. Hence he takes care of his wife with full affection. Naani's child friend demands to spend time and come to play with him but Naani refuses as has got tight schedule as a son, as an employee and as a husband. His friends get angry and reveals the truth to Priya. Priya is shocked to hear that she is bearing the child of a child. Priya and all his family was tied by employee's men seeking revenge.Priya argues with Naani for marrying her and made her pregnant but Naani shouts at her arrogance of having involved him in trouble in spite of his warning to marry a suitable man of her age. Naani turns to Vijju in front of her and Priya is further shocked to see the transformation by her own eyes. But Vijju reveals that he loves her anything else in this world. Vijju overcomes the difficulties and admits her in the hospital. Everybody now comes to know the truth about Naani and Priya gives birth to Naani's son and she is upset on her fate of being a child's wife. Twenty years pass by. Now Naani is a real young man of twenty-eight years old.He still lives with Priya as her husband. He goes inside his room as young man and comes out as a forty eight-year old man who is now husband of forty year old Priya and father of twenty year old son who looks like him. Naani calls scientist to find if he had found remedy for his transformation to which he gets a negative reply from him. Now Naani shall live a life as a man with actual age during dawn to dusk and live as a man with actual age plus twenty years from dusk to dawn Characters. The main characters are:
1059153	The Rundown (also known as Welcome to the Jungle) is a 2003 American action comedy film starring The Rock and Seann William Scott about a bounty hunter who must head for Brazil to retrieve his employer's renegade son. It was directed by Peter Berg. The film received positive reviews but failed at the box office. Plot. Beck (Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson) is a "retrieval expert", a bounty hunter who collects debts for a man named Walker (William Lucking). He is dispatched to a nightclub to retrieve a championship ring from a football player, and after doing so is assaulted by one of Walker's other collectors. Angry, he confronts Walker and tells him that wants out of the business. Walker talks him into one last bounty - retrieve Walker's son Travis (Seann William Scott) from a small mining town in Brazil and Walker will give him enough money to open his own restaurant. Beck accepts and leaves for Brazil. When Beck arrives in the town of El Dorado he meets with the man running the mining operation, Mr. Hatcher (Christopher Walken). Hatcher gives Beck his blessing to grab Travis, but renegs when he finds out that Travis has discovered a missing golden artifact called "O Gato do Diabo". Beck confronts Hatcher and his men in the local bar and leaves with Travis. On the way back to the airfield, Travis forces their Jeep off the road and into the jungle. There he tries to escape but is re-captured by Beck. After an unfortunate encounter with some local monkeys the two find themselves in the camp of the local resistance. At the resistance encampment, Travis convinces the rebels that Beck works for Hatcher and was sent to kill them all. After a prolonged fight, Beck gains the upper hand before the rebel leader Mariana (Rosario Dawson) intervenes. She wants Travis, as the Gato can be used to ensure the locals can free themselves from Hatcher. Hatcher suddenly attacks the camp, killing many rebels. Beck, Travis, and Mariana escape the camp and Beck makes Mariana a deal: she helps him get Travis to the airfield in exchange for the Gato. After some searching, Travis leads them to a cave behind a waterfall where the Gato is located. They retrieve it and begin the journey back. On the way back, Mariana chastises Travis for wanting to sell the artifact, but Travis argues that he actually did want to give it to a museum. Mariana gives the two men Konlobos, a toxic fruit that paralyzes the eater. As she tells Beck which direction the airfield is, she leaves them with the fire to keep the animals away. After waking up able to move, Beck hauls Travis to the airfield. The local pilot, Declan (Ewen Bremner), tells Beck that Mariana was captured earlier by Hatcher and will probably be killed. Travis pleads with Beck to help, and the two head into town to rescue her. Using a cow stampede for cover, the two begin their assault on Hatcher's goons. Travis becomes trapped by gunfire in a bus, and Beck saves him before the bus explodes. Hatcher tells his brother to take Mariana and the Gato and flee, but they are stopped by Travis. Hatcher confronts Beck, who offers him the chance to leave town still. Hatcher refuses, and is confronted by the townspeople who shoot him before he can leave. Travis gives the Gato to Mariana before leaving with Beck, who tells him that despite all they've been through he must still return Travis to the US. Back in the U.S., Travis is delivered to his dad who begins to verbally and physically abuse him. Beck asks to celebrate with them and gives Walker and his men Konlobos. As they are paralyzed, Beck uncuffs Travis and the duo leave together, with Travis continuing to annoy Beck. Reception. "The Rundown" was warmly received by critics. Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reports that 71% of 145 critics have given the film a positive review, with a rating average of 6.4 out of 10. Metacritic, which assigns a weighted average score out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, gives the film a score of 59 based on 36 reviews. Roger Ebert of the "Chicago Sun-Times" gave the film 3 stars out of 4, saying "The jungle locations give the film a texture and beauty that underlines the out-sized characters." Despite the positive acclaim, "The Rundown" was a slight box office failure, grossing just under $81 million worldwide compared to its $85 million budget, which makes a sequel not entirely likely. Director Peter Berg has expressed interest in making a sequel to the film but notes that "no one can ever get motivated and focused enough to do it."
83294	Vincent Peter "Vinnie" Jones (born 5 January 1965) is a English actor and former professional footballer. Born in Watford, Hertfordshire, Jones represented and captained the Welsh national football team, having qualified via a Welsh grandparent. As a member of the "Crazy Gang", Jones won the 1988 FA Cup Final with Wimbledon, a club for which he played well over 200 games during two spells between 1986 and 1998. He also previously played for Chelsea and Leeds United. Jones appeared in "Celebrity Big Brother 2010", where he finished in third place behind Dane Bowers and Alex Reid. He has capitalised on his tough man image as a footballer and is known as an actor for his aggressive style and intimidating demeanour, often being typecast into roles as coaches, hooligans and violent criminals. Early life. Jones was born in Watford, Hertfordshire, to Peter (a gamekeeper) and Glenda (née Harris) Jones, and attended Chancellor's School in Brookmans Park, Hertfordshire.
774026	Rose Marie "Tantoo" Cardinal, CM (born July 20, 1950) is a First Nations film and television actress. Career. Cardinal was born in Anzac, Fort McMurray, Alberta. Her mother, Julia Cardinal, was a Métis of Cree descent. She has played roles in many notable films and television series, including "Spirit Bay", "Dances with Wolves", "Black Robe", "Legends of the Fall", "Smoke Signals" and "North of 60". She was cast in the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation mini-series "By Way of the Stars" with Gordon Tootoosis as The Cree Chief and Eric Schweig as Black Thunder. It was shot in Uxbridge, Ontario. In 2009, she was made a Member of the Order of Canada "for her contributions to the growth and development of Aboriginal performing arts in Canada, as a screen and stage actress, and as a founding member of the Saskatchewan Native Theatre Company". On August 23, 2011, Cardinal, Margot Kidder, and dozens of others were arrested while protesting the proposed extension of the Keystone Pipeline. In 2012, she performed the role of Regan in an all-aboriginal production of William Shakespeare's "King Lear" at the National Arts Centre in Ottawa, alongside a cast that also included August Schellenberg as Lear, Billy Merasty as Gloucester, Jani Lauzon in a dual role as Cordelia and the Fool, and Craig Lauzon as Kent. Television. "Gunsmoke: Return to Dodge"
687623	HotMen CoolBoyz (or H.M.C.B.) is a Danish adult film directed by Knud Vesterskov and starring Ron Athey and Billy Herrington.
479878	Sarah Margaret Hagan (born May 24, 1984) is an American television and film actress. Life and career. Hagan was born in Austin, Texas. She has been acting since the age of six, when her mother first signed her up for musical theater. Hagan was first involved with theater companies such as Houston's Playhouse 1960, the Houston Grand Opera (where she sang in the children's chorus), the Crighton Playhouse, the Houston Music Hall and the Bitter Truth Theater. From there, she made her screen debut in the 1997 feature film "Faith", where she played the title character at age 13; her TV debut came on an episode of the Calista Flockhart series "Ally McBeal" in 1999. Hagan's first major break came when she was cast in a recurring role as Millie Kentner on the short-lived NBC cult TV series "Freaks and Geeks" (1999–2000). Following that show's cancellation, she was cast on the David Alan Grier NBC sitcom "DAG", where she was originally slated to play Camilla Whitman, daughter of the US President; however, the role of Camilla was recast when the pilot episode was revamped before airing.
1529494	Sidney Luxton Loney, M.A. (16 March 1860, Chevithorne, Devon – 16 May 1939, Richmond) was sometime Professor of Mathematics at the Royal Holloway College, Egham, Surrey. (University of London), and a fellow of Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge. He authored a number of mathematics texts, some of which have been reprinted numerous times. He is known as an early influence on Srinivasa Ramanujan. Loney was educated at Maidstone Grammar School, in Tonbridge and at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, where he graduated BA as 3rd Wrangler in 1882. He has authored numerous books on mathematics. His book "The elements of statics and dynamics", published in 1897, still (2012) happens to be the only reference book on the subject used across various universities in south India.
1169493	Edward Mitchell "Mitch" Rouse (born August 6, 1964) is an American film and television actor, director and screenwriter. Rouse was born in Knoxville, Tennessee, and raised in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, where he played football at Oak Ridge High School. He attended the University of Tennessee before developing an interest in acting. Career. Rouse studied acting in Atlanta and later, improvisation in Chicago, where he became involved with improv guru Del Close and Chicago's legendary Second City Theatre where he met long-time friend David Pasquesi. After writing and performing in a number of Second City productions, Rouse moved to New York. Television. It was in New York where along with Amy Sedaris, Paul Dinello, and Stephen Colbert he co-created and starred in two television series for the cable television channel Comedy Central: "Exit 57" and "Strangers with Candy". Rouse has appeared on episodes of "Reno 911!", "Home Improvement", "According to Jim" and "Lost at Home". Rouse also voiced Round John Virgin and Comet, in the Holiday movie "Olive, the Other Reindeer" alongside Drew Barrymore, and Michael Stipe. He was playing in According To Jim American series as Ryan Gibson. Film. Rouse has also appeared in several feature films including "", "Friends With Money", "Rudy", "Sweethearts", and "The Heartbreak Kid". Rouse also created and stars in Spike's comedy "Factory". Mitch Rouse directed and wrote the movie "Employee of the Month" starring Matt Dillon, Steve Zahn, Christina Applegate, and Andrea Bendewald. He wrote the Paramount Pictures film "Without A Paddle" starring Seth Green and Dax Shepard. Personal life. In 2001, he married actress Andrea Bendewald in Malibu. The couple met while performing in the ABC Television sitcom "The Secret Lives of Men".
1165913	Ivan Dixon (April 6, 1931March 16, 2008) was an American actor, director, and producer best known for his series role in the 1960s sitcom "Hogan's Heroes", for his role in the 1967 telefilm "The Final War of Olly Winter", and for directing hundreds of episodes of television series. Active in the civil rights movement, he served as a president of Negro Actors for Action. Early life and career. Ivan Nathaniel Dixon, III, was born in Harlem, the son of a grocery store owner. When he was young, Dixon lived in the brownstone at 518 W. 150th St. in Harlem. Living on the same block were Josh White, Ralph Ellison, and the Hines brothers, (Gregory and Maurice). He graduated from the Lincoln Academy in Gaston County, North Carolina, and went on to earn a drama degree from North Carolina Central University in 1954, where the theater troupe is known as the Ivan Dixon Players. He also became a member of Omega Psi Phi Fraternity, Inc., while in attendance. In 1957, he appeared on Broadway in the William Saroyan play "The Cave Dwellers". In 1958, he was a stunt double for Sidney Poitier in "The Defiant Ones". In 1959, he co-starred in Lorraine Hansberry's groundbreaking drama "A Raisin in the Sun", the first Broadway play produced by a black woman.
1072705	, also known as AvN, is a 2010 Japanese martial arts science-fiction comedy film written and directed by Seiji Chiba. Produced by Nikkatsu studios, the film was slated for release in July 2010. The US DVD and Blu-ray were released February 22, 2011. Plot. A band of ninja warriors, led by an Iga Ninja named Yamata and his comrades Jinnai and Nezumi, are assigned to investigate the crash of a mysterious object from the sky. Upon arriving at the crash site, they discover the remains of other ninjas that have been brutally torn apart. Shortly after joining forces with another band of ninjas led by the "kunoichi" Rin, they encounter a boy whose village was massacred by an unknown assailant. Before they can get any further explanation from him, the ninjas are attacked by the assailants, who reveal themselves to be aliens from another planet. After a grueling battle that takes the lives of several ninjas, Yamata, Rin and Jinnai kill three of the aliens, but one of them retreats and takes Jinnai with it. A cowering Nezumi rushes back to his home village, only to see the villagers massacred by the aliens. He runs for his life, but is cornered by the alien, which swiftly decapitates him as his head lands on a temple post for a crow to feed on. Jinnai wakes up at an abandoned temple, hanging upside down along with corpses of other ninjas. He discovers an organism lurking within his throat, but before he can react, it takes over his body. The boy leads Yamata and Rin to the temple, only to be surrounded by Jinnai and the dead ninjas, who are being manipulated by small organisms secreted from the alien's nostrils. The possessed Jinnai and the dead ninjas utter English expletives before Yamata takes one down to shut them up. After discovering a pair of eyes peeking from a dead ninja's mouth, Yamata tells Rin to target the dead ninjas' throats. Rin dispatches the ninjas by ejecting the organisms from their throats while Yamata shoves his hand through Jinnai's mouth to extract the symbiote controlling him. After a long struggle, Yamata frees Jinnai from the alien's control. Yamata then squares off against the last alien in a cave. Overpowered by Yamata's skills, the alien sprouts wings to fly out of the scene, but Yamata grabs its leg before taking off. The alien attempts to shake Yamata off its back, but Yamata places a bomb on it and jumps off before it explodes. Yamata lands safely and reunites with his comrades before they return home, unaware that the boy has one of the organisms in his bag. Production. The project was first announced at the 2009 Asian Film Festival. In November 2009, it was announced that distribution rights were sold by Nikkatsu to Revolver Entertainment for the United Kingdom and to M Pictures for Thailand. The sale marked Nikkatsu's first such deal with London and Los Angeles based Revolver. "Alien vs. Ninja" is the first title for Nikkatsu's new label 'Sushi Typhoon'. Principle filming was completed in early 2010, and the film's world premiere was at the New York Asian Film Festival on July 3, 2010.
1162613	Jennifer Salt (born September 4, 1944) is an American producer, screenwriter, and former actress. Life and career. Salt was born in Los Angeles, California. Her parents were screenwriter Waldo Salt and actress Mary Davenport; her stepmother was the writer Eve Merriam. She attended the High School of Performing Arts in New York City and graduated from Sarah Lawrence College.
198698	Niels Fabian Helge von Koch (Stockholm, 25 January 1870 – "ibidem", 11 March 1924) was a Swedish mathematician who gave his name to the famous fractal known as the Koch snowflake, one of the earliest fractal curves to be described. He was born into a family of Swedish nobility. His grandfather, Nils Samuel von Koch (1801–1881), was the Attorney-General of Sweden. His father, Richert Vogt von Koch (1838–1913) was a Lieutenant-Colonel in the Royal Horse Guards of Sweden. He was enrolled at the newly created Stockholm University College in 1887 (studying under Gösta Mittag-Leffler), and at Uppsala University in 1888, where he also received his bachelor's degree ("filsofie kandidat") since non-governmental college in Stockholm had not yet received the rights to issue degrees. He received his Ph.D. in Uppsala in 1892. He was appointed professor of mathematics at the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm in 1905, succeeding Ivar Bendixson, and became professor of pure mathematics at Stockholm University College in 1911. Von Koch wrote several papers on number theory. One of his results was a 1901 theorem proving that the Riemann hypothesis is equivalent to a stronger form of the prime number theorem. He described the Koch curve in a 1904 paper entitled "On a continuous curve without tangents constructible from elementary geometry" ("original French title: "Sur une courbe continue sans tangente, obtenue par une construction géométrique élémentaire"").
1062113	Jack Warden (September 18, 1920 – July 19, 2006) was an American character actor of film and television. Early life. Warden was born John Warden Lebzelter in Newark, New Jersey, the son of Laura M. (née Costello) and John Warden Lebzelter, who was an engineer and technician. He was of Pennsylvania Dutch and Irish ancestry. Reared in Louisville, Kentucky, he was expelled from high school for fighting and eventually fought as a professional boxer under the name Johnny Costello. He had 13 welterweight bouts, but earned little money. World War II. Warden worked as a nightclub bouncer, tugboat deckhand and lifeguard before joining the United States Navy in 1938. He was stationed in China for three years with the Yangtze River Patrol. In 1941, he joined the United States Merchant Marine but, quickly tiring of the long convoy runs, he switched to the United States Army in 1942 where he served as a paratrooper in the 501st Parachute Infantry Regiment, with the elite 101st Airborne Division during World War II. In 1944, on the eve of the D-Day invasion (during which many of his friends died), Warden, now a Staff Sergeant, shattered his leg by landing in a tree during a night-time practice jump in England. After almost eight months in the hospital (during which time he read a Clifford Odets play and decided to become an actor), he was sent back to the United States. In "That Kind of Woman" Warden played a paratrooper from the 101st's rivals, the 82nd Airborne Division. After leaving the military with the rank of master sergeant, he moved to New York City and studied acting on the G.I. Bill of Rights. He joined the company of the Dallas Alley Theater and performed on stage for five years. In 1948 he made his television debut on the anthology series, "The Philco Television Playhouse" and "Studio One". His first film role, uncredited, was in the 1951 film "You're in the Navy Now", a movie which also featured the film debuts of Lee Marvin and Charles Bronson. Career. Warden appeared in his first credited film role in the 1951 in "The Man with My Face". From 1952 to 1955, Warden appeared in the television series "Mr. Peepers" with Wally Cox. In 1953, Warden was cast as a sympathetic corporal in "From Here to Eternity". Warden's breakthrough film role was his performance as Juror No. 7, a salesman who wants a quick decision in a murder case, in "12 Angry Men".
584155	Vettaiyaadu Vilaiyaadu ('Hunt and Play') is a 2006 Tamil crime-thriller film written and directed by Gautham Menon. Starring Kamal Haasan, Jyothika, Kamalinee Mukherjee, Prakash Raj and Daniel Balaji in prominent roles, the film featured music composed by Harris Jayaraj. It was one of the first Indian films to make use of Super 35mm technology. The film was dubbed in Telugu as "Raghavan" and released on 17 August 2007 to positive reviews. In 2012, reports stated that Menon would direct the film's Bollywood remake, but were later dismissed. It was dubbed in Hindi as "The Smart Hunt". Plot. The film starts with a girl named Rani, the daughter of former high ranking Chennai police officer Arokyaraj Prakash Raj, talking to her father over the phone saying that she will back home in 20 minutes. As she leaves the telephone booth, she is approached by someone who starts a conversation with her. The screen then cuts to black and we find out that Rani does not come home. The following morning Arokyaraj finds a finger hanging at his door. Police reports confirm that it is his daughter Rani's finger. He calls Raghavan (Kamal Hassan), his old friend, for investigation. Raghavan handles the case and they eventually find the body of Rani in a forest in the city outskirts. The doctor's report states that Rani's body was bisected by the killer with a surgical knife, proving that the murderer has a strong medical background. Following the trauma of losing their only daughter, Arokyaraj and his wife move to New York. After a week Raghavan finds out that Mr. & Mrs. Arokyaraj have been murdered in New York. This creates a link between the Chennai police and the New York Police Department. Raghavan leaves for New York to represent the Indian police. On the flight, he thinks about his dead wife Kayalvizhi (Kamalini Mukherjee) who was murdered by the mob because he stood in their way. Raghavan still cannot forgive himself for his wife's death. He reaches New York and starts his investigation with NYPD detective Anderson. Raghavan stays in a hotel in downtown New York where he constantly keeps his superiors in Chennai updated on the New York investigation. Staying next to his room is Aradhana (Jyothika). He immediately notices that she is going through a rough time in her life. One night, he gets suspicious on what she is up to and breaks into her room, only to find her attempting suicide by chocking herself. Raghavan saves her life and the two strike a friendship. Aradhana reveals that her violent husband is filing for divorce after cheating on her. Raghavan and Anderson start the investigation. They find a connection between the murder of the Arokyarajs and an Indian-American girl, Chandana, whose finger was also was found hung in her boyfriend's car. With much difficulty, they find the body of Chandana and three more American girls. They suspect two Indian medical students studying in New York - Amudhan (Daniel Balaji) and Ilamaaran (Salim Baigg). Raghavan and Anderson try to get into their room where Amudhan shoots Anderson. Amudhan tells Raghavan that he misbehaved with Rani and Rani told that to her father Arokyaraj. Arokyaraj had kept him in the police station for a night and tortured him and so he wanted to kill her whole family. Then they both escape from there. Raghavan is admitted in the hospital. Aradhana takes care of him. Raghavan and Aradhana return to India. There Raghavan tells Aradhana that he has fallen in love with her, but she is not ready for another life and she has to take care of her 11-month old daughter Maya. The rest of the film goes with how they kill Amudhan and Illamaran, who have evaded Mumbai police at Chattrapathi Shivaji International Airport and have entered India. Raghavan announces in the media that they are wanted and a cash reward. They enter chennai via air and see Aradhana with Raghavan. Ilamaran wants aradhana, no matter what and Amudhan kidnaps her that same night while Ilamaran tries to get into Raghavan's house and flees. he is chased and caught by Raghavan. At the climax Raghavan kills both and Aradhana accepts his love and they both marry and decide to have Maya as their only daughter. Production. Gautham Menon was signed on to direct a venture starring Kamal Haasan and produced by Kaja Mohideen, and initially suggested a one-line story which went on to become "Pachaikili Muthucharam" for the collaboration. Kamal Haasan wanted a different story and thus the investigative thriller film, "Vettaiyaadu Vilaiyaadu", was written with Jyothika, Kamalinee Mukerji, Prakash Raj, Daniel Balaji and Saleem Baig added to the cast. As per Menon's usual method for picking a title, he asked his associates for suggestions, which included the title of "Thadayaara Thaaka", which was later used for another film. The film told another episode from a police officer's life, with an Indian cop moved to America to investigate the case of psychotic serial killers before returning to pursue the chase in India. During the shooting, the unit ran into problems after the producer had attempted suicide and as a result, Kamal Haasan wanted to quit the project. Menon subsequently convinced him to stay on as they had taken advance payments. He has since revealed that unlike Kamal Haasan's other films, he did not take particular control of the script or production of the film. The film however had gone through change from the original script with less emphasis on the antagonists than Menon had hoped and he also revealed that scenes for songs were forced him and shot without him. Actresses Rohini and Andrea Jeremiah dubbed for the voices of female leads Jyothika and Kamalinee Mukherjee respectively. Soundtrack. The soundtrack of the film consists of 5 songs composed by Harris Jayaraj, and written by Thamarai. Telugu Tracklist. The film was dubbed in Telugu as "Raghavan". All Lyrics are penned by Veturi Sundararama Murthy. Critical response. "Behindwoods" wrote a positive review, stating: "The album has not let down expectations. It is the usual mix by Harris. However, Bombay Jeyashree’s contribution and the beautiful lyrics by poetess Thamarai are the greatest assets to the album. Harris once again proves his mastery in orchestration and the audio will surely be a hit like "Minnale" or "Kaakha Kaakha"." "Rediff" said, "The most disappointing part is the music. Mr Harris Jayaraj, what has happened to you? The music, which could have taken the movie to a different level, is so loud that it seriously hinders the story flow." Release. Reception. The film garnered largely positive reviews from critics. National Award winning crtic Baradwaj Rangan summarised it in his review: "The story of a police investigation is detailed in a smart, grown-up movie that gets most things right." He praised the film for "giving us a sense of a day in the life of a cop, as if an invisible crew followed him around as he went about his job." He lavished heavy praise on Gautham Menon for mature handling of the relationship between the lead pair, saying, "Gautham continues to dream up for Jyotika parts that no one's imagined her in before, and she contributes to the kind of mature romantic angle we’ve rarely seen before. It’s not just about boy meeting girl and falling in love; it's about boy with baggage meeting girl with bigger baggage and tentatively exploring the practicality of a new relationship after their respective old ones have faded away." "Behindwoods" said, "It is definitely a triumph of sorts for Gautham and Manickam Narayanan, who have gone through innumerable hitches in getting the movie released. Enjoy!!" "Rediff" gave it 3.5/5, saying "In his best performance in recent times, Kamal portrays the character with believable honesty and charm." Sify stated that "what gives you goose flesh is the finely calibrated performance of Kamal as DCP Raghavan. You just can’t take your eyes off him as he laces his portrayal with dignity, grace and dry wit." Box office. "Vettaiyaadu Vilaiyaadu", made on a budget of , collected totally worldwide. "Behindwoods" declared the film a "blockbuster". This was the first Tamil film to be released in 16 theatres in Chennai city alone and changed the trend of film release.
583955	Enthiran is a 2010 Indian Tamil science fiction action film co-written and directed by Shankar. The film features Rajinikanth in dual roles, as a scientist and an andro humanoid robot, alongside Aishwarya Rai while Danny Denzongpa, Santhanam, Karunas, Kalabhavan Mani, Devadarshini, and Cochin Haneefa play supporting roles. The film's story revolves around the scientist's struggle to control his creation, the android robot whose software was upgraded to give it the ability to comprehend and generate human emotions. The plan backfires as the robot falls in love with the scientist's fiancée and is further manipulated to bring destruction to the world when it lands in the hands of a rival scientist. After nearly a decade of pre-production work, the film was shot over two years beginning in 2008. The film marked the Indian cinema-debut of Legacy Effects, which was responsible for the film's animatronics. The film's background score and soundtrack, which was composed by A. R. Rahman, became the best-selling world album on the iTunes Store in three countries within a few days of its digital release. The film released worldwide on 1 October 2010, along with its dubbed versions: "Robo" in Telugu and "Robot" in Hindi. Produced by Kalanithi Maran, it is believed to be India's most expensive film since its release. The film received positive critical acclaim and became a commercial success selling about 3 crore tickets worldwide. It was claimed by regional tabloid to be the highest-grossing Indian film of all time, although because official box office records are not kept in India, this cannot be independently verified and the claim was disputed by Box Office India. It also went on to receive appraisals from notable celebrities in India and across the globe. The following year, the film won a number of awards during many ceremonies, including that year's National Film Awards and Filmfare Awards South, mainly for its art direction and special effects, which were handled by Sabu Cyril and V. Srinivas Mohan, respectively. Plot. Dr. Vaseegaran (Rajinikanth), a scientist specialized in robotics, creates a sophisticated android robot (Rajinikanth) in his own likeness after a decade of intensive research, for commissioning into the Indian army. Vaseegaran explains to his assistants Siva (Santhanam) and Ravi (Karunas) that the android must first be observed for its interaction with humans. His mother (Revathi Sankaran) suggests naming it Chitti. At the International Robotic Conference in Chennai, Vaseegaran introduces Chitti to the delegates. In the meantime, it is revealed that Vaseekaran's mentor, Dr. Bohra (Danny Denzongpa) is preoccupied in a project to create a similar android. Meanwhile, Chitti endears himself to Vaseegaran's girlfriend, Sana (Aishwarya Rai) and helps her cheat in her medical school exams. When they are caught, Sana lies to the investigators that she does not know Chitti; thus Chitti learns that humans may choose to lie for self-preservation. In the train Sana gets molested by a large group of criminals while Chitti makes the save. Vaseegaran prepares Chitti for a panel evaluation by the Artificial Intelligence Research and Development (AIRD) Institute, which is headed by Dr. Bohra. The panel enquires whether Chitti's build conforms to the Three Laws of Robotics of Isaac Asimov. Vaseegaran replies in the negative. During evaluation, Chitti stabs Vaseekaran at Bohra's command, though not fatally. Bohra convinces the evaluation committee that Chitti could not be relied upon in the battlefield as he can be easily manipulated to turn against his own men. Vaseekaran decides to modify Chitti's neural schema to allow him to understand human behaviour and emotions. Chitti gets angry once on Vaseegaran, which assures him and Sana that Chitti can now feel emotions. Later Chitti applies his text book knowledge of symphysiotomy to successfully handle the complicated childbirth of Latha (Devadarshini), Sana's friend. The procedure is covered live by the media. Dr. Bohra arrives to congratulate Dr. Vaseekaran on the achievement. He also lets Chitti pass the AIRD evaluation. Chitti then begins to see Sana as its romantic interest and makes advances. This triggers a confrontation between Vaseekaran and Chitti. Sana tries to explain to Chitti that to her he is only a friend and asks him to forget her. Chitti later deliberately fails in an evaluation conducted by the Indian Army. Enraged by the act of insubordination, Vaseekaran chops Chitti into pieces and throws it away in a landfill site. Bohra retrieves Chitti's parts and reassembles it. He gives Chitti a new appearance, and embeds a "red chip" inside Chitti, converting him into a ruthless terminator. Chitti gatecrashes Vaseekaran and Sana's wedding, then kidnaps and imprisons Sana. Chitti begins to create replicas of itself and kills Dr. Bohra. Soon, Chitti's army of robots cause mayhem in the city and takes over the AIRD Institute. Vaseekaran undertakes the task of stopping Chitti. Disguised as one of the robots, he successfully infiltrates the AIRD Institute and instructs the police to cut power supply to the entire city. When Chitti and his army are about to run out of charge, they seize vehicles on the road and use the batteries to recharge themselves. Chitti eventually finds Vaseekaran, but as Chitti is about to kill him, the police force strikes AIRD. One of the robots is immobilized by a grenade explosion and is taken into custody by Vaseekaran. He uploads a worm into Chitti's network which temporarily brings down the robot army. Chitti identifies the source of the worm and sends a "self-destruct" command to the robot. The robots assemble in the shape of a giant and chase Vaseekaran's armoured bus. Vaseekaran uses the data he had backed up from the destroyed robot to de-magnetise the robot army, collapsing the giant formation. Chitti gets captured by a huge magnetic wall, allowing Vaseekaran to access Chitti's internal control panel, through which he instructs all the other robots to self-destruct. He removes the red chip, causing Chitti to calm down. In a court hearing, the jury rules capital punishment for Vaseekaran, citing the large number of casualties and damages to public property caused by the robot army. Chitti, explaining to the court that the law allows it to be treated as material evidence, if not as a witness, explains that it was Dr. Bohra who caused Chitti's deviant behaviour. He shows the court, using his eyes as 3D projectors, the video footage of Dr. Bohra installing the red chip inside him. The court drops all charges against Vaseekaran, while ordering that Chitti be dismantled in order to avoid further mishaps of the same kind in future. Back at the lab, Vaseekaran tells Chitti to dismantle itself. While taking off its own parts one by one, Chitti apologizes to Sana and Vaseekaran for the problems it had caused. Vaseekaran comforts Chitti saying that the latter alone was not responsible for what happened. And that humans were responsible too as Chitti only learned from them.Chitti finally takes out its head, dismantling itself. The plot advances to 2030 in a museum, where children are escorted by a guide which displays of Chitti's body parts arranged. The guide tells the students that Chitti was the most advanced humanoid robot ever created, but was dismantled "after sometime". A curious student (Shriya Sharma) asks why, to which Chitti's head responds, "I started to think". Production. Development. After completing "" in 2001, Shankar announced a project with Kamal Haasan and Preity Zinta titled "Robo" to be produced by the now-defunct production company "Media Dreams". Despite announcing the project, due to a lack of backing, the project was canceled and Shankar began work on "Boys". In 2005, Shankar made another project, "Anniyan", which was mistaken to be the renamed title for "Robot". In July 2007, Shahrukh Khan was signed on to be the male lead of "Robot" as well as the producer of the film. However, in October 2007, Shahrukh Khan and Shankar officially called off the project due to creative differences. After further media speculation about Aamir Khan, Hrithik Roshan and Ajith Kumar being roped in, official reports surfaced in early January 2008, that Rajinikanth was finalized for the project. Later in January 2008, Ayngaran International and Eros Entertainment agreed to become the producers of "Robot". The film was unable to keep the name "Robot" in Tamil Nadu due to the English title as the government there exempted entertainment tax to films with Tamil. It was confirmed in September 2008 that the film has been renamed as "Enthiran". In December 2008, Eros cited the failures of "Drona" and "Yuvvraj" for putting them under financial pressure. Soon, Ayngaran International too claimed that it was affected by the global financial crisis of 2008, forcing both production houses to transfer the project to Sun Pictures, who also attempted to negotiate a deal with HBO Films to release the film with English subtitles in the West. Casting. Apart from the original decided casting of Rajinikanth in the lead role, S. Shankar as director, and A. R. Rahman as film composer, the rest of the cast was named over the following year. Several heroines were approached to essay the lead female role with Aishwarya Rai, Priyanka Chopra, Deepika Padukone, Asin Thottumkal, Trisha Krishnan, Shriya Saran, Priyamani and Nayantara. In late January 2008, Rai was announced as the heroine of the project and she later confirmed her appearance in the film to the news channel, Aaj Tak. For the lead antagonist role Amitabh Bachchan, J. D. Chakravarthy, Narain and Arjun Sarja were considered, but Danny Denzongpa was signed for the role. Comedians Santhanam and Karunas were signed up to portray important roles in December 2008. Sujatha Rangarajan originally announced as the dialogue writer of the film, died during the production stages, with Madhan Karky Vairamuthu being named as his successor. Along with Shankar's usual directorial assistants, Manoj Bharathiraja, son of noted filmmaker Bharathiraja, was signed on to be an assistant director. Sabu Cyril was signed up as the art director, while R. Rathnavelu took up the post of the cinematographer, after K. V. Anand, Manikandan, Nirav Shah, Tirru, and Ravi K. Chandran all opted out. The music composed by Rahman would feature lyrics by Vairamuthu and Pa. Vijay, while Raju Sundaram would choreograph dance moves. The film would be edited by Anthony Gonsalves and visual effects by V. Srinivas Mohan. Manish Malhotra and Mary E. Vogt, known for her work in "Inspector Gadget" (1999) and the "Men in Black" series, together would be in charge of costume designs. Along with Vogt, Yuen Woo Ping, the stunt co-ordinator for "Enthiran", and the leading US-based Legacy Effects—formerly known as Stan Winston Studio—who were responsible for animatronics in the film, made their Indian cinema-debut. Filming. Filming began on 15 February 2008 in Chennai, when portfolio photographer Venket Ram did a photo shoot with Rajinikanth. Following this initial shoot, S. Shankar and R. Rathnavelu went on a world tour for location-hunting. The team visited Vienna, Austria; Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; and Hanoi, Vietnam to pick suitable locations. The first three photo sessions were held with Rajinikanth in Mumbai and Chennai, with Aishwarya Rai featuring in the fourth session. The film's visual effects supervisor V. Srinivas Mohan revealed in a video interview that the film would be a pioneer in India, incorporating previsualization techniques for seamless rendering of the computer-generated imagery and animatronics. The first schedule of the film commenced on 8 September 2008 in Peru, where a song sequence featuring Rajinikanth and Aishwarya Rai was shot under the choreography of Raju Sundaram and Claudia Bruckmann at the historic site of Machu Picchu. Other scenes for the song were finished off in the United States and then Brazil. Another song was shot in Lençóis Maranhenses National Park in Brazil. The shooting for the second schedule continued in the Indian state of Goa, where the initial talkie portions were filmed for ten days. The third schedule for the film included shooting in Himachal Pradesh for a song, which was then followed by scenes being canned in and around Chennai. Scenes featuring a Robotics conference involving Rajinikanth, Aishwarya Rai, Santhanam and Karunas were carried out at Sri Sivasubramaniya Nadar College of Engineering and the Vellore Institute of Technology with over four hundred students being used as extras. A set depicting the Robot formation was created in a period of 45 days. The final schedule of filming was held on 7 July 2010, on which the entire cast and crew took part in a celebration on the sets, commemorating the completion of the two-year filming process. Music. The film's soundtrack, composed by A. R. Rahman, was released on 31 July 2010. It coincided with a promotional event held at the Putrajaya International Convention Centre in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The soundtrack album's release rights were purchased by Think Music for 7 crore (US$1.6 million). After the second day of release, the album reached number one on the Top 10 World Albums chart on iTunes in the United States, United Kingdom, and Australia, making it the first Tamil album to reach the spot. The Telugu album released on 6 August, while the Hindi album released on 16 August. Release. Tamil movies are typically dubbed in Telugu and released. In August 2010, a few media reports claimed that Sun Pictures had sold the distribution rights of "Robo", the Telugu version, to Telugu film producer Chadalavada Srinivasa Rao in Andhra Pradesh for 27 crore, who planned to release the film in the state under his banner 'Tirumala Tirupati Venkateswara Films'. The claim was later denied by Sun Pictures, who clarified that the company had not yet sold any distribution rights to anyone. Sun Pictures initially accused him of falsely claiming to have bought the rights. After an initial unsuccessful attempt to take legal action on Sun Pictures, Srinivasa Rao lodged a complaint with the Andhra Pradesh Film Chamber of Commerce against the film studio, claiming that they had been "defaming and cheating" him. A spokesperson from the company said that "We bought the rights for Rs 27 crore and sent them Rs 2 crore as advance. Sun Pictures, from Chennai, has also sent us a letter acknowledging our purchase. But they have now sold the rights to Thota Kanna Rao for a slightly higher price. We have been deliberately defamed and cops too are refusing to register a case against them here." A formal investigation was launched following a police complaint from Sun Pictures and two individuals, Udhayakumar, a production manager, and Surendran, his accomplice and employee of Tirumala films, were arrested for illegally trying to sell the film distribution rights by creating a fake document that claimed the distribution rights of "Robo" were to be sold to Srinivasa Rao. A controversy regarding the film's plot also originated that month as Indian author Vijayarke claimed that "Enthiran"s story was similar to that of his 2002 science fiction novel, "Man Robot", and demanded a credit for himself in the film. Vijayarke claimed that he realized the similarity after hearing S. Shankar narrate the plot during the film's audio launch, after which he emailed the director with his novel's story, seeking clarification. Yet another scandal broke out after the release of the film when a Tamil novelist, Aarur Thamizhnadan, made a complaint with the Greater Chennai Police against the director and producer of the "Enthiran", claiming that they had plagiarised the story idea from his novel "Jugiba" that was published in a vernacular magazine "Iniya Udhayam" in 1996. In 2007, the same group published the novel as the book titled "Thik Thik Dheepika". Arnika Nasar, a popular science fiction writer, also filed a case with the Chennai Police stating that the film was made by Shankar after he had "stolen" the central plot from a novel Nasar had published before in 1995. On 1 October 2010, the film opened in 2,250 screens worldwide, including 500 screens in Tamil Nadu, 300 screens in Andhra Pradesh, 128 screens in Kerala, 45 screens in Karnataka, and 750 screens in North India. The film was released by Sun Pictures in Tamil Nadu; Gemini Film Circuit released the film across North India, while Seven Arts released the film in Kerala. The film opened in 300 screens overseas. Ficus Movies handled distribution of the film in its different languages in North America. The film was also screened at the 12th Mumbai International Film Festival, the 21st Bath Film Festival, the 10th Tromsø International Film Festival, and the 24th Tokyo International Film Festival where it won a special award under the section "Winds of Asia-Middle East". Reception. Critical response. "Enthiran" received predominantly positive reviews from critics. On the review-aggregation website ReviewGang, the film scored 7.0/10 based on 9 reviews. Taran Adarsh of "Bollywood Hungama" gave it 4/5 stars and said "On the whole, ROBOT is a crowd-pleasing and hugely mass appealing tale of android revolution with a thrilling plot, rich and imaginative screenplay, super action, astounding effects and most importantly, Rajnikant, who is the soul of the film. It's the Big Daddy of all entertainers. Miss it at your own risk!" "Behindwoods" gave the film 4/5 stars, highlighting the film's direction and visual effects. On Rajinikanth's performance as an antagonistic robot, the website claims that "no one other than Rajnikanth could have pulled off this character [...] exuding brilliance and charisma in every frame." Aniruddha Guha of "Daily News and Analysis" wrote, "The film has the best special effects ever seen in a Tamil film [...] Robot, simply put, is one of the most entertaining Tamil films – across all languages –ever made" giving it 4 stars. Nikhat Kazmi of "Times of India" rated it 4/5, calling it the perfect getaway film. Bhama Devi Ravi of "Times of India" gave 4/5 stars noting "Who would have thought you would root for anyone other than Rajni in his film?" "Zee TV" gave it 4 stars and noted "Rajnikanth, who enjoys demi-god status in India, has hit it big again. His latest film ‘Robot’ is a roller-costar ride, where you will see not one Rajni, but hundreds of them eating up helicopters, smashing cars, battering planet earth and creating havoc, like never before." Krishnakumar Padmanabhan of "Rediff" reviewed the Hindi version saying "In the end, this movie is as much about special effects as it is about Rajni" giving it 4/5 stars. Anupama Chopra of "NDTV" said that Rajinikanth makes Chitti endearing, while giving it 3.5/5 stars. Pavithra Srinivasan of "Rediff" gave the film 3.5/5 stars and said "All said and done, this is a Shankar film where he strikes the balance between science fiction and masala quotient. Whichever way you look at it, Endhiran is one of those rare films that give you just enough material to pull you in." K. K. Rai from "Stardust" called the film "a good entertaining flick." and gave it 3.5 stars. "Oneindia.in" said "Endhiran guarantees super fun for the entire family and Rajinikanth re-establishes the fact that what no body can, only Rajini can!" Kaveree Bamzai of "India Today" said "It's Happy Diwali, folks." Karthik Subramanian from "The Hindu" said "Actors tend to get lost in special effects movies. But not so in Enthiran. Rajinikanth and Aishwarya Rai Bachchan carry the movie on their shoulders, and considering the fact that much of the acting must have been in front of green screens, one has to say that nothing looks artificial right through." Moviebuzz from "Sify" said "Shankar’s Enthiran-The Robot, will make you completely surrender to power of visual extravaganza and the technical finesse. His sci-fi dream project is groundbreaking, bigger but not better. Go for it for Rajinikanth, he is in rocking form. Taste the thunder." Rajeev Masand of "CNN-IBN" said "In the end, it's the fantastic special effects and an inspired performance from Rajnikant that keeps the film fresh" giving it 3/5. Mayank Shekhar from "Hindustan Times" gave a rating of 3/5 and said "Leave aside jokes running on the Internet. This film, just a few feet too long, is fine entertainment by itself." Bryan Durham from "MiD DAY" gave 3/5 and said "This movie deserves full marks simply for perfectly casting the ever-dependable Rajni and making the most of the VFX at its disposal. Take a bow, Shankar." Shubhra Gupta from "The Indian Express" gave 3 stars and quoted "If I had a choice, I would have headed off to Enthiran , wherein I could have experienced Rajinikanth the way he is meant to: in Tamil, surrounded by swooning devotees armed with camphor and coconuts." Sanjukta Sharma from "Mint" said "The star of the new Rajinikanth flick is its director; and love’s a pain in a romcom about two depressed strangers. The acrobatics and gimmicks are all here—with superb production value and the kind of technology that have gone into making it, they look insanely cool." On the contrary, Gautaman Bhaskaran of "Hindustan Times "rated it 2/5, saying "Shankar’s work slips into a loud, overdramatic and exaggerated mess." The film also received good response from overseas. Lisa Tsering from "The Hollywood Reporter" said "Rajnikanth is such a badass that Chuck Norris is afraid of him. So goes the Internet lore of a 60-year-old South Indian screen icon so potent that fans build temples to him, women swoon and men just shrug and give up," further citing "The film's climactic battle scene drags, but that is a minor misstep. Writer-director S. Shankar has been working on getting this film made for the past decade, and he clearly is so thrilled to get "Robot" into theaters that his enthusiasm is infectious. Filmgoers with a taste for the absurd will be richly rewarded." Genevieve Koski from the "AV Club" stated "Before you go into Enthiran hoping for a something like an Indian Crank, nothing but high-octane action featuring K’nex-style robots, be warned: It isn’t that. It can be loosely defined as a science-fiction/action movie, yes, but it’s also an Indian movie made for Indian audiences, which means it gives over a lot—and I mean a lot—of time to the chaste romance between Rajinikanth and Rai, as well as many musical numbers." After a screening at the Mumbai International Film Festival, American film director Oliver Stone praised "Enthiran" for being very "original". In a personal appreciation letter to S. Shankar following the film's release, K. Balachander described Shankar as India's James Cameron, "Enthiran" as India's "Avatar", and Sun Pictures as India's MGM. Frank Paiva of MSN Movies named "Enthiran" as the seventh best film of 2010. On 13 December 2010, the Internet Movie Database (IMDB) announced its top-205 films of the world during the year 2010 amongst which "Enthiran" was in the top 50, holding the 39th spot with a score of 7.4/10. It is also the only Tamil film to be featured in this list. Box office. Hansraj Saxena, Chief Operating Officer of Sun TV Network claimed that "Enthiran"'s revenue accounted for approximately 30 per cent of the total revenue for the company's fourth-quarter in 2010. He also claimed that the film, produced by Sun Pictures, yielded 179 crore as the company's revenue. However, his integrity came under scrutiny after he was arrested in July 2011 for cheating and intimidation of a distributor. Box Office India estimated the earnings of "Enthiran" (including dubbed Hindi and Telugu versions) at about with 186.50 crore nett and 202 crore gross while overseas earnings were around US$12 million, making it the second highest grossing Indian film at the time of its release. "Enthiran" emerged as the top grossing Indian film of 2010 ahead of "My Name Is Khan" and "Dabangg". India. "Enthiran" grossed almost 58 crore from all languages in the first weekend, and 117 crore in the first week. The film grossed 60 crore in Tamil Nadu, 30 crore in Andhra Pradesh, 12 crore in Kerala and 4 crore in Karnataka. In Chennai, "Enthiran" grossed 6.3 crore in ten days. During the first week, the film's Tamil and Telugu versions fared exceptionally well, while the business of the Hindi version ("Robot") remained poor, netting 11.3 crore in the first week and 5.9 crore in the second week. The film did a bit better at select single screens in Maharashtra but overall poor, especially in the regions of Delhi and Punjab. In the first week, "Robot" netted 2.4 crore in Mumbai and Thane from 107 screens, 96 lakh in Delhi from 27 screens, and 56 lakh in Ahmedabad from 28 screens. The Telugu version "Robo" grossed 3.7 crore as share in Nizam in three days Overseas. In Malaysia, "Enthiran" grossed $0.5 million in the first weekend from 80 screens and $2.9 million in two weeks thus ended up as all-time top five highest grossing Tamil film in Malaysia. In Singapore, the film grossed S$2.5 million from 22 screens. In the United Arab Emirates, "Enthiran" grossed $301,000 in the first weekend while "Robot" grossed $86,000. In the United Kingdom, "Enthiran" was released by Ayngaran International while "Robot" was released by B4U Network. In the first weekend, "Enthiran" opened at 11th position in the United Kingdom collecting £295,148 from 30 screens while "Robot" opened at 21st position collecting £62,134 from 41 screens. "Enthiran" had accumulated $785,837 by the second weekend from 34 screens in the United Kingdom. "Enthiran" opened at 12th position in the United States in its opening weekend collecting $1,520,108 from 64 screens, while "Robo" debuted at 17th position in its opening weekend collecting $481,680 from 36 screens and "Robot" at 34th position in its opening weekend collecting $164,390 from 39 screens. In Sri Lanka, the film lost its sheen at the box office as the audience found it "outlandish". According to Eros International, "Enthiran" had grossed 61 crore overseas — including 20 crore in the United States, 8 crore across Europe, 7 crore in the Middle East, and 21 crore in South East Asia. Within months of the film's release, the Tamil Nadu Theatre Owners' Association lodged a complaint against Sun Pictures stating that the company cheated them of . The complaint also stated that they had incurred huge losses after screening the movie and many had demanded their deposits back. Sequel. In March 2011, the producers revealed that the crew was discussing the possibility of a sequel to "Enthiran". Cinematographer Rathnavelu confirmed it and said that they were planning to start the sequel by retaining some of the crew, including A. R. Rahman, Shankar and Sun Pictures. It is expected to start once Rajinikanth finishes his work on his present commitments. V. Srinivas Mohan, the special effects supervisor of the film, ratified the idea a couple months later.
1376897	Joshua Alexander "Josh" Flitter (born August 25, 1994) is an American actor. He is known for playing Corky in "Nancy Drew", Eddie in "The Greatest Game Ever Played", and voiced Rudy in the 2008 animated film "Horton Hears a Who!". Life and career. Flitter was born in Ridgewood, New Jersey, to Carla Flitter, who appeared in Broadway and regional musicals, and Steve Flitter. Flitter attended Marlboro High School and graduated in 2012. He currently attends New York City's School of Visual Arts for filmmaking.
1054901	The Zombie Diaries is a 2006 British independent horror film written, produced and directed by Kevin Gates and first-time feature-filmmaker Michael Bartlett. The film was shot in a hand-held documentary format on DV and split into three separate parts. Plot. Soldiers of the British army clear a small collection of farmhouses with two scientists who take a tissue sample from a deceased civilian who appears to have been reanimated, then shot.
1061068	Diane Ladd (born November 29, 1932) is an American actress, film director, producer and author. She has appeared in over 120 roles, on television, and in miniseries and feature films, including "Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore" (1974), "Wild at Heart" (1990), "Rambling Rose" (1991), "Ghosts of Mississippi" (1996), "Touched by an Angel" (1997) (TV), "Primary Colors" (1998), "28 Days" (2000), and "American Cowslip" (2008). Twice divorced and currently married, Ladd is the mother of actress Laura Dern, by her ex-husband, actor Bruce Dern. Ladd has won a Golden Globe and a BAFTA and has been nominated three times for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. Personal life. Ladd was born Rose Diane Ladner in Meridian, Mississippi, the only child of Mary Bernadette (née Anderson; August 15, 1912 – May 23, 2002), a housewife and actress, and Preston Paul Ladner (August 14, 1906 – April 1982), a veterinarian who sold products for poultry and livestock. Ladd is related to playwright Tennessee Williams and poet Sidney Lanier. Ladd was raised in the Roman Catholic faith of her mother.
688905	Joyce Nizzari (born May 20, 1940 in The Bronx, New York) is an American model, dancer, and actress. She was "Playboy" magazine's Playmate of the Month for its December 1958 issue. Her centerfold was photographed by Bunny Yeager. She is of Italian descent. Model career. Yeager discovered Nizzari in Miami when she was 15, but only had her do bikini shots until after Joyce turned 18. In August 1957 Nizzari won a cup awarded by the Florida Photographers Association. She was chosen queen of their annual convention.
587952	Geraftaar is a 1985 Bollywood action film directed by Prayag Raj. It starred Kamal Haasan and Amitabh Bachchan with Madhavi in the lead roles, while Rajinikanth played an extended cameo role. Plot. The film starts off with a happy family consisting of Kapil Kumar Khanna (Satyendra Kapoor), his wife Durga (Nirupa Roy), and their two sons Karan (Master Ravi) and Kishen. Karan is a very naughty kid and usually angers their parents while at his pranks. Kapil Kumar is an honest inspector and one day, on his wife's request, takes Karan with him. While on duty, Khanna goes to arrest Vidyanath (Kader Khan) and Ranjit Saxena (Ranjit) for possessing illegal drugs. Ranjit and Vidyanath try to kill by throwing him onto the ground using machinery, when Karan, in an attempt to save his father, pulls the wrong lever and Kapil Khanna is killed. Vidyanath accuses Karan of killing his father, and his mother Durga also in a fit of rage, beats him and tells him to go away. In a wave of emotions, Karan leaves the house and runs towards the ocean. He jumps in and commits suicide. His mother is heartbroken and says she did not want him to leave her and give her such a punishment. Karan has not died, but has been saved by Hussein (Master Suresh) and brings Karan to his home where he finds a new mother (Renu Joshi)and he and Hussein become best friends, giving an example to mankind, which is later shown in this movie. The starting credits roll on and shows Durga taking Kishen with her to another place where he grows up. On the other hand, Karan and Hussein's childhood are also shown. Now enters a grown up Kishen (Kamal Hassan), a struggling actor who is in love with Lucy (Rabia Amin), a fellow struggling actress whose father uses all her money on drinking. Kishen returns home and enacts a drama in front of his mother, then the two reconcile. When his mother asks him to get married, Kishen refuses describing the girls of today. Anuradha (Poonam Dhillon) makes an entrance, speeding on her car. While Lucy crosses the road, Anuradha slams her car into Lucy, leaving her wounded. Kishen runs after her and a chase follows where Kishen takes her to the police station and gets her behind bars. Anuradha is an arrogant girl and calls up her brother, revealed as Ranjit Saxena. The police officer refuses to accept bribe and locks Anuradha away. Ranjit asks Vidyanath's "brain" to think of a way. Vidyanath sends his son Chutkiram (Shakti Kapoor) to beat Kishen up. Chutkiram has a lisp and has a crush on Anuradha, whom he lovingly calls Anu. A fight between Kishen and Chutkiram and his goons, in which the latter are beaten up by Kishen. Kishen takes him to the police station and explains that he was attacked. Just then Ranjit comes and gives the bail orders for Anu and leaves, saying that Lucy has forgiven Anu for a sum of 25 000 rupees. Kishen confronts Lucy in hospital and Kishen tells Lucy to keep the money. Just then Lucy's drunkard father (Jeevan) comes, takes the money and leaves. Kishen slaps him and tells him to get out Lucy's life. Lucy's father reluctantly leaves, vowing revenge. Anuradha is released from jail and is planning of take revenge on Kishen, and makes a bet with her friends. Kishen lands on a job as a chauffeur and he and his mom are very happy for his job. When he attends his first day at work, he finds out that he is Anuradha's driver, and Anuradha uses this a mean to humiliate Kishen by putting her feet in Kishen's face. He then throws her shoe away and she orders him to bring it. He then throws she shoe in her face and tries to slap him. Kishen then humiliates Anuradha and resigns from the job. The girls then try to fool Kishen's mother by introducing themselves as social workers and tries to get close to Durga, in which she succeeds. The next day, Kishen and Durga go to a mandir, where they find Anuradha, and she being very nice to Kishen, but Kishen doesn't fall for it and taunts her. He still hates her, and Anuradha swears in the mandir that she accepts Kishen as her husband and wants to marry him, but still Kishen doesn't fall for her. She then threatens to kill herself and runs away. She is about to jump off a cliff, but Kishen stops her, and professes his love. A song sequence occurs, and afterwards, Anuradha holds a party in which Kishen publicly professes his love for Anuradha, but Anu then shows her real face and tells him she did this for revenge. Kishen then forcibly takes her to the very same temple where she swore Kishen as her husband. Kishen then marries her. Anu's brother Ranjit, is looking for her and Kishen takes her home, and tell Ranjit that he has just married Anuradha. Ranjit is furious, but he cannot do anything. Kishen leaves saying that he is leaving his wife in Ranjit's care. Ranjit goes to Vidyanath to help him out. Vidyanath then calls Durga and tells her that Kishen forcibly married Anuradha, and if he does not stay away from her, they will kill him. Durga collapses, and asks for Kishen to forgive her as she really wanted Kishen to marry Anuradha. She is admitted into hospital, and the doctor tells Kishen that she needs to be operated on and he needs to arrange for the money. Vidyanath calls Lucy, and proposes to produce a play in which she and Kishen play the lead roles. Lucy and Kishen agree and meet Vidyanath, where they rehearse for the play in which Kishen fake shoots Lucy. While this is all happening, Vidyanath is secretly recording their voices and the gunshot. Vidyanath gives Kishen the money he needs for the surgery and Kishen leaves. Lucy is practicing her dance, when Chutkiram comes and tries to rape Lucy, and Vidyanath comes and shoots her. He replaces the tape with the recorded voices of Lucy and Kishen. Lucy's father comes and hears the tape playing and steals the tape. Just as he leaves, Kishen comes in and find Lucy dead. Just then the police arrive and arrest Kishen. In court, they are unable to prove Kishen guilty and he is put in remand. Vidyanath then sends in his jailbirds to kill Kishen. A fight ensues, in which Kishen is losing and is about to be stabbed. Just then a man comes to help Kishen (Amitabh Bachchan). When Kishen asks who he is, he talks in riddles. Here Ranjit and Vidyanath are tense as their plan flopped. Anuradha is listening to them talking and has a change of heart and truly accepts Kishen as her husband and declares this to her brother. Ranjit is furious and tries to kill her, but Vidyanath stops him. They let Anuradha go and Vidyanath reveals that they have the tape (they have found Lucy's father), and give this tape to Vidyanath's lawyer (Kulbhushan Kharbanda), who proves him guilty in court and he is sentenced to death. Vidyanath then kill Lucy's father by throwing off a high building. In jail, Kishen plays the song ""'Aana Jaana""', the song he and Karan used to listen to in their childhood. Karan listens to the tune and immediately recognises it. They sing the song throughout the jail and finally find each other at the end of the song. They recognise each other from the fight the other day, and it is revealed that the unknown person is in fact Karan Kumar Khanna (Amitabh Bachchan), Kishen's lost older brother. Karan though, does not tell him who he is, but tells his story, from his childhood. Kishen finds a familiarity in his story and asks him to continue and he tells his story Karan seeks blessings from Hussein's mother for his promotion, and his mother asks when he's going to marry, and tells him to go and propose to Geeta (Madhavi). He goes to Geeta, who is a fellow inspector and proposes to her. The next day, Geeta and Hussein's mother go to a jewellery shop, where robbers come in and take Geeta and Hussein's mother hostage. Karan then takes an entry and beats the robbers, but they run off. Unfortunate for them Inspector Hussein (Rajnikanth in an extended cameo role) is waiting for them and also beats them up. Both Karan and Hussein take them to jail. It is revealed, that Ranjit, Vidyanath, Chutkiram and their lawyer are partners in crime and want Karan and Hussein finished. The Police Commissioner's son and Geeta's brother, Vijay (Sharat Saxena) is also involved in the crime gang. Karan and Hussein go and threaten to arrest them and to stop being a criminal. Later Vijay complains to his father, Police Commissioner Sinha (Om Shivpuri). The Commissioner warns Hussein and Karan to stay in their limits. A new case comes to Hussein and Karan and they promise to look into it. It is also Raksha Bhandhan and Hussein leaves. Geeta and Hussein follow the ritual of "Rakhi", and then Geeta tries to explain to not abuse their police uniforms. A small fight ensues and Karan is listening. They joke around for a while and Hussein's mother blesses all three of them to live happy lives. According to the two pathans, they go to the place where they instructed, and arrest Ranjit and Vidyanath, but they get bailed out by their lawyer. They hatch a new plan, and call them to different places. Hussein and Karan fall into their trap, and Hussein is beaten up by Ranjit, and is murdered by Vijay and is burnt alive. Karan reaches too late and Hussein breathes his last in Karan's arms. Karan vows revenge. Karan delivers this bad news to Hussein mother, and she cannot bear the shock and dies of misery. Vijay is in hiding, but Karan finds him and burns him alive in the same way he killed Hussein, thus fulfilling his revenge. As he walks out laughing, he is arrested by Geeta and is sentenced to life imprisonment. Here Karan finishes his story to Karan. At the same time, Durga comes to meet Kishen and Karan recognises her, and without revealing himself, vows to protect Kishen. The next day Karan helps Kishen escape and is arrested for helping Kishen escape. While humorously explaining the situation, escapes himself. And while on the run, he unknowingly enters the Commissioner' house, who is now handicapped and is confined to a wheelchair. When the Commissioner is about to shoot him, Karan pleads to let him go, to prove his brother, Kishen innocent. The Commissioner does not believe him, but on Geeta's insistence, he relents. Durga is informed by a friend, that Karan is alive and Durga realises that the one who saved Kishen's life in jail, was in fact his older brother. After fleeing from the Commissioner's place, he returns home after a number of years. Mother and son reconcile and the relation between Karan and Kishen strengthens. The brothers decide to trap Vidyanath and Ranjit in their own trap, using Chutkiram as their pawn. Reception. The film was successful at the box office.
724696	Nicholas Edward Gonzalez (born January 3, 1976) is an American actor, best known for playing Alex Santiago in the TV series "Resurrection Blvd." Early life. Gonzalez was born in San Antonio, Texas, where he was a student at Central Catholic High School. He became an accomplished cross-country and track runner, winning the Texas State Championship in the mile and two mile. After graduating in 1994 and turning down a presidential appointment to West Point, Nicholas pursued an English degree at Stanford University in California. His interest and love of literature, history, and poetry led him to two terms at Oxford University in England. The following summer, he returned to Europe on a research grant where he studied with scholars at Oxford and Trinity College, Dublin to complete his thesis on James Joyce’s Ulysses. While finishing his Bachelor of Arts in English in 1998, Nicholas was approached to do a one-man theatre piece called Gas by María Irene Fornés. Alma Martinez, an actress and Stanford professor, encouraged him to become a professional actor. With her help, he connected with the theatrical movement in San Francisco. He polished his skills by performing in classic and contemporary theatre. “I’m happy when I’m on stage,” he declares. Career. In 1998, Gonzalez moved to Los Angeles, where he quickly landed small parts in television series such as ABC’s "Dharma and Greg" and NBC’s "One World". Gonzalez then appeared as Fidel Castro’s son in the Lifetime Original Movie, "My Little Assassin", starring Joe Mantegna and Gabrielle Anwar. But it was his role as Andy, the gay yuppie on MTV’s "Undressed". For six nights he wowed viewers, and those episodes became the most requested in the series’ history. Gonzalez wrapped production of two films in 2000. The first, "Scenes of the Crime", premiered at the 2001 Cannes Film Festival. It starred Jeff Bridges, Jon Abrahams, and Noah Wyle. It was directed by Dominique Forma. The second film was an independent project titled "Spun", starring Mena Suvari, Mickey Rourke, Brittany Murphy, and John Leguizamo. It played at the 2003 Sundance Film Festival. Gonzalez’s most well-known role also came his way in 2000, when he landed the lead in Showtime’s original series, "Resurrection Blvd.", which premiered June 26, 2000. Gonzalez played Alex Santiago, a pre-med student who dropped out of school in order to become a professional boxer. The movie was successful and immediately expanded to become a regular weekly series on the network. While continuing his work on "Resurrection Blvd", Gonzalez appeared in episodes of "Walker, Texas Ranger" and "That 70’s Show". He also appeared in the film "The Princess and the Barrio Boy" (released as "She’s in Love" in Europe) with his "Resurrection Blvd."co-star, Marisol Nichols. Gonzalez continued his career in films with two more titles. The first, "Sea of Dreams", was filmed in Veracruz, Mexico, in May, 2003. Nick then headed off to Fiji for the summer, where he completed production of "", which opened in theaters August 27, 2004. Gonzalez also appeared in "Melrose Place" (2009). In 2011 he played Mateo on the ABC show "Off The Map". Gonzalez will co-star in upcoming Lifetime series "Witches of East End". Personal life. Gonzalez enjoys playing golf, video games, poker (finished 2nd at the World Poker Tour Celebrity Invitational in 2009) and working out. He is an avid reader, consuming as many as eight books a week. He also volunteers with organizations such as the National Hispanic Institute and The Friends of El Faro.He was romantically involved with American actress Regina King in 2007. Gonzalez is a supporter of animal rights and PETA. He posed for PETA's campaign "If you wouldn't wear your dog, please don't wear fur" advertisement [http://www.furisdead.com/feat-gonzalez2.asp]
583686	Roja () is a 1992 Tamil political drama, romance film directed by Mani Ratnam. The film was subsequently dubbed in Hindi, Marathi, Malayalam and Telugu languages. The film won three National Film Awards, including Best Film on National Integration, catapulting Ratnam to national acclaim. The film also gained international acclaim with its nomination for Best Film at the 18th Moscow International Film Festival. The film was recently re-released for international audiences in light of the growing fear of terrorist attacks across the world. It is the first in Ratnam's trilogy of films that depict human relationships against a background of Indian politics, including "Bombay" and "Dil Se..". The film's successful and acclaimed score and soundtrack were composed by A. R. Rahman, who debuted in Tamil as a music director with this film. He won the National Film Award for Best Music Direction, Filmfare Award for Best Music Director - Tamil and the Tamil Nadu State Film Award for Best Music Director for his work in his debut film. This soundtrack is among the "10 Best Soundtracks" of all time listed by "TIME" magazine, issued in 2005. Plot. In Srinagar, a Kashmiri terrorist, Wasim Khan is arrested by a team led by Colonel Rayappa (Nassar). In South India, Roja (Madhubala) is a simple village girl born and brought up in Sundarapandianpuram in Tirunelveli district in southern Tamil Nadu. Roja fervently wishes that her sister's (Vaishnavi) marriage proposal with Rishi Kumar (Arvind Swamy), a top cryptologist working with the Indian government, goes smoothly. Unknown to her and her family, Roja’s sister is in love with the son of her paternal aunt. When Rishi wishes to speak to Roja’s sister alone, she gathers enough courage to convey this and politely asks him to reject her in front of her parents, to which he obliges. To everyone’s surprise Rishi requests Roja's hand in marriage instead. Being unaware of her sister's love affair, Roja is not willing to accept Rishi's proposal as she believes that he is the best match for her sister but she marries Rishi, and the couple go to live in Madras while her sister is married to her aunt's son. Initially Roja does not like what Rishi did, but when she learns of her sister's love affair and consequent rejection of Rishi, she apologizes and starts seeing him in a new light. Love blossoms, and life is blissful for the couple for a short while. Meanwhile, Rishi is assigned a posting at an army communications center in Kashmir. The couple find themselves in a beautiful yet alien land. Roja's world turns upside down when Rishi is abducted by terrorists whose agenda is to separate Kashmir from India and to free their leader Wasim Khan from judicial custody. Faced with the daunting task of rescuing her husband, Roja runs from pillar to post, pleading with politicians and the military for help. Further complicating matters is the communication gap: She can't speak their language, and they can't speak hers. Meanwhile Rishi, held captive by a group of terrorists led by Liaqat (Pankaj Kapur), tries to reason with them. Liaqat’s sister shows a little compassion towards him. Initially, when Roja’s efforts fail, the Indian government denies any negotiations with the terrorists for the release of Rishi in the media. The angered terrorists burn an Indian flag. Rishi risks his life to put out the fire and shows the terrorist how much the country means to him, a regular citizen. When Liaqat’s younger brother, who with few other youths from his village are sent across the border to Pakistan for training, is shot down by the Pakistan Army, Liaqat’s strong belief is shaken, but he still manages to convince himself of the cause. Consequently, Roja’s efforts to apprise the politicians of her suffering and pain are successful as a minister pities her and offers to help. Much to the chagrin of Colonel Rayappa, the government decides to release Wasim Khan in exchange for Rishi. Rishi, not wanting to be used as a pawn to release a dangerous terrorist, gets help from the sympathetic Liaqat’s sister and escapes — with Liaqat and his men chasing him. Colonel Rayappa, Roja and other Army officers get to the hostage exchange spot with Wasim Khan, but Liaqat doesn’t show up. This leads Roja to think that Rishi is dead. Army locks Wasim Khan up in the prison. Rishi has managed to get close to the exchange spot on his own after evading the terrorists. During his escape, Rishi kill two terrorists. Liaqat catches up with him and holds him at gun point. Rishi reasons with Liaqat further and convinces him that his war is immoral. Liaqat lets Rishi go and he goes to the exchange spot. Liaqat surrenders to the Indian Army. Rishi and Roja are united once again. Production. Arvind Swamy, who debuted in Mani Ratnam's previous film "Thalapathi" (1991) was subsequently signed to play the lead role in "Roja". Actress Aishwarya was initially offered the female lead, but was later replaced by Madhubala. Ratnam had planned to shoot "Roja" in Kashmir, but extreme terrorism there led him to shoot the film in other hill stations resembling it. Awards. The film has won the following awards since its release: 1993 National Film Awards (India) '"1993 Filmfare Awards South 1993 Tamil Nadu State Film Awards (India) 1993 Moscow International Film Festival (Russia) Bite the Mango Film Festival (United Kingdom) Wangfujing Film Festival (Beijing) Indian Film Week (Moscow)
1041772	We Dive at Dawn is a 1943 war film directed by Anthony Asquith, starring John Mills and Eric Portman as Royal Navy submariners in the Second World War. It was written by Val Valentine and J. B. Williams with uncredited assistance from Frank Launder. It was produced by Edward Black. Plot. Lieutenant Taylor (John Mills) and the rest of the crew of the submarine "Sea Tiger" are given a week's leave after an unsuccessful patrol. Hobson (Eric Portman) goes home to save his marriage, while a reluctant Corrigan (Niall MacGinnis) heads off to his wedding. Then the crew are called back to duty, much to Corrigan's relief, though he later has second thoughts. "Sea Tiger" is assigned the top secret mission of sinking Nazi Germany's new battleship, the "Brandenburg", before she enters the Kiel Canal to begin sea trials in the Baltic Sea. On their way, the submarine picks up three shot-down Luftwaffe pilots from a rescue buoy. When the submarine enters a minefield, an airman panics and reveals that the "Brandenburg" is further ahead than believed. Taylor decides to take a desperate gamble and enter the German-controlled Baltic in pursuit. When the "Brandenburg" is spotted, "Sea Tiger" fires all its torpedoes, then dives to evade German destroyers dropping depth charges. By expelling oil and other debris, Taylor fools the Germans into believing that the submarine has sunk. They leave, but "Sea Tiger" no longer has enough fuel to return to England. Taylor decides to have his crew "abandon ship" near a Danish island. Hobson, a former merchant seaman who speaks German and knows the port on the island, persuades Taylor to let him go ashore in one of the airmen's uniforms to find oil. He succeeds. "Sea Tiger" refuels while Hobson and other crewmen hold off the German garrison. When they return to base, the crew hear they sank the "Brandenburg". Waiting for them are Corrigan's fiancée and Hobson's wife and son. Production. "We Dive at Dawn" was filmed at Gaumont-British Studios in London, with the co-operation of the British Admiralty. John Mills prepared for his role as the captain of "Sea Tiger" by riding on a submarine on a training mission down the Clyde. He recalled a crash dive: The ship then seemed to stand on her nose and I felt her speeding like an arrow towards the sea bed; charts and crockery went flying in all directions; I hung on to a rail near the periscope trying to look heroic and totally unconcerned; the only thing that concerned me was the fact that I was sure that my face had turned a pale shade of pea-green. Exterior shots used the subs P614 and P615 (with the final number painted over to make P61). These two vessels were Turkish S Class submarines that had been part of a consignment ordered by the Turkish Navy from the British company Vickers in 1939. But with the outbreak of World War II, the four boats were requisitioned by the Royal Navy and designated the "P611" class in the British Fleet. They were similar in design but slightly smaller than the British S class. Video. The film has been issued on VHS by Madacy Records and Timeless Multimedia among others, and on DVD by ITV DVD and Carlton.
1064862	Daddy Day Camp is a 2007 American family comedy film directed by Fred Savage in his feature film directing debut. It was the sequel to "Daddy Day Care" (2003), with a recast of Eddie Murphy and the other characters that appeared in the original film. The film was produced by Revolution Studios and released by TriStar Pictures. Reviews almost universally panned the film's potty humor and immature content. Premise. Charlie and Phil take their kids to Camp Driftwood for summer vacation, but once there, they discover that Camp Driftwood is no longer the kindhearted camp site of its time. To save the rundown site, Charlie and Phil buy a partnership from with the older guy that ran it as to when Charlie and Phil were children, after the partner runs off on vacation. Then they turn it into "Daddy Day Camp". They run into misadventures along the way when the owner, Lance Warner is the rival camp is trying to tear it down, the first day of camp turns out to be a disaster which involves a skunk and a bathroom explosion which leaves them with left with only 7 campers, and need help to improve their financial situation. But when Charlie calls his military father, Colonel Buck Hinton for help to whip the kids into shape since they have problems following orders. Also, after getting revenge on Lance for getting his campers to steal the Camp Driftwood flag , he challenges Camp Driftwood to the Camp Olympian but the kids have to train for it. On the day of the Olympian, Camp Driftwood finds out that the rival camp is cheating and they have been doing it for the past years even when Charlie lost to Lance as kids. Charlie lets Ben do the climbing course since Ben knows how to climb but he falls but Becca tells everyone that Lance greased the wall, making everyone realize that Lance cheated in every game in the Olympian. Ben uses the tree next to the wall in enough time to hit the bell, Camp Driftwood wins and then parents start signing up for their kids to be in Daddy Day Camp. Meanwhile, the climbing wall falls on Lance's trophies after his son kicked him for calling him a "moron" and saying he wasn't his son but he really was. Production. "Daddy Day Camp" was filmed at Park City, Utah and Provo, Utah. Release. Box office. On opening day "Daddy Day Camp" grossed only $773,706, and only grossed $3,402,678 on opening weekend on over 2,000 screens. It went on to gross $18.2 million worldwide. Critical reception. "Daddy Day Camp" received almost universally negative reviews from critics. Rotten Tomatoes ranked the film 16th in the 100 worst reviewed films of the 2000s, with a rating of 1% on Rotten Tomatoes and 13 on Metacritic. The film received a rare "F" from The A.V. Club. On its first day of release, the film came in 9th place with $773,706. Its opening weekend totaled $3,402,678 in over 2,000 screens. Film critic Fred Topel of Hollywood.com is the only critic represented on Rotten Tomatoes' "Tomatometer" to give the film a "fresh" (positive) rating. Home media. "Daddy Day Camp" was released on DVD and Blu-ray on January 29, 2008.
1034978	Justin Chadwick (born 6 December 1968) is an English actor and television and film director. Life and career. Chadwick was born in Salford, Lancashire. He began acting at the age of eleven. He joined Bolton Little Theatre and played Billy Casper in ‘Kes’. He attended Turton High School in Bolton, before graduating from the University of Leicester and in 1991 made his screen debut in "London Kills Me". Additional acting credits include "The Loss of Sexual Innocence" and appearances in the television dramas "Heartbeat", "Dangerfield", "Dalziel and Pascoe", and others. Chadwick's directorial debut was the 1993 television movie "Family Style" starring Ewan McGregor, after which he directed and performed in "Shakespeare Shorts", a series that explored the history of Shakespearean characters and presented them in key scenes from the plays in which they appeared. He directed episodes of "EastEnders", "Byker Grove", "The Bill", "Spooks", and "Red Cap" before directing nine of the fifteen episodes of the mini-series "Bleak House", which was broadcast by the BBC in the UK and by PBS in the United States as part of its "Masterpiece Theatre" series. Chadwick was nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Directing for a Miniseries, Movie or Dramatic Special, the Royal Television Society Award for Breakout Performance Behind the Scenes, and the BAFTA Award for Best Direction for "Bleak House", which was the Best Drama Serial winner in the British Academy Television Awards 2006. "Bleak House" was also nominated for two Golden Globes, four Royal Television Society Awards, three Broadcasting Press Guild Awards, three Satellite Awards, and the Television Critics Award. Chadwick's most recent project is "The Other Boleyn Girl", shown at the February 2008 Berlin International Film Festival. He was scheduled to start production on screen adaptations of "Birdsong" (released 2012) and "Jamaica Inn" in 2008. He completed the feature film "The First Grader" starring Naomie Harris which was released on 13 May 2010.
1672123	Frenchie is a 1950 American film of the western genre, directed by Louis King and starring Shelley Winters, Joel McCrea and Marie Windsor.
1056551	My Favorite Season () is a 1993 French drama film directed by André Téchiné and starring Catherine Deneuve, Daniel Auteuil and Marthe Villalonga. The story concerns two middle age siblings, a brother and sister, who resume their fragile relationship when they are forced to care for their ailing mother. It won the award for Best Foreign Language Film at the 1996 Boston Society of Film Critics Awards. Plot. Berthe, an elderly widow, is forced by her declining health to close the French farmhouse where she has spent much of her life. She moves in with her daughter Émilie and son in law Bruno who share a legal practice and have two grown up children: Anne, a law university student, and Lucien, who was adopted. In spite of Émilie’s efforts, Berthe is not happy in her daughter’s bourgeois home in Blagnac. She sits by the swimming pool in the middle of the night talking to herself and finds the house pretentious. Worried about her mother's physical and mental health, Émilie pays a visit to her unmarried younger brother, Antoine, a neurosurgeon. They have not seen each other for three years, since they quarreled at their father’s funeral. Émilie informs Antoine of their mother's condition and invites him to a Christmas dinner with the entire family.
394060	My Wife Got Married () is a 2008 South Korean film. Directed by Jeong Yoon-soo and starring Kim Joo-hyuk and Son Ye-jin in the lead roles, the film is adapted from a bestselling novel of the same name by Park Hyun-wook. Plot. Deok-hoon meets In-ah, a former work colleague, on the subway; the two turn out to be big soccer fans, and soon begin a passionate relationship. To quell his doubts about In-ah's fidelity, Deok-hoon proposes to her, and they get married. But their honeymoon period doesn't last long, as In-ah declares that she will marry another man. Release. "My Wife Got Married" was released in South Korea on October 23, 2008. It topped the box office on its opening weekend, selling 515,464 tickets. As of November 9, 2008, the film had sold a total of 1,818,497 admissions nationwide and ranked 10th among the top grossing domestic films of 2008.
1055470	In the Land of Women is a 2007 American drama film directed and written by Jon Kasdan. The film premiered in the United States on April 20, 2007. Plot. Carter Webb (Adam Brody) is a young, soft-core porn writer living in Los Angeles whose young, starlet girlfriend Sofia (Elena Anaya) breaks up with him. Carter pleads with her to stay, but she leaves.
774423	Callum Keith Rennie (born 14 September 1960) is a British-born Canadian television and film actor. He started his career in Canadian film and television projects, where his portrayal of Stanley Raymond Kowalski in the TV series "Due South" was his first international success. After years acting in over ninety Canadian and international projects he became widely known for his portrayal of the Cylon Leoben Conoy in "Battlestar Galactica", and following that, his role as record producer Lew Ashby in the Showtime TV series "Californication". Regularly cast as a bad guy in movies and even more often in his numerous guest appearances in television series, Rennie's participation in Canadian productions gives him an opportunity to show a broader range of his acting abilities, which have been recognized by several awards. Personal life. Rennie was born to Scottish parents in Sunderland, Tyne & Wear in North East England. When he was four years old, the family emigrated to Canada. Rennie was brought up in middle class Edmonton, Alberta, as the second of three boys. He graduated from Strathcona High School, where he met and befriended Bruce McCulloch from "The Kids in the Hall". He dropped out from college and took up all sorts of odd jobs instead, leaving Edmonton for brief stays in Vancouver and Toronto before eventually settling in Vancouver. After a serious bout with alcoholism in his youth, Rennie managed to get his addiction under control at the age of 33 and was finally able to commit to acting. He likes painting and admires abstract expressionist artists such as Basquiat, Motherwell and Pollock (the Champion spark-plug logo tattoo on his right arm is a homage to Stuart Davis). An enthusiast mountain climber in his youth, Rennie still practices various sports. He loves a game of hockey but is above all an avid golfer. He resides alternately in Vancouver and Los Angeles. Career. Early work. Working at the campus radio of University of Alberta led Rennie to discover acting at the age of 25. He started his career on stage, performing at the A.B.O.P. Theatre in Edmonton in "Amerika", a play adapted from Franz Kafka's novel and followed with the critically acclaimed "American Buffalo" during the Edmonton International Fringe Festival. After attending Bruhanski Theatre Studio in Vancouver, he had his first professional theatrical performance in 1989 in Sally Clark's "Lost Souls and Missing Persons", a Touchstone Theatre production. This earned him an invitation to work at the Shaw Festival where he appeared in "Man and Superman" and in Pinero's "Trelawny of the Wells" (1990). 1993–2001. Rennie's first appearance on screen was in the indie Canadian film "Purple Toast", filmed in 1990 and released in 1993. Also in 1993 he began to take small roles in television ("", "Forever Knight", and the revamped version of "The Outer Limits"). Rennie's profile within the Canadian industry was heightened during this period by leading roles in the made for TV films "Paris or Somewhere" (1994) and "For Those Who Hunt The Wounded Down" (1996). The former has Rennie in near Michael J. Fox mode in a small town tale of teen angst. "...Wounded" is at the other end of Rennie's range as he takes on the first of many troubled anti hero roles. Due to several disagreements during the production of the film, Rennie vowed "never to work for the CBC again", though he has remained a staunch supporter of the Canadian industry as a whole. After his first appearance in "The X-Files" he was offered the role of Alex Krycek but turned it down because he did not want to commit to a television series at that time. His career gained momentum quickly and larger roles in Canadian films followed (the independent short film "Frank's Cock" by Mike Hoolboom, and Mina Shum's "Double Happiness" as Sandra Oh's love interest, for which he was nominated for a Genie Award as best supporting actor). He also had more important roles in television series, as in a two-parter for "La Femme Nikita". His most prominent early roles were as guitar player Billy Tallent in Bruce McDonald's "Hard Core Logo" (1996) and as detective Stanley Raymond Kowalski in the third and fourth seasons of CTV series "Due South", which aired in over 150 countries. The Canadian band Billy Talent is named after his "Hard Core Logo" character. As for his part in "Due South", it has been said that his "disaffected intensity and hungover good looks" added an edge to the series. Rennie was then seen in the recurrent roles of the convenience store guru Newbie in Don McKellar's cult television series "Twitch City" and of detective Bobby Marlowe in the award-winning series "Da Vinci's Inquest". His interpretation of sex marathoner Craig Zwiller in Don McKellar's "Last Night" earned him his first Genie Award (1999). After a role in David Cronenberg's "eXistenZ" (1999), his first international success on the big screen was his appearance as the thug Dodd in Christopher Nolan's "Memento" (2000). The same year, he impersonated a chilling yet seductive drifter in "Suspicious River". 2002–present. With the father characters of "Falling Angels" (2003) and "Flower and Garnet" (2002), Rennie expanded to playing more mature roles, rather than young, self-destructive rebels. He also impersonated self-controlled Inspector Wood in the period drama "Torso: The Evelyn Dick Story" (2002) and appeared as the quiet dyslexic painter of "Wilby Wonderful" (2004). A hard working actor, he continues to alternate between television series and Canadian or US movies. He has played guest roles in episodes of various television series like "Mutant X", "The Dead Zone", "Smallville", "Supernatural", "The L Word", "Bionic Woman" and more recently "Harper's Island". During the same time, he has interpreted contrasting characters in movies such as "The Butterfly Effect", "H20: the Last Prime Minister", "The Five People You Meet in Heaven", ' (2004), "Lucid" (2005), "Unnatural & Accidental" (2006), "The Invisible", "Tin Man", "Normal", "Silk" (2007), and ' (2008). His recurring role as the Cylon Leoben Conoy in the reimagined "Battlestar Galactica" (2003–09) and his portrayal of the record producer Lew Ashby throughout the second season of "Californication" (2008) have earned him a new wide and international recognition. In 2009–10, Rennie played a character named Jeff Slingerland aka Dr. Maurice Raynaud in ABC series "FlashForward". Before the series was cancelled, David Goyer who previously directed him in "Blade" and "The Invisible" mentioned he'd be back and was slated to appear in the second season. He also appeared as Russian mobster Vladimir Laitanan in the eighth season of "24". In Fall 2010 he played the lead role of Detective Brian Sullivan on "Shattered", a series about a detective who suffers from multiple personality disorder. It aired in Canada on Global TV, followed by airings in other countries, though not the United States. Rennie received critical acclaim for his performance, and in 2011 won the Gemini and Leo awards for the role. Shattered was not renewed for a second season. His 2010 appearances on the big screen included the Canadian film "Gunless", a Western comedy starring Paul Gross, as a bounty hunter on the trail of Gross' Montana Kid. He also reprised his role as Billy Tallent for a short appearance in "Trigger". "Trigger" is part of several films set in the same universe as "Hard Core Logo", directed again by Bruce McDonald; this one, starring Molly Parker and Tracy Wright, written by Daniel MacIvor, is about the reunion of two women who used to be in an alternative rock band together. Rennie also served as one of Trigger's executive producers. Another film, "Faith, Fraud & Minimum Wage", based on Canadian playwright Josh MacDonald's play "Halo", has been completed and is waiting for release. Rennie made a number of television appearances in 2011, including a supporting role on "The Killing" as Rick Felder, Detective Sarah Linden's fiancé. He also guest starred on "Alphas", "CSI: Miami", and "Rookie Blue". Rennie was also cast as a series regular in the NBC series, "The Firm". He plays Ray McDeere, the brother of the principal character, Mitch McDeere, played by Josh Lucas. It began airing as a midseason replacement for the 2011–12 season.
1166464	Jurnee Diana Smollett-Bell (born October 1, 1986) is an American actress. She is known for the role of Jess Merriweather on the television series "Friday Night Lights", as well as roles in the films "Eve's Bayou" and "The Great Debaters". Early life and career. Smollett was born Jurnee Diana Smollett in New York City, the daughter of Janet and Joel Smollett, a cable splicer. Her father is Jewish (his family immigrated from Russia and Poland) and her mother is of African-American, Native American, Creole, and Irish descent. The fourth of six performing siblings, she received critical acclaim for her performance as ten-year-old Eve in the independent film "Eve's Bayou" (1997). In casting the role, writer-director Kasi Lemmons envisioned "a light-skinned black child who could convey the nuances of a Creole child in the 60s." She co-starred with her siblings in the ABC television comedy "On Our Own" (1994–1995) and guest appeared in numerous television shows: "Hangin' with Mr. Cooper", "Full House", "Martin", "Wanda At Large", "House", "Grey's Anatomy", etc. Smollett co-starred in the last two seasons of "Friday Night Lights".
1268107	Colleen Moore (August 19, 1899 – January 25, 1988) was an American film actress, and one of the most fashionable stars of the silent film era. Early life. Born Kathleen Morrison on 19 August 1899 (according to the bulk of the official records; the date which she insisted was correct in her autobiography "Silent Star", was 1902) in Port Huron, Michigan, Miss Moore was the eldest child of Charles R. and Agnes Morrison. The family remained in Port Huron during the early years of Moore's life, at first living with her grandmother Mary Kelly (often spelled Kelley) and then with at least one of Moore's aunts. By 1905 the family had moved to Hillsdale, Michigan where they remained for over two years. They had relocated to Atlanta, Georgia by 1908. They are listed at three different addresses during their stay in Atlanta (From the Atlanta-Fulton Public Library city directories): 301 Capitol Avenue −1908; 41 Linden Avenue – 1909; 240 N. Jackson Street – 1910. They then lived briefly—probably less than a year—in Warren, Pennsylvania, and by 1911 they had settled down in Tampa, Florida.
1100332	Gregory John Chaitin (pronounced "CHAY tin") (born 1947) is an Argentine-American mathematician and computer scientist. Beginning in the late 1960s, Chaitin made contributions to algorithmic information theory and metamathematics, in particular a new incompleteness theorem in reaction to Gödel's incompleteness theorem. Mathematics and computer science. He attended the Bronx High School of Science and City College of New York, where he (still in his teens) developed the theories that led to his independent discovery of Kolmogorov complexity. Chaitin has defined Chaitin's constant Ω, a real number whose digits are equidistributed and which is sometimes informally described as an expression of the probability that a random program will halt. Ω has the mathematical property that it is definable but not computable. Chaitin's early work on algorithmic information theory paralleled the earlier work of Kolmogorov. Chaitin is also the originator of using graph coloring to do register allocation in compiling, a process known as Chaitin's algorithm. Other scholarly contributions. Chaitin also writes about philosophy, especially metaphysics and philosophy of mathematics (particularly about epistemological matters in mathematics). In metaphysics, Chaitin claims that algorithmic information theory is the key to solving problems in the field of biology (obtaining a formal definition of 'life', its origin and evolution) and neuroscience (the problem of consciousness and the study of the mind). Indeed, in recent writings, he defends a position known as digital philosophy. In the epistemology of mathematics, he claims that his findings in mathematical logic and algorithmic information theory show there are "mathematical facts that are true for no reason, they're true by accident. They are random mathematical facts". Chaitin proposes that mathematicians must abandon any hope of proving those mathematical facts and adopt a quasi-empirical methodology. Honors. In 1995 he was given the degree of doctor of science "honoris causa" by the University of Maine. In 2002 he was given the title of honorary professor by the University of Buenos Aires in Argentina, where his parents were born and where Chaitin spent part of his youth. In 2007 he was given a Leibniz Medal by Wolfram Research. In 2009 he was given the degree of doctor of philosophy "honoris causa" by the National University of Córdoba. He was formerly a researcher at IBM's Thomas J. Watson Research Center and is now a professor at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro. Criticism. Some philosophers and logicians strongly disagree with the philosophical conclusions that Chaitin has drawn from his theorems. The logician Torkel Franzén criticized Chaitin’s interpretation of Gödel's incompleteness theorem and the alleged explanation for it that Chaitin’s work represents.
402241	Suzy Parker (October 28, 1932 – May 3, 2003) was an American model and actress active from 1947 into the early 1960s. Her modeling career reached its zenith during the 1950s, when she appeared on the cover of dozens of magazines and in advertisements and movie and television roles.
583764	Uyirodu Uyiraga () is a 1998 Tamil film directed by Sushma Ahuja starring Ajith Kumar and Richa Ahuja in the main roles. The film which told the tale of a couple's struggle to deal with terminal illness, had a successful music soundtrack composed by Vidyasagar. The film was released in November 1998 to positive reviews, but fared poorly commercially. Plot. The film details on how the parents of a young teen aged boy diagnosed with chronic brain tumor accept and deal with his sickness, Anjali (Richa Ahuja)'s undeterred love for the optimistic Ajay who is on the verge of death is beautifully depicted throughout the film. Production. The director, Sushma Ahuja, originally wanted to make in Hindi but eventually filmed in Tamil with Ajith Kumar and Richa, her daughter. Richa took up the offer, after another popular actress had opted out of the role due to date issues. Singeetam Srinivasa Rao, with whom Sushma worked in the silent movie "Pushpak", encouraged her to take up this project. The film was reportedly based on a real event which had occurred in the early 1990s. The songs composed by Vidyasagar won positive reviews. Release. The film released to positive reviews from film critics. A reviewer praised the film as "a clean movie with no masala stuff" but criticized the "weak story-line", while also praising the performances in the film. Another critic drew particular praise to the role of Srividya, claiming the film was "a pleasant experience, the crowds cheered Srividya almost as much as Ajith". The film failed commercially, with Sushma Ahuja blaming the result on poor promotion. Soundtrack. The songs composed by Vidyasagar, won positive acclaim from reviewers.
1104386	Bonaventura Francesco Cavalieri (in Latin, Cavalerius) (1598 – November 30, 1647) was an Italian mathematician. He is known for his work on the problems of optics and motion, work on the precursors of infinitesimal calculus, and the introduction of logarithms to Italy. Cavalieri's principle in geometry partially anticipated integral calculus. Life. Born in Milan, Cavalieri studied theology in the monastery of San Gerolamo in Milan and geometry at the University of Pisa as a member of the Jesuates order. He published eleven books, his first being published in 1632. He worked on the problems of optics and motion. His astronomical and astrological work remained marginal to these main interests, though his last book, "Trattato della ruota planetaria perpetua" (1646), was dedicated to the former. He was introduced to Galileo Galilei through academic and ecclesiastical contacts. Galileo exerted a strong influence on Cavalieri encouraging him to work on his new method and suggesting fruitful ideas, and Cavalieri would write at least 112 letters to Galileo. Galileo said of Cavalieri, "few, if any, since Archimedes, have delved as far and as deep into the science of geometry." He also benefited from the patronage of Cesare Marsili. Cavalieri's first book was "Lo Specchio Ustorio, overo, Trattato delle settioni coniche", or "The Burning Mirror, or a Treatise on Conic Sections". In this book he developed the theory of mirrors shaped into parabolas, hyperbolas, and ellipses, and various combinations of these mirrors. The work was purely theoretical since the needed mirrors could not be constructed with the technologies of the time, a limitation well understood by Cavalieri. Building on the classic method of exhaustion, Cavalieri developed a geometrical approach to calculus and published a treatise on the topic, "Geometria indivisibilibus continuorum nova quadam ratione promota" ("Geometry, developed by a new method through the indivisibles of the continua," 1635). In this work, an area is considered as constituted by an indefinite number of parallel segments and a volume as constituted by an indefinite number of parallel planar areas. Such elements are called indivisibles respectively of area and volume and provide the building blocks of Cavalieri's method. As an application, he computed the areas under the curves formula_1 – an early integral – which is known as Cavalieri's quadrature formula. Cavalieri is known for Cavalieri's principle, which states that the volumes of two objects are equal if the areas of their corresponding cross-sections are in all cases equal. Two cross-sections correspond if they are intersections of the body with planes equidistant from a chosen base plane. (The same principle had been previously discovered by Zu Gengzhi (480–525) of China.) Cavalieri developed a "method of the indivisibles," which he used to determine areas and volumes. It was a significant step on the way to modern infinitesimal calculus. Cavalieri also constructed a hydraulic pump for his monastery and published tables of logarithms, emphasizing their practical use in the fields of astronomy and geography. He died at Bologna.
520412	Gabriel Arellano "Gabby" Concepcion (born November 5, 1964), is a Filipino actor, director, singer-songwriter and businessman. Early life. Gabby was born in San Juan, Metro Manila, Philippines to Rolando "Rollie" Concepcion, a Filipino mestizo, and Lourdes Arellano. He received the name "Gabby" because he talks too much. He is the great grandson of prominent Manila landmark architect Juan M. Arellano. Concepcion attended Elementary at the Ateneo de Manila, High School at Aquinas School and spent part of his College life at Centro Escolar University where he took up his Pre-Dentistry course. Before he was discovered and entered showbiz. Media career. Concepcion first appeared in a 1980 Close-up commercial and became famous as the "Close-up boy". Introduced into showbiz at the age of fifteen, he starred in the Regal Films production "Katorse", which catapulted him to Matinee idol status. From 1980 – 1995, Gabby made 80 films with Regal, Viva, and GC (his own production company) and had several modeling and endorsement deals. He received several Showbiz awards, including Best actor (Urian), Best supporting actor (Urian, Star, and Famas), Mr. RP movies, and more. Gabby took a hiatus from acting and moved to the United States in March 1995. Aside from already having an advertising degree from Maryknoll College (now Miriam College) in the Philippines, Concepcion later graduated from Lincoln University in Oakland, California, double majoring in Management Information Systems and International Business Administration. He subsequently became a purchasing agent with Fisher Industries, a division of GAP, then joined Prudential California Realty in Stockton, California in 2003. Gabby achieved professional status as a Licensed real estate broker in March 2007. He specialized in residential real estate and excelled in buyer brokerage and Seller representation for referrals and relocations. He received the Chairman's Circle Gold, Leading Edge Society, Honor Society, Diamond Club award and the Newcomer of the Year award for 2004, and also achieved his eCertification designation and became Relocation Certificated. He moved back to the Philippines in March 2008 to be with his father who later that year died of terminal heart disease. Concepcion made a comeback in Showbiz when he signed a contract with ABS-CBN in April 2008, first appearing in an episode of the television series Maalaala Mo Kaya. He then starred in Iisa Pa Lamang. Personal Life and Philanthropy. Gabby was married to "Dear Heart" and "P.S. I Love You" co-star Sharon Cuneta from 1984-1987. Together they have a daughter, actress and model Kristina Cassandra
589364	Shirdi Ke Sai Baba is a 1977 Bollywood film directed by Ashok V. Bhushan.
1060911	Kelly Macdonald (born 23 February 1976) is a Scottish actress, known for her role in the independent film "Trainspotting" and mainstream releases such as "Nanny McPhee", "Gosford Park", "Intermission", "No Country for Old Men", "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2" and "Brave". On television, she is known for her roles in "Boardwalk Empire", "The Girl in the Café" and "State of Play". Career. Macdonald's career began while she was working as a barmaid in Glasgow. She saw a leaflet advertising an open casting session for "Trainspotting" and decided to audition, winning the part of Diane, the underage seductress to Ewan McGregor's Renton. Other roles include Mary O'Neary in "Two Family House" and an actress playing Peter Pan in "Finding Neverland". She also had major roles in Robert Altman's British period piece "Gosford Park", where she played an aristocrat's maid, as well as in "Intermission" (2003), as Deirdre. On radio, she portrayed Mary in the 1999 BBC radio drama "Lifehouse", based on Pete Townshend's abandoned rock opera, some of the songs for which were released on The Who's album "Who's Next". On television, her highest-profile roles have been in two BBC dramas, the Paul Abbott serial "State of Play" (2003) and the one-off Richard Curtis piece "The Girl in the Café" (2005). Both of these were directed by David Yates, and both also starred Bill Nighy. For her performance in "The Girl in the Café", Macdonald was nominated for a Golden Globe in 2006, and won an Emmy. Macdonald starred in the 2005 film "Nanny McPhee", as the scullery maid Evangeline, and has since had supporting roles in "A Cock and Bull Story" (2006) and the Coen brothers' Academy Award-winning "No Country for Old Men" (2007). Her agent was originally unsure she was right for the latter part, and Macdonald is reported as having to "fight for the role". Her persistence paid off, however, as she was nominated for a BAFTA for Best Supporting Actress. Other films where she had supporting roles include "Choke" (2008), as Paige Marshall, the film adapted by Clark Gregg from the 2001 Chuck Palahniuk novel; "In the Electric Mist" (2009) (based on James Lee Burke's "In the Electric Mist with Confederate Dead" (1993), as Kelly Drummond, alongside Tommy Lee Jones and John Goodman; and "Skellig" (2009), as Louise. She also played the lead in "The Merry Gentleman" (2008), as Kate Frazier. She plays Margaret Schroeder on HBO's "Boardwalk Empire". In 2010, she played her first comedy role, in the British independent romantic comedy film "The Decoy Bride" opposite David Tennant. "The Decoy Bride" was released in 2012, on cable TV On-Demand. During 2011, she played the Grey Lady, revealed to be Helena Ravenclaw, in "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2", the final instalment of the "Harry Potter" film franchise. She replaced Nina Young, the original actress in the role. In 2012, she provided the voice of Merida, the heroine of the Disney/Pixar movie "Brave" and starred as Dolly in "Anna Karenina". Personal life. Macdonald was born in Glasgow, Scotland. Her mother was a garment industry sales executive. In August 2003, Macdonald married musician Dougie Payne, bassist of rock band Travis. Their first son, Freddie, was born on 9 March 2008. Their second son, Theodore, was born on 8 December 2012.
1536162	Frederick Robert "Fred" Williamson, nicknamed "The Hammer" (born March 5, 1938) is an American actor and former professional American football defensive back who played mainly in the American Football League during the 1960s. He has black belts in Kenpo, Shotokan Karate, and Tae-Kwon-Do. Since 1997 Williamson has had a home in Palm Springs, California. Football career. After playing college football for Northwestern in the late 1950s, he was signed as an undrafted free agent by the Pittsburgh Steelers. When during training camp he was switched to their defense, his attitude over the switch prompted him to play his position with too much aggression, and the coach of the 49ers asked him to quit "hammering" his players. Thus, "The Hammer" quickly stuck and became his nickname. Williamson played one year for the Steelers in the National Football League in 1960. Next, he moved to the new American Football League. Williamson played four seasons for the AFL’s Oakland Raiders, making the AFL All-Star team in 1961, 1962, and 1963. He also played three seasons for the AFL’s Kansas City Chiefs.
1064465	Frances Bay (January 23, 1919 – September 15, 2011) was a Canadian American character actress, best known for playing quirky, elderly women on film and television. She began her acting career in her late 50s. Personal life. Bay was born Frances Goffman in Mannville, Alberta to a Ukrainian Jewish immigrant father, Max Goffman, and his wife, Ann (née Averbach), and raised in Dauphin, Manitoba. Her younger brother was the noted sociologist Erving Goffman. Before World War II she acted professionally in Winnipeg and spent the war hosting the Canadian Broadcasting Company's radio show, "Everybody's Program", aimed at service members overseas. She married and moved to Cape Town, South Africa, living in the Constantia and Camps Bay areas. She studied with Uta Hagen at this time. Charles and Frances Bay had one son, Josh ("Eli Joshua"; March 14, 1947 – June 6, 1970), who died at the age of 23.
808731	Louis Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Bachelier (March 11, 1870 – April 28, 1946) was a French mathematician at the turn of the 20th century. He is credited with being the first person to model the stochastic process now called Brownian motion, which was part of his PhD thesis "The Theory of Speculation", (published 1900). His thesis, which discussed the use of Brownian motion to evaluate stock options, is historically the first paper to use advanced mathematics in the study of finance. Thus, Bachelier is considered a pioneer in the study of financial mathematics and stochastic processes. Early years. Bachelier was born in Le Havre. His father was a wine merchant and amateur scientist, and the vice-consul of Venezuela at Le Havre. His mother was the daughter of an important banker (who was also a writer of poetry books). Both of Louis' parents died just after he completed his high school diploma ("baccalauréat" in French), forcing him to take care of his sister and three-year-old brother and to assume the family business, which effectively put his graduate studies on hold. During this time Bachelier gained a practical acquaintance with the financial markets. His studies were further delayed by military service. Bachelier arrived in Paris in 1892 to study at the Sorbonne, where his grades were less than ideal. The Thesis. Historians argue Bachelier's thesis was not appropriately received, resulting in Academia blackballing. However, his instructor, Henri Poincaré, is recorded to have given some positive feedback (though socially insufficient for finding an immediate teaching position in France at that time). For example, Poincaré called his approach to deriving Gauss' law of errors The thesis received a grade of "honorable," and was accepted for publication in the prestigious "Annales Scientifiques de l’École Normale Supérieure". While it did not receive a mark of "très honorable", despite its ultimate importance, the grade assigned is still interpreted as an appreciation for his contribution. Jean-Michel Courtault et al. point out in "On the Centenary of "Theorie de la Speculation"" that "honorable" was "the highest note which could be awarded for a thesis that was essentially outside mathematics and that had a number of arguments far from being rigorous." The positive feedback from Poincaré can be attributed to his interest in mathematical ideas, not just rigorous proof. Academic career. For several years following the successful defense of his thesis, Bachelier further developed the theory of diffusion processes, and was published in prestigious journals. In 1909 he became a "free professor" at the Sorbonne. In 1914, he published a book, "Le Jeu, la Chance, et le Hasard" (Games, Chance, and Randomness), that sold over six thousand copies. With the support of the Council of the University of Paris, Bachelier was given a permanent professorship at the Sorbonne, but World War I intervened and Bachelier was drafted into the French army as a private. After the war, he found a position in Besançon, replacing a regular professor on leave. When the professor returned in 1922, Bachelier replaced another professor at Dijon. He moved to Rennes in 1925, but was finally awarded a permanent professorship in 1927 at Besançon, where he worked for 10 years. Besides the setback that the war had caused him, Bachelier was blackballed in 1926 when he attempted to receive a permanent position at Dijon. This was due to a "misinterpretation" of one of Bachelier's papers by Professor Paul Lévy, who—to Bachelier's understandable fury—knew nothing of Bachelier's work, nor of the candidate that Lévy recommended above him. Lévy later learned of his error, and reconciled himself with Bachelier in 1931. Also notable is that Bachelier's work on random walks was more mathematical and predated Einstein's celebrated study of Brownian motion by five years.
677878	The Ramen Girl is an American–Japanese movie starring Brittany Murphy about a girl who goes to Japan and decides to learn how to cook ramen. Murphy is also listed in the production credits as one of the producers. Plot. Abby (Brittany Murphy) is an American girl who goes to Tokyo to be with her boyfriend, Ethan (Gabriel Mann). Ethan tells her that he has to go to Osaka on a business trip and may not be back for a while. Abby asks to go with him but Ethan refuses and breaks up with her. Abby goes to a ramen shop afterward, and the chef Maezumi (Toshiyuki Nishida) and his wife Reiko (Kimiko Yo) tell her that they are closed. Abby does not understand them as she does not speak Japanese. She starts to cry, so the chef conveys to her to sit down. He brings her a bowl of ramen, and she loves it. A small distance away, she hallucinates that the lucky cat, known as the Maneki Neko, or Beckoning Cat, gestures to her to come over. She offers to pay for her meal, but the chef and his wife refuse. The next day she comes back and sits down at the counter. He gives her another bowl of ramen and she eats. As she eats, she breaks into uncontrollable giggles, as does another patron. The following day she returns, but is told they are out of ramen. Seeing the wife's swollen ankles, she insists on helping instead. After the night is through, she is passed out asleep in the back. They shoo her out, but as she is walking away she realizes she wants to cook ramen. Rushing back into the store, she begs him to teach her how to cook ramen. He argues, but finally gives in and tells her to come the next day at 5. She shows up late, in high heels and a dress, and is put to work scrubbing the toilet and cleaning pots and pans. In the following weeks Maezumi only gives her cleaning work in the hopes that she quits, but she comes back. After she is given work as a waitress, she wins the hearts of all who come in, including two older women who are regular customers, and a middle aged male regular who develops a crush on her.
1082262	"Goya's Ghosts" is a 2006 Spanish-American film, directed by Miloš Forman, and written by him and Jean-Claude Carrière. The film stars Natalie Portman, Javier Bardem and Stellan Skarsgård, and was filmed on location in Spain during late 2005. The film was written, produced, and performed in English although it is a Spanish production. Although the historical setting of the film is authentic, the story about Goya trying to defend a model is fictional, as are the characters Brother Lorenzo and the Bilbatúa family. Plot. In 1792, Spain reels amid the turmoil and upheaval of the French Revolution. Francisco Goya (Stellan Skarsgård) is a renowned painter, who, among others, does portraits for the royal family as the Official Court Painter to the King and Queen. The Spanish Inquisition is disturbed by part of Goya's work. Brother Lorenzo Casamares (Javier Bardem) is hiring Goya to paint a portrait and defends him, saying that his works are not evil, they just show evil. He recommends the Church step up the fight against anti-Catholic practices. He requests and is put in charge of intensifying the Inquisition.
342059	Unmistaken Child is a 2008 independent documentary film, which follows a Tibetan Buddhist monk's search for the reincarnation of his beloved teacher, the world-renowned lama (master teacher) Geshe Lama Konchog. The filming, which began in October 2001, spans a time frame of five and a half years. It follows the deceased lama's closest disciple — a modest young monk named Tenzin Zopa, who speaks English well — as he seeks to find the child who is his master's reincarnation.
1058770	The Last Shot is a 2004 comedy film starring Matthew Broderick, Alec Baldwin, Toni Collette, Tim Blake Nelson, an uncredited Joan Cusack, Tony Shalhoub, Buck Henry, Ray Liotta, Calista Flockhart and Ian Gomez. The movie is written and directed by Jeff Nathanson, who wrote "Catch Me If You Can" and "The Terminal". Plot. FBI agent Joe Devine (Alec Baldwin) has been assigned to cook up an elaborate scheme to take down infamous mob boss John Gotti. He assumes the role of a Hollywood producer and tells all the right lies to enlist a stooge to help execute his sting. He finds unsuspecting wannabe writer/director Steven Schats (Matthew Broderick), who'd do just about everything to get the chance to direct a feature. Schats falls hook, line, and sinker for the pitch, but what Devine doesn't tell Schats is that the movie will never be made. Everything goes according to plan — until Devine and his fellow agents start enjoying their new lives as Hollywood players a bit too much. Background. The plot of "The Last Shot" is loosely based on the true story of an FBI sting operation code-named Dramex. The sting operation was run by FBI agent Garland Schweickhardt, who recruited aspiring screenwriters Dan Lewk and Gary Levy to participate unwittingly in a sting operation aimed at ensnaring mobsters and Teamsters union officials in a bribery scheme. Under the pretext of producing a movie, the FBI planned to catch people taking bribes in exchanging for promising not to make trouble when filmmakers used non-union truck drivers and non-union crew members. Shooting actually occurred in several cities including New Orleans and Las Vegas, while in other major cities, evidence was obtained without using an actual crew made up of FBI personnel. As the investigation progressed from city to city, sealed indictments were obtained and only unsealed when the operation was concluded. Many actual events happened during the shooting that were more hilarious than the movie portrays. At one point, the crew was stranded in the desert between LA and Las Vegas by a broken down Rolls Royce. Arriving at the location in Las Vegas, they found a genuine crew already there shooting "Nasty Boys" (Which, ironically, was about undercover police officers). The grip truck ran into an elderly lady's car the first day of shooting in New Orleans and the crew wound up paying off the lady with hundreds peeled from a roll of bills. The operation eventually led to indictments against five individuals, several of whom were convicted. The movie itself was shut down before serious filming started. Lewk and Levy have yet to make a full-length feature film. They were, however, associate producers on "The Last Shot" and had cameo roles as 'Hollywood Boulevard Types'. Reception. At IMDb, the movie received 5.7 points out of 10 from over 2900 reviewers.
1175826	Miranda Taylor Cosgrove (born May 14, 1993) is an American actress and singer-songwriter. Cosgrove's career began at the age of three when she appeared in television commercials. Her film debut was in 2003, as Summer Hathaway in "School of Rock". Cosgrove appeared in a number of minor television roles over several years before coming to prominence on the Nickelodeon TV series "Drake & Josh". A few years later, Cosgrove landed the role of Carly, the lead character in the Nickelodeon TV series "iCarly". As of May 2010, Cosgrove earned US$180,000 per episode of "iCarly", making her the second-highest-paid child star on television. She was listed in the 2012 edition of "Guinness World Records" as the Highest Paid Child Actress for "iCarly". Following the success of "iCarly", a soundtrack album was released in June 2008, in which she performed four songs. Cosgrove's debut album "Sparks Fly "was released on April 27, 2010. Cosgrove is currently attending the University of Southern California and will be majoring in film. Early life. Cosgrove was born in Los Angeles, California, to Tom, who owns a dry-cleaning business, and Chris (née Casey), a homemaker. She is of English, Irish, and French descent. At the age of three, she was discovered by a talent agent while singing and dancing at the Los Angeles restaurant Taste of L.A. Cosgrove stated that when the agent walked up to her and her mom for modeling, she had "never really thought of being an and "was lucky". After choosing to take the offer, she appeared in television commercials for McDonald's and Mello Yello, and also modeled. At the age of seven, Cosgrove decided that "[she loved doing it" and auditioned for theater and television roles. Career. 2001–2007: Career beginnings, film debut, and "Drake & Josh". Cosgrove's first television appearance (aside from commercials) was in 2001 as the voice of 5-year old Lana Lang in the pilot episode of "Smallville". Cosgrove then made her film debut with the 2003 film "School of Rock". In the movie, she played Summer Hathaway, a young girl with great ambition and discipline who finds herself adjusting to the free-spirited nature of the new teacher by becoming band manager of the classroom's rock band. "School of Rock" was both a box office hit, grossing over $131,282,949 worldwide, and critical success, receiving a 91 percent score on Rotten Tomatoes. Cosgrove's acting on the film was praised, with David Ansen of "Newsweek" describing it as "spot on". She said of the experience of working with Jack Black: "The first week it was like, 'Oh, my God, that's Jack Black,' but two weeks later it was fine. He's really funny. Sometimes the director would say, 'Jack, you can't make them laugh so much.'" She cited the scene of trying to sing badly as very difficult. Cosgrove stated that "I got a 45-minute lesson from Jim O'Rourke of Sonic Youth on how to sing badly. I've been taking singing lessons for about five years, so getting to sing badly was new. The director kept saying, 'Try to sing even worse, Miranda,' so it was weird." She is grateful she was in "School of Rock", as it exposed her to classic rock songs she was unfamiliar with. "After the movie," said Cosgrove, "I discovered Led Zeppelin and I've taken up the electric guitar". Cosgrove soon landed her first major role in a television series when she was awarded a main role in the Nickelodeon series "Drake & Josh", alongside Drake Bell and Josh Peck. In the series, she portrayed Megan Parker, the mischievous younger sister of the title characters. The show made its debut on January 11, 2004 and drew positive responses in ratings. Cosgrove said of "Drake & Josh", "It's like a big family. We know each other so well, nothing is embarrassing anymore...It's really comfortable, and it's really fun." While on the show, she was able to develop a partnership with Dan Schneider, known for producing various Nickelodeon shows such as "Zoey 101", "The Amanda Show", "Kenan & Kel", and "All That". Also in 2004, Cosgrove guest starred in a special episode of the animated series "What's New, Scooby-Doo?", as well as guest starring in a season five episode of "Grounded For Life", portraying the character of Jessica. In 2005, Miranda was awarded the role of 'Munch' in the Disney channel film '. In the film, Miranda portrays a female mouse who is rescued from a hawk by Junior and Flutter, and subsequently comes along for the adventure that the characters must take. Cosgrove also guest-starred on two episodes of the animated comedy, '. The television series, which aired on Disney, is a spin-off of the original film, "Lilo & Stitch". Cosgrove was also rewarded her second major role in a theatrical film, when she cast alongside "Drake & Josh" co-star Drake Bell in the comedy film "Yours, Mine and Ours", in which she portrayed the character Joni; the film performed mildly at the box office. "Yours, Mine and Ours" opened at number three, with an opening weekend of $17,461,108 in the US. Cosgrove later starred in her third theatrical release, "Keeping Up with the Steins", which was released to generally negative reviews from critics. The film was also a failure at the box office. She also earned a role in the straight to DVD film "The Wild Stallion". 2007–2009: "iCarly" and music beginnings. Cosgrove kicked off 2007 by appearing in several Nickelodeon television series. The first of these appearances was in "Zoey 101", which starred Jamie Lynn Spears and Victoria Justice. Cosgrove later guest starred on an episode of "Unfabulous", which starred Emma Roberts. In the episode, Cosgrove guest starred as a sweet girl named Cosmina. 2007 saw the end of "Drake & Josh", with the final episode airing on September 16, 2007. However, Cosgrove was already in the works of starring in her own series, titled "iCarly", a teen sitcom starring Cosgrove, Jennette McCurdy, and Nathan Kress, released on September 8, 2007. Schneider tailored "iCarly" around the interest young people have in the internet. A unique part of this show is the fact that viewers may submit their own videos and also be included in the show. Cosgrove said of the audience participation aspect, "When I first heard about the idea, I thought it was so cool. If I were home and watching TV, I'd want to send in a video." By the summer of 2008, the show was the third highest rated in the 9–14 demographic. The "iCarly Saves TV" special extended episode, became the most-viewed entertainment show on cable TV in June 2008. Cosgrove's debut as a recording artist began with the "iCarly" theme song "Leave It All to Me". The song features her former "Drake & Josh" castmate Drake Bell and is written by Michael Corcoran, one of Bell's band members. It was released as a single in December 2007 through digital distribution and eventually peaked at number 100 on the "Billboard" Hot 100. The album debuted at number one on the "Billboard" Kid Albums chart. In June 2008, Columbia Records released the "iCarly" soundtrack, which featured four songs performed by Cosgrove ("Leave It All to Me", "Stay My Baby", "About You Now", and "Headphones On"). Critical reception for her performance was positive. Stephen Thomas Erlewine of Allmusic stated that Cosgrove proved "herself to be an appealingly spunky singer" and the "good tunes" she performed "the most of her girlish talents". However, Erlewine noted that the "focus [was not on her" because of other artists, she but rather " in the mix". The following promotional single "Stay My Baby" failed to reach the charts, but "About You Now" reached number 47 on the Hot 100 in January 2009, becoming her most successful single to date. Cosgrove became one of MTV's Female Pop Rookies of 2009. In December 2008, a cover of the holiday song "Christmas Wrapping" was released to promote the hour-long special "Merry Christmas, Drake & Josh". On February 3, 2009, Cosgrove released her first solo recording, the extended play "About You Now", exclusively on the iTunes Store. The extended play featured the title track, a remix of it, and a remix of "Stay My Baby", as well as two new songs, "F.Y.I." and "Party Girl". To promote the 2009 animated film "Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs", Columbia Records released a single entitled "Raining Sunshine" with an accompanying music video in August 2009. Since July 2008, plans for a debut album have been active. In an interview with MTV News, Cosgrove discussed the forthcoming album. Cosgrove reported to be "co-writing and getting really into" the album, contrasting with the "iCarly" soundtrack in which she "just picked songs that meant a lot to that [she really liked." She also described the album as "still pop rock fun" in comparison to her previous work on the "iCarly" soundtrack, though "a little more mature". Themes for the album are "love songs and just fun songs about hanging out with your girlfriends". When releasing "About You Now", Cosgrove further elaborated on the album's concepts. 2010–2012: Debut album, tour, and "iCarly" final seasons. In 2009 Cosgrove worked with songwriters The Matrix, Dr. Luke, Max Martin, Leah Haywood, and Daniel James, for his debut studio album. She said that "most of the songs are fun, pop, rock-girl empowerment". She noted that "there's one ballad that's kind of sad" and that "it's called 'What Are You Waiting For?' It's about a girl who likes a guy he doesn't feel the same way". She added that it is something she's experienced in her own life: "I definitely have guys that I'm friends with that I have a crush on, and you don't want to ruin the friendship". The album was released in April 2010, and the first single from her album, "Kissin' U", was premiered on Ryan Seacrest's radio show on March 12, 2010, and released to iTunes on March 23, 2010. The album, titled "Sparks Fly", debuted and peaked at number 8 on the US "Billboard" 200 chart. She signed with skin care and cosmetics company Neutrogena on February 12, 2010, as an ambassador. On March 17, 2010, it was reported that Cosgrove had signed a deal, reportedly in the "low- to mid-seven-figure range" to do 26 additional episodes of "iCarly". Cosgrove voiced a character in Universal Studios' 3-D computer animated feature "Despicable Me", released in July 2010. In January 2011, Cosgrove revealed that her new EP would be titled "High Maintenance", and also released the first single from the same. The song, titled "Dancing Crazy", was written by Max Martin, Shellback, and Avril Lavigne, and produced by Martin and Shellback. With three weeks of airplay, the song debuted at number 40 on the US "Billboard" Adult Pop Songs. On January 24, 2011 she released her debut tour, "Dancing Crazy Tour", visiting North America, the trek will support her first studio album, "Sparks Fly". The tour began in Missouri and travel throughout the United States and ended in Ohio. Cosgrove continued the tour into the summer to promote her second EP, "High Maintenance". On July 15, 2011 the tour continued with a new title, "Dancing Crazy Summer Tour", traveled the United States and Canada and performed at music festivals and state fairs.
631602	Angus Macfadyen (born 21 September 1963) is a Scottish actor perhaps best known for his roles as Robert the Bruce in "Braveheart" and as Jeff Denlon in "Saw III". He has made appearances in several television series such as "Californication", "Criminal Minds", and the final season of "Chuck". Early life. Macfadyen was born in Glasgow, Scotland and lived a colourful childhood, being raised in such places as the Philippines, Africa, Singapore, and France. His father was a doctor in the World Health Organization. Angus attended the University of Edinburgh, and the Central School of Speech and Drama in London.
635905	James Callis (born 4 June 1971) is an English actor. He is best known for playing Dr. Gaius Baltar in the re-imagined "Battlestar Galactica" miniseries and television series, and Bridget Jones' best friend in "Bridget Jones's Diary" and "". He joined the cast of the TV Series "Eureka", on Syfy, in 2010. Early life. Callis was born and brought up in London, where he attended Harrow School in north-west London. His parents owned a bed-and-breakfast. Callis is the descendant of immigrants from Russia and Poland. Callis attended the University of York, graduating in 1993 with a BA in English and Related Literature. He was a member of Derwent College, for which he was an enthusiastic rugby player. At university he was also a keen student actor, director and writer. He was a key member of the University of York Gilbert and Sullivan society and even appeared in productions put on by friends at Cambridge University, including a production of Harold Pinter's "The Birthday Party". Career. Callis went on to attend the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art, from which he graduated in 1996. In the same year, he was awarded the "Jack Tinker Award" (Theatre Record Critic of the Year) for Most Promising Newcomer for his performance in "Old Wicked Songs", a two-hander by Jon Marans, in which he starred alongside Bob Hoskins. Callis has appeared in various West End productions and television series as well as on radio. He has also been involved in writing and directing. His directorial debut was "Beginner's Luck", a co-production of his and writer/director Nick Cohen's Late Night Pictures and Angel Eye Film & TV, starring Julie Delpy, Steven Berkoff and Fenella Fielding. "Beginner's Luck" was critically panned, but ran for almost three weeks on one print (all the low-budget film could afford) in one cinema in central London, then went on a tour of student cinemas around the U.K. The U.K. distributor was Guerrilla Films. The film is still on the Icon Catalogue. Callis finished filming his first role in a cinema film, "Bridget Jones's Diary", alongside Renée Zellweger and Hugh Grant, in the summer of 2000 and between a few further film and TV roles went back on stage in the Soho Theatre in December 2002. In 2003, Callis played the role of Dr. Gaius Baltar in the re-imagined "Battlestar Galactica" miniseries, and continued the role in the regular series that followed. In 2006, Callis won Best Supporting Actor Saturn Award and an AFI award for his performance as Baltar. Personal life. Callis and his wife, Neha, married in December 1998. They have three children: Joshua, Sasha and Anika.
297105	Garfield Gets Real is a 2007 CGI movie starring Garfield. It was produced by Paws, Inc. in cooperation with Davis Entertainment and The Animation Picture Company and distributed by 20th Century Fox. It was written by Garfield's creator Jim Davis, who started working on the script in the fall of 1996. This was the first fully animated Garfield film since the last "Garfield and Friends" TV episode aired in 1995, and the first to be written by Davis since the 1991 television special "Garfield Gets a Life". The movie was released in theaters August 9, 2007, and the DVD was shipped to stores on November 20, 2007. Gregg Berger, an actor from the original series, reprises his role of Odie, but Garfield is now voiced by veteran voice actor Frank Welker (the original actor Lorenzo Music died in 2001). It has two sequels: "Garfield's Fun Fest" (2008) and "Garfield's Pet Force" (2009). Plot. Garfield (Frank Welker) lives with canine Odie (Gregg Berger) and Jon (Wally Wingert) in a what appears to be a suburban town inhabited by cartoon characters within the Comic Strip World. Garfield and the gang work at Comic studios with other comic characters. The comic strip is made in Comic Strip world, and sent to “The Real World” where it is put in the newspaper. Garfield is tired of the same old jokes his friends crack and is bored with his work and life in Comic Strip World and longs to go to The Real World.
1061973	Sir Ben Kingsley, CBE (born Krishna Pandit Bhanji; 31 December 1943) is an English actor who has won an Oscar, Grammy, BAFTA, two Golden Globes and Screen Actors Guild awards in his career. He is known for starring as Mohandas Gandhi in the film "Gandhi" in 1982, for which he won the Academy Award for Best Actor. He is also known for his performances in the films "Schindler's List" (1993), "Sexy Beast" (2000), "" (2010), "Hugo" (2011), and "Iron Man 3" (2013). Kingsley was named a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 2000, and was made a Knight Bachelor by Queen Elizabeth II in 2002. In 2010, Kingsley was awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Kingsley was awarded "Best Actor" for his role in the movie "A Common Man" at the Madrid International Film Festival in 2013. Early life. Kingsley was born Krishna Pandit Bhanji in Snainton, North Riding of Yorkshire, near Scarborough. He is the son of Anna Lyna Mary (née Goodman), an actress and model who appeared in films in the 1920s and 1930s, and Rahimtulla Harji Bhanji, a medical doctor. Kingsley's father, born in Kenya, was of Gujarati Indian Ismaili Muslim Khoja descent. Kingsley's paternal grandfather was a spice trader who had moved from India to Zanzibar, where Kingsley's father lived until moving to Britain at the age of 14. Kingsley's mother was British; she was born out of wedlock, and "was loath to speak of her background". Kingsley's maternal grandfather was believed by the family to have been of Russian- or German-Jewish descent, while Kingsley's maternal grandmother was of English background, and worked in the garment district of East London. Kingsley has stated; "I'm not Jewish... and though there might be some Russian-Jewish heritage way back on my mother's side, the thread is so fine there's no real evidence". Kingsley grew up in Pendlebury, near Manchester. He was educated at Manchester Grammar School, where one of his classmates was the actor Robert Powell. Early career. Kingsley studied at the University of Salford and at Pendleton College, which later became home to the Ben Kingsley Theatre. Whilst at college he became involved in amateur dramatics in Manchester, making his professional stage debut on graduation, aged 23. In 1967 he made his London West End theatre debut at the Aldwych Theatre. Later spotted by music producer and manager Dick James, he offered to mould Kingsley into a pop star, but Kinglsey chose to join the Royal Shakespeare Company after an audition in front of Trevor Nunn. Devoting himself almost exclusively to stage work for the next 15 years, he made his Broadway debut in 1971 with the RSC. Kingsley played Mosca in Peter Hall's 1977 production of Ben Jonson's "Volpone" for the Royal National Theatre, and in Peter Brook's acclaimed production of "A Midsummer Night's Dream". At about this time, he changed his name from Krishna Pandit Bhanji to Ben Kingsley, fearing that a foreign name would hamper his career; he took his stage surname from his paternal grandfather's nickname, "King Clove". He also starred in the role of Willy Loman in a 1982 production of "Death of a Salesman" in Sydney, Australia opposite Mel Gibson. Film and television career. Kingsley made the transition to film roles early on, with his first role coming in "Fear Is the Key", released in 1972. Kingsley continued starring in bit roles in both film and television, including a role as Ron Jenkins on the soap opera "Coronation Street" from 1966 to 1967 and regular appearances as a defence counsel in the long-running British legal programme "Crown Court". In 1975, he starred as Dante Gabriel Rossetti in the BBCs historical drama "The Love School". He found fame only years later, starring as Mohandas Gandhi in the Academy Award-winning film "Gandhi" in 1982, his best-known role to date. The audience agreed with the critics, and "Gandhi" was a box-office success. Kingsley won the Academy Award for Best Actor for his portrayal. Kingsley has since appeared in a variety of roles. His credits included the films "Turtle Diary", "Maurice", "Pascali's Island", "Without a Clue" (as Dr. Watson alongside Michael Caine's Sherlock Holmes), "Suspect Zero", "Bugsy" (nominated for Best Supporting Actor), "Sneakers", "Dave", "Searching for Bobby Fischer", "Schindler's List", "Silas Marner", "Death and the Maiden", "Sexy Beast", for which he received another Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor, and "House of Sand and Fog", which led to an Oscar nomination for Best Actor. He won a Crystal Globe award for outstanding artistic contribution to world cinema at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival in 2001. In 1997, he provided voice talent for the video game "Ceremony of Innocence". In 1998, he was the head of the jury at the 48th Berlin International Film Festival. In July 2006, he received an Emmy nomination for his performance in the made-for-TV film "Mrs. Harris", in which he played famed cardiologist Herman Tarnower, who was murdered by his jilted lover, Jean Harris. Later that year, Kingsley appeared in an episode of "The Sopranos" entitled "Luxury Lounge", playing himself. In the show, Christopher Moltisanti and Carmine Lupertazzi offer him a role in the fictional slasher film "Cleaver", which he turns down. Lupertazzi offers him the role on the basis of Kingsley's real-life performance in "Sexy Beast". In 2007, Kingsley appeared as a Polish American mobster in the Mafia comedy "You Kill Me", and a hitman in "War, Inc." In 2010, Kingsley has worked voicing a character named Sabine in Lionhead Studios game "Fable III", and starred alongside Leonardo DiCaprio in "Shutter Island", directed by Martin Scorsese. He appeared in Scorsese's next film, "Hugo", and has signed up to appear in the new feature by Neil Jordan and John Boorman entitled "Broken Dream". In 2013, he appeared as villain The Mandarin in "Iron Man 3", and is slated to appear as Mazer Rackham in the movie adaptation of "Ender's Game". Honours. Kingsley was named a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 2000. He was made a knight bachelor in the 2002 New Year Honours. The award was announced on 31 December 2001, which happened to be Kingsley's 58th birthday. After receiving his award from Elizabeth II at Buckingham Palace, Kingsley stated; "I told the Queen that winning an Oscar pales into insignificance - this is insurmountable. I'm fascinated by the ancient, by mythology, by these islands and their tradition of story telling. I feel that I am a story teller and to receive a knighthood is really recognition of that." His demand to be called 'Sir' was documented by the BBC, to some criticism. Since then, Kingsley appears to have altered his stance; credits for his latest films refer to him as Ben Kingsley. Co-star Penélope Cruz was reportedly unsure what to call him during the filming of "Elegy" as someone had told her she needed to refer to him as "Sir Ben". One day it slipped out as such, and she called him that for the remainder of the shoot. In 1984, he won a Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word or Nonmusical Recording for "The Words of Gandhi". He was awarded the Indian civilian honour Padma Shri in 1984. In May 2010, Kingsley was awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. In April 2013, Kingsley was honoured with the Fellowship Award at The Asian Awards in London. Personal life. Kingsley has been married four times and has four children: Thomas Bhanji and artist Jasmin Bhanji, with actress Angela Morant, and Edmund Kingsley and Ferdinand Kingsley, both of whom became actors, with theatrical director Alison Sutcliffe. In 2005, he divorced German-born Alexandra Christmann, having been "deeply, deeply shocked" after pictures of her kissing another man surfaced on the Internet. On 3 September 2007, Kingsley married Daniela Lavender, a Brazilian actress, at Eynsham Hall, in North Leigh, Oxfordshire.
584861	Daggubati Venkatesh is an Indian film actor known for his works predominantly in Telugu cinema. In a career spanning twenty seven years, he was starred in sixty nine feature films. He played a variety of challenging roles including action and comedy in Telugu cinema and few Bollywood films. He has won 7 Andhra Pradesh state Nandi awards, and 5 Filmfare Awards South, all of them for best acting. Along with his brother Daggubati Suresh Babu, Venkatesh is the co-owner of Suresh Productions, one of the largest film production companies in India. Venkatesh was starred in several of his films under this production, most of them turned out to be blockbusters, owing to this, He is widely known as "Victory Venkatesh" in the media. Apart from films, He is the Captain of "Telugu Warriors" representing Tollywood in Celebrity Cricket League. Early life and Family. Venkatesh was born in the Naidu Family to prolific film producer and former MP, Dr. Ramanaidu Daggubati and Rajeshwari in Chennai. He has an elder brother Suresh Babu Daggubati who runs Suresh Productions, and a younger sister, Lakshmi. Venkatesh did his schooling in Don Bosco, Egmore, Chennai. He graduated with a Bachelors in Commerce from Loyola College, Chennai and got his MBA from the Monterey Institute of International Studies, USA. After his return to India, he wanted to get into film production but instead, became an actor in Telugu films. Career and awards. He has acted as child artist in the 1971 film "Prem Nagar". He debuted in "Kaliyuga Pandavulu" in the year 1986, which got him Nandi award for best male debut actor. At an early phase in his career, Venkatesh acted in "Swarnakamalam", directed by K Viswanath, which was showcased at the 1989 International Film Festival of India, The film fetched him his second Nandi award for his performance. In 1988, He then appeared in the successful musical romance film Prema, which fetched him both Filmfare Award and Nandi Award for acting. "Bobbili Raja", with Divya Bharti, was a box office hit and won Filmfare Award for best acting. Venkatesh then appeared in Ram Gopal Varma's road movie "Kshana Kshanam" alongside Sri Devi, which was a trend-setter and became a box office hit, in its second run. In 1991, "Chanti", a family drama, which was re-made in Hindi as Anari, alongside Karishma Kapoor marking Venkatesh's Bollywood debut. Both the versions were box office hits. In the same year, he was starred in critically acclaimed films like Shatruvu and Surya IPS. He was then starred in Chinarayudu, another successful melodrama. In 1995, He appeared in another Bollywood flick Taqdeerwala alongside Raveena Tandon. In 1996, he was starred in Dharma Chakram and bagged another Nandi Award and Filmfare Award, for his performance. . He then appeared in several successful romantic family drama's like Preminchukundam Raa (1997), Suryavamsam (1998), which was later remade in Hindi with the same title, with Amitabh Bachhan in the lead role. He was then starred in the critically acclaimed thriller, Ganesh (1998), which fetched him another Nandi Award and Filmfare Award for his performance. He then appeared in blockbuster romance film's like Premante Idera alongside Preity Zinta (1998), Raja (1999) and Kalisundam Raa (2000), which won the National Film Award for Best Feature Film in Telugu for that year. In the same year Jayam Manade Raa fetched him another Filmfare Award for best acting. He then ventured into blockbuster romantic comedy's such as Prematho Raa (2001), Nuvvu Naaku Nachav (2001), Malliswari alongside Katrina Kaif (2004). He then appeared in the action blockbuster Gharshana (2005). The family dramas Sankranthi (2005), Aadavari Matalaku Ardhalu Verule (2007), and the cross over cinema Chintakayala Ravi (2008) were runaway hits. In 2009, he teamed up with Kamal Haasan for "Eeenadu", which was released in September 2009. He then appeared in "Namo Venkatesa", directed by Sreenu Vytla; it was released as a Sankranthi special and celebrated its grand 100 days function on April 26, being 2010’s first 100-day film. In 2010 He was seen in "Nagavalli", a remake of "Aptharakshaka". In 2012, He was starred in Bodyguard a runaway hit. In 2013, He garnered critical acclaim for his performance in Seethamma Vakitlo Sirimalle Chettu, a multi starrer of contemporary Telugu cinema alongside Mahesh Babu. Endorsements. On April 24, 2010, he signed with Manappuram General Finance and Leasing Ltd as their brand ambassador for Andhra Pradesh.
584930	Varudu () is a 2010 Telugu film directed by Gunasekhar. This film stars Allu Arjun, Arya, Suhasini Mani Ratnam, Ashish Vidyarthi, Sayaji Shinde and Brahmanandam. D.V.V. Danayya is the producer of the film. The film was dubbed into Malayalam as "Varan" and into Hindi as "Ek aur Rakshak". Plot. Sandeep 'Sandy' (Allu Arjun) is a gen-next youngster who parties hard and has modern outlook but his ideas towards marriage are traditional. As he gets a job in USA, his working parents (Suhasini and Ashish Vidyarthi), who got married against their respective parents' wishes, ask him to get married. He accepts and tells them that he will marry a girl of their choice in a ceremony that lasts 5 days. He also refuses to see his bride until the marriage. Everything is arranged according to his wishes, and his marriage is fixed with Deepthi (Bhanu Sri Mehra). At the ceremony, the bride is kidnapped by a local goon Diwakar (Arya). Will Sandeep rescue the bride or will Diwakar rape her? The rest forms the story. Box office. varudu was made with and beside of the negative reviews varudu collected on its total run. Soundtrack. The audio rendered by Mani Sharma was launched on 7 May 2010 at Ramanaidu Studios in Hyderabad. The audio was released in the market by Aditya Music. The function was held in a wedding atmosphere with the cast and crew dressed in traditional attire. Film personalities like Allu Aravind, Gunasekhar, Veturi Sundarrammurthy, Mani Sharma, Allu Arjun, Sirish, DVV Danayya, Dil Raju, Thota Prasad, SS Rajamouli, D Suresh Babu, Shyam Prasad Reddy, Kondavalasa, KS Rama Rao, B Gopal, ML Kumar Chowdary, VVSN Prasad, KL Narayana, etc., were present. The audio CDs were released by SS Rajamouli and the first copy of it was received by Allu Aravind. The audio cassettes were released by Shyam Prasad Reddy and presented the first copy of it to D Suresh Babu. The function began with the dance performances for Allu Arjun’s earlier film songs. Veturi was feciliated at the Audio Release function but Varudu was the film to which Veturi provided Lyrics before his Death on 22 May 2010.
53711	The Flim-Flam Man is a 1967 American film directed by Irvin Kershner, starring George C. Scott, Michael Sarrazin and Sue Lyon, based on the novel "The Ballad of the Flim-Flam Man" by Guy Owen. The film boasts a cast of well-known character actors in supporting roles, including Jack Albertson, Slim Pickens, Strother Martin, Harry Morgan and Albert Salmi. The movie is also noted for its jovial musical score by composer Jerry Goldsmith. It was shot in the Anderson County, Kentucky area. Plot summary. Mordecai C. Jones (Scott; a self-styled "M.B.S., C.S., D.D. — Master of Back-Stabbing, Cork-Screwing and Dirty-Dealing!"), is a drifting confidence trickster who makes his living defrauding people in the southern United States. One of his specialties is rigged punchboards. He befriends a young man named Curley (Sarrazin), a deserter on the run from the United States Army, and the two team up to make money and keep out of reach of the law. Production. The car chase scene was filmed in Irvine, Estill County, Kentucky and the courthouse scene at the [[Clark County, Kentucky Courthouse. The Pigeon Drop scene with Slim Pickens as Jarvis Bates was filmed in Winchester, Kentucky during September 8–10, 1966.
400468	Brian Edmund Posehn (born July 6, 1966) is an American actor, voice actor, musician, writer, and comedian, known for his roles as Jim Kuback on The WB's "Mission Hill" and Brian Spukowski on Comedy Central's "The Sarah Silverman Program". Early life. Posehn was born and raised in Sacramento, California. He is of German and Irish descent. Posehn graduated from Sonoma Valley High School in 1984. He attended college at Sacramento State University. Career. Television work. Posehn began with guest appearances and mainly small roles in TV shows. He was on 28 episodes of "Mr. Show with Bob and David" (1995–1998), a sketch comedy series on HBO. In a 1996 episode of "Friends", he delivered the manuscript in which Joey Tribbiani's soap opera character "Dr. Drake Ramoray" is killed off. He appeared as two different characters in "NewsRadio": a fan with questions for Jimmy James at a book reading (1997), and a member of Dave's a cappella group "Chock Full o' Notes" (1998). In the "Seinfeld" episode "The Burning" (1998), he played a patient, when Kramer "was given" gonorrhea. His character was instructed to "act out" to a group of medical students how a surgeon left a sponge in him post surgery. Posehn also wrote the "" episode "Cahill" (1998) with Ben Karlin. He appeared on 29 episodes of the NBC series "Just Shoot Me!" (1999–2003). He played the voice of Jim in "Mission Hill" on the WB (1999–2002), and Del Swanson in "3 South" on MTV (2002–2003). On an Adult Swim production, "Aqua Teen Hunger Force", he voiced the Wisdom Cube in the 2003 episode "The Cubing". Posehn performed the voice of Gibbons, a tiny man, on several episodes of the Cartoon Network's "Tom Goes to the Mayor" (2005–2006). He also appeared in the 2005 pilot for "The Showbiz Show with David Spade", in a segment called "The Nerd Perspective", in which he gave a scathing criticism of MTV and its declining quality. He also played a mortician in several episodes of Comedy Central's "Reno 911". He was featured on the 2005 documentary series "The Comedians of Comedy" on Comedy Central and Showtime. He was in a 2007 episode of the improv series "Thank God You're Here" on NBC and was a celebrity judge on the revived 1970s game show "The Gong Show with Dave Attell" (2008), on Comedy Central. He co-stars on "The Sarah Silverman Program" with Steve Agee as a gay couple who is friends with Silverman, and also wrote the season three finale "". He played himself in the episode "Spagett" of "Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job!", appeared at the "Comedy Central Roast" of Bob Saget, played the role of a physically disabled man (Scooter Man) in the second season's premiere episode "Slip of the Tongue" of "Californication" (2008), on Showtime, and played Dethklok's second manager in the "Metalocalypse" episode "Dethsources", he also wrote the episode "Fatherklok". In 2007 he joined the first season of the MTV sketch comedy series "Human Giant", as a writer and performer, and voices Glen Furlblam, the biggest fan of Dr. Two-Brains on the PBS Kids animated series "WordGirl". In 2012 he co-wrote the fourth season of "Metalocalypse". Film work. Movie appearances from Posehn include the 2003 comedy film sequel ', "Grind", the 2005 Rob Zombie horror film "The Devil's Rejects", "Sleeping Dogs Lie", ', and the 2007 animated feature "Surf's Up", where he played Glen Maverick. Posehn appeared as himself in the 2007 documentary " Super High Me" starring 'marijuana comedian' Doug Benson, the 2008 documentary "Nerdcore Rising" about MC Frontalot and in a supporting role in "". Posehn voices the character of Murray, a robot, in Rob Zombie's animated "The Haunted World of El Superbeasto". He also voiced the character Hayashi in the English dub of "Pom Poko". Stand-up comedy. In 2006, Posehn released his debut comedy album "". Posehn participated in the Comedy Lineup of the 2008 Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival, which included Louis C.K., Janeane Garofalo and Zach Galifianakis. Posehn performed as part of the Rock N' Roll Comedy set with Jim Norton and Michelle Buteau. During his 2008 routine on "Comedy Central Presents" he referred to his Wikipedia article, which he supposedly vandalized. In 2010, Posehn released his second album "Fart and Wiener Jokes". In 2011, Posehn agreed to perform at the Gathering of the Juggalos. Some of his fans criticized this decision as being "not metal". Posehn countered that "getting a paycheck is metal", and expressed respect towards the Juggalo fan culture, as well as the independent music success of Insane Clown Posse and Psychopathic Records. Music. In 2006, Relapse Records released his first album, "". It includes "Metal by Numbers", a song mocking bands that term themselves "metal" but are clearly not. The instrumental tracks feature musicians such as guitarist Scott Ian (of Anthrax), bassist Joey Vera (then of Anthrax, but also of Armored Saint and Fates Warning), drummer John Tempesta (of The Cult and White Zombie), and lead guitarist Jonathan Donais (of Shadows Fall). Posehn also appeared in the Anthrax music video for "What Doesn't Die". Posehn appeared on a Season 4 episode of the music talk show "That Metal Show" and Lamb of God's "Walk With Me In Hell" DVD, and performed "More Metal Then You", a song that was included on his non-musical stand-up comedy album "Fart & Weiner Jokes", with "Brian Posehn's All-Star Band" on the "2010 Revolver Golden Gods Awards". Posehn appeared in The Damned Things music video for "We've Got A Situation Here". He provided backing vocals for Evile's album "Five Serpent's Teeth". Other work. Posehn has provided voice work for video games "Brütal Legend" as The Hunter and "Star Warped" as co-narrator Brian. Posehn has also voiced Grunts and various Marines in the 2004 video game "Halo 2".
1753204	35 Shots of Rum () is a 2008 film, directed by Claire Denis, the French filmmaker. It made its North American premiere at the 2008 Toronto International Film Festival, and was shown outside of competition at the Venice Film Festival. It was later released to limited theaters in 2009. Claire Denis was in part inspired by Yasujirō Ozu's "Late Spring". Synopsis. Lionel, a widower who drives RER trains in metropolitan Paris, has raised his daughter Josephine alone for many years. They have always shared a special bond and live a secure and contented life somewhat isolated from others, in an apartment building in a suburb of Paris. Josephine, an anthropology student, is now grown and become a young woman, but she remains deeply devoted to her father. They have developed a loose family with other residents of the building: Gabrielle, a cab driver and another neighbor, who once had a love affair with Lionel; and Noé, a moody young man who lives with his cat and has feelings for Josephine. Noé leads a disorganized life and goes abroad often. Gabrielle appears to have feelings for Lionel and motherly feelings towards Josephine. Both father and daughter are ambivalent toward more than a casual friendship with anyone outside their special relationship. While attending the retirement party for a colleague and friend, Lionel declines to try the customary feat of downing 35 shots of rum. His colleague appears to be lost without his job, and Lionel realizes that time is moving on. He (Lionel) must find meaning and security in things other than his present life, lest he end up the same way. During an outing with Gabrielle and Noé, their car breaks down and the four friends take refuge in a closed bar. Noé shows his feelings for Josephine, and Lionel realizes that she must eventually leave him. He knows that she needs to live her own life independent of him. When Lionel's former colleague commits suicide on the RER tracks, Lionel has to stop his train when he comes across the body. In the end, Josephine weds a nervous but happy Noé. At the party, Lionel successfully downs 35 shots of rum in celebration of the occasion. It is not clear whether he does so in joy or in sadness. He returns home to live alone. Reception. "35 Shots of Rum," described as "an intimate family study", has been very well received by critics. It premiered in North America at the Toronto Film Festival in 2008 and was shown outside the competition at Venice before being released for general distribution. The review aggregator website Metacritic gave it a score of 96, (making it the second-best reviewed film of the year), with Rotten Tomatoes rating it 94% out of 100.
1090999	Daniel Bernoulli FRS (; Swiss ; 8 February 1700 – 17 March 1782) was a Swiss mathematician and physicist and was one of the many prominent mathematicians in the Bernoulli family. He is particularly remembered for his applications of mathematics to mechanics, especially fluid mechanics, and for his pioneering work in probability and statistics. His name is commemorated in the Bernoulli principle, a particular example of the conservation of energy, which describes the mathematics of the mechanism underlying the operation of two important technologies of the 20th century: the carburetor and the airplane wing. Bernoulli's work is still studied at length by many schools of science throughout the world. Early life. Daniel Bernoulli was born in Groningen, in the Netherlands, into a family of distinguished mathematicians.
938342	Secret Things () is a 2002 French film directed by Jean-Claude Brisseau, starring Coralie Revel and Sabrina Seyvecou. The film is sometimes associated with the New French Extremity. Cahiers du Cinema named Secret Things, jointly along with Ten by director Abbas Kiarostami, as the best film of 2002. The film was awarded the 'French Cineaste of the Year' title at the 2003 Cannes Film Festival. In 2005, the director Jean-Claude Brisseau was found guilty of sexually harassing two actresses between 1999 and 2001 during auditions for the film. Plot. The story revolves around two Parisian girls, Nathalie (Revel), a stripper at a bar, and Sandrine (Seyvecou), a bartender, who conspire to climb the social ladder of Paris when they start living together. Both girls get fired from their jobs after the club owner offers Sandrine a choice, to have sex with a paying client or be sacked. Nathalie after finishing her shift defends and dissuades Sandrine from accepting the offer and both girls are fired. Sandrine after falling behind on her rent is sure that the landlord will kick her out especially since she is unemployed but Nathalie offers to share her apartment with Sandrine for a while.
1103135	Oswald Veblen (June 24, 1880 – August 10, 1960) was an American mathematician, geometer and topologist, whose work found application in atomic physics and the theory of relativity. He proved the Jordan curve theorem in 1905. Life. Veblen was born in Decorah, Iowa. He went to school in Iowa City. He did his undergraduate studies at the University of Iowa, where he received an A.B. in 1898, and Harvard University, where he was awarded a second B.A. in 1900. For his graduate studies, he went to study mathematics at the University of Chicago, where he obtained a Ph.D. in 1903. His dissertation, "A System of Axioms for Geometry" was written under the supervision of E. H. Moore.
589924	Mahapurush (), or The Holy Man, is a 1965 film directed by Satyajit Ray. It is the film version of the short story Birinchibaba by Bengali writer Rajshekhar Basu, under the pen name Parashuram. Plot. After the death of his wife, Gurupada Mitter (Prasad Mukherjee), an advocate, has not been at peace. He and his daughter Buchki (Gitali Roy), meet Birinchi (Charuprakash Ghosh). Birinchi Baba claims to be ageless. He tells stories from the past; about his arguments with 'Plato' about time, how he taught E=mc2 to Einstein, and was on first-name terms with Jesu (Christ) and Gautam (Buddha). Birinchi Baba has a growing band of rich devotees. Gurupada decides to patronize the holy man and become his disciple. Daughter Buchki is disappointed with her lover Satya. To teach him a lesson, she tells Satya that she is going to leave him and become a disciple of Birinchi Baba.
582015	Akshaye Khanna (born 28 March 1975) is an Indian film actor who works in Hindi cinema. He made his acting debut in the year 1997 with "Himalay Putra" and since then has been featured in several critical and commercial acclaimed films. Khanna has been a recipient of Filmfare Awards twice. His most popular films include "Border" (1997), "Taal" (1999), "Dil Chahta Hai" (2001), "Hulchul" (2004), "Race" (2008) among others. He was critically acclaimed for his performance in "Gandhi, My Father" (2007). Background. Akshaye Khanna was born in Mumbai on March 28, 1975. He is the second son of Bollywood actor and politician Vinod Khanna, and the younger brother of actor Rahul Khanna. Career. After studying in Kishore Namit Kapoor Acting Institute in Mumbai, Khanna made his acting debut in Bollywood in 1997 with the movie "Himalay Putra", which went without much success at box office and produced by his father vinod khanna.. His performance in his next release, J. P. Dutta-directed "Border" (1997), earned him the Filmfare Best Debut Award and a nomination for Filmfare Award for Best Supporting Actor in 1998. After that a string of unsuccessful films followed such as "Mohabbat" (1997), "Kudrat" (1998), "Laawaris" (1999), "Love You Hamesha" (1999) and "Dahek: A Burning Passion" (1999). In 1999, he starred in Rishi Kapoor's "Aa Ab Laut Chalen"; though the film did average business, he was praised for his acting. He next starred in the 1999 release of Subhash Ghai's "Taal" opposite Aishwarya Rai. The film became a critical and commercial success. In 2001, Khanna appeared in Farhan Akhtar's cult classic "Dil Chahta Hai" which turned out to be a turning point in his career; the film was a commercial and critical success and Khanna's performance was particularly applauded, later validated by first Filmfare Award for Best Supporting Actor in 2002. "Dil Chahta Hai" relaunched Akshaye Khanna and Saif Ali Khan's careers. In 2002, Khanna appeared in an Abbas-Mustan thriller "Humraaz"; his role as a convincing con-artist in this film earned him much critical acclaim and a nomination for a Filmfare Award for Best Performance in a Negative Role. Khanna then plunged into the comedy genre with Priyadarshan’s "Hungama" (2002) and "Hulchul" (2004) that became box office hits. After acting in a string of unsuccessful and lukewarm box-office films like "Shaadi Se Pehle" (2006), "Aap Ki Khatir" (2006), "" (2007), "Mere Baap Pehle Aap" (2008), "Gandhi, My Father" (2007), and "Naqaab" (2007), Khanna appeared in the 2008 release "Race". The Abbas-Mustan’s thriller was the fourth highest-grossing Bollywood film in 2008 and Khanna's performance in a negative role brought him couple of awards in the Best Villain category. However, Khanna’s portrayal of Harilal Gandhi, Mahatma Gandhi's eldest son, in the critically acclaimed 2007 film "Gandhi, My Father" is unanimously acknowledged his best performance yet as an actor. In 2010, he starred in Anees Bazmee's "No Problem", co-starring with Sanjay Dutt, Anil Kapoor and Kangna Ranaut. Khanna's later releases did not fare well at the box office, but his performances in "Aakrosh" (2010) and "Tees Maar Khan" (2010) were well-received by critics and audiences.
1105091	__NOTOC__ Cornelius (Cornel) Lanczos (, ) (until 1906: "Löwy (Lőwy) Kornél") was a Hungarian mathematician and physicist, who was born on February 2, 1893, and died on June 25, 1974. He was born in Székesfehérvár to Karl Löwy (Lőwy Károly) and Adél Hahn. Lanczos' Ph.D. thesis (1921) was on relativity theory. In 1924 he discovered an exact solution of the Einstein field equation, which represents a cylindrically symmetric rigidly rotating configuration of dust particles. This was later rediscovered by Willem Jacob van Stockum and is known today as the van Stockum dust. It is one of the simplest known exact solutions in general relativity, and is regarded as an important example, in part because it exhibits closed timelike curves. Lanczos served as assistant to Albert Einstein during the period of 1928–29. He did pioneering work along with G.C. Danielson on what is now called the fast Fourier transform (FFT, 1940), but the significance of his discovery was not appreciated at the time, and today the FFT is credited to Cooley and Tukey (1965). (As a matter of fact, similar claims can be made for several other mathematicians, including Carl Friedrich Gauss.) Working in Washington DC at the U.S. National Bureau of Standards after 1949, Lanczos developed a number of techniques for mathematical calculations using digital computers, including: In 1962, Lanczos showed that the Weyl tensor, which plays a fundamental role in general relativity, can be obtained from a tensor potential which is now called the Lanczos potential. Lanczos resampling is based on a windowed sinc function as a practical upsampling filter approximating the ideal sinc function. Lanczos resampling is widely used in video up-sampling for digital zoom applications. Lanczos was an outstanding physics teacher. Books such as "The Variational Principles of Mechanics" (1949) show his explanatory ability and enthusiasm for the subject. During the McCarthy era, Lanczos came under suspicion for possible Communist links. In 1952, he chose to leave the U.S. and move to the School of Theoretical Physics at the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies in Ireland, where he succeeded Schrödinger. When at D.I.A.S. he wrote the classic book, "Applied Analysis" (1956). According to a short speech delivered Oct 1, 2010 during Lanczos' induction to the NIST Portrait Gallery of Distinguished Staff, his daughter-in-law described his return to Hungary in 1939 from his then-position at Purdue University, when he attempted to convince his family to return to the US with him due to the anti-Jewish Nazi threat. His wife was too ill to travel, and died several weeks later from tuberculosis. He was only able to extricate his 5 year old son and return to the US just before the war began. When the Nazis purged Hungary of Jews in 1944, only his aunt and a nephew survived. That son married, moved to Seattle and raised two sons. Upon hearing of the birth of his first grandson by letter while in Ireland, he replied in his own letter that the boy "was proof that Hitler did not win."
634034	Raphael Sbarge (born February 12, 1964) is an American actor and voice actor. Early life. Sbarge was born into a theatre-oriented family in New York City. His mother, Jeanne (Button), was a costume designer, and his father, Stephen Arnold Sbarge, was an artist, writer and stage director who named his son after the Renaissance artist. Sbarge began his career at the age of five on "Sesame Street". Career. Sbarge made his stage debut in Joseph Papp's 1981 Shakespeare in the Park production of "Henry IV, Part 1". The following year he made his Broadway debut opposite Faye Dunaway in the short-lived play "The Curse of an Aching Heart". Other New York stage credits include "Hamlet" (1982), "Ah, Wilderness!" (1988), "Ghosts" (1988), "The Twilight of the Golds" (1993), "The Shadow Box", and "Voices in the Dark" (1999). Sbarge's film credits include "Risky Business" (1983), "Vision Quest" (1985), "My Man Adam" (1985), "My Science Project" (1985), "Carnosaur" (1993), "The Hidden II" (1993), "Babes in Toyland" (1997), "Independence Day" (1996), "BASEketball" (1998), "Message in a Bottle" (1999), "Pearl Harbor" (2001) and "Home Room" (2002). Sbarge has appeared in numerous television series and television movies, including "A Streetcar Named Desire" with Ann-Margret in 1984; "Billionaire Boys Club", "Cracked Up" with Edward Asner, and "Prison for Children" in 1987; "Back to Hannibal: The Return of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn" in 1990; "Murder 101" with Pierce Brosnan and "Final Verdict" with Treat Williams in 1991; "Breast Men" with Chris Cooper and "Quicksilver Highway" with Christopher Lloyd in 1997; and "Introducing Dorothy Dandridge" with Halle Berry in 1999. He had recurring roles in five episodes of "" in 1996, and in the first four episodes of the sixth season of "24". From 2001-2004, Sbarge was a regular cast member of "The Guardian", starring Simon Baker. He was in an episode of "Six Feet Under". In 2007, he appeared in a two-part episode of "Journeyman". In 2010, he was in "Practically Perfect", a season five episode of "Dexter", as an Internal Affairs Agent named Jim McCort. He made a guest appearance in the third season of "Nip/Tuck".In 2012 he made an appearance in the episode 8x09 of "Criminal Minds" "Magnificent Light" as a murderer. He made an appearance in "Prison Break" as a member of the Company posing as a Bible salesman. He also appeared in "Charmed" as Brent Miller.
589308	Prem Kahani is a 1975 Hindi film. Produced by Lekhraj Khosla it is directed and written by Raj Khosla. The film stars Rajesh Khanna, Mumtaz, Shashi Kapoor, Vinod Khanna and K. N Singh. the films music is by Laxmikant Pyarelal. Plot. Rajesh Khanna is in love with Mumtaz in their college days. But Rajesh Khanna chooses to become revolutionary freedom fighter and abandons Mumtaz due to the fear that he might die during his struggle leaving her as a widow. The vicissitude of time, however, gets Mumtaz married to Shashi Kapoor, a police inspector, also a friend of Rajesh Khanna. Rajesh Khanna takes refuge at Shashi Kapoor's government quarter and encounters his past as he meets Mumtaz again. In series of developments, songs like "Phool Aahista Pheko" (throw the flower gently) and "Prem Kahani Mein" (in a love-story) are sung.
1078998	Saraband is a 2003 Swedish drama film directed by Ingmar Bergman, and his final film. It was made for Swedish television, but released theatrically in a longer cut outside Sweden. Its United States theatrical release, with English subtitles, was in July 2005. The Swedish television version is 107 minutes, while theatrical releases run just under 2 hours. The story is a sequel to Bergman's "Scenes from a Marriage" (1973), bringing back the characters of Johan and Marianne. It is a co-production of Sweden, Italy, Germany, Finland, Denmark, and Austria. Plot. It opens with the camera on Marianne standing by a table covered with photographs. It is a well-lit room, and she addresses the viewer. She picks one picture up after another; they are in no particular order, being just heaped all over the table. Some make her smile, or elicit a comment or a sigh. But then she picks up a photograph of her husband, prompting her to reminisce about how they had been more or less happy, and how they'd broken up. She goes on to recall how his second marriage failed, while she was already married to a second husband herself, and then when her second husband died (by flying a glider off somewhere and disappearing), she reflects that it would be nice to see her first husband again. Marianne travels into the country to the home of her ex-husband, and father of her daughters Martha and Sara, Johan. Johan is undergoing a family crisis with his insolvent and needy son, Henrik, and granddaughter, Karin. Karin is 19, and Henrik asks Johan for an advance on his inheritance so that Henrik can buy Karin an old Fagnola cello, to make a better impression at the audition for the European music conservatory. The elderly Johan decides to consider the offer and to contact the cello dealer himself. While Henrik is away tending to the orchestra he conducts in Uppsala, Johan has a private meeting with Karin, informing her of a proposal from Ivan Chablov, head conductor in the St. Petersburg orchestra and an old friend of Johan, that Karin join him at the prestigious Sibelius Academy in Helsinki.
1016336	The Swordsman or Swordsman is a 1990 Hong Kong "wuxia" film. King Hu was credited as the director but he allegedly left the project midway, and the film was completed by a team led by producer Tsui Hark. The film is adapted from Louis Cha's novel "The Smiling, Proud Wanderer". The theme song of the film, "Chong Hoi Yat Sing Siu" (滄海一聲笑), was written by Wong Jim and performed by lead actor Sam Hui. Plot. During the Ming Dynasty, the Sunflower Manual (葵花寶典) was stolen from the palace and a Jinyiwei team is sent to retrieve it. The Jinyi Wei attack Lin Zhennan and his son Lin Pingzhi, and the Lins separate to avoid their pursuers. Lin Zhennan meets Linghu Chong and Yue Lingshan from the Mount Hua Sect, requesting them to inform his son about the manual's location. Just then, Zuo Lengshan appears and a fight ensues, but Linghu Chong and Yue Lingshan manage to escape.
1503357	Kaitlin Hopkins (born February 1, 1964) is an American stage, screen, and television actress, the daughter of actress Shirley Knight and stage producer/director Gene Persson. Born in New York City, Hopkins was raised in London by her mother and stepfather John Hopkins, but returned to New York at the age of twelve. The following year she began her career in a summer stock production of "The Children's Hour" starring her mother and Joanne Woodward. She attended the musical theater program at Carnegie Mellon University and studied acting at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts in London. Hopkins' first television credit was an appearance on the soap opera "One Life to Live", followed by a regular role on "Another World". In 1993, she moved to Los Angeles, where she joined The Matrix Theatre Company. She spent weekends singing at The Pink in Santa Monica, and later performed at The Cinegrill, The Gardina, and At My Place. During this period, her television credits included "Beverly Hills, 90210", "Murder, She Wrote", "The Practice", "", "Spin City" and "Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman". In 1994, Hopkins was cast in the rock opera "I Was Looking at the Ceiling and Then I Saw the Sky" by Peter Sellars. She spent the next year traveling the world with the production, performing in Paris, Hamburg, Helsinki, Montreal, and at the Edinburgh Festival, among other locales. In 2002, Hopkins made her Broadway debut in "Noises Off". She has also appeared in the Lincoln Center benefit performance of "Anything Goes" with Patti LuPone and "How the Grinch Stole Christmas". Hopkins has performed in numerous live radio plays for LA Theater Works, including "Proof" with Anne Heche and "The Heidi Chronicles" with Martha Plimpton. Hopkins teaches master classes in acting, musical theater performance, on-camera auditioning, and vocalizing at performing arts high schools and colleges throughout the US and coached students privately in New York City, where she lived with her husband, playwright/actor/composer Jim Price. She previously was married to actor/director Daniel Passer and was engaged to actor Judge Reinhold. They currently live in San Marcos, Texas as Kaitlin Hopkins was named the new Head of Musical Theatre at Texas State University under Department Chair, Dr. John Fleming. Along with Head of Musical Theatre Dance, Robin Lewis (Broadway: "The Producers", "Fosse" and "A Chorus Line" national tour).
582674	Dulhan Hum Le Jayenge (English: "I will take the bride") is a 2000 Indian romantic comedy film starring Bollywood actors Salman Khan and Karisma Kapoor in the lead roles.
1036292	Ronald Balfour "Ronnie" Corbett, CBE (born 4 December 1930) is a Scottish actor and comedian who had a long association with Ronnie Barker in the television comedy series "The Two Ronnies". He achieved prominence in Sir David Frost's 1960s satirical comedy programme, "The Frost Report" and later starred in the sitcoms "Sorry!" and "No – That's Me Over Here!" Early life and career. Corbett was born in Edinburgh in 1930, the son of London-born Annie Elizabeth (Main) and William Balfour Corbett, master baker. He has a brother about six years younger, and a sister about ten years younger than himself. Corbett was educated at the Royal High School in the city, but did not attend university. After leaving school, he decided he wanted to be an actor while performing in amateur theatricals at a church youth club. However, his first job was with the Ministry of Agriculture. He then did national service with the Royal Air Force, during which he was the shortest (in height) commissioned officer in the British Forces. A former Aircraftman 2nd class, he was commissioned into the secretarial branch of the RAF as a pilot officer (national service) on 25 May 1950. He was given the service number 2446942. He transferred to the reserve (national service list) on 28 October 1951, thereby ending his period of active service. He was promoted to flying officer on 6 September 1952. Following National Service he moved to London and Gravesend to act, and started his career by playing schoolboy roles in films. At tall, Corbett was suited to playing younger than his years. References to his height frequently crop up in his self-deprecating humour. He has worked in film, television, and on stage since the 1950s. In his first stage co-starring appearance he was billed as Ronald Corbett at Cromer, Norfolk, in "Take it easy" in 1956, co-starring with Graham Stark. He appeared in "Crackerjack" as a regular in its early days, one episode with Winifred Atwell. He had a walk-on in an early episode of the 1960s series "The Saint" (credited as 'Ronald Corbett') and appeared in films including "Rockets Galore!" (1957), "Casino Royale" (1967), "Some Will, Some Won't" (1970) and the film version of the farce "No Sex Please, We're British" (1973). Corbett starred in the first London production of the musical "The Boys from Syracuse" (as Dromio of Syracuse) in 1963 at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, alongside Bob Monkhouse. In 1965 he was in cabaret at "Winston's", Danny La Rue's Mayfair nightclub. David Frost saw him and asked him to appear in "The Frost Report". Corbett was in the West End, playing Will Scarlett in Lionel Bart's Robin Hood musical "Twang!". It failed, leaving Corbett free to accept. Rise to fame. It was in "The Frost Report" (1966–67) that Corbett first worked with Ronnie Barker. The writers and cast were mostly Oxbridge graduates from the Footlights tradition. Corbett said he and Barker were drawn together as two grammar school boys who had not gone to university. The show was a mixture of satirical monologues, sketches and music. Corbett and Barker were beginning to be thought of as a pair. They appeared with John Cleese in one of the most repeated comedy sketches in British television, the "Class sketch", in which Corbett got the pay-off line: "I get a pain in the back of my neck." Continuing under Frost, Corbett starred in "No - That's Me Over Here!", a sitcom written by "Frost Report" writers Barry Cryer, Graham Chapman and Eric Idle (ITV 1967-70). Cryer and Chapman wrote two follow-ups: "Now Look Here" (BBC 1971-73) and "The Prince of Denmark" (BBC 1974). Corbett also appeared in "Frost on Sunday" (ITV 1968) and hosted "The Corbett Follies" (ITV 1969). "The Two Ronnies". His BBC television comedy show with Ronnie Barker, "The Two Ronnies", lasted from 1971 to 1987. Barker and Corbett performed sketches and musical numbers. Corbett presented a monologue. Sitting in a large easy chair (emphasising his small size), and usually wearing a Lyle & Scott golfing V-neck sweater, he would tell a simple joke over several minutes, often allowing himself to appear to lose his train of thought. Later career. His best known role away from "The Two Ronnies" is as the 40-something Timothy Lumsden, dominated by his mother, in the sitcom "Sorry!" (1981-1988). In 1996, he appeared on the première of the short-lived BBC game show, "Full Swing", hosted by Jimmy Tarbuck. In 1997, Corbett played Reggie Sea Lions in the film "Fierce Creatures", which also starred his former comedy teammate John Cleese. He also hosted the game show "Small Talk" and has played minor parts occasionally since its end – notably Griselda in a television production of "Cinderella" in 2000, and reviving his armchair monologue routines for a weekly appearance in a stand-up show hosted by Ben Elton. In 2003 he appeared in advertisements for the Sky+ digital television service alongside Alice Cooper. The premise was a running gag about their being happy housemates. In December 2004, Corbett appeared on the BBC news quiz, "Have I Got News For You". In 2005 Corbett teamed up again with Ronnie Barker for "The Two Ronnies Sketchbook", comedy sketches from their original series with original linking material. Also in 2005 Corbett appeared with comedian Peter Kay, in the spoof music video for the number 1 single "Is This the Way to Amarillo?", mimed to the song by Tony Christie. Corbett is remembered for accidentally falling over in the video, however he found the fall funny when played back, and it was kept in the final version. He performed in "Children's Party at the Palace" as Mr Tibbs, the Queen's butler. In 2006, he played a hyper-realised version of himself in "Extras", caught taking drugs at the BAFTA Awards. He also starred as himself in "Little Britain Abroad", in which Bubbles DeVere tried successfully to seduce him. He opened the centre in Cromer, North Norfolk, named after Henry Blogg, "the greatest lifeboatman of all time". He had opened Cromer's high school swimming pool in the 1970s. Corbett was the "castaway" in the BBC Radio 4 show, "Desert Island Discs" on 21 October 2007. He featured as a Slitheen in a "Sarah Jane Adventures" episode for Red Nose Day 2009. He had a television interview about his life on 7 November 2009 for "Piers Morgan's Life Stories". On 14 November 2009 he hosted "Strictly Come Dancing" alongside Tess Daly and Claudia Winkleman. Regular host Bruce Forsyth had flu. In February 2010 he was in the John Landis thriller comedy, "Burke and Hare". In August 2010 he was a panellist in the BBC 1 comedy show "Would I Lie to You?". In August 2010 he was the star of the Good Food HD programme, Ronnie Corbett's Supper Club, with Rob Brydon, and Rob's good friend Steve Speirs. The show's premise was, the main guest of the programme has to choose a meal as if it were their last, and Ronnie would cook it for him/her and his other guest, whilst they chatted about the guest's past and their current/future projects. In December of the same year he starred in a one off special: "The One Ronnie". In 2010 - 2011 he starred in two series of the BBC4 radio sitcom "When The Dog Dies". The series reunited Corbett with Ian Davidson and Peter Vincent, the writers of Sorry! The series returned to BBC Radio Four for a second series in August and September 2012, and again for a third series in January and February 2013. Already Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE), he was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2012 New Year Honours for services to entertainment and charity. Personal life. Corbett married actress and dancer Anne Hart in 1965; they have two daughters, actresses Emma and Sophie Corbett. Their first child, Andrew, had a heart defect and died, six weeks old, at St Thomas' Hospital. He has lived in Shirley, Croydon, London, for many years. He also has a home in Gullane, East Lothian, in Scotland. He is a beekeeper and keeps hives at his second home in East Lothian. Corbett is a golfer and appears in celebrity and pro–am events; in 2009 he made a documentary with Colin Montgomerie in which they played at Gleneagles. He is also a past president of the Lord's Taverners (1982 and 1987). He also supports his local football club, Crystal Palace as well as his hometown club Heart of Midlothian. Ronnie is also a keen cricket fan.
1063461	Anna Chlumsky (born December 3, 1980) is an American film, stage and television actress who rose to prominence for her role as Vada Sultenfuss in "My Girl" (1991), as well as in its 1994 sequel. Chlumsky abandoned her acting career in 1999 to study at the University of Chicago, and pursued other work before returning to acting in her late twenties, starring in independent films such as "Blood Car" (2007) and "In the Loop" (2009). As of 2012, Chlumsky has a starring role in the HBO series "Veep", for which she was nominated in 2013 for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series. Career. 1989–1998: Early career. Chlumsky entered show business at an early age, modeling with her mother in an advertising campaign, though her roles in "My Girl" (1991) and "My Girl 2" (1994) brought her fame. She also starred in "Trading Mom" (1994) alongside Sissy Spacek, as well as in "" with Christina Ricci. In the mid to late 1990s, Chlumsky starred in several television film and series. 1999–2005: Hiatus from acting. As a child Chlumsky considered working with horses or in paleontology. Once she reached adulthood, roles became scarce and she began to consider other careers. She attended the University of Chicago, graduating in 2002 with a BA in International Studies.
1091511	Jean-Baptiste Biot (21 April 1774 – 3 February 1862) was a French physicist, astronomer, and mathematician who established the reality of meteorites, made an early balloon flight, and studied the polarization of light. Biography. Jean-Baptiste Biot was born in Paris, France on 21 April 1774 and died in Paris on 3 February 1862. He was educated at Lyceum Louis-le-Grand and Ecole Polytechnique in 1794. Biot served in the artillery before he was appointed professor of mathematics at Beauvais in 1797. He later went on to become a professor of physics at the Collège de France around 1800, and three years later was elected as a member of the Academy of Sciences. In 1804 Biot was on board for the first scientific hot-air balloon ride with Gay-Lussac (NNDB 2009, O’Connor and Robertson 1997). They reached a height of 7016 metres (23,000 feet), quite dangerous without on board oxygen. Biot was also a member of the Legion of Honor; he was elected chevalier in 1814 and commander in 1849. In 1816, he was elected a foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. In addition, Biot received the Rumford Medal, awarded by the Royal Society in the field of thermal or optical properties of matter, in 1840 (O’Connor and Robertson 1997). Jean-Baptiste Biot had a single son, Edouard Constant Biot, an engineer and Sinologist, born in 1803. Edouard died in 1850 and it was only thanks to the extraordinary efforts of his father that the second half of Edouard's last book, the Chinese classic "Tcheou-li", was readied for publication. It had been left in manuscript, unfinished. To publish it in correct form, Jean-Baptiste Biot wrote, he had to consult Stanislas Julien, the famous Sinologist, but also, especially for the translation of the most difficult part, the Kaogongji, he himself had to visit many workshops and questioned artisans and craftsmen about their methods and vocabulary in order to verify his son's work. To this day, Biot's translation remains the only translation into a Western language of this book. Biot's Work. Jean-Baptiste Biot made many contributions to the scientific community in his lifetime – most notably in optics, magnetism, and astronomy. The Biot-Savart Law in magnetism is named after Biot and his colleague Félix Savart for their work in 1820. In their experiment they showed a connection between electricity and magnetism by "starting with a long vertical wire and a magnetic needle some horizontal distance apart showing that running a current through the wire caused the needle to move" (Parsley). In 1803 Biot was sent by the Académie française to report back on 3000 meteorites that fell on L’aigle, France. He found that the meteorites, or stones at the time, were from outer space. With his report, Biot helped support Ernst Florens Friedrich Chladni's argument that meteorites were debris from space, which he had published in 1794. Biot also helped further the field of optics in 1815 with a study in polarized light. In his experiment Biot studied the effects of polarized light as it penetrated organic substances and determined that light "could be rotated clockwise or counterclockwise, dependent upon the optical axis of the material" (Molecular). Meteorites. Prior to Biot's thorough investigation of the meteorites that fell near l’Aigle, France in 1803, very few truly believed that rocks found on Earth could have extraterrestrial origins. There were anecdotal tales of unusual rocks found on the ground after fireballs had been seen in the sky, but such stories were often dismissed as fantasy. Serious debate concerning the unusual rocks began in 1794 when German physicist Chladni published a book claiming that rocks had an extraterrestrial origin (Westrum). Only after Biot was able to analyze the rocks at l’Aigle was it commonly accepted that the fireballs seen in the sky were meteors falling through the atmosphere. Since Biot's time, analysis of meteorites has resulted in accurate measurements of the chemical composition of the solar system. The composition and position of meteors in the solar system have also given astronomers clues as to how the solar system formed. Polarized light. In 1812, Biot turned his attention to the study of optics, particularly the polarization of light. Prior to the 19th century, light was believed to consist of discrete packets called corpuscles. During the early 19th century, many scientists began to disregard the corpuscular theory in favor of the wave theory of light. Biot began his work on polarization to show that the results he was obtaining could appear only if light were made of corpuscles. His work in chromatic polarization and rotary polarization greatly advanced the field of optics, although it was later shown that his findings could also be obtained using the wave theory of light (Frankel).
63385	David John Spiegelhalter OBE, FRS (born 16 August 1953) is a distinguished British statistician. In 2007 he was elected Winton Professor of the Public Understanding of Risk in the Statistical Laboratory, University of Cambridge and a Fellow of Churchill College, Cambridge. Spiegelhalter is an ISI highly cited researcher and is the 34th most-cited mathematical scientist in the world over the last ten years . Education. Spiegelhalter studied at the University of Oxford (Bachelor of Arts 1974) and University College London. He gained his Master of Science 1975 and Doctor of Philosophy 1978, supervised by Adrian Smith. Career. Spiegelhalter was research assistant in Brunel University in 1976 and then visiting lecturer at the University of California, Berkeley, 1977–8. After his PhD, he was a research assistant for the Royal College of Physicians; he was based at the University of Nottingham, where his PhD supervisor, Adrian Smith, had been appointed a professor. From 1981 he was at the Medical Research Council Biostatistics Unit at Cambridge. He has been an honorary lecturer at the University of Hong Kong since 1991. He has also been a consultant for GlaxoSmithKline, Novartis and the World Anti-Doping Agency. He played a leading role in the public inquiries into children's heart surgery at the Bristol Royal Infirmary and the murders by Harold Shipman. Between 2007 and 2012 he divided his work between the Statistical Laboratory (three fifths) and the Medical Research Council Biostatistics Unit (two fifths). He left the MRC in March 2012 and now works full time at the Statistical Laboratory. In 2012, Spiegelhalter hosted the BBC Four documentary "Tails You Win: The Science of Chance" which described the application of probability in everyday life. He also presented a 2013 Cambridge Science Festival talk, "How to Spot a Shabby Statistic" at the Babbage Lecture Theatre in Cambridge. Research interests. Spiegelhalter's research interests are in
1092628	Alexander Alexandrovich Friedmann (also spelled Friedman or Fridman, ) (June 29 (17 old style) by himself, June 16 (4 old style) by J. O'Conor in 1888, Saint Petersburg, Russian Empire – September 16, 1925, Leningrad, USSR) was a Russian and Soviet physicist and mathematician. He is best known for his pioneering theory that the universe was expanding, governed by a set of equations he developed now known as the Friedmann equations. Early life. Alexander Friedmann was born to the composer and ballet dancer Alexander Friedmann (who was a son of a baptized Jewish cantonist) and the pianist Ludmila Ignatievna Voyachek. He lived much of his life in Saint Petersburg. Friedmann obtained his degree in St. Petersburg State University in 1910, and became a lecturer in Saint Petersburg Mining Institute. From his school days, Friedmann found an inseparable companion in Jacob Tamarkin, who at the end of his career was one of Brown University's most distinguished mathematicians. World War I. Friedmann fought in World War I first on behalf of Imperial Russia as a bomber, and then for the Soviet Union, after the Russian Revolution of 1917. During the war, he served in the Russian army as an aviator, an instructor and eventually, under the revolutionary regime, as the head of an airplane factory. Professorship. Friedmann became a professor at Perm State University in 1918. Friedmann in 1922 introduced the idea of an expanding universe that contained moving matter; Belgian astronomer Georges Lemaître would later independently reach the same conclusion in 1927. In June 1925 he was given the job of the director of Main Geophysical Observatory in Leningrad. In July 1925 he participated in a record-setting balloon flight, reaching the elevation of . Work. Relativity. Friedmann's 1924 papers, including "" ("On the possibility of a world with constant negative curvature of space") published by the German physics journal "Zeitschrift für Physik" (Vol. 21, pp. 326–332), demonstrated that he had command of all three Friedmann models describing positive, zero and negative curvature respectively, a decade before Robertson and Walker published their analysis. This dynamic cosmological model of general relativity would come to form the standard for both the Big Bang and Steady State theories. Friedmann's work supports both theories equally, so it was not until the detection of the cosmic microwave background radiation that the Steady State theory was abandoned in favor of the current favorite Big Bang paradigm. The classic solution of the Einstein field equations that describes a homogeneous and isotropic universe is called the Friedmann–Lemaître–Robertson–Walker metric, or "FLRW", after Friedmann, Georges Lemaître, Howard Percy Robertson and Arthur Geoffrey Walker, who worked on the problem in 1920's and 30's independently of Friedmann. Hydrodynamics and meteorology. In addition to general relativity, Friedmann's interests included hydrodynamics and meteorology. Students. Physicists George Gamow and Vladimir Fock were among his students. Personal life. He married Natalia Malinina in the last years of his life. They had a religious wedding ceremony, though both were far from religious. Death. Friedmann died on September 16, 1925, at the age of 37, from typhoid fever that he contracted during a vacation in Crimea. Named after Friedman. The moon crater Fridman is named after him.
1044426	The Heroes of Telemark is a 1965 war film directed by Anthony Mann based on the true story of the Norwegian heavy water sabotage during World War II. It was filmed on location in Norway. Plot. The Norwegian resistance sabotage the Vemork Norsk Hydro plant in the town of Rjukan in the county of Telemark, Norway, which the Nazis are using to produce heavy water, which could be used in the manufacture of an Atomic bomb. Besides this impressively filmed sequence, Operation Gunnerside, Operations Grouse and Freshman and the final attack are depicted in location filming, in which snowy Norwegian locations serve as a backdrop for the plot. Kirk Douglas plays Rolf Pedersen, a Norwegian physics professor, who, though originally content to wait out the war, is soon pulled into the struggle by local resistance leader Knut Straud (based on Knut Haukelid, portrayed by Richard Harris). They are both smuggled to England to have microfilmed plans of the Hydro examined, and then return to Norway to plan a commando raid on the Hydro. When a force of Royal Engineers, who were to carry it out, are all killed, Pedersen and Straud lead a small force of saboteurs into the plant. The raid is successful, but the Germans quickly repair the equipment. They then plan to ship tankers of heavy water to Germany. Pedersen and Straud sabotage a ferry carrying the tankers, and it sinks in the deepest part of a fjord. Reception. The film was amongst the 15 most popular movies at the British box office in 1966. Other versions. Ray Mears made a documentary entitled "The Real Heroes of Telemark". Despite mainly sticking to the factual evidence, some scenes in the documentary, like the film, were partly dramatised, focusing more on the survival skills involved in the operation. The same story was also covered in the 1948 Franco-Norwegian film "Kampen om tungtvannet" ("La bataille de l'eau lourde" - "The battle for heavy water"). Quite faithful to the real events, it even had many of the original Norwegian commandos starring as themselves.
792259	Anti-Clock is a 1979 film, an analytic drama in which dreams are imaged in computerized video, written and directed by Jane Arden, and co-directed by Jack Bond. The film, which stars Arden's son Sebastian Saville, was shot on film and video in colour with black and white sequences. It opened the 1979 London Film Festival, but was never picked up for British distribution: its only other public British screening was at the National Film Theatre in 1983 as a tribute to Jane Arden, who committed suicide at the end of the previous year. However, it had a modest theatrical release in the US, where it received considerable critical acclaim. Physicist Richard Feynman has a minor acting role in the film, and is credited as "The Professor." "Anti-Clock", which relates closely in places to Jane Arden's book "You Don't Know What You Want, Do You?" was restored by the British Film Institute for DVD and Blu-ray and released on July 13, 2009.
1060608	Timothy "Tim" Blake Nelson (born May 11, 1964) is an American director, writer, and actor. Early life. Nelson was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma, the son of Ruth (Kaiser) Nelson, who is a noted social activist and philanthropist in Tulsa, and a geologist/wildcatter father. Nelson is Jewish. His maternal grandparents escaped the Nazis shortly before World War II, fleeing to the UK in 1938 and emigrating to the United States in 1941. His father's family were Russian Jewish immigrants.
1067308	Masked and Anonymous is a 2003 comedy-drama film directed by Larry Charles, who is better known for his writing on successful TV sitcoms, Seinfeld and Mad About You and for executive producing episodes of The Tick and Dilbert. The film was written by Larry Charles and Bob Dylan, the latter under the pseudonym "Sergei Petrov". It stars iconic rock legend Bob Dylan alongside a star-heavy cast, including John Goodman, Jeff Bridges, Penélope Cruz, Val Kilmer, Mickey Rourke, Jessica Lange, Luke Wilson, Angela Bassett, Bruce Dern, Cheech Marin, Ed Harris, Chris Penn, Steven Bauer, Giovanni Ribisi, and Michael Paul Chan. The film received mixed reviews from critics. Plot. An iconic rock legend, Jack Fate (Bob Dylan), is bailed out of prison to perform a one-man benefit concert for a decaying future North American society. The film touches on many subjects from the futility of politics, the confusion of loosely strung government conspiracies, and the chaos created by both anarchy and "Nineteen Eighty-Four"-styled totalitarianism. It further reflects on life, dreams, and God's place in a seemingly increasingly chaotic world. In some ways, the film is political: it describes how Fate sees the political landscape (people fighting for no reason, a nation without hope, governments that cannot be trusted) but at the same time Fate makes it clear that he "was always a singer and maybe no more than that". He produces no solutions to any of the problems the film presents. Rather, he makes it clear that he "stopped trying to figure everything out a long time ago." History. The film was shot in only two days and was funded by the BBC. It was distributed by Sony Pictures Classics, a well-known distributor of independent productions. The soundtrack is composed almost entirely of covers of Bob Dylan songs ranging from his very early 1960s-era material to work as recent as songs from his 1997 Grammy-award winning album "Time Out of Mind". Artists who perform the songs include Los Lobos, Sertab Erener, Grateful Dead and Jerry Garcia. Many of the film's actors worked for "scale" (union wages) for a chance to appear alongside Dylan, including Jeff Bridges, John Goodman (reunited after their work together in the 1998 Coen Brothers film "The Big Lebowski", which also featured the 1970 Dylan song "The Man in Me"), Bruce Dern, Jessica Lange (who has had a longtime relationship with playwright Sam Shepard who co-wrote the 1986 composition "Brownsville Girl" with Dylan, from the album "Knocked Out Loaded"), Penélope Cruz, Luke Wilson, Cheech Marin, Ed Harris, Chris Penn, Giovanni Ribisi, Christian Slater, Mickey Rourke, and Angela Bassett. In addition to several other actors of note, the band of the lead character is played by Dylan's actual touring band of the time. Other stars in the film include Fred Ward and Val Kilmer. Music from Dylan's entire career is presented in the movie, though his then recent album "Time Out Of Mind" receives considerable play, with "Dirt Road Blues" and "Not Dark Yet" both used as background in scenes; Dylan also plays a new arrangement of "Cold Irons Bound" in the film's climax. Furthermore, a live performance of "Standing in the Doorway" was cut from the final edit, but included as a bonus on the DVD. Reviews. "Masked and Anonymous" was given very poor reviews upon release, maintaining a 25% Rotten rating at Rotten Tomatoes and a 32% rating at Metacritic. "Chicago Sun-Times" critic Roger Ebert gave the film a 1/2 star (out of a possible four) rating, and deemed it "a vanity production beyond all reason." A number of reviewers commented on Dylan's acting, with one critic writing that he appeared "near-catatonic" and another that he stared "in mute incomprehension", "never speaking more than one line at a time" and only making remarks that "evoke the language and philosophy of Chinese fortune cookies." The film was also panned by "Rolling Stone", "Entertainment Weekly", "The Village Voice" and at least twenty other noteworthy periodicals. Amongst the positive reviewers was The Washington Post", stating that the film is a "fascinating, vexing, indulgent, visionary, pretentious, mesmerizing pop culture curio." Andrew Motion, former Poet Laureate of Great Britain, published an enthusiastic essay about the film which concluded: “(This film) is revelatory - in the paradoxical sense that it allows Dylan to say some important things out loud, and to keep the silences, and retain the elements of mystery, which are essential to his genius. We should ask for nothing else.”
589904	Sonar Kella (), also Shonar Kella, released in the United States as The Golden Fortress, is a 1971 mystery novel and a 1974 film by Bengali writer and director Satyajit Ray. The film is an adaptation of the novel with minor plot changes and features the actors Soumitra Chatterjee, Santosh Dutta, Siddartha Chatterjee and Kusal Chakravarty among others. It is one of the most enduringly popular Bengali films and is still shown very regularly on TV. It is the very first film of Feluda on the silver screen. "Sonar Kella" is best known for Santosh Dutta's performance as the childishly innocent but supremely confident thriller writer Jatayu. It is one of the most popular, acclaimed and iconic performances in the history of Bengali cinema. Many of his dialogues have achieved proverbial status. His interpretation of the character in this and the other Feluda film "Joi Baba Felunath" were so powerful that Ray modeled the character of Jatayu in later books on him. After Santosh Dutta died, Ray remarked that it was impossible to ever make a Feluda film again without Dutta. True to his prediction, later attempts to portray Jatayu in the telefilms and films of his son Sandip Ray have met with derision. Film plot summary. Mukul Dhar (played by Kushal Chakraborty) is a boy who is said to be able to remember events of his previous life. He stays up late into the night and draws sketches that he claims are of battles he had seen. His father decides to take him to Dr. Hemanga Hajra (Sailen Mukherjee), a parapsychologist, for treatment. After listening to his descriptions of deserts and peacocks, Dr. Hajra guesses that the place Mukul describes might be in the deserts of Rajasthan, a state in western India. Mukul also mentions that he lived in the Golden Fortress (Sonar Kella), though he can't explain what this means, and that their house had lots of gems. Dr. Hajra decides to take Mukul on a trip to Rajasthan hoping this may shed deeper light into such parapsychological phenomenon, as well as help cure the boy. A newspaper report on Mukul and an interview with Dr. Hajra alerts two men by the names of Amiyanath Burman (Ajoy Banerjee) and Mandar Bose (Kamu Mukherjee), the villains in the story. Burman and Bose had earlier had encounters with Dr. Hajra, when he had exposed fraudulent activities of the pair. They interpret his mention of gems as a hidden treasure and plan to kidnap Mukul in hope of getting their hands on it. Their first attempt at the kidnapping fails when they pick up another boy, also named Mukul (Santanu Bagchi), from the same neighborhood. Mukul had already left for Rajasthan. Alarmed by the failed kidnapping of his son, Mukul's father engages the service of Feluda (Soumitra Chatterjee), a private investigator, to help protect his son. Feluda accepts the assignment and leaves for Rajasthan along with Topshe (Siddartha Chatterjee). On the way to Rajasthan Feluda and Topshe meet Lalmohan Ganguly, a.k.a. Jatayu (Santosh Dutta), a popular thriller-writer, for the first time. Meanwhile, Burman and Bose befriend Dr. Hajra, who is travelling on the same train but fails to recognise them. Dr. Hajra finds out that Mukul's father was a gemcutter, so the gems mentioned by Mukul have nothing to do with treasure. But Burman and Mandar Bose don't know this. They push off Dr. Hajra from a cliff and kidnap Mukul, with Burman impersonating as Dr. Hajra and Mandar Bose as a globe-trotter. Unknown to them, Dr. Hajra survives the fall, though he is forced to rest for a few days to recover from his grievous injuries. Feluda meets Burman, thinking him to be Dr. Hajra. Burman tries to kill him secretly using a poisonous scorpion, but fails. Jatayu joins them and they move around Rajasthan showing various forts (Rajasthan is full of Rajput forts) to Mukul, but none of them are the Golden Fortress. Meanwhile Feluda starts to suspect Mandar Bose after he boasts to Jatayu of having killed a wolf in Africa. One night, Burman uses his parapsychological background to hypnotise Mukul, when he says that the fort was in Jaisalmer. The next morning, Feluda reaches the same conclusion after remembering that the fort of Jaisalmer was made of golden yellow limestone. At the same time, the real Dr. Hajra reaches the same conclusion by learning about the history of the Fort of Jaisalmer from a police inspector. However, when Feluda returns to the guest house he finds that Burman has already left. Mandar Bose tells him that Mukul remembered the name of the place to be Barmer. Feluda suspects foul play, and is confirmed when he finds that Burman has misspelled the word Hajra in the attendance register of the guest house. He leaves for Jaisalmer by car, but Mandar Bose leaves first and scatters broken glass on the highway, puncturing the tires of their car. Feluda takes a camel caravan to the nearest train station, after failing to stop the train carrying Burman and Mukul midway. They take the next train to Jaisalmer. In the night, Mandar Bose tries to stab Feluda, but Feluda was only pretending to be asleep and has him at gunpoint. But suddenly Jatayu tries to recover Mandar Bose's knife, which was stolen from Jatayu. Using Jatayu as a shield he jumps out and hangs onto the side of the train, returning to his compartment. By chance, that compartment is occupied by the real Dr. Hajra, who frightens the drunk Mandar Bose. A swinging door pushes him out to his death. The next morning, the three reach Jaisalmer and talk with Dr. Hajra. Then they go to the fort, to find Burman and Mukul searching the ruins. Burman has a phobia of peacocks and tries to shoot one, which angers Mukul into running off. At this point, Feluda confronts and captures him. He also tells him that there never was any treasure, whether rebirth exists or not. They find that Mukul is cured, and return to Kolkata.
572882	Thomas Ross "Tommy" Bond (September 16, 1926 – September 24, 2005) was an American actor. A native of Dallas, Texas, Bond was best known for his work as a child actor for two different nonconsecutive periods on "Our Gang" ("Little Rascals") comedies (first as "Tommy" and later as "Butch"). Also, he is noted for being the first actor to appear onscreen as "Superman's pal" Jimmy Olsen, having portrayed the character in the film serials "Superman" (1948) and "Atom Man vs. Superman" (1950). Biography. Early years and "Our Gang". Bond got his start in 1931 at the age of five when a talent scout for Hal Roach studios approached him as he was leaving a Dallas cinema with his mother. The scout asked him if he would like to act in films because he "had a great face" and set up an appointment with Hal Roach in Los Angeles. Hal Roach was gathering new talent for his popular "Our Gang" comedies. Bond's grandmother Jane Quin Sauter volunteered to drive the boy to L.A. by motor car. This occurred in the spring of 1931, in the depth of the Great Depression. It proved to be a grueling journey, punctuated by flash floods and encounters with tarantulas, on mostly dirt roads from Dallas to L.A.
1060330	Jean Dorothy Seberg (November 13, 1938August 30, 1979) was an American actress. She starred in 37 films in Hollywood and in Europe, including "Bonjour Tristesse" (1958), "Breathless" (1960), the musical "Paint Your Wagon" (1969), and the disaster film "Airport" (1970). Seberg is also one of the best-known targets of the FBI COINTELPRO project. Her victimization was rendered as a well-documented retaliation for her support of civil rights and activist groups in the 1960s. Jean Seberg died at the age of 40 of a barbiturate overdose in Paris. Her death was ruled a suicide. Early life. Jean Seberg was born in Marshalltown, Iowa, the daughter of Dorothy Arline (née Benson), a substitute teacher, and Edward Waldemar Seberg, a pharmacist. Her family was Lutheran and of Swedish, English, and German ancestry. After high school, Seberg enrolled at the University of Iowa Film career. Seberg made her film debut in 1957 in the title role of "Saint Joan", from the George Bernard Shaw play, after being chosen from 18,000 hopefuls by director Otto Preminger in a $150,000 talent search. Her name was entered by a neighbor. By the time she was cast, on October 21, 1956, her only acting experience had been a single season of summer stock performances. The film was associated with a great deal of publicity about which Seberg commented that she was "embarrassed by all the attention". Despite a big build-up, called in the press a ""Pygmalion" experiment", both the film and Seberg received poor notices. On the failure, she later told the press: "I have two memories of "Saint Joan". The first was being burned at the stake in the picture. The second was being burned at the stake by the critics. The latter hurt more. I was scared like a rabbit and it showed on the screen. It was not a good experience at all. I started where most actresses end up." Preminger, though, had promised her a second chance, and he cast Seberg in his next film "Bonjour Tristesse" the following year, which was filmed in France. Regarding his decision, Preminger told the press: "It's quite true that, if I had chosen Audrey Hepburn instead of Jean Seberg, it would have been less of a risk, but I prefer to take the risk. [..] I have faith in her. Sure, she still has things to learn about acting, but so did Kim Novak when she started." Seberg again received atrocious reviews and the film nearly ended her career. But her next role was in the successful 1959 comedy, "The Mouse That Roared", starring Peter Sellers. During the filming of "Bonjour Tristesse" Seberg met the man who was to be her first husband, and she then based herself in France, achieving success as the free-love heroine of French New Wave films. Most notably, she appeared as Patricia in Jean-Luc Godard's "Breathless" (original French title: "À bout de souffle"), in which she co-starred with Jean-Paul Belmondo. The film became an international success and critics praised Seberg's performance, François Truffaut even hailing her "the best actress in Europe." Despite her achievements in this genre, Seberg did not identify with her characters or the film plots, saying that she was "making films in France about people [she's] not really interested in." The critics did not agree with Seberg's absence of enthusiasm, and raved about her performances, inspiring Hollywood and Broadway to make her important offers. In 1961, Seberg took on the lead role in her then husband François Moreuil's debut film, "La recréation". By that time, Seberg had been estranged from Moreuil, and she recollected that production was "pure hell" and that he "would scream at ." In the United States, she starred opposite Warren Beatty in "Lilith" (1964), which prompted the critics to acknowledge Seberg as a serious actress. In 1969, she appeared in her first and only musical film, "Paint Your Wagon", based on Lerner and Loewe's stage musical, and co-starring Lee Marvin and Clint Eastwood. Her singing voice was dubbed by Anita Gordon. Seberg also starred in the disaster film "Airport" (1970) opposite Burt Lancaster and Dean Martin. Seberg was François Truffaut's first choice for the central role of Julie in "Day for Night" but, after several fruitless attempts to contact her, Truffaut gave up and cast British actress Jacqueline Bisset instead. Her last US film appearance was in the TV movie "Mousey" (1974). Seberg remained active during the 1970s in European films. She appeared in "Bianchi cavalli d'Agosto" (White Horses of Summer) (1975), "Le Grand Délire (Die Große Ekstase)" (1975, with husband Dennis Berry) and "Die Wildente" (1976, based on Ibsen's "The Wild Duck"). At the time of her death she was working on the French film "La Légion saute sur Kolwezi". She had scenes filmed in French Guiana and returned to Paris for additional work in September. After her death, the scenes were reshot with actress Mimsy Farmer. Possible Hollywood blacklisting. At the peak of her career, Seberg suddenly stopped acting in Hollywood films. Reportedly, she was not pleased with the roles she had been offered, some of which, she noted, bordered on pornography. Conversely, she was not offered any great Hollywood roles, regardless of their size. Experts in FBI COINTELPRO activities suggest that Seberg was "effectively blacklisted " from Hollywood films, as was Jane Fonda, for a period of time. No conclusive evidence of a 'blacklisting' exists, yet this is fairly normal, as such blacklists are usually secret. FBI COINTELPRO investigation. During the late 1960s, Seberg provided financial support to various groups supporting civil rights, such as the NAACP and Native American school groups such as the Mesquaki Bucks at the Tama settlement near her home town of Marshalltown, for whom she purchased US$500 worth of basketball uniforms. The FBI was upset about several gifts to the Black Panther Party, totalling US$10,500 (estimated) in contributions; these were noted among a list of other celebrities in FBI internal documents later released under FOIA. This financial support, and her alleged interracial love affairs or friendships were evident triggers to a large-scale FBI program deployment in her direction. The FBI operation against Seberg used COINTELPRO program techniques to harass, intimidate, defame, and discredit Seberg. The FBI's stated goal was an unspecified "neutralization" of Seberg; all intended to be done while hiding FBI involvement. One stated FBI subsidiary objective was to "cause her embarrassment and serve to cheapen her image with the public", while taking the "usual precautions to avoid identification of the Bureau". FBI strategy and modalities can be found in FBI inter-office memos, since declassified and released to the public under FOIA. In 1970, the FBI created the false story, from a San Francisco-based informant, that the child Seberg was carrying was not fathered by her husband Romain Gary but by a member of the Black Panther Party, Raymond Hewitt. The story was reported by gossip columnist Joyce Haber of "The Los Angeles Times". The story was also printed by "Newsweek" magazine. Seberg went into premature labor and, on August 23 1970, she gave birth to a baby girl. The child died two days later. She held an open-casket funeral in her hometown to allow reporters to see the infant's white skin, to disprove the rumors that the child's father was African-American. Seberg and Romain later sued "Newsweek" for libel and defamation and asked for US$200,000 in damages. Seberg contended that she became so upset after reading the story that she went into premature labor, which resulted in the death of her daughter. A Paris court ordered "Newsweek" to pay the couple US$10,800 in damages and also ordered "Newsweek" to print the judgement in their publication plus eight other newspapers. The investigation of Seberg went far beyond the publishing of defamatory articles. According to her friends interviewed after her death, Seberg experienced years of aggressive in-person surveillance (constant stalking), as well as break-ins and other intimidation-oriented activity. FBI files show that not only was she wiretapped, but aggressive U.S. official surveillance was deployed while she was travelling in Switzerland and Italy, and while she resided in France. FBI files show that the FBI cross-contacted the "FBI Legat" (legal attachés) in U.S. Embassies in Paris and Rome, to monitor the actress while abroad; the FBI also provided files on Seberg to the CIA, U.S. Secret Service and U.S. Military intelligence to assist in monitoring Seberg while she was travelling abroad. Newspaper reports after her death make clear that Seberg was aware of the surveillance; in 1980, "The Los Angeles Times" published FBI logs of her Swiss wiretapped phone calls. FBI records also show that J. Edgar Hoover kept U.S. President Richard Nixon informed of FBI activities related to the Jean Seberg case via President Nixon's domestic affairs chief John Ehrlichman. John Mitchell, then Attorney General, and Deputy Attorney General Richard Kleindienst were also kept informed of FBI activities related to Jean Seberg. Personal life. Seberg married François Moreuil, a French lawyer, in 1958, but they divorced in 1960. Moreuil had ambitions in movies and directed his estranged wife in La récréation. According to Seberg, the marriage was a "violent" one, and she complained that she "got married for all the wrong reasons." On living in France for a period of time, Seberg said in an interview: "I'm enjoying it to the fullest extent. I've been tremendously lucky to have gone through this experience at an age where I can still learn. That doesn't mean that I will stay here. I'm in Paris because my work has been here. I'm not an expatriate. I will go where the work is. The French life has its drawbacks. One of them is the formality. The system seems to be based on saving the maximum of yourself for those nearest you. Perhaps that is better than the other extreme in Hollywood, where people give so much of themselves in public life that they have nothing left over for their families. Still, it is hard for an American to get used to. Often I will get excited over a luncheon table only to have the hostess say discreetly that coffee will be served in the other room. [..] I miss that casualness and friendliness of Americans, the kind that makes people smile. I also miss blue jeans, milk shakes, thick steaks and supermarkets." However, despite extended stays in the United States, Seberg remained Paris-based for the rest of her life. In 1963, she married French novelist and diplomat Romain Gary, who was 24 years her senior and was previously married. Their only child together, Alexandre Diego Gary, was born in Barcelona on July 24, 1962 before their wedding (Gary's divorce from his first wife was officialized the next year); for this, Diego's birth and first years of life were hidden from even Gary's closest friends and relatives. Thanks to his contacts in the diplomatics services, Gary established Diego's birth at the French village of Charquemont on October 26, 1963, after his parents' marriage. During her marriage to Gary, Seberg lived in Paris, Greece, Southern France and Majorca. Seberg's second child, Nina Hart Gary (born August 23, 1970 - died August 25, 1970) was acknowledged by Gary as his own, but during her pregnancy she confessed that the child was actually the product of an affair (during a separation from Gary) with a student revolutionary named Carlos Ornelas Navarro. The couple divorced one month before the birth of Nina. In 1972, she married aspiring film director Dennis Berry. In 1979, Seberg went through "a form of marriage" to Ahmed Hasni while separated from her legally-wed husband. Hasni persuaded her to sell her second apartment on the Rue du Bac, and he kept the proceeds (reportedly 11 million francs in cash), announcing that he would use the money to open a Barcelona restaurant. The couple departed for Spain but she was soon back in Paris alone, and went into hiding from Hasni, who she said had grievously abused her. Death. In late August 1979, Seberg disappeared. Her partner Ahmed Hasni told police that they had gone to a movie the night of August 30 and, when he awoke the next morning, Seberg was gone. After Seberg went missing, Hasni told police that he knew she was suicidal for some time. He claimed that she had attempted suicide in July 1979 by jumping in front of a Paris subway train. Ten days later, her decomposing body was found wrapped in a blanket in the back seat of her Renault. Her car was parked close to her Paris apartment in the 16th arrondissement. Police found a bottle of barbiturates, an empty bottle of mineral water and a note written in French from Seberg addressed to her son. It read, in part, "Forgive me. I can no longer live with my nerves." Her death was ruled a suicide. Romain Gary, Seberg's second husband, called a press conference shortly after her death where he publicly blamed the FBI's campaign against Seberg for her deteriorating mental health. Gary claimed that Seberg "became psychotic" after the media reported a false story that the FBI planted about her becoming pregnant with a Black Panther's child in 1970. The child died two days after Seberg went into premature labor. Gary stated that Seberg had repeatedly attempted suicide on the anniversary of the child's death, August 25. Seberg was interred in the Cimetière du Montparnasse, Paris, France. Aftermath. Six days after the discovery of Seberg's body, the FBI released documents under FOIA admitting the defamation of Seberg, while making statements attempting to distance themselves from practices of the Hoover era. The FBI's campaign against Seberg was further explored at this time by "Time" magazine in a front page article, "The FBI vs. Jean Seberg". Media attention surrounding the abuse Seberg had undergone at FBI hands led to examination of the case by the United States Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, a.k.a. "the Church Committee", which noted that notwithstanding FBI claims of reform, that, "COINTELPRO activities may continue today under the rubric of investigation". In his autobiography, "Los Angeles Times" editor Jim Bellows described events leading up to the Seberg articles, in which he expressed regret that he had not vetted the Seberg articles sufficiently. He echoed this sentiment in subsequent interviews. The Seberg case remains a hallmark case, examined to this day, vis-à-vis U.S. intelligence abuses directed towards U.S. citizens. In June 1980, Paris police filed charges against "persons unknown" in connection with Seberg's suicide. The charges were filed after a test showed that Seberg had a high amount of alcohol in her system at the time of her death. Police stated that the amount of alcohol found would have rendered Seberg comatose and unable to get into her car without assistance. Police theorized that someone was present at the time of her death and failed to get her medical care. Police also noted there was no alcohol in the car where Seberg's body was found. In December 1980, Seberg's former husband Romain Gary committed suicide. Gary's suicide note, which was addressed to his publisher, indicated that he had not killed himself over the loss of Seberg but over the fact that he felt he could no longer produce literary works. In popular culture. "The Talent Scout" by Romain Gary (1961) features a recognizable portrait of Seberg. In 1991, actress Jodie Foster, a fan of Seberg's performance in "Breathless", purchased the film rights to the David Richards' biography about Seberg, "Played Out: The Jean Seberg Story". Foster was set to produce and star in the film, but the project was cancelled two years later. Mexican author and diplomat Carlos Fuentes mirrored their short-term affair in his 1994 novel "Diana o La Cazadora Solitaria" (English title: "Diana: The Goddess Who Hunts Alone"). In 1995, a documentary of her life was made by Mark Rappaport, titled "From the Journals of Jean Seberg". Mary Beth Hurt played Seberg in a voice-over. Hurt was also born in Marshalltown, Iowa, in 1948, attended the same high school as Seberg, and Seberg had been her babysitter. A musical, "Jean Seberg", by librettist Julian Barry, composer Marvin Hamlisch, and lyricist Christopher Adler, based on Seberg's life, was presented in 1983 at the National Theatre in London. The short 2000 film "Je t'aime John Wayne" is a tribute parody of "Breathless", with Camilla Rutherford playing Seberg's role. In 2004, the French author Alain Absire published "Jean S.", a fictionalized biography. Seberg's son, Alexandre Diego Gary, brought a lawsuit unsuccessfully attempting to stop publication. Seberg is mentioned in the title track of the Divine Comedy's 2004 album, "Absent Friends", where the singer describes how she "seemed so full of life, but in those eyes, such troubled dreams", an apparent reference to Seberg's death. In 2011, filming began in New York City on a biopic tentatively titled "Jean", starring artist and heiress Daphne Guinness as Jean Seberg. Also in 2011, Seberg's hometown of Marshalltown, Iowa, began holding an annual Jean Seberg International Film Festival (JSIFF). "Movie Star: The Secret Lives of Jean Seberg" [http://jeansebergmovie.com] by Tammy and Kelly Rundle of Fourth Wall Films and author Garry McGee is due to premiere at the festival in November 2013. The documentary includes interviews with Jean’s immediate family, friends, teachers and colleagues in the U.S and France. Bibliography. • Bellos, David (2010). "Romain Gary: A Tall Story". London: Harvill Secker. ISBN 978 1843431701. • Coates-Smith, Michael, and McGee, Garry (2012). "The Films of Jean Seberg". Jefferson, NC: McFarland. ISBN 978-0-7864-6652-8. • Guichard, Maurice (2008). "Jean Seberg: Portrait francais". Paris: Editions Jacob-Duvernet. ISBN 978 2 84724 194 5. • McGee, Garry (2008). "Jean Seberg – Breathless". Albany, GA: BearManor Media. ISBN 1-59393-127-1. • Moreuil, Francois (2010). "Flash Back". Chaintreaux: Editions France-Empire Monde (French language publication). ISBN 978-2-704897-0. • Munn, Michael (1992). "Clint Eastwood: Hollywood's Loner". London: Robson Books. ISBN 0-86051-790-X. • Richards, David (1981). "Played Out: The Jean Seberg Story". Random House. ISBN 0-394-51132-8.
589853	Mrigayaa is a 1976 Hindi-language Indian feature film directed by Mrinal Sen and produced by Rajeswar Rao, which was the debut of Mithun Chakraborty which also won him the prestigious National Film Award for Best Actor. Mrigayaa is an Indian film in Hindi, directed by Mrinal Sen and produced by Kishor Bagri was released in 1976. Kishor currently is working with Balaji Telefilms.The film stars Mithun Chakraborty in his debut film which also won him the prestigious National Film Award for Best Actor. The movie portrayed the relationship between the British colonialists and native villagers, and their exploitation by Indian landlords in 1920's India. It also depicts the development of a friendship between a British administrator with a flair for game hunting, and a village man, who is an expert archer. This happens in the backdrop of the awakening of the Indian people against the British rule. Plot. The film portrayed the relationship between the British colonialists and native villagers, and their exploitation by Indian landlords in 1920's India. It also depicts the development of a friendship between a British administrator with a flair for game hunting, and a village man, who is an expert archer. This happens in the backdrop of the awakening of the Indian people against the British rule. Awards. Won Nomination
1063539	The Adventures of Ford Fairlane is a 1990 action/comedy film directed by Renny Harlin. It stars comedian Andrew Dice Clay as the title character, Ford Fairlane, a "Rock n' Roll Detective," whose beat is the music industry in Los Angeles.
1062648	Rutger Oelsen Hauer (; born 23 January 1944) is a Dutch actor, writer, and environmentalist. His career began in 1969 with the title role in the popular Dutch television series "Floris". His film credits include "Flesh+Blood", "Blind Fury", "Blade Runner", "The Hitcher", "Escape from Sobibor" (for which he won a Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor), "Nighthawks", "Wedlock", "Sin City", "Confessions of a Dangerous Mind", "Ladyhawke", "Buffy the Vampire Slayer", "The Osterman Weekend", "The Blood of Heroes", "Batman Begins", "Hobo with a Shotgun", and "The Rite". Hauer also founded an AIDS awareness organization, the Rutger Hauer Starfish Association. Early life. Hauer was born in Breukelen in the Netherlands, the son of drama teachers Arend and Teunke. Hauer grew up in Amsterdam. Since his parents were very occupied with their careers, he and his three sisters (one older, two younger) were brought up mostly by nannies. At the age of 15, Hauer ran off to sea and spent a year scrubbing decks aboard a freighter. Returning home, he worked as an electrician and a joiner for three years while attending acting classes at night school. Career. Hauer joined an experimental troupe, with which he remained for five years before Paul Verhoeven cast him in the lead role of the successful 1969 television series "Floris", a Dutch medieval action drama. The role made him famous in his native country, and Hauer reprised his role for the 1975 German remake "Floris von Rosemund". Hauer's career changed course when Verhoeven cast him in "Turkish Delight" (1973). The movie found box-office favour abroad as well as at home, and within two years, Hauer was invited to make his English-language debut in the British film "The Wilby Conspiracy" (1975). Set in South Africa, the film was an action-drama with a focus on apartheid. Hauer's supporting role, however, was barely noticed in Hollywood, and he returned to Dutch films for several years. During this period, he made "Katie Tippel" (1975) and worked again with Verhoeven on "Soldier of Orange" (1977), and "Spetters" (1980). These two films paired Hauer with fellow Dutch actor Jeroen Krabbé. Hauer made his American debut in the Sylvester Stallone film "Nighthawks" (1981) as a psychopathic and cold-blooded terrorist named Wulfgar. The following year, he appeared in arguably his most famous and acclaimed role as the eccentric and violent but sympathetic anti-hero Roy Batty in Ridley Scott's 1982 science fiction thriller "Blade Runner", in which role he improvised the famous tears in rain soliloquy. Hauer went on to play the adventurer courting Theresa Russell in "Eureka" (1983), the investigative reporter opposite John Hurt in "The Osterman Weekend" (1983), the hardened Landsknecht mercenary Martin in "Flesh & Blood" (1985), and the knight paired with Michelle Pfeiffer in "Ladyhawke" (1985). He continued to make an impression on audiences in "The Hitcher" (1986), in which he played a mysterious hitchhiker intent on murdering a lone motorist and anyone else in his way. At the height of Hauer's fame, he was set to be cast as RoboCop though the role went to Peter Weller. That same year, Hauer starred as Nick Randall in "" as the descendant of the character played by Steve McQueen in the television series of the same name. In "The Legend of the Holy Drinker" (1989), Hauer showed a more soulful side. Phillip Noyce also attempted to capitalize, with far less success, on Hauer's spiritual qualities in the martial arts action adventure "Blind Fury" (1989). Hauer returned to science fiction with "The Blood of Heroes" (1990), in which he played a former champion in a post-apocalyptic world. By the 1990s, Hauer was well known for his humorous Guinness commercials as well as his screen roles, which had increasingly involved low-budget films such as "Split Second", "Omega Doom", and "New World Disorder". He also appeared in the Kylie Minogue music video "On a Night Like This". In the late 1980s and 1990s, as well as in 2000, Hauer acted in several British and American television productions, including "Inside the Third Reich", "Escape from Sobibor" (for which he received a Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor), "Fatherland", "Final Flight" as Amelia Earhart's navigator Noonan, "Hostile Waters", "Merlin", "The 10th Kingdom", "Smallville", "Alias", and "Salem's Lot". In 1999, Hauer was awarded the Dutch “Best Actor of the Century Rembrandt Award”. Hauer played an assassin in "Confessions of a Dangerous Mind" (2003), a villainous cardinal with influential power in "Sin City" (2005) and a devious corporate executive running Wayne Enterprises in "Batman Begins" (2005). He also hosted the British reality television documentary "Shock Treatment" in 2005. He starred in "" as Real Madrid coach Rudi Van Der Merwe. In 2007 he recorded the voice-overs for the UK advertising campaign for Lurpak butter. In 2009, his role in avant-garde filmmaker Cyrus Frisch's "Dazzle", received positive reviews. The film was praised in Dutch press as "the most relevant Dutch film of the year". The same year, Hauer starred in the title role of "Barbarossa", an Italian film directed by Renzo Martinelli. In April 2010, he was cast in the live action adaptation of the short and fictitious "Grindhouse" trailer "Hobo With a Shotgun" (2011). In March 2011, it was announced that Hauer would play vampire hunter Van Helsing in legendary horror director Dario Argento's "Dracula 3D". Will also be starring as "Niall Brigant" in season 6 of "True Blood". Personal life. Hauer is a dedicated environmentalist. He fought for the release of Sea Shepherd Conservation Society leader, Paul Watson, who was convicted in 1994 for sinking a Norwegian whaling vessel. Hauer has also established an AIDS awareness organization called the Rutger Hauer Starfish Association. Hauer married his second wife, Ineke ten Cate, in 1985 (they had been together since 1968); and he has one child, actress Aysha Hauer, who was born in 1966 and who made him a grandfather in 1987. His grandson Leandro Maeder is a fashion model. In April 2007, he published his autobiography "All Those Moments: Stories of Heroes, Villains, Replicants, and Blade Runners" (co-written with Patrick Quinlan), where he discusses many of his movie roles. Proceeds of the book go to Hauer's Starfish Association.
1052723	"This article is about the film. For the single by Nickelback, see Old Enough (Nickelback song). For the single by The Raconteurs, see Old Enough (Raconteurs song)." Old Enough is a 1984 teen-oriented movie. It stars Sarah Boyd, Rainbow Harvest, Danny Aiello, Neill Barry, Roxanne Hart, Alyssa Milano and Susan Kingsley. It was written and directed by Marisa Silver and produced by Dina Silver, daughters of movie director Joan Micklin Silver. Set in 1984 in New York, "Old Enough" is the story of a teenage girl, Karen Bruckner, from the "wrong side of the tracks" (played by Harvest), whose father (played by Aiello) is the superintendent of the rundown apartment complex in which they live. Her friend, Lonnie Sloane, is a rich, well-bred 11 year-old (played by Boyd). Milano, in her film debut, plays Lonnie's sister Diane.
1025566	Richard Benjamin "Dick" Haymes (September 13, 1918 – March 28, 1980) was an Argentine actor and singer. He was one of the most popular male vocalists of the 1940s and early 1950s. He was the older brother of Bob Haymes, an actor, television host, and songwriter. Biography. Haymes was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina in 1918. His mother, whom Haymes predeceased, was Irish-born Marguerite Haymes (1894–1987), a well-known vocal coach and instructor. Dick Haymes became a vocalist in a number of big bands, worked in Hollywood, on radio, and in films throughout the 1940s/1950s. Though never achieving the immensely popular status of fellow baritone crooners like Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra, or Perry Como, Haymes was nonetheless just as respected for his musical ability. In 1942, Sinatra introduced Haymes on radio as Sinatra's replacement in the Tommy Dorsey band. In 1945 Haymes co-starred with Jeanne Crain and Dana Andrews in the musical "State Fair". He teamed with female vocalist Helen Forrest for many hit duets during World War Two, including "Together," "I'll Buy That Dream," and "Long Ago and far Away"; he sang with Judy Garland on two Decca recordings of songs from a film "The Shocking Miss Pilgrim" in which he appeared with Betty Grable; and he paired repeatedly with the famous Andrews Sisters (Patty, Maxene, and LaVerne) on a dozen or so Decca collaborations, including the Billboard hit "Teresa," "Great Day," "My Sin," and a masterful 1952 rendering of the dramatic ballad "Here in My Heart," backed by the sisters and Nelson Riddle's lush strings. His duets with Patty Andrews were also well received, both on Decca vinyl and on radio's "Club Fifteen" with the sisters, which he hosted in 1949 and 1950. He also joined Bing Crosby and The Andrews Sisters for an historic session in 1947 producing the Billboard hit "There's No Business Like Show Business", as well as "Anything You Can Do (I Can Do Better)". His popular renditions of tender ballads such as "Little White Lies" and "Maybe It's Because" were recorded with mood master and exceptional arranger Gordon Jenkins and his orchestra and chorus. Jenkins achieved a haunting beauty in several recordings with Decca artists which set them apart from most musical fare of the day, including The Andrews Sisters' "I Can Dream, Can't I?" and The Weavers' "Goodnight, Irene" (both million-selling, number-one hits). World War II. Haymes's birth in Argentina to non-U.S. citizens meant he was not an American citizen. In order to avoid military service during World War II, Haymes asserted his non-belligerent status as a citizen of Argentina, which was neutral at that time. Hollywood-based columnists Louella Parsons and Hedda Hopper seized upon this at the time, questioning Haymes' patriotism, but the story had little effect on Haymes' career. About that time, he was classified 4-F by the draft board because of hypertension. As part of his draft examination, he was confined for a short period to a hospital at Ellis Island, which confirmed his hypertension. However, Haymes' decision would come back to haunt him in 1953 when he went to Hawaii (then a territory and, technically, not part of the United States) without first notifying immigration authorities. On trying to return to the mainland United States, Haymes was nearly deported to Argentina, but won his battle to remain in the United States. Later years. He experienced serious financial problems later in life and at one point was forced into bankruptcy. He appeared as unscrupulous doctor Elroy Gantman in a 1974 episode of "Adam-12". Marriages. Haymes was married six times. His more notable marriages were to film actresses Joanne Dru (1941–1949), Rita Hayworth (1953–1955), and Fran Jeffries (1958–1964). He was also married to Nora Eddington, a former wife of Errol Flynn. Haymes' wives bore him a total of six children. Death. Dick Haymes died in Los Angeles from lung cancer in 1980. He was 61 years old. Discography. 78rpm albums. "Dick Haymes Sings" – Carmen Cavallaro at the Piano – Irving Berlin Songs (1948 Decca Record)
1129605	Sharktopus is a 2010 American low-budget science fiction film directed by Declan Burke, starring Eric Roberts. It is a Syfy production and was produced by Roger Corman. The movie is a remake of the 1984 Italian film "Monster Shark". Plot. The U.S. Navy commissions a group known as "Blue Water" to genetically engineer a half-shark, half-octopus for combat. During a demonstration destroying drug traffickers off Santa Monica, the beast escapes the control of its creators and makes its way to Puerto Vallarta. Hunted by Blue Water and a television crew, the monster attacks numerous beach-goers. As a finale, Andy Flynn and Nicole Strands destroy Sharktopus after Sharktopus kills Nicole's father and the creator of Sharktopus, Dr. Nathan Strands. Reception. Sharktopus received a 40% positive rating, based on five reviews, at the film-critic aggregate site Rotten Tomatoes. Home media. Sharktopus was released to DVD and Blu-ray on March 15, 2011. Sequel. In an interview with Flixist.com, producer Roger Corman said that he may do a sequel to the film. However, the 2012 film Piranhaconda is dubbed as being the sequel to it, even though the two are not related. On the 6th of August dreadcentral.com posted an article stating that SyFy is producing two Sharktopus sequels back-to-back, that are both being directed by Kevin O’Neill.
688685	Evil Toons is a 1992 live-action/animated Comedy-Horror B-movie written and directed by Fred Olen Ray. The film is a light spoof of traditional haunted-house films. Plot. A group of teenage girls spend the night in an old house.On the night of their arrival, a strange man arrives at the house, delivering an old book. Once he is gone, the girls examine the book, where they find a sketch of a wolf-like monster. As time passes, the drawing emerges from the book and becomes a cartoon. At one point, after attacking one of the girls, it possesses her,And everyone in the house fall victim to the Possessed Girl, this includes her boyfriend,The owner of the house,and Two of the girls.Megan (the only surviving girl) and Gideon Fisk (owner of the book) destroy the book and the cartoon reverts into its Normal self and Disappears. The film ends as Gideon leaves,and everyone comes back to life, Megan scream's in terror when Mr. Hinchlow (the neighbor) comes by and brings a portable television so that the group of girls can watch Saturday morning cartoons. Release. On May 4, 2010, Infinity Entertainment Group released the 20th Anniversary Edition on DVD. Reception. The film has received a number of negative reviews, earning a Rotten Tomatoes approval rating of 29%.
581142	Bombay to Bangkok is a Bollywood film starring Shreyas Talpade and Lena Christensen in the lead roles. It is written and directed by Nagesh Kukunoor and produced by Elahe Hiptoola and Rahul Puri. Plot. Shankar (Shreyas Talpade), a petty thief, in desperate need of money, steals from the local don (Naseeruddin Shah) and escapes his way into a team of doctors heading for relief work to Bangkok. Unfortunately, he loses the all-important money bag in the chaos. In Bangkok, his world turns upside down at a massage parlour where he bumps into Jasmine (Lena Christensen). The hitch is, she is all Thai and he can't converse with her at all. A ray of hope comes his way the next day when Jasmine turns up desperately in need of a doctor. Shankar, posing as a doctor along with the Sardar buddy Rachinder, jumps into this whirlpool, while Jasmine soon gets pulled into his bumbling adventures while running away from the don and his son (Vijay Maurya).
1173052	Earl Stevens (born November 15, 1967) better known by his stage name E-40, is an American rapper, entrepreneur, and investor from Vallejo, California. He is a former member of the rap group The Click, and the founder of Sick Wid It Records. He has released over ten albums, appeared on numerous movie soundtracks, and has also done guest appearances on a host of other rap albums. Initially an underground artist, his 1995 solo album "In a Major Way" opened him up to a wider audience. Beginning in 1998, he began collaborating with more mainstream rappers outside of the Bay Area. He rose to even higher mainstream popularity in 2006 with his single "Tell Me When to Go" which was produced by Lil Jon. Music career. 1990–1999. E-40 made his rap debut in 1990, with the EP "Let's Side" as a member of The Click. The EP was co-produced by Mike Mosley and Al Eaton and was released on Sick Wid It Records, an independent label founded by E-40. In 1992 they released second album, "Down and Dirty", and in 1993 E-40 made his solo album debut. "Federal", a nine-track LP/14-track CD produced by Studio Ton and released by Sick Wid' It Records in association with SMG (Solar Music Group), a regional distributor. After a talent show at Grambling State University, the emcee and his cousin B-Legit decided to attempt a career in rap. Together, and with his sister Suga-T, they released their 1993 mainstream radio hit "Captain Save a Hoe". They moved back to Vallejo and teamed up with D-Shot, E-40's brother, to form the group MVP or Most Valuable Players. E-40's gospel singing uncle (Saint Charles) helped them put out the record. Suga-T was then added to the group to form The Click. Synonymous with Bay Area rap, E-40 garnered a regional following, and eventually a national one, with his flamboyant raps, while his entrepreneurial spirit, embodied by his homegrown record label, Sick Wid' It Records, did much to cultivate a flourishing rap scene to the east of San Francisco Bay, in communities such as Oakland and his native Vallejo. Along with Too Short, Spice 1, and Ant Banks, E-40 was among the first West Coast rappers to sign a major-label deal, penning a deal with Jive Records in 1994, after years of releasing music independently. Thus, six additional solo albums were to follow, beginning with "In a Major Way" in 1995 as well as remastered versions of E-40's independent Sick Wid It recordings from previous years. "In a Major Way" was regionally well-received, with guest spots by such rappers as Tupac Shakur and Mac Mall, as well as his son Droop-E. Although having a large following within West Coast, E-40 did not have a large mainstream audience, so only two of his songs released under Jive Records, "1-Luv" featuring Levitti and "Things'll Never Change" featuring Bo-Roc, charted on the Billboard Hot 100. He had been working nearly exclusively with rappers from the Bay Area until 1997, when he released the double disc compilation "Southwest Riders" featuring exclusively rap acts from the Bay Area and the south. His collaboration with southern rappers continued in 1998, when he was given guest appearances on albums by Southern rappers, including "Lost" by Eightball, and "MP Da Last Don" by Master P. 2000–2010. In 2003, E-40 began hosting "E-Feezy Radio", a weekly program San Francisco hip-hop radio station KMEL that showcased Bay Area hip hop. KMEL regularly broadcast the program until 2008. After completing a deal with Jive Records he signed with Lil Jon's BME Recordings and Warner Bros. Records. After the signing, he appeared on Lil Jon's single "Snap Yo Fingers", also featuring Sean P of YoungBloodz, which became a hit reaching the top 10 of the Billboard Hot 100. Afterwards, his single "Tell Me When To Go", featuring Oakland rapper Keak Da Sneak, became popular throughout the United States, and E-40 appeared on MTV's "Direct Effect" and BET's "106 & Park". Publicity for E-40 was achieved through the MTV special "My Block: The Bay". He later released "U And Dat" in April 2006, featuring T-Pain and Kandi Girl and produced by Lil Jon. His album "My Ghetto Report Card" debuted at #1 on the Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart and #3 on the Billboard Hot 200 on March 14, 2006. Released through Sick Wid It/BME/Warner Bros. Records, the album was produced by Lil Jon, Rick Rock, and E-40's son, Droop-E. He was also featured on DJ Shadow's new album "The Outsider", on a track called "Dat's My Part". In 2006, he also appeared on Tech N9ne's "" CD on a track titled "Jellysickle". In that same year, he contributed a verse to the official remix of "It's Okay (One Blood)" by fellow West coast rapper The Game along with 24 other prominent MCs. In 2008, E-40's new album "The Ball Street Journal" came out, with "Wake it Up" featuring Akon as the lead single. "Got Rich Twice" featuring Turf Talk followed. The album peaked at #42 on the "Billboard" 200. In 2009, 40 was featured on the track "Santana DVX" on the album "Incredibad" from the comedy group The Lonely Island. E-40 is listed in the credits as one of the writers. In the song, E-40 assumes the identity of Carlos Santana and raps about his personalized brand of sparkling white wine. E-40 was featured on BrokeNCYDE's album "I'm Not A Fan, But The Kids Like It!" on the song "Booty Call". E-40 was also featured on the song "Kush Is My Cologne" (along with Bun B & Devin The Dude) on Gucci Mane's 2009 album "The State vs. Radric Davis". On March 30, 2010, E-40 released two albums called ' and '. Both include guest appearances from Too Short, Snoop Dogg, Gucci Mane, Bobby V more. They debuted at numbers 47 & 49 respectively on the 200. The first single from the "Day Shift" album is "Bitch" featuring Too Short. On March 29, 2011, E-40 released two albums called ' and '. They include guest spots from Lil Jon, Bun B, Slim Thug, Tech N9ne & more. They both entered on the 200 chart at #'s 42 & 40.
1082918	Mr Nice (US title Mr. Nice) is a 2010 British-Spanish crime-drama. Directed by Bernard Rose, "Mr Nice" is in part a biopic due to it being a loose film adaptation of "Mr Nice", the 1997 cult autobiography by Howard Marks. The film features an ensemble cast starring Rhys Ifans as Howard Marks (with Marks himself giving Ifans instruction), along with David Thewlis, Omid Djalili and Jack Huston, with Crispin Glover and Chloë Sevigny. Ifans portrays Marks, a real-life Welsh marijuana smuggler who ran one of the biggest global cannabis smuggling operations from the late 1960s to the early 1980s, mostly while on the run. Marks associated with some of the more colorful characters of the era, allegedly even cutting deals with the likes of the FBI, the Mafia, the IRA and MI6. After serving time in Terre Haute, one of the "toughest" prisons in the United States, Marks stopped smuggling and dealing in cannabis (although he still openly uses the drug himself), and gained wider fame as a pro cannabis campaigner, stand-up comedian, actor (at least in cameos), lads mag columnist, television show panelist, music producer, motivational speaker, and even prospective Member of Parliament. Like Marks' autobiography on which it is based, the film has polarized critics. Plot. The film begins in 2010, with a 65-year-old Howard Marks going onto a stage in front of a packed theater to great applause. Marks asks if there are any plain-clothes policemen sat in the audience, to which the reply is negative. Then, whilst lighting up a joint, Marks asks "who here is a dope (marijuana) smoker?", to even greater applause. The film then diverts into Marks' internal monologue as he recounts his life. Born in the Welsh valleys in 1945, young Howard Marks (Rhys Ifans) – later nicknamed Mr Nice – excels academically to much higher than the national standard of the United Kingdom. This remarkable aptitude earns him a scholarship to Oxford University at nineteen years old, reading philosophy and physics, but Marks' destiny changes forever one night when dutifully studying alone in his dorm. A beautiful, rebellious and hedonistic foreign exchange student from Latvia, Ilze Kadegis (Elsa Pataky) - breaks into Marks' room, looking for a secret passageway within. Marks follows Kadegis through the secret passageway and into a forgotten storage space used by one of the school's top marijuana dealers, Graham Plinson (Jack Huston). Kadegis seduces Marks, and introduces him to cannabis for the first time. For the next few years, Marks becomes an enthusiastic customer of Plinson's, and continues his love affairs with both Kadegis and cannabis; the group enjoy a series of wilder and wilder nights, with their academic lives suffering as a result. Circumstances change for the worse when Plinson introduces the group to LSD. When rich heir Joshua Macmillan, a friend of Marks', dies of overdose, and Marks impales his foot on a spike, Marks vows off ever touching drugs again - or at least the harder variety of drugs. The trio of Marks, Kadegis and Plinson promise to each other to turn over a new leaf, and they pass their scholarships through some intense last-minute revision, and a little cheating. They then all move onto teacher training jobs at the University of London in 1967, where Marks hastily marries Kadegis. Fractures begin appearing in the early stages of the marriage, with Marks becoming despondent, apathetic and suspecting Kadegis of having an affair. What's more, Marks gets into trouble at the London University for "having long hair and flashy suits". When plans to bring a large cache of hashish into England via Germany go wrong with Plinson getting arrested, Marks steps in to help - figuring he has nothing left to lose anyway. Marks goes to Germany and drives the car with the stash inside across the borders himself, simply driving through customs. The customs officers are on the lookout for Plinson's crew, but do not know Marks, who sails through without incident. Marks says the thrill of getting away with it was like "religious flash and an asexual orgasm". When selling the hashish back in London to an Arab oil sheik named Saleem Malik (Omid Djalili), Marks makes a fortune, and swifty becomes addicted to this new but dangerous lifestyle as a big league marijuana trafficker - eventually running a large percentage of the world's cannabis. It is a path that will lead Marks face-to-face with terrorists, government agents, and lose him his freedom to one of the toughest prisons in the United States in 1988, through to the present day as a media personality and cult hero. Production. After Howard Mark's 1997 autobiography "Mr Nice" became a best-seller (ranked #1 book regarding drugs on Amazon.com), and Marks began to make a name for himself in a number of different media, a film adaptation of the book was petitioned. In development hell for over a decade, the production of the film was an eventual collaboration between a number of smaller studios, such as Independent Productions, Kanzaman Productions S.L, Séville Pictures, Prescience, Lipsync Productions LLP and the Wales Creative IP Fund. Howard Marks was himself the main consultant for the film and Ifans. The DVD includes a commentary by Howard Marks, as well as a featurette with Rhys Ifans joining Marks on one of his stand-up shows and impersonating him to the delight of the crowd - with the both of them getting intoxicated to point of incoherence. "Mr Nice" was filmed throughout January 2004 in Benidorm, Spain. The film features a 1960s pop-inspired soundtrack by Philip Glass, with original songs reflective of the era such as Deep Purple, Fraternity of Man and John Lennon. Differences to the autobiography. Whereas both the novel and film are claimed as fact by Marks himself, there are differences between the two. Certain portions of the novel are missing in the film, such as the amount of time Marks spent organising deals during the 1980s in places such as Hong Kong, Singapore and Bangkok; although they are alluded to in the film, just not shown in any great detail. Some of the more interesting aspects of the book are missing from the film entirely however, such as any mention of the dozens of aliases and disguises Marks had whilst on the run. Perhaps one of the most significant claims in Marks' novel was perhaps left out of the film for political reasons - Marks claimed to been befriended by Lord Moynihan, a British peer embroiled in vice scandal. Marks alleged Lord Moynihan betrayed Marks to the DEA in the United States in a plea bargain, although there is no mention of this in the film. Reception. Box office. "Mr Nice" made its worldwide premiere at the South by Southwest Film Festival in Texas, United States, in March 2010 and was first shown in the UK at the Edinburgh Film Festival in June 2010. On 8 October 2010, it was released in the UK on 107 screens, taking in a first weekend gross of £528,534. In June 2011, it was released in the United States. Awards. "Mr Nice" won the Award for Best Cinematography at the 2010 Kodak Awards. Critical. "Mr Nice" polarized critics; the film currently has a rating of 55% on Rotten Tomatoes, with 24 out of 44 reviews being positive, and 20 being negative. Dan Jolin of the film magazine "Empire" gave "Mr Nice" three out of five stars, writing "A solid, often entertaining life-of-crimer which benefits from some stylistic touches and a faithful, convincing central performance." Kevin Thomas of "Los Angeles Times" gave the film 3.5 out of 5, calling the Philip Glass soundtrack "pulsating" and writing "Though the film takes a while to cast its spell, writer-director-cinematographer Bernard Rose's close observation of Marks and those around him becomes increasingly involving and allows Rose to comment on the widespread failure of the War on Drugs." "Time Out London" gave the film four out of five stars, although it noted it was not without its flaws: "The film adaptation of Howard Marks' autobiography – a student staple throughout the land – struggles to capture the sheer breadth of Marks' life." Benjamin Mercer of "Village Voice" also gave a polarized review, awarding the film 3.5 out of 5, yet also claiming the film gave him the impression it was glorifying cannabis use, or at the very least, being a vehicle for the advocation of legalizing cannabis - "Though told here with appealing drollness, Marks' story makes an odd vessel for the filmmakers' casually advanced legalization arguments, what with its mischief making on the grandest scale possible."
1162641	Salvatore Phillip "Sonny" Bono (; February 16, 1935 – January 5, 1998) was an American recording artist, record producer, actor, and politician whose career spanned over three decades. Early life. Sonny Bono was born in Detroit to Italian immigrants Santo Bono (born in Montelepre, Palermo, Italy) and Zena "Jean" La Valle. Sonny was the youngest of three siblings; he had two older sisters, Fran and Betty. Bono attended Inglewood High School in Inglewood, California, but did not graduate. Career. Entertainment career. Bono began his music career working at Specialty Records where his song "Things You Do to Me" was recorded by Sam Cooke, and went on to work for the record producer Phil Spector in the early 1960s as a promotion man, percussionist and "gofer". One of his earliest songwriting efforts was "Needles and Pins" which he co-wrote with Jack Nitzsche, another member of Spector's production team. Later in the same decade, he achieved commercial success, along with his then-wife Cher, as part of the singing duo Sonny and Cher. Bono wrote, arranged, and produced a number of hit records with singles like "I Got You Babe" and "The Beat Goes On", although Cher received more attention as a performer. He also played a major part in Cher's early solo career with recordings such as "Bang Bang" and "You Better Sit Down Kids". Bono co-wrote the song "She Said Yeah", which was covered by The Rolling Stones on their 1965 LP "December's Children (And Everybody's)" Bono also recorded as a solo artist under the name of Sonny. He had only one hit single as a solo artist, "Laugh At Me". "Laugh At Me" was released in 1965 and peaked at #10 on the "Billboard" Hot 100. In live concerts, Bono would sing the song with an introduction of, "I'd like to sing a medley of my hit." His only other single as a solo artist was a follow-up release, "The Revolution Kind", which reached number 70 on the "Billboard" Hot 100 later that same year. Bono also recorded an unsuccessful Sonny album titled "Inner Views" in 1967. Sonny continued to work with Cher through the early and mid-1970s starring in a popular television variety show, "The Sonny and Cher Show," which ran on CBS from 1971 to 1974. From 1976 to 1977, the couple returned to performing together on "The Sonny and Cher Show" despite being divorced. Their last appearance together was on "Late Night with David Letterman" on November 13, 1987, when they sang "I Got You Babe". Bono continued his acting career, doing bit roles in such shows as "Fantasy Island" and "The Love Boat". He played the part of mad bomber Joe Selucci in ' (1982) and in the 1986 horror movie "Troll". Bono also played the part of Franklin Von Tussle in the 1988 John Waters film "Hairspray". In the 1997 film "Men In Black", Bono is one of several oddball celebrities seen on a wall of video screens that monitor extraterrestrials living among us. He also appeared in several episodes of "P.S. I Luv U" starring Connie Sellecca and Greg Evigan during the 1991-92 TV season as the Mayor of Palm Springs he really was at the time. His last acting role was in the television series ' (Season 1, Episode 9, originally aired on November 21, 1993), in which he played the Mayor Frank Berkowitz. He also made a minor appearance as himself in the 1996 film "First Kid". Sonny poked a little fun at himself when he guest-starred on "The Golden Girls", in the episode "Mrs. George Devereaux", aired November 17, 1990, as himself vying with Lyle Waggoner for Dorothy's (Bea Arthur) affection in a dream, where Blanche (Rue McClanahan) dreams her husband is still alive. In the dream, Sonny uses his power as mayor of Palm Springs, California to have Waggoner falsely arrested just so he can have Dorothy to himself. Later on, after Blanche awakens from the dream, Dorothy is thrilled to learn she picked Sonny this time. Political career. Bono entered politics after experiencing great frustration with local government bureaucracy in trying to open a restaurant in Palm Springs, California. Bono placed a successful bid to become the new mayor of Palm Springs. He served four years (1988 to 1992). He was instrumental in spearheading the creation of the Palm Springs International Film Festival, which is held each year in Bono's memory. Bono ran for the Republican nomination for United States Senate in 1992, but the nomination went to the more conservative Bruce Herschensohn, and the election to the Democrat Barbara Boxer. Bono and Herschensohn became close friends after the campaign. Bono was elected to the United States House of Representatives in 1994 to represent California's 44th congressional district. He was one of twelve co-sponsors of a House bill extending copyright. Although that bill was never voted on in the Senate, a similar Senate bill was passed after his death and named the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act in his memory. He championed the restoration of the Salton Sea, bringing the giant lake's plight to national attention. Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich made a public appearance and speech at the shore of the lake on Bono's behalf. In their book "Tell Newt to Shut Up", David Maraniss and Michael Weisskopf credit Bono with being the first person to recognize Gingrich's public relations problems in 1995. Drawing on his long experience as a celebrity and entertainment producer, Bono (according to Maraniss and Weisskopf) recognized that Gingrich's status had changed from politician to celebrity, and that Gingrich was not making allowances for that change: Bono remains the only member of Congress to have scored a #1 pop single on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart. Personal life. Bono married his first wife, Donna Rankin, on November 3, 1954. Their daughter Christine ("Christy") was born on June 24, 1958. They divorced in 1962. In 1964 Bono married singer/entertainer Cher; their daughter Chastity Bono (now Chaz Bono) was born on March 4, 1969. In 1975 the couple divorced, largely due to Sonny's infidelity. Bono then married Susie Coelho, but divorced her in 1984. He wed the much-younger Mary Whitaker in 1986 and they had two children, son Chesare Elan on April 25, 1988 and daughter Chianna Maria on February 2, 1991. He became interested in Scientology partly because of the influence of Mimi Rogers, but stated that he was a Roman Catholic on all official documents, campaign materials, web sites, etc. Mary Bono also took Scientology courses. Bono was named a godparent of Anthony Kiedis who would go on to become a musical artist with his band, Red Hot Chili Peppers. Sonny was a close friend of Anthony's father, Blackie Dammett, and would often take the boy on weekend trips. Bono was a champion of the Salton Sea in southeastern California, where a park was named in his honor. The 2005 documentary film "Plagues & Pleasures on the Salton Sea" (narrated by John Waters) features Bono and documented the lives of the inhabitants of Bombay Beach, Niland, and Salton City, as well as the ecological issues associated with the Sea. In 1996, a Golden Palm Star on the Palm Springs, California, Walk of Stars was dedicated to him. Death. Bono died on January 5, 1998, of injuries sustained when he hit a tree while skiing on the Nevada side of Heavenly Ski Resort near South Lake Tahoe, California. His death came just a little less than a week after Michael Kennedy, a son of Robert F. Kennedy, died in a similar skiing accident in Aspen, Colorado. After Bono's death, Mary Bono told an interviewer from "TV Guide" that Sonny had been addicted to prescription drugs, mainly Vicodin and Valium. Though Mary claimed that Sonny's drug use caused the accident, the autopsy performed by the Douglas County Coroner showed no indication of any substances or alcohol. Sonny's mother and several friends disputed Mary's account. Bono was survived by his wife, Mary, and children, Christy, Chianna, Chesare and Chastity (now Chaz). His mother, Jean Bono, also survived him, and died on January 15, 2005, at the age of 90. At Mary Bono's request, Cher gave a eulogy at Sonny's funeral. His remains were buried at Desert Memorial Park in Cathedral City, California. The epitaph on Bono's headstone reads: "And the Beat Goes On", written in uppercase. Mary Bono was elected to fill the remainder of his Congressional term. She was elected in her own right four more times and was defeated for re-election in 2012.
1666861	Harpya is a 1979 short Belgian animated film written and directed by Raoul Servais. It stars Will Spoor, Fran Waller Zeper and Sjoert Schwibethus. The film won the Palme d'Or for Best Short Film at the 1979 Cannes Film Festival. Production. Servais animated the film using 35mm color front-projection of his characters onto a multiplane filmed, black velvet background. Synopsis. A mustachioed Belle Époque-styled man (Spoor) is walking down a dark street, when he hears the cries of a woman (Waller Zeper) as she is being strangled in a fountain. The man knocks out her assailant (Schwibethus), only to discover that she is in fact a Harpy, a winged white bird, larger than an eagle, having the (bald) head and breasts of a woman. Fascinated, the man takes the beast to his home to shelter and feed it. He soon discovers the Harpy's insatiable appetite. The Harpy eats all his food, then eats his parrot, and begins eyeing her host with a sinister stare. One night, when the man attempts to escape, the Harpy overwhelms him and eats his legs. Later, once the Harpy is asleep, the man crawls out of his house, joyfully finding French fries to eat. The Harpy flies out of the house and discovers him, eating his snack. The desperate, enraged man then attempts to strangle her. Upon hearing her cries, a police officer comes to the rescue and saves the would-be "victim", knocking the man to the ground; the Harpy then looks up at the officer in glee. Interpretation & Themes. The Harpy, with its human torso and facial features, can be aligned to Freud's primal uncanny and Kristeva's notion of the abject in cinema. The film can also be read as a modern retelling of the femme fatale archetype story - a warning to men captivated by the allure of a dangerous female.
568569	On the Doll is a 2007 American drama film, and the first feature written and directed by music video director Thomas Mignone. Background. The film's title comes from the phrase ""Show me on the doll where you were touched"", often asked of young children who have been the victims of sexual abuse. The film covers multiple lives of victims and victimizers, sharing the pain of how early childhood traumas can continue throughout adult lives. Plot. Jaron (Josh Janowicz) struggles to work for sleazy publisher "Uncle" Lou (Marcus Giamatti) in order to settle the obligations of his friend Tara (Angela Sarafyan), who works in a peep show for Jimmy (Paul Ben-Victor). He meets Balery (Brittany Snow), a call-girl who wants to place an ad in Lou's paper. She seeks an accomplice to help her rob a regular client she particularly dislikes. Jaron decides to take up the offer himself. Meanwhile, Wes (Clayne Crawford) whores out his girlfriend Chantel (Shanna Collins) in order to make enough money to buy her an engagement ring just to shut her up about his lack of commitment. Wes gets violently upset when he discovers she's been performing lurid sex acts on her customers just to make the extra money he wants. Two intimately close high school girls Melody (Candice Accola) and Courtney (Chloe Domont) play flirtatious games with their teacher Mr. Garrett (Eddie Jemison) in order to improve their grades, without realizing the violent dangers their teasing could lead to. Release. "On The Doll" had a limited theatrical release in the United States. Its debut was at the 2007 Avignon Film Festival, followed by the Fort Lauderdale Film Festival. In 2008 it screened at the Austin Film Festival and then the Cinequest Film Festival and the Oldenburg International Film Festival. The DVD release includes commentary from director Thomas Mignone, behind-the-scenes featurettes, and deleted scenes. Critical response. Dennis Harvey of "Variety" wrote that despite flaws, Mignone's first feature "has delivered a fairly tight package that draws generally good performances from thesps in largely one-dimensional roles". Christopher Null of Filmcritic.com wrote "Mignone does a remarkable job at taking what starts as a mild flirtation or tiptoeing into perversity and showing how baby steps can soon lead to full-on, downhill slides". He writes that of the many stories intertwined in the film, the "movie is surprisingly at its best in the story of the two teens", who flirt with a teacher played memorably by actor Eddie Jemison), when noting the "shocking transition" of two girls seen worrying about their grades riding with their teacher to a porn studio to be "crudely sized up for their value to the viewing audience". He offers that while the film tries to wrap everything up tidily, it "is perhaps the wrong approach for a movie about an industry with no happy endings". He concludes that the film is memorable "more for its performances than its plot", and that "this somewhat scrappy independent doesn't fade from the mind quickly". Marina Antunes of "Quiet Earth" compares the film to David Slade's "Hard Candy" but opines that "Mignone's style is an interesting mix of saturated colours and unusual visuals. There is a feeling of the impending downfall which is wonderfully communicated through the set design. Mignone has a talent for capturing the ugliness in beauty, something which lends itself well to the story he is telling here." Remarking on Mignole's ability, Antunes summarizes "though "On the Doll" is a good first attempt at a full length feature, it doesn't completely work".
589616	Kaalia is a 1981 Bollywood action film, written and directed by Tinnu Anand, the film was produced by Iqbal Singh. The film stars Amitabh Bachchan (in the title role), Parveen Babi, Asha Parekh, Kader Khan, Pran, Amjad Khan, K.N. Singh and Jagdeep. The music is by R.D. Burman. The film was a commercial success. Plot. Kaalia (Amitabh Bachchan) lives with his older brother (Kadar Khan), sister-in-law (Asha Parekh), and their little daughter. He spends his time idly playing with the neighbour's kids. His older brother gets into accident at work at the mill and loses his arms. He loses his job and needs money for treatment. Kaalia begs his brother's boss (Amjad Khan), but he refuses. Kaalia breaks into the boss' safe to get the money but it's too late as the brother dies. The boss throws Kaalia in jail for nine months. This is where he meets the men that teach him crime (kallu se kalia ka safar shuro hota hai). After his release, Kaalia is a different, stronger man. He and his accomplices steal the gold that the boss had been smuggling at the mill. Then he burns down the mill as retribution for his brother's death. He goes to jail again, this time for 2 years. His accomplices lie to his sister-in-law by telling her that he is in America earning a lot of money for her and her daughter. They move from poverty into riches. In jail, Kaalia meets the warden (Pran), a smart, ethical, strong man, whose daughter was kidnapped by one of the prisoners when she was little. After Kaalia is released from prison, he is bent on seeking vengeance and eventually pairs up with a woman (Parveen Babi). The boss kidnaps Kaalia's niece and forces her mother to testify against Kaalia in a murder trial. He is found guilty for a murder he didn't commit and escapes from prison to find his niece. At first, the warden chases him and once he knows the true story, decides to help him. They go to the boss's place and not only find the little girl but also the sister-in-law about to die. The boss reveals to the warden that he was the one who had kidnapped his daughter 20 years ago and now it's the grown up Parveen Babi's character. They fight with him and the boss gets beaten up badly. Everyone lives happily after.
1265342	Joe E. Brown (July 28, 1891 – July 6, 1973) was an American actor and comedian, remembered for his amiable screen persona, comic timing, and enormous smile. He was one of the most popular American Comedians in the 1930s and 1940s with successful films like "A Midsummer Night's Dream", "Earthworm Tractors" and "Alibi Ike". In his later career Brown starred in "Some Like It Hot" as Osgood Fielding III, in which he speaks the famous punchline "Well, nobody's perfect". Early life. Joseph Evans Brown was born on July 28, 1891, in Holgate, Ohio, near Toledo. He spent most of his childhood in Toledo. In 1902, at the age of nine, he joined a troupe of circus tumblers known as the Five Marvelous Ashtons who toured the country on both the circus and vaudeville circuits. Later he became a professional baseball player. Despite his skill, he declined an opportunity to sign with the New York Yankees to pursue his career as an entertainer. After three seasons he returned to the circus, then went into Vaudeville and finally starred on Broadway. He gradually added comedy into his act and transformed himself into a comedian. He moved to Broadway in the 1920s first appearing in the musical comedy "Jim Jam Jems". Film career. In late 1928, Brown began making films, starting the next year with Warner Bros.. He quickly shot to stardom after appearing in the first all-color all-talking musical comedy "On with the Show" (1929). He starred in a number of lavish Technicolor Warner Brothers musical comedies including: "Sally" (1929), "Hold Everything" (1930), and "Song of the West" (1930),"Going Wild (1930)". By 1931, Joe E. Brown had become such a star that his name began to appear alone above the title of the movies in which he appeared.
584858	Mahesh Babu (born Mahesh Babu Ghattamaneni on 9 August 1975) is an Indian film actor best known for his work in Telugu cinema. Born to actor Krishna in the Ghattamaneni family, Mahesh Babu faced the camera at the age of four as a child artist in 1979's "Needa". His first leading role was in the film "Rajakumarudu", which was released in August 1999. After playing the role of a young Kabaddi player in the 2003 blockbuster film "Okkadu", Mahesh continued in this vein, gaining mass appeal and appearing in many successful films such as "Murari" (2001), Nijam (2003), Arjun (2004), "Athadu" (2005), "Pokiri" (2006), "Dookudu" (2011), "Businessman" (2012) and "Seethamma Vakitlo Sirimalle Chettu" (2013). Mahesh Babu has worked in nine films as a child artist and in seventeen films as a lead actor till date. He has won seven Andhra Pradesh state Nandi Awards, three Filmfare Best Telugu Actor Awards, three CineMAA Awards and one South Indian International Movie Award. In addition to the films, he also endorses several brands in Andhra Pradesh and South India. He is also the national brand ambassador for Thums Up. He was listed #31 in Forbes India top 100 Celebrities for the year 2012. He was voted as the second most desirable man in the Times Most Desirable Men 2012 online polls conducted by the Indiatimes Group. Early life. Mahesh Babu was born in Chennai, Tamil Nadu, to prominent Telugu Cinema actor Ghatamaneni Siva Rama Krishna and Smt. Indira Devi on 9 August 1973. He is the younger brother of actor turned producer Ramesh Babu Ghattamaneni. He also has two elder sisters, Padmavathi and actress-producer Manjula Ghattamaneni and one younger sister Priyadarshini. All siblings have acted in films as child artistes. Mahesh’s childhood was spent mostly in Madras under the care of his maternal grandmother Smt. Durgamma and the rest of his family. His father made sure all the children spent sufficient time with him on location and on his sets, especially during holidays. Mahesh many times said that this was where his interest for acting began. The film sets were a second playground and he did not hesitate to face the camera when asked to do a small role in his brother Ramesh Babu‘s debut film, "Needa" at the age of four. Mahesh studied at St. Bede‘s School in Chennai while continuing to attend his dad’s filming during holidays.Surya (Tamil film actor) was one of his schoolmates. Mahesh obtained an Honours Degree in Commerce from Loyola College, Chennai. Mahesh Babu acted in seven of his father's films as a child actor. Personal life. Mahesh dated Bollywood actress and former Femina Miss India Namrata for five years. She was his co-star in the movie "Vamsi". They got married on 10 February 2005 in Mumbai. They have two children, son Gautam Krishna (b. 31 August 2006) and daughter Sitara (b. 20 July 2012). Career. Early career (1979–1990). He started his acting career by playing a small role in his brother Ramesh Babu‘s debut film, "Needa" under Dr. Dasari Narayana Rao's direction in 1979, at the age of 4. In 1983, at the age of 8, director Kodi Ramakrishna requested him to play a role in the film "Poratam" since they were having difficulty casting for the role of Krishna’s sibling. This was his first full length feature film. Producer and director Dhoondy, one of the early backers of Krishna in his struggling days, watched a preview of the movie and was stunned to find out he was Krishna’s own son and remarked that there was a spark in him and he would become an excellent artist. True to that prognostication, Mahesh became successful as a child artist through varied roles. In "Sankharavam" (1987) he faced the cameras with his father directing him for the first time. Veteran director A. Kodandarami Reddy directed him and his brother Ramesh for "Bazaar Rowdy" (1988), where he won accolades for his acting. "Mugguru Kodukulu" (1988) saw him again team up with his brother and father, the father directing them all this time. "Gudachari 117" (1989) reunited Mahesh with his first film director Kodi Ramakrishna in a James Bond type of flick for which his dad, the lead in the movie, was famous. "Koduku Diddina Kapuram" (1989), directed by Krishna again, had Mahesh in a dual role. "Balachandrudu" and "Anna Tammudu" (1990) saw the teenaged Mahesh Babu completing his first innings on celluloid after which he concentrated on his studies and went out of the public eye while letting nature take its course through the awkward adolescent years. 1999–2004. In 1999, Mahesh was re-introduced as a full-fledged hero with the movie "Raja Kumarudu" (The Prince). Directed by K. Raghavendra Rao and co-starring Priety Zinta, this movie was a debonair start for his career earning him Nandi Award for Best Male Debutant. After the movie was released, both fans and the media started fondly calling him "Prince Mahesh". His next release "Yuvaraju" followed in the year 2000. Directed by Y.V.S Chowdary, the movie did moderately well at the box office completing 100 days in 19 centres all over AP. In the same year, another movie "Vamsi" under the direction of B. Gopal was released and this movie had Namrata Shirodkar co-starring for the first time with Mahesh. During the movie, the on screen couple Mahesh and Namrata started seeing each other in real life and this relationship later resulted in their marriage. In 2001, his successful movie "Murari", directed by Krishna Vamsi and co-starring Sonali Bendre, was released and earned Mahesh plaudits from all sections of audience and from critics. He bagged a Nandi Special Jury Award for his performance in the film. "Takkari Donga", produced and directed by Jayanth C. Paranjee was released in 2002, where Mahesh essayed the role of a cowboy. The role and the movie were meant to honour the legacy of Krishna as the first ever Indian cowboy and also the first Indian cowboy movie "Mosagallaku Mosagadu". His untiring effort in the movie led to another Nandi Special Jury Award. His next film "Bobby" was released in the same year. Mahesh was paired along Aarthi Agarwal in this movie which was directed by Sobhan. Mahesh was next seen in "Okkadu" directed by Gunasekhar and co-starring Bhumika Chawla, the movie was produced by M.S. Raju. This movie was released in 2003 and it remains as a landmark film in Mahesh Babu's career. He won his first Filmfare Best Actor Award (Telugu) for this movie. His next movie "Nijam" co-starring Rakshita was directed by Teja. Mahesh‘s performance acquired him the prestigious Nandi Award for Best Actor. In 2004, he worked with director S. J. Suryaah and had paired with Amisha Patel for the movie "Naani". This movie was produced by his sister Manjula Ghattamaneni. The same year also had Mahesh again collaborating with Gunasekhar for his next movie "Arjun" which was produced by his brother G. Ramesh Babu. He received a Nandi Special Jury Award for his emotional performance in the film. 2005–2010. In 2005, Mahesh married Namrata Shirodkar after being in a relationship with her for almost 5 years. The year also saw the first release after his marriage and Trivikram Srinivas’s second directorial venture, "Athadu". He was paired alongside with Trisha Krishnan. Mahesh once again achieved critical acclaim for his performance in the movie and also earned himself the Nandi Award for Best Actor for the second time. "Pokiri", produced jointly by his sister Manjula Ghattamaneni and Vaishno Academy and directed by Puri Jagannadh was the highest-grossing Telugu film of the year. The movie saw him paired alongside with Ileana D'Cruz. Pokiri was a success in AP as well as other states and overseas. The film completed 100 days in as many as 200 centres in Andhra Pradesh and completed silver jubilee in a record 63 centres. Mahesh earned his second Filmfare Best Actor Award (Telugu) for this movie. The year also saw Mahesh working again with Director Gunasekhar and actress Trisha Krishnan for the movie "Sainikudu". In 2007, for his next venture Mahesh embraced corporate film making in Telugu Film Industry. He collaborated with UTV and with young director Surender Reddy for "Athidi" which made him the first corporate hero in Telugu Film Industry. He was paired alongside Amrita Rao. After Athidi, Mahesh devoted more time to family matters with a new toddler to spend time with, supporting and helping Namrata cope with her father’s illness and then his death, followed by Namrata’s mother’s bout with cancer and her death. In 2008, Mahesh lent his voice for the film "Jalsa", directed by his friend Trivikram Srinivas. In 2009 Mahesh started working on a movie with Trivikram Srinivas as director. In 2010, after a 3-year long hiatus Mahesh returned to the silver screen with the movie "Khaaleja". Directed by his friend Trivikram Srinivas, the movie languished in development hell due to production problems and the telangana agitations. Upon release, the movie received mixed reviews and also became one of the highest grossing Telugu films overseas. The year also saw Mahesh embracing social networking site Twitter to interact with his fans. 2011–present. "Dookudu" completed a successful run in 152 centres after 50 days and stands at 1st position in Top TFI Films (With 66cr Share world wide) "CNN-IBN" for the year 2011, declared him as the "Actor of the Year" and "Dookudu" as the "Hit of the Year" in a survey conducted for Telugu films. He also won his third Filmfare Best Actor Award (Telugu) for his performance in the movie. He then co–starred with Kajal Aggarwal in the movie "Businessman". The film was directed by Puri Jagannadh and produced by RR Movie Makers, releasing worldwide on 13 January 2012. Similar to his previous release, it took the largest worldwide opening by collecting 18.73 crores on the first day and 62.94 crores worldwide in the first week. For the first time in his career, Mahesh along with the director Puri Jagannadh lent his vocals for a song in the project. According to certain reports, Mahesh emerged as the highest paid actor in South India after Rajnikanth. His next venture was a multi–starrer film "Seethamma Vakitlo Sirimalle Chettu" under the direction of Srikanth Addala. Being produced by Dil Raju, the film also starred Daggubati Venkatesh in a leading role. The film was officially launched on 6 October 2011 and the filming began on 18 January 2012. This film casted Samantha opposite him, for the second time. The Movie released on January 11, 2013 and was a Blockbuster at the Box Office, thus giving Mahesh a Hat-Trick in his career. His Performance was widely praised by critics. idlebrain.com wrote "Mahesh Babu is planning his career in a beautiful way. After doing an all-round entertaining character in "Dookudu" and terrific character of a ruthless angry young man in Businessman, Mahesh has selected a nice family guy role in this movie. The character is playful most of the times and highly intense in a few conflict scenes. It’s a right career move for Mahesh Babu.". He has also signed up for a role in a film under the direction of Sukumar. The film produced by 14 Reels Entertainment has debutant Kriti Sanon acting opposite him and the film was launched on 12 February 2012. He also hired Hollywood trainer Kris Gethin as his personal trainer. Popularity. Mahesh Babu is considered as one of the most popular actors in Telugu cinema. He was listed 5th in the Times 50 Most Desirable Men in India for the year 2011, becoming the only South Indian to have been done so. Further he made it to the 2nd position in the Times 50 Most Desirable men in India for the year 2012, beating the likes of Hrithik Roshan, Salman Khan and Sharukh Khan. In January 2013, Mahesh was ranked 31st on business magazine Forbes India's Celebrity 100 list. Based on recorded earnings between September 2011 to October 2012, Forbes listed Mahesh at 15th among India's highest earning celebrities. With earnings of over , he was the highest earning South Indian celebrity in 2012.
1055610	October Sky is a 1999 American biographical film directed by Joe Johnston, starring Jake Gyllenhaal, Chris Cooper and Laura Dern. It is based on the true story of Homer Hickam, a coal miner's son who was inspired by the launch of "Sputnik 1" to take up rocketry against his father's wishes, and who eventually became a NASA engineer. Most of the film was shot in rural East Tennessee, including location filming in: Morgan County, Roane County, Oliver Springs, Harriman, and Kingston, Tennessee. Title. "October Sky" is an anagram of "Rocket Boys", the title of the book upon which the movie is based. It is also used in a period radio broadcast describing Sputnik as it crossed the "October sky." Homer Hickam stated that "Universal Studios marketing people got involved and they just had to change the title because, according to their research, women over thirty would never see a movie titled "Rocket Boys"" so Universal Pictures changed the title to be more inviting to a wider audience. The book was later re-released with the name in order to capitalize on interest in the movie. Plot. The film is set in Coalwood, West Virginia in the year 1957. The coal mine is the town's largest employer and almost every man living in the town works in the mines. John Hickam (Chris Cooper), the mine superintendent, loves his job and hopes that his boys, Jim (Scott Miles) and Homer Hickam (Jake Gyllenhaal), will one day join him in his mine. When it appears that Jim will receive a football scholarship to attend college, this leaves Homer to fulfill his father's dream, although his mother, Elsie (Natalie Canerday), hopes for more for her son.
712186	Rutina Wesley (born February 1, 1979) is an American film, stage, and television actress best known for her role as Tara Thornton on the HBO series "True Blood". Early life and education. Wesley was born and raised in Las Vegas, Nevada. Wesley's father, Ivery Wheeler, is a professional tap dancer and her mother, Cassandra Wesley, was a showgirl. She attended high school at the Las Vegas Academy of International Studies, Performing and Visual Arts. She studied dance at Simba Studios and the West Las Vegas Arts Center. While at the Las Vegas Academy, Wesley missed several other auditions for college training programs and was finally accepted by the University of Evansville in Indiana. She was hesitant in joining the university because of a lack of minorities in the state. After earning her undergraduate degree in Theatre Performance (B.F.A. 2001), her grandmother suggested that she do a nursing course, but Wesley insisted on pursuing her education. She joined the Juilliard School in 2001 and graduated in May 2005 ("Group 34"), which included a summer spent at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. At Juilliard, she became close friends with her future co-star Nelsan Ellis ("Group 33": 2000–2004). Career. In December 2006, Wesley was featured in David Hare's Broadway play "The Vertical Hour". In 2007, Wesley also appeared in The Public Theater production of "In Darfur" by playwright Winter Miller, co-starring Heather Raffo, Aaron Lohr among others. Wesley had a minor role in 2005 film "Hitch", which was edited in the final cut. However, she made her on screen debut in the lead role in 2007 film "How She Move", from British director Ian Iqbal Rashid. The character Raya Green, who enters a step dancing competition to secure funds for her education, was inspired by Tony Manero, portrayed by John Travolta in "Saturday Night Fever". Prior to the shooting of the film, Wesley underwent a five-week dance rehearsal period. Portraying a woman of Jamaican descent, she also took dialect coaching for the role. Wesley auditioned for the role Tara Thornton in the HBO series "True Blood" in 2007 and secured the part after creator Alan Ball chose her because "was the first person who showed [Tara's vulnerable side". In June 2011, it was reported that Wesley will star in the biopic "Left To Tell" based on Immaculée Ilibagiza's bestselling memoir about the Rwandan Genocide. Personal life. Wesley divides her time between Los Angeles and Astoria, Queens. She is married to her former Juilliard classmate Jacob Fishel, an actor. Rutina filed for divorce on August 16, 2013 citing irreconcilable differences.
1449157	"Monty Python's The Meaning of Life, also known as The Meaning of Life", is a 1983 British musical-sketch comedy film written and performed by the Monty Python team, and directed by one of its members, Terry Jones. Unlike "Holy Grail" and "Life of Brian", this film's two predecessors, which each told a single, more-or-less coherent story, "The Meaning of Life" returns to the sketch comedy format of the troupe's original television series, loosely structured as a series of comic sketches about the various stages of life. It was made with a much bigger budget than the earlier films, so that much more time could be spent on each sketch, and the sound track was better made, with more performers. Michael Palin later said that the larger budget, and not making the film for the BBC (i.e., television) allowed the film to be more daring and dark. Plot. The film begins with a stand-alone 17-minute supporting feature entitled "The Crimson Permanent Assurance" (directed by Terry Gilliam). A group of elderly office clerks in a small accounting firm rebel against their emotionlessly efficient, yuppie corporate masters. They commandeer their building, turn it into a pirate ship, and sail into a large financial district, where they raid and overthrow a large multinational corporation. The film itself opens with several fish in a restaurant aquarium, performed by the Pythons. They look on and see one of their number, Howard, being eaten by a customer, and then start to ask themselves about the meaning of life. The film proper consists of a series of distinct sketches, broken into seven chapters. A schoolmaster (Cleese) and chaplain (Palin) conduct a nonsensical Anglican church service in an English public school. The master lectures the boys on excessively detailed school etiquette regarding the school cormorant, and hanging clothes on the correct peg. In a subsequent class, the schoolboys (Idle, Palin, Jones, Chapman and others) watch in boredom as the master gives a sex education lesson, by physically demonstrating techniques with his wife (Patricia Quinn). Later, a team of boys is beaten – physically and on the scoreboard – in a violent rugby match against the masters; the scene then match cuts to Part III. Afterwards, two of the restaurant's staff offer their own thoughts on the meaning of life. The maître d' converses with cleaning lady Maria (Jones) followed by waiter Gaston (Idle) leading the viewer to the countryside where he was born and telling the story of how his mother encouraged him to notice the beauty of the world and love everyone; realising that the audience is unamused, he angrily dismisses them and walks off. The hostess from "the Middle of the Film" is handed an envelope containing the meaning of life, and nonchalantly reads it out: "Try and be nice to people, avoid eating fat, read a good book every now and then, get some walking in, and try and live together in peace and harmony with people of all creeds and nations." She then, however, suggests that "gratuitous pictures of penises" and other senseless controversies would do a better job at bringing the audiences into the cinema, and bitterly announces the closing credits. Pre-production and production. According to Michael Palin, "the writing process was quite cumbersome. An awful lot of material didn't get used. "Holy Grail" had a structure, a loose one: the search for the grail. Same with "Life of Brian". With this, it wasn't so clear. In the end, we just said: 'Well, what the heck. We have got lots of good material, let's give it the loosest structure, which will be the meaning of life.'" After the title of the film was chosen, Douglas Adams called Terry Jones to tell him he had just finished a new book, to be called "The Meaning of Liff"; Jones was initially concerned about the similarity in titles, which led to the scene in the title sequence of a tombstone which, when hit by a flash of lightning, changes from "The Meaning of Liff" to "The Meaning of Life". Release. The film opened in North America on 31 March 1983. At 257 theatres, it grossed US$1,987,853 ($7,734 per screen) in its opening weekend. It played at 554 theatres at its widest point, and its total North American gross was $14,929,552. it had a score of 89% on Rotten Tomatoes. In 2003 a special edition DVD was released, with director's audio commentary, deleted scenes, and behind-the-scenes documentaries (both real and spoofed). The DVD also featured a soundtrack for the lonely, which is an audio commentary of a completely disgusting man (Michael Palin) who is sitting watching the film in his flat, throughout the commentary he usually picks up the phone and talks to friends (Terry Jones and Eric Idle), passes wind and talks under his voice. The original tagline read "It took God six days to create the Heavens and the Earth, and Monty Python just 90 minutes to screw it up" (the length of "The Meaning of Life" proper is 90 minutes, but becomes 107 minutes as released with the "Short Subject Presentation", "The Crimson Permanent Assurance"). In the 2003 DVD release of the film, the tagline is altered to read "It took God six days to create the Heavens and the Earth, and Monty Python just 1 hour and 48 minutes to screw it up". Awards. "The Meaning of Life" was awarded the Grand Jury Prize at the 1983 Cannes Film Festival. Censorship and ratings. Ireland banned the film on its original release as it had previously done with "Monty Python's Life of Brian", but later rated it 15 when it was released on video. In the United Kingdom the film was rated 18 when released in the cinema and on its first release on video, but was re-rated 15 in 2000. In the United States the film is rated R.
1151627	Sally Rand (April 3, 1904 – August 31, 1979) was a burlesque dancer and actress, most noted for her ostrich feather fan dance and balloon bubble dance. She also performed under the name Billie Beck. Early life. Hattie Helen Gould Beck was born in the village of Elkton, Hickory County, Missouri. Her father, William Beck, was a West Point graduate and retired U.S. Army Colonel, while her mother, Nettie (Grove) Beck was a school teacher and part-time newspaper correspondent. The family moved to Jackson County, Missouri while she was still in grade school. Helen got her start on the stage quite early, working as a chorus girl at Kansas City's Empress Theater when she was only 13. An early supporter of her talent was Goodman Ace, drama critic for the "Kansas City Journal" who saw her performing in a Kansas City nightclub and wrote glowing reviews. After studying ballet and drama in Kansas City, the teenage Helen decided her future lay in Hollywood. For a short time as she worked her way to the west coast she was employed as an acrobat in the Ringling Brothers Circus. She also performed in summer stock and traveling theater, including working with a then-unknown Humphrey Bogart. Career. During the 1920s, she acted on stage and appeared in silent films. Cecil B. DeMille gave her the name Sally Rand, inspired by a Rand McNally atlas. She was selected as one of the WAMPAS Baby Stars in 1927. After the introduction of sound film, she became a dancer, known for the fan dance, which she popularized starting at the Paramount Club in Chicago. Her most famous appearance was at the 1933 Chicago World's Fair entitled Century of Progress. She was arrested four times in a single day during the fair due to perceived indecent exposure after a fan dance performance and while riding a white horse down the streets of Chicago, where the nudity was only an illusion, and again after being bodypainted by Max Factor, Sr. with his new make-up formulated for Hollywood films. She also conceived and developed the bubble dance, in part to cope with wind while performing outdoors. She performed the fan dance on film in "Bolero", released in 1934.
1217854	Chloe Bridges (born on December 27, 1991 in Louisiana; formerly credited as Chloe Suazo) is an American actress. She is best known for her roles as Zoey in the sitcom "Freddie" (2005–2006) and as Dana Turner in the 2010 television film "". She was up for the role of Mitchie Torres in the first "Camp Rock" film, but it ultimately went to Demi Lovato. She also appeared in the 2009 films "Legally Blondes" and "Forget Me Not". In March 2012, Bridges was cast as Donna LaDonna in The CW's "Sex and the City" prequel, "The Carrie Diaries", which premiered January 2013.
1062104	Mary Debra Winger (born May 16, 1955) is an American actress. She gained critical acclaim for her performance in "Urban Cowboy" in 1980. She then gave Academy Award-nominated performances in "An Officer and a Gentleman", "Terms of Endearment", and "Shadowlands". She has also been nominated for four Golden Globe awards, two BAFTA awards, an Emmy Award, and won the National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Actress for "Terms of Endearment" and the Tokyo International Film Festival Award for Best Actress for "A Dangerous Woman". Early years. Winger was born as Mary Debra Winger in Cleveland Heights, Ohio, into an Orthodox Jewish family, to Robert Winger, a meat packer, and Ruth (née Felder), an office manager. She has stated publicly and with amusement that the Internet has a growing "snowball" of claims that she had volunteered in an Israeli Kibbutz, whereas she was merely on a typical Israeli youth program that visited the kibbutz. After returning to the United States, she was involved in a car accident and suffered a cerebral hemorrhage; as a result, she was left partially paralyzed and blind for ten months, having initially been told that she would never see again. With time on her hands to think about her life, she decided that, if she recovered, she would move to California and become an actress. She later recovered. Career. Acting. Winger's first acting role was as "Debbie" in the 1976 sexploitation film "Slumber Party '57". Her next role was as Diana Prince's younger sister Drusilla (Wonder Girl) on the TV show, "Wonder Woman". Her first starring role was in "Thank God It's Friday," followed by her performance in "Urban Cowboy" in 1980 with John Travolta, for which she received a BAFTA nomination and a pair of Golden Globe nominations (for Best Performance by an Actress and Best New Star). In 1982 she co-starred with Nick Nolte in "Cannery Row" and with Richard Gere in "An Officer and a Gentleman", for which she was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress. She was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress twice more: for "Terms of Endearment" in 1983 (which was awarded to her co-star, Shirley MacLaine, who played her mother in the film) and for "Shadowlands" in 1993 for which she also received her second BAFTA nomination. Her performance in "A Dangerous Woman" earned a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actress. Over the years Winger acquired a reputation for being outspoken and sometimes difficult to work with. She has expressed her dislike of "An Officer and a Gentleman", for which she refused to do any publicity, and several other of her films, and has been dismissive of some of her co-stars and directors. Commenting on her past attitudes, Winger said in 2009, "Most bad behavior comes from insecurity. Even though I loved what I was doing, I didn't always know I could pull it off. (...) I took insecurities out on everybody. But in my defense, I never fought about the size of my trailer or things like that; it was always about the work". When Barbara Walters interviewed Bette Davis in 1986, Davis said "I see a great deal of myself in Debra Winger." Winger was cast in the lead role in "A League of their Own" but dropped out and was replaced by Geena Davis. It was later reported that the main reason Winger chose to leave the film was her refusal to work with singer/actress Madonna. In 1995 Winger decided to take a hiatus from acting. In 2002 she said, "I wanted out for years. I got sick of hearing myself say I wanted to quit. It's like opening an interview with "I hate interviews!" Well, get out! I stopped reading scripts and stopped caring. People said, 'We miss you so much.' But in the last six years, tell me a film that I should have been in. The few I can think of, the actress was so perfect". After making "Forget Paris" in 1995 she was absent from the screen for six years before returning in 2001 with "Big Bad Love", written and directed by her husband, Arliss Howard, and also marking Winger's debut as a producer. From November 1999 to January 2000 Winger had the female lead in the American Repertory Theater's production of Anton Chekhov's play "Ivanov". In 2001 a critically acclaimed documentary film titled "Searching for Debra Winger" was made by Rosanna Arquette and released in 2002 after Winger returned to film acting. Other films included "Legal Eagles", "Made in Heaven", "Everybody Wins", "The Sheltering Sky", "Leap of Faith", "Black Widow", "Betrayed", "Wilder Napalm", "A Dangerous Woman" and "Sometimes in April". She earned an Emmy Award nomination for her title role in the television film "Dawn Anna" in 2005, directed by Arliss Howard. In 2008 she got positive reviews as Anne Hathaway's estranged mother in "Rachel Getting Married". In 2010 she moved into television, making a guest appearance as a high school principal in an episode of "Law & Order". She also joined the cast of HBO's "In Treatment" as one of the three patients featured in the third season. Other pursuits. During her hiatus from the film industry, Winger spent a semester as a teaching fellow at Harvard University. In 1995 Winger performed as the Wicked Witch of the West in "" a musical performance of the popular story at Lincoln Center to benefit the Children's Defense Fund. She also narrated the "Cyclone" during that performance. It was originally broadcast on Turner Broadcasting System, and issued on CD as well as video in 1996. In 2008 Winger wrote a book based on her personal recollections titled "Undiscovered". She has shown her support for reconciliation between Arabs and Jews in Israel by visiting the bilingual schools (Galilee Jewish-Arab School, Gesher al HaWadi School) where, in 2008, she stated she would "dedicate the next bit of my life to these schools". Winger joined other members of the Hollywood film community to speak out against the 2009 arrest and prosecution of director Roman Polanski who was accused of raping a 13-year-old girl in the 1970s, criticizing Switzerland's government for "philistine collusion" in arresting him so many years later. Personal life. Winger's three-year relationship with actor Andrew Rubin ended in 1980. From 1983 to 1985 Winger dated Bob Kerrey, at the time the Governor of Nebraska, whom she met while filming "Terms of Endearment" in Lincoln, Nebraska. From 1986 to 1990 she was married to actor Timothy Hutton with whom she had a son, Noah Hutton, a documentary filmmaker born in 1987. The marriage ended in divorce. In 1996 she married actor/director Arliss Howard, whom she met on the set of the film "Wilder Napalm". Their son, Gideon Babe Ruth Howard (known as Babe), was born in 1997. She is stepmother to Sam Howard, Arliss' son from his prior marriage.
520355	You Changed My Life is a 2009 Filipino romance film starring John Lloyd Cruz and Sarah Geronimo. It is the sequel to the 2008 movie "A Very Special Love". Filming started in November 2008, and it was released February 25, 2009 by Star Cinema and Viva Films.
581816	ChaalBaaz (English: "Trickster") is a 1989 Bollywood Comedy film directed by Pankaj Parashar. The film was a remake of 1973 Hindi movie Seeta Aur Geeta. Starring Sridevi in a double role, the tells the story of two sepreated twin sisters Anju who is badly treated and abused by her uncle while Manju a street smart girl. The movie is regarded as an all-time classic comedy film of Hindi Cinema and is also regarded as one of Sridevi's finest performances till date. The film also starred Sunny Deol, Rajnikanth, Anupam Kher, Shakti Kapoor, Rohini Hattangadi, Anu Kapoor. The film was one of the biggest commercial and critical success of the year and also the film's music became a big hit especially 'Naa Jaane Kaha Se Aye Hain'. Synopsis. Anju and Manju are twins separated when babies thanks to their mentally retarded nanny. An evil uncle Tribhuvan gets their parents killed in a car accident. He brings up Anju as coy and easily frightened girl. Manju grows up in a slum as a happy-go-lucky stage dancer. After a lot of terrifying days in Anju's life, one day she runs away from home. On that very day, Manju has a fight with her childhood companion and neighbor Jaggu, a friendly beer drinking taxi driver. With twist of fate, their paths cross but they never meet. They somehow end up at each other's place. Suraj is in love with Manju (who is living in the house as Anju). Music. Music:Laxmikant-Pyarelal, Lyricist: Anand Bakshi, Label : T-Series Reception. Filmfare ranked Sridevi's performance in "Chaalbaaz" 4th in its list of '80 Iconic Performances of Hindi Cinema' stating that "Sridevi´s penchant for giggles and her ability to look distinctly tearful when required polishes these performances to perfection. Hell, she made Sunny Deol and Rajnikant look like sidekicks in the film". while the Times of India article 'Bollywood's Hit Double Roles' gushed "Sridevi's performance rocked the box office". Rediff featured the film in its countdown of '25 Best Double Roles in Bollywood' saying "What you don't realise until you have seen "ChaalBaaz" is just how incredible Sridevi is at depicting both ends of the spectrum" and that the film "cemented her position as an actress with a killer comic timing". Speaking to Indian Express about Sridevi's act in "ChaalBaaz", the director Pankaj Parashar said "She proved her range with the movie and after that she got lots of offers which saw her in a double role". Her slapstick rain dance 'Na jaane kahan se aayi hai' became a big hit with Times of India describing it as a "Sridevi classic where she simply looked wow with her chirpy expressions and rain drops kissing her cheeks". Saroj Khan ultimately won the Filmfare Award for Best Choreography.
158457	The Theatre Bizarre is a 2011 American horror anthology film. The six segments are directed by Douglas Buck, Buddy Giovinazzo, David Gregory, Karim Hussain, Tom Savini and Richard Stanley. Plot. The film contain six stories, each inspired by Paris’ legendary Grand Guignol theatre.
1066512	Quinton Aaron (born August 15, 1984) is an American actor whose first lead role was as Michael Oher in the 2009 film "The Blind Side". Early life. Aaron was born in The Bronx, New York City, and was raised in Augusta, Georgia, by his mother, the late Laura Aaron, who was the author of a book entitled "Leave Me Alone" (published by AuthorHouse under her alias L. A. Aaron). Quinton began singing at an early age. When he was 9, Quinton was baptized and joined the church choir as a mute singer, where he often led songs. He made his acting debut in a Christmas play. Career. Aaron made his film debut as "The lion guy" in Michel Gondry's Be Kind Rewind, starring Mos Def and Jack Black. He has also appeared in Fighting with Channing Tatum and Terrence Howard and co-starred in a NYU thesis short film called Mr. Brooklyn with Al Thompson (Liberty Kid, A Walk to Remember), directed by Jason Sokoloff. Aaron has appeared in two episodes of the TV show "Law & Order" (Season 17, episode "Bling" as a bodyguard and episode "Fallout" as a bouncer). He starred in his first lead role playing Michael Oher. Quinton starred alongside Sandra Bullock and Tim McGraw in "The Blind Side", released November 20, 2009. Directed by John Lee Hancock, the film was adapted from Michael Lewis's 2006 book, "", which features the real-life story of Michael Oher. Oher had started in ten games as a guard during his first season with the Ole Miss Rebels, becoming a first-team freshman All American, and later an American football offensive tackle for the Baltimore Ravens.
1058860	In a Lonely Place is a 1950 film noir directed by Nicholas Ray, and starring Humphrey Bogart and Gloria Grahame, produced for Bogart's Santana Productions. The script was adapted by Edmund North from the 1947 novel "In a Lonely Place" by Dorothy B. Hughes. Bogart stars in the film as Dixon Steele, a cynical screenwriter suspected of murder. Grahame co-stars as Laurel Gray, a neighbor who falls under his spell. Beyond its surface plot of confused identity and tormented lust, the film is a mordant comment on Hollywood mores and the pitfalls of celebrity and near-celebrity, in much the same vein as two other more widely publicized American films released that same year, Billy Wilder's "Sunset Boulevard" and Joseph Mankiewicz's "All About Eve". Although not as well known as his other work, Bogart's performance in this film is considered by many critics to be among his finest and the film's reputation itself has grown over time along with Ray's. The film is now considered a classic film noir, as evidenced by its inclusion on the "Time" magazine "All-Time 100 List" as well as Slant Magazine's "100 Essential Films". In 2007, "In a Lonely Place" was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant." Plot. Dixon "Dix" Steele (Humphrey Bogart) is a down-on-his-luck screenwriter who has not had a hit "since before the war." While driving to meet his agent, Mel Lippman (Art Smith), at a nightclub, Dix's explosive temper is revealed at a stop light along the way. At the nightclub, Mel cajoles him to adapt a book for a movie. The hat-check girl, Mildred Atkinson (Martha Stewart), is engrossed in reading it and asks if she can finish, since she only has a few pages left. Dix has a second violent outburst when a young director bad-mouths Dix's friend Charlie (Robert Warwick), a washed-up actor. Dix claims to be too tired to read the novel, so he asks Mildred to go home with him, ostensibly to explain the plot. As they enter the courtyard of his apartment, they pass a new tenant, Laurel Gray (Gloria Grahame). As soon as Mildred is convinced that Dix's motives are honorable, she describes the story and confirms what he had suspected—the book is trash. He gives her cab fare to get home. The next morning, he is awakened by an old army buddy, now a police detective, Brub Nicholai (Frank Lovejoy), who takes him downtown to be questioned by Captain Lochner (Carl Benton Reid). Mildred was murdered during the night and Dix is a suspect. Laurel is brought to the police station and confirms seeing the girl leave Dix's apartment alone, but Lochner is still deeply suspicious. Although Dix shows no overt sympathy for the dead victim, he anonymously sends her a dozen white roses. When he gets home, Dix checks up on Laurel. He finds she is an aspiring actress with only a few low-budget films to her credit. They begin to fall in love; this invigorates Dix into going back to work with a vengeance, much to his agent's delight. However, Dix behaves strangely. He says things that make his agent and Brub's wife Sylvia (Jeff Donnell) wonder if he did kill the girl. In addition, Lochner sows seeds of doubt in Laurel's mind, pointing out Dix's lengthy record of violent behavior. Dix becomes furiously irrational when he learns of it. He drives at high speed, with Laurel a terrified passenger, until they sideswipe another car. Nobody is hurt; but, when the other driver accosts him, Dix beats him unconscious and is about to strike him with a large rock when Laurel stops him. Laurel gets to the point where she cannot sleep without taking pills. Her distrust and fear of Dix are becoming too much for her. When he asks her to marry him, she accepts but only because she is too scared of what he might do if she refused. She makes a plane reservation and tells Mel she is leaving because she cannot take it anymore. Dix finds out and almost strangles her during a violent confrontation before he regains control. Just then, the phone rings. It is Brub with good news: Mildred's boyfriend (named Henry Kesler, the same as the film's associate producer) has confessed to her murder. Tragically, it is too late to salvage Dix and Laurel's relationship. Background. Louise Brooks wrote in her essay "Humphrey and Bogey" that she felt it was the role of Dixon Steele in this movie that came closest to the real Bogart she knew. "Before inertia set in, he played one fascinatingly complex character, craftily directed by Nicholas Ray, in a film whose title perfectly defined Humphrey's own isolation among people. "In a Lonely Place" gave him a role that he could play with complexity because the film character's, the screenwriter's, pride in his art, his selfishness, his drunkenness, his lack of energy stabbed with lightning strokes of violence, were shared equally by the real Bogart." The original ending had Dix strangling Laurel to death in the heat of their argument. Sgt. Nicolai comes to tell Dix that he has been cleared of Mildred's murder but arrests him for Laurel's. Dix tells Brub that he is finally finished with his screenplay, and the final shot was to be of a page in the typewriter which has the significant lines Dix said aloud to Laurel in the car (which he admitted to not knowing where to put) "I was born when she kissed me, I died when she left me, I lived a few weeks while she loved me." This scene was filmed halfway through the shooting schedule, but Ray hated the ending he had helped write. Ray later said, "I just couldn't believe the ending that Bundy (screenwriter Andrew Solt) and I had written. I shot it because it was my obligation to do it. Then I kicked everybody off stage except Bogart, Art Smith and Gloria. And we improvised the ending as it is now. In the original ending we had ribbons so it was all tied up into a very neat package, with Frank Lovejoy coming in and arresting him as he was writing the last lines, having killed Gloria. Huh! And I thought, shit, I can't do it, I just can't do it! Romances don't have to end that way. Marriages don't have to end that way, they don't have to end in violence. Let the audience make up its own mind what's going to happen to Bogie when he goes outside the apartment." Lauren Bacall and Ginger Rogers were considered for the role of Laurel Gray. Bacall was a natural choice given her off-screen marriage to Bogart and their box-office appeal, but Warner Bros. refused to loan her out, which is today thought to be due to their fury that Bogart had set up his own production company (they were afraid that independent companies would jeopardize the future of major studios). Rogers was the producers' first choice but director Nicholas Ray believed that his wife Gloria Grahame was right for the part. Even though their marriage was troubled, he insisted that she be cast. Her performance today is unanimously considered to be among her finest. Grahame and Ray's marriage was starting to come apart during filming. Grahame was forced to sign a contract stipulating that "my husband shall be entitled to direct, control, advise, instruct and even command my actions during the hours from 9 AM to 6 PM, every day except Sunday...I acknowledge that in every conceivable situations his will and judgment shall be considered superior to mine and shall prevail." Grahame was also forbidden to "nag, cajole, tease or in any other feminine fashion seek to distract or influence him." The two did separate during filming. Afraid that one of them would be replaced, Ray took to sleeping in a dressing room, lying and saying that he needed to work on the script. Grahame played along with the charade and nobody knew that they had separated. Though there was a brief reconciliation, the couple divorced in 1952, when Ray found Grahame in bed with his thirteen-year-old son. The film was one of a number of Nicholas Ray films to be scored by avant garde classical composer George Antheil (1900–1959). Reception. Critical response. At the time of its release in May 1950, the reviews were generally positive (in particular many critics praised Bogart and Grahame's performances), but many questioned the marketability given the bleak ending. The film was considered a box-office disappointment. Some believe that because the film is a unique combination of genuine romance and dark thriller, there was no easy way to advertise it. Not unlike Nicholas Ray's debut "They Live by Night" (1948), it was advertised as a straight thriller while the film is not as simply fit into one genre as the marketing shows. Over the passing years the film gathered a cult following (Ray's films had a brief revival in the 1970s and Bogart's anti-hero stance became re-evaluated in the 1960s, one possible explanation), and the French during the 1950s praised Ray's unique film making. When the film was released on DVD in 2003, it was hailed as a masterpiece of noir. Even "Time" magazine, which gave the film a negative review upon its initial release, called it one of the 100 best films of all time in their 2005 list. Noir expert Eddie Muller called this title his favorite noir and one which "will stand the test of time." The staff at "Variety" magazine gave the film a good review and wrote, ""In a Lonely Place" Humphrey Bogart has a sympathetic role though cast as one always ready to mix it with his dukes. He favors the underdog; in one instance he virtually has a veteran, brandy-soaking character actor (out of work) on his very limited payroll...Director Nicholas Ray maintains nice suspense. Bogart is excellent. Gloria Grahame, as his romance, also rates kudos." Bosley Crowther lauded the film, especially Bogart's performance and the screenplay, writing, "Everybody should be happy this morning. Humphrey Bogart is in top form in his latest independently made production, "In a Lonely Place," and the picture itself is a superior cut of melodrama. Playing a violent, quick-tempered Hollywood movie writer suspected of murder, Mr. Bogart looms large on the screen of the Paramount Theatre and he moves flawlessly through a script which is almost as flinty as the actor himself. Andrew Solt, who fashioned the screen play from a story by Dorothy B. Hughes and an adaptation by Edmund H. North, has had the good sense to resolve the story logically. Thus Dixon Steele remains as much of an enigma, an explosive, contradictory force at loose ends when the film ends as when it starts." Critic Ed Gonzalez wrote, "Not unlike Albert Camus' "The Stranger," Nicholas Ray's remarkable "In a Lonely Place" represents the purest of existentialist primers...Laurel and Dixon may love each other but it's evident that they're both entirely too victimized by their own selves to sustain this kind of happiness. In the end, their love resembles a rehearsal for the next and hopefully less complicated romance. This is the existential endgame of one of Ray's smartest and most devastating masterpieces." Curtis Hanson is featured on the retrospective documentary of the DVD release, and has stated his admiration for the film, notably Ray's direction, the dark depiction of Hollywood and Bogart's performance. This was one of the films which he showed to actors Russell Crowe and Guy Pearce in preparation for filming "L.A. Confidential." He said, "I wanted them to see the reality of that period and to see that emotion. This movie, and I'm not saying it's the greatest movie ever made, but it represents many things that I think are worth aspiring to, such as having character and emotion be the driving force, rather than the plot...When I first saw "In a Lonely Place" as a teenager, it frightened me and yet attracted me with an almost hypnotic power. Later, I came to understand why. Occasionally, very rarely, a movie feels so heartfelt, so emotional, so revealing that it seems as though both the actor and the director are standing naked before the audience. When that kind of marriage happens between actor and director, it's breathtaking." In 2009, film critic Roger Ebert added "In a Lonely Place" to his "great movies" list. The review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reported that 97% of critics gave the film positive reviews, based on thirty reviews. Comparisons to novel. "In a Lonely Place" was based on Dorothy B. Hughes' 1947 novel of the same title. Some controversy exists between fans of the film and fans of the novel (who view the film as a watered down adaptation), as Edmund H. North's script takes some elements of the novel, but is ultimately an entirely different story. The strongest difference between the two works lies in the primary character: the film's Dixon Steele is a screenwriter with an offbeat lifestyle, and a decent person with fatally poor impulse control and prone to wild overreaction when enraged. The novel's Steele is a limited third-person view from Dix's perspective, reminiscent of the first-person in noir, à la "The Killer Inside Me". Steele is a charlatan who pretends to be a novelist while sponging money from his overbearing uncle. When this well dries up, he murders a wealthy young man and assumes his identity, in a manner similar to Patricia Highsmith's Tom Ripley. (It should be noted that Hughes' novel predates Highsmith's and may have influenced it.) The film follows the question of whether Dix finally went too far in his anger and committed the murder under investigation to a tragic end: even though he's proven innocent, his rage at the cloud of suspicion has driven the woman he loves away for good. No question of Dix's innocence exists in the novel, which follows the investigation of a murder Dix plainly committed and his self-insertion into that investigation for his own ends. Curtis Hanson, in the DVD featurette 'In A Lonely Place Revisited', further analyses the parallels and differences between the novel and the film. He notes that there is a parallel in the film between Dix's adaptation of a novel for film with the adaptation of "In a Lonely Place" for film, he also notes a key difference between Dix in the film and Dix in the novel is their respective treatment of women. In the novel Dix pursues women, the first chapter details his pursuit of a woman. In the film, Dix is pursued by women. Hughes' novel, out of print for decades, was re-released by The Feminist Press at CUNY in 2003, which edition is still in print as of April 2007. Penguin Books also published a paperback edition in the UK in 2010 as part of their Modern Classics imprint. The novel has been hailed lately as a stellar example of mid-twentieth hardboiled/"noir" fiction, both as a rare example of women's writing in that genre and for its quality and contributions to that genre.
1001295	Yousef (Ang: Joseph) Abu-Taleb () is an American actor and producer of Arab, English, and American heritage. He was born in Arlington and raised all over Virginia before moving to Los Angeles, California. He is perhaps best known for co-starring in the role of Daniel (Danielbeast), the longest-running character in the "lonelygirl15" web drama, alongside Jessica Lee Rose. Since the show's finale, he has ventured into producing, working on both feature films and other internet shows, most notably "Poor Paul". He is currently in pre-production on his latest feature film "Look at me" which is a romantic drama. Early career. Yousef Abu-Taleb was taking classes at the Blue Ridge Community College in Virginia in early 2005, when he decided to head to Los Angeles with $2,500 in his pocket to pursue his dream of becoming a movie star, despite the fact that he had no formal acting training at the time. Abu-Taleb became a member of the Screen Actors Guild and signed with Alliance Entertainment. He landed an extra role in the film Dorm Daze 2, but was eventually cut from the film. He also landed an unpaid role in the independent film "Stray", in which his character was beaten to death. lonelygirl15 fame. While looking for acting jobs in 2006, Abu-Taleb found a Craigslist posting for an independent film codenamed "Children of Anchor Cove", which later turned out to be the "lonelygirl15" project. Although he was older than the character of Daniel, who was written to be 15-16, he won the role and the character was rewritten to be 18. During the filming, before his identity was revealed, Yousef kept a low profile, keeping to his house and wearing sunglasses when he went out. After the creators and crew came forward, he was openly interviewed by MTV and CNN. He also appeared with Jessica Lee Rose on "Tom Green Live". "lonelygirl15" won in the "biggest download" category at at the VH1 "Big in '06" Awards. He also did some work alongside Carmen Electra in-character as Daniel for the promotional videos of "Epic Movie", a film that parodies a number of other epic films such as "The DaVinci Code", "The Chronicles of Narnia", and "Snakes on a Plane". As of the "lonelygirl15" finale in August 2008, Yousef appeared in over 300 episodes, making him the longest-running character on the show. Yousef also collaborated with "lonelygirl15" writer-director Glenn Rubenstein to co-write the episode "Miss Me?" and Creator Miles Beckett to film the episode "Following The Helper". He also made a surprise appearance in the final episode of the lonelygirl15 sequel series, , "12 Videos 12 Hours."
1165758	Patricia Blair (born Patsy Lou Blake; January 15, 1933 – September 9, 2013) was an American television and film actress, primarily on 1950s and 1960s television. She is probably best known as Lou Mallory on the classic ABC western series "The Rifleman", in which she was cast in assorted roles in twenty-two episodes with Chuck Connors, Johnny Crawford and Paul Fix; and as Rebecca Boone in all six seasons of NBC's "Daniel Boone", with co-stars Fess Parker, Darby Hinton, Veronica Cartwright, and Ed Ames. Patricia married land developer Martin S. Colbert in Los Angeles, California, on 14 February 1965. Biography. Like Fess Parker, Blair was born in Fort Worth, Texas. She grew up in Dallas and became a teenage model through the Conover Agency. While acting in summer stock, Warner Bros. discovered her and she began acting in films under the names Patricia Blake and Pat Blake. In the late 1950s she appeared as the second female lead in several films for Warner Bros. and later for MGM. She had a recurring role as Goldy, one of Madame Francine's hostesses, on the 1958 TV series "Yancy Derringer". In 1962, she starred as Lou Mallory in
900327	Deep Red (original title Profondo rosso; also known as The Hatchet Murders) is a 1975 Italian giallo film, directed by Dario Argento and co-written by Argento and Bernardino Zapponi. It was released on 7 March 1975. It was produced by Claudio and Salvatore Argento, and the film's score was composed and performed by Goblin. It stars Macha Meril as a medium and David Hemmings as a man who investigates a series of murders performed by a mysterious figure wielding a hatchet. Although the film was not a financial success internationally, it met with critical acclaim and is the most well-known "giallo" film to date. Plot. The movie starts off with two shadowy figures struggling until one of them is stabbed to death while we hear a child's scream. The film follows music teacher Marcus Daly (Hemmings) as he investigates the violent murder of psychic medium Helga Ulmann (Macha Meril), which he witnesses in an apartment building. Before the murder, Ulmann had a lecture in a theatre where she suddenly sensed that there was someone with a twisted and violent mind in the audience and she seems to know who it is but it was too late before she could tell anyone. Other major characters are introduced early, including Daly's friend Carlo (Gabriele Lavia), Carlo's mother Martha (Clara Calamai), Ulmann's associate Dr. Giordani (Glauco Mauri) and reporter Gianna Brezzi (Daria Nicolodi). After his attempt to rescue the medium fails, Daly realizes he has seen a certain painting among a group of portraits on the wall of the victim's apartment, but it seems to have disappeared when the police arrive. The killing of Helga Ulmann is prefaced by a child's doggerel tune, the same music that accompanies the film's opening sequence. The music serves as the murderer's calling card. When Daly hears it in his own apartment soon after becoming involved in the case he is able to foil his attacker. Later, he plays the tune to Giordani, a psychiatrist, who theorizes that the music is important because it probably played an integral part in a traumatic event in the killer's past. He also tells him about a folktale involving a haunted house in which a singing child is heard, followed by the shrieking of someone being murdered. In investigating the source of the music tune and the folktale, the search leads Marcus to a novel which was written by a writer Amanda Righetti (Giuliana Calandra), titled 'House of the Screaming Child' which describes a long-ago murder. In attempting to find Amanda Righetti to talk to her about her book, the unseen killer arrives at Righetti's villa first and murders her. The dying Righetti manages to write a message on the wall of the steam-filled bathroom before expiring. Marcus finds the body, but aware that the police will think he did it, he leaves the area without calling anyone. After some thorough investigation, Marcus locates the house where the folktale was involved with the picture of it and learns from the caretaker who claims that no one have lived in the house before 1963 when the previous owner was killed. Marcus looks around and discovers a children's drawing on a wall long plastered over of a little boy holding a bloody knife next to a murdered man. Meanwhile, Giordani investigates the Righetti murder scene after the police collect the body and leave, and on a hunch, turns on the hot water in the bathroom and sees part of the message left on the wall by the murder victim. When Giordani returns to his office that night to investigate more, the unseen killer breaks in and kills him too. Marcus also discovers the clue that he overlooked in the photo of the deserted house: a window on one of the walls is missing. Marcus returns to the house after dark and after unsuccessfully trying to bash in the wall where the window was, which leads to him nearly falling off the scaffolding, he enters the house and using a pickaxe, bashes down an end-wall in a hallway and discovers the secret room with a rotting skeleton next to a Christmas tree. Daly's discovery of the corpse is one of the film's most dramatic moments. Then, the unseen killer arrives and knocks Marcus out. When he regains consciousness, he finds the house on fire, and Gianna by his side who arrived in the nick of time to pull him out of the house. Marcus and Gianna go to the villa caretaker's house to call the police and fire department when Marcus discovers that the caretaker's young daughter, Olga, had drawn an identical drawing of the little boy with a bloody knife standing next to a Christmas tree with the murder victim. Olga tells them that she found the drawing and copied it from old file archives at her junior high school. Marcus and Gianna break into the school to search the archives for the drawing, when Gianna is stabbed by the killer and Marcus finds the painting, with the name on it which is Carlo, who appears before Marcus holding a gun and threatening to kill him for getting too close. Just then, the police arrive and Carlo flees, but in a twist of fate, he gets sideswiped by a passing garbage truck which he gets hooked onto the fender and gets dragged down the street to his gruesome death. With the case apparently wrapped up with Carlo being the killer, Marcus drops off the severely wounded Gianna at the hospital, but in going back to the scene of the crime, tries to remember what he thought he saw. Carlo could not have murdered Helga Ulmann because he was with Marcus on the street when they saw the killer killing Ulmann. Marcus enters the murder victim's apartment and, after looking around, finally remembers what he saw in a mirror reflection which he thought was a portrait that night: the face of the killer. When he turned back, the killer appears in front of him as the identity of the killer is finally revealed as Carlo's insane mother Martha. When Carlo was still a child, he watched as she stabbed her husband when he tried to have her committed to a psychiatric hospital and Carlo, traumatized, picks up the bloody knife. Then, they entomb his body in a room of their house. In the climax, Martha confronts Marcus and tries to kill him. Wielding a meat cleaver, Martha chases him around the complex and into a room with an elevator. Marcus is struck in the shoulder by the meat cleaver, but kicks Martha toward the elevator shaft. A long necklace she wears around her neck catches in the bars of the shaft, and she is decapitated when Daly summons the lift. The film ends with Daly staring into the resultant pool of blood. Background. "Deep Red" was shot mainly on location in Turin, Italy, a "magical" city according to Argento, in sixteen weeks. The main reason why he chose Turin was because at the time there were more practicing Satanists in Turin than in any other European city, excluding Lyon. The film's special effects, which include several mechanically-operated heads and body parts, were made and executed by Carlo Rambaldi, best known for creating the extraterrestrial protagonist of Steven Spielberg's "E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial", for which he won an Academy Award in 1983. Co-writer Bernardino Zapponi said the inspiration for the murder scenes came from Argento and himself thinking of painful injuries to which the audience could relate. Basically, not everyone knows the pain of being shot by a gun, but almost everyone has at some point accidentally struck furniture or been scalded by hot water. The closeup shots of the killer's hands, clad in black leather gloves, were performed by director Dario Argento himself. Release. Critical reception. "Deep Red" has been very well received by critics. It currently holds a 100% approval rating on movie review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes based on twenty-two reviews. The A.V. Club wrote, "Operating under the principle that a moving camera is always better than a static one, and not above throwing in a terrifying evil doll, "Deep Red" showcases the technical bravado and loopy shock tactics that made Argento famous." AllMovie called it "the master work in Italian horror maestro Dario Argento's canon". Home video. Multiple versions of the film exist on DVD and VHS, in large part due to the fact that Argento removed twenty-six minutes (largely scenes between Nicolodi and Hemmings) from the film, footage that was never dubbed in English. For years, it was assumed that the film's American distributors were responsible for removing said scenes, but the recent Blu-ray release confirmed that Argento oversaw and approved the edits to the film. Eleven seconds of animal cruelty cuts made to the film by the BBFC in 1993 were waived when the film was re-submitted in 2005. In 1999, Anchor Bay acquired the rights to release the film uncut, on both DVD and VHS. Their version restored the missing footage, but kept the American end credit scene (a freeze frame shot of Hemmings looking down upon a pool of blood). As there was no dubbed versions of the missing scenes, the scenes (and additional dialogue omitted in the dubbed version) were featured in their original Italian language. The DVD offered both English and Italian audio tracks as well. Blue Underground obtained the rights to the film in 2008 and released it as a standard DVD. Their Blu-ray release, released in 2011, contains the US version of the film (which is referred to as "The Director's Cut") and the original edit (referred as "Uncut", and contains option to watch it in either language). Soundtrack. Argento originally contacted jazz pianist and composer Giorgio Gaslini to score the film. However, he was unhappy with Gaslini's output, deeming it "awful". Gaslini, frustrated by Argento's dictatorially insistent requests, effectively walked out of the film when Argento interrupted a recording session because the music sounded too chaotic to him. After failing to get Pink Floyd to replace Gaslini, Argento turned back to Italy and found Goblin, a talented local progressive rock band. Their leader, Claudio Simonetti, produced two compositions within just one night. Argento, impressed, signed them immediately, and they ended up composing most of the film's musical score (three Gaslini compositions were retained in the final version). Subsequently, Goblin composed music for several other films by Dario Argento. Remake. In 2010 George A. Romero was contacted by Claudio Argento to direct a 3D remake of "Deep Red" which Claudio said would also involve Dario. Romero showed some interest in the film; however, after contacting Dario, who said he knew nothing about the remake, Romero declined Claudio's offer. It is unknown if Claudio will look elsewhere for a director or still has plans to remake his brother's film.
1165818	" For other entertainers with similar names, see Linda George (disambiguation)." Lynda Day George (born December 11, 1944, San Marcos, Texas) is an American television and film actress whose career spanned three decades from the 1960s to the 1980s. She was a cast member on "" (1971–1973). She was also the wife of actor Christopher George. Biography. Originally known as Lynda Day, her career began with guest roles on many television series of the 1960s including "Route 66", "Flipper", "The Green Hornet", "Mannix", "The Fugitive", "The Virginian" and "Bonanza". She had her first major role in a short-lived 1970 television series, "The Silent Force", and later starred in the television pilot for "Cannon" in 1971. That same year, she was cast as Lisa Casey in the critically acclaimed series "", garnering a Golden Globe nomination in 1972 and an Emmy Award in 1973. During the show's last season, she missed seven episodes because of her maternity leave and was temporarily replaced by Barbara Anderson. She first met actor Christopher George when they starred together in the 1966 independent film "The Gentle Rain". While working together again in the 1970 John Wayne film "Chisum", they fell in love and were married on May 15, 1970. Thereafter, she became Lynda Day George and co-starred in multiple television films with her husband over the next ten years, including "The House on Greenapple Road" (1970), "Mayday at 40,000 Feet!" (1976) and "Cruise Into Terror" (1978). They also worked together in episodes of "The F.B.I." (1970), "" (1971), "McCloud" (1975), "Love Boat" (1977), and "Vega$" (1978). They guest-starred in television's "Wonder Woman" in 1976, with Lynda playing villain Fausta Grables, Nazi Wonder Woman. She continued her television work throughout the 1970s with guest roles on "Police Story", "Kung Fu", "Marcus Welby, M.D.", and "Barnaby Jones". She played supporting roles in "Rich Man, Poor Man" and "Roots". Her movie career is noted for several horror cult films in which she co-starred with husband Christopher including "Day of the Animals" (1977), "Pieces" (1982), and "Mortuary" (1983). She also co-starred with John Saxon in the 1980 horror film "Beyond Evil". Christopher George died of a heart attack on November 28, 1983, at the age of 52. She worked only sporadically after that, in guest roles on "Fantasy Island" (1984), "Murder She Wrote" (1985), "Hardcastle and McCormick" (1985), and "Blacke's Magic" (1986). She was also a regular guest on religious television programs. In one of her final performances, Lynda reprised the role of Lisa Casey on an episode of the revived "" television series in 1989. She officially retired from acting shortly thereafter. Marriages. She was first married to Joseph Pantano (1963–1970) (divorced), with one son, Nicky. She left Pantano to marry Christopher George. She was married to George from 15 May 1970 until his death, on 28 November 1983, and had one daughter. They filed suit to have her son from a previous marriage legally declared as Christopher's natural son. In 1990, Lynda George married Doug Cronin, who died of cancer 4 December 2010; they resided in Los Angeles, California.
589159	Nikaah is a 1982 Hindi film produced and directed by B. R. Chopra. The film stars Raj Babbar, Deepak Parashar and Salma Agha in her Hindi movie debut role. The film also had Asrani, Iftekhar and Gufi Paintal in support roles. The films music is by Ravi. The original name of the movie was Talaq Talaq Talaq, but was renamed Nikaah on the insistence of Islamic clerics [http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0013028/bio].
358674	A Grand Day Out (full name A Grand Day Out with Wallace and Gromit) is a 1989 British stop motion animatied short film directed and animated by Nick Park at Aardman Animations in Bristol. In the film, Wallace and Gromit spend a bank holiday by building a rocket to the Moon to sample some cheese. It was released in theaters with Disney's "The Little Mermaid". It is followed by 1993's "The Wrong Trousers", 1995's "A Close Shave", 2005's "" and 2008's "A Matter of Loaf and Death". Plot. As Wallace and Gromit relax at home, pondering where to go for the upcoming bank holiday, Wallace discovers that he has run out of cheese. He suggests that they go somewhere to get more, and they settle on the moon, since "everybody knows the moon's made of cheese." They quickly construct a rocket in the basement and pack provisions for the journey, but Wallace realises at the last moment that he has forgotten the crackers. He hurries to the kitchen and gets all the crackers, making it back to the rocket just as the engine ignites. However, the rocket stays in place until Gromit remembers to release the hand brake so it can lift off. Arriving on the moon, Wallace and Gromit discover that the entire landscape is in fact made of cheese. They set up a picnic and try it out, but are unable to match its flavor to any cheese they know. Looking for a different spot, they encounter "The Cooker," a wheeled, mechanised, coin-operated device that resembles an oven and storage cabinet. Wallace inserts a coin, but nothing happens immediately; only after he and Gromit have left does the Cooker spring to life, popping out two robotic arms and moving around. When it finds the picnic site, it becomes agitated and gathers up the dirty dishes. Discovering a magazine for ski holidays nearby, it leafs through and develops a desire to travel to Earth and go skiing. The Cooker then glues a cut spike of cheese back together, issues a parking ticket for the rocket, and becomes annoyed by an oil leak from the craft. Aggravated by Wallace's behavior, the Cooker sneaks up behind him and tries to hit him over the head with a truncheon, only for the money to run out just before it can strike so that it freezes in place. Wallace notices the Cooker and takes the truncheon as a souvenir, inserting a coin in exchange before he and Gromit return to the rocket. The Cooker comes back to life after a delay and realises that the rocket can take it to Earth, so it chases after the pair. Wallace panics, thinking that the Cooker is angry over all the lunar cheese he is trying to take home, and he and Gromit prepare for an emergency takeoff. Unable to climb the rocket's ladder, the Cooker cuts its way into the fuselage with a can opener and accidentally spills and ignites the fuel supply. The rocket lifts off, throwing the Cooker clear and leaving it with nothing but two strips of metal torn from the fuselage. Initially crushed by its failure to get to Earth, the Cooker soon fashions the strips into a pair of skis. Soon it is happily skiing across the lunar surface, and it waves goodbye to Wallace and Gromit as they return home. Background. Nick Park started creating the film in 1982 as a graduation project for the National Film and Television School. In 1985, Aardman Animations took him on before he finished the piece, allowing him to work on it part-time while still being funded by the school. To make the film, Park wrote to William Harbutt's company, requesting a long ton of plasticine. The block he received had ten colours, one of which was called "stone"; this was used for Gromit. Park wanted to voice Gromit, but he realised the voice he had in mind – that of Peter Hawkins – would have been difficult to animate. For Wallace, Park offered Peter Sallis £50 to voice the character, and his acceptance greatly surprised the young animator. Park wanted Wallace to have a Lancastrian accent like himself, but Sallis could only do a Yorkshire voice. Inspired by how Sallis drew out the word "cheese", Park chose to give Wallace large cheeks. When Park called Sallis six years later to explain he had completed his film, Sallis swore in surprise. Gromit was named after grommets, because Park's brother, an electrician, often mentioned them, and Nick Park liked the sound of the word. Wallace was originally a postman named Jerry, but Park felt the name did not match well with Gromit. Park saw an overweight Labrador retriever named Wallace, who belonged to an old woman boarding a bus in Preston. Park commented it was a "funny name, a very northern name to give a dog". According to the book "The World of Wallace and Gromit", original plans were that the film would be 40 minutes long including a sequence where Wallace and Gromit would discover a Fast-food restaurant on the Moon. Regarding the original plot, Park said:The original story was that Wallace and Gromit were going to go to the Moon and there were going to be a whole lot of characters there. One of them was a parking meter attendant, which was the only one that remained – the robot cooker character – but there were going to be aliens, and all sorts. There was going to be a McDonalds on the Moon, and it was going to be like a spoof Star Wars. Wallace was going to get thrown into prison and Gromit was going to have to get him out. By the time I came to Aardman, I had just started doing the Moon scene and somebody told me, "It's going to take you another nine years if you do that scene!" so I had to have a check with reality and cut that whole bit out. Somehow, I had to tie up the story on the Moon and finish the film. Awards and nominations. The film was nominated for the Academy Award for Animated Short Film, but lost to the short "Creature Comforts", which was also a creation of Nick Park. External links. ref name=telegraph>
1002105	The Fire Within ( , meaning "The Manic Fire" or "Will-o'-the-Wisp") is a 1963 French drama film directed by Louis Malle. It is based on the novel of the same name by Pierre Drieu La Rochelle. The film stars Maurice Ronet as Alain Leroy, a recovering alcoholic at a rehabilitation clinic in Versailles who has depression. He decides to end his life, but first decides to visit his friends in Paris one last time, in an attempt at finding a reason to continue living. The movie also stars Jeanne Moreau—who had previously worked with Ronet and Malle in "Elevator to the Gallows"—as well as Alexandra Stewart, Bernard Noel, Lena Skerla, Hubert Deschamps and Yvonne Clech. The score features the music of Erik Satie. Reception. The film was selected as the French entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 36th Academy Awards, but was not accepted as a nominee. In his "2006 Movie Guide", Leonard Maltin gives the film 3.5 stars (out of four) and calls it "probably Malle's best early film." Roger Ebert wrote that the film was a "triumph of style."
1102708	Oscar Zariski (born Oscher Zaritsky () April 24, 1899 – July 4, 1986) was an American mathematician and one of the most influential algebraic geometers of the 20th century. Education. Zariski was born Oscher (also transliterated as Ascher or Osher) Zaritsky to a Jewish family (his parents were Bezalel Zaritsky and Hanna Tennenbaum) and in 1918 studied at the University of Kiev. He left Kiev in 1920 to study in Rome where he became a disciple of the Italian school of algebraic geometry, studying with Guido Castelnuovo, Federigo Enriques and Francesco Severi. Zariski wrote a doctoral dissertation in 1924 on a topic in Galois theory. At the time of his dissertation publication, he changed his name for professional purposes to Oscar Zariski. Johns Hopkins University years. Zariski emigrated to the United States in 1927 supported by Solomon Lefschetz. He had a position at Johns Hopkins University where he became professor in 1937. During this period, he wrote "Algebraic Surfaces" as a summation of the work of the Italian school. The book was published in 1935 and reissued 36 years later, with detailed notes by Zariski's students that illustrated how the field of algebraic geometry had changed. It is still an important reference. It seems to have been this work that set the seal of Zariski's discontent with the approach of the Italians to birational geometry. The question of rigour he addressed by recourse to commutative algebra. The Zariski topology, as it was later known, is adequate for "biregular geometry", where varieties are mapped by polynomial functions. That theory is too limited for algebraic surfaces, and even for curves with singular points. A rational map is to a regular map as a rational function is to a polynomial: it may be indeterminate at some points. In geometric terms, one has to work with functions defined on some open, dense set of a given variety. The description of the behaviour on the complement may require infinitely near points to be introduced to account for limiting behaviour "along different directions". This introduces a need, in the surface case, to use also valuation theory to describe the phenomena such as blowing up (balloon-style, rather than explosively). Harvard University years. After spending a year 1946–1947 at the University of Illinois, Zariski became professor at Harvard University in 1947 where he remained until his retirement in 1969. In 1945, he fruitfully discussed foundational matters for algebraic geometry with André Weil. Weil's interest was in putting an abstract variety theory in place, to support the use of the Jacobian variety in his proof of the Riemann hypothesis for curves over finite fields, a direction rather oblique to Zariski's interests. The two sets of foundations weren't reconciled at that point. At Harvard, Zariski's students included Shreeram Abhyankar, Heisuke Hironaka, David Mumford, Michael Artin and Steven Kleiman — thus spanning the main areas of advance in singularity theory, moduli theory and cohomology in the next generation. Zariski himself worked on equisingularity theory. Some of his major results, "Zariski's main theorem" and the "Zariski theorem on holomorphic functions", were amongst the results generalized and included in the programme of Alexander Grothendieck that ultimately unified algebraic geometry. Zariski proposed the first example of a Zariski surface in 1958. Awards and recognition. Zariski was awarded the Steele Prize in 1981, and in the same year the Wolf Prize in Mathematics with Lars Ahlfors. He wrote also "Commutative Algebra" in two volumes, with Pierre Samuel. His papers have been published by MIT Press, in four volumes.
1068294	Of Time and the City is a 2008 documentary collage film directed by Terence Davies. The film has Davies recalling his life growing up in Liverpool in the 1950s and 1960s, using newsreel and documentary footage supplemented by his own commentary voiceover and contemporaneous and classical music soundtracks. The film premiered at the 2008 Cannes Film Festival where it received rave reviews. Time Out said "The one truly great movie to emerge so far (from Cannes)... this film is as personal, as universal in its relevance, and as gloriously cinematic as anything he has done" and The Guardian called it "a British masterpiece, a brilliant assemblage of images that illuminate our past. Not only does it tug the heart-strings but it's also savagely funny." BBC TV film critic Mark Kermode nominated it as the best overall film of 2008 on his "Kermode Awards" section of The Culture Show, and Duane Byrge from The Hollywood Reporter lauded the film as "poetically composed" and a "masterwork". "Of Time and the City" won Best Documentary in the Australian Film Critics Association awards for 2009.
629289	Romper Stomper is a 1992 Australian action drama film written and directed by Geoffrey Wright, starring Russell Crowe, Daniel Pollock, Jacqueline McKenzie and Tony Lee. The film follows the exploits and downfall of a neo-Nazi group in blue-collar suburban Melbourne. Plot. A gang of violent neo-Nazis from Footscray, Victoria, Australia attack two Vietnamese Australian teenagers in a subway tunnel at Footscray Station (filmed at Richmond Station). The gang is led by Hando (Russell Crowe) and his friend and second in command, Davey (Daniel Pollock). They meet drug addict Gabrielle (Jacqueline McKenzie) the day after her sexually abusive, highly affluent father Martin (Alex Scott), has her junkie boyfriend beaten up. Gabrielle starts a romantic association with Hando. Some of the gang's skinhead friends visit from Canberra, one of whom has joined the Royal Australian Navy and is home on leave. After a long night of drinking, fighting, and sex, two members of the gang go to their local pub. Unbeknownst to them the owner has sold it to a Vietnamese businessman. Upon seeing the new owner and his sons, they inform Hando. Hando and his gang arrive and savagely beat the new owner's sons. A third Vietnamese youth phones for help, Tiger (Tony Lee) and several armed Vietnamese men descend upon the skinheads. The Vietnamese outnumber the skinheads and a few skinheads are killed. The Vietnamese force them to retreat to their rented warehouse, where the Vietnamese ransack the building before setting it on fire. The skinheads find a new base at a nearby warehouse, after evicting a pair of squatters, and plan their revenge against the Vietnamese. Learning that gang members plan to buy a gun, two female friends of the gang depart. Gabrielle suggests the gang burgle her father's mansion. They ransack the house, beat Martin up, smash one of his cars, and raid his wine collection. Gabrielle tells Martin the burglary is revenge for his years of abuse. Later, she reveals to Davey her plan to take Hando away from his violent life. Martin eventually frees himself and uses a handgun to scare away the gang before they can take any of his property. Davey begins to have doubts about his violent lifestyle. Gabrielle criticizes Hando's handling of the robbery, and he abruptly dumps her. Davey announces his intention to leave at the same time, giving Gabrielle his German grandmother's address, where he will be staying. Gabrielle informs the police of the gang's location and then spends the night with Davey. Davey reveals his doubts about his violent lifestyle, having removed the racist patches from his flight jacket out of concern for his grandmother. The police raid the warehouse while Hando is out. The youngest skinhead is shot dead after pointing a non-working gun at the police. The police arrest the rest of the gang. Hando watches from a distance and flees. Arriving at Davey's flat, Hando finds his friend in bed with Gabrielle. Hando accuses her of informing the police, but Davey says they were together the whole time since leaving the squat. Hando convinces Davey to stick by him, and the trio go on the run. They rob a service station, and Hando strangles the Asian attendant to death. Driving all night, they stop at a beach. On the beach, Gabrielle overhears a conversation wherein Hando tries to convince Davey to leave her behind. Gabrielle then sets their car on fire. She admits to phoning the police. Hando attacks her, attempting to drown her in the surf. Davey stabs Hando in the neck with his Hitler Youth knife, killing him. Davey cradles a horrified Gabrielle on the beach watched by a busload of Japanese tourists, while Hando's bloody corpse gazes at the ocean. Origin. Geoffrey Wright's script was inspired by the highly publicized crimes of leading Melbourne Neo-Nazi skinhead Dane Sweetman. Wright contacted Sweetman via mail in 1991, to request an interview. Sweetman was at that time in the process of serving a life sentence in Pentridge Prison for murder. The interview could not be arranged in a timely manner due to prison regulations, so the two men commenced correspondence, and Sweetman furnished Wright with a transcript of his murder trial, from which Wright drew influence. This influence is most clearly seen in the line delivered by Hando when scaring off squatters from the warehouse: "I'll chop your legs off". It is a direct reference to Sweetman's having cut off the legs of his victim. That was one of many aspects of the film that mirrored Sweetman's life. For another example, the characters Gabrielle, Davey, and the punk girls were all based on associates of Sweetman. Sweetman's name was conspicuously absent in the end credits, however. This issue was raised in the Australian media during the publicity phase of promoting the film. Russell Crowe acknowledged the origin of his character during an interview on" Tonight Live "with Steve Vizard in 1992. Wright also spoke of the influence during a radio interview in the same year. The film was financed from the Australian Film Commission with Film Victoria. Soundtrack. The film's score was released by Picture This Records. It included the orchestral music and the energetic punk rock music similar to the Oi! genre (recorded by studio musicians). The orchestral arrangements were contributed by long-time big band leader Johnny Hawker, and were played by his band, after instructions by John Clifford-White that the score sound like Bernard Herrmann's film soundtracks. The rock tracks were played by a smaller (five-piece) guitar based band. Both ensembles used the same drummer (credited). It won an AFI award for best music score in 1992. Awards. The film was nominated for nine Australian Film Institute Awards. It won Best Achievement in Sound, Best Actor in a Lead Role and Best Original Music Score. Box office and Reception. "Romper Stomper" grossed $3,165,034 at the box office in Australia. The film was well received by critics, with an approval rating of 80% on Rotten Tomatoes. Controversy. The film was highly controversial because of its violent content. In March 2000, British prisoner Robert Stewart bludgeoned his cellmate, Zahid Mubarek, to death with a wooden table leg at the Feltham Young Offenders' Institution. In 2004, Stewart was found guilty of the racially motivated murder of Mubarek and was jailed for life. Stewart compared himself to Hando in "Romper Stomper" as well as Alex DeLarge in "A Clockwork Orange". An inquiry heard that Stewart had watched "Romper Stomper" two days before the killing. A member of the inquiry team said he was a prolific letter writer, and much of his correspondence contained racist and violent content: "He sees himself in the correspondence starring in the film "Romper Stomper" as a racist thug attacking gooks," the inquiry was told. The Anti-Nazi League protested the film's London premiere. "Romper Stomper", the book. The novelization was written by Jocelyn Harewood and published by Text Publishing in 1993. It was published again as an e-book in November 2012. The book follows the film closely, but better acquaints the reader to get to know the characters, as Harewood develops their personalities and the events that have led to their various attitudes and behaviors. The e-book can be downloaded from Harewood's website.
581796	Summer 2007 is a 2008 Indian drama film directed by the debutant Suhail Tatari. The film deals with five medical students who undergo a rude awakening of sorts after visiting a Maharashtrian village and witnessing the misfortune of villagers. The film stars Sikandar Kher, Gul Panag, Yuvika Chaudhary, Arjan Bajwa and Alekh Sangal. Ashutosh Rana and Divya Dutta play the supporting roles. Plot. Rahul (Sikandar Kher), Priyanka (Yuvika Chaudhary), Qateel (Arjan Bajwa), Bagani (Alekh Sangal) and Vishaka (Gul Panag) are medical college students with carefree attitudes. Rahul and Priyanka's failed relationship is shown in flashbacks. Rahul argues with an independent candidate and plans to make a political party and contest the college elections. Later he patches up with a bigger political party and gets the independent candidate arrested in fraud case of suicide attempt by his girlfriend. After that Rahul doesn't want to back off from elections. To avert this they plan to go for internship. The group goes to a village in rural Maharashtra that is struck by farmer suicide. There they work as medical interns in the village hospital. The group plans a vacation to Goa until they are awoken to the plight of the poverty-ridden villagers by the village doctor, Mukya (Ashutosh Rana). In addition to their torment, a cruel "zamindar" (Vikram Gokhale) and his son (Prosshant Narayanan) trouble the villagers with excessive interest rates. As a solution, a reformed criminal (Sachin Khedekar) offers monetary aid to the oppressed in form of microcredit loans. This comes as an able ally to students who vow to help the villagers. However, naxalites and corrupt politicians complicate their efforts. How these socially-awakened students rise above these problems forms the rest of the story. Production. Suhail Tatari, had previously directed features for Doordarshan's "Surabhi", a popular programme in the 1990s. He continued his association with television by directing soap operas such as "Reporter", "Kanyadaan", "Kashmeer" and "Don". After making an award-winning documentary on breast cancer, Tatari felt the urge to venture into commercial cinema. After meeting producer Atul Pandey, who was contemplating on a story about college students, Tatari convinced him to make it more relevant to the farmer suicides. Actress Gul Panag treated Tatari as her mentor who moulded her into an actress. Hence, she thought it was obvious that she acted in his first film. Coming from a modest beginning, Yuvika Chowdhary was happy that her stint in the television industry helped her to adjust well to films. While shooting a cameo appearance in Farah Khan's "Om Shanti Om", Yuvika was offered a role in this film. She was, however, unsure of committing to it because of the number of newcomers. However, Shahrukh Khan admonished her for the reason and cited examples from his own professional career. Chowdhary, after completing the shoot, was happy for her decision to act in this film. Being the son of veteran Bollywood character actors, Anupam Kher and Kirron Kher, Sikander Kher considered himself lucky that directors readily gave him their time if he sought an appointment. Kher, whose debut was first with "Woodstock Villa", thought that Yuvika Chaudhary was a glamorous and a fun-loving person and this helped him enjoy working with her. Being cast opposite two newcomer actress, Chowdhary and Neha Oberoi (in "Woodstock Villa"), Kher thought he cared more for the character than being cast alongside established actots. He was grateful to the director for choosing him to work in the film. Alekh Sangal, the son of veteran filmmaker Ambrish Sangal, thought that despite four other characters sharing screen space with him, he was happy with the way his character was sketched out. He was also quite happy working with Kher and Panag and felt that the movie was a good learning experience for him. The story, which is based on the agrarian crisis of the Vidarbha region of Maharashtra, was written by Bijesh Jayarajan. While talking about the extremities in the urban and rural parts of India, Jayarajan said that the focus of his story was on how money-lenders are exploiting the helpless farmers. One of the characters, which Jayarajan created was inspired by Muhammad Yunus, the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize winner and founder of Grameen Bank, Bangladesh's biggest microcredit institution. About what he termed as success for the film, Jayarajan said: The mainstream media in the country has made a conscious effort to shield people, especially youngsters living in metros, from the rural realities. If those watching Summer 2007 at multiplexes realise this, and wonder why they never bothered about Vidarbha, the film will have achieved its goal.
583618	Aditya Lakhia is an Indian character actor. He did his schooling from Mayo College,Ajmer. He began his acting career in 1988 playing small roles and as an assistant director in "Akele Hum Akele Tum". The character of Kachra in the movie "Lagaan" remains one the most memorable performance. He is presently working in various supporting roles. He has worked in Chotti Bahu Season 2 and Agle Janam Mohe Bitiya Hi Kijo.
1057996	Moira Kelly (born March 6, 1968) is an American actress. She played Dorothy Day in ', Kate Moseley in the 1992 film "The Cutting Edge", as well as single mother Karen Roe on the teen drama "One Tree Hill", White House media consultant Mandy Hampton in the first season of "The West Wing", and for voicing Nala in "The Lion King" and its sequel '. Early life. Kelly was born in Queens, New York, the daughter of Irish immigrants. Her father, Peter, was trained as a concert violinist, and her mother, Anne, is a nurse. Kelly is the third of six children and was raised in Ronkonkoma. She was brought up as a Catholic. Kelly attended Connetquot Senior High School in Bohemia, Long Island, graduating in the class of 1986. Later she attended Marymount Manhattan College. In her youth, Kelly was cast in a small role in her high school's 1984 production of "Annie". Due to illness, the girl playing Miss Hannigan was replaced, causing a series of cast changes leading to her choice of career. A faithful Catholic, Kelly had to decide between acting and her childhood ambition of becoming a nun. Career. Kelly made her professional acting debut in the made-for-TV movie "Love, Lies and Murder", playing a teenage murderer. She went on to have small roles in the films "The Boy Who Cried Bitch" and "Billy Bathgate" before being cast as Donna Hayward in "". For that film, she went home and got permission from her priest because of an explicit sex scene. In the same year, she starred opposite D. B. Sweeney in the romantic comedy "The Cutting Edge" and played two roles opposite Robert Downey, Jr. in "Chaplin". According to a "TV Guide" interview, before taking on her role in "Daybreak", Kelly once again asked her priest for advice: "Being a Catholic, I wondered if it would be against my religion to play a girl who has premarital sex." The priest told her "it was okay, as long as my artistic intentions were true and I wasn't doing it for the notoriety or the money." She has since appeared in the movies "With Honors", "Little Odessa", "The Tie That Binds" and "Dangerous Beauty" amongst others, and provided the adult voice of Nala in Disney's "The Lion King", ', and "The Lion King 1½". In her independent film career, Kelly had the starring role of activist Dorothy Day in ' and starred alongside Glenn Close in "The Safety of Objects". She played Helen Keller in the made-for-TV movie "Monday After the Miracle", which broadcast on November 15, 1998 on CBS. Kelly starred in the CBS drama "To Have & to Hold" opposite Jason Beghe before playing Mandy Hampton in the first season of "The West Wing". In 2003, Kelly began playing single mother Karen Roe on the teen drama "One Tree Hill". She also directed two episodes of the series: "Resolve" (2007) and "I Slept with Someone in Fall Out Boy and All I Got Was This Stupid Song Written About Me" (2006). In the fifth season, she ceased to be a regular cast member, but made guest appearances in the 100th episode and the sixth season finale. She has made guest appearances in television shows such as "Heroes", "Law & Order", and "Numb3rs". Kelly has also appeared in the films "Remember the Daze", "A Smile as Big as the Moon" and "Taken Back: Finding Haley". Personal life. In 2000, Moira Kelly married Steve Hewitt, a Texas businessman. They have two children, Ella and Eamon.
1059182	The Life of David Gale is a 2003 thriller film directed by Alan Parker and written by Charles Randolph. To date, it is Parker's last film as a director. The film is an international co-production between the United States, Germany, and the United Kingdom. Kevin Spacey stars as the eponymous character, a college professor and longtime activist against capital punishment who is sentenced to death for killing a fellow capital punishment opponent. Kate Winslet and Laura Linney co-star. Plot. David Gale is a prisoner on death row in Texas. With only a few days to his execution, his lawyer negotiates a half million-dollar fee to tell his story to Bitsey Bloom, a journalist from a major news magazine known for her ability to keep secrets and protect her sources. He tells her the story of how he ended up on death row, revealed to the movie audience through a series of lengthy flashbacks. Gale is head of the philosophy department at the University of Texas and an active member of DeathWatch, a group campaigning against capital punishment. At a graduation party, he encounters Berlin, an attractive graduate student who had been expelled from the school. She corners and seduces the inebriated Gale, succeeding in getting him to have rough sex with her. She then falsely accuses Gale of rape. The next day, he loses a televised debate with the Governor of Texas when he is unable to point to an example of a demonstrably innocent man being executed. After losing the debate Gale is arrested and charged with rape. Gale is later acquitted of the charges, however the damage has already been done, and his family, marriage, career and reputation are all destroyed. Constance Harraway, a fellow DeathWatch activist, is a close friend of Gale who consoles him after his life falls apart, and the pair sleep together. However, the next day Harraway is discovered raped and murdered, suffocated by a plastic bag taped over her head. An autopsy reveals that she had been forced to swallow the key of the handcuffs used to restrain her, a psychological torture technique utilized under the communist regime of Nicolae Ceauşescu, which Gale and Harraway had both protested against. The physical evidence at the crime scene points to Gale, who is convicted of her rape and murder and is, ironically, sentenced to death. In the present, Bloom investigates the case in between her visits with Gale. She comes to believe that the apparent evidence against Gale does not add up. She is tailed several times in her car by a figure who turns out to be Dusty Wright, the alleged one-time lover and colleague of Harraway, who she suspects was the real killer. Wright slips evidence to Bloom that suggests Gale has been framed, implying that the actual murderer videotaped the crime. Bloom pursues this lead until she finds a tape revealing that Harraway, who was suffering from terminal leukemia, had committed an elaborate suicide to look like murder. She and Wright are both seen on the videotape, showing that they framed Gale as part of a plan to discredit the death penalty. Bloom does not find this evidence until the day of Gale's scheduled execution. She tries to give the tape to the authorities in time to stop the execution. She arrives at the prison just as the warden announces that it has already been carried out. The tape is then released, causing a media and political uproar over the execution of an innocent man. Later, Wright receives the fee that Bloom's magazine agreed to pay for the interview, and delivers it to Gale's ex-wife in Spain, along with a postcard from Berlin in San Francisco apologizing for the false rape accusation. His ex-wife looks distraught, knowing Gale told the truth and that she effectively stole their child away from him. Much later still, a videotape labelled "Off the Record" is delivered to Bloom. This tape picks up at the point where Wright confirmed that Harraway was dead, then continues on to show him stepping aside to allow Gale, also present and party to the suicide, to caress her body. It was in doing this that Gale left his fingerprints on Harraway's plastic suffocation bag, showing he knowingly sacrificed himself to prove innocent prisoners are executed. Production. "The Life of David Gale" was shot in multiple places, including: Huntsville, Texas; Sam Houston State University; The University of Texas at Austin; Garrison Hall, KLRU-TV, Austin, Texas; Metro Espresso Bar (now Cafe Medici), 2222 Guadalupe St, Austin, TX; Cain and Abel's Bar, Austin, TX; Gumbo's Louisiana Style Cafe; and Plaça Reial, Barcelona. Reception. Critical reaction to the film was overwhelmingly negative. On Metacritic, the film has a score of 31% based on reviews from 36 critics indicating generally negative reviews. Rotten Tomatoes gives the film a score of 19% based on reviews from 154 critics. "Chicago Sun-Times" critic Roger Ebert gave it zero stars, his lowest rating, and stated, "I am sure the filmmakers believe their film is against the death penalty. I believe it supports it and hopes to discredit the opponents of the penalty as unprincipled fraudsters." Wrote Ebert, "Spacey and Parker are honourable men... The last shot made me want to throw something at the screen – maybe Spacey and Parker." In 2003, the film was nominated for the Golden Bear in Berlin, and for the Political Film Society Award for Human Rights.
1039931	Kenneth Campbell "Ken" Stott (born 19 October 1954) is a Scottish actor, particularly known in the United Kingdom for his many roles in television. Early life. Stott was born in Edinburgh, to a Scottish father who was a teacher and educational administrator, and Antonia Sansica, a Sicilian lecturer. He was brought up as a Roman Catholic. Stott was educated at George Heriot's School. For three years in his youth he was a member of a band called Keyhole, members of which later went on to form the Bay City Rollers. After attending Mountview Academy of Theatre Arts in London, Stott began working in the theatre for the Royal Shakespeare Company, but for some years his earnings from acting were minimal and he was forced to support himself by also working as a double glazing salesman. This is echoed in the character he plays in "Takin' Over the Asylum". Career. Stott's early work focused on theatre with a notable leading role in the dramatization of Dominic Behan's play about the Northern Ireland troubles 'The Folk Singer; (Belfast Lyric Theatre). Stott appeared in small roles in BBC series such as "Secret Army" (1977), "The Complete Dramatic Works of William Shakespeare" ("King Lear", 1982), and Dennis Potter's "The Singing Detective" (1986). He also featured in an advert for the British COI's "Drinking And Driving Wrecks Lives" campaign, playing a fireman. He eventually began to earn starring roles on television in the 1990s. His highest-profile television roles have included hospital radio DJ Eddie McKenna in BBC Scotland's "Takin' Over The Asylum" the leading character, DCI Red Metcalfe, in the BBC crime drama series "Messiah" (BBC One, 2001–05); DI Chappell in ITV police drama "The Vice" (1999–2003); as a drunk who fantasises about finding redemption by joining the Salvation Army in "Promoted to Glory" (ITV, 2003); as Adolf Hitler in "Uncle Adolf" (ITV, 2005) and as a fictional Chancellor of the Exchequer in Richard Curtis's "The Girl in the Café" (BBC One, 2005). 2006 saw him take over the title character in detective series "Rebus", a television adaptation of the Ian Rankin novels which had previously starred John Hannah. In 2008 Stott was nominated for a Scottish BAFTA for his performance as comedian Tony Hancock in BBC Four's "Hancock and Joan". His most recent television role was as the father of cookery writer Nigel Slater in the BBC One adaptation of Slater's autobiographical novel "Toast", opposite Helena Bonham Carter and Freddie Highmore. On the big screen, he has tended to play mostly supporting parts, such as DI McCall in "Shallow Grave" (1994), Ted in "Fever Pitch" (1997), Marius Honorius in "King Arthur" (2004), an Israeli arms merchant in "Charlie Wilson's War" (2007) and Trufflehunter, a badger loyal to Prince Caspian in "" (2008). However, he has had occasional starring roles in the cinema, most notably opposite Billy Connolly and Iain Robertson in "The Debt Collector" (1999) and "Plunkett and Macleane" of the same year. Most recently he has starred as Balin in the live-action adaptation of "The Hobbit", and played the role to critical acclaim. Stott played a supporting role as Dexter Mayhew's father in "One Day" (2011) starring Anne Hathaway and Jim Sturgess. Stott has continued to act on stage, and in 1997 was nominated for Best Actor at the Laurence Olivier Awards for his role in the Yasmina Reza play "Art" in which had appeared with Albert Finney and Tom Courtenay. In 2008 Stott starred in another West End production of a Reza play, this time "God of Carnage", alongside Tamsin Greig, Janet McTeer and Ralph Fiennes at the Gielgud Theatre. He starred in a revival of Arthur Miller's "A View From The Bridge" at the Duke of York's Theatre in early 2009 and reprised his role of Michael in "God of Carnage" on Broadway (as a replacement for James Gandolfini) at the Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre in New York.
1502416	Mandel Bruce "Mandy" Patinkin (; born November 30, 1952) is an American actor and tenor singer. Patinkin is well known for his portrayal of Inigo Montoya in "The Princess Bride" in 1987. His other film credits include "Alien Nation" (1988), "Yentl" (1983), and "Dick Tracy" (1990). He has appeared in major roles in television series such as "Chicago Hope", "Dead Like Me", and "Criminal Minds", and plays Saul Berenson in the Showtime series "Homeland". He is a noted interpreter of the musical works of Stephen Sondheim, and is known for his work in musical theatre, originating iconic roles such as Georges Seurat in "Sunday in the Park with George" and Ché in the original Broadway production of "Evita". Early years. Patinkin was born in Chicago, Illinois, the son of Doris "Doralee" (née Sinton), a homemaker, and Lester Patinkin, who worked for the People's Iron & Metal Company and the Scrap Corporation of America. His mother wrote "Grandma Doralee Patinkin's Jewish Family Cookbook". Patinkin's cousins include Mark Patinkin, an author and nationally syndicated columnist for "The Providence Journal", and Sheldon Patinkin of Columbia College Chicago's Theater Department, a founder of The Second City. Patinkin grew up in a middle-class family, descended from Russian- and Polish- Jews, and was raised in Conservative Judaism, attending religious school daily "from the age of seven to 13 or 14" and singing in synagogue choirs, as well as attending the Camp Surah in Michigan. He attended South Shore High School, Harvard St. George School, Kenwood High School (later renamed Kenwood Academy) (1970 graduate), the University of Kansas, and Juilliard School. At Juilliard, he was a classmate of Kelsey Grammer. When the producers of the popular American sitcom "Cheers" were auditioning for the role of Dr. Frasier Crane, Patinkin put Grammer's name forward. Career. After some TV commercial and radio appearances, including the CBS Radio Mystery Theater in 1974, Patinkin had his first success in musical theater, where he played the part of Che in "Evita" on Broadway in 1979. Patinkin went on to win that year's Tony Award for Best Performance by a Featured Actor in a Musical. He then moved to film, playing parts in movies such as "Yentl" and "Ragtime". He returned to Broadway in 1984 to star in the Pulitzer Prize-winning musical "Sunday in the Park with George", which saw him earn another Tony Award nomination for Best Actor (Musical). Patinkin played Inigo Montoya in Rob Reiner's 1987 "The Princess Bride" (which Patinkin considers his favorite role ), in which he delivers the iconic line, "Hello, my name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die." Patinkin found his studies a huge asset in "The Princess Bride", playing the role of the best swordsman in the country, short of the main character, and part of his role included proficiency in fencing at a professional level. Over the next decade he continued to appear in movies, such as "Dick Tracy" and "Alien Nation". On Broadway, over the next decade, he appeared in the musical "The Secret Garden". He also released two solo albums, titled "Mandy Patinkin" (1989) and "Dress Casual" (1990). In 1994, he took the role of Dr. Jeffrey Geiger on CBS' "Chicago Hope" for which he won an Emmy Award. However, despite the award and the ratings success of the show, Patinkin left the show during the second season because he was unhappy spending so much time away from his wife. He returned to the show in 1999 at the beginning of the sixth season, but it was later canceled in 2000. Since "Chicago Hope", Patinkin has appeared in a number of films. However, he has mostly performed as a singer, releasing three more albums. In 1995 he guest starred in "The Simpsons" in the episode "Lisa's Wedding" as Hugh Parkfield, Lisa's future English groom. In 1998, he debuted his most personal project, "Mamaloshen", a collection of traditional, classic, and contemporary songs sung entirely in Yiddish ("Mamaloshen" is Yiddish for "mother tongue"). The stage production of "Mamaloshen" was performed on and off–Broadway, and has toured throughout the country. The recording of "Mamaloshen" won the "Deutschen Schallplattenpreis" (Germany’s equivalent of the Grammy Award). In 1999, he co-starred in "The Adventures of Elmo in Grouchland" as Huxley, the primary or the main villain of that film who tries to steal Elmo's blanket. He returned to Broadway in 2000 in the New York Shakespeare Festival production of John LaChiusa's "The Wild Party", earning another Tony Award nomination for Best Actor (Musical). In 2003-2004 he was seen in the Showtime comedy-drama "Dead Like Me" as Rube Sofer. In 2004, he played a six–week engagement of his one–man concert at the Off Broadway complex Dodger Stages. In September 2005, he debuted in the role of Jason Gideon, an experienced profiler just coming back to work after a series of nervous breakdowns, in the CBS crime drama "Criminal Minds." Patinkin was absent from a table read for "Criminal Minds" and did not return for a third season. The departure from the show was not due to contractual or salary matters, but over creative differences. He left apologetic letters for his fellow cast members explaining his reasons and wishing them luck. Many weeks before his departure, in a videotaped interview carried in the online magazine "Monaco Revue", Patinkin told journalists at the Festival de Télévision de Monte-Carlo that he loathed violence on television and was uncomfortable with certain scenes in "Criminal Minds". He called his choice to do "Criminal Minds" his "biggest public mistake", and stated that he "thought it was something very different. I never thought they were going to kill and rape all these women every night, every day, week after week, year after year. It was very destructive to my soul and my personality, and after that, I didn't think I would get to work in television again."
1070454	Jane Moore Sibbett (born November 28, 1962) is an American actress and producer. Her most notable roles include Heddy Thompson on the Fox television series "Herman's Head", and as Ross Geller's first ex-wife, Carol Willick, on the NBC sitcom "Friends". Career. Sibbett started her acting career as Jane Wilson on the NBC soap opera "Santa Barbara" in 1986-87, for which she was nominated for a Best Newcomer Soap Opera Digest Awards. In 1989, she won the role of Laurie Parr on the CBS comedy "The Famous Teddy Z", co-starring with Jon Cryer and Alex Rocco. The series lasted one season. In 1991, Sibbett was cast as status-conscious bombshell Heddy Thompson on the Fox sitcom "Herman's Head", which quickly gained a cult following on the young broadcast network and lasted three seasons. Beginning in 1994, she played the occasional role of Carol Willick on "Friends", a part-time stint that lasted until the end of the show's seventh season in 2001. During her "Friends" association, Sibbett had regular roles on the short-lived CBS sitcom "If Not For You" (1995), playing the jilted fiancee of her former "Herman's Head" co-star Hank Azaria, and in the second season of The WB's "" (1997-98), playing school headmaster Dr. Katherine Emerson.
1375761	Tony Rosato (born December 26, 1954) is an Italian-Canadian animated voice actor who has appeared in television and movies in both Canada and the United States. Early years and career beginnings. Rosato was born in Naples, Italy, and raised in Halifax, Ottawa, and Toronto. He planned to study chiropractic medicine, but dropped out of the University of Toronto after he began doing improv comedy at The Second City. Rosato first gained attention when he and Robin Duke joined the cast of the first incarnation of "SCTV" in its final season during the fall of 1980. His most well-known character on the program was a notoriously drunk TV chef named Marcello Sebastiani. The height of his career. "Saturday Night Live" Not-Ready-For-Prime-Time actor. After "SCTV," Rosato moved with Duke to the cast of "Saturday Night Live" for the 1981-1982 season, becoming the first cast member to be born outside of North America. Following Jean Doumanian's tenure during the sixth season and Dick Ebersol trying to retool the show (and relying on Eddie Murphy and Joe Piscopo to spice up the sketches), Rosato (along with fellow "SCTV" cast member, Robin Duke) only appeared on the show for one year before leaving due to an expired contract. "Night Heat" and early voice work. Rosato next emerged on the Canadian police drama "Night Heat", playing Arthur 'Whitey' Morelli. This role lasted from 1985 through 1989. In autumn of 1990, Rosato portrayed Nintendo's character Luigi on DiC's television show "The Adventures of Super Mario Bros. 3" (loosely based around the video game of the same title). He continued his role as Luigi in 1991 for the "Super Mario World" cartoon. He continued to appear in television and film regularly throughout the 1990s. Voice Work. Rosato did a small voicing part in "Resident Evil 3" as a man named Dario Rosso and Nemesis. In "," he played the voice of Dharak. He has also done voices for other animated series including "Pelswick", "George and Martha", "Rescue Heroes", "Birdz", "The Busy World of Richard Scarry", "Hello Kitty and Friends", "Marvin the Tap-Dancing Horse", "Peep and the Big Wide World", "Interlude", "Pippi Longstocking", ', "Rolie Polie Olie", "Bad Dog", ', "Little Bear", "Monster by Mistake", "Odd Job Jack", "Free Willy", "Blazing Dragons", "The Neverending Story", "Flash Gordon", "Timothy Goes to School", "Time Warp Trio", "Roboroach", "Tales from the Cryptkeeper", ', "Cyberchase", "Redwall", "Power Stone", "Anatole", "Elliott Moose", "Sailor Moon", "Ned's Newt", "Medabots", ', "Corduroy", "Freaky Stories", "King", "Blaster's Universe", "Stickin' Around", "Bob and Margaret", "Flying Rhino Junior High", ', "Silver Surfer", "The Dumb Bunnies", "Undergrads", "Quads!", "Angela Anaconda", "Cyberchase", "Slam Dunk", "The Ripping Friends", "Committed", "Bedtime Primetime Classics", "Elliott Moose", "Franklin", "Braceface", "George Shrinks", "Delta State", ', "Mr. Men and Little Miss", "The Dumb Bunnies", "The Accuser", "Maggie and the Ferocious Beast", "Atomic Betty" and "Mischief City". Arrest and mental-health issues. On May 5, 2005, Rosato was arrested and charged with criminal harassment of his wife Leah, who asserted that his deteriorating mental health had caused her to fear for her safety and that of the couple's infant daughter. The charge was laid after Rosato complained repeatedly to Toronto and Kingston police that his wife, who had recently left him, and daughter had been abducted and replaced by impostors, a belief characteristic of Capgras delusion, a delusional misidentification syndrome with which the Crown's expert psychiatrist had diagnosed Rosato, according to Rosato's eighth lawyer, Daniel Brodsky. It was alleged that the harassment occurred from December 28, 2003 and escalated until April 21, 2005. In spite of the diagnosis, Rosato, who denied mental illness and refused to plead insanity, was held for over two years without bail at a maximum-security detention centre. Daniel Brodsky, who called his client's two-year detention awaiting trial "shocking," asserted that Rosato "spent more time in custody on a harassment charge" than anyone ever convicted of the offence in Canada, estimating that "on average, someone convicted of criminal harassment spends one day in jail and two years on probation." The trial finally commenced on August 7, 2007, in Kingston and it ended on September 5, 2007. In the end, the prosecution downgraded the charge to summary (misdemeanour) from indictable (felony). Rosato was spared a criminal conviction and handed a conditional discharge, including a psychiatric hospital residence order, issued for a maximum of three years. Rosato was released from the hospital in December 2009 but remained on probation until September 2010. "SCTV" and "SNL" characters. Celebrities impersonated by Rosato on "SCTV" include: Lou Costello (whom he also impersonated when he was a castmember on "Saturday Night Live"), William Conrad, Danny Thomas, Woodstock co-organizer Chip Monck, SNL castmember John Belushi, Tony Orlando and Ella Fitzgerald. His characters on "SNL," despite his short tenure, were memorable as well, and included Ed Asner (in character as Lou Grant), Captain Kangaroo, and U.S. Attorney General Ed Meese.
1101960	Nicolas Bourbaki is the collective pseudonym under which a group of (mainly French) 20th-century mathematicians wrote a series of books presenting an exposition of modern advanced mathematics, beginning in 1935. With the goal of founding all of mathematics on set theory, the group strove for rigour and generality. Their work led to the discovery of several concepts and terminologies still discussed. While there is no Nicolas Bourbaki, the Bourbaki group, officially known as the "Association des collaborateurs de Nicolas Bourbaki" (Association of Collaborators of Nicolas Bourbaki), has an office at the École Normale Supérieure in Paris. Books by Bourbaki. Bourbaki's main work is the "Elements of Mathematics (Éléments de mathématique)" series. This series aims to be a completely self-contained treatment of the core areas of modern mathematics. Assuming no special knowledge of mathematics, it tries to take up mathematics from the very beginning, proceed axiomatically and give complete proofs. and later The book "Variétés différentielles et analytiques" was a "fascicule de résultats", that is, a summary of results, on the theory of manifolds, rather than a worked-out exposition. A final volume IX on spectral theory ("Théories spectrales") from 1983 marked the presumed end of the publishing project; but a further commutative algebra fascicle was produced in 1998 and the eighth chapter of Algèbre was published in 2012. Besides the "Éléments de mathématique" series, lectures from the Séminaire Bourbaki also have been periodically published in book form since 1948. Influence on mathematics in general. Notations introduced by Bourbaki include the symbol formula_1 for the empty set and a dangerous bend symbol, and the terms "injective", "surjective", and "bijective". The emphasis on rigour may be seen as a reaction to the work of Henri Poincaré, who stressed the importance of free-flowing mathematical intuition, at a cost of completeness in presentation. The impact of Bourbaki's work initially was great on many active research mathematicians world-wide. It provoked some hostility, too, mostly on the side of classical analysts; they approved of rigour but not of high abstraction. Around 1950, also, some parts of geometry were still not fully axiomatic — in less prominent developments, one way or another, these were brought into line with the new foundational standards, or quietly dropped. This undoubtedly led to a gulf with the way theoretical physics is practiced. Bourbaki's direct influence has decreased over time. This is partly because certain concepts which are now important, such as the machinery of category theory, are not covered in the treatise. The completely uniform and essentially linear referential structure of the books became difficult to apply to areas closer to current research than the already mature ones treated in the published books, and thus publishing activity diminished significantly from the 1970s. It also mattered that, while especially algebraic structures can be naturally defined in Bourbaki's terms, there are areas where the Bourbaki approach was less straightforward to apply. On the other hand, the approach and rigour advocated by Bourbaki have permeated the current mathematical practices to such extent that the task undertaken was completed. This is particularly true for the less applied parts of mathematics. The Bourbaki seminar series founded in post-WWII Paris continues. It is an important source of survey articles, written in a prescribed, careful style. The idea is that the presentation should be on the level of specialists, but should be tailored to an audience which is "not" specialized in the particular field. The group. Accounts of the early days vary, but original documents have now come to light. The founding members were all connected to the École Normale Supérieure in Paris and included Henri Cartan, Claude Chevalley, Jean Coulomb, Jean Delsarte, Jean Dieudonné, Charles Ehresmann, René de Possel, Szolem Mandelbrojt and André Weil. There was a preliminary meeting, towards the end of 1934. Jean Leray and Paul Dubreil were present at the preliminary meeting but dropped out before the group actually formed. Other notable participants in later days were Hyman Bass, Laurent Schwartz, Jean-Pierre Serre, Alexander Grothendieck, Jean-Louis Koszul, Samuel Eilenberg, Serge Lang and Roger Godement. The original goal of the group had been to compile an improved mathematical analysis text; it was soon decided that a more comprehensive treatment of all of mathematics was necessary. There was no official status of membership, and at the time the group was quite secretive and also fond of supplying disinformation. Regular meetings were scheduled (totalling about 4 weeks a year), during which the group would discuss vigorously every proposed line of every book. Members had to resign by age 50. The atmosphere in the group can be illustrated by an anecdote told by Laurent Schwartz. Dieudonné regularly and spectacularly threatened to resign unless topics were treated in their logical order, and after a while others played on this for a joke. Godement's wife wanted to see Dieudonné announcing his resignation, and so on one occasion while she was there Schwartz deliberately brought up again the question of permuting the order in which measure theory and topological vector spaces were to be handled, to precipitate a guaranteed crisis. The name "Bourbaki" refers to a French general Charles Denis Bourbaki; it was adopted by the group as a reference to a student anecdote about a hoax mathematical lecture, and also possibly to a statue. It was certainly a reference to Greek mathematics, Bourbaki being of Greek extraction. It is a valid reading to take the name as implying a transplantation of the tradition of Euclid to a France of the 1930s, with soured expectations. Appraisal of the Bourbaki perspective. The underlying drive, in Weil and Chevalley at least, was the perceived need for French mathematics to absorb the best ideas of the Göttingen school, particularly Hilbert and the modern algebra school of Emmy Noether, Artin and van der Waerden. It is fairly clear that the Bourbaki point of view, while "encyclopedic", was never intended as "neutral". Quite the opposite: it was more a question of trying to make a consistent whole out of some enthusiasms, for example for Hilbert's legacy, with emphasis on formalism and axiomatics. But always through a transforming process of reception and selection — their ability to sustain this collective, critical approach has been described as "something unusual". The following is a list of some of the criticisms commonly made of the Bourbaki approach. Pierre Cartier, a Bourbaki member 1955–1983, commented explicitly on several of these points: "...essentially no analysis beyond the foundations: nothing about partial differential equations, nothing about probability. There is also nothing about combinatorics, nothing about algebraic topology, nothing about concrete geometry. And Bourbaki never seriously considered logic. Dieudonné himself was very vocal against logic. Anything connected with mathematical physics is totally absent from Bourbaki's text. Furthermore, Bourbaki make no use of pictures in their presentation. Pierre Cartier, in the article cited above, is quoted as later saying "The Bourbaki were Puritans, and Puritans are strongly opposed to pictorial representations of truths of their faith." In general, Bourbaki has been criticized for reducing geometry as a whole to abstract algebra and soft analysis. Dieudonné as speaker for Bourbaki. Public discussion of, and justification for, Bourbaki's thoughts has in general been through Jean Dieudonné (who initially was the 'scribe' of the group) writing under his own name. In a survey of "le choix bourbachique" written in 1977, he did not shy away from a hierarchical development of the 'important' mathematics of the time. He also wrote extensively under his own name: nine volumes on analysis, perhaps in belated fulfillment of the original project or pretext; and also on other topics mostly connected with algebraic geometry. While Dieudonné could reasonably speak on Bourbaki's encyclopedic tendency and tradition, it may be doubted—after innumerable frank "tais-toi, Dieudonné!" ("Hush, Dieudonné!") remarks at the meetings—whether all others agreed with him about mathematical writing and research. In particular Serre has often championed greater attention to problem-solving, within number theory especially, not an area treated in the main Bourbaki texts. Dieudonné stated the view that most workers in mathematics were doing ground-clearing work, in order that a future Riemann could find the way ahead intuitively open. He pointed to the way the axiomatic method can be used as a tool for problem-solving, for example by Alexander Grothendieck. Others found him too close to Grothendieck to be an unbiased observer. Comments in Pál Turán's 1970 speech on the award of a Fields Medal to Alan Baker about theory-building and problem-solving were a reply from the traditionalist camp at the next opportunity, Grothendieck having received the previous Fields Medal "in absentia" in 1966. Bourbaki's influence on mathematics education. While several of Bourbaki's books have become standard references in their fields, some have felt that the austere presentation makes them unsuitable as textbooks. The books' influence may have been at its strongest when few other graduate-level texts in current pure mathematics were available, between 1950 and 1960. In the longer term, the manifesto of Bourbaki has had a definite and deep influence. In secondary education the new math movement corresponded to teachers influenced by Bourbaki. In France the change was secured by the Lichnerowicz Commission. The influence on graduate education in pure mathematics is perhaps most noticeable in the treatment now current of Lie groups and Lie algebras. Dieudonné at one point said 'one can do nothing serious without them', for which he was reproached; but the change in Lie theory to its everyday usage owes much to the type of exposition Bourbaki championed. Beforehand Jacques Hadamard despaired of ever getting a clear idea of it.
588989	Reena Roy (born 7 January 1957) is a Hindi film actress. She performed leading roles in many films from 1972 to 1985. Early life and background. Reena Roy was the third daughter of a Muslim father and a Hindu mother. Her parents divorced after having four children together. She started acting in films in her early teens. She disputed reports that her decision to enter films was to financially support her mother and siblings. Career. Reena Roy's career in films started off with a non-starter, B. R. Ishara's Nai Duniya Naye Log with another newcomer Danny Denzongpa, but it was shelved temporarily. Undeterred, B. R. Ishara cast both actors again in Zaroorat (1972), along with another newcomer Vijay Arora, and the racy film got her some attention. She was now called the "Zaroorat Girl." Yet, she struggled for the next four years in B grade films that had feeble scripts and faltering leading men. The bright spot during this period came with her lively performance in Jaise Ko Taisa (1973), and her rain-soaked dance to the song "Ab ke Sawan" with Jeetendra raised temperatures. Another break came after two years. At the outset Kalicharan (1975) didn't seem like it had the makings of a hit. Subhash Ghai, a failed actor, was making his directorial debut, and Shatrughan Sinha, an actor known for his villainous roles, was making his first mark as a hero. But the film defied everyone's expectations and became a surprise hit. Reena and Shatrughan got attention from audiences for their good performances, and became a famous team as they signed several films together, like Subhash Ghai's Vishwanath (1978), a blockbuster thriller. The press also publicized their off-screen relationship, which ended when Shatrughan married a former actress named Poonam in 1981. Reena Roy also made several films with Sunil Dutt. The successes of Zakhmee (1975) and Kalicharan led to her star vehicle "Nagin" (1976). Playing the title role of "female snake with mythological powers", she avenges the death of her lover by ruthlessly murdering five men. The film became a huge hit, and Reena received her first Filmfare nomination as Best Actress. She was now one of the top heroines in Hindi films. Inspired by "Nagin"'s success, director, Rajkumar Kohli, cast Reena again in his next horror movie, "Jaani Dushman" (1979). Thereafter, the Kohli-Roy combination continued to give blockbusters, including "Muqabla" (1979), "Badle Ki Aag" (1982), and "Raaj Tilak" (1984). But it was Reena's appearance with Jeetendra in marital dramas like "Badaltey Rishtey" (1978) and "Pyaasa Sawan" (1982) that set her career soaring. The duo produced three of their greatest classics together - Apnapan (1977), Aasha (1980) and Arpan (1983). Her role in Apnapan as the selfish gold-digger who abandons her husband and child and later wanting her son back, won her the Filmfare Best Supporting Actress Award, beating out top actresses Nutan, Asha Parekh, and Rekha. (This was the precursor to the type of role that Meryl Streep played two years "later" in Kramer vs. Kramer (1979)). After the box office success of Aasha for which she received her second Filmfare nomination as Best Actress, Reena entered the 1980s as a leading lady in demand, securing herself roles with famous movie star like Rajesh Khanna, Dharmendra, and Vinod Khanna.
1059217	Wayne Eliot Knight (born August 7, 1955) is an American actor, comedian, and voice actor best known for his roles as Newman in the TV sitcom "Seinfeld", and Officer Don Orville in "3rd Rock from the Sun". His other prominent roles include Dennis Nedry in "Jurassic Park", Stan Podolak in "Space Jam", Al McWhiggin in "Toy Story 2", Tantor in "Tarzan", Zack Mallozzi in "Rat Race", Mr. Blik in "Catscratch", and Haskell Lutz in "The Exes". Early life and education. Knight was born in New York City, New York on August 7, 1955, the son of William "Bill" Knight, a textile factory supervisor, and his wife. His father moved the family to Cartersville, Georgia, where he worked in the textile industry. Knight went to local schools and was a lineman on his high school's football team. He was an undergraduate at the University of Georgia. Early career. Although an honor student, Knight left college when still one credit shy of a degree to pursue his acting career. He gained an internship at the Barter Theatre in Abingdon, Virginia, which produced repertory works year-round. After an internship, he joined the company and gained standing as an Equity actor, leaving to go to New York City. Two years later, he had his first role on Broadway. Career. Knight has had prominent film roles, such as in "JFK" (1991), directed by Oliver Stone, and in "Basic Instinct" (1992), where he took part in a notable interrogation scene. He was the first person to be cast in "Jurassic Park" after the director Steven Spielberg saw him in the scene. Knight was cast as the bumbling overweight InGen Corporation's chief programmer for the park and spy for Biosyn, Dennis Nedry. He also appeared in "Dead Again", "To Die For", "Space Jam" and "Dirty Dancing". During the mid-to-late 1990s, Knight also played prominent supporting roles on two TV series on NBC. He played the role of the mailman Newman in "Seinfeld" ; he also played Officer Don Orville, Sally's love interest in "3rd Rock from the Sun". He had earlier appeared in "Against the Grain", featuring the then unknown Ben Affleck. He also appeared as a regular on two sketch comedy series, "The Edge" for Fox and "Assaulted Nuts" for Cinemax and Channel 4 in the UK. Knight has appeared on Broadway in the plays "Gemini", "Mastergate", Art and, most recently, in "Sweet Charity" with Christina Applegate. During filming of an episode of "Seinfeld", Knight felt what he thought to be angina pains and sought the help of a cardiologist, who said the actor was morbidly obese, had high blood pressure, and was near diabetic. Knight took on a serious program involving diet, exercise, and outside support. He eventually lost 117 pounds (53 kg). Currently, he maintains about 75–80 lb (35 kg) of that loss. Knight has done considerable voiceover work: the black cat "Mister Blik" on the Nickelodeon cartoon "Catscratch," Igor on the Fox Kids cartoon "Toonsylvania," the dragon Dojo Kanojo Cho in the Kids' WB! animated series "Xiaolin Showdown," Evil Emperor Zurg on "Buzz Lightyear of Star Command" on Toon Disney and Disney Channel; Al McWhiggin, the toy store manager of Al's Toy Barn, in "Toy Story 2;" Tantor the elephant in "Tarzan," Demetrius the shopkeeper in "Hercules," and the bug Juju on "Tak and the Power of Juju". He made guest appearances on "Billy & Mandy's Jacked-Up Halloween" as the Jack-O-Lantern and "Brandy and Mr. Whiskers" as Mr. Cantarious the snail. Knight appeared on the Pilot episode of the U.S. version of "Thank God You're Here". He made a second appearance on the last episode of the first season. He won the "Thank God You're Here" blue door award. He played the Punisher's techno sidekick Microchip in "Punisher: War Zone". Knight guest stars in "The Penguins of Madagascar" as Max the Cat in the episodes "Launchtime" and "Cat's Cradle". In 2009, Knight reprised his role as the Seinfeld character Newman for the seventh season of "Curb Your Enthusiasm". Wayne also guest starred on "" season 10, episode "Working Stiffs." Knight guest starred on a 2010 episode of Fox TV's hit drama series "Bones". He also guest-starred in the first season of the TV Land comedy series "Hot in Cleveland" (2010), and was a recurring character for season two. Knight also guest-starred on an episode of "The Whole Truth" in fall 2010. He plays an Internet-fixated couch potato in the TV Land sitcom, "The Exes". In summer 2011 he appeared in the BBC/Starz series "" as Brian Friedkin. Knight appeared as Santa in "Elf the Musical" in November 2012. He previously appeared on Broadway in Art in 1999. In 2012 Knight was featured in the romantic comedy, "She Wants Me" starring Josh Gad, Kristen Ruhlin and Hilary Duff, the film was written and directed by Rob Margolies and executive produced by Charlie Sheen. Knight is a Democrat and attended the 2012 Democratic National Convention in support of President Obama's re-election.
167466	Imogen Poots is an English actress from West London who has worked steadily since she was spotted as a novice at the age of 14. Early life. Poots was born in 1989. Both her mother and Belfast-born father, Trevor, were journalists. She was brought up in Chiswick, attending the independent Bute House Preparatory School for Girls in Brook Green, Queen's Gate School for Girls and London's Latymer Upper School. While intending to become a vet, she began spending Saturdays at an improvisation workshop in Hammersmith where there was a diverse mix of backgrounds; later saying the time at YoungBlood youth theatre group had boosted her confidence and self-esteem. She abandoned her original career aspiration after fainting at the sight of veterinary surgery during work experience. Attaining three A grades at A-Level, she won a place at the Courtauld Institute of Art, but had it deferred. Career. An agent began representing Poots after discovering her, aged 14, at a Riverside Studios youth club. Travelling to auditions in Soho by herself at the end of the school day, she had a non speaking appearance in "V for Vendetta" at 15 years old, but was largely unknown when Juan Carlos Fresnadillo cast her in "28 Weeks Later", a role that altered her perspective on developing competence beyond education. Continued bookings led to her deciding against taking up a place at the Courtauld. Poots amassed her TV and film performance résumé without attending drama school. Experience in the practice of acting is an accepted way to proficiency in America, but it is a less common career path in England. Asked about formal training, Poots said that she hadn't thought it necessary as she had been learning constantly while on set. According to Giles Hattersley, a practical apprenticeship may have served her well, as she is "compellingly natural" in front of the camera. In 2011, she was chosen by fashion house Chloé for its eponymous fragrance campaign in a commercial directed by Sofia Coppola. With credits in both British and American productions, Poots's film work includes "Solitary Man", "A Late Quartet" and "The Look of Love". 2013 has been widely predicted to become a banner year for her.
1060847	Michael Emmet Walsh (born March 22, 1935) is an American actor who has appeared in over 200 film and television productions. Life and career. Walsh was born in Ogdensburg, New York, the son of Agnes Katharine (née Sullivan) and Harry Maurice Walsh, Sr., a customs agent. He is of Irish descent. He was raised in a rural area of Vermont, and attended college at Clarkson University. He came to prominence in the 1978 crime drama, "Straight Time", in which he played a sadistic parole officer. He also had a memorable role as a crazed sniper in the Steve Martin comedy "The Jerk". One of his most well-known roles was Bryant in Ridley Scott's cult classic "Blade Runner". His most acclaimed performance, arguably, was the double-crossing private detective in "Blood Simple" (1984), for which he won the 1986 Independent Spirit Award for Best Male Lead. Walsh made occasional guest appearances on "Home Improvement" as Tim Allen's father-in-law. In 1992 he appeared as a powerful U.S. Senator in David Winning's "Killer Image", playing Michael Ironside's brother. In "Christmas with the Kranks", he played one of Allen's neighbors. He also appeared as Alex Lembeck, a motorcycle cop who appointed himself as Sandy Stockton's (Sandy Duncan) chaperone/protector on "The Sandy Duncan Show" in 1972. According to Roger Ebert's Stanton-Walsh Rule, "no movie featuring either Harry Dean Stanton or M. Emmet Walsh in a supporting role can be altogether bad." Ebert later conceded that this rule was broken by 1999's "Wild Wild West" and "Dream a Little Dream".
1062689	Armand Anthony Assante, Jr. (born October 4, 1949) is an American actor. Personal life. Assante was born in New York City, and raised in Cornwall, New York, the son of Katherine (née Healy), a music teacher and poet, and Armand Anthony Assante, Sr., a painter and artist. His father was Italian American and his mother was Irish American, and he was raised in a devoutly Roman Catholic family. Assante was married to Karen McArn from 1982 to 1994, and has two daughters, Anya and Alessandra. Career. During the 1970s, Assante was a regular on two NBC soap operas, "How to Survive a Marriage" as Johnny McGee and "The Doctors" as Dr. Mike Powers. His first film was "The Lords of Flatbush" (1974), although the title credits misspelled his last name as Assanti. A role that brought him greater attention came in 1980's "Private Benjamin" as a handsome Frenchman who becomes the love interest of a U.S. soldier played by Goldie Hawn. Assante's somewhat sinister look has made him a popular choice for tough-guy heroes, as in his starring role as private eye Mike Hammer in the film "I, the Jury" (1982) or as Mafia gangsters like that of Michael Moretti in "Sidney Sheldon's Rage of Angels". He portrayed the notorious Bugsy Siegel in a comedy, Neil Simon's "The Marrying Man" (1991), another mobster in "Hoffa" (1992) starring Jack Nicholson, and crime kingpin John Gotti in the 1996 made-for-television biopic "Gotti", for which he won his Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Miniseries or a Movie. Other notable film appearances include one as a Cuban bandleader in "The Mambo Kings" opposite Antonio Banderas and in the adaptation of the science-fiction story "Judge Dredd" with Sylvester Stallone, his co-star in two previous films. More recently he appeared in "American Gangster" (2007) with Denzel Washington and Russell Crowe. He has had a recurring guest star role in several episodes of "NCIS", playing the international arms dealer René Benoit. Outside of the U.S., he has participated in several film projects in European countries like Macedonia, Turkey, Serbia, Romania and Bulgaria. Awards and nominations. Screen Actors Guild Awards. In 2010, Assante received a star on the Italian Walk of Fame in Toronto, Canada.
585554	Pandippada is 2005 Malayalam comedy film written and directed by Rafi Mecartin, starring Dileep, Navya Nair, and Prakash Raj. Plot. Pandippada is the story of a rivalry between Pandi Durai (Prakash Raj) and Karuppayya Swami (Rajan P. Dev) who are landlords that brutally rule villages. Bhuvana Chandran (Dileep) is a 25 year old man who gets a piece of land in the same village. He has a lot of debts and in order to clear that, he has to sell this land. But Pandi Durai and Karuppayya will not allow him to sell the land. Bhuvana chandran comes to this village to check the possibilities of selling the land. Then he sees his best friend Bhasi (Harisree Ashokan) who lived there and asks for his help. Bhasi takes him to Pandu Durai whose gang he was a member of and Bhuvana joins Pandi's group. Later he falls in love with Meena (Navya Nair) who is the daughter of Karuppayya Swami. But Pandi Durai also wants to marry Meena and this makes Pandi and Bhuvana as enemies. Pandi wants to kill Bhuvana. Karuppayya fixes the marriage of Meena and Bhuvana. Pandi also fixes his marriage with Meena on the same date. In the fight that follows, Bhuvana beats up Pandi and finally gives a gun to him and asks him to shoot him if he cannot see him as a brother. Pandi realises his mistakes and forgives them both and attends their marriage. The film was remade in Telugu as Poola Rangadu directed by Veerabhadram starring Sunil and Isha Chawla in lead roles Reception. The movie ran for more than 100 days and was declared as a box office success.This once again made Dileep's movies a centre for recreation. References. Sounds: Dileep ... Bhuvana Chandran Harisree Asokan ... Bhasi Navya Nair ... Meena Prakash Raj ... Pandi Durai Cochin Haneefa... Ummachan Sukumari ... Pandi Durai's Mother T. P. Madhavan ... Bhuvanachandran's Father Indrans ... Veeramani Subbalakshmi ... Meena's Grandmother External links. Sounds:
1060568	Ladyhawke is a 1985 fantasy film directed by Richard Donner, starring Matthew Broderick, Rutger Hauer, and Michelle Pfeiffer. A thief called "The Mouse" escapes the dungeons of medieval Aquila, setting in motion a chain of events that may save or destroy a beautiful woman and a brave captain. The two lovers are doomed to lifelong separation by a demonic curse invoked by the corrupt and jealous Bishop of Aquila: by day Isabeau is transformed into a hawk, while at night Navarre becomes a wolf. Imperius, the monk who betrayed them, has found a way to break the curse, but only if he and the Mouse can get them back into Aquila to face the Bishop. Plot. In twelfth century Europe, Philippe Gaston, "The Mouse" (Broderick), is a thief facing execution who escapes the dungeons of Aquila, via the sewers, and flees to the countryside. The Bishop of Aquila (Wood) sends his Captain of the Guard Marquet (Hutchison) to hunt down Phillipe; he and his soldiers corner Philippe, but are foiled by a mysterious black knight who reveals himself to be their former Captain, Etienne of Navarre (Hauer), traveling with a beautiful and devoted hawk. Marquet warns the Bishop of Navarre's return, and the Bishop summons Cezar (Molina) the wolf trapper. Navarre tells Philippe why he saved him: he needs Philippe's unique knowledge to lead him inside Aquila to kill the Bishop. As they travel Philippe becomes aware of mysterious events surrounding them, including the appearance at night of a black wolf and a beautiful woman (Pfeiffer), who is unafraid of the wolf. Navarre and the hawk are wounded in another encounter with the Bishop's men; Navarre sends the hawk with Philippe to the old monk Imperius (McKern), to heal her. At a ruined castle Philippe finally realizes the truth, which Imperius confirms: the hawk is a woman named Isabeau d'Anjou, who came to live in Aquila after her father—the Count of Anjou—died. All who saw her fell in love with her, including the Bishop. But Isabeau was already in love with Etienne, with whom she secretly exchanged vows. Accidentally betrayed by their confessor, Imperius, they fled. In his insane jealousy the Bishop made a demonic pact to ensure they would be "Always together; eternally apart": by day Isabeau becomes a hawk, by night Navarre becomes a wolf. Neither has any memory of their half-life in animal form; only at dusk and dawn of each day can they see each other in human form for one fleeting moment, but can never touch. In despair Navarre plans to kill the Bishop or die in the attempt, making the curse irrevocable. But Imperius has discovered a way to break the curse; in three days, a solar eclipse will create "a day without a night and a night without a day": when the lovers stand together in human form before the Bishop, the curse will be broken. Soundtrack. The film's score was composed by Andrew Powell and produced by Alan Parsons. Richard Donner stated that he was listening to The Alan Parsons Project (on which Powell collaborated) while scouting for locations, and became unable to separate his visual ideas from the music. Powell combined traditional orchestral music and Gregorian chants with contemporary progressive rock-infused material, to controversial effect. It has been cited as the most memorable example of the growing trend among 1980s fantasy films of abandoning the lush orchestral scores of composers such as John Williams and James Horner in favour of a modern pop/rock sound. The soundtrack album was released in 1985 and re-released with additional tracks in 1995. Production. Kurt Russell was originally cast in the lead role but pulled out shortly before filming. Filming locations. "Ladyhawke" was filmed in Italy; the alpine meadow of Campo Imperatore-Abruzzo served as a prominent exterior location, while the monk scene was filmed at Rocca Calascio, a ruined fortress on top of a mountain. In the region of Emilia-Romagna, the village of Castell'Arquato in Piacenza and castle of Torrechiara in Parma (the castle of the movie) were also featured. Other Italian locations used include Soncino in the Lombardia region, Belluno in the Veneto region, and the Lazio region around Viterbo. Critical reception. "Ladyhawke" has a rating of 67% on Rotten Tomatoes, based on 18 critics' reviews, indicating a fairly positive critical reception. Vincent Canby in the "New York Times" called the film "divided against itself," and went on to say that "scenes of high adventure or of visual splendor... are spliced between other scenes with dialogue of a banality that recalls the famous Tony Curtis line, 'Yondah lies my faddah's castle.'" "Time Out" called it "all rather facile sword-and-sorcery stuff, of course, but at times very funny... and always beautifully photographed." "Variety" described the film as a "very likeable, very well-made fairytale... worthwhile for its extremely authentic look alone."
1055658	Peta Gia Wilson (born 18 November 1970) is an Australian actress and model. She is best known as Nikita in the television series "La Femme Nikita". Biography. Early life. Wilson was born in Sydney on 18 November 1970. She is the daughter of the caterer Karlene White Wilson and Darcy Wilson, a former warrant officer in the Australian Army. She spent several years in Papua New Guinea, when her father was stationed there. Her parents' marriage came to an end in 1982. Career. Wilson worked first as a model in Australia and in Europe, before she moved to Los Angeles in 1991 to study acting with Arthur Mendoza at the Actors Circle Theatre and with Tom Waits at the TomKat Repertory Group. After some education in acting, Wilson was hired for some small roles in independent films, such as in "Loser" and in "One of Our Own". Then, in 1996, Wilson was preparing to continue her studies at an acting school in New York City, but she decided to audition first for a new television show to be produced for the USA cable TV channel in North America. From a field of just over 200 aspiring actresses who auditioned for the starring role, the new program's producers chose to offer the job to Wilson, and she accepted. This new show was called "La Femme Nikita", based on the French movie "Nikita". Each episode was one hour long, and the series was produced by a combination of Canadian and American companies. The show ran for five years and 96 episodes on the USA network. There were 22 episodes per season for four years, and another eight episodes in its fifth and final TV year. Most of the episodes of "La Femme Nikita" were filmed in and around the city of Toronto, Ontario. Wilson's co-stars in this TV series were the actors Roy Dupuis, Don Francks, Alberta Watson and Eugene Robert Glazer, and for her acting in "La Femme Nikita", Wilson was nominated twice for the annual Gemini Award for "Best Performance by An Actress in a Continuing Leading Dramatic Role", though she did not win. In 2001 Wilson took part in the International Film Festival in Moscow, where she met with Russian president Vladimir Putin, who confessed to being a fan of hers. In the realm of major motion pictures, Wilson collaborated with the Scottish actor Sean Connery in 2002–3 during the production of "The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen". She played the role of the vampire Mina Harker, and Connery played Allan Quatermain. She also portrayed real-life actress Anny Ondra in the television movie "Joe and Max" (2002). During 2006, Wilson had a small role in the movie "Superman Returns" as the character "Bobbie-Faye", a spokeswoman for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration of the United States. In 2013 she won the Best Actress Award at the Cinerockom International Film Festival for her performance as CIA spook Marla Criswell in a short called "Liberator". Personal life. Wilson lived with her long-time boyfriend, Damian Harris, from 1997 until their separation in 2002. They are the parents of one son, Marlowe Harris-Wilson, who was born in February 2002.
1162142	David Alan Basche (born August 25, 1968) is an American actor. Life and career. Basche was born in Hartford, Connecticut. His first acting role was in a school production of "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer" when he was in the sixth grade at West Hartford's Norfeldt Elementary School. Basche, who describes his demeanor then as an "angry, smart-ass kid," tried out for and landed the lead role after a school counselor suggested he take up acting to channel some of his anger and emotion. Basche appeared in several plays presented by the Greater Hartford Jewish Community Center while he was a student at King Philip Middle School, and he had roles in 10 school plays during his four years at William H. Hall High School in West Hartford. Basche then went on to Emerson College, starting out as a communications major before switching to performing arts. His first major exposure was starring in "Oh Grow Up", a short-lived sitcom created by Alan Ball. He later played the role of Steven Keats for two seasons in the NBC sitcom "Three Sisters". He appeared in the 2005 motion picture "War of the Worlds" in the role of Tim, the stepfather of Dakota Fanning and Justin Chatwin's characters. In 2006 he played Todd Beamer in "United 93". David landed the lead role in 2007's I'll Believe You, a family-friendly sci-fi comedy. In 2008 he was "Mike Harness" in "Lipstick Jungle" on NBC for two seasons, and simultaneously played "Kenny Kagan" on "The Starter Wife" on USA. In 2010 he guest starred on ', "White Collar", ' and "The Mentalist". David is currently starring in the third season of TV Land original series "The Exes", which premiered on Wednesday, November 30, 2011, at 10:30PM. Personal life. Basche is married to the actress Alysia Reiner; they met during a summer stock production of Shakespeare's "Twelfth Night". The couple has a daughter, Livia Charles Basche, born December 5, 2008. David has a tattoo on left wrist that says "There Is No Perfect".
1055354	Away We Go is a 2009 comedy-drama directed by Academy Award-winning director Sam Mendes and written by the husband-and-wife team of Dave Eggers and Vendela Vida. The film stars John Krasinski, Maya Rudolph, Allison Janney, Catherine O'Hara, Jeff Daniels, Paul Schneider, Carmen Ejogo, Chris Messina, Melanie Lynskey, Josh Hamilton, Jim Gaffigan, and Maggie Gyllenhaal.
567552	"Babette's Feast" () is a 1987 Danish drama film directed by Gabriel Axel. The film's screenplay was written by Axel based on the story by Isak Dinesen (Karen Blixen). Produced by Just Betzer, Bo Christensen, and Benni Korzen with funding from the Danish Film Institute, "Babette's Feast" was the first Danish cinema film of a Blixen story. It was also the first Danish film to win the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. The film was screened in the Un Certain Regard section at the 1987 Cannes Film Festival. Plot. The elderly and pious Christian sisters Martine (Birgitte Federspiel) and Philippa (Bodil Kjer) live in a small village on the remote western coast of Jutland in 19th-century Denmark. Their father was a pastor who founded his own Christian sect. With their father now dead, and the austere sect drawing no new converts, the aging sisters preside over a dwindling congregation of white-haired believers. The story flashes back 49 years, showing the sisters in their youth. The beautiful girls have many suitors, but their father rejects them all, and indeed marriage.
1163475	Mary Tyler Moore (born December 29, 1936) is an American actress, primarily known for her roles in television sitcoms. Moore is best known for "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" (1970–77), in which she starred as Mary Richards, a 30-something single woman who worked as a local news producer in Minneapolis, and for her earlier role as Laura Petrie (Dick Van Dyke's wife) on "The Dick Van Dyke Show" (1961–66). She also appeared in a number of films, most notably 1980's "Ordinary People", in which she played a role that was very different from the television characters she had portrayed, and for which she was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress. Moore has also been active in charity work and various political causes, particularly around the issues of animal rights and Diabetes mellitus type 1. Mary Tyler Moore was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes early in the run of "The Mary Tyler Moore Show", and also dealt with alcoholism, which was treated in the 1980s. In May 2011, Moore underwent elective brain surgery to remove a benign meningioma. Early life. Mary Tyler Moore was born in the Brooklyn Heights section of Brooklyn, New York, to George Tyler Moore, a clerk, and his wife Marjorie (née Hackett). Her father was Roman Catholic and her mother a Catholic convert. Mary was the eldest of three siblings., and their home was in Flushing, Queens. Her maternal grandparents were immigrants from England. Her paternal great-grandfather, Lieutenant Colonel Lewis Tilghman Moore, owned the house which is now Stonewall Jackson's Headquarters Museum. Moore's family moved to Los Angeles when she was eight years old. She attended Saint Rose of Lima, a Catholic school in Brooklyn, followed by St. Ambrose School (Los Angeles) and the Immaculate Heart High School (Los Feliz). Career. Television. At the age of 17, Moore aspired to be a dancer. She started her career as "Happy Hotpoint", a tiny elf dancing on Hotpoint appliances in TV commercials during the 1950s series "Ozzie and Harriet". She appeared in 39 TV commercials in five days, ultimately earning about $6,000 from her first job. Her time as "Happy Hotpoint" ended when it became difficult to conceal her pregnancy in the dancing elf costume. Moore modeled anonymously on the covers of a number of record albums and auditioned for the role of the older daughter of Danny Thomas for his long-running TV show, but was turned down. Much later, Thomas explained that "no daughter of mine could have that nose."
756978	Roderick "Roddy" George Toombs (born April 17, 1954), better known by his ring name "Rowdy" Roddy Piper, is a Canadian retired professional wrestler, film actor, and podcast host signed to WWF. In professional wrestling, he is best known for his work with WWF. Although he is Canadian, due to his Scottish heritage he was billed as coming from Glasgow in Scotland and was known for his signature kilt and bagpipe entrance music. He earned the nickname "Rowdy" by displaying his trademark "Scottish" rage, spontaneity and quick wit. Despite being a crowd favorite for his rockstar-like persona, he often played the villain. He was also nicknamed "Hot Rod". Never a world champion, he headlined several major pay-per-view events and accumulated 34 championships in various promotions during his career. Piper was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame in 2005. Piper briefly hosted a podcast titled ""The Rod Pod"". Early life. Toombs was born in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan and raised in Winnipeg, Manitoba. He is of Scottish (father's side) and Irish (mother's side) descent. He attended Windsor Park Collegiate. His father was an officer with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police while they lived in The Pas, Manitoba. After being expelled from junior high and having a falling out with his father, Piper hit the road and stayed in youth hostels wherever he could find them and picking up odd jobs at local gyms running errands for several pro wrestlers. As a young man Roddy became proficient in playing the bagpipes, though he has repeatedly stated that he's unsure exactly where he picked them up. His childhood (and now lifelong) best friend is ex NHL player and Stanley Cup winner Cam Connor. Professional wrestling career. By the age of 14, he made his pro debut in Winnipeg, against Larry Hennig. When Roddy made his way to the ring playing the bagpipes (his gimmick) the ring-announcer introduced him as "Roddy the Piper", the fans in attendance heard it as "Roddy Piper" and the name stuck. Piper lost the match in ten seconds. He was a boxer and an amateur wrestler before he started to become a pro wrestler. He won the Golden Gloves boxing championship. He was awarded a Black Belt in Judo from Gene LeBell, American Judo champion, instructor, stuntman, and professional wrestler. American Wrestling Association (1973–1975). From 1973 to 1975, Piper was a jobber in the AWA, Kansas City, the Maritimes, and Texas working for Paul Boesch's NWA Houston Wrestling promotion and in Dallas working for Fritz Von Erich's Big Time Rasslin. What was supposed to be a brief run in California, however, turned out to be a long term stint as booker Leo Garibaldi and publicist Jeff Walton were impressed with Piper and saw the money making possibilities he had as a villain. National Wrestling Alliance (1975–1980). By late 1975 and early 1976, Piper was a top villain for Mike and Gene LeBell's NWA Hollywood Wrestling. In 1977–78, he also started to work for Roy Shire's NWA San Francisco Wrestling in addition to remaining with the L.A. office. Los Angeles was where Piper developed his Rowdy character and became one of the most hated villains in Los Angeles since the days of Classy Freddy Blassie. During this time, he made continuous insults directed at the area's Mexican community; he later promised to amend by playing the Mexican national anthem on his bagpipes only to anger the fans further by playing "La Cucaracha" instead. Piper also served as manager for several villains in Los Angeles and worked as a referee from time to time. Piper feuded with all the fan favorites in the area and had a long feud with Chavo Guerrero, Sr.. As part of the L.A. storyline, Roddy Piper feuded with Chavo and the whole Guerrero family for about three years in the L.A. territory going so far as to routinely wear a T-Shirt to the ring reading "Conqueror of the Guerreros". The feud started during a TV bout in early 1976 where Chavo was defending the Jules Strongbow Memorial Scientific Trophy against Piper. Late in this match, Gory Guerrero (who had been in Chavo's corner giving him advice throughout the match) was slapped by Piper. Chavo "lost his cool" and starting punching Piper, getting DQ'ed and losing the Scientific Trophy for "breaking the rules". A short time later, Piper then defeated Chavo for the Americas Heavyweight Title; the two competed in the top feud in Los Angeles for the better part of three years. They main evented against each other often during this era (1976 through 1978). The hair match gimmick was one of the top stipulations between these two, resulting in Piper getting his head shaved. Another top stipulation was when Chavo beat Piper in a loser leave town match and Piper immediately reappeared as The Masked Canadian. In his first televised match as The Masked Canadian, Piper actually teamed with Chavo to battle the Americas Tag Team Champions (Gordman and Goliath) and Piper turned on Chavo late in the match, causing Chavo to get pinned. Piper wrestled as The Masked Canadian for several months until he was unmasked by Hector Guerrero. By late 1978-early 1979, Buddy Rose talked Piper into leaving the California promotions for even more fame in Don Owen’s Pacific Northwest Territory where he teamed with Killer Tim Brooks, Rick Martel, and Mike Popovich to win the NWA Pacific Northwest Tag Team Championship. Piper also won the NWA Pacific Northwest Heavyweight Championship with victories over both Lord Jonathan Boyd and "Playboy" Buddy Rose. Georgia Championship Wrestling and Mid-Atlantic (1980–1983). In late 1970s, Piper ventured to the Mid-Atlantic territory. He beat Jack Brisco for the Mid-Atlantic title and Ric Flair for the US belt which turned into a huge feud. From 1981-82, Piper served as an arrogant commentator on Georgia Championship Wrestling (which would we be renamed World Championship Wrestling in July) and feuded with the likes of Bob Armstrong, Dick Slater, and Tommy Rich. On TV, Piper often spoke highly of evil manager Gary Hart, calling him the one man who may have a higher IQ than him. During the summer of 1982, Piper became a fan favorite after knocking out Don Muraco and Ole Anderson, and famously saving broadcast partner Gordon Solie from Muraco, who grew angry at Solie questioning his tactics. Piper would battle Abdullah the Butcher after Ole brought him in to take down Piper, who heard the cheers of the fans but admitted he was no "goody two-shoes" and still did things his way. Piper would then leave Georgia for the Mid-Atlantic territory. Piper returned to the Georgia area in the summer of 1983 to aid Tommy Rich against Buzz Sawyer. In 1982, due to showing up late for a match, he was fired and reportedly blackballed from the Georgia territory. Piper maintains this in his book, but others dispute this. He did receive an offer from Gary Hart to go to World Class Championship Wrestling but the money was not good enough. Instead, he went to Puerto Rico for a month or so and was able to get booked by Jim Barnett shortly thereafter. In "Wrestling to Rasslin"', Gerald W. Morton and George M. O'Brien described the transformation: "the drama finally played itself out on television when one of his [Piper's] hired assassins, Don Muraco, suddenly attacked the commentator Gordon Solie. Seeing Solie hurt, Piper unleashed his Scottish fury on Muraco. In the week that followed, like Achilles avenging Patroklas, he slaughtered villain after villain... In the arenas fans chanted his name throughout his matches." Eventually, Piper moved back to Jim Crockett Promotions. As a fan favorite, Piper feuded with Sgt. Slaughter, Ric Flair, and Greg Valentine. Piper's feud with Valentine culminated in a dog collar match at the first Starrcade. Valentine broke Piper's left eardrum during the match with the collar's chain, causing Piper to permanently lose fifty percent of his hearing. World Wrestling Federation. Piper told Arda Ocal of The Score Television Network in an interview that before entering the World Wrestling Federation full-time in 1984, Piper had a match with the WWWF under Vince McMahon Sr in the mid 70s at Madison Square Garden. As a rib to Piper, Freddie Blassie stuffed his bagpipes with toilet paper, so they wouldn't play in front of the Garden crowd. Piper was not invited back for several years. 1984–1987. Heel run. Around this time World Wrestling Federation (WWF) owner Vince McMahon contacted Piper, who insisted on serving out his contract with Jim Crockett. Piper started in the WWF in late 1983 and at the same time fulfilled dates with Crockett. On his way out of Crockett's promotion he became a heel, which set the stage for his WWF run in 1984. He started as a manager at first, due to the injuries he sustained during his dog collar match with Greg Valentine, but soon started wrestling full-time. Piper came in as the manager for "Dr. D" David Schultz and "Mr. Wonderful" Paul Orndorff, and soon began to wrestle with Orndorff as well. Later that year, he was given his own interview segment called "Piper's Pit", in which he talked to other superstars and which frequently ended in a fight between Piper and his guest. The "Piper's Pit" segments helped create the feuds Piper had with other wrestlers. According to Piper's autobiography, "Piper's Pit" was completely unscripted and was in fact so popular that it was taken on the road. In addition to pleasing many of his fans who wanted to see the Pit in person, it accomplished other things: it gave Piper the opportunity to heal some nagging injuries while still retaining his heat with the fans. An early guest on "Piper's Pit" was his Mid-Atlantic nemesis Valentine, who also arrived to the WWF. In a rare occurrence for WWF programming at the time, the two made reference to their history in the rival organization and hinted at rekindling it, but as the two were now top villains, they both agreed that they had mutual respect for each other, and it was left at that. In one "Piper's Pit", Piper had an interview with Jimmy Snuka. Piper started insulting Snuka's Polynesian heritage by bringing out pineapples, bananas, and dropping coconuts onto the table; this was to make Snuka "feel at home" in an act of "remorse" after Snuka was not given much time to speak the previous times he was on "Piper's Pit". Snuka took offense to this and Piper then attacked Snuka by smashing him over the head with a coconut and shoving a banana in his face. He followed this up by whipping Snuka with his belt. Snuka was legitimately knocked woozy allowing Piper to leave before Snuka, now seriously enraged, could fight back. This incident led to a long feud between the two. Piper also insulted Bruno Sammartino during a "Piper's Pit" which led to a feud between the two, ending in a steel cage match which Piper lost. Another feud, this time between Piper and Hulk Hogan erupted soon after and became what was at the time the highest-profile feud in wrestling history, thanks to the involvement of pop singer Cyndi Lauper, where Piper kicked Lauper in the head—and even attacked Captain Lou Albano—with Hogan seeking revenge as a result. In 1985, MTV broadcast "The War to Settle the Score", featuring a main-event matchup between Piper and Hogan, who was accompanied to the ring by Albano, Lauper, and Mr. T. This event set up the very first WrestleMania, which pitted Piper and Paul Orndorff against Hogan and Mr. T. Orndorff was pinned by Hogan when Piper's bodyguard "Cowboy" Bob Orton interfered and mistakenly struck Orndorff instead of Hogan with his trademark "injured" arm covered in a plaster cast. In "Born to Controversy", Piper recalled how he had to keep Mr. T busy with tie-ups and other shoot wrestling moves to keep Mr. T's lack of wrestling ability from being seen by the fans, thus ruining the match. From this situation, Piper and Mr. T's real-life relationship became hostile, leading to the inevitable conclusion that they be put into a feud with one another. It was on Right After Wrestling in March 2011, hosted by Arda Ocal and Jimmy Korderas, that Piper explained why WrestleMania didn't feature a 1-on-1 main event. He said it was because that match happened at the War to Settle the Score, before the WrestleMania event actually happened. Piper once again faced Mr. T, this time alone, in a boxing match at WrestleMania 2 in 1986. Piper lost the match by disqualification after bodyslamming Mr. T. Face run. Following a leave of absence from the WWF, Piper returned during a TV taping on "WWF Superstars" in 1986 against jobber A.J. Petrucci and received a thunderous ovation from the audience. After being slapped in the face by Petrucci twice, Piper placed one hand behind his back and beat his opponent to a pulp. During Piper's 1986 face run, Piper's Pit played key roles in two storylines memorable to fans: Piper's feud with Adrian Adonis, and the set-up of the Hulk Hogan-André the Giant match at WrestleMania III. In the Piper-Adonis feud, the returning Piper was distressed to find his "Piper's Pit" segment replaced by "The Flower Shop", a segment hosted by Adonis, who was using an effeminate-wrestler gimmick. Piper spent weeks crashing Adonis' show and trading insults, leading to a "showdown" between the two segments that ended with Piper being assaulted and humiliated by Adonis, Piper's former bodyguard Orton (now in Adonis' employ), and Don Muraco. The trio left Piper with his face covered in red lipstick lying in the middle of the remnants of the "Piper's Pit" set, which had been destroyed. In response, Piper stormed the set of Adonis' show and destroyed it with a baseball bat. This led to their Hair vs Hair match at WrestleMania III, which was billed as Piper's retirement match from wrestling before he left to become an actor full-time. Piper won the match with the assistance of Brutus "The Barber" Beefcake, who had been sheared by Adonis shortly before the match. The first Piper's Pit used to build up the Hogan-André feud came when Hogan was invited on the show to receive a trophy for being the WWF Champion for three years. Shortly after presenting Hogan with the trophy, André – Hogan's "long-time friend" – came out to congratulate Hogan, but closed the segment by simply stating: "Three years to be world champion...it's a long time." After saying this, Andre went to shake Hogan's hand, apparently placing a little too much pressure causing Hogan to wince in pain. The following week, Hogan attempted to return the favor by presenting Andre with a trophy for being undefeated for 15 years, and unwittingly took over the interview. Although the attempt was sincere, Andre couldn't help but notice that the trophy was noticeably smaller than the one Hogan received the week before, and grew irritated when Hogan became the focal point of the spotlight once again. As Hogan was attempting to congratulate Andre, the Frenchman abruptly stormed off the Pit set. The following week, Piper attempted to get some answers and Jesse "The Body" Ventura interrupted the segment, agreeing with Piper that something was amiss in the Hogan/Andre situation; both Ventura and Piper held true to promises to bring Andre and Hogan, respectively, onto the show the following week. On that subsequent program, Hogan was stunned when André appeared with his long-time nemesis, Bobby "The Brain" Heenan, at his side; Hogan pleaded with André to explain why Heenan was at his side, and André replied simply, "I'm here for one reason, to challenge you to a world championship match at Wrestlemania." Hogan attempted to keep the peace, only to have Heenan order André to attack Hogan to show how serious he was in his challenge; André responded by ripping off Hogan's shirt and gold crucifix necklace, leaving Hogan in hurt and shock and with Piper of all people trying to console his former enemy. In the process of tearing off Hogan's shirt, André's fingernail accidentally scratched Hogan's skin, causing Hogan to bleed, leading Piper to tell Hogan, "You're bleeding." Piper then brought Hogan back the following week to get Hogan to respond to André's challenge. When Hogan sidestepped the issue for several minutes, Piper put it to him bluntly: "Yes or no? Are you or are you not going to face André the Giant for the WWF championship at Wrestlemania? YES OR NO?!!" Hogan paused for a brief second only to respond with a thunderous "YES!" 1989–1996. Piper returned from a hiatus with a live "Piper's Pit" at WrestleMania V, where he hosed down a smoking Morton Downey, Jr. with a fire extinguisher. After this, Piper began co-hosting Prime Time Wrestling with Gorilla Monsoon, providing a change of pace from the constant bickering that was caused between Monsoon and Bobby Heenan during Heenan's tenure. Heenan insisted on having his own show opposite Prime Time called "The Bobby Heenan Show". Which was basically used as a catalyst to insult Piper and Monsoon after leaving "Prime Time" on bad terms. Eventually, Heenan's comments began to irritate Piper and Piper finally told Heenan to either "put up or shut up." Shortly after this, Heenan brought "Ravishing" Rick Rude into the mix by inviting him to his show to further insult Piper. The feud reached the physical level when Piper made an appearance on "The Brother Love Show" to address his position on the matter. Brother Love provoked Piper for several minutes by questioning his courage and ring ability. Piper finally had enough and told Love he had bad hygiene. When Love questioned Piper for bringing this up, Piper pulled out a small bag of toiletries and began dousing Love with toothpaste and mouthwash. Rude made his move during this moment and attacked Piper from behind, eventually spewing mouthwash into his eyes rendering him temporarily blind. This eventually brought Piper's return to the ring full-circle as Piper interfered in Rude's Intercontinental Title defense against The Ultimate Warrior at SummerSlam '89, costing Rude the belt. Rude vowed revenge and the two engaged in a very physical and violent feud that lasted the rest of the year. The feud finally came to an end when Piper defeated Rude in a match where the stipulation stated that if Piper won, Heenan would have to dress as Santa Claus for an episode of "Prime Time". Piper was victorious, and Heenan was forced to dress as Claus the following week. Initially, Heenan seemed pleased with portraying Santa and even went so far as to imitate Claus and wish everyone a Merry Christmas. However, as the show progressed, Heenan's true motives were revealed as he began to call Christmas "a sham", and that the children of the world had been "scammed" by their parents. Piper snapped and attacked Heenan, ignoring pleas from Monsoon to stop the attack due to Piper's agreement to abstain from physicality on the "Prime Time" set. Piper refused, and in turn, was fired from "Prime Time." Piper also wrestled Bad News Brown at WrestleMania VI in 1990. The match ended with both men being counted out of the ring, but the real highlight of the match was Piper's choice of ring attire. In true 'Rowdy' fashion, Piper cut a promo and came to the ring with half his body painted black in a strange attempt to play head games with Bad News. In 1991, he supported Virgil in his feud against "The Million Dollar Man" Ted DiBiase and was present at their matches at WrestleMania VII and SummerSlam. He also renewed his feud with Ric Flair and at the 1992 Royal Rumble defeated The Mountie for his first, and only, Intercontinental Championship. He lost it soon after to Bret Hart at WrestleMania VIII. After playing the bagpipes at SummerSlam, he disappeared from the WWF. He reemerged in 1994 at WrestleMania X as guest referee for the WWF Championship match between Bret Hart and Yokozuna. During the match, commentator Jerry "The King" Lawler remarked that he hated Piper and continued to taunt Piper on his "King's Court" segment on "Monday Night Raw", eventually culminating with Lawler bringing out a skinny teenager in a Piper T-shirt and kilt and forcing him to kiss his feet. Enraged, Piper agreed to wrestle Lawler at the King of the Ring, where Piper emerged victorious. Piper wrestled as a fan favorite, saying he had "made a mess of most of his career as a heel", and adding to the face attitude by donating part of his purse from the fight with Lawler to a children's hospital in Ontario. Leaving the WWF again, he soon returned in 1995 at WrestleMania XI, once again in a referee capacity, for the submission-only match between Hart and Bob Backlund. In 1996, Piper was named as interim WWF President, following Vader's malicious assault on Gorilla Monsoon, following the Royal Rumble. As president, Piper had become the object of affection for Goldust.(Originally the storyline match was set for OJ Simpson to face Roddy, but the creative team thought that was a bad idea). Enraged, Piper claimed he would "make a man" out of Goldust at WrestleMania XII, in a "Hollywood Backlot Brawl." While the contest began in an alleyway behind the Arrowhead Pond, Goldust jumped into his gold Cadillac and ran Piper over, ultimately escaping (allegedly) onto the highways of Anaheim. Piper pursued in his white Ford Bronco, which when viewed from aerial footage looked similar to the O. J. Simpson "low-speed" chase from two years prior (the WWF had attempted to be humorous and recycle the footage with Vince McMahon quipping on commentary, "This footage looks awfully familiar"). The two eventually returned to the arena, where Piper disrobed Goldust in the ring, effectively ending the confrontation. With Gorilla Monsoon back in control of the WWF by the end of the night, Piper once again left the Federation. World Championship Wrestling (1996–2000). Later in 1996, Piper joined World Championship Wrestling (WCW). He appeared at Halloween Havoc to "break Hogan's monotony." In his first appearance, Piper asked Hogan, "Do you think fans would've loved you so much, if they hadn't hated me?" Piper and Hogan wrestled in a non-title match in the main event of Starrcade, WCW's biggest pay-per-view event of the year. Piper defeated Hogan with a sleeper hold. Piper faced Hogan in a title match at SuperBrawl VII. This time, Hogan beat Piper when Randy Savage interfered and joined the New World Order (nWo). Promos showed Piper locking himself in the Alcatraz prison and vigorously exercising in order to prepare for the highly anticipated match. During the spring of 1997, Piper joined forces with Ric Flair and The Four Horsemen in their battle with the nWo. Shortly thereafter, Piper and Flair feuded before Piper disappeared from the scene. Piper briefly returned in October 1997 to face Hogan once again in a steel cage match, which Piper did win. In early 1998, Piper once again returned to feud with Hulk Hogan, Randy Savage, and Bret Hart. In early 1999, Piper had a short run as United States Champion, became WCW Commissioner, and resumed his feud with Flair over control of WCW. Piper also had a short feud with Buff Bagwell in the summer of 1999, where he was defeated by Bagwell, whose mother got involved. In late 1999, Piper was featured on WCW Television, in an angle with Vince Russo, who was now portraying himself as the "Powers That Be" (an unseen power that was controlling WCW). At Starrcade, Piper was the special referee in the WCW title match featuring Goldberg and Bret Hart. This match was otherwise notorious for Goldberg legitimately injuring Bret Hart, giving him the concussion that would eventually lead to his retirement. Forced by Russo, Piper called for the bell when Hart locked in the Sharpshooter on Goldberg, when it was apparent that Goldberg had not submitted. Piper apologized for this incident the next night on "Nitro" and attempted to make the save for Goldberg when Bret Hart and the nWo beat him down, but the nWo also attacked Piper. The feud between Piper and the Powers That Be ended shortly after and Piper disappeared. Piper's last appearance in WCW was at SuperBrawl in February 2000 where he was a surprise referee in the title match between Sid Vicious, Jeff Jarrett and Scott Hall. In the fall of 2000, WCW terminated Piper's contract, and the organization ceased to exist after being sold to WWF in March 2001. Before going to the WWE in 2003 Piper was the figurehead and commissioner of the now defunct XWF promotion featured in its earliest live events. (Indiana, Milwaukee, Green Bay) World Wrestling Entertainment (2003). In November 2002, Piper's autobiography, "In the Pit with Piper: Roddy Gets Rowdy", was released. At WrestleMania XIX in Seattle, Washington, Piper ran in during the Hulk Hogan-Vince McMahon match and made his second WWE run as a villain by attacking Hogan with a steel pipe. He brought back "Piper's Pit" on the April 10 episode of "SmackDown!", and after aligning with Sean O'Haire, Piper smashed a coconut over the head of Rikishi, a relative of Snuka. At Backlash that month, Rikishi returned the favor to Piper. Piper was then put in a program against "Mr. America". The storyline was Hulk Hogan had been bought off WWF television forever by McMahon. Hulk Hogan returned "incognito" although the joke was that everybody knew who he really was, which infuriated McMahon. At this point, Piper and O'Haire were portrayed as McMahon's lackeys attempting to unmask Mr. America. Despite Piper being a heel he still got cheered due to being a legend. Around the same time on "Raw", Chris Jericho started "The Highlight Reel"—a show similar to 'Piper's Pit'. The two even verbally sparred on TV, with Jericho calling Piper fat and telling him to call him "when he lost some weight"; Piper's retorted, "I have seen Chris Jericho wrestle. I have heard Chris Jericho talk. I have even heard Chris Jericho sing. So I'll make you a deal: I promise you that when I lose some weight, I'll call you. And when you get some talent, you call me." At Judgment Day, the two met again, with Jericho telling Piper he made a wrong turn and missed the senior's home and alluding to the incident where Piper ripped off a fan's (later revealed to be Zach Gowen) leg and used it as a weapon, mentioning there were some midgets and lepers he could thrash, and while patting Piper's stomach, asked if he ate the leg. Piper responded by blasting him for ripping off the Piper's Pit idea and drilling it into the ground and called Jericho's birth an "accident". In June 2003, WWE decided to stop using Piper (who was working without a contract at the time) after a controversial interview with HBO's "Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel" in which Piper discussed the darker side of the wrestling business. On his 2006 DVD, Piper claimed that HBO took parts of his interviews out of context to make wrestling look worse. Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (2003–2005). In 2003, Piper appeared for the Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (TNA) promotion, hosting several "In the Pit with Piper" interview segments. He interviewed former rival Jimmy Snuka at the company's first three-hour pay-per-view, Victory Road, where he dared Snuka to get revenge by hitting him with a coconut. Instead, TNA wrestler Kid Kash eventually used the coconut on Sonjay Dutt. Piper also served as a member of the National Wrestling Alliance Championship Committee, culminating in refereeing a match at Final Resolution between Scott Hall and Jeff Hardy. The Vince Russo/TNA Controversy. One of Piper's more controversial TNA moments came during one of its weekly pay-per-view shows. Vince Russo at the time was at the center of a massive power struggle (kayfabe) between the TNA roster and Russo's stable of young wrestlers called Sports Entertainment Xtreme. Piper had requested a segment to plug his new book, but instead, used the time to basically shoot on Russo and his effect on the world of professional wrestling. Piper touched on subjects from the death of Owen Hart, for which Piper held Russo to blame, to the downfall of WCW amongst other touchy subjects. Russo came to the ring basically "in character" to confront Piper. But, when Piper got in Russo's face, Russo made the comment that Piper was "a moron". Piper not only took offense to the remark, but delivered a "potato shot" to the side of Russo's head. Russo immediately realized that Piper's heat with him was legitimate, and quickly backed off unsure of what Piper might do next. When The Harris Brothers hit the ring to try and cool the situation down, Russo became visibly upset as Piper continued to vehemently shoot on him. Russo got so upset that at one point in time it took both the Harrises to restrain him. Piper later said in a shoot interview that everything he had to say to Russo was real and that he was willing to get physical if Russo had taken it that far. Russo retaliated later by saying that he and Owen were very close and that Piper wasn't even with the company the night Owen died so he had no way of knowing how upset he was with Owen's death. World Wrestling Entertainment (2005–present). Hall of Fame (2005). On February 21, 2005, it was announced that Piper was to be inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame. Piper held an episode of "Piper's Pit" at WrestleMania 21 where he interviewed Stone Cold Steve Austin. The interview was interrupted by Carlito, who was promptly beaten up by both Piper and Austin. In February 2005 at an event called WrestleReunion, Piper teamed with Jimmy Valiant and Snuka against Colonel DeBeers, "Cowboy" Bob Orton, and "Playboy" Buddy Rose. On the July 11, 2005 episode of "Raw", Piper returned as a face to host "Piper's Pit" with guest Shawn Michaels, who superkicked Piper at the end of the show. This was during Michaels' feud with Hulk Hogan. Piper once again appeared on "Raw" on October 3, 2005 for "Raw Homecoming". He hosted "Piper's Pit" with guest Mick Foley; later in the segment, Randy Orton and "Cowboy" Bob Orton appeared and attacked both Foley and Piper. SmackDown!; Feud with The Ortons (2005). This event sparked a mini-feud between Piper and The Ortons. On the next "SmackDown!" after "Homecoming", Piper took on the Ortons in a handicap match. Piper won with a roll-up on Bob Orton after a distraction by The Undertaker. On October 28, Piper teamed with Batista and Eddie Guerrero to take on Randy Orton, Bob Orton, and Mr. Kennedy. Piper won after applying the sleeper hold to Bob Orton. Piper's feud with The Ortons came to an end on the November 4, 2005 episode of "SmackDown!" with a DQ victory over Bob Orton. World Tag Team Champion (2006). Piper returned to "Raw" on September 11, 2006 for a six-man tag team match win with The Highlanders against the Spirit Squad. He also appeared on the "Raw Family Reunion", along with Money Inc. and Arn Anderson to accompany Ric Flair ringside for a match against Mitch of the Spirit Squad. On November 5, Piper won the World Tag Team Championship with Ric Flair from The Spirit Squad at Cyber Sunday, after being chosen to be Flair's partner by voters at WWE.com over Sgt. Slaughter and Dusty Rhodes. On the November 13, 2006 episode of "Raw", Piper and Flair lost the title to Rated-RKO. Piper never made it to the ring, as he was attacked by Edge with a con-chair-to before the match. On November 17, 2006, WWE announced on their website that Piper was flown from the UK to his home state of Oregon and had surgery for what was originally believed to be kidney stones, but was speculated to be a disc problem in his back. It was later determined to be cancer. As a result of the procedure, it was announced that he was withdrawing from the Survivor Series match which would have pitted himself (as a co-captain), along with Flair, Anderson, Sgt. Slaughter, and Dusty Rhodes against the Spirit Squad. He was replaced with Ron Simmons. Various storylines (2007–present). He made a return to "Raw" on an episode taped February 12, 2007, during which he announced that his friend Dusty Rhodes was to be the first person inducted into the 2007 class of the WWE Hall of Fame. During appearance Umaga, with manager Armando Alejandro Estrada, entered the ring and laid out both men. He then returned on the June 11, 2007 episode of "Raw" as part of "Mr. McMahon Appreciation Night", where he introduced a video of some of McMahon's most embarrassing moments. In 2008, after finishing his therapy for Hodgkin's lymphoma, he made a brief appearance in the Royal Rumble, primarily focusing on "Superfly" Jimmy Snuka. Both men were eliminated by Kane shortly after they entered the ring. Piper returned to "Raw" on April 28, 2008. He was a backstage visitor, and was confronted by Santino Marella. Marella poked fun at Piper's weight, which resulted in Santino getting slapped by Piper. The next week, Piper was a guest on "Carlito's Cabana" and Carlito and Santino were about to double team Piper when they were chased off by Cody Rhodes and Cryme Tyme. On May 12, Piper's interference stopped Santino and Carlito from beating Rhodes and Hardcore Holly for the World Tag Team Championship. Santino then threatened Piper with retaliation, culminating in a confrontation with Piper during the May 16 episode of "Jimmy Kimmel Live!". He wrestled his presumed last match on April 18, 2008 one day after his 54th birthday at Newburgh Free Academy’s Spring Slam. On October 26, 2008, however, Piper appeared on WWE's Cyber Sunday as one of the three choices fans could choose to face Marella for the WWE Intercontinental Championship. The other choices were Goldust and The Honky Tonk Man. Honky Tonk Man was chosen and won via a disqualification due to interference by Beth Phoenix and therefore did not win the title. Goldust then entered the ring, followed by Piper. The three candidates then fought Santino, afterwards celebrating together in the ring. Piper appeared on the October 27 episode of "Raw" as a special guest commentator, along with both Goldust and Honky Tonk Man, for Marella's match against Charlie Haas. On February 16, 2009 Piper returned to "Raw" to confront Chris Jericho after Jericho continued to act disrespectfully towards the Hall of Famers. After the segment, Jericho attacked Piper. One month later, on the March 16 episode of "Raw", Piper would get his revenge when he, along with Ric Flair, Jimmy Snuka, and Ricky Steamboat, attacked Jericho. For the first time since Wrestlemania XII in 1996, Piper wrestled at WrestleMania XXV along with Snuka and Steamboat with Flair in their corner to go against Jericho in a three on one handicap match. Jericho won the match; Piper was the second of the three to be eliminated. Piper later guest hosted WWE Raw on November 16, 2009 at Madison Square Garden in New York City. Piper challenged Vince McMahon to a street fight later in the evening only to have Randy Orton come out to fight against, then shortly after Kofi Kingston came out to stop Randy's assault on Piper. He inducted Wendy Richter to the 2010 WWE Hall of Fame on March 27, 2010. He also appeared the next night on Raw as one of the Legend Lumberjacks in a match that involved Christian and Ted Dibiase. Two months later, Piper turned heel for one night only by hiring DiBiase to capture guest host Quinton Jackson so he could "gain revenge on BA", but was unsuccessful. On the July 12, 2010 episode of Raw, it was hinted that Piper could possibly be the Anonymous General Manager as on an e-mail sent to Michael Cole, the GM said "Just when you think you have all the answers, I change the questions." The idea was abandoned on the July 24 episode of Raw when Cole said " And if you're not down with that I got two words for you" which was Triple H and Shawn Michaels trademark line as D-Generation X, but again this idea was dropped. On the November 15, 2010 episode of Raw, Piper quickly turned face during a return of "Piper's Pit" telling John Cena to do the right thing by calling the WWE Championship match at "Survivor Series" between Wade Barrett and Randy Orton down the middle. He went on to point out that legends such as Ricky Steamboat, "Mr. Perfect" Curt Hennig, Jimmy Snuka, and himself had never won a World Championship in WWE. On January 29, 2011, Piper made his debut for Pro Wrestling Guerrilla (PWG) during the WrestleReunion 5 weekend, defeating nineteen other men, last eliminating Terry Funk, to win the Legends Battle Royal. He appeared in a backstage segment at WrestleMania XXVII where he hit Zack Ryder in the back of the head with a coconut, reminiscing of what he did to Jimmy Snuka. Piper made an appearance on the June 13, 2011 episode of Monday Night Raw, hosting "Piper's Pit" once again. His guests were The Miz and Alex Riley, which led to a match with The Miz with Riley as the special guest referee. He went on to win the match, and won $5,000 out of The Miz's money per the pre-match stipulation. Roddy Piper noted that he was paid $5,000 for his appearance on the June 13th RAW for Piper's Pit with The Miz and Alex Riley. Piper currently co-host the WWE Vintage show with Gene Okerlund. He recently made a television appearance in WWE and hosted a Piper's Pit segment featuring John Cena on the November 28, 2011 episode of Monday Night Raw. He also appeared on November 29, 2011 special holiday edition of "SmackDown". Piper returned on the April 10, 2012 special edition of Smackdown: Blast from the Past, in which he hosted Piper's Pit featuring Daniel Bryan and AJ Lee. Piper made an appearance on June 18, 2012 he made a segment with Cyndi Lauper and Heath Slater. He then reappeared on the 1,000 episode of Raw on July 23, 2012, where he and various other WWE Legends helped Lita take down Heath Slater. On the August 13 episode of "Raw", Piper hosted another edition of "Piper's Pit" with Chris Jericho, which was interrupted by Dolph Ziggler. Portland Wrestling Uncut (2012–present). In 2012, Piper, along with Don Coss, created "Portland Wrestling Uncut", a revival of the original "Portland Wrestling", with new and old wrestlers combined. The show, which airs on KPDX Television Channel 49 and online at KPTV FOX 12 Oregon's website, was originally slated for 13 episodes. On January 26, 2013, Piper announced that "Portland Wrestling Uncut" had been picked up for another 52 weeks. Playing prominently in the show is Piper and Coss as announcers, The Grappler (Len Denton) as a manager, guest appearances by the like of Matt Borne (among others), rewind segments that show partial matches from the original Portland Wrestling (owned by Don and Barry Owen), and Piper's son, Colt Toombs. Other media. Piper featured in the wrestling documentary "Bloodstained Memoirs". Piper was a guest on a 1985 "Saturday Night Live" episode, tormenting hosts Hulk Hogan and Mr. T, and has appeared as a special guest on "MADtv" along with Bret Hart. In 1991, the pilot episode for "Tag Team", a television program about two ex-professional wrestlers turned police officers, starred Piper and Jesse "The Body" Ventura. Piper appeared as a wrestler loosely based on himself in an episode called "Crusader" from Walker, Texas Ranger where his name was Cody "The Crusader" Conway. Piper appeared as a prison antagonist in an episode of "The Outer Limits" TV series. Piper was the host of ITV's Celebrity Wrestling in the UK. Piper appeared as a character named Commander Cash on '. Piper appeared as a choice in the "Wheel of Destiny" segment of The Man Show. Piper also starred in the 1988 John Carpenter film, "They Live". Piper played a drifter turned saviour of the human race after discovering a pair of sunglasses that allow him to see the world's elite for what they truly are, money hungry aliens with a new-world-order-like agenda. That same year, he starred in the film "Hell Comes to Frogtown". He also guest-starred in an episode in the second season of the ' TV series. In the 1980s, Piper also appeared in singer Cyndi Lauper's music video for the song "The Goonies 'R' Good Enough." He also appeared as a guest VJ on MTV in 1988. In 1992, Roddy Piper released a UK only single and music video for his song, “I’m Your Man”. The single came with the B-side, “Judy Come Back”. In April 2005, Piper co-presented "Celebrity Wrestling" in the United Kingdom on ITV1. This Saturday evening reality show saw celebrities learn wrestling and compete in challenge matches. After a few weeks the program was to be canceled, due to a huge drop in TV ratings but instead was moved to Sunday mornings to finish its final episodes. In 2007, Piper became the second pro-wrestler, the other being Sgt. Slaughter, to have their likeness crafted in a G.I. Joe figure. According to his filecard, he is a trainer for Destro's Iron Grenadiers. He appeared as Mr. Thurgood in the low-budget film "The Mystical Adventures of Billy Owens" in 2008 and its sequel "Billy Owens and the Secret of the Runes" in 2010. "Wizard"'s list of the 100 Greatest Villains of All Time ranked Roddy Piper as #35. On October 29, 2009, Piper appeared as pro-wrestler named "Da' Maniac" on season 5 episode 7 ("The Gang Wrestles for the Troops") of the sitcom "It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia", parodying Mickey Rourke's role in "The Wrestler". He reprised this role in Season 9 Episode 4. In UGK'S "International Players Anthem" DJ Paul pokes fun at Andre 3000 asking him why is he dressed as Roddy Piper. On March 14, 2010, Piper appeared in "One Fall", an episode in CBS's "Cold Case", playing a wrestler named Sweet Sil. In September 2010, Piper appeared in a FunnyorDie.com video, fighting against childhood obesity in a PSA parody. The clip included him using wrestling moves on children eating junk food and the parents who feed junk food to their kids. In 2010 Piper was expected to appear in a reality series from Red Line Films, the producers of "Dhani Tackles the Globe" and "". In December 2011, Piper appeared in several segments of the Air Farce's "Not the New Year's Eve Special", which aired on January 1, 2012, on the CBC Television Network in Canada. It has been confirmed that Piper will appear on WWE Network's WWE Legends' House which is currently in production. In 2012, Piper joined the ToadhopNetwork hosting a weekly Thursday night podcast, "Rod Pod". The show later moved to the GoCastNetwork. In 2012, Piper appeared on a Season 4 episode of "Celebrity Ghost Stories", in which he conveyed a story of being visited by the ghost of Adrian Adonis. In October 2012, Piper announced on his Twitter page that he was working as part of an upcoming wrestling game on Facebook called Warlordz of Wrestling. In May 2013, Piper appeared in "Barry's Angels", episode 12 of the fourth season of the A&E reality show, "Storage Wars", in which he valuated a set of Scottish kilts purchased by Barry Weiss. In June 2013, Piper appeared on Celebrity Wife Swap, where he swapped wives with Ric Flair. In July 2013, Piper appeared in a segment of "The Haunting Of" with medium Kim Russo. In August 2013, Piper appeared in as himself in the video game "Saints Row IV" and there is an unlockable Roddy Piper outfit the Protagonist can wear called ""Rowdy Roddy Piper Suit"". Legacy. Piper is considered one of the greatest talkers and heels in wrestling history. Piper's Pit interview segments were considered innovative, especially in an atmosphere where only the people like the World champion got to talk, and the wrestlers were the interviewees – never the interviewers. Many of the people on Piper's Pit never got to be World champion, but were main eventers. According to Bobby "the Brain" Heenan, he could just leave Piper in a room and return twenty minutes later with Piper having done a class-A promo. Personal life. Piper and his wife Kitty live on a mountain in Portland, Oregon, and have four children: daughters Anastacia Shea, Ariel Teal, and Falon Danika and son Colton Baird. Anastacia has a child, making Piper a grandfather. His son Colt Toombs is also an aspiring professional mixed martial arts fighter and also wrestles in Portland, Oregon, for "Portland Wrestling Uncut". His daughter Ariel Teal Toombs is following her dad's lead in Hollywood as an actress. Piper and his daughter Ariel acted together in the movie "Legion: The Final Exorcism (aka Costa Chica: Confession of an Exorcist). Piper was notable for wearing his wedding band during his matches, a rarity among professional wrestlers. Piper is also a cousin of the Hart wrestling family. On April 4, 2006 in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Piper was issued an award by the Mayor, Sam Katz. On July 27, 2006, he had the honor of throwing out the first pitch of a St. Louis Cardinals/Chicago Cubs baseball game at Wrigley Field in Chicago. On November 27, 2006, it was announced on WWE.com that Piper has Hodgkin's lymphoma, and he finished radiation therapy on January 15, 2007. This was also confirmed on Piper's official web site where he posted messages of thanks to all his fans and stated that had the fans not chosen him as Ric Flair's partner at Cyber Sunday he would not have been taken to the hospital and diagnosed as having his disease in time. In November 2008 a video spread around the internet showing Piper smoking pot and taking a hit from a bong in front of a crowd cheering him on, although he later acknowledged his use of medicinal marijuana "to alleviate the symptoms associated with cancer." This was reiterated on a blog from Jim Ross. On July 2, 2009 Piper was arrested on suspicion of DUI in the early morning hours in Hollywood, California. Piper was stopped by police at around 1:00 a.m. and given field sobriety tests. He was then arrested. His bond was set at $5,000. Championships and accomplishments. 1The NWA World Light Heavyweight Championship is no longer recognized or sanctioned by the National Wrestling Alliance. Filmography. Voice acting. In 2006, Roddy Piper ventured into the realm of voice acting, appearing on Cartoon Network's animated series "Robot Chicken" (as himself), as well as providing the voice of The Pyro Messiah in the "Night Traveler" multimedia adventure series produced by Lunar Moth Entertainment. He will also be doing voice for . He appeared as himself in the 2013 video game "Saints Row IV "in a parody of "They Live" alongside his co-star Keith David also playing himself.
587889	Gang Leader is a 1991 Telugu crime film starring Chiranjeevi and Vijayashanti. Directed by Vijaya Bapineedu, with soundtrack by Bappi Lahari, and dance choreography by Prabhu Deva, the film emerged as a musical blockbuster, cult classic. The film was later remade in Hindi as "Aaj Ka Goonda Raj" with Chiranjeevi and Meenakshi Seshadri in lead roles, and in Kannada as "Kutumba" starring Upendra. Plot. Raghupathi (Murali Mohan), Raghava (Sarath Kumar) and Rajaram (Chiranjeevi) are brothers. Raghupathi is the only bread winner of the family. Raghava is preparing for Civil Service Examation and Rajaram is unemployed. Rajaram and his four friends are a gang and are searching for jobs daily. They roam in the city till mid-night. Rajaram comes home at mid-night and sleeps till afternoon, his grand mother (Nirmalamma) scolds him for his irresponsibility and carelessness. One day Rajaram makes Kanya Kumari (Vijayashanti) to leave the house as she is not paying the rent to the house, Subsequently she changed her place to Rajaram's (Chiranjeevi) house. At one situation Rajaram (Chiranjeevi) goes to jail for money, because his brother requires money as he wants to go to Delhi for IAS preparation. Ekambaram (Raogopal Rao) kills Raghupathi (Murali Mohan) while his brother (Raja Ram) is in jail, but Rajarams` friends know how he died. Rajaram thinks his brother's death was an accident. Raghava (Sharath Kumar) became an IAS officer, and married Sumalatha but she hates his family members. Kanya Kumari (vijaya shanthi) loves Rajaram (Chiranjeevi) and his family members. Meanwhile Rajaram comes to know about his brother's death and inquires who was responsible for his death. Even his friends were also murdered by the Ekambaram at that time. The film ends with Rajaram taking revenge by killing the villains. Soundtrack. The Music was Provided by Bappi Lahari and Veturi Sundararama Murthy, Bhuvanachandra provided the Lyrics. The audio was an instant hit and "Papa Rita" and "Vaana Vaana Velluvaye" were a rage in the entire state that time. Late the Song "Vaana Vaana Velluvaye" was re-mixed by Mani Sharma in the 2012 film "Rachcha" which starred Ram Charan Teja and Tamannaah in the Lead.
1066605	The Car is a 1977 thriller film directed by Elliot Silverstein and written by Michael Butler, Dennis Shryack and Lane Slate. The film stars James Brolin, Kathleen Lloyd, John Marley, and Ronny Cox, and tells the story of a mysterious car which goes on a murderous rampage, terrorizing the residents of a small town. The movie was produced and distributed by Universal Studios, and was influenced by numerous "road movies" of the 1970s including Steven Spielberg's 1971 thriller "Duel" and Roger Corman's "Death Race 2000". Plot. The film is set in the fictional Utah community of Santa Ynez. Two bicyclists are cycling on the canyon, and a mysterious black car is following them down the road. At the bridge, the car rams them at the back, causing them to fly over the bridge, killing them on the spot. The police are called to the first of a series of hit and run deaths, apparently caused by the same car that appears heavily customized and has no license plate, making identification difficult. Sheriff Everett Peck (John Marley) gets a lead on the car when it is witnessed by Amos Clemens (R. G. Armstrong) after it runs over a hitchhiker. After the car claims the sheriff as its fourth victim, it becomes the job of Captain Wade Parent (James Brolin) to stop the deaths. During the resulting investigation, an eyewitness to the accident states that there was no driver inside the vehicle. Despite a police cordon being placed around all roads in the area, the car enters town and attacks the school marching band as it rehearses at the local show ground. It chases the group of teachers and students, among them Wade's girlfriend Lauren (Kathleen Lloyd), into a cemetery. Curiously enough, the machine will not enter onto the consecrated ground as Lauren taunts the purported driver that any of the townsfolk have yet to see. Seemingly in anger, the car destroys a brick gate post and leaves. The police chase the automobile along highways throughout the desert before it turns on them, destroying several squad cars and killing five officers in the process. Wade confronts the vehicle and is surprised to see that none of his bullets put a dent on the car's windshield or tires. After trying to open the door (when it is revealed that the car has no door handles), Wade is injured, and the car escapes. The hunt for the car becomes a personal vendetta for Wade when the automobile stalks and eliminates Lauren by driving straight through her house, right when he is speaking to her over the phone. Wade's deputy Luke (Ronny Cox) puts forward the theory that it acted in revenge for the insults hurled on it by Lauren and notes it cannot enter hallowed ground. Wade concocts a plan to stop the car by burying it beneath a controlled explosion in the canyons that lie outside of town. After discovering it waiting for him in his own garage, he is forced to carry out his plans post haste. He is pursued by the car into a mountainous canyon area where his fellow officers have set a trap for the machine, and a final confrontation settles the score with a demonic visage appearing in the smoke and fire of the explosion, shocking the police officers. The final scenes show Wade refusing to believe what the group saw in the flames, despite Deputy Johnson's insistence about what he saw. The film concludes, in some cuts, with the car prowling city streets, clearly having survived. Critical reception. The film was panned by critics, citing poor dialogue and acting. The film received a 18% approval rating from Rotten Tomatoes. Chicago Tribune film critic Gene Siskel gave the film one star and his headline referred to this film as, "The Cinematic Turkey of 1977." The film is listed in Golden Raspberry Award founder John Wilson's book "The Official Razzie Movie Guide" as one of the The 100 Most Enjoyably Bad Movies Ever Made. Production. The "evil" black car in the film was a customized 1971 Lincoln Continental Mark III designed by famed Hollywood car customizer George Barris. There were four cars built for the film in six weeks. Three were used for stunt work – the fourth was for closeups, etc. The stunt cars were destroyed during production – the fourth is now in a private collection. The late Church of Satan leader Anton LaVey was given a "Technical Advisor" credit on the film. His quote: ""Oh great brothers of the night who rideth upon the hot winds of hell, who dwelleth in the Devil's lair; move and appear,"" is given in the opening credits and is taken from the "Invocation of Destruction" in "The Satanic Bible". The film's main theme, heard predominantly throughout, is a reworked, orchestral version of Berlioz-Symphonie Fantastique, also used in "The Screaming Skull" (1958). Footage from this film is seen in the "Knight Rider" episode "Trust Doesn't Rust", shown at the end when "KARR" is destroyed by driving off a cliff, a glimpse of "The Car" is seen going over the cliff instead.
582511	Himanshu Malik is an actor who has worked in Bollywood films, and is also a filmmaker based out of Bombay. He started his acting career with the film, "" (1996), but only later received recognition for his roles in family enteratiner and box-offcie hit - "Tum Bin" and adult films like "Khwahish" (2003) and "Rog" (2005). He recently wrote and directed his first short feature Q.E.D.. Career. Himanshu began his career in music videos; most notable among them was Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan’s "Afreen" with Lisa Ray. He later appeared in Sonu Nigam's "Deewana" with Gul Panag. Meanwhile, he made his film debut with a role in Mira Nair's "" (1996) and also appeared in Ram Gopal Varma's "Jungle" in 2000. However, his big break came as a supporting actor in "Tum Bin" (2001), leading to work in several small films. His next big feature was "Khwahish" (2003), playing the lead opposite Mallika Sherawat, notable for its sensuality and kissing scenes. He then moved onto behind the camera, writing and directing his first short feature- 'Q.E.D- Quod Erat Demonstradum'. Personal life. Malik is married and the couple have a daughter. He practices adventurous sports like paragliding, flying, and scuba diving. He lives in Mumbai..
1044436	Nanette Newman (born 29 May 1934) is an English actress and author. Early life. Newman was born in Northampton, Northamptonshire, England. She was the daughter of a show business family - her father was reputed to be a circus strong man, and her mother also in show business. In the 1940s, she lived in Pullman Court, Streatham Hill. She was educated at Sternhold College, the Italia Conti Academy of Theatre Arts stage school and the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London. Career. Newman made her first appearance in film as a teenager in "Personal Affairs" in 1953. There followed a number of period roles, including the heroine in "The Wrong Box" (1966); "The Madwoman of Chaillot" (1969); "The Raging Moon" (1971), as a young woman in a wheelchair; and "International Velvet" (1978). She was from a variety background: acting on stage and also appearing in television advertisements, notably for Fairy Liquid. She was also a popular regular panellist on the 1970s revival of the BBC panel game show "What's My Line?". She is the author of thirty children’s books and six cookery books; winning a Cookbook of the Year Award with "The Summer Cookbook", and presented a children's television cookery programme, "Fun Food Factory" (1976). Personal life. Newman married Bryan Forbes in 1955, becoming a West Ham United fan as a result. The couple had two daughters, Emma Forbes and Sarah Standing.
1059752	Mary Catherine McCormack (born February 8, 1969) is an American actress. Known for her work in television, she has had leading roles as Justine Appleton in the series "Murder One" (1995–97), as Deputy National Security Adviser Kate Harper in "The West Wing" (2004–06) and as Mary Shannon in "In Plain Sight" (2008–12). Her film roles include "Private Parts" (1997); "Deep Impact" (1998); "True Crime" (1999); "High Heels and Low Lifes" (2001); "K-PAX" (2001); "Right at Your Door" (2006), and "1408" (2007). Personal life. McCormack was born in Plainfield, New Jersey. She is the daughter of clinical therapist Norah and car dealership and ice cream parlor owner William McCormack. Her parents divorced in 1990. She has a sister Bridget, a former professor of law at the University of Michigan Law School and justice of the Michigan Supreme Court, and a brother William, an actor who has appeared in a recurring role as FBI agent Robert O'Connor on "In Plain Sight." In 1983, McCormack graduated from The Wardlaw-Hartridge School in Edison, New Jersey. In 1991, she received her BA in comparative arts, specifically painting and creative writing, from Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut. In July 2003, McCormack married "Brothers & Sisters" producer Michael Morris. They have three daughters, Margaret (born 2004), Rose (born 2007), and Lillian (born 2011). McCormack is the godmother of "In Plain Sight" co-star Fred Weller's daughter. Career. McCormack began her acting career at age 12, performing in Gian Carlo Menotti's Christmas opera, "Amahl and the Night Visitors." She continued her stage work in musicals and finished an acting program at the William Esper Studio. She has worked in New York theater productions, including The Atlantic Theater Company, Alice's 4th Floor, and Naked Angels, where she appeared in Jon Robin Baitz's "A Fair Country." McCormack portrayed Justine Appleton on "Murder One" (1995–1997) and also starred in the HBO series "K Street," which aired for only ten episodes. She starred in Howard Stern's movie "Private Parts" in 1997. In 2004, McCormack joined the cast of "The West Wing" as Deputy National Security Advisor and ex-CIA officer Kate Harper. Her character soon became a recurring role and remained throughout the last three seasons until the series finale. McCormack starred in USA Network series "In Plain Sight." She portrayed Mary Shannon, a deputy United States marshal attached to the Albuquerque, New Mexico, office of the Federal Witness Security Program (WITSEC), more commonly known as the Federal Witness Protection Program. On July 28, 2010, the show was renewed for its fourth and fifth seasons, to run in 2011 and 2012. The show was cancelled in 2011, making the fifth season its last. After its end, McCormack was cast as the lead in Kari Lizer's untitled comedy pilot on ABC. McCormack was nominated for the 2008 Tony Award for Best Performance by a Featured Actress in a Play for the role of Gretchen in the 2008 Broadway revival of "Boeing Boeing". In 2012 McCormack re-united with the cast of West Wing to film a video that served both as a reminder that US voters should vote for non-partisan candidates when they cast their ballots and as a video promoting McCormack's sister's ultimately successful judicial candidacy for the Michigan State Supreme Court.
1064035	Michael Choader Hall (born February 1, 1971) is an American actor, best known for his role as Dexter Morgan in the Showtime TV Network "Dexter", and as David Fisher on the HBO drama series "Six Feet Under". In 2009, Hall won a Golden Globe award and a Screen Actors Guild Award for his role in "Dexter". Early life. Hall was born in Raleigh, North Carolina. His mother, Janice Styons Hall, is a College guidance counselor at Lees-McRae College, and his father, William Carlyle Hall, worked for IBM. Hall grew up an only child, a sister having died in infancy before his birth. He has said of growing up a single child, that "There was a very one-on-one, immediate family relationship, my mom and I." His father died of prostate cancer in 1982, when Hall was 11 years old. In a 2004 interview, he stated Hall attended Ravenscroft School in Raleigh, graduating in 1989. He graduated from Earlham College in 1993 and had planned to become a lawyer. He later attended New York University's Graduate Acting Program at the Tisch School of the Arts, graduating in 1996. Career. Early on in life Hall discovered acting, performing in “What Love Is” while in the second grade at Ravenscroft School. When he was in fifth grade, he began singing in a boy's choir, then graduated to musicals in high school, performing in standards such as "The Sound of Music", "Oklahoma!" and "Fiddler on the Roof". Hall's acting career began in the theater. Off-Broadway, he appeared in "Macbeth" and "Cymbeline" at the New York Shakespeare Festival, and in "Timon of Athens" and "Henry V" at The Public Theater, "The English Teachers" at the Manhattan Class Company (MCC), and the controversial play "Corpus Christi" at the Manhattan Theatre Club. He also performed in the workshop production of what was then known as Sondheim's "Wise Guys", later versions of which were titled "Bounce" and, finally, "Road Show". He sang the role of Paris Singer; this character's songs and function in the play were transferred to the character Hollis Bessamer in the final version of the play. In Los Angeles, he appeared in "Skylight" at the Mark Taper Forum. He also was part of the Texas Shakespeare Festival the summer of 1995. He was Lancelot in Camelot, Lysander in A Midsummer Night's Dream, and Claudio in Much Ado About Nothing. Stage. Hall performed from August 4, 1998 to August 30, 1998, in William Shakespeare's "Cymbeline" in the role of Posthumus. In 1999, director Sam Mendes cast Hall as the flamboyant Emcee in the revival of "Cabaret", his first Broadway role. In 2003, Hall toured as Billy Flynn in the musical "Chicago". In 2005 he returned to Off-Broadway theater in the premiere of Noah Haidle's Mr. Marmalade, playing the title character, an emotionally disturbed little girl's imaginary friend. From July 21 to August 1, 2004, Hall performed at Michael John LaChiusa's musical called "R shomon", at the Williamstown Theatre Festival's Nikos Stage. "Six Feet Under". Mendes suggested Hall for the role of closeted David Fisher when Alan Ball began casting the TV drama "Six Feet Under". "Everything I opened up for "Cabaret"," Hall reported in a 2004 interview, "I slammed shut for David." Hall's work in the first season of "Six Feet Under" was recognized with an Emmy nomination for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series and for an AFI Award nomination for Actor of the Year in 2002 for his role as David Fisher. In addition, he shared in the Screen Actors Guild nominations for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series all five years that the show was in production, winning the award in 2003 and 2004. "Dexter". Hall starred in and co-produced the Showtime television series "Dexter", in which he played the eponymous character, a blood-spatter analyst for the Miami Metro Police Department who moonlights as a vigilante. The series also casts Hall's ex-wife, Jennifer Carpenter as his adoptive sister, Debra Morgan. The series premiered on October 1, 2006 and its eighth and final season has begun on June 30, 2013. For his work on "Dexter", Hall was nominated for five more Emmy Awards for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series, in 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011 and 2012. The show itself was also nominated for a 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011 and 2012 Emmy in the Drama Series category. He won the 2007 Television Critics Association Award for Individual Achievement in Drama. Hall was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Performance by an Actor in a TV Drama in 2007, and again in 2008 finally winning the award at the 67th Golden Globe Awards in 2010. Also in 2010, he won a Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Drama Series. Season 6 premiered on October 2, 2011. Michael C. Hall was nominated for Best Leading Actor in a Drama series at the 2011 Emmy Awards, but did not win the category. Hall was negotiating his contract along with Showtime to raise his salary for the seventh season. On November 18, 2011, it was announced that "Dexter" had been renewed for a seventh season which concluded December 2012, and the show was renewed for an eighth season to air June 30, 2013. After months of rumors, on April 18, 2013, Showtime announced via social media that season eight would be the final season of Dexter. Film. Hall's film credits include the 2003 thriller "Paycheck", the 2009 science fiction thriller "Gamer", the 2011 comedy "Peep World" and the 2011 drama "The Trouble with Bliss". In 2013, he played the part of David Kammerer on the film "Kill Your Darlings", directed by John Krokidas. Michael has signed on to make a film adaptation of Joe R. Lansdale's cult novel "Cold in July". Jim Mickle is set to direct. Commercials. In 2009, Hall began doing voice-overs for some Dodge commercials as he is known for his recognizable deep and unique voice. His voice overs include the Challenger, Charger, Durango, Grand Caravan, and Journey, as well as the Jeep Grand Cherokee. Personal life. In both 2012 and 2013, Michael C. Hall has been listed as the number one “Frisbee Golf Player” by Glamour's magazine. On May 1, 2003, Hall married actress Amy Spanger; he played Billy Flynn opposite her Roxie Hart in the Broadway musical "Chicago" the summer after their wedding. The couple separated in 2005 and filed for divorce in 2006. On December 31, 2008, he eloped with Jennifer Carpenter, who plays the character of Dexter Morgan's adoptive sister, Debra Morgan, on Showtime's "Dexter". They dated for a year prior to getting married. In December 2010, Hall and Carpenter released a statement announcing that they had filed for divorce after having been separated "for some time". The divorce was finalized in December 2011. Since May 2012, Hall has been in a relationship with Morgan Macgregor. Cancer. On January 13, 2010, his agent and spokesman confirmed that he was undergoing treatment for a treatable form of Hodgkin's lymphoma. In an interview with Hall, he said that it was quite disappointing to learn of his cancer when he was 38 years as his late father had died from cancer when he was 39. However, he was grateful that they found the cancer at its early stages which made it a lot easier to treat and cure. Hall accepted his Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild Award in 2010 while wearing a knitted cap over his bald head, having lost his hair due to chemotherapy. On April 25, 2010, Carpenter announced that Hall was fully in remission and was set to get back to work for a new season of "Dexter". Charity. He is the face of the Somalia Aid Society's Feed The People campaign. He has also worked with Kiehl's skin care line to do a limited edition line that benefits the Waterkeeper Alliance, an environmental nonprofit that works towards clean and safe water worldwide. In 2011, Hall was the celebrity spokesperson for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society's "Light the Night Walk" fundraising campaign.
1055266	Abbie Cornish (born 7 August 1982) is an Australian actress known for her film and television roles, particularly her award-winning lead performance in 2004's "Somersault", and internationally for her role as Fanny Brawne in "Bright Star" and her appearance as Sweet Pea in "Sucker Punch". Personal life. Cornish was born in Lochinvar, New South Wales, as the second of five children of Shelley and Barry Cornish. Her sister, Isabelle Cornish, is also an actress. She grew up on a 70-hectare (170-acre) farm, attended Catholic school, and was fascinated by independent and foreign films. Her name was linked to actor Ryan Phillippe during his highly publicized divorce from Reese Witherspoon, with whom he has two children. The relationship between Phillippe and Cornish ended in 2010. Career. Her career began at the age of 13, when she began taking jobs as a model after reaching the finals of a "Dolly Magazine" competition. In 1999, Cornish was awarded the Australian Film Institute Young Actor's Award for her role in the ABC's television show "Wildside" and was offered her first role in a feature film, "The Monkey's Mask".
1059402	Robby Benson (born January 21, 1956) is an American film and television actor, television director, educator and singer. Early life. Benson was born Robin David Segal in Dallas, Texas, the son of Freda Ann (née Benson), a singer, actress, and business promotions manager, and Jerry Segal, a writer. His family is Jewish. Benson was raised in New York City and took his mother's maiden name as his stage name when he was 10. Career. Benson made his film debut with an uncredited role in "Wait Until Dark" (1967) as the "Boy Tossing Ball" and his Broadway debut in "The Rothschilds" (1970). Benson had an early role on the daytime soap "Search for Tomorrow" (1971–72). As a film actor, Benson was well known for teenage roles in coming-of-age films, such as 1972's "Jory", 1973's" Jeremy", and as "Billy Joe McAllister" in 1976's "Ode to Billy Joe".
519927	Rhian Denise Ramos Howell, who is better known by her stage name Rhian Ramos (born October 3, 1990 in Makati City, Philippines), is a Filipino actress, commercial model and singer. Biography. Rhian Ramos is of Welsh-Filipino descent and is the youngest daughter of Gareth Howell and Clara Ramos. She has an older sister named Nadine. She is also the niece of Ida Ramos Henares, the former Assistant Vice President of GMA Network. Ramos first starred in the television series "Captain Barbell" and in "Stairway to Heaven". She then started working in commercials including an appearance in a McDonald's McJelly Duo advert. She was cast as the female lead of the telefantasya "Captain Barbell", in 2006, and in "Lupin" the following year. She has played the lead role in "My Only Love". In 2007, Ramos had her film debut in "The Promise". She also starred in the horror film "Ouija". In 2008, Ramos was chosen to host "Pinoy Idol Extra", the daily update edition of "Pinoy Idol". Ramos also starred in two Philippine dramas, ', and in "LaLola", a remake of a telenovela. By the end of the year, Ramos finished two feature films, "My Monster Mom" and "I.T.A.L.Y.". "LaLola" ended in February 2009. She starred in the suspense-thriller film "Sundo" that came out the following month. In 2009, she starred in two Philippine dramas: "Zorro", and "Stairway to Heaven". Ramos released her debut dance-music album "Audition Dance Battle" under Universal Records in partnership with Bellhaus Entertainment. Ramos starred in the fantasy film "Ang Panday". She is the muse of the B-Meg Llamados for the 2011-2012 season of the Philippine Basketball Association.
591491	Bhai Log is a Pakistani (Lollywood) Urdu film, directed by Syed Faisal Bukhari, who has previously directed TV serials, and produced by Ch. Ijaz Kamran, dialogues and screenplay By M. Pervaiz Kaleem. The cast includes Hunain Jadoon, Saima Noor, Nadeem Baig, Javed Sheikh, Noor, Babrik Shah, Meera, Nayeer Ejaz, Babar Ali, Umer Nazir in lead roles. The music is composed by M. Arshad, film is edited By Adeel pk. The film was released on Eid-ul-Fitr 2011. The film was shot in Pakistan, and locations include Karachi, Lahore, Quetta and Kallar Kahar. Release. "Bhai Log" made a grand opening throughout Pakistan becoming Pakistan's third highest grossing movie. It achieved 70-80% full audiences. It faced tough competition with "Love Mein Ghum" of Reema Khan but "Bhai Log" beat "Love Mein ghum" by a huge margin. According to box office reports, "Bhai Log" is a 'Super Hit' in Pakistan. film made at a budget of 3.5 crore
1061105	Mary Jean "Lily" Tomlin (born September 1, 1939) is an American actress, comedian, writer, and producer. Tomlin has been a major force in American comedy since the late 1960s when she began a career as a stand up comedian and became a featured performer on television's "Laugh-in". Her career has spanned television, comedy recordings, Broadway, and motion pictures, enjoying acclaimed success in each medium. She has starred in such films as "Nashville", "9 to 5", "All of Me", "The Beverly Hillbillies", "Orange County", and "I Heart Huckabees". Her notable television roles include "Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In" as a cast member from 1970–73, Ms. Frizzle on "The Magic School Bus", Kay Carter-Shepley on "Murphy Brown", Deborah Fiderer on "The West Wing, "Lillie Mae MacKenzie on Malibu Country. Early life. Tomlin was born in Detroit, Michigan, the daughter of Lillie Mae (née Ford), a housewife and nurse's aide, and Guy Tomlin, a factory worker. Tomlin's parents were Southern Baptists who moved to Detroit from Paducah, Kentucky, during the Great Depression. She is a 1957 graduate of Cass Technical High School. Tomlin attended Wayne State University, where her interest in the theater and performing arts began. After college, Tomlin began doing stand-up comedy in nightclubs in Detroit and later in New York City. Her first television appearance was on "The Merv Griffin Show" in 1965. Stardom and classic Tomlin characters. In 1969, after a stint as a hostess on the ABC Television series "Music Scene", Tomlin joined NBC's sketch comedy show "Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In." Tomlin was an instant success on the already established program, in which in addition to appearing in general sketches and delivering comic gags, she began appearing as regular characters she created that quickly became famous and went on to lives outside of the show in later recordings and television specials: Tomlin was also one of the first female comedians to break out in male drag with her characters Tommy Velour and Rick. In 1982, she premiered Pervis Hawkins, a black rhythm-and-blues soul singer (patterned after Luther Vandross), with a mustache, beard and close-cropped afro hairstyle, dressed in a three-piece suit. Tomlin used very little, if any, skin-darkening cosmetics as part of the character, instead depending on stage lighting to create the effect.
1559098	ODDSAC is a visual album by Animal Collective, featuring psychedelic visuals directed and edited by Danny Perez.
1553885	Christa Miller (born May 28, 1964) is an American actress who has achieved success in television comedy. Her foremost roles include Kate O'Brien on "The Drew Carey Show" and Jordan Sullivan on "Scrubs" (which was created by her husband Bill Lawrence). She has also appeared in "Seinfeld", "The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air" and "". Since 2009, she has had a starring role in the TBS (formerly ABC) sitcom "Cougar Town", also created by husband Bill Lawrence. Early life. Miller was born in Manhattan and attended the prestigious Convent of the Sacred Heart. She is the daughter of model Bonnie Trompeter; and is the niece of actress Susan Saint James and NBC sports executive Dick Ebersol. She has a sister and one brother, John. Miller was a model as a child, appearing in a Wonder Bread commercial when she was six months old, posing at three for Francesco Scavullo in an Ivory soap advertisement, and being photographed for the cover of "Redbook". Her days as a child model were curtailed after an operation for a benign bone tumor. After attending Convent of the Sacred Heart, she returned briefly to modeling, but soon took acting lessons, and gave up modeling when she moved to Los Angeles, California, in 1990. She was cover model and had a pictorial in the first U.S. edition of "Maxim". Career. Miller's first role on television was in "Kate & Allie", which starred her real-life aunt, Susan Saint James, whom she resembles. She then appeared in episodes of "Northern Exposure", "Fresh Prince of Bel Air" and "Party of Five". She had a small role in the horror film "Stepfather III" (1992) with Priscilla Barnes. Miller appeared twice on "Seinfeld", as two different characters. In the 1993 episode "The Sniffing Accountant", she played the boss of George Costanza. She had intended to be a dramatic actress, and this role proved to be a turning point for Miller, who realized how much she enjoyed comedy. Two years later she returned to "Seinfeld" in "The Doodle" to play George's girlfriend, Paula. This episode proved to be a boon to her career, as she convinced co-creator Larry David to provide her with a rough cut video of the still-unaired episode when she auditioned for "The Drew Carey Show", whose producers had initially thought she was too inexperienced. David's support helped Miller win over the producers of "The Drew Carey Show", who cast her as Kate O'Brien, whom she played from 1995 - 2002.
1036401	Sally Elizabeth Phillips (born 10 May 1970) is a British actress. Career. Sally Phillips was the only woman in the 1990 Oxford Revue "THRASH" which also starred Ed Smith. She did nine consecutive Edinburgh Fringe Festivals, appearing in shows such as "Ra-Ra-Rasputin", Arthur Smith's version of "Hamlet" (as Ophelia) and "Cluub Zarathustra" with Simon Munnery, Stewart Lee, Richard Thomas, Julian Barratt and Lori Lixenburg. Her first TV role was in Lee and Herring's "Fist of Fun" in 1994, shortly after followed by a cameo in "Alas Smith and Jones", in which Mel Smith vomited over her. In 1995, Phillips played the role of a reporter in the unbroadcast pilot of Chris Morris's spoof series "Brass Eye" which at that point was called "Torque TV", however she did not appear in the series itself. Her role as a travel tavern chamber maid in "I'm Alan Partridge" proved to be her big break and she was nominated for best female newcomer at the British Comedy Awards that year. She had a starring role in the short-lived 1999 British comedy series "Hippies" (with Simon Pegg and Julian Rhind-Tutt), and also co-created and wrote "Smack the Pony", an all-female, double Emmy Award winning comedy show. In 2003, she was listed in "The Observer" as one of the 50 funniest acts in British comedy. She appeared in "Bridget Jones's Diary" as "Shazza", previously auditioning for Bridget. She also featured in the Eddie Izzard written sitcom "Cows". In 2001 she took the starring role in the David Nicholl's series "Rescue Me" for BBC 1. She also played cameo roles in "Mean Machine", "Birthday Girl" and "Born Romantic" and wrote episodes for the animation "Bob and Margaret". In 2004, she took the title role in the still-running popular BBC radio sitcom "Clare in the Community". In August 2005 she returned to the stage after a long absence, in Oscar Wilde's "The Importance of Being Earnest" at the Oxford Playhouse. In 2006 she appeared in the Australian comedy feature "BoyTown", while on television she appeared as Clare Winchester in the BBC2 sci-fi comedy "Hyperdrive". Between 2006 and 2009 she had recurring parts in the BBC's comedies "Jam & Jerusalem" as a scatterbrained New Ager and in 2009 and 2012 she appeared in "Miranda" as Miranda Hart's character's irritating upper class friend. She also had a guest star part in e4's "Skins", series 3 playing Pandora's mother. In 2009, Phillips won a British Film Council screenwriting competition for her film "Fag Mountain". Her first feature film script, The Decoy Bride, started production in spring 2010. Phillips appeared in a supporting role in the film, playing Emma, a Hollywood assistant. The film was released in February 2012, premiering first on cable TV and as a digital download, and then had a limited theatrical release. In December 2010, she appeared in the BBC1 drama "Accidental Farmer". In 2012, she appeared in the "CBeebies" television series "Justin's House" as Wanda Round
1060603	Julia Karin Ormond (born 4 January 1965) is an English actress. She rose to prominence appearing in such films as "Legends of the Fall" (1994), "First Knight" (1995), "Sabrina" (1995) and "The Barber of Siberia" (1998). She won a Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Miniseries or a Movie for her role in the HBO movie "Temple Grandin" (2010). Early life. Ormond was born in Epsom, Surrey, the daughter of Josephine, a laboratory technician, and John Ormond, a computer software designer. She attended independent schools, first Guildford High School and then Cranleigh School, where early lead performances in "Guys and Dolls" and "My Fair Lady" began to draw special attention. Career. Julia Ormond first appeared to the masses in Traffik a 1989 British television serial about the illegal heroin trade from growers in the far East to the streets of Europe and the U.K. The story revolves around Jack Lithgow played by Bill Paterson, a Home Office minister in the U.K. government engaged in combating heroin importation. Julia Ormond plays his drug addicted daughter Caroline an early role that won glowing reviews for the young budding actress.
1163161	June Havoc (November 8, 1912 – March 28, 2010) was a Canadian-born American actress, dancer, writer, and theater director. Havoc was a child Vaudeville performer under the tutelage of her mother. She later acted on Broadway and in Hollywood, and stage directed, both on and off-Broadway. She last appeared on television in 1990 on "General Hospital".
1054431	The Passion of Joan of Arc () is a silent film produced in France in 1928. It is based on the actual record of the trial of Joan of Arc. The film was directed by Carl Theodor Dreyer and stars Renée Jeanne Falconetti. It is widely regarded as a landmark of cinema, especially for its production, Dreyer's direction and Falconetti's performance, which has been described as being among the finest in cinema history. The film summarizes the time that Joan of Arc was a captive of England. It depicts her trial, imprisonment, torture, and execution. Plot. Joan is brought to trial. Her judges try to make her say something that will discredit her claim or shake her belief that she has been given a mission by God to drive the English from France, but she remains steadfast. One or two of them, believing that she is indeed a saint, support her. The authorities then resort to deception. A priest reads to the illiterate prisoner a false letter supposedly from her king, telling her to trust in the bearer. When that too fails, Joan is taken to view the torture chamber, but the sight, though it causes her to faint, does not intimidate her. When she is threatened with burning at the stake, she finally breaks and allows a priest to guide her hand in signing a confession. However, she soon recants and is publicly executed. Production. Background and writing. After the success of "Master of the House" in Denmark, Dreyer was invited to make a film in France by the Société Gėnėrale and proposed a film about either Marie Antoinette, Catherine de Medici or Joan of Arc. He later claimed that the final decision on the film's subject matter was determined by drawing matches. Joan of Arc was in the news in France after World War I, having been canonised as a saint of the Roman Catholic Church in 1920 and adopted as one of the patron saints of France. Dreyer spent over a year and a half researching Joan for the film, and the script was based on the original transcripts of Joan's trial and execution, condensing 29 interrogations over the course of 18 months into one scene. The transcripts of the trial had been published in 1921 by editor Pierre Champion and were the main basis of Dreyer's script. The rights to Joseph Delteil's 1925 book on Joan of Arc were also purchased for the production, but nothing from Delteil's book was used in the finished film. However, at the film's premiere Delteil was partially credited as a source. Art Direction. The film had one of the most expensive sets ever built for a European film up to that time. Dreyer was given a seven million franc budget. He constructed an enormous octagonal concrete set to depict Rouen Castle. Production designers Hermann Warm and Jean Hugo were inspired by medieval miniatures for their designs, adding unnatural angles and perspectives to add to Joan's emotional state of mind. They also relied on medieval manuscripts with accurate architectural drawings, such as John Mandeville's "Livre de Merveilles". The huge set was built as one complete, interconnecting structure instead of in separate locations. The castle had towers in all four corners with concrete walls running along the sides. Each wall was 10 centimeters thick so that they could support the weight of actors, technicians and equipment. A functional drawbridge was also built into one of the walls. Inside the walls were small houses, the courtyard where the burning took place and a cathedral. The entire set was painted pink so that it would appear grey in the black and white film and contrast against the white sky above it. Despite all of the detail put into the set, only segments of it are ever visible in the film, which later angered the film's producers since so much money was spent on the set. Hermann Warm's original models for the film's set are currently stored at the Danish Film Institute Archives. Cinematography. What especially stood out at the time when "The Passion of Joan of Arc" was made was the film's camera-work and emphasis on the actors' facial features. Dreyer shot a great deal of the film in close-up, stating that "There were questions, there were answers- very short, very crisp...Each question, each answer, quite naturally called for a close-up... In addition, the result of the close-ups was that the spectator was as shocked as Joan was, receiving the questions, tortured by them. Dreyer also did not allow his actors to wear makeup, the better to tell the story through their expressions—this choice was made possible through use of the recently developed panchromatic film, which recorded skin tones in a naturalistic manner. Dreyer often shot the priests and Joan's other interrogators in high contrast lighting, but then shot Joan in soft, even lighting. Rudolph Maté's high-contrast cinematography also allowed the details in people's faces, including warts and lumps, to be grotesquely visible. Dreyer also used many low angle shots of Joan's persecutors in order to make them seem more monstrous and intimidating, and several holes were huge on the set, causing the crew to nickname him "Carl Gruyére". Dreyer also shot the film "from the first to the last scene ... in the right order." Casting. This was star Maria Falconetti's second and last film role, despite achieving iconic status in film history almost immediately. Falconetti always preferred the theater to film and never understood the positive reaction to the film. Dreyer went to see Falconetti backstage at a performance of Victor Margueritte's "La Garçonne", a comedic play that she was appearing in. Dreyer wasn't initially impressed with her, but when he went to see her again the next day he "felt there was something in her which could be brought out; something she could give, something, therefore, I could take. For behind the make-up, behind the pose and that ravishing modern appearance, there was something. There was a soul behind that facade." Dreyer asked her to do some screen tests the next day, but without any make-up. During the tests, Dreyer "found in her face exactly what I wanted for Joan: a country girl, very sincere, but also a woman of suffering." Dreyer then told Falconetti about the film and her role in great detail and Falconetti agreed to star in the film, but secretly hoped that she would not have to cut her hair or go without make-up. Jean Renoir praised her performance and said "That shaven head was and remains the abstraction of the whole epic of Joan of Arc." She was famously treated harshly by Dreyer, who had a reputation for being a tyrannical director. Dreyer would always clear the set whenever Falconetti needed to act in a particularly emotional or important scene, allowing her to focus without any distractions. Dreyer often had difficulties explaining himself to Falconetti and was known to turn bright red and begin stammering when passionately directing her. Dreyer had stated that a director "must be careful never to force his own interpretation on an actor, because an actor cannot create truth and pure emotions on command. One cannot push feelings out. They have to arise from themselves, and it is the director's and actor's work in unison to bring them to that point." Later in post-production, Falconetti was the only cast member to watch the rushes and stay involved in the film while it was being edited. According to film critic Roger Ebert: For Falconetti, the performance was an ordeal. Legends from the set tell of Dreyer forcing her to kneel painfully on stone and then wipe all expression from her face—so that the viewer would read suppressed or inner pain. He filmed the same shots again and again, hoping that in the editing room he could find exactly the right nuance in her facial expression. Among the other cast members was French playwright Antonin Artaud as the monk Massieu. Artaud later stated that the film was meant to "reveal Joan as the victim of one of the most terrible of all perversions: the perversion of a divine principle in its passage through the minds of men, whether they be Church, Government or what you will." Release and different versions. "The Passion of Joan of Arc" debuted on April 21, 1928 at the Cinema Palads Teatret in Copenhagen. After a few private screenings, it finally premiered in Paris on October 25, 1928 at the Cinema Marivaux. The film was delayed because of persistent efforts of many French nationalists who objected to the fact that Dreyer was not Catholic and not French and to the then-rumored casting of Lillian Gish as Joan. As early as January 1927, Jean-Jose Frappa said that "whatever the talent of the director (and he has it)...he cannot give us a Joan of Arc in the true French tradition. And the American 'star'...cannot be our Joan, wholesome, lively, shining with purity, faith, courage and patriotism. To let this be made in France would be a scandalous abdication of responsibility." Before its French premiere, several cuts were made by order of the Archbishop of Paris and by government censors. Dreyer had no say in these cuts and was angry about them. Later that year on December 6, a fire at UFA studios in Berlin destroyed the film's original negative and only a few copies of Dreyer's original cut of the film existed. Dreyer was able to patch together a new version of his original cut using alternate takes not initially used. This version was also destroyed in a lab fire in 1929. Over the years, it became hard to find copies of Dreyer's second version and even harder to find copies of the original version.
1083965	Beerfest is a 2006 beer-themed comedy film by the comedy group Broken Lizard. Along with the regular members of Broken Lizard, other actors who appear in the movie include Will Forte, M. C. Gainey, Cloris Leachman, Jürgen Prochnow, Donald Sutherland, and Willie Nelson. "Beerfest" was filmed in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Plot. At the funeral of their German-born grandfather Johann von Wolfhausen (Donald Sutherland), brothers Jan and Todd Wolfhouse (Paul Soter and Erik Stolhanske) discover that family tradition demands they travel to Munich during Oktoberfest to spread his ashes on the Theresienwiese. Their great grandmother, called Gam Gam (Cloris Leachman), gives them two tickets to Munich, where a Mr. Schniedelwichsen (Bjorn Johnson; the fictional name "Schniedelwichsen" translates to a masturbatory joke in German) will take them to the family resting place. While waiting for Schniedelwichsen after their arrival, the brothers unintentionally start a brawl that takes down an entire Oktoberfest tent. Schniedelwichsen leads Jan and Todd to Beerfest, an underground drinking game tournament run by Baron Wolfgang von Wolfhausen (Jürgen Prochnow). The triumphant German national team is furious that Schniedelwichsen would bring outsiders to the contest, so he is shot. Jan and Todd discover that the von Wolfhausens are related to the Wolfhouses. The German team reveals that Johann was a stable boy who stole the recipe for "the greatest beer in all ze world" decades ago and ran away with his prostitute mother, Gam Gam. The Germans celebrate an easy win over Jan and Todd in a drinking contest and urge the audience to pelt Jan and Todd with vegetables, destroying the urn containing their grandfather's ashes and spilling them all over the brothers. Swearing to get revenge on the Germans, Jan and Todd return to Colorado, where they recruit college drinking friends for an American Beerfest team: During the team's year of drinking training, Jan and Todd find out their grandfather did not steal the family beer recipe. Before the Baron Wolfhausen of the time died, he hid the recipe in a doll he gave the boy Johann before Gam Gam took him to the U.S. Since he was the Baron's first-born child, Johann was the rightful heir to the family brewery in Bavaria. The team uses the rediscovered recipe to brew Schnitzengiggle Beer for the first time in over a generation. It is easily the best beer they have ever tasted (being so delicious that it makes them cry). After the German team receive a bottle of Schnitzengiggle in the mail, the Wolfhausen clan goes to America to confront their Wolfhouse cousins and snatch the recipe using various tactics. Disguised as a nurse for Gam Gam, a spy named Cherry (Mo'Nique) (who had sex with Barry while he was in a beer goggles state of inebriation from drinking the family beer) presumably steals the recipe. When Landfill discovers her true identity, Cherry makes him fall into a beer vat, where he dies trying to drink his way out. The team decides to disband, but suddenly, Landfill's very talented twin brother, Gil (also played by Heffernan), shows up and asks to join the team and be called "Landfill" as tribute to his brother. In Germany, Jan and Todd have forgotten where Beerfest is held. Getting Todd drunk, though, jogs his memory through what is referred to as "Drunken Recall". The team uses an empty wooden keg as a Trojan Horse to get inside, where they emerge to boos and jeers. The Americans are allowed to participate after Jan and Todd show how uncannily they resemble the two Beerfest founders, thus convincing the crowd of their von Wolfhausen ancestry. In the finals (bootline chug), Cherry tells Gil at a crucial moment how his brother Phil died, causing Gil to crack and the Germans to win. Jan, still unaware that Cherry stole the recipe, offers the Germans a double or nothing chance. If the Germans win, they get the recipe; if the Americans win, they get the Bavarian brewery. The Germans tell Jan they already have the recipe and thus no need for a rematch, but Fink points out that Cherry only stole a recipe for a low-carb strawberry beer, which prompts Wolfgang to have Cherry killed. When one of the von Wolfhausens knocks off Fink's yarmulke, he enters into a state of purely concentrated rage (the "Eye of the Jew", in which his left eye turns into a glowing Star of David) which allows him to coach the team to victory, barely gaining the win when the German team's anchor fails to finish "Das Boot" (Boot of beer). A single drop falls from it, disqualifying the German team. The team celebrates in Amsterdam, where they bump into Willie Nelson (in a cameo role). Because Willie's marijuana-smoking tournament teammates, Cheech and Chong, were not able to attend the contest, Nelson invites the Beerfest team to join him and they gladly do so. The film ends with a smoke-filled screen and the words "Coming Soon - "Potfest"". "Potfest". Despite the statement at the end of "Beerfest" that "Potfest" is "coming soon", Broken Lizard intended this as a joke to get publicity. They have stated both that fans were very supportive of the title and that Broken Lizard may decide to make an animated film of the same name. In July 2012, Broken Lizard member Jay Chandraskehar revealed the "Smokefest" might actually happen, and that Willie Nelson, Cheech of Cheech & Chong and Snoop Dogg agreed to appear in the movie. In June 2013, it was confirmed that the movie would be released after "Super Troopers 2". Different versions. Two versions of the movie have been released: The theatrical version and the unrated version. The unrated version mainly shows more scenes of plot and runs ten minutes longer than the theatrical version. Altogether eight scenes have been added. The film also shows a lot more nudity that wasn't allowed under the R rating. Reception. The film scores 40% on the film-critic aggregate site Rotten Tomatoes, based on 105 reviews, making it the highest rated Broken Lizard film on the site.
1102821	In mathematics, a linear approximation is an approximation of a general function using a linear function (more precisely, an affine function). They are widely used in the method of finite differences to produce first order methods for solving or approximating solutions to equations. Definition. Given a twice continuously differentiable function "f" of one real variable, Taylor's theorem for the case "n" = 1 states that where formula_2 is the remainder term. The linear approximation is obtained by dropping the remainder: This is a good approximation for "x" when it is close enough to "a"; since a curve, when closely observed, will begin to resemble a straight line. Therefore, the expression on the right-hand side is just the equation for the tangent line to the graph of "f" at ("a","f"("a")). For this reason, this process is also called the tangent line approximation. If "f" is concave down in the interval between "x" and "a", the approximation will be an overestimate (since the derivative is decreasing in that interval). If "f" is concave up, the approximation will be an underestimate. Linear approximations for vector functions of a vector variable are obtained in the same way, with the derivative at a point replaced by the Jacobian matrix. For example, given a differentiable function formula_4 with real values, one can approximate formula_4 for formula_6 close to formula_7 by the formula The right-hand side is the equation of the plane tangent to the graph of formula_9 at formula_10 In the more general case of Banach spaces, one has where formula_12 is the Fréchet derivative of formula_13 at formula_14.
400575	Andrew "Andy" Daly (born April 15, 1971) is an American actor, comedian, and writer who is best known for playing Principal Terrence Cutler in the HBO comedy series "Eastbound & Down". He is also noted for his two seasons as a cast member on "Mad TV" and for his recurring roles on television programs such as "The Life and Times of Tim", "Delocated", and "Comedy Bang Bang". Early life. Daly was born in Mount Kisco, New York, and was raised in New Jersey. He graduated in 1989 from Ridgewood High School in Ridgewood, New Jersey and then attended Ithaca College, where he received a Bachelor’s Degree in Drama. After college, Daly moved to New York City where he performed, along with Andy Secunda, in the sketch comedy duo The Two Andys, which appeared at the 1999 Aspen Comedy Festival. He was also a part of the Mainstage company at Chicago City Limits, NY's longest running show, as an improvisational actor. When the Upright Citizens Brigade relocated to New York from Chicago in 1996, Daly was one of the first New Yorkers to study improvisation with the group and performed in many of the earliest shows produced by the UCB. He was a member of the long-form improvisation group The Swarm, which was assembled and directed by Amy Poehler. Career. Television. During the late 90s, Daly appeared frequently in sketches on "Late Night with Conan O'Brien" and lent his voice to Robert Smigel's "TV Funhouse" cartoons on "Saturday Night Live". In 2000, Daly joined the cast of "Mad TV". He was a featured player in the show’s 6th season, appearing in 13 episodes. He returned as a full cast member the following season. His recurring characters were Dr. Adrian Ganzer ("Come On Down") and Scott Oglevee (Real Mother****ing Talk) and he did impressions of Bill Maher, Carrot Top, Charlie Rose, Dick Cheney, Don Knotts, Jesse Helms, Pat Sajak, Matt LeBlanc, Rick Schroder, and Tony Blair. Daly left "Mad TV" in 2002 and next appeared on television in the main cast of Comedy Central's "Crossballs". He later played several different characters on "Reno 911", recurring as "Brad the Friendly Homeowner". He also worked as a correspondent on "The Showbiz Show with David Spade" for all three seasons. In 2007, Daly appeared as a Benjamin Franklin impersonator in an episode of "The Office" entitled "Ben Franklin".
583454	Gaman () is a Bollywood film released in 1978. It is the directorial debut of Muzaffar Ali, who went on to make the successful film Umrao Jaan.
1059283	Michael T. "Mykelti" Williamson (born March 4, 1957) is an American actor best known for his role as Benjamin Buford (Bubba) Blue in the 1994 film "Forrest Gump", as Detective Bobby "Fearless" Smith in the critically acclaimed but commercially unsuccessful crime drama "Boomtown", as Brian Hastings, Director of CTU New York, for Season 8, the final season of the hit TV series "24", and recently as Ellstin Limehouse in the critically acclaimed "Justified". Early life. Williamson was born on March 4, 1957 in St. Louis, Missouri. He is the son of Elaine, a certified public accountant, and a father who was an Air Force Non-Commissioned Officer. Williamson began performing at the age of nine. Along with acting, he also danced as an alternate member of The Lockers troupe on "Soul Train" along with Fred Berry (star of TV sitcom "What's Happening!!"). At age nine, Williamson relocated to Los Angeles with his family. While in high school he excelled in athletics, particularly football and basketball. However, acting was his first love and he pursued sports no farther than high school. Williamson studied television/film at Los Angeles City College. He audited acting classes at USC under the tutelage of Dr. Frank X. Ford. Williamson later transferred to Gene Evans Motion Picture School in San Jose and earned his certificate in Cinematography/ Film Production. Career. Williamson began acting professionally as a child. His first TV appearances include "The Righteous Apples", "Starsky and Hutch", "Hill Street Blues", "Miami Vice", "China Beach", and "Midnight Caller". His film debut was in "Streets of Fire" (1984). His credits include "Wildcats" (1986) with Goldie Hawn, "Miracle Mile" (1989), "The First Power" (1990) with Lou Diamond Phillips, "Free Willy" (1993), "Forrest Gump" (1994) "Waiting to Exhale" (1995), "Heat" (1995), "Con Air" (1997), "Truth or Consequences, N.M." (1997), "Three Kings" (1999), "" (1999), "Black Dynamite" (2009) and "The Final Destination" (2009). Williamson is best known as Private Benjamin Buford "Bubba" Blue in the Academy Award-winning 1994 film "Forrest Gump". He also received favorable reviews when he played Negro League baseball player Josh Gibson in the HBO film "Soul of the Game" (1996). Williamson has made many guest appearances in TV and film. His most recent film appearances have been "Lucky Number Slevin" (2006), "Ali" (2001),"The Assassination of Richard Nixon" (2004), "Get Rich or Die Tryin'" (2005) "ATL" (2006), "August Rush" (2007), "Black Dynamite" (2009) and "The Final Destination" (2009). He was Juror #10 in the 1997 TV movie remake of "Twelve Angry Men" (picking up the Ed Begley role). He also appeared in a short-lived TV series remake (CBS, 2000–2001) of the "The Fugitive". CBS canceled the series after one season with a total of 22 episodes. Williamson also starred in PBS's TV series "The Righteous Apples". The show focuses on the activities of The Righteous Apples, five Boston-area high school musicians, who in a troubled world, seek to help people in distress. Williamson was the lead singer of the group in the show in which he was just a teenager at that time. In 2002, he co-starred as Detective Bobby "Fearless" Smith in the critically acclaimed but commercially unsuccessful crime drama "Boomtown". He was invited to join AMPAS in 2005. In 2006, Williamson played the character Virgil Hayes, a body guard on the cancelled television drama series, "Kidnapped." Recently, he has appeared in several episodes of "" as Chief Sinclair, reuniting him with his "Forrest Gump" co-star Gary Sinise. He is a main character in season 8 of "24" starring as the special agent in charge of the New York CTU named Brian Hastings. He also appeared as race-track security guard George Lanter in "The Final Destination", the 4th entry in the "Final Destination" film series. He currently has a recurring role as Ellstin Limehouse on the FX drama "Justified". Personal life. Williamson was married to "Miami Vice" star Olivia Brown from July 2, 1983 - 1985. He later married Cheryl Chisholm in 1989 with whom he had his first child, Phoenix. He has been married to Sondra Spriggs since April 26, 1997; together they have two daughters, Nicole and Maya. In 1998, he was arrested for stabbing his ex-wife Cheryl Chisholm's partner Leroy Edwards. He was acquitted of attempted manslaughter but, in his own words, "I lost my home, which I sold to pay my lawyers, my car and basically lost my career," He appeared with Sondra Spriggs in the 1998 film "Species II". The two were married during the filming of TNT's production of "Buffalo Soldiers". Williamson was interviewed on a television show called Celebrity Ghost Stories and told of a disturbing incident that happened to him in the early 1980s when he was a struggling young actor. It involved a childhood friend of his named Adrian who had been shot dead. Williamson said that shortly after his friend's death he received a collect phone call and recognized his friend's voice begging him for help. Williamson said he heard flames roaring in the background and eerie voices.
1298891	Scott Chapman Plank (November 11, 1958 — October 24, 2002) was an American film and television actor, best known for playing Nick Reardon on "Melrose Place", and as Wiley Farrell on "Air America". Life and acting career. Scott Plank was born in Washington, D.C.. Plank's last feature film was the movie "Holes" (2003) starring Sigourney Weaver and Jon Voight, in which he had the supporting role of Trout Walker. In addition he appeared in "The Flying Dutchman" in 2001, which co-starred Rod Steiger, "Saints and Sinners" in 1994, "The In Crowd" in 1988, "Panama zucchero" in 1990, which co-starred Oliver Reed, and finally "Without Evidence" (1995), which co-starred Angelina Jolie. His television credits include appearances in "The Division" (2001), "Sons and Daughters" (1991), "Air America" (1998) and "Melrose Place" (1992). Plank had an extensive theatre background that spans from Broadway to Regional theatre in Los Angeles. He was in the original cast of "Dream Girls" on Broadway and toured for many years with "A Chorus Line" in which he played various roles. Regional theatre roles include "Hurly Burly" co-starring alongside Sean Penn, and a one act play "Kindness of Women", written and directed by Sean Penn. Death. Plank died on October 24, 2002, in Los Angeles, California, from injuries sustained from a car accident three days earlier at age 43.. "Holes" was dedicated in his memory.
1163593	Lloyd Benedict Nolan (August 11, 1902 – September 27, 1985) was an American film and television actor. Biography. Nolan was born in San Francisco, California, the son of Margaret and James Nolan, who was a shoe manufacturer. He began his career on stage and was subsequently lured to Hollywood, where he played mainly doctors, detectives, and police officers in many movie roles. He was a brother to the Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity (Sigma Rho chapter). Film career. Although Nolan's acting was often praised by critics, he was, for the most part, relegated to B pictures. Despite this, Nolan costarred with a number of well-known actresses, among them Mae West, Dorothy McGuire, and former Metropolitan Opera mezzo-soprano Gladys Swarthout. Under contract to Paramount and 20th Century Fox studios, he assayed starring roles in the late 30s and early-to-mid 40s and appeared as the title character in the Michael Shayne detective series. Raymond Chandler's novel "The High Window" was adapted from a Philip Marlowe adventure for the seventh film in the Michael Shayne series, "Time to Kill" (1942). The film was remade five years later as "The Brasher Doubloon", truer to Chandler's original story, with George Montgomery as Marlowe. The majority of Nolan's films comprised light entertainment with an emphasis on action. His most famous films include: "Atlantic Adventure", costarring Nancy Carroll; "Ebb Tide"; "Wells Fargo"; "Every Day's A Holiday", starring Mae West; "Bataan"; and "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn", with Dorothy McGuire and James Dunn. He also gave a strong performance in the 1957 film "Peyton Place" with Lana Turner. Nolan subsequently contributed many solid and key character parts in numerous other films. One of these films, "The House on 92nd Street", was a startling revelation to audiences in 1945. It was a conflation of several true incidents of attempted sabotage by the Nazi regime - incidents which the FBI was able to thwart during World War II - and many scenes were filmed on location in New York City, an unusual occurrence at the time. Nolan portrayed FBI agent Briggs, and actual FBI employees interacted with Nolan throughout the film. He reprised the role in a subsequent 1948 movie, "The Street with No Name". Other endeavors. Later in his career, he returned to the stage and appeared on television to great acclaim in "The Caine Mutiny Court Martial", for which he received a 1955 Emmy award for portraying Captain Queeg, the role made famous by Humphrey Bogart. Nolan also made guest appearances in television shows including NBC's "The Ford Show, Starring Tennessee Ernie Ford", "The Bing Crosby Show", a sitcom on ABC and the Emmy-winning NBC anthology series "The Barbara Stanwyck Show". On November 7, 1961, Nolan played the outlaw Matt Dyer in the episode "Deadly Is the Night" on NBC's "Laramie" western series. Series character Jess Harper (Robert Fuller) stops at the former stagecoach outpost of Ma Tolliver, played by Olive Carey, to rest his lame horse. Suddenly Matt Dyer arrives with his gang and takes as hostage Jess, Ma, and her granddaughter, Sue, portrayed by Marlene Willis. The cruel Dyer proceeds to humiliate the hostages. When a posse arrives, Dyer tries to use Ma and Sue to prevent the storming of the house. However, the posse forces his hand, and the outlaws flee, but Jess keeps Dyer from running away. On October 2, 1962, Nolan appeared again on "Laramie" in the episode "War Hero" as former Union Army General George Barton, who arrives in Laramie as a potential candidate for President of the United States. Jess Harper halts an assassination attempt against the general, who recuperates at the Sherman Ranch. Joanna Barnes plays Barton's daughter, Lucy. Francis De Sales, Mort Mills, and Herbert Rudley also appear in this episode. Nolan starred in the classic 1964 episode "Soldier" of ABC's "The Outer Limits", written by Harlan Ellison. He appeared in the NBC western "Bonanza" as LaDuke, a New Orleans detective. In 1967, he and Strother Martin guest starred in the episode "A Mighty Hunter Before the Lord" of NBC's "The Road West" series starring Barry Sullivan. Also in 1967, Nolan was a guest star in the popular western TV series "The Virginian", episode "The Masquerade".
1055317	California Split is a 1974 film directed by Robert Altman and starring Elliott Gould and George Segal as a pair of gamblers. It was the first non-Cinerama movie to use eight-track stereo sound. Plot. The film is less concerned with plot than behavior as a friendship develops between Bill Denny (George Segal) and Charlie Waters (Elliott Gould) over their mutual love of gambling. Charlie is a wisecracking joker and experienced gambler constantly looking for the next score. Initially, Bill isn’t as committed a gambler (he works at a magazine during the day) but he’s well on his way. As the film progresses and the two men hang out more, Bill starts to become more addicted to the gambling lifestyle. He goes into debt to his bookie, Sparkie (Joseph Walsh). Eventually, Bill hocks some of his possessions to fund a trip to Reno, where Bill and Charlie pool their money to stake Bill in a poker game (where one of the players is former world champion "Amarillo Slim", portraying himself). Bill wins $18,000, but doesn't quit; he is convinced he is on a hot streak. He plays blackjack, then roulette and finally craps, winning more and more money, eventually cashing out $82,000. But something happens at the craps table. When he finally stops, he is drained, almost apathetic. After they split their winnings, he tells Charlie he's quitting and going home. Charlie doesn't understand it, but sees that his friend means what he says, and they go their separate ways. Production. Fed up with the unrealistic dialogue he and other actors were forced to say on a regular basis, struggling actor Joseph Walsh wrote a screenplay about his own gambling addiction in 1971. He was friends with then up-and-coming filmmaker Steven Spielberg and they worked on the script for nine months. The director was fascinated by the characters and would react to Walsh’s script, offering suggestions. At the time the screenplay was called "Slide" and the two men had a deal to make it at MGM with Walsh as producer and Steve McQueen in the starring role. However, the studio began making unrealistic demands, like having the script be an exact number of pages and wanting the whole story to be set at the Circus Circus casino in Las Vegas because MGM owned it. A month away from filming, the studio experienced a shake-up at the executive level and with it came a new set of changes. MGM wanted the story to be a mafia-related “sting” concept with Dean Martin as one of the two main characters. Walsh would no longer be the producer. He and Spielberg left MGM and took the script to Universal Pictures where they had an agreement with Darryl Zanuck and David Brown. Spielberg decided to work on another project, leaving Walsh and his film stranded. The writer’s agent, Guy McElwaine, contacted Altman’s agent George Litto, and the director was given the script, read it and loved it. The new studio chief of Columbia Pictures was a former agent who knew Walsh’s agent and green-lighted the screenplay to be made into a movie on the writer’s terms. Walsh was a novice and unaware of Altman’s reputation for taking liberties with the screenplays for his movies. Walsh was very protective of his script and argued with Altman numerous times about certain aspects. Walsh remembers, “You know, he actually stormed out of the room many times on me during the picture, during these conversations, but he would always come back and listen as I got to know him more...” George Segal was cast early on and Walsh considered long-time friend Elliott Gould, but saw other actors, such as Peter Falk and Robert De Niro. He kept coming back to Gould and finally the actor called him up and convinced him that he was right for the role. Walsh recalls, “because Elliott "lived" his gambling, he came out of the box just like in a horse race when a great horse comes out of the box. The first day of shooting, he was "there" as that character...After seven days, George Segal came to me and said, ‘This guy’s unbelievable. He’s an octopus. He is absolutely strangling me to death. I don’t even know what to do.’ The man was pleading for his life.” Walsh told Segal not to try to keep up with Gould because he had actually lived the life of his character in the film and to continue acting the way he had been doing so far. "California Split" was the first film to use the experimental eight-track sound system that allowed eight separate audio channels to be recorded and helped develop Altman’s trademark of overlapping dialogue. To this end, he gave the supporting actors and extras significant emphasis on the soundtrack. A number of the extras were members of Synanon, an organization for ex-addicts. Altman also used champion poker player, Amarillo Slim in the movie “to add drama to the poker game for the actors and crew. He elevated the game to a very high professional level.” He had originally considered Haskell Wexler to be the director of photography on the film, but went with newcomer Paul Lohmann instead. Walsh remembers that Altman defended the choice by saying, “They could create a look together, and he might get into conflict with Haskell or other people about making it a little prettier than it should be.” He ended up making the film in Los Angeles and Reno with the latter location being very effective in keeping everyone in the spirit of the movie. Altman said in an interview, “Everybody was involved in that atmosphere, and there was a sense of reality because one minute you were downstairs in the Mapes casino losing money and winning money, and then a minute later you were upstairs on the set filming a crap game.” Reception. Roger Ebert in his review for the "Chicago Sun-Times" wrote, "At the end of "California Split" we realize that Altman has made a lot more than a comedy about gambling; he's taken us into an American nightmare, and all the people we met along the way felt genuine and looked real," and praised it as "a great movie and it's a great experience, too." Vincent Canby in the "New York Times" praised the film for being "dense with fine, idiosyncratic detail, a lot of which is supplied by Mr. Gould and Mr. Segal as well as by members of the excellent supporting cast." The film reportedly grossed over five million dollars at the box office despite the studio pulling it early from theaters. It also made the "New York Times"’ annual ten best list of that year. Altman said of the reaction to his movies, “I just have to hope that the film I do falls in with the mass audience and they will go see it. But one reason I have problems is that they don’t advertise the films I make because they don’t know where to put them...They don’t quite know where it is, so consequently they try to advertise it as a different film. And it still doesn’t succeed.” The DVD. The film was released on DVD in 2004, but music rights problems forced Sony/Columbia to exclude almost three minutes of footage and make several soundtrack changes. The DVD is already out of print, leading to speculation that a re-release is imminent with the missing footage restored.
642910	Gerald Jay Sussman (February 8, 1947) is the Panasonic Professor of Electrical Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He received his S.B. and Ph.D. degrees in mathematics from MIT in 1968 and 1973 respectively. He has been involved in artificial intelligence research at MIT since 1964. His research has centered on understanding the problem-solving strategies used by scientists and engineers, with the goals of automating parts of the process and formalizing it to provide more effective methods of science and engineering education. Sussman has also worked in computer languages, in computer architecture and in VLSI design. Academic work. Sussman is a coauthor (with Hal Abelson and Julie Sussman) of the introductory computer science textbook "Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs". It was used at MIT for several decades, and has been translated into several languages. Sussman's contributions to artificial intelligence include problem solving by debugging almost-right plans, propagation of constraints applied to electrical circuit analysis and synthesis, dependency-based explanation and dependency-based backtracking, and various language structures for expressing problem-solving strategies. Sussman and his former student, Guy L. Steele Jr., invented the Scheme programming language in 1975. Sussman saw that artificial intelligence ideas can be applied to computer-aided design. Sussman developed, with his graduate students, sophisticated computer-aided design tools for VLSI. Steele made the first Scheme chips in 1978. These ideas and the AI-based CAD technology to support them were further developed in the Scheme chips of 1979 and 1981. The technique and experience developed were then used to design other special-purpose computers. Sussman was the principal designer of the Digital Orrery, a machine designed to do high-precision integrations for orbital mechanics experiments. The Orrery was designed and built by a few people in a few months, using AI-based simulation and compilation tools. Using the Digital Orrery, Sussman has worked with Jack Wisdom to discover numerical evidence for chaotic motions in the outer planets. The Digital Orrery is now retired at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC. Sussman was also the lead designer of the Supercomputer Toolkit, another multiprocessor computer optimized for evolving systems of ordinary differential equations. The Supercomputer Toolkit was used by Sussman and Wisdom to confirm and extend the discoveries made with the Digital Orrery to include the entire planetary system. Sussman has pioneered the use of computational descriptions to communicate methodological ideas in teaching subjects in Electrical Circuits and in Signals and Systems. Over the past decade Sussman and Wisdom have developed a subject that uses computational techniques to communicate a deeper understanding of advanced classical mechanics. In "Computer Science: Reflections on the Field, Reflections from the Field", he writes "...computational algorithms are used to express the methods used in the analysis of dynamical phenomena. Expressing the methods in a computer language forces them to be unambiguous and computationally effective. Students are expected to read the programs and to extend them and to write new ones. The task of formulating a method as a computer-executable program and debugging that program is a powerful exercise in the learning process. Also, once formalized procedurally, a mathematical idea becomes a tool that can be used directly to compute results." Sussman and Wisdom, with Meinhard Mayer, have produced a textbook, "Structure and Interpretation of Classical Mechanics", to capture these new ideas. Sussman and Abelson have also been an part of the Free Software Movement, including and serving on the Board of Directors of the Free Software Foundation, Awards and organizations. For his contributions to computer-science education, Sussman received the ACM's Karl Karlstrom Outstanding Educator Award in 1990, and the Amar G. Bose award for teaching in 1991. Sussman, Hal Abelson, and Richard Stallman are the only founding directors still active on the board of directors of the Free Software Foundation (FSF). Sussman is a fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), a member of the National Academy of Engineering (NAE), a fellow of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI), a fellow of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), a fellow of the New York Academy of Sciences (NYAS), and a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He is also a bonded locksmith, a life member of the American Watchmakers-Clockmakers Institute (AWI), a member of the Massachusetts Watchmakers-Clockmakers Association (MWCA), a member of the Amateur Telescope Makers of Boston (ATMOB), and a member of the American Radio Relay League (ARRL).
1048904	On Borrowed Time is a 1939 film about the role death plays in life, and how humanity cannot live without it. It is adapted from Paul Osborn's 1938 Broadway hit play. The play, based on a novel by Lawrence Edward Watkin, has been revived twice on Broadway since its original run. Set in small-town America, the film stars Lionel Barrymore, Beulah Bondi and Sir Cedric Hardwicke. Barrymore plays Julian Northrup, a wheelchair user (Barrymore had broken his hip twice and was now using a wheelchair, though he continued to act), who, with his wife Nellie, played by Bondi, are raising their orphaned grandson, Pud. Plot. One day the fedora-wearing Mr. Brink (the personification of death, played by Sir Cedric Hardwicke), who has recently taken Pud's (Bobs Watson) parents in an auto wreck, comes for Gramps (Lionel Barrymore). Not knowing who he's talking to, the crotchety old Gramps orders Mr. Brink off the property. Later, Mr. Brink takes Granny Nellie (Beulah Bondi). Pud, Gramps' grandson, tells him that when he does a good deed, he will be able to make a wish. Because his apples are constantly being stolen, Gramps wishes that anyone that climbs up his apple tree will have to stay there until he lets them down.
1073184	The trilogy. The trilogy is made up of (1972), (1973) and (1974).
1091354	Hugh Everett III (November 11, 1930 – July 19, 1982) was an American physicist who first proposed the many-worlds interpretation (MWI) of quantum physics, which he termed his "relative state" formulation.
1376093	Barbie in A Mermaid Tale is a computer animated direct-to-video movie and part of the Barbie film series. This is the first modern Barbie movie. It was released on March 9, 2010. Plot. "Barbie in A Mermaid Tale" is about a sixteen-year-old girl called Merliah Summers, (Liah for short). She is a top surfer at Malibu and is nicknamed, "Queen of the Waves". On the day of a surfing competition, Merliah is surfing mavericks, when one part of her hair suddenly turns pink on contact with seawater. Nervous of showing everyone her hair, she dives underwater and meets a pink-ish purple coloured, dolphin named Zuma. Merliah finds out she can breathe underwater.
1078923	Zozo is a 2005 Swedish-Lebanese film about a Lebanese boy (Imad Creidi) during the civil war, who gets separated from his family and ends up in Sweden. It was directed by Swedish-Lebanese director Josef Fares. The story is mostly inspired by Fares' real life immigration to Sweden during the war. The film was Sweden's representative for Best Foreign film at the 78th Academy Awards. It won The Nordic Council Film Prize in 2006.
1058444	Dementia 13 (UK title: The Haunted and the Hunted) is a 1963 horror-thriller released by American International Pictures, starring William Campbell, Patrick Magee, and Luana Anders. The film was written and directed by Francis Ford Coppola and produced by Roger Corman. Although Coppola had been involved in at least two nudie films previously, "Dementia 13" served as his first mainstream, "legitimate," directorial effort. The plot follows a scheming young woman who, after having inadvertently caused the heart attack death of her husband, attempts to have herself written into her rich mother-in-law's will. She pays a surprise visit to her late husband's family castle in Ireland, but her plans become permanently interrupted by an axe-wielding lunatic who begins to stalk and murderously hack away at members of the family.
1162916	Conrad John Schuck Jr. (born February 4, 1940) is an American actor, primarily in stage, movies and television. He is best known for his roles as police commissioner Rock Hudson's mildly slow-witted assistant, Sgt. Charles Enright in the 1970s crime drama "McMillan & Wife", and as Lee Meriwether's husband, Herman Munster in the 1980s sitcom, "The Munsters Today". Schuck is also known for his work on "Star Trek" movies and television series, often playing a Klingon character, as well as his recurring roles as Draal on "Babylon 5" and as Chief of Detectives Muldrew of the New York City Police Department in the "Law & Order" programs, especially "." Career. Schuck was born in Boston, Massachusetts, the son of Mary (née Hamilton) and Conrad John Schuck Sr., an English professor at SUNY Buffalo. He made his first theatrical appearances at Denison University, and after graduating continued his career at the Cleveland Play House, Baltimore's Center Stage, and finally the American Conservatory Theater, where he was discovered by Robert Altman. Schuck's first appearance in film was the role of Captain Walter Koskiusko "Painless Pole" Waldowski in Altman's film "M*A*S*H." (As Painless, Schuck holds a place in Hollywood history as the first person to utter the word "fuck" in a major studio film.) He went on to appear in several more Altman films: "Brewster McCloud," "McCabe & Mrs. Miller," and "Thieves Like Us." From 1971-1977, he appeared as Sergeant Charles Enright in "McMillan & Wife" and also starred as an overseer in the miniseries "Roots: The Saga Of An American Family." In 1976, he played Gregory "Yo-Yo" Yoyonovich in the short-lived series "Holmes & Yo-Yo." He starred in ABC's 1979 TV holiday special "The Halloween That Almost Wasn't" (a.k.a. "The Night Dracula Saved the World") as the Frankenstein Monster. He was also a regular "guest celebrity" on game shows in the 1970s and 1980s, appearing as a celebrity guest on such programs in this genre as "Pyramid," "Hollywood Squares," "Password Plus and Super Password," and "The Cross-Wits." Appearing under the name "John Schuck" in the summer of 1979, he made his Broadway debut playing the role of Oliver "Daddy" Warbucks as a replacement in the original Broadway musical comedy, "Annie," at the Alvin Theatre in New York City, for a special three-week engagement. In 1980, Schuck began acting out the replacement role of Oliver Warbucks as a "regular replacement" in Annie, on Broadway, for a year and a half, along with Allison Smith as Annie and Alice Ghostley as Miss Hannigan. It was around this time that he married actress Susan Bay (a cousin of director Michael Bay, she later married Schuck's "Star Trek IV" co-star Leonard Nimoy), and in 1981, the two had a son together named Aaron Bay-Schuck. They divorced in 1983. He later married West Coast artist Ms. Harrison Houlé, whose website came to contain much of the information that was known about him. Later career. In 1986, Schuck took the role of a Klingon ambassador in "." He reprised the role in 1991 in "," becoming one of only six guest roles to appear in more than one "Star Trek" motion picture. (The others were the characters of David Marcus, Saavik, Sarek, and Fleet Admiral Cartwright.) He also guest starred in ' as Legate Parn, ' as Chorus #3, ' as Antaak, and "Babylon 5" as Draal in "The Long, Twilight Struggle" (1995). In 1994, he appeared as Ralgha nar Hhallas (callsign Hobbes) in "." In 1995, he and Larry Linville celebrated the 25th anniversary of the film M*A*S*H* (Schuck in the movie version and Linville in TV show). and subsequently guest-starred in several episodes of ' as the NYPD Chief of Detectives Muldrew. Appearing as Conrad John Schuck, he opened in the role of Daddy Warbucks in the Broadway revival of "Annie" in December 2006 and toured nationally in that role. He later appeared in the films "Holy Matrimony" and "String of the Kite." In 2013, he appeared as Senator Max Evergreen in "Nice Work If You Can Get It."
1169705	Teresa Ganzel (born March 23, 1957) is an actress, comedienne, and voice-over actress. Career. One of Teresa Ganzel's first and best known roles was as a recurring cast member of "The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson", having replaced the late Carol Wayne as the Matinee Lady in the popular "Tea Time Movie" skits. She often played ditzy busty blonde bimbo roles, as in the 1982 film "The Toy" with Jackie Gleason and Richard Pryor, in the "Married... with Children" episode: "A Three Job, No Income Family" (1989) and "National Lampoon's Movie Madness", in which she had a memorable topless scene. Ganzel was a frequent game show celebrity in the 1980s, particularly on the $25,000 and $100,000 incarnations of "Pyramid", and a recurring celebrity on the 1986–1989 version of "Hollywood Squares". In 1984, she played yet another young and ditzy blonde, Mrs. Sheree Winkler in the short-lived sitcom "The Duck Factory". In her later years, Ganzel has had several voice-over roles on cartoons, animated movies, and series, including "Cow and Chicken", "The Emperor's New School", "Monsters, Inc.", "Goof Troop", "Aaahh!!! Real Monsters", "Rugrats" and "Horton Hears a Who!". Her first venture into voice acting was playing Kitty Glitter in "Top Cat and the Beverly Hills Cats". Most likely, her most well-known role in animation is Miss Vavoom. The character is a homage to all of the sexy film stars, singers and damsels in distress, who served as Droopy's love interest in the Tex Avery cartoons. She appears in "Tom and Jerry Kids" and "Droopy, Master Detective". In 2010, Ganzel played a principal role in the Off-Broadway production of "Viagara Falls", after appearing in the same role, Jacqueline Tempest, in productions of the play staged in other cities.
1065151	The Jerk is a 1979 American comedy film. Directed by Carl Reiner, the film was written by Steve Martin, Carl Gottlieb and Michael Elias. This was Steve Martin's first starring role in a feature film. The film also features Bernadette Peters, M. Emmet Walsh and Jackie Mason. Plot. The film begins with Navin R. Johnson (Steve Martin), a befuddled homeless simpleton, directly addressing the camera and telling his story. He is the adopted white son of African American sharecroppers, who grows to adulthood naïvely unaware of his obvious adoption. He stands out in his family not just because of his skin color, but also because of his utter lack of rhythm when his adopted family plays spirited blues music. He is teased (although gently) by his brothers for liking stereotypical white food and he admits to not really liking the blues music his family dance to. One night, he hears the staid and starchy Roger Wolfe Kahn Orchestra song called "Crazy Rhythm" on the radio and his feet spontaneously begin to move with the urge to dance; he sees this as a calling and decides to hitchhike to St. Louis, from where the song was broadcast. On the way, he stops at a motel, where a dog wakes him up by barking at his door. Navin thinks the dog is trying to warn of a fire and decides to name the dog "Lifesaver." He wakes up the other hotel guests to rescue them, but when everyone realizes it was a false alarm, one of the guests angrily suggests he call the dog "Shithead," which Navin takes literally. Navin gets a job (and a place to sleep) at a gas station owned by Mr. Harry Hartounian (Jackie Mason). He's thrilled to find that he's listed in the local phone book, as his name is "in print" for the first time. Not long after, a gun-wielding lunatic (M. Emmet Walsh) randomly flips through the phone book and picks "Johnson, Navin R." as his next victim. As the madman watches through his rifle scope, waiting for a clear shot, Navin fixes the slippery glasses of a customer, Stan Fox (Bill Macy), by adding a handle and a nose brake. Fox offers to split the profits 50/50 with Navin if he can market the invention, then departs. Seizing his chance, the crazed sniper tries to kill Navin, but fails, hitting the oil cans in the station window and a soft-drink machine. The lunatic chases Navin to a traveling carnival, where Navin hides out, eventually getting a job with SJM Fiesta Shows as a weight guesser. While employed there, Navin meets an intimidating daredevil biker named Patty Bernstein (Catlin Adams) and has a sexual relationship with her, finally realizing what his "special purpose" (his mother's euphemism for his penis) is for. He then meets a woman named Marie (Bernadette Peters) and arranges a date with her. Patty confronts them, but Marie knocks her out. While courting, Navin and Marie walk along the beach and sing "Tonight You Belong to Me", with Navin playing the ukulele and Marie on the cornet. Navin and Marie fall in love, but Marie reluctantly decides to leave him because of his lack of financial security. She writes a note and slips out while Navin is in the bath. At an emotional and financial low, Navin is soon contacted by Stan Fox with exciting news: His glasses invention, now called the Opti-Grab, is selling big and he's entitled to half of the profits. Now extremely rich, he finds and marries Marie, and they buy an extravagant mansion. Their life becomes one of splendor and non-stop partying. However, motion-picture director Carl Reiner (playing himself) files a class action lawsuit against Navin. Reiner claims that the Opti-Grab caused his eyes to be crossed and his resulting poor vision caused the death of a stunt driver in the film he was directing. Nearly ten million other people have the same vision complaint (including the judge and jury foreman), and are awarded $10 million. Navin sends out each cheque individually and unkindly criticises Marie. She tells him she misses how they were originally, before he got rich. Furious, Navin storms out, picking up random objects from around the room as he goes, saying he doesn't need anything except this, and this, and this. (The picture used for the film poster and DVD is of Navin holding the random things he picks up during his exit.) He leaves with the words "What do you think I am? Some kind of jerk?" Navin is now alone and poor, living on the streets. His story now told, he resigns himself to a life of misery and memories of Marie, but to his joy and amazement, she suddenly appears, along with Navin's family, to take him home. There's more good news: Having carefully invested the small sums of money he sent home throughout the film, his family have become wealthy themselves. They pick him up off the street, and he and Marie move back home into the Johnsons' new house — a much larger but identical version of their old, small shack. The story ends with the entire family dancing on the porch and singing "Pick a Bale of Cotton", with Navin dancing along, now having gained perfect rhythm. Origin. The basic premise comes from a stand-up routine (included on his debut comedy album, "Let's Get Small"), in which Martin claimed to have been "born a poor black child," and how, after hearing his first Mantovani record, he "decided to become white." Production. This movie was co-produced by William E. McEuen, the first of many films to be produced by William McEuen. Bill and John McEuen are best known for their collaboration on brother John's work with "Nitty Gritty Dirt Band". Bill McEuen is the Producer of several of the early Dirt Band Albums as well. Steve Martin wrote the part of "Marie" with Bernadette Peters in mind. Reception. A box office smash earning over $73 million (making the movie the 9th highest-grossing of 1979) and produced on a modestly low budget of $4 million, "The Jerk" has been praised as not only one of Steve Martin's best comedic efforts, but also one of the funniest of all motion pictures: In 2000, readers of "Total Film" magazine voted "The Jerk" the 48th greatest comedy film of all time. This film is #20 on Bravo's "100 Funniest Movies" and #89 on AFI's 100 Years... 100 Laughs. "Premiere" magazine voted Steve Martin's performance of Navin Johnson #99 on their list, "The 100 Greatest Performances of All Time." It has an 84% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes. The website IGN ranked the film as the 10th top comedy film of all time. Critical response. "The New York Times" reviewer wrote that "The Jerk" "is by turns funny, vulgar and backhandedly clever, never more so than when it aspires to absolute stupidity. And Mr. Martin, who began his career with an arrow stuck through his head, has since developed a real genius for playing dumb... Even when it's crude — which is quite a lot of the time — it's not mean-spirited... Mr. Martin and his co-star, Bernadette Peters, work very sweetly together, even when they sing a duet of 'Tonight You Belong to Me,' carrying sweetness to what could easily have become an intolerable extreme." Awards and honors. American Film Institute recognition Sequel. There was a 1984 TV movie sequel "The Jerk, Too", starring Mark Blankfield as Navin (the Steve Martin role in the original), and it co-starred Woody Allen's one-time girlfriend Stacey Nelkin. It was produced, but not written by Steve Martin, and possibly intended as a pilot for a TV series.
586175	In Ghost House Inn is a 2010 comedy horror Malayalam film written, directed, and co-produced by Lal, and starring Mukesh, Jagadish, Siddique and Ashokan in the lead roles; the film is a sequel to the movies "2 Harihar Nagar" (2009) and "In Harihar Nagar" (1990). It was produced by Lal and P. N. Venugopal under the banner of Lal Creations and PNV Associates. This movie too, was a box office hit like it's prequels. Plot. The movie starts with the flashback of an incident which took place 70 years ago, in Dorothy bungalow, where Madam Dorothy Fernandez kills her husband, his lover and the driver. The story shifts to the present day, where Thomas Kutty (Ashokan) buys a bungalow in Ooty with the cash which he received in "2 Harihar Nagar", with the intent of converting it into a resort. The property is believed to be haunted by the ghost of the mistress who was killed 70 years before. Thomas Kutty proves to his friends that these ghosts can be easily made by men, by keeping some men and women and disturbing Mahadevan and Govindan Kutty in their sleep. He also tells them that he had stayed there many days before he bought the bungalow, all alone. The three agree to stay with Thomas Kutty in the bungalow and bring their wives along. In the middle of the journey they see Father Dominic, who warns that the foursome are in the path of bad things. They do not pay heed to his words, but then the housekeepers employed by Thomas Kutty leave on the pretext of the house being haunted. At this point Thomas Kutty reveals that he had lied to the others about having stayed alone in the days before purchasing the bungalow. This revelation startles the four, who start fearing for their own and their wives' safety. After a series of unpleasant events, the four decide to apologize to Father Dominic and ask him for help. Fr. Dominic accompanies the four to the house and attempts to exorcise the house. But, things sour on their first meeting, when Dominic, mentions he is in no way associated to any church, he is a person involved in para normal activities. However before the 2 leaves his house, he warns of a threat from fire to one of their spouse. This turns true, the same night, when Thomas kutty's wife's saree catches fire, but she is rescued in the nick of time, & to a doctor sent by Father Dominic. Post this incident, the priest visit's the house, after his earlier advice to stay away from alcohol, meat & women is not followed by the friends, leaving Father Dominic injured in the right hand by an unknown force. Here things takes a bad turn, when the maid servant is seen possessed by the ghost. While exorcising the ghost, Father Dominic suffers a heart attack, & is declared dead. Thomas kutty sells the house to Dorothy for half the price. On their return journey, Madhavan receives a call from Father Dominic, who says he faked his death & the doctor is his partner & the maid who was possessed was actually one of his minions, & she had a twin sister. However Madhavan reveals, he realised Father Dominic was a fraud, when after his first encounter with the ghost in their house, Dominic accidentally bandaged his left hand instead of right hand. Similarly Appukuttan reveals he knew the doctor had lied about his death, as he had checked his pulse. Govindan reveals they bribed the registar with double the amount & he had revealed that Dorothy & Father Dominic are the same people. And as a final coup de grace, Thomas kutty reveals, they have the property & the amount he has the full amount he paid to Dorothy/Dominic for purchasing the property. The friends rejoice & head for Dorothy Bungalow. Production. Shooting for the film began in early October 2009. It was scripted and directed by Lal, who also wrote and directed the film's prequels. Critical reception. "In Ghost House Inn" received average to positive reviews, in contrast to its predecessor, which received mostly positive reviews. "Rediff.com" gave it 2 out of 5 stars, saying, "There's nothing new about In Ghost House Inn... this third instalment comes without much of a story line compared to the earlier films." "Sify.com" wrote, "In Ghost House Inn manages to entertain the viewers to some extent". "Indiaglitz" wrote, "All in all ‘In Ghost House Inn’ may find it little harder than its prequels to satisfy the ever demanding fans of the fantastic four." Similarly, "Oneindia.com" and "Nowrunning.com" gave average reviews to the film and gave it 2 out of 5 stars. But "Zonekerala.com" gave the film 4 out of 5 stars, saying, "The film has aptly made use of the resources available and is constructed at a modest budget. This movie is a must see for your family this season". Sequel. A sequel has been put into action titled as Harihar Nagar 4. After Lal's new movie "Cobra", he will direct the 4th installment. The film is set out to release during the mid of 2013. Box office. "In Ghost House Inn" was a super hit in the box office.
584329	Nagendra Prasad is a Kollywood cine artiste who acts and choreographs for films. He is the youngest son of dance master Mugur Sundar, and younger brother to popular cine artistes Prabhu Deva and Raju Sundaram. He was most noted for his appearance in the song "Humma Humma" from the film "Bombay". He has also acted in the 2001 super hit Kannada movie "Chitra" opposite Rekha Vedavyas aka Akshara. He also acted in the Kannada movie "Manasalla Neene" which was directed by his father ace choreographer Mugur Sundaram and which was the remake of the super hit Telugu movie "Manasantha Nuvve" starring Uday Kiran and Reema Sen.
1053320	The Wilby Conspiracy is a 1975 thriller film directed by Ralph Nelson and filmed in Kenya. It was written by Rodney Amateau, based on the 1972 novel by Peter Driscoll. It had a limited release in the US. Plot. In apartheid-era South Africa, Shack Twala (played by Sidney Poitier), a black revolutionary who had served time on Robben Island, is freed by Rina van Niekerk, his Afrikaner defence attorney, because he would be a victim of retroactive legislation. Rina, estranged from her husband Blane, is having a relationship with an English mining engineer, Jim Keogh (played by Michael Caine), who has attended Shack's trial. Surprised by the verdict, Rina, Jim and Shack go off to celebrate at her house. They are stopped by the South African Police who are conducting identity document checks and arresting everyone who does not have their papers on them. As Shack has only just been released from prison he will not receive his papers until the next day. The police Constable and Shack antagonise each other leading to Shack being handcuffed and arrested. When Rina attempts to pull the Constable off Shack, the policeman hits her, knocking her to the ground. Jim assaults and knocks out the Constable making all three fugitives. At Police Headquarters, an SAP Brigadier is criticised by Major Horn of the South African Bureau of State Security (BOSS) for not only arresting Shack but continuing with their random identity checks and arrests that have infuriated world opinion. The three fugitives are followed and monitored by BOSS to lead them to discover their escape route to Botswana and its facilitators, two Indian dentists; a stash of stolen uncut diamonds being used to fund the "Black Congress" (African National Congress) and the leader of the "Black Congress", a man named Wilby. Additional Notes. After this film, Poitier did both acting and directing in film. In addition, the film introduced Dutch actor Rutger Hauer, who would work with director Paul Verhoeven on the latter's early movies, and Indian actress Persis Khambatta, who would appear in "".
582879	Vivek Vaswani is a Bollywood actor, writer and producer. He mostly appears in the films he produces. Career. An alumnae of Campion School, Mumbai, Vivek started off with playing a minor role in the 1991 film "Patthar Ke Phool", and then he focused on writing films.
587814	Akkada Ammayi Ikkada Abbayi () is a Telugu movie released on October 11, 1996. Power Star Pawan Kalyan, the younger brother of Megastar Chiranjeevi was introduced as hero to Telugu Film Industry with this movie. It also is the first movie for the heroine Yarlagadda Supriya who is the granddaughter of Akkineni Nageswara Rao (Hero Sumanth's Sister). Pawan Kalyan got recognition for his martial arts performed in the movie. It is directed by E.V.V. Satyanarayana and produced by Allu Aravind under Geeta Arts Banner. The music of the movie is scored by Koti. Plot. Nazar and Saratbabu are two rich and powerful rivals in a village.Nazar’s daughter supriya and Saratbabu’s son kalyan study in same college, where they both engage in few fights and bets. Kalyan and his gang’s attempts to enter girls hostel and succeeds atlast, and he wins a bet with supriya. Slowly their love blossoms under these petty things and they reach their village, where they are separated at railway station itself by their parents. Vacation ends and kalyan reaches station to get back to his college, but supriya doesn’t turnup. Kalyan learns that her marriage is fixed,and gets off the train to reach supriya’s house. But he is thrashed by nazar and his men. Meanwhile her marriage is postponed due to her grandmother’s death. Using this to their advantage, kalyan and supriya elope. Her brother and his men involve in a fight with kalyan. In the end saratbabu saves nazar from being drowned in an abyss, and suddenly everyone realizes their mistake and unite the lovers Box-office. This movie ran for 100days in 47 Centres all over the state and managed to be a hit movie for the debutant. Pawan Kalyan got his success with his first movie itself.
1061199	Thomas Geoffrey "Tom" Wilkinson, (born 5 February 1948) is an English actor. He has twice been nominated for an Academy Award, for his roles in "In the Bedroom" and "Michael Clayton". In 2009, he won Golden Globe and Primetime Emmy Awards for Best Supporting Actor in a Miniseries or Film for playing Benjamin Franklin in "John Adams". Personal life. Wilkinson was born in Leeds, West Riding of Yorkshire, England, United Kingdom, the son of Thomas Wilkinson, Sr., a farmer. At the age of four, he moved with his family to Canada, where they lived for several years before returning to England and running a pub in Cornwall. Wilkinson graduated from the University of Kent, where he was a member of T24 Drama Society (then named UKCD) and attended the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. Wilkinson currently lives in North London with his wife, actress Diana Hardcastle, and their two children, Alice and Mollie. In 2011, Wilkinson and Hardcastle portrayed real life husband and wife Joe and Rose Kennedy in the mini series "The Kennedys". Career. Wilkinson made his television debut in the mid-1970s and worked on several British television series, most notably the mini-series "First Among Equals" (1986). He first gained critical acclaim with his appearance as Mr. Pecksniff, in the BBC’s 1994 adaptation of "Martin Chuzzlewit". He made only the occasional film, including a brief appearance in 1995’s "Sense and Sensibility" and a villain in "The Ghost and the Darkness" (1996). After becoming part of the ensemble cast of the smash hit "The Full Monty" in 1997, a role which earned him a BAFTA, he began to take film roles more frequently, including supporting parts in "Oscar and Lucinda", "Wilde", "Shakespeare in Love", and "The Patriot". His portrayal of the grief-stricken father, Matt Fowler, in Todd Field's "In the Bedroom", received international praise from critics. For the role, he was named Best Actor of the Year by the New York Film Critics' Circle, and went on to be nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor. That success was followed up by "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind", "Normal", "The Exorcism of Emily Rose", "Batman Begins", and "Separate Lies." In 2007, Wilkinson played the manic depressive attorney Arthur Edens in "Michael Clayton" and garnered much critical acclaim and a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. The same year, he played an uncle planning for murder in Woody Allen’s "Cassandra's Dream". In 2008, Wilkinson portrayed American patriot Benjamin Franklin in the HBO mini-series "John Adams". In the HBO film, "Recount", Wilkinson, with an uncanny resemblance, also portrayed American political adviser and lawyer, James A. Baker, in Baker’s capacity as Chief Counsel to George W. Bush during the 2000 U.S. Presidential Election controversy, receiving an Emmy Award for the former and a nomination for the latter. He also received a Golden Globe Award and Screen Actors' Guild Award nomination for his role in "John Adams". He also portrayed Friedrich Fromm, Commander in Chief of the German Reserve Army alongside Tom Cruise in the 2008 World War ll thriller "Valkyrie". Wilkinson stars in the horror comedy "Burke and Hare", which is directed by John Landis. His 2010 role as Harvard professor / covert CIA high official in Roman Polanski’s "The Ghost Writer" was well noticed. He played another historical character, Joseph P. Kennedy, Sr., in the 2011 television miniseries "The Kennedys", for which he gained an Emmy Award nomination for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Mini-series or Movie. Earlier that year, he released "The Green Hornet" and "". Honours. Wilkinson received a Doctor of Letters honorary degree from the University of Kent in July 2001. In the 2005 New Year Honours, he was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) "for services to Drama".
1058345	Young Guns II is a 1990 western film, and the sequel to "Young Guns" (1988). It stars Emilio Estevez, Kiefer Sutherland, Lou Diamond Phillips, Christian Slater, and features William Petersen as Pat Garrett. It was written and produced by John Fusco and directed by Geoff Murphy. It follows the life of Billy the Kid (played by Emilio Estevez), in the years following the Lincoln County War in which Billy was part of "The Regulators" – a group of around 6 highly skilled gunmen avenging the death of John Tunstall – and the years before Billy's documented death. The film, however, is told by Brushy Bill Roberts, a man who in the 1940s appeared claiming to be the real Billy the Kid. While the film takes some creative license, it does show some of the key events leading up to Billy's documented death, including his talks with Governor Lew Wallace, his capture by friend-turned-foe Pat Garrett, his trial and his subsequent escape in which he killed two deputies. Plot. In 1950, attorney Charles Phalen is contacted by an elderly man named "Brushy Bill" Roberts. Brushy Bill tells Phalen that he is dying and wants to receive a pardon that he was promised 70 years before by the Governor of New Mexico. When asked why he wants the pardon, Brushy Bill claims that he is really William H. Bonney aka "Billy The Kid", whom "everyone" knows to have been shot and killed by Pat Garrett in 1881. Phalen then asks if Bill has any proof that he is the famous outlaw. Brushy Bill's story begins with the remaining Regulators having gone their separate ways. Billy has become part of a new gang with "Arkansas" Dave Rudabaugh (Slater) and Pat Garrett (Petersen). The New Mexico governor has issued warrants for the arrests of those involved in the Lincoln County Wars, including Billy, Doc Scurlock (Sutherland), and Jose Chavez y Chavez (Phillips), who are dragged into town and imprisoned to await hanging. Meanwhile, Billy meets with the new governor Lew Wallace who agrees to pardon Billy if he testifies against the Dolan-Murphy faction. Billy soon finds out that he was tricked into being arrested with no chance of testifying against his old enemies. After escaping, Billy along with the help of Rudabaugh and Garrett, pose as a lynch mob to spring Doc and Chavez from jail. When the gang successfully escape Lincoln, Billy mentions the Mexican Blackbird (a broken trail only he and few others know that leads down to Mexico). Garrett decides not to go with the gang and, instead, open a boarding house. As they make a run for the border along with farmer Hendry William French (Alan Ruck) and 14 year old Tom O'Folliard (Balthazar Getty), cattle baron John Simpson Chisum (James Coburn) and Governor Wallace approach Garrett to offer him the job as Lincoln County Sheriff and $1000 to use whatever resources he needs to hunt Bonney down and kill him. Garrett agrees and, forming a posse, begins his pursuit of the gang.
772598	Alastair Neil Duncan (born 1958) is a Scottish television, film and stage actor. He is sometimes credited as Neil Duncan. Early life. Duncan was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, UK in 1958. Career. Duncan's breakout role was as side-kick DS Peter Livingstone to Mark McManus's "Taggart" in Scottish television's eponymous detective series. Leaving the show after the first two series, Duncan then appeared in the 1988 TV adaptation of "The Hound of the Baskervilles", starring Jeremy Brett as Sherlock Holmes. Duncan's next key role was in the 1992 science fiction film "Split Second", with Rutger Hauer. He continued with guest roles on TV series and he appeared in other films such as "War Dogs", "Trick of the Eye", "Dazzle" (1995) and "Tower of Terror". In the early 2000s, he started doing voiceover work, including video games like "Warlords Battlecry", ', ', ', ', "Final Fantasy XIV", "Mass Effect", "" and the TV series "The Batman", as Alfred Pennyworth. His most notable TV guest appearances include episodes of "Tracey Takes On...", "Buffy the Vampire Slayer", "Charmed", "Angel" and Leverage. Duncan was one of 400 actors considered for the lead role in the international hit series "" but lost out to Adrian Paul. He later guest-starred in the fifth season, in the episode "Dramatic License" as immortal Terence Coventry.
1163144	James Carter "Jimmie" Walker (born June 25, 1947) is an American actor and stand-up comedian, known for portraying J.J. Evans on the television series "Good Times", which ran from 1974 to 1979. While on the show, Walker's character was known for the catchphrase ""Dy-no-mite!"", which he also used in his mid-1970s TV commercial for a Panasonic line of cassette and 8-track tape players. Early life. Walker was born in The Bronx, New York. He is a graduate of Theodore Roosevelt High School in New York City. Through a federal program known as "SEEK", or "Search for Education, Evaluation, and Knowledge", he continued his studies and entered into the field of radio engineering with WRVR. As a young man, Walker was a vendor at Yankee Stadium, starting with the 1964 World Series. He was given a silver dollar by Mickey Mantle, which he still has. Walker was very friendly with Gary Cohen, who went on to be operations manager at Yankee Stadium. In 1967, Walker began working full-time with WRVR, the radio station of the Riverside Church. During 1975 Walker was also a weekend personality on contemporary R&B music station KAGB 103.9 FM licensed to Inglewood in the Los Angeles market. According to an appearance on "The Wendy Williams Show" on June 27, 2012, Walker stated he has never been married and has never had any children. Show business career. In 1969, Walker began performing as a stand-up comedian and was eventually discovered by the casting director for "Good Times", after making appearances on "Rowan & Martin's Laugh In" and on the "Jack Paar Show". He eventually released one stand-up comedy album during the height of his "Good Times" popularity: "Dyn-o-mite" on Buddah Records (5635). "Good Times". During "Good Times"' 1974–75 season, Walker was 26 years old, though his character was much younger. John Amos, the actor who portrayed Walker's father on "Good Times", was actually just eight years older than Walker. Walker was 32 years old when the show ended its run at the end of the 1978–79 season. Walker credits producer/director John Rich for his catchphrase on the show "Dy-no-mite!", which Rich insisted Walker say on every episode. Both Walker and executive producer Norman Lear were skeptical of the idea, but the phrase and Walker's character caught on with the audience. He also starred in "Let's Do It Again" with Amos, and "The Greatest Thing That Almost Happened" with James Earl Jones. Later career. Walker appeared on "The Tonight Show" and "Match Game" during the 1970s and early 1980s. He also appeared on the 1990 revival of "Match Game" and other various game shows during that era. Walker has made guest appearances on "Badge 373", "The Love Boat", "Fantasy Island", "The Larry Sanders Show", "Son of the Beach", "The Drew Carey Show", "The John Larroquette Show", "In the House", "Cagney & Lacey", "The Fall Guy", "Scrubs", "Star Dates", "Everybody Hates Chris", "George Lopez", "Chelsea Lately" and "Lincoln Heights". He also appeared in films such as "Airplane!", "The Guyver" and the parody "Plump Fiction". Aside from guest appearances, he starred in the short-lived television series "At Ease" in 1983 and "Bustin' Loose" in 1987. In the 1990s, Walker returned to his radio roots hosting shows on WHIO, WOAI, WLS, and KKAR. In 2010, Walker made a cameo appearance in the movie "Big Money Rustlas". In 2011, Walker did a Syfy channel movie "Super Shark".
1064185	Dexter Fletcher (born 31 January 1966) is an English actor and Director. He is best known for his role in the Guy Ritchie film "Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels", as well as television roles in such shows as the dramedy "Hotel Babylon", the critically acclaimed HBO series "Band of Brothers" and earlier in his career, the children's show "Press Gang". He also had a short lived stint at presenting, when he tried his hand at the third series of Channel 4's "GamesMaster" in 1993 and 1994. Career. Fletcher trained at the Anna Scher Theatre drama club. Fletcher's first film part was as Baby Face in "Bugsy Malone" (1976). He made his stage début the following year in a production of "A Midsummer Night's Dream". As a child actor, Fletcher was a regular feature in British productions in the early 1980s such as "The Long Good Friday", "The Elephant Man", and "The Bounty". As an adult, he has appeared on television as rebellious teenager Spike Thomson in "Press Gang" and also "Murder Most Horrid" (1991) with Dawn French. His American accent had some fans convinced that he actually is an American. He has starred in the films "Caravaggio" (1986), "The Rachel Papers" (1989), "Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels" (1998), "Layer Cake" (2004), AffirmFilm's "Solomon" as Rehoboam, and Universal's "Doom" as a communications officer nicknamed "Pinky". On television, he has appeared in the major HBO drama, "Band of Brothers" and in a supporting role in the BBC One historical drama "The Virgin Queen" (US PBS 2005, UK 2006). He also appeared in Kylie Minogue's 1997 released music video "Some Kind of Bliss". Fletcher has starred on BBC One in a series based on the Imogen Edwards-Jones's book, "Hotel Babylon" which ran for four series before being axed in 2009. He also appeared in one episode, "The Booby and the Beast", of BBC's "Robin Hood" series 2 as the German Count Friedrich and in the 2008 radio series "The Way We Live Right Now". He appeared in "Bo! Selecta" spin off, "A Bear's Tail" as 'The Scriptwriter' after fellow "Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels" star Nick Moran portrayed this role in the pilot, but not in the series proper. He played a brief role in the BBC series "New Tricks", in the episode "Final Curtain", where he played fictional actor, Tommy Jackson. He also appeared in the "Boon" episode "Walking Off Air", playing Eddie Cotton. In 2009, he appeared in Misfits as Nathan Young's dad, reprising the role in 2010 for the second series. Fletcher stars in 2009 in the vampire film Dead Cert, which is directed by Steven Lawson. 2011 saw him acting in his first role as a police officer, as Detective Edwards in the British film noir "Jack Falls", alongside his "Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels" co-stars Jason Flemyng and Alan Ford. 2012 and Dexter takes the lead role as History Teacher Mr Sheers in supernatural British teen flick "Coven", due for release late 2013. Starring with him are "St Trinian's twin child actors Holly Mackie and Cloe Mackie Directing. Fletcher's debut as a director, Wild Bill, was released on 20 March 2012. Fletcher is currently directing a new musical film by Stephen Greenhorn, "Sunshine on Leith" based around the popular Proclaimers songs, to be released on October 4 2013. Presenting. Fletcher tried his hand at presenting for the now defunct Channel 4 show "GamesMaster" in 1993. The TV show was in its third series. Dexter was originally slated to be a special guest on the third series but was then asked to be presenter, after Dominik Diamond left the show due to his disapproval at McDonald's landing a sponsorship deal with them. Fletcher recalls presenting "GamesMaster" was 'very unforgiving' and 'quite intimidating'. He claimed the most difficult part was 'just getting up, taking a deep breath, and going out there and doing it'. His style of presenting was heavily criticised by viewers who said his 'in your face' method was too 'OTT' and did not suit the show. Some viewers suspected his genuine Cockney accent was put on for effect. The series finished in 1994 and Dominik Diamond returned for the last four series until the show ended in February 1998. Voice work. Fletcher has been the voice for McDonald's television adverts and (feigning a US accent) is the narrator of audio book written by Neil Strauss. He also narrated the Five series Airforce Afghanistan, as well as the "Chop Shop: London Garage" series on the Discovery Channel. Personal life. Fletcher was born in London, England. He dated "Press Gang" co-star Julia Sawalha and also had a relationship with actress Liza Walker. He married Lithuanian-born, highly-acclaimed director Dalia Ibelhauptaitė in Westminster, London, in 1997. His best man was fellow actor Alan Rickman. Dexter's brothers are also actors; Graham Fletcher-Cook and Steve Fletcher.
1062282	Maria Elena Bello (born April 18, 1967) is an American actress and singer, who has appeared in the movies "Permanent Midnight" (1998), "Payback" (1999), "Coyote Ugly" (2000), "The Cooler" (2003), "A History of Violence" (2005), "Thank You for Smoking" (2006), and "The Jane Austen Book Club" (2007). In television, she is known for her role as Dr. Anna Del Amico on the NBC medical drama, "ER" (1997–1998). She starred as Lucy Robbins on the Fox TV series, "Touch", alongside Kiefer Sutherland, in 2013. Early life. Bello was born in Norristown, Pennsylvania, the daughter of Kathy, a teacher and school nurse, and Joe Bello, a contractor. Her father is Italian American (with roots in Montella, Italy) She grew up in a working-class Roman Catholic family and graduated from Archbishop John Carroll High School (Radnor, Pennsylvania). Later, she attended Villanova University, majoring in political science. She intended to become a lawyer, but took an acting class during her senior year and was later cast in small off-Broadway plays, such as "The Killer Inside Me", "Small Town Gals with Big Problems" and "Urban Planning". She would guest star on episodes of "The Commish" (1991), "Due South" (1994), "Nowhere Man" (1995), "Misery Loves Company" (1995), and "ER" (1997–98).
583920	Pachaikili Muthucharam is a 2007 Tamil romantic thriller directed by Gautham Menon. The film stars Sarath Kumar, Jyothika, Andrea Jeremiah and Milind Soman. The film's score and soundtrack were composed by Harris Jayaraj. The soundtrack was released on 20 January 2007 to positive reviews. The film was released on 16 February 2007. This film was also dubbed into Telugu as "Drohi". The story is about Venkatesh (Sarath Kumar) who is married to Kalyani (Andrea), but starts an affair with Geetha (Jyothika). He is later blackmailed by Lawrence (Milind Soman) who finds out about his affair. The rest of the story is about how Venkatesh tries to make up for his mistakes. Jyothika plays a negative role as Lawrence's girlfriend, trying to con Venkatesh into giving away the money that he had saved for his son's medical expenses.
1163757	Teresa Wright (October 27, 1918 – March 6, 2005) was an American actress. She received the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress in 1942 for her performance in "Mrs. Miniver". That same year, she received an Academy Award for Best Actress nomination for her performance in "Pride of the Yankees" opposite Gary Cooper. She is also known for her notable performances in Alfred Hitchcock's "Shadow of a Doubt" (1943) and William Wyler's "The Best Years of Our Lives" (1946). Wright also received three Emmy Award nominations for her performances in the "Playhouse 90" original television version of "The Miracle Worker" (1957), in the Breck Sunday Showcase feature "The Margaret Bourke-White Story", and in the CBS drama series "Dolphin Cove" (1989). She earned the acclaim of top film directors, including William Wyler, who called her the most promising actress he had directed, and Alfred Hitchcock, who admired her thorough preparation and quiet professionalism. Early life. Muriel Teresa Wright was born on October 27, 1918 in Harlem, New York City, the daughter of Martha (née Espy) and Arthur Wright, an insurance agent. Her parents separated when she was young. She grew up in Maplewood, New Jersey, where she attended Columbia High School. After seeing Helen Hayes star in "Victoria Regina" at the Broadhurst Theatre in New York City in 1936, Wright took an interest in acting and began playing leading roles in school plays. She earned a scholarship to the Wharf Theater in Provincetown, Massachusetts, where she was an apprentice for two summers. Following her high school graduation in 1938, she went to New York, changed her name to "Teresa Wright", and was hired as understudy to Dorothy McGuire and Martha Scott for the role of Emily in Thornton Wilder's stage production of "Our Town" at Henry Miller's Theatre. She took over the role when Scott left for Hollywood to film the on-screen version of the play. Acting career. In autumn 1939, Wright began a two-year appearance in the stage play "Life with Father", playing the role of Mary Skinner. It was there that she was discovered by Samuel Goldwyn, who came to see her in the show she had been appearing in for almost a year. Goldwyn would later recall his first encounter with her backstage: Goldwyn immediately hired the young actress for the role of Bette Davis' daughter in the 1941 adaptation of Lillian Hellman's "The Little Foxes", signing her to a five-year Hollywood contract with the Goldwyn Studios. Asserting her seriousness as an actress, Wright insisted her contract contain unique clauses by Hollywood standards: In 1941, Wright was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her film début in "The Little Foxes". The following year, she was nominated again, this time for Best Actress for "The Pride of the Yankees", in which she played opposite Gary Cooper as the wife of Lou Gehrig. That same year, she won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress as the daughter-in-law of Greer Garson's character in "Mrs. Miniver". Wright is one of only nine players who have been nominated in both categories in the same year. Her three Academy Award nominations and one Academy Award in her first three films remains a rare accomplishment. She remains the only performer to have received Academy Award nominations for her first three films. In 1943, Wright appeared in the acclaimed Universal film "Shadow of a Doubt", directed by Alfred Hitchcock, playing an innocent young woman who discovers her beloved uncle (played by Joseph Cotten) is a serial murderer. Hitchcock thought Wright was one of the most intelligent actors he had worked with, and through his direction brought out her vivacity, warmth, and youthful idealism—characteristics uncommon in Hitchcock's heroines. In 1946, Wright delivered another notable performance in William Wyler's "The Best Years of Our Lives", an award-winning film about the adjustments of servicemen returning home after World War II. Critic James Agee praised her performance in "The Nation":
583304	Bhoothnath (Devanagari: भूतनाथ translation: "Lord of Ghosts") is a Bollywood horror comedy-drama film directed by Vivek Sharma, starring Amitabh Bachchan, Juhi Chawla, Aman Siddiqui, Priyanshu Chatterjee and Rajpal Yadav in lead roles. Shahrukh Khan appeared in an extended appearance. The film is an adaptation of the Oscar Wilde short story The Canterville Ghost. It was released on 9 May 2008, receiving generally positive reviews from critics and was well received by audiences, thus becoming a success at the box office. Moreover, it was a very popular movie among children and the performances of the trio namely Amitabh Bachchan, Juhi Chawla and Aman Siddiqui playing Banku were majorly appreciated by critics and audiences alike. Plot. The story focuses on Aman Sharma a.k.a. Banku (Aman Siddiqui), who has recently shifted into an old bungalow in Goa, with his parents, Aditya (Shahrukh Khan) and Anjali (Juhi Chawla). His father Aditya is an engineer on a cruise line, and therefore moves with his cruise. They are made aware that the bungalow is haunted, but they disregard this. Banku is enrolled in St. Francis High School, and Anjali hires a kindhearted and comedic drunken thief, Anthony (Rajpal Yadav), as a servant to clean the house. Soon one night Banku goes down to the living room to have some ice-cream when he sees a shadow on the wall. Frightened, he calls out to his mom and then sees that the bowl in which he was having ice-cream has vanished. Later he goes down again past a sleeping Anjali to investigate. It is then that he sees the ghost of Kailash Nath (Amitabh Bachchan) and then they start arguing on whether Mr. Nath is a ghost or an angel (according to Banku). Banku nicknames him Bhootnath as Mr. Nath says that he is a "bhoot"(ghost) and also says that he is Nath (which is his last name). Since the ghost of Kailash Nath does not want anybody to occupy his house, he tries different ways to scare Banku and his mother, but Banku considers him as angel and treats him like a friend. Soon, Mr. Nath is overpowered by Banku's innocent love, especially after a minor incident of Banku's fall from the stairs for which Mr. Nath is in fact responsible.
1063577	The Specialist is a 1994 American action film directed by Luis Llosa, starring Sylvester Stallone, Sharon Stone and James Woods.
586229	Vargam is a 2006 Malayalam film directed by M. Padmakumar. The film stars Prithviraj, Renuka Menon, Vijayaraghavan, Devan and Captain Raju in lead roles. Plot. Solomon Joseph (Prithviraj) is a Sub-Inspector corrupt to the core. He has learned the importance of money and power and using his power he earns wadloads of money. And spends on wine and women. He is the S.I. of Rajakad police station where two underworld kings, Ummachan (Devan) and Vavachan (Vijayaraghavan), clashes frequently. Solomon is friendly with Vavachan and helps him many ways, including helping move the vans with narcotics. He happens to lock horns with the younger brother of Ummachan who is an arrogant and spoiled brat. Blinded the power of his brother's money and political power, Denis asks Solomon to apologize in front of his friends, who might hold him low respect since he was badly treated by the precinct Sub Inspector. Denis and his friends get beaten to pulp by Solomon who throws them into the jail afterwards. Ummachan manages to release his brothers and friends, but during the process he threatens Solomon. Next day, when he gets info that Denis and friends are being entertained by a local (prostitute), he catches them red handed, with the intention of humbling Ummachan as well as getting as much money as possible from him. Ummachan is the next MLA candidate and such an incident would mar his political future, so he humbly asks Solomon's services.But Solomon would not budge unless he is bribed 'properly'. Since the stakes are high, he claims to receive a significant amount for his service. Ummachan tries to get Solomon caught by anti-corruption / vigilance personnels, but fails and finds himself behind the bars for attempted bribery to a police official. Blinded by murderous rage, Denis try to murder Solomon with his four friends. Solomon beats up all the five and takes Denis to police station. The beating continues and hours of beating up takes its toll and Denis dies. Solomon with the help of the police constable on duty buries up the body and covers up the murder, but gets a punishment transfer to north kerala. At that time, Ummachan threatens him, but Solomon is fearless. He takes charge of Bathiyadukka, which is ruled by Abubaker Haji (Cptn. Raju). Haji made all his fortune by cheating his wealthy mentor Valiyaveetil Baputi. Baputi's wife and his daughter Nadia is facing eviction from their home because of Baputi's debts. Haji refuses to help them. Haji's son tries to molest Nadia and she files a complaint with new SI. Solomon tries to catch his fish from the muddy waters and arranges a drama which causes the death of Nadia's mother. This was unexpected and for the first time in his life, Solomon's conscience is dented. A couple of days after Haji's son tries to rape Nadia and Solomon saves her. In the meanwhile the constable who assisted Solomon to bury Denis' body turns up at Bathiyadukka and begs Solomon to give him money for his daughter's marriage. He hints that Ummachan is after him to get the info about his brother's remains and ready to offer him anything for that info. Solomon goes to Haji's place for financial assistance but received by his son, who refuses to pay Solomon anything because of the grudge he keeps. In return, Solomon hijacks Haji's bootlegging truck with stuff worth tens of millions rupees and takes 2.5 million rupees instead of the half million he asked earlier. But Haji is cleverer, his men ambushes Solomon on his way back and mortally wounds him. But he recovers and start his life as a new man. He falls in love with Nadia and wants to marry her. The day previous to their marriage, Ummachan with the help of Haji, kidnaps Nadia and uses her as a bait to Solomon to take his revenge on his lost brother's life.
1165670	Guy Madison (January 19, 1922 – February 6, 1996) was an American film and television actor. Early life. Born Robert Ozell Moseley in Pumpkin Center, California, Madison attended Bakersfield College, a junior college, for two years and then worked briefly as a telephone lineman before joining the States Navy in 1942. Career. In 1944, while visiting Hollywood on leave from the U.S. Navy, Madison's boyish good looks and physique caught the eye of Henry Willson, the head of talent at David O. Selznick's newly formed Vanguard Pictures. Willson was widely known for his stable of good-looking, marginally talented actors with unusual names he bestowed upon them, and he immediately cast the rechristened Madison in a bit part as a sailor in Selznick's "Since You Went Away". Following the film's release in 1944, the studio received thousands of letters from fans wanting to know more about him. Madison was signed by RKO Pictures in 1946 and began appearing in romantic comedies and dramas. In 1951 he was cast in "The Adventures of Wild Bill Hickok", which ran for seven years. During the run of the show sixteen feature films were released by Monogram Pictures between 1952 and 1955 that consisted of combined episodes of the series. Following his television series, he appeared in several more films before leaving for Europe, where he found greater success in sword and sandal, spaghetti western and macaroni combat films. Personal life. Madison married actress Gail Russell in 1949. They separated in 1953 and divorced in October 1954.
1017479	Tower of Death () (aka "Game of Death II" and "The New Game of Death") is a 1981 Hong Kong martial arts film directed by Ng See-yuen, and starring Bruce Lee, Tong Lung, Huong Cheng Li and Roy Horan. This film was marketed as a sequel to Bruce Lee's last and partially completed film "Game of Death". Bruce Lee had died years prior to the production of Tower of Death and most of his scenes are taken from Lee's older films; mostly from "Enter the Dragon". Aside from the International English dub giving the "Bruce Lee" character the name "Billy Lo," this movie would seem to have no connection with Robert Clouse's film. Plot. After a recent bout of challenges, Billy Lo (Bruce Lee) and his friend Chin Ku (Huong Cheng Li) begin to suspect that someone wants them dead. Billy later visits his younger brother Bobby (Tong Lung), who is studying with Billy's former teacher, and leaves him a book on Jeet Kune Do. Chin is soon killed, and Billy goes to Japan to find his stepdaughter, May. May tells him that Chin had visited just before his death, and left a film for her. They are suddenly attacked, however Billy manages to escape with the film. A few days later Billy attends Chin's funeral, where is turned away from viewing the body. A helicopter arrives during the burial and steals the coffin away. Trying to prevent the theft, Billy is carried up with the casket but falls to his death. Bobby Lo is told of Billy's death by their father, who tells him to find a man named Sherman Lan and avenge his brother. Sherman gives him the film, which shows Chin Ku at the Palace of Death. The Palace of Death is run by a crazed martial arts expert by the name of Lewis (Roy Horan). Any challenger who fails to defeat Lewis is fed to his pack of lions. Bobby decides to meet Lewis, who is impressed with Bobby's abilities. While investigating the Palace Bobby is attacked by a masked man. He then informs Lewis that someone is trying to kill him. Later that night a woman is sent to Bobby's room to seduce and assassinate him. When she fails one of Lewis' lions attacks Bobby. During the fight the masked man appears and kills Lewis. Suspecting Lewis' valet, Bobby seeks him out at the Fan Yu temple, where the underground Tower of Death is rumored to be. After defeating the valet, Bobby spies the secret entrance into the tower. Battling his way through the tower he eventually confronts the operator, Chin Ku. Chin is actually the head of a global drug trafficking organization, and staged his own death to throw off Interpol investigators. He tried to frame Lewis for his death and arranged for the coffin to be stolen to prevent it from being searched. Realizing the only way to defeat Chin's sword skills is with Billy's Jeet Kune Do, Bobby manages to kill Chin and stop his drug operation. Deleted scene. There is a scene in the Chinese version of "Game of Death" action directed by Sammo Hung intended for his Asian audience. Because the action standards are higher in Asia, he would replace the action scene in the opera house for the glasshouse at night with Casanova Wong in his karate clothes. The fight scene has the Bruce Lee look alike between Tong Lung and Yuen Biao for the flips. For the international version for this movie, it has been dubbed into English referring to this movie that is added to this original version. This deleted scene can be seen in both movies available on DVD as a special feature in Hong Kong Legends. DVD releases. Universe (Hong Kong) Fortune Star - Bruce Lee Ultimate DVD Collection (Hong Kong) Fox (America) Fox - Bruce Lee Ultimate Collection (America) Hong Kong Legends (United Kingdom)
1180944	Geraldine Estelle "Geri" Halliwell (born 6 August 1972) is an English pop singer-songwriter, clothes designer, author and actress. Halliwell came to international prominence in the 1990s as Ginger Spice, a member of girl group the Spice Girls. On 30 May 1998, Halliwell left the Spice Girls due to depression and differences within the group. In 2007, it was announced that the Spice Girls had reunited, and that Halliwell had rejoined the group. Together they embarked on the Return of the Spice Girls tour and released a Greatest Hits album. Halliwell has reportedly amassed a $30 million fortune during her last two years in the group. In 1999, Halliwell launched her solo career and released her debut album "Schizophonic," it spawned three number ones at the UK Singles Chart: "Mi Chico Latino," "Lift Me Up," and "Bag It Up," while the lead single, "Look at Me," peaked at number 2. In 2001, Halliwell followed up with her second album, "Scream If You Wanna Go Faster;" the first single, "It's Raining Men," was a major hit worldwide, it peaked at number 1 in the UK and peaked in the top 10 in over 27 countries, becoming Halliwell's biggest hit to date. Halliwell released her third studio album, "Passion," in 2005. Geri has been nominated for four Brit Awards (in 2000 and 2002). After a few years of relative obscurity, in April of 2010, Halliwell announced that she had started working on new music. In April 2013, the Nine Network announced that she would become the fourth judge on "Australia's Got Talent". On 12 September 2013, it was announced that Halliwell would return to the music industry in Australia with the release of her first solo single in nearly eight years, "Half of Me". Early life. Halliwell was born at Watford General Hospital to Laurence Francis Halliwell (1922–1993), who was of English and Swedish descent, and his wife Ana María (née Hidalgo), who is a Spaniard from Huesca. Halliwell grew up on a council estate in North Watford. She was educated at the Camden School for Girls. Before starting her music career, Halliwell had worked as a nightclub dancer in Majorca, a presenter on the Turkish version of "Let's Make a Deal", and as a glamour model. At the age of 18, she appeared in "The Sun" as a Page 3 girl. Following her rise to fame with the Spice Girls, nude photos of Halliwell were re-published in a number of magazines in 1992 and 1995 including "Playboy" and "Penthouse". Musical career. 1994–98: Spice Girls. Halliwell, along with Melanie Chisholm, Melanie Brown, Emma Bunton, and Victoria Adams responded to an advertisement in "The Stage" magazine. Around about 400 women who answered the ad went to Dance Works studios. Halliwell, Chisholm, Adams, Bunton and Brown were ultimately chosen as the members of the group. The group felt insecure about the lack of a contract and was frustrated by the direction in which Heart Management was steering them. In October 1994, armed with a catalogue of demos and dance routines, the group began touring management agencies. They persuaded Bob Herbert to set up a showcase performance for the group in front of industry writers, producers and A&R men in December 1994 at the Nomis Studios in Shepherd's Bush where they received an "overwhelmingly positive" reaction. Due to the large interest in the group, the Herberts quickly set about creating a binding contract for the group. Encouraged by the reaction they had received at the Nomis showcase, all five members delayed signing contracts on the legal advice from, amongst others, Adams' father Anthony Adams. In March 1995, because of the group's frustration at their management's unwillingness to listen to their visions and ideas, they parted with Heart Management. The group began a relationship with Simon Fuller of 19 Entertainment and finally signed with him in March 1995. During the summer of that year the group toured record labels in London and Los Angeles with Fuller and finally signed a deal with Virgin Records in September 1995. From this point on, up to the summer of 1996, the group continued to write and record tracks for their debut album while extensively touring the west coast of the United States, where they had signed a publishing deal with Windswept Pacific. On 7 June 1996, the Spice Girls released their debut single "Wannabe" in the United Kingdom. In the weeks leading up to the release, the video for "Wannabe", got a trial airing on The Box music channel. The video was an instant hit, and was played 502 times a week. After the video was released, the Spice Girls had their first live TV slot on broadcast on LWT's Surprise Surprise. The song proved to be a global hit, reaching number 1 in 29 countries. and becoming the biggest-selling single by an all-female group of all time. It was followed by nine further number-1 singles from their albums "Spice", "Spiceworld" and "Forever". Each member of the group received a nickname from the media. Halliwell was named "Ginger Spice". Other successful releases followed, including "Say You'll Be There" and "2 Become 1" from "Spice", and "Spice Up Your Life", "Too Much" and "Stop" from "Spiceworld". On 30 May 1998, Halliwell left the Spice Girls due to depression and differences between the group. The first official confirmation was an announcement to the media by her solicitor on 31 May. Her action aroused controversy, her former group being due to embark on a North American tour, which they eventually completed without her. Although she had already left the group, the Spice Girls released "Viva Forever", the final music video to feature Halliwell's likeness, plus a one-off supergroup called England United for the official England FC song (Jo Whiley introduced the band saying "...plus Geri as a substitute". After she left, the other girls co-wrote a few songs about her, which appeared on their album "Forever": "Goodbye" and "Let Love Lead the Way" and "Tell Me Why". The group is among the best-selling girl groups of all time, selling over 75 million albums. 1999–2005: "Schizophonic," "Scream If You Wanna Go Faster," and "Passion". In 1999, Halliwell launched her solo career and released her debut album "Schizophonic," with the lead single "Look at Me," produced by Absolute and Phil Bucknall. "Look at Me" was followed by further number ones at the UK Singles Chart "Mi Chico Latino," "Lift Me Up," and "Bag It Up." The album itself reached a peak at number 4 United Kingdom, and sold 600,000 copies there, making it 2× Platinum. Halliwell was nominated at BRIT Awards ceremony in 2000, for Best British Female Solo Artist and Best Pop Act, she also performed "Bag It Up" during the show, emerging between giant inflatable legs, ripping off her shirt and walking in stiletto heels over the backs of topless pink-haired men whilst performing the song. "Look at Me" was released to radio in the United States in late 1999, receiving limited airplay. With only a radio single, "Schizophonic" debuted at number forty-two on the "Billboard" 200 before dropping out within the next month. The album was eventually certified Gold, distributing over 500,000 copies. "Mi Chico Latino" did not have a big impact on American radio, and no further singles from "Schizophonic" or albums were released in the United States. Schizophonic ended up selling around 2,300,000 copies worldwide, and remains Halliwells biggest selling album todate. In 2001, Halliwell followed up with her second album, "Scream If You Wanna Go Faster," the album peaked at number 5 in the United Kingdom, and sold 200,000 copies there and was certified Gold. It included her cover version of the Weather Girls' 1983 hit, "It's Raining Men," was also used on the "Bridget Jones's Diary" film soundtrack, and the video game, "DDRMAX2 Dance Dance Revolution 7thMix." The song was released as the lead single from the album. "It's Raining Men" became a major hit worldwide, it peaked at number 1 in the UK and peaked in the top 10 in over 27 countries, becoming Halliwell's biggest hit to date. The song won her the International Song of the Year award at the 2002 NRJ Music Awards. The song originally been added to the album at the last minute, and another song, "Feels Like Sex," had already been slated as the lead single. The singles that followed, "Scream If You Wanna Go Faster" and "Calling," reached, respectively, number eight and number seven in the United Kingdom. Halliwell released a special French edition of the single, titled "Au Nom de L'amour." "Scream If You Wanna Go Faster" achieved lower success outside the UK than Schizophonic and was not released in the United States. In 2002, Halliwell was once again nominated at the BRIT Awards, this time for Best British Female Solo Artist and Best British Single for "It's Raining Men." "Scream If You Wanna Go Faster" has sold a little less than 1,300,000 copies worldwide. In 2002, Halliwell was featured alongside Pete Waterman and Louis Walsh as a judge on the television series "," which created Girls Aloud. In late 2004, Halliwell made a return to music with the single "Ride It," which reached number four in the United Kingdom and number one on the dance charts. However, several months elapsed before another single was released, during which time she was apparently instructed to record some new tracks for the as yet unreleased album by her record company, which was unhappy with the setlist. Halliwell planned her first solo tour of the United Kingdom and Ireland, but due to lack of ticket sales, compounded by the label's pressure on Halliwell to record additional songs, led to the cancellation of the tour. Eventually, a new single, "Desire," was released on 30 May 2005, reaching number 22 in the UK Singles Chart and number one on the UK Dance Charts. Released shortly after, the source album, "Passion," similarly received little attention from the public or critics, and stalled at number 41 in the UK charts. Halliwell's recording contract with EMI was subsequently not renewed, and in subsequent interviews, Halliwell stated that she was not interested in recording another album at that time and was content with writing children's books and being a mother. 2007–present: Spice Girls reunion, "Australia's Got Talent" and "Half of Me". In 2007, the Spice Girls re-grouped and announced planns for an reunion tour, from which they were said to have earned £10 million each (approximately $20 million). The team's members said that they were still enjoying doing their "own thing." The group decided to release their first compilation album, a collection of their "Greatest Hits." This album was released in early November 2007, and the tour began on 2 December 2007. During one Spice Girls performance at London's The O2 Arena, the Spice Girls's children, including Halliwell's children, accompanied her on stage during "Mama," along with the other Spice Girls's children. During the reformation Film maker Bob Smeaton directed an official film of the tour, which he titled "Spice Girls: Giving You Everything." As well as their sell-out tour, the Spice Girls were contracted to appear in Tesco advertisements, for which they were paid £1 million each. In March 2010 vocal coach and singer Carrie Grant announced on ITV1's "The Alan Titchmarsh Show" that Halliwell would be making a return to music. In April 2010, Halliwell posted a message on her website, saying she was back in the studio and referring to Lady Gaga as one of her influences. In May 2011, reports suggested that Halliwell would be making a return to music. On July 31, 2011, Geri confirmed she had been working on her fourth album, stating of it, "The album's pretty much finished." In February 2012, Halliwell announced that the fourth album was being mastered. In August 2012, she reunited with the Spice Girls to perform at the closing ceremony of the Olympic Games in London. In 2010, Halliwell stood in for Dannii Minogue as a guest judge on "The X Factor" at the Glasgow auditions, and she returned again in 2012 as a guest judge on the Liverpool auditions. In October 2012, Halliwell made her first solo performance in seven years at the Breast Cancer Care, debutting a new track, called "Phenomenal Woman". In January 2013, Halliwell claimed that she had decided to shelve the album that was ready and continue writing and recording, moving in a different style direction. In March 2013, a demo version of a song titled "Putting On The Bling" from the old recording sessions was leaked. In April 2013, the Nine Network announced that she would become the fourth judge on "Australia's Got Talent". On September 5, 2013 has been confirmed by Channel 9's NRL Footy Show (one of the longest running shows in Australia) that Geri Halliwell is performing a world exclusive of her new single 'Half of Me' at its Grand Final Show. The performance will take place on 3 October 2013, exactly one year after her last exhibition with new material (a three-songs live set featuring "Wannabe" (slow version), "Phenomenal Woman" and "It's Raining Men" at the Breast Cancer Care Show). On 12 September 2013, it was announced that Halliwell would release her first solo single in nearly eight years,
1110398	Cynda Williams (born May 17, 1966) is an American television and film actress. Early life. Born in Chicago, Illinois, Cynthia Williams, she was known as Cindy Williams until she started her film career. At that time, the graduate of Dunbar Vocational High School and Ball State University changed her first name to "Cynda" to avoid conflicts with "Laverne & Shirley" actress Cindy Williams, who was also listed by the same name with the Screen Actors Guild. Career. Acting career. Williams has been featured in films on both television and in the cinema. Her first appearance in a feature film was in Spike Lee's "Mo' Better Blues" and "One False Move" as well as the "Tales of the City" Channel 4/PBS miniseries. Music career. While most well known for her involvement in the movie industry, Williams had a brief stint in the music industry in 1990 with her appearance on the soundtrack to "Mo' Better Blues", on the song "Harlem Blues." The single was popular, reaching #9 on the R&B charts on November 17, 1990. With the success of the single, Williams had been lined up with Sony to produce her own album. While she was trained in a variety of genres, jazz became pressed on her after the success of "Harlem Blues." The album was shelved following internal disagreements at Sony. Personal life. She has been married three times. Her first marriage was to actor Billy Bob Thornton from 1990 until 1992. She then married actor Arthur Louis Fuller in 1993 before divorcing in 1998. Her current marriage is to former college football star and television producer, Roderick Plummer, whom she married in 2001.
1463290	Sridhara (c. 870, India – c. 930 India) was an Indian mathematician. He was born in Hooghly district in the 10th Century AD. His father's name was Baladevacharya and mother's name was Acchoka. Works. He was known for two treatises: "Trisatika" (sometimes called the "Patiganitasara") and the "Patiganita". His major work "Patiganitasara" was named "Trisatika" because it was written in three hundred slokas. The book discusses counting of numbers, measures, natural number, multiplication, division, zero, squares, cubes, fraction, rule of three, interest-calculation, joint business or partnership and mensuration.
1502365	Gwenyth Evelyn “Gwen” Verdon (January 13, 1925 – October 18, 2000) was an actress and dancer who won four Tony awards for her musical comedy performances and served as uncredited choreographers assistant and specialty dance coach for both theater and film. With flaming red hair and an endearing quaver in her voice, Verdon was a critically acclaimed performer on Broadway in the 1950s and 1960s. Having originated many roles in musicals she is also strongly identified with her second husband, director–choreographer Bob Fosse, remembered as the dancer–collaborator–muse for whom he choreographed much of his work and as the guardian of his legacy after his death. Early life and career. Verdon was born in Culver City, California, the second child of Gertrude Lilian ( Standring; October 24, 1896 – October 16, 1956) and Joseph William Verdon (December 31, 1896 – June 23, 1978), who were British immigrants to the United States by way of Canada. Her brother was William Farrell Verdon (August 1, 1923 – June 10, 1991). The Verdon family could be described as "showpeople." Her father was an electrician at MGM Studios, and her mother was a former vaudevillian of the Denishawn dance troupe, as well as a dance teacher. As a toddler, Gwen had rickets, which left her legs so badly misshapen she was called "Gimpy" by other children and spent her early years in orthopedic boots and rigid leg braces. Her mother put the three-year-old in dance classes. Further ballet training strengthened her legs and improved her carriage. By the time she was six, she was already dancing on stage. She went on to study multiple dance forms, ranging from tap, jazz, ballroom and flamenco to Balinese. She even added juggling to her repertoire. At age 11, she appeared as a solo ballerina in the musical romance film "The King Steps Out" (1936), directed by Josef von Sternberg and starring Grace Moore and Franchot Tone. She attended Hamilton High School in Los Angeles and studied under famed balletomane Ernest Belcher. While in high school, she was cast in a revival of "Show Boat". Verdon shocked her parents and instructors when she abandoned her budding career aged 17 to elope with reporter James Henaghan in 1942. In 1945, she appeared as a dancer in the movie musical "The Blonde From Brooklyn". After her divorce, she entrusted her son Jimmy to the care of her parents. Adult career. Early on, Verdon found a job as assistant to choreographer Jack Cole, whose work was respected by both Broadway and Hollywood movie studios. During her five-year employment with Cole, she took small roles in movie musicals as a "specialty dancer". She also taught dance to stars such as Jane Russell, Fernando Lamas, Lana Turner, Rita Hayworth, Betty Grable and Marilyn Monroe. Verdon started out on Broadway as a "gypsy", going from one chorus line to another. Her breakthrough role finally came when choreographer Michael Kidd cast her as the second female lead in Cole Porter's musical "Can-Can" (1953), starring French prima donna Lilo. Out-of-town reviewers hailed Verdon's interpretation of Eve in the "Garden of Eden" ballet as a performance that upstaged the show's star, who jealously demanded Verdon's role be cut to only two featured dance numbers. With her role reduced to little more than an ensemble part, Verdon formally announced her intention to quit by the time the show premiered on Broadway. But her opening-night "Garden of Eden" performance was so well received that the audience screamed her name until the startled actress was brought from her dressing room in her bathrobe to take a curtain call. Verdon received a pay increase and her first Tony Award for her triumphant performance. With her short shock of flaming red hair, exquisite body of a pin-up girl and a guileless vulnerability on stage and off, Verdon was considered the best dancer on Broadway in the 1950s and 1960s. That reputation solidified during her next show, George Abbott's "Damn Yankees" (1955), based on the novel "The Year the Yankees Lost the Pennant." She would forever be identified with her role as the vampish Lola, and it was on this show that she first worked with Bob Fosse as her choreographer. In the story, Verdon's Lola is a woman who was once "the ugliest woman in Providence, Rhode Island" but sold herself to the Devil to be the beauty we see in the play. The Devil (played by a wryly comic Ray Walston) convinces a baseball fan to sell his soul so he can play for the Washington Senators and win the league pennant in the playoffs. The Devil then employs the seductive Lola to keep the guy ("Joe") from escaping his grasp. The hitch is that Lola falls for the guy and has to choose between her love for him and her beauty pact with the Devil. The musical ran for 1019 performances. Vernon won another Tony and went to Hollywood to repeat her role in the 1958 movie version "Damn Yankees", memorably singing "whatever Lola wants, Lola gets". (Fosse can be seen partnered deliciously with her in the original mambo duet "Who's Got the Pain".) Another Tony came when Verdon memorably played a role associated with Greta Garbo, Eugene O'Neill's Anna Christie, the hard-luck girl fleeing from her past as a prostitute, in the musical "New Girl in Town". When Fosse directed as well as choreographed his first Broadway musical, it was "Redhead", for which Verdon won her fourth Tony. In 1960, Fosse and Verdon wed. In 1966, Verdon returned to the stage in the role of Charity in "Sweet Charity", which like many of her earlier Broadway triumphs was choreographed and directed by husband Fosse. The show is based on Federico Fellini's screenplay for "Nights of Cabiria". But whereas Fellini's black-and-white Italian film concerns the romantic ups and downs of an ever-hopeful prostitute, the musical makes the central character a hoofer-for-hire at a Times Square dance hall. The trademark Fosse showmanship, a dynamite musical score and theatregoers' affection for the exuberant, 41-year-old Verdon put the show over, despite Fellini's source material straining against the sanitized, Broadway-ized storyline. It was followed by a movie version starring Shirley MacLaine as Charity, featuring Ricardo Montalban, Sammy Davis, Jr. and Chita Rivera, with Fosse at the helm of his very first film as director and choreographer. Characteristically generous, Verdon helped with the choreography. The numbers include the famed "Big Spender", the fast-paced "Rhythm of Life", the witty "If My Friends Could See Me Now" and "I'm a Brass Band", in which MacLaine's Charity marched down the middle of Manhattan's Wall Street district. Verdon would also travel to Berlin to help Fosse with "Cabaret", the musical film for which he won an Academy Award for Best Director. Although estranged as a couple, Verdon and Fosse continued to collaborate on projects such as "Chicago" (1975) (in which she originated the role of murderess Roxie Hart) and the musical "Dancin"' (1978), as well as Fosse's autobiographical movie "All That Jazz" (1979). The helpmeet/peer played by Leland Palmer in that film is based on the role Verdon played in Fosse's real life. She also developed a close working relationship with Fosse's lover, Broadway dancer Ann Reinking, and she instructed for Reinking's musical theatre classes. Reinking can be seen in "All That Jazz" playing the protagonist's lover, as she was in Fosse's real life. She, as much as Verdon, would become responsible for keeping Fosse's trademark choreography alive after Fosse's death. Reinking played Roxie Hart in the highly successful Broadway revival of "Chicago" that opened in 1996. She choreographed the dances "in the style of Bob Fosse" for that revival. After originating the role of Roxie opposite Chita Rivera in "Chicago", Verdon focused on film acting, playing character roles in movies such as "The Cotton Club" (1984), "Cocoon" (1985) and ' (1988). She continued to teach dance and musical theater and to act. She received three Emmy Award nominations for appearances on "Magnum, P.I." (1988), "Dream On" (1993) and ' (1993). Verdon appeared as Alice's mother in the Woody Allen movie "Alice" (1990) and as Ruth in "Marvin's Room" (1996), co-starring Meryl Streep, Diane Keaton, and Hume Cronyn. In 1999, Verdon served as artistic consultant on a plotless Broadway musical designed to showcase examples of classic Fosse choreography. Called simply Fosse, the revue was conceived and directed by Richard Maltby Jr and Ann Reinking and choreographed by Reinking and Chet Walker. Verdon's daughter Nicole received a "special thanks" credit. The show received a Tony for best musical. In 1997 Verdon appeared in an episode of Walker Texas Ranger as Maisie Whitman. She later reprised the role in 1999. Verdon played Alora in the movie "Walking Across Egypt" (1999) and appeared in the film "Bruno", released in 2000. Verdon received a total of four Tonys, for best supporting actress for "Can-Can" (1953) and best leading actress for "Damn Yankees" (1955), "New Girl in Town" (1957) and "Redhead" (1959), a murder-mystery musical. She also won a Grammy Award for the cast recording of "Redhead". Gwen Verdon was inducted into the American Theatre Hall of Fame in 1981. In 1998, she was awarded the National Medal of Arts. Personal life. Verdon had two husbands, tabloid reporter James Henaghan (married 1942, divorced 1947) and Bob Fosse (married 1960, his death 1987). She and Henaghan had one son, Jim Henaghan (born 1943); she and Fosse had a daughter, Nicole Fosse (born 1963). In 1971, Verdon filed a legal separation from Fosse (but never divorced) because of his extramarital affairs. She held him in her arms as he suffered a fatal heart attack on the sidewalk outside the Washington theatre where "Sweet Charity" was being revived. She was a cat fancier, and had up to six cats at one time, with names such as "Feets Fosse", "Junie Moon", and "Tidbits Tumbler Fosse". Verdon died in her sleep in 2000 of a heart attack at the home of her daughter, Nicole, in Woodstock, Vermont, at the age of 75. At 8 p.m. on the night she died, all marquee lights on Broadway were dimmed in a tribute to the actress. She was cremated. Awards & nominations. STAGE: FILM & TV:
1059635	Blake Christina Lively (born August 25, 1987) is an American actress, model and celebrity homemaker. She is best-known for starring as Serena van der Woodsen in the television teen drama series "Gossip Girl". She has appeared in such films as "The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants", "The Private Lives of Pippa Lee", "The Town", "Green Lantern", and "Savages". Following her 2012 marriage to actor Ryan Reynolds, the couple relocated from New York City to the Westchester County, New York suburb of Bedford. Citing Martha Stewart and Nigella Lawson as inspirations, Lively has filmed cookery demonstrations for "Vogue"'s website, and has forged creative partnerships with Sprinkles bakeries and La Cornue ovens.
1065531	Mara Elizabeth Wilson (born July 24, 1987) is an American writer, playwright, stage actress, voice actress and former child actress. She is best known for her roles as Nattie Hillard in "Mrs. Doubtfire" and Matilda Wormwood in "Matilda". Wilson's first acting job was in a Lunchables commercial. Mara's parents refused to let her go into acting at first. Personal life. Wilson was born in Los Angeles, California on July 24, 1987. She is the oldest daughter of Mike Wilson, a television broadcast engineer, and the late Suzie Shapiro Wilson, a homemaker. She has three older brothers, Danny, Jon, and Joel, and a younger sister, Anna. Mara's mother was diagnosed with breast cancer on March 10, 1995. By the time the doctors found the cancer it was too late. Suzie Wilson died on April 26, 1996 while Mara was filming "Matilda". The movie was dedicated to Suzie's memory. Mike has since remarried. Her mother was Jewish and her father is of part Irish descent; Wilson was raised in the Jewish faith. Wilson is an atheist. In 2005, she graduated from Idyllwild Arts Academy. She studied at New York University. On April 17, 2012 Mara explained why she quit film acting. Career. After watching her eldest brother Danny act in commercials, Wilson had an interest in film acting at the age of five. Wilson's film debut was in the 1993 "Mrs. Doubtfire", followed by the 1994 remake of "Miracle on 34th Street". In 1994, Wilson had a recurring role as Nikki Petrova on "Melrose Place" and played Barbara Barton in the television film "A Time to Heal". In 1998, she won the ShoWest Award for "Young Star of the Year". Her performances in those films caught the attention of Danny DeVito and led to her being cast as the titular character in "Matilda". Wilson won a Young Artist Award for her role in "A Simple Wish" in "Best Performance in a Feature Film Leading Young Actress" and a Young Star Award for "Matilda" in "Best Performance by a Young Actress in a Comedy Film". She was twice nominated for a Saturn Award for Best Performance by a Younger Actor for both "Matilda" and "A Simple Wish". In 1999, she played Willow Johnson in the 1999 Disney Channel television film "Balloon Farm". Mara auditioned for the 1998 remake of "The Parent Trap", but she was considered to be too young for the role. Her appearance in the 2000 film "Thomas and the Magic Railroad" was her last major film role to date. Once "Thomas and the Magic Railroad" was completed Mara decided to focus on school instead of film acting. At that point in her career scripts were being sent to Mara so that she didn't have to go to auditions. Wilson sang "Make 'Em Laugh" at the 67th Academy Awards telecast on March 27, 1995, with Tim Curry and Kathy Najimy. In January 2012, Wilson appeared briefly in one episode of a web series called "Missed Connection" in the role of Bitty. In 2012, Wilson addressed recurrent fan questions regarding her acting career via her blog. Within the same year, Wilson made special appearances on internet review shows for "That Guy with the Glasses". In May 2013, Wilson wrote an article for online magazine Cracked.com, offering her opinion of the delinquency of some former child stars and suggesting that Lindsay Lohan should give up acting. She now works for Publicolor and is hoping to break into young adult novels and has written her first Off Broadway play called "Sheeple". Awards. 1995 – ShoWest Award – Young Star of the Year Stage. "Cinderella" (2005)
1268079	Norma Talmadge (May 26, 1894 – December 24, 1957) was an American actress and film producer of the silent era. A major box office draw for more than a decade, her career reached a peak in the early 1920s, when she ranked among the most popular idols of the American screen. A specialist in melodrama, her most famous film was "Smilin’ Through" (1922), but she also scored artistic triumphs teamed with director Frank Borzage in "Secrets" (1924) and "The Lady" (1925). Her younger sister Constance Talmadge was also a movie star. Talmadge married millionaire film producer Joseph Schenck and they successfully created their own production company. After reaching fame in the film studios on the East Coast, she moved to Hollywood in 1922. Talmadge was one of the most elegant and glamorous film stars of the roaring twenties. However, by the end of the silent film era, her popularity with audiences had waned. After her two talkies proved disappointing at the box office, she retired a very wealthy woman. She is little remembered, yet in her day she was hugely popular and the epitome of stardom. Early life. According to her birth certificate, Talmadge was born on May 26, 1894 in Jersey City, New Jersey. Although it has been widely believed she was born in Niagara Falls, New York, after achieving stardom, she admitted that she and her mother provided the more scenic setting of Niagara Falls to fan magazines to be more romantic. Talmadge was the eldest daughter of Fred Talmadge, an unemployed chronic alcoholic, and Margaret "Peg" Talmadge, a witty and indomitable woman. She had two younger sisters, Natalie and Constance, both of whom also became actresses.
1632517	Philosophy of a Knife is a 2008 Russian-American horror film written, produced, shot, edited, and directed by Andrey Iskanov. It covers the Japanese Army's Unit 731, mixing archival footage, interviews, and extremely graphic reenactments of experiments performed there. The film is four hours long, is presented in two parts ("Part one" and "Part two"), is in English, and shot in black and white. The interviews are shot in color and have English subtitles. Release. "Philosophy of a Knife" was shown at the 2008 Sitges Film Festival. TLA Releasing and Unearthed Films released the unrated film on DVD in July 2008. For a short time, "Philosophy" was available on Netflix, but was taken down without a given reason. The film is also accessible in its two parts via YouTube. Soundtrack. The film features Manoush and Cyanide Savior's song "Dead Before Born" as well as a song by A. Shevchenko, "Forgive Me", with Manoush speaking the introduction to the track. It also includes an original score by Shevchenko. Reception. A score of zero out of five was given by Dread Central, sparking a feud between the website and the film's creators. The Worldwide Celluloid Massacre has "Philosophy of a Knife" listed as the fifth most disturbing film it has covered, and stated that while it was interesting and intense "I was reminded of Gibson's "Passion" in that the movie takes an ambitious and difficult subject, then spends most of its time focusing only on gore".
1057867	Bailee Madison (born October 15, 1999) is an American child actress. She is most famous for her role in "Bridge to Terabithia" in which she plays May Belle Aarons, the younger sister of Jesse Aarons. Madison also starred in the horror film "Don't Be Afraid of the Dark" as Sally Hurst, and appeared in the Adam Sandler film "Just Go With It". Life and career. Bailee Madison was born in Florida, the youngest of seven children. She has four brothers and two sisters. Her older sister, Kaitlin Riley, is also an actress. Her mother is Patricia Riley. She began her career when she was two weeks old in an Office Depot commercial. Since then, she has appeared in several national commercials for major companies including Disney, SeaWorld, and Cadillac. She also serves as a national spokesperson for the childhood-cancer charity Alex’s Lemonade Stand. Bailee has stated that she is a Christian. She made her major motion picture debut in the movie "Lonely Hearts", in which she plays Rainelle, a girl thrown into the midst of a world of crime. Madison also has a significant role in the Disney movie "Bridge to Terabithia", based on the children's book. She plays May Belle Aarons, the younger sister of the lead male character played by Josh Hutcherson. She also appears in the independent film "Look" as Megan, a girl who is being watched and followed by a kidnapper. Madison is seen in a featured supporting role in the 2009 film, "Brothers" as Isabelle Cahill, the older daughter of Captain Sam Cahill (Tobey Maguire) and Grace Cahill (Natalie Portman). For her portrayal in the movie she was nominated for both a Saturn Award and a BFCA Critics' Choice Award. In 2010, Madison was in the movie "Letters to God", where she portrays Samantha Perryfield, a girl whose best friend is fighting cancer. She is seen in "Conviction" playing the younger version of Hilary Swank's character, Betty Anne Waters. She can be seen in the episode "Locum" from "" as Mackenzie Burton, a girl who was adopted and feels like she is only filling the place of her parents' older daughter who was abducted years ago. She appeared in three episodes of the children's horror series, "R.L. Stine's The Haunting Hour". In 2011, Madison had a recurring role in the Disney Channel Original Series "Wizards Of Waverly Place" as Maxine, the girl form of Max Russo. She also appeared in "Just Go with It", alongside Adam Sandler and Jennifer Aniston, as Maggie Murphy, a young girl who wants to become an actress. Madison can be seen in the drama film, "An Invisible Sign" as the younger version of Jessica Alba's character Mona Gray. She starred in her first leading role in the horror film, "Don't Be Afraid of the Dark", alongside Katie Holmes and Guy Pearce where she portrayed Sally Hurst, a lonely withdrawn child who is sent to live with her father and his new girlfriend. In 2012, Madison appeared in the Hallmark film "A Taste of Romance" alongside Teri Polo and James Patrick Stuart. She also had a guest role as the younger version of Ginnifer Goodwin's character Snow White in the TV series "Once Upon A Time". She also could be seen in the film "Cowgirls n' Angels" were she played the feisty and rebellious Ida Clayton who has fantasies of finding her father, a rodeo rider. Madison appeared in another Hallmark film entitled "Smart Cookie" as Daisy, a eager girl hoping to prove herself as a Girl Scout. In December, she appeared in the family comedy film "Parental Guidance", alongside Billy Crystal and Bette Midler.
1165172	John Joseph Patrick Ryan (December 30, 1920 – January 21, 1998), best known by his stage name Jack Lord, was an American television, film, and Broadway actor. He was known for his starring role as Steve McGarrett in the American television program "Hawaii Five-O" from 1968 to 1980. Lord appeared in feature films earlier in his career, among them "Man of the West" (1958). He was the first actor to play recurring character Felix Leiter, in "Dr. No", the first James Bond film. Early years. Born in Brooklyn, New York, Lord was the son of Irish-American parents. His father, William Lawrence Ryan, was a steamship company executive. He grew up in Morris Park (now known as Richmond Hill), Queens, New York. Young Lord developed his equestrian skills on his mother's fruit farm in the Hudson River Valley. He started spending summers at sea, and from the deck of cargo ships, painted and sketched the landscapes he encountered — Africa, the Mediterranean and China. He was educated at St. Benedict Joseph Labre School, John Adams High School, in Ozone Park, New York, and the United States Merchant Marine Academy, then located at Fort Trumbull in New London, Connecticut, graduating as an Ensign with a Third Mates License. He attended New York University (NYU) on a football scholarship, and earned a degree in Fine Arts. He spent the first year of the United States's involvement in World War II with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, building bridges in Persia. He returned to the Merchant Marine as an Able Seaman before enrolling in the deck officer course at Fort Trumbull. While making maritime training films, he took to the idea of acting. Career. Lord received training from Sanford Meisner at the Neighborhood Playhouse. He worked first as a car salesman for Horgan Ford, then later as a Cadillac salesman in New York to fund his studies. Later he studied at the Actors Studio. His Broadway debut was as Slim Murphy in Horton Foote's "The Traveling Lady" with Kim Stanley. The show ran for 30 performances, October 27, 1954 through November 20, 1954. Lord won the Theatre World Award for his performance. Lord was then cast as Brick in a replacement for Ben Gazzara in the 1955–1956 production of "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof". He had been in "The Little Hut" (his first play), "The Illegitimist", and "The Savage". His first commercial film role was in the 1949 film "The Red Menace" a.k.a. "Project X", an anti-Communist production. He was associate producer in his 1950 film "Cry Murder". In 1957, Lord starred in "", which has run daily at Colonial Williamsburg since then. In 1958, Lord co-starred as Buck Walden in "God's Little Acre", the film adaptation of Erskine Caldwell's 1933 novel. Lord was the first actor to play the character Felix Leiter in the James Bond film series, introduced in the first Bond film, "Dr. No". According to screenwriter Richard Maibaum, Lord demanded co-star billing, a bigger role and more money to reprise the role in "Goldfinger", which resulted in director Guy Hamilton casting the role to an older actor to make Leiter more of an American "M". In 1962, Lord starred as series namesake "Stoney Burke", a rodeo cowboy from Mission Ridge, South Dakota. The basis for the series was real-life champion rodeo rider Casey Tibbs. The series featured Warren Oates and Bruce Dern in recurring supporting roles. Lord credited Gary Cooper as his on-screen role model, and the inspiration for his characterization of Stoney Burke. Lord was considered for Eliot Ness in "The Untouchables "before Robert Stack won the role. In 1965 he guest-starred as Colonel 'Pres' Gallagher in second season episode 5, "Big Brother" of "12 O-Clock High". Other television guest appearances include "Appointment with Adventure", "The Americans", "Bonanza", "High Chaparral", "Combat!", "The Man from U.N.C.L.E.", "The Reporter" starring Harry Guardino, "The Fugitive, The Invaders", "Rawhide", "Ironside", and "The F.B.I." Lord appeared on the first episode of "Have Gun, Will Travel". In 1968, Lord appeared with Susan Strasberg in the film "The Name of the Game is Kill". According to William Shatner, in 1966, Gene Roddenberry offered Lord the role of Captain Kirk on "", to replace Jeffrey Hunter whose wife was making too many demands. Lord asked for 50 percent ownership of the show, so Roddenberry offered the role to Shatner. "Hawaii Five-O". Lord starred for twelve seasons on "Hawaii Five-O" as Detective Steve McGarrett, appointed by the governor to head the state police criminal department in Honolulu, Hawaii. The opening sequence includes a shot of Lord standing on a penthouse balcony of The Ilikai hotel. Chin Ho Kelly, the name of the police detective played by Kam Fong, was a tip-of-the-hat to Ilikai developer Chinn Ho. Lord's catchphrase, "Book him, Danno!", became a part of pop culture. He was instrumental in the casting of native Hawaiians, instead of mainland actors. Lord insisted his character drive Ford vehicles; McGarrett drove a 1967 Mercury Park Lane in the pilot, a 1968 Park Lane from 1968–1974, and a 1974 Mercury Marquis for the remainder of the series (this very car was shown in the 2010 remake). Lord was a perfectionist. When series creator Leonard Freeman died in 1974, the show's ownership was shared among Lord, CBS, and Freeman's estate, with a contract that made Lord executive producer and gave him complete control over content. He was a hands-on partner who paid attention to minute details, and was known for battles with network executives. Artist. During his years at NYU, Lord and his brother Bill opened the Village Academy of Arts. Jack's childhood dream was to become an artist. His first professional sale was in 1941 to the Metropolitan Museum of Art for his two linoleum cuts, entitled "Vermont" and "Fishing Shacks, Block Island". Personal life. Lord's first marriage to Anne Willard ended in divorce in 1947. Lord met his son (from his first marriage) only once when the boy was an infant. The boy was later killed in an accident at age thirteen. On January 17, 1949, Lord married Marie de Narde, who gave up her own career in fashion design to devote her life to him. Marie designed Lord's off-camera wardrobe, as well as her own. Lord was a chain-smoker who failed at traditional methods of quitting. According to Lord, it was his faith in God which broke him of his habit. Lord and a friend visited a Catholic church where both knelt while Lord promised "The Lord" he would stop smoking. Lord was known for being a cultured man who loved reading poetry out loud on the set of his television show and for being reclusive at his Honolulu home. Cinematographers sometimes refer to a 50mm lens ('5-0') as a "Jack Lord" in reference to the name of the show that made him famous. Death. After his series ended in 1980, Lord kept a low profile, rarely making public appearances. His final TV appearance was that same year in a failed pilot for CBS called "M Station: Hawaii" which he also directed. Lord suffered from Alzheimer's disease in his last years. He died of congestive heart failure at his home in Honolulu, Hawaii, on January 21, 1998, at age 77, leaving an estate of $40 million. He was a philanthropist and the entire estate went to Hawaiian charities upon his wife Marie's death in 2005. Memorial. A bronze bust of Lord by Hawaii sculptor Lynn Weiler Liverton was unveiled in a ceremony at the Kahala Mall on June 19, 2004. The Lords lived in a condominium in the Kahala area, and they were known to frequent the neighborhood mall. The nonprofit Jack Lord Memorial Fund, which raised the money for the memorial, was co-chaired by British "Hawaii Five-O" fan Esperanza Isaac and Lord's co-star Doug Mossman.
1470374	Sex Lives of the Potato Men is a British comedy film released in 2004. The film is about the sexual antics of a group of potato delivery men in Birmingham and stars Johnny Vegas and Mackenzie Crook. The film was condemned by most film critics for being crude and tasteless. "The Times" review called it ""one of the two most nauseous films ever made"" It was also controversial in that nearly £1 million of public money from the National Lottery via the UK Film Council was used to fund the project.
582798	Jab Pyaar Kisise Hota Hai is an Indian Hindi language film released in 1998. Directed by Deepak Sareen and written by Honey Irani, the film stars Salman Khan as womaniser Sooraj and Twinkle Khanna as his first real love. Aditya Narayan plays Khan's previously unknown son. Synopsis. "Jab Pyaar Kisise Hota Hai" is about one Sooraj Dhanrajgir (Salman Khan), a rich playboy lightening the financial burden of his industrialist grandfather (Anupam Kher) by spending his riches on alcohol and women. His grandfather calls him back for some official work back home, beginning with a hotel project in Ooty. There his true character emerges as he starts running after pretty women. The first one he lays his eyes on is Komal (Twinkle Khanna). He convinces her that she is his childhood friend and sweet-talks her into falling for him. But soon she sees him for the player he is and walks out on him. For once, Sooraj is smitten beyond infatuation and, knowing she runs a boutique in a hotel somewhere in Bombay, he goes through the hotels of the city until he locates her. He tries his best to win her back but fails. Sooraj's grandfather steps in to ease the situation and asks her to marry him. Komal agrees, on one condition that he would have to give up his playboy status and become straight: He would have to quit smoking, drinking and women for her to marry him. Sooraj, not quite the man he was, gives up every bad habit he has. One day Sooraj returns home and he finds a boy, Kabir (Aditya Narayan), claiming to be his son. Tests prove that Kabir is indeed his son, but Sooraj doesn't even remember the mother (Namrata Shirodkar). Kabir shows him a photograph which Sooraj helps identify the women he had a fling lasting a few months. He brings the boy back, identifying him as his friend's child. Sooraj learns to like him and gradually, understanding his mistake, he recognises him as his son. But Kabir does not like Komal. Kabir is unhappy to learn that Sooraj never really loved his mom. Later Sooraj has to choose between Komal and Kabir. Sooraj is about marry Komal, but he knows that he cannot hide the fact that Kabir is his son from Komal. He falls into a dilemma. His friend Mahesh (Johnny Lever) suggests he should tell the truth to Komal about Kabir before their marriage if he really loves her. He tries several times to speak to Komal about Kabir, but circumstances do not allow him to convey his message. The day on which Sooraj and Komal are to get married, he lands at her house before mahurat with his grandfather, Mahesh and Kabir. He accepts his mistakes that he made in life and tells Komal and her family that Kabir is his son. On hearing this Komal's family gets angry and demands Sooraj disown Kabir if he wants to marry Komal. Sooraj refuses to do that and prefers his son over his love. Komal hails Sooraj's honesty and agrees to accept Kabir as her son and to marry Sooraj. Box office. The film did quite well at the box office and was declared a hit. Salman's work and the chemistry between him and aditya narayan was widely appreciated. It was also the ninth highest grossing movie of the year (Bollywood films of 1998). Soundtrack. "Jab Pyaar Kisise Hota Hai"'s music was one of the best-selling albums of 1998. Composed by Jatin Lalit with lyrics by Anand Bakshi, most of the songs were sung by Lata Mangeshkar, Udit Narayan, Kumar Sanu & Alka Yagnik. Other singers include Sonu Nigam. The producer's of film (Taurani Brothers) told the composers that they wanted the music of the movie to be on the top charts even before signing them. And no wonder Jatin-Lalit did the justice with the score.
1165463	Donna Douglas (born September 26, 1933) is an American actress best known for her role as Elly May Clampett in the CBS television series, "The Beverly Hillbillies" (1962-1971). Early life. Douglas was born Doris Smith in the community of Pride in East Baton Rouge Parish near Zachary in south Louisiana. She was the only daughter of Emmett Ratcliff Smith, Sr. (1907–1988)] and his wife, the former Elma Robinson (1910–2003). Douglas attended Roman Catholic St. Gerard High School, where she played both softball and basketball. She was a member of the school's first graduating class. She married Roland Bourgeois in 1949; they divorced several years later shortly after the birth in 1954 of their son, Danny P. Bourgeois. She was a "Miss Baton Rouge" and was named "Miss New Orleans" in 1957. Acting career. Douglas moved to New York City to pursue a career in entertainment and started out as an illustration model for toothpaste advertisements. She was featured as the “Letters Girl” on NBC's "The Perry Como Show" in 1957, and as the “Billboard Girl” on NBC's "The Steve Allen Show" in 1959. These and other television appearances led New York photographers and newspaper reporters to award her the “Miss By-line” crown, which she wore on CBS's "The Ed Sullivan Show". Producer Hal Wallis saw the Sullivan episode and cast her in the role of Marjorie Burke in the movie drama, "Career" (1959), starring Anthony Franciosa, Dean Martin, and Shirley MacLaine. This was followed by a bit part in the musical comedy, "Li'l Abner" (1959) and the role of a secretary in the comedy/romance "Lover Come Back" (1961) starring Rock Hudson and Doris Day.
628886	Adelaide Clemens (30 November 1989) is an Australian actress. She was nominated for a Logie Award in 2008 for her role in the television series "Love My Way". In 2012, Clemens played Valentine Wannop in "Parade's End". Clemens has also starred in ', "The Great Gatsby", and portrayed Heather Mason in the horror film '. Early life. Clemens was born in Brisbane, Australia. The daughter of a British father, she lived as a child in Japan, Cognac, France, and Hong Kong, where she attended the Hong Kong International School. When she was 12 years old, her family returned to live in Australia. She attended Queenwood School for Girls in the Balmoral suburb of Sydney, for her high school education. Career. Clemens began working as an actress in Australian television while in high school. She guest-starred in a 2006 episode of "Blue Water High" as Juliet, and in 2007, she starred in the children's series "Pirate Islands: The Lost Treasure of Fiji" as Alison. Clemens played Harper in the Showtime drama "Love My Way" that year, and was nominated for the Graham Kennedy Award for Most Outstanding New Talent at the 2008 Logie Awards for the role. Clemens was seen in the 2008 MTV Networks Australia dramatic film, "Dream Life", alongside Sigrid Thornton, Xavier Samuel, Linda Cropper and Andrew McFarlane. She had small roles in the television series "All Saints", and the film "", in 2009. She became the face of Jan Logan's jewellery that year. Clemens relocated to Los Angeles, California in 2009. Clemens starred in the 2010 film, "Wasted on the Young", as Xandrie. Written and directed by Ben C. Lucas, the film told the story of a high school love triangle between Xandrie, Zack (Alex Russell), and Darren (Oliver Ackland), that leads to a party ending in gun violence. She guest-starred on the Fox crime drama, "Lie To Me", opposite Tim Roth, and starred as a sociopathic prostitute in the film "Generation Um...", alongside Keanu Reeves and Bojana Novakovic. , Clemens was in negotiations to join the cast of "Fury Road", a sequel to the Mad Max film series by George Miller. In 2011, she starred in the film "Certainty", directed by Peter Askin, based on the play "Searching for Certainty" by Mike O'Malley. She also starred opposite Kevin Zegers and Keisha Castle-Hughes in "Vampire", as Ladybird, a suicidal single mother. The film was the English-language feature debut of the noted Japanese director Shunji Iwai. In 2012, Clemens starred in "Camilla Dickinson", alongside Gregg Sulkin, Cary Elwes and Samantha Mathis. The drama was an adaptation of the 1951 novel of the same name by young-adult fiction author Madeleine L'Engle. She portrayed teenager Heather Mason in "". The horror film was based on the survival horror video game "Silent Hill 3", and was a sequel to the film "Silent Hill". That year, Clemens also played a lead role as the young suffragette Valentine Wannop in "Parade's End", a television mini-series adaptation of the Ford Madox Ford tetralogy co-produced by HBO and BBC Two.
1790274	Frazer Hines (born 22 September 1944) is an English actor best known for his roles as Jamie McCrimmon in "Doctor Who" and Joe Sugden in "Emmerdale". Hines was born in Horsforth, in the West Riding of Yorkshire. Acting career. Hines attended Corona Theatre School while a young boy. By the age of 10, he had appeared in numerous feature films as minor characters. In 1957, he performed the role of a boy called Napoleon in a six-part television adaptation of John Buchan's 1922 novel "Huntingtower". From 1957 and throughout the 1960s, he performed a steady stream of roles in various television series, such as Jan in "The Silver Sword" (1957–58), Tim Birch in "Emergency Ward 10" (1963–64), and Roger Wain in "Coronation Street" (1965). With a well-established career in television, Hines appeared in feature films less frequently. "Doctor Who". Hines' "Doctor Who" debut came in 1966, after he was cast to play the part of Jamie McCrimmon, a companion of the Second Doctor (played by Patrick Troughton). Hines maintained his role from 1966 to 1969; he reprised it in the 20th anniversary serial "The Five Doctors" (1983), and again in "The Two Doctors" (1985). In all, Hines performed in 117 episodes of "Doctor Who"—more than any other "companion" actor in the history of the series. The only actors appearing in more episodes are those who played the first four Doctors. Many of the "Doctor Who" missing episodes were productions in which Hines had performed. In 1968, his third year on the show, Hines released with Major Minor Records a novelty record titled "Who's Doctor Who?". Esteemed songwriters Barry Mason and Les Reed composed the music and lyrics, but the record was a commercial failure. Hines later called it the only flop Mason and Reed ever wrote. Frazer Hines and his fellow lead actors Patrick Troughton and Wendy Padbury collectively decided that the workload of "Doctor Who" was exhausting them, and that they would soon depart from the show. Frazer was the first to openly announce his intent to leave. Troughton asked him to stay a few more months, to the end of the sixth series, as this was when Troughton planned to relinquish his role as well. The three actors remained with the show until the conclusion of the final series six serial "The War Games" (1969). In a documentary about Patrick Troughton, Hines reported that they all left with smiles on their faces, feeling that their job was done and that it was well done. Frazer also said that he remained in contact with Troughton afterward. "Emmerdale". After his three-year stint as Jamie in "Doctor Who", Hines resumed the life of a jobbing actor until 1972, when he was cast in the soap opera "Emmerdale Farm" as Joe Sugden, a role he played until 1994. In between making episodes of "Emmerdale", as it was renamed in 1989, he has continued a career in the theatre and made occasional appearances in other TV shows. Other work. Until 2007, Hines was the only still-living Second Doctor companion actor not to act in a Big Finish Productions "Doctor Who" audio play (the others have played characters other than their television roles). In November, 2007, he starred as Jamie in "Helicon Prime," the second installment in Season 2 of Big Finish's Companion Chronicles. Since then he has appeared in many more Companion Chronicles where his uncanny ability to mimic Patrick Troughton's Second Doctor has been welcomed by fans of the show. Hines has also recorded linking narration for many Second Doctor serials which no longer exist in video form; the soundtracks, along with Hines' narration, have been released on CD by BBC Audio. He also appeared in an audio trilogy with Colin Baker's Sixth Doctor as an older Jamie (Although it was revealed at the conclusion of the trilogy that this Jamie was a duplicate rather than the original). Hines also appeared in Peter Kay's "Comic Relief" video of 2007, as one of the many guests dancing to Kay's Brian Potter and Matt Lucas' Andy Pipkin to the song "I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles)" by the Proclaimers. Personal life. Hines at one time dated Liza Goddard. He has been twice married, first to Irish actress Gemma Craven from 1981 to 1984, and second to waterskiing champion Liz Hobbs (with whom he lived in Coddington, Nottinghamshire) from 1994 to 2003. Boxtree, an imprint of Macmillan Publishers, published Hines' autobiography in 1996. This work, titled "Films, Farms and Fillies", first appeared in a paperback edition. 13 years later, in December 2009, Telos Publishing released a revised hardcover edition, titled "Hines Sight". In July 2010, Hines disclosed that he suffered from colorectal cancer for eleven years, explaining that he kept his illness a secret for fear of professional alienation. Since his recovery, Hines has openly promoted cancer awareness through Cancer Research and the Bobby Moore Cancer Foundation. Hines later toured Northern England in a one-person show about his career.
649666	Shiyali Ramamrita Ranganathan (; 12 August 1892 – 27 September 1972) was a mathematician and librarian from India. His most notable contributions to the field were his five laws of library science and the development of the first major analytico-synthetic classification system, the colon classification. He is considered to be the father of library science, documentation, and information science in India and is widely known throughout the rest of the world for his fundamental thinking in the field. His birthday is observed every year as the National Library Day in India. He was a university librarian and professor of library science at Benares Hindu University (1945–47) and professor of library science at the University of Delhi (1947–55). The last appointment made him director of the first Indian school of librarianship to offer higher degrees. He was president of the Indian Library Association from 1944 to 1953. In 1957 he was elected an honorary member of the International Federation for Information and Documentation (FID) and was made a vice president for life of the Library Association of Great Britain. Early life and education. Ranganathan, born on 12 August 1892 to Ramamrita, in Tanjore in British-ruled India. He was born in the small town of Shiyali (now known as Sirkazhi), in the state of Tamil Nadu in southern India. Ranganathan began his professional life as a mathematician; he earned B.A. and M.A. degrees in mathematics from Madras Christian College in his home province, and then went on to earn a teaching license. His lifelong goal was to teach mathematics, and he was successively a member of the mathematics faculties at universities in Mangalore, Coimbatore and Madras (all within the span of five years). As a mathematics professor, he published a handful of papers, mostly on the history of mathematics. His career as an educator was somewhat hindered by a handicap of stammering (a difficulty Ranganathan gradually overcame in his professional life). The Government of India awarded Padmashri to Dr. S.R. Ranganathan in 1957 for valuable contributions to Library Science. Early career. In 1923, the University of Madras created the post of University Librarian to oversee their poorly organized collection. Among the 900 applicants for the position, none had any formal training in librarianship, and Ranganathan's' handful of papers satisfied the search committee's requirement that the candidate should have a research background. His sole knowledge of librarianship came from an "Encyclopædia Britannica" article he read days before the interview. Ranganathan was initially reluctant to pursue the position (he had forgotten about his application by the time he was called for an interview there). To his own surprise, he received the appointment and accepted the position in January 1924. At first, Ranganathan found the solitude of the position was intolerable. After a matter of weeks, complaining of total boredom, he went back to the university administration to beg for his teaching position back. A deal was struck that Ranganthan would travel to London to study contemporary Western practices in librarianship, and that, if he returned and still rejected librarianship as a career, the mathematics lectureship would be his again. Ranganathan travelled to University College London, which at that time housed the only graduate degree program in library science in Britain. At University College, he earned marks only slightly above average, but his mathematical mind latched onto the problem of classification, a subject typically taught by rote in library programs of the time. As an outsider, he focused on what he perceived to be flaws with the popular decimal classification, and began to explore new possibilities on his own. He also devised the Acknowledgment of Duplication, which states that any system of classification of information necessarily implies at least two different classifications for any given datum. He anecdotally proved this with the Dewey Decimal Classification (DDC) by taking several books and showing how each might be classified with two totally different resultant DDC numbers. (For example, a book on "warfare in India" could be classified under "warfare" or "India". Even a general book on warfare could be classified under "warfare," "history," "social organisation," "Indian essays," or many other headings, depending upon the viewpoint, needs, and prejudices of the classifier.) To a mind such as Ranganathan's, a structured, step-by-step system acknowledging each facet of the topic of the work was immensely preferable to the anarchy and "intellectual laziness" (as he termed it) of the DDC. "The importance of this concept, given the poor technology for information retrieval available at that time, cannot be overestimated." Even in modern terms the concept is attractive for its simplicity, predictability, and depth in comparison to classification on a linguistic level, such as is used by search engines such as Google. He began drafting the system that was ultimately to become the Colon Classification while in England, and refined it as he returned home, even going so far as to reorder the ship's library on the voyage back to India. He initially got the idea for the system from seeing a set of Meccano in a toy store in London. Ranganathan returned with great interest for libraries and librarianship and a vision of its importance for the Indian nation. He returned to and held the position of University Librarian at the University of Madras for twenty years. During that time, he helped to found the Madras Library Association, and lobbied actively for the establishment of free public libraries throughout India and for the creation of a comprehensive national library. Ranganathan was considered by many to be a workaholic. During his two decades in Madras, he consistently worked 13-hour days, seven days a week, without taking a vacation for the entire time. Although he married in November 1928, he returned to work the afternoon following the marriage ceremony. A few years later, he and his wife Sarada had a son. The couple remained married until Ranganathan's death. The first few years of Ranganathan's tenure at Madras were years of deliberation and analysis as he addressed the problems of library administration and classification. It was during this period that he produced what have come to be known as his two greatest legacies: his five laws of library science (1931) and the colon classification system (1933). Regarding the political climate at the time, Ranganathan took his position at the University of Madras in 1924. Gandhi had been imprisoned in 1922 and was released around the time that Ranganathan was taking that job. Ranganathan sought to institute massive changes to the library system and to write about such things as open access and education for all which essentially had the potential to enable the masses and encourage civil discourse (and disobedience). Although there's no evidence that Ranganthan did any of this for political reasons, his changes to the library had the result of educating more people, making information available to all, and even aiding women and minorities in the information-seeking process. The Northern Ireland crisis got an unexpected metaphorical reference in a book by S. R. Ranganathan, as "making an Ulster of the ... law of parsimony", complaining about the harmful effects of low budget on the good functioning of a library. Later career. After two decades of serving as librarian at Madras – a post he had intended to keep until his retirement, Ranganathan retired from his position after conflicts with a new university vice-chancellor became intolerable. At the age of 54, he submitted his resignation and, after a brief bout with depression, accepted a professorship in library science at Banaras Hindu University in Varanasi, his last formal academic position, in August 1945. There, he cataloged the university's collection; by the time he left four years later, he had classified over 100,000 items personally. Ranganathan headed the Indian Library Association from 1944 to 1953, but was never a particularly adept administrator, and left amid controversy when the Delhi Public Library chose to use the Dewey Decimal Classification system instead of his own Colon Classification. He held an honorary professorship at Delhi University from 1949 to 1955 and helped build that institution's library science programs with S. Dasgupta, a former student of his. In 1951, Ranganathan released an album on Folkways Records entitled, "Readings from the Ramayana: In Sanskrit Bhagavad Gita." Ranganathan briefly moved to Zurich, Switzerland, from 1955 to 1957, when his son married a European girl; the unorthodox relationship did not sit well with Ranganathan, although his time in Zurich allowed him to expand his contacts within the European library community, where he gained a significant following. However, he soon returned to India and settled in the city of Bangalore, where he would spend the rest of his life. While in Zurich, though, he endowed a professorship at Madras University in honor of his wife of thirty years, largely as an ironic gesture in retaliation for the persecution he suffered for many years at the hands of that university's administration. Ranganathan's final major achievement was the establishment of the Documentation Research and Training Centre as a department and research center in the Indian Statistical Institute in Bangalore in 1962, where he served as honorary director for five years. In 1965, the Indian government honored him for his contributions to the field with a rare title of "National Research Professor." In the final years of his life, Ranganathan finally succumbed to ill health, and was largely confined to his bed. On September 27, 1972, he died of complications from bronchitis. Upon the centenary of his birth in 1992, several biographical volumes and collections of essays on Ranganathan's influence were published in his honor. Ranganathan's autobiography, published serially during his life, is titled "A Librarian Looks Back".
1061281	Kramer vs. Kramer is a 1979 American drama film adapted by Robert Benton from the novel by Avery Corman, and directed by Benton. The film tells the story of a married couple's divorce and its impact on everyone involved, including the couple's young son. It received five Academy Awards in 1979 in the categories of Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Supporting Actress, and Best Adapted Screenplay. Plot. Ted Kramer (Dustin Hoffman) is a workaholic advertising executive who has just been assigned a new and very important account. Ted arrives home and shares the good news with his wife Joanna (Meryl Streep) only to find that she is leaving him. Saying that she needs to find herself, she leaves Ted to raise their son Billy (Justin Henry) by himself. Ted and Billy initially resent one another as Ted no longer has time to carry his increased workload and Billy misses his mother's love and attention. After months of unrest, Ted and Billy learn to cope and gradually bond as father and son.
1102004	Leopold Kronecker (December 7, 1823 – December 29, 1891) was a German mathematician who worked on number theory and algebra. He criticized Cantor's work on set theory, and was quoted by as having said, "God made natural numbers; all else is the work of man". Kronecker was a student and lifelong friend of Ernst Kummer. Biography. Leopold Kronecker was born on 7 December 1823 in Liegnitz, Prussia (now Legnica, Poland) in a wealthy Jewish family. His parents, Isidor and Johanna (née Prausnitzer), took care of their children's education and provided them private tutoring at home - Leopold's younger brother Hugo Kronecker would also follow a scientific path later becoming a notable physiologist. Kronecker then went to the Liegnitz Gymnasium where he was interested in a wide range of topics including science, history and philosophy, while also practicing gymnastics and swimming. At the gymnasium he was taught by Ernst Kummer, who noticed and encouraged the boy's interest for mathematics. In 1841 Kronecker became a student at the University of Berlin where his interest did not immediately focus on mathematics, but rather spread over several subjects including astronomy and philosophy. He spent the summer of 1843 at the University of Bonn to study astronomy and 1843-44 at the University of Breslau following his former teacher Kummer. Back in Berlin, Kronecker studied mathematics with Peter Gustav Lejeune Dirichlet and in 1845 defended his dissertation in algebraic number theory written under Dirichlet's supervision. After obtaining his degree, Kronecker did not follow his interest in research with an academic career path. He went back to his hometown to manage a large farming estate built by his mother's uncle, a former banker. In 1848 married his cousin Fanny Prausnitzer and the couple had six children. For several years Kronecker focused on business, and although he continued to study mathematics in his own time as a hobby and kept correspondence with Kummer, he published no mathematical results. In 1853 he wrote a memoir on the algebraic solvability of equations extending the work of Évariste Galois on the theory of equations. His business activity allowed Kronecker a comfortable financial situation, which made it possible for him to go back to Berlin in 1855 to pursue mathematics as a private scholar. Dirichlet, whose wife Rebecka came from the wealthy Mendelssohn family, had introduced Kronecker to the Berlin elite. He became a close friend of Karl Weierstrass, who had recently joined the university, and his former teacher Kummer who had just taken over Dirichlet's mathematics chair. Over the following years Kronecker published numerous papers resulting from his previous years' independent research. As a result of this published research, he was elected a member of the Berlin Academy in 1861. Although he held no official university position, as a member of the Academy Kronecker had the right to hold classes at the University of Berlin and he decided to do so starting with 1862. In 1866, when Riemann died, Kronecker was offered the mathematics chair at the University of Göttingen (previously held by Carl Gauss and Dirichlet), but he refused preferring to keep his position at the Academy. Only in 1883, when Kummer retired from the University, Kronecker was invited to succeed him and became an ordinary professor. Kronecker was the supervisor of Kurt Hensel, Adolf Kneser, Mathias Lerch, and Franz Mertens, amongst others. His philosophical view of mathematics has put him in conflict with several mathematicians over the years, notably straining his relationship with Weierstrass, who almost decided to leave the University in 1888. Kronecker died on December 29, 1891 in Berlin, several months after the death of his wife. In the last year of his life, he converted to Christianity. He is buried in the "Alter St Matthäus Kirchhof" Cemetery in Berlin-Schöneberg, close to Gustav Kirchhoff. Scientific activity. Mathematics research. An important part of Kronecker's research focused on number theory and algebra. In an 1853 paper on the theory of equations and Galois theory he formulated the Kronecker–Weber theorem, however without offering a definitive proof (the theorem was proved completely much later by David Hilbert). He also introduced the structure theorem for finitely-generated abelian groups. Kronecker studied elliptic functions and conjectured his "liebster Jugendtraum" ("dearest dream of youth"), a generalization that was later put forward by Hilbert in a modified form as his twelfth problem. In an 1850 paper, "On the Solution of the General Equation of the Fifth Degree", Kronecker solved the quintic equation by applying group theory (though his solution was not in terms of radicals, since this was already proven impossible by Abel–Ruffini theorem). In algebraic number theory Kronecker introduced the theory of divisors as an alternative to Dedekind's theory of ideals, which he did not find acceptable for philosophical reasons. Although the general adoption of Dedekind's approach led Kronecker's theory to be ignored for a long time, his divisors were found useful and were revived by several mathematicians in the 20th century. Kronecker also contributed to the concept of continuity, reconstructing the form of irrational numbers in real numbers. In analysis, Kronecker rejected the formulation of a continuous, nowhere differentiable function by his colleague, Karl Weierstrass. Also named for Kronecker are the Kronecker limit formula, Kronecker's congruence, Kronecker delta, Kronecker comb, Kronecker symbol, Kronecker product, Kronecker's method for factorizing polynomials, Kronecker's theorem in number theory, and Kronecker's lemma. Philosophy of mathematics. Kronecker's finitism made him a forerunner of intuitionism in foundations of mathematics. Honours. Kronecker was elected as a member of several academies: The 25624 Kronecker asteroid is named after him.
1162421	Traci Bingham (born January 13, 1968) is an American actress, model and television personality who is best known for playing Jordan Tate on the television series "Baywatch" between 1996 and 1998. Personal life. Bingham was born in west Cambridge, Massachusetts to a librarian mother and an aircraft technician father. Her mother is black and her father is of Cherokee Native American and Italian descent. Career. Music videos. In 1991, she appeared in the video for "Good Vibrations" by Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch. Eight years later, she appeared in the video for "I Really Like It" by Harlem World featuring Mase and Kelly Price. Acting on television. Bingham began her career in minor acting roles. Aside from "Baywatch", Bingham's appearances include the television series "D.R.E.A.M. Team" and "Beverly Hills, 90210", and the film "Demon Knight". She also played minor roles in the popular American sitcoms "The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air" and "Married with Children". Reality television. Bingham has appeared on a number of reality television programmes. In 2004 she was in the second series of "The Surreal Life". Her cast mates included Ron Jeremy, Vanilla Ice, Erik Estrada, Tammy Faye Bakker and Trishelle Cannatella. Two years later, she flew to England to appear in "Celebrity Big Brother" where she made it to the final six contestants and was evicted on the final night of the show. She befriended Maggot, the rapper from Goldie Looking Chain, but was ridiculed by the singer Pete Burns. She selected Families of SMA as the charity to receive a donation from her participation in the show because her niece had died from Spinal muscular atrophy (SMA). In 2007, Bingham appeared on VH1's "" and won the $100,000 Goldenpalace.net Grand Prize. In 2008, Bingham appeared on Fox Reality's "Gimme My Reality Show!" competing with six other celebrities to get their own reality show. Other television. In 2008, Bingham also appeared on "The 2008 World Magic Awards" television show. Two years later, she appeared on the Comedy Central Roast of David Hasselhoff. Modelling. Bingham has posed for "Playboy Magazine" on a number of occasions. In June 1998, she posed for a "Babes of "Baywatch"" issue along with Donna D'Errico, Marliece Andrada, Pamela Anderson, Yasmine Bleeth, Carmen Electra, Gena Lee Nolin, and Erika Eleniak. In 2005, Bingham was hired as a spokesmodel by Empire Poker, an online gambling site. Adult Spokes Model & Porn Star Contract. In 2010 Bingham signed on as Spokes Model for the upcoming hybrid mainstream and adult entertainment company Hot Chicks Only (HcO), where she is under contract to perform two adult content hardcore scenes with detailed contracts outlining a "facial climax" on the former Baywatch star. In April 2013 a California court awarded producers from the company a $171,000+ judgment against Bingham. The judgment is currently being domesticated in Massachusetts where Bingham now resides with her mother. Activism. Bingham is a committed vegetarian. Bingham is a member of PETA and has appeared in their "I'd Rather Be Naked Than Wear Fur" campaign.
729599	Sir Christopher Michael Wren PRS (20 October 1632 – 25 February 1723) is one of the most highly acclaimed English architects in history. He was accorded responsibility for rebuilding 52 churches in the City of London after the Great Fire in 1666, including his masterpiece, St. Paul's Cathedral, on Ludgate Hill, completed in 1710.
583880	Kandaen (; ) is an Indian Tamil romantic comedy film written and directed by Mugil, and produced by TCS. It stars Shanthnoo Bhagyaraj and Rashmi Gautam in lead along with Santhanam in a pivotal role. The film, which was launched in May 2010, created curiosity after noted film-maker Gautham Menon's newly launched audio label selected the film's soundtrack to be its first release. It was released on 20 May 2011 to average reviews from critics and was performed averagely at the box office, but Shanthnu's and Santhanam's comedy was appreciated. Plot. Vasanth (Shanthnoo Bhagyaraj) is an engineer who comes from Chennai to visit his grandfather(Vijayakumar) who claims to be ill. When he arrives at his hometown, he finds that a marriage has been arranged for him and that his grandfather isn't really ill. To escape from the marriage, he lies, saying that he is in love with a girl. The grandfather wants the see the girl as soon as possible, and Vasanth returns to Chennai. Vasanth falls in love with a pretty girl named Narmada (Rashmi Gautam) at first sight. He acts blind and she eventually falls for him, too. They date and Narmadha's father (Ashish Vidyarthi), a police commissioner, gets to know about his daughter's love. He refuses, not wanting to marry his only daughter to a blind man. The pair decide that they will marry at the register office without the consent of their parents. During the proceedings of the marriage, Narmada finds out that Vasanth isn't actually blind but had acted like one to win her heart. Narmada is angered and leaves the registrar's office, but forgives him after he apologizes. Narmada's father finally agrees to their marriage, and the two get engaged. In the light of the engagement, Vasanth treats his friends to a night in a bar. They get drunk, and Vasanth gets involved in a fight during which he is hit by an iron rod on the back of his head, damaging his nerves and losing his eyesight.
1059675	Clinton E. "Clint" Howard (born April 20, 1959) is an American character actor who is known for his portrayal of Balok in the original "Star Trek" series and Johnson Ritter in the Austin Powers series. Since then, he has continued to make numerous appearances in television and radio, including many parts in films directed by his brother, actor and director Ron Howard. Personal life. Howard was born in Burbank, California as the son of actors Rance Howard and Jean Speegle Howard, and the younger brother of actor-director Ron Howard. He attended Robert Louis Stevenson Elementary in Burbank. Howard has been married twice. His first marriage was from 1986 to 1987. He married Melanie Howard in 1995. An avid golfer, Howard boasts of playing 150 rounds a year. He is also known for his activity in the game "World of Warcraft" in which he plays under the name Extas of the guild "Peekay" on the Dark Iron realm. Television. After starring on "Gentle Ben", Howard appeared in "The Streets of San Francisco", in the episode entitled "The House on Hyde Street", and "The Virginian" as Tommy, the proud owner of a new litter of pups in the episode entitled Melanie. He was sometimes seen on "The Andy Griffith Show" as Leon, a toddler in a cowboy outfit who wandered freely around Mayberry and silently offered people a bite of his sandwich, to which they would respond, "No, thank you." In 1963, he appeared in the ABC medical drama "Breaking Point" in the role of four-year-old Mikey in the episode "The Gnu, Now Almost Extinct". He also played little Billy Taft the nephew of Dr, Richard Kimble in the season one episode of "The Fugitive", “The Home is the Hunted” (1964). He also starred on Rod Serling's "Night Gallery" as Herbie: a ten-year-old boy who could predict the near future. In 1966, he guest starred in the short-lived "The Jean Arthur Show" sitcom on CBS in the episode entitled "My Client, the Rooster". One of Howard's other roles as a child actor was the voice of the elephant Hathi's son Hathi Jr. in the 1967 Walt Disney animated film "The Jungle Book" and the voice of Roo in Disney's animated featurettes "Winnie the Pooh and the Honey Tree" (1966), and "Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day" (1968) which were later incorporated into "The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh" (1977). Howard appeared in various "Star Trek" episodes: In 2003, he played Johnny Bark on "Arrested Development" in the season one episode Key Decisions, which was produced and narrated by his brother, Ron. He was seen in an episode of" Married... with Children" as a creepy janitor. He played a car thief/murderer in the season four "Seinfeld" episode The Trip. Also, he played Creepy Rodney in the season one "My Name Is Earl" episode "Stole a Badge", and he was a guest star in the season three episode of the NBC show "Heroes" "I Am Sylar". As a nod to Star Trek culture, he played a part in "Star Trek" director J. J. Abrams' series "Fringe"; in the season one episode, "The Road Not Taken", playing a man who thought he was the son of Sarek of Vulcan. (In the next episode, Leonard Nimoy was revealed as the mysterious character he was discussing.) In 2012, Howard was featured in a television commercial for Amdro, an insecticide product. Film. Clint appeared in 17 films that were directed by his brother, Ron Howard, including the first movie directed by his older brother—a short film called " Old Paint"—when Clint was 10. He also starred in Ron's first full-length feature, "Grand Theft Auto". Other roles in the elder Howard's films include: a retirement home worker in "Cocoon" (1985), in both the 1986 film Gung Ho and the television series, a morgue attendant in "Backdraft" (1991), a Little League parent who taunts Steve Martin in "Parenthood", a factory overseer in "Far and Away" (1992), flight controller Seymour Liebergot in "Apollo 13" (1995), a television director in "EDtv" (1999), the mayor's assistant in "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" (2000). In 2003, he had a part in the movie "The Missing", as Ollie in 2008's Frost/Nixon, and a plant specialist in the 2011 comedy "The Dilemma". He also played the role of Paul Lucas in the episodes "Spider" and "We Interrupt This Program" of the HBO miniseries "From the Earth to the Moon", which was produced by brother Ron. He played the original Eaglebaur in the 1979 film "Rock 'n' Roll High School"; appeared as the head usher in "Get Crazy"; a Southern-fried college football fan in "The Waterboy"; a father of one of the main characters in Uwe Boll's "Heart of America"; Played Slinky as Sylvester Stallone's cellmate in "Tango & Cash"; a radio DJ in "That Thing You Do!"; a space tracking agent in the "Austin Powers" series; another flight controller ""; a cross-dressing man named 'Nipples' in "Little Nicky"; the title character in the 1995 low-budget comedy-horror film "Ice Cream Man"; he played Rughead, a nervous and often annoying auto technician in the 1986 science fiction film "The Wraith"; the title role of Stanley Coopersmith in the horror movie "Evilspeak"; Kate the Caterer in "The Cat in the Hat"; featured briefly in Rob Zombie's "Halloween"; and appeared in the romantic comedies "Play the Game" and "Speed-Dating". Clint also played Sanders on "Alabama Moon". Howard played Dr. Owen in the independent horror film "Nobody Gets Out Alive" which was written and directed by filmmaker Jason Christopher and was released nationwide on February 26, 2013. The film made it rounds in the film festival circuit in 2012 and has won two best feature awards, a best director award, and a best actor award. Music. In 1981, Clint formed The Kempsters, a New Wave rock and roll group. The band was composed mostly of Clint's friends who were neighbors with him on Kemp Street, hence the band's name. In 1982, their original drummer, Mike "Spooner" Bauer, was replaced by Tony Rodriquez, and the band began to play regularly at Madame Wong's West. Clint retired the band in 1983. Although The Kempsters never released an album while together, Clint Howard has recently begun distributing a CD featuring four tracks the band recorded in various studios and seven tracks recorded live on October 17, 1982 at Madame Wong's. Clint is currently selling autographed copies of the album, which is titled "No Brains At All". Recognition. In 1998, Howard was awarded the MTV Lifetime Achievement Award at the MTV Movie Awards. During the ceremony at which Howard received the award, a montage of other actors and celebrities providing testimonials about him was shown, in which they referred to him only as "Clint", giving the impression they were referring to Clint Eastwood. It was not until the end of the montage that it was revealed that the actual recipient was Howard.
1557792	4 for Texas is a 1963 American western comedy starring Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Anita Ekberg, Ursula Andress, and featuring screen thugs Charles Bronson and Mike Mazurki, with a cameo appearance by the Three Stooges (Larry Fine, Moe Howard and Curly Joe DeRita). The film was written by Teddi Sherman and Robert Aldrich, who also directed. Plot. In 1870 Galveston, Texas, a shipment of $100,000 being transported by stagecoach is the object of a tug-of-war between Zack Thomas (Frank Sinatra) and Joe Jarrett (Dean Martin), who first must stave off an outlaw band led by Matson (Charles Bronson). Thomas and Jarrett become rivals in a bid to open a waterfront casino. Each has a new romantic attachment as well, with the beauties Elya (Anita Ekberg) and Maxine (Ursula Andress), respectively. They eventually must join forces to hold off the villainous Matson and a corrupt banker, Burden (Victor Buono), to keep their new gambling boat afloat. The role of Elya was originally intended for Sophia Loren who had already worked with Sinatra in The Pride and the Passion. Although she was offered $1,000,000 for four weeks of work, Loren turned the part down. Production. "4 for Texas" was filmed in 1.85:1 aspect ratio on 35-millimeter Technicolor film. Its promotional trailer features Ursula Andress in specially shot footage addressing the audience. Release. The film had its U.S. premiere on December 18, 1963. Forty-three years after its original premiere, "4 for Texas" was presented at the Turin Film Festival on November 12, 2006. Home Media. Its first DVD release arrived on November 20, 2001 and the second release (as part of The Rat Pack collection of "Ocean's 11" and "Robin and the 7 Hoods") was on June 13, 2006. Awards and Nominations. It was nominated for the Golden Laurel as "Top Action Drama", ultimately coming in fourth.
1162828	Daniel Joseph "Dan" Lauria (born April 12, 1947) is an American television, stage, and film actor. Early life. Lauria, an Italian-American, was born in Brooklyn, New York, the son of Carmela (née Luongo) and Joseph J. Lauria. He also lived in Lindenhurst, New York. He graduated from Lindenhurst Senior High School in 1965 as a varsity football player, and he briefly taught physical education at Lindenhurst High School. A Vietnam War veteran, Lauria served as an officer in the US Marine Corps in the early 1970s, at the same point in his life that Jack Arnold, his character in "The Wonder Years" did during the Korean War. He got his start in acting while attending Southern Connecticut State University in New Haven, Connecticut, on a football scholarship. Career. Lauria is best known for his portrayal of Jack Arnold, the money-conscious father on the TV series "The Wonder Years", that ran from 1988 to 1993. He also played James Webb in the 1998 TV miniseries "From the Earth to the Moon" and Commanding Officer, USA in 1996's "Independence Day". More recently he has appeared in a War Veterans public service announcement and as Police Commissioner Eustace Dolan in "The Spirit". He appeared as Coach Hamstrung in "The Three Stooges N.Y.U.K." on AMC in 2000. Lauria appeared on stage in New York in the summer of 2006 in an Off Broadway production of "A Stone Carver" by William Mastrosimone with Jim Iorio and Elizabeth Rossa. Lauria also had a small role in a Season two episode of "Army Wives", as well as a season one episode of "The Mentalist". In 2009, Dan has appeared as General Lee Whitworth, M.D. on T.V. series "Criminal Minds" Season 4. He has also appeared in an episode of "Boy Meets World", starring Ben Savage, the younger brother of "The Wonder Years"'s Fred Savage. In late 2009, Lauria returned to the Off Broadway stage, appearing as Jimmy Hoffa in Brian Lee Franklin's "Good Bobby", a fictionalized account of Robert Kennedy's rise. In 2010, Lauria appeared as Vince Lombardi in the Broadway play "Lombardi". The play received positive reviews, with sports writer Jim Hague commenting, "Lauria truly becomes Vince Lombardi. You almost forget you're watching an actor. He's Lombardi through and through, down to the wire-framed glasses and intimidating scowl." North Bergen football coach Vince Ascolese, who met Lombardi, commented "I really felt like he was Lombardi. It was uncanny." In 2012, Lauria played the part of Jean Shepard in the Broadway production of A Christmas Story, the musical. He currently plays Jack Sullivan on the Steve Byrne sitcom "Sullivan and Son" On TBS.
1174518	Benjamin Michael "Ben" Lee (born 11 September 1978) is an Australian ARIA Award winning musician and actor. Lee began his career as a musician at the age of 14 with the Sydney band Noise Addict, but focused on his solo career when the band broke up in 1995. He appeared as the protagonist in the Australian film "The Rage in Placid Lake" (2003). Lee has released nine solo studio albums. Career. Noise Addict. Lee's musical career began in 1993 with the band Noise Addict, who were signed to Steve Pavlovic's independent label Fellaheen Records, on the strength of a self-produced and distributed four-track demo recorded in Lee's bedroom. Pavlovic's connections brought the band to the attention of Sonic Youth's Thurston Moore and Beastie Boys' Mike D, both of whom released the band's material in the US. The group put out several releases on the Beasties' Grand Royal Records. These including the acoustic "Young and Jaded" EP in 1994, which contained Lee's Evan Dando tribute, "I Wish I Was Him." In 1995, Grand Royal released the band's only full length, the Brad Wood produced "Meet the Real You". Noise Addict made a music video for the song "16", toured with Sebadoh, but then broke up. Lee was also briefly a member of the alternative act Gerling. In 2009 Lee recorded a new Noise Addict album, "It was Never about the Audience", with a new lineup; Lou Barlow and Lara Meyerratken. Solo career. Lee's solo career started at the age of 16, while he was still in Noise Addict. He began recording his first solo album, "Grandpaw Would", in both Sydney and Chicago with producer Brad Wood. This was followed by the 1997 album, "Something to Remember Me By", also produced by Wood. Lee was then featured on the "There's Something About Mary" soundtrack, with the song "How to Survive a Broken Heart". 1998's "Breathing Tornados", released on Pavlovic's new label Modular, marked a new direction for Lee as he introduced synthesisers and increased instrumentation into his sound. The album was a success in Australia, earning Lee ARIA Award nominations for Best Male Artist and Album of the Year. The album's first single, "Cigarettes Will Kill You", was also nominated for Single of the Year and finished second in that year's Triple J Hottest 100. In 2001 Lee contributed a track ("Sweet Is the Night") to a Jeff Lynne tribute album "Lynne Me Your Ears". Lee's fourth album, "hey you. yes you.", was released in 2002. The first single from the album, "Something Borrowed, Something Blue", reached number 67 on the ARIA Charts and number 22 on the 2002's Triple J Hottest 100. The second single, "Running with Scissors", peaked at number 82 on the ARIA charts. In late 2004, Lee left Steve Pavlovic's Modular Recordings and started up his own record label, Ten Fingers. The first release on the label was the single, "Gamble Everything for Love", followed by the album, "Awake Is the New Sleep" in February 2005, which went double platinum in Australia. A defining release in his career, the album showcased a much brighter, positive side of Lee's personality, in contrast to his previous darker musings. "Awake Is the New Sleep" received several nominations for the 2005 Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA) awards, and Lee won Best Male Artist, Best Independent Release, and Single of the Year for "Catch My Disease", which Lee wrote with Mcgowan Southworth. "Catch My Disease" also went to No.2 on the 2005 Triple J Hottest 100. In addition, the song was featured on the soundtracks to the 2005 films "Just Friends" and "", as well as the soundtracks to the television series, "Grey's Anatomy", "Hidden Palms" and "Scrubs". In 2006 it was used in a television commercial for Dell Computers. On 26 March 2006, Lee performed "We're All in This Together" from "Awake Is the New Sleep" at the closing ceremony of the 2006 Commonwealth Games. The single for "We're All in This Together" was released on 8 April 2006. The CD includes cover versions of the song by Pony Up, Holidays on Ice and Gelbison. "We're All in This Together" is being used in commercials for Kohl's (2008), Coca Cola (Remixed Australian Summer Series Ads in 2007), the South Australian Government (2006), the Salvation Army Red Shield Appeal (2007) and Telus Mobility's "My Faves" (2007). Ben Lee released his sixth album, "Ripe", on 18 September 2007 with Benji Madden and Mandy Moore making appearances. Mandy Moore sung a light-hearted, '50s style duet with Lee called "Birds and Bees". "Mandy was very sweet and did her best Olivia Newton-John for me. I'm really psyched about this recording," Lee says. Madden helped out with some backing vocals, along with US band Rooney and Sara Watkins from the band Nickel Creek. Benmont Tench, keyboardist from Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers also contributed. The song "American Television" from the album was used in a VH1 advertisement for "Flavor of Love 3" and the song "Ripe" appeared in an episode of "One Tree Hill" (Season 5, episode 2). In 2007, Ben Lee did a cover of Crosby, Stills & Nash's "Our House" for Landmarks on The DL. On 6 February 2009, Lee released his seventh studio album, "The Rebirth of Venus", which received mixed reviews. It featured guest performances from the likes of Missy Higgins & Patience Hodgson and peaked at No.21 on the ARIA Charts. Lee's eighth studio album, "Deeper Into Dream", was released on 11 October 2011. It was Lee's first attempt at a concept album, basing the entire 12 tracks around the dream state. Despite not charting, it was received fairly favourably by critics. In April 2013, Lee released his ninth and arguably his most experimental studio album entitled , with collaboration from Jessica Chapnik. The album is based upon his personal experience with the psychoactive South American medicine known as Ayahuasca. Lee featured as the mentor for Joel Madden's team on the 2013 season of The Voice (Australia). Personal life. Lee was born in Sydney. Lee was raised in a Jewish household but does not consider himself religious. He was educated at Moriah College in Sydney's eastern suburbs. Lee dated Claire Danes for several years; their relationship ended in 2003. Lee married actress Ione Skye on 28 December 2008, in a Hindu wedding ceremony in India. Their first child, Goldie Priya Lee, was born on 24 September 2009. Lee was nominated as PETA's World's Sexiest Vegetarian in 2008. However, as Lee himself admits, he eats fish and therefore is not a vegetarian. Apple influence. The album "Awake Is the New Sleep" and a selection of other tracks are a feature of the iTunes Music Store Essentials with many singles featuring as a part of the AppleCare Technical Support music on hold.
1064000	American Pie 2 is a 2001 teen comedy film and sequel to "American Pie" and is the second film in the "American Pie" theatrical series. It was written by Adam Herz and David H. Steinberg, and directed by J. B. Rogers. The film picks up the story of the five friends from the first film as they reunite during the summer after their first year of college. It holds true to the idea of piling on risqué scenes one after another. It was released in the United States on August 10, 2001, and grossed over $145 million in the US and $142 million overseas on a budget of $30 million. It was followed by sequels "American Wedding" (2003) and "American Reunion" (2012). The film tells the story of the five friends - Jim, Chris ("Oz"), Kevin, Paul ("Finch"), and Steven ("Stifler") - and their attempts to have the greatest summer party ever, as well as their antics in between. In addition to this, Jim bonds with his prom date Michelle, who is helping him improve his libido and sex appeal for the return of Jim's love interest, Nadia. Much of the film takes place at a summer beach house in Grand Harbor, Michigan, per Kevin's older brother's suggestion. Plot. The film starts with Jim (Jason Biggs) ending his first year at college. Jim begins to have sex with one of his college friends as "friendly goodbye sex" when he reveals that this is his "first time since his first time". It is revealed that Jim's Dad (Eugene Levy) plans to surprise his son with a six pack of beer when he goes to pick him up from school. Jim's Dad has the RA unlock the door and he inadvertently walks in on them.
1099676	Thomas Bayes (; c. 1701 7 April 1761) was an English mathematician and Presbyterian minister, known for having formulated a specific case of the theorem that bears his name: Bayes's theorem. Bayes never published what would eventually become his most famous accomplishment; his notes were edited and published after his death by Richard Price. Biography. Thomas Bayes was the son of London Presbyterian minister Joshua Bayes and was possibly born in Hertfordshire. He came from a prominent nonconformist family from Sheffield. In 1719, he enrolled at the University of Edinburgh to study logic and theology. On his return around 1722, he assisted his father at the latter's chapel in London before moving to Tunbridge Wells, Kent around 1734. There he became minister of the Mount Sion chapel, until 1752. He is known to have published two works in his lifetime, one theological and one mathematical: It is speculated that Bayes was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1742 on the strength of the "Introduction to the Doctrine of Fluxions", as he is not known to have published any other mathematical works during his lifetime. In his later years he took a deep interest in probability. Stephen Stigler feels that he became interested in the subject while reviewing a work written in 1755 by Thomas Simpson, but George Alfred Barnard thinks he learned mathematics and probability from a book by de Moivre. His work and findings on probability theory were passed in manuscript form to his friend Richard Price after his death. By 1755 he was ill and in 1761 had died in Tunbridge. He was buried in Bunhill Fields Cemetery in Moorgate, London where many Nonconformists lie. Bayes's theorem. Bayes's solution to a problem of "inverse probability" was presented in "An Essay towards solving a Problem in the Doctrine of Chances" which was read to the Royal Society in 1763 after Bayes's death. Richard Price shepherded the work through this presentation and its publication in the "Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London" the following year. This was an argument for using a uniform prior distribution for a binomial parameter and not merely a general postulate. This essay contains a statement of a special case of Bayes's theorem. In the first decades of the eighteenth century, many problems concerning the probability of certain events, given specified conditions, were solved. For example, given a specified number of white and black balls in an urn, what is the probability of drawing a black ball? Attention soon turned to the converse of such a problem: given that one or more balls has been drawn, what can be said about the number of white and black balls in the urn? These are sometimes called "inverse probability" problems. The "Essay" of Bayes contains his solution to a similar problem, posed by Abraham de Moivre, author of "The Doctrine of Chances" (1718). In addition to the "Essay Towards Solving a Problem", a paper on asymptotic series was published posthumously. Bayes and Bayesianism. Bayesian probability is the name given to several related interpretations of probability, which have in common the notion of probability as something like a partial belief, rather than a frequency. This allows the application of probability to all sorts of propositions rather than just ones that come with a reference class. "Bayesian" has been used in this sense since about 1950. Since its rebirth in the 1950s, advancements in computing technology have allowed scientists from many disciplines to pair traditional Bayesian statistics with random walk techniques. The use of the Bayes theorem has been extended in science and in other fields. Bayes himself might not have embraced the broad interpretation now called Bayesian. It is difficult to assess Bayes's philosophical views on probability, since his essay does not go into questions of interpretation. There Bayes defines "probability" as follows (Definition 5). In modern utility theory, expected utility can (with qualifications, because buying risk for small amounts or buying security for big amounts also happen) be taken as the probability of an event times the payoff received in case of that event. Rearranging that to solve for the probability, Bayes's definition results. As Stigler points out, this is a subjective definition, and does not require repeated events; however, it does require that the event in question be observable, for otherwise it could never be said to have "happened". Stigler argues that Bayes intended his results in a more limited way than modern Bayesians; given Bayes's definition of probability, his result concerning the parameter of a binomial distribution makes sense only to the extent that one can bet on its observable consequences.
1062195	Lee Grant (born 31 October, 1926) is an American stage, film and television actress, and film director. She was blacklisted for 12 years from film work beginning in the mid-1950s, but worked in the theatre, and would eventually win the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance as Felicia Karpf in "Shampoo" (1975). Early life. Grant was born Lyova Haskell Rosenthal in New York City the daughter of Eastern European Jewish immigrants Witia (née Haskell), an actress and teacher, and Abraham W. Rosenthal, a realtor and educator. The family resided at 706 Riverside Drive. She attended Art Student League, Juilliard School of Music, High School of Music and Art, and George Washington High School. At the age of four, she debuted in a show at the Metropolitan Opera, and when she was eleven she joined the American Ballet. She graduated high school at the age of fourteen. Grant then received a scholarship to the Neighborhood Playhouse theater school, and studied under Sanford Meisner. She subsequently enrolled in Actors Studio in New York. Career. Grant established herself as a dramatic method actress on and off Broadway, earning praise for her role as a shoplifter in "Detective Story", in 1949. She made her film debut two years later in the film version of the same name ("Detective Story"), receiving her first Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress nomination, and winning the Best Actress Award at the Cannes Film Festival. She was a regular on the CBS soap opera, "Search For Tomorrow" in the early 1950s. She was called before the House Committee on Un-American Activities to testify against her husband, the playwright Arnold Manoff, father of her two children, but refused to testify. She was blacklisted for twelve years, after which she resumed work in theater and film. Composer Burt Bacharach, who considered Grant "a brilliant actress," notes that "she suffered for her political beliefs for a long time because that was such a terrible period in the history of our country." Her first major achievement after that period was in the 1960s television series "Peyton Place", as Stella Chernak, for which she won an Emmy. In 1968, Grant appeared in an episode of "Mission Impossible", portraying the wife of a U.S. diplomat who goes undercover to discredit a rogue diplomat.
733912	Green Street is a 2005 independent drama film about football hooliganism in England. It was directed by Lexi Alexander and stars Elijah Wood and Charlie Hunnam. In the United States, Australia and South Africa, the film is called "Green Street Hooligans". In other countries, it is called "Football Hooligans" or just "Hooligans". In the film, an American college student falls in with a violent West Ham football firm (the Green Street Elite) run by his brother-in-law and is morally transformed by their commitment to each other. The story and screenplay were developed by former hooligan turned author Dougie Brimson. Throughout the film, the Green Street Elite fight other "firms" such as Tottenham Hotspur's Yid Army, Birmingham City's Zulus, Manchester United's Red Army and Millwall's Bushwackers. A sequel called "", was released straight-to-video in 2009. Plot. Matt Buckner (Elijah Wood), a journalism major, is expelled from Harvard University after cocaine is discovered in his room. However, the cocaine belongs to Jeremy Van Holden (Terence Jay), his roommate. Buckner is afraid to speak up because the Van Holdens are a powerful family, and Jeremy pays him $10,000 for taking the fall. Matt visits to the United Kingdom to stay with his sister Shannon (Claire Forlani), her husband Steve Dunham (Marc Warren) and their young son, Ben (James Allison). There, Matt meets Steve's brother, Pete (Charlie Hunnam), a loud and thuggish Cockney who runs a local football hooligan firm - a group of football supporters that arranges fights after matches - and teaches at a local school. Steve asks Pete to take Matt to a football match between West Ham United and Birmingham City, though Pete is reluctant to take a "Yank" to a football match, because of the xenophobic nature of his friends. He is persuaded because Steve will only give the money Pete needs to Matt. After defeating Matt in a fight, Pete decides to take Matt to the football match, thinking he might learn a thing or two. Matt meets Pete's friends and his firm in the Abbey, their local pub. The hooligans all befriend Matt, with the exception of Pete's rather obnoxious right-hand man, Bovver (Leo Gregory). After a few pints of lager, they head to Upton Park for the match. After the match, Pete, Bovver, and the other firm members agree to go and fight some Birmingham fans, but Matt decides that it is not for him and tells Pete he is going to take the train home. On his way back to the underground, Matt is jumped by three Birmingham fans, who nearly give him a 'Chelsea Grin', but he is rescued by some GSE members, who are on their way to a larger fight. Though grossly outnumbered, the GSE manage to hold their ground until reinforcements chase off the Birmingham firm. Matt does well in his first true fight and is inducted into the GSE. After a row with Steve, Matt moves in with Pete, and the two exchange stories. The GSE firm then head to an away game against Manchester United. Matt was not meant to come but ends up sneaking onto the train. Whilst on the train they are pre-warned that 40 Manchester United firm members are waiting for them at the station. Bovver hits the emergency stop button which allows the GSE to get off at an earlier stop (Macclesfield). Having failed to find a taxi, they persuade a van driver to take them into Manchester. Matt sits in the front of the van with the driver; the rest of the GSE are in the rear. As the van approaches the Man Utd. fans, Matt tells them that they are moving equipment for a Hugh Grant film, so the fans let them through. When past them, he stops the van, opens up the back, and the GSE charge out to attack the United firm members. They win the fight and run away singing "There's your famous GSE!" It is soon revealed to Matt that the GSE's sworn enemy is Millwall's firm, led by Tommy Hatcher (Geoff Bell), with whom Bovver makes negotiations after getting jealous of Matt. After one of the members of the firm see Matt meeting his father, a renowned journalist for The Times, for lunch, they assume Matt is a "journo" as well. Bovver informs Pete of this, and, when Steve finds out, he goes to the Abbey to warn Matt. Matt finds out that Steve used to be "The Major" of the GSE but quit following a match against Millwall, to which Tommy Hatcher brought along his 12-year-old son. The boy was killed in the ensuing fight by members of the GSE, causing Tommy Hatcher to "lose it," blaming Steve and the GSE for his son's death. After witnessing this tragedy, Steve left football hooliganism for good. At that moment, Bovver and Pete arrive, and there is a massive argument in the Abbey, in which Bovver comes out humiliated. Infuriated, Bovver goes to Millwall's local and asks Tommy Hatcher to ambush GSE at the Abbey. Initially reluctant, Tommy Hatcher agrees upon learning that Steve Dunham is there. Pete angrily confronts Matt in the bathroom over the covering-up of his real identity. The Millwall firm then crash the Abbey, and petrol bomb the bar. Upon arriving, Tommy Hatcher confronts Steve. Steve's attempt to convince Tommy Hatcher that he is no longer involved in the GSE only further reminds Hatcher of his son, and he stabs Steve in the neck with a broken bottle, telling him that if he dies tonight then they are both even. Bovver, who had been knocked out by Tommy Hatcher, comes round just in time to help Steve, who is badly injured. At the hospital, Pete blasts Bovver for his betrayal. Shannon decides to head back to the United States to ensure the safety of her family. In the aftermath, the two firms meet near the Millennium Dome for a bloody and all-out brawl. Matt and Bovver show up to fight for the GSE, but during the fight, Matt's sister, Shannon, turns up with their son, and are attacked by a Millwall hooligan. Matt and Bovver come to their rescue. Pete notices that Tommy Hatcher is approaching the car, and distracts Tommy by taunting him to "finish him off." When Tommy Hatcher declares to have finished with him, Pete then retorts that Tommy Hatcher was to blame for his son's death, having failed to protect him, shouting "he was your son!". Tommy Hatcher, driven to insanity, attacks and beats Pete to death, all the while shouting out a variation of the words to the chant 'Only a poor little Hammer,' using it as an analogy for Pete's condition. As both sides draw a line at manslaughter, the fight completely halts at this point, and a weeping Tommy is eventually dragged off Pete by members of his firm. Everyone on both sides gathers around Pete's dead body in shock, with Bovver sobbing at his side. Matt returns to the United States and confronts Jeremy Van Holden in a restaurant toilet, where Jeremy is snorting cocaine. Jeremy arrogantly tells Matt to leave during a brief discussion in which he admits to his identity as the cocaine stash's true owner. Matt then pulls out a tape recorder and plays back what Jeremy just said, saying that it is his "ticket back to Harvard." Jeremy lunges at him to try to get the tape, but Matt casually reverses the attack and raises his fist as if to punch Jeremy. He does not do so, instead walking out with a smile as Jeremy collapses to the floor, defeated. The film ends with Matt walking down the street outside the restaurant singing "I'm Forever Blowing Bubbles." Cultural context. The name of the firm in film, the Green Street Elite, refers to Green Street in the London Borough of Newham, where West Ham's home stadium, Boleyn Ground (more commonly known as Upton Park) is located. West Ham is supported by one of England's notorious hooligan firms: the Inter City Firm (ICF). Critical reception. The film received mixed reviews upon release. It scored 46% on movie website Rotten Tomatoes, and it scored 55% on the website Metacritic. Roger Ebert gave the film a very favourable review. The BBC described it as "calamitous". Lead star Charlie Hunnam's attempted Cockney accent was derided by many critics as being the worst in movie history. Awards. Green Street won several awards including Best Feature at the LA Femme Film Festival, Best of the Fest at the Malibu Film Festival, and the Special Jury Award at the SXSW Film Festival. The film was nominated for the William Shatner Golden Groundhog Award for Best Underground Movie, other nominated films were Neil Gaiman's and Dave McKean's "MirrorMask", the award winning baseball documentary "Up for Grabs" and "Opie Gets Laid". Sequel. "" was released straight-to-DVD in March 2009. The film does not star most of the main cast of the first film, but rather focuses on Ross McCall, who played Dave in the first film. The plot has Dave, who was caught from the fight at the end of the first film, in a prison where he must fight to survive. The film received mostly negative reviews, mostly due to the fact that it had almost no relation to the first film.
1664328	Lucy Chet DeVito (born March 11, 1983) is an American actress and daughter of actors Danny DeVito and Rhea Perlman. She was born in New York City and grew up in Los Angeles, California, along with her sister Grace DeVito (born March 1985) and her brother Jacob Devito (born October 1987). She starred as Anne Frank in a production of "Anne Frank" at the Intiman Theatre in Seattle, Washington, in 2008. Her first important movie role was in 2009 in the film "Leaves of Grass" with Edward Norton.
372796	Wish Upon a Star is a 1996 television film directed by Blair Treu, written by Jessica Barondes, and starring Katherine Heigl and Danielle Harris. It focuses on two teenage sisters that magically swap bodies because of a wish made on a shooting star. They spend several days living each other's life, sometimes with the intent to sabotage the other's reputation and achievements, but they learn to appreciate and help each other along the way. The tagline to this movie is "I Wish I May, I Wish I Might, Become My Sister For A Night!" Plot. The two Wheaton sisters share a household and a high school, but both feel that they have little else in common. Alexia's (Katherine Heigl) days revolve around being popular, dressing stylishly, and spending time with her jock boyfriend, while exerting minimal effort academically. Hayley (Danielle Harris) is socially reserved, admiring her older sister's popularity from a distance while excelling in her studies, particularly science and mathematics. Hayley and Alexia don't get along well at all, with Hayley resenting her reliance on her frequently late sister for a ride to school and Alexia preferring not to be seen with her less-than-cool younger sister. One night, Hayley is outside studying the night sky for her science class, while Alexia relaxes in the outdoor hot tub with her boyfriend, Kyle (Don Jeffcoat). When Hayley sees a shooting star, she wishes aloud to become her sister Alexia, then turns to see Alexia also watching the sky. The two of them awaken the next morning to find themselves trapped in each other's body. Hayley assumes responsibility for the swap, mentioning her wish.
1100480	Haskell Brooks Curry (September 12, 1900 – September 1, 1982) was an American mathematician and logician. Curry is best known for his work in combinatory logic; while the initial concept of combinatory logic was based on a single paper by Moses Schönfinkel, much of the development was done by Curry. Curry is also known for Curry's paradox and the Curry–Howard correspondence. There are three programming languages named after him, Haskell, Brooks and Curry, as well as the concept of "currying", a technique used for transforming functions in mathematics and computer science. Life. Curry was born on September 12, 1900, in Millis, Massachusetts, to Samuel Silas Curry and Anna Baright Curry, who ran a school for elocution. He entered Harvard University in 1916 to study medicine but switched to mathematics before graduating in 1920. After two years of graduate work in electrical engineering at MIT, he returned to Harvard to study physics, earning a MA in 1924. Curry's interest in mathematical logic started during this period when he was introduced to the Principia Mathematica, the attempt by Alfred North Whitehead and Bertrand Russell to ground mathematics in symbolic logic. Remaining at Harvard, Curry pursued a Ph.D. in mathematics. While he was directed by George Birkhoff to work on differential equations, his interests continued to shift to logic. In 1927, while an instructor at Princeton University, he discovered the work of Moses Schönfinkel in combinatory logic. Schönfinkel's work had anticipated much of Curry's own research, and as a consequence, he moved to Göttingen where he could work with Heinrich Behmann and Paul Bernays, who were familiar with Schönfinkel's work. Curry was supervised by David Hilbert and worked closely with Bernays, receiving a Ph.D. in 1930 with a dissertation on combinatory logic.
1577254	The Raspberry Reich is a 2004 film by director Bruce LaBruce which explores what LaBruce calls "terrorist chic", cult dynamics, and the "innate radical potential of homosexual expression". It is about a contemporary terrorist group who set out to continue the work of the Red Army Faction ("RAF"), also known as the Baader-Meinhof Gang. The group consists of several young men, and a female leader named Gudrun (after Gudrun Ensslin). All of the characters are named after original members of the Baader-Meinhof Gang or revolutionaries such as Che Guevara. They call themselves the "Sixth Generation of the Baader-Meinhof Gang" and "The Raspberry Reich". "Reich" is a reference to communist sexologist Wilhelm Reich. In addition, the term "Raspberry Reich" was coined by RAF leader Gudrun Ensslin to refer to the oppression of consumer society. An "uncut" version of the film has been released, titled "The Revolution Is My Boyfriend", edited by the gay pornographic film company "Cazzo Film" including erotic scenes edited out in the original version. Plot. The core plot begins with the kidnapping of Patrick, the son of a wealthy industrialist. Sexual and romantic engtanglements push the drama forward. At the film's climax, Gudrun delivers a soliloquy on the importance of personal life in revolution. She puts particular emphasis on the breaking of heterosexual and possessive sexual norms, urging her comrades to join "The Homosexual Intifada". The pressure of Gudrun's controlling personality causes the group to break up. Most of the urban guerrillas escape into the night. In the dénouement, the characters are visited some time later. Several have found happiness in the homosexual relationships established during their revolutionary activities. Che has become a terrorist trainer in the Middle East. Patrick escapes with Clyde, where they embark on a spree of bank robberies. This action is reminiscent of Patty Hearst's actions with the SLA. Gudrun and Holger settle down and have a child named Ulrike (after Ulrike Meinhof), whom Gudrun believes could embody the next generation of the Red Army Faction. Style. The film's style is propagandistic. The actors are placed in rooms wallpapered with photographs of Gudrun Ensslin, Ulrike Meinhof, Andreas Baader, and Che Guevara. This symbolises the historical connection to the RAF. At several points during the film, the action pauses while the characters recite long passages from Vaneigem's "The Revolution of Everyday Life", as though they are speaking from their own thoughts. Onscreen titles are also used to convey and enhance political messages. Pornography plays a large visual role in the film. The opening sequence features a montage of sexual acts involving the two main characters, Gudrun and Andreas. There are also plot driven sex scenes involving the characters of Patrick and Clyde engaging in real explicit onscreen oral and anal sex acts with each other. Much of these scenes intentions are to not only arouse but also present themes of satire and of character development. Slogans. Slogans are used to convey the politics of the Raspberry Reich. They are both an extension and parody of the slogans used by political organisations. Slogans used in the film include: Satire. Humour and satire are employed to explore the gap between reality and ideals in the terrorist world. For example, some of the kidnappers—avowed vegetarians for political reasons ("meat is counter-revolutionary")—purchase burgers at a multinational corporate fast food chain drive through with their victim still in the trunk.
1063014	Robert Michael "Rob" Schneider (born October 31, 1963) is an American actor, comedian, screenwriter, and director. A stand-up comic and veteran of the NBC sketch comedy series "Saturday Night Live", Schneider has gone on to a successful career in feature films, including starring roles in the comedy films "", "The Hot Chick", and "Grown Ups". Early life. Schneider was born in San Francisco, California, and grew up in the nearby suburb of Pacifica. He is the son of Pilar Schneider (née Monroe), a former kindergarten teacher and ex-school board president, and Marvin Schneider, a real estate broker. Schneider's father was Jewish and Schneider's mother was Catholic. His maternal grandmother was a Filipina who met and married his maternal grandfather, a Caucasian American army private, while he was stationed in the Philippines. Schneider graduated from Terra Nova High School in 1982. Early career. Schneider started his stand-up comedy career while still in high school, opening for San Francisco favorites Head On, a band managed by Rob's older brother John. After high school, he played Bay Area nightclubs such as the Holy City Zoo and The Other Cafe, and was a regular guest on local radio programs. After opening a show by comedian Dennis Miller in 1987, Schneider won a slot on HBO's 13th Annual Young Comedians special, which was hosted by Miller. Schneider's appearance on the HBO special led to a position as a writer for the late night NBC sketch comedy series "Saturday Night Live". "Saturday Night Live". Schneider was hired at "Saturday Night Live" in 1988. Schneider swiftly graduated from writer and featured player to full cast member. , he played such roles as "Tiny Elvis" and "Orgasm Guy". His best known recurring character was "Richard Laymer", an office worker whose desk was stuck beside the photocopier, and who addressed each of his fellow employees with an endless stream of annoying nicknames. Schneider is featured in the video release "The Bad Boys of Saturday Night Live", along with colleagues Adam Sandler, Chris Rock, David Spade and Chris Farley. Feature films, sitcoms, and other work. After leaving "SNL", Schneider played supporting roles in a series of movies including "Surf Ninjas", "Judge Dredd", "The Beverly Hillbillies", "Demolition Man" and "Down Periscope". He also appeared in a recurring part on the TV series "Coach". In 1996, he co-starred in the NBC sit-com "Men Behaving Badly", an American take on the hit British series of the same name. The U.S. version ran for two seasons. Schneider starred in the 1999 feature film ', a tale of a fish-tank cleaner who incurs a massive debt and is forced to become a "man-whore." This was followed by "The Animal", about a man given animal powers by a mad scientist; "The Hot Chick", wherein the mind of a petty thief played by Schneider is mystically switched into the body of a pretty, but mean-spirited high school cheerleader (Rachel McAdams); and the sequel '. The latter movie was not well received by critics or moviegoers, and as a result, Schneider won a 2005 Worst Actor Razzie Award for his role in the film. In 2006, Schneider co-starred in the baseball-themed family comedy "The Benchwarmers", along with his fellow "SNL" alumnus David Spade as well as Jon Heder. Other film roles include Schneider's appearance with Jim Henson's Muppets in the 1999 film "Muppets from Space", and his role as a San Francisco hobo in the 2004 remake of "Around the World in 80 Days". Schneider's directorial debut, the comedy "Big Stan", was released in some overseas markets during the fall of 2008, with a U.S. release in early 2009. In the film, he starred as a con artist who is arrested for perpetrating real-estate scams. He is sentenced to prison, so he takes a crash-course in martial arts to survive incarceration. Schneider has also appeared in numerous comedies starring his "SNL" comrade Adam Sandler, most recently on 2010's "Grown Ups". The comedic characters Schneider plays in these films include an overly enthusiastic Cajun man who proclaims the catch-phrase, "You can do it!"; an amiable Middle Eastern delivery boy; a prison inmate; and Sandler's one-eyed Hawaiian sidekick, Ula. Schneider has uttered the line "You can do it!" as a running gag in Sandler's films "The Waterboy", "Little Nicky", "50 First Dates", "The Longest Yard", and "Bedtime Stories", as well as in a deleted scene from "Click". (A sample of Schneider saying the phrase also turns up in the song "Original Prankster" by The Offspring.) Returning the favor, Sandler appeared in a cameo to spout the same line in Schneider's "The Animal", wherein, as a reference, Adam Sandler utters: "Yeah! You can do it!" Sandler also showed up briefly in Schneider's "The Hot Chick". Schneider narrated Sandler's 2002 animated movie "Eight Crazy Nights", and voiced the part of a Chinese waiter. Schneider also had an uncredited cameo as a Canadian-Japanese wedding-chapel minister in the 2007 Sandler-Kevin James comedy "I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry", and played a Palestinian cab driver who serves as the title character's nemesis in the 2008 Sandler film "You Don't Mess with the Zohan". Schneider played a variety of roles in the 2005 TV special "Back to Norm", starring another former "SNL" player Norm Macdonald, and appeared on episodes of the popular TV shows "Seinfeld" and "Ally McBeal". Schneider hosted the "Sports Illustrated: Swimsuit '97" TV special, and the 2005 "Teen Choice Awards", and is a frequent guest on NBC's late-night variety program "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno". (In Schneider's appearance with Leno on the July 24, 2007 episode of "The Tonight Show," he showed up in drag as actress Lindsay Lohan after Lohan cancelled following a controversial arrest for driving under the influence. Besides his efforts in movies and television, Schneider released his first comedy album "Registered Offender" in July 2010. "Registered Offender" is composed of audio sketches and songs, with Schneider himself doing all of the character voices on the recording. He also revived his stand-up comedy career in 2010 with an international tour of theaters, clubs and casinos. Schneider appeared in the music video for country singer Neal McCoy's "Billy's Got His Beer Goggles On", as the song's title character. McCoy and Schneider met while the two went on a USO tour in support of U.S. troops two months after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Schneider starred as the title character in the CBS-TV situation comedy "Rob", which was loosely based on his real life. The series was canceled by CBS in May 2012. Satire and parody. In Schneider's movies, the main character often undergoes some type of transformation, be it an unlikely career change, or a supernatural or science-fictional transformation. This formula was spoofed on the satirical animated television series "South Park", in the episode "The Biggest Douche in the Universe". (The title refers to television psychic John Edward, and not to Schneider.) In the show, trailers are shown for a series of movies that feature Schneider undergoing absurd transformations: a stapler, a carrot, and even the "South Park" character Kenny. Asked about being parodied on "South Park", Schneider responded in an About.com interview: "I loved it. That was genius. I thought the only thing, they were too nice to me...When you're spoofed by the best people in the business, that's an honor." Criticism and controversies. Disputes. Schneider has engaged in a number of high-profile disputes with public figures: In January 2005, film critic Patrick Goldstein of the "Los Angeles Times" said in an article that "" was overlooked for an Academy Award because "nobody had the foresight to invent a category for Best Running Penis Joke Delivered by a Third-Rate Comic." Schneider responded two weeks later with full-page ads in "Daily Variety" and "The Hollywood Reporter", saying he had done research and found that Mr. Goldstein had never won any journalistic awards, commenting, "Maybe you didn't win a Pulitzer Prize because they haven't invented a category for Best Third-Rate, Unfunny Pompous Reporter Who's Never Been Acknowledged by His Peers." Schneider also wrote, "Patrick, I can honestly say that if I sat with you and your colleagues at a luncheon, afterward, they'd say 'You know, that Rob Schneider is a pretty intelligent guy, I hope we can do that again.' Whereas, if you sat with my colleagues, after lunch, you would just be beaten beyond recognition." He also called Goldstein a "real scumbag" in an appearance on "Tom Green's House Tonight" when referring to Goldstein's criticisms, and opined that Goldstein's criticism was unimaginative. Patrick publicly asked, "Who are Schneider's colleagues and why would I want to have lunch with them?" In August 2005, film critic Roger Ebert of the "Chicago Sun-Times" responded to the Schneider–Goldstein conflict in his review for "". While noting that an online search showed that Goldstein had won a National Headliner Award, a Los Angeles Press Club Award, a RockCritics.com award, and the Publicists' Guild award for lifetime achievement, Ebert said, "As chance would have it, I have won the Pulitzer Prize, and so I am qualified. Speaking in my official capacity as a Pulitzer Prize winner, Mr. Schneider, your movie sucks." (Ebert's 2007 collection of reviews of movies for which he gave negative reviews was titled "Your Movie Sucks", a reference to his review of "Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo".) In a later interview with "Stuff" magazine, Schneider called Ebert an "ass", saying that Ebert "irks" him and that he had been told that Ebert is "not nice to the people he works with". Ebert rejected the accusation, and reaffirmed his opinion of the film, stating, "If he's going to persist in making bad movies, he's going to have to grow accustomed to reading bad reviews." On May 7, 2007, Roger Ebert reported via his website that he had received a beautiful bouquet of flowers with a note stating it was from "Your least favorite actor, Rob Schneider." Ebert had recently undergone a very serious surgery to remove a cancerous salivary gland, and spent months recovering. Ebert saw the flowers as a kind gesture and publicly thanked Schneider, and said that Schneider may have made a bad film, but he was not a bad man. Ebert also expressed hope that Schneider would make a film that Ebert finds wonderful. Following anti-Semitic remarks made by Mel Gibson during his arrest for a DUI in late July 2006, Schneider took out a full-page ad in "Variety" to send an open letter to the Hollywood community, pledging as "a 1/2 Jew" to "never work with Mel Gibson-actor-director-producer-and anti-Semite." He further wrote that "even if Mr. Gibson offered me a lead role in 'Passion of the Christ 2,' I, like Bernie Brillstein, would have to say 'No!'" Schneider also used the ad to make reference to his upcoming directorial debut, "Big Stan". In 2008, Schneider described this ad as "a comedic, satirical view of how I saw the situation with Mel Gibson, and also the hypocrisy of show business when they're all standing in line to say what a bad person he is when they're all a bunch of hypocritical assholes." In early July 2007, film reviewers in Australia noted the similarities between the 2007 American movie "I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry" and the 2004 Australian feature "Strange Bedfellows". On July 18, 2007, "The Sydney Morning Herald" published an online article in which "Strange Bedfellows" director and co-writer Dean Murphy aired his concerns that "Chuck and Larry" may infringe on his copyright. The article reported that Michael Caton had stated he had passed a DVD of "Strange Bedfellows" to Rob Schneider, as the two actors had earlier worked together on "The Animal". Caton was then quoted as saying, "I'm going to have to get onto Rob Schneider and say you owe me one pal ... or Adam Sandler owes me one. They're really good mates and it's obvious said 'Hey, have a look at this'." In August 2007, Schneider took out a full-page ad on page 10 of "The Sydney Morning Herald" in the form of an open letter, in which he repudiated the charges. Caton replied through the "Herald" that he was disappointed with Schneider for not understanding his earlier criticisms were "obviously tongue in cheek". Accusations of ethnic stereotyping. A 2005 "New York Times" editorial admonished, "Watch Rob Schneider play Ula, a leering Hawaiian in the Adam Sandler movie "50 First Dates", with a pidgin accent by way of Cheech and Chong, and you get the sense that Hollywood still believes that there is no ethnic caricature a white actor can't improve upon." In a letter to the editor, Schneider defended himself by asserting his Filipino heritage, adding that he believes that "Hollywood should give roles to the most talented person irrespective of ethnicity, race or in my case 'looks'." In 2007, the Media Action Network for Asian Americans (MANAA) criticized Schneider for donning prosthetic make up to play a Japanese minister in "I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry" by likening it to "yellow face". Richard Roeper said in his review that "Rob Schneider's Filipino background hardly excuses his portrayal of an Asian minister in perhaps the most egregious stereotype of its kind since Mickey Rooney in "Breakfast at Tiffany's"." MANAA also criticized Schneider for an Asian character's dialogue in 2005's "Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo", which he co-wrote. The organization stated that the portrayal of the character "perpetuated the tired stereotype that Asian men have small penises". Personal life. In 1996, Schneider established the "Rob Schneider Music Foundation". The foundation returned music education to Pacifica's elementary schools by paying the teachers' salaries and providing funds for instruments and other equipment. Prior to Schneider's efforts, the school system did not have music education programs for many years. Schneider once co-owned the DNA Lounge, a San Francisco nightclub. Schneider's mother has made cameo appearances in her son's films, playing a cheerleading contest judge in "The Hot Chick", a restaurant patron in "Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo", and a nosy neighbor in "The Animal". Schneider is an environmentalist. He drives a Toyota Prius hybrid automobile, and served as host for the 13th annual "Environmental Media Awards" in 2004. On April 23, 2011, Schneider married Mexican television producer Patricia Azarcoya Arce, in Beverly Hills, California. Their first child, Miranda Scarlett Schneider, was born on November 16, 2012. Schneider is also an outspoken critic of vaccination practices, even going so far as to liken California Bill AB 2109, which would require the informed consent of parents before opting for a philosophical exemption to vaccinations, to the Nuremberg Laws of Nazi Germany.
744392	Austin St. John (born Jason Geiger; on September 17, 1974) is a former American actor and martial artist known for his role in the popular "Power Rangers" children's television series as Jason Lee Scott, the original Red Ranger and first leader of the Power Rangers. He is currently working as an emergency medical technician and firefighter in Washington, D.C. Personal life. St. John has been practicing martial arts since he was five years old and holds a second-degree black belt in Tae Kwon Do, a first-degree black belt in Judo, and he also practices Kenpo.
1073595	Bodhi Pine Elfman, (born Bodhi Pine Saboff on July 19, 1969) is an American actor and the only child of Richard Elfman and Rhonda Joy Saboff. Career. Elfman has had film roles in "Mercury Rising", "Collateral", "Godzilla" and "Armageddon", and smaller parts in "The Mod Squad", "Keeping the Faith", and "Gone in 60 Seconds". Elfman starred in the UPN television series "Freedom", alongside Holt McCallany, Scarlett Chorvat and Darius McCrary, and in "Pirates of Silicon Valley" alongside Noah Wyle and Anthony Michael Hall. He appeared in the short-lived ABC television series, "Hiller and Diller"; and guest-starred in an episode of "Sliders", and "Touch" Season 2 Episode 12 "Fight or Flight". Elfman also guest-starred in his wife's television show "Dharma & Greg", playing a performance artist who asks Dharma to be a part of his living display gallery. Personal life. Bodhi Pine Saboff (Elfman) was born in Los Angeles, California. He is the son of Richard Elfman and Rhonda Joy Saboff and nephew of composer Danny Elfman. In February of 1991 he met actress Jennifer Mary Butala during an audition for a Sprite commercial. Four years later they were married on February 18, 1995. Bodhi is Jewish on his paternal side and his actress wife, Jenna Elfman, was raised Catholic. When they met he was a practicing Scientologist. Jenna became a Scientologist after her husband introduced her to its teachings. As of this date, both are active Scientologists. Jenna Elfman credits Scientology with sustaining their marriage. In 2000, Bodhi and Jenna Elfman bought a home in the Hollywood Hills from Madonna, for $4 million.Their first child, son Story Elias Elfman, was born on July 23, 2007. Their second son, Easton Quinn Monroe Elfman, was born on March 2, 2010.
900694	Franco Nero (born 23 November 1941) is an Italian actor. He is best known for his roles of the title character in Sergio Corbucci's "Django" (1966), Sir Lancelot in Joshua Logan's "Camelot" (1967), Horacio in Luis Buñuel's "Tristana" (1970), the title character in Enzo G. Castellari's "Keoma" (1976), Captain Nikolai Lescovar/Colonel von Ingorslebon in Guy Hamilton's "Force 10 from Navarone" (1978), Cole in Menahem Golan's "Enter the Ninja" (1981), his reprising role again as the title character in Nello Rosatti's "Django 2" (1987), General Ramon Esperanza in Renny Harlin's "Die Hard 2" (1990), Gianni Versace in Menahem Golan's "The Versace Murder" (1998), General Francini in Brian Trenchard-Smith's "" (2001) and Lorenzo Bartolini in Gary Winick's "Letters to Juliet" (2010). He also played the narrator in the film "Rasputin" (2010) directed by Louis Nero and voice the character of Uncle Topolino in the animated film "Cars 2" (2011) directed by John Lasseter and co-directed by Brad Lewis. Nero played the protagonist, and co-produced, the feature film "New Order" (2012) directed by Marco Rosson before making his cameo appearance in Tarantino's "Django Unchained" (2012). Early life. Nero was born Francesco Sparanero in San Prospero Parmense (province of Parma, Emilia-Romagna), the son of a sergeant in the carabinieri, originally from San Severo. He grew up in Bedonia and in Milan. He studied briefly at the Economy and Trade faculty of the local university, before leaving to study at the Piccolo Teatro di Milano. Acting career. Nero's first film role was a small part in "La ragazza in prestito" (1964), and he had his first lead role in Sergio Corbucci's "Django" (1966) a spaghetti western and one of his best known films. In 1966 from "Django" he went on to appear in eight more films released that year including "Texas, addio" (1967) and "Tempo di massacro". In 1967, he appeared in "Camelot" as Lancelot, where he met his long time romantic partner, and later on in life his wife, Vanessa Redgrave. Following this he appeared in the mafia film "Il giorno della civetta" opposite Claudia Cardinale released in 1968. A lack of proficiency in English tended to limit these roles, although he also appeared in other English language films including "The Virgin and the Gypsy" (1970), "Force 10 from Navarone" (1978), "Enter the Ninja" (1981) and "Die Hard 2" (1990). Although often typecast in films like "Los amigos" (1972) or "Keoma" (1976) he has attempted an impressive range of characters, such as Abel in John Huston's epic "" (1966), the humiliated engineer out for revenge in "Street Law", the gay lieutenant in "Querelle" (1982) and Serbian mediaeval hero in "Banović Strahinja" (1983). He has appeared in over 150 films, and has written, produced and starred in one: "Jonathan degli orsi" (1993). More recently, he starred in Hungarian director 's "Honfoglalás (Conquest)" in 1996, in "Li chiamarono... briganti!" (1999) by Pasquale Squitieri and subsequently in Koltay's "Sacra Corona (Holy Crown)" in 2001. In 2009 he played an eccentric author called "Mario Puzzo" in "Mord ist mein Geschäft, Liebling" ("Murder is my trade, darling", Italian title "Tesoro, sono un killer"). German critics found his performance was the best part of the film: "Having Franco Nero playing in this film is really a great joy - it is only regrettable that after his appearances there is still so much film left." In 2010, Nero appeared in the film "Letters to Juliet" with Redgrave. In 2011 he appeared on the season 13 premiere episode of Law and Order SVU. His character, though Italian, was based on Dominique Strauss-Kahn. In 2011, he received a star on the Italian Walk of Fame in Toronto, Canada. In 2012, he made a cameo in the film "Django Unchained" in one scene alongside Jamie Foxx, who plays Django in the film. In the scene Nero plays an Italian Mandingo Fighter manager. Nero then questions Foxx about his character's name and asks him to spell it. This references Nero's role as Django in the original "Django" film. Personal life. His romantic involvement with British actress Vanessa Redgrave began in 1967 when they met on the set of "Camelot". In 1969, they had a son, Carlo Gabriel Redgrave Sparanero (known professionally as Carlo Gabriel Nero), a screenwriter and director. After separating for many years, during which they both had relationships with other people, they reunited and married on 31 December 2006. Carlo Nero directed Redgrave in the cinematic adaptation of Wallace Shawn's play "The Fever". Nero walked his future stepdaughter Natasha Richardson down the aisle when she married actor Liam Neeson in 1994. Her father, Tony Richardson, had died in 1991.
1039602	Penelope Alice Wilton, (born 3 June 1946) is an English actress of stage, film, and TV. She starred opposite Richard Briers in the BBC situation comedy "Ever Decreasing Circles". She has also appeared in "Doctor Who" and the period drama "Downton Abbey". She has twice won the Critics' Circle Theatre Award. Wilton has been married to two distinguished actors, Daniel Massey and Ian Holm. Until her success as Downton Abbey's Isobel Crawley, she was best known to American audiences for her portrayal of South African anti-apartheid activist Wendy Woods in the 1987 film "Cry Freedom. Life and career. Penelope Alice Wilton was born in Scarborough, North Riding of Yorkshire, the daughter of Alice Travers, a tap dancer and former actress, and Clifford Wilton, a businessman. She is a niece of actors Bill Travers and Linden Travers and a cousin of the actor Richard Morant. Her maternal grandparents owned theatres. She and her sisters, Rosemary and Linda, attended the convent school in Newcastle upon Tyne at which their mother had previously taught. She attended the Drama Centre London. Penelope had a successful stage career before breaking into television, and her West End debut was opposite Sir Ralph Richardson. She played Ruth in the original 1974 London stage production of Alan Ayckbourn's "Norman Conquests" trilogy. Her television career began in 1972, playing Vivie Warren in "Mrs. Warren's Profession" opposite Robert Powell. She then had several major TV roles, including two of the BBC Television Shakespeare productions (as Desdemona in "Othello" and Regan in "King Lear"). Wilton's film career includes roles in "The French Lieutenant's Woman (1981)", "Cry Freedom" (1987), "Iris" (2001), "Calendar Girls" (2003) and "Shaun of the Dead" (2004), Jane Austen's "Pride and Prejudice (2005)", in Woody Allen's film "Match Point (2005)" and in "The History Boys (2006)". However she did not become a household name until she appeared with Richard Briers in the 1984 BBC situation comedy, "Ever Decreasing Circles", which ran for five years. In it she played Ann, long suffering wife of Martin (Briers), an obsessive pedant 'do-gooder'. Throughout the run, Ann seeks a more adventurous lifestyle than that offered as a pillar of the community, and mildly flirts with their considerably more charismatic neighbour Paul (Peter Egan) but ultimately she remains faithful to Martin. Between 1975 and 1984 she was married to the actor Daniel Massey. Wilton and Massey had a daughter, Alice, born in 1977. After their divorce, Massey married Wilton's younger sister Linda, and relations remained friendly. Between 1991 and 2001 Penelope Wilton was married to Sir Ian Holm (in 1998, after he was knighted, she became Lady Holm) and they appeared together as Pod and Homily in the BBC's 1993 adaptation of "The Borrowers". They were divorced in 2001. In 2005 Wilton guest starred as Harriet Jones, MP for two episodes in the BBC's revival of the popular TV science-fiction series "Doctor Who". This guest role was written especially for her by the programme's chief writer and executive producer Russell T. Davies, with whom she had previously worked on "Bob and Rose" (ITV, 2001). The character of Jones returned as Prime Minister in "The Christmas Invasion", the "Doctor Who" 2005 Christmas special. In the first part of the 2008 series finale, "The Stolen Earth", she made a final appearance, now as the former Prime Minister who sacrifices herself for extermination by the Daleks so that the Doctor's companions can contact him. She appeared in four episodes overall. Wilton has also appeared on television as Barbara Poole, the mother of a missing woman, in the BBC television drama series "Five Days" in 2005; and in ITV's drama "Half Broken Things" (October 2007) and the BBC production of "The Passion" (Easter 2008). Since 2010, she has appeared as Isobel Crawley in the hit period drama "Downton Abbey". She was the castaway on BBC Radio 4's "Desert Island Discs" in April 2008.
1058618	Daniel Leroy Baldwin (born October 5, 1960) is an American actor, producer and director. He is the second eldest of the four Baldwin brothers, all of whom are actors, as well as part of the Baldwin family. Daniel Baldwin is known for his role as Detective Beau Felton in the popular NBC TV series '. Other appearances of his include ' (1992), "Mulholland Falls" (1996), "Vampires" (1998), "The Pandora Project" (1998), "Stealing Candy" (2002), "Paparazzi" (2004), and "Grey Gardens" (2009). Early life. Baldwin was born in Massapequa, New York, the son of Carol Newcomb (née Martineau), a breast cancer survivor who founded the Carol M. Baldwin Breast Care Center of the University Hospital and Medical Center at Stony Brook, and Alexander Rae Baldwin, Jr., a high school history/social studies teacher and football coach. Baldwin was raised in a Catholic family, and has English, Irish, Scottish, French, and German ancestry. In addition to his three famous actor brothers, Alec (born 1958), William (born 1963) and Stephen (born 1966), Baldwin has two sisters, Beth Baldwin Keuchler (born 1955), and Jane Baldwin Sasso (born 1965). Baldwin was a standout high school football and basketball player and graduated in 1979 from Alfred G. Berner High School in Massapequa, New York. He also attended McKenna Junior High School. Career. Acting. Baldwin's acting debut was in the TV movie "Too Good to Be True" in 1988, which he followed with feature roles in the films "Born on the Fourth of July" (1989), "Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man" (1991) and "Hero" (1992). He returned to television in 1990 for the short-lived sitcom "Sydney", which starred Valerie Bertinelli. In 1993, Baldwin was cast in the Baltimore-based cop show "". Although he received good reviews he left in 1995 after three seasons, and his character was later killed off. He returned to TV movies such as "Attack of the 50 Ft. Woman", "Family of Cops", and "Twisted Desire", as well as the 1996 feature films "Mulholland Falls" and "Trees Lounge". In 1998, Baldwin was set to film the romantic comedy "It Had to Be You", but was replaced by Michael Rispoli after being arrested for cocaine possession. "John Carpenter's Vampires" was released during his subsequent stint in rehab. Baldwin returned to appearances in various TV series episodes, including "The Sopranos" and TV and direct-to-video movies, including reprising his role as Beau Felton in "Homicide: The Movie" in 2000. Baldwin then starred in TV movies such as "Anonymous Rex" (2004) and "Our Fathers" (2005) and small-budget films including "Sidekick" (2005) and "Moola" (2006). In 2008, Baldwin signed on to play Julius Krug in the Award Winning HBO film based on the 1975 documentary "Grey Gardens". That same year, he has made appearances on truTV's "" as a frequent commentator. He also appeared as a supporting cast member in indie director Akihiro Kitamura's sophomore film, "I'll Be There With You". Baldwin was featured in UniGlobe Entertainment's breast cancer docu-drama titled "1 a Minute" in 2010. The documentary was made by actress Namrata Singh Gujral and featured breast cancer survivors Olivia Newton-John, Diahann Carroll, Melissa Etheridge, Namrata Singh Gujral, Mumtaz and Jaclyn Smith as well as William Baldwin, Daniel Baldwin and Priya Dutt. The film also starred Bárbara Mori, Lisa Ray, Deepak Chopra and Morgan Brittany. In 2009, Baldwin moved to Lake Oswego, Oregon, a suburb of Portland, to start a production company, Grilletto Entertainment. Reality television. In 2005, he was featured in VH1's "Celebrity Fit Club", a reality show in which overweight celebrities compete to see who can shed the most pounds. He was the team captain of the Eastsiders, which also featured rapper Biz Markie, plus-size model Mia Tyler, and actor Joe Gannascoli (later traded for Judge Mablean Ephriam from "Divorce Court"). In 2008, Baldwin appeared on VH1's reality series "Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew". In June 2009, he joined the cast of "I'm a Celebrity... Get Me out of Here!", with his brother Stephen Baldwin. He was the second one voted off. As of 2011, Baldwin makes appearances on truTV's "The Smoking Gun Presents: World's Dumbest". Personal life. Relationships and family. In 1984, Baldwin had a daughter, Kahlea, with his first wife, Cheryl. In 1990, he married actress Elizabeth Baldwin and they had a daughter, Alexandra, in 1994, before divorcing in 1996. Alexandra moved to England with her mother and stepfather and now lives in Bonita Springs, Florida. Baldwin was involved for a decade with his "Homicide: Life on the Street" co-star, Chicago-born actress Isabella Hofmann. They have a son, Atticus, who was born in July 1996 and is named after the lawyer in "To Kill a Mockingbird". Baldwin is married to Joanne Smith-Baldwin, a former British model, with whom he had a baby girl, Avis Ann, in 2008. The couple have a second daughter, Finley Rae Martineau, born in 2009. In 2011, Baldwin filed for divorce, and sought a restraining order against his wife. In August 2011, Baldwin and his wife announced that they had dropped the divorce filings and are attempting to reconcile. However in 2012, he again filed for divorce. Addiction and arrests. In 1998, Baldwin was found running naked through the halls of New York's Plaza Hotel shouting "Baldwin!" and was arrested for possession of cocaine. He pled guilty to disorderly conduct and was sentenced to three months in drug rehab. He later told People magazine he had been battling a cocaine addiction since 1989. On April 22, 2006, Baldwin was arrested after police received a call that a woman had been threatened at the Ocean Park Motel in Santa Monica. Authorities subsequently declined to press charges.
1102715	Alain Connes (; born 1 April 1947) is a French mathematician, currently Professor at the Collège de France, IHÉS, The Ohio State University and Vanderbilt University. Work. Alain Connes studies operator algebras. In his early work on von Neumann algebras in the 1970s, he succeeded in obtaining the almost complete classification of injective factors. Following this he made contributions in operator K-theory and index theory, which culminated in the
1050116	Jenna Louise Stern (born September 23, 1967 in Los Angeles, California) is an American actress. Member of an artist family, Stern is the daughter of actor/producer Tom Stern and Academy award-nominated and Golden Globe-winning actress Samantha Eggar. Her brother, Nicolas Stern, is a producer for film and television. She married actor Brennan Brown in 1998, and they live in Brooklyn, New York. Stern graduated from the U.C. Berkeley with a B.A. and received her M.F.A. from NYU Graduate School.
1064212	Garrett John Hedlund (born September 3, 1984) is an American actor known for his roles in the films "Friday Night Lights", "Four Brothers", "Eragon", "Country Strong", for his role as Patroclus in the movie "Troy", as Sam Flynn in "" and as Dean Moriarty (a fictionalized Neal Cassady) in the film "On the Road". Early life. Hedlund was born in Roseau, Minnesota, the son of Kristine Anne (née Yanish) and Robert Martin Hedlund. He has an older brother, Nathaniel, and an older sister, Amanda. His father is of Swedish descent. Hedlund was raised on a remote beef cattle farm near the small town of Wannaska, Minnesota. At fourteen he moved to live with his mother in Arizona, where he saved his waiter’s tips to pay an acting coach $60 an hour to work on speeches and script material. Modeling gigs for LL Bean and Teen magazine followed. "Someone said to me, 'If you want to catch a fox, you’ve got to be in the forest." In 2003 at the age of eighteen, Hedlund moved to Los Angeles to pursue his acting career. Career. His first movie role was as Patroclus in "Troy". The film, which starred Brad Pitt, was released May 14, 2004. He also starred as Don Billingsley in the 2004 drama film "Friday Night Lights" in which Tim McGraw played his abusive father. He starred as Jack Mercer alongside Mark Wahlberg in the action/crime film "Four Brothers". He next appeared in the film "Eragon" in a supporting role as Murtagh. In 2007, he starred in the Garry Marshall-directed comedy-drama "Georgia Rule", alongside Lindsay Lohan and Jane Fonda. The film, which was released May 11, 2007, was negatively received by critics and failed to surpass box office expectations, only making a lifetime gross of $41 million. He also starred in "Death Sentence" opposite Kevin Bacon. In 2010, he played a leading role alongside Jeff Bridges in "", a sequel to the 1982 film "Tron". The film was released on December 17, 2010. Hedlund also co-starred with Gwyneth Paltrow, Leighton Meester and reunited with country singer/musician Tim McGraw in the country music drama "Country Strong"; which was released on January 7, 2011. For this film, he recorded several songs among which "Chances Are", which appeared on "Country Strong: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack". His performance was well received by critics; noting voice similarities between him and Charlie Robison, "Roughstock" said "the best song on this album belongs to him" and "Country Weekly" wrote that of all the songs performed by actors in this film, his was "the most convincing". Six other songs including a duet with Leighton Meester were featured on a second soundtrack titled "Country Strong: More Music from the Motion Picture". Hedlund was cast as Kaneda Shotaro in the live action version of "Akira", but production of the film is cancelled. He also appears as Dean Moriarty in the 2012 film "On the Road", along with Kristen Stewart, Amy Adams, Steve Buscemi, Terrence Howard, Kirsten Dunst and Viggo Mortensen. The film was directed by Walter Salles and based on the novel of same name by Jack Kerouac. Disney stated in December 2012 that Hedlund would reprise his role of Sam Flynn in a sequel to "Tron: Legacy". He reportedly turned down the role of Finnick in the sequel to the "Hunger Games" called "". Personal life. Hedlund is currently dating his "On the Road" co-star, Kirsten Dunst.
581162	Kaalo is a Hindi horror film, directed by Wilson Louis and produced by Yash Patnaik, Mamta Patnaik and Dhaval Gada. The film was released on 17 December 2010 under the Beyond Dreams Entertainment Ltd. banner. It Is loosely based on the 1990 American science fiction horror comedy film Tremors. Plot. Based on a folktale, the story of Kaalo revolves around a desert witch of the same name. Kaalo was a witch who lived in Kulbhata during the 18th century. She was killed and buried by angry villagers for sacrificing young nubile girls to satisfy her greed for immortality, but her fear lived on. Year's later villagers spoke of Kaalo's sightings yet again. They claimed she was even more angry and dangerous and she was back to finish what she left incomplete Kulbhata was vacated overnight by scared villagers. All roads leading to Kulbhata were sealed by horrifying tales of Kaalo killing anyone who dared to enter Kulbhata until a bus carrying eleven passengers on its way to Kuldevi had to pass through Kulbhata. One of the passengers on the bus was a twelve-year-old girl named Shona who was traveling alone to spend her vacation at her grandmother's house in the neighboring village. Shona was clever, witty and cheerful. She soon became the life of the journey. Everyone loved her endearing manners. Especially the reclusive and reticent Sameer, who was traveling with a bag loaded with gunpowder to blast a small hillock which would give way to a water canal for his drought hit village.Badly disfigured and thirsty for blood, Kaalo could smell the girl from miles away and headed straight for the bus. She would kill everyone who came in her way, she had to have the girl anyhow. When the passengers suddenly realized they were staring into death everything changed. From being the life of the journey, Shona became their very reason for dying. Everyone wanted her out of the bus, some even used her as a bait to lure Kaalo away from themselves. Human relations changed as they fought for their survival.No one except Sameer had the guts to stand up for Shona. It didn't matter to him whether Kaalo was a creature or a witch. All he knew was that he has to protect Shona at any cost because time was running out for him and his co-passengers who were still alive!!At the end of the movie sameer pierces two sticks in kaalo's eyes making her blind and inserts a knife in kaalo's body.Now for kaalo was not able to see anything,sameer hangs the gunpowder bag on kaalo's neck and lights the gunpowder. Kaalo explodes into pieces and goes underneath the earth.At the end of movie shona and sameer goes towards home. The film is a poor remake of Jeepers Creepers Part 2, while some scenes have been ripped off from the 1990's film Tremors.
1100107	Kazimierz Kuratowski (February 2, 1896 – June 18, 1980) was a Polish mathematician and logician. He was one of the leading representatives of the Warsaw School of Mathematics. Biography and studies. Kazimierz Kuratowski was born in Warsaw, then part of the Russian Empire, on February 2, 1896. He was a son of Marek Kuratow, a barrister, and Róża Karzewski. He completed a Warsaw secondary school, which was named after general Paweł Chrzanowski. In 1913, he enrolled in an engineering course at the University of Glasgow in Scotland, in part because he did not wish to study in Russian; instruction in Polish was prohibited. He completed only one year of study when the outbreak of World War I precluded any further enrollment. In 1915, Russian forces withdrew from Warsaw and Warsaw University was reopened with Polish as the language of instruction. Kuratowski restarted his university education there the same year, this time in mathematics. He obtained his Ph.D. in 1921, in newly independent Poland. Doctoral thesis. In autumn 1921 Kuratowski was awarded the Ph.D. degree for his groundbreaking work. His thesis statement consisted of two parts. One was devoted to an axiomatic construction of topology via the closure axioms (Sur la notion de l'ensemble fini, "Fundamenta Mathematicae", 1/1920). This first part (republished in a slightly modified form in 1922) has been cited in hundreds of scientific articles. The second part of Kuratowski's thesis was devoted to continua irreducible between two points. This was the subject of a French doctoral thesis written by Zygmunt Janiszewski. Since Janiszewski was deceased, Kuratowski's supervisor was Wacław Sierpiński. Kuratowski's thesis solved certain problems in set theory raised by a Belgian mathematician, Charles-Jean Étienne Gustave Nicolas, Baron de la Vallée Poussin. Academic career until World War II. Two years later, in 1923, Kuratowski was appointed deputy professor of mathematics at Warsaw University. He was then appointed a full professor of mathematics at Lwów Polytechnic in Lwów, in 1927. He was the head of the Mathematics department there until 1933. Kuratowski was also dean of the department twice. In 1929, Kuratowski became a member of the Warsaw Scientific Society While Kuratowski associated with many of the scholars of the Lwów School of Mathematics, such as Stefan Banach and Stanislaw Ulam, and the circle of mathematicians based around the Scottish Café he kept close connections with Warsaw. Kuratowski left Lwów for Warsaw in 1934, before the famous Scottish Book was begun (in 1935), hence did not contribute any problems to it. He did however, collaborate closely with Banach in solving important problems in measure theory. In 1934 he was appointed the professor at Warsaw University. A year later Kuratowski was nominated as the head of Mathematics Department there. From 1936 to 1939 he was secretary of the Mathematics Committee in The Council of Science and Applied Sciences. During and after the war. During World War II, he gave lectures at the underground university in Warsaw, since higher education for Poles was forbidden under German occupation.
581772	Maine Gandhi Ko Nahin Mara (translated as I Did Not Kill Gandhi) (2005), is an Indian film, directed by Jahnu Barua and produced by Anupam Kher. The film stars Anupam Kher and Urmila Matondkar in lead roles. In the film, a poem by noted Hindi poet, Nirala, "Himmat Karne Walon Ki Har Nahi Hoti" (Those who have courage never fail) was depicted as the favorite poem of the main character
1063872	Sheryl Lee (born April 22, 1967) is an German actress. She came to international attention for her performances as Laura Palmer and Maddy Ferguson on the 1990 cult TV series "Twin Peaks" and in the 1992 film "". She is also known for portraying photographer Astrid Kirchherr in "Backbeat" (1994) and for her roles in "Vampires" (1998) and "Winter's Bone" (2010), as well as for her television series roles in "LA Doctors", "Kingpin", "One Tree Hill" and "Dirty Sexy Money". She has also played on Broadway in a production of Oscar Wilde's "Salome". Early life. Lee was born in Augsburg, Bavaria, West Germany, the daughter of an artist mother and architect father. She grew up in Boulder, Colorado, United States, where she was a graduate of Fairview High School (class of 1985). After graduating, Lee moved to Pasadena, California where she studied at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, and later attended the North Carolina School of the Arts, the National Theatre Conservatory in Denver, and the University of Colorado. After several years of studying, Lee moved to Seattle, Washington where she acted in several stage plays. Acting career. Lee is remembered by legions of David Lynch fans for her appearance as the dead Laura Palmer in the cult television series "Twin Peaks". Lynch asked Lee to audition for him after seeing a publicity photo of her in Seattle from one of the plays she was starring in at the time. When the series was picked up, Lee was also given the part of Laura's cousin Maddy Ferguson later in the series (a role which was reportedly written because Lynch, impressed with her abilities, wanted to give her a fuller role on the show). She also starred in the prequel "", which elaborated on events leading up to Laura Palmer's death. Other roles have included playing the part of Astrid Kirchherr in the 1994 movie "Backbeat", a bio-pic of the early career of The Beatles opposite Stephen Dorff, the part of Liza in Gary Walkow's 1995 adaptation of Fyodor Dostoyevsky's novella "Notes from Underground" opposite Henry Czerny, the role of Katrina in John Carpenter's 1998 film "Vampires" opposite James Woods and Daniel Baldwin, and the role of Marlene Cadena in the 2003 television series "Kingpin" opposite Yancey Arias and Bobby Cannavale. Sheryl Lee also starred alongside Craig Sheffer in "Bliss" (1997). Lee starred opposite Anthony Michael Hall as the sweet but vengeful housewife Eve Robbins in the 2001 USA Cable movie "Hitched". In 2004, Lee was the original choice for the role of Mary-Alice Young on "Desperate Housewives". It would have been the second time she would have played a dead character on a series; however, the producers ultimately chose to replace her with Brenda Strong. In 2005, she played the recurring part of Ellie Harp, the biological mother of Peyton Sawyer (played by Hilarie Burton), who battles breast cancer, on the third season of the WB Network series "One Tree Hill". In 2007 and 2008, Lee appeared on the ABC dramedy, "Dirty Sexy Money" as Andrea Smithson, the mother of Brian Darling's (Glenn Fitzgerald) illegitimate child. In 2001, she presented the "I Love 1990" segment of the BBC's popular "I Love 1990s" series.
1058329	Thomas Kretschmann (; born 8 September 1962) is a German actor best known for playing Leutnant Hans von Witzland in the 1993 film "Stalingrad", Hauptmann Wilm Hosenfeld in "The Pianist", Hermann Fegelein in "Downfall", and Captain Englehorn in the 2005 remake of "King Kong", and for voicing Professor Z in "Cars 2". Early life and education. Kretschmann was born in Dessau, East Germany, on September 8, 1962. Before he became an actor, Kretschmann trained to become an Olympic swimmer. At the age of 19, he fled East Germany and began a month-long trek to West Germany to escape the East German state. During this trek, part of his finger was lost but surgically reattached. Kretschmann crossed four borders (Hungary, Yugoslavia, Austria) with nothing other than his passport and the equivalent of $100 in his possession. Career. At the age of 25, he began acting, starring in numerous European films and television series. In 1991, Kretschmann was awarded the Max Ophüls Prize for best young actor for his role in "Der Mitwisser". He went on to star in his first full length feature, the 1993 film "Stalingrad". He achieved international recognition for his role as a rapist/murderer in Dario Argento's "The Stendhal Syndrome". Although quite popular in his homeland, Kretschmann did not achieve notice in Hollywood until his role as Hauptmann Wilm Hosenfeld in Roman Polanski's 2002 film "The Pianist". In the years since, Kretschmann has often portrayed military officers in films about the Third Reich. In the 2004 film "Downfall", Kretschmann played Hermann Fegelein, a Waffen SS General and brother-in-law to Adolf Hitler. In the 2008 thriller "Valkyrie", Kretschmann played Major Otto Ernst Remer, a Wehrmacht officer who had a key role in stopping the 20 July Plot. Prior to the casting of Tom Cruise, Kretschmann had been attached to play Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg. Kretschmann also played Adolf Eichmann in a 2007 biographical film. Kretschmann made his first appearance on American television in 2003 when he guest starred in 2 episodes of "24". He later also appeared in Relic Hunter. In 2004, Kretschmann played Timothy Cain, a ruthless Umbrella Major, in "". In the same year, he appeared in the French film "Immortal" with Linda Hardy. The film was notable for its use of a digital backlot and interaction between Computer-generated characters and real actors. In 2005, Kretschmann won a role in Peter Jackson's remake of "King Kong", where he worked again with Adrien Brody, with whom he costarred in "The Pianist". The following year, Kretschmann began to win acclaim for his role in "" ("Rohtenburg" in Germany). A psychological thriller, the movie co-stars Keri Russell and was inspired by the Armin Meiwes cannibalism case. It was scheduled for a March 2006 release in Germany, but its showing is under injunction after Meiwes successfully sued to have it banned on grounds of infringement of his Persönlichkeitsrecht (personality rights). At the 2006 Festival de Cine de Sitges, Kretschmann shared the Best Actor award for his performance in this film with his co-star Thomas Huber. Kretschmann also shared Best Actor with Huber at the 2007 Puchon International Fantastic Film Festival. In 2008 Kretschmann was hired for the role of Johann Krauss in Guillermo del Toro's "". However, after several trials del Toro decided that Kretschmann's voice and the mechanical sound FX to Johann's suit did not mesh well, so the part went to Seth MacFarlane. That same year he appeared in the action thriller Wanted, alongside Angelina Jolie, Morgan Freeman and James McAvoy. 2009 saw Kretschmann guest star in the American science-fiction TV drama series FlashForward, as well as a major secondary part in the British biopic The Young Victoria as King Leopold I of Belgium. This film also received three Academy Awards nominations in 2010 for Best Art Direction, Makeup, and won for Costume Design. The next year he returned to Germany, guest starring as himself in the romantic comedy Rabbit without Ears 2. Kretschmann then moved to Malaysia in the summer to shot his scenes for the German biopic Dschungelkind based on the eponymous bestseller by Sabine Kuegler. The film was released in early 2011. Walt Disney Pictures confirmed in November 2010, that Kretschmann would star as one of the voice talents in the Pixar Production "Cars 2". The film was released in the United States on 24 June 2011, in the United Kingdom on 22 July and in Germany on 28 July. Kretschmann starred as Captain Kurt Brynildson in the 2011-2012 ABC original paranormal/adventure/horror television series The River about a group of people on a mission to find a missing TV explorer in the Amazon. Aside from acting Kretschmann has also worked as a fashion model, including a stint as the face for a scent by Hugo Boss. Personal life. In early 2009 Kretschmann confirmed that he had separated from his girlfriend of 12 years Lena Roklin. He never married her. Kretschmann has three children with Lena: Stella (born 1999), Nicolas (born 1998), and Sascha (born 2002).From March 2009 to June 2010 he was in a relationship with Iranian model Shermine Shahrivar. Since 2011 he has been in a relationship with Brittany Rice.
581028	My Bollywood Bride is a 2006 English and Indian film, released in 2007 theatrically and will release as new title "My Faraway Bride", on DVD (Vivendi/Universal) in August 2008 and also due to premiere on Showtime and Starz in 2008. Written by Richard Martini and Kashmera Shah, story and produced by Brad Listermann, it stars Jason Lewis and Kashmira Shah and is directed by Rajeev Virani. Despite its setting in India and the story taking place in front of one of India's major film industries, Bollywood, the film does not feature the same amount or type of sing-and-dance-numbers Indian Cinema is famous for. Its primary language is English with some Hindi.
1709442	Peter Paige (born June 20, 1969) is an American actor, director, and screenwriter. His debut as director and writer was on the film "Say Uncle". Biography. Paige was born in West Hartford, Connecticut. He graduated from Boston University School of Theatre with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree summa cum laude. Best known for his role as Emmett Honeycutt on Showtime's hit series "Queer as Folk", Paige's other television credits include "Will & Grace", "Time of Your Life", "Girlfriends", "Caroline in the City", "American Dad!", "Related", "Grey's Anatomy", "The Closer" and "Without a Trace". His first audition in Los Angeles earned him a guest-starring role on "Suddenly Susan".
582894	Ram Jaane (Devanagari: राम जाने, Nastaliq: رام جانے, translation: "Ram Knows") is a 1995 Indian Bollywood Action Crime movie directed by Rajiv Mehra about an unnamed kid (portrayed by Shahrukh Khan) who grows up to become a gangster. He uses the name Ram Jaane after meeting with a priest who in response to the kid asking about his name said "Ram Jaane" (God knows). It is the fourth time Shahrukh Khan is playing a negative role after "Baazigar", "Darr" and "Anjaam". Synopsis. A nameless boy, who was abandoned at a very young age faces taunts from the other children in his village. He asks the priest what his name is to which the priest answers "Ram Jaane" (God knows) which the boy accepts as his name. Ram Jaane and his friend Murli are caught stealing from a train by corrupt police officer, Inspector Chewte (Puneet Issar). Chewte beats Ram Jaane in prison but he is released without charge. Years later, Ram Jaane (Shahrukh Khan) is working under Sameer Sanwla (Tinnu Anand) – Sanwla is murdered by Chewte and when Ram Jaane attempts to kill Chewte, he is again put in prison. When released from prison, Ram Jaane is taken by Murli (Vivek Mushran) to 'Apna Ghar', a home set up for the homeless – Murli believes that this is the best way to reform him, it is here where Ram Jaane is reunited with his childhood friend Bela (Juhi Chawla) whom he is in love with. However even in Apna Ghar, Ram Jaane still remains a criminal and even manages to influence the children in the house to follow in his footsteps. Apna Ghar is soon targeted by Baweja (G.P. Singh), who encourages his gang to attack Apna Ghar and all its residents, which Ram Jaane is able to stop. Ram Jaane is then seen shooting Baweja in the head. Chewte learns of Baweja's death and is determined to have his murderer put in prison – he approaches Apna Ghar and starts beating one of the children which leads to Murli and the others attacking Chewte and his fellow officers. In the riot, one of the children is killed. Murli blames Ram Jaane for this tragedy and Ram Jaane runs away, he attempts to make Bela run away with him (as he believes she loves him) but she refuses. Bela is, in fact, in love with Murli – Murli realised this all along and reciprocated her feelings but did not show it as he realised that Ram Jaane also loved her. Murli begs Bela to attempt to reform Ram Jaane. However, whilst trying to reform him, Bela begins to dislike him for his criminal ways. Bhau (Gulshan Grover), Ram Jaane's rival and Technicolour (Pankaj Kapur), Ram Jaane's former partner in crime hatch a plot to kill Ram Jaane – when he hears of their plan, he kills them both and then rushes to Apna Ghar to stop their henchmen from killing anyone. Eventually Chewte arrives but is shot by Ram Jaane. Ram Jaane is taken to court where he confesses to all of his sins – the court decides that he must be sentenced to death. On the day of his death, Bela rushes to stop him but is too late – after his death, she and Murli read a letter from Ram Jaane to Bela which states that he feels guilty for everything he had done. Box office. Ram Jaane's opening was good at box office & nett grossed . Boxoffice India declared it an Average.
1060650	John Deszo Ratzenberger (born April 6, 1947) is an American actor, voice actor, and entrepreneur. He is best known for his role as Cliff Clavin in "Cheers" and his recurring supporting/minor cast roles in Pixar films. Early life. Ratzenberger was born in Bridgeport, Connecticut, the son of Bertha Veronica (née Grochowski), who worked for Remington Arms, and Dezso Alexander Ratzenberger, a Texaco truck driver. His father was of Austrian and Hungarian descent, and his mother was of Polish ancestry. He attended St. Ann's School in Bridgeport and Sacred Heart University in Fairfield, Connecticut. In 1969, Ratzenberger was a tractor operator at the Woodstock Festival. He moved to London in 1971, living there for ten years. Career. Ratzenberger was a house framer living in London when he began his career in the performing arts. His first role was a patron in "The Ritz" (1976). Throughout the late 1970s and early 1980s Ratzenberger appeared in various minor roles in major feature films, including" Firefox"; "A Bridge Too Far"; "Superman" as a missile controller; "Superman II" as the NASA control man; "" as "Major Bren Derlin"; "Motel Hell" as a drummer; "Outland" as a doomed mine worker named Tarlow; and "Gandhi", playing an American Lieutenant. "Cheers". Ratzenberger is well known for playing mail carrier Cliff Clavin on the sitcom "Cheers". He had read for the part of Norm Peterson, but after the audition, he sensed that they weren't going to give him the part. Sensing an opportunity, he asked if they had written a bar know-it-all, which the producers decided was a great idea. Ratzenberger also came up with the idea for Cliff's trademark white socks, which he wore as a tribute to French comedian Jacques Tati. Cliff became known for his outlandish stories of plausible half-truths, uninteresting trivia, and misinformation, and in general for being a pretentious blowhard. Cliff and Norm, the primary customer characters, became iconic bar buddies. Ratzenberger provided the voice for an animated version of Cliff on "The Simpsons" 6th season episode "Fear of Flying". When Paramount Television licensed the look of the Cheers bar to the Host International subsidiary of Host Marriott Services for use in airports in the U.S. and New Zealand, the group also created animatronic barflies. They were called "Hank" and "Bob"; Ratzenberger and George Wendt claimed Hank and Bob resembled them, and in January 1993 sued Host for using their likenesses without permission. The case languished in court for eight years before all sides settled in 2001. Pixar. Ratzenberger has had a voice part in all of Pixar's feature films made to date. His roles include: Ratzenberger had the chance to make fun of his tenure at Pixar during the end credits of "Cars", where his character, Mack, watches car-themed versions of Pixar films ("Toy Car Story, Monster’s Inc. an"d "A Bug's Life"). Mack notes that all the characters Ratzenberger has played were excellent, until he realizes that they're performed by the same actor, at which point he remarks, "They're just using the same actor over and over. What kind of cut-rate production is this?" His favorite of his Pixar characters was P.T. Flea, because "in real life I always get a kick out of those kinds of characters, people who just go into a rage for explicable reason. He was always on edge. His blood pressure was always way over the top, and everything that he did was done in a panicked state. So it was a lot of fun to play him." Reality show appearances. During season 6 of "Last Comic Standing", Ratzenberger was a talent scout with his former "Cheers" co-star George Wendt. On March 2, 2007, it was announced that he would replace Vincent Pastore on the fourth season of the American version of "Dancing with the Stars". He was partnered with professional ballroom dancer Edyta Sliwinska, who had been Pastore's partner; the two were the sixth couple to be eliminated from the show. On December 3, 2009, Ratzenberger appeared on an episode of "American Chopper" to help promote awareness of the Iraq Star Foundation. Other work. Ratzenberger developed a packaging-alternatives product made from biodegradable and non-toxic recycled paper as a safe alternative to styrofoam "peanuts" and plastic bubble wrap. This product was manufactured by his company Eco-Pak Industries, which he later sold. Ratzenberger co-authored "We've Got it Made in America: A Common Man's Salute to an Uncommon Country" (ISBN 1-931722-84-6), published in 2006. He also co-founded the Nuts, Bolts and Thingamajigs Foundation, dedicated to raising awareness of skilled trades and engineering disciplines among young people. In 2010, Ratzenberger became affiliated with and now represents the Center for America (formerly the Foundation for Fair Civil Justice) to further develop his work and increase awareness about the skilled worker shortage facing the United States and the changes needed to positively impact and increase the number of skilled workers. He joined as a Board Member in 2010. CFA is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization (www.centerforamerica.org/). Their mission is to "educate, motivate and empower the American people to understand they have the greatest stake in removing obstacles to a fair civil justice system, innovation, entrepreneurism, and job creation." CFA creates multi-media educational programs, publications and website features that reach millions of Americans through radio, television and the internet." He is also on the University Board at Pepperdine University and the Board of Directors at Sacred Heart University. Personal life. Ratzenberger has two children, James John born in 1987, and Nina Kathrine born in 1989, both from a 19-year marriage to Georgia Stiny that ended in divorce in 2004. Political activity. Ratzenberger, a Republican, said he considered running for the U.S. Senate in Connecticut in 2012. During the 2008 presidential race, Ratzenberger campaigned for John McCain, appearing with former "Cheers" co-star Kelsey Grammer at several Republican party events. He also has been outspoken in opposition of the 2010 health care reform bill, referring to it as socialism. On January 17, 2010, he appeared and endorsed Scott Brown for the United States Senate at Mechanics Hall in Worcester, Massachusetts. Ratzenberger campaigned for Republican Josh Mandel of Ohio for the State Treasurer position during the 2010 election and on January 10, 2011, served as master of ceremonies for Mandel's swearing into office. In response to the 2012 Aurora shooting, he said "Hollywood has to, at some point, admit that what they produce does affect the minds of people... If you just want to shock 'em... society will pay the price for that at some point."
1377124	China Anne McClain (born August 25, 1998) is an American teen actress, singer, and songwriter. Her father and mother are singer producers. She has two sisters, Sierra and Lauryn, forming the group McClain Sisters. As of August 2011, China has amassed more than $600,000 throughout her career. China's career began in 2005 when she was seven years old acting in the movie "The Gospel". However, she became nationally known after 2007, when she joined the cast of the series "Tyler Perry's House of Payne" as Jazmine Payne, and internationally as Chyna Parks, the star of the Disney Channel television series "A.N.T. Farm". Disney released the soundtrack of the television series "ANT Farm" on October 11, 2011. McClain sings six songs and two solos with her sisters on the soundtrack, which debuted in the Billboard 200 at number 29 with 14,000 copies sold in its first week. The release containing the hit song Calling All the Monsters that reached the eighty-sixth spot on the Billboard Hot 100. There are plans to release an album with her siblings in Early 2013 published by Hollywood Records under the moniker The McClain Sisters. Personal life. McClain was born and raised in Atlanta, Georgia. Her father, Michael McClain, is a music producer. Her mother, Shontell, is a songwriter. She currently resides in Los Angeles, California with her family. Career. 2005–10: Early work and "Tyler Perry's House of Payne". McClain was discovered in 2005 by a music executive who heard her sing and encouraged director Rob Hardy to audition her for his 2005 feature film "The Gospel". Her role caught the attention of Tyler Perry, who cast her as Jazmine Payne in the television series "Tyler Perry's House of Payne". She appears in the movie "Daddy's Little Girls" with her sisters, Sierra and Lauryn, who are also actresses and play her older sisters in the film. McClain appeared in and guest starred in various other shows and movies such as "Hannah Montana" with Sierra McCormick, "NCIS" and the 2009 film "Hurricane Season". Jonas L.A. was also a Disney Channel shows she was on. She also appeared in the movie "Grown Ups", as Charlotte McKenzie. 2011–present: "A.N.T. Farm", McClain Sisters and music career. McClain appeared on the Disney Channel series "Wizards of Waverly Place" in 2011 as Tina in one episode entitled "Wizards vs. Angels". In 2011, McClain was cast as the lead role in the Disney Channel series "A.N.T. Farm". For the show, McClain recorded a cover of Taio Cruz's "Dynamite". She also sings the series theme song, "Exceptional". China Anne's first music video, for "Dynamite", premiered on July 23, 2011 on Disney Channel. After less than a week, more than 1 million views on YouTube were reported. She has appeared in an episode of "PrankStars". She also appeared in the Chiddy Bang Opposite Of Adults music video. For the Disney Channel Halloween special in 2011, she performed the song, "Calling All The Monsters". As of June 14, 2011 the McClain Sisters was signed with Hollywood Records. The "A.N.T. Farm" soundtrack was released on October 11, 2011, featuring China Anne's version of "Dynamite" by Taio Cruz. On September 28, 2011, China Anne released "Calling All The Monsters" to iTunes. "Calling All The Monsters" charted number 100 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. On November 24, 2011, China performed her song "Unstoppable" in the 85th Macy's Thanksgiving Parade. She co-starred in the 2013 sequel "Grown Ups 2".
593696	Damul (English: Bonded until Death) is a 1985 Hindi film directed by Prakash Jha, based on the story Kaalsootra by Shaiwal, a native of Gaya district of Bihar., and Annu Kapoor, Sreela Mazumdar, Manohar Singh, Deepti Naval, Ranjan Kamath and Pyare Mohan Sahay in lead roles. Plot. The story is about a bonded labourer who is forced to steal for his landlord, to whom he is bonded until death. Set in rural Bihar of 1984, the film focuses on the caste politics and the oppression of the lower castes in the region, through bonded labour. The film also highlights the issue of heavy migration of the poor villagers of Bihar to richer states like Punjab in search of livelihood. International acclaim. Damul was invited for both the competition and participation sections at the Montreal, Chicago and Moscow film festivals.
585098	Gudumba Shankar () is a 2004 Telugu movie directed by Veera Shankar and produced by Nagendra Babu. Pawan Kalyan played the lead role as Gudumba Shankar while Meera Jasmine, Ashish Vidyarthi, and Sayaji Shinde played other vital roles. The music was scored by Mani Sharma. It was dubbed in Hindi as Main Hoon Chaalbaaz. Plot. Gudumba Shankar is a casanova. He is a small time thief who makes his living by arresting people. On his way to Mumbai, he accidentally meets Gowri. Both of them are forced to travel together. A few more incidents make them good friends. Then Shankar realizes that Gowri is a girl who ran away from her house. By then, they start having feelings for each other. A goonda Kumaraswamy (Ashish) wants to marry Gowri forcibly, which is why she runs away from the home. Kumar Rathore finds out Gowri and takes her back to the house. Kumaraswamy is extremely superstitious and he heavily depends on the astrology of Parabrahma Swamy. Shankar blackmails Parabrahma Swamy and joins the wedding house as the wedding planner along with Ali and two other buddies. Shankar tricks Kumara Swamy so that he could marry Gowri. Cast. DVD. The DVD version of this movie was released by KAD Entertainment. Music. The film has six songs composed by Mani Sharma:
1163595	Julia Scarlett Elizabeth Louis-Dreyfus (; born January 13, 1961) is an American actress, comedian and producer, known for her work on the NBC sitcom "Seinfeld" (1989–98), the CBS sitcom "The New Adventures of Old Christine" (2006–10) and the HBO comedy series "Veep" (2012–present). Louis-Dreyfus broke into comedy as a performer in The Practical Theatre Company in Chicago, which led her to become a cast member in "Saturday Night Live" ("SNL") from 1982 to 1985. Her breakthrough came in 1989 with the character of Elaine Benes on "Seinfeld", which became one of the most critically and commercially successful sitcoms of all time. In 2002, she and her husband, Brad Hall, developed "Watching Ellie", which lasted two seasons. In 2006, she played Christine Campbell in "The New Adventures of Old Christine", which had a five-season run on CBS. In 2012, she began playing Selina Meyer in "Veep", which has recently been renewed for a third season on HBO. Throughout her career, Louis-Dreyfus has received four Emmy Awards, a Golden Globe Award and five Screen Actors Guild Awards. She is the only woman who has won the Emmy three times, for three separate comedy series. Also, she is the most nominated actress in Emmy Award history with a total of fourteen nominations for her supporting role on "Seinfeld", and her leading roles on "The New Adventures of Old Christine" and "Veep", surpassing the record long-held by Lucille Ball. She also received nominations for producing the first two seasons of "Veep", taking her total Emmy tally to sixteen nominations. In May 2010, Louis-Dreyfus received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for her contribution to the broadcast television industry. Early life. Louis-Dreyfus was born Julia Scarlett Elizabeth Louis-Dreyfus in New York City. Her mother, Judith, was a writer and special needs tutor, and her father, the billionaire Gérard Louis-Dreyfus, chaired Louis Dreyfus Energy Services. She is the great-great-granddaughter of Léopold Louis-Dreyfus, who in 1851 founded the Louis Dreyfus Group, a French commodities and shipping conglomerate, which members of the family control to this day. Her paternal grandfather was from an Alsatian Jewish family, while Julia's other ancestry includes German, Mexican, English, French, and Scottish. Her paternal grandfather, Pierre Louis-Dreyfus (1908-2011), was president of the Louis Dreyfus Group; he remained in France during World War II, fighting as a cavalry officer and later in the French Resistance. During this time, her father fled to America from France. Her paternal grandmother, Dolores (Neubauer), and her mother, were American. In 1962, one year after Louis-Dreyfus's birth, her parents divorced. After relocating to Washington, D.C. when Julia was eight, her mother married L. Thompson Bowles, Dean of the George Washington University Medical School. Louis-Dreyfus spent her childhood in several states and countries in connection with her stepfather's work with Project HOPE, including Sri Lanka, Colombia and Tunisia. She graduated from the Holton-Arms School in Bethesda, Maryland in 1979, and attended Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, where she was a member of the Delta Gamma sorority and studied theatre for several years before dropping out due to a professional acting job offer. Career. 1982–1989: Early work and "Saturday Night Live". As part of her comedic training, Louis-Dreyfus appeared in The Second City, one of Chicago's best-known improvisation theatre groups (whose alumni include Alan Arkin, Steve Carell, Stephen Colbert, Tina Fey, Amy Poehler and Shelley Long). It was her performance with the Practical Theatre Group at their "Golden 50th Anniversary Jubilee" that led to her being asked to join the cast of "Saturday Night Live" at just the age of 21. Louis-Dreyfus was subsequently a cast member on NBC's "Saturday Night Live" from 1982 to 1985, becoming the youngest female cast member in the history of the program at that time. During her time on "SNL" she appeared alongside several actors who would later rise to prominence, such as Eddie Murphy, Jim Belushi, Billy Crystal and Martin Short. It was during her tenure on "SNL" that she met writer Larry David, who would later co-create "Seinfeld". More recently Louis-Dreyfus has commented that her casting on "SNL" was a "Cinderella-getting-to-go-to-the-ball kind of experience," however, she has also admitted that at times it was often quite tense, stating that she "didn't know how to navigate the waters of show business in general and specifically doing a live sketch-comedy show." Following her 1985 departure from "SNL", Louis-Dreyfus appeared in several films, including "Hannah and Her Sisters" which was directed by Woody Allen, and the cult classic "National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation" in which she starred alongside Chevy Chase. She also had a small part in Soul Man, starring C. Thomas Howell. In 1988 she was cast in an NBC sitcom titled "Day by Day", but the series was cancelled after two seasons. 1990–1998: The "Seinfeld" years. In the early-1990s Louis-Dreyfus became famous for the role of Elaine Benes on NBC's "Seinfeld". She played the role for nine seasons, appearing in all but three episodes. One of the episodes that she did not appear in was the inaugural pilot episode, due to the fact that her character was not initially intended to be a part of the series. It was only after the first episode that NBC executives felt the show was too male-centric, and demanded that creators Jerry Seinfeld and Larry David add a woman to the cast. It was revealed in the commentary on the DVD package that the addition of a female character was the condition of commissioning the show. Louis-Dreyfus won the role over several other actresses who would also eventually enjoy their own TV success, including Patricia Heaton, Rosie O'Donnell and Megan Mullally. On the "Notes About Nothing" featurette on the DVD package, the series creator and star Jerry Seinfeld says that Louis-Dreyfus's ability to eat a peanut M&M without breaking the peanut aptly describes the actress: "She cracks you up without breaking your nuts." Her performance on the series was met with critical acclaim, and she was a regular winner and nominee at television award shows throughout the 1990s. Her performance earned her a Golden Globe Award, five Screen Actors Guild Awards and five American Comedy Awards. In 1996 she received the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series, an award she was nominated for on seven occasions. After receiving the award, Louis-Dreyfus claimed the win was a "shocker", and that after being in both positions, it was "much better to win than to lose." It was in 1998 that creator and star Jerry Seinfeld decided to end the series after nine seasons. The series finale aired on May 14 and was one of the most watched TV events, with over 76 million people tuning in. During her time on "Seinfeld" she appeared in several films, including "Fathers' Day" opposite Robin Williams and Billy Crystal, and Woody Allen's Oscar-nominated "Deconstructing Harry". 1999–2004: Post-"Seinfeld". Following a voice role in the hugely successful Disney Pixar's "A Bug's Life", Louis-Dreyfus lent her voice as Snake's girlfriend Gloria in "The Simpsons" episode "A Hunka Hunka Burns in Love". In 2001, she made several special guest appearances on "Seinfeld" co-creator Larry David's show "Curb Your Enthusiasm", playing herself fictionally trying to break the "curse" by planning to star in a show in which she would play an actress affected by a "Seinfeld"-like curse. After several years away from a regular TV gig, Louis-Dreyfus began a new single-camera sitcom "Watching Ellie" which premiered on NBC in February 2002. The series was created by husband Brad Hall, and co-starred Steve Carell and Louis-Dreyfus's half-sister Lauren Bowles. The initial premise of the show was to present viewers with a "slice of life" from the goings-on and happenings of the life of Ellie Riggs, a Southern California jazz singer. The first season included a 22-minute countdown kept digitally in the lower left-hand corner of the screen which many critics panned, claiming it was useless and "did nothing for the show." Overall the show received mixed reviews, but debuted strongly with over 16 million viewers tuning in for the series premiere, and maintained an average audience of approximately 10 million viewers per week. When the series returned for a second season in the spring of 2003 the series had suffered somewhat of a decline in viewership, averaging around 8 million viewers per week. Moreover, the show had undergone a drastic stylistic change between production of season one and two. The first season was filmed in the single-camera format, but the second season was presented as a traditional multi-camera sitcom filmed in front of a live studio audience. With dwindling viewership and failing to retain the numbers from its "Frasier" lead-in, the series was cancelled by NBC in May 2003. Following NBC's cancellation of "Watching Ellie", the media began circulating rumours of a so-called "Seinfeld curse" which claimed that none of the former "Seinfeld" actors could ever achieve success again in the television industry. Louis-Dreyfus dismissed the rumour as "a made-up thing by the media", while "Seinfeld" co-creator Larry David asserted that the curse was "completely idiotic." Louis-Dreyfus was subsequently one of many actresses considered for the role of Susan Mayer on "Desperate Housewives", which would go on to become ABC's megahit of the 2004-05 television season. Teri Hatcher was eventually cast in the role. Instead Louis-Dreyfus scored a recurring guest role as the deceitful prosecutor and love interest of Michael Bluth on the Emmy Award winning comedy "Arrested Development" from 2004 to 2005. She received widespread acclaim for each appearance on the series. 2005–2010: "The New Adventures of Old Christine" and renewed success. In 2005, it was announced that Louis-Dreyfus had been cast in the title role of a new CBS sitcom "The New Adventures of Old Christine". The series and its concept was created by writer and producer of "Will & Grace", Kari Lizer. The series told the story of Christine Campbell, a single mother who manages to maintain a fantastic relationship with her ex-husband, while running a women's gym. The series debuted on CBS in March 2006 to an audience of 15 million and was initially a ratings winner for the network. Louis-Dreyfus also received considerable critical acclaim for her performance on the show, with Brian Lowry of Variety stating that Louis-Dreyfus breaks the Seinfeld curse "with one of the best conventional half-hours to come along in a while." Alessandra Stanley from "the New York Times" asserted that Louis-Dreyfus's performance on the series proved she is "one of the funniest women on network television." Louis-Dreyfus additionally earned the 2006 Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series for her performance in the first season. Referring to the curse, she stated in her acceptance speech, "I'm not somebody who really believes in curses, but curse this, baby!" Throughout the course of the series she received five Emmy Award nominations, two Screen Actors Guild Award nominations and a nomination for a Golden Globe Award. In 2007 she also received two nominations for a People’s Choice Award due to her return to popularity, thanks to the success of "Old Christine". In May 2006, Louis-Dreyfus hosted an episode of "Saturday Night Live", becoming the first former female cast member to return to the show in the hosting role. In the episode, she appeared with former "Seinfeld" mates Jason Alexander and Jerry Seinfeld in her opening monologue, parodying the so-called "Seinfeld Curse". After a successful reception from her 2006 episode, Louis-Dreyfus was invited again to host "SNL" on March 17, 2007. In the fall of 2009, she appeared with rest of the cast of "Seinfeld" in four episodes of the seventh season of Larry David's sitcom "Curb Your Enthusiasm". The reunion shows received much media attention, and the episode received strong ratings for the HBO series. In 2009 Louis-Dreyfus was granted the honorary award for Legacy of Laughter at the TV Land Awards. Previous winners had included Lucille Ball and Mike Myers. She was presented with the award by friend Amy Poehler. The following year Louis-Dreyfus received the 2,407th star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on May 4, 2010 for her remarkable contribution to the broadcast television industry as both an actress and a comedian. Originally, the star was set with Louis-Dreyfus's name spelled incorrectly. It was missing both the 'o' and also the hyphen in her last name. The star was corrected and the misspelled portion was removed and presented to the actress. Celebrity guests at the event included past and current colleagues from throughout her career, including Clark Gregg, Larry David, Eric McCormack and Jason Alexander. "Old Christine" was cancelled by CBS in May 2010 after five seasons. After its cancellation from CBS, there were discussions with ABC for the show to be revived on their network, yet these plans never came to fruition. In the spring of 2010, Louis-Dreyfus guest starred several times in the third season of the web series "Web Therapy", starring Lisa Kudrow. Louis-Dreyfus played the sister of a self-involved therapist who gives her therapy online, and her performance earned her strong reviews. When the series made the transition to cable television on the Showtime network, Louis-Dreyfus's appearance from the web series was included in the second season, airing in July 2012. In fall 2010, Louis-Dreyfus made a guest appearance on the live episode of the Emmy Award winning comedy "30 Rock". She played Tina Fey’s role of Liz Lemon in the cutaway shots. Louis-Dreyfus was among several "Saturday Night Live" alumni appearing in the episode, including Rachel Dratch, Bill Hader and regulars Tracy Morgan, Alec Baldwin and Tina Fey herself. Louis-Dreyfus also starred in a "Women of SNL" special November 1, 2010, on NBC. 2011–present: "Veep". In May and June 2011, Louis-Dreyfus teamed up with husband Brad Hall for her first short film, "Picture Paris". This was the first time the couple had collaborated since their early-2000s NBC comedy "Watching Ellie". Hall wrote and directed the film, while Louis-Dreyfus played the lead role of an ordinary woman with an extraordinary obsession with the city of Paris. The film premiered on January 29, 2012 at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival, and has received considerable critical acclaim. It made its television premiere on HBO on December 17, 2012. In early 2011, HBO confirmed that Louis-Dreyfus had been cast in the lead role of U.S. Vice President Selina Meyer in a new satirical comedy series entitled "Veep". The series was commissioned for a first season of eight episodes. It was announced, in addition to her starring role, Louis-Dreyfus would also serve as a producer of the series. In preparation for her role, Louis-Dreyfus spoke with several former vice presidents, including Al Gore. Louis-Dreyfus has publicly commended HBO for allowing the cast and crew to engage in a "protracted pre-production process", which included a six-week rehearsal period before filming began. The first season was filmed in the fall of 2011 in Baltimore, and the series premiered on April 22, 2012. The premiere episode was met with high praise from critics, particularly for Louis-Dreyfus's performance. The Hollywood Reporter asserted that the character of Selina Meyer was her "best post-Seinfeld role" to date and claimed that she gives "an Emmy-worthy effort", while the Los Angeles Times contended that the series demonstrates that she is "one of the medium's great comedians." Following the success of the first season, Louis-Dreyfus was named by the Huffington Post as one of the funniest people of 2012 asserting that she is the "most magnetic and naturally funny woman on TV since Mary Tyler Moore." The second season premiered on April 14, 2013 and the series has already been renewed for a third season, set to air in 2014. For her performance on "Veep" Louis-Dreyfus has received several accolades, including the 2013 Critics' Choice Television Award for Best Actress in a Comedy Series and the 2012 and 2013 Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series Following on from her Emmy wins for "Seinfeld" and "Old Christine", she became the only woman to win the award for three separate comedy series.
773871	Melissa DiMarco is an actor, producer, and television personality. She is currently the star, creator, and a writer on "Out There with Melissa DiMarco" (2004–present), an award-winning television comedy which airs on Citytv's national network and OMNI.1. Excerpts from DiMarco's celebrity interviews also air on OUTtv. One of DiMarco's best-known acting parts was her starring role on the teen drama series "" as Daphne Hatzilakos, teacher and later Principal of Degrassi Community School. She played Hatzilakos for eight seasons (2002 - 2010). Her current show "Out There" mixes celebrity interviews with scripted comedy that takes a behind-the-scenes look at the life of an entertainment journalist (played by DiMarco). Among the celebrities she has interviewed on the show are Pierce Brosnan, George Clooney, Cameron Diaz, Colin Farrell, Salma Hayek, Queen Latifah, Ludacris, Matthew McConaughey, Brad Pitt, and Gene Simmons. Updates and excerpts from these interviews are syndicated internationally. "Out There" has been recognized for Outstanding Achievement in Creative Excellence at the 39th U.S. International Film and Video Festival. Her film credits include leading roles in Peter Bogdanovich's "Hustle: The Pete Rose Story", "Duct Tape Forever" (the film adaptation of "The Red Green Show"), "The Rest of My Life: Degrassi Takes Manhattan", and "Degrassi Spring Break Movie". She also appeared in Danny DeVito's dark comedy, "Death to Smoochy". DiMarco’s TV credits include a starring role on the CBC soap opera "Riverdale" and guest-starring spots on series such as "Due South", "Blue Murder", "The Hardy Boys", "Psi Factor", "", "Relic Hunter", and "Kojak". She also directed, produced, and wrote "Dreamseeker: Nia Vardalos," an award-winning documentary on the rise of Nia Vardalos of "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" fame and was the host and producer of "Nite Life", an entertainment show that focused on celebrity interviews and the nightclub, bar, and concert scene, which aired on OMNI. DiMarco is a Dean's Honour Roll graduate of the Fine Arts Program at York University and is a member of the Canadian Association of Journalists, the Academy of Canadian Cinema, and WIFT-T (Women in Film & Television Toronto).
583576	Aakhree Raasta () is a 1986 Bollywood film starring Amitabh Bachchan in a dual role, Sridevi, Anupam Kher and Jayaprada; and was Bachchan's last released film before he temporarily quit acting to enter politics in 1984. It was directed by the famous Tamil actor and director Bhagyaraj. It is a remake of the 1984 Tamil film "Oru Kaidhiyin Diary" (English: "A Prisoner's Diary") starring Kamal Haasan; Kamal Haasan also played a dual role in the original movie. The film became a "semi-hit" at the box office. Synopsis. David D'Costa (Amitabh Bachchan) lives a relatively poor life in Chennai with his wife Mary D'Costa (Jayaprada) who is pregnant. He literally worships the Member of Parliament Chaturvedi (Sadashiv Amrapurkar), and is even willing to die for him. He introduces Mary to Chaturvedi, and with his blessings they name the new-born son James. Then one day while he is busy obstructing rail traffic, he gets arrested and is bailed out by Mahesh (Anupam Kher) When he returns home he finds that Mary has committed suicide. She left a note blaming Chaturvedi for raping her. An upset David goes to confront Chaturvedi, is intercepted by Police Inspector Roop Kumar Sahay (Dalip Tahil) and Dr. Verma (Bharat Kapoor), the evidence is destroyed, and he is sentenced to 24 years in prison for Mary's murder. He asks his friend Mahesh to look after James in his long absence. Twenty four years later, David is released, he goes to visit Mahesh and is shocked to find that Mahesh has changed, he is no longer a boot-legger, he now lives a wealthy life-style, he wants David to forget the past, and live with his CID Inspector son Vijay (also Amitabh Bachchan). David is devastated with this news, but is determined to avenge his wrongful conviction and Mary's death, so he sets about to kill his tormentors one by one - the only obstruction he faces is none other than Vijay who, unaware of David being his father, is out to protect the 3 people. Film Response. The film opened to packed houses in 1986 and turned out to be a roaring blockbuster hit. It was Amitabh Bachchan's last hit before his gloomy period had started. Critics had mixed reviews about the box office collections but it was declared a super-hit. Amitabh's double role fetched him much needed hit. Playing father and son pitted against each other was already a cake-walk for this legendary actor and he'd played with much ease. Picturized mainly in Chennai(then Madras) and Ooty, the film had a beautiful line up of superstars like Jayaprada, Sridevi, Anupam Kher, Sadashiv Amrapurkar, Dalip Tahil and Bharat Kapoor. This was Sridevi's second film with the mighty Bachchan. However, their romantic track did not go too well with the script as the script was too serious to cater to romance. The highlights of the movie have been Amitabh's both character's confrontation scenes. Aakhri Raasta is still considered as Bachchan's finest works to date.
584537	Pandiarajan is an actor who had played leading roles in many humorous Tamil films and currently plays supporting and comedy roles. Personal life. Pandiarajan was born to Rathnam and Sulochana in Saidapet, Chennai. He has two sisters namely, Maheshwari & Geetha. He is married to Vasuki, daughter of Director, Producer, and Poet Avinasi Mani and has three sons, Prithvi Rajan, Pallavarajan and Premrajan. Entry into Film Industry. Pandiarajan wanted to act in films. But due to his height and appearance he decided to join as an assistant director. He joined Thamizisai College where he had learnt violin and got his diploma as "Isai Selvam" in 1977. After that he had joined writer Thooyavan as an office assistant. Here he met director K. Bhagyaraj and later joined him as an assistant director. He had become his associate director in "Darling Darling Darling" and worked till the discussion of "Munthanai Mudichu". Pandiarajan told the story of the film kanniraasi to Sivaji ganesan's brother shanmugam, he listened to the story and accepted it, though financiers refused to buy, the film was successful at the box-office. His first directorial venture was "Kanni Rasi" in 1985 starring Prabhu and Revathi. He directed and made his debut as a hero in "Aan Paavam". Till now, he had directed nine films, including Kaivantha Kalai, Doubles where he directed prabhudeva in the lead role and acted in some 90 Tamil films and one Malayalam hit Kathavasheshan, where he acted with Dilip. Recently, he is acting in a TV serial called Mama Maaple in Sun TV. His English short film called Help has been nominated at the ArtDeco Film Festival 2011, at São Paulo, in Brazil. ‘Help' is Pandiarajan's first short film in English.
588596	Yuvika Chaudhary (born 2 August 1986) is an Indian actress. She was born in the town Baraut, in Uttar Pradesh. Her father Ram Naresh is a teacher by profession. She has a younger brother Akash. She has appeared in Bollywood films such as "Om Shanti Om", "Summer 2007" and "Toh Baat Pakki". She also acted in a Kannada film "Maleyali Jotheyali". Career. Yuvika participated in Zee Cine Stars Ki Khoj in 2004. This led to an acting assignment for the popular TV serial Astitva...Ek Prem Kahani, in which she played Aastha. She also appeared in a Coke advertisement opposite Kunal Kapoor. Farah Khan took notice of her and gave her a Bollywood break in "Om Shanti Om". The movie was a big hit. She later did films like "Summer 2007" and "Toh Baat Pakki". In 2011, she appeared in "Naughty @ 40", her first role as a lead actress opposite Govinda. She appeared opposite to Manoj Pahwa in the Hindi movie, "Khap". Her recent released film was Enemmy. She acted opposite to Key Key Menon in this film. Her upcoming film "Afratafri" with Sunil Shetty which is going to release in 2013.
1060209	Auto Focus is a 2002 American biographical film directed by Paul Schrader that stars Greg Kinnear and Willem Dafoe. The screenplay by Michael Gerbosi is based on the book "The Murder of Bob Crane" by Robert Graysmith. It tells the story of actor Bob Crane, an affable radio show host and amateur drummer who found success on "Hogan's Heroes", a popular television sitcom about a prisoner of war camp during World War II, and his dramatic descent into the underbelly of Hollywood after the series was cancelled. Plot. Disc jockey turned actor Bob Crane develops a secret personal life, focusing on his relationship with John Henry Carpenter, an electronics expert involved with the nascent home video market. Encouraged by Carpenter and enabled by his expertise, Crane — portrayed as a church-going, clean-cut family man (though he really never was) — becomes a sex addict obsessed with sleeping with as many women as possible and recording those encounters with video and photographic equipment, usually with Carpenter participating. "Auto Focus" depicts Crane's life from his sitcom success through his post-"Hogan's Heroes" efforts to sustain a viable career — mostly in dinner theatre — until his murder in 1978. Crane's murder remains unsolved to this day. Although Carpenter was tried and acquitted of the crime, he remains the subject of suspicion even after his death in 1998. Production. The film premiered at the Toronto Film Festival. It was shown at the San Sebastián Film Festival, the Helsinki International Film Festival, the Chicago International Film Festival, the New Orleans Film Festival, and the Bergen International Film Festival before going into limited release on eleven screens in the US, earning $123,761 on its opening weekend. It grossed $2,063,196 in the US and $641,755 in foreign markets for a total worldwide box office of $2,704,951. The DVD release includes a 50-minute documentary, "Murder in Scottsdale," delving into the initial murder investigation and the reopening of the case some 15 years later. Critical reception. The film met with a largely positive reception from critics. A.O. Scott of the "New York Times" said the film "gets to you like a low-grade fever, a malaise with no known antidote. When it was over, I wasn't sure if I needed a drink, a shower or a lifelong vow of chastity ... there is severe, powerful moralism lurking beneath the film's dispassionate matter-of-factness. Mr. Schrader is indifferent to the sinner, but he cannot contain his loathing of the sin, which is not so much sex as the fascination with images ... To argue that images can corrupt the flesh and hollow out the soul is, for a filmmaker, an obviously contradictory exercise, but not necessarily a hypocritical one. There is plenty of nudity in "Auto Focus," but you can always glimpse the abyss behind the undulating bodies, and the director leads you from easy titillation to suffocating dread, pausing only briefly and cautiously to consider the possibility of pleasure." Roger Ebert of the "Chicago Sun-Times" gave the film four stars calling it "a hypnotic portrait ... pitch-perfect in its decor, music, clothes, cars, language and values ... Greg Kinnear gives a creepy, brilliant performance as a man lacking in all insight ... Crane was not a complex man, but that should not blind us to the subtlety and complexity of Kinnear's performance." Edward Guthmann of the "San Francisco Chronicle" called it "a compelling, sympathetic portrait ... Kinnear undercuts the seaminess of the Crane story, and shows us a man with more dimension and complexity than his behavior might suggest." Peter Travers of "Rolling Stone" awarded it 3½ out of 4 stars and added, "Schrader, the writer of "Taxi Driver" and the director of "American Gigolo", is a poet of male sexual pathology. Shot through with profane laughs and stinging drama, "Auto Focus" ranks with his best films." Todd McCarthy of "Variety" called it "one of director Paul Schrader's best films, and like "Boogie Nights" ranks as a shrewd exposé of recent Hollywood's slimy underside ... Schrader directs with a very smooth hand, providing a good-natured and frequently amusing spin to eventually grim material that aptly reflects the protagonist's almost unfailing good humor ... Pic overall has an excellent L.A. period feel without getting elaborate about it, and musical contributions by Angelo Badalamenti and a host of pop tunes are tops." Criticism by Scotty Crane. Bob Crane's son, Scotty, bitterly attacked the film as being inaccurate. In an October 2002 piece he wrote on the movie, Scotty said that his father was not a regular church-goer and had only been to church three times in the last dozen years of his life, which included his own funeral. There is no evidence that Crane engaged in S&M and director Paul Schrader told Scotty that the S&M scene was based on his own personal experience. Scotty claims that his father and John Carpenter did not become close friends who socialized together until 1975, and that Crane was a sex addict long before he became a star, recording his sexual encounters at least as early as 1956.
1055774	"Hart's War" is a 2002 film about a World War II prisoner of war (POW) camp based on the novel by John Katzenbach. It stars Bruce Willis, Colin Farrell, Terrence Howard and Marcel Iureş. The film, directed by Gregory Hoblit, was shot at Barrandov Studios in Prague, and released on 15 February 2002. Plot. Belgium, December 16, 1944: First Lieutenant Thomas Hart (Farrell) is stationed at V Corps Headquarters and a stranger to war. He volunteers to give a captain a lift to his unit on the front. While driving they are stopped by Military Policemen who inform them they are going the wrong way. Hart checks his map but the captain, who is suspicious of the MPs, tries to reach for his pistol but is immediately shot in the head by one of the MPs, who turn out to be Germans in disguise. Hart is pistol whipped by the Germans, who then rummage through his jeep. When they are distracted, Hart slams on the gas and drives away as hidden German commandos shoot at him. He then goes down a ravine, hits a ditch and is thrown through the windshield. When he gathers his senses, he realizes he is lying in a mass grave of U.S. soldiers. It is the opening of the Battle of the Bulge. Taken to a local prison, his boots are confiscated and he is left naked in a cell. Threatened with frostbite and pneumonia, Hart is coerced by his German interrogator into divulging intelligence. He and many other Americans are later transferred by train to a German prisoner of war camp. While en route, a fleet of P-51 Mustangs attacks the station. Since the painted letters POW on the top of the train are covered by thick snow, the Mustangs strafe the train, killing several POWs. To save themselves, the POWs leave the train, spell POW with their bodies, and circumvent further strafing. After arriving at Stalag VI A in Augsburg, Germany, Hart is debriefed by the ranking American officer, Colonel William McNamara (Willis). When McNamara asks if Hart cooperated with the Germans after he was captured, Hart denies it. McNamara knows this to be a lie, since he knows Hart was held for three days after seeing only a Level 1 interrogator. He does not reveal this to Hart and sends him to bunk in a barracks for enlisted men, rather than allowing him to bunk with the other officers. Two Tuskegee Airmen are brought to the camp, Second Lieutenants Lincoln A. Scott (Terrence Howard) and Lamar T. Archer (Vicellous Reon Shannon). They are the only blacks in the camp, and their situation is compounded by their status as officers. Staff Sergeant Vic W. Bedford (Cole Hauser), a vicious racist, is their primary antagonist. Later, a tent spike, which could be used as a weapon, is found in Archer's bunk. The Germans drag him out and shoot him, claiming that he was trying to escape. Directly after that, a radio used by the Americans to receive coded messages via the BBC is found and destroyed. Bedford is himself later found dead. Scott is seen standing over the body and is accused of killing him in revenge for Bedford's framing Archer. A law student at Yale before the war, Hart is appointed by McNamara to defend the accused pilot at his court-martial, a trial to which the camp commandant, Oberst Werner Visser (Marcel Iureş), agrees. Visser gives Hart a manual on US Army court-martial proceedings, furthering the conflict between him and McNamara when he uses the rule book to question the Colonel's conducting of the trial. On the witness stand, the angered Scott gives an emotional address on the treatment of blacks like himself, who joined up to serve their country with honor but are treated with disrespect in return. Late one night, Hart notices a fellow POW acting suspiciously and follows him to a room behind the theater where the trial is taking place. There, he discovers a tunnel being dug. McNamara reveals to Hart that the "defense", like the trial itself, is a sham, an elaborate distraction to hide a planned escape and attack on a nearby ammunition plant which the Allies mistakenly believe to be a shoe factory. It is revealed that Bedford planted the spike in Archer's bunk, and, in return for the guards' executing Archer for it, Bedford gave them the location of the secret radio. It is also revealed that Bedford planned to escape with forged German documents, money and clothes, likely in return for telling the Germans about McNamara's plan. McNamara realized this and killed Bedford to prevent it. Hart is shocked that McNamara, as a senior officer, would sacrifice fellow Americans to perpetuate this. McNamara reminds Hart that they are at war, and in war sometimes one man must be sacrificed to save the lives of many. Hart acknowledges this, but retorts that it is McNamara's duty to ensure that he, not Scott, is the sacrifice. Disgusted, McNamara says that Hart knows nothing about duty, a reference to how Hart gave in to a Level 1 interrogator after three days, whereas McNamara was tortured for a month. On the last day of the trial, McNamara and 34 others feign food poisoning in order to be excused from the closing arguments. They then slip down the escape tunnel. As he is about to go down, McNamara overhears Hart's closing speech. In order to save Scott, Hart announces that he killed Bedford. Visser orders everyone out and announces that Hart will be shot there and then. After a headcount, which is short by 35 prisoners, Visser suspects an escape plot and locates the tunnel. Now fully aware of the deception, he furiously orders everybody at the trial to be shot as well. But before the sentence is carried out, McNamara, moved by Hart's selfless sacrifice, voluntarily returns to the camp to accept responsibility. At that moment, the factory blows up and the other escapees scatter away. Visser holds McNamara accountable and personally executes him on the spot, sparing the remaining prisoners. Hart leads the salute to McNamara's dead body. Three months later, the German army surrenders to the Allies and the prison camp is liberated. Reception. The film received mixed to positive reviews from critics. It currently holds a 60% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes with the consensus being "Well-made and solidly acted, Hart's War is modestly compelling. However, the movie suffers from having too many subplots".
1068206	Ilya (Elya) Zalmanovich Baskin (; ; born 11 August 1950) is a Soviet and American actor. Biography. Baskin was born in Riga, the son of Frieda and Zalman Baskin. He attended Moscow's prestigious Theatre and Variety Arts College and won a Festival of Young Actors Award at the Moscow Comedy Theatre. Baskin immigrated to the United States in 1976. He has built a considerable career in TV and movies, and is often cast as a Russian, due to his ancestry and accent. He has ultimately become one of the most popular choices whenever a Russian is needed in a TV-episode or a major movie production. He is also a regular on the long-running Internet program "Outlaw Radio" hosted by Matt Alan, where he makes amusing commentary on contemporary topics, and does comedic interaction with fellow actor Richard Tyson and author Burl Barer, among many others.
1789658	Titanic II is a planned ocean liner, to be built as a replica of the "Olympic"-class . The project was announced by Australian billionaire Clive Palmer in April 2012, as the flagship of his cruise company Blue Star Line. The intended launch date is set in 2016, 104 years after the original voyage, and the ship will set sail from Southampton to New York within the same year. History. Previous projects. The concept of a replica of the "Titanic" has been explored several times, especially following the resurgence of interest following the release of the film "Titanic" in 1997. The most widely publicised project was that of South African businessman Sarel Gous. The South African project began in 1998, and was one of the subjects of an article in "Popular Mechanics" magazine in September of that year. The article discussed the changes to the original design required to produce a safe and economically viable ship, including a welded rather than riveted hull, diesel-electric propulsion in place of steam engines, and a bulbous bow. The article concluded that although the various Titanic revival projects would cost $400–$600 million, they could be economically viable. Although he originally intended to construct the ship in Durban, Gous presented his £500 million proposal to Belfast City Council in June 2000. He commissioned Olsen Designs to design the ship, advised by Harland and Wolff Technical Services who produced a feasibility study, and Callcott Anderson to design the interior. In November 2000, he began his attempts to raise capital, including through government grants and a stock market flotation. After signing an agreement with a Monaco-based investment banking company, Gous claimed that construction would begin at Harland and Wolff within nine months. The design changed repeatedly, with claims emerging of 'the world's largest liner' with capacity for 2,600 passengers, and increasingly divergent plans for a heliport, swimming pools and discos eventually being released. In 2006, after repeatedly failing to secure investment, the project was abandoned. Design stage. Clive Palmer first announced the project in a press conference on 30 April 2012, following the signature of a memorandum of understanding with state-owned Chinese shipyard CSC Jinling ten days before. On 19 June, it was announced that Finnish naval architecture firm Deltamarin Ltd. had been commissioned to undertake the design of the ship, and on 17 July a preliminary general arrangement was published. In October 2012, Blue Star Lines announced that "Titanic" expert Steve Hall had been appointed as Design Consultant and Historian for the project, and that "Titanic" interiors expert Daniel Klistorner had been appointed as Interior Design Consultant and Historian. Hall and Klistorner had previously co-authored books such as "Titanic: The Ship Magnificent" and "Titanic in Photographs", and gave a technical presentation at the unveiling of the designs in New York, as well as at the dinner in London. Later that month, it was announced that an advisory board would be formed to provide "suggestions and recommendations to Blue Star Line to ensure the "Titanic II" appropriately and respectfully pays homage to "Titanic", her crew and passengers." Terry Ismay, the great-great nephew of White Star Line chairman and "Titanic" survivor J. Bruce Ismay will be a member of the board, as well as Helen Benziger, great-granddaughter of "Titanic" survivor Margaret 'Molly' Brown. The design for the "Titanic II" was unveiled at worldwide launch events in Macau (China), New York (United States), Halifax (Canada), London & Southampton (United Kingdom). The gala event in New York was the official Global Launch and was held aboard the USS "Intrepid" in New York City on 26 February 2013. The gala dinner in London (UK) was held at the Natural History Museum on 2 March, which was accompanied by a display of items salvaged from the "Titanic", as well as in Southampton on 13 March. On 16 April it was announced that Deltamarin had been contracted for the project development phase, and will be responsible for coordinating the various parties involved in the project, including the shipyard, architects, interior designers and operations managers. The feasibility study is complete, and the project development phase is ongoing. The signature of a contract and keel laying is expected later in 2013. Further contracts and agreements relating to the design and construction were announced later in 2013; the project development contract to Deltamarin Ltd., the appointment of V.Ships Leisure as ship management services partner, and of Tillberg Design as provider of architectural and interior design services. On July 17, 2013, Blue Star Line announced that the classification society Lloyd's Register has joined the "Titanic II" project. The work carried by Lloyd's will make sure that the ship's design is compliant with the current SOLAS regulations. Model testing using a wooden model was undertaken in September 2013 at the Hamburgische Schiffbau-Versuchsanstalt (HSVA). Resistance and powering tests were carried out in a towing tank. Design and construction. The gross tonnage of the replica will be 56,000 GT, considerably more than that of the original. Construction was scheduled to begin in 2013, with launch and maiden voyage in 2016. In an August 2013 interview, Palmer however indicated that construction will not begin until March 2014, while still citing 2016 as the intended completion date. Comparison with the original "Titanic". The ship is being designed to be as similar in internal and external appearance to the "Titanic" as possible. However, modern safety regulations and economic considerations will dictate several major changes to the design, including: Power plant and propulsion. The steam engines and coal-fired boilers of the original "Titanic" have been replaced with a modern diesel-electric propulsion system. The space which housed the boilers will be used for crew quarters and ships systems. Power will be produced by four Wärtsilä 46F medium-speed four-stroke diesel generating sets; two twelve-cylinder 12V46F engines producing each, and two eight-cylinder 8L46F engines producing each, running on heavy fuel oil and marine gas oil. Propulsion will be by three azimuth thrusters which will also be used for manoeuvring, while the replica of the rudder of the "Titanic II" is purely cosmetic, and will not extend substantially below the waterline. The positioning of the azimuth thrusters has necessitated the stern being made substantially more blunt than the original. Interior. The interior of the ship is intended to be as similar as possible to the original. Tillberg Design of Sweden has been contracted to produce drawings replicating "Titanics" original interiors. However, the original wooden panelling does not conform to modern fire regulations, so as in "Queen Elizabeth 2", veneers will have to be used. Plans show a layout broadly similar to the original, but with the third-class cabins modernised, and consideration being given to en-suite cabins throughout the ship. The room freed up by eliminating the steam boilers of the original ship will be used for crew quarters and various services. Criticism. If built, the "Titanic II" would represent the first major passenger vessel constructed in China, a country with much more experience of building cargo ships than cruise ships, and a significant investment would be required to ensure it meets the much more stringent safety requirements for passenger vessels. The Chinese state-owned CSC Jinling shipyard has never built a large passenger vessel. In addition, it has no drydock, instead using side launching from a 200m slipway. The 269m "Titanic II" would be the largest side-launched vessel in history by a huge margin, and would require a significant extension to the shipyard's facilities. Representatives from the shipyard have questioned whether the ship can be completed by 2016, and emphasize that no contract has yet been signed. Clive Palmer has been described as an 'eccentric billionaire' with a reputation for bizarre publicity stunts, such as the attempt to create a massive Jurassic Park style dinosaur theme park at his golf resort. It has also been noted that the publicity surrounding the "Titanic II" coincided with Palmer's announcement of his entry into Australian federal politics, which was made immediately following the "Titanic II" conference. Palmer had previously claimed that he was the target of a conspiracy involving Barack Obama, the CIA, the Rockefeller Foundation and Greenpeace, who he believed were attempting to close down his mining operation. In 2010, Palmer started a company called Zeppelin International, with the intention of making a commercially viable Zeppelin. After the plan came to nothing, it was ridiculed as the 'bizarre move of the year' by Australian business website Smartcompany. He has gained a reputation in Australia for floating ambitious and unusual business ideas which he fails to see through, and the "Titanic II" has been described as 'a classic Clive Palmer announcement'. The idea of a commercialised replica of the "Titanic" has itself been criticised, being described as ""insensitive"" and ""a mockery of the memory of those who died"". Cunard Line, which merged with the White Star Line, stated that they ""have always been very mindful and very respectful of such a tragic event don't think that building a replica or a 'II' is appropriate."" In June 2013, it was reported that Clive Palmer may be experiencing financial difficulties, and that his two most prominent businesses were running at a loss. This followed the leaking of a letter where he asked a Chinese business partner for a $200 million AUD payment. His net worth was believed to have fallen by $1.6 billion AUD in 2013.
1055326	Leon Preston Robinson IV (born March 8, 1962) usually credited as simply Leon, is an American actor and singer, who began his professional career as an actor in 1982. Personal life. Leon had a relationship with model and "The Real Housewives of Atlanta" Season 3 star Cynthia Bailey, with whom he has a 13 year old daughter, Noelle Robinson (November 9, 1999). More recently, he was in a relationship with Australian fashion model Ebony Mciver. Leon loves to play tennis during his free time and is an avid New York Knicks fan, who regularly sits court side at Madison Square Garden. Career. Before striking it on the big screen, Leon amassed numerous small screen credits, notably in a 1989 episode of the NBC series "Midnight Caller", in which he played an athlete who falls victim to crack cocaine. He also co-starred in the 1989 ABC miniseries "The Women of Brewster Place", as the boyfriend of a suburbanite (played by Robin Givens). He became a part of popular music history when he was cast as Saint Martin de Porres in Madonna's controversial 1989 music video "Like a Prayer". Leon's early film roles included a football teammate of Tom Cruise in "All the Right Moves" (1983), as Fortune Smith, the Notre Dame-bound basketball playing co-worker of Matt Dillon, in "The Flamingo Kid" (1984), he costarred the Michael Mann produced Tri-Star Pictures cult classic "Band of The Hand "as well the memorable ""Killer Bee" "in the Dennis Hopper directed gang classic "Colors," starring Sean Penn and Robert Duvall." "After his exposure in the 1989 video for the song ""Like a Prayer"" by Madonna, Leon's roles became more substantial. In 1993, he played a leading role in the Disney hit film "Cool Runnings". That same year, he co-starred as John Lithgow's ruthless henchman out to get Sylvester Stallone in Renny Harlin's "Cliffhanger" and followed with a turn as a disillusioned ex-jock in New Line Cinema's "Above the Rim" (1994). Leon also appeared as Lela Rochon's married lover in 1995's "Waiting to Exhale" directed by Forest Whitaker and starring Whitney Houston and a starring role in the Merchant/Ivory produced movie, "Side Streets "with Rosario Dawson." "Leon produced as well as starred in the 1997 romantic drama "The Price of Kissing "with TV star Pauley Parette. He also starred in the movie "Once Upon A Time When We Were Colored", directed by Tim Reid and winner of Best Picture at the NAACP Image Awards. Leon has received critical acclaim for his portrayal of three legendary singers: David Ruffin in the 1998 NBC miniseries "The Temptations", Little Richard in the self-titled 2000 NBC movie based on the life of the rock-and-roll pioneer, and he also played JT in the 20th Century Fox movie,"The Five Heartbeats" directed by Robert Townsend. He received an Emmy nomination for his portrayal of Little Richard. During this period, Leon joined the ensemble casts of two TV series, playing the popular Jefferson Keane on HBO's first series, "Oz" and as Lawrence Hill on Showtime's "Resurrection Blvd.", a costarring role as "Stoney" best friend of Joaquin Phoenix in Miramax's military drama "Buffalo Soldiers," an uncredited role as "Joseph 13 X" in Michael Mann's award winning bio-pic, "Ali" starring Will Smith, in addition to briefly hosting his own late-night talk show, "The L-Bow Room", on BET. In 2008, Leon starred in the 20th Century Fox thriller "Cover", directed by Bill Duke, and starred alongside Danny Masterson and Dominique Swain in the indie comedy "The Brooklyn Heist", directed by Julian Mark Kheel. In 2009, AOL Black Voices voted Leon one of the Sexiest Actors of All-time. Leon stars in four upcoming 2013 and 2014 movies, the romantic comedy "I Really Hate My Ex", written and directed by Troy Beyer, and the southern drama "Soul Ties", based on the book by Tee Austin, the indie rock/drama "37 "and the romantic drama, "And Then There Was You "with Garcelle Beauvais. In theater, Leon has head lined three national tours, with sold out performances at Hollywood's Kodak Theater, NYC's Beacon Theater, Detroit's Fox Theater, the Warner Theater in DC and more in 'Friends and Lovers (2005)", "based on Eric Jerome Dickey's NY Times Best Selling Book. In 2009 and 2010 as a soldier returning from Iraq in ""3 Ways to Get A Husband" "co-starring Billy Dee Williams and in 2012, the revival of ""Why Do Good Girls Like Bad Boys."" Leon, who is also a professional singer, is the lead vocalist & songwriter of his own band, Leon and the Peoples. In 2007, he received an International Reggae and World Music Award nomination for the band's debut CD "The Road Less Traveled", winner of Best International Artist at the Joe Higgs Reggae Awards and completed a 36 city US tour with reggae greats Beres Hammond and Marcia Griffiths titled the "For The Love Of It Tour". He was a frequent surprise guest on Beres Hammond’s 2008 and 2010 North American tours. He recently head-lined NYC's Central Park's 2010 and 2013 Aids Walk Concerts. Other notable performances include: 2011 Aspen Jazz Fest, 2012 Catalpa NYC Music Festival, New Orleans Music Festival, Chicago's Festival Of Life, Reggae on River, Jamaica's Rebel Salute, and BET"s popular 106 & Park. Leon and The Peoples' new single, "Love Is A Beautiful Thing" is featured on the new BET/Centric TV show "Culture List", which premiered on July 21, 2013.
1034219	Ronald William Lacey (28 September 1935 – 15 May 1991) was an English actor. He made numerous television and film appearances over a 30 year period and is perhaps best remembered for his villainous roles in Hollywood films, most famously Gestapo agent Major Arnold Ernst Toht in "Raiders of the Lost Ark", an Asian intelligence officer tasked with finding the Ark via the medallion necklace. Career. Lacey attended Harrow Weald Grammar School. After a brief stint of national service and at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art, he began his acting career in 1961 in a TV play, "The Secret Agent". His first notable performance was at the Royal Court Theatre in 1962's "Chips with Everything". Lacey had an unusual pug look with beady eyes and cherub's cheeks, which landed him repeatedly in bizarre roles on both stage and screen. Lacey performed on British television throughout the 1960s and 1970s, with roles spanning from a part in Kenneth Clark's "Civilisation" television series, as the gravedigger, in a re-enactment of the gravedigger scene from "Hamlet", with Ian Richardson as Hamlet and Patrick Stewart as Horatio, to a guest shot as the "Strange Young Man" on The Avengers episode "The Joker," to a memorable turn as Harris in the sitcom "Porridge", with the latter finally landing him in the role for which his unusual physical characteristics could be repeatedly used to full advantage. Disappointed with his acting career by the late 1970s, he began to consider starting a talent agency. Spielberg then cast him as the Nazi villain Toht in "Raiders of the Lost Ark". He followed this with a series of various villain roles for the next five to six years: "Sahara" with Brooke Shields, and 1985's "Red Sonja" with Arnold Schwarzenegger, in addition to 1982's "Firefox" with Clint Eastwood, in which he played a scientist helping the West behind the Iron Curtain. Lacey turned in two cinematic performances in full drag: Disney's "Trenchcoat" with Margot Kidder from 1982 and "Invitation to the Wedding" from 1985 — in which he played a husband/wife couple. Lacey played a number of villainous roles and was known for his trademark smile, which would turn into a gleaming malicious leer. He also had a rather large mole on his left cheek, which he chose not to have removed — as well as having a highly distinctive voice. In 1982's "Trenchcoat", he used the mole as a beauty mark in his role as Princess Aida, a mysterious and sleazy drag queen on the island of Malta. Personal life. Lacey was born in Harrow, London. He was known for his generosity and warmth to fans, but equally known in the London theatre scene for his smoking and drinking habits. Often the actor was noted among the gossip pages. Lacey was twice married. Originally wed to actress Mela White, he became the father of two children, the actors Rebecca and Jonathan Lacey in the 1960s. After a turbulent divorce, he remarried in 1972. Joanna Baker, his second wife, gave birth to his third child, Matthew. His daughter, Rebecca, became a television success on the BBC series "Casualty". His son Matthew is the godson of Hammer Films' Barbara Shelley. He was of Welsh descent and he owned a family cottage in Pontypool, which was passed on to his three children after his death. The family would spend their holidays together at the cottage. He had his lower intestines removed in his early twenties and as a result had to have a colostomy bag fitted. Over the years he was refused certain film roles in other countries at his doctor's request. He gained and lost weight over the last 10 years of his life, as he was ill with cancer. He occasionally looked bloated and swollen as a result of medical treatment. He finally succumbed to the cancer when it spread to his liver. Death. Lacey died in London of liver failure on 15 May 1991. At the time, he was under the care of his daughter, Rebecca (from his first marriage). Ian Bartholomew sang "Sometimes When We Touch" at Lacey's memorial service which took place at St. James in Covent Garden almost three months after his death in 1991. He also left behind two sons by his second marriage, David and Matthew.
1056808	"Peter's Friends" is a 1992 British comedy-drama film written by Rita Rudner and her husband Martin Bergman, and directed and produced by Kenneth Branagh. It starred Stephen Fry, Kenneth Branagh, Emma Thompson, Hugh Laurie, Imelda Staunton, Rita Rudner, Tony Slattery, Phyllida Law, Alex Lowe, and Alphonsia Emmanuel. Plot. It is New Year's weekend and the friends of Peter (Fry) gather at his newly inherited country house. Ten years ago, they all acted together in a Cambridge University student comedy troupe. Since then they have gone in different directions and various career paths. Peter's friends are Andrew (Branagh), now a writer in Hollywood; married jingle writers Roger (Laurie) and Mary (Staunton); glamorous costume designer Sarah (Emmanuel); and eccentric Maggie (Thompson), who works in publishing. Cast in sharp relief to the university chums are Carol (Rudner), the American TV star wife of Andrew; and loutish Brian (Slattery), Sarah's very recently acquired lover. Law plays Peter's disapproving housekeeper, Vera; and Lowe, her son Paul. Richard Briers appears in a cameo role as Peter's father. Although the film is primarily a comedy, serious overtones are present from the beginning. Peter's father has died, and so Peter plans to sell the house after this last party. While Andrew and Carol's troubled marriage is played mainly for laughs, Roger and Mary are recovering from a devastating personal tragedy only slowly revealed to the audience. A lonely Maggie arrives determined to persuade Peter they should be more than just friends and Sarah's not as happy with her life as she appears. Meanwhile Peter is forced to break some heart-wrenching news to his friends. The film deals with themes of friendship, marriage, fidelity, materialism, and coping with death and loss. It has often been described as a British "The Big Chill". Casting. Most of the cast are actually old university mates or have previously collaborated in other films. Hugh Laurie, Stephen Fry, Emma Thompson and Tony Slattery attended Cambridge University and had been members of the Cambridge Footlights, a student comedy troupe similar to the one portrayed in the film, at the same time. Co-writer Martin Bergman (husband of co-writer/star Rita Rudner) also attended Cambridge and was also a member of the Footlights, albeit several years ahead of them. Prior to filming, Fry and Laurie were already a successful double act with TV series "A Bit of Fry & Laurie" and "Jeeves and Wooster". At the time the film was made, Branagh was married to Thompson, who had also dated Laurie during their university days. Phyllida Law is Thompson's mother and along with Richard Briers, Imelda Staunton and Alex Lowe appeared with Branagh and Thompson in Branagh's adaptation of "Much Ado About Nothing" the following year. More than a decade later Fry, Law and Slattery would appear together in the ITV series "Kingdom". Soundtrack. The soundtrack featured many artists from the 1980s, including Tears for Fears (whose song "Everybody Wants to Rule the World" was heard over the opening credits of the film), Eric Clapton, The Pretenders, and Bruce Springsteen. The soundtrack album did not, however, feature the cast's rendition of the Jerome Kern standard "The Way You Look Tonight", as performed in the film. Reception. Box office. "Peter's Friends" grossed over $4 million in the United States. Critical response. "Peter's Friends" was well received by most critics and currently holds a 76% "Fresh" rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Roger Ebert, film critic of the "Chicago Sun-Times", described the film as "more or less predictable", but awarded it three-and-a-half stars, stating, "The structure of "Peter's Friends" is not blazingly original - "The Big Chill" comes instantly to mind - but a movie like this succeeds in its particulars. If the dialogue is witty, if the characters are convincingly funny or sad, if there is the right bittersweet nostalgia and the sense that someone is likely to burst into "Those Were the Days," then it doesn't matter that we've seen the formula before. This is a new weekend with new friends." Conversely, online critic James Berardinelli spoke poorly of the film, giving it a mere two-and-a-half out of a possible four stars and stating, "At its best, "Peter's Friends" is warm, touching, and funny. At its worst, it's annoying and preachy. Fortunately, there are a "few" more moments in the former category than in the latter." While praising Branagh's direction and performances by the cast, Berardinelli attributed most of his discontent to the film's screenplay, concluding, "This is Branagh's worst effort to date and shows, if nothing else, that no matter how talented the director and his cast, he still needs a decent screenplay. And that, ultimately, is where "Peter's Friends" falls short." Accolades. "Peter's Friends" was nominated for a Goya Award and won two Evening Standard British Film Awards. It also ranked in eighth place on the National Board of Review's Top Ten 1992 films.
629216	Wake in Fright (also known as Outback) is a 1971 Australian-American thriller film directed by Ted Kotcheff and starring Gary Bond, Donald Pleasence and Chips Rafferty. The screenplay was written by Evan Jones, based on Kenneth Cook's 1961 novel of the same name. Made on a budget of , the film was an Australian/American co-production by NLT Productions and Group W. "Wake in Fright" tells the story of a young schoolteacher who descends into personal moral degradation after finding himself stranded in a brutal, menacing town in outback Australia. For many years, "Wake in Fright" enjoyed a reputation as Australia's great "lost film" because of its unavailability on VHS or DVD, as well as its absence from television broadcasts. In mid-2009, however, a thoroughly restored digital re-release was shown in Australian theatres to considerable acclaim. Later that same year it was issued commercially on DVD and Blu-ray Disc. "Wake in Fright" is now recognised as a seminal film of the Australian New Wave. Australian musician and screenwriter Nick Cave called "Wake in Fright" "The best and most terrifying film about Australia in existence." Plot. John Grant is a middle-class teacher from the big city. He feels disgruntled because of the onerous terms of a financial bond which he signed with the government in return for receiving a tertiary education. The bond has forced him to accept a post to the tiny school at Tiboonda, a remote township in the arid Australian Outback. It is the start of the Christmas school holidays and Grant plans on going to Sydney to visit his girlfriend but first, however, he must travel by train to the nearby mining town of Bundanyabba (known as “The Yabba”) in order to catch a Sydney-bound flight. At "The Yabba", Grant encounters several disconcerting residents including a policeman, Jock Crawford, who encourages Grant to drink repeated glasses of beer before introducing him to the local obsession with the gambling game of two-up. Hoping to win enough money to pay off his bond and escape his "slavery" as an outback teacher, Grant at first has a winning streak playing two-up but then loses all his cash. Unable now to leave "The Yabba", Grant finds himself dependent on the charity of bullying strangers while being drawn into the crude and hard-drinking lifestyle of the town's residents. Grant reluctantly goes drinking with a resident named Tim Hynes (Al Thomas) and goes to Tim's house. Here he meets Tim's daughter, Janette. While he and Janette talk, several men who have gathered at the house for a drinking session question Grant's masculinity, asking: “What's the matter with him? He'd rather talk to a woman than drink beer.” Janette then tries to initiate an awkward sexual episode with Grant, who vomits. Grant finds refuge of a sort, staying at the shack of an alcoholic medical practitioner known as "Doc" Tydon. Doc tells him that he and many others have had sex with Janette. He also gives Grant pills from his medical kit, ostensibly to cure Grant's hangover. Later, a drunk Grant participates in a barbaric kangaroo hunt with Doc and Doc's friends Dick and Joe. The hunt culminates in Grant clumsily stabbing a wounded kangaroo to death, followed by a pointless drunken brawl between Dick and Joe and the vandalizing of a bush pub. At night's end, Grant returns to Doc's shack, where Doc apparently initiates a homosexual encounter between the two. A repulsed Grant leaves the next morning and walks across the desert. He tries to hitch-hike to Sydney, but accidentally boards a truck that takes him straight back to "The Yabba". He contemplates shooting Doc, but instead attempts suicide. Grant recovers in hospital from his suicide attempt and Doc sees him off at "The Yabba's" rail station. He returns to Tiboonda for the new school year. Production. A film version of "Wake in Fright", based on the 1961 novel by Kenneth Cook, was linked with the actor Dirk Bogarde and the director Joseph Losey as early as 1963. Morris West later secured the film rights and tried, unsuccessfully, to raise funding for the film's production. The rights were eventually bought by NLT and Group W. and Canadian director Ted Kotcheff was recruited to direct the film. At the time of production, Kotcheff had directed two films, "Tiara Tahiti" (1962) and "Two Men Sharing" (1969). After "Wake in Fright", Kotcheff would continue to have a successful career as a director. His later films included "The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz" (1973), "Fun with Dick and Jane" (1977), "First Blood" (1982) and "Weekend at Bernie's" (1988). The shooting of "Wake in Fright" began in Australia in January 1970 at Broken Hill, New South Wales (the area which had inspired Cook for the setting of his novel), with interiors shot the next month at Ajax Studios in the Sydney beach-side suburb of Bondi. It was the last film to feature the veteran character actor Chips Rafferty, who died of a heart attack prior to "Wake in Fright"s release, and the first film with Jack Thompson, the future Australian cinema star, among its cast members. Coincidentally, Rafferty (real name John William Pilbean Goffage) had been born in Broken Hill, the film's stand-in for "The Yabba", in 1909. Response. The world premiere of "Wake in Fright" (as "Outback") occurred at the 1971 Cannes Film Festival, held in May. Ted Kotcheff was nominated for a Golden Palm Award. The film opened commercially in France on 22 July 1971, Great Britain on 29 October 1971, Australia during the same month and the United States on 20 February 1972. "Wake in Fright" received generally excellent reviews throughout the world and found a favourable public response in France (where it ran for five months) and in the United Kingdom. However, despite receiving such critical support at Cannes and in Australia, "Wake in Fright" suffered poor domestic box-office returns. Although there were complaints that the film's distributor, United Artists, had failed to promote the film successfully, it was also thought that the film was “perhaps too uncomfortably direct and uncompromising to draw large Australian audiences". During an early Australian screening, one man stood up, pointed at the screen and protested "That's not us!", to which Jack Thompson yelled back "Sit down, mate. It is us." The un-restored version of "Wake in Fright" received a three stars (out of four) rating from the American film reviewer Leonard Maltin in his "2006 Movie Guide", while Brian McFarlane, writing in 1999 in "The Oxford Companion to Australian Film", said that it was “almost uniquely unsettling in the history of new Australian Cinema”. Askmen.com echoed these sentiments, citing that "it's not hard to see why the dusty savagery and clown-faced surrealism of Ted Kotcheff's fourth feature was never shown on telly at the time." Following the film's restoration, "Wake in Fright" screened at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival on 15 May 2009 when it was selected as a Cannes Classic title by the head of the department, Martin Scorsese. "Wake in Fright" is one of only two films ever to screen twice in the history of the festival. Scorsese said, ""Wake in Fright" is a deeply -- and I mean deeply -- unsettling and disturbing movie. I saw it when it premiered at Cannes in 1971, and it left me speechless. Visually, dramatically, atmospherically and psychologically, it's beautifully calibrated and it gets under your skin one encounter at a time, right along with the protagonist played by Gary Bond. I'm excited that "Wake in Fright" has been preserved and restored and that it is finally getting the exposure it deserves." Roger Ebert reviewed the re-release and said "It's not dated. It is powerful, genuinely shocking and rather amazing. It comes billed as a 'horror film' and contains a great deal of horror, but all of the horror is human and brutally realistic." Don Groves of SBS gave the film four stars out of five, claiming that ""Wake in Fright" deserves to rank as an Australian classic as it packs enormous emotional force, was bravely and inventively directed, and features superb performances. " Rex Reed, an early advocate of "Wake in Fright", praised the film's restoration as "the best movie news of the year", and said it "may be the greatest Australian film ever made". Currently, the film has a rating of 100% on Rotten Tomatoes, based on 31 reviews. Controversy. In addition to the film's atmosphere of sordid realism, the kangaroo hunting scene contains graphic footage of kangaroos actually being shot. A disclaimer at the conclusion of the movie states: Producers' Note. Photography of the hunting scenes in this film took place during an actual kangaroo hunt conducted by licensed professional hunters. No kangaroos were expressly killed for this motion picture. Because the survival of the Australian kangaroo is seriously threatened these scenes were included with approval of leading animal welfare organisations in Australia and the United Kingdom. The hunt lasted several hours, and gradually wore down the filmmakers. According to cinematographer Brian West, "the hunters were getting really drunk and they started to miss, ... It was becoming this orgy of killing and we crew were getting sick of it." Kangaroos hopped about helplessly with gun wounds and trailing intestines. Producer George Willoughby reportedly fainted after seeing a kangaroo "splattered in a particularly spectacular fashion". The crew orchestrated a power failure in order to end the hunt. At the 2009 Cannes Classic screening of "Wake in Fright", 12 people walked out during the kangaroo hunt. Restoration and release on DVD and Blu-ray Disc. For many years, the only known print of "Wake in Fright", found in Dublin, was considered of insufficient quality for transfer to DVD or videotape for commercial release. In response to this situation, "Wake in Fright"s editor, Anthony Buckley, began to search in 1994 for a better-preserved copy of the film in an uncut state. Ten years later, in Pittsburgh, Buckley found the negatives of "Wake in Fright" in a shipping container labelled "For Destruction". He rescued the material, which formed the basis for the film's painstaking 2009 restoration. Another complete copy of "Wake in Fright", reputedly in good condition, exists in the collection of the Library of Congress, which has screened it in the library's Mary Pickford Theater. "Wake in Fright" was released on DVD and Blu-ray Disc formats on 4 November 2009, based on a digital restoration completed earlier that year. This restoration was shown to the general public for the first time at the Sydney Film Festival in June 2009, was subsequently given limited theatrical re-release in Australia and received wide and consistently positive coverage in the Australian media.
1062401	Thandiwe Nashita "Thandie" Newton (born 6 November 1972) is a British actress. She has appeared in a number of British and American films, including "The Pursuit of Happyness", "", "Crash", "Run Fatboy Run", "W.", "2012", "Norbit" and "For Colored Girls". Early life. Newton was born in London, England, the daughter of Nyasha, a Zimbabwean health-care worker, and Nick Newton, a British laboratory technician and artist. Her birthplace has been incorrectly reported to be Zambia in some biographies, but she has confirmed in interviews that she was born in London. The name "Thandiwe" means "beloved" in Ndebele, Zulu, Xhosa or Swazi, and "Thandie" is pronounced in English. According to Newton, her mother is a Shona princess. Regarding her childhood, Newton remarked at a TED conference: "From about the age of 5, I was aware that I didn't fit. I was the black, atheist kid in the all-white, Catholic school run by nuns. I was an anomaly." Brought up in London and Penzance, Cornwall, she studied dance at the Tring Park School for the Performing Arts and at sixteen, while recovering from a back injury, she successfully auditioned for her first film role. She then went on to study social anthropology at Downing College, Cambridge, from 1992 to 1995, where she achieved a . Career. Newton made her film debut in "Flirting" (1991). She played the role of Brad Pitt's maid Yvette in "" (1994).
1246247	People Will Talk (1951) is a romantic comedy/drama directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz and produced by Darryl F. Zanuck from a screenplay by Mankiewicz, based on the German play by Curt Goetz, which had been made into a movie in Germany ("Frauenarzt Dr. Prätorius", 1950). Released by Twentieth Century Fox, the film stars Cary Grant and Jeanne Crain, with supporting performances by Hume Cronyn, Finlay Currie, Walter Slezak, and Sidney Blackmer. The film was nominated for the Writers Guild of America screen Award for Best Written American Comedy (Joseph L. Mankiewicz). Plot. "People Will Talk" describes an episode in the life of Dr. Noah Praetorius (Grant), a physician who teaches in a medical school and founded a clinic dedicated to treating patients humanely and holistically. The plot contains two parallel story lines: a professional-misconduct challenge brought against Praetorius by his more conventional colleague Dr. Rodney Elwell (Cronyn), who dislikes Praetorius's unorthodox but effective methods; and the struggle of a distressed young woman named Deborah Higgins (Crain), who falls in love with Praetorius while dealing with an out-of-wedlock pregnancy. The film also highlights Praetorius's close friend and confidant, physics professor Lyonel Barker (Slezak), who plays bass viol in the student/faculty orchestra conducted by Praetorius. Elwell's misconduct suit. At the start of the film, Elwell has hired a detective to investigate Praetorius. A housemaid (Margaret Hamilton) who once worked for Praetorius reacts visibly when Elwell asks her about Praetorius's mysterious friend Mr. Shunderson, who rarely leaves Praetorius's side and has a deep, intuitive understanding of human and animal nature.
1064467	Raymond Herbert "Ray" Wise (born August 20, 1947) is an American actor. Some of his best-known roles include Leland Palmer in "Twin Peaks", henchman Leon C. Nash in "RoboCop", the Devil in the CW television series "Reaper" and Hal Gardner in season 5 of "24". Personal. Wise was born in Akron, Ohio, and attended Kent State University in Kent, Ohio. He is of Romanian descent on his mother's side. He grew up in a religious family, during his childhood he went to a Romanian Baptist church in Akron, OH, and later he moved to a Methodist church. Wise has two children with wife Kass McClaskey: a son, Gannon (born 1985), and a daughter, Kyna aka DJ Kyna (born 1987). Wise resides in Glendale, California. Career. Television. Wise is best known for his role as the murdered Laura Palmer's father Leland in "Twin Peaks". In the late sixties and seventies, Wise played attorney Jamie Rollins on the soap opera, "Love of Life". He played the character of Dr. Alec Holland in the 1982 film "Swamp Thing", directed by Wes Craven and based upon the comic book series of the same name. Dr. Holland is the man who becomes the titular character after his lab is destroyed and he is left for dead. The actual Swamp Thing character was played by Dick Durock. In 1985, Wise played Sol Gann, father to Natty Gann in "The Journey of Natty Gann", directed by Jeremy Paul Kagan. In 1987, Wise played Tom Gunther, Catherine Chandler's boyfriend, in the pilot episode of the TV series "Beauty and the Beast". In addition to "Twin Peaks", Wise has played several roles in science fiction. He played the harried dad in the horror film "Dead End". He made an appearance as Liko in the ' episode "Who Watches the Watchers", and later played Arturis in the ' episode "Hope and Fear". He appeared in the Season 7 episode "The Flame" of "". He was featured in three episodes of "Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job!" as Grill Vogel, the presenter of a fictitious instructional video series called "Business Hugs." In 1995, Wise was reunited with "Twin Peaks" cast mate Sherilyn Fenn in the NBC telemovie '. Wise played 1950s CBS News anchor Don Hollenbeck in the 2005 film "Good Night, and Good Luck". He also starred as the Devil on the TV series "Reaper". In recent years, Wise has appeared on a number of political-themed television series and films. He briefly appeared on "The West Wing" as California governor Gabriel "Gabe" Tillman, and played Vice President Hal Gardner on the Emmy-winning Fox series "24" in 2006. In August 2006, Wise made a guest appearance in the Fox TV series "Bones" as the primary suspect of the first episode of the second season ("The Titan on the Tracks"), and in the pilot episode of "Burn Notice". In Season 8, Episode 13 of ' (2007), Wise guest starred as the head of a company testing pesticides on little children. Wise has also guest starred in two episodes of "The Closer", as lawyer Tom Blanchard. He starred in "Charmed" as the upper level demon Ludlow, who runs a school for the Source Of All Evil in the episode "Lost and Bound." He had a small role in one episode of the sixth season of "Dawson's Creek", playing Roger Stepateck. Wise starred in the 2009 SyFy original movie "Infestation". He was a guest star in "Psych" and played the lead as Avery in a psychological thriller, "Iodine", in 2009. In 2010, in a special episode of "Psych" titled "Dual Spires", he joined his fellow "Twin Peaks" alumni Dana Ashbrook, Robyn Lively, Lenny Von Dohlen, Sheryl Lee, Catherine E. Coulson, and Sherilyn Fenn in a spoof of "Twin Peaks". Wise has appeared in several episodes of "Mad Men" as Ken Cosgrove's father-in-law Ed Baxter, the CEO of Corning. He appeared in "Chinese Wall" (Season 4, Episode 11), "At the Codfish Ball" (Season 5, Episode 7), and "Commissions and Fees" (Season 5, Episode 12). In 2010, Wise guest-starred as fictitious sports agent Bobby Fox alongside a special guest appearance from real life ex-Yankees manager Joe Torre on the TV series Castle in the Season 2 Episode "Suicide Squeeze." He also guest starred on "Dollhouse" as Howard, a higher-up in the Dollhouse organization. He stars in Kyle Rankin's post-apocalyptic horror thriller film "Nuclear Family". Wise will star in the lead of the upcoming Mike Mendez thriller film "Ov3rk!ll". Wise appeared in Season 4 of "Chuck", and the hit FX television show "Wilfred" as a popular TV personality. He was cast in the part of Robin Scherbatsky's father on "How I Met Your Mother" in December 2010 (after Eric Braeden declined to make a cameo appearance). Ray made a cameo appearance as a modeling agent in episode four of season 2 of "Workaholics".
295245	September Dawn is a 2007 Canadian film by Christopher Cain, telling a fictional love story against a controversial historical interpretation of the 1857 Mountain Meadows massacre. Plot. The fictional love story between Emily Hudson (Tamara Hope), the daughter of the wagon train's pastor, and Jonathan Samuelson (Trent Ford), the son of the local Mormon bishop, plays out against the build-up to the tragedy itself. The movie begins with the deposition of Mormon leader Brigham Young (Terence Stamp). The Fancher party is then depicted crossing Utah on its way to California. The party encounters a group of Mormon militiamen, who advise them to move on. Bishop Jacob Samuelson (Jon Voight) defuses the situation but is disturbed that the Fanchers have a woman wearing men's clothing and are delivering racehorses to California to be used in gambling. He is also upset that some are from Missouri, whose inhabitants he blames for the death of Joseph Smith and for persecuting Mormons. He instructs his sons Jonathan and Micah to keep an eye on them. A scene follows where the pastor for the Fancher party (Daniel Libman) praises God for their deliverance, while Bishop Samuelson thanks God for delivering the gentiles (non-Mormons) into their hands for divine punishment. As the Mormon leadership prepares to defend Utah from an attack by the federal government, Samuelson's son, Jonathan, develops a relationship with the daughter of the pastor, Emily. At the direction of Brigham Young, local Mormons are directed to massacre the gentiles using their allies, the Paiute Indians. By pointing to a rival Indian tribe as their mutual enemy, John D. Lee (Jon Gries), the adopted son of Brigham Young, convinces the Paiutes that it is God's will to kill the migrants. Jonathan objects to the plan, which his father has just conveyed to the local Mormons, and is imprisoned by his father. Jonathan has become disillusioned by the Mormon faith not only because of the planned massacre, but because of what he allowed to happen to his mother. In a flashback earlier in the movie Jonathan remembers that his mother was ordered away by a senior religious leader who took her as is his wife; she returned to get her children, for which she was executed in full view of Jonathan and his father. The Fancher party repels the Indian attack, and the local Mormons are forced to complete the mission themselves. The Mormon militia under the command of John D. Lee is ordered to kill anyone who is old enough to talk. John D. Lee offers to lead the Fancher party to safety; however, they lead them instead to an ambush where they are all killed. Escaping his imprisonment, Jonathan arrives too late to save them and his lover, Emily, who is killed by his father. John Lee is executed for his role in the massacre in 1877 and Brigham Young denies any knowledge or involvement. Development. Director Christopher Cain was prompted to make "September Dawn" because of his opinion that religious extremism is particularly relevant today. Cain drew on historical records of the massacre, excerpts from speeches by Brigham Young, and the signed confession of John D. Lee, who led the attack. The depiction of the massacre in the film was based on the confession of Lee and staged as he had described it. The film is controversial, representing the view that Brigham Young had a direct role in the massacre, while the LDS Church maintains that "weight of historical evidence shows that Brigham Young did not authorize the massacre". Officially, the LDS Church "is not commenting about this particular depiction" of the massacre but has published an article marking 150 years since the tragedy occurred. Screenplay writer Carole Whang Schutter said: "Creating likeable characters that take part in unimaginably atrocious acts is a chilling reminder that terrorists can be anyone who chooses to blindly follow fanatical, charismatic leaders. [...] Our fight is not against certain religions [...but] 'powers of darkness' which are prejudice, hate, ignorance, and fear perpetuated by leaders who history will surely judge by their deeds." Schutter claims that she was inspired by God to write the story. "I got this crazy idea to write a story about a pioneer woman going in a wagon train to the California gold rush, and the train gets attacked by Mormons dressed as Indians [...] The idea wouldn't leave me. I believe it was from God." She also states that she finds the coincidental date of the massacre – September 11 – to be "very odd" and "strange," but that "people can draw their own conclusions" about the date. Reception. The film has received mostly negative reviews and is considered to be controversial. It holds a 13% overall rating at the aggregate site Rotten Tomatoes as of February 6, 2008. "September Dawn" received a rare "zero stars" review from film critic Roger Ebert, who described it as "a strange, confused, unpleasant movie" unworthy of Voight's talents; the "New York Post" gave the movie an unusual 0/4. Justin Chang's review for "Variety" described it as, "not torture porn; it's massacre porn." Though he realized that the film was meant to draw parallels to the September 11 attacks, Chang remarked that the film does not "convey any insights into the psychology of extremism, aside from some choice moments in Voight's persuasively complex performance" and that it was "ultimately less interested in understanding its Mormon characters than in demonizing them"; the only praise he offered for the film went to the photography and location scouting done for the film. However, the film did receive some more positive reviews. Ken Fox of "TV Guide" gave the film 2.5/4 stars saying the film "sheds some much-needed light on a 150-year-old crime." William Arnold of the "Seattle Post-Intelligencer" praised Jon Voight's portrayal of Bishop Samuelson stating the character had "a soft brutality that is all the more terrifying for its compassionate veneer." Ted Fry of "The Seattle Times" stated, "Religious and thematic issues aside, "September Dawn" is well-crafted as a revisionist Western with a message. If the message is muddled, there's plenty of literature to clear the facts — or to make the matter even more bewildering for those seeking truth." The movie flopped financially, losing $9.9 million, and only remaining in nationwide release for two weeks. Jon Voight was nominated for a Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Supporting Actor (along with "Transformers", ' and ').
658516	Ahmet Emuukha Rodan Zappa (born May 15, 1974) is an American writer, producer, and publisher.
589110	Vijay Arora (27 December 1944 – 2 February 2007) was an actor in Hindi films and television serials, most famous for his roles in "Yaadon Ki Baaraat" and as Indrajit in the television serial "Ramayan". He is not to be confused with another "Vijay Arora," who is a cinematographer. Career. Arora won a gold medal when he graduated from the Film and Television Institute of India in 1971. He made his debut with another newcomer Reena Roy in "Zaroorat" (1972). He starred with Asha Parekh in "Rakhi Aur Hathkadi" (1972) and with the guitar-strumming Zeenat Aman in "Yaadon Ki Baaraat" (1973) (featuring the romantic song, "Chura Liya Hai"). Two powerful actresses, Jaya Bhaduri and Waheeda Rehman, played his wife and mother-in-law in "Phagun" (1973). He starred with Shabana Azmi in "Kadambari" (1975); with Tanuja in "Insaaf" (1973); with Parveen Babi in 36 Ghante (1974); and with Moushumi Chatterjee in "Natak" (1975). Filmmaker Hrishikesh Mukherjee gave him a starring role in the film "Sabse Bada Sukh" (1973). Other films include "Roti",He also played lead role in Jeevan Jyoti (1976) opposite Bindiya Goswami which was a surprise hit of the year "Sargam" (1979), "Bade Dil Wala" (1983), "Jaan Tere Naam" (1991) and "Indian Babu" (2003), where his characters were peripheral to the storyline. In the late 80s, he found success on the small screen with his role as Meghnad Indrajit in the serial "Ramayan" directed by Ramanand Sagar. He also appeared in the series Bharat Ek Khoj directed by Shyam Benegal as Prince Salim/Emperor Jahangir. In 2001, he was seen in two serials, "Lakeerein" and "Talaash", and Ketan Mehta's "Pradhan Mantri". He acted in "Jaana Na Dil Se Door" directed by Vijay Anand. Arora appeared in Gujrati cinema in films like "Raja Harish Chandra", with Madhuri Dixit. He had acted in several Hindi and Gujrati plays. He did over 110 films and over 500 broadcast television serial episodes. Other activities. Besides acting, Arora also set up his own software house which produced ad films and corporate films. His serial for children, "Ek Tara Bole", was an award winner. He was the first in India to make ads and documentary films on using ISO 9000 standards. He did events for the Gem and Jewellery Council Of India and was promoter of several imported products like acupuncture massagers and non electric industrial ventilators. He manufactured playing cards for various Indian corporations and sourced them to Warner Brothers for the movie "Superman". He enjoyed helping students develop the skill and art of acting and was heavily into yoga, health and fitness. Personal life. Arora was married to ex model and Miss India, Dilber Debara. They have a son called Farhad Vijay Arora who was a promoter for Ferrari and Maserati cars in India. Arora died on 2 February 2007 at his residence, due a stomach ailment.
1043374	The Cockleshell Heroes is a 1955 film with Trevor Howard, Anthony Newley, David Lodge and José Ferrer, who also directed. Set during the Second World War, it is a fictionalised account of Operation Frankton, the December 1942 raid by canoe-borne British commandos on shipping in Bordeaux Harbour. It was the first Warwick Film to be filmed in CinemaScope. Plot. Ferrer plays newly-promoted Major (Acting) Stringer of the Royal Marines, who comes up with a novel idea for a raid. By using collapsible canoes, he believes it is possible for commandos to reach an enemy-held harbour undetected and blow up ships with limpet mines. He is given command of a small group of volunteers.
588191	Rubina Ali (born January 21, 1999), also known as Rubina Qureshi, is an Indian child actress who played the child version of Latika in the Oscar-winning film "Slumdog Millionaire" (2008), for which she won a Screen Actors Guild Award. Following the film's success, she was cast in the Bollywood film "Kal Kisne Dekha" (2009). Career. Rubina's casting in "Slumdog Millionaire" proved controversial with the producers admitting they debated whether to use real slum children in the film fearing it would distort their lives too much. Director Danny Boyle justified the casting saying: "These people have so much prejudice against them, why should we be prejudiced against them as well?" Critics have claimed Rubina and her co-star Azharuddin Mohammed Ismail had been underpaid for their part in the film. This has been disputed by the film's producer, who says the actors had been paid the equivalent of a monthly salary payment for the production company's senior staff in Britain. A trust fund has been set up for the children which will be released to them when they turn eighteen, provided they continue in education until this time. Both Azharuddin and Rubina attended the 81st Academy Awards on 22 February 2009, along with all of the other actors who played Salim, Jamal and Latika. Azharuddin was accompanied by his mother Shameem Ismail, while Rubina was accompanied by her uncle. This was her first journey outside of Mumbai. In March 2009, Rubina was cast in the upcoming Bollywood film "Kal Kisne Dekha" (2009), alongside her "Slumdog Millionaire" co-star Azharuddin Mohammed Ismail. The film is being directed by Vivek Sharma and will feature the Bollywood stars Shah Rukh Khan, Rishi Kapoor and Juhi Chawla in cameo roles. In July 2009, Rubina's autobiography "Slumgirl Dreaming" was published, detailing her life so far and her experience filming "Slumdog Millionaire". In March 2012 in was announced that Rubina Ali will feature in "Lord Owen’s Lady", a love story about a young Welsh nobleman and an Indian woman, with filming due to start in September 2012 in Britain and India. Compensation. According to the United Kingdom newspaper, "The Daily Telegraph", Rubina Ali was paid £500 during filming for a month’s work on the film. A Fox Searchlight spokesman responded that for their one-month work on the film, she was paid three times the amount of an average annual salary for an adult living in their neighborhood. On 26 January 2009, Danny Boyle (director) and Christian Colson (producer) released a written statement saying that they had “paid painstaking and considered attention to how Azhar and Rubina’s involvement in the film could be of lasting benefit to them over and above the payment they received for their work”. Boyle and Colson have stated that they have "set up trust funds for Rubina and Azharuddin and paid for their education," although the exact amount of the trust funds is not known. This has also been met with criticism as there is question as to how children growing up in the slums have any expectation of being able to attend higher education, making the trust fund potentially useless. Boyle has explained that, "We don't want to reveal exact figures about what's in the trust fund, what's in the bank account for them for when they leave school because it will make them vulnerable and a target really but it is substantial, and they will hopefully gain benefit from the film long after the film has disappeared and long after the media who are chasing them at the moment sadly have lost interest in the film and that's been our approach throughout and I think it's the right approach." Awards and honours. Won Nominated Personal life. Like her on-screen character, Rubina came from one of the slums of Mumbai, living in the Garib Nagar slum near Bandra station. She lives with her father Rafiq, her sister Sana, her brother Abbas and her stepmother Munni. Rubina's biological mother, Khurshid (alias Khushi), after divorcing Rafiq, married Monish, a Hindu. Her father married Munni and Rubina was raised by her father and stepmother. Munni has four children from her past marriage - Suraiya, Sanjida, Babu and Irfan.
900186	Zombi 3 (also known as Zombie Flesh Eaters 2 in the UK) is the 1988 followup to "Zombi 2", itself an unofficial sequel to 1978's "Dawn of the Dead" (released in Italy as "Zombi"). Beyond its title, "Zombi 3" has little to no relation with the characters or plotlines of "Zombi", "Zombi 2" or in fact any subsequent "Zombi" films. Its only major similarity is in that it is another zombie horror film. It is even less revered film than its predecessor was, generally hailed only for being "so bad it's good". The movie has an opening theme song that greatly resembles the theme of "The Return of the Living Dead". Plot. A group of scientists are working on a serum called Death One, which reanimates the dead. When Dr. Holder (Robert Marius) and his assistant Norma experiment on a human corpse, the corpse becomes a zombie, prompting Dr. Holder to resign from the project. As he prepares to surrender the serum to waiting military officers, a pair of criminals ambushes the center; though one is killed, the other manages to abscond with Death One. During a chase, the container with the serum is shot out of his hand and breaks; as he tries to pick it back up, he accidentally touches the serum. He flees to the Sweet River Resort and settles in Room 4. General Morton (Mike Monty) promises Dr. Holder that he and his men will capture the criminal, but by the time they find him, he has cut off his own hand in a failed attempt to stop the infection, infected a bellhop, killed a maid, and succumbed to the disease. General Morton orders the patrons and staff killed and buried in a mass grave; the criminal's remains are delivered to him and his right-hand men (Bruno Mattei and Claudio Fragasso) and burned. As Dr. Holder and Norma soon predict, the ashes quickly infect the air, killing an entire flock of birds passing by. Meanwhile, a trio of GIs on vacation are on the lookout for some girls to make out with during their holiday; they find several on a nearby bus. Among the bus's passengers are Nancy (Ulli Reinthaler), Carol (Marina Loi), Lia (Deborah Bergamini), Susanna, Jane, Jane's boyfriend Tom, and the bus driver, Joe. Not too far away, Patricia (Beatrice Ring) and her boyfriend Glenn discover the dead birds and are promptly jumped as the birds reanimate, with Glenn being bitten repeatedly. The birds then assault the bus, and the GIs extricate everyone from the bus quickly, but not before Susanna gets bitten. Patricia and Glenn stop at a nearby garage but are forced to flee when a zombie wielding a machete attacks Patricia and the garage goes up in smoke. The GIs and the bus party make a stop at Sweet River Resort, with Bo (Massimo Vanni) and Carol going off to look for some help. When their car breaks down, Carol goes looking for some water but is attacked and mauled by the zombies. Bo tries and fails to save her and is forced to flee when more zombies emerge from the lake. He eventually joins up with Patricia and Glenn. On the way to Santa Monica Hospital, Glenn dies and reanimates as a zombie on the bridge. During the resulting confrontation with the living dead, Bo is killed, but Patricia escapes with her life. Meanwhile, Dr. Holder and his team start work on an antidote to counter the effects of Death One as General Morton's men start to eradicate the zombies. Back at the hotel, Jane and Tom go to the kitchen to look for some food but are ambushed and killed by a zombie head that had been resting in the freezer. Susanna reanimates and almost kills Nancy before being thrown off the balcony and killed. Kenny (Deran Sarafian) and Roger (Ottaviano Dell'acqua) encounter Patricia as she arrives to try to break the news about Bo's demise, but the living dead starts swarming the hotel. Kenny, Roger, Patricia, Nancy, and Joe kill as many zombies as they can before fleeing. After crossing the river, they're met by some of General Morton's men, who kill Joe. The other four escape as the final stage of General Morton's zombie eradication begins and Dr. Holder expresses his worries that the infection of the atmosphere may not be restricted to the island. Arriving at a nearby hospital, the four encounter a pregnant woman in labor, who Nancy tries to help deliver her newborn. Patricia engages in a final deathmatch against Glenn and beheads him, and Kenny and Roger have another run-in with General Morton's cleanup crew. Nancy is killed by the newborn, who turns out to be a zombie, and Kenny, Roger, and Patricia escape to find more zombies waiting for the kill. They make it to a helicopter, but only Kenny and Patricia make it, as Roger is attacked by the zombies while trying to join them and is subsequently killed by the cleanup crew. To Patricia's horror, the zombies have taken over; Blue Heart, the DJ who provided commentary for much of the film, even dedicates his next record to "all the undead around the world", having been infected himself. Upon hearing the broadcast, Kenny assures Patricia that they'll go back to the island to save what's left of humanity from the zombies. Production. Though Lucio Fulci is cited as director in the film's opening credits, Fulci really only directed portions of the film, bowing out after a few weeks of filming. This has been largely attributed to an illness that was aggravated by the Philippines filming location. The footage amounted to approximately 70 minutes worth and was found wanting. Bruno Mattei was asked to step in and the resultant film, with its running zombies and a more sci-fi/action-oriented story, ended up resembling Mattei's films much more closely than anything Fulci had done up until then. In a filmed interview found on the Shriek Show DVD release in 2004, Mattei estimated that Fulci's surviving contributions constitute approximately 50 minutes of the finished film, or roughly 60% of what is onscreen. Mattei also stated that he still considers it to be Fulci's film, not his. Release. "Zombi 3" was released to theatres in its native Italy on July 29, 1988. Although it has gained some notoriety over the years, it has never received an official theatrical release outside of Italy. In most countries, it was released direct-to-video. Home Media. In the United States, "Zombi 3" was released in 2002 as a special edition from Media Blasters' Shriek Show division, who released the uncut version of the film. The film used many sources including VHS footage in order to be uncut. It also features trailers and interviews. The disc was then re-released with a commentary track. Media Blasters subsequently re-released the film as part of the "Zombie Pack" in 2005 alongside "After Death" and "Killing Birds". In the United Kingdom, "Zombie Flesh Eaters 2" was issued as part of Vipco's Vault of Horror collection (cat no. VIP094). Vipco later re-issued "Zombi 3" as part of their budget 'Screamtime Collection'(VSC028) Place in the ""Zombi"" films. 1988. Fulci tried unsuccessfully to get his name removed from the credits.
582400	Ram Teri Ganga Maili (literally translated into English as "Ram, your Ganges is polluted") is a 1985 Bollywood film directed by actor-director Raj Kapoor. The movie stars Mandakini and Rajiv Kapoor, son of Raj Kapoor. It was Raj Kapoor's last film. The film became a "Blockbuster" at the box office and went on to be the highest grossing Hindi film of 1985. The music director Ravindra Jain received a Filmfare Award for this film. The storyline of the film is somewhat similar to Pakeezah. The film became very controversial because of Mandakini's bold scenes of breastfeeding and bathing in a transparent saree without undergarments. Plot. Ganga Singh live in Gangotri with her brother, Karam. One day she comes to the assistance of a young man, Narendra Sahay, who has come with a group of Calcutta-based college students to study the source of the holy river Ganga, and to get some holy water for his wheelchair-bound paternal grandma. Both are attracted to each other, and on the next Puran Mashi get married, and spend the night in close intimacy. Narendra leaves, but promises Ganga that he will be back soon. Months go by, but he does not return. She gives birth to a son, and as soon she is able to, she starts her journey to Alipor, Calcutta, to confront Narendra and ensure a better future for their son. At Rishikesh she is exploited by two women and a man, escapes and takes shelter in a crematorium. Then at Banaras, she is molested by a Pandit, rescued by the police and given a ticket to Calcutta. When she alights en route to get water for her baby, the train leaves, and she falls into the clutches of a Manilal who feigns blindness and lures her to Rajeshwaribai's brothel near Banaras, where she is forced to stay so that she can provide food and shelter for her son. It is here she is introduced to powerful politician, Bhagwat Choudhary, who pays a hefty sum and asks Manilal to bring Ganga to Calcutta where he intends to keep her as his and Jeeva Sahay's mistress. What Ganga does not know is that Bhagwat's daughter, Radha, is Narendra's bride-to-be; that Jeeva is none other than Narendra's dad, and that soon she will asked to dance at his wedding reception Cultural allusions. According to Philip Lutgendorf, the movie is an allegory that "synthesizes classical and mythic narrative, soft-core political and social commentary (here condemning the corruption of politicians and capitalists and championing the nascent environmental initiatives of Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi). The narrative recapitulates the Abhijñānaśākuntalam story that first appeared in the epic Mahabharata and then was reworked, some six hundred years later, by the poet Kalidasa." Awards. The film won five Filmfare Awards in various categories. Songs. Audio: HMV, Music and Lyrics: Ravindra Jain, except 5 and 9
1058269	Rachel Claire Ward, AM (born 12 September 1957) is an English actress, columnist, film director, and screenwriter who has primarily pursued her career in Australia. Early life. Rachel Ward was born in Cornwell near Chipping Norton, Oxfordshire, England, the daughter of Claire Leonora (née Baring) and the Hon. Peter Alistair Ward. Her grandfathers were William Ward, 3rd Earl of Dudley and the cricketer Giles Baring. Ward is also the great-granddaughter of William Ward, 2nd Earl of Dudley, Governor-General of Australia 1908–11, and sister of environmental campaigner and former actress Tracy Louise Ward, Marchioness of Worcester. She attended Hatherop Castle School, Hatherop, Gloucestershire, then the Byam Shaw School of Art in London before leaving at 16 to become a top fashion model. She briefly dated David Kennedy, son of Robert F. Kennedy. Career. In 1981 she received a Golden Globe Award nomination for "New Star of the Year" for her role in the film "Sharky's Machine" starring with Burt Reynolds. The following year she starred in "Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid" with Steve Martin. Her big break came in 1983 when she starred opposite Richard Chamberlain as the lead role portraying Meggie Cleary in the television mini-series "The Thorn Birds", for which she was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Miniseries or Television Film. Ward assigns much of the credit for this breakthrough performance to acting coach Sandra Seacat, first for simply helping her get the job (after her disastrous first reading) and then for the quality of the finished performance, assembled over the course of a grueling five-month shooting schedule, while undergoing a simultaneous and no less grueling makeover program at the hands of Seacat. Also in 1983, U.S. audiences voted Ward one of the world's 10 most beautiful women. In 1984, she played Jess in the film-noir remake "Against All Odds", with Jeff Bridges. After filming "Fortress" in 1985, Ward then disappeared from film for several years to study acting. She reappeared in 1987 playing opposite her husband, Bryan Brown (whom she met on the set of "The Thorn Birds"), in "The Umbrella Woman". In 2001, she was again nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Miniseries or Television Film for her role in "On the Beach" (2000). Also in 2001, Ward won the Australian Film Institute Award for Best Short Fiction Film for "The Big House"., and Best Australian Film at Flickerfest. The film also won the Film Critics Circle of Australia Award, as did her 2003 film "Martha's New Coat". That film also won the 2003 ATOM Award. In 2003 a portrait of Ward by artist Jan Williamson won the Packing Room Prize at the Archibald Prize competition. In 2005, Ward was made a Member of the Order of Australia "for service to raising awareness of social justice through lobbying, mentoring and advocacy for the rights of disadvantaged and at-risk young people, and support for the Australian film and television industry." In 2007, Ward returned to television, headlining the new ABC drama "Rain Shadow". She played a country veterinarian named Kate McDonald, a free spirit who confronts personal and professional obstacles in a rural, drought-affected town. In 2009, she directed her first feature-length film titled "Beautiful Kate", adapted by Ward from a 1982 Newton Thornburg novel, and premiered at the Sydney Film Festival. Personal life. Ward has been married to Bryan Brown since 1983. They have three children: Rose (Rosie), Matilda (who has followed her parents into the acting profession), and Joseph (Joe).
53889	Carmen Llywelyn (also known as Carmen Lee) is an American actress and fine art photographer. Career. Llywelyn is an actress and photographer. She starred in the 1996 film "Drawing Flies", a View Askew production directed by Matthew Gissing and Malcolm Ingram, and produced by Kevin Smith. She portrayed Kim in the 1997 film "Chasing Amy" directed by Kevin Smith; co-stars included Jason Lee, Ben Affleck, and Joey Lauren Adams. She appeared in the 2000 film "Cowboys and Angels" alongside actors Radha Mitchell and Mia Kirshner. She was the lead actress in "Free" opposite Corin Nemec, also starring Randall Batinkoff and Ione Skye. Personal life. Llywelyn married actor Jason Lee in 1995. Llywelyn had been Lee's love interest for a long time prior to their marriage. She became a member of the Church of Scientology, after marrying Lee. In March 2001, the couple lived together in Southern California. Llywelyn and Lee obtained a divorce in 2001. Lee stated of their separation, "Our breakup had nothing to do with Hollywood or my career." According to Llywelyn, her resistance to becoming more involved with Scientology was a cause of problems in their relationship. In a 2006 interview with "The New Zealand Herald", Lee had said about his former wife, "I know that Scientology gets a bad rap, but it has got me through some rough times with friends, family and even my ex-wife. Carmen used to be a pretty heavy druggie and Scientology worked wonders for her." After the two separated, Llywelyn spoke out critically about Scientology, and stated the organization had harassed her. She explained, "Scientologists followed me down the street. They took pictures of my kids. They’d stake out my house, wait until we came out and follow us." She said she disliked Scientology after researching the organization, and became what Scientology members refer to as a "Suppressive Person" or "SP". Llywelyn stated that the marriage with Lee ended abruptly due to her issues with Scientology, "He comes home and he says 'I'm divorcing you. Get out.'" In an interview on "Inside Edition", Llywelyn said that her manager and agent both left her soon afterwards. "I got a letter a week later from him saying 'I'm not in your life anymore. I'm gone, and I don't represent you and by the way, I called your agent, she doesn't represent you either.'" Llywelyn criticized Lee and Scientology in a 2010 interview with "The National Enquirer".
1191539	Nona Marvisa Gaye (born September 4, 1974) is an American singer, former fashion model, and screen actress. The daughter of soul music legend Marvin Gaye and granddaughter of jazz great Slim Gaillard, she began her career as a vocalist in the early 1990s. As an actress, she is best known for her portrayal of Zee in the science fiction films "The Matrix Reloaded" and "The Matrix Revolutions". Biography. Early life and career. Gaye is the only daughter of singer Marvin Gaye and his wife Janis Gaye. She is Marvin's second child – her brother Marvin III (sometimes referred to as Marvin Gaye, Jr.) was from Gaye's first marriage while her younger brother Frankie was born within a year after her. As a baby, Nona was brought out on stage by her father during a concert. At eight, she formally introduced her father on "Soul Train" during a tribute episode to the singer. Gaye released her first album, "Love for the Future", on Atlantic Records in 1992, a month after her 18th birthday. The album featured the top 20 hit "I'm Overjoyed" as well as "The Things That We All Do For Love". The following year, Gaye was named one of "People Magazine"'s 50 Most Beautiful People. She signed to Ford Modeling Agency in 1994, and became the new face of Armani. For three years, Gaye both collaborated with and dated singer-songwriter Prince. During this time, she recorded at least four songs with him. A duet, "1000 Hugs and Kisses" and solo track, "Snowman" are currently unreleased, but have made their way into circulation amongst fans. Another duet, "Love Sign", was released on the "1-800-NEW-FUNK" compilation album in 1994, along with another track with no Prince contribution, "A Woman's Gotta Have It". Gaye provided backing vocals on "We March" for Prince's 1995 album, "The Gold Experience", and on the title track to the "Girl 6" soundtrack, released in 1996. Gaye has candidly admitted that during this time she had a long personal battle with drug abuse, which she successfully kicked in 1996. In addition to these projects, she starred in a Prince-produced European TV special called "The Beautiful Experience", consisting of a loose storyline to promote new material from Prince (most of which would be released at some point over the next few years). Later career. Gaye appeared alongside other artists to re-record and release her father's single "What's Going On" for AIDS research in 2001. That same year, she began her acting career, debuting in Michael Mann's "Ali". In 2002, she replaced Aaliyah, who died in a plane crash shortly after the filming of the "Matrix" sequels began, for the role of Zee, the wife of Harold Perrineau's character Link. At one point, she worked with R. Kelly on two as-yet-released singles, "Work It" & "Just Because", which interpolates the Gap Band's "Oops Upside Your Head". In July 2006, Gaye was added to the cast of "" as a replacement for Courtney B. Vance as the new Assistant District Attorney. However, just as the series began production for its sixth season, she left the show, citing "creative differences". Gaye was replaced by Theresa Randle, who left after filming only two shows. In 2008, three previously recorded tracks by Gaye appeared for sale at AmieStreet.com in EP form. The EP was entitled "Language of Love" and contains the tracks "Quarter To Three" and "Midas Lover", along with the title track.
1099109	Numerical continuation is a method of computing approximate solutions of a system of parameterized nonlinear equations,
1165502	Walter Clarence "Buck" Taylor, III (born May 13, 1938) is an American actor and water color artist best known for his role as gunsmith-turned-deputy Newly O'Brien in 113 episodes during the last eight seasons of CBS's "Gunsmoke" television series (1967–1975). In recent years, he has painted the portrait of his friend and "Gunsmoke" costar James Arness. Taylor's painting specialty is the American West, and each year, he creates the posters for several Texas rodeos. Taylor lives with his second wife on a ranch near Fort Worth, Texas. Early years, education, military. Taylor was born in Hollywood, California, to Mr. and Mrs. Walter Taylor, Jr. He has an older sister, Faydean Taylor Tharp (born ca. 1931) of the Greater Los Angeles Area. His father was the character actor Dub Taylor, sometimes known as "Cannonball" Taylor and a native of Richmond, Virginia. Buck Taylor was born in the same year that his father got his first acting role in the film "You Can't Take It With You". Dub Taylor, one of cinema's most prolific supporting actors, appeared with dozens of leading actors, including John Wayne and the musicians Tex Ritter and Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys. Buck grew up on the various Hollywood sets. Buck Taylor was close to his father's Texas friend, the Western actor Chill Wills. Taylor graduated from North Hollywood High School and studied theatre arts at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. In 1960, he tried out for the Olympic Games in gymnastics. He served two years in the United States Navy. Acting career. Television and film roles. Taylor's first screen role was as Trooper Shattuck in the 1961 episode "Image of a Drawn Sword" on CBS's "Dick Powell's Zane Grey Theater". He appeared on the sitcoms "The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet" and "My Favorite Martian". He was cast twice in the 1963-1964 ABC series "The Greatest Show on Earth". He portrayed Mickey Vecchione in the 1963 episode "My Son the Social Worker" on "Going My Way". Taylor co-starred in the Walt Disney production, "Johnny Shiloh", the first of more than fifty films. He was then cast in an uncredited role in "Ensign Pulver" (1964) and in "The Wild Angels" (1966), as a motorcycle gang member. He guest starred on "Have Gun - Will Travel", "The Rebel", and three times on "Stoney Burke". He was cast on "The Fugitive", and "The Legend of Jesse James". He appeared as well on "The Virginian". He also appeared as frustrated newlywed Gard Hayden in "The Outer Limits" in the 1964 episode titled "Don't Open Till Doomsday". Newly O'Brien on "Gunsmoke". Taylor's long-term role on "Gunsmoke" was not his first role in a weekly series. In the preceding 1966–1967 season, he starred in ten episodes as John "Brad" Bradford, along with Michael Anderson, Jr., and Barbara Hershey, in ABC's "The Monroes", the story of an orphaned family trying to survive in the Wyoming wilderness. "Gunsmoke" introduced Taylor on a weekly basis to millions of viewers. Dub Taylor also guest starred numerous times on the series. Before Taylor was cast as handsome young gunsmith "Newly", he had actually appeared in an earlier segment of the series as an outlaw. As Newly, however, he was clearly one of the "good guys" in the same tradition as James Arness as Matt Dillon. The Newly character superseded that of Clayton Thaddeus "Thad" Greenwood, played by Roger Ewing (born 1942). Taylor got along so well with the "Gunsmoke" cast that he named his second and third sons, Matthew Taylor and Cooper Glenn Taylor for James Arness' (1923–2011), Marshal Matt Dillon character and for Glenn Strange (1899–1973), the character actor who played the bartender, Sam, and remained on the program until cancer claimed his life. Strange never knew of the honor, for Cooper Taylor was not born until 1975. Taylor was actively involved in the preparation of the script for the 1987 "" reunion film, by which time Milburn Stone, the cranky Doc Adams character, had died. Ken Curtis, who had portrayed the deputy Festus Haggen, felt shortchanged by the offer of far less pay than Amanda Blake and passed on the project. In 1991, Taylor co-starred with Curtis in what turned out to have been Curtis' last acting role in the film version of Louis L'Amour's "Conagher", which also starred Taylor's friend, Sam Elliott and Elliott's wife, Katharine Ross. Acting after "Gunsmoke". At the age of forty-three, Taylor was cast as the outlaw Dan Clifton, who died at thirty-one, in the 1981 film, "Cattle Annie and Little Britches", a fictional portrayal of the teenaged bandits, Cattle Annie and Little Britches, played by Amanda Plummer and Diane Lane, respectively. Taylor is called "Dynamite Dick" in the film, but Clifton's nickname was "Dynamite Dan." In 1983, Taylor appeared in the film, "The Triumphs of a Man Called Horse". In the film, "Gettysburg" (1993), he played William Gamble. In the 2003 production, "Gods and Generals", Taylor was cast as Maxcy Gregg. He appeared on CBS's "Dallas" and "Walker, Texas Ranger" starring Chuck Norris. Taylor had a memorable role too as "Turkey Creek" Jack Johnson in "Tombstone" (1993) and appeared in 1997 in "Rough Riders", both co-starring with Sam Elliott. He appeared in director John Lee Hancock's "The Alamo" (2004) and in the Wyoming-based "Flicka" (2006), a loose adaptation of the novel "My Friend Flicka". He appeared as Ben Lily in January 2008, with his friend Val Kilmer in the CBS miniseries "Comanche Moon", another in the "Lonesome Dove" line of television films. Taylor in 2008 worked in three films, "The Hard Ride", "The Last Horseman", and "Legend of Hell's Gate". While he was clean shaven in Gunsmoke, he, like other cowboy actors, later elected to sport a deep mustache. Artistic pursuits. In 1993, Taylor began selling his paintings at the National Finals Rodeo in Las Vegas. These paintings are sold through his website, private art shows and festivals, and at galleries. His private commissions can be found in the Loomis Fargo headquarters, the Franklin Mint, John Wayne Enterprises, the American Quarter Horse Association Museum in Amarillo, the National Ranching Heritage Center museum in Lubbock, and in the hands of private collectors Roy Clark, Val Kilmer, Roger Staubach, Powers Boothe, Jasey Wrenn, Sam Elliott, and James Arness. Taylor is the official artist for several rodeos, including the Pendleton Round-Up in Pendleton, Oregon, and state fairs. Taylor's art touches on all aspects of the American West: cowboys, Native Americans, horses, homesteaders, and the landscape. He has painted drovers pushing longhorn cattle along western trails, braves pursuing the buffalo, or spectacular horse races. Taylor once said that the West Texas ranch is his "church", and his art is his "worship" of the Creator. Taylor's defense of the land is reflected in the film "Truce", in which he, as the modern rancher Harry Dodds, uses grace and charm to outwit those who would take his land. Taylor's self-portrait hangs in the Texas Cowboy Hall of Fame in Fort Worth. Taylor is also an inductee of the Texas Cowboy Hall of Fame in Fort Worth and has received the "Spirit of Texas" Award. In 1993, he received the Golden Boot award which honors the "Best of the West" from the Motion Picture and Television Fund. In 1998, Taylor, Rex Allen, and Christina Paine won the "Cowboy Spirit Award". In 2000, Taylor was memorialized in "The Trail of Fame" on the streets of Dodge City, the western Kansas town where "Gunsmoke" is set. He has also received the "Spirit of the West" award, along with Jack Palance and Roy Rogers. Additionally, Taylor is recognized on the Hollywood Walk of Fame with his friends Sam Elliott and Katharine Ross. Taylor's star also appears on the streets of "Little Hollywood" in Kanab, Utah. There his star is between Ronald W. Reagan and Tom Mix. In 1981, Taylor was inducted as a trustee in the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City for his "Gunsmoke" role. In 2006, he was awarded by the same organization with the "Wrangler" (or Western Heritage Award). Taylor has a plaque on the Walk of Western Stars in Santa Clarita, California, that includes past recipients James Arness and other "Gunsmoke" alumni, Dennis Weaver and the late Amanda Blake. Personal life. In 1961, Taylor married the actress Judy Ann Nugent, who was a sister-in-law of actor Nick Adams. The couple divorced in 1983. They had three sons: Adam Carlyle Taylor (1966–1994), Matthew Taylor (born 1970), and Cooper Glenn Taylor (born 1975). Adam was an assistant director, and Matthew and Cooper are Hollywood stunt men who were reared in Montana. Taylor is the father-in-law of actress/producer Anne Lockhart (born 1953), the widow of Adam Taylor, who died three days before his 28th birthday in a highway accident in Madison County, Montana. Anne is the daughter of actress June Lockhart. Taylor has two grandsons, Carlyle and Zane Taylor, the sons of Adam and Anne. Taylor and current wife Goldie, a flight attendant, met in 1995 at a quarter horse show, where his paintings were being exhibited. They wed after a three-month courtship, after being happily married for many years they now run a ranch together along the Brazos river in Texas. Taylor supports the John Wayne Cancer Foundation, the Walt Garrison Multiple Sclerosis Foundation, the Future Farmers of America Scholarship, the Screen Actors Guild Retirement Home, the Ben Johnson Children's Hospital, and Frontier Texas!, a state-of-the-art museum for which Taylor does some of the narration. The museum opened in 2004 in Abilene, the seat of Taylor County (coincidence of the name) in West Texas.
583994	Thamizh Padam (; ) is a 2010 Indian Tamil language spoof film written and directed by debutant C. S. Amudhan. The film stars Shiva and Disha Pandey in the lead roles. The film's plot parodies contemporary commercial films in Tamil cinema, mocking the stereotypical scenes. The film was distributed by Dhayanidhi Alagiri's Cloud Nine Movies, and it was released on 29 January 2010 and won critical acclaim and commercial success at the box office. The film was later remade to Telugu as Sudigadu. Plot. The story opens in a village where male infanticide is predominant, and all male babies are required to be killed immediately after birth. One such baby is headed for such a fate, until he "speaks" to his caretaker-grandmother (Paravai Muniyamma) and asks to be sent to Chennai on a goods train, where he plans to grow into a hero. The old woman complies, and takes the baby to Chennai and raises him herself, living in the city's poorer section. On growing into manhood, Shiva (Shiva) gains a reputation by beating up extortionists and saving a rape victim; soon he is glorified as a mass hero. He manages to defeat gangster Devaraj with a clever exchange of puns and a costumed associate. He spends his time hanging out, drinking and playing carrom with his gang of friends, composed of Nakul (M. S. Bhaskar), Bharath (Venniradai Moorthy) and Siddarth (Manobala). Shiva runs into a headstrong girl named Priya (Disha Pandey) whom he falls in love with. After learning of her hatred for men, he realizes that she has dedicated her life to classical dance, and learns Bharathanatyam over the course of a night; and performs an exaggerated dance sequence for her. She reciprocates his feelings, and the two start a relationship. Shiva is then challenged by Priya's rich and powerful father Kodeeswaran, who refuses to give his daughter to a poor man. Shiva swears to become a billionaire, and promptly does- during the course of a 2.50 minute song. Kodeeswaran accepts Shiva as a suitor, and fixes his engagement to Priya. During the ceremony, Shiva hears a passing comment that he does not know his own father. Offended, he travels to his birthplace Cinemapatti village, accompanied by Bharath, to learn his roots. After encountering a host of Tamil-cinema stereotypes of several decades ago, he succeeds in uniting with his family when a woman (revealed to be Shiva's father's concubine) leads him to his father, mother and sister. He finds them when they sing their "family song" (the Michael Learns to Rock number, ""Someday, Someway""). All the while, Shiva has been targeting and killing several criminals in secret- he kills female gangster Swarna (the character from "Dhool") by making her slip over a banana peel; makes another big-time crook laugh to death (in "Anniyan" style); tortures a drug dealer to suicide by continuous failed attempts on his life (inspired by "Apoorva Sagodharargal"); and kills his final victim with the bad odour of his sock. The police discover that he is the killer, and it is revealed that Shiva is actually an undercover officer and was killing the lawbreakers under direct orders from not only the Commissioner, but also from the President of the United States. The ganglord who commandeered the slain criminals, a mysterious person simply called "D", organizes the kidnapping of Priya, and has Shiva beaten up. Shiva recovers, saves his beloved by fighting off thugs using exaggerated stunts, and comes face to face with "D", revealed to be his grandmother. She explains that she did it to increase the fame of her grandson, and a heartbroken Shiva is forced to arrest her. At the trial, Shiva accidentally kills an assassin who targets his grandmother, and is put on trial himself. He is saved, however, when a man who had helped him in Cinemapatti earlier testifies that Shiva was a victim of circumstance. Both Shiva and "D" are pardoned, and Shiva who has been promoted to DGP, unites happily with Priya, his family and friends. Reception. The film had a wide expectation based on the viral marketing campaign that the producers undertook with popular film stills being parodied as a part of the promotion strategy. This film released along with "Goa" and it was a box office success. The film garnered very best ratings on the user ratings. Soundtrack. The film's soundtrack was composed by debutant Kannan and it was received well by the critics. The soundtrack contains five songs.
581908	Lage Raho Munna Bhai, , (Carry On, Mr. Munna Bhai') is a 2006 Indian comedy film directed by Rajkumar Hirani and produced by Vidhu Vinod Chopra. It is the follow-up film to "Munna Bhai M.B.B.S." with Sanjay Dutt reprising his role as Munna Bhai, a Mumbai (Bombay) underworld don, who is the only person who can see the spirit of Mahatma Gandhi. Through his interactions with the image of Gandhi, Munna Bhai begins to practice what he refers to as "Gandhigiri" (a neologism for Gandhism) to help ordinary people solve their problems. "Lage Raho Munna Bhai" popularized the term "Gandhigiri". The film was generally well received by critics and had a number of prominent screenings. It was a box office success and was elevated to a "blockbuster" rating on "Box Office India" after grossing over worldwide. It was also the recipient of a number of awards, including four National Film Awards. "Lage Raho Munna Bhai" is the first Hindi film to be shown at the United Nations, and was also screened at the "Tous Les Cinema du Monde" section of the 2007 Cannes Film Festival. The Prime Minister of India, Manmohan Singh also praised the film. Plot. The central premise of the film rests upon the relationship between Munna Bhai (Sanjay Dutt) and the image of Mahatma Gandhi (portrayed by Dilip Prabhavalkar) who teaches him the principles of Gandhian philosophy. Munna is helped by his sidekick, Circuit (Arshad Warsi) who speaks with him in Bambaiya Hindi, a dialect specific to the Indian city of Mumbai. Munna, who is in love with the voice of Janvi (Vidya Balan), a radio jockey, devises a plan to meet her when she announces a contest featuring the life and beliefs of Mahatma Gandhi. The contest is set for 2 October which Munna and Circuit only know as "Dry Day." They later find out that it is a national holiday celebrating the birth of Gandhi or Gandhi Jayanti. In order to prepare for the contest, Circuit kidnaps and bribes a group of professors to provide the answers for Munna. After having won the contest, Munna is granted an interview with Janhavi wherein he presents himself as a professor of history and a Gandhi specialist. Janhavi subsequently asks Munna to present a lecture on Gandhi to a community of senior citizens who live in her home, called the "Second Innings House." In order to prepare for this event, Munna engages in a period of intense study at a Gandhi institute. For three days and nights (and without food or sleep), Munna reads about the life and ideologies of Gandhi. It is during this period that the image of Mahatma Gandhi (Dilip Prabhavalkar), addressed by his nickname "Bapu" ("father"), appears and offers help and advice to Munna. Gandhi encourages Munna to tell the truth about himself to Janvi, but Munna resists this advice. He conjures up Gandhi by singing "Raghupati Raghava Raja Ram." With Gandhi's help, Munna succeeds in impressing Jahnavi and cultivates a new lifestyle based upon Gandhism. Munna starts to co-host a radio-show with Janhavi and Gandhi's image, guiding his audience to use "Gandhigiri" to solve everyday problems. The film has several subplots. One of the most prominent of these details the story of Lucky Singh (Boman Irani) and his daughter Simran (Dia Mirza). Lucky is an unscrupulous businessman who employs Circuit and Munna Bhai to conduct underworld activities for him. His daughter, Simran, is engaged to marry Sunny (Abhishek Bachchan), the son of the powerful businessman Kkhurana (Kulbhushan Kharbanda). Kkhurana is superstitious and his activities are controlled by his astrologer, Batuk Maharaj (Saurabh Shukla), whose particular use of numerology led Kkhurana to add an extra "K" to his real name (Khurana) as well as to the conclusion that the "Second Innings House" would be the most auspicious place for Sunny and Simran to live. Maharaj also convinces Kkhurana to reject the marriage between Simran and Sunny when it is revealed that Simran is considered to be a "manglik" (an individual whose Vedic astrological makeup is believed by some to be devastating for marriage, mostly leading to the death of the spouse after a certain calculated period of marriage). Lucky appropriates the ""Second Innings House"" by sending Munna to Goa (keeping him out of the way) and then blackmailing him to let the matter pass or risk losing his love Janvi. In response, Munna launches a "non-violent" protest to reclaim the house. He calls this protest "Get Well Soon, Lucky" and asks his radio show's audience to send Lucky flowers (red roses especially) to help him recover from the "disease of dishonesty".
581805	Har Dil Jo Pyar Karega (English: "Every Heart That Loves") is a 2000 Bollywood film directed by Raj Kanwar. The film stars Salman Khan, Preity Zinta and Rani Mukerji with a special appearance by Shahrukh Khan. It received moderate box office status and was declared Average by Box Office India. The film is a remake of 1998 Telugu film Chandralekha and its plot is inspired 1995 Hollywood film "While You Were Sleeping", starring Sandra Bullock. Synopsis. Raj (Salman Khan) is a singer trying to make his way in the big city of Mumbai. He rescues a young woman who has fallen in front of a train and stays with her when she is rushed to a hospital. Pooja Oberoi (Rani Mukerji), the daughter of a wealthy family, survives but falls into a coma. Her family rushes to the hospital and, finding Raj there, assumes that he is Pooja's husband, Romi, with whom she had eloped and whom they had never met. Pooja cannot correct them; Raj, who can, prefers not to out of kindness. As the family gets to know the pretend Romi, Pooja's best friend, Jahnvi (Preity Zinta) starts spending a lot of time with him. He falls in love with Jahnvi, who is regarded as a second daughter by Pooja's family. Then Pooja revives from her coma and complicates matters by falling for Raj. Raj chooses Jahnvi because he really loves her and admits that he acted as Pooja's husband out of kindness. Raj marries Jahnvi and Rahul (Shahrukh Khan) comes in to marry Pooja. Critical reception. The film was generally well received by the critics, especially the performances of the three leads were appreciated. Film journal "Screen" praised the performances of Khan and Zinta and wrote, "The director deserves to be commended for his efforts to spr-ing a few surprises in the film and extract better performances from the lead players."
1039587	Dame Harriet Mary Walter, DBE (born 24 September 1950) is an English actress. Personal life. She is the niece of renowned British actor Sir Christopher Lee, as the daughter of his elder sister Xandra Lee. On her father's side she is a great-great-great-granddaughter of John Walter, founder of The Times. She was educated at the Cranbourne Chase School. After turning down a university education, she was in turn rejected by five different drama schools before getting into the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art. Following her training, she gained early experience with the Joint Stock Theatre Company, Paines Plough touring, and the Duke's Playhouse, Lancaster. Her partner, until his death in 2004, was actor Peter Blythe. On 21 May 2011 she married Guy Schuessler, an American actor (stage name Guy Paul). Career. She has worked many times throughout her career with the Royal Shakespeare Company, in productions including "Nicholas Nickleby" (1980), "A Midsummer Night's Dream" (1981), "All's Well That Ends Well" (1981), "The Castle" (1985), "Three Sisters" (1988), "The Duchess of Malfi" (1989), "Macbeth" (1999), and "Much Ado about Nothing" (2002). She was made an associate artist of the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1987. Other theatre work includes "Three Birds Alighting on a Field" (1991), "Arcadia" (1993), "Hedda Gabler" (1996), "Ivanov" (1997), and "Mary Stuart" (2005).
1060616	Paul Anthony Sorvino (born April 13, 1939) is an American actor. He often portrays authority figures on both sides of the law, and is possibly best known for his roles as Paulie Cicero, a portrayal of Paul Vario in the 1990 gangster film "Goodfellas" and Sgt. Phil Cerreta on the police procedural and legal drama television series "Law & Order". He is the father of actress Mira Sorvino. Early life. Sorvino was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York City, the son of Italian American parents Marietta, a homemaker and piano teacher, and Ford Sorvino, a robe factory foreman. He attended Lafayette High School, where he was classmates with painter Peter Max, and the American Musical and Dramatic Academy. Career. He began his career as a copywriter in an advertising agency, where he worked with John Margeotes, founder of Margeotes, Fertitta, and Weiss. He took 18 years of voice lessons. While attending The American Musical and Dramatic Academy, he decided to go into the theatre. He made his Broadway debut in the 1964 musical "Bajour", and six years later he appeared in his first film, "Where's Poppa?" He received an avalanche of critical praise for his performance as Phil Romano in Jason Miller's 1972 Broadway play "That Championship Season", a role he repeated in the 1982 "TCS" film version. In a 1974 ABC Movie of the Week, he played Harry Walters, a stout real estate salesman, who is randomly picked up by a beautiful woman (JoAnna Cameron) and raped at gunpoint as a prank, and left to explain to his friend (Adam Arkin) and wife (Michael Learned) how "It Couldn't Happen to a Nicer Guy", a movie considered risqué, even for the '70s. He also appeared in the 1976 Elliott Gould/Diane Keaton vehicle "I Will, I Will...For Now". He has starred in the weekly series "We'll Get By" (1975, as George Platt), "Bert D'Angelo/Superstar" (1976, in the title role) and "The Oldest Rookie" (1987, as Detective Ike Porter). He also directed "Wheelbarrow Closers", a 1976 Broadway play by Louis La Russo II, which starred Danny Aiello. In 1981, Sorvino played the role of Italian-American communist Louis C. Fraina in Warren Beatty's epic film "Reds." He appeared in Larry Cohen's 1985 science fiction horror film "The Stuff" as a reclusive militia leader, alongside his future "Law & Order" co-star Michael Moriarty. He helped found the American Stage Company, a group that launched several successful Off-Broadway shows, while living in Tenafly, New Jersey in 1986. In 1991, he took on the role of Sergeant Phil Cerreta (replacing actor George Dzundza in a new role) on the popular series "Law & Order". Sorvino was initially excited about the role, but would leave after twenty-nine episodes, citing the exhausting schedule demanded by the filming of the show, a need to broaden his horizons, and the desire to preserve his vocal cords for singing opera. To give Sorvino the out, Sergeant Cerreta was written out by having been shot in the line of duty and being transferred out of the precinct. In 1993 Sorvino subbed for the late Raymond Burr in a Perry Mason TV movie. He has also appeared as Bruce Willis' father in the weekly series "Moonlighting", and the "Lamont" counterpart in the never-aired original pilot for "Sanford and Son". Some of his most notable film roles were caporegime Paul Cicero in Martin Scorsese's "Goodfellas" (1990) and Henry Kissinger in Oliver Stone's "Nixon" (1995). In addition to "Goodfellas", Sorvino also played mob bosses Eddie Valentine in "The Rocketeer" and Tony Morolto in "The Firm". He founded the Paul Sorvino Asthma Foundation, with the goal of building asthma centers for children and adults across the United States. In 1998 he narrated the series "The Big House" for The History Channel. In 1999 he directed and again starred in (albeit playing a different role) a lower-budget TV version of "That Championship Season", which was written by his friend Jason Miller.
587596	Kalisundham Raa is a 2000 Telugu language film, starring Venkatesh and Simran in the lead roles. It is directed by Uday Shankar. and produced by D. Suresh Babu. The movie was the biggest hit in Tollywood in 70 years at the time of its release and successful running.It was remade in Hindi as "Kuch Tum Kaho Kuch Hum Kahein" with Fardeen Khan and introducing Richa Pallod in 2002. Plot. Raghaviah (K Vishwanath) and Ram Mohan (Ranganath) are brothers-in-law. The two are at loggerheads because of a family feud. Raghavaiah is nearing his 60s and its time for his 'shastipoorti' ceremony. Upon incessant requests from his wife, Raghavaiah decides to invite (for the first time) his daughter-in-law and grandsons who are staying in Bombay. Raghu (Venkatesh) is the alienated, handsome grandson of Raghavaiah. After arriving at Ramapuram from Bombay, he faces embarrassment from the members of Raghavaiah's family. There he meets a childlike beauty Manga (Simran). Manga and Raghu play a few pranks on each other and slowly they fall in love. But they never admit their love to each other. With his unconditional love, Raghu wins the confidence and hearts of the family members. Later on, Raghu learns the real reason behind the feud between the families. Raghu's father was supposed to marry Ram Mohan's daughter. Raghu's father prefers his college flame over his cousin. He leaves for Mumbai and gets married to his sweetheart. A disappointed daughter of Ram Mohan opts for suicide. Ram Mohan blames it on Raghavaiah and starts treating him indifferently. Erra Babu (Srihari), Ram Mohan's fiery son, is another victim in the incident. He developed prejudice against Raghavaiah and aims for his blood. After a few days of timely strategic manipulation, Raghu succeeds in bringing the two troubled families together. Then, they decide to marry Manga into Ram Mohan's family to tighten their bonds. Raghu sacrifices his love to ensure that everybody is happy. As the preparations are going on for Manga's wedding, they find Manga missing. If the two families discover Manga's and Raghu's love forms the rest of the story. Soundtrack. The soundtrack features six songs composed by S. A. Rajkumar.
1038351	Jack Arthur Davenport (born 1 March 1973) is an English actor, best known for his roles in the television series "This Life" and "Coupling", and as James Norrington in the "Pirates of the Caribbean" series. He has also appeared in many other Hollywood films such as "The Talented Mr. Ripley". More recently, Davenport was part of the ensemble cast of characters in the drama series "FlashForward" and "Smash". Personal life. Davenport, the son of actors Nigel Davenport and Maria Aitken, was born in Merton, London and lived in Ibiza for the first seven years of his life. His uncle is writer and disgraced former Conservative Member of Parliament Jonathan Aitken, his maternal grandfather was politician William Aitken and his maternal great-grandfather was the first Baron Rugby. His parents divorced when he was seven, at which point he was sent to the independent Dragon School, a co-educational boarding school in Oxford, as his parents did not want him to become involved in the divorce proceedings. He then went on to attend the independent school Cheltenham College, followed by the British American Drama Academy. He is married to the actress Michelle Gomez who gave birth to their son, Harry, in early 2010. Career. Davenport had not planned to become an actor; however, his career began when he took a gap year after attending Cheltenham College. A director from Clwyd Theatr Cymru (Welsh National Theatre) was impressed by his performance in a summer drama course and asked Davenport to work for him. At 18 years of age he ended up in Wales, performing bit parts in Hamlet, where he became friends with Rhys Ifans ("Notting Hill (film)"). The following year, he attended the University of East Anglia (UEA), concentrating in Film Studies and English Literature. He tried out acting once more at the UEA but was not, at this point, seriously interested in it. In fact, Davenport had considered becoming a member of a film crew, as opposed to acting in front of the camera. His mother advised him, after his graduation from UEA, to write to John Cleese requesting work on the set of his upcoming film, "Fierce Creatures", so that Davenport could gain some real experience behind the camera. Cleese instead sent Davenport's letter to the casting department, and he was cast as a student zookeeper. Whilst a small part with very few lines it provided his first opportunity to work in front of the camera. After the production of "Fierce Creatures" was completed, Davenport found an agent who secured him an audition for the role of Miles Stewart in the BBC television drama series "This Life". Since then Davenport has played roles in many successful films and TV series, including "The Talented Mr. Ripley", "Coupling", and "Ultraviolet", as well as the box office smash ', and its sequels, ' and "". During his career Davenport has also performed voice-overs, having narrated the audio versions of John Buchan's "The Thirty-Nine Steps" and recorded parts in Anthony Burgess' "A Clockwork Orange". He also provides the voice over for the British MasterCard advertisements (the American being done by Billy Crudup). In 2006, he featured in the ITV1 drama "The Incredible Journey of Mary Bryant" and in 2009 starred in the film "The Boat That Rocked". In 2007 Davenport was cast in "Swingtown" (2008), a period and relationship drama for CBS about the impact of sexual and social liberation in 1970s American suburban households, with story arcs involving open marriages and key parties. This was cancelled after its only season. In 2008, Davenport was cast in the new ABC pilot "FlashForward" (2009–10), which was based on a Robert J. Sawyer novel. In the series, Davenport played the character of Lloyd Simcoe, a physicist allegedly responsible for a worldwide blackout, which causes the whole world to see the future. That series was also cancelled after a single season. In February 2011, Davenport was cast in the NBC musical drama pilot "Smash". In May 2011, it was reported that NBC has picked up the show as a series for the autumn 2011 TV season. The series follows a group of people coming together to put on a Marilyn Monroe musical on Broadway. Davenport plays the musical's director. Davenport also starred as the replacement singer in the video for Snow Patrol's new single Called Out in the Dark, released on YouTube on 17 August 2011, alongside Tara Summers and Gary Lightbody. Filmography. Teachers
587377	Police Police is a 2010 Telugu buddy cop film directed by Manmohan and produced by Chandu. The film stars Srikanth, Prithviraj Sukumaran, Kamalinee Mukherjee and Sanjana in the lead roles. The film has been dubbed in Tamil as "Kutrappirivu". The story revolves around two police officers with different ideologies. Prithviraj appears as an antagonist in the film. This is the second time he appeared as a villain against Srikanth after Kana Kandaen. The film was shot back in 2003, but due to financial constrainst the release got delayed. The film was released on April 9, 2010. Synopsis. Srikanth (S.P Ravinder) appears as the protagonist while Prithviraj Sukumaran (D.S.P) appears as the antagonist. Srikanth is a sincere cop who tries to remove the wrong doers, whereas Prithviraj is a corrupt police officer who has tie-ups with anti-social people. Srikanth finds Prithviraj to be the culprit but is unable to prove that. In the event he also loses his wife Harika (Kamalinee Mukherjee). How he manages to prove the corrupt police officer as the culprit forms the rest of the story.
1055608	You Kill Me is 2007 crime comedy film directed by John Dahl, and starring Ben Kingsley, Luke Wilson, Téa Leoni, Philip Baker Hall, Dennis Farina, and Bill Pullman. Plot. Frank Falenczyk (Ben Kingsley) is a hit man for his Polish mob family in Buffalo, New York. He has a drinking problem, and when he messes up a critical assignment that puts the family business in peril, his uncle Roman Krzeminski (Philip Baker Hall), head of the family, sends him to San Francisco to clean up his act. He is forced to accept a job at a mortuary, and go to Alcoholics Anonymous meetings, where he confesses his job, explaining that he wants to be free of his drinking problem because it's affecting his ability to kill effectively. He falls in love with Laurel Pearson (Téa Leoni), a quirky client he meets at the funeral home. Meanwhile, an upstart Irish mob threatens the family snow-plowing business. When violence erupts, Frank returns home to face the old rivals on new terms. With assistance from Laurel, he manages to suppress his family's adversaries, killing the mob's leader and disbanding the Irish posse. Reception. The film was well received by critics, and maintains a 78% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
793593	Twin Town is a 1997 British crime film filmed and set in Swansea, Wales. It was directed by Kevin Allen and had a working title of "Hot Dog"; a hot dog van features in a number of scenes in the film. It stars real-life brothers Rhys Ifans (in his first major movie role) and Llŷr Ifans and also features Dougray Scott. The director appears on screen, briefly seen as a show host on a TV set in the static caravan home of the twins. The co-writer, Paul Durden, also briefly appears as a rude taxi driver. Plot. Set in Port Talbot & Swansea, the Lewis "twins" of the title are not twins but brothers. They live with their parents and sister Adie in a caravan on a mobile home site. Constantly mocking their sister's employment at a local massage parlour, they spend most of their time joking around, taking drugs and stealing cars.
586607	Vipin Sharma is an Indian actor born in New Delhi. He is a graduate of National School of Drama, New Delhi, India and the Canadian Film Centre, Toronto, Canada. Sharma started his career by assisting Ketan Mehta and acting in a few television series. He travelled to Toronto and worked as an editor and writer at the Canadian Film Centre. His first major role was as Nandakishore Avasti in "Taare Zameen Par (Like Stars on Earth)". For his role in the film, he was nominated for a 2009 Star Screen Award for Best Supporting Actor. "I am mostly working with filmmakers in Bollywood who are trying to make a difference and that is where I am finding my like-mindedness," he says.
939567	Richard John "Dick" Cusack (August 29, 1925 – June 2, 2003) was an American film actor and filmmaker. Personal life. Cusack was born in New York City, the son of Margaret (née McFeeley) and Dennis Joseph Cusack. His family was of Irish Catholic background. He served with the U.S. Army in the Philippines in World War II. After the war Cusack attended College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts, where he played basketball with Bob Cousy and roomed with Philip F. Berrigan, the peace activist. Cusack and his wife, Ann Paula "Nancy" (Carolan), had five children: Ann Cusack, Bill Cusack, Susie Cusack, Joan Cusack, and John Cusack, all of whom followed him into the acting profession. Career. Until 1970 Cusack worked as a Clio Award winning advertising executive.
1061564	Paul Muni (born Frederich Meshilem Meier Weisenfreund; 22 September 1895 â 25 August 1967) was an Austrian-born American stage and film actor who grew up in Chicago. He started his acting career in the Yiddish theatre. During the 1930s, he was considered one of the most prestigious actors at Warner Brothers studios, and was given the rare privilege of choosing which parts he wanted.
1060704	Diane Kruger (born Diane Heidkrüger; 15 July 1976) is a German actress and former fashion model. She is known for roles such as Helen in "Troy", Dr. Abigail Chase in "National Treasure" and , Bridget von Hammersmark in "Inglourious Basterds", Anna in "Mr. Nobody", and Gina in "Unknown". Early life. She was born as Diane Heidkrüger in Algermissen, West Germany, near Hildesheim, the daughter of computer specialist Hans-Heinrich Heidkrüger, and his wife, Maria-Theresa, a bank employee. She was raised Roman Catholic and attended Catholic school. She has stated that one of her grandmothers was Polish.
581204	Ennai Thalatta Varuvala (; ) is 2003 Tamil film directed by K. S. Ravindran and produced by P. M. Vedimuthu, who also wrote the story. The film features Vignesh and Reshma in the lead roles, with Ajith Kumar in cameo appearance. The film began production works in 1996 as Vennila and the project was delayed due to financial problems with the film finally released in March 2003. Plot. It centres around Vennila's connections with the three men in her life. Sathees (Ajith) who wins a college competition and becomes the object of the arrogant Vennila's ire. In a fit of pique, Vennila feigns love to him, gets him to marry her, and then ditches him on the wedding night. The whole affair leaving the innocent soft-hearted youth in a state of shock, and later hospitalised and in deep coma. Santosh, the new entrant to college, who chooses Vennila for his games of one-upmanship, leaving her puzzled as to his motive. And Amar, her fiance from abroad, who she later realises is a psychopath. An interesting scenario which had the potential to turn into a good, suspense thriller. The film is good in parts, but has the odds heavily stacked against it. The script goes for a nose-dive after Vennila finds she is pregnant, and is shocked, since she's not had physical relationship with any of the guys. And then she realises that it was the past catching up with her, and it was a planned vendetta by Satish's dear ones. Production. The film was earlier titled as "Vennila", after the name of the character portrayed by Reshma. The film began production works in 1996 and the project was duly delayed due to financial problems with the film finally releasing in March 2003. Release. Upon release, the film gained primarily negative reviews with critics citing that the "ridiculousness and extreme nature instead makes it a farce",and fail at the Box-office
400620	Kirk Fox (born August 26, 1969) is an American actor, screenwriter, and stand-up comedian. Career. In 2005 he co-wrote and co-starred in the comedy "Tennis Anyone?" with Donal Logue. On August 11, 2006 Kirk made his television standup debut on Comedy Central's "Live at Gotham" and in 2007 received the Jury Prize for best standup at the "HBO Comedy Festival" in Aspen, Colorado. In March 2008 he was featured in his own 1/2 hour special on "Comedy Central": "Comedy Central Presents: Kirk Fox", and in December 2008 made his first appearance on "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno". On May 18, 2009 he made his second appearance on "The Tonight Show." Kirk plays Sewage Joe on "Parks and Recreation" and was a regular on Nickelodeon's "How to Rock" as Mr. March. Other credits include Community and TBS' "Who Gets the Last Laugh?" Kirk is currently the host of new daytime talk show "THE TEST" which premiered on September 9th. Personal life. Fox was born in San Diego, California in 1969. He was briefly married to actress Alison Eastwood, the daughter of famous actor Clint Eastwood, for 10.5 months. They divorced in January of 2000. He currently resides in Hollywood.
1068307	The Tango Lesson () is a 1997 drama film by British director Sally Potter. It is a semi-autobiographical film starring Potter and Pablo Verón, about Argentinian Tango. The film, a co-production of Argentina, France, Germany, Netherlands and the United Kingdom, was produced by Christopher Sheppard in Britain, and Oscar Kramer in Argentina and was shot mostly in black and white in Paris and Buenos Aires. The soundtrack includes original recordings of Carlos Gardel's, "Mi Buenos Aires querido", and Ástor Piazzolla's "Libertango", two of the most iconic tangos in the history of the genre. It also includes a song written and sung by Potter. Plot. The film tells of Sally, a filmmaker and screenwriter suffering from writer's block. She is dissatisfied with her film project, a murder mystery called "Rage", which features the fashion industry. Taking a break, she travels to Paris, where she sees the dancer Pablo (Pablo Verón) performing tango. She becomes obsessed with the dance and offers Pablo a part in her film in exchange for dance lessons. The two become deeply involved as dancers and as lovers. Their emotional intimacy threatens the success of their dancing together. The film explores the conflict between the woman dancer accepting the man's lead in the dance, while the man must accept the woman's lead in the film. It is a love story and a showcase for Verón's dancing. Distribution. The film was first presented at the Venice Film Festival in Italy on 29 August 1997. One week later it was screened at the Toronto Film Festival in Canada on 8 September 1997. The picture screened at various film festivals, including: the Mar del Plata Film Festival, Argentina; the Reykjavik Film Festival, Iceland; the Istanbul Film Festival, Turkey; and others. Critical reception. "New York Times" film critic, Janet Maslin, thought the film was rather simple, and wrote, "Stiffly playing a filmmaker with a growing passion for the tango, Potter makes this a handsome, dryly meticulous film with no real fire anywhere beyond its supple dance scenes. The lessons are numbered and cataloged with an obsessive care like that of Peter Greenaway, but this material has little of his corresponding complexity." "Chicago Sun-Times" film critic Roger Ebert discussed in his review the film's major goal, writing, "Most dances are for people who are falling in love. The tango is a dance for those who have survived it, and are still a little angry about having their hearts so mishandled. "The Tango Lesson" is a movie for people who understand that difference." Edward Guthmann, "San Francisco Chronicle" staff critic, lauded the film and the courage of director Potter, and wrote, "British director Sally Potter stuck her neck out when she made "The Tango Lesson," a fictionalized account of her relationship with Argentine tango master Pablo Veron...Potter takes what seemed like a recipe for embarrassment and excess and delivers a film that's sweet and understated and devoid of diva posturing...film is smoothly directed, nicely written and falters only in the performance that Potter was able to squeeze out of herself while performing her multiple tasks."Yet, Guthmann says Potter should have cast another actor in her role. He adds, "It's too bad, then, that Potter couldn't have figured out a way to use another actress to play herself. She often looks worn out, which makes sense given her offscreen responsibilities but works against her tale of courtship, infatuation and the emotional sparks that fly between two gifted, bullheaded artists."
1033319	Let Him Have It is a 1991 British film, which was based on the true story of the case against Derek Bentley, who was hanged for murder under controversial circumstances on 28 January 1953. While Bentley did not directly play a role in the murder of PC Sidney Miles, he received the greater punishment than the gunman (who was 16). It stars Christopher Eccleston as Bentley, with Paul Reynolds, Tom Courtenay and Tom Bell, directed by Peter Medak. Synopsis. The film is based on the true story of Derek Bentley. Within the film, Bentley (Eccleston) is an illiterate young adult with developmental disabilities who falls into a gang led by a younger teenager named Chris Craig (Reynolds). The two become trapped by the police, who tell Chris to put down his gun. Bentley ambiguously says, "Let him have it, Chris,". Chris begins firing, killing one officer and wounding another. Because he is a minor, Chris is given a minor sentence, but Bentley, although he did not shoot anyone, is sentenced to death, on the basis that his statement to Chris was an instigation to begin shooting. Bentley's family begin an effort for clemency that reaches Parliament, which Bentley finds out about when a jailer reads the stories to him from a newspaper. Despite his family's efforts and some public support, Bentley is executed within a month of being convicted, before Parliament takes any official action. Production. Paul Bergman and Michael Asimow call attention to the cross examination scene, where "the camera closes in on [Bentley's] bruised face as the prosecutor and judge bombard him with questions he can barely comprehend." The film's end titles state that Bentley's sister, Iris, was still fighting for his pardon. The BBC reports that seven years after the film was made and after numerous unsuccessful campaigns to get Derek Bentley a full pardon, his conviction was quashed by the Court of Appeal on 30 July 1998, one year after Iris' death. Reception. The film has received a 92% "Fresh" review from the review aggregation site Rotten Tomatoes. Tom Weiner said that the film displayed the Neal Purvis and Robert Wade's "outrage toward a system hell-bent on vengeance" and John Ivan Simon called the script "first rate, no nonsense".
400597	Toby Edward Huss (born December 9, 1966) is an American actor, best known for portraying Artie, the "Strongest Man in the World", in the Nickelodeon T.V. series "The Adventures of Pete & Pete", as well as his voice-over work on the long-running animated series "King of the Hill", and for his role as Felix 'Stumpy' Dreifuss on HBO's "Carnivàle". Early life and education. Huss was born in Marshalltown, Iowa on December 9, 1966. He attended the University of Iowa where he participated in No Shame Theatre before moving to Los Angeles to pursue an acting career. Career. Huss has appeared in over 35 movies and television series. In the early 1990s he appeared in network promos for MTV, playing odd characters, including a crooner known at the time as Ol' Two Eyes (the predecessor to Rudy Casoni) who sang lounge-singer versions of Dr. Dre's "Dre Day", Cypress Hill's "Insane in the Brain", Pearl Jam's "Jeremy", and Onyx's hit "Slam"; a James Bond-like spy named Cobalt; a leather fetishist with an abnormal affection for goats; a flannel-wearing doofus; and an angry redneck named Reverend Tex Stoveheadbottom, who delivered fast-talking and descriptively detailed non-sequitur tirades that usually included the phrase, "Go to Hell!" Other roles include the voices of Cotton Hill and Kahn Souphanousinphone on "King of the Hill" and a boyfriend of Elaine Benes in the episode "The Junk Mail" of "Seinfeld". From his parodies of Frank Sinatra, which were featured in the films "Vegas Vacation" and "Down Periscope", Huss has created a Sinatra-inspired character named Rudy Casoni.
583876	Kaadhal () is a 2004 Tamil romantic drama film based on a true story, directed by Balaji Sakthivel, starring Bharath and Sandhya in her feature film debut. It was produced by S. Shankar and featured music composed by Joshua Sridhar. The film opened to critical acclaim and was a high commercial success. Upon release, the film was dubbed into Telugu as "Premisthe". It was also remade in Kannada as "Cheluvina Chittara" in 2007 and Bengali as "Chirodini Tumi Je Amar" in 2008. Plot. Murugan (Bharath) is a diligent scooter mechanic in Madurai and life goes on smoothly for the young man till a rich student Aishwarya (Sandhya) sets eyes on him. The infatuation reaches a dangerous level when she coaxes Murugan to take her from the constraint of her family, who have other plans about her future. The naïve Murugan hesitantly yields to her charm and the two run away to Chennai. Murugan's friend Stephen (Sukumar) helps them in their hour of crisis and the lovers unite in marriage. But Sandhya's family dotes on her and is not going to give up so easily. The family tracks down the couple and eventually separates them. Aishwarya agrees to marry another man to save Murugan's life after he is being beaten by her father. While she believes this decision is best and moves on with her life, she one day (while on the road with her husband and daughter) runs into Murugan who has suffered permanent brain damage. Knowing that she made a mistake and not knowing how to undo the sins of her father, the movie ends with Aishwarya and her husband deciding to take care of Murugan. Box office. Produced on a budget of $100,000, the film was a surprise blockbuster grossing almost $1 million at the box office. Soundtrack. The film has eight songs composed by Joshua Sridhar. Lyrics were penned by Na. Muthukumar.
1044106	Carry On Nurse is the second in the series of "Carry On" films with 31 entries. It was released in 1959. Of the regular team, it featured Joan Sims (in her "Carry On" film debut), Kenneth Williams, Kenneth Connor and Charles Hawtrey, with Hattie Jacques and Leslie Phillips. The film was written by Norman Hudis based on the play "Ring for Catty" by Patrick Cargill and Jack Beale. It was the top grossing film of 1959 in the UK and, with an audience of 10.4 million, had the highest cinema viewing of any of the "Carry On" films. Perhaps surprisingly, it was also highly successful in the US, where it was reported that it played at some cinemas for three years. Plot. The journalist Ted York (Terence Longdon) is rushed to Haven Hospital with appendicitis. The ambulance gets there at top speed, but only because the driver wants to know the result of a horse race. Ted is given a bed and is instantly smitten with Nurse Denton (Shirley Eaton). The other nurses are incessantly having to respond to the calls of the Colonel (Wilfrid Hyde White), who has a private room. He is an inveterate gambler and is having his bets placed by Mick (Harry Locke), the orderly. That evening, the boxer Bernie Bishop (Kenneth Connor) is admitted after hurting his hand at the end of a bout. The next day, the Sister (Joan Hickson) galvanises the nurses, orderly and patients for the inspection by Matron (Hattie Jacques). As usual, she is let down by Nurse Dawson (Joan Sims), a clumsy probationer. Matron checks on the progress of the patients, and speaks to Mr Hinton (Charles Hawtrey), who is forever listening to the radio with his headphones. Mick and the Colonel bet on how long the Matron will take on her rounds. Ted is visited by his editor and agrees to write a series of articles on his hospital experiences. He realises that Nurse Denton is in love with a doctor, but that her interest is not returned. Bernie is told that he will not be able to box for several months at least. Nurse Dawson is sent to ring the bell to signal the end of visiting hours, but she calls for the fire brigade by mistake. The bookish intellectual Oliver Reckitt (Kenneth Williams) is visited by Jill (Jill Ireland), the sister of his friend Harry. They clearly like each other, but are too shy to admit it. Bernie urges Oliver to admit how he really feels about her. Bernie's manager Ginger (Michael Medwin) comes to visit him and tells him that he must try to be more of a showman and not simply go for broke with every match. Nurse Dawson comes in early to sterilise some rubber catheters, but is interrupted by the demanding Colonel. The catheters are put in a kidney dish to boil on the stove. Oliver is furious when the ward has to be cleared and tidied up for Matron's rounds as it upsets his schedule for no obvious purpose. When she arrives everyone begins to smell the forgotten catheters, which by now are burning on the stove. When Matron stops to speak to Oliver, he complains about the disruptive effects that her visits have on the patients. Matron is furious and has the Sister make all the beds again. Jack Bell (Leslie Phillips) arrives to have a bunion removed and is placed on the ward. Jill comes to see Oliver and they admit that they care for each other. She gives him a bar of nougat as a gift, but later that evening it makes him sick. Mr Able complains that he can't sleep as he has been missing his wife. He is put on medication, but it makes him wildly excited and he runs amok in the hospital. Eventually Bernie subdues him with a left hook to the jaw. Bell's operation is delayed, which upsets him greatly as he is planning a romantic weekend. He offers the men in the ward the champagne he was going to drink with his girlfriend. They all get drunk and decide to remove the bunion themselves. The night nurse is tied up and Hinton pretends to be her while the others go to the operating theatre. Jack starts to panic as Oliver prepares to operate, but soon they are all giggling as the laughing gas has been left on. The nurse arrives before any real damage is done. The colonel plays a trick on Nurse Dawson and pins a piece of paper with a large red 'L' on her back. Ted learns that Nurse Denton is applying for a job in America and tries to dissuade her. Jack catches a cold and is told that his operation will have to postponed yet again. Oliver is discharged and leaves with Jill. Bernie is met by his young son and they leave together. Ted is also discharged and makes a date with Nurse Denton. Nurse Dawson and Nurse Axwell decide to get even with the Colonel and replace a rectal thermometer with a daffodil. Filming and locations. Interiors: Reception. The film was the most popular movie at the British box office in 1959.
589934	Teen Kanya is a 1961 Indian Bengali anthology film directed by Satyajit Ray, and based upon short stories by Rabindranath Tagore. The title means "Three Girls", and the film's original Indian release contained three stories. However, the international release of the film contained only two stories, missing out the second ("Monihara: The Lost Jewels"). This version was released on VHS in 1997 under the title "Two Daughters". However, there are now DVD versions available that contain all three films.
1712206	The Train Robbers is a 1973 Western film starring John Wayne, Ann-Margret, Rod Taylor and Ben Johnson. The movie was written and directed by Burt Kennedy. Mrs. Lowe (Ann-Margret) wants to retrieve the half million U.S. dollars in gold her late husband stole during an assault on a train and return it to the railroad. Lane (John Wayne), attracted by the $50,000 reward, decides to help and lines up some old friends to assist him. The comrades of the deceased husband of Mrs. Lowe will try to get the gold at any cost, however, followed closely by Ricardo Montalban's character, a Pinkerton agent. Rod Taylor is billed above the title with John Wayne and Ann-Margret but has a relatively small role.
1162951	Didi Conn (born Edith Bernstein; July 13, 1951) is an American film, stage and television actress. Conn was born in Brooklyn, New York, the daughter of a clinical psychologist.
1068066	Johnny Be Good is a 1988 American comedy film directed by Bud Smith, starring Anthony Michael Hall as the main character, Johnny Walker. The film also features Robert Downey Jr., Steve James, Jennifer Tilly and Uma Thurman in her film debut. Former Chicago Bears quarterback Jim McMahon makes a cameo appearance. Hall turned down the role of Cameron Frye in Ferris Bueller's Day Off to appear in this film.
1091443	Edmond Halley, FRS (; 8 November 1656 – 14 January 1742) was an English astronomer, geophysicist, mathematician, meteorologist, and physicist who is best known for computing the orbit of the eponymous Halley's Comet. He was the second Astronomer Royal in Britain, succeeding John Flamsteed. Biography and career. Halley was born in Haggerston, Shoreditch, England. His father, Edmond Halley Sr., came from a Derbyshire family and was a wealthy soap-maker in London. As a child, Halley was very interested in mathematics. He studied at St Paul's School, and from 1673 at The Queen's College, Oxford. While an undergraduate, Halley published papers on the Solar System and sunspots. Halley became an assistant to John Flamsteed, the Astronomer Royal at the Greenwich Observatory, in 1675, and among other things, had the job of assigning what is now called Flamsteed numbers to stars. In 1676, Halley visited the south Atlantic island of Saint Helena and set up an observatory with a large sextant with telescopic sights to catalogue the stars of the southern hemisphere. While there he observed a transit of Mercury, and realised that a similar transit of Venus could be used to determine the absolute size of the Solar System. He returned to England in May 1678. In the following year he went to Danzig (Gdańsk) on behalf of the Royal Society to help resolve a dispute. Because astronomer Johannes Hevelius did not use a telescope, his observations had been questioned by
1042917	Finlay Jefferson Currie (20 January 18789 May 1968) was a Scottish actor of stage, screen, and television. Currie was born in Edinburgh, Scotland in 1878. His acting career began on the stage. He and his wife, Maude Courtney (1884–1959), did a song and dance act in the US in the 1890s. He made his first film ("The Old Man") in 1931. He appeared as a priest in the 1943 Ealing World War II movie "Undercover". His most famous film role was as the convict Abel Magwitch in David Lean's "Great Expectations" (1946). He later began to appear in Hollywood film epics, including the 1951 "Quo Vadis" (as Saint Peter), the multi-Oscar winning 1959 "Ben-Hur", as Balthazar, one of the Three Magi, and "The Fall of the Roman Empire" (1964) as an aged, wise senator. He appeared in "People Will Talk" with Cary Grant; and he also portrayed Robert Taylor's embittered father in MGM's Technicolor 1952 version of "Ivanhoe". In 1962, he starred in an episode of "The DuPont Show of the Week" (NBC) entitled "The Ordeal of Dr. Shannon", an adaptation of A. J. Cronin's novel, "Shannon's Way". Currie's last role was as Mr. Lundie, the minister, in the 1966 television adaptation of the musical "Brigadoon". In one of his very last performances, Currie plays a dying mafioso boss in the two part "Vendetta for the Saint" (1968) starring Roger Moore. Later in life he became a much respected antiques dealer, specialising in coins and precious metals. He had been a longtime collector of the works of Robert Burns. Personal life. Finlay Currie was married to Maude Courtney. They had one son, George Francis Courtney Currie, born in Melbourne, Australia, on 26 September 1906.
584440	Kalloori Vaasal () is a 1996 Tamil college film directed by Pavithran. The film featured Ajith Kumar and Pooja Bhatt in the lead roles with Prashanth, Devayani and Manivannan in other supporting roles. The film was later dubbed and released in Telugu as "College Gate". Plot. Sathya (Prashanth) and Vasanth (Ajith Kumar) are very best friends ever since from their childhood. Manivannan is working under Sathya's mother and he wanted his daughter Pooja (Pooja Bhatt) to get married to Sathya so that he could be a wealthy man for the rest of his life. For this he makes many tricks and pranks to make them walk together alone, to go for a ride and many more. On Vasanth's birthday Sathya goes to wish him but he denies his wish and says birthday is no more meant to him. Simultaneously Sathya's mother decided his son to get married to Pooja and the engagement day arrives. With informing her, when she enters the house as all the other guests did, Manivannan insists her to wear the engagement saree. Knowing the situation she leaves the place crying and Sathya follows her. On middle of the street he shouts at her and asks the reason why she can't marry her. She immediately shows her wedding thread which she has hidden these days from all and cries that she was already married. Flashback begins with Nivetha (Devayani) and Pooja being best friends from school and on the first day of college Nivetha meets Vasanth and falls in love. Without knowing this Pooja and Vasanth loves each other. When Pooja came to know about the love of her friend for Vasanth, she decided to sacrifice her love that he had on Vasanth. On Vasanth's birthday she denies his love for him and he forcefully marries her immdiately. Seeing this Nivetha commits suicide in front of their eyes. And Pooja gets separated from Vasanth thinking that he is the reason behind her friend's death.
584571	Sana Khan (born August 21, 1987) is an Indian actress, model and dancer. Sana began her career in modeling and went on to appear in advertisements and feature films. She is best known for her roles south Indian films, TV commercials, dance performances in films in special appearance, and for a reality television show. She has acted in 14 films across 5 languages and has appeared in over 50 ad films. Early life. Sana Khan was born on August 21, 1987 in Mumbai to Muslim parents. She was raised in Mumbai. Her father is originally from Kannur, Kerala; and her mother, Saeeda, is from Mumbai Sana completed her high school (12th grade) from Mumbai and did not pursue any further studies as she became involved in modeling at an early age. Career – Films. Sana started doing modeling assignments after completing her high school. She made her acting debut in the low-budget adult Hindi film "Yehi Hai High Society", which was released in March 2005. She subsequently started appearing in television commercials and other ad films. Sana shot into limelight with her debut Tamil film "Silambattam", produced by Lakshmi Movie Makers, which was released in December 2008. Silambarasan, the film's lead actor, who had vainly tried to sign her for a role in his film "Kettavan", called her again for the female lead role in "Silambattam" after seeing her ad with Shahrukh Khan. She said in an interview with "The Hindu", "Silambarasan came to Mumbai looking for a fresh face for his film "Silambattam". There he saw me and selected me. I knew I had to work hard to make it big in the Tamil film industry". Sana regards the film as her first break. She received praise for her portrayal of a talkative, tomboyish brahmin village girl named Janu in the film, and won the 2009 ITFA Best New Actress Award in Singapore. She expressed in an interview, "That was the most memorable day for me. I was so happy. That was so overwhelming." In March 2010, her next Tamil film, "Thambikku Indha Ooru" was released. However, the film flopped at the box office. Later that year, Sana ventured into the Telugu film industry, appearing in NTR Arts' "Kalyanram Kathi", which was released in November 2010. Sana was next seen in the February 2011 bilingual thriller "Gaganam" / "Payanam" – shot in Telugu and Tamil, respectively – which was based on an airplane high-jack theme. The film received positive critical acclaim. In May 2011, Sana stepped into Kannada films with Golden Movies' "Kool...Sakkath Hot Maga" starring Ganesh. In September 2011, her next Tamil film, "Aayiram Vilakku", was released, in which Sana played the role of a Madurai girl. Sana was last seen in the March 2012 Telugu film "Mr. Nookayya" alongside Manoj Manchu, where she played the role of a waitress in a pub, adding glamour to the film. Sana will be making her Malayalam film debut with "Climax" that is loosely based on the Hindi film "The Dirty Picture" and will be playing the role of late South Indian actress Silk Smitha. Sana has also signed up her sixth Tamil film, "Thalaivan" with Bas, which is being produced by Blue Ocean Pictures. Sana said in an interview in January 2013 that she has dreams to act in Bollywood and she has been getting offers, but she wants to act in an suitable movie in an worthy project as this is going to be her first considerable Hindi movie. She got a major breakthrough in Bollywood with Sohail Khan Productions film, "Jai Ho", where she plays a lead female role, though the film was earlier titled "Mental". With the shooting of the film having started in March 2013 in Dubai, the big budget movie also features famous Indian actor Salman Khan, besides South Indian actress Daisy Shah. About the film, Sana told PTI, "I am very happy and super excited to work with Salman in this film. To work with a superstar like Salman is like a dream. I feel blessed and lucky." Although, she has done one Bollywood film before in 2005, she regards this film as her first break in the Hindi film industry. She told The Times of India, "This is a once in a lifetime opportunity and I'm trying my best to look my best in my debut outing in Bollywood." Commenting about her role in the film, she informed, "I can't talk about my role. All I can say is it is not a cameo. It is a proper full-fledged role. People will be surprised when they see me in the film." The film is all set to be released in January, 2014. Dance performances in films and music videos. Sana is known for her dance performances in films in a special appearance – popularly known as item numbers in Bollywood parlance. She gave her first such performance on a song in the Tamil film E, which was released in October 2006. In July 2007, she appeared in a music video in the Hindi film Bombay to Goa. Sana acted in Abbas Ali Mirza's music video for his album Sitam – Peak of Passion. The video was shot in July 2007 in Gemini Studios by Colossus. Her next dance role was for the November 2007 Hindi movie, Dhan Dhana Dhan Goal, in which her performance on the song "Billo Rani" soared her popularity. Apart from films, Sana also did a dance performance on TV for Zee TV's drama program, Meri Doli Tere Angana in one episode. TV commercials. Sana has acted in over 50 ad films, a few of them with the most famous Bollywood actors. Notable among those is a cosmetic commercial with Shahrukh Khan, which was directed by Shirish Kunder in July 2007. In an interview with DNA, Sana said, "I had never imagined that I would get to work with SRK. The reason I was thrilled was because he had to put a rose in my hair and compliment me on my fair, flawless complexion." She has also done a commercial for the deodorant brand, Secret Temptation. She has featured in three TV commercials with Salman Khan, two of those for Yatra.com where she plays the role of a secretary in one and a cheating wife in the other. She has done an advertisement with Akshay Kumar for Xbox 360 video game console. Other celebrities that Sana has worked with in ad films include Hrithik Roshan, Mahendra Singh Dhoni, Yuvraj Singh, and Karishma Kotak Bigg Boss. In October 2012, Sana participated in the Indian celebrity reality TV show Bigg Boss Season 6 as a contestant. Before entering the show, she said in an interview, “I am going to flaunt my age and the fact that I am the youngest. I am going into the house without any preparation. I want to be spontaneous and show the world the real me.” She gained a lot of popularity from the audience and managed to stay in the show till the end, though she stood third in the show. She told PTI, "I am happy to have reached top three. I did not expect this." She also commented, "By being on the show I learnt a lot of things. How to handle situations, to stay and understand the mindset of different people. I think I have become wiser now." In an interview on In.com, she said Bigg Boss has given her a big platform and this might lead her to enter Bollywood as the show has got her so many fans and their love and support. Controversies. In March 2007, Sana's TV commercial for the men's underwear brand, Amul Macho, hit the TV screens where she was seen provocatively scrubbing and washing an underwear, simulating an orgasm. It created a strong controversy and was banned by the Indian government on the grounds of sexual profanity. Sana responded in an interview, "Forget about the ban and people taking out "morchas" (protests) against me and burning my posters in Bombay (Mumbai). At the end of it people from the creative field have loved it." However, the company re-hired Sana, shot a sequel to that commercial with a different theme, and released it to the small screens in February 2008. In May 2013, media reports indicated that Sana has allegedly gone into hiding after the police has registered a case against her for kidnapping, wrongful restraint, and trespass. According to the reports, Sana tried to kidnap a minor girl who refuted the advances of her cousin. Sana later discredited the allegations. Personal life. Sana grew up in a typical middle-class traditional Indian family. She said in an interview, "I come from a conservative background with absolutely no "filmi" (film-related) connections. But my mother stood by me when I started my modeling career and continues to support me even after I joined the film industry." About her nature she said, "I'm a very positive, lively and happy person." and that she does not consider her as not too much of a party person. She commented that true friends are difficult to get and that she values true friendship and further added, "I don't like to talk to people whose intentions I can't understand. It's the end of conversation for me. I don't sugar-coat my words." Sana lives in Mumbai in a 1000 sq feet house with her mother and a maid., but is presently in a process of moving to a new bigger house in Lokhandwala, Andheri.
1054435	Brady James Monson Corbet (born August 17, 1988) is an American actor. Corbet is known for playing Mason Freeland in the film "Thirteen", Brian Lackey in the film "Mysterious Skin", Alan Tracy in the 2004 film "Thunderbirds", and Peter in the 2008 film "Funny Games". He has made guest appearances on many American television shows. Corbet played Derek Huxley, the son of Jack Bauer's (Kiefer Sutherland) new girlfriend, in the first six episodes of the fifth season of the television series "24". Career. 2000–2005. Corbet began an acting career at age ten with a guest spot in an April 2000 episode of CBS' "The King of Queens", and he followed it up with voice work in the English version of the Japanese anime series "NieA under 7". Over the next few years, he was a regular on another anime series, "I My Me! Strawberry Eggs" (2001), and he guest-starred in a May 2002 episode of the WB sitcom "Greetings from Tucson". He also appeared in a May 2003 episode of Fox’s sitcom "Oliver Beene". In 2003, Corbet landed his first film role when he was cast opposite Holly Hunter, Evan Rachel Wood, Nikki Reed, Vanessa Hudgens and Jeremy Sisto in director Catherine Hardwicke's "Thirteen". Following his big-screen debut, Corbet starred as Alan Tracy, the youngest son of a billionaire ex-astronaut (played by Bill Paxton) in "Thunderbirds" (2004), Jonathan Frakes' live-action movie based on the British TV series of the mid-1960s. In 2004, California filmmaker Gregg Araki cast him opposite Joseph Gordon-Levitt in the director's eighth film, "Mysterious Skin". In the film, based on the 1996 novel of the same name by Scott Heim, Corbet portrayed Brian Lackey, a troubled teen who is plagued by nightmares and believes that he may have been abducted by aliens. The film debuted in that year's Venice Film Festival and had a limited release in 2005. 2006–present. In 2006, Corbet returned to television with a recurring role as Derek Huxley, son of Jack Bauer's new girlfriend (played by Connie Britton) in the fifth season of Fox's Emmy- and Golden Globe–winning show, "24." Corbet most recently played the role of Watts in the 2011 psychological thriller Martha Marcy May Marlene. Corbet also has appeared in the indie rock band Bright Eyes' music video "At The Bottom Of Everything" (2005). In October 2006, he was featured in the Ima Robot video for "Lovers in Captivity," which was produced independently of their Virgin record label and was featured in an "Out Magazine" article.
1041745	Margaret Lockwood, CBE (15 September 1916 – 15 July 1990) was an English actress, notable for her performances in the 1940s Gainsborough melodramas such as "The Man in Grey", "Love Story" and "The Wicked Lady". Family background and Education. Margaret Mary Lockwood Day was born in Karachi, British India (now Karachi, Pakistan), to an English administrator of a railway company and his Scottish wife. Lockwood's family returned to the United Kingdom when she was a child, along with her brother. She attended Sydenham High School for girls, and a ladies school in Kensington, London. She began studying for the stage at an early age at the Italia Conti, and made her debut in 1928, at the age of 12, at the Holborn Empire, where she played a fairy in "A Midsummer Night's Dream". In December of the following year, she appeared at the Scala Theatre in the pantomime "The Babes in the Wood". In 1932, she appeared at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane in "Cavalcade".
633298	Marina Sirtis (born 29 March 1955) is an English-American actress. She is best known for her role as Counselor Deanna Troi on the television series "" and the four feature films that followed. Biography. Marina Sirtis was born in the East End of London, the daughter of working class Greek parents Despina, a tailor's assistant, and John Sirtis. She was brought up in Harringay, North London and emigrated to the U.S. in 1986, later becoming a naturalised U.S. citizen. She auditioned for drama school against her parents' wishes, ultimately being accepted to the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. She is married to rock guitarist Michael Lamper (21 June 1992 – present). Her younger brother, Steve, played football in Greece and played for Columbia University in the early 1980s. Marina herself is an avowed supporter of Tottenham Hotspur F.C. Career. Sirtis started her career as a member of the repertory company at the Connaught Theatre, Worthing, West Sussex in 1976. Directed by Nic Young, she appeared in Joe Orton's "What the Butler Saw" and as Ophelia in "Hamlet". Before her role in "Star Trek", Sirtis was featured in supporting roles in several films. In the 1983 Faye Dunaway film "The Wicked Lady", she engaged in a whip fight with Dunaway. In the Charles Bronson sequel "Death Wish 3", Sirtis's character is a rape victim. In the film "Blind Date", she appears as a prostitute who is murdered by a madman. Other early works include numerous guest starring roles on British television series. Sirtis appeared in "Raffles" (1977), "Hazell" (1978), "Minder" (1979), the Jim Davidson sitcom "Up the Elephant and Round the Castle" (1985) and "The Return of Sherlock Holmes" (1986) among other things. She also played the stewardess in the famous 1979 Cinzano Bianco television commercial starring Leonard Rossiter and Joan Collins, in which Collins was splattered with drink. "Star Trek: The Next Generation". In 1987 Sirtis relocated to the US. When casting "", Gene Roddenberry was inspired to ask the exotic-looking Sirtis to audition for a role after seeing the film "Aliens" with Bob Justman, which featured the prominent Latina character Vasquez, played by Jenette Goldstein. Sirtis and Denise Crosby initially tried out for each other's eventual role on "The Next Generation". Sirtis's character was going to be named Lt. Macha Hernandez, the Security Chief. Gene Roddenberry decided to switch them, and Macha Hernandez became Natasha Yar. Sirtis recalls that on the day she received a call offering her the role of Deanna Troi, she was actually packing to return to Britain, because her six-month visa had expired. Deanna Troi was a half-human, half-Betazoid. Her Betazoid abilities allowed her to read the emotions of others. Her position on the Enterprise-D was ship's counselor, looking after the crew's well-being and a trusted advisor to Captain Picard with a position seated next to him on the bridge. Initially, the writers found it difficult to write for Troi and even left her out of four of the first season episodes. Sirtis felt her job was in jeopardy after the first season but was overjoyed when Gene Roddenberry took her aside at Jonathan Frakes's wedding and told her that the season two premiere episode, "", would center on Troi. Sirtis appeared in all seven seasons of "", and her character was developed from a more passive therapist to tougher Starfleet officer. She has stated her favourite episode is season six's "", in which Troi is kidnapped and surgically altered to pose as a Romulan. Troi's switching to a standard Starfleet uniform in the same season in "" elevated the character's dignity in Sirtis' eyes, and her enthusiasm in playing her, with Sirtis commenting, "It covered up my cleavage and, consequently, I got all my brains back, because when you have a cleavage you can't have brains in Hollywood. So I got all my brains back and I was allowed to do things that I hadn't been allowed to do for five or six years. I went on away teams, I was in charge of staff, I had my pips back, I had phasers, I had all the equipment again, and it was fabulous. I was absolutely thrilled." During her time on the show, she became close friends with her co-stars Jonathan Frakes (who played her on-again/off-again lover Commander Riker), Michael Dorn (Lieutenant Worf, also an on-screen love interest) and Brent Spiner (who played Lieutenant Commander Data). Cast members Spiner and Dorn were groomsmen at her wedding. She usually wore hair-pieces for her role as Deanna Troi in "Star Trek: The Next Generation". Sirtis' real hair was slightly shorter, and although curly, was not as bouffant as her character's. However, Sirtis' real hair was used in the pilot episode, and also in the first six episodes of season six, in which Troi sported a more natural looking pony-tailed style. She was also asked to create an accent (described as a mixture of Eastern European and Hebrew) for her character, although her natural accent is English. Over time, the accent was adjusted and became more Americanised. Sirtis has also reprised her character of Deanna Troi in the feature films, "Star Trek Generations" (1994), ' (1996), ' (1998) and ' (2002). She also appeared in ' for three episodes toward the end of the series (1999 and 2000) and also in the series finale of "" (2005). Sirtis was delighted to get the chance to do some comedy in "Star Trek: First Contact" and said "I loved it because it opened the door to a different side of Troi we’d never seen before. That door has stayed open and that whole kind of wacky, zany Troi thing has continued into the next movie, which is great for me because I like to do things that are different." Sirtis stated of her role in "Star Trek: Nemesis", "I sort of had an inkling that I was going to have a good part in this film because John Logan was such a big fan of the character. So I knew that he would do her some justice." Other work. While filming ', Sirtis returned to the UK during the hiatus between seasons three and four in 1990 to film a drama special entitled "One Last Chance" for the BBC. In 1992 she appeared in an episode of the short lived series "The Fifth Corner" and had a cameo in the horror/fantasy movie '. After the end of "" in 1994, Sirtis continued to work regularly. Her first role was a departure from previous work, an abused wife in the series "Heaven Help Us". She provided the voice of Demona in the Disney animated television series "Gargoyles" for two seasons starting in 1994. Her "Next Generation" co-stars, Frakes (as the voice of David Xanatos), Spiner and Dorn, also lent their voices to the show. She voiced the character again for an episode of the unmade animated series "". In 1996 Sirtis starred as a police detective in the British made-for-television movie "Gadgetman". She guest-starred as a race track owner under investigation following the death of a driver in "" in 1998. The independent movie "Paradise Lost", with Sirtis in a starring role, was released in 1999. Beginning in 1999, Sirtis returned to science fiction television in a number of roles starting with "The Outer Limits". The same year she appeared in ', originally created by "Gene Roddenberry". In 2000 she played a Russian scientist in "Stargate SG-1". Sirtis was interviewed in the October 2000 issue of "SFX" magazine in the UK; the cover stated "Marina Sirtis is Everywhere", also referring to her reprisal of her character Deanna Troi on '. In 2001 Sirtis made a highly publicised appearance on the long-running British hospital drama "Casualty". She played a politician with controversial views on the NHS. When she meets with a man she is having an affair with at a hotel, she is caught in an explosion. Sirtis appeared in the made-for-television movies "Terminal Error" in 2002 and "Net Games" in 2003. Also in 2003 she guest-starred in the series "Threat Matrix" playing a biological-weapons scientist from Iraq. Sirtis starred in the movie "Spectres" in 2004, and at "ShockerFest International Film Festival" she won the best actress award. Sirtis had a minor role in the Academy Award-winning ensemble film "Crash" as the wife of the Persian shopkeeper. Following this she played another Middle Eastern role on the series "The Closer" in 2005. In 2006 she had a three-episode recurring role as a love match-maker on "Girlfriends" and she guest-starred in "Without a Trace". In 2007 Sirtis starred in the SyFy channel production of "Grendel", where she played the Queen. Independent movies "Trade Routes", "The Deep Below" and "Lesser of Three Evils" were released. She provided the voice for Matriarch Benezia in the critically acclaimed video game "Mass Effect" on XBox 360, Playstation 3 and PC. On British television in 2008, she made a guest appearance in an episode of "Casualty"'s spin-off show, "Holby City". The same year the sci-fi/drama movie "Inalienable", written by "Star Trek" alumnus Walter Koenig, was released. Sirtis said of her role, "I actually play the Deputy Attorney General of the United States so I’m a bad guy, a mean lawyer, which was fantastic." The direct-to-DVD sequels "Green Street 2" and "The Grudge 3", featuring Sirtis, were released in 2009. She co-starred in the British movie "31 North 62 East" as the Prime Minister's top aide; it had a limited theatrical release in the UK. Sirtis guest-starred in the first episode of the short-lived hospital drama "Three Rivers". She returned to SyFy in December 2009 in the disaster movie "Annihilation Earth". 2010 saw Sirtis guest-star as a Swiss doctor in two episodes of ABC Family's "Make It or Break It". In May 2010, Sirtis announced that she would be providing the voice for comic book villainess Queen Bee in "Young Justice" animated series. She provided her voice for a number of episodes from 2011 until its cancellation in 2013. In March 2011, Sirtis guest-starred on an episode of "Grey's Anatomy". She played an Iranian mother who was at the hospital to participate in a medical trial for Alzheimer's disease. In September 2011, fans started a group to get Marina to appear on "Doctor Who". A few weeks later, she acknowledged the group and her desire to be on the show at the Montreal Comiccon. In 2012, the vampire movie "Speed Demons" that co-starred Sirtis was released to pay-per-view services. The same year she played a fortune teller in the "Castlevania" fan-made series posted on YouTube. Sirtis has taken a recurring role as Director of Mossad on the CBS police procedural drama series "NCIS". Her character, Orli Elbaz, succeeds Eli David (portrayed by Michael Nouri) and is introduced in the Season 10 episode "Berlin," which aired in April 2013. Her second episode will be the second episode of Season 11, set to air in early October.
1064004	Tara Donna Reid (born November 8, 1975) is an American model and actress. Reid has acted on television shows such as "", "Days of our Lives", "California Dreams", and "Scrubs". Her screen debut came in "A Return to Salem's Lot" (1987), followed by "The Big Lebowski" (1998), "Urban Legend" (1998), and "American Pie" (1999). She has since portrayed supporting as well as lead roles in several films, including "Dr. T & the Women" (2000), "Josie and the Pussycats" (2001), "American Pie 2" (2001), "National Lampoon's Van Wilder" (2002), "My Boss's Daughter" (2003), "Alone in the Dark" (2005), "American Reunion" (2012), and "Sharknado" (2013). She was a housemate in the 2011 series of British reality television show "Celebrity Big Brother". Early life. Reid was born and raised in Wyckoff, New Jersey, the daughter of Donna and Tom Reid, both of whom were teachers and day-care center owners. She is of English, Italian, Irish, Hungarian and French descent. She attended St. Elizabeth's Catholic Elementary, Dwight D. Eisenhower Middle School, Ramapo High School, John F. Kennedy High School in Granada Hills, and graduated from Barnstable Academy, an alternative high school. She also attended Professional Children's School, in Manhattan, along with fellow actors Christina Ricci, Jerry O'Connell, Sarah Michelle Gellar, and Macaulay Culkin. Reid has twin younger siblings, Colleen Marie and Patrick John, and another brother, Tom. Career. Reid began acting at age nine, being a regular on the game show "Child's Play", and appeared in over 100 commercials for corporations including Jell-O, McDonalds, Crayola and Milton Bradley. As a teenager, she was on "". After moving to Hollywood in 1997, Reid transitioned to movies, landing her breakout role in 1998's "The Big Lebowski". Though the film disappointed at the box office, grossing only $17 million in the US, it has gone on to become a cult favorite. Later that same year she appeared in a pair of more financially successful films, "Cruel Intentions" and "Urban Legend", each of which grossed just under $40 million in the US and led to two sequels each, though none included Reid. Reid found her first taste of real mainstream success when she portrayed the role of the virginal Vickie in the wildly successful "American Pie" (1999), which grossed over $100 million in US. The film also marked her first film to reach #1 at the box office. In 2001, she repeated this feat with "American Pie 2", which opened to $45 million and grossed over $145 million in the US, almost 50% more than its predecessor. Reid did not return for "American Wedding" (2003), but did reprise the character in the fourth theatrical film in the series, "American Reunion" (2012). Following the success of "American Pie 2", Reid starred in a string of commercial and critical misfires including "Josie and the Pussycats" and "National Lampoon's Van Wilder". She also starred as the youngest daughter of a Texas gynecologist in Robert Altman's "Dr. T and the Women", alongside Richard Gere. She returned to the small screen as a recurring character on the NBC sitcom, "Scrubs", appearing in 11 episodes of Season 3. Shortly thereafter, Reid appeared alongside Ashton Kutcher in "My Boss's Daughter", for which she was nominated for both Worst Supporting Actress and Worst Screen Couple at the 2004 Golden Raspberry Awards. In 2005, she co-starred in infamous German filmmaker Uwe Boll's "Alone in the Dark" alongside Christian Slater. Her mispronunciation of "Newfoundland" became a popular internet catch phrase. The film was panned by critics and Reid received a Razzie Award nomination for Worst Actress. As of October 2011, Reid has not headlined any wide release theatrical films since. In January 2007, Reid filmed a commercial with Daniel Conn for Dodo, an Australian budget telephone and Internet provider. Reid signed on to host the E! Channel's "Wild On Tara Reid" (later renamed "Taradise"), a program that showcased high society vacations and hot spots. The show premiered in October 2005 but was canceled in February 2006 due to poor ratings, with only eight of the 14 episodes aired. Between 2007 and 2008, she starred in a string of direct-to-video films, including "7-10 Split/Strike", "If I Had Known I Was a Genius" (which was released at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival), and "Clean Break/Unnatural Causes". She also played the main character in the made-for-television horror film "Vipers". In 2010, she landed the role of Bonnie in the thriller "The Fields", which was released in 2011. Reid also has designed a clothing line with Ed Hardy designer, Christian Audigier, entitled Mantra, that hit high end department stores in 2009. Reid appeared in a pictorial in the January/February 2010 issue of "Playboy", although earlier reports had indicated she had posed nude for the magazine. In March 2011 she filmed a Funny or Die spoof trailer for "The Big Lebowski 2". On August 18, 2011, Reid was the second housemate to enter the British reality series "Celebrity Big Brother 8". On September 2, she received the fewest votes and became the third celebrity to be evicted from the house. In September 2011, Reid announced via her official Twitter page that she was to appear in Jedward's new music video for "Wow Oh Wow", which they started shooting in late October of the same year. Personal life. In June 2001, Reid and Carson Daly broke off an engagement. In October 2006, Reid acknowledged in an interview with "Us Weekly" that she had liposculpting. In the interview she discusses how her plastic surgery "went wrong" and also explains why she decided to have plastic surgery done, saying that her breasts were uneven and that she wanted a "six pack" for a new movie role. The liposuction resulted in deformity. In the same interview, Reid's new plastic surgeon, Dr. Steven Svehlak, reported that he performed a procedure called a "doughnut mastopexy" to correct her original augmentation, and performed additional liposuction in hopes to even out her stomach. On January 18, 2010, Reid's boyfriend Michael Axtmann, an internet entrepreneur from Nuremberg, proposed to her at The Little Door restaurant in Los Angeles. The couple had reportedly planned an intimate ceremony for summer 2010. However, on April 20, it was reported that the wedding had been called off and her relationship with Axtmann had ended, with a representative stating: "Tara Reid has confirmed that she will not be moving forward with her May 22 nuptials." Later that year in November, she started dating Danish businessman Michael Lillelund. According to "People" magazine, on August 14, 2011, Reid's spokesman reported that she and Lillelund were married the day before in Greece. However, Lillelund denied it, stating he had not been in contact with Reid since February. In August 2011, Reid publicized that she had married Bulgarian financier Zachary Kehayov, then in October of that year she communicated that they were not legally married.
592012	Kool...Sakkath Hot Maga is a 2011 Kannada film in the romance genre starring Golden Star Ganesh and Sana Khan in the lead roles . The film marks the directorial debut of Ganesh. His wife, Shilpa Ganesh produces this movie under the home banner 'Golden Movies'. V. Harikrishna has composed the music and a long associate, Ratnavelu works as the cameraman. Plot. The film has supposedly a comedy and romance mixed storyline. Ganesh plays a college going student in the film. The film has been shot in some picturesque locations such as Egypt, Dubai and Jordan and Middle East.
368025	La Moustache (in English, The Moustache) is a French film from 2005, directed by Emmanuel Carrère and starring Vincent Lindon, and adapted from Carrère's own novel. The film features music from Philip Glass. The film was awarded the "Label Europa Cinemas" prize at the 2005 Cannes Film Festival and is currently distributed theatrically in the United States by the Cinema Guild with a DVD release handled by Koch-Lorber Films. Plot. "La Moustache" opens with Marc Thiriez, a middle aged Parisian, taking a bath and asking his wife if he should shave off the moustache he has sported for most of his adult life. His wife, Agnès, wryly comments that she wouldn't recognize him without it, yet as she leaves, Marc shaves the moustache off. Upon her return, Agnès is angry Marc did not let her in the door when she rang. Marc lies and says he broke his shoelace. In the car Marc asks his wife if she notices anything. She does not respond, wanting to know if he thinks she is dressed too sexy for the party. Later that evening, as the two visit their friends Serge (Agnes' first husband) and Nadia, Serge tells a funny story from his marriage to Agnès, how she was sneaky and refused to admit it, even when found out. Agnès again denies the sneakiness. Frustrated that Serge and Nadia also do not notice that Marc has shaven his trademark moustache, Marc fights with Agnès in the car as they return home, frightening Agnès. As they lie in bed that night, another fight over the moustache ensues as Agnès digs in her heels and tells Marc he's never had a moustache and that she fears for his sanity. Agnès phones Nadia and Nadia claims Marc has not had a moustache in fifteen years. Agnès takes a sleeping pill to sleep. Marc finds a photo album of pictures from their holiday in Bali, all of which show him sporting his moustache. When he confronts Agnès with these pictures, she ignores him and changes the subject, leaving him even more confused. She suggests Marc see a psychiatrist whom her friend François knew. Marc tries to make the best of his situation, but grows more paranoid and confused when even his co-workers don't acknowledge that he has shaven his moustache. He smokes a cigarette and his co-worker tells him he is fool for starting up again. His wife is upset at the soccer team and yells at the TV. She is upset when she finds Marc has taken up smoking again. They go out and Agnès insists on buying Marc a brightly patterned jacket ("a clown's jacket" as Marc describes it). Agnès orders a cigarette at dinner, saying they will quit together again later, and cries as she smokes and drinks. As Marc gets his photograph taken for his work badge, he asks a woman who is also getting her photograph taken if she notices a difference between the photograph that was just taken and his photograph which appears on his I.D. card. She says the moustache is different, and Marc asks her several times if she is sure he has a moustache in the photograph. She confirms this, which leaves Marc more baffled. He returns home early from work. Marc checks his answering machine to find a message from his father. Agnès' friend Bruno calls and Marc tells him to stop kidding him about his moustache. Bruno assures Marc that Marc has not had a moustache in fifteen years. Marc hangs up on him. In the kitchen, he tells Agnès to call his parents and tell them that he won't be able to come to their house for dinner the next day. Agnès calls Marc's mother, but gently reminds Marc that his father is dead and has been so for a year. Confused, Marc speaks of their best friends Serge and Nadia, to which Agnès replies that she doesn't know who they are and that Marc must be delusional. Very upset and slowly losing his grip on sanity, Marc goes to bed, and Agnès gives him a sleeping pill. Marc awakes to hear Agnès and Bruno planning to have Marc committed to a psychiatric hospital. Marc quickly dresses and flees the house. In a taxi, he attempts to find his mother, yet due to the sleeping pill and the heavy rain, he cannot find the house in which he grew up. Marc tries to call his mother, but the number he dials is not a valid phone number. He calls Agnès, tells her he is at his mother's, and asks her to pick him up. When Marc sees Agnès and Bruno leave his apartment to pick Marc up, he rushes inside, grabs his passport, puts on shoes, breaks his shoelace and leaves. He flees to Hong Kong, the first available flight out of Paris. His passport photo sports a moustache. Marc journeys through Hong Kong, traveling back and forth on the Star Ferry all day. After the ferry stops for the night, he pays local sailors to take him with them on their boat. They agree, and Marc arrives at an unspecified village in China (filmed in Ko Lau Wan, Sai Kung Peninsula, Hong Kong). Marc stays at a hotel there for a period of time, becoming known with the locals, and regrows his signature moustache. Marc arrives back at the hotel to find Agnès awaiting him, as though she has been with him the entire trip. Agnès makes fun of his brightly patterned jacket and asks him why he bought it, hoping he will not wear it in Paris. They go out to a casino and meet new friends that Agnès knows but Marc does not. The male half of the couple shows him recent photos of the four of them in which Marc has a moustache. Marc has no memory of the event, but the pictures are whisked away before he can examine them closely. Agnès notices Marc's irritation and says if he doesn't like their new friends they don't have to ever see them again when they get back to Paris.
626997	Ryan Gregg Carnes (born December 6, 1982 in Pittsfield, Illinois) is an American actor. He attended Duke University where he was a member of DUMB, the Duke University Marching Band. He is currently working on a collaboration with other musicians and is an accomplished drummer of 15 years. In 2003 Carnes was part of a national campaign for Nintendo which was both in print and commercial. Carnes first started acting in 2004 when he became the ninth actor to portray Lucas Jones on the ABC soap opera "General Hospital" from July 2004 until September 2005. After he left "General Hospital", he was replaced by Ben Hogestyn. From 2004–06, he had a recurring role on "Desperate Housewives" as Justin, the love interest of Andrew Van de Kamp, played by Shawn Pyfrom. Carnes starred in the 2004 film "Eating Out", and the 2006 movie "Surf School". He also starred in the video for the song "Mistake" by Australian actress/singer Stephanie McIntosh. Carnes appeared in two episodes of the British Science-fiction drama "Doctor Who": "Daleks in Manhattan" and "Evolution of the Daleks" in which he played Laszlo, who was turned into a half-human, half-pig slave. In the 2008 horror movie "Trailer Park of Terror", based on the Imperium comic series of the same name, Carnes plays an arrogant teenager called Alex. He also starred as the title character in the Syfy TV mini-series "The Phantom", based on Lee Falk's superhero.
1056989	Todd Louiso (born January 27, 1970) is an American film actor and film director best known for his role as timid record store clerk Dick in "High Fidelity", opposite Jack Black and John Cusack. Other supporting roles include "School For Scoundrels". Louiso directed his first film in 2002, the acclaimed "Love Liza" with Philip Seymour Hoffman. He has had minor roles in films like "Jerry Maguire", "Thank You for Smoking", "8 Heads in a Duffel Bag" and "Snakes on a Plane".
1104769	Ralph H. Abraham (b. July 4, 1936, Burlington, Vermont) is an American mathematician. He has been a member of the mathematics department at the University of California, Santa Cruz since 1968. Life and work. Ralph Abraham earned his Ph.D. from the University of Michigan in 1960, and held positions at UC Santa Cruz, Berkeley, Columbia, and Princeton. He has also held visiting positions in Amsterdam, Paris, Warwick, Barcelona, Basel, and Florence.
581803	Gul Panag (born 3 January 1979 ; Chandigarh, India) is an Indian actress, voice actress, model, and former beauty queen who competed in the Miss Universe pageant. Her notable films include "Dor", "Dhoop", "Manorama Six Feet Under", "Hello", and "Straight". Biography. Panag started her education in Sangrur, in Punjab. Her father was in the army and the family moved to different places across India and abroad. As a result of this, she studied in 14 different schools including Kendriya Vidyalayas (Chandigarh, Mhow, Leh and Wellington, Tamil Nadu), The Lawrence School, Lovedale and the International School of Lusaka, Zambia. She did her Bachelors in Mathematics from Punjabi University, Patiala, and Masters in Political Science from Panjab University, Chandigarh. As a student, Panag was interested in sports and public speaking. She won numerous state and national level debate competitions, including two gold medals at the Annual National Inter University Debate competition. Career. Panag won the Miss India title in 1999, and was crowned Miss Beautiful Smile at the same pageant. She participated in the Miss Universe 1999 pageant. Panag began her career in Bollywood, with the 2003 film "Dhoop". Since then, she has worked in films like "Jurm" and the TV series "Kashmeer". She played a commoner, fighting hard to save her husband from going to the gallows, in the 2006 Nagesh Kukunoor film, "Dor". In 2008, she acted in the films "Hello" and "Summer 2007". In 2009, she appeared in the movie "Straight". She featured in "Rann" in a role attempting to stop her boy friend from doing the right thing. Panag appeared on the front page of Maxim with whom she did a photo shoot in September 2008. She is debuting in Punjabi movies with 'Sarsa Movie'. She has appeared in numerous advertisements on television and print media and is the brand ambassador for Tata Sky, along with Aamir Khan. Personal life. Panag was the "Twitter Face" for the "Wills Lifestyle India Fashion Week" held in 2009, to cover the happenings/proceedings on the micro-blogging site. Panag got married to her long-time boyfriend Rishi Attari on March 13, 2011 in a gurudwara in Chandigarh in a traditional Punjabi Sikh ceremony. She ran at the Delhi Half Marathon in November 2010, but endured eve teasing (sexual harassment) from male runners at the event. She later remarked that the attitude of men in Delhi needed to change and that the city was unsafe for women.
673992	Ken Duken (born 17 April 1979) is a German actor. Early life. Ken Duken is the third child of film and stage actress Christina Loeb, his father is a doctor. Duken never attended a drama school but took courses in drama, including under James Reynold. The actor initially played various theatre roles, including in such plays as "Der Besuch der alten Dame" (The visit of the old lady), "Das Haus in Montevideo" (The house in Montevideo) and in various Shakespeare plays. He debuted as a film actor in 1997, playing a small role in the television crime film "Blutiger Ernst" alongside Nadja Uhl and Daniel Brühl. Career. Duken played his first major role on a movie screen in 1999, alongside Franka Potente and Heiner Lauterbach in Friedemann Fromm's "Schlaraffenland" (Land of Milk and Honey). That same year he starred in Miguel Alexandre's drama "Gran Paradiso", which was nominated for the German Film Award. For this film, in which he plays Mark, a young wheelchair user, he completed three months wheelchair-training. In 2003 he played a major role in "Tödlicher Umweg" (Deadly detour) by Curt Faudon. In 2005 his career continued in the cinema, with Buket Alakus's award-winning tragicomedy "Eine andere Liga" (Another league). Duken was a member of the cast in the core produced by ZDF since 2002 police drama series "Night Shift" by Lars Becker as a young Commissioner Teddy Schrader. Also known is his portrayal of a Communist spy in the movie "Karol - A Man Who Became Pope". In the autumn of 2006 he was in Tolstoy's "War and Peace" by Robert Dornhelm in Russia and Lithuania, in which he played the role of Anatol Kuragin. The SWR teleplay "Welcome home", Ken embodied in the war returnees Ben Winter, was shot mid-December 2007. In 2003, together with Duken including Bernd Katzmarczyk and Norbert Kneissl worked with the production company Grand Hôtel Pictures. In its first work "From another point of view" he plays next to his wife Marisa Leonie Bach and Dominique Pinon. In 2009, he continued his own production number with the psycho-thriller "Distance". In addition to his work as an actor, Duken is now increasingly found behind the camera. For his film "From another point of view", as well as several music videos, such as for Oomph! Rapper and the Curse, he has directed. In 2008 Duken played the role of SS Captain Siegfried Fehmer, who was head of the Gestapo in 1945 in Oslo, in the film "Max Manus" on the Norwegian resistance fighters. The role of the smart ladies' man Fehmer, who could quickly change to a brutal torturer, was a good preparation for his performance in Quentin Tarantino's "Inglourious Basterds" (2009). Duken can be seen in chapter four of "Inglourious Basterds" as one of the cardplaying German soldiers. The card on his forehead reads Mata Hari. In 2009 Duken played the character Ralf in Til Schweiger's film "Zweiohrküken". In 2011 he starred in a BBC television drama called "The Sinking of the Laconia" (2011), in which he played Werner Hartenstein, commander of a German U-boat, and in the German TV movie "Carl & Bertha" about the life of Karl and Bertha Benz. He also starred in the 2011 British film "Chalet Girl". Personal life. Since October 2000 Duken has been married to German actress Marisa Leonie Bach, a direct descendant of composer Johann Sebastian Bach. The couple has a son, Viggo (born October 2009).
1790466	William Henry Hartnell (8 January 1908 – 23 April 1975) was an English actor. Hartnell is most well-known for his role as the first incarnation of the Doctor in "Doctor Who", from 1963 to 1966. Early life. Hartnell was born in St Pancras, London, England, the only child of Lucy Hartnell, an unmarried mother. He was brought up partly by a foster mother, though he did spend many happy holidays in Devon with his mother's family of farmers, where he learned to ride. Hartnell never discovered the identity of his father (whose particulars were left blank on the birth certificate) despite efforts to trace him. Often known as Billy, he left school without prospects and dabbled in petty crime. Through a boys' boxing club, Hartnell met the art collector Hugh Blaker, who would become his unofficial guardian and arrange for him initially to train as a jockey and helped him enter the Italia Conti Academy. Theatre being a passion of Hugh Blaker, he paid for Hartnell to receive some 'polish' at the Imperial Service College, though Hartnell found the strictures too much and ran away. Hartnell entered the theatre in 1925 working under Frank Benson as a general stagehand. He appeared in numerous Shakespearian plays, including "The Merchant of Venice" (1926), "Julius Caesar" (1926), "As You Like It" (1926), "Hamlet" (1926), "The Tempest" (1926), "Macbeth" (1926). He also appeared in "She Stoops to Conquer" (1926) and "School for Scandal" (1926) and "Good Morning, Bill" (1927), before performing in "Miss Elizabeth's Prisoner" (1928). This play was written by Robert Neilson Stephens and E. Lyall Swete. It featured actress Heather McIntyre, whom he married during the following year. His first of more than sixty film appearances was in "Say It With Music" (1932). He was cast as Albert Fosdike in Noël Coward's film "In Which We Serve" (1942) but turned up late for his first day of shooting. Coward berated Hartnell in front of cast and crew for his unprofessionalism, made him personally apologise to everyone and then sacked him. Michael Anderson, who was the First Assistant Director, took over the part and was credited as "Mickey Anderson". At the outbreak of the Second World War, Hartnell served in the Tank Corps, but was invalided out after eighteen months as the result of suffering a nervous breakdown, and he returned to acting. Hartnell usually played comic characters, until he was cast in the robust role of Sergeant Ned Fletcher in "The Way Ahead" (1944). From then on his career was defined by playing mainly policemen, soldiers, and thugs. This typecasting bothered him, for even when cast in comedies he found he was invariably playing the 'heavy'. In 1958 he played the sergeant in the first Carry On film comedy, "Carry On Sergeant", and appeared as a town councillor in the Boulting brothers' film "Heavens Above!" (1963) with Peter Sellers. He also appeared as Will Buckley in the film "The Mouse That Roared" (1959), again with Sellers. His first regular role on television was as Sergeant Major Percy Bullimore in "The Army Game" from 1957–1961. Again, although it was a comedy series he found himself cast in a "tough-guy" role. He appeared in a supporting role in the film version of "This Sporting Life" (1963), giving a sensitive performance as an aging rugby league talent scout known as 'Dad'. After living at 51 Church Street, Isleworth, next door to Hugh Blaker, the Hartnells lived on the Island, Thames Ditton. Then in the 1960s they moved to a cottage in Mayfield, Sussex. He lived in later life at Sheephurst Lane in Marden, Kent. "Doctor Who" (1963–1966). Hartnell's performance in "This Sporting Life" was noted by Verity Lambert, the producer who was setting up a new science-fiction television series for the BBC, "Doctor Who". Lambert offered him the title role. Although Hartnell was initially uncertain about accepting a part in what was pitched to him as a children's series, Lambert and director Waris Hussein convinced him to take the part, and it became the character for which he gained the highest profile and is now most remembered. Hartnell later revealed that he took the role because it led him away from the gruff, military parts in which he had become typecast, and, having two grandchildren of his own, he came to relish particularly the attention and affection that playing the character brought him from children. "Doctor Who" earned Hartnell a regular salary of £315 per episode by 1966 (basically, £315 a week in that era of 48-weeks per year production on the series), equivalent to £4,050 a week in modern terms. By comparison, in 1966 his co-stars Anneke Wills and Michael Craze were earning £68 and £52 per episode at the same time, respectively. Throughout his tenure as the Doctor, William Hartnell wore a wig when playing the part, as the character had long hair. Hartnell suffered a bereavement in 1965 whilst working on the serial "The Myth Makers". His aunt, Bessie Hartnell, who had looked after him during his troubled childhood, died. However, the production schedule on the series was so tight, with a typical 48 episodes a year being transmitted, that it prevented his even taking time off to attend her funeral. According to some of his colleagues on "Doctor Who", he could be a difficult person to work with. Others, though, such as actors Peter Purves and William Russell, and producer Verity Lambert, spoke glowingly of him after more than forty years. Among the more caustic accounts, Nicholas Courtney, in his audio memoirs, recalled that during the recording of "The Daleks' Master Plan", Hartnell mentioned that an extra on the set was Jewish, Courtney's inference being that Hartnell was slightly prejudiced. In an interview in 2008, Courtney claimed that Hartnell "was quite nationalist-minded, a bit intolerant of other races, I think." However, he always got on extremely well with his first companion, played by Carole Ann Ford, who is Jewish. Hartnell's deteriorating health (he suffered from arteriosclerosis, which began to affect his ability to say his lines), as well as poor relations with the new production team on the series after the departure of Verity Lambert, ultimately led him to leave "Doctor Who" in 1966. When he left "Doctor Who", the producer of the show came up with a unique idea: since the Doctor is an alien, he can transform himself physically, thereby renewing himself. William Hartnell himself suggested that Patrick Troughton should be cast as the new Doctor, stating that "There's only one man in England who can take over, and that's Patrick Troughton". In the fourth episode of the serial "The Tenth Planet", the First Doctor regenerated into Troughton's Second Doctor. Later life and death. Hartnell reprised the role of the Doctor in "Doctor Who" during the tenth anniversary story "The Three Doctors" (1972–73). When Hartnell's wife Heather found out about his planned involvement in the special, she informed the crew of the show that his failing memory and weakening health prevented him from starring in the special. However, an agreement was made between the crew and Heather that Hartnell would only be required to sit down during the shoot and read his lines from cue cards. His appearance in this story was his final piece of work as an actor. His health had worsened during the early 1970s, and in December 1974 he was admitted to hospital permanently. He lived in later life at Sheephurst Lane in Marden, Kent. In early 1975 he suffered a series of strokes brought on by cerebrovascular disease, and died peacefully in his sleep of heart failure on 23 April 1975, at the age of 67. A clip of a scene starring Hartnell from the end of the "Doctor Who" serial "The Dalek Invasion of Earth" (1964) was used as a pre-credits sequence for the twentieth anniversary story "The Five Doctors" (1983). However, Richard Hurndall portrayed the First Doctor for the remainder of the story, in Hartnell's absence. Colourised footage of Hartnell in "The Aztecs" was meshed with new footage of actress Jenna-Louise Coleman and with body-doubles for the First Doctor and Susan, to create a new scene in 2013's "The Name of the Doctor". Hartnell was married to Heather McIntyre from 9 May 1929 until his death. They had one child, a daughter, Heather Anne, and two grandchildren. His widow, Heather, died in 1984. The only published biography of him is by his granddaughter, Judith "Jessica" Carney, entitled "Who's There? The Life and Career of William Hartnell". Portrayals in fiction. Hartnell appears as a character in the "Doctor Who" audio drama "Pier Pressure" starring Colin Baker as the Sixth Doctor. For the fiftieth anniversary of "Doctor Who" in 2013, the BBC commissioned a dramatisation of the events surrounding the creation of the series, entitled "An Adventure in Space and Time". The role of Hartnell will be portrayed by David Bradley. Filmography. Hartnell acted in numerous British films, as well as having many stage and television appearances, though he is most well-known for his role in "Doctor Who".
1163213	Taran Hourie Killam (born April 1, 1982) is an American actor, voice actor and comedian best known for his television work on shows such as "The Amanda Show", "Scrubs", "Wild 'N Out", "MADtv", "Stuck in the Suburbs" and, since 2010, on "Saturday Night Live", where he appeared in an SNL Digital Short and in an unofficial video parody of the singer Robyn.
1664277	Kyle Gallner (born October 22, 1986) is an American actor. He is possibly best known for his portrayal of Cassidy "Beaver" Casablancas in the Teen neo-noir television series "Veronica Mars", and for guest-starring in teen sci-fi drama "Smallville" as superhero Bart Allen, an adaptation of the character of "The Flash" and "Impulse" comic book. He is also well known for portraying Reed Garrett, Mac Taylor's stepson, on "" beginning in 2006, and for his roles in the horror films "The Haunting in Connecticut", "Jennifer's Body" and the remake of "A Nightmare on Elm Street". He is currently filming for the fourth season of The Walking Dead as a recurring character, Zach. Life and career. Gallner was born in West Chester, Pennsylvania, and attended West Chester East High School. He started his career by following his sister along to one of her auditions. He proceeded to guest star on popular shows such as "Judging Amy" and "Close to Home". Gallner joined the cast of "Veronica Mars" as Cassidy Casablancas toward the end of the show's first season, in May 2005 before becoming a season regular during the show's second season. In "Veronica Mars", Gallner played the role of a young teenage boy, Cassidy "Beaver" Casablancas, the younger brother of Dick Casablancas. Very smart, he is often bullied by his brother. After playing Bart Allen in the 'Smallville' episode "Run", Gallner reprised his role on the January 18, 2007 episode "Justice" and the season 8 finale. He also guest starred on "Cold Case" as a teenage gunman in the episode "Rampage", and recently appeared in the independent film "Sublime". He guest starred in an episode of "" on October 9, 2007 titled "Impulsive" as a high school student who accuses his teacher (played by Melissa Joan Hart) of statutory rape. He also guest starred in an episode of "Bones" as Jeremy Farrell, the brother of a beauty pageant contestant and possible suspect of murdering one of the beauty pageant's most renowned contestants. Gallner also played the lead role in an allegedly true-story-based horror film. "The Haunting in Connecticut" casts him as a son with cancer who becomes tormented by evil spirits. His family moves from New York to Connecticut to get him special treatment for the cancer, but the only house they can afford comes with a dodgy past. His character, Matt Campbell, is taken over by a dead spirit in the house and consequently sees a manner of disturbing sights. He cannot tell anyone because if he is reported hallucinating his treatment will be terminated. In the end, Matt releases the evil spirits from the possessed house and completely recovers from his terminal cancer.
1015989	Sylvia Chang (born Ai-chia Sylvia Chang 21 July 1953 in Chiayi, Taiwan) is a Taiwanese actress, writer, singer, producer and director. In 1992, she was a member of the jury at the 42nd Berlin International Film Festival. Early life. Sylvia Chang was born in Chiayi, Taiwan and went off to school, until she was 16, where upon she dropped out and started her career as a radio DJ. Soon she made the move into television when she was only 17. When she was 18 years old she starred in her first film. Forty years later, Sylvia Chang is one of Hong Kong’s greatest, and probably most diversified, female artist. Throughout her career in the film industry, which includes writing, directing, and producing, she is also a singer, a stage actress, and an advocate for World Vision International as well as a mother and wife. Career. Sylvia Chang’s career has spanned over many decades. She has been an actress, starting in the 70s when she was only 16, moving up to writing, directing and producing. Many of the films she has directed try to defy the normal gender roles. Even herself as a well known female, Taiwanese, director has helped defy normal gender roles in the film industry. She stated in an interview with film editor, Clarence Tsui, that “I still think Hong Kong’s film industry is male-dominated". However, she is trying her best to break through that dominance. She also believes that “There aren’t many male filmmakers who would write scripts for women”. But, she proved that one gender can write for the other with her film “Run Papa Run" (Chang 2008). She helped write the script, based on the novel by Benny Li Shuan Yan, that follows a man who belongs to the Triad and the relationship he has with his mother, wife and daughter. Chang said in an interview that, “I thought why don’t I explore the gentler side of men”. She explored not only how men try to prove their masculinity by being in gangs, but also how they too, can have gentler sides. Chang is known for trying out different types of roles: “From an innocent girl to a street walker, from a rude police officer to a respected teacher, from an alcoholic to a great mother. And through it all, she's never lost her zest for life”. She’s not only versatile in her career choices, but as well in her acting career. From her first film when she was only 18, “The Tattooed Dragon” (Wei Lo 1973), to one of her most recent “20 30 40” which she not only starred as the 40 year old woman, but also wrote and directed the film as well. Chang also attempted to do her own stunts in the four part series “Aces Go Places". Chang’s acting talents have also extended to the stage. She first began performing in theatre productions more than 30 years ago, but then took a break to pursue other career options and has recently made her return in a production called “Design For Living" The play premiered in November 2008 and went on into 2009. A play that tells of an older female boss and the developing feelings between her and her younger employee. In regards to her long absence from performing on stage, Chang stated in an interview that, “The reason for me to take on stage play again after 20 years is because I was lured by the director, he has invited handsome guys like Zheng Yuan Chang and David Huang into the play”. In between acting, Chang is also a proficient singer. With many popular songs, her music has also become hits for Karaoke. In particular her song “The Cost of Love” is most commonly sung. She is also known for her song Childhood. In her mid thirties, with a successful acting and singing career on her belt, Chang decided to venture out into a new profession. “I had never went to any school as a director or a filmmaker, so all my film education actually was from the set". With her acting experience at her side, Chang took a chance at directing. In 1986, only her second film to direct, “Passion” which she also starred in and wrote, won her the Hong Kong Film Award for Best Actress. Between, now, acting, directing, and singing, she also began a television channel called Go Go TV in 1996. At one point she was even the head producer of New Cinema City in Taiwan, but discovered she was not happy there and left a few years after joining. She also began to write and produce, her own work, as well as others. Her most recent work being writing the screenplay, based on Benny Li Shuan Yan’s book, “Run Papa Run” (Chang 2008), as well as directing the film. Legacy. While her acting career ranges over multiple character types, the films she directs tend to have a more contemporary theme. They usually follow the intricate lives of a few characters and explore their relationships with each other. While most of her films are considered dramas, she has dabbled in comedies. What makes her films even more unique is the animation and special effects she puts in them. Chang once said of her films that, “I’ve always felt that animation or special effects shouldn’t just be limited to science-fiction films and their ilk. Dramas can also play around with them”. Chang has left her mark on the Hong Kong film industry, paving the way for female filmmakers. She has opened the doors to more women in the film industry not only as an actress, but as a writer, producer, and director. One critic wrote of her, that “In an industry that kisses young actresses with celebrity, then swallows them and spits them out, Chang has a sequoia's longevity. She is the only Hong Kong actress of her generation--the early '70s--to keep starring in movies”. Not only has she received the Hong Kong award for best actress, but her films have even been accepted into both the London and Toronto International film Festivals. She has even been honored to serve on the jury for the Berlin Film Festival. She also holds the record for the most nominations for Hong Kong Film Award for Best Actress, with nine nominations and 2 wins. Personal life. Beyond her career in the film industry, Chang is an advocate for World Vision International. An organization that helps fight poverty and starvation over the world. Chang has personally created an advertisement, sponsored by World Vision, to promote the company, World Vision Advertisement. She is also a member and advocate for “30 Hour Famine”, an event World Visions sponsors. She first started almost 20 years ago to help raise awareness about malnutrition in third world countries. She has also visited Africa as well as Ethiopia in 1993. In the recent years she has used 30 hour famine to raise awareness of the effects Typhoon Morakot has done to Tawain and the poverty and famine it has created. She also personally sponsors a child in Mongolia, who she has helped to feed and take care of. She is also a World Vision Life-Long Volunteer, who strives to bring awareness to the poverty and famine around the world. She discussed her desire to be a part of this program as, “there are so many good things in the world, and so many horrible things, but all these things are for all of us to take responsibility for". Sylvia Chang’s family life includes her husband, businessman Wang Ching Hung and her sons. While her family life is usually not made to be very public, there was an incident in 2000 that brought her family life to the surface. In July 2000, Sylvia Chang’s nine year old son Oscar was kidnapped and held for a ransom of HK $ 15 million. However, the police found him after a few days, safe, and arrested the kidnappers. While Oscar was safe and not injured, it was still a shock to Sylvia and her husband “With your life, you have to move on, there's no other choice, so out of no choice then it's a matter of your attitude".
1163774	Rhonda Fleming (born Marilyn Louis in Hollywood, California, August 10, 1923), is an American film and television actress. She acted in more than forty films, mostly in the 1940s and 1950s, and became renowned as one of the most beautiful and glamorous actresses of her day. She was nicknamed the "Queen of Technicolor" because her fair complexion and flaming red hair photographed exceptionally well in Technicolor. Career. Fleming began working as a film actress while attending Beverly Hills High School, from which she was graduated in 1941. After appearing uncredited in a several films, she received her first substantial role in the thriller "Spellbound" (1945), produced by David O. Selznick and directed by Alfred Hitchcock. She followed this with supporting roles in another thriller, "The Spiral Staircase" (1946), directed by Robert Siodmak, the Randolph Scott western "Abilene Town" (1946), and the film noir classic "Out of the Past" (1947) with Robert Mitchum. Her first leading role came in "Adventure Island" (1947), a low-budget action film made in the two-color Cinecolor process and co-starring Rory Calhoun. The actress then co-starred with Bing Crosby in her first Technicolor film, "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court" (1949), a musical loosely based on the story by Mark Twain. Fleming exhibited her singing ability, dueting with Crosby on “Once and For Always” and soloing with “When Is Sometime.” She and Crosby recorded these songs for a 78 rpm Decca soundtrack album. She also sang on NBC's "Colgate Comedy Hour" during the same live telecast that featured Errol Flynn, on September 30, 1951, from the El Capitan Theater in Hollywood. In 1953, Fleming portrayed Cleopatra in "Serpent of the Nile". That same year she appeared in two films shot in 3-D, "Inferno" with Robert Ryan and the musical "Those Redheads From Seattle" with Gene Barry. The following year she starred with Fernando Lamas in "Jivaro", her third 3-D release. Among Fleming’s subsequent cinematic credits are Fritz Lang’s "While the City Sleeps" (1956), co-starring Dana Andrews; Allan Dwan’s "Slightly Scarlet", co-starring John Payne and Arlene Dahl; John Sturges’s "Gunfight at the O.K. Corral" (1957) co-starring Burt Lancaster and Kirk Douglas and the Irwin Allen / Joseph M. Newman production of "The Big Circus" (1959), co-starring Victor Mature and Vincent Price. Her most recent film was "Waiting for the Wind" (1990). During the 1950s and into the 1960s, Fleming frequently appeared on television with guest-starring roles on "The Red Skelton Show", "The Best of Broadway", "The Investigators", "Shower of Stars", "The Dick Powell Show", "Death Valley Days", "Wagon Train", "Burke's Law", "The Virginian", "McMillan & Wife", "Police Woman", "Kung Fu", "Ellery Queen", and "The Love Boat". On March 4, 1962, Fleming appeared in one of the last segments of ABC's "Follow the Sun" in a role opposite Gary Lockwood, who was nearly 14 years her junior. She played a Marine in the episode "Marine of the Month". In 1958, Fleming again displayed her singing talent when she recorded her only LP, entitled simply "Rhonda" (reissued in 2008 on CD as "Rhonda Fleming Sings Just For You"). In this album, she blended then current songs like "Around The World" with standards such as "Love Me Or Leave Me" and "I've Got You Under My Skin". One of her final film appearances to date was a bit-role in the 1980 comedy "The Nude Bomb" as Edith Von Secondburg. Fleming has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. In 2007, a Golden Palm Star on the Palm Springs, Walk of Stars was dedicated to her. Personal life. Fleming has worked for several charities, especially in the field of cancer care, and has served on the committees of many related organizations. In 1991, she and her late fifth husband, Ted Mann, established the "Rhonda Fleming Mann Clinic For Women's Comprehensive Care" at the UCLA Medical Center. In 1964, Fleming spoke at "Project Prayer" rally attended by 2,500 at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles. The gathering, which was hosted by Anthony Eisley, a star of ABC's "Hawaiian Eye" series, sought to flood the United State Congress with letters in support of school prayer, following two decisions in 1962 and 1963 of the United States Supreme Court which struck down the practice as in conflict with the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution.
64878	Charles Sanders Peirce (, like "purse", September 10, 1839 – April 19, 1914) was an American philosopher, logician, mathematician, and scientist, sometimes known as "the father of pragmatism". He was educated as a chemist and employed as a scientist for 30 years. Today he is appreciated largely for his contributions to logic, mathematics, philosophy, scientific methodology, and semiotics, and for his founding of pragmatism. In 1934, the philosopher Paul Weiss called Peirce "the most original and versatile of American philosophers and America's greatest logician". "Webster's Biographical Dictionary" said in 1943 that Peirce was "now regarded as the most original thinker and greatest logician of his time." An innovator in mathematics, statistics, philosophy, research methodology, and various sciences, Peirce considered himself, first and foremost, a logician. He made major contributions to logic, but logic for him encompassed much of that which is now called epistemology and philosophy of science. He saw logic as the formal branch of semiotics, of which he is a founder. As early as 1886 he saw that logical operations could be carried out by electrical switching circuits; the same idea was used decades later to produce digital computers. Life. Peirce was born at 3 Phillips Place in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He was the son of Sarah Hunt Mills and Benjamin Peirce, himself a professor of astronomy and mathematics at Harvard University and perhaps the first serious research mathematician in America. At age 12, Charles read his older brother's copy of Richard Whately's "Elements of Logic", then the leading English-language text on the subject. So began his lifelong fascination with logic and reasoning. He went on to earn the B.A. and M.A. from Harvard; in 1863 the Lawrence Scientific School awarded him a B.Sc. that was Harvard's first "summa cum laude" chemistry degree; and otherwise his academic record was undistinguished. At Harvard, he began lifelong friendships with Francis Ellingwood Abbot, Chauncey Wright, and William James. One of his Harvard instructors, Charles William Eliot, formed an unfavorable opinion of Peirce. This opinion proved fateful, because Eliot, while President of Harvard 1869–1909—a period encompassing nearly all of Peirce's working life—repeatedly vetoed Harvard's employing Peirce in any capacity. Peirce suffered from his late teens onward from a nervous condition then known as "facial neuralgia", which would today be diagnosed as trigeminal neuralgia. Brent says that when in the throes of its pain "he was, at first, almost stupefied, and then aloof, cold, depressed, extremely suspicious, impatient of the slightest crossing, and subject to violent outbursts of temper". Its consequences may have led to the social isolation which made his life's later years so tragic. Early employment. Between 1859 and 1891, Peirce was intermittently employed in various scientific capacities by the United States Coast Survey, where he enjoyed his highly influential father's protection until the latter's death in 1880. That employment exempted Peirce from having to take part in the Civil War; it would have been very awkward for him to do so, as the Boston Brahmin Peirces sympathized with the Confederacy. At the Survey, he worked mainly in geodesy and gravimetry, refining the use of pendulums to determine small local variations in the Earth's gravity. He was elected a resident fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in January 1867. The Survey sent him to Europe five times, first in 1871 as part of a group sent to observe a solar eclipse; there, he sought out Augustus De Morgan, William Stanley Jevons, and William Kingdon Clifford, British mathematicians and logicians whose turn of mind resembled his own. From 1869 to 1872, he was employed as an Assistant in Harvard's astronomical observatory, doing important work on determining the brightness of stars and the shape of the Milky Way. On April 20, 1877 he was elected a member of the National Academy of Sciences. Also in 1877, he proposed measuring the meter as so many wavelengths of light of a certain frequency, the kind of definition employed from 1860 to 1883. During the 1880s, Peirce's indifference to bureaucratic detail waxed while his Survey work's quality and timeliness waned. Peirce took years to write reports that he should have completed in months. Meanwhile, he wrote entries, ultimately thousands during 1883–1909, on philosophy, logic, science, and other subjects for the encyclopedic "Century Dictionary". In 1885, an investigation by the Allison Commission exonerated Peirce, but led to the dismissal of Superintendent Julius Hilgard and several other Coast Survey employees for misuse of public funds. In 1891, Peirce resigned from the Coast Survey at Superintendent Thomas Corwin Mendenhall's request. He never again held regular employment. Johns Hopkins University. In 1879, Peirce was appointed Lecturer in logic at the new Johns Hopkins University, which was strong in a number of areas that interested him, such as philosophy (Royce and Dewey did their PhDs at Hopkins), psychology (taught by G. Stanley Hall and studied by Joseph Jastrow, who coauthored a landmark empirical study with Peirce), and mathematics (taught by J. J. Sylvester, who came to admire Peirce's work on mathematics and logic). 1883 saw publication of his "Studies in Logic by Members of the Johns Hopkins University" containing works by himself and Allan Marquand, Christine Ladd, Benjamin Ives Gilman, and Oscar Howard Mitchell. They were among his graduate students. This nontenured position proved to be the only academic appointment Peirce ever held. Brent documents something Peirce never suspected, namely that his efforts to obtain academic employment, grants, and scientific respectability were repeatedly frustrated by the covert opposition of a major Canadian-American scientist of the day, Simon Newcomb. Peirce's efforts may also have been hampered by a difficult personality; Brent conjectures as to further psychological difficulty. Peirce's personal life also handicapped him. His first wife, Harriet Melusina Fay ("Zina"), left him in 1875. He soon took up with a woman, Juliette, whose maiden name, given variously as Froissy and Pourtalai and nationality (she spoke French) remain uncertain, but his divorce from Zina became final only in 1883, whereupon he married Juliette. That year, Newcomb pointed out to a Johns Hopkins trustee that Peirce, while a Hopkins employee, had lived and traveled with a woman to whom he was not married; the ensuing scandal led to his dismissal in January 1884. Over the years Peirce sought academic employment at various universities without success. He had no children by either marriage. Poverty. In 1887 Peirce spent part of his inheritance from his parents to buy of rural land near Milford, Pennsylvania, which never yielded an economic return. There he had an 1854 farmhouse remodeled to his design. The Peirces named the property "Arisbe". There they lived with few interruptions for the rest of their lives, Charles writing prolifically, much of it unpublished to this day (see Works). Living beyond their means soon led to grave financial and legal difficulties. He spent much of his last two decades unable to afford heat in winter and subsisting on old bread donated by the local baker. Unable to afford new stationery, he wrote on the verso side of old manuscripts. An outstanding warrant for assault and unpaid debts led to his being a fugitive in New York City for a while. Several people, including his brother James Mills Peirce and his neighbors, relatives of Gifford Pinchot, settled his debts and paid his property taxes and mortgage. Peirce did some scientific and engineering consulting and wrote much for meager pay, mainly encyclopedic dictionary entries, and reviews for "The Nation" (with whose editor, Wendell Phillips Garrison, he became friendly). He did translations for the Smithsonian Institution, at its director Samuel Langley's instigation. Peirce also did substantial mathematical calculations for Langley's research on powered flight. Hoping to make money, Peirce tried inventing. He began but did not complete a number of books. In 1888, President Grover Cleveland appointed him to the Assay Commission. From 1890 on, he had a friend and admirer in Judge Francis C. Russell of Chicago, who introduced Peirce to editor Paul Carus and owner Edward C. Hegeler of the pioneering American philosophy journal "The Monist", which eventually published at least 14 articles by Peirce. He wrote many texts in James Mark Baldwin's "Dictionary of Philosophy and Psychology" (1901–5); half of those credited to him appear to have been written actually by Christine Ladd-Franklin under his supervision. He applied in 1902 to the newly formed Carnegie Institution for a grant to write a systematic book of his life's work. The application was doomed; his nemesis Newcomb served on the Institution's executive committee, and its President had been the President of Johns Hopkins at the time of Peirce's dismissal. The one who did the most to help Peirce in these desperate times was his old friend William James, dedicating his "Will to Believe" (1897) to Peirce, and arranging for Peirce to be paid to give two series of lectures at or near Harvard (1898 and 1903). Most important, each year from 1907 until James's death in 1910, James wrote to his friends in the Boston intelligentsia to request financial aid for Peirce; the fund continued even after James died. Peirce reciprocated by designating James's eldest son as his heir should Juliette predecease him. It has been believed that this was also why Peirce used "Santiago" ("St. James" in English) as a middle name, but he appeared in print as early as 1890 as Charles Santiago Peirce. (See Charles Santiago Sanders Peirce for discussion and references). Peirce died destitute in Milford, Pennsylvania, twenty years before his widow. Reception. Bertrand Russell (1959) wrote, "Beyond doubt [...] he was one of the most original minds of the later nineteenth century, and certainly the greatest American thinker ever." (Russell and Whitehead's "Principia Mathematica", published from 1910 to 1913, does not mention Peirce; Peirce's work was not widely known till later.) A. N. Whitehead, while reading some of Peirce's unpublished manuscripts soon after arriving at Harvard in 1924, was struck by how Peirce had anticipated his own "process" thinking. (On Peirce and process metaphysics, see Lowe 1964.) Karl Popper viewed Peirce as "one of the greatest philosophers of all times". Yet Peirce's achievements were not immediately recognized. His imposing contemporaries William James and Josiah Royce admired him, and Cassius Jackson Keyser at Columbia and C. K. Ogden wrote about Peirce with respect, but to no immediate effect. The first scholar to give Peirce his considered professional attention was Royce's student Morris Raphael Cohen, the editor of an anthology of Peirce's writings titled "Chance, Love, and Logic" (1923) and the author of the first bibliography of Peirce's scattered writings. John Dewey studied under Peirce at Johns Hopkins and, from 1916 onwards, Dewey's writings repeatedly mention Peirce with deference. His 1938 "Logic: The Theory of Inquiry" is much influenced by Peirce. The publication of the first six volumes of the "Collected Papers" (1931–35), the most important event to date in Peirce studies and one that Cohen made possible by raising the needed funds, did not prompt an outpouring of secondary studies. The editors of those volumes, Charles Hartshorne and Paul Weiss, did not become Peirce specialists. Early landmarks of the secondary literature include the monographs by Buchler (1939), Feibleman (1946), and Goudge (1950), the 1941 Ph.D. thesis by Arthur W. Burks (who went on to edit volumes 7 and 8), and the studies edited by Wiener and Young (1952). The Charles S. Peirce Society was founded in 1946. Its "Transactions", an academic quarterly specializing in Peirce, pragmatism, and American philosophy, has appeared since 1965. In 1949, while doing unrelated archival work, the historian of mathematics Carolyn Eisele (1902–2000) chanced on an autograph letter by Peirce. So began her 40 years of research on Peirce the mathematician and scientist, culminating in Eisele (1976, 1979, 1985). Beginning around 1960, the philosopher and historian of ideas Max Fisch (1900–1995) emerged as an authority on Peirce; Fisch (1986) includes many of his relevant articles, including a wide-ranging survey (Fisch 1986: 422–48) of the impact of Peirce's thought through 1983. Peirce has gained a significant international following, marked by university research centers devoted to Peirce studies and pragmatism in Brazil (CeneP/CIEP), Finland (HPRC, including ), Germany (Wirth's group, Hoffman's and Otte's group, and Deuser's and Härle's group), France (L'I.R.S.C.E.), Spain (GEP), and Italy (CSP). His writings have been translated into several languages, including German, French, Finnish, Spanish, and Swedish. Since 1950, there have been French, Italian, Spanish, British, and Brazilian Peirceans of note. For many years, the North American philosophy department most devoted to Peirce was the University of Toronto's, thanks in good part to the leadership of Thomas Goudge and David Savan. In recent years, U.S. Peirce scholars have clustered at Indiana University - Purdue University Indianapolis, home of the Peirce Edition Project (PEP), and the Pennsylvania State University. Works. Peirce's reputation rests largely on a number of academic papers published in American scientific and scholarly journals such as "Proceedings of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences", the "Journal of Speculative Philosophy", "The Monist", "Popular Science Monthly", the "American Journal of Mathematics", "Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences", "The Nation", and others. See Articles by Peirce, published in his lifetime for an extensive list with links to them online. The only full-length book (neither extract nor pamphlet) that Peirce authored and saw published in his lifetime was "Photometric Researches" (1878), a 181-page monograph on the applications of spectrographic methods to astronomy. While at Johns Hopkins, he edited "Studies in Logic" (1883), containing chapters by himself and his graduate students. Besides lectures during his years (1879–1884) as Lecturer in Logic at Johns Hopkins, he gave at least nine series of lectures, many now published; see Lectures by Peirce. Harvard University obtained from Peirce's widow soon after his death the papers found in his study, but did not microfilm them until 1964. Only after Richard Robin (1967) catalogued this "Nachlass" did it become clear that Peirce had left approximately 1650 unpublished manuscripts, totaling over 100,000 pages, mostly still unpublished except on microfilm. On the vicissitudes of Peirce's papers, see Houser (1989). Reportedly the papers remain in unsatisfactory condition. The first published anthology of Peirce's articles was the one-volume "Chance, Love and Logic: Philosophical Essays", edited by Morris Raphael Cohen, 1923, still in print. Other one-volume anthologies were published in 1940, 1957, 1958, 1972, 1994, and 2009, most still in print. The main posthumous editions of Peirce's works in their long trek to light, often multi-volume, and some still in print, have included: 1931–58: "Collected Papers of Charles Sanders Peirce" (CP), 8 volumes, includes many published works, along with a selection of previously unpublished work and a smattering of his correspondence. This long-time standard edition drawn from Peirce's work from the 1860s to 1913 remains the most comprehensive survey of his prolific output from 1893 to 1913. It is organized thematically, but texts (including lecture series) are often split up across volumes, while texts from various stages in Peirce's development are often combined, requiring frequent visits to editors' notes. Edited (1–6) by Charles Hartshorne and Paul Weiss and (7–8) by Arthur Burks, in print and online. 1975–87: "Charles Sanders Peirce: Contributions to" The Nation, 4 volumes, includes Peirce's more than 300 reviews and articles published 1869–1908 in "The Nation". Edited by Kenneth Laine Ketner and James Edward Cook, online. 1976: "The New Elements of Mathematics by Charles S. Peirce", 4 volumes in 5, included many previously unpublished Peirce manuscripts on mathematical subjects, along with Peirce's important published mathematical articles. Edited by Carolyn Eisele, out of print. 1977: "Semiotic and Significs: The Correspondence between C. S. Peirce and Victoria Lady Welby" (2nd edition 2001), included Peirce's entire correspondence (1903–1912) with Victoria, Lady Welby. Peirce's other published correspondence is largely limited to the 14 letters included in volume 8 of the "Collected Papers", and the 20-odd pre-1890 items included so far in the "Writings". Edited by Charles S. Hardwick with James Cook, out of print. 1982–now: "Writings of Charles S. Peirce, A Chronological Edition" (W), Volumes 1–6 & 8, of a projected 30. The limited coverage, and defective editing and organization, of the "Collected Papers" led Max Fisch and others in the 1970s to found the Peirce Edition Project (PEP), whose mission is to prepare a more complete critical chronological edition. Only seven volumes have appeared to date, but they cover the period from 1859–1892, when Peirce carried out much of his best-known work. W 8 was published in November 2010; and work continues on W 7, 9, and 11. In print and online. 1985: "Historical Perspectives on Peirce's Logic of Science: A History of Science", 2 volumes. Auspitz has said, "The extent of Peirce's immersion in the science of his day is evident in his reviews in the "Nation" [...] and in his papers, grant applications, and publishers' prospectuses in the history and practice of science", referring latterly to "Historical Perspectives". Edited by Carolyn Eisele, out of print. 1992: "Reasoning and the Logic of Things" collects in one place Peirce's 1898 series of lectures invited by William James. Edited by Kenneth Laine Ketner, with commentary by Hilary Putnam, in print. 1992–98: "The Essential Peirce" (EP), 2 volumes, is an important recent sampler of Peirce's philosophical writings. Edited (1) by Nathan Hauser and Christian Kloesel and (2) by PEP editors, in print. 1997: "Pragmatism as a Principle and Method of Right Thinking" collects Peirce's 1903 Harvard "Lectures on Pragmatism" in a study edition, including drafts, of Peirce's lecture manuscripts, which had been previously published in abridged form; the lectures now also appear in EP 2. Edited by Patricia Ann Turisi, in print. 2010: "Philosophy of Mathematics: Selected Writings" collects important writings by Peirce on the subject, many not previously in print. Edited by Matthew E. Moore, in print. Mathematics. Peirce's most important work in pure mathematics was in logical and foundational areas. He also worked on linear algebra, matrices, various geometries, topology and Listing numbers, Bell numbers, graphs, the four-color problem, and the nature of continuity. He worked on applied mathematics in economics, engineering, and map projections (such as the Peirce quincuncial projection), and was especially active in probability and statistics. Peirce made a number of striking discoveries in formal logic and foundational mathematics, nearly all of which came to be appreciated only long after he died: In 1860 he suggested a cardinal arithmetic for infinite numbers, years before any work by Georg Cantor (who completed his dissertation in 1867) and without access to Bernard Bolzano's 1851 (posthumous) "Paradoxien des Unendlichen". ↓ The Peirce arrow, symbol for "(neither)...nor...", also called the Quine dagger. In 1880–81 he showed how Boolean algebra could be done via a repeated sufficient single binary operation (logical NOR), anticipating Henry M. Sheffer by 33 years. (See also De Morgan's Laws). In 1881 he set out the axiomatization of natural number arithmetic, a few years before Richard Dedekind and Giuseppe Peano. In the same paper Peirce gave, years before Dedekind, the first purely cardinal definition of a finite set in the sense now known as "Dedekind-finite", and implied by the same stroke an important formal definition of an infinite set (Dedekind-infinite), as a set that can be put into a one-to-one correspondence with one of its proper subsets. In 1885 he distinguished between first-order and second-order quantification. In the same paper he set out what can be read as the first (primitive) axiomatic set theory, anticipating Zermelo by about two decades (Brady 2000, pp. 132–3). In 1886 he saw that Boolean calculations could be carried out via electrical switches, anticipating Claude Shannon by more than 50 years.
1064677	Made of Honor (Made of Honour in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Canada and Australia) is a 2008 American romantic comedy film directed by Paul Weiland and story written by Adam Sztykiel (screenplay by Sztykiel, Deborah Kaplan and Harry Elfont). It was produced by Neal H. Moritz and was released by Columbia Pictures in North America on May 2, 2008. The film includes the last screen appearance of Sydney Pollack. Plot. On Halloween night, 1998, at Cornell University, Tom Bailey, Jr. (Patrick Dempsey), in costume as Bill Clinton, slips into bed with his pre-arranged date, Monica. However it turns out to be the wrong woman, Monica's roommate Hannah (Michelle Monaghan), and Tom likes her because she is so honest and doesn't fling herself at him. Ten years later, Hannah and Tom are best friends. Tom is very wealthy, because of his creation of the "coffee collar" and gets a dime every time it is used. Tom is with a different girl every week, while Hannah focuses on her career in an art museum. He is very content with his life, suspecting that Hannah is too. After Tom takes Hannah to his father's (Sydney Pollack) sixth wedding, Hannah tells Tom she must go to Scotland for work. While she's gone, Tom discovers that without her, being with another woman week after week is not very fulfilling. He realizes that he loves Hannah, and decides to tell her his feelings when she gets back. Upon returning, Hannah surprisingly announces she is engaged to a wealthy Scot named Colin (Kevin McKidd). Hannah asks Tom to be her maid of honor for her wedding. After discussing it with his friends, Tom decides to be her maid of honor, only to spend time with her and try to convince her she does not even know Colin, as well as making her realize that he loves her and she should be marrying him. After arriving in Scotland, at Eilean Donan Castle, for the wedding, Tom realizes he is running out of time to stop Hannah. He meets all of Colin's family and must perform in a variant of the Highland Games, in which the groom must compete to prove himself worthy of his bride. Tom is also in the competition with Colin, but loses in the last round. Tom takes Hannah out for a walk, hoping to tell her how he feels. However, the other bridesmaids interrupt for Hannah's bachelorette party. On her Hen Night, Hannah parades around a pub and sells her kisses for change. As she goes around, Hannah then kisses Tom. Though it just started as a peck on the cheek, it turns into a passionate kiss. That night, Hannah decides to confront Tom and ask about the kiss. However, when she gets to his room, her drunk cousin is there, trying to have sex with him. Hannah leaves and Tom runs after her. He knocks on her door, pleading for her to let him in. She refuses and asks about the kiss. He tells her he knew he was the one for her, not Colin. She refuses to say that she thinks so too and instead tells Tom that she still expects to marry Colin the next day. Tom cannot go through with watching Hannah and Colin get married so he decides to go home. When questioned about his sudden departure shortly before the wedding is to take place, Hannah informs Colin that Tom is just afraid of losing her. On the way home, Tom realizes that he must stop the wedding and goes back on horseback. Just when the priest asks for objections, Tom is sent flying off his horse and through the chapel doors. Seeing her best friend on the floor, Hannah rushes to him. As he struggles to stand up, he tells her that he loves her more than anything and that she should marry him. They then share a kiss. Hannah tells Colin that she is very sorry and that he is the perfect guy, just not the perfect guy for her. Colin's grandmother then tells Colin, in Scots, to 'deck' Tom, which he does without hesitation. Hannah and Tom eventually get married. Melissa catches the bouquet and then links arms with Tom's dad, to which he says "Number 6?" and his lawyer says "7". The movie ends with Hannah and Tom on their honeymoon. Tom turns on the light just to see if he's got the right girl and Hannah replies "You do". The two kiss and as Hannah turns off the light, Tom says "Oh, Monica" and Hannah replies "Oh, Bill". Rating. "Made of Honor" was originally rated R for "some sex-related material", but is now PG-13 for "sexual content and language". In Australia, it is rated M. In Sweden, the Swedish National Board of Film Censors rated the uncut version as suitable for all ages. In the UK the British Board of Film Certification (BBFC) rated it a 12 for "Moderate Language and Sex References". When released on DVD, it was rated 12 for "Strong Sex References". Critical reception. "Made of Honor" received mainly negative reviews from critics. The review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reported that 12% of critics gave the film positive reviews based on 87 reviews, with the consensus that it is a "forgettable, formulaic chick flick." On Metacritic, the film has an average score of 37 out of 100, based on 20 reviews. Box office performance. In its opening weekend, the film grossed $15.5 million in 2,729 theaters in the United States and Canada, averaging $5,679 per theater, and ranking #2 at the box office behind "Iron Man". It grossed a total of $46,012,734 domestically and $59,950,026 in international gross, for a worldwide gross of $105,962,760.
695676	Lollywood () refers to the Pakistani film industry based in the city of Lahore. The word "Lollywood" was first coined in the summer of 1989 in the now-defunct magazine "Glamour" published from Karachi by a gossip columnist Saleem Nasir. The film industry in Lahore started in 1929 with the opening of the United Players' Studios on Ravi Road. The cornerstone for the studio was set by Abdur Rashid Kardar. Since then the studio has managed indigenous productions competing with other film production centres in the undivided India, namely Mumbai and Kolkata. History. Birth of cinema (1896–1910). Cinema was introduced to India on 7 July 1896, when the Lumiere brothers' "Cinématographe" showed six short silent films at Watson's Hotel in Bombay. A few years later in 1898, Hiralal Sen started filming scenes of theatre productions in Calcutta, inspired by English professor Stephenson who had brought to India the country's first bioscope. Harischandra Sakharam Bhatavdekar imported a camera from London at a price of 21 guineas and filmed the first Indian documentary, a wrestling match in Hanging Gardens, Bombay, in 1897. He also filmed the first Indian news film, a record of Ragunath P. Paranjpe's return from Cambridge University upon securing a distinction in mathematics. Bhatavdekar is however best known for filming the Viceroy of India Lord Curzon's Delhi Durbar that marked the enthronement of Edward VII in 1903.
1164626	Billie Bird (February 28, 1908 – November 27, 2002) was an American actress and comedienne. Early life. Born Berniece Bird in Pocatello, Idaho, Bird was discovered at the age of eight while living at an orphanage. As a child, she worked in vaudeville, and later in theater/cabaret before moving on to television and films. Career. She is credited on the Internet Movie Database with an appearance in a 1921 film, but it is not clear if this is accurate. Otherwise, she broke into films in 1950, later making a brief uncredited appearance in "The Odd Couple" as a chambermaid. Her only line was "Goodnight", which was said to Felix Ungar, in which he returned with "Goodbye." Bird was often cast by director John Hughes and appeared in many of his 1980 and 1990s films, including "Sixteen Candles", "Home Alone", and "Dennis the Menace", the latter two of which paired her with veteran Hughes actor, Bill Erwin, as her husband. She also starred as Mrs. Lois Feldman in "Police Academy 4". Her last film appearance was in 1995's "Jury Duty", with Pauly Shore. In addition films, Bird made numerous appearances on various television series including roles on "Ironside", "Eight Is Enough", "The Facts of Life", "Who's the Boss?", and "Knots Landing". She was also a regular cast member on the sitcom "Benson" from 1984 to 1986. In 1988, she joined the cast of "Dear John" starring Judd Hirsch. Her last acting role was a brief appearance in 1997 on an episode of the CBS sitcom "George & Leo", which starred Bob Newhart and Bird's former co-star, Hirsch. Personal life. Bird was married to Edwin Sellen until his death in 1966; they had three children. Death. Bird died on November 27, 2002 in Granada Hills, California at the age of 94 after a long battle with Alzheimer's disease. She is buried in the Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, California. References. Billie was also in an episode of a Three's Company Spinoff Called "Three's A Crowd" The year was 1984. She played Jack's Aunt May!
1064833	Michael Brown (born August 3, 1973), professionally known as Michael Ealy, is an American actor. He is perhaps best known for his roles in "Barbershop" (2002), its sequel ' (2004), "2 Fast 2 Furious" (2003), "Their Eyes Were Watching God" (2005), "Seven Pounds" (2008), "For Colored Girls" (2010), and ' (2012). Life and career. He started his acting career in the late 1990s, appearing in a number of off-Broadway stage productions. Among his first film roles were "Bad Company" and "Kissing Jessica Stein". His breakout role came in 2002's "Barbershop", in which he plays reformed street thug Ricky Nash, a role that he reprised in the 2004 sequel, "". In 2003, he played the role of Slap Jack in the second installment of the "Fast and the Furious" film series, "2 Fast 2 Furious". Later in 2004, Ealy appeared in "Never Die Alone" with DMX. He also appeared in Mariah Carey's music video for her hit single "Get Your Number" from her 2005 album "The Emancipation of Mimi".He also played Dominic in "Think like a Man" in 2012 In 2005, Ealy co-starred in the Television film version of "Their Eyes Were Watching God", produced by Oprah Winfrey and Quincy Jones, and starring Academy Award–winning actress Halle Berry. The same year, he starred in the independent film "Jellysmoke", directed by Mark Banning. He starred in the Showtime television series "Sleeper Cell", the first season of which aired December 4–18, 2005, and the second season of which, "Sleeper Cell: American Terror", aired December 10–17, 2006. On December 14, 2006, Ealy was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for his role in "Sleeper Cell: American Terror" in the category Best Performance by an Actor in a Mini-Series or Motion Picture Made for Television. In December 2008 he was featured in the movie "Seven Pounds" alongside Will Smith as Ben Thomas. He also starred as the male lead in Beyoncé's "Halo" music video, and as CIA Field Officer Marshall Vogel in the ABC television series "FlashForward". Starred in the film "Think Like a Man" 2012 film
1088188	A Riemann solver is a numerical method used to solve a Riemann problem. They are heavily used in computational fluid dynamics and computational magnetohydrodynamics. Exact solvers. Godunov is credited with introducing the first exact Riemann solver for the Euler equations, by extending the previous CIR (Courant-Isaacson-Reeves) method to non-linear systems of hyperbolic conservation laws. Modern solvers are able to simulate relativistic effects and magnetic fields. For the hydrodynamic case latest research results showed the possibility to avoid the iterations to calculate the exact solution for the Euler equations . Approximate solvers. As iterative solutions are too costly, especially in Magnetohydrodynamics, some approximations have to be made. The most popular solvers are: Roe solver. Roe used the linearisation of the Jacobian, which he then solves exactly. HLLE solver. The HLLE (Harten, Lax, van Leer and Einfeldt) solver is an approximate solution to the Riemann problem, which is only based on the integral form of the conservation laws and the largest and smallest signal velocities at the interface. The stability and robustness of the HLLE solver is closely related to the signal velocities and a single central average state, as proposed by Einfeldt in the original paper. The description of the HLLE scheme in the book mentioned below is incomplete and partially wrong. The reader is referred to the original paper. Actually, the HLLE scheme is based on a new stability theory for discontinuities in fluids, which was never published. HLLC solver. The HLLC (Harten-Lax-van Leer-Contact) solver was introduced by Toro. It restores the missing Rarefaction wave by some estimates, like linearisations, these can be simple but also more advanced exists like using the Roe average velocity for the middle wave speed. They are quite robust and efficient but somewhat more diffusive. Rotated-hybrid Riemann solvers. These solvers were introduced by Nishikawa and Kitamura, in order to overcome the carbuncle problems
1044109	Carry On Sergeant is a 1958 comedy film starring William Hartnell, Bob Monkhouse and Eric Barker; it is the first in the series of "Carry On" films, with 31 entries. The film was based on a play "The Bull Boys" by R. F. Delderfield and was adapted into a script by Norman Hudis with John Antrobus contributing additional material. It was directed by Gerald Thomas and produced by Peter Rogers, a partnership which would last until 1978. Actors in this film, who went on to be part of the regular team in the series, were Kenneth Williams, Charles Hawtrey, Hattie Jacques, Kenneth Connor and Terry Scott. The first public screening was on 1 August 1958 at Screen One, in London. The soundtrack music was played by the Band of the Coldstream Guards, conducted by the composer. Carry on series. "Carry On Sergeant" had not been conceived as the start of a movie series; only after the film's surprising success did the producer Peter Rogers and director Gerald Thomas set about planning a further project. After reusing the "Carry On" prefix and some cast members in their next project "Carry On Nurse" (1959) and having success with that film, the "Carry On" series of films evolved. Plot. Newly-married Mary Sage (Shirley Eaton) is distraught when her husband Charlie (Bob Monkhouse) receives his call-up papers during their wedding breakfast. He travels to Heathercrest National Service Depot, meeting fellow recruit Horace Strong (Kenneth Connor), a terminal hypochondriac who is devastated at having been passed as fit. The new recruits are assigned to Sergeant Grimshaw (William Hartnell). Grimshaw is retiring from the army and takes on a £50 bet with Sergeant O'Brien (Terry Scott) that his last bunch of squaddies will be his first champion platoon. (Terry Scott was paid £50 for his part in the fim) With beady-eyed inspection from Captain Potts (Eric Barker) and disgruntled support from Corporal Copping (Bill Owen), Grimshaw decides to use some psychology and treat his charges kindly rather than simply shouting at them. But basic training doesn't start well and he struggles to take his squad through it. They include failure Herbert Brown (Norman Rossington), upper-class cad Miles Heywood (Terence Longdon), rock 'n' roller Andy Galloway (Gerald Campion), delicate flower Peter Golightly (Charles Hawtrey) and supercilious university graduate James Bailey (Kenneth Williams). His attempts seem doomed. Mary is determined to spend her wedding night with her husband and smuggles herself into the depot to get a job in the NAAFI, a situation Charlie is eventually able to legitimise. Strong spends most of his time complaining to the Medical Officer, Captain Clark (Hattie Jacques). It is only the adoration of doe-eyed NAAFI girl Norah (Dora Bryan), which he initially rejects, that makes him realise his potential and inspires him to become a real soldier. On the eve of the final tests, Grimshaw is in despair, but he is overheard bemoaning his lot to Copping. The squad decide to win the best platoon prize at all costs. On the day, they indeed beat the other platoons at all tasks and Grimshaw is awarded the cup for best platoon. Title. "Carry on, Sergeant" is a normal expression for an Army officer to use; the American equivalent is, "As you were." The title was used to cash in on the popularity of the 1957 film "Carry on Admiral," which was written by Val Guest. At the time, the success of "Carry On Sergeant" prompted applause and audience laughter in serious settings where the phrase was used, including amongst audiences of the film "The Devil's Disciple" (1959). Business data. The film was the third most successful movie at the British box office in 1958. Filming and locations. Interiors: Exteriors:
1265422	Louise Brooks (November 14, 1906 – August 8, 1985), born Mary Louise Brooks, was an American dancer and actress, noted for popularizing the bobbed haircut. Brooks is best known as the lead in three feature films made in Europe, including two G. W. Pabst films: "Pandora's Box" (1929), "Diary of a Lost Girl" (1929), and "Prix de Beauté" ("Miss Europe", 1930). She starred in seventeen silent films and eight sound films before retiring in 1935. Brooks published her memoir, "Lulu in Hollywood", in 1982, three years later she died of a heart attack at the age of 78. Early life. Born in Cherryvale, Kansas, Louise Brooks was the daughter of Leonard Porter Brooks, a lawyer, who was usually too busy with his practice to discipline his children, and Myra Rude, an artistic mother who determined that any "squalling brats she produced could take care of themselves". Rude was a talented pianist who played the latest Debussy and Ravel for her children, inspiring them with a love of books and music. None of this protected her nine-year old daughter Louise from sexual abuse at the hands of a neighborhood predator. This event had a major influence on Brooks' life and career, causing her to say in later years that she was incapable of real love, and that this man "must have had a great deal to do with forming my attitude toward sexual pleasure...For me, nice, soft, easy men were never enough – there had to be an element of domination". (When Brooks at last told her mother of the incident, many years later, her mother suggested that it must have been Louise's fault for "leading him on"). Brooks began her entertainment career as a dancer, joining the Denishawn modern dance company in Los Angeles (whose members included founders Ruth St. Denis, and Ted Shawn, as well as a young Martha Graham) in 1922. In her second season with the company, Brooks had advanced to a starring role in one work opposite Shawn. A long-simmering personal conflict between Brooks and St. Denis boiled over one day, however, and St. Denis abruptly fired Brooks from the troupe in 1924, telling her in front of the other members that "I am dismissing you from the company because you want life handed to you on a silver salver". The words left a strong impression on Brooks; when she drew up an outline for a planned autobiographical novel in 1949, "The Silver Salver" was the title she gave to the tenth and final chapter. Thanks to her friend Barbara Bennett (sister of Constance and Joan), Brooks almost immediately found employment as a chorus girl in George White's Scandals, followed by an appearance as a featured dancer in the 1925 edition of the Ziegfeld Follies on Broadway. As a result of her work in the "Follies", she came to the attention of Paramount Pictures producer Walter Wanger, who signed her to a five-year contract with the studio in 1925. (She was also noticed by visiting movie star Charlie Chaplin, who was in town for the premiere of his film "The Gold Rush". The two had an affair that summer). Career. American films. Brooks made her screen debut in the silent "The Street of Forgotten Men", in an uncredited role in 1925. Soon, however, she was playing the female lead in a number of silent light comedies and flapper films over the next few years, starring with Adolphe Menjou and W. C. Fields, among others. She was noticed in Europe for her pivotal vamp role in the Howard Hawks directed silent "buddy film", "A Girl in Every Port" in 1928. In an early sound film drama, "Beggars of Life" (1928), Brooks played an abused country girl on the run with hobos Richard Arlen and Wallace Beery whom she meets while riding the rails. Much of this film was shot on location, and the boom microphone was invented for this film by the director William Wellman, who needed it for one of the first experimental talking scenes in the movies. By this time in her life, she was mixing with the rich and famous, and was a regular guest of William Randolph Hearst and his mistress, Marion Davies, at San Simeon, being close friends with Davies' niece, Pepi Lederer. Her distinctive bob haircut helped start a trend; many women styled their hair in imitation of her and fellow film star Colleen Moore. Soon after the film "Beggars Of Life" was made, Brooks, who loathed the Hollywood "scene", refused to stay on at Paramount after being denied a promised raise, and left for Europe to make films for G. W. Pabst, the prominent Austrian Expressionist director. Paramount attempted to use the coming of sound films to pressure the actress, but she called the studio's bluff. It was not until 30 years later that this rebellious move would come to be seen as arguably the most savvy of her career, securing her immortality as a silent film legend and independent spirit. Unfortunately, while her initial snubbing of Paramount alone would not have finished her in Hollywood altogether, her refusal after returning from Germany to come back to Paramount for sound retakes of "The Canary Murder Case" (1929) irrevocably placed her on an unofficial blacklist. Actress Margaret Livingston was hired to dub Brooks's voice for the film, as the studio claimed that Brooks' voice was unsuitable for sound pictures. In Europe. Once in Germany, she starred in the 1929 film "Pandora's Box", directed by Georg Wilhelm Pabst in his New Objectivity period. The film is based on two plays by Frank Wedekind ("Erdgeist" and "Die Büchse der Pandora") and Brooks plays the central figure, Lulu. This film is notable for its frank treatment of modern sexual mores, including one of the first screen portrayals of a lesbian. Brooks then starred in the controversial social drama "Diary of a Lost Girl" (1929), based on the book by Margarete Böhme and also directed by Pabst, and "Prix de Beauté" (1930) by Italian author Augusto Genina, the latter being filmed in France, and having a famous surprise ending. All these films were heavily censored, as they were very "adult" and considered shocking in their time for their portrayals of sexuality, as well as their social satire. Life after film. When she returned to Hollywood in 1931, she was cast in two mainstream films: "God's Gift to Women" (1931) and "It Pays to Advertise" (1931). Her performances in these films, however, were largely ignored, and few other job offers were forthcoming due to her informal "blacklisting".
1063219	Nathalie Kay "Tippi" Hedren (born January 19, 1930) is an American actress, former fashion model and an animal rights activist. She is known for her roles in the Alfred Hitchcock films "The Birds" and "Marnie" (in which she played the title role). She has been involved with animal rescue at Shambala Preserve, an wildlife habitat which she founded in 1983. Hedren was also instrumental in the development of Vietnamese-American nail salons in the United States. Early life. For the first 40 years of her career, Hedren's year of birth was reported to be 1935, although in 2004, she acknowledged that she was actually born in 1930. Hedren was born in New Ulm, Minnesota, the daughter of Bernard Carl and Dorothea Henrietta (née Eckhardt) Hedren. Her paternal grandparents were emigrants from Sweden, while her maternal ancestry is German and Norwegian. Her father ran a small general store in the small town of Lafayette, Minnesota, and gave her the nickname "Tippi". When she was four, she moved with her parents to Minneapolis. As a teenager, Hedren took part in department store fashion shows. Her parents relocated to California while she was a high school student. On reaching her 18th birthday, she bought a ticket to New York and began a professional modeling career. Within a year she made her unofficial film debut as an uncredited extra in the musical comedy "The Petty Girl"; in interviews she refers to "The Birds" as her first film. Career. Collaboration with Alfred Hitchcock. Discovery. Hedren had a successful modeling career from 1950 to 1961, appearing on the cover of "Life" magazine. On Friday the 13th of October 1961, Hedren received a call from an agent who told her a producer was interested in working with her. When she was told it was Alfred Hitchcock who, while he was watching "The Today Show", saw her in a commercial for a diet drink called Sego, she agreed to sign a seven-year contract. During their first meeting, the two talked about everything except the role he was considering her for. Hedren was convinced for several weeks it was for his television series, "Alfred Hitchcock Presents". Hitchcock put Hedren through a $25,000 screen test, doing scenes from his previous films, such as "Rebecca", "Notorious" and "To Catch a Thief" with actor Martin Balsam. According to Balsam, Hedren was very nervous but studied every line and move she was asked and tried to do everything right. Hitchcock asked costume designer Edith Head to design clothes for Hedren's private life and he personally advised her about wine and food. He also insisted for publicity purposes that her name should be printed only in single quotes, 'Tippi'. The press mostly ignored this directive from the director, who felt that the single quotes added distinction and mystery to her name. Hitchcock was impressed with Hedren as production designer Robert F. Boyle explained. "Hitch always liked women who behaved like well-bred ladies. Tippi generated that quality." Because he was happy with her screen test, Hitchcock invited Hedren to a dinner where he offered her a golden pin of three birds in flight and asked her to play the leading role in his film, "The Birds". "The Birds". "The Birds" (1963) was Hedren's screen debut. Hitchcock became her drama coach and gave her an education in film-making as she attended many of the production meetings like script, music or photography conferences. Hedren said, "I probably learned in three years what it would have taken me 15 years to learn otherwise." She learned how to break down a script, to become another character and to study the relationship of different characters. Hedren portrayed her role of Melanie Daniels as Hitchcock requested. "He gives his actors very little leeway. He'll listen, but he has a very definite plan in mind as to how he wants his characters to act. With me, it was understandable, because I was not an actress of stature. I welcomed his guidance." During the six months of principal photography, Hedren's schedule was tight as she was given one afternoon off a week. She found the shooting to be at first "wonderful". Hitchcock told a reporter, after a few weeks of filming, she was remarkable and said, "She's already reaching the lows and highs of terror." Nonetheless, Hedren recalled the week she did the final attack scene in a second-floor bedroom as the worst of her life. Before filming it, she asked Hitchcock about her character's motivations to go upstairs and his response was, "Because I tell you to." She was then assured that the crew would use mechanical birds. Instead, Hedren endured five solid days of prop men, protected by thick leather gloves, flinging dozens of live gulls, ravens and crows at her (their beaks clamped shut with elastic bands). In a state of exhaustion, when one of the birds gouged her cheek and narrowly missed her eye, Hedren sat down on the set and began crying. A physician ordered a week's rest. Hitchcock protested, according to Hedren, saying there was nobody but her to film. Her doctor's reply was, "Are you trying to kill her?" However, she admitted the week appeared to be an ordeal for the director. While promoting "The Birds", Hitchcock was full of praise for his new protégé and compared her to Grace Kelly. "Tippi has a faster tempo, city glibness, more humor Grace Kelly. She displayed jaunty assuredness, pertness, an attractive throw of the head. And she memorized and read lines extraordinarily well and is sharper in expression." For her performance, Hedren received the Golden Globe Award for New Star of the Year, tied with Elke Sommer and Ursula Andress. "Marnie". Hitchcock was impressed with Hedren's performance in "The Birds" and decided to offer her the leading title role of his next film, "Marnie" (1964), a romantic drama and psychological thriller from the novel by Winston Graham. Hedren was stunned and later said, "I thought Marnie was an extremely interesting role to play and a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity". She voiced doubts about her ability to play that demanding role but was assured by Hitchcock she could do it. Contrary to "The Birds" where she had received little acting guidance, Hedren studied every scene with the director. Hedren recalled "Marnie" as her favorite of the two films she did with Hitchcock for the challenge of playing an emotionally battered young woman who travels from city to city assuming various guises in order to rob her employers. During the filming, Hitchcock was quoted as saying about Hedren, "an Academy Award performance is in the making". On release, the film was greeted by mixed reviews and indifferent box-office returns, and received no Oscar nominations. Troubled relations. Hedren's relationship with Hitchcock caused much controversy. In 1973, she admitted that a major life-style difference caused a split in their relationship. "He was too possessive and too demanding. I cannot be possessed by anyone. But, then, that's my own hangup." In 1983, author Donald Spoto published his second book about Hitchcock, "The Dark Side of a Genius", in which Hedren agreed to talk about her relationship with the director in detail for the first time. Hedren explained the shooting of the attack scene in "The Birds" and recalled that, during the filming of "Marnie", Hitchcock made "an overt sexual proposition that she could neither ignore nor answer casually, as she could his previous gestures." The book was controversial as several of Hitchcock's friends claimed the Hitchcock portrayed in the book was not the man they knew. For years after its release, Hedren was not keen to talk about it in interviews but thought the chapter devoted to her story was "accurate as to just what he was." However, in 2008, Hedren gave Spoto new details for his third book about Hitchcock, "Spellbound by Beauty," in which she made a series of claims. She said that it was during production of "The Birds" that she began to feel uncomfortable over him as she remembered he was watching her all the time. Hitchcock tried to control everything from what she wore to what she ate and drank. She said she was being followed outside the set and reports were made and sent to Hitchcock about her comings and goings. He told the cast and crew they were not allowed to talk to her. Hedren claimed he tried, on one occasion, to kiss her in the back of a car when they were alone. Hedren said she told his assistant, Peggy Robertson, and the studio chief, Lew Wasserman, she was becoming very unhappy about the whole situation. "But he was Alfred Hitchcock, the great and famous director, and I was Tippi Hedren, an inexperienced actress who had no clout." She decided she couldn't quit her contract because she was afraid to be blacklisted and unable to find work. During "Marnie", Hedren found Hitchcock's behavior toward her more difficult to bear as filming progressed. "Everyone - I mean everyone - knew he was obsessed with me. He always wanted a glass of wine or champagne, with me alone, at the end of the day. (...) he was really isolating me from everyone." Hedren asked Hitchcock’s permission one day to travel to New York to appear on "The Tonight Show" where she was supposed to be presented an award as the "Most Promising New Star". Hitchcock refused because he thought a break would harm her performance. Hedren was furious and apparently called the director a fat pig in front of people on the set. Hitchcock made only a comment about it to his biographer, John Russell Taylor, "She did what no one is permitted to do. She referred to my weight." The two communicated only through a third party for the rest of the film. Near the end of the production, Hedren remembered Hitchcock called her into his office. "He stared at me and simply said, as if it was the most natural thing in the world, that from this time on, he expected me to make myself sexually available and accessible to him – however and whenever and wherever he wanted." She tried to get out of her contract because, "He made these demands on me, and no way could I acquiesce to them," and recalls Hitchcock telling her he'd ruin her career. "And he did: kept me under contract, kept paying me every week for almost two years to do nothing." As her contract allowed Hitchcock to approve or not any offers she received, Hedren said that he turned down several film roles on her behalf and was particularly disappointed when French director François Truffaut told her he had wanted her for a film. Truffaut's daughter Laura disputed this saying her father was not secretive about the actors he considered and never mentioned Hedren, "It is extremely unlikely in my view, that my father seriously entertained this project without sharing it with my mother or mentioning it to us in later years." Hitchcock finally sold her contract to Universal Studios and Hedren appeared in two of their TV shows, "Kraft Suspense Theatre" and "Run for Your Life" in 1965, a year after "Marnie", but was fired after she refused to work on a TV Western for them. Controversy. Hedren's account contrasted with the many interviews she gave about her time with Hitchcock, her warm tribute she paid to him when he was honoured with the AFI Life Achievement Award by the American Film Institute in 1979, and her presence at his funeral. When asked about it, Hedren answered, "He ruined my career, but he didn’t ruin my life. That time of my life was over. I still admire the man for who he was." The BBC/HBO film "The Girl" (2012), featuring Sienna Miller as Hedren and Toby Jones as Hitchcock, was based on Spoto's book "Spellbound by Beauty". The film was controversial as others who knew and worked with Hitchcock, including Eva Marie Saint and Kim Novak, refuted Hedren's account of him. While Saint said, "There were six of us Hitchcock blondes, and it’s like we all were married to the man at one time or another and we all have a different take on him," Novak disputed its portrayal of Hitchcock as a sexual predator and told "The Daily Telegraph", "I never saw him make a pass at anybody or act strange to anybody. And wouldn't you think if he was that way, I would've seen it or at least seen him with somebody? I think it's unfortunate when someone's no longer around and can't defend themselves." James H. Brown, the first assistant director on "The Birds" and "Marnie", who was interviewed several years before "The Girl", said Hedren and Hitchcock had differences on "Marnie", recognized it was possible the director lost control and interest on the set of the film, but added, "I thought some of the things expressed about Hitchcock were highly over exaggerated. I think Hitchcock became a little upset with Tippi because she wasn't fulfilling the star qualities that he thought she had or was looking for." Rod Taylor, her co-star in "The Birds", remembered, "Hitch was becoming very domineering and covetous of 'Tippi,' and it was very difficult for her. (...) No one was permitted to come physically close to her during the production. 'Don't touch the girl after I call "Cut!" he said to me repeatedly." Diane Baker, Hedren's co-star in "Marnie", said that her memories of the film were so painful she tried to forget the experience and turned down participation in any Hitchcock tributes. She added, "I never saw Tippi enjoying herself with the rest of us. (...) None of us ever saw her having a warm, friendly relationship with him. (...) Nothing could have been more horrible for me than to arrive on that movie set and to see her being treated the way she was." Virginia Darcy, Hedren's hairdresser, declined an invitation from Hedren to see "The Girl", but she admitted she told Hitchcock he should not be possessive with Hedren. "Tippi felt rightly that she was not his property, but he'd say, 'You are, I have a contract.'" Hedren's own daughter, Melanie Griffith, remembered that while Hedren was doing "The Birds", she thought Hitchcock was taking her mother away from her. "Suddenly, I wasn't allowed even to visit my mom at the studio." Bulk of career. Since her falling out with Hitchcock, Hedren has appeared in over fifty films and TV shows. Hedren's first feature film appearance after "Marnie" was in "A Countess from Hong Kong" (1967), starring Marlon Brando and Sophia Loren. She was told by writer/director Charlie Chaplin that she was offered a major supporting role as Brando's estranged wife and had to accept the film without reading the script. However, when she finally received it, she realized that it was only a small part, and asked Chaplin to expand her role. Although Chaplin tried to accommodate her, he could not, as the story mostly takes place on a ship, which Hedren's character boards near the end of the film. Hedren later said that it was both very amusing and strange working for him. After working with Hitchcock and Chaplin, Hedren told she was waiting for a special project to come along. In 1970, Hedren returned to film with the leading role of Rita Armstrong, a socialite who helps her boyfriend (played by George Armstrong) to catch a killer, in "Tiger by the Tail". In the same year, she guest-starred on "The Courtship of Eddie's Father" as Bill Bixby's girlfriend. She then agreed to take part in two films, "Satan's Harvest" (1970), opposite George Montgomery, and "Mister Kingstreet's War" (1973), shot back-to-back, for the only reason they were made in Africa. In 1973, Hedren was in "The Harrad Experiment" with James Whitmore and Don Johnson. She confessed at the time she was occasionally depressed over the fact she wasn't doing any major films. Hedren starred alongside her then-husband, the agent and occasional producer Noel Marshall in the 1981 film "Roar" (directed by Marshall), about a family whose array of wild pets turn on them. The film cost $17 million to make but grossed only $2 million worldwide. In 1982, she co-starred with Leslie Nielsen in "Foxfire Light". In the 1980s, Hedren appeared in several primetime television series including "Hart to Hart" in 1983 and "Tales from the Darkside" in 1984. In the 1985 pilot episode of "The New Alfred Hitchcock Presents", she made a brief appearance as a waitress in a bar. In 1990, Hedren had a role on the daytime soap opera "The Bold and the Beautiful". That same year, she had a non-speaking, minor part in the film "Pacific Heights" (1990), which starred her daughter Melanie Griffith. In the early 1990s, Hedren appeared in many television movies such as "Return to Green Acres" (1990), "Through the Eyes of a Killer" (1992), and "Treacherous Beauties" (1994). In 1994, she appeared in the made-for-cable sequel "", in a role different from the one she played in the original. Before its release, she admitted she was unhappy that she didn't get a starring role and, when asked about what could have been Hitchcock's opinion, she answered : "I'd hate to think what he would say!". In a 2007 interview, Hedren said of the film, "It's absolutely horrible, it embarrasses me horribly." In 1996, Hedren played an abortion rights activist in the independent film "Citizen Ruth" with Laura Dern. In 1998, she co-starred alongside Billy Zane, Christina Ricci, Eartha Kitt, Andrew McCarthy and Ron Perlman in "I Woke Up Early the Day I Died", a film she particularly liked due to the fact that it had no dialogue in it. After appearing in a number of little-exposed films between 1999 and 2003, Hedren had a small but showy role in the 2004 comedy "I Heart Huckabees", as a foul-mouthed attractive older woman who slaps Jude Law in an elevator. Hedren continued to guest-star on television series throughout the 1990s and 2000s, in series such as "Chicago Hope" (1998), "The 4400" (2006) and "" (2008). She was a cast member of the short-lived primetime soap opera "Fashion House" in 2006 with Bo Derek and Morgan Fairchild. In 2009, Hedren appeared in the Lifetime movie "Tribute", which starred actress Brittany Murphy in one of Murphy's last roles. She provided the voice for the character of Queen Hippolyta on the animated series "" in 2011. In 2012, Hedren appeared in "Jayne Mansfield's Car", directed by Billy Bob Thornton and starring Thornton, Robert Duvall and Kevin Bacon. In the same year Hedren starred, alongside Jess Weixler and Jesse Eisenberg, in one of her own favourite films, "Free Samples", directed by Jay Gammill. Hedren guest-starred in the fourth season finale of "Cougar Town"; her episode ("Have Love Will Travel") aired on the 9th April, 2013. In 2013, exactly fifty years after "The Birds", Hedren returned to Bodega to shoot a film called "The Ghost and the Whale". Influence. A Louis Vuitton ad campaign in 2006 paid tribute to Hedren and Hitchcock with a modern-day interpretation of the deserted railway station opening sequence of "Marnie". Bridget Fonda, who played Hedren's daughter in the straight-to-cable film "Break Up" (1998), gushed to her that she had watched "Marnie" "a million times." In interviews, Naomi Watts has stated that her character interpretation in "Mulholland Drive" (2001) was influenced by the look and performances of Hedren in Hitchcock films. Watts and Hedren later acted in "I Heart Huckabees" (2004) but didn't share any scenes together onscreen. Off-screen, the film's director David O. Russell introduced them both, and Watts has said about Hedren, "I was pretty fascinated by her then because people have often said that we're alike." Watts dressed up as Hedren's title character from "Marnie" for a photo shoot for March 2008 issue of "Vanity Fair". In the same issue, Jodie Foster dressed up as Hedren's character, Melanie Daniels from "The Birds". Another issue of Vanity Fair referred to January Jones's character in "Mad Men" as "Tippi Hedren's soul sister from "Marnie"". The "New York Times" television critic earlier had echoed the same sentiment in his review of "Mad Men". January Jones said that she "takes it a compliment of sorts" when compared to Grace Kelly and Hedren. Actress Téa Leoni said that her character in the film "Manure" (2009) is made up to look like Hedren. Shambala Preserve. In 1981, Hedren produced "Roar", an 11-year project that ended up costing $17 million and starring dozens of African lions. "This was probably one of the most dangerous films that Hollywood has ever seen", remarked the actress. "It's amazing no one was killed." During the production of "Roar", Hedren, her husband at the time, Noel Marshall, and daughter Melanie were attacked by lions; Jan de Bont, the director of photography, was scalped. She later co-wrote the book "Cats of Shambala" (1985) about the experience. "Roar" made only $2 million worldwide. Hedren ended her marriage to Marshall a year later in 1982. The film directly led to the 1983 establishment of the non-profit Roar Foundation and Hedren's Shambala Preserve, located at the edge of the Mojave Desert in Acton, California between the Antelope Valley and the Santa Clarita Valley northeast of Los Angeles. Shambala currently houses some 70 animals, including African lions, Siberian and Bengal tigers, leopards, servals, mountain lions and bobcats. Hedren lives on the Shambala site and conducts monthly tours of the preserve for the public. Hedren took in and cared for Togar, a lion that belonged to Anton LaVey, after he was told by San Francisco officials that he couldn't keep a fully grown lion as a house pet. More recently, Shambala became the new home for Michael Jackson’s two Bengal tigers, Sabu and Thriller, after he decided to close his zoo at his Neverland Valley Ranch in Los Olivos, California. Thriller died in June 2012 of lung cancer. On December 3, 2007, Shambala Preserve made headlines when Chris Orr, a caretaker for the animals, was mauled by a tiger named Alexander. Several documentaries have focused on Shambala Preserve, including the 30-minute "Lions: Kings of the Serengeti" (1995), narrated by Melanie Griffith, and Animal Planet's "Life with Big Cats" (1998), which won the Genesis Award for best documentary in 1999. The animals at the preserve served as the initial inspiration for the life's work of artist A. E. London, who started her career working for Hedren.
1077141	Jack and Sarah is a 1995 British romantic comedy film written and directed by Tim Sullivan. The film was originally released in the UK on 2 June 1995. The theme song in this film is Stars by British pop group Simply Red. Plot. Jack (Richard E. Grant) and Sarah (Imogen Stubbs) are expecting a baby together, but a complication during the birth leads to the death of Sarah. Jack, grief-stricken, goes on an alcoholic bender, leaving his daughter to be taken care of by his parents and Sarah's mother, until they decide to take drastic action: they return the baby to Jack whilst he is asleep, leaving him to take care of it. Although he struggles initially, he eventually begins to dote on the child and names her Sarah. Despite this, he nevertheless finds it increasingly difficult to juggle bringing up the baby with his high-powered job, and though both sets of the child's grandparents lend a hand (along with William (Ian McKellen), a dried out ex-alcoholic who, once sober, proves to be a remarkably efficient babysitter and housekeeper), he needs more help. Amy (Samantha Mathis), an American waitress he meets in a restaurant who takes a shine to Sarah, takes up the role as nanny, moving in with Jack after one meeting. Although clashing with William and the grandparents, especially Jack's mother, Margaret (Judi Dench), Jack and Amy gradually grow closer—but Jack's boss has also taken an interest in him.
1129804	John Herbert "Jonathan" Frid (December 2, 1924 – April 14, 2012) was a Canadian theater, television, and film actor, known for having played the role of vampire Barnabas Collins on the gothic television soap opera "Dark Shadows". Early life and career. Frid was born of Scottish, English, German and Danish ancestry in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. He was the youngest son of Isabella Flora (née McGregor) and Herbert Percival Frid, a construction executive. He served in the Royal Canadian Navy during World War II. He graduated from McMaster University in Hamilton in 1948, and the following year was accepted at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts in London. He moved to the United States in 1954, and received a Master of Fine Arts degree in Directing from the Yale School of Drama in 1957. As a student at Yale in 1956, Frid starred in the premiere of William Snyder's play "A True And Special Friend". He went on to star in the first productions at the Williamstown Theater in Williamstown, Massachusetts and stage productions in Canada, England and the United States. He began using the stage name Jonathan Frid in 1962, and made his Broadway debut as an understudy in the 1964 play "Roar Like a Dove". Television. Early television roles on the Canadian Broadcasting Company included parts in "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea", "Our Town", and "The Picture of Dorian Gray". Frid is widely known for the role of vampire Barnabas Collins on the original gothic cult television serial "Dark Shadows", which ran from 1966 to 1971. He also starred as Barnabas Collins in the 1970 movie "House of Dark Shadows." In 1967, Frid had made plans to move to the U.S. West Coast to pursue a career as an acting teacher when he won the role that ultimately made him a household name. As Frid explained on his Web site, he had barely entered his apartment as the phone call from his agent came informing him that he had won the role of Barnabas Collins. He agreed to accept it after being told it was a short-term one that would provide him with extra cash while he prepared to move. As the character's popularity soared, Frid scrapped those plans. After "Dark Shadows" ended in 1971, he returned to performing in live theater full-time with starring roles in the Broadway plays "Murder in the Cathedral" as Thomas Becket and "Wait Until Dark" as Harry Roat. Frid had previously played the role of a psychiatrist on the CBS Television soap opera "As the World Turns". In 1973, Frid appeared in the TV movie "The Devil's Daughter" starring Shelley Winters, and the following year starred in Oliver Stone's directorial debut, "Seizure" (aka "Queen of Evil"). In 1978, he returned to Canada, where he would perform onstage in Toronto.
1163729	Ray Milland (3 January 1907 – 10 March 1986) was a Welsh-born, British and American actor and director. His screen career ran from 1929 to 1985, and he is best remembered for his Academy Award–winning portrayal of an alcoholic writer in "The Lost Weekend" (1945), a sophisticated leading man opposite a corrupt John Wayne in "Reap the Wild Wind" (1942), the murder-plotting husband in "Dial M for Murder" (1954), and as Oliver Barrett III in "Love Story" (1970). Before becoming an actor Milland served in the Household Cavalry of the British Army, becoming a proficient marksman, horse-rider and plane pilot. He left the army to follow a career in acting and appeared as an extra in several British productions before getting his first major role in "The Flying Scotsman". This led to a nine month contract with MGM and he moved to the United States where he appeared as a stock actor. After being released by MGM he was picked up by Paramount, who used Milland in a range of lesser speaking parts, normally as an English character. He was loaned out to Universal in 1936 for a film called "Three Smart Girls", and its success saw Milland given a lead role in "The Jungle Princess" alongside new starlet Dorothy Lamour. The movie was a big success and catapulted both to stardom. Milland remained with Paramount for almost 20 years and as well as his Oscar winning role in "The Lost Weekend" he is remembered for the films "The Big Clock", "The Major and the Minor" and "The Thief", the last of which saw him nominated for a Golden Globe. After leaving Paramount he began directing and ended his career moving into television.
1061745	Laura Elizabeth Dern (born February 10, 1967) is an American actress, film director and producer. Dern has acted in such films as "Smooth Talk" (1985), "Blue Velvet" (1986), "Fat Man and Little Boy" (1988), "Wild at Heart" (1990), "Jurassic Park" (1993), The Baby Dance (1998) "October Sky" (1999) and "I Am Sam" (2001). She has won awards for her performance in the 1991 film "Rambling Rose", for which she was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress. She was awarded a Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress – Series, Miniseries or Television Film for her portrayal of Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris in the film "Recount" (2008). From 2011–2013, Dern starred in HBO’s "Enlightened". In this role, she won the 2011 Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Television Series Musical or Comedy. Early life. Dern was born in Los Angeles, California, the daughter of actors Bruce Dern and Diane Ladd, and the great-granddaughter of former Utah governor, and Secretary of War, George Dern. The poet, writer, and Librarian of Congress Archibald MacLeish was her great-uncle. Laura Dern's film debut was a cameo in her mother's film "White Lightning" (1973). She also made a brief appearance in "Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore" (1974), one of Ladd's signature roles. Her mother objected to her 13-year-old daughter's presence on the set of "Ladies and Gentlemen, The Fabulous Stains", but Dern sued for emancipation. In 1982, she became the youngest-ever winner of Miss Golden Globe. Career. 1984 marked the beginning of a longstanding association with acting coach Sandra Seacat, to whom Dern, speaking 17 years later, would attribute a dramatic transformation in both her life and her work. Speaking with "Back Stage West" again in 2004, Dern would expand upon her earlier comments; most recently, Dern thanked Seacat in her acceptance speech for Best Actress in a Television Series at the 69th Annual Golden Globe Awards in 2012.
1039939	Rupert Penry-Jones (born 22 September 1970) is an English actor, known for his role as Adam Carter in the British television series "Spooks" (also broadcast under the title "MI-5") and various other notable roles in the British television industry. Early life and education. He was born Rupert William Penry-Jones in London to Welsh actor Peter Penry-Jones and English actress Angela Thorne. His brother Laurence Penry-Jones and sister-in-law Polly Walker are also actors. He was educated at Dulwich College in south-east London, until age 17 when he was enrolled at Bristol Old Vic Theatre School, only to be expelled in his second year for being a bad influence. His bad influence was a result of a broken relationship, which Rupert stated he tried to recover from by "shagging everything in sight". Being dyslexic, he struggled at school, eventually leaving with no A-levels. Career. In 1995 he appeared with his mother on television in "Cold Comfort Farm". He made his London stage debut at the Hackney Empire theatre in 1995 playing Fortinbras to Ralph Fiennes's Hamlet in an Almeida production of "Hamlet". He was cast as Richard in the premiere staging of Stephen Poliakoff's "Sweet Panic" at Hampstead Theatre in 1996. The following year he appeared in both "The Paper Husband" at Hampstead Theatre and as the upper-class Pip Thompson in a revival of Arnold Wesker's "Chips with Everything" on the Lyttelton stage at the Royal National Theatre. In 1998, he created the role of the Boy in Edward Albee's "The Play About the Baby" at the Almeida Theatre. In 1999, he joined the Royal Shakespeare Company at Stratford-upon-Avon, playing the title role in "Don Carlos" at The Other Place theatre and Alcibiades in "Timon of Athens" at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre. Both productions transferred to the Barbican Centre in London in 2000, where his performance as Don Carlos won the Ian Charleson Award. At the West Yorkshire Playhouse, Leeds, in 2001 he was cast as Robert Caplan in J.B. Priestley's thriller "time-play" "Dangerous Corner" opposite Dervla Kirwan, who played Olwen Peel. The production then transferred for a four-month run at the Garrick Theatre in London's West End. From July to October 2003 at the National's Cottesloe Theatre he played the leading role of Louis XIV in Nick Dear's historical drama "Power". He returned to the theatre at the end of 2009 playing the role of Carl in Michael Wynne's new play "The Priory" at the Royal Court Theatre, London, from 19 November 2009 to 16 January 2010. On television, he has played barrister Alex Hay in C4's ten-part serial "North Square" in 2000; Donald McLean in the BBC's four-part production of "Cambridge Spies" in 2003; and Grimani in Russell T. Davies' production of "Casanova" in 2005. In 2004, he joined the cast in series 3 of the BBC's BAFTA-winning series "Spooks". He played the lead role of section leader Adam Carter for four series before leaving the show in 2008. He won ITV3 Crime Thriller Awards for his role in "Spooks" in 2008. He also went on to play the role of Captain Wentworth in ITV's adaptation of "Persuasion". In 2008, he starred with Bradley Whitford and Neve Campbell in "Burn Up" playing an oil executive who becomes embroiled in the politics surrounding global warming and oil stocks. He played "Richard Hannay" in the BBC adaptation of "The 39 Steps" which was screened at Christmas 2008. In 2009, he was cast as the lead in the unaired ABC pilot "The Forgotten" but was unceremoniously replaced when the pilot was picked up and replaced by Christian Slater. Penry-Jones was apparently devastated and proceeded to give a number of interviews in the UK in which he attacked the US television industry. He has since described American television as a "factory". In February 2009, he took the lead in an ITV drama, "Whitechapel", a three-part thriller based on the copycat killings of Jack the Ripper. "Whitechapel" was the highest-performing new drama in 2009. A second series of the show based around the Kray twins was broadcast in autumn 2010; the third series began in January 2012. He was scheduled to appear alongside other celebrities in , but broke a bone in his knee during training, putting him in a plaster cast and ruling him out of the final match on 6 June 2010. Penry-Jones was also cast opposite Maxine Peake in a legal drama "Silk" created by Peter Moffat. The show revolves around two barristers, played by Penry-Jones and Peake who are competing to become QCs. He also joined the cast of the film "Manor Hunt Ball". Filming commenced in late 2010/early 2011. Penry-Jones is known to be very critical of the British television and film industry. He stated that "Doctor Who" is a "very good children's show... but has low production values." He also said the Harry Potter films are "shit". He admitted walking out of the first three films. Personal life. He married actress Dervla Kirwan in August 2007, following a three-year engagement. They met in a theatre production, "Dangerous Corner", in 2001. Both appeared in "Casanova" in 2005, although they did not share any scenes. They have two children: a daughter, Florence (born 2004), and a son, Peter (born 2006). On BBC 1's "Who Do You Think You Are?", broadcast in August 2010, it was revealed that Penry-Jones's maternal grandfather, William, had served with the Indian Army Medical Corps at the Battle of Monte Cassino and that his earlier ancestors had a long-standing connection with the Indian Army. Penry-Jones also discovered that he had Anglo-Indian ancestry from the early 19th century.
1036480	Peter Edward Cook (17 November 1937 – 9 January 1995) was an English actor, satirist, writer and comedian. An extremely influential figure in modern British comedy, he is regarded as the leading light of the British satire boom of the 1960s. Cook has been described by comedian Stephen Fry as "the funniest man who ever drew breath", although his work was also controversial. Cook was closely associated with anti-establishment comedy that emerged in Britain and the United States in the late 1950s. Early life. Cook was born at his parents' house "Shearbridge", in Middle Warberry Road, Torquay, Devon. He was the only son and eldest of the three children of Alexander Edward (Alec) Cook (1906–1984), a colonial civil servant, and his wife Ethel Catherine Margaret, "née" Mayo (1908–1994). He was educated at Radley College and Pembroke College, Cambridge, where he studied French and German. As a student, Cook initially intended to become a career diplomat like his father, but Britain "had run out of colonies", as he put it. Although politically largely apathetic, particularly in later life when he displayed a deep distrust of politicians of all hues, he did join the Cambridge University Liberal Club. It was at Pembroke that Cook performed and wrote comedy sketches as a member of the Cambridge Footlights Club, of which he became president in 1960. His hero was fellow Footlights writer and Cambridge magazine writer David Nobbs. Whilst still at university, Cook wrote for Kenneth Williams, for whom he created an entire West End comedy revue called "One Over the Eight", before finding prominence in his own right in a four-man group satirical stage show, "Beyond the Fringe", with Jonathan Miller, Alan Bennett and Dudley Moore. The show became a great success in London after being first performed at the Edinburgh Festival and included Cook impersonating the Prime Minister, Harold Macmillan. This was one of the first occasions satirical political mimicry had been attempted in live theatre and it shocked audiences. During one performance, Macmillan was in the theatre and Cook departed from his script and attacked him verbally. Career. 1960s. In 1961, Cook opened The Establishment, the club, at 18 Greek Street in Soho in central London, presenting fellow comedians in a nightclub setting, including American Lenny Bruce. Cook said it was a satirical venue modelled on "those wonderful Berlin cabarets...which did so much to stop the rise of Hitler and prevent the outbreak of the Second World War"; as a members-only venue it was outside the censorship restrictions. Cook befriended and supported Australian comedian and actor Barry Humphries, who began his British solo career at the club. Humphries said in his autobiography, "My Life As Me", that he found Cook's lack of interest in art and literature off-putting. Cook's chiselled looks and languid manner led Humphries to observe that whereas most people take after their father or mother, Cook seemed more like an aunt. Dudley Moore's jazz trio played in the basement of the club during the early 1960s. In 1962, the BBC commissioned a pilot for a television series of satirical sketches based on the Establishment Club, but it was not picked up straight away and Cook went to New York for a year to perform in "Beyond The Fringe" on Broadway. When he returned, the pilot had been refashioned as "That Was the Week That Was" and had made a star of David Frost, something Cook resented. The 1960s satire boom was closing and Cook said "England was about to sink giggling into the sea". He complained that Frost's success was based on copying Cook's own stage persona and Cook dubbed him "the bubonic plagiarist". and that his only regret in life, recalled Alan Bennett at Cook's memorial service, had been saving Frost from drowning. This incident occurred in the summer of 1963, when the rivalry between the two men was at its height. Cook had realised that Frost's potential drowning would have looked deliberate if he had not been rescued. Around this time, Cook provided financial backing for the satirical magazine "Private Eye", supporting it through difficult periods, particularly in libel trials. Cook invested his own money and solicited investment from his friends. For a time, the magazine was produced from the premises of the Establishment Club. In 1963, Cook married Wendy Snowden; the couple had two daughters, Lucy and Daisy, but the marriage ended in 1970. Cook expanded television comedy with Eleanor Bron, John Bird and John Fortune. His first regular television spot was on Granada Television's "Braden Beat" with Bernard Braden, where he featured his most enduring character: the static, dour and monotonal E. L. Wisty, whom Cook had conceived for Radley College's Marionette Society. Cook's comedy partnership with Dudley Moore led to "Not Only... But Also". This was intended by the BBC for Moore's music, but Moore invited Cook to write sketches and appear with him. Using few props, they created dry and absurd television that lasted for three series between 1965 and 1970. Cook played characters such as Sir Arthur Streeb-Greebling and the two men created their Pete and Dud alter egos. Other sketches included "Superthunderstingcar", a parody of the Gerry Anderson marionette TV shows, and Cook's pastiche of 1960s trendy arts documentaries – satirised in a parodic TV segment on Greta Garbo. When Cook learned a few years later that the videotapes of the series were to be wiped, a common practice at the time, he offered to buy the recordings from the BBC but was refused because of copyright issues. He suggested he could purchase new tapes so that the BBC would have no need to erase the originals, but this was also turned down. Of the original programmes, only eight of the twenty-two episodes still survive complete. A compilation of six half-hour programmes, "The Best of What's Left of Not Only...But Also" was shown on television and has been released on both VHS and DVD. With "The Wrong Box" (1966) and "Bedazzled" (1967) Cook and Moore began to act in films together. Directed by Stanley Donen, the underlying story of "Bedazzled" is credited to Cook and Moore and its screenplay to Cook. A comic parody of Faust, it stars Cook as George Spigott (The Devil) who tempts Stanley Moon (Moore), a frustrated, short-order chef, with the promise of gaining his heart's desire – the unattainable beauty and waitress at his cafe, Margaret Spencer (Eleanor Bron) – in exchange for his soul, but repeatedly tricks him. The film features cameo appearances by Barry Humphries as Envy and Raquel Welch as Lust. Moore composed the soundtrack music and co-wrote (with Cook) the songs performed in the film. His jazz trio backed Cook on the theme, a parodic anti-love song, which Cook delivered in a monotonous deadpan voice and included his familiar put-down, "You fill me with inertia." In 1968, Cook and Moore briefly switched to ATV for four one-hour programmes entitled "Goodbye Again", based on the Pete and Dud characters. They ignored suggestions from the director and cast. Sketches were drawn out to fill the running time. With no interest in the show, Cook's increasing alcoholism led him to become reliant on cue cards and he ended up garbling the script, forcing Moore to ad-lib. The show was not a popular success, owing in part to the publication of the ITV listings magazine, "TV Times", being suspended because of a strike. John Cleese was a cast member. 1970s. In 1970, Cook took over a project initiated by David Frost for a satirical film about an opinion pollster who rises to become President of Great Britain. Under Cook's guidance, the character became modelled on Frost. The film, "The Rise and Rise of Michael Rimmer", was not a success, although the cast contained notable names. Cook became a favourite of the chat show circuit but his own effort at hosting one for the BBC in 1971, "Where Do I Sit?", was said by the critics to have been a disappointment. He was replaced after only two episodes by Michael Parkinson, the start of Parkinson's career as a chat show host. Parkinson later asked Cook what his ambitions were, Cook replied jocularly "[...] in fact, my ambition is to shut you up altogether you see!" Cook and Moore fashioned sketches from "Not Only...But Also" and "Goodbye Again" with new material into the stage revue called "Behind the Fridge". This show toured Australia in 1972 before transferring to New York in 1973, re-titled as "Good Evening". Cook frequently appeared on and off stage the worse for drink. Nonetheless, the show proved very popular and it won Tony and Grammy Awards. When it finished, Moore stayed in the U.S. to pursue his film acting ambitions in Hollywood. Cook returned to Britain and in 1973 he married the actress and model Judy Huxtable. Later, the more risqué humour of Pete and Dud went farther on long-playing records as "Derek and Clive". The first recording was initiated by Cook to alleviate boredom during the Broadway run of "Good Evening" and used material conceived years before for the two characters but considered too outrageous. One of these audio recordings was also filmed and tensions between the duo are seen to rise. Chris Blackwell circulated bootleg copies to friends in the music business. The popularity of the recording convinced Cook to release it commercially, although Moore was initially reluctant, fearing that his rising fame as a Hollywood star would be undermined. Two further "Derek and Clive" albums were released, the last accompanied by a film. Cook and Moore hosted "Saturday Night Live" on January 24, 1976 during the SNL first season. They did a number of their classic stage routines, including "One Legged Tarzan" and "Frog and Peach" among others, in addition to participating in some skits with the show's "not ready for prime-time" ensemble. In 1978, Cook appeared on British music series "Revolver" as the manager of a ballroom where emerging punk and new wave acts played. For some groups, these were their first appearances on television. Cook's acerbic commentary was an aspect of the programme. In 1979, Cook recorded comedy-segments as B-sides to the Sparks 12-inch singles "Number One In Heaven" and "Tryouts For The Human Race". The main songwriter Ron Mael often started off a banal situation in his lyrics, and then went at surreal tangents in the style of Cook and S. J. Perelman. "Consequences" album. Cook played multiple roles on the 1977 concept album "Consequences", written and produced by former 10cc members Kevin Godley and Lol Creme. A mixture of spoken comedy and progressive rock with an environmental subtext, "Consequences" started as a single that Godley and Creme planned to make to demonstrate their invention, an electric guitar effect called the Gizmo, which they developed in 10cc. The project grew into a triple LP boxed set. The comedy sections were originally intended to be performed by a cast including Spike Milligan and Peter Ustinov, but Godley and Creme eventually settled on Cook once they realised he could perform most parts himself. The storyline centres on the impending divorce of ineffectual Englishman Walter Stapleton (Cook) and his French wife Lulu (Judy Huxtable). While meeting their lawyers – the bibulous Mr Haig and overbearing Mr Pepperman (both played by Cook) – the encroaching global catastrophe interrupts proceedings with bizarre and mysterious happenings, which seem to centre on Mr Blint (Cook), a musician and composer living in the flat below Haig's office, to which it is connected by a large hole in the floor. Although it has since developed a cult following due to Cook's presence, "Consequences" was released as punk was sweeping the UK and proved a resounding commercial failure, savaged by critics who found the music self-indulgent. The script and story have evident connections to Cook's own life – his then wife Judy Huxtable, plays Walter's wife. Cook's struggles with alcohol are mirrored in Haig's drinking, and there is a parallel between the fictional divorce of Walter and Lulu and Cook's own divorce from his first wife. The voice and accent Cook used for the character of Stapleton are similar to Cook's Beyond the Fringe colleague, Alan Bennett, and a book on Cook's comedy, "How Very Interesting", speculates that the characters Cook plays in "Consequences" are caricatures of the four "Beyond The Fringe" cast members – the alcoholic Haig represents Cook, the tremulous Stapleton is Bennett, the parodically Jewish Pepperman is Miller, and the pianist Blint represents Moore. Amnesty International performances. Cook appeared at the first three fund-raising galas staged by humourists John Cleese and Martin Lewis on behalf of Amnesty International. The benefits were dubbed "The Secret Policeman's Balls" though it wasn't until the third show in 1979 that the title was used. He performed on all three nights of the first show in April 1976, "A Poke in the Eye (with a Sharp Stick)", as an individual performer and as a member of the cast of "Beyond The Fringe", which reunited for the first time since the 1960s. He also appeared in a Monty Python sketch, taking the place of Eric Idle. Cook was on the cast album of the show and in the film, "Pleasure at Her Majesty's". He was in the second Amnesty gala in May 1977, "An Evening Without Sir Bernard Miles". It was retitled "The Mermaid Frolics" for the cast album and TV special. Cook performed monologues and skits with Terry Jones. In June 1979, Cook performed all four nights of "The Secret Policeman's Ball" – teaming with John Cleese. Cook performed a couple of solo pieces and a sketch with Eleanor Bron. He also led the ensemble in the finale – the "End Of The World" sketch from "Beyond The Fringe." In response to a barb in "The Daily Telegraph" that the show was recycled material, Cook wrote a satire of the summing-up by Mr Justice Cantley in the trial of former Liberal Party leader Jeremy Thorpe, a summary thought by some to show bias in favour of Thorpe. Cook performed it that same night (Friday 29 June – the third of the four nights) and the following night. The nine-minute opus, "Entirely a Matter for You," is considered by many fans and critics to be one of the finest works of Cook's career. Cook and show producer Martin Lewis brought out an album on Virgin Records entitled "Here Comes the Judge: Live" of the live performance together with three studio tracks that further lampooned the Thorpe trial. Although unable to take part in the 1981 gala, Cook supplied the narration over the animated opening title sequence of the 1982 film of the show. With Lewis, he wrote and voiced radio commercials to advertise the film in the UK. He also hosted a spoof film awards ceremony that was part of the world première of the film in London in March 1982. Following Cook's 1987 stage reunion with Moore for the annual U.S. benefit for the homeless, "Comic Relief" (not related to the UK "Comic Relief" benefits), Cook repeated the reunion for a British audience by performing with Moore at the 1989 Amnesty benefit "The Secret Policeman's Biggest Ball". 1980s. In 1980, partly spurred by Moore's growing film star status, Cook moved to Hollywood and appeared as an uptight English butler to a wealthy American woman in a short-lived U.S. television sitcom "The Two of Us", also making cameo appearances in a couple of undistinguished films. In 1980, Cook starred in the LWT special "Peter Cook & Co." The show included comedy sketches, including a "Tales of the Unexpected" parody "Tales Of The Much As We Expected". This involved Cook as Roald Dahl, explaining his name had been Ronald before he dropped the "n". The cast included John Cleese, Rowan Atkinson, Beryl Reid, Paula Wilcox and Terry Jones. In 1983 Cook played the role of Richard III in the first episode of "Blackadder", "The Foretelling", which parodies Laurence Olivier's portrayal. He narrated the short film "Diplomatix" by Norwegian comedy trio Kirkvaag, Lystad and Mjøen, which won the "Special Prize of the City of Montreux" at the Montreux Comedy Festival in 1985. In 1986 he partnered Joan Rivers on her UK talk show. He appeared as Mr Jolly in 1987 in The Comic Strip Presents' "Mr. Jolly Lives Next Door", playing an assassin who covers the sound of his murders by playing Tom Jones records. That same year, Cook made a big splash on American shores when he appeared in "The Princess Bride" as the "Impressive Clergyman" who officiates the wedding ceremony between Buttercup and Prince Humperdinck. Also that year he spent time working with Martin Lewis on a political satire about the 1988 U.S. presidential elections for HBO, but the script went unproduced. Lewis suggested Cook team with Moore for the U.S. Comic Relief telethon for the homeless. The duo reunited and performed their "One Leg Too Few" sketch. In 1988, Cook appeared as a contestant on the improvisation comedy show, "Whose Line Is It Anyway?" Cook was declared the winner, his prize being to read the credits in the style of a New York cab driver – a character he'd portrayed in "Peter Cook & Co." Cook occasionally called in to Clive Bull's night-time phone-in radio show on LBC in London. Using the name "Sven from Swiss Cottage", he mused on love, loneliness and herrings in a mock Norwegian accent. Jokes included Sven's attempts to find his estranged wife, in which he often claimed to be telephoning the show from all over the world, and his hatred of the Norwegian obsession with fish. While Bull was clearly aware that Sven was fictional he did not learn Sven's real identity until later. Revival. In late 1989, Cook married for the third time, to Malaysian-born property developer Chiew Lin Chong in Torbay, Devon. She provided him with some stability in his personal life and he reduced his drinking, to the extent that for a time he was teetotal. He lived alone in a small 18th century house in Perrins Lane, Hampstead, once owned by H. G. Wells, while his wife kept her own property only 100 yards away. Cook returned to the BBC as Sir Arthur Streeb-Greebling for an appearance with Ludovic Kennedy in "A Life in Pieces". The 12 interviews saw Sir Arthur recount his life based on the Twelve Days of Christmas. Unscripted interviews with Cook as Streeb-Greebling and satirist Chris Morris were recorded in late 1993 and broadcast as "Why Bother?" on BBC Radio 3. Morris described them: On 17 December 1993, Cook appeared on "Clive Anderson Talks Back" as four characters – biscuit tester and alien abductee Norman House, football manager and motivational speaker Alan Latchley, judge Sir James Beauchamp and rock legend Eric Daley. The following day he appeared on BBC2 performing links for "Arena"'s "Radio Night". He also appeared, on 26 December, in the 1993 Christmas special of "One Foot in the Grave" ("One Foot in the Algarve"), playing a muckraking tabloid journalist. Before the end of the next year his mother died, and a grief-stricken Cook returned to heavy drinking. He made his last TV appearance on the show "Pebble Mill at One" in November 1994. Death. Cook died on 9 January 1995, aged 57, having suffered a gastrointestinal haemorrhage (a direct result of severe liver damage) in the intensive-care unit of the Royal Free Hospital in Hampstead, North London. Days earlier he had been taken in and announced, "I feel a bit poorly". He was cremated at Golders Green Crematorium, and his ashes were buried in an unmarked plot behind St. John's Church in Hampstead, not far from his house in Perrins Walk. Dudley Moore attended Cook's memorial service in London in May 1995 and he and Martin Lewis presented a two-night memorial for Cook in Los Angeles the following November, to mark what would have been Cook's 58th birthday. Legacy. Cook is widely acknowledged as a strong influence on the many British comedians who followed him from the amateur dramatic clubs of British universities to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, and then to radio and television. On his death some critics choose to see Cook's life as tragic, insofar as the brilliance of his youth had not been sustained in his later years. However, Cook himself always maintained he had no ambitions at all for sustained success. He assessed happiness by his friendships and his enjoyment of life. Eric Idle and Stephen Fry said Cook had not wasted his talent but rather that the newspapers had tried to waste him. Several friends honoured him with a dedication in the closing credits of "Fierce Creatures" (1997), a comedy film written by John Cleese about a zoo in peril of being closed. It starred Cleese, Jamie Lee Curtis, Kevin Kline and Michael Palin. The dedication displays photos and the lifespan dates of Peter Cook and of British naturalist/humorist Gerald Durrell. In 1999 the minor planet 20468 Petercook, in the main asteroid belt, was named after him. Ten years after his death, Cook was ranked at number one in the "Comedians' Comedian", a poll of 300 comics, comedy writers, producers and directors throughout the English-speaking world. Channel 4 broadcast "Not Only But Always", a television film dramatising the relationship between Cook and Moore, with Rhys Ifans portraying Cook. At the 2005 Edinburgh Festival Fringe a play, written by Chris Bartlett and Nick Awde, examined the relationship from Moore's view, "", before transferring to London's West End at The Venue in 2006 and touring the UK the following year; Tom Goodman-Hill starred as Cook and Kevin Bishop as Moore in the West End. At the 2007 Edinburgh Festival Fringe, "Goodbye – the (after)life of Cook & Moore" by Jonathan Hansler and Clive Greenwood was presented at The Gilded Balloon. The play imagined the newly dead Moore meeting Cook in Limbo, also inhabited by other comic actors with whom they had worked, including Peter Sellers, Tony Hancock, Frankie Howerd and Kenneth Williams. In May 2009 the play was seen again in London's West End at the Leicester Square Theatre (formerly "The Venue" and home to ) with Jonathan Hansler as Cook, Adam Bampton Smith as Moore and Clive Greenwood as everyone else. A green plaque was unveiled by Westminster City Council and the Heritage Foundation at the site of the Establishment club on 15 February 2009. Filmography. Amnesty UK chart singles:-
582525	Swanand Kirkire (Marathi: स्वानंद किरकिरे) (born 1970) is an Indian lyricist, playback singer, writer, also a television serial writer, assistant director, dialogue writer, both in television and Hindi films. Kirkire won the National Film Award for Best Lyrics twice. First in 2007 for the song " "Bande Me Tha Dum...Vande Mataram" " from the 2006 film, "Lage Raho Munna Bhai", second time in 2009, for the song " "Behti Hawaa Sa Tha Woh..." " from the film 3 Idiots. He also received Filmfare Award nomination for Best Lyrics for the song "Piyu Bole" in "Parineeta" (2005). Early life and education. Swanand Kirkire was born and brought up at Rambagh in Indore-based Marathi speaking family to Chintamani (father) and Neelambari (mother), both of whom are classical singers. However he has no formal training in singing. He moved to Delhi after doing his graduation in commerce. In 1996, Swanand graduated from National School of Drama and started doing theatre
1129806	Grayson Hall (September 18, 1922 – August 7, 1985) was an American television, film and stage actress. She was widely regarded for her avant garde theatrical performances in the 1960s-80s. Hall was nominated in 1964 for an Academy Award and a Golden Globe Award for the John Huston film "The Night of the Iguana". She also played multiple prominent roles in the Gothic soap opera "Dark Shadows" (1966–1971), and appeared on "One Life to Live" in 1982. Early life. Hall was born Shirley H. Grossman in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to Joseph and Eleanor Grossman. Her father was from Latvia and her mother from South Africa. Joseph and Eleanor separated when Shirley was eight but never divorced. Hall became interested in acting, as an escape from a painful childhood, and auditioned for plays in New York City while she was still in high school. She landed her first professional job doing summer stock in Long Island in 1942.
137173	Phoebe Sarah Hertha Ayrton (28 April 1854 – 23 August 1923), was an English engineer, mathematician and inventor. She was awarded the Hughes Medal by the Institution of Electrical Engineers for her work on electric arcs and ripples in sand and water. Early life and education. Hertha Ayrton was born Phoebe Sarah Marks at 6 Queen Street, Portsea, Hampshire, England on 28 April 1854. She was the daughter of a seamstress, Alice Theresa, and a watchmaker and jeweller, Levi Marks. At the age of nine, Sarah was invited by her aunts, who ran a school in north-west London, to live with her cousins and be educated with them. Through her cousins she was introduced to science and mathematics, and by the time she was sixteen she was working as a governess. She attended Girton College, Cambridge where she studied mathematics and was coached by Richard Glazebrook. She was supported in her application by George Eliot who was working on "Daniel Deronda". One of the Jewish characters, Mirah, was said to be based on Ayrton, but this is not accepted as fact. During her time at Cambridge, Ayrton constructed a sphygmomanometer, led the choral society, founded the fire brigade, and with Charlotte Scott, Girton's first wrangler, formed a mathematical club. In 1880, Ayrton passed the Mathematical Tripos but was not granted a degree because, at this time, Cambridge gave only certificates and not degrees to women. She successfully completed an external examination and received a B.Sc. degree from the University of London in 1881. Mathematics and electrical engineering work. Upon her return to London, Ayrton earned money by teaching and embroidery, ran a club for working girls, and cared for her invalid sister. She also put her mathematical skills to practical use – she taught at Notting Hill and Ealing High School, and was also active in devising and solving mathematical problems, many of which were published in "Mathematical Questions and Their Solutions" from the "Educational Times". In 1884 Ayrton patented a line-divider, an engineering drawing instrument for dividing a line into any number of equal parts and for enlarging and reducing figures. The line-divider was her first major invention and, while its primary use was likely to be for artists for enlarging and diminishing, it was also useful to architects and engineers. Ayrton's patent application was financially supported by Lady Goldsmid and feminist Barbara Bodichon, who together advanced her enough money to take out patents; the invention was shown at the Exhibition of Women’s Industries and received much press attention. Ayrton honoured Barbara Bodichon by naming her first child, a daughter born in 1886, Barbara Bodichon Ayrton (1886–1950). Ayrton's 1884 patent was the first of many – from 1884 until her death, Hertha registered 26 patents: five on mathematical dividers, 13 on arc lamps and electrodes, the rest on the propulsion of air. Patents make a clear legal claim to intellectual property, especially important for a woman married to a more famous scientist. In 1884 Ayrton began attending evening classes on electricity at Finsbury Technical College, delivered by Professor William Edward Ayrton, a pioneer in electrical engineering and physics education and a fellow of the Royal Society. On 6 May 1885 she married her former teacher, and thereafter assisted him with experiments in physics and electricity. Ayrton also began her own investigation into the characteristics of the electric arc. In the late nineteenth century, electric arc lighting was in wide use for public lighting. The tendency of electric arcs to flicker and hiss was a major problem. In 1895, Hertha Ayrton wrote a series of articles for "the Electrician", explaining that these phenomena were the result of oxygen coming into contact with the carbon rods used to create the arc. In 1899, she was the first woman ever to read her own paper before the Institution of Electrical Engineers (IEE). Shortly thereafter, Ayrton was elected the first female member of the IEE; she remained the sole female member of the institution until 1958. Ayrton was also the first woman to win a prize from the institution, the Hughes Medal, awarded to her in 1906 in honour of her research on the motion of ripples in sand and water and her work on the electric arc. By the late nineteenth century, Ayrton's work in the field of electrical engineering was recognised more widely, domestically and internationally. At the International Congress of Women held in London in 1899, Hertha presided over the physical science section. Ayrton also spoke at the International Electrical Congress in Paris in 1900. Her success there led the British Association for the Advancement of Science to allow women to serve on general and sectional committees. In 1902, Ayrton published "The Electric Arc", a summary of her research and work on the electric arc, with origins in her earlier articles from "the Electrician" published between 1895 and 1896. With this publication, her contribution to the field of electrical engineering began to be cemented. However, initially at least, Ayrton was not well received by the more prestigious and traditional scientific societies such as the Royal Society. In the aftermath of the publication of "The Electric Arc", Ayrton was proposed as a Fellow of the Royal Society by renowned electrical engineer John Perry in 1902. Her application was turned down by the Council of the Royal Society, who decreed that married women were not eligible to be Fellows. Later life and research. However, in 1904, Ayrton presented a paper at the Royal Society on the motion of ripples in sand and water. Ayrton delivered papers on the subject again before the Royal Society in 1908 and 1911; she also presented the results of her research before audiences at the British Association and the Physical Society. Ayrton's interest in vortices in water and air inspired the Ayrton fan, or flapper, used in the trenches in the First World War to dispel poison gas. Ayrton fought for its acceptance and organized its production, over 100,000 being used on the Western Front. Ayrton helped found the International Federation of University Women in 1919 and the National Union of Scientific Workers in 1920. She died of blood poisoning (resulting from an insect bite) on 26 August 1923 at New Cottage, North Lancing, Sussex. A blue plaque unveiled in 2007 commemorates Ayrton at 41 Norfolk Square in Padddington. Personal life and commemoration. Ayrton was agnostic, but retained close ties to the Jewish community. In her teens she adopted the name "Hertha" after the eponymous heroine of a Swinburne poem that criticized organized religion.
1166073	Joseph Bottoms (born April 22, 1954) is an American actor who won the 1975 Golden Globe Award for New Star Of The Year - Actor for his role in "The Dove". He is also perhaps best known for his roles in the television mini-series "Holocaust" and Disney's "The Black Hole". Background. Bottoms was born in Santa Barbara, California, and is the second son of sculptor James " Bud" Bottoms and Betty (née Chapman). He is the brother of actors Timothy Bottoms, Sam Bottoms, and Ben Bottoms. Bottoms made his screen debut in the ABC television movie "Trouble Comes to Town". A year later he played the role of Robin Lee Graham, in "The Dove", a real-life story about a teenager sailor's voyage around the world. Bottoms won the Golden Globe Award for New Star of the Year – Actor, joining a host of other actors that have won the award such as Richard Burton, Robert Redford, Dustin Hoffman, Jon Voight and later Ben Kingsley. In the 1978 mini-series "Holocaust", he starred as Rudi Weiss, a German Jew who joins the Jewish partisans. The series was well-received, winning the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Miniseries. A year later he starred in "The Black Hole", a science fiction film that grossed over $35 million at the US box office. In 1981, he made his Broadway debut in "Fifth of July". In 1984 he starred alongside Kirstie Alley in "Blind Date". Between 1985-1987, he was a series regular on the soap opera, "Santa Barbara". In 1990 he began a guest arc on the Canadian television series, "Street Legal". In 1991 he played the second Cal Winters in the soap opera, "Days of Our Lives". In 1998 he was cast as a series regular in "The Net". His latest screen appearance was in 1999 in the TV series, "V.I.P.". Since then he has been running the Bottoms Art Galleries in Santa Barbara that also includes his father's sculptures.
584588	Roja Kootam is a 2002 Tamil film directed by Sasi. The romantic film stars Srikanth and Bhumika Chawla as the lead pair. The film's score and soundtrack are composed by Bharathwaj. This was Srikanth's debut movie. Plot. Srikanth and Sriram are best friends. Srikanth is the only son of Radhika and Raghuvaran who is interested in anything but his academics. He falls in love with Bhumika who also eventually happens to reside opposite their house with her loud-mouthed sub-inspector Mom, Rekha. With the responsibilities of a brother to get his sisters married Sriram leaves for Libya on a job received through Srikanth's parents. Before he leaves, he tells Srikanth that Bhoomika and himself are in love and asks Srikanth to look after his lover until he is back. Srikanth swallows his love secret for the sake of friendship. Meanwhile Rekha arranges for Bhumika to get married to Vijay Adhiraj for his wealth. At this juncture Bhumika and Srikanth lie that they are already married. They both leave their parents and Srikanth starts earning to support Bhumika. Finishing his job assignment Sriram returns only to give yet another family responsibility as an excuse. He apologizes for not being able to marry Bhumika as he is a tight corner to marry somebody else for the sake of his sister's marriage. Production. This was director Sasi's second film. This was Bhumika's second Tamil film after Badri, in which she co-starred with Vijay. This was Srikanth's first film. Soundtrack. The soundtrack was composed by Bharathwaj. The songs were received well by the audience and were chartbusters.
1266459	Walter Connolly (April 8, 1887 – May 28, 1940) was an American character actor who appeared in almost fifty films between 1914 and 1939. His best known film being "It Happened One Night". Life and career. Connolly was a successful stage actor who appeared in twenty-two Broadway productions between 1916 and 1935, notably revivals of Pirandello's "Six Characters in Search of an Author" and Chekhov's "Uncle Vanya". His first film appearances came in two silent films, "The Marked Woman" (1914) and "A Soldier's Oath" (1915), and his first talkie film came in 1930, "Many Happy Returns", but his Hollywood film career really began in 1932, when he appeared in four films. His trademark role was that of the exasperated business tycoon or newspaperman, often as the father of the female lead character, as in "It Happened One Night" (1934) with Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert; "Broadway Bill" (1934), supporting Warner Baxter and Myrna Loy; and "Libeled Lady" (1936) with William Powell and Loy again. Other notable roles included the worthless uncle of Paul Muni's character in "The Good Earth" (1937) and one of the two con men encountered by Mickey Rooney's Huckleberry Finn in "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" (1939). Connolly starred as General Yen's American advisor in "The Bitter Tea of General Yen" (1933). Connolly mostly played supporting roles, but starred occasionally, as Nero Wolfe in "The League of Frightened Men" (1937), in RKO's "5th Ave Girl" (1939), opposite Ginger Rogers, and as the title character in "The Great Victor Herbert" (1939), his last film. On radio, Connolly starred as the title character in "The Adventures of Charlie Chan" on NBC Radio from 1932 to 1938. His hobbies were collecting old books and theatre programmes. Connolly was married to actress Nedda Harrigan from 1923 to his death. They had one daughter, Ann (1924–2006). Connolly died on May 28, 1940, following a stroke, and was buried in New St. Joseph Cemetery in Cincinnati.
589910	Hirak Rajar Deshe ( "Hirok Rajar Deshe", lit. "in the land of the Diamond King". English title: Kingdom of Diamonds, 1980) is the second film of the "Goopy Gyne Bagha Byne series" directed by Satyajit Ray. A unique aspect of the film is that most of the dialogues exchanged by the protagonists of the film are rhyming. The only person who did not speak in rhyme, was the teacher, symbolizing that though the thoughts of everybody else is bound, the teacher was a free-thinker. The film was followed by the third film of the series directed by Satyajit Ray's son, Sandip Ray. Plot. The magically musical duo of Goopy Gyne and Bagha Byne make a comeback in this sequel, where they are invited to the court of the Hirak Raja (The Diamond King), for their musical skills. They are to perform at the kingdom's Jubilee Celebrations. Goopy and Bagha are bored with their lives as crown princes of Shundi and Halla. They are looking for a change, which comes in the form of a chance to visit Hirak Rajya (Land of Diamonds), known for its huge diamond mines. They jocundly set out for Hirak Rajya.
1057332	Battle for the Planet of the Apes is a 1973 science fiction film directed by J. Lee Thompson. It is the fifth and final entry in the original "Planet of the Apes" series produced by Arthur P. Jacobs, following "Conquest of the Planet of the Apes". It stars Roddy McDowall, Claude Akins, Natalie Trundy, Severn Darden, Lew Ayres, Paul Williams and John Huston. Plot. "This synopsis is based on the extended version of the film released to syndicated television in the late 1970s, the Japanese laserdisc and more recently on DVD and Blu-Ray." Told as a flashback in the early 21st century, with a wraparound sequence narrated by the orangutan Lawgiver (John Huston) set in "North America - 2670 A.D.", this sequel follows the ape leader, Caesar (Roddy McDowall), at least twelve years after he led the revolution in the previous film, "Conquest of the Planet of the Apes". In this post-nuclear society, Caesar tries to cultivate peace between the apes and the surviving humans. A gorilla general named Aldo (Claude Akins), however, opposes this and plots Caesar's downfall. Caesar is married to Lisa (Natalie Trundy), the female ape of the previous film, and they have a son, named Cornelius (Bobby Porter) in honor of Caesar's father. Caesar regrets never having known his parents until his human assistant MacDonald (Austin Stoker) tells him about film archives of his parents, where he can also learn about the future. The archives are located in the Forbidden City, now a radioactive ruin. After obtaining a geiger counter and weapons from the armory, Caesar travels with MacDonald and orangutan Virgil (Paul Williams) to the Forbidden City and sneaks in to find the archives. However, there are radiation-scarred humans still living there under the command of Governor Kolp (Severn Darden). Caesar and his party view the recordings of Cornelius and Zira and learn about the future of the world, but barely have time to study the tapes before they have to escape being captured. Caesar assembles a meeting to report his discoveries at the Forbidden City. Aldo objects when some humans show up, and he leads the gorillas away. A team of scouts sent by Governor Kolp return and tell him about the Ape City. Kolp considers this covert trip by Caesar an act of espionage. His assistant, Méndez (Paul Stevens) believes they did nothing wrong and should be left alone, but Governor Kolp stubbornly declares war on Ape City, mustering the humans to destroy the ape society. Aldo is furious that Caesar wants to co-exist peacefully with humans, and plots a coup in order to become the Ape leader himself. Cornelius overhears this while trying to catch his escaped pet squirrel in a nearby tree. Aldo spots him and hacks the tree branch down, critically injuring Cornelius. After a gorilla scouting pair is attacked by the approaching humans (though the gorillas struck the first blow in this case by killing a human scout beforehand), Aldo orders all humans to be corralled and leads the gorillas to loot the weapons armory. Cornelius eventually dies from his wounds, leaving Caesar devastated, but not without leaving him with a warning about Aldo's coup. It is at that moment that Kolp's ragtag force launches their attack against Ape City. The initial mutant attack succeeds, forcing Caesar to order the defenders to fall back. When Kolp finds Caesar lying among dozens of apes, he threatens to kill him, but the fallen apes, who were feigning death or hiding on Caesar's orders, launch a counter-attack that captures most of the mutants. Kolp and his remaining forces are killed by Aldo's troops while attempting to retreat. After the battle, Aldo wants to kill the penned humans, but Caesar shields them. Aldo declares that Caesar should be killed if he shields the humans. However, Virgil reveals Aldo's responsibility for Cornelius' death and the breaking of the ape community's most sacred law ("Ape shall never kill ape"). An infuriated Caesar pursues Aldo up a large tree, resulting in Aldo falling to his death. Caesar then attempts to free the humans, but they refuse to leave the pen unless humans are treated as equals. Caesar then realizes the apes are just as despicable as the former slave-owners, and the apes and humans then decide to coexist with one another and begin a new society. The Lawgiver finishes his wraparound narration (he says it's been over 600 years since the death of Caesar). It's revealed he's talking to a group of young humans and apes. The two species have continued to coexist in peace. When asked by a human child "Who knows about the future?", the Lawgiver replies "Perhaps, only the dead." A closeup of a statue of Caesar shows a single tear falling from one eye. Production. "Battle for the Planet of the Apes" was the second-to-last film produced by Arthur P. Jacobs. He died June 27, 1973 at age 51, less than two weeks after its release. Development. Initially writer Paul Dehn who had provided the script for every sequel was hired to provide a story treatment for the fifth film in the series. Dehn withdrew from the project prior to completing the screenplay due to health reasons. Screenwriters John William Corrington and Joyce Hooper Corrington were brought in after the success of their film "The Omega Man", although prior to that neither one of them had written any science fiction films and, indeed, Joyce Carrington later admitted they had never seen any of the "Apes" films prior to being hired to write the script for "Battle". Dehn was unavailable for the initial rewrites but was hired to come in and do a final polish on the script making minor changes to the script that the Corringtons had written. Dehn was given a story credit despite an appeal to the Writer's Guild of America for shared credit on the screenplay. Dehn claimed to have rewritten 90% of the dialogue and he altered the ending. The original script by the Corringtons ended on a playground with ape and human children fighting. Dehn chose to go with a close up of a statue of Caesar with a tear falling from its eye which Joyce Corrington characterized as "...stupid. It turned our stomachs when we saw it." The Writer's Guild of America ruled in favor of the Corringtons for sole screenplay credit. Casting. While Roddy McDowall returns, John Huston appears as the Lawgiver and veteran actor Lew Ayres has a cameo as Mandemus, the casting of this film otherwise showed the diminishing stature and budget of the series. France Nguyen, who at that time was arguably a bigger star than most of the top-billed actors, received poor billing in a small role, though the extended DVD cut restored much of her screen time. MacDonald, Caesar's human friend, is portrayed in this film by Austin Stoker. Hari Rhodes played a character named MacDonald in the previous film, "Conquest of the Planet of the Apes". The change in actors was noted in dialog indicating that Stoker's MacDonald was the younger brother of Rhodes' MacDonald. In his novelization of the movie, David Gerrold writes that the original MacDonald had died in the interim but does not specify a cause. Filming. Principal photography took place on the Fox Movie Ranch for an estimated budget of $1.7 million. Heading into filming, director J. Lee Thompson was both unhappy with the script as well as the scope of the production, which he felt could have used a bigger budget to assist in the portrayal of the "Battle". Thompson had agreed to direct without a script in place and regretted that Paul Dehn couldn't have been on the project throughout the writing process. Extended cut. The syndicated television version adds a few scenes cut from the theatrical release. One scene takes place after Aldo chases teacher Abe, where MacDonald reminds him why humans should not say "no" to an ape. Another scene towards the end of the film shows the beginnings of the House of Mendez cult, as the humans in the city are about to fire off the doomsday bomb (as seen in "Beneath the Planet of the Apes"), but decide not to, as it would threaten the world. In "Beneath", one can see many signs of Mendez in the Forbidden Zone, a hymnal on the pipe organ reading "Mendez II", busts of past leaders of the mutant society (such as Mendez XIV), and the mutant leader in "Beneath" is also named Mendez. It is clear that Governor Mendez is a different leader than his predecessors, Breck and Kolp, since he is more sympathetic to the apes; so long as they do not invade their territory.
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1057267	Introducing Dorothy Dandridge is a television film directed by Martha Coolidge. Filmed over a span of a few weeks in early 1998, the film was aired in the United States on August 21, 1999. The original music score was composed by Elmer Bernstein. The film is marketed with the tagline: "Right woman. Right place. Wrong time." Awards and nominations. 2000 Black Reel Awards 2000 Directors Guild of America 2000 Emmy Awards 2000 Golden Globes 2000 Image Awards 2000 Screen Actors Guild Awards
582830	Dhoondte Reh Jaoge (, ) is a 2009 Bollywood comedy film produced by UTV Motion Pictures, starring Sonu Sood, Soha Ali Khan, Kunal Khemu, and Paresh Rawal, released 6 March 2009 in India, and 20 March 2009, in the United States. The film is directed by Umesh Shukla and produced by Ronnie Screwvala. The music was composed by duo Sajid-Wajid. The concept of creating a flop film in order to make money is adapted from the Mel Brooks film "The Producers". The film was declared a hit by boxoffice india. Plot. Set in Mumbai, the film starts with Raj (Paresh Rawal), a good-for-nothing movie director who has released certain films, but none of them ever do well at the box office. He gets threatened by his landlords that if he does not pay them on time, he will be homeless. While chartered accountant Anand (Kunal Khemu) tries to cheer up his girlfriend Neha (Soha Ali Khan) on her birthday. Neha is another useless wannabe actress who Anand takes to a 5-star restaurant for her birthday. Raj meets Ratan (Asrani) at the restaurant. Ratan is the manager of famous Bollywood actor Aryan Kapoor (Sonu Sood), and Raj has come to see Ratan to sign a movie deal with Aryan.
1063151	Margaret Avery (born January 20, 1944) is an American actress and singer. She was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role for her performance as Shug in "The Color Purple" (1985). Early life. Born in Mangum, Oklahoma, she was raised in San Diego, California, where she attended Point Loma High School. Avery then attended San Francisco State University, earning a Bachelor of Arts degree in education. While working as a substitute teacher in Los Angeles, Avery began making singing appearances and acting on the stage. Career. Among the plays she appeared in were "Revolution", and "Sistuhs". For her performance in "Does a Tiger Wear a Necktie?" (1973) she received the Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Award for "Performance In A Major Role." In the television movie "Something Evil" (1972), a horror story with Sandy Dennis and Darren McGavin, she was directed by Steven Spielberg. That same year, she made her theatrical motion picture debut as Lark in the MGM crime/drama "Cool Breeze" (1972) with Thalmus Rasulala and Judy Pace. In this blaxploitation remake of "The Asphalt Jungle", Avery played the Marilyn Monroe part. The following year she played a prostitute in "Magnum Force" (1973), the second in the series of "Dirty Harry" films starring Clint Eastwood, in which the character she played was murdered by her pimp (played by Albert Popwell) by having drain cleaner poured down her throat. This act of killing was said to have inspired the notorious Hi-Fi Murders case in 1974. In Universal's "Which Way Is Up?" (1977), directed by Michael Schultz, Avery turned in a comedic performance as Annie Mae, the wife of Richard Pryor. That same year, she played Belle Joplin, wife of the ragtime composer Scott Joplin, opposite Billy Dee Williams in the title role. Avery scored a major success with her role as the sultry and spirited blues singer, Shug Avery, in Spielberg's "The Color Purple" (1985) opposite Whoopi Goldberg and Danny Glover. Her performance in this screen adaptation of Alice Walker's prize-winning novel of the same title earned Avery an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress in a Supporting Role. In 1992 Avery starred in "" as Martha Scruse, mother of Katherine Jackson, who was played by Angela Bassett. The two would later star together in "Meet the Browns". She has also made numerous TV series guest appearances, including "The New Dick Van Dyke Show"; "Kojak"; "Sanford and Son"; '; "A.E.S. Hudson Street"; "Murder, She Wrote"; "Miami Vice"; '; "The Cosby Show"; "Walker, Texas Ranger"; and "JAG". In 2008, Avery played Mama Jenkins in "Welcome Home Roscoe Jenkins", opposite Martin Lawrence and James Earl Jones, and Sarah Brown in Tyler Perry's "Meet the Browns", which also stars Angela Bassett. Margaret Avery lives in Los Angeles, and remains active in the show business industry. While continuing to act, she also works with at-risk teenagers and battered women of Greater Los Angeles. Personal life. She married Robert Gordon Hunt in January 1974. They were divorced in 1980 and have one daughter.
1071769	Plot. "Tokyo Sonata" is about a middle-class family in Tokyo, the Sasakis, which consists of Ryūhei Sasaki, his wife Megumi, and their two sons Takashi and Kenji. Ryūhei has a good office job, but is suddenly fired because Chinese workers are cheaper. While attempting to find a new job, Ryūhei encounters an old classmate on the street, Kurosu, who has also recently been downsized. Kurosu uses a feature on his mobile phone that plays the ring tone periodically, so that it may fool others into believing he is still employed. This intrigues Ryūhei, who decides to hide the fact that he has been fired from his family. While the two men hopelessly try to find new work, Kurosu's wife slowly begins to suspect her husband's unemployment. Kurosu is later found dead together with his wife from gas poisoning in a double suicide, thought to be initiated by Kurosu. Takashi, the oldest son, joins the US military and is deployed to war in the Middle East. Kenji, the younger son, wishes to learn to play the piano, even though his father refuses to allow him piano lessons. Kenji takes lessons secretly, and pays for them with his lunch money. Gradually, Kenji develops a strong relationship with his piano teacher Miss Kaneko, who urges him to pursue his musical ambitions. When his parents find out about Kenji's secret piano lessons Megumi, who is generally closer to the children, is supportive, but Ryūhei is so furious that he attacks his son, accidentally causing him a minor concussion. One day Megumi, while alone at home, is taken hostage by an unemployed man who broke in looking for money. The robber forces Megumi to drive a car he has stolen. After a long drive, he allows her leave the car to use the restroom where she has the opportunity to escape. However, she encounters her husband at the mall working in his secret job as a janitor and decides to return to her captor saying that she cannot return home. That night Megumi, Ryūhei, and Kenji all have experiences away from home in which they confront the full extent of their existential disquiet. Kenji attempts to help a friend run away from home, but the latter is caught by his father. Kenji tries to leave town by sneaking onto a bus, but he is caught. Unwilling to answer the questions of the police, Kenji is charged as an adult and kept in a group cell overnight. He is released the following day when the charges are dismissed. Megumi and the burglar drive to the beach together, where they spend the night in a wood shed. Megumi resigns to the robber's sexual advances, but he ultimately is unable to go through with the act itself. Megumi consoles the robber that he is not a failure, saying that he is the only person who can be himself. Later that night, as the robber sleeps, Megumi spots a strange light on the horizon over the sea. She goes out to look for the light and falls asleep on the beach. The next morning, the robber has driven the stolen car into the ocean, and Megumi returns home. Meanwhile, as he cleans the bathrooms at the mall where he works, Ryūhei discovers an envelope stuffed with cash behind one of the toilets. He pockets it and encounters Megumi while fleeing the bathrooms, from whom he runs away. Ryūhei then despairingly wanders into the Tokyo night, is hit by a truck, and left for dead. He lies on the side of the street amid some leaves and sleeps there overnight, only to find himself waking up in the morning unharmed. He deposits the envelope of cash in a local lost-and-found bucket, and is the last to arrive back at the house, where the three family members share a meal together without mentioning the events of the previous night. Four months later, Ryūhei appears to be engaged in his cleaning job. Takashi sends a letter home from the field, noting that he has realized that the U.S military is not the right side to fight for and that he will stay in the United States to try to understand those he has harmed and search his happiness there. The final scene depicts Kenji performing "Clair de Lune" from the Suite bergamasque at his audition with Megumi, Ryūhei, and his piano teacher watching. His performance is flawless. Reception. Peter Bradshaw of "The Guardian" gave the film 4 out of 5 stars, while Nick Schager of "Slant Magazine" gave it 3 out of 4 stars. Christopher Bourne of "Meniscus Magazine" said, "Kurosawa's latest film, "Tokyo Sonata", is his best in quite a few years, a truly frightening work that achieves its effects without resorting to tired genre mechanics." He also wrote that "Debussy's 'Clair de Lune' may well have never been put to better use in a film." Meanwhile, Tom Mes of "Midnight Eye" said: ""Tokyo Sonata" is the ultimate expression of this quality of Kurosawa's cinema. As mentioned, it contains no supernatural elements, no ghosts, killers, or monstrous flora and fauna. Yet it is without doubt the most terrifying film Kiyoshi Kurosawa has ever made. It is terrifying because it is about us."
1058840	Race to Witch Mountain is a 2009 science fiction/thriller film and a continuation to the 1975 Disney film "Escape to Witch Mountain". All three versions of the film are based on the 1968 novel "Escape to Witch Mountain" by Alexander Key. The film is directed by Andy Fickman and stars Dwayne Johnson, AnnaSophia Robb, Alexander Ludwig, Ciarán Hinds, and Carla Gugino. Filming began in Los Angeles in March 2008. It was released on March 13, 2009. Plot. An alien spaceship crashes near Searchlight, Nevada, about 150 miles outside of Las Vegas. Project Moon Dust, a secret Defense Department unit led by Henry Burke (Ciarán Hinds) and one of his young unnamed task forces, arrives in black helicopters. Men in Black seize the ship and search for its passengers. Jack Bruno (Dwayne Johnson) is a former mob get-away driver who drives a cab to avoid returning to jail. One of his passengers is Dr. Alex Friedman (Carla Gugino), a failed scientist who is in Las Vegas to speak at a UFO convention at the Planet Hollywood hotel. After resisting two thugs who seek his services for a mob boss, Bruno finds two teenagers, Sara (AnnaSophia Robb) and Seth (Alexander Ludwig), in his cab. They offer $15,000 to drive to a certain destination. Burke's men follow the cab; Bruno believes that the government agents are more mob thugs, and evades them with his driving skills. Seth's ability to vary his molecular density helps the group to escape. When they arrive at an abandoned house, Bruno follows them out of concern and curiosity. The teenagers retrieve the device they were looking for within a hidden underground laboratory, but the three are attacked by a "Siphon" (Tom Woodruff, Jr.), a powerful armored alien assassin. During the attack Seth is knocked unconscious by a strong blast. They escape into the cab and Jack demands to know what is going on. The Siphon pursues the group until its spaceship crashes into a train and the creature is wounded. The three again escape Burke's agents, in part due to Sara's incredibly strong empathy, telepathy clairvoyant, and telekinetic abilities. Bruno brings Seth and Sara to Dr. Friedman at the UFO convention, who realizes that the teenagers are what she has been searching for and joins the group. There, the teenagers explain to Bruno and Friedman that they are from a dying distant world three thousand light years from Earth. Its government intends to invade Earth, despite the idea being unpopular among the majority of their race, so that their kind may survive. Seth and Sara's parents are scientists who sought a way to save their planet without invasion but were arrested before completing their experiment. The teenagers came to retrieve the successful results, but the alien government sent the assassin to stop them. To save both worlds, they must retrieve their spaceship and return home. Fellow UFOlogist and conspiracy theorist Dr. Donald Harlan (Garry Marshall) tells them that the spaceship was taken to the secret California government base Witch Mountain. The group arrives at the base but are captured; Burke orders that the teenagers be prepared for vivisection, but feels that no one will believe the adults. The Siphon attacks Witch Mountain and battles the soldiers, allowing Bruno and Friedman to infiltrate the base and free Seth and Sara. They launch the ship, escape through the mountain's tunnels, and finally kill the assassin who has stowed away on the spaceship. The teenagers give Bruno and Friedman a tracking device that will allow the aliens to always find them, tearfully wish them farewell, and return to their home world, hoping to help rebuild it somehow. Bruno and Friedman become successful authors of "Race to Witch Mountain: A True Story". They promote their book and knowledge on the UFO convention circuit, explaining that the publicity protects them from government reprisal. As they leave a convention the alien device activates, implying that the humanoid alien teenagers may be returning to Earth. Cast. Kim Richards and Ike Eisenmann, who portrayed Tia and Tony in the original "Witch Mountain" films of the 1970s, made cameo appearances in "Race to Witch Mountain". Richards appears as a roadhouse waitress (named "Tina," a minor change from the character she played in the 1975 and 1978 films) and Eisenmann appears as Sheriff Anthony. In addition, Meredith Salenger, the star of Disney's 1985 adventure "The Journey of Natty Gann" has a cameo as a TV reporter named "Natalie Gann."
1063727	"The Devil's Rejects" is a 2005 German-American horror film written and directed by Rob Zombie, and the sequel to his 2003 film "House of 1000 Corpses". The film is centered on the run of three members of the psychopathic antagonist family from the previous film, now seen as antiheroic protagonists, with Sid Haig, Bill Moseley, and Zombie's wife Sheri Moon Zombie reprising their roles. At the time of its release and in the years since, the film has garnered a cult following. The film has many freeze-cam scenes over the characters. This is the final film of Matthew McGrory before his death the same year; the film is dedicated to his "loving memory". Plot. On May 18, 1978, Texas Sheriff John Quincey Wydell, and a large posse of State Troopers issue an S and D mission on the Firefly family for over seventy-five homicides and disappearances over the past several years. The family arm themselves and fire on the officers. Rufus is killed, and Mother Firefly (Leslie Easterbrook) is taken into custody, while Otis and Baby escape. They hijack a car, kill the driver, and escape to Kahiki Palms, a run-down motel. While at the motel, Baby seduces Roy, part of the Banjo and Sullivan singing group. Otis and Baby then take the band hostage in their room, and Otis shoots the roadie when he returns. Meanwhile, Baby's father Captain Spaulding, decides to rendezvous with Baby and Otis. On route, his car runs out of gas and he assaults a woman before stealing her car. Back at the motel, Otis sexually assaults Roy's wife Gloria and demands Adam and Roy to come with him on an errand. Otis drives his two prisoners to a place where he buried weapons. While walking to the location, the two prisoners attack Otis, but he bludgeons Roy and cuts Adam's face off. Back at the motel, Adam's wife Wendy tries to escape by going to the bathroom. Gloria attempts to rebel, and Baby kills her. Wendy runs out of the motel, but is caught by Captain Spaulding, who knocks her unconscious. Otis returns, and all three leave the motel together in the band's van. The motel maid comes to clean the room, and discovers the murder scene. The maid is scared by the last member of the band, who is accidentally killed when she runs out to the highway to seek escape. "The Devil's Rejects" is written on the wall in blood. Wydell calls a pair of amoral bounty hunters - the "Unholy Two", Rondo and Billy Ray - to help him find the Fireflys. While investigating, they discover an associate, Spaulding's friend Charlie Altamont. Wydell calls a movie critic to learn about the Firefly family's names, and discovers them all to be characters from Groucho Marx's movies. He begins to lose sanity when Mother Firefly reveals that she murdered his brother. After having a dream in which his brother asks him for revenge, Wydell stabs Mother Firefly to death. The surviving Fireflys gather at a brothel owned by Charlie, where he offers them shelter from the police. After leaving the brothel, Charlie is threatened by Wydell to give up the Fireflys. With the help of the "Unholy Two", the sheriff takes the family back to the Firefly house where he tortures them, using similar methods to their own. He nails Otis' hands to his chair and staples crime scene photographs to Otis's and Baby's stomach, then beats and shocks Captain Spaulding and Otis with a cattle bell and prod and taunts Baby about the death of her mother. Wydell sets the house on fire and leaves Otis and Spaulding to burn, but lets Baby loose outside. Charlie returns to save the Firefly family, but is killed by Wydell. Baby gets shot in the ankle and brutally horse-whipped by Wydell. Tiny then arrives and intervenes, saving the Firefly family and killing Wydell. Otis, Baby, and Spaulding escape in Charlie's Cadillac, leaving Tiny behind. The trio drive, badly injured but alive, toward a police barricade. Otis wakes the sleeping Baby and Spaulding, who then arm themselves. Refusing to surrender, they charge the barricade and are shot by the police. Production. When Rob Zombie wrote "House of 1000 Corpses", he had a "vague idea for a story" about the brother of the sheriff that the Firefly clan killed coming back for revenge. After Lions Gate Entertainment made back all of their money on the first day of "Corpses" theatrical release, they wanted Zombie to make another film and he started to seriously think about a new story. With "Rejects", Zombie has said that he wanted to make it "more horrific" and the characters less cartoonish than in "Corpses", and that he wanted "to make something that was almost like a violent western. Sort of like a road movie." The film was set in the mid-late 1970s. He has also cited films like "The Wild Bunch", "Bonnie and Clyde" and "Badlands" as influences on "Rejects". When he approached William Forsythe about doing the film, he told the actor that the inspiration for how to portray his character came from actors like Lee Marvin and Robert Shaw. Sheri Moon Zombie does not see the film as a sequel: "It's more like some of the characters from "House of 1000 Corpses" came on over, and now they're the Devil's Rejects." Zombie hired Phil Parmet, who had shot the documentary "Harlan County USA" because he wanted to adopt a hand-held camera/documentary look. Principal photography was emotionally draining for some of the actors. Sheri Moon Zombie remembers a scene she had to do with Forsythe that required her to cry. The scene took two to three hours to film and affected her so much that she did not come into work for two days afterward. "Rejects" went through the MPAA eight times earning an NC-17 rating every time until the last one. According to Zombie, the censors had a problem with the overall tone of the film. Specifically, censors did not like the motel scene between Bill Moseley and Priscilla Barnes, forcing Zombie to cut two minutes of it for the theatrical release. However, this footage was restored in the DVD version. Soundtrack. Rob Zombie himself is a musician, he decided to go with more southern rock to create the mood of the film. The soundtrack itself was notable as being one of the first to be released on DualDisc, with the DVD side featuring a making-of featurette for the film and a photo gallery. Release. Box office. "The Devil's Rejects" was released on July 22, 2005 in 1,757 theaters and grossed USD$7.1 million on its opening weekend, recouping its roughly $7 million budget. It grossed $17 million in North America and $2.3 million internationally for a total of $19.4 million. Critical reception. The film had mixed reviews with a 53% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, with the consensus "Zombie has improved as a filmmaker since 'House of 1000 Corpses' and will please fans of the genre, but beware -- the horror is nasty, relentless, and sadistic."; and a 53 metascore on Metacritic. Prominent critic Roger Ebert enjoyed the film and gave it three out of a possible four stars. He wrote, "There is actually some good writing and acting going on here, if you can step back from the material enough to see it". Later, in his review for "The Hills Have Eyes", Ebert referenced "The Devil's Rejects", writing, "I received some appalled feedback when I praised Rob Zombie's "The Devil's Rejects", but I admired two things about it [that were absent from "The Hills Have Eyes": (1) It desired to entertain and not merely to sicken, and (2) its depraved killers were individuals with personalities, histories and motives". In his review for "Rolling Stone", Peter Travers gave "The Devil's Rejects" three out of four stars and wrote, "Let's hear it for the Southern-fried soundtrack, from Buck Owens' "Satan's Got to Get Along Without Me" to Lynyrd Skynyrd's "Free Bird," playing over the blood-soaked finale, which manages to wed "The Wild Bunch" to "Thelma and Louise"". In her review for the "New York Times", Dana Stevens wrote that the film "is a "trompe l'oeil" experiment in deliberately retro film-making. It looks sensational, but there is a curious emptiness at its core". "Entertainment Weekly" gave the film a "C+" rating and wrote, "Zombie's characters are, to put it mildly, undeveloped". Robert K. Elder, of the "Chicago Tribune", disliked the film, writing "espite decades of soaking in bloody classics such as the original "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" and "I Spit On Your Grave", Zombie didn't absorb any of the underlying social tension or heart in those films. He's no collage artist of influences, like Quentin Tarantino, crafting his movie from childhood influences. "Rejects" plays more like a junkyard of homages, strewn together and lost among inept cops, gaping plot holes and buzzard-ready dialog". Horror author Stephen King voted "The Devil's Rejects" the 9th best film of 2005 and wrote, "No redeeming social merit, perfect '70s C-grade picture cheesy glow; this must be what Quentin Tarantino meant when he did those silly "Kill Bill" pictures".
113328	Sylvia Maria Kristel (28 September 1952 18 October 2012) was a Dutch actress who performed in over 50 films, and played the lead character in four of the seven "Emmanuelle" films. Early life. Kristel was born in Utrecht, Netherlands, the elder daughter of an innkeeper, Jean-Nicholas Kristel, and his wife Piet. In her 2006 autobiography, "Nue", she stated that she was sexually abused by an elderly hotel guest when she was nine years old, an experience she otherwise refused to discuss. Her parents divorced when she was 14 years old after her father abandoned the family for another woman. "It was the saddest thing that ever happened to me", she said of the experience of her parents' separation. Career. Kristel began modeling when she was 17. She entered the Miss TV Europe contest in 1973 and won. Multilingual, she spoke Dutch, English, French, German and Italian fluently, and several other languages to a lesser extent. Kristel gained international attention in 1974 for playing the title character in the softcore film "Emmanuelle", which remains one of the most successful French films ever produced. After the success of "Emmanuelle", she often played roles that capitalised on that sexually provocative image, most notably starring in an adaptation of "Lady Chatterley's Lover" (1981), and a nudity-filled biopic of the World War I spy in "Mata Hari" (1985). Her "Emmanuelle" image followed her to the United States, where she played Nicole Mallow, a maid who seduces a teenage boy, in the sex comedy "Private Lessons" (1981). Another mainstream American film appearance was a brief comic turn in the "Get Smart" revival film "The Nude Bomb" in 1980. Although "Private Lessons" was one of the highest-grossing independent films of 1981 (ranking #28 in US domestic gross), Kristel reportedly saw none of the profits and continued to appear in movies and last played Emmanuelle in the early 1990s. In May 1990, she appeared in the television series "My Riviera", filmed at her home in Saint-Tropez and offering insights of her life and motivations in an interview with writer-director Michael Feeney Callan. In 2001, she played a small role in "Forgive Me", Dutch filmmaker Cyrus Frisch's debut. In May 2006, Kristel received an award at the Tribeca Film Festival, New York for directing the animated short film "Topor and Me", written by Ruud Den Dryver. The award was presented by Gayle King. After a hiatus of eight years, she acted in the film, "Two Sunny Days" (2010), and that same year in her last acting roll, she played "Eva de Leeuw" in the TV series "The Swing Girls". Personal life. In September 2006, Kristel's autobiography "Nue" ("Nude") was published in France. It was translated into English as "Undressing Emmanuelle: A Memoir", by Fourth Estate, 2 July 2007 (ISBN 978-0007256952), in which she told of a turbulent personal life blighted by addictions to drugs, alcohol, and her quest for a father figure, which resulted in some destructive relationships with older men. The book received some positive reviews. Her first major relationship was with Belgian author Hugo Claus, more than two decades her senior, with whom she had her only child, a son, Arthur (born 1975). She left her husband for British actor Ian McShane, whom she had met on the set of the film "The Fifth Musketeer" (1979). They moved in together in Los Angeles where he had promised to help her launch her American career. However their five-year affair would lead to no significant career break for Kristel but a relationship she describes in her autobiography as "awful he was witty and charming but we were too much alike". About two years into the relationship she began using cocaine. This proved her downfall, although at the time she thought of it as a
589716	Do Badan is a 1966 Hindi film directed by Raj Khosla. stars Manoj Kumar, Asha Parekh, Simi Garewal and Pran. The music is by Ravi. The film became a big hit at the box office.[http://boxofficeindia.com/showProd.php?itemCat=172&catName=MTk2Ng==] This is one of the few films with romance genre in which Manoj Kumar played role as a romantic hero, who otherwise mostly acted in patriotic movies.
582841	Mukesh Rishi (born 19 April 1956) is an Indian film actor who has worked in Hindi, Telugu, Tamil, Malayalam and Kannada films. He has also acted in Punjabi films. After doing his graduation from Chandigarh and working for two years in Mumbai, he left India to work in Fiji where he met his wife of Fijian-Indian descent whose family ran a traditional departmental store. After marriage they went to New Zealand where Mukesh started his career as a model. He got his first break in Tollywood in 1988 and has established himself as a leading character actor. Although he started his career in Telugu films as the villain, he has since then diversified into donning some positive roles. In this transition, he joins a list of many non-Telugu speaking actors who donned such roles including Amrish Puri, Puneet Issar, Sharat Saxena, and Pradeep Rawat among others. He also acted in Oriya films. He is born in pandit brahmin family in Kashmir
582741	Himani Bhatt Shivpuri (; born 24 October 1960 in Dehradun) is an Indian actress, known for her supportive roles in Bollywood films and Hindi soap operas. Biography. Shivpuri was born and brought up in Dehradun, Uttrakhand. Her father Haridutt Bhatt was a Hindi teacher at The Doon School, Dehradun, where she received her school education. While she was at school she was actively involved in school plays; while doing her post graduation in Organic Chemistry, her interest grew and she started acting in plays simultaneous to her studies. Eventually she joined National School of Drama, New Delhi and graduated in 1984. Her ancestral village is Bhattwadi, District Rudraprayag, Uttarakhand. She has a son, Katyayan, and was married to actor Gyan Shivpuri, who died in 1995. Career. After graduating from National School of Drama she worked with NSD Repertory Company for sometime before moving to Mumbai. Shivpuri made her film debut in 1984 with "Ab Ayega Mazaa", followed by "In Which Annie Gives It Those Ones" a TV film, in (1989), also starring Shahrukh Khan. She acted in many art films thereafter like Shyam Benegal's "Suraj Ka Satvan Ghoda" (1993) and "Mammo (1994)", though her big commercial break came with Sooraj R. Barjatya's "Hum Aapke Hain Koun..!" (1994). She made her television debut with the serial "Humrahi" (DD National), directed by Kunwar Sinha, which gave her considerable popularity as her role of Devki Bhojai was widely appreciated. Thereafter she became a regular feature on Indian television, starring in serials like "Hasratein" on ZEE TV in 1995 as an unsatisfied wife forced to marry a man double her age and looking out for extramarital affairs to satiate her needs, "Kasautii Zindagi Kay", "Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi" as Raksha, "Chandni", "Dollar Bahu" (Zee TV), "Josh" (Star Plus), "Ek Ladki Anjaani Si" and most recently in "Ghar Ek Sapna" (Sahara One), and "India Calling" (Star One). She has started "Baat Hamarri Paki hai" on Sony Entertainment Television Asia. Though she works mainly in character actor, she has done some memorable roles in films like "Koyla" (1997), "Pardes" (1997), "Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge" (1995), "Anjaam" (1994) and "Kuch Kuch Hota Hai" (1998). Over the years she has worked for many film production houses including Yash Raj Films (owned by director Yash Chopra), Rajshri Productions and Dharma Productions (owned by Yash Johar). She was seen in J.P. Dutta's film "Umrao Jaan". Himani Shivpuri now plays Kul in Zee's "Hamari Betiyoon Ka Vivaah". Shivpuri is awarded with 19th JAI National Award by Journalist Association of India under the flagship of Journalists Federation of India, in the presence of Oscar Fernandes (former cabinet minister), Kapil Sibal (cabinet minister), and H.K. Sethi, secretary general of Journalists Federation of India. She briefly appeared in a short documentary film "The Facebook Generation". produced by Blue Strike Productions and Dev Samaj Modern School and Directed by Sahil Bhardwaj.The film competed in Reel to Real film making competition at Harmony 2012 organised by The Global Education and Leadership Foundation and was among the top 10 finalists. References. Journalist Association of India www.jaoi.org (H K Sethi Secretary General) Journalists Federation of India www.jfoi.org
588971	Raaj Kumar, born Kulbushan Pandit (8 October 1926 – 3 July 1996), was an Hindi film actor. Raaj Kumar started out as sub-inspector of Mumbai Police in the late 1940s before he turned to acting with the 1952 film "Rangeeli". He appeared in the Oscar-nominated 1957 film "Mother India" and went onto star in over 70 Hindi films in a career that spanned over four decades. Personal life. Raaj Kumar was born in Pakistan. In the late 1940s he moved to Mumbai, India where he became Sub-inspector of the Mumbai Police. He married Gayatri in the 1960s with whom he had three children, two sons named Puru Raajkumar (a Bollywood actor), Panini Raajkumar and a daughter named Vastavikta Raajkumar, who made her screen debut in 2006 film "". Career. Raaj Kumar was noticed in his earlier films like Rangeeli, Aabshar, Ghamand, and Lakhon Mein Ek, but it was as Prince Naushazad in Sohrab Modi’s Naushervan-e-Adil that he became famous. In his brief role as the husband of Nargis in Mother India, he achieved prominence. He followed this with the unglamorous role of a mill worker in Paigham. He was cast with Sunil Dutt, Shashi Kapoor and Balraj Sahni in B.R. Chopra’s Waqt. In Sridhar’s Dil Ek Mandir, Raaj Kumar essayed the role of a cancer patient. He also won the Filmfare Award in Best supporting actor category for movies Dil Ek Mandir and Waqt. From his screen debut in Rangeeli to God & Gun, his played memorable characters in 60-odd films. Death. He died at the age of 69 on July 3, 1996 of throat cancer. He died a few months before his son Puru Raajkumar made his debut in "Bal Brahmachari", which was released later that year. It was dedicated to his memory.
744021	Vincent Philip D'Onofrio (born June 30, 1959) is an American actor, director, film producer, writer, and singer. Often referred to as an actor's actor, his work as a character actor has earned him the nickname "The Human Chameleon". He is known for his roles as Private Leonard Lawrence ("Gomer Pyle") in the war film "Full Metal Jacket", "Edgar" in "Men in Black" and Detective Robert Goren in the crime TV series "". Early life. Vincent D'Onofrio was born in the Bensonhurst neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York, of Italian descent. He is the son of Gennaro (Gene) D'Onofrio, an interior designer and theater production assistant, and Phyllis, a waitress and restaurant manager. The couple met while Gene was stationed in Hawaii with the U.S Air Force. In 1956, they had their first child, Antoinette, who now owns the "Rib City" restaurant in American Fork, Utah. She was followed by Elizabeth (1957), an actress and drama coach now residing in Fort Myers Beach, Florida, then by Vincent. D'Onofrio's parents divorced when he was young, and his mother later married George Meyer who had a son, Guy, and daughter, Connie, from a previous marriage. The family moved to the Hialeah area of Florida. A shy boy who spent "a lot of time in my room, staying in my head", D'Onofrio later became interested in magic and sleight of hand, tricks he learned from Cuban entertainers who owned a small magic shop. In his teens, he worked backstage, building sets and running sound at a number of community theaters run by his father. Career. After graduating from Hialeah-Miami Lakes Senior High School, D'Onofrio started to appear in front of the curtain. During an 18-month stint at the University of Colorado in Boulder, he was involved with small community theater productions. He later studied method acting at the American Stanislavsky Theater and the Actors Studio under coaches Sonia Moore and Sharon Chatten which landed him his first paid role in Off-Broadway's "This Property Is Condemned". He went on to appear in a number their productions, including "Of Mice and Men" and "Sexual Perversity in Chicago". D'Onofrio continued his career by performing in many New York University student productions while also working as a bouncer at the Hard Rock Cafe, a bodyguard for Robert Plant and Yul Brynner and a deliveryman. In 1984, he made his Broadway debut as Nick Rizzoli in "Open Admissions". In 2012, D'Onofrio returned to teach at the Lee Strasberg Theater & Film Institute where his daughter, Leila George, is a student. Acting. In 1986, D'Onofrio took on the role often considered the defining moment in his acting career, as Pvt. Leonard Lawrence, an overweight and mentally unstable Marine recruit in the movie "Full Metal Jacket". On a tip from friend Matthew Modine, D'Onofrio was urged to send audition tapes to director Stanley Kubrick, in England. Four tapes later D'Onofrio landed the role. Originally, the character of Pvt. Lawrence had been written as a 'skinny ignorant redneck', however, Kubrick believed the role would have more impact if the character was big and clumsy. D'Onofrio gained for the role, bringing his weight to . This remains the record for most weight gained by an actor for a movie, surpassing Robert De Niro's accumulation of for the filming of "Raging Bull". While filming an obstacle course scene for the movie, D'Onofrio injured his left knee, compounded by the excessive weight, which required surgical reconstruction. After filming of "Full Metal Jacket" was completed, having lost nearly all the weight gained for the movie in just nine months, D'Onofrio went on to play Dawson, the owner of 'Dawson's Garage' in "Adventures in Babysitting". D'Onofrio appears in only one scene near the end of the film, but his small role attracted attention because of his muscular physique (in complete contrast to the overweight and flabby character he played in "Full Metal Jacket") and long blond hair (a wig) which causes Sara, the film's youngest character, to mistakenly believe he is Thor, the comic-book superhero she idolizes. In 1988, D'Onofrio was cast in another supporting role in the film "Mystic Pizza" playing the fiance of Lili Taylor's character. The movie was also Julia Roberts' breakout film. In the latter film, he was billed under his full name "Vincent Phillip D'Onofrio". D'Onofrio continued to play a wide variety of minor or supporting roles, including director Orson Welles in Tim Burton's "Ed Wood", farmer Edgar and the evil "Bug" that possesses him from "Men in Black", the father of a saint in Nancy Savoca's "Household Saints", Yippie founder Abbie Hoffman in "Steal This Movie", a time traveler from the distant future in "Happy Accidents", and opposite Jennifer Lopez as serial killer Carl Stargher in "The Cell". In 1992, he appeared in Robert Altman's The Player as an aspiring screenwriter whom Tim Robbins' studio executive character accidentally murders. In 1997, D'Onofrio made a move to television and received an Emmy nomination for his appearance as John Lange, the doomed victim in the "" episode "". In 1999, he turned down a role in "The Sopranos". In 2001, he took on what became his longest and best known role as Det. Robert Goren on the NBC / USA Network television show "". In 2003, it was reported that D'Onofrio and Joe Pantoliano had begun work on a small film titled "Little Victories" about a 12-year-old boy whose perceptions of the world are forever changed when his gangster uncle comes to live with him. According to a television interview with Pantoliano, the film was not completed and went into turnaround because of a failure to raise the funds necessary for production.
1064838	Tigerland is a 2000 war drama film directed by Joel Schumacher starring Colin Farrell in the role of Private Roland Bozz, and takes place in a training camp for soldiers to be sent to the Vietnam War. Tigerland was the name of a U.S. Army training camp located at Fort Polk, Louisiana as part of the U.S. Army Advanced Infantry Training Center. The film's setting is loosely based on this training camp. Plot. It is September 1971 and it is clear that the Vietnam War is lost. In the opinion of the average American soldier who came of age during the Peace movement of the 1960s, Vietnam was lost a long time ago. Roland Bozz (Colin Farrell), a draftee who is opposed to the war, is shown to be an unruly soldier with no respect for authority; he disobeys orders and talks back to his superiors. He quickly befriends another recruit, Jim Paxton (Matthew Davis), an aspiring writer who records his experiences in a personal journal. Unlike Bozz, Paxton volunteered for the Army. Upon reaching their post the company CO, Captain Saunders makes it clear that every soldier who passes through Fort Polk and Tigerland will be sent to Vietnam. He also states that any political views on the war are irrelevant at this point. As the film progresses, another side of Bozz is shown. Having "x-ray vision for loopholes," Bozz finds ways for soldiers to get out of the army, one because he has not only his children, but a handicapped wife with her own, and later another soldier, Miter (Clifton Collins Jr.), who joined to prove his manhood but finds himself way over his head. At one point, another soldier approaches Bozz while on leave and asks for help getting out, saying "I was told if you don't wanna go to 'Nam, you either pray to Jesus, or go see Roland Bozz." Bozz also shows his reasoning behind being opposed to the war: his human compassion. Eventually Bozz's natural leadership and ability earns him the title of squad leader (sometimes called acting Jack). Another private named Wilson (Shea Whigham), a racial bigot and instigator, continuously demeans Miter and Bozz (basically anyone whom he judges to be "weaker" than himself). Bozz is the only one that retaliates, which results in a fight between the two. Paxton helps break up the fight and also earns the hatred of Wilson. Later, while doing live fire exercises, Wilson goes after Bozz with a pistol, telling him he's going to kill him. Bozz tries to take away the gun and the two wrestle each other to the ground, Wilson getting the upper hand and putting the gun to the back of Bozz's head and pulling the trigger. Miraculously, the gun misfires, saving Bozz's life. The Commanding Officer lets Bozz choose the punishment: have Wilson court-martialed or "let me deal with him," strongly suggesting the latter. Despite the commanding officer strongly pressing to let him deal with it, Bozz says he wants Wilson "out of the army" because he recognizes Wilson has taken an emotional beating ever since his inability to command became obvious. Bozz leaves the office saying he wants Wilson out. The platoon is sent to "Tigerland" - a forested training area designed as the best possible replica of Vietnam. During an exercise, Bozz' squad acts as villagers in a mock Vietnamese village, with one squad member designated as a "VC sympathizer", and competes with another squad charged with rooting the sympathizer out. This other squad is led by Wilson, who was not kicked out of the army after all. As the exercise ends with Bozz's squad "winning," Wilson tells Bozz he will kill him no matter what it takes. Soon thereafter, Bozz is about ready to make an escape to Mexico with the aid of some civilians he paid. Platoon member Johnson (Russell Richardson) sees him and tells him to stop; Johnson tells him if he runs away, Wilson will go after Paxton instead of Bozz and he will be responsible for his friend's death. The scene ends with Bozz apparently climbing into the van, but the next morning as the platoon falls in, Bozz comes back, acting as if he had merely gone off to urinate. During the last training exercise, Bozz's squad and Wilson's squad are pitted against each other on patrolling missions. As Wilson's squad prepares for an attack, he replaces his blank cartridges with live ammunition and removes his blank-firing adaptor. As Bozz's squad nears, he opens fire. Though he does not hit anyone, it is obvious he is using live ammunition and the trainer for the exercise tries to intervene. As he does, Bozz is standing above Paxton and deliberately fires a blank round with his rifle muzzle near Paxton's face, the flash wounding Paxton's eye. The trainer aims a pistol at Wilson's head to get him to hold his weapon up and surrender, telling him he will be court-martialed. At the end of the film, the entire platoon gets ready to head to Vietnam, except Paxton whose eye injury, though not permanent, has earned him a medical discharge. Bozz and the others board a bus and he and Paxton exchange farewells through a window. Paxton tells Bozz he's going to write about him, but Bozz says he won't. He has stolen Paxton's journal and rips out pages as the platoon's bus drives off, leaving Paxton scrambling to recover them. Bozz tosses the journal as the bus speeds away. Paxton then is told that Bozz died in Vietnam but he was never listed, others say he just disappeared, but another soldier calls Paxton and says that he thinks he saw Bozz 3 years ago in Mexico with a beautiful woman. Production. "Tigerland" was filmed on location in Jacksonville, Florida and Camp Blanding, site of the Demi Moore film "G.I. Jane". Box office. The film was a box office flop, earning only $139,692 against its $10 million budget. Influences. In one scene set in a bar, Bozz is seen holding a black book, with a cover illustration of a hand giving the peace sign. It is a copy of the anti-war novel "Johnny Got His Gun" by Dalton Trumbo. This can be interpreted as a message from the writer, suggesting influences on the film. A novel of the same name written by Howard Alan Lantzer is a possible basis for the film.
1704400	The Lazarus Project (formerly known as "The Heaven Project") is a 2008 American drama/thriller film directed and written by John Patrick Glenn. It stars Paul Walker as Ben, a former criminal who gets a second chance at life and mysteriously ends up working at a psychiatric hospital. Piper Perabo, Linda Cardellini, Malcolm Goodwin, Tony Curran and Bob Gunton also star in the film, which was released on DVD on October 21, 2008. Plot. Ben Garvey is a reformed criminal on parole and he lives with his wife and fathers his young daughter. One day, he unexpectedly loses his job because of his criminal records, and he turns to his ex-con brother which subsequently leads to a laboratory robbery of gold dust gone horribly wrong, and his brother is killed. Ben, with his long record of robberies, is sentenced to death. He says goodbye to his wife and daughter and goes to the execution chamber. After the sentence, he wakes up from his lethal injection near a psychiatric hospital in a small Oregon town, where he is told that he has been given a second chance from God and to begin work as a groundskeeper at the local mental hospital to live on. As time goes on, and with a wife and daughter he left behind, he wonders whether he has truly cheated death or if he has become part of a far more sinister plan for him. He meets two patients, a schizophrenic named Robbie and a murderer named William. William is very unstable and attacks Ben several times. Ben notices a tattoo on William's forearm. While Ben is in his cabin, he encounters a dog. Ben takes the dog in and names him Dog (unable to find a good name). Meanwhile, a skin irritation starts to develop on Ben's own forearm. He also meets a psychiatrist named Julie with whom he starts developing a relationship. Ben wants to leave the town to go back to his wife and daughter, despite warnings from Avery, who Ben thinks is the Angel that gave him the second chance. Avery states that if Ben leaves town he will immediately die. Ben attempts to leave on a bus, despite seeing a demon but he gets off at the last stop before the town exit. The next day he sees in a newspaper that the bus crashed and everybody on board the bus died. One night, William escapes confinement and commits suicide in front of Ben, saying that "they can't follow him in heaven". Ben starts looking through things he finds in his cabin as to the origins of William's tattoo. Similar to Robbie, he starts getting paranoid that he is being watched. One night he sees a demon and starts running through the woods. He falls and loses consciousness. When he awakens, Ezra (who runs the hospital) tells Ben that Ben is in fact a patient at the hospital. He states that Ben burned down his house by falling asleep while smoking, resulting in the deaths of his wife and daughter and driving Ben insane. Ben reacts violently but comes to accept that many of the things, including the dog, the cabin, Avery, and his relationship with Julie are just hallucinations. He manages to get back his permissions to be a groundskeeper at the hospital with Robbie.
1066436	The American Friend () is a 1977 film by Wim Wenders, loosely adapted from the novel "Ripley's Game" by Patricia Highsmith. The film is of the neo-noir genre, and features Dennis Hopper as career criminal Tom Ripley and Bruno Ganz as Jonathan Zimmermann, a terminally ill picture framer whom Ripley coerces into becoming an assassin.
393619	My Father () is a 2007 South Korean film. The film, which is based on a true story, is about an adopted son who is searching for his biological parents in South Korea. During his search he meets his real father, a condemned murderer on death row. Daniel Henney plays the lead role of James, who works as a volunteer in the United States armed forces in Korea. He asks questions of why his father is on death row and finds out things that he always wanted to know. Then he finds more and more truths unravel about his father and his life. The release of the film inspired controversy because the family of the father's victims did not support its production. In its first week on release it topped the South Korean box office sales charts.
1294438	Adi Shamir (; born July 6, 1952) is an Israeli cryptographer. He is a co-inventor of the RSA algorithm (along with Ron Rivest and Len Adleman), a co-inventor of the Feige–Fiat–Shamir identification scheme (along with Uriel Feige and Amos Fiat), one of the inventors of differential cryptanalysis and has made numerous contributions to the fields of cryptography and computer science. Education. Born in Tel Aviv, Shamir received a BSc degree in mathematics from Tel Aviv University in 1973 and obtained his MSc and PhD degrees in Computer Science from the Weizmann Institute in 1975 and 1977 respectively. His thesis was titled, "Fixed Points of Recursive Programs and their Relation in Differential Agard Calculus". After a year postdoc at University of Warwick, he did research at MIT from 1977–1980 before returning to be a member of the faculty of Mathematics and Computer Science at the Weizmann Institute. Starting from 2006, he is also an invited professor at École Normale Supérieure in Paris. Research. In addition to RSA, Shamir's other numerous inventions and contributions to cryptography include the Shamir secret sharing scheme, the breaking of the Merkle-Hellman knapsack cryptosystem, visual cryptography, and the TWIRL and TWINKLE factoring devices. Together with Eli Biham, he discovered differential cryptanalysis, a general method for attacking block ciphers. (It later emerged that differential cryptanalysis was already known — and kept a secret — by both IBM and the NSA.) Shamir has also made contributions to computer science outside of cryptography, such as finding the first linear time algorithm for 2-satisfiability and showing the equivalence of the complexity classes PSPACE and IP. Awards. Shamir has received a number of awards, including the following:
1065932	The Seduction of Joe Tynan is a 1979 American political film drama directed by Jerry Schatzberg and produced by Martin Bregman. The screenplay was written by Alan Alda, who also played the title role. The film stars Alda, Barbara Harris, and Meryl Streep, with Rip Torn, Melvyn Douglas, Charles Kimbrough, and Carrie Nye. Meryl Streep said that she was on "automatic pilot" during filming because she went to work not long after the death of John Cazale, adding that she got through the process largely due to how supportive Alda was. Synopsis. Respected liberal Senator Joe Tynan is asked to lead the opposition to a Supreme Court appointment and he finds himself struggling with his own morality and the corruption surrounding him. He falls for a lovely lady attorney and has an affair that jeopardizes his marriage, and possibly, his career. Awards. Wins
1380493	Planet B-Boy is a 2007 documentary film that focuses on the 2005 Battle of the Year while also describing B-boy culture and history as a global phenomenon. This documentary was directed by Canadian-American Korean filmmaker Benson Lee, shot by Portuguese-American filmmaker Vasco Nunes, and released in theaters in the United States on March 21, 2008. It was released on DVD on November 11, 2008. Content. Planet B-Boy features extensive footage of the dancers in competition as well as street performances and various rehearsals by the different crews from around the world. The narrative of the film centers on five particular crews (representing France, Japan, South Korea, and the United States) in their quest to win the Battle of the Year, and it includes multiple interviews with the B-Boys and their families. The film also includes interviews with German B-Boy and promoter Thomas Hergenröther (who founded the Battle of the Year competition) and legendary B-Boy Ken Swift of the Rock Steady Crew. This film has been shown at numerous festivals around the world after originally making its debut on April 26, 2007 at the Tribeca Film Festival. Planet B-Boy has received many strong reviews and currently has a 91% rating at Rotten Tomatoes - with the consensus that "Lee's dazzling documentary makes a compelling argument for breakdancing as an art form". In March 2008 it was revealed that director Benson Lee was working on a feature adaptation of Planet B-Boy, starring Chris Brown and featuring many American b-boys such as Kid David from Renegades and Casper from Boogie Brats.
585933	Chandrasekhara Menon, better known by his stage name Sankaradi (; 1924–2001), was an Indian actor. He was a veteran Malayalam comedian and character artiste, who had over 700 Malayalam films to his credit. He was one of the first realistic actors in South Indian cinema. He dominated the Malayalam film scene in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s as comedian along with Adoor Bhasi and Bahadur. Later, he switched to character roles. Early career. Sankaradi passed intermediate from Maharajas College, Ernakulam. Before entering films, Sankaradi briefly dabbled in politics, journalism and theatre. He had earlier joined the Indian National Congress, but later became a cardholder of the undivided Communist Party of India (CPI). However, he returned his party card after the CPI split in 1964 and turned to theatre. Sankaradi joined the trade union movement at Baroda Railways while he was studying Marine engineering at Baroda. He abandoned his studies to pursue journalism in Mumbai. Film career. A stint in theatre in the mid-1960s in Kerala prepared Sankaradi for his foray into films. Since his debut in Kunchacko's "Kadalamma", he remained an integral part of Malayalam cinema till his death. Sankaradi won the state's best character artiste award in 1969-71. He also holds the record for featuring in over 300 films with evergreen hero Prem Nazir. Awards. Kerala State Film Awards: Personal life. Sankaradi remained bachelor for a long time till he married Sharada in the late 1980s; the couple had no children. He was known throughout his film career by his house name (Tharavadu) "Sankaradi".
479798	Erin Brown (born Erin DeWright on October 16, 1979) is an American film actress, filmmaker, model and musician. Brown has starred in over fifty low-budget films, under the names Sadie Lane and Misty Mundae. Film career. Softcore. From 1997 to 2002, Brown worked for pornographic film production company Factory 2000. She signed an exclusive contract with E.I. Independent Cinema, performing mainly in softcore pornography under the stage name Misty Mundae.
1067210	Frankie & Alice is a 2010 Canadian drama film directed by Geoffrey Sax starring Halle Berry. Filming began in Vancouver, British Columbia, in November 2008 and ended in January 2009. To qualify for awards season, the film opened in a limited release on December 10, 2010. It is a true story about a popular black go-go dancer/stripper in the '70s who suffers from dissociative identity disorder. Plot. Frankie is a black woman who has two alters: Genius, a seven-year-old child, and Alice, a Southern white racist woman, with whom Frankie struggles more to overcome. Her disorder occurred as a result of a traumatic incident in her childhood which she has repressed. With the help of her psychiatrist she receives the help she needs in order to live a life close to normal. Release. It had a limited release in one theatre (USA) on December 10, 2010 to qualify for awards. The film will have a nation-wide theatrical release early 2014. Reception. There were positive responses from the critics. Following a screening at the Cannes Film Festival, "The Hollywood Reporter" described the film as "a well-wrought psychological drama that delves into the dark side of one woman's psyche". The review also said Halle Berry was "spellbinding" as Frankie, with "rock-solid" supporting performances.
1016249	Kelly Chen Wai-lam (born Vivian Chen Wai-man on 13 September 1972) is a Hong Kong Cantopop singer and actress. She has been referred to as a "diva of Asia" (). Chen has great success in the Asia entertainment industry with nearly 20 million record sales of 38 albums. She has won over 300 awards and is involved in many philanthropic activities. She was rewarded as one of the "The Outstanding Young Persons of the World" in 2004 by the Junior Chamber International and "Young Global Leaders" by World Economic Forum in 2009. Chen is a lyric mezzo-soprano. Biography. Chen was born Vivian Chen Wai-man on 13 September 1972 in Hong Kong. She attended Canadian Academy International School in Kobe, Japan, for high school and then Parsons The New School for Design in New York, where she studied graphic art. Chen can speak fluent Cantonese. She can also speak, in various degrees of fluency, Mandarin, Japanese, and English. She has an elder sister and a younger brother, singer Victor Chen Si-hon. Personal. Chen married long-term boyfriend Alex Lau Kin Ho on 2 October 2008 at the Hong Kong Intercontinental Hotel. Chen gave birth to her first son, Chace Lau (6 lbs), on 10 July 2009 and gave birth to a 6.5-lb second baby boy, Riley Lau, on 21 March 2012, both by Caesarean section. She was pregnant with twin girls in 2010, but lost them after a miscarriage in March the following year. Career beginning. In 1994, while still a student at Parsons The New School for Design, Chen made two commercials, one for Shanghai Beer and one for the Bank of Hong Kong. After graduating from Parsons in 1995, Chen returned to Hong Kong. She was introduced to an acquaintance who owned a production studio and was chosen to feature in a Jacky Cheung music video. 1995: Chen made her film debut in "Whatever Will Be, Will Be" (仙樂飄飄) and sang the film's theme song. In September 1995, Chen performed the song "Mou Tian" composed by composer Steve Barakatt then released a compilation album, "Break the Sky", with three other singers, and then her first Cantonese album, "Dedicated Lover" (醉迷情人), in December. It was a success in Hong Kong and furthered her acting and musical career. 1996: Chen released her first Mandarin language album, "I Don't Think So" (我不以為), in, Taiwan, Malaysia, and Singapore, which sold over 150,000. Following the album's success, she produced another Cantonese CD in October 1996, "Wind, Flower, Snow" (風花雪). "Wind, Flower, Snow" is a very popular song in Hong Kong. In November 1996, Chen released her first Japanese single, "Traveler". That year also saw her first stint as a Japanese singer when she released two Japanese singles. 1997: Chen performed her first ever concert, Starry Dream of Love (星夢情真), and released the partner CD in June, which sold over 100,000 copies in Hong Kong. She held three concerts in Hong Kong in June, named the Kelly Starry Dream of Love Concert (陳慧琳星夢情真演唱會). In July, she released "Morning", another Japanese single and her first Japan-based hit. Chen also provided the voice of Madame Trunk in the animated movie "A Chinese Ghost Story". In the course of five months Chen released four albums. With the releases of her second Mandarin album, "Insight" (體會), the compilation "Kelly's Best Collection 97", the live CD "Starring Dream of Love Live in Concert", and her next Cantonese CD "A Movie" (一齣戲). "Insight" sold 1.34 million in East Asia. Chen had established herself as a popular singer and actor in East Asia. 1998: Chen embarked the Kelly Starry Dream of Love World Tour (陳慧琳星夢情真世界巡迴演唱會), starting in Australia. Besides the world tour, Chen performed 10 concerts for school children in Taiwan. She released her Mandarin album, "Love Me Or Not" (愛我不愛), the hit single of which, "Note Book" (記事本), is well-known all over Asia. This album sold over 2 million copies in Asia. Chen boosted her status as a Chinese pop music diva in Asia entertainment industry. 1999 and 2000: Starring in the television drama "Don't Be a Cry Baby" with Japanese star Kyoko Fukada and performing two concerts in Fukuoka, Japan in 1999, Chen increased her Japanese fanbase. She released a new album, "Love of Colours" which sold over 300,000 in Hong Kong from 9 December 1999 to 2000, and was the best selling album in 2000. She also won "The most popular female artist" in 1999 Jade Solid Gold Best Ten Music Awards Presentation. Her albums sold over 230,000 in Hong Kong in 1999, the best selling female artist in Hong Kong. 2001: Chen released her remix album "Kelly BPM Dance Collection" in March, which sold over 150,000 copies. She embarked on the Paisley Galaxy World Tour (陳慧琳花花宇宙世界巡迴演唱會), which started out with one show in Singapore and two shows in Genting Highlands in Malaysia. (She broke the record of best-selling Hong Kong singers' concerts in Malaysia.) Chen came to North America, where she performed concerts in Chicago, Atlantic City, Los Angeles and Toronto all as a part of her world tour in May. She later toured China where she performed in Guangzhou, Huizhou, Zhongshan, Chengdu, Shanghai and Beijing. She released a Mandarin album, "Flying" (飛吧), in August. It was the among the top 20 best-selling albums in Taiwan in 2001. Chen's movie "Calmi Cuori Appassionati" (冷靜與熱情之間), released in November 2001, grossed more than 30 billion yen (HKD$220,000,000) in Japan. The film broke the pre-sale ticket record in Japan and was ranked as the 67th best-selling movie in Japanese box office history. It was ranked at 98th best-selling movie in 2006 in Japan's box office history. Chen won "Asian Pacific Most Popular Hong Kong Female Artist" at the 2001 Jade Solid Gold Best Ten Music Awards Presentation. Stabilizing career. 2002: Chen released her first Japanese album, "Grace", in January,selling over 50,000 copies in Japan. She released her Cantonese album "Ask Kelly" that February. The single "Blessed" (有福氣) was very popular in Hong Kong. She released her Mandarin album "Love is coming" (愛情來了) in May and held one concert in Taoyuan, Taiwan, named "Kelly Chen Love is Coming Concert" (陳慧琳愛情來了演唱會). She held 12 shows in Hong Kong in July, named "Kelly Dynacarnival World Tour, Hong Kong" (陳慧琳飛天舞會演唱會). She held a shows called "Kelly Dynacarnival World Tour" (陳慧琳飛天舞會世界巡迴演唱會) in Sydney and Melbourne in September. In November, she released her Mandarin album(new+bes) "Shining Colourful" (閃亮每一天). She held her "Kelly Dynacarnival World Tour" in Singapore and Kuala Lumpur in December. The Republic of Liberia issued stamps commemorating her in December. Chen won "Asian Pacific Most Popular Hong Kong Female Artist" at the 2002 Jade Solid Gold Best Ten Music Awards Presentation and "Best Dressed 31st Awards" held by the Japanese government. She held her "Kelly Dynacarnival World Tour" in San Francisco, Atlantic City and Toronto in April 2003. She released her Mandarin album "You Don't Mean It" (心口不一) and Cantonese album "Love" (愛) in August. "You Don't Mean It" sold over 800,000 in Asia. Chen again won the "Asian Pacific Most Popular Hong Kong Female Artist" award at the 2003 Jade Solid Gold Best Ten Music Awards Presentation. She became the first Asian spokesperson for Dior in May 2004. She released her Cantonese album "Stylish Index". She was chosen as "Famous Outstanding Young Persons of the World" (2004年度世界傑出青年) by Junior Chamber International in October 2004. She held 10 shows in Hong Kong in December, named "Kelly Lost in Paradise World Tour, Hong Kong" (陳慧琳紙醉金迷演唱會) and also released her Cantonese album "Grace & Charm". She was also voted "CCTV Most Popular Female Singer " (第七屆中央電視台音樂電視大賽港澳臺及海外華語歌壇最受歡迎女歌手) by forty-five million Chinese people in 2004. Career success. In 2005, her song "Hope" (希望) from the Korean TV series "Dae Jang Geum" (大長今) was popular in Hong Kong and mainland China. "Hope" improved her earnings as well as the company promoting her at the time. At the TVB 8 Awards Presentation Chen took home three awards for "Hope" including the Song Award, World's Most Popular Cantonese Song, and Most Well-Liked Female Singer in mainland China. "Hope" was the top song of charts for 20 radio stations in China and had even set a high record for ringtone downloads. A month after the initial launch, there were over 3 million downloads and, to date, the accumulated figure is over 6 million. As such, her record company earned $5 million after deductions. Universal Music Group's managing director called Chen to inform her of the good news. Chen had promised that if the number of downloads were to go over 10 million, she will distribute the earnings to the staff. She wrapped up her "Kelly Chen Lost in Paradise World Tour" (陳慧琳紙醉金迷世界巡迴演唱會) in 2005–2006 in Asia and North America (10 shows in Hong Kong, two shows in Genting Highlands in Malaysia, two shows in Sydney and Melbourne in Australia, 12 shows in Mainland China (two each in Shanghai and Guangzhou, one each in Nanjing, Wuhan, Harbin, Chongqing, Chengdu, Hangzhou, Changzhou, and Wuxi), three shows in the USA (two in Connecticut and one in Las Vegas), and one show in Toronto, Canada). "Lost in Paradise" lasted three hours and contained 35 songs from Chen's lengthy 10-year music career. Chen held 30 shows in the "Kelly Lost in Paradise World Tour". Chen was ranked as the third highest-income artist (and the highest-income female artist), following Jackie Chan and Andy Lau, overall in the Greater China region from 2005 to 2007. In 2008, Chen performed in the movie "Empress and the Warriors" (江山美人); the box office was about HKD$100,000,000. She held six concerts in Hong Kong, named "Kelly Chen Love Fighters Concert 2008" (陳慧琳Love Fighters演唱會08). She announced to all the audiences that she would marry Alex Lau in her last concert in 18 June. Chen has turned down all the shows of the "Kelly Chen Love Fighters World Tour" (陳慧琳Love Fighters 世界巡迴演唱會) in China, Taiwan, Korea, USA, Canada, Malaysia, Singapore and Australia because she wanted to give birth. She was married to Alex Lau (劉建浩) in 2 October. She performed in the closing ceremony of 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics. In 2009, Chen was chosen as a "Young Global Leader" by the World Economic Forum in 2009. Her first son, Chace Lau (劉昇), was born on 10 July. Chen performed with Amei Cheung, in the opening ceremony of National Games of the People's Republic of China. In 2010, Chen released her first Mandarin album after giving her birth, "Chasing dreams" (微光) in March. After the miscarriage, Chen stopped her work to let her body and mind recover for a few months. In March after the Fukushima earthquake, she made a video clip to support the Japanese. Chen then started to come out of the sadness and started mostly working on commercials and as fashion show guests. Near the end of 2011, Chen got involved in filming the 2012 Chinese New Year movie "All Well Ends Well 2012" starring with Louis Koo, Donnie Yan, and Sandra Ng. At the same time Chen announced that she was 4 months pregnant with a baby boy. After all the movie promotions, Chen will pause on her work again to wait for this newborn to arrive. Chen gave birth to her second baby boy on 21 March 2012 weighing 6.5 pound. Commercials. Chen has been involved in many commercials since she started her career. She has been spokesman of many top well-known brands. The following list shows the commercials she involved. Philanthropy. Since 1998, Chen has been involved in charitable activities and has served as an ambassador for causes including environmental protection, education, and children. She was appointed a Hong Kong Goodwill Ambassador in 1998. Environment. Chen was appointed Hong Kong Ambassador of Environment in 1998. With Greenpeace, she has made commercials to promote awareness of environmental protection. Education. In April 2002, she was appointed by the "Standing Committee on Language Education and Research" (SCOLAR) as the "Ambassador of The Workplace English Campaign" to encourage the working people to keep studying the English language as Chen herself had done. After years of serving other funds, Chen started her own to help children: the Kelly Chen Children Education Fund raises money to help needy children. Besides performing her Dynacarnival concert in Hong Kong, Chen traveled to Sydney and Melbourne, Australia to perform. Chen was soon appointed by the Hong Kong Correctional Services Department as the "Ambassador of The Rehabilitation". She was awarded two honours. First, she was chosen as one of Hong Kong's Ten Outstanding Young Persons 2002. That same year, she was invited to represent Hong Kong to attend the ABU Prizes – Presentation & Special Concert in the NHK Hall in Tokyo. She received the 13th Annual Best Dressed Award in Japan, becoming the first foreigner to receive the award. She was later invited by the Office of the Privacy Commissioner for Personal Data and HKSAR Government Health Department to film the publicity campaigns for promoting the respect of personal privacy and organ donation throughout China and Hong Kong. Children's causes. She was appointed by UNICEF as the Honorable China Children's Health Ambassador. Chen was later appointed by the Hong Kong Girl Guides Association as "Girl Guides Millennium Goodwill Ambassador", which led her to visit Inner Mongolia to investigate the way young children were living and the health and food services they were receiving. In 2001, Chen added another title to her growing list as the Volunteer Ambassador 2001 as appointed by the Social Welfare Department. She was later appointed by UNICEF a second time as the Ambassador of The Hong Kong Committee For UNICEF. Other charitable work. As an ambassador of the Hong Kong Red Cross, Chen promoted the donation of blood banks. She was an ambassador for the Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC). March 2003 brought more titles Chen's way: she was appointed The Philatelic Ambassador by the Hong Kong Post, as well as "The Love And Peace Ambassador" by City Junior Chamber. Chen soon took her "Dynacarnival" to North America by performing in Atlantic City, Toronto and San Francisco. She began to release DSD versions of her earlier albums, including "Dedicated Lover". She was later appointed as Star of "Hong Kong Outstanding Students Award" by Lion & Globe Educational Trust, furthering her push for better education. In June 2003, Chen's wax figure for the Madam Tussaud Wax Museum was ready and was put on display. She was later invited to be the "Love Ambassador" of "World Children's Day at McDonald's 2003" by McDonald's restaurants in Hong Kong. She was appointed as the "Pass-it-On" Ambassador by the Hong Kong Red Cross and attend its Christmas campaign to visit the John. F. Kennedy Center. Chen's charitable work continued into 2004 as she was appointed as the star representative to attend the "5th HK Outstanding Teenagers" election press conference held by Hong Kong Playground Association and RTHK. In February, Chen was appointed as both "Road Safety Vision Ambassador" by the Road Safety Council to promote road safety, and as the "Reading Ambassador" by The Boys' and Girls' Clubs Association of Hong Kong. May 2004 brought the title of "Hospital Play Ambassador" to Chen, as well as the title of "Japanese Promotional Ambassador" by The Japan Society of HK, Consulate General of Japan and RTHK to encourage Hong Kong citizens to learn Japanese. Chen received another award when she was named "The Outstanding Young Persons of the World" in 2004 by the Junior Chamber International, becoming the first Hong Kong female celebrity to be honoured with the award. In 2007, Chen was appointed as Hong Kong "Innovative Entrepreneur Ambassdor" (創意創業大使) and had sung the theme song "Innovation" (創) for the "Innovative Entrepreneur of The Year 2007" (創意創業大賞2007) organised by City Junior Chamber 城市青年商會, Hong Kong. Chen's responsibility is to promote the awareness of entrepreneurship to youngsters and to attend the various promotion events organised. She also continued the support of Innovation Entrepreneur in 2008. After completing her movie, "An Empress and the Warriors", with Leon Lai, Chen headed a concert, called "Love Fighters", at the HK Coliseum in June 2008. This was her biggest concert headline to date, which will feature many sets and exotic choreography. Chen donated $600,000 for the 2008 Sichuan earthquake. She sang at the 2008 Beijing Olympics. Media and public relations. In a survey conducted in early 2002 by the City University of Hong Kong, Chen was named "The Most Popular Idol" among youth groups. Endorsements. In 1997, Shiseido, Japan's largest cosmetics company, hired Chen to appear in their commercials; she was "depicted as modern Asian [beauty, not quite identical yet not totally different from Japanese women." Chen was also chosen as the cover model for "Ginza", a new monthly magazine targeted at women in their twenties. Filmography. Her film debut was in 1995, in "Whatever Will Be, Will Be" (仙樂飄飄, Xian Yue Piao Piao, literally "Heavenly Music Floating in the Air"). Chen has since starred and made cameos in quite a number of films. Her filmography includes:
1446688	"Daft Punk's Electroma" is a 2006 film by French musical duo Daft Punk. The plot revolves around the quest of two robots (the band members, played by Peter Hurteau and Michael Reich) to become human. The music featured in this film is not by Daft Punk, which is a first for the duo after their previous film and home video releases, ' and '. However, Electroma is directed by Daft Punk. While initially receiving mixed reviews, theatrical screenings of the film have since been well received. Plot. The two lead characters appear as the robotic forms of Daft Punk and are credited as "Hero Robot No. 1" and "Hero Robot No. 2". One wears a silver helmet and the other wears a golden one. An opening scene shows the duo driving in a 1987 Ferrari 412 with its license plate displaying "HUMAN". After passing through a Southwestern United States landscape, the duo arrives by car at a town in Inyo County, California. The town's denizens are also shown to be robots physically identical to the two main characters, but at different ages, with different clothing and alternating gender.
1164287	Lisa Vidal (born June 13, 1965) is an American film and television actress. Early years. Vidal was born in Whitestone, New York, the daughter of Josie, a secretary, and Manny Vidal, a tax consultant and businessman. Her parents moved from Puerto Rico and settled in Manhattan, New York, where Vidal and her two sisters Christina and Tanya were born. She also has a brother named Christian. After Vidal finished her elementary education, she auditioned and was accepted in the High School of Performing Arts. When she graduated, Vidal went to work with La Familia Theater Company, alongside Raul Julia and Julia Roberts. Vidal was 14 years old when she acted in the theater series "Oye Willie" and later on made her feature debut with a small role in "Delivery Boys". Soon, she was working in T.V. with parts in shows such as "The Cosby Show". Acting career. From 1994-1995, Vidal worked in "New York Undercover" as a reporter named Carmen. In the series she was sister to Det. Eddie Torres, played by Michael DeLorenzo. In 1995, she did some Off-Broadway and worked in "The Commish". Among the other series she has worked in are: "The Brian Benben Show" in 1998 as "Julie"; "Third Watch" from 1999-2001 as "Dr. Sarah Morales" ; "ER" from 2001-2004 as "firefighter Sandy Lopez". Vidal had starring roles in the police series "High Incident" (1996) and "The Division" (2001), for which she received the 2002 nomination for the ALMA Award in the Best Actress Category. In 2006, she had a brief role in the short-lived action series "Smith", as one of the federal agents looking for Ray Liotta's group of thieves, and in 2010 she starred in NBC's "The Event". Vidal has also participated in the following movies: "Odd Girl Out" (2005), "Naughty or Nice" (2004); "Chasing Papi" (2003); "I Like It Like That" (1994); "The Wonderful Ice Cream Suit" (1998) and in "Night and the City" (1992), alongside Robert De Niro and Jessica Lange, directed by Irwin Winkler. Personal life. She has been married to real estate agent Jay Cohen since 1990 and has two sons, Scott (b. 1992) and Max (b. 1998) and daughter Olivia (b. 2003) and lives in Los Angeles, California with them. She used to own a children's clothing store called "Oodles" in Studio City, California.
393856	Someone Behind You is a 2007 South Korean horror film, based on the manhwa "It's Two People" by Kang Kyung-ok. It was released in America as Voices under the 2009 After Dark Horrorfest film festival. In this movie, a young woman tries to escape what seems to be a curse that is killing members of her family one by one. Plot. The movie begins with a child witnessing a woman's mysterious murder blood smears over the television set. The child begins to slowly inch closer to the dead lady, and as he reaches out to touch the knife, her eyes open and she utters a hair-raising scream. At the opening credits newspaper articles about inexplicable murders taking place and the movie title appears on the screen. Ga-In (Yoon Jin-seo) is a full time student in Korea with a talent for fencing,However while in school she is puzzled by a strange man who discovers her. Ga-In and her family come to her aunt's, Jee-Sun, wedding. Before the wedding, Jee-Sun is pushed off of the third story balcony, and is immediately rushed to the hospital. After the rest of the family leaves the hospital, Ga-In stays behind and waits with her boyfriend, Hyun-Joong, while her aunt recovers. As they pass Jee-Sun's room, they witness Jee-Sun's younger sister, Kim Jung-Sun, repeatedly stabbing her. Kim Jung-Sun is arrested for the murder of Jee-Sun, and is held for questioning. It is soon revealed that the family believes that their family is cursed and at least one family member dies in incomprehensible ways. In this case, a hidden force possessed Jung-Sun and caused her to kill Jee-Sun. After the incident, Ga-In begins to have forewarnings, while dreaming, about a woman who was covered in blood who tells her she is next. The next day at school, Ga-In is resting in the nurse's office while another student visits her class room looking for her. He wants her to be in a PR video they are making, and explains it is important that she is the one in the video. The teacher suggests Eun-Kyung, the top student, instead, but the young man refuses. Ga-In sees a vision of a shadowy figure who frightens her with a misshapen hand. Later, Eun-Kyung visits Ga-In at the nurse's and attempts to kill her with a pair of scissors. During the struggle, Eun-Kyung is stabbed instead, and it is later revealed that she has transferred to a different school. Later that same day, while she opens the locker a deformed figure tries to grab her, Ga-In is confronted by her teacher, who then blames her for Eun-Kyung leaving and tries to kill her. Luckily, Ga-In is saved by a classmate.
1102255	Georg Friedrich Bernhard Riemann (September 17, 1826 – July 20, 1866) was an influential German mathematician who made lasting contributions to analysis, number theory, and differential geometry, some of them enabling the later development of general relativity. Biography. Early years. Riemann was born in Breselenz, a village near Dannenberg in the Kingdom of Hanover in what is the Federal Republic of Germany today. His father, Friedrich Bernhard Riemann, was a poor Lutheran pastor in Breselenz who fought in the Napoleonic Wars. His mother, Charlotte Ebell, died before her children had reached adulthood. Riemann was the second of six children, shy and suffering from numerous nervous breakdowns. Riemann exhibited exceptional mathematical skills, such as calculation abilities, from an early age but suffered from timidity and a fear of speaking in public. Education. During 1840, Riemann went to Hanover to live with his grandmother and attend lyceum (middle school). After the death of his grandmother in 1842, he attended high school at the Johanneum Lüneburg. In high school, Riemann studied the Bible intensively, but he was often distracted by mathematics. His teachers were amazed by his adept ability to perform complicated mathematical operations, in which he often outstripped his instructor's knowledge. In 1846, at the age of 19, he started studying philology and theology in order to become a pastor and help with his family's finances. During the spring of 1846, his father, after gathering enough money, sent Riemann to the renowned University of Göttingen, where he planned to study towards a degree in Theology. However, once there, he began studying mathematics under Carl Friedrich Gauss (specifically his lectures on the method of least squares). Gauss recommended that Riemann give up his theological work and enter the mathematical field; after getting his parents' approval, Riemann transferred to the University of Berlin in 1847. During his time of study, Jacobi, Lejeune Dirichlet, Steiner, and Eisenstein were teaching. He stayed in Berlin for two years and returned to Göttingen in 1849. Academia. Riemann held his first lectures in 1854, which founded the field of Riemannian geometry and thereby set the stage for Einstein's general theory of relativity. In 1857, there was an attempt to promote Riemann to extraordinary professor status at the University of Göttingen. Although this attempt failed, it did result in Riemann finally being granted a regular salary. In 1859, following Lejeune Dirichlet's death, he was promoted to head the mathematics department at Göttingen. He was also the first to suggest using dimensions higher than merely three or four in order to describe physical reality—an idea that was ultimately vindicated with Einstein's contribution in the early 20th century. In 1862 he married Elise Koch and had a daughter. Austro-Prussian War. Riemann fled Göttingen when the armies of Hanover and Prussia clashed there in 1866. He died of tuberculosis during his third journey to Italy in Selasca (now a hamlet of Verbania on Lake Maggiore) where he was buried in the cemetery in Biganzolo (Verbania). Meanwhile, in Göttingen his housekeeper discarded some of the papers in his office, including much unpublished work. Riemann refused to publish incomplete work and some deep insights may have been lost forever. Influence. Riemann's published works opened up research areas combining analysis with geometry. These would subsequently become major parts of the theories of Riemannian geometry, algebraic geometry, and complex manifold theory. The theory of Riemann surfaces was elaborated by Felix Klein and particularly Adolf Hurwitz. This area of mathematics is part of the foundation of topology, and is still being applied in novel ways to mathematical physics. Riemann made major contributions to real analysis. He defined the Riemann integral by means of Riemann sums, developed a theory of trigonometric series that are not Fourier series—a first step in generalized function theory—and studied the Riemann–Liouville differintegral. He made some famous contributions to modern analytic number theory. In a single short paper (the only one he published on the subject of number theory), he investigated the Riemann zeta function and established its importance for understanding the distribution of prime numbers. He made a series of conjectures about properties of the zeta function, one of which is the well-known Riemann hypothesis. He applied the Dirichlet principle from variational calculus to great effect; this was later seen to be a powerful heuristic rather than a rigorous method. Its justification took at least a generation. His work on monodromy and the hypergeometric function in the complex domain made a great impression, and established a basic way of working with functions by "consideration only of their singularities". Riemann was the inspiration for mathematician Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (better known by his pen name Lewis Carroll) to write Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass. Euclidean geometry versus Riemannian geometry. In 1853 Gauss asked his student Riemann to prepare a "Habilitationsschrift" on the foundations of geometry. Over many months, Riemann developed his theory of higher dimensions and delivered his lecture at Göttingen in 1854 entitled "Über die Hypothesen welche der Geometrie zu Grunde liegen" ("On the hypotheses which underlie geometry"). When it was finally published in 1868, two years after his death, the mathematical public received it with enthusiasm and it is now recognized as one of the most important works in geometry. The subject founded by this work is Riemannian geometry. Riemann found the correct way to extend into "n" dimensions the differential geometry of surfaces, which Gauss himself proved in his "theorema egregium". The fundamental object is called the Riemann curvature tensor. For the surface case, this can be reduced to a number (scalar), positive, negative or zero; the non-zero and constant cases being models of the known non-Euclidean geometries. Higher dimensions. Riemann's idea was to introduce a collection of numbers at every point in space (i.e., a tensor) which would describe how much it was bent or curved. Riemann found that in four spatial dimensions, one needs a collection of ten numbers at each point to describe the properties of a manifold, no matter how distorted it is. This is the famous construction central to his geometry, known now as a Riemannian metric.
394142	Oh Dal-su (born 15 June 1968) is a South Korean actor.
688148	The Devil in Miss Jones (1973) is a pornographic film, written, directed and produced by Gerard Damiano and starring Georgina Spelvin. It is widely regarded as a classic adult film, released during the Golden Age of Porn. Damiano made the film after his 1972 success with "Deep Throat". Along with "Deep Throat" and "Behind the Green Door", the film is associated with the brief period known as porno chic or the Golden Age of Porn. It went on to spawn numerous remakes and sequels. The original movie is in the public domain. Plot. Georgina Spelvin plays Justine Jones, a lonely, depressed spinster who decides that suicide is the only way out of her routinely dull existence. While lying in the bathtub, Justine slits her wrists, dying quietly as the water fills with her blood. Because she has lived a "pure" life, Miss Jones finds herself in limbo. There she meets Mr. Abaca (John Clemens), an angel, of sorts, who informs her that she does not qualify for entrance to Heaven because she has killed herself. Angry that this one indiscretion has left her with only the options of limbo or Hell, she begs Mr. Abaca to let her "earn" her place in Hell by being allowed to return to earth and become the embodiment of lust. After an intense session of pain and pleasure with a menacing man who goes only by the title of "The Teacher" (Harry Reems), Justine has a few bizarre and sexually deviant encounters, the last of which is a graphic threesome. However, just as she is enjoying her new life of lust, the brief time Justine was given to fulfill herself runs out and she is faced with the eternity of Hell. At first, Miss Jones is horrified at the pain she will be forced to endure, but Abaca is quick to dispel the common human myth of Hell and promises Justine that she will be "quite comfortable..." Justine, now a raging sex addict, then finds herself confined to a small room with an impotent, sexually uninterested man who is more interested in catching flies than her. She desperately begs the man for sex, but he simply asks her to be quiet while he listens to the buzzing of his imaginary insects. Trapped in her own private hell, Miss Jones is left screaming in agony for all eternity, thirsting for a climax she will never achieve by her own means. Georgina Spelvin. Spelvin was 36 when she made the film. "The Devil in Miss Jones" was one of her first acting appearances following a career as a chorus girl on Broadway where she featured in productions such as Guys and Dolls, Sweet Charity, and The Pajama Game. Her role in "The Devil In Miss Jones" was typical of her career, as she often played celibate spinsters who have a sexual awakening, then become sex fiends (e.g. "Sleepyhead"). She also meets a tragic end in several of her other films. The film marked the first time she used the moniker Georgina Spelvin, a reference to George Spelvin, a traditional stagename. According to her interview on Dave's Old Porn, Spelvin also did the craft services and cooking on the set. The actress billed in the movie as Claire Lumiere was hired to do craft services only, but was offered $100 to do a lesbian scene with Spelvin, which she accepted.
1066776	Gray Lady Down is a 1978 disaster film by Universal Studios starring Charlton Heston, David Carradine, Stacy Keach, Ned Beatty, Ronny Cox, and is the feature film debut of Christopher Reeve. It is based on David Lavallee's book "Event 1000". Plot. An aging, respected commander Paul Blanchard, played by Charlton Heston, is on his final submarine tour before promotion to command of a submarine squadron (COMSUBRON). Surfaced and returning to port, the submarine USS "Neptune", is struck by a freighter in heavy fog, and sinks to a depth of 1,450 feet (442 meters) on a canyon ledge above the ocean floor. A United States Navy rescue force, commanded by Captain Bennett (Stacy Keach), arrives on the scene, but "Neptune" is subsequently rolled by a landslide to a greater angle that does not allow the Navy's Deep Submergence Rescue Vehicle (DSRV) rescue submarine to complete its work. A small experimental submersible, "Snark", is brought in to assist with the rescue. "Snark" is very capable, but run by a nonconformist U.S. Navy officer misfit, Captain Gates (David Carradine). The tiny submersible is the only hope for a rescue. Ronny Cox plays "Neptune"s executive officer, scheduled to take over command from Charlton Hestons character; Ned Beatty plays "Snark"'s second crewman; and Christopher Reeve appears in his first film role. In the opening credits, footage of the real-life submarine , filmed specifically for "Gray Lady Down", depicts the fictional USS "Neptune". "Gray Lady Down" also re-used submarine special-effect footage and the large-scale submarine model originally used to portray the fictional submarine USS "Tigerfish" in the 1968 movie "Ice Station Zebra" to depict USS "Neptune".
1102144	Niels Henrik Abel (5 August 1802 – 6 April 1829) was a Norwegian mathematician who, despite living in poor conditions and dying at the age of 26, made major contributions to mathematics. Abel was an innovator in the field of elliptic functions, discoverer of Abelian functions and a pioneer in the development of several branches of modern mathematics. Most of his work was done in six or seven years of his working life. Regarding Abel, the French mathematician Charles Hermite said: "Abel has left mathematicians enough to keep them busy for five hundred years." Another French mathematician, Adrien-Marie Legendre, said: ""quelle tête celle du jeune Norvégien!"" ("what a head the young Norwegian has!"). When asked how he developed his mathematical abilities so rapidly, he replied "by studying the masters, not their pupils." Life. Early life. Niels Henrik Abel was born in Nedstrand, Norway, as the second child of Søren Georg Abel and Anne Marie Simonsen. When he was born, the family was living at a rectory on Finnøy. Much suggests that Niels Henrik was born in the neighboring parish, as his parents were guests of the bailiff in Nedstrand in July / August of his year of birth. "Source: Skadberg, Gunnar A.: Ætt og heim 2004, chapter 5, Sogneprest Søren Georg Abel – Matematikerens far. ISBN 82-90087-65-9" Morten Kiærulf was appointed pastor for Nedstrand in 1829. He wrote in a letter in 1880 to professor Bjerknes in Valle, that he was told by locals that one of Abel's sons was born at former bailiff Marstrand's house in Nedstrand. "Source: Myhre, Sigmar: Ætt og heim 2009, chapter 6, Niels Henrik Abel – fødestaden. ISBN 978-82-90087-72-7"
1163511	Barry Nelson (April 16, 1917 – April 7, 2007) was an American actor, noted as the first actor to portray Ian Fleming's secret agent James Bond. Early life. Nelson was born Robert Haakon Nielsen in San Francisco, California, of Norwegian ancestry, the son of Betsy (née Christophsen) and Trygve Nielsen. (His year of birth has been reported variously, but his 1943 Army enlistment record and his 1993 voter registration records certify 1917 as the correct year of his birth.) He began acting in school at the age of fifteen. He graduated from the University of California, Berkeley in 1941 and, because of his theatrical efforts in school, was almost immediately signed to a motion picture contract by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios. Career. As an MGM contract player, Nelson made his screen debut in the role as Paul Clark in "Shadow of the Thin Man" (1941) starring William Powell and Myrna Loy, with Donna Reed. He followed that with his role as Lew Rankin in the film noir crime/drama "Johnny Eager" (1942) starring Robert Taylor and Lana Turner. He played the lead in an MGM second feature war film "A Yank on the Burma Road". (1942) During his military service in World War II, Nelson debuted on the Broadway stage in one of the leading roles, Bobby Grills, in Moss Hart's play "Winged Victory" (1943). His next Broadway appearance was as Peter Sloan in Hart's "Light Up the Sky" (1948), which was a first-rate success. He went on to appear on Broadway with Barbara Bel Geddes in the original Broadway production of "The Moon is Blue"; he was the last surviving original cast member of the production. During the play's run he also starred in a CBS half-hour drama called "The Hunter", premiering in July 1952. He played Bart Adams, a wealthy young American whose business activities involved him in a series of adventures. He also appeared opposite Lauren Bacall in the Abe Burrows comedy "Cactus Flower" in 1965 and with Dorothy Loudon in "The Fig Leaves Are Falling" in 1969. Another Broadway role, that of Gus Hammer in "The Rat Race" (1949), kept Nelson away from the movies again, but after it closed he starred in the dual roles as Chick Graham and Bert Rand in "The Man with My Face" (1951), which was produced by Ed Gardner of radio fame. He was the first actor (and the first non European before George Lazenby, who was the second) to play James Bond on screen, in a 1954 adaptation of Ian Fleming's novel "Casino Royale" on the television anthology series "Climax!" (preceding Sean Connery's interpretation in "Dr. No" by eight years). Reportedly this was considered a pilot for a possible James Bond television series, though it's not known if Nelson intended to continue playing the character. Nelson played James Bond as an American named "Jimmy Bond". The program also featured Peter Lorre as the primary villain, Le Chiffre; Nelson later noted Lorre was the reason he took the role. Originally broadcast live, the production was believed lost until a kinescope emerged in the 1980s. It was subsequently released to home video, and is currently available on DVD as a bonus feature with the 1967 film adaptation of the novel. Nelson played the lead in a 20-episode Western television series set in Canada and entitled "Hudson's Bay", which featured George Tobias as his sidekick. Nelson appeared as Grant Decker in "Threat of Evil", a 1960 episode of CBS's anthology series "The DuPont Show with June Allyson". His additional television credits include guest appearances on "Alfred Hitchcock Presents", "Ben Casey", "The Twilight Zone" (episode "Stopover In A Quiet Town"), and "Dr. Kildare". He appeared regularly on television in the 1960s, having been one of the "What's My Line?" mystery guests and later serving as a guest panelist on that popular CBS quiz show. Nelson appeared in both the stage and screen versions of "Mary, Mary". In 1978, he was nominated for a Tony Award for Best Actor in a Musical for his role as Dan Connors in "The Act" (1977) with Liza Minnelli. His final appearance on Broadway was as Julian Marsh in "42nd Street" (1986). William Goldman, in his 1968 book "", called Nelson a consummately professional actor. "He was a very naturalistic, believable actor," said his agent, Francis Delduca. "He was good at both comedy and the serious stuff." Among his other film credits were "Airport" and "The Shining" (as the hotel manager who interviews Jack Nicholson for a job opening), and he also appeared on such television series as "Murder, She Wrote", "Dallas" and "Magnum, P.I." More recently, Nelson and his second wife spent a lot of time travelling. He planned to write a couple of books about his time on stage and in Hollywood. From 1964 to 1966, he hosted portions of the NBC Radio program "Monitor". Personal life. Nelson had two wives, actress Teresa Celli, married in 1951 and later divorced, and Nansilee ("Nansi") Hoy, to whom he was married until his death. Nelson and his second wife divided their time between homes in New York and France. Until his death, Nelson could be seen publicly at American Civil War shows across America. He was a close friend of tenor Mario Lanza. According to his widow Nansi, Barry Nelson died on April 7, 2007, while traveling in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, nine days before his 90th birthday. The cause of death was not disclosed.
584920	Hansika Motwani (born 9 August 1991) is an Indian actress who predominantly appears in Tamil and Telugu films. She made her film debut as a leading actress in the Telugu movie "Desamuduru" (2007), winning the Filmfare Award for Best Female Debut – South. Following appearances in several high-budget Telugu films, including "Kantri" and "Maska", she started her career in Tamil cinema with "Mappillai" (2011). She was part of commercially successful Tamil films including "Velayudham" (2011), "Oru Kal Oru Kannadi" (2012), "Theeya Velai Seiyyanum Kumaru" (2013) and "Singam II" (2013) and has since become a leading contemporary actress in Tamil cinema. Personal life. Hansika Motwani was born to Pradeep Motwani, a businessman and Mona Motwani, a dermatologist. She has a brother Prashant Motwani. Her mother tongue is Sindhi and she is a Buddhist. She was born in Mumbai. Hansika attended the Podar International School in Mumbai. She went on to study at the International Curriculum School in Mumbai. Career. Hansika began her television career with a serial called "Shaka Laka Boom Boom". She later acted in the Indian serial "Des Mein Niklla Hoga Chand", for which she received the Favorite Child Award at the Star Parivaar Awards, and appeared as one of the children in "Koi Mil Gaya" with Preity Zinta and Hrithik Roshan. Hansika made her debut in a lead role in Puri Jagannadh's Telugu film "Desamuduru", opposite Allu Arjun, earning the Filmfare Award for Best Female Debut – South for her performance. Hansika made her debut as a leading actress in Bollywood with Himesh Reshammiya in "Aap Kaa Surroor" — a moderate hit. She next signed the Hindi film titled "He: The Only One", where she was to essay the role of a killer, hell-bent on taking revenge for her family, but the film was later shelved. Hansika's first 2008 release was "Bindaas", starring Puneet Rajkumar, her first and only Kannada film to date. Later that year, she was paired with Jr. NTR in the film "Kantri". She made her Tamil film debut in the unsuccessful 2011 film "Mappillai", opposite Dhanush. Her next Tamil film, "Engeyum Kadhal", opposite Jayam Ravi, was also unsuccessful. The 2011 film "Velayudham", in which she starred alongside Vijay, became a box-office success; this was her first time playing the role of a village belle. In 2012, Hansika's first release was M. Rajesh's romantic comedy "Oru Kal Oru Kannadi", which became her first runaway hit and earned her positive reviews from critics for her performance. Her last 2012 release was "Denikaina Ready", opposite Vishnu Manchu, which also earned a positive response from the public. She received her first Best Actress nomination at the 60th Filmfare Awards South for her performance in the film. She was seen in "Settai", opposite Arya and starred in Sundar C.'s Theeya Velai Seiyyanum Kumaru, opposite Siddharth. She played a lead role in Suriya's "Singam II", and is currently working with Karthi in "Biriyani". She has been selected to play Maya, a gangster, in Silambarasan's "Vettai Mannan", with whom she is also acting in "Vaalu" . She was asked to reduce her weight for a film opposite Raam.
393869	Into the Mirror () is a 2003 South Korean horror film about a series of grisly deaths in a department store, all involving mirrors, and the troubled detective who investigates them. It was the debut film of director Kim Sung-ho.
1048948	"The Last Flight of Noah's Ark" is a Disney film released by Buena Vista Distribution on June 25, 1980. The film stars Elliott Gould, Geneviève Bujold and Ricky Schroder. Plot. A jaded pilot named Noah Dugan (Gould) is unemployed and owes a large amount of money due to his gambling. He goes to an old friend, Stoney (Vincent Gardenia), who owns an airfield. He is offered a job flying a cargo of animals to a remote South Pacific island aboard a B-29 bomber. Bernadette Lafleur (Bujold) is the prim missionary who accompanies him. Bernadette has raised the animals at an orphanage and is close to two of the orphans, Bobby and Julie (Schroder and Tammy Lauren).
1265434	Lionel Barrymore (April 28, 1878 – November 15, 1954) was an American actor of stage, screen and radio as well as a film director. He won an Academy Award for Best Actor for his performance in "A Free Soul" (1931), and remains perhaps best known for the role of the villainous Mr. Potter character in Frank Capra's 1946 film "It's a Wonderful Life". He was a member of the theatrical Barrymore family. Early life. Lionel Barrymore was born Lionel Herbert Blythe in Philadelphia, the son of actors Georgiana Drew Barrymore and Maurice Barrymore. He was the elder brother of Ethel and John Barrymore, the uncle of John Drew Barrymore, Diana Barrymore, Dolores Barrymore, Sam, Ethel, and John Drew Colt and the grand-uncle of Drew Barrymore. Barrymore was raised a Roman Catholic. He attended the Episcopal Academy in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. In her autobiography, Eleanor Farjeon recalled that when she and Barrymore were friends as toddlers, she would take off her shoes and he would kiss her feet. He was married twice, to actresses Doris Rankin and Irene Fenwick, a one-time lover of his brother John. Doris's sister Gladys was married to Lionel's uncle Sidney Drew, which made Gladys both his aunt and sister-in-law. Doris Rankin bore Lionel two daughters, Ethel Barrymore II (b. 1908) and Mary Barrymore (b. 1916). Neither child survived infancy, though Mary lived a few months. Barrymore never truly recovered from the deaths of his girls, and their loss undoubtedly strained his marriage to Doris Rankin, which ended in 1923. Years later, Barrymore developed a fatherly affection for Jean Harlow, who was born about the same time as his two daughters and would have been about their age. When Jean died in 1937, Lionel and Clark Gable mourned her as though she had been family. Stage career. Barrymore began his stage career in the mid-1890s, acting with his grandmother Louisa Lane Drew. He appeared on Broadway in his early twenties with his uncle John Drew Jr. in such plays as "The Second in Command" (1901) and "The Mummy and the Hummingbird" (1902), both produced by Charles Frohman. In 1905 Lionel and his siblings, John and Ethel, were all being groomed under the tutelage of Frohman. That year Lionel appeared with John in a short play called "Pantaloon" while John appeared with Ethel in "Alice-Sit-By-The-Fire". In 1910, after he and Doris had spent many years in Paris, Lionel came back to Broadway, where he established his reputation as a dramatic and character actor. He and his wife often acted together on stage. He proved his talent in many plays, including "Peter Ibbetson" (1917) (with brother John), "The Copperhead" (1918) (with Doris), and "The Jest" (1919) (again with John). Lionel gave a short-lived performance as MacBeth in 1921. The play was not successful and more than likely convinced Lionel to permanently return to films. One of Lionel's last plays was "Laugh, Clown, Laugh" (1923) with his second wife, Irene Fenwick. This play would later be made into a 1928 silent film starring Lionel's friend, Lon Chaney, Sr. Film career. Barrymore began making films about 1911 with D.W. Griffith at the Biograph Studios. There are claims that he made an earlier film with Griffith called "The Paris Hat" (1908) but no such movie exists. Lionel and Doris were in Paris in 1908, where Lionel attended art school and where their first baby, Ethel, was born. Lionel mentions in his autobiography, "We Barrymores", that he and Doris were in France when Bleriot flew the channel on July 25, 1909. Entering films the same year his uncle Sidney Drew began a film career at Vitagraph, Barrymore made "The Battle" (1911), "The New York Hat" (1912), "Friends" and "Three Friends" (1913). In 1915 he co-starred with Lillian Russell in a movie called "Wildfire", one of the legendary Russell's few film appearances. He also made a foray into directing at Biograph. The last silent film he directed, "Life's Whirlpool" (Metro Pictures 1917), starred his sister, Ethel.
1165668	Edd Byrnes (born July 30, 1933) is an American actor known for his starring role in the television series "77 Sunset Strip." He also was featured in the 1978 film "Grease" as television teen-dance show host, Vince Fontaine, and a single-charted recording artist with "Kookie, Kookie -- Lend Me Your Comb" (with Connie Stevens). Early life. He was born Edward Byrne Breitenberger. When he was 13, his father died. He then dropped his last name in favor of "Byrnes" based on the name of his maternal grandfather, a fireman. Screen career. His enduring and most famous role was as Gerald Lloyd "Kookie" Kookson III, on the ABC television detective series "77 Sunset Strip". He played a continually hair-combing serial killer in the pilot, "Girl on the Run", but he was so popular (a national teen sensation) that the producers brought him back the following week as a regular cast member in the role of a chrome-plated hot rod driving, hipster-talking ("Kookie-talk") parking valet and sometime protégé private investigator. Efrem Zimbalist, Jr. explained the situation to the audience:
582860	Sadak is a 1991 Bollywood film directed by Mahesh Bhatt. The film is a romantic thriller. It stars Sanjay Dutt and Pooja Bhatt. The film is the fifth highest grossing Hindi movie of the year 1991 with a groundbreaking musical score. Plot. The film was made famous by the excellent portrayal of the eunuch, Maharani (Sadashiv Amrapurkar), an evil madam running a brothel that employs many girls like Pooja (Pooja Bhatt) and Chanda (Neelima Azeem). Ravi (Sanjay Dutt), a taxi driver, meets Pooja before she is bought by Maharani, and his friend Gotya (Deepak Tijori) is in love with Chanda. Ravi witnessed his sister (Soni Razdan) plunge to her death after being diagnosed with a sexually transmitted disease. She had eloped with her lover who sold her off at a brothel and forced her to become a prostitute. This violent incident has left Ravi traumatised and scarred for life, as he has become an insomniac who keeps having disturbing visions of his sister's death and is restless and violent on occasions.On one of his taxi plying days, he meets Inspector Irani (Pankaj Dheer), who Ravi recognises from an article that was published about the cop when he had won a medal. Ravi drops him off to his destination, refuses to take any money from him and the cop tells him to come to him if he ever needs help of any kind. Ravi meets Pooja again as she tries to flee the brothel of Maharani and tries to help her in vain. He procures his life's savings, a meagre sum of thirty thousand rupees from Salim Bhai (Avtar Gill), his taxi's owner and takes out Pooja for one night posing as her customer. He does so with the help of his friend Gotya and a pimp named (Mushtaq Khan). Gotya however is held as collateral exchange under Maharani's orders in case Pooja is not safely returned.They roam around Bombay, spend some romantic time with each other during which Ravi tells Pooja that he loves her and would keep on coming back to the brothel for her every night ( presumably - so that she is not sold to other customers). The next night, Ravi mortgages the taxi and goes back to the brothel. He is however chided by Maharani who suspects he's either mad or in love with Pooja for offering high sums of money for her on consecutive nights.She also tells Ravi that since she has been running this business for the past thirty years, she knew when Pooja came back in the morning that Ravi did not sleep with her. After much argument, and requests from Ravi and Gotya, Maharani agrees to letting him spend the night with Pooja under the condition that he have sex with her in front of her. Ravi agrees, and then stabs Maharani, and escapes with Pooja in the ensuing chaos. Gotya also grabs his girlfriend Chanda and escapes. They run away to a distant location where Gotya and Chanda get married in a temple with the blessings of Ravi and Pooja. All four come back and take refuge with Salim Bhai. In the mean time, Maharani's henchmen find the pimp and break his legs.Salim Bhai advises Ravi and Gotya to enlist police protection and Ravi decides to approach Inspector Irani. He assures them of his help and asks them to meet him in the parking lot of an apartment complex at a scheduled time. However, when the four reach there, Maharani and his henchmen are already waiting and attack them with firearms. As the four try to escape, Gotya and Chanda are both shot and Ravi manages to escape with Pooja in Irani's police jeep.Once they reach safety. he calls up Irani and warns him that he will have to pay heavily for his betrayal. Tracks list. The musical score for the movie was composed by Nadeem Shravan - *This song is based on the song Chalay to cut he jaaye ga safar aahistah, aahistah.
1089869	John Couch Adams FRS (5 June 1819 – 21 January 1892) was a British mathematician and astronomer. Adams was born in Laneast, near Launceston, Cornwall, and died in Cambridge. The Cornish name Couch is pronounced "cooch". His most famous achievement was predicting the existence and position of Neptune, using only mathematics. The calculations were made to explain discrepancies with Uranus's orbit and the laws of Kepler and Newton. At the same time, but unknown to each other, the same calculations were made by Urbain Le Verrier. Le Verrier would assist Berlin Observatory astronomer Johann Gottfried Galle in locating the planet on 23 September 1846, which was found within 1° of its predicted location, a point in Aquarius. (There was, and to some extent still is, some controversy over the apportionment of credit for the discovery; see Discovery of Neptune.) He was Lowndean Professor at the University of Cambridge for thirty-three years from 1859 to his death. He won the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society in 1866. In 1884, he attended the International Meridian Conference as a delegate for Britain. A crater on the Moon is jointly named after him, Walter Sydney Adams and Charles Hitchcock Adams. Neptune's outermost known ring and the asteroid 1996 Adams are also named after him. The Adams Prize, presented by the University of Cambridge, commemorates his prediction of the position of Neptune. His personal library is now in the care of Cambridge University Library. Early life. Adams was born at Lidcot, a farm at Laneast, near Launceston, Cornwall, the eldest of seven children. His parents were Thomas Adams (1788–1859), a poor tenant farmer, and his wife, Tabitha Knill Grylls (1796–1866). The family were devout Wesleyans who enjoyed music and among John's brothers, Thomas became a missionary, George a farmer, and William Grylls Adams, professor of natural philosophy and astronomy at King's College London. Tabitha was a farmer's daughter but had received a rudimentary education from John Couch, her uncle, whose small library she had inherited. John was intrigued by the astronomy books from an early age. John attended the Laneast village school where he acquired some Greek and algebra. From there, he went, at the age of twelve, to Devonport, where his mother's cousin, the Rev. John Couch Grylls, kept a private school. There he learned classics but was largely self-taught in mathematics, studying in the Library of Devonport Mechanics' Institute and reading "Rees's Cyclopaedia" and Samuel Vince's "Fluxions". He observed Halley's comet in 1835 from Landulph and the following year started to make his own astronomical calculations, predictions and observations, engaging in private tutoring to finance his activities. In 1836, his mother inherited a small estate at Badharlick and his promise as a mathematician induced his parents to send him to the University of Cambridge. In October 1839 he entered as a sizar at St John's College, graduating B.A. in 1843 as the senior wrangler and first Smith's prizeman of his year. Discovery of Neptune. In 1821, Alexis Bouvard had published astronomical tables of the orbit of Uranus, making predictions of future positions based on Newton's laws of motion and gravitation. Subsequent observations revealed substantial deviations from the tables, leading Bouvard to hypothesize some perturbing body. Adams learnt of the irregularities while still an undergraduate and became convinced of the "perturbation" theory. Adams believed, in the face of anything that had been attempted before, that he could use the observed data on Uranus, and utilising nothing more than Newton's law of gravitation, deduce the mass, position and orbit of the perturbing body. On the 3rd of July 1841, he noted his intention to work on the problem. After his final examinations in 1843, Adams was elected fellow of his college and spent the summer vacation in Cornwall calculating the first of six iterations. While he worked on the problem back in Cambridge, he tutored undergraduates, sending money home to educate his brothers, and even taught Mrs. Ireland, his bedmaker, to read. Supposedly, Adams communicated his work to James Challis, director of the Cambridge Observatory, in mid-September 1845 but there is some controversy as to how. On 21 October 1845, Adams, returning from a Cornwall vacation, without appointment, twice called on Astronomer Royal George Biddell Airy in Greenwich. Failing to find him at home, Adams reputedly left a manuscript of his solution, again without the detailed calculations. Airy responded with a letter to Adams asking for some clarification. It appears that Adams did not regard the question as "trivial", as is often alleged, but he failed to complete a response. Various theories have been discussed as to Adams's failure to reply, such as his general nervousness, procrastination and disorganisation. Meanwhile, Urbain Le Verrier, on 10 November 1845, presented to the "Académie des sciences" in Paris a memoir on Uranus, showing that the pre-existing theory failed to account for its motion. On reading Le Verrier's memoir, Airy was struck by the coincidence and initiated a desperate race for English priority in discovery of the planet. The search was begun by a laborious method on 29 July. Only after the discovery of Neptune on 23 September 1846 had been announced in Paris did it become apparent that Neptune had been observed on 8 and 12 August but because Challis lacked an up-to-date star-map it was not recognized as a planet. A keen controversy arose in France and England as to the merits of the two astronomers. As the facts became known, there was wide recognition that the two astronomers had independently solved the problem of Uranus, and each was ascribed equal importance. However, there have been subsequent assertions that "The Brits Stole Neptune" and that Adams's British contemporaries retrospectively ascribed him more credit than he was due. But it is also notable (and not included in some of the foregoing discussion references) that Adams himself publicly acknowledged Le Verrier's priority and credit (not forgetting to mention the role of Galle) in the paper that he gave 'On the Perturbations of Uranus' to the Royal Astronomical Society in November 1846:- Adams held no bitterness towards Challis or Airy and acknowledged his own failure to convince the astronomical world: Adams' style of working. His lay fellowship at St John's College came to an end in 1852, and the existing statutes did not permit his re-election. However, Pembroke College, which possessed greater freedom, elected him in the following year to a lay fellowship which he held for the rest of his life. Despite the fame of his work on Neptune, Adams also did much important work on gravitational astronomy and terrestrial magnetism. He was particularly adept at fine numerical calculations, often making substantial revisions to the contributions of his predecessors. However, he was "extraordinarily uncompetitive, reluctant to publish imperfect work to stimulate debate or claim priority, averse to correspondence about it, and forgetful in practical matters". It has been suggested that these are symptoms of Asperger syndrome which would also be consistent with the "repetitive behaviours and restricted interests" necessary to perform the Neptune calculations, in addition to his difficulties in personal interaction with Challis and Airy. In 1852, he published new and accurate tables of the moon's parallax, which superseded Johann Karl Burckhardt's, and supplied corrections to the theories of Marie-Charles Damoiseau, Giovanni Antonio Amedeo Plana, and Philippe Gustave Doulcet. He had hoped that this work would leverage him into the vacant post as superintendent of HM Nautical Almanac Office but John Russell Hind was preferred, Adams lacking the necessary ability as an organiser and administrator. Lunar theory — Secular acceleration of the Moon. Since ancient times, the Moon's mean rate of motion relative to the stars had been treated as a constant rate, but in 1695, Edmond Halley had suggested that this mean rate was gradually increasing. Later, during the eighteenth century, Richard Dunthorne estimated the rate as +10" (arcseconds/century2) in terms of the resulting difference in lunar longitude,-- also given in Philosophical Transactions (abridgements) (1809), vol.9 (for 1744-49), p669-675 as "On the Acceleration of the Moon, by the Rev. Richard Dunthorne". an effect that became known as the "secular acceleration of the Moon". Pierre-Simon Laplace had given an explanation in 1787 in terms of changes in the eccentricity of the Earth's orbit. He considered only the radial gravitational force on the Moon, from the Sun and Earth but obtained close agreement with the historical record of observations. In 1820, at the insistence of the "Académie des sciences", Damoiseau, Plana and Francesco Carlini revisited Laplace's work, investigating quadratic and higher-order perturbing terms, and obtained similar results, again addressing only a radial, and neglecting tangential, gravitational force on the Moon. Hansen obtained similar results in 1842 and 1847. In 1853, Adams published a paper showing that, while tangential terms vanish in the first-order theory of Laplace, they become substantial when quadratic terms are admitted. Small terms integrated in time come to have large effects and Adams concluded that Plana had overestimated the secular acceleration by approximately 1.66" per century. At first, Le Verrier rejected Adams's results. In 1856, Plana admitted Adams's conclusions, claiming to have revised his own analysis and arrived at the same results. However, he soon recanted, publishing a third result different both from Adams's and Plana's own earlier work. Delaunay in 1859 calculated the fourth-order term and duplicated Adams's result leading Adams to publish his own calculations for the fifth, sixth and seventh-order terms. Adams now calculated that only 5.7" of the observed 11" was accounted for by gravitational effects. Later that year, Philippe Gustave Doulcet, Comte de Pontécoulant published a claim that the tangential force could have no effect though Peter Andreas Hansen, who seems to have cast himself in the role of arbitrator, declared that the burden of proof rested on Pontécoulant, while lamenting the need to discover a further effect to account for the balance. Much of the controversy centred around the convergence of the power series expansion used and, in 1860, Adams duplicated his results without using a power series. Sir John Lubbock also duplicated Adams's results and Plana finally concurred. Adams's view was ultimately accepted and further developed, winning him the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society in 1866. The unexplained drift is now known to be due to tidal acceleration. In 1858 Adams became professor of mathematics at the University of St Andrews, but lectured only for a session, before returning to Cambridge for the Lowndean professorship of astronomy and geometry. Two years later he succeeded Challis as director of the Cambridge Observatory, a post Adams held until his death. The Leonids. The great meteor shower of November 1866 turned his attention to the Leonids, whose probable path and period had already been discussed and predicted by Hubert Anson Newton in 1864. Newton had asserted that the longitude of the ascending node, that marked where the shower would occur, was increasing and the problem of explaining this variation attracted some of Europe's leading astronomers. Using a powerful and elaborate analysis, Adams ascertained that this cluster of meteors, which belongs to the solar system, traverses an elongated ellipse in 33.25 years, and is subject to definite perturbations from the larger planets, Jupiter, Saturn and Uranus. These results were published in 1867. Some experts consider this Adams's most substantial achievement. His "definitive orbit" for the Leonids coincided with that of the comet 55P/Tempel-Tuttle and therefore suggested the, later widely accepted, close relationship between comets and meteors. Later career. Ten years later, George William Hill described a novel and elegant method for attacking the problem of lunar motion. Adams briefly announced his own unpublished work in the same field, which, following a parallel course had confirmed and supplemented Hill's. Over a period of forty years, he periodically addressed the determination of the constants in Carl Friedrich Gauss's theory of terrestrial magnetism. Again, the calculations involved great labour, and were not published during his lifetime. They were edited by his brother, William Grylls Adams, and appear in the second volume of the collected "Scientific Papers". Numerical computation of this kind might almost be described as his pastime. He calculated the Euler–Mascheroni constant, perhaps somewhat eccentrically, to 236 decimal places and evaluated the Bernoulli numbers up to the 62nd. Adams had boundless admiration for Newton and his writings and many of his papers bear the cast of Newton's thought. In 1872, Isaac Newton Wallop, 5th Earl of Portsmouth donated his private collection of Newton's papers to Cambridge University. Adams and G. G. Stokes took on the task or arranging the material, publishing a catalogue in 1888. The post of Astronomer Royal was offered him in 1881, but he preferred to pursue his peaceful course of teaching and research in Cambridge. He was British delegate to the International Meridian Conference at Washington in 1884, when he also attended the meetings of the British Association at Montreal and of the American Association at Philadelphia. Family and death. Five years later his health gave way, and after a long illness he died at the Cambridge Observatory on 21 January 1892, and is buried in the Parish of the Ascension Burial Ground in Cambridge, near his home. In 1863 he had married Miss Eliza Bruce (1827 - 1919), of Dublin, who survived him, and is buried with him. His wealth at death was £32,434 (£2.6 million at 2003 prices).
585666	Swapnakoodu (English: "Dream House") is a 2003 Malayalam film co-written and directed by Kamal. It stars Kunchako Boban, Prithviraj, Jayasurya, Meera Jasmine and Bhavana in the lead roles. The film's score and soundtrack were composed by Mohan Sithara. The film was commercially successful and the songs in the film were shot in Austria. Plot. There are three hotel management students: Deepu (Kunchacko Boban), a calm and cool guy who is never able to express his true feelings; Kunjoonju (Prithviraj Sukumaran), a swaggering Casanova who makes a pass at every girl he meets; and Ashtamoorthy (Jayasurya), a playful, jolly fellow who flips over every second girl who crosses his path. They start living in a house owned by Kamala's (Meera Jasmine) family, which includes her mother, Sophia (Kalaranjini) and sister Padma (Bhavana Menon). Deepu and Kunjukunju both fall in love with Kamala but do not tell each other. Kamala has feelings for Kunjukunju. Later, Kunjukunju gets to know that Deepu likes her and tells Kamala that he was not serious about her and he is breaking up with her as he is bored of it. Kamala's mother is no more at that time and in some time Padma also dies in a freak accident. The bachelors' studies are over and they have to return to Kerala. They are upset that they have to leave Kamala alone. Kunjukunju asks Deepu to take her with him, but Deepu is adamant that he will not. Finally, Kunjukunju says that he is going to take her as he cannot leave her alone. At that point Deepu admits that he was aware of their relation and he was waiting for Kunjoonju to disclose that. They go back and take Kamala with them. Soundtrack. The soundtrack features six songs composed by Mohan Sithara, with lyrics by Kaithapram. Box office. The movie was a superhit at the box office.
583172	Naksha is a 2006 Bollywood film. The film is directed by Sachin Bajaj and stars Sunny Deol, Vivek Oberoi, Sameera Reddy and Jackie Shroff. The role of Ria was initially offered to Amrita Rao but she declined the offer as she was filming for "Vivah". The plot is similar to The Rock's movie "The Rundown" and "The Touch". The costumes of the movie were created by Simple Kapadia. Synopsis. Youngster Vicky (Vivek Oberoi) lives with his mother (Navni Parihar). A lawyer shows up to speak with his mother about their father's old bungalow in the Uttaranchal hills. Vicky arrives at the bungalow and discovers a secret cache behind one of the photographs. And in the cache lies a replica of a map, made by his father who was once killed unlocking a mystery of treasure. Eventually some of his father's murderers discover Vicky, and abduct him. In the meantime, Vicky's mother visits the professor's first wife (Suhasini Mulay). The professor's son by this wife, Veer Malhotra (Sunny Deol), is a forest officer in Uttaranchal. Vicky's mother requests Veer's mother to seek Veer's assistance in finding Vicky and bringing him back. While thugs bring Vicky to Bali. As Bali is about to have Vicky executed, Veer drops in and rescues Vicky. Determined to obtain the map at any cost, Bali's men give chase to Vicky and Veer: the chase takes them through the dense jungles of Uttaranchal to the foothills of the Himalayas. They rescue Riya (Sameera Reddy) from a river rafting accident. Bali and his men capture Vicky and Veer, and slaughter the pygmies. Bali reveals that the map describes the location of a powerful device: the armour and ear rings of the mythical warrior Karna (of the Mahabharata). This armour will make the wearer invincible and all powerful. Vicky and Veer escape. Vicky and Veer arrive at the final destination, only to find that Bali has beaten them to it. Endowed with divine strength, the evil Bali easily overpowers Vicky and Veer and prepares to kill them. Vicky and Veer exploit the flaw to defeat Bali and restore the armour. They escape the temple just in time before it comes crashing down, thus sealing it off forever. Response. Critical. The movie received extremely poor reviews by most critics. The film's flawed story and performances were especially criticized. The film's sets and action however drew praise. Most critics noted that the film's plot bore a canny similarity to Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade and The Rundown. Box office. The movie flopped miserably in all centres. 200 crore. However considering the film's high budget it recover its costs.
567695	Wilbur Wants to Kill Himself is a Danish-Scottish film from 2002. Harbour and his suicidal brother (Wilbur) inherit their father's second-hand bookshop in their native Glasgow. Their lives become entangled with Alice and her daughter Mary after the two visit the shop. Idealistic young Mary captures Wilbur's heart, and just may help save his life or help him find peace.
588118	Chhota Chetan is a 1998 Hindi movie directed by Jijo Punnoose. It was dubbed from the 1984 Malayalam movie, My Dear Kuttichathan — which was India's first 3-D film – and it went on to become a major box office hit It was the first feature film to introduce DTS for a stereoscopic 3D feature film. Although it was the dubbed version of My Dear Kuttichathan, the scenes with Hindi actors Urmila Matondkar, Satish Kaushik, Shakti Kapoor, Harish) and Ravi Baswani were re-shot for the Hindi version.
1016358	My Father Is A Hero (), also known as Letter To Daddy, The Enforcer or "Jet Li's The Enforcer", is a 1995 Hong Kong action film directed by Corey Yuen and starring Jet Li. Plot. Kung Wei (Jet Li), a police officer of the People's Republic of China, was assigned to spy on a group of gang members planning terrorism in Hong Kong. Despite his worries about his sick wife, who suffered severe asthma, and his beloved eight-year-old son Ku Kung (Miu Tse), a martial arts student, Wei's duty keeps interfering with his familial relationship. Wei is partnered with Darkie, a gang member who formerly worked for a gang leader named Po (Yu Rongguang). Wei and Darkie escape from prison to meet with Po in Hong Kong. Wei is inducted into the gang and participates in an arms deal with foreign criminals. Utilizing a ruse to steal the bombs and keep the money in Po's hands, Wei volunteers to wear a bomb-laden vest to facilitate the operation. The recent operation attracts the attention of an off-duty Hong Kong detective Anne Fong (Anita Mui), whose boyfriend, Inspector Cheng, was taken hostage. Fong volunteers herself as a hostage exchange and attempts to foil the operation with an attempted suicide, but Wei intervenes in disabling the vehicle and escaping the scene. Utilizing a photo of Wei that was taken before the arms deal, Fong heads to Beijing to find out his true identity. Back in Beijing, Ku was teased by school bullies, claiming that his father is a criminal, leading to a physical confrontation with them. Fong befriends the Wei family, and deduces Wei's role as a police officer. During her time with the family, Mrs. Wei suffers from a fatal asthma attack, and requests Fong to deliver a letter to Wei, and charges her with taking care of Ku. Anne and Ku planned to travel to Hong Kong by speed boat, informing Inspector Cheng of her recent findings. However, against Fong's wishes, Cheng files a case of Ku missing, which attracts publicity from local media and results in a break-up between the couple. When Ku noticed a police cruiser in front of Fong's apartment, Ku escapes and is picked up by Po. Meanwhile, Wei attempts to sneak in Fong's apartment to recover Ku, but is confronted by Fong before receiving his wife's final letter. Wei is reunited with his son at the gang penthouse, but fakes Ku's death with a special choke before he is dumped inside a trash bag. Wei covertly informs Fong of Ku's whereabouts as a Plan B in case he fails to save him. Wei attempts to rescue Ku, only to find out that Po deduced Wei's identity as a cop, since Wei was too skilled compared to the rest of his gang. Wei gets into a losing fight with Po until Fong's intervention. While Fong gives Wei medical care, Ku was recovered by Darkie before Wei's attempted search. The next day, Po debriefs his gang on planting bombs at an antique auction where the rich would carry loads of cash onto a barge. There are six bombs placed in specific locations with a security camera marking its place. The video would be transmitted to security tapes at a source. The gangs are restricted from firearms but provided with tonfas instead and also the tickets to access on board. As a means of tying up loose ends, Po and his gang raid Darkie's house-boat, having suspected his role in recovering Ku. Darkie manages to hide Ku from Po's sight before being mortally wounded. During his dying moments, Darkie gives Ku the full information of Po's scheme, and gives a mobile phone to contact Wei with. Utilizing a beeper number that Wei gave him before his assignment, Ku informs Wei and gives him information of the bombs' individual location. However, before the final bomb could be defused, the batteries of the mobile phone run out.During the auction, Po attempts to rob the crowd, only to be interrupted by Wei and Ku. A large melee battle pits the father and son duo against Po and his men. The pair score a victory against Po's men. Po on the other hand turned the tables on both of them, eventually holding Ku hostage by choking him. Ku uses his breathing exercise to delay the choke until Fong intervenes by shooting Po aboard a helicopter. Fong and Wei try to evacuate Ku off the boat via the helicopter, but Po arms the timer of the last bomb and pins Wei down with a chain while Fong and an unconscious Ku escape. Wei eventually gets out of the pin and knocks Po out, narrowly escaping the boat's explosion and reuniting with Fong and Ku.
1058791	Brian Timothy Geraghty (born May 13, 1975) is an American film and television actor, known for his role in the Academy Award winning film "The Hurt Locker", and alongside Denzel Washington in the critically acclaimed film "Flight". Early life. Geraghty was born in Toms River Township, New Jersey, and is of Irish descent. He graduated from Toms River High School East in 1993 and then the Neighborhood Playhouse School of Theatre before beginning his professional career in New York City; he later moved to Los Angeles. Career. Geraghty was featured in a small role in the crime drama "The Sopranos". Feature roles soon followed, in such pictures as "Jarhead", "The Guardian", "We Are Marshall", "The Hurt Locker" and "Bobby". He also appeared on "" as a man intentionally infecting women with HIV, in the episode "Quickie". Personal life. In his free time, he enjoys surfing.
1103584	Numerical analysis is the study of algorithms that use numerical approximation (as opposed to general symbolic manipulations) for the problems of mathematical analysis (as distinguished from discrete mathematics). One of the earliest mathematical writings is a Babylonian tablet from the Yale Babylonian Collection (YBC 7289), which gives a sexagesimal numerical approximation of formula_1, the length of the diagonal in a unit square. Being able to compute the sides of a triangle (and hence, being able to compute square roots) is extremely important, for instance, in carpentry and construction. Numerical analysis continues this long tradition of practical mathematical calculations. Much like the Babylonian approximation of formula_1, modern numerical analysis does not seek exact answers, because exact answers are often impossible to obtain in practice. Instead, much of numerical analysis is concerned with obtaining approximate solutions while maintaining reasonable bounds on errors. Numerical analysis naturally finds applications in all fields of engineering and the physical sciences, but in the 21st century, the life sciences and even the arts have adopted elements of scientific computations. Ordinary differential equations appear in celestial mechanics (planets, stars and galaxies); numerical linear algebra is important for data analysis; stochastic differential equations and Markov chains are essential in simulating living cells for medicine and biology. Before the advent of modern computers numerical methods often depended on hand interpolation in large printed tables. Since the mid 20th century, computers calculate the required functions instead. These same interpolation formulas nevertheless continue to be used as part of the software algorithms for solving differential equations. General introduction. The overall goal of the field of numerical analysis is the design and analysis of techniques to give approximate but accurate solutions to hard problems, the variety of which is suggested by the following: The rest of this section outlines several important themes of numerical analysis. History. The field of numerical analysis predates the invention of modern computers by many centuries. Linear interpolation was already in use more than 2000 years ago. Many great mathematicians of the past were preoccupied by numerical analysis, as is obvious from the names of important algorithms like Newton's method, Lagrange interpolation polynomial, Gaussian elimination, or Euler's method. To facilitate computations by hand, large books were produced with formulas and tables of data such as interpolation points and function coefficients. Using these tables, often calculated out to 16 decimal places or more for some functions, one could look up values to plug into the formulas given and achieve very good numerical estimates of some functions. The canonical work in the field is the NIST publication edited by Abramowitz and Stegun, a 1000-plus page book of a very large number of commonly used formulas and functions and their values at many points. The function values are no longer very useful when a computer is available, but the large listing of formulas can still be very handy. The mechanical calculator was also developed as a tool for hand computation. These calculators evolved into electronic computers in the 1940s, and it was then found that these computers were also useful for administrative purposes. But the invention of the computer also influenced the field of numerical analysis, since now longer and more complicated calculations could be done. Direct and iterative methods. Direct methods compute the solution to a problem in a finite number of steps. These methods would give the precise answer if they were performed in infinite precision arithmetic. Examples include Gaussian elimination, the QR factorization method for solving systems of linear equations, and the simplex method of linear programming. In practice, finite precision is used and the result is an approximation of the true solution (assuming stability). In contrast to direct methods, iterative methods are not expected to terminate in a number of steps. Starting from an initial guess, iterative methods form successive approximations that converge to the exact solution only in the limit. A convergence test is specified in order to decide when a sufficiently accurate solution has (hopefully) been found. Even using infinite precision arithmetic these methods would not reach the solution within a finite number of steps (in general). Examples include Newton's method, the bisection method, and Jacobi iteration. In computational matrix algebra, iterative methods are generally needed for large problems. Iterative methods are more common than direct methods in numerical analysis. Some methods are direct in principle but are usually used as though they were not, e.g. GMRES and the conjugate gradient method. For these methods the number of steps needed to obtain the exact solution is so large that an approximation is accepted in the same manner as for an iterative method. Discretization. Furthermore, continuous problems must sometimes be replaced by a discrete problem whose solution is known to approximate that of the continuous problem; this process is called "discretization". For example, the solution of a differential equation is a function. This function must be represented by a finite amount of data, for instance by its value at a finite number of points at its domain, even though this domain is a continuum. Generation and propagation of errors. The study of errors forms an important part of numerical analysis. There are several ways in which error can be introduced in the solution of the problem. Round-off. Round-off errors arise because it is impossible to represent all real numbers exactly on a machine with finite memory (which is what all practical digital computers are). Truncation and discretization error. Truncation errors are committed when an iterative method is terminated or a mathematical procedure is approximated, and the approximate solution differs from the exact solution. Similarly, discretization induces a discretization error because the solution of the discrete problem does not coincide with the solution of the continuous problem. For instance, in the iteration in the sidebar to compute the solution of formula_3, after 10 or so iterations, we conclude that the root is roughly 1.99 (for example). We therefore have a truncation error of 0.01. Once an error is generated, it will generally propagate through the calculation. For instance, we have already noted that the operation + on a calculator (or a computer) is inexact. It follows that a calculation of the type a+b+c+d+e is even more inexact. What does it mean when we say that the truncation error is created when we approximate a mathematical procedure? We know that to integrate a function exactly requires one to find the sum of infinite trapezoids. But numerically one can find the sum of only finite trapezoids, and hence the approximation of the mathematical procedure. Similarly, to differentiate a function, the differential element approaches to zero but numerically we can only choose a finite value of the differential element. Numerical stability and well-posed problems. Numerical stability is an important notion in numerical analysis. An algorithm is called "numerically stable" if an error, whatever its cause, does not grow to be much larger during the calculation. This happens if the problem is "well-conditioned", meaning that the solution changes by only a small amount if the problem data are changed by a small amount. To the contrary, if a problem is "ill-conditioned", then any small error in the data will grow to be a large error. Both the original problem and the algorithm used to solve that problem can be "well-conditioned" and/or "ill-conditioned", and any combination is possible. So an algorithm that solves a well-conditioned problem may be either numerically stable or numerically unstable. An art of numerical analysis is to find a stable algorithm for solving a well-posed mathematical problem. For instance, computing the square root of 2 (which is roughly 1.41421) is a well-posed problem. Many algorithms solve this problem by starting with an initial approximation "x"1 to formula_1, for instance "x"1=1.4, and then computing improved guesses "x"2, "x"3, etc.. One such method is the famous Babylonian method, which is given by "x""k"+1 = "xk"/2 + 1/"xk". Another iteration, which we will call Method X, is given by "x""k" + 1 = ("x""k"2−2)2 + "x""k". We have calculated a few iterations of each scheme in table form below, with initial guesses "x"1 = 1.4 and "x"1 = 1.42. Observe that the Babylonian method converges fast regardless of the initial guess, whereas Method X converges extremely slowly with initial guess 1.4 and diverges for initial guess 1.42. Hence, the Babylonian method is numerically stable, while Method X is numerically unstable. Areas of study. The field of numerical analysis includes many sub-disciplines. Some of the major ones are: Computing values of functions. One of the simplest problems is the evaluation of a function at a given point. The most straightforward approach, of just plugging in the number in the formula is sometimes not very efficient. For polynomials, a better approach is using the Horner scheme, since it reduces the necessary number of multiplications and additions. Generally, it is important to estimate and control round-off errors arising from the use of floating point arithmetic. Interpolation, extrapolation, and regression. Interpolation solves the following problem: given the value of some unknown function at a number of points, what value does that function have at some other point between the given points? Extrapolation is very similar to interpolation, except that now we want to find the value of the unknown function at a point which is outside the given points. Regression is also similar, but it takes into account that the data is imprecise. Given some points, and a measurement of the value of some function at these points (with an error), we want to determine the unknown function. The least squares-method is one popular way to achieve this. Solving equations and systems of equations. Another fundamental problem is computing the solution of some given equation. Two cases are commonly distinguished, depending on whether the equation is linear or not. For instance, the equation formula_9 is linear while formula_10 is not. Much effort has been put in the development of methods for solving systems of linear equations. Standard direct methods, i.e., methods that use some matrix decomposition are Gaussian elimination, LU decomposition, Cholesky decomposition for symmetric (or hermitian) and positive-definite matrix, and QR decomposition for non-square matrices. Iterative methods such as the Jacobi method, Gauss–Seidel method, successive over-relaxation and conjugate gradient method are usually preferred for large systems. General iterative methods can be developed using a matrix splitting. Root-finding algorithms are used to solve nonlinear equations (they are so named since a root of a function is an argument for which the function yields zero). If the function is differentiable and the derivative is known, then Newton's method is a popular choice. Linearization is another technique for solving nonlinear equations. Solving eigenvalue or singular value problems. Several important problems can be phrased in terms of eigenvalue decompositions or singular value decompositions. For instance, the spectral image compression algorithm is based on the singular value decomposition. The corresponding tool in statistics is called principal component analysis. Optimization. Optimization problems ask for the point at which a given function is maximized (or minimized). Often, the point also has to satisfy some constraints. The field of optimization is further split in several subfields, depending on the form of the objective function and the constraint. For instance, linear programming deals with the case that both the objective function and the constraints are linear. A famous method in linear programming is the simplex method. The method of Lagrange multipliers can be used to reduce optimization problems with constraints to unconstrained optimization problems. Evaluating integrals. Numerical integration, in some instances also known as numerical quadrature, asks for the value of a definite integral. Popular methods use one of the Newton–Cotes formulas (like the midpoint rule or Simpson's rule) or Gaussian quadrature. These methods rely on a "divide and conquer" strategy, whereby an integral on a relatively large set is broken down into integrals on smaller sets. In higher dimensions, where these methods become prohibitively expensive in terms of computational effort, one may use Monte Carlo or quasi-Monte Carlo methods (see Monte Carlo integration), or, in modestly large dimensions, the method of sparse grids. Differential equations. Numerical analysis is also concerned with computing (in an approximate way) the solution of differential equations, both ordinary differential equations and partial differential equations. Partial differential equations are solved by first discretizing the equation, bringing it into a finite-dimensional subspace. This can be done by a finite element method, a finite difference method, or (particularly in engineering) a finite volume method. The theoretical justification of these methods often involves theorems from functional analysis. This reduces the problem to the solution of an algebraic equation. Software. Since the late twentieth century, most algorithms are implemented in a variety of programming languages. The Netlib repository contains various collections of software routines for numerical problems, mostly in Fortran and C. Commercial products implementing many different numerical algorithms include the IMSL and NAG libraries; a free alternative is the GNU Scientific Library. There are several popular numerical computing applications such as MATLAB, S-PLUS, LabVIEW, and IDL as well as free and open source alternatives such as FreeMat, Scilab, GNU Octave (similar to Matlab), IT++ (a C++ library), R (similar to S-PLUS) and certain variants of Python. Performance varies widely: while vector and matrix operations are usually fast, scalar loops may vary in speed by more than an order of magnitude. Many computer algebra systems such as Mathematica also benefit from the availability of arbitrary precision arithmetic which can provide more accurate results. Also, any spreadsheet software can be used to solve simple problems relating to numerical analysis. External links. Journals Software and Code Online Texts Online Course Material
1089593	Mitchell Jay Feigenbaum (born December 19, 1944) is a mathematical physicist whose pioneering studies in chaos theory led to the discovery of the Feigenbaum constants. Biography. Feigenbaum was born in New York City, to Polish and Ukrainian Jewish immigrants. He attended Samuel J. Tilden High School, in Brooklyn, New York, and the City College of New York. In 1964 he began his graduate studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Enrolling for graduate study in electrical engineering, he changed his area to physics. He completed his doctorate in 1970 for a thesis on dispersion relations, under the supervision of Professor Francis E. Low. After short positions at Cornell University and the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, he was offered a longer-term post at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico to study turbulence in fluids. Although that group of researchers was ultimately unable to unravel the currently intractable theory of turbulent fluids, his research led him to study chaotic maps. In 1983, he was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship, and in 1986, he was awarded the Wolf Prize in Physics "for his pioneering theoretical studies demonstrating the universal character of non-linear systems, which has made possible the systematic study of chaos". He is a member of the Board of Scientific Governors at The Scripps Research Institute. He has been Toyota Professor at Rockefeller University since 1986. Work. Some mathematical mappings involving a single linear parameter exhibit the apparently random behavior known as chaos when the parameter lies within certain ranges. As the parameter is increased towards this region, the mapping undergoes bifurcations at precise values of the parameter. At first there is one stable point, then bifurcating to an oscillation between two values, then bifurcating again to oscillate between four values and so on. In 1975, Dr. Feigenbaum, using the small HP-65 calculator he had been issued, discovered that the ratio of the difference between the values at which such successive period-doubling bifurcations occur tends to a constant of around 4.6692... He was able to provide a mathematical proof of that fact, and he then showed that the same behavior, with the same mathematical constant, would occur within a wide class of mathematical functions, prior to the onset of chaos. For the first time, this universal result enabled mathematicians to take their first steps to unraveling the apparently intractable "random" behavior of chaotic systems. This "ratio of convergence" is now known as the first Feigenbaum constant. The logistic map is a prominent example of the mappings that Feigenbaum studied in his noted 1978 article: "Quantitative Universality for a Class of Nonlinear Transformations". Feigenbaum's other contributions include important new fractal methods in cartography, starting when he was hired by Hammond to develop techniques to allow computers to assist in drawing maps. The introduction to the "Hammond Atlas" (1992) states: Using fractal geometry to describe natural forms such as coastlines, mathematical physicist Mitchell Feigenbaum developed software capable reconfiguring coastlines, borders, and mountain ranges to fit a multitude of map scales and projections. Dr. Feigenbaum also created a new computerized type placement program which places thousands of map labels in minutes, a task which previously required days of tedious labor. In another practical application of his work, he founded Numerix with Michael Goodkin in 1996. The company’s initial product was a software algorithm that dramatically reduced the time required for Monte Carlo pricing of exotic financial derivatives and structured products. Numerix remains one of the leading software providers to financial market participants. The press release made on the occasion of his receiving the Wolf Prize summed up his works: The impact of Feigenbaum's discoveries has been phenomenal. It has spanned new fields of theoretical and experimental mathematics ... It is hard to think of any other development in recent theoretical science that has had so broad an impact over so wide a range of fields, spanning both the very pure and the very applied.
1066615	Failure to Launch is a 2006 American romantic comedy film. In the movie a 35-year-old man lives in the home of his parents and shows no interest in leaving the comfortable life his parents, especially his mother, have made for him there. Plot. Tripp (Matthew McConaughey), a 35-year-old man, is still living with his parents Al (Terry Bradshaw) and Sue (Kathy Bates), in New Orleans, Louisiana. Tripp's best friends Demo (Bradley Cooper) and nerdy Ace (Justin Bartha) are also still living in their parents' homes and seem proud of it. Al and Sue are not happy, and are fascinated when friends whose adult son has recently moved away from home reveal that they hired an expert to arrange the matter. The expert is Paula (Sarah Jessica Parker), who theorises that men continue to live at home out of low self-esteem. Her approach is to establish a relationship with the man to build up his confidence and transfer his attachment from his parents to her. Her step-by-step process is deceitful; while avoiding physical intimacy, she allows her subject to fall in love with her, pretending to like what he likes, allowing him to help her through a (false) crisis, obtaining the approval of his friends, and giving him the opportunity to teach her something: he then moves out to become more independent. Tripp is soon discovered to not fit any of Paula's previous profiles, having normal social skills and no problems with self-esteem. He does not commit to long term relationships, and uses his living with parents as a dumping mechanism. After an awkward encounter with his parents, Paula thwarts his attempt to dump her and stays for the night, all the while developing real feelings for him. She and Tripp find themselves sailing unfamiliar waters and confide in their friends. Paula's vocation exasperates her terminally-hip roommate, Kit (Zooey Deschanel), who believes that Paula's own breakup with a live-at-home man is the unhealthy motivation behind the job to which she has given over her whole life. Paula, on the other hand, is shocked when the true reason for Tripp's situation is revealed to her: his life essentially collapsed when the woman he was engaged to suddenly died, leaving him emotionally devastated, and his family has been his source of solace ever since. She read her mark all wrong. Entrepreneurial Ace discovers what is going on and blackmails Paula for a date with Kit; although Kit is more attracted to slacker Demo, she and Ace wind up bonding over a problem and fall in love. Ace spills the beans to Demo, who in turn ultimately reveals all to Tripp, leading to the film's crisis. Tripp confronts both his parents and Paula, who split in bitterness and guilt, and Tripp moves out, possibly never to speak to his parents or trust a woman again. Wracked with guilt, Paula refunds Al and Sue's money, but can't escape being scathingly dressed down by Kit for essentially being an arrogant con artist. After an awkward confrontation (due to his father's new interest in naturism), Tripp manages to forgive his parents despite not understanding why they couldn't be upfront with him. Still, he can't forgive Paula for her manipulations. Tripp's parents and friends devise a plan to reconcile the two lovers. They tie up and gag Tripp and lock him and Paula together in a room, while a contrite Paula pours her heart out to him. In the end, it seems that falling in love, and moving out of one's parents' house, are all part of following nature's course. The movie ends with Al and Sue in their empty nest, happily singing "Hit the Road Jack", and Tripp sailing away with Paula on his newly-purchased boat (and home). Reception. Box office. In its opening weekend, the film grossed a total of $24.6 million, ranking first in the United States box office results for that weekend. The film grossed a total of around $90 million in the United States box office and made $128,406,887 worldwide. Critical response. The film was poorly received by critics, gaining only 24% rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 143 reviews. Film critic Richard Roeper stated the film was "completely unbelievable." Some otherwise negative reviews singled out Zooey Deschanel's performance as the film's highlight. One reviewer wrote that "Even with a relatively small role, she blows the whole movie to smithereens".
658388	Joseph Raphson was an English mathematician known best for the Newton–Raphson method. Little is known about his life, and even his exact years of birth and death are unknown, although the mathematical historian Florian Cajori provided the approximate dates 1648–1715. Raphson attended Jesus College at Cambridge, graduating with an M.A. in 1692. He was made a Fellow of the Royal Society on 30 November 1689, after being proposed for membership by Edmund Halley. Raphson's most notable work is "Analysis Aequationum Universalis", which was published in 1690. It contains a method, now known as the Newton–Raphson method, for approximating the roots of an equation. Isaac Newton had developed a very similar formula in his "Method of Fluxions", written in 1671, but this work would not be published until 1736, nearly 50 years after Raphson's "Analysis". However, Raphson's version of the method is simpler than Newton's, and is therefore generally considered superior. For this reason, it is Raphson's version of the method, rather than Newton's, that is to be found in textbooks today. Raphson was a staunch supporter of Newton's claim, and not that of Gottfried Leibniz, to be the sole . In addition, Raphson translated Newton's "Arithmetica Universalis" into English. Raphson coined the word "pantheism", in his work "De Spatio Reali", published in 1697, where it may have been found by John Toland, who called Raphson's work "ingenious". In "De Spatio Reali", Raphson begins by making a distinction between atheistic "panhylists" (from the Greek "pan" 'all' and "hyle" 'wood, matter'), who believe everything derives from matter, and pantheists who believe in “a certain universal substance, material as well as intelligent, that fashions all things that exist out of its own essence”. Raphson further believed the universe to be immeasurable in respect to a human's capacity of understanding, and that humans will never be able to comprehend it.
1062725	Deliverance is a 1972 American thriller film produced and directed by John Boorman and starring Jon Voight, Burt Reynolds, Ronny Cox, and Ned Beatty, with both Cox and Beatty making their feature film debuts. The film is based on a 1970 novel of the same name by American author James Dickey, who has a small role in the film as the Sheriff. The screenplay was written by Dickey and an uncredited Boorman. Widely acclaimed as a landmark picture, the film is noted both for the memorable music scene near the beginning that sets the tone for what lies ahead—a trip into unknown and potentially dangerous territory—and for its notorious "squeal like a pig" male rape scene. In 2008, "Deliverance" was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". Plot. Four Atlanta businessmen, Lewis Medlock, Ed Gentry, Bobby Trippe, and Drew Ballinger, decide to canoe down a river in the remote northern Georgia wilderness, expecting to have fun and see the glory of nature before the fictional Cahulawassee River valley is flooded by the construction of a dam. Lewis, an experienced outdoorsman, is the leader. Ed is also a veteran of several trips but lacks Lewis's machismo. Bobby and Drew are novices. The four men encounter friction with the locals, some of whom appear to be inbred. The locals are suspicious of the city men while the four middle class men act superior to the poor and uneducated locals. Bobby is particularly contemptuous of the poverty and uncouth nature of the local men. Despite this, Drew bonds with a local boy when they engage in an impromptu rendition of "Dueling Banjos", but the boy frowns and turns away when Drew offers his hand to the youngster in a congratulatory gesture, which Drew finds strange, as the boy had been happy and smiling only moments earlier. The boy next appears on a footbridge over the river just as the men are beginning their trip. He eerily glares at the men as they start off on their journey, which Drew again finds unsettling. When the men break for their first night on the river, Lewis leaves to investigate a strange noise in the woods but returns having found nothing. The next day the group's two canoes are separated and Bobby and Ed pull ashore to try and get their bearings. The two are accosted by a pair of shotgun wielding hillbillies, who claim that the men have accused them of running a still and making moonshine whiskey. The hillbillies tie Ed to a tree and violently rape Bobby, ordering the overweight man to "squeal like a pig". As the hillbillies prepare to orally rape Ed, Lewis and Drew arrive on the scene. Using his bow, Lewis kills the man who raped Bobby and scares off the other man. The men argue about how to proceed. Drew insists that they must report the incident to the police but Lewis argues otherwise. He states that "these people are all related," therefore any police investigation or jury would likely include the man's friends and relatives. Ed agrees with Lewis, and Bobby insists that he does not want his rape to become public knowledge. The four men bury the body, reasoning that the impending flood of the valley will cover up any evidence and that the escaped man will not go to the authorities because of his participation in the rape. The four make a run for it down the river, cutting their trip short, but soon disaster strikes as the canoes reach a dangerous stretch of rapids. Drew suddenly falls out of the lead canoe, causing Ed to lose control and smash both boats on the rocks. Lewis breaks his leg in the spill and he, Bobby and Ed make it to shore. Lewis believes that the man who escaped is stalking them and shot Drew from the bluffs above the river. That night, Ed makes his way up the bluffs with a bow and arrow. The next morning he sees a man, whom he believes to be the escaped hillbilly, holding a gun and looking down into the ravine. Ed nervously fires at the man, killing him, but in the process he slips and wounds himself with one of his own arrows. On closer inspection, Ed is no longer sure that the man he shot is the same one who escaped, noting that the escaped man had missing teeth while this one wore dentures. He returns to the river's shore with the body, but Bobby cannot positively identify the man. Ed and Bobby weigh the body down with rocks and sink it in the river. Further down the river they discover Drew's drowned body with a head wound that may or may not have been caused by a gunshot. They finally reach their destination, the town of Aintry, which is being relocated and will soon be submerged by the waters displaced by the new dam. The local sheriff seems suspicious of the men's story that Drew drowned on the river and notes that a deputy of his is missing a relative who had gone out hunting in the area, presumably one of the men whom Ed and Lewis have killed. Nevertheless the sheriff has no actual evidence and releases the men, who vow to keep the events of the trip secret for the rest of their lives. In the final scene, Ed awakens screaming from a nightmare wherein a dead man's hand reaches up from the surface of the newly formed lake. Production. "Deliverance" was shot in the Tallulah Gorge southeast of Clayton, Georgia and on the Chattooga River, which divides the northeastern corner of the state of Georgia from the northwestern corner of the state of South Carolina. Additional scenes were shot as well in Salem, South Carolina and Sylva, North Carolina. A scene was also shot at the Mount Carmel Baptist Church cemetery, which now lies 130 feet under the surface of Lake Jocassee, on the border between Oconee County and Pickens County South Carolina. In addition to the film's famous theme music, there are also a number of sparse, brooding passages of music scattered throughout, including several played on a synthesizer. Some prints of the movie omit much of this extra music. Other than Eric Weissberg and Steve Mandel (later amended to add Arthur "Guitar Boogie" Smith, per his lawsuit) for credit on "Dueling Banjos", there is no credit for any of the soundtrack music. Boorman's gold record for the "Dueling Banjos" hit single was later stolen from his house by the Dublin gangster Martin Cahill, a scene Boorman recreated in "The General" (1998), his biographical film about Cahill. During the filming of the canoe scene, an inebriated James Dickey engaged in a bitter argument with Boorman. The result was a brief fistfight Boorman had his nose broken and four of his teeth shattered Dickey was thrown off the set, yet no charges were filed. The two made up and became good friends, culminating in Dickey's role as the sheriff at the end of the film. The canoes that were used for the white water rafting trip in the film are now on display at the Burt Reynolds Museum, located at 100 North U.S. Highway 1, in Jupiter, Florida. One of the canoes used (and signed by Ronny Cox) is currently on display in the Tallulah Falls Railroad Museum, Dillard, Georgia. Jon Voight's stunt double for this film, Claude Terry, purchased equipment used in the movie by Warner Bros. to create what is now the oldest whitewater rafting adventure company on the Chattooga River.
1060856	Shannon Marie Kahololani Sossamon (born October 3, 1978) is an American actress. She starred in the films "A Knight's Tale", "40 Days and 40 Nights", "", "The Order" and "Road to Nowhere". Sossamon also had a starring role on the CBS supernatural drama, "Moonlight". Early life. Sossamon was born in Honolulu, Hawaii, the daughter of Sherry Sossamon, a nurse, and Todd Lindberg; her mother later re-married Randy Goldman. She is of Dutch, English, Irish, German, French, Filipino, and Hawaiian descent. The "y" in her first name was an adolescent alteration in 1995. Sossamon grew up in Reno, Nevada, and attended Galena High School there. The day after her high school graduation, she moved to Los Angeles to pursue a career in dance. After moving to Los Angeles, Sossamon began to work as a DJ, booking gigs in local clubs. Career. Early work (1997–2000). At the beginning of her career, Sossamon modeled for various companies including "Sassy Magazine", Unionbay Clothing, American Eagle Outfitters, and Planned Parenthood. She also appeared in two television commercials for Gap and starred in music videos for artists such as Daft Punk, The Goo Goo Dolls, Cher, Mick Jagger, DJ Quik, and Korn. In 1997, she appeared as a fashion model, a girl and a trophy presenter in several "Mr. Show" episodes. In 1999, Sossamon was discovered by casting director Francine Maisler, while assisting a fellow DJ at Gwyneth Paltrow's brother's birthday party. Breakthrough (2001–2006). After going through several auditions, Sossamon beat Kate Hudson for the lead female role in the 2001 film "A Knight's Tale" opposite Heath Ledger. The film received mixed reviews, but made a profit at the box office, with domestic revenues of more than $55,000,000 on a budget of $41,000,000. "A Knight's Tale" earned the actress a Young Hollywood Award for Breakthrough Female Performance as well as two Teen Choice Awards nominations and four MTV Movie Awards nominations, including "Best Breakthrough Performance". In 2002, she starred in Miramax Films' romantic comedy "40 Days and 40 Nights", alongside Josh Hartnett. The film received mixed reviews from critics but was considered a box office success after earning a worldwide total of $95,146,283. Sossamon was nominated for Teen Choice Award for "Choice Film Chemistry", which was shared with co-star Hartnett. That same year, Sossamon played a lead role in Roger Avary's dark satirical ensemble "The Rules of Attraction", an adaptation of the Bret Easton Ellis book of the same name. The film included scenes of suicide, heavy drug use, and sexual content. The film received extremely mixed reviews from critics; most either loving it or hating it. "Rolling Stone" called the film "a perverse and sickly delightful treat," while Richard Roeper stated that he "hated this movie." Despite the mixed critical reception, the film is considered a cult hit. The film grossed $11,819,244 worldwide, almost tripling its budget. Sossamon and Heath Ledger were cast together again and starred in the supernatural thriller "The Order". The film was released in late 2003. It was received very poorly by critics and flopped at the box office. After shooting the unsuccessful movie, she became pregnant and decided that it was a good time to take a short break from acting. In 2004, Sossamon guest starred on the episode "Doubt" on the popular NBC series "". It was her only acting appearance of the year. Sossamon returned to film in 2005, by starring in the direct-to-video low-budget horror film "Devour", alongside Jensen Ackles and William Sadler. She had small roles in the films "Undiscovered" and "Kiss Kiss Bang Bang". The former was a box-office and critical failure, while the latter received critical praise but failed commercially, grossing only $13,105,837 compared to a budget of $15 million. She also appeared alongside Kate Winslet, Jack Black, Cameron Diaz, and Jude Law in Nancy Meyers's 2006 romantic comedy "The Holiday". In 2006, Sossamon was cast as the female lead in the independent film "" opposite Patrick Fugit, Tom Waits, and Will Arnett. "Wristcutters" revolved around two characters who fall in love in purgatory after committing suicide. It was shown at both The Sundance Film Festival and The Seattle International Film Festival Awards in 2006. It was nominated for several awards including Sundance's Grand Jury Prize, two Independent Spirit Awards, the Humanitas Prize. Her chemistry with co-star Fugit was praised by "View London", commenting "Patrick Fugit and Shannyn Sossamon are both superb, generating a sweet chemistry and sparking off each other well. Sossamon, in particular, gives her best performance to date." Recent career (2007–present). Sossamon was next cast in Courteney Cox's drama series "Dirt" on FX. She starred as Kira Klay, a celebrity who, after realizing that she is pregnant, kills herself. She then appears in visions to a schizophrenic photographer. She appeared in five episodes in the first season. She then starred in the horror film "Catacombs" alongside singer Pink. It was FEARnet and Lions Gate Entertainment's first film collaboration. It was first released in 2007 in several countries including Italy, Japan and Mexico, but it was not released in the United States until 2008. It was filmed in early 2005, but its release was delayed for more than two and a half years due to the death of one of the producers. Sossamon signed on as a series regular on CBS's vampire drama "Moonlight". The series began airing on September 28, 2007, and was watched by 8.54 million viewers. CBS ordered a 16-episode first season, but over the season, viewership decreased to around 7.5 million viewers. The series had a very large fan base, but despite fans' efforts, CBS canceled the series after the first season. Sossamon starred as Beth Raymond in the horror remake "One Missed Call". The film also stars Ed Burns, Ana Claudia Talancon, Azura Skye, Margaret Cho, and Ray Wise. The film was savaged by critics, but was considered a major box office success, grossing more than $42,000,000 worldwide. It was also considered a success on DVD and Blu-ray, generating sales of more than $25,000,000 since its release on April 22, 2008. For her performance in the film, she received a Teen Choice Award nomination for "Choice Film Actress: Horror". The following year, she played as Concetta, a woman faced with the challenges of raising her sick child and supporting her husband in the 2009 drama film "Life Is Hot in Cracktown", directed by Buddy Giovinazzo, and co-starring Kerry Washington, Victor Rasuk, Lara Flynn Boyle and Brandon Routh. She appeared in the thriller film "The Heavy". The film was released on 16 April 2010 direct-to-video in the United States and received a limited theatrical release in the UK on the same day. She costarred in the HBO television series "How to Make It in America", in which she plays the character of Gingy Wu. The series premiered in February 2010. The romantic film "Road to Nowhere" – starring Sossamon – opened at the 67th Venice International Film Festival. Critics have praised Sossamon's performance in the film. She joined the cast of the independent apocalyptic horror film "The Day". The film also starred Ashley Bell, Dominic Monaghan, and Shawn Ashmore. In the film Sossamon plays, Shannon, a survivor in a apocalyptic world. She has received critical praise for the role. The film received a limited release. In 2012 Sossamon ventured into voice acting when she voiced the character Jade in the video game "". Personal life. Sossamon has two tattoos, including an "S" with a flower on her right back shoulder standing for Sherry, her mother's name. She also has a small tattoo on her left wrist that says 'heart'. Sossamon continues to study acting, music and dance. She was the original drummer in the Los Angeles psychedelic band Warpaint, with her sister Jenny Lindberg, but decided to leave the band to focus on acting. Her sole recording with the band is the 2009 EP, "Exquisite Corpse". She once dated children's book illustrator and author Dallas Clayton, with whom she has a son, Audio Science Clayton, born on May 29, 2003. In March 2012, she announced that she had given birth to her second son, Mortimer.
1061437	Edward Montgomery (Monty) Clift (October 17, 1920July 23, 1966) was an American film and stage actor "The New York Times"’ obituary noted his portrayal of "moody, sensitive young men". Clift starred in the ground-breaking 1950 docu-drama The Big Lift. He often played outsiders and "victim-heroes"; examples include the social climber in George Stevens's "A Place in the Sun", the anguished Catholic priest in Hitchcock's "I Confess", the doomed regular soldier Robert E. Lee Prewitt in Fred Zinnemann's "From Here to Eternity", and the Jewish GI bullied by antisemites in Edward Dmytryk's "The Young Lions".
326751	The Cutter is a direct to video action film released in 2005, starring Joanna Pacuła, Chuck Norris, Daniel Bernhardt, Bernie Kopell and Marshall R. Teague.
1060736	Rupert Alexander Lloyd Grint (born 24 August 1988) is an English actor who rose to prominence playing Ron Weasley, one of the three main characters in the "Harry Potter" film series. Grint was cast as Ron Weasley at the age of 11, having previously acted only in school plays and at his local theatre group. From 2001 to 2011, he starred in all eight "Harry Potter" films alongside Daniel Radcliffe and Emma Watson. Beginning in 2002, Grint began to work outside of the "Harry Potter" franchise, taking on a co-leading role in "Thunderpants". He has had starring roles in "Driving Lessons", a dramedy released in 2006, and "Cherrybomb", a small budgeted drama of limited release in 2010. Grint co-starred with Bill Nighy and Emily Blunt in "Wild Target", a comedy. His first project following the end of the "Harry Potter" series was the 2012 anti-war film, "Into the White", in which he stars as the main role. In 2013, Grint's new film "CBGB" will be released and he has been cast in CBS's new pilot "Super Clyde". Grint will be making his stage debut in Jez Butterworth's "Mojo" in October 2013 at the Harold Pinter Theatre in London. Early life. Grint was born and brought up in Stevenage, Hertfordshire. His mother, Joanna Grint (née Parsons), is a housewife, and his father, Nigel Grint, is a memorabilia dealer. Grint is the eldest of five siblings. He attended Dorothy Stringer High School in Brighton, a Roman Catholic school. While there, Grint took an avid interest in theatre. He started performing in school productions and joined the Top Hat Stage and Screen School, a local theatre group that cast him as a fish in "Noah's Ark" and a donkey in another nativity play. He continued performing in school plays as he moved up to Richard Hale School. However, Grint had never acted professionally before the "Harry Potter" series. At the age of 16, he left school to focus on his acting career. "I didn't really like school that much," the actor later commented. Career. "Harry Potter" (2001–2011). Starting in 1999, casting began for the film adaptation of "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone", the best-selling novel written by author J.K. Rowling. Rowling personally insisted that the cast be British and assisted Susie Figgis and director Chris Columbus in casting the roles. Grint chose to try out for the part of protagonist Ron Weasley, one of Harry Potter's best friends at Hogwarts, because he had ginger-coloured hair, and was a fan of the book series. Having seen a "Newsround" report about the open casting, he sent in a video of himself rapping about how he wished to receive the part. His attempt was successful as the casting team asked for a meeting with him. On 8 August 2000 Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, and an 11-year old Grint were selected to play the roles of Harry, Hermione Granger, and Ron, respectively. Grint is the oldest member of the trio. The release of "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone" in 2001 was Grint's debut screen performance. Breaking records for opening-day sales and opening-weekend takings, it was the highest-grossing film of that year. With a total of US$974 million in its theatrical run, "Philosopher's Stone" stands as the second most commercially successful entry in the series. It was also critically well-received, scoring mainly positive reviews from critics. However, a number or critics found the adaption staying faithful to the book to be both its best and worst quality. Grint won a Satellite Award in the category of "Outstanding New Talent", and a Young Artist Award for "Most Promising Young Newcomer". A year later, Grint again starred as Ron in "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets" (2002), the second instalment of the series. The film opened to positive reviews and critics generally enjoyed the lead actors' performances. Both "Los Angeles Times" and "New York Magazine" observed that Grint and his peers had matured between films, with the latter pointing out that Grint had become "more proficient" and said they missed "the amateurish ardour" the actor and Watson carried in "Philosopher's Stone". "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban" (2004) was released on 31 May in the UK. The film sees all three of its lead characters hover on the brink of adolescence, "and while they look braver and more capable than before, the dangers they face seem far more grave and their own vulnerability more intense." Academy Award-nominee Alfonso Cuarón took over direction for "Prisoner of Azkaban" which remains the lowest-grossing "Harry Potter" film with US$795 million in revenue. Nonetheless it was the second highest-grossing movie of 2004 behind "Shrek 2". Despite this it remains the second highest rated in the series in terms of critical reaction. In 2005, Grint reprised his role again for the fourth film in the series "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire". The adaptation, unlike previous projects, explored romantic elements and included more humour. In a 2005 interview with IGN, all three lead actors singled out the humour as being a reason for the film's success. This project was helmed by Mike Newell. According to the actor, the director was "really loud and not afraid to swear at you, but he was really cool." "Goblet of Fire" stands as one of the best reviewed instalments within the series, and is noted for the maturity and sophistication of its characters, darker and more complex plotline, writing and performances of the lead actors. "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix", the fifth film in the "Harry Potter" franchise, was released to cinemas in 2007. A huge financial success, "Order of the Phoenix" set a record worldwide opening-weekend gross of US$394 million, superseding "Spider-Man 3" as the title holder. This entry was directed by a new filmmaker, David Yates, who would continue to direct all of the following movies. Grint said the laid back director was "really good" and helped keep the material fresh. As the fame of the actor and the series continued, Grint and fellow "Harry Potter" cast members left imprints of their hands, feet and wands in front of Grauman's Chinese Theater in Hollywood. On 15 July 2009, the series's sixth instalment, "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince", was released. This adaptation centred around more being learnt about Lord Voldemort's dark past. It did considerably better financially than the previous film, again setting new box office records. In its total theatrical run, "Half-Blood Prince" totalled in US$933 million ticket sales. Also, "Half-Blood Prince" remains one of the most positively reviewed entries within the series among film critics, who praised the film's "emotionally satisfying" story, direction, cinematography, visuals and music. Grint observed a change in Ron in this entry, pointing out that his once insecure, often overshadowed character started to become more secure and even began to show a dark side of himself. The actor found it fun to personify a more emotional Ron. Between 2009–2010, his work received three nominations, including one win an Otto Award from the German magazine "Bravo". Despite the success of the past films, the future of the franchise was put into question as all three lead actors were unsure about signing on to continue their roles for the final two episodes. However, by March 2007, Grint agreed to return for the last instalments. For financial and scripting reasons, the last book was divided into two films which were shot back to back, with filming concluding in June 2010. Of completing the final film he said: "I mean it literally has been my childhood and suddenly it all came down to really just one random scene, with us jumping through a fireplace, and then it was over. [...] But because you shoot out of sequence, it’s often just 'Turn left, cross the room, okay, that’s a wrap.' And you’re done. [...] Yeah, it’s very odd. Because suddenly it was all over, just like that. It was really emotional for all of us, realising that we’re never going to be doing this again. "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Part 1" (2010) was released in November and made over US$950 million. It set several box office records and opened to mostly favourable reviews in the media. His portrayal of Ron again earned him critical praise. Reviewing the adaption in "Slate", Dana Stevens called all three of the leads "terrific." Despite giving "Deathly Hallows: Part 1" a negative rating, Joe Morgenstern of the "Wall Street Journal" publication stated "Grint has grown up to be a skilful actor who knows the value of a slow burn". "New York Post" writer Lou Lumenick, however, observed that both Grint and Radcliffe had grown weary of playing the same characters and expressed it in their performances. Grint's performance scored him nominations from the MTV Movie Awards and National Movie Awards for Best Fight and Performance of the Year in 2011. Grint reprised his role for the eighth time, in "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2", the last "Harry Potter" instalment. This film picked-up from where the previous project left-off and included a lot of action, whereas the first part had focused more on character development. Rupert, along with the film, was critically acclaimed: Ann Hornaday of "The Washington Post" asked, "Who could have predicted that Radcliffe, Grint and Watson would turn out to be good actors?". The film broke several box office records, including biggest midnight release, biggest first-day opening, and biggest opening-weekend. "Deathly Hallows – Part 2" is currently the 4th highest-grossing film of all time, and the second highest-grossing non-James Cameron film with more than US$1.3 billion worldwide (behind The Avengers). Harry Potter's author J.K.Rowling gave a speech during the final, world premiere of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 on 7 July 2011 in London, England. She announced that there are seven "Harry Potter" film series cast members, whom she refers to as "The Big Seven", and she named Grint as one of the seven members, alongside with Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, Tom Felton, Matthew Lewis, Evanna Lynch and Bonnie Wright. Other work (2002–present). In 2002, Grint starred in his first non-"Harry Potter" film: "Thunderpants", which revolves around Patrick (played by Bruce Cook) whose remarkable capacity for flatulence scores him a job as an astronaut. In this film, Grint portrayed the co-lead, an anosmic male who is Patrick's only friend. It was generally ignored by critics and audiences alike. Most of the critics that did take notice of "Thunderpants" did not respond well to it, with one writing: "This film should be shown in prisons so that inmates have a good reason to never return." Another film he appeared in was "Driving Lessons", a comedy-drama released in 2006, where he starred opposite Julie Walters. The film was met with a mixed reception by critics, but his portrayal of an oppressed teenaged boy was generally praised. "Grint, on the other hand, is a revelation", who "displays an innate naturalness mixed with personal charisma that turn a potentially pathetic Christian freak into a humorous, thoroughly likable – if more than a little awkward – young man", wrote "Alt Film Guide"'s Andre Soares. In July 2008, it was announced that Grint would star in the independent gritty thriller "Cherrybomb" with Robert Sheehan and Kimberley Nixon. Grint found shooting this film very different from the "Harry Potter" films since he had to adjust to doing a dozen scenes per day. Grint's character Malachy, a worker at Belfast goes to great lengths to impress his boss's daughter, whom he is infatuated with. This film, like his next project, would involve him playing violent roles. Despite premiering at the 2009 Berlin Film Festival, the film was initially unable to find a distributor. An online campaign by Grint's fans was credited with helping to secure a deal for distribution in the UK in 2010. Jonathan Lynn directed Grint in "Wild Target", a 2010 comedy thriller release, which he starred in alongside Emily Blunt and Bill Nighy. A remake of the 1993 French film "Cible Emouvante", "Wild Target" was made on a relatively small production budget of US$8 million. However, it was a commercial failure, only earning back US$3.4 million. It also garnered mostly negative reviews in the media, which criticised it for dishonouring the original film and wasting the comedic potential of its cast, but Grint also attracted some positive notice: “It’s nice to see Rupert Grint perform well in a role other than that of Ron Weasley, and it’s clear that he’s got a career ahead of him.” In January 2011, Grint made a cameo appearance in BBC popular comedy show "Come Fly with Me" starring comedy duo Matt Lucas and David Walliams (Little Britain). In March 2011, Grint was cast as the lead character in the small-budget anti-war Norwegian film "Into the White", which was directed by Petter Næss. Principal photography started in April, and the project, which was shot on location, was released in 2012. "Into the White" is based on a real incident that took place on 27 April 1940, when German Luftwaffe pilot Horst Schopis’s bomber was shot down at Grotli by an RAF fighter, which then crash-landed. The several German and British crew members found shelter by chance during a harsh winter there. In August 2011, Grint did a photo shoot with his friend and Harry Potter co-star Tom Felton in Los Angeles for the autumn/winter collection of the fashion label Band of Outsiders. In September 2011, it was announced that Grint will voice a character in the film adaptation of Postman Pat titled "Postman Pat: The Movie – You Know You're The One" along with David Tennant, Stephen Mangan and Jim Broadbent; the film has a planned 3D theatrical release date of spring 2013. In his next film, Grint will play the part of Eddie "The Eagle" Edwards in a biopic about Edwards's heroic failure at the 1988 Winter Olympics in Calgary. Grint also appears in the music video for Ed Sheeran's song "Lego House"; the video was released on 20 October 2011. In March 2012 the "Visit Britain" TV ad was released, which features Grint alongside Julie Walters, Michelle Dockery and Stephen Fry. The TV ad promotes holidaying at home in the UK. On 14 March 2012 "Variety" reported that Grint had been cast alongside Chloë Grace Moretz in "The Drummer", a biopic about drummer Dennis Wilson of the Beach Boys. On the same day, "Hollywood Reporter" confirmed this and announced filming was scheduled to begin on 15 June 2012 in California and Savannah, Georgia On 25 July 2012, Grint carried the 2012 London Olympic torch during the Olympic Torch Relay, which is part of 2012 Summer Olympic Games in London. In interviews, Rupert told the BBC News that it was an "overwhelming" experience that he hoped to remember forever, and told "The Daily Telegraph" "It was amazing, it was really overwhelming. It's just such an honour to be a part of this. I'm really proud". In October 2012 Grint narrated "We Are Aliens", a 25min 3D Planetarium Fulldome film about the possibility of other intelligent life in our Universe. On 13 February 2013,"The Hollywood Reporter"'s Live Feed announced that Grint would star in a television show on CBS called "Super Clyde". "Grint will play the title role of Clyde, the well-meaning and sweet yet slightly neurotic guy who never feels like he really fits in. The avid comic book reader considers himself a borderline agoraphobic with mild to severe anxiety issues who wishes he were a super hero himself. When Clyde inherits a $100,000 a month inheritance from his long-dead eccentric Uncle Bill, he decides that the cash will be his secret super power and will use it only for good and reward the good-hearted." In July 2013, it was confirmed that Grint will be making his stage debut in Jez Butterworth's second run of his black comedy, "Mojo", playing the role as a minor hood called "Sweets" who pops amphetamines like Smarties and does a sort of double act, full of comic menace. Grint will be starring alongside with actors Brendan Coyle, "Ben Whishaw" and "Daniel Mays." The play is based on real-life events, the play rehearsals will begin in September and the play to start on the 26 October 2013 at the Harold Pinter Theatre in London. In September 2013, "The Hollywood Reporter" confirmed that Grint next acting project, the Macbeth adaptation called "Enemy of Man". Grint will be starring with Sean Bean, Charles Dance, Jason Flemyng, James D’Arcy, Neil Maskell and Joe Gilgun. The film director is Vincent Regan and distributed by "Kaleidoscope Film Distribution". The filming production will begin in January 2014 in the United Kingdom. Personal life. The actor enjoys close friendships with his "Harry Potter" co-stars Emma Watson and Daniel Radcliffe, stating that they have a sibling-like relationship, having known each other from an early age. Like his character, he has arachnophobia, a fear of spiders. Grint bought an ice cream van as a way to fulfill a childhood desire. He is also involved with charity, having donated items such as clothes to charity auctions, as well as participating in the Wacky Rally in 2010 with James and Oliver Phelps, which raised money for Britain’s Royal National Lifeboat Institution. He was one of more than 40 participants to produce designs for Chrysalis Collection for Keech Hospice Care in London. His piece, a painted butterfly, was auctioned off on eBay.com in March 2010. In May 2011, along with other celebrities, Grint took part in the ad campaign for "Make Mine Milk" to promote daily milk drinking. His ads can be seen on thousands of bus sides and posters across the United Kingdom. Grint supports Little Star Award since 2011 in support of Cancer Research UK, joining Leona Lewis among others. “I think that it’s wonderful that Cancer Research UK is helping to bring a little bit of magic to the children’s lives in this way,” said Grint.
900176	The New York Ripper (Italian: Lo squartatore di New York) is a 1982 Italian giallo film directed and co-written by Lucio Fulci. The film score was written by Francesco De Masi. The film was banned in many countries or released as an "adults-only" movie after heavy editing. Whilst most of Lucio Fulci's other films have been released uncut in the United Kingdom, "The New York Ripper" remains censored to this day, even for its 2011 DVD and Blu-ray releases. Plot. An old man is walking his dog in New York City when the dog retrieves a decomposed human hand. It is identified by the police as belonging to Ann-Lynne, a local prostitute. Lieutenant Fred Williams (Jack Hedley), the burned-out police detective investigating the murder, interviews the young woman's nosy and obnoxious landlady, Mrs. Weissburger (Babette New), who tells him that during her daily spying and eavesdropping on her tenants, she overheard the girl last week over the phone arranging to meet a man who spoke with a strange, duck-like voice. Meanwhile, a young woman (Cinzia De Ponti) rides her bicycle down Manhattan to the Staten Island Ferry at Battery Park. After an altercation with a boorish motorist driving a red Volkswagen, whose car she accidentally scratched riding her bicycle, she rides onto the boat with the man yelling misogynist slurs at her. When the ferry is underway, the young woman sneaks into the car-bay and begins vandalizing the man's car, but she is interrupted by an unseen figure. Introducing herself as Rosie, she tries to engage the man in a conversation. But the figure adopts a grotesque 'Donald Duck' voice and brutally murders her with a switchblade, stabbing in the lower belly and disemboweling her, and leaving her body to be discovered when the ferry docks at Staten Island. At the morgue, Lt. Williams talks to Barry Jones the pathologist (Giordano Falzoni), who believes he recognizes the "style" of the killing and links it to Ann-Lynne, as well as a similar case in Harlem the previous month. Having informed the press that a serial killer is at large, Williams is visited at the station by New York's chief of police (Lucio Fulci). Williams' skeptical superior tells him not to make any further public announcements about the case to avoid starting a city-wide panic. Soon after the police chief leaves, Williams is notified that a man "sounding like a duck" phoned while he was out at the press conference wanting to speak with him. Williams travels to Columbia University where he meets with a brilliant young psychotherapy professor named Dr. Paul Davis (Paolo Malco) for help in creating a profile of the killer. That night in New York's red-light district, Jane Lodge (Alexandra Delli Colli), an attractive, well-dressed woman in a chic raincoat and derby hat, attends a live sex show and records the simulated moans and groans of the two performers with a pocket tape recorder. A scruffy, dangerous looking man (Howard Ross), with two fingers missing from his right hand and sitting in the same row with her, observes what she is doing. After the show has ended, the female performer (Zora Kerova) retires backstage to her dressing room only to find it totally dark. Hearing a noise, she opens a closet door and is brutally attacked by the maniac, who disembowels her by shoving a broken and jagged liquor bottle from her crotch to her abdomen. Later that night, at the home of Kitty (Daniela Doria), a prostitute regularly visited by Williams, he receives a taunting phone call from the duck-voiced killer saying that he has killed again. The next day, Jane shows her latest tape recording to her husband Dr. Lodge (Laurence Welles), who has agreed to support their open-marriage. Jane goes to a bar in a rough neighborhood where she's approached by two Hispanic bar punks who proceed to fondle and sexually humiliate her right at the bar. After being taken advantage of, the emotionally troubled Jane runs out and drives away. That night, Fay Majors (Almanta Keller), a casually dressed young woman is riding alone on a late-night subway train when she gets menaced by the same ominous man from the porno theater. Fleeing from the perceived threat, she runs off the train, through the deserted subway station, and onto the street where she gets attacked in a dark alley by the quacking maniac, who brutally stabs her in the leg and slashes her hands and arms as she tries to defend herself. Limping away, Fay stumbles through a doorway into a seedy apartment building where she closes and locks the door behind her so the killer will not follow. Fay passes out from the loss of blood, and then realty and illusion blur: Fay is sitting alone in a dark movie theater watching cartoons when she attacked and killed by a different, handsome young man who slashes her neck with a straight razor. Fay wakes up in the hospital the morning after when the same man visits her in her room. The man is revealed to be her physicist boyfriend Peter Bunch (Andrew Painter), who is relieved that she has survived the attack. Lt. Williams and Dr. Davis visit Fay where she tells them about her attacker who was missing two fingers from his right hand. Williams and Davis both conclude that this is the killer since all forensic evidence points to the killer being left-handed. Somewhere in night-time New York, the owner of his mutilated right hand picks up Jane and takes her to a sleazy hotel room for sex. He ties up the semi-nude woman to the bed. The S&M game she has willingly begun turns nasty when he begins to beat her. Then the man turns up the radio loud, and makes a muttered phone-call, describing the bound woman to someone on the other line as "she's right up your perverted alley. " A little later, while the man sleeps, Jane overhears a radio DJ describing the killer, whom the press has now dubbed, 'the New York Ripper' and missing two fingers from his right hand. Jane carefully and quietly unties herself from the bed and flees into the hotel hallway, only to be killed by the real New York Ripper who stabs her to death in ultra-gory fashion. Williams arrives at the scene of the crime where the police find Jane's tape recordings of the sex shows and of her 'master. ' Learning from witnesses, Williams discovers that the identity of the man is Mickey Scellenda, a Greek immigrant with a history of sexual assault and drug abuse. Williams and the police step up the search for Scellenda after raiding his apartment, finding photographs of most of the Ripper victims and huge stashes of pornography. Williams also pays a visit to Dr. Lodge to inform him of his wife's murder. Dr. Lodge tearfully defends his open marriage which gets him a sneering response from the moralistic Williams. Meanwhile, Dr. Davis begins to express doubt to the killer's identity for Mickey Scellenda is only a petty criminal with a low intelligence quota, not the high intelligence that Davis has created in profiling the New York Ripper. Davis then buys a gay porno magazine at a local news stand (giving away his repressed homosexuality), and then pays a visit to Peter and Fay at their house to ask them more questions about Fay's experience. Something about their story arouses his professional suspicious. That evening, after Peter goes out, Fay is attacked in their house by Scellenda who breaks in trying to kill her. But she is saved when Peter returns, and the man flees. A few days later, Williams gets another taunting phone call from the New York Ripper, who wants to "dedicate a murder to him. " Williams and the police put a trace on the line and race to the location, only to find that the killer has set up a two-way radio to a remote phone booth, while he, is at that moment, in the home of Kitty, brutally torturing her by slowly running a razor over her face. Williams races to Kitty's apartment, but is way too late as the killer has fled, leaving behind Kitty's horribly mutilated body to be discovered. A while later, the dead body of Mickey Scellenda is found having committed suicide from self-suffocation. When Dr. Barry Jones informs Williams that Scellenda was dead for the last eight days, four days before Kitty's murder, Williams finally realizes that they have been tailing the wrong man. Williams relays this to Professor Davis, who is both delighted and disappointed with the news. Davis explains that with Scellenda eliminated as a suspect, his original idea to the killer's identity is confirmed; a misogynist psychopath who used Scellenda to throw the police off his trail. Fay is shown visiting a hospital where Peter has a child from a previous marriage, a little girl named Suzy, who is dying from a rare bone disorder that has led to the amputation of her left arm and right leg. But is the killer Peter or Fay? Visiting the hospital, Williams and Davis observe little Suzy in her hospital bed and decide to race over to Peter and Fay's place to arrest both of them. At Peter and Fay's house, one of them gets a phone call from a duck-voiced person, while the other one overhears. When Peter goes into the kitchen for dinner, Fay has disappeared. Going upstairs to Suzy's bedroom, Fay jumps out of the darkness at Peter stabbing him with a kitchen knife. Suddenly, Peter rises, quacking like a duck, and struggles with Fay in which they both tumble down the stairs. Just as Peter grabs the knife away from Fay and about to stab her, Williams runs in and literally blasts Peter's face off with one shot from his gun. In the ambulance, Davis explains to Fay her deranged boyfriend's motivation for killing. His hatred of sexually active women stemmed from bitterness at the cruel blow fate had dealt his young daughter, who will never enjoy the freedoms of his despised victims. After leaving the scene, the phone in the now-deserted house rings again. In her hospital bed, little Suzy is calling out for her father pleading to answer her call, as her voice is drowned beneath the traffic of the city. Critical reception. "The New York Ripper" has been poorly received by critics. AllMovie's review of the film was very negative, writing, "Pandering to the lowest common denominator as never before in his career, Fulci showed with this blatant play for the sicko slasher crowd that the days of well-plotted, stylish Italian horror were gone, replaced with the most vicious sort of sexual violence and perversion." Slant Magazine called it "sour and pointless". Home video releases. The film has been released on DVD in America by Anchor Bay Entertainment and Blue Underground. Its British DVD release was handled by Shameless Screen Entertainment. Blue Underground also released the film on Blu-ray.
197663	Josephine Dillon (January 26, 1884 — November 10, 1971) was an American actress who may best be remembered by history as Clark Gable's patron, acting coach and first wife. Life and career. Josephine Dillon was born in 1884 in Denver, Colorado to Judge Henry Clay Dillon (died April 6, 1912, Los Angeles, California) and Florence Dillon (née Hood). She was the younger sister of opera singer Enrica Clay Dillon. Per the U.S. Census of 1900, Josephine's family was living in Long Beach, California, and she had four sisters and one brother living at home with her and her parents along with her maternal grandmother, Maria Hood, and a servant named Yick Leong. Dillon was educated in the California public school system and graduated from Stanford University in 1908. After graduating from Stanford, Dillon studied acting in Italy for one year before returning to the United States to act on Broadway for actor Edward Everett Horton's stock company in New York City.
1164869	Sorrell Booke (January 4, 1930 – February 11, 1994) was an American actor who performed on stage, screen, and television. He is best known for his role as the corpulent, corrupt politician Jefferson Davis "Boss" Hogg in the television show "The Dukes of Hazzard". Personal life. Booke was born in Buffalo, New York, a cousin of Max Yasgur of Woodstock fame. Fluent in five languages (including Japanese), Booke earned degrees from both Columbia and Yale universities. He served in the Korean War as a counterintelligence officer. Booke was married to the former Miranda Knickerbocker (the daughter of Hubert Renfro Knickerbocker (1898–1949), a Pulitzer prize-winning war correspondent) from 1958 to 1973. They had two children, Alexandra and Nicholas. Booke has a brother, Fred. Career. Booke came to Hollywood via a theatre degree from Yale University and a decade on the New York Stage. One prominent early role was that of Senator Billboard T. Rawkins in the 1960 revival of "Finian's Rainbow", a role foreshadowing his most famous character, that of Boss Hogg in "The Dukes of Hazzard". During his early Hollywood acting career, Booke gained acclaim for notable supporting parts in noteworthy 1960s films such as "Black Like Me", "A Fine Madness", and "Fail-Safe". In 1962, he was in "Fiorello!" and starred as the namesake's character. In 1965, he guest starred as Sgt. Herschel Aronson in episode 19 "Faith, Hope, and Sergeant Aronson" of ABC's "12 O-Clock High" military drama. He soon began focusing primarily on television roles in the 1970s and 1980s, and voice acting roles in the 1980s and early 1990s. Booke also once conducted the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra. Booke earned an Emmy nomination for his appearance in the NBC series, "Dr. Kildare" in the episode "What's God to Julius?". He appeared in an episode of "" from the first season in 1966. Booke appeared in two early episodes of "M*A*S*H", as General Barker in "Requiem For A Lightweight" and "Chief Surgeon Who?", the latter marked the debut of the character Corporal Klinger, with whom Booke's character had previously dealt. Additionally, Booke had a recurring role in Norman Lear's groundbreaking sitcom "All in the Family" as Mr. Sanders, personnel manager at Archie Bunker's workplace, Prendergast Tool and Die Company. Booke was also featured on an episode of the sitcom "Good Times", and had a recurring role as the Jewish mob boss Lefkowitz on "Soap". The Dukes of Hazzard (1979–1985). Booke's most notable role was in "The Dukes of Hazzard" as the humorously wicked antagonist to Bo and Luke Duke. The series ran on CBS for seven seasons, from 1979–1985 and spawned an animated series, "The Dukes" (1983), two reunion TV specials (by which time Booke had died, and the character of Boss Hogg was also said to be deceased), a feature film (2005) and "" (a 2007 TV movie). Initially the character was created as a corrupt, gruff nemesis for the Duke family to battle, but as the series evolved over its first and subsequent seasons, Hogg developed more into a comical money-grabbing villain, more intent on various get-rich-quick schemes and shady plots than ever knowingly causing anyone serious harm. With this evolution of the character came the closer pairing of Hogg and bumbling Sheriff Rosco P. Coltrane (James Best), and as the pair's comical ability became apparent and a popular element of the series, Booke and Best were often given permission to ad-lib their scenes together. Booke was actually only slightly overweight and wore a fat suit during the entire run of the series, which caused his girth to measure five feet around. He threw himself into the role to the point of eating real raw liver, Boss Hogg's favorite dish, in scenes that called for him to consume it. Booke had stopped appearing physically in acting roles, but he continued to perform voice work on several television shows and movies, occasionally as narrator, and sometimes as a cartoon character's voice, in such movies as "Scooby-Doo Meets the Boo Brothers" (1987 TV movie), "Gravedale High" (1990 television series), and "Rock-A-Doodle" (1991). Final years and death. Booke continued to work until he died of colorectal cancer in Sherman Oaks, California on February 11, 1994, a month after his 64th birthday. He is interred at the Hillside Memorial Park Cemetery in Culver City, California. His tombstone reads, "Beloved Pa, Grandpa, Brother and Boss."
1163667	Broderick Crawford (December 9, 1911 – April 26, 1986) was an Academy Award-winning American stage, film, radio and TV actor, often cast in tough-guy roles and best known for his portrayal of Willie Stark in "All the King's Men" and for his starring role in the television series "Highway Patrol". Early life. Crawford was born William Broderick Crawford in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to Lester Crawford and Helen Broderick, who were both vaudeville performers, as his grandparents had been. Lester Crawford appeared in films in the 1920s and 1930s; his mother had a minor career in Hollywood comedies, including a memorable appearance as Madge in the classic musical "Top Hat". Young William joined his parents on the stage, working for producer Max Gordon. When vaudeville went into decline, he attended Harvard University for three months, but dropped out to work as a stevedore on the New York docks. Acting career. Crawford returned to vaudeville and radio, which included a period with the Marx Brothers on the radio comedy show "Flywheel, Shyster, and Flywheel". He played his first serious character as a footballer in "She Loves Me Not" at the Adelphi Theatre, London in 1932. Crawford was originally stereotyped as a fast-talking tough guy early in his career and often played villainous parts. He gained fame in 1937 as Lenny in "Of Mice and Men" on Broadway. He moved to Hollywood, but did not play the role in the film version. In 1939, he was selected for a supporting role in the production of "Beau Geste". He followed this up with another important supporting actor role in the 1942 gangster spoof "Larceny, Inc.," a comedy with Edward G. Robinson. During World War II Crawford enlisted in the United States Army Air Corps. Assigned to the Armed Forces Network, he was sent to Britain in 1944 as a sergeant, he served as an announcer for the Glenn Miller American Band.
1063922	Adrian Grenier (born July 10, 1976) is an American actor, musician and director. He is best known for his lead role on the HBO original series, "Entourage", as Vincent Chase. Early life. Grenier was born in Santa Fe, New Mexico, the son of Karesse Grenier and John T. Dunbar. His parents met at a commune in the 1970s, and were never married. His father was from Ohio, and was of European ancestry; his mother was born in New Mexico, to a Hispanic family, with Mestizo roots; a DNA test, on the PBS program "Finding Your Roots", showed Adrian to have approximately 8% Native American ancestry and that his matrilineal line was Native American.
643281	Harold (Hal) Abelson is a Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at MIT, a fellow of the IEEE, and is a founding director of both Creative Commons and the Free Software Foundation.
1162469	Lincoln Theodore Monroe Andrew Perry (May 30, 1902 – November 19, 1985), better known by the stage name Stepin Fetchit, was an American comedian and film actor. Perry parlayed the Fetchit persona into a successful film career, eventually becoming a millionaire, the first black actor in history to do so. He was the first black actor to receive featured screen credit in a film. Perry's typical film persona and stage name have long been controversial, and seen as illustrative of negative stereotypes of African-Americans. Seen through a modern lens, Perry's "laziest man in the world" character can be "painfully racist" but also "subversive". Early life. Little is certain about his background other than that he was born in Key West, Florida to West Indian immigrants. He was the second child of Joseph Perry, a cigar maker from Jamaica (although some sources indicate the Bahamas) and Dora Monroe, a seamstress from Nassau. Both of his parents came to the United States in the 1890s, where they married. By 1910, the family had moved north to Tampa, Florida. Another source says he was adopted when he was eleven years old and taken to live in Montgomery, Alabama. His mother wanted him to be a dentist, so Perry was adopted by a quack dentist, where he blacked boots before running away at age twelve to join a carnival. He earned his living for a few years as a singer and tap dancer. By the age of twenty, Perry had become a vaudeville artist and the manager of a traveling carnival show. He performed a vaudeville act with a partner, the two of them known as "Step" and "Fetchit". When Perry became a solo act he combined the two names, which later became his professional name. Career. Perry began entertaining in his teens as a comic character actor. His stage name was a contraction of "step and fetch it", or perhaps, "step in fetch it". According to his entry in Ephraim Katz's "The Film Encyclopedia", he borrowed his screen name from a racehorse that won him some money in his pre-Hollywood days. Perry played comic relief roles in a number of films, all based on his character known as "The Laziest Man in the World". In his personal life, Perry was highly literate and had a concurrent career writing for the "Chicago Defender". Perry starred in "Hearts in Dixie" (1929), one of the first studio productions to boast a predominantly African-American cast. For his role as Joe in the 1929 part-talkie film version of "Show Boat", Perry's singing voice was supplied by Jules Bledsoe, who had originated the role in the stage musical. Fetchit did not "sing" "Ol' Man River", but instead a new song used in the film, "The Lonesome Road". Bledsoe was actually seen singing "Ol' Man River" in the sound prologue shown preceding the film. Perry was good friends with fellow comic actor Will Rogers, and they appeared in four films together, "David Harum" (1934), "Judge Priest" (1934), "Steamboat 'Round the Bend" (1935), and "The County Chairman" (1935). Perry spawned imitators, most notably, Willie Best (Sleep 'n Eat) and Mantan Moreland, the scared, wide-eyed manservant of Charlie Chan. (Perry actually played a manservant in the Chan series before Moreland – in 1935's "Charlie Chan in Egypt"). Perry did not invent the stereotype with which his stage name became synonymous, but Stepin Fetchit's image was used to popularize it. Many black film characters were based on Stepin Fetchit, including Matthew Beard's "Stymie" in the "Our Gang" comedies. Perry had guest-starred in an earlier "Our Gang" short, "A Tough Winter", intended as the pilot film for a Fetchit short subject series producer Hal Roach had planned, but which never materialized. Fetchit appeared in 54 films between 1925 and 1976, and has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in the category "Motion pictures". Later life. While Perry was the first black actor to become a millionaire, he was forced to declare bankruptcy in 1947, stating assets of $146 (equal to about $ today). Perry reportedly converted to Islam in the 1960s and became a friend of heavyweight boxing champion Muhammad Ali. Perry also found himself in conflict during his career with civil rights leaders who criticized him personally for the film roles he portrayed. Nonetheless, in 1976 the Hollywood chapter of the NAACP awarded him a Special NAACP Image Award. Two years after that, Perry was inducted into the Black Filmmakers Hall of Fame. Personal life. Perry was married three times: to Dorothy Stevenson, Winifred Johnson, and Bernice Sims. In 1930 his wife Dorothy gave birth to their son, Jemajo. With Winifred he had a second son in 1935: Donald, who later took his step-father's name, Lambright. In April 1969, Donald Lambright traveled the Pennsylvania Turnpike shooting people. He injured fifteen and killed three before turning the gun on himself. Death. A stroke in 1976 ended Perry's acting career, and he moved into the Motion Picture & Television Country House and Hospital. He died November 19, 1985 from pneumonia and heart failure at age 83. He was buried at Calvary Cemetery in East Los Angeles. Legacy. Fetchit's stage name was parodied by the late 1960s/early 1970s counterculture comedy duo The Congress of Wonders, portraying a young Russian lad named Stepney Fetchnik on their September 1970 comedy album "Revolting". It was also spoofed on an episode of "The Golden Girls", in which Rose Nylund (Betty White) tells a story about two dancers from her hometown of St. Olaf, Minnesota, Adolf Stepp and Olga Fetchik, who became "the internationally renowned Scandinavian dance team of Stepp 'n' Fetchik". The Stepin Fetchit image came to be seen as sufficiently degrading that Perry's films are rarely shown, and have not received widespread video release. On the rare occasions the films are shown, most of his segments are deleted.
638265	Loving Annabelle is a 2006 film directed by Katherine Brooks. Based on "Mädchen in Uniform", it tells the story of a boarding school student who falls in love with her teacher. It was filmed at Marymount High School in Los Angeles. Plot. Annabelle Tillman, the daughter of a senator, is sent to a Catholic boarding school after being expelled from two of her previous schools. Simone Bradley, a poetry teacher at the school, is in charge of her dormitory. Annabelle shares the dormitory with an amiable classmate, Christen. Katherine, who tends to bully people, and Colins, a student with a nervous disposition, also share the room.
1236162	Aztec Rex, also known as Tyrannosaurus Azteca, is a motion picture by director Brian Trenchard-Smith that stars Ian Ziering. The film debuted on the Syfy in 2008. The film was filmed largely on location at Kualoa Ranch on the island of Oahu in Hawaii. Plot. Taking place in 1521 on the coast of Mexico, a group of Aztecs worships and makes sacrifices to a pair of living Tyrannosaurus rex. A group of conquistadores led by Hernán Cortés later arrive on the location and venture into the forest to make camp. One of the Tyrannosaurs crosses the path of one of the conquistadores and devours his horse. His fellow conquistadores do not believe his story and continue to venture through the dense forest. An Aztec who is not aware of the Tyrannosaur is eaten, while another witnesses the event with an expression of deep horror and surprise. Later, the conquistadores try to kill the tribe of Aztecs, but are put to sleep by a hidden Aztec with a tube of tranquilizer darts. Hernán Cortés surrenders and demands a truce, but realizes they cannot understand him. He murmurs to himself that they are savages, not realizing the chief can understand English, and is knocked out. Once he regains consciousness, he meets an English-speaking female Aztec. She tells him the Aztecs call the Tyrannosaurs "Thunder Lizards". Later, Hernán Cortés is offered up as a sacrifice, but is freed by his new friend, Gria. It is revealed that of Hernán's fault, the female, who was the chief's daughter, was consumed by one of the Tyrannosaurs. The chief becomes enraged, but he does not know that his daughter Ayacoatl is actually alive. The chief orders a sacrifice of all the conquistadores, but his mind changes when his daughter returns. The daughter's marriage is postponed when a Tyrannosaur kills an Aztec girl. The conquistadores set out on a mission to kill the Tyrannosaurs with cannons and muskets. They succeed in killing the male at the loss of one of their companions. At night Cortez and his soldiers rob the temple of gold and try to escape to the coast. They leave lieutenant Rios and sergeant Mendoza to the mercy of the Aztecs as they had become to friendly with them. In their escape to the coast all but Cortes are devoured by the female Tyrannosaurus. Sergeant Menoza is mortally wounded by the Tyrannosaurus. Rios and shaman Xocozin set out to try to kill the animal but Rios has been secretly drugged by Xocozin who tries to kill him. Xocozin leaves Rios to his fate and heads to the village where he is confronted by the Chief who found out his betrayal. Xocozin and the Chief fight with the latter being mortally wounded. Eventually Rios is found by Ayacoatl and Fra Gria, who marries them. At the altar Xocozin is mortally wounded by Rios. Ayacoatl then cuts out Xovozin's heart to use as bait for the female Tyrannosaurus who then is killed in a gunpowder explosion. Fra Gia and Cortes are picked up by a Spanish ship but are warned by Rios not to return to the valley, which Cortes never did when he conquered the Aztec empire. Fra Gia returned to Spain, became a saint and the inventor of Sangria. Ayacoatl and Rios become rulers of the tibe.
1063320	Mary Marg Helgenberger (born November 16, 1958) is an American film and television actress known for her roles as Catherine Willows in the CBS drama "", and as K.C. Koloski in the ABC drama "China Beach", which earned her the 1990 Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series. Early life. Marg (pronounced with a hard "G") Helgenberger was born in Fremont, Nebraska, and raised in North Bend, Nebraska. She graduated from North Bend Central High School. She is the daughter of Mary Kay ("née" Bolte), a nurse, and Hugh Helgenberger, a meat inspector. Helgenberger is of Irish and German descent and had a Roman Catholic upbringing. She has one older sister named Ann and a younger brother named Curt. Helgenberger played the French horn in her high school marching band. Until she went to college, Helgenberger aspired to be a nurse like her mother. Marg attended Kearney State College (now the University of Nebraska at Kearney) in Kearney, Nebraska, then attended Northwestern University's School of Speech in Evanston, Illinois (now the School of Communication) and earned a B.S. degree in speech and drama. Career. Helgenberger began as a nightly weather person at KHGI-TV in Kearney, Nebraska, while attending college (her name was changed by the producer to Margi McCarty). During the summer she also worked as a deboner at her father's meat packing plant. After portraying the role of Blanche Dubois in a university production of "A Streetcar Named Desire", she developed an interest in acting. While performing in a summer 1981 NU campus productions of Shakespeare's "Taming of the Shrew", in which she played Kate, Marg was spotted by a scout for the TV soap opera "Ryan's Hope". Soon after completing college, Marg landed her first professional role on the long-running ABC Daytime soap opera, playing amateur cop Siobhan Ryan Novak DuBujak (1982–1986), a role previously played by Sarah Felder and Ann Gillespie. Helgenberger departed "Ryan's Hope" in January 1986 and was replaced in the role of Siobhan by Carrell Myers and Barbara Blackburn. Helgenberger guest starred in an episode of ABC's mystery/detective series based on Robert B. Parker's "Spenser" novels, "", NBC's legal drama "Matlock" and ABC's drama "thirtysomething." She also played a regular role as Natalie Thayer, opposite Margot Kidder and James Read, on CBS’ six-episode drama comedy series "Shell Game" (1987). Karen Charlene "K.C." Koloski, a heroin-addicted prostitute on the ABC war drama series "China Beach", was Marg’s first prominent role, which she played from 1988 to 1991. She won an Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series in 1990. In 1989, Helgenberger made her feature film debut in a leading role as an all-night answering service operator in one segment of the Wheat brothers’ horror anthology "After Midnight". She followed it up with a role in Steven Spielberg's romantic comedy-drama "Always" (starring Richard Dreyfuss, Holly Hunter, and John Goodman), a modern version of the original 1943 Victor Fleming film "A Guy Named Joe". During the early to mid-1990s, Marg played roles in Michael Bortman's adaptation of Robert Boswell's novel, "Crooked Hearts" (1991; with Peter Berg, Vincent D'Onofrio, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Noah Wyle and Peter Coyote), Gregg Champion's action comedy "The Cowboy Way" (1994), in which she played Woody Harrelson's love interest, and had a small role as Capt. Alison Sinclair in Michael Bay's action comedy film starring Martin Lawrence and Will Smith, "Bad Boys" (1995). She also played Dr. Laura Baker, a molecular biologist, in Roger Donaldson's sci-fi thriller, "Species" (1995), and reprised the role in the sequel, "Species II" (1998). During that time, Helgenberger had roles in the television films "Blind Vengeance", Lifetime’s "Death Dreams", PBS’ historical documentary "Not on the Frontline" (as a narrator) and CBS’ "In Sickness and in Health". She was also seen opposite Bruno Kirby in "I'll Be Waiting", a segment of Showtime's "Fallen Angels" helmed by Tom Hanks, and as a novelist on the ABC miniseries "Stephen King's The Tommyknockers" opposite Jimmy Smits. She was also seen in the CBS miniseries "" and collaborated with director Peter Weller in Showtime's "Partners". After playing a recurring role as George Clooney's love interest on NBC's medical drama "ER", Marg appeared as David Caruso's sex-starved widow on Showtime’s "Elmore Leonard's Gold Coast", helmed by Weller, and starred with Steven Seagal in the 1997 action film "Fire Down Below". She also starred as a talk show host on "Murder Live" and portrayed the furious sibling to Steven Weber's character on Showtime's miniseries about the elusive Gulf War Syndrome, "Thanks of a Grateful Nation". She also starred opposite Ann-Margret in Showtime's "Happy Face Murders". In 2000, Helgenberger made a guest appearance in the Valentine's Day episode of "Frasier", in which Frasier (Kelsey Grammer) finally wears down his dad Martin's resistance and gets the older man to accompany him to the opera. Actually, this invitation is but a smokescreen, so that Frasier can "accidentally" run into his newest dream girl Emily (Helgenberger). Helgenberger co-starred in the role of Catherine Willows, a former show girl employed as a blood spatter analyst on the CBS drama "". Her performance as the female lead has earned her two Emmy Award and two Golden Globe nominations. In 2005, she and her fellow cast members won the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series. When "CSI" first started filming, Helgenberger visited the Clark County Coroner’s Office to learn about her role, even viewing autopsies in progress. Helgenberger got the chance to act with her husband, Alan Rosenberg, when he guest starred on "CSI", Season 5 ("Weeping Willows") and Season 7 ("Leaving Las Vegas"). During her stint on the hit show, Helgenberger acted in the feature film "Erin Brockovich" and portrayed Patsy Ramsey in the CBS miniseries about the mysterious murder of 6-year-old beauty pageant contestant JonBenét Ramsey in "Perfect Murder, Perfect Town". She also starred as Dennis Quaid’s wife and Scarlett Johansson’s mother in writer-director Paul Weitz's romantic drama comedy "In Good Company" (2004).
1044061	Richard O'Sullivan (born 7 May 1944, Chiswick, Middlesex) is an English comedy actor who is probably best known for his role as Robin Tripp in the 1970s sitcoms "Man About the House" (1973–76) and "Robin's Nest" and as the title character in the period family adventure series "Dick Turpin". O'Sullivan also starred in "Doctor at Large", "Doctor in Charge", "Trouble in Mind", "Alcock and Gander" and "Me and My Girl". Early life. Richard O'Sullivan's early education was at St. John the Evangelist's RC Primary School in Brentford, Middlesex. After a family holiday in Ireland as a boy, O'Sullivan returned with a strong Irish accent and was sent to the famous Corona Theatre School to try to get rid of it. He appeared in his first film at the age of eight. Career. His earliest recognised work was the film "It's Great to Be Young" (1956) where he appeared alongside John Mills. He appeared alongside Keith Michell and Belinda Lee in the opulent swashbuckler, "Dangerous Exile" (1957) as Louis XVII, the ten-year-old son of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette. Also during this period he featured in two episodes of the television series "The Adventures of Robin Hood" (1957) alongside Richard Greene, including as Will Dale in the episode "The Challenge of the Black Knight". He also acted in one "Carry On" film, "Carry On Teacher" (1959) in the small role of student Robin Stevens. Around the same time, he was cast in the role of Pierre van der Mal who appears in an early scene of "The Nun's Story" (1959), in which he bids farewell to his sister Gabrielle (Audrey Hepburn) as she leaves home to enter the convent. In the early 1960s he appeared in two Cliff Richard films: "The Young Ones" (1961), and "Wonderful Life" (1964). O'Sullivan also featured alongside Elizabeth Taylor in the film "Cleopatra" as Cleopatra's young brother, Pharaoh Ptolemy XIII. For the remainder of the 1960s he was a jobbing actor appearing in such TV series as "Dr. Syn:the Scarecrow", "Emergency Ward 10", "Redcap", "Danger Man", "No Hiding Place", "Dixon of Dock Green", "Strange Report" and many more, until in 1971 he was offered the role of Dr. Lawrence Bingham in the LWT sitcoms "Doctor at Large" and later "Doctor in Charge". In 1972 he also had a main role in the ITV/Thames Television comedy "Alcock and Gander". In 1973 he starred as Robin Tripp, a trainee chef, in the flatshare sitcom "Man About the House" written by Johnnie Mortimer and Brian Cooke. When the series ended in 1976, he continued playing Robin Tripp in the spin-off sitcom "Robin's Nest", in which Robin sets up a bistro with funding from his girlfriend Vicky's (Tessa Wyatt) father James Nicholls (Tony Britton). "Robin's Nest" was a big success and the first UK sitcom to feature an unmarried couple cohabiting. To tie-in with the series, he wrote a recipe book called "Man About The Kitchen", which was published in 1980. He also wrote the "Robin's Nest" theme tune, which was arranged by Brian Bennett. During this period, O'Sullivan also appeared in adverts for British Gas. In 1979 he starred in the LWT children's drama series "Dick Turpin", in the title role, which ran until 1982, then he played the widower Simon Harrup in sitcom "Me and My Girl" broadcast from 1984 to 1988, co-starring Tim Brooke-Taylor and Joan Sanderson and also produced by LWT. In the 1990s, his profile decreased although he was never short of work. His final acting role was in a 1996 one-off satire entitled "Holed" with Tony Robinson about a suburban golf club. Recent years. O'Sullivan largely retired from public life in 1996. His last appearance on television was as a guest on a 1999 edition of "This Is Your Life" held in honour of his "Doctor..." co-star George Layton. O'Sullivan had himself been the subject of the show in 1974. O'Sullivan suffered a stroke late in 2003. He is now living in Brinsworth House, a retirement home for actors and performers in England, run by the Entertainment Artistes' Benevolent Fund. In 2006, O'Sullivan recorded a commentary for the DVD release of "Carry On Teacher".
1164663	Frank Alvin Silvera (July 24, 1914 – June 11, 1970) was a Jamaican-born American character actor and theatrical director. Silvera was known as "the man with a thousand faces" because of his ability to play a wide array of roles. Born in Kingston, Jamaica and raised in Boston, Silvera dropped out of law school in 1934 after winning his first stage role. During the 1930s and 1940s, he was active in numerous stage productions on and off Broadway and appeared in radio shows. Silvera made his film debut in 1952. Over the course of his 36-year career, he was cast in a wide variety of ethnic roles in film and television. Silvera also remained active in theatre. Silvera was nominated for a Best Actor Tony Award in 1963 for his role in "The Lady of the Camellias". He founded The Theatre of Being, a Los Angeles theatre for black actors, in 1965. At the time of his death he had a recurring role in the NBC Western series "The High Chaparral". Silvera had been married to Anna Lillian Quarles with whom he had two children; they divorced in 1963. Silvera died June 11, 1970, after being electrocuted while he was attempting to fix the garbage disposal in his Pasadena home. Early life. Silvera was born in Kingston, Jamaica, to a Spanish Jewish father and Jamaican mother. His family emigrated to the United States when he was six-years old, settling in Boston. In his youth, Silvera became interested in acting and began performing in amateur groups and at church. He attended English High School of Boston. Upon graduation, Silvera studied at Boston University and Northeastern Law School. Career. Silvera left Northeastern Law School in 1934 when he was cast in Paul Green's production of "Roll Sweet Chariot". He joined the New England Repertory Theatre where he appeared in productions of "MacBeth", "Othello", and "The Emperor Jones". He also worked at Federal Theatre and with the New Hampshire Repertory Theatre. In 1940, Silvera made his Broadway debut in a small role in "Big White Fog". His career was briefly interrupted when he joined the United States Navy in 1942 during World War II. Silvera was assigned to Camp Robert Smalls where he and Owen Dodson were put in charge of the entertainment. He also directed and acted in radio programs and appeared in USO shows. Silvera was honorably discharged in 1945. That same year, he joined the cast of "Anna Lucasta". He also became a member of the Actors Studio. In 1952, Silvera made his film debut in the western, "The Cimarron Kid". Because of his light complexion, he was cast in a wide variety of ethnic roles in films and television. Later that same year, he was cast as Mexican General Victoriano Huerta in "Viva Zapata!", starring Marlon Brando. The role marked the first time a major motion picture studio cast a non-white actor in the role of a non-white character. Silvera also portrayed the role in the stage production which opened at the Regent Theatre in New York City on February 28, 1952. He appeared in two films directed by Stanley Kubrick, "Fear and Desire" (1953) and "Killer's Kiss" (1955). In August 1955, he appeared on Broadway with Helen Hayes in the revival of Thornton Wilder's "The Skin of Our Teeth", which earned him favorable reviews. In November 1955, Silvera played John Pope, Sr., the Italian father of Ben Gazzara and Anthony Franciosa's characters on Broadway in Michael V. Gazzo's "A Hatful of Rain" (a role portrayed by Lloyd Nolan on screen). His performance was also praised by critics. Silvera made guest appearances in numerous television series, mainly dramas and westerns, including "Studio One in Hollywood", "Alfred Hitchcock Presents", "Bat Masterson", "Thriller", "Riverboat", "The Travels of Jaimie McPheeters", "The Untouchables", and "Bonanza". In 1962, he portrayed the role of Dr. Koslenko in "The Twilight Zone" episode "Person or Persons Unknown", opposite Richard Long. That same year, he played Minarii, a Polynesian man in the 1962 film "Mutiny on the Bounty", starring Marlon Brando. In 1963, Silvera was nominated for a Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play for his performance as Monsieur Duval in "The Lady of the Camellias".
1265427	Warner Leroy Baxter (March 29, 1889 – May 7, 1951) was an American actor, known for his role as The Cisco Kid in "In Old Arizona" (1929), for which he won the second Academy Award for Best Actor in the 1928–1929 Academy Awards. Warner Baxter started his movie career in silent movies. Baxter's most notable silent films are probably "The Great Gatsby" (1926) and "The Awful Truth (1925"). Today "The Great Gatsby" is one of many lost films of the silent era. When talkies came out, Baxter became even more famous. Baxter's most notable talkies are "In Old Arizona" (1929) "42nd Street" (1932), "Slave Ship" (1937), "Kidnapped" (1938), and the 1931 20 minute all-star ensemble short film, "The Slippery Pearls". Background. Baxter was born in Columbus, Ohio, and moved to San Francisco, California with his widowed mother Jane in 1898, when he was nine. Following the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, he and his family lived in a tent for two weeks. By 1910 Baxter was in vaudeville, and from there began acting on the stage. Career. Baxter originally worked as an insurance agent, sales manager and commercial traveller. Baxter began his movie career as an extra in 1914 in a stock company and quickly rose to become a star. He had his first starring role in 1921, in a film called "Sheltered Daughters", before starring in 48 features during the 1920s. His most notable silent roles were in "The Great Gatsby" (1926), "Aloma of the South Seas" (1926) as an island love interest opposite the famous dancer Gilda Gray and a handsome but alcoholic doctor in "West of Zanzibar" with Lon Chaney.
1063377	The Sundowners is a 1960 film that tells the story of an Australian outback family torn between the father's desires to continue his nomadic sheep-herding ways and the wife's and son's desire to settle down in one place. The movie stars Deborah Kerr, Robert Mitchum, and Peter Ustinov, with a supporting cast including Glynis Johns, Dina Merrill, Michael Anderson, Jr., and Chips Rafferty. The screenplay was adapted by Isobel Lennart from the novel of the same name; it was produced and directed by Fred Zinnemann. At the 33rd Academy Awards, "The Sundowners" was nominated for Best Actress in a Leading Role (Deborah Kerr), Best Actress in a Supporting Role (Glynis Johns), Best Director, Best Picture, and Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium. Plot. Irish-Australian Paddy Carmody (Mitchum) is a sheep drover and shearer, roving the sparsely-populated back country with his wife Ida (Kerr) and son Sean (Anderson). They are sundowners, constantly moving, pitching their tent wherever the sun goes down. Ida and Sean want to settle down, but Paddy has wanderlust and never wants to stay in one place for long. While passing through the bush the family meet refined Englishman Rupert Venneker and hire him to help drive a large herd of sheep to the town of Cawndilla. Along the way, they survive a dangerous brush fire. Mrs. Firth, who runs the pub in Cawndilla, takes a liking to Rupert. He takes to spending nights with her, but, like Paddy, he has no desire to be tied down. Ida convinces Paddy to take a job at a station shearing sheep; she serves as the cook, Rupert as a wool roller, and Sean as a tar boy. Ida enjoys the company of another woman, their employer's lonely wife, Jean Halstead. When fellow shearer Bluey Brown's pregnant wife Liz shows up unannounced, she sees the young woman through her first birth. Ida is saving the money the family earns for a farm that they stayed at for a night on the sheep drive. Even though Paddy has agreed to participate in a sheering contest against someone from a rival group, he decides to leave six weeks into the shearing season. Ida persuades him to stay. He loses the contest to an old veteran. Paddy wins a lot of money and a race horse playing Two-up. Owning such an animal has been his longstanding dream. They name him Sundowner and enter him, with Sean as his jockey, at local races on their travels after the shearing is done. Sean and Sundowner win their first race.
582884	Insan (English : Human) is a Bollywood film, released in January 2005. The film has a star cast including Ajay Devgan in blown supporting role with Akshay Kumar in male lead and Tusshar Kapoor, Esha Deol, Lara Dutta and Koena Mitra in the pivote roles. It is a remake of 2002 Telugu film "Khadgam" starring Srikanth, Prakash Raj and Ravi Teja. Synopsis. The story revolves around Akshay Kumar as an auto riksha driver Amjad Khan, Ajay Devgan as police DCP Ajit Rathod, Tusshar Kapoor as Avinash and they are fighting against corruption in politics, dealing with the Muslim society and fighting terrorism and also bringing order to the society. Box Office. The film did average business at the box office, where it ran for three weeks. It made a total gross of around Rs.11 crores. Soundtrack. The soundtrack was directed by Himesh Reshammiya and the lyrics were penned by Sameer.
1164582	Wanda Sykes (born March 7, 1964) is an American writer, comedian, actress, and voice artist. She earned the 1999 Emmy Award for her writing on "The Chris Rock Show". In 2004, "Entertainment Weekly" named Sykes as one of the 25 funniest people in America. She is well known for her role as Barbara Baran on "The New Adventures of Old Christine" and for her appearances on HBO's "Curb Your Enthusiasm". In November 2009, "The Wanda Sykes Show", her own late-night talkshow, premiered on Fox, airing Saturday nights, until it was cancelled in April 2010. Sykes has also had a successful career in film, appearing in "Monster-in-Law", "My Super Ex-Girlfriend", "Evan Almighty", and "License to Wed", and voiced characters in "Over the Hedge", "Barnyard", "Brother Bear 2", "Rio", and "". Early life. Sykes was born in Portsmouth, Virginia and raised in the Washington, D.C., area. Her mother, Marion Louise (née Peoples), worked as a banker, and her father, Harry Ellsworth Sykes, was a US Army colonel employed at the Pentagon. Sykes attended Arundel High School in Gambrills, Maryland, and went on to graduate from Hampton University where she earned a bachelor’s degree in marketing and is a member of Alpha Kappa Alpha. After college, her first job was as an officer with the National Security Agency (NSA), where she worked for five years. Sykes' family history was researched for an episode of the 2012 PBS genealogy program "Finding Your Roots With Henry Louis Gates Jr." Her ancestry was traced back to a 1683 court case involving her paternal ninth great-grandmother Elizabeth Banks, a free white woman and indentured servant, who gave birth to a biracial child Mary Banks fathered by a slave, who inherited her mother's free status. According to historian Ira Berlin, a specialist in the history of American slavery, the Sykes family history is "... the only such case that I know of in which it is possible to trace a black family rooted in freedom from the late 17th century to the present." Career. Not completely satisfied with her role with the NSA, Sykes began her stand-up career at a Coors Light Super Talent Showcase in Washington, DC, where she performed for the first time in front of a live audience in 1987. She continued to hone her talents at local venues while at the NSA until 1992, when she moved to New York City. Working for the Hal Leonard publishing house, she edited a book entitled "Polyrhythms - The Musician's Guide", by Peter Magadini. Her first big break came when opening for Chris Rock at Caroline's Comedy Club. In 1997, she joined the writing team on "The Chris Rock Show" and also made many appearances on the show. The writing team was nominated for four Emmys, and in 1999, won for Outstanding Writing for a Variety, Music, or Comedy Special. Since that time, she has appeared in such films as "Pootie Tang" and on TV shows such as "Curb Your Enthusiasm". In 2003, she starred in her own short-lived Fox network sitcom, "Wanda at Large". The same year, Sykes appeared in an hour-long Comedy Central special, "Tongue Untied". That network also ranked her No. 70 on its list of the 100 greatest all-time stand ups. She served as a correspondent for HBO's "Inside the NFL", hosted Comedy Central's popular show "Premium Blend", and voiced a recurring character named Gladys on Comedy Central's puppet show "Crank Yankers". She also had a short-lived show on Comedy Central called "Wanda Does It". In addition to her film and television work, she is also an author. She wrote "Yeah, I Said It", a book of humorous observations on various topics, published in September 2004. In 2006, she landed a recurring role on the sitcom "The New Adventures of Old Christine"; she became a series regular in the second season. She also guest starred in the "Will & Grace" episode "Buy, Buy Baby" in 2006. She provided voices for the 2006 films "Over the Hedge", "Barnyard", and "Brother Bear 2". She had a part in "My Super Ex-Girlfriend" and after playing in "Evan Almighty", had a bit part in "License to Wed". Sykes' first HBO Comedy Special, entitled "Wanda Sykes: Sick & Tired", premiered on October 14, 2006; it was nominated for a 2007 Emmy Award. In 2008, she performed as part of Cyndi Lauper's True Colors Tour for LGBT rights. In October 2008, Wanda Sykes appeared in a television ad for the Think Before You Speak Campaign, an advertising campaign by GLSEN aimed at curbing homophobic slang in youth communities. In the 30-second spot, she uses humor to scold a teenager for saying "that's so gay" when he really means "that is so bad." In March 2009, it was announced that Sykes would be the host of a new late-night talk show on Saturdays on "Fox", "The Wanda Sykes Show" which was scheduled to premiere November 7, 2009. In April 2009, she was named in "Out" magazine's "Annual Power 50 List", landing at number 35. In May 2009, Sykes was the featured entertainer for the annual White House Correspondents' Association dinner, becoming both the first African American woman and the first openly LGBT person to get the role. Cedric the Entertainer had been the first African American to become the featured entertainer in 2005. At this event, Sykes made controversial headlines as she responded to conservative radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh's comments regarding President Barack Obama. Limbaugh, in reference to Obama's presidential agenda, had said "I hope he fails". In response, Sykes quipped: "I hope his kidneys fail, how 'bout that? Needs a little waterboarding, that's what he needs." Her second comedy special, "Wanda Sykes: I'ma Be Me" premiered on HBO in October 2009. November 2009 saw the premier of "The Wanda Sykes Show", which starts with a monologue and continues with a panel discussion in a similar format to Bill Maher's shows "Real Time with Bill Maher" and "Politically Incorrect". She appeared as Miss Hannigan in a professional theatre production of "Annie" at The Media Theatre in Media, PA, a suburb 25 minutes southwest of Philadelphia. Her first appearance in a musical, she played the role from November 23 – December 12, 2010, and again from January 12–23, 2011. She voices the Witch in the "Bubble Guppies" episode "Bubble Puppy's Fin-tastic Fairlytale Adventure". In May 2013, Sykes was a featured entertainer at Olivia Travel’s 40th anniversary Music & Comedy Festival in Punta Cana, Dominican Republic. Personal life. Sykes was married to record producer Dave Hall from 1991 to 1998. In November 2008, she publicly came out as gay while at a same-sex marriage rally in Las Vegas regarding Proposition 8, which forbade new marriages of same-sex couples in California. One month earlier, Sykes married her wife, Alex, whom she met in 2006; they have two children. During a September 19, 2011 appearance on "The Ellen DeGeneres Show", Sykes announced that she had been diagnosed earlier in the year with ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS). Although DCIS is a non-invasive "stage zero breast cancer", Sykes had elected to have a bilateral mastectomy in order to remove her chances of getting breast cancer. Sykes splits time living in both Los Angeles and Media, PA, a suburb of Philadelphia. Activism. Sykes publicly expressed being devastated after California voters passed state Proposition 8. She said: "with the legislation that they passed, I can’t sit by and just watch. I just can’t do it." She has continued to be active in same-sex marriage issues hosting events and emceeing fundraisers. She has also worked with PETA on promoting dog anti-chaining legislation in her home state. She has been an outspoken supporter of Detroit's Ruth Ellis Center after the organization's staff sent Sykes a letter asking her to visit during her 2010 tour's stop in Detroit. Awards. Sykes has been nominated for seven Primetime Emmys, with one win (in 1999) for "Outstanding Writing for a Variety, Music or Comedy Special". In 2001, she won the American Comedy Award for "Outstanding Female Stand Up Comic". She won a Comedy Central Commie Award for "Funniest TV Actress in 2003". In 2010 she won a GLAAD award for promoting a good image of equal rights for gays and lesbians.
1059843	Samantha Eggar (born 5 March 1939) is an English film, television and voice actress. Early life. She was born Victoria Louise Samantha Marie Elizabeth Therese Eggar in Hampstead, London to Ralph (a brigadier general in the British Army) and a mother (Muriel) of Dutch descent. She was brought up as a Roman Catholic and educated at St Mary's Providence Convent, Woking, Surrey. Career. She began her acting career in several Shakespearean companies, and debuted on film in 1962 in "The Wild and the Willing". Also in 1962 she played Ethel Le Neve in the film "Dr. Crippen", alongside Donald Pleasence. Eggar starred in the comedy "Walk Don't Run" (1966) with Cary Grant in his last picture and Jim Hutton, father of actor Timothy Hutton. She received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actress for "The Collector" (1965), directed by William Wyler. She won a Golden Globe award for this performance and was also named Best Actress at the Cannes Film Festival.
582724	Ab Tumhare Hawale Watan Saathiyo is a Bollywood film released on 24 December 2004. Amitabh Bachchan, Akshay Kumar, Bobby Deol (in a dual role), Divya Khosla, Sandali Sinha and Nagma star in the film. Anil Sharma is the director of the film. He earlier directed the blockbuster "" (2001). Despite a huge star cast the film was a box office failure. The film released to average reviews. Anu Malik is the music director of the film. Plot. Major General Amarjeet Singh (Amitabh Bachchan) is a dedicated officer for the Indian army. His son Lieutenant Commander Vikramjeet Singh (Bobby Deol) follows in his footsteps and joins the navy. In 1971 during the Indo-Pak war and the formation of Bangladesh, Lt. Commander Vikramjeet Singh has a ship in his command and a regiment of soldiers of the Indian Army, commandeered by his dad, Major General Amarjeet Singh. The ship comes under attack by a submarine of the Pakistani Navy, undergoes damage, and sinks along with Vikramjeet, but not before he courageously rescues about a hundred of trapped army soldiers.
1035784	Timothy Julian Brooke-Taylor OBE (born 17 July 1940) is an English comic actor. He became active in performing in comedy sketches while at Cambridge University, and became President of the Footlights club, touring internationally with the Footlights revue in 1964. Becoming wider known to the public for his work on BBC Radio with "I'm Sorry, I'll Read That Again", he moved into television with "At Last the 1948 Show" working together with old Cambridge friends John Cleese and Graham Chapman. He is most well known as one member of the Goodies, starring in the TV series throughout the 1970s and picking up international recognition in Australia and New Zealand. He has also appeared as an actor in various sitcoms, and has been a panellist on "I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue" for nearly 40 years. Early life and education. Brooke-Taylor was born in Buxton, Derbyshire, England, the grandson of Francis Pawson, a parson who played centre forward for England's football team in the 1880s. His mother was an international lacrosse player and his father a solicitor. He was expelled from primary school at the early age of five and a half. Brooke-Taylor was then schooled at Thorn Leigh Pre-Preparatory School, Holm Leigh Preparatory School (where he won a cup for his prowess as a bowler in the school cricket team) and Winchester College which he left with seven O-levels and two A-levels in English and History. After teaching for a year at a preparatory school in Berkhamsted and a term back at Holm Leigh School as a teacher, he studied at Pembroke College at the University of Cambridge. There he read Economics and Politics before changing to read Law, and mixed with other budding comedians, including John Cleese, Graham Chapman, Bill Oddie and Jonathan Lynn in the prestigious Cambridge University Footlights Club (of which Brooke-Taylor became President in 1963). The Footlights Club revue, "A Clump of Plinths" was so successful during its Edinburgh Festival Fringe run, that the show was renamed as "Cambridge Circus" and the revue transferred to the West End in London, and then later taken to both New Zealand and to Broadway in the United States in September 1964. He was also active in the Pembroke College drama society, the Pembroke Players. Career. Brooke-Taylor moved swiftly into BBC Radio with the fast-paced comedy show "I'm Sorry, I'll Read That Again" in which he performed and co-wrote. As the screeching eccentric Lady Constance de Coverlet, he could be relied upon to generate the loudest audience response of many programmes in this long-running series merely with her unlikely catchphrase "did somebody call?" uttered after a comic and transparent feed-line, as their adventure story reached its climax or cliffhanger ending. Other members of "I'm Sorry, I'll Read That Again" were John Cleese, Bill Oddie, Graeme Garden, David Hatch and Jo Kendall. In the mid-'60s, Brooke-Taylor performed in the TV series "On the Braden Beat" with Canadian Bernard Braden, taking over the slot then-recently vacated by Peter Cook in his guise as E.L. Wisty. Brooke-Taylor played a reactionary right-wing city gent who believed he was the soul of tolerance. In 1967, Brooke-Taylor became a writer/performer on the television comedy series "At Last the 1948 Show", with John Cleese, Graham Chapman and Marty Feldman. The "Four Yorkshiremen" sketch was co-written by the four writers/performers of the series. The sketch was one of the few sketches which survived the destruction of the series (by the tapes being wiped), by David Frost's Paradine Productions (which produced the series), and the sketch appears on the DVD of "At Last the 1948 Show". The "Four Yorkshiremen" sketch has also been performed during Amnesty concert performances (by members of Monty Python – occasionally including other comedians and actors in place of Monty Python regulars – notably Rowan Atkinson and Alan Rickman), as well as being performed during "Monty Python Live at the Hollywood Bowl" and on other Monty Python shows. Footage of Tim Brooke-Taylor and John Cleese, from "At Last the 1948 Show", was shown on the documentary special "". Brooke-Taylor also took part in Frost's pilot programme "How to Irritate People" in 1968, designed to sell what would later be recognised as the Monty Python style of comedy to the American market. Many of the sketches were later revived in the Monty Python TV series, notably the job interview sketch where Brooke-Taylor played a nervous interviewee tormented by interviewer John Cleese. The programme was also notable as the first collaboration of John Cleese and Michael Palin. In 1968–69, Brooke-Taylor was also a cast member and writer on the television comedy series "Marty" starring Marty Feldman, with John Junkin and Roland MacLeod. A compilation of the two series of "Marty" has been released on a BBC DVD with the title of "The Best of Marty Feldman". During this period Brooke-Taylor appeared as two characters in the film "One Man Band" directed by Orson Welles, however the project was never completed and remains unreleased. At around the same time, Brooke-Taylor made two series of "Broaden Your Mind" with Graeme Garden (and Bill Oddie joining the series for the second season). Describing itself as "An Encyclopedia of the Air", this series was a string of comedy sketches (often lifted from "I'm Sorry I'll Read That Again"), linked (loosely) by a weekly running theme. Unfortunately, nothing but a few minutes of film inserts exist for this programme, though home-made off-air audio recordings survive for both seasons. Its success led to the commissioning of "The Goodies", also with Bill Oddie and Graeme Garden. First transmitted on BBC2 in November 1970, "The Goodies" was a huge television success, running for over a decade on both BBC TV and (in its final year) UK commercial channel London Weekend Television, spawning many spin-off books and successful records. During the run of the Goodies, Brooke-Taylor took part in the BBC radio series "Hello, Cheeky!", a bawdy stand up comedy show also starring Barry Cryer and John Junkin. The series transferred to television briefly, produced by the UK commercial franchise Yorkshire Television. He also appeared on television in British sitcoms, including "You Must Be the Husband" with Diane Keen, "His and Hers" with Madeline Smith, and "Me and My Girl" with Richard O'Sullivan. Brooke-Taylor also appeared regularly in advertisements, including the Christmas commercials for the Brentford Nylons chain of fabric stores, and in a public information film for the now-defunct E111 form. In 1971, he played the short, uncredited role of a computer scientist in the film "Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory". After the end of "The Goodies" on UK television, Brooke-Taylor also worked again with Garden and Oddie on the animated television comedy series "Bananaman", in which Brooke-Taylor was the narrator, as well as voicing the characters of King Zorg of the Nurks, Eddie the Gent, Auntie and Appleman. He also lent his voice to the children's TV series "Gideon". Tim appeared, with Bill Oddie and Graeme Garden, in the Amnesty International show "A Poke in the Eye (With a Sharp Stick)" (during which they sang their hit song "Funky Gibbon"), and also appeared in the Amnesty International show "The Secret Policeman's Other Ball" in the sketches "Top of the Form" (with John Cleese, Graham Chapman, John Bird, John Fortune, Rowan Atkinson and Griff Rhys Jones), and "Cha Cha Cha" (with John Cleese and Graham Chapman). Brooke-Taylor, Graeme Garden, and Bill Oddie also appeared on "Top of the Pops" with their song "Funky Gibbon". Brooke-Taylor also appeared with Graeme Garden in the theatre production of "The Unvarnished Truth". Other BBC radio programmes in which Brooke-Taylor played a part include the self-styled "antidote to panel games" "I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue" which started in 1972, and Tim still appears regularly. On 18 February 1981 Brooke-Taylor was the subject of Thames Television's "This Is Your Life". Graeme Garden was a regular team captain on the political satire game show "If I Ruled the World". Tim Brooke-Taylor appeared as a guest in one episode, and, during the game "I Couldn't Disagree More" he proposed that it was high time "The Goodies" episodes were repeated. Garden was obliged by the rules of the game to rebut this statement, and replied "I couldn't disagree more... it was time to repeat them ten, fifteen years ago." This was followed by uproarious applause from the studio audience. In 2004, Brooke-Taylor and Graeme Garden were co-presenters of Channel 4's daytime game show, "Beat the Nation", in which they indulged in usual game show "banter", but took the quiz itself seriously. He has appeared on stage in Australia and England, usually as a middle class Englishman. Around 1982, he branched out into pantomime as the Dame in "Dick Whittington". He is also the author (and co-author) of several humorous books based mainly around his radio and television work and the sports of golf and cricket. He also took part in the "Pro-Celebrity Golf" television series (opposite Bruce Forsyth). Brooke-Taylor appeared on the premiere episode of the BBC golf-based game show "Full Swing". Brooke-Taylor was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2011 Birthday Honours. Personal life. Brooke-Taylor married Christine Weadon in 1968 and they have two sons, Ben and Edward. He lives in Berkshire. Brooke-Taylor was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2011 Birthday Honours for services to light entertainment. Bibliography. As sole author As co-author Other information. Tim Brooke-Taylor served the University of St Andrews as Rector between 1979 and 1982.[http://www.ukgameshows.com/ukgs/Tim_Brooke-Taylor] He is an honorary Vice-President of Derby County F.C..
1164109	Leif Garrett (born Leif Per Nervik; November 8, 1961) is an American singer, actor and television personality. He became famous in the late 1970s as a teen idol, but received much publicity in later life for his drug abuse and legal troubles. Early life. Garrett was born in Hollywood, California to Carolyn Stellar and Rik Nervik, and started his entertainment career at age five. Garrett's father was absent for most of his life, but Garrett has since reconciled with him, stating "He feels so badly about missing the years when you know you’re so proud to have son, like from age 12 to manhood, when you help influence and guide your son’s life. Well, he missed out on all that stuff. He is regretting missing that and he now treats me like that." Garrett and his sister, Dawn Lyn of "My Three Sons", worked a variety of small acting jobs. They co-starred in the horror movie "Devil Times Five" as juvenile mental patients who almost innocently go on a murder spree at an isolated ski resort. Dawn and Leif also guest-starred in an episode of "Gunsmoke" as well as "Wonder Woman". In the first few years of his career Garrett performed under the name of "Leif Per"; however, casting agents found the name difficult to pronounce (Per is pronounced the same as "pair" or "pear"). In 1971, Garrett received a check in the mail incorrectly addressed to a "Leif Garrett". After Garrett and his mother undertook research on the name, they found that the name "Garrett" held connotations of strength, so the name stuck. Career. Acting career. Garrett’s more notable performances include the breakthrough role of Jimmy Henderson in "Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice" (1969); the protagonist’s son Mike Pusser from the "Walking Tall" movies (1973, 1975, 1977) and the recurring role of Zack Russell on the ABC TV series "Family". Leif also played the role of Leonard Unger, the son of Felix Unger (Tony Randall), on the ABC series "The Odd Couple", a part that previously was played by Willie Aames. In the fall of 1975, Garrett, at fourteen, appeared in the role of Endy Karras in a 12-week CBS drama series "Three for the Road", with Alex Rocco as his father, Peter Karras, and Vincent Van Patten as his older brother, John Karras. The story line is that of a father and two sons, grief-stricken over the death of their wife and mother sell their house, buy a recreational vehicle, and roam throughout the United States. Garrett’s appearance in the program triggered a response from teenage girls, and led to his first appearances in teenage magazines, such as "Tiger Beat". Garrett also played alongside Lee Van Cleef in two Spaghetti Westerns shot in Israel "God's Gun" and "Kid Vengeance". Music career. In autumn of 1976, Garrett signed a recording contract with Atlantic Records and recorded his first album, "Leif Garrett". The album was released in 1977, and his first four singles charted modestly on the US Hot 100. All of these hits were covers of late 1950s and early 1960s hits such as "Runaround Sue." In mid-1978 he signed with Scotti Brothers Records and recorded his second album, "Feel the Need". Its first single, "I Was Made For Dancin'", reached #10 on the US Hot 100 and #4 on the British chart in early-1979. It became his greatest hit in both the US and the UK. However, subsequent singles failed to crack the Top 20 in either country. Nevertheless, Garrett continued to record, releasing the albums "Same Goes For You" (1979), "Can't Explain" (1980) and "My Movie of You" (1981) in quick succession. In 1986 Garrett joined the Church of Scientology and provided lead vocals to the song "The Way to Happiness", as well as backing vocals to the title track of the L. Ron Hubbard album "The Road to Freedom". However, Garrett left the church in 1992 after becoming a qualified Scientologist. Return to acting. In the 1980s Garrett returned to acting, appearing in a small role as Bob Sheldon in the 1983 Francis Ford Coppola film "The Outsiders". In 1985 he starred in "Shaker Run" as a mechanic and in "Thunder Alley" as the lead singer of a pop band that is torn apart by drugs. Other notable Leif Garrett movies from the decade include "Delta Fever" and the horror film "Cheerleader Camp". 1990–2005: Return to singing and acting and new career with theatre. After a break from 1990 to 1995, Garrett returned to acting and singing, appearing in the 1995 low-budget horror film "Dominion", touring with The Melvins and recording vocals for their cover of "Smells Like Teen Spirit" on "The Crybaby" (2000). In 1998 a greatest hits compilation, "The Leif Garrett Collection", was released. Garrett, however, has stated: "My former record label was bought out. The label was started by me … meaning my music started it, funded it. And then it was bought out by some company that released the Greatest Hits Collection. Not only have I not seen any royalties from that, but they wanted me to promote it — the compensation being a couple of CDs." In 1999 he formed the band Godspeed with Christopher Wade Damerst and Michael Scott (The Distortions, Deadtime Stories). They recorded a three-song EP on Garrett's own label - Tongue and Groove Records - and debuted on "The Rosie O'Donnell Show", but broke up after only a few performances. Garrett's stage work includes playing the title role in "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat" and, in late 2000, appearing in the National Theatre of the Deaf's production of "A Child's Christmas In Wales". He also appeared in summer stock at The Barn Theatre's production of "Old Timer" in 2001. In the same year, he voiced himself in the animated television series "Family Guy" episode, "The Thin White Line". In 2003 Garrett appeared as himself in the David Spade film "". He also co-wrote and sang "Former Child Star" for the film's soundtrack and was one of the singers of "Child Stars on Your Television", which played over the ending credits. 2006–present. In September 2006, Garrett appeared on the celebrity edition of "Fear Factor". He won the grand prize of $50,000. On New Year's Eve 2006, Garrett first appeared in Las Vegas with retro act Original Idols LIVE!, hosted by Barry Williams. The show also featured the Bay City Rollers, Bo Donaldson and The Heywoods and The Cowsills, with selected appearances by Merrill Osmond, Tony DeFranco and Danny Bonaduce. In August 2007, CMT cast Garrett in the short-lived "Ty Murray’s Celebrity Bull Riding Challenge", among nine celebrities appearing on the show. However, he quit after one episode, citing soreness and lack of desire to continue. In November 2007, Garrett released the album "Three Sides of...", which constituted songs he recorded with his current band F8 and his 1990s band Godspeed as well as some new songs. In 2008 the producers of TruTV's "" added Garrett to their cast, which features comedic commentary from celebrities like Garrett who have had brushes with the law. Garrett has frequently spoofed his troubled past and participates in a wide variety of sketches and skits written specially for him by the show's producers. In a 2010 episode, Garrett reenacted his most recent arrest with two actors portraying police officers. Garrett toured South Korea in May 2010, with shows in Seoul and Pusan. This marked the 30th anniversary when Garrett performed in Korea in June 1980. He embarked on another tour of the country in 2013. Garrett was a cast member in the fourth season of "Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew", which documented Garrett's struggle with addiction to heroin. The season premiered December 1, 2010. Garrett's mother, Carolyn Stellar, who was battling Stage 4 lung cancer, appeared in Episode 7, which was filmed during Family Day, when the recovering addicts were visited by their loved ones to discuss how their addiction affected their family relationship. In the early 2010s Garrett began collaborating with punk-rock artist and songwriter Craig Else. Garrett has released two digital-exclusive singles sharing Else's credits, "Everything" (released in 2010) and "Help You, Make You" (released in 2012). The two have also recorded a cover of Neil Young's "Old Man". Personal life. Beginning in 1979 Garrett dated English actress Nicolette Sheridan; the two split six years later. Two decades later, Garrett credited Sheridan for helping him at the start of his career, and said of her "She's a special person in my life." Garrett also dated celebrities such as his former "Family" co-star Kristy McNichol, Tatum O'Neal and Justine Bateman. In the 1990s Garrett was also in a long-term relationship with actress Elaine Bilstad, who died in 1999 of a heart problem. Of Bilstad, Garrett said: "The person that I really wanted to spend the rest of my life with passed away and that one hurt real bad. She was an angel. She was amazing to me — that someone of that much beauty, not only physically, but also in her heart and in her soul could be taken from here so quickly." In a 2012 interview he stated, "At 16 I always used to say that I never want to have a kid because I don’t want to bring it into this world. And I’ve kind of kept to that — but my paternal instincts have become very strong." He also expressed his wishes to adopt a child whom he would name Kerrie. Legal troubles. In 1979, three days before his 18th birthday, Garrett crashed his car while under the influence of methaqualone and alcohol. The accident left his passenger and best friend Roland Winkler a paraplegic. Although Garrett publicly promised to look after Winkler, the Winkler family filed a $25 million negligence lawsuit against him. Garrett insisted that he did not have the money, and the suit was eventually settled out of court for $7.1 million, leaving the friends estranged until Winkler was approached by VH1 to film a 1999 episode of the television series "Behind The Music". The episode featured Garrett's reunion with an apology to Winkler. In 1999, Los Angeles police arrested Garrett in the MacArthur Park area after he allegedly tried to buy narcotics from undercover officers. On January 14, 2006, when Garrett was arrested on a Los Angeles subway platform for not having a ticket, police found drugs in his possession. Because of an outstanding warrant for violating probation in a cocaine-related arrest, he was held without bail. On May 11, after failing to complete court-ordered drug rehabilitation, he was sentenced to 90 days in jail and three years probation. On February 1, 2010, Garrett was arrested again for possession of narcotics. After denying having any drugs in his possession, he finally admitted to police that he had black tar heroin in his shoe. He posted $10,000 bail and was charged with a felony count of heroin possession. On October 18, 2010, Garrett pleaded no contest to heroin possession in Los Angeles and entered a court-ordered rehab program. Discography. Other recording appearances. Garrett has also sung on releases by The Melvins ("The Crybaby"), The Crush Ups ("Betty Ford For X-Mas") and Liberty n' Justice ("Sight Unseen" on "Soundtrack of a Soul"), among others.
582717	Phir Hera Pheri () is an Indian comedy film sequel to 2000 classic Bollywood film "Hera Pheri" directed by Neeraj Vora. The film stars the three men from the previous film Akshay Kumar, Paresh Rawal and Suniel Shetty. Bipasha Basu and Rimi Sen are the leading actresses of the film. The movie released on 9 June 2006. The movie was inspired from Guy Ritchie's Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, and a sequence inspired by Charlie Chaplin's The Circus. It was one of the highest grossing Bollywood film of 2006. The film was the first commercially successful sequel in Bollywood, starting a trend of sequels. Plot. "Hera Pheri" ended with the trio of Raju (Akshay Kumar), Shyam (Suniel Shetty), and Baburao Ganapatrao Apte (Paresh Rawal) rich and rolling in money. "Phir Hera Pheri" tells the story of what happens "after" they become rich. The film opens with a prologue bringing the audience up to date, stating that each has suffered a personal loss as well as a gain. They all became rich, but Shyam lost his love, Anuradha in an automobile accident, Raju's mother has died after battling diseases and Baburao—despite having not much to lose in the first place—has lost his little common sense that he possessed previously. The three men are living life king size in a massive bungalow and splurging on various luxuries. Raju hears about an idea of doubling his wealth from a con woman Anuradha (Bipasha Basu) claiming to be a bank manager and convinces Shyam and Baburao to go along with it. Raju arranged at first Rs. 30 lakh from Shyam and Baburao and then Rs. 50 lakh by selling their bungalow and collected Rs. 80 lakh. After falling short of Rs. 20 lakh he convinces a small-time goon on the street, Pappu (Rajpal Yadav) to contribute Rs. 20 lakh (2 million) so that he can come up with the minimum deposit of Rs. 1 crore in order to double their money. They invest Rs. 1 crore (10 million). Three weeks (21 Days) later Raju, Shyam and Baburao find out that it was all a scam and become penniless. The goon is also in trouble because he had borrowed money from a dreaded gangster who suffers from a lisp, Tiwari (Sharat Saxena), who will kill him if he doesn't pay up. Raju, Shyam and Baburao now have three days to come up with Rs. 40 laks to pay back the goon or else they will be killed. They have to leave their bunglow and live in a chawl where Anjali's (Rimi Sen) father is an accountant. Then they steal drugs from their neighbor (Johnny Lever) who also stole drugs from another don Nanji Bhai(Milind Gunaji). The drugs are worth about Rs. 3 to 4 crores (thirty million). They think that they can sell them to Kachara Seth (Manoj Joshi) and pay off Tiwari and they would also become rich. But their neighbor once again steals the drugs from them. They run into Anuradha and she tells them that the entire scam was hatched by Kabeera (the gangster from the first "Hera Pheri") to get revenge on the trio, and that the only reason she went along with it was because they were holding her niece hostage (Anuradha's sister was part of the first movie's kidnapping plot). Their money was converted to diamonds to pay the ransom, but she fled with them once she discovered her niece had escaped. In the end, all guys end up in a circus show to get hold of the diamonds. These are strewn all over the ground in public by a gorilla. Raju escapes with Pappu's cellphone and three antique guns with him, which are worth Rs. 5 to 6 crores and he does not know about it. So he tries to throw the guns into the river to get rid of the whole trouble. But fortunately for him, the guns get stuck somewhere. He tries to go down and throw them into the water. When Baburao and Shyam come to know about the worth of the gun from Pappu who is arrested, they call him on Pappu's phone. The film ends with Raju getting a hold of the guns with his phone ringing. On the other side Shyam and Baburao anxiously waiting for Raju to receive their call. Soundtrack. The music is composed by Himesh Reshammiya. Lyrics are penned by Sameer.
329381	Dedrick D'Mon Rolison, (born August 9, 1971), better known by his stage name Mack 10 is an American rapper and actor. He was a member of hip hop trio Westside Connection, along with Ice Cube and WC. He is of African-American descent. He gets his nickname from the MAC-10 submachine gun. Mack 10 made his first appearance on Ice Cube's "Bootlegs & B-Sides" compilation on the track "What Can I Do? (Remix.)" Rolison married Tionne "T-Boz" Watkins, from R&B trio TLC in August 2000. They have one daughter named Chase Anela Rolison, born on October 20, 2000. In 2004, T-Boz filed for divorce. Rolison is also the founder of independent record label Hoo-Bangin Records, and has sold nearly 11 million records independently combining his solo and group works with Westside Connection. Career. During the mid-'90s, when West Coast rap reigned supreme, Mack 10 emerged as a close associate of Ice Cube he debuted on the Friday soundtrack (1995) with "Take a Hit" and enjoyed several years of considerable commercial success before his popularity faded toward the end of the decade. The Los Angeles-area rapper's greatest success came early in his career, on the albums Mack 10 (1995) released by Priority Records, Bow Down (1996) with the supergroup Westside Connection a collaboration with Ice Cube and WC (of WC and the Maad Circle). "Based On A True Story" (1997), and "The Recipe" (1998), which between them included a string of notable hits ("Foe Life," "On Them Thangs," "Bow Down," "Gangstas Make the World Go Round," "Backyard Boogie," "Money's Just a Touch Away"). Mack 10's fortunes began to fade with The Paper Route (2000), his first album to fall short of either platinum or gold sales status, and his first to not spawn a significant hit. Bang Or Ball (2001), released by Cash Money Records, signaled a new direction for Mack 10, the album performed fairly well, going certified gold but did not quite match the commercial success of his mid- to late-'90s output. In subsequent years, he jumped back and forth from independent to major-label status and although not performing at his best on the charts, managed to stay relevant in the industry.
1163017	Christopher Peter Meloni (born April 2, 1961) is an American actor. He is best known for his television roles as NYPD Detective Elliot Stabler on the NBC police drama "", and as inmate Chris Keller on the HBO prison drama "Oz". In June 2012, he returned to HBO, as the vampire Roman on "True Blood". He appeared as US Air Force Colonel Nathan Hardy in "Man of Steel". Early life. Meloni was born in Washington, D.C., the youngest of three children (he has a brother and sister) of Cecile (née Chagnon), a homemaker, and Dr. Charles Robert Meloni, an endocrinologist. His maternal ancestry is French Canadian and his paternal ancestry is Sardinian (Italy). "Meloni" is a typical and widely diffused Sardinian surname. He attended St. Stephen's School (now St. Stephen's & St. Agnes School) and he was Football quarterback in High School and the University of Colorado at Boulder, where he first studied acting, graduating with a degree in history in 1983. After graduation, Meloni went to New York where he continued his studies with Sanford Meisner at the famed Neighborhood Playhouse, as well as the Center for the Media Arts. Acting career. Meloni worked as a construction worker prior to getting his acting break. He has also worked as a bouncer, bartender, and personal trainer. Meloni worked his way up the acting ladder with commercials, short-lived TV series, and bit parts in a number of films. His first noticeable role was as the hotheaded son of a Mafia Don in the 1996 thriller "Bound". He also appeared as Robbie Sinclair's friend Spike in "Dinosaurs" and Julia Roberts' fiance in "Runaway Bride". "Oz" and "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit". From 1998 to 2003, Meloni portrayed the bisexual criminal Chris Keller on the HBO series "Oz". "Law & Order" producer Dick Wolf signed Meloni to play Elliot Stabler on "" in 1999; until "Oz" went off the air in 2003, Meloni appeared on both "Oz" and "Law & Order: SVU" simultaneously. In 2006 Meloni was nominated for an "Emmy Award", in the category of Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series, for his role as Elliot Stabler. In May 2011, Meloni announced that he would not be returning to "SVU" in fall 2011 for its 13th season after the failure of negotiations over a new contract. Meloni stated he would consider guest starring on "SVU" in the 14th season. "I'm always willing to consider. I had 12 great years on the show. I loved the people and I loved that character," Meloni said at San Diego Comic-Con International on July 14, 2012, "There’s no bad blood there. We’ll just see when it comes. It’s still doing OK, I guess." Other work. He returned to his comedic roots when he portrayed the character "Gene" in "Wet Hot American Summer" in 2001, the puppet-loving pediatrician Dr. Norris in a 2003 episode of "Scrubs", and the character of "Freakshow" (albeit in heavy make-up) in the 2004 comedy "Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle". He would make another cameo in its sequel, "Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay", as "The Grand Wizard". In 2005, he appeared on episode 107 of MTV2's adult puppet show "Wonder Showzen" in a series of parody PSAs warning of the threat of cooties. He also had an uncredited role as a gay hotel desk clerk in "Fear and Loathing In Las Vegas". In July 2009, Meloni portrayed renowned DC Comics character Hal Jordan/Green Lantern in the DC Universe Animated Original Movie "". He briefly appeared in the first episode of the Comedy Central series "Michael & Michael Have Issues" portraying himself for a fake movie starring Michael Ian Black and Michael Showalter. Meloni played Colonel Hardy, a supporting role, in the Superman reboot "Man of Steel" (2013). That year he also played Brooklyn Dodgers manager Leo Durocher in the historical baseball feature "42". Chadwick Boseman starred as Jackie Robinson in the film. On November 30, 2011, it was announced that Meloni is in talks with HBO bosses to take on a 'major role' in the fifth season of "True Blood" as an 'incredibly powerful' vampire. It was later confirmed that he would be taking a role as a series regular for season 5 as Roman, an "ancient, powerful vampire who holds the fate of Bill and Eric in his hands." He'll also be starring in the upcoming film "They Came Together". Public appearances. Meloni has appeared in many public service announcements in support of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) issues. In 1999, Meloni jokingly kissed Lee Tergesen (who played Tobias Beecher, Meloni's on-screen boyfriend on "Oz") at an awards dinner for GLAAD. In 2006, Meloni was given the Human Rights Campaign's Equality Award, along with actor Jake Gyllenhaal and director Ang Lee, for his work on behalf of LGBT issues. In 2004 and 2006 respectively, Meloni competed in both the fourth and the eighth series of Bravo's "Celebrity Poker Showdown"; in the eighth series he finished in second place, behind Robin Tunney, and ahead of Macy Gray, Joy Behar, and Andy Dick. He played for Feed the Children. He also appeared on "Celebrity Jeopardy!" on November 10, 2006, defeating fellow "Law & Order" stars Sam Waterston and Kathryn Erbe. Meloni split his $50,000 charity prize between the Big Apple Circus Clown Care Program and the Montefiore Advocacy Center. Meloni was included in the 2006 edition of "People" magazine's Sexiest Men Alive. Personal life. Meloni is married to production designer (Doris) Sherman Meloni (née Williams) and they have two children, daughter Sophia Eva Meloni (b. March 23, 2001), and son Dante Meloni (b. January 2, 2004). He has a Cubist-inspired representation of the crucifixion of Christ tattoo on his upper left arm, as well as a butterfly tattoo on his left upper thigh and a Chinese astrological chart of his family on his right lower leg. In 2007, Meloni was inducted into his high school's athletic Hall of Fame as a member of the undefeated 1978 football team, for which he was quarterback. Meloni has been a longtime gay rights supporter and in 2011, he joined the Human Rights Campaign's "New Yorkers for Marriage Equality" campaign. As of 2012, Meloni resides in New Canaan, Connecticut. Awards and nominations. Emmy Awards PRISM Awards
64375	Nicholas of Kues (1401 – August 11, 1464), also referred to as Nicolaus Cusanus and Nicholas of Cusa, was a German philosopher, theologian, jurist, and astronomer. One of the first German proponents of Renaissance humanism, he made spiritual and political contributions in European history. A notable example of this is his mystical or spiritual writings on "learned ignorance," as well as his participation in power struggles between Rome and the German states of the Holy Roman Empire. Papal legate to Germany from 1446, he was appointed cardinal for his merits by Pope Nicholas V in 1448 and Prince–Bishop of Brixen two years later. In 1459 he became vicar general in the Papal States. Life. Nicholas of Cusa or Kues (Latinized as "Cusa") was the second of four children of Johan Krebs (or Cryfftz) and Katherina Roemer. His father was "a prosperous boat owner and ferryman." He entered the Faculty of Arts of the Heidelberg University in 1416 as "a cleric of the Diocese of Trier", studying the liberal arts. He seemed to have left Heidelberg soon afterwards, as he received his doctorate in canon law from the University of Padua in 1423. In Padua, he met with the later cardinals Julian Cesarini and Domenico Capranica and became friends with the mathematician Paolo dal Pozzo Toscanelli. Afterwards, he entered the University of Cologne in 1425 as "a doctor of canon law," which he appears to have both taught and practiced there. In Cologne, he made friends with the scholastic theologian Heymeric de Campo. Following a brief period in Cologne, Nicholas returned to his hometown and became secretary to Otto of Ziegenhain, the Prince–Archbishop of Trier. Otto appointed him canon and dean at the stift of Saint Florinus in Koblenz affiliated with numerous prebends. In 1427 he was sent to Rome as an episcopal delegate. The next year he travelled to Paris to study the writings of Ramon Llull. At the same time he rejected a calling by the newly established University of Leuven. He acquired great knowledge in the research of ancient and mediæval manuscripts as well as in textual criticism and the examination of primary sources. In 1433 he identified the "Donation of Constantine" as a fake, confirmed by Lorenzo Valla a few years later, and revealed the forgery of the "Pseudo-Isidorian Decretals". He made friends with the Austrian astronomer Georg von Peuerbach and advocated a reform of the Julian calendar and the Easter computus, which, however, was not realized until the introduction of the Gregorian calendar in 1582. After the Archbishop Otto of Trier had died in 1430, Pope Martin V appointed the Speyer bishop Raban of Helmstatt his successor. Nevertheless the Electorate was contested by opposing parties, and in 1432 Nicholas attended the Council of Basel representing the Cologne dean Ulrich von Manderscheid, one of the claimants, who hoped to prevail against the new Pope Eugene IV. Nicholas stressed the determining influence of the cathedral chapter and its given right to participate in the succession policy, which even places the pope under an obligation to seek a consent. His efforts were to no avail in regard to Ulrich's ambitions; however, Nicholas' pleadings earned him a great reputation as an intermediary and diplomat. While present at the council, he wrote his first work, "De concordantia catholica" ("The Catholic Concordance"), a synthesis of ideas on church and empire balancing hierarchy with consent. This work remained useful to critics of the papacy long after Nicholas left Basel. Initially as conciliarist, Nicholas approached to his university friend Cardinal Julian Cesarini, who had tried to reconcile pope and council, combining reform and hierarchic order. Nicholas supported transfer of the council to Italy to meet with the Greeks, who needed aid against the Ottoman Turks. He arbitrated in the conflict with the Hussites. Between the summer of 1437 and early 1438 he was a member of the delegation sent to Constantinople with the pope's approval to bring back the Byzantine emperor and his representatives to the papally summoned Council of Florence of 1439, which was attempting to bring the Eastern Orthodox Church into union with the Western Catholic Church. The reunion achieved at this conference turned out to be very brief. Nicholas would later claim (in the postfaced dedicatory letter of "On Learned Ignorance", which Nicholas finished writing on 12 February 1440) that he had chosen to write on this metaphysical topic because of a shipboard experience of divine illumination while on the ship returning from this mission to Constantinople. After a successful career as a papal envoy, he was made a cardinal by Pope Nicholas V in 1448 or 1449. In 1450 he was both named Bishop of Brixen, in County of TyrollTyrol, and commissioned as a papal legate to the German lands to spread the message of reform. This latter role, his 'Great Legation' of 1450-2, involved travel of almost 3000 miles, preaching, teaching and reforming. He became known as "the Hercules of the Eugenian cause". His local councils enacted reforms, many of which were not successful. Pope Nicholas canceled some of Nicholas' decrees, and the effort to discourage pilgrimages to venerate the bleeding hosts of Wilsnack (the so-called Holy Blood of Wilsnack) was unsuccessful. His work as bishop between 1452 and 1458 – trying to impose reforms and reclaim lost diocesan revenues – was opposed by Duke Sigismund of Austria. The duke imprisoned Nicholas in 1460, for which Pope Pius II excommunicated Sigismund and laid an interdict on his lands. Nicholas of Cusa returned to Rome, but was never able to return to his bishopric. He died at Todi on 11 August 1464. Sigmund's capitulation in 1464 came a few days after Nicholas's death at Todi in Umbria. Upon his death, Cusanus's body was interred in the church of San Pietro in Vincoli in Rome, probably near the relice of Peter's chains; but it was later lost. His monument, with a sculpted image of the cardinal, remains. Two other tombstones, one medieval and one modern, also are found in the church. In accordance with his wishes, his heart rests within the chapel altar at the Cusanusstift in Kues. To this charitable institution that he had founded he bequeathed his entire inheritance: it still stands, and serves the purpose Nicholas intended for it, as a home for the aged. The Cusanusstift houses also many of his manuscripts.[http://www.cusanus.de/] Nicholas was widely read, and his works were published in the sixteenth century in both Paris and Basel. Sixteenth-century French scholars, including Jacques Lefèvre d'Étaples and Charles de Bovelles, cited him. Lefèvre even edited the Paris 1514 "Opera". Nonetheless, there was no Cusan school, and his works were largely unknown until the nineteenth century, though Giordano Bruno quoted him, while some thinkers, like Gottfried Leibniz, were thought to have been influenced by him. Neo-Kantian scholars began studying Nicholas in the nineteenth century, and new editions were begun by the Heidelberger Akademie der Wissenschaften in the 1930s and published by Felix Meiner Verlag [http://www.meiner.de/index.php]. In the early twentieth century, he was hailed as the 'first modern thinker', and much debate since then has centered around the question whether he should be seen as essentially a medieval or Renaissance figure. Societies and centers dedicated to Cusanus can be found in Argentina, Japan, Germany, Italy and the United States. Works. Nicholas of Cusa wrote a large number of works, which include: Philosophy. Nicholas of Cusa was noted for his deeply mystical writings about Christianity, particularly on the possibility of knowing God with the divine human mind — not possible through mere human means — via "learned ignorance". Cusanus wrote of the enfolding of creation in God and their unfolding in creation. He was suspected by some of holding pantheistic beliefs, but his writings were never accused of being heretical. Physicist and philosopher Max Bernhard Weinstein wrote that Nicholas was, to a certain extent, a Pandeist. Nicholas also wrote in "De coniecturis" about using conjectures or surmises to rise to better understanding of the truth. The individual might rise above mere reason to the vision of the intellect, but the same person might fall back from such vision. Theologically, Nicholas anticipated the profound implications of Reformed teaching on the harrowing of Hell (Sermon on Psalm 30:11), followed by Pico della Mirandola, who similarly explained the "descensus" in terms of Christ’s agony. Science and Mathematics. Most of Nicholas of Cusa's mathematical ideas can be found in his essays, "De Docta Ignorantia" ("Of Learned Ignorance"), "De Visione Dei" ("On the Vision of God") and "On Conjectures". He also wrote on squaring the circle in his mathematical treatises. From the Catholic Encyclopedia (1913 edition): The astronomical views of the cardinal are scattered through his philosophical treatises. They evince complete independence of traditional doctrines, though they are based on symbolism of numbers, on combinations of letters, and on abstract speculations rather than observation. The earth is a star like other stars, is not the centre of the universe, is not at rest, nor are its poles fixed. The celestial bodies are not strictly spherical, nor are their orbits circular. The difference between theory and appearance is explained by relative motion. Had Copernicus been aware of these assertions he would probably have been encouraged by them to publish his own monumental work. Norman Moore, M.D., tells us in The Fitz-Patrick Lectures of 1905: In medicine he introduced an improvement which in an altered form has continued in use to this day. This improvement was the counting of the pulse which up to his time had been felt and discussed in many ways but never counted. ...Nicholas of Cusa proposed to compare the rate of pulses by weighing the quantity of water run out of a water clock while the pulse beat one hundred times. ...The manufacture of watches with second-hands has since given us a simpler method of counting, but the merit of introducing this useful kind of observation into clinical medicine belongs to Nicholas of Cusa.
1164537	Justin Kirk (born May 28, 1969) is an American stage and film actor. He is known for playing Prior Walter in Mike Nichols's screen adaptation of "Angels in America" (for which he received an Emmy nomination for Best Supporting Actor in a Mini-Series) and for his portrayal of Andy Botwin in Showtime's "Weeds". Early years. Kirk was born in Salem, Oregon. His mother was of Russian Jewish descent and his father was of Danish and English ancestry. He grew up in Union, Washington, where he attended a grade school on a Native American reservation. He moved to Minneapolis when he was 12 years old where attended high school at Children's Theatre Company, and then moved to New York City after graduating. Kirk played guitar in several New York bands in the early '90s, most notably The Dimestore Darlings. He also completed a two-year conservatory acting program at Circle in the Square Theatre School. Career. His first role on Broadway was a play called "Any Given Day", which was performed at the Longacre Theatre. He also appeared in "Love! Valour! Compassion!" both on-screen and on stage, for which he received an Obie Award for Distinguished Performance in the Ensemble. In addition he won a Back Stage West Garland Award for Outstanding Performance on his role of a piano prodigy in "Old Wicked Songs", staged at New York's Promenade Theater and Los Angeles' Geffen Playhouse. Kirk's other films include "Chapter Zero", "The Eden Myth," "Puccini for Beginners," "Flannel Pajamas," and "Call o' the Glen". He made his television series debut in "Jack & Jill". He starred as Andy Botwin on the Showtime television series "Weeds" alongside Kevin Nealon and Mary-Louise Parker.
1163878	Peter Brett Cullen (born August 26, 1956) is an American actor who has appeared in numerous motion pictures and television programs. Early life. Cullen was born in Houston, Texas the son of Lucien Hugh Cullen, an oil industry executive, and Catherine Cullen. He graduated from Madison High School in Houston in 1974. Cullen graduated from the University of Houston, giving great credit to his highly acclaimed acting mentor and University of Houston professor, Cecil Pickett, who also mentored such Houston born actors as Dennis Quaid, Randy Quaid, & Brent Spiner among others. Cullen and Dennis Quaid's close friendship to this day dates back to the 1970s and it is Cullen who introduced Dennis Quaid to his current wife, Kimberly Buffington at a dinner in Austin, Texas. Cullen was recently awarded a Distinguished Alumni Award from his alma mater, the University of Houston, in April 2012. Career. Cullen played Dan Fixx in the 1980s CBS drama "Falcon Crest" for two seasons (1986–1988) and Marshal Sam Cain in the ABC western series "The Young Riders" for one season (1989–1990). In 1980, he appeared as the second Gideon Chisholm in the last nine episodes of the CBS western miniseries "The Chisholms". In the four earlier episodes, the Gideon Chisholm role was played by Brian Kerwin. Cullen was the lead actor as Ned Logan in the short-lived "Legacy", which lasted for just one season (1998–1999). On the series "The West Wing" Cullen played Ray Sullivan, a fictional former State Attorney General and governor of West Virginia and the Republican nominee for Vice President. His guest appearances on TV include: "The Incredible Hulk", "Tales from the Crypt", "M*A*S*H", "V", "Matlock", ', "Ally McBeal", "Walker, Texas Ranger", "Once and Again", "Without a Trace", "Cold Case", "The Mountain", "Monk", ', "NCIS", "Desperate Housewives", "Pepper Dennis", "Lost", "Ghost Whisperer", " Private Practice", "Ugly Betty", and "Friday Night Lights". In 2009, he had a recurring role in the ABC Family television series "Make It or Break It". He played one of the CAPCOMs in "Apollo 13" and real-life astronaut David Scott in the HBO mini-series "From the Earth to the Moon". Later work. In 1994, Cullen played a small part in Kevin Costner's "Wyatt Earp". Subsequent movie roles included Jamie Johnson in "Something to Talk About", the spoiled quarterback Eddie Martel in "The Replacements" (2000), Charlie Martin in the TV movie version of "On Golden Pond", Nancy's father Carson Drew in the TV movie "Nancy Drew", and Barton Blaze (father of Johnny Blaze/Ghost Rider) in the 2007 movie "Ghost Rider". In 2011, he played stepfather to Selena Gomez's character in the romantic comedy "Monte Carlo", and in 2012, appeared as a congressman in the Batman film "The Dark Knight Rises". He also played Tom Eckert, father of protagonists Jed and Matt, in the remake of "Red Dawn" (a role played in the original 1984 film by Harry Dean Stanton). Cullen has found steady work in numerous television roles for many years. In addition to guest-starring roles in dozens of series, in 1983 he played Bob Cleary in the mini-series "The Thorn Birds". Cullen had a main character role as Dan Fixx on the prime time soap opera "Falcon Crest" from 1986-1988, and as Marshal Sam Cain in the western series "The Young Riders" in 1989-1990. In 1997 he was cast as Adam in a three-episode story arc on "Suddenly Susan" called "Love and Divorce American Style." The following year he played love interest Luke Barton in the short-lived series "The Simple Life" opposite Judith Light. Later in 1998 the UPN television network gave him the starring role of family patriarch Ned Logan in the post-Civil War drama "Legacy", which lasted 18 episodes before cancellation. After 2000 he played small recurring roles in ABC's "Once and Again", the low-rated series "The Mountain", and as a detective in two episodes of "Desperate Housewives". Cullen was awarded a meatier part on "The West Wing" in 2005-2006, when he played West Virginia Governor and Vice Presidential candidate Ray Sullivan. Later in 2006 he played a recurring role on "Pepper Dennis", which was cancelled after its first season as well. He played a short-lived love interest of Vanessa Williams' Wilhelmina Slater on "Ugly Betty" in early 2007, and followed that up with a story arc as dad Walt Riggins on "Friday Night Lights". Although his recurring roles never lasted more than a few episodes, Cullen made the most of parts in the ongoing series "Lost", "Damages", and "The Gates" between 2007-2010. In 2011-2012 Cullen played the flashback character Nathan Ingram on the hit show "Person of Interest", a role that may recur in future episodes. He also plays Mark Keeler, father of Olympic gymnast hopefuls Payson and Becca Keeler, on the ABC Family series "Make It Or Break It". On February 8, 2011, Cullen was named the official spokesman for Houston Works which helps Houston residents with job training and placement, scholarships, consulting, technical initiatives focusing on science, technology, engineering and mathematics and summer job programs along with Youth Summits.
1068554	The Triplets of Belleville () is a 2003 animated comedy film written and directed by Sylvain Chomet. It was released as Belleville Rendez-vous in the United Kingdom. The film is Chomet's first feature film and was an international co-production between companies in France, the United Kingdom, Belgium, and Canada.
1055543	Pushing Tin is a 1999 comedy-drama film directed by Mike Newell. It centers on Nick Falzone (John Cusack), a cocky air traffic controller who quarrels over proving "who's more of a man" with fellow employee Russell Bell (Billy Bob Thornton). The film was a box office failure and moderate critical success. The original music score was composed by Anne Dudley and Chris Seefried. Plot. Nick "The Zone" Falzone (John Cusack) and his fellow air traffic controllers at New York TRACON pride themselves on their ability to handle the intense stress of being a controller for one of the busiest airspaces in the country, even boasting of the 50% drop-out rate for new additions to the staff who are unable to cope with the pressure. The group is joined by the quiet and confident Russell Bell (Billy Bob Thornton), a veteran of TRACONs in the Western United States. Russell quickly proves to be exceptionally capable of handling the increased workload by using unorthodox and risky methods. Nick feels challenged by the new controller's ability to out-perform him at seemingly every task and warns his supervisor that Bell is a loose cannon, especially after discovering that Russell once stood on a runway to allow himself to be violently propelled by a landing commercial airliner's jetwash.
1184695	Kelly Brianne Clarkson (born April 24, 1982) is an American singer, songwriter, and occasional actress. In 2002, she came to prominence after winning the first season of "American Idol", and has since been established as "The Original American Idol". Her debut single, "A Moment Like This", topped the US "Billboard" Hot 100 and broke the record for the biggest jump to number one in the chart's history; it became the best-selling single of the year in the country. She became the runner-up of "World Idol" the following year. Clarkson's debut studio album, "Thankful" (2003), has been certified 2× platinum and sold over 4.5 million copies internationally. Its lead single, "Miss Independent", became an international hit, earning Clarkson her first Grammy nomination. She developed a rock-oriented sound with her second album, "Breakaway" (2004). It was certified 6× platinum and sold over 12 million copies worldwide, earning Clarkson two Grammy Awards, including one for the hit single, "Since U Been Gone". She took full creative direction of her third album, "My December" (2007). Its lead single, "Never Again", became a top ten hit. Clarkson's fourth album, "All I Ever Wanted" (2009), became a critical and commercial success. Its worldwide hit single, "My Life Would Suck Without You", surpassed "A Moment Like This" for the biggest leap to number one on a single week in the history of the "Billboard" Hot 100 Chart from number 97, a record it still holds today. Her fifth album, "Stronger" (2011), generated international chart-topping singles "Mr. Know It All" and "Stronger (What Doesn't Kill You)", with the latter being the second-best selling "American Idol" single to date with over four million downloads in the U.S. The album won the Grammy Award for Best Pop Vocal Album, making Clarkson the first and only artist to win the award twice. In 2012, Clarkson released ""; its lead single, "Catch My Breath", is her twenty-fourth entry on the Hot 100 and her eleventh million-selling single. Clarkson has sold over 20 million albums worldwide. In a career spanning over a decade, Clarkson has accumulated eighty-four number ones on the "Billboard" charts, and eleven number one singles worldwide. She is known for her vocal versatility and range. Her music has mainly dealt with themes of heartbreak, independence, and self-empowerment for women and young teens. Apart from her work in music, Clarkson has also ventured into television and film. Clarkson's film debut was in the romantic musical "From Justin to Kelly" (2003) and she also appeared in "American Dreams" as Brenda Lee, in "Reba", on "The Voice" as a guest advisor, on "Duets" as a mentor and judge. Clarkson's musical work has also gained her numerous accolades, including three Grammy Awards, three MTV Video Music Awards, twelve Billboard Music Awards, four American Music Awards and a Women's World Award. In 2012, Clarkson was ranked nineteenth on VH1's list of "100 Greatest Women in Music." In 2013, Clarkson was ranked number 105 on Joel Whitburn's "Top 500 Artists Of All Time," and number 75 on Billboard's "Hot 100: Top 100 Artists." "Billboard" also ranked Clarkson as the 14th-best-selling artist of the 2000s and one of the top 200 album sellers of the Nielsen SoundScan era at number 187. Life and career. Early life and career beginnings. Clarkson was born in Fort Worth, Texas, to Jeanne Ann (née Rose), a first-grade English teacher, and Stephen Michael Clarkson, a former engineer. Clarkson has an older brother, Jason, who appeared in one of her music videos, and an older sister, Alyssa. Clarkson's parents divorced when she was six years old, following which her brother lived with their father, she stayed with their mother, and her sister went to live with an aunt. Clarkson's mother later re-married, to Jimmy Taylor. Clarkson was raised as a Baptist. Her ancestry includes Greek (from a maternal great-grandfather), English, Irish, German, and Scottish. Her mother is a descendant of Republican state senator Isaiah Rose, whose life story was discussed on Clarkson's episode of "Who Do You Think You Are?", in 2013. According to Clarkson, her family struggled financially, and after her parents divorced, music became her refuge. She initially wanted to become a marine biologist, but changed her mind after viewing the film "Jaws". Clarkson was educated at Pauline Hughes Middle School and in the seventh grade, the school's choir teacher, Cynthia Glenn, overheard her singing in a hallway and asked her to audition for the school choir. Clarkson told her that she had never received any professional vocal training. Clarkson graduated from Burleson High School, where she performed in several musicals, such as "Annie Get Your Gun", "Seven Brides for Seven Brothers" and "Brigadoon". She sang at her high school talent show, after which an audience member shared some inspiring words with her: "God has given you this gift. You've got to sing. You're destined to sing." Clarkson continued singing and soon started classical training, hoping that music would be her ticket to a college scholarship. Upon graduating from high school, Clarkson was offered full scholarships to The University of Texas at Austin, University of North Texas, and Berklee College of Music, but later declined them, explaining: "I've already written so much music and wanted to try a career on my own" adding, "you're never too old to go to college." After graduation, Clarkson worked several jobs to finance a demo, recording material and trying to market it to record labels, but received little response. Clarkson turned down two recording contracts from Jive Records and Interscope Records, stating "They would have completely pigeonholed me as a bubblegum act. I was confident enough that something better would come along." In 2001, she traveled to Los Angeles, trying to pursue a career in music. She appeared as an extra in a few television series such as "Sabrina, the Teenage Witch" and "Dharma & Greg" and briefly worked with musician Gerry Goffin to record five demo tracks in trying to secure a record deal. Lack of other career opportunities and a fire incident in her apartment forced Clarkson to return to Burleson, where she worked at a movie theater, promoted Red Bull energy drinks, and worked as a telemarketer and as a cocktail waitress in a comedy club. 2002–03: "American Idol" and "World Idol". Upon returning to Burleson, Clarkson was encouraged by her friends to audition for the inaugural season of the reality television series "American Idol: The Search for a Superstar" in May 2002. Despite receiving a golden ticket in the series premiere, Clarkson made her first appearance during the second episode. Clarkson went on to win the competition on September 4, 2002 at the then Kodak Theatre (now Dolby), earning 58% of the votes against runner-up Justin Guarini and without being sent into the bottom three throughout the season. In an interview in 2012, Clarkson referred the inaugural season as "ghetto," explaining: "On our season we were like kids in camp. Nobody knew what to do. The show was ever-changing every day. They did one season of "Pop Idol" in the UK but America is a very different market. They dropped us off in a mall and said find some clothes to wear on national television. I am maybe the closest to white trash you can get. What do I buy? White pants I guess? I definitely looked like a cocktail waitress." Immediately after winning "American Idol", Clarkson was signed to a record deal with RCA Records, 19 Recordings, and S Records by talent manager Simon Fuller, who created "American Idol"; and music mogul Clive Davis, who was slated to executive-produce her debut album. Clarkson was later accused of working with a record company prior to winning "American Idol". "American Idol"'s rules stated that a contestant was not allowed to compete on the program if they had been linked to a record company. However, she was cleared of all allegations, as she only had a contract in order to conduct demonstration work. On September 17, 2002, her debut double-A-side single, "Before Your Love"/"A Moment Like This", was released. Both songs were performed by Clarkson during the season finale of "American Idol". The single debuted at the "Billboard" Hot 100 chart on the week ending September 21, 2002 at number 60. The following week, it climbed to number 52, and subsequently ascended to number 1, breaking a 38-year-old record set by the British band The Beatles for the biggest leap to number one after their single "Can't Buy Me Love" rose from number 27 to number 1 in April 1964. It became her first number one single in the United States and Canada and eventually went on to become the best-selling single of 2002 and was certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). On December 25, 2003, Clarkson participated in the television special competition "World Idol" in London along with the inaugural winners of the several "Idol" television series around the world. Clarkson was contractually obligated to participate, and performed Aretha Franklin's "(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman". On January 1, 2004, she became the runner-up behind the first "Norwegian Idol" Kurt Nilsen. 2003–04: "Thankful". Executive produced by Davis, Clarkson's debut album "Thankful" was released on April 15, 2003. The album contained aspects of pop, contemporary R&B, and gospel music, with several established musicians such as Christina Aguilera, Diane Warren, The Underdogs, and Babyface contributing on to the tracks. Released during the urban-R&B dominance, the album was well received by several critics. However, several critics noted that her early achievement was established due to her performances on "American Idol". "Allmusic" critic Stephen Thomas Erlewine praised the album for its vocal ability: "throughout this record, (Clarkson) makes it seem effortless and charming. She can croon, she can belt out a song, she can be sexy and sassy while still being graceful and as wholesome as the girl next door." Henry Goldblatt of "Entertainment Weekly" remarked: "Clarkson glides through octaves with the masterful control of someone who's been doing this for decades." Clarkson supported "Thankful" by performing in different locations around the world, such as 2003 NRL grand final, the first season of "Australian Idol", and the second series of "Pop Idol". She and "American Idol" season 2 runner-up Clay Aiken co-headlined the Independent Tour throughout the United States in 2004. "Thankful" debuted at number 1 on the "Billboard" 200 chart and went on to become a commercial success. It was later certified double platinum by the RIAA, platinum in Canada, and gold in Japan and Australia. Its lead single, "Miss Independent", became her first international hit—charting in the top ten in five national charts, including the United States, and was later certified gold by the RIAA. It earned Clarkson her first Grammy Award nomination for "Best Female Pop Vocal Performance" at the 46th Grammy Awards. Its follow-up single, "Low", was released to moderate success. And its final single, "The Trouble with Love Is", was released as a promotional single for the British romantic film "Love Actually" and failed to chart in the United States. Her first video album, "Miss Independent", was released on November 18, 2003 and was certified gold by the RIAA. Clarkson made her film debut with Guarini with the release of the musical romantic comedy film "From Justin to Kelly" in June 2003. The film was poorly received by critics and was unsuccessful at the box office, with Clarkson explaining that she was "contractually obligated" to do the film. Between 2002, Clarkson, along with "American Idol" judges Paula Abdul and Randy Jackson and hosts Brian Dunkleman and Ryan Seacrest, participated in the season premiere of the eighth season of the television comedy series "MADtv". She also portrayed Brenda Lee in two episodes of the television drama "American Dreams" between 2003 and 2004. 2004–06: "Breakaway". Trying to distance herself from her "American Idol" image, Clarkson decided to part ways with Fuller and 19 Management and hired the services of talent manager Jeff Kwatinetz of The Firm. She took more creative control and developed a more pop rock-oriented sound with the production of her second studio album, "Breakaway". Executive-produced by Davis, "Breakaway" was released on November 30, 2004. Clarkson co-wrote six of the tracks with pop and rock songwriters such as former Evanescence band members Ben Moody and David Hodges, Kara DioGuardi, Dr. Luke and Max Martin. The title track was co-written by pop rock singer Avril Lavigne. The album received critical acclaim, with Erlewine of "AllMusic" remarking: "What gives "Breakaway" its spine are the driving, anthemic pop tunes, numbers that sound simultaneously mainstream and youthful, which is a hard trick to pull off, and they are the tracks that illustrate that Clarkson is a rare thing in the 2000s: a pop singer who's neither hip nor square, just solidly and enjoyably in the mainstream." "Breakaway" became a commercial success and eventually became her most successful album to date. After debuting at number 3 on the "Billboard 200" in 2004, the album's chart longevity allowed it to become the third-best-selling album of 2005 in the United States and was certified sextuple platinum by the RIAA. The album also enjoyed success throughout the world; it topped the charts in the Netherlands and Ireland and became the world's seventh-best-selling album of 2005 and went on to sell over 12 million copies worldwide — becoming the most successful album by an "Idol" contestant in history. Clarkson supported "Breakaway" with the Breakaway World Tour — consisting of three sub-tours from 2005 to 2006. It also garnered Clarkson several accolades, including a Grammy Award for Best Pop Vocal Album at the 48th Grammy Awards. All of the singles from "Breakaway" became international hits: its titular lead single, "Breakaway", originally served as an original song for the Disney film "" in 2004. The single became a commercial success — peaking at number 6 on the "Billboard" Hot 100 and eventually became her longest-running No. 1 song, where it was No. 1 for 28 weeks on the "Billboard" Adult Contemporary Audience chart. The follow-up single, "Since U Been Gone", became the album's most successful release — peaking at number 2 on the "Billboard" Hot 100 and eventually becoming her most successful single on the "Billboard" Hot 100 to date. It garnered Clarkson numerous accolades, including two MTV Video Music Awards and a Grammy Award for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance at the 48th Grammy Awards. Furthermore, the single was critically acclaimed by both the pop music and the rock music scene by Ted Leo, Fall Out Boy, Simple Plan, Yellowcard, Switchfoot, and Evanescence. The third and fourth singles, "Behind These Hazel Eyes" and "Because of You", also followed suit—peaking at number 6 and 7 on the "Billboard" Hot 100, respectively. "Because of You" also received critical acclaim and more success worldwide, by topping the charts in the Netherlands, Denmark, and Switzerland. Clarkson performed all the singles in various award shows — she performed "Since U Been Gone" at the 2005 MTV Video Music Awards and at the 2006 BRIT Awards; and "Because of You" at the 48th Grammy Awards. The final single, "Walk Away", also enjoyed chart success, peaking at number 12 on the "Billboard" Hot 100. Despite releasing "Walk Away" as her only single in 2006, Clarkson still became the most-played artist of 2006 in the United States. Clarkson's second video album, "Behind Hazel Eyes", was released on March 29, 2005. In 2005, she performed and participated in the thirtieth season of the American comedy series "Saturday Night Live", and the reality series "Damage Control (TV series)" with Simple Plan frontman Pierre Bouvier. She performed "The Star-Spangled Banner" at Game 2 of the NBA Finals. She also performed during the festivities All-Star Game and the 2006 Winter Olympics in Torino, Italy; In 2006, Clarkson recorded a song titled "Go" as a free download for the Ford Motor Company advertising campaign. She has also performed "What Hurts the Most" with Rascal Flatts at the ACM Awards and "Cigarettes" with the country duo The Wreckers during one of their shows in Texas in 2006. 2007–08: "My December". On June 22, 2007, Clarkson's third studio album, "My December", was released. Unlike "Breakaway", the album relied on darker themes and was more rock-oriented. All of the album's tracks were co-written by Clarkson and she opted to collaborate with her band members rather than her previous producers and collaborators. Its production and release became a subject of a dispute with RCA, particularly with Davis (who ultimately decided not to executive produce the album) and Kwatinetz. Davis noted the album's lack of professional production input and wanted to her to re-record tracks with a more mainstream appeal—to which she refused. The album received substantial positive reception and debuted at number 2 on the "Billboard 200", but lack of promotion due to reluctance of RCA led Clarkson to dismiss Kwatinetz and Live Nation to cancel its accompanying tour, the My December Tour, and reschedule it into a smaller scale with supporting acts Jon McLaughlin, Sean Kingston and Mandy Moore. Clarkson later hired the services of talent manager Narvel Blackstock of Starstruck Management. Blackstock is the husband of country artist Reba McEntire, of whom Clarkson is a close friend. A month after the album's release, Clarkson issued an apology to Davis; she remarked: "He has been a key advisor and has been an important force in my success to date. He has also given me respect by releasing my new album when he was not obligated to do so. I really regret how this has turned out and I apologize to those whom I have done disservice." "My December" was certified platinum by the RIAA and had sold over 2.5 million copies worldwide. Its lead single, "Never Again", became a commercial success due to its promotion on "American Idol". It debuted and peaked at number 8 on the "Billboard" Hot 100, becoming her highest debut on the chart. The subsequent singles, "Sober", "One Minute", and "Don't Waste Your Time", failed to follow suit by charting in a single chart. In 2007, Clarkson, along with Jeff Beck, performed a cover of Patty Griffin's "Up to the Mountain" on the "American Idol" "Idol Gives Back" charity special — which was released as a promotional single and charted at number 56 on the "Billboard" Hot 100. She later performed "Never Again" and "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" (with Joe Perry) at the sixth season finale of "American Idol". On July 7, 2007, Clarkson performed on the American leg of Live Earth concert. Clarkson also performed on the fifth season of "Canadian Idol" (where she became a guest mentor), the fourth season finale of "Swedish Idol", 2007 NFL opening kickoff festivities, and at the halftime show for the Dallas Cowboys and New York Jets game on Thanksgiving Day. Clarkson partnered with NASCAR during their 2007 season, appearing in televised advertisements, performed at pre-race concerts, promoted NASCAR Day, and appeared at the Champions' Banquet in December. In April 2008, Clarkson participated in a Papal Youth Rally at the campus of St. Joseph's Seminary, Dunwoodie in Yonkers, New York, performing a mini-concert for those in attendance. That was the Papal visit of Pope Benedict XVI. She performed Schubert's "Ave Maria" for the Pope later in the day following the Pope's speech. Throughout 2008, Clarkson began her musical endeavors country music by pairing with Reba McEntire, recording an hour-long "CMT Crossroads" special at Nashville's Ryman Auditorium on February 22, 2007. Introduced by Dolly Parton, she performed "Why Haven't I Heard From You" and "Does He Love You" with Martina McBride on the television special "CMT Giants: Reba McEntire". Clarkson also appeared on an episode of McEntire's sitcom "Reba", that aired on January 14, 2007. At the Academy of Country Music Awards on May 16, 2007, Clarkson and McEntire sang a duet version of "Because of You", which also became the lead single from McEntire's album "", the song peaked at number 50 on the "Billboard" Hot 100, number 2 on the "Billboard" Country Chart and was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Country Collaboration with Vocals at the 50th Grammy Awards. Clarkson and McEntire also embarked on the 2 Worlds, 2 Voices Tour 2008 to support "Reba: Duets" and "My December". 2009–10: "All I Ever Wanted". Clarkson's fourth album, "All I Ever Wanted", was released on March 10, 2009. Its production oversaw Clarkson returning to a mainstream-oriented sound by reuniting with previous collaborators Dr. Luke, Martin, and DioGuardi, and new collaborators Howard Benson, Claude Kelly, Ryan Tedder, Glen Ballard, Matt Thiessen and Katy Perry in contributing tracks for the album. The release of "All I Ever Wanted" was met with positive acclaim from music critics for its lighter themes. The album also became a commercial success; it debuted at number one on the "Billboard" 200 and stayed there for two weeks. Clarkson supported "All I Ever Wanted" with the All I Ever Wanted Tour from 2009–2010. The album has sold 960,000 copies in the United States and garnered Clarkson her second nomination for a Grammy Award for Best Pop Vocal Album. Its first single, "My Life Would Suck Without You", became an international hit. It entered the "Billboard" Hot 100 at number 97 and rose to number one the following week—breaking the record for the biggest jump to number one on a single week previously held by Britney Spears's "Womanizer". It also marked the second time Clarkson broke the record, the first being the ascent of "Before Your Love"/"A Moment Like This" in 2002. It also topped the charts in the United Kingdom, Canada and Hungary. The second single, "I Do Not Hook Up", continued the chart success by peaking at the number 20 on the "Billboard" Hot 100. The third single, "Already Gone", reached number 13 on the "Billboard" Hot 100. The release of "Already Gone" became a subject of an another dispute with RCA — particularly with its similarities with Beyoncé's song "Halo", both of which were produced by Tedder. Further promotion for the album was abruptly ended at the release of its titular fourth and final singles, "All I Ever Wanted", which peaked at number 96 on the "Billboard" Hot 100; and "Cry", which saw a limited release. Clarkson performed as one of many main artists for the return of "VH1 Divas" in September 2009. She also became a guest mentor on the Dutch television series "X Factor" in November 2009. Clarkson continued her country ventures by pairing with Jason Aldean to record the duet "Don't You Wanna Stay" for his album "My Kinda Party" in November 2010. They performed it together on the tenth season of "American Idol", at the 2010 CMA Awards and at the 54th Grammy Awards. It received numerous country accolades, including a nomination for a Grammy Award for Best Country Duo/Group Performance at the 54th Grammy Awards. The song has sold over two million digital downloads, making it the best-selling country collaboration in history. 2011–12: "Stronger" and "Duets". Clarkson's fifth studio album, "Stronger", was released on October 21, 2011. Clarkson revealed that the album "was influenced by Prince, Tina Turner, Sheryl Crow, Radiohead and there's a little bit of a country vibe/influence on a couple of songs." Clarkson collaborated with several producers including Greg Kurstin, Ester Dean, Darkchild, Toby Gad, Steve Jordan and Howard Benson. The album has received positive acclaim, with several music critics noting the album's predominant R&B and country influences and newly developed dance-pop themes. "Stronger" became a commercial success, debuting at number 2 on the "Billboard" 200, and has sustained chart longevity. The release of the album was accompanied by a limited release of her first extended play, "The Smoakstack Sessions", which featured alternate versions of tracks from "Stronger" and "All I Ever Wanted". "Stronger" was certified Platinum by the RIAA and won the Grammy Award for Best Pop Vocal Album at the 2013 Grammy Awards, making her the only artist to win the award twice. Its lead single, "Mr. Know It All", was released on September 2012. It reached number one in Australia and South Korea and attained a top ten position in seven countries, including the "Billboard" Hot 100. It also became a crossover hit to the country charts, prompting RCA to reissue a country version. Its second and titular single, "Stronger (What Doesn't Kill You)", became the album's most successful release, and her most successful single overall. It topped sixteen "Billboard" charts, including the Hot 100. It also reached number one in Poland and Slovakia and became her biggest hit in over 18 other countries. It eventually selling over five million copies worldwide, and was nominated for three Grammy Awards: Record of the Year, Song of the Year, and Best Pop Solo Performance. Its third and final single, "Dark Side", was released to substantial success. Clarkson had promoted "Stronger" in several countries, including 2011 NRL Grand Final, and the British, American, German and, Australian versions of "The X Factor". She supported "Stronger" with two concert tours—the Stronger Tour and the co-headlining the 2012 Summer Tour with the alternative rock band The Fray. Her second extended play, "iTunes Session", was released on December 23, 2011. it debuted on the "Billboard 200" at number 85, and was preceded by the release of a cover of "I'll Be Home For Christmas". Clarkson co-wrote "Tell Me a Lie" with Tom Meredith and Shep Solomon, which was recorded by the boy band One Direction for their debut album, "Up All Night" (2012). On February 5, 2012, Clarkson performed The Star-Spangled Banner at Super Bowl XLVI to widespread critical acclaim. She also became a guest mentor to Blake Shelton's contestants on season two of the American television series "The Voice" and a resident mentor on the reality television series "Duets". She later released a promotional single, "Get Up (A Cowboys Anthem)", for use in Pepsi's NFL advertising campaign. 2012–present: "Greatest Hits: Chapter One", "Wrapped in Red" and seventh studio album. Clarkson's first greatest hits album, "", was released on November 19, 2012. As with the release of "Stronger", "Chapter One" was accompanied by a limited release of her third extended play, "The Smoakstack Sessions Vol. 2". Three songs recorded for the compilation: "Catch My Breath", "Don't Rush", and "People Like Us", were all released as singles. "Catch My Breath", the first single, was released on October 2012 peaked at number 19 on the "Billboard" Hot 100. "Don't Rush", featuring country musician Vince Gill, was also released on October 2012, peaking at number 87 on the Hot 100. "People Like Us", the third and final single, was released in April 2013, charting at number 65 on the Hot 100. She is set to support "Chapter One" on the 12th Annual Honda Civic Tour, which she will perform as the special guest to the pop rock band Maroon 5. "Chapter One" was certified Gold by the RIAA In October 2012, Clarkson collaborated with Shelton on a cover of "There's a New Kid in Town", which was included on his Christmas album, "Cheers, It's Christmas". They both performed it on his Christmas television special, "Blake Shelton's Not So Family Christmas", on December 2012. She also collaborated on recording artist Jewel on a duet of "Foolish Games", which was included on her first compilation, "Greatest Hits" (2013). On January 21, 2013, Clarkson performed "My Country, 'Tis of Thee" at the second inauguration of United States President Barack Obama. On February 2013, she performed "Tennessee Waltz" and "Natural Woman" at the 55th Grammy Awards as a tribute to Patti Page and a homage to Carole King. She also released a non-album single, "Tie It Up", exclusively to country music stations on June 2013. In April 2013, Clarkson revealed that she was in the midst of recording her first Christmas album, titled "Wrapped in Red", and later announced its release date as October 29, 2013. She also announced plans to release her seventh studio album in 2014, which will be in the country music genre, it was announced on her 'Honda Civic Tour 2013', that she will also be releasing a pop album as well as a country album in 2014. In September 2013, it was announced that Clarkson collaborated with singer Robbie Williams on the song "Little Green Apples" for his upcoming album, "Swings Both Ways". Artistry. Voice. Clarkson possesses the vocal range of a soprano, which has been described as dynamic, robust and emotive. Clarkson has also been noted for her vocal versatility and technically skilled delivery, in reviewing a live performance of Clarkson's Jon Caramanica of "The New York Times" stated she "showed off a voice that moved in all sorts of ways, without ever appearing to strain" continuing "Ms. Clarkson, who has a malleable voice and a boatload of vocal confidence, might be a soul siren in the making". However in a separate review of "Stronger" Caramanica stated that Clarkson's voice is "too huge, too violent" for warmer and sweeter vocal stylings, stating "she’s on a par with Taylor Swift when it comes to vengeance, and she’ll do it louder and with more brutality in comparison to her contemporary." In a live review as part of her Stronger Tour, Sophie Sinclair of "Hit The Floor" claimed "Kelly’s strong and powerful voice was flawless throughout the night and some may even say she sounds better live then she does on her albums". Regarding the quality of Clarkson’s voice Arion Berger of "Rolling Stone" commented that "her high notes are sweet and pillowy, her growl is bone-shaking and sexy, and her midrange is amazingly confident for a pop posy whose career is tied for eternity to the whims of her "American Idol" overlords." Dr. Luke, a songwriter and producer of some of Clarkson's hits, stated that "She has powerful lungs. She's like the Lance Armstrong of vocal cords." In an interview with "Good Morning America", Simon Cowell was asked of the then six "American Idol" winners, who he thought had the best voice. Cowell immediately answered that Clarkson did "by a mile", noting that she was "up there" with other great singers such as Celine Dion. "Esquire" wrote that Clarkson has “the best voice in the history of pop music". Reviewing "Stronger", Jody Rosen of "Rolling Stone" states, Clarkson has, “One of music’s most remarkable voices.” Regarding the controversial practice of lip-syncing, Clarkson claims that she never has, and never will lip-sync, elaborating in an interview with Cory Myers; "I’ve actually never done that. Because I’m terrified, if I ever did that, something horrible would happen, the track would skip…I have a really unhealthy fear about it. So no, I’ve never done that". Influences. Clarkson has often cited soul musicians such as Aretha Franklin, Whitney Houston, Mariah Carey and Etta James and rock musicians Radiohead, Garbage, Aerosmith, and Jimi Hendrix as her influences. Her audition performance of James' song "At Last" and her final performance of Franklin's "(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman" on "American Idol" garnered critical praise from both the judges of the program and the public. Clarkson also said that she has been influenced by Tina Turner and Annie Lennox. At age eight, Clarkson was first inspired to venture into music during visit to an African-American church in Fort Worth. She recalled: "I was like, 'Wow, whatever they're feeling, I want to feel it too'." Personal life. Relationships. Clarkson has had relationships with ex-Evanescence member and collaborator David Hodges and singer Graham Colton, whom she dated from July 2005 until early 2006. She began dating talent manager Brandon Blackstock in February 2012. Blackstock is singer Reba McEntire's stepson through her marriage to Narvel Blackstock, who is Clarkson's manager. In a May 2012 interview, Clarkson told the "Daily Mail", "Brandon is my manager's son. I've known him for six years but he was married. Then, suddenly, there he was at the Super Bowl and he was single." Clarkson and Blackstock got engaged on December 14, 2012. Political views. On December 29, 2011, Clarkson posted on Twitter that she would vote for US Congressman Ron Paul as a 2012 presidential candidate, saying, "I love Ron Paul. I liked him a lot during the last Republican nomination and no one gave him a chance. If he wins the nomination for the Republican Party in 2012 he's got my vote. Too bad he probably won't." After stating her support for Paul, she came under fire on Twitter, due to her pro-gay rights views. She later apologized for the Tweet, saying she did not intend to offend anyone. In 2012, Clarkson stated she would, again, vote for President Barack Obama. Clarkson stated, “I can’t support Romney’s policies as I have a lot of gay friends and I don’t think it’s fair they can’t get married.” She also cited women's rights issues by saying, “I’m not a hardcore feminist, but we can’t be going back to the 50s.” Philanthropy. In April 2007, Clarkson took part on the "Idol Gives Back", a fundraiser for people in poverty in both Africa and the United States, performing "Up to the Mountain" along with Jeff Beck. She would also perform a five-song set later that year on the American leg of Live Earth concerts opting for environmental awareness about climate change. She is currently an ambassador of "March of Dimes", raising money regularly and assisting in volunteer service, having walked for "March for Babies", for the cause of improvement of the health of mothers and babies. Clarkson, additionally, got involved in the organization "Houses of Hope", who take care and build orphanages for children in South Africa who have been affected by HIV/AIDS, abuse and poverty. She has visited those children and also participated in the "A Night for Hope" fund-raiser concert (held by Clarkson's background vocal singers, Jill and Kate), where she performed a song she wrote after her trip to South Africa, "You Still Won't Know What It's Like". Clarkson also supports the charities Save the Children, UNICEF, "Do Something" and "STOMP Out Bullying" and music causes like the Save the Music Foundation. She has a ranch in Texas for unwanted animals, which includes amputee goats, blind dogs, and horses with colic; there are more than 80 animals at the sanctuary. She helps provide veterinary care for them and finds them an adoptive family. Clarkson performed in a benefit concert on March 1, 2013, supporting Omaha's based Opportunity Education Foundation, an organization that provides access to education for children around the world, stating “Education was a key part of my childhood, and I am better for it. Anything for education I am really into and especially for kids. A lot of people don’t have computers, and they can’t afford them. Without education, you get far behind. As long as they have a chance, you know, I think that’s important. I want every kid to have a chance.”. In 2013, Clarkson teamed up with State Farm Insurance to support teen safe driving as a part of Celebrate My Drive program. In 2013, Clarkson supported Feeding America and its Child Hunger PSA Campaign, which provides food for children facing hunger. Also in 2013, Clarkson participated in Green Mountain Coffee's Great Coffee, Good Vibes, Choose Fair Trade campaign by traveling to coffee farms in Peru to draw attention to the importance of being Fair Trade Certified. Jane Austen. In 2012, Clarkson purchased a turquoise and gold ring that had belonged to the British novelist Jane Austen. Clarkson paid £152,450 ($231,227) for the ring at auction house Sothebys, against a reserve price of £30,000. Clarkson is a fan of Austen's work and also bought a first edition of Austen's 1816 novel "Persuasion". The ring is one of only three surviving pieces of jewellery known to have belonged to the author, and had remained in her family until the sale. The British government placed an export ban on the ring owing to its historic importance, describing it as a "national treasure". On September 23, 2013, it was announced that Jane Austen's House Museum had raised enough money, with the aide of an anonymous donor, to buy the ring, ahead of the September 30, 2013 deadline.
1064318	Lethal Weapon 4 is a 1998 American buddy cop martial arts action thriller film directed by Richard Donner, starring Mel Gibson, Danny Glover, Joe Pesci, Rene Russo, Chris Rock and Jet Li. It is the fourth installment in the "Lethal Weapon" series. This was Jet Li's American film debut as Wah Sing Ku. Plot. Lorna Cole is pregnant with L.A.P.D. sergeant Martin Riggs' baby; they are not married, but both are thinking about it. Police sergeant Roger Murtaugh's daughter Rianne is also pregnant, and Riggs later learns from Lorna that Rianne has secretly married Lee Butters (Chris Rock), a young detective who works at the same precinct as Murtaugh and Riggs – secretly because Roger had made it clear that he does not want his daughter to marry a police officer. Due to the many disasters caused by both sergeants while on duty, the police department has lost its insurance carrier, and cannot get a new one while they're still out on the streets. Because firing them isn't a option, the Chief uses a special privilege and they get temporarily promoted to captains, given that there aren't any lieutenant spots available. Riggs, Murtaugh, and Butters – with some assistance from Leo Getz (Pesci), who is now a private detective – investigate a Chinese immigrant smuggling ring after they come across a vessel with a cargo hold of Chinese slave laborers; in the course of these events Murtaugh's boat is sunk. Murtaugh finds a dinghy alongside with a Chinese family whom he provides shelter for at his house, claiming to be "freeing slaves." Information about a crime boss named Benny Chan (Kim Chan), a.k.a. "Uncle Benny," leads them to Chinatown, where they are introduced to a high-ranking Triad negotiator named Wah Sing Ku (Jet Li). Benny forces the three cops out of the restaurant without providing information on what his and the Triads' plans are. Outside, the cops encounter the captain of the ship and chase him and another suspect. The other suspect turns out to be a restaurant waiter and is freed. Ku later kills the captain for letting the cops know about their secret plans. Riggs and Murtaugh hire Leo to follow Benny around, but after Hong, the father of the Chinese family Murtaugh rescued, contacts his uncle, they come home to find Ku and his men holding Lorna and Murtaugh's family hostage and that Hong and his family are taken away. After a brief fight, the house is set on fire with everyone tied up inside. Ping, one of the Hong children, however, frees them, having eluded captivity. Murtaugh and Riggs chase down two of the triad members down a freeway, but both men are killed in collision with traffic without giving any information on the Hongs' whereabouts. Ku and the other men visit a Chinese-based holding cell being run by a corrupt Chinese general, who is holding four Triad overlords known as the "Four Fathers," one of whom is Ku's brother, and demanding a huge payoff from the Triads for their release. After Riggs and Murtaugh return to Murtaugh's home, Leo informs them and Butters that Benny is seeing his dentist, and using Leo to distract the dentist, the three cops use nitrous oxide to extract information from Benny. Riggs inadvertently reveals that Butters is Rianne's husband and the father of her baby. Because they had accidentally exposed themselves to the laughing gas as well, they misunderstood the information Benny provided them, which initially leads to some complications in their investigation. Ku brings the Hongs to the Triads' hideout, where it is revealed that the Triads plan to give the corrupt general counterfeit Chinese money for the Four Fathers' release. The captive artist working on the printing plates is the elder uncle to Hong and agreed to do the job in exchange for his family's safe passage to the United States. Ku kills Hong in order to secure his uncle's cooperation. With the printing plates completed, he and Benny are also killed for exposing the operation and to protect the forgery. Detective Ng, who is familiar with Chinese society, corrects Murtaugh and the other officers on the information Benny provided earlier and explains why the Triads torched Murtaugh's home. After Riggs picks up Ping and Lorna, the officers locate the hideout, but find only the dead and some of the counterfeit Chinese money inside. Ng once again helps them piece the entire operation together. At the meeting between Ku and the corrupt general, Riggs, Murtaugh, Butters and other detectives expose the counterfeit money; as a result the general kills three of the Four Fathers. Ku's henchmen kill the general, and a firefight breaks out between the cops, the Triads and the general's private army. Butters is shot in the back while protecting Murtaugh and Murtaugh kills Ku's brother while aiming for Ku. In revenge, Ku tries to kill Riggs and Murtaugh on a pier. Murtaugh is knocked out after impaling Ku on a piece of rebar while Riggs and Ku fall into the water when the pier collapses. Riggs struggles with Ku underwater and shoots him to death with an AK-47, but a slab of concrete from the pier falls and pins Riggs underwater until Murtaugh wakes up, jumps in, and saves him. Riggs visits his dead wife's grave and asks her for advice about his impending marriage with Lorna, about which he still has doubts. He is interrupted by the arrival of Leo, who tells a story from his childhood that makes Riggs see the idea of remarrying in a new light. Riggs' pager goes off, indicating that Lorna is giving birth, and the two rush to the hospital. Riggs and Lorna are ceremonially married by a rabbi just before their and Rianne's babies are born, Murtaugh accepts Butters as his son-in-law, Riggs and Murtaugh are given their rank of Sergeant back and Hong's family is granted asylum. Release. Box office. "Lethal Weapon 4" debuted at 1 at the box office. Although the film grossed $130 million domestically, it was not considered a runaway financial success as the previous three films had been. Shooting began in January 1998, just months before the film's release, with a production budget estimated at $120–$150 million (although Warner Bros. maintain it cost less than $100 million) and an additional $50 million spent on marketing and distribution. This made the fourth film the most expensive entry of the its series. Its profit margin was saved in part due to the combined foreign box office sales making the film gross approximately $285 million in total. Still, like its predecessors, "Lethal Weapon 4" was among the top ten grossing films of its release year. Reception. Critical reaction to "Lethal Weapon 4" was mixed. The film currently holds a rating of 52% on Rotten Tomatoes. James Berardinelli gave the film three stars out of four, writing: "Given the expectations that constrain it, "Lethal Weapon 4" is probably the best motion picture that could possibly result from another teaming of Martin Riggs and Roger Murtaugh. The series has lost a lot of steam since the first two entries, and, although the fourth movie ratchets up the energy level from the moribund state of the disappointing "Lethal Weapon 3", there's no sense of spontaneity." Roger Ebert gave "Lethal Weapon 4" two stars out of four, writing: ""Lethal Weapon 4" has all the technical skill of the first three movies in the series, but lacks the secret weapon, which was conviction. All four movies take two cop buddies and put them into spectacular and absurd action sequences, but the first three at least went through the motions of taking the plot seriously (and the first one did such a good job, it made my 'best 10' list of that year). This time, we're watching an exercise." The film was nominated for a Razzie Award for Worst Supporting Actor for Pesci. Home media. "Lethal Weapon 4" has been released on VHS and DVD numerous times. It has been re-released in numerous sets that contain all four films in the series. "Lethal Weapon 4" was released on Blu-ray Disc as part of a box set with the additional "Lethal Weapon" films on May 22, 2012. Sequel. There has been talk of a fifth "Lethal Weapon" film, although both Mel Gibson and Danny Glover have expressed disinterest. In 2007, Moviehole.net received word from sources that Warner Bros. are in the early stages of trying to relaunch the "Lethal Weapon" series sometime in 2009 or later. A spec script treatment has been written by Shane Black, leading to rumors that the sequel was on fast track by Warner Bros. with Black in the director's chair. Actor Columbus Short said he was being considered for the role of Murtaugh's son. Director Richard Donner is not involved with these plans, but he has his own ideas for a "Lethal Weapon 5". According to the "Los Angeles Times", Gibson has refused to reprise his role as Martin Riggs for the fifth time, which Donner thinks is out of personal loyalty because Donner is not involved. Joel Silver later confirmed Gibson’s lack of interest in the project. "We talked about it, but it was something that Mel didn't want to do now," he explained. "It doesn't mean that he doesn't want to do it ever, but as of right now, he doesn't." On the Australian website What's Playing, an insider said, "They’re talking again. Mel probably needs Joel, not to mention "Lethal Weapon" now more than ever, so I wouldn’t at all be surprised if it comes off this time. And it could be a good move, that’s a mighty big brand name – it probably would help Gibson, professionally-speaking.”
1034372	Christopher de Lerisson Cazenove (17 December 1943 – 7 April 2010) was an English film, television and stage actor. Early life and career. He was born Christopher de Lerisson Cazenove, the son of Brigadier Arnold de Lerisson Cazenove and Elizabeth Laura (née Gurney, 1914–1994) in Winchester, Hampshire, but was brought up in Bowlish, Somerset. He was educated at the Dragon School, Eton College and the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School. Cazenove often portrayed British aristocrats, and first made his name in the 1972 drama series, "The Regiment". Other notable roles included Charlie Tyrrell in the 1976-77 period drama series "The Duchess of Duke Street", and in 1986 he appeared as Ben Carrington in the US soap opera "Dynasty", which he played until the following year. From 2001-03, he had a recurring role in the British drama series "Judge John Deed", playing Row Colemore. On the stage, he appeared as Henry Higgins in the British and American productions of "My Fair Lady" from 2005 through to 2008. He also starred in the London West Bobs End production of "The Importance of Being Earnest" in 1994 alongside Susannah York. Personal life. Cazenove was married to actress Angharad Rees from 1973 until their divorce in 1994. They had two sons, Linford James (20 July 1974 — 10 September 1999; died in a car crash on the M11 in Essex), and Rhys William (born 1976). From 2003 until his death, Cazenove's partner was Isabel Davis. Death. In February 2010, Cazenove collapsed at his London home. He was taken to St Thomas' Hospital in London, suffering from septicaemia. He died on 7 April 2010 from the effects of the illness at St Thomas's Hospital, aged 66. The actor "died peacefully" surrounded by his loved ones, said a statement released by his agent, his family and girlfriend Isabel Davis. Cazenove's funeral on 16 April 2010 was held at St. Paul's, Covent Garden, London.
1184014	Erykah Abi Wright (born Erica Abi Wright; February 26, 1971), better known by her stage name Erykah Badu , is an American singer-songwriter, record producer, activist and actress. Her work includes elements from R&B, hip hop and jazz. She is best known for her role in the rise of the neo soul sub-genre. She is known as the "First Lady of Neo-Soul" or the "Queen of Neo-Soul". Early in her career, Badu was recognizable for wearing very large and colorful headwraps. For her musical sensibilities, she has often been compared to jazz great Billie Holiday. She was a core member of the Soulquarians, and is also an actress having appeared in a number of films playing a range of supporting roles in movies such as "Blues Brothers 2000", "The Cider House Rules" and "House of D". She also speaks at length in the documentaries "Before the Music Dies" and "The Black Power Mixtapes". Early life. Erykah Badu was born Erica Abi Wright in Dallas, Texas on February 26, 1971. Her mother raised her, her brother Jabbada, and her sister Nayrok alone after their father, William Wright Jr., deserted the family early in their lives. To provide for her family, the children's grandmother often helped to look after them while Erykah's mother, Kolleen Maria Wright (née Gipson), performed as an actress in theatrical productions. Influenced by her mother, Erykah had her first taste of show business at the age of 4, singing and dancing with her mother at the Dallas Theatre Centre. Erykah Badu was the owner of Focal point in Dallas, Texas. By the age of 14, Erykah was free-styling for a local radio station alongside such talent as Roy Hargrove. In her early youth, she decided to change the spelling of her name from Erica to Erykah, as she firmly believed her original name to be her slave name. The term 'kah' signifies the inner self. Badu is her favorite jazz scat sound and is also an African name for the 10th born child used for the Akan people in Ghana.
586335	Payyans is a 2011 Malayalam family drama film written and directed by Leo Thaddeus. It stars Jayasurya, Rohini, Anjali, Lalu Alex and Lal in pivotal roles. The film's score is composed by Rahulraj whilst the songs are composed by Alphons Joseph. The film is produced by Kammu Vadakkan and distributed by Beebah Creations and Sayujyam Cine Release. It narrates the story of a reckless youth who is forced to act his age and take responsibility for his actions.The film marked the debut of Anjali in Malayalam.
1702800	Kinnara Thumbikal aka Kinnarathumbikal is a 2000 Malayalam softcore film directed by R. J. Prasad featuring Shakeela in the lead role. The film is produced by A.Salim under the banner of MIYAMI PRODUCTIONS.The film was a new revolution in Malayalam cinema as well as in South Indian Film industry. The film with a short string budget went on to become surprise blockbuster. The film on huge success in Malayalam was dubbed in more than six Indian languages such as Tamil, Telegu, Kannada, Hindi and Oriya. It was one of the biggest hits in the South Indian Industry. Story. Sanju is a rich boy who lives with his aunty. Hema is the cousin of Sanju they fall in love and plans to marriage. Shakeela who lives nearby become fond of Sanju and seduces him. Reception. The made with a shoe string budget of 22 lakhs became a box office blockbuster grossing around 4 crores. It was dubbed in Hindi and other Indian languages and became successful. The film has earned a dedicated cult following, mainly in South Indian states. On the success many South Indian B movie's got dubbed in Hindi such as "Layanam" starring Silk Smitha got dubbed as "Reshma Ki Jawani" and found success in Bollywood.
1105210	Sofia Vasilyevna Kovalevskaya () ( – ) was the first major Russian female mathematician, responsible for important original contributions to analysis, differential equations and mechanics, and the first woman appointed to a full professorship in Northern Europe. She was also one of the first women to work for a scientific journal as an editor. There are some alternative transliterations of her name. She herself used Sophie Kowalevski (or occasionally Kowalevsky), for her academic publications. After moving to Sweden, she called herself Sonya. Early years. Sofia Kovalevskaya ("née" Korvin-Krukovskaya), was born in Moscow, the second of three children. Her father, Vasily Vasilyevich Korvin-Krukovsky, was Lieutenant-General of Artillery who served in the Imperial Russian Army. Her mother, Yelizaveta Fedorovna Schubert, was a scholarly woman of German ancestry and Sofia's grandmother was Romani. When she was 11 years old, the wall paper in her room had differential and integral analysis, which was her early preparation for calculus. They nurtured her interest in mathematics and hired a tutor (A. N. Strannoliubskii, a well-known advocate of higher education for women), who taught her calculus. During that same period, the son of the local priest introduced her to nihilism. Despite her obvious talent for mathematics, she could not complete her education in Russia. At that time, women there were not allowed to attend universities. In order to study abroad, she needed written permission from her father (or husband). Accordingly, she contracted a "fictitious marriage" with Vladimir Kovalevsky, then a young paleontology student who would later become famous for his collaboration with Charles Darwin. They emigrated from Russia in 1867. Student years. In 1869, Kovalevskaya began attending the University of Heidelberg, Germany, which allowed her to audit classes as long as the professors involved gave their approval. Shortly after beginning her studies there, she visited London with Vladimir, who spent time with his colleagues Thomas Huxley and Charles Darwin, while she was invited to attend George Eliot's Sunday salons. There, at age nineteen, she met Herbert Spencer and was led into a debate, at Eliot's instigation, on "woman's capacity for abstract thought". This was well before she made her notable contribution of the "Kovalevsky top" to the brief list of known examples of integrable rigid body motion (see following section). George Eliot was writing Middlemarch at the time, in which one finds the remarkable sentence: "In short, woman was a problem which, since Mr. Brooke's mind felt blank before it, could hardly be less complicated than the revolutions of an irregular solid." Kovalevskaya participated in social movements and shared ideas of utopian socialism. In 1871 she traveled to Paris together with her husband in order to attend to the injured from the Paris Commune. Kovalevskaya helped save Victor Jaclard, who was the husband of her sister Ann (Anne Jaclard). After two years of mathematical studies at Heidelberg under such teachers as Hermann von Helmholtz, Gustav Kirchhoff and Robert Bunsen, she moved to Berlin, where she had to take private lessons from Karl Weierstrass, as the university would not even allow her to audit classes. In 1874 she presented three papers—on partial differential equations, on the dynamics of Saturn's rings and on elliptic integrals —to the University of Göttingen as her doctoral dissertation. With the support of Weierstrass, this earned her a doctorate in mathematics "summa cum laude", bypassing the usual required lectures and examinations. She thereby became the first woman in Europe to hold that degree. Her paper on partial differential equations contains what is now commonly known as the Cauchy-Kovalevski theorem, which gives conditions for the existence of solutions to a certain class of those equations. Last years in Germany and Sweden. In the early 1880s, Sofia and her husband Vladimir developed financial problems. Sofia wanted to be a lecturer at the university; however, she was not allowed to because she was a woman, even though she had the same amount of knowledge in mathematics as men. Sofia had even volunteered to provide free lectures and she was still denied the right. Soon after, Vladimir started business management and Sofia became his assistant. They built houses as well as fountains to become financially stable again for a short period of time. In 1879, the price for mortgages became higher than the amount of money they made. They lost all their money again and became bankrupt. Shortly after, Vladimir got a job offer and Sofia helped neighbours to electrify street lights. Vladimir and Sofia quickly established themselves again financially. The Kovalevskys returned to Russia, but failed to secure professorships because of their radical political beliefs. Discouraged, they went back to Germany. Vladimir, who had always suffered severe mood swings, became more unstable so they spent most of their time apart. Then, for some unknown reason, they decided to spend several years together as an actual married couple. During this time their daughter, Sofia (called "Fufa"), was born. After a year devoted to raising her daughter, Kovalevskaya put Fufa under the care of her older sister, resumed her work in mathematics and left Vladimir for what would be the last time. In 1883, faced with worsening mood swings and the possibility of being prosecuted for his role in a stock swindle, Vladimir committed suicide. That year, with the help of the mathematician Gösta Mittag-Leffler, whom she had known as a fellow student of Weierstrass', Kovalevskaya was able to secure a position as a "privat-docent" at Stockholm University in Sweden. Kovalevskaya met Mittag-Leffler through his sister, actress, novelist, and playwright Anne-Charlotte Edgren-Leffler. The two women had an intimate "romantic friendship" that lasted until Kovalevskaya's death. Sofia Kovalevskaya was inspired by her father's old calculus sheets. The following year (1884) she was appointed to a five year position as "Professor Extraordinarius" (Professor without Chair) and became the editor of Acta Mathematica. In 1888 she won the "Prix Bordin" of the French Academy of Science, for her work on the question: "Mémoire sur un cas particulier du problème de le rotation d'un corps pesant autour d'un point fixe, où l'intégration s'effectue à l'aide des fonctions ultraelliptiques du temps". Her submission included the celebrated discovery of what is now known as the "Kovalevsky top", which was subsequently shown (by Liouville) to be the only other case of rigid body motion, beside the tops of Euler and Lagrange, that is "completely integrable". In 1889 she was appointed Professor Ordinarius (Professorial Chair holder) at Stockholm University, the first woman to hold such a position at a northern European university. After much lobbying on her behalf (and a change in the Academy's rules) she was granted a Chair in the Russian Academy of Sciences, but was never offered a professorship in Russia. Kovalevskaya wrote several non-mathematical works as well, including a memoir, "A Russian Childhood", plays (in collaboration with Duchess Anne Charlotte Edgren-Leffler) and a partly autobiographical novel, "Nihilist Girl" (1890). She died of influenza in 1891 at age forty-one, after returning from a pleasure trip to Genoa. She is buried in Solna, Sweden, at Norra begravningsplatsen Tributes. Sonia Kovalevsky High School Mathematics Day is a grant-making program of the Association for Women in Mathematics (AWM), funding workshops across the United States which encourage girls to explore mathematics. The Sonia Kovalevsky Lecture is sponsored annually by the AWM, and is intended to highlight significant contributions of women in the fields of applied or computational mathematics. Past honorees have included Irene Fonseca (2006), Ingrid Daubechies (2005), Joyce R. McLaughlin (2004) and Linda R. Petzold (2003). The lunar crater Kovalevskaya is named in her honor. The Alexander Von Humboldt Foundation of Germany bestows a bi-annual Sofia Kovalevskaya Award to promising young researchers. In film. Sofia Kovalevskaya has been the subject of three film and TV biographies.
1445581	Margaret Whitton (born November 30, 1950) is an American stage, film and television actress, originally from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Her first work was on the New York stage, where she worked as a dog walker between parts. She first noticeably appeared on the stage in 1973, billed as Peggy Whitton. In the early 1980s, she began to be billed as Margaret Whitton and made her Broadway debut in 1982's "Steaming". Whitton did her primary film work between 1986 and 1993. Her most visible roles were that of baseball team owner Rachel Phelps in "Major League" (1989) and it sequel "Major League II", and as Michael J. Fox's vibrant, sexy and under-appreciated aunt-by-marriage in "The Secret of My Success" (1987). She appeared in the Robin Williams-Kurt Russell vehicle "The Best of Times" (1986) and in Mel Gibson's "The Man Without a Face" (1993). Her other films roles included parts in "National Lampoon Goes to the Movies" (1982), "Love Child" (1982) and "9 1/2 Weeks" (1986) as Molly. She has worked as a television actress, with appearances in the soap operas "One Life to Live" and "The Doctors". Her first primetime role was in CBS's 1985 "Hometown". A 1989 part had her as a divorcee in the short-lived ABC screwball comedy series "A Fine Romance". She was featured in the 1991 sitcom "Good & Evil", in which she had the role of the good-natured sister in contrast to her evil executive sibling, played by Teri Garr. The series had low ratings and was cancelled by ABC after six episodes. After her seven year experiment with film, she returned to the stage, appearing on Broadway in "And the Apple Doesn't Fall..." (1995), as Mac in Jeffrey Hatcher's "The Three Viewings" (1995), and in the original, award-winning musical "Marlene" (1999), starring Siân Phillips as Marlene Dietrich. Today, she is the president of independent film producer Tashtego Films (www.tashtegofilms.com). The non-theatrical rights to her play "A Bird of the Air" were acquired by Freestyle Digital Media. It was based upon the novel "The Loop as" by Joe Coomer and was adapted for film by Roger Towne. Personal life. Margaret Whitton is married to former Bear, Stearns & Co. executive Warren Spector. She is a fan of the New York Yankees.
1072424	The War in Space, released in Japan as , is a tokusatsu science fiction film produced and released by Toho Studios in 1977. Background. While the concept and production of "The War in Space" was spurred by the explosive international success of "", the film is actually an outer space redressing of Toho's undersea adventure "Atragon" and the groundbreaking anime series "Space Battleship Yamato". "The War in Space" was originally announced as a sequel to "Battle in Outer Space". Design-wise, the UNSF Gohten is a cross between the Space Battleship Yamato and the Gotengo. Plot. The movie starts out in 1988 with pilot Koji Miyoshi's return to Japan in response to electromagnetic interference that is plaguing the world following a comet scare. Miyoshi is quickly reunited with old friends and acquaintances upon his arrival, although the reunion is cut short as UFOs began to appear all across America as the UN's Space Station Terra is also destroyed in orbit. This series of events prompts Miyoshi to meet with Masato Takigawa and request that the United Nations Space Forces' Gohten Project - construction of the UNSF Gohten, is completed. The request falls on deaf ears until the aliens from the distant planet of Yomi in Messier 13 who have been behind the recent disturbances bungle a plan to kidnap Takigawa, at which point work on the Gohten commences amongst global chaos from attacking Hell Fighter UFO's. Following a fierce battle at the Gohten’s base, the craft is finally launched as it makes its way to Venus, the suspected location of the invaders’ base of operations, to put an end to the alien threat. DVD release. A DVD of the film was released in the United States on April 25, 2006 with both English and Japanese soundtracks. Included on the disc was an interview with special effects director for the film, Teruyoshi Nakano.
1069733	Sig Ruman (October 11, 1884 – February 14, 1967) was a German-American actor known for his comic portrayals of pompous and often stereotypically-Teutonic officials or villains. Life and career. Born as Siegfried Albon Rumann in Hamburg, he studied electrical engineering before serving with the Imperial German army during the First World War. After his migration to the United States in 1924, his acting career blossomed. Befriending playwright George S. Kaufman and theater critic Alexander Woollcott, he enjoyed success in many Broadway productions. Ruman became a favorite of the Marx Brothers, appearing in "A Night at the Opera", "A Day at the Races", and "A Night in Casablanca". His German accent and large stature kept him busy during World War II, playing sinister Nazi characters in a series of wartime thrillers. During this period, he also appeared in several films by Ernst Lubitsch, a fellow German émigré. In 1941, he played the role of Professor Herman Von Reiter in "Shining Victory", an adaptation of an A. J. Cronin play. Ruman would continue his trend of playing over-the-top German characters later in his career for Lubitsch's protege Billy Wilder, appearing in Wilder's films "The Emperor Waltz", "Stalag 17" and "The Fortune Cookie". According to Leonard Maltin in the DVD commentary for "A Night at the Opera", Ruman had modified his screen name to make it a little less German-sounding, to lessen potential anti-German prejudice against him. Despite declining health during the 1950s and 1960s, Ruman continued to find work, making many guest appearances on television, including an appearance on "The Addams Family". He died of a heart attack on February 14, 1967 in Julian, California. As an added note of interest, during the final moments of the film "36 Hours", Ruman, who played Sgt. Johann Sebastian Schulz in Billy Wilder's 1953 film "STALAG 17", would play opposite actor John Banner who would play Sgt. Schultz in the 1960s TV series "Hogan's Hero's".
1067116	The Lords of Flatbush is a 1974 American drama film about street teenagers in leather jackets from the Flatbush neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York. Directed by Martin Davidson and Stephen Verona, "The Lords of Flatbush" is a low-budget film starring Perry King, Henry Winkler and Sylvester Stallone. Stallone was also credited with writing additional dialogue. A portion of this film was shot in Stamford, Connecticut. The wedding scenes were filmed in an area of town called Cove on Dale Street. Some school scenes were shot at Abraham Lincoln High School in the Coney Island section of Brooklyn. The opening exterior scenes were shot at Samuel J. Tilden High School, the only school used in the film which is actually located in the Flatbush section of Brooklyn. Richard Gere was originally cast in this movie but, after coming to blows with Sylvester Stallone, was given his walking papers by the director. Plot. Set in 1958, the coming-of-age story follows four Brooklyn teenagers known as The Lords of Flatbush. The Lords chase girls, steal cars, play pool and hang out at a local malt shop. The film focuses on Chico (Perry King) attempting to win over Jane (Susan Blakely), a girl who wants little to do with him, and Stanley (Sylvester Stallone), who impregnates his girlfriend, Frannie (Maria Smith), who wants him to marry her.
1265443	Jane Darwell (October 15, 1879–August 13, 1967) was an American actress of stage, film, and television. With appearances in more than one hundred major motion pictures spanning half a century, Darwell is perhaps best-remembered for her portrayal of the matriarch and leader of the Joad family in the film adaptation of John Steinbeck's "The Grapes of Wrath", for which she received the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, and her role as the Bird Woman in Disney's musical family film, "Mary Poppins". Early life. Born Patti Woodard to William Robert Woodard, a railroad president, and Ellen Booth in Palmyra in Marion County in northeastern Missouri, she originally intended to become a circus rider, then later an opera singer. Her father objected, however, and she compromised by becoming an actress but changed her name to "Darwell" to avoid sullying the family name. Career. She took up voice culture and the piano followed by a course in dramatics. At one point, she decided to enter a convent but instead changed her mind and became an actress. Darwell began her acting career in theater productions in Chicago and made her first film appearance in 1913. She appeared in almost twenty films over the next two years before returning to the stage. After a 15 year absence from films, she resumed her film career in 1930 with a role in "Tom Sawyer", and her career as a Hollywood character actress began. Short, stout and plain-faced she was quickly cast in a succession of films usually as the mother of one of the major characters. She was especially prevalent in Shirley Temple films; she appeared in five films with Temple, usually as the housekeeper or grandmother. She won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress as "Ma Joad" in "The Grapes of Wrath" (1940), a role she was given at the insistence of the film's star, Henry Fonda. A contract player with 20th Century Fox, Darwell was memorably cast in "The Ox-Bow Incident", and occasionally starred in "B" movies and played featured parts in scores of major films. Darwell had noted appearances on the stage as well; in 1944, she was popular in the stage comedy "Suds in Your Eye", in which she played an Irishwoman who had inherited a junkyard. By the end of her career she had appeared in more than 170 films, including "Huckleberry Finn" (1931), "Jesse James" (1939), "Gone with the Wind" (1939), "The Devil and Daniel Webster" (1941), "The Ox-Bow Incident" (1943), and "My Darling Clementine" (1946). Darwell was among the guest stars on an episode of "Faye Emerson's Wonderful Town", a variety television series which aired on CBS from 1951 to 1952 in which hostess Faye Emerson visits a different city each week to accent the local music. In 1954, Darwell appeared with Andy Clyde in the episode "Santa's Old Suit" of the series, "The Pepsi-Cola Playhouse". This same episode was re-run the following Christmas 1955 on "Studio 57". In 1959, she appeared with child actor Roger Mobley in the episode "Mr. Rush's Secretary" on the NBC western series, "Buckskin", starring Tom Nolan and Sally Brophy. She guest starred on John Bromfield's crime drama in a modern western setting, "Sheriff of Cochise". On July 27, 1961, Darwell appeared as "Grandmother McCoy" in an episode of the ABC sitcom "The Real McCoys". In the story line, the series characters played by Walter Brennan, Richard Crenna, and Kathleen Nolan return to fictitious Smokey Corners, West Virginia for Grandmother McCoy's 100th birthday gathering. Darwell was fifteen years older than "son", Walter Brennan. Pat Buttram and Henry Jones appeared in this episode as Cousin Carl and Jed McCoy, respectively. Darwell's final role as the old woman feeding the birds in "Mary Poppins" (1964) was personally assigned to her by Walt Disney. Darwell has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, at 6735 Hollywood Boulevard. Death. In her last years, Darwell's health was poor. It took some persuasion for her to appear in Disney's "Mary Poppins" as she was, by then, tired, frail and in her middle eighties. Darwell died from a heart attack at the age of eighty-seven.
881555	River Queen is a 2005 New Zealand film directed by Vincent Ward and starring Samantha Morton, Kiefer Sutherland and Cliff Curtis. The film opened to mixed reviews but performed well at the local box-office. Plot. The film takes place in New Zealand in 1868 during Titokowaru's War between the Māori and New Zealand colonial forces. Sarah O'Brien (Samantha Morton) has grown up among soldiers in a frontier garrison on Te Awa Nui, the Great River. Pregnant at 16 by a young Maori boy, she gives birth to a son. When, 7 years later, her son, Boy, is kidnapped by his Maori grandfather, Sarah is distraught. Abandoned by her soldier father, Sarah's life becomes a search for her son. Her only friend, Doyle (Kiefer Sutherland) is a broken-down soldier without the means to help her. Lured to the ill rebel chief Te Kai Po's village by the chance to see her child, Sarah finds herself falling in love with Boy's uncle, Wiremu (Cliff Curtis) and increasingly drawn to the village way of life. Using medical skills she learned from her father, Sarah heals Te Kai Po (Temuera Morrison) and begins to reconcile with her son (Rawiri Pene). But her idyllic time at the village is shattered when she realises that she has healed the chief only to hear him declare war on the Colonials, men she feels are her friends, her only family. Her desperation deepens when she realises that Boy intends to prove himself in war, refusing to go back down river with her. As the conflict escalates Sarah finds herself at the centre of the storm, torn by the love she feels for Boy and Wiremu, anguished over the attachments she still has to the white man's world, and sickened by the brutality she witnesses on either side. And when the moment comes, Sarah must choose where she belongs; will she be forced back into the white man's way of life, or will she have the courage to follow the instincts that are telling her where she truly belongs? Production. Sam Neill was originally favoured by Vincent Ward to be cast in a leading role, but he declined. Director Vincent Ward was dismissed from the film towards the end of the shoot to be replaced by cinematographer Alun Bollinger and then in an unusual reversal, was rehired just weeks later for six months of editing and additional shooting in both New Zealand and England. "River Queen" features the song "Danny Boy" sung in Maori and English. The film is set in 1868, and the lyrics for "Danny Boy" were written in 1910 and adapted to the traditional Irish melody "Londonderry Air". It is possible the melody was known in New Zealand at the time, but another 42 years were to pass before the lyrics were written by Frederick Weatherly. Reception. "River Queen" topped the New Zealand Box Office on its first weekend of release.
402119	Devon Edwenna Aoki (born August 10, 1982) is an American model and actress. Early life. Aoki was born in New York City, New York, and grew up in California and London, attending high school at The American School in London. Her Japanese father, Hiroaki "Rocky" Aoki, a former wrestler, was the founder of the Benihana restaurant chain and owned it until his death on July 10, 2008. Her mother, Pamela Hilburger, is a jewelry designer and a painter of German and English heritage. She started modeling when she was 13, the same year Aoki was introduced by her godmother to Kate Moss, who would later take the young model under her wing. She was signed to Storm Model Management at age 14. In 1998, at the age of 16, Aoki replaced Naomi Campbell as the face of Versace. Career. Aoki has modeled for the fashion houses Lancôme, Chanel, Versace, despite her relatively short height for a runway model. Aoki has done ad campaigns for Chanel Ready-to-Wear, Chanel Couture by Karl Lagerfeld, Versace by Steven Meisel, YSL by Juergen Teller, Alessandro Dell'Acqua, Hugo Boss, Moschino, Ungaro, Fendi, Junko Shimada by Bettina Kimenda, Baby Phat by Kimora Lee Simmons, Lancome, Tiffanys and co. Early on in her career Aoki made cameo appearances in several music videos, including Duran Duran's "Electric Barbarella", Primal Scream's "Kowalski" (with Kate Moss), Elton John's "Something About the Way You Look Tonight"and, later, in Ludacris' "Act a Fool". Music from this video was featured in the soundtrack of "2 Fast 2 Furious", in which both Ludacris and Aoki appeared. In 2007, she made an appearance in The Killers' video "Bones". Aoki has made a cameo appearance in the short films accompanying the Sean Lennon album, "Friendly Fire". She also played Anna in "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Undead". Her acting career includes films like "2 Fast 2 Furious", "D.E.B.S.", "Sin City", "", "War" and "Mutant Chronicles". She did not have her driver's license prior to filming "2 Fast 2 Furious" and had to learn to drive during filming. Aoki has joined L.A.'s International Creative Management for representation and The Firm for management. Aoki has been on the cover of "I-D" magazine three times. She was also the face of Lancome cosmetics for four years. Aoki posed for Singaporean photographer Leslie Kee for Kee's 2006 charity photo-book "Super Stars", dedicated to the victims of the 2004 Asian tsunami disaster, which consists of photographs of 300 Asian celebrities by Kee. The same year, Aoki posed for photographer Marc Baptiste’s book "Nudes" wearing a dress. In September 2007, it was announced she was designing a jeans line for Levi's Asian market. Aoki made a return to the runway, walking for the Chanel Pre-Fall 2008 show in London and the couture show in Paris where she was the bride. She is signed to 1/One Management New York, d-Management (Milan), and City (Paris). Personal life. Aoki's hobbies include writing poetry, playing the drums and tending to her two pet snakes. Her half-brother, Steve Aoki, is a Los Angeles DJ and the founder of Dim Mak Records. As of January 2011, Aoki was engaged to James Bailey. She gave birth to their first child, Hunter, in June 2011.
583435	Libaas is a 1988 Hindi film directed by Gulzar. The film is about married couples of urban India having extramarital relations and adultery. The subject of the film was considered to be bold in its time and was objectionable to be shown publicly and was banned by the Censor Board of India.. The film won critical acclaim in international film festivals but never got released in India till date. It was also the last film, until das kahaniyaan got released, where Shabana Azmi and Naseeruddin Shah, the lead pair of Parallel Cinema in the 1980s, appeared together after giving notable performances in Sai Paranjpye's "Sparsh" (1980) and Shekhar Kapoor's "Masoom" (1983). Soundtrack. The music was by R. D. Burman with lyrics by Gulzar.
1058708	"Pete's Dragon" is a 1977 live-action/animated musical film from Walt Disney Productions and the first Disney film to be recorded in the Dolby Stereo sound system. It is a live-action film but its title character, a dragon named Elliott, is animated. The story is about a young orphan named Pete who enters the town of Passamaquoddy a small fishing community in Northeastern Maine. His only friend is a dragon named Elliott, who also acts as his protector and can make himself invisible and is generally visible only to Pete, which occasionally lands Pete in trouble with the locals. Also starring Helen Reddy, Mickey Rooney, Jim Dale, Red Buttons, Jeff Conaway, and Shelley Winters. The film was directed by Don Chaffey, and the songs are by Al Kasha and Joel Hirschhorn. The song "Candle on the Water" received an Academy Award nomination, but lost to "You Light Up My Life" from the film of the same title. Reddy's recording (with a different arrangement than the one her character sings in the film) was released as a single by Capitol Records, reaching #27 on the Adult Contemporary charts. The movie also received a nomination for Original Song Score and Its Adaptation or Adaptation Score, losing to "A Little Night Music". Plot. In the early 20th century, a young dusty-haired orphan named Pete is fleeing his abusive adoptive hillbilly family, the Gogans. As Lena Gogan and company pursue him ("The Happiest Home in These Hills"), an unseen force, which Pete calls Elliott (silent), knocks the Gogans into a mud pit. Lena, her husband "Merle (silent)", and their sons Grover and "Willie (silent)" are determined to find Pete because, in Lena's own words, "We paid $50 for that kid, and we ain't got fifty more." The lazy, inept and constantly bickering Grover and Willie are told by their equally lazy parents that if they don't get Pete back, the boys will have to work the farm. The next morning, Pete and Elliott, revealed to be a green and pink animated dragon who also has the power of invisibility, share breakfast ("Boo Bop Bop Bop Bop (I Love You, Too)") and decide to visit Passamaquoddy, a nearby village where the unseen Elliott, performing clumsy antics, causes Pete to be labeled a source of ill luck and must flee. Lampie, the drunken old lighthouse keeper, stumbles out of a tavern and encounters Pete. A mischievous Elliott makes himself visible to him and a terrified Lampie runs into the bar to warn the townsfolk ("I Saw a Dragon"). His capable daughter, Nora takes him back to their home, the local lighthouse, settles him down, and puts him to bed. Meanwhile, in a seaside cave, Pete scolds Elliott for causing trouble. Just as the two make up, Nora appears, having spotted Pete earlier. She offers Pete shelter and they talk ("It's Not Easy"). Pete is inquisitive and soon learns the story of Nora's fiancé, Paul, whose ship was reported lost at sea the previous year. Pete promises to ask Elliott about Paul and Nora accepts, believing Elliott to be an imaginary friend. The next morning, Doc Terminus, a medicine showman, and his shill, Hoagy, haphazardly arrive and manage to win over the gullible townspeople, who are initially angered by their return ("Passamasloddy"). That evening Pete visits Elliot and Nora thanks her father for pretending that the dragon exists. Lampie insists he actually saw a dragon and Nora tells him to be realistic, to which her father retorts that her hoping for Paul’s return is just as ridiculous. Lampie apologizes for his outburst and excuses himself, giving Nora time to think ("Candle on the Water"). At the tavern, Lampie tells Terminus and Hoagy about the dragon. Terminus dismisses the tale, but Hoagy agrees to go to the cave. After an encounter with Elliott, Hoagy offers the dragon some liquor as a gesture of peace, which triggers a fiery belch that chases the pair away. The local fishermen complain about the recent scarcity of fish and believe Pete is the cause. Nora reminds them the fishing grounds shift, and that Pete should be welcomed in town ("There's Room for Everyone"). Nora takes Pete to school, where Pete is punished unfairly by the strict teacher as a result of Elliott's antics. An enraged Elliott smashes into the building. Terminus, now convinced of Elliot's existence and having learned that dragon anatomy has many medicinal uses ("Every Little Piece'"), makes Pete an offer for Elliott, which Pete refuses. Later, Pete accepts Nora and Lampie's offer to stay with them permanently ("Brazzle Dazzle Day"). The Gogans arrive in town and confront them ("Bill of Sale"), only to be firmly defied by Nora and thwarted by Elliott. Terminus makes a deal with the Gogans and convinces the superstitious locals that helping him capture the dragon will solve their problems. That evening, a storm begins to blow. Pete tries to tell Nora the good news that Elliott has located Paul. However Nora, still believing that Pete has imagined Elliott, replies that Pete has no more need to believe in him. Even Lampie begins to doubt that he saw a dragon. Undeterred, Pete helps Nora prepare the lighthouse for the storm. Out at sea, a sailing ship is approaching Passamaquoddy, its captain assisted by Paul. Terminus lures Pete to the town's boathouse, while Hoagie does the same to Elliott. At the boathouse, the invisible Elliott discovers Pete, but is caught in an immense net. Elliott frees himself and saves Pete from the Gogans before they can escape. He incinerates their bill of sale (their only piece of evidence that shows that they own Pete), then douses them all with a barrel of tar before chasing them off. As Pete and Elliott celebrate, Terminus aims a harpoon gun at the distracted dragon, but the harpoon's rope is looped around his ankle and he is sent flying through the ceiling. After rebuking Terminus and Hoagie, Elliott saves the mayor and other dignitaries from a falling utility pole, revealing himself to the grateful townsfolk. Back at the lighthouse, the lamp has been extinguished by a storm-driven wave. Elliott returns and tries to light the lamp with his own fire. As he is doing so, Nora finally sees that Elliott is real. After several failures, due to the damp wick and the fact that Elliott's esophagus is squeezed into the lighthouse steps, the light is finally ignited and the ship is saved. The next morning the townsfolk praise Elliott for his help and Nora is reunited with Paul who, it turns out, was the sole survivor of a shipwreck at Cape Hatteras, but he suffered total amnesia due to his ordeal. Then, one day recently, his bed suddenly tipped over (courtesy of an invisible Elliott); Paul bumped his head and regained his memory. Sadly, now that Pete is safe and has a loving family of his own, Elliott reveals that he must move on to help another kid in trouble. Pete says his goodbyes to Elliott who happily flies off, with Pete happily reminding him to not scare people and to stay invisible while at the same time Pete, Lampie, Nora, and Paul watch and run after Elliott as he flies away. Cast. Al Checco, Henry Slate, and Jack Collins appear in the film as local fishermen. Robert Easton plays a store proprietor in Passamaquoddy, and Roger Price is seen as a man with a visor. Robert Foulk plays an old sea captain. Ben Wrigley is the egg man and Joe Ross plays the cement man. Dinah Anne Rogers has an uncredited role as one of the townspeople, as does Dennis Stewart, who plays a fisherman, and Debbie Fresh is also uncredited as a "Child / Dancer / Singer". Production. History. At the core of "Pete's Dragon" was an unpublished short story by Hollywood Golden Age writer Seton I. Miller and S.S. Field. The Disney studio acquired the rights to the story in the 1950s with the intent of using it on the "Disneyland" anthology program. Instead, it was given the full feature film treatment by writer Malcolm Marmorstein, in what remains his biggest undertaking to date. The production was directed by British filmmaker Don Chaffey, who had helmed two smaller films for Disney in the early 1960s in between larger fantasy adventures ("Jason and the Argonauts", "One Million Years B.C.") for others. Locations. The lighthouse for "Pete's Dragon" was built on a point above Morro Bay, California, substituting for Maine. It was equipped with such a large beacon that Disney had to get special permission from the Coast Guard to operate it, since operating it during filming would have confused passing ships. Animation. The animators of Pete's Dragon opted to make Elliott look more like an oriental, rather than occidental, dragon because oriental dragons are usually associated with good. The film is the first involving animation in which none of the Nine Old Men — Disney's original team of animators — were involved. One technique used in the movie involved compositing with a sodium screen, whereby up to three scenes might be composited together — for example, a live foreground, a live background, and an animated middle ground containing Elliott. Ken Anderson, who created Elliott, explained that he thought it would be appropriate to make Elliott "a little paunchy" and not always particularly graceful when it comes to flying. Don Hahn, who was assistant director to Don Bluth on this film, gained some experience working with a combination of live-action and animation before later going on to work on "Who Framed Roger Rabbit". Reception. The film was successful to some degree; in 1978, "Pete's Dragon" was ranked at seventeen on "Variety"s hit list. Thomas J. Harris, in "Children’s Live-Action Musical Films: A Critical Survey and Filmography", heavily criticizes the story as well as the compositing of the animated Elliott; he also found the "Mary Poppinsish ending" to be "thoroughly unmotivated", because Pete's life before meeting Elliott is never fleshed out. In 2006, Elliott was ranked no. 5 on a top 10 list of movie dragons by Karl Heitmueller for MTV Movie News. Critic Leonard Maltin observed that Disney made several attempts to recreate the appeal and success of "Mary Poppins" (1964), and that "Pete's Dragon" didn't come close on that score. However, Maltin added that it might please children, and that "the animated title character is so endearing that it almost compensates for the live actors' tiresome mugging." "Pete's Dragon" currently has a Rotten Tomatoes approval rating of 50%. Awards and honors. "Pete's Dragon" was nominated for two Academy Awards: The film was nominated for four Saturn Awards: The Hollywood Foreign Press Association nominated "Pete's Dragon" for one Golden Globe Award: Remake. In March 2013, Disney announced a "reboot" of "Pete's Dragon", to be written by David Lowery from the Sundance hit "Ain’t Them Bodies Saints". The new film will "reinvent the core story of a venerable Disney family film. It will not be a musical and at this time Lowery is just engaged as writer."
1163371	Richard Jay Belzer (born August 4, 1944) is an American stand-up comedian, author, and actor. He is perhaps best known for his role as John Munch, whom he has portrayed as a regular cast member on the NBC police drama series ' and ', as well as in guest appearances on a number of other series. Early life and education. Belzer was born in Bridgeport, Connecticut. He grew up in a Jewish family. After high school, Belzer worked as a reporter for the "Bridgeport Post." He attended what was then Dean Junior College in Franklin, Massachusetts. Career. Stand-up. After his first divorce, Belzer relocated to New York City, moved in with singer Shelley Ackerman, and began working as a stand-up comic at Pips, The Improv, and Catch a Rising Star. He participated in the Channel One comedy group that satirized television and became the basis for the cult movie "The Groove Tube," in which Belzer played the costar of the "ersatz" TV show "The Dealers." Belzer was the audience warm-up comedian for "Saturday Night Live" in its premiere season and made three guest appearances on the show in 1976 and 1978. He also opened for musician Warren Zevon during his tour supporting the release of his album "Excitable Boy". Film. In the late 1970s and early '80s, Belzer became an occasional film actor. He is noted for small roles in "Fame," "Night Shift," and "Scarface." He appeared in the music videos for the Mike + The Mechanics song "Taken In" and for the Pat Benatar song "Le Bel Age",as well as the Kansas video "Can't Cry Anymore" . He had a movie role as an LAPD detective in "A Very Brady Sequel. " Radio. In addition to his film career, Belzer was a featured player on the "National Lampoon Radio Hour" with co-stars John Belushi, Chevy Chase, Bill Murray, Gilda Radner, and Harold Ramis, a half-hour comedy program aired on 600 plus U.S. stations from 1973 to 1975. Several of his sketches were released on National Lampoon albums, drawn from the Radio Hour, including several bits in which he portrayed a pithy call-in talk show host named "Dick Valentine". In the late 1970s, he cohosted "Brink & Belzer" on 660AM WNBC radio in (New York City). He has been a frequent guest on "The Howard Stern Show". Following the departure of Randi Rhodes from Air America Radio, Belzer guest-hosted the afternoon program on the network. Television. In the 1990s, Belzer appeared frequently on television. He was a regular on "The Flash". In several episodes of "," he played Inspector William Henderson. He followed that with starring roles on the Baltimore-based ' (1993–99) and the New York–based ' (1999–), portraying police detective John Munch in both series. Barry Levinson, executive director of "Homicide", said Belzer was a "lousy actor" in audition when he read lines from the script for "Gone for Goode", the first episode in the series. Levinson asked Belzer to take time to reread and practice the material, then read it again. At his second reading, Levinson said Belzer was "still terrible", but that the actor eventually found confidence in his performance. In addition, he's played Munch in episodes on seven other series and in a sketch on one talk show, making Munch the only fictional character to appear on ten different television shows played by a single actor. These shows were on five different networks: Belzer has portrayed Det. Munch for twenty-one consecutive seasons on "Homicide" (seven seasons) and "Law & Order: SVU" (14 seasons), which beat the record for most consecutive seasons set by Kelsey Grammer (as Dr. Frasier Crane on "Cheers" and "Frasier" from 1984 to 2004) and James Arness (who portrayed Marshal Matt Dillon on "Gunsmoke" from 1955 to 75) for the record of twenty consecutive seasons. Belzer appeared in several of Comedy Central's televised broadcasts of Friars Club roasts. At the December 1, 2002, roast of Chevy Chase, Belzer said, "The only time Chevy Chase has a funny bone in his body is when I fuck him in the ass." On June 9, 2001, Belzer himself was honored by the New York Friars Club and the Toyota Comedy Festival as the honoree of the first-ever roast open to the public. Comedians and friends on the dais included Roastmaster Paul Shaffer; Christopher Walken; Danny Aiello; Barry Levinson; Robert Klein; Bill Maher; "SVU" costars Mariska Hargitay, Christopher Meloni, Ice-T, and Dann Florek; and "Law & Order" Jerry Orbach. Belzer voiced the character of Loogie for most of the episode of "South Park" entitled "The Tooth Fairy Tats 2000". He and Brian Doyle-Murray were featured in the tenth-season premiere of "Sesame Street". In August 2012, Belzer appeared as a political commentator on MSNBC's "Up with Chris Hayes". Personal life. Belzer's first two marriages were to Gail Susan Ross (1966–72) and boutique manager Dalia Danoch (1976 – c. 1978), both of which ended in divorce. In 1981 in Los Angeles he met 31-year-old Harlee McBride, a divorcee with two daughters, Bree and Jessica. McBride, who had been seen in "Playboy" magazine four years earlier in that year's sex-in-cinema feature, in conjunction with "Young Lady Chatterley", was appearing in TV commercials for Ford motors and acting in free theater, when she met Belzer at the suggestion of a friend. The two married in 1985. He owns property in the south of France, where he and his wife live when Belzer is not working. Belzer survived testicular cancer in 1983. His HBO special and comedy CD "Another Lone Nut" pokes fun at this as well as his status as a well-known conspiracy theorist. On March 27, 1985, days prior to the inaugural WrestleMania, Belzer requested on his cable TV talk show "Hot Properties" that Hulk Hogan demonstrate one of his signature wrestling moves. After being asked by Belzer, Hogan put Belzer in a front chin-lock, which caused Belzer to pass out. When Hogan released him, Belzer hit his head on the floor, sustaining a laceration to the scalp that required a brief hospitalization. Belzer sued Hogan for $5 million and settled out of court. On October 20, 2006, on "Bubba the Love Sponge", it was claimed (with Hogan in the studio) that the settlement totaled $5 million, half from Hogan and half from Vince McMahon. During his June 23, 2008 appearance on Sirius Satellite Radio's "The Howard Stern Show", Belzer suggested that the settlement amount was closer to $400,000. He used the incident in his HBO special "Another Lone Nut" in his stand-up routine.
1253697	Octopussy (1983) is the thirteenth entry in the "James Bond" film series, and the sixth to star Roger Moore as the fictional MI6 agent James Bond. The film's title is taken from a short story in Ian Fleming's 1966 short story collection "Octopussy and The Living Daylights", although the film's plot is original. It does, however, include a portion inspired by the Fleming short story "The Property of a Lady" (included in 1967 and later editions of "Octopussy and The Living Daylights"), while the events of the short story "Octopussy" form a part of the title character's background and are recounted by her. Bond is assigned the task of following a general who is stealing jewels and relics from the Russian government. This leads him to a wealthy Afghan prince, Kamal Khan, and his associate, Octopussy. Bond uncovers a plot to force disarmament in Europe with the use of a nuclear weapon. Produced by Albert R. Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson, "Octopussy" was released in the same year as the non-Eon Bond film "Never Say Never Again". Written by George MacDonald Fraser, Richard Maibaum, and Michael G. Wilson, the film was directed by John Glen. Plot. British agent 009 is found dead at the British embassy in East Berlin, dressed as a circus clown and carrying a fake Fabergé egg. MI6 immediately suspects Soviet involvement and sends James Bond—agent 007—to investigate, after seeing the real egg appear at an auction in London, ordering the agent to find out who the seller is. At the auction, Bond is able to swap the real egg with the fake, and engages in a bidding war with exiled Afghan prince Kamal Khan, forcing Khan to pay £500,000 for the fake egg. Bond follows Khan back to his palace in Rajasthan, India, where Bond defeats Khan in a game of backgammon. Bond escapes with his Indian colleague Vijay, evading Khan's bodyguard Gobinda's attempts to kill them both. Bond is seduced by one of Khan's associates, Magda, and notices that she has a blue-ringed octopus tattoo. Magda steals the real Fabergé egg fitted with a listening device by Q, while Gobinda captures Bond and takes him to Khan's palace. After Bond escapes from his cell he listens in on the bug in the Fabergé egg and discovers that Khan is working with Orlov, a Soviet general, who is seeking to expand Soviet borders into Europe. After escaping the palace, Bond infiltrates a floating palace in Udaipur, India, and there finds its owner, Octopussy, a wealthy woman who leads the Octopus cult, of which Magda is a part. In Octopussy's palace, Bond finds out that Orlov has been supplying Khan with priceless Soviet treasures, replacing them with replicas, while Khan has been smuggling the real versions into the West, via Octopussy's circus troupe. Orlov is planning to meet Khan at Karl-Marx-Stadt (Chemnitz) in East Germany, where the circus is scheduled to perform. After evading Khan's assassins, who kill Vijay, Bond goes to East Germany. Bond infiltrates the circus, and finds that Orlov replaced the Soviet treasures with a nuclear warhead, primed to explode during the circus show at a US Air Force base in West Germany. The explosion would trigger Europe into seeking disarmament, in the belief that the bomb was a US one that detonated by accident, leaving its borders open to Soviet invasion. Bond takes Orlov's car, drives it along the train tracks and boards the moving circus train. Orlov is shot dead by GDR guards while trying to cross the border. Bond kills the twin knife-throwers, Mischka and Grischka, in revenge for 009's death, and, after falling from the train, commandeers a car, in order to get to the Air Force base. At the base, Bond disguises himself as a clown to evade the West German police. He attempts to convince Octopussy that Khan has betrayed her, by showing her one of the treasures found in Orlov's car, which she was to smuggle for him. Octopussy realises that she has been tricked and assists Bond in deactivating the warhead. Bond and Octopussy return to India and launch an assault on Khan's palace. Khan and Gobinda flee the palace, capturing Octopussy in the process. Bond follows them as they attempt to escape in an aeroplane, clinging to the fuselage and disabling one of its engines. Gobinda dies after falling off the roof of the plane and Bond rescues Octopussy from Khan, the pair jumping onto a nearby cliff moments before the plane crashes into a mountain, killing Khan. While M and General Gogol discuss the return of the jewellery, Bond recuperates with Octopussy, aboard her private boat in India. Production. The title 'Octopussy' comes from the Ian Fleming collection of short stories "Octopussy and The Living Daylights". Hardly any of the plot of the short story "Octopussy" is used, however, with its events simply related by Bond as the family backstory for one of the main characters. The scene at Sotheby's is, though, drawn from the short story "The Property of a Lady" (included in 1967 and later editions of the collection), while Kamal Khan's reaction following the backgammon game is taken from Fleming's novel "Moonraker". Due to a non-Eon Bond film, "Never Say Never Again" being released in 1983, "Octopussy" saw Roger Moore returning for the role, though he had shown interest in departing from James Bond after "For Your Eyes Only". George MacDonald Fraser was hired to work on an early draft of the script and he proposed that the story be set in India. Casting. Following "For Your Eyes Only", Roger Moore had expressed a desire to stop playing James Bond. His original contract had been for three films, which was fulfilled with "The Spy Who Loved Me". Subsequent films were negotiated on a film-by-film basis. Given his reluctance to return for "Octopussy", the producers engaged in a semi-public quest for the next Bond, with both Timothy Dalton and James Brolin being suggested. However, when the rival "Never Say Never Again" was announced the producers re-contracted Moore in the belief that an established actor in the role would fare better against Sean Connery. Brolin's three screentests were publicly released for the first time as a special feature named "James Brolin: The Man Who Would Be Bond" in the "Octopussy Ultimate Edition DVD". The producers were initially reluctant to feature Maud Adams again because her previous character was killed in "The Man with the Golden Gun". Sybil Danning was announced in "Prevue" magazine in 1982 as being Octopussy, but was never actually cast. Faye Dunaway was deemed too expensive. Barbara Carrera said she turned down the role to take a part in the competing Bond film "Never Say Never Again". In the book "A Star is Found: Our Adventures Casting Some of Hollywood's Biggest Movies", casting director Jane Jenkins revealed that the Bond producers told her that they wanted an East Indian actress to play Octopussy, so she looked at the only two Indians in a then predominantly white Hollywood, Persis Khambatta and Susie Coelho. Afterwards, she auditioned white actresses, like Barbara Parkins, who she felt could pass for Indian. Finally, Cubby Broccoli announced to her that they would cast Swedish-born Maud Adams, darken her hair, and change a few lines about how she was raised by an Indian family. A different plotline, with Adams' British father exposed as a traitor, was used instead. As for Adams, she asked to play Octopussy as a European woman and was granted this, but on the title character's name, she felt the producers "went too far". "Octopussy" is also the first movie to have Robert Brown as M, because of the death of Bernard Lee in 1981. Desmond Llewelyn would get a larger role as Q in this film. One of Bond's allies was played by Vijay Amritraj, who was a professional tennis player. His character not only shares the same first name, but he is also the tennis pro at Kamal Khan's club, and he uses his tennis racket as a weapon during the auto rickshaw chase (accompanied by the sound of a tennis ball being hit and scenes of onlookers turning their heads left and right as if they are watching a tennis match). There is a brief appearance by Gary Russell as a teenager in a car. Russell had been a popular child actor as "Dick" in the television series "The Famous Five". Filming. The filming of "Octopussy" began on 10 August 1982 with the scene in which Bond arrives at Checkpoint Charlie. Principal photography was done by Arthur Wooster and his second unit, who later filmed the knife-throwing scenes. Much of the film was shot in Udaipur, India. The Monsoon Palace served as the exterior of Kamal Khan's palace, while scenes set at Octopussy's palace were filmed at the Lake Palace and Jag Mandir, and Bond's hotel was the Shiv Niwas Palace. In England RAF Northolt, RAF Upper Heyford and RAF Oakley were the main locations. The Karl-Marx-Stadt railways scenes were shot at the Nene Valley Railway, near Peterborough, while studio work was performed at Pinewood Studios and the 007 Stage. Most of the crew as well as Roger Moore had diet problems while shooting in India. The pre-title sequence has a scene where Bond flies a nimble homebuilt Bede BD-5J aircraft through an open hangar. Hollywood stunt pilot and aerial co-ordinator J.W. "Corkey" Fornof, who piloted the aircraft at more than 150 miles per hour, has said, "Today, few directors would consider such a stunt. They'd just whip it up in a computer lab." Having collapsible wings, the plane was shown hidden in a horse trailer; however, a dummy was used for this shot. Filming inside the hangar was achieved by attaching the aircraft to an old Jaguar car with a steel pole, driving with the roof removed. The second unit were able to add enough obstacles including people and objects inside the hangar to hide the car and the pole and make it look as though Moore was flying inside the base. For the explosion after the mini jet escapes, however, a miniature of the hangar was constructed and filmed up close. The exploding pieces of the hangar were in reality only four inches in length. A Mercedes-Benz saloon car was stolen by Bond and used to chase the train – having had his tyres shot out, Bond drove on the rails and entered the train. During filming, the car had intact tyres in one scene so as to avoid any mishap. Stunt co-ordinator Martin Grace suffered an injury while shooting the scene where Bond climbs down the train to catch Octopussy's attention. During the second day of filming, Grace – who was Roger Moore's stunt double for the scene – carried on doing the scene longer than he should have, due to a miscommunication with the second unit director, and the train entered a section of the track which the team had not properly surveyed. Shortly afterwards, a concrete pole fractured Grace's left leg. This affected morale in the camp for some time. The bicyclist seen passing in the middle of a swordfight during the tuk tuk chase sequence was in fact a bystander who passed through the shot, oblivious to the filming; his intrusion was captured by two cameras and left in the final film. Cameraman Alan Hume's last scene was that of Octopussy's followers rowing. That day, little time was left and it was decided to film the sunset at the eleventh hour. The Fabergé egg in the film is real; it was made in 1897 and is called the "Coronation Egg", although the egg in the film is named in the auction catalogue as "Property of a Lady", which is the name of one of Ian Fleming's short stories released in more recent editions of the collection "Octopussy and The Living Daylights". In a bit of diegesis that "breaks the fourth wall", Vijay signals his affiliation to MI6 by playing the James Bond Theme on a recorder while Bond is disembarking from a boat in the harbour near the City Palace. Like his fictional counterpart, the real Vijay had a distinct fear of snakes and found it difficult to hold the basket during filming. Music. The score was composed by John Barry, with the lyrics by Tim Rice. The opening theme, "All Time High", is sung by Rita Coolidge and is one of six musical themes in the James Bond series whose song titles do not refer to the film's title, the other five being "Dr. No" (1962), "We Have All the Time in the World" from "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" (1969), "Nobody Does It Better" from "The Spy Who Loved Me" (1977) (although the song's lyrics do include the phrase, "the spy who loved me"), the song "You Know My Name" from "Casino Royale" (2006), and "Another Way to Die" from "Quantum of Solace" (2008). "All Time High" spent four weeks at number one on the US Billboard Adult Contemporary singles chart and reached number 36 on the Billboard Hot 100. The soundtrack album was released in 1985 by A&M Records; the compact disc version of this release was recalled due to a colour printing error which omitted the credits from the album cover, making it a rare collector's item. In 1997, the soundtrack was re-issued by Rykodisc, with the original soundtrack music and some film dialogue, on an Enhanced CD version. The 2003 release, by EMI, restored the original soundtrack music without dialogue. Release and reception. "Octopussy"'s premiere took place at the Odeon Leicester Square on 6 June 1983 in the company of Prince Charles and Diana, Princess of Wales. Within five months of its premiere, it was released in 16 countries worldwide. The film earned slightly less than "For Your Eyes Only", but still grossed $187,500,000, with $67.8 million in the United States alone. It also performed slightly better than "Never Say Never Again", the non-Eon Bond remake of "Thunderball" which came out a few months later. The film has received mixed reviews. Some reviewers disliked Bond's clown costume, gorilla outfit, and Tarzan yell during a jungle chase. One review claimed that it was long and confusing. By contrast, Louis Jourdan's "suave" performance, the elegance of the film locations in India, and the stunts on aircraft and the train were appreciated. Jeffrey Westhoff at Rotten Tomatoes praised Roger Moore as being "sterling". Neal Gabler and Jeffrey Lyons at the TV-show "Sneak Previews" praised the film and said ""Octopussy" delivers" and "The nice thing about "Octopussy" is that it's going back-to-basics, less gadgets, more hand-to-hand combat. It's more of an adventure movie in a more traditional sense and I like it for that". Danny Peary wrote that "Octopussy" "has slow spots, little humour, and villains who aren’t nearly of the calibre of Dr. No, Goldfinger, or Blofeld. Also, the filmmakers make the mistake of demeaning Bond by having him swing through the trees and emitting a Tarzan cry and having him hide in a gorilla suit and later disguise himself as a clown (whom all the kids at the circus laugh at). It’s as if they’re trying to remind us that everything is tongue-in-cheek, but that makes little sense, for the film is much more serious than typical Bond outings – in fact, it recalls the tone of "From Russia with Love"." "Entertainment Weekly" chose "Octopussy" as the third worst Bond film, while Norman Wilner of MSN chose it as the eighth worst, and IGN chose it as the seventh worst. The review aggregator site Rotten Tomatoes gave the film a 43% rating. "Octopussy" was nominated for an Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films Award, with Maud Adams nominated for the Saturn Award in the Best Fantasy Supporting Actress category. "Entertainment Weekly" ranked her as the best Bond girl of the Roger Moore James Bond films. The film won the Golden Screen Award in Germany and the Golden Reel Award for Best Sound Editing.
1449177	And Now for Something Completely Different is a film spin-off from the television comedy series "Monty Python's Flying Circus" featuring sketches from the first two series. The title was used as a catchphrase in the television show. The film, released in 1971, consists of 90 minutes of sketches seen in the first two series of the television show. The sketches were remade on film without an audience, and were intended for an American audience which had not yet seen the series. The announcer (John Cleese) appears briefly between some sketches to deliver the line "and now for something completely different", in situations such as being roasted on a spit and lying on top of the desk in a small, pink bikini. Background. This was the Pythons' first feature film, composed of some of their favourite sketches from the first two series of the Flying Circus, re-shot on an extremely low budget (and often slightly edited) for cinema release. Some famous sketches included are: the "Dead Parrot" sketch, "The Lumberjack Song", "Upperclass Twits", "Hell's Grannies", and the "Nudge Nudge" sketch. Financed by Playboy's UK executive Victor Lownes, it was intended as a way of breaking Monty Python in America, and although it was ultimately unsuccessful in this, the film did good business in the UK. The group did not consider the film a success, but it enjoys a cult following today. Production with Lownes. The film was the idea of entrepreneur Victor Lownes, head of Playboy UK, who convinced the group that a feature film would be the ideal way to introduce them to the US market and make them lots of money. Lownes acted as executive producer. Production of the film did not go entirely smoothly. Lownes tried to exert considerably more control over the group than they had been used to at the BBC. In particular, he objected so strongly to one character – 'Ken Shabby' – that the sketch was removed, leaving both Terry Jones and Michael Palin to complain much later that the vast majority of the film was "nothing more than jokes behind desks." Another argument with Lownes occurred when Terry Gilliam designed the opening credits for the film. Presenting the names of the Pythons in blocks of stone, Lownes tried to insist that his name be displayed in a similar manner. Initially, Gilliam refused but eventually he was forced to give in. Gilliam then created a different style of credit for the Pythons so that in the final version of the film, Lownes's credit is the only one that appears in that way. Budget. The budget of the film was considerably low for the time at only £80,000. This is self-reflexively acknowledged in the film's Killer Cars animation; the voiceover narration (done by Eric Idle) mentions "a scene of such spectacular proportions that it could never in your life be seen in a low-budget film like this. You'll notice my mouth isn't moving, either". The film was shot both on location in England and inside an abandoned dairy, rather than on a more costly soundstage. It was in fact so low that some effects which were performed in the television series could not be repeated in the film. Origins of phrase. The origin of the phrase is credited to Christopher Trace, founding presenter of the children's television programme "Blue Peter", who used it (in all seriousness) as a link between segments. Many of the early episodes of "Monty Python's Flying Circus" feature a sensible-looking announcer (played by John Cleese) dressed in a black suit and sitting behind a wooden desk, which in turn is in some ridiculous location such as behind the bars of a zoo cage or in mid-air being held aloft by small attached propellers. The announcer would turn to the audience and announce "and now for something completely different", launching the show's opening credits starting with the second series of the show. The phrase was also used as a transition within the show. Often it would be added to better explain the transition, for instance, "And now for something completely different: a man with a tape recorder up his nose." In later episodes, particularly the third season, the credits-launching was reduced to a split-second stock footage of the announcer saying "And now..." in a similar fashion as was done with its predecessor, the "It's" man, which appears immediately after. Both were preceded by a naked organist, usually Terry Jones. Cast. Each playing Various characters Reaction. British audiences. The film did not offer anything extra for British fans, except the opportunity to see the sketches in colour at a time when many viewers still had black and white sets, and indeed many were disappointed that the film seemed to belie its title. Despite this, the film proved sufficiently popular to make a profit on domestic box office takings alone. American audiences. Reviews for American audiences were mixed (principally because British humour was unfamiliar to American viewers at that time) but mostly positive. When it was released on 22 August 1972, the film had little success at the box office and did not do well until a late 1974 re-release, which was around the time PBS started showing the original television episodes. It currently has a 90% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. DVD releases. The film originally was on DVD in Region 1 from Sony Pictures Home Entertainment; in 2005, it was repacked in a new collector's pack called "And Now For Something Completely Hilarious!" which also features the films "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" and "The Adventures of Baron Munchausen".
582515	Shilpa Shukla is an Indian theatre, television and Bollywood film actress. Early life and education. She was born into a Bihari Bhumihar Brahmin family in Vaishali and was brought up in New Delhi, Kolkata and Gujarat. She attended Delhi Public School, R. K. Puram, New Delhi till Class XII, then went to
1061038	Walter Stacy Keach Jr. (born June 2, 1941) is an American actor and narrator. He is most famous for his dramatic roles; however, he has done narration work in educational programming on PBS and the Discovery Channel, as well as some comedy (particularly his role in the Fox sitcom "Titus" as Ken, the hard-drinking, chain-smoking, womanizing father of comedian Christopher Titus and for Sergeant Stedenko in Up in Smoke) and musical roles. Early life. Keach was born in Savannah, Georgia, the son of Mary Cain (née Peckham), an actress, and Walter Stacy Keach, a theater director, drama teacher, and actor. His brother James Keach is an actor and television director. Keach graduated from Van Nuys High School in June 1959, where he was class president, then earned two BA degrees at the University of California, Berkeley (1963), one in English, the other in Dramatic Art. He earned an M.F.A. at the Yale School of Drama and was a Fulbright Scholar at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art. Career. Theater. Keach played the title role in "MacBird!", an Off Broadway anti-war satire by Barbara Garson staged at the Village Gate in 1966. Then, in 1967, he was cast, again Off Broadway, in George Tabori's "The Niggerlovers" with Morgan Freeman in his acting debut. To this day, Freeman credits Keach with teaching him the most about acting. Keach first appeared on Broadway in 1969 as Buffalo Bill in "Indians" by Arthur Kopit. Early in his career, he was credited as Stacy Keach, Jr. to distinguish himself from his father Stacy Keach, Sr. He played the lead actor in "The Nude Paper Sermon" an avant-garde musical theatre piece for media presentation, commissioned by Nonesuch Records by composer Eric Salzman.
1164742	Mark-Paul Harry Gosselaar (born March 1, 1974) is an American actor. He is best known for his roles as Zack Morris in NBC's "Saved by the Bell", "Good Morning, Miss Bliss", and ""; Detective John Clark in ABC's "NYPD Blue", Jerry Kellerman in TNT's "Raising the Bar", and Peter Bash in the TNT series "Franklin & Bash". Early life. Gosselaar, the youngest of four children, was born in Panorama City, California, the son of Pauline (van den Brink), a homemaker and hostess for KLM, and Hans Gosselaar, a plant supervisor for Anheuser-Busch. His father, who is from the Netherlands, is of Dutch Jewish and German descent. Gosselaar's paternal great-grandparents, Hertog and Hester Gosselaar, were killed at the Sobibor extermination camp during the Holocaust. His mother, who is of Dutch-Indonesian descent, is from Bali in Indonesia. At one point, Gosselaar was fluent in Dutch (his older siblings were born in the Netherlands). Gosselaar's parents later separated. Gosselaar's mother worked as his manager. He began modeling at the age of 5. As a child, he appeared in commercials for Oreo cookies and Smurf merchandise, and later won guest spots on television series. He spent his teenage years in the Santa Clarita Valley in Southern California, where he attended Hart High School. Career. Gosselaar first came to public notice as the star of the hit television comedy series "Saved by the Bell", in which he played Zack Morris, and which aired on NBC from 1989 to 1993. Gosselaar's character was adapted from the short-lived Disney sitcom "Good Morning, Miss Bliss"; although that show was cancelled after one season, NBC executives believed that a similar show, with Zack Morris as the series lead, had potential for success. He reprised the role in two TV movies and a less-successful spin-off, '. In 1994, Gosselaar appeared as Zack Morris in a second spin-off series ' in the episode "Goodbye, Bayside – Part 2", along with Mario López as A.C. Slater and Lark Voorhies as Lisa Turtle. In 1996, Gosselaar appeared in the TV-film "She Cried No" as a college student who date-rapes his best friend's sister at a fraternity party. In 1998, he starred in the feature film, "Dead Man on Campus". Later that same year, Gosselaar played the central character in the TV drama "Hyperion Bay", which lasted 17 episodes. In 2001, he starred in the movie "The Princess and the Marine", with Marisol Nichols. He also starred in the short-lived WB series "D.C."
1042955	Dorothy Anne Todd (24 January 1909 – 6 May 1993) was an English actress and producer. Life and career. She was born in Hartford, Cheshire and was educated at St. Winifrid's School, Eastbourne, Sussex. She became a popular actress from appearing in such films as "Perfect Strangers" (1945) (as a nurse) and "The Seventh Veil" (1945) (as a troubled concert pianist). She is perhaps best known to American audiences as Gregory Peck's long-suffering wife in Alfred Hitchcock's "The Paradine Case" (1947). She later produced a series of travel films. Her autobiography is entitled "The Eighth Veil", an allusion to the film which made her a star in Britain. Todd was known as the "pocket Garbo" for her diminutive, blonde beauty. Ann Todd married three times. Her first husband, Victor N. Malcolm, was a grandson of Lillie Langtry; she had a son with him named David Malcolm. Her second and third husbands (Nigel Tangye and David Lean) were first cousins. She had a daughter with Nigel Tangye called Ann Francesca Tangye. She married film director Lean in 1949 and starred in a number of his films, including "The Passionate Friends" (1949), "Madeleine" (1950) and "The Sound Barrier" (1952). Lean and Todd divorced in 1957. Ann Todd died on 6 May 1993 from a stroke aged 84.
590623	Sudigundaalu (Telugu: సుడిగుండాలు)(English:Whirlpools): is a 1968 Telugu drama film directed by Adurthi Subba Rao and K. Viswanath. The film has garnered the National Film Award for Best Feature Film in Telugu. Plot. Judge Chandrasekharam (ANR) is very kind and helpful to the relatives of the culprits. His wife dies after giving birth to a baby boy. His son Raja was killed by two youth (Prasanna Rani and Vijayachander). The judge who now wears the pleader's shoes argues in the favour of the young culprits and shocks the whole audience on bringing out the real intentions of the murder. Chandrasekharam questions the parents of both the youngsters and finally concludes the responsibility of parents in bringing up the children is the key to the future generation. Also he brings out the cultural deviations our country faces in the coming future. The film gives this message as an argument and at the end Chandrasekharam dies in the court hall.
1064898	Crystal Lowe (born January 20, 1981) is a Canadian actress and model. She is best known for her scream queen roles as Ashlyn Halperin in "Final Destination 3" (2006), as Lauren Hannon in "Black Christmas" (2006) and as Elena Miller in ' (2007). She is also known for her roles as Zoe in the comedy "Hot Tub Time Machine" (2010), as Vala on the show "Smallville" (2010) and as Toby Nance in the series '. Early life. Lowe was born in Vancouver, British Columbia to a Chinese father and a Scottish mother. On August 8, 2009 Lowe married her fiance Miko Tomasevich at Vancouver's historic Hycroft Manor. Career. Lowe started her career as a model. At the age of 15 she made her way into the world of acting. Her first role was as Nya on an episode of "Stargate SG-1". Lowe went on to guest star in several popular television shows like "Masters of Horror", "Psych", "Supernatural", "", "The L Word" plus many more. Lowe's first film role came in 2000 when she was cast in the film "Get Carter". Soon after she was cast as Tiffany in the horror film '. In 2006 Crystal was cast as Ashlyn Halperin in "Final Destination 3". Her next role was as Lauren in the remake of "Black Christmas". Just after "Black Christmas", Lowe went on to star as Elena in '. She was considered a "scream queen" after her appearances in these horror films. After her work on "Wrong Turn 2", Lowe went on to do cameo roles in the films ' and "Good Luck Chuck". In 2008 she was reunited with her "Final Destination 3" Co-star Amanda Crew in the film "That One Night". Also in 2008, Lowe was cast in supporting roles for the films ', ' and '. In 2009, Lowe had a small role in the action film "Driven to Kill" with Steven Seagal.
1105202	Edward B. Burger (born 1964) is the 15th President of Southwestern University in Georgetown, Texas, elected on February 20, 2013. Previously he was the Francis Christopher Oakley Third Century Professor of Mathematics at Williams College, the Robert Foster Cherry Professor for Great Teaching at Baylor University and named Vice Provost of Strategic Educational Initiatives at Baylor University in February 2011.
1163376	Yvette Mimieux (born January 8, 1942) is a retired American movie and television actress. Early life and career. Yvette Carmen Mimieux was born in Los Angeles, California to a French father and Mexican mother. Before her film career began, Mimieux was one of four finalists from a beauty contest picked by Elvis Presley (while he was filming "Jailhouse Rock", 1957) who were invited to come to the set and compete for a bit role in the movie ("girl in bathing suit"). She and the other girls modelled their suits (and figures); Mimieux was not selected.
1067355	Desperate Living is a 1977 comedy film directed, produced and written by John Waters. The film stars Liz Renay, Jean Hill, Mink Stole, Edith Massey, and Mary Vivian Pearce. Plot. Peggy Gravel, a neurotic, delusional, suburban housewife, and her overweight maid, Grizelda Brown, go on the lam after Grizelda smothers Peggy's husband, Bosley, to death. The two are arrested by a cross-dressing policeman who gives them an ultimatum: go to jail or be exiled to Mortville, a filthy shantytown ruled by the evil Queen Carlotta and her treasonous daughter, Princess Coo-Coo.
1065600	Earth vs. the Flying Saucers is a 1956 American science fiction film, directed by Fred F. Sears and released by Columbia Pictures. The film is also known as "Invasion of the Flying Saucers". It was suggested by the best selling, non-fiction book "Flying Saucers from Outer Space" by Maj. Donald Keyhoe. The flying saucer effects were created by Ray Harryhausen. Plot. Scientist Russell Marvin (Hugh Marlowe) and his new bride Carol (Joan Taylor) are driving to work when a flying saucer appears overhead then zooms away. Without proof of the encounter other than a tape recording of the ship's sound, Dr. Marvin is hesitant to notify his bosses. He is in charge of Project Skyhook, an American space program that has already launched 10 research satellites into orbit. General Hanley (Morris Ankrum), Carol's father, returns from an investigation and informs Marvin that many of the satellites have crashed. Marvin admits that he has lost contact with all of them and privately suspects alien involvement. The Marvins themselves witness the eleventh falling from the sky. When a saucer lands at the lab the next day soldiers immediately begin firing upon it, killing one alien who has left the ship, but the others and the ship itself are protected by the saucer's force field. The aliens then destroy the base, killing everyone but the Marvins, who are trapped underground. The general is kidnapped and taken away in the saucer. Russell records a broadcast from the aliens and plays it on a tape recorder, which just happened to be running low on its batteries. The message is slowed down enough that ther aliens' message can be understood: they wanted to meet with Dr. Marvin. Once rescued from the sub-basement, Marvin plays the message for his superiors, but they have to wait for authorization. Impatient, Marvin contacts the aliens and steals away to meet them, but Carol and Major Huglin follow him. They and a motorcycle cop are taken aboard a spaceship. They discover that the aliens have extracted knowledge from General Hanley's brain, and now have him under their control, although they reassure Carol that they can restore him. They also claim to be the last of their species and that they shot down the satellites because they thought they were weapons. As proof of their power, the aliens give Marvin the coordinates of where they sank a destroyer that had fired on them. The Marvins are released with the message that the aliens want to meet the world's leaders in 56 days in Washington, D.C., to negotiate an occupation. Dr. Marvin's observations find that the alien's suits are made of solidified electricity, and grant the aliens advanced auditory perception, allowing them to hear things from far away as though they were up close. Another discovery is that the flying saucers are invulnerable to conventional weapons, but from his observations Marvin develops a weapon, which he hopes will be effective. He feverishly starts building a prototype, and just as he finishes, a saucer arrives. Marvin tests his weapon and the saucer is disabled enough to send it wobbling away. As they leave, the aliens jettison Hanley and the police officer, who fall to their deaths. Groups of alien ships then show up in the skies over Washington, Paris, London, and Moscow, and begin destroying everything. But there are enough of Dr. Marvin's new truck-mounted weapons deployed in Washington, D.C. to slowly shoot them down. One saucer clips and topples the Washington Monument, while another crashes into the Capitol Building and a third into Union Station. The defenders also discover that the aliens are vulnerable to small arms fire once they leave the immediate force fields of their saucers. Later Marvin and Carol rejoice at the beach, relieved that the danger is over. Visual effects. Special effects expert Ray Harryhausen animated the film's flying saucers using stop-motion animation. Harryhausen also animated the falling masonry when saucers crash into various government buildings and monuments, in order to make the action appear realistic. Some figure animation was used to show the aliens emerging from the saucers. A considerable amount of stock footage was also used, notably scenes during the invasion that showed batteries of U. S. 90 mm M3 guns and an early missile launch. Stock footage of the destruction of the warship HMS "Barham" during World War II was used for the U. S. Navy destroyer that is sunk by a flying saucer. Satellite launch depictions made use of stock film images from a Viking rocket launch and a failure of a German V-2 rocket. The voice of the aliens was produced from a recording of Paul Frees reading their lines and then hand-jiggling the speed control of an analog reel-to-reel tape recorder, so that it continually wavered from a slow bass voice to one that is high and fast. During a question-and-answer period at a tribute to Ray Harryhausen and a screening of "Jason and the Argonauts" held in Sydney, Australia, Harryhausen said he sought advice from noted 1950s UFO "contactee" George Adamski on the depiction of the flying saucers used in the film; he also noted that Adamski appeared to have grown increasingly paranoid by that time. The film's iconic flying saucer design (a static central cabin with an outer rotating ring with slotted vanes) matches descriptions given to Maj. Donald Keyhoe of flying disc sightings in his best-selling flying saucer book.
1163479	Agnes Robertson Moorehead (December 6, 1900 – April 30, 1974) was an American actress whose career of more than three decades included work in radio, stage, film and television. She is chiefly known for her role as Endora on the television series "Bewitched". While rarely playing leads in films, Moorehead's skill at character development and range earned her one Primetime Emmy Award and two Golden Globe awards in addition to four Academy Award and six Emmy Award nominations. Moorehead's transition to television won acclaim for drama and comedy. She could play many different types, but often portrayed haughty, arrogant characters. Early life. Moorehead was born in Clinton, Massachusetts of English, Irish, Scottish and Welsh ancestry, to a Presbyterian clergyman, John Henderson Moorehead, and his wife, the former Mildred McCauley, who had been a singer. Moorehead later shaved six years off her age by claiming to have been born in 1906. Moorehead recalled her first public performance was at the age of three, reciting "The Lord's Prayer" in her father's church. The family moved to St. Louis, Missouri, and Moorehead's ambition to become an actress grew "very strong". Her mother indulged her active imagination often asking, "Who are you today, Agnes?", while Moorehead and her sister would often engage in mimicry, often coming to the dinner table and imitating parishioners. Moorehead noted and was encouraged by her father's amused reactions. She joined the chorus of the St. Louis Municipal Opera Company, known as "The Muny". In addition to her interest in acting, she developed a lifelong interest in religion; in later years actors such as Dick Sargent would recall Moorehead arriving on the set with "the Bible in one hand and the script in the other". Moorehead graduated from Central High School in St. Louis in 1918. Although her father did not discourage Moorehead's acting ambitions, he insisted that she obtain a formal education. In 1923, Moorehead earned a bachelor's degree, with a major in biology, from Muskingum College (now Muskingum University) in New Concord, Ohio, and while there she also appeared in college stage plays. She later received an honorary doctorate in literature from Muskingum, and served for a year on its board of trustees. When her family moved to Reedsburg, Wisconsin, she taught public school for five years in Soldiers Grove, Wisconsin, while she also earned a master's degree in English and public speaking at the University of Wisconsin (now University of Wisconsin–Madison). She then pursued post-graduate studies at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, from which she graduated with honors in 1929. Moorehead received an honorary doctoral degree from Bradley University in Peoria, Illinois. Career. Moorehead's early career was unsteady, and although she was able to find stage work she was often unemployed and forced to go hungry. She later recalled going four days without food, and said that it had taught her "the value of a dollar." She found work in radio and was soon in demand, often working on several programs in a single day. She believed that it offered her excellent training and allowed her to develop her voice to create a variety of characterizations. Moorehead met the actress Helen Hayes who encouraged her to try to enter films, but her first attempts were met with failure. Rejected as not being "the right type", Moorehead returned to radio. Mercury Theatre. Moorehead met Orson Welles and by 1937 was one of his principal Mercury Players, along with Joseph Cotten. She performed in his "The Mercury Theatre on the Air" radio adaptations, and had a regular role opposite Welles in the serial "The Shadow" as Margo. In 1939, Welles moved the Mercury Theatre to Hollywood, where he started working for RKO Pictures. Several of his radio performers joined him, and Moorehead made her film debut as his mother in "Citizen Kane" (1941), considered one of the best films ever made. She also appeared in his films "Journey Into Fear" (1943), based on a novel by Eric Ambler, and "The Magnificent Ambersons" (1942), based on a novel by Booth Tarkington. She received a New York Film Critics Award and an Academy Award nomination for her performance in the latter film. Moorehead received positive reviews for her performance in "Mrs. Parkington", as well as the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress and an Academy Award nomination. Moorehead played another strong role in "The Big Street" (1942) with Henry Fonda and Lucille Ball, and then appeared in two films that failed to find an audience, "Government Girl" (1943) with Olivia de Havilland and "The Youngest Profession" (1944) with the adolescent Virginia Weidler. MGM. By the mid-1940s, Moorehead joined MGM, negotiating a $6,000-a-week contract with the provision to perform also on radio, an unusual clause at the time. Moorehead explained that MGM usually refused to allow their actors to play on radio as "the actors didn't have the knowledge or the taste of the judgment to appear on the right sort of show." In 1943–1944, Moorehead portrayed "matronly housekeeper Mrs. Mullet", who was constantly offering her "candied opinion", in Mutual Radio's "The Adventures of Leonidas Witherall"; she inaugurated the role on CBS Radio. Moorehead skillfully portrayed puritanical matrons, neurotic spinsters, possessive mothers, and comical secretaries throughout her career. She played Parthy Hawks, wife of Cap'n Andy and mother of Magnolia, in MGM's hit 1951 remake of "Show Boat". She was in many important films, including "Dark Passage" and "Since You Went Away", either playing key small or large supporting parts. Moorehead was in Broadway productions of "Don Juan in Hell" in 1951–1952, and "Lord Pengo" in 1962–1963. Radio. During the 1940s and 1950s, Moorehead was one of the most in demand actresses for radio dramas, especially on the CBS show "Suspense". During the 946 episodes run of "Suspense", Moorehead was cast in more episodes than any other actor or actress. She was often introduced on the show as the "first lady of "Suspense"". Moorehead's most successful appearance on "Suspense" was in the legendary play "Sorry, Wrong Number", written by Lucille Fletcher, broadcast on May 18, 1943. Moorehead played a selfish, neurotic woman who overhears a murder being plotted via crossed phone wires who eventually realizes she is the intended victim. She recreated the performance six times for "Suspense" and several times on other radio shows, always using her original, dog-eared script. In 1952, she recorded an album of the drama, and performed scenes from the story in her one-woman show in the 1950s. Barbara Stanwyck had played the role in the 1948 film version. Other films. In the 1950s, Moorehead continued to work in films and to appear on stage across the country, including a national tour of Shaw's "Don Juan in Hell", co-starring Charles Boyer, Charles Laughton, and Cedric Hardwicke. "Sorry, Wrong Number" also inspired writers of the CBS television series "The Twilight Zone" to script an episode with Moorehead in mind. In "The Invaders" (broadcast 27 January 1961) Moorehead played a woman whose isolated farm is plagued by mysterious intruders. In "Sorry, Wrong Number" Moorehead offered a famed, bravura performance using only her voice, and for "The Invaders" she was offered a script where she had no dialogue at all. She appeared as the hypochondriac Mrs. Snow in Disney's 1960 hit film "Pollyanna". Alongside Bette Davis, Olivia De Havilland, Mary Astor and Joseph Cotten, she starred in "Hush… Hush, Sweet Charlotte" (1964), as the murdered maid, Velma, a role for which she was nominated for a Best Supporting Actress Academy Award. Television. In 1959, Moorehead was cast as a town matriarch, Mrs. Martha Lassiter, in the episode "In Memoriam" of the ABC western series, "The Rebel", starring Nick Adams. In the story line, Lassiter's son, Phillip, was killed in the American Civil War four years earlier. The Rebel knew her son and presents his mother a medallion that the son had placed in The Rebel's custody. Mrs. Lassister offers The Rebel a job, but he decides to continue his roaming. The episode also stars Madlyn Rhue and Bob Steele. In the 1960–1961 season, Moorehead made two guest appearances as Aunt Harriet in the short-lived CBS sitcom, "My Sister Eileen", starring Shirley Bonne and Elaine Stritch as Eileen (an aspiring actress) and Ruth Sherwood, respectively, two single sisters living together in New York City. That same season, she appeared in Pat O'Brien's ABC sitcom "Harrigan and Son". She starred as a nun in the western TV series, "Rawhide" episode, "Incident of the Challenge", (1960). In 1961 in Season 2, Episode 51 of "The Twilight Zone", "The Invaders", Moorehead played a woman living in isolation who is terrorized by space aliens. In the 1963–1964 season, she appeared in an episode of the ABC series about college life, "Channing". In 1967, she portrayed an Indian named Watoma on the ABC military-western series "Custer" with Wayne Maunder in the title role. On February 10, 1967, she portrayed Miss Emma Valentine in "The Night of the Vicious Valentine" on "The Wild Wild West", a performance for which she won an Emmy Award. She appeared as the nosy do-gooder "Miss Bertie" in the show "The Rifleman". "Bewitched". In 1964, Moorehead accepted the role of Endora, in the situation comedy "Bewitched". She later commented that she had not expected it to succeed and that she ultimately felt trapped by its success. However, she had negotiated to appear in only eight of every 12 episodes made, therefore allowing her sufficient time to pursue other projects. She also felt that the television writing was often below standard and dismissed many of the "Bewitched" scripts as "hack" in a 1965 interview. The role brought her a level of recognition that she had not received before as "Bewitched" was in the top 10 programs for the first few years it screened. Moorehead received six Emmy Award nominations, but was quick to remind interviewers that she had enjoyed a long and distinguished career. Despite her ambivalence, she remained with "Bewitched" until its run ended in 1972. She commented to the "New York Times" in 1974, "I've been in movies and played theater from coast to coast, so I was quite well known before "Bewitched", and I don't particularly want to be identified as a witch." Later that year she said that she had enjoyed playing the role, but that it was not challenging and the show itself was "not breathtaking" although her flamboyant and colorful character appealed to children. She expressed a fondness for the show's star, Elizabeth Montgomery, and said that she had enjoyed working with her. Co-star Dick Sargent, who in 1969 replaced the ill Dick York as Samantha's husband, Darrin Stephens, had a more difficult relationship with Moorehead, caustically describing her as "a tough old bird."
583898	Sillunu Oru Kaadhal ("A Chilling Love") is a 2006 Tamil romance film directed by N. Krishna. It starred Suriya, Jyothika and Bhumika Chawla in pivotal roles, while Shriya Sharma, Sukanya, Vadivelu and Santhanam played other pivotal roles. The film's score and soundtrack were composed by A. R. Rahman, with lyrics by the Indian poet Vaali; while cinematography for the film was handled by R. D. Rajasekhar and editing was handled by Anthony. The film was released on 8 September 2006, three days before the marriage of Suriya and Jyothika. Plot. Kundavi (Jyothika) was brought up in a small village called Ambasamudram. She, along with her two friends, decide to have a love marriage. However she is not so successful. Her father arranges her marriage to Gautham (Surya Sivakumar) against her wishes. Both look gloomy during the wedding due to obvious reasons. Six years later in Mumbai they have a 5-year-old daughter Aishu (Shriya Sharma) and live as a happily married couple. Gautham works as the chief mechanic at an automobile company and goes to New York for a short period. During this time, Kundavi comes across Gautham's old college diary. Gautham wanted to be an Engineer from a young age and forced his father's brother to pay for a seat in Coimbatore for Mechanical Engineering. From the second year of college he is the don. In college, he is attracted to Aiswarya (Bhumika Chawla), whose father is a Coimbatore MP. Gautham and Aishwarya fall in love and decide to get married. At the registrar's office after Gautham ties the knot, Aishwarya's father and his men beat him up, separating the lovers and sending Aishwarya off to Australia. At the end of the diary, Gautham writes a note: "if I have one wish, it would be to live with Aishwarya happily at least for one day." Gautham returns from New York and finds his wife changed. She works late and avoids him. She finds Gautham's lost love Aishwarya, who had just returned from Australia. Aishwarya has become a modern girl in contrast to the demure salwar kameez girl she was in college. Kundavi asks Aishwarya to visit them and she tells her husband that he should live happily with Aishwarya for a day and that for that one day, she and their daughter do not exist for him, and leaves Gautham with Aishwarya. That day Gautham spends with Aishwarya, Kundavi imagines them to have a good time and eventually fall in love with each other all over again. When she gets back home, dreading, she finds her husband alone at home. She asks about his day with Aishwarya, and he gives her a letter written to Kundavi from Aishwarya. In it, Aishwarya says that within five minutes of speaking to him, Gautham mentioned 'Kundavi' so many times that she realised that he loved his wife very much and is leading a very happy life. She wishes the couple a happy life and leaves, never to return. Production. Reports emerged in August 2005 that Suriya and Jyothika would come together for a project titled "Jillendru Oru Kadhal" which would be based on a real life story which formed the script of A. C. Durai, while newcomer Krishna would direct it. The team signed up A. R. Rahman to compose the film's music while Asin was selected for another key role in the film after her successful pairing with Suriya in "Ghajini". However by the time the film was launched in December 2005, Bhumika Chawla had replaced Asin. The film was shot extensively in Rajamundari, Vizag, some portions in Mumbai, Coimbatore and Chennai, while a song was shot in Switzerland masquerading it as New York. Initially touted as an August 2006 release, the film was delayed to avoid a clash with Jyothika's other film "Vettaiyaadu Vilaiyaadu". The film was censored on 4 September 2006 and was cleared with a U/A certificate, with some dialogue muting. Release. The film opened across 207 screens worldwide on 8 September 2006, three days before the wedding of the lead pair Suriya and Jyothika. The film received a large opening, but soon faded out and became an average grosser.Jyothika's performance earned her Best Actress Award at the International Tamil Film Awards. Critics primarily labelled the film as a disappointment as a result of high levels of publicity it received prior to release. The Hindu gave the film a negative review claiming that "The most talked about movie of the year, Studio Green's "Sillunu Oru Kadhal" featuring Suriya and Jyotika, arrives only to disappoint", stating "it lacks a strong cohesive script to bind the elements". The film was later dubbed and released in Telugu as "Nuvvu Nennu Prema". Soundtrack. The film features a soundtrack composed by A. R. Rahman with lyrics penned by Vaali. The music for the film was released on 2 August 2006 by K. M. Musiq and a day later in India by Star Music. The songs "Munbe Vaa" and "New York Nagaram" were chart toppers on the Tamil music channels and radio. Rahman won the Filmfare Best Music Director Award for the soundtrack and Shreya Goshal won the Filmfare Best Female Playback Award (Tamil) and Tamil Nadu State Film Award for Best Female Playback for her rendition of the song "Munbe Vaa".
1057680	Ian Wolfe (November 4, 1896 – January 23, 1992) was an American actor whose films date from 1934 to 1990. Until 1934, he worked as a theatre actor. Wolfe mostly found work as a character actor, appearing in over 270 films. He and his wife, Elizabeth, had two daughters. Wolfe was also a veteran of World War I when he served as a volunteer medical specialist. Although American by birth and upbringing, Wolfe was often cast as an Englishman: his stage experience endowed him with precise diction resembling an upper-class British accent. A receding hairline and etched features at a relatively early age allowed him to play older men before he actually grew old. Wolfe found a niche as a soft-spoken learned man, and his over 250 roles included many attorneys, judges, butlers, ministers, professors, and doctors. Wolfe's best-known role may have been in the 1946 movie "Bedlam", in which he played a lawyer confined to an asylum. Wolfe wrote and self-published two books of poetry "Forty-Four Scribbles and a Prayer: Lyrics and Ballads" and "Sixty Ballads and Lyrics In Search of Music". Wolfe appeared in the 1966 "Perry Mason" episode, "The Case of the Midnight Howler," as Abel Jackson. He also appeared in two episodes of the original "" television series: "Bread and Circuses" (1968) as Septimus, and "All Our Yesterdays" (1969) as Mr. Atoz, and portrayed the wizard Traquil in the cult series "Wizards and Warriors" (1983). In 1982, Wolfe had a small recurring role on the TV series "WKRP in Cincinnati" as Hirsch, the sarcastic, irreverent butler to WKRP owner Lillian Carlson. Wolfe, who worked until the last couple of years of his life, died January 23, 1992, at age 95, of natural causes.
1060114	Rush Hour 3 is a 2007 martial arts/action-comedy film, and the third installment in the "Rush Hour" series, starring Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker, that began with the 1998 film "Rush Hour" and continued with its 2001 sequel "Rush Hour 2". The film was officially announced on May 7, 2006, and filming began on July 4, 2006. The film is set in Paris, Los Angeles, and Hong Kong. "Rush Hour 3" was released on August 10, 2007, in the United States. A fourth film is currently in consideration by the series' creators. Film director Roman Polanski co-stars as a French police official involved in Lee and Carter's (Chan and Tucker's characters) case. In her first appearance in an American film, Noémie Lenoir portrays Geneviève, a beautiful stage performer who is one of the main suspects in the case as well as Carter's love interest. Tzi Ma reprises his role as Ambassador Han, Lee's boss and friend who appeared in "Rush Hour". Yvan Attal co-stars as George, a cab driver who becomes Lee and Carter's new sidekick. Plot. Carter (Tucker) is directing traffic. Concurrently, Chinese Ambassador Han addresses the importance of fighting the Triads at the World Criminal Court, announcing that he may know the whereabouts of Shi Shen, a semi-mythical individual of great importance to the Triads. Before announcing, an assassin shoots and Han takes a bullet in the shoulder, disrupting the conference. Chief Inspector Lee (Chan) pursues the shooter and corners him, discovering that the assassin is his Japanese foster brother Kenji (Sanada). When Lee hesitates to shoot Kenji, he makes his escape. In the hospital, Lee learns that Han will make a full recovery. Han's daughter, Soo-Yung (Zhang), now grown up, arrives and makes Lee and Carter promise to capture the one behind the shooting. She then informs Lee and Carter that her father gave her an envelope which contains important information regarding the Triads, and that the envelope is in her locker at the martial arts studio where she teaches. Lee and Carter make their way to the studio, but find out that a gang of armed men have already arrived and emptied it. The duo are then told by the Master of the studio that Soo-Yung and Han are in danger, and rush back to the hospital. Once the two reach the hospital, a gang of assassins arrive to kill Soo-Yung and Han. Lee and Carter manage to defeat them. They interrogate the leader of the assassins but find that he only speaks French. A nun, Sister Agnes (Dana Ivey), who can speak French, translates for them and Carter and Lee find out that they are marked for death by the Triad along with Soo-Yung and Han. For her protection, they take Soo-Yung to the French Embassy and leave her under the care of Reynard (Max von Sydow), the French ambassador and the chairman of the World Criminal Court. When a car bomb nearly kills Reynard and Soo-Yung the duo decides to go to Paris to investigate. In Paris, after getting a painful cavity search from Parisian commissioner Revi (Roman Polanski), Lee and Carter meet up with George, a taxi driver (Yvan Attal), who is prejudiced against Americans. He drives them to a Triad hideout. Once there, Lee got tricked into following a Triad assassin named Jasmine (Kudoh) because she told Lee she can "give him what he needs". while Carter meets a beautiful woman whose name is not disclosed (Lenoir). Lee and Carter tried to escape but were captured by Kenji's men and Carter finds out who Kenji was. After a daring escape from Kenji's compound, the duo stake out in a hotel room, where Lee and Carter argue, leading to Lee demanding that Carter leave. Upon leaving the hotel, Carter spots the woman he saw at the gentleman's club, and follows her. Reynard later tells Lee that Shi Shen is not a person, but a list of the Triad leaders and reveals that Han's informant knows where to find it. The informant turns out to be Geneviève, the woman Carter met at the gentleman's club. After the two locate Geneviève, they save her from an assassination attempt by the Triads and flee to their hotel room. Privately, Carter tries to interrogate Genviève but they find themselves falling in love with each other. They attempt to make love but they are attacked again by Jasmine. No longer safe at the hotel, they decide to hide out with George, who now has developed a great appreciation for the United States, and decides to help them solve the case. Lee and Carter learn that Geneviève not only knows where the list is, but that she "is" the list. The names of the thirteen Triad leaders have been tattooed on the back of her head, as per tradition, and Geneviève explains that she will be decapitated and buried if the Triads capture her. When Lee and Carter bring Geneviève to Reynard, he accidentally reveals that he has been working with the Triads all along. Kenji calls and informs Lee that he has captured Soo-Yung and that he would like to exchange her for Geneviève. Lee arrives at the exchange point, the Jules Verne Restaurant in the Eiffel Tower, with Carter disguised as Geneviève. Kenji challenges Lee to a sword fight, during which the two fall off the tower and get caught in a safety net. Kenji's sword cuts the safety net open and it collapses, leaving both men hanging on for dear life. Lee grabs Kenji's arm, intending to save his life. Kenji says his final goodbye to Lee and willingly lets go of him as he falls to his death, saving Lee's life. Lee then manages to climb up to safety. Meanwhile, Carter saves Soo-Yung and defeats Jasmine who gets stuck between a large wheel and is split in half (off camera). As Carter and Lee send Soo-Yung down the elevator to safety, they make their escape from the Triads by gliding down to safety with a large French flag. Unfortunately, they are confronted by Reynard, holding Geneviève hostage and threatening to kill her and frame them. However, George, having followed Lee and Carter, shoots Reynard from behind. The police arrive, with Commissioner Revi gloating and trying to get undeserved credit. After giving him a team punch to the face, Lee and Carter leave the scene dancing to the Edwin Starr song "War". Release. Box office. "Rush Hour 3" was produced on a budget estimated at $140 million. It opened on August 10, 2007 and grossed $49,100,158 in its first three days. The film's total North American gross was $140,125,968, far below the gross of "Rush Hour 2" and slightly behind even the gross of the original. Noted Brandon Gray of Box Office Mojo: "Rush Hour 3" grossed $255,045,928 worldwide. Critical reception. Unlike its predecessors, the film received generally unfavorable reviews from critics, primarily on the film's more crude humor. On Metacritic, the film has a score of 44 based on 32 reviews indicating "mixed or average reviews". Desson Thomson of "The Washington Post", giving it three and a half stars out of five, said "at the risk of eternal damnation on the Internet, I admit to laughing at — even feeling momentarily touched by — "Rush Hour 3."" On Rotten Tomatoes the film had a score of 19% based on 157 reviews with a consensus of ""Rush Hour 3" is a tired rehash of earlier films, and a change of scenery can't hide a lack of new ideas." Todd Gilchrist of IGN movies said, "A movie that not only depends on but demands you don't think in order to enjoy it." Christian Toto of "The Washington Times" said, "The Rush job should put the franchise down for good." Christopher Tookey of the "Daily Mail" said, "Infecting this third movie is an extra, deeply unpleasant level of racism that we haven't seen before in the series." Roger Ebert of the "Chicago Sun-Times" was slightly more positive giving the film two stars and saying, "...once you realize it's only going to be so good, you settle back and enjoy that modest degree of goodness, which is at least not badness, and besides, if you're watching "Rush Hour 3", you obviously didn't have anything better to do, anyway." James Berardinelli of "ReelViews" gave the film one-and-a-half stars out of four, and said the movie was dull, uninspired and redundant. Distribution in China. The film was not screened in Chinese theaters in 2007, to make way for a larger variety of foreign films for that year, according to a business representative. (The quota for imported films is 20 each year.) Home media release. The film was released on December 26, 2007, on DVD, VHS and Blu-ray Disc. As of March 30, 2008, the film has made $80.75 million in Home Video rentals, making it the top rental of 2007. Sequel. Because of the film's box office success, director Brett Ratner and writer Jeff Nathanson are currently considering the production of a fourth film in the "Rush Hour" series. In the DVD audio commentary for "Rush Hour 3", Brett Ratner jokes that a "Rush Hour 4" could be released in the future. Ratner and Nathanson are exploring many concepts, including the use of the motion capture technique for the possible sequel and various film projects with Chan and Tucker. It has been reported that the fourth film may be set in Moscow. In a recent interview with Vulture, Ratner stated that the high cost of making a sequel is, "why another "Rush Hour" probably won’t get made, either: It'd be too much to pay me, Chris and Jackie [Chan to come back." In an interview, on May 12, 2012, Jackie reveals that he is still planning on both a "Rush Hour "and a "Karate Kid "sequel. Soundtrack. The original motion picture soundtrack for this movie was released on August 8, 2007 on CD and audio cassette from New Line Records and Columbia Records.
583054	The Dirty Picture is a 2011 Indian biographical drama film inspired by the life of Silk Smitha, a South Indian actress noted for her erotic roles. The filmmakers have clarified that the story is not officially or literally based on Smitha alone, but on many of her Southern contemporaries such as Nylon Nalini and Disco Shanti. It also resembles the personal lives of other women in popular culture, including Hollywood actress and sex symbol Marilyn Monroe. The film was directed by Milan Luthria and co-produced by Shobha Kapoor and Ekta Kapoor, after Ekta came up with the idea and asked screenwriter Rajat Aroraa to pen a story based on it. Produced on a budget of , "The Dirty Picture" was released worldwide on 2 December 2011 (the anniversary of Smitha's birth), in Hindi, Tamil and Telugu versions. Vidya Balan, Naseeruddin Shah, Tusshar Kapoor and Emraan Hashmi played lead roles in the film. Upon release the film was both a critical and commercial success, with Balan receiving the highest accolades for her performance; she was called "the hero of the film". In addition, the film has received widespread praise for portraying women as powerful, contributing something unique to a typically male-dominated society. The film's music was composed by Vishal Shekhar with lyrics written by Rajat Aroraa. "The Dirty Picture" grossed worldwide(includes Tamil and Telugu dubbed versions) and received several awards, most of which were won by Balan for her portrayal of Silk. The film won three National Film Awards including Best Actress, three Filmfare Awards and six Screen Awards including Best Picture and Best Director. Box Office India declared the film a "Blockbuster" after its fourth week. Plot. Reshma (Vidya Balan) is running away from her house to Chennai, a day before her marriage. She is insulted by the casting director for being unattractive and useless after trying to get a role in a film. Determined to convince him she spontaneously grabs the role of a side dancer. However, she dances with whips and using erotic movements annoying the film's director, Abraham (Emraan Hashmi). He edits out Reshma's entire dance sequence from the film. The film fails at the box office much to the dismay of the producer Selva Ganesh (Rajesh Sharma), who later offers Reshma a song in his upcoming film, and suggests that she now be referred to as "Silk". At the first shoot "Silk" dances with Suryakanth (Naseeruddin Shah), her childhood idol. Silk seduces him by offering a long-term sexual relationship. Meanwhile, Abraham proposes a new film to Selva Ganesh and is keen to cast Suryakanth, suggests he add spice and sex to make the film more commercially viable, which angers Abraham. Silk goes on to do many more erotic and sensual films with Suryakanth. She gains many male fans and within a short span of time, becomes immensely rich and popular as the Southern sex star. Suryakanth's younger brother Ramakanth (Tusshar Kapoor) is an admirer of Silk and tries to befriend her. Silk is happy that someone finally likes her for who she is and not just for her body. At an awards ceremony Silk is praised for her performance, but is also insulted by Suryakanth who tells her that she is nothing but everyone's "dirty secret". Silk announces that she will continue to make her "dirty pictures", and that she has no qualms in doing so. She spends more time with Ramakanth and sensing their affair as a sensational news, noted journalist Naila (Anju Mahendru) criticises Silk for dating both brothers. Suryakanth drops Silk from his forthcoming films, forcing her to work with small-time film makers. She loses interest in her work and begins to feel threatened by a younger aspiring actress, Shakeela. After a dance challenge she intentionally trips Shakeela, much to the embarrassment of Ramakanth who breaks up with her. Silk turns to alcohol and chain smoking, and gains weight. Directors lose interest in casting her. Silk approaches Silva Ganesh with an offer to produce a film together. Ultimately, the audiences have lost interest to which her film bombs and she subsequently loses all her wealth and fame. Silk has accumulated so much debt that she approaches a small-time film maker. She is shocked to find that he wants her to do a porn film, but he intoxicates her with a drink and starts filming. The place is soon raided by the police but Silk, manages to escape in time. Despite this Abraham begins to fall for Silk, even though he at first denies it. He manages to trace Silk's mother and wants to surprise Silk the next morning. That night when he calls Silk, she asks him to bid goodbye to everyone on her behalf as she is going to sleep. Abraham rushes to her house, finding her lying in bed dead from a sleeping pill overdose. In the end, Abraham's narration ends that It is unknown whether Silk was right or wrong. It's a mystery. Production. Development. Ekta Kapoor launched the film with director Milan Luthria soon after their collaboration "Once Upon A Time In Mumbaai" became a hit. She said that "The Dirty Picture" would be India's answer to the Academy Award nominated film "Boogie Nights". Later in a press conference, Kapoor clarified that neither of Balaji's forthcoming films, "Ragini MMS" nor "The Dirty Picture", were "porn films" as they had been made out to be. Kapoor has gone on record to add, "I would be surprised if I don't get unbelievable critical acclaim for "The Dirty Picture" and a national award for my actress, Vidya Balan. The film has one of the most well-written scripts I have come across and a lot of youngsters in my office have looked at it with great admiration." She also pointed out that the purpose of the film was neither to justify nor criticise Smitha's life, but for the audience to live her life. Additionally, all actors, including Balan and Shah attended workshops for almost two months before filming could begin, in order to familiarise themselves with the body language of their characters. When screenwriter Rajat Aroraa initially started working, taking cues from producer Kapoor, the scope of the film was much smaller, primarily looking back to the soft-pornography scene of the 1980s. But gradually as work progressed, the scope widened to include the controversial romances of Smitha through a fictionalised biopic. While researching for the film, director Luthria and screenwriter Aroraa found little material in film magazines of that period, as "women like Silk Smitha were often ignored by film magazines, except for gossip column mentions". Thus they derived many of the details of her life from anecdotes and party gossips, and then fictionalised them. Apart from depicting the pomp of the Telugu/Tamil film industry, the screenplay also takes up issues such as money management by actors, "their string of broken relationships", and the way they "led lonely lives and met with tragic ends". For inspiration, instead of looking at South Indian films of the period, the team turned to the work of mainstream Bollywood directors like Manmohan Desai, Vijay Anand, Raj Kapoor, Feroz Khan and G.P. Sippy; and in order to put the global soft-porn industry in context, the team looked into "Boogie Nights" (1997) and "The People vs. Larry Flynt" (1996). The final script became a "fictionalised, women-oriented, generalised perspective on the 1980s film industry". Casting. After initial talks with actresses Kangna Ranaut and Bipasha Basu fell through, Vidya Balan was offered the lead role. When Balan was narrated the script and shown sketches of what she needed to wear for the portrayal, she felt uncomfortable. Luthria added, "We couldn't have found anyone better than Vidya for this role. It's a casting that very few would think is viable because it is going to be nothing like Vidya has done before. But I am confident she will push the envelope as far as she can". Regarding the criticism that Balan's character might evoke, Luthria clarified, "I wanted Vidya to know that what she's doing is not crass or crude but can be shown aesthetically in a sensual manner with a touch of class. What her character does, is not cheap." As a reference point, he also asked Balan to study 'similar themed' films such as "Burlesque" and "Chicago". Balan also underwent salsa training to fine-tune herself with Smitha's languid body language. Next, Naseeruddin Shah was cast as an ageing South Indian superstar with "hideous wigs, dark glasses and painted-on mustaches". He also performed a "fast dance number" in the film, a full 22 years after he last did it in the song "Tirchi Topiwale" from "Tridev" (1989). Regarding his character, Ekta Kapoor stated, "This role requires him to play to the gallery, provoke claps, laughs, and whistles and I know he can pull it off because Naseer is the Shah of all actors", while Luthria added, "Expect a man who unabashedly enjoys the flesh of women". Tusshar Kapoor and Emraan Hashmi were next cast in lead roles. While it was known that Tusshar Kapoor would play the role of a script-writer and Smitha's love interest, the nature of Hashmi's role was unknown for a while. The casting received praise from trade pundits, with Taran Adarsh commenting, "Known for engaging in interesting and unconventional casting in all its previous releases, Balaji has again tackled the unheard of, by casting Emraan Hashmi and Vidya Balan – two of the most successful stars of today – opposite each other in "The Dirty Picture". The perfect combination of mass and class promises to make this controversial film yet another winner from the Balaji stable." Filming. Filming was to begin on 21 May 2011; a week after the release of Kapoor's "Ragini MMS". But due to certain production delays, it began a week later. Balan, being a religious person, organised a puja on the sets before principal photography could begin. The first leg of filming took place at Mumbai's Film City where an elaborate set re-creating Chennai (then Madras) of the 80's, was set up. The second schedule was shot in Ramoji Film City in Hyderabad. The song 'Ishq Sufiyana' was shot at Bidar fort in Bidar, Karnataka. Filming was completed in September, before venturing into post-production, ahead of the December release. Director Luthria wanted to depict a sense of discomfort between the film's two lead characters, Balan and Hashmi, a "meeting of two completely different worlds". So he didn't allow them to interact and get comfortable with each other during film workshops ahead of the shoot. Since he considered them "the unlikeliest pair to come together", he brought them together right into the shoot filming an important scene, where they had to insult each other. Though he was initially anxious, it all turned out well and he was surprised by the resulting chemistry. Marketing. The first look of "The Dirty Picture" and a short teaser were launched online on 26 August 2011. The enthusiastic response even prompted its producers to consider a sequel. The film's trailer on YouTube got over 500,000 hits in one day and a million hits in two days. Meanwhile, the theatrical trailer was launched on 30 August at a single screen cinema in Bandra. The space was especially decorated to recreate the retro era. Since the film is set in the 1980s, a time when multiplexes did not exist, the producers thought it would be fitting to show the première on a single screen. The lead stars of the film created publicity by organising a promotional campaign in the college festival of Mithibai College on 30 November. As a part of the film promotion, actors Vidya Balan, Tusshar Kapoor and Emraan Hashmi made appearances on the popular TV show Bigg Boss (Season 5) aired on Colors on 26 November 2011. Balan also entered the house to spend some time with the housemates and present a red sari to Sunny Leone, as a present from her. Later, on 27 November 2011, Balan and Hashmi made guest appearances on a special one-hour episode of Sony Entertainment Television India's popular daily soap "Bade Achhe Lagte Hain". Balan shook leg to the song, ""Ooh La La"" with Saakshi Tanwar, the female lead actress of the soap. Soundtrack. T-Series acquired the music rights for "The Dirty Picture". Vishal-Shekhar composed four tracks for the film and Rajat Arora penned the lyrics for them. The first of the four tracks, entitled "Ooh La La" composed by Bappi Lahiri was released on the internet on 19 October 2011. Tracklist Reception. Joginder Tuteja of Bollywood Hungama gave the music an overall rating of 4 out of five saying, "Music of The Dirty Picture takes the expected route and delivers what it promised" and chose "Ooh La La" and "Ishq Sufiyana" as picks from the album. Sukanya Verma of Rediff.com gave the album a rating of 2 and a half out of 5, and said the opening track of "The Dirty Picture" is the album's only star. Release and reception. The film released worldwide on 2 December 2011, coinciding with the 51st birth anniversary of South Indian film siren Silk Smitha. Nationally, the film released on 1766 screens and on 120 screens abroad. The satellite rights of the film were sold to Sony Entertainment Television for and another from music rights deal with T-Series. Raveena Tandon's husband, Anil Thadani acquired the distributor rights of the film for . Critical reception. Upon release, the film received mostly positive reviews from critics. "The Times Of India" gave the film 4 out of 5 stars, concluding that ""The Dirty Picture" is definitely not only your film for the week, but is a seminal work that will be studied in feminist discourses." Komal Nahta of Koimoi.com gave the film 4 out of 5 stars and said, ""The Dirty Picture" is a wonderful film and will do extraordinary business." Kaveree Bamzai of "India Today" gave the film 4 out of 5 stars, and extolled Balan's performance, calling it "riveting". "Dainik Bhaskar" gave the film 3 and half stars out of 5, concluding, "Overall, a big thumbs up to "The Dirty Picture", which is in its truest meaning, an entertainer. Highly recommended!" Raja Sen from Rediff.com gave the film 3.5 out of 5 stars and said ""The Dirty Picture" forsakes much potential nuance in its urge to please crowds but is still far more engaging than most Bollywood produce." Sukanya Verma of Rediff.com gave the film 3 out of 5 stars, highlighting that "In terms of creativity, it's a middling effort. But where bravado is concerned, "The Dirty Picture" kicks ass by virtue of three very strong reasons: Vidya Balan. Vidya Balan. Vidya Balan." Kunal Guha of Yahoo! India gave the movie 3 stars out of 5, and said, "Clearly, Rajat Aroraa's winning dialogues will make you sit up and say, "She didn't just say that?!" Box office. The film opened strong, with 60–65% collections on average at multiplexes and had the 5th biggest opening of 2011. The opening was best in and around the Maharashtra area, with 80% and 75% openings respectively. The film was declared a "Blockbuster" by "Box office India" after its fourth week and ended with a lifetime gross of around . India. On the first day, the Hindi version grossed around nett, while the Telugu version collected around . "The Dirty Picture" sustained well in the second week. The film grossed nett on its second Friday while nett on Saturday, with major collections coming from Maharashtra area. It collected nett on its second weekend. 25 weeks after its release, "The Dirty Picture" continued to have a successful run in theaters; the film celebrated its silver jubilee at Relief Cinema in Ahmedabad, Gujarat. The film grossed around in India with its Hindi version grossing domestic nett. It was highest grossing Bollywood film with an 'A' (Adults only) certificate in India,before the record was broken by Grand Masti in 2013. Overseas. Internationally, the film released in the UAE, UK, Canada, United States, Mauritius, Malaysia, Singapore, Kenya, Tanzania, Indonesia, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, Fiji and Hong Kong. Its nett opening all-together in these territories was approximately . In UAE, on Thursday alone, the film grossed . Television broadcast. The Indian television premiere of "The Dirty Picture" was set to be telecast on Sony Entertainment Television on 22 April 2012 at 12 noon and 8 pm IST. The Nagpur bench of the Bombay High Court allowed the TV channel to go ahead with the scheduled telecast after the Central Board of Film Certification had cleared the film with 56 cuts, 36 of which were done by the producers, while other cuts were suggested by the Certification Board. The film had to go through these cuts as the telecast of an adult-rated film during prime time in India is a violation of the Cable TV Network Rules, 1994 and the Cable TV Networks (Regulation) Act, 1995. Following this process, Sony Entertainment Television promoted the scheduled telecast. However, on the scheduled day, the film was not telecast, with the channel putting up a message stating, "For unavoidable reasons we regret to inform that "The Dirty Picture" will not be telecast today. Any inconvenience caused is deeply regretted." The Information and Broadcast Ministry informed the TV channel that it can air the film only after prime time, that's post 11 pm. Accolades. "The Dirty Picture" received numerous awards and nominations from major award shows in India and abroad. The majority of these were won by Vidya Balan in the Best Actress category for her performance. The other achievements include those of costume design, dialogue, make-up, playback singing and choreography.
1075526	Seeking a Friend for the End of the World is a 2012 comedy-drama film written and directed by Lorene Scafaria, in her directorial debut. The film stars Steve Carell and Keira Knightley. Plot. The film opens with an announcement that a 70-mile-wide asteroid named Matilda is on a collision course with Earth and that the space shuttle "Deliverance" has failed on a mission to destroy it. The world has three weeks until impact, at which time all of humanity will be wiped out. Dodge Petersen (Steve Carell) and his wife Linda (played by his real wife Nancy Carell) listen to the broadcast from the side of the road. After Dodge has a disinterested response to this news, Linda looks at him in abject disgust and flees the vehicle without saying a word to him. Dodge returns to his near-empty New York City workplace the next day, where he sells insurance. While everyone around him has reacted differently—from suicide to constant drugs to guilt-free sex—Dodge's life has not changed at all. Even his housekeeper, Elsa, continues to show up and clean his apartment despite Dodge's insistence that there is no further need to do so. He does not stop going into his meaningless job until one of his friends gives in to despair and leaps to his death by crashing into Dodge's parked car. After attending a friend's wild party, where he passes on having sex or trying drugs for himself, Dodge returns home to reminisce about his high school sweetheart, Olivia, when he notices his neighbor Penny (Keira Knightley) crying on the fire escape. She admits to him that she has just ended a relationship with her boyfriend Owen (Adam Brody) for making her miss her last opportunity to see her family in England. Returning to her apartment, Penny gives Dodge three years' worth of his mail that was incorrectly delivered to her, but which she kept forgetting to hand over, and in the process unknowingly tells him that his wife was having an affair. Dodge storms off into the night, guzzling codeine-laced cough syrup and window cleaner in an attempt to kill himself. The next morning, however, he regains consciousness with a note on his sweater—reading "Sorry"—and a dog tethered to his foot. He takes the dog, which he names Sorry, home and opens the old mail Penny had been holding. Dodge is surprised to discover a letter from his high school sweetheart, Olivia, dated three months earlier. The letter explains why she left him and what has happened in her life, concluding with the admission that he was "the love of her life". On the same night, a riot breaks out on his block. Abandoning Owen amidst the rioters, Dodge explains to Penny that he might know someone who could fly her to England if she promises to help him find Olivia first. She agrees and the two set off for Dodge's hometown in Delaware. After running out of gas in New Jersey, Dodge and Penny hitch a ride with a sympathetic driver, Glenn, in a pick-up (William Petersen) who regales them with his life story. During a pit stop, the driver confronts Dodge, asking him how he "plans to do it". The driver makes light of Dodge's confusion, explaining that after he was diagnosed with terminal cancer, he had hired an assassin to have himself killed. At that exact moment, he is gunned down by the hit man, who high-tails it down the road in a getaway car. After a comedic scene of burying the driver only to realize the truck keys are buried along with him, unburying and then re-burying him, Dodge and Penny continue on their quest, stopping along the way at a popular restaurant called Friendsy's. After Penny playfully announces to the waitress (Gillian Jacobs) that they are there to celebrate Dodge's birthday, a frenzy of kissing and drinking between several staff and guests breaks out. Penny and Dodge leave just before an orgy breaks out, and swept away in the spontaneity of the moment, the two have sex in the pick-up truck. They are flagged for speeding by a thoughtless police officer who throws them in jail and impounds their car, although a kindly older cop sets them free and says he will drive them as far as Camden, New Jersey. Later, in Camden, Dodge and Penny meet Speck (Derek Luke), a man from Penny's past who clearly appears prepared for the apocalypse. Speck reveals that he has a working satellite phone in his end-of-days bunker, and gladly lets Penny contact her family. After convincing him to loan them one of his fleet of Smart cars, Penny and Dodge finally track down Olivia's whereabouts. Dodge exits the vehicle and starts toward the door, much to Penny's disappointment. A short time later he returns, revealing that he had left a note but ultimately made no attempt to meet face-to-face with Olivia. When Penny presses him for an explanation, he is adamant about not explaining himself. After stumbling across a mass baptism at the ocean, Dodge and Penny spend the rest of the afternoon quickly falling for each other, their emotions heightened by the apocalyptic circumstances. As dusk approaches, they end up in Somerset, where they pay a visit to Dodge's estranged father Frank (Martin Sheen). Their reunion leads to arguing but eventually, they reconcile and the three bond over personal time and dinner. After Penny falls asleep, Dodge carries her outside and it becomes apparent that the pilot he mentioned earlier is none other than his father, who is waiting for them in his airplane. Dodge gently but reluctantly places her in the passenger side of the small two-seater, whispering that she is the love of his life and at the same time knowing that this is the last time he will ever see her. He then nods to his father and watches as the plane flies away. Dodge returns home, and discovers a post-it-note stuck to the door of his apartment. It is from Karen Amalfi, a lady he had met at a party earlier in the movie. Upon entering his apartment, Dodge finds Elsa once again cleaning his apartment. He scolds her, insisting that she should go and spend what time is left with her family, but in the end when she seems greatly disappointed, he tells her that he will see her next Thursday, as usual. He turns on the television, only to discover that Matilda is due to arrive one week earlier than expected. With only sixteen hours left, Dodge goes to Penny's apartment with Sorry and listens to her records until the power goes out. In the dark, he lights candles when suddenly Penny appears in the doorway of the living room. Having told his father to turn around, she asks how he could have possibly left her. He admits that it was the stupidest thing he'd ever done, and the two share one final, tearful reunion.
1063978	William "Bill" Hader (born June 7, 1978) is an American actor, voice actor, comedian, producer and writer. He is known for his work as a cast member on "Saturday Night Live", his lead voice role in "Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs", and his supporting roles in comedy films such as "Superbad", "Pineapple Express", "Tropic Thunder", "Adventureland", "Men in Black 3", "Paul", "Forgetting Sarah Marshall", and "". He is currently a writer for the animated comedy series "South Park." Early life. Hader was born and raised in Tulsa, Oklahoma, the son of Sherri and Bill Hader. He has two younger sisters, Katie and Kara. Hader attended Patrick Henry Elementary School, Edison Junior High, and Cascia Hall Preparatory School, before attending The Art Institute of Phoenix and Scottsdale Community College. Early career. Hader's comedic aspirations eventually led him to Los Angeles where he joined the Second City, a comedy troupe that has been a training ground for many "SNL" cast members since the 1970s. He performed at iO West in Los Angeles. During his time at Second City and iO West, Hader worked as a production assistant on the DVD ""; the feature films "The Scorpion King" and "Collateral Damage"; as well as an assistant on VH1 television's "The Surreal Life". "Saturday Night Live". Hader was "discovered" by Megan Mullally of "Will & Grace" while working with the Los Angeles-based comedy troupe "Animals from the Future." Mullally brought him to the attention of "SNL" producer Lorne Michaels. Hader was hired as a "featured player" and made his debut on the show on October 1, 2005. His first role was as a psychologist giving his views about life and death during the emergency landing of JetBlue Airways Flight 292. Hader is known for his impressions of famous people, such as Vincent Price in the Variety Vault sketches, Al Pacino, Brian Grazer, Rick Perry, John Malkovich, Seth Rogen, James Carville, Julian Assange, Eliot Spitzer, Alan Alda and Charlie Sheen. On July 19, 2012, Hader received his first nomination for a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series for his work on "Saturday Night Live". He is the first male "SNL" cast member to receive this nomination since Eddie Murphy in 1983. On May 14, 2013, he announced that his eighth season would be his last. "It was a hard decision, but it has to happen at some point," he told reporters. "It got to a point where I said, 'Maybe it's just time to go.'" Celebrity impersonations. Hader has said that he performed impersonations of teachers and friends when he was growing up, but did not do impersonations of famous people until his "Saturday Night Live" audition. His Al Pacino impersonation came after watching the actor's Emmy acceptance speech for "Angels in America". Hader's Vincent Price impersonation came from his love of Price's Edgar Allan Poe films, such as" The Fall of the House of Usher". His Peter O'Toole impersonation came partly from O'Toole in "My Favorite Year" and Jack Lemmon's drunken Prince Hapnick from "The Great Race" and Cher from "Burlesque." Another one of Hader's impersonations from "Saturday Night Live" is of former governor Eliot Spitzer. Hader has also impersonated Adam Levine, Fox News Channel host Shepard Smith, Fleetwood Mac guitarist Lindsey Buckingham, Michael "The Situation" Sorrentino from MTV's "Jersey Shore", Pearl Jam's frontman Eddie Vedder, Dave Matthews, Rod Serling, John Boehner, Ben Mankiewicz, John Mayer, Conan O'Brien, Alan Alda, Dr. Oz, Rick Perry, Charlie Sheen, political strategist James Carville, Clint Eastwood, Tim Burton, and - in a guest appearance - Tim & Eric Awesome Show, Great Job! mainstay James Quall (requiring Hader to impersonate Quall's own tenuous celebrity impersonations). Hader also does an impression of "Dateline NBC" 's Keith Morrison, parodying his reporting style of being overly interested in horrific tales of tragedy and/or murder, and asking inane questions. After discovering that Morrison works at 30 Rockefeller Plaza, where both "Dateline" and "Saturday Night Live" are filmed, Hader half-jestingly said on the March 30, 2009, episode of "Late Night with Jimmy Fallon" that he lived in fear of getting into the same elevator as Morrison at 30 Rock. In December 2010, he portrayed Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, who interrupts the broadcast from a British prison. In this sketch he hacks commercials for companies that are apologizing about WikiLeaks (such as MasterCard) and informs America about his status. He also performed a parody of TMZ with Assange playing the role of Harvey Levin. On February 18, 2012, he briefly impersonated author Stephen King, as part of a sketch in which Maya Rudolph impersonated a Maya Angelou who creates pranks. Maya tells King, who is autographing books, that his car has been towed. He leaps up in horror, then recognizes her and says, in a Maine accent, "It's an 'awnuh' ." Film roles. After his film debut "You, Me and Dupree", Hader had a wide range of roles such as Katherine Heigl's editor at E! in "Knocked Up", the acid-taking mechanic Dave in "Hot Rod" (alongside" SNL" castmate Andy Samberg), a recumbent biker in" The Brothers Solomon" (which featured SNL castmate Will Forte in one of the film's co-leading roles) and, most famously, as Officer Slater in the Judd Apatow produced" Superbad". His role in "Superbad" helped boost his public awareness and allowed him to appear on mainstream programs like "Total Request Live", "The Tonight Show", and MTV's "Video Music Awards". Hader appeared in two other Apatow projects: "Forgetting Sarah Marshall "(with Jason Segel) and "Pineapple Express" (with Seth Rogen). He appeared alongside Ben Stiller, Brandon T. Jackson, Jack Black, Robert Downey, Jr., Matthew McConaughey, Steve Coogan, Jay Baruchel, Tom Cruise, and Nick Nolte in "Tropic Thunder". He also teamed up with director Greg Mottola for three feature films "Superbad", "Adventureland" and "Paul". In addition to these films, Hader has made several short films, including "Back in the Day", "Sounds Good to Me: Remastering the Sting", and "The Jeannie Tate Show" with "SNL" writer Liz Cackowski and wife Maggie Carey. He made a small appearance in the 2009 film "Year One" with Jack Black and Michael Cera. Hader lent his voice to the critically acclaimed 2009 Sony Pictures Animation film "Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs", playing the lead role of Flint Lockwood as well as Flint's invention in the film, the FLDSMDFR. He voiced a gazelle in "". Hader appeared in "" as Major General George Armstrong Custer. He provided a voiceover in the 2010 film "Scott Pilgrim vs. the World". He portrayed The Voice, the disembodied voice that pops up during certain moments of the film's video game-inspired fight scenes. Hader has written a slasher film to be produced by Judd Apatow, which he will star in if the film is produced. In April 2009, Hader was a part of "Vanity Fair"'s list of "Comedy's New Legends". Other work. Hader was a creative consultant on the 12th season of "South Park." He was a producer on the 13th season, which premiered March 11, 2009. Hader is among the series producers to win the 2009 Emmy Award for Best Animated Series. He also appeared on the commentary recorded for the 2009 Blu-ray edition of "", and the Comedy Central special "South Park: 6 Days to Air", a documentary filmed during production of the 2011 South Park episode HumancentiPad. Hader re-joined the writing staff for "South Park" for its seventeenth season. Hader won a Peabody Award for his participation in Saturday Night Live Political Satire, 2008. He has also been on the MTV show Punk'd. Hader voiced an array of different characters on the second season of the Adult Swim show "." Hader and SNL castmate Seth Meyers penned a Spider-Man one-shot, "The Short Halloween," the title of which is a reference to the Batman story arc "The Long Halloween." It was drawn by Kevin Maguire and came out May 29, 2009, to positive reviews. Jackson Publick announced on his blog that Hader will be the new voice for Professor Impossible on the fourth season of "The Venture Brothers", a part originated by Stephen Colbert. In the game "Grand Theft Auto IV" he played Wilson Taylor Sr (On in-game radio show: "Pacemaker"). Hader appeared on "Tim and Eric Awesome Show" impersonating the recurring character James Quall on the episode "Jazz." In July 2008, Hader starred in, and co-wrote with Simon Rich, the web series "The Line" on Crackle. Hader lent his voice to the audiobook of Sarah Vowell's "The Wordy Shipmates." Hader voiced the Pod in the "Aqua Teen Hunger Force" episode "IAMAPOD" as well as Hitler in the episode "Der Inflatable Fuhrer." Hader played Kevin, Matt Damon's co-pilot, in the live episode of "30 Rock," recorded October 14, 2010. He hosted the 2011 and 2012 seasons of "Essentials, Jr." on Turner Classic Movies. In the series premiere of "The Mindy Project", he guest starred as Mindy's ex-boyfriend. His character returns later in the first season. Hader voices Dr. Malocchio in the original Hulu series "The Awesomes". Personal life. In 2006, Hader married writer-director Maggie Carey. They have two daughters together: Hannah Kathryn, born October 6, 2009, and Harper, born July 28, 2012. Hader does not watch "Saturday Night Live", and so is unfamiliar with the show's sketches; he has only seen clips of his Stefon sketches before talk show interviews. Hader is a fan of the Oklahoma City Thunder, an NBA franchise based in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. Prior to game 2 of the 2012 NBA Finals, he joined the NBA GameTime television analysts and did an impression of Ernie Johnson, Jr., a sportscaster for Turner Sports, which owns NBA TV, the network producing NBA GameTime.
1059725	Elias Koteas (born March 11, 1961) is a Canadian actor of film and television, best known for his roles in "The Prophecy", "Fallen", "The Killing", and as Casey Jones in the live-action first and third "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" films. Early life. Koteas was born in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, to a father who worked as a mechanic for the Canadian National Railways, and a milliner mother. His parents are both of Greek descent, from the Mani Peninsula and he is a fluent Greek speaker. Koteas attended Vanier College in Montreal before leaving to attend the AADA in New York in 1981, of which he is a 1983 graduate. He was a member of the Academy's 1983–84 Production Company. He also attended the Actors Studio in New York City, where he studied acting under Ellen Burstyn and Peter Masterson. Career. While at the AADA, Koteas played Father Rangier in the school's production of "The Devils" adapted by John Whiting from the Aldous Huxley novel. He was also Paris in "The Golden Apple", a musical by John Latouche and Jerome Moross. Koteas is best known for playing the lead role of Thomas Daggett in the American film "The Prophecy", as well as the sports-crazed vigilante Casey Jones in the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle films. Koteas went on to play the demonically-possessed serial killer Edgar Reese in the Denzel Washington thriller "Fallen". He also appeared in John Hughes' "Some Kind of Wonderful", Atom Egoyan's "The Adjuster", "Exotica", "Ararat", Terrence Malick's "The Thin Red Line" and David Cronenberg's "Crash". Koteas also made an appearance in Season 4 of "The Sopranos" as Dominic Palladino, and in the Season 2 finale of "House", in which Koteas plays a man who shoots Dr. Gregory House. The same year, he portrayed "DA Mike Randolf" in the courtroom drama "Conviction". Koteas has also appeared in "The Greatest Game Ever Played", a Disney biography about a young golfer, as well as the thrillers "Skinwalkers" in 2006, "Zodiac" and "Shooter" in 2007. In May/September 2008, he played the role of "Joe", a bank robber, in the season 4 finale and season 5 premiere of "" Currently he is appearing in The Killing on AMC. In 2010, he played major roles in "Let Me In", the Matt Reeves re-adaptation of "Let the Right One In", and "Defendor", a Canadian superhero film starring Woody Harrelson. Koteas plays Canadian Forces Colonel Xavier Marks on "Combat Hospital". He also appears in "Winnie Mandela", a 2011 film about Winnie Mandela, former wife of Nelson Mandela.
1165548	William Gerald "Jerry" Paris (July 25, 1925 – March 31, 1986) was an American actor and director best known for playing Jerry Helper, the dentist and next door neighbor of Rob and Laura Petrie, on "The Dick Van Dyke Show". Life and career. He was born in San Francisco, California. He was a graduate of both New York University and of UCLA and studied at the Actors Studio after serving in the U.S. Navy during World War II. Paris had roles in major 1950s films like "The Caine Mutiny", "The Wild One" and also played Martin "Marty" Flaharty, one of Eliot Ness's men in a recurring role in the first season of ABC-TV's "The Untouchables". After having directed some "Van Dyke" show episodes, Paris devoted himself to directing both in television and film, most notably on the TV series "Happy Days", for which he directed over 200 episodes. He also directed "Laverne & Shirley" as well as episodes of "The Odd Couple", "The Mary Tyler Moore Show", "The Ted Knight Show" and "Blansky's Beauties". He returned to directing feature films in 1985's "" and 1986's "Police Academy 3: Back in Training". In all, he is credited with directing episodes of 56 TV titles and as an actor in 105 titles. He married the former Ruth Benjamin, and they had three children. She died in 1980. Paris died of complications from brain cancer surgery at the age of 60. He was residing in Los Angeles, California, at the time of his death. In the 1990s sitcom "The Nanny", Fran Fine's grandmother Yetta Rosenberg played by Ann Morgan Guilbert showed a photo of Paris briefly and claimed it was her late husband.
1072257	The film, directed by Koji Shima, was one of many early Japanese monster films quickly produced after the success of Toho's "Godzilla" in 1954. The film was loosely based on a novel by Gentaro Nakajima. After release, the film was met with negative reviews, with critics calling it "bizarre" and accusing it of using science fiction clichés. "Warning from Space" influenced many other Japanese science fiction films, such as "Gorath". The film, along with other 1950s science fiction films, influenced director Stanley Kubrick, who would later direct "". Plot. A small ship travels to a rotating space station. Aboard the station, a group of starfish-like beings discuss how to warn humans of an impending disaster, deciding on contacting Japanese scientist Dr. Kumara. Meanwhile, flying saucers are spotted over the skies of Tokyo, baffling scientists. A journalist tries to get a statement from Dr. Kumara about the sightings, but Kumara replies that there is not enough evidence to formulate a hypothesis. At an observatory, Professor Isobe spots an object in his telescope apparently releasing smaller objects. Isobe discusses his findings with Kumara and a physician, Dr. Matsuda, who takes photographs of the object, though they turn out to be unclear. But they can still deduce the object has a high energy output. Meanwhile, the extraterrestrials have been unsuccessfully attempting to contact humans. They appear in lakes and rivers, frightening fishermen and sailors. One of the aliens manages to get a photo of Hikari Aozora, a famous Japanese entertainer. They plan to have one of the aliens mutate to look like Aozora. Back aboard the space station, one of the Pairan leaders, Ginko, volunteers to slowly mutate into the human form. On Earth, Toru, Isobe's son, discovers the disguised alien floating in the water. After her rescue, she exhibits superhuman characteristics such as jumping ten feet and materializing in different places. Soon, she disrupts Dr. Matsuda's work on a nuclear device, explaining she understands the complex equations he was writing and warning against the effects of a device. Shortly afterwards, as the team of scientists discuss her abnormal traits, Ginko reveals her true identity, explaining she is from Paira, a world on the same orbit as Earth but on the opposite side of the Sun. She then announces her mission, to warn Earth of an imminent collision of a rogue planet, which is dubbed "Planet R" by the media. They appeal to the World Congress about the situation, but are ejected. Only after they prove evidence of Planet R and its rapid acceleration does the World Congress launch its nuclear weapons, which are ineffective. In the meantime, spies have abducted Matsuda and are attempting to steal his formula to the nuclear device. Matsuda does not comply and is eventually left tied to a chair in a remote building. As the Earth's atmosphere heats up because of the approaching Planet R, Ginko again arrives to learn why it hasn't been destroyed yet. Using Pairan technology they rescue Matsuda and the formula for the device. They watch as the device is fired at Planet R destroying it. Earth's atmosphere immediately begins to cool, saving humanity. Production. After the success of Toho's 1954 film "Godzilla", which depicted a giant dinosaur attacking Tokyo, many Japanese studios began to produce similar monster films, including "Warning from Space". Along with other films such as Shintoho's "Terrifying Attack of the Flying Saucers" and the American "Forbidden Planet", "Warning from Space" became part of a fledgling subgenre of films based around science fiction creatures. The film also included the fashionable use of nuclear weapons as many other films did at the time, but showed how the weapons, which devastated the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki a decade earlier, could be put to good use. Still others noted the film used another common theme of cosmic collisions in the style of earlier films such as the 1931 film "End of the World", which depicted a comet on a collision course with the Earth. The Pairan aliens were designed by the prominent avant-garde artist Tarō Okamoto, which used a single eye common among monsters and aliens. Although posters showed the Pairan aliens towering over buildings, they were on the scale of humans, at about two meters. Walt Lee reports that Gentaro Nakajima's novel, on which this film was based, was in turn based on the Japanese folktale "Kaguya-hime". The film was one of fourteen Japanese color pictures produced in early 1956, but the first color Japanese science-fiction film. Release. Daiei also hoped to find a foreign market for "Warning from Space," though the company found difficulty in selling it. Nevertheless, the film played at both King Cinema in Rangoon, Burma and Tai Khoon Theatre in Sandakan, Malaysia, in 1958. The film did help Daiei achieve some success in the genre. It was passed for release, anglicized as "Warning from Space", by the BBFC in the United Kingdom in 1957, and later in the United States in 1963. It was picked up by American International Television later in the 1960s. The film was released in Spain as "Asalto a la Tierra", and in France as "Le Satellite Mystérieux". Reception. The film was met with negative reviews. In his book "A Guide to Apocalyptic Cinema", Charles P. Mitchell called the film "bizarre" and gave it two stars. Similarly, in a 1978 issue of the magazine "Cue", viewers were warned "don't watch it." In the 1986 "Encyclopedia of Science Fiction Movies" by Phil Hardy and Denis Gifford, the film is accused of using the science fiction clichés of flying saucers and atomic bombs. Gyan Prakash, in his book "Noir Urbanisms: Dystopic Images of the Modern City", called the film "charming." The film was noted for its misleading characterization of astronomers, with one author observing that it advanced the cinematic portrayal of astronomers as scientists in lab coats peering through an enormous telescope. In his biography of Stanley Kubrick, author John Baxter traces Kubrick's interest in science fiction films, which led to his "", to the Japanese kaiju eiga films of the 1950s, including "Warning from Space", with its "nameless two-metre-tall black starfish with a single central eye, who walk "en pointe" like ballet dancers." Baxter notes that despite their "clumsy model sequences, the films were often well-photographed in colour ... and their dismal dialogue was delivered in well-designed and well-lit sets." Legacy. "Warning from Space" influenced Toho's "Gorath", a 1963 film which depicts a rogue star on a collision course with Earth. The planet Paira in "Warning from Space" may have been an influence in the Daiei films "Gamera vs. Guiron" and "", which feature the planet Tera, another planet on the opposite of Earth's orbit. Critics have also noted plot similarities to the later Toho film "Monster Zero", in that a friendly planet warns Japan of the atom bomb and subsequently assists in celestial defense. The Pairans' asteroidean appearance is similar to that of a later pentagrammic creation, Starro, a villain from DC Comics' "Justice League".
430672	Georgina Leonidas (born 28 February 1990) is an English actress well known for playing Molly in "The Basil Brush Show" and Katie Bell in "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince". She returned as Katie Bell in "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2". Life and career. In her earlier years, Georgina attended Preston Park Primary School in Wembley, London. Later on she attended St. Gregory's Catholic Science College in Kenton Her brother Shane (who is now known as Dimitri) and older sister Stephanie are also actors; she has another sister called Helen who works as a teacher.. In 1999, she was on stage in London as Little Cosette in "Les Misérables". She appears in every episode of "The Basil Brush Show" series 1-4, then appears at different times from series 5 onwards. She also guest starred in the BBC TV series "Holby City" in early 2007, as Ali Jarvis in the episode "Stargazer", and then in "New Tricks" on 30 July 2009, as Kiraz Yilmaz in the episode "Fresh Starts". On 19 December 2007 she was cast for the film "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince", as Katie Bell, Harry's fellow Gryffindor Quidditch player. She starred in the leading role of Maya in the short film "Baghdad Express" in 2008, and appeared alongside fellow Harry Potter star Isabella Laughland in the short film "Driftwood" in 2009. She then reprised her role of Katie Bell in "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 1" and "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2" in 2010 and 2011, before appearing in the stage play "The Real Thing", the film "Papadopoulos & Sons" in a small role, and the short film "Untouchable" in 2012. She has also appeared in several videos filmed by fellow Harry Potter star Jessie Cave for her website www.pindippy.com.
1163392	Ralph Waite (born June 22, 1928) is an American actor. He is most notable role was playing John Walton, Sr., on the 1970s CBS TV series "The Waltons", which he also occasionally directed. He is also known for his portrayal of the slave ship third mate Slater in the mini-series "Roots". In addition, he has appeared in many guest roles on numerous television series portraying a large variety of roles. Personal life. Waite, the oldest of five children, was born in White Plains, New York, the son of Esther (née Mitchell) and Ralph H. Waite, a construction engineer. Before becoming an actor, Waite, served in the U.S. Marine Corps from 1946 to 1948, graduated from Bucknell University in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania, and briefly was a social worker. He earned a master's degree from Yale University Divinity School and was a Presbyterian minister and religious editor at Harper & Row in New York City before deciding on a career in acting. He is a former member of the Peninsula Players summer theater program during the 1963 season. Ralph Waite has married three times; two of his marriages ended in divorce. He had three daughters from his first marriage. One of his daughters died when she was nine years old from leukemia. His stepson, Liam Waite, is also an actor. After fifty years being away from organized religion, Waite returned in 2010 and became an active member of Spirit of the Desert Presbyterian Fellowship in Palm Desert, California. Political involvement. Waite ran unsuccessfully for Congress in California as a Democrat three times: in 1990 he challenged veteran GOP incumbent Al McCandless in the Riverside County-based 37th district, losing by five percentage points. In 1998 he ran in the special election for the then-Palm Springs-based 44th district left vacant by the death of incumbent Sonny Bono. He was defeated in that election by Mary Bono, Sonny's widow, and lost to her again that November. On October 21, 1991, Waite introduced former California Governor Jerry Brown prior to the latter's speech announcing his candidacy for the 1992 Democratic presidential nomination.
591124	Enga Veettu Pillai (Tamil: எங்க வீட்டுப் பிள்ளை; English: "The Child of Our Home") is a 1965 Indian Tamil film, directed by Chanakya. It stars M. G. Ramachandran in a double role. The film was a remake of the 1964 Telugu movie "Ramudu Bheemudu" which had N. T. Rama Rao in the lead. Plot. Ramu (MGR) is the cowardly one — the heir to all riches of Poonjolai Jamin. He has been raised that way by his sister's husband Narendran (Nambiar). Ramu shivers at the very mention of his brother in law's name and a whiplash is Narendran's favorite form of punishment. Narendran wants to get Ramu married to Leela (Saroja Devi) but she is turned off by his cowardice. Ilango (MGR) is a jobless young man, prone to pick a fight and for this reason, the cause of trouble for his mother. Circumstances lead to Ramu and Ilango taking each others' place. Ilango teaches a lesson to Narendran while Ramu learns the ways of the world. Then Ilango teaches Narendran a lesson which forces him to leave the house. Due to this, his sister scolds and he plans to leave by reveal that he was not Ramu. Then the relation of the story reveals that Ramu and Ilango are brothers. With Ramu being kidnapped and Ilango going to help his brother and revealing everything to narendran brings the film to climax Soundtrack. The soundtrack album was composed by Viswanathan-Ramamoorthy. The lyrics were penned by Vaali and 'Alangudi' Somu. Reception. The high-budget production emerged as a major box office success. Normally no movie is considered for National Award if it is remake of movie from other language. But this movie was selected for award because of its hit in commercial value (Janaranjakam ulla padam). "Enga Veetu Pillai" was an out of the ordinary film which increased the fan base of MGR to numerous folds. "Enga Veetu Pillai" became an aspiration for many would be Tamil Cinema heroes and a cult classic with MGR fans.
1161260	Liam Dunn (November 12, 1916 – April 11, 1976) was an American character actor. The New Jersey native's early career was spent toiling in television in series such as "Bonanza", "Room 222", "Alias Smith and Jones", "Mannix", and "Gunsmoke". Dunn's breakout role was as the judge (and Barbra Streisand's father) in the 1972 film "What's Up, Doc?", in which he was noticed by Mel Brooks, who was in the process of forming a stock company of actors. Dunn went on to appear in Brooks films, "Blazing Saddles" as 'Rev. Johnson', "Young Frankenstein" as 'Mr. Hilltop', and as the 'Newsvendor' in "Silent Movie". He frequently portrayed characters who were verbally and/or physically abused in a slapstick way. Additional credits include "Twigs", "Barney Miller", "McMillan & Wife", "Rhoda", "Sanford and Son","The Mary Tyler Moore Show" and several episodes of the Disney anthology television series. In Spring 1976, it is said Liam Dunn collapsed on the set of Disney's "The Shaggy D.A." (1976), during the filming of the roller rink sequence, and died soon after on April 11, 1976, from emphysema in Granada Hills, California. John Fiedler was brought in to complete the role as dog catcher. Though only 59 at his death, Dunn always looked much older, and was cast accordingly.
583445	Right Yaaa Wrong is a 2010 Bollywood film directed by Neeraj Pathak, starring Sunny Deol and Irrfan Khan in the lead roles. The film is based on the lives of two interesting police officers of India, who later become strong rivals. It also stars Isha Koppikar, Konkona Sen Sharma, Aryan Vaid and Govind Namdeo. This film was shot in Film City and released on 12 March 2010, under the banner of Eros. Plot. "Right Yaaa Wrong" is a story of two cops, Ajay (Sunny Deol) and Vinay (Irrfan Khan), where an intense rivalry leads them on a battle for supremacy. Ajay and Vinay are best friends. Ajay's wife (Isha Koppikar) is found brutally murdered. Ajay is the prime suspect and Vinay is handed the case. Unsure what to do, either help his best friend or achieve a higher position in his job, Vinay goes against Ajay. By this time, Radhika (Konkana Sen Sharma), Vinay's younger sister, becomes Ajay's lawyer, and is Ajay's only support. The investigation transpires into a mystery locked with secrets. Behind the secrets lies an astonishing discovery. Ripples begin with wits and mind games. Every time hatching an clue, Vinay tries to beat Ajay, but falls back when Ajay has a reply to all of his questions. This is the story of an strong friendship, which is broken by leadership and forgotten. After all Vinay has done as a detective, the truth is finally revealed. However, did Ajay really murder his own wife? Was Vinay true all along, yet why did no one believe him? And will Vinay prove his point... or once again be friends with Ajay? Critical reception. The film have received mixed reviews from critics. Mayank Shekhar of Hindustan Times and Rajeev Masand of IBN has panned the movie, while Nikhat Khazmi of Times of India and Taran Adarsh of DNA rated it above average. The film received an overall rating of 5/10. As of 28 March 2010,It was surprise hit of the year even though IPL was going on . References. As per Box offie india the film was a Disater . It grossed only 3.12 Core. The First Week ocupency was only 25% .1st week colection
1100116	Władysław Hugo Dionizy Steinhaus (January 14, 1887 – February 25, 1972) was a Polish mathematician and educator. Steinhaus obtained his PhD under David Hilbert at Göttingen University in 1911 and later became a professor at the Jan Kazimierz University in Lwów (now Lviv, Ukraine), where he helped establish what later became known as the Lwów School of Mathematics. He is credited with "discovering" mathematician Stefan Banach, with whom he gave a notable contribution to functional analysis through the Banach–Steinhaus theorem. After World War II Steinhaus played an important part in the establishment of the mathematics department at Wrocław University and in the revival of Polish mathematics from the destruction of the war. Author of around 170 scientific articles and books, Steinhaus has left its legacy and contribution on many branches of mathematics, such as functional analysis, geometry, mathematical logic, and trigonometry. Notably he is regarded as one of the early founders of the game theory and the probability theory preceding in his studies, later, more comprehensive approaches, by other scholars. Early life and studies. Steinhaus was born on January 14, 1887 in Jasło, Austria-Hungary to a family with Jewish roots. His father, Bogusław, was a local industrialist, owner of a brick factory and a merchant. His mother was Ewelina, née Lipschitz. Hugo's uncle, Ignacy Steinhaus, was an activist in the "Koło Polskie" (Polish Circle), and a deputy to the Galician Diet, the regional assembly of the Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria.
1169275	John Bennett Perry (born January 4, 1941) is an American actor, singer, and former model. He is the father of actor Matthew Perry. Life and career. Perry was born in Williamstown, Massachusetts, the son of Maria Schaefer-Bennett and Alton L. Perry. He married twice. His first wife was Suzanne Langford, a former press secretary to Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, with whom he fathered Matthew Perry. Perry and Morrison divorced before Matthew's first birthday. He has a daughter, Mia Perry, born 1986, with his second and current wife, Debbie. His stage credit includes the 1967 musical "Now Is The Time For All Good Men". Perry is well known for playing the clean-shaven "sailor" in the Old Spice commercials of the 1970s and 1980s. He has appeared in numerous films and television programs, including "Independence Day", "George of the Jungle", "The 40-Year-Old Virgin", "The West Wing", "L.A. Law", "Days of our Lives", "Little House on the Prairie", "240-Robert", "Falcon Crest", "Murder, She Wrote" and "Magnum, P.I.". He also portrayed General Douglas MacArthur in "Farewell to the King". In the 1978-79 TV season, he and Stephanie Edwards co-hosted "EveryDay", a syndicated daytime talk/variety series that also featured Murray Langston, Tom Chapin and Anne Bloom. He and Edwards were both nominated for a Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Host or Hostess in a Talk, Service or Variety Series. He appeared alongside his son (portraying his father) in the 1997 movie "Fools Rush In", and in the episode "My Unicorn" of the sitcom "Scrubs". He also appeared in an episode of "Friends", "The One with Rachel's New Dress", playing the father of Rachel Green's boyfriend Joshua.
587330	Aloo Chaat (Hindi: 'आलू चाट') is the name of a street food item made in North India. It is prepared by frying potatoes in oil and adding spices and chutney. It is a snack which can be served as a potato salad or a light meal. It is made from boiled and fried cubed potatoes served with chat masala. It is a versatile dish that is prepared in many different ways by different people in different regions across the country. The word “Aloo” means potatoes in Hindi and the word “Chaat” is derived from Hindi word "Chatna" which means tasting. Thus, Aloo Chaat means a savory potato snack. It is also spelled as Alu Chaat.
774731	Ginger Snaps Back: The Beginning is a 2004 Canadian horror film and a prequel to "Ginger Snaps " and "". The third film in the "Ginger Snaps" trilogy takes place in 19th century Canada, following the exploits of the antecedents of the Fitzgerald sisters of the two previous movies: Ginger (Katharine Isabelle) and Brigitte (Emily Perkins), who are identical in all respects to their modern-day counterparts. Plot. The film states that each spring a party from the fort traveled to Hudson Bay to trade pelts for winter provisions but in 1815 the party never returned. This is when the story begins. Brigitte and Ginger are lost with their horse in the Canadian wilderness when they come across a seemingly abandoned camp. They then notice an elderly Indian woman, who gives Ginger and Brigitte each a necklace with a bird's skull. The woman speaks of them as the red and black, and warns that unless they "kill the boy" one sister will kill the other. Suddenly the girls' horse is startled and flees. While running after their horse, Brigette's foot got trapped in a hunter's snare. Ginger goes back to the camp to find the Indian woman, but the hunter arrives before Ginger returns. He releases Brigitte and leads them to Fort Bailey where they take refuge. Ginger claims they are the daughters of a trader who drowned, seeking passage East.
32605	Peluca is a short film by director Jared Hess, produced for an assignment while attending Brigham Young University in 2002. It was shown at the 2003 Slamdance Film Festival. The film is almost nine minutes long and was shot on black-and-white 16mm film. It stars Jon Heder as the main character, Seth. The film's title is the Spanish word for "wig", since a wig is purchased in the film.
582025	Luck by Chance is a 2009 Indian drama film written and directed by Zoya Akhtar. Produced by Farhan Akhtar and Ritesh Sidhwani, it stars Farhan Akhtar and Konkana Sen Sharma in the lead roles. Rishi Kapoor, Alyy Khan, Dimple Kapadia, Juhi Chawla, Hrithik Roshan, Isha Sharvani, and Sanjay Kapoor feature in the supporting roles. Guest stars and industry folk starring as themselves included Shahrukh Khan, Kareena Kapoor, Karan Johar, Manish Malhotra, Ranbir Kapoor, Abhishek Bachchan, Akshaye Khanna, John Abraham, Aamir Khan, and Rani Mukherjee in seamless cameos. The film is about the journey of an actor who arrives in Mumbai to become a movie star. How he finds himself riding his fortune to becoming one, while struggling to sustain his relationships, forms the story. The film was released on 30 January 2009, supported by positive reviews from critics, but failed to do well at the box office. Plot. Young actor Vikram Jaisingh (Farhan Akhtar) arrives in Mumbai to make it as a Bollywood film star with the help of Abhimanyu (Arjun Mathur), an actor friend from his hometown, and their mutual friend Sameer, who works in a studio props department. Vikram befriends Abhimanyu's neighbor, young actress Sona Mishra (Konkona Sen Sharma), with whom he eventually becomes romantically involved. Sona, the mistress of small-time producer Satish Chowdhury (Alyy Khan), who for three years has promised her a leading role in his dream project, meanwhile works in regional films and bit parts. Sona finds out that Satish has secured financing for the new project and meets him expecting him to cast her as second heroine, but he refuses saying that they need a new face and since she has acted in many regional films and other small roles she is no longer a fresh face. She argues that she can act well but he says that is not a major criteria these days in Bollywood. Sona is crying when Satish's wife enters and asks her why she is crying. Sona answers by fabricating a lie about trouble at home to save both her and Satish's embarrassment. Sona while leaving the both of them gives photos of Vikram to Satish who shows it to his wife and who in turn shows them to Romy (Rishi Kapoor). Vikram is shortlisted for Romy's new movie. Neena (Dimple Kapadia), the mom of Nikki (Isha Sharvani)the actress cast for the movie, was a big film actress in the heyday. She sees Vikram's audition and tries to remember where has she met him before. Vikram had once approached her at a film fraternity party. Vikram is told his audition was for the lead in the film and that Neena has seen his audition. At home, he sees every movie Neena has starred in and he impresses her with his charm and knowledge about her work. Recalling past advice, Vikram successfully boosts a competing actor's ego whose overconfident acting is rejected by the director. Finally, Vikram is selected by Neena, Ranjit (director of the film Sanjay Kapoor) and Romy's wife (Juhi Chawla), despite Romy's desire to cast the other macho, hunky actor.
1042570	Children of the Damned is a 1963 science fiction film, a thematic sequel to the 1960 version of "Village of the Damned". It is about a group of children, with similar psi-powers to the original seeding, but enabling an opposite interpretation of the children being a more good and more pure form of human instead of totally evil and totally alien. Plot. Six children are identified by a team of UNESCO researchers investigating child development. The children have extraordinary powers of intellect and are all able to complete a difficult brick puzzle in exactly the same amount of time. British psychologist Tom Lewellin (Ian Hendry) and geneticist David Neville (Badel) are interested in Paul, a London boy whose mother Diana (Allen) clearly hates the child and insists she was never touched by a man. This is initially dismissed as hysteria and it is implied she has 'loose' morals. But after a while the two men realize that all six children were born without a father and are also capable of telepathy. The children, from various countries — China, India, Nigeria, the Soviet Union, the USA and the UK, are brought to London for a collective study into their advanced intelligence. However the children escape from their embassies and gather at an abandoned church in Southwark, London. They intermittently take mental control of Paul's aunt (Ferris) to help them survive in the derelict church. Meanwhile, the military debates whether or not to destroy them. The children have demonstrated the capacity for telekinesis and construct a complex machine which uses sonic waves as a defensive weapon, which kills several government officials and soldiers. But the military realizes that they only fight back when attacked. After psychologist Tom Lewellin makes a passionate plea asking the group return to their respective embassies, the children obey and murder embassy and military officials before returning to the church. Lewellin urges the government to give the children leeway. However his team of scientists observe the difference between an ordinary human blood cell and the cells of one of the children, thereby implying the children to be non-human, and destined to become a threat to the human race. When authorities try to take control of the children, they are forced to protect themselves. As the situation escalates into a final showdown between the military and the children, one of the scientists postulates that the judgment of the children being alien was incorrect, and that the children's cells are in fact human, advanced by a million years. Meanwhile, the children also imply that they have arrived at the decision that their presence is incompatible, and therefore intend to lower their defenses and sacrifice themselves. The military commander recognizes that a mistake has been made, and aborts the attack command. However, the command is triggered accidentally: by a screwdriver no less! (One of the simplest of man's machines). The church is destroyed and the children of the damned are killed. Difference in theme from "Village of the Damned". "This story takes an opposite primary thematic direction from the original "Village of the Damned," and from that movie's 1995 remake. In those other versions, almost all the children are portrayed as irredeemably ruthless non-human aliens who must be defeated. In "Children of the Damned," the children are clearly implied instead to be Christ-like advanced humans, complete with "virgin births" and the raising of the dead, and they are destroyed as a result of the average adults' inability to rise above their backward paranoia. In the other stories, the alien children are "damned," i.e. "cursed beings," while in this version, it is the human race that is metaphorically "damned" due to its inability to embrace its own (future) children. In addition, the children in other versions all result from an evident alien intervention upon a single village, while in this version they are drawn from natural events in diverse regions and races, thereby epitomizing all the children of the human race. One of the "Village" version children is made redeemable but is still an emotionally diminished alien. Thus not enabling the philosophical message of "Children of the Damned" in which the children are instead revealed to be the most pure form of humanity."
1167038	Brooke Elizabeth Burns (born March 16, 1978) is an American actress and former fashion model. She began her career on the popular TV series "Baywatch" and "Baywatch Hawaii". Early life. Burns was born in Dallas, Texas, the daughter of Brad and Betsy Burns. Burns has two sisters. She was a ballet dancer for twelve years during childhood and started modeling at age fifteen after tearing her anterior cruciate ligament in a skiing accident. At age 16, Burns and her family moved to Europe, where she later lived in Paris, Milan and Munich. Career. Television. From 1998 to 2001, Burns starred in "Baywatch" as the character Jessie Owens. In 2001, she appeared as Vicki Vale in one of several "Batman" commercials for OnStar, opposite Bruce Thomas's Batman, reprising the role made famous by Kim Basinger in the 1989 Tim Burton-directed "Batman" film. Burns hosted NBC's "Dog Eat Dog" from June 2002 to August 2003 and was nominated for a Teen Choice Award. Burns starred in "North Shore", a prime-time soap opera on Fox that consisted of 21 episodes which ran from June 14, 2004 through January 13, 2005. In 2006, she starred in the WB series "Pepper Dennis" playing Kathy Dinkle. In 2009, Burns appeared in the first twelve episodes of the updated "Melrose Place" playing Vanessa, the most recent wife of Dr. Michael Mancini (Thomas Calabro) and mother of his older son's five-year-old son, Noah. Burns was given the chance to participate in the first season of the ABC celebrity diving reality competition "Splash", but turned it down because of an injury she had received when diving a few years before. Burns has also appeared on "Ally McBeal", "Just Shoot Me!", "Drop Dead Diva", "", "Out of the Blue", "To Tell the Truth", and "Average Joe: Hawaii". Burns is the host of the GSN game show "The Chase" with Chaser Mark Labbett. Cinema. For her role in the 2001 film "Shallow Hal", the Farrelly brothers wrote a specific part for Burns after discovering in her audition she was the "prettiest dorky girl" they'd ever met. She appeared in a Hallmark Channel Original Christmas movie, "The Most Wonderful Time of the Year", co-starring Henry Winkler, on December 13, 2008. Other films include "Smokejumpers", "Dancing Trees", "Trophy Wife", "Art of Travel", and " Time and Again". Burns appears in the "Nickelback" video Trying Not To Love You opposite Jason Alexander. Burns and Alexander both appeared in the 2001 movie "Shallow Hal". Personal life. Burns was once married to Julian McMahon (1999–2001) and the two have a daughter – Madison Elizabeth McMahon – who was born in June 2000. Burns was engaged to Bruce Willis until they broke up in 2004 after ten months together. Burns currently resides in Los Angeles. She is engaged to film director Gavin O'Connor. Injury. On November 10, 2005, Burns broke her neck in a diving accident. Although she made a full recovery, she has a titanium fusion in her neck consisting of a plate, rod, and ten screws. Charitable activities. When Burns was filming "Baywatch", she was involved with Camp Baywatch, teaching inner city children to swim, and perform life guard duties. Burns has mentored for Penny Lane, a home for abused children. She has been involved with the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric Aids Foundation. She is actively involved in, and was honored by, the Life Rolls On Foundation started by Josh and Jesse Billaur. LRO helps people with spinal cord injuries get back into an active lifestyle. She is also the spokesperson for Give Back a Smile, a program in which dentists donate their time and expertise to restore the smiles of women who are victims of domestic violence. In 2006, as a result of her diving injury, Burns became involved with the ThinkFirst National Injury Prevention Foundation and the North American Spine Society, which both aim to raise awareness of spinal injuries.
590276	Titli () "butterfly") is a 2002 Bengali film by Rituparno Ghosh, starring Konkona Sen Sharma, Aparna Sen, Mithun Chakraborty. The film tells the story of a developing adolescent, played by Konkona, and the sensitivity of a teenager, and also the portrayal of the mother-daughter relationship and quiet understanding within the pair. "Titli" also means "butterfly" in Hindi. Plot. The story develops around the evolution of Titli from a girl into womanhood, through the breaking of this crush. The dense jungles of Duars in north Bengal, covered in dense morning fog, sunshine playing hide-and-seek, Buddhist monasteries, the famous Darjeeling toy train, interleaved with poetry and music, create the romantic ambiance underpinning this film.
1033377	Sophie Ward (born 30 December 1964), is an English actress and the daughter of actor Simon Ward. Career. One of Ward's early film roles was in the film "Young Sherlock Holmes". Other early films included "Return to Oz", "Little Dorrit" and "A Summer Story", and she also portrayed the unattainable love object in the video of Roxy Music's song "Avalon". Often cast as an icy, distant Victorian or an unattainable object of desire, Ward's choice of roles in the 1980s and early 1990s did not offer much variation. During the 1990s she turned her acting energies to stagework, with considerable acclaim and success. She has appeared in several Glasgow Citizens' Theatre productions including "Private Lives" (as Amanda), "Don Carlos" (as Queen Elizabeth) and most strikingly in "Hamlet" as Ophelia. Her most recent films are "Out of Bounds" (2003), in which she co-stars with Sophia Myles and Celia Imrie, and "Book of Blood" (2008), co-starring Jonas Armstrong and Reg Fuller. Her television work includes the acclaimed mini-series "A Dark Adapted Eye" with Helena Bonham Carter as the perfectly poised yet ultimately doomed Eden and the sweeping fantasy, "Dinotopia". More recently, Sophie had the recurring role of Dr Helen Trent in long-running ITV drama "Heartbeat". In 2008, Sophie joined the cast of "Holby City" in a recurring role as Sophia Byrne, sister of surgeon Joseph Byrne. She also starred in children's TV world war 2 programme, Spywatch. Personal life. Ward has a degree in Literature and Philosophy from the Open University. She has two sons by her former husband, Paul Hobson, a veterinary surgeon: their marriage broke down in 1996 and she became involved with Rena Brannan, a female Korean-American writer. The previous year, Ward had appeared in the television film "A Village Affair", in which she played a bored housewife who leaves her husband for another woman. Ward was quoted as saying that her experience making "A Village Affair" helped clarify her own feelings regarding her sexuality, but also delayed her decision to come out, as she did not want it to appear as if she were jumping on the bandwagon of the film's theme. In August 2000, Ward and Brannan were married in a well-publicised ceremony held in London, before same-sex civil partnerships were legalised in Britain. The couple and Ward's children live near Stroud, Gloucestershire. Ward had long been considered a 'Face of the 1980s' as a "Vogue" model. Ward's sister Kitty is married to stand-up comedian Michael McIntyre.
1103580	Multigrid (MG) methods in numerical analysis are a group of algorithms for solving differential equations using a hierarchy of discretizations. They are an example of a class of techniques called multiresolution methods, very useful in (but not limited to) problems exhibiting multiple scales of behavior. For example, many basic relaxation methods exhibit different rates of convergence for short- and long-wavelength components, suggesting these different scales be treated differently, as in a Fourier analysis approach to multigrid. MG methods can be used as solvers as well as preconditioners. The main idea of multigrid is to accelerate the convergence of a basic iterative method by "global" correction from time to time, accomplished by solving a coarse problem. This principle is similar to interpolation between coarser and finer grids. The typical application for multigrid is in the numerical solution of elliptic partial differential equations in two or more dimensions. Multigrid methods can be applied in combination with any of the common discretization techniques. For example, the finite element method may be recast as a multigrid method. In these cases, multigrid methods are among the fastest solution techniques known today. In contrast to other methods, multigrid methods are general in that they can treat arbitrary regions and boundary conditions. They do not depend on the separability of the equations or other special properties of the equation. They have also been widely used for more-complicated non-symmetric and nonlinear systems of equations, like the Lamé system of elasticity or the Navier-Stokes equations. Algorithm. There are many variations of multigrid algorithms, but the common features are that a hierarchy of discretizations (grids) is considered. The important steps are: Computational cost. This approach has the advantage over other methods that it often scales linearly with the number of discrete nodes used. That is: It can solve these problems to a given accuracy in a number of operations that is proportional to the number of unknowns.
1164273	Fred Armisen (born December 4, 1966) is an American actor, voice actor, writer, producer, director, musician and comedian best known for his work as a cast member on "Saturday Night Live" from 2002 until 2013, and portraying characters in comedy films, including "EuroTrip", "", and "Cop Out". With his comedy partner, Carrie Brownstein, Armisen is the co-creator and co-star of the IFC sketch comedy series "Portlandia". He also founded ThunderAnt.com, a website that features the comedy sketches created with Brownstein. Armisen's work was recognized in 2012 with a nomination for an Emmy Award for Outstanding Writing for a Variety Series. Early life. Armisen was born in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, and moved to Manhattan, New York City as a baby. He was raised in Valley Stream, New York, on Long Island, where he was a high school classmate of fellow SNL alumnus Jim Breuer. His mother, Hildegardt, a school-teacher, is Venezuelan, and his father, who worked for IBM, is of German and Japanese descent. He attended the School of Visual Arts (NYC) before dropping out to begin a career as a rock drummer. He has mentioned watching the bands The Clash and Devo perform on television, and wanting to be a performer since he was a child. Career. Music. In 1984, Armisen played drums in a local band along with his high school friends in Valley Stream, New York, but the group ended soon after. Armisen began his career in 1988 when he moved from New York to Chicago to play drums for the punk rock band Trenchmouth. In the 1990s, he played background drums with Blue Man Group in Chicago. He plays drums on three tracks on Les Savy Fav's 2007 album "Let's Stay Friends". He also played on the Wandering Lucy album "Leap Year". Television and film. While playing with the band Trenchmouth, Armisen's interests switched to acting. In a January 2006 interview, he said, "I wanted to be on TV somehow. For some reason, I always thought it would be an indirect route; I didn't know that it would be comedy and "Saturday Night Live". I just wanted to do something with performing that would lead me there." Armisen's subsequent television work, such as some "memorable Andy Kaufman-esque appearances" on "Late Night with Conan O'Brien", as well as work for "Crank Yankers" and "Adult Swim", led in 2002 to a role as a featured player in the cast of "Saturday Night Live". In the 2004 season, he was promoted to a repertory cast member. Armisen has landed several minor yet memorable roles that were defined by an interviewer as "feral foreigners" in comedy films such as "Eurotrip", ', ', "Deck the Halls", "The Ex", "The Promotion", "The Rocker" and "Confessions of a Shopaholic". Armisen stars in the IFC sketch series "Portlandia" alongside Carrie Brownstein (formerly of Sleater-Kinney); the first season debuted on January 21, 2011. In the Cartoon Network series "The Looney Tunes Show", Armisen voices Speedy Gonzales. Armisen, along with Carrie Brownstein, appeared on the "Simpsons" episode "The Day the Earth Stood Cool", in which they play The Simpsons' new neighbors who encourage everyone to be cool like them. "Saturday Night Live". The following is a partial list of notable roles Armisen has played in "Saturday Night Live" sketches. At the time of his 2013 departure from the show, Armisen was the second-longest tenured cast member (second only to Seth Meyers), having been a member since Season 28. Celebrity impressions. Armisen's list of notable impressions has included: Armisen has also done impressions of political figures such as Hugo Chávez, Vicente Fox, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Barney Frank, George H. W. Bush, Ben Bernanke, Muammar al-Gaddafi, Mike Gravel, Saddam Hussein, Hosni Mubarak and Michael Bloomberg. He has also impersonated celebrities such as Martin Scorsese, Desi Arnaz, Corbin Bleu, Sam Waterston, Joy Behar, Tony Danza, George Carlin, Dov Charney, Howie Mandel, Alan Osmond, Ben Gibbard, Harrison Ford, Liberace, David Gregory, Larry King, Penny Marshall, Kevin McHale (actor) (as Artie Abrams from "Glee"), David Lee Roth, Gene Simmons, Lawrence Welk, Paul Lynde, George Lopez, Randy Newman, Thom Yorke, John Oates, and Ice-T. Other work. In 1998 he posed as a music journalist for the short film "Fred Armisen’s Guide to Music and South by Southwest". It was filmed by then-girlfriend Sally Timms and featured Armisen's "pranking musicians and industry types" during the South by Southwest Festival in Austin, Texas. A year later, Armisen starred with alternative rock legend Steve Albini in Chevelle's "Point #1 EPK". Armisen is part of ThunderAnt, a comedy duo with former Sleater-Kinney guitarist Carrie Brownstein. The duo specializes in creating comedic short skits often about independent vocations such as one man shows, feminist bookstores, and bicycle rights activists. Armisen has directed music videos for bands like The Helio Sequence. Armisen also had a role in the Wilco documentary "I Am Trying to Break Your Heart", which featured footage from his stint opening for front man Jeff Tweedy's 2001 solo tour. He also appeared in video segments on Blue Man Group's How to be a Megastar Tour 2.0. Armisen occasionally writes for Pitchfork Media and interviewed Cat Power for that company. Fred appeared as Jens Hannemann on "Jimmy Kimmel Live!" on October 19, 2007, promoting a 28-minute DVD called "Fred Armisen presents Jens Hannemann: "COMPLICATED DRUMMING TECHNIQUE"". In 2010, Armisen briefly joined Joanna Newsom's tour for her album "Have One On Me" as his character Jens Hannemann. On "SNL", Armisen often plays musical instruments in sketches, has two recurring characters who are musicians (Mackey the drummer from the Rialto Grande and Ferecito from "Showbiz Grande Explosion"), or impersonates famous figures in the music world such as Liberace, Phil Spector, Lou Reed, and Prince. Armisen appeared in the official music video for Man Man's song "Rabbit Habits", playing a man who charms his blind date (Charlyne Yi) but runs away after she turns into a werewolf. Along with Bill Hader and Jason Sudeikis, Armisen voiced radio characters in the video game "Grand Theft Auto IV". Armisen performed as a singer/drummer/comedic actor in the Blue Man Group's "How to be a Megastar Live!". He played the part as a salesman on TV who advertises for the Megastar Rock Manual. He also drummed in the performance and was a backup singer. Personal life. Armisen was married to English singer and songwriter Sally Timms from 1998 to 2004. Armisen became engaged to actress Elisabeth Moss in January 2009. The two had met in October 2008 when Moss' fellow "Mad Men" star Jon Hamm hosted "Saturday Night Live", and Moss joined Hamm in onstage sketches. The couple married on October 25, 2009, in Long Island City, New York. On August 13, 2010, the trade press reported that Moss and Armisen had separated earlier that year. Moss filed for divorce from Armisen on September 20, 2010; the court papers specified June 26, 2010, as the date of separation. The divorce was finalized on May 13, 2011. In August 2010, media outlets reported Armisen was dating fellow "Saturday Night Live" cast member Abby Elliott. Armisen and Elliott ended their relationship in September 2011. Armisen stated on "Real Time with Bill Maher" that he is an atheist.
1167276	Jean Sagal (born 9 October 1961) is an American television actress and director. In the 1980s, she co-starred with her twin sister Liz Sagal in the 23-episode television series "Double Trouble" that ran from 1984-85. She has since appeared on such shows as "Picket Fences", "Knots Landing", "Quantum Leap" and "21 Jump Street". She has directed episodes of "Two and a Half Men", "Mad TV", "So Little Time" and "Just Shoot Me". Sagal and her twin sister also served for a time as the "Doublemint Twins" in the long-running ad campaign by Doublemint gum. As a Director. She is the associate director for 2 Broke Girls (42 episodes), and Two and a Half Men (166 episodes). She has also been the director for 5 television shows. Wizards of Waverly Place (1 episode), Two and a Half Men (3 episodes), MADtv (3 episodes), So Little Time (9 episodes), and Just Shoot Me! (4 episodes).
769652	Aa Dinagalu (ಆ ದಿನಗಳು) is a 2007 Indian Kannada film based on the book "Daadaagiriya Dinagalu" (ದಾದಾಗಿರಿಯ ದಿನಗಳು) by Agni Shridhar. The film is about the rowdyism that prevailed in Bangalore during 1986. The plot. Aa Dinagalu is a story about the underworld which was supposed to have existed in the city of Bangalore in 1986. In the film Agni Shridhar narrates the preview as story of Kotwal Ramachandra era (1975) coincidentally with declaration of emergency by Indira Gandhi, which led to grooming of M.P.Jayaraj as the uncrowned don of Bangalore mostly working with Knives, Sickles, Longs for terrorising people. Eventually he seems to have got jailed for contempt of court for 10 years. When he returns in 1985, after the death of Indira Gandhi he finds Kotwal Ramachandra to have taken his spot. In this backdrop how a love story finds its place has been shown in the movie. The story although is based on backdrop of violence is screened with artistic and cinematic touch for which Kannada Industry was once famous for. There is no place for violence, fight scenes but still the film succeeds in bringing the atmosphere of 1986 Bangalore in 2007 (release date). K.M. Chaitanya ( grandson of Rashtra Kavi G. S. Shivarudrappa) has directed a gripping, realistic film which broke the boundaries between art and commercial cinema.
1100023	Andrey (Andrei) Andreyevich Markov (, in older works also spelled Markoff) (14 June 1856 N.S. – 20 July 1922) was a Russian mathematician. He is best known for his work on stochastic processes. A primary subject of his research later became known as Markov chains and Markov processes. Markov and his younger brother Vladimir Andreevich Markov (1871–1897) proved Markov brothers' inequality. His son, another Andrei Andreevich Markov (1903–1979), was also a notable mathematician, making contributions to constructive mathematics and recursive function theory. Biography. Andrey Andreyevich Markov was born in Ryazan as the son of the secretary of the public forest management of Ryazan, Andrey Grigorevich Markov, and his first wife Nadezhda Petrovna Markova. In the beginning of the 1860s Andrey Grigorevich moved to St. Petersburg to become an asset manager of Ekaterina Aleksandrovna Valvatyeva. In 1866, Andrey Andreevich's school life began with his entrance into St. Petersburg's fifth grammar school. Already during his school time Andrey was intensely engaged in higher mathematics. As a 17-year-old grammar school student, he informed Viktor Bunyakovsky, Aleksandr Korkin, and Yegor Ivanovich Zolotarev about an apparently new method to solve linear ordinary differential equations, and he was invited to the so-called Korkin Saturdays, where Korkin's students regularly met. In 1874, he finished the school and began his studies at the physico-mathematical faculty of St. Petersburg University. Among his teachers were Yulian Sokhotski (differential calculus, higher algebra), Konstantin Posse (analytic geometry), Yegor Zolotarev (integral calculus), Pafnuty Chebyshev (number theory and probability theory), Aleksandr Korkin (ordinary and partial differential equations), Mikhail Okatov (mechanism theory), Osip Somov (mechanics), and Nikolai Budaev (descriptive and higher geometry). In 1877, Markov was awarded a gold medal for his outstanding solution of the problem "About Integration of Differential Equations by Continuous Fractions with an Application to the Equation" formula_1. During the following year, he passed the candidate's examinations, and he remained at the university to prepare for a lecturer's position. In April 1880, Markov defended his master's thesis "About Binary Quadratic Forms with Positive Determinant", which was encouraged by Aleksandr Korkin and Yegor Zolotarev. Five years later, in January 1885, there followed his doctoral thesis "About Some Applications of Algebraic Continuous Fractions". His pedagogical work began after the defense of his master's thesis in autumn 1880. As a privatdozent he lectured on differential and integral calculus. Later he lectured alternately on "introduction to analysis", probability theory (succeeding Chebyshev, who had left the university in 1882) and the calculus of differences. From 1895 through 1905 he also lectured in differential calculus. One year after the defense of his doctoral thesis, Markov was appointed extraordinary professor (1886) and in the same year he was elected adjunct to the Academy of Sciences. In 1890, after the death of Viktor Bunyakovsky, Markov became an extraordinary member of the academy. His promotion to an ordinary professor of St. Petersburg University followed in the fall of 1894. In 1896, Markov was elected an ordinary member of the academy as the successor of Chebyshev. In 1905, he was appointed merited professor and was granted the right to retire, which he did immediately. Until 1910, however, he continued to lecture in the calculus of differences. In connection with student riots in 1908, professors and lecturers of St. Petersburg University were ordered to monitor their students. Markov refused to accept this decree, and he wrote an explanation in which he declined to be an "agent of the governance". Markov was removed from further teaching duties at St. Petersburg University, and hence he decided to retire from the university. Markov was an atheist. In 1912 he protested Leo Tolstoy's excommunication from the Russian Orthodox Church by requesting his own excommunication. The Church complied with his request. In 1913, the council of St. Petersburg elected nine scientists honorary members of the university. Markov was among them, but his election was not affirmed by the minister of education. The affirmation only occurred four years later, after the February Revolution in 1917. Markov then resumed his teaching activities and lectured on probability theory and the calculus of differences until his death in 1922.
1060770	Breaking Away is a 1979 American coming of age comedy-drama film that follows a group of four male teenagers in Bloomington, Indiana, who have recently graduated from high school. It stars Dennis Christopher, Dennis Quaid, Daniel Stern (in his first film role), Jackie Earle Haley, Barbara Barrie and Paul Dooley. The film was written by Steve Tesich (an alumnus of Indiana University) and directed by Peter Yates. It was shot in and around Bloomington and on the university's campus. "Breaking Away" won the 1979 Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay for Tesich, and received nominations in four other categories (including Best Picture). It also won the 1979 Golden Globe Award for Best Film (Comedy or Musical), and received nominations in three other Golden Globe categories. As the film's young lead, Christopher won the 1979 BAFTA Award for Most Promising Newcomer and the 1979 Young Artist Award for Best Juvenile Actor, as well as garnering a Golden Globe nomination as New Star of the Year. The film is ranked eighth on the List of America's 100 Most Inspiring Movies compiled by the American Film Institute (AFI) in 2006. In June 2008, AFI announced its "Ten top Ten"—the best ten films in ten "classic" American film genres—after polling over 1,500 people from the creative community. "Breaking Away" was acknowledged as the eighth best film in the sports genre. Plot. Dave (Dennis Christopher), Mike (Dennis Quaid), Cyril (Daniel Stern) and Moocher (Jackie Earle Haley) are four working-class friends, living in the college town of Bloomington, Indiana. Now turning 19 years of age, they all graduated from high school the year before and are not sure what to do next with their lives. The four friends spend much of their time together swimming in an old abandoned water-filled quarry, but also often clash with the more affluent Indiana University students in their hometown, who habitually refer to them as "cutters", a derogatory term for locals stemming from the local Indiana Limestone industry and the stonecutters who worked the quarries.
587806	Raakshasudu (, ) is a 1986 Telugu film directed by A. Kodandarami Reddy. The film stars Chiranjeevi, Nagendra Babu, Rajendra Prasad, Suhasini Mani Ratnam, Radha, and Rao Gopal Rao in important roles. The film's score and soundtrack is composed by maestro Ilaiyaraaja. Plot. The film opens with a widowed woman giving birth to a baby boy. The landlord does not approve of this and has the baby disposed of. A drunkard finds the baby and keeps him for a couple of years until he sells the boy to a labor camp, in exchange for money. 20 years later, that boy Pursha (Chiranjeevi) and his friend Simham (Nagendra Babu) escape from the labor camp, to see Pursha's mother. But when Pursha goes to the landlord's house, the landlord says that Pursha's mother left a long time and for Pursha to get the details, the landlord must be bribed with Rs. 10,000 /-. Pursha and Simham sneak into somebody's house and steal the necessary Rs. 10,000. At the moment, they are caught by JK (Rao Gopal Rao). He tells them that it is alright for them to take the money for their use. By the time Pursha and Simham get to the landlord, the landlord sold the information of Pursha's mother to JK for Rs. 50,000. Pursha, angered, goes to JK for an explanation. JK wants to use Pursha to stop his rival, who sells drugs. Pursha reluctantly refuses at first but later is convinced. While Pursha, Simham, and Inspector Vijay (Rajendra Prasad) fight some bad guys, Pursha gets injured and jumps into a river. He is saved by a school teacher Sumatri (Suhasini Mani Ratnam) who is an orphan. Sumatri is the sister of Vijay. Pursha comes up with a plan to raid important documents to imprison Shailaja's (Radha) father, who is JK's rival but in the process, Vijay is killed. How Pursha gets his revenge and meets his mother forms the rest of the story. Soundtrack. The movie features soundtrack composed by maestro Ilaiyaraaja. Track listing: 1. Acha Acha - S. P. Balasubrahmanyam, S. Janaki 2. Giliga gili - S. P. Balasubrahmanyam, S. Janaki 3. Hey Naughty - S. P. Balasubrahmanyam, S. Janaki 4. Jaya jaya - S. Janaki 5. Malli malli - S. P. Balasubrahmanyam, S. Janaki 6. Nee meeda naaku - S. P. Balasubrahmanyam, S. Janaki
1042507	"I'm All Right Jack" is a 1959 British comedy film directed and produced by John and Roy Boulting from a script by Frank Harvey, John Boulting and Alan Hackney based on the novel "Private Life" by Hackney. The film is a sequel to the Boultings' 1956 film "Private's Progress" and Ian Carmichael, Dennis Price, Richard Attenborough, Terry-Thomas and Miles Malleson reprise their characters. Peter Sellers played one of his best-known roles, as the trades union shop steward Fred Kite and won a Best Actor Award from the British Academy. The rest of the cast included many well-known British comedy actors of the time. The film is a satire on British industrial life in the 1950s. The trade unions, workers and bosses are all seen to be incompetent or corrupt to varying degrees. The film is one of a number of satires made by the Boulting Brothers between 1956 and 1963. Plot. After leaving the army and returning to university, newly-graduated upper class Stanley Windrush (Ian Carmichael) is looking for a job but fails miserably at interviews for various entry-level management positions. Stanley's uncle, Bertram Tracepurcel (Dennis Price) and his old army comrade, Sidney DeVere Cox (Richard Attenborough), persuade him to take an unskilled blue-collar job at Uncle Bertram's missile factory, despite Aunt Dolly's (Margaret Rutherford) misgivings. At first suspicious of the overeager newcomer, Communist shop steward Fred Kite (Peter Sellers) takes Stanley under his wing and even offers to take him in as a lodger. When Kite's curvaceous daughter Cynthia (Liz Fraser) drops by, Stanley readily accepts. Meanwhile, personnel manager Major Hitchcock (Terry-Thomas) is assigned a time and motion study expert, Waters (John Le Mesurier), to measure how efficient the employees are. The workers refuse to cooperate but Waters tricks Windrush into showing him how much more quickly he can do his job with his forklift truck, than other more experienced employees. When Kite is informed of the results, he calls a strike to protect the rates his union workers are being paid. This is what Cox and Tracepurcel want; Cox owns a company that can take over a large new contract with a Middle Eastern country at an inflated cost. He, Tracepurcel and Mr. Mohammed (Marne Maitland), the country's representative, would each pocket a third of the £100,000 difference. Things don't quite work out for either side. Cox arrives at his factory to find that his workers are walking out in sympathy for Kite and his strikers. The press reports that Kite is punishing Windrush for working hard. When Windrush decides to cross the picket line and go back to work (and reveals his connection with the company's owner), Kite asks him to leave his house. This provokes the adoring Cynthia and her mother (Irene Handl) to go on strike. More strikes spring up, bringing the country to a standstill. Faced with these new developments, Tracepurcel has no choice but to send Hitchcock to negotiate with Kite. They reach an agreement but Windrush has made both sides look bad and has to go. Cox tries to bribe him with a bagful of money to resign quietly but Windrush turns him down. On a televised discussion programme moderated by Malcolm Muggeridge (playing himself), Windrush reveals to the nation the underhanded motivations of all concerned. When he throws Cox's bribe money into the air, the studio audience riots. In the end, Windrush is convicted of causing a disturbance and everyone else is exonerated. He is last seen with his father (Miles Malleson) relaxing at a nudist colony, only to have to flee from the female residents' attentions. Reception. The film was a big hit, being the most popular film in Britain for the year ended 31 October 1959.
1056173	The Flame and the Arrow is a 1950 American adventure film made by Warner Bros. and starring Burt Lancaster, Virginia Mayo and Nick Cravat. It was directed by Jacques Tourneur and produced by Harold Hecht and Frank Ross from a screenplay by Waldo Salt. The music score was by Max Steiner and the cinematography by Ernest Haller. The film was shot in Technicolor. Plot. In the time of Frederick Barbarossa, in the area of Italy known as Lombardy, Dardo Bartoli (Lancaster) is walking with his son Rudi (Gordon Gebert) when they encounter Count Ulrich (Frank Allenby), known as "the Hawk", together with his niece, Lady Anne (Mayo), and his lover, Dardo's unfaithful wife Francesca (Lynn Baggett). Dardo shows off his skill as an archer by shooting down Ulrich's expensive hunting hawk. In revenge, the count takes Dardo's son to his castle. Dardo is struck by an arrow while rescuing Rudi, so the boy allows himself to be recaptured in order to draw the soldiers away.
1584221	Mary Jo Deschanel (born 1945) is an American actress. Life and career. Deschanel was born as Mary Jo Weir. Her ancestry includes Irish, French, Swiss, Dutch, and English. In her first major appearance in show business in 1983, Deschanel played Annie Glenn, the wife of the astronaut John Glenn in the movie adaptation of the Tom Wolfe book, "The Right Stuff". The next year after acting in "The Right Stuff", Deschanel played Betty Fernandez, the remarried former wife of the astronaut Dave Bowman (played by Keir Dullea), in the film "". Deschanel played Eileen in the TV series "Twin Peaks". She has appeared in the TV series "House" in the episode "Simple Explanation" as Julia Kutner, the adoptive mother of recently deceased Dr. Lawrence Kutner. She is married to Caleb Deschanel. Her daughters Emily and Zooey are also actresses. Deschanel was featured a second time as the wife of Ed Harris' character in the movie "Winter Passing", although she was only seen in a photograph on the wall. In spite of never physically appearing in this movie, she did receive full billing in the credits as the character "Mary".
520510	Eugene Domingo (born July 23, 1971) is a Filipino movie and theater actress, comedienne and host. Through the years, she has been turning in performances, in lead and supporting roles and in various genres of the film industry. She was popularly known as side-kick of the Philippines Queen of Comedy, Ai-Ai delas Alas in the Ang Tanging Ina series, until she was launched on her very first lead role in Kimmy Dora: Kambal sa Kiyeme (2009) which eventually got a sequel in 2012. Domingo stars on over 60 films, including minor roles in the 1990s. Some of her memorable films include Bahay Kubo wherein she was awarded on her first "Best Supporting Actress" award. Her biggest achievement as an actress came through a Cinemalaya entry, Ang Babae Sa Septic Tank which holds the record for the highest grossing Filipino independent film in history. The film is an official entry for various international film festivals in Vancouver, South Korea, Hawaii, Japan, and Italy. The film was also chosen by the Film Academy of the Philippines to represent the Philippines in the Best Foreign Language Film category of the 84th Academy Awards. Through the film, Domingo achieved "Best Actress" awards, at the Cinemalaya (2011) and 10th Gawad Tanglaw for Films (2012). She also received the "People's Choice Award for Best Actress" at the 6th Asian Film Awards (2012) in Hong Kong and "Best Actress" award at the 3rd Pau International Film Festival in France. Domingo is the only actress in the Philippine entertainment history to have participated in six films ("Working Girls 2010", "Here Comes the Bride", "Mamarazzi", "Petrang Kabayo", "", "Ang Tanging Ina Mo (Last na 'To!)") produced by eight Filipino production companies (GMA Films, Regal Films, Unitel Productions, OctoArts Films, Quantum Films, VIVA Films, Ambient Media, Star Cinema) within a year. Domingo holds the record of being the first lead actress in Philippine cinema to star in the most films — seven — in a year. Since 2008, she has been a contract artist of GMA Network appearing on various comedy shows like Jejemom (2010), drama shows like Ako si Kim Sam Soon (2008), Ang Babaeng Hinugot Sa Aking Tadyang (2008) and First Time (2010). She also tried hosting through Cool Center (2009) and Comedy Bar (2010). Apart from her television and mainstream appearance, she also headlined theater show in "Bona" produced by the Philippine Educational Theater Association (PETA)in 2012. She was nominated as "Best Actress in a Play award" for her role at the International Theater Award and eventually hailed as "Best Actress in Theater role" for Bona at the 25th Aliw Awards (2012). Life and career. 1971-2003: Early life and career beginnings. Domingo was born on July 23, 1971. According to her, she was fond of copying her teachers and other people during her childhood life. She became interested in acting when she witnessed a musical held at the CCP Complex. She studied at the University of the Philippines with course in Theatre Arts Program and apprenticing as an actress, production and stage management staff under the university's theatre company, "The UP Repertory Company". As a theater major she went through selling tickets, inviting students to attend their play, begging professors to require students to watch, ushering the audience in and out of the auditorium, rehearsing all night, and learning from the not-so-conventional styles of the most diva directors. Domingo started her minor acting career through the movie, "Emma Salazar Case" produced by Regal Entertainment in 1991. It was then followed by a biographical movie "Maricris Sioson" in 1993 and as condominium maid in "Sa Ngalan ng Pag-ibig" in 1995. She was launched in television as Dolores in a series, Valiente run by ABS-CBN and GMA Network in 1992 to 1997. In 1998, she appeared in a three films produced by VIVA Films, "Pagdating Ng Panahon", "Ikaw Pa Rin Ang Iibigin" and "Pusong Mamon". She also appeared on the Book 1 of a GMA Network's series, Kirara, Ano Ang Kulay ng Pag-ibig? in 1999. She had her first hosting role through "D-Day with Ms. Dina Bonnevie" in 1999. But, there was a time, when, out of sheer frustration, she stopped acting for the TV-film cameras because of bit player roles. Domingo went back to school and after she finished college, decided she would perform only in stage productions. Until a friend, now television director Andoy Ranay, insisted that she give TV acting a second chance. She was immediately cast on ABS-CBN show, Sa Dulo Ng Walang Hanggan in 2002. According to her, ""acting for TV was really sweeter the second time around, because i found companions who are, with utmost respect to craft, knowing they also came from theater..."". Following that, she was casted as Rowena in a launching television series of now Philippines Queen of Comedy Ai-Ai delas Alas, Ang Tanging Ina produced by ABS-CBN in 2003. In the same year, she reprised her role at the show's movie version produced by Star Cinema. She became famous in television through her role as crazy woman named "Lorelie" in a fantasy series, Marina starring Claudine Barretto. She was also cast in films such as Lastikman and Malikmata. 2004-09: "Kimmy Dora" and numerous films and awards. Domingo became known as a sidekick of the Philippines' Queen of Comedy, Ai-Ai Delas Alas appearing again on the latter's film, Volta in 2004. The next year, she appeared on three films, as Tacing in Star Cinema's Can This Be Love, VIVA Films' "Purita" and on a cameo role in Seiko Films' "Bikini Open". She was casted as Sister Clara, a nun in an adapted series Kampanerang Kuba and also joined Eula Valdez and Jean Garcia on hosting a reality cooking show, Makuha Ka sa Tikim in 2005. Domingo achieved breakthrough in 2006 starring on six films from different production outfits. She appeared as Tina on a film D' Lucky Ones, and as Dora on You Are The One both produced by Star Cinema. She also had major roles on Regal Films's "Kapag Tumibok ang Puso" and on the "LRT" episode of her first Metro Manila Film Festival film, Shake, Rattle and Roll 8. She also starred on a horror film, TxT as Aling Kuring. Domingo became an award-winning actress in 2007 winning "Best Supporting Actress" at the 33rd Metro Manila Film Festival through her role in starring the Philippines Diamond Star, Maricel Soriano. She starred on a total of 10 films in 2007, including her Cinemalaya entry "Pisay" and Seiko Films' "Foster Child" which gave Domingo two Best Supporting Actress awards at the 6th Gawad Tanglaw in 2008. She also appeared on comedy films, including her reunion with Ai-Ai Delas Alas in Pasukob and Ang Cute Ng Ina Mo. Some of her films in 2007 also include Apat Dapat, Dapat Apat with three other comedienne, Candy Pangilinan, Pokwang and Ruffa Mae Quinto. She also appeared on a film by GMA starring Angel Locsin and Richard Gutierrez, The Promise, and on a Paano Kita Iibigin of Regine Velasquez and Piolo Pascual. Domingo also appeared on two series, Palimos ng Pag-Ibig and on a series, Kokey adapted in a film of the same title. In 2008, Domingo starred on a Cinemalaya Independent Film Festival entry, "100" which awarded her as "Best Supporting Actress", her fourth in span of 2 years. She also appeared on the Book 2 of Tanging Ina series, an official Metro Manila Film Festival entry subtitled as Ang Tanging Ina N'yong Lahat. Domingo transferred from ABS-CBN to GMA Network in 2008, with I.T.A.L.Y. as her first ever project. She debut as an official GMA Contract Artist through the comedy series, Ako si Kim Sam Soon starring Regine Velasquez, a remake of a Korean series televised also on the same network. She then appeared as Yaya Madel, in the series Ang Babaeng Hinugot Sa Aking Tadyang starring real life couple, Marian Rivera and Dingdong Dantes. Domingo also appeared as Juaning on a Panoramanila Pictures film, Ploning produced by actress, Judy Ann Santos. In 2009, Domingo appeared on her first ever movie in a lead role produced by Spring Films entitled as , directed by Joyce Bernal and written by Chris Martinez. It tells the story of twin sisters Kimmy and Dora, both played by Domingo who are directly opposite each other in terms of characteristics and styles. Czeriza Valencia of the Philippine Entertainment Portal notes that Domingo served as the funny factor in the film, since her skillful execution in playing the two roles made the situations hilarious. Lito Zulueta of the Philippine Daily Inquirer writes that Domingo's performance "runs the gamut of comic inventiveness" and "confirms her status as the country’s funniest comic ingénue". Although starring in her major role, Domingo stated that she is still open for supporting roles. She then appeared on RVQ Production film entitled Nobody, Nobody But... Juan starring the Philippines King of Comedy, Dolphy. In the same year, she appeared on a comedy series Adik Sa'Yo and on her third hosting role, Cool Center together with Allan K.. She was also awarded "Bert Marcelo Award" for Comedians at the 2009 Guillermo Mendoza Foundation Awards. 2010-12: "Ang Babae sa Septic Tank", international exposure and other films. Domingo reprised her role on the third installment of Tanging Ina, subtitled as Ang Tanging Ina Mo (Last na 'To!) in 2008 wherein she won Best Supporting Actress award at the 36th Metro Manila Film Festival. Her voice, as Mercedes also appeared on the animated film, . She was again starred on her second lead role in Mamarazzi produced by Regal Films and as Paula in GMA Films' Working Girls. Even though she was a contract artist of GMA, she managed to appear on Star Cinema films, Here Comes The Bride and Petrang Kabayo. She is the only actress in the Philippine entertainment history to have participated in six films ("Working Girls 2010", "Here Comes the Bride", "Mamarazzi", "Petrang Kabayo", "", "Ang Tanging Ina Mo (Last na 'To!)") produced by eight Filipino production companies (GMA Films, Regal Films, Unitel Productions, OctoArts Films, Quantum Films, VIVA Films, Ambient Media, Star Cinema) within a year. Domingo holds the record of being the first lead actress in Philippine cinema to star in the most films — seven — in a year. She had her two hosting stints in GMA Network, through Comedy Bar and on a kiddie show, Wachamakulit. She also appeared on her first sitcom, JejeMom, inspired from a text messaging style alias, Jejemon. She made her last appearance on a GMA Network series through her minor role as guidance councelor in a teen-oriented series, First Time. Domingo appeared on TV5 through her comedy show, "Inday Wanda". 2011 marked another successful year for Domingo wherein she starred in 9 local films. She was paired with matinee idol, Richard Gutierrez in "Gunaw" (Apocalypse) episode of a trilogy, My Valentine Girls. She was also casted as Belinda Eduque on Who's That Girl? and as Precy in Wedding Tayo, Wedding Hindi. According to a review from PEP, "She(Domingo) was still able to make the material fresh and entertaining. Her punch lines, although sometimes buried under long dialogues, and antics elicited laughter from viewers...". She also appeared on independent films, "Zombadings 1: Patayin Sa Shokot Si Remington" produced by Origin8media and Pisay produced by Cinemalaya. Domingo appeared on three films at the 2011 Metro Manila Film Festival through Enteng Ng Ina Mo, Shake, Rattle & Roll 13 and wherein she was honored another "Best Supporting Actress" award. In the same year, she appeared on a critically acclaimed Cinemalaya entry, Ang Babae Sa Septic Tank, holding the record for the highest grossing Filipino independent film in history. The film is an official entry for the 2011 Vancouver International Film Festival, Pusan International Film Festival, Hawaii International Film Festival, Tokyo International Film Festival, and Far East Asian Film Festival in Italy. The film was also chosen by the Film Academy of the Philippines to represent the Philippines in the Best Foreign Language Film category of the 84th Academy Awards. Through the film, Domingo was awarded as "Best Actress" at the Cinemalaya (2011) and 10th Gawad Tanglaw for Films (2012). She was also awarded the "People's Choice Award for Best Actress" at the 6th Asian Film Awards (2012) in Hong Kong wherein she rises humor together with Asian superstar Andy Lau on-stage. Domingo's acceptance speech elicited boisterous laughter from the audience, which includes some of the biggest names in Asian cinema. She was also nominated as Best Actress at the 35th Gawad URIAN Awards and 28th PMPC Star Awards for Movies in 2012. She was also named "Comedienne of the Year" at the Yahoo! OMG Awards. She also received the "Best Actress" award at the 3rd Pau International Film Festival which was held in France. According to a review on Philippine Entertainment Portal, Domingo proves her versatility as an actress. In 2012, Domingo starred on the poorly acclaimed sequel of Kimmy Dora, subtitled as Kimmy Dora and The Temple of Kiyeme shot in Philippines and South Korea. She also starred on the first ever Filipino musical film entitled, produced by Unitel in partnership with Studio 5. It is a tribute to APO Hiking Society, and received positive reviews from critics. She also hosted a game show under GMA Network, Celebrity Bluff with comic duo, Jose Manalo and Wally Bayola. Domingo also stars on theater through "Bona", produced by the Philippine Educational Theater Association (PETA). She was a call center agent obsessed with actor-wannabe Edgar Allan Guzman. She was nominated as "Best Actress in a Play award" for her role at the International Theater Award. She was also hailed as "Best Actress" for Bona at the 25th Aliw Awards in 2012. According to Gibz Cadiz of Philippine Daily Inquirer, Domingo is a tremendous actress, her theater background coming to the fore in her command of space, the way she deploys her vocal instrument, her ability to think on her feet (her every adlib is a hit with the audience). 2013-present: Upcoming projects. Domingo was featured on another Cinemalaya entry for 2013, entitled as "Instant Mommy", a comedy film about a wardrobe mistress in TV commercials who fakes a pregnancy to keep her Japanese fiance. The film is another team-up work with Director Chris Martinez, who's with Domingo on the two "Kimmy Dora" (2010 and 2012) movies, "Here Comes The Bride" (2010), "Ang Babae sa Septic Tank" (2011) and "I Do Bidoo Bidoo" (2012), and is co-produced by actress Kris Aquino. It also stars Japanese actor Yuki Matsuzaki, who was part of the Hollywood films Letters from Iwo Jima and . According to Matsuzaki, he was impressed by Domingo's performance in The Woman in the Septic Tank which made him agree to be her leading man. She worked again with Star Cinema on a film entitled ""Tuhog"", a black-comedy movie which also stars Jake Cuenca and Enchong Dee and under the direction on Ronnie Velasco, which was originally submitted for the 2012 Metro Manila Film Festival, but failed to make the final cut. She also joined Maricel Soriano, Billy Crawford and Andi Eigenmann on a film, "Momzillas" produced by VIVA Films. The film is her second movie with the Diamond Star, Soriano, the first being Bahay Kubo in 2007. Domingo is also set to do a movie with Kris Aquino, written by Chris Martinez and to be directed by Joyce Bernal. On an interview with Manila Bulletin, she revealed that she will be doing her first lead role for "MMFF" this 2013. On June 18, 2013; MMDA Chairman Francis Tolentino announced the 8 official entries of the year's festival, and the third installment of "Kimmy Dora" film subtitled as "" is one it. Domingo also replaced Aquino in a film by Jun Lana entitled as Barber's Tale or "Kuwentong Barbero". The second installment in Lana’s small-town trilogy (the first being Bwakaw (2012)) is about a widow defying gender role expectations in the 1970s by running her late husband’s barbershop. The film won four awards at the Hong Kong Asia Film Financing Forum (HAF), which ended on March 20 including the top prize "HAF Award", "ARRI Award", which allows access to rental of camera and lighting equipment, "Technicolor Asia award", which comes with post-production services (from Thailand firm of the same name) and the second "Catapooolt award". In 2013, Domingo was one of the "Dekada" awardees at the 10th Golden Screen Awards for Movies for their cumulative trophies on its past awards. Domingo also started working on another Chris Martinez movie, for Regal Films titled as ""Status: It’s Complicated"" with Paulo Avelino, Solenn Heussaff, and Jake Cuenca. It is a reworking project of the classic Ishmael Bernal's comedy ""Salawahan"". Artistry. Influences. Domingo admires Lolita Rodriguez, for the reason she states that, "...when she(Rodriguez) decided to walk away and just be a normal person, it meant that she was already satisfied and that she’s made a mark and that she would never be forgotten..." She also cited the Superstar, Nora Aunor as her inspiration, but she admitted she doesn't want to be compared with Aunor who originally showcased Domingo's latest theater role, Bona. She also cited the Philippines Star For All Season, Vilma Santos as one of her idols. She also parodied some of the famous dialogues and looks of Santos in various films such as D' Lucky Ones. Domingo also announced admiration for the Philippine actress, Maricel Soriano who is dubbed as "The Diamond Star". She likes how she handled her career and all the issues being thrown at her and she was impressed by her class and elegance. Styles. Domingo shows in her projects that her comic touch is still very much apparent as she delivers one-liners that elicit cheers from the appreciative crowd. According to Philippine Entertainment Portal, she gives no exaggeration in her roles, be it as a popular actress or a weary mother. Considering how her past films are, her acting styles just grabbed the audience senseless and ended up picking themselves up after rolling on the floor laughing. Domingo has a wide range of acting skill, from full-on hysterical to completely flat-line dramatic acting. According to her, "...everybody has a gift, some are developed. But the truly gifted are born with it. But they should never take it for granted. Acting workshops can help, but practice and exposure and training constitute the real deal...". She further added that her theater experience has given her the medium for her acting styles. According to GMA News, Domingo brings her signature style to her movies especially on the musical as a no-nonsense yet loving mother. Also, as the stronger maternal figure, she gets to show it with some of the movie’s best lines. Her timing on delivering her long lines also adds to her special aura as a comedian, and often steal spotlights because of her witty lines. Her humorous quips never fail to elicit thunderous laughter from the audience because she plays her character to maximum comedic effect.
1061081	Karen Jane Allen (born October 5, 1951) is an American actress best known for her role as Marion Ravenwood in "Raiders of the Lost Ark" (1981) and "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" (2008). Allen has also had roles in films, including "National Lampoon's Animal House" (1978), "The Wanderers" (1979), "Cruising" (1980), "Starman" (1984), "Scrooged" (1988), "The Sandlot" (1993), and "Poster Boy" (2004). Early life. Allen was born in Carrollton, in rural western Illinois, the daughter of Patricia Allen ( Howell), a teacher, and Carroll Thompson Allen, an FBI agent. She is of English, Irish, Scottish, and Welsh descent. Her father's job forced the family to move often. "I grew up moving almost every year and so I was always the new kid in school and always in a way was deprived of ever really having any lasting friendships," Allen said in 1987. Although Allen says her father was very much involved in the family, she felt that she and her two sisters grew up in a very female-dominated household. After she graduated from DuVal High School, in Lanham, Maryland, at 17, she moved to New York City to study art and design at Fashion Institute of Technology. She later attended the University of Maryland, College Park for a year and a half, and spent time traveling through South and Central America. In 1974, Allen joined Shakespeare & Company in Massachusetts. Three years later, moved back to New York City and studied at the Lee Strasberg Theater Institute. Career. Allen made her major film debut in 1978, in "National Lampoon's Animal House". Her next two film appearances were in "The Wanderers", in 1979, and "A Small Circle of Friends" in 1980, where she played one of three radical college students during the 1960s. She also appeared (as a guest star) in the 1979 pilot episode of the long-running CBS series "Knots Landing" and played Annie Fairgate, the daughter of Don Murray's character Sid Fairgate. Her career-changing role came with the blockbuster hit "Raiders of the Lost Ark" (1981), directed by Steven Spielberg, in which she played the feisty heroine Marion Ravenwood, love interest of Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford). Allen won a Saturn Award for Best Actress for her performance. After a few minor films, including leading roles in the dramatic thriller "Split Image" (1982), directed by Ted Kotcheff and the Paris-set romantic drama "Until September" (1984), directed by Richard Marquand as well as other stage appearances, she co-starred with Jeff Bridges in the science-fiction film "Starman" (1984). Allen debuted on Broadway in the 1982 production "The Monday After The Miracle". In 1983, she played the lead in the off-Broadway play "Extremities", a physically demanding role about a would-be rape victim who turns the tables on her attacker. She often took breaks from movie roles to concentrate on stage acting; Allen appeared as Laura in the Paul Newman-directed film version of the Tennessee Williams play "The Glass Menagerie", with John Malkovich and Joanne Woodward, in 1987. In 1988, Allen returned to the big screen as Bill Murray's long-lost love, Claire, in the Christmas comedy "Scrooged". In 1990, she portrayed the doomed crew member Christa McAuliffe in the television movie "Challenger", based on the 1986 Space Shuttle Challenger disaster. Subsequently, she appeared in Spike Lee's "Malcolm X" (1992), in a small supporting role in "The Perfect Storm" (2000) and "In the Bedroom" (2001). She made guest appearances on television's "Law & Order" (1996) and "" (2001). She had also starred in the short-lived series "The Road Home" (1994) and portrayed Dr. Clare Burton in the video game "Ripper" (1996). Allen reprised her best-known role as Marion Ravenwood for the 2008 sequel "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull", in which she renews her relationship with Indiana Jones and reveals to him that they have a son named Henry Jones III, who named himself Mutt Williams, played by Shia LaBeouf. Allen starred in the American premiere of Jon Fosse's "A Summer Day" at the Cherry Lane Theater in New York City, which opened in October 2012. Personal life. Allen was married to singer-songwriter Stephen Bishop for a short time in the early 1980s. In 1988, Allen married actor Kale Browne and gave birth to a son Nicholas in 1990. The couple divorced in 1998. Following the birth of her son, she accepted smaller roles in TV and films in order to concentrate on raising Nicholas. Given her affinity for knitting, in 2003, she started her own textile company, called "Karen Allen Fiber Arts", in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, for which she was awarded an honorary master's degree from The Fashion Institute of Technology, in its 2009 commencement exercises. Allen also teaches acting at Bard College at Simon's Rock, located in Great Barrington. She currently lives in Monterey, Massachusetts. She also teaches yoga.
601686	Julianna Guill (born July 7, 1987) is an American actress. She best known for her role as Bree in the 2009 film "Friday the 13th" and Scarlet Haukkson in the webisode series "My Alibi". She also co-starred in the TBS series "Glory Daze" as Christie Dewitt. Early life. Guill is one of three children who all grew up singing and acting. She was born in Winston-Salem, North Carolina to parents Ann and Earl Guill. She began tap, ballet and jazz dance at an early age, and continued singing in the choir while at R.J. Reynolds High School, from which she graduated in 2005. She also performed in local theater productions, and attended New York University before moving to Los Angeles. Career. Guill has made numerous guest appearances in television series such as "One Tree Hill", ', "90210", "How I Met Your Mother" and '. She also had regular roles in the web television series "My Alibi" and the TBS series "Glory Daze". In 2009, she appeared in the independent teen comedy film "Costa Rican Summer" which was released on July 16, 2009. Guill also had small roles in the Brian Drolet film "2 Dudes and a Dream" and "Fired Up!". In 2009, she appeared in a leading role of Katy in "". The film which was released straight-to-DVD on August 11, 2009. The film is a sequel to the 2000 comedy film "Road Trip". Guill appeared in the 2009 modern reboot of "Friday The 13th". The same year Guill appeared in "My Super Psycho Sweet 16", the made-for-television film which premiered on October 23, 2009 on MTV and was filmed in Atlanta. The film was released to mixed reviews from critics and had strong ratings on that night. That year Guill took a role in the Dark Castle production "The Apparition", and previously appeared in a lead role in the thriller film "Altitude". "My Super Psycho Sweet 16" came out October 22, 2010, where she portrays the lead role of Madison Penrose. Shortly after that her horror film "Altitude" was released on October 26, 2010. In 2011, she co-starred in the Steve Carell comedy "Crazy, Stupid, Love." and will also star in the Dark Castle's "The Apparition". She guest starred in the NBC comedy "Community" as Head Cheerleader in "A Fistful of Paintballs". Guill is friends with "Community" star Alison Brie, with whom she co-starred in "My Alibi"; along with fellow "My Alibi" co-star Cyrina Fiallo (who has also guest starred in "Community"), they perform together as a singing group called The Girls.
1082833	The Skin I Live In () is a 2011 Spanish psychological thriller film written and directed by Pedro Almodóvar, starring Antonio Banderas, Elena Anaya, Marisa Paredes, Jan Cornet, and Roberto Álamo. "The Skin I Live In" is based on Thierry Jonquet's novel "Mygale", first published in French and then in English under the title "Tarantula". The film premiered in May 2011 in competition at the 64th Cannes Film Festival, and won Best Film Not in the English Language at the 65th British Academy Film Awards. Almodóvar has described the film as "a horror story without screams or frights". The film was the first collaboration in 21 years between Almodóvar and Banderas. Plot. Surgeon Robert Ledgard was successful in cultivating artificial skin resistant to burns and insect bites, which he says he has been testing on athymic mice, which he calls “GAL”. He presents his results in a medical symposium but when he privately discloses he has also conducted illegal transgenetic experiments on humans, he is forbidden to continue with his research. On his secluded estate, Ledgard is keeping a young woman named Vera captive, with the help of one of his servants, Marilia. Due to the suspension of his official experiments, Robert asks Marilia to dismiss the other servants. While Robert is out, Marilia's son Zeca, having committed a robbery, arrives and asks his mother to hide him for a few days. He sees Vera on Ledgard's security camera screens and demands to see her in the flesh. When Marilia refuses to let him stay after she invites him in, he binds and gags her and then rapes Vera. Robert soon arrives and kills Zeca. While Robert disposes of Zeca’s body, Marilia tells Vera that she is the mother of both Zeca and Robert by different men, a fact she has not shared with them. Robert was adopted by Marilia’s employers but was ultimately raised by her. Zeca later left to live in the streets and smuggle drugs, while Robert went to medical school and married a woman named Gal. When Zeca came back years later, he and Gal run off together, only to be involved in a terrible car crash. Gal was left badly burnt, and thereafter lived in total darkness and without any mirrors. One day, while hearing her daughter Norma singing in the garden, Gal accidentally saw her own reflection in the window, and, traumatized by the sight, jumped to her death. In the present day, Robert comes back and spends the night with Vera. During the night, he dreams of his past, specifically the night of a wedding six years earlier, where he finds Norma unconscious on the ground. Norma, taking medication for psychosis, and in shock, thinks that her father has raped her and develops a fear of all men. She eventually kills herself in the same manner that her mother did. Vera, too, dreams about the same event: Vicente, a young man who works in his mother's dress shop, crashes the wedding and meets Norma. The two start to have sex in the garden, but Norma, hearing the song she sung as a child the day her mother committed suicide, has a panic attack and bites Vicente, in order to make him stop. He knocks her unconscious, fleeing the scene, just as Robert arrives. Robert tracks Vicente down, kidnaps him, and subjects him to sex reassignment surgery. Over a period of six years, Robert physically transforms Vicente into Vera, a replica of his late wife. Marilia, absent for the last four years, returns to work in Robert’s house and looks after Vera, inadvertently revealing to her that she (Vera) has been held captive for the last six years. Back in the present day, Vera's new relationship with Robert dismays Marilia, who does not trust her. Fulgencio, one of Robert's colleagues, reads a news story about the missing Vicente and recognizes him as one of their sex change patients. He accuses Robert of falsifying Vicente's consent and of experimenting on him. Vera arrives to support Robert, asserting her willing participation. During the night, Robert and Vera try to have sex, but Vera tells him that she is still sore from being raped, and goes downstairs to get some lubricant. She takes Robert's gun from his desk and goes upstairs, killing both Robert and Marilia. Vera returns to her mother's dress shop for the first time as a woman, tearfully telling her lesbian ex-colleague Cristina, whom she had loved as a young boy, of her kidnapping and forced sex change, before revealing her identity to her mother. Production. Pedro Almodóvar read Thierry Jonquet's "Tarantula" about ten years before the film premiered. He described what attracted him in the novel as "the magnitude of Doctor Ledgard's vendetta". This became the core of the adaptation, which over time moved further and further from the original plot of the novel. Almodóvar was inspired by Georges Franju's "Eyes Without a Face" and the thriller films of Fritz Lang when he wrote the screenplay. The director announced the project in 2002, when he envisioned Antonio Banderas and Penélope Cruz in the film's two leading roles, but he eventually settled on Banderas and Elena Anaya. "The Skin I Live In" was the first film Almodóvar and Banderas made together in 21 years, after having been regular collaborators in the 1980s. The film was produced through El Deseo for a budget of €10 million. Principal photography began 23 August 2010 and ended almost four months later. Filming locations included Santiago de Compostela, Madrid, and a country house outside Toledo. Release. The film premiered on 19 May 2011 in competition at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival. Due to developments in the industry of film distribution, El Deseo decided to abandon their previous release strategy for Almodóvar's works. The director's films had in the past usually been released in Spanish theatres in the spring and internationally during the last quarter of the year. "The Skin I Live In" was released worldwide in the autumn. The British release was 26 August 2011 through 20th Century Fox. In Spain it premiered on 2 September 2011. The film was released in the United States on 14 October the same year in a limited run through Sony Pictures Classics following its American premiere at the 49th New York Film Festival on 12 October 2011. Critical reception. In May 2011, Kirk Honeycutt, writing for "The Hollywood Reporter", said "Along with such usual Almodóvar obsessions as betrayal, anxiety, loneliness, sexual identity, and death, the Spanish director has added a science-fiction element that verges on horror. But like many lab experiments, this melodramatic hybrid makes for an unstable fusion. Only someone as talented as Almodóvar could have mixed such elements without blowing up an entire movie." Honeycutt continued: "The film's design, costumes and music, especially Alberto Iglesias' music, present a lushly beautiful setting, which is nonetheless a prison and house of horror. Almodóvar pumps his movie full of deadly earnestness and heady emotions." David Gritten notes Almodóvar "reaches out tentatively into unexplored genre territory—horror...Yet despite squirm-worthy moments ... the promise of horror gives way to Almodóvar's broader, familiar preoccupations: identity, blood ties, disguises and genetic traits." According to Gritten, "A list of the story's various elements—date rape, murder, secrets, lies, mystery parents, gender ambiguity, unbreakable emotional bonds—confirms "The Skin I Live In" as essentially a melodrama. Yet Almodóvar's story-telling is nowhere near as shrill as it once was: as a mature artist, he has refined his skills to a point where these soap-opera tropes assimilate smoothly into a complex whole...Typically for Almodóvar, it all looks ravishing, thanks to production designer Antxon Gómez and cinematographer José Luis Alcaine. All three men have the gift of investing mundane objects with a unique sheen; here even surgical instruments, about to be used malevolently, assume a dreamy, otherworldly quality. "The Skin I Live In" is the work of a master near the top of his game." Upon its UK premiere, Peter Bradshaw gave it (four of five stars), calling it "fantastically twisted" and "a truly macabre suspense thriller"—"Banderas is a wonderfully charismatic leading man; Almodóvar has found in him what Hitchcock found in Cary Grant. He is stylish, debonair, but with a chilling touch of determination and menace." In an October 2011 "New York Times" Critics' Pick review, Manohla Dargis called the film "an existential mystery, a melodramatic thriller, a medical horror film or just a polymorphous extravaganza"; according to Dargis:
1750408	"Imaginationland Episode I" (or "Kyle Sucks Cartman's Balls") is the tenth episode of the eleventh season of the American animated television series "South Park". It premiered on Comedy Central in the United States on October 17, 2007. It is the first episode in a three-part story arc that won the 2008 Emmy for "Outstanding Animated Program for One Hour or More". The three episodes were later reissued together, along with previously unreleased footage, as the uncensored "Imaginationland: The Movie". The episode is rated TV-MA-LV. Plot summary. The episode begins with Cartman directing the other boys through a forest in search of a leprechaun. A skeptical Kyle is there, having made a bet that if Cartman can prove leprechauns exist, Kyle will suck Cartman's balls, but if not, Cartman will owe Kyle $10. To Kyle's shock, they "do" spot a leprechaun and give chase. They eventually and successfully catch it in a trap. The leprechaun says he was sent to warn of a terrorist attack, and that being chased by the boys has made him late, before vanishing. A triumphant Cartman declares that Kyle must now suck his balls, but Kyle initially refuses, asking why a leprechaun would be warning of a terrorist attack and insisting that there has to be a logical explanation. The next day, as Kyle is conversing with Stan, Kenny, Jimmy and Butters, a strange man suddenly appears, asking them if they have seen the leprechaun. When Kyle argues that leprechauns are just imaginary, the man tells him that just because something is imaginary doesn't mean it is not real. He then invites the boys for a ride in his magical "Imagination Flying Machine" while he serenades them with "The Imagination Song" (consisting simply of the word 'imagination' sung repetitively in various tonal inflection). The group arrives in a place called Imaginationland, where all the beings created by human imagination reside. The imaginary creatures are all fascinated by the presence of "creators", and ask them about the leprechaun. At that moment a band of Islamist terrorists suddenly appear and set off a series of bombs, which kill hundreds of the imaginary creatures and destroy most of the city, with Stan watching (The scene is a parody of part of the opening D-Day sequence in "Saving Private Ryan"). The boys flee on the back of Draco who flies them to safety. Butters, however, gets left behind, and he and the surviving imaginary characters are taken hostage by the terrorists. The next morning, Kyle wakes up in his bed, and is at first sure the whole thing might have been a dream — until he calls Stan who tells him the same story. They also discover that Butters is missing, much to his parents' shock. Meanwhile, Cartman, angry that Kyle has refused to fulfill his part of their agreement, takes Kyle to court, where the judge sees the contract Kyle signed and orders Kyle to suck Cartman's balls within twenty-four hours or he will be arrested. The United States Department of Defense has received a video from the terrorists, which shows they are holding the survivors of the attack hostage, including Butters. Butters reads a note from the terrorists at gunpoint, and cries out to Stan and Kyle as the video ends. Unsure of how to counter the terrorists, they turn to Hollywood, hoping that they can use their creativity to get ideas. After being disappointed by several directors, including M. Night Shyamalan, who could only come up with twist endings, and Michael Bay, who could only come up with special effects sequences, they seek the advice of Mel Gibson, who suggests that they examine the video the terrorists sent and determine if there is anyone in it that somehow doesn't fit. The officials at the Pentagon immediately perform a background check on the video and realize that Butters is not an imaginary character. The general orders his men to locate both Stan and Kyle. In Imaginationland, the terrorists take one of the creatures, "Rockety Rocket", and launch him at "the Barrier", the wall that separates the good and evil halves of Imaginationland. Despite Butters' attempts to stop them, the terrorists destroy the wall and unleash the evil imaginary creatures. Cartman, meanwhile, dons a Sultan's robe and throws a huge party, during which the other kids will watch Kyle suck his balls. Kyle has resigned himself to the task, and is about to walk into Cartman's house with Stan when members of the military arrive and take them away for questioning about Imaginationland. Cartman screams in anger about his plan being foiled, then quickly leaves home and hitchhikes with a trucker to Washington, D.C. to force Kyle to fulfill his end of the bet. He ends the episode stating, "Make no mistake, Kyle. Before this is over, you "will" suck my balls." Production. Production for the episode began in July 2007, nearly three months before the final airing. This was uncharacteristic for "South Park", as most episodes are produced in one week or less. The original intention was to make the story into a feature-length film, but Matt Stone later stated that "it just didn't feel right" so they settled on the three-part series instead. Shortly after "Imaginationland" was originally broadcast, the site also featured T-shirts and hooded sweatshirts based on the episode. It featured Butters in a floating bubble, asking "Do I have to be the key?" Reception. Episode I had over 3.4 million viewers and was the most watched program in all of television for Wednesday night among men between ages 18–24 and 34-49 and ranked #1 in cable among persons 18-49. IGN gave the episode a rating of 9.1/10 and praised it for being "smart, inventive and provides a number of moments that'll stick with you long after it's over". 411Mania also gave the show a positive review, calling it "a great episode", praising it as an improvement over what the site perceived to be two weak episodes, and awarding it 7/10. TV Squad also gave a positive review saying that "They're still on a roll with another great episode." The Imaginationland Trilogy won the Emmy Award for Outstanding Animated Program (For Programming One Hour or More). Cultural references. The Mayor of Imaginationland and his Imagination song is an allusion to the character Dreamfinder from the original version of the attraction Journey into Imagination at Epcot in Walt Disney World. "Imaginationland: The Movie". Imaginationland: The Movie is all three episodes, uncensored, plus previously unreleased footage, merged into a compilation film. It was released direct-to-video in March 2008 for the United States and a year later in the United Kingdom in May 2009. Included were two bonus full-length episodes from previous seasons featuring imaginary characters that reappeared in the trilogy. They are episode 125, "Woodland Critter Christmas", and episode 145, "ManBearPig". The film made its television debut on June 7, 2008 on The N, a 24/7 teen channel. The N aired an extended, uncut, and edited version, with an extra footage, and some deleted scenes of the film. The film on The N was rated TV-14-LSV. A few months later the movie was released for free online as a streaming video.
1155417	Erica Durance (; born June 21, 1978) is a Canadian actress and producer. She is perhaps best known for her role as Lois Lane in the WB/CW series "Smallville". In 2012, Durance began starring in the lead role in the new medical drama television series "Saving Hope". Early life. Durance was born in Calgary, Alberta, and was raised in Three Hills, Alberta. After graduating from high school, Durance moved to Vancouver, British Columbia, to pursue her interest in acting professionally. "I wanted to get my feet wet in a smaller area than Los Angeles when I gave it a try," Durance has said. She continued to study acting at The Yaletown Actors Lab for many years with her husband, David Palffy. She started out with background work, graduating to commercials and then guest-starring roles, landing more substantial roles each time. Career. In 2003, she was in House of the Dead which features her first and only nude scene and in 2004, she guest-starred on "The Chris Isaak Show" playing Ashley, a woman on a date with Chris. In "Tru Calling", her character was a contender in a beauty pageant opposite Eliza Dushku's character. On the Sci-Fi Channel, she played an intergalactic librarian in "Andromeda" and a love interest for Teal'c in "Stargate SG-1". She also played a sister to one of the leads in the Canadian show "The Collector". 2004 also saw Durance cast as Lois Lane on Smallville at the start of the 4th season. Executive Producer Kelly Souders recalled hiring Durance stating: "There were a lot of wonderful actresses who came in for the role but I remember sitting and watching her tape and everybody was like, 'That’s her. There's no question. Fellow producer Brian Peterson added that from the moment Durance was hired they knew she would be Lois for the series. Durance was a frequent guest star as Lois for the 4th season of "Smallville" and was then promoted as a series regular for the start of the 5th season. She remained part of the regular cast for the remainder of the series run which ended in 2011. After 7 years, 2011 saw Durance complete her stint on "Smallville" as Lois Lane and at the same time guest star in one episode of the cancelled ABC show remake of "Charlie's Angels". In January 2012, she guest starred again, this time in the NBC TV series "Harry's Law". 2012 also saw Durance do a cameo in "Tim and Eric's Billion Dollar Movie". In the summer of 2012, Durance began playing the lead role in the NBC/CTV medical drama "Saving Hope", where she is also a producer. The series also stars Michael Shanks and Daniel Gillies. "Saving Hope" premiered on NBC and CTV on June 7. Season 2 began on June 25 2013. Media publicity. BuddyTv ranked Durance #26 on its TV's 100 Sexiest Women of 2009 list.BuddyTV ranked her #16 on its TV's 100 Sexiest Women of 2010 list. On February 24, 2011 Durance was nominated for a Saturn Award for Best Actress in a Television series for her work in "Smallville". This was followed up with a Teen Choice Award nomination for best actress in a Fantasy/Sci-Fi show. In their special issue on the week of 25 May 2012, Canadian edition of "Hello" listed Durance as one of Canada's 50 Most Beautiful People. On May 30, BuddyTV ranked Durance #9 on their list of Summer 2012's Hottest Women of TV. Personal life. After her first marriage she was credited as Erica Parker, but changed it back as soon as she got divorced. Durance married Canadian actor, writer and director David Palffy on January 8, 2005. Durance has a teenage stepson named Lazslo from a previous relationship of her husband's.
1104011	Johann Heinrich Lambert (26 August 1728 – 25 September 1777) was a Swiss mathematician, physicist, philosopher and astronomer. He is best known for proving the Irrationality of π. Asteroid 187 Lamberta was named in his honour. Biography. Lambert was born in 1728 in the city of Mulhouse (now in Alsace, France), at that time an exclave of Switzerland. Leaving school he continued to study in his free time whilst undertaking a series of jobs. These included assistant to his father (a tailor), a clerk at a nearby iron works, a private tutor, secretary to the editor of "Basler Zeitung" and, at the age of 20, private tutor to the sons of Count Salis in Chur. Travelling Europe with his charges (1756–1758) allowed him to meet established mathematicians in the German states, The Netherlands, France and the Italian states. On his return to Chur he published his first books (on optics and cosmology) and began to seek an academic post. After a few short posts he was rewarded (1764) by an invitation from Euler to a position at the Prussian Academy of Sciences in Berlin, where he gained the sponsorship of Frederick II of Prussia. In this stimulating, and financially stable, environment he worked prodigiously until his death in 1777. Work. Mathematics. Lambert was the first to introduce hyperbolic functions into trigonometry. Also, he made conjectures regarding non-Euclidean space. Lambert is credited with the first proof that π is irrational (although, it is speculated that Aryabhata was the first to hint at that, in 500 CE.) Lambert also devised theorems regarding conic sections that made the calculation of the orbits of comets simpler. Lambert devised a formula for the relationship between the angles and the area of hyperbolic triangles. These are triangles drawn on a concave surface, as on a saddle, instead of the usual flat Euclidean surface. Lambert showed that the angles cannot add up to π (radians), or 180°. The amount of shortfall, called defect, is proportional to the area. The larger the triangle's area, the smaller the sum of the angles and hence the larger the defect CΔ = π — (α + β + γ). That is, the area of a hyperbolic triangle (multiplied by a constant C) is equal to π (in radians), or 180°, minus the sum of the angles α, β, and γ. Here C denotes, in the present sense, the negative of the curvature of the surface (taking the negative is necessary as the curvature of a saddle surface is defined to be negative in the first place). As the triangle gets larger or smaller, the angles change in a way that forbids the existence of similar hyperbolic triangles, as only triangles that have the same angles will have the same area. Hence, instead of expressing the area of the triangle in terms of the lengths of its sides, as in Euclid's geometry, the area of Lambert's hyperbolic triangle can be expressed in terms of its angles. Map projection. Lambert was the first mathematician to address the general properties of map projections. In particular he was the first to discuss the properties of conformality and equal area preservation and to point out that they were mutually exclusive. (Snyder 1993 p77). In 1772, Lambert published seven new map projections under the title "Anmerkungen und Zusätze zur Entwerfung der Land- und Himmelscharten", (translated as "Notes and Comments on the Composition of Terrestrial and Celestial Maps" by Waldo Tobler (1972)). Lambert did not give names to any of his projections but they are now known as: The first three of these are of great importance. Further details may be found at map projections and in several texts. Physics. Lambert invented the first practical hygrometer. In 1760, he published a book on photometry, the "Photometria". From the assumption that light travels in straight lines, he showed that illumination was proportional to the strength of the source, inversely proportional to the square of the distance of the illuminated surface and the sine of the angle of inclination of the light's direction to that of the surface. These results were supported by experiments involving the visual comparison of illuminations and used for the calculation of illumination. In "Photometria" Lambert also formulated the law of light absorption—the Beer–Lambert law) and introduced the term "albedo". He wrote a classic work on perspective and contributed to geometrical optics. The photometric unit lambert is named in recognition of his work in establishing the study of photometry. Lambert was also a pioneer in the development of three-dimensional colour models. Late in life, he published a description of a triangular colour pyramid, which shows a total of 107 colours on six different levels, variously combining red, yellow and blue pigments, and with an increasing amount of white to provide the vertical component. Philosophy. In his main philosophical work, "New Organon" (1764), Lambert studied the rules for distinguishing subjective from objective appearances. This connects with his work in the science of optics. In 1765 he began corresponding with Immanuel Kant who intended to dedicate to him the "Critique of Pure Reason" but the work was delayed, appearing after his death. Astronomy. Lambert also developed a theory of the generation of the universe that was similar to the nebular hypothesis that Thomas Wright and Immanuel Kant had (independently) developed. Wright published his account in "An Original Theory or New Hypothesis of the Universe" (1750), Kant in "Allgemeine Naturgeschichte und Theorie des Himmels", published anonymously in 1755. Shortly afterward, Lambert published his own version of the nebular hypothesis of the origin of the solar system in "Cosmologische Briefe über die Einrichtung des Weltbaues" (1761). Lambert hypothesized that the stars near the sun were part of a group which travelled together through the Milky Way, and that there were many such groupings (star systems) throughout the galaxy. The former was later confirmed by Sir William Herschel. Logic. Johann-Heinrich Lambert is the author of a treatise on logic, which he called Neues Organon, that is to say, the New Organon. The most recent edition of this work named after Aristotle's Organon was issued in 1990 by the Akademie-Verlag of Berlin. To say nothing of the fact that in it one has the first appearance of the term "phenomenology", one can find therein a very pedagogical presentation of the various kinds of syllogism. In "A System of Logic Ratiocinative and Inductive", John-Stuart Mill expresses his admiration for Johann Heinrich Lambert.
712169	While the Children Sleep (also known as The Sitter) is a 2007 made-for-television horror film released on the Lifetime Movie Network. The film is about a couple who hires a live-in nanny (Mariana Klaveno) who inserts herself increasingly into the family routine. Then friends of the family begin to have mysterious accidents, as the nanny conspires to replace the mother through murder. The film's plot was compared by reviewers to the 1991 film "The Hand That Rocks the Cradle" and the 2001 film "The Glass House", as well as others. Plot. A couple, Carter and Meghan, decide that they should hire a live-in sitter so that they can both work and support their two children, Max and Casey. Abby Reed answers their advertisement and they move her in immediately. After some initial rough spots with the kids, the family warms to Abby. Abby seems obsessed with Carter, and when she helps organize a company party for a big success — that is rained out — she's in tears and distraught over the failed party. Carter's friend Tate tries to take advantage of Abby in her upset state, and then Tate is discovered murdered in the trunk of his car. Neighbor Mel is then suspicious of Abby, and is soon murdered as well. Then, Meghan's friend Shawna, now suspecting Abby as well, threatens disclosure as the final moments of Abby's plan to replace Meghan unfold. As backstory, we find that Abby had been rescued from her abusive mother by family lawyer Carter many years before, where Abby's obsession originates with the family and desire to replace Meghan as his wife. DVD release. The film was released on DVD on June 17, 2008 under the name "The Sitter".
629280	"Gettin' Square" is a crime caper movie set on Australia's Gold Coast and directed by Jonathan Teplitzky. The protagonists are ex-criminals trying to keep out of trouble. "Gettin' Square" won nominations at several Australian ceremonies including the AFI Awards, Inside Film Awards, Australian Comedy Awards, and Critics Circle Awards. Wenham's performance as Spiteri saw him win the Best Actor category in every major Australian film award through 2003. Chris Nyst has also written and directed another feature film, "Crooked Business", which was released in 2008. Plot. Barry Wirth (Sam Worthington) is a retired small time criminal who is released on parole following the death of his mother, so that he can care for his younger brother, Joey (Luke Pegler). Wirth was falsely convicted for murder by corrupt police detective Arnie DeViers (David Field), who is in the employ of criminal kingpin Chicka Martin (Gary Sweet). Shortly after Wirth is released, a corrupt accountant is arrested and his records seized, causing difficulties for Wirth's new employer, Darren "Dabba" Barrington (Timothy Spall), an ex criminal turned restauranteur whose money is seized along with that of Chicka. Wirth's friend Johnny "Spit" Spitieri (David Wenham), a heroin addict and small time criminal, is arrested while conducting a drug deal and finds himself owing twenty thousand dollars to Chicka. DeViers continues to harass and threaten Wirth, even as the latter finds success as a chef in Dabba's restaurant. Despite his best efforts to remain clean, Wirth finds himself under increasing pressure to return to his criminal ways in order to help both Dabba and Spit. Production. Andrew Dominik was approached to direct. He decided not to but strongly recommended the script to Jonathan Teplitzky. Box Office. "Gettin' Square" grossed $2,292,587 at the box office in Australia. Home Media. "Gettin' Square" was released on DVD by Umbrella Entertainment in September 2011. The DVD is compatible with region 4 and includes special features such as deleted scenes, a Popcorn Taxi Q&A, interviews with Jonathan Teplitzky, Chris Nyst, Timothy Spall, David Wenham, and audio commentary with Jonathan Teplitzky and Chris Nyst.
1087366	False precision (also called overprecision, fake precision, misplaced precision and spurious accuracy) occurs when numerical data are presented in a manner that implies better precision than is actually the case; since precision is a limit to accuracy, this often leads to overconfidence in the accuracy as well. In science and engineering, convention dictates that unless a margin of error is explicitly stated, the number of significant figures used in the presentation of data should be limited to what is warranted by the precision of those data. For example, if an instrument can be read to tenths of a unit of measurement, results of calculations using data obtained from that instrument can only be confidently stated to the tenths place, regardless of what the raw calculation returns or whether other data used in the calculation are more accurate. Even outside these disciplines, there is a tendency to assume that all the non-zero digits of a number are meaningful; thus, providing excessive figures may lead the viewer to expect better precision than actually exists.
1102714	Jacques Tits (; born 12 August 1930 in Uccle) is a Belgian and French mathematician who works on group theory and geometry and who introduced Tits buildings, the Tits alternative, and the Tits group. Career. Tits was born in Uccle to Léon Tits, a professor, and Lousia André. Jacques attended the Athénée of Uccle and the Free University of Brussels. His thesis advisor was Paul Libois, and Tits graduated with his doctorate in 1950 with the dissertation "Généralisation des groupes projectifs basés sur la notion de transitivité". His academic career includes professorships at the Free University of Brussels (now split into the Université Libre de Bruxelles and the Vrije Universiteit Brussel) (1962-1964), the University of Bonn (1964-1974) and the Collège de France in Paris, until becoming emeritus in 2000. He changed his citizenship to French in 1974 in order to teach at the Collège de France, which at that point required French citizenship. Because Belgian nationality law did not allow dual nationality at the time, he renounced his Belgian citizenship. He has been a member of the French Academy of Sciences since then. Tits was an "honorary" member of the Nicolas Bourbaki group; as such, he helped popularize Harold Scott MacDonald Coxeter's work, introducing terms such as Coxeter number, Coxeter group, and Coxeter graph. Honors. Tits received the Wolf Prize in Mathematics in 1993, the Cantor Medal from the Deutsche Mathematiker-Vereinigung (German Mathematical Society) in 1996, and the German distinction "Pour le Mérite". In 2008 he was awarded the Abel Prize, along with John Griggs Thompson, “for their profound achievements in algebra and in particular for shaping modern group theory.” He is a member of several Academies of Sciences. He is a member of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters. Contributions. He introduced the theory of "buildings" (sometimes known as "Tits buildings"), which are combinatorial structures on which groups act, particularly in algebraic group theory (including finite groups, and groups defined over the p-adic numbers). The related theory of (B, N) pairs is a basic tool in the theory of groups of Lie type. Of particular importance is his classification of all irreducible buildings of spherical type and rank at least three, which involved classifying all polar spaces of rank at least three. In the rank-2 case spherical building are generalized n-gons, and in joint work with Richard Weiss he classified these when they admit a suitable group of symmetries (the so-called Moufang polygons). In collaboration with François Bruhat he developed the theory of affine buildings, and later he classified all irreducible buildings of affine type and rank at least four. Another of his well known theorems is the "Tits alternative": if "G" is a finitely generated subgroup of a linear group, then either "G" has a solvable subgroup of finite index or it has a free subgroup of rank 2. The Tits group and the Tits–Koecher construction are named after him. He introduced the Kneser–Tits conjecture.
1110388	Jeremy Steven Suarez (born July 6, 1990) is an American actor. Biography. His first major acting role was in the 1996 film, "Jerry Maguire" as Tyson, Rod Tidwell's son, He had an uncredited role on "Sister, Sister" in 1996, on Season 4 episode, "Kid-Napped". He voiced Koda in two Disney films, "Brother Bear" and "Brother Bear 2". He also played roles in many television shows, such as "The Wayans Bros.", "Chicago Hope", "King of the Hill", Jordon, the nephew of Bernie Mac on "The Bernie Mac Show". He was amongst the thousands of mourners at the funeral of Bernie Mac and gave a heartfelt speech during the eulogy, appearing on "Larry King Live" in 2008 with his fellow cast to discuss Mac's death. In 2009, he voiced a puppet on Nike commercials during the 2009 NBA Playoffs. His recent work includes the voicing of a character (Kai) in the upcoming animated feature film, "Zambezia", slated for a 2012 release. He will be starring in "", playing the Angry Video Game Nerd's sidekick, Cooper.
1041292	The Horribly Slow Murderer with the Extremely Inefficient Weapon is a 10 minute film short that was released in 2008. It was filmed entirely in California over the course of 22 days. It was written, directed, and narrated by Richard Gale. The weapon referred to in the title is a spoon. The film won the Special Jury Prize at the Austin Fantastic Fest, the Best Short Film award at the Fantasia Film Festival, and the Citizen's Choice Award and the Grand Prize for Short Film at the Puchon International Fantastic Film Festival, and was named the Best Short Film of 2009 by Rue Morgue Magazine. It was shot on a budget of $600, on a Panasonic HVX200 digital video camera and edited on Final Cut Pro. Plot. The movie itself is presented as being a trailer for a 9 hours long movie. It starts with a voice-over, telling the viewer that: ""some murders take seconds; some murders take minutes; some murders take hours; this murder... will take years!"". Then the movie starts to show the story of a forensic pathologist called Jack Cucchiaio (Paul Clemens, cucchiaio means spoon in Italian), who finds himself being haunted by a deranged looking man (Brian Rohan), who is, without any clear reason, hitting him with a spoon. No-one seems to believe this, however, since the mysterious attacker shows only up when Jack is alone. Jack is seen developing a phobia of spoons, stirring his coffee with a fork. At one moment, Jack tries to defend himself with violence, stabbing the murderer in the throat with a kitchen knife. To Jack's surprise, his enemy turns out to be immortal, pulling the knife out of his throat and throwing it away, in order to continue hitting Jack with the spoon. However, Jack has noticed a strange sign on the arm of his attacker.
520416	German Moreno, also known as Kuya Germs or the Master Showman (born October 4, 1943 in Manila, Philippines), is a Filipino television host, actor, comedian and talent manager popular during the 1980s. He was born to Filipino father of Spanish descent and Filipino mother. Moreno became involved in the entertainment industry working as a janitor and "telonero" (curtain raiser) of Clover Theater. He later went on to pursue a career as a comedian of the bodabil stage and the post-war screen. His biggest break came on television in the late '70s when he became host of the Sunday noontime variety show, "GMA Supershow". He eventually became the host and producer of "That's Entertainment", a youth-oriented variety show. Currently, he is hosting a late-night show entitled "Walang Tulugan with the Master Showman".
1042724	Guy Rolfe (27 December 1911 – 19 October 2003) was an English actor who specialised in playing villains. He was born Edwin Arthur Rolfe. Rolfe was a professional boxer and racing driver before turning to acting at the age of 24. He made his screen debut in 1937 with an uncredited appearance in "Knight Without Armour". Notable roles include: Prince John in "Ivanhoe" (1952), Ned Seymour in "Young Bess" (1953), Caiaphas in "King of Kings" (1961), and Prince Grigory in "Taras Bulba" (1962). He is perhaps best remembered for his role as Andre Toulon in the Puppet Master film series, appearing in the third, fourth, fifth and seventh films, with archive footage in the eighth. His television credits include "The Saint", "The Avengers", "The Champions", "Department S", "The Troubleshooters", "", "Secret Army" and "Kessler". He is buried in Benhall's St Mary's churchyard.
1048636	"Meek's Cutoff" is a 2010 western film directed by Kelly Reichardt. The film was shown in competition at the 67th Venice International Film Festival. The story is loosely based on a historical incident on the Oregon Trail in 1845, in which frontier guide Stephen Meek led a wagon train on an ill-fated journey through the Oregon desert along the route later known as the Meek Cutoff. Synopsis. In 1845, a small band of settlers traveling across the Oregon High Desert suspect their guide, Stephen Meek, may not actually know where he is going. What was supposed to be a two-week journey stretches into five. With no relief in sight, tensions rise as water becomes increasingly scarce and supplies run low. The wives look on as the husbands discuss what to do, unable to participate in the decision making. The dynamics of power begins to shift when they capture a lone Indian and hold him captive so he may lead them to water. Questions plague the settlers as they press on with dwindling resources: Should they trust Meek? Will the Indian lead them to water or a trap? Are there others following them? How much longer can they survive? Critical reception. Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes gives the film a score of 85% based on reviews from 108 critics and reports a rating average of 7.5 out of 10, a generally positive reception. It reported the consensus, "Moving at a contemplative speed unseen in most westerns, "Meek's Cutoff" is an effective, intense journey of terror and survival in the untamed frontier." At Metacritic, which assigns a weighted average score out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the film received an average score of 85 based on 36 reviews.
1034616	George Innes (born 8 March 1938, in Wapping, East London) is an English actor. Stage career. Innes began his career on the stage with the National Theatre of Great Britain under Laurence Olivier. Before that, he trained at Toynbee Hall and evening classes at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art (LAMDA), where he was awarded the Shakespeare Cup for excellence. He appeared in the Bernard Kops play "The Dream of Peter Mann" at the Edinburgh Festival and on a tour of Great Britain, directed by Frank Dunlop, under whom he had trained at Toynbee Hall and LAMDA. His final year of study and training was at the Bristol Old Vic School. He worked with Dunlop again in "The Pantomime" at the Bristol Old Vic, before a season at Nottingham Playhouse with Dunlop and John Neville. Other theatre credits include working for The Royal Court production company in "Chips with Everything", which played in the West End and on Broadway. He appeared in "Othello" (understudying Frank Finlay's Iago) with Olivier at the National Theatre at Chichester and the Old Vic. Other performances in this period include roles in "Dutch Courtesan", "Mother Courage", "Hobson's Choice", and "The Master Builder". At the National Theatre at South Bank, he appeared in Tom Stoppard's "Jumpers" (Pieter Rogers directing), "Bedroom Farce" (directed by Peter Hall, transferring to the West End), and "The Vortex" at the Ahmanson Theatre in Los Angeles, (with Bob Ackerman directing). In 1993–94 he appeared in "The Rise and Fall of Little Voice" with the Steppenwolf Theatre Company, with Simon Curtis directing in Chicago, a production which appeared on Broadway. Returning to London, he performed at the Southwark Playhouse in "Rosmersholm" (1997) and "Riders to the Sea" (2005). In 2009 he appeared off-Broadway in "The Lodger" at the Workshop Theatre (Harris Yulin directing). There he developed his one-man show called "Tribute", based on the "Ages of Man" by Sir John Gielgud. It was also performed at The Players, a theatrical club in New York City. The show played during the August 2009 Edinburgh Fringe Festival to excellent reviews. In March 2010, he performed "Tribute" at the Barron's Court Pub Theatre in London, receiving these reviews: " ... the whole show centres around a superb talent: not Gielgud's but that of George Innes. The veteran performer has a marvellously warming presence with a deep velvet voice that could make a line from Avenue Q sound profound ... "Tribute" really is a display of extraordinary talent." He performed the show at the Workshop Theatre in New York, touring westward to California. Film career. Innes' film career includes "Billy Liar" (directed by John Schlesinger), "The Italian Job" (directed by Peter Collinson), "Charlie Bubbles" (directed by Albert Finney), "The Engagement" (directed by Paul Joyce), "Gumshoe" (directed by Stephen Frears), "Quadrophenia" (directed by Franc Roddam), "Before Winter Comes" (directed by J. Lee Thompson), "The Last Valley" (directed by James Clavell), "A Bridge too Far" (directed by Richard Attenborough), "A Tale of Two Cities" (directed by Jim Goddard), and "Ivanhoe" (directed by Douglas Camfield). His recent films include "Shiner" (directed by John Irvin), "The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby" (directed by Stephen Whittaker), "Last Orders" (directed by Fred Schepisi), ' (directed by Peter Weir), "Nine Lives" (directed by David Carson), "Stardust" (directed by Matthew Vaughn), ' (directed by Shekhar Kapur), and "Things To Do Before You're 30" (directed by Simon Shore). Television career. Innes has been twice nominated for an Emmy Award for his work in television. Credits include classic British and American programmes: Alfred in "Upstairs, Downstairs" (Season 1 and 3), Wilkins in "Danger UXB" (13 episodes), "I, Claudius", "Shogun", "The Good Life" (1 episode), "Rumpole of the Bailey", "Q.E.D.", "Masada", "Hill Street Blues", "Magnum, P.I.", "Cagney and Lacey", "M*A*S*H", "The Ruth Rendell Mysteries" ("Mouse in the Corner"), "Adam Bede", "Seekers", Agatha Christie ("A Caribbean Mystery"), "Noble House", "Midsomer Murders" ("Who Killed Cock Robin"), "Menace", "The Brief", "Get Some In!", and "Newhart". References. Notes
1055987	The Art of Getting By is a 2011 romantic comedy-drama film starring Freddie Highmore, Emma Roberts, Michael Angarano, Elizabeth Reaser, Sam Robards, Rita Wilson and Blair Underwood. It is the first feature by writer-director Gavin Wiesen. The film premiered under the title Homework at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival. Plot. George (Freddie Highmore) is a fatalistic high school senior who is a gifted artist. He ceases to complete his homework, as he feels that everything seems meaningless. As a result, he is put on academic probation. The next day, George goes up to the school roof and sees Sally (Emma Roberts) smoking. When a teacher comes up, George quickly pulls out a cigarette and takes the blame. Sally meets George to thank him, and though George is at first reluctant to talk to her, he soon warms up to her. On Career Day, George meets a young artist, Dustin, and is inspired by his thoughts about life. He brings Sally with him to visit Dustin and it becomes apparent that Dustin likes Sally. Sally invites George to a New Years Eve party. At the party, she dances with her ex, while George gets drunk, puking outside before falling asleep in the alley. Sally finds him there and apologizes. For Valentine's Day, the two go out to dinner and Sally asks him to have sex with her. George, clearly shocked, doesn't answer. After his pause, Sally says they shouldn't as he is her only real friend. He is quiet for the rest of the time they're together and goes home early. He doesn't answer Sally's calls or talk with her at all. Sally instead invites Dustin out and flirts with him. The two of them start going on dates after Dustin kisses her. George doesn't do his English term paper and is brought to the principal’s office. The principal gives George two choices: expulsion or do every piece of undone homework for the year. At home, George confronts his stepfather about lying about work, and they get into a physical fight. George takes off for Sally's place. She brings him into the hallway, where he kisses her. Sally kisses back but breaks it, revealing Dustin in her apartment. Angry and hurt, George leaves. The next morning, George finds his mother at the park. She explains that his stepfather lied to her about work and that they're divorcing. George consoles her and begins to rethink his situation with Sally. At school, he gets each of his missing assignments to complete. His one art project is to make a painting that is honest and real. George completes the assignments and takes final exams, while Sally continues seeing Dustin. Sally and George meet in a bar, where Sally reveals she's going backpacking with Dustin through Europe, and is skipping the high school graduation ceremony. George tells her he loves her and they go back to her apartment, where they kiss. Sally admits she loves him as well, promising that they will be together one day. George triumphantly turns in all his assignments and his art teacher applauds him on his art project. At the ceremony, George’s name is called and his mom is shown to be proud of him. George goes back to the art classroom and looks at his art project: Sally's smiling face. Sally, having opted not to go to Europe with Dustin, enters the room and looks at the painting with George and the film closes. Production. The film finished shooting in New York City on April 23, 2010. Soundtrack. The music from the film was released by Rhino Records on June 14 as a CD soundtrack with 12 tracks.
1017566	Lucky Stars (or Five Lucky Stars; () was a Hong Kong action comedy film series in the 1980s and 1990s, blending Chinese martial arts with bawdy comedy. The films featured an ensemble cast, with many of the actors appearing in successive films. The characters of the "Five Lucky Stars" were originally petty criminals recently out of prison, who started their own cleaning company. By the second film, the cleaning company idea was discarded, and the bumbling gang were instead employed to assist the police. The original trilogy. The first three films were the most successful, directed by and starring Sammo Hung as one of the gang of "Lucky Stars", and featuring supporting roles and cameos from a variety of Hong Kong film stars, notably his Peking Opera School "brothers", Jackie Chan and Yuen Biao, as well as stars such as Andy Lau, Michelle Yeoh and Rosamund Kwan. The first film was "Winners and Sinners" (1983). The Chinese title, "Five Lucky Stars", was chosen because it was evocative of the Seven Little Fortunes (aka "The Lucky Seven"), the performance troupe at the Peking Opera School "The China Drama Academy". Hung got the idea for the plot from watching an old TV show, in which a group of police officers from different backgrounds worked together, each using their own particular skills. By giving the characters humorous and disparate backgrounds, he hoped to make an entertaining film. The original quintet of Lucky Stars in "Winners and Sinners" consisted of Sammo Hung, Richard Ng, Charlie Chin, Stanley Fung and John Shum. In the second film, "My Lucky Stars" (1985), Shum was replaced by Eric Tsang. In the third film, "Twinkle, Twinkle Lucky Stars" (1985), Chin played a cameo wherein he handed over the reins to his brother, played by Michael Miu. Shum returned in a supporting role. The later films. "Lucky Stars Go Places" (1986) was a departure from the original trilogy, with Hung giving up directing duties to Eric Tsang. Prior to joining the Lucky Stars crew, Tsang had directed the first two films in the "Aces Go Places" series - "Aces Go Places" (1982) and "Aces Go Places 2" (1983). Like the Lucky Stars films, they were successful action comedies with an ensemble cast. However, the plots were parodies of James Bond films and characters fought with guns more often rather than kung fu. "Lucky Stars Go Places" was an attempt to combine the styles and characters of the two film series'. Hung remained involved, producing the film and playing a supporting role, and other members of the original Lucky Stars gang made cameo appearances. However, the main roles were taken by other actors, a new group of "Lucky Stars" - notably including Andy Lau and Alan Tam. With fewer action scenes and a heavier reliance on comedy, the film was significantly different from its predecessors. Stanley Fung co-directed the fifth film, "Return of the Lucky Stars" (1989), with Chu Shek-Tsan, and co-wrote it with Wong Jing. He also starred in the film alongside Richard Ng and Eric Tsang, as well as the returning Michael Miu.
1060280	Hoffa is a 1992 American biographical film directed by Danny DeVito and written by David Mamet, based on the life of Teamsters Union leader Jimmy Hoffa. Jack Nicholson plays Hoffa, and DeVito plays Hoffa's fictional longtime friend Robert "Bobby" Ciaro, an amalgamation of several Hoffa associates over the years. The film also stars John C. Reilly, Robert Prosky, Kevin Anderson, Armand Assante, and J. T. Walsh. The original music score is by David Newman. Plot. Most of the story is told in flashbacks before ending with a version of Hoffa's mysterious disappearance. Jimmy Hoffa and Bobby Ciaro are first seen impatiently waiting in the parking lot of a roadhouse diner in 1975. Others are late for a meeting. Asked if he wants to leave, Hoffa gives Ciaro a scornful glance. The first flashback to 1935 then occurs: A young Hoffa approaches a parked truck, inside of which driver Ciaro is taking a nap. Hoffa pitches the benefits of joining the Teamsters. He gives Ciaro a business card, on which he has written: "Give this man whatever he needs." A few days later, Ciaro reports to work to find Hoffa attempting to organize the workers. Hoffa blurts out about their ride together and Ciaro is fired. He later accosts Hoffa with a Bowie Knife, but is persuaded to drop it at gunpoint by Hoffa's associate Billy Flynn. Ciaro joins the pair in the arson bombing of a laundry whose owner has refused to cooperate with the Teamsters. Flynn is badly burned and dies. Ciaro succeeds him as Hoffa's right-hand man. Another flashback shows a Teamsters strike. While strikers fight with non-union workers and police, Hoffa is taken to a local Mafia boss. Ciaro, who speaks Italian, comes along. An alliance between the Teamsters and the mob is formed. Hoffa meets Carol ("Dally") D'Allesandro, who would become his closest mob ally. James R. Hoffa rises to the presidency of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters. His illegal activities include the use of Teamster funds to provide loans to the mob. At a Congressional hearing, Hoffa is questioned by Robert F. Kennedy regarding his suspicious union activities. (Dialogue was taken directly from official transcripts.) A loud and bitter feud between Kennedy and Hoffa grows, especially after John F. Kennedy is elected U.S. President and brother Bobby becomes Attorney General.
1716270	Reinhard Selten (born 5 October 1930) is a German economist, who won the 1994 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences (shared with John Harsanyi and John Nash). He is also well known for his work in bounded rationality, and can be considered as one of the founding fathers of experimental economics. Biography. Selten was born in Breslau (Wrocław) in Lower Silesia, now in Poland, to a Jewish father, Adolf Selten, and Protestant mother, Käthe Luther.
1165155	David Janssen (March 27, 1931 – February 13, 1980) was an American film and television actor who is best known for his starring role as Dr. Richard Kimble in the television series "The Fugitive" (1963–1967). Janssen also had the title roles in three other series, "Richard Diamond, Private Detective", "Harry O" and "O'Hara, U.S. Treasury". In 1996 "TV Guide" ranked him number 36 on its 50 Greatest TV Stars of All Time list. Early life. Janssen was born as David Harold Meyer in Naponee, a village in Franklin County in southern Nebraska, to Harold Edward Meyer, a banker (May 12, 1906 – November 4, 1990) and Berniece Graf (May 11, 1910 – November 26, 1995). Following his parents' divorce in 1935, his mother moved with five-year-old David to Los Angeles, California, and later married Eugene Janssen (February 18, 1918 – March 30, 1996) in 1940 in Los Angeles. Young David used his stepfather's name after he entered show business as a child.
1663424	Unchained Memories is a 2003 documentary film about the stories of former slaves interviewed during the 1930s as part of the Federal Writers' Project. This HBO film interpretation directed by Ed Bell and Thomas Lennon is a compilation of slave narratives, narrated by actors, emulating the original conversation with the interviewer. The slave narratives may be the most accurate in terms of the everyday activities of the enslaved, serving as personal memoirs of more than two thousand former slaves. The documentary depicts the emotions of the slaves and what they endured. The "Master" had the opportunity to sell, trade, or kill the enslaved, for retribution should one slave not obey. History. The life of a slave prior to Emancipation popularized the stories of the Slave Narratives. The largest collection of slave narratives emerged from the Federal Writers Project. Created by the Federal Government to reduce unemployment during the 1930s, one component of the Federal Writers' Project involved interviews with thousands of former slaves in 17 states. The oral history interview project yielded an extraordinary set of 2,300 autobiographical documents. What emerges from these documents are pictures of living standards, the daily chores, and long days, were brought to light along with the stories of the good and bad "Master." The brutality, torture, and abuse under slavery are themes in the interviews. Scholars debate the accuracy of the accounts, and their value for historical work. After the Civil War ended in 1865, more than four million slaves were set free. The main objectives were to inform the public, and describe the history and life of the former slaves. More than 2,000 slave narratives, along with 500 photos are available online at the Library of Congress as part of the "Born in Slavery" project. Production. All that follow beneath are from the credits in "Unchained Memories" Music and sound. All that follow beneath are from the Internet Movie Database Musical selections used in "Unchained Memories". All that follow beneath are from the credits in "Unchained Memories" Photography. All that follow beneath are from the credits in Unchained Memories
1100480	Haskell Brooks Curry (September 12, 1900 – September 1, 1982) was an American mathematician and logician. Curry is best known for his work in combinatory logic; while the initial concept of combinatory logic was based on a single paper by Moses Schönfinkel, much of the development was done by Curry. Curry is also known for Curry's paradox and the Curry–Howard correspondence. There are three programming languages named after him, Haskell, Brooks and Curry, as well as the concept of "currying", a technique used for transforming functions in mathematics and computer science. Life. Curry was born on September 12, 1900, in Millis, Massachusetts, to Samuel Silas Curry and Anna Baright Curry, who ran a school for elocution. He entered Harvard University in 1916 to study medicine but switched to mathematics before graduating in 1920. After two years of graduate work in electrical engineering at MIT, he returned to Harvard to study physics, earning a MA in 1924. Curry's interest in mathematical logic started during this period when he was introduced to the Principia Mathematica, the attempt by Alfred North Whitehead and Bertrand Russell to ground mathematics in symbolic logic. Remaining at Harvard, Curry pursued a Ph.D. in mathematics. While he was directed by George Birkhoff to work on differential equations, his interests continued to shift to logic. In 1927, while an instructor at Princeton University, he discovered the work of Moses Schönfinkel in combinatory logic. Schönfinkel's work had anticipated much of Curry's own research, and as a consequence, he moved to Göttingen where he could work with Heinrich Behmann and Paul Bernays, who were familiar with Schönfinkel's work. Curry was supervised by David Hilbert and worked closely with Bernays, receiving a Ph.D. in 1930 with a dissertation on combinatory logic.
1059724	Sarah E. Polley (born January 8, 1979) is a Canadian actress and film director. Polley first attained notice in her role as Sara Stanley in the Canadian television series "Road to Avonlea". She has also starred in such films as "Exotica", "The Sweet Hereafter", "Guinevere", "Go", "The Weight of Water", "My Life Without Me", "The Adventures of Baron Munchausen", "Dawn of the Dead", "Splice", and "Mr. Nobody". Polley made her feature film directorial debut with "Away from Her", for which she won a Genie Award for Best Achievement in Direction and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay. Polley's second film, "Take This Waltz", premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2011. Her latest film, "Stories We Tell", is her first feature-length documentary. It had its world premiere at the 2012 Venice Film Festival, and its North American premiere followed at the Toronto International Film Festival. The Toronto Film Critics Association awarded it the $100,000 prize for best Canadian film of the year. Early life. Polley, the youngest of five siblings, was born in Toronto, Ontario. Her mother, Diane Elizabeth (née MacMillan), was an actress ("Street Legal") and casting director who died of cancer after Polley's 11th birthday. Polley grew up believing that her biological father was Michael Polley, a British-born actor and insurance agent who had attended acting classes with Albert Finney in England before moving to Canada. Polley discovered as an adult that her biological father was actually Harry Gulkin, with whom her mother had had an affair while working on a stage play in Montreal (as chronicled in Polley's film, "Stories We Tell"). Gulkin, the son of Russian Jewish immigrants, is a Quebec-born film producer who produced the 1975 Canadian film "Lies My Father Told Me". Polley met her biological father by accident and the connection was confirmed by a DNA test. Polley attended Subway Academy II, then Earl Haig Secondary School, but dropped out before graduating. Career. Early career and fall-out with Disney. Her first cinematic appearance was at the age of four, as Molly in the Disney film "One Magic Christmas". At age eight, she was cast as Ramona Quimby in the television series "Ramona", based on Beverly Cleary's books. That same year, she also played one of the lead characters in Terry Gilliam's "The Adventures of Baron Munchausen". Polley burst into the public eye the following year as Sara Stanley on the popular CBC television series "Road to Avonlea". The series made her famous and financially independent, and she was hailed as "Canada's Sweetheart" by the popular press. The show was picked up by the Disney Channel for distribution in the United States. At the age of 12 (around 1991), Polley attended an awards ceremony while wearing a peace sign to protest the first Gulf War. Disney executives asked her to remove it, and she refused. This soured her relationship with Disney, and she left "Road to Avonlea" in 1994. The show itself was cancelled in 1996, although she did return as Sara Stanley for an episode in 1995 and for the final episode in 1996. Acting career as adult. Polley appeared as Lily on the CBC television series, "Straight Up". It ran from 1996–1998 and she won the Gemini Award for Best Performance in a Children's or Youth Program or Series for her role. Polley's subsequent role as Nicole Burnell in the 1997 film "The Sweet Hereafter", brought her considerable attention in the United States; she was a fan favourite at the Sundance Film Festival. Her character in the film was an aspiring singer — on the soundtrack, she performed a cover of The Tragically Hip's "Courage" and Jane Siberry's "One More Colour", as well as the film's title track which she co-wrote with Mychael Danna. "Courage" was also played in the ending of an episode of "Charmed", "Long Live the Queen" (Season 4 Episode 20). Polley appeared to two critically acclaimed small movies; 1998's "Last Night", and the well-received 1999 film "Go" with budding actress Katie Holmes, to end out the 1990s. She was cast in the role of Penny Lane in the big-budget 2000 film "Almost Famous", but dropped out of the project to return to Canada for the low-budget "The Law of Enclosures". Her role in the 2003 film "My Life Without Me", garnered the Genie Award for Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role in 2004. In the same year, she starred in a lead role in the stylish and successful remake of "Dawn of the Dead", which was a departure from her other indie roles. In 2005 she starred in "The Secret Life of Words", opposite Tim Robbins and Julie Christie.
69900	Adaptive stepsize is a technique in numerical analysis used for many problems, but mainly for integration. It can be used for both normal integration (i.e. quadrature), or the process of solving an ordinary differential equation. This article focuses on the latter. For an explanation of adaptive stepsize in normal integration, see for example Romberg's method. As usual, an initial value problem is stated: Here, it is made clear that "y" and "f" can be vectors, as they will be when dealing with a system of coupled differential equations. In the rest of the article, this fact will be implicit. Suppose we are interested in obtaining a solution at point formula_2, given a function formula_3, an initial time point, formula_4, and an initial solution formula_5. Of course a numerical solution will generally have an error, so we assume formula_6, where formula_7 is the error. For simplicity, the following example uses the simplest integration method, the Euler method. Note that the Euler method is almost exclusively useful for educational purposes; in practice, higher-order (Runge-Kutta) methods are used due to their superior convergence and stability properties. Recall that the Euler method is derived from Taylor's theorem with the intermediate value theorem and the fact that formula_8: Which leads to the Euler method: And its local truncation error We mark this solution and its error with a formula_13. Since formula_14 is not known to us in the general case (it depends on the derivatives of formula_15), in order to say something useful about the error, a second solution should be created, using a stepsize that is smaller. For example half the original stepsize. Note that we have to apply Euler's method twice now, meaning we get two times the local error (in the worst case). Our new, and presumably more accurate solution is marked with a formula_16. Here, we assume error factor formula_14 is constant over the interval formula_22. In reality its rate of change is proportional to formula_23. Subtracting solutions gives the error estimate: This local error estimate is third order accurate. The local error estimate can be used to decide how stepsize formula_25 should be modified to achieve the desired accuracy. For example, if a local tolerance of formula_26 is allowed, we could let h evolve like: The formula_28 is a safety factor to ensure success on the next try. This should, in principle give an error of about formula_29 in the next try. If formula_30, we consider the step successful, and the error estimate is used to improve the solution: This solution is actually third order accurate in the local scope (second order in the global scope), but since there is no error estimate for it, this doesn't help in reducing the number of steps. This technique is called Richardson extrapolation. Beginning with an initial stepsize of formula_32, this theory facilitates our controllable integration of the ODE from point formula_33 to formula_34, using an optimal number of steps given a local error tolerance. Similar methods can be developed for higher order methods, such as the Runge-Kutta 4th order method. Also, a global error tolerance can be achieved by scaling the local error to global scope. However, you might end up with a stepsize that is prohibitively small, especially using this Euler based method. If you are interested in adaptive stepsize methods that use a so-called 'embedded' error estimate, see Fehlberg, Cash-Karp and Dormand-Prince. These methods are considered to be more computationally efficient, but have lower accuracy in their error estimates.
567005	After the Wedding () is a 2006 Danish drama directed by Susanne Bier, starring Mads Mikkelsen and Sidse Babett Knudsen. The film was a critical and popular success and was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, but lost out to "The Lives of Others". Plot. Jacob Petersen manages an Indian orphanage. With a small staff, he works as hard as he can to keep the orphanage afloat, and is personally invested in the young charges - in particular, Pramod, a young boy Jacob has cared for since the boy's birth. The orphanage has been in danger of collapse for eight years and now faces bankruptcy. A Danish corporation offers a substantial donation to maintain the orphanage, with the caveat that Jacob return to Denmark (where he grew up) to personally receive the funds. Apparently the CEO, Jørgen Hannson, wishes to meet Jacob.
1092400	Edward Witten (born August 26, 1951) is an American theoretical physicist and professor of mathematical physics at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey. Witten is a researcher in string theory, quantum gravity, supersymmetric quantum field theories, and other areas of mathematical physics. In addition to his contributions to physics, Witten's work has significantly impacted pure mathematics. In 1990 he became the first and so far only physicist to be awarded a Fields Medal by the International Mathematical Union. In 2004, "Time" magazine stated that Witten was widely thought to be the world's greatest living theoretical physicist. Birth and education. Witten was born in Baltimore, Maryland. He is the son of Lorraine (Wollach) Witten and Louis Witten, a theoretical physicist specializing in gravitation and general relativity. Witten attended the Park School of Baltimore (class of '68), and received his Bachelor of Arts with a major in history and minor in linguistics from Brandeis University in 1971. He published articles in "The New Republic" and "The Nation". In 1968, Witten published an article in "The Nation" arguing that the New Left had no strategy. He worked briefly for George McGovern's presidential campaign. McGovern lost the 1972 election in a landslide to Richard Nixon. Witten attended the University of Wisconsin–Madison for one semester as an economics graduate student before dropping out. He returned to academia, enrolling in applied mathematics at Princeton University in 1973, then shifting departments and receiving a Ph.D. in physics in 1976 under David Gross, the 2004 Nobel laureate in Physics. He held a fellowship at Harvard University (1976–77), was a junior fellow in the Harvard Society of Fellows (1977–80), and held a MacArthur Foundation fellowship (1982). Research. Fields medal work. Witten was awarded the Fields Medal by the International Mathematical Union in 1990, becoming the first physicist to win the prize. In a written address to the ICM, Michael Atiyah said of Witten, As an example of Witten's impact on pure mathematics, Atiyah cites his application of techniques from quantum field theory to the mathematical subject of low-dimensional topology. In the late 1980s, Witten coined the term "topological quantum field theory" for a certain type of physical theory in which the expectation values of observable quantities encode information about the topology of spacetime. In particular, Witten realized that a physical theory now called Chern-Simons theory could provide a framework for understanding the mathematical theory of knots and 3-manifolds. Although Witten's work was based on the mathematically ill-defined notion of a Feynman path integral and was therefore not mathematically rigorous, mathematicians were able to systematically develop Witten's ideas, leading to the theory of Reshetikhin–Turaev invariants. Another result for which Witten was awarded the Fields Medal was his (nonrigorous) proof in 1981 of the positive energy theorem in general relativity. This theorem asserts that (under appropriate assumptions) the total energy of a gravitating system is always positive and can be zero only if the geometry of spacetime is that of flat Minkowski space. It establishes Minkowski space as a stable ground state of the gravitational field. While the original proof of this result due to Richard Schoen and Shing-Tung Yau used variational methods, Witten's proof used ideas from supergravity theory to simplify the argument. A third area mentioned in Atiyah's address is Witten's work relating supersymmetry and Morse theory, a branch of mathematics that studies the topology of manifolds using the concept of a differentiable function. Witten's work gave a physical proof of a classical result, the Morse inequalities, by interpreting the theory in terms of supersymmetric quantum mechanics. M-theory. By the mid 1990s, physicists working on string theory had developed five different consistent versions of theory with the right properties to unify Einstein's theory of general relativity with the standard model of particle physics. These versions are known as type I, type IIA, type IIB, and the two flavors of heterotic string theory (SO(32) and "E"8×"E"8). The thinking was that out of these five candidate theories, only one was the actual correct theory of everything, and that theory was the one whose low energy limit matched the physics observed in our world today. Speaking at the string theory conference at University of Southern California in 1995, Witten made the surprising suggestion that these five string theories were in fact not distinct theories, but different limits of a single theory which he called M-theory. Witten's proposal was based on the observation that the five string theories can be mapped to one another by certain rules called dualities and are identified by these dualities. Witten's announcement led to a flurry of work now known as the second superstring revolution. Other work. Another of his contributions to physics was to the result of gauge/gravity duality. In 1997, Juan Maldacena formulated a result known as the AdS/CFT correspondence, which establishes a relationship between certain quantum field theories and theories of quantum gravity. Maldacena's discovery has dominated theoretical physics for the past 15 years because of its applications to theoretical problems in quantum gravity and quantum field theory. Witten's foundational work following Maldacena's insight has shed light on this relationship. In collaboration with Nathan Seiberg, Witten established several other highly influential results. In their paper on string theory and noncommutative geometry, Seiberg and Witten studied certain noncommutative quantum field theories that arise as limits of string theory. In another well known paper, they studied aspects of supersymmetric gauge theory. The latter paper, combined with Witten's earlier work on topological quantum field theory, led to revolutionary developments in the topology of smooth 4-manifolds, in particular the notion of Seiberg-Witten invariants. Awards and honors. Witten has been honored with numerous awards including a MacArthur Grant (1982), the Fields Medal (1990), the Nemmers Prize in Mathematics (2000), the National Medal of Science (2002), Pythagoras Award (2005), the Henri Poincaré Prize (2006), the Crafoord Prize (2008), the Lorentz Medal (2010) the Isaac Newton Medal (2010) and the Fundamental Physics Prize (2012). Since 1999, he is a Foreign Member of the Royal Society (London). Pope Benedict XVI appointed Witten as a member of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences (2006). He also appeared in the list of "TIME" magazine's 100 most influential people of 2004. In 2012 he became a fellow of the American Mathematical Society. Personal life. Witten is married to Chiara Nappi, a professor of physics at Princeton University. They have two daughters, Ilana and Daniela, and one son, Rafael, and a granddaughter Nava. Edward Witten serves on the board of directors of Americans for Peace Now.
1063362	Shrek Forever After (advertised as Shrek: The Final Chapter) is a 2010 American 3D computer-animated fantasy comedy film, and the fourth and final installment in the "Shrek" series, produced by DreamWorks Animation. The film was released by Paramount Pictures in cinemas on May 20, 2010 in Russia and on May 21, 2010 in the United States. It was also released in 3D and IMAX 3D formats. Although the film received mixed reviews from critics and opened lower than expected, it remained as the #1 film in the United States and Canada for three consecutive weeks and has grossed a worldwide total of over $752 million, making it a commercial success. Additionally, "Shrek Forever After" is DreamWorks Animation's second highest-grossing film at the foreign box office which "" surpassed. It is also the second highest grossing animated film of 2010, behind "Toy Story 3". Plot. Before Shrek and Donkey rescue Princess Fiona in the first film (despite Shrek's deal with Lord Farquaad), King Harold and Queen Lillian – desperate to lift their daughter's curse (despite Harold's deal with the Fairy Godmother and Prince Charming) – meet with con artist Rumpelstiltskin, who wishes to become King of Far Far Away in exchange for helping them. But before the deal is signed, Harold and Lillian learn that Fiona has been rescued. Rumpelstiltskin is then shown to have become washed up as a result and subsequently bitter towards Shrek for inadvertently ruining his plans. In the present, Shrek has steadily grown tired of being a family man and celebrity among the local villagers, leading him to yearn for the days when he felt like a "real ogre". He takes his family to Far Far Away to celebrate his children's first birthday. Shrek gets annoyed when the three little pigs eat the kids' cake along with most of the other party food. A boy named Butterpants (who is said to be a "big fan" of Shrek) demands that Shrek roar. After he lets out a frustrated roar the entire crowd cheers, reinforcing his belief that no one considers him to be a true ogre. This coupled with the fact that the birthday cakes were decorated with a "cute" Ogre named "Sprinkles" finally makes Shrek lose his temper and smashes the new birthday cake in front of everyone, then walks out in anger. He and Fiona argue outside about his reaction which ends with Shrek rashly agreeing that he was happier before he'd rescued her. After storming off, Shrek encounters Rumpelstiltskin. Rumpel, who had observed Shrek's angry outburst with Fiona, seizes his chance. He follows Shrek and arranges what appears to be an accident where he is trapped under his carriage. Shrek helps him and Rumpel being "grateful", gives Shrek a ride and a meal. When Shrek voices his frustrations, Rumpel offers to give Shrek a day to live like a real ogre in exchange for a day from his childhood that he would not remember being erased. Shrek signs the contract and appears in a reality where he is still feared by villagers. He takes the opportunity to cause some light hearted mischief until he finds wanted posters for the ogress Fiona and his home deserted and desolate. He is kidnapped by witches and taken to Rumpelstiltskin, now the King of Far Far Away and possibly Emperor of a good deal more, which has become derelict and run down. Rumpelstiltskin uses ogres (and some of Shrek's friends) for slavery. Upon inquiry, Rumpelstiltskin reveals that the day he erased was the day that Shrek was born. Therefore, Shrek never saved Fiona, never met Donkey, and consequently Rumpelstiltskin was able to get Harold and Lillian to sign their kingdom away, then cause them to disappear. When the day ends, Shrek will fade from existence. Shrek escapes Rumpelstiltskin's castle with Donkey. Initially terrified of Shrek, Donkey decides to trust him after seeing Shrek cry over his erased history, something he had never seen an ogre do before. After Shrek explains the situation, Donkey helps him find a loophole: the contract will be nullified if Shrek and Fiona share true love's kiss. Shrek and Donkey first travel to the dragon's keep where Fiona was kept and find the place deserted and the lava from the crater under the castle has been drained. They soon encounter a band of ogres who are resisting Rumpelstiltskin. The ogres are led by a still-cursed Fiona, who after escaping from the tower where she was held captive, keeps the retired and overweight Puss in Boots as a pet. Shrek does everything he can to gain Fiona's love, but she is too busy preparing an ambush on Rumpelstiltskin. She is also bitterly cynical and disillusioned about the power of true love and throws herself into planning Rumpelstiltskin's capture. While sparring with her, Fiona begins to like Shrek, but stops short of kissing him. Shrek is discouraged, but Puss encourages him to continue pursuing Fiona. During the ambush, the ogres are captured by the Pied Piper, though Shrek and Fiona managed to escape with the intervention of Puss and Donkey. Shrek insists Fiona kiss him, saying it will fix everything, but because Fiona does not truly love him it is ineffective. Upon hearing that Rumpelstiltskin is offering anything desired by the one who captures Shrek, Shrek surrenders himself in exchange for "all ogres" being released. Fiona remains in custody because, as Rumpelstiltskin points out, she is not "all ogre" (only by night, not by day). Shrek and Fiona are to be fed to Dragon, but Donkey, Puss and the ogres raid Rumpelstiltskin's castle, allowing Shrek and Fiona to both subdue Dragon and capture Rumpelstiltskin. As the sun rises, Shrek begins to fade from existence. But Fiona, having fallen in love with him, kisses him just before he disappears, thereby voiding the contract and restoring Shrek to his world just before he originally lashed out at everyone. Shrek embraces his friends and family with a newfound appreciation for everything he has, truly living happily forever after. Production. Following the success of "Shrek 2", a third and fourth "Shrek" film, along with plans for a final, fifth film, were announced in May 2004 by Jeffrey Katzenberg: ""Shrek 3" and "4" are going to reveal other unanswered questions and, finally, in the last chapter, we will understand how Shrek came to be in that swamp, when we meet him in the first movie." Katzenberg announced a title for the fourth film in October 2007, "Shrek Goes Fourth", explaining that "Shrek goes out into the world, forth!" However, in May 2009, DreamWorks Animation retitled the film to "Shrek Forever After", indicating that it would be the last in the "Shrek" series. In November, Bill Damaschke, head of creative production at DreamWorks Animation, confirmed with "All that was loved about Shrek in the first film is brought to the final film." Tim Sullivan was hired to write the script in 2005, but was later replaced by Darren Lemke and Josh Klausner. Klausner said about the script's evolution: "When I first came onto the project, it wasn't supposed to be the final chapter – there were originally going to be 5 "Shrek" movies. Then, about a year into the development, Jeffrey Katzenberg decided that the story that we'd come up with was the right way for Shrek's journey to end, which was incredibly flattering." Mike Mitchell would on board to direct the new installment, shortly before the release of the third film. There were also rumors in September 2008, while the film was still in pre-production, that Tom Cruise was considered voicing the movie's villain, but these would be later wrecked. Much of the film was written and recorded in New York City. Soundtrack. Similar to most of the other "Shrek" films, the film's original score was composed by British composer Harry Gregson-Williams. Release. "Shrek Forever After" premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival on April 21, 2010. It was publicly released on May 20, 2010, in Russia, while the American release followed the next day. The film was also released in IMAX 3D format. It was released on DVD, Blu-ray, and Blu-ray / DVD Combo Pack on December 7, 2010. As of March 13, 2011, the DVD has sold 3,438,198 copies and has made $57,634,242. The film is also included in "Shrek: The Whole Story", a box set released on the same day that included all 4 "Shrek" movies and additional bonus content. Reception. Critical response. "Shrek Forever After" received mixed reviews with several critics claiming that the film is better than "Shrek the Third", but lacking the story-rich detail as "Shrek" and "Shrek 2". Review aggregate website Rotten Tomatoes reported that 57% of critics have given the film a positive review, based on 188 reviews, with an average score of 5.9/10. Its consensus states "While not without its moments, "Shrek Forever After" too often feels like a rote rehashing of the franchise's earlier entries." Another review aggregator, Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 top reviews from mainstream critics, calculated an average score of 58 based on 35 reviews. Pete Hammond of "Boxoffice" gave the film 4.5 stars out of 5 writing "Hilarious and heartfelt from start to finish, this is the best "Shrek" of them all, and that's no fairy tale. Borrowing liberally from Frank Capra's "It's a Wonderful Life", this edition blends big laughs and emotion to explore what Far Far Away might have been like if Shrek never existed." James Berardinelli of "Reelviews" awarded the film 3/4 stars stating "Even though "Shrek Forever After" is obligatory and unnecessary, it's better than "Shrek the Third" and it's likely that most who attend as a way of saying goodbye to the Jolly Green Ogre will not find themselves wishing they had sought out a more profitable way of spending 90-odd minutes." Writing her critique for "Entertainment Weekly", Lisa Schwarzbaum graded the film a B- claiming "Everyone involved fulfills his or her job requirements adequately. But, the magic is gone, and "Shrek Forever After" is no longer an ogre phenomenon to reckon with." "Rolling Stone" film critic Peter Travers wrote "It's a fun ride. What's missing is the excitement of a new interpretation." Mary Pols, film critic for "Time", concluded her review with "Can an ogre jump a shark? I think so." Giving the film 1 star out of 4, Kyle Smith of the "New York Post" wrote that "After the frantic spurt of fairy-tale allusions and jokes in the first three "Shrek"s, this one inches along with a few mostly pointless action scenes and the occasional mild pun." Box office. "Shrek Forever After" earned $238,736,787 in North America, and $513,864,080 in other countries, for a worldwide total of $752,600,867. It is the 47th highest-grossing film, the 8th highest-grossing animated film, the fifth highest-grossing of 2010, the second highest-grossing 2010 animated film (behind "Toy Story 3"), and the second lowest-grossing "Shrek" film. "Shrek Forever After" had the widest release for an animated film (4,359 theaters - later expanded to 4,389) in North America. On its opening day (May 21, 2010) it took first place, grossing $20.8 million, which was lower than the opening days of the last two "Shrek" films. The film then opened in three days with $70,838,207, lower than box office analysts predictions of a $105 million opening and also lower than the two previous films of the franchise. Anne Globe, head of worldwide marketing for DreamWorks Animation, said they were happy with the film's opening since it debuted at #1 and also had the fifth best opening for an animated film at the American and Canadian box office. "Shrek Forever After" was in first place for three consecutive weekends. In North America, it was the eighth highest-grossing film of 2010, the fourth highest-grossing DreamWorks Animation film, 2010's third highest grossing animated film, trailing "Toy Story 3" and "Despicable Me" and the lowest-grossing "Shrek" film. Executives at DreamWorks Animation were impressed because the film earned $238.7 million in North America, although it was the fourth film in the series, seemingly being outgrown by its fans. Having made $513.9 million in other continents, it is the highest-grossing "Shrek" film, DreamWorks Animation's second biggest hit (behind ""), and the seventh highest-grossing animated film. It topped the weekend box office once, on July 16–18, 2010, with $46.3 million. In Russia and the CIS, its second highest-grossing country, it had a $19.7 million opening weekend which was a record among animated films. It earned $51.4 million in total. Third in terms of total earnings came the United Kingdom, Ireland and Malta, where it opened with £8.96 million ($13.6 million) and finished its box office run with £31.1 million ($51.1 million). Video game. "Shrek Forever After" is an action-adventure video game based on the movie of the same name. It was released by Activision on May 18, 2010. Cancelled sequel. Following the success of "Shrek 2" in May 2004, Jeffrey Katzenberg revealed that the "Shrek" story had been outlined into five films almost from the beginning. "Before the first one was finished we talked about what the whole story of Shrek is, and each of the chapters answers questions about the first movie and gives us an insight," said Katzenberg, ""Shrek 3" and "4" are going to reveal other unanswered questions and, finally, in the last chapter, we will understand how Shrek came to be in that swamp, when we meet him in the first movie." After the release of "Shrek the Third" in 2007, Katzenberg announced that the fifth film would be released in 2013. In May 2009, DreamWorks Animation (DWA) announced that the fourth film's title would be "Shrek Forever After", indicating that it would be the last in the "Shrek" series. Later that year, that was confirmed by Bill Damaschke, head of creative production at DWA, with him saying: "All that was loved about Shrek in the first film is brought to the final film." Josh Klausner, one of the writers of "Shrek Forever After", explained in 2010 the script's evolution: "When I first came onto the project, it wasn't supposed to be the final chapter — there were originally going to be 5 "Shrek" movies. Then, about a year into the development, Jeffrey Katzenberg decided that the story that we'd come up with was the right way for Shrek's journey to end..." Spin-off. "Puss in Boots" is a computer-animated feature film that was released on October 28, 2011. The movie is based on and follows the character of Puss in Boots on his adventures with Kitty Softpaws and mastermind Humpty Dumpty before his first appearance in "Shrek 2".
695670	Samina Peerzada (Punjabi, ; born as Samina Butt, on 9 April 1955) is a Pakistani television, film actress, and a director who has appeared in numerous films and television serials. Personal life. Peerzada was born into a Muslim family to Moinuddin Butt and Almas Butt in Lahore. Her father is a mechanical engineer. She did her graduation in Commerce. During her academic years, she took an active part in extracurricular activities. When she showed an inclination toward acting, both her parents supported her in adopting it as a profession. In 1975, she married Usman Peerzada, also an actor, who encouraged her career. She has two daughters, Anum and Amal Peerzada. Career. In 1976, she starred her film "Nazdikiyan". This was followed by many films, including "Bazaare Husn" and "Khawahish". She has a long list of television plays to her credit, among them the popular are "Raat" and "Hisar". She has also performed on stage for such successful productions as "Raaz-o-Niaz" and "Gurya Ghar". As director. Now, she has become one of the more promising directors hailing from Pakistan's film industry based in Lahore. She initially directed a string of successful television productions, such as "Sophia" and "Karb" for Pakistan Television, but later chose to move to the celluloid world with her rather controversial directorial debut, "Inteha", a film in which she also had a short role. "Inteha" was well received in the major urban centers of Pakistan, and paved way for Peerzada to direct "Shararat", a film which lacked the slick urban look which people related Peerzada's films with. Current projects. She has in recent years put cinema on the back-burner and has instead chosen to act in a number of television serials for the plethora of relatively new Pakistani cable / satellite channels. However, Peerzada returns to cinema with Saqib Malik's directorial debut "Ajnabee Shehr Mein" where she stars alongside Shaan and Ali Zafar. The film is expected to release sometimes this year. Peerzada has returned to acting in Pakistani television plays such as "Sheeshay Ka Mahal", "Kaanch", and "Ghar Gharonda". Recently, Samina Peerzada was invited by Amnesty International India in New Delhi for International Week of Justice Festival, from December 5–10, 2008, commemorating the 60th anniversary of Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Peerzada participated in three public forums for the festival at Jamia Millia Islamia and Alliance Francaise on the issues of women empowerment, democracy and torture. Awards. She has traveled widely, performed in Oslo in an Ibsen festival, and won many awards, including two presidential awards for her films and two Graduate Awards for her work on stage. Filmography. Actress
1044069	Valerie Leon (born 12 November 1943) is an English actress who had roles in a number of high-profile British film franchises, including the "Carry On" series. Early life. Her father was a director of a textile company, and her mother, who trained at RADA, ended her acting career in order to become a full-time mother. She is the eldest of four privately educated children. After leaving school, she became a trainee fashion buyer at Harrods, before playing truant one day to go to an audition which led to her becoming a chorus girl, and then appearing with Barbra Streisand in "Funny Girl" at The Prince of Wales Theatre in London. Film appearances. Leon appeared in several of the "Carry On" films and has been a Bond girl twice: in "The Spy Who Loved Me" (1977) and "Never Say Never Again" (1983). Other supporting appearances include "Revenge of the Pink Panther", "The Rise and Rise of Michael Rimmer" (as the secretary Tanya), a hotel receptionist in "The Italian Job", and a callgirl in "No Sex Please, We're British", alongside fellow "Carry On" actress Margaret Nolan. The 1971 Hammer horror film "Blood from the Mummy's Tomb" offered Leon a rare lead role, as a reincarnated Egyptian queen. Television. On television, Leon is probably best remembered for her part as a tall buxom woman driven wild by a small and puny man wearing Hai Karate aftershave, in a series of commercials for the product. She also appeared in "The Saint", "Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased)", "Up Pompeii!", "The Avengers", "", "The Persuaders", and in "The Goodies" comedy episode "It Might as Well Be String". Personal life. Leon was married to the BBC's Head Of Comedy, Michael Mills from 1974 until his death in 1988. The marriage produced two children, a boy, Leon, born in 1975 and a girl, Merope, born in 1977, who is a journalist on "The Guardian" newspaper and currently editor of the "Weekend" supplement.
1103156	Marie-Sophie Germain (; April 1, 1776 – June 27, 1831) was a French mathematician, physicist, and philosopher. Despite initial opposition from her parents and difficulties presented by society, she gained education from books in her father's library and from correspondence with famous mathematicians such as Lagrange, Legendre, and Gauss. One of the pioneers of elasticity theory, she won the grand prize from the Paris Academy of Sciences for her essay on the subject. Her work on Fermat's Last Theorem provided a foundation for mathematicians exploring the subject for hundreds of years after. Because of prejudice against her gender, she was unable to make a career out of mathematics, but she worked independently throughout her life. In recognition of her contribution towards advancement of mathematics, an honorary degree was also conferred upon her by University of Göttingen six years after her death. Sophie Germain Prize. The Sophie Germain Prize, awarded annually by the Foundation Sophie Germain is conferred by the Academy of Sciences in Paris. Its purpose is to crown a researcher who has conducted research in fundamental mathematics. This award, in the amount of €8,000 was established in 2003, under the auspices of the Institut de France and its name pays homage to mathematician Sophie Germain. Previous winners have included Early life. Family. Marie-Sophie Germain was born on April 1, 1776, in Paris, France, in a house on Rue Saint-Denis. According to most sources, her father, Ambroise-Franҫois, was a wealthy silk merchant, though some believe he was a goldsmith. In 1789, he was elected as a representative of the bourgeoisie to the États-Généraux, which he saw change into the Constitutional Assembly. It is therefore assumed that Sophie witnessed many discussions between her father and his friends on politics and philosophy. Gray proposes that after his political career, Ambroise-Franҫois became the director of a bank; at least, the family remained well-off enough to support Germain throughout her adult life. Marie-Sophie had one younger sister, named Angélique-Ambroise, and one older sister, named Marie-Madeline. Her mother was also named Marie-Madeline, and this plethora of "Maries" may have been the reason she went by Sophie. Germain's nephew Armand-Jacques Lherbette, Marie-Madeline's son, published some of Germain's work after she died (see Work in Philosophy). Introduction to mathematics. When Germain was 13, the Bastille fell, and the revolutionary atmosphere of the city forced her to stay inside. For entertainment she turned to her father's library. Here she found J. E. Montucla's "L'Histoire des Mathématiques", and his story of the death of Archimedes intrigued her. Germain decided that if geometry, which at that time referred to all of pure mathematics, could hold such fascination for Archimedes, it was a subject worthy of study. So she pored over every book on mathematics in her father's library, even teaching herself Latin and Greek so she could read works like those of Sir Isaac Newton and Leonhard Euler. She also enjoyed "Traité d'Arithmétique" by Étienne Bézout and "Le Calcul Différentiel" by Jacques Antoine-Joseph Cousin. Later, Cousin visited her in her house, encouraging her in her studies. Germain's parents did not at all approve of her sudden fascination with mathematics, which was then thought inappropriate for a woman. When night came, they would deny her warm clothes and a fire for her bedroom to try to keep her from studying, but after they left she would take out candles, wrap herself in quilts and do mathematics. As UC Irvine's Women's Studies professor Lynn Osen describes, when her parents found Sophie “asleep at her desk in the morning, the ink frozen in the ink horn and her slate covered with calculations,” they realized that their daughter was serious and relented. After some time, her mother even secretly supported her. École Polytechnique. In 1794, when Germain was 18, the École Polytechnique opened. As a woman, Germain was barred from attending, but the new system of education made the “lecture notes available to all who asked." The new method also required the students to “submit written observations." Germain obtained the lecture notes and began sending her work to Joseph Louis Lagrange, a faculty member. She used the name of a former student Monsieur Antoine-August Le Blanc, “fearing,” as she later explained to Gauss, “the ridicule attached to a female scientist." When Lagrange saw the intelligence of M. LeBlanc, he requested a meeting, and thus Sophie was forced to disclose her true identity. Fortunately, Lagrange did not mind that Germain was a woman, and he became her mentor. He too visited her in her home, giving her moral support. Early work in number theory. Correspondence with Legendre. Germain first became interested in number theory in 1798 when Adrien-Marie Legendre published "Essai sur la théorie des nombres". After studying the work, she opened correspondence with him on number theory, and later, elasticity. Legendre showed some of Germain's work in the "Supplément" to his second edition of the "Théorie des Nombres", where he calls it "très ingénieuse" ["very ingenious"] (See Best Work on Fermat's Last Theorem). Correspondence with Gauss. Germain's interest in number theory was renewed when she read Carl Friedrich Gauss' monumental work "Disquisitiones Arithmeticae". After three years of working through the exercises and trying her own proofs for some of the theorems, she wrote, again under the pseudonym of M. LeBlanc, to the author himself, who was one year younger than she. The first letter, dated 21 November 1804, discussed Gauss' "Disquisitiones" and presented some of Germain's work on Fermat's Last Theorem. In the letter, Germain claimed to have proved the theorem for "n" = "p" – 1, where "p" is a prime number of the form "p" = 8"k" + 7; however, her proof contained a weak assumption. Gauss' reply did not comment on Germain's proof. Around 1807 (sources differ) the French were occupying the German town of Braunschweig, where Gauss lived. Germain, concerned that he might suffer the fate of Archimedes, wrote to General Pernety, a family friend, requesting that he ensure Gauss' safety. General Pernety sent a chief of a battalion to meet with Gauss personally to see that he was safe. As it turned out, Gauss was fine, but he was confused by the mention of Sophie's name. Three months after the incident, Germain disclosed her true identity to Gauss. He replied, How can I describe my astonishment and admiration on seeing my esteemed correspondent M leBlanc metamorphosed into this celebrated person. . . when a woman, because of her sex, our customs and prejudices, encounters infinitely more obstacles than men in familiarising herself with theory's knotty problems, yet overcomes these fetters and penetrates that which is most hidden, she doubtless has the most noble courage, extraordinary talent, and superior genius. Gauss' letters to Olbers show that his praise for Germain was sincere. In the same 1807 letter, Sophie claimed that if "x""n" + "y""n" is of the form "h"2 + "nf"2, then "x" + "y" is also of that form. Gauss replied with a counterexample: 1511 + 811 can be written as "h"2 + 11"f"2, but 15 + 8 cannot. Although Gauss thought well of Germain, his replies to her letters were often delayed, and he generally did not review her work. Eventually his interests turned away from number theory, and in 1809 the letters ceased. Despite the friendship of Germain and Gauss, they never met. Work in elasticity. Germain's first attempt for the Academy Prize. When Germain's correspondence with Gauss ceased, she took interest in a contest sponsored by the Paris Academy of Sciences concerning Ernst Chladni's experiments with vibrating metal plates. The object of the competition, as stated by the Academy, was “to give the mathematical theory of the vibration of an elastic surface and to compare the theory to experimental evidence." Lagrange's comment that a solution to the problem would require the invention of a new branch of analysis deterred all but two contestants, Denis Poisson and Germain. Then Poisson was elected to the Academy, thus becoming a judge instead of a contestant, and leaving Germain as the only entrant to the competition. In 1809 Germain began work. Legendre assisted by giving her equations, references, and current research. She submitted her paper early in the fall of 1811, and did not win the prize. The judging commission felt that “the true equations of the movement were not established,” even though “the experiments presented ingenious results.” Lagrange was able to use Germain's work to derive an equation that was “correct under special assumptions.” Subsequent attempts for the Prize. The contest was extended by two years, and Germain decided to try again for the prize. At first Legendre continued to offer support, but then he refused all help. Germain's anonymous 1813 submission was still littered with mathematical errors, especially involving double integrals, and it received only an honorable mention because “the fundamental base of the theory elastic surfaces was not established." The contest was extended once more, and Germain began work on her third attempt. This time she consulted with Poisson. In 1814 he published his own work on elasticity, and did not acknowledge Germain's help (although he had worked with her on the subject and, as a judge on the Academy commission, had had access to her work). Germain submitted her third paper, “Recherches sur la théorie des surfaces élastiques” under her own name, and on 8 January 1816 she became the first woman to win a prize from the Paris Academy of Sciences. She did not appear at the ceremony to receive her award. Although Germain had at last been awarded the "prix extraordinaire", the Academy was still not fully satisfied. Sophie had derived the correct differential equation, but her method did not predict experimental results with great accuracy, as she had relied on an incorrect equation from Euler, which led to incorrect boundary conditions. Here is Germain's final equation: where "N"2 is a constant. After winning the Academy contest, she was still not able to attend its sessions because of the Academy's tradition of excluding women other than the wives of members. Seven years later this tradition was broken when she made friends with Joseph Fourier, a secretary of the Academy, who obtained tickets to the sessions for her. Later work in elasticity. Germain published her prize-winning essay at her own expense in 1821, mostly because she wanted to present her work in opposition to that of Poisson. In the essay she pointed out some of the errors in her method. In 1826 she submitted a revised version of her 1821 essay to the Academy. According to Andrea del Centina, a math professor at the University of Ferrara in Italy, the revision included attempts to clarify her work by “introducing certain simplifying hypotheses." This put the Academy in an awkward position, as they felt the paper to be “inadequate and trivial,” but they did not want to “treat her as a professional colleague, as they would any man, by simply rejecting the work.” So Augustin-Louis Cauchy, who had been appointed to review her work, recommended she publish it, and she followed his advice. One further work of Germain's on elasticity was published posthumously in 1831: her “Mémoire sur la courbure des surfaces.” She used the mean curvature in her research (see Honors in Number Theory). Later work in number theory. Renewed interest. Germain's best work was in number theory, and her most significant contribution to number theory dealt with Fermat's Last Theorem. In 1815, after the elasticity contest, the Academy offered a prize for a proof of Fermat's Last Theorem. It reawakened Germain's interest in number theory, and she wrote to Gauss again after ten years of no correspondence. In the letter, Germain said that number theory was her preferred field, and that it was in her mind all the time she was studying elasticity. She outlined a strategy for a general proof of Fermat's Last Theorem, including a proof for a special case (see Best Work on Fermat's Last Theorem). Germain's letter to Gauss contained the first substantial progress toward a proof in 200 years. She asked Gauss if her approach to the theorem was worth pursuing. Gauss never answered. Best work on Fermat's Last Theorem. Fermat's Last Theorem is commonly divided into two cases. Case 1 involves all "p" that do not divide any of "x", "y", or "z". Case 2 includes all "p" that divide at least one of "x", "y", or "z". Germain proposed the following, commonly called “Sophie Germain's Theorem”: Let "p" be an odd prime. If there exists an auxiliary prime "P" = 2"Np" + 1 such that: Then the first case of Fermat's Last Theorem holds true for "p". Germain used this result to prove the first case of Fermat's Last Theorem for all odd primes "p"5 must be numbers “whose size frightens the imagination,” around 40 digits long. Sophie did not publish this work. Her brilliant theorem is known only because of the footnote in Legendre's treatise on number theory, where he used it to prove Fermat's Last Theorem for "p" = 5 (see Correspondence with Legendre). Germain also proved or nearly proved several results that were attributed to Lagrange or were rediscovered years later. Del Centina states that “after almost two hundred years her ideas were still central”, but ultimately her method did not work. Work in philosophy. In addition to mathematics, Germain studied philosophy and psychology. She wanted to classify facts and generalize them into laws that could form a system of psychology and sociology, which were then just coming into existence. Her philosophy was highly praised by Auguste Comte. Two of her philosophical works, "Pensées diverses" and "Considérations générales sur l'état des sciences et des lettres, aux différentes époques de leur culture", were published, both posthumously. This was due in part to the efforts of Lherbette, her nephew, who collected her philosophical writings and published them. "Pensées" is a history of science and mathematics with Sophie's commentary. In "Considérations", the work admired by Comte, Sophie argues that there are no differences between the sciences and the humanities. Final years. In 1829 Germain learned she had breast cancer. Despite the pain, she continued to work. In 1831 "Crelle's Journal" published her paper on the curvature of elastic surfaces and “a note about finding and in formula_2." And American University's Gray records, “She also published in "Annales de chimie et de physique" an examination of principles which led to the discovery of the laws of equilibrium and movement of elastic solids." On June 27 of 1831, she died in the house at 13 rue de Savoie. Despite Germain's intellectual achievements, her death certificate lists her as a “rentière – annuitant” (property holder), not a “mathematicienne." But her work was not unappreciated by everyone. When the matter of honorary degrees came up at the University of Göttingen six years after Germain's death, Gauss lamented, “ proved to the world that even a woman can accomplish something worthwhile in the most rigorous and abstract of the sciences and for that reason would well have deserved an honorary degree." Honors. Memorials. Germain's resting place in the Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris is marked by a crumbling gravestone. At the centennial celebration of her life, a street and a girls' school were named after her, and a plaque was placed at the house where she died. The school houses a bust commissioned by the Paris City Council. Honors in number theory. E. Dubouis defined a "sophien" of a prime to be a prime where , for such that yield such that has no solutions when and are prime to . A Sophie Germain prime is a prime such that is also prime. The "Germain curvature" (also called mean curvature) is formula_3, when and are the maximum and minimum values of the normal curvature. "Sophie Germain's Identity" states that for any }, then, Criticisms. Contemporary praise and criticisms. Vesna Petrovich, a graduate of the University of Michigan, found that the educated world's response to the publication in 1821 of Germain's prize-winning essay “ranged from polite to indifferent". Yet, some critics had high praise for it. Of her essay in 1821, Cauchy said, “ was a work for which the name of its author and the importance of the subject both deserved the attention of mathematicians." H. J. Mozans, whose biography of Germain "is inaccurate and the notes and bibliography are unreliable", but is nevertheless interesting, quotes the mathematician Claude-Louis Navier as saying, "it is a work which few men are able to read and which only one woman was able to write." Germain's contemporaries also had good things to say relating to her work in mathematics. Osen relates that “Baron de Prony called her the Hypatia of the nineteenth century,” and “J.J Biot wrote, in the "Journal de Savants", that she had probably penetrated the science of mathematics more deeply than any other of her sex." Gauss certainly thought highly of her, and he recognized that European culture presented special difficulties to a woman in mathematics (see Correspondence with Gauss). Modern praise and criticisms. The modern view generally acknowledges that although Germain had great talent as a mathematician, her haphazard education had left her without the strong base she needed to truly excel. As explained by Gray, “Germain's work in elasticity suffered generally from an absence of rigor, which might be attributed to her lack of formal training in the rudiments of analysis." Petrovich adds, “This proved to be a major handicap when she could no longer be regarded as a young prodigy to be admired but was judged by her peer mathematicians.” Notwithstanding the problems with Germain's theory of vibrations, Gray states that “Germain's work was fundamental in the development of a general theory of elasticity.” H. J. Mozans writes, however, that when the Eiffel tower was built and the architects inscribed the names of 72 great French scientists, Germain's name was not among them: despite the salience of her work to the towers construction “Was she excluded from this list... because she was a woman? It would seem so." Concerning her early work in number theory, J. H. Sampson, author of “Sophie Germain and the Theory of Numbers,” states, “She was clever with formal algebraic manipulations; but there is little evidence that she really understood the "Disquisitiones", and her work of that period that has come down to us seems to touch only on rather superficial matters." Gray adds that “The inclination of sympathetic mathematicians to praise her work rather than to provide substantive criticism from which she might learn was crippling to her mathematical development." Yet Marilyn Bailey Ogilvie, Curator of the History of Science Collections and Professor of the History of Science at the University of Oklahoma recognizes that “Sophie Germain's creativity manifested itself in pure and applied mathematics... provided imaginative and provocative solutions to several important problems," and, as Petrovich proposes, it may have been her very lack of training that gave her unique insights and approaches. Louis Bucciarelli and Nancy Dworsky, Germain's biographers, summarize as follows: “All the evidence argues that Sophie Germain had a mathematical brilliance that never reached fruition due to a lack of rigorous training available only to men." Germain in popular culture. Germain was referenced and quoted in David Auburn's 2001 play "Proof." The protagonist is a young struggling female mathematician, who found great inspiration in the work of Germain. Germain was also mentioned in John Madden's 2005 movie "Proof" in a conversation between Gwyneth Paltrow and Jake Gyllenhaal's characters. In the fictional work "The Last Theorem" by Arthur C. Clarke and Frederik Pohl, Sophie Germain was credited with inspiring Ranjit Subramanian to solve Fermat's Last Theorem.
1170190	John David Carson (March 6, 1952 - October 27, 2009) was an American actor. He was born in North Hollywood, California. Carson began his career at a young age, acting in television advertisements, and later doing cartoon voice-acting for Hanna-Barbera. He attended Los Angeles Valley College where he played a lead role in their 1969 production of The Taming Of The Shrew. Upon beginning his Hollywood career he was immediately engaged in a dispute with Johnny Carson over the use of their shared name - he subsequently went by his full name, "John David Carson." He appeared in many B-movies and television shows throughout the 1970s and 1980s. Film career. Carson's first feature film was "Pretty Maids All in a Row" in 1971, a sex comedy set in a high school, also featuring Rock Hudson. Carson portrayed "Ponce de Leon Harper", a nerdy and sexually inexperienced young man who is tormented with lust at the pretty young women around him at school and suffers from chronic priapism. Ponce is eventually "mentored" by his guidance counselor, played by Hudson, an expert at seducing younger women, who takes him under his wing and persuades an attractive female teacher to sleep with him. This film was directed by Roger Vadim and the screenplay was written by Gene Roddenberry of "Star Trek" fame. Besides Hudson, the cast also included Telly Savalas, Angie Dickinson, Roddy McDowall and James Doohan – by all rights, an "all-star" cast both behind and in front of the camera. Nevertheless this was an anomaly of Carson's career, and he was thereafter relegated mostly to background roles despite his standout performance. Aside from "Pretty Maids All in a Row", Carson's most notable role was in the 1976 film "Stay Hungry", alongside Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jeff Bridges and Sally Field. He portrayed the notorious troublemaker "Halsey", whose obnoxious antics and mockery of Joe Santo (Schwarzenegger) touch off one of the primary conflicts of the film. Carson appeared in a great deal of television productions, including "Hawaii Five-O" and "Charlie's Angels", typically playing bit parts. He portrayed "Jay Spence" on "Falcon Crest", a prime-time soap opera. He played "Larry Burns", a television repairman who is framed for a woman's murder by a corrupt sheriff, on "Murder She Wrote" and an Irish jockey named "Kevin Ryan" on "Charlie's Angels". He appeared in various B-movies such as "Empire of the Ants" – an adaptation of an H. G. Wells story about gigantic, man-eating ants – and "The Creature from Black Lake", and acted alongside George C. Scott in "The Day of the Dolphin". He again appeared opposite Scott, playing his character's son, in "The Savage is Loose". Carson continued acting in small parts up until 1990, appearing in the Julia Roberts hit "Pretty Woman", which marked his very last appearance on film. He voluntarily retired from acting after this role. He wrote a screenplay while living in Las Vegas, which was semi-autobiographical and reflected the trials and experiences of his life as an actor. George C. Scott was to be featured in it, though the character representing Carson would be played by a young, "unknown" actor with the same background as himself. Scott, who was close with Carson, was to help produce the screenplay; after Scott's death, the plans for production were abandoned. The current whereabouts of the screenplay are not known. Personal life. Carson was the son of Western actor Aldrich "Kit" Carson and Rosamonde "Boots" James Carson, a fashion model, and was of Irish and Cherokee ancestry. He entered Hollywood from a theater background; at the time of his arrival on the motion-picture scene, he had already undergone several traumatic incidents. His parents had split up; furthermore, he had been involved in a serious motorcycle accident which left him almost completely deaf in his left ear, according to an interview in "Interview Magazine". At only 17 years old, Carson was quite overwhelmed by these personal issues and by the pressure he felt in his acting career. He turned to LSD to attempt to gain some self-realization. By his own admission, "it provided a catharsis" for him, but also left him frequently confused. In this same interview he complained of sexual advances towards him by male directors of films and theater productions. In his own words - "I don't care about anybody's sexual preferences - I really don't; I wouldn't want anyone to object to my sexual preferences. But when it's forced on you, for reasons of personal gain - when they say it's going to be the end of your career if you don't comply with their wishes - I think it's low, it's cheap." Carson attributed some of his lack of success in theater to this issue. Carson was raised as a Christian Scientist, which he claimed to still practice on a day to day basis. In the interview he also expressed an interest in Scientology and astrology.
629304	The Tracker is an Australian drama film produced in 2002. It was directed and written by Rolf de Heer. It is a set in 1922 in outback Australia where a racist white colonial policeman (Gary Sweet) used the tracking ability of an Indigenous Australian tracker (David Gulpilil) to find the murderer of a white woman. The tagline is "All men choose the path they walk.' Plot. The film is set in the early 20th century Australian outback, where four men are following an Aboriginal man who has been accused of murder. The characters in the film are referred to by their characters rather than by names, they are: Production. The film was shot in the semi-arid, rugged Arkaroola Sanctuary, in South Australia's Flinders Ranges. De Heer used an intentionally small film crew, saying that "“It's all a much better process ...”". The film is intercut with paintings by Peter Coad which portray brutal actions not shown, while the lyrics of the soundtrack (written by De Heer) form part of the narrative, and are sung by Archie Roach with music composed by Graham Tardif. Reception. Film review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes assessed the film at 88% on its tomatometer with an average 7.1/10 rating. Renowned film critic Roger Ebert gave the film three-and-a-half stars out of four calling the film "haunting" and the performances "powerful". David Stratton described the film as "remarkable".
1068390	Johnny Dangerously is a 1984 comedy spoof of 1930s' crime/gangster movies. It was directed by Amy Heckerling; its four screenwriters included Bernie Kukoff and Jeff Harris who had previously created the hit TV series "Diff'rent Strokes". The movie stars Michael Keaton as an honest, goodhearted man who is forced to turn to a life of crime to finance his neurotic mother's skyrocketing medical bills and to put his younger brother through law school. It also features Joe Piscopo, Marilu Henner, Maureen Stapleton, Peter Boyle, Griffin Dunne, Dom DeLuise, Danny DeVito, Dick Butkus and Alan Hale, Jr.. Plot summary. The year is 1935. A pet shop owner catches a young boy shoplifting a puppy. To discourage the kid from a life of crime, the owner tells a story . . .
586427	Gayab () () is a Hindi film released in the summer of the year 2004. It stars Tusshar Kapoor and Antara Mali as the lead protagonist. It was remade in Tamil as Githan. Plot. Vishnu Prasad (Tusshar Kapoor) is an unappreciated nerd. His mother nags him and his father ignores him. He is in love with his neighbour Mohini (Antara Mali), but she already has a boyfriend - Sameer (Raman Trikha). Vishnu sees Mohini in a cafe with Sameer. As Sameer goes to get drinks, Mohini's eyes meet Vishnu's. A shy and nervous Vishnu accidentally winks at Mohini which angers Sameer into hitting him. Vishnu bursts into tears. Sad and depressed from his life he goes to a beach. Angry at God for the life He has given him, Vishnu asks the statue to make him disappear from the world as no one likes him. When he reaches home, he discovers that God took his wish literally and turned him invisible. Excited and happy Vishnu gets many opportunities to spy on Mohini and get her boyfriend in trouble. He realises that he cannot wear any other clothes than the ones he was wearing on the day he received the boon because those were the only clothes that turned invisible with him. When Vishnu sees his father is worried about him and also because of a nagging wife, he tells his father about his secret and calms him down. He plays the role of an invisible ghost to teach his mother a lesson. His mother gets scared thinking that the ghost is of her late Father-in-law and faints. Vishnu thinks that he needs money to impress Mohini. So he robs a bank and brings her all the cash but Mohnini is shocked and terrified. Vishnu decides to tells her everything. Mohini flies in a rage and tells Vishnu to leave her alone as she is in love with Sameer. Alone and heartbroken Vishnu gets drunk and wanders the streets. The media makes up incredible stories after the bank robbery done by an "invisible force" and they try to get more information. The police department takes action and tries to hunt down the "invisible-man". Sameer decides to leave town with Mohini before Vishnu comes back looking for them again but they are unable to do so. So they go into hiding and Vishnu demands that the police bring him Mohini or else he will wreak havoc throughout the city. He also threatens them by comically disturbing the streets and a portion of the city. The police finds Mohini and pleads with her to help them find and kill Vishnu before he becomes an invisible murderer and a threat to the whole nation. Mohini agrees to help in their mission and goes to an abandoned building to meet Vishnu, as demanded by him. As Mohini diverts Vishnu's attention by involving him in a conversation, the cops surround the place to capture him. Vishnu tells Mohini that he has been wrong all along and that he has always loved her. He tells her that he has realised that loving her doesn't mean that he has control over her life. Mohini is struck by his words and realises that he is not a bad person. She decides to save his life and tells him to run away as the cops are already in the building. Vishnu runs for his life and dives into a river as the cops shoot him. Minutes later Vishnu's clothes(now visible) are the only things to surface. But his body is not found. Vishnu is presumed dead by the police and media. A few days later Sameer and Mohini find Vishnu again on the side of the same river in which he supposedly drowned. Vishnu apologises to them for whatever wrong he did and decides to lead a normal life. Vishnu is arrested and faces trial. Guilty of his acts he spends a short time in jail and is later released. Many months later, Vishnu is recognised by the nation as a hero and he has helped the police solve several cases while still leading an invisible but normal life.
1151659	Tura Satana (July 10, 1938 – February 4, 2011) was an American actress and former exotic dancer. She was best known for her role as "Varla" in Russ Meyer's 1965 cult film, "Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!". Early life. Satana was born Tura Luna Pascual Yamaguchi in Hokkaidō, Japan. Her father was a silent movie actor of Japanese and Filipino descent, and her mother was a circus performer of American Indian (Cheyenne) and Scottish background. After the end of World War II and a stint in the Manzanar internment camp in Lone Pine, California, she and her family moved to Chicago. She developed breasts very early and, despite being an excellent student, was constantly harassed for her figure and Asian heritage. Walking home from school just before her 10th birthday she was gang raped by five men. According to Satana, her attackers were never prosecuted and it was rumored that the judge had been paid off. She tells how this prompted her to learn the martial arts of aikido and karate and, over the next 15 years, track down each rapist and exact revenge. "I made a vow to myself that I would someday, somehow get even with all of them", she said years later. "They never knew who I was until I told them."
583724	Kadhalar Dhinam (;) is a 1999 Tamil romantic film directed by Kathir. This film is based on a relationship which begins through an internet chatroom and takes a turn after the protagonist has second thoughts about the relationship. The film featured newcomer Kunal Singh and Sonali Bendre in the lead roles, while Nassar, Manivannan, Goundamani and Chinni Jayanth appeared in supporting roles. The film produced by A.M. Ratnam, had music composed by A. R. Rahman and cinematography by P. C. Sriram. The film was released in April 1999 to average reviews The film was also dubbed in Telugu as "Premikula Roju", while the producer reshot a few new scenes and casted regional actors before dubbing it in Hindi as "Dil Hi Dil Mein". Plot. Raja (Kunal) is from a poor family. Raja's dad is violent and an alcoholic. He spends the family's income on alcohol. Raja's family struggles to work hard everyday. Raja's mom requests him to move to Mumbai to start a new life. Raja approves his mom's request and moves to Mumbai to attend Ramachandra College. The movie starts off at a train station on New Year Day. Raja talks with a person (Manivannan) who was well-wishing him. Due to insistence, Raja goes into a flash back. A few years ago, he reaches Mumbai, where he plans to get admitted into the prestigious Ramachandra College. He gains admission for an MBA program at the Ramachandra College in Mumbai with the help of the college chairman, Ramachandra (Nassar), but he doesn't realize this at first. He thought that he managed to get a seat due to his own abilities. Raja meets Roja (Sonali Bendre) through the Internet. After a brief introduction, Raja and Roja started loving each other. They have yet to see each other and thus,they sent their pictures through e-mail to each other. As Roja checks her e-mail and sees Raja's photo, Raja enters the Net Cafe where Roja was. Then, they meet each other. They are initially shocked by seeing each other as Roja told him that she is in America and Raja told her that he is in London, although they were both in India and were studying in the same college. The very next day, Raja meets Roja again in the train station where he usually comes to board the train. Again they are both surprised and were speechless when they saw each other. However, things take a turn for the bad when they are both unable to express their feelings about each other due to fated accidents. Raja wanted to see if Roja really likes him by asking her to wear a rose on her head. But, as she walks towards the train station, her rose drops off. Unaware of this, Raja believes that Roja really doesn't like him. Ramachandra meets him and tells him to be practical. He suggests that Raja should write her a love letter. As Raja doesn't know how to write one, Ramachandra helps him. Even his daughter, Roja, helps him write a letter for Raja, unaware that it was for Raja that the father was writing it. The next day, Raja meets her in the train station and gives her his books, with the love letter inside of it. Not knowing why he gave her his books, she just skims through his books, accidentally causing his love letter to fly away. However, Roja does write a love letter to him too. As she returns his books, a long-lost friend of Raja meets him on the train station. Raja writes the address on the first page of the book and tears it off to give to his friend. Unfortunately, he wasn't aware that Roja wrote her love-letter right behind it. He feels disappointed and doesn't show interest to Roja, causing her to think that he doesn't like her. Ramachandra comes to the rescue again and asks Raja to write another love letter and give it to her the next day, which happens to be Valentine's Day. When Raja comes to express his love for Roja, he finds out that Roja is the daughter of Ramachandra, who had decided to marry his daughter with Rajesh Gupta, who is a smart and wealthy man. Roja makes a last attempt to find out if Raja likes her or not. She sends him an e-mail stating that she loves him. On the other hand, Raja doesn't want to hurt the feelings of his beloved guide and teacher, who he respects as his father. Thus, he sends her an e-mail stating that he is unable to return his feelings for Roja. Roja unwillingly accepts to the wedding, as she knew there was no hope that Raja will fall in love with her. Raja leaves the wedding hall and plans to leave back to his hometown the night itself, which goes back to the beginning of the story. Coincidentally, Ramachandra overhears his conversation between Raja and his friends and realizes that he is in love with his daughter. He goes to the train station to stop Raja, asking him to return and propose to his daughter. Raja and Ramachandra reach the wedding hall just in time to stop the wedding from taking place. Raja and Roja are married on Valentine's Day, and the movie ends with a happy ending. Production. Kathir, being an inveterate surfer of the cybercafes of Chennai and Bangalore, decided to make a film on what he felt the internet could develop and be used for - romance. The film came as a successor to his 1996 blockbuster "Kadhal Desam" produced by K. T. Kunjumon. Actor Shaam was amongst the auditionees for the debut lead role, before Kunal Singh was selected after Kathir spotted him outside a Bangalore cybercafe. The North Indian youngster had been in Bangalore only to bulk up his body before joining the army, but with the offer chose to make a career in films. Sonali Bendre was signed on to play the lead role in the film, thus making her debut in South Indian films. Reports that Lara Dutta, Laila Rouass and Rani Jeyraj would play cameo roles proved to be untrue. Instead Rambha appeared in an item number in the film. Release. The film initially featured a different climax where Roja dies after taking tablets, but after release, the ending was altered to give a happy ending. The Times of India gave the film a negative review stating that "Kadhalar Dhinam is typically Kadhir. It's big, it's beautiful and it doesn't work." Indolink.com also gave the film a very negative review, citing that almost nothing works. The film's success prompted Hindi distributors to dub the film in Hindi as "Dil Hi Dil Mein". However, director Kadhir had actually reshot scenes in Hindi featuring actor Kunal and Anupam Kher to replace the Kunal-Manivannan tracks by conversing in Hindi while Johnny Lever's scenes replaced the Goundamani tracks (Even though he appeared briefly for the "Chand Aaya Hai" song) with the same "Titanic" hairdo. Even the tracks dubbed from the Tamil version were reshot with Hindi synchronization sans for the first line of "Roja Roja". Actor Nasser, though dubbed in Hindi, had given his Hindi synching in the song "Sawar Gayee". Though actors Kunal and Sonali Bendre had synched their dialogues in Hindi, the rest of the film was dubbed and became a failure at box office.
1162865	David Herman (born February 20, 1967) is an American actor, comedian and voice actor best known as an original cast member of "MADtv" and for his role as Michael Bolton in "Office Space". He is also known for his voice roles on television programs such as "Futurama", "King of the Hill", and "Beavis and Butt-head". Biography. David Herman was born in New York City and raised in Washington Heights. He graduated from the Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts in 1987, then attended the acting program at SUNY Purchase. Herman appeared in the films "Born on the Fourth of July", "Lost Angels" and "Let It Be Me", but he is probably best known for his role as Michael Bolton in Mike Judge's "Office Space". Earlier, Herman had joined the cast of John Leguizamo's "House of Buggin in 1994; however, that show was short-lived. When Fox decided to mount a sketch comedy show to replace "House of Buggin, Herman was kept on as an original "MADtv" cast member. Career. "MADtv". Herman was one of nine original cast members of "MADtv" when the series debuted in 1995. Unlike the other original repertory and featured players, he was one of the few cast members who came to the show with an established acting career. Herman's "MADtv" characters included Mike Lawson (Incredible Findings), Generation X anchorman Marsh ("X News"), and concerned father Joel Linder. Former cast-mate Artie Lange referred to Herman as "a brilliant, talented actor" and called him "one of my best friends in show business." Herman lampooned celebrities and famous figures such as Tom Hanks, Woody Allen, Joel Schumacher, Regis Philbin, Alex Trebek, Brent Spiner, Pauly Shore, Bill Clinton, Patrick Stewart, Larry King, John Ritter, Bob Dole, Larry Flynt, David Duchovny, Nicolas Cage, Robert Shapiro, Tim Allen, and Kenny Kingston. Herman was a repertory performer on the show for two and a half seasons. He left "MADtv" in the middle of the show's third season (1997–98) to pursue a movie career and other projects. Other television projects. Herman's television credits include guest starring on the WB's "Angel" and Fox's action drama "24". Film projects. Although he is primarily a television actor, Herman has appeared in several films including "Dude, Where's My Car?" and "Fun with Dick and Jane." Herman had a prominent role in the 1999 comedy "Office Space", where he played a gangsta rap-loving nerd unfortunately named Michael Bolton who must endure questions about his relationship to the famous singer. In 2006, he appeared in another Mike Judge film, "Idiocracy". Voice acting projects. Herman is also known for his work as a voice actor in video games and cartoons, notably in "Futurama", where he provides the voices of many recurring characters, and "King of the Hill", for which he voiced incidental character. His other voice work includes "Family Guy", "American Dad!", "Invader Zim", "Father of the Pride" and the "Jak and Daxter" video game series. He starred as Ubuntu Goode (and other supporting voices) in "Mike Judge'"s animated series, "The Goode Family". More recently, he voiced a character in Fox's "Bob's Burgers". Recently, Herman has been providing voices for Mike Judge's "Beavis and Butt-head". More recently, Herman has starred in the Comedy Central series, "Brickleberry" as self-absorbed park ranger, Steve Williams.
688936	Karen McDougal (born March 23, 1971) is an American model and actress. She is known for her appearances in "Playboy" magazine as Playmate of the Month for December 1997 and Playmate of the Year of 1998. In 2001, the readers of "Playboy" voted McDougal "The number 2 sexiest Playmate of the 1990s". McDougal taught pre-kindergarten before winning a swimwear competition that launched her career as a glamour, promotional, and swimsuit model. Since her appearances in "Playboy", she has extended her career into a wide variety of appearances in mainstream media, including other magazine modeling, television commercials, and minor acting, with mixed success. She has been a successful fitness model, with multiple magazine appearances including being the first woman to appear on the cover of "Men's Fitness" magazine. She starred in "The Arena", a direct-to-video film, and inspired the creation of a fantasy art statuette and a doll. She has ventured into business and is interested in pursuing work as a television host. McDougal is a fitness enthusiast, since childhood ballet study and high school sports. She is an avid motorcycle and car collector. Since her Playmate days, she has maintained a largely private social life. Early life and education. Although her Playmate datasheet stated she was born in Gary, Indiana, McDougal was actually born in Merrillville, Indiana, near Gary. She is of Cherokee Indian and Irish descent. McDougal is the first daughter in the family with 3 older brothers, Bob, Dave and Jeff, and a younger sister, Tina. Her mother, Carol, remarried when McDougal was 9 years old and the family moved to Sawyer, Michigan where she remained until college. McDougal studied tap dance and ballet as a child. Her childhood dream, prior to teaching and modeling, was to become a ballerina. She attended River Valley High School and became a cheerleader, band member, color guard, volleyball and softball player, as well as Michigan state champion clarinet player for 4 years in a row in high school. Her high school nickname was "Barbie" due to her wholesome sweetness. After graduating high school in 1989, she attended Ferris State University at Big Rapids, Michigan, majoring in Elementary Education. After 2 years of college, McDougal moved to a Detroit suburb where she taught pre-kindergarten, before being persuaded to try out for a swimsuit competition. One of her professional goals has always been to open a learning center for children, but she has put those plans on hold to focus on pursuing roles in acting and modelling. Modeling. Playboy. In 1997, McDougal tried out and won her local Venus Swimwear swimsuit competition in Michigan, earning her place at the international final in Florida. Her victory caught the eye of "Playboy" photographer David Mecey. Soon after that she was approached by "Playboy" for a test shoot at Playboy Studio West which she accepted. Upon completing her test shoot, she was promptly selected to return for a complete photo and video shoot and chosen as Miss December 1997. Her pictorial, which was shot by photographers Richard Fegley and Stephen Wayda, has a winter theme and its outdoor portion was shot in the snowy fields near Park City, Utah. Her video, the "Playmate Profile", was featured on Playboy TV soon after her magazine debut. In May 1998, she was announced to have been chosen by Hugh Hefner and fans as Playmate of the Year (PMOY) of 1998 at a luncheon at the Playboy Mansion. As her reward, she was awarded $100,000 and a special edition silver Shelby Series 1 convertible with a customized Michigan license plate "PMOY 98". McDougal's PMOY pictorial was featured in the July 1998 issue of "Playboy" where she also appeared on its cover. In contrast to her Playmate pictorial, her PMOY pictorial has a tropical theme and its outdoor portion was shot at Saint Lucia. According to her interview in her Playmate of the Year "Video Centerfold" which was released soon after her PMOY issue debuted, she believes her physical imperfections are her "funny" smile, her crooked pinkies which she inherited from her grandfather and her "ugly feet" which she wishes others would not look at. Because of the popularity of the VH1 television series "Pop-up Video" at the time, one of the segments in her PMOY video was done as a Pop-up Video parody filled with factoids about her and "Playboy". During her appearance on "The Magic Hour" to promote her PMOY issue, McDougal demonstrated her signature pose, straddle split on TV in front of a live studio audience. "Playboy" has continued to publish her material in its international editions, Playboy Cyber Club, Playboy Special Edition publications and Playboy Videos. Many regard her as a favorite Playmate because of her combination of beauty, "Girl next door" appeal and curvaceous figure, according to a November 2001 "Playboy" poll in the special edition "Sexiest Playmates". In that issue, she was voted "Readers' Choice No.2 Sexiest Playmate of the 1990s", with Pamela Anderson taking the No.1 spot. In an online chat in 2002, McDougal expressed interest in posing nude for "Playboy" again if offered. Fitness modeling. In March 1999, McDougal became the first woman to appear on the cover of "Men's Fitness" magazine. Since then she expanded her career into fitness modeling by appearing in fitness and body building magazines such as "Muscle & Fitness" (January 2000), "Physical" (June 2004) and "Iron Man" (October 2005, January 2006, June 2007 and November 2009). She appeared in a 10-page pictorial in the January 2006 issue of "Iron Man" as "Hardbody" of the month, and on the cover of its October 2005 and June 2007 issues. McDougal returned as "Hardbody" of the month in the November 2009 issue in a pictorial together with fellow Playmate Katie Lohmann. In interviews, she stated that her transition to fitness modeling was unintentional. Other appearances. "Playboy" released a limited edition doll in 2002 based on the likeness of McDougal and emphasized that it was an accurate model of her statuesque physique. Her collectors' figure was originally slated to be the first in the series to be released, however it was delayed due to redesigns. McDougal collaborated with fantasy sculptor Bill Toma in creating a limited edition bronze statuette titled "Warrior Princess" in 2003. McDougal posed for Toma in the creative process and the pedestal of each statuette bears her signature. In early 2004, McDougal appeared in a photo spread in the Italian edition of "Vogue" with fellow Playmates, Pamela Anderson, Audra Lynn and Tishara Cousino. It was a tennis themed men's fashion spread shot in Las Vegas by photographer David LaChapelle. The spread contained her first published nudes since her contract with "Playboy" expired years earlier. She traveled to Japan to be one of the eye candies for Scott Hall and Kevin Nash ("The Outsiders") when they wrestled at Yokohama, Japan in May 2004. McDougal also participated in the 50th Anniversary celebrations of "Playboy" throughout the year at Las Vegas, New York and Moscow with other Playmates past and present. McDougal appeared in the 2005 "Playmates at Play at the Playboy Mansion" swimsuit calendar as the calendar girl of July. The calendar was the inaugural "Playmates at Play" calendar and it was shot on the grounds of Playboy Mansion in 2004. It was "Playboy"'s first attempt at creating a non-nude swimsuit calendar featuring Playmates similar in style with those from "Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue". While all Playmates appeared in bikinis in the calendar, McDougal and Hiromi Oshima were the only two Playmates actually wearing only painted on bikinis. In November 2006, she was part of a trio of Playmates (along with Tina Marie Jordan and Katie Lohmann) that appeared in the "Celebrity Playmate Gift Guide" pictorial of "Splat" magazine, a paintball enthusiasts magazine. The pictorial showcased new paintball products for the 2006 holiday season. McDougal has also appeared in various pin-up posters, calendars, magazine covers, advertising campaigns, promotional events, clothing, swimwear and lingerie catalogs following her success as Playmate of the Year. Television and film. McDougal appeared in a series of sexy television commercials for XFL football league on NBC and UPN with the theme of "Cheerleaders". These edgy XFL commercials with implied nudity backfired and caused a controversy as they were deemed too risqué by the media, they were quietly withdrawn before the launch of 2001 XFL inaugural (and final) season. In 2001, she co-starred with Lisa Dergan in "The Arena", a Roger Corman-produced, direct-to-video movie directed by Timur Bekmambetov. The entire production was shot in Russia. In her feature film debut, McDougal's character, Jessemina, is a slave girl who is forced into fighting as a female gladiator in an Ancient Roman colony by its corrupt governor. The role offered McDougal her first opportunity to act in a dramatic role and to demonstrate her physical abilities with the movie's sword fighting sequences. The movie, initially titled "Gladiatrix" was deemed to be a knockoff of "Gladiator". Although the movie was not well received, it has turned into a lesser known cult film. McDougal was one of twelve contestants in the search for the new host succeeding Brooke Burke for "Wild On!" in 2002 (known as "Wild Off!"). The contest took place at The Palms in Las Vegas. Each contestant was given a "wild" challenge to complete and McDougal's challenge was to dress up as Cleopatra and roam the casino at Caesars Palace in the arms of an actor dressed up as Julius Caesar for a day. She completed her challenge and was considered an early favorite by fellow contestants, but did not advance to the final round of 5 contestants. Cindy Taylor was the eventual winner of "Wild Off!". After winning the local try out in Los Angeles, McDougal advanced to World Wrestling Entertainment's (WWE) "RAW Diva Search 2004" special held at the Beacon Theatre in New York as one of 28 finalists. The special was televised live on Spike TV with a live audience on July 15, 2004. McDougal, clad in a black bikini, survived 2 rounds of elimination during the 2 hour special, only to be eliminated by the judges in the last round at the end, just prior to the selection of the final 10 contestants eligible for online voting. McDougal appeared as one of the interviewees in E! True Hollywood Story of Hugh Hefner first broadcast on April 9, 2006. She briefly described her experience at the Playboy Mansion when she was Miss December 1997. In summer of 2006, McDougal appeared as a fitness model demonstrating all the exercises in a fitness training DVD with Hollywood celebrity fitness trainer Valerie Waters. McDougal is interested in pursuing hosting duties of TV or sports shows. She has guest hosted TV programs ("Wild On!" on E!, "VIP Access" on Showtime), appeared in other TV programs (such as: "Lovespring International", "Anger Management", "The O'Reilly Factor", Playmate edition of "Russian Roulette", etc.), movies (cameos in "Joe Dirt", "Charlie's Angels", "Grind", "The Girl Next Door" and "Raising Helen") and music videos (singer David Lee Roth). Business venture. In 2010, McDougal became one of the owners of Pharmore Alternatives, a company selling various health and wellness supplements. She attended the 2011 AVN Adult Entertainment Expo in January 2011 to promote its products. Personal life. McDougal relishes the thrill of speed as she is an avid motorcycle rider and car collector. Her first modelling assignment was being a promotional model at a Harley-Davidson bike show in Detroit. In 2004, she bought a pink custom-built motorcycle, and entered an "Easyriders" sponsored motorcycle competition in Pomona, where her motorcycle won the Best Radical Custom award. She also professes to be a chocoholic and junk food junkie even when she considers herself a "health nut". In her spare time, she works out 5 days a week to stay in shape. When she was Playmate of the Year of 1998, she had a healthy BMI of 19. Although she is a swimsuit model, she is not a proficient swimmer because of her aquaphobia. She is an animal lover and owned two cats: Brittany and Brandy. McDougal has 2 tattoos, one is a tattoo of a cat on the second toe of her right foot to honor her cats, the other is that of a cross behind her right ear as a reminder of her spirituality. McDougal's family members initially did not support her decision to pose for "Playboy". Eventually, they embraced the fact and her mother appeared in interview segments of her Playmate of the Year "Video Centerfold" as a sign of support. Her family has a history of breast cancer, and McDougal, who acknowledges having breast implants, is an advocate of breast cancer awareness. As of 2007, McDougal is residing in Los Angeles and Phoenix, Arizona. In March 2008, McDougal appeared in a topless pictorial and interview in Spanish magazine "Interviu" where she discussed her relationship with Bruce Willis at the time.
1060477	Josh Lucas (born Joshua Lucas Easy Dent Maurer; June 20, 1971) is an American actor. He has appeared in many films, including "Glory Road", "A Beautiful Mind", and "Poseidon". Early life. Lucas was born in Little Rock, Arkansas, in 1971, the son of Michele (née LeFevre), a nurse midwife, and Don Maurer, an ER doctor. His paternal grandparents were Polish. Career. Lucas began his career when he was 19, having moved to Hollywood after his high school graduation. He appeared as a guest star on several TV sitcoms in his early twenties, including Fox's "True Colors" and "Parker Lewis Can't Lose," the family drama "Life Goes On," and CBS's private-eye show "Jake and the Fatman". Other projects included the horror-thriller "Child of Darkness, Child of Light", an adaptation of James Patterson's novel "Virgin", a tale of two Catholic schoolgirls who find themselves pregnant under mysterious and supernatural circumstances. Lucas followed this appearance by working with executive producer Steven Spielberg and then-unknown actor Clive Owen in the TV-movie "Class of '61", which follows the stories of a group of West Point cadets in 1861 as the Civil War breaks out. Lucas played George Armstrong Custer. Soon afterward, he made his feature film debut in Frank Marshall's "Alive" about a group of Uruguayan rugby players who, after crashing in the Andes mountains, resort to cannibalism to stay alive. After a brief appearance in the Patrick Swayze comedy "Father Hood", Lucas relocated to Australia to play the hotheaded American cousin Luke McGregor opposite Andrew Clarke and Guy Pearce in the first season of the family western "". Lucas appeared in all thirteen episodes of the first season but claimed in a later interview that despite the friendly environment, he was homesick for the United States, and his character was killed off in the last episode of season one. Upon returning to the States, he was still receiving offers as high school/college boyfriends and felt he was not getting the age-appropriate roles he sought. While working with George C. Scott on a TV-movie from the "Heat of the Night" series, Scott told him he needed to take acting lessons and develop his talent for both stage and screen. Shortly thereafter, he departed Hollywood and moved to New York City, where he studied privately with various acting coaches. The second part of his career began with a lead role in the British rowing film "True Blue" (released in the US as "Miracle at Oxford"), in which he played a hotshot Navy rower who was recruited along with three other Americans to help Oxford win its annual boat race with Cambridge. He followed that with relatively small roles in the dramas "Minotaur" and "Harvest". He took his first stab at comedy in "The Definite Maybe", in which he played a recent college graduate who gets fired from his job and schemes with an old friend to purchase a house in the Hamptons. He appeared as an American businessman in Jule Gilfillan's romantic comedy-drama "Restless". He also appeared in an Off-Broadway production of Terrence McNally's controversial "Corpus Christi", a re-telling of the Passion, with the Jesus character (named Joshua) and his disciples all being gay. Lucas played the role of Judas as a gay predator, a role he would later recreate as doomed club owner Darby Reese in the suspense thriller "The Deep End". Right before the play was to open, Lucas was mugged and beaten on his way to the theater for dress rehearsal. He played the role of Judas with bloody bandages across his broken nose and black eyes. The audience thought the bandages were part of the play. Following a series of operations to reset his nose, he began gathering larger roles in films like "American Psycho", "The Weight of Water", "Session 9", "The Dancer", "When Strangers Appear", and "You Can Count on Me". One of Lucas' first feature roles was playing Jace "Flash" Dillon in the cinematic PC flight simulator "". Lucas gained mainstream exposure after his roles in "Sweet Home Alabama", "A Beautiful Mind", and as Glenn Talbot in "Hulk". He later gained success in leading roles in movies such as "Glory Road", "Poseidon", and "Stealth". In "Glory Road", he starred as basketball coach Don Haskins, a role for which he gained . His next project was Boaz Yakin’s "Death in Love". "Peacock" is another film he starred in. Lucas starred in the 2009 Ridley Scott-produced "Tell-Tale", a film based on the short story "The Tell-Tale Heart" by Edgar Allan Poe. Earlier that year, Lucas was seen on stage in the off-Broadway run of "Spalding Gray: Stories Left to Tell". Lucas also completed his second collaboration with documentary film maker Ken Burns, after being involved in Burns’ "The War". Lucas' other documentary work includes "Operational Homecoming", "Trumbo", and the Los Angeles Film Festival Audience Award-winning "Resolved". In February 2010, he was cast in the Anders Anderson thriller "Stolen" the single father of a mentally challenged boy, starring alongside Rhona Mitra and Jon Hamm; the film had a limited theatrical release in March 2010. Lucas also co-stars in the 2010 film "Shadows and Lies" alongside James Franco and Julianne Nicholson. In 2011, Lucas co-starred with Rachael Taylor in the film "Red Dog", based on the true story of an Australian Kelpie. Lucas won an Inside Film Award for his role. He also starred in the NBC television show "The Firm", which takes place ten years after the John Grisham novel it is based on. The show lasted one season. Lucas is also an owner and promoter of the company Filthy Food with friends Marc and Daniel Singer. Personal life. Lucas married Jessica Ciencin Henriquez, a freelance writer, in March 2012. The wedding took place in Central Park and the couple sold photos of the ceremony to People Magazine. On June 29, 2012, the couple welcomed a son, Noah Rev Maurer. A YouthAIDS Ambassador, Lucas "first joined the YouthAIDS team when he shot the ALDO HIV/AIDS awareness campaign in April, 2005. Soon after, he officially accepted his role as a YouthAIDS Ambassador at the YouthAIDS 2005 Gala, Faces of Africa. HIV/AIDS prevention is particularly important to him as his mother 'has made a career counseling young men and women with the hopes of educating them about the ravaging and often deadly effects of this too common and easily preventable disease.'" Lucas supported Barack Obama during the 2008 presidential campaign, volunteering to help potential voters register at colleges in Pennsylvania. Lucas knocked on doors and phone banked, wearing an Obama shirt for 45 days. He was also in Denver, Colorado for the 2008 Democratic National Convention with a group of actors called the Creative Coalition. On "Jimmy Kimmel Live!" on July 16, 2009, he said he was an avid fan of the Buffalo Bills of the National Football League, even joining the Bills Backers of LA.
1044756	North Sea Hijack (released as Ffolkes outside the UK and as Assault Force on US TV) is a British action film from 1979 starring Roger Moore, James Mason, Anthony Perkins, and Michael Parks. It was directed by Andrew V. McLaglen and adapted by Jack Davies from his novel "Esther, Ruth and Jennifer". This film was a vehicle for both Moore and Perkins to try to escape typecasting. Previously Moore had been practically typecast as a womanising, happy-go-lucky playboy in such series as "The Saint, The Persuaders!" and James Bond. In contrast to those parts, he is shown here as a bearded, eccentric, arrogant cat-loving, misogynist showing heroic qualities as a master strategist. Moore once said in an interview that he preferred this film to all the James Bond movies he had starred in while acknowledging that he had been miscast in the lead role. Story outline. Misogynist freelance marine counter-terrorism consultant Rufus Excalibur ffolkes (Roger Moore) is asked by Lloyd's of London to develop a contingency plan should any of the North Sea oil installations they insure be threatened. Months later, "Esther", a North Sea supply ship, takes on board a group of men posing as reporters who are visiting the oil production platform "Jennifer". The leader of this group, Lou Kramer (Anthony Perkins), along with his second-in-command, Harold Shulman (Michael Parks), hijack the ship, and two scuba diving henchmen attach limpet mines to the legs of "Jennifer" and its oil drilling rig, "Ruth". From the bridge of "Esther", Kramer issues a ransom demand for GBP 25 million or he will blow up "Ruth"; then, if the ransom is still not paid, he will destroy "Jennifer". For good measure, he rigs "Esther" with explosives and has all the charges wired to a control panel that never leaves his side. Lord Privy Seal Dennis Tipping (Jeremy Clyde) informs the British Prime Minister (Faith Brook) of the situation. The British government is opposed to conceding to terrorist blackmail, but Tipping suggests that, as a compromise, Lloyd's could pay the ransom. After Lloyd's is consulted, the Prime Minister is shown a video of ffolkes practising a rescue mission aboard a mock-up ship. He anticipated terrorists might hijack a supply ship and has worked out a plan. Flying out to "Jennifer", ffolkes first proposes that, to buy time, a large explosion lights up the night sky, fooling Kramer into thinking "Ruth" has exploded by accident so he won't push the button at the deadline. Ffolkes and Admiral Sir Francis Brindsen (James Mason) are to meet with Kramer onboard "Esther". Ffolkes makes Brindsen practice accidentally dropping cigarettes on the floor, the idea being that the admiral distracts Kramer, giving ffolkes the opportunity to kill him before he sets off the bombs; his team of commandos will in the meantime take out the guards posted on the vessel. A sub-plot involves the imprisoned crew trying to poison their captors using the ship's medicine supply. A reporter who came with Kramer's men offers to do this, but the crew quickly suspects him to be a plant, so they tie him up. Unfortunately, Kramer has been spying on them, and when the food is delivered he forces one of the 'conspirators' to drink the poisoned coffee; Sanna (Lea Brodie), the other main participant and the only woman on board, flees and allegedly falls overboard. Later, Kramer demands that Brinston and King (David Hedison), "Jennifer's" manager, join him on "Esther", unintentionally going along with ffolkes' plan. However, Kramer doesn't trust ffolkes when he meets him and orders him to leave the ship. The reporter who had got the blackmailers onto the ship gets cold feet and wants to leave, so Kramer agrees to release him. At the last moment, Kramer shoots him in the back as he is being winched aboard the helicopter. With time running out, the Prime Minister considers paying the ransom, but ffolkes replies angrily that that would send a message that "anyone with a rowing boat and a stick of dynamite could hold this country to ransom." Ffolkes still thinks he can rescue the hostages. However, to save the lives of the 1,200 men and women aboard "Jennifer", ffolkes urges to obliterate "Esther" with a bomb if his team cannot rescue the hostages in time. Ffolkes' men storm "Esther", bringing down the guards. Ffolkes joins them wearing a borrowed vermilion scuba suit, but is forced to throw his second-in-command overboard who has mistaken him for a terrorist; Sanna, who had been hiding in a lifeboat, manages to take out one of the terrorists who tries to take a shot at ffolkes. Ffolkes races for the bridge as the helicopter carrying the bomb approaches. At the allotted time, Brindsen offers a cigarette to Kramer, drops them on the floor and bends down to pick them up. Ffolkes appears at the window and shoots the distracted Kramer with a spear gun, pinning him to his seat. Seeing armed men running by, Schulman races for the detonator switch, but he gets impaled at the controls with a spear in each side. Just as the Royal Navy helicopter drops the bomb down its rear loading-ramp, ffolkes fires his signal flare into the sky and the helicopter pilot pulls away just in time so that the bomb falls down away from "Esther". However, Kramer isn't quite dead, and he slowly reaches for the detonator. Ffolkes pulls the wires out and watches Kramer die. "I ... still ... don't ... like ... your ... face" are his last words. A ceremony is held at ffolkes' castle to celebrate the end of the hijack. Among those present are the former hostages, the oil rig staff and the commandos. Ffolkes has expressed his disdain for medals, so the Prime Minister presents the cat-loving eccentric with a new litter of kittens, named Esther, Ruth, and Jennifer. For once moved, and a little lost for words, ffolkes leaves amidst a round of applause to give his new kittens a saucer of milk. Main character's name. "ffolkes" is an old English name that is correctly written with two small f's. In the book, he corrects other people several times on this point ("See ffolkes baronets"). Filming locations. Dunguaire Castle, Kinvara, Co. Galway, Ireland was used as a filming location for the Scottish castle home of ffolkes. Many of the outdoor scenes of the movie were filmed in Galway City & County, Ireland. Title confusion. The film was released as "North Sea Hijack" in the United Kingdom, but as "Ffolkes" in the United States and other English-speaking territories. In the US it was renamed "Assault Force" when released on TV in 1983.
1048936	Herbie Goes Bananas (1980) is the fourth of a series of films made by Walt Disney Productions starring Herbie – the white Volkswagen racing Beetle with a mind of its own. The film stars former Mel Brooks collaborators Cloris Leachman and Harvey Korman. Plot. Loosely picking up where "Herbie Goes to Monte Carlo" left off, protagonist Pete Stancheck (Stephen W. Burns) has inherited Herbie from Jim Douglas, and travels to Mexico (Puerto Vallarta) with his friend Davy "D.J." Johns (Charles Martin Smith) to retrieve the car. There, they befriend Paco (Joaquin Garay, III), a comically mischievous, orphaned pickpocket. Pete and D.J. board the Sun Princess, a cruise ship, to Rio de Janeiro to enter Herbie in the Brazil Grand Primeo, while Paco follows hidden in Herbie's cargo compartment. "En route" they meet an anthropology student named Melissa (Elyssa Davalos) and her extravagant, eccentric aunt Louise (Cloris Leachman), who is trying to find a husband for her niece. When Herbie wreaks havoc on board, Pete pretends to court Melissa, intending that her Aunt Louise will sponsor their race. Meanwhile, Herbie helps Paco, who has dubbed the car 'Ocho' ('eight' in Spanish, Paco having added the individual numerals in Herbie's number 53; also a pun on the Mexican nickname "vocho" or "bocho".), escape captivity. When the ship's captain Blythe (Harvey Korman) has his costume party wrecked by the boy and car, he puts Herbie on trial and sentences him to be dropped in the sea, whence he is rescued by Paco and disguised as a taxi. Thereafter follow three villains (John Vernon, Alex Rocco, and Richard Jaeckel) seeking to capture an antique gold disc, and to seize Paco and retrieve some film kept in their wallets; Herbie's matador part in a bullfight; romance between Aunt Louise and Captain Blythe; and bananas initially used to conceal Herbie among farm vehicles traveling to market and later used by Herbie and Paco to stop the villains escaping justice. Ultimately, the villains are captured, and the protagonists re-unite on the Sun Princess to celebrate. Reception. "Herbie Goes Bananas" was the most poorly received film in the "Herbie" franchise since its inception in 1969 with "The Love Bug". Most film critics remarked that the series had run its course, with Leonard Maltin commenting that there was "one amusing scene where the VW turns matador; otherwise, strictly scrap metal." Maltin (who rated the film *½ out of ****) added that the plot dealt with its cast "encountering all sorts of 'hilarious' obstacles along the way." Phil Patton, author of the book "Bug: The Strange Mutations of the World's Most Famous Automobile", observed that the "Herbie" franchise was "a game of diminishing returns: "Herbie Goes Bananas"...is filled with "south of the border" clichés and stereotypes."
1463290	Sridhara (c. 870, India – c. 930 India) was an Indian mathematician. He was born in Hooghly district in the 10th Century AD. His father's name was Baladevacharya and mother's name was Acchoka. Works. He was known for two treatises: "Trisatika" (sometimes called the "Patiganitasara") and the "Patiganita". His major work "Patiganitasara" was named "Trisatika" because it was written in three hundred slokas. The book discusses counting of numbers, measures, natural number, multiplication, division, zero, squares, cubes, fraction, rule of three, interest-calculation, joint business or partnership and mensuration.
519526	A Dangerous Life is a 1988 English-language Australian film about the final years of the Philippines under Ferdinand Marcos' rule, from the assassination of Benigno Aquino, Jr. in 1983 to the People Power EDSA Revolution in 1986 that ousted Marcos.
1039604	Roger Rees (born 5 May 1944) is a Welsh actor and director. He is best known to American audiences for playing the characters Robin Colcord on the American television sitcom show "Cheers" and Lord John Marbury on the American television drama "The West Wing". He won a Tony Award for his performance as the lead in "The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby". Early life. Rees was born in Aberystwyth, Wales, the son of Doris Louise (née Smith), a shop clerk, and William John Rees, a police officer. Career. Rees started his career with the Royal Shakespeare Company and attended the Slade School of Fine Arts. He played Malcolm in the acclaimed Trevor Nunn 1976 stage and 1978 television production of Macbeth. Rees created the title role in the original production of the play "The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby", winning both an Olivier Award and a Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play in 1982. He also starred in the original production of "The Real Thing" by Tom Stoppard in London in 1984. Rees began to work in television during the 1970s, appearing opposite Laurence Olivier in "The Ebony Tower" (1984). From 1988 to 1991 he starred in the late 80s/early 90s British sitcom "Singles", with actress and co-star Judy Loe. From 1989 to 1991 and in 1993, he also appeared intermittently on the long-running American TV series "Cheers" as the English tycoon Robin Colcord. Later television appearances include "My So-Called Life" as substitute teacher Mr Racine, British Ambassador Lord John Marbury on "The West Wing" and James MacPherson on "Warehouse 13". His film career beginning in the 1980s, Rees played the Sheriff of Rottingham in Mel Brooks' 1993 film, "". More recent film appearances include "Frida" (2002) and "The Prestige" (2006). Continuing his work in the theatre through the 1990s, both as an actor and a director, Rees was awarded an Obie award for his 1992 performance in the off-Broadway play "The End of the Day". In 1995 he was nominated for a Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play for his role in "Indiscretions". That same year, he also participated as narrator for the audiobook edition of "Memnoch the Devil" by Anne Rice. As for audiobooks, Roger has performed in a wide variety of programs. In November 2004, Rees was named artistic director of the Williamstown Theatre Festival, only the fourth person to hold the post in its half century history. He left the position in October 2007. In October 2010, it was announced that on 22 March, he would be portraying the role of Gomez in the Broadway musical adaptation of "The Addams Family", following the departure of Nathan Lane. On 19 September, it was announced that Rees will extend his run in the show through closing on 31 December 2011. In 2012, he directed the Broadway play Peter and The Starcatcher, along with Alex Timbers. The play was critically praised, and it earned Rees and Timbers a Tony nomination for Best Direction of a Play. Personal life. Rees became a naturalized United States citizen in 1989. Rees married his husband, writer/producer Rick Elice, in 2011. Rees and Elice have also collaborated professionally, most notably as co-playwrights of the comedic thriller "Double Double." Elice is also the co-author (with Marshall Brickman) of the book of the "Addams Family" musical, the cast of which Rees had joined on 22 March 2011. In 2012, Elice and Rees received Tony Award nominations for Elice's stage adaptation and Rees' co-direction (with Alex Timbers), respectively, of Peter and the Starcatcher.
1164161	Brion Howard James (February 20, 1945 – August 7, 1999) was an American character actor. Known for playing the character of Leon Kowalski in the movie "Blade Runner", James portrayed a variety of colorful roles in well-known films such as "48 Hrs.", "Another 48 Hours", "Tango & Cash", "Red Heat", "The Player" and "The Fifth Element". James' commanding screen presence and formidable physique at tall usually resulted in his casting as a heavy, appearing more frequently in lower budget horror and action films throughout the 1980s and 1990s. James appeared in more than 100 films before he died of a heart attack aged 54. Early life. James was born in Redlands, California, the son of Ida Mae (née Buckelew) and Jimmy James. After graduating from high school in 1962, James attended San Diego State University as a Theater Arts major. James was good friends with actor Tim Thomerson, as both served together as cooks in a tank company while in the Army Reserve in California. After their service, they both went to New York to break into acting. Migrating to New York, James immersed himself in the theater scene, taking on bit roles here and there. Career. In 1975, James landed a small role in the made for TV movie, "The Kansas City Massacre", playing John Dillinger gang member Homer Van Meter. Higher profile roles followed in 1976, with his casting in "Nickelodeon" and "Harry and Walter Go to New York". James also appeared in the acclaimed television miniseries "Roots" and popular 1970s shows such as "Gunsmoke", "The Incredible Hulk", "Mork and Mindy", "Chico and the Man", and "CHiPs". James' career began to take a sharp upturn in the early 1980s with several sharply defined character roles in films such as "Southern Comfort" and "48 Hrs." (which were both directed by Walter Hill), but it was his performance as Leon Kowalski in the 1982 film "Blade Runner" that gave him his greatest, most lasting fame. Even though his memorable performance threatened to typecast the intense yet versatile actor as a movie villain for the remainder of the decade, James continued to pile up a prolific acting resume, playing significant roles in "Enemy Mine", "Flesh + Blood", "A Breed Apart", "Armed and Dangerous", "Red Heat", "Steel Dawn", "Red Scorpion", "Tango & Cash" and "Showdown" (portraying an obnoxious high-school vice-principal, Kowalski, whose name was probably an inside joke inspired by "Blade Runner"). James continued his strong work on the small screen as well, with guest spots in "Benson", "The A-Team", "Little House on the Prairie", "The Dukes of Hazzard", "Matlock", "Miami Vice", "Sledge Hammer!", and "Dynasty". In the 1990s, he appeared in ', and as Sheriff Bowman in the "Millennium" season 2 episode "Luminary". He lent his voice to the character of Parasite in '. His only starring role was in the low-budget 1989 supernatural horror film "The Horror Show" (aka "House III"), where he played serial killer "Meat Cleaver Max" Jenke. In 1994, he played a grouchy sponsor who became a victim of the gruesome goings-on during a 1939 radio show in the film "Radioland Murders". Another of his most memorable roles came near the end of his career, as the amiable General Munro in "The Fifth Element" (1997). Concerning his talent for playing villains in films, he stated in an interview in "Fangoria" magazine, "'I consider myself a classical character actor like Lon Chaney, Wallace Beery, Charles Laughton. I always like to play bad guys. I'm real good at psychotic behavior."
1060161	Innerspace is a 1987 science fiction comedy film directed by Joe Dante and produced by Michael Finnell. Steven Spielberg served as executive producer. The film was inspired by the classic 1966 science fiction film "Fantastic Voyage". It stars Dennis Quaid, Martin Short and Meg Ryan, with Robert Picardo and Kevin McCarthy, with music composed by Jerry Goldsmith. It earned $25,893,810 of domestic gross revenue and won an Oscar, the only film directed by Dante to do so. Plot. Down-on-his-luck naval aviator Lt. Tuck Pendleton (Quaid) resigns his commission and volunteers for a secret miniaturization experiment. He is placed in a submersible pod, and both are shrunk to microscopic size. They are transferred into a syringe to be injected into a rabbit, but the lab is attacked by a rival and criminal organisation led by renegade scientist Dr. Margaret Canker (Fiona Lewis) planning to seize the experiment and steal their technology. The experiment supervisor Ozzie Wexler (John Hora), knowing their intentions, escapes with the syringe. A chase ensues with one of Margaret's henchman to a nearby shopping mall. After being fatally shot and knowing he is about to die, he injects Tuck and the pod into an unsuspecting Jack Putter (Martin Short), a hypochondriac grocery store clerk who happens to be the first person he comes into contact with. On awakening from unconsciousness, Tuck is unaware of what has happened and believes he's been injected into the rabbit. It's only when all attempts to radio the lab are unsuccessful that he navigates the pod to the optic nerve and implants a camera so he is able to see what the "host" sees. This is when he realises he is inside a human. In an effort to make contact, Tuck attaches another device to Jack's inner ear, enabling him to talk to Jack, initially with embarrassing consequences. Tuck explains that the pod has only a few hours' supply of oxygen and needs his help in order to extract him by going back to the lab. At the lab, the scientists explain to Tuck and Jack that the other group wants to sell the miniaturization technology for use in espionage. In the raid on the lab, they stole one of two computer chips that are vital to the process. The group's mastermind is Victor Scrimshaw (Kevin McCarthy), and his main henchmen are "the Cowboy" (Robert Picardo), Mr. Igoe (Vernon Wells) and Margaret is scientific supervisor.
628948	Magdalene M. "Magda" Szubanski ( ; born 12 April 1961) is a British-Australian actress, comedian, television presenter, radio host and author of Polish and Scottish descent. Szubanski's career began while she was studying at university and she progressed to television sketch comedy, as both a writer and performer. She has performed in the comedy programs "The D-Generation" and "Fast Forward"; more recently, she stars as Sharon Strzelecki in the television comedy show "Kath & Kim". Szubanski portrayed Esme Hoggett in the film "Babe" and its sequel "", and played the recurring character of Furlow on the television series "Farscape". Life and career. Early life. Szubanski was born in Liverpool, England. Her mother, Margaret (McCarthy), a native of Dunfermline, Scotland, was of Irish and Scottish descent, and her father, Zbigniew Szubanski, came from a well-off Polish family. She immigrated to Australia in 1966 with her brother, sister, and parents. She attended high school at Siena College, Melbourne, and later studied Arts/Law at the University of Melbourne.
1130778	Brianna Lynn Brown (born October 2, 1979) is an American actress and producer. Life and career. Brown was born in Saint Paul, Minnesota and attended St. Olaf College. After starting out as a singer, she changed her focus to acting after being talked into going out for a high school musical by a student teacher. She made her first on-screen appearance in 1999 in the episode of NBC series "Freaks and Geeks", and in later years acted in many films and television series. Brown has played the leading roles in the 2006 horror film "Night of the Living Dead 3D", and in the 2007 horror film "Timber Falls". Her most significant supporting roles to date have been in the Judd Apatow comedies "The 40-Year-Old Virgin" and "Knocked Up". On television, she guest starred in "", "Smallville", "Entourage", "Without a Trace", "The Closer", "Joey", and "Criminal Minds".
522781	Batang X is a 1995 Filipino film released under Regal Films. The film is about 5 children with superhuman abilities who get kidnapped by the alien Dr. Axis to help her steal sources of energy for her spaceship. Franchise. Television. The movie's success generated a TV series "" in ABC 5. The show was developed by MPB Primedia. It ran 45 minutes long per episode. Comics. A comic book series of Batang X was published by Sonic Publishing and was sponsored, as with the movie, by McDonald's.
583718	Aasai is a 1995 Tamil romantic thriller film directed by Vasanth and produced by Mani Ratnam The film featured Ajith Kumar and Suvalakshmi, making her debut, in the leading roles with Prakash Raj in a pivotal role. The film has camera work by Jeeva and a popular soundtrack by Deva. Upon release, the film won positive reviews and went on to become a blockbuster, completing a 210-day run at the box office. Plot. Yamuna (Suvalakshmi), one of the two daughters of an orthodox father, comes to Madras from finishing her studies. Major Madhavan (Prakashraj) is the husband of Yamuna's elder sister Ganga (Rohini), who infatuates about Yamuna after seeing a photo in a letter sent by Yamuna. Meanwhile, Yamuna meets Jeeva (Ajithkumar), in a city bus who gives his ticket to her as she had not taken her own. Later one day on the advice of his friends, Jeeva decides to express his love to Yamuna by writing 1 4 3(the number of letters in “I love you") in a letter and giving it to her. But he witnesses a group beating a boy who did the same thing. So he crumples the letter and it is found by Yamuna who realizes his love. One day when they were walking together Jeeva tries to remove the dirt from Yamuna's eyes and he kisses her. Yamuna is angry with him. Jeeva senses it and gets wet in the rain and gets a cold. Hearing this Yamuna meets him. Jeeva expresses that she is the only medicine to him and he needs her. Yamuna promises that she will marry him. On Yamuna's birthday, Jeeva jumps into her house and presents her a puppy. One day, fearing that Yamuna's father might not marry him to Yamuna, he decides to marry her in a register office on the advice of his friends. But Yamuna refuses and Jeeva leaves angrily.
1055458	Ramona and Beezus is a 2010 Fox-Walden adventure film adaptation of the Ramona series of novels by Beverly Cleary. The film's title derives from "Beezus and Ramona", the first of Cleary's Ramona books, though the plot is mostly based on the sequels, particularly "Ramona Forever" and "Ramona's World", along with some elements from "Ramona Quimby, Age 8" and "Ramona the Brave". Plot. The film opens with adventurous and creative third grader Ramona Quimby (Joey King) playing on the monkey bars during recess with her best friend, Howie Kemp (Jason Spevack). Although Ramona has fun with Howie, her mood changes when she goes home and finds out disturbing news. Mr. Quimby loses his job and the family is in severe debt. Ramona overhears her parents' conversation and decides that she is going to sell "delishus lemonade" in order to make money. Beatrice (Selena Gomez), Ramona's sister, sees Henry Huggins (Hutch Dano), the paper boy. She accidentally spits lemonade in his face because a fly lands in her glass. She then becomes angry at Ramona, saying that Ramona embarrassed her sister in front of Henry by spitting lemonade in his face and nicknaming her "Beezus," instead of Beatrice (because Ramona couldn't say Beatrice when she was a baby). After that mistake, she decides to have a $20 car wash but that backfires also. After accidentally painting Hobart's car multiple colors, she retires. The next day, Mr. Quimby accidentally gives her a raw egg in her lunch, and after cracking the egg on her head, gets it in her hair. Mrs. Meacham tries to take the raw egg out of her hair, but most of it remains stuck in her hair. Instead of the photographer saying "Cheese," he says "Peas," causing Ramona to interrupt with a great big "Eww!," ruining her portrait. The next day in music class, Ramona throws up on the drums, causing her to be picked up by Robert. She then stays at home with Beezus. After trying to make dinner for her parents, the pan catches fire. Ramona interrupts Beezus on the phone with Henry, so Beezus yells at Ramona for always being a little pest and ruining her love life. Shocked, Ramona questions Beezus that she has a love life, but neither of them realize that Henry is still on the phone and has overheard their whole conversation. When Ramona goes to feed her cat, Picky-Picky, in the basement later that night, she sees him lying in his basket, dead. Ramona runs upstairs to tell Beezus to come to the basement. They then hold a private funeral in their backyard. In their prayers, they say that Picky-Picky will always be with them. The girls become closer and nicer to each other. While touching up the garden, Ramona reluctantly helps and grabs the water hose. While doing this, she accidentally squirts Hobart, who is next door with his family in their backyard. Hobart, believing (Ramona and Beatrice's Aunt) Bea had purposely shot him with the water hose, retaliates by tossing a bucket of water on Bea, and a water fight ensues between both neighbors. During the water wars, Ramona whispers to Bea and the family retreats, only to sneak into their neighbor's backyard to set off the sprinklers. After their neighbors admit defeat, Robert tries to turn off the sprinklers, but breaks the shut off valve and the pipes of the sprinklers begin to burst, flooding the backyard. As the backyard fills with water, a shoebox in a ziploc bag pops up from underground. Immediately knowing the contents of the box, Hobart rushes to retrieve it. He calls out to Bea and shows her the keepsakes from the relationship they had as teenagers that he had stored inside the shoebox. Hobart pulls out a ring with a large, purple gem and gets down on one knee and proposes to Bea. She hesitantly accepts and they kiss passionately under the water still spewing from the sprinklers. Both families head into the neighbor's home to dry off, as the open house is occurring at Ramona's house. Furious that her aunt broke her promise not to get "reeled in," Ramona rushes to her house and seeks solace in the attic. The beams are unable to support her weight and break, leaving Ramona's legs dangling from the roof during the open house. After the open house clears out, Dorothy tends to her scratched up knees and legs in the bathroom. Robert, tired of Ramona's antics, walks in and scolds her for not being mature enough. Feeling she's not wanted, Ramona goes to her room and begins packing to run away, declaring she's going to be gone "Forever." Dorothy tries to talk her out of it, but then devises a plan and helps her pack up a suitcase. Ramona, with her heavy suitcase in hand, heads out of the house with no one to stop her. As she is walking, she imagines traveling to far places, such as New York City, Paris, and Egypt. She finally comes to a bus stop and sits atop her suitcase. It shifts under her weight, so she opens it discovering a bowling ball and a book Robert would draw doodles of Ramona and her mischievous ways. As the bus pulls up, she hears Dorothy over a baby monitor inside the suitcase. The bus takes off without Ramona, revealing her family in their car searching for her. As the family is reunited, Dorothy tells her she purposely packed the bowling ball to make her suitcase heavy, so she could not have gone far.
1057778	American Me is a 1992 biographical crime drama film produced and directed by Edward James Olmos, his first film as a director, and written by Floyd Mutrux and Desmond Nakano. Olmos also stars as the film's protagonist, Montoya Santana. Executive producers included record producer Lou Adler, screenwriter Mutrux, and Irwin Young. It depicts a fictionalized account of the founding and rise to power of the Mexican Mafia in the California prison system from the 1950s into the 1980s. Plot. The film depicts 30 years of Chicano gang life in Los Angeles. It focuses on Montoya Santana (Panchito Gomez), a teen who, with his friends, J.D. (Steve Wilcox) and Mundo (Richard Coca), form their own gang. They soon find themselves at the wrong place at the wrong time and are arrested. In juvenile hall, Santana murders a fellow inmate (Eric Close) who'd raped him and as a result, has his sentence extended into Folsom prison after he turns 18. Once there, Santana (now played by Edward James Olmos) becomes the leader of a powerful gang, La Eme. Upon his release he tries to relate his life experiences to the society that has changed so much since he left. La Eme has become a feared criminal organization beyond Folsom, selling drugs and committing murder. Santana starts to see the error of his ways but before he can take action, is sent back to prison for drug possession. There, he tells his former lieutenant, J.D. (William Forsythe) that he is no longer interested in leading the La Eme. However, following a precedent set by Santana himself earlier in the film, his men murder him to show the other prison gangs that, despite having no leader, they are not weak. Production. Factual basis. The film opens depicting events from the Zoot Suit Riots, where thousands of white American sailors and servicemen based in California attacked Latinos and others who took part in so-called "pachuco" culture, mostly targeting those who wore "zoot suits" (seen as symbols of Latino pride and considered by the rioters to be unpatriotic and extravagant in a time of war). This grew into heightened tension between European-Americans and Mexican-Americans in Southern California, setting the stage for the later gang conflicts depicted in the film. The character of Montoya Santana is modeled after Rodolfo Cadena, who was a high-ranking and founding member of in the prison gang "La Eme", known popularly as the Mexican Mafia. In real life, Cadena unsuccessfully attempted to steer "La Eme" into left-wing activism before being stabbed to death by members of the rival Nuestra Familia. In the film, Santana is stabbed and killed by his own gang. The character of J.D. was based on Joe "Pegleg" Morgan, a Croatian-American gang member and prisoner who preferred the company of Gangsters and along with Cadena helped found "La Eme", becoming a high-ranking, respected, and feared member of the Latino gang even though he was of Croatian descent. Morgan died from liver cancer in 1993, while he was incarcerated at California State Prison, Corcoran. Casting. Olmos, in neo-realist fashion, used actual prisoners as extras and bit players when he filmed at Folsom Prison. Filming locations. Filming locations include Folsom Prison, Represa, California; and East Los Angeles, California. Marketing. The producers of the film used the following tagline to market the film: "In prison, they are the law. On the streets, they are the power." Reception. Critical response. Roger Ebert of the "Chicago Sun-Times" liked the reality that came through in the film and that it rang true: "What I felt watching "American Me," however, is that it is based on a true situation - on the reality that street gangs and prison, mixed with the drug sales that finance the process, work together to create a professional criminal class." Janet Maslin writes in "The New York Times," "But Mr. Olmos's direction...is dark, slow and solemn, so much so that it diverts energy from the film's fundamental frankness. Violent as it is, "American Me" is seldom dramatic enough to bring its material to life." Marjorie Baumgarten, a film critic for "The Austin Chronicle," wrote, ""American Me" is crafted with heart and conviction and intelligence. It demands no less of its audience. It insists that there are no quick fixes, but that solutions are of the utmost urgency." The film was screened in the Un Certain Regard section at the 1992 Cannes Film Festival. The review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes currently lists American Me with a 75% positive approval rating, with 6 out of 8 reviews by professional movie critics listed as positive.
1132258	Lightning Jack is a 1994 Western comedy film written by and starring Paul Hogan, as well as Cuba Gooding Jr. and Beverly D'Angelo. Plot. Paul Hogan plays Lightning Jack Kane, a long-sighted Australian outlaw in the American outback, with his horse, Mate. After the rest of the gang he is a member of is killed in a robbery-gone-wrong, Jack survives only to read of the events in the newspaper that he was nothing next to others. Annoyed at not being recognised as an outlaw, Jack attempts a robbery by himself, and ends up taking young mute Ben Doyle (Cuba Gooding Jr.) as a hostage. He later discovers that, tired of never been treated with respect due to his disability, Ben wishes to join him.
589941	Aranyer Din Ratri ( "Araṇyēra Dinarātri", Days and Nights in the Forest) is an Indian Bengali adventure drama film released in 1970 and directed by Satyajit Ray. It is based upon the Bengali novel of the same name by Sunil Gangopadhyay. It was one of the earliest films to employ the literary technique of the carnivalesque. The film was nominated for the Golden Bear for Best Film at the 20th Berlin International Film Festival. Plot. The plot of the movie goes back to a similar outing the writer Sunil Gangopadhyay took in the early days of his poetic career. The story unfolds around a group of four friends, quite unlike each other and yet bonded together deeply. The four friends are all educated and come from different layers of society, but the urge to escape from the daily grinding of city forces them to go out into the land of tribes. Of the four friends, Asim (Soumitra Chatterjee), the leader of the pack, owns the car they drive in, has a cushy job, likes the company of girls and yet is very conscious of how he should be perceived by them. Sanjoy (Shubhendu Chatterjee) is a labour executive but would ideally want to immerse himself in literature. Hari (Samit Bhanja), a frank and straightforward cricketer, wants to forget the girl who dumped him. Shekhar (Rabi Ghosh) is the jester of the party, the only one without a job. He has a roving eye but stays sober when his friends get drunk and vent their frustrations. They set out for the tribal Palamau, in Bihar, to tear themselves away from their regulated city life. They had read legends about this land, the tribal women who are open and simple and beautiful. Wanting to break rules, they force a stay in a forest rest house by bribing the chowkidar, burn a copy of a newspaper in a symbolic gesture of cutting ties from civilization, deliberate on whether to shave or not and walk through the forest to get drunk at a country liquor shop. Hari gets close to tribal Santhal girl Duli (Simi Garewal) when she approaches the group for extra drink. Their resolve to be unshaven collapses when Shekhar sights two ladies Aparna (Sharmila Tagore) and her sister-in-law Jaya (Kaberi Bose) in the forest. The four introduce themselves to this family and in the midst of the forest, the two urban groups of people are almost relieved to find someone from their part of society. Asim flirts with Aparna and coaxes her to show her room. He is attracted to the elegant and enigmatic Aparna, but is unable to keep pace with her composure, presence of mind and intelligence. Later Jaya invites all of them for breakfast the next day. At night the four friends go to drink alcohol again in the country liquor house. Hari is upset because he cannot see Duli (Simi Garewal) whom he had met previous night. While returning to their rest house, they stumble upon a car which they shout at without realizing it as the car of Aparna. They oversleep and miss the next day's breakfast. They find a packet of food lying outside their rooms and go to Aparna's house to return it. The entire group decides to chat near the rest house while Aparna's father is away with Jaya's son for a circus. They play a memory game where each participant has to add a name to a chain of names of famous people, after repeating all the names in correct sequence. The names each player chooses reflect his/her own preference and state of mind. The game reaches a crescendo, with only Asim and Aparna left in the fray, at which point Aparna pulls out, deliberately handing victory to Asim, who seems to have placed his entire confidence at stake on the win. The tensions peak at the village fair where the four friends go their own way. Shekhar goes off to gamble with money borrowed from his friends. Hari takes Duli into the forest and makes love to her. Aparna reveals her more vulnerable side that lies behind her composed exterior. She also holds up a mirror to urban insensitivity by pointing out to Asim how despite having spent three days at the rest house, they never bothered to find out how grievously ailing was the chowkidar's wife. Sanjoy, held back by his middle class moralities, is unable to draw up courage to respond to Jaya's bold advances. Later he walks back on the lonely village road, lost in his own thoughts as twilight melts into darkness. The next morning, the four friends, each wiser than before in his own way, leave for Calcutta since their new friends have had to return in a hurry. As a parting gift, they find a can of boiled eggs sent by the thoughtful Jaya. The look of glee on Shekhar's face as the car drives off and the relieved chowkidar rushes to close the gates behind them, brings about an emphatic finish to this forest sojourn.
1064040	Jungle 2 Jungle is a 1997 comedy film starring Tim Allen, Martin Short and Sam Huntington. It is an American remake of the 1994 French film "Un indien dans la ville" (also known as "Little Indian, Big City"). "Jungle 2 Jungle"s plot follows the original film fairly closely. The film was directed by John Pasquin, and produced by Walt Disney Pictures and TF1 Films Productions.
688956	Shannon Lee Tweed (born March 10, 1957) is a Canadian actress and model. One of the most successful actresses of mainstream erotica, she is identified with the genre of the erotic thriller. Tweed lives with her husband Gene Simmons, of the band Kiss, and their two children. Early life. Tweed was born in St John's, Newfoundland, to a mink rancher and was raised on a mink ranch in Markland. Shannon is one of seven children. She has four sisters, Tracy (born May 10, 1965, who is an actress), Sara Tweed (who lives in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan) and a third sister, Kim. Shannon and Tracy shared the screen in the film "Night Eyes 3", and have appeared nude together in a "Playboy" spread. Tracy occasionally makes appearances on "Family Jewels". She also has two brothers, Lance and Jeff.
586236	Shudharil Shudhan is a 2009 Malayalam film by debutant director Jayaraj Vijay starring Mukesh, Kalabhavan Mani and Indrans. The film is about an estate worker named Ramankutty (Indrans) who is forced to lead a strike against the estate management, leaving his family in starvation. Songs. The film has 5 songs which were composed by Jaison J. Nair. The songs were written by Vayalar Sarath Chandra Varma and Inchakkadu Balachandran.
1064572	Makenzie Jade Vega (born February 10, 1994) is an American teen actress. Personal life. Vega was born in Los Angeles, California to a Colombian father and an American mother. She is the younger sister of actress Alexa Vega. Vega currently lives in New York with her mother Gina Rue (a model), and three siblings. Vega graduated from Dominican Academy, a private all-girls Catholic school, on the Upper East Side, in June 2012. Career. At the age of five, Vega appeared regularly as the smallest child of Teddie Cochran (Geena Davis) in "The Geena Davis Show". In 2000, she was cast as Annie, the Campbells’ precocious daughter in "The Family Man". The following year, Vega was seen again playing Chloe in "Made" which starred Vince Vaughn, Jon Favreau and Famke Janssen. In 2004, she played Diana Gordon, daughter of Dr. Lawrence Gordon (Cary Elwes) and Alison Gordon (Monica Potter) in the horror film "Saw". Her next movie was "Sin City", in which she played young Nancy Callahan, alongside Bruce Willis. Vega then appeared in "Just My Luck", starring Lindsay Lohan, and also in the summer blockbuster "" as the Prison Truck Little Girl, where she was one of the forms that the shapeshifter Mystique took, as an unsuccessful ploy to fool the guards into letting her go. Currently, she plays Grace, the daughter of Alicia Florrick, portrayed by Julianna Margulies, in the CBS drama "The Good Wife".
1063907	Bonnie Blair Brown (born April 23, 1947) is an American theater, film, and television actress. She has had a number of high-profile roles, including a Tony Award-winning turn in the play "Copenhagen" on Broadway, as well as a run as the title character in the television comedy-drama "The Days and Nights of Molly Dodd", which ran from 1987 to 1991. Brown is well known for her recent role as Nina Sharp in the television series "Fringe", broadcast on Fox. Personal life. Brown was born in Washington, D.C., the daughter of Elizabeth Ann (née Blair), a teacher, and Milton Henry Brown, a U.S. intelligence agent. She graduated from The Madeira School in McLean, Virginia before going on to pursue acting at the National Theatre School of Canada, graduating in 1969. She gained notice as a participating actor at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival, and spent several years honing her work on the stage. Brown had a relationship with actor Richard Jordan, whom she met while filming the miniseries "Captains and the Kings" in 1976. The couple lived together from 1976 to 1985; they had one son, Robert Anson Jordan III, born in 1983. Career. Film. Brown's first feature film role was in the Oscar-winning 1973 film "The Paper Chase"; her first major starring role was in "The Choirboys" in 1977. Among her other film credits were "Altered States" (opposite William Hurt), "One Trick Pony", the film "Stealing Home" (opposite Mark Harmon) and "A Flash Of Green" (1984). Her arguably highest profile film role to date was the romantic lead opposite John Belushi in "Continental Divide" (1981) for which she received her first Golden Globe Award nomination, in the category of Best Motion Picture Actress in a Comedy/Musical. Other film roles include: And I Alone Survived (1978), "Strapless" (1989), "The Astronaut's Wife" (1999), Clint Eastwood's "Space Cowboys" (2000), Lars von Trier's "Dogville", the Kevin Bacon-directed "Loverboy" (2005) and "The Sentinel" (2006). Television. Brown appeared in several television movies and miniseries, primarily during the 1980s. A high-profile role as Jacqueline Kennedy in the 1983 TV miniseries "Kennedy" earned her a second Golden Globe nomination, for Best Actress in a Mini-Series or Motion Picture Made for Television, as well as a BAFTA nomination. She also appeared in several other programs about the Kennedys, including the 1996 miniseries "A Season in Purgatory", which was a thinly veiled portrait of the family, as well as an appearance as Anna Roosevelt in a telefilm about Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Eleanor Roosevelt. Brown is perhaps best known for her five-year run (1987–1991) on the Emmy Award-nominated comedy-drama series "The Days and Nights of Molly Dodd". Brown played the title role, and she, and the show, earned a small but dedicated following. Brown received five consecutive Emmy Award nominations for each season, in the category of Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series, but never won. The show spent two years on NBC, then moved to the Lifetime cable channel for the remainder of its run. Brown also appeared in other prime-time series including "The Rockford Files", "Kojak", "Frasier", "Smallville", " Touched by an Angel", "ER", and "Ed". Beginning in 2008, Brown starred as Nina Sharp in the Fox television series "Fringe". Stage. Brown has been involved with theater since the beginning of her career. She appeared in the 1975 New York Shakespeare Festival production of "The Comedy of Errors". Among her earlier roles was a run as Lucy Brown in the 1976 production of Brecht & Weill's "The Threepenny Opera", produced by Joe Papp and directed by Richard Foreman. She left the production for film work, but after being away from the production for eight months, Ellen Greene, who was playing the part of Jenny, fell ill. Brown astounded the stage manager of the production by coming in and, with one hour of rehearsal, put on a "brilliant" performance as Jenny. Her first major appearance on the Broadway came in 1989, in the play "Secret Rapture", written by David Hare. Once "Molly Dodd" concluded, Brown became a prolific Broadway actress, appearing in a number of roles. Among them were roles in Tom Stoppard's 1995 Lincoln Center Theater production of "Arcadia" and two separate runs as Frau Schneider in the revival of "Cabaret" (1998 and 2003). She played Margrethe, the wife of physicist Niels Bohr, in the play "Copenhagen", a role for which she won a 2000 Tony Award in the category of Best Featured Actress in a Play. Brown played the lead role in Sarah Ruhl's 2006 play "The Clean House" at Lincoln Center. Voice. In the 1990s, Brown expanded her career from performance into voiceover work. Brown has narrated a number of books, as well as being a narrator in films and documentaries. She has narrated a number of audiobooks, including John Grisham's "The Client", Lois Lowry's "Number the Stars", Stephen King's "Rose Madder", Kevin Henkes' "Olive's Ocean", Sue Miller's 2005 novel "Lost in the Forest", and Isabel Allende's "Inés of My Soul". Brown has narrated numerous documentaries, especially for PBS's "American Experience" series. She narrated the 2007 PBS series "The Mysterious Human Heart". Other documentary narrations include the scientific series "The Secret Life of the Brain", a documentary on Aimee Semple McPherson, which aired in April 2007, and a 2006 PBS documentary about Marie Antoinette. In April, 2010, she co-narrated the PBS special, "The Buddha", with Richard Gere.
1054267	Jakob the Liar is a 1999 American film directed by Peter Kassovitz and starring Robin Williams, Alan Arkin, Liev Schreiber, Hannah Taylor-Gordon, and Bob Balaban. The movie is set in 1944 in a ghetto in German-occupied Poland during the Holocaust and is based on the book by Jurek Becker about World War II Jewish ghetto life. It is a remake of the East German DEFA film "Jakob der Lügner" from 1975. Plot. In the Poland of early 1944, a Polish-Jewish shopkeeper named Jakob is summoned to the German headquarters after being falsely accused of being out after curfew. While waiting for the commander, Jakob overhears a German radio broadcast speaking about Soviet offensives. Returned to the ghetto, Jakob shares his information with a friend, sparking rumors that there is a secret radio within the ghetto. After hesitating, Jakob decides to use the chance to spread hope throughout the ghetto by continuing to tell the optimistic, fantastic tales that he allegedly heard from "his secret radio" and his lies keep hope and humor alive among the isolated ghetto inhabitants. He also has a real secret in that he is hiding a young Jewish girl who escaped from an extermination camp deportation train.
1166672	Malinda Williams (born December 3, 1975) is an American actress. She is best known for her role as Erica Wright in the 1996 movie "A Thin Line Between Love and Hate", as Young Alicia in the 1999 movie "The Wood", and as the hair stylist Tracy "Bird" Van Adams in the Showtime acclaimed drama series "Soul Food" from June 2000 to May 2004. Early life. Williams was born in Elizabeth, New Jersey. She moved with her family to Westfield, New Jersey, and graduated from Westfield High School. She attended Union County College in Elizabeth. Career. Williams has starred in a number of popular films including "The Wood", "Tyler Perry's Daddy's Little Girls", and "Uninvited Guest" (alongside Mekhi Phifer). Personal life. Williams was married to actor Mekhi Phifer and the two share a son together named Omikaye. In August 2008 she married D-Nice. In October 2009 the couple separated. In February 2010 the couple filed for divorce.
1056053	Tobias Alistair Pidhe "Toby" Kebbell (born 9 July 1982) is an English actor, known for his roles in the films "Dead Man's Shoes" (2004), "" and "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" (both 2010), "War Horse" (2011), and "Wrath of the Titans" (2012). Life and career. Kebbell, the fourth of five children, was born in South Elmsall, on the A638 between Doncaster and Wakefield, Yorkshire, but grew up in Nottinghamshire. He was brought up by his mother, Michelle (née Mathers), a cook and landscape gardener, after his parents divorced when he was eighteen months old. His father, Robert Kebbell, is an engineer. He went to a Catholic primary school. Kebbell first came to notice when director Shane Meadows cast him in the role of Anthony in the film "Dead Man's Shoes". He was nominated for Most Promising Newcomer at the British Independent Film Awards and was widely lauded for his sensitive, moving portrayal of a young man with a learning difficulty. Kebbell then appeared in Oliver Stone's "Alexander" and "Match Point", which Woody Allen cast him in without audition after being impressed with his performance in "Dead Man's Shoes". Kebbell's most critically acclaimed role came in 2007 when he played Rob Gretton, the manager of Joy Division in Anton Corbijn's award-winning biopic of Ian Curtis, "Control". He won the Best Supporting Actor Award at the British Independent Film Awards; other nominees for the award included Cate Blanchett, Colin Firth and "Control" co-star Samantha Morton. He was also nominated for the London Critics' Circle Best Supporting Actor Award alongside Albert Finney and Tom Wilkinson. In December 2007, Kebbell took the lead in an episode of Jimmy McGovern's BBC series "The Street", which subsequently won the BAFTA for Best Drama series. His other work for the BBC included a modern retelling of "Macbeth" alongside James McAvoy, while his theatre roles included spells at the Almeida Theatre in David Hare's reworking of Maxim Gorky's "Enemies" and at the Playhouse in R.C. Sherriff's classic, "Journey's End". In September 2008, Kebbell was featured in the film "RocknRolla", written and directed by Guy Ritchie, alongside actors Tom Wilkinson, Gerard Butler and Thandie Newton. Kebbell played a crack-addicted musician, Johnny Quid.
1164248	Desiderio Arnaz (better known as Desi Arnaz) (March 2, 1917 – December 2, 1986) was a Cuban-born American musician, actor and television producer. While he gained international renown for leading a Latin music band, the Desi Arnaz Orchestra, he is best known for his role as Ricky Ricardo on the American TV series "I Love Lucy", starring with Lucille Ball, to whom he was married at the time. He and Ball are generally credited as the inventors of the rerun in connection with the show. Early life. Desi Arnaz was born Desiderio Alberto Arnaz y de Acha III in Santiago de Cuba to Desiderio Alberto Arnaz II (March 8, 1894 – May 31, 1973) and his wife Dolores de Acha (April 2, 1896 – October 24, 1988). His father was Santiago's youngest mayor and also served in the Cuban House of Representatives. His maternal grandfather was Alberto de Acha, an executive at Bacardi Rum. According to Arnaz himself, in his autobiography "A Book" (1976), the family owned three ranches, a palatial home, and a vacation mansion on a private island in Santiago Bay, Cuba. Following the 1933 Cuban Revolution, led by Fulgencio Batista, which overthrew President Gerardo Machado, Alberto Arnaz was jailed and all of his property was confiscated. He was released after six months when his brother-in-law Alberto de Acha intervened on his behalf. The family then fled to Miami, Florida, where Desi attended St. Patrick Catholic High School. In the summer of 1934 he attended Saint Leo Prep (near Tampa) to help improve his English. Film career. When he moved to the United States, Desi Arnaz turned to show business to support himself. In 1939, he starred on Broadway in the musical "Too Many Girls". He went to Hollywood the next year to appear in the show's movie version at RKO, which starred Lucille Ball. Arnaz and Ball married on November 30, 1940. Arnaz also played guitar for Xavier Cugat. Arnaz appeared in several movies in the 1940s, notably "Bataan" (1943). He received his draft notice, but before reporting he injured his knee. He completed his recruit training, but was classified for limited service during World War II. He was assigned to direct United Service Organization (U.S.O.) programs at a military hospital in the San Fernando Valley. Discovering the first thing the wounded soldiers requested was a glass of cold milk, he arranged for movie starlets to meet them and pour the milk for them. Following his discharge from the Army, he formed another orchestra, which was successful in live appearances and recordings. He sang for troops in Birmingham Hospital with John Macchia and hired his childhood friend Marco Rizo to play piano and arrange for the orchestra. When he became successful in television, he kept the orchestra on his payroll, and Rizo arranged and orchestrated the music for "I Love Lucy". "I Love Lucy". On October 15, 1951, Arnaz co-starred in the premiere of "I Love Lucy", in which he played a fictitious version of himself, Cuban orchestra leader Enrique "Ricky" Ricardo. His co-star was his real-life wife, Lucille Ball, who played Ricky's wife, Lucy. Television executives had been pursuing Ball to adapt her very popular radio series "My Favorite Husband" for television. Ball insisted on Arnaz playing her on-air spouse so the two would be able to spend more time together. The original premise was for the couple to portray Lucy and Larry Lopez, a successful show business couple whose glamorous careers interfered with their efforts to maintain a normal marriage. Market research indicated, however, that this scenario would not be popular, so Jess Oppenheimer changed it to make Ricky Ricardo a struggling young orchestra leader and Lucy an ordinary housewife who had show business fantasies but no talent. (The character name "Larry Lopez" was dropped because of a real-life bandleader named Vincent Lopez, and was replaced with "Ricky Ricardo".) Ricky would often appear at, and later own, the Tropicana Club which, under his ownership, he renamed Club Babalu. Initially, the idea of having Ball and the distinctly Latino Arnaz portray a married couple encountered resistance as they were told that Desi's Cuban accent and Latin style would not be agreeable to American viewers. The couple overcame these objections, however, by touring together, during the summer of 1950, in a live vaudeville act they developed with the help of Spanish clown Pepito Pérez, together with Ball's radio show writers. Much of the material from their vaudeville act, including Lucy's memorable seal routine, was used in the pilot episode of "I Love Lucy". Segments of the pilot were recreated in the sixth episode of the show's first season. Desilu Productions. With Ball, he founded Desilu Productions. At that time, most television programs were broadcast live, and as the largest markets were in New York, the rest of the country received only kinescope images. Karl Freund, Arnaz's cameraman, and even Arnaz himself have been credited with the development of the multiple-camera setup production style using adjacent sets in front of a live audience that became the standard for all subsequent situation comedies to this day. The use of film enabled every station around the country to broadcast high-quality images of the show. Arnaz was told that it would be impossible to allow an audience onto a sound stage, but he worked with Freund to design a set that would accommodate an audience, allow filming, and also adhere to fire and safety codes. Network executives considered the use of film an unnecessary extravagance. Arnaz convinced them to allow Desilu to cover all additional costs associated with filming, under the stipulation that Desilu owned and controlled all rights to the film. Arnaz's unprecedented arrangement is widely considered to be one of the shrewdest deals in television history. As a result of his foresight, Desilu reaped the profits from all reruns of the series. Arnaz also pushed the network to allow them to show Lucille Ball while she was pregnant. According to Arnaz, the CBS network told him, "You cannot show a pregnant woman on television". Arnaz consulted a priest, a rabbi, and a minister, all of whom told him that there would be nothing wrong with showing a pregnant Lucy or with using the word "pregnant". The network finally relented and let Arnaz and Ball weave the pregnancy into the story line, but remained adamant about eschewing use of "pregnant", so Arnaz substituted "expecting", pronouncing it " 'spectin' " in his Cuban accent. Oddly, the official titles of two of the series' episodes employed the word "pregnant": "Lucy Is "Enceinte"", employing the French word for pregnant, and "Pregnant Women Are Unpredictable", although the episode titles never appeared on the show itself. In addition to "I Love Lucy", he executive produced "The Ann Sothern Show", "Those Whiting Girls" (starring Margaret Whiting and Barbara Whiting Smith) and was also involved in several other series such as "The Untouchables". He also produced the feature film "Forever, Darling" (1956), in which he and Ball starred. The original Desilu company continued long after Arnaz's divorce from Ball, both producing its own shows and providing production facilities to other producers. Among the later shows produced at Desilu were: "The Andy Griffith Show", "The Dick Van Dyke Show", "The Lucy Show", and '. When Ball sold her share of Desilu to what became Paramount Television, Arnaz went on to form his own production company from the ashes of his share of Desilu, and with the newly formed Desi Arnaz Productions, he made "The Mothers-In-Law" (at Desilu) for United Artists Television and NBC, this ran for two seasons from 1967 to 1968. Arnaz's company would be succeeded-in-interest by the company now known as Desilu, Too'". Both Desilu, Too, and Lucille Ball Productions work hand-in-hand with MPI Home Video in the home video re-issues of the Ball/Arnaz material not currently owned by CBS (successor-in-interest to Paramount Television, which in turn succeeded the original Desilu company). This material includes "Here's Lucy" and the aforementioned "The Mothers-In-Law", as well as many programs and specials Ball and Arnaz made independently of each other. Beliefs. Arnaz and Ball decided that the show would maintain what Arnaz termed "basic good taste", and were therefore determined to avoid ethnic jokes as well as humor based on handicaps, mental disabilities, and so on. Arnaz recalled that the only exception consisted of making fun of Ricky Ricardo's accent, and noted that even these jokes worked only when Lucy, as his wife, did the mimicking. Arnaz was patriotic. In his memoirs, speaking of the United States, he wrote: "I know of no other country in the world" in which "a sixteen-year-old kid, broke and unable to speak the language" could achieve the successes he had. Over the show's nine-year run, the fortunes of the Ricardos mirror that of the archetypal 1950s American Dream. At first, they lived in a tiny, if pleasant brownstone apartment. Later, Ricardo got his big chance and moved, temporarily, to a fashionable hotel suite in Hollywood. Shortly after returning to New York, they had the opportunity to travel to Europe. Finally, the couple moved into a house in wealthy Westport, Connecticut. Marriages. Arnaz and Ball's marriage (1940) was turbulent. Convinced that Arnaz was being unfaithful to her, and also because he came home drunk several times, Ball filed for divorce in September 1944, but returned to him before the interlocutory decree became final. He and Ball are the parents of actress Lucie Arnaz (born 1951) and actor Desi Arnaz, Jr. (born 1953). Arnaz's marriage with Ball began to collapse under the strain of his growing problems with alcohol and womanizing. According to his memoir, the combined pressures of managing the production company as well as supervising its day-to-day operations had greatly worsened as it grew much larger, and he felt compelled to seek outlets to alleviate the stress. Arnaz was also suffering from diverticulitis. Ball divorced him in 1960. When Ball returned to weekly television, she and Arnaz worked out an agreement regarding Desilu, wherein she bought him out. Arnaz married his second wife, Edith Mack Hirsch, on March 2, 1963, and greatly reduced his show business activities. He served as executive producer of "The Mothers-in-Law", and during its two-year run, made four guest appearances as a Spanish matador, Señor Delgado. Edith died in 1985. Although both Arnaz and Ball remarried to other spouses after their divorce in 1960, they remained friends, and grew closer in his final decade. "'I Love Lucy' was never just a title", wrote Arnaz in the last years of his life. Family home movies later aired on television showed Ball and Arnaz playing together with their grandson Simon shortly before Arnaz's death. Later life. In the 1970s, Arnaz co-hosted a week of shows with daytime host and producer Mike Douglas. Vivian Vance appeared as a guest. Arnaz also headlined a "Kraft Music Hall" special on NBC that featured his two children, with a brief appearance by Vance. To promote his autobiography, "A Book", on February 21, 1976, Arnaz served as a guest host on "Saturday Night Live", with his son, Desi, Jr., also appearing. The program contained spoofs of "I Love Lucy" and "The Untouchables". The spoofs of "I Love Lucy" were supposed to be earlier concepts of the show that never made it on the air, such as "I Love Louie", where Desi lived with Louis Armstrong. He also read Lewis Carroll's poem "Jabberwocky" in a heavy Cuban accent (he pronounced it "Habberwocky"). Arnaz, Jr. played the drums and, supported by the "SNL" band, Desi sang both "Babalu" and another favorite from his dance band days, "Cuban Pete"; the arrangements were similar to the ones used on "I Love Lucy". He ended the broadcast by leading the entire cast in a raucous conga line through the "SNL" studio.
1169658	Kathryn Crosby (born November 25, 1933) is an American actress and singer who also performed under the stage-name Kathryn Grant. Life and career. Born Olive Kathryn Grandstaff in Houston, Texas, she graduated from the University of Texas at Austin with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in 1955. Two years later she became Bing Crosby's second wife, being more than thirty years his junior. The couple had three children, Harry, Mary Frances, and Nathaniel. She appeared as a guest star on her husband's 1964–1965 ABC sitcom "The Bing Crosby Show". She largely retired after their marriage, but did have a featured role in the courtroom drama "Anatomy of a Murder" (1959). She also played the part of "Mama Bear" alongside her husband and children in "Goldilocks" and starred with Jack Lemmon in "Operation Mad Ball" (1957). In the mid-1970s, she hosted "The Kathryn Crosby Show", a 30-minute local talk-show on KPIX-TV in San Francisco. Husband Bing appeared as a guest occasionally. Since Bing Crosby's death in 1977, she has taken on a few smaller roles and the lead in the short-lived 1996 Broadway musical "State Fair". For 16 years ending in 2001, Crosby hosted the Crosby National Golf Tournament at Bermuda Run Country Club in Bermuda Run, North Carolina. A nearby bridge carrying U.S. Route 158 over the Yadkin River is named for Kathryn Crosby.
1377414	Roshon Bernard Fegan (born October 6, 1991) is an American actor of African-American and Filipino descent. He is best known for his role as "Ty Blue" on the Disney Channel original series "Shake It Up" and for his role as Sander Loyer in the Disney Channel movie franchise "Camp Rock" with the Jonas Brothers and Demi Lovato. Early life. Roshon Fegan was born on October 6, 1991, in Los Angeles, California, to parents Cion and Roy. His father is an African American actor and producer, Roy Fegan, whose television credits include "The Shield", "Married... with Children", The Meteor Man, and "Will & Grace", among others. His mother is Filipina. Raised in Los Angeles, Roshon Fegan had studied at the BK Acting Studio and the USC 32nd Street Performing Arts School as well as attending Hollywood High School, before leaving to be home-schooled to accommodate his acting career. Career. Fegan began his acting career at the age of 12 with a small role in the 2004 feature film "Spider-Man 2", followed by an appearance in 2006 on the TV series "Monk". In 2008, he appeared in the comedy film "Drillbit Taylor" and the VC FilmFest Award winning film "Baby". In the summer of that same year, Fegan gained popular notoriety as Sander Loyer in the Disney Channel original movie "Camp Rock", which was the number one entertainment telecast on cable TV in 2008. with the Jonas Brothers. He also performed songs on the "Camp Rock" soundtrack as well as the DVD bonus track "Camp Rock". In the summer of 2010, Fegan reprised his role as Sander in the Disney Channel movie sequel "". Roshon currently co-stars on the Disney Channel original series "Shake It Up!" as Ty Blue, Rocky's older brother. Fegan was featured on the 14th season of the ABC show "Dancing with the Stars". It was announced that Roshon's new ballroom dancer is Chelsie Hightower. He stayed on for 8 weeks and was placed in the top 6. Personal life. Roshon is a songwriter, producer, actor, artist and freestyle dancer who learned his moves by watching Michael Jackson and other influential dancers. A drummer since the age of two, Roshon also plays the piano and guitar. He has released a number of singles on iTunes and has finished his first self produced EP "I AM RO SHON" under his own label, ""3inaRo Entertainment."" The name ""3inaRo"" (pronounced "three-in-a-row") is a reference to being a triple threat entertainer in his three passions; acting, freestyle dancing, and music. He currently lives in California with most of his family.
584681	Thalaimagan is a 2006 Tamil film starring Sarath Kumar, Nayanthara, Seema Biswas, Vadivelu, Mukesh Tiwari and Vijayakumar. This film marked Sarath Kumar's directorial debut and for whom the film was also his 100th starrer. The film was a huge failure and received a lot of negative criticism. Plot. The story is set around the bulwark of honest and public good institution of everest. A journalistic anachronism at a time when media houses have become mouthpieces for corporate houses. It is helmed by the fearless Ayya (Vijaykumar), it has among its ranks an intrepid scribe Dheeran (Sarath Kumar). He is no journeyman journalist. He is writer as well as a doer. When the power of the pen looks like slackening, he uses the hands that push the pen, so to say. And then there is harried colleague Erimalai (Vadivelu), who is just a step away from trouble. Meghala (Nayantra) is an enterprising intern who drives Dheeran distraction. Dheeran runs into the evil axis of politico and police web as represented by the corrupt Minister Shanmuga Sundaram (Mukesh Tiwari) and a venal cop Alanakaram (Seema Biswas). Dheeran through his mixed ways frustrate all the evil plans of the duo. But a new water bottling plant of an MNC becomes a major confrontation issue. Dheeran goes hammer and tongs against the project, as it would be harmful to villagers. Dheeran painstakingly exposes all the chinks in the project. Shanmugasundaram has to come with a violent reprisal and he sure does and thinks he has done away with Dheeran. Did he? But Dheeran comes back from dead as a new man with renewed force. In the two years, Shanmugha Sundaram and Alankaram had come a long way. But Dheeran, slowly but stealthily, exposes them with a cunning of a mountain fox. He exposes all their bad deeds with clinching evidence. How? Well, it all leads to an action-packed climax.The satellite rights has been bageed by Kalanithi Maran's Sun TV.
1068273	Glenn E. Plummer (born August 18, 1961) is an American film and television actor. Plummer was born in Richmond, California. He has appeared in numerous films and television series, primarily in supporting roles or small bit parts, such as High Top in "Colors." His prominent roles came in the films "Menace II Society", "Speed", "Bones", "Showgirls", "South Central", "The Day After Tomorrow", "The Salton Sea" and "Saw II". He was offered the role of Jesse in "Riding the Bus with My Sister".
590077	Anmol Ghadi (English title:Precious Time) is a 1946 Hindi film directed by Mehboob Khan, starring Surendra, Suraiya and Noor Jehan.
774572	The Snow Walker is a 2003 Canadian adventure film written and directed by Charles Martin Smith and starring Barry Pepper. Based on the short story "Walk Well, My Brother" by Farley Mowat, the film is about a Canadian bush pilot whose life is changed through an encounter with a young Inuit woman and their challenge to survive the harsh conditions of the Northwest Territories following an airplane crash. The film won six Leo Awards, including Best Lead Performance by a Male (Barry Pepper), and was nominated for nine Genie Awards, including Best Motion Picture, Best Performance by an Actor (Barry Pepper), Best Performance by an Actress (Annabella Piugattuk), and Best Adapted Screenplay (Charles Martin Smith). Plot. In the summer of 1953, Canadian bush pilot Charlie Halliday (Barry Pepper)—a brash former World War II fighter pilot based in Yellowknife—is flying a routine job in the Queen Maud Gulf on the Arctic Ocean when he encounters a small band of Inuit people who plead for his help. They are traveling with a sick young woman, Kanaalaq (Annabella Piugattuk), and they ask Charlie to fly her to a hospital. Charlie suspects she has tuberculosis. At first he refuses, but when they offer him two valuable walrus tusks for his help, he reluctantly agrees to take her to Yellowknife. During the flight, the airplane develops engine trouble, and they crash land near the shore of a glacial lake. Charlie and Kanaalaq are unharmed, but the aircraft is disabled. They are in the middle of a vast tundra in the Northwest Territories, the radio is broken, and they have a meager amount of supplies. To make matters worse, he is hundreds of miles from the route he submitted in his original flight plan, so any rescue operation would not know where to look. Charlie is overwhelmed with a sense of doom, and he sees his Inuit companion as an unwelcome burden.
583552	Shriya Sharma (born 1997) is an Indian, child film actress and model. She is living in Lokandwala Township, Mumbai, nearly 19km from IIT Bombay. She was seen in Gumrah Season 3 in 2013. In 2011, she was seen in Chillar Party. She is very popular among child artists and has been the most known child artist in India. It is said that there is a huge proportion of Indian TV channels' viewers with her who have seen her face on TV. Biography. Shriya Sharma was born on 9 September 1997 in Palampur, Himachal Pradesh, India. Filmography. TV Serials. Won the best child artist "Star Parivar" award 2004 and also Indian Telly Award
1068838	The Skeleton Key is a 2005 American supernatural horror film starring Kate Hudson, Gena Rowlands, John Hurt, Peter Sarsgaard, and Joy Bryant. The film centers on a young hospice nurse who acquires a job at a Terrebonne Parish plantation home, and becomes entangled in a supernatural mystery involving the house, its former inhabitants, and the hoodoo rituals and spells that took place there. It was released in cinemas in the United Kingdom on July 29, 2005, and in the U.S. on August 12, 2005. Plot. Caroline Ellis (Kate Hudson), is a New Orleans nurse who takes a position as a private hospice caregiver at an isolated plantation house deep in the bayous of southern Louisiana. The lady of the house Violet Devereaux (Gena Rowlands), looks after her husband Benjamin Devereaux (John Hurt). With some prompting from the family's estate lawyer, Luke Marshall (Peter Sarsgaard), she accepts the position. Caroline, through her curiosity, soon discovers that the mansion has a dark past. Finding her way into a secret room in the attic (where Ben had his stroke) using a skeleton key that Violet gave her, she discovers dolls, a book of spells, potion jars, and various other magical paraphernalia. Violet reveals to Caroline, shown through flashbacks, that the room belonged to two house servants who had been employed there 90 years prior. The couple, Mama Cecile (Jeryl Prescott) and Papa Justify (Ron McCall) were renowned practitioners of hoodoo. The couple, as revealed by Violet, were lynched when it was discovered that they were performing Hoodoo spells with the children of the house owners. Violet also told her that they do not keep mirrors in the house because they see the reflection of the servants. Caroline, however, remains a skeptic.
170579	Pythagoras of Samos (, or simply ; c. 570 BC – c. 495 BC) was an Ionian Greek philosopher, mathematician, and founder of the religious movement called Pythagoreanism. Most of the information about Pythagoras was written down centuries after he lived, so very little reliable information is known about him. He was born on the island of Samos, and might have travelled widely in his youth, visiting Egypt and other places seeking knowledge. Around 530 BC, he moved to Croton, in Magna Graecia, and there set up a religious sect. His followers pursued the religious rites and practices developed by Pythagoras, and studied his philosophical theories. The society took an active role in the politics of Croton, but this eventually led to their downfall. The Pythagorean meeting-places were burned, and Pythagoras was forced to flee the city. He is said to have died in Metapontum. Pythagoras made influential contributions to philosophy and religious teaching in the late 6th century BC. He is often revered as a great mathematician, mystic and scientist, but he is best known for the Pythagorean theorem which bears his name. However, because legend and obfuscation cloud his work even more than that of the other pre-Socratic philosophers, one can give only a tentative account of his teachings, and some have questioned whether he contributed much to mathematics and natural philosophy. Many of the accomplishments credited to Pythagoras may actually have been accomplishments of his colleagues and successors. Whether or not his disciples believed that everything was related to mathematics and that numbers were the ultimate reality is unknown. It was said that he was the first man to call himself a philosopher, or lover of wisdom, and Pythagorean ideas exercised a marked influence on Plato, and through him, all of Western philosophy. Biographical sources. Accurate facts about the life of Pythagoras are so few, and most information concerning him is of so late a date, and so untrustworthy, that it is impossible to provide more than a vague outline of his life. The lack of information by contemporary writers, together with the secrecy which surrounded the Pythagorean brotherhood, meant that invention took the place of facts. The stories which were created were eagerly sought by the Neoplatonist writers who provide most of the details about Pythagoras, but who were uncritical concerning anything which related to the gods or which was considered divine. Thus many myths were created – such as that Apollo was his father; that Pythagoras gleamed with a supernatural brightness; that he had a golden thigh; that Abaris came flying to him on a golden arrow; that he was seen in different places at the same time. With the exception of a few remarks by Xenophanes, Heraclitus, Herodotus, Plato, Aristotle, and Isocrates, we are mainly dependent on Diogenes Laërtius, Porphyry, and Iamblichus for the biographical details. Aristotle had written a separate work on the Pythagoreans, which unfortunately has not survived. His disciples Dicaearchus, Aristoxenus, and Heraclides Ponticus had written on the same subject. These writers, late as they are, were among the best sources from whom Porphyry and Iamblichus drew, besides the legendary accounts and their own inventions. Hence historians are often reduced to considering the statements based on their inherent probability, but even then, if all the credible stories concerning Pythagoras were supposed true, his range of activity would be impossibly vast. Life. Herodotus, Isocrates, and other early writers all agree that Pythagoras was born on Samos, the Greek island in the eastern Aegean, and we also learn that Pythagoras was the son of Mnesarchus. His father was a gem-engraver or a merchant. His name led him to be associated with Pythian Apollo; Aristippus explained his name by saying, "He spoke ("agor-") the truth no less than did the Pythian ("Pyth-")," and Iamblichus tells the story that the Pythia prophesied that his pregnant mother would give birth to a man supremely beautiful, wise, and beneficial to humankind. A late source gives his mother's name as Pythais. As to the date of his birth, Aristoxenus stated that Pythagoras left Samos in the reign of Polycrates, at the age of 40, which would give a date of birth around 570 BC. It was natural for the ancient biographers to inquire as to the origins of Pythagoras' remarkable system. In the absence of reliable information, however, a huge range of teachers were assigned to Pythagoras. Some made his training almost entirely Greek, others exclusively Egyptian and Oriental. We find mentioned as his instructors Creophylus, Hermodamas of Samos, Bias, Thales, Anaximander, and Pherecydes of Syros. He is said too, to have been taught by a Delphic priestess named Themistoclea, who introduced him to the principles of ethics. The Egyptians are said to have taught him geometry, the Phoenicians arithmetic, the Chaldeans astronomy, the Magians the principles of religion and practical maxims for the conduct of life. Of the various claims regarding his Greek teachers, Pherecydes is mentioned most often. Diogenes Laertius reported that Pythagoras had undertaken extensive travels, and had visited not only Egypt, but Arabia, Phoenicia, Judaea, Babylon, and even India, for the purpose of collecting all available knowledge, and especially to learn information concerning the secret or mystic cults of the gods. Plutarch asserted in his book "On Isis and Osiris" that during his visit to Egypt, Pythagoras received instruction from the Egyptian priest Oenuphis of
709872	Christopher Clavius (25 March 1538 – 6 February 1612) was a German Jesuit mathematician and astronomer who modified the proposal of the modern Gregorian calendar after the death of its primary author, Luigi Lilio. Clavius would later write defences and an explanation of the reformed calendar, including an emphatic acknowledgement of Lilio's work. In his last years he was probably the most respected astronomer in Europe and his textbooks were used for astronomical education for over fifty years in and even out of Europe. Early life. Very little is known about Clavius' early life other than the fact that he was born in Bamberg in either 1538 or 1537. His given name is not known to any great degree of certainty—it is thought by scholars to be perhaps Christoph Clau or Klau. There are also some who think that his taken name, "Clavius", may be a Latinization of his original German name, suggesting that his name may have been "Schlüssel" (German for "key", which is "clavis" in Latin). Clavius joined the Jesuit order in 1555. He attended the University of Coimbra in Portugal, where it is possible that he had some kind of contact with the famous mathematician Pedro Nunes ("Petrus Nonius"). Following this he went to Italy and studied theology at the Jesuit Collegio Romano in Rome. In 1579 he was assigned to compute the basis for a reformed calendar that would stop the slow process in which the Church's holidays were drifting relative to the seasons of the year. Using the Prussian Tables of Erasmus Reinhold and building on the work of Aloysius Lilius, he proposed a calendar reform that was adopted in 1582 in Catholic countries by order of Pope Gregory XIII and is now the Gregorian calendar used worldwide. Within the Jesuit order, Clavius was almost single-handedly responsible for the adoption of a rigorous mathematics curriculum in an age where mathematics was often ridiculed by philosophers. In logic, Clavius' Law (inferring of the truth of a proposition from the inconsistency of its negation) is named after him. He used the decimal point in the goniometric tables of his "astrolabium" in 1593 and he was one of the first who used it in this way. Astronomy. As an astronomer Clavius held strictly to the geocentric model of the solar system, in which all the heavens rotate about the Earth. Though he opposed the heliocentric model of Copernicus, he recognized problems with the orthodox model. He was treated with great respect by Galileo, who visited him in 1611 and discussed the new observations being made with the telescope; Clavius had by that time accepted the new discoveries as genuine, though he retained doubts about the reality of the mountains on the Moon. Later, a large crater on the Moon was named in his honor. Selected works. Clavius' complete mathematical works (5 volumes, Mainz, 1612) are available online.
1056182	Curse of the Golden Flower is a 2006 Chinese epic drama film directed by Zhang Yimou. With a budget of US$45 million, it was at the time of its release the most expensive Chinese film to date, surpassing Chen Kaige's "The Promise". It was chosen as China's entry for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film for the year 2006; but did not receive the nomination. The film was however nominated for Costume Design. In 2007 it received fourteen nominations at the 26th Hong Kong Film Awards and won "Best Actress" for Gong Li, "Best Art Direction", "Best Costume and Make Up Design" and "Best Original Film Song" for "菊花台" (Chrysanthemum Terrace) by Jay Chou. The plot is based on Cao Yu's 1934 play "Thunderstorm" (雷雨 pinyin: Léiyǔ), but is set in the Imperial court in ancient China. Plot. On the eve of the Chong Yang Festival, golden chrysanthemum flowers fill the Imperial Palace. The Emperor (Chow Yun-fat) returns from his various military campaigns with his second son and general, Prince Jai (Jay Chou). The emperor has returned to celebrate the holiday with his family.
584188	Yugendran (Tamil:யுகேந்திரன், Malayalam:യുഗേന്ത്രൻ) (born on 20 December 1976 as Yugendran Vasudevan Nair) is an Indian film actor and singer, who has sung more than 600 songs. He is also an occasional music director and host. Personal life. Yugendran is the son of veteran popular playback singer-cum-actor Malaysia Vasudevan. He has 2 sisters named Pavithra and Prashanthini. Prashanthini is a Tamil playback singer as well and has sung in films such as "12B", "Veyil" and "Vaaranam Aayiram". Yugendran performed in the Launch of a Tamil radio station in Sri Lanka called Swarna Oli in 1999, where he met his wife, Hema Malini,a popular RJ-cum-host, Hema Malini is a Singaporean and together they have two children: Visashan Naarayan and Kishan Kutty Naarayan. Music career. Yugendran started out in the music industry as a mirundangist and made his debut solo performance at the age of 10. His mirundanga arangetram had Dr Balamurali Krishna accompanying him on the viola and attended by the maestro Illaiyaraja himself. His first song was for the movie Uzhavan Magan, senthoorave poove where he sang the shepherd boy's voice. He went on to sing in stage shows with his dad in India as well as overseas. Till the age of 14, he used to sing the female portion of the duets his father rendered on stage. After his voice broke, he went on to do solo performances in countries like, Switzerland, Sri Lanka, Singapore, Malaysia, America even before becoming a playback singer.
1062313	Jonathan Kolia "Jon" Favreau (; born October 19, 1966) is an American actor, director, screenwriter, voice artist, and comedian. As an actor, he is best known for his roles in "Rudy", "Swingers" (which he also wrote), "Very Bad Things", and "The Break-Up". His notable directorial efforts include "Elf", "Iron Man", "Iron Man 2", and "Cowboys & Aliens". He also served as an executive producer on "The Avengers" and more recently, "Iron Man 3". His most prominent television role was that of Pete Becker, Monica Geller's boyfriend during season three of the television sitcom "Friends". Early life. Favreau was born in Flushing, Queens, New York, the son of Madeleine, an elementary school teacher who died of leukemia in 1979, and Charles Favreau, a special education teacher. His mother was Jewish and his father is a Catholic of Italian and distant French-Canadian ancestry. Favreau attended Hebrew school and had a Bar Mitzvah. Favreau graduated from the Bronx High School of Science in 1984 and attended Queens College from 1984 to 1987, before dropping out. His friend from college, Mitchell Pollack, said that Favreau went by the nickname "Hack" because of his talent in the game, Hacky Sack. He briefly worked for Bear Stearns on Wall Street before returning to Queens College for a semester in early 1988. He dropped out of college for good (a few credits shy of completing his degree), and in the summer of 1988, moved to Chicago to pursue a career in comedy. He performed at several Chicago improvisational theaters, including the ImprovOlympic and the Improv Institute. Career. Early career. While in Chicago, Favreau landed his first film role alongside Sean Astin as the pudgy tutor D-Bob in the classic sleeper hit "Rudy" (1993). Favreau met Vince Vaughn – who played a small role in this film – during shooting. The next year, he appeared in the college film "PCU" alongside Jeremy Piven, and also stepped into the world of television in the 1994 episode of "Seinfeld" titled "The Fire" as Eric the Clown. He then moved to Los Angeles, where he made his breakthrough in 1996 as an actor-screenwriter with the film "Swingers", which was also Vaughn's breakthrough role as the glib and extremely confident Trent Walker, a perfect foil to Favreau's heartbroken Mike Peters. In 1997, he appeared on the popular TV sitcom "Friends", portraying Pete Becker, whom Monica Geller dates for several episodes, and who competes in the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC). Favreau made appearances in the sketch-comedy series, "Tracey Takes On..." in both 1996 and 1997. He rejoined Piven in 1998 as part of "Very Bad Things" (1998). In 1999, he starred in the TV movie "Rocky Marciano", based on the life of the only undefeated world heavyweight champion. He later appeared in "Love & Sex" (2000), co-starring Famke Janssen. Favreau appeared in 2000's "The Replacements" as maniacal linebacker Daniel Bateman, and that same year he played himself in "The Sopranos" episode "D-Girl", as a Hollywood director who feigns interest in developing mob associate Christopher Moltisanti's screenplay in order to collect material for his own screenplay. He was a guest-director for an episode of the college dramedy "Undeclared" in 2001, and Favreau got some screen time as lawyer Foggy Nelson in the 2003 movie "Daredevil" (2003) (considerably more in the Director's Cut version). In 2003, he also starred in "The Big Empty", directed by Steve Anderson. His character was John Person, an out of work actor given a strange mission to deliver a blue suitcase to a man named Cowboy in the desert. Actor-director. In 2001, he made his (film) directorial debut with another self-penned screenplay, "Made". "Made" once again teamed him up with his "Swingers" co-star Vince Vaughn. In the fall of 2003, he scored his first financial success as a director of the hit comedy "Elf" starring Will Ferrell and James Caan. Also in 2003, Favreau had a small part in "Something's Gotta Give" (a film starring Diane Keaton and Jack Nicholson); Favreau played Leo, Harry Sanborn's (Nicholson) personal assistant, who visited Harry in the hospital. In 2005, Favreau directed the film adaptation of "Zathura". Never to turn his back on acting, Favreau still makes regular appearances in film and television. He reunited with friend Vince Vaughn in the much-hyped hit romantic comedy "The Break-Up" and appeared in "My Name Is Earl" as a reprehensible fast food manager. Favreau also made a guest appearance in Vaughn's "". Also in 2005, Favreau appeared as a guest judge and executive representative of Sony corporation in week five of NBC primetime reality TV business show, "The Apprentice". He was called upon to judge the efforts of the show's two teams of contestants, who were assigned the task of designing and building a float to publicise his 2005 Sony Pictures movie, "Zathura". Favreau also has a TV series called "Dinner for Five" which airs on the cable TV channel IFC. On April 28, 2006, it was announced that Favreau was signed to direct the long awaited "Iron Man" movie. Released on May 2, 2008, the film was a huge critical and commercial success, solidifying Favreau's reputation as a director. Favreau was the third director attached to "John Carter of Mars", the film adaptation of Edgar Rice Burroughs' swashbuckling space hero. Robert Rodriguez and Kerry Conran were previously attached within the last two years. Mark Protosevich and Ehren Kruger have both written drafts. "The Marshal in Revelation" has been in development since "Swingers" was released. It's a western about a Hasidic gunslinger. At one time both Favreau and Vince Vaughn were to co-direct. "Neanderthals" is a CG animated film that Favreau will write and produce. "Johnny Zero" will cover the birth of the hot rod movement following World War II. Favreau will write and direct. "Iron Man" was the first Marvel-produced movie under their alliance with Paramount, and Favreau served as the director and an executive producer. He recently told MTV that he would like to be at the helm of an Avengers film. During early scenes in "Iron Man," Favreau appears as Tony Stark's loyal friend, and driver, Happy Hogan. He also wrote two issues of a planned mini-series for Marvel Knights titled "Iron Man: Viva Las Vegas", that debuted in September 2008 before being canceled in November 2008. Favreau also directed the film's sequel, "Iron Man 2". Favreau co-starred in 2009's "Couples Retreat", a comedy chronicling four couples who partake in therapy sessions at a tropical island resort, which he also wrote. The film saw him reunited with co-star Vince Vaughn, and Kristin Davis played his wife. He voices the character Pre Vizsla, the leader of the Mandalorian Death Watch, in the episodes of the animated series "".
629652	Australian comedy (or Australian humour) refers to the comedy and humour performed in or about Australia or by the people of Australia. Australian humour can be traced to various origins, and today is manifested in a diversity of cultural practices and pursuits. Writers like Henry Lawson helped to establish a tradition of laconic, ironic and irreverent wit in Australian literature and Australian cultural stereotypes have proved rich sources of comedy for artists from poet C.J. Dennis to satirist Barry Humphries and iconic film maker Paul Hogan, each of whom have given wide circulation to Australian slang.
1055106	Freebie and the Bean is a 1974 action-comedy film about two San Francisco police detectives who attempt to bring down a local hijacking boss. The picture, a precursor to the buddy cop film genre popularized a decade later, stars James Caan, Alan Arkin, Loretta Swit and Valerie Harper. Harper was nominated for the Golden Globe for New Star of the Year. The film was directed by Richard Rush. Stanley Kubrick called "Freebie and the Bean" the best film of 1974. Arkin and Caan would not appear in another movie together again until the 2008 film adaptation of "Get Smart". Plot. Freebie and Bean are detectives with the San Francisco police. While distracted by his suspicions that his wife is having affair, Bean and his partner investigate racketeer Red Meyers, only to learn that a hit man is after Meyers as well. Production notes. Key scenes were shot on location in early 1973 in San Francisco at Candlestick Park, then home of the Major League Baseball San Francisco Giants, and now the home of the National Football League's San Francisco 49ers. One chase sequence was filmed on the (now-demolished) Embarcadero Freeway, which ends with Caan and Arkin's car crashing into an apartment building next to the freeway. After the car lands in an elderly couple's bedroom as they are watching television. Arkin collapses from nervous shock against the wall as Caan calls for a tow truck, checking the third floor address by reading the couple's mail. The couple seem unaffected by the car crashing through the wall.
1164282	Christina Abbi Vidal (born November 18, 1981) is an American film and television actress. She is best known for her roles in the films "Life with Mikey", "Brink!", "Freaky Friday", "See No Evil", and the Nickelodeon sitcom "Taina", in which she played the title character. Early life and education. Vidal was born and raised in Whitestone, an area in Queens, New York, the daughter of Manny Vidal, a tax consultant and businessman, and his wife Josie, a secretary, both of Puerto Rican ancestry. She attended the Performing Arts School Of New York. When she was 17 she joined a girl group called Gemstone (along with Jade Villalon and Crystal Grant). Vidal later moved to Orlando, Florida, to proceed with the filming of "Taina". Her sisters Lisa, and Tanya are also actors and have appeared on TV and in theatre; she also has a brother, Christian. Career. Acting. Vidal's acting career started when one of her teachers told her there was an audition for the movie "Life with Mikey" (1993), starring Michael J. Fox. She auditioned and got the part of "Angie Vega", and was therefore the first Puerto Rican child actress to play a lead in an American film. Since then, Vidal has appeared in numerous films and television series, with her most notable role being Taina Maria Morales in the Nickelodeon show "Taina". The sitcom was at first successful and ran for two seasons until its cancellation in the summer of 2002 because Nickelodeon felt that it only appealed to girls. The next year she starred in the film "Freaky Friday" alongside Lindsay Lohan. She played the role of Maddie in that film. That same year, she starred in the short-lived ABC action TV series about police officers called "" until she suddenly left after two months on the show. Also in 2003 she guest starred in "Sabrina, the Teenage Witch" as Paris Fate. In 2006, she did an untitled sitcom pilot along with her sisters for ABC (which was executively produced by George Lopez). The show was not picked up but later that year she starred in the film "See No Evil", along with having a brief stint on the hit sitcom "Girlfriends". In recent times, she made cameo appearances in the movies "I Think I Love My Wife", "Mask of the Ninja", and the internet comedy short "Love Automatically", written by Mylinda Royer and directed by Allison Haislip. Most recently, Vidal played a supporting character in the film "Magic Man", which was released in 2009. Music. When Vidal was in the band Gemstone, she recorded songs with herself as well as bandmate Jade Villalon performing vocals. A few of these tracks would surface many years later on albums consisting of demoes, rare tracks, and special songs of Jade Villalon's music project, Sweetbox. In 2002, she was briefly signed to MCA Records and in that time she was supposed to release her first single "Tropical" and her solo debut album "White" in the summer of 2002, but never did. That same year she provided guest vocals on the remix of Will Smith's summer hit "Black Suits Comin' (Nod Ya Head)" from the "Men in Black II" soundtrack. She was a part of Lupe Fiasco's 1st & 15th Entertainment. She also recorded a track for the work out cd called "Byou" from Sabrina Bryan of the Cheetah Girls. The song she recorded was "Anything Is Possible". She also sang the song "Take Me Away" in the movie "Freaky Friday".
1062392	The Last Samurai is a 2003 American epic war film directed and co-produced by Edward Zwick, who also co-wrote the screenplay with John Logan. The film stars Tom Cruise, who also co-produced, as well as Ken Watanabe, Shin Koyamada, Tony Goldwyn, Hiroyuki Sanada, Timothy Spall and Billy Connolly. Inspired by a project by Vincent Ward, it interested Zwick, with Ward later serving as executive producer. The film production went ahead with Zwick and was shot in Ward’s native New Zealand. Cruise portrays an American officer, whose personal and emotional conflicts bring him into contact with samurai warriors in the wake of the Meiji Restoration in 19th Century Japan. The film's plot was inspired by the 1877 Satsuma Rebellion led by Saigō Takamori, and on the westernization of Japan by colonial powers, though this is largely attributed to the United States in the film for American audiences. It is also based on the stories of Jules Brunet, a French army captain who fought alongside Enomoto Takeaki in the earlier Boshin War and Frederick Townsend Ward, an American mercenary who helped Westernize the Chinese army by forming the Ever Victorious Army. "The Last Samurai" was well received upon its release, with a worldwide box office total of $456 million. It was nominated for several awards, including four Academy Awards, three Golden Globe Awards and two National Board of Review Awards. Plot. In 1876, Captain Nathan Algren (Tom Cruise) is traumatized by his participation in the massacre of Native Americans in the Indian Wars and has become an alcoholic to stave off the memories. Algren is approached by former colleague Zebulon Gant (Billy Connolly), who takes him to meet Algren's former superior Colonel Bagley (Tony Goldwyn), whom Algren despises for ordering the massacre along with his arrogance. On behalf of businessman Mr. Omura (Masato Harada), Bagley offers Algren a job training conscripts of the new Meiji government of Japan to suppress a samurai rebellion that is opposed to Western influence, led by Katsumoto (Ken Watanabe). Despite the painful ironies of crushing another tribal rebellion, Algren accepts solely for payment. In Japan he keeps a journal and is accompanied by British translator Simon Graham (Timothy Spall), who has a longstanding interest in and great knowledge of the samurai. Despite Algren's objections to wait until they're better prepared, Omura has Bagley order the peasant conscripts to fight early and they are routed when engaging the samurai. Gant is killed and Algren kills leading samurai warrior Hirotaro. Katsumoto is reminded of a vision of a tiger while watching Algren fight with a tiger embroidered spear and orders his capture. Taken to the samurai village, Algren is treated by Hirotaro's widow Taka (Koyuki) and Katsumoto's son, Nobutada (Shin Koyamada) and recovers from his trauma. He begins to converse with Katsumoto, study swordsmanship under warrior Ujio (Hiroyuki Sanada) and apologizes to Taka for Hirotaro's death, which she accepts because of the honor of battle. Growing closer to her and her children, he later helps defend the village from a night attack by ninja assassins sent to kill Katsumoto. Algren deduces the attack was ordered by Omura. In spring, Algren is taken back to Tokyo as promised. The Imperial Japanese army has become better organized with American weaponry, including Howitzers and Gatling guns, and Omura offers Algren command if he reveals information on the rebels. Algren declines, so privately Omura orders his death. Katsumoto offers his counsel to the young Emperor, but finds the Emperor's control is weak. Katsumoto is then arrested after refusing to obey the new law to not display swords. Algren frees him with the assistance of Ujio, Nobutada and Graham. Nobutada is severely wounded as they escape, sacrificing himself to slow the guards. Katsumoto mourns, but receives word that a large Imperial Army group led by Omura and Bagley will engage them. Five hundred samurai are rallied as Algren compares their predicament to the Battle of Thermopylae, pointing out to Katsumoto how a smaller force can use the terrain and their enemy's overconfidence to their advantage. On the eve of battle, Algren is presented with a katana, kisses Taka and wears Hirotaro's red armor as a symbol of respect. In battle, the samurai fall back, so that Omura orders his infantry to advance straight into their fire trap. The samurai then unleash a rain of arrows as a wave of swordsmen, including Katsumoto and Algren, attack. A second Imperial infantry wave advances, only to be countered by Ujio's samurai cavalry, leaving many dead on both sides before the Imperial forces retreat. Realizing that more are coming, the samurai resolve to fight to the death. In a final charge, Algren hurls his sword at Bagley, slaying his nemesis, but the samurai are finally cut down by Gatling guns. Moved by the sight of his dying countrymen, the Imperial captain stops the fire, defying Omura's orders. Katsumoto, observing Bushido, asks Algren to assist in his seppuku. As Katsumoto dies, the Imperial soldiers kneel and bow around the fallen samurai. Later, the American ambassador prepares to have the Emperor sign a treaty granting the USA exclusive rights to supply Japan's army, but an injured Algren interrupts the proceedings, offering Katsumoto's sword to the Emperor. The Emperor realizes that whilst Japan must modernize, it must chart its own path and never forget its own history and traditions. The Emperor dismisses the American ambassador and confiscates Omura's fortunes to be given to the people. Graham, who was given Algren's journal to help write a book, speculates that Algren may have found peace, as he indeed returns to Taka and the village. Production. Filming took place in New Zealand, mostly in the Taranaki region, with Japanese cast members and an American production crew. This location was chosen due to the fact that Egmont/Mount Taranaki resembles Mount Fuji, and also because there is a lot of forest and farmland in the Taranaki region. This acted as a backdrop for many scenes, as opposed to the built up cities of Japan. Several of the village scenes were shot on the Warner Brothers Studios backlot in Burbank, California. Some scenes were shot in Kyoto and Himeji, Japan. There were 13 filming locations altogether The film is based on an original screenplay entitled "The Last Samurai", from a story by John Logan. The project itself was inspired by writer and director Vincent Ward. Ward became executive producer on the film – working in development on it for nearly four years and after approaching several directors (Francis Ford Coppola, Peter Weir), until he became interested with Edward Zwick. The film production went ahead with Zwick and was shot in Ward’s native New Zealand. The film was based on the stories of Jules Brunet, a French army captain who fought alongside Enomoto Takeaki in the earlier Boshin War and Frederick Townsend Ward, an American mercenary who helped Westernize the Chinese army by forming the Ever Victorious Army. The historical roles of the British Empire, the Netherlands and France in Japanese westernization are largely attributed to the United States in the film, for American audiences. Music. The Last Samurai: Original Motion Picture Score is a soundtrack to the film of the same name, released on November 25, 2003 in the United States by Elektra Records. All music on the soundtrack is composed by Hans Zimmer and performed by the Hollywood Studio Symphony, conducted by Blake Neely. Reception. Critical response. The film achieved higher box office receipts in Japan than in the United States. Critical reception in Japan was generally positive. Tomomi Katsuta of The "Mainichi Shinbun" thought that the film was "a vast improvement over previous American attempts to portray Japan", noting that director Edward Zwick "had researched Japanese history, cast well-known Japanese actors and consulted dialogue coaches to make sure he didn't confuse the casual and formal categories of Japanese speech." However, Katsuta still found fault with the film's idealistic, "storybook" portrayal of the samurai, stating: "Our image of samurai is that they were more corrupt." As such, he said, the noble samurai leader Katsumoto "set (his) teeth on edge." The Japanese premiere was held at Roppongi Hills multiplex in Tokyo on November 1, 2003. The entire cast was present; they signed autographs, provided interviews and appeared on stage to speak to fans. Many of the cast members expressed the desire for audiences to learn and respect the important values of the samurai, and to have a greater appreciation of Japanese culture and custom. In the United States, critic Roger Ebert of "Chicago Sun-Times" gave the film three-and-a-half stars out of four, saying it was "beautifully designed, intelligently written, acted with conviction, it's an uncommonly thoughtful epic." Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reports that 65% of critics have given the film a positive review based on 214 reviews, with the site's consensus stating: "With high production values and thrilling battle scenes, "The Last Samurai" is a satisfying epic", and with an average score of 6.4/10, making the film a "Fresh" on the website's rating system. At Metacritic, which assigns a weighted mean rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the film received an average score of 55, based on 44 reviews, which indicates "mixed or average reviews". Accolades. The film was nominated for four Academy Awards: Best Supporting Actor (Ken Watanabe), Best Art Direction, Best Costume Design and Best Sound (Andy Nelson, Anna Behlmer and Jeff Wexler). It was also nominated for three Golden Globe Awards: Best Supporting Actor (Watanabe), Best Actor – Motion Picture Drama (Tom Cruise) and Best Score (Hans Zimmer). Awards won by the film include Best Director by the National Board of Review, Outstanding Supporting Visual Effects at the Visual Effects Society Awards, Outstanding Foreign Language Film at the Japan Academy Prize, four Golden Satellite Awards and Best Fire Stunt at the Taurus World Stunt Awards. Criticism and debate. Motoko Rich of "The New York Times" observed that the film has opened up a debate, "particularly among Asian-Americans and Japanese," about whether the film and others like it were "racist, naïve, well-intentioned, accurate – or all of the above." Todd McCarthy, a film critic for the "Variety" magazine, wrote: "Clearly enamored of the culture it examines while resolutely remaining an outsider's romanticization of it, yarn is disappointingly content to recycle familiar attitudes about the nobility of ancient cultures, Western despoilment of them, liberal historical guilt, the unrestrainable greed of capitalists and the irreducible primacy of Hollywood movie stars." According to History professor Cathy Schultz, "Many samurai fought Meiji modernization not for altruistic reasons but because it challenged their status as the privileged warrior caste. Meiji reformers proposed the radical idea that all men essentially being equal ... The film also misses the historical reality that lots and lots of Meiji policy advisors were former samurai, who had voluntarily given up their traditional privileges to follow a course they believed would strengthen Japan." The fictional character of Katsumoto draws from the historical figure of Saigō Takamori, a hero of the Meiji Restoration and the leader of the ineffective Satsuma Rebellion, who appears in the histories and legends of modern Japan as a hero against the corruption, extravagance, and unprincipled politics of his contemporaries. "Though he had agreed to become a member of the new government," writes the translator and historian Ivan Morris, "it was clear from his writings and statements that he believed the ideals of the civil war were being vitiated. He was opposed to the excessively rapid changes in Japanese society and was particularly disturbed by the shabby treatment of the warrior class. Suspicious of the new bureaucratic-capitalist structure and of the values it represented, he wanted power to remain in the hands of responsible, patriotic, benevolent warrior-administrators who would rule the country under the Emperor." He fought for a moral revolution, not a material one, and he described his revolt as a check on the declining morality of a new, Westernizing materialism.
1047632	A Trip to the Moon (), released in the UK initially as Trip to the Moon, is a 1902 French silent film directed by Georges Méliès. Inspired by a wide variety of sources, it follows a group of astronomers who travel to the moon in a cannon-propelled spaceship, explore the moon's surface, escape from an underground group of Selenites (lunar inhabitants), and return in a splashdown to Earth with a captive Selenite in tow. The film was released by Méliès's Star Film Company and is numbered 399–411 in its catalogues. Its total length is about 260 meters (roughly 845 feet) of film, which, at Méliès's preferred projection speed of 12 to 14 frames per second, is about 17 minutes. An internationally popular success at the time of its release, it is the best-known of the hundreds of films made by Méliès, and the moment in which the spaceship lands in the Moon's eye remains one of the most iconic images in the history of cinema. It was named one of the 100 greatest films of the 20th century by "The Village Voice", ranking at #84, and in 2002 it became the first work designated as a UNESCO World Heritage film. Plot. At a meeting of the Astronomers' Club, their president, Professor Barbenfouillis (""Messybeard""), proposes a trip to the Moon. After addressing some dissent, six brave astronomers agree to the plan. They build a space capsule in the shape of a bullet, and a huge cannon to shoot it into space. The astronomers embark and their capsule is fired from the cannon with the help of "marines", most of whom are portrayed as a bevy of beautiful women in sailors' outfits, while the rest are men. The Man in the Moon watches the capsule as it approaches, and it hits him in the eye. (The image is a visual pun: the phrase "dans l'œil", literally "in the eye," is the French equivalent of the English word "bullseye.") Landing safely on the Moon, the astronomers get out of the capsule and watch the Earth rise in the distance. Exhausted by their journey, the astronomers unroll their blankets and sleep. As they sleep, a comet passes, the Big Dipper appears with human faces peering out of each star, old Saturn leans out of a window in his ringed planet, and Phoebe, goddess of the Moon, appears seated in a crescent-moon swing. Phoebe calls down a snowfall that awakens the astronomers. They seek shelter in a cavern and discover giant mushrooms. One astronomer opens his umbrella; it promptly takes root and turns into a giant mushroom itself. At this point, a Selenite (an insectoid alien inhabitant of the Moon, named after one of the Greek moon goddesses, Selene) appears, but it is killed easily by an astronomer, as the creatures explode if they are hit with a hard force. More Selenites appear and it becomes increasingly difficult for the astronomers to destroy them as they are surrounded. The Selenites arrest the astronomers and bring them to their commander at the Selenite palace. An astronomer lifts the Chief Selenite off his throne and dashes him to the ground, exploding him. The astronomers run back to their capsule while continuing to hit the pursuing Selenites, and five get inside. The sixth uses a rope to tip the capsule over a ledge on the Moon and into space. A Selenite tries to seize the capsule at the last minute. Astronomer, capsule, and Selenite fall through space and land in an ocean on Earth. The Selenite falls off and the capsule floats back to the surface, where they are rescued by a ship and towed ashore. The final sequence (missing from some American prints of the film) depicts a celebratory parade in honor of the travelers' return, including the unveiling of a commemorative statue bearing the motto "Labor omnia vincit" (Latin: "work conquers all"). Production. The film, Méliès' longest to date, cost 10,000 to make. The pseudo-tracking shot in which the camera appears to approach the moon was accomplished using an effect Méliès had invented for his earlier film "The Man With the Rubber Head": rather than attempting to move his weighty camera toward an actor, he set a pulley-operated chair upon a rail-fitted ramp, placed the actor (covered up to the neck in black velvet) on the chair, and pulled him toward the camera. As with at least 4% of Méliès's entire output (including such films as "The Kingdom of the Fairies", "The Impossible Voyage", "The Rajah's Dream", and "The Barber of Seville"), some prints of "A Trip to the Moon" were individually hand-colored by Elisabeth Thuillier's coloring lab in Paris. Release. From September through December 1902, a hand-colored print of "A Trip to the Moon" was screened at Méliès's theater of illusions, the Thêatre Robert-Houdin, in Paris. The film was shown after Saturday and Thursday matinee performances by Méliès's colleague and fellow magician Jules-Eugène Legris, who appeared in the film as the leader of the parade in the two final scenes. Méliès also sold black-and-white and color prints through his Star Film Company, and indirectly through Charles Urban's Warwick Trading Company in London. In France, black-and-white prints sold for 560, and hand-colored prints for 1,000. In Los Angeles, the film was the inaugural presentation by Tally's Electric Theater. Méliès had intended to release the film in the United States for profit, but he was never going to see a penny from the film's distribution. Agents of Thomas Edison had seen the film in London. They bribed the theater owner, took the film into a lab and made copies for Edison. The film was a sensation in America and a fortune was made off its exhibition. None of it went to George Méliès who went bankrupt in 1913. This was due in part to the eventual view which was held towards his films that the special effects were overshadowing the plot. In an interview of Martin Scorsese by Jon Stewart on "The Daily Show", Scorsese said, "He Méliès lost basically most of his financing when the bigger companies came in. What happened here. . . at that time there was a lot going on with copyright and not copyright and that sort of thing." Stewart said, "There is a story that Edison had taken one of his Méliès films, brought it to America and showed it and it became enormously popular in America. But Edison decided not to pay I guess what we would call royalties." Scorsese replied: "That's right. So what happened, the film was I think the famous one, 'A Trip to the Moon.' They Edison and his associates were just taking the films and making dupes of them. So that was one of the reasons why he Méliès was finished financially, ultimately." Late in life, Méliès remarked that "A Trip to the Moon" was "surely not one of my best," but acknowledged that it was widely considered his masterpiece and that "it left an indelible trace because it was the first of its kind." (The film Méliès said he was proudest of was "Humanity Through the Ages", a serious historical drama now presumed lost.) Hand-colored version. A hand-colored print, the only one known to survive, was rediscovered in 1993 by the Filmoteca de Catalunya. It was in a state of almost total decomposition, but a frame-by-frame restoration was launched in 1999 and completed in 2010 at the Technicolor Lab of Los Angeles. The restored version finally premiered on 11 May 2011, eighteen years after its discovery and 109 years after its original release, at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival, with a new soundtrack by the French band Air. It was released by Flicker Alley as a 2-disc Blu-Ray/DVD edition, also including the documentary "The Extraordinary Voyage" about its restoration on 10 April 2012. In "The New York Times", A. O. Scott called the restoration "surely a cinematic highlight of the year, maybe the century." Analysis. Some historians suggest that although "A Trip to the Moon" was among the most technically innovative films up until that time, it still displays a primitive understanding of narrative film technique. American film scholar Ken Dancyger writes, "film is no more than a series of amusing shots, each a scene unto itself. The shots tell a story, but not in the manner to which we are accustomed. It was not until the work of American Edwin S. Porter that editing became more purposeful." Porter was inspired partially "by the length and quality of Méliès's work". Although most of the editing in "A Trip to the Moon" is purely functional, there is one unusual choice: when the astronomers land on the lunar surface, the "same event is shown twice, and very differently". The first time it is shown crashing into the eye of the Man in the Moon; the second time it is shown landing on the Moon's flat terrain. The concept of showing an action twice in different ways was experimented with again by Porter in his film "Life of an American Fireman", released roughly a year after "A Trip to the Moon". Some have claimed that the film was one of the earliest examples of pataphysical film, while stating that the film aims to "show the illogicality of logical thinking". Others still have remarked that the director, Georges Méliès, aimed in the film to "invert the hierarchal values of modern French society and hold them up to ridicule in a riot of the carnivalesque". This is seen as an inherent part of the film's plot: the story pokes fun at the scientists and at science in general, in that upon traveling to the Moon, the astronomers find that the face of the Moon is, in fact, the face of a man, and that it is populated by little green men.
1057239	Richmond Arquette (born August 21, 1963) is an American film and television actor. Background. Arquette was born in New York City, the son of Brenda Olivia "Mardi" (née Nowak), an actress, poet, theater operator, activist, acting teacher, and therapist, and Lewis Arquette, an actor. Arquette's paternal grandfather was comedian Cliff Arquette. Arquette's mother was Jewish, the daughter of a Holocaust refugee from Poland. Arquette's father was a convert to Islam from Catholicism, and a relative of explorer Meriwether Lewis. His siblings are actors Rosanna, Patricia, Alexis, and David. He was the brother-in-law of actress Courteney Cox and actor
1039780	Rafe Joseph Spall (born 10 March 1983) is an English actor on both stage and screen. He is perhaps best known for his titular role in Channel 4's "Pete Versus Life" and his roles in "One Day", "Anonymous", and the Ridley Scott film "Prometheus". He recently played Writer / Yann Martel in the 2012 film "Life of Pi". Background. Spall was born in King's College Hospital, Camberwell, London, and is the son of actor Timothy Spall and his wife Shane Spall, the second of three children. Unlike his two sisters, who are a primary school teacher and a textile designer respectively, Spall followed in his father's footsteps. Named after the protagonist in "The Knight of the Burning Pestle," a role his father played in the Royal Shakespeare Company and he would later play himself, Rafe always had ambitions to act. Having done badly at his school Haberdashers' Aske's Hatcham College, he left to become an actor having joined the National Youth Theatre but after failing to get into his chosen drama schools he began his career at the bottom. Spall is a patron of the Actors' Centre. Career. Spall has frequently collaborated with Edgar Wright, appearing in his films "Shaun of the Dead", "Hot Fuzz" and "The World's End "alongside Simon Pegg and Nick Frost. Spall was also featured in Wright's segment in the 2007 Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez film " Grindhouse'". In 2007 he performed for the first time with his father in the ITV adaption of "A Room with a View" playing father and son. In 2013, he played the newlywed husband in "I Give It a Year", a comedy about the trials and tribulations of a couple during their first year of marriage. Personal life. Spall claims to have always struggled with his weight, going up to 18 stone (114 kilograms), but he claimed to have been given so many character parts that he attempted to slim down, losing over five stone (32 kilograms). He is 6' 1" (1.85 m) tall. While resident in London Fields, from 2004 to 2006 he was in a relationship with his "The Rotter's Club" co-star Alice Eve. In 2007 he dated Alexandra Mann, a designer and stylist. On 1 February 2008, he met actress Elize du Toit through friends in a bar in London. The couple married on 14 August 2010, and live in West Kensington, London. Their first child, a daughter called Lena was born in 2011, and in November 2012 their second child, a son called Rex, was born.
584099	Padikathavan () is a 2009 Indian Tamil-language action-comedy film written and directed by Suraaj. It stars Dhanush, Tamannaah Bhatia, Sayaji Shinde, Pratap Pothan, Suman and Atul Kulkarni in the lead roles and features a huge supporting cast in small pivotal and cameo roles. The film released on 14 January 2009 during Pongal. Was Super Hit at the Box-Office. Plot. Radhakrishnan (Dhanush) alias Rocky is a 10th grade dropout youngster who is looked down upon by his father (Pratap Pothen), because of his sharp contrast to the rest of the family, who are well qualified in education. Rocky spends most of his time in a mechanic shop with his colleagues (Mayilsami, Nellai Siva and others). Rocky's friends advise him to love and marry a well educated girl so that his name will be added with her name after marriage ie, indirectly he gets a degree after his name. So, earnestly he looks around by hovering around women's colleges to find a perfect girl for his mission. He finally succeeds in his attempt and makes Gayathri (Tamannaah Bhatia), a well-educated rich girl fall for him. He starts to honestly love her and takes her for shopping to a mall where she is confronted by a group of rogues who work for Rami Reddy (Sayaji Shinde) who is a rival of Samarasimma Reddy (Suman). Her father is Samarasimma Reddy a notorious don in Andhra who protects her daughter (Gayathri) by destroying the gang and takes back Gayathri to Andhra Pradesh. The protagonist goes to Assault Arumugam (Vivek), a thug-for-hire, to help him marry his love interest. Dhanush saves Gayathri from Rami Reddy (Sayaji Shinde) and follows her to her home, where he realizes that another Thirunelveli rowdy Kasi Anandan (Atul Kulkarni), whose brother he accidentally kills in a flashback, has put a price on his head. Kasi declares that if Rocky wins him in a hand to hand combat he will never be disturbed by him. Rocky accepts his deal and smashes Kasi down. Cast. Guest appearances: Soundtrack. The soundtrack consists of fives songs composed by Mani Sharma.
1545355	Terry Paxton Bradshaw (born September 2, 1948) is a former American football quarterback who played for the Pittsburgh Steelers in the National Football League (NFL). He is currently a TV analyst and co-host of "Fox NFL Sunday". He played 14 seasons with Pittsburgh, won four Super Bowl titles in a six-year period (1975, 1976, 1979, and 1980), becoming the first quarterback to win three and four Super Bowls, and led the Steelers to eight AFC Central championships. He was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1989, his first year of eligibility. A tough competitor, Bradshaw had a powerful – albeit at times erratic – arm and called his own plays throughout his football career. His physical skills and on-the-field leadership played a major role in Pittsburgh Steelers' history. During his career, he passed for more than 300 yards in a game only seven times, but three of those performances came in the postseason, and two of those in Super Bowls. In four career Super Bowl appearances, he passed for 932 yards and 9 touchdowns, both Super Bowl records at the time of his retirement. In 19 postseason games, he completed 261 passes for 3,833 yards. High school and college. Bradshaw was born in Shreveport, Louisiana, the second of three sons of the late William "Bill" Bradshaw, a farmer and welder, and the former Novis Gay (born 1929), one of five children of Clifford and Lula Gay of Red River Parish. The work ethic was particularly strong in the Bradshaw household. Bradshaw spent his early childhood in Clinton, Iowa, where he set forth the goal to play professional football. When he was a teenager, Bradshaw returned with his family to Shreveport, where he attended Woodlawn High School and led the Knights to the 1965 AAA High School Championship game where they lost to the Sulphur Tornados 12–9. While at Woodlawn, he set a national record for throwing the javelin . His exploits earned him a spot in the "Sports Illustrated" feature "Faces In The Crowd". Bradshaw's successor as Woodlawn's starting quarterback was another future NFL standout, Joe Ferguson of the Buffalo Bills. Bradshaw's Steelers would defeat Ferguson's Bills in a 1974 divisional playoff game. Bradshaw decided to attend Louisiana Tech University in Ruston, Louisiana. He has much affinity for his alma mater. He is a member of the Tau Kappa Epsilon fraternity. He was active in the Fellowship of Christian Athletes and spoke before many athletic banquets and other gatherings. Initially, he was second on the depth chart at quarterback behind Phil "Roxie" Robertson, who would later become famous as the inventor of the Duck Commander duck call and television personality on the show "Duck Dynasty". In 1969, he was considered by most pro scouts to be the most outstanding college football player. As a junior, he amassed 2,890 total yards, ranking #1 in the NCAA, and led his team to a 9-2 record and a 33-13 win over Akron in the Rice Bowl. In his senior season, he gained 2,314 yards, ranking third in the NCAA, and led his team to an 8-2 record. His decrease in production was mainly because his team played only ten games that year, and he was taken out of several games in the second half because his team had built up a huge lead. NFL career. Bradshaw was the first player selected in the 1970 NFL Draft by the Pittsburgh Steelers; the Steelers drew the first pick in the draft after winning a coin flip tiebreaker with the Chicago Bears due to both teams having identical 1-13 records in 1969. In either case, Bradshaw was hailed at the time as the consensus number one pick. Bradshaw became a starter in his second season after splitting time with Terry Hanratty in his rookie campaign. During his first several seasons, the 6'3", 215 lb. quarterback was erratic, threw many interceptions (he threw 210 interceptions over the course of his career) and was widely ridiculed by the media for his rural roots and perceived lack of intelligence. It took Bradshaw several seasons to adjust to the NFL, but he eventually led the Pittsburgh Steelers to eight AFC Central championships and four Super Bowl titles. The Pittsburgh Steelers featured the "Steel Curtain" defense and a powerful running attack led by Franco Harris, but Bradshaw's strong arm gave them the threat of the deep pass, helping to loosen opposing defenses. In 1972, he threw the pass leading to the "Immaculate Reception", among the most famous plays in NFL history. Bradshaw temporarily lost the starting job to Joe Gilliam in 1974, but he took over again during the regular season. In the 1974 AFC Championship Game against the Oakland Raiders, his fourth-quarter touchdown pass to Lynn Swann proved to be the winning score in a 24-13 victory. In the Steelers’ 16-6 Super Bowl IX victory over the Minnesota Vikings that followed, Bradshaw completed 9 of 14 passes and his fourth-quarter touchdown pass put the game out of reach and helped take the Steelers to their first Super Bowl victory. In Super Bowl X following the 1975 season, Bradshaw threw for 209 yards, most of them to Lynn Swann, as the Steelers beat the Dallas Cowboys, 21-17. His 64-yard touchdown pass to Swann (that traveled roughly 70 yards in the air)-- which was released a split-second before defensive tackle Larry Cole flattened him causing a serious concussion—late in the fourth quarter is considered one of the greatest passes in NFL history. Neck and wrist injuries in 1976 forced Bradshaw to miss four games. He was sharp in a 40-14 victory over the Baltimore Colts, completing 14 of 18 passes for 264 yards and three touchdowns, but the Steelers' hopes of a three-peat ended with a 24-7 loss to Oakland in the AFC Championship game. Bradshaw had his finest season in 1978 when he was named the NFL's Most Valuable Player by the Associated Press after a season in which he completed 207 of 368 passes for 2,915 yards and a league-leading 28 touchdown passes. He was also named All-Pro and All-AFC that year, despite throwing 20 interceptions. Before Super Bowl XIII, a Steelers-Cowboys rematch, Cowboys linebacker Thomas "Hollywood" Henderson famously ridiculed Bradshaw by saying, "He couldn't spell 'Cat' if you spotted him the 'c' and the 'a'." Bradshaw got his revenge by winning the Most Valuable Player award, completing 17 of 30 passes for a then-record 318 yards and four touchdowns in a 35-31 win. Bradshaw has in later years made light of the ridicule with quips such as "it's football, not rocket science." Bradshaw won his second straight Super Bowl MVP in 1979 in Super Bowl XIV. He passed for 309 yards and 2 touchdowns in a 31-19 win over the Los Angeles Rams. Bradshaw also shared the Sports Illustrated magazine's "Sportsmen of the Year" award with Willie Stargell that season. After two seasons of missing the playoffs, Bradshaw played through pain — he needed a cortisone shot before every game because of an elbow injury sustained during training camp — in a strike-shortened 1982 NFL season. He still managed to tie for the most touchdown passes in the league with 17. In a 31-28 playoff loss to the San Diego Chargers, Bradshaw's last postseason game, he completed 28-of-39 passes for 325 yards, two touchdowns and two interceptions. After undergoing off-season elbow surgery, Bradshaw was idle for the first 14 games of the 1983 NFL season. Then on December 10, 1983, against the New York Jets, he felt a pop in his elbow while throwing his final pass, a ten-yard touchdown to Calvin Sweeney in the second quarter of the Steelers' 34-7 win. Bradshaw later left the game and never played again. The two touchdowns Bradshaw threw in what would be the final NFL game played at Shea Stadium (and the last NFL game in New York City to date) allowed him to finish his career with two more touchdowns (212) than interceptions (210) for his career. In his 14-season career, Bradshaw completed 2,025 of 3,901 passes for 27,989 yards and 212 touchdowns. He also rushed 444 times for 2,257 yards and 32 touchdowns. He was 107-51 as the starting quarterback and the Steelers reached the playoffs ten times. His career postseason record as a starter was 14-5. He was also selected to play in three Pro Bowl games. While the Steelers no longer officially retire uniform numbers (with the exception of Ernie Stautner's #70), they have not reissued Bradshaw's #12 since he retired, and it is generally understood that no Steeler will wear that number again. In 1999, he was ranked number 44 on The Sporting News' list of the 100 Greatest Football Players. After football. In July 1997, Bradshaw served as the presenter when Mike Webster, his center on the Steelers' four Super Bowl title teams, was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame. In 2006, despite the Steelers being one of the teams playing in the game, Bradshaw did not attend a pregame celebration for past Super Bowl MVP's during Super Bowl XL in Detroit, Michigan. According to reports, Bradshaw (along with three time MVP and close friend Joe Montana) requested a $100,000 guarantee for his appearance in the Super Bowl MVP Parade, and associated appearances. The NFL could not guarantee that they would make that much and refused. A representative for Bradshaw has since denied this report. After an appearance on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno (February 6, 2006) Bradshaw stated that the reason why he did not attend the MVP parade was that he was spending time with family, that he hates the crowds and the Super Bowl media circus, and also that the only way he would attend a Super Bowl is when Fox is broadcasting the game (it was ABC who broadcast Super Bowl XL), though Bradshaw attended several press conferences in Detroit days earlier. Bradshaw also stated that money was not an issue. In April 2006, Bradshaw donated his four Super Bowl rings, College Football Hall of Fame ring, Pro Football Hall of Fame ring, Hall of Fame bust, four miniature replica Super Bowl trophies, and a helmet and jersey from one of his Super Bowl victories to his alma mater, Louisiana Tech. Broadcasting career. Bradshaw retired from football in 1983, and quickly signed a television contract with CBS to become an NFL game analyst in 1984, where he and play-by-play announcer Verne Lundquist had the top rated programs. Prior to his full-time work for them, he served as a guest commentator for CBS Sports' NFC postseason broadcasts from 1980–82. Bradshaw was promoted into television studio analyst for "The NFL Today" in 1990 (which he hosted with Greg Gumbel through the 1993 season), and "Fox NFL Sunday", where he normally acts as a comic foil to his co-hosts. On "Fox NFL Sunday" he hosts two semi-regular features, Ten Yards with TB, where he fires random questions at an NFL pro, and The Terry Awards, an annual comedic award show about the NFL season. He appeared on the first broadcast of NASCAR on FOX where he took a ride with Dale Earnhardt at Daytona International Speedway the night before Earnhardt was killed in a last lap crash at the Daytona 500. On June 19, 2008, Terry Bradshaw revealed on The Dan Patrick Show that he took therapeutic corticosteroid steroid injections, per his doctors' orders, during the 1970s to "speed healing." Corticosteroids, which are different from anabolic steroids and are used to reduce inflammation, are not banned from the NFL. Bradshaw has the reputation of being the "ol' redneck," but, in co-host and former NFL coach Jimmy Johnson's words, the act is a "schtick." According to Johnson, Bradshaw deflects such criticism by stating that "he's so dumb that he has to have somebody else fly his private plane." Bradshaw has also garnered the reputation for criticizing players and teams. Following Super Bowl XLVI he was confronted by Ann Mara, wife of the late Wellington Mara, and "heckled" for not picking the Giants to win on Fox NFL Sunday. Business career. During the early part of his career with the Steelers, Bradshaw was a used car salesman during the off-season to supplement his income, as this was still during the days when most NFL players didn't make enough money to focus solely on football. Bradshaw has also written or co-written five books and recorded six albums of country/western and gospel music. His cover of "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry" hit Top 20 on Billboard's country chart (and #91 on the Hot 100) in 1976; two other tunes ("The Last Word In Lonesome Is Me" and "Until You") also made the country charts. In 2001, Bradshaw entered the world of NASCAR by joining with HighLine Performance Group racing team to form FitzBradshaw Racing. He also is the spokesman for Jani-King international, Inc. Among U.S. consumers, Bradshaw remains one of pro football's most popular retired players. As of September 2007, Bradshaw was the top-ranked former pro football player in the Davie-Brown Index (DBI), which surveys consumers to determine a celebrity's appeal and trust levels. On November 5, 2007, during a nationally-televised Monday Night Football game, Bradshaw joined former teammates including Franco Harris and Joe Greene to accept their position on the Pittsburgh Steelers 75th Anniversary All-Time Team. Personal life. Bradshaw has been married three times. He was married to Melissa Babish (former Miss Teen Age America of 1969) from 1972–73; to ice skater JoJo Starbuck from 1976–83; and from 1983–99, to family attorney Charla Hopkins, who is the mother of his two daughters, Rachel and Erin. His daughter Erin shows champion paint and quarter horses, and is also a graduate of the University of North Texas in Denton, Texas. His daughter Rachel is a graduate of Belmont University in Nashville, Tennessee, and had appeared on "Nashville", a reality show about musicians trying to make it in Nashville. All three of Bradshaw's marriages have ended in divorce, a subject he ridicules frequently on his pre-game show. After his NFL career ended, Bradshaw disclosed that he had frequently experienced anxiety attacks after games. The problem worsened in the late 1990s after his third divorce, when he said he "could not bounce back" as he had after the previous divorces or after a bad game. In addition to anxiety attacks, his symptoms included weight loss, frequent crying, and sleeplessness. He was diagnosed with clinical depression. Since then he has taken Paxil regularly. He chose to speak out about his depression to overcome the stigma associated with it and to urge others to seek help. Bradshaw's anxieties about appearing in public, away from the controlled environment of a television studio, led to an unintentional estrangement from the Steelers. When team founder and owner Art Rooney died in 1988, Bradshaw did not attend his funeral. A year later, during his Hall of Fame induction speech, Bradshaw made a point of saluting his late boss and friend, pointing to the sky and saying, "Art Rooney ... boy, I tell you, I loved that man." Still, Bradshaw never returned to Three Rivers Stadium for a Steelers game. When the last regular-season game was played there on December 16, 2000, Bradshaw was with the "Fox NFL Sunday" crew, doing their pre-game show aboard the aircraft carrier USS "Harry S. Truman", while Fox covered the game live. Bradshaw expressed regret that he could not be there, but would later say privately that he did not feel he could face the crowds. It would not be until September 2002, when fellow Hall of Fame teammate and longtime friend Mike Webster died, that Bradshaw finally returned to Pittsburgh to attend his friend's funeral. In October 2002, Bradshaw returned to the Steelers sideline for the first time in 20 years for a Monday night between the Steelers and the Indianapolis Colts. In 2003, when the Steelers played the 1,000th game in franchise history, Fox covered the game at Heinz Field, and Bradshaw returned to cover the game. In addition to appearing to take his position on the Steelers All-Time Team in 2007 as part of the team's 75th anniversary festivities, he also was on the sideline for the 2007 home opener, where the Steelers earned their 500th regular season win. Politically, Bradshaw is a long-time supporter of the Republican Party. In the same interview, he also labeled linebacker Terrell Suggs "an idiot" for making comments critical of Denver quarterback Tim Tebow's public remarks about his Christian faith, saying Suggs "better be careful; if I were him I’d be on my hands and knees tonight asking for forgiveness because that’s totally unacceptable." Bradshaw is now suffering from short-term memory loss, which he attributes to his experiences as a pro football player. Acting. He has appeared in numerous television commercials, including a 2004 Radio Shack ad and 2012 NutriSystem ads boasting he lost 32 pounds. Bradshaw also had cameo appearances in many shows as himself, including "Everybody Loves Raymond", "Married... with Children" and "The League". He also appeared on "Malcolm in the Middle" with Howie Long as the trashy coach of a women's ice hockey team. He hosted a short-lived television series in 1997 called "Home Team with Terry Bradshaw". In addition to his television work, Bradshaw has appeared in several movies, including a part in the 1978 film "Hooper" which starred Burt Reynolds, Jan-Michael Vincent, and Sally Field, and 1981's appearance in "The Cannonball Run". In 1980, he had a cameo in "Smokey and the Bandit II" which starred Burt Reynolds, Jerry Reed, and Sally Field. He made a guest appearance in "The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr." in 1994, playing Colonel Forrest March, a rogue U.S. Army officer who gave orders to his squad (played by NFL members Ken Norton, Jr., Carl Banks, and Jim Harbaugh) in a huddle using football diagrams. Bradshaw appeared on Jeff Foxworthy's short-lived sitcom, "The Jeff Foxworthy Show" as a motivational speaker for people needing to change their lives. Bill Engvall's character is affected by Bradshaw's rantings about witchcraft and voodoo in his pre-game warm-ups. On October 11, 2001, Bradshaw received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, the first and only NFL player (as of May 31, 2008) to do so. In 2006, Bradshaw returned to the silver screen in the motion picture "Failure to Launch". He and Kathy Bates played the parents of Matthew McConaughey's character. In one notable scene he appeared nude, a move which Jay Leno spent an entire segment mocking during an appearance on "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno". He mentioned on May 23, 2008, on "The Tonight Show" that he has been a guest 37 times, and that 34 of them were on a Friday, which happens to be the lowest watched night of television. He pleasantly joked with Jay about being a 'filler' guest. He made a similar reference in an appearance on March 15, 2010, stating he was asked to guest because of a cancellation. Jay stated that at least he wasn't appearing on Friday, which hosts the more famous celebrity guests. As of December 28, 2012, Bradshaw has made 50 appearances on the "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno". He is also a devout Christian and wrote the book "Terry Bradshaw: Man of Steel". In 2009, he was featured in a "New Yorker" magazine piece that satirized the recent scandal over a fake Holocaust memoir written by Herman Rosenblat. Since 2010 Terry Bradshaw has been hosting television shows produced by United States Media Television. He is currently host of Today In America, a cable television show that features information on new trends in business and lifestyles. Football stats. Key to Abbreviations GP = Games Played Att = Passes attempted Com = Passes Completed Pct = Completion percentage Yds = Yards TD = Touchdowns Int = Interceptions Long = Longest Pass Play of season Passer Rat = Passer rating W/L Record = Won/Loss Record T = Touchdown
1055126	The Element of Crime () is the first feature film directed by noted Danish filmmaker Lars von Trier. The film, released in 1984, is also the first in the director's Europa trilogy. The other two films in the trilogy are "Epidemic" (1987) and "Europa" (1991). Plot. In "The Element of Crime", an English detective named Fisher (Michael Elphick), who has become an expatriate living in Cairo, undergoes hypnosis in order to recall his last case. The Europe of his dreamlike recollection is a dystopia, dark and decaying. Fisher remembers pursuing an elusive killer called the "Lotto Murderer", who was strangling and then mutilating young girls who were selling lottery tickets. He attempts to track down the killer using the controversial methods outlined in a book entitled "The Element of Crime", written by his disgraced mentor, Osborne (Esmond Knight). He is joined in his search by a prostitute named Kim (Me Me Lai), who, it turns out, has had a child by his target. Fisher's search is based on a tailing report written by Osborne when trying to track down a murderer who had been killing in the same way as the "Lotto Murderer", but who, supposedly, has since died in a crash. The Osborne method requires the detective to try to identify with the mind of the killer. This he does, but, in so doing, begins to behave more and more like a serial killer himself. Style. The film employs the film noir conventions of monochrome footage, apparently constant night, and the frequent presence of water, such as rain and rivers. The film is shot almost entirely in sodium light resulting in images reminiscent of sepia tone, though with a more intense yellow. Because sodium lamps produce light in only a few narrow emission peaks, rather than over a wide spectrum, the film has an almost monochrome appearance. The sepia is occasionally contrasted with piercing blues or reds. The world depicted in the film is semi-derelict. Disordered collections of similar or identical objects are found in many of the scenes, reinforcing the sense of a crumbling society. Examples include white paper, light bulbs, heaps of keys, surgical scissors, glass bottles, rubber stamps and Coca-Cola cans. The film's slow pace, dark visuals and occasional surreal imagery give it a dreamlike quality. In addition, much of the dialogue is contradictory. An example is one conversation between Fisher and his mentor's housekeeper: In the opening of the film, a shot of a donkey lying on its back and then slowly struggling to stand may be a homage to a similar shot in Andrei Tarkovsky's "Andrei Rublev" (1968). Trier has stated that he is an admirer of Tarkovsky's work. I was very inspired by Tarkovsky. I won't make any bones about that. I saw an excerpt from "The Mirror" ("Zerkalo") on Swedish television once, just a travelling shot around that house, and that was one of those 'I'll be damned' experiences. Reception. Accolades. "The Element of Crime" received several awards including the Danish Bodil and Robert awards in 1985 for the best film, and was nominated for the Palme d'Or at the 1984 Cannes Film Festival. DVD releases. "The Element of Crime" has been released on DVD in North America by the Criterion Collection. In Europe, a digitally remastered DVD is available as part of the box set "Lars von Trier's Europe Trilogy – Hypnotic Edition".
743901	Ebon Moss-Bachrach (born August 17, 1978) is an American stage and screen actor. He attended high school at Amherst Regional High School in Massachusetts and graduated from Columbia University. Ebon is involved with photographer Yelena Yemchuk. The two welcomed a baby in 2006. He was raised in Amherst, Massachusetts, and is the son of Renee Moss and Eric Bachrach, who runs a music school in Springfield, Massachusetts. Middle name is "Che", after Che Guevara, the Argentinian revolutionist/guerrilla leader.
1062630	Carl Adolf "Max" von Sydow (; Swedish: ; born 10 April 1929) is a Swedish actor, who has held French citizenship since 2002. He has starred in many films and had supporting roles in dozens more in many languages, including Swedish, Norwegian, English, Italian, German, Danish, French and Spanish. Von Sydow received the Royal Foundation of Sweden's Cultural Award in 1954, the "Commandeur des Arts et des Lettres" in 2005 and the "Légion d'honneur" in 2010. Some of his most memorable film roles include Knight Antonius Block in Ingmar Bergman's "The Seventh Seal" (1957), the first of his eleven films with Bergman, and the film that includes the iconic scenes in which he plays chess with Death; Martin in "Through a Glass Darkly" (1961); Jesus in "The Greatest Story Ever Told" (1965); Oktober in "The Quiller Memorandum" (1966); Karl Oskar Nilsson in "The Emigrants" (1971); Father Lankester Merrin in "The Exorcist" (1973); Joubert the assassin in "Three Days of the Condor" (1975); Ming the Merciless in "Flash Gordon" (1980); the villain Ernst Stavro Blofeld in the James Bond film "Never Say Never Again" (1983); Liet-Kynes in "Dune" (1984); Frederick in "Hannah and Her Sisters" (1986); Lassefar in "Pelle the Conqueror" (1987), for which he received his first Academy Award nomination; Dr. Peter Ingham in "Awakenings" (1990); Lamar Burgess in "Minority Report" (2002) and The Renter in "Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close" (2012), which earned him his second Academy Award nomination. Early life. Max von Sydow was born Carl Adolf von Sydow, to a wealthy family, in Lund, Skåne. His father, Carl Wilhelm von Sydow, was an ethnologist and professor of Irish, Scandinavian, and comparative folklore at the University of Lund. His mother, the former Baroness Maria Margareta "Greta" Rappe, was a schoolteacher. Von Sydow was raised as a Lutheran and later became an agnostic. He attended the Cathedral School of Lund, and learned German and English starting at the age of nine. At school, he and some friends founded an amateur theatre company. He completed National Service before studying at the Royal Dramatic Theatre ("Dramaten") in Stockholm, where he trained between 1948 and 1951 with the likes of Lars Ekborg, Margaretha Krook and Ingrid Thulin. During his time at Dramaten, he made his screen debut in Alf Sjöberg's films "Only a Mother" ("Bara en mor", 1949), and "Miss Julie" ("Fröken Julie", 1951), a screen version of Strindberg's scathing drama. Career. In 1955, he moved to Malmö, where he met his mentor, Ingmar Bergman. His first work with Bergman occurred on stage at the Malmö Municipal Theatre. Von Sydow later would work with Bergman on films such as "The Seventh Seal" ("Det sjunde inseglet", 1957), "Wild Strawberries" ("Smultronstället", 1957) and "The Virgin Spring" ("Jungfrukällan", 1960). In "The Seventh Seal", von Sydow is the knight who plays a chess game with Death. The chess scenes and the film were international breakthroughs for actor and director alike. It was in these films where von Sydow honed and perfected his craft.
1067383	Troy Byer (born November 7, 1964) is an American film director, screenwriter and actress. Life and career. Born in New York City to an African American mother and a Jewish father, Byer began her acting career with a role on the children’s program "Sesame Street" when she was just four years old. She studied acting and psychobiology at City University of New York's School for the Arts. After landing a bit part in Francis Ford Coppola's "The Cotton Club" (1984), Byer moved to Los Angeles, where she became a regular on the ABC prime-time soap opera "Dynasty" in 1986, playing Jackie Deveraux, the daughter of Diahann Carroll's character Dominique Deveraux. She went on to earn ShoWest's Newcomer of the Year Award for her leading role in the feature "Rooftops" (1989). Since then, Byer has acted in features such as "Disorderlies" (1987), "Weekend at Bernie's II" (1993), "Eddie" (1996) starring Whoopi Goldberg, Robert Altman’s "The Gingerbread Man" (1998) starring Kenneth Branagh and Robert Downey Jr., and "John Q", (2002) starring Denzel Washington. But it was in 1997 that she put her writing skills to use, making her screenwriting debut with "B*A*P*S", starring Halle Berry. Unhappy with how her script had been changed during the course of filming, the following year she decided to direct her next screenplay, "Let's Talk About Sex" (1998), also playing a starring role. Byer made a trailer and took it to the Sundance Film Festival, where she handed it out to film executives. The film was quickly picked up by Fine Line Features. She next wrote and directed "Love Don’t Co$t a Thing" (2003) for Warner Brothers, based on the hit 1987 movie "Can’t Buy Me Love". Byer appeared in music videos for Prince's songs "Sexy MF" and Biz Markie's 1991 minor hit single "What Comes Around Goes Around". Byer is currently earning her doctorates degree in Depth Psychology at Pacifica Graduate Institute. She is also the author the Amazon Best-Seller self-help book entitled ""Ex-Free: The Freedom Action Plan". "Byer wrote and directed a film based on her book Ex-Free called "I Really Hate My Ex"(2014 release) starring Chris Spencer, Leon Robinson, Darrin DeWitt Henson, Shari Headley, JD Lawrence, Troy Byer, Bresha Webb, Ernie G., Daphnee Duplaix, Tomiko Fraser Hines, Christopher Bailey, Michael Bernard Beckwith. Byer is also a regular guest on "The Steve Harvey Radio and Television Show".
899693	Elsa Martinelli (born 30 January 1935) is an Italian actress and former fashion model. Born Elisa Tia in Grosseto, Tuscany, she moved to Rome with her family and in 1953 was discovered by Roberto Capucci who introduced her to the world of fashion. She became a model and began playing small roles in films. She appeared in Claude Autant-Lara's "Le Rouge et le Noir" (1954), but her first important film role came the following year with "The Indian Fighter" opposite Kirk Douglas. Douglas claims to have spotted her on a magazine cover and hired her for his production company, Bryna Productions. In 1956 she won the Silver Bear for Best Actress at the 6th Berlin International Film Festival for playing the title role in Mario Monicelli's "Donatella". From the mid-1950s through the late 1960s, she divided her time between Europe and the United States, appearing in films such as "Four Girls in Town" (1957) with George Nader, "Manuela" (1957) with Trevor Howard, "Prisoner of the Volga" (1959) with John Derek, "Hatari!" (1962) with John Wayne, "The Pigeon That Took Rome" (1962) with Charlton Heston, "The Trial" (1962) with Anthony Perkins, "The V.I.P.s" (1963) with Orson Welles, "Rampage" (1963) with Robert Mitchum, and "Woman Times Seven" (1967) with Lex Barker. In "Candy" (1968), her co-stars were Charles Aznavour, Marlon Brando, Richard Burton, James Coburn, Walter Matthau and Ringo Starr.
400704	Christopher Michael "Chris" Pratt (born June 21, 1979) is an American actor, best known for his roles as Andy Dwyer in the television series "Parks and Recreation" and Harold Brighton "Bright" Abbott in the television series "Everwood", as well as his supporting roles in the films "Moneyball", "Zero Dark Thirty", and "The Five-Year Engagement". Personal life. Pratt was born in Virginia, Minnesota, and raised in Lake Stevens, Washington. He married actress Anna Faris on July 9, 2009 in Bali. On August 25, 2012, Pratt and Faris welcomed a son, Jack. Career. Pratt was waiting tables at the Bubba Gump Shrimp Company restaurant in Maui, Hawaii, when he was discovered by actor-director Rae Dawn Chong; she cast him in the horror film "Cursed Part 3". Pratt's first regular television role was on the series "Everwood", where he co-starred as Harold Brighton "Bright" Abbott. After "Everwood's" cancellation, Pratt joined the cast of "The O.C." for its fourth season, playing Ché, an activist. He also had an appearance in the action film "Wanted", as James McAvoy's character's best friend. Pratt has portrayed the dimwitted but beloved Andy Dwyer in NBC's "Parks & Recreation" since 2009. Originally meant to be only a temporary character (he is credited as a 'guest star' throughout season one), Pratt proved to be so likable that producers almost immediately wanted Pratt back as a series regular. This led to his character being written much more sympathetically at the start of season two. He also portrayed Scott Hatteberg in the movie "Moneyball", with costars Brad Pitt, Jonah Hill, and Philip Seymour Hoffman. Prior to the release of "Moneyball", Pratt was known for his somewhat "typecast" acting roles, typically portraying youthful and somewhat immature characters. In "Moneyball", Pratt had the opportunity to play a father as well as a dejected baseball player who once feared his career was over, who had the difficult task of learning an entirely new defensive position. Pratt lost 30 pounds for the role. In February 2013, Pratt landed the lead role of Peter Quill / Star-Lord in Marvel Studios' "Guardians of the Galaxy".
1062194	Piper Laurie (born Rosetta Jacobs; January 22, 1932) is an American actress of stage and screen known for her roles in the television series "Twin Peaks" and the films "The Hustler", "Carrie", and "Children of a Lesser God", all of which brought her Academy Award nominations. In 1991, she won a Golden Globe Award for her portrayal of Catherine Martell in "Twin Peaks".
1463241	Pavuluri Mallana, who followed Adikavi Nannaya is a mathematician of 11th century. He composed 'Ganitam' which is the first Telugu rendering of an original Sanskrit work on mathematics. He was contemporary of king Rajaraja Narendra (1022–1063 AD). He has translated "Ganitasara Samgraham", a mathematical treatise of Mahivaracharya into Telugu language as "Sara Sangraha Ganitamu". He also wrote "Bhadradri Rama Satakamu" published by Vavilla Ramaswamy Sastrulu and Sons in 1916. Rajaraja Narendra has donated Navakhandavada agraharam near Pithapuram named Mallana. His grandson, also named Mallana, is a famous writer. This Pavuluru village is presently in Parchuru Mandal of Prakasam district.
900197	Ultime grida dalla savana (1975) (), also known as La Grande caccia and by its English title Savage Man Savage Beast, is a Mondo documentary directed by Antonio Climati and Mario Morra. Filmed all around the world, its central theme focuses on hunting and the interaction between man and animal. More specifically, the film documents various forms of hunting that can be found in the world and how humans and animals can both become the hunter or prey. Like many Mondo films, the filmmakers claim to document real, bizarre and violent behavior and customs, although some scenes were actually staged. It is narrated by Italian novelist Alberto Moravia. This was the first film of Climati's and Morra's Savage Trilogy, which also includes "Savana violenta" ("This Violent World") and "Dolce e selvaggio" ("Sweet and Savage"). The best known film of the trilogy, "Ultime grida dalla savana" became influential in exploitation cinema by use of cinematographic techniques that were repeated in numerous subsequent Mondo films. Two scenes in particular, a lion attack on a tourist in Namibia and the murder of an indigenous man by a group of mercenaries in South America, have gained notoriety as genuine footage of human death. The film also sparked a rivalry between the team of Climati and Morra and the brothers Alfredo and Angelo Castiglioni. These two teams became the forerunners of the second generation of Mondo cinema. Plot. The film is a depiction of various scenes, usually violent or bizarre, that somehow relate to hunting. Each scenario is presented one after the other with little regard for narrative continuity. The opening scene introduces a Patagonian hunter who hunts stags to survive. The opening credits play over as he chases after a stag, which he ultimately shoots, kills, and beheads. Afterwards, one of the numerous scenes of anti-hunting gatherings is shown, this one in Cape Cod. The attention quickly shifts to wildlife hunting, where a monkey is killed by a leopard, and then a squirrel monkey by an anaconda. The theme changes again to the social hunt of wild game in Australia and Africa. Aborigines hunt kangaroos and other large marsupials with spears and giant bats with boomerangs. Indigenous tribes of Africa hunt large game, including antelope, buffalo, and elephants, in the savanna. Religious ceremonies are also shown, where the African hunters proceed to suck fresh blood from the entrails of an antelope, and the Australian aborigines symbolically bury their prey in dust to placate the spirits of the animals. Lastly, two brothers are arrested after partaking in a form of ritual post-mortem cannibalism of three of their relatives to acquire the hunting skills of the dead. Other hunting traditions then follow, again rooted in religion. The warriors of the Kuru tribe in Africa commit a sacred act in which they copulate with the ground in belief that it will make the Earth fertile and produce animals for the hunt, and a stag hunt in France, rooted in ancient pagan beliefs of the Gauls, is blessed by a mass before the hunt takes place, during which the hunters and dogs chase and ultimately kill a fleeing stag. In a fox hunt, the Wild Fox Association sabotages the hunting efforts by serving wine laced with a laxative to the hunters and distracting the dogs with an Afghan bitch in heat. Their efforts are then connected to species conservation, and to exemplify that hunters are truly concerned in wildlife conservation, Argentine hunters capture an Andean condor to sell to a zoo. A collage of other conservation efforts is shown, including the tagging of white rhinoceroses, grizzly bears and elephants, which are shot with morphine darts. Argentinian deer and elephant seals are physically subdued and marked. Tourists on Africans safaris then come to view the conservation efforts, which the narrator claims to have seemingly negated the animals' violent instincts. This deception is demonstrated with the mauling of a tourist named Pit Dernitz by lions. Another anti-hunting demonstration becomes the film's focus, this time on the Isle of Wight. Nudity and intercourse are practiced freely amongst the demonstrators, and this is contrasted with ancient hunter-gathering groups, who had strict rules concerning nudity. The narrator argues that once hunting had left this group of people, so did their rules toward nudity. Also highlighted is the contradiction that though this people are against hunting, thousands of farm-raised animals had to die to support them. The focus changes to Humboldt Penguins, which cannot hunt because of polluted waters, and thus seem detached and without focus. This effect is compared to modern day Eskimos, who no longer hunt since the discovery of oil in their homeland and have fallen into depression and melancholy. To reverse the process, several groups of men go out and revive their hunting ways. Reflected in this is a montage of gun ownership, which the film relates to feelings of masculinity, followed by shots of illegal elephant poaching from Africa. To offset the dwindling number of game due to poaching, warriors from the Lobi tribe celebrate the "Ceremony of Life", in which they masturbate with ceremonial rods and pour the product into the river, hoping the animals will drink the semen and multiply. Attention shifts to large electronic probes in the Peruvian savanna used to measure the winds of El Niño for optimal fishing conditions. Fishing birds are also electronically tagged so the prime fishing areas can be located based on the birds' fishing habits. This fish frenzy in South America is reflected in the salmon run in Alaska, where kodiak bears hunt and fight for prey. An examination of a hunting tradition in northern Europe follows, where falcons assist humans in hunting by catching wild game, such as rabbits and pheasants. Further collaboration with man and animal is highlighted, this time with cheetahs. To demonstrate the cheetah's speed and effectiveness, a chase between a group of cheetahs and ostriches is arranged, in which the birds are hunted down and killed. The next animal collaborators are dogs, which hunt wild boar in Patagonia and a puma which has attacked a herd of sheep and a shepherd. In cities, however, stray dogs are the ones hunted by dog catchers, which the narrator claims demonstrates that the hunt is still active, but the prey has changed. Indios also use dogs to hunt monkeys, but their efforts are compared to mercenaries hunting the Indios themselves to clear them from their native land for development. In one such instance, mercenaries retaliate against a death of a workman by hunting down a group of Indios, one of which they torture, castrate and murder. Various scenes of wildlife are then shown, after which orangutans are hunted to be sold to zoos. The film then ends with the coexistence of man and animal between Erik Zimen, an ecologist, and wolves, the group of animals he wishes to save. Reaction. The film was released in Italy on 24 October 1975, and internationally in 1976. The film fared well in Asia; in 1976, "Ultime grida dalla savana" was outgrossed in Hong Kong only by "Jaws". Despite this, reception to the film from mainstream movie critics is almost completely negative, although it is well accepted by critics in exploitation film circles. Mark Goodall calls the film a "remarkable, pseudo-philosophical mondo examination of hunting fixated on the cyclical, the (inter)relationship of the hunter and the hunted," Kerekes and Slater also comment that it was, "The success of "Savage Man... Savage Beast" inaugurated the 'savage' trilogy." Criticism. The content of the film, particularly the graphic violence and human death, has been criticized as too explicit and exploitative. Robert Firsching of Allmovie states:
1091444	Simon Newcomb (March 12, 1835 – July 11, 1909) was a Canadian-American astronomer and mathematician. Though he had little conventional schooling, he made important contributions to timekeeping as well as writing on economics and statistics and authoring a science fiction novel. Early life. Simon Newcomb was born in the town of Wallace, Nova Scotia. His parents were Emily Prince, the daughter of a New Brunswick magistrate, and itinerant school teacher John Burton Newcomb. John moved around teaching in different parts of Canada, particularly in different villages in Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island. Newcomb seems to have had little conventional schooling other than from his father and from a short apprenticeship to Dr. Foshay, a charlatan herbalist, in New Brunswick in 1851. Nevertheless, his father provided him with an excellent foundation for his future studies. Newcomb's apprenticeship with Dr. Foshay occurred when he was only 16. They entered an agreement that Newcomb would serve a five-year apprenticeship during which time Foshay would train him in using herbs to treat illnesses. For two years he was an apprentice but became increasingly unhappy and disillusioned with his apprenticeship and about Foshay's unscientific approach, realizing that the man was a charlatan. He made the decision to walk out on Foshay and break their agreement. He walked the to the port of Calais in Maine where he met the captain of a ship who agreed to take him to Salem, Massachusetts so that he could join his father. In about 1854, he joined his father in Salem (John Newcomb had moved earlier to the United States), and the two journeyed together to Maryland.
1044149	Sue Lloyd (7 August 1939 – 20 October 2011) was an English model turned actress with numerous film and television credits. Biography. The daughter of a GP, Susan Margery Jeaffreson Lloyd was born in Aldeburgh, Suffolk. She attended Edgbaston High School in Birmingham and studied dance as a child, attending Sadler's Wells Ballet School. As her height () increased, her possibilities for a career as a dancer diminished, and she became a showgirl and model, and, briefly, a member of Lionel Blair's dance troupe. She was one of the last two debutantes to be presented to the Queen at Buckingham Palace in 1958; the final such ceremony. Films and television. She made her film debut in two espionage themed films in 1965. Lloyd was a glamorous foil to Michael Caine's Harry Palmer in the spy thriller "The IPCRESS File", and she later appeared alongside Caine's Palmer in "Bullet to Beijing" (1995). In 1965 she had a role in "The Return of Mr. Moto" In the same year Lloyd played the regular role of secret agent Cordelia Winfield, alongside Steve Forrest in the 1965-66 British ITC television series "The Baron". Originally Lloyd's character only appeared in the pilot episode with Steve Forrest's sidekick played by Paul Ferris. Pressure from the American television network who were to screen the show replaced Ferris with the glamorous Lloyd. In 1971, Lloyd starred in a stage version of the TV series "The Avengers" playing John Steed's sidekick, Mrs Hannah Wild. She also appeared with several other stars in the 1976 Lindsay Shonteff imitation James Bond film "No. 1 of the Secret Service". She made many guest appearances on several popular shows of the 1960s and 1970s including "The Saint", "Department S", "Jason King", "Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased)", "The Persuaders!" and "The Sweeney". Other film credits include "Corruption", "Revenge of the Pink Panther", "The Stud" and "The Bitch". On her Twitter page Joan Collins said that she and Lloyd had to get drunk prior to their nude scenes. She is probably best known, however, for her long-running role as Barbara Hunter, née Brady, in the soap opera "Crossroads", beginning in 1975, and she remained in the role until 1985 when Sue and her on-screen and future real-life husband, Ronald Allen, were sacked from the series. To the surprise of many (he had lived with Brian Hankins for most of his life until Hankins's death from cancer), she married Allen, six weeks before his own death from cancer on 19 June 1991. Death. Sue Lloyd died on 20 October 2011, aged 72, from cancer.
589170	Masterji is an Indian Hindi film directed by K. Raghavendra Rao, released on 30 August, 1985. The film stars Rajesh Khanna in the title role as Masterji and Sridevi as his heroine as the main lead characters of the film. This film was of different genre - Comedy than the other films of the pair. This film was remake of 1984 Tamil film "Mundhanai Mudichu", directed by K. Bhagyaraj, where Bhagyaraj also played the lead male role. After the Tamil version, K. Bhagyaraj decided to remake it in Hindi but handed over directorship to Kovelamudi Raghavendra Rao. K. Bhagyaraj himself wrote the story and screenplay for "Masterji". Plot. Radha (Sridevi) is a notorious prankster creating a variety of mischiefs along with her gang, which often end up in the village court. Masterji (Rajesh Khanna) enters the village with his infant child to take up the vacant teacher post in the local school, but isn't spared from Radha's pranks upon his arrival. He takes up the job with one hand holding the book, and the other rocking the cradle in the classroom much to the amusement of local folk in the village. Radha's playful nature transforms into love when she learns that he's a widower. She tries many ways to win the teacher's heart, but fails every time. The teacher believes that a stepmother would not take care of his child, and thus even rejects the offer to marry his dead wife's sister. As a last hope to attain him, Radha blames the teacher for molesting her and even swears on it by crossing over his child in front of the village court. Petrified, and with the whole village surrounded, he is left with very little option than to marry her. But vows never to touch her and remain in celibacy. But Radha doesn't give. She relentlessly tries to seduce him by unconventional methods that prove to be testing times for the teacher. With the chances of winning him slowly decreasing, Radha comes to a conclusion once and for all.
582414	Sarkar Raj (, translation: "Reign of the Overlord") is a 2008 Indian dramatic thriller film set in the world of politics and crime. It was directed by Ram Gopal Varma. It is the sequel to "Sarkar" (2005). The primary cast features three members of the Bachchan family – Amitabh Bachchan, Abhishek Bachchan (who reprise their roles from the original) and new entrant Aishwarya Rai Bachchan. Supriya Pathak, Tanisha Mukherjee and Ravi Kale also reappeared in their respective roles from "Sarkar". The film released on 6 June 2008, was critically and commercially successful. The film has joined the long list of Indian films that have managed to procure a place for themselves in the prestigious Academy of Motion Pictures library. The script was there permanently for the reference of students of cinema. Plot. The sequel is chronologically set two years after the original film. Anita Rajan (Aishwarya Rai Bachchan), CEO of an international electrical power firm based in London, holds a meeting with Mike Rajan (Victor Banerjee), her father and boss and Hassan Qazi, as a seemingly shady adviser and facilitator; regarding an ambitious proposal to set up a multi-million dollar power plant in rural parts of the state of Maharashtra in India. Qazi states that this project will be impossible due to possible political entanglements. When Anita asks him for a solution, Qazi states that enlisting the support of Subhash Nagre (Amitabh Bachchan) (commonly referred to by his title of Sarkar), who he describes as a criminal in the garb of a popular and influential political leader, might help their cause. The resulting socio-political drama forms the crux of the story. Reception. Critical reception. The film mostly garnered a positive critical reception. Critic Taran Adarsh from Bollywood Hungama gave the film four stars out of five and noted "Besides its strong content, Sarkar Raj has been filmed exceptionally well with superb performances. Amitabh Bachchan, expectedly, comes up with a terrific performance. He's as ferocious as a wounded tiger in the finale and takes the film to great heights. Abhishek Bachchan is cast opposite the finest actor of this country, yet he sparkles in every sequence. Aishwarya Rai Bachchan is fabulous and delivers her career-best performance." "Sify" gave a two-star rating and said, "The only reason you might want to catch this is the performance level and the relatively good ending. Amitabh Bachchan is dependably good. Abhishek holds his own, though with a more filled-out character, he could have taken it to another level. Aishwarya is superb in the emotional scenes, but again, is let down by the unforgivably simplistic character sketching." "Rediff" which also gave a two-star rating noted "This is a watchable". "The Economic Times" gave a three star rating out of five and said "Sarkar Raj clearly gains major marks for its clever culmination, which was so much lacking from recent RGV products. The considerately and crisply penned dialogues by Prashant Pandey add a lot of insight to the scenes and depth to the characterizations." Anupama Chopra from NDTV stated "What works here are the performances. The Bachchans-all three of them are in fine form. Despite wonderful performances and nicely done dramatic moments, Sarkar Raj doesn't pack the visceral punch of Sarkar". Nikhat Kazmi of "The Times of India" rated the film with three and a half stars and applauded the lead performances saying "This film carries the sequel forward without losing out on the gritty feel and retains the charisma of the central characters". Critic Nathan Southern of MSN gave four stars citing that "Sarkar Raj thrives on its narrative cliffhangers, that the film never once fails to engage the audience; the premise and its characters are rock-solid, its dialogue convincing, and its suspense palpable. Varma and scriptwriter Prashant Pandey pack such unusual twists and double-crosses into the tale that even the most hardened and seasoned moviegoer will find the conclusion impossible to foresee". Box office reception. "Sarkar Raj" grossed almost 340 million in India and over $1 million in the USA. The "Filmfare" Magazine (August 2008 issue) and other media declared it to be among the only four hits in the first half of 2008 (along with "Race", "Jodhaa Akbar" and "Jannat"). The producers reported that the movie had earned more than the entire grossings of its hit prequel in its first two weeks itself. According to the year end report of the "The Free Trade Journal", "Sarkar Raj" was the seventh highest all-India grosser of the year after (in order) "Ghajini", "Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi", "Golmaal Returns", "Singh Is Kinng", "Dostana" and "Race". The trade magazine also reported high international collections. It was declared a super hit grosser at the box office. Awards and nominations. Star Screen Awards. Nominated Stardust Awards. Nominated Filmfare Awards. Nominated IIFA Awards. Nominated Soundtrack. The music is composed by Bapi and Tutul. Lyrics are penned by Sandeep Nath and Prashant Pandey. Controversy. Debutante Rajesh Shringarpore's character of Sanjay Somji was also reportedly based on Raj Thackeray, the estranged nephew of political leader Bal Thackeray; thus furthering the general viewpoint that the series is based on Bal Thackeray and his family. Apparently Ram Gopal Verma had even shown Raj Thackeray rushes of the film to allay his fears of being wrongly portrayed. Sequel. In 2009 Ram Gopal Verma stated that he had no plans finalised for the third instalment in the series and shelved "Sarkar 3". However in 2012 it was reported that the sequel would go ahead once again and currently is in the post production stage where the script is being written. The film is expected to go on floors at the end of 2013, primarily with the same cast of Amitabh and Abhishek Bachchan although his character dies at the end of this film and also Aishwarya Rai is to be left out.
1059200	Shohreh Aghdashloo ( , ; born May 11, 1952) is an Iranian American actress. After establishing a theatre and film career in Iran, Aghdashloo moved to England during the Iranian Revolution in 1979, and subsequently became a citizen of the United States. After several years playing supporting roles in television and film, her performance in "House of Sand and Fog" (2003) brought her several film critics' awards and a nomination for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. She has continued to play supporting and character roles in film and television and won an Emmy Award for her work in the television drama "House of Saddam" (2008). Early life. Aghdashloo was born in Tehran, Iran, as Shohreh Vaziri-Tabar ("Aghdashloo" is the family name of her former husband, Iranian painter Aydin Aghdashloo), to a wealthy Muslim family. Aghdashloo started acting at the age of 18. Following numerous starring roles on the stage, she was offered her first film role in "Gozāresh" (The Report) directed by director Abbas Kiarostami, which won the Critics Award at the Moscow Film Festival. Her next film was "Shatranje Bad" (loosely translated: Chess With the Wind), directed by Mohammad Reza Aslani which screened at several film festivals. Both films were banned in her home country, but in 1978, Aghdashloo won acclaim for her performance in "Sooteh Delan" (Broken Hearts), directed by Iranian filmmaker Ali Hatami which established her as one of Iran's leading actresses. During the 1979 Revolution, Aghdashloo left Iran for Windermere, Cumbria, England, in 1978, where she completed her education. Aghdashloo still owns a separate vacation villa that she attends during most summer parts of the year. She earned a Bachelor's degree in International Relations. She continued to pursue her acting career, however, which brought her to Los Angeles. In 1987 Aghdashloo married actor/playwright Houshang Touzie. They had one daughter in 1989. She has since performed in a number of Touzie's plays, successfully taking them to national and international stages, primarily in the Iranian community. Career. Aghdashloo made her American film debut in 1989 in a starring role in "Guests of Hotel Astoria". Her television debut came in 1990 in a guest role in the 25 September, two-hour episode of the NBC television series "Matlock", titled "Nowhere to Turn: A Matlock Mystery Movie". Aghdashloo played a saleslady and was credited for this simply as Shohreh. She returned to American television three years later when she played Malika (wife of the storekeeper Rashidi) in the "Jerome's In The House" episode of the popular comedy series "Martin" (aired April 1, 1993, and credited as "Shohreh Vaziri"). In that same year, she also made her next film appearance in "Twenty Bucks", playing Ghada Holiday. After seven years, Aghdashloo returned once again to the American film industry in 2000, starring in the critically acclaimed "Surviving Paradise" (راز بهشت), the first English language Iranian-American feature film released in the United States, written and directed by Kamshad Kooshan. Having been shown at major International Film Festivals, Surviving Paradise went on to become one of the most well received Iranian films in the U.S. Aghdashloo made a brief two-episode performance in short-lived Honduran television series, "The Honduran Suburbs", in which she played Zereshk, an Iranian woman who had arrived in the country to help the poor situation. In that year, she also starred in "Maryam" (in which she played Mrs. Armin). After appearing as an exiled actress in "America So Beautiful" in 2001, Aghdashloo played opposite Ben Kingsley and Jennifer Connelly in director Vadim Perelman's "House of Sand and Fog" (2003). She was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, however the award was won by Renée Zellweger for "Cold Mountain". Following this exposure, she received good reviews for her 12 episodes on Season 4 of the Fox Broadcasting Company television series "24", playing Dina Araz, a terrorist undercover in Los Angeles as a well-to-do housewife and mother. This storyline raised controversy in Iranian-American and Muslim-American communities, and in an interview with "Time" magazine, Aghdashloo stated that although she had previously resisted reinforcing the stereotype of Muslims as terrorists, the strength and complexity of the role convinced her to accept the part. She went on to guest star on two episodes of NBC shows that were broadcast the same night, March 23, 2006: The "Cowboys and Iranians" episode of the comedy "Will & Grace", in which she played a wannabe interior designer who, to the confusion of Grace, is a Persian Jew; and the "Lost in America" episode of the medical drama "ER", playing a bereaved mother who loses her daughter in the trauma room. Aghdashloo continued to appear in films. She played Dr. Adani in the 2005 movie "The Exorcism of Emily Rose" and also appeared as the Asian-Indian Dr. Kavita Rao in the 2006 film "". Two other parts also came her way in 2006, that of a wealthy housewife whose family lovingly takes in their cousin (who has been sent by Pakistani terrorists to kill the American president) in the satirical comedy "American Dreamz" and that of Dr. Anna Klyczynski, friend and colleague to Sandra Bullock's character Kate, in "The Lake House". On January 19, 2011, Aghdashloo starred in "Dirty", an episode of the NBC crime drama, "" as Detective Saliyah 'Sunny' Qadri. Her other credits include narrating and producing a documentary ', narrating the PBS documentary ', narrating the audiobook version of "" and lending her vocal talents to animated movie "Babak and Friends"- A First Norooz. She also starred in the 2004 one-hour-long pilot episode "The Secret Service" (which was not picked up) and played the character Charlie in two of three aired episodes of the flopped TV series "Smith". At the end of 2006, Aghdashloo appeared as Elizabeth, cousin of the Virgin Mary, in the biblical film "The Nativity Story". Aghdashloo has noted the irony that she is a Muslim playing a Jewish character. In the movie "Mona's Dream", Aghdashloo portrays Mona's mother, who is a Baha'i. Aghdashloo plays the lead character, Zahra Khanum, in the movie "The Stoning of Soraya M.", a drama film released on June 26, 2009 in the United States. This film marks the first time during her career in America where she plays a leading character in a major feature-length motion picture. Aghdashloo won a 2009 Emmy Award for "Best Supporting Actress in a TV Movie/Miniseries", her first Emmy, for her supporting role on the HBO original miniseries, "House of Saddam". Speaking to a crowd of over 1,400 people at George Washington University’s Lisner Auditorium on September 12, 2009, Aghdashloo, author Dr. Azar Nafisi, and Dr. Dwight Bashir, Associate Director for Policy at the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom, added their voices to those concerned about human rights in Iran and the persecution of Bahá'ís in Iran. Aghdashloo's talk in particular was posted to YouTube. Aghdashloo voiced Admiral Shala'Raan vas Tonbay, a character from the video game "Mass Effect 2", a role that reprised for "Mass Effect 3". On October 9, 2010, the Public Affairs Alliance of Iranian Americans awarded Aghdashloo their Career Achievement Award during its first annual gala. In September 2011, it was confirmed that Aghdashloo would star in London show, the Almeida Theatre's adaptation of Federico Garcia Lorca's play, "The House of Bernarda Alba", as Bernarda Alba. The show ran from January 19 to March 10, 2012.
1132635	Girls in Prison is a 1956 drama/sexploitation women in prison film about a young woman who is convicted of being an accomplice to a bank robbery and is sent to an all-female prison. The film was directed by Edward L. Cahn, and stars Richard Denning, Joan Taylor, and Mae Marsh. American International Pictures released the film as a double feature with "Hot Rod Girl". Plot. Anne Carson (Joan Taylor) is sent to a women's prison for allegedly participating in a bank robbery with two others, one, Paul Anderson (Lance Fuller) who is still at large. The money was never recovered and all eyes are on Anne who denies knowing about the money. On arrival in prison, Anne meets the outwardly tough matron in charge (Jane Darwell) and the prison chaplain Rev Fulton (Richard Denning) who feels Anne may have had a mistrial and does not belong in prison. Anne's cellmates are Jenny (Adele Jergens) who seems to run the inmates, Melanee (Helen Gilbert) who makes a play for Anne and Dorothy (Phyllis Coates) a woman who has murdered her own husband and child when he ran away with another woman who is still alive. The unhinged Dorothy believes her child is still alive and every new girl in prison is her husband's lover, Lois. Jenny and Melanee team up in the "good cop/bad cop" routine to get Anne to tell them where the money is with Melanee telling Dorothy that Anne is really Lois. On the outside, Paul is using blackmail and threats on Anne's ex-criminal father Pop Carson (Raymond Hatton) to find the money as well as offering to split it with him 50/50. Anne faces attempted murder by Dorothy, threats on her life from two other inmates seeking the money, and fights Melanee in a catfight that culminates in a mud puddle. When a large earthquake hits the area and demolishes the installation, Jenny (who has acquired a pistol from her outside contacts and the outwardly harmless trustee Grandma (Mae Marsh) and Melanee use the opportunity to escape with Anne to take her home to locate the money. The downed telephone and power lines give the three girls time to escape unpursued but Rev Fulton heads off Anne at her home, where Pop is still held at gunpoint by Paul. Since the film’s release in 1956, the theatrical movie poster, featuring a catfight between Helen Gilbert and Joan Taylor, has become a collector’s item. The poster shows the blonde haired Gilbert strangling the dark haired Taylor although that exact scene did not occur in the movie. Production. This was the first of many films that Edward L. Cahn did for AIP with producer Alex Gordon. A Production Code administrator warned Gordon that any hint of lesbianism whether in speech or manners had to be eliminated from the script, but Gordon filmed them regardless. Gordon's film company Golden State Productions made the first film released by AIP, "Apache Woman" also starring Joan Taylor.
757084	Leon Allen White (born May 14, 1955) better known by his ring names Big Van Vader or Vader, is an American semi-retired professional wrestler. White is best known for his time with New Japan Pro Wrestling, World Championship Wrestling, the World Wrestling Federation and All Japan Pro Wrestling in the 1990s. A super-heavyweight wrestler capable of aerial maneuvers such as the moonsault and the dropkick, White was both a face and a heel in several professional wrestling promotions. During his career, he became an eight time world champion, having won the WCW World Heavyweight Championship three times, the IWGP Heavyweight Championship three times and the AJPW Triple Crown Heavyweight Championship twice. Professional wrestling career. American Wrestling Association (1985–1987). While working out at a gym, White was spotted by a man who remembered him from his college football days who suggested he look into professional wrestling. Trained by Brad Rheingans, White got his first national exposure in the American Wrestling Association. He went by the moniker Baby Bull, which was later changed to Bull Power. White honed his skills during this time, and his ring work improved significantly to the point that he was granted a title match against Stan Hansen for the AWA World Heavyweight Championship, which he was unable to win. New Japan Pro Wrestling (1987–1992). Although originally signed to All Japan Pro Wrestling, AJPW owner Giant Baba traded White's contract over to New Japan Pro Wrestling in 1987 after consideration. Upon joining NJPW, White was given the ring name Big Van Vader and began to wear a black wrestling mask. His new identity was based on a strong warrior of the same name from Japanese folklore. He was introduced as the crown jewel of the Takeshi Puroresu Gundan stable that was managed by Takeshi Kitano. After a match where Riki Chōshū had challenged Inoki in a losing effort, Vader demanded a match with the already worn down Inoki, and was victorious. This led the pro-Inoki audience to riot, resulting in NJPW being banned from the Sumo Hall, which was its home arena; the ban was rescinded in 1989, when NJPW did their first show back in Sumo Hall on February 22. After winning the final match of an eight-man tournament against Shinya Hashimoto, Vader was declared the new IWGP Heavyweight Champion. On May 25, one month after being crowned champion, Vader lost the title to Russian suplex master Salman Hashimikov. Hashimikov dropped the title to Vader's old rival, Riki Chōshū, on July 12. On August 10, Vader was given an opportunity at Chōshū and the title. He defeated Chōshū to become a two-time IWGP Heavyweight Champion. Shortly after winning the title again, White traveled to Europe, again using the name Bull Power, to face Otto Wanz for the CWA World Heavyweight Championship. He won the match and, as a result, held the Heavyweight Championship in two separate organizations at the same time. He continued to travel between Japan and Europe, defending his titles. In November 1989, Vader traveled to Mexico to defeat El Canek in the Universal Wrestling Association for the UWA World Heavyweight Championship, becoming the first and only man to hold three world heavyweight titles in three continents simultaneously. He lost the UWA championship back to Canek on December 12, 1990. In February 1990, Vader faced Stan Hansen at an AJPW versus NJPW supercard show. Before Vader entered the ring, Hansen accidentally broke Vader's nose with the bullrope Hansen carried to the ring for his matches. During an exchange of stiff punches, Hansen unintentionally poked Vader's right eye with his thumb during their brawl, which caused the eye to pop out of its socket. After removing his mask, pushing the eye back into its socket and holding it in place with his eyelid, Vader continued wrestling Hansen until the match was rendered a no contest. As a result of the injury, Vader required a metal plate to be surgically placed under his eye. Vader's success garnered the attention of World Championship Wrestling, who convinced him to work for them while still the IWGP Heavyweight Champion and an active competitor in NJPW. Vader's first match in WCW took place on July 7, 1990 at The Great American Bash, where he defeated Tom Zenk in a little over two minutes. Around this time, Vader began a feud with Stan Hansen in All Japan Pro Wrestling. Two weeks later, Vader went to Europe and defeated Rambo in a tournament final to reclaim the vacant CWA World Heavyweight Championship and become a three time CWA World Heavyweight Champion in the process. In January 1991, Vader defeated Tatsumi Fujinami to earn himself a third IWGP Heavyweight Title reign. This reign was short-lived however, as Vader lost the title back to Fujinami on March 4. Rambo ended Vader's CWA World Heavyweight Championship reign on July 6, 1991. Vader went on to defeat Fujinami for the CWA Intercontinental Heavyweight Championship but, upon his signing of a WCW contract in 1992, the title was declared vacant. At this point, WCW and NJPW were reaching a tentative working agreement. This benefited Vader, as he could now have his schedule coordinated far more easily. This helped alleviate his difficulty in gaining notoriety in WCW, as his previously infrequent appearances did not allow the audience to see him very often. On March 1, 1992, he and Bam Bam Bigelow began teaming and won the IWGP Tag Team Championship from Hiroshi Hase and Keiji Mutoh. In May, Vader faced Mutoh, now known as The Great Muta, one on one and suffered a legitimate knee injury. This injury was a factor in he and Bigelow losing the title to WCW World Tag Team Champions, The Steiner Brothers, after a near four month reign. This also marked a decrease in his NJPW appearances, as Vader began to focus almost entirely on WCW and the WCW World Heavyweight Championship. World Championship Wrestling (1990–1995). Vader was originally signed with World Championship Wrestling in 1990, but was only used sparingly until 1992. When he began working for WCW full-time, Vader was paired with a manager, Harley Race, and received a shot at Sting's World Heavyweight Championship on April 12, 1992, and was disqualified. Sting suffered a pair of cracked ribs and a ruptured spleen in the match after taking a "Vader Bomb" from Vader, though he continued to compete infrequently while recuperating. Vader was placed in a feud with Nikita Koloff shortly afterward while Sting recuperated. Vader finally received a rematch with Sting on July 12 at The Great American Bash, which he won to become the new WCW World Heavyweight Champion. His reign was short-lived, as he re-injured his knee, forcing him to lose the title three weeks later to Ron Simmons, who substituted for Sting after he was attacked by Jake Roberts earlier that night. Vader was out of action after Clash of the Champions in September as he underwent knee surgery. Upon his return at Halloween Havoc, Vader sent Nikita Koloff into retirement and legitimately broke the back of jobber Joe Thurman, paralyzing him for a few hours. At Starrcade, Vader lost to Sting in the finals of the King of Cable tournament. Two days later, Vader defeated Simmons by taking advantage of a shoulder injury of Simmons's to regain the World Heavyweight Championship. On March 11, 1993, Vader lost the WCW World Heavyweight Championship to Sting in London, England. Six days later, he regained the title in a rematch in Dublin, Ireland. In subsequent weeks, Vader successfully defended the title against Davey Boy Smith, Sting, and Dustin Rhodes. In late February 1993, White signed an eight-date agreement with the Union of Wrestling Force International (UWFi), where he competed as Super Vader due to legal issues concerning the Big Van Vader name. By September 1993, he was simply known as Vader in the United States. He worked with UWFi for over two years. His greatest triumph under there was a victory in the Best of the World Tournament, which started April 3 and ended August 18, 1994. Vader first defeated Salman Hashimikov and then Masahito Kakihara in the quarterfinals. In the semifinals, Vader defeated Kiyoshi Tamura, and beat Nobuhiko Takada in the finals to win the tournament and the UWFi World Title. He later left the promotion after a financial dispute. Upon returning to WCW, Vader defeated Cactus Jack via countout on the April 17 episode of "Saturday Night". During the match, Jack suffered a broken nose and needed 27 stitches for wounds on his face. The match was heavily edited for broadcast, as WCW did not wish to show the severe bleeding. In a rematch on April 24, Vader powerbombed Jack onto the concrete floor outside the ring, resulting in Jack suffering a concussion and temporary loss of feeling in his left hand and leg. Believing he had sent Jack into retirement, Jack later appeared in a series of skits involving his powerbomb-inflicted amnesia and a search for his past. In the meantime, Vader began to feud with a new arrival to WCW, Davey Boy Smith. They met at Slamboree in May for the World Heavyweight Title. Vader lost by disqualification when he hit Smith with a chair, though he retained the title. Vader and Sid Vicious then formed a partnership and called themselves The Masters of the Powerbomb. They faced off with Smith and his new partner, Sting, at Beach Blast in July, where they lost to Smith and Sting. Following this, Vader and Cactus Jack's feud was restarted as Jack was cleared to return for Halloween Havoc to face Vader in a Texas Death match. Jack stood up to a series of devastating moves near the end of the match, though Vader won when Harley Race stunned Jack with a cattle prod that kept him down for a ten count. On March 16, 1994, Foley lost his right ear in a match with Vader in Munich, Germany; Foley's head became trapped in the ropes, which were under excessive tension, causing his ear to be torn off. Vader was originally scheduled to face Sid Vicious at Starrcade. The real-life dismissal of Vicious after his stabbing of Arn Anderson in England, however, forced WCW to find a quick replacement. Executive producer Eric Bischoff placed Ric Flair in the match, which was scheduled in Flair's hometown of Charlotte, North Carolina. In the storyline, Vader did not take Flair seriously until he agreed to put his career on the line against Vader's title. Vader dominated the match, but Flair capitalized on failed interference by Race and Vader's weakened knees to win the match with a rollup and end Vader's third World Heavyweight Championship reign. Vader continued to feud with Flair until SuperBrawl IV, when Flair once again defeated Vader, this time in a "Thundercage" match. Vader then feuded with The Boss, defeating him at Spring Stampede. He also faced Sting at Slamboree for the vacant International World Heavyweight Championship. Sting requested the match rather than be awarded the title after an injury to his original opponent, Rick Rude, and defeated Vader. At Clash of the Champions XXIX, Vader defeated Dustin Rhodes and earned the opportunity to face the United States Heavyweight Champion Jim Duggan. In the Starrcade title match, Vader defeated Duggan with the aid of Duggan's 2x4 to win the United States Heavyweight Title. In January 1995, Vader confronted the World Heavyweight Champion Hulk Hogan, and informed him that he could not avoid the monster. The two met at SuperBrawl V, with Vader managing to kick out of Hogan's leg drop after a count of one. The referee was knocked out before Vader hit the "Vader Bomb" on Hogan. Ric Flair ran to the ring, made the three count, and attacked Hogan, resulting in Vader's disqualification. A rematch was signed, a strap match for the inaugural Uncensored pay-per-view. Flair once again intervened (this time in drag to avoid revealing his presence) and managed to cost Vader the match by getting himself carried by Hogan as he touched all four turnbuckle pads. Vader was stripped of the United States Heavyweight Championship on April 23, 1995 for multiple violent offenses. However, Vader gained another opportunity to win the World Heavyweight Title from Hogan at Bash at the Beach in a Steel Cage match. He conspired with Kevin Sullivan and the Dungeon of Doom to gain a psychological edge before the encounter, which Vader lost when Hogan escaped the cage. He then restarted his feud with Flair, based on his frustration at Flair's constant interference in his title matches and Flair's annoyance at his inability to defeat Hogan. At Clash of the Champions XXXI, Vader defeated Flair and Arn Anderson in a 2-on-1 handicap match. Following the event, Hogan grew interested in Vader and asked for his assistance in his developing feud with the Dungeon of Doom by asking him to join him, Randy Savage, and Sting for WarGames. Vader complied but the storyline never developed as, shortly after, Vader was fired from WCW after he was involved in a locker room brawl with Paul Orndorff. Return to NJPW (1996). At Wrestling World on January 4, Vader had his first post-WCW match, facing the man whose four-year winning streak Vader had ended over eight years ago, Antonio Inoki. Inoki was over 50 years old at the time, but the match lasted nearly fourteen minutes before Inoki won the match. World Wrestling Federation (1996–1998). Debut (1996). In the weeks leading up to the Royal Rumble, Vader's debut was heavily hyped on television as he was billed as "The Man They Call Vader". He made his first World Wrestling Federation appearance as a participant in the Rumble match. He entered at number 13 and eliminated Jake Roberts, Doug Gilbert, one member of the Swat Team, and Savio Vega. He also fought with his ally Yokozuna. Vader was eliminated by Shawn Michaels before he reentered the ring and started assaulting everyone, including Michaels. Vader defeated Vega on the following "Monday Night Raw", before assaulting WWF officials. Eventually, WWF President Gorilla Monsoon demanded that Vader cease his attacks, and received a Vader Bomb for his efforts. As a result, Vader was suspended for his actions, though in reality he needed time off for shoulder surgery. Jim Cornette campaigned for Vader's reinstatement, and by the time Vader returned, Yokozuna had left Cornette's management. At February's In Your House 6, Vader appeared during Yokozuna's match against The British Bulldog. Yokozuna was about to pin The Bulldog, when Vader attacked him, handcuffed him, and delivered a severe beating. This led to what was supposed to be a one-on-one encounter between Vader and Yokozuna at WrestleMania XII. However, the match became a six-man tag team match pitting Vader, Owen Hart, and The British Bulldog against Yokozuna, Ahmed Johnson, and Jake Roberts. The stipulation was that if Yokozuna's team won the match, he would have five minutes alone with Cornette in the ring; this never occurred as Vader's team won the match when Vader pinned Roberts. Feud with Shawn Michaels and The Undertaker (1996–1997). Vader then attacked WWF Champion Shawn Michaels after one of Michaels's matches. Vader's attack on Michaels earned him a spot in a six-man tag team match at . Vader, Owen Hart, and The British Bulldog teamed up against Michaels, Ahmed Johnson, and Sycho Sid. Vader pinned Michaels to win the match for his team. Vader faced Michaels again at SummerSlam, where Vader won by count-out. Cornette, however, realized that the title could not change hands through a count-out and got the match restarted. This time, Michaels used Cornette's tennis racket and was disqualified. Again, Cornette managed to get the match started over. Finally, Michaels scored a pinfall over Vader. Following his feud with Michaels, Vader faced off against The Undertaker in a singles match at the Royal Rumble. During the match, The Undertaker's former manager, Paul Bearer, attacked him and helped Vader win; Bearer then became Vader's manager. Both Vader and Undertaker went on to compete in the Royal Rumble match, during which Steve Austin was eliminated by Bret Hart. However the referees did not see this, as they were attending to Terry Funk and Mankind on the floor, allowing Austin to sneak back into the ring and eliminate both Vader and Undertaker, then Bret Hart, who was busy eliminating Fake Diesel, and win the Rumble. As a result of this, Vader and the other men eliminated Austin, Bret Hart and The Undertaker, were put into the four-way main event of February's for the WWF Championship. Vader, after bleeding profusely, was eliminated by The Undertaker. Bearer then persuaded his two proteges, Vader and Mankind, to go after the Tag Team Championship, despite the fact that the two men often brawled between themselves. They failed in their bid to win the tag team gold at WrestleMania 13. Various feuds and departure (1997–1998). Vader again received an opportunity to face The Undertaker (this time for the WWF Championship) at , but lost. On the following night's "Raw is War", Vader wrestled The Patriot. The Patriot won the match and then went after Bret Hart, who came to ringside during the match. Vader attacked The Patriot, and then brought him back into the ring, where he went for the Vader Bomb. Hart came into the ring and laid the Canadian flag over The Patriot. Vader got down, picked up the Canadian flag, broke it, and started a brawl with Hart. This turned Vader face and served to bring Vader into the USA vs. Canada feud. At Survivor Series, Vader was the leader of Team USA, with Goldust, Marc Mero, and Steve Blackman (replacing the injured Patriot) as they faced Team Canada, composed of The British Bulldog, Jim Neidhart, Doug Furnas, and Phil LaFon. During the match, Goldust walked out on his team. Team USA lost the match after The Bulldog pinned Vader after hitting him with the ring bell. Goldust and Vader feuded throughout the fall and finally faced off at the Royal Rumble, in a match which Vader won. Goldust eliminated Vader from the Royal Rumble match later that night (Vader entered at number 30). Following his feud with Goldust, Vader began feuding with Kane, and both faced off for the first time at . Vader lost after a chokeslam and a Tombstone Piledriver before Kane subsequently attacked him with a large steel wrench, resulting in Vader being taken away on a stretcher and was kept off of television for a while. A few months later at , Vader returned during Kane's Inferno match against The Undertaker. Kane was attempting to leave the match when Vader appeared and fought him back to the ring to continue the match, which Kane lost. Vader and Kane had a rematch at in a Mask vs. Mask match. Vader attempted to use a wrench on Kane like the one used on him months before, but Kane managed to recover and defeat Vader, costing him his mask in the process. In a post-match interview with Michael Cole, Vader said, "I made the biggest mistake of my life. Maybe Vader time is over. I'm a piece of shit. A big fat piece of shit." Subsequently, Vader had a series of losses and was reduced to the status of a jobber to the stars, having a feud with Mark Henry which Vader lost. After considering retirement, Vader instead negotiated his own release from the WWF so he could once again wrestle in Japan. His final WWF pay-per-view match was a loss to Bradshaw at in a No Holds Barred match on September 27. He lost to Edge on "Sunday Night Heat" in his final televised WWF match. His last match in a WWF ring was on October 25 at a Madison Square Garden house show in a Triple Threat Match with Mankind and Ken Shamrock, which Vader lost after he tapped out to Shamrock's ankle lock. All Japan Pro Wrestling and Pro Wrestling Noah (1998–2002). After leaving the WWF, Vader went to All Japan Pro Wrestling. He formed a team with his old foe Stan Hansen, with whom he made it to the finals of the 1998 World's Strongest Tag Determination League, where they were defeated by Kenta Kobashi and Jun Akiyama. At the beginning of 1999, he became the number 1 contender to the Triple Crown by defeating Kobashi. He then won the (vacant) Triple Crown Title on March 6, 1999 by defeating Akira Taue. He then won the 1999 Champion Carnival. After Vader lost the Triple Crown to Misawa on May 2, he regained it on October 31. He then again lost it to Kobashi and took some time off. After returning from is hiatus, Vader joined the new Japanese promotion Pro Wrestling Noah, where he won the GHC Tag Team Championship with 2 Cold Scorpio. Semi-retirement (2003–2006). On February 19, 2003, Vader appeared in Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (TNA) to defend Dusty Rhodes, who was fighting with the Harris Brothers. He won a tag team match the next week against the Harris Brothers via disqualification. He then began a feud with Nikita Koloff, whose career Vader ended long ago. However, TNA and Vader soon parted ways. Vader returned to World Wrestling Entertainment on the October 31, 2005 episode of "Raw", where Jonathan Coachman announced that Vader and Goldust would be in his corner for his street fight against Stone Cold Steve Austin the next night at Taboo Tuesday. When Austin decided not to participate, he was replaced by Batista. Vader and Goldust interfered in the match on Coachman's behalf and received spinebusters for their efforts. Batista pinned Coach with the Batista Bomb to win the match. Vader left the company soon after and returned to compete in Japan. Vader returned to Japan, wrestling at a Wrestleland show. He also worked in the independent circuit as Big Van Vader, including a tag match against Samoa Joe and Dan Maff in Jersey All Pro Wrestling with Mike Awesome as his tag team partner. On May 12, 2007, Vader faced Brutus "The Barber" Beefcake at Spartan Slamfest, a World Wrestling Coalition charity show for Wyoming Valley West School District. The match was held at the Kingston Armory in Kingston, Pennsylvania. Return to wrestling (2010–present). After wrestling his last match in 2007, White began working as a high school football coach. On April 29, 2010, White made a one-night return to wrestling under his Vader ring name at the event Vader Time 5 ~ Return of the Emperor ~. At the event, he teamed with his son Jesse and former tag team partner Scorpio to successfully defeat Makoto Hashi, Tamon Honda and Tatsumi Fujinami in the main event. In the aftermath of the 2011 natural disasters in Japan, Vader and his son Jesse wrestled on special tribute cards for All Japan Pro Wrestling and Pro Wrestling Zero1. Vader made his in-ring return to the United States on January 28, 2012. He defeated Arik Royal and Adam Page in a handicap match at WrestleReunion: Los Angeles. On May 11, 2012 at Resistance Pro's event A Small Deadly Space, Vader defeated Jay Bradley. On the June 11, 2012 episode of "Raw", Vader made his first WWE appearance in nearly seven years, where he defeated Heath Slater in a singles match. On July 23 on the 1000th episode of "Raw", Vader and several other legends prevented Slater from leaving in his match against Lita, which she won. On December 7, 2012, Vader returned to All Japan Pro Wrestling, teaming with Keiji Mutoh and Kenso to defeat Bambi Killer, Franz Dynamite and Mazada in a six-man tag team match. Other media. Video games. The "Fatal Fury" character Raiden, also known as "Big Bear", is based on Vader's appearance in Japan. The character Alexander the Grater from "Saturday Night Slam Masters" bears a resemblance to Vader. Alexander also wears a mask very similar to the mastodon mask Vader would wear during ring entrances in the 1980s and early 1990s. Vader himself appears as a playable character in the WCW video games "WCW Wrestling", "", and "WCW SuperBrawl Wrestling", the WWE video game "WWF In Your House", and as a downloadable or unlockable legend in "WWE SmackDown vs. Raw 2009", "WWE '12", and "WWE '13". As well as being featured in numerous Japanese wrestling games such as King of Colosseum (he is a preset model in King of Colosseum II's EDIT mode), as well as the latter two editions of the All Star Pro-Wrestling series, and Wrestle Kingdom 2 where he is also featured in the cover art. Personal life. While in Kuwait during a WWF tour in April 1997, Vader appeared on the television program "Good Morning Kuwait". During the interview, the host asked Vader if wrestling was fake. As a result, Vader flipped over the table they were sitting at and assaulted the host, while using foul language. In December, Vader was fined $164 for this incident. White's son, Jesse White, was born April 19, 1986. In July 2009, White began training Jesse to become a professional wrestler in Japan. Jesse originally committed to the University of Oklahoma and was touted for the National Football League, but was taken out with a hip injury. In April 2011, Jesse signed a developmental contract with WWE, until September 16, 2013, when he was fired. Due to years of alcohol abuse and travel, White's wife left him in 2007. Following this, White quit drinking and curtailed his travel schedule before undergoing double knee replacement surgery. However, his surgical wounds became infected, and he was bedridden for six months. Soon after recovering, White passed out during a plane trip to Japan for an autograph session. He was in a coma for 33 days, during which he lost 112 pounds. White is a born again Christian.
1163366	James Lipton (born September 19, 1926) is an American writer, composer, actor and dean emeritus of the Actors Studio Drama School at Pace University in New York City. He is the executive producer, writer and host of the Bravo cable television series "Inside the Actors Studio", which debuted in 1994. He is also a pilot and member of the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association. He is a Chevalier of France's Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. Early life. Lipton was born in Detroit, Michigan, the son of Betty (née Weinberg), a teacher, and Polish-born journalist Lawrence Lipton. Noted as the author of the popular Beat Generation chronicle, "The Holy Barbarians", Lawrence Lipton was a graphic designer, a columnist for the "Jewish Daily Forward" and a publicity director for a movie theater. Lipton was a pimp in Paris, France in the 1950s for a year, representing a bordello of prostitutes. Career. A 1944 graduate of Central High School in Detroit, Lipton portrayed Dan Reid, the Lone Ranger's nephew, on WXYZ Radio's "The Lone Ranger". Moving to New York, he initially studied to be a lawyer, and turned to acting only to finance his education. He wrote for several soap operas, "Another World", "The Edge of Night", "Guiding Light", "Return to Peyton Place" and "Capitol", as well as acting for over ten years on "Guiding Light". In 1951, he appeared in the Broadway play "The Autumn Garden" by Lillian Hellman. He portrayed a shipping clerk turned gang member in Joseph Strick's 1953 film, "The Big Break", a crime drama. Lipton was the book writer and lyricist for the short-lived 1967 Broadway musical "Sherry!", based on the Moss Hart and George S. Kaufman play "The Man Who Came to Dinner", with music by his childhood friend Laurence Rosenthal. The score and orchestrations were lost for over 30 years, and the original cast was never recorded. In 2003, a studio cast recording (with Nathan Lane, Bernadette Peters, Carol Burnett, Tommy Tune, Mike Myers and others) renewed interest in the show. In 1968, his book, "An Exaltation of Larks", was first published, and has been in print and revised several times since then, including a 1993 Penguin books edition. The book is a collection of "terms of venery", both real and created by Lipton himself. The dust jacket biography for the first edition of "Exaltation" claimed his activities included fencing, swimming, and equestrian pursuits and that he had written two Broadway productions. He speaks French fluently. In 1983, Lipton published his novel, "Mirrors", about dancers' lives. He later wrote and produced it as a TV movie. In television, Lipton has produced some two dozen specials including: twelve Bob Hope Birthday Specials; "The Road to China", an NBC entertainment special produced in China; and the first televised presidential inaugural gala (for Jimmy Carter). In 2004, 2005, and 2013 Lipton appeared in several episodes of "Arrested Development" as Warden Stefan Gentles. In 2008 Lipton provided the voice for the Director in the Disney animation film "Bolt". He played "himself" as Brain Wash interviewer of acting teacher for sweet monster Eva in Paris-Vietnam animated "Igor". "Inside the Actors Studio". In the early 1990s, Lipton was inspired by Bernard Pivot and sought to create a three-year educational program for actors that would be a distillation of what he had learned in the 12 years of his own intensive studies. In 1994, he arranged for the Actors Studio – the home base of "method acting" in the USA for over 60 years – to join with New York City's New School University and form the Actors Studio Drama School, a formal degree-granting program at the graduate level. After ending its contract with the New School, the Actors Studio established The Actors Studio Drama School at Pace University in 2006. Lipton created a project within the Actors Studio Drama School: a non-credit class called "Inside the Actors Studio" (1994), where successful and accomplished actors, directors and writers would be interviewed and would answer questions from acting students. These sessions are also taped and broadcast on television for the general public to see. The episodes are viewed in 89 million homes throughout 125 countries. Lipton himself hosts the show and conducts the main interview. During an interview with writer Daniel Simone, when asked if he had anticipated the sudden success, Lipton responded, "Not in my wildest imaginations. It was a joint, arduous effort involving many people. At a point and time not too distant in the past, I had three lives. I was the dean of the Actors Studio, the writer of the series, its host and executive producer. I maintained a preposterous sixteen-hour schedule." Personal life. Between 1954 and 1959, Lipton was married to actress Nina Foch. He has been married to Kedakai Turner, a model and real estate broker, since 1970. In the 200th episode of "Inside the Actors Studio", Lipton revealed that he is an atheist and, during the 1950s, was a licensed procurer of a French prostitute.
1502414	Joel Grey (born April 11, 1932) is an American stage and screen actor, singer, and dancer, known for his role as the Master of Ceremonies in both the stage and film versions of the Kander & Ebb musical "Cabaret". He has won the Academy Award, Tony Award and Golden Globe Award. He also originated the role of George M. Cohan in the musical George M! in 1973, the Wizard in the musical "Wicked." Grey also starred in the Broadway revivals of "Anything Goes" as Moonface Martin, and "Chicago" as Amos Hart. Early life. Grey was born as Joel David Katz in Cleveland, Ohio, the son of Goldie "Grace" (née Epstein) and Mickey Katz, a Jewish actor, comedian, and musician. Grey started his career as a child actor in the Cleveland Play House. He attended Alexander Hamilton High School in Los Angeles. Career. Grey originated the role of the Master of Ceremonies in the Broadway musical "Cabaret" in 1966 for which he won the Tony Award. Additional Broadway credits include "Come Blow Your Horn" (1961), "Stop the World - I Want to Get Off" (1962), "Half a Sixpence" (1965), "George M!" (1968), "Goodtime Charley" (1975), "The Grand Tour" (1979), "Chicago" (1996), "Wicked" (2003), and "Anything Goes" (2011). In November 1995, he performed as the Wizard in "" a staged concert of the popular story at Lincoln Center to benefit the Children's Defense Fund. The performance was originally broadcast on Turner Network Television (TNT) in November 1995, and released on CD and video in 1996. Grey won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor in March 1973 for his performance as the Master of Ceremonies in the 1972 film version of "Cabaret". His victory was part of a "Cabaret" near-sweep, which saw Liza Minnelli win Best Actress and Bob Fosse win Best Director, although it lost the Best Picture Oscar to "The Godfather." For that role, Grey also won the BAFTA award for "The Most Promising Newcomer to Leading Film Roles" and Best Supporting Actor awards from the Golden Globes, Kansas City Film Critics Circle, National Board of Review of Motion Pictures, National Society of Film Critics, and a Tony Award for his original stage performance six years prior, making him one of only eight people who have won both a Tony Award and an Academy Award for the same role. He has performed at The Muny in St. Louis, Missouri in roles such as George M. Cohan in "George M!" (1970 and 1992), the Emcee in "Cabaret" (1971), and Joey Evans in "Pal Joey" (1983). Grey appeared as a panelist for the television game show "What's My Line?" in the 1967 season, as well as being the first mystery guest during its syndication in 1968. He was the guest star for the third episode of "The Muppet Show" in its first season in 1976, singing "Razzle Dazzle" from "Chicago" and "Willkommen" from "Cabaret". He also played Master of Sinanju Chiun, Remo's elderly Korean martial arts master in the movie ' (1985), a role that garnered him a Saturn Award and a second Golden Globe nomination for "Best Supporting Actor". In 1991, he played Adam, a devil, in the final episode of the television series "Dallas" (1991). In 1993 he received an "Outstanding Guest Actor in a Comedy Series" Emmy nomination for his recurring role as Jacob Prossman on the television series "Brooklyn Bridge". In 1995, he made a guest appearance on ' as an aging rebel seeking to free his (deceased) wife from prison. In 2000, Grey played Oldrich Novy in the film "Dancer in the Dark" and had recurring television roles on "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" (as Doc, 2001), "Oz" (as Lemuel Idzik, 2003) and "Alias" (as "Another Mr. Sloane", 2005). He was a wealthy, paroled ex-convict on "" (episode "", 2003). Joel Grey also originated the role of the Wizard of Oz in the hit Broadway musical "Wicked". He also appeared on the shows "House" and "Brothers & Sisters" (2007), on the latter of which he played the role of Dr. Bar-Shalom, Sarah and Joe's marriage counselor. He appeared as Izzie's high school teacher who needs treatment for dementia in "Grey's Anatomy" (2009). Grey returned to Broadway in spring 2011 as Moonface Martin in the Roundabout Theatre Company revival of "Anything Goes" at the Stephen Sondheim Theatre. He also directed the Broadway premiere of "The Normal Heart", running for a limited 12-week engagement beginning in April 2011. This is a version of a staged reading he directed of this play in October 2010. For his continued support of Broadway, Grey was named a Givenik Ambassador. He was presented with a lifetime achievement award on June 10, 2013 by The National Yiddish Theatre - Folksbiene. Personal life. In 1958 he married Jo Wilder; they divorced in 1982. Grey is the father of actress Jennifer Grey, the star of "Dirty Dancing" and "Ferris Bueller's Day Off," and James, a chef. Grey is also a photographer. His first book of photographs, "Pictures I Had to Take", was published in 2003; its follow-up, "Looking Hard at Unexpected Things", appeared in the Fall of 2006. His third book, "1.3 – Images from My Phone," a book of photographs taken with his camera phone, was published on June 2, 2009 (Powerhouse Books). An exhibit of his work was held in April 2011 at the Museum of the City of New York, titled "Joel Grey/A New York Life." Work. Television. ("Source:")
1033414	Michael Socha (born 13 December 1987) is an English actor, best known for his roles in the critically acclaimed films "This Is England" and "Summer", and the television series "This Is England '86", "This Is England '88" and "Being Human". Early life. Socha was born in Derby, Derbyshire, to Robert and Kathleen Socha (nicknamed "Kath") on 13 December 1987. He is the older brother of actress Lauren Socha, star of the Channel 4 comedy-drama "Misfits". Michael was brought up in Littleover - a suburb of Derby. and attended St Benedict Catholic School. Socha was a rebellious pupil, and in his own words "a little shit". He often skipped school, but when forced to attend he tried to make it fun by doing the things he was most interested in. At the age of 11 Michael unsuccessfully auditioned for the lead role in a school musical play. When Michael was 12, his mother read in a local newspaper about a play being cast by the Chellaston Youth Players. She asked her son and daughter if they wanted to try out for it, and both did. Michael's motivation for auditioning was his anger at being denied a role in the musical and his desire to prove his teachers wrong about his acting skills. He won the lead role of Bugsy Malone in the play. He acted in several plays for the group, but by his own admission did not take acting very seriously. Through teachers at Michael's school the family learned about film director Ian Smith's Central Television Junior Workshop, a free actors' workshop for young people from the Nottingham area. He enrolled in the course when he was 14, but was almost refused admission as he had failed to learn the monologue for his audition and was put in the "reserve group". His second audition went the same way, but the programme relented and allowed him in after a time. Michael says the workshop had a strong impact on him, and he began working hard at acting. His first professional role came when he was cast in a small part in a short film. He was quickly cast in several small parts subsequently, and hired an agent. Socha's father had a long history of alcohol abuse, and his parents separated. In 2004, Robert Socha died of an alcohol-related heart attack. According to Kath Socha (a residential social worker), the death of Michael's father made her son very independent. "Michael was walking the streets of London at 16 going to auditions. He had to because I was working. He'd go off with a map and Tube fare." Michael Socha liked drama, English and history courses, however, and received his GCSEs in those three subjects. He credits his teacher, Mrs Urquhart-Hughes, as someone who watched over him, motivated him, and got him to do his homework after school. His first job after leaving school was in a manufacturing factory. He disliked it and quit, and enrolled at Burton College, a further education school. He worked at two other factories after leaving school, as well as at a car wash. He also worked as a labourer for his uncle's bricklaying firm, mixing mortar for the bricklayers. But as he was constantly taking off work at the last moment to attend auditions he quit working full-time and dedicated himself to acting. Career. Socha's breakthrough role came early in his acting career. In 2006, he was cast as the bully Harvey in Shane Meadows skinhead subculture film, "This Is England". In 2008, he was cast in Kenneth Glenaan's BAFTA Scotland-award winning film "Summer", where he acted opposite Robert Carlyle. The same year, he appeared in Duane Hopkins film "Better Things" and the independent small-budget comedy "Dogging: A Love Story". He also appeared in three episodes of the BBC One medical drama "Casualty". In February 2009, Socha made his stage debut at Nottingham Playhouse in "Glamour", a comedy by Stephen Lowe. The same year, he appeared in an episode of the science fiction police drama "Paradox" on BBC One and in the made-for-television film "The Unloved" for Channel Four. Despite his initial success, Socha was "penniless" and "waiting for work" for much of 2009 and early 2010, sitting at home and watching daytime television. His next big break came when Shane Meadows asked him to reprise the role of Harvey the bully for a four-part television series for Channel 4. The series, "This Is England '86", follows the lives of the film's characters three years after the events originally depicted. It aired in September 2010. That same year, Socha appeared in an episode of the hit television comedy "Married Single Other" as well as the film "Bonded by Blood". He also appeared in the "This Is England" Christmas special, and in a music video with American soul music singer Lauren Pritchard. Socha appeared in BBC Three hit supernatural series "Being Human" in 2011, receiving good critical notice as the innocent young werewolf Tom McNair. He almost did not appear on the show. He missed his audition after a taxicab hit him and fled the scene while he was helping a friend move furniture across a road in Normanton. Although only bruised, he missed his audition and had to plead for a second chance. He won the role of Tom, a young werewolf who has been brought up in the wild by his father and taught to hunt vampires. During the transformation scenes, Socha was asked to appear nude. Socha's friends worried about how they themselves would react to doing nude scenes, but Socha says, "I just thought 'fuck it, I’ll do it. He discussed the scenes with co-star Russell Tovey, who convinced him to do the scenes nude. Socha says that after about 30 minutes he relaxed and began to enjoy the filming. During his time on "Being Human", Socha says he became good friends with Tovey and co-star Robson Green. Socha has admitted that he can get carried away while performing some of his more physically demanding scenes (such as running naked through the woods). On another occasion, acting out a werewolf transformation in a metal cage, he almost injured himself after his physical acting became too extreme. He has received at least seven minor injuries requiring medical treatment and reporting to authorities. Socha was upgraded from a recurring role to the main cast for the fourth series of "Being Human", after the previous main cast, including Russell Tovey, left the show. The fourth series started airing in February 2012. He also appeared in the music video to the Jake Bugg song Seen It All. In 2013 Socha was confirmed to portray The Knave of Hearts in Once Upon a Time in Wonderland a spin-off to the ABC fantasy series Once Upon a Time. Personal life. Socha says he likes to spend his spare time going out or relaxing at home doing nothing. He has a fondness for French cinema (although he speaks no French) and for reality television shows like "Big Brother". His favourite football team is Derby County He told the publication "Gay Times" that he struggles with being a well-known actor. "It’s hard trying to find that balance between being who I am in Derby with the people I’m with in Derby, and then being Michael the actor, and it’s quite hard finding that balance. That’s what I always struggled with at school. I’m still gonna be Michael who’s Michael, it’s just I do a bit of acting, and some of the lads take the piss, but then after a year or so it’s just who I was and if they didn’t like it they could fuck off." His sister is "Misfits" actress Lauren Socha. He has a son called Elis Michael Socha, with his long-time girlfriend Faye.
1063101	Zoe Yadira Saldaña Nazario ( ; born June 19, 1978), known as Zoë Saldana or Zoe Saldana, is an American actress. She had her breakthrough roles in the 2000 film "Center Stage" and the 2002 film "Crossroads". She later gained prominence for her roles as Anamaria in "", the young Uhura in the 2009 film "Star Trek", and Neytiri in James Cameron's "Avatar" and its upcoming sequels. Early life. Saldana was born Zoe Yadira Saldaña Nazario in Passaic, New Jersey. Her late father, Aridio Saldana, was Dominican, and her mother, Asalia Nazario, is Puerto Rican. She has often spoken of her pride in being from a Latin culture. Her first languages are Spanish and English. She spent the majority of her early childhood growing up in Queens, New York. Her father died in a car accident when she was nine years old, and Saldaña and her mother subsequently moved to the Dominican Republic. There, Saldaña discovered her love of dance and soon enrolled in the ECOS Espacio de Danza Academy; she studied ballet, jazz, and modern Latin dance. The family returned to Queens after her sophomore year in high school. In 1995, she began performing with the FACES theater group in Brooklyn, which put on plays geared toward providing positive messages for teens, via themes dealing with issues such as substance abuse and adolescent sexuality. Concurrently, she performed with the New York Youth Theater; her appearance in their production of "Joseph and the Technicolor Dreamcoat" led a talent agency to recruit her. Her previous dance training, and her acting experience, helped her land her first film role, playing Eva, the talented and headstrong ballet dancer in the 2000 film "Center Stage". Career. Saldana was still a member of FACES when she gained exposure in an episode of "Law & Order" (titled "Merger") which first aired in 1999. Saldana's first film role was in "Center Stage" (2000), directed by Nicholas Hytner, about a group of young dancers from various backgrounds who enroll at the fictitious American Ballet Academy in New York City. She left school after "Center Stage", subsequently appearing in the Britney Spears vehicle "Crossroads" (2002) and the comedy-drama "Drumline" (2002). She played Anamaria, a female pirate who signs up to join Will Turner and Mr Gibbs for a chance to confront Jack Sparrow for stealing her ship in the 2003 film "". Saldana appeared in three films in 2004, including "The Terminal", "Haven" and "Temptation". In 2005 Saldana appeared in "Constellation", "Guess Who" with Ashton Kutcher and "Dirty Deeds", and in 2006 featured in "Premium". Among other roles, Saldana played Uhura in the 2009 film "Star Trek". In 2009, she played Neytiri, the Na'vi chief's daughter, in James Cameron's "Avatar", a role that raised her profile. In 2010, Saldana starred in "The Losers" in which she played Aisha al-Fadhil, for which she was required to gain weight, as she was expected to carry weapons around for eight hours a day. Saldana also appeared in "Takers", "Death at a Funeral" and "Burning Palms". In August 2010, her television ad for Calvin Klein's "Envy" line debuted. In 2011, Saldana starred in the romantic comedy "The Heart Specialist", and she also starred in the crime drama movie "Colombiana" as Cataleya Restrepo, a professional assassin. In 2012, she starred in the drama film "The Words". Saldana reprised her role in "Star Trek Into Darkness", the sequel to the 2009 reboot. It was released in May, 2013. In April 2013, Saldana entered negotiations to star as Gamora in the 2014 film "Guardians of the Galaxy". She later confirmed her part in the film.
940081	Ernest "Ernie" Sabella (born September 19, 1949) is an American actor, who is best known for his role as the official voice of Pumbaa from "The Lion King". Life and career. Born in Westchester, New York, Sabella graduated from Westlake High School in Thornwood, New York. Sabella then went on to graduate from the University of Miami, where he studied at the Department of Theatre Arts and performed at the university's highly-regarded Jerry Herman Ring Theatre. His stage credits include "The Robber Bridegroom" (1978), "Little Johnny Jones" (1982), "Guys and Dolls" (1992), "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum" (1996), "Chicago" (1996), "Man of La Mancha" (2002, as Sancho Panza) and "Sweet Charity" (2005).
1042142	William Thomson "Will" Hay (6 December 1888 – 18 April 1949) was an English comedian, actor, film director and amateur astronomer. Early life. He was born in Stockton-on-Tees, County Durham in North East England, to William Robert Hay (1851 - 1920) and his wife Elizabeth (née Ebden), but moved to Suffolk at an early age. Hay was educated at Gardner Street Higher Grade School in Pendleton, Salford, Lancashire (now Greater Manchester). Stage and film career. Hay was trained as an engineer and joined a firm of engineers, but at the age of 21 he gave up that profession for the stage. Starting in Manchester as a juggler, self-taught after seeing W.C. Fields doing it in a film, later he took up acting. He had a relatively brief screen career: by the time he made his first film he was in his mid-40s and an established music hall artist, and his last role came less than a decade later. But between 1934 and 1943 he was a prolific and popular film comedian. He was credited on several films as a writer or co-ordinator, and was arguably the dominant "author" of all the films in which he appeared, in that they were built around his persona and depended on the character and routines he had developed over years on the stage. He worked at the British film studios of Elstree, then Gainsborough, then Ealing; the Gainsborough period was the most consistently successful, particularly when he worked with the team of Marcel Varnel (director), Val Guest and Marriott Edgar (writers), and Moore Marriott and Graham Moffatt (supporting cast) - as on the railway film "Oh, Mr Porter!" (1937), his most fondly remembered picture with its catchphrase, 'The next train's gone!', spoken by Marriott as the decrepit old deputy stationmaster. Hay decided to break up the partnership with Moffatt and Marriott and brought in Claude Hulbert as his side-kick for "The Ghost of St. Michael's" (1941). "The Goose Steps Out" for Ealing (1942) was an effective anti-Nazi piece of slapstick, and while he was never quite the same again without Moffatt and Marriott, "My Learned Friend" (1943) again with Hulbert, is considered a masterpiece of black comedy which some regard as his best. Radio career. The half hour weekly Will Hay Programme began in August 1944, and was broadcast live from the Paris Cinema, which still exists in a basement just off Piccadilly Circus. There, St. Michael's schoolmaster Dr. Muffin (referred to by his pupils as Old Crumpet) barely kept a kind of order from his desk, perched slightly higher from his unruly pupils, Charles Hawtrey who played the cheeky Smart (later to go on to the Carry On films), John Clark, a child actor who played the annoying swot D'arcy Minor (later to gain fame as Just William), and an air force recruit, Billy Nichols, who on his days off played the really dumb schoolboy, Beckett. The series lasted about four months, and was prematurely cancelled, owing, it was said, to a dispute with the BBC over scripts. But it found a continuing life on the music hall stage, at the top of the bill at London's Victoria Palace. The cast was brought together one last time for an all variety anticipatory celebration at midnight on 4 May 1945 for the Royal Family and many military notables at a private function at the Life Guards barracks in Windsor, which featured the leading comics of the day. The war in Europe ended just four days later. This may also have been Will Hay's last performance prior to his illness, and his son Will Hay, Jr. carried on his father's act for a while. Private life. Aside from his day job as a comedian, Hay was a dedicated and respected amateur astronomer. His personal observatory sat in his garden in Mill Hill, the dome very visible from the main Hendon Road. He became a Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society in 1932. He is noted for having discovered a white spot on the planet Saturn in 1933; the spot lasted for a few months and then faded. He also measured the positions of comets with a micrometer he built himself, and designed and built a blink comparator. He wrote the book "Through My Telescope" in 1935, which had an impressive foreword by Sir Richard Gregory, formerly Emeritus Professor of Astronomy at Queen's College, London. At Hay's death, a few items of his equipment were bequeathed to the British Astronomical Association. He built a glider in 1909. Later he became one of the Britain's first private pilots and owners, and gave flying lessons to Amy Johnson. In 1942, as part of the war effort, he joined the Royal Navy Volunteer Reserve (RNVR), serving in the Special Branch as a sub-lieutenant. He was able to put his hobby to practical use when he later became an instructor in astronomy and navigation with the Sea Cadet Corps. He was a polyglot and, before entering the acting profession full-time, was an accomplished translator - fluent in French, German, Latin, Italian, Norwegian and Afrikaans. As a favourite trick for his friends, he would rapidly write seeming nonsense on a blackboard, look at it thoughtfully for a minute with a puzzled expression, then turn the blackboard upside down and there would be a perfectly written statement of some kind. And he could take someone's dictation, and repeat the trick. He married Gladys Perkins in 1907, whom he had known since he was 15, but legally separated on 18 November 1935. They had two daughters and a son: Gladys Elspeth Hay (b. 1909), William E. Hay (b. 1913), and Joan A. Hay (b. 1917). In 1947, Hay suffered a stroke which left him physically disabled. He died at his flat in Chelsea, London after a further stroke in 1949 and is buried in Streatham Park Cemetery, London SW16. Box office ranking. For a number of years, British film exhibitors voted him among the top ten British stars at the box office via an annual poll in the "Motion Picture Herald".
1084273	The Thing with Two Heads is a 1972 film, starring Rosey Grier, Ray Milland and Don Marshall directed by Lee Frost, and written by Wes Bishop. Frost and Bishop also had minor roles. Some early visual effects work from Rick Baker is also featured. Today, the movie is most notable for its soundtrack, produced by MGM Records producer Michael Viner with a rotating cast of studio musicians that he called the Incredible Bongo Band. The horn and percussion heavy instrumentals were used by some of the earliest rap and hiphop artists as the genre developed, and are still among the most popular samples used today. Plot summary. Milland plays Dr. Maxwell Kirshner, a dying, wealthy racist who demands that his head be transplanted onto a healthy body. As his health rapidly deteriorates, there remains only one alternative: graft Kirshner's head onto the body of a black death row inmate, Jack Moss, played by Grier.
1058015	Lauren Keyana "Keke" Palmer (born August 26, 1993) is an American actress, singer-songwriter, dancer, fashion designer, and voice actress. Palmer was born in Harvey, Illinois and raised in Robbins, Illinois. After Palmer's film debut, Palmer and her family moved to California to help her pursue a career in television. Palmer released her debut album "So Uncool" on September 18, 2007, though Atlantic Records. The album failed to chart on the US "Billboard" 200 but did chart at number 85 on the R&B chart. The album was preceded by the lead single "Keep It Movin'". Apart from her work in music, Palmer is also a recognized actress. She made her acting debut in the 2004 film '. In 2006, Palmer starred in "Akeelah and the Bee" and "Madea's Family Reunion". The following year Palmer featured in the film "Cleaner". Palmer has also starred in films "The Longshots" (2008) and "Shrink" (2009). In 2012, Palmer starred in four films "Joyful Noise", ', "" and "Virgin Mary". Besides films, Palmer has also starred in television films "Knights of the South Bronx" (2005) and "Jump In!" (2007) amongst others. Palmer has also had numerous television roles including Nickelodeon sitcom "True Jackson, VP". Palmer earned $20,000 per episode of "True Jackson VP", which made her the fourth highest-paid child star on television. Life and career. 1993–2004: Early life and career beginnings. Palmer was born on August 26, 1993 in Harvey, Illinois. Her parents, Sharon and Larry Palmer, who met in drama school, had both worked as professional actors before settling into full-time jobs. Her father works for a polyurethane company, and her mother is a high school teacher who works with children with mental disabilities. Palmer first sang in a church but earned exposure performing at a stage show at a Chicago tourist destination. In 2002, Palmer auditioned for a stage production of "The Lion King" at age nine. In 2004, she gained her first film role in "Barbershop 2: Back in Business", in which she played the niece of American rapper and actress Queen Latifah. After starring in the film, Palmer and her family moved to California, so Palmer could pursue a career in acting. 2005–07: "So Uncool" and major acting roles. Palmer then pursued a career in singing. In 2003, she participated in "American Juniors", the "American Idol" spin-off series, but her audition scenes were edited out and the show was canceled that year. In 2005, Palmer signed a record deal with Atlantic Records. Her debut single, "All My Girlz", is featured in the "Akeelah and the Bee" soundtrack. In 2005 Palmer was featured in the television film "Knights of the South Bronx" as well as starring in three television programs "Second Time Around", "ER" and "Keke & Jamal". On November 18, 2006, she performed at the Home Depot Center in Carson, California for VH1's "Save the Music" Battle of the High School Marching Bands competition, marking her first ever stadium performance in front of thousands of people. In addition, as part of her contract with Disney, Palmer sang the songs "It's My Turn Now" and "Jumpin'" featured in the Disney Channel Original Movie "Jump In!", in which she stars as Mary, the love interest to Corbin Bleu's character. In 2006, Palmer was featured in the music video for the Ludacris and Mary J. Blige song "Runaway Love", in which she starred as a pregnant 11-year-old girl. That same year, she recorded a song entitled "Tonight" which was featured as the first song in the end credits of "Night at the Museum". Besides focusing on her music career Palmer had the lead role in the 2006 film "Akeelah and the Bee", in which she played a bright 11-year-old who never makes errors on her spelling tests and doesn't really seem to fit in. Palmer also had a supporting role in the 2006 film "Madea's Family Reunion".
1169848	Annabelle Gurwitch (born November 4, 1961) is an American comedic actress. She is best known as the original hostess of TBS's "Dinner and a Movie". She is also a noted author and columnist and was most recently the host of "Wa$ted!" on Planet Green. Personal life. Gurwitch was born in Mobile, Alabama, and grew up in Florida, graduating from Miami Beach High School in 1980. While there, she took acting classes with famed South Florida drama teacher Jay W. Jensen. After high school, she attended The Experimental Theatre Wing at New York University. Gurwitch started her work Off-Broadway in New York City and her performance in the title role of Murray Mednick’s "Joe and Betty" garnered her a place in "The New York Times" "Top Ten Performances in Theatre of the Year 2002." She also appeared in the "Los Angeles Times" "Top Ten Performances of the Year in Theatre 2001." She currently lives in Los Angeles with her husband, Emmy Award winning writer Jeff Kahn, and their son. Gurwitch is a spokesperson for the Do Not Mail Registry sponsored by the NGO "Forest Ethics" and a member of the advisory board of "United Professionals", an organization founded by Barbara Ehrenreich. She also donates considerable time to the National Wildlife Federation. Television projects. In 1996 TBS premiered a show called "Dinner and a Movie." Gurwitch and Paul Gilmartin were the original hosts of the show, which combines cooking instruction with the viewing of a feature film. Claud Mann is the host chef of the series and prepares various themed dinner dishes. Gurwitch served as co-host for six years, departing in 2002. Other television hosting work includes stints on the HBO award-winning series "Not Necessarily the News", SyFy's "The Dream Team with Annabelle and Michael," VH1's "Best Of...," series, Style Network's "You're Invited," and "Dot Comedy" in addition to her most recent position as the host of "Wa$ted!" on Planet Green for 3 seasons. Gurwitch has appeared in numerous television programs as an actress including "Dexter", "The Cleaner", "Medium", "State of Mind", "The Minor Accomplishments of Jackie Woodman", "Seinfeld" and "Boston Legal". She also frequently gives her opinion on such shows as "The Today Show", "Real Time with Bill Maher", "The Joy Behar Show", "Fox & Friends", "The Early Show" on CBS, CNN's "In the Money", FOX's "Red Eye w/Greg Gutfeld", and in the past she has been invited to share her thoughts on many others: "The Oprah Winfrey Show", "The Wanda Sykes Show", and Bill Maher's "Politically Incorrect", to name a few. Film projects. In 2007 Gurwitch wrote, produced, directed, and appeared in the documentary film "Fired!". It documents the experiences of twenty-five people, including Gurwitch, who were fired from various jobs. They recount their firings through interviews, skits, stand-up comedy routines, and filmed excerpts from the previously-produced stage play of the same title. David Cross, Jeff Garlin, Bob Odenkirk and Anne Meara were all featured in addition to UAW workers, former US Secretary of Labor Bob Reich, economist Ben Stein and many other job seekers. The film was played at the US Department of Labor and labor film festivals around the country including the DC Labor FilmFest. Gurwitch has appeared in numerous other films as an actress including "Melvin Goes to Dinner" and "The Shaggy Dog". Literary projects. Gurwitch once worked for Woody Allen, but was fired during an encounter in which he said that she looked "retarded" among other insults. In 2006 she published a book of essays inspired by that dismissal called "Fired!: Tales of the Canned, Canceled, Downsized, and Dismissed". Gurwitch also based a number of live performances on the "Fired!" theme, and in 2007 completed the "Fired!" documentary film. Gurwitch is a contributing writer for NPR's "Day to Day", The "Los Angeles Times Magazine", "The Nation", and the website Freshyarn.com. She has written for "Child", "Publishers Weekly", "Marie Claire", "More", "Men's Health", "Glamour", "Cooking Light", "Premiere", "Penthouse" and "Los Angeles Magazine". Her essays have appeared in two anthologies: "Note to Self: 30 Women on Hardship, Humiliation, Heartbreak, and Overcoming It All" and "Rejected: Tales of the Failed, Dumped, and Canceled". Gurwitch and husband Jeff Kahn signed a six-figure deal with Crown to publish a memoir. The book, published in February 2010, is "You Say Tomato, I Say Shut Up." Recently, the two adapted the book into a theatrical production, in association with Off-Broadway Booking, which is now making the rounds in its first national tour. In November 2012 Gurwitch published an eBook short called Autumn Leaves with Zola Books that recounts an erotic fantasy she once had about one of the staff members at an Apple Genius bar. The short will also be included in an upcoming memoir about turning 50.
1350833	Queen of the Gypsies (, lit. "The gypsy camp goes to heaven"; also known as Gypsies Are Found Near Heaven) is a 1975 Soviet film by Emil Loteanu, loosely based on various works by Maxim Gorky. Set in early 20th century Austria-Hungary, the film tells the love story between the gypsy girl Rada and the horse thief Zobar of Gorky's early 1892 short story "Makar Chudra" (). One of the songs near the introduction of the film had become popular on Youtube as the "Gypsie Song". It was the most attended movie in the Soviet Union in 1976, with 64.9 million tickets sold.
1055185	Brothers of the Head is a 2005 mockumentary featuring the story of Tom and Barry Howe (Harry and Luke Treadaway respectively), conjoined twins living in the United Kingdom. It was based on the 1977 novel of the same name by science fiction writer Brian Aldiss. Plot. In the early 1970s, the twins are essentially purchased by sleazy talent manager with plans to turn them into rock stars. The brothers form a punk rock band called the Bang Bang. As the band's success grows, a music journalist, Laura (Tania Emery), follows the band writing an article. A romantic relationship develops between Laura and Tom causing friction between the two brothers. Production trivia. Brian Aldiss, the writer of the original novel, filmed a cameo, however it was cut out and replaced by an actor portraying him. Deleted scenes make it clear that in the continuity of the film, Aldiss based his novel on a real life case. In the backstory of the action, Ken Russell (who appears in the film as himself and makes references to his previous rock and roll-based film, "Tommy"), had attempted to make his own uncompleted film version of the "true" story. Ex-Crackout members Steven Eagles, Nicholas Millard and Jack Dunkley also have cameos. They also provided the soundtrack to the movie. All Bang-Bang music tracks featured in the film were actually performed live by actors Harry and Luke Treadaway themselves, along with the actors portraying the band members. The Treadaways, along with all the actors except Bryan Dick (Paul Day), recorded studio tracks for the soundtrack album.
585773	Rasikan is a 2004 Malayalam film directed by Lal Jose and written by V. G. Muralikrishnan starring Dileep and debutante Samvrutha Sunil in the lead roles. Synopsis. Sivankutty (Dileep) is a big fan of Super star Mohanlal. A part-time mechanic, Sivankutty ekes out a living selling tickets of Mohanlal films in the black. It is at this stage that comely Karishma (Haripriya) walks into his life. Karishma is an engineering student who happens to be staying in a hostel near Sivankutty's house. In no time, Sivankutty is bowled over by Karishma's curls and charms. But Sivankutty's cousin Thanki (Samvrutha Sunil) is in love with him, of which Sivankutty is unaware.
1164821	Matthew William Lawrence (born February 11, 1980) is an American actor known for his leading role in the movie "Cheats" with Trevor Fehrman and his role of Jack Hunter on the ABC sitcom "Boy Meets World" from 1997 to 2000, and his roles in movies such as "The Hot Chick", "The Comebacks", and "Mrs. Doubtfire". Early life. Lawrence was born in Abington Township, Pennsylvania, the son of Donna Lynn (née Shaw), a personnel manager, and Joseph Lawrence, Sr., an insurance broker. His family's surname was changed to Lawrence from Mignogna before he was born. He is of part Italian descent. He has two brothers, Joey and Andrew, both of whom are actors. Lawrence attended classes at Abington Friends School. Career. Lawrence began acting in the mid 1980s, his first role being that of Danny Carrington in Dynasty. He became a renowned child actor through the early 1990s, appearing in many television and feature film roles, including the 1993 Robin Williams comedy "Mrs. Doubtfire" and the mid-1990s television series "Superhuman Samurai Syber-Squad". In addition, he maintained starring roles in "Brotherly Love", which starred his real life brothers, and "Boy Meets World" where he played the character Jack. Lawrence starred opposite Rob Schneider, in "The Hot Chick". Lawrence's singing debut was in 1986, when he and Joey performed at the 1986 Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade (Matt sang at the 1991 Macy's Parade as well). Other musical Matt rarities can be found on two "Gimme A Break" episodes ("Nell's Secret Admirer"; "Johnny B. Goode" & "The Window; Part 1"; "Rock & Roll Music"), two "Brotherly Love" episodes ("A Roman Holiday; Silent Night", "Art Attack; Pigeon On Your Car") and his last musical moment on "Boy Meets World" ("As Time Goes By"; "This Dame"). Except for Silent Night and This Dame, Matt also played guitar on the remaining three. In 2011, Lawrence guest starred on his brother's sitcom ABC Family's "Melissa & Joey".
1066881	High Plains Drifter is a 1973 American Western film, directed by and starring Clint Eastwood and produced by Robert Daley for The Malpaso Company and Universal Studios. Eastwood plays a mysterious gunfighter hired by the residents of a corrupt frontier mining town to defend them against a group of criminals. The film was influenced by the work of Eastwood's two major collaborators, film directors Sergio Leone and Don Siegel. The film was shot on location on the shores of Mono Lake, California. The screenplay was written by Ernest Tidyman, who also wrote the novelization. Dee Barton provided the eerie film score. The film was critically acclaimed at the time of its initial release and still is, holding a score of 96% on Rotten Tomatoes. Plot. A stranger on horseback rides into the mining town of Lago. Three gun-toting men follow him into the saloon, taunting him. When they follow him to the barbershop and threaten him, the Stranger shoots and kills all three of them. Impressed with this performance, a dwarf named Mordecai, who works in the barbershop, befriends the Stranger. An attractive woman named Callie Travers bumps into the Stranger in the street on purpose and insults and badgers him. When she slaps his cigar from his mouth, he drags her into the livery stable and rapes her. Next, he rents a room at the hotel. That night, he dreams about a man being brutally whipped.
1166086	Victoria Jackson (born August 2, 1959) is an American comedian, actress, satirist, singer and internet blogger best known as a cast member of the NBC television sketch comedy series "Saturday Night Live" (SNL) from 1986 to 1992. She has received attention as a vocal critic of President Barack Obama, and is an active participant in the Tea Party movement. Early life. Jackson was born in Miami, Florida, the daughter of Marlene Esther (née Blackstad) and James McCaslin Jackson, a gym coach. Raised by devout Christian parents in a home without a television, she was trained in gymnastics by her father from ages 5 to 18. Jackson attended the private Dade Christian School, where she was a cheerleader and the Homecoming Queen. She subsequently attended Florida Bible College in Hollywood, Florida. Fourteen years of gymnastics competitions led to a scholarship at Furman University in Greenville, South Carolina. She also spent one year at Auburn University, before earning a degree in theatre from Palm Beach Atlantic University. Acting and comedy. Appearing in summer stock in Alabama led to a chance meeting with Johnny Crawford (of the 1950s television series, "The Rifleman"), who cast her in his night club act. She moved to Los Angeles where she supported herself with various day jobs as a cigarette girl, a typist at the American Cancer Society, and a waitress, while she performed comedy at night. Her first big break was her appearance on "The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson" where she performed what would become her signature act: doing a handstand while reciting poetry. She ultimately appeared on the show 20 times. "Saturday Night Live". In 1986, Jackson was hired to join "Saturday Night Live" for its 12th season, following Lorne Michaels' firing of most of the 11th season's cast and writers. Jackson became most famous for her appearances on "Weekend Update" with Dennis Miller, again reciting poetry while doing back-bends or handstands on the desk, with Miller cracking a sexually suggestive comment at the end. Celebrity impersonations. Jackson's impersonations of celebrities and famous persons have included: Calamity Jane, Christina Applegate, Cyndi Lauper, Donna Rice, Eydie Gorme, Fawn Hall, LaToya Jackson, Linda Blair, Lulu, Rob Lowe, Roseanne Barr, Sally Struthers, Susan Olsen (as Cindy Brady), Tina Yothers (as Jennifer Keaton), Tipper Gore, and Zsa Zsa Gabor. Film roles. Jackson appeared in a number of films including "Baby Boom" with Diane Keaton, "Family Business" with Sean Connery, "The Pick-up Artist", "The Couch Trip" and "I Love You to Death" during the time she was a cast member of "Saturday Night Live". She had leading roles in "Casual Sex?" (with Lea Thompson) and "UHF" (with "Weird Al" Yankovic). Later acting roles. Following her departure from "Saturday Night Live", Jackson starred in an "X-Files" episode "The Rain King" as the unrequited love of a small town man who can control the weather. She appeared in the movie "No More Baths" in 1998. She appeared in the Comedy Central series "Strip Mall", in 2000. She had a regular role in the Nickelodeon show "Romeo!", with Lil' Romeo for its first season, from 2003 to 2004, as the nanny, Mrs. Rodgers. In 2005, Jackson starred in the second edition of the VH1 show "Celebrity Fit Club". In 2006 she was cast as Lolita Dorchuck in the mockumentary "20Q" directed by Benjamin Keith. She continues to perform stand up, often appearing with other ex-"SNL" players (most frequently Joe Piscopo and Don Novello as "Father Guido Sarducci"). Political activist. Jackson is a self-identified "devout Christian" and has appeared on programs such as "The 700 Club" and "Politically Incorrect". She also appears at Christian-oriented venues, and performed a stand-up routine in the 2007 Christian comedy concert "Thou Shalt Laugh 2: The Deuce", which was hosted by Tim Conway. In 2010, Jackson wrote in an article that she did not learn how to vote until the 2000 United States Presidential Election. She maintains a personal website containing numerous postings highlighting her conservative political views. She criticized Democrats during the 2008 general election campaign, particularly presidential nominee Senator Barack Obama and Minnesota U.S. senatorial candidate (and fellow "SNL" alumnus) Al Franken. In October 2008, she appeared with other celebrities in a National Republican Senatorial Committee advertisement poking fun at Franken, then followed up with an interview on "The O'Reilly Factor", where she called Obama a "communist." She has repeated the communism claim on multiple occasions. When Obama won the election, she wrote on her blog: "Voters in our last election did not base their decision on facts or knowledge, but on hype, emotion, peer pressure, and racial fervor. It didn't help that the liberally biased media blocked Americans' access to the truth", and she said Fox News is "the only one we should watch." In 2011, Jackson wrote that she thought she was being spied on because of her conservative views. In 2011, Jackson criticized the TV show "Glee" for showing a kiss between two male actors, calling it "sickening", and cited the Bible as one of her reasons for making such a statement. When accused of being homophobic, Jackson countered that that was merely a "cute liberal buzzword", and suggested that "Glee" should be replaced with a show promoting celibacy instead. In 2011, Jackson joined the staff of "Patriot Update" as a writer and video blogger. Her video on Occupy Wall Street gained national attention when she returned to her former home during her "Saturday Night Live" years, to interview 'Occupiers' in Zuccotti Park. Soon after, "Patriot Update" launched a brand new show called Politichicks, featuring Jackson, Ann-Marie Murrrell, Jannique Stewart, and Jennie Jones. One song she wrote for "Politichicks", titled "Shariah Law," includes the lyrics "They like beheadings and pedophile weddings/ And then they pray five times a day./ They like to kill anyone who will/ Not say the things they want you to say." She also hosts her own web show called "The Victoria Jackson Show". In 2012, Jackson published her autobiography, "Is My Bow Too Big? How I went from Saturday Night Live to the Tea Party". After Rep. Todd Akin's remarks regarding pregnancies from rape, Jackson was quoted as saying, "If I got raped, I would have the baby. And if I didn't want to keep it because I had these horrible nightmares, I would adopt it out. But I think that God can turn a bad thing into a good thing. And that, if I got raped and a beautiful baby who was innocent was born out of it, that would be a blessing." Personal life. In 1984, Jackson married Nisan Mark Eventoff, who was a fire-eater and magician. They had one daughter, Scarlet, before divorcing in 1990. She was reunited in 1991 with her high school sweetheart, Paul Wessel, a police helicopter pilot for Dade County, Florida. They were married and have a daughter, Aubrey. The family lives in Florida. In 2010, she became a grandmother.
582366	Mere Yaar Ki Shaadi Hai (Hindi: मेरे यार की शादी है, English: "My Friend is Getting Married") is a 2002 Indian Bollywood film directed by Sanjay Gadhvi and produced by Yash Chopra and Aditya Chopra under Yash Raj Films. The film starred Uday Chopra, Jimmy Shergill, Bipasha Basu and Tulip Joshi. The film was said to be partly inspired by "My Best Friend's Wedding" (1997). The director Gadhvi, however, claims that he mainly drew from earlier Hindi films and that "My Best Friend's Wedding" only provided less than 1% of the inspiration for his film. Synopsis. Sanjay Malhotra (Uday Chopra) is living in Mumbai with his friend Ria (Bipasha Basu). He receives a phone call from his childhood friend Anjali Sharma (Tulip Joshi) who shocks him with the news that she is getting married. Unfortunately Sanjay has loved Anjali for years. Jealous and frustrated Sanjay makes his way to Anjali with one intention - to stop her marriage. Sanjay goes to Anjali's home and soon meets her groom- Rohit Khanna (Jimmy Shergill). Sanjay then begins to scheme. He organises a bachelor party for Rohit and all the men in the family. Rohit ends up completely drunk. He picks up on the fact that Sanjay is out to stop his marriage and vows to make sure that Sanjay fails in this.
1099156	Curtis Tracy McMullen (born 21 May 1958) is Professor of Mathematics at Harvard University. He was awarded the Fields Medal in 1998 for his work in complex dynamics, hyperbolic geometry and Teichmüller theory. McMullen graduated as valedictorian in 1980 from Williams College and obtained his Ph.D. in 1985 from Harvard University, supervised by Dennis Sullivan. He held post-doctoral positions at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute, and the Institute for Advanced Study, after which he was on the faculty at Princeton University (1987–1990) and the University of California, Berkeley (1990–1997), before joining Harvard in 1997. He received the Salem Prize in 1991 and was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 2007. In 2012 he became a fellow of the American Mathematical Society. Trivia. McMullen has given a proof that backgammon ends with probability one.
1060437	Iron Man 2 is a 2010 American superhero film based on the Marvel Comics character Iron Man. It is the sequel to 2008's "Iron Man", and is the third film released as part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Directed by Jon Favreau and written by Justin Theroux, the film stars Robert Downey, Jr., Gwyneth Paltrow, Don Cheadle, Scarlett Johansson, Sam Rockwell, Mickey Rourke, and Samuel L. Jackson. Set six months after the events of "Iron Man", Tony Stark has revealed his identity as Iron Man and is resisting calls by the United States government to hand over the technology. Meanwhile, rogue Russian scientist Ivan Vanko has developed the same technology and built weapons of his own in order to pursue a vendetta against the Stark family, in the process joining forces with Stark's business rival, Justin Hammer. Following the successful release of "Iron Man" in May 2008, Marvel Studios announced and immediately set to work on producing a sequel. In July of that same year Theroux was hired to write the script, and Favreau was signed to return and direct. Downey, Paltrow and Jackson were set to reprise their roles from "Iron Man", while Cheadle was brought in to replace Terrence Howard in the role of James Rhodes. In the early months of 2009, Rourke, Rockwell and Johansson filled out the supporting cast, and the film went into production that summer. Like its predecessor the film was shot mostly in California, except for a key sequence in Monaco. "Iron Man 2" premiered in Los Angeles, California on April 26, 2010, and was released in 54 countries between April 28 and 30 before going into general release in the U.S. on May 7, 2010. The film was a critical and commercial success, grossing $623.9 million at the worldwide box office. The DVD and Blu-ray were released on September 28, 2010. The third installment of the "Iron Man" series, "Iron Man 3", was released on May 3, 2013. Plot. In Russia, the media covers Tony Stark's disclosure of his identity as Iron Man. Ivan Vanko, whose father Anton Vanko has just died, sees this and begins building a miniature arc reactor. Six months later, Stark has used his armor to help maintain world peace. He re-institutes the Stark Expo in Flushing Meadows to continue his father Howard's legacy. Senator Stern demands that Stark turn over the Iron Man technology to the government, but Stark refuses. The palladium core in the arc reactor that keeps Stark alive and powers the armor is slowly poisoning him, and he has failed to find a substitute. Growing increasingly despondent and reckless due to his impending death, and choosing not to tell anyone about his condition, Stark appoints his personal assistant Pepper Potts CEO of Stark Industries, and hires Stark employee Natalie Rushman as his personal assistant. While Stark is racing at the Circuit de Monaco, he is attacked by Vanko, who uses his arc reactor to power whip-like energy weapons. Stark defeats Vanko with the aid of his portable briefcase armor, and learns that Vanko is the son of his father's old partner, Anton Vanko, who had collaborated with Howard on the first arc reactor. Anton was deported to his native Soviet Union following attempts to profit from the technology and died in poverty, explaining Vanko's desire for revenge on the Stark family. Rival defense contractor Justin Hammer fakes Vanko's death and recruits him to perfect a line of armored suits to upstage Stark. Hammer, who equals Stark on narcissism and arrogance, wishes to not only defeat his rival in military contracts, but also wishes to absolutely destroy his legacy. At what he believes is his final birthday party, Stark gets drunk while using the Iron Man armor, forcing his friend, U.S. Air Force Lieutenant Colonel James Rhodes, to intervene. Rhodes dons Stark's Mark II armor and battles Stark. The battle ends when the combatants both fire repulsor beams at each other, creating a huge explosion. After fighting with Stark, Rhodes delivers the armor to the U.S. military. Nick Fury, S.H.I.E.L.D.'s director, approaches Stark, revealing Rushman as undercover agent Natasha Romanoff and that Howard Stark was a S.H.I.E.L.D. founder whom Fury knew personally. Fury gives him some of his father's old material; a hidden message in the diorama of the 1974 Stark Expo proves to be a diagram of the structure of a new element. With the aid of his computer J.A.R.V.I.S., Stark synthesizes it. Vanko reveals to Stark that he is still alive and seeking revenge so Stark uses the untested element, ending his palladium dependency. At the Expo, Hammer unveils Vanko's armored drones, led by Rhodes in a heavily weaponized version of the Mark II armor. Stark arrives in his new armor to warn Rhodes, but Vanko seizes control of both the drones and Rhodes' armor and attacks Iron Man. Hammer is arrested while Romanoff and Stark's bodyguard Happy Hogan attempt to capture Vanko. He escapes, but Romanoff returns control of the Mark II armor to Rhodes. After defeating his drones Stark and Rhodes confront Vanko himself, now in a new and powerful suit of armor. Neither can match Vanko, but Vanko is ultimately defeated when they fire repulsor rays at each other, causing yet another huge explosion. With his suit too damaged to continue the fight Vanko activates his suit's self-destruct mechanism, along with that of his drones, apparently killing himself in the process. Stark saves Potts from the exploding drones' remains. Potts quits as CEO, and she and Stark kiss. At a debriefing, while news footage of a rampaging Hulk plays, Fury informs Stark that while Iron Man is a suitable candidate for the "Avengers Initiative", he himself is not. Stark agrees to serve as a consultant if Senator Stern acts as presenter at a ceremony planned for awarding Stark and Rhodes with medals for bravery, which Stern reluctantly does. In a post-credits scene, S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent Coulson reports the discovery of a large hammer at the bottom of a crater in a desert in New Mexico. Cast. Jon Favreau reprises his role as Happy Hogan, Tony Stark's bodyguard and chauffeur, while Clark Gregg and Leslie Bibb reprise their roles as S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent Phil Coulson and reporter Christine Everhart, respectively. John Slattery appears as Tony's father Howard Stark and Garry Shandling appears as United States Senator Stern, who wants Stark to give Iron Man's armor to the government. Paul Bettany again voices Stark's computer, J.A.R.V.I.S. Olivia Munn has a small role as Chess Roberts, a reporter covering the Stark expo, and Stan Lee appears as himself (but is mistaken for Larry King). Additionally, news anchor Christiane Amanpour and political commentator Bill O'Reilly play themselves in newscasts. Adam Goldstein appears as himself and the film is dedicated to his memory. Further cameos include Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk and Oracle Corporation CEO Larry Ellison. Tanoai Reed from "American Gladiators" appears as a security guard. Production. Development. Jon Favreau said it was originally his intent to create a film trilogy for Iron Man, with Obadiah Stane (Jeff Bridges) becoming Iron Monger during the sequels. After a meeting between Favreau and various comic book writers, including Mark Millar, Stane became the main villain in "Iron Man". Millar argued the Mandarin, whom Favreau originally intended to fill that role, was too fantastical. Favreau concurred, deciding, "I look at Mandarin more like how in "Star Wars" you had the Emperor, but Darth Vader is the guy you want to see fight. Then you work your way to the time when lightning bolts are shooting out of the fingers and all that stuff could happen. But you can't have what happened in ' happen in '. You just can't do it." Favreau also discussed in interviews how the films' version of Mandarin "allows us to incorporate the whole pantheon of villains". He mentioned that S.H.I.E.L.D. will continue to have a major role. During development, Favreau said the film would explore Stark's alcoholism, but it would not be "the 'Demon in a Bottle' version". While promoting the first film, Downey stated that Stark would probably develop a drinking problem as he is unable to cope with his age, the effects of revealing he is Iron Man, and Pepper getting a boyfriend. Downey later clarified that the film was not a strict adaptation of the '"Demon in a Bottle" storyline from the comic book series, but was instead about the "interim space" between the origin and the "Demon" story arc. Shane Black gave some advice on the script, and suggested to Favreau and Downey that they model Stark on J. Robert Oppenheimer, who became depressed with being "the destroyer of worlds" after working on the Manhattan Project. Pre-production. Immediately following "Iron Man"'s release, Marvel Studios announced that they were developing a sequel, with an intended release date of April 30, 2010. In July 2008, after several months of negotiating, Favreau officially signed on to direct. That same month Justin Theroux signed to write the script, which would be based on a story written by Favreau and Downey. Theroux co-wrote "Tropic Thunder", which Downey had starred in, and Downey recommended him to Marvel. Genndy Tartakovsky storyboarded the film, and Adi Granov returned to supervise the designs for Iron Man's armor. In October 2008, Marvel Studios came to an agreement to film "Iron Man 2", as well as their next three films, at Raleigh Studios in Manhattan Beach, California. A few days later, Don Cheadle was hired to replace Terrence Howard. On being replaced, Howard stated, "There was no explanation, apparently the contracts that we write and sign aren't worth the paper that they're printed on sometimes. Promises aren't kept, and good faith negotiations aren't always held up." "Entertainment Weekly" stated Favreau did not enjoy working with Howard, often re-shooting and cutting his scenes; Howard's publicist said he had a good experience playing the part, while Marvel chose not to comment. As Favreau and Theroux chose to reduce the role, Marvel came to Howard to discuss lowering his salary – Howard was the first actor hired in "Iron Man" and was paid the largest salary. The publication stated they were unsure whether Howard's representatives left the project first or if Marvel chose to stop negotiating. Theroux denied the part of the report which claimed the size of the role had fluctuated. In January 2009, Mickey Rourke and Sam Rockwell entered negotiations to play a pair of villains. A few days later Rockwell confirmed he would take the role, and that his character would be Justin Hammer. Paul Bettany confirmed that he would be returning to voice J.A.R.V.I.S. Marvel entered into early talks with Emily Blunt to play the Black Widow, though she was unable to take the role due to a previous commitment to star in "Gulliver's Travels". Samuel L. Jackson confirmed that he had been in discussions to reprise the role of Nick Fury from the first film's post-credits scene, but that contract disputes were making a deal difficult. Jackson claimed that "There was a huge kind of negotiation that broke down. I don’t know. Maybe I won’t be Nick Fury." In February, Jackson and Marvel came to terms, and he was signed to play the character in up to nine films. Downey and Rourke discussed his part during a roundtable discussion with David Ansen at the 2009 Golden Globes, and Rourke met with Favreau and Theroux to discuss the role. Rourke almost dropped out due to Marvel's initial salary offer of $250,000, but the studio raised the offer, and in March Rourke signed on. Later that same day Scarlett Johansson signed on to play the Black Widow. Her deal included options for multiple films, including potentially "The Avengers". In April, Garry Shandling, Clark Gregg, and Kate Mara joined the cast. Filming. Principal photography began April 6, 2009, at the Pasadena Masonic Temple. The fake working title was "Rasputin". The bulk of the production took place at Raleigh Studios, though other locations were also used. Scenes were filmed at Edwards Air Force Base from May 11 through May 13. The location had also been used for "Iron Man", and Favreau stated that he felt the "real military assets make the movie more authentic and the topography and the beauty of the desert and flightline open the movie up". The Historic Grand Prix of Monaco action sequence was shot in the parking lot of Downey Studios, with sets constructed in May and filming lasting through June. Permission to film in Monaco prior to the 2009 Monaco Grand Prix had initially been awarded, but was later retracted by Bernie Ecclestone. The filmmakers shipped one Rolls-Royce Phantom there, and filmed a track sequence in which race cars were later digitally added. Tanner Foust took on the role of driving Stark's racing car. Also in June, it was reported that John Slattery had joined the film's cast as Howard Stark. Olivia Munn was also cast, in an unspecified role. A massive green screen was constructed at the Sepulveda Dam to film a portion of the Stark Expo exterior, with the rest either shot at an area high school or added digitally. To construct the green screen, hundreds of shipping containers were stacked, covered in plywood and plaster, and then painted green. For the conclusion of that climactic scene, which the crew dubbed the "Japanese Garden" scene, a set was built inside Sony Studios in Los Angeles.
1056366	The Dreamlife of Angels () is a 1998 French drama film directed by Erick Zonca. Story. The film is about two working class women, Isa and Marie. Isa is a drifter and searching for a lover she had met during the summer. When she realizes that her search for him is futile and turns elsewhere she meets Marie, who lives in a small French town near Lille. The two young women instantly find a connection as they both have been treated harshly by life and are living from day to day in short-time jobs, such as working in a textile factory or delivering leaflets in the streets. Marie lives in an apartment that she is looking after because the owners had a car accident in which everyone died, except for Sandrine, a teenager, who is in a coma. Marie invites Isa to live with her. Shortly thereafter Isa and Marie meet up with two bouncers, Fredo and Charly, whom they befriend. The men help them out and they have genuine fun together, although they are not much better off than the women. Isa is the kind of girl who always lands on her own two feet and has a casual c'est la vie attitude when it comes to life, while Marie finds it hard to express herself emotionally, and gets angry when she feels vulnerable. Marie cannot put up with the way she is tossed around by the world, and so, despite being in a relationship with Charly, she tries to escape through a local playboy, Chriss, a rich guy, who owns a bar and a night club (which the two bouncers work in), and regularly goes out with girls, seeing Marie as just another one of his random flings. Isa is tougher in that she can take the beating and stick with what is around her, and does not get carried away by the false possibility of a better life. Significantly, Isa refuses to sleep with her casual boyfriend Fredo, drawing her strength from within, while Marie is emotionally dependent on Chriss, who, it is clear, does not love her.
1056833	My Name Is Bruce is a 2007 American comedy horror film, directed, co-produced by and starring B movie cult actor Bruce Campbell. The film was written by Mark Verheiden. It had a theatrical release in October 2008, followed by DVD and Blu-ray releases on February 10, 2009. Although Sam Raimi, with whom Bruce frequently collaborates, is not involved with this production, much of the film is in the vein of the "Evil Dead" series. Ted Raimi (Sam's brother), also a frequent collaborator, appears in this film. Campbell has shown several minutes of the movie during some of his campus lectures, as well as a few public screenings including showings at the sixth annual Ashland Independent Film Festival, CineVegas and the eleventh annual East Lansing Film Festival. A trailer was released for the film as well and is available on various websites. A screening was held at the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema. Tickets for the show sold out in less than two minutes, breaking the previous Alamo ticket sellout record, which was also set by a Bruce Campbell appearance at the theater in 1998. Plot. In the mining town of Goldlick, Jeff (Taylor Sharpe), a young fan of B movie actor Bruce Campbell, and his friend Clayton (Logan Martin) go out to a cemetery to meet two girls, Big Debbie (Ariel Badenhop) and Little Debbie (Ali Akay). Jeff removes a medallion off the mausoleum, unleashing the Chinese god of the dead, Guan-Di (James Peck), who kills Clayton and the Debbies while Jeff flees. Meanwhile, Bruce Campbell is finishing filming for the fictional "Cave Alien II", and is promised a birthday surprise from his agent, Mills Toddner (Ted Raimi). Bruce meets Jeff, who kidnaps Campbell and takes him to Goldlick in hopes that his hero can save the town from Guan-Di. Upon arrival, Bruce assumes it's his birthday surprise from Mills, and thinks it's all a movie, despite a lack of cameras and a script, and agrees to "help". He learns about Guan-Di in the town's hall and during a dinner party, Bruce gets on the good side of Jeff's mother, Kelly (Grace Thorsen), who had initially been irritated by Bruce's behavior. After gearing up at Goldlick's gun shop, Bruce and many citizens of Goldlick go out into the woods to take on Guan-Di, which Bruce still thinks is part of a movie. Bruce then finds out that it's all real and flees Goldlick, angering the townspeople, disappointing Kelly and upsetting Jeff. As part of a running gag, an Italian painter (also played by Ted Raimi) constantly repaints the population sign every time someone dies, including himself. Bruce returns to his caravan to find that everyone, including his own dog, hates him a lot. He has a restraining order placed upon him by his ex-wife, Cheryl (Ellen Sandweiss), and finds that his "surprise birthday present" from Mills was just a singing prostitute named Kasey (Janelle Farber). Bruce is then called by Jeff, who informs him that he's going to take on Guan-Di alone in spite of Bruce's retreat. Kasey takes Bruce back to Goldlick, where he is treated with contempt and tries to reconcile with Kelly. To rescue Jeff, they both drive to the old cemetery, in which they set up dynamite at the mausoleum and try to lure Guan-Di inside with one of Jeff's cardboard cut-outs of Bruce, which Guan-Di doesn't fall for. After kissing Kelly, Bruce decides to sacrifice himself (with bean curd playing a significant role in luring Guan-Di) and the dynamite is blown up. He emerges from the debris alive, and hangs the medallion back onto the mausoleum wall to ease the spirit. Guan-Di then also comes back to life, and at the very last minute, it turns out the whole scenario "was" a movie. Bruce argues with Ted Raimi about the cliched ending and turns it into a happy ending, which involves Bruce and Kelly married, living in a nice house with their son, Jeff, who is accepted into Harvard University. After the movie ends, Bruce asks "What could be a better ending than that?", after which Guan-Di appears and attacks Bruce. Release. There was over a year's gap between the film's earliest screenings and its wider release in October 2008. Dark Horse Comics' Mike Richardson commented on this: "'Some people maybe thought the film fell out or that there was something wrong with it,' Richardson says, touching on Bruce's slow journey getting before wide audiences. It was roughly a year ago that it screened to CineVegas film fest attendees. 'We did our shoot, put it in the can and the studio that financed it liked it so much they gave us more money to do a second shoot. We beefed it up so it could go into the theaters.'" For the week of November 12, 2008, "My Name is Bruce" took in $18,777 from its showing at the Sunshine Theater in New York. Reception. Reviews on "My Name is Bruce" were mixed, earning a Rotten Tomatoes approval rating of 39%, the consensus being ""My Name Is Bruce" succeeds or fails based entirely upon the viewer's opinion of Bruce Campbell, an unreasonable burden for even the most accomplished actor.". One positive review came from Nick Rogers of Suite101.com, saying ""My Name is Bruce" won't give you sugar, baby. Not on its budget. But Splenda works fine as a substitute for this Kool-Aid, which Campbell knows fans will happily drink. A little bit of purposefully lousy filmmaking winds up going a long way." One negative review came from Felix Vasquez Jr. of "Cinema Crazed", calling it "Smug, silly, and forgettable, this vanity project wants to be the next cult hit but really is just another vehicle for Bruce Campbell." Home media. The film was released on DVD and Blu-ray Disc on February 10, 2009. Sequel. Richardson said that a sequel, titled "My Name is Still Bruce", is in the works. Dark Horse Entertainment and Image Entertainment will distribute both films. The title for the second film has since been changed to "Bruce vs. Frankenstein". In a message sent in January, 2010 to Ain't It Cool News, Campbell officially announced the sequel, stating that "principal photography begins this fall in Oregon." In April, Ted Raimi confirmed that he would be involved with the project. Campbell declared himself as director, because "no one will volunteer, so it's me."
1067738	Stealing Harvard is a 2002 crime comedy film directed by Canadian filmmaker Bruce McCulloch, about a man who resorts to crime to pay for his niece's Harvard tuition. The film stars Jason Lee and Tom Green. Co-starring are Leslie Mann, Dennis Farina, Richard Jenkins, John C. McGinley, Tammy Blanchard, and Megan Mullally. Director Bruce McCulloch has a cameo appearance in the film as well, as John's lawyer in the courtroom scene. The film centers around the misfortunate crime sprees of John (Lee) and Duff (Green). The different subplots involve John's family, his girlfriend and her father, a gun-toting judge and a dog with a love interest for Duff. Tom Green was nominated for worst supporting actor for this movie in the 2002 Golden Raspberry Awards. Plot. Nice guy John Plummer (Jason Lee) is engaged to ditsy Elaine (Leslie Mann), and intends to use his life savings of $30,000 to put a down payment on a house because he does not want to accept money from her wealthy father, Mr. Warner (Dennis Farina), who is also John's employer and who already considers John unworthy of his daughter. Warner also has a mean dog named Rex who hates John and always agrees with his master. Simultaneously, his niece Noreen (Tammy Blanchard), daughter of John's "trailer trash" sister, Patty (Megan Mullally), is accepted to Harvard University, but needs an additional $30,000 on top of her grants and scholarships in order to attend. Noreen shows her uncle John a videotape made many years ago, at which time he promised to pay for Noreen's college education when the time came if she were to work hard and be accepted to a university. John now has a moral and financial dilemma – disappoint his fiancée and prove her father right by showing that he cannot provide for Elaine, or disappoint his niece, sister, and her friends, who all look up to him, and take away his niece's only chance to escape from a life of lower-class poverty. John confides the situation to his best friend from high school, eccentric loser Walter "Duff" Duffy (Tom Green). Duff, a landscaper, convinces John to steal from one of his rich landscaping clients, who keeps large amounts of cash in an unlocked safe. The pair set off to steal the cash, but Duff runs away when lights come on in the home, leaving John staring down the barrel of the homeowner, Honorable Emmett Cook (Richard Jenkins)'s gun. Cook forces John to cross-dress and role-play the part of Cook's late wife as the two men lie in bed and "spoon". Eventually, after taking an incriminating photograph of John, one of many identical photos Cook keeps in an album, Cook releases him. As he is leaving, Mr. Warner and his dog are riding by, and takes note of John's panicked behavior, believing that he has caught John in an affair which will be evidence he can use to persuade his daughter to call off the wedding. Further capers ensue as John and Duff try to rob a liquor store and later attempt to con a drug lord out of $30,000 by concocting a phony story about running an ecstasy ring. A police detective (John C. McGinley) is on to John and Duff, but never has enough evidence to actually pin any of the crimes on them. Meanwhile, Mr. Warner breaks into Cook's residence in order to get evidence against John, and once Cook catches him, he is forced to "spoon" as well. Before leaving, Warner finds the photo of John from the album, which he then gives to Elaine. John is forced to confess everything to Elaine. Not only is she not upset with John, but she now respects and admires him far more for the lengths he was willing to go to in order to provide for her, spare her feelings and send his niece to Harvard. Elaine then confides in John that her wealthy father keeps a great deal of money at his business, and that it would be easy for them to steal it. John, Elaine, and Duff set out to rob the business in the night. Unfortunately, Mr. Warner had hid his dog Rex inside the vault. Rex attempts to attack Duff by biting him in the crotch but Rex is instead aroused and does not let go. Just as John and Elaine find the money, Mr. Warner finds them and tries to attack them but he is caught by the detective who mistakes him for a burglar. John and Elaine escape to Duff's van but Duff is still being chased by Rex and has to jump inside the van. The police arrive and the gang unsuccessfully tries to get away. They are all taken into custody by the detective and facing a series of charges including breaking and entering and animal cruelty. John feels like his goose is cooked, until the judge in charge of his arraignment turns out to be the gun-toting Emmett Cook. Upon their mutual recognition, John writes, in his lawyer's notebook, a message to Cook and flashes it across the court, threatening to expose the judge's fetish; upon reading the makeshift sign, Cook quickly dismisses all charges against John. Finally, Duff comes through as best he can and gives John his life savings, $1,000, which John bets on a longshot horse which wins and which paid 30 to 1. John and Elaine are married with Mr. Warner, Patty, Emmett Cook, and Duff among their wedding guests, Noreen goes off to college, and, in the final scene, John is left to ponder how loser Duff could possibly accumulate $1,000 – the last scene shows Duff offering to "spoon" with Cook for $1,000. Box office. Released September 13, 2002 the film grossed US$13,973,532 at the U.S. box office.
1054326	Melonie Diaz (born April 25, 1984) is an American actress who has appeared in many independent films, including four shown at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival. Life and career. Diaz was born in New York City, and was raised along with her elder sister on the Lower East Side, by parents of Puerto Rican descent. She became interested in acting at the Henry Street Settlement and subsequently attended the Professional Performing Arts School in Manhattan. She completed a degree in Film Production at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts, and has made numerous off-Broadway and workshop appearances including Medea at the Bullet Space, the Hip Hop Theater Festival at P.S. 122, and the New York City Fringe Festival. She started her film career with a supporting role in Tom DiCillo's "Double Whammy" (2001) and later landed roles in Jim McKay and Hannah Weyer's "From an Objective Point of View" and Peter Sollett's "Raising Victor Vargas" (both 2002). Television work at this time included an episode of "Law & Order" and a pilot for "Queens Supreme" (both 2003). Her breakthrough roles came as Blanca in Catherine Hardwicke's "Lords of Dogtown" (2005) and as Laurie in Dito Montiel's "A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints" (2006) which earned her an Independent Spirit Awards nomination for Best Supporting Female. She was subsequently cast by Jamie Babbit in the lead role of Anna in "Itty Bitty Titty Committee" (2007) as well as a role in "Hamlet 2" and "Be Kind Rewind" in 2008. She appeared in the Mary J. Blige video "We Got Hood Love" which debuted on May 10, 2010. In 2012, she starred in the indie romantic comedy, "She Wants Me" with Josh Gad and Kristen Ruhlin. In a hyped-up, Woody Allen, "Annie Hall"-type film, she plays a girl who gets caught in a love triangle between aspiring artists and a celebrity. In 2013, she appeared in "Fruitvale Station", a film based on the shooting of Oscar Grant. The film premiered at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival, where it earned the U.S. Grand Jury Prize: Dramatic and the Audience Award: U.S. Dramatic. The film had its international premiere at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival, where it played in the Un Certain Regard section and won the Un Certain Regard Best First Film award. During press for the film, Diaz stated that she would appear in a guest role in the third season of "Girls". She also expressed a desire to return to Tisch in order to complete her degree in filmmaking, citing director Kathryn Bigelow as an inspiration.
1059211	Grease 2 is a 1982 American musical film and sequel to "Grease", which is based upon the musical of the same name by Jim Jacobs and Warren Casey. "Grease 2" was produced by Allan Carr and Robert Stigwood, and directed and choreographed by Patricia Birch, who also choreographed the first film. It takes place two years after the original film at Rydell High School, with an almost entirely new cast, led by actors Maxwell Caulfield and Michelle Pfeiffer. Plot. It is 1961, two years after the original "Grease" gang became seniors. The Pink Ladies are now led by Stephanie Zinone (Michelle Pfeiffer), who feels she has "outgrown" her relationship with the arrogant leader of the The T-Birds, Johnny Nogerelli (Adrian Zmed) during summer break. A new arrival comes in the form of clean-cut British student Michael Carrington (Maxwell Caulfield) (a cousin of Sandy Olsson, Olivia Newton-John's character from "Grease"), who quickly becomes smitten with Steph. At the local bowling alley, a game ("Score Tonight") turns sour due to the animosity between Johnny and Stephanie. Stephanie retaliates by kissing the next man who walks in the door, which happens to be Michael. Bemused by this unexpected kiss, Michael attempts to ask her out but discovers that she has a very specific vision of her ideal man ("Cool Rider"). As he realizes that he will only win her affection if he turns himself into a cool rider, Michael accepts payment from the T-Birds to write papers for them, and uses the cash to buy a motorcycle. Following an unusual biology lesson ("Reproduction") given by Mr. Stuart (Tab Hunter), a gang of rival motorcyclists called the Cycle Lords surprise the T-Birds at the bowling alley. Before the fight starts, a lone anonymous biker appears, who is in fact, a disguised Michael, defeats the enemy gang, and disappears into the night ("Who's That Guy?"). Stephanie is instantly fascinated with the stranger. In a short comic scene, one of the T-Birds, Louis DiMucci (Peter Frechette), attempts to trick his sweetheart Sharon (Maureen Teefy) into losing her virginity to him by taking her to a fallout shelter and faking a nuclear attack ("Let's Do It for Our Country"). The next evening, Stephanie is surprised again by the Cool Rider and they enjoy a romantic twilight motorcycle ride. Just as Michael is about to reveal his identity, they are interrupted by the arrival of the whole gang; before Michael disappears again, he tells Stephanie that he will see her at the talent show, in which the Pink Ladies and T-Birds are performing. Johnny, enraged by Stephanie's new romance, threatens to fight the "Cool Rider" if he sees him with her again. The Pink Ladies exit haughtily, although this has little effect on the T-Birds' self-confidence ("Prowlin'"). At school, Stephanie's poor grades in English lead her to accept Michael's offer of help. She slowly begins to discover that she has similar feelings for him, and starts to reciprocate his crush. Johnny, upon seeing them together in a discussion, demands that Stephanie quit the Pink Ladies for his "rep". Stephanie is visibly upset by this but refuses to quit the Pink Ladies. Although still head over heels for the Cool Rider, interactions with Michael reveal that she has become smitten with him as well, as Michael ponders over his continuing charade he puts on for Stephanie ("Charades"). At the talent show, Stephanie and the Cool Rider meet outside the school, but are ambushed by the T-Birds who pursue Michael with Stephanie and the Pink Ladies following in a car. They chase him to a construction site which conceals a deadly drop, and the biker's absence suggests that he has perished below, leaving Stephanie inconsolable. Johnny and his T-Birds remove the competing Preptones preppie boys in the locker room by tying them to a shower pole and drenching them. During the Pink Ladies' number at the talent show ("A Girl For All Seasons"), Stephanie enters a dreamlike fantasy world where she is reunited with her mystery biker ("(Love Will) Turn Back The Hands Of Time"). She is named winner of the contest and crowned the queen of the upcoming graduation luau, with Johnny hailed as king for his performance of "Prowlin'" with his fellow T-Birds. The school year ends with the luau ("Rock-A-Hula Luau"), during which the Cycle Lords suddenly reappear and begin to destroy the celebration. After the Cool Rider reappears and defeats the Cycle Lords again, he finally reveals himself to be Michael. After his initial shock, Johnny offers him a T-Bird jacket and welcomes him into the gang, and Stephanie finally accepts that she can be with him. All of the couples pair off happily at graduation as the graduating class sings ("We'll Be Together"). The credits start rolling in yearbook-style, as in the original film. Remakes. The film's screenplay was adapted in the Kannada (South India) feature film Premaloka, starring Ravichandran and Juhi Chawla, released in 1987. It was a super blockbuster, becoming the biggest grosser of that time.
1165054	Jeremy Slate (born Robert Bullard Perham; February 17, 1926 - November 19, 2006) was an American film and television actor. Early life. He attended a military academy and joined the United States Navy when he was sixteen. He was barely eighteen when his destroyer assisted in the Normandy Invasion on D-Day (June 6, 1944). After the war he attended St. Lawrence University in Canton, New York, where he graduated with honors in English. He was also president of the student body, a member of the honor society, editor of the college literary magazine, a football player, and the backfield coach of the only undefeated team in the history of the university. He was a campus radio personality who married the queen of his fraternity's ball during his senior year. After graduation he became a radio sportscaster and DJ for several CBS and ABC affiliates while beginning a family that included three sons and one daughter but ultimately ended in divorce. Several years thereafter, he had a second daughter.
233558	Paul Benjamin (born 1938) is an American actor. Benjamin was born in Pelion, South Carolina. He made his film debut in 1969 as a bartender in "Midnight Cowboy". After a small role in Sidney Lumet's "The Anderson Tapes", he did extensive television work in the 1970s. A few notable exceptions were a major role in Barry Shear's "Across 110th Street", and smaller parts in Gordon Parks' biopic "Lead Belly", Arthur Marks' "Friday Foster", and Don Siegel's prison film "Escape from Alcatraz". He gave exceptional performances in the TV adaptations of "I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings" and "Gideon's Trumpet". He later starred in the HBO movie "The Man Who Broke 1,000 Chains", based on the novel by Robert E. Burns. On the big screen in the 1990s, Benjamin worked with some well known directors. He appeared in Spike Lee's "Do The Right Thing", Robert Townsend's "The Five Heartbeats", Bill Duke's "Hoodlum", and John Singleton's "Rosewood". On television, he appeared in the 1994 pilot episode of "ER", which led to his recurring role of homeless man Al Ervin during the next few seasons. Benjamin also worked on the American Masters documentary of Pulitzer Prize-winning author Ralph Ellison, which aired on PBS. He also appeared in an episode of The Shield. After 2000, he appeared primarily in small independent films like "Stanley's Gig", "The Station Agent", "Deacons For Defense", and James Hunter's 2004 drama "Back in the Day". He recently made a special appearance in the independent film "The Talk Man", directed by Gene Gallerano.
1058378	RoboCop 3 is a 1993 American science fiction action film directed by Fred Dekker and written by Frank Miller. Set in the near future in a dystopian metropolitan Detroit, Michigan, "RoboCop 3" follows RoboCop (Robert John Burke) as he vows to avenge the death of his partner Anne Lewis (Nancy Allen) and tries to save Detroit from falling into chaos. It was filmed in Atlanta, Georgia. Most of the buildings seen in the film were slated for demolition to make way for facilities for the 1996 Olympics. Nancy Allen, Robert DoQui, Felton Perry, Mario Machado, and Angie Bolling are the only cast members to appear in all three films. Plot. Omni Consumer Products (OCP), on the verge of bankruptcy, creates an armed force called the Urban Rehabilitators ("Rehabs" for short), under the command of Paul McDaggett (John Castle). Ostensibly its purpose is to combat rising crime in Old Detroit, augmenting the ranks of the Detroit Police in apprehending violent criminals. In reality it has been set up to forcibly relocate the residents of Cadillac Heights, killing some of them (including the parents of Nikko, a Japanese-American computer whiz kid) in the process. The Police force is gradually superseded by the Rehabs, and violent crime begins to spiral out of control. The Delta City dream of the former OCP CEO, "Old Man", lives on with the help of the Japanese zaibatsu Kanemitsu Corporation, which has bought a controlling stake in the organisation. Kanemitsu (Mako) sees the potential in the citywide redevelopment, and moves forward with the plans to remove the current citizens. The company develops and uses its own ninja androids (called "Otomo") to help McDaggett and the OCP President (Rip Torn) overcome the resistance of the anti-OCP militia forces. When RoboCop (Burke) and partner Anne Lewis (Allen) try to defend civilians from the Rehabs one night, Lewis is mortally wounded by McDaggett and eventually dies. Unable to fight back because of his 'Fourth Directive' programming, RoboCop is saved by members of a resistance movement composed of residents from Cadillac Heights (of which Nikko has also become a part) and eventually joins them. Due to severe damage sustained in the shoot-out RoboCop's systems efficiency plummets, and he asks the resistance to summon Dr. Lazarus, one of the scientists who created him. Upon arrival she begins to treat him, deleting the Fourth Directive in the process. During an earlier raid on an armory, the resistance has picked up a jet-pack prototype, originally intended for RoboCop's use, which Lazarus modifies and upgrades. After recovering from his injuries RoboCop conducts a one-man campaign against the Rehabs. He finds McDaggett and attempts to subdue him, but McDaggett is able to escape. McDagget then obtains information from a disgruntled resistance member (Stephen Root) regarding the location of the resistance fighters base. The base is then attacked by the Rehabs and most of the resistance members are either killed or taken prisoner. Nikko escapes with the help of Lazarus before the doctor is captured and taken to the OCP headquarters as a prisoner. RoboCop returns to the rebel base to find it abandoned. One of the Otomo ninjabots then arrives and attacks him. RoboCop experiences another power drain and his side-arm is destroyed, but eventually he is able to overcome his opponent. Meanwhile Nikko infiltrates the OCP building and assists Lazarus in broadcasting an improvised video, revealing OCP's responsibility for the criminality in the city and implicating them in the removal and termination of the Cadillac Heights residents. The broadcast causes OCP's stock to plunge dramatically, driving the company into total ruin. McDaggett decides to execute an all-out strike against Cadillac Heights with the help of the Detroit City police department, but the outraged police officers refused to comply and instead defect to the resistance. As a result, McDaggett turns to hiring street gangs and hooligans to assist with his plans. Having heard Lazarus's broadcast Robocop takes to the air using the jet-pack. As the combined forces of the Rehabs and street gangs are about to wipe out the rebels and Detroit Police, RoboCop mounts an aerial assault on the attackers, leading to their defeat. He then proceeds to the OCP building and confronts the waiting McDaggett. Robocop is then attacked, and nearly defeated, by two Otomo robots. Nikko and Lazarus succeed in reprogramming them using a wireless link from a laptop computer, however, forcing them to attack each other. This triggers a timed self-destruct sequence in both units, forcing Robocop to flee with Nikko and Lazarus. The flaming discharge from the jetpack immobilizes McDaggett, leaving him to perish in the blast radius. As Old Detroit is being cleaned up Kanemitsu arrives and confronts RoboCop and his group, while his translator (Doug Yasuda) tells the OCP president on Kanemitsu's behalf that he is fired. Kanemitsu then bows to RoboCop. The deposed OCP President turns to Robocop and says "Well, I gotta hand it to ya... what do they call you? Murphy, is it?" RoboCop replies, saying "My "friends" call me Murphy. "You" call me RoboCop." Production. The film was directed by Fred Dekker, a director primarily known for cult horror films ("Night of the Creeps", "The Monster Squad"). Popular graphic novelist Frank Miller returned to write the screenplay for the film. Still optimistic that he could make an impression in Hollywood, Miller accepted the job of writing "RoboCop 3", hoping that some of his excised ideas would make it into the second sequel. Major themes of the plot were taken from Miller's original (rejected) draft of "RoboCop 2". Disillusioned after finding that his work was even more drastically altered than before, Miller left Hollywood until the 2005 adaptation of his work Sin City. “on "RoboCop 2" and "3" I learned the same lesson,” Miller said in 2005. “Don’t be the writer. The director’s got the power. The screenplay is a fire hydrant, and there’s a row of dogs around the block waiting for it.” Miller's original screenplay for "RoboCop 2", and source for major ideas in "Robocop 3", was later turned into a nine-part comic book series called "Frank Miller's RoboCop". The star of the previous films, Peter Weller, did not reprise the role, as he was starring in "Naked Lunch." Robert John Burke was signed to play the cyborg character instead. The RoboCop suit Burke wore in the movie was originally built for "RoboCop 2" (1990). Since Burke was taller than Weller, he complained that wearing it was painful after a short time. Other important casting changes had to be made for the third film. The actor who played the OCP CEO from the previous two films, Dan O'Herlihy, was absent from this film. The cast changes meant that Nancy Allen, Robert DoQui, Felton Perry, and Mario Machado are the only four supporting cast actors to appear in all three films. Pre-production problems continued, with the film aiming for a PG-13 rating, even after the success of the first two films which had been rated R. The profanity, graphic violence, and references to illicit drugs and prostitution were all reduced, or taken out altogether, causing the gritty and darkly gothic-science fiction environment of the first two films to be diluted. "RoboCop 3" went into production soon after "RoboCop 2" was complete. Initially scheduled for release in the summer of 1992, "RoboCop 3" would languish on the shelf until the following year as Orion Pictures went through bankruptcy and was bought out. "RoboCop 3" earned $4.3 million on its opening weekend, ending its run with $10.6 million domestically, far short of recouping its estimated $22 million production budget. Music. After "RoboCop 2"'s score which was composed by Leonard Rosenman, the "RoboCop" original composer Basil Poledouris returned to do the soundtrack score and brought back many of the RoboCop themes that were missing from "RoboCop 2." Critical reception. "RoboCop 3" was panned by critics and fans of the previous two films, and is widely considered to be the poorest of the series. Rotten Tomatoes lists "RoboCop 3" at a 4% rating (Rotten) across 28 reviews. Richard Harrington from the "Washington Post" says, "...it's hardly riveting and often it's downright silly. The sets and effects betray their downsized budget." "Chicago Sun Times" critic Roger Ebert gives the film 1½ stars, disputing the characters's longevity and comparing the series to the Detroit car manufacturing industry, "Why do they persist in making these retreads? Because 'RoboCop' is a brand name, I guess, and this is this year's new model. It's an old tradition in Detroit to take an old design and slap on some fresh chrome." David Nusair from Reel Film Reviews rates the film as 2½ stars, stating, "The best one could hope for is a movie that's not an ordeal to sit through, and on that level, "RoboCop 3" certainly excels. When placed side-by-side with the original, the film doesn't quite hold up. But, at the very least, "RoboCop 3" works as a popcorn movie—something part two couldn't even manage." Other points of criticism in this movie include curtailing the graphic violence of the first two films, less humor and the absence of Peter Weller in the title role (replaced by Robert John Burke). "RoboCop 3" has an average score on Rotten Tomatoes of 3.1/10.
1065409	The Absent-Minded Professor is a 1961 Walt Disney Productions film based on the short story "A Situation of Gravity," by Samuel W. Taylor.
757126	Chyna (born Joan Marie Laurer; December 27, 1970) is a former American professional wrestler, actress, bodybuilder, and pornographic film actress who was under contract to Vivid Entertainment. Chyna first rose to prominence upon debuting in the professional wrestling promotion the World Wrestling Federation (WWF) in 1997, where she performed under the ring name Chyna and was billed as the "Ninth Wonder of the World" (André the Giant was already billed as the eighth). A member of the stable D-Generation X, she held the WWF Intercontinental Championship (the first female wrestler to do so) and WWF Women's Championship, and was the first female wrestler to participate in the Royal Rumble and King of the Ring events. Since leaving the WWF in 2001, Chyna has wrestled sporadically, most notably with New Japan Pro Wrestling in 2002 and Total Nonstop Action Wrestling in 2011. Outside of wrestling, Laurer has appeared in "Playboy" magazine twice, as well as numerous television shows and films. In 2005, Laurer was a cast member on VH1's "The Surreal Life", which led to several other celebrity reality appearances on the network, including "" in 2007 and "Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew" in 2008. She is also known for her tumultuous relationship with fellow wrestler Sean Waltman, with whom she made a sex tape. It was released in 2004 and entitled . Early life. Joan Marie Laurer was born on December 27, 1970 in Rochester, New York to parents Janet and Joe Laurer. She had two older siblings: Janet and Sonny. After her parents divorced when she was approximately four years old, Laurer had three different stepfathers and one stepmother. According to Laurer, her first stepfather threatened suicide at one point, and her biological father, who once accidentally stabbed her mother in the thigh with a bread knife, had a problem with alcoholism. From 1973 to 1983, Joanie Laurer, her siblings, and her mom moved several times. As a child, Laurer learned to play both the violin and cello. In seventh grade, Laurer was sexually kissed by a much older teacher who worked at her school. At age thirteen, while attending Penfield High School, Laurer began purging after she ate. She left home at age sixteen after her mother tried to force her into a drug rehabilitation facility, going instead to live with her biological father. That same year, she began working out, and because her abdominal muscles were so strong, she did not feel any pain when she developed an ovarian tumor. She finished her last year of high school in Spain. She attended the University of Tampa, graduating in 1992 with a major in Spanish Literature. During college, she was raped by two men after getting drunk at a party. During college, she also studied French and German; Laurer can converse in either language. She also was a member of the ROTC. She originally wanted to use her knowledge of foreign languages to work for the Federal Bureau of Investigation or Drug Enforcement Administration. Subsequently, she joined the Peace Corps and was assigned to Guatemala. After returning from abroad, she held several different jobs: a cocktail waitress in a strip club, singer in a band, and a 900-number chat line worker. In her mid-to-late 20s, while living in the Florida Keys, Laurer took a six-week class to train to be a flight attendant. On the way to her first flight, however, she was in a car accident and spent four days in the hospital. After recovering from the accident, Laurer's sister Kathy helped her get a job selling beepers, and both women also worked as belly dancers. After college, Laurer began to regularly enter fitness competitions. In 1996, Laurer competed in the New York City regional level of the Fitness America competition. Because of her large size compared to the other women, Laurer usually finished in last place. Professional wrestling career. Training and independent circuit (1995-1997). Joanie Laurer trained at Wladek "Killer" Kowalski's professional wrestling school in Malden, Massachusetts. Her first match was in 1995 against a male wrestler dressed as a woman. While attending the school, she also worked for various independent promotions as Joanie Lee. Some of her earliest matches were set up by The Fabulous Moolah. Laurer met World Wrestling Federation (WWF) performers Paul "Triple H" Levesque and Shawn Michaels after a professional wrestling show in 1996. After watching tapes of her matches, they decided to bring her into the WWF as a bodyguard. Vince McMahon, the owner of the WWF, initially did not want her to join the company because he did not believe the audience would find a woman beating up men believable. While waiting for the WWF's decision, Laurer was approached by World Championship Wrestling (WCW), who wanted her to be the sole-female member of the New World Order. She initially accepted the offer, but later turned it down when Shane McMahon, Vince McMahon's son, informed her that she was about to be hired by the WWF. Kowalski, her former trainer, however, maintains that he got her hired by the WWF after introducing her to Shane McMahon and telling him of WCW's interest in her. World Wrestling Federation. D-Generation X (1997–1999). Vince McMahon later changed his mind by hiring Laurer, and she made her WWF debut on February 16, 1997 at ; her character emerged as a plant from a ringside seat, choking Marlena while Goldust was in the ring with Triple H. Her original role in the promotion was as the laconic enforcer/bodyguard for Triple H and later, his D-Generation X group (which included Sean "X-Pac" Waltman). She often helped Triple H (then, a rising villain) cheat to win by physically interfering in matches by executing her trademark low blow to the groin. She was later introduced as "Chyna", a play on words; fine china is delicate and fragile, which was a sharp contrast to her character. Off-screen, however, the male wrestlers were hesitant at first to let a female over-power them on-screen. In January 1999, Chyna was the thirtieth entrant in the Royal Rumble, becoming the first woman ever to enter the contest. The day after the Royal Rumble, Chyna became a villain by betraying Triple H and aligning herself with his enemy Vince McMahon and Kane. Laurer teamed with Kane at the pay-per-view against former allies X-Pac and Triple H. At WrestleMania XV, Chyna turned on Kane in his match by attacking him with a chair, appearing to rejoin DX. Chyna and Triple H, however, turned against DX later that evening when they helped Shane McMahon defeat DX member X-Pac. The duo became part of The Corporation and later Shane McMahon's Corporate Ministry. Following the dissolution of the Corporate Ministry, Chyna remained at Triple H's side. Intercontinental Champion (1999–2000). In June 1999, Chyna became the first woman to qualify for the King of the Ring tournament. She was also the first female to be the number one contender for the WWF Championship, but lost the spot to Mankind before SummerSlam in August. Later that year, Laurer became a fan favorite again during her long feud with Jeff Jarrett. At Unforgiven, she had a match for the WWF Intercontinental Championship against Jarrett, which she lost. She defeated Jarrett for the title at No Mercy in his last WWF match, a Good Housekeeping match, on October 17 at No Mercy, in the process becoming the first and only woman to win the Intercontinental Championship. She also gained the services of his valet, Miss Kitty. Laurer claims that Jarrett demanded (and received) $300,000 from Vince McMahon in order to lose the title cleanly to a woman. His contract had expired on October 16, and he was therefore not contractually obligated to appear on the pay-per-view. If he had not appeared, the WWF would have been criticized for false advertising, and the lineage of the title would have been broken. Chyna then feuded with Chris Jericho over the belt, defeating him at the Survivor Series, but losing the title to him at Armageddon. The two faced off again in a match on the December 28 edition of "SmackDown!", which ended controversially with both wrestlers pinning each other. As a result, then "head of authority" Stephanie McMahon-Helmsley declared them co-champions. At the Royal Rumble, Jericho and Chyna defended the title against Hardcore Holly in a Triple Threat match to determine the Intercontinental Champion, which Jericho won. Afterwards, Laurer briefly teamed with Jericho. Aligning with Eddie Guerrero; Women's Champion and departure (2000–2001). Not long after losing the Intercontinental title, Laurer became the on-screen girlfriend of Eddie Guerrero. Guerrero and Laurer, originally villains, later became fan favorites during the summer of 2000, with Guerrero dubbing her his "Mamacita". The couple faced Val Venis and then-rookie Trish Stratus in an intergender tag team match at SummerSlam with the Intercontinental Championship on the line. Chyna won the match, but lost the belt two weeks later to Guerrero in a Triple Threat match with Kurt Angle. They officially split in November 2000 after Chyna, in storyline, found Eddie cavorting in the shower with two other women. At the same time, Laurer posed nude for "Playboy" magazine's November 2000 issue. Her "Playboy" modeling was also worked into a WWE storyline, in which it drew the ire of the Right to Censor (a group of morally conservative and self-righteous wrestlers). Shortly after, Laurer began a feud with Ivory, a member of the Right to Censor, over the Women's Championship. This culminated in a storyline at the Royal Rumble where Laurer appeared to reinjure her neck while performing a handspring back elbow. In order to better convince the audience that she was injured, color commentator Jerry Lawler left the commentators' booth and entered the ring to check on Laurer's condition, something he had not done since the in-ring accident that killed Owen Hart in 1999. When Laurer returned from the "injury", she won the Women's Championship from Ivory at WrestleMania X-Seven in a squash match, a short match where one performer defeats the other with ease. Laurer also defended her title against Lita at Judgment Day in 2001. Although she won the match, she soon vacated the Women's Championship, as this was Laurer's final WWF match. The relationship between Triple H, her former real-life boyfriend, and Stephanie McMahon (with whom Laurer claims he had an affair and then left her for), was a major factor in her departure. She left World Wrestling Federation on November 30, 2001, several months after she had been taken off of television. Jim Ross later claimed that she was not fired, but rather chose to leave for personal reasons. New Japan Pro Wrestling (2002). In 2002, Laurer joined New Japan Pro Wrestling and made her first appearance at the New Japan Thirtieth Anniversary Show, refereeing a bout between the Steiner Brothers and Hiroshi Tanahashi and Kensuke Sasaki. In September and October 2002, she wrestled several matches for the promotion. After losing to Masahiro Chono on October 14, 2002, Laurer performed her final match on October 26, teaming with a fake Great Muta played by Troy Enders in a loss to Hiroshi Tanahashi and Kenzo Suzuki. Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (2011). During the May 3, 2011, tapings of the May 12 edition of "Impact!", Chyna made her TNA debut, introduced by the returning Spike TV network consultant Mick Foley. He introduced her as Kurt Angle's business associate (she had been previously referred to as his "Mistress") and tag team partner at Sacrifice, where they would face Jeff Jarrett and Karen Jarrett. During the taping she also took part in a battle royal, from which she eliminated Jeff. At Sacrifice, Chyna submitted Karen for the win in the mixed tag team match. Other media. Games. Chyna has been depicted in at least 5 video games which include: Literature. Laurer modeled nude for "Playboy"; her first issue, which featured a pictorial of her, was released in November 2000. In 2002, following her departure from the WWF, Laurer appeared in a second nude pictorial. She also filmed a "Playboy" adult documentary entitled "Joanie Laurer Nude: Wrestling Superstar to Warrior Princess", which followed Laurer on the set. In 2001, Laurer released her autobiography entitled "If They Only Knew". It spent time on "The New York Times"' bestseller list. She appeared as a character named Lulu in Sevendust's music video for the song "Enemy" in 2003. Television and movies. Laurer appeared on "The Howard Stern Show" in 2000, where she claims that she "made ass out of self." She also appeared in "3rd Rock from the Sun" as Janice, a police officer who briefly dated Harry Solomon, as well as several Stacker 2 commercials and was a presenter at the MTV Video Music Awards. In 2001, Laurer was a guest on a special celebrity edition of "Fear Factor". She lost in the final round of the competition to Coolio. The following year, Laurer was reportedly up for a part in "", but lost out on the role to Kristanna Loken. Laurer was also the host of "Robot Wars: Grand Champions" in 2002. She also appeared on the celebrity game show, "Hollywood Squares" in 2003. In early 2005, Laurer debuted on "The Surreal Life", with housemates Da Brat, Jane Wiedlin, Adrianne Curry, Christopher Knight, Marcus Schenkenberg, and Verne Troyer. On the show, she drank heavily, appeared nude, and got into an argument with her ex, Sean Waltman. She remained friends with Adrianne Curry after the show and made a brief cameo on her reality show "My Fair Brady". Laurer also appeared on "", which began to air on VH1 in January 2007. The filming took place in April 2006 in Las Vegas. Her elimination from the show, which occurred in the seventh episode, was controversial. Andrea Lowell had accumulated the lowest score in the "Celebrity Call-Back-A-Thon" challenge, but she manipulated Kennedy, the judge, to increase her score and got Laurer eliminated in the process. Also in 2006, Laurer appeared in "Just Another Romantic Wrestling Comedy" and "Illegal Aliens", the latter of which was the last movie featuring Anna Nicole Smith before her death. On "Cristina's Court", a syndicated court-themed reality show, Laurer appeared in an episode originally airing July 14, 2007 in a civil dispute against a breeder of teacup chihuahuas. Judge Perez ruled in favor of the plaintiff—Laurer—awarding her $4,000. Pornography career. Laurer made her porn debut with the 2004 video "1 Night in China". Laurer and Sean Waltman approached Red Light District Video to distribute the homemade video, which was released in 2004. Laurer appeared in her second pornographic video, entitled "Another Night in China" in 2009. In 2011, Laurer starred in her first professional pornographic film for Vivid Video entitled "Backdoor to Chyna". She also starred for Vivid as She-Hulk in their parody of "The Avengers", released in May 2012. A spinoff feature centered around the She-Hulk character and titled "She-Hulk XXX" was released to video in April 2013. Personal life. Laurer's breast implants were custom-made for her after her first implants were ruptured during a wrestling match. She had also complained to her plastic surgeon that their largest implants did not suit her frame in the way she desired. Laurer's custom implants became the model for the Chyna 2000s, a model of breast implant now marketed to large-framed women and female bodybuilders. Laurer claims to have paid $6,000 for them. From 1996 until 2000, Laurer dated fellow wrestler Paul "Triple H" Levesque. They initially hid their relationship from their co-workers because Laurer felt that people might think she " her way to the top". The duo also lived together for some time. Beginning in 2003, however, she had a tumultuous relationship with wrestler Sean Waltman. They were engaged for a period in 2003, then broke up, and then became engaged again, a pattern that continued for the next two years. In 2004, Laurer and Waltman made a sex tape. Eager for a repeat success, the company that released Paris Hilton's celebrity sex tape obtained the footage, edited it, and released it under the name "1 Night in China". The video sold over 100,000 copies, with both Laurer and Waltman earning a share of the profits. Laurer, however, maintains that she did not earn any money from the release. In January 2005, Laurer was arrested for domestic assault after allegedly beating Waltman. On February 8, 2007 (the date of Anna Nicole Smith's death), a visibly upset Laurer appeared on "Larry King Live" to speak about her late friend. On the program, Laurer claimed that she "knew it was coming" because of the way the media had ridiculed Smith, and she drew parallels between the plight of Anna and herself. The wife of the CEO of Trim Spa, Monique Goen, however, claimed that Smith did not consider Laurer a friend. After leaving the WWF, Laurer was unable to use the name "Chyna" because of its trademark. Therefore, she began to use the name "Chynna Doll" for public appearances. In November 2007, however, Laurer filed papers to change her name legally to Chyna. Laurer has also had problems with substance abuse. She claimed that her "life was spinning out of control" around the time she made the sex tape. In January 2005, Sean Waltman claimed that she was battling drug and alcohol addiction, as well as mental illness. Days after the domestic dispute between Waltman and Laurer, it was reported in the "New York Post" that she had stripped naked and jumped into a fish tank in a New York nightclub. That same month, she made another appearance on "The Howard Stern Show", where she was slurring her words and going off on random tangents. On the program, she claimed to not want to do drugs anymore, but said that if a line of cocaine was in front of her, she would do it. After her appearance, she entered a facility specializing in helping people with depression, and she decided to stop drinking. In early 2008, Laurer appeared on the VH1 reality TV show, "Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew", but she claimed on the show that she did not consider herself an addict. On December 27, 2008, she was rushed to the hospital after her birthday party, where she was found passed out with cuts on her arms. Laurer has a strained relationship with her family. She last saw her mother at the age of sixteen, and she claims that her father never got over her decision not to join the FBI. She also alleges that her father took out several student loans in her name and without her knowledge, leaving her with $40,000 in debt. On an episode of "Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew" in 2008, Laurer claimed to have a bad relationship with all of her family members, including her siblings. In September 2010, Laurer was hospitalized after overdosing on sleeping medication. Championships and accomplishments. 1Chyna technically held the title 3 times, the 2nd jointly with Chris Jericho, but WWE doesn't recognize the reign and considers the title vacant during that time.
1042959	Sir Bernard James Miles, Baron Miles of Blackfriars, CBE (27 September 190714 June 1991) was an English character actor, writer and director. He opened the Mermaid Theatre in London in 1959, the first new theatre opened in the City of London since the 17th century. Miles was born in Uxbridge, Middlesex and attended Bishopshalt School in Hillingdon. His father and mother were, respectively, a farm labourer and a cook. Miles completed his education at Pembroke College, Oxford and then entered the theatre in the 1930s. He also soon began appearing in films and featured prominently in patriotic cinema during the Second World War, including classics such as "In Which We Serve" and "One of Our Aircraft Is Missing". He also had an uncredited role in "The First of the Few" (released in the US as "Spitfire"). His typical persona as an actor was as a countryman, with a strong accent typical of the Hertfordshire and Buckinghamshire counties. He was also, after Robert Newton, the actor most associated with the part of Long John Silver, which he played in a British TV version of "Treasure Island", and in an annual performance at the Mermaid commencing in the winter of 1961-62. Actors in the annual theatrical productions included Spike Milligan as Ben Gunn, and, in the 1968 production, Barry Humphries as Long John Silver. It was Miles who, impressed by the talent of John Antrobus, originally commissioned him to write a play of some sort. This led to Antrobus collaborating with Milligan to produce a one-act play called "The Bed Sitting Room", which was later adapted to a longer play, and staged by Miles at The Mermaid on 31 January 1963, with both critical and commercial success. He had a pleasant rolling bass-baritone voice that worked well in theatre and film, as well as being much in demand for voice-overs. As a performer, he was most well known for a series of comic monologues, often given in a rural dialect. These were recorded and sold as record albums, which were quite popular. Some of his comic monologues are currently available on youtube.com. Miles was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 1953, was knighted in 1969, and was granted a life peerage as Baron Miles, of Blackfriars in the City of London in 1979. He was only the second British actor ever to be given a peerage (the first was Laurence Olivier). Miles's written works include "The British Theatre" (1947), "God's Brainwave" (1972) and "Favourite Tales from Shakespeare" (1972). In 1981, he co-authored the book "Curtain Calls" with J.C. Trewin. He died in Knaresborough, Yorkshire on 14 June 1991 aged 83. His daughters are the actress Sally Miles and the artist Bridget Miles. His son John Miles was a Grand Prix driver in the late 1960s and early 1970s with the Lotus team.
1463317	71 Fragments of a Chronology of Chance (German: 71 Fragmente einer Chronologie des Zufalls) is a 1994 Austrian drama film directed by Michael Haneke. It has a fragmented storyline as the title suggests, and chronicles several unrelated stories in parallel. Separate narrative lines intersect in an incident at the last of the film: a mass killing at an Austrian bank. The film is set in Vienna, October to December 1993. Opening. The film opens with intertitles which introduces the mass killing in detail. So it chronicles in flashbacks a last few months of Vienna. Characters. The drama consists of varied characters in each storyline: a Romanian boy who immigrated illegally into Austria and lives in streets of Vienna; a religious bank security worker; an old man staring at TV screen; a childless couple considering adoption; a frustrated student and so on. Film division. The film is divided into a number of variable-length "fragments" divided by black pauses, and apparently unrelated to each other. The film is characterised by quite a lot of fragments that take form of video newscasts unrelated to the main storylines. News footages of real events are shown through video monitors. Newscasts report on Bosnian War, Somali Civil War, South Lebanon conflict, Kurdish–Turkish conflict, and molestation allegations against Michael Jackson. Michael Haneke. The director Michael Haneke refers to "71 Fragments of a Chronology of Chance" as the last part of his "glaciation trilogy", whose other parts are his preceding two films.
1790360	William Nicholas Stone Courtney (16 December 1929 – 22 February 2011) was an English actor, most famous for playing Brigadier Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart in the British science fiction television series "Doctor Who". Early life. Courtney was born in Cairo, Egypt, the son of a British diplomat, and was educated in France, Kenya and Egypt. He did his national service in the British Army, leaving after 18 months as a private, not wanting to pursue a military career. He next joined the Webber Douglas Academy of Dramatic Art, and after two years began doing repertory theatre in Northampton. From there he moved to London in 1961. His first television work was in the 1957 series "Escape". Prior to "Doctor Who", Courtney made guest appearances in several cult television series, including "The Avengers" (1962, 1967), "The Champions" (1968) and "Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased)" (1969) and as a racing driver in "Riviera Police" (1965). "Doctor Who". Director Douglas Camfield originally considered Courtney for the role of Richard the Lionheart in "The Crusade" (1965), a role that ultimately went to Julian Glover. Though Camfield made sure to keep Courtney in mind for future casting. Courtney would make his first appearance in the series, when Camfield cast him in the 1965 serial "The Daleks' Master Plan", where he played Space Security Agent Bret Vyon opposite William Hartnell as the Doctor. Camfield liked Courtney's performance, and when the director was assigned the 1968 serial "The Web of Fear", he cast Courtney as Captain Knight. However, when David Langton gave up the role of Colonel Lethbridge-Stewart to work elsewhere, Camfield recast Captain Knight and gave the part to Courtney instead. The Lethbridge-Stewart character returned in the next season in "The Invasion", promoted to the rank of Brigadier and in charge of British contingent of UNIT. The organisation had been charged with protecting the Earth from alien invasion. Years later Ian Marter, who played UNIT medical officer Harry Sullivan alongside Tom Baker, named a Russian military base used in "The Invasion", but unnamed on screen, "Nykortny". It was in this recurring role that he would become best known the viewing audience, appearing semi-regularly in 101 episodes between 1970 to 1975. The character proved popular enough to return in 1983, first in "Mawdryn Undead" and in the official 20th anniversary special "The Five Doctors". Courtney made his final appearance in the 1989 serial "Battlefield" (although like many other former cast members, he reprised the role for the charity special "Dimensions in Time"). He appeared with Jean Marsh in both his first and last regular "Doctor Who" television appearances. Jean Marsh portrayed the character of Sara Kingdom in Courtney's first appearance, "The Daleks' Master Plan", playing his character's sister. In Courtney's final appearance on the show, Marsh portrayed the villainous Morgaine in the Arthurian inspired "Battlefield". Courtney has played Lethbridge-Stewart, either on television or in audio plays, alongside every subsequent Doctor up to and including Paul McGann, as well as substitute First Doctor Richard Hurndall. He did not appear in the revived series. While he has acted with Tenth Doctor actor David Tennant in the Big Finish audio dramas "Sympathy for the Devil" and "", Tennant was playing a different character, Colonel Ross Brimmicombe-Wood, on both occasions. In 2000 he got back in uniform to recreate the character of Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart for a couple of sketches in the third season of "The Harry Hill Show".
1165920	Carl Lawrence Betz (March 9, 1921 – January 18, 1978) was an American film and television actor.
1065290	Farce of the Penguins is a 2007 American direct-to-video parody of the 2005 French documentary film "March of the Penguins". The film features Samuel L. Jackson as narrator, with the two main characters voiced by Bob Saget (who also wrote and directed the film) and Lewis Black. Five of Saget's former "Full House" co-stars also lent their voices to the film. Other additional voices were provided by Tracy Morgan, Christina Applegate, James Belushi, Whoopi Goldberg, Dane Cook, Abe Vigoda, Mo'Nique, and among others. The MPAA rated the film with an R for pervasive crude sexual content and language. Plot. Samuel L. Jackson narrates the story about a group of male penguins that make a 70-mile trek to go to their breeding grounds where females are waiting to have sex with them. These penguins include Carl (Bob Saget) and Jimmy (Lewis Black), two friends who talk about relationships and other things as they meet new characters including Marcus (Tracy Morgan), a penguin who likes to kid around and brag about his huge penis (an illogical point, since penguins do not have penises and instead have cloacas), and Steve the snowy owl (Jonathan Katz), who gives Carl advice on his life in a Freudian kind of way while billing him for the two quick sessions. Meanwhile, Melissa (Christina Applegate) and Vicky (Mo'Nique) argue about men and other women who bother them as they wait for their mates to arrive at the breeding grounds. Production. THINKFilm describes "Farce of the Penguins" as the story of "one penguin's search for love while on a 70-mile trek with his libidinous buddies on their way to a hedonistic mating ritual." Despite what the poster suggests, "Farce of the Penguins" is not an animated feature; it uses real stock footage of penguins. Bob Saget stated on "The Howard Stern Show" on January 29, 2007, "Late Night with Conan O'Brien" on January 30, 2007 and on "Tom Green Live" that he originally wanted to simply redub the documentary "March of the Penguins" but did not receive permission from the filmmakers.
582259	Hu Tu Tu is a 1999 Hindi drama directed by Gulzar. Tabu received a 2000 Filmfare Award nomination for Best Actress for this movie. Synopsis. The story opens with the kidnapping of Panna Barve (Tabu), the daughter of Chief Minister Malti Barve (Suhasini Muley). The responsible gang's demand is that one of their members be released from police custody. While in captivity, Panna reminisces about her childhood, where she had to struggle to grow up with a power hungry and inconsiderate mother and a simple, quiet, and spineless father (Shivaji Satam). Panna's mother had also been carrying on a rather open affair with party co-member Sawantrao Gadre (Dr. Mohan Agashe). Flashback over and Panna soon meets the man behind her kidnapping - Aditya Patel (Sunil Shetty) - who Panna knows from before. Via second flashback, we learn that Panna and "Adi" were lovers once upon a time. Their closeness stemmed from the fact that he also was struggling with a corrupt parent in the form of businessman father, P.N. Patel (Kulbhushan Kharbanda). Panna and Adi both find solace in a poor basti with the company of Adi's old teacher Joshi Master and in the philosophy of poet Bhau (Nana Patekar), much to the dismay of the couple's respective parents. Bhau even goes to the extent of becoming Malti's most vociferous opponent. Due to a sudden car accident, however, Adi is presumed dead and Panna loses Adi's out-of-wedlock baby before it can be born. Thus ends the second flashback. Getting back to the kidnapping, Adi and Panna reunite after quite some time. They talk to each other and piece together the events that have occurred since their separation. Just then, the missing gang member is sent back to Adi. It is none other than Bhau, who is returned to the gang with his brain destroyed by electric shock. News also comes that Joshi Master is killed in jail and it is portrayed as a suicide. Panna and Adi then decide what the best form of poetic justice will be for their parents. They both sneak into an election campaign of Malti Bave and P.N. Patel , and explode bombs attached to them, thus destroying everything. The film ends with Panna 's father working as headmaster in a school. Gulzar suggests that although we have already ruined the world for Generation X, we should focus our efforts into the protection and education of our school children. If we shield them from this corruption, they will become the leaders of tomorrow, and they will run the country the way it should be.
1033997	Michael Alan Gothard (24 June 19392 December 1992) was an English actor, best remembered for his role as Kai in the television series "Arthur of the Britons" and as the mysterious villain Emile Leopold Locque in the 1981 James Bond film "For Your Eyes Only". Early life. Michael Gothard was born in London in 1939. After leaving Haverstock School, he travelled around Europe with little idea of what he wanted to do with his life. He went through various jobs, including being a building labourer. He lived in Paris for a year on Boulevard St Michel in the Latin Quarter. He even had a brief spell as a clothes' model, but he never felt comfortable doing that job. He said: "I was as stiff as a board and I couldn’t overcome my sense of the ridiculous. I was a clothes hanger, an object, not a person." On his return to England, at the age of 21, he decided to become an actor. Career. He joined the New Arts Theatre as a scenery mover, and became part of an amateur film a friend was making. After landing the lead role, he was encouraged to take up the profession. He attended evening classes at an actors' workshop whilst holding down a day job. He was involved working in some of the first "Lunchtime theatre" productions in the 1960s, from pub cellars to top floor spaces off St. Martin's Lane. His first television role was in an episode of "Out of the Unknown" in 1966 called "The Machine Stops". He was then cast in Don Levy's film "Herostratus" in 1967 and "Up the Junction" in 1968. He then acquired a female following after taking a role as the villainous Mordaunt in the BBC's adaptation of "Twenty Years After" ("Further Adventures of the Musketeers"). His performance as the nightclubbing killer Keith in "Scream and Scream Again", directed by Gordon Hessler (Alfred Hitchcock’s protégé), was a breakout role for him, giving him exposure and leading to other, more prominent parts. In the film, Keith makes one of the most memorable escapes from the police ever seen. The film also starred Vincent Price, Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee. Executive producer Louis M. Heyward said of Gothard's performance: "I felt that Michael Gothard was going to be the biggest thing that ever happened. He had that insane look and that drive, and he was wonderful. Here is a kid who really threw himself into the picture wholeheartedly. Do you remember the scene where he appears to be walking up the cliff? That's a stunt that, as an actor, I would not have agreed to; I’d say, 'Hey, get a double or get a dummy. I ain't either one.' But the kid agreed to do it, without a double—-he was that driven. He had a lot of class and a lot of style. Gordon (Hessler) came up with the idea of using an overhead cable to give that illusion of his walking up the cliff." One of his most notable film appearances in the wake of his growing visibility as an actor was Ken Russell's 1971 horror film, "The Devils", in which Gothard had a stand-out role as a fanatic witch-hunter and exorcist who defiles Vanessa Redgrave and tortures Oliver Reed. His performance as a young disillusioned hippie in Barbet Schroeder's "La Vallée" (1972) contrasted with the rest of his career. He also played a fictionalized version of the 17th century assassin John Felton in Richard Lester's 1973 film of "The Three Musketeers" and its 1974 sequel, "The Four Musketeers". In both films Oliver Reed also appeared. He had a regular role as Kai opposite Oliver Tobias's Arthur on the aforementioned "Arthur of the Britons" during the early 1970s. He became known to a wider cinema audience for his menacing turn as the villainous (and non-speaking) Belgian henchman, Emile Leopold Locque, in the 1981 James Bond film, "For Your Eyes Only". Gothard was actually the one who suggested Locque's signature octagonal glasses in an effort to make the character more menacing. His later appearances included supporting roles in Tobe Hooper's 1985 science-fiction horror extravaganza, "Lifeforce", and as George Lusk in the 1988 TV movie, "Jack the Ripper", with Michael Caine. He appeared with Dean Stockwell and Shirley Knight in a Hammer House of Mystery and Suspense (a.k.a. Fox Mystery Theatre) episode, The Sweet Scent of Death. His last few roles were in "" in 1992, where he briefly acted opposite Marlon Brando. It was directed by his "For Your Eyes Only" director John Glen, but was a box office failure. Glen had actually cast Gothard in the role beneath Brando with the intention of moving Gothard into the role of Tomás de Torquemada, Brando's character, in case Brando did not show up for filming. Brando did indeed miss the first day of filming, and Gothard took over this role for the day's shooting. However, Tom Selleck told the director that without Brando, he would quit the film. Word apparently got out, for Brando was on the set the next day, and assumed the role of Torquemada, with Glen reshooting the scene. Glen described Gothard as "a very good" and "captivating" actor, as well as a friend. His final role was in David Wickes's "Frankenstein", starring Patrick Bergin and Randy Quaid. Death and legacy. Michael Gothard died on on 2 December 1992.
587778	Rowdy Alludu is a 1991 Tollywood film directed by K. Raghavendra Rao. This film stars Chiranjeevi, Shobana, and Divya Bharati. Plot. Chiranjeevi plays the dual roles of a Mumbai-based auto driver, Johnny, and an industrialist, Kalyan, who because he was interfering with the plans of the villains, led by Kota Srinivasa Rao, is first temporarily replaced by Johnny, and then framed for the murder of Kalyan's trusted employee, Shobana. Johnny realizes that he ruined the life of a good man and joins forces with Kalyan. They pretend to be each other, in order to save Kalyan. After the villains prove in court that Kalyan was the killer by replacing the rod of the murder weapon with one that has his finger prints on it, Johnny captures the villains and saves Kalyan. This is one of the biggest hits of chiranjeevi and commercially a huge success. Still the re-releases of the film is attracted by huge crowds although the film is telecasted many times on the national media. Chiranjeevi and Bappilahiri's combination was always created magic.The songs were huge hit and chiru's comedy timing is best as ever.Ever Beautiful Divya bharati is an asset for this flick. Chiranjeevi's dance in the song "Amalapuram Bulloda" was exceptional.
1773108	Vallinam (; )is an upcoming Tamil Sports drama film based on basketball game directed by Arivazhagan Venkatachalam and produced by Aascar Ravichandran. The film features Nakul as a Basketball Player and newcomer Mrudhula Basker in the lead roles. Production. The film was earlier titled as "Acham Thavir" and planned with Arulnithi in the lead role, who later opted out. This film revolves around a basketball player and Nakul underwent special training to "ensure that he lived the role rather than act". Telugu actress Bindu Madhavi was initially signed to portray the lead female character. However, reports in November 2011 confirmed that she was dropped from the project since the director and the crew were not impressed with her performance. She was subsequently replaced film by a newcomer Mrudhula, while other reports during production claimed that Nakul had been replaced by Jai, although this proved untrue. Latest addition marathi actor Atul Kulkarni is playing a crucial role in this film. Siddharth Jonnalagadda who acted in the Telugu film "Love Before Wedding" was selected to play another villain. During production, the makers of the film ran into crowd trouble with students attempting to get autographs from Nakul when he was preparing for the shoot, they were subsequently prevented in doing so from the crew of the film prompting a student protest. The team worked for 72 hours without break for a particular scene which was shot near the Chengalpet railway station. Soundtrack. Soundtrack is composed by S. Thaman collaborating with Arivazhagan for second time. Kamal Hassan has been approached to sing a song in the film which proved false.
583877	Peranmai (; ) is a 2009 Tamil-language action-adventure film. Directed and written by S. P. Jananathan in his venture and produced by Ayngaran International, it stars Jayam Ravi and Roland Kickinger in the lead roles while Ponvannan, Vadivelu and Urvashi, prominent actors from the Tamil industry, played supporting roles in the film. The film revolves around a tribal forest guard who works for the welfare of his tribe and spreading education among them. Whilst, on a team bonding mission with five college girls, whom initially mistreat him due to his caste, they stumble on a group of foreign mercenaries who are planning to stop India’s scientific progress by destroying a rocket launch by using missiles. How the team bonds together and defeat the potential threat forms the crux of the story. The film opened to audiences worldwide on 16 October 2009, coinciding with Diwali. The film received predominantly mixed to good reviews, praising the film for the patriotic theme. This film was dubbed in Hindi as "Kasam Hindustan Ki". Plot. The film begins with the announcement of the scheduled launch of a space vehicle carrying an Indian remote sensing satellite which would help scientists identify land suitable for agriculture. Within a short range of this operation, in the same forest, the state forest department runs an NCC camp for women cadets. Dhuruvan (Jayam Ravi) is a trainer at the camp. Being a Scheduled tribe, he is deprecated for being positioned as a cadet officer in the forest security force through reservation system by his senior officer Ganapathiram (Ponvannan). But Dhuruvan's integrity and co-living with other tribes in the forest abnegates aboriginal allegations by other forward caste officials and cadets in the department. As a part of the training camp, an expedition is organized into the forest for a selected five cadets from the troop.
643281	Harold (Hal) Abelson is a Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at MIT, a fellow of the IEEE, and is a founding director of both Creative Commons and the Free Software Foundation.
1061320	The Last Picture Show is a 1971 American drama film directed by Peter Bogdanovich, adapted from a semi-autobiographical 1966 novel of the same name by Larry McMurtry. Set in a small town in north Texas during the year November 1951 – October 1952, it is about the coming of age of Sonny Crawford (Timothy Bottoms) and his friend Duane Jackson (Jeff Bridges). The cast includes Cybill Shepherd in her film debut, Ben Johnson, Eileen Brennan, Ellen Burstyn, Cloris Leachman, Clu Gulager, Randy Quaid in his film debut, and John Hillerman. For aesthetic and technical reasons it was shot in black and white, which was unusual for its time. The film was nominated for eight Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director, and four nominations for acting: Ben Johnson and Jeff Bridges for Best Supporting Actor, and Ellen Burstyn and Cloris Leachman for Best Supporting Actress. It won two: Johnson and Leachman. Plot. In 1951, Sonny Crawford (Bottoms) and Duane Jackson (Bridges) are small-town Texas high-school seniors. They are friends and co-captains of Anarene High School's football team and share a rooming house home and a battered old pickup truck. Duane is good-looking, amusing and popular, and dates Jacy Farrow (Shepherd), the prettiest (and wealthiest) girl in town. Sonny is sensitive and caring, with a dumpy, unpleasant girlfriend, Charlene Duggs (Sharon Taggart), whom he does not love; she shares his indifference, and they decide to call it quits. At Christmastime, Sonny stumbles into an affair with Ruth Popper (Leachman), the depressed, middle-aged wife of his high-school coach, Coach Popper (Bill Thurman). At the sad little town Christmas dance, Jacy is invited by unsavory Lester Marlow (Quaid) to a naked indoor pool party at the home of Bobby Sheen (Gary Brockette), a wealthy boy who seems to offer better prospects than Duane. Since Bobby is not interested in her as long as she is a virgin, she must get someone to have sex with her first.
1163910	Darren McGavin (May 7, 1922 – February 25, 2006) was an American actor best known for playing the title role in the television horror series "", and his portrayal in the film "A Christmas Story" of the grumpy father given to bursts of profanity that he never realizes his son overhears. He appeared as the tough-talking, funny detective in the 1950s television series "Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer". From 1959-1961, McGavin starred in the NBC western series "Riverboat", first with Burt Reynolds and then with Noah Beery, Jr., and in later years, he had a recurring role in the sitcom "Murphy Brown", as the title character's father, for which he received an Emmy Award. Early life. McGavin was born William Lyle Richardson in Spokane, Washington, a son of Reed Daniel Richardson and his wife Grace Bogart Watson. In interviews in the 1960s, McGavin said his parents divorced when he was very young. His father, unable to care for him, placed him in an orphanage at age 11. McGavin began to run away, sleeping on the docks and in warehouses. He would live in three different orphanages. The last was the Dyslin Boys Ranch in Pierce County, Washington, a boys' home, which turned out to be a safe haven. Farm chores were assigned, and he lived with other boys who had also been abandoned by their parents. McGavin said the ranch's owners helped him develop a sense of pride and responsibility that turned his life around. He was rejected for military service during World War II because of his bad knees. However, he did make a training film for the Army about venereal diseases. Career. Still untrained as an actor, McGavin worked as a painter in the paint crew at the Columbia Pictures movie studios in 1945. When an opening became available for a bit part in "A Song to Remember", on the movie set where he was working, McGavin applied for the role. He was hired for it, and that was his first foray into movie acting. (He had spent a year at University of the Pacific in Stockton, California). Shortly afterwards, he moved to New York City and spent a decade there learning the acting profession in television and plays. McGavin studied at the Neighborhood Playhouse and the Actors Studio under teacher Sanford Meisner and began working in live TV drama and on Broadway. A few of the plays in which he starred included "The Rainmaker" (where he created the title role on Broadway), "The King and I" and "Death of a Salesman". McGavin returned to Hollywood and became a busy actor in a wide variety of TV and movie roles. In 1955, he broke through, appearing in the short film "A Word to the Wives" with Marsha Hunt, and with roles in the feature films "Summertime" and "The Man with the Golden Arm". During this period, McGavin also appeared on the anthology series "Alfred Hitchcock Presents" in an episode titled "The Cheney Vase", in which he demonstrated his talent for playing complex roles, as a scheming caretaker and aspiring art thief, opposite Carolyn Jones, Patricia Collinge, and Ruta Lee. Over the course of his career, McGavin starred in seven different TV series and guest-starred in many more; these television roles increased in the late 1950s and early 1960s with leading parts in series such as "Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer" and "Riverboat". McGavin held a black belt in traditional Japanese karate and the series are notable for him doing many of his own stunts and for the "enthusiasm" he put into some of the fight scenes, sometimes forgetting to pull his punches and "ad-libbing" moves, much as Robert Conrad did years later in "The Wild Wild West". When the comedy team Martin and Lewis broke up as a result of Dean Martin's refusal to play a cop in a movie, McGavin played the role originally earmarked for Martin in "The Delicate Delinquent", Jerry Lewis's first solo film. In 1970, he was in negotiations to replace Larry Hagman as the male lead in the television series "I Dream of Jeannie" for an intended sixth season, but NBC stated that they would rather cancel the series than have any additional similarities to "Bewitched", in which the male lead was replaced by another actor. McGavin was also known for his role as Sam Parkhill in the miniseries adaptation of "The Martian Chronicles". He appeared as a fill-in regular in "The Name of the Game" in an episode entitled "Goodbye Harry" and was featured as a reporter in one of the Gene Barry segments. The first of his two best-known roles came in 1972, in the supernatural-themed TV movie "The Night Stalker" (1972). With McGavin playing a reporter who discovers the activities of a modern-day vampire on the loose in Las Vegas, the film became the highest-rated made-for-TV movie in history at that time; and when the sequel "The Night Strangler" (1973) also was a strong success, a subsequent television series "" (1974) was made. In the series, McGavin played Carl Kolchak, an investigative reporter for the INS, a Chicago-based news service, who regularly stumbles upon the supernatural or occult basis for a seemingly mundane crime; although his involvement routinely assisted in the dispelment of the otherworldly adversary, his evidence in the case was always destroyed or seized, usually by a public official or major social figure who sought to cover up the incident. He would write his ensuing stories in a sensational, tabloid style which advised readers that the true story was being withheld from them. McGavin and the cast were enthusiastic about the series. McGavin reportedly entered into a verbal agreement with Sid Sheinberg (President of MCA and Universal TV) to produce "The Night Stalker" as a TV series as a coproduction between Universal and McGavin's Taurean Productions. Early promises were never fulfilled, and McGavin expressed concern over script quality and lack of network commitment toward promoting the show. His concerns appeared justified, as the series drifted into camp humor and the production values declined in later episodes. "Kolchak" is acknowledged as being a main inspiration for"The X-Files". McGavin was asked to play the role of Arthur Dales, founder of the X-Files, in three episodes: Season 5's "Travelers" and two episodes from Season 6, "Agua Mala" and "The Unnatural". Failing health forced him to withdraw from the latter, and the script (written and directed by series star David Duchovny) was rewritten to feature M. Emmet Walsh as Dales's brother, also called Arthur. In 1983, he starred as "Old Man Parker", the narrator's father, in the movie "A Christmas Story". He portrayed a middle-class father in 1940s Hohman, Indiana, who was endearing in spite of his being comically oblivious to his own use of profanity and completely unable to recognize his unfortunate taste for kitsch. Blissfully unaware of his family's embarrassment by his behavior, he took pride in his self-assessed ability to fix anything in record time, and carried on a tireless campaign against his neighbor's rampaging bloodhounds. McGavin allegedly received a fee of $2 million to play the role, making him one of the highest paid actors of the time. McGavin made an uncredited appearance in 1984's "The Natural" as a shady gambler and appeared on a Christmas episode ("Midnight of the Century") of "Millennium", playing the long-estranged father of Frank Black (Lance Henriksen); he also appeared as Adam Sandler's hotel-magnate father in the 1995 movie "Billy Madison". During the filming of "The Natural", Robert Redford was so pleased with McGavin's portrayal of his character that they began to expand the role. However, after a certain point, union rules dictated that the actor's contract needed to be renegotiated for salary and billing. After haggling on salary, and holding up production of the movie because of it, the billing had to be decided. McGavin became somewhat fed up with the proceedings and instructed his agent to waive his billing in the credits entirely so they could get back to filming. He won a CableACE Award (for the 1991 TV movie "Clara") and received a 1990 Emmy Award as an Outstanding Guest Star in a Comedy Series on "Murphy Brown", in which he played Murphy's father. There was a brief and unsuccessful remake of the "Night Stalker" TV series in 2005 starring Stuart Townsend. In the initial episode aired on September 29, 2005, McGavin appeared momentarily in the background, using digitally inserted footage from his role in the original series. Darren McGavin narrated the majority of the audio book versions of the adventure novels by "John D. MacDonald" in which each title included a color. The central character and main voice of the novels was "Travis McGee". Personal life. McGavin was married twice. The first was to Melanie York on March 20, 1944. It ended in divorce in 1969, but produced four children: Bogart, York, Megan, and Graemm Bridget McGavin. The second was to Kathie Browne on December 31, 1969, ending with her death in 2003. McGavin died on February 25, 2006 at the age of 83 in a Los Angeles hospital, one day after his co-star from "No Deposit, No Return", Don Knotts. He is buried in Hollywood Forever Cemetery.
1716093	Roger Bruce Myerson (born March 29, 1951) is an American economist and Nobel laureate recognized with Leonid Hurwicz and Eric Maskin for "having laid the foundations of mechanism design theory." A professor at the University of Chicago, he has made contributions as an economist, as an applied mathematician, and as a political scientist. Biography. Roger Myerson was born on March 29, 1951, in Boston, to a Jewish family. He attended Harvard University, where he received his A.B., "summa cum laude", and S.M. in applied mathematics in 1973. He completed his Ph.D. in applied mathematics from Harvard University in 1976. His doctorate thesis was "A Theory of Cooperative Games". From 1976 to 2001, Myerson was a professor of economics at Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management, where he conducted much of his Nobel-winning research. From 1978 to 1979, he was Visiting Researcher at Bielefeld University. He was Visiting Professor of Economics at the University of Chicago from 1985–86 and from 2000–01. He became Professor of Economics at Chicago in 2001. Currently, he is the Glen A. Lloyd Distinguished Service Professor of Economics at the University of Chicago. Nobel Prize. Myerson was one of the three winners of the 2007 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, the other two being Leonid Hurwicz of the University of Minnesota, and Eric Maskin of the Institute for Advanced Study. He was awarded the prize for his contributions to mechanism design theory. Myerson made a path-breaking contribution to mechanism design theory when he discovered a fundamental connection between the allocation to be implemented and the monetary transfers needed to induce informed agents to reveal their information truthfully. Mechanism design theory allows for people to distinguish situations in which markets work well from those in which they do not. The theory has helped economists identify efficient trading mechanisms, regulation schemes, and voting procedures. Today, the theory plays a central role in many areas of economics and parts of political science. Personal life. In 1980 Myerson married Regina (Weber) and the couple had two children, Daniel and Rebecca. Publications. He wrote a general textbook on game theory in 1991, and has also written on the history of game theory, including his review of the origins and significance of noncooperative game theory. He also served on the editorial board of the "International Journal of Game Theory" for ten years. Myerson has worked on economic analysis of political institutions and written several major survey papers: His recent work on democratization has raised critical questions about American policy in occupied Iraq.
1017646	The Forbidden Kingdom (: "Gong Fu Zhi Wang" (Mandarin) or "Gung Fu Ji Wong" (Cantonese) and translated is "King of Kung Fu" (English); Working title: "The J & J Project") is a 2008 martial arts action adventure film from The Weinstein Company and Lionsgate Films. Written by John Fusco and directed by Rob Minkoff, it is the first film to star together two of the best-known names in the martial arts film genre, Jackie Chan and Jet Li. The action sequences were choreographed by Yuen Woo-ping. The film is distributed in the United States through The Weinstein Company and Lionsgate Films, and through The Huayi Brothers Film & Taihe Investment Company in China. It was released on DVD and Blu-ray in the USA and Hong Kong on 9 September 2008 and in the United Kingdom on 1 October 2008. Plot summary. In this film, which is based loosely on the ancient Chinese novel "Journey to the West", South Boston teenager Jason Tripitikas (Michael Angarano) is a fan of martial arts films and he awakens from a dream of a battle between the Monkey King (Jet Li) and celestial soldiers in the clouds. He visits a pawn shop in Chinatown to buy Wuxia DVDs and discovers a golden staff. On his way home, Jason is harassed by some hooligans, whose leader Lupo attempts to use him to help them rob the shop-owner Hop. Hop tries to fight the thieves with the staff, but is shot and wounded by Lupo. He tells Jason to deliver the staff to its rightful owner and Jason flees with the staff. He is cornered on the rooftop by the hooligans and almost shot too, but he is pulled off the roof by the staff and falls backwards onto the asphalt. When Jason regains consciousness, he finds himself in a village in ancient China that is under attack by armored soldiers. The soldiers see his staff and attempt to seize it. He is saved by the inebriated traveling scholar Lu Yan (Jackie Chan), a supposed "immortal," who remains alert and agile even when drunk. Lu brings Jason to a teahouse and tells him the story of the rivalry between the Monkey King and the Jade Warlord. The Jade Warlord tricked the Monkey King into setting aside his magic staff Ruyi Jingu Bang and transformed the immortal into a stone statue, but the Monkey King cast his staff far away before the transformation. Lu ends the tale with a prophecy about someone, a "Seeker", who will find the staff and free the Monkey King. Just then, they are attacked by the Jade Warlord's men again but manage to escape with the help of Golden Sparrow, a young girl who refers to herself in the third person. She reveals that her family was murdered by the Jade Warlord, against whom she has therefore sworn revenge. Meanwhile, the Jade Warlord (Collin Chou), upon learning that the staff has been sighted, sends the White-Haired Witch Ni-Chang to help him retrieve it in exchange for the elixir of immortality. Jason, Lu Yan and Golden Sparrow meet a strange man dressed in white, also played by Jet Li, who takes the staff away from them. Lu Yan fights with the man (later revealed to be the Silent Monk) for the staff until the latter realizes that Jason is the prophesied Seeker, and he joins them in their quest to free the Monkey King. As the four travel to Five Elements Mountain, Lu Yan and the Silent Monk teach Jason Kungfu along the way. After crossing a desert, they encounter Ni-Chang and her henchmen and a battle ensues, in which Lu Yan is mortally wounded by Ni-Chang's arrow. The protagonists take refuge in a monastery, where they learn that Lu is actually not an immortal as he failed the test to become one. Only the Jade Warlord's elixir can save his life. In desperation, Jason goes to the Warlord's palace alone to exchange the staff for the elixir. In the palace, the Jade Warlord asks Jason to fight with Ni-Chang to the death, because he had promised to give the elixir to only one of them. Jason is defeated by Ni-Chang and the Warlord taunts him for his foolishness, and is about to decapitate him when the other protagonists and monks from the monastery arrive to join in the battle. Jason manages to grab the elixir and he tosses it to Lu Yan, who drinks it and recovers. The Silent Monk is wounded by the Jade Warlord's Guan Dao during the fight and he passes the staff to Jason, who uses it to smash the Monkey King's statue. The Monkey King is freed and the Silent Monk is revealed to be actually one of the Monkey's clones. Lu Yan battles Ni-Chang and kills her by throwing her off the cliff hundreds of feet below. After another long battle between the Monkey King and the Jade Warlord, the Warlord is eventually stabbed by Jason and falls into a lava pit to his death. However, Golden Sparrow has been seriously injured by the Warlord and she dies in Jason's arms, thanking him in the first person before dying. By then, the Jade Emperor has returned from his meditation and he praises Jason for fulfilling the prophecy and allows him for one wish, which he asked is to return home. Jason finds himself back in 21st century Boston after passing through a magical portal at the exact moment and location of his earlier fall. He defeats Lupo easily by using the Kungfu moves he was taught and drives the other hooligans away. He alerts the police and calls an ambulance for Hop, who survives from the gunshot wound and brushes off Jason's concerns, claiming that he is immortal. (hinting that he is actually Lu Yan; a fact which also would have been hinted by the name of the pawn shop as seen in the beginning: "Lu Yan's Pawn Shop"). Before the film ends, Jason is delighted to see a girl who resembles Golden Sparrow and speaks to her briefly, before she heads back to her shop, called "Golden Sparrow Chinese Merchandise". The final scene shows Jason on a rooftop at night practicing his staffwork and continuing to hone his kung fu skills. Production details. Pre-production. While the character Sun Wukong came from Wu Cheng'en's famous classical novel "Journey to the West", in an interview with Screen Power magazine, actor Collin Chou denied that the plotline would be related to the novel. The details of the plot were devised by screenwriter John Fusco along with actor Jet Li. Li explains, In a behind the scenes article he wrote for "Kung Fu Magazine", screenwriter John Fusco also stated he derived the surname for the Jason Tripitikas character from “the wandering monk, Tripitaka, from Journey to the West”. The Golden Sparrow character was inspired by Cheng Pei Pei's character Golden Swallow from the Shaw Brothers film "Come Drink with Me". Before trying to kill the Jade Warlord, Golden Sparrow refers to the 1966 film, telling him to "Come drink with" her. Production. Production began in early 1 May 2007 in the area around the Gobi Desert in Mongolia. Before filming began, the entire cast did a costume fitting and a script read through, certain dialogues were altered to suit the different actors' English speaking abilities; this was due to the majority of the cast having English as their second language. Chan described the first day of shooting as "very relaxing" because the shots only required drama and walking, with no action. When the two martial arts veterans (Chan and Li) did film action scenes together for the first time, they both expressed how easy it was to work with one another. Chan explained: Filming finished on August 24, 2007, and the film went into post-production on September 29, 2007. Critical reception. The response to "The Forbidden Kingdom", by both critics and audiences, was positive. As of 1 May 2008, the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes reported that 65% of critics gave the film positive reviews, based on 121 reviews — with the consensus being "Great fight scenes, but too much filler". Metacritic reported the film had an average score of 57 out of 100, based on 26 reviews — indicating mixed or average reviews. The Chinese press, however, responded to the movie less positively. Perry Lam wrote in "Muse" magazine, "As a Hollywood blockbuster, "The Forbidden Kingdom" offers no apologies for its American-Centrism. In fact, it wears it with pride like a badge of honor". Home media. "The Forbidden Kingdom" was released on DVD and Blu-ray 9 September 2008. It sold about 1,199,593 units which translated to revenue of $22,921,609, bringing its worldwide total to $151,758,670. It is sold on single disc and two-disc special editions. The single disc edition has no extras but contains widescreen and full screen presentations of the film. The special edition includes a commentary by director Rob Minkoff, deleted scenes with commentary, featurettes ("The Kung Fu Dream Team", "Dangerous Beauty", "Discovering China", "Filming in Chinawood", and "Monkey King and the Eight Immortals"), a "Previsualization Featurette" with commentary by writer Fusco and director Minkoff, and a blooper reel. In addition to these extras, the Blu-ray release contains a digital copy. Box office performance. "The Forbidden Kingdom" grossed a total of $127,906,624 worldwide — $52,075,270 in the United States and $75,831,354 in other territories. In its opening weekend in the United States and Canada, the film grossed $21,401,121 in 3,151 theaters, ranking No. 1 at the box office opening weekend and averaging $6,792 per theater.
456782	William James Sidis (; April 1, 1898–July 17, 1944) was an American child prodigy with exceptional mathematical abilities and a claimed mastery of many languages. After his death, his sister made the unverifiable claim that his IQ was "the very highest that had ever been obtained," but any records of any IQ testing that Sidis actually took have been lost to history. He entered Harvard at age eleven and, as an adult, was claimed to be conversant in over forty languages and dialects. It was later acknowledged, however, that some of the claims made were exaggerations, with a researcher stating "I have been researching the veracity of primary sources of various subjects for about twenty-eight years, and never before have I found a topic so satiated with lies, myths, half-truths, exaggerations, and other forms of misinformation as is in the history behind William Sidis". Sidis became famous first for his precocity and later for his eccentricity and withdrawal from public life. Eventually, he avoided mathematics altogether, writing on other subjects under a number of pseudonyms. Biography. Parents and upbringing (1898–1909). William James Sidis was born to Jewish Ukrainian immigrants on April 1, 1898, in New York City. His father Boris Sidis, Ph.D., M.D., had emigrated in 1887 to escape political persecution. His mother Sarah Mandelbaum Sidis, M.D., and her family had fled the pogroms in 1889. Sarah attended Boston University and graduated from its School of Medicine in 1897.
400675	Adam Saul Pally (born March 18, 1982) is an American actor and comedian, most widely known for starring as Max Blum in the ABC comedy series "Happy Endings". Pally joined the cast of "The Mindy Project", as a series regular for the second season, playing the role of Dr. Peter Prentiss. Life and career. Pally was born in Livingston, New Jersey, to parents Caryn and Steven. He was raised Jewish. He grew up in New York, Chicago, and New Jersey. He has two sisters, Erica and Risa. In 2004, Pally graduated from The New School university in New York City. He has performed improv and sketch comedy at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre (UCBT) in New York since 2002 and continues to perform in shows such as "Death by Roo Roo" and "ASSSSCAT 3000" at the theater's Los Angeles division. He is a member of the sketch comedy group "Chubby Skinny Kids" with comedians Dan Gregor and Doug Mand. Pally is also in the improv group "Hot Sauce" with Gil Ozeri and Ben Schwartz; the group continues to perform their long-form improv show at UCBT occasionally. Pally has appeared in films such as "Iron Man 3", "Taking Woodstock", "Solitary Man", and "Assassination of a High School President", as well as the upcoming "The To Do List" and "A.C.O.D.". He has made guest appearances on "Californication" and "The Colbert Report". He has also written and appeared on the Adult Swim series "", starring Paul Scheer. Pally is attached to star with Taran Killam in the Funny or Die produced horror-comedy "Killer Rebound Guy", the film is currently in development and was written by UCBT vets Katie Dippold and John Reynolds. Pally plays a dumped ex-boyfriend who tries to convince his small town that his ex's new boyfriend (Killam) is a serial killer. Pally and frequent collaborator Gil Ozeri (Ozeri is also a writer on "Happy Endings", which Pally co-stars in) are currently writing a script being produced by Will Ferrell & Adam McKay's company Gary Sanchez Productions. From April 2011 to May 2013, Pally starred as Max Blum, one of the lead characters on the ABC ensemble comedy series "Happy Endings", alongside Eliza Coupe, Elisha Cuthbert, Zachary Knighton, Damon Wayans, Jr., and Casey Wilson. In 2013, Pally was nominated for "Best Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series" at the Critics' Choice Television Awards for his work on season three of "Happy Endings". Despite critical acclaim and a cult following, the show was cancelled by ABC after the conclusion of its third season on May 3, 2013. After Happy Endings cancellation, Pally joined the cast of "The Mindy Project", where he will join as a series regular for the second season, playing the role of Dr. Peter Prentiss. Pally is currently filming a lead role oppposite T.J. Miller and Thomas Middleditch in the upcoming comedy "Search Party". This film serves as the directorial debut of screenwriter Scot Armstrong. Other work. Pally is a regular contributor to the humor website "Funny or Die", where he is best known for his series "Riding Shotgun with Adam Pally", where he interviews celebrities in his car. In 2011, Pally co-starred in the comedic stage-show "The Realest Real Housewives", created by his "Happy Endings" co-star Casey Wilson. Pally has appeared regularly on many podcasts on the Earwolf network such as "Comedy Bang Bang", "improv4humans", "Who Charted", and "How Did This Get Made?". Personal life. Pally lives in Los Angeles with his wife, Daniella Anne Pally (née Liben). Their son, Cole, was born in December 2011. Their second child, a daughter GG, was born on March 14, 2013.
591115	Do Aankhen Barah Haath (, ) is a 1957 Hindi film directed by the Indian film director V. Shantaram, who also starred in the film. It is considered one of the classics of Hindi cinema and is based on humanistic psychology. It won a Silver Bear at the 8th Berlin International Film Festival and it was the first Indian film to get nominated for Golden Globe Award in the category Samuel Goldwyn Award. The film is also remembered for its theme song, "Aye maalik tere bande hum", sung by Lata Mangeshkar and written by Bharat Vyas. The film was inspired by the story of an 'open prison' experiment Swatantrapur in the princely state of Aundh near Satara. Now Swatantrapur is part of Atpadi tehsil in Sangli district of Maharashtra. It was recounted by screenwriter G. D. Madgulkar to V. Shantaram. In 2005, "Indiatimes Movies" ranked the movie amongst the "Top 25 Must See Bollywood Films". During the filming V. Shantaram battled with a bull and he hurt his one eye during the stunt, though his eyesight survived. The film was later remade in 1975 in Tamil as "Pallandu Vazhga" starring M.G. Ramachandran and Latha, and in 1976 as the Telugu color film "Maa Daivam" starring N.T. Rama Rao and Jayachitra. Plot. The film portrays a young jail warden, Adinath, who rehabilitates six deadly prisoners released on parole into persons of virtue. He takes these notorious, often surly, murderers and makes them work hard with him on a dilapidated country farm, rehabilitating them through hard work and kindly guidance as they eventually produce a great harvest. The film ends with the death of the warden at the hands of the minions of a corrupt enemy who wants no competition, in the profitable market he controls. This film takes the viewers through several scenes that set a strong moral lesson that through hard work, dedication and concentration a person can accomplish anything. Also this film explains that if a person focuses all of their energy, day and night, on a worthy cause, of truth and purity, success is guaranteed.
1052715	Anatomy of Hell () is a 2004 film by Catherine Breillat. The film was adapted by writer/director Breillat from her novel "Pornocracy". The explicitly sexual film stars Amira Casar as "the woman" and porn star Rocco Siffredi as "the man". Renowned movie critic Leonard Maltin's review of the film was extremely negative. He gave the film zero stars and said the film was "homophobic" and "unintentionally funny". Roger Ebert stated: "I remember when hard-core first became commonplace, and there were discussions about what it would be like if a serious director ever made a porn movie. The answer, judging by "Anatomy of Hell", is that the audience would decide they did not require such a serious director after all." The film went on to win "Best Feature Film" at the Philadelphia Film Festival. Plot and themes. "Anatomy of Hell", like many of Breillat's other works, explores female sexuality, in this case focusing specifically on male fear and resentment of that sexuality. The plot follows an unnamed woman who is discovered in the middle of a suicide attempt in the toilet of a gay bar by one of its male patrons. The woman offers to pay the man to watch her for four days, during which time she explains her views on sex and sexuality.
600008	Theodore John "Ted" Kaczynski ( , or ; Polish: "Kaczyński", pronounced ; born May 22, 1942), also known as the "Unabomber", is an American mathematician, social critic, and multiple murderer. Between 1978 and 1995, Kaczynski engaged in a nationwide bombing campaign against people involved with modern technology, planting or mailing numerous home-made bombs, ultimately killing a total of three people and injuring 23 others. Kaczynski was born and raised in Chicago, Illinois. While growing up in Chicago he was a child prodigy, excelling academically from an early age. Kaczynski was accepted into Harvard University at the age of 16, where he earned an undergraduate degree. He subsequently earned a PhD in mathematics from the University of Michigan. He became an assistant professor at the University of California, Berkeley in 1967 at age 25, but resigned two years later. In 1971, he moved to a remote cabin without electricity or running water, in Lincoln, Montana, where he lived as a recluse while learning survival skills in an attempt to become self-sufficient. From 1978 to 1995, Kaczynski sent 16 bombs to targets including universities and airlines, killing three people and injuring 23. Kaczynski sent a letter to "The New York Times" on April 24, 1995 and promised "to desist from terrorism" if the "Times" or the "Washington Post" published his manifesto, "Industrial Society and Its Future" (also called the "Unabomber Manifesto"), in which he argued that his bombings were extreme but necessary to attract attention to the erosion of human freedom necessitated by modern technologies requiring large-scale organization. The Unabomber was the target of one of the Federal Bureau of Investigation's costliest investigations. Before Kaczynski's identity was known, the FBI used the title "UNABOM" (UNiversity & Airline BOMber) to refer to his case, which resulted in the media calling him the Unabomber. The FBI (as well as Attorney General Janet Reno) pushed for the publication of Kaczynski's "Manifesto," which led to his sister-in-law, and then his brother, recognizing Kaczynski's style of writing and beliefs from the manifesto, and tipping off the FBI. Kaczynski tried unsuccessfully to dismiss his court appointed lawyers because they wanted to plead insanity in order to avoid the death penalty, as Kaczynski did not believe he was insane. When it became clear that his pending trial would entail national television exposure for Kaczynski, the court entered a plea agreement, under which he pleaded guilty and was sentenced to life in prison with no possibility of parole. He has been designated a "domestic terrorist" by the FBI. Some anarcho-primitivist authors, such as John Zerzan and John Moore, have come to his defense, while holding some reservations about his actions and ideas. Early life. Kaczynski was born on May 22, 1942, in Evergreen Park, Illinois, to second-generation Polish Americans Wanda (née Dombek) and Theodore Richard Kaczynski. At six months of age, Ted's body was covered in hives. He was placed in isolation in a hospital where visitors were not allowed, as doctors were unsure of the cause of the hives. He was treated several times at the hospital over an eight-month period. His mother wrote in March 1943, "Baby home from hospital and is healthy but quite unresponsive after his experience." From grades one through four, Kaczynski attended Sherman Elementary School in Chicago. He attended grades five through eight at Evergreen Park District 124 Schools. As a result of testing conducted in the fifth grade, which determined he had an IQ of 167, he was allowed to skip the sixth grade and enroll in the seventh grade. Kaczynski described this as a pivotal event in his life. He recalled not fitting in with the older children and being subjected to their bullying. As a child, Kaczynski had a fear of people and buildings, and played beside other children rather than interacting with them. His mother was so worried by his poor social development that she considered entering him in a study for autistic children led by Bruno Bettelheim. He attended high school at Evergreen Park Community High School. Kaczynski excelled academically, but found the mathematics too simple during his sophomore year. Sometimes he would cut classes and write in his journal in his room. During this period of his life, Kaczynski became obsessed with mathematics, spending prolonged hours locked in his room practicing differential equations. Throughout secondary schooling, Kaczynski had far surpassed his classmates, able to solve advanced Laplace transforms before his senior year. He was subsequently placed in a more advanced mathematics class, yet still felt intellectually restricted. Kaczynski soon mastered the material and skipped the eleventh grade. With the help of a summer school course for English, he completed his high school education when he was 15 years old. He was encouraged to apply to Harvard University, and was subsequently accepted as a student beginning in 1958 at the age of 16. While at Harvard, Kaczynski was taught by famed logician Willard Van Orman Quine, scoring at the top of Quine's class with a 98.9% final grade. He also participated in a CIA run behavioral engineering study, known as MKUltra, conducted by Dr. Henry Murray, an expert on stress interviews. Students in Murray's study were told they would be debating personal philosophy with a fellow student. Instead, they were subjected to a "purposely brutalizing psychological experiment" stress test, which was an extremely stressful, personal, and prolonged psychological attack. During the test, students were taken into a room and connected to electrodes that monitored their physiological reactions, while facing bright lights and a one-way mirror. Each student had previously written an essay detailing their personal beliefs and aspirations: the essays were turned over to an anonymous attorney, who would enter the room and individually belittle each student based in part on the disclosures they had made. This was filmed, and students' expressions of impotent rage were played back to them several times later in the study. According to author Alston Chase, Kaczynski's records from that period suggest he was emotionally stable when the study began. Kaczynski's lawyers attributed some of his emotional instability and dislike of mind control to his participation in this study. Indeed, some have suggested that this experience may have been instrumental in Kaczynski's future actions. Career. Kaczynski graduated from Harvard University in 1962, at age 20, and subsequently enrolled at the University of Michigan, where he earned a PhD in mathematics. Kaczynski's specialty was a branch of complex analysis known as geometric function theory. His professors at Michigan were impressed with his intellect and drive. "He was an unusual person. He was not like the other graduate students", said Peter Duren, one of Kaczynski's math professors at Michigan. "He was much more focused about his work. He had a drive to discover mathematical truth." "It is not enough to say he was smart", said George Piranian, another of his Michigan math professors. Kaczynski earned his PhD with his thesis entitled "Boundary Functions" by solving a problem so difficult that Piranian could not figure it out. Maxwell Reade, a retired math professor who served on Kaczynski's dissertation committee, also commented on his thesis by noting, "I would guess that maybe 10 or 12 men in the country understood or appreciated it." In 1967, Kaczynski won the University of Michigan's $100 Sumner B. Myers Prize, which recognized his dissertation as the school's best in mathematics that year. While a graduate student at Michigan, he held a National Science Foundation fellowship and taught undergraduates for three years. He also published two articles related to his dissertation in mathematical journals, and four more after leaving Michigan. In late 1967, Kaczynski became an assistant professor of mathematics at the University of California, Berkeley, where he taught undergraduate courses in geometry and calculus. He was also noted as the youngest professor ever hired by the university, but this position proved short-lived. Kaczynski received numerous complaints and low ratings from the undergraduates he taught. Many students noted that he seemed quite uncomfortable in a teaching environment, often stuttering and mumbling during lectures, becoming excessively nervous in front of a class, and ignoring students during designated office hours. Without explanation, he resigned from his position in 1969, at age 26. The chairman of the mathematics department, J. W. Addison, called this a "sudden and unexpected" resignation, while vice chairman Calvin Moore said that given Kaczynski's "impressive" thesis and record of publications, "He could have advanced up the ranks and been a senior member of the faculty today." Montana. In mid-1969, Kaczynski moved into his parents' small residence in Lombard, Illinois. Two years later, he moved into a remote cabin he built himself just outside Lincoln, Montana where he lived a simple life on very little money, without electricity or running water. Kaczynski worked odd jobs and received financial support from his family, which he used to purchase his land and, without their knowledge, would later use to fund his bombing campaign. In 1978, he worked briefly with his father and brother at a foam-rubber factory, where he was fired by his brother, David, for harassing a female supervisor he had previously dated who had refused him as a boyfriend for not 'sharing much in common'. Kaczynski's original goal was to move out to a secluded place and become self-sufficient so that he could live autonomously. He began to teach himself survival skills such as tracking, edible plant identification, and how to construct primitive technologies such as bow drills. However, he quickly realized that it was not possible for him to live that way, as a result of watching the wild land around him get destroyed by development and industry. He performed isolated acts of sabotage and initially targeted the developments near his cabin. The ultimate catalyst which drove him to begin his campaign of bombings was when he went out for a walk to one of his favorite wild spots, only to find that it had been destroyed and replaced with a road. About this, he said: He began dedicating himself to reading about sociology and books on political philosophy, such as the works of Jacques Ellul, and also stepped up his campaign of sabotage. He soon came to the conclusion that more violent methods would be the only solution to what he saw as the problem of industrial civilization. He says that he lost faith in the idea of reform, and saw violent collapse as the only way to bring down the techno-industrial system. Regarding his switch from being a reformer of the system to developing a means of taking it down, he said: Bombings. Initial bombings. Kaczynski's activities came to the attention of the FBI in 1978 with the explosion of his first, primitive homemade bomb. Over the next 17 years, he mailed or hand-delivered a series of increasingly sophisticated explosive devices that killed three people and injured 23 more. The first mail bomb was sent in late May 1978 to materials engineering professor Buckley Crist at Northwestern University. The package was found in a parking lot at the University of Illinois at Chicago, with Crist's return address. The package was "returned" to Crist, but when Crist received the package, he noticed that it was not addressed in his own handwriting. Suspicious of a package he had not sent, he contacted campus policeman Terry Marker, who opened the package, which exploded immediately. Marker required medical assistance at Evanston Hospital for injuries to his left hand. The bomb was made of metal that could have come from a home workshop. The primary component was a piece of metal pipe, about in diameter and long. The bomb contained smokeless explosive powders, and the box and the plugs that sealed the pipe ends were handcrafted from wood. In comparison, most pipe bombs usually use threaded metal ends sold in many hardware stores. Wooden ends lack the strength to allow significant pressure to build within the pipe, explaining why the bomb did not cause severe damage. The primitive trigger device that the bomb employed was a nail, tensioned by rubber bands designed to slam into six common match heads when the box was opened. The match heads would burst into flame and ignite the explosive powders. When the trigger hit the match heads, only three ignited. A more efficient technique, later employed by Kaczynski, was to use batteries and heat filament wire to ignite the explosives faster and more effectively. The initial 1978 bombing was followed by bombs sent to airline officials, and in 1979 a bomb was placed in the cargo hold of American Airlines Flight 444, a Boeing 727 flying from Chicago to Washington, D.C. The bomb began smoking, forcing the pilot to make an emergency landing. Some passengers were treated for smoke inhalation. Only a faulty timing mechanism prevented the bomb from exploding. Authorities said it had enough power to "obliterate the plane." As bombing an airliner is a federal crime in the United States, the FBI became involved after this incident and derived the code name UNABOM (UNiversity and Airline BOMber). U.S. Postal Inspectors, who initially had the case, called the suspect the Junkyard Bomber because of the material used to make the mail bombs. In 1979, an FBI-led task force that included the ATF and U.S. Postal Inspection Service was formed to investigate the case. The task force grew to more than 150 full-time investigators, analysts, and others. This team made every possible forensic examination of recovered components of the explosives and studied the lives of victims in minute detail. These efforts proved of little use in identifying the suspect, who built his bombs essentially from "scrap" materials available almost anywhere. The victims, investigators later learned, were chosen irregularly from library research. In 1980, chief agent John Douglas, working with agents in the FBI's Behavioral Sciences Unit, issued a psychological profile of the unidentified bomber which described the offender as a man with above-average intelligence with connections to academia. This profile was later refined to characterize the offender as a neo-Luddite holding an academic degree in the hard sciences, but this psychologically based profile was discarded in 1983 in favor of an alternative theory developed by FBI analysts concentrating on the physical evidence in recovered bomb fragments. In this rival profile, the bomber suspect was characterized as a blue-collar airplane mechanic. A 1-800 hotline was set up by the UNABOM Task Force to take any calls related to the Unabomber investigation, with a $1 million reward for anyone who could provide information leading to the Unabomber's capture. Casualties. The first serious injury occurred in 1985, when John Hauser, a graduate student and Captain in the United States Air Force, lost four fingers and vision in one eye. The bomb, like others of Kaczynski's, was handcrafted and made with wooden parts. Hugh Scrutton, a 38-year-old California computer store owner, was killed in 1985 by a nail-and-splinter-loaded bomb placed in the parking lot of his store. A similar attack against a computer store occurred in Salt Lake City, Utah on February 20, 1987. The bomb, which was disguised as a piece of lumber, injured Gary Wright when he attempted to remove it from the store's parking lot. The explosion severed nerves in Wright's left arm and propelled more than 200 pieces of shrapnel into his body. Kaczynski's brother, David—who would play a vital role in Ted's looming capture by alerting federal authorities to the prospect of his brother's being involved in the Unabomber cases— sought out and became friends with Wright after Ted was detained in 1996. David Kaczynski and Wright have remained friends and occasionally speak together publicly about their relationship. After a three-year break, Kaczynski struck again in 1993, mailing a bomb to David Gelernter, a computer science professor at Yale University. Though critically injured, Gelernter eventually recovered. Another bomb mailed in the same weekend was sent to the home of Charles Epstein from the University of California, San Francisco, who lost multiple fingers upon opening it. Kaczynski then called Gelernter's brother, Joel Gelernter, a behavioral geneticist, and told him, "You are next." Geneticist Phillip Sharp at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology also received a threatening letter two years later. Kaczynski wrote a letter to "The New York Times" claiming that his "group", called FC, was responsible for the attacks. In 1994, Burson-Marsteller executive Thomas J. Mosser was killed by a mail bomb sent to his North Caldwell, New Jersey home. In another letter to "The New York Times" Kaczynski claimed that FC "blew up Thomas Mosser because [...] Burston-Marsteller helped Exxon clean up its public image after the Exxon Valdez incident" and, more importantly, because "its business is the development of techniques for manipulating people's attitudes." This was followed by the 1995 murder of Gilbert Murray, president of the timber industry lobbying group California Forestry Association, by a mail bomb addressed to previous president William Dennison, who had retired. In all, 16 bombs—which injured 23 people and killed three—were attributed to Kaczynski. While the devices varied widely through the years, all but the first few contained the initials "FC". Inside his bombs, certain parts carried the inscription "FC", which Kaczynski later asserted stood for "Freedom Club". Latent fingerprints on some of the devices did not match the fingerprints found on letters attributed to Kaczynski. As stated in the FBI affidavit: One of Kaczynski's tactics was leaving false clues in every bomb. He would make them hard to find deliberately to mislead investigators into thinking they had a clue. The first clue was a metal plate stamped with the initials "FC" hidden somewhere (usually in the pipe end cap) in every bomb. One false clue he left was a note in a bomb that did not detonate which reads "Wu—It works! I told you it would—RV". A more obvious clue was the Eugene O'Neill $1 stamps used to send his boxes. One of his bombs was sent embedded in a copy of Sloan Wilson’s novel "Ice Brothers". The FBI theorized that Kaczynski had a theme of nature, trees and wood in his crimes. He often included bits of tree branch and bark in his bombs. Targets selected included Percy Wood, Professor Leroy Wood Bearson and Thomas Mosser. Crime writer Robert Graysmith noted "In the Unabomber's case a large factor was his obsession with wood." "Industrial Society and Its Future". In 1995, Kaczynski mailed several letters, including some to his victims and others to major media outlets, outlining his goals and demanding that his 50-plus page, 35,000-word essay "Industrial Society and Its Future", abbreviated to "Unabomber Manifesto" by the FBI, be printed verbatim by a major newspaper or journal. He stated that if this demand were met, he would then end his bombing campaign. The document was a densely written manifesto that called for a worldwide revolution against the effects of modern society's "industrial-technological system". There was a great deal of controversy as to whether the document should be published. A further letter threatening to kill more people was sent, and the United States Department of Justice, along with FBI Director Louis Freeh and Attorney General Janet Reno, recommended publication out of concern for public safety and in hopes that a reader could identify the author. Bob Guccione of "Penthouse" volunteered to publish it, but Kaczynski replied that, since "Penthouse" was less "respectable" than the other publications, he would in that case "reserve the right to plant one (and only one) bomb intended to kill, after our manuscript has been published." The pamphlet was finally published by "The New York Times" and "The Washington Post" on September 19, 1995. "Penthouse" never published it. Throughout the manuscript, produced on a typewriter without the capacity for italics, Kaczynski capitalizes entire words in order to show emphasis. He always refers to himself as either "we" or "FC" (Freedom Club), though there is no evidence that he worked with others. Donald Foster, who analyzed the writing at the request of Kaczynski's defense, notes that the manuscript contains instances of irregular spelling and hyphenation, as well as other consistent linguistic idiosyncrasies (which led him to conclude that it was indeed Kaczynski who wrote it). "Industrial Society and Its Future" begins with Kaczynski's assertion that "the Industrial Revolution and its consequences have been a disaster for the human race." The first sections of the text are devoted to discussion of the psychology of various groups—primarily leftists (a group he defines, in part as "hatscience and rationality" [paragraph 18 of his manuscript)—and of the psychological consequences for individual life within the "industrial-technological system", which has robbed contemporary humans of their autonomy, diminished their rapport with nature, and forced them "to behave in ways that are increasingly remote from the natural pattern of human behavior." The later sections speculate about the future evolution of this system, arguing that it will inevitably lead to the end of human freedom, call for a "revolution against technology", and attempt to indicate how that might be accomplished. Political and social views. In his opening and closing sections, Kaczynski addresses Leftism as a movement and analyzes the psychology of leftists, arguing that they are "True Believers in Eric Hoffer's sense" who participate in a powerful social movement to compensate for their lack of personal power. He further claims that leftism as a movement is led by a particular minority of leftists whom he calls "oversocialized": He goes on to explain how the nature of leftism is determined by the psychological consequences of "oversocialization". Kaczynski "attribute the social and psychological problems of modern society to the fact that society requires people to live under conditions radically different from those under which the human race evolved and to behave in ways that conflict with the patterns of behavior that the human race developed while living under the earlier conditions." He further specifies the primary cause of a long list of social and psychological problems in modern society as the disruption of the "power process", which he defines as having four elements: Kaczynski goes on to claim that "n modern industrial society natural human drives tend to be pushed into the first and third groups, and the second group tends to consist increasingly of artificially created drives." Among these drives are "surrogate activities", activities "directed toward an artificial goal that people set up for themselves merely in order to have some goal to work toward, or let us say, merely for the sake of the 'fulfillment' that they get from pursuing the goal". He argues that these surrogate activities are not as satisfactory as the attainment of "real goals" for "many, if not most people". He claims that scientific research is a surrogate activity for scientists, and that for this reason "science marches on blindly, without regard to the real welfare of the human race or to any other standard, obedient only to the psychological needs of the scientists and of the government officials and corporation executives who provide the funds for research." Kaczynski developed his philosophical ideas early in life, and up to the moment of the bombings, carried on an extensive on-going debate with his brother David. Ted identified strongly with positivism, meaning that he strongly believed in an objective reality and that through sensory experience and analysis of this, one can obtain authentic knowledge. He was also an atheist. David, on the other hand, embraced more emotional and subjective philosophies, showing an interest in mystical, religious and emotional ideas. The two brothers did however share two beliefs: a fondness for the outdoors; David also lived in the wilderness for some time, and developed animosity toward "the system" (or state). Kaczynski, throughout most of his earlier years (the 1960s, deconstructivism, a distrust of "the system", a desire for revolution) remained "the intellectual outsider" and considered himself more important than others. Perceived control methods. As mentioned above, the result of the "disruption of the power process" is the primary cause of various maladies in society (e.g., crime, depression, etc.). Kaczynski maintains that rather than recognizing that humans currently live in "conditions that make them terribly unhappy," "the system" (i.e., industrial society) develops ways of controlling human responses to the overly stressful environment in which they find themselves. The following are current examples (according to Kaczynski) of this trend: Imagine a society that subjects people to conditions that make them terribly unhappy, then gives them the drugs to take away their unhappiness. Science fiction? It is already happening to some extent in our own society. It is well known that the rate of clinical depression had been greatly increasing in recent decades. We believe that this is due to disruption of the power process... The entertainment industry serves as an important psychological tool of the system, possibly even when it is dishing out large amounts of sex and violence. Entertainment provides modern man with an essential means of escape. While absorbed in television, videos, etc., he can forget stress, anxiety, frustration, dissatisfaction. Historical views and predictions. In the last sections of the manifesto, Kaczynski carefully defines what he means by freedom and provides an argument that it would "be hopelessly difficult [...] to reform the industrial system in such a way as to prevent it from progressively narrowing our sphere of freedom". He says that "in spite of all its technical advances relating to human behavior the system to date has not been impressively successful in controlling human beings" and predicts that "f the system succeeds in acquiring sufficient control over human behavior quickly enough, it will probably survive. Otherwise it will break down" and that "the issue will most likely be resolved within the next several decades, say 40 to 100 years." He gives various dystopian possibilities for the type of society which would evolve in the former case. He claims that revolution, unlike reform, is possible, and calls on sympathetic readers to initiate such revolution using two strategies: to "heighten the social stresses within the system so as to increase the likelihood that it will break down" and to "develop and propagate an ideology that opposes technology". He gives various tactical recommendations, including avoiding the assumption of political power, avoiding all collaboration with leftists, and supporting free trade agreements in order to bind the world economy into a more fragile, unified whole. He concludes by noting that his manifesto has "portrayed leftism in its modern form as a phenomenon peculiar to our time and as a symptom of the disruption of the power process" but that he is "not in a position to assert confidently that no such movements have existed prior to modern leftism" and says that "his is a significant question to which historians ought to give their attention." Related works and influences. As a critique of technological society, the manifesto echoed contemporary critics of technology and industrialization, such as John Zerzan, Herbert Marcuse, Fredy Perlman, Jacques Ellul (whose book "The Technological Society" was referenced in an unnamed Kaczynski essay, written in 1971), Lewis Mumford, and Neil Postman. Its idea of the "disruption of the power process" similarly echoed social critics emphasizing the lack of meaningful work as a primary cause of social problems, including Lewis Mumford, Paul Goodman, and Eric Hoffer (whom Kaczynski explicitly references). The general theme was also addressed by Aldous Huxley in his dystopian novel "Brave New World", which Kaczynski references. The ideas of "oversocialization" and "surrogate activities" recall Freud's "Civilization and Its Discontents" and his theories of rationalization and sublimation (the latter term being used three times in the manifesto, twice in quotes, to describe surrogate activities). In a "Wired" article on the dangers of technology, titled "Why The Future Doesn't Need Us", Bill Joy, cofounder of Sun Microsystems, quoted Ray Kurzweil's "The Age of Spiritual Machines", which quoted a passage by Kaczynski on types of society that might develop if human labor were entirely replaced by artificial intelligence. Joy wrote that, although Kaczynski's actions were "murderous, and, in my view, criminally insane", that, "as difficult as it is for me to acknowledge, I saw some merit in the reasoning in this single passage. I felt compelled to confront it." Anders Behring Breivik, the Norwegian self-admitted perpetrator of the July 22, 2011 bombing and massacre in Norway, published a manifesto in which large chunks of text were copied and pasted from the manifesto of Kaczynski, with certain terms substituted (e.g., replacing "leftists" with "cultural Marxists" and "multiculturalists"). Search. Before the publication of the manifesto, Theodore Kaczynski's brother, David Kaczynski, was encouraged by his wife Linda to follow up on suspicions that Ted was the Unabomber. David Kaczynski was at first dismissive, but progressively began to take the likelihood more seriously after reading the manifesto a week after it was published in September 1995. David Kaczynski browsed through old family papers and found letters dating back to the 1970s written by Ted and sent to newspapers protesting the abuses of technology and which contained phrasing similar to what was found in the Unabomber Manifesto. Prior to the publishing of the manifesto, the FBI held numerous press conferences requesting the help of the public in identifying the Unabomber. They were convinced that the bomber was from the Chicago area (where he began his bombings), had worked or had some connection in Salt Lake City, and by the 1990s was associated with the San Francisco Bay Area. This geographical information, as well as the wording in excerpts from the manifesto that were released prior to the entire manifesto being published, was what had persuaded David Kaczynski's wife, Linda, to urge her husband to read the manifesto. After the manifesto was published, the FBI received over a thousand calls a day for months in response to the offer of a $1 million reward for information leading to the identity of the Unabomber. There were also large numbers of letters mailed to the UNABOM Task Force that purported to be from the Unabomber, and thousands of suspect leads were sifted through. While the FBI was occupied with new leads, David Kaczynski first hired private investigator Susan Swanson in Chicago to investigate Ted's activities discreetly. The Kaczynski brothers had become estranged in 1990, and David had not seen Ted for ten years. David later hired Washington, D.C. attorney Tony Bisceglie to organize evidence acquired by Swanson and make contact with the FBI, given the likely difficulty in attracting the FBI's attention. He wanted to protect his brother from the danger of an FBI raid, like Ruby Ridge or the Waco Siege, since he assumed Ted would not take kindly to being contacted by the FBI and would likely react irrationally or violently. In early 1996, former FBI hostage negotiator and criminal profiler Clinton R. Van Zandt was contacted by an investigator working with Tony Bisceglie. Bisceglie asked Van Zandt to compare the manifesto to typewritten copies of handwritten letters David had received from his brother. Van Zandt's initial analysis determined that there was better than a 60 percent chance that the same person had written the letters as well as the manifesto, which had been in public circulation for half a year. Van Zandt's second analytical team determined an even higher likelihood that the letters and the manifesto were the product of the same author. He recommended that Bisceglie's client immediately contact the FBI. In February 1996, Bisceglie provided a copy of the 1971 essay written by Ted Kaczynski to the FBI. At the UNABOM Task Force headquarters in San Francisco, Supervisory Special Agent Joel Moss immediately recognized similarities in the writings. Linguistic analysis determined that the author of the essay papers and the manifesto were almost certainly the same. When combined with facts gleaned from the bombings and Kaczynski’s life, that analysis provided the basis for a search warrant. David Kaczynski had attempted to remain anonymous at the outset but he was swiftly identified, and within a few days, an FBI agent team was dispatched to interview David and his wife with their attorney in Washington, D.C. At this and subsequent meetings with the team, David provided letters written by his brother in their original envelopes, so the use of postmark dates enabled the enhancement of the timeline of Ted Kaczynski's activities being developed by the Task Force. David developed a respectful relationship with the primary Task Force behavioral analyst, Special Agent Kathleen M. Puckett, with whom he met many times in Washington, D.C., Texas, Chicago, and Schenectady, New York, over the nearly two months before the federal search warrant was served on Theodore Kaczynski's cabin. David Kaczynski had once admired and emulated his older brother, but had later decided to leave the survivalist lifestyle behind. He had received assurances from the FBI that he would remain anonymous and that his brother would not learn who had turned him in, but his identity was leaked to CBS News in early April 1996. CBS anchorman Dan Rather called FBI director Louis Freeh, who requested 24 hours before CBS broke the story on the evening news. The FBI scrambled to finish the search warrant and have it issued by a federal judge in Montana; afterwards, an internal leak investigation was conducted by the FBI, but the source of the leak was never identified. Paragraphs 204 and 205 of the FBI search and arrest warrant for Ted Kaczynski stated that "experts"—many of them academics consulted by the FBI—believed the manifesto had been written by "another individual, not Theodore Kaczynski". As stated in the affidavit, only a handful of people believed Theodore Kaczynski was the Unabomber before the search warrant revealed the cornucopia of evidence in Kaczynski's isolated cabin. The search warrant affidavit written by FBI Inspector Terry D. Turchie reflects this conflict, and is striking evidence of the opposition to Turchie and his small cadre of FBI agents that included Moss and Puckett—who were convinced Theodore Kaczynski was the Unabomber—from the rest of the UNABOM Task Force and the FBI in general: Arrest. FBI officers arrested Theodore Kaczynski on April 3, 1996, at his remote cabin outside Lincoln, Montana, where he was found in an unkempt state. Combing his cabin, the investigators found a wealth of bomb components, 40,000 handwritten journal pages that included bomb-making experiments and descriptions of the Unabomber crimes; and one live bomb, ready for mailing. They also found what appeared to be the original typed manuscript of the manifesto. By this point, the Unabomber had been the target of one of the most expensive investigations in the FBI's history. After his capture, Kaczynski was among the several individuals who had been suspected of being the unidentified Zodiac Killer. Among the links that raised suspicion were the fact that Kaczynski lived in the San Francisco Bay Area from 1967 to 1969 (the same period that most of the Zodiac's confirmed killings occurred in California), both individuals were highly intelligent with an interest in bombs and codes, and both writing letters to newspapers demanding the publication of their words with the threat of continued violence toward others if the demand was not met. However, his whereabouts could not be verified for all of the killings, and the gun and knife murders committed by the Zodiac Killer differ from Kaczynski's bombings, so he was not further pursued as a suspect. Robert Graysmith of San Francisco, author of the 1986 book "Zodiac", said the similarities are "fascinating" but undoubtedly purely coincidental. In 1996, a docudrama was produced titled "Unabomber: The True Story", featuring actors Dean Stockwell as Ben Jeffries, Robert Hays as David Kaczynski and Tobin Bell as Theodore Kaczynski. In this film a determined postal inspector was followed as he tracked down the suspect and also centered on Kaczynski's brother, who played a key role in the investigation. Court proceedings. Kaczynski's lawyers, headed by Montana federal defender Michael Donahoe, attempted to enter an insanity defense to save Kaczynski's life, but Kaczynski rejected this plea. A court-appointed psychiatrist diagnosed Kaczynski as suffering from paranoid schizophrenia, but declared him competent to stand trial. Kaczynski's family said Ted would psychologically "shut down" when pressured. In the book, "Technological Slavery", Kaczynski recalls two prison psychologists, Dr. James Watterson and Dr. Michael Morrison, who visited him almost every day for a period of four years, who told him that they saw no indication that he suffered from any such serious mental illness, and that the diagnosis of his being paranoid schizophrenic was "ridiculous" and a "political diagnosis." Dr. Morrison made remarks to him about psychologists and psychiatrists providing any desired diagnosis if they are well paid for doing so. A federal grand jury indicted Kaczynski in April 1996 on 10 counts of illegally transporting, mailing, and using bombs. He was also charged with killing Scrutton, Mosser, and Murray. Initially, the government prosecution team indicated that it would seek the death penalty for Kaczynski after it was authorized by United States Attorney General Janet Reno. David Kaczynski's attorney asked the former FBI agent who made the match between the Unabomber's manifesto and Kaczynski to ask for leniency—he was horrified to think that turning his brother in might result in his brother's death. Eventually, Kaczynski was able to avoid the death penalty by pleading guilty to all the government's charges, on January 22, 1998. Later, Kaczynski attempted to withdraw his guilty plea, arguing it was involuntary. Judge Garland Ellis Burrell Jr. denied his request. The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit upheld that decision. The early hunt for the Unabomber in the United States portrayed a perpetrator far different from the eventual suspect. The Unabomber Manifesto consistently uses "we" and "our" throughout, and at one point in 1993 investigators sought an individual whose first name was "Nathan", due to a fragment of a note found in one of the bombs. However, when the case was finally presented to the public, authorities denied that there was ever anyone other than Kaczynski involved in the crimes. Explanations were later presented as to why Kaczynski targeted some of the victims he selected. On August 10, 2006, Judge Garland Burrell Jr. ordered that personal items seized in 1996 from Kaczynski's Montana cabin should be sold at a "reasonably advertised Internet auction." Items the government considers to be bomb-making materials, such as writings that contain diagrams and "recipes" for bombs, were excluded from the sale. The auctioneer paid the cost and kept up to 10% of the sale price, and the rest of the proceeds must be applied to the $15 million in restitution that Burrell ordered Kaczynski to pay his victims. Included among Kaczynski's holdings which were auctioned are his original writings, journals, correspondences, and other documents allegedly found in his cabin (for example, a copy of Strunk & White's "The Elements of Style"). The judge ordered that all references in those documents that allude to any of his victims must be removed before they were sold. Kaczynski challenged those ordered redactions in court on First Amendment grounds, arguing that any alteration of his writings is an unconstitutional violation of his freedom of speech. The auction concluded in June, 2011, and raised over $232,000. Prison. Kaczynski is serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole as Federal Bureau of Prisons register number 04475-046 at ADX Florence, the federal Administrative Maximum Facility supermax in Florence, Colorado. When asked if he was afraid of losing his mind in prison, Kaczynski replied: Kaczynski has been an active writer in prison. The Labadie Collection, part of the University of Michigan's Special Collections Library, houses Kaczynski's correspondence from over 400 people since his arrest in April 1996, including carbon copy replies, legal documents, publications, and clippings. The names of most correspondents will be kept sealed until 2049. Kaczynski has also been battling in federal court in Northern California over the auction of his journals and other correspondence. On January 10, 2009, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in San Francisco rejected Kaczynski's arguments that the government's sale of his writings violates his freedom of expression. His writings, books, and other possessions were sold online, and the money raised was sent to several of his victims. Kaczynski's cabin was removed and stored in a warehouse in an undisclosed location. It was to be destroyed, but was eventually given to Scharlette Holdman, an investigator on Kaczynski's defense team. It is on display at the Newseum in Washington, D.C. as of July 2008. In a three-page handwritten letter to the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, Kaczynski objected to the public exhibition of the cabin, claiming it was being exhibited despite victims' objections to being publicly connected with the UNABOM case. In a letter dated October 7, 2005, Kaczynski offered to donate two rare books to the Melville J. Herskovits Library of African Studies at Northwestern University's campus in Evanston, Illinois, the location of the first two attacks. The recipient, David Easterbrook, turned the letter over to the university's archives. Northwestern rejected the offer, noting that the library already owned the volumes in English and did not desire duplicates. David Kaczynski, Theodore's brother, who turned him in to the FBI, has never received a response to the monthly letters he sends to Theodore in prison, as of 2007. In 2010, a collection of his essays and a corrected version of the Manifesto were published by Feral House, under the title "Technological Slavery". On May 24, 2012, Kaczynski submitted his current information to the Harvard University alumni association. He listed his eight life sentences as achievements, his current occupation as prisoner, and his current address as No. 04475-046, US Penitentiary—Max, P.O. Box 8500, Florence, CO 81226-8500.
592291	Raktha Kanneeru (English: "Blood Tears") is a 2003 Kannada film directed by Sadhu Kokila and starring Upendra and Ramya Krishnan in the lead roles. The film was produced by Munirathna and was simultaneously made in Kannada and Telugu. It was a remake of the 1954 Tamil film "Ratha Kanneer" starring M. R. Radha The screenplay and dilogues of the film were written by Upendra and the music was composed by Sadhu Kokila. Upon release, the film broke all opening box office records in Karnataka. It was the highest-grossing film of the year 2003. The film was followed by a semi sequel titled "Katari Veera Surasundarangi" released in 2012. Soundtrack. The music was composed by Sadhu Kokila. Reception. The Soundtrack of "Raktha Kanneeru" was one of the best selling albums of the year. Upon its audio release, a record number of audio cassettes were sold. Box Office. "Raktha Kanneeru"'s BKT distribution rights were sold at a record price of 1.6 Crore. The film went on to break many opening box office records upon release. From Bangalore alone, the film collected a share of more than 1 Crore in its first week, a record collection for Kannada cinema at that time. The film did record collections all over Karnataka and went on to become one of the highest grossing films of its time. Sequel. The film was followed by a semi sequel titled "Katari Veera Surasundarangi" released in 2012. A 3D Mythological Romantic fantasy film, it was partly a sequel to "Raktha Kanneeru". It was also the first full length 3D film in Kannada cinema. Upendra reprises his role of the highly educated rich-man turned beggar "Mohan" now in hell, where he meets his look alike gangster son (Upendra again) who is killed in a gang war. The film tells the story of how "Mohan"'s son "Upendra" falls in love with Lord Indra's daughter "Indraja" (Ramya) in Indraloka (heaven) and how he faces the challenges of Lord Brahma, Lord Yama and other Devatas of Indraloka to marry "Indraja". The film was hugely successful although not as much as its predecessor.
1573863	Layanam is a Malayalam soft porn film made in India in 1989. Produced and directed by Thulasidas, the movie was later dubbed in Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, and Hindi.
1062415	Emily Olivia Leah Blunt (born 23 February 1983) is an English actress best known for her roles in "The Devil Wears Prada" (2006), "The Young Victoria" (2009), "The Adjustment Bureau" (2011), and "Looper" (2012). She has been nominated for four Golden Globe Awards, two London Film Critics' Circle Awards, and one BAFTA Award. She won a Golden Globe Award for her work in the BBC television drama "Gideon's Daughter" (2007). Early life. Emily Blunt was born 23 February 1983 in Roehampton in South West London. She is the second of four children born to Joanna, a teacher and former actress, and barrister Oliver Simon Peter Blunt, QC, one of the highest-profile barristers in the United Kingdom, earning an estimated £1 million annually. Her siblings are Felicity, Sebastian, and Suzanna. Her grandfather was Major-General Peter Blunt, and one of her paternal uncles is Crispin Blunt, Conservative Member of Parliament for Reigate. Blunt attended Ibstock Place School and, at the age of 16, went to Hurtwood House, a private sixth-form college known for its performing arts programme. There, she was discovered by an agent. Career. Blunt made her professional debut in "The Royal Family," a play opposite Judi Dench in Sir Peter Hall's production. Hailed by critics for her performance, she was named "Best Newcomer" by The "Evening Standard." She went on to perform as Eugenie in Nicholas Wright's "Vincent in Brixton" at the National Theatre, and as Juliet in Indhu Rubasingham's production of "Romeo and Juliet" at Chichester Festival Theatre, both in 2002. In 2003, Blunt made her screen debut in the British television drama "Boudica", about the life of the ancient Celtic warrior-queen who fought the Romans. That same year, she was praised for her performance as the 16th-century queen Catherine Howard in the two-part British television drama "Henry VIII". In 2004, Blunt delivered her breakout performance as Tamsin in the dark British film, "My Summer of Love", a story of deception and lesbian love in the English countryside. She shared an Evening Standard British Film Award for Most Promising Newcomer with co-star Natalie Press. In 2005, Blunt co-starred with Bill Nighy and Miranda Richardson in the British television drama "Gideon's Daughter", an original screenplay written and directed by Stephen Poliakoff, in which she played the troubled only child of New Labour spin doctor Gideon Warner, played by Nighy. Blunt won a Golden Globe for her performance. In 2006, Blunt appeared opposite Meryl Streep and Anne Hathaway in the box-office success "The Devil Wears Prada". Streep and Hathaway received most of the critical attention initially, but Blunt proved to be equally memorable, with "Entertainment Weekly" naming her the Best Female Scene-Stealer in their end-of-summer special issue. She appeared at the 79th Academy Awards where she co-presented the award for best costume design with her "Prada" co-star Hathaway. Blunt spoke about the weight loss, claiming she had to go "painfully thin". That same year, Blunt co-starred with Susan Sarandon in the independent drama "Irresistible". Following production, Sarandon strongly suggested to director David Auburn that he cast Blunt in his next film, "The Girl in the Park"— a role she did not accept. In 2007, Blunt appeared in four films: "Wind Chill", "The Jane Austen Book Club", "Dan in Real Life", and "Charlie Wilson's War". In 2008, Blunt appeared in two films, "Sunshine Cleaning" in the role of Norah Lorkowski, and "The Great Buck Howard" as Valerie Brennan. In 2009, Blunt played Queen Victoria in "The Young Victoria", directed by Jean-Marc Vallée and written by Julian Fellowes. She also starred in the Toby Spanton-directed short film "Curiosity". She was director Jon Favreau's first choice to play the Black Widow in "Iron Man 2" but scheduling conflicts with "Gulliver's Travels" forced her to cede the role to Scarlett Johansson. She voiced Angelina's mother, Matilda Mouseling, in the television series, "". In 2010, Blunt co-starred with Benicio del Toro and Anthony Hopkins in the big-budget movie "The Wolfman", which was released on 12 February. She also starred in "Gulliver's Travels" and in "The Adjustment Bureau", alongside Matt Damon, as a ballet dancer "being mysteriously kept apart" from Damon's character. Blunt was offered the female lead in "" but turned it down. She was replaced by Australian actress Abbie Cornish to play the lead in David Riker's independent film "The Girl". She dropped out the film due to scheduling conflicts. In 2011, Blunt was named the ambassadress of the new Yves Saint Laurent fragrance, Opium. Blunt starred in the 2011 British comedy film "Salmon Fishing in the Yemen", directed by Lasse Hallström and co-starring Ewan McGregor and Kristin Scott Thomas. Also that year, she briefly appeared in "The Muppets", as Miss Piggy's receptionist. She starred in the 2012 film "The Five-Year Engagement", directed by Nicholas Stoller and co-starring Jason Segel. In January 2011, Blunt began filming an American science-fiction film, "Looper", directed by Rian Johnson and co-starring Bruce Willis and Joseph Gordon-Levitt; the film was released in September 2012. In 2013, she is set to star alongside Tom Cruise in the film adaptation of the Japanese novel, "All You Need Is Kill" by Hiroshi Sakurazaka. She is scheduled to star in "Arthur Newman, Golf Pro" with Colin Firth. Blunt will play the Baker's Wife in the film adaptation of the musical, "Into the Woods", which also feature her "Devil Wears Prada" co-star Meryl Streep as the Witch. Personal life. Blunt had a three-year relationship with Canadian singer Michael Bublé. They met in 2005, while backstage at the Australian television Logie Awards in Melbourne. They later shared a home in Vancouver, Canada, before breaking up in 2008. In November 2008, Blunt began dating American actor John Krasinski. The couple became engaged in August 2009, and married on 10 July 2010 in Como, Italy. In September 2013, it was announced that Blunt and Krasinski are expecting their first child. Blunt's brother-in-law is her "The Devil Wears Prada" co-star Stanley Tucci. In 2012, Tucci married Blunt's sister Felicity, who works as a literary agent. Blunt was responsible for introducing the couple. Her brother Sebastian is an actor. As a child, approximately from ages 7 to 14, Blunt struggled with stuttering. She credits a school teacher for helping her overcome the stutter through acting. She now sits on the Board of Directors for the American Institute for Stuttering. Blunt has been diagnosed with obsessive-compulsive disorder.
1015833	Overheard 2 is a 2011 Hong Kong crime thriller film produced by Derek Yee, written and directed by Alan Mak and Felix Chong and starring Louis Koo, Lau Ching Wan and Daniel Wu. It is a sequel to the 2009 film "Overheard" where Koo, Lau and Wu play different roles with a different storyline, but the key elements of the first film are kept. Production started in February and filming lasted for three months. A press conference was held during the 2011 Shanghai International Film Festival on 10 June. The film was released on 18 August in China, Hong Kong, and Singapore.
1165684	Ken Curtis (July 2, 1916 – April 28, 1991) was an American singer and actor best known for his role as Festus Haggen on the long-running CBS western television series "Gunsmoke". Biography. Early years. Though born as Curtis Wain Gates in Lamar in Prowers County in southeastern Colorado, Curtis was reared west of there in Las Animas, the seat of Bent County. His father, Dan Gates, was the Bent County sheriff. The family lived above the jail and his mother, Nellie Sneed Gates, cooked for the prisoners. The jail is now located for historical preservation purposes on the grounds of the Bent County courthouse in Las Animas. Curtis played quarterback for his high school football team.
582981	Naajayaz(Illegitimate) is a 1995 Indian Hindi drama film. It was also a blockbuster in 1995 and Ajay Devgan was nominated for best actor at Filmfare for his role in this film. Plot. Inspector Jai (Ajay Devgan) is an upright & fearless cop who is given the job to take down the criminal empire of Raj Solanki (Naseeruddin Shah). Jai & his accompolice Inspector Sandhya (Juhi Chawla), who also happens to be his ladylove, start taking down Raj's empire with a gusto. But Raj's cronies & benefactors are not the only ones to be upset by this. On other hand, Raj has problems of his own. He does not want his son (Deepak Tijori) to turn a criminal like him. On the other hand, Raj is also aware of discontent of his minion (Gulshan Grover), who wants to start many criminal activities which even Raj won't do. Raj tries to stop Jai without applying pressure or brutality, only to meet Jai's mother (Reema Lagoo) & realize that Jai is his illegitimate son. Now Raj finds himself in a real tight spot. Jai's mother too does not like Jai trying to take down Raj, but Jai is determined. After some time, even Jai comes to know about his relationship with Raj, but keeps continuing his job nonetheless. Raj's legitimate son & his minion try to take down Jai individually, without knowing the secret. How the story ends forms the plot of this film. Songs. The biggest hit from the film was the timeless song "Barsat Ke Mausam Mein" composed by Anu Malik and sung by Kumar Sanu and Roop Kumar Rathod. The song is one of the most popularly used song all over India by people in parties while drinking. The soul of the song comes from the deep voices of both the singers and wonderful expressions given by Nasiruddin Shah in the video of the song. Also the poetic depth in the song is excellent.
292317	Alia Sabur (born February 22, 1989 in New York City, New York) is an American materials scientist. She holds the record for being the world's youngest professor. Early life and education. Sabur's mother, Julie Sabur (née Kessler), worked as a reporter for News12 Long Island until 1995. She married Mohammed Sabur, a Pakistani native, in 1980. Alia, born on February 22, 1989, showed early signs of giftedness. She tested "off the IQ scale," according to an educator who tested her as a first-grader. As a fourth-grader, she left public school and was admitted to State University of New York at Stony Brook at the age of 10, later graduating "summa cum laude" at 14. She also received a black belt in Tae Kwon Do at the age of 9. After Stony Brook, Sabur attended Drexel University where she received her M.S. in 2006.
1064175	Nicholas David Rowland "Nick" Cassavetes (; born May 21, 1959) is an American film actor, screenwriter, and filmmaker. Early life and career. Cassavetes was born in New York City, the son of actress Gena Rowlands and Greek-American actor and film director John Cassavetes. As a child, he appeared in two of his father's films: "Husbands" (1970) and "A Woman Under the Influence" (1974). After spending so much of his youth surrounded by the film industry, Cassavetes initially decided he did not want to go into the field. He instead attended Syracuse University on a basketball scholarship. His athletic career was effectively ended by an injury, and he decided to rethink his aspirations, ultimately deciding to attend his parents' alma mater, the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York. He has appeared in the films "Face/Off", "The Wraith", "Life", "", "Backstreet Dreams" and "The Astronaut's Wife", among others. He has directed several films, including "John Q", "Alpha Dog", "She's So Lovely", "Unhook the Stars", "The Notebook", and "My Sister's Keeper". He also adapted the screenplay for "Blow" and wrote the dialogue for the Justin Timberlake music video "What Goes Around... Comes Around". Cassavetes came in fifth in the World Poker Tour Invitational Season 5 attempting a bluff. He also appeared on season 5 of The Game Show Network's (GSN) "High Stakes Poker". He also has played himself in the season 7 opener of Entourage on HBO. Cassavetes made a cameo appearance in "" after actor Liam Neeson was dropped from the cast due to scheduling conflicts. Personal life. In 1985, Cassavetes married Isabelle Rafalovich. They had two daughters together, Virginia Sara (born 1986) and Sasha (born 1988), before divorcing. He then married Heather "Queenie" Wahlquist, who has appeared in several of his films, including a small role in the 2004 film adaptation of "The Notebook" as Sara, a secondary character and best friend to the female lead Allie Hamilton, portrayed by Rachel McAdams. The movie is effectively a family project, as Cassavetes' own mother, Gena Rowlands, appears as the older, married Allie (Hamilton) Calhoun. Cassavetes was named as one of the Top 500 Tax Delinquents by the State of California in April 2012. He was cited as owing close to $250,000 in back taxes. On July 2012 he caused some controversy when he defended incest and linked it to gay marriage.
1063136	Donald Henry Pleasence, OBE (5 October 1919 – 2 February 1995) was an English film, television, and stage actor. His most notable film roles include psychiatrist Dr. Sam Loomis in the "Halloween" series, the villain Ernst Stavro Blofeld in the James Bond film "You Only Live Twice", and RAF Flight Lieutenant Colin Blythe in "The Great Escape". Early life. Pleasence was born in Worksop, Nottinghamshire, England, the son of Alice (née Armitage) and Thomas Stanley Pleasence, a railway stationmaster. He was brought up as a strict Methodist, and raised in the small village of Grimoldby, Lincolnshire. Pleasence attended Ecclesfield Grammar School, in Sheffield, Yorkshire, and subsequently dropped out to work as a railway clerk, while looking for a job as an actor. During the Second World War Pleasence was initially a conscientious objector, but later changed his stance and was commissioned into the Royal Air Force, serving with 166 Squadron, RAF Bomber Command. His Avro Lancaster was shot down on 31 August 1944, during a raid on Agenville. He was taken prisoner and placed in a German prisoner-of-war camp, where he produced and acted in plays. He would later play Flight Lieutenant Colin Blythe in "The Great Escape" where much of the story takes place inside a German POW camp. Career. Stage. In 1939 Pleasence started working in repertory theatre as an assistant stage manager with Jersey Repertory, making his acting debut with the company as Hareton in "Wuthering Heights". He subsequently worked in repertory theatre in Birmingham and Bristol before making his London stage debut as Valentine in "Twelfth Night" in 1942. In the 1950s Pleasence's stage work included performing as Willie Mossop in a 1952 production of "Hobson's Choice" at the Arts Theatre and as Dauphin in Jean Anouilh's "The Lark" (1956). In 1960 Pleasence won acclaim as the tramp in Harold Pinter's "The Caretaker" at the Arts Theatre, a part he would again play in a 1990 revival. Other stage work in the 1960s included Anouilh's "Poor Bitos" (1967) and Robert Shaw's "The Man in The Glass Booth" (1967), for which he won the London Variety Award for Stage Actor of the Year in 1968. Pleasence's later stage work included performing in a double bill of Pinter plays, "The Basement" and "Tea Party", at the Duchess Theatre in 1970. Television. Pleasence made his television debut in "I Want to Be A Doctor" in 1946. In 1954 he received critical acclaim as Syme in a BBC adaptation of George Orwell's novel "Nineteen Eighty-Four". The adaptation was by Nigel Kneale and also starred Peter Cushing, another British actor who would go on to find fame in many horror-film roles. Pleasence played Prince John in several episodes of the ITV series "The Adventures of Robin Hood" (1956–1958). He appeared twice with Patrick McGoohan in the British spy series, "Danger Man", in episodes "Position of Trust" (1960) and "Find and Return" (1961). Pleasence's first appearance in America was in an episode of "The Twilight Zone", playing an aging (and suicidal) teacher at a boys' school in the episode "The Changing of the Guard" (1962). In 1963, he appeared in an episode of "The Outer Limits" entitled "The Man With the Power". He hosted the 1981 Halloween episode of "Saturday Night Live" with music guest Fear (which, because of Fear's raucous performance and the ultra-dark humour of the sketches, has never been re-transmitted on television since its original airing). In 1973 Pleasence played the murderer in an episode of "Columbo" entitled "Any Old Port in a Storm". He also had the distinction of playing a culprit captured by "Mrs. Columbo" in "Murder is a Parlour Game" (1979). In 1978, he played a Union general in James A. Michener's "Centennial". Pleasence starred as the Reverend Septimus Harding in the BBC's 1982 TV series "The Barchester Chronicles". In 1986, Pleasence joined Ronald Lacey and Polly Jo Pleasence for the television thriller 'Into The Darkness', filmed in Manchester and Malta by David Kent-Watson for his Ice International Films. Co-stars Brett Paul and John Ryan, and the supporting cast of models and actresses found Donald to be a most supportive actor and the most jovial and delightful company off-set. The film has been renamed 'Poisoned Minds' for its re-release. Cinema. Pleasence made his big-screen debut with "The Beachcomber" (1954). Some notable early roles include Parsons in "1984" (1956), his second Orwell film, and minor roles opposite Alec Guinness in "Barnacle Bill" (1957) and Dirk Bogarde in "The Wind Cannot Read" (1958). In Tony Richardson's film of "Look Back in Anger" (1959) he plays a vindictive market inspector opposite Richard Burton. Equipped with a shiny bald head and a quiet but intense voice to go with his trademark penetrating gaze, he specialised in portraying insane or evil characters, including the violent alcoholic Doc Tydon in "Wake in Fright" (1971), the mad Doctor in the Bud Spencer–Terence Hill film "Watch Out, We're Mad" (1974), Heinrich Himmler in "The Eagle Has Landed" (1976), and the Bond arch-villain Ernst Stavro Blofeld in "You Only Live Twice" (1967), the first film in which the villain's face is clearly seen. His interpretation of the character has become predominate in popular culture considering the popularity of the comic villain, Dr. Evil in the successful "Austin Powers" film series, which primarily parodies it. In the crime drama "Hell is a City" (1960) he starred opposite Stanley Baker. The film was shot on location in Manchester. Perhaps his most sympathetic screen role was as the tragic POW forger Colin Blythe in the 1963 film "The Great Escape", who discovers that he is slowly going blind, but nonetheless participates in the mass break-out, only to be shot down by German soldiers because he is unable to see them. In "The Night of the Generals" (1967), he played another uncharacteristically sympathetic role, this time as an old-school German general involved in a plot to kill Adolf Hitler. In 1971, he returned to the realm of the deranged, delivering a "tour de force" performance in the role of an alcoholic Australian doctor in Ted Kotcheff's nightmarish outback drama "Wake in Fright". Pleasence played Lucifer in the religious epic "The Greatest Story Ever Told" (1965). His character taking on many dark, shadowy human disguises throughout the film was unprecedented in breathing life into the Luke 4:13 phrase "... he left Him until an opportune time ..." He was one of many stars who were given cameos throughout the film. Perhaps his most bizarre and powerful film role occurred in Roman Polanski's "Cul-de-sac" (1966), in which he portrayed the love-sodden husband of a much younger French wife (Françoise Dorléac). In 1968, he ventured successfully into American cowboy territory, playing a sadistic self-styled preacher who goes after stoic Charlton Heston in the Western "Will Penny". In his later years, he became best known to a younger generation of cinema-goers as Dr. Loomis in "Halloween" (1978), Dr. Kobras in The Pumaman (1980) and the President in Escape from New York. The distinctive, rather sinister accent which Pleasence employed in this and other films may be credited to the elocution lessons that he had as a child. He reprised his role as Dr. Loomis in "Halloween II" (1981), ' (1988), ' (1989) and "" (1995). Pleasence's acting hero was Sir Laurence Olivier, with whom he worked on-stage in the 1950s, and later on the 1979 film version of "Dracula". Two years earlier, Pleasence did an amusingly broad impersonation of Olivier in the guise of a horror-film actor called "Valentine De'ath" in the film "The Uncanny". Spoken records and voiceovers. During the early 1960s, Pleasence recorded several children's-story records on the Atlas Record label. These were marketed as the Talespinners series in the UK. They were also released in the United States as Tale Spinners For Children by United Artists. The stories included "Don Quixote" and the "Brave Little Tailor". Pleasence provided the voice-over for the British Public Information Film, "The Spirit of Dark and Lonely Water" in 1973. The film, intended to warn children of the dangers of playing near water, attained notoriety for allegedly giving children nightmares. Books. Pleasence was the author of the 1977 children's book "Scouse the Mouse" (London: New English Library), which was animated by Canadian animator/film director Gerald Potterton (a friend of the actor, who directed him in the 1973 Canadian film "The Rainbow Boys", retitled "The Rainbow Gang" for VHS release in the United States) and also adapted into a children's recording (Polydor Records, 1977) with Ringo Starr voicing the book's title character, Scouse the Mouse. In his book British Film Character Actors (1982), Terence Pettigrew described him as 'a potent combination of eyes and voice. The eyes are mournful but they can also be sinister or seedy or just plain nutty. He has the kind of piercing stare which lifts enamel off saucepans.' Awards. Pleasence was nominated four times for the Tony Award for best performance by a leading actor in a Broadway play: in 1962 for Harold Pinter's "The Caretaker", in 1965 for Jean Anouilh's "Poor Bitos", in 1969 for Robert Shaw's "The Man in the Glass Booth", and in 1972 for Simon Gray's "Wise Child". Pleasence was appointed an Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire for his services to the acting profession by Queen Elizabeth II in 1994. Personal life. Pleasence married four times and had five daughters from his first three marriages. He had Angela and Jean with Miriam Raymond (m. 1947–1958); Lucy and Polly with Josephine Martin Crombie (m. 1959–1970); and Miranda with Meira Shore (m. 1970–1988). His last marriage to Linda Kentwood (m. 1988–1995; his death) produced no children. Death. In 1995, Pleasence died at the age of 75 in Saint-Paul-de-Vence, France, from complications of heart failure following heart valve replacement surgery. His body was cremated with no known grave. Legacy. ' and ', were both dedicated to the memory of Pleasence, the latter of which he did not appear in. Dr. Evil, the character played by Mike Myers in the Austin Powers comedy films (1997–2002), is a parody of Pleasence's performance as Blofeld in "You Only Live Twice". Donald's grandson from his daughter of second wife Josephine has gone on to be a successful music video director in the UK. Jak O'Hare also known as Jak FrSH, working with Tinie Tempah, Wretch 32, Fazer and Tinchy Stryder. Directing a commercial for Vauxhall Motors "Conductivity".
142167	Kyle Richard Gass (born July 14, 1960), also known as KG or Kage, is an American rock musician, singer-songwriter and actor. He is a member of the bands Tenacious D and Trainwreck, which split up in 2011. In Tenacious D (which also features Jack Black), Gass plays lead guitar and sings backup vocals, and also plays the role of Black's comic foil in most of their comedy routines. He is the godfather of Jack Black's son. Early life. Kyle Gass was born in Castro Valley, California. Much like his musical career, Gass' acting career also started at a young age. His first gig was for a 7-Up advertisement. Later in his career he met actor Tim Robbins, who recruited him into the Actor's Gang. Gass soon graduated from UCLA. In 1986, a 16-year-old Jack Black was one of the new recruits in the Actor's Gang, and the two were introduced. According to Gass, he actually did not like Black at first, but the duo eventually settled their differences and soon became best friends. Gass taught Black how to play guitar, and the two soon formed the band Tenacious D. Career. Gass was featured in several episodes of the television show "Fear of a Punk Planet", which has since been released on DVD. He has also made an appearance as a lawyer in the Good Charlotte video for "Lifestyles of the Rich And Famous". Along with Black, Gass made a comedic appearance as a hapless airplane mechanic in the Foo Fighters' 1999 video "Learn to Fly." Gass appeared in the comedy "Elf" as an inept author of children's books. Gass also made a cameo appearance with Michael Richards in the "Seinfeld" episode, "The Abstinence". Gass has had small parts in many of Black's films ("Year One", "Kung Fu Panda", "Shallow Hal", "Saving Silverman", "The Cable Guy", etc.). He has also appeared in "Jacob's Ladder" with Tim Robbins. Gass also appeared in season 9 of "Friends" as a mugger, as the porn director in the 2008 teen film "Extreme Movie", Walrus Boy in "Wieners", and as the dirty trucker in the men's room in the 2008 film "Sex Drive". He starred in the movie "Tenacious D in the Pick of Destiny", alongside Jack Black. In October 2008, Gass appeared as the character Decatur Doublewide in the film "Lower Learning". Gass had a cameo role as a singing karaoke cowboy in the 2007 movie "Wild Hogs". He auditioned for a role as a demon in the pilot episode of "Reaper," directed by Kevin Smith, but wasn't hired, to Smith's disappointment. He also appeared in the 22nd episode of 2nd season of 2 Broke Girls as the special effects guy (Also known as 'Cookie Guy'). While appearing on "Late Night with Conan O'Brien" on November 15, 2006, Gass claimed to have been the youngest graduate of the Juilliard School of Music with a degree in classical guitar studies at the age of 13. It should be pointed out that Juilliard did not have a guitar program in 1973, but began its graduate level guitar program in 1989 under Sharon Isbin, and its undergraduate program in 2007. Earlier, in an article in the "Sunday Times" on October 29, 2006, Black stated that Gass was the youngest graduate of Juilliard. On May 13, 2008, Gass was a phone in guest on the "Adam Carolla Show". When Adam Carolla asked him "... And did you go to Juilliard?" Kyle replied "I didn't. I—you know, I made that up as a joke," he continued "and I thought it would be hilarious, and then I've been hearing about it ever since. Apologies to Juilliard." Gass is featured as a minor character in the 2009 video game "Brütal Legend" (of which Jack Black plays the lead role), in which he portrays Kage the Kannonier, a self-pitying giant in charge of a mortar cannon. Gass is also currently starring in a web show entitled "Guitarings" with John Konesky.
1084305	Muscle Beach Party (1964) is the second of seven beach party films produced by American International Pictures. It stars Frankie Avalon and Annette Funicello and was directed by William Asher, who also directed four other films in this series.
1041448	Lancelot and Guinevere (known as Sword of Lancelot in the U.S.) is a British 1963 film starring Cornel Wilde, his real-life wife at the time, Jean Wallace, and Brian Aherne. This lesser-known version of the Camelot legend is a work almost solely made by Cornel Wilde, who co-produced, directed, co-wrote, and played Lancelot.
1062365	Mrs. Doubtfire is a 1993 American comedy film starring Robin Williams (who also served as co-producer) and Sally Field and based on the novel "Alias Madame Doubtfire" by Anne Fine. It was directed by Chris Columbus and distributed by 20th Century Fox. It won the Academy Award for Best Makeup. The film was placed 67th in the American Film Institute's "100 Years, 100 Laughs: America's Funniest Movies", a list of the 100 funniest movies of the 20th century, and was also rated 40 on Bravo's "100 Funniest Movies of All Time". The original music score was composed by Howard Shore. Plot. Daniel Hillard is a voice actor living in California, who recently quit a project, because he wouldn't endorse a character who smokes. He is a good father to his three children Natalie, Lydia and Christopher. However, Daniel is not a very responsible husband, and when he throws a rousing birthday party for Chris, his wife Miranda takes it as a sign Daniel is too immature and seeks a divorce. At their first custody hearing, the judge grants Miranda custody of the children, since Daniel has neither a suitable residence nor a steady job. Daniel soon learns that Miranda intends to hire a housekeeper to care for the children. Since she is not willing to let him watch the kids, Daniel surreptitiously alters her classifieds form and calls her several times, using his voice acting to trick her into thinking that many lousy job applicants are calling. He then calls her as an elderly British nanny, who he dubs "Mrs. Euphegenia Doubtfire." Impressed with her alleged qualifications, Miranda invites "Mrs. Doubtfire" for an interview. Daniel enlists his brother Frank, a makeup artist, and Frank's partner Jack to transform him into the character that is Mrs. Doubtfire. After being further impressed by the interview, Miranda hires Mrs. Doubtfire. The children initially struggle to adjust to Mrs. Doubtfire's strict methods, while Miranda quickly befriends "her". Daniel, who had to learn several skills, improves himself and his apartment as well. One day Chris and Lydia learn that Mrs. Doubtfire is their father in disguise, but Daniel tells them that he wears the costume so he can see them every day. Daniel warns them not to tell Miranda, because she could have him arrested for violating the court's ruling and she may take them away from him for good. Daniel also asks that they not tell Natalie, because she's too young to understand and may accidentally reveal the truth. Glad that he is back with them, both agree to keep it secret from Miranda and Natalie. Daniel also has a job at a TV station. CEO Jonathan Lundy sees Daniel clowning around with toy dinosaurs on the set of an outdated children's program that is on the cusp of cancellation. Impressed with Daniel's ingenuity, Lundy invites him to dinner in order for Daniel to pitch ideas as the new host. Miranda, meanwhile, invites Mrs. Doubtfire to a birthday dinner arranged by romantic interest Stuart Dunmire scheduled at the same time and place. Unable to reschedule either appointment, Daniel goes to the restaurant and tries to rotate between both dinners, changing in and out of the Mrs. Doubtfire costume in the restroom. He consumes several alcoholic beverages between the two tables and becomes tipsy. He forgets to change out of the Mrs. Doubtfire costume before returning to Lundy's table and dumps pepper (an ingredient Stuart is allergic to) on Stuart's order. When Lundy questions the costume, Daniel covers for his mistake by explaining that his alter ego is his idea for a new television persona. Impressed, Lundy agrees that is a good character. At Miranda's table, Stuart starts choking on the pepper. Out of regret, Daniel, still in the Mrs. Doubtfire costume, administers the Heimlich maneuver on Stuart. During the struggle, Daniel's mask peels off, revealing his identity. Horrified and furious, Miranda storms out of the restaurant with the children. At their next custody hearing, despite Daniel demonstrating he has a job and a suitable home, the judge is disturbed by Daniel's "unorthodox" behavior, and grants Miranda full custody of the children, with Daniel limited to supervised visitation once a week and he suggests Daniel undergo psychological therapy. This sentence leaves Daniel heartbroken. Without Mrs. Doubtfire, the children again are withdrawn and depressed, and Miranda admits that their lives were so much better with "her." However, they are delighted when they see Daniel dressed as Mrs. Doubtfire hosting his own television program, "Euphegenia's House", which becomes a hit and looks like it will be aired on networks throughout American cities. Miranda pays a visit to Daniel after he wraps up one episode. Congratulating him on his success, she admits the kids were happier with him involved. The two of them make amends and Miranda appeals the custody ruling, allowing Daniel to now see his children whenever he pleases. Later, the kids are greeted by Daniel, now undisguised and without supervision, who takes them out for the day. Miranda watches a Euphegenia's House episode where Mrs. Doubtfire answers a letter from a little girl whose parents are divorcing, which is answered by saying no matter what living arrangements families have; love will prevail. Production. Filming. Chicago was the studio's first choice for filming. However, two new television shows ("ER" and "Chicago Hope") had a lease with the city around the same time period, and the production team eventually went with San Francisco. Various locations in San Francisco were used for filming. Parts were shot at the studios of television station KTVU in Oakland. The street signs for the intersection near the "Painted Lady" home, Steiner and Broadway, were visible on-screen. The exact address, 2640 Steiner Street , became a tourist attraction for some time after the film's release. Though the film's home exteriors were impressive, its interiors were all shot in a warehouse in the Bay area that was turned into a soundstage. Robin Williams' divorced father character 'Daniel' lived upstairs from Danilo Bakery at 516 Green St., and his children attended a school at Filbert and Taylor. The restaurant scene was filmed in an actual upscale restaurant, Bridges Restaurant & Bar, in downtown Danville, California, which is still in operation as of . Music. The score was composed, orchestrated, and conducted by Howard Shore. The song Robin Williams sings at the cartoon voiceover in the beginning is "Largo al factotum". Other songs featured often were chosen referencing the identity of Mrs. Doubtfire. These songs include: Additionally, these songs were featured: Reaction. Box office. The film was a huge box office success. It earned $219,195,243 in the United States, along with $222,090,952 in other countries, for a worldwide total of $441,286,195. It became the second highest grossing film of 1993, behind only "Jurassic Park". Critical reception. The movie received mixed to positive reviews. At the time of its release, several critics compared "Mrs. Doubtfire" unfavorably with "Some Like It Hot" (1959), and others who viewed the movie favorably noted its similarity to "Tootsie" (1982). "Mrs. Doubtfire" has a "Fresh" rating of 70% with an average score of 5.8 out of 10 on Rotten Tomatoes. On Metacritic, the film holds a score of 53/100, indicating "mixed or average" reviews.
1065653	Lords of Dogtown is a 2005 biographical film directed by Catherine Hardwicke and written by Stacy Peralta. The film is based on the story of "The Z-Boys", an influential group of skateboarders who revolutionized the sport. The movie is dedicated to the memory of comedian Mitch Hedberg, who appears in the movie but died before the film was released. The film has a close relationship with "Thrashin"', the 1986 original skateboarding cult classic, directed by David Winters, where Catherine Hardwicke began her career in motion pictures as a production designer and had a chance to work with many famous skaters including Tony Alva, Tony Hawk, Christian Hosoi and Steve Caballero. This is also the first and so far the only film distributed by Columbia Pictures and TriStar Pictures (both owned by Sony). Plot. Set in the Dogtown area of Santa Monica in the early 1970s during the Cold War, surfers Tony Alva, Stacy Peralta, and Jay Adams enjoy the life of skating and surfing the pier with board designer Skip Engblom and the other locals. One day, Skip is given polyurethane wheels for the skateboards in his shop, Zephyr Skate Shop. Teenager Sid, a friend of the boys who works in the same shop, invites Tony, Jay, Stacy and the other locals to test the new wheels. They are all amazed as the polyurethane wheels allow the skateboards to make the same carves on flat ground as surf boards on the waves. After witnessing what Todd Levy from the Eastern Shore of Maryland could now do with the wheels, Skip decides to add to his already famous surf team, a skate team, the Z-Boys. The team proves to be a success; winning many contests, Stacy, Jay, and Tony gain popularity from locals across Venice. A period of hot weather reduces the surf at the pier and the official declaration of a drought means swimming pools cannot be filled with water. Taking advantage of this the Z-Boys start sneaking into local backyard pools to skate in, ignoring Skip's practice sessions, which angers him. After winning many major contests, the Z-Boys become more and more famous, appearing in various magazines. Stacy, Jay, and Tony start getting noticed by major skating companies looking to take the boys from Skip. One night, Skip throws a party at his shop to celebrate the success of the team. A company owner, Topper Burks, enters the party and convinces Tony that Skip is holding him back, and that it's time to make him famous world wide. Tony accepts his offer and leaves the team. Jay leaves the team as well, looking to make more money to help his mom pay the rent on their apartment. Despite Skip's desperate offers to keep him on the team, Stacy is the last to leave, as he begins getting offers to skate as well as to appear in T.V. Sad and angry, Skip decides to shut down the Zephyr Skate Team. The three boys become major celebrities. Tony and Stacy now skate for money rather than the passion that Jay continues to skate for. They become enemies of some sort and compete against each other in various contests. Stacy appears on the original Charlie's Angels show while Tony starts creating his own commercials to manufacture his popular boards and merchandise. Jay is offered $10,000 to appear in a commercial sponsoring the toy, Slinky. However, he refuses, as he has become a much harder person than before. Before long, things start going out of control; at a major skating championship that they all take part in, Tony gets into a fight with another skater in the middle of the stadium, and gets violently knocked out, hospitalizing him and temporarily halting his career. Jay leaves the company he had endorsed when they sacrifice quality for cheap materials. Stacy ends up winning the competition. Back in Venice, the pier that the Z-Boys use to surf around burns down, which affects them all. Jay shaves his hair and becomes a gang member. Skip, still selling surfboards in his shop, finally decides to settle down and continues his passion of sanding and creating surfboards, as well as solving his financial troubles by selling his shop and is seen singing "Maggie May". Sid's long-time equilibrium problem turns out to be caused by a brain tumor, and he undergoes surgery. Though Stacy, Tony, and Jay have all gone their separate ways, they all show up at the same time to visit Sid. Stacy reveals that he is leaving his company to start his own. Sid's father empties their pool for them to skate in. Stacy, Tony, and Jay skate the pool and bring Sid into the fun on his wheel chair, referencing all the good times they had before they became a skate team. Closing cards reveal that Tony Alva went on to be a very successful skater and skating's first world champion (stating that he still sneaks into backyard pools); Stacy Peralta started Powell Peralta, a modern popular skating company that included a 14-year-old Tony Hawk as part of its team; and Jay, too, achieved the only kind of success at skating and surfing he really cared about, becoming known as the 'spark that started the flame'. Sid later died of brain cancer. His father's pool was kept empty and is known as the DogBowl. Release. "Lords of Dogtown" was the first film to be released by both Columbia Pictures and TriStar Pictures which are both trademarked by Sony Pictures Entertainment, and are sometimes referred to as Columbia TriStar Pictures. The film was originally to be released by 20th Century Fox; however, it was eventually sent to Sony instead. Reception. Ledger's portrayal of Skip Engblom was applauded for its realism and is considered one of the film's principal highlights. Joe Donnoly, who knew Engblom, was impressed by Ledger's attention to detail, saying, "He's almost eerie in how precisely he nailed not only the mannerisms, cadence and physical presence of Skip... but also how he raises Skip's spirit, which is the heart and soul and most what's really great in a not-altogether-great film." Luke Davies of "The Monthly" concedes how flamboyant the character is, but says the film is saved by Ledger's emotional depth: "The performance constantly sails close to hammy – Engblom was, by all accounts, a flamboyant character – but is pulled back, the wildness offset by a surprising depth of sadness. As in a number of Ledger roles, a kind of animal wisdom and melancholy exists side-by-side with gangly comedy." A.O. Scott of "The New York Times" also highlighted Ledger's performances, stating, "Skip is always volatile, frequently drunk and consistently the most entertaining figure in the movie". He also praised the movie as a whole, stating, ""Lords of Dogtown" from start to finish is pretty much a blast". "Lords of Dogtown" currently holds a 55% "Rotten" rating on the film review site Rotten Tomatoes and the consensus stating that ""Lords of Dogtown", while slickly made and edited, lacks the depth and entertaining value of the far superior documentary on the same subject, "Dogtown and Z-Boys"." Awards and recognition. The Central Ohio Film Critics Association named Heath Ledger "Actor of the Year" for this film. Soundtrack. The film's soundtrack features songs by Sparklehorse (covering Pink Floyd's "Wish You Were Here"), Deep Purple, Black Sabbath, Cher, David Bowie, Neil Young, T.Rex, Jimi Hendrix, and Iggy Pop among others, as well as a cover of The Clash's "Death or Glory" by Social Distortion.
629654	Michael "Mick" Molloy (born 11 July 1966 in Canberra) is an Australian comedian, writer, producer and actor who has been active in the fields of radio, television, stand-up and film. He is on the Triple M Melbourne's breakfast show "The Hot Breakfast" and Network Ten's AFL program "Before the Game". Biography. Early years. Molloy grew up in the Australian Capital Territory (ACT) before moving to Melbourne in the mid-1980s to study performing arts at the University of Melbourne, where he wrote and performed in his first live act in 1987. He attended The Peninsula School during his secondary/high school period. It was during Molloy's time at university that he met the Australian comedy troupe, The D-Generation (the future cast of "The Late Show"), that consisted of members who would later form Working Dog Productions; Molloy would also collaborate with members on several projects. Television. Molloy worked with the D-Generation as a writer-performer on their 1988 Seven Network specials (he had auditioned for the D-Gen in 1986, but it wasn’t until the troupe saw him in the 1987 Melbourne University revue, "Laminex on the Rocks", that they signed him up). He also worked as a writer on the ABC's "The Gerry Connolly Show" (1988), the Network Ten series, "The Comedy Company", in its 1989 season, and, while working on the (unscreened) pilots for "The Late Show" for the Nine Network (1990), Molloy was a cast member of ABC TV’s "The Late Show" (1992–1993) as a writer/performer. As well as pairing up with Tony Martin for each episode’s introduction and the "Street Interviews" segment, Mick co-hosted the segments "Muckrakers" with Jason Stephens and "Commercial Crimestoppers" with Santo Cilauro, played the thick-witted assistant of stuntman Rob Sitch in "Shitscared", and performed in countless sketches (he provided the voices of Sergeant Olden in "The Olden Days" and Chief Chromedome in "Bargearse"). Molloy also delivered a series of volatile rants in the "Mick’s Serve" part of "Late Show News." Molloy landed his own late-night TV show, "The Mick Molloy Show", which premiered on the Nine Network in 1999. Planned to run for twenty episodes, it was slated by the critics and cancelled after only eight. Mollloy next involvement with television was the show, "Any Given Sunday", with Nicole Livingstone, on the Nine Network in 2006. He was also involved in the 2006 Commonwealth Games coverage on the Nine Network, as a commentator for the lawn bowls events. In 2007, Molloy filmed a pilot of "The Nation", a weekly late-night news-based comedy hour on the Nine Network. The show debuted on 5 June, but struggled for ratings, attracting only 575,000 viewers nationally for its fourth show. Originally it was on Tuesdays at 9:30 pm, but was moved to Wednesdays at 10:30 pm and has been off air since the end of August 2007. In 2008 it was announced that Molloy would replace Peter Helliar on the panel of Channel 10's "Before the Game", an AFL themed show, after Helliar had discontinued his position post-2007. On the show, his views as a keen supporter of the Richmond Football Club (Tigers) are often made clear. Molloy is one of the club's more prominent supporters and as well as appearing on the "Before the Game", he has in the past appeared in a club membership advertising campaigns. In June 2008, Molloy made comments on the show regarding Nicole Cornes, the wife of former Adelaide coach Graham Cornes, in which he suggested she had slept with footballer Stuart Dew. Nicole Cornes sued the Ten Network for defamation, and was awarded A$85,000 in July 2011. In February 2010 it was announced that Molloy and Eddie McGuire would be investigated by the NSW Anti-discrimination board following complaints that their on air coverage of the Vancouver Winter Olympics men's figure skating contained homophobic remarks. Radio. After writing and performing on "The D-Generation Breakfast Show" on the Triple M radio, from 1990 to 1992, Molloy teamed up with Tony Martin for Triple M’s "Bulltwang" (1990) After "The Late Show" finished, Molloy developed, again with Martin, the successful Austereo radio programme, "Martin/Molloy" (1995–98), which produced three ARIA award winning compilation albums, "The Brown Album" (1995), "Poop Chute" (1996) and "Eat Your Peas" (1998). Molloy occasionally appeared with his former D-Generation cohorts on Network Ten’s "The Panel" (1998–2004). Molloy hosted another radio show, "Tough Love with Mick Molloy" (2004–06) on Triple M alongside Robyn Butler and Richard Molloy. In 2011, Molloy returned to radio and to Melbourne's Triple M, as a permanent member of "The Hot Breakfast". He is also appearing daily at 6:50am on Triple M Brisbane's The Grill Team. Film. Following the cancellation of "The Mick Molloy Show", Molloy returned with a video release, entitled "Shonky Golf with Mick Molloy", and he directed the feature-length documentary "Tackle Happy" (2000). He played Kim's dad Gary Poole on "Kath & Kim" (2003–04) and co-starred, with David Wenham, in two "Murray Whelan" telemovies, "Stiff" and "The Brush-Off" (both 2004). He has starred in three movies, "Crackerjack" (2002) (which he also co-wrote, receiving an AFI nomination), Tony Martin's "Bad Eggs" (2003), and "BoyTown" (2006), which, like "Crackerjack", he co-wrote with his brother Richard Molloy. In the 2006 Australian feature film "Macbeth", Molloy played Brown; it was the second time he has appeared in a production of Macbeth. Personal life. Molloy was the long-term partner of actress Sophie Lee during the 1990s (Lee regularly appeared on Molloy's nationally syndicated radio show, as well as playing Tracey Kerrigan in the film "The Castle", which was made by Molloy's former D-Gen cohorts). On "The Hot Breakfast" on 8 June 2012 Molloy announced he was to become a father for the first time, with his partner pregnant with twin boys. On 11 July he announced their births. The boys were born on 10 July, and were a month early.
1066991	The Black Bird is a 1975 film released December 25, 1975 starring George Segal and Stéphane Audran. It is a comedy sequel to the well-regarded 1941 film version of "The Maltese Falcon" with Segal playing Sam Spade's son, Sam Spade, Jr., and Lee Patrick and Elisha Cook Jr. reprising their roles of Effie Perrine and Wilmer Cook. "The Black Bird" was panned by critics and audiences alike, and is still considered the weakest film adaptation of the novel; Pauline Kael wrote that the film is "a dumb comedy, with an insecure tone and some good ideas mixed with some terrible ones." Plot. When San Francisco private detective Sam Spade dies, his son, Sam, Jr., inherits his father's agency, including the sarcastic secretary, Effie Perine (also known as "Godzilla"). He must also continue his father's tradition of "serving minorities." When Caspar Gutman is killed outside Spade's building, his dying words are, "It's black and as long as your arm."
1069157	If You Are the One () is a 2008 Chinese romantic comedy film directed by Feng Xiaogang and starring Ge You and Shu Qi. The film has been very successful at the Chinese box office, and has became one of Feng's top grossing films to date, and has earned over ¥364 million (US$53.7 million) at the box office. Plot. Qin Fen (Ge) returns to China in his late forties after many years overseas. He didn't earn any type of degree while he was overseas. However, he is good with convincing others. He becomes a multimillionaire after selling an "innovative invention" to a high-profile (but foolish) angel investor (Fan). With his new fortune, Qin decides to put an end to his bachelor life and advertises online for potential partners to apply "if you are the one", that is, only if they are sincere. He encounters various candidates, from a homosexual former friend, a cemetery saleswoman with a thick southern-Chinese accent, a pathological amnesiac, an ethnic minority pecking hen, an erotophobic widow, an expectant single mother (Hsu), and a stock-holding trader. Eventually, he crosses paths with air stewardess Liang Xiaoxiao (Shu), who previously had a painful love affair with a married man (Fong). Qin strikes up an unexpected friendship with Liang, which eventually blossoms into love during a trip to Hokkaido. Production. "If You Are the One" was filmed in locations throughout Beijing and Hangzhou in China, and Hokkaido in Japan from August, 2008 to October, 2008. Impact. Lots of scenes of "If You Are the One" was shot in Hokkaido which made it well-known among Chinese. Therefore,Hokkaido becomes the new hot spot for Chinese to visit. Critical reception. The film was a box office hit in the mainland and received largely positive reviews. "Variety" states: "After taking a left turn into big-budgeters "The Banquet" and "Assembly", Feng Xiaogang returns to the kind of film that made his name -- ironic observational comedies," and described the film as a "beautifully observed relationship movie is overly discursive in its second half but always watchable, thanks to terrific chemistry between Feng regular Ge You and Taiwanese actress Shu Qi." "The Hollywood Reporter" states: "Feng Xiaogang makes an assured return to his trademark genre, the romantic comedy. "If You Are the One", a diverting urban lark about an unlikely couple coming together through blind dates, sports an affable cast and untaxing plot, harking back to the airy playfulness of his 1998 hit "Be There or Be Square"." Perry Lam of "Muse" Magazine praised 'the unreserved energy Feng devotes to delivering us the predictable, coupled with the unembarrassed pleasure we take in enjoying the obvious. You can still make a movie with a formula, it would appear, so long as you bring the formula to vivid life.'
422300	Joshua "Josh" Keaton (born February 8, 1979) is an American actor, voice actor, singer and music producer. Early life. Keaton was born Joshua Luis Wiener in Hacienda Heights, California, to a father from Brooklyn, New York, and a mother from Lima, Peru. He has three sisters: Danielle, Alitzah (Ali Navarro), and Sabrina. He is also fluent in Spanish and actually started his career as a child in Spanish and then later in English. Career. His career has included television, video game and film work, with a mixture of live acting and voice work for animations. He was in the 1990s boy band "No Authority" and was signed to MJJ Music and later RCA Records as a solo artist. Keaton voiced Jules Brown in ' during 1991/1992 and Major Ocelot during ' and '. In 2008, he voiced Spider-Man in "The Spectacular Spider-Man" animated series on the CW. He also voiced Harry Osborn in the video games "Spider-Man", "Spider-Man 2" and '. Keaton later voiced Ultimate Spider-Man in the 2010 video game ' (along with fellow veteran Spider-Man voice actors Dan Gilvezan, Christopher Daniel Barnes and Neil Patrick Harris) and Spider-Man in the 2011 video game '. In 2011, Keaton is the current voice for Spyro the Dragon in the Skylanders reboot of the franchise, Jack Darby and Tailgate on ', and Hal Jordan in '. In 2012, he recorded lines for "" as Spider-Man again but were rerecorded and replaced by Drake Bell before the episodes aired.
1163321	Polly Bergen (born Nellie Paulina Burgin; July 14, 1930) is an American actress, singer, television host, and entrepreneur. Career. Bergen appeared in many film roles, most notably in the original "Cape Fear" (1962) opposite Gregory Peck and Robert Mitchum. She had roles in three Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis comedy films in the early 1950s: "At War with the Army", "That's My Boy" and "The Stooge". Later roles included Mrs. Vernon-Williams in "Cry-Baby", a John Waters film. Bergen received an Emmy award for her portrayal of singer, Helen Morgan, in the episode "The Helen Morgan Story" of the 1950s television series "Playhouse 90". Signed to Columbia Records, she enjoyed a successful recording career during this era, as well. In the 1950s she also was known as "The Pepsi Cola Girl," having done a series of commercials for that product. She was a regular panelist on the CBS game show "To Tell the Truth", during its original run. She also appeared on the NBC interview program "Here's Hollywood". In 1963 Bergen co-starred with Doris Day and James Garner in the film comedy, "Move Over, Darling". Garner's character marries hers when he believes his long-lost wife (Day) to be deceased, only to have her turn up. Bergen earned an Emmy nomination for her role as Rhoda Henry, wife of Capt. "Pug" Henry (played by Mitchum), in two ABC miniseries, "The Winds of War" and its sequel, "War and Remembrance". She starred in a 2001 Broadway revival of Stephen Sondheim's "Follies" at the Belasco Theater and received a Tony Award nomination as Best Featured Actress in a Musical. She also appeared as Fran Felstein on HBO's "The Sopranos", the former mistress of Tony Soprano's father, and former mistress of John F. Kennedy. From 2007 to 2011 Bergen had a guest role in "Desperate Housewives" as Lynette Scavo's mother, Stella Wingfield, which earned her an Emmy Award nomination.
1105210	Sofia Vasilyevna Kovalevskaya () ( – ) was the first major Russian female mathematician, responsible for important original contributions to analysis, differential equations and mechanics, and the first woman appointed to a full professorship in Northern Europe. She was also one of the first women to work for a scientific journal as an editor. There are some alternative transliterations of her name. She herself used Sophie Kowalevski (or occasionally Kowalevsky), for her academic publications. After moving to Sweden, she called herself Sonya. Early years. Sofia Kovalevskaya ("née" Korvin-Krukovskaya), was born in Moscow, the second of three children. Her father, Vasily Vasilyevich Korvin-Krukovsky, was Lieutenant-General of Artillery who served in the Imperial Russian Army. Her mother, Yelizaveta Fedorovna Schubert, was a scholarly woman of German ancestry and Sofia's grandmother was Romani. When she was 11 years old, the wall paper in her room had differential and integral analysis, which was her early preparation for calculus. They nurtured her interest in mathematics and hired a tutor (A. N. Strannoliubskii, a well-known advocate of higher education for women), who taught her calculus. During that same period, the son of the local priest introduced her to nihilism. Despite her obvious talent for mathematics, she could not complete her education in Russia. At that time, women there were not allowed to attend universities. In order to study abroad, she needed written permission from her father (or husband). Accordingly, she contracted a "fictitious marriage" with Vladimir Kovalevsky, then a young paleontology student who would later become famous for his collaboration with Charles Darwin. They emigrated from Russia in 1867. Student years. In 1869, Kovalevskaya began attending the University of Heidelberg, Germany, which allowed her to audit classes as long as the professors involved gave their approval. Shortly after beginning her studies there, she visited London with Vladimir, who spent time with his colleagues Thomas Huxley and Charles Darwin, while she was invited to attend George Eliot's Sunday salons. There, at age nineteen, she met Herbert Spencer and was led into a debate, at Eliot's instigation, on "woman's capacity for abstract thought". This was well before she made her notable contribution of the "Kovalevsky top" to the brief list of known examples of integrable rigid body motion (see following section). George Eliot was writing Middlemarch at the time, in which one finds the remarkable sentence: "In short, woman was a problem which, since Mr. Brooke's mind felt blank before it, could hardly be less complicated than the revolutions of an irregular solid." Kovalevskaya participated in social movements and shared ideas of utopian socialism. In 1871 she traveled to Paris together with her husband in order to attend to the injured from the Paris Commune. Kovalevskaya helped save Victor Jaclard, who was the husband of her sister Ann (Anne Jaclard). After two years of mathematical studies at Heidelberg under such teachers as Hermann von Helmholtz, Gustav Kirchhoff and Robert Bunsen, she moved to Berlin, where she had to take private lessons from Karl Weierstrass, as the university would not even allow her to audit classes. In 1874 she presented three papers—on partial differential equations, on the dynamics of Saturn's rings and on elliptic integrals —to the University of Göttingen as her doctoral dissertation. With the support of Weierstrass, this earned her a doctorate in mathematics "summa cum laude", bypassing the usual required lectures and examinations. She thereby became the first woman in Europe to hold that degree. Her paper on partial differential equations contains what is now commonly known as the Cauchy-Kovalevski theorem, which gives conditions for the existence of solutions to a certain class of those equations. Last years in Germany and Sweden. In the early 1880s, Sofia and her husband Vladimir developed financial problems. Sofia wanted to be a lecturer at the university; however, she was not allowed to because she was a woman, even though she had the same amount of knowledge in mathematics as men. Sofia had even volunteered to provide free lectures and she was still denied the right. Soon after, Vladimir started business management and Sofia became his assistant. They built houses as well as fountains to become financially stable again for a short period of time. In 1879, the price for mortgages became higher than the amount of money they made. They lost all their money again and became bankrupt. Shortly after, Vladimir got a job offer and Sofia helped neighbours to electrify street lights. Vladimir and Sofia quickly established themselves again financially. The Kovalevskys returned to Russia, but failed to secure professorships because of their radical political beliefs. Discouraged, they went back to Germany. Vladimir, who had always suffered severe mood swings, became more unstable so they spent most of their time apart. Then, for some unknown reason, they decided to spend several years together as an actual married couple. During this time their daughter, Sofia (called "Fufa"), was born. After a year devoted to raising her daughter, Kovalevskaya put Fufa under the care of her older sister, resumed her work in mathematics and left Vladimir for what would be the last time. In 1883, faced with worsening mood swings and the possibility of being prosecuted for his role in a stock swindle, Vladimir committed suicide. That year, with the help of the mathematician Gösta Mittag-Leffler, whom she had known as a fellow student of Weierstrass', Kovalevskaya was able to secure a position as a "privat-docent" at Stockholm University in Sweden. Kovalevskaya met Mittag-Leffler through his sister, actress, novelist, and playwright Anne-Charlotte Edgren-Leffler. The two women had an intimate "romantic friendship" that lasted until Kovalevskaya's death. Sofia Kovalevskaya was inspired by her father's old calculus sheets. The following year (1884) she was appointed to a five year position as "Professor Extraordinarius" (Professor without Chair) and became the editor of Acta Mathematica. In 1888 she won the "Prix Bordin" of the French Academy of Science, for her work on the question: "Mémoire sur un cas particulier du problème de le rotation d'un corps pesant autour d'un point fixe, où l'intégration s'effectue à l'aide des fonctions ultraelliptiques du temps". Her submission included the celebrated discovery of what is now known as the "Kovalevsky top", which was subsequently shown (by Liouville) to be the only other case of rigid body motion, beside the tops of Euler and Lagrange, that is "completely integrable". In 1889 she was appointed Professor Ordinarius (Professorial Chair holder) at Stockholm University, the first woman to hold such a position at a northern European university. After much lobbying on her behalf (and a change in the Academy's rules) she was granted a Chair in the Russian Academy of Sciences, but was never offered a professorship in Russia. Kovalevskaya wrote several non-mathematical works as well, including a memoir, "A Russian Childhood", plays (in collaboration with Duchess Anne Charlotte Edgren-Leffler) and a partly autobiographical novel, "Nihilist Girl" (1890). She died of influenza in 1891 at age forty-one, after returning from a pleasure trip to Genoa. She is buried in Solna, Sweden, at Norra begravningsplatsen Tributes. Sonia Kovalevsky High School Mathematics Day is a grant-making program of the Association for Women in Mathematics (AWM), funding workshops across the United States which encourage girls to explore mathematics. The Sonia Kovalevsky Lecture is sponsored annually by the AWM, and is intended to highlight significant contributions of women in the fields of applied or computational mathematics. Past honorees have included Irene Fonseca (2006), Ingrid Daubechies (2005), Joyce R. McLaughlin (2004) and Linda R. Petzold (2003). The lunar crater Kovalevskaya is named in her honor. The Alexander Von Humboldt Foundation of Germany bestows a bi-annual Sofia Kovalevskaya Award to promising young researchers. In film. Sofia Kovalevskaya has been the subject of three film and TV biographies.
1058267	Redbelt is a 2008 American martial arts film written and directed by David Mamet and starring Chiwetel Ejiofor. The cast also includes Tim Allen, Joe Mantegna, Ricky Jay, Emily Mortimer, Alice Braga and Rebecca Pidgeon, as well as a number of martial-arts professionals. The film opened in wide release in the United States and Canada on May 9, 2008. Plot. While closing his Jiu-jitsu studio one evening, Mike Terry (Chiwetel Ejiofor) is approached by attorney Laura Black (Emily Mortimer), who is seeking the owner of the vehicle she accidentally sideswiped. Off-duty police officer Joe Collins (Max Martini), who was receiving a private lesson from Mike, sees that Laura is distressed and tries to take her coat. Startled, Laura grabs Joe's gun and fires it; shattering the studio's front window. To avoid having Laura charged with attempted murder, Mike and Joe agree to conceal the event. Mike's insurance, however, will not cover his act of God claim that the window was broken by a strong wind. Mike's wife Sondra (Alice Braga), whose fashion business profits are the only thing keeping the struggling studio afloat, requests that Mike ask for a loan from her brother Ricardo (John Machado), a mixed martial arts champion. At Ricardo's nightclub, Mike meets with Sondra's other brother, Bruno (Rodrigo Santoro), and learns that Joe quit as the club's bouncer because Bruno never paid him. Mike confronts Bruno about the situation but is rebuffed. Mike then declines Bruno's offer to fight on the undercard of an upcoming match between Ricardo and Japanese legend, Morisaki (Enson Inoue), which could potentially pay out $50,000. Mike believes competitions with money as the incentive are not honorable and weaken the fighter.
1166242	Gale Storm (April 5, 1922 – June 27, 2009) was an American actress and singer who starred in two popular television programs of the 1950s, "My Little Margie" and "The Gale Storm Show". Early life. Storm was born Josephine Owaissa Cottle in Bloomington in Victoria County, Texas. The youngest of five children, she had two brothers and two sisters. Her father, William Walter Cottle, died after a year-long illness when she was just seventeen months old, and her mother, Minnie Corina Cottle, struggled to raise the children alone. One of her sisters gave Josephine the middle name "Owaissa," a Norridgewock Amerindian word meaning "bluebird." Storm's mother Minnie took in sewing, then opened a millinery shop in McDade, Texas, which failed, and finally moved the family to Houston. Storm learned to be an accomplished dancer and became an excellent ice skater at Houston's Polar Palace. She performed in the drama club at both Albert Sidney Johnston Junior High School and San Jacinto High School. When she was 17 years old, two of her teachers urged her to enter a contest on "Gateway to Hollywood", broadcast from the CBS Radio studios in Hollywood, California. First prize was a one-year contract with a movie studio. She won and was immediately given the stage name Gale Storm. Her performing partner (and future husband), Lee Bonnell from South Bend, Indiana, became known as Terry Belmont. Film career. After winning the contest in 1940, Storm made several films for the studio, RKO Radio Pictures. Her first was "Tom Brown's School Days", playing opposite Jimmy Lydon and Freddie Bartholomew. She worked steadily in low-budget films released during this period. In 1941 she sang in several Soundies, three-minute musicals produced for "movie jukeboxes." Storm acted and sang in Monogram Pictures' popular Frankie Darro series, and played ingénue roles in other Monogram features with the East Side Kids, Edgar Kennedy and The Three Stooges, most notably in the film "Swing Parade of 1946". Monogram had always relied on established actors with reputations, but in Gale Storm the studio finally had a star of its own. She played the lead in the studio's most elaborate productions, both musical and dramatic. She shared top billing in Monogram's "Cosmo Jones, Crime Smasher" (1943), opposite Edgar Kennedy, Richard Cromwell, and Frank Graham in the role of Jones, a character derived from network radio. American audiences warmed to Storm and her fan mail increased. She performed in more than three dozen motion pictures for Monogram, experience which made possible her success in other media. She became an American icon of the 1950s, starring in two highly successful television series. It was also in this decade that her singing career took shape. She appeared on such variety programs as ABC's "The Pat Boone Chevy Showroom." Television career. Storm starred in "My Little Margie" from 1952 to 1955. The show, which co-starred former silent film actor Charles Farrell as her father, was originally a summer replacement for "I Love Lucy" on CBS, but ran for 126 episodes on NBC and CBS. The series was broadcast on CBS Radio from December 1952 to August 1955 with the same actors. Storm's popularity was capitalized on when she served as hostess of the "NBC Comedy Hour" in the winter of 1956. That year she starred in another situation comedy, "The Gale Storm Show" (aka "Oh! Susanna"), featuring another silent movie star, ZaSu Pitts. The "Gale Storm" show ran for 143 episodes between 1956 and 1960. Storm appeared regularly on other television programs in the 1950s and 1960s. She was both a panelist and a "mystery guest" on "What's My Line?" Recording artist. In Gallatin, Tennessee in November 1954, a 10-year-old girl, Linda Wood, was watching Storm on a Sunday night television variety show, NBC's "Colgate Comedy Hour", hosted by Gordon MacRae, singing one of the popular songs of the day. Linda's father asked her who was singing and was told it was Gale Storm from "My Little Margie". Linda's father Randy Wood was president of Dot Records, and he liked Storm so much that he called to sign her before the end of the television show. Her first record, "I Hear You Knockin'," a cover version of a rhythm and blues hit by Smiley Lewis, sold over a million copies. The follow-up was a two-sided hit, with Storm covering Dean Martin's "Memories Are Made of This" backed with her cover of Gloria Mann's "A Teenage Prayer." That was followed by a hit cover of Frankie Lymon's "Why Do Fools Fall in Love." Storm's subsequent record sales began to slide but soon rebounded with a cover of her own labelmate Bonnie Guitar's haunting ballad "Dark Moon" that went to No. 4 on the Billboard Hot 100. Storm had several other hits and headlined in Las Vegas and appeared in numerous stage plays. Amazingly, Storm only recorded for approximately two years with Dot and then gave up recording because of her husband's concerns with the time she had to devote to that career. Equally amazing, almost her entire recording career was based on her quickly recording cover versions of new hits by other artists (one, a cover of Joni James' "I Need You So," was never released). Many felt that Storm's covers often were better than the originals, and she developed a large following. Personal life. Storm was married and widowed twice. She married Lee Bonnell (1918–1986), then an actor and later a businessman, in 1941. They had four children: Peter, Phillip, Paul and Susanna. She married again in 1988 to Paul Masterson (1917–1996). In her later years she struggled with alcoholism, in her own words: Storm was a great believer in the benevolence of God and was very much a Christian and later became an active member of the South Shores Church. She once said of this: Later years. Storm made occasional television appearances in later years, such as "Love Boat", "Burke's Law", and "Murder, She Wrote". In 1981, she published her autobiography, "I Ain't Down Yet", which described her battle with alcoholism. She was also interviewed by author David C. Tucker for "The Women Who Made Television Funny: Ten Stars of 1950s Sitcoms", published in 2007 by McFarland and Company. Storm continued to make personal appearances and autographed photos at fan conventions, along with Charles Farrell from the "My Little Margie" series. She also attended events such as the Memphis Film Festival, the Friends of Old-Time Radio and the Mid-Atlantic Nostalgia Convention. Death. Storm lived alone in Monarch Beach, California, near two of her sons and their families, until failing health forced her into a convalescent home, near San Francisco in Danville, California. She died there on June 27, 2009. Storm has three stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for her contributions to recording, radio, and television.
1065500	The Great Buck Howard is a 2008 American comedy-drama film directed by Sean McGinly that stars Colin Hanks and John Malkovich. Tom Hanks also appears as the father of his real-life son's character. The character Buck Howard is inspired by the mentalist The Amazing Kreskin, whose popularity was at its height in the 1970s. The film premiered at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival on January 18, 2008. It is the first Walden Media film to be distributed by Magnolia Pictures. Plot. Troy Gable (Colin Hanks) defies his father (Tom Hanks) and leaves law school to pursue his dream of becoming a writer in Los Angeles. To support himself, he takes a job as a road manager for "The Great" Buck Howard (John Malkovich), a fading mentalist. Troy comes to enjoy traveling with Buck to performances in smaller venues such as Bakersfield and Akron. In particular, Troy sincerely admires Buck's signature trick: having someone in the audience hide his fee for that night's performance, which he then unfailingly discovers. (Kreskin is said to have actually performed this feat 6,000 times, only failing to find the money nine times.) A reluctant publicist, Valerie Brennan (Emily Blunt), is sent to join them in Cincinnati as a replacement for a more senior colleague to promote Buck's still secret attempt to resurrect his career. Valerie is disgusted by Buck's verbal abuse towards her and Troy, with whom she becomes romantically involved. Buck reveals that his comeback will involve putting "hundreds" of people (actually only a few dozen) to sleep and then awakening them as if from the dead. The trick works, but despite a large press turnout, no one is there to record the act, since the news media is called away at the last second to cover a car accident involving Jerry Springer. Furious, Buck unfairly blames the mishap on Troy and Valerie, and then faints from exhaustion. In the hospital, Buck and Troy discover that the media absence actually worked in Buck's favor, as rumors reported by the news media exaggerate the scope of Buck's act; as a result, Buck returns to the limelight as a retro-"hip" phenomenon. He appears on television shows such as those of Jon Stewart, Regis Philbin, Conan O'Brien, and more. Buck is reunited with his estranged friend, George Takei, who sings "What the World Needs Now". Buck finally gets the call he has been waiting for: To perform once again on "The Tonight Show". He previously had performed with Johnny Carson 61 times during the height of his career, but never since the show has been hosted by Jay Leno. Buck is bumped by Tom Arnold, who has too much material and uses up Buck's time. Buck refuses an immediate offer to come back and appear on "The Tonight Show" the following week, but agrees to receive an offer to headline a date in Las Vegas. When the limelight on Buck dims once more after he fails to find his money for the first time ever during his Las Vegas premiere, Troy leaves him and through Valerie's connections, lands a job with a celebrated TV writer (Griffin Dunne). After some time, Troy sees from an ad in the paper that Buck is doing his show again in Bakersfield. Buck is clearly back where he feels most comfortable, and once again successfully performs his signature trick, leaving Troy to wonder whether Buck doesn't have some mysterious talent after all. Reception. "The Great Buck Howard" received generally positive reviews. Rotten Tomatoes reported that 72% of critics gave it positive reviews based on 88 reviews, the consensus being "By turns fluffy and biting, this show biz comedy is given girth by comic heavyweight John Malkovich and made all the more charming by Emily Blunt." The film was released to the general public on March 20, 2009, grossing $115,004 in the opening weekend. It was run in 55 theaters, equaling to an average of $2,091 per theater. The worldwide gross stands at $900,689.
1163753	Debra Paget (born August 19, 1933) is an American actress and entertainer who rose to prominence in the 1950s and early 1960s in a variety of feature films, including 20th Century Fox's epic "Demetrius and the Gladiators", starring Victor Mature, Jay Robinson and Susan Hayward, a sequel to "The Robe". She also appeared in "Love Me Tender", the film début of Elvis Presley. Early life and career. Paget was born in Denver, Colorado as Debralee Griffin, one of five siblings born to Frank H. and Margaret Griffin. The family moved from Denver to Los Angeles in the 1930s to be close to the developing film industry. Margaret, a former actress, was determined that Debra and her siblings would also make their careers in show business. Three of Paget's siblings, Mareta ("Judith Gibson", "Teala Loring"), Lezlie ("Lisa Gaye"), and Frank ("Ruell Shayne") all entered show business. Paget had her first professional job at age 8, and acquired some stage experience at 13 when she acted in a 1946 production of Shakespeare's "The Merry Wives of Windsor". From 1950-56 she took part in six original radio plays for "Family Theater". During those same years, she read parts in four episodes of "Lux Radio Theater", sharing the microphone with such actors as Burt Lancaster, Tyrone Power, Cesar Romero, Ronald Colman, and Robert Stack. The latter set included dramatizations of two of her feature films. Paget's first notable film role was as "Teena Riconti", girlfriend of the character played by Richard Conte, in "Cry of the City", a 1948 film noir directed by Robert Siodmak. Fresh out of high school in 1949, she acted in three other films before being signed by 20th Century-Fox. Her first vehicle for Fox was the successful "Broken Arrow" with James Stewart. Paget played an Indian maiden, Sonseeahray ("Morningstar"), who gives up her life to save Stewart's character.
1164278	Jane Marie Lynch (born July 14, 1960) is an American actress, singer, and comedian. She gained fame in Christopher Guest's improv mockumentary pictures such as "Best in Show". Notable awards she has won for her portrayal of Sue Sylvester in "Glee" include the Primetime Emmy Award, Golden Globe Award, Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Comedy Series, TCA Award for Individual Achievement in Comedy, Satellite Award for Best Supporting Actress – Series, Miniseries, or Television Film, and the People's Choice Award for Favorite TV Comedy Actress. Lynch's television cameos include an appearance in the Nickelodeon situation comedy "iCarly" and the Showtime dark comedy series "Weeds". Lynch had a recurring role in the Warner Bros. situation comedy "Two and a Half Men" and also has had notable roles in numerous mainstream comedies, such as "", "The 40-Year-Old Virgin", "Role Models", and "The Three Stooges". On September 4, 2013 Lynch received the 2,505 star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in the category of television located at 6640 Hollywood Blvd. Early life. Lynch was born and raised in Dolton, Illinois, the daughter of a homemaker-secretary mother, Eileen (née Carney), and a banker father, Frank Lynch. Her father was of Irish descent and her mother was of Irish and Swedish ancestry. She was raised in a Catholic family and attended Thornridge High School. She received her bachelor's degree in theater from Illinois State University and her MFA in theater from Cornell University. Career. Early work. Lynch spent fifteen years in Chicago, acting in the Steppenwolf Theatre Company, and, at the time of her audition, was one of only two women picked to join The Second City comedy troupe. She then continued to hone her comical and improvisational skills at Annoyance Theater, playing Carol Brady in the theater's "The Real Live Brady Bunch". Andy Richter played Mike Brady in the New York shows. He and Lynch became very good friends. Films. Lynch got her start in films in 1988, playing a small role in the film "Vice Versa". In 1993, she had a secondary role as a doctor alongside Harrison Ford in "The Fugitive". During the 1990s, she made numerous television commercials, including one for Frosted Flakes for an adult audience, directed by Christopher Guest. A few years later, Guest would remember Lynch, as he cast actors for his dog show mockumentary, "Best in Show" (2000). Lynch played Christy Cummings, a butch lesbian personal dog handler to trophy wife Sheri Ann Cabot (Jennifer Coolidge). Since then, she has been a staple part of Guest's casts, appearing in the director's "A Mighty Wind" (2003) as porn actress-turned-folk singer Laurie Bohner and in "For Your Consideration" (2006) as an entertainment reporter. Audiences and critics took notice of Lynch for her turn in Judd Apatow's "The 40-Year-Old Virgin". She told "Fresh Airs Terry Gross the role was originally intended for a man but, at the urging of Steve Carell's wife Nancy Walls, was offered to Lynch instead. Since then, she has had supporting roles in a series of films including "Role Models", ', "Alvin & the Chipmunks", ', "Space Chimps", "The Rocker", "The Hammer", "Another Cinderella Story", ', and "Spring Breakdown". In "Adventures of Power", a critically acclaimed comedy about air-drumming released in 2008, Lynch reunited with her former co-star Michael McKean (from "For Your Consideration") in the role of Aunt Joanie and starring alongside Ari Gold, Adrian Grenier, Chiu Chi Ling, and Shoshannah Stern. Similar to her contribution as Sue Sylvester on the Fox musical comedy-drama series Glee, Lynch's role as the encouraging Aunt Joanie to Power, a young musician who plays the air drums because he never had access to musical instruments, promotes the initiative to support music education. In "Julie and Julia", she played the role of Dorothy McWilliams, Julia Child's sister. "Entertainment Weekly" dedicated an article on their website toward the possibility of her performance receiving an Academy Award nomination. Television. Lynch has appeared in many television productions, including "L.A. Law", "Judging Amy", "The West Wing", "7th Heaven", "Desperate Housewives", "Friends", Dawson's Creek, "Felicity", "Arrested Development", "Lovespring International", "Two and a Half Men", "Weeds", "Boston Legal", "The L Word", "Criminal Minds", "Help Me Help You", "Gilmore Girls", "The New Adventures of Old Christine", "Psych", and "Monk". She also starred with John Hannah and William Fichtner in 2002's "MDs" and has appeared in the crime drama "Criminal Minds" as Spencer Reid's schizophrenic mother. Beginning 2009, Lynch appeared on the Fox series "Glee". The role echoed previous guest appearances in "The X-Files" and "Veronica Mars", being her third time cast as a harsh high school teacher. She won glowing reviews for her role as the aggressive cheerleading coach Sue Sylvester. Mary McNamara of the "LA Times" wrote, "Lynch alone makes Glee worth watching." Before her work with "Glee", she was a series regular on the Starz comedy "Party Down". Though the series was renewed for a second season, Lynch would not be returning, due to her work on "Glee". In addition to her current work on "Glee", Lynch continues to pursue other projects. Lynch hosted "Saturday Night Live" on October 9, 2010; the news of her hosting was accidentally broken to her by her "Glee" boss, Ryan Murphy, by text message. Lynch also guest starred on the Nickelodeon show "iCarly" as Pam Puckett, Sam Puckett's mother, in the episode "iSam's Mom". Since July 11, 2013, Lynch has hosted the NBC game show, "Hollywood Game Night". The show has two teams made up of members of the public (civilians) and celebrities competing in various party games, with a chance for the civilians to take home up to $25,000. Other work. Lynch wrote and starred in the award-winning play "Oh Sister, My Sister". Originally produced in 1998, the play kicked off the "Lesbians in Theater" program at the Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Center in 2004. She starred in Comcast's XFinity ads, mainly with two different laptops and two different colored Persian cats. She also stars in LG Corp.'s Text Ed campaign to educate drivers about the dangers of texting while driving. Lynch's first experience hosting an awards show was in 2010 when she hosted the 2010 VH1 DoSomething Awards. It was announced that she will be hosting the 2011 VH1 DoSomething Awards, airing on VH1 on August 18. Lynch hosted the 63rd Primetime Emmy Awards on September 18, 2011, only the third woman in Emmy history to host the awards show solo. According to September 19's "Hollywood Reporter" Lynch hosting the Emmys did not help ratings, as viewing was down 8% year over year and eight million fewer people watched the Emmys as watched Michael Vick's return to Atlanta on Sunday Night Football on NBC (21.5 million for Eagles-Falcons, 13.5 million for the Emmys). "Happy Accidents" was released Fall 2011 by Hyperion Voice. Lynch was inspired to write the book after reflecting upon the successes of her past year and wishing she could have told her more anxious, younger self to not worry as much. The memoir also includes detail about her years as an alcoholic and her success in battling this addiction. Lynch is openly lesbian, and married Lara Embry in 2010. A self-proclaimed animal lover, Lynch has two dogs and a cat. She has recorded a PSA for PETA encouraging the adoption of shelter animals, and she sponsors an annual adoption event at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena. She was the commencement speaker for Smith College's class of 2012 where she received an honorary Doctorate in Fine Arts. In March 2012, Lynch was featured with Martin Sheen, Jamie Lee Curtis, Chris Colfer and Brad Pitt in a performance of Dustin Lance Black's play, 8 — a staged re-enactment of the federal trial that overturned California's Prop 8 ban on same-sex marriage — as Maggie Gallagher. The production was held at the Wilshire Ebell Theatre and broadcast on YouTube to raise money for the American Foundation for Equal Rights. Lynch made her Broadway debut as Miss Hannigan in Annie for a limited engagement lasting from May 15 to July 14, 2013. She is taking the place of Katie Finneran. Personal life. Lynch is openly lesbian; in 2005, she was named one of Power Up's "10 Amazing Gay Women in Showbiz". In 2010, Lynch married clinical psychologist Lara Embry. On June 10, 2013, Lynch announced they were divorcing. Lynch is deaf in one ear due to nerve damage. She has said that it was most likely caused by having a high fever as an infant.
1059828	Seraphim Falls is a 2006 American revenge Western film directed by television producer and director David Von Ancken in his first feature film. The storyline was conceived from a screenplay written by Von Ancken and Abby Everett Jaques. The fictional story focuses on a bounty hunt for a Union soldier by a Confederate colonel following the American Civil War in the late 1860s. Pierce Brosnan, Liam Neeson, Michael Wincott, Tom Noonan, and Ed Lauter star in principal roles. "Seraphim Falls" explores civil topics, such as violence, human survival and war. The film was produced by the motion picture studio of Icon Productions. It was commercially distributed by Samuel Goldwyn Films and Destination Films theatrically, and by Sony Pictures Home Entertainment for home media. The film score was composed by musician Harry Gregson-Williams, although a soundtrack version for the motion picture was not released to the public. "Seraphim Falls" premiered at the 2006 Toronto International Film Festival and was released to theaters in limited release in the United States on January 26, 2007 grossing $418,296 in domestic ticket sales. It earned an additional $801,762 in box office business overseas for a combined worldwide total of $1,220,058 in revenue. The film was generally met with positive critical reviews before its initial screening in cinemas. The widescreen DVD edition of the film featuring scene selections and a bonus featurette, was released in the United States on May 15, 2007. Plot. In 1868, within the Ruby Mountains, Gideon (Pierce Brosnan) roasts hare over an open fire. Suddenly, gunshots ring out with one striking his left arm. He grabs what he can and races down the mountain. His attackers emerge from their cover to inspect his campsite. Colonel Morsman Carver (Liam Neeson), a former Confederate officer, is accompanied by Pope (Robert Baker), Hayes (Michael Wincott), Parsons (Ed Lauter) and the Kid (John Robinson); who are all engaged in a bounty operation to apprehend him.
1039575	Ian Charleson (11 August 1949 – 6 January 1990) was a Scottish stage and film actor. He is best known internationally for his starring role as Olympic athlete and missionary Eric Liddell, in the Oscar-winning 1981 film "Chariots of Fire". He is also well known for his portrayal of Rev. Charlie Andrews in the 1982 Oscar-winning film "Gandhi". Charleson was a noted actor on the British stage as well, with critically acclaimed leads in "Guys and Dolls", "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof", "Fool for Love", and "Hamlet", among many others. Over the course of his life Charleson performed numerous major Shakespearean roles, and the annual Ian Charleson Awards were established in his honour in 1991, to reward the best classical stage performances in Britain by actors aged under 30. The "Houghton Mifflin Dictionary of Biography" describes Charleson as "a leading player of charm and power" and "one of the finest British actors of his generation." Alan Bates wrote that Charleson was "definitely among the top ten actors of his age group." Ian McKellen said Charleson was "the most unmannered and unactorish of actors: always truthful, always honest." Charleson was diagnosed with HIV in 1986, and died in 1990 at the age of 40. He requested that it be announced after his death that he had died of AIDS, in order to publicize the condition. This was the first celebrity death in the United Kingdom openly attributed to AIDS, and the announcement helped to promote awareness and acceptance of the disease. Early life. Born in Edinburgh, Charleson was the son of a printer, and grew up in a working-class area of the city. A bright, musical, artistic child, by the age of eight he was performing in local theatre productions. He won a scholarship to and attended Edinburgh's Royal High School; and in his teens, Charleson joined and performed with The Jasons, an Edinburgh amateur theatrical group. He also sang solo as a boy soprano in church and in the Royal High School choir, which performed on the radio and in Edinburgh Festival concerts. Charleson won a scholarship to the University of Edinburgh, which he attended from 1967–1970, obtaining a three-year Scottish MA Ordinary degree. Initially Charleson studied architecture. However, he spent most of his time acting with the student-run Edinburgh University Drama Society, and decided to pursue acting as a career. He changed his study concentration accordingly, and graduated with a degree in English, fine art, and mathematics. In addition to his acting roles at Edinburgh University, Charleson also directed many plays there, and he designed costumes for several as well. From 1967 through 1973, Charleson also performed often at the Edinburgh Festival and Edinburgh Festival Fringe, becoming a noted actor in those circles. Stage career. LAMDA, Young Vic, and Cambridge Theatre Company. After graduating from Edinburgh University — where he played leads in dozens of productions, including numerous Shakespeare plays — Charleson won a place in the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art (LAMDA), where he studied for two years. From LAMDA, Charleson was hired by Frank Dunlop's Young Vic Theatre Company. He made his professional stage debut in 1972 with the Young Vic, as one of the brothers in "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat" (1972), which was also televised in the UK that same year by Granada Television. In 1973, he starred as Jimmy Porter in "Look Back in Anger", and that year he was also Hamlet and later Guildenstern in the first revival of Tom Stoppard's "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead". Also as part of the Young Vic company, Charleson was Claudio in "Much Ado About Nothing" in 1974. He traveled with the company to the Brooklyn Academy of Music in New York that same year, to appear as Lucentio in "The Taming of the Shrew", Ottavio in "Scapino", and Brian Curtis in "French Without Tears". In 1975, Charleson played the title role in "Hamlet" in a Cambridge Theatre Company touring production. The performance garnered good reviews; nevertheless Charleson felt he had not done the notoriously difficult role complete justice. West End and National Theatre debuts, Royal Shakespeare Company. Charleson made his West End debut in 1975, in a long-running production of Simon Gray's "Otherwise Engaged" at the Queen's Theatre. In it he played Dave, a surly Scottish lodger, opposite Alan Bates. He next appeared at the National Theatre, where he performed Octavius in "Julius Caesar" in 1977. That year he also played Peregrine in the classic play "Volpone", opposite John Gielgud, and Captain Phoebus in "The Hunchback of Notre Dame". Charleson then spent a year in Stratford-upon-Avon with the Royal Shakespeare Company 1978–79. There he performed a hauntingly voiced Ariel in "The Tempest"; Tranio in "The Taming of the Shrew"; and Longaville in "Love's Labour's Lost" opposite Richard Griffiths as the King — all both in Stratford and at the Aldwych Theatre in London. Also with the RSC, he was Lawrence Vail in an acclaimed production of "Once in a Lifetime" (1979) at the Aldwych Theatre, and he played Pierre in the Jane Lapotaire vehicle "Piaf", giving a performance which caught the eye of the filmmakers of "Chariots of Fire". National Theatre spotlight. In the 1980s, Charleson won particular critical and popular acclaim for his starring roles at the National Theatre. He was a glowingly reviewed Sky Masterson in Richard Eyre's enormously successful revival of the musical "Guys and Dolls" (1982), opposite Julie Covington as Sister Sarah, with Bob Hoskins as Nathan Detroit and Julia McKenzie as Adelaide. Charleson received an Olivier Award nomination for Actor of the Year in a New Play as Eddie in Sam Shepard's gritty and very physical two-person drama, "Fool for Love" (1984–85), opposite Julie Walters as his on-again off-again love object. And he was a highly praised Brick, the repressed homosexual protagonist in Tennessee Williams' "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" (1988), opposite Lindsay Duncan. Final Hamlet. Shortly before his death, while seriously ill from AIDS, from 9 October to 13 November 1989 Charleson performed his second run of "Hamlet", this time at the National Theatre — giving a definitive performance which garnered major accolades. Director Richard Eyre, with some initial misgivings based on Charleson's health, had brought him in to replace Daniel Day-Lewis, who had abandoned the production. In a lengthy review praising Charleson's performance, John Peter wrote in the "Sunday Times": The day following Charleson's final "Hamlet" performance, when Ian McKellen was given the Evening Standard Award for Best Actor for his Iago in "Othello", McKellen offered thanks, but said having seen "the perfect Hamlet" at the National Theatre the previous night, he thought that not he but Ian Charleson was truly the Best Actor of 1989. Film and television. "Chariots of Fire" and "Gandhi". In 1979, producer David Puttnam and director Hugh Hudson had done months of fruitless searching for the perfect actor to play the lead of the evangelical Scot Eric Liddell in their upcoming inspirational film about the Olympics. They then saw Charleson performing the role of Pierre in "Piaf", and knew immediately they had found their man. Unbeknownst to them, Charleson had heard about the film from his father, and desperately wanted to play the part, feeling it would "fit like a kid glove". This mutual affinity led to Charleson's best-known film role and success — as the athlete and missionary Eric Liddell in "Chariots of Fire" (1981). Charleson prepared for the role by studying the Bible intensively, and he himself wrote Liddell's stirring post-race address to the workingmen's crowd. This film and role made him an international celebrity. Charleson had a similar high-profile success the following year, in a luminous performance playing Mahatma Gandhi's closest friend and collaborator, the Anglican priest Charlie Andrews, in "Gandhi" (1982), opposite Ben Kingsley. Like "Chariots of Fire", the film "Gandhi" won great acclaim and numerous Academy Awards, including Best Picture. Other film work. After these two major successes in these two Best Picture Oscar–winning films, Charleson's film career did not, however, follow the same progressive arc that his stage career did. Good feature Hollywood scripts did not pour in after "Chariots of Fire"; nor did Charleson choose to move to Hollywood to capitalize on his success. Also affecting his film career was the fact that he was diagnosed with HIV in 1986, and thereafter lacked enthusiasm to do feature films, although he was not symptomatic until the autumn of 1988. Charleson's drive to pursue a rich stage career focusing on Shakespearean leads, however, remained strong. Charleson's other feature film roles are: punk-era Angel in his film debut "Jubilee" (1977) directed by Derek Jarman; Lt. Ryder in the Golden Bear-winning "Irish question" film "Ascendancy" (1982), which starred Julie Covington; a small role as the abusive drunk Jeffson Brown in "" (1984); a comedic turn as Gerald Spong in the rather ill-fated "Car Trouble" (1985), opposite his friend Julie Walters; and opera director Marco in Dario Argento's horror film "Opera" (1987). Television: Shakespeare, TV films, and teleplays. Charleson performed in three BBC Television Shakespeare films: as Fortinbras in "Hamlet" (1980) starring Derek Jacobi; the protagonist Bertram in the acclaimed production of "All's Well That Ends Well" (1981); and Octavius Caesar in "Antony & Cleopatra" (1981) opposite his frequent co-star Jane Lapotaire as Cleopatra. His other notable made-for-television film roles include: the titular Lieutenant Dorfrichter in M. Fagyas's Austro-Hungarian pre-war mystery "The Devil's Lieutenant" (1983); Rakitin in Turgenev's "A Month in the Country" (1985) opposite Eleanor Bron; Kyril in the spy thriller "" (1988) opposite Edward Woodward, Richard E. Grant, and Peter Vaughan; and the protagonist Major Brendan Archer in the faithful screen adaptation of J. G. Farrell's Booker Award-winning "Troubles" (1988), opposite Ian Richardson. Charleson's notable starring television roles in the 1970s include: Anthony in "A Private Matter" (1974), his first starring screen role, opposite Rachel Kempson; slick and cruel John Ross preying on Scottish immigrants to the New World in "O Canada" (1975) in the anthology series "Churchill's People";
1069223	Forever Enthralled () is a Chinese biographical film directed by Chen Kaige; the film marks Chen's eleventh feature film as a director. "Forever Enthralled" follows the life of Mei Lanfang, one of China's premiere opera performers. It stars Leon Lai as Mei, Zhang Ziyi, Sun Honglei and Masanobu Ando. Known during production as "Mei Lanfang", the film's English title was changed in November 2008, shortly before its release, to "Forever Enthralled".
1377785	Emily Jordan Osment (born March 10, 1992), is an American actress, singer-songwriter and voice actress born in Los Angeles, California. After working in several television films in her childhood, she gained fame for co-starring as the character Gerti Giggles in ' and '. She went on to co-star in the Emmy Award-nominated Disney Channel sitcom "Hannah Montana" as Lilly Truscott as well as the series movie, '. She also starred as Cassie in R. L. Stine's: ' and the Disney Channel Original Movie, "Dadnapped" as Melissa Morris. She most recently starred in the 2011 ABC Family Original Movie, "Cyberbully". Osment expanded her repertoire into pop music and more recently alternative/indie rock where she has recorded teen pop hits like "I Don't Think About It", "If I Didn't Have You" alongside her "Hannah Montana" co-star Mitchel Musso, and most recently "Once Upon a Dream". Osment's debut album, "Fight or Flight" was released on October 5, 2010 via Wind-up Records, and it features lead single "Let's Be Friends" which was released June 8, 2010. The second single off the album was entitled "Lovesick", and was released on October 19, 2010. Early life. Osment was born in Los Angeles, where her family still resides, to actor Michael Eugene Osment, and Theresa Osment ("née" Seifert), a teacher of English. Her father has appeared in various films and was in her movie "Soccer Mom", and her older brother is Academy Award-nominated actor Haley Joel Osment. She was raised Roman Catholic. In 2011, after wrapping up her tour, Emily Osment decided to pursue her college education by enrolling at Occidental College located in Los Angeles, California. Career. 1998–05: Career beginnings and film debut. Osment's entry into the entertainment industry began in 1998, when she was cast in a commercial for flower delivery company FTD. From there she went on to feature in many commercials, after which she made her acting debut in the 1999 film "The Secret Life of Girls", starring Eugene Levy and Linda Hamilton. The same year, she co-starred with Glenn Close in the Hallmark Classic telefilm "", a role that would lead a Young Artist Award nomination. Since then, she has gone on to do a number of roles, such as appearances on television shows like "Touched by an Angel", "Friends", and "3rd Rock from the Sun". In 2003, Osment made her film debut as Gerti Giggles in ' which grossed $229 million globally and for which she won the "Young Artist Award" for best performance in a feature film. In 2003, she reprised her role in the third part of the "Spy Kids" series, ', which grossed $197 million worldwide. 2006–10: "Hannah Montana" and music debut. In 2006, Osment got the role of Lilly Truscott in the Disney Channel series "Hannah Montana". The series premiere scored record ratings for the Disney Channel with 5.4 million viewers, a response "beyond our wildest expectations", according to the president of Disney Channel Entertainment.
1051854	Port of Shadows () is a 1938 French film directed by Marcel Carné. It stars Jean Gabin, Michel Simon and Michèle Morgan. The screenplay was written by Jacques Prévert based on a novel by Pierre Mac Orlan. The music score was by Maurice Jaubert. It is a notable example of the poetic realism genre. The film was the 1939 winner of France's top cinematic prize, the Prix Louis-Delluc. A scene from the film is seen projected in the 2007 Oscar-nominated dramatisation of Ian McEwan's wartime tragic drama "Atonement". Plot. On a foggy night, Jean (Jean Gabin), an army deserter, catches a ride to the port city of Le Havre. Hoping to start over, Jean finds himself in a lonely bar at the far edge of town. But, while getting a good meal and civilian clothes, Jean meets Nelly (Michèle Morgan), a 17 year-old who has run away from her godfather, Zabel, with whom she lives. Jean and Nelly spend time together over the following days, but they are often interrupted by Zabel who is also in love with her, and Lucien, a gangster who is looking for Nelly's ex-boyfriend, Maurice, who has recently gone missing. When Nelly finds out that her godfather killed Maurice out of jealousy, she uses the information to blackmail him and prevent him from telling the police that Jean is a deserter. While the two are in love, Jean must leave Nelly behind and makes plans to leave on a ship for Venezuela. At the last minute Jean decides to turn around and saves Nelly from the hands of Zabel, but gets shot in the back by Lucien. Style. The film is in the style that Carne was most associated with, poetic realism. Luc Sante writes that ""Port of Shadows" possesses nearly all the qualities that were once synonymous with the idea of French cinema. Gabin—eating sausage with a knife or talking around a cigarette butt parked in the corner of his mouth or administering a backhanded slap to Brasseur’s kisser—is the quintessential French tough guy, as iconic a figure as Bogart playing Sam Spade. Michèle Morgan, ethereal and preoccupied, may pale a bit in comparison to some of her sisters in Parisian movies of the time (Arletty, for example), but she comes to life in bed, in a scene you can’t imagine occurring in an American movie before 1963 or so. The hazy lights, the wet cobblestones, the prehensile poplars lining the road out of town, the philosophical gravity of peripheral characters, the idea that nothing in life is more important than passion—such things defined a national cinema that might have been dwarfed by Hollywood in terms of reach and profit but stood every inch as tall as regards grace and beauty and power." Carne uses a ship-in-a-bottle and Nelly's translucent raincoat as metaphors for the sense of entrapment and ephemerality. Michèle Morgan's character falls in line with Carne's theme of androgynous women (that is further emphasized in "Les Visiteurs du Soir", 1942). Throughout the film Nelly wears a beret and a trenchcoat, and walks with her head bent and hands in her pockets, presenting a tomboyish variant of Gabin's uniform and gait. Reception. Frank S. Nugent called the film "one of the most engrossing and provocative films of the season"; according to him, "it's a thorough-going study in blacks and grays, without a free laugh in it; but it is also a remarkably beautiful motion picture from the purely pictorial standpoint and a strangely haunting drama. As a steady diet, of course, it would give us the willies; for a change it's as tonic as a raw winter's day." At the time of its release, the film was widely criticized for being too negative about the State and moral character of the French, and some even blamed Carne and the film for the French losing the war to Germany.
1067566	"What's New Pussycat?" is a 1965 comedy film directed by Clive Donner and starring Peter Sellers, Peter O'Toole, Romy Schneider, Capucine, Paula Prentiss and Ursula Andress. It was Woody Allen's film debut in his first produced script. The Academy Award-nominated title song by Burt Bacharach (music) and Hal David (lyrics) was sung by Tom Jones. The movie poster was painted by Frank Frazetta, and the animated title sequence was directed by Richard Williams. Plot. The film is set in France. Notorious womanizer Michael James (Peter O'Toole) wants to be faithful to his fiancée Carole Werner (Romy Schneider), but every woman he meets seems to fall in love with him, including a neurotic American (Paula Prentiss) and a parachutist (Ursula Andress) who accidentally lands in his car (1936-37 Singer 9 Le Mans). His psychoanalyst, Dr Fassbender (Peter Sellers), cannot help, since he's stalking a patient (Capucine) who in turn longs for Michael. A catastrophe appears on the horizon when all the characters check into a quaint hideaway hotel in the French countryside for the weekend, unaware of each other's presence. Production. Originally, Warren Beatty was to star in the film. The title was derived from Beatty's way of answering the telephone. However, Woody Allen, hired by producer Charles K. Feldman to write the script, began relegating Beatty's character to a secondary role, expanding his character at Beatty's expense. This created tension between Beatty and the studio, especially since Allen's screenplay was considered much funnier than the original idea. Eventually, Beatty was forced off the project by little-known Allen. Allen and Beatty never worked together.
53896	Dwight Ewell is an American actor known of his roles in films such as "Chasing Amy", "Amateur", "Party Girl" and "The Guru". Career. Ewell was born in Williamston, North Carolina to teenage parents. His father fought in Vietnam and served six years in the United States military while Dwight's mother took care of Dwight and his younger sister. Unhappy in her marriage, at 21 years old, Dwight's mom took the children up North where she felt that she could begin pursuing her career as a singer. The three moved several times before ending up in the rough Stella Wright Housing Projects on Prince Street, in Newark, New Jersey. Dwight and his sister attended the Louise A. Spencer Elementary School in Newark in the mid-1970s. In later years, Dwight was enrolled in The Gifted and Talented Program in the same school. It was there that his interest in the arts was nurtured. At the age of 9, he began writing plays that the teachers would allow him to direct and the students to perform. At the age of 13, Ewell auditioned for and was accepted into Arts High School in Newark, New Jersey. In 1986, he graduated, and in the fall of that year he attended the State University of New York's Theater Arts and Film Divisions Acting Program for four years. Ewell has worked extensively in independent and art house films. Ewell is best known for his performance in Kevin Smith's "Chasing Amy" starring Ben Affleck, where he plays the role of "Hooper X", an African American writer of black militant comic books, who is secretly homosexual but employs the public persona of a violent militant who denounces the "Star Wars" trilogy as racist. Ewell has collaborated with director Hal Hartley on short- and feature-length films; including "Amateur" and "Flirt". He has also worked with director Daisy von Scherler Mayer twice, in the films "Party Girl" and "The Guru".
1055513	Theresa Magdalena 'Tisa' Farrow (born July 22, 1951) is an American actress (retired) and nurse. Early life. Farrow, one of seven children, was born in Los Angeles, California, the daughter of Irish-born actress Maureen O'Sullivan and Australian-born film director John Farrow. She was raised Roman Catholic. She is the youngest of four girls and three boys; Mia (born 1945), Prudence (born 1948), Stephanie (born 1949), Michael Damien (1939–1958), Patrick Joseph (1942–2009), and John Charles (born 1946). Acting career. She took up acting shortly after her older sister Mia Farrow rose to stardom. Farrow's first film appearance was in "Homer" (1970), directed By John Trent. She has spent some of her career in lower-rung horror films and melodramas, while still pursuing higher profile projects with some of the better known American directors. Farrow is perhaps most known for starring in the horror film, "Zombi II", but she also appeared in James Toback's first feature production "Fingers", opposite Harvey Keitel, as well in Woody Allen's "Manhattan" (1979) and Antonio Margheriti's "The Last Hunter" (1980) In addition to "Zombi II", Farrow also appeared in "Antropophagus", another "video nasty". Farrow gave up acting in the early 1980s and went on to a career as a nurse at Rutland Regional Medical Center in Rutland, Vermont. Modeling. Farrow was featured semi-nude in a photo article in the July 1973 issue of "Playboy", photographed by Mario Casilli. Personal life. In May 2008 Tisa Farrow faced personal tragedy when her 37-year-old son, Sgt. 1st Class Jason Farrow Dene, died of an accidental prescribed drug overdose. At the time of his death, Dene was on his second tour of duty in Iraq despite recent surgery to correct breathing problems and his aunt Mia's fervent opposition to the Iraq War. Tragedy struck again in June 2009 when Mia and Tisa's 66-year-old brother Patrick shot himself to death in his Castleton, Vermont art gallery. Mia has blamed Patrick's suicide on the crushing grief and devastation over the earlier passing of Jason Dene. Like Mia, Patrick was opposed to the Iraq War, calling George W. Bush a "war criminal" shortly after Dene's death.
637841	Gabriel W. "Gabe" Kaplan (born March 31, 1945) is an American comedian, actor, poker commentator, and professional poker player.
1515270	Missing in America is a 2005 drama film, directed, produced, and written by Gabrielle Savage Dockterman. It is based on a story by Ken Miller, a former Green Beret who was a helicopter pilot in the Vietnam War. The film debuted at the Seattle International Film Festival in May 2005. Plot. Jake (played by Danny Glover), a reclusive Vietnam War veteran, has lived in a cabin in the woods of the Pacific Northwest for 35 years, plagued with guilt over the loss of men under his command. His only interaction with other people is when he drives into town to sell firewood and buy supplies from Kate (played by Linda Hamilton). His life is changed when he is visited by Henry, an ex-platoon member (played by David Strathairn). Henry is dying of lung cancer caused by the exposure to Agent Orange, and entrusts the care of his half-Vietnamese daughter Lenny to Jake. Jake refuses, but Henry leaves in the night, leaving his daughter behind and giving Jake little choice but to look after her. Lenny proves troublesome for Jake, and interrupts his normal way of life. Over time however, Lenny encourages Jake to reach out to other Vietnam veterans who are living nearby in self-imposed exile.
1059487	Julian Alexander Kitchener-Fellowes, Baron Fellowes of West Stafford DL (born 17 August 1949), known professionally as Julian Fellowes, is an English actor, novelist, film director and screenwriter, as well as a Conservative member of the House of Lords. Early life and education. Fellowes was born in Cairo, Egypt, the youngest son of
1277856	American Blackout (2006) is a documentary film directed by Ian Inaba. It premiered at the 2006 Sundance Film Festival. The film chronicles the 2002 defeat, and 2004 reelection, of Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney to the U.S. House of Representatives; it also discusses issues surrounding alleged voter disenfranchisement and the use of voting machines in both the 2000 and 2004 presidential elections. The film focuses heavily on McKinney, and claims that her 2002 loss in a Democratic primary to Denise Majette (who, like McKinney, is African-American) was part of an effort to disenfranchise minority voters. McKinney claims that Republican voters in her district tipped the primary election to Majette. This itself is legal, as Georgia law opens primaries to all voters irrespective of party. After losing, McKinney filed a lawsuit claiming that open primaries are a violation of the 14th Amendment, but a court dismissed the case.
1063999	John Yohan Cho (born June 16, 1972) is an Korean-American actor and musician. He starred as Harold Lee in the "Harold & Kumar" films and played the character John, MILF Guy No. 2 who popularized the term "MILF" in the "American Pie" films. He has also starred in the critically acclaimed Asian American films "Better Luck Tomorrow" and "Yellow".
582456	Hrishitaa Bhatt (; born 10 May 1981), also spelled as Hrishita Bhat, is an Indian actress and model. She debuted in the film "Asoka" (2001) opposite Shahrukh Khan, but it was "Haasil" (2003), that brought major turn into her career. Bhatt got acclaim by this role and appeared in films like "Ab Tak Chhappan" and "Jigyaasa". In 2008, she appeared in IshQ Bector's music video "Daaku Daddy" with Shakti Kapoor. Early and personal life. Bhatt was born into a Bengali-speaking family in Mumbai. She used to take dance lessons as a child, was athletic and believed in keeping fit from her school days. She wanted to be a pilot, but after completing her education at Trinity College, London; took Kathak lessons from choreographer Shiamak Davar; and some modeling assignments, she successfully auditioned for the Liril advertising campaign. She was selected and became the Liril girl with the cute smile. She has also appeared in a music video album, ""Aankhon Me Tera Hi Chehra"" by Aryans, with Shahid Kapoor.
1504059	Laura Michelle Kelly (born 4 March 1981) is an English actress and singer who achieved critical acclaim in the role of Mary Poppins in the musical of the same name. Career. Musical theatre. Kelly's West End musical credits include "Beauty and the Beast", "Whistle Down The Wind" as Swallow (2000), "Les Misérables" as Eponine at the Palace Theatre (2001), "Mamma Mia!" as Sophie at the Prince Edward Theatre (2002), and "My Fair Lady" as Eliza at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane (2003). She made her Broadway debut in a revival of "Fiddler on the Roof" as Hodel (2004). "Mary Poppins" premiered in September 2004 at the Bristol Hippodrome, followed in December by its opening in the West End at the Prince Edward Theatre. For her role as Mary Poppins, Kelly earned rave reviews as well as the 2005 Olivier Award for Best Actress in a Musical. She left "Mary Poppins" on 29 October 2005 after more than 400 performances and was succeeded by Scarlett Strallen. Kelly then went to Singapore to star in a revival of "A Twist of Fate" in November 2005, produced by the Singapore Repertory Company. It also starred Anthony Drewe (who co-wrote the music with Singaporean composer Dick Lee). In 2006 she returned to the London stage performing in "A Tribute to Dirty Dancing" at Kenwood House and Marble Hill. Kelly and Michael Ball performed at the Hackney Empire on 1 August 2006 to celebrate Anthony Newley for BBC Radio Two which was broadcast on 29 September 2006. Kelly was the Special Guest for Jools Holland and His Rhythm and Blues Orchestra on tour during December 2006. On 27 August 2007, Kelly made her BBC Proms debut, performing "The Prayer" from the film "Quest for Camelot" alongside Michael Ball. During 2007-08, Kelly played the role of Galadriel in the original London production of "The Lord of the Rings - The Musical" at Theatre Royal, Drury Lane to critical acclaim. The show began previews on 9 May 2007, with an official opening night of 19 June 2007. Kelly played her final performance on 2 February 2008, and was replaced by Abbie Osman. She plays the dual role of a nun and former "Coronation Street" actor Johnny Briggs's trophy wife in an ITV1 production of Agatha Christie's "Nemesis". and made her film debut as Lucy Barker in the Tim Burton/DreamWorks film "Sweeney Todd". Kelly appeared alongside Kevin Spacey and Jeff Goldblum in David Mamet's play "Speed-the-Plow" at London's Old Vic theatre from 1 February to 26 April 2008 and at the Ruhrfestspiele in Recklinghausen, Germany, in May 2008. Beginning 12 October 2009, Kelly reprised the role of Mary Poppins at the New Amsterdam Theatre on Broadway, replacing Scarlett Strallen. Kelly temporarily left the cast of "Mary Poppins" on 6 March 2011, where she was replaced by Ashley Brown, to shoot a film. She returned to the production on 19 July 2011. She played her final performance on 9 October 2011 and was replaced by Steffanie Leigh. Kelly and former London co-star Gavin Lee performed as Mary Poppins and Bert in the "America Celebrates July 4th at Ford's Theatre" in front of President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama on 6 June 2010. The special aired on 2 July 2010 on ABC. Kelly once again reunited with Lee when he returned to the role of Bert in the Broadway production of "Mary Poppins" on August 24, 2010. Kelly starred as Anna Leonowens in a production of "The King and I" at the Muny from 6–12 August 2012. She will also star as Ensign Nellie Forbush in the Muny production of "South Pacific" from July 8–14, 2013. She reprised the role of Eliza in a concert version of "My Fair Lady" at the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C. on May 5, 2013. Recording artist. Kelly released her debut single, "There Was A Time", through EMIs Angel label for download only on 17 April 2006. The single enjoyed Record of the Week status on BBC Radio 2. This single is from her debut solo album, "The Storm Inside" which was released on 1 May 2006. The album includes six original songs and six covers, including three songs which Kelly wrote herself. A new single, "What's It All For?" (written by singer Judie Tzuke) was released as a digital download on 5 March. It will be followed by the release of her album, also titled "What's It All For?" with the three new tracks and a selection of others from "The Storm Inside" which was released in 2006. Personal life. Kelly was born in Totton near Southampton, Hampshire, and moved to a farm on the Isle of Wight with her family, her mother's birthplace and where her father and mother first met. She attended Newchurch Primary, Solent Middle and Sandown High. Her first musical appearance was in "Bugsy Malone" in middle school. She studied with a local singing teacher, Barbara Walters, who cast Kelly in amateur productions at local theatres, including Shanklin Stagecoach of Performing Arts School. Kelly is divorced from choreographer Nick Winston, whom she married in 2001.
1068809	Christa Campbell (born December 7, 1972) is an American actress and producer. Campbell is best known for her roles in 2001 Maniacs, Mozart and the Whale, Lonely Hearts, The Wicker Man, Cleaner, Day of the Dead (2008 film), Lies & Illusions, The Mechanic, Drive Angry, Straight A’s, The Big Wedding, and The Iceman.
1064141	Omar Hashim Epps (born July 20, 1973) is an American actor, rapper, songwriter, and record producer. His film roles include "Major League II", "Juice", "Higher Learning", "Scream 2", "The Wood", "In Too Deep", and "Love and Basketball". Epps' television work includes the role of Dr. Dennis Gant on the US medical drama series "ER", and, between 2004 and 2012, Dr. Eric Foreman on the Fox medical drama series "House". Personal life. Epps was born in Brooklyn, New York. His parents divorced during his childhood and he was raised by his mother, Bonnie Maria Epps, an elementary school principal. He lived in several neighborhoods while growing up (Bedford-Stuyvesant, East New York and Flatbush). Before he started acting, he belonged to a rap group called Wolfpack which he formed with his cousin in 1991. He began writing poetry, short stories and songs at the age of ten and attended the Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts. Epps married Keisha Spivey from the R&B group Total in 2006. They live in California with daughter K'mari Mae (born July 2004) and son Amir (born 25 December 2007). He has a daughter, Aiyanna, from a previous relationship. Career. Early in Epps's career, he was most often cast in the roles of troubled teens and/or athletes. He made his feature film debut with rapper Tupac Shakur as the star of cinematographer Ernest Dickerson's directorial film debut "Juice". The film is the violent and tragic story of four young men growing up in Harlem. Epps followed up his performance in "Juice" as a running back in the college football drama "The Program" alongside James Caan. Epps starred in the film "Deadly Voyage" produced by John Goldschmidt for HBO Pictures and BBC Films, and won the best actor award at the Monte Carlo Television Festival for portraying Kingsley Ofusu in this true story about African stowaways. The following year, he switched to baseball as co-star of "Major League II", taking over the role of Willie Mays Hayes from originator Wesley Snipes. His next athletic endeavor was playing a track and field star in John Singleton's "Higher Learning", a look at the politics and racial tensions of college life. Epps landed a role on the hit television drama "ER" for several episodes portraying Dr. Dennis Gant, a troubled surgical intern. After his television work on "ER", Epps returned to the big screen in 1997 with a brief turn as a giddy moviegoer on a date with a woman played by Jada Pinkett, who ends up an early victim of a psycho slasher in the blockbuster sequel "Scream 2". Also in 1997 Epps was the star of the fact-based HBO movie "First Time Felon". He played a small-time criminal who goes through Chicago's boot camp reform system and undertakes a heroic flood rescue, only to then be faced with the adjustment of re-entering society with the mark of ex-con. In 1999 Epps was cast as Linc in "The Mod Squad".
582294	Dhamaal (English translation: "Fun") is a 2007 Bollywood comedy film directed by Indra Kumar and produced by Ashok Thakeria. The film stars Sanjay Dutt, Ritesh Deshmukh, Arshad Warsi, Javed Jaffrey and Aashish Chaudhary.
1058962	Lake Bell (born March 24, 1979) is an American actress, writer and director. She has starred in the television series "Miss Match" (2003); "The Practice" (2004) and its spinoff "Boston Legal" (2004–2006) as Sally Heep; "Surface" (2005–2006); "How to Make It in America" (2010–2011) and "Childrens Hospital" (2008–present) and in the films "Over Her Dead Body", "What Happens in Vegas" and "Pride and Glory" (all 2008); "It's Complicated" (2009); "Burning Palms" (2010); and "Little Murder", "No Strings Attached" and "A Good Old Fashioned Orgy" (all 2011). She wrote and directed her own award-winning short film, "Worst Enemy", which debuted at the Sundance Film Festival followed by her feature film debut "In a World..." in 2013. Early life. Bell was born in New York City, the daughter of Robin Bell, owner of the design firm Robin Bell Design, Inc. in New York, and real estate developer Harvey Siegel, who famously bought the then-closed Virginia International Raceway and converted it into a racetrack country club. Her father is Jewish and her mother is Protestant. Bell has stated that she was raised in a "comically dysfunctional family". Bell attended The Chapin School in New York and Westminster School in Simsbury, Connecticut. For part of her teenage years she lived in Vero Beach, Florida and attended St. Edward's School. She attended Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, New York before transferring to Rose Bruford College in London where she acted in several theatrical productions including "The Seagull", "The Children's Hour", "Six Degrees of Separation", "Light Shining in Buckinghamshire" and "Pentecost". Career. Bell began her career in 2002 with roles in the film "Speakeasy" and in 2 episodes of "ER". Her first significant roles came in 2003 - after appearing in the psychological thriller "I Love Your Work", she was cast alongside Jeff Goldblum as the female lead in the NBC television film "War Stories" and played Alicia Silverstone's wisecracking best friend, Victoria Carlson, in NBC's comedy-drama series "Miss Match". In 2004, Bell appeared in the wrestling film "Slammed" and made her debut as Sally Heep in the final four episodes of "The Practice". Her character was carried over into the spinoff "Boston Legal", where she was made a regular cast member until she left the series in 2005. Bell then played the lead role in the science fiction series "Surface", which aired between September 2005 and May 2006. 2006 also saw her star in the film "" about the Hillside Strangler of the late 1970s and return to "Boston Legal" for two episodes, reprising her role as Sally Heep, opposing counsel to Alan Shore (portrayed by James Spader). In 2008, she played the female lead in the thriller "Under Still Waters", for which she won the Newport Beach Film Festival Award for Outstanding Performance in Acting; starred alongside Paul Rudd and Eva Longoria in the romantic comedy "Over Her Dead Body"; played Cameron Diaz's best friend in the romantic comedy "What Happens in Vegas" and played the wife of Colin Farrell's character in crime drama "Pride and Glory". She was also cast as the lead female role, Dr. Cat Black, in Rob Corddry's satirical comedy "Childrens Hospital". The fourth season began airing in August 2012 and featured two episodes that were directed by Bell—the series premiere, "The Boy with the Pancakes Tattoo", a parody of "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo" and the ninth episode, "A Kid Walks in to a Hospital". In 2009, Bell voiced the role of Dana Mercer in the video game "Prototype", played Alec Baldwin's wife in the romantic comedy "It's Complicated" and guest starred in an episode of the fourth season of the series "Wainy Days". 2010 saw Bell voice a supporting role in "Shrek Forever After", star in the satirical film "Burning Palms", guest star in an episode of the second season of the sitcom "The League" and cast as a lead character in the new HBO television series "How to Make It in America", which aired for 2 seasons from February 2010 to November 2011. Bell was to play Deputy Judy Hicks in Scream 4, but dropped out four days before filming due to scheduling conflicts, with the role going to Marley Shelton. 2010 saw Bell make her writing and directing début with the short film "Worst Enemy", which starred Michaela Watkins, Matt Walsh and Lindsay Sloane. Her film débuted at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival and has also played at the Nantucket Film Festival, the Dallas International Film Festival, the Gen Art Film Festival and Aspen Shortsfest, winning the Tony Cox Award for Screenwriting in a Short Film from Nantucket and receiving a Shorts Jury Special Mention from Dallas. Her film led to her being named one of the "2012 Inspiring Filmmakers" by LUNAFEST. In 2011, Bell starred alongside Josh Lucas and Terrence Howard in the supernatural thriller "Little Murder"; played Ashton Kutcher's boss in the romantic comedy "No Strings Attached", a performance that won her critical praise and was called "scene-stealing"; starred in the ensemble comedy "A Good Old Fashioned Orgy" and guest starred in an episode of the first season of Zooey Deschanel's sitcom "New Girl". Bell has a lead role alongside Kate Bosworth in the upcoming thriller "Black Rock". Bell first feature-length film premiered in the 2013 Sundance Film Festival., "In A World..." is written by, stars, and is directed by Bell. She describes the film as "a comedy about a female voice-over artist and family dysfunction and relationships. I’m obsessed with the voice-over world, so it makes sense for me.". Bell has an automotive column in "The Hollywood Reporter" called "Test Drive" and is the magazine's automotive contributing editor. Bell came 45th on "Femme Fatales"' list of the 50 Sexiest Women of 2003; she came 6th on "British Vogue's" list of the 10 Best Dressed Women of 2007, she was 32nd on "Maxim's Hot 100" of 2008, she was 44th on Maxim's Hot 100 of 2012 and 89th on AskMen's 99 Most Desirable Women of 2012. In 2007, Bell appeared in a photoshoot for "GQ", in 2008 she appeared in a photoshoot for "Marie Claire", in 2009 she modelled for Scott Caan for his first book, "Scott Caan Photographs, Vol. 1" and in 2011 she appeared in photoshoots for "Elle", "Los Angeles", "Maxim" and "Esquire", the latter in conjunction with the website "Me In My Place". In September 2011, Bell modelled at Pirelli's Fashion Week in Milan, Italy. Personal life. Bell and Colin Farrell, her co-star in "Pride and Glory", dated for a time. In 2011, Bell began dating Scott Campbell, an artist and tattoo artist. The two met when he played himself in an episode of the second series of "How to Make It in America". The couple became engaged in April 2012 and were married on June 1, 2013.
1166226	Patricia Neal (born September 21, 1944), known professionally as Fannie Flagg, is an American actress, comedian and author. She is best known as a semi-regular panelist on the 1973–82 versions of the game show "Match Game", and for the 1988 novel "Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe", which was adapted into the 1991 movie "Fried Green Tomatoes". Flagg was nominated for an Academy Award for the screenplay adaptation. Biography. Early life. Flagg, born in Birmingham, Alabama, is the daughter of Marion Leona (née LeGore) and William Hurbert Neal, Jr., who was a small-business owner and projectionist. As her acting career began, Flagg could not use her birth name professionally, as there was already a well-known Oscar-winning actress named Patricia Neal. Writing career. During the 1960s, Flagg co-hosted the locally produced "Morning Show" on WBRC-TV in Birmingham, Alabama. Following this, she was hired as a staff writer for Allen Funt's "Candid Camera," and she later became Funt's co-host on the syndicated 1970s weekly version of the show. After a lull in her writing career, she returned her focus to writing in the 1980s. Among her novels are "Daisy Fay and the Miracle Man" (1983) (originally titled "Coming Attractions"), "Welcome to the World, Baby Girl!" (1998) and perhaps her best known book, "Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe". She subsequently wrote the screenplay based on that book which became the film "Fried Green Tomatoes". The 1991 movie garnered her a nomination for an Academy Award. "Fried Green Tomatoes" starred Jessica Tandy, Kathy Bates, Mary Stuart Masterson, Mary-Louise Parker, and Cicely Tyson. She has also written "Standing in the Rainbow" (2002), "A Redbird Christmas", (2004), and "Can't Wait to Get to Heaven" (2006). Her most recent book, "I Still Dream About You: A Novel" was published on November 9, 2010 by Random House. Acting career. During the 1970s, Flagg was a fixture on game show panels. She is best known for her appearances on the game show "Match Game" (normally occupying the lower right-hand seat next to regular panelist Richard Dawson). Her acting credits include the Broadway production of "The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas", the films "Some of My Best Friends Are...", "Five Easy Pieces", "Stay Hungry", "Grease" and "Crazy in Alabama", as well as minor roles in various television shows. In 1975 she appeared as the Amazon Doctor in the pilot for "The New Adventures of Wonder Woman". She is also known for being a regular on "The New Dick Van Dyke Show", where for two seasons she played Mike Preston, sister to Van Dyke's character Dick Preston, and for her role as Cassie Bowman in all 30 episodes of the 1980-81 sitcom version of "Harper Valley PTA", starring Barbara Eden. She also appeared several times as a victim of alien abduction called Silvia Miller on the talk show parody "Fernwood 2 Night" during 1977. During the 1960s and '70s, Flagg recorded two comedy albums with various skits that included many parodies of Lady Bird Johnson and Martha Mitchell. Personal life. Flagg has spoken publicly about being dyslexic. Flagg has said she was greatly challenged as a writer because she "was severely dyslexic and couldn't spell, still can't spell. So I was discouraged from writing and embarrassed". Her burgeoning writing career was put on hold for much of the 1970s, but Flagg overcame her fear and completed several novels and screenplays. Flagg was at one time the partner of author Rita Mae Brown. Flagg divides her time between homes in California and Alabama.
1164948	Benjamin Jeremy "Ben" Stein (born November 25, 1944) is an American actor, writer, lawyer, and commentator on political and economic issues. He attained early success as a speechwriter for American presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford. Later, he entered the entertainment field and became an actor, comedian, and Emmy Award-winning game show host.
1057225	The Dentist is an American horror film released in 1996. It was directed by Brian Yuzna and written by Dennis Paoli and Stuart Gordon. The film stars Corbin Bernsen, Linda Hoffman, and Ken Foree. The film was inspired by the story of real-life dentist/serial killer Nick Rex. "The Dentist" was followed by "The Dentist 2" in 1998. Plot. Dr. Alan Feinstone (Corbin Bernsen) has everything he wants in his life: a beautiful wife, a nice house, a job as a dentist, and a popular reputation. However, everything changes on the day of his wedding anniversary, he spies on his wife Brooke, and spots her cheating on him and having sex with their filthy poolman, Matt. Alan waits for them to finish, and retrieves his handgun (a .380 Walther PPK) and then follows Matt in his car, tailing him.
591621	Mujhse Fraaandship Karoge is a 2011 Bollywood Romantic comedy film directed by Nupur Asthana, starring debutant actors in the lead role. The film is the second production of Y-Films, a subsidiary of Yash Raj Films. It released on 14 October 2011. It also marked the debut of Indian folk rocker Raghu Dixit in Bollywood. The film is inspired by the popular social networking site Facebook. It was declared as a hit at the Indian box office Plot. University students Vishal (Saqib Saleem) and Preity (Saba Azad) hate each other. Vishal’s goodlooking friend Rahul (Nishant Dahiya) is a singer and popular among the girls in their college. Vishal writes the lyrics for Rahul’s songs. Preity is the president of the Photography Club. Preity’s good looking friend Malvika (Tara D’Souza) is a fashion designing student. Malvika’s parents live abroad and she lives with Preity and her mom. Rahul ignores a lot of friend requests from girls (on Facebook) and Malvika ignores a lot of friend requests from guys. Vishal likes Malvika and Preity likes Rahul. Vishal sends friend request to Malvika through his own and Rahul's account and Malvika ignores it and leaves the room leaving her Facebook account on. Preity uses her friend Malvika’s account and accepts the friend request from Rahul. Vishal talks to Malvika pretending to be Rahul. But, he is actually talking to Preity because she is pretending to be Malvika and she thinks she is talking to Rahul. Vishal and Preity are busted by their friends and they request their friends Rahul and Malvika to go on a date. Rahul and Malvika starts liking each other after seeing that they have a lot in common. They go on a double date, Malvika with Vishal and Preity with Rahul. The college is celebrating its silver jubilee. The theme for the festival is a photographic documentary (idea of Preity) of the romantic history of the college (idea of Vishal). Vishal and Preity have to work together. They have a lot in common and they are both immature and they argue a lot. Slowly, after spending time together they both sort out there previous differences and soon become good friends. At Rahul's birthday party, Vishal finds Rahul kissing Malvika. On seeing this, the enraged Vishal tells Malvika that it was he who had chatted with her and not Rahul which Preity also overhears. This angers her and she tells him that it was not Malvika but she who was chatting with him. She admits that she had fallen in love with him but Vishal is still angry at what he considers is his friend Rahul's betrayal. At the College's Silver Jubilee festival, Vishal finally realizes and tells Preity that he loves her in front of the audience and they kiss, celebrating the new generation of romance. Production. Development. On 1 April 2011 the film was unveiled publicly as the second production venture of Y-Films and the cast of the film met the press along with the actors from Y-Films' other venture, "Luv Ka The End". Reception. Critical response. The film received a good response from most of the critics. Leading Bollywood portal Movie Talkies quoted "Y-Films' latest outing is a must watch. And with characters like Vishal, Preity and Hacky, who stay with you long after you've left the theatre hall, this is one 'fraaandship' request everyone should accept instantly!" and rated Mujhse Fraaandship Karoge with 3.5 stars. Popular Bollywood portal Glamsham gave the movie 3.5 stars. Fullhyd.com rated it 6 out of 10, stating that the film is likely to hit it off with you if you're approximately 18 years old. Box office. Mujhse Fraaandship Karoge had an Excellent opening at the box office the film totally grossed . It was declared a Hit by the "Box Office India". Soundtrack. Most of the film's music is composed by Raghu Dixit. Taran Adarsh of Bolywood Hungama gave the soundtrack three stars out of five and praised it for the variety Dixit brought in the five songs he composed. He also said the album has the kind of songs that should not be dependent upon the theatrical run of the movie and is expected to find listeners even after the movie releases.
589474	Teesri Manzil (English: "Third Storey") is a 1966 Bollywood thriller directed by Vijay Anand and produced by Nasir Hussain. It starred his regular actors Shammi Kapoor and Asha Parekh, along with Nazima, Premnath, Prem Chopra, Iftekhar, Helen, K. N. Singh and Salim Khan.The film became a hit at the box office. "Indiatimes Movies" ranks the movie amongst the "Top 25 Must See Bollywood Films". The DVD & VCD versions run for 145 minutes, while the theatre version ran for 175 minutes. Between Ruby's (Helen) jealous sniping at minute 76 and the song "Dekhiye Sahiban Woh Koi Aur Thi", approximately 30 minutes of footage is missing. The last time a full version of this film released was on VHS.[http://www.economist.com/node/21526772/comments][http://memsaabstory.wordpress.com/tag/teesri-manzil-missing-scenes/] Plot. Anil Kumar "Sona" (Shammi Kapoor) sees a young woman named Roopa jumping from the third floor of the hotel at night where he regularly performs as a musician under the stage name "Rocky." Roopa's younger sister, Sunita, (Asha Parekh) believes that her sister committed suicide because of a supposedly ruined affair with Rocky, so she comes to seek vengeance. She and Anil fall in love, but he doesn't know how to tell her that he and Rocky are the same person.
25474	William Albert "Bill" Dembski (born July 18, 1960) is an American philosopher and theologian. He is a proponent of intelligent design, specifically the concept of specified complexity. He is currently the "Philip E. Johnson Research Professor in Culture & Science" at the Southern Evangelical Seminary at Matthews, North Carolina, and a senior fellow of the Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture. He is the author of a number of books about intelligent design, including "The Design Inference" (1998), "Intelligent Design: The Bridge between Science and Theology" (1999), "The Design Revolution" (2004), "The End of Christianity" (2009), and "Intelligent Design Uncensored" (2010). The concept of intelligent design involves the argument that an intelligent cause is responsible for the complexity of life and that it can be detected empirically. Dembski postulates that probability theory can be used to prove irreducible complexity, or what he calls specified complexity. Intelligent design—and Dembski's concept of specified complexity—are seen by the scientific community as a form of conservative Christian creationism, attempting to portray itself as science. Biography. Dembski was born in Chicago, Illinois, the only child of Catholic parents, his mother an art dealer and his father a college professor and lecturer. His father held a D.Sc in biology from the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg and taught evolutionary biology; while growing up Dembski was neither particularly religious nor did he question the theory of evolution. He attended an all-male Catholic preparatory school in Chicago. Dembski finished high school a year early, excelling in math and finishing a calculus course in one summer. After high school he attended the University of Chicago. There, Dembski experienced educational and personal difficulties, struggling with the advanced courses and finding the unfamiliar social milieu of college challenging. Dembski dropped out of school and worked at his mother's art business while reading works on creationism and the Bible. Finding the creationist works interesting in their challenge of evolution but their literal interpretations lacking, Dembski returned to school at the University of Illinois at Chicago, studying statistics.
447461	It has been serialized by Kodansha since 1998, initially in "Young Magazine Uppers" before transferring to "Weekly Morning". Serialization is irregular, and went on hiatus in 2002 before resuming in 2006. The serial chapters have been collected in 21 bound volumes to date. The series was adapted as a 2007 Japanese animated feature film by director Masayuki Kojima and production company Madhouse. The film featured performances by the renowned pianist Vladimir Ashkenazy. Madhouse Studios and the producers of the Piano no Mori movie (opening July 21 in Japan) have announced that Aya Ueto, best known for starring in the live-action versions of Azumi and Aim for the Ace!, will headline as Kai Ichinose in this adaptation of Makoto Isshiki's manga. Ryunosuke Kamiki (Spirited Away's Boh, Howl's Moving Castle's Markl) will play Kai's friend and piano-playing rival, Shuhei Amamiya. Mayuko Fukuda (live-action Grave of the Fireflies' Hana) will play the heroine Takako Maruyama, and Hiroyuki Miyasako (Casshern live-action, Kamikaze Girls) will play the mentor Sōsuke Ajino. Development. Makoto Isshiki was inspired to write "Piano no Mori" when he watched a documentary showing Stanislav Bunin winning the International Frederick Chopin Piano Competition in 1985. Media. The series is licensed by Sharp Point Press in Taiwan. Reception. "Piano no Mori" received the Grand Prize for best manga at the 12th Japan Media Arts Festival in 2008. The movie adaptation debuted in 9th place at the Japanese box office the week it came out, unusually high for a non-franchise animated film. By the end of the year, it had grossed the equivalent of $1,555,297, ranking 119 on the overall yearly box office chart for Japan. In South Korea, the film played for 50 weeks and grossed the equivalent of $182,884. The film was nominated for the 2008 Japan Academy Prize for Animation of the Year.
52289	Yossi & Jagger () is a 2002 Israeli romantic drama film directed by Eytan Fox about soldiers at the Israel – Lebanon border who try to find some peace and solace from the daily routine of war. The film has a sequel entitled "Yossi" ( "Yossi's Story") released in 2012 that picks up the story a number of years after the events in the first film. Plot. Yossi (Ohad Knoller) commands a company of soldiers in the snow-covered mountains near Lebanon. In secrecy, he leads a passionate romantic relationship with his second-in-command officer, Lior (Yehuda Levi), who is called Jagger by everyone for his rock star-like handsomeness and his lip-syncing Mick Jagger. The pair, Yossi and Jagger, lead a loving, yet secret life together, venturing off to be alone and open with one another. One day, a colonel (Sharon Raginiano) arrives at the base with two female soldiers, one of whom he immediately sleeps with in the bunker. The other one, Yaeli (Aya Koren, credited as Aya Steinovitz), is very interested in Jagger, while she refuses the sexual advances of Ofir (Assi Cohen), who tries to make clear to her that Jagger is not particularly interested in her. The colonel is there to supervise a night-time ambush, of which Yossi is resentful because of the full moon, and also because he fears for his soldiers' safety. And indeed Jagger is fatally injured that night, dying in the arms of his lover, who only now is able to articulate his love for him. At the funeral reception at Jagger's parents' house, Jagger's mother mistakes Yaeli for his girlfriend. She laments that she knew very little about her son, including his favorite song, which only Yossi is able to tell her was "Bo" sung by Rita. The song was also sung by Ivri Lider. Reception. The film received positive reviews from critics. Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reports that 88% out of 42 professional critics gave the film a positive review, with the site's consensus being "A tersely told yet deeply felt romance." At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 based on reviews from mainstream critics, the film received an average score of 70, based on 19 reviews. Actor Ohad Knoller won the award for best actor at the 2003 Tribeca Film Festival, for his portrayal of Yossi. The film did not receive production assistance from the Israeli army but proved to be popular in Israel and got showings on military bases later.
1062120	Lucy Alexis Liu (born Lucy Liu; December 2, 1968) is an American actress, model, artist, and occasional film producer. She became known for playing the role of the vicious and ill-mannered Ling Woo in television series "Ally McBeal" (1998–2002) for which she was nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series and a Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Comedy Series. Her film work includes starring as one of the heroines in "Charlie's Angels", playing one of the enemies of The Bride in "Kill Bill", and appearances in "Payback", "Chicago", and animated hit "Kung Fu Panda". In 2012, Liu joined the cast of TNT series "Southland" in the recurring role of Jessica Tang, for which she won the Critics' Choice Television Award for Best Drama Guest Actress. In 2008, she starred in her own television show, ABC comedy-drama, "Cashmere Mafia", which ended after one abbreviated season. The show was one of only a few American television shows to have an Asian-American series lead. She is currently co-starring in Sherlock Holmes-inspired crime drama "Elementary", playing Joan Watson. Early life. Lucy Liu was born in Jackson Heights, Queens, New York. In high school, she adopted her middle name "Alexis". She is the youngest of three children born to Cecilia, who worked as a biochemist, and Tom Liu, a trained civil engineer who sold digital clock pens to make a living. Her parents worked many jobs when Lucy and her siblings were growing up. Liu's parents were immigrants from Beijing and Shanghai and they met in New York. She has an older brother, John, and an older sister, Jenny. Liu has stated that she grew up in a "diverse" neighborhood. She learned to speak Mandarin at home and began studying English when she was five years old. She studied kali-eskrima-silat as a hobby when she was young. Liu attended Joseph Pulitzer Middle School (I.S.145), and graduated from Stuyvesant High School in 1986. She enrolled at New York University and transferred to the University of Michigan, where she was a member of the Chi Omega sorority. Liu earned a bachelor's degree in Asian languages and cultures. In Michigan, Liu worked as a waitress. Career as actress. 1988–1999. Liu was discovered by an agent at the age of 19 while travelling on the subway. She did one commercial. As a member of the Basement Arts student-run theater group, she auditioned in 1989 for the University of Michigan's production of "Alice in Wonderland" during her senior year of college. Although she had originally tried out for only a supporting part, Liu was cast in the lead role. While queuing up to audition for the musical "Miss Saigon" in 1990, she told "The New York Times", "There aren't many Asian roles, and it's very difficult to get your foot in the door." In May 1992, Liu made her New York stage debut in "Fairy Bones", directed by Tina Chen. Liu had small roles in films and TV, marking her debut. She was cast in both "The X-Files" in "Hell Money" and "" in "The March to Freedom", before landing a role on "Ally McBeal". Liu originally auditioned for the role of 'Nelle Porter' (played by Portia de Rossi), and the character Ling Woo was later created specifically for her. Liu's part on the series was originally temporary, but high audience ratings secured Liu as a permanent cast member. Additionally, she earned an Emmy nomination for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series and a Screen Actors Guild Award nomination for Best Actress in a Comedy Series. In "Payback" (1999), Liu portrayed Pearl, a high-class BDSM prostitute with links to the Chinese mafia. 2000–2006. Liu was cast as Alex Munday, one of the three angels in the movie version of "Charlie's Angels", alongside Drew Barrymore and Cameron Diaz. The film opened in November 2000 and earned more than $125 million in the United States. "Charlie's Angels" earned a worldwide total of more than $264 million. The sequel, ', opened in June 2003 and also did well at the box office, earning more than $100 million in the U.S. and a worldwide total of more than $259 million. Liu also starred with Antonio Banderas in ', a critical and box office failure. In 2000, she hosted "Saturday Night Live" with Jay-Z. Liu starred as lawyer Grace Chin on "Ugly Betty" in the episodes "Derailed" and "Icing on the Cake". In a 2001 episode of "Sex and the City" entitled "Coulda, Woulda, Shoulda" she guest starred as herself, playing a new client of character Samantha Jones who does public relations. She starred in the "Sex and the City"–inspired TV show, "Cashmere Mafia" on ABC. Liu also made a cameo appearance on animated shows "Futurama" (as herself and/or robot duplicates thereof in the episodes "I Dated a Robot" and "Love and Rocket") and "The Simpsons" (on the season 16 episode "Goo Goo Gai Pan"). In 2002, Liu played Rita Foster in Vincenzo Natali's "Brainstorm" (aka "Cypher"). Soon thereafter, she appeared as O-Ren Ishii in Quentin Tarantino's 2003 film, "Kill Bill". She won an MTV Award for "Best Movie Villain" for the part. Subsequently, Liu appeared on several episodes of "Joey" with Matt LeBlanc, who played her love interest in the "Charlie's Angels" films. She also had minor roles as Kitty Baxter in the film "Chicago" and as a psychologist opposite Keira Knightley in the thriller "Domino". In "Lucky Number Slevin", she played the leading love interest to Josh Hartnett. "3 Needles" was released on December 1, 2006. Liu portrayed Jin Ping, an HIV-positive Chinese woman. 2007–present. In 2007, Liu appeared in ', ', a supernatural thriller co-starring Michael Chiklis in which Liu plays an undead reporter (for which she was ranked number 41 on "Top 50 Sexiest Vampires"), and "Watching the Detectives", an independent romantic comedy co-starring Cillian Murphy. She made her producer debut and also starred in a remake of "Charlie Chan", which had been planned as early as 2000. In 2007 "Empire" named Liu number 96 of their "100 Sexiest Movie Stars." The producers of "Dirty Sexy Money" created a role for Liu as a series regular. Liu played Nola Lyons, a powerful attorney who faced Nick George (Peter Krause). Liu voiced Silvermist in "Disney Fairies" and Viper in "Kung Fu Panda".
1162866	Harry Julius Shearer (born December 23, 1943) is an American actor, humorist, writer, voice artist, musician, author, radio host and filmmaker. He is known for his long-running roles on "The Simpsons", his work on "Saturday Night Live", the comedy band Spinal Tap and his radio program "Le Show". Born in Los Angeles, California, Shearer began his career as a child actor, appearing in "The Jack Benny Program", as well as the 1953 films "Abbott and Costello Go to Mars" and "The Robe". In 1957, Shearer played the precursor to the Eddie Haskell character in the pilot episode for the television series "Leave It to Beaver", but his parents decided not to let him continue in the role so that he could have a normal childhood. From 1969 to 1976, Shearer was a member of The Credibility Gap, a radio comedy group. Following the breakup of the group, Shearer co-wrote the film "Real Life" with Albert Brooks and started writing for Martin Mull's television series "Fernwood 2 Night". In August 1979, Shearer was hired as a writer and cast member on "Saturday Night Live". Shearer describes his experience on the show as a "living hell" and he did not get along well with the other writers and cast members. He left the show in 1980. Shearer co-created, co-wrote and co-starred in the 1984 film "This Is Spinal Tap", a satirical rockumentary about a band called Spinal Tap. Shearer portrayed Derek Smalls, the bassist, and Michael McKean and Christopher Guest played the other two members. The film became a cult hit and the band has since released several albums and played several concerts. While promoting the film, Shearer was offered the chance to return to "Saturday Night Live". He accepted, but left the show for good in January 1985, just three months into the season. Since 1983, Shearer has been the host of the public radio comedy/music program "Le Show" on Santa Monica's NPR-affiliated radio station, KCRW. The program, a hodgepodge of satirical news commentary, music, and sketch comedy, is carried on many public radio stations throughout the United States. In 1989, Shearer became a part of the cast of "The Simpsons". He was initially reluctant because he thought the recording sessions would be too much trouble. He felt voice acting was "not a lot of fun" because traditionally, voice actors record their parts separately. He provides voices for numerous characters, including Mr. Burns, Waylon Smithers, Ned Flanders, Reverend Lovejoy, Kent Brockman, Dr. Hibbert, Lenny Leonard, Principal Skinner, Otto Mann and Rainier Wolfcastle. Shearer has been vocal about what he perceives as the show's declining quality. In 2004, he said "I rate the last three seasons as among the worst." Shearer directed the 2002 film "Teddy Bears' Picnic" and appeared in several films, including "A Mighty Wind", "For Your Consideration", "The Simpsons Movie", "The Truman Show", and "Godzilla" among many others. Shearer has written three books: "Man Bites Town"; "It's the Stupidity, Stupid"; and "Not Enough Indians". He has been married to singer-songwriter Judith Owen since 1993. He has received several Primetime Emmy Award and Grammy Award nominations and in 2008 it was announced that Shearer would receive a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in the radio category. Early life. Shearer was born December 23, 1943 in Los Angeles, California, the son of Dora Warren (née Kohn), a book-keeper, and Mack Shearer. His parents were Jewish immigrants from Austria and Poland. Starting when Shearer was four years old, he had a piano teacher whose daughter worked as a child actress. The piano teacher later decided to make a career change and become a children's agent, as she knew people in the business through her daughter's work. The teacher asked Shearer's parents for permission to take him to an audition. Several months later, she called Shearer's parents and told them that she had gotten Shearer an audition for the radio show "The Jack Benny Program". Shearer received the role when he was seven years old. He described Jack Benny as "very warm and approachable [...] He was a guy who dug the idea of other people on the show getting laughs, which sort of spoiled me for other people in comedy." Shearer said in an interview that one person who "took him under his wing" and was one of his best friends during his early days in show business was voice actor Mel Blanc, who voiced many animated characters, including Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck and Barney Rubble. Shearer made his film debut in the 1953 film "Abbott and Costello Go to Mars", in which he only had a small part. Later that year, he made his first big film performance in "The Robe". Throughout his childhood and teenage years he worked in television, film, and radio. In 1957, Shearer played the precursor to the Eddie Haskell character in the pilot episode of the television series "Leave It to Beaver". After the filming, Shearer's parents said they did not want him to be a regular in a series. Instead they wanted him to just do occasional work so that he could have a normal childhood. Shearer and his parents made the decision not to accept the role in the series if it was picked up by a television network. Shearer attended UCLA as a political science major in the early 1960s and decided to quit show business to become a "serious person". However, he says this lasted approximately a month, and he joined the staff of the "Daily Bruin", UCLA's school newspaper, during his freshman year. According to Shearer, after graduating, he had "a very serious agenda going on, and it was 'Stay Out Of The Draft'." He attended graduate school at Harvard University for one year and worked at the state legislature in Sacramento. In 1967 and 1968 he was a high school teacher, teaching English and social studies. He left teaching following "disagreements with the administration." From 1969 to 1976, Shearer was a member of The Credibility Gap, a radio comedy group that included David Lander, Richard Beebe and Michael McKean. The group consisted of "a bunch of newsmen" at KRLA 1110, "the number two station" in Los Angeles. They wanted to do more than just straight news, so they hired comedians who were talented vocalists. Shearer heard about it from a friend so he brought over a tape to the station and nervously gave it to the receptionist. By the time he got home, there was a message on his answering machine asking, "Can you come to work tomorrow?" The group's radio show was canceled in 1970 by KRLA and in 1971 by KPPC-FM, so they started performing in various clubs and concert venues. While at KRLA, Shearer also interviewed Creedence Clearwater Revival for the Pop Chronicles music documentary. The group broke up 1976 when Lander and McKean left to perform in the sitcom "Laverne & Shirley". Shearer started working with Albert Brooks, producing one of Brooks' albums and co-writing the film "Real Life". Shearer also started writing for Martin Mull's television series "Fernwood 2 Night". In the mid-1970s, he started working with Rob Reiner on a pilot for ABC. The show, which starred Christopher Guest, Tom Leopold and McKean, was not picked up. Career. "Saturday Night Live". In August 1979, Shearer was hired as a writer and cast member on "Saturday Night Live", one of the first additions to the cast, and an unofficial replacement for John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd, who were both leaving the show. Al Franken recommended Shearer to "Saturday Night Live" creator Lorne Michaels. Shearer describes his experience on the show as a "living hell" and "not a real pleasant place to work." He did not get along well with the other writers and cast members and states that he was not included with the cast in the opening montage, and that Lorne Michaels had told the rest of the cast that he was just a writer. Michaels left "Saturday Night Live" at the end of the fifth season, taking the entire cast with him. Shearer told new executive producer Jean Doumanian that he was "not a fan of Lorne's" and offered to stay with the show if he was given the chance to overhaul the program and bring in experienced comedians, like Christopher Guest. However, Doumanian turned him down, so he decided to leave with the rest of the cast. In 1984, while promoting the film "This Is Spinal Tap", Shearer, Christopher Guest and Michael McKean had a performance on "Saturday Night Live". All three members were offered the chance to join to the show in the 1984–1985 season. Shearer accepted because he was treated well by the producers and he thought the backstage environment had improved but later stated that he "didn't realize that guests are treated better than the regulars." Guest also accepted the offer while McKean rejected it, although he would join the cast in 1993. Dick Ebersol, who replaced Lorne Michaels as the show's producer, said that Shearer was "a gifted performer but a pain in the butt. He's just so demanding on the preciseness of things and he's very, very hard on the working people. He's just a nightmare-to-deal-with person." In January 1985, Shearer left the show for good, partially because he felt he was not being used enough. Martin Short said "wanted to be creative and Dick [Ebersol wanted something else. [...] I think he felt his voice wasn't getting represented on the show. When he wouldn't get that chance, it made him very upset." Spinal Tap. Shearer co-created, co-wrote and co-starred in Rob Reiner's 1984 film "This Is Spinal Tap". Shearer, Reiner, Michael McKean and Christopher Guest received a deal to write a first draft of a screenplay for a company called Marble Arch. They decided that the film could not be written and instead filmed a 20 minute demo of what they wanted to do. It was eventually greenlighted by Norman Lear and Jerry Perenchio at Embassy Pictures. The film satirizes the wild personal behavior and musical pretensions of hard rock and heavy metal bands, as well as the hagiographic tendencies of rockumentaries of the time. The three core members of the band Spinal Tap—David St. Hubbins, Derek Smalls and Nigel Tufnel—were portrayed by McKean, Shearer and Guest respectively. The three actors play their musical instruments and speak with mock English accents throughout the film. There was no script, although there was a written breakdown of most of the scenes, and many of the lines were ad-libbed. It was filmed in 25 days. Shearer said in an interview that "The animating impulse was to do rock 'n' roll right. The four of us had been around rock 'n' roll and we were just amazed by how relentlessly the movies got it wrong. Because we were funny people it was going to be a funny film, but we wanted to get it right." When they tried to sell it to various Hollywood studios, they were told that the film would not work. The group kept saying, "No, this is a story that's pretty familiar to people. We're not introducing them to anything they don't really know," so Shearer thought it would at least have some resonance with the public. The film was only a modest success upon its initial release but found greater success, and a cult following, after its video release. In 2000, the film was ranked 29th on the American Film Institute's list of the top 100 comedy movies in American cinema and it was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". Shearer, Guest and McKean have since worked on several projects as their Spinal Tap characters. They released three albums: "This Is Spinal Tap" (1984), "Break Like the Wind" (1992) and "Back From The Dead" (2009). In 1992, Spinal Tap appeared in an episode of "The Simpsons" called "The Otto Show". The band has played several concerts, including at Live Earth in London on July 7, 2007. In anticipation of the show, Rob Reiner directed a short film entitled "Spinal Tap". In 2009, the band released "Back from the Dead" to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the release of the film. The album features re-recorded versions of songs featured in "This Is Spinal Tap" and its soundtrack, and five new songs. The band performed a one date "world tour" at London's Wembley Arena on June 30, 2009. The Folksmen, a mock band featured in the film "A Mighty Wind" that is also made up of characters played by Shearer, McKean and Guest—was the opening act for the show. "The Simpsons". Shearer may be best known for his prolific work as a voice actor on "The Simpsons". Matt Groening, the creator of the show, was a fan of Shearer's work, while Shearer was a fan of a column Groening used to write. Shearer was asked if he wanted to be in the series, but he was initially reluctant because he thought the recording sessions would be too much trouble. He felt voice acting was "not a lot of fun" because traditionally, voice actors record their parts separately. He was told that the actors would record their lines together and after three calls, executive producer James L. Brooks managed to convince Shearer to join the cast. Shearer's first impression of "The Simpsons" was that it was funny. Shearer, who thought it was a "pretty cool" way to work, found it peculiar that the members of the cast were adamant about not being known to the public as the people behind the voices. Shearer provides voices for Principal Skinner, Kent Brockman, Mr. Burns, Waylon Smithers, Ned Flanders, Reverend Lovejoy, Dr. Hibbert, Lenny Leonard, Otto Mann, Rainier Wolfcastle, Dr. Marvin Monroe and many others. He describes all of his regular characters' voices as "easy to slip into. [...] I wouldn't do them if they weren't easy." Shearer modeled Mr. Burns's voice on the two actors Lionel Barrymore and Ronald Reagan. Shearer said that Burns is the most difficult character for him to voice because it is rough on his vocal cords and he often needs to drink tea and honey to soothe his voice. He describes Burns as his favorite character, saying he "likeMr. Burns because he is pure evil. A lot of evil people make the mistake of diluting it. Never adulterate your evil." Shearer is also the voice of Burns' assistant Smithers, and is able to perform dialogue between the two characters in one take. Ned Flanders had been meant to be just a neighbor that Homer was jealous of, but because Shearer used "such a sweet voice" for him, Flanders was broadened to become a Christian and a sweet guy that someone would prefer to live next to over Homer. Dr. Marvin Monroe's voice is based on psychiatrist David Viscott. Monroe has been retired since the seventh season because voicing the character strained Shearer's throat. In 2004, Shearer criticized what he perceived as the show's declining quality: "I rate the last three seasons as among the worst, so Season Four looks very good to me now." Shearer has also been vocal about "The Principal and the Pauper" (season nine, 1997) one of the most controversial episodes of "The Simpsons". Many fans and critics reacted negatively to the revelation that Principal Seymour Skinner, a recurring character since the first season, was an impostor. The episode has been criticized by both Shearer and Groening. In a 2001 interview, Shearer recalled that after reading the script, he told the writers, "That's so wrong. You're taking something that an audience has built eight years or nine years of investment in and just tossed it in the trash can for no good reason, for a story we've done before with other characters. It's so arbitrary and gratuitous, and it's disrespectful to the audience." Due to scheduling and availability conflicts, Shearer decided not to participate in The Simpsons Ride, which opened in 2008, so none of his characters have vocal parts and many do not appear in the ride at all. Until 1998, Shearer was paid $30,000 per episode. During a pay dispute in 1998, Fox threatened to replace the six main voice actors with new actors, going as far as preparing for casting of new voices. The dispute, however, was resolved and Shearer received $125,000 per episode until 2004, when the voice actors demanded that they be paid $360,000 an episode. The dispute was resolved a month later, and Shearer's pay rose to $250,000 per episode. After salary re-negotiations in 2008, the voice actors received $400,000 per episode. Three years later, with Fox threatening to cancel the series unless production costs were cut, Shearer and the other cast members accepted a 30 percent pay cut, down to just over $300,000 per episode. "Le Show" and radio work. Since 1983, Shearer has been the host of the public radio comedy/music program "Le Show" on Santa Monica's NPR-affiliated radio station, KCRW. The program is a hodgepodge of satirical news commentary, music, and sketch comedy that takes aim at the "mega morons of the mighty media". It is carried on many National Public Radio and other public radio stations throughout the United States. Since the merger of SIRIUS and XM satellite radio services the program is no longer available on either. The show has also been made available as a podcast on iTunes. On the weekly program Shearer alternates between DJing, reading and commenting on the news of the day after the manner of Mort Sahl, and performing original (mostly political) comedy sketches and songs. In 2008, Shearer released a music CD called "Songs of the Bushmen", consisting of his satirical numbers about former President George W. Bush on "Le Show". Shearer says he criticizes both Republicans and Democrats equally, and also says that "the iron law of doing comedy about politics is you make fun of whoever is running the place" and that "everyone else is just running around talking. They are the ones who are actually doing something, changing people's lives for better or for worse. Other people the media calls 'satirists' don't work that way." Since encountering satellite news feeds when he worked on "Saturday Night Live", Shearer has been fascinated with the contents of the video that does not air. Shearer refers to these clips as found objects. "I thought, wow, there is just an unending supply of this material, and it’s wonderful and fascinating and funny and sometimes haunting — but it’s always good," said Shearer. He collects this material and uses it on "Le Show" and on his website. In 2008, he assembled video clips of newsmakers from this collection into an art installation titled "The Silent Echo Chamber" which was exhibited at the The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum in Ridgefield, Connecticut. The exhibit was also displayed in 2009 at Institut Valencià d'Art Modern (IVAM) in Valencia, Spain and in 2010 at the New Orleans Contemporary Arts Center. In 2006 Shearer appeared with Brian Hayes in four episodes of the BBC Radio 4 sitcom "Not Today, Thank You", playing Nostrils, a man so ugly he cannot stand to be in his own presence. He was originally scheduled to appear in all six episodes but had to withdraw from recording two due to a problem with his work permit. On June 19, 2008, it was announced that Shearer would receive a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in the radio category. The date of the ceremony where his star will be put in place has yet to be announced. Further career. In 2002, Shearer directed his first feature film "Teddy Bears' Picnic", which he also wrote. The plot is based on Bohemian Grove, which hosts a three-week encampment of some of the most powerful men in the world. The film was not well received by critics. It garnered a 0% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, with all 19 reviews being determined as negative and received a rating of 32 out of 100 (signifying "generally negative reviews") on Metacritic from 10 reviews. In 2003, he co-wrote "J. Edgar! The Musical" with Tom Leopold, which spoofed J. Edgar Hoover's relationship with Clyde Tolson. It premiered at the U.S. Comedy Arts Festival in Aspen, Colorado and starred Kelsey Grammer and John Goodman. In 2003, Shearer, Guest and McKean starred in the folk music mockumentary "A Mighty Wind", portraying a band called The Folksmen. The film was written by Guest and Eugene Levy, and directed by Guest. Shearer had a major role in the Guest-directed parody of Oscar politicking "For Your Consideration" in 2006. He played Victor Allan Miller, a veteran actor who is convinced that he is going to be nominated for an Academy Award. He also appeared as a news anchor in "Godzilla" with fellow "The Simpsons" cast members Hank Azaria and Nancy Cartwright. His other film appearances include "The Right Stuff", "Portrait of a White Marriage", "The Fisher King", "The Truman Show", "EdTV" and "Small Soldiers". Shearer has also worked as a columnist for the "Los Angeles Times Magazine", but decided that it "became such a waste of time to bother with it." His columns have also been published in "Slate" and "Newsweek". Since May 2005 he has been a contributing blogger at "The Huffington Post". Shearer has written three books. "Man Bites Town", published in 1993, is a collection of columns that he wrote for "The Los Angeles Times" between 1989 and 1992. Published in 1999, "It's the Stupidity, Stupid" analyzed the hatred some people had for then-President Bill Clinton. Shearer believes that Clinton became disliked because he had an affair with "the least powerful, least credentialed women cleared into his official compound." His most recent book is "Not Enough Indians", his first novel. Published in 2006, it is a comic novel about Native Americans and gambling. Without the "pleasures of collaboration" and "spontaneity and improvisation which characterize his other projects", "Not Enough Indians" was a "struggle" for Shearer to write. He said that "the only fun thing about it was having written it. It was lonely, I had no deal for it and it took six years to do. It was a profoundly disturbing act of self-discipline." Shearer has released five solo comedy albums: "It Must Have Been Something I Said" (1994), "Dropping Anchors" (2006), "Songs Pointed and Pointless" (2007), "Songs of the Bushmen" (2008) and "Greed and Fear" (2010). His most recent CD, "Greed and Fear" is mainly about Wall Street economic issues, rather than politics like his previous albums. Shearer decided to make the album when he"started getting amused by the language of the economic meltdown — when 'toxic assets' suddenly became 'troubled assets,' going from something poisoning the system to just a bunch of delinquent youth with dirty faces that needed not removal from the system but just...understanding." In May 2006, Shearer received an honorary doctorate from Goucher College. Shearer is the director of "The Big Uneasy", a film about the effects of Hurricane Katrina on New Orleans. Personal life. Shearer married Penelope Nichols in 1974. They divorced in 1977. He has been married to singer-songwriter Judith Owen since 1993. In 2005, the couple launched their own record label called Courgette Records. Shearer has homes in Santa Monica, California, the Faubourg Marigny of New Orleans, Louisiana, and London. He first came to New Orleans in 1988 and has attended every edition of New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival since. Shearer often speaks and writes about the failure of the Federal levee system which flooded New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina, belittling the coverage of it in the mainstream media and criticizing the role of the United States Army Corps of Engineers. Prior to the DVD release of his film, "The Big Uneasy", Shearer would hold screenings of the film at different venues and take questions from audience members. Awards. Shearer is the only one of the six regular voice actors from "The Simpsons" not to have won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Voice-Over Performance. However, he was nominated for the award in 2009 for his performance as Kent Brockman, Lenny, Mr. Burns and Smithers in the episode "The Burns and the Bees". He lost the award to Dan Castellaneta.
616789	Mikhail Aleksandrovich "Michael" Chekhov (, 29 August 1891 – 30 September 1955) was a Russian-American actor, director, author, and theatre practitioner. His acting technique has been used by actors such as Clint Eastwood, Marilyn Monroe, and Yul Brynner. Konstantin Stanislavski referred to him as his most brilliant student. He was a nephew of the playwright Anton Chekhov. Although mainly a stage actor, he made a few notable appearances on film, perhaps most memorably as the Freudian analyst in Alfred Hitchcock's "Spellbound" (1945). History. Chekhov was considered by the Russian theatre practitioner Konstantin Stanislavski to be one of his brightest students. He studied under Stanislavski at the First Studio of the Moscow Art Theatre, where he acted, directed, and studied Stanislavski's 'system'. When Chekhov experimented with affective memory and had a nervous breakdown, this aided Stanislavski in seeing the limitations of his early concepts of emotional memory. He later led the company of the studio under the name the Second Moscow Art Theatre. Stanislavski came to regard Chekhov's work as a betrayal of his principles.
69998	Manindra Agrawal (born 20 May 1966, Allahabad) is a professor at the department of computer science and engineering and the Dean of Faculty Affairs (DoFA) at the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur. He was also the recipient of the first Infosys Prize for Mathematics., and the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Award in Mathematical Sciences in 2003. He has been honored with Padma Shri in 2013. Early life. Manindra Agrawal obtained a B.Tech. and a Ph.D. at IIT Kanpur in 1986. Career. He co-created the AKS primality test with Neeraj Kayal and Nitin Saxena, for which he and his co-authors won the 2002 Clay Research Award, the 2006 Fulkerson Prize, and the 2006 Gödel Prize. The test is the first deterministic algorithm to test an "n"-digit number for primality in a time that has been proven to be polynomial in "n". In September 2008, Agrawal was chosen for the first Infosys Mathematics Prize for outstanding contributions in the broad field of mathematics. He was a visiting scholar at the Institute for Advanced Study in 2003-04.
940456	A Very Merry Pooh Year is a direct to video Winnie-the-Pooh film released in 2002 which featured the 1991 Christmas TV special "Winnie the Pooh and Christmas Too", as well as the new film, "Happy Pooh Year". This was the only Winnie-the-Pooh film where Jeff Bennett provided Piglet's and Christopher Robin's singing voice. It is also the first Winnie-the-Pooh film where Owl does not appear at all, and the first Winnie-the-Pooh film that Carly Simon is involved in.
1050780	The Blood of a Poet () (1930) is an avant-garde film directed by Jean Cocteau and financed by Charles de Noailles. Photographer Lee Miller made her only film appearance in this movie, which features an appearance by the famed aerialist Barbette. It is the first part of the Orphic Trilogy, which is continued in "Orphée" (1950) and concludes with "Testament of Orpheus" (1960). Plot. "The Blood of a Poet" is divided into four sections. In section one, an artist sketches a face and is startled when its mouth starts moving. He rubs out the mouth, only to discover that it has transferred to the palm of his hand. After experimenting with the hand for a while and falling asleep, the artist awakens and places the mouth over the mouth of a female statue. In section two, the statue speaks to the artist, cajoling him into passing through a mirror. The mirror links to a hotel and the artist peers through several keyholes, witnessing such people as an opium smoker and a hermaphrodite. The artist is handed a gun and a disembodied voice instructs him how to shoot himself in the head. He shoots himself but does not die. The artist cries out that he has seen enough and returns through the mirror. He smashes the statue with a mallet. In the third section, some students are having a snowball fight. An older boy throws a snowball at a younger boy, but the snowball turns out to be a chunk of marble. The young boy dies from the impact. In the final section, a card shark plays a game with a woman on a table set up over the body of the dead boy. A theatre party looks on. The card shark extracts an Ace of Hearts from the dead boy's breast pocket. The boy's guardian angel appears and absorbs the dead boy. He also removes the Ace of Hearts from the card shark's hand and retreats up a flight of stairs and through a door. Realizing he has lost, the card shark commits suicide as the theatre party applauds. The woman player transforms into the formerly smashed statue and walks off through the snow, leaving no footprints. In the film's final moments the statue is shown with a lyre. Intercut through the film, oneiric images appear, including spinning wire models of a human head and rotating double-sided masks. Production. "The Blood of a Poet" was funded by Charles, Vicomte de Noailles, who gave Cocteau 1,000,000 francs to make it. Cocteau invited the Vicomte and his wife Marie-Laure de Noailles, along with several of their friends, to appear in a scene as a theatre party. In the scene, they talked among themselves and, on cue, began applauding. Upon seeing the completed film, they were horrified to learn that they were applauding a game of cards that ended with a suicide, which had been filmed separately. They refused to let Cocteau release the film with their scene included, so Cocteau re-shot it with the famed female impersonator Barbette and some extras. Delayed release. Shortly after the film's completion, rumors began to circulate that it contained an anti-Christian message. This, combined with the riotous reception of another controversial Noailles-produced film, "L'Âge d'Or", led to Charles de Noailles' expulsion from the famous Jockey-Club de Paris, and he was even threatened with excommunication by the Catholic Church. The furore caused the release of "The Blood of a Poet" to be delayed for more than a year.
771262	William George Horner (1786 – 22 September 1837) was a British mathematician; he was a schoolmaster, headmaster and schoolkeeper, proficient in classics as well as mathematics, who wrote extensively on functional equations, number theory and approximation theory, but also on optics. His contribution to approximation theory is honoured in the designation Horner's method, in particular respect of a paper in "Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London" for 1819. The modern invention of the zoetrope, under the name "Daedaleum" in 1834, has been attributed to him. Horner died comparatively young, before the establishment of specialist, regular scientific periodicals. So, the way others have written about him has tended to diverge, sometimes markedly, from his own prolific, if dispersed, record of publications and the contemporary reception of them. Family life. The eldest son of the Rev. William Horner, a Wesleyan minister, was born in Bristol. He was educated at Kingswood School, a Wesleyan foundation near Bristol, and at the age of sixteen became an assistant master there. In four years he rose to be head master (1806), but left in 1809, setting up his own school, The Classical Seminary, at Grosvenor Place, Bath, which he kept until he died there 22 September 1837. He and his wife Sarah (1787?–1864) had six daughters and two sons. One of the sons, another William Horner, continued to run the school. He, too, had a large family; the youngest were twins, Charles and Francis John Horner (1852–1887). Francis Horner matriculated at St. John's College, Cambridge in 1872, taking out a BA in 1876 and an MA in 1883. He became a lecturer in mathematics at the University in Sydney, where he died after only a few years - he had been advised to try a change of climate on account of tuberculosis. A longer association with Australia comes through the issue of Horner's daughter Mary, which retained the name `Horner' through several generations. Mary's son Joseph Horner Fletcher, was a Methodist school headmaster in New Zealand and then Australia. Neville Horner Fletcher (1930- ), FTSE, FAA, is a physicist at the Australian National University. On Horner's death in 1837, Sarah Horner lived with another daughter, Charlotte Augusta (1819?--1863; m. 1849)), and son-in-law, John La[u?]mble Harrison (1820?--1877)), and their daughters, Charlotte Sarah (b. 1852) and Elizabeth Caroline (b. 1856), at 33, Grovesnor Place, Bath. Horner's youngest brother, Joseph Horner, was also an assistant master at Kingswood School, but in 1834 matriculated as a mature student at Clare College, Cambridge, standing twelfth Wrangler in the Mathematical Tripos in 1838 (the same year, John Thompson Exley, the son of W. G. Horner's associate Thomas Exley, stood twenty-third). Joseph Horner was a Fellow of Clare College and then vicar of Everton with Tetsworth from 1839 until his death in 1875. He, too, published in mathematics. Other brothers were Thomas Horner, who died young; John Horner, a Wesleyan minister in India; and James Horner, cabinet maker of Bath. According to Horner, John Horner was the first missionary to come out of Kingswood School: he translated "Bel and the Dragon" into Marathi and his son, Horner's nephew, again John Horner, was tutor to the children of servants in the Sovereign's Household. Physical sciences, optics. Although Horner's article on the Daedelum (zoetrope) appeared in "Philosophical Magazine" only in January, 1834, he had published on Camera lucida as early as August, 1815. Mathematics. Horner's name first appears in the list of solvers of the mathematical problems in The Ladies' Diary: or, Woman's Almanack for 1811, continuing in the successive annual issues until that for 1817. Up until the issue for 1816, he is listed as solving all but a few of the fifteen problems each year; several of his answers were printed, along with two problems he proposed. He also contributed to other departments of the Diary, not without distinction, reflecting the fact that he was known to be an all-rounder, competent in the classics as well as in mathematics. Horner was ever vigilant in his reading, as shown by his characteristic return to the Diary for 1821 in a discussion of the Prize Problem, where he reminds readers of an item in (Thomson's) "Annals of Philosophy" for 1817; several other problems in the Diary that year were solved by his youngest brother, Joseph.
591023	Pasamalar (English: "The Flower of Love") is a 1961 Tamil film starring Sivaji Ganesan and Savitri. The film was directed by A. Bhimsingh. One of the songs, "Vaarayen Thozhi Vaarayo", is still played in many Tamil weddings. The movie was produced by Sivaji's own company Rajamani pictures. The producers were M. R. Santhanam and K. Mohan of Mohan Arts. The dialogues were written by Aroor Das. The movie was predominantly shot in Neptune Studios.“Paasa Malar" holds the record for having been made in the most number of languages, including Sinhala. It was remade in hindi as Rakhi, in 1962, by Bhimsingh, starring Ashok Kumar, Waheeda Rehman & Pradeep Kumar. It was a major success & Ashok Kumar won the Filmfare Award for Best Actor & K.P. Kottarakara the Filmfare Award for Best Story. This film was again remade in Hindi in 1986, Vijay Sadanah, as "Aisa Pyar Kahan" with Jeetendra, Padmini Kolhapure, Jaya Prada and Mithun Chakraborty. Plot. Rajasekhar (Sivaji Ganesan) becomes the guardian to his younger sister Radha (Savitri) after their parents’ death. The brother-sister duo love, care and adore each other and are inseparable. When the factory in which Rajasekhar works is shut down due to a labour problem and he is depressed, Radha gives him 1000 which she had earned and saved by making toys. She advises him to use this money as seed capital and commence his own toy business. The dutiful brother follows his sister’s advice, starts a business and in a short time, becomes rich. Anand (Gemini Ganesan) an ex-colleague of Rajasekhar who earlier helped him to get a job in his old factory, is jobless and approaches Rajasekhar for work. Rajasekhar appoints him in his concern and over a period of time, Anand and Radha fall in love. Rajasekhar, who is very possessive of his sister, gets angry with Anand as he feels betrayed. However, knowing how intensely Radha loves Anand, he arranges for their wedding. After the marriage, Anand, along with his aunt and cousin, move into Rajasekhar’s house. Rajasekhar marries Dr. Malathy (M. N. Rajam) on Radha’s suggestion. All of them continue to live under the same roof and several misunderstandings crop up. Anand’s aunt uses every opportunity to widen the rift between Malathy and Radha and Radha and Anand. Unable to witness Radha’s troubles, Rajasekhar moves out of the house with his wife, Through Radha, Anand’s aunt serves a legal notice to Rajasekhar, demanding a share in the property for Radha. Malathy files a counter petition and the property is attached by the court, pending resolution. Unable to see Radha’s sufferings, Rajasekhar withdraws the case. Still the families don’t unite. Radha delivers a girl and Malathy delivers a boy. After her child’s birth, Malathy goes abroad for further studies, leaving the child with Rajasekhar. Unable to cope with the separation from his sister and to have peace of mind, Rajasekhar goes on a pilgrimage for several months. He returns on Diwali day and goes to meet Radha, but is denied entry by Anand’s aunt. While going back, he saves a little girl from getting burnt by fire crackers and in the process, loses his eyesight. He is hospitalised and Radha rushes to the hospital to see her brother. Rajasekhar learns that the girl he saved is none other than his niece. Unable to cope with his inability to see them, he dies; Radha too dies holding his hand. The duo becomes an epitome of brother-sister relationship. In the shadow of their deaths, the children unite and seek their heavenly blessings. Awards. The film won National Film Award for Best Feature Film in Tamil - Certificate of Merit for the Second Best Feature Film in 1962. Soundtrack. Kannadasan wrote the lyrics while duo Viswanathan Ramamoorthy composed the music. Legacy. Footage of "Paasa Malar" is featured in the 2011 Tamil film "Velayudham". Re-release. A digitally restored version of "Pasamalar" was re-released on 15 August 2013. M. Suganth of "The Times of India" rated it a perfect 5 out of 5, saying "The restoration, cinemascope and audio conversion are pretty good while the trimming (by veteran editor Lenin, Bhimsingh's son) manages to retain the continuity to a large extent."
1265983	Thirteen Women (1932) is a psychological thriller film, produced by David O. Selznick and directed by George Archainbaud. It starred Myrna Loy, Irene Dunne, Ricardo Cortez, Florence Eldridge and Jill Esmond. Several characters were deleted, including those played by Leon Ames, Phyllis Fraser, and Betty Furness (in what would have been her film debut at the age of 16). The film portrays only 11 women, not 13, with Fraser and Furness playing the two characters edited out of the film. This film features the only role of Peg Entwistle, who gained notoriety after her body was found below the Hollywood sign weeks before the film's release (police surmised suicide). The film premiered in October at the Roxy Theater in New York City, then released in Los Angeles, and a few other cities in November. A limited national release came in 1933. Originally running seventy-three minutes, the studio edited fourteen minutes out of the picture prior to release. The film was re-released in 1935 (post-Code) by RKO, hoping to turn a profit by cashing in on the growing popularity of stars Dunne and Loy. "Thirteen Women" has been cited as an early "female ensemble" film. Plot summary. Thirteen women, friends who were members of a girl's college sorority, all write to a clairvoyant "swami" (C. Henry Gordon) who by mail sends each a horoscope foreseeing swift doom. However, the clairvoyant is under the sway of Ursula Georgi (Myrna Loy), a half-Javanese Eurasian woman who when a student at the college was snubbed by the other women owing to her mixed-race heritage. Georgi seeks revenge by tricking the women into killing themselves or each other. She also goads the clairvoyant into killing himself by falling into the path of a subway train. The victims are set up and killed off one by one until only Laura Stanhope (Irene Dunne), living in Beverly Hills, is still alive. With the help of Laura's chauffeur and lover (played by Edward J. Pawley), Ursula tries to kill Laura's young son, Bobby, with both tainted candy and an explosive rubber ball, but is thwarted. Ursula then follows Laura and Bobby as they flee Beverly Hills by train, unaware that police sergeant Barry Clive (Ricardo Cortez) is escorting them. After confronting Laura, and apparently hypnotizing her into falling asleep, Ursula enters Bobby's room and is caught by Clive. She then flees to the back of the train and jumps to her own death. Adaptation from book. The character Hazel Cousins as played by Peg Entwistle in the film is married, kills her husband and goes to prison. In the book, Hazel is a lesbian who is seduced by (in Thayer's words) a "dyke" married to a lung doctor. Hazel has tuberculosis and starves herself to death in a sanitarium while suffering the heartache of having been abandoned by her lover Martha. In both the book and movie, May and June Raskob (played by Harriet Hagman and Mary Duncan) are twin sisters who work in a circus, but in book they are overweight side show attractions, rather than photogenic trapeze artists as in the film.
715092	John Denis Martin Nunn (born 25 April 1955 in London) is one of England's strongest chess players and once was in the world's top ten. He is also a three-time world champion in chess problem solving, a chess writer and publisher, and a mathematician. Career. As a junior, he showed a prodigious talent for the game and in 1967, at twelve years of age, he won the British under-14 Championship. At fourteen, he was London Under-18 Champion for the 1969/70 season and less than a year later, at just fifteen years of age, he proceeded to Oriel College, Oxford, to study mathematics. At the time, he was Oxford's youngest undergraduate since Cardinal Wolsey in 1520. Graduating in 1973, he went on to gain his doctorate in 1978 with a thesis on finite H-spaces, and remained at Oxford University as a mathematics lecturer until 1981, when he became a professional chess player.
1164257	Edgar McLean Stevenson, Jr. (November 14, 1927 – February 15, 1996), better known as McLean Stevenson, was an American actor most recognized for his role as Lt. Colonel Henry Blake on the TV series "M*A*S*H". He was also recognized for his role as Michael Nicholson on "The Doris Day Show". Early life and career. Stevenson was born in Normal, Illinois. He was the great-grandson of William Stevenson, brother of US Vice President Adlai E. Stevenson, making him a second cousin once removed of two-time presidential candidate Adlai E. Stevenson II. He was also the brother of actress Ann Whitney. His father, Edgar, was a cardiologist. Stevenson attended Lake Forest Academy and later joined the Navy. After his service, he attended Northwestern University, where he graduated with a bachelor's degree in theater arts and was a proud and well-liked Phi Gamma Delta (Fiji) fraternity brother. Afterwards he worked at a radio station, played a clown on a live TV show in Dallas, became an assistant director at Northwestern and sold medical supplies and insurance. He also worked as a press secretary for his cousin in the presidential elections of 1952 and 1956. He formed the "Young Democrats for Stevenson".
1067576	Extreme Movie (formerly Parental Guidance Suggested; known as Hotdogs & Doughnuts: An Extreme Movie in Australia) is a 2008 satirical comedy film composed of sketches focusing on teen sex. Adam Jay Epstein and Andrew Jacobson direct, with segments co-written by "Saturday Night Live" performers Will Forte, Andy Samberg, and writers Akiva Schaffer, and Jorma Taccone. The ensemble cast includes Frankie Muniz, Ryan Pinkston, Jamie Kennedy, Danneel Harris, Andy Milonakis, Matthew Lillard, Rob Pinkston and Michael Cera. Plot. The film takes the course of several different vignettes with Matthew Lillard's sex advice is intercut within every couple segments. Mike (Ryan Pinkston) tries to impress his crush, Stacy (Cherilyn Wilson). Fred (Michael Cera) meets a girl (Joanna Garcia) online and they arrange for "menacing action", only for Fred to break into the wrong apartment. The promiscuous Betty (Ashley Schneider) going to the "next level" (kinkier and more outrageous sexual adventures) with Chuck (Frankie Muniz), and later Fred. Justin (Andy Milonakis) buys a vibrating vagina and falls in love with it, all the time while crushing on another girl; the vibrating vagina has a personality of its own and commits "suicide" when Justin rejects it. A "Real Sex"-esque skit where a girl admits to having sex with two black men on camera. Two guys, Barry and Leon (Kevin Hart and Jermaine Williams), create a woman on their computer, only for her to run wild. Jessica (Rheagan Wallace), in an attempt to become horny, puts her vibrating cell phone in her vagina, only for it to fall in. Len (Ben Feldman) wakes up to find a girl and another guy (Jamie Kennedy) in his bed, and his parents home as well; the whole thing turns out to be a hidden camera show. Sex education teacher Mr. Matthews (John P. Farley) teaches his class with no rules and a lot of embarrassment, usually centering on Mike. Ronny (Hank Harris), obsessed with Abraham Lincoln, creates a time machine and travels back in time to have sex with Lincoln (Ed Trotta).
1164622	Juanita Moore (born October 19, 1922) is an American film and television actress. She is the fifth African American to be nominated for an Academy Award in any category, and the third in the Supporting Actress category. Career. Moore had a number of bit parts and supporting roles in motion pictures through the 1950s and 1960s. Her most famous role was as housekeeper Annie Johnson in the 1959 remake of "Imitation of Life". Moore's portrayal of the broken-hearted Annie, whose daughter Sarah Jane (Susan Kohner) passes for white, won her a nomination for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. When the two-movie version of "Imitation of Life" was released on DVD one of the bonus features was a new interview with Juanita Moore. Moore has continued to perform in front of the camera, with a role in the movie "Disney's The Kid" (2000) and guest-starring roles on television shows "Dragnet","Marcus Welby, M.D.", "ER" and "Judging Amy". Moore's grandson is actor/producer Kirk Kelley-Kahn, who is CEO/President of "Cambridge Players - Next Generation", a theatre troupe whose founding members included Moore, Esther Rolle, Helen Martin, Lynn Hamilton and Royce Wallace.
1062641	Campbell Whalen Scott (born 1961) is an American actor, director, producer, and voice artist. Early life. Scott was born on July 19, 1961 in New York City, the son of actors George C. Scott and Canadian-born Colleen Dewhurst. He graduated from Lawrence University in 1983. His brother is Alexander Scott. Career. In 1990, Scott played a lead role in the ground-breaking film "Longtime Companion", which chronicles the early years of the AIDS/HIV epidemic and its impact upon a group of American friends. In the following year, Scott co-starred in the movie "Dying Young" (in which his mother also appeared) alongside Julia Roberts. He also appears in the 1992 movie "Singles", and in 1996, he teamed up with Stanley Tucci to direct the film "Big Night". The film met with critical acclaim and was nominated for the "Grand Jury Prize" at the Sundance Film Festival. For their work, Scott and Tucci won both the New York Film Critics Circle Award and the Boston Society of Film Critics Award for Best New Director. In 2002, he was awarded the Best Actor prize from the National Board of Review for his notable performance in "Roger Dodger". Scott starred in "Six Degrees" on ABC in 2006. In 2005 / 2006, Scott served as the reader for the audiobook versions of Stephen King's bestsellers "The Shining" and "Cell". In 2007, Campbell Scott lent his voice for the narration of a Chevron Corporation television ad, as well as the critically acclaimed Iraq War documentary film, "No End in Sight". Next up for Scott was the 2009 drama "Handsome Harry". Scott also has a recurring role on the USA drama "Royal Pains". On August 28, 2009, TVGuide.com confirmed Campbell Scott was cast for the third season of "Damages". Scott was a series regular, playing Joe Tobin, the son of indicted Bernie Madoff-like Louis Tobin (Len Cariou). The season aired from January to April 2010. In May 2010, Campbell Scott provided the voice-over for a new Häagen-Dazs TV commercial called "Ode to Flavor". The ad was created by Goodby, Silverstein & Partners, directed by Noah Marshall with art direction by Croix Cagnon. He more recently played the role of Richard Parker, the father of Peter Parker, in the 2012 film "The Amazing Spider-Man". Personal life. He has a son, Malcolm, born in 1998. He lives with his family in north west Connecticut.
1268026	Richard Semler "Dick" Barthelmess (May 9, 1895 – August 17, 1963) was an Oscar-nominated American film actor. He was nominated for the first Academy Award in the Best Actor category in 1928. Early life. Barthelmess was educated at Hudson River Military Academy at Nyack and Trinity College at Hartford, Connecticut. His father died when he was a baby and his mother, Caroline Harris, was a stage actress, so he worked in theatres in his early days, between schooling, doing "walk-ons". This led to acting in college, doing amateur productions.
1058317	Brittany Ann Daniel (born March 17, 1976) is an American television and film actress. She is the twin sister of former actress and photographer Cynthia Daniel.
1120288	Waris Ahluwalia (; Amritsar, Punjab, India, c. 1974) is an Indian-American who is known as a designer and actor. He moved with his family to the United States at the age of five, and grew up in Brooklyn, New York. His company, House of Waris, is based out of New York and has collaborated with a number of other designers and artists throughout the years. House of Waris came into being after the owners of Maxfield's in Los Angeles noticed Ahluwalia's elaborate diamond rings and placed an order, which sold out. Design career. House of Waris, founded by Ahluwalia, is strongly influenced by the romance and history of ancient kingdoms. Ahluwalia creates fine jewelry pieces that are noted for their unique beauty and craftsmanship. Coveted by fashion icons and sold at the most luxurious boutiques, they bring together old world techniques and marvelously modern designs. Ahluwalia, who is now based in New York, travels frequently to Rome and Rajasthan on a quest to preserve the methods of the Old World, working with the best in each city, from goldsmiths to diamond setters who once made the crests for royal families. He was a CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund Finalist in 2009, and in 2010 he was inducted as an official member of the CFDA. The same year, Ahluwalia was placed on "Vanity Fair's" Best Dressed List, anointed British "GQ's" second best dressed man internationally and included in "Vogue's" 10 Most Impactful people list. He also pens the column 'Love & Waris' on "Style.com". In October 2010, House of Waris opened a pop up tea room under the High Line (New York City). The pavilion of the pop up space housed apparel and accessories from designers like Rodarte, A.P.C., book publisher Assouline and jewelry by Ahluwalia himself. The garden area served tea from the Himalayas and food from NYC restaurants like Café Cluny and Bar Pitti. In February 2011, Ahluwalia held his first New York Fashion Week presentation at the Museum of Arts & Design, launching a line of scarves made in India: block printed, hand dyed, silk screened, made of the finest cashmere and silks. Collaborations/Special Projects. Using House of Waris as a platform for collaborations, Waris has worked with A.P.C., Forevermark of the De Beers Group of Companies, and Tilda Swinton for Pringle of Scotland. Ahluwalia has also collaborated with Benjami Cho, yoox.com, Lookmatic, the Webster Miami, Colette in Paris, Elliott Puckette for NewbarK, and the World Gold Council. In response to the attacks in Mumbai in November 2008, Ahluwalia, along with Mortimer Singer and Tina Bhojwani, created To India, with Love, a book aiming to raise funds, spirits, and awareness for the victims of the attacks. All of the proceeds went directly to Taj Public Service Welfare Trust in conjunction with Mumbai: We Got Your Back! (WGYB!), an organization founded by the three editors. In 2012, Ahluwalia contributed to the summer issue of "The Paris Review", writing an essay on art featuring the work of Walton Ford and Ryan McGinley. Ahluwalia also collaborated with the world-renowned restaurant from New Delhi, BUKHARA. The restaurant opened an exclusive pop up in London at the Sheraton Park Tower in which Ahluwalia served as Creative Director. The pop up ran for two weeks and donated a portion of the proceeds obtained to support the Elephant Family non-profit organization. As a part of his role as Global Ambassador for Starwood’s Luxury Collection Hotels & Resorts, Ahluwalia wrote and produced the original short film, “HERE: a Film by Luca Guadagnino. The film’s team included Tilda Swinton (co-writer), Heidi Bivens (stylist), Jason Schwartzman (music) and Agyness Deyn (actress). In 2013, House of Waris launched a special line for Valentines Day, called 'Boo', referring to it as a term of endearment. In celebration of the line, Ahluwalia commissioned 9 artists and filmmakers to make short films titled “You’re my Boo.” The list of artists included: Phillip Andelman, Casey Neistat, Brett Stabler, Ben Watts, and Hailey Gates; as well as John Forte, Mick Rock, Matthew Frost. Ahluwalia has also collaborated with Illesteva Eyewear on a line of sunglasses that launched April 2013, and T Magazine dubbed the glasses "the single most essential frame of the summer." The sunglasses are handcrafted in France and are available in four versatile colorways. Film career. Ahluwalia’s first film was "The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou" (2004) by Wes Anderson, as Vikram Ray, with a cast that included Bill Murray, Owen Wilson, Angelica Huston, and Cate Blanchett.
1058154	Daphne Eurydice Zuniga (born October 28, 1962) is an American actress known for her roles as Jo Reynolds on the Fox prime time soap opera "Melrose Place", as Victoria Davis on The CW teen drama "One Tree Hill", and as Princess Vespa in the Mel Brooks film "Spaceballs". Early life. Zuniga was born in Berkeley, California. Her father, Joaquin Zuniga, originally from Guatemala, is an emeritus professor of philosophy at California State University, East Bay. Her mother is a Unitarian minister, of Polish and Finnish descent. Zuniga became interested in acting in high school, performing in a variety of school plays. In her early teens she attended the Young Conservatory program of the American Conservatory Theater (A.C.T.) of San Francisco. After her parents divorced, Zuniga moved with her mother and sister from Berkeley to Reading, Vermont. She graduated from Woodstock Union High School in Woodstock, Vermont, in 1980. After high school she studied Theater Arts at University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). Career. Television. Zuniga is best known for playing Jo Reynolds in the 1990s television series "Melrose Place". Her television career began nearly ten years earlier when she appeared in several episodes of "Family Ties" (1984) as a girlfriend of Alex P. Keaton. She also co-starred with Lucille Ball in the drama "Stone Pillow" in 1985 and was in the 1995 miniseries "Degree of Guilt". She was one of many voice actors for the animated television series "Stories from My Childhood" (1998). Zuniga had a lead role in the mini-series "Pandora's Clock" (1996).
765230	The Hamiltons is an independent 2006 horror film directed by the Butcher Brothers (Mitchell Altieri and Phil Flores) and the winner of the Santa Barbara International Film Festival and the Malibu International Film Festival. It was also selected for the film festival, 8 Films To Die For. Plot. A suburban family harbors a dark secret: When their parents are killed in a tragic accident, eldest Hamilton sibling David (Samuel Child) relocates the surviving family members to a quiet California suburb and assumes the responsibility of caring for his orphaned teenage siblings; Wendell (Joseph McKelheer), Darlene (Mackenzie Firgens), and Francis (Cory Knauf). While twins Wendell and Darlene seem to share a bizarre incestuous bond that separates them from the rest of the siblings, Francis acquires a video camera that previously belonged to his deceased parents and sets out preparing a school project about his family. The all-seeing lens of Francis' roving camera begins to reveal that something malevolent is going on inside the Hamilton's picturesque abode. David finds work in a meat-packing warehouse, and is shown to bring some stuff from work home with him, while it is also implied that he is interested in men as he regularly invites male co-workers to go with him to a nearby motel for an evening. One evening, Wendell kidnaps two young girls whom he meets in a local bar and they are tied in their storeroom. Older brother David drains blood off one of them till she slowly dies. Francis gets attracted to the other girl who tries to get him to help her. But things come to a head when Wendell and Darlene murder one of her classmates and feed off her blood. When David tries to kill the other girl, Francis hits him in the head and carries her off to a safe hideout at the meat packing plant which is closed for the night. Wendell asks David to follow Francis, as he is the only one capable of persuading him to return. At the barn, Francis, seeing an open wound on the girl's hand, is unable to control his bloodlust and he kills the girl and feeds off her. When David appears, Francis is crying and we see his fangs. Though terribly sad at his actions, he finally seems to be accepting what he really is: a vampire. With the death of Darlene's classmate, David decides to move somewhere else, and they go to the basement to retrieve the creature locked there, who turns out to be their little brother Lenny. The family, the Hamilitons, is revealed to be a new breed of vampires who are born that way, not made. They move from place to place to hide their secret of their thirst for blood and to avoid detection from the authorities. In the final scene, we see them introducing themselves to their new neighbors, as the Thompsons, and Francis, now having embraced his newfound status as a vampire, is shown making a happy video of his now complete family. Sequel. A sequel, "The Thompsons", was released in 2012.
568228	Kill Buljo is a 2007 Norwegian parody of the Quentin Tarantino film "Kill Bill". It is set in Finnmark, Norway and portrays the protagonist Jompa Tormann's hunt for Tampa and Papa Buljo. The film depends heavily on satirizing stereotypes about Norway's Sami population. According to the Norwegian newspaper "Dagbladet", Quentin Tarantino has watched the film's trailer and was quite happy about it, looking forward to seeing the film itself. Plot. Jompa Torman is reluctantly on his way into marriage. The bride's family is gathered at the traditional engagement coffee at Kautokeino community centre when the Deadly Sapmi Assassination Squad, consisting of Tampa Buljo, Crazy Beibifeit, Dr. Kjell Driver and Bud Light assault the premises, draw guns, and fire on anything that moves. Nobody is supposed to leave the centre alive, but Jompa miraculously survives and falls into a deep coma. The Sami- and woman-hating police inspector Sid Wisløff is assigned to the case together with his assistant Unni Formen. Wisløff is confident that Jompa Tormann killed all his guests, finishing the act by shooting his own head four times to look innocent. A few weeks later, Jompa awakens, and begins to seek revenge. He has a Katana forged for him by the legendary swords-smith, Fugioshi Shinaga and sets out. He tracks down the members of The Deadly Sapmi Assassination Squad and settles his business with them one by one. Sid Wisløff and Unni Formen, aided by the Sami pathfinder Peggy Mathilassi, are on his heels to put him behind bars.
1175873	Ryan Starr (born Tiffany Ryan Montgomery; November 21, 1982) is an American singer, songwriter and actress. She finished seventh on the season 1 of the talent search television series "American Idol". She has since appeared in numerous movies and both reality and scripted television programs. Career. "American Idol". Starr appeared during the audition rounds on the first season of "American Idol", using her birth name. According to Simon Cowell's memoir "I Don't Mean to be Rude", she was "cripplingly shy" at the audition, but "] saw some potential for stardom in her, and decided to mentor her." As a result, he claims, Montgomery became overly confident, changing her name to "Ryan Starr" by the next phase of the competition, dressing in flamboyant homemade outfits, and insisting on singing rock rather than the pop music he felt she was suited for. Instead of the usual pop hits that other contestants were singing, Starr chose an unusual song, "The Frim Fram Sauce," in the first semi-final. She was the second singer from that group to be voted into the Top Ten. The following week, Starr was the first to perform on "American Idol's " first live show. She sang "If You Really Love Me" by Stevie Wonder, and received praise from the judges, including this quote from Simon Cowell: "Pure star performance, loved it." Starr faltered when she sang The Kinks' "You Really Got Me," and was panned by the judges. Cowell called it "dreadful." The following week she sang Donna Summer's "Last Dance," and received praise from the judges, but was eliminated. Starr returned with the rest of the finalists during the shows' finale and sang "These Boots Are Made For Walkin'", and went on a nationwide 32-city tour with the other finalists. RCA, in partnership with "American Idol", signed her. Post-"American Idol" music career. Starr blamed her stalled music career on a two-year restrictive recording contract with RCA. Under this contract, she refused to record an album claiming producers wanted to turn her into an Avril Lavigne type singer. After an intense three year legal battle she was released from contract in 2005. Upon release from her contract, Starr released an iTunes Exclusive Single, "My Religion." The song went all the way to number one on the US "Billboard" Hot Digital Songs Chart, and was noted in the 2005 edition of the "Guinness Book of World Records" to have sold the most exclusive single downloads in iTunes's history. They also went on to detail the fact that "My Religion" was slated to be released to stores in early 2006, however, iTunes refused to release Ryan Starr's single from contract. One of the highest selling exclusive singles ever, it sold an estimated 360,000 units worldwide according to MTV and "USA Today". In an interview given to the "Today Show" in early 2007, Starr revealed that iTunes had expressed interest in Starr releasing another exclusive single to follow up the immense success of "My Religion." Starr claimed that she was reluctant to accept as she wished to release a full album, but hinted she had accepted the very lucrative offer put forth by iTunes. Rumors began to circulate that 'Stranded' would be the next exclusive single when images of a single cover were released on her MySpace. Reports were previously made that Starr turned down a three-album deal with Sanctuary Records. The deal supposedly required her to record two pop albums before being allowed to record her rock album. These reports were later confirmed to be false by her. Starr revealed to MTV that she had formed a band called Aces. The music pure rock, and both she and the band members are very excited with the material. Television and film career. Shortly after her run on "American Idol", Starr made a guest appearance on the popular Fox network comedy "That '70s Show", and had a guest role on an episode of the hit CBS drama . Starr had the lead role in the Direct-To-Video movie, "Ring of Darkness". In 2004, made her most prominent appearance since "American Idol", appearing in the VH1 reality show "The Surreal Life". She often appeared ill-at-ease during the program, bursting into tears in response to a male stripping performance, refusing to participate in a ghost-hunt due to her religious convictions, and decrying the fact that she was forced to participate in a group recording session that required her to sing pop rather than rock music. In fall 2008, Starr appeared in Fox Reality's "Gimme My Reality Show", in which she competed with such D-listers as Kato Kaelin and A.J. Benza for the chance to star in her own reality show. Shocked at being cut after the second round, a tearful Starr told the camera, "I sometimes regret doing American Idol because sometimes I think maybe that's why I don't have a record deal... But I promised myself I'd never do anything else I regretted that much. I regret doing this show, and it's going to stay with me for a long time. I regret doing this show."
1031256	John Herman Merivale (1 December 1917 – 6 February 1990), also known as Jack Merivale, was a Canadian-born British theatre actor, and occasional supporting player in British films. Biography. Born in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, he was the son of English actor Philip Merivale, and was educated in England, at Rugby and New College, Oxford. His stepmother was the renowned English actress Gladys Cooper. Merivale made his acting debut at age 15, playing the small role of a newsboy in James Whale's "The Invisible Man" (1933), while his stage career started when he was 21, as an understudy in a production of "A Midsummer Night's Dream", where he first met Vivien Leigh. He later worked in the production of "Romeo and Juliet" by Leigh and her husband, Laurence Olivier. His career was put on hold while he served as a pilot with both the British and Canadian air forces during World War II, and he resumed his career in 1946, when he had a starring role in a successful U.S. production of Oscar Wilde's "Lady Windermere's Fan". In 1956 he made his second film appearance, in "The Battle of the River Plate", and went on to have supporting roles in films such as "A Night to Remember" (1958), "Circus of Horrors" (1960), "The List of Adrian Messenger" (1963), in which he played the title character, who is killed thirteen minutes into the film, "King Rat" (1965), and "Arabesque" (1966). Although he had the leading role in the Italian horror film "Caltiki - il mostro immortale" (1959), he tended to concentrate on theatre work, earning great notices in such productions as "Venus Observed", "Anne of the Thousand Days", "The Reluctant Debutante" and "The Last of Mrs. Cheyney". He was married to the U.S. actress Jan Sterling from 1941 until 1948, and lived with Vivien Leigh from 1958 until her death in 1967, becoming her dedicated caretaker in her final years as her manic depression and prolonged illnesses grew more severe. The roles were reversed when long-time friend and actress Dinah Sheridan helped him through a kidney condition diagnosed in 1970. They were married from 1986 until his death from renal failure four years later, having stretched his life from ten to twenty years.
1091441	Subrahmanyam Chandrasekhar, FRS (; October 19, 1910 – August 21, 1995), was an Indian-American astrophysicist who, with William A. Fowler, won the 1983 Nobel Prize for Physics for key discoveries that led to the currently accepted theory on the later evolutionary stages of massive stars. The Chandrasekhar limit is named after him. Chandrasekhar was the nephew of Sir Chandrasekhara Venkata Raman, who won the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1930. Chandrasekhar in distinct periods worked in various areas including stellar structure, theory of white dwarfs, stellar dynamics, theory of radiative transfer, quantum theory of the negative ion of Hydrogen, hydrodynamic and hydromagnetic stability, equilibrium and the stability of ellipsoidal figures of equilibrium, general relativity, mathematical theory of black holes and theory of colliding gravitational waves. Chandrasekhar served on the University of Chicago faculty from 1937 until his death in 1995 at the age of 84. He became a naturalized citizen of the United States in 1953. Early life and education. Chandrasekhar was born on 19 October 1910 in Lahore, Punjab, India to a Tamil Iyer family Sitalakshmi (1891–1931) and Chandrasekhara Subrahmanya Iyer (1885–1960) who was posted in Lahore as Deputy Auditor General of the Northwestern Railways at the time of Chandrasekhar's birth. He was the eldest of their four sons and the third of their ten children. His paternal uncle was the Indian physicist and Nobel laureate C. V. Raman. His mother was devoted to intellectual pursuits, had translated Henrik Ibsen's "A Doll's House" into Tamil and is credited with arousing Chandra's intellectual curiosity at an early age. Chandrasekhar was tutored at home initially through middle school and later attended the Hindu High School, Triplicane, Madras during the years 1922–25. Subsequently, he studied at Presidency College, Madras from 1925 to 1930, writing his first paper, "The Compton Scattering and the New Statistics", in 1929 upon inspiration from a lecture by Arnold Sommerfeld and obtaining his bachelor's degree, B.Sc. (Hon.), in physics in June 1930. In July 1930, Chandrasekhar was awarded a Government of India scholarship to pursue graduate studies at the University of Cambridge, where he was admitted to Trinity College, secured by Professor R. H. Fowler with whom he communicated his first paper. During his travels to England, Chandrasekhar spent his time working out the statistical mechanics of the degenerate electron gas in white dwarf stars, providing relativistic corrections to Fowler's previous work (see Legacy below). In his first year at Cambridge, as a research student of Fowler, Chandrasekhar spent his time in intensive study, calculating mean opacities and applying his results to the construction of an improved model for the limiting mass of the degenerate star, and was introduced to the monthly meetings of the Royal Astronomical Society, where he met Professor E. A. Milne. At the invitation of Max Born he spent the summer of 1931, his second year of post-graduate studies, at Born’s institute at Göttingen, working on opacities, atomic absorption coefficients, and model stellar photospheres. On the advice of Prof. P. A. M. Dirac, he spent his final year of graduate studies at the "Institute for Theoretical Physics" in Copenhagen, where he met Prof. Niels Bohr. After receiving a bronze medal for his work on degenerate stars, in the summer of 1933, Chandrasekhar was awarded his PhD degree at Cambridge with a thesis among his four papers on rotating self-gravitating polytropes, and the following October, he was elected to a Prize Fellowship at Trinity College for the period 1933–37. During this time, he made acquaintance with Sir Arthur Eddington. Chandrasekhar married Lalitha Doraiswamy in September 1936. He had met her as a fellow student, a year junior to him, at Presidency College, Madras. In his Nobel autobiography, Chandrasekhar wrote, "Lalitha's patient understanding, support, and encouragement have been the central facts of my life." Lalitha later died in 2013 in Chicago, IL. Chandrasekhar's infamous encounter with Arthur Eddington in 1935, in which the latter publicly ridiculed Chandra's most famous (and ultimately correct) discovery (see Chandrasekhar limit) led Chandra to consider employment outside of the UK (Later in life, Chandra on multiple occasions, expressed the view that Eddington's behavior was in part racially motivated.) Subsequent life and career. In January 1937, Chandrasekhar was recruited to the University of Chicago faculty as Assistant Professor by Dr. Otto Struve and President Robert Maynard Hutchins. He was to remain at the university for his entire career, becoming Morton D. Hull Distinguished Service Professor of Theoretical Astrophysics in 1952 and attaining emeritus status in 1985. Famously, Chandrasekhar declined many offers from other universities, including one to succeed Henry Norris Russell, the preeminent American astronomer, as director of the Princeton University Observatory. Chandrasekhar did some work at Yerkes Observatory in Williams Bay, Wisconsin, which was run by the University of Chicago. After the Laboratory for Astrophysics and Space Research (LASR) was built by NASA in 1966 at the University, Chandrasekhar occupied one of the four corner offices on the second floor. (The other corners housed John A. Simpson, Peter Meyer, and Eugene N. Parker.) Chandrasekhar lived at 4800 Lake Shore Drive, about a mile from the University, after the high-rise apartment complex was built in the late 1960s. During World War II, Chandrasekhar worked at the Ballistic Research Laboratories at the Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland. While there, he worked on problems of ballistics; for example, two reports from 1943 were titled, "On the decay of plane shock waves" and "The normal reflection of a blast wave". Chandrasekhar's expertise in hydrodynamics led Robert Oppenheimer to invite him to join the Manhattan Project at Los Alamos, but delays in the processing of his security clearance prevented him from contributing to the project. It has been rumored however that he was called to discuss and visit the Calutron project and was the individual responsible for suggesting that young women be used to operate the machines more efficiently than the male scientists assigned to the task. Chandraskhar had used top performing female high school students from Williams Bay, Lake Geneva, Elkhorn and Burlington, Wisconsin to calculate immensely difficult mathematical equations entirely by long hand, and found that their abilities and vigilance were unparalleled. He then applied this first-hand knowledge with the talents of local "hillbilly high school girls" to speed up the slow-moving centrifugal Calutron project. This in turn allowed the enriched radioactive materials to be completed on time, in order to fashion the atomic weapons ultimately used to end the war. Without these raw materials, developed at the Y-12 National Security Complex these weapons never would have been tested or dropped on Japan. Chandrasekhar developed a unique style of mastering several fields of physics and astrophysics; consequently, his working life can be divided into distinct periods. He would exhaustively study a specific area, publish several papers in it and then write a book summarizing the major concepts in the field. He would then move on to another field for the next decade and repeat the pattern. Thus he studied stellar structure, including the theory of white dwarfs, during the years 1929 to 1939, and subsequently focused on stellar dynamics from 1939 to 1943. Next, he concentrated on the theory of radiative transfer and the quantum theory of the negative ion of hydrogen from 1943 to 1950. This was followed by sustained work on hydrodynamic and hydromagnetic stability from 1950 to 1961. In the 1960s, he studied the equilibrium and the stability of ellipsoidal figures of equilibrium, and also general relativity. During the period, 1971 to 1983 he studied the mathematical theory of black holes, and, finally, during the late 80s, he worked on the theory of colliding gravitational waves. Chandra worked closely with his students and expressed pride in the fact that over a 50 year period (from roughly 1930 to 1980), the average age of his co-author collaborators had remained the same, at around 30. He insisted that students address him as "Chandrasekhar" until they received their Ph.D. degree, after which time they (as other colleagues) were encouraged to address him as "Chandra". From 1952 to 1971 Chandrasekhar was editor of the Astrophysical Journal. During the years 1990 to 1995, Chandrasekhar worked on a project devoted to explaining the detailed geometric arguments in Sir Isaac Newton's "Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica" using the language and methods of ordinary calculus. The effort resulted in the book "Newton's Principia for the Common Reader", published in 1995. Chandrasekhar was an honorary member of the International Academy of Science. Chandrasekhar died of a sudden heart attack at the University of Chicago Hospital in 1995, and was survived by his wife, Lalitha Chandrasekhar who passed away on September 2, 2013 at the age of 102. In the "Biographical Memoirs of the Fellows of the Royal Society of London", R. J. Tayler wrote: "Chandrasekhar was a classical applied mathematician whose research was primarily applied in astronomy and whose like will probably never be seen again." Atheism. Once when involved in a discussion about the Gita, Chandrashekhar said, "I should like to preface my remarks with a personal statement in order that my later remarks will not be misunderstood. I consider myself an atheist." This was also confirmed many times in his other talks. However, Chandra admired the teachings of Hinduism. Nobel prize. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1983 for his studies on the physical processes important to the structure and evolution of stars. Chandrasekhar accepted this honor, but was upset that the citation mentioned only his earliest work, seeing it as a denigration of a lifetime's achievement. He shared it with William A. Fowler. Legacy. Chandrasekhar's most notable work was the astrophysical Chandrasekhar limit. The limit describes the maximum mass of a white dwarf star, ~1.44 solar masses, or equivalently, the minimum mass which must be exceeded for a star to ultimately collapse into a neutron star or black hole (following a supernova). The limit was first calculated by Chandrasekhar in 1930 during his maiden voyage from India to Cambridge, England for his graduate studies. In 1999, NASA named the third of its four "Great Observatories" after Chandrasekhar. This followed a naming contest which attracted 6,000 entries from fifty states and sixty-one countries. The Chandra X-ray Observatory was launched and deployed by Space Shuttle "Columbia" on July 23, 1999. The Chandrasekhar number, an important dimensionless number of magnetohydrodynamics, is named after him. The asteroid 1958 Chandra is also named after Chandrasekhar. American astronomer Carl Sagan, who studied Mathematics under Chandrasekhar, at the University of Chicago, praised him in the book "The Demon-Haunted World": "I discovered what true mathematical elegance is from Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar." Chandrashekhar guided 50 students to their PhDs.
588664	Neeru Bajwa () (born 26 August 1980) is a Canadian born Punjabi actress. She started her career with Dev Anand in the bollywood film "Main Solah Baras Ki" and then moved onto working in Indian Soap Opera's and Punjabi Films. Early life and background. In her documentary film Bollywood Bound she admits to being a high school drop out who had little interest in studies and was always inspirated by the glamour of Bollywood, so she moved to Mumbai to fulfil her dreams. Career. Indian television. She started her career in Indian Soap Opera's in 2003 with "Hari Mirchi Lal Mirchi" on DD1 before moving on to "Astitva...Ek Prem Kahani" on Zee TV followed by "Jeet" on Star Plus and then "Guns and Roses" on Star One where she met ex-fiance Amit Sadh. She also appears in the CID Serial ( CID Special Bureau ) as fiance of ACP Satyakand and has been seen in drama Bone Marrow Music videos. She appeared in her first Punjabi video in 2003 for Punjabi singer Kamal Heer for the song "Kainthey Wala." She went on to do several other Punjabi videos for different artists like "Hey Soniye" with Silinder Pardesi, Juggy D, Rishi Rich. and recently she was seen in Gippy Grewal`s music video "Daang" from his album "Desi Rockstar". She also appeared in a Pakistani music video "hum kis gali ja rahay hain" sung by Atif Aslam. Bollywood films. She made her debut in Bollywood in 1998 with Dev Anand in the film "Main Solah Baras Ki" and then came back to the Bollywood screen in 2010 with "Prince" alongside Vivek Oberoi. She was also seen in "Phoonk 2" and "Miley Naa Miley Hum." She had also worked in movie Special Chabbis. Punjabi films. She made her Punjabi Film debut in 2004 opposite Harbhajan Mann in the movie Asa Nu Maan Watna Da and did two more films with him before going on to work with other Punjabi actors like Jimmy Shergill, Amrinder Gill, Gippy Grewal, Diljit Dosanjh and "Tarun Khanna." She is the top female actor in Punjabi Cinema, she has acted in many blockbusters, her film Jatt and Juliet released in June 2012 became the highest grosser in Punjabi Cinema, her film Jihne Mera Dil Luteya is the third highest grosser in Punjabi Cinema and her film Mel Karade Rabba is the fourth highest grosser. In January 2013, she was seen in the multi starer film Saadi Love Story produced by Jimmy Shergill productions, directed by Dheeraj Rattan who's written several Punjabi blockbusters and starring Diljit Dosanjh, Amrinder Gill, and Surveen Chawla. She paired up opposite Diljit Dosanjh again in the film Jatt and Juliet 2 which broke all the previous opening day collection record for Punjabi cinema. On August 2, her movie, Naughty Jatts was released in which she featured along with Binnu Dhillon, Arya Babbar and Roshan Prince. The movie got mixed reviews from the critics. As a producer. She started a new production house named "Fresh Air Movies" on 14 Feb 2013. Diljit Dosanjh & Gurdas Mann will be starring in her first will as a producer. Personal life. Neeru Bajwa was engaged to television actor Amit Sadh, according to her interview they lived in together and were set to marry in December 2005 but broke off the relationship after being together for eight years.
1039825	Shirley Henderson (born 24 November 1965) is a Scottish actress. She is perhaps best known for her roles as Gail in "Trainspotting", Jude in "Bridget Jones's Diary" and Moaning Myrtle in "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets" and "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire". Early life. Henderson was born in Forres, Moray, but grew up in Kincardine, Fife. As a child, she began singing in local clubs, at charity events, holiday camps and even a boxing contest. Having joined an after-school drama club, Henderson attended Fife College at the age of 16, where she completed a one-year course resulting in a National Certificate in Theatre Arts. She moved to London at 17 where she spent three years at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, graduating in 1986. Career. Henderson got her first big break when Leonard White cast her as the lead in the children's television drama "Shadow of the Stone" on ITV. After this, she spent the majority of her twenties concentrating on performing a wide variety of roles in the theatre. Early 1990 saw Shirley return to television screens when she appeared in the third series of the wartime drama series "Wish Me Luck" and "Clarissa" (1991). More stage work followed before she landed the key role of Isobel in the popular BBC series "Hamish Macbeth" in 1995. Henderson then moved into films, playing Morag in "Rob Roy" (1995) and Spud's girlfriend Gail in Danny Boyle's "Trainspotting" (1996). She continued her work in the theatre, including many productions at the National Theatre in London. 1999 saw critically acclaimed performances in Mike Leigh's "Topsy-Turvy" — which also provided an opportunity for her to show off her singing skills — and Michael Winterbottom's "Wonderland". She played Jude in both "Bridget Jones" films and Moaning Myrtle in "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets" (2002) and "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire" (2005). She was the oldest actress to portray a child's character in the films. Shirley Henderson also played French princess Sophie-Philippine in Sofia Coppola's "Marie Antoinette" (2006). Small-screen appearances have included playing Marie Melmotte in "The Way We Live Now" (2001); Catherine of Braganza in "" (2003); Charlotte in "Dirty Filthy Love" (2004); Ursula Blake in the "Doctor Who" episode "Love & Monsters" (2006); Emmeline Fox in "The Crimson Petal and the White" (2011); DS Angela Young in "Death in Paradise" (2011); and Meg Hawkins in "Treasure Island" (2012). She played the lead role (Karen) opposite John Simm in Channel Four's "Everyday" and Meme Kartosov in Anna Karenina.
1083735	Matthew Knight is a Canadian actor who made his debut in 2002 when he played Peter in a television episode of "Queer as Folk". He is best known for his role as Jake Kimble in "The Grudge" film series. Since then he has appeared in over a dozen television series, more than ten television movies and a number of feature-length and short films. He has been nominated five times for a Young Artist Award and has won twice: once for his performance in "Candles on Bay Street" (2006) and once for his performance in "Gooby" (2009). Career. Knight's first leading role in a feature film was Will Burton in "Big Spender" (2003). After performing on various television shows, he appeared in the movies "Peep" (2004) as Harry and in "The Greatest Game Ever Played" (2005) as Young Francis Ouimet. In 2006, he won a starring role with Rhona Mitra as Rachel Talbot, portraying her son Timothy Talbot, a young boy with huge supernatural responsibilities, in the werewolf film "Skinwalkers". After this horror movie, he appeared in several other horror films, including "The Grudge 2" (2006) and "The Grudge 3" (2009), as Jake Kimble. Knight joined another series of films, albeit with a less sinister theme, when he was cast as Brandon Russell, a young man whose family is charmed by a mysterious woman, in the popular "Good Witch" series: "The Good Witch" (2008), "The Good Witch's Garden" (2009), "The Good Witch's Gift" (2010) and "The Good Witch's Family" (2011). He also stars in the television movie and series "My Babysitter's a Vampire" as Ethan Morgan, a high school student who discovers his babysitter just also happens to be a vampire. He has starred in the episode, "Alien Candy" of the TV series, "R.L. Stine's The Haunting Hour". Personal life. Knight resides in Mount Albert, Ontario and attends Unionville High School where he is in the arts program. He has an older brother and sister who are also actors.
830309	Is Anybody There? is a 2008 British drama film starring Michael Caine and directed by John Crowley. It was written by Peter Harness and produced by David Heyman, Marc Turtletaub and Peter Saraf. The film garnered a nomination from the London Film Critics' Circle for Bill Milner as the "Young British Performer of the Year". Premise. In 1985 Edward (Bill Milner) is a ten-year-old boy who lives at an old people's home run by his parents (David Morrissey and Anne-Marie Duff). Surrounded by death and dying, he becomes obsessed with finding evidence for the afterlife. He is helped in his search by Clarence (Michael Caine), an elderly ex-magician in the early stages of dementia who has recently entered the home. The film follows their quest and their friendship, which ultimately allows both Edward and Clarence to come to terms with their respective situations. Production. Shot on location in Hastings and Chalfont St Giles. Folkestone Central Train Station doubled as a Yorkshire station as Clarence and Edward take a trip on the train for a day out. The sea-shelter on Princes Parade in Hythe was used as a bus shelter in Hull. St Peter's Church of England Primary school in Folkestone was used as Edward's school in the film.
1103986	Tian Gang (; born November 1958) is a Chinese mathematician and an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. He is known for his contributions to geometric analysis and quantum cohomology, among other fields. He was born in Nanjing, China, was a professor of mathematics at MIT from 1995–2006 (holding the chair of Simons Professor of Mathematics from 1996), but now divides his time between Princeton University and Peking University. His employment at Princeton started from 2003, and now he is entitled Higgins Professor of Mathematics; starting 2005, he has been the director of Beijing International Center for Mathematical Research (BICMR). Biography. Tian graduated from Nanjing University in 1982, and received a master's degree from Peking University in 1984. In 1988, he received a Ph.D. in mathematics from Harvard University, after having studied under Shing-Tung Yau. This work was so exceptional he was invited to present it at the Geometry Festival that year. In 1998, he was appointed as a Cheung Kong Scholar professor at the School of Mathematical Sciences at Peking University, under the "Cheung Kong Scholars Programme" (长江计划) of the Ministry of Education. Later his appointment was changed to Cheung Kong Scholar chair professorship. He was awarded the Alan T. Waterman Award in 1994, and the Veblen Prize in 1996. In 2004 Tian was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Mathematical contributions. Much of Tian's earlier work was about the existence of Kähler–Einstein metrics on complex manifolds under the direction of Yau. In particular he solved the existence question for Kähler–Einstein metrics on compact complex surfaces with positive first Chern class, and showed that hypersurfaces with a Kähler–Einstein metric are stable in the sense of geometric invariant theory. He proved that a Kähler manifold with trivial canonical bundle has trivial obstruction space, known as the Bogomolov–Tian–Todorov theorem.
1742480	The Girl Who Leapt Through Time () is a science fiction novel by Yasutaka Tsutsui. It tells the story of a high-school girl who accidentally acquires the ability to time travel. Originally serialised in seven installments in two of Gakken's secondary school student-aimed magazines, beginning in "Chūgaku Sannen Course" in November 1965 and ending in "Taka Ichi Course" in May 1966, and first published as a book in 1967 by Kadokawa Shoten, it has gone on to become one of Tsutsui's most popular works and has been reinterpreted in other media many times, the most famous internationally being a 1983 live action film directed by Nobuhiko Ōbayashi and a 2006 traditional animation film directed by Mamoru Hosoda. The original novel was first published in English translation by the British publisher Alma Books on May 26, 2011, in a translation by David James Karashima. The title is also that of a song, written by Yumi Matsutōya to be performed by Tomoyo Harada for the 1983 film, which has enjoyed considerable fame of its own. Plot. Kazuko Yoshiyama, a third-year middle school student, is cleaning the school science lab with her classmates, Kazuo Fukamachi and Gorō Asakura, when she smells a lavender-like scent and faints. After three days, strange events transpire around Kazuko, including the burning of Gorō's house after an earthquake. The next morning, at the exact moment of a car accident, Kazuko is transported 24 hours into the past. She relives the day and relates her strange experience to Kazuo and Gorō. They do not believe her at first, but they are convinced when she accurately predicts the earthquake and ensuing fire. Fukushima, their science teacher, explains Kazuko's new ability as "teleportation" and "time-leap". To solve the riddle of her power she must leap back four days. Finally, Kazuko's determination enables her to make the leap. Back in the science room, she meets a mysterious man who has assumed her friend Kazuo's identity. He is really "Ken Sogoru", a time-traveler from AD 2660. His intersection with the girl's life is the accidental effect of a "time-leaping" drug. Ken remains for a month, and Kazuko falls in love with him. When he leaves, he erases all memories of himself from everyone he has met, including Kazuko. As the book ends, Kazuko has the faint memory of somebody promising to meet her again every time she smells lavender. Publication history. The novel was first serialized in the Japanese youth magazines Chu-3 Course and Kō-1 Course, from November 1965 to May 1966, and has been regularly re-edited in Japan ever since, notably in 1967 (ISBN 4-04-130510-1), in 1997 for the release of the second film (ISBN 4-89-456306-1), and in a new version in 2006 for the release of the animated film, including two more stories: "Akumu no shinsô" and "Hateshinaki tagen uchû" (ISBN 4-04-130521-7). The novel is also published in foreign countries, like France ("La Traversée du temps", 1983)., South Korea, and China. Adaptations. 1972 television series. NHK produced two adaptations titled "Time Traveler" and "Zoku Time Traveler", aired in 1972. Starring Mayumi Asano. 1983 film. The 1983 live-action film is a direct adaptation of the novel, released on July 16, 1983 in Japan by Tōei, directed by Nobuhiko Ōbayashi, with a screenplay by Wataru Kenmotsu, and starring idol Tomoyo Harada in her first film. It's been since released internationally on DVD, with English sub-titles, under several unofficial English titles ("The Little Girl Who Conquered Time", "Girl of Time", "The Girl Who Cut Time", among others). 1983 short story. Yasutaka Tsutsui wrote a short story parodying his own novel titled "Scenario: Toki o Kakeru Shōjo" in response to the film adaptation. 1985 drama. Adapted to an episode of "Getsuyō Drama Land". Starring Yōko Minamino. 1994 drama. The second live-action television adaptation aired as a five-episode Japanese television live-action TV series broadcast on Fuji Television between February 19 and March 19, 1994. It was directed by Masayuki Ochiai and Yūichi Satō, with screenplay by Ryōichi Kimizuka and music by Joe Hisaishi. It stars the then-rookie idol Yuki Uchida in the main role. 1997 film. The second live-action film adaptation of was released in Japan on November 8, 1997, directed by Haruki Kadokawa, with a screenplay by Ryōji Itō, Chiho Katsura and Haruki Kadokawa, starring beginner Nana Nakamoto in the main role. 2002 TV film. The novel was adapted into one third of the "Shinshun! Love Stories" anthology film starring members of the all-girl J-pop group Morning Musume. The segment was written by Toshio Terada, starring Abe Natsumi and directed by Kazuhiro Onohara. 2006 anime film. "The Girl Who Leapt Through Time" was produced by the animation studio Madhouse and distributed through Kadokawa Herald Pictures, first released in theaters in Japan on July 15, 2006. The film was later released on DVD on April 20, 2007 in Japan in regular and limited editions. The protagonist of the novel is the aunt of the film's protagonist. 2010 film. A third Japanese live-action film adaptation of "The Girl Who Leapt Through Time" was announced in Yahoo Japan and released on March 13, 2010. The theme song of the film was performed by Ikimono-gakari. The movie features Riisa Naka, who previously voiced the protagonist Makoto Konno in the 2006 animated film, as the lead character, Akari Yoshiyama, the daughter of Kazuko Yoshiyama. Manga. The novel was adapted in 2004 into a two-volume manga called , illustrated by Gaku Tsugano, and story by Yasutaka Tsutsui (ISBN 4-04-713620-4 & ISBN 4-04-713640-9). The manga was released in English on October 2008 by CMX Manga. A manga adaptation of the 2006 anime film was serialized in Kadokawa Shoten's "Shōnen Ace" manga magazine between April 26 and June 26, 2006, illustrated by Ranmaru Kotone; the chapters were later collected into a single bound volume which went on sale on July 26, 2006. Another manga, known as ", set as prelude to the 2010 film was serialized in "Young Ace" magazine.
1104384	The level set method (LSM) is a numerical technique for tracking interfaces and shapes. The advantage of the level set method is that one can perform numerical computations involving curves and surfaces on a fixed Cartesian grid without having to parameterize these objects (this is called the "Eulerian approach"). Also, the level set method makes it very easy to follow shapes that change topology, for example when a shape splits in two, develops holes, or the reverse of these operations. All these make the level set method a great tool for modeling time-varying objects, like inflation of an airbag, or a drop of oil floating in water. Level set method. The figure on the right illustrates several important ideas about the level set method. In the upper-left corner we see a shape; that is, a bounded region with a well-behaved boundary. Below it, the red surface is the graph of a level set function formula_1 determining this shape, and the flat blue region represents the formula_2 plane. The boundary of the shape is then the zero level set of formula_1, while the shape itself is the set of points in the plane for which formula_1 is positive (interior of the shape) or zero (at the boundary).
1062168	Karen Blanche Black (née Ziegler; July 1, 1939 – August 8, 2013) was an American actress, screenwriter, singer and songwriter. She is known for her appearances in such films as "Easy Rider" (1969), "Five Easy Pieces" (1970), "The Great Gatsby", "Rhinoceros" and "Airport 1975" (all 1974), "The Day of the Locust" and "Nashville" (both 1975), and Alfred Hitchcock's final film, "Family Plot" (1976). Over the course of her career, she won two Golden Globe Awards (out of three nominations), and an Academy Award nomination in 1971 for Best Supporting Actress. Early life. Black was born as Karen Blanche Ziegler in Park Ridge, Illinois, in suburban Chicago, the daughter of Elsie Mary (née Reif), a writer of several prize-winning children's novels, and Norman Arthur Ziegler. Her paternal grandfather was Arthur Charles Ziegler, a classical musician and first violinist for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Her sister is the actress Gail Brown. Black was of German, Bohemian (Czech) and Norwegian descent. She attended Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, for two years, having commenced university studies in 1954, aged 15. She then moved to New York where she appeared in a number of Off-Broadway productions. Career. Black (who took that surname from her first husband, Charles Black) began her film career in 1959 with a small role in "The Prime Time". Beginning in 1967, she appeared in guest roles in several television series, including "The F.B.I.", "Run for Your Life", "The Second Hundred Years", "The Big Valley", "The Iron Horse", "Judd for the Defense" and "Mannix". One of her early roles was in Season 1, episode 10 (Log 132-The Producer) of the NBC series, "Adam-12" as Susan Decker. In 1984-1985, she was cast as Sheila Sheinfeld in three episodes of another NBC series, "E/R". She wrote and sang the theme song and supporting songs for "The Pyx" (1973). Her feature film career expanded in 1969, playing the role of an acid-tripping prostitute opposite Dennis Hopper and Peter Fonda in the iconic counterculture movie "Easy Rider". In 1970, Black appeared as Rayette, the waitress girlfriend of Jack Nicholson, in the film "Five Easy Pieces", for which she was nominated for an Academy Award as Supporting Actress. Black played an unfaithful wife, Myrtle Wilson, in the 1974 version of "The Great Gatsby". She starred as Nancy Pryor, the stewardess who is forced to fly the plane, in the disaster film "Airport 1975" (1974). In the same year, she played multiple roles in the televised anthology film "Trilogy of Terror". The segments, all written by suspense writer Richard Matheson, were named after the women involved in the plot — a plain college professor who seduces a student ("Julie"), a pair of sisters who squabble over their father's inheritance ("Millicent and Therese"), and the lonely recipient of a cursed Zuni fetish that comes to life and pursues her relentlessly ("Amelia"). During the next two years, Black had leading roles as an aspiring Hollywood actress in John Schlesinger's "The Day of the Locust" (1975), as a country singer in Robert Altman's "Nashville" (also 1975) and as a kidnapper in what turned out to be Alfred Hitchcock's last film, "Family Plot" (1976). She also co-starred with Bette Davis in a horror film, "Burnt Offerings" (also 1976). Her later career tailed off into numerous horror roles, but Black did gain and maintain a cult following. In April 2009, Black worked with director Steve Balderson for "Stuck!" — an homage to film noir women-in-prison dramas, which co-starred Mink Stole, Pleasant Gehman and Jane Wiedlin of the The Go-Go's. Black also starred in John Landis' 2010 thriller, "Some Guy Who Kills People". Later that year, Black appeared on Cass McCombs' song "Dreams-Come-True-Girl" from the album "Catacombs". Personal life. Black married four times: Death. After her final films were released in 2010, she was diagnosed with cancer and did not make any more public appearances. She had a portion of her pancreas removed that year and battled on with two further operations. She was invited to attend the premiere of River Phoenix's last on-screen performance in the salvaged feature film "Dark Blood", in which she had acted in a small part in the original early 1990s shoot. Black was unable to attend the event, held in the Netherlands in September 2012, due to her illness.
1038522	Amanda Louise Holden (born 16 February 1971) is a British actress, singer and presenter. Among her roles are Mia Bevan in "Cutting It", Sarah Trevanion in "Wild at Heart", the title role in "Thoroughly Modern Millie" for which she was nominated for a Laurence Olivier Theatre Award, and most recently as Princess Fiona in "Shrek the Musical". Since 2007, Holden has been a judge on "Britain's Got Talent". She is married to record producer Chris Hughes. Her marriage to "Family Fortunes" presenter Les Dennis ended in divorce in 2003. Biography. Holden was born in Bishop's Waltham, Hampshire to Judith Mary Harrison and naval petty officer Frank Holden. Her parents split up when she was four and she was brought up in the village of Waltham Chase, by Harrison and stepfather Leslie Drew Collister. She joined the Bishop's Waltham Little Theatre Company when she was nine, and credits Angie Blackford as influential in her early stage career. When she was 16 the family moved to Bournemouth and ran a small B&B while Amanda herself studied Drama and English literature A levels with Terry Clarke and Charles Lamb at the Jellicoe Theatre, now part of Bournemouth and Poole College. She successfully auditioned for the independent drama school Mountview Academy of Theatre Arts in the Wood Green area of North London when she was 18, graduating in July 1994. Television career. Her first television appearance was as a contestant on the UK game show "Blind Date" in 1991, since which she has become a familiar face on British television. Holden appeared in the ITV drama "Wild at Heart" as Sarah Trevanion. She is currently a judge on "Britain's Got Talent" alongside Simon Cowell, David Walliams and Alesha Dixon and previously Piers Morgan, Kelly Brook, Michael McIntyre and David Hasselhoff. She has appeared on various British comedy and drama series such as "Smack the Pony", "EastEnders", "Hearts and Bones", "Cutting It" and as a co-star with Harry Enfield in comedy series "Celeb". In April 2009, it was reported that the US network CBS had offered Holden the job of one-time guest presenter on "The Early Show", a daytime talk show. Holden presented alongside regular presenters Harry Smith and Maggie Rodriguez on 1 June. Holden has since been signed up with CBS as a British correspondent for The Early Show. In July 2009, Holden became a gossip columnist for the "News of the World'". In January 2010, she started a new three-part show called "Amanda Holden's Fantasy Lives". In 2011, Holden narrated one-off documentary "The Nation's Favourite Bee Gees Song" on ITV and on 6 July 2012 she guest presented ITV Breakfast programme "Lorraine". Acting career. Holden has appeared in several stage musicals and in 2004 was nominated for a Laurence Olivier Theatre Award for Best Actress in a Musical for her performance in the West End production of "Thoroughly Modern Millie", which closed earlier than expected at the end of June 2004. She appeared in the ITV drama "Wild at Heart", alongside Stephen Tompkinson and Ross Kent. The first series aired in 2006 and a second series followed in early 2007. Series three ran from 20 January to 9 March 2008, after which Holden left the programme. She then appeared as Lizzie the Ring Mistress in the sitcom Big Top (BBC1, 2009), which ran for one series. Holden's other TV credits include three series of the hit comedy "Kiss Me Kate" alongside Caroline Quentin, three series of the ITV comedy series "The Grimleys", "Celeb" with Harry Enfield, the critically acclaimed BBC series "Hearts and Bones" alongside Damian Lewis, the Jonathan Creek episode "The Problem at Gallowes Gate" and a Boxing Day special "Marple" alongside Geraldine McEwan and John Hannah. She also co-starred with Bill Nighy and Tom Courtenay in "Ready When You Are, Mr McGill", Jack Rosenthal's classic comedy drama. She most recently finished playing the role of Princess Fiona in the original West End production of "Shrek the Musical", which began on 6 May 2011. The show opened at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane on 14 June 2011. She starred alongside Nigel Lindsay, Richard Blackwood and Nigel Harman. Holden departed the show on 3 October 2011, ten weeks earlier than planned, to focus on her unborn child. She was replaced by "Girls Aloud" singer Kimberley Walsh. For this role Holden won the WhatsOnStage.com Theatregoers' Choice Award for Best Actress in a Musical. Personal life. Holden married the comedian Les Dennis in June 1995. They had a temporary split in 2000 when Holden's affair with actor Neil Morrissey was exposed in the press, before eventually separating in December 2002 and divorcing in 2003. On 20 January 2006, Holden gave birth to her first child with fiancé Chris Hughes. She married record producer Hughes at Babington House, Somerset, on 10 December 2008 with former Formula One racing driver David Coulthard acting as the best man. On 23 January 2012 she gave birth to a daughter. They live in Richmond, Surrey. Holden ran the London Marathon in 4 hours and 13 minutes on 13 April 2008, in the name of the Born Free Foundation, having collected public and celebrity sponsors online. Holden is a fan of Everton Football Club and attends games when her work permits. Holden fronted Everton's breast cancer awareness campaign, sporting a limited edition baby pink club shirt, the colour of breast cancer awareness. In September 2011, Holden was sponsored to bake a cake for every child in the Great Ormond Street Hospital. Activism. Holden campaigned to keep a Sainsbury's out of Bishop's Waltham. Residents of her hometown later accused her of a double standard in November 2010 when she signed a deal with Tesco, the UK's largest supermarket chain.
1122	Cody Arthur McMains (born October 4, 1985) is an American film and television actor, best known for playing Mitch Briggs in "Not Another Teen Movie". He appeared as Patch in "Thomas & the Magic Railroad", with Alec Baldwin, Peter Fonda and Mara Wilson. and for playing Kirby in "Big Bully". He was featured in the movie, "Bring It On" in 2000. Also, he appeared in the TV series "Monk" as Mr. Monk's psychiatrist's son, Troy Kroeger, on two episodes. Cody played Keith on "10 Things I Hate About You".
134103	Juliet Mia "Julie" Warner (born February 9, 1965) is an American actress. Early life. Warner was born in Manhattan, New York on February 9, 1965. Her mother, Naomi (née Bernstein), is a literary agent, an independent marketing consultant, and a licensing director. Her father, Neil Warner, is a jingle composer, a pianist, and an arranger. Her paternal grandfather was Hollywood composer Jack Shilkret, the brother of composer Nathaniel Shilkret. Warner attended the Dalton School at age twelve. There she met an agent who advised Warner to consider acting. Shortly thereafter, Warner landed a role on the soap opera, "Guiding Light". Warner earned a degree in theater arts from Brown University in 1987. After her graduation, Warner moved to Los Angeles, where she worked as a waitress while auditioning for acting. Career. Warner appeared in two episodes of ""; "Booby Trap" in 1989 and "Transfigurations" in 1990. Warner's most famous roles include her 1991 breakout co-starring performance with Michael J. Fox in "Doc Hollywood", then her co-starring role with Billy Crystal in 1992's "Mr. Saturday Night". She was in "Indian Summer" in 1993, "The Puppet Masters", based on Robert A Heinlein's novel of the same name in 1994, and "Tommy Boy" in 1995. She played the role of Danny Lipton in the TV series "Family Law", and the recurring character Megan O'Hara in "Nip/Tuck". In 2005, Warner began starring as the wife to Howie Mandel in his short-lived hidden camera/situation comedy "Hidden Howie: The Private Life of a Public Nuisance" and later appeared in the 2006 film Stick It. Other screen credits include a guest appearance on an episode of House MD. She starred in the 2008 Hallmark Channel movie, "Our First Christmas", where she plays a mother trying to navigate the difficult waters of combining two families after the deaths of her own and her new husband's spouses. In 2009, she played Rose Pinchbinder in the children's TV show "True Jackson, VP" in the episode "Keeping Tabs". In 2012, she guest starred in the season seven episode of "Dexter", "Chemistry", as the sister of Hannah McKay's dead husband. Personal life. In June 1995, Warner married writer-director Jonathan Prince. They have a son named Jackson, born in 1997.
1046706	David Ivor Davies (15 January 1893 – 6 March 1951), better known as Ivor Novello, was a Welsh composer and actor who became one of the most popular British entertainers of the first half of the 20th century.
582896	Chamatkar (Devanagari: चमत्कार, Nastaliq: چمتکار, Translation: Miracle) is a Hindi ghost comedy movie which was directed by Rajiv Mehra and released in India in 1992. It cast Naseeruddin Shah and Shahrukh Khan in pivotal roles. Rajiv Mehra chose to work again with Khan in the future "Ram Jaane". Plot. Sunder Srivastava (Shahrukh Khan) is a young graduate whose main ambition in life is to fulfill his father's dream of starting a school on his half-acre property in his village, though he has no funds to execute his plans. Sunder's childhood friend Prem, a seasoned conman in Mumbai, convinces the gullible Sunder to mortgage. When Sunder comes to Mumbai, he is first tricked and loses his luggage, then pick-pocketed and loses his money. He then finds that Prem tricked him and fled to Dubai with using his money. Sunder is forced to take shelter in a cemetery. Sunder starts cursing his stars and venting his anger. A voice responds to him and a surprised Sunder asks the person to identify himself. The source of the voice, who cannot be seen, is surprised and asks Sunder whether the latter can really hear him. Sunder realizes that he has been talking with a ghost and panics. The ghost suddenly becomes visible to Sunder and introduces himself as Amar Kumar alias Marco (Naseeruddin Shah). Marco tells Sunder that only he can help Sunder and vice versa. Marco tells his story. Marco was an underworld gangster who fell in love with one Savitri Kaul (Malvika Tiwari), daughter of one Mr. Kaul (Shammi Kapoor). Savitri declined to marry him if he did not change his ways. To show that he was serious, Marco resolved to give up crime. This did not bode well for his protégé Kunta (Tinu Anand), who wanted to become as big as Marco himself. On his wedding night, Marco was kidnapped and killed by Kunta, after which he was buried in the cemetery. Marco tells Sunder that many crimes taking place in the city under his name are actually done by Kunta and his minions. Marco tells Sunder that due to his sins, he cannot attain redemption. Marco was foretold that only his savior would be able to see and hear him, so Sunder has to help him. Sunder declines, but Marco surprises him by reminding him of his dream, about which Sunder had not told a thing to Marco. Marco tells him that he wants to see Savitri and Mr. Kaul. He also tells that he cannot touch or harm anybody until time comes. Marco manages to get Sunder a position as a cricket coach in a school run by Mr. Kaul. Marco is angered when he finds out that after his murder, Kunta and his goons came to the Kaul household and told Savitri that Marco was alive and had fled India never to come back, suggesting that Marco only married her in order to sleep with her. Kunta had told them that Marco wanted Savitri and her father to hand over the ownership documents for his hotel to Kunta, but Savitri refused to hand them over unless Marco himself came to ask for them. Kunta then tried to rape Savitri, but was stopped when her father broke down, promising to give them the documents. Hearing all of this, Marco is furious and vows revenge. He is grieved to then find out that Savitri died some time afterwards, but overjoyed when he learns that he has a daughter from the wedding night with Savitri called Mala (Urmila Matondkar).
1061958	Clive Owen (born 3 October 1964) is an English actor, who has worked on television, stage and film. He first gained recognition in the United Kingdom for portraying the lead in the ITV series "Chancer" from 1990 to 1991. He then received critical acclaim for his work in the film "Close My Eyes" (1991) before getting international notice for his performance as a struggling writer in "Croupier" (1998). In 2005, Owen won a Golden Globe and a BAFTA Award and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his appearance in the drama "Closer" (2004). He has since played leading roles in films such as "Sin City" (2005), "Derailed" (2005) "Inside Man" (2006), "Children of Men" (2006), and "The International" (2009). In 2012, he earned his first Primetime Emmy Award nomination for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Miniseries or a Movie for his role in "Hemingway & Gellhorn." Early life. The fourth of five brothers, Owen was born in Coventry, Warwickshire, in the English Midlands, a son of Pamela (née Cotton) and Jess Owen, a country and western singer. His father left the family when Owen was three years old, and despite a brief reconciliation when Owen was nineteen, the two have remained estranged. Raised by his mother and stepfather, a railway ticket clerk, he has described his childhood as "rough." While initially opposed to drama school, he changed his mind in 1984, after a long and fruitless period of searching for work. Owen graduated from the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in 1987 with a class that included Rebecca Pidgeon, Serena Harragin, Mark Womack and Liza Tarbuck. After graduation, he won a position at the Young Vic, performing in several Shakespearean plays. Career. Early career. Initially, Owen carved out a career in television. In 1988, he starred as Gideon Sarn in a BBC production of "Precious Bane" and the Channel 4 film "Vroom" before the 1990s saw him become a regular on stage and television in the UK, notably his lead role in the ITV series "Chancer", followed by an appearance in the Thames Television production of "Lorna Doone". He won critical acclaim for his performances in the 1991 Stephen Poliakoff film "Close My Eyes" – in which he has a full frontal nude scene – about a brother and sister who embark on an incestuous love affair. He subsequently appeared in "The Magician", "Class of '61", "Century", "Nobody's Children", "An Evening with Gary Lineker", "Doomsday Gun", "Return of the Native" and then a Carlton production called "Sharman", about a private detective. In 1996, he appeared in his first major Hollywood film "The Rich Man's Wife" alongside Halle Berry before finding international acclaim in a Channel 4 film directed by Mike Hodges called "Croupier" (1998). In "Croupier", he played the title role of a struggling writer who takes a job in a London casino as inspiration for his work, only to get caught up in a robbery scheme. In 1999, he appeared as an accident-prone driver in "Split Second", his first BBC production in about a decade. Owen starred in "The Echo", a BBC1 drama, before starring in the film "Greenfingers", about a criminal who goes to work in a garden. He then appeared in the BBC1 mystery series "Second Sight". In 2001, he provided the voice-over for a BBC2 documentary about popular music called "Walk On By", as well as starring in a highly-acclaimed theatre production called "A Day in the Death of Joe Egg", about a couple with a severely handicapped daughter. He became well known to North American audiences in the summer of 2001 after starring as "The Driver" in "The Hire", a series of short films sponsored by BMW and made by prominent directors. He then appeared in Robert Altman's "Gosford Park" among an all-star cast which included Helen Mirren, Maggie Smith, Michael Gambon, Kristin Scott Thomas and Ryan Phillippe. He appeared in the 2002 hit "The Bourne Identity". In 2003, he reteamed with director Mike Hodges in "I'll Sleep When I'm Dead". He starred in "Beyond Borders" and won the title role in "King Arthur", for which he learned to ride a horse. Recognition and acclaim. Owen appeared in the West End and Broadway hit play "Closer", by Patrick Marber, which was produced as a film, and was released in 2005. He played "Dan" in the play, but was "Larry" the dermatologist in the film version. His portrayal of Larry in the film version received rave reviews, as well as the Golden Globe and BAFTA award and an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor. He noted that the expectations of him since the Oscar nomination have not changed the way he approaches film-making, stating "I try, every film I do, to be as good as I can and that's all I can do." After "Closer", he appeared in "Derailed" alongside Jennifer Aniston, the comic book thriller "Sin City" as the noir antihero Dwight McCarthy and as a mysterious bank robber in "Inside Man". Despite public denials, Owen had long been rumoured to be a possible successor to Pierce Brosnan in the role of James Bond. A public opinion poll in the United Kingdom in October 2005 (SkyNews) found that he was the public's number one choice to star in the next installment of the series. In that same month, however, it was announced that fellow British actor Daniel Craig would become the next James Bond. In an interview in the September 2007 issue of "Details", he claimed that he was never offered or even approached concerning the role. In 2006, Owen spoofed the Bond connection by making an appearance in the remake of "The Pink Panther" in which he plays a character named "Nigel Boswell, Agent 006" (when he introduces himself to Inspector Clouseau, he quips that Owen's character is "one short of the big time"). In 2006, Owen starred in the highly acclaimed "Children of Men", for which he received widespread praise. The film was nominated for various awards, including an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay; Owen worked on the screenplay, although he was uncredited. The next year he starred alongside Paul Giamatti in the film "Shoot 'Em Up" and appeared as Sir Walter Raleigh opposite Cate Blanchett's Elizabeth I of England in the film "". He appeared in the Christmas special of the Ricky Gervais show "Extras", as revealed in the video podcast teaser. Owen starred in "The International" (2009), a film which he described as a "paranoid political thriller". He then played the lead in "The Boys Are Back", an Australian adaptation of the book "The Boys Are Back in Town" by Simon Carr. In June 2010 it was announced that Owen and Nicole Kidman would star in an HBO film about Ernest Hemingway and his relationship with Martha Gellhorn entitled "Hemingway & Gellhorn". James Gandolfini served as executive producer to the film, written by Barbara Turner and Jerry Stahl. The film was directed by Philip Kaufman. The film was released in 2012. Owen shot "Shadow Dancer", joint Anglo-Irish production about a young mother who is heavily involved with the Irish Republican Movement. She is arrested in London following an aborted bombing attempt and must either choose to inform on her family or spend the rest of her life behind bars. The film co-stars Andrea Riseborough, Gillian Anderson and Aidan Gillen and was directed by James Marsh. In April 2010, he was cast as the lead in Juan Carlos Fresnadillo's horror-thriller "Intruders." The film received a limited release in the US in 2011. Owen starred in the film "Blood Ties," directed by Guillaume Canet, alongside French actress Marion Cotillard. It was released in June 2013 at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival. Personal life. Owen married Sarah-Jane Fenton on 6 March 1995; the couple live in Highgate, London and Wrabness, north Essex, with their two daughters – Hannah and Eve. In November 2006, he became patron of the Electric Palace Cinema in Harwich, Essex, England and launched an appeal for funds to repair deteriorating elements of the fabric. He enjoys the music of indie rock band Hard-Fi and has been seen at two of their concerts, Brixton Academy, 15 May 2006 and Wembley Arena, 18 December 2007. He is also a supporter of Liverpool Football Club and narrated the fly on the wall documentary television series "" about the club.
1059331	Joe Somebody is a 2001 American comedy-drama film written by John Scott Shepherd and directed by John Pasquin. The film stars Tim Allen as a man stirred into action by a workplace bully. The film also stars Julie Bowen, Kelly Lynch, Greg Germann, Hayden Panettiere, Patrick Warburton and Jim Belushi. Screenwriter John Scott Shepherd wrote the script based on his experiences working in advertising. Though originally offered to Jim Carrey, the role of Joe Scheffer would eventually be taken by Allen. The film marked Allen and Pasquin's third feature together, after 1994's "The Santa Clause" and 1997's "Jungle 2 Jungle". The entire film was shot over a nearly eight-week span in Minnesota. The film was released in the U.S. on December 21, 2001, to mixed reviews. Produced on a $38 million budget, the film ended its theatrical run with $24.5 million worldwide, making it a financial failure. The film received one award nomination, which went to young Panettiere's performance as the title character's daughter. Plot. Joe Scheffer (Tim Allen) is a recently divorced single parent, and a talented audio/visual specialist at STARKe Pharmaceuticals, his place of employment. One day Joe pulls into the parking lot at work to find his co-worker Mark McKinney (Patrick Warburton) parking in a spot that has been reserved for those who have worked for the company for 10 years. However, McKinney has only worked there for 7 years. When Joe confronts McKinney about this, McKinney assaults him in front of his young daughter Natalie (Hayden Panettiere). Joe falls into a state of depression until Meg Harper (Julie Bowen), the Wellness Coordinator at STARKe, accidentally ignites a fuse in him when, in a fit of frustration, she asks Joe, "What do you want?" Joe is suddenly stirred to action by this question, and decides he wants a rematch to reclaim his dignity and self-respect, which he felt McKinney took from him. After issuing the challenge to McKinney, Joe begins to find himself becoming very popular around the office for his bravery. Meg and Natalie, however, do not feel fighting McKinney will solve anything, and both attempt to tell Joe as much, to no avail. Joe seeks out the aid of an ex B movie star-turned-martial arts instructor named Chuck Scarett (Jim Belushi) to teach him to defend himself. Things seem to finally be going right for Joe, as he has begun to see Meg and has even been given a promotion at work he had been hoping for. When Meg realizes Jeremy (Greg Germann), a colleague she works closely with for the company (who also happens to be attracted to her), only gave Joe a non-existing position at the office to prevent him from suing the company, she resigns in fear that she might one day have to demote or even fire Joe. Meg again tries to persuade Joe not to fight McKinney, and finally gives him an ultimatum: if he does not call off the fight with McKinney, their relationship is over. The day of the fight, Joe makes it all the way to the school where the brawl is to take place. However, he finally realizes it would be immature to fight, and not worth the price he would have to pay. When Joe tells McKinney and his other co-workers the fight is off, McKinney offers him an apology, which Joe accepts. Joe then goes and makes up with Meg for not understanding her reasoning before. Production. Development. John Scott Shepherd, who wrote the film's script, had previous experience in advertising as a film and video producer. Shepherd was inspired to write a screenplay about those experiences and the people who have to work behind the scenes in corporate America. "It occurred to me that we all expect to be special, if not famous," recalled Shepherd. The screenplay caught the attention of Kopelson Entertainment executive Matthew Gross, who first read the script while working on a television pilot with Shepherd. Gross passed the script on to his bosses, Anne and Arnold Kopelson, who gave Gross full support with the project. The role of Joe Scheffer was initially offered to Jim Carrey, but he decided to join the 2001 film "The Majestic" instead. The screenplay's balance of comedy and drama intrigued actor Tim Allen, known for the television series "Home Improvement" and such films as "Galaxy Quest" (2000) and "The Santa Clause" (1994). Allen was searching for a project that was more than just broad comedy, and felt "Joe Somebody" would allow him to exhibit his comedic and dramatic skills. Of the script, Allen noted, "the story has a lot of heart to it, and an emotion that I really love." Producer Brian Reilly, who partners with Allen on his films, commented that "Tim's previous roles did not have the kind of emotional truth or intimacy on screen called for by Joe Somebody. Tim has now reached a time in his life when it's right for him to do a film with rich and shaded characters." With Allen on board, the studio executives began to search for a director for the film. After reading the script and discussing the details with Allen, Reilly, and numerous studio execs, John Pasquin, who had worked with Allen on "Home Improvement", "Jungle 2 Jungle" (1997), and "Santa Clause", agreed to direct. Filming. Filming began on April 9, 2001. The entire film was shot in Minnesota, with a majority of the shoot divided between the twin cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul. Screenwriter Shepherd spent many years working in the Twin Cities, becoming very familiar with the area in the process. Gross reflected on the city: "Minneapolis is a major player in this film, which can be seen in the cast, the background players and the locations. It was written for the city." The film was shot in fifty-four days on over thirty locations. Joe Scheffer's workplace was shot at Waterford Towers in Plymouth, Minnesota. Production designer Jackson De Govia transformed the fourth floor of the New Age office building into a drop ceiling corporate environment, which serves as a community to its employees. The Club 13 scenes were filmed at the Grand Hotel Minneapolis, while the karaoke scenes were shot at Grumpy's Bar & Grill, both in Minneapolis. The scenes of Tim Allen and Patrick Warburton racing their shopping carts were shot at the Target store in Plymouth. The scenes taking place at Scarett's gym were filmed in the city of Richfield. Other scenes were shot in the cities of Crystal and St. Paul. There was originally to be a title sequence of a number office workers getting to know the corporate structure. For timing purposes, the title sequence was instead spread over the film's first two scenes. The young girls in the "Bring Your Daughter To Work Day" video Joe can be seen working on in the beginning of the film were all daughters of various film crew members. The original fight between Joe and Mark was shot over two days in Minneapolis, which made it somewhat difficult to match up the colors in the processing stage of editing during post-production. Half-way through the shooting of the martial arts scenes, Tim Allen's arms became painfully bruised. Due to his injuries, Allen began to wear pads on his arms, which is why he is seen wearing them during training from the middle of the film on. Shooting finished on June 16, 2001. Cultural references. The film makes numerous references to other films, including "The Matrix", "My Fair Lady", "Taxi Driver", and "The Ten Commandments". The film also mentions the 2000 film, "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon", when Joe talks about what he wants to do in retaliation to McKinney. The animated television series "Beavis and Butt-head" is referenced as well. Release. Box office. "Joe Somebody" opened on December 21, 2001, ranking number ten at the box office, and earning $3,553,725 in its opening weekend in 2,506 theaters. Outside of the U.S., the film was most successful in Mexico, grossing a total of $917,266 in box office sales. "Joe Somebody" went on to gross $22.7 million in the U.S. box office and $1.7 million in foreign countries, totaling $24.5 million in box office sales. Most of the blame for the film's disappointing returns could be attributed to three blockbuster films in theaters at the time: "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone," "", and "Ocean's Eleven". Home media. The film was released to home video in the U.S. on August 20, 2002. Features on the DVD release include a commentary track featuring director John Pasquin and producer Brian Reilly, a fight choreography featurette, four deleted scenes with optional commentary, and the film's theatrical trailer. Reception. Critical response. The film received a two-and-a-half star rating from the Allmovie film review website. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 top reviews from mainstream critics, the film has received an average score of 43 based on 22 reviews. From review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, 19% of critics gave the film positive reviews, based on 83 reviews. Scott Foundas at "Variety" calls the film "pleasant," and gives much credit to director Pasquin. Although Foundas refers to the screenplay as "bland," he states that Pasquin has a "deft touch" when working with the material. Foundas also gives high marks to Allen's work in the picture, calling his presence the "pic's winningest asset." Steve Simels at "TV Guide" writes that the film "has genuine wit and pathos," "some" well drawn characters, "and a couple of sly comic performances." However, Simels did state that "none of these virtues can completely compensate for the film's utterly conventional message of uplift." Simels gave praise to some of the lead performances, crediting Greg Germann in particular for nearly stealing the film, calling his portrayal "truly a marvel to behold." Lisa Schwarzbaum from "Entertainment Weekly" called the film a "standard-transmission vehicle;" she gives credit, however, to star Allen's performance, saying that the character he plays in the film "just so happens to be the kind of average-Joe character that continues to make Allen such a tidy, non-Joe bundle." Carla Meyer of the "San Francisco Chronicle" believed the film to be "an odd picture, a rumination on depression and self-discovery that's couched as an office comedy." Although Meyer said that the film is "never truly funny or insightful," she did give the picture some credit, stating that "the movie works intermittently by digging a little deeper than you might expect." Meyer also approved of the performances of Allen, Belushi, and Warburton. Roger Ebert of the "Chicago Sun-Times" likened the film to "an afterschool special, with grownups cast in the kids' roles." Ebert also called the film "crashingly obvious," later remarking that the audience is "faced with the dismal prospect of being denied a climax, which, if it occurred, would be just as predictable as its substitute."
358118	The Scarlet Pumpernickel is a 1949 animated Warner Bros. "Looney Tunes" theatrical cartoon short released in 1950 (reissued as a Blue Ribbon Merrie Melodie in the beginning, with the original Looney Tunes ending title sequence), directed by Chuck Jones and written by Michael Maltese. In 1994 it was voted #31 of the 50 Greatest Cartoons of all time by members of the animation field. Plot. The cartoon is a story-within-a-story. Daffy Duck is fed up with comedy and wants to try a dramatic act instead. He offers a script to the Warner Brothers executive "J.L.", called "The Scarlet Pumpernickel", which he wrote himself (under the name ""Daffy Dumas Duck."")
1163599	Brian Aherne (2 May 190210 February 1986) was a British actor of both stage and screen, who found success in Hollywood. Early life and stage career. He was born William Brian de Lacy Aherne in King's Norton, Worcestershire, the son of the Birmingham architect William de Lacy Aherne by his spouse Louise née Thomas. Educated at Edgbaston, Birmingham, he had also carried out some early stage training at Italia Conti Academy in London and had some child roles before completing his education at Malvern College. He first appeared on the stage in Birmingham with the Pilgrim Players (which subsequently developed into the Birmingham Repertory Theatre), on 5 April 1910, in "Fifinella"; and made his first appearance on the London stage at the Garrick Theatre, 26 December 1913, in "Where the Rainbow Ends", a fairy play by Clifford Mills and John Ramsey, with music by Roger Quilter, which ran at various theatres for over 25 years. He then studied with a view to becoming an architect, but, having had considerable amateur experience in Birmingham, and with Liverpool's Green Room Club, he obtained an engagement under Robert Courtneidge, and appeared at London's Savoy Theatre, opening on 26 December 1923, as Jack O'Hara in a revival of "Paddy the Next Best Thing", the play by W. Gayer-Mackay and Robert Ord (from the novel). He then toured with Violet Vanbrugh as Hugo in "The Flame", and appeared at the London Playhouse in May 1924 as Langford in Leon Gordon's "White Cargo", in which he played all through 1924-25. In 1926 he accompanied Dion Boucicault, Jr. to Australia, where he appeared in several plays by J.M. Barrie: as Valentine Brown in the comedy "Quality Street", John Shand in the comedy "What Every Woman Knows", Crichton in "The Admirable Crichton", Simon and Harry in "Mary Rose"; and Willocks in "Aren't We All?" another comedy by Frederick Lonsdale. Aherne reappeared in London at the Strand in March 1927 again as Langford in "White Cargo" and continued on the London stage in a succession of plays until late 1930 when he went to America, making his first appearance on the New York stage at the Empire Theatre in New York on 9 February 1931, playing Robert Browning in Rudolph Besier's play "The Barretts of Wimpole Street" opposite Katharine Cornell. Miss Cornell and Aherne remained lifelong friends and he played in many of her subsequent productions. He was back in London in 1934 but returned that year to New York, where he appeared in December at the Martin Beck Theatre as Mercutio in "Romeo and Juliet", with Katharine Cornell. He continued his stage appearances during his film career, which he commenced in 1924 in silent film. Film and television career. Aherne made his talkie debut in "Madame Guillotine" (1931). After a few more British talkies he moved on to lead roles in Hollywood, where he made over thirty films, including "I Live My Life" (1935), the multi-Oscar nominated brilliant ditzy comedy "Merrily We Live" (1938), Oscar-nominated for his role as Emperor Maxmilian in "Juarez" (1939), "Vigil in the Night" (1940), his best film, the 1948 psychological "film noir", "The Locket", "Titanic" (1953), and "The Best of Everything" (1959). In 1945, he played sleuth Simon Templar in the radio mystery series, "The Saint". Aherne also appeared in many TV theatrical series, including "General Electric Theater", "The Twilight Zone", in the episode "The Trouble with Templeton", and "Rawhide". He also appeared as guest host on the TV panel show "The Name's the Same". Aherne published his autobiography "A Proper Job" in 1969, as well as "A Dreadful Man" (1979), a biography of his friend George Sanders. Personal life and death. Between 1939 and 1945, Aherne was married to actress Joan Fontaine, which ended in divorce. He then married Eleanor de Liagre Labrot. He was the brother of actor Patrick Aherne. Aherne died of heart failure in Venice, Florida, USA at the age of 83. Brian Aherne was honoured with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 1772 Vine Street.
1069366	24 City (Chinese: 二十四城记/二十四城記; literally: "The Story of 24 City") is a 2008 film directed and cowritten by Chinese film-maker Jia Zhangke. The film follows three generations of characters in Chengdu (in the 1950s, the 1970s and the present) as a state-owned factory gives way to a modern apartment complex. The film was also known as "The Story of 24 City" during production. The apartment complex featured in the film is an actual development (also called "24 City") built on the former site of an airplane engine manufacturing facility. Jia will also produce a documentary about the location. The film's narrative style is described by critics as a blend of fictive and documentary story-telling, and it consists of authentic interviews and fictive scenes delivered by actors (but presented in a documentary format). "24 City" made its debut shown in competition for the Palme d'Or at the 2008 Cannes Film Festival. "Film Comment", official journal of the Film Society of Lincoln Center listed the film at the end of 2008 as the second-best unreleased (without U.S. theatrical release) film of the year. Reception. The "Hollywood Reporter" called the film a "moving elegy to modern-day China" and said of the film's documentary strain that it "prevails to simple, yet emotionally reverberating effect". "Time" also reviewed the film favorably: "the film interweaves the political overview — of a city institution being torn down to be replaced by commercial and residential buildings — with personal anecdotes that are poignant and charming." "Screen International" states "the latest chapter in Jia Zhangke's chronicles of modern Chinese history is certain to reinforce the director's status as an international arthouse icon." "The New York Times" film critic Manohla Dargis gave the film a rave and stated "...the often amazing and intricately structured '24 City,' the latest from the Chinese director Jia Zhang-ke...shot in digital so sharp it looks hyper-real and projected digitally, the movie takes as its point of departure the closing of a state-owned munitions factory in southwest China... Mr. Jia is one of the most original filmmakers working today, creating movies about a country that seems like a sequel." Anthony Kaufman of "IndieWIRE" praised the film and states "Jia's masterful aesthetic remains consistent, mixing documentary and fiction with intriguing results." J. Hoberman of the "Village Voice" described the film as "so meaningfully framed that it could have been shot by Andy Warhol or Chantal Akerman", and called the film as one of the stand-outs of this year's films in competition at the Cannes Film Festival.
1071685	The plot involves an aspiring hair dresser (Kuriyama) who becomes the infatuation of a tricophilic man who sells hair extensions to nearby hair salons. The source of the hair comes from the stolen corpse of a girl whose dead body continues to grow beautiful and voluminous black hair that comes alive, driving those who use the extensions insane or killing them. The movie was released in the U.S. as "Exte: Hair Extensions". Plot. In a shipping container, customs agents discover a huge amount of human hair used as materials for hair extensions, along with the dead body of a young girl with a shaved head. The corpse is transported to the morgue, where the results of the autopsy determine that the girl's internal organs have been harvested, the victim of a black market human organ racketeering ring. The morgue night watchman, a closet tricophile named Yamazaki (Ren Osugi), is infatuated by her beautiful hair and steals the body away to his home. He finds that the girl's body has begun to grow hair—from her head, vacant eye sockets, tongue, and various open wounds. He is delighted and encourages it to grow, harvesting it to make hair extensions to sell. However, the hair controls and kills its wearers, causing them to experience the dying memories of the corpse girl, including the last thing she sees on the bloody operating table: the smiling mouth of the man who killed her. Meanwhile, Yuko (Chiaki Kuriyama) is a young apprentice hair stylist at a local hair salon. One day, her irresponsible older sister, Kiyomi (Tsugumi), dumps her eight-year-old daughter, Mami (Miku Sato), on Yuko and Yuko's roommate, Yuki (Megumi Satō). Mami shows signs of abuse. Yuko allows Mami to stay with her, telling her to stay home while she goes to work each day, concerned about the abuse she has suffered from Kiyomi. Out on the street, Yamazaki spots Mami trying to find Yuko's hair salon and finds her hair exceedingly beautiful. He introduces himself and helps her find Yuko's work place. When he sees Yuko, he is also enchanted by her hair, but quickly runs off. He returns the next day, explaining that he sells hair extensions. The workers at the salon are impressed by the hair's quality and try them out. That night, Kondo, one of Yuko's coworkers who tried on the extensions, is killed when the hair begins sprouting from her eyes, head, and mouth. Yuko later discovers that Kiyomi has been tricking Mami into letting her enter Yuko's apartment so that she can raid her food and clothing. Yuko and Yuki refuses to return Mami to her due to the abuse, and Kiyomi returns one last time while they are away, stealing more clothing, one of Yamazaki's hair extensions, and dragging Mami back to her boyfriend's home. After punishing Mami by locking her in the closet, the extension comes to life and slaughters Kiyomi and her boyfriend. Mami escapes the hair by jumping out of the window into a bush, injuring herself. At the hospital, detectives have Yuko identify Kiyomi's body. Participating in a hair dressing workshop, Yuko uses Mami as her model and attaches one of Yamazaki's hair extensions to her hair. The workshop is interrupted by the detectives, who are there to inquire about Kondo's death, and Yuki takes Mami home. After the detectives leave, Yuko realizes that the hair extensions are the linking factor in the various deaths and races home to Mami. While Mami is playing, hair begins to seep into the apartment. Yuki rushes Mami to safety, but is strangled to death by the hair and Mami faints. Yuko enters the hair-filled apartment and tries to free Mami, but is choked unconscious by the hair. Yamazaki arrives in time and commands the hair to spare Mami and Yuko and takes them back to his living hair-covered home. There he discovers the detectives caught in the hair, who searched his house when they discovered that he was the one responsible for the deaths. He kills them as Yuko wakes up.
589348	Desh Premee (English translation The Patriot) is a 1982 Hindi film directed by Manmohan Desai. The film is dedicated to the memory of Mohammed Rafi who sang the film's title song and actor Uttam Kumar, both of whom died two years before the film was released. This was the only film for which music director Laxmikant-Pyarelal was also a playback singer for one song. The Film became a "Hit" at the box office because Amitabh Bachchan was the most popular actor of the time, however both critically and commercially, it failed to re-create the magic of previous Amitabh-Manmohan Desai films. Synopsis. Master Dinanth (Amitabh Bachchan) is a freedom fighter and participated in the war against the British in 1942 and independence was eventually won in 1947. But after independence, the people's love for their country seems to be diminishing and they are too busy betraying it like rich businessman Thakur Pratab Singh (Amjad Khan). Master Dinanth finds out about Thakur Pratab Singh's illegal activities such as smuggling of weapons and ammunition and gets him arrested. In revenge for putting him in prison, Pratab Singh gets Master Dinnanth's wife Bharati (Sharmila Tagore) and daughter Priti (Parveen Babi) kidnapped by Thakur's partner in crime Sher Singh (Kader Khan) to try to change his ways but to no avail. Thakur also provokes an attack on Masterji's home by the local villagers who accuse Dinanath of betraying his country and he is forced to flee his home with his young son Raju. His wife becomes a victim of leprosy and escapes from Sher Singh, leaving her daughter Priti in a friend's care. Masterji is informed that his wife and daughter could be dead as they find a necklace of hers near the train tracks. Masterji is devastated by his wife and daughter's loss and he and his son move on with their life.
583985	Pithamagan () is a 2003 Indian Tamil drama film written and directed by Bala. The film stars Vikram, Suriya, Laila and Sangeetha in the lead. Produced by V. A. Durai, the film is cinematographed by Balasubramanim, lyrics are by Vaalee, Pazhani Barathi and Na. Muthukumar, dance has been choreographed by Brinda, editing by Suresh Ars, fights by Stunt Siva and art direction by A. C. Pillai. The film's score and soundtrack are composed by Ilayaraaja. The film plot is based on Jayakanthan's "Nandhavanathil Oru Andi", the story of an undertaker. Upon release, the film met with critical acclaim and Vikram won the National Film Award for Best Actor for his role as Chithan. Owing to the success, the film was dubbed into Telugu and released as "Sivaputrudu" (The son of Siva) on 2nd April 2004. The film was also remade in Kannada as "Anatharu" (2007) with Upendra and Darshan playing the roles of Vikram and Suriya respectively. Plot. Pithamagan whirls around four characters. Chithan (Vikram) who is orphaned at a young age, devoid of all human contacts he lives on his animal instincts and ekes out a living as a graveyard caretaker. He seems to exhibit behaviour consistent with autism spectrum disorders. Gomathy (Sangeetha), a petty ganja seller, who pities Chithan’s condition, gets him a job at the ganja fields of the main villain. Sakthi (Suriya Sivakumar), the conman cons Manju (Laila), a polytechnic student but does not get away with it. Sakthi meets Chithan in jail and takes pity on him and befriends him. It is Sakthi’s affection that melts Chithan’s stony heart. Sakthi takes Chithan along with him when they are both released from the jail. Sakthi and Manju later fall in love. Chithan works for a narcotics dealer, who is the antagonist. The dealer takes advantage of Chithan's innocence and orders Chithan to burn the corpse of a spy. Sakthi is angered when he discovers that Chithan had burned the corpse, as this could land Chithan in trouble. Sakthi requests Chithan not to work for the narcotics dealer anymore and takes Chithan along with him to work. This angers the villain and he eventually kills Sakthi when he return home with Manju after watching a movie. The next morning Sakthi's corpse is thrown in the middle of the village. Initially it seems as though Chithan is unaffected due to Sakthi's demise while the rest are mourning. Gomathy chases Chithan out of her house as she feels that it's because of Chithan that Sakthi was killed and it has not even impacted him. Chithan leaves the house and sets the ganja fields on fire and then goes to the villain's house and beats him black and blue. He then drags him to the village and kills him in front of Gomathy, Manju and the other villagers. He looks at Manju after killing the villain which moves Gomathy and she feels guilty as she mistook Chithan's silence when Sakthi was killed. She tries to persuade Chithan to stay with them but Chithan goes back to the graveyard where Sakthi was buried. Production. After "Nandha", Bala announced his next project "Pithamagan" with Surya and Vikram, heroes of his previous films who received popularity after struggle. For the role of drug seller, Bala considered Vijayashanti, Malavika and Gayatri Jayaraman but at last Rasika was selected for the role and also changed her name back to Sangeetha. Soundtrack. The soundtrack album was composed by "Isaignani" Ilaiyaraaja. The lyrics were penned by Vaali, Pazhani Bharathi, Na. Muthukumar and Mu. Metha. Telugu Tracklist Release. The film was released on October 24, 2003, coinciding with Deepavali. The film released alongside Ajith's "Anjaneya", Vijay's "Thirumalai" and Arjun's "Ottran". Critical Reception. The film received unanimous critical acclaim particularly for Vikram and Surya's performances. Malathi Rangarajan of "The Hindu" praised Vikram as "Without any dialogue to support him he carves a niche for himself in the viewer's mind with his expressions and excellent body language" and Suriya as "Who would have thought that this young man, pitted against the serious Chithan, would prove so perfect a foil?" going on to declare the movie as "..a symphony on celluloid". Balaji Balasubramaniam of "Thiraipadam.com" reviewed as "With unique characterization, tremendous performances and a smooth screenplay, the movie offers a satisfying experience to the discerning viewer..." and noted "Vikram pretty much lives the role of the undertaker. With dry and streaked hair, dirty teeth and torn clothes, he looks the part and though he doesn't utter a word, he conveys everything through his expressions and body language". A reviewer at Sify.com noted, "..it is the expert performance of the lead actors that elevate the film above the commonplace". Film critic Baradwaj Rangan remarked, "Bala’s ingeniousness is evident everywhere ... And he gets tremendous support from his leads...It all adds up to a first-rate film that excoriates as much as it entertains". Ilaiyaraja also received praise for his musical score, "Ilaiyaraja adds unmeasurable strength to many of the scenes with his background music". "The captivating numbers vouch for the fact that the Raja reigns supreme". Awards. The film has won the following awards since its release: National Film Awards Filmfare Awards South Tamil Nadu State Film Awards Remakes. The film was remade in Kannada as "Anatharu" with Upendra and Darshan in the lead and released on 14th September 2007. Repeating the success of the original, the film received favorable reviews and applause for Upendra's performance. The film is also to be remade in Hindi. Director Satish Kaushik have bought the remake rights of the film. Incidentally, Satish had earlier directed Salman Khan in Tere Naam, the hindi remake of the Bala-Vikram film Sethu. Once again, Satish has approached Salman Khan to reprise Vikram's role.
1789668	Hillside Cannibals is a 2006 American horror film directed by Leigh Scott and produced by The Asylum. The film bears some resemblance to "The Hills Have Eyes", another film released in the same year, but its plot also incorporates elements from other films, including "Cannibal Holocaust", "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" and "House of 1000 Corpses". Plot. In the year 1606, Sawney Bean (Leigh Scott), a ruthless psychopath, earned a notoriety as the world's most brutal serial killer, predating Jack the Ripper and Bloody Bill by several hundred years. In life, Sawney was a cannibal, who captured his victims and literally butchered them, feasting on their corpses afterwards.
582550	Omi Vaidya () is an American actor who is best known for his performance as Chatur Ramalingam or "The Silencer" in the 2009 Bollywood film, "3 Idiots". In addition, Vaidya has directed two short films and worked as an editor on others. He has also appeared in a number of television programs and commercials. Background. Vaidya was raised in Joshua Tree in Yucca Valley, California. He graduated from the Los Angeles County High School for the Arts and later attended the University of California, Santa Cruz for two years. He next transferred to the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University and graduated with honors. Vaidya commented on his background in a recent interview: Personal life. Vaidya married Minal Patel on August 22, 2009. Career. After college, Vaidya began to work with an agent and received small roles in television programs and commercials. After receiving a small role in "Arrested Development", he was asked to audition for the role of Sadiq for "The Office" by the same casting director. He portrayed Sadiq in two episodes: "E-mail Surveillance" and "Fun Run." But he came into the limelight after featuring in the music video of the superhit Punjabi song "Kurti" sung by Bohemia. "3 Idiots". Vaidya's most notable performance is in a supporting role in the 2009 Bollywood film, "3 Idiots" as Chatur Ramalingam (or "The Silencer"). He received strong reviews for his performance. Vaidya auditioned for the role of Chatur while on a trip to Mumbai. After passing the first audition, he was asked during the second to read dialogue from "Lage Raho Munna Bhai". Vaidya states that he "just rattled it off without exactly understanding the words ... almost like the speech scene in ["3 Idiots"]." After being hired for the part of Chatur, he was told not to study Hindi, not to watch Hindi films, and to gain weight.
64176	Eric Steven Lander (born February 3, 1957) is a Professor of Biology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), former member of the Whitehead Institute, and founding director of the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard who has devoted his career to realizing the promise of the human genome for medicine. He is co-chair of U.S. President Barack Obama's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology. In 2013 he was awarded the $3 million Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences for his work. Early life and education. Lander's parents, Harold and Rhoda Lander, were both lawyers. He was captain of the math team at Stuyvesant High School and an International Mathematical Olympiad Silver Medalist for the United States, graduating from high school in 1974. At the age of seventeen, he wrote a paper on quasiperfect numbers for which he won the Westinghouse Prize. Lander attended Princeton University, where he graduated in 1978 as valedictorian. He wrote his doctoral D.Phil. thesis on algebraic coding theory and symmetric block designs at the University of Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar, under the supervision of Peter Cameron. Career. Early mathematical career. As a mathematician, he studied combinatorics and applications of representation theory to coding theory. He enjoyed mathematics but did not wish to spend his life in such a "monastic career". Unsure of what to do next, he took up a job teaching managerial economics at Harvard Business School; he also began to write a book on information theory. At the suggestion of his brother, Arthur Lander, he started to look at neurobiology "because there's a lot of information in the brain." In order to understand mathematical neurobiology, he felt he had to study cellular neurobiology; this in turn led to studying microbiology and continued down to the level of genetics. "When I finally feel I have learned genetics, I should get back to these other problems. But I'm still trying to get the genetics right." His studies introduced him to David Botstein, a geneticist working at MIT. Botstein was working on a way to unravel how subtle differences in complex genetic systems can become disorders like cancer, diabetes, schizophrenia, and even obesity. Lander then joined Whitehead Institute (1986) and later joined MIT as a geneticist. In 1987, he was given the prestigious MacArthur Fellowship. In 1990 he founded the WICGR (Whitehead Institute/MIT Center for Genome Research). WICGR became one of the world's leading centers of genome research, and under Lander's leadership, it has made great progress in developing new methods of analysing mammalian genomes. The Whitehead Institute has also made important breakthroughs in applying this information to the study of human variation and particularly the study of medical genetics. The WICGR formed the basis for the foundation of the Broad Institute, a transformation in which Lander was instrumental. Contributions to genomics. There were two main groups attempting to sequence the human genome: the first was the Human Genome Project (HGP), the publicly funded effort that intended to publish the information it obtained so the public could use it freely and without restrictions. This was a collaborative effort involving many research groups from countries all over the world. The second effort was undertaken by Celera Genomics who intended to patent the information obtained and charge subscriptions for use of the sequence data (Celera has since abandoned this policy and has donated large amounts of sequence information for free public use). Established first, the HGP moved slowly in the early phases of research as the role of the Department of Energy was unclear and sequencing technology was in its infancy. Upon the entrance of the private entity Celera into the race to discover the genome, the pressure was on the HGP to establish as much of the genome in the public domain as quickly as possible. This was a change for the HGP, because many scientists at the time wanted a more complete copy of the genome. Along with other members of the HGP, Lander pushed for quicker discovery so that genes would not be discovered by Celera first, and then patented by Celera. In 2001, the public draft of the human genome was published in the journal "Nature". The Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research, Center for Genome Research, is listed first (the order was according to total genomic sequence contributed). Lander is the first author named.
1102585	In mathematics, the discrete Fourier transform (DFT) converts a finite list of equally spaced samples of a function into the list of coefficients of a finite combination of complex sinusoids, ordered by their frequencies, that has those same sample values. It can be said to convert the sampled function from its original domain (often time or position along a line) to the frequency domain. The input samples are complex numbers (in practice, usually real numbers), and the output coefficients are complex as well. The frequencies of the output sinusoids are integer multiples of a fundamental frequency, whose corresponding period is the length of the sampling interval. The combination of sinusoids obtained through the DFT is therefore periodic with that same period. The DFT differs from the discrete-time Fourier transform (DTFT) in that its input and output sequences are both finite; it is therefore said to be the Fourier analysis of finite-domain (or periodic) discrete-time functions.
1236152	Janky Promoters is a comedy, re-teaming Ice Cube and Mike Epps who play as "janky" promoters who book rapper Young Jeezy to play at their concert, only to fail at doing it the right way and thus getting into more trouble than they bargained for. Plot. The movie begins with a flashback of a later scene in the movie in which Russell Redds (Cube) and JellyRoll (Epps) are running out of a concert being chased by an angry mob and shot at as they drive off in Redds' car. The plot starts off with Russell Redds coming home late and sneaking into his wife's purse to get her checkbook. He then hears her wake up and pretends to sleep only to be caught by his wife who already knows what happened. This indicates that Redds does not have all the money for the concert yet. Meanwhile his co-partner JellyRoll is fooling around with another man's wife at a hotel only to be encountered by a TV show's crew ( a cameo appearance by Joey Greco ) who hunts down people who cheat on their loved ones. Suddenly Gina's husband Ronnie, who is a cop, drives into the parking lot and starts to shoot at them from his cop car as JellyRoll and Gina escape by car. Meanwhile Redds visits his mom and begs for money but is turned down and is forced to steal his wife's checkbook while she is in the shower. He checks up on his son who goes by Yung Semore and makes sure he is ready to open up for Jeezy and perform at the concert. He continues his plans by picking up JellyRoll and getting a rent-a-van to pick up Young Jeezy instead of getting a limo. He gets Jellyroll to pick them up from the airport as he runs errands around Modesto getting more money or getting hotel reservations for the rapper and his entourage. After taking forever to arrive at the airport, JellyRoll finally shows up and picks the rapper up at the airport and find outs Jeezy wants some weed badly so he decides to take them to the hood to get some. He meets up with his drug dealer Mondo who scolds him for getting weed for the rapper and asks if Jeezy can come to his after party. JellyRoll insists that the rapper wants 20,000 dollars to show up and Mondo accepts and gives him the money. This is where things start to turn for the promoters as JellyRoll spends the 20,000 dollars on clothes and jewelry instead of using it for the show to pay Jeezy his money. From there, the movie turns wild and intense as Russell Redds and JellyRoll try to figure out a way to get Jeezy to perform while dodging Mondo and his crew and getting the money to pay Jeezy to perform. Release. After being delayed several times, the film released to a limited release on October 16, 2009. The film's DVD was released on November 24, 2009, and also made available for purchase on iTunes in HD and Standard Definition on February 10, 2010. In an interview, star Ice Cube stated that the film was unfinished, and that the DVD release was made without his knowledge while he was working on a deal for a wider release of the film.
583338	Kasam Paida Karne Wale Ki is a 1984 Hindi-language Indian feature film directed by Babbar Subhash, starring Mithun Chakraborty, Smita Patil, Salma Agha, Karan Razdan, Geeta Siddharth and Amrish Puri. Plot. "Kasam Paida Karne Wale Ki" is the story of Satish Kumar. After the passing of his father, Satish is the only heir to a vast estate. As he is five years old, he can only inherit it fully when he becomes 20. The estate is placed under the care of his paternal uncle, Udaybhan, who carefully drugs and intimidates Satish to such an extent that Satish is terrified of his uncle's shadow. Years go by. Satish has achieved adulthood, is married to Aarti, and continues to live in fear of his uncle. After one night of bliss, Satish finds out that Aarti had married him to rob him of cash and jewelry. He is devastated. Uday asks Aarti to leave, and Satish follows her. Aarti asks him for forgiveness, and he does so. However, Udaybhan knifes him to death and has it written off by the police as suicide. Aarti swears to avenge this through her child in her womb. Years later, Aarti and her son, Avinash, surface to avenge Satish's death — they find out that it is not easy to hoodwink a wily Udaybhan, and they could well be endangering their very own lives. Popular Culture. "Kasam Paida Karne Wale Ki" features a dance sequence called "Jeena Bhi Kya Hai Jeena Teri Ankhon Ke Bina" clearly modeled on Michael Jackson's video "Thriller", in which the ghoulish characters do a synchronised dance in a graveyard. The film has recently gained attention for the "filmi" funk/jazz/soul song "Come Closer", produced by Bappi Lahiri and sung by the film's actress Salma Agha. The song has been sampled in various (particularly hip hop) songs in recent years, including "My Life" (2006) by Dabrye featuring Showbiz and A.G., "The Medicine" (2006) by Planet Asia, "The Hitman (Kutmasta Kurt Remix)" (2006) by Create & Devastate featuring Masta Ace and Stricklin (2006), "Saanks Mä Murista Sun Muffinssiin" (2008) by Edu Kehäkettunen and DJPP featuring Stig Dogg, and Come Closer (2009) by Onra. A movie poster quite similar to the original poster for Kasam Paida Karne Wale Ki was shown in the posters for Anurag Kashyap's Gangs of Wasseypur. However, the 'a' from the word 'Kasam' has been removed. Remake. "Kasam Paida Karne Wale Ki" was remade in Japanese as "The Secret Life of Akira Kikuchi", in Russian as "Materi Klyatva", in Spanish as "Sergio Martinez" and in Tamil as "Mangamma Sabadham", with Kamal Hassan, Sujatha and Madhavi; it was released in 1985, directed by veteran K. Vijayan.
584333	Madhurey (), a Tamil film directed by Raman Madesh, was released on 29 August 2004. Vijay plays the lead role. Rakshitha, Sonia Agarwal and Tejashree are also in the cast. The film revolves around a district collector Maduravel who takes revenge over the antagonist KTR who runs parallel law enforcement system with his own court. The film was commercially successful with mixed reviews. Story. Madhuravel (Vijay) in the first half is Madurai, a vegetable seller (vendor) along with his friend Pandu (Vadivelu). Madurai is a do-gooder and protector of the family of Kamakshi (Seetha) and her two daughters. Madhurey eradicates loan sharks and fights "bad guys" in the market. The usual hero worship is shown and only a clue of a policeman saluting the vendor gives you an inkling of what is to come. Meanwhile Anitha(Rakshitha) has a liking towards Madhurey and manages to win him over from Maheshwari (Tejashree). Now Kamakshi’s eldest daughter Susheela (Sonia Agarwal) who was working with Vijay was killed and her mother blames it on madhuravel and shoots him down. It’s turn of the film to shift to Swamy track. Pandu now opens the story of Madhuravel actually being the district collector of Madurai. He is the action packed bureaucrat who takes to the streets to solve the problems of the citizens. He does the job of policing too and is up against criminals. He does not believe in IPS and police force to clean up the city. So one such clean up operation takes him to KTR (Pasupathy) who is running a parallel law enforcement system with his own court. He doles out justice to all and his God to the ordinary. Now Madhuravel does not take lightly to this parallel outfit. A clash takes place and Sonia Agarwal, then PA to the Collector, is killed. KTR puts the blame on the Collector. Now the IAS officer goes underground to surface as vegetable vendor because his aim is to pin down the KTR and his outfit. From now onwards it is Madhuravel on a rampage till KTR is finished and the murder charge removed. Box office. This film opened to mixed reviews and became a super hit in Vijay's career
1083641	, often called by the portmanteau nickname , is a Japanese idol, singer, actor, and radio host. He is a member of Japanese boy band Arashi and is best known to Japanese television drama audiences for his portrayal as Tsukasa Dōmyōji in the "Hana Yori Dango" series, in which he won GQ Japan's Man Of The Year Award under the singer/actor category for his work in the drama. Matsumoto began his career in the entertainment industry when he joined the Japanese talent agency Johnny & Associates in 1996 at the age of . Prior to his debut as a singer with Arashi in 1999, Matsumoto started an acting career when he was cast as Teddy Duchamp for the stage play "Stand by Me", which was based on the film of the same name. Since then, he has gone on to appear in numerous dramas and movies, receiving a number of awards and nominations for his roles. Early life. Matsumoto was born in Toshima, Tokyo, as the youngest child in his family. He has an older sister whose support of KinKi Kids influenced his decision to join Johnny & Associates in 1996. Thinking it might bode good luck, he sent his application to the agency on his elementary school graduation day and received a phone call weeks later from president Johnny Kitagawa himself, inviting him to attend a rehearsal instead of being auditioned. Due to this, Matsumoto is frequently referred to as one of the "elite" within the agency. Matsumoto graduated from Horikoshi Gakuen, a renowned high school known for its many performing arts alumnae such as Kyoko Fukada and Ai Kato, in March 2002 at the age of . Music career. Although the majority of Matsumoto's solos for albums and concerts are written by Arashi's staff, he has contributed lyrics for two of his solos: "La Familia" for the "2004 Arashi! Iza, Now Tour!!" and "Naked" in 2008 for the album "Dream "A" Live" under the penname "Jun". Acting career. Stage. In 1997, Matsumoto was cast in his first stage play, which was based on the American coming of age film "Stand by Me" with future bandmates Masaki Aiba and Kazunari Ninomiya. He did not return to do any major stage productions for nearly seven years after "Stand by Me", instead focusing on dramas and movies. However, in 2004, Matsumoto appeared in the stage play "West Side Story" with bandmates Satoshi Ohno and Sho Sakurai. In 2005 and 2006, Matsumoto was given his first lead stage play roles in and respectively. It was announced on July 21, 2011 that Matsumoto will star in Yukio Ninagawa’s production play, . This will be his first stage play in five years. Drama. Like bandmate Sakurai, Matsumoto made his acting debut as a television actor in April 1997 in the TBS drama special . A few months later, he co-starred with the members of KinKi Kids and future bandmate Masaki Aiba in the mystery-thriller series . Matsumoto gained further popularity as an actor in 2002 when he starred in the first season of "Gokusen" with Yukie Nakama, Shun Oguri, Tomohiro Waki, Hiroki Narimiya and Yuma Ishigaki. His portrayal of the troubled but highly intelligent student, Shin Sawada, drew acclaim and won him Best Supporting Actor at the 33rd Television Drama Academy Awards. He later returned with most of the original cast to star in the special epilogue episode in 2003. Soon after, his character also made a cameo in Sakurai's comedy series . In the same year, Matsumoto took another high-profile role in the live-action adaptation of manga series "Kimi wa Pet" as Takeshi "Momo" Goda, starring opposite Koyuki. In 2005, Matsumoto took the most prominent role of his career to date when he was cast as Tsukasa Domyōji in the live-action adaptation of shōjo manga "Hana Yori Dango". Co-starring opposite Mao Inoue, Shun Oguri, Shota Matsuda and Tsuyoshi Abe, the series was a success with an average viewership rating of 19.6%. Matsumoto's portrayal as the air-headed and arrogant leader of four rich heirs won him Best Supporting Actor again at the 47th Television Drama Academy Awards. In 2007, due to the success of "Hana Yori Dango", it spawned a second season, which was an even bigger hit with television audiences as it had a peak rating of 27.6% on the final episode and an overall rating of 21.57%. Matsumoto won Best Supporting Actor at the 10th Nikkan Sports Drama Grand Prix for his role. The same year, Matsumoto starred in "Bambino!", which won him his first Best Actor award at the 53rd Television Drama Academy Awards. In 2008, he re-united with "Bambino!" co-star Karina for the drama special , which aired as part of the "24-hour Television" telethon in 2008. He portrayed a man diagnosed with CIDP struggling to recuperate and return to normal life with his wife and young daughter. The drama special received a viewership rating of 25.6%. In 2009, Matsumoto starred in his first drama series in nearly two years. He portrayed , a half-Japanese, half-Filipino young man who always faces life with a smile in the drama "Smile". Matsumoto subsequently won Best Actor for his role in the 13th Nikkan Sports Drama Grand Prix. Fuji TV announced on September 10, 2009 that Matsumoto would star in a three-part drama special called scheduled to air for three consecutive days in the spring of 2010. In January 2010, Matsumoto co-starred with the other members of Arashi in their first drama in nearly ten years in the human suspense drama special . Matsumoto portrayed , a 27-year-old motorcycle courier rider who is caught up in a building hijack. Matsumoto co-starred with Yūko Takeuchi in his first Getsuku drama titled . He also made a guest appearance on the final episode of bandmate Ohno's drama , which is based on the Fujiko Fujio's "Kaibutsu-kun" manga and anime series. Film. Matsumoto appeared on the silver screen for the first time a year later in but his breakthrough did not come until 2001 when he was cast as Hajime Kinda'ichi in the third season of "Kinda'ichi Shōnen no Jikenbo", taking over the role from Tsuyoshi Domoto and co-starring opposite Anne Suzuki. In 2002, Arashi co-starred in their first movie together called . They came together again for its sequel in 2004. He also starred in the film "Tokyo Tower" as a womanizer with a preference for older women with Junichi Okada the same year. In 2007, Arashi starred in their third movie together "Kiiroi Namida" while Matsumoto was cast in the independent film "Boku wa Imōto ni Koi o Suru" with Nana Eikura as his co-star. He portrayed the lead character , a high school student who falls in love and develops a romantic relationship with his younger twin sister. In 2008, Matsumoto took on his first jidaigeki role in a re-make of Akira Kurosawa's "The Hidden Fortress", "", with award-winning actors Hiroshi Abe, Kippei Shiina and Masami Nagasawa. Soon after, TBS decided to end the "Hana Yori Dango" series through a film. "Hana Yori Dango Final", which hit the big screen on June 28, 2008 in Japan, became a box office hit. In 2013, Matsumoto Jun will be playing the role of Okuda Kosuke in the movie ‘Hidamari no Kanojo‘(Her Sunny Side) a long with actress Ueno Juri in the latest movie of director Miki Takahiro (‘Solanin’, ‘Boku ga Ita’).‘Hidamari no Kanojo’ is slated to begin filming in January and to hit cinemas on October 2013. Other ventures. Radio. Matsumoto had his own radio show, "Jun Style", on Nack5 from October 5, 2002 to September 2011.
1130517	Denise Alexander (born November 11, 1939) is an American soap opera actress, best known for her role as Lesley Webber on "General Hospital", a role she originally played from 1973 to 1984 (contract), 1996 to 2009 and from 2013 onwards (recurring). Life and career. Alexander was born in New York City and raised on Long Island, she moved to Los Angeles when her father, Alec Alexander, an agent who handled at that point such notables as Frank Gorshin and Sal Mineo, decided to make the switch from the east to the west coast. Alexander had appeared on TV and radio by the time she was a junior at UCLA. She made her feature movie debut, aged fourteen, in the John Cassavetes film "Crime In The Streets". Alexander first broke into the soap opera genre by playing Susan Hunter Martin on "Days of our Lives" from 1966 to 1973. In 1973, Susan H. Martin was written out of the show temporarily when the "Days" casting office hit a snag renewing her contract and the contract lapsed. ABC Daytime rushed to offer her a then-unheard of salary/perks package to join "General Hospital". When Susan H. Martin finally returned to "Days", a new actress played her. A few months later, she started on "General Hospital", playing the role of Dr. Lesley Webber, which would become her most popular and longest-tenured. She stayed with the show for eleven years, leaving in 1984. In 1986, she was offered a big salary to portray absent McKinnon matriarch, Mary, on "Another World". When the commute from her home in Los Angeles to "Another World"'s studio in New York City proved to be difficult for her, she left in 1989. In 1996, she returned to the role of Lesley on "General Hospital" which she continued playing until 2009. She returns to soap in 2013. Alexander is married to television director and actor Richard A. Colla.
1105084	Hermann Minkowski (June 22, 1864 – January 12, 1909) was a German mathematician. He created and developed the geometry of numbers and used geometrical methods to solve problems in number theory, mathematical physics, and the theory of relativity. Minkowski is perhaps best known for his work in relativity, in which he showed in 1907 that his former student Albert Einstein's special theory of relativity (1905), presented algebraically by Einstein, could also be understood geometrically as a theory of four-dimensional space-time. Einstein himself at first viewed Minkowski's treatment as a mere mathematical trick, before eventually realizing that a geometrical view of space-time would be necessary in order to complete his own later work in general relativity (1915). Ethnicity. Hermann Minkowski was born in Aleksotas, a village in Kaunas Governorate - the Russian Empire had partitioned territory of the former Grand Duchy of Lithuania, which had been part of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. In different sources Minkowski is described variously as German, Lithuanian or Lithuanian-German), Polish or Russian. Life and work. Minkowski taught at the universities of Bonn, Göttingen, Königsberg and Zürich. At the "Eidgenössische Polytechnikum", today the ETH Zurich, he was one of Einstein's teachers. Minkowski explored the arithmetic of quadratic forms, especially concerning "n" variables, and his research into that topic led him to consider certain geometric properties in a space of "n" dimensions. In 1896, he presented his "geometry of numbers", a geometrical method that solved problems in number theory. In 1902, he joined the Mathematics Department of Göttingen and became a close colleague of David Hilbert, whom he first met in Königsberg. Constantin Carathéodory was one of his students there. He is also the creator of the Minkowski Sausage and the Minkowski cover of a curve. Minkowski died suddenly of appendicitis in Göttingen on 12 January 1909. He married in 1897 and was the father of two daughters; the electrical engineer and inventor Reinhold Rudenberg was his son-in-law. Relativity. By 1907 Minkowski realized that the special theory of relativity, introduced by Albert Einstein in 1905 and based on previous work of Lorentz and Poincaré, could be best understood in a four dimensional space, since known as "Minkowski spacetime", in which time and space are not separated entities but intermingled in a four dimensional space-time, and in which the Lorentz geometry of special relativity can be nicely represented. The beginning part of his address delivered at the 80th "Assembly of German Natural Scientists and Physicians" (September 21, 1908) is now famous: "The views of space and time which I wish to lay before you have sprung from the soil of experimental physics, and therein lies their strength. They are radical. Henceforth space by itself, and time by itself, are doomed to fade away into mere shadows, and only a kind of union of the two will preserve an independent reality." Citations. David Hilbert's obituary of Minkowski illustrates the deep friendship between the two mathematicians (translated): The asteroid 12493 Minkowski and M-matrices are named in his honour.
1059045	Ethan Philan Randall (born June 13, 1978), known by his stage name Ethan Embry, is an American film and television actor. He is known for his role as Declan Giggs on the Showtime television series "Brotherhood". Personal life. Embry was born in Huntington Beach, California, the son of Karen (née Daugherty) and Charles Randall. He has one older brother, Aaron Embry, an acclaimed music producer and musician, and one younger sister Kessia, who is an actress. He married Amelinda Smith on November 14, 1998 (divorced 2002). They had one child together, Cogeian Sky Embry, born December 10, 1999. Ethan was engaged to actress Katharine Towne. Embry married actress Sunny Mabrey on July 17, 2005. Mabrey filed for divorce on July 25, 2012 citing irreconcilable differences. Career. Embry started acting in 1991, at age 13. Throughout the 1990s, he had several starring roles in films, including National Lampoon's "Vegas Vacation" (1997), and the teen comedy "Can't Hardly Wait" (1998). Embry had a major role in Showtime's series "Brotherhood" which premiered in 2006. During his youth, he was a competitive gymnast. He often performs his own stunts in movies.
692187	Festival Express is a 2003 documentary film about the 1970 train tour of the same name across Canada taken by some of North America's most popular rock bands, including The Grateful Dead, Janis Joplin, The Band and Delaney & Bonnie & Friends. The film combines live footage shot during the 1970 concerts, as well as footage aboard the train itself, interspersed with present-day interviews with tour participants sharing their often humorous recollections of the events. The film, released by THINKFilm, was produced by Gavin Poolman (son of the original 1970 film shoot's producer, Willem Poolman) together with John Trapman, and directed by double Grammy Award-winner Bob Smeaton ("The Beatles Anthology"), with music produced by Eddie Kramer (Jimi Hendrix, Led Zeppelin), and features original footage shot in 1970 by Academy Award-winning cinematographer Peter Biziou ("Mississippi Burning", "Pink Floyd: The Wall", "The Truman Show"). The original 1970 footage was filmed by director Frank Cvitanovich. A DVD release followed the film's 2003 theatrical run. The Festival. "Festival Express" was staged in three Canadian cities: Toronto, Winnipeg and Calgary, during the summer of 1970. Rather than flying into each city, the musicians traveled by chartered Canadian National Railways train, in a total of 14 cars (two engines, one diner, five sleepers, two lounge cars, two flat cars, one baggage car, and one staff car). The train journey between cities ultimately became a combination of non-stop jam sessions and partying fueled by alcohol. One highlight of the documentary is a drunken jam session featuring The Band's Rick Danko, the Grateful Dead's Jerry Garcia and Bob Weir, New Riders of the Purple Sage's John Dawson, as well as Janis Joplin. The event, initially billed as the "Transcontinental Pop Festival", was promoted by Eaton-Walker Associates (consisting of Thor Eaton, George Eaton, and Ken Walker) and the Industrial and Trade Shows of Canada (ITS) division of MacLean-Hunter Publishing Company and was to encompass the following cities: The Montreal event was cancelled a few weeks before the scheduled date by Lucien Saulnier, chairman of the City of Montreal Executive Committee (and acting under authority of mayor Jean Drapeau), because it clashed with St. Jean-Baptiste Day (June 24) celebrations and there were concerns about a diluted security force and the potential for violence. Buses were run from Montreal to the Toronto Festival Express stop and Montreal tickets were honored in Toronto. The Vancouver venue, Pacific National Exhibition (PNE) Empire Stadium, could not be secured as they were scheduled to have artificial turf (Tartan Turf) installed shortly before the scheduled event, and there was concern about damage to the turf. In March, 1970, ITS requested use of an alternate venue, Capilano Stadium, for the event, but this was denied by the Vancouver City Council over several concerns, including inadequate sanitary and food facilities, challenges with policing the event, and vagrancy. Therefore, Vancouver was dropped from the tour, and Calgary was subsequently added. The event in Calgary was initially to be held in an open field, Paskapoo Ski Hill (to later become Canada Olympic Park), but the city requested it be held at McMahon Stadium instead, as it would permit better organization and security. The tour ultimately began in Toronto at the CNE Grandstand, which was plagued with about 2500 protestors who objected to what they viewed as exploitation by price-gouging promoters. The opposition was organized by the May 4th Movement (M4M), the left-rebel group that grew out of the May 4, 1970 Kent State shootings. They attempted to crash the gates and scale the barbed wire fence and clashed with police, resulting in several injuries. To help calm the crowd, Metro Police Inspector Walter Magahay tried to get the promoter, Ken Walker, to lower ticket prices, but he refused. Subsequently, Jerry Garcia, in conjunction with Magahay, was instrumental in calming the unruly crowd by arranging a spontaneous free "rehearsal" concert in nearby Coronation Park upon a flatbed truck, while the scheduled show continued at the stadium. Once the free concert, which began at about 7:00pm on June 27, was announced, most of the ticketless fans dispersed to Coronation Park, with an initial attendance of about 6,000, thereby resolving the protest. Once the show at the CNE Grandstand ended at 12:30am, another 6,000 fans went to the park for the remainder of the free concert, which lasted until about 4:00am on June 28. Playing at Coronation Park were The Grateful Dead, Ian & Sylvia and the Great Speckled Bird, James and the Good Brothers, the New Riders of the Purple Sage (all from the original scheduled concert). Other local Toronto bands also played, including January, The People's Revolutionary Concert Band, Si Potma and P.M. Howard (of Beatlemania fame). There are some reports indicating a free concert was also performed on the second day, albeit to a much smaller crowd of about 500, as many of the protesters paid admission to the event on the second day. Many people spent the night and following day sleeping in the park until the second show at CNE Grandstand ended at 12:30am on June 29. On the way to Winnipeg, the second stop on the tour, the train stopped in Chapleau, Ontario, to replenish its dwindling alcohol supply, buying out the entire stock of a small liquor store. The Winnipeg show had only a modest turnout of 4,600, partly due to fears about crowd violence based on the events in Toronto and partly due to the Manitoba Centennial appearance by Prime Minister Trudeau. The event was not plagued with protest or any appreciable violence, however. In Calgary, the third and final stop, the police wished to avoid the protests that were witnessed in Toronto and their presence seemed to subdue the crowds outside the stadium, though there were many complaints about the ticket prices. It was estimated that about 1000 people managed to sneak in on Saturday by climbing fences (a few rushed the gates) early in the day, but security was tightened and on Saturday afternoon and Sunday fewer people had sneaked in for free. However, there was a heated altercation between promoter Ken Walker and Calgary mayor Rod Sykes after Sykes strongly suggested to Walker on Sunday afternoon that he open the gates and let the kids in for free after the show was well underway. Walker, who was livid about the mayor's intrusion and his reference to Walker as "Eastern scum" "trying to skim" the young people of Calgary, claimed to have punched the mayor in the mouth, and boasted that he still had a scar on his hand to prove it. The tour had an original budget of about $900,000 (of which $500,000 was for musical talent), but largely due to less than predicted turnout, gross receipts were just over $500,000 and the project ultimately lost between $350,000 and $500,000 for the promoters. Although the tour was a financial failure, the tour featured now-legendary performances by the Grateful Dead, The Band, Janis Joplin, Sha Na Na and Buddy Guy, among others. The Dead were just transforming their sound from dense, jammed psychedelia to the country/folk harmonies of "Workingman's Dead" and "American Beauty"; the Band's performance showed them at the pinnacle of their powers; for Janis Joplin, it would turn out to be some of her last performances, as she died about three months later. In the film, musician Kenny Gradney, who performed with Delaney & Bonnie, commented on the atmosphere during the tour, "It was better than Woodstock, as great as Woodstock was." Mickey Hart of the Grateful Dead further said, "Woodstock was a treat for the audience, but the train was a treat for the performers." Other festival performers. These festival performers were not featured in the film or DVD extras: Film production. Because the Festival Express tour turned out to be a complete financial disaster, the film project was shelved soon afterwards, as the promoters sued the filmmakers, and the footage mysteriously disappeared. Some of the film's reels turned up in the garage of the original producer Willem Poolman, where they had been stored for decades and used at various times as goal posts for ball hockey games played by his son Gavin. The plan to resurrect the film was started in 1999 by executive producer Garth Douglas and story consultant James Cullingham, who found many more reels in the Canadian National Film Archives vault, where it had been kept in pristine condition and unknown to the world. Garth got in touch with Gavin, who had grown up to become a London-based film producer. Gavin produced the film together with his old high school friend John Trapman (who had played in some of those ball hockey games), and Bob Smeaton, double Grammy Award-winning director of the "The Beatles Anthology" was brought on board. The music tracks were mixed at Toronto's MetalWorks Studios, and produced by Eddie Kramer, Jimi Hendrix's producer, and engineer for Led Zeppelin, "Woodstock", and "Derek & The Dominos Live In Concert". The film was produced by London-based Apollo Films (now owned by Apollo Media) together with PeachTree Films from Amsterdam. Release. Premieres and festivals. "Festival Express" had its world premiere at the 2003 Toronto International Film Festival. Other festival releases included the International Film Festival Rotterdam, Bermuda Film Festival, London Film Festival, Miami Film Festival, Wisconsin Film Festival, NatFilm Festival, Karlovy Vary Film Festival, Maine International Film Festival, Flanders International Film Festival, the IN-EDIT Barcelona International Music Documentary Film Festival, Hohaiyan Music Film Festival, Rio Film Festival, Vienna International Film Festival and the São Paulo International Film Festival. The film was released theatrically on July 23, 2004 in the United States, as well as in Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, The Netherlands, Luxembourg, Belgium, and Scandinavia. DVD release. A two-disc DVD for Region 1 was released on November 2, 2004 by New Line Home Video. Box-office reception. The film earned $1.2 million at the US Box Office, and the DVD went straight in at number 1 on the Music Video & Concert DVD top-sellers charts at Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble, Tower Records, etc., and has had an average customer review rating of 4.5 stars out of 5. According to Rotten Tomatoes, "Festival Express" was the second most critically acclaimed film released in 2004. Legacy. Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros joined The Railroad Revival Tour in April 2011 with Mumford and Sons and Old Crow Medicine Show. Traveling in vintage rail cars, the three bands performed in six "unique outdoor locations" over the course of a week starting in Oakland, California. The musical documentary "Big Easy Express", which was made of the trip and directed by Emmett Malloy, premiered March 2012 at the South by Southwest Film Conference and Festival (SXSW Film) in Austin, Texas.
559972	The King and Four Queens is a 1956 American Western adventure comedy/mystery film starring Clark Gable and Eleanor Powell. Directed by Raoul Walsh, the film is based on a story written by Margaret Fitts who also wrote the screenplay along with Richard Alan Simmons. Plot. The story involves a middle-aged cowboy adventurer (Clark Gable) who learns that a stolen fortune remains buried on a ranch that serves as home to four gorgeous young widows and their battle-axe mother-in-law: the drifter turns on the charm.
584427	Kadhal Kottai () is a 1996 Tamil film directed by Agathiyan, in which Ajith Kumar and Devayani play lead roles, apart from Heera Rajgopal, Thalaivasal Vijay, and Karan who played important roles. The film was a major blockbuster and also won the National Film Award for Best Feature Film in Tamil, the National Film Award for Best Direction as well as the National Film Award for Best Screenplay for Agathiyan. It garnered positive critical acclaim and completed a 240-day run at the box office. The film was dubbed into Telugu as "Prema Lekha". Agathiyan also remade the movie in Hindi titled "Sirf Tum" (1999). The film was released as a novel in 2010 under the same name. Plot. Kamali (Devayani) lives with her sister and brother-in-law in Ooty and is searching for a job. While in Madras, her purse is stolen and she fears she has lost her university certificates. Surya (Ajith Kumar) who works in Jaipur finds the purse and sends it back to her, and a love develops through letters and phone calls. They agree to love each other without meeting, and Surya eventually moves to Madras for work. However Kamali's brother-in-law is pressuring her to marry a suitable man and Surya's boss keeps trying to seduce him. Eventually, Kamali and Surya unite through a run of coincidences. Production. Agathiyan had asked Devayani to change her glamorous on screen image for the film, and Devayani duly agreed with the film becoming the start of several other similar roles for her. Soundtrack. The film has successful music scored by Deva. Tracklist
674810	The Nasty Girl () is a 1990 West German drama film based on the true story of Anna Rosmus from Passau, Bavaria. The original German title loosely translates as "The Terrible Girl." Plot. A German high school student, Sonja (Lena Stolze as a fictionalized version of Anna Rosmus) wins an essay contest and goes on a trip to Paris. Martin Wegmus begins teaching physics at Sonja's school and one of Sonja's classmates falls in love with him. Almost by luck, Mr. Wegmus and Sonja kiss. The teacher promises to return for her.
1017794	Lau Kar-leung (28 July 1934 – 25 June 2013), also known as Liu Chia-liang, was a Hong Kong-based Chinese actor, filmmaker, choreographer and martial artist. Lau is best known for the films he made in the 1970s and 1980s for the Shaw Brothers Studio. One of his most famous works is "The 36th Chamber of Shaolin" which starred Gordon Liu, as well as "Drunken Master II" which starred Jackie Chan. History. Before becoming famous, Lau worked as an extra and choreographer on black and white Wong Fei-hung movies. He teamed up with fellow Wong Fei-hung choreographer Tong Gaai on the 1963 Hu Peng-directed wuxia film "South Dragon, North Phoenix". Their collaboration would continue on until the mid-1970s. His first appearance in a film was in "Brave Lad of Guangong" (1950). In the 1960s he became one of Shaw Brothers' main choreographers and had a strong working relationship with director Chang Cheh, working on many of Chang's films as a choreographer (often alongside Tong Gaai) including "The One-Armed Swordsman", as well as other Shaw Brothers wuxia films, such as "The Jade Bow". After a split with Chang on the set of "Marco Polo", Lau evolved into a director during the sudden boom of martial arts films in the early 1970s. He occasionally did choreography work for non-Shaw films as well, such as "Master of the Flying Guillotine". After Shaw Brothers collapsed in the 1980s, Lau moved on and continued directing and choreographing films, among them "Drunken Master II". However, the film's star Jackie Chan and director Lau clashed over the style of fighting, resulting in Lau leaving the set before the shooting of the final fight scene, which was then taken over by Chan. Most recently, Lau performed acting and choreography work for Tsui Hark's 2005 film "Seven Swords". Mark Houghton opened the Lau Family Hung Kuen school Lau Family Hung Gar academy in Hong Kong / Fanling with the support of his sifu, Lau. He gave his disciple the permission to spread the art of Lau Family Hung Kuen to chosen students. There are already branches in England, Philippines, and China. Collaborations with Gordon Liu. Lau's most frequent collaborator is likely his "god brother" Gordon Liu aka Chia Hui Liu, and he worked with Liu on a number of films, directing him as a star in the now classic "The 36th Chamber of Shaolin" (1978), as well as directing Liu as either a star or cast member in "Dirty Ho" (1976), "Eight-Diagram Pole Fighter" (1983), "Executioners from Shaolin" (1977), "Return to the 36th Chamber" (1980), "Heroes of the East" (1978), "Legendary Weapons of China" (1982), "Disciples of the 36th Chamber" (1985), "Tiger on Beat" (1988), "Tiger on the Beat 2" (1990), "Shaolin Warrior" (1980), "Spiritual Boxer II" (1979), "Cat vs. Rat" (1982), "The Lady is the Boss" (1983), "My Young Auntie" (1981), "Challenge of the Masters" (1976), "Shaolin Mantis" (1978), "The Martial Club" (1981), and "Drunken Monkey" (2003). They also appeared together as themselves in the Italian documentary "Dragonland" (2009, directed by Lorenzo De Luca). Screenplays. Throughout his career, Lau only wrote four screenplays, but they were all for films that he himself directed. Those screenplays/films are "My Young Auntie" (1981), "Legendary Weapons of China" (1982), "The Lady is the Boss" (1983) and "Eight-Diagram Pole Fighter" (1983). All of the films also starred or featured Gordon Liu in some role or capacity. Awards & Nominations. In 2005, Lau won a "Best Action Choreography" award at the Golden Horse Award for his action choreography work on Tsui Hark's "Seven Swords". He also won another Golden Horse Award in 1994, for "Best Martial Arts Direction" in the film "Drunken Master II" (or "The Legend of the Drunken Master"). In 1995, Lau also won a "Best Action Choreography" award at the Hong Kong Film Awards for his choreography in "Drunken Master II" and in 1997, the film won "Best Film" at the Fantasia Film Festival. Lau was also nominated for a "Best Action Choreography" Hong Kong Film Award in 2006 for his work on Tsui Hark's "Seven Swords", and nominated in 1983 for a "Best Action Choreography" Hong Kong Film Award for his work on "Legendary Weapons of China" (1982), which he also directed and wrote. In 2010, Lau was honored with a Lifetime Achievement Award at the Hong Kong Film Awards for his contributions to the martial arts film genre. Personal life. Lau was the third child of Lau Cham (Lau Jaam, 劉湛), a martial arts master who studied Hung Gar under Lam Sai-wing, a student of Wong Fei-hung. He has a brother who makes a living in the film industry, actor/choreographer Lau Kar-wing, as does Gordon Liu, Lau's pupil and adopted godson to Lau's father, Lau Cham. His nephew Lau Kar-yung (son of his older sister)is also an actor, choreographer and director. Another nephew, Lau Wing-kin (Lau Kar-wing's son) is also an actor, and assisted Lau Kar-leung with action-directing "Seven Swords". Lau's wife was Mary Jean Reimer, whom he married in 1984. One of Lau's former girlfriends is Kara Hui. Lau began training students Hung Gar before the age of 5 and was already quite proficient in the style. Bruce Lee treated Lau as an elder uncle and asked him for advice in regards to his film career. Lau died on 25 June 2013 at Union Hospital, Hong Kong. He had been battling lymphatic cancer for two decades.
584873	Parugu (Telugu:పరుగు, English: "Run") is a 2008 Telugu film written and directed by Bhaskar (of "Bommarillu" fame). Allu Arjun, Sheela, and Prakash Raj play the lead roles. Dil Raju produces the film whilst Mani Sharma scored the film soundtrack and background score. The movie premiered in Prasads IMAX on April 30 at 10:15PM. The film was dubbed into Malayalam under the title "Krishna". It was dubbed into Hindi under the title 'VEERTA THE POWER'. The film is remade into Oriya as "Sanju Aau Sanjana" with Babusan, Parijat, and Mihir Das, and in Bengali as "Shedin Dekha Hoyechilo" with Dev, Srabanti Chatterjee, and Tapas Pal. This film is based on the elopement drama of Arjun's cousin Srija (daughter of Chiranjeevi) with her then-boyfriend Sirish Bharadwaj. Though none of the mainstream media spoke about the co-incidence, the movie received a lot of buzz amongst the movie goers for the similarity to the real life episode of the Srija. Parugu released on May 1, 2008, to mixed reviews but was a Sleeper hit of 2008. Plot. Neelakantam (Prakash Raj) is a village elder. He has two daughters Subbalakshmi (Poonam Bajwa) and Meenakshi (Sheela). The film begins with the elopement of Subbalakshmi with one Babu of the same village and he is a friend of Krishna. The entire family of Neelakantam holes up the friends of Babu (Sunil, Srinivasa Reddy), on the presumption that they helped him. Krishna (Allu Arjun) is also caught by the men of Neelakantam. Krishna makes an attempt to escape from the village but can not do so after having a look at a beautiful girl, who is none other than Meenakshi. However, he does not know that it is Neelakantam's younger child. Though the entire situation is quite charged, Krishna is on the look out of the girl to whom he loses his heart. Before the interval bang, the secret unravels. Neelakantam's brother realises that it was Krishna who helped Babu in taking away Subbalakshmi in vizag. On being questioned, Krishna takes the entire gang to Hyderabad along with Meenakshi. He tries to impress her whenever, he gets an opportunity . During the search for the girl, an incident occurs and Neelakantam comes out in open and explains Krishna how a father of an eloped girl will be broken. This turns an eye-opener for Krishna, who decides to sacrifice his love. Soon, Neelakantam and his group find Subbalakshmi and her boyfriend. But she makes it very clear that she will be happy only with her boyfriend and dares her father not to try to separate them. Then Neelakantam has challenged to do his younger daughter marriege grandly with broken heart through his elder daughter what she did,In the end, Neelakantam comes to know that Meenakshi falls in love with Krishna. However, Krishna tells Neelakantam that he is against to separate him with his daughter. But Neelakantam realizes the value of love and unites the lovers and the film ends on a happy note, in the same place of Krishna was stopped his running for beautiful girl. Development. The film's title has been in major headlines prior to the film's release. During the film's production, the film has been referred to as "Premikudu", "Romeo", "Enta Ghaatu Premayo", "Araku", and "Varadhi", before being titled as "Parugu". Soundtrack. The music is composed by Mani Sharma and lyrics for the songs are written by Anantha Sreeram, Sirivennela, and Chandrabose. On April 8, 2008, film actor and Arjun's uncle Chiranjeevi launched the soundtrack in Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh.
1163720	Irene Dunne (December 20, 1898 – September 4, 1990) was an American film actress and singer of the 1930s, 1940s and early 1950s. Dunne was nominated five times for the Academy Award for Best Actress, for her performances in "Cimarron" (1931), "Theodora Goes Wild" (1936), "The Awful Truth" (1937), "Love Affair" (1939) and "I Remember Mama" (1948). She was named to the International Best Dressed List Hall of Fame in 1958. Early life. Born Irene Marie Dunn in Louisville, Kentucky, to Joseph Dunn, a steamboat inspector for the United States government, and Adelaide Henry, a concert pianist/music teacher from Newport, Kentucky, Irene Dunn would later write, "No triumph of either my stage or screen career has ever rivalled the excitement of trips down the Mississippi on the river boats with my father." She was only eleven when her father died in 1909. She saved all of his letters and often remembered and lived by what he told her the night before he died: "Happiness is never an accident. It is the prize we get when we choose wisely from life's great stores." After her father's death, Irene, her mother, and her younger brother Charles moved to her mother's hometown of Madison, Indiana. Dunn's mother taught her to play the piano as a very small girl. According to Dunn, "Music was as natural as breathing in our house." Dunne was raised as a devout Roman Catholic. Nicknamed "Dunnie," she took piano and voice lessons, sang in local churches and high school plays before her graduation in 1916. She earned a diploma to teach art, but took a chance on a contest and won a prestigious scholarship to the Chicago Musical College, where she graduated in 1926. With a mezzo-soprano voice, she had hopes of becoming an opera singer, but did not pass the audition with the Metropolitan Opera Company. Career. Irene, after adding an "e" to her surname, turned to musical theater, making her Broadway debut in 1922 in Zelda Sears's "The Clinging Vine". The following year, Dunne played a season of light opera in Atlanta, Georgia. Though in her own words Dunne created "no great furor", by 1929 she had a successful Broadway career playing leading roles, grateful to be at center stage rather than in the chorus line. In July 1928, Dunne married Francis Griffin, a New York dentist, whom she had met in 1924 at a supper dance in New York. Despite differing opinions and battles that raged furiously, Dunne eventually agreed to marry him and leave the theater. Dunne's role as Magnolia Hawks in Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II's "Show Boat" was the result of a chance meeting with showman Florenz Ziegfeld in an elevator the day she returned from her honeymoon. Dunne was discovered by Hollywood while starring with the company of the musical "Chicago" in 1929. Dunne signed a contract with RKO and appeared in her first movie in 1930, "Leathernecking", a film version of the musical "Present Arms". She moved to Hollywood with her mother and brother and maintained a long-distance marriage with her husband in New York until he joined her in California in 1936. That year, she re-created her role as Magnolia in what is considered the classic film version of the famous musical "Show Boat", directed by James Whale. (Edna Ferber's novel, on which the musical is based, had already been filmed as a part-talkie in 1929, and the musical would be remade in Technicolor in 1951, but the 1936 film is considered by most critics and many film buffs to be the definitive motion picture version.) During the 1930s and 1940s, Dunne blossomed into a popular screen heroine in movies such as the original "Back Street" (1932) and the original "Magnificent Obsession" (1935). The first of three films she made opposite Charles Boyer, "Love Affair" (1939) is perhaps one of her best known. She starred, and sang "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes", in the 1935 Fred Astaire-Ginger Rogers film version of the musical "Roberta". She was apprehensive about attempting her first comedy role, as the title character in "Theodora Goes Wild" (1936), but discovered that she enjoyed it. She turned out to possess an aptitude for comedy, with a flair for combining the elegant and the madcap, a quality she displayed in such films as "The Awful Truth" (1937) and "My Favorite Wife" (1940), both co-starring Cary Grant. Other notable roles include Julie Gardiner Adams in "Penny Serenade" (1941) (once again opposite Grant), Anna Leonowens in "Anna and the King of Siam" (1946), Lavinia Day in "Life with Father" (1947), and Martha Hanson in "I Remember Mama" (1948). In "The Mudlark" (1950), Dunne was nearly unrecognizable under heavy makeup as Queen Victoria. She retired from the screen in 1952, after the comedy "It Grows on Trees". The following year, she was the opening act on the 1953 March of Dimes showcase in New York City. While in town, she made an appearance as the mystery guest on "What's My Line?" She also made television performances on "Ford Theatre", "General Electric Theater", and the "Schlitz Playhouse of Stars", continuing to act until 1962. Dunne commented in an interview that she had lacked the "terrifying ambition" of some other actresses and said, "I drifted into acting and drifted out. Acting is not everything. Living is." Later life. Dunne was present at Disneyland on "Dedication Day" in 1955 and was asked by Walt Disney to christen the Mark Twain River Boat, which she did with a bottle filled with water from several major rivers across the United States. In 1957, President Eisenhower appointed Dunne one of five alternative U.S. delegates to the United Nations in recognition of her interest in international affairs and Roman Catholic and Republican causes. In her retirement, Dunne devoted herself primarily to civic, philanthropic, and Republican political causes. In 1965, Dunne became a board member of Technicolor, the first woman ever elected to the board of directors. Personal life. Dunne remained married to Dr. Francis Griffin until his death on October 15, 1965. They lived in Holmby Hills, California in a Southern plantation-style mansion they designed. They had one daughter, Mary Frances (née Anna Mary Bush), who was adopted in 1938 from the New York Foundling Hospital, run by the Sisters of Charity of New York. Both Dunne and her husband were members of the Knights of Malta. She was a devout Catholic who became a daily communicant. She was a member of the Good Shepherd Parish and the Catholic Motion Picture Guild in Beverly Hills, California. She was good friends with actress Loretta Young and remained close to others like Jimmy Stewart. One of her last public appearances was in April 1985, when she attended the dedication of a bust in her honor at St. John's (Roman Catholic) Hospital in Santa Monica, California, for which her foundation, The Irene Dunne Guild, had raised more than $20 million. The Irene Dunne Guild remains "instrumental in raising funds to support programs and services at St. John's" hospital in Santa Monica. Death. Irene died at her Holmby Hills home in Los Angeles on September 4, 1990 and is entombed in the Calvary Cemetery, East Los Angeles. Her personal papers are housed at the University of Southern California. She was survived by her daughter, two grandchildren and two great-grandchildren. Awards and nominations. Dunne has been described as the best actress never to win an Academy Award. She received five Best Actress nominations during her career: for "Cimarron" (1931), "Theodora Goes Wild" (1936), "The Awful Truth" (1937), "Love Affair" (1939) and "I Remember Mama" (1948). In 1985, she was awarded the Kennedy Center Honors, Lifetime Achievement for a career that spanned three decades and a range of musical theater, the silver screen, Broadway, radio and television. Other honors include the Laetare Medal from Notre Dame University in 1949, the Bellarmine Medal from Bellarmine College in 1965 and Colorado's Women of Achievement in 1968. She has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6440 Hollywood Blvd. and displays in the Warner Bros. Museum and Center for Motion Picture Study. In popular culture. In the "Mad Men" Season 2 episode, "Maidenform", Peggy Olson questions her male colleagues' categorizations of women as "Marilyns" or "Jackies" and asks which she is, Ken Cosgrove quips that she's Gertrude Stein, and the younger men laugh. Don Draper quickly counters that Peggy is Irene Dunne, which Freddy Rumsen supports with, "I love Irene Dunne".
1689811	Cherry Tree Lane is a 2010 British urban dramatic real-time horror-thriller film, written and directed by Paul Andrew Williams. Plot. The film tells the story of a middle-aged suburban couple who are terrorised in their home by a group of teenagers who plan to kill their son who has grassed-up one of their friends. Production. Based on a specially written script template, the film was made for Steel Mill Pictures. The director Paul Andrew Williams began the shooting of the psychological thriller on 16 July 2009 in North London. Ken Marshall produced the film for UK Film Council and Steel Mill Pictures. Release. The film premiered on 23 June 2010 as part of the Edinburgh International Film Festival 2010. Cherry Tree Lane is part of the Film4 Frightfest on 29 August 2010. Metrodome Distribution holds the rights for the sales in England. Critical reception. The film received mixed reviews from critics. The Film Blogger dubbed it a “moderately tense thriller”, that was “accentuated by a well-developed class commentary and some solid performances”. Title. The film’s name is an ironic reminder of the address of the idealised suburban Banks family in the popular 1964 film "Mary Poppins".
1340804	Georg Joachim de Porris, also known as Rheticus (16 February 1514 – 4 December 1574), was a mathematician, cartographer, navigational-instrument maker, medical practitioner, and teacher. He is perhaps best known for his trigonometric tables and as Nicolaus Copernicus's sole pupil. He facilitated the publication of his master's "De revolutionibus orbium coelestium" ("On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres"). Surname. Rheticus was born at Feldkirch, in present-day Austria. Both his parents, Georg Iserin and Thomasina de Porris, possessed considerable wealth, his father being the town physician. However, Georg abused the trust of many of his patients, stealing belongings and money from their homes. In 1528 he was convicted and executed for his crimes, and as a result his family was stripped of their surname. The family adopted the mothers maiden name de Porris. Later as a student in Wittenberg Georg Joachim adopted the toponym Rheticus, a form of the Latin name for his home region, Rhaetia, a Roman province that had included parts of Austria, Switzerland and Germany. In the matriculation list for the University of Leipzig his family name, de Porris, is translated into German as von Lauchen. The crater Rhaeticus is named for him. Patrons. After Georg Iserin's death, Achilles Gasser took over his medical practice, helping Rheticus to continue his studies and supporting him. Rheticus studied at Feldkirch, Zürich and the University of Wittenberg, where he received his M.A. in 1536. During the Reformation the theologian and educator Philipp Melanchthon reorganized the whole educational system of the Lutheran Protestant parts of Germany, reforming and founding several new universities. In 1536 Melanchthon appointed Rheticus as professor of the lower mathematics, arithmetic and geometry, at the Wittenberg University. Two years later, Melanchthon arranged a two-year leave for Rheticus to study with noted astronomers. Leaving Wittenberg in October 1538, he first went to Nuremberg to visit the professor of mathematics at the Eigidien Oberschule Johannes Schöner. In Nuremberg he also made the acquaintance of other mathematicians such as Georg Hartmann and Thomas Venatorius as well as the printer-publisher Petreius. During his journey, probably in Nuremberg, Rheticus heard of Copernicus and decided to seek him out. From Petreius Rheticus was given works by Regiomontanus and others, intended as presents for Copernicus. He went on to Peter Apian in Ingolstadt and Joachim Camerarius in Tübingen, then to Gasser in his hometown. From Feldkirch he set out on his journey to visit Copernicus in Frombork. Copernicus. In May 1539, Rheticus arrived in Frombork (Frauenburg), where he spent two years with Copernicus. It is unknown whether he had prior access to Copernicus' Commentariolus, an unsigned, unpublished outline of Copernicus' revolutionary heliocentric theory that Copernicus distributed to friends and colleagues three decades before he published "De revolutionibus". In September 1539, Rheticus went to Danzig (Gdańsk) to visit the mayor, who gave him financial assistance to publish his "Narratio Prima" ("First Report") of Copernicus' forthcoming treatise. Rhode in Danzig published Narratio Prima in 1540. While in Danzig, Rheticus interviewed maritime pilots to learn about their problems in navigation. Rheticus also visited Copernicus' friend, Tiedemann Giese, who was Bishop of Culm (now Chełmno). In August 1541, Rheticus presented a copy of his "Tabula chorographica auff Preussen und etliche umbliegende lender" ("Map of Prussia and Neighboring Lands") to Albert, Duke of Prussia, who had been trying to compute the exact time of sunrise. Rheticus made an instrument for him that determined the length of the day. Rheticus obtained the duke's permission to publish "De revolutionibus". Albrecht asked Rheticus to end his travels and return to his teaching position. Rheticus returned to the University of Wittenberg in October 1541. In May 1542, he traveled to Nürnberg to supervise the printing by Johannes Petreius of the first edition of "De revolutionibus", but had to leave in fall to take a position in Leipzig, and Andreas Osiander replaced him. Copernicus' major work was published shortly before his death in 1543. In a work tentatively titled "Epistolae de Terrae Motu", published posthumously in 1984, Rheticus attempts to reconcile Copernicanism with scripture by employing St. Augustine's principle of accommodation. According to historian Robert Westman, the "Epistolae", also known as the "Opusculum", demonstrates that Copernicus and Rheticus recognized the problem of conflict between their finding of earthly motion and biblical scripture, and had therefore developed a systematic defense of compatibility. Rheticus argues that biblical language was written in terms meant to be readily comprehensible to a wide audience: While relying heavily upon citations to appease religious authorities, Rheticus may have nevertheless refrained from publishing the work in his life in order to avoid angering more conservative Christians such as Melanchthon. Later years. The canon of Warmia Georg Donner and the bishop of Warmia Johannes Dantiscus were both patrons of Rheticus. Rheticus was also commissioned to make a staff for king Sigismund II of Poland, while he held a position as teacher in Kraków for many years. From there he went to Košice in the Kingdom of Hungary, where he died. Trigonometry. For much of his life, Rheticus displayed a passion for the study of triangles, the branch of mathematics now called trigonometry. In 1542 he had the trigonometric sections of Copernicus' "De revolutiobis" published separately under the title "De lateribus et angulis triangulorum" ("On the Sides and Angles of Triangles"). In 1551 Rheticus produced a tract titled "Canon of the Science of Triangles," the first publication of six-function trigonometric tables (although the word "trigonometry" was not yet coined). This pamphlet was to be an introduction to Rheticus' greatest work, a full set of tables to be used in angular astronomical measurements. At his death, the "Science of Triangles" was still unfinished. However, paralleling his own relationship with Copernicus, Rheticus had acquired a student who devoted himself to completing his teacher's work. Valentin Otto oversaw the hand computation of approximately 100,000 ratios to at least ten decimal places. When completed in 1596, the volume, "Opus palatinum de triangulus," filled nearly 1,500 pages. Its tables were accurate enough to be used in astronomical computation into the early twentieth century. In popular culture. In the U.S. Science Fiction series Warehouse 13 Joshua Donovan uses a teleportation device in the form of a compass said to have been built by Rheticus. Rheticus is referenced several times in the song "Like Rheticus" on the 2004 album "Place" by British songwriter Owen Tromans.
674631	Klaus Kinski (born Klaus Gunther Nakszynski; 18 October 1926 – 23 November 1991) was a German actor. He appeared in more than 130 films, and is perhaps best remembered as a leading role actor in the films of Werner Herzog, including: "Aguirre, the Wrath of God" (1972), "Nosferatu the Vampyre" (1979), "Woyzeck" (1979), "Fitzcarraldo" (1982) and "Cobra Verde" (1987). He was considered a "divisive and controversial figure in Germany. His violent outbursts on set - famously captured on film in Herzog's documentary 'My Best Fiend' - are the stuff of legend." He is the father of Pola, Nastassja, and Nikolai Kinski, born of three different marriages. They have all become actors, and have worked in Germany and the United States, primarily in film and TV.
629351	Aden Young (born 1972 in Toronto, Canada) is an Australian actor. He has also turned his hand to filmmaking, directing and writing the short films "The Rose of Ba Ziz" (2007) and "The Order" (1998). Career. As actor. Young's first role was in Bruce Beresford's acclaimed film "Black Robe" (1991). They later teamed up for the third time with "Mao's Last Dancer", based on the best-selling autobiography of Chinese ballet dancer Li Cunxin. Young portrays the Texan playboy who helps Li's defection to the West. Beresford stated that "he hasn't changed that much, he is a very accomplished actor... We picked up just where we left off. We always got along well; he's a very cooperative and thoughtful actor. Most of the actors who are well known and do lots of roles are incredibly good to work with". "Metal Skin", Geoffrey Wright's 1994 examination of suburban hopelessness and revhead subculture, saw Young win an Australian Film Institute nomination for Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role for a "powerful, brooding performance" as social misfit Psycho Joe whose "edgy, simmering personality threatens to boil over into madness ... Young's depiction of this unsettling metamorphosis is central to the film's success". Young attracted further attention for his performance in 1998's "Under Heaven" (aka "In a Private Garden") starring Joely Richardson as a woman diagnosed with breast cancer. Young played Cate Blanchett's tortured lover Ejlert Lovborg in Andrew Upton's adaptation of "Hedda Gabler" by Henrik Ibsen. After a 2005 debut season at the Sydney Theatre Company, the production was invited to the Brooklyn Academy of Music in New York. The process of restaging the production in New York was filmed for the acclaimed documentary "In the Company of Actors" (2007). In period Australian bush western "Lucky Country", released 2009, Young "spent a lot of time...chained inside a little wood locker" as unlucky landholder Nat, who as the film begins has suffered the recent loss of his wife in childbirth and must attempt to protect his home and children and survive the arrival of three gold hungry strangers, while fighting the debilitating onset of tetanus. Young appeared as Charlotte Gainsbourg's husband on French/Australian/Italian co-production from director Julie Bertucelli, "The Tree" (2010) – the story of 8-year-old Simone who believes her dead father's spirit has taken up residence in a Moreton Bay fig tree on the family property. The film was adapted from the book "Our Father Who Art in the Tree" by Australian author Judy Pascoe, and made its premiere on the closing night of the 2010 Cannes Film Festival. In 2011 Young mimed Australian female indie supergroup Seeker Lover Keeper's hit song "Even Though I'm A Woman" in the music video directed by Natalie Van Dungen, and featured in the Jason Statham/Robert De Niro action film "Killer Elite" as American techno geek Meyer. Young portrayed Dr. Frankenstein in the 2012 film adaptation of graphic novel "I, Frankenstein". In June 2012 Young was announced as the lead role of Daniel Holden in "Rectify", the highly anticipated first scripted drama series for the Sundance Channel, created and written by actor Ray McKinnon. The series follows the Holden's life after he is released from 19 years on Death Row for the brutal rape and murder of his girlfriend as a teenager after DNA evidence casts doubts on his guilt. The first season of the series was broadcast on television in 2013. As director. Directing was a "natural progression" for Young. Acclaimed short film "The Rose of Ba Ziz", "a beautifully simple fable narrated by Hugo Weaving" (Andrew Urban), is about a much-loved king who leaves his kingdom because he has an allergy and does not want the flowers that set it off to be destroyed. The film was made over five days on a shoestring budget of $700. "It's basically like a folk-fairytale parable", said St Kilda Film Festival director Paul Harris, "a series of stills that look like coloured postcards from the turn of the century... It has a very haunting quality to it. Conceptually, it's very unique and very endearing. I think it's got the ability to inspire filmmakers who are suffering from some kind of block about 'How do I go out and make films, how do I go out and compete with the big guys?' If you think just outside of the square you can really surprise and delight audiences. Young described his first film "The Order" as being "about a soldier who returns from the Vietnam War with the news that his best friend has died during the war and he chooses to inform the man's widow. By doing this onerous task he becomes haunted by an action that happened in his childhood and he believes that it might have started the course towards his friend's death". Young has assisted veteran independent Australian filmmaker Paul Cox in various capacities since starring in Cox's film "Exile" in 1994. He has also created music videos for Australian singer Loene Carmen. Personal life. Young's family left Toronto for Australia in 1981 when he was 9. The next decade was spent moving from town to town in New South Wales in search of the best medical care for his father Chip, who had contracted a mysterious lupus-like disease. "My mother is from Newcastle", said the actor, who still has a Canadian accent but can easily switch to an Australian drawl. "She had trained as a nurse there and maybe she thought that was where she would find the answer to my father's illness". Young attended Galston High and Australian Theatre For Young People as a teenager. Young adapted "The Rose of Ba Ziz" from the children's book written by his father Chip, a well-known CBC broadcaster in Canada and a children's author. "I was about to have my first son and thought that it would be a wonderful love letter from his grandfather". Aden has two sons, Dutch Bon (born 2007) and Chester Van (born 2011) with his longtime partner, actress/singer Loene Carmen. A portrait of Young by artist James Powditch (entitled "Once Upon A Time in the Inner West") was an Archibald Prize 2008 finalist, and he also features in 2012 Powditch artwork 'Beserk Warriors'.
1545596	James Nathaniel "Jim" Brown (born February 17, 1936) is an American former professional football player and actor. He is best known for his exceptional and record-setting nine-year career as a running back for the NFL Cleveland Browns from 1957 to 1965. In 2002, he was named by "Sporting News" as the greatest professional football player ever. He is widely considered to be one of the greatest professional athletes the U.S. has ever produced. Early life. James Nathaniel Brown was born to Theresa (a housekeeper) and Swinton Brown (a professional boxer). At Manhasset Secondary School, Brown earned 13 letters playing football, lacrosse, baseball, basketball and running track. According to the "New York Times": Mr. Brown credits his self-reliance to having grown up on Saint Simons Island, a community off the coast of Georgia where he was raised by his grandmother and where racism did not affect him directly. At the age of 8 he moved to Manhasset, N.Y., where his mother worked as a domestic. It was at Manhasset High School that he became a football star and athletic legend. He averaged a then-Long Island record 38 points per game for his basketball team. That record was later broken by future Boston Red Sox star Carl Yastrzemski of Bridgehampton. College sports career. As a sophomore at Syracuse University, Brown was the second leading rusher on the team. As a junior, he rushed for 666 yards (5.2 per carry). In his senior year, Brown was a unanimous first-team All-American. He finished 5th in the Heisman Trophy voting, and set school records for highest rush average (6.2) and most rushing touchdowns (6). He ran for 986 yards—third most in the country despite Syracuse playing only eight games—and scored 14 touchdowns. In the regular-season finale, a 61–7 rout of Colgate, he rushed for 197 yards, scored six touchdowns and kicked seven extra points for 43 points (another school record). Then in the Cotton Bowl, he rushed for 132 yards, scored three touchdowns and kicked three extra points. But a blocked extra point after Syracuse's third touchdown was the difference as TCU won 28–27. Brown is a member of The Pigskin Club of Washington, D.C. National Intercollegiate All-American Football Players Honor Roll. Perhaps more impressive was his success as a multi-sport athlete. In addition to his football accomplishments, he excelled in basketball, track, and especially lacrosse. As a sophomore, he was the second leading scorer for the basketball team (15 ppg), and earned a letter on the track team. His junior year, he averaged 11.3 points in basketball, and was named a second-team All-American in lacrosse. His senior year, he was named a first-team All-American in lacrosse (43 goals in 10 games to rank second in scoring nationally). Professional football career. Brown was taken in the first round of the 1956 draft by the Cleveland Browns. He departed as the NFL record holder for both single-season (1,863 in 1963) and career rushing (12,312 yards), as well as the all-time leader in rushing touchdowns (106), total touchdowns (126), and all-purpose yards (15,549). He was the first player ever to reach the 100-rushing-touchdowns milestone, and only a few others have done so since, despite the league's expansion to a 16-game season in 1978 (Brown's first four seasons were only 12 games, and his last five were 14 games). Brown's record of scoring 100 touchdowns in only 93 games stood until LaDainian Tomlinson did it in 89 games during the 2006 season. Brown holds the record for total seasons leading the NFL in all-purpose yards (5: 1958–1961, 1964), and is the only rusher in NFL history to average over 100 yards per game for a career. In addition to his rushing, Brown was a superb receiver out of the backfield, catching 262 passes for 2,499 yards and 20 touchdowns, while also adding another 628 yards returning kickoffs. Every season he played, Brown was voted into the Pro Bowl, and he left the league in style by scoring three touchdowns in his final Pro Bowl game. Perhaps the most amazing feat is that Jim Brown accomplished these records despite never playing past 29 years of age. Brown's 6 games with at least 4 touchdowns remains an NFL record. LaDainian Tomlinson and Marshall Faulk both have five games with 4 touchdowns. Brown led the league in rushing a record eight times. Brown's 1,863 rushing yards in the 1963 season remain a Cleveland franchise record. It is currently the oldest franchise record for rushing yards out of all 32 NFL teams. While others have compiled more prodigious statistics, when viewing Brown's standing in the game his style of running must be considered along with statistical measures. He was very difficult to tackle (shown by his leading 5.2 yards per carry), often requiring more than one person to bring him down. Brown retired after nine seasons as opposed to the all time rushing leader Emmit Smith's fourteen and remains the National Football league's ninth all-time leading rusher. Brown is still the Cleveland Browns all-time leading rusher. Acting career. Brown began an acting career before the 1964 season, playing a Buffalo Soldier in a western action film called "Rio Conchos". The film premiered at Cleveland's Hippodrome theater on October 23, with Brown and many of his teammates in attendance. The reaction was lukewarm. Brown, one reviewer said, was a serviceable actor, but the movie's overcooked plotting and implausibility amounted to "a vigorous melodrama for the unsqueamish." In early 1966 Brown, who had grown debonair and aloof as he rocketed to fame, was shooting for his second film in London. "The Dirty Dozen" cast Brown as Robert Jefferson, a convict sent to France during World War II to assassinate German officers meeting at a castle near Rennes in Brittany before the D-Day invasion. Production delays due to bad weather meant he would miss at least the first part of training camp on the campus of Hiram College, which annoyed Modell, who threatened to fine Brown $1,500 for every week of camp he missed. Brown, who had previously said that 1966 would be his last season, announced his retirement instead. At the end of his nine-year career, Brown held records for most rushing yards in a game, a season and a career. He also owned the record for all-purpose yards in a career and best average per carry for a running back at 5.22 yards, a mark that still stands. Brown went on to play a villain in a 1967 episode of "I Spy" called "Cops and Robbers", and appeared in the 1970 movie "...tick...tick...tick...", as well as in numerous other features. Biographer Mike Freeman credits Brown with becoming “the first black action star”, thanks to roles like the Marine captain he portrayed in the hit 1968 film "Ice Station Zebra". In 1969, Brown starred in "100 Rifles" with Burt Reynolds and Raquel Welch. The film was one of the first to feature an interracial love scene. Raquel Welch reflects on the scene in Spike Lee's "". Brown acted with Fred Williamson in films such as 1972's "Black Gunn", 1974's "Three the Hard Way", 1975's "Take a Hard Ride", 1982's "One Down, Two to Go", 1996's "Original Gangstas" and 2002's "On the Edge". He also guest-starred in a handful of television episodes of various programs with Williamson. In 1998, he voiced Butch Meathook in the film "Small Soldiers". Perhaps Brown's most memorable roles were as Robert Jefferson in "The Dirty Dozen", and in Keenen Ivory Wayans' 1988 comedy "I'm Gonna Git You Sucka". Brown also acted in 1987's "The Running Man", an adaptation of a Stephen King story, as Fireball. He played a coach in "Any Given Sunday" and also appeared in "Sucker Free City" and "Mars Attacks!". Brown appeared in some TV shows including "Knight Rider" in the season 3 premiere episode "Knight of the Drones". Brown appeared alongside football hero Joe Namath on "The A-Team" episode "Quarterback Sneak". Personal life. According to a DNA analysis, Brown is descended from ancestors who lived in what is the present day nation of Nigeria.
1163169	Raymond Wallace "Ray" Bolger (January 10, 1904 – January 15, 1987) was an American entertainer of stage and screen, best known for his portrayal of the Scarecrow and Kansas farmworker Hunk in "The Wizard of Oz". Early life. Bolger was born into an Irish Catholic family in Dorchester, a section of Boston, Massachusetts, the son of Anne (née Wallace) and James Edward Bolger. He was inspired by the vaudeville shows he attended when he was young to become an entertainer himself. He began his career in a vaudeville tab show, creating the act "Sanford & Bolger" with his dance partner. In 1926, he danced at New York City's legendary Palace Theatre, the top vaudeville theatre in the country. His limber body and ability to ad lib movement won him many starring roles on Broadway in the 1930s. Eventually, his career would also encompass film, television and nightclub work. Career. Bolger's film career began when he signed a contract with MGM in 1936. His best-known film appearance prior to "The Wizard of Oz" was "The Great Ziegfeld" (1936), in which he portrayed himself. He also appeared in "Sweethearts", (1938) the first MGM film in Technicolor, starring Nelson Eddy, Jeanette MacDonald, and Bolger's future "Oz" co-star, Frank Morgan, as well as the 1937 Eleanor Powell vehicle "Rosalie", which also starred Eddy and Morgan. Following "Oz", Bolger moved to RKO. In 1941, he was a featured act at the Paramount Theatre in New York, working with the Harry James Band. He would do tap dance routines, sometimes in a mock challenge dance with the band's pianist, Al Lerner. It was during that time period, that the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, and Bolger's performance was interrupted by President Franklin D. Roosevelt announcing the news of the attack. Bolger toured in USO shows with Joe E. Lewis in the Pacific Theater during World War II, and was featured in the United Artists war-time film "Stage Door Canteen". In 1946 he returned to MGM for a featured role in "The Harvey Girls". Also that year he recorded a children's album, "The Churkendoose", featuring the story of a misfit fowl ("part chicken, turkey, duck, and goose") who teaches children that beauty is in the eye of the beholder and it all "depends on how you look at things". Bolger's Broadway credits included "" (1934), "On Your Toes" (1936), "By Jupiter" (1942), "All American" (1962), and "Where's Charley?" (1948), for which he won the Tony Award for Best Performance by a Leading Actor in a Musical and in which he introduced "Once in Love with Amy", the song often connected with him. He repeated his stage role in the 1952 film version of the musical. Bolger appeared in his own ABC television sitcom with a variety show theme, "Where's Raymond?" (1953–1954), renamed the second year as "The Ray Bolger Show" (1954–1955). His co-stars on the series included Richard Erdman, Allyn Joslyn, Betty Lynn, Sylvia Lewis, Marjie Millar, Christine Nelson, Verna Felton, Gloria Winters, and Ray Teal. He continued to star in several films, including Walt Disney's 1961 remake of "Babes in Toyland". Bolger made frequent guest appearances on television, including the episode "Rich Man, Poor Man" of the short-lived "The Jean Arthur Show" in 1966. In the 1970s he had a recurring role as the father of Shirley Partridge (Shirley Jones) on "The Partridge Family", and appeared in "Little House On The Prairie" as Toby Noe. Bolger's last television appearance was on Diff'rent Strokes in 1984. In his later years, he danced in a "Dr Pepper" television commercial, and in 1985, he and Liza Minnelli, the daughter of his "Oz" co-star Judy Garland, starred in "That's Dancing", a film also written by Jack Haley, Jr., the son of Jack Haley, who portrayed the Tin Man in "The Wizard of Oz". In 1998, a Golden Palm Star on the Palm Springs, California, Walk of Stars was dedicated to him. He was a Roman Catholic, and a member of the Good Shepherd Parish and the Catholic Motion Picture Guild in Beverly Hills, California. "The Wizard of Oz". Bolger's MGM contract stipulated that he would play any part the studio chose; however, he was unhappy when he was originally cast as the Tin Woodman in the studio's 1939 feature film adaptation of "The Wizard of Oz". The role of the Scarecrow had already been assigned to another lean and limber dancing studio contract player, Buddy Ebsen. In time, the roles were switched. While Bolger was pleased with his role as the Scarecrow, Ebsen was struck ill by the powdered aluminum make-up used to complete the Tin Woodman costume. The powdered aluminum badly coated Ebsen's lungs, leaving him near death. While Ebsen recuperated from his illness, Jack Haley was instead cast in the role of the Tin Woodman. Whenever asked as to whether he received any residuals from telecasts of the 1939 classic, Bolger would reply: "No, just immortality. I'll settle for that." He was good friends with actress Margaret Hamilton, who played the Wicked Witch of the West, until her death, and gave a eulogy at her memorial service in 1985. Judy Garland often referred to Bolger as "My Scarecrow". Upon the death of Haley in 1979, Bolger said, "It's going to be very lonely on that Yellow Brick Road now." Death. Bolger died of bladder cancer on January 15, 1987 in Los Angeles, five days after his 83rd birthday. He was interred at Holy Cross Cemetery, Culver City in the Mausoleum, Crypt F2, Block 35. He was survived by his wife of over 57 years, Gwendolyn Rickard. They had no children. At the time of his death, he was the last surviving main cast member of "The Wizard of Oz", as Jack Haley, who played the Tin Man, had died in 1979 and Margaret Hamilton, who played Almira Gulch and the Wicked Witch of the West, had died in 1985. An editorial cartoon on January 17, 1987, two days after his death, by "Chicago Tribune" artist Dick Locher, depicted Dorothy and her friends dancing off into the setting sun and toward the Emerald City, with the Scarecrow running to catch up. Filmography. Features: Short Subjects:
1091500	Christian Andreas Doppler (; 29 November 1803 – 17 March 1853) was an Austrian mathematician and physicist. Life and work. Christian Doppler was raised in Salzburg, Austria, the son of a stonemason. Doppler could not work in his father's business because of his generally weak physical condition. After completing high school Doppler studied philosophy in Salzburg and mathematics and physics at the "k. k. Polytechnisches Institut" (now Vienna University of Technology) where he worked as an assistant since 1829. In 1835 started to work at the "Prague Polytechnic" (now Czech Technical University), where he was appointed in 1841. Only a year later, at the age of 38, Doppler gave a lecture to the Royal Bohemian Society of Sciences and subsequently published his most notable work, "Über das farbige Licht der Doppelsterne und einiger anderer Gestirne des Himmels" "(On the coloured light of the binary stars and some other stars of the heavens)". There is a facsimile edition with an English translation by Alec Eden. In this work, Doppler postulated his principle (later coined the Doppler effect) that the observed frequency of a wave depends on the relative speed of the source and the observer, and he tried to use this concept for explaining the colour of binary stars. In Doppler's time in Prague as a professor he published over 50 articles on mathematics, physics and astronomy. In 1847 he left Prague for the professorship of mathematics, physics, and mechanics at the Academy of Mines and Forests (its successor is the present day University of Miskolc) in Selmecbánya (then Kingdom of Hungary, now Banská Štiavnica, Slovakia), and in 1849 he moved to Vienna. Doppler's research in Prague was interrupted by the revolutionary incidents of March 1848, when he fled to Vienna. There he was appointed head of the Institute for Experimental Physics at the University of Vienna in 1850. During his time there, Doppler, along with Franz Unger, played an influential role in the development of young Gregor Mendel, known as the founding father of genetics, who was a student at the University of Vienna from 1851 to 1853. Doppler died on 18 March 1853 at age 49 from a pulmonary disease in Venice (also at that time part of the Austrian Empire). His tomb is just inside the entrance of the Venetian island cemetery of San Michele. Full name. Some confusion exists about Doppler's full name. Doppler referred to himself as Christian Doppler. The records of his birth and baptism stated Christian "Andreas" Doppler. Forty years after Doppler's death the misnomer "Johann" Christian Doppler was introduced by the astronomer Julius Scheiner. Scheiner's mistake has since been copied by many.
1428664	Kanyadaan is an Assamese movie directed by Munin Baruah. Story. The story is based on a joint family of a place called Bokulpur. The protagonist of the movie (Jatin Bora) is the youngest son of the family who falls in love with a girl from a wealthy background of the town. He has three brothers and three sisters in law. The sisters in law knows about his fascination towards the girl but the brothers are not aware of it. It is social movie projecting a simple family of the middle-class background. Box Office. It was made at a Budget of 25 lakhs and earned 45 lakhs
1056283	Romy Schneider (23 September 1938 – 29 May 1982) was an Austrian-born film actress who achieved success in Germany and France. She started her career in the German "" genre in the early 1950s when she was 15. From 1955 to 1957 she played the central character of Empress Elisabeth of Austria in the Austrian "Sissi" trilogy. In 1958 she met Alain Delon and they became engaged; Schneider moved to France where she made successful and critically acclaimed films with some of the most notable film directors of that era. Her engagement to Delon ended in 1963 and Schneider subsequently married twice. The son from her first marriage died in an accident in 1981 when he was 14. In May 1982, aged 43, Schneider was found dead in her Paris apartment. Early life. Schneider was born Rosemarie Magdalena Albach in Nazi-era Vienna, six months after the Anschluss, into a family of actors that included her paternal grandmother Rosa Albach-Retty, her Austrian father Wolf Albach-Retty and her German mother Magda Schneider. After her parents' divorce in 1945, Magda took charge of Romy and her brother Wolfi, eventually supervising the young girl's career, often appearing alongside her daughter. Her career was also overseen by her stepfather, Hans Herbert Blatzheim, a noted restaurateur who Schneider indicated had an unhealthy interest in her. Early career. Romy Schneider's first film, made when she was 15, was "Wenn der weiße Flieder wieder blüht" ("When the White Lilacs Bloom Again") in 1953, credited as Romy Schneider-Albach. In 1954, Schneider for the first time portrayed a royal, playing a young Queen Victoria in the Austrian film "Mädchenjahre einer Königin" (known in the U.S. as "The Story of Vickie" and in Britain as "Victoria in Dover"). Schneider's breakthrough came with her portrayal of Empress Elisabeth of Austria, in the romantic biopic "Sissi" (1955) and its two sequels, "Sissi – The Young Empress" (1956) and "Sissi – Fateful Years of an Empress" (1957), all with Karlheinz Böhm, who became a close friend. Less stereotypical films during this busy period include "Robinson soll nicht sterben" ("The Legend of Robinson Crusoe", 1957), working with a young Horst Buchholz, and "Monpti" (1957), directed by Helmut Käutner, again with Buchholz. Schneider soon starred in "Christine" (1958), a remake of Max Ophüls's 1933 film "Liebelei" (itself based upon a play by Arthur Schnitzler and starring her mother Magda Schneider). It was during the filming of "Christine" that Schneider fell in love with French actor Alain Delon, who co-starred in the movie. She left Germany to join him in Paris and they announced their engagement in 1959. Schneider decided to live and to work in France, slowly gaining the interest of film directors such as Orson Welles for "The Trial" (1962), based upon Franz Kafka's "The Trial" and was introduced by Delon to Luchino Visconti. Under Visconti's direction, she gave performances in the Théâtre Moderne as Annabella (and Delon as Giovanni) in John Ford's stage play Tis Pity She's a Whore" (1961) and in the film "Boccaccio '70" (segment: "The Job"). In 1962 Schneider played Anna in Sacha Pitoëff's production of Chekhov's play "The Seagull", also at the Théâtre Moderne. A brief stint in Hollywood included an appearance in "Good Neighbor Sam" (1964) a comedy with Jack Lemmon, while "What's New Pussycat?" (1965), although American financed, was shot in and around Paris. Schneider co-starred with Peter O'Toole, Peter Sellers and Woody Allen; the film was made from his first screenplay. Schneider and Delon decided to split up in 1963 although they remained close lifelong friends. They continued to work together in such films as "La Piscine" ("The Swimming Pool", 1968), which revitalized her career, and "The Assassination of Trotsky" (1972). Later career. Schneider continued to work in France during the 1970s, most notably with director Claude Sautet on five films. Their first collaboration, "The Things of Life" ("Les choses de la vie", 1970) with Michel Piccoli, was a great success and made Schneider an icon in France. The three colleagues teamed up again for the noir thriller "Max et les Ferrailleurs" ("Max and the Junkmen", 1971), and she appeared with Yves Montand in Sautet's "César et Rosalie" (1972). Schneider portrayed Elisabeth of Austria again in "Ludwig" (1972), Visconti's film about the life of King Ludwig II of Bavaria. This time she played the Empress as a much more complex, mature, even bitter woman. "Sissi sticks to me just like oatmeal", Schneider once said. Other successes from this period included "Le Train" (1973), where she played a German-Jewish refugee in World War 2, Claude Chabrol's thriller "Innocents with Dirty Hands" ("Les innocents aux mains sales", 1975) with Rod Steiger, and "Le vieux fusil" (1975). The gritty "" ("L'important c'est d'aimer", 1974) garnered her first César Award (France's equivalent of the Oscar), a feat she repeated five years later, in her last collaboration with Sautet, for "A Simple Story" ("Une histoire simple", 1978). On 30 October 1974, Schneider created one of the most memorable moments on German television. She was the second guest on Dietmar Schönherr's talk show "Je später der Abend" ("The Later the Evening") when she, after a rather terse interview, remarked passionately to the last guest, bank robber and author Burkhard Driest: "Sie gefallen mir. Sie gefallen mir sehr." (I like you. I like you a lot.) She also acted in "Le Trio infernal" (1974) with Michel Piccoli, and in "Garde à vue" (1981) with Michel Serrault and Lino Ventura. An unpleasant incident occurred during this period with leading German film director Rainer Werner Fassbinder who wanted her to play the lead in his film "The Marriage of Maria Braun" (1979). Negotiations broke down when he called Schneider a "dumb cow", to which Schneider responded by declaring she would never work with such a "beast". Fassbinder cast Hanna Schygulla instead, reviving his professional association with an actress to whom he had also been offensive. Schneider starred in Bertrand Tavernier's "Death Watch" ("La mort en direct", 1980) playing a dying woman whose last days are watched on national television via a camera implanted in the brain of a journalist (Harvey Keitel). It is based on David G. Compton's novel, Her last film was "La Passante du Sans-Souci" ("The Passerby", 1982). Personal life and death. In July 1966, following the end of her relationship with Delon, Schneider married German director and actor Harry Meyen (1924–1979). The couple had a son, David Christopher (3 December 1966 – 5 July 1981). but the couple later divorced. Meyen committed suicide in Hamburg, Germany in 1979. In 1975, Schneider married Daniel Biasini, her private secretary; they separated in 1981. Their daughter Sarah Magdalena (born 21 July 1977) is now an actress. Enduring popularity. The French journalist Eugène Moineau initiated in 1984 the Prix Romy Schneider; this prize—the most prestigious award for promising actresses in the French film industry—is awarded by a jury each year in Paris in conjunction with the Prix Patrick Dewaere (formerly the Prix Jean Gabin). In 1990, the Austrian newspaper "Kurier" created the Romy TV Award in honour of Schneider. In 2003, she was voted 78th on the list of the greatest Germans in the German TV programme Unsere Besten (the German version of 100 Greatest Britons)—the second highest ranked actress (Marlene Dietrich was 50th) on that list. Until 2002, the Austrian Federal Railways InterCity service IC 535 from Wien Südbahnhof to Graz was named "Romy Schneider". A movie about Schneider's life, titled "Eine Frau wie Romy/Une femme comme Romy" ("A Woman Like Romy") was planned by Warner Bros. for 2009; Schneider's role was going to be played by Yvonne Catterfeld. The project was cancelled in July 2009. A musical about Schneider, "Romy – Die Welt aus Gold" ("Romy – The Golden World") was premiered in 2009 at the Theater Heilbronn. In November 2009 the ARD broadcast the feature film "Romy" with Jessica Schwarz in the title role.
589306	An Evening In Paris is a 1967 Indian Hindi film. Produced and directed by Shakti Samanta, Story by Sachin Bhowmick. The movie stars Shammi Kapoor, Sharmila Tagore in a double role, Pran as the villain, and Rajindernath in the comic subplot. Tight screenplay, fine acting, beautiful locations and haunting music made this film a big hit. Plot. After being unsuccessful in finding her true love in her own country, India, a rich girl named Deepa (Sharmila Tagore) goes to Paris, France in search of it. Her father's secretary already lives there, so in order to take care of her in the unknown country, her father informs him and also hires an assistant, Honey, and a driver, Makhan Singh (Rajindernath). On one of her outings, Deepa meets Shyam/Sam (Shammi Kapoor), who immediately falls in love with her and begins to follow her around. After some initial resistance, Deepa eventually gives in to his charms. Meanwhile, Deepa's father's secretary's son, Shekhar (Pran) needs money to clear his gambling debts. Knowing that Deepa is rich, he plans to marry her. Jack, a gangster to whom he owes the money, threatens him to repay the debts at the earliest. Shekhar tells him that he will do so soon by marrying a rich girl, Deepa. However, since Deepa does not love him, she refuses telling him that she only loves Sam. When Jack sees Deepa, he is taken aback and mistakes her to be someone he knows. But Deepa remains clueless. Jack then takes Shekhar to his casino/ hotel, where they see a girl who is identical to Deepa. Her name is Suzy (Sharmila Tagore), a club dancer in the same casino. Shekhar, angry at Deepa, hatches a plan. He approaches Suzy and convinces her to be a part of his plan by offering her a huge amount of money. He takes Suzy with him and shows her Deepa with Sam, so that she can learn her mannerisms. When Jack kidnaps the real Deepa, Shekhar puts Suzy in her place at her home. Due to this replacement, initially nobody gets to know about Deepa's kidnapping. Suzy pretends to be Deepa and goes out with Sam. Eventually Sam starts to notice the difference. He get suspicious when he notices Suzy (pretending to be Deepa) smoking and drinking - classic signs of an identical double switch. Deepa's father learns Deepa's kidnapping and flies to Paris. Sam and Deepa's father discover that Suzy is Deepa's lost twin sister, who had been kidnapped when she was very young and her real name is Roopa. Deepa's father is overjoyed that he has found his daughter, but Suzy refuses to accept herself as his daughter. Sam follows Suzy to find whereabouts of Deepa. Suzy puts a condition to tell him about Deepa, as per which Sam has to marry her. She has fallen in love with him while pretending to be Deepa. Sam refuses saying that he only loves Deepa. This angers Suzy at first but later she realizes that she should not come between her sister and her love. Jaggu, now working for Jack, who has also been an ex-employee of Deepa's father, goes to see him asking for ransom to release his daughter. Deepa's father agrees, but Sam slams him unconscious, before which he tells them to go to a certain place with the ransom money. Shekhar overhears this conversation. As the story climaxes, Suzy arrives with Jack at his hideout where he has kept Deepa to show her the resemblance and leaves them alone for a while to take care of some chores. Suzy then reveals to Deepa that she is her lost twin sister. Despite her refusal, she convinces Deepa to switch places and escape. Sam and Shekhar go separately to Niagara Falls to ransom Deepa. Shekhar arrives at the secret hide out first. At the same time, one of Jack's men informs him about Sam's arrival. When Jack confronts him, Shekhar kills him and the real Deepa (pretending to be Suzy) escapes just before that. Shekhar then collects Suzy thinking she is Deepa. He learns that she is actually Suzy when she sees Sam and yells a warning that Deepa has escaped and is waiting for him at Jack's Boat. Angered, Shekhar shoots Suzy and tries to shoot Sam. Sam escapes, and just before following Shekhar, he tells Makan Singh to go and help injured Suzy. Shekhar reaches the boat where Deepa is waiting for Sam and drives off with her. Sam also reaches just after Shekhar drives off. He jumps in the boat from a helicopter and beats Shekhar up. Sam throws him overboard where he floats over the waterfall. Deepa and Sam escape to a small rock in the middle of waterfall from where they are rescued by the helicopter. The movie closes with Sam and Deepa hanging to the ladder of helicopter with a song (Aasmaan se aya farista) playing in the background. Cultural impact. Sharmila Tagore's appearance in a bikini in "An Evening in Paris" set off a cultural wave in India and the film's claim of first bikini appearance of an Indian actress remains one of its most notable aspects. She also posed in a bikini for the glossy "Filmfare" magazine. The costume shocked the conservative Indian audience, but it also set a trend of bikini-clad actresses carried forward by Parveen Babi (in "Yeh Nazdeekiyan", 1982), Zeenat Aman (in "Heera Panna" 1973; "Qurbani", 1980) and Dimple Kapadia (in "Bobby", 1973) in the early 1970s. Wearing a bikini put her name in the Indian press as one of Bollywood's ten hottest actresses of all time, and was a transgression of female identity through a reversal of the state of modesty, which functions as a signifier of femininity in Bombay films. But, when Tagore was the chairperson of the Central Board of Film Certification, she expressed concerns about the rise of the bikini in Indian films. (Refutation. Sharmila Tagore wasn't the first actress to don a bikini (actually a one-piece) on the big-screen. Vyjayanthimala did it three years earlier in Sangam, 1964.)
1169710	George O'Hanlon (November 23, 1912 – February 11, 1989) was an American screen actor, comedian, and voice actor. Biography. Early life and career. George O'Hanlon was born in Brooklyn, New York City on November 23, 1912. Movie fans know O'Hanlon best as the star of Warner Bros.' live-action "Joe McDoakes" short subjects from 1942 to 1956. Television viewers recognize him as the voice of George Jetson in Hanna-Barbera's 1962 prime-time animated television series "The Jetsons" and its 1985 revival. From the early 1940s, O'Hanlon was a character comedian in feature films, usually playing the hero's streetwise, cynical friend. He appeared in features for various studios while continuing the Joe McDoakes role for Warners. After the McDoakes series lapsed in 1956, O'Hanlon returned to character work, mostly in television (two rare post-McDoakes movie appearances are in "Bop Girl Goes Calypso" and "Kronos", both from 1957). Television. In the 1953-1954 season, O'Hanlon appeared several times on NBC's "The Dennis Day Show". In 1957, he played Charlie Appleby on an "I Love Lucy" episode, "Lucy and Superman." In 1958, George O'Hanlon played a New York publicist for a fashion model, Loco Jones (Barbara Eden) in her sitcom, the syndicated romantic comedy, "How to Marry a Millionaire". In the autumn of 1964, he appeared as a cab driver in the thirteen-episode CBS drama "The Reporter" starring Harry Guardino. In 1966, O'Hanlon appeared opposite Jackie Gleason as Ralph Kramden's loudmouthed "bum brother-in-law", on Gleason's first TV show of the 1966-67 season. He also made various appearances on ABC's "Love, American Style", a series for which he wrote the screenplays and also directed several episodes. In 1971, O'Hanlon appeared as a bear trainer on "The Partridge Family", Season 2, episode 206, "Whatever Happened to Moby Dick?" Writer. Apart from acting the comedian wrote screenplays and also wrote the storyboard for nearly all of the Joe McDoakes shorts. He also wrote stories for television series in the 1960s such as "Petticoat Junction", "77 Sunset Strip" and even wrote episodes for Hanna-Barbera's "The Flintstones". It is interesting to note that he also auditioned for the role of Fred Flintstone but lost to Alan Reed, however he was remembered when it was time to cast "The Jetsons". He once said: "George Jetson is an average man, he has trouble with his boss, he has problems with his kids, and so on. The only difference is that he lives in the next century." Personal life and death. O'Hanlon married Nancy, a fellow actor, and they had two children (actor George O'Hanlon, Jr and daughter Laurie O'Hanlon, a registered nurse). They remained married until his death. George O'Hanlon died of a stroke on February 11, 1989. A few moments before his death, he completed his role as George Jetson in "". According to voice director Andrea Romano, O'Hanlon had suffered a second stroke and found it difficult to read and hear and in the end he died in the recording studio doing what he loved.
588722	Turning 30!!! is a 2011 Bollywood film produced by Prakash Jha and directed by Alankita Srivastav - a longtime assistant of Jha. The movie features Gul Panag, Siddharth Makkar and Purab Kohli, with music composed by the music director duo of Sidharth-Suhas, whose past works include "Dil Dosti" and "Bhram".The film is a young urban love story and women centric film and for the first time a non-political story by Prakash Jha. Plot. Turning 30 is the story of the protagonist of the movie Naina (Gul Panag) who is about to celebrate her big three oh and life is a perfect picture with a good job and the perfect guy. However, things turn into a nightmare when her boyfriend breaks up with her to marry a girl who can finance his fathers failing business. She has some setbacks at work when the credit for all her ideas and hardwork goes to undeserving people. With few days left for her birthday she is in a mess - constantly trying to win the guy back. The movie also tells the stories of her two best friends Malini and Ruksana who stand by her and support her though they are going through some rough patches in their lives. Story. The story starts with an epilogue of Naina about her connection with Mumbai. She works in an advertising company called adz. She is in relationship with Rishab, a banker. Review. NDTV movie review gave 2 out of 5 stars stating "..what sinks this ship is the lame writing". Rediff movies review gave 1.5 out 5 stating "..A film can't be both empowering and embarrassing -- and here the latter is painfully predominant" Soundtrack. The music is composed by Siddharth-Suhas. Lyrics are penned by Suhas, Kumaar, Ram Goutam, and Prashant Pandey.
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582251	Kachche Dhaage is a 1999 Hindi action thriller film directed by Milan Luthria and starring Ajay Devgan, Saif Ali Khan and Manisha Koirala. The film, which features Devgan as a smuggler, delivering goods across the Rajasthan-Pakistan border, was filmed in the deserts of Rajasthan and in Switzerland. It premiered on February 10, 1999 in Mumbai. A film under the same title, "Kuchhe Dhaage" (spelling variation) was originally released in 1973, directed by Raj Khosla and starred Vinod Khanna, Moushumi Chatterjee and Kabir Bedi. The film also has similarites with Jackie Chan's 1987 film "Armour of God". Plot. Aaftab (Ajay Devgan ) and Dhananjay (Saif Ali Khan) are two step brothers who meet for the first time. Each one has a selfish approach to life; Aaftab is a petty smuggler, specializing in smuggling goods across the Rajasthan border into Pakistan whilst Dhananjay is a corporate yuppy from the city, with a high-flying lifestyle. Aaftab is in love with Rukshana (Manisha Koirala), but is rejected by her family because he is illegitimate. Dhananjay is dating Ragini (Namrata Shirodkar) and has his father's death to contend with. When the brothers meet for the first time, they instantly loathe each other, having nothing in common. One night, Aaftab blows up a loaded truck while trying to steal from it and attracts a mass of unwanted enforcers. Soon, Aaftab is forced to send Dhananjay into a trap, but ends up with them both being handcuffed and escaping from the Border Security Force, the Central Bureau of Investigation, and the border mafia who are attempting to incriminate the brothers for anti-national activities and a murder. They escape on foot, in motorbikes, cars, stolen trucks and Aaftab is tied to the undercarriage of a moving goods train. They run into difficult circumstances on the run, not in the least made better by their hatred for each other. Despite their initial differences, the two gradually learn to like and understand each other, eventually proving their innocence. Reception. Critical response. The film received a mediocre reception. The film was described as having a weaker climax than some of the earlier action sequences although was praised for its scenery in Switzerland and northwestern India. Suparn Verma of Rediff.com described Devgan as "effective" but disapproved of Koirala's performance, believing it was wasted.Verma noted a similarity with that of "Soldier" in that there is a troubled hero, a great many red herrings and a mysterious villain who pulls all the strings but believed that "Kachche Dhaage" was a weaker film because it lacked the pace and focus. Box office. The film was an "average" success grossing Rupees 69,00,00,000 at the box office. Soundtrack. The soundtrack, which featured a number of Punjabi folk tunes, proved popular amongst non Hindi audiences of the film.The music was composed by Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, Lyrics by Anand Bakshi
501394	Louis Mustillo (born May 28, 1958) is an American actor. Mustillo was born in Buffalo, New York. He has guest starred in more than 50 episodes of television and appeared in over 20 films. He was a series regular on Man of the People with James Garner. He also played Russell Topps for two seasons on DreamWorks first hour-long drama, High Incident (executive producer, Steven Spielberg). He had a recurring role on The Sopranos as a mafia-associated landscaping business owner, Salvatore "Sal" Vitro. He appeared in The Narrows; and he played sports writer Maury Allen on the ESPN mini-series The Bronx is Burning. Lou also wrote and starred in "Bartenders" a one man show that ran for a year at the John Houseman Theatre in New York City.
1063688	Anthony D. Mackie (born September 23, 1978) is an American actor. He has been featured in feature films, television series, and Broadway and Off-Broadway plays, including "Ma Rainey's Black Bottom", "Drowning Crow", "McReele", "A Soldier's Play", and Carl Hancock Rux's "Talk", for which he won an Obie Award in 2002. In 2002, he was featured in Eminem's debut film, "8 Mile," playing Papa Doc, a member of Leaders of the Free World. He was nominated for Independent Spirit Award for Best Actor for his role in "Brother to Brother". His second nomination was for Best Supporting Actor at the 2009 Independent Spirit Awards for his role in "The Hurt Locker". Early life. Mackie was born in New Orleans, Louisiana, the son of Martha (née Gordon) and Willie Mackie, Sr., a carpenter who owned a roofing business, Mackie Roofing. He attended the New Orleans Center for Creative Arts (NOCCA) and graduated from the high school drama program at the North Carolina School of the Arts (NCSA) in 1997. He later graduated from the Juilliard School's Drama Division as a member of "Group 30" (1997–2001), which also included actors Tracie Thoms and Lee Pace. Career. In 2002, Mackie worked as an understudy to Don Cheadle in Suzan-Lori Parks' play "Topdog/Underdog" and won an OBIE Award for his role in Carl Hancock Rux's play "Talk". His first starring role in a feature film was in the 2003 independent film "Brother to Brother", where he played Perry, a young African-American artist who struggles to adjust to the world as a black homosexual. He appeared in the 2002 film "8 Mile", as Papa Doc, Eminem's nemesis. Mackie would later go on to star as a man who struggles to adjust to the world he's created after becoming a corporate whistleblower and later starting a business impregnating lesbians for a fee in Spike Lee's 2004 film "She Hate Me". Mackie portrayed the rapper Tupac Shakur in the 2009 film "Notorious". He first played Shakur on Off-Off Broadway (while still at Juilliard) in 2001 in the play "Up Against the Wind", which also featured his classmate Thoms. Other films in the works include biopics of Olympian Jesse Owens, Antebellum slave revolt leader Nat Turner, and cornetist and jazz musician Buddy Bolden. In March 2008, Mackie starred in three plays by playwright August Wilson at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in the Washington DC: "Ma Rainey's Black Bottom", "Fences", and "Jitney" – all part of "August Wilson's 20th Century", a month-long presentation of ten staged readings of Wilson's "Century Cycle". Mackie has participated several times in the "24-Hour Plays" held in New York City each fall.
1161280	Iron Eyes Cody (born Espera Oscar de Corti April 3, 1904 – January 4, 1999) was an American actor. He impersonated Native Americans in Hollywood films. In 1996, his Italian ancestry was confirmed by his half-sister. Early life. Cody was born Espera Oscar de Corti on April 3, 1904, in Kaplan in Vermilion Parish, in southwestern Louisiana, a second son of Antonio de Corti and his wife, Francesca Salpietra, immigrants from Sicily. He had two brothers, Joseph and Frank, and a sister, Victoria. His parents had a local grocery store in Gueydan, Louisiana, where he grew up. His father left the family and moved to Texas, where he took the name Tony Corti. His mother married Alton Abshire and had five more children with him. When the three de Corti brothers were teenagers, they joined their father in Texas and shortened their last name to Corti. They moved on to California, where they were acting in movies, and changed their surname to Cody. Joseph William and Frank Henry Cody worked as extras, then moved on to other work. Frank was killed by a hit-and-run driver in 1949. The boys' father, Tony Corti, died in Texas in 1924. Career. Cody began acting in the early 1930s. He worked in film and television until his death. Like many other Native impersonators, Cody claimed Cherokee-Cree ancestry, also naming several other tribes and frequently changed his place of birth. He appeared to live as if he were of indigenous Native American descent, on and off the screen, and was said to have supported Native American causes. He appeared in more than 200 films, including "The Big Trail" (1930), with John Wayne; "The Scarlet Letter" (1934), with Colleen Moore; "Sitting Bull" (1954), as Crazy Horse; "The Light in the Forest" (1958) as Cuyloga; "The Great Sioux Massacre" (1965), with Joseph Cotten; "Nevada Smith" (1966), with Steve McQueen; "A Man Called Horse" (1970), with Richard Harris; and "Ernest Goes to Camp" (1987), as Chief St. Cloud.
1017679	Dragon Fight (龍在天涯, pinyin: Long zai tian ya) is a 1989 Hong Kong action film directed by Billy Tang Hin-Shing, written by James Yuen (screenplay) and Sally Nichols, and starring Jet Li and Stephen Chow. The movie was shot on location in San Francisco, California and neighboring Marin County. An early geography-defying scene is edited to make it seem as if there is a major airport in downtown San Francisco.
1033926	Margaret Rose "Peggy" Mount, OBE (2 May 1915 – 13 November 2001), was an English actress of stage and screen. She was perhaps best known for playing battleaxe characters, though her real personality was said to have been far removed from such roles. She was also well known for her distinctive voice. Early life. Mount was born in Leigh-on-Sea, Essex. Her love of acting had begun with the dramatic society of the Wesleyan chapel which she attended in Essex. She first worked as a secretary and took lessons from a drama tutor, Phyllis Reader, in her spare time. She progressed through amateur theatre and wartime concert party productions, and in 1944 played her first straight part, in "Hindle Wakes" at the Hippodrome, Keighley, before joining the Harry Hanson Court Players for three years, then working in repertory theatre in Colchester, Preston, Dundee, Wolverhampton and Liverpool. Career. Mount shot to fame in London's West End playing the battleaxe mother-in-law Emma Hornett in "Sailor Beware" in 1955, having originated the role at Worthing Rep. She made her film début in the screen version of "Sailor Beware!" a year later. Mount is also known for her many roles in television comedy programmes. In 1958, she appeared as a landlady in "The Adventures Of Mr. Pastry", and in the same year landed her first starring television role in "The Larkins", an early ITV comedy series featuring David Kossoff and Peggy Mount as a Cockney couple, Alf and Ada Larkins, and their family. In 1961-62, Mount appeared in another ITV sitcom called "Winning Widows", opposite Avice Landon, as two sisters who have each survived three husbands. She followed that from 1966 to 1968 with "George and the Dragon", a sitcom also featuring Sid James and John Le Mesurier. From 1971 to 1972 she starred in "Lollipop Loves Mr Mole" with Hugh Lloyd and Pat Coombs. Between 1977 and 1981, she starred in the Yorkshire Television sitcom "You're Only Young Twice", as the forthright Flora Petty who often bullied her friend Cissie Lupin (played by Pat Coombs). Her other films included "The Naked Truth" alongside Terry-Thomas and Peter Sellers in 1957, and "Ladies Who Do" alongside Harry H. Corbett, Jon Pertwee and Robert Morley in 1963. She also played Mrs Bumble in the 1968 film of the musical "Oliver!". Stage work. However, Mount's career flourished most on stage. In 1960, she went to London's Old Vic as the Nurse to Judi Dench's Juliet, also appearing there in the play "All Things Bright and Beautiful". In the West End she was another dreadful battleaxe in J. B. Priestley's "When We Are Married" in 1970. For the next four years she toured, notably as Mrs Malaprop in "The Rivals". At Birmingham Rep in 1977 she was a memorable "Mother Courage" and appeared in the Ben Travers farces "Plunder" and "Rookery Nook". In the 1980s, she worked with the Royal Shakespeare Company at Stratford-upon-Avon and the Barbican Centre, and made her final stage appearance in 1996 at the Chichester Festival Theatre in "Uncle Vanya" with Trevor Eve, Imogen Stubbs and Frances Barber. Later years. Mount later appeared on television in programmes such as "Doctor Who" (in "The Greatest Show in the Galaxy" in 1988), "The Tomorrow People" (in which she played the cameo role of Mrs Butterworth in the second episode of the 1994 story "The Monsoon Man") and "Inspector Morse" ("Fat Chance"). Mount also appeared in the 1991 "T-Bag" Christmas special, "T-Bag's Christmas Turkey". She was awarded an OBE in 1995. She also appeared in several radio plays for the BBC. In 1985, she performed as the medium Madame Arcati in Noël Coward's "Blithe Spirit", on Radio 4. In her later years, she lost her sight and suffered a series of strokes, forcing her to retire. She died at Denville Hall, the actors' retirement home in North London
1288827	David Bradley (born 27 September 1953), now professionally known as Dai Bradley, is an English actor who became well known for his first time role of Billy Casper in the critically acclaimed 1968 film "Kes", directed by Ken Loach. "Kes". David Bradley was born in the hamlet of Stubbs, near Barnsley, South Yorkshire. By his own account, he had an unremarkable childhood, and was not involved in any acting apart from amateur Christmas pantos. At the age of 14, he won the part of Billy Casper in "Kes". Bradley has said that the making of the film was a happy one. The cast was "like one huge family" and he spent much of his time playing with the other young boys who appeared in the film. One of his less happy memories is of the football scene. Several thousand gallons of water had been pumped onto the field to create mud. But although it was mid-August, it was one of the coldest August days on record, and Bradley and the other cast members were intensely cold throughout the day-long shoot. Bradley spent several hours after each day's filming training with the three kestrels used in the film. One of the birds didn't take to the training though and was reintroduced to the wild as soon as possible. Bradley says that he was told director Ken Loach would have to kill one of the remaining birds for the final scene. Bradley was deeply upset by this revelation, and his emotional response in the film's final scenes are indicative of how angry and depressed he was. Bradley told an interviewer that after shooting for these scenes ended, he rushed to the local farm where the kestrels were kept. He discovered that no birds had been killed after all (the filmmakers had used a kestrel which had died of natural causes). He received BAFTA's Award for Best Newcomer for his role. The film required extensive time training the two kestrels used for the film. One critic called Bradley's performance "one of the great adolescent portraits in cinema, joining the likes of Jean-Pierre Leaud in "The 400 Blows"..." Bradley left school at the age of 17. He moved to London and began training as an actor with the Royal National Theatre. In time, he worked with Anthony Hopkins, Joan Plowright and Derek Jacobi. Bradley changed his first name to Dai when Equity, the actors' union, already had an actor by that name on their books. Post-"Kes" career. While he did not receive the same positive reviews for his subsequent film performances as he did for "Kes", Bradley received solid reviews for his theatre acting. He was cast as Alan in the play "Equus" in the mid-1970s. The production embarked on a two-and-a-half year worldwide tour. In the United States, he starred with Anthony Perkins, and won standing ovations. Though he was offered the opportunity to take over the role in the Broadway production, he returned to his home in England. After "Kes" was released in 1970, Bradley joined the cast of the children's television programme "The Flaxton Boys" as Peter Weekes in series two, and starred as Terry Connor in the children's adventure serial, "The Jensen Code" in 1973. He also had guest roles in episodes of popular, established drama series such as "Z Cars" and "A Family At War". Bradley played notable roles in several films (including the 1979 "Zulu" prequel" Zulu Dawn") in the 1970s, but by the early 1980s, his film career had largely ended. Although, he was originally considered for the part of Neville Hope in Auf Wiedersehen Pet, for much of the rest of the decade he worked as a carpenter and renovator after the part went to Kevin Whately. He also became an adherent of the teachings of Jiddu Krishnamurti. He embarked on several other unsuccessful projects as well: a board game, a television series focused on high-stakes backgammon, and a film about medical ethics. In 1999, he began writing a children's novel. In 1999, when "Kes" was re-released in cinemas for the film's 30th anniversary, Bradley made hundreds of appearances in the United Kingdom with the film's other surviving cast members. In 2003, Bradley appeared as the Catholic priest Father Michael in the critically acclaimed independent film "Asylum." and returned to the big screen alongside Jason Statham in 2013's Hummingbird.
1163156	Betty Hutton (February 26, 1921 – March 11, 2007) was an American stage, film, and television actress, comedienne and singer. Early life. Hutton was born Elizabeth June Thornburg in Battle Creek, Michigan. She was the daughter of a railroad foreman, Percy E. Thornburg (1896–1939) and his wife, Mabel Lum (1901–1967). While she was very young, her father abandoned the family for another woman. They did not hear of him again until they received a telegram in 1939, informing them of his suicide. Along with her older sister Marion, Betty was raised by her mother, who took the surname Hutton and was later billed as the actress Sissy Jones. The three started singing in the family's speakeasy when Betty was 3 years old. Troubles with the police kept the family on the move. They eventually landed in Detroit, Michigan. (On one occasion, when Betty, preceded by a police escort, arrived at the premiere of "Let's Dance" (1950), her mother, arriving with her, quipped, "At least this time the police are in front of us!") Hutton sang in several local bands as a teenager, and at one point visited New York City hoping to perform on Broadway, where she was rejected. A few years later, she was scouted by orchestra leader Vincent Lopez, who gave Hutton her entry into the entertainment business. In 1939 she appeared in several musical shorts for Warner Bros., and appeared in a supporting role on Broadway in "Panama Hattie" (starring Ethel Merman) and "Two for the Show", both produced by Buddy DeSylva. Career. When DeSylva became a producer at Paramount Pictures, Hutton was signed to a featured role in "The Fleet's In" (1942), starring Paramount's number one female star Dorothy Lamour. Hutton was an instant hit with the movie-going public. Paramount did not immediately promote her to major stardom, however, but did give her second leads in a Mary Martin film musical, "Star Spangled Rhythm" (1943), and another Lamour film. In 1943 she was given co-star billing with Bob Hope in "Let's Face It" and with the release of "The Miracle of Morgan's Creek" the following year, Hutton attained major stardom. By the time "Incendiary Blonde" was released in 1945, she had supplanted Lamour as Paramount's number one female box office attraction. Hutton made 19 films from 1942 to 1952 including the hugely popular "The Perils of Pauline" in 1947. She was billed above Fred Astaire in the 1950 musical "Let's Dance". Hutton's greatest screen triumph came in "Annie Get Your Gun" (1950) for MGM, which hired her to replace an exhausted Judy Garland in the role of Annie Oakley. The film, with the leading role retooled for Hutton, was a smash hit, with the biggest critical praise going to Hutton. (Her obituary in The New York Times described her as "a brassy, energetic performer with a voice that could sound like a fire alarm.") Among her lesser known roles was an unbilled cameo in "Sailor Beware" (1952) with Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis, in which she portrayed Dean's girlfriend, Hetty Button. In 1944, she signed a recording contract with Capitol Records (she was one of the earliest artists to do so). Later she became disillusioned with Capitol's management and moved to RCA Victor. Her career as a Hollywood star ended due to a contract dispute with Paramount following the Oscar-winning "The Greatest Show on Earth" (1952) and "Somebody Loves Me" (1952), a biography of singer Blossom Seeley. The New York Times reported that the dispute resulted from her insistence that her husband at the time, Charles O'Curran, direct her next film. When the studio declined, Hutton broke her contract. Hutton's last completed film was a small one, "Spring Reunion", released in 1957, a drama in which she gave an understated, sensitive performance. Unfortunately, box office receipts indicated the public did not want to see a subdued Hutton. Hutton got work in radio, appeared in Las Vegas and in nightclubs, then tried her luck in the new medium of television. In 1954, TV producer Max Liebman, of "Your Show of Shows", fashioned his first "Color Spectacular" as an original musical written especially for Hutton, "Satins and Spurs". It was an enormous flop with the public and the critics, despite being one of the first programs televised nationally by NBC in compatible color. In 1957, she appeared on a Dinah Shore show on NBC that also featured Boris Karloff; the program has been preserved on a kinescope. Desilu Productions took a chance on Hutton in 1959, giving her a sitcom, "The Betty Hutton Show", directed by Jerry Fielding. It quickly faded. Hutton began headlining in Las Vegas and touring across the country. She returned to Broadway briefly in 1964 when she temporarily replaced a hospitalized Carol Burnett in the show "Fade Out – Fade In". In 1967 she was signed to star in two low-budget westerns for Paramount, but was fired shortly after the projects began. In the 1970s she portrayed Miss Hannigan in the original Broadway production of "Annie" while Alice Ghostley was on vacation. Marriages and Children. Hutton's first marriage was to camera manufacturer Ted Briskin on September 3, 1945. The marriage ended in divorce in 1950. Two daughters were born to the couple Hutton's second marriage in 1952 was to choreographer Charles O'Curran. They divorced in 1955. He died in 1984. She married for the third time in 1955. Husband Alan W. Livingston, an executive with Capitol Records, was the creator of Bozo the Clown. They divorced five years later, although some accounts refer to the union as a nine-month marriage. Her fourth and final marriage in 1960 was to jazz trumpeter Pete Candoli, a brother of Conte Candoli. Hutton and Candoli had one child They divorced in 1962. Life after Hollywood. After the 1967 death of her mother in a house fire and the collapse of her last marriage, Hutton's depression and pill addictions escalated. She divorced her fourth husband, jazz trumpeter Pete Candoli, and declared bankruptcy. Hutton had a nervous breakdown and later attempted suicide after losing her singing voice in 1970. After regaining control of her life through rehab, and the mentorship of a Roman Catholic priest, Father Peter Maguire, Hutton converted to Roman Catholicism and took a job as a cook at a rectory in Portsmouth, Rhode Island. She made national headlines when it was revealed she was working in a rectory. In 1974, a well-publicized "Love-In for Betty Hutton" was held at New York City's Riverboat Restaurant, emceed by comedian Joey Adams, with several old Hollywood pals on hand. The event raised $10,000 (USD) for Hutton and gave her spirits a big boost. Steady work, unfortunately, still eluded her. Hutton appeared in an interview with Mike Douglas and a brief guest appearance in 1975 on "Baretta". In 1977, Hutton was featured on "The Phil Donahue Show". Hutton was then happily employed as hostess at a Newport, Rhode Island jai alai arena. She also appeared on Good Morning America, which led to a 1978 televised reunion with her two daughters. Hutton began living in a shared home with her divorced daughter and grandchildren in California, but returned to the East Coast for a three-week return to the stage. She followed Dorothy Loudon as the evil Miss Hannigan in "Annie" on Broadway in 1980. Hutton's rehearsal of the song "Little Girls" was featured on "Good Morning America". A ninth grade drop-out, Hutton went back to school and earned a Master's Degree in psychology from Salve Regina University. During her time at college, Hutton became friends with Kristin Hersh and attended several early Throwing Muses concerts. Hersh would later write the song "Elizabeth June" as a tribute to her friend, and wrote about their relationship in further detail in her memoir, "Rat Girl". Her last known performance, in any medium, was on "Jukebox Saturday Night," which aired on PBS in 1983. Hutton stayed in New England and began teaching comedic acting at Boston's Emerson College. She became estranged again from her daughters. After the death of her ally, Father Maguire, Hutton returned to California, moving to Palm Springs in 1999, after decades in New England. Hutton hoped to grow closer with her daughters and grandchildren, as she told Robert Osborne on TCM's "Private Screenings" in April 2000, though her children remained distant. She told Osborne that she understood their hesitancy to accept a now elderly mother. The TCM interview first aired on July 18, 2000. The program was rerun as a memorial on the evening of her death in 2007, and again on July 11, 2008, April 14, 2009, and as recently as January 26, 2010. Death. Hutton lived in Palm Springs, California until her death, at 86, from colon cancer complications. Hutton is buried at Desert Memorial Park in Cathedral City, California. None of her three daughters attended the funeral. For her contribution to the motion picture industry, Betty Hutton has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame located at 6253 Hollywood Boulevard.
1099754	Abraham Wald (Hungarian: "Wald Ábrahám",  – ) was a mathematician born in Cluj, in the then Austria–Hungary (present-day Romania) who contributed to decision theory, geometry, and econometrics, and founded the field of statistical sequential analysis. He spent his researching years at Columbia University. Life and career. Being a religious Jew, he could not attend school on Saturdays, as was required at the time by the Hungarian school system, and was thus home-schooled by his parents until college. His parents were quite knowledgeable and competent as teachers. In 1927, he entered graduate school at the University of Vienna, from which he graduated in 1931 with a Ph.D. in mathematics. His advisor there was Karl Menger. Despite Wald's brilliance, he could not obtain a university position, because of Austrian discrimination against Jews. However, Oskar Morgenstern created a position for Wald in economics. When the Nazis invaded Austria in 1938, the discrimination against Jews intensified. In particular, Wald and his family were persecuted as Jews. Wald was able to immigrate to the United States, at the invitation of the Cowles Commission for Research in Economics, to work on econometrics research. Wald applied his statistical skills in World War II to the problem of bomber losses to enemy fire. A study had been made of the damage to returning aircraft and it had been proposed that armor be added to those areas that showed the most damage. Wald's unique insight was that the holes from flak and bullets on the bombers that did return represented the areas where they were able to take damage. The data showed that there were similar patches on each returning bomber where there was no damage from enemy fire, leading Wald to conclude that these patches were the weak spots that led to the loss of a plane if hit, and that must be reinforced. This is still considered today seminal work in the then-fledgling discipline of operational research. Wald and his wife died in an airplane crash in the Nilgiri mountains, in southern India, while on an extensive lecture tour at the invitation of the Indian government. Following his death, Wald was attacked by Sir Ronald A. Fisher FRS. Fisher attacked Wald for being a mathematician without scientific experience who had written an incompetent book on statistics. Fisher particularly criticized Wald's work on the design of experiments, alleging ignorance of the basic ideas of the subject, as set out by Fisher and Frank Yates. Wald's work was defended by Jerzy Neyman in the following year. Neyman explained Wald's work, particularly with respect to the design of experiments. Lucien Le Cam credits in his own book, "Asymptotic Methods in Statistical Decision Theory", "The ideas and techniques used reflect first and foremost the influence of Abraham Wald's writings." Abraham Wald was the father of noted American physicist Robert Wald. Notable publications. For a complete list, see
1057279	The Tuskegee Airmen is a 1995 HBO television movie based on the exploits of an actual groundbreaking unit, the first African American combat pilots in the United States Army Air Corps, that fought in World War II. The film was directed by Robert Markowitz and stars Laurence Fishburne, Cuba Gooding, Jr., John Lithgow, and Malcolm-Jamal Warner. Plot. During World War II, Hannibal Lee (Laurence Fishburne), traveling by train to Tuskegee, Alabama, is joined by other African American men from different backgrounds. At the start of their training, they are met by 2nd Lt. Glenn (Courtney B. Vance), who had joined the Royal Canadian Air Force and was credited with three kills. During training, Lewis Johns (Mekhi Phifer), and his instructor are killed when they fail to recover from a stall. Walter Peoples III (Allen Payne), who already has a pilot's license, performs an unauthorized aerobatic maneuver in order to impress Hannibal, but this results in him being removed from the training program. To avoid going home in disgrace, he commits suicide by deliberately crashing an aircraft.
1100873	Michael Jerome Hopkins (born April 18, 1958) is an American mathematician known for work in algebraic topology. Life. He received his Ph.D. from Northwestern University in 1984 under the direction of Mark Mahowald. In 1984 he also received his D.Phil. from the University of Oxford under the supervision of Ioan James. He has been professor of mathematics at Harvard University since 2005, after fifteen years at MIT, a few years of teaching at Princeton University, a one-year position with the University of Chicago, and a visiting lecturer position at Lehigh University. He gave invited addresses at the 1990 Winter Meeting of the American Mathematical Society in Louisville, Kentucky, and at the 1994 International Congress of Mathematicians in Zurich. He presented the 1994 Everett Pitcher Lectures at Lehigh University, the 2000 Namboodiri Lectures at the University of Chicago, the 2000 Marston Morse Memorial Lectures at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, the 2003 Ritt Lectures at Columbia University and the 2010 Bowen Lectures in Berkeley. In 2001 he was awarded the Oswald Veblen Prize in Geometry from the AMS for his work in homotopy theory and 2012 the NAS Award in Mathematics. Work. Hopkins' work concentrates on algebraic topology, especially stable homotopy theory. It can roughly be divided into four parts (while the list of topics below is by no means exhaustive): The Ravenel conjectures. The Ravenel conjectures very roughly say: complex cobordism (and its variants) see more in the stable homotopy category than you might think. For example, the nilpotence conjecture states that some suspension of some iteration of a map between finite CW-complexes is null-homotopic iff it is zero in complex cobordism. This was proven by Devinatz, Hopkins and Jeff Smith (published in 1988). The rest of the Ravenel conjectures (except for the telescope conjecture) were proven by Hopkins and Smith soon after (published in 1998). Another result in this spirit proven by Hopkins and Ravenel is the chromatic convergence theorem, which states that one can recover a finite CW-complex from its localizations with respect to wedges of Morava K-theories. Hopkins–Miller theorem and topological modular forms. This part of work is about refining a homotopy commutative diagram of ring spectra up to homotopy to a strictly commutative diagram of highly structured ring spectra. The first success of this program was the Hopkins–Miller theorem: It is about the action of the Morava stabilizer group on Lubin–Tate spectra (arising out of the deformation theory of formal group laws) and its refinement to formula_1-ring spectra – this allowed to take homotopy fixed points of finite subgroups of the Morava stabilizer groups, which led to higher real K-theories. Together with Paul Goerss, Hopkins later set up a systematic obstruction theory for refinements to formula_2-ring spectra. This was later used in the Hopkins–Miller construction of topological modular forms. Subsequent work of Hopkins on this topic includes papers on the question of the orientability of TMF with respect to string cobordism (joint work with Ando, Strickland and Rezk). The Kervaire invariant problem. On 21 April 2009, Hopkins announced the solution of the Kervaire invariant problem, in joint work with Mike Hill and Douglas Ravenel. This problem is connected to the study of exotic spheres, but got transformed by work of William Browder into a problem in stable homotopy theory. The proof by Hill, Hopkins and Ravenel works purely in the stable homotopy setting and uses equivariant homotopy theory in a crucial way. Work connected to geometry/physics. This includes papers on smooth and twisted K-theory and its relationship to loop groups and also work about (extended) topological field theories, joint with Daniel Freed, Jacob Lurie and Constantin Teleman.
1065145	Kristanna Sommer Loken (born October 8, 1979) is an American model and actress. She is best known for her roles in "", "BloodRayne", and "Painkiller Jane". Early life. Loken was born in Ghent, New York, the daughter of Rande (née Porath), a model, and Merlin "Chris" Loken, a writer and apple farmer. She is of Norwegian and German ancestry. Her parents were from Wisconsin. She grew up on her parents' fruit farm in Upstate New York. She has a sister named Tanya. Career. After her mother encouraged her to become a model, Loken participated at the 1994 Elite Model Look in which she placed 3rd runner-up. Loken started her acting career in 1994, playing "Danielle 'Dani' Andropoulos #3" on an episode of "As The World Turns", and she appeared in several television shows and films, including regular appearances on the television shows "Philly", "Unhappily Ever After", and "Boy Meets World".
1063944	Jenifer Jeanette Lewis (born January 25, 1957) is an American film and television actress and singer. Early life. Lewis was born in Kinloch, Missouri, to a nurse's aide mother and a factory worker father. She attended Kinloch High School and then college at Webster University in Webster Groves, Missouri. Soon after she arrived in New York City, Lewis debuted on Broadway in a small role in "Eubie" (1979), the musical based on the work of Eubie Blake. She next landed the role of Effie White in the workshop of the Michael Bennett-directed musical "Dreamgirls", but when the show moved to Broadway, Bennett chose Jennifer Holliday for the role. Lewis accepted a position as a Harlette, a back-up singer for Bette Midler which led to Lewis' first TV appearances on Midler's HBO specials. She also landed her first screen role as a result, appearing as one of the buxom chorines in the 'Otto Titsling' production number in the Midler vehicle "Beaches" (1988). At the same time, Lewis was developing her nightclub act, "The Diva Is Dismissed", an autobiographical comedy and music show in New York City cabarets. She performed the show off-Broadway at the Public Theater. Career. In 1987, Lewis was hired as the Pre-Show announcer on the Star Tours ride at Disneyland. In 1988, Lewis relocated to Los Angeles. In 1992, she was cast as one of the back-up singers to Whoopi Goldberg in "Sister Act". Goldberg sponsored several performances of "The Diva Is Dismissed" as a possible HBO series. In 1992 to 1993, she played Dean Davenport in the sixth and final season of "A Different World". She also had a recurring role as Will Smith's Aunt Helen on "The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air", as well as stints on a few episodes of "In Living Color", reprising several of her characters from her nightclub act. Also in 1993, she played the mother of Tupac Shakur's character in "Poetic Justice". In 1993 she played the role of Tina Turner’s mother in the biopic What's Love Got to Do with It (film). In 1994, she followed with other supporting roles, including Mrs. Coleman the Unemployment Office lady in "Renaissance Man" and as Whoopi Goldberg's sister in "Corrina, Corrina". In 1995, she was cast in maternal roles to Kadeem Hardison in "Panther" and to Larenz Tate in "Dead Presidents" before she accepted the role of a lesbian judge on the short-lived CBS series "Courthouse". Lewis returned to the big screen as Theresa Randle's telephone sex line boss in Spike Lee's "Girl 6". She then played Whitney Houston's character's mother in Penny Marshall's "The Preacher's Wife". In 1999, she starred in the made-for-TV film "Jackie's Back", a mockumentary about the struggling comeback of a diva in turmoil. She recently appeared in "The Cookout", "Nora's Hair Salon", "Shark Tale" and "Cars". She was in a few episodes of "Friends" as Monica Gellar's co-worker. Beginning in 2000, she played Lana Hawkins on the Lifetime television medical drama "Strong Medicine", until the show ended in February 2006. She also had a recurring role as Veretta Childs (Toni's mother) in the sitcom "Girlfriends". In 2006, she had a featured role as the wedding planner in Tyler Perry's "Madea's Family Reunion", and also appeared in the film "Meet the Browns". In one episode of "That's So Raven" she played the titular character's maternal grandmother, who has psychic powers. She recently starred as a judge in "Boston Legal" and appeared in the 2008 film "Meet the Browns". On April 22, 2008, Lewis replaced Darlene Love as Motormouth Maybelle in Broadway's "Hairspray", a role that was originally written for her. In June 2010, Lewis' distinctive voice was in fine form as she told The Jazz Joy and Roy syndicated radio show, "I just did a production of 'Hello Dolly' at the 5th Avenue Theatre in Seattle and it had to be one of the greatest productions that I have ever done, because I got to just do a character, Dolly Levi, and it was just great." In 2012 Lewis began working with Shangela on the online reality show parody, "Jenifer Lewis and Shangela," where she acts as herself alongside Shangela, a "drag queen living in her basement." She later appeared in Shangela's music video for "Werqin Girl (Professional)." Singing. Lewis has performed for many years on Broadway and has lent her vocals to many of the television and film projects that she has been a part of including the theme song for her most recognizable role, "Strong Medicine". Lewis' most recent singing role came with her role in the movie musical "The Princess and the Frog".
587383	Kaadhal Mannan (; ) is a 1998 Tamil romantic film directed by Saran, which features Ajith Kumar and Maanu in the lead roles. The film also saw prominent music composer M. S. Viswanathan make his debut in a supporting role, whilst Vivek, Karan and Girish Karnad also played other roles. The film, which had music composed by Bharathwaj, was released in March 1998 to positive reviews. Plot. Rudra (Girish Karnad), a very strict disciplinarian father of two daughters, hates the word 'Love'. The very mention of this word makes him punish himself to unimaginable heights. He disowns his elder daughter Menaka because she elopes with her lover. The strictness is doubled for the younger daughter Tilottama (Maanu) and a marriage alliance is fixed for her. She stoically accepts her father's decision till she meets a local mechanic Shiva (Ajith). Both hopelessly fall in love with each other. Tilottama is unable to reveal her love to Shiva and to her father, as she fears the consequences. Are the lovers able to declare their love for each other and get united? Does Rudra take to it kindly? Production. Saran describes that he "was wondering what would happen if a girl, who is engaged to a particular person, falls in love with someone else" and this formed the basis of his plot for the film. The film saw veteran music composer M. S. Viswanathan make his acting debut in a supporting role, whilst the lead actress Maanu from Assam and music composer Bharathwaj also debuted. The film's soundtrack gained rave review prior to release. Viswanathan had initially waded away the approach but actor Vivek later convinced him to partake in the film. Release. The film won positive reviews from critics, with a reviewer praising the film for tackling a taboo subject. The critic claimed that Ajith Kumar "was back at his best", whilst also crediting success to Bharathwaj's soundtrack. The film was commercial success at the box office as it released during a period of crisis in the film industry where the FEFSI strikes were ongoing. Still, it ran for 150 days and re-established Ajith Kumar's market after a string of failures. Soundtrack. The soundtrack of the film was composed by Bharathwaj, was well received by the audience.
899059	Il bidone ( and The Swindlers) is a 1955 Italian film directed by Federico Fellini. It features Broderick Crawford, Richard Basehart and Giulietta Masina. Released one year after the director's internationally successful "La strada", "Il bidone" continues with many of the same socially conscious, neorealist-inspired themes while minimizing the poetic realism and extravagant vitality that is today is known as "felliniesque" in favor of a more pointed political stance. Plot. The film follows the exploits of a group of swindlers, focusing on their aging leader Augusto, as they go about their "business," reaping both rewards and consequences.
743783	Michael Moriarty (born April 5, 1941) is an American-Canadian stage and screen actor, and a jazz musician. He played Benjamin Stone for four seasons in the TV series "Law & Order." Early life. Moriarty, an Irish American was born in Detroit, Michigan the son of Elinor (née Paul) and George Moriarty, a General Medical Surgeon who also operated on Detroit Policemen, His grandfather, George Moriarty, was a third baseman, umpire and manager in the major leagues for nearly 40 years. Moriarty attended middle school at Cranbrook School in Bloomfield Hills before transferring to the University of Detroit Jesuit High School for high school. He then matriculated at Dartmouth College in the class of 1963, where he was a theatre college major. After receiving his degree, he left for London, England, where he enrolled in the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art, after receiving a Fulbright Scholarship. Acting career. In 1973, Moriarty was cast as the egocentric Henry Wiggen in "Bang the Drum Slowly", a film about the unlikely friendship between two baseball teammates – the second being Robert De Niro, a slow thinking catcher who becomes terminally ill. In the same year, Moriarty starred in a TV movie adaptation of Tennessee Williams' "The Glass Menagerie" with Katharine Hepburn. Coincidentally, the film also featured Sam Waterston, who later replaced Moriarty as the Executive Assistant District Attorney on "Law & Order". Moriarty's role in "Menagerie" (as "Jim," the Gentleman Caller; Waterston played the son "Tom") won him an Emmy Award for Best Supporting Actor of the Year. In 1974, Moriarty starred as rookie detective Bo Lockley in the acclaimed gritty police drama "Report to the Commissioner". Moriarty won a Tony Award in 1974 for his work in "Find Your Way Home". His career on the screen was slow to develop, while his theatre career was flourishing. He starred as a German SS officer in the television miniseries "Holocaust", which earned him another Emmy. Through the 1980s, Moriarty starred in such Larry Cohen movies as "Q", "The Stuff", "It's Alive III: Island of the Alive", and "A Return to Salem's Lot" (much later, he appeared in Cohen's "Masters of Horror" episode "Pick Me Up"), as well as Clint Eastwood's "Pale Rider" and "The Hanoi Hilton". In 1986, he starred in the fantasy science fiction movie "Troll", playing the role of Harry Potter Sr. (unrelated to the 2001 Harry Potter series.) From 1990 to 1994, Moriarty starred as Ben Stone on "Law & Order". He left the show in 1994, alleging that his departure was a result of his threatening a lawsuit against then-Attorney General Janet Reno, who had cited "Law & Order" as offensively violent. Moriarty criticized Reno's comment, and claimed that not only did she want to censor shows like "Law & Order" but also such fare as "Murder, She Wrote". He later accused "Law & Order" executive producer Dick Wolf of not taking his concerns seriously, and claimed that Wolf and other network executives were "caving in" to Reno's "demands" on the issue of TV violence. On September 20, 1994 on "The Howard Stern Show", he made an offer to NBC, claiming that he would return to his role on the show if Dick Wolf was fired. Moriarty published a full-page advertisement in a Hollywood trade magazine, calling upon fellow artists to stand up with him against attempts to censor TV show content. He subsequently wrote and published "The Gift of Stern Angels", his account of this time in his life. Wolf and others working on "Law & Order" tell a different story, however. On November 18, 1993, Moriarty and Wolf, along with other television executives, met with Reno to dissuade her from supporting any law that would censor the show. Wolf said that Moriarty overreacted to any effect the law was likely to have on the show. "Law & Order" producers claim they were forced to remove Moriarty from the series because of "erratic behavior", an example of which reportedly happened during the filming of the episode "Breeder" when, according to the episode's director, Arthur Forney, Moriarty was unable to deliver his lines with a straight face. Series and network officials deny any connection between his departure and Janet Reno. Wolf also denies that the show has become less violent, graphic or controversial since 1994. Moriarty acted in "The Last Detail", "Courage Under Fire", "Along Came a Spider", "Shiloh", "Emily of New Moon" and "James Dean", for which he won his third Emmy. In 2007 he debuted his first feature-length film as screenwriter and performed the role of a man who thinks he is Adolf Hitler in "Hitler Meets Christ". Musical career. In addition to his acting career, Moriarty is a semi-professional jazz pianist and singer, as well as a classical composer. He has recorded three jazz albums (though the first, "Reaching Out", went unreleased), and has performed live regularly in both New York and Vancouver, with a jazz trio and quintet. In a 1990 concert review, "New York Times" reviewer Stephen Holden called Moriarty "a jazz pianist of considerable skill, an oddball singer with more than one vocal personality, and a writer of eccentric, jivey jazz songs". Politics. Moriarty is politically active, describing himself as a "centrist", and sometimes as a "realist". He has written extensively on his opposition to abortion. In response to a 2006 interview question as to what the most pressing issue facing the United States was, he stated:
1627748	The Bridge to Nowhere is an independent 2009 crime drama written by Christopher Gutierrez, directed by Blair Underwood in his directorial debut. Plot. Kevin, Brian, Chris, Darick and Eddie are childhood friends from a working-class neighborhood in Pittsburgh. They are in their mid-20s and working low paid blue collar jobs and occasional small criminal offenses like selling marijuana or illegally providing liquor for parties. Brian convinces all but Eddie to start making money by pandering. They start with two girls, Jasper and Sienna, and the business eventually expands to five girls. They find a drug dealer, Nate, to supply cocaine, first for the girls, and then for their 'johns' as well. As the business succeeds, Nate's price gets more expensive. As their fortunes grow and the affluent lifestyle affects Brian, he eventually gets addicted to the drug, even though Nate had warned them all not to "partake in the product".
1061757	William "Bill" Paxton (born May 17, 1955) is an American actor and film director. He gained popularity after starring roles in the films "Apollo 13", "Weird Science", "Twister", "Aliens", "True Lies", and "Titanic". Paxton starred in the HBO series "Big Love" (2006â2011) and was nominated for an Emmy Award for the miniseries "Hatfields & McCoys". Early life. Paxton was born and raised in Fort Worth, Texas, the son of Mary Lou (nĂŠe Gray) and John Lane Paxton, a businessman, lumber wholesaler, museum executive, and occasional actor. He was raised Roman Catholic, his mother's religion. Paxton was in the crowd waving when President John F. Kennedy emerged from the Hotel Texas in Fort Worth, on the morning of his assassination, November 22, 1963. There are pictures at the Sixth Floor Museum in Dallas where 8-year-old Paxton can be seen astride his father's shoulders. Career. Paxton has appeared in such films as "Weird Science", "Aliens", "Apollo 13", "Near Dark", "Twister", "Titanic", "One False Move" and "True Lies". Four years after appearing in "Titanic", he joined James Cameron on an expedition to the actual Titanic. A film about this trip, "Ghosts of the Abyss", was released in 2003. Paxton has also directed a number of short films, including "Fish Heads", which aired during Saturday Night Live's low-rated 1980-1981 season. He directed the feature films "Frailty" and "The Greatest Game Ever Played".
1151789	Melanie Deanne Paxson (née Moore; born September 26, 1972) is an American actress. She is perhaps best known for her roles as Jaclyn in "Cupid", Sara Brennan in "Happy Family" and as Julie in "Notes from the Underbelly". Paxson also appeared in a number of Gladware television commercials in the early 2000s. Life and career. Paxson was born in Champaign, Illinois. She graduated from the University of Missouri with a bachelor's degree in Theatre. She also received training in acting at Second City Chicago and performed with the Steppenwolf Theatre Company. Paxson then pursued a screen career. In 1997, she had an uncredited role in the series "Early Edition". Her first notable screen role was a recurring role as Jaclyn in the ABC series "Cupid" from 1998 to 1999. She went on guest star in the series "The Drew Carey Show", "Quintuplets", "Joey", "Related", "Kitchen Confidential", "", "Surviving Suburbia", "Rules of Engagement", "Medium" and "The Exes".
724841	Ethan Gregory Peck (born March 2, 1986) is an American actor. He is best known for his work in the ABC Family series "10 Things I Hate About You", where he portrayed Patrick Verona, a role originated by Heath Ledger in the film of the same name. Peck is the grandson of the late legendary actor Gregory Peck, and his first wife, Finnish-born Greta Kukkonen. Career. Peck had many star television appearances as a young actor, including playing a younger Michael Kelso in 2 episodes of "That '70s Show". In his first film role, he co-starred in the cable film "Marshal Law" playing Jimmy Smits' son. He appeared in the 1999 movie "Passport to Paris" starring Mary-Kate Olsen and Ashley Olsen.
1102570	In mathematics the Chebyshev polynomials, named after Pafnuty Chebyshev, are a sequence of orthogonal polynomials which are related to de Moivre's formula and which can be defined recursively. One usually distinguishes between Chebyshev polynomials of the first kind which are denoted and Chebyshev polynomials of the second kind which are denoted . The letter T is used because of the alternative transliterations of the name "Chebyshev" as "Tchebycheff", "Tchebyshev" (French) or "Tschebyschow" (German). The Chebyshev polynomials or are polynomials of degree and the sequence of Chebyshev polynomials of either kind composes a polynomial sequence. Chebyshev polynomials are polynomials with the largest possible leading coefficient, but subject to the condition that their absolute value is bounded on the interval by 1. They are also the extremal polynomials for many other properties. Chebyshev polynomials are important in approximation theory because the roots of the Chebyshev polynomials of the first kind, which are also called Chebyshev nodes, are used as nodes in polynomial interpolation. The resulting interpolation polynomial minimizes the problem of Runge's phenomenon and provides an approximation that is close to the polynomial of best approximation to a continuous function under the maximum norm. This approximation leads directly to the method of Clenshaw–Curtis quadrature. In the study of differential equations they arise as the solution to the Chebyshev differential equations and for the polynomials of the first and second kind, respectively. These equations are special cases of the Sturm–Liouville differential equation. Definition. The Chebyshev polynomials of the first kind are defined by the recurrence relation The conventional generating function for "T""n" is The exponential generating function is The generating function relevant for 2-dimensional potential theory and multipole expansion is The Chebyshev polynomials of the second kind are defined by the recurrence relation One example of a generating function for "U""n" is Trigonometric definition. The Chebyshev polynomials of the first kind can be defined as the unique polynomials satisfying or, in other words, as the unique polynomials satisfying for "n" = 0, 1, 2, 3, ... which is a variant (equivalent transpose) of Schröder's equation, viz. "Tn"("x") is functionally conjugate to "nx", codified in
1058369	View from the Top is a 2003 romantic comedy film about a young woman from a small town who sets out to fulfill her dream of becoming a flight attendant. The film was directed by Bruno Barreto, and stars Gwyneth Paltrow, Christina Applegate, and Mark Ruffalo. Plot. Donna Jensen (Gwyneth Paltrow) is a girl from a small town in Nevada who wishes to see the world in order to get away from her unhappy life of living in a trailer with her alcoholic mother, a former Las Vegas showgirl, and her abusive, alcoholic stepfather. After graduating from high school, Donna tries to make ends meet by working as a clerk in a Big Lots. After her boyfriend leaves her for another girl, she goes to a bar where she sees a talkshow segment about Sally Weston, who has written a memoir called "My Life in the Sky," and decides to follow her destiny by becoming a flight attendant. Her first position is at a small, seedy California commuter airline but this success builds her confidence up and encourages her to attend open interviews for Royalty Airlines. She convinces her two co-workers, Sherry and Christine (Kelly Preston and Christina Applegate), to join her. While Christine and Donna get in, Sherry does not. Donna puts her heart and soul into the training camp, and, after meeting her idol Sally Weston (Candice Bergen), she is determined to be assigned to the top route, "Paris, First Class, International". Alas, when the assignments are posted, Donna is shocked to discover that she has been assigned to a commuter route in Cleveland. Christine, who had initially struggled with the material and procedures, has inexplicably been assigned the high-priority New York route. A few months later, by chance, Donna runs into Christine in Cleveland. Donna knows from previous experience that Christine has the airplane soap from Sally's house during their training sessions, but is still shocked when Christine empties her handbag to reveal all manner of Royalty Air items. Even the smallest theft is strictly prohibited by Royalty Airlines, and could mean termination. Still sure there was some sort of error in her route assignment, Donna turns to Sally Weston for help. Through a course of events, Donna discovers that Christine had switched their test booklets when they were being handed up to their trainer - Christine's route assignment is rightfully Donna's, and vice versa. When Sally asks to have airline security spy on Christine's flight - to see if she stole any property (a code blue) - Christine gets caught and is fired from Royalty. Donna gets the chance to re-take her exam and achieves a perfect score, resulting in being assigned a Paris, First Class, International route. However, following her "destiny" means deciding between a boyfriend (Mark Ruffalo) and her career. She chooses her career. Though she gets all that she wants - Paris, first class, etc. - Donna realizes that she is still not happy. She misses her boyfriend in Cleveland terribly, and with Sally Weston's encouragement, she returns to Cleveland to meet him. She does, and after a heartfelt speech to his deaf grandmother, which he overhears, the two kiss and make up. The movie ends with Donna wishing her passengers well as they land in Cleveland, having become a pilot. Release and reception. "View from the Top" opened on March 21, 2003 (it was originally scheduled for Christmas 2001, but in light of the September 11 terrorist attacks and due to the fact that the story revolves around a flight attendant on several planes, the release was pushed back) and grossed $7,009,513 in its opening weekend, making #4 behind "Bringing Down the House", "Dreamcatcher", and "Agent Cody Banks". The film would eventually gross $15,614,000 domestically and $3,912,014 internationally, totaling $19,526,014 worldwide. The film currently holds a 14% 'Rotten' rating on review aggregate website Rotten Tomatoes, with the consensus "Uneven in tone and badly edited, "A View From the Top" wastes the talents of its cast and condescends to its characters." Paltrow herself later disparaged the film, calling it "terrible", and reportedly referred to the film as "A View From My Ass".
585942	Sukumari (6 October 1940 – 26 March 2013) was an Indian film actress who primarily acted in Malayalam and Tamil films. She had been acting since she was 10 years old and has acted in various roles. The total number of her films is presumed to be more than 3000. In 2003, she was awarded the Padma Shri by the Government of India for her contributions towards the arts. And she won the National Film Award for Best Supporting Actress for her role in Namma Gramam(2010). Sukumari died on 26 March 2013 following a heart attack while under treatment for burn injuries received while lighting the pooja lamp at her residence in Chennai. Career. She was born in Nagercoil to Madhavan Nair and Sathyabhama Amma, she left them early in life to study dance with her aunt Saraswathi Amma in Chennai, alongside her first cousins the Travancore Sisters, Lalitha, Padmini and Ragini (their mothers were sisters). She learned dance with the sisters and mastered dance forms like Keralanadanam, Kathakali and Bharathanatyam. She has acted in various Malayalam films of the black and white age, like "Chettathi", "Kusruthikkuttan", "Kunjali Marakkar", "Thacholi Othenan", "Yakshi" and "Karinizhal". She later became popular acting in various films of Priyadarshan like "Poochakkoru Mookkuthi", "Oodarathuammava Aalariyam", "Boeing Boeing" and "Vandanam". She was also noticed in various films directed handra Menon like "Manicheppu Thurannappol" and "Karyam Nissaram". In later years she played a major role in "Nizhalkkuthu" (2002) directed by Adoor Gopalakrishnan. She had played many notable mother roles. She has acted in films in Malayalam, Tamil, Kannada, Telugu and Hindi, and used her own voice in all languages without using dubbing artists.She has acted in many dramas also .She has acted television serials like Sreeguruvaayoorappan,Malakhamar,Aakashadhoothu,Velankanni Mathavu etc. and also acted in some advertisements and albums.She has judged popular comedy reality show "COMEDY FESTIVAL" telecasting in Mazhavil Manorama Channel. Personal life. Sukumari married director A. Bhimsingh in 1959. He died in 1978. The couple has a son, Suresh. Death. On 26 March 2013, Sukumari died from a cardiac arrest at a hospital in Chennai where she was receiving treatments for burns she had sustained while lighting a traditional lamp at her residence in February. Response. Following her death, several South Indian personalities offered their condolences. Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalithaa, who has co-starred with Sukumari, said in a condolence message that Sukumari had left a unique imprint on South Indian cinema and theatre with her talents. Kerala's Chief Minister, Oommen Chandy called Sukumari a "phenomenon in Malayalam cinema." Actor and Minister for cinema K.B. Ganesh Kumar said actors in Malayalam film industry had lost "the loving presence of a mother in the sets." Leader of the Opposition V.S. Achuthanandan called Sukumari’s death a "huge loss for Indian cinema." Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee president Ramesh Chennithala said Sukumari would be remembered for "the diversity of characters that she gave life to." Communist Party of India State secretary Pannian Ravindran said Sukumari was "an unforgettable acting genius." Union Minister of State for Food and Consumer Affairs K.V. Thomas described Sukumari as an actor who conquered the film scene with her unique acting style. South Indian Film Artistes Association president R. Sarathkumar remembered the actor as being an inspiration to others. Actor and renowned television producer Raadhika Sarathkumar recalled Sukumari's many dance performances. Actor and president of Association of Malayalam Movie Artists Innocent said at a condolence meeting at Kochi that her death was an irreparable loss to Malayalam film industry. South Indian film star Mohanlal likened her death to the loss of "a mother, sister and a good friend." Speaker G. Karthikeyan, also expressed grief at the death of actor Sukumari. Director Shaji Kailas deemed her loss an "irreparable one for the film industry."
587304	Naved Aslam is an Indian film, television and theater actor and script writer who is best known for his roles in the 1990s Sony TV medical drama Hospital, and films Chhal (2002) and Sehar (2005). He has also written, directed and acted in numerous plays. Aslam did his post-graduation in Mass Communications from the Jamia Millia Islamia University in 1989. He is currently single and has two sons. Filmography. Stage. As actor As writer/ director
1089897	Oliver Heaviside FRS (; 18 May 1850 – 3 February 1925) was a self-taught English electrical engineer, mathematician, and physicist who adapted complex numbers to the study of electrical circuits, invented mathematical techniques to the solution of differential equations (later found to be equivalent to Laplace transforms), reformulated Maxwell's field equations in terms of electric and magnetic forces and energy flux, and independently co-formulated vector analysis. Although at odds with the scientific establishment for most of his life, Heaviside changed the face of mathematics and science for years to come. Biography. Early years. Heaviside was born at 55 Kings Street (now Plender Street) in London's Camden Town. He was short and red-headed, and suffered from scarlet fever when young, which left him with a hearing impairment. He was a good student (e.g. placed fifth out of five hundred students in 1865). Heaviside's uncle Sir Charles Wheatstone (1802–1875) was the original co-inventor of the telegraph in the mid-1830s, and was an internationally celebrated expert in telegraphy and electromagnetism. Wheatstone was married to Heaviside's aunt in London and took a strong interest in his nephew's education. Heaviside left school at age 16 to study at home in the subjects of telegraphy and electromagnetism. He continued full-time study at home until age 18. Then – in the only paid employment he ever had – he took a job as a telegraph operator with the Great Northern Telegraph Company working first in Denmark and then in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, and was soon made a chief operator. It is likely that his uncle Sir Charles was instrumental in getting Heaviside the telegraph operator position. Heaviside continued to study while working, and at age 21 and 22 he published some research related to electric circuits and telegraphy. In 1874 at age 24 he resigned his job and returned to studying full-time on his own at his parents' home in London. He remained single throughout his life. In 1873 Heaviside had encountered James Clerk Maxwell's newly published, and today famous, two-volume "Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism". In his old age Heaviside recalled: Doing research from home, he helped develop transmission line theory (also known as the ""telegrapher's equations""). Heaviside showed mathematically that uniformly distributed inductance in a telegraph line would diminish both attenuation and distortion, and that, if the inductance were great enough and the insulation resistance not too high, the circuit would be distortionless while currents of all frequencies would have equal speeds of propagation. Heaviside's equations helped further the implementation of the telegraph. Middle years. In 1880, Heaviside researched the skin effect in telegraph transmission lines. That same year he patented, in England, the coaxial cable. In 1884 he recast Maxwell's mathematical analysis from its original cumbersome form (they had already been recast as quaternions) to its modern vector terminology, thereby reducing twelve of the original twenty equations in twenty unknowns down to the four differential equations in two unknowns we now know as Maxwell's equations. The four re-formulated Maxwell's equations describe the nature of static and moving electric charges and magnetic dipoles, and the relationship between the two, namely electromagnetic induction. Between 1880 and 1887, Heaviside developed the operational calculus (involving the "D" notation for the differential operator, which he is credited with creating), a method of solving differential equations by transforming them into ordinary algebraic equations which caused a great deal of controversy when first introduced, owing to the lack of rigour in his derivation of it. He famously said, "Mathematics is an experimental science, and definitions do not come first, but later on." He was replying to criticism over his use of operators that were not clearly defined. On another occasion he stated somewhat more defensively, "I do not refuse my dinner simply because I do not understand the process of digestion." In 1887, Heaviside proposed that induction coils (inductors) should be added to telephone and telegraph lines to increase their self-induction and correct the distortion which they suffered. This was not done, largely due to the technical incompetence and personal animosity of William Henry Preece at the Post Office. The importance of Heaviside's work remained undiscovered for some time after publication in The Electrician, and so its rights lay in the public domain. AT&T later employed one of its own scientists, George A. Campbell, and an external investigator Michael I. Pupin to determine whether Heaviside's work was incomplete or incorrect. Campbell and Pupin extended Heaviside's work, and AT&T filed for patents covering not only their research, but also the technical method of constructing the coils previously invented by Heaviside. AT&T later offered Heaviside money in exchange for his rights; it is possible that the Bell engineers' respect for Heaviside influenced this offer. However, Heaviside refused the offer, declining to accept any money unless the company were to give him full recognition. Heaviside was chronically poor, making his refusal of the offer even more striking. In two papers of 1888 and 1889, Heaviside calculated the deformations of electric and magnetic fields surrounding a moving charge, as well as the effects of it entering a denser medium. This included a prediction of what is now known as Cherenkov radiation, and inspired his friend George FitzGerald to suggest what now is known as the Lorentz–Fitzgerald contraction.
1104798	Johann Bernoulli (27 July 1667 – 1 January 1748; also known as Jean or John) was a Swiss mathematician and was one of the many prominent mathematicians in the Bernoulli family. He is known for his contributions to infinitesimal calculus and educated Leonhard Euler in his youth. Early life and education. Johann was born in Basel, the son of Nicolaus Bernoulli, an apothecary, and his wife, Margaretha Schonauer and began studying medicine at Basel University. His father desired that he study business so that he might take over the family spice trade, but Johann Bernoulli did not like business and convinced his father to allow him to study medicine instead. However, Johann Bernoulli did not enjoy medicine either and began studying mathematics on the side with his older brother Jacob. Throughout Johann Bernoulli’s education at Basel University the Bernoulli brothers worked together spending much of their time studying the newly discovered infinitesimal calculus. They were among the first mathematicians to not only study and understand calculus but to apply it to various problems. Adult life. After graduating from Basel University Johann Bernoulli moved to teach differential equations. Later, in 1694, he married Dorothea Falkner and soon after accepted a position as the professor of mathematics at the University of Groningen. At the request of Johann Bernoulli’s father-in-law, Johann Bernoulli began the voyage back to his home town of Basel in 1705. Just after setting out on the journey he learned of his brother’s death to tuberculosis. Johann Bernoulli had planned on becoming the professor of Greek at Basel University upon returning but instead was able to take over as professor of mathematics, his older brother’s former position. As a student of Leibniz’s calculus, Johann Bernoulli sided with him in 1713 in the Newton–Leibniz debate over who deserved credit for the discovery of calculus. Johann Bernoulli defended Leibniz by showing that he had solved certain problems with his methods that Newton had failed to solve. However, due to his opposition to Newton and the study that vortex theory over Newton’s theory of gravitation which ultimately delayed acceptance of Newton’s theory in continental Europe. In 1724 he entered a competition sponsored by the French Académie Royale des Sciences, which posed the question: In defending a view previously espoused by Leibniz he found himself postulating an infinite external force required to make the body elastic by overcoming the infinite internal force making the body hard. In consequence he was disqualified for the prize, which was won by Maclaurin. However, Bernoulli's paper was subsequently accepted in 1726 when the Académie considered papers regarding elastic bodies, for which the prize was awarded to Mazière. Bernoulli received an honourable mention in both competitions. Private life. Although Jakob and Johann worked together before Johann graduated from Basel University, shortly after this, the two developed a jealous and competitive relationship. Johann was jealous of Jakob's position and the two often attempted to outdo each other. After Jakob's death Johann's jealousy shifted toward his own talented son, Daniel. In 1738 the father–son duo nearly simultaneously published separate works on hydrodynamics. Johann Bernoulli attempted to take precedence over his son by purposely predating his work two years prior to his son’s. Johann married Dorothea Falkner, daughter of an Alderman of Basel. He was the father of Nicolaus II Bernoulli, Daniel Bernoulli and Johann II Bernoulli and uncle of Nicolaus I Bernoulli. The Bernoulli brothers often worked on the same problems, but not without friction. Their most bitter dispute concerned finding the equation for the path followed by a particle from one point to another in the shortest time, if the particle is acted upon by gravity alone, a problem originally discussed by Galileo. In 1697 Jakob offered a reward for its solution. Accepting the challenge, Johann proposed the cycloid, the path of a point on a moving wheel, pointing out at the same time the relation this curve bears to the path described by a ray of light passing through strata of variable density. A protracted, bitter dispute then arose when Jakob challenged the solution and proposed his own. The dispute marked the origin of a new discipline, the calculus of variations. L'Hôpital controversy. Bernoulli was hired by Guillaume de L'Hôpital for tutoring in mathematics. Bernoulli and L'Hôpital signed a contract which gave l'Hôpital the right to use Bernoulli’s discoveries as he pleased. L'Hôpital authored the first textbook on infinitesimal calculus, "Analyse des Infiniment Petits pour l'Intelligence des Lignes Courbes" in 1696, which mainly consisted of the work of Bernoulli, including what is now known as L'Hôpital's rule. Subsequently, in letters to Leibniz, Varignon and others, Bernoulli complained that he had not received enough credit for his contributions, in spite of the fact that l'Hôpital acknowledged fully his debt in the preface of his book: "Je reconnais devoir beaucoup aux lumières de MM. Bernoulli, surtout à celles du jeune (Jean) présentement professeur à Groningue. Je me suis servi sans façon de leurs découvertes et de celles de M. Leibniz. C'est pourquoi je consens qu'ils en revendiquent tout ce qu'il leur plaira, me contentant de ce qu'ils voudront bien me laisser." "I recognize I owe much to Messrs. Bernoulli's insights, above all to the young (John), currently a professor in Groningue. I did unceremoniously use their discoveries, as well as those of Mr. Leibniz. For this reason I consent that they claim as much credit as they please, and will content myself with what they will agree to leave me."
584853	Soundarya (Tamil:சௌந்தர்யா; born Sowmya; 18 July 1972 – 17 April 2004) was an actress born in Karnataka who acted mainly in Kannada and Telugu films and also in many Tamil, Malayalam and Bollywood movies. She was much sought-after actress in the 1990s and acted in more than 100 films, most of them in Telugu. She produced movies in the later phase of her career and won the Silver Lotus Award for her film "Dweepa". She also received the Filmfare Awards six times for her acting performances. Soundarya died in a plane crash while campaigning for a political party near Bangalore in 2004. Film career. Soundarya was the daughter of Kannada film producer and writer K. S. Satyanarayan. She was born in Mulbagal and raised in Bangalore. She made her debut while in her first year of MBBS when she was offered a role by a friend of her father's in the Kannada film "Gandharva" (1992). Her first Telugu film was 'number one' with yesteryear super star Krishna Ghattamaneni(1991), and she followed the same director S.V.Krishna Reddy for next movie called 'Rajendrudu Gajendrudu'. Both movies are super hits in box office, She discontinued her studies after "Ammoru" (1995) was a huge transformation her career which dubbed in tamil was a huge hit.
1105281	Leonid Vitaliyevich Kantorovich () (19 January 19127 April 1986) was a Soviet mathematician and economist, known for his theory and development of techniques for the optimal allocation of resources. He was the winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics in 1975 and the only winner of this prize from the USSR. Biography. Kantorovich was born on 19 January 1912, to a Russian Jewish family. His father was a doctor practicing in Saint Petersburg. In 1926, at the age of fourteen, he began his studies at the Leningrad University. He graduated from the Faculty of Mathematics in 1930, and began his graduate studies. In 1934, at the age of 22 years, he became a full professor. Later, Kantorovich worked for the Soviet government. He was given the task of optimizing production in a plywood industry. He came up (1939) with the mathematical technique now known as linear programming, some years before it was reinvented and much advanced by George Dantzig. He authored several books including "The Mathematical Method of Production Planning and Organization" and "The Best Uses of Economic Resources". For his work, Kantorovich was awarded the Stalin Prize in 1949. After 1939, he became the professor of Military engineering-technical university. During the Siege of Leningrad, Kantorovich was the professor of VITU of Navy and in charge of safety on the Road of Life. He calculated the optimal distance between cars on ice, depending on thickness of ice and temperature of the air. In December 1941 and January 1942, Kantorovich personally walked between cars driving on the ice of Lake Ladoga, on the Road of Life, to ensure the cars did not sink. However, many cars with food for survivors of the siege were destroyed by the German air-bombings. For his feat and courage Kantorovich was awarded the Order of the Patriotic War, and was decorated with the medal "For Defense of Leningrad".
1058255	"Don't Say a Word" is a 2001 psychological thriller film starring Michael Douglas, Brittany Murphy and Sean Bean based on the novel of the same title by Andrew Klavan. "Don't Say a Word" was directed by Gary Fleder and written by Anthony Peckham and Patrick Smith Kelly. Plot. In 1991, a gang of thieves steal a rare $10 million gem, but in the process, two of the gang double cross their leader, Patrick Koster (Sean Bean) and take off with the precious stone. Ten years later, on the day before Thanksgiving, prominent private practice Manhattan child psychiatrist, Dr. Nathan R. Conrad (Michael Douglas), is invited by his friend and former colleague, Dr. Louis Sachs (Oliver Platt), to examine a disturbed young lady named Elisabeth Burrows (Brittany Murphy) at the state sanatorium. Having been released from prison on November 4, Patrick and the remaining gang members break into an apartment, which overviews Nathan's apartment, including his wife Aggie (Famke Janssen) and daughter Jessie (Skye McCole Bartusiak). That evening, Patrick kidnaps the psychiatrist's daughter as a means of forcing him to acquire a 6 digit number from Elisabeth's memory. As Nathan visits Elisabeth, she is reluctant at first but he gains her trust later - especially when he reveals his daughter was kidnapped and will be killed if he doesn't get the number they want. Dr. Sachs admits to Nathan that the gang who kidnapped Jessie also kidnapped his girlfriend to force him to acquire the number from Elisabeth. Louis Sachs is then visited by Detective Sandra Cassidy (Jennifer Esposito) who reveals to him that his girlfriend has been found dead. Meanwhile, Aggie hears Jessie's voice and realizes the kidnappers reside in the apartment nearby. The kidnappers send one of them to kill Aggie while the others escape with Jessie, but Aggie sets an ambush and kills him. After Nathan takes Elisabeth out of the sanatorium, she begins to remember past events. It is revealed that Elisabeth's dad was a member of the gang that committed the robbery ten years ago and he double crossed them and took the stolen gem. However, other members of the gang later found him and ordered him to reveal where he had hidden the gem, pushing him in front of the train in the subway. The gang members were arrested immediately after that and Elisabeth escapes with her doll, where the gem was hidden. She also remembers that the required number, 815508, is the number of her father's grave at the Hart Island and her doll has been placed beside him in the coffin. She stowed away on a boat that was taking her father's coffin for burial in Potter's field on Hart Island, where the grave digger's helped her put the doll, Mischka, inside. Nathan and Elisabeth steal a boat to reach Hart Island. The gang members track them down and demand that Nathan gives them the number they want. Elisabeth reveals the number and Patrick orders his companion to exhume her father's coffin. He finds the doll and the gem hidden inside it. He then decides to kill Nathan and Elisabeth but Detective Cassidy arrives before he can shoot them. Patrick's companion is shot by Cassidy but Patrick manages to wound her. Taking advantage of the confusion, Nathan takes the gem from Patrick and throws it to a nearby excavation machine. Patrick goes to recover the gem but Nathan triggers the mechanism which covers Patrick with earth, burying him alive. Nathan is then reunited with his wife and daughter, and it is implied that Elisabeth goes on to live with the Conrads. Soundtrack. The film's musical score was composed by Mark Isham. The soundtrack contains eight songs from various scenes, including the Heist, the Kidnapping and the horrific events at the Subway. Some of the music in the film includes the following songs and performers:
13871	Love Object is a 2003 film written and directed by Robert Parigi. Kenneth (played by Desmond Harrington) is an efficient but socially awkward technical writer who develops an obsessive relationship with Nikki, a realistic sex doll he purchases. Plot. Kenneth Winslow is an extremely shy but knowledgeable technical writer who orders a sex-doll. He develops a relationship with "Nikki," to the point of talking and even arguing with her. Kenneth begins to display bizarre behavior, and starts to feel stalked by Nikki. Their relationship evolves into a love-hate situation, and at one point even beats the doll. At work, Kenneth meets Lisa (Melissa Sagemiller), a temp, with whom he begins to develop a relationship. Kenneth encourages Lisa to resemble Nikki by cutting her hair the way Nikki has it and wearing the same clothes Nikki has. As his imagined relationship with Nikki becomes more sinister and dominating, Kenneth resorts to cutting up and disposing of the doll. Lisa eventually becomes aware of Nikki's existence, and promptly breaks up with Kenneth. Later, a bound and gagged Lisa is discovered by Kenneth's landlord, and Kenneth bludgeons him with a hammer. Kenneth then begins to transform Lisa into the doll. He dresses her up in Nikki's clothes, straps her down, and begins to replace her blood with embalming fluid (actually it was a plasticizing material). Lisa manages to escape from her restraints and attacks Kenneth with a small statue, rendering him unconscious. At this point the police arrive, and when they see Lisa over the unconscious Kenneth they shoot her. Lisa, wearing Nikki's clothes, falls dead in the crate Nikki came in, thus completing her transformation. Kenneth is believed to be Lisa's victim, and is not charged with a crime. Much later, he re-orders another Nikki. While buying flowers for Nikki, he notices the attractive brunette at the floral shop. The viewer is left to assume that Kenneth's obsessive love triangle cycle will start all over again.
1104001	Vladimir Igorevich Arnold (alternative spelling Arnol'd, , 12 June 1937 – 3 June 2010) was a Soviet and Russian mathematician. While he is best known for the Kolmogorov–Arnold–Moser theorem regarding the stability of integrable systems, he made important contributions in several areas including dynamical systems theory, catastrophe theory, topology, algebraic geometry, classical mechanics and singularity theory, including posing the ADE classification problem, since his first main result—the partial solution of Hilbert's thirteenth problem in 1957 at the age of 19. Biography. While a student of Andrey Kolmogorov at Moscow State University and still a teenager, Arnold showed in 1957 that any continuous function of several variables can be constructed with a finite number of two-variable functions, thereby partially solving Hilbert's thirteenth problem. After graduating from Moscow State University in 1959, he worked there until 1986 (a professor since 1965), and then at Steklov Mathematical Institute. He became an academician of the Academy of Sciences of the Soviet Union (Russian Academy of Science since 1991) in 1990. Arnold can be said to have initiated the theory of symplectic topology as a distinct discipline. The Arnold conjecture on the number of fixed points of Hamiltonian symplectomorphisms and Lagrangian intersections were also a major motivation in the development of Floer homology. Arnold worked at the Steklov Mathematical Institute in Moscow and at Paris Dauphine University up until his death. he was reported to have the highest citation index among Russian scientists, and h-index of 40. To his students and colleagues Arnold was known also for his sense of humour. For example, once at his seminar in Moscow, at the beginning of the school year, when he usually was formulating new problems, he said: "There is a general principle that a stupid man can ask such questions to which one hundred wise men would not be able to answer. In accordance with this principle I shall formulate some problems." Arnold died of acute pancreatitis on 3 June 2010 in Paris, nine days before his 73rd birthday. His students include Alexander Givental, Victor Vassiliev and Askold Khovanskii. He was buried on June 15 in Moscow, at Novodevichy Monastery. In a telegram to Arnold's family, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev stated: Popular mathematical writings. Arnold is well known for his lucid writing style, combining mathematical rigour with physical intuition, and an easy conversational style of teaching. His writings present a fresh, often geometric approach to traditional mathematical topics like ordinary differential equations, and his many textbooks have proved influential in the development of new areas of mathematics. However, Arnold's books have been criticized for supporting the theory with statements meant to teach an intuitive understanding, without providing the tools necessary to prove these statements. Arnold was an outspoken critic of the trend towards high levels of abstraction in mathematics during the middle of the last century. He had very strong opinions on how this approach—which was most popularly implemented by the Bourbaki school in France—initially had a negative impact on French, and then later other countries', mathematical education. Honours and awards. The minor planet 10031 Vladarnolda was named after him in 1981 by Lyudmila Georgievna Karachkina.
1503050	The Big Gay Musical is a 2009 gay-themed musical-comedy film written by Fred M. Caruso and co-directed by Caruso and Casper Andreas. The film follows a brief period in the lives of two young actors, one who is openly gay, the other closeted to his parents. The openly gay actor struggles with whether he should be sexually promiscuous or seek a life partner, while the closeted one wonders if he should come out to his conservative, religious parents. Throughout the film, there are a series of musical numbers with tap dancing angels, a re-telling of the Genesis story, protests from televangelists, a deprogramming camp that tries to turn gay kids straight. By the end of the film, the characters realize that life would be better if they just accepted themselves the way they are. Plot. Paul (Daniel Robinson) and Eddie (Joey Dudding) have just begun previews of an Off-Broadway musical titled "Adam & Steve: Just the Way God Made 'Em". Their lives mimic those of the characters they are playing on stage, in that Paul is himself seeking the ideal male partner, and Eddie finds that his religious upbringing conflicts with his homosexuality. After his boyfriend dumps him for being accused of having HIV, though he does not, Paul decides he is through with relationships and wants to be promiscuous, or as he so eloquently sung, "I wanna be a slut." Eddie, meanwhile decides he must finally tell his conservative parents that he is gay. Eddie comes out to his family, who do not accept the news well. Paul turns to the Internet for dates, but can't even get a decent one-night stand. However, Paul continually bumps into a fan who has developed romantic feelings for him, and after a series of disastrous one night stands, he starts dating Michael at the end of the musical's opening night. Eddie's religious parents, on a different note, decide to attend the musical because of a promise they made to their son, even though they are appalled by homosexuality and the theme of the show. As the play goes on though, they begin to believe that maybe they judged their son too harshly, and come to accept the fact that he is gay. Eddie's parents make up with him at the end of the show's opening night. Production. The directors chose to cast openly gay Broadway actors for all the film's key roles. Principle filming began October 24, 2008. Cast includes theatre veterans, Liz McCartney, Jim Newman, Joey Dudding, Marty Thomas, Andre Ward, Daniel Robinson, Jeff Metzler, Brian Spitulnik, Josh Cruz, Celina Carvajal and Steve Hayes, and features the choreography of Shea Sullivan with songs written by Rick Crom. It was the first feature film for stage actors Daniel Robinson and Joey Dudding. The two leads were at first concerned with the manner in which sex scenes were to be handled in the film, with Robinson originally turning down the role. He is reported as stating, "It was a little too over the top for me. I wasn't comfortable with the sex scene and the nudity. It was too nude and gay for me." He expanded, "A huge reason why I didn't take the film in the first place was that I didn't want to be seen as a gay actor. Big Gay Musical was like putting a tattoo on my body." He eventually decided the film was a good opportunity, and in looking back on the production, acknowledged that the sex scene "was harder to read than to do." Another of his early concerns were fears about having his naked body exposed on film forever. Robinson and Dudding both offered that the most difficult aspect to their respective roles was portraying two different characters with different story lines and motivations within the same film. Critical response. In speaking about the film, "Variety" wrote of one of the film's many segments, and made special note of one dealing with Genesis, by writing that "Seldom has blasphemy been so entertaining, and if only Caruso were capable of sustaining such wit (and energy, as agile lensing and editing keep things lively), the movie could have stuck to documenting his stage show." They expanded on flaws by writing "subsequent numbers stall, with lame caricatures of Tammy Faye Bakker and long stretches at an ex-gay conversion camp offset by an eye-candy male cast parading about in hot pants and angel wings." The added that to the film's credit, "the directors insisted on casting openly gay Broadway actors in all the key roles, trading the usual daytime-soap-caliber cast of equivalently low-budget, L.A.-produced gay fare for multitalents with real singing and dancing chops." They concluded that the film was "more than adequate for festival and DVD consumption." After Elton shared that the film's structure is "a little unusual" in that after the prologue the film opens with "a rather extended musical and dance number from a preview performance of a stage play, "Adam & Steve Just the Way God Made Em", which tells the story of the Bible from a decidedly gay perspective." They called the film "a surprisingly pleasant romp," writing that "this little gay musical has what seems to be about two full months of flawless preview performances!" "New York Cool" reviewer Frank J. Avella wrote that his first response was negative, but when he read of the involvement of Casper Andreas in the project he became more interested in the film and learned, contrary to his original impression, "no one breaks into song without a good reason." Avella made special note of how the storyline revolves around the players and cast of the stageplay "Adam and Steve Just the Way God Made Them", a musical production within the film itself which presents the Genesis creation narrative from a gay perspective. He wrote "The film continuously and cleverly returns to the stage show, using it as a framing device of sorts" as a means to underscore the film's greater story of acceptance-of-self. In summarizing, the reviewer offered that "production values are terrific and the ensemble is, for the most part, admirable". He wrote that Daniel Robinson was "quite impressive" and his slut song "brings down the house", but expanded that Joey Dudding playing a "sweet and sensitive Eddie" truly moves the audience by giving an accurate portrayal of a guy on the cusp of coming out. Release. The film first screened July 20, 2009, at the Philadelphia Q Fest and had its official theatrical premiere August 9, 2009, in Provincetown, Massachusetts, before screenings at multiple LGBT film festivals through 2009 and 2010. Soundtrack. The soundtrack of the film was scheduled for release on July 14, 2009. The CD includes all the original music from the film as well as some contemporary tracks that were also featured in the movie.
1102318	Archimedes of Syracuse (;  BC –  BC) was a Greek mathematician, physicist, engineer, inventor, and astronomer. Although few details of his life are known, he is regarded as one of the leading scientists in classical antiquity. Among his advances in physics are the foundations of hydrostatics, statics and an explanation of the principle of the lever. He is credited with designing innovative machines, including siege engines and the screw pump that bears his name. Modern experiments have tested claims that Archimedes designed machines capable of lifting attacking ships out of the water and setting ships on fire using an array of mirrors. Archimedes is generally considered to be the greatest mathematician of antiquity and one of the greatest of all time. He used the method of exhaustion to calculate the area under the arc of a parabola with the summation of an infinite series, and gave a remarkably accurate approximation of pi. He also defined the spiral bearing his name, formulae for the volumes of solids of revolution, and an ingenious system for expressing very large numbers. Archimedes died during the Siege of Syracuse when he was killed by a Roman soldier despite orders that he should not be harmed. Cicero describes visiting the tomb of Archimedes, which was surmounted by a sphere inscribed within a cylinder. Archimedes had proven that the sphere has two thirds of the volume and surface area of the cylinder (including the bases of the latter), and regarded this as the greatest of his mathematical achievements. Unlike his inventions, the mathematical writings of Archimedes were little known in antiquity. Mathematicians from Alexandria read and quoted him, but the first comprehensive compilation was not made until "c." 530 AD by Isidore of Miletus, while commentaries on the works of Archimedes written by Eutocius in the sixth century AD opened them to wider readership for the first time. The relatively few copies of Archimedes' written work that survived through the Middle Ages were an influential source of ideas for scientists during the Renaissance, while the discovery in 1906 of previously unknown works by Archimedes in the Archimedes Palimpsest has provided new insights into how he obtained mathematical results. Biography. Archimedes was born "c". 287 BC in the seaport city of Syracuse, Sicily, at that time a self-governing colony in Magna Graecia. The date of birth is based on a statement by the Byzantine Greek historian John Tzetzes that Archimedes lived for 75 years. In "The Sand Reckoner", Archimedes gives his father's name as Phidias, an astronomer about whom nothing is known. Plutarch wrote in his "Parallel Lives" that Archimedes was related to King Hiero II, the ruler of Syracuse. A biography of Archimedes was written by his friend Heracleides but this work has been lost, leaving the details of his life obscure. It is unknown, for instance, whether he ever married or had children. During his youth, Archimedes may have studied in Alexandria, Egypt, where Conon of Samos and Eratosthenes of Cyrene were contemporaries. He referred to Conon of Samos as his friend, while two of his works ("The Method of Mechanical Theorems" and the "Cattle Problem") have introductions addressed to Eratosthenes. Archimedes died "c". 212 BC during the Second Punic War, when Roman forces under General Marcus Claudius Marcellus captured the city of Syracuse after a two-year-long siege. According to the popular account given by Plutarch, Archimedes was contemplating a mathematical diagram when the city was captured. A Roman soldier commanded him to come and meet General Marcellus but he declined, saying that he had to finish working on the problem. The soldier was enraged by this, and killed Archimedes with his sword. Plutarch also gives a account of the death of Archimedes which suggests that he may have been killed while attempting to surrender to a Roman soldier. According to this story, Archimedes was carrying mathematical instruments, and was killed because the soldier thought that they were valuable items. General Marcellus was reportedly angered by the death of Archimedes, as he considered him a valuable scientific asset and had ordered that he not be harmed. The last words attributed to Archimedes are "Do not disturb my circles" (), a reference to the circles in the mathematical drawing that he was supposedly studying when disturbed by the Roman soldier. This quote is often given in Latin as "Noli turbare circulos meos," but there is no reliable evidence that Archimedes uttered these words and they do not appear in the account given by Plutarch. The tomb of Archimedes carried a sculpture illustrating his favorite mathematical proof, consisting of a sphere and a cylinder of the same height and diameter. Archimedes had proven that the volume and surface area of the sphere are two thirds that of the cylinder including its bases. In 75 BC, 137 years after his death, the Roman orator Cicero was serving as quaestor in Sicily. He had heard stories about the tomb of Archimedes, but none of the locals was able to give him the location. Eventually he found the tomb near the Agrigentine gate in Syracuse, in a neglected condition and overgrown with bushes. Cicero had the tomb cleaned up, and was able to see the carving and read some of the verses that had been added as an inscription. A tomb discovered in a hotel courtyard in Syracuse in the early 1960s was claimed to be that of Archimedes, but its location today is unknown. The standard versions of the life of Archimedes were written long after his death by the historians of Ancient Rome. The account of the siege of Syracuse given by Polybius in his "Universal History" was written around seventy years after Archimedes' death, and was used subsequently as a source by Plutarch and Livy. It sheds little light on Archimedes as a person, and focuses on the war machines that he is said to have built in order to defend the city. Discoveries and inventions. Archimedes' principle. The most widely known anecdote about Archimedes tells of how he invented a method for determining the volume of an object with an irregular shape. According to Vitruvius, a votive crown for a temple had been made for King Hiero II, who had supplied the pure gold to be used, and Archimedes was asked to determine whether some silver had been substituted by the dishonest goldsmith. Archimedes had to solve the problem without damaging the crown, so he could not melt it down into a regularly shaped body in order to calculate its density. While taking a bath, he noticed that the level of the water in the tub rose as he got in, and realized that this effect could be used to determine the volume of the crown. For practical purposes water is incompressible, so the submerged crown would displace an amount of water equal to its own volume. By dividing the mass of the crown by the volume of water displaced, the density of the crown could be obtained. This density would be lower than that of gold if cheaper and less dense metals had been added. Archimedes then took to the streets naked, so excited by his discovery that he had forgotten to dress, crying "Eureka!" (!," meaning "I have found it!"). The test was conducted successfully, proving that silver had indeed been mixed in. The story of the golden crown does not appear in the known works of Archimedes. Moreover, the practicality of the method it describes has been called into question, due to the extreme accuracy with which one would have to measure the water displacement. Archimedes may have instead sought a solution that applied the principle known in hydrostatics as Archimedes' principle, which he describes in his treatise "On Floating Bodies". This principle states that a body immersed in a fluid experiences a buoyant force equal to the weight of the fluid it displaces. Using this principle, it would have been possible to compare the density of the golden crown to that of solid gold by balancing the crown on a scale with a gold reference sample, then immersing the apparatus in water. The difference in density between the two samples would cause the scale to tip accordingly. Galileo considered it "probable that this method is the same that Archimedes followed, since, besides being very accurate, it is based on demonstrations found by Archimedes himself." In a 12th-century text titled "Mappae clavicula" there are instructions on how to perform the weighings in the water in order to calculate the percentage of silver used, and thus solve the problem. The Latin poem "Carmen de ponderibus et mensuris" of the 4th or 5th century describes the use of a hydrostatic balance to solve the problem of the crown, and attributes the method to Archimedes. Archimedes' screw. A large part of Archimedes' work in engineering arose from fulfilling the needs of his home city of Syracuse. The Greek writer Athenaeus of Naucratis described how King Hiero II commissioned Archimedes to design a huge ship, the "Syracusia", which could be used for luxury travel, carrying supplies, and as a naval warship. The "Syracusia" is said to have been the largest ship built in classical antiquity. According to Athenaeus, it was capable of carrying 600 people and included garden decorations, a gymnasium and a temple dedicated to the goddess Aphrodite among its facilities. Since a ship of this size would leak a considerable amount of water through the hull, the Archimedes screw was purportedly developed in order to remove the bilge water. Archimedes' machine was a device with a revolving screw-shaped blade inside a cylinder. It was turned by hand, and could also be used to transfer water from a body of water into irrigation canals. The Archimedes screw is still in use today for pumping liquids and granulated solids such as coal and grain. The Archimedes screw described in Roman times by Vitruvius may have been an improvement on a screw pump that was used to irrigate the Hanging Gardens of Babylon. The world's first seagoing steamship with a screw propeller was the "SS Archimedes", which was launched in 1839 and named in honor of Archimedes and his work on the screw. Claw of Archimedes. The Claw of Archimedes is a weapon that he is said to have designed in order to defend the city of Syracuse. Also known as "the ship shaker," the claw consisted of a crane-like arm from which a large metal grappling hook was suspended. When the claw was dropped onto an attacking ship the arm would swing upwards, lifting the ship out of the water and possibly sinking it. There have been modern experiments to test the feasibility of the claw, and in 2005 a television documentary entitled "Superweapons of the Ancient World" built a version of the claw and concluded that it was a workable device. Heat ray. The 2nd century AD author Lucian wrote that during the Siege of Syracuse ("c." 214–212 BC), Archimedes destroyed enemy ships with fire. Centuries later, Anthemius of Tralles mentions burning-glasses as Archimedes' weapon. The device, sometimes called the "Archimedes heat ray", was used to focus sunlight onto approaching ships, causing them to catch fire. This purported weapon has been the subject of ongoing debate about its credibility since the Renaissance. René Descartes rejected it as false, while modern researchers have attempted to recreate the effect using only the means that would have been available to Archimedes. It has been suggested that a large array of highly polished bronze or copper shields acting as mirrors could have been employed to focus sunlight onto a ship. This would have used the principle of the parabolic reflector in a manner similar to a solar furnace. A test of the Archimedes heat ray was carried out in 1973 by the Greek scientist Ioannis Sakkas. The experiment took place at the Skaramagas naval base outside Athens. On this occasion 70 mirrors were used, each with a copper coating and a size of around five by three feet (1.5 by 1 m). The mirrors were pointed at a plywood of a Roman warship at a distance of around 160 feet (50 m). When the mirrors were focused accurately, the ship burst into flames within a few seconds. The plywood ship had a coating of tar paint, which may have aided combustion. A coating of tar would have been commonplace on ships in the classical era. In October 2005 a group of students from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology carried out an experiment with 127 one-foot (30 cm) square mirror tiles, focused on a wooden ship at a range of around 100 feet (30 m). Flames broke out on a patch of the ship, but only after the sky had been cloudless and the ship had remained stationary for around ten minutes. It was concluded that the device was a feasible weapon under these conditions. The MIT group repeated the experiment for the television show "MythBusters", using a wooden fishing boat in San Francisco as the target. Again some charring occurred, along with a small amount of flame. In order to catch fire, wood needs to reach its autoignition temperature, which is around 300 °C (570 °F). When "MythBusters" broadcast the result of the San Francisco experiment in January 2006, the claim was placed in the category of "busted" (or failed) because of the length of time and the ideal weather conditions required for combustion to occur. It was also pointed out that since Syracuse faces the sea towards the east, the Roman fleet would have had to attack during the morning for optimal gathering of light by the mirrors. "MythBusters" also pointed out that conventional weaponry, such as flaming arrows or bolts from a catapult, would have been a far easier way of setting a ship on fire at short distances. In December 2010, "MythBusters" again looked at the heat ray story in a special edition featuring Barack Obama, entitled "President's Challenge". Several experiments were carried out, including a large scale test with 500 schoolchildren aiming mirrors at a of a Roman sailing ship 400 feet (120 m) away. In all of the experiments, the sail failed to reach the 210 °C (410 °F) required to catch fire, and the verdict was again "busted". The show concluded that a more likely effect of the mirrors would have been blinding, dazzling, or distracting the crew of the ship. Other discoveries and inventions. While Archimedes did not invent the lever, he gave an explanation of the principle involved in his work "On the Equilibrium of Planes". Earlier descriptions of the lever are found in the Peripatetic school of the followers of Aristotle, and are sometimes attributed to Archytas. According to Pappus of Alexandria, Archimedes' work on levers caused him to remark: "Give me a place to stand on, and I will move the Earth." () Plutarch describes how Archimedes designed block-and-tackle pulley systems, allowing sailors to use the principle of leverage to lift objects that would otherwise have been too heavy to move. Archimedes has also been credited with improving the power and accuracy of the catapult, and with inventing the odometer during the First Punic War. The odometer was described as a cart with a gear mechanism that dropped a ball into a container after each mile traveled. Cicero (106–43 BC) mentions Archimedes briefly in his dialogue "De re publica", which portrays a fictional conversation taking place in 129 BC. After the capture of Syracuse "c." 212 BC, General Marcus Claudius Marcellus is said to have taken back to Rome two mechanisms, constructed by Archimedes and used as aids in astronomy, which showed the motion of the Sun, Moon and five planets. Cicero mentions similar mechanisms designed by Thales of Miletus and Eudoxus of Cnidus. The dialogue says that Marcellus kept one of the devices as his only personal loot from Syracuse, and donated the other to the Temple of Virtue in Rome. Marcellus' mechanism was demonstrated, according to Cicero, by Gaius Sulpicius Gallus to Lucius Furius Philus, who described it thus: This is a description of a planetarium or orrery. Pappus of Alexandria stated that Archimedes had written a manuscript (now lost) on the construction of these mechanisms entitled . Modern research in this area has been focused on the Antikythera mechanism, another device from classical antiquity that was probably designed for the same purpose. Constructing mechanisms of this kind would have required a sophisticated knowledge of differential gearing. This was once thought to have been beyond the range of the technology available in ancient times, but the discovery of the Antikythera mechanism in 1902 has confirmed that devices of this kind were known to the ancient Greeks. Mathematics. While he is often regarded as a designer of mechanical devices, Archimedes also made contributions to the field of mathematics. Plutarch wrote: "He placed his whole affection and ambition in those purer speculations where there can be no reference to the vulgar needs of life." In "Measurement of a Circle", Archimedes gives the value of the square root of 3 as lying between (approximately 1.7320261) and (approximately 1.7320512). The actual value is approximately 1.7320508, making this a very accurate estimate. He introduced this result without offering any explanation of how he had obtained it. This aspect of the work of Archimedes caused John Wallis to remark that he was: "as it were of set purpose to have covered up the traces of his investigation as if he had grudged posterity the secret of his method of inquiry while he wished to extort from them assent to his results." It is possible that he used an iterative procedure to calculate these values. In "The Quadrature of the Parabola", Archimedes proved that the area enclosed by a parabola and a straight line is times the area of a corresponding inscribed triangle as shown in the figure at right. He expressed the solution to the problem as an infinite geometric series with the common ratio : If the first term in this series is the area of the triangle, then the second is the sum of the areas of two triangles whose bases are the two smaller secant lines, and so on. This proof uses a variation of the series which sums to . In "The Sand Reckoner", Archimedes set out to calculate the number of grains of sand that the universe could contain. In doing so, he challenged the notion that the number of grains of sand was too large to be counted. He wrote: "There are some, King Gelo (Gelo II, son of Hiero II), who think that the number of the sand is infinite in multitude; and I mean by the sand not only that which exists about Syracuse and the rest of Sicily but also that which is found in every region whether inhabited or uninhabited." To solve the problem, Archimedes devised a system of counting based on the myriad. The word is from the Greek "murias", for the number 10,000. He proposed a number system using powers of a myriad of myriads (100 million) and concluded that the number of grains of sand required to fill the universe would be 8 vigintillion, or 8. Writings. The works of Archimedes were written in Doric Greek, the dialect of ancient Syracuse. The written work of Archimedes has not survived as well as that of Euclid, and seven of his treatises are known to have existed only through references made to them by other authors. Pappus of Alexandria mentions "On Sphere-Making" and another work on polyhedra, while Theon of Alexandria quotes a remark about refraction from the "Catoptrica". During his lifetime, Archimedes made his work known through correspondence with the mathematicians in Alexandria. The writings of Archimedes were collected by the Byzantine architect Isidore of Miletus ("c". 530 AD), while commentaries on the works of Archimedes written by Eutocius in the sixth century AD helped to bring his work a wider audience. Archimedes' work was translated into Arabic by Thābit ibn Qurra (836–901 AD), and Latin by Gerard of Cremona ("c." 1114–1187 AD). During the Renaissance, the "Editio Princeps" (First Edition) was published in Basel in 1544 by Johann Herwagen with the works of Archimedes in Greek and Latin. Around the year 1586 Galileo Galilei invented a hydrostatic balance for weighing metals in air and water after apparently being inspired by the work of Archimedes. Apocryphal works. Archimedes' "Book of Lemmas" or "Liber Assumptorum" is a treatise with fifteen propositions on the nature of circles. The earliest known copy of the text is in Arabic. The scholars T. L. Heath and Marshall Clagett argued that it cannot have been written by Archimedes in its current form, since it quotes Archimedes, suggesting modification by another author. The "Lemmas" may be based on an earlier work by Archimedes that is now lost. It has also been claimed that Heron's formula for calculating the area of a triangle from the length of its sides was known to Archimedes. However, the first reliable reference to the formula is given by Heron of Alexandria in the 1st century AD. Archimedes Palimpsest. The foremost document containing the work of Archimedes is the Archimedes Palimpsest. In 1906, the Danish professor Johan Ludvig Heiberg visited Constantinople and examined a 174-page goatskin parchment of prayers written in the 13th century AD. He discovered that it was a palimpsest, a document with text that had been written over an erased older work. Palimpsests were created by scraping the ink from existing works and reusing them, which was a common practice in the Middle Ages as vellum was expensive. The older works in the palimpsest were identified by scholars as 10th century AD copies of previously unknown treatises by Archimedes. The parchment spent hundreds of years in a monastery library in Constantinople before being sold to a private collector in the 1920s. On October 29, 1998 it was sold at auction to an anonymous buyer for $2 million at Christie's in New York. The palimpsest holds seven treatises, including the only surviving copy of "On Floating Bodies" in the original Greek. It is the only known source of "The Method of Mechanical Theorems", referred to by Suidas and thought to have been lost forever. "Stomachion" was also discovered in the palimpsest, with a more complete analysis of the puzzle than had been found in previous texts. The palimpsest is now stored at the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore, Maryland, where it has been subjected to a range of modern tests including the use of ultraviolet and light to read the overwritten text. The treatises in the Archimedes Palimpsest are: "On the Equilibrium of Planes, On Spirals, Measurement of a Circle, On the Sphere and the Cylinder, On Floating Bodies, The Method of Mechanical Theorems" and "Stomachion". Notes. a. In the preface to "On Spirals" addressed to Dositheus of Pelusium, Archimedes says that "many years have elapsed since Conon's death." Conon of Samos lived , suggesting that Archimedes may have been an older man when writing some of his works. b. The treatises by Archimedes known to exist only through references in the works of other authors are: "On Sphere-Making" and a work on polyhedra mentioned by Pappus of Alexandria; "Catoptrica", a work on optics mentioned by Theon of Alexandria; "Principles", addressed to Zeuxippus and explaining the number system used in "The Sand Reckoner"; "On Balances and Levers"; "On Centers of Gravity"; "On the Calendar". Of the surviving works by Archimedes, T. L. Heath offers the following suggestion as to the order in which they were written: "On the Equilibrium of Planes I", "The Quadrature of the Parabola", "On the Equilibrium of Planes II", "On the Sphere and the Cylinder I, II", "On Spirals", "On Conoids and Spheroids", "On Floating Bodies I, II", "On the Measurement of a Circle", "The Sand Reckoner". c. Boyer, Carl Benjamin "A History of Mathematics" (1991) ISBN 0-471-54397-7 "Arabic scholars inform us that the familiar area formula for a triangle in terms of its three sides, usually known as Heron's formula — "k" = √("s"("s" − "a")("s" − "b")("s" − "c")), where "s" is the semiperimeter — was known to Archimedes several centuries before Heron lived. Arabic scholars also attribute to Archimedes the 'theorem on the broken chord' ... Archimedes is reported by the Arabs to have given several proofs of the theorem." d. "It was usual to smear the seams or even the whole hull with pitch or with pitch and wax". In Νεκρικοὶ Διάλογοι ("Dialogues of the Dead"), Lucian refers to coating the seams of a skiff with wax, a reference to pitch (tar) or wax.
1038311	John Gordon Sinclair (born February 1962) is a Scottish actor most notable for playing Gregory in "Gregory's Girl". He was born as Gordon John but took the stage name 'John Gordon Sinclair' because Equity already had a Gordon John registered. Life and career. Sinclair was born in Glasgow. At 15 he joined Glasgow's Youth Theatre after he visited one night and met fellow fan of Canadian progressive rock group Rush, Robert Buchanan. As a result he starred in a number of films by director Bill Forsyth, perhaps the most notable of which is 1981's "Gregory's Girl", shot when he was 19 years old. He reprised the role nearly two decades later in "Gregory's Two Girls", and also appeared in Forsyth's "Local Hero". He has continued to act on stage and screen. Other roles include parts in "Goodbye Mr Steadman", "Mad About Alice" Gasping and "Roman Road". He was also in the first series of LWT's "Hot Metal" and both the radio and television sitcom "An Actor's Life For Me". He played Dan Weir in "Espedair Street", the BBC Radio 4 adaptation of the Iain Banks novel, as well as playing the lead part of Dr. Finlay in the Radio 4 series entitled "Adventures of a Black Bag". He appeared in the 1982 Scottish squad's World Cup song "We Have a Dream", a number 5 hit in the UK, which was written and performed by BA Robertson. It featured John Gordon Sinclair speaking his recollection of a dream about Scottish football success. He later revived this Scottish footballing connection by narrating the 2006-07 BBC Scotland documentary series "That Was The Team That Was". Sinclair played Frank McClusky, a leading character, in the 1990 John Byrne TV serial "Your Cheatin' Heart". He also appeared in "Local Hero". Sinclair played one of the main characters in the Tesco TV adverts in the late 1990s and early 2000s alongside Prunella Scales and Jane Horrocks. He most recently appeared in the West End in "The Producers" playing the part of Leo Bloom alongside Fred Applegate. He voiced all the male characters (except for Finbar) in HIT Entertainment's "Rubbadubbers". He was awarded the Laurence Olivier Theatre Award in 1995 for Best Actor in a Musical for his 1994 performance in ""She Loves Me"". Sinclair also performed the part of "Master of Ceremonies" in Mike Oldfield's premiere performance of "Tubular Bells II" at Edinburgh Castle in 1992. He had a novel "Seventy Times Seven" published in 2012 and is married with two daughters. In 2013 he starred alongside Brad Pitt in the Zombie/Action summer blockbuster movie World War Z as a Navy SEAL.
584149	Seval is a Tamil language action drama film released in 2008. It stars Bharath, Vadivelu, Simran Bagga and Poonam Bajwa in the lead roles. Plot. The beginning is promising, at any rate, as you watch a Don't-Care Murugesan (Bharath) limp sorrowfully from the Central Jail, Palayamkottai, in a scruffy beard and glasses.
247473	Daragh O'Malley (born 25 May 1954) is an Irish film, theatre and television actor who has appeared in a large number of TV series, films and films for television. O'Malley is perhaps best known for his portrayal of the ever-faithful Patrick Harper in the long-running [1993-2009] "Sharpe" TV series with Sean Bean. O'Malley has appeared in a wide range of productions from films like "The Long Good Friday" and "Withnail and I" to episodes of "Waking The Dead", "Wire in the Blood" and "Silent Witness", as well as having leading roles in US productions including "The Magnificent Seven", "Texas", "Vendetta", "Cleopatra" and "The Iron Marshall". In 2011 O'Malley returned to the stage in the UK after a twelve-year absence playing John Rainey in a London revival of "Mixed Marriage" which received positive reviews. Biography. Daragh O'Malley was raised in Limerick and educated by the Jesuits at Crescent College and later by Carmelite monks at Terenure College in Dublin. His father, Donogh O'Malley, was an Irish politician who served as a TD for Limerick East from 1954 to 1968 and as his country's Minister for Health and later Minister for Education, introducing a Free Secondary and Third Level education system in Ireland which is credited with the subsequent large upsurge in the Irish economy. O'Malley's mother, Hilda, a doctor from Dingle, County Kerry, is the subject of Patrick Kavanagh's famous love poem "On Raglan Road". O'Malley's late aunt, Meave - his father's sister - was singer Dido's grandmother. O'Malley studied at London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art where one of his fellow students was Amy Irving. Irving once played Antigone to O'Malley's Creon. On leaving LAMDA O'Malley was a founder member of Common Stock Theatre Company, one of London's first community theatre groups, which was based in an old church on Pentonville Road in London and took theatre to the poor of London's East End.A fellow founder member of Common Stock was Dame Harriet Walter. Hobbies. O'Malley has/had a keen interest in horse racing. O'Malley said in a BBC radio interview in 2011 that "backing a winner and smoking a cigarette are two of the great joys in life " Three successful horses that he himself owned were "Mustang Prince" (which won twelve races), "Long-Haired Lover" and "Running Deer"(which he named after a character in the Richard Harris film "A Man Called Horse)".O'Malley was a friend of the late Richard Harris - the two were often seen together at Dingle Races in Ireland, at Munster rugby matches in the UK, in Scott's pub in Kilkee, Co. Clare, Ireland, and in various hostelries in London. Harris also had racehorses - "Cromwell" and "A Tramp Shining". Trivia. On leaving LAMDA one of O'Malley's first roles was in a six-month touring musical with Liam Neeson in which Neeson and O'Malley played two IRA bombers and the duo sang the opening number - "We do it for Love" When Patrick Duffy (Bobby Ewing) was killed off from "Dallas", he and O'Malley formed a partnership in a film production company called European Motion Pictures In the hugely successful Sharpe TV series O'Malley appeared in all sixteen two hour films as Sean Bean's sidekick,Sgt. Harper - Guests in Sharpe included Liz Hurley, Daniel Craig, Paul Bettany, Mark Strong, Emily Mortimer, Neil Dudgeon,Julian Fellowes, Philip Glenister,Toby Stephens,Padma Lakshmi - wife of Salman Rushie - and the late Pete Poseltwaite. In the mid 90s, O'Malley was cast as Debra Winger's husband in a leading role in the ill-fated feature "Divine Rapture" which starred Marlon Brando, Winger, O'Malley, John Hurt and Johnny Depp. The production spectacularly collapsed a few weeks into filming when Orion, the Los Angeles production company backing the film, suddenly went bankrupt. Three-time Oscar nominee Winger virtually retired from acting after - some say because of - the "Divine Rapture" debacle. O'Malley, who lived in Los Angeles for 10 years, remained a close friend of Brando's until Brando died. In 2011 O'Malley returned to the stage after a twelve-year absence appearing as Father Jack in a 16 city touring production of Brien Friel's "Dancing at Lughnasa" and as Trade Unionist John Rainey in a much-acclaimed London production of Irving's "Mixed Marriage". O'Malley is the voice of the iconic crooked lawyer Nick Virago in the multi-million selling Lucas Arts CD ROM Grim Fandango. Also a voice actor, O'Malley was for years the voice of the Utah based Beneficial Life Insurance Company across North America. Awards. O'Malley produced the Irish version of "The Rocky Horror Show" in Dublin and the show won numerous awards including a Best Production Jacob's Award. Author Richard O'Brien described the Irish production as "without doubt,the sexiest version ever produced". In Los Angeles O'Malley won a Drama-Logue Best Actor Award for his 1998 performance as "Sweeney" in Patrick Marber's "Dealers Choice" at The Mark Taper Forum. A one-off episode of the BBC Series "Doctors" which was just a two handed episode in which O'Malley appeared with actor Christopher Timothy won a BANFF TV Award. Charity work. O'Malley was a founder of The Sharpe's Children Foundation, a charity designed to fight poverty with education and take orphaned and destitute children off the streets of the third world and into residential education. The SCF was launched at Apsley House - home of the Duke of Wellington - in October 2010. At The Street Children's World Cup 2010 in Durban, South Africa The SCF put together an Indian team drawn from street children who live in the railway carriages of Delhi railway station and who had no birth certificates or passports. In a surprise outcome the team of Indian children - including a female full back called Honey - took the trophy back to India after beating Brazil in the final.
1056192	Romeo Must Die is a 2000 American action film directed by Andrzej Bartkowiak, his directorial debut, and starring Jet Li, Aaliyah, Anthony Anderson, Delroy Lindo, Isaiah Washington, Russell Wong, and features action and fight choreography by Corey Yuen. It is considered Jet Li's breakout role in the English speaking American film industry. The film's plot is similar to Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet", but instead of the last name, the families feud over race. The movie's setting was Oakland, California, but other than a few establishing shots, the film was entirely shot in Vancouver, British Columbia. This film was the debut of R&B singer Aaliyah as an actress. Plot. As the movie opens, Po Sing (John Kit Lee) is waiting for someone unknown in an African-American club when Kai (Russell Wong) and his Asian henchmen come in and confront the owner of the club and his bouncers. After a brief fight, all are thrown out by the owner before the meeting can take place. The next day, Po is found murdered. Fearing retribution, real estate developer (and gang leader) Isak O’Day (Delroy Lindo) arranges for his henchmen to place security on both of his children. Meanwhile, Po’s brother, Han (Jet Li), learns of the murder in the Hong Kong prison where he is serving time. After starting a fight in the mess hall, he escapes from prison by overpowering the guards who took him to an isolation cell for punishment and disguising himself as one of them. Han makes his way to Oakland, where he learns that a gang war seems to have erupted between black and Asian gang families, including both O’Day and Han and Po’s father, Ch’u Sing (Henry O), even while the two are apparently engaged in a joint business venture. He also learns that his brother called O’Day’s daughter Trish’s (Aaliyah) record store the day before he was killed. After a chance encounter with her, he follows her and learns that Po may have actually been calling Trish’s brother, Colin (D.B. Woodside). At his brother’s funeral Han confronts his estranged father, blaming him for failing to keep Po safe as he promised he would after he helped the both of them flee to America to escape the Chinese authorities, an action which resulted in his own imprisonment especially when Han was a former police officer. Han learns that the war is apparently over control of property along the Oakland waterfront. Meanwhile, O’Day also reveals to his son that the deal he is working on will get their family out of the crime business for good, but that he must be careful. However, the apparent war over territory is really a cover for the two sides secretly working together to put together a deal for ownership of a new NFL franchise in Oakland. Colin and his girlfriend are killed by unseen assailants by being thrown out of his high rise apartment window. As Han comforts Trish, he learns that Po had put together a list of businesses that were either destroyed or being threatened with destruction for failing to sell their properties, and that Po was trying to contact Colin to warn him about this. The two visit one of the few remaining properties on the list and learn that the owner, a Chinese man, and his employees have been killed by a Chinese hit team. When Han confronts his father over this, he tries to deflect suspicion by telling him Trish may have been involved. It is revealed that both sides in the fake war are using violence and intimidation to force the owners of all the waterfront properties to relinquish their rights over their properties. As Trish and Han visit the last property on the list, the nightclub where Po originally intended to meet Colin, O’Day’s chief lieutenant Mac and his goons kill the club’s owner and kidnap both Trish and Han, taking them to separate locations. Han escapes by overpowering his guards.
1057215	The Domino Principle is a 1977 thriller film starring Gene Hackman, Candice Bergen, Mickey Rooney and Richard Widmark. The film is based on the novel of the same name and was adapted for the screen by its author, Adam Kennedy. It was directed and produced by Stanley Kramer. Plot. Roy Tucker (Gene Hackman), serving time for the murder of his wife's first husband, is approached in prison by a man named Tagge (Richard Widmark) on behalf of a mysterious organization with an offer: in exchange for helping him escape and start a new life, Tucker must work for the organization for a few weeks. Following his escape with cellmate Spiventa (Mickey Rooney)—whom the organization immediately kills—Tucker flies to Puntarenas, Costa Rica where he is reunited with his wife Ellie (Candice Bergen). After a few idyllic days, the organization's Tagge, Pine (Edward Albert) and General Reser (Eli Wallach) return them to Los Angeles. There the details of his mission slowly unfold. He realizes he is expected to assassinate someone and refuses. The organization retaliates by kidnapping his wife.
205720	Arnold Ephraim Ross (August 24, 1906 – September 25, 2002) was a mathematician and educator who founded the Ross Mathematics Program, a number theory summer program for gifted high school students at the Ohio State University that he ran for over forty years. He was born in Chicago, but spent his youth in Odesa, Ukraine, where he studied with Samuil Shatunovsky. Ross returned to Chicago and enrolled in University of Chicago graduate coursework under E. H. Moore despite his lack of formal academic training. He received his Ph.D. and married his wife, Bee, in 1931. Ross taught at several institutions including St. Louis University before becoming chair of University of Notre Dame's mathematics department in 1946. He started a teacher training program in math that evolved into the Ross Mathematics Program in 1957 with the addition of high school students. The program moved with him to Ohio State University when he became their department chair in 1963. The program is known as Ross's most significant work, for which he has received many awards. The program attendees have since continued on to prominent research positions across the sciences. Early life and career. In Moore's teaching style, he would propose a conjecture and task the students with proving it. Students could respond with counter-conjectures that they would defend. Ross found Moore's method exciting, and his pedagogy influenced Ross's own. Ross became Leonard Eugene Dickson's research assistant after graduating. Ross earned B.S. and M.S. degrees and finished his Ph.D. in number theory at the University of Chicago in 1931 with Dickson as his adviser. Ross's dissertation was, "On Representation of Integers by Indefinite Ternary Quadratic Forms". He did not pay tuition after his first quarter, which he credits to Dickson.
1074637	Yellow Sky (1948) is an American western film directed by William A. Wellman. The story is believed to be loosely adapted from William Shakespeare's "The Tempest". A band of outlaws flee after a bank robbery and encounter an old man and his granddaughter in a ghost town. Plot. In 1867, a gang led by James "Stretch" Dawson (Gregory Peck) robs a bank and flees into the desert. Out of water, the outlaws come upon a ghost town called Yellow Sky and its only residents, a hostile young woman named Constance but called "Mike" (Anne Baxter), and her grandfather (played by James Barton). Stretch is attracted to Mike. While the men recover from their ordeal, Dude (Richard Widmark) snoops around. Dude tells the others that the old man is mining gold, but Stretch is unimpressed. The next day, Mike and Grandpa take to the hills. A confrontation between Stretch and Dude over the leadership of the gang is interrupted by Mike shooting at them. However, when Grandpa is shot in the leg, Mike surrenders. Back in the house, Grandpa offers to split his gold, worth roughly $50,000 by his estimate. Later, Lengthy (John Russell) grabs Mike, and youngster Bull Run (Robert Arthur) tries unsuccessfully to intervene. Stretch rescues him and holds Lengthy's head underwater until he nearly drowns. That night, Stretch assures Mike and Grandpa that he will keep to the bargain, with Dude eavesdropping. The next day, a large band of Apaches appear while the gang is at the mine digging up the gold. Stretch sneaks into town. Grandpa tells him that he convinced his friends to return to the reservation. In gratitude for the old man not sending the Indians to wipe out his gang, Stretch tells his men that they will share the gold, but Dude draws his gun and fires. The rest of the outlaws follow his example. Mike shows up and helps a slightly wounded Stretch back to her home. Not wanting to spend the rest of their lives looking over their shoulders for Stretch, the gang surrounds the house. In the ensuing gunfight, they think that Stretch has been killed. Dude takes the opportunity to shoot at Lengthy, but misses. He then runs off to try to take all the gold for himself, with his would-be victim in pursuit. Bull Run is fatally wounded, and Walrus (Charles Kemper) and Half Pint (Harry Morgan) decide to switch sides. Stretch then goes after Dude and Lengthy. A deadly three-sided shootout in the unlit saloon follows. Afterwards, a frantic Mike finds Dude and Lengthy dead and Stretch wounded. After Stretch recovers, he, Walrus and Half Pint return to the bank they robbed and give back the stolen money. Then, they ride off with Mike and Grandpa. Cast. In a memo, studio head Darryl F. Zanuck suggested Walter Huston for the role of Grandpa and Fred Clark for Lengthy. Paulette Goddard was originally cast as Mike. Production. The studio purchased W. R. Burnett's unpublished novel for $35,000 in November 1947. All drafts of the screenplay were written by Lamar Trotti. The western commenced a construction crew of over 150 men and women to build a ghost town in the desert near Lone Pine, California, by demolishing a movie set, called "Last Outpost", that Tom Mix had built in 1923. Exteriors were also filmed at Death Valley National Monument, with the cast and crew living at Furnace Creek Inn and Camp, which was leased from the Pacific Coast Borax Company. At the time of filming, animal cruelty regulations only permitted horses to be on the set for three hours. The opening and closing music was taken from Alfred Newman's score for the Twentieth Century-Fox film "Brigham Young" (1940), which was also written by Trotti. Adaptations and remakes. The success of the film spawned a radio adaptation starring Peck and hosted by director William A. Wellman which was broadcast on Screen Directors Playhouse on NBC Radio on July 15, 1949. The film was remade in 1967 as "The Jackals". Filmed in South Africa at Killarney Film Studios by producer-director Robert D. Webb, "The Jackals" starred Robert Gunner, Diana Iverson and, as the old man, Vincent Price. The film, however, was never given a theatrical release, but was shown on television.
825935	The Falls is a 1980 film directed by Peter Greenaway. It was Greenaway's first feature-length film after many years making shorts. It does not have a traditional dramatic narrative; it takes the form of a mock documentary in 92 short parts. Plot. The world has been struck by a mysterious incident called the "Violent Unknown Event" or VUE, which has killed many people and left a great many survivors suffering from a common set of symptoms: mysterious ailments (some appearing to be mutations of evolving into a bird-like form), dreaming of water (categorised by form, such as Category 1, Flight, or Category 3, Waves) and becoming obsessed with birds and flight. Many of the survivors have been gifted with new languages. They have also stopped aging, making them immortal (barring disease or injury).
394081	Marrying the Mafia III () is a 2006 South Korean film. Synopsis. This gangster comedy chronicles the White Tiger Family of Jeolla Province. Hong Deok-ja, head of the crime family, quits the syndicate to open a kimchi business after her son marries a prosecutor. She is pulled back into the crime family when the familiar member of the rival Axe Gang is released from prison and seeks revenge upon the White Tiger Family.
585365	Shamili , better known as Baby Shamili, is an Indian actress, who has primarily acted as a child actor in Malayalam, Tamil, Kannada and Telugu films. She is probably best known for her critically acclaimed performance as the mentally challenged child Anjali in the 1990 film "Anjali" that fetched her the National Film Award for Best Child Artist, and as a child trapped inside a bore-well in the 1992 film "Malootty" that fetched her a Kerala State Film Award for Best Child Artist. Personal life. Shamili hails from Kerala from an acting family, being the younger sister of actor Richard Rishi and actress Shalini who is married to actor Ajith Kumar. The family is a Protestant Christian. She is doing a course in Singapore and holds a degree in 'Visual Communication' from Women's Christian College. Acting career. She started acting at the age of two. In 1990, she acted in Bharathan's "Malootty", a film based on Jessica McClure. Her performance won her critical appreciation and the Kerala State Film Award for Best Child Artist. Her breakthrough in Tamil came with Mani Ratnam's 'Anjali', in which she portrayed a mentally challenged child, which earned her the National Film Award for Best Child Artist. She also acted as a teenager in Fazil's "Harikrishnans" as Mammooty and Mohanlal's sibling. In Kannada has acted with well known actors like vishnuvardhan, ambreesh, sitara, shruthi, srinath, Geetha, Meghna, Vinaya Prasad, Sunil, Sathya priya, Bhavya, Lakshmi and abhijeet. In kannada, she acted in "Dakshayini", "Kadambari" (1993), "Karulina Kudi" (1995), "Bhairavi" (1991),"Chinna Nee Naguthiru" (1993) Bhuvaneshwari (1994) matte haditu kogile (1990), hoovu hannu (1993) and jagadeshwari (1998). She played her first female lead role in Anand Ranga's directorial debut "Oy!" alongside Siddarth. Though this movie didn't fare well at Box Office, but has got critical acclamation in terms of high movie values. Her childhood films were directed mainly by ramnarayan,she was the child artist for whom the whole film was being done with senior artist playing supporting roles and she was in high demand in her realm. External links. ! colspan="3" style="background: #DAA520;" | National Film Award
401978	Claudia Schiffer (; born 25 August 1970) is a German model and creative director of her own clothing label. Schiffer rose to popularity and became a household name during the early 1990s as one of the world's most successful models. In her early career, she was said to resemble Brigitte Bardot. She appeared on more than 700 magazine covers and continues to front global campaigns for luxury fashion and fragrance houses. In 2002, "Forbes" estimated her net worth at about US$55 million (£38 million). Early life. Schiffer was born in Rheinberg, North Rhine-Westphalia, West Germany, a small town 15 km northwest of Duisburg. She is the daughter of Gudrun and Heinz Schiffer, a lawyer. She has two brothers, Stefan and Andreas, and one sister, Ann Carolin. Schiffer said she was popular in high school, but she has revealed that, because she was so tall, she became very shy and did not want to be noticed. She was also subjected to jealousy by others as she came from a wealthy family that was well-known locally. Schiffer is fluent in three languages – German, English and French. She originally wanted to become a lawyer and used to work in her father's law firm. She later dropped these aspirations when, in October 1987 at 17, she was spotted in a nightclub in Düsseldorf by Michel Levaton, the boss of Metropolitan Model Agency who signed her up to become a model. Modeling. Schiffer completed her education and then began to work as a model. She flew out to Paris for a trial photo shoot and soon after she appeared on the cover of French Elle after being well received in Paris. In the early 1990s, she starred in the highly publicised Guess? Jeans campaigns. Paul Marciano said in E! Forbes Top 15 Supermodel Beauties Who Made Bank, "Guess name became really much more known around the world because Claudia". After several other magazine appearances including the cover of British Vogue shot by Herb Ritts, Schiffer quickly achieved supermodel status and was selected by Karl Lagerfeld to become the new face of Chanel. She went on to become world famous, instantly recognisable with her blue eyes, blonde hair and tall figure, standing at 1.81 m (approx. 5 ft 11 in.). Schiffer appeared on the November 1999 millennium cover of Vogue as one of the "Modern Muses". Named as one of the most beautiful women in the world, her ability to appeal to a global audience has assured an internationally successful career spanning more than 25 years. Schiffer was the first model to make the covers of "Vanity Fair", "Rolling Stone", "The New York Times" and "People" and has appeared numerous times on covers of "Vogue", "Harper's Bazaar", "Elle", "Cosmopolitan" and "Time". Schiffer has appeared on the catwalk for numerous fashion houses, including Versace, Yves Saint Laurent, Dolce & Gabbana, Chanel and Valentino. As well as endorsing luxury brands, Schiffer has appeared as the face of high street retailers including Mango and Accessorize, and had her ears pierced for the first time especially for the 2006 Autumn/Winter Accessorize campaign. She has also featured in commercials for Pepsi and Fanta. From her appearances in a 1998 Citroën advertisement she allegedly earned £3 million. Schiffer still holds a contract with L'Oréal and is one of their longest standing ambassadors.
1150394	Nathan Karl Kress (born November 18, 1992) is an American actor. He was also a professional child model. Kress has acted since the age of three and is known for his role as Freddie Benson on the Nickelodeon television series "iCarly". Early life. Kress was born on November 18, 1992, in Glendale, California. He has two older brothers, Andrew (born October 23, 1987) and Kevin (born May 30, 1990), neither of whom are involved in show business.
584473	Nattamai (English: "Village Chief") is a 1994 Tamil film directed by K. S. Ravikumar. It starred Sarath Kumar, Meena and Kushboo in the lead roles. The film became a blockbuster and completed a 175-day run at the box office.It is considered to be one of the most popular Tamil films of the 1990's and in general. The tagline "Nattamai, theerpa maathi sollu" became popular after release. It became a trendsetter for many big budget films in later years. The Goundamani-Senthil comic duo was one of the most popular aspects about the film. Sarath Kumar earned both the Tamil Nadu State Film Award for Best Actor and Filmfare Award for Best Actor - Tamil for his performance in the film. The film was later remade in Bollywood as "Bulandi" starring Anil Kapoor, in Tollywood as "Pedarayudu" starring Mohan Babu, in Kannada as "Simhadriya Simha" with Super Star Dr.Vishnu Vardhan. Soundtrack. Soundtrack is composed by Sirpy and lyrics written by Vairamuthu.
900338	Orgasmo (also known as Paranoia) is a 1969 Italian-French "giallo" thriller film starring Carroll Baker and Lou Castel and directed by Umberto Lenzi. The plot focuses on a wealthy American widow who is exploited and terrorized by two siblings. Release. "Orgasmo" was released in Italy on February 7, 1969. The film's title has led to confusion as on its international release, the film was titled "Paranoia". Lenzi's next film also with actress Carroll Baker was titled "Paranoia" in Italy but was given the international title of "A Quiet Place to Kill". Like other giallo films, "Orgasmo" was not popular among the Italian film audiences on its initial theatrical release as the genre never gained popularity in its home country until the releases of Dario Argento's "The Bird with the Crystal Plumage" (1970) and "The Cat o' Nine Tails" (1971). Reception. The online film database Allmovie gave "Orgasmo" one star referring to it as less interesting as "Paranoia" and "there are some interesting moments, but this is clearly the lesser of the two films." Roger Ebert gave the film a negative review stating that "Only the haunting memory of "Succubus" prevents me from naming ["Orgasmo"] as the worst movie of the year."
1044115	Carry On Emmannuelle is the 30th in the series of "Carry On" films to be made, and was released in 1978. This was the last "Carry On" film to be made until "Carry On Columbus" in 1992. The film was to be the final Carry on for many regulars including Kenneth Williams (in his 26th Carry On), Kenneth Connor (in his 17th Carry On), Joan Sims (in her 24th Carry On) and Peter Butterworth (in his 16th Carry On). Jack Douglas is the only actor to bridge the gap between Carry On Emmannuelle and Carry On Columbus. Beryl Reid and Suzanne Danielle make their one and only appearances in the series here. The film featured a change in style, becoming more openly sexual. This was highlighted by the implied behaviour of Suzanne Danielle, though she does not bare any more flesh than any other "Carry On" female lead. These changes brought the film closer to the then popular series of X-rated "Confessions..." comedies, or indeed the official "Emmanuelle" films it parodies. This was the only film in the series to be certified AA by the then British Board of Film Censors. This restricted audiences to those aged fourteen and over. Plot. Emmannuelle Prevert (Suzanne Danielle) relieves the boredom of a flight on Concorde by seducing timid Theodore Valentine (Larry Dann). She returns home to London to surprise her husband, the French Ambassador, Emile Prevert (Kenneth Williams) but first surprises the butler, Lyons (Jack Douglas). He removes her coat only to find she has left her dress on the 'plane! The chauffeur, Leyland (Kenneth Connor), housekeeper, Mrs Dangle (Joan Sims) and aged boot-boy, Richmond (Peter Butterworth) sense saucy times ahead ... and they are right! Emile is dedicated to his bodybuilding, leaving a sexually frustrated Emmannuelle to find pleasure with everyone from the Lord Chief Justice (Llewellyn Rees) to chat show host, Harold Hump (Henry McGee). Theodore is spurned by Emmannuelle, who has genuinely forgotten their airborne encounter and despite reassurances from his mother (Beryl Reid), Theodore exacts revenge by revealing Emmannuelle's antics to the Press. However, after a visit to her doctor (Albert Moses), she discovers she is pregnant and decides to settle down to a faithful marriage with Emile ... and dozens of children. Filming and locations. Interiors: Exteriors: References. "Keeping the British End Up: Four Decades of Saucy Cinema" by Simon Sheridan (fourth edition) (2011) (Titan Books) "The Carry On Companion" by Robert Ross (1996) (Batsford Books)
121334	"In Harm's Way" is a 1965 American epic war film produced and directed by Otto Preminger and starring John Wayne, Kirk Douglas, Patricia Neal, Tom Tryon, Paula Prentiss, Stanley Holloway, Burgess Meredith, Brandon deWilde, Jill Haworth, Dana Andrews, and Henry Fonda. It was the last black-and-white World War II epic and the last black-and-white John Wayne film. It received a mixed response over the years as a war story that had a simple story, a charge leveled against Preminger's later movies, starting with this one. The screenplay was written by Wendell Mayes based on the novel "Harm's Way" by James Bassett. The film recounts the lives of several US naval officers and their wives or lovers while based in Hawaii as the US involvement in World War II begins. The title of the film comes from a quote from American Revolutionary naval hero John Paul Jones: "I wish to have no connection with any ship that does not sail fast, for I intend to go in harm's way." The film presents a relatively unromanticized and realistic picture of the American Navy and its officers in the period before and shortly after the start of World War II, complete with bureaucratic infighting among the brass and sometimes disreputable private acts by individuals. Its sprawling narrative is typical of Preminger's works in which he examined institutions and the people who run them (such as the American Congress and the Presidency in "Advise and Consent", the Catholic Church in "The Cardinal" and the British Intelligence Service in "The Human Factor"). Plot. John Wayne stars as U.S. Navy Captain Rockwell "Rock" Torrey, a divorced "second generation Navy" son of a career Chief Petty Officer. A Naval Academy graduate and career officer, Torrey is removed from command of his heavy cruiser for "throwing away the book" when pursuing the enemy and then being torpedoed by a Japanese submarine shortly after the attack on Pearl Harbor. Kirk Douglas portrays Torrey's executive officer, Commander (later Captain) Paul Eddington, a wayward sort of career officer who has resigned as a Naval Aviator and returned to the Surface Navy because of an unhappy marriage. His wife's numerous "love" affairs and drunken escapades have become the talk of Honolulu and her death during the Pearl Harbor attack – in the company of an Army Air Corps Officer (Hugh O'Brian), with whom she just had a wild fling on a local beach – drives Eddington into a bar brawl, a stint in the Brig, and exile as the "...officer in charge of piers and warehouses..." in what he calls a "backwater island purgatory." After several months of desk duty ashore in Hawaii and recuperation from a broken arm he suffered in the attack on his cruiser, Torrey finds his way into a romance with a divorced Navy Nurse Corps Lieutenant named Maggie Haynes (Patricia Neal), who tells him that his estranged son Jeremiah (Brandon De Wilde) is now an Ensign in the Naval Reserve. A brief and strained visit with Jere brings Torrey in on a South Pacific island-hopping offensive codenamed "Skyhook", which is under command of the overly cautious and micro-managing Vice Admiral B.T. Broderick (Dana Andrews). On additional information from his roommate, intelligence officer Egan Powell (Burgess Meredith), Torrey guesses that the aim of Skyhook is to capture a strategic island named Levu-Vana, whose central plain would make an ideal roost for B-17 squadrons. Shortly thereafter, Maggie informs him that her unit is to be shipped out to the same area in preparation for the offensive. Come summer 1942, Torrey is promoted to Rear Admiral and given tactical command of Skyhook, an assignment requiring the same sort of guts and gallantry he previously displayed as commanding officer of his cruiser. He personally selects Paul Eddington to be his Chief of Staff, and infuriates Broderick by immediately planning and executing an operation to overrun Gavabutu, an island to be used as a staging base for the invasion of Levu-Vana. The Japanese, however, have withdrawn their garrisons from Gavabutu, making it an easy capture. But as Torrey turns his undivided attention to Levu-Vana, his attempts to secure more materiel and manpower are frustrated by General Douglas MacArthur's simultaneous and much larger campaign in the Solomon Islands. Reconnaissance aircraft prove especially difficult to come by, and surface combatant forces amount to little more than several cruisers and destroyers, including Torrey's former command. Meanwhille, Eddington's instability drives him to the rape of Navy Nurse Annalee Dohrn (Jill Haworth) who is engaged to Torrey's son. The traumatized nurse, fearing she might be pregnant, commits suicide with an overdose of sleeping pills. As the truth is about to be revealed, Eddington, still a qualified aviator, commandeers a PBJ patrol bomber and flies solo on an unauthorized reconnaissance flight to locate elements of the Japanese fleet. He goes down to a fiery death in a redeeming act of sacrifice, finding and giving advance warning of a large Japanese task force centered around the super-battleship "Yamato", on its way to blast Torrey's much smaller force off the islands. Despite the new seaborne threat, Torrey nevertheless mounts the invasion of Levu-Vana and proceeds with a nothing-to-be-lost attempt to turn back the enemy force. Tragically, his son Jere is killed during a nighttime PT boat action. The following morning sees a pitched surface action off the shores of Levu-Vana, with the Americans drawing first blood and the "Yamato" decimating much of the U.S. force in response. Severely injured at the height of the battle, Torrey is rescued by his flag lieutenant, William "Mac" McConnel (Tom Tryon), and is returned to Pearl Harbor aboard a hospital ship under Maggie's care. Expecting to be court-martialed, Torrey is instead congratulated on successfully repelling the Japanese advance and allowing his Marines to take Levu-Vana. Background and production. It has been speculated that Wayne's lowkey performance was due to the fact that he was seriously ill with lung cancer when the film was made. Shortly after filming ended in August 1964 he was diagnosed with the disease and a month later underwent surgery to remove his entire left lung and two ribs. Co-star Franchot Tone was soon to develop lung cancer and died of the disease in September 1968. Many of the non-military costumes and hairstyles worn by the women throughout the film were contemporary to the mid-1960s period during which the film was made, rather than of the early 1940s. This is particularly noticeable at the dance which opens the film. Many of the extras in this scene were, in fact, active duty officers and their spouses assigned to various commands in Oahu. The film was shot in black-and-white by Loyal Griggs, who composed his scenes in the scope format often using deep focus (Griggs was nominated for a Best Cinematographer Academy Award for his work). Jerry Goldsmith's musical score is also notable, as is the work of Saul Bass in the credit titles sequence (this sequence actually comes at the very end of the film, an interesting departure from the norm in a major Hollywood production at the time). The film received extensive cooperation from the Department of Defense, especially the US Navy and the US Marine Corps. Though at the time of the filming (late 1963–1964), very few ships in active Navy service resembled their WW-2 configuration, and the only WW-2 vintage heavy cruiser (CA 73) in the role of the "straw bottom cruiser" (referred to only as the "old swayback" which could have referred to ), and an accompanying destroyer, , that took on the role USS "Cassidy" were extensively filmed on. Other US Navy ships that participated include destroyers (DD 630), (DD 450), (DD 499), (DD 517), submarine (SS 336) and the attack transport (APA 227). All of the destroyers had to have their modern (1960s) ASW gear covered over with fake gun-mounts or deck houses. Additional smaller vessels were provided in support, as well as an HU-16 Albatross amphibious aircraft, even though said aircraft did not enter the US inventory until 1949. The HU-16 likely substitutes for a PBY Catalina, of which no flyable examples were likely available for the film schedule. Another anachronism is the widespread use of the M151 MUTT light utility vehicle as a World War II jeep instead of the World War II-era Willys MB and/or Ford GPW, the M151 having not even entered production until 1959. Also used were a few 1950s vintage 63 ft USCG rescue launches that were made over to resemble Elco 80 ft torpedo boats, as the few that existed were not available for use. The climactic battle with the Japanese fleet was staged mostly with model ships. Kirk Douglas thought the special effects poor and complained bitterly to both the director and the studio about it. He offered to re-stage the scenes at his own expense using the special effects people who worked with him on "Paths of Glory". Other ongoings that went down during the filming included Kirk Douglas being allowed to hold Yom Kippur services for Jewish Naval Officers who were extras on the set and a clash between director Preminger and actor Tom Tryon which climaxed when Preminger screamed behind Tryon "RELAX!!" The stars of the film successfully talked Tryon into staying with the film: he almost quit. Reception. "In Harm's Way" was nominated for the 1965 Academy Award for Cinematography (Black-and-White) for cinematographer Loyal Griggs. It was also screened at the 1965 Cannes Film Festival, but was not entered into the main competition. Patricia Neal received a 1966 BAFTA Film Award as Best Foreign Actress for her performance in the film. Bosley Crowther of the "New York Times" panned the film observing, "This is a slick and shallow picture that Mr. Preminger puts forth here, a straight, cliché-crowded melodrama of naval action in the Pacific in World War II..." and characterized it as "a film that is virtually awash with flimsy and flamboyant fellows with all the tricks of the trade of Hollywood."
1091780	Galileo Galilei (; 15 February 1564 – 8 January 1642), often known mononymously as Galileo, was an Italian physicist, mathematician, astronomer, and philosopher who played a major role in the Scientific Revolution. His achievements include improvements to the telescope and consequent astronomical observations and support for Copernicanism. Galileo has been called the "father of modern observational astronomy", the "father of modern physics", the "father of science", and "the Father of Modern Science". His contributions to observational astronomy include the telescopic confirmation of the phases of Venus, the discovery of the four largest satellites of Jupiter (named the Galilean moons in his honour), and the observation and analysis of sunspots. Galileo also worked in applied science and technology, inventing an improved military compass and other instruments. Galileo's championing of heliocentrism was controversial within his lifetime, when most subscribed to either geocentrism or the Tychonic system. He met with opposition from astronomers, who doubted heliocentrism due to the absence of an observed stellar parallax. The matter was investigated by the Roman Inquisition in 1615, and they concluded that it could be supported as only a possibility, not an established fact. Galileo later defended his views in "Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems", which appeared to attack Pope Urban VIII and thus alienated him and the Jesuits, who had both supported Galileo up until this point. He was tried by the Inquisition, found "vehemently suspect of heresy", forced to recant, and spent the rest of his life under house arrest. It was while Galileo was under house arrest that he wrote one of his finest works, "Two New Sciences", in which he summarised the work he had done some forty years earlier, on the two sciences now called kinematics and strength of materials. Early life. Galileo was born in Pisa (then part of the Duchy of Florence), Italy, the first of six children of Vincenzo Galilei, a famous lutenist, composer, and music theorist; and Giulia Ammannati. Galileo became an accomplished lutenist himself and would have learned early from his father a healthy scepticism for established authority, the value of well-measured or quantified experimentation, an appreciation for a periodic or musical measure of time or rhythm, as well as the illuminative progeny to expect from a marriage of mathematics and experiment. Three of Galileo's five siblings survived infancy, and the youngest Michelangelo (or Michelagnolo) also became a noted lutenist and composer, although he contributed to financial burdens during Galileo's young adulthood. Michelangelo was incapable of contributing his fair share for their father's promised dowries to their brothers-in-law, who would later attempt to seek legal remedies for payments due. Michelangelo would also occasionally have to borrow funds from Galileo for support of his musical endeavours and excursions. These financial burdens may have contributed to Galileo's early fire to develop inventions that would bring him additional income. Galileo was named after an ancestor, Galileo Bonaiuti, a physician, university teacher and politician who lived in Florence from 1370 to 1450; at that time in the late 14th century, the family's surname shifted from Bonaiuti (or Buonaiuti) to Galilei. Galileo Bonaiuti was buried in the same church, the Basilica of Santa Croce in Florence, where about 200 years later his more famous descendant Galileo Galilei was buried too. When Galileo Galilei was 8, his family moved to Florence, but he was left with Jacopo Borghini for two years. He then was educated in the Camaldolese Monastery at Vallombrosa, 35 km southeast of Florence. Although a genuinely pious Roman Catholic, Galileo fathered three children out of wedlock with Marina Gamba. They had two daughters, Virginia in 1600 and Livia in 1601, and one son, Vincenzo, in 1606. Because of their illegitimate birth, their father considered the girls unmarriageable, if not posing problems of prohibitively expensive support or dowries, which would have been similar to Galileo's previous extensive financial problems with two of his sisters. Their only worthy alternative was the religious life. Both girls were accepted by the convent of San Matteo in Arcetri and remained there for the rest of their lives. Virginia took the name Maria Celeste upon entering the convent. She died on 2 April 1634, and is buried with Galileo at the Basilica of Santa Croce, Florence. Livia took the name Sister Arcangela and was ill for most of her life. Vincenzo was later legitimised as the legal heir of Galileo, and married Sestilia Bocchineri. Career as a scientist. Although he seriously considered the priesthood as a young man, at his father's urging he instead enrolled at the University of Pisa for a medical degree. In 1581, when he was studying medicine, he noticed a swinging chandelier, which air currents shifted about to swing in larger and smaller arcs. It seemed, by comparison with his heartbeat, that the chandelier took the same amount of time to swing back and forth, no matter how far it was swinging. When he returned home, he set up two pendulums of equal length and swung one with a large sweep and the other with a small sweep and found that they kept time together. It was not until Christiaan Huygens almost one hundred years later, however, that the tautochrone nature of a swinging pendulum was used to create an accurate timepiece. To this point, he had deliberately been kept away from mathematics (since a physician earned so much more than a mathematician), but upon accidentally attending a lecture on geometry, he talked his reluctant father into letting him study mathematics and natural philosophy instead. He created a thermoscope (forerunner of the thermometer) and in 1586 published a small book on the design of a hydrostatic balance he had invented (which first brought him to the attention of the scholarly world). Galileo also studied "disegno", a term encompassing fine art, and in 1588 attained an instructor position in the Accademia delle Arti del Disegno in Florence, teaching perspective and chiaroscuro. Being inspired by the artistic tradition of the city and the works of the Renaissance artists, Galileo acquired an aesthetic mentality. While a young teacher at the Accademia, he began a lifelong friendship with the Florentine painter Cigoli, who included Galileo's lunar observations in one of his paintings. In 1589, he was appointed to the chair of mathematics in Pisa. In 1591, his father died and he was entrusted with the care of his younger brother Michelagnolo. In 1592, he moved to the University of Padua, teaching geometry, mechanics, and astronomy until 1610. During this period, Galileo made significant discoveries in both pure fundamental science (for example, kinematics of motion and astronomy) as well as practical applied science (for example, strength of materials and improvement of the telescope). His multiple interests included the study of astrology, which at the time was a discipline tied to the studies of mathematics and astronomy. Galileo, Kepler and theories of tides. Cardinal Bellarmine had written in 1615 that the Copernican system could not be defended without "a true physical demonstration that the sun does not circle the earth but the earth circles the sun". Galileo considered his theory of the tides to provide the required physical proof of the motion of the earth. This theory was so important to him that he originally intended to entitle his "Dialogue on the Two Chief World Systems" the "Dialogue on the Ebb and Flow of the Sea". The reference to tides was removed by order of the Inquisition. For Galileo, the tides were caused by the sloshing back and forth of water in the seas as a point on the Earth's surface sped up and slowed down because of the Earth's rotation on its axis and revolution around the Sun. He circulated his first account of the tides in 1616, addressed to Cardinal Orsini. His theory gave the first insight into the importance of the shapes of ocean basins in the size and timing of tides; he correctly accounted, for instance, for the negligible tides halfway along the Adriatic Sea compared to those at the ends. As a general account of the cause of tides, however, his theory was a failure. If this theory were correct, there would be only one high tide per day. Galileo and his contemporaries were aware of this inadequacy because there are two daily high tides at Venice instead of one, about twelve hours apart. Galileo dismissed this anomaly as the result of several secondary causes, including the shape of the sea, its depth, and other factors. Against the assertion that Galileo was deceptive in making these arguments, Albert Einstein expressed the opinion that Galileo developed his "fascinating arguments" and accepted them uncritically out of a desire for physical proof of the motion of the Earth. Galileo dismissed the idea, held by his contemporary Johannes Kepler, that the moon caused the tides, which the latter had acquired from the astrological tradition enunciated in Ptolemy's Tetrabiblos. He also refused to accept Kepler's elliptical orbits of the planets, considering the circle the "perfect" shape for planetary orbits. Controversy over comets and "The Assayer". In 1619, Galileo became embroiled in a controversy with Father Orazio Grassi, professor of mathematics at the Jesuit Collegio Romano. It began as a dispute over the nature of comets, but by the time Galileo had published "The Assayer" ("Il Saggiatore") in 1623, his last salvo in the dispute, it had become a much wider argument over the very nature of science itself. Because "The Assayer" contains such a wealth of Galileo's ideas on how science should be practised, it has been referred to as his scientific manifesto. Early in 1619, Father Grassi had anonymously published a pamphlet, "An Astronomical Disputation on the Three Comets of the Year 1618", which discussed the nature of a comet that had appeared late in November of the previous year. Grassi concluded that the comet was a fiery body which had moved along a segment of a great circle at a constant distance from the earth, and since it moved in the sky more slowly than the moon, it must be farther away than the moon. Grassi's arguments and conclusions were criticised in a subsequent article, "Discourse on the Comets", published under the name of one of Galileo's disciples, a Florentine lawyer named Mario Guiducci, although it had been largely written by Galileo himself. Galileo and Guiducci offered no definitive theory of their own on the nature of comets, although they did present some tentative conjectures that are now known to be mistaken. In its opening passage, Galileo and Guiducci's "Discourse" gratuitously insulted the Jesuit Christopher Scheiner, and various uncomplimentary remarks about the professors of the Collegio Romano were scattered throughout the work. The Jesuits were offended, and Grassi soon replied with a polemical tract of his own, "The Astronomical and Philosophical Balance", under the pseudonym Lothario Sarsio Sigensano, purporting to be one of his own pupils. "The Assayer" was Galileo's devastating reply to the "Astronomical Balance". It has been widely regarded as a masterpiece of polemical literature, in which "Sarsi's" arguments are subjected to withering scorn. It was greeted with wide acclaim, and particularly pleased the new pope, Urban VIII, to whom it had been dedicated. Galileo's dispute with Grassi permanently alienated many of the Jesuits who had previously been sympathetic to his ideas, and Galileo and his friends were convinced that these Jesuits were responsible for bringing about his later condemnation. The evidence for this is at best equivocal, however. Controversy over heliocentrism. Biblical references Psalm , , and 1 Chronicles include text stating that "the world is firmly established, it cannot be moved." In the same manner, says, "the Lord set the earth on its foundations; it can never be moved." Further, Ecclesiastes states that "And the sun rises and sets and returns to its place." Galileo defended heliocentrism, and claimed it was not contrary to those Scripture passages. He took Augustine's position on Scripture: not to take every passage literally, particularly when the scripture in question is a book of poetry and songs, not a book of instructions or history. He believed that the writers of the Scripture merely wrote from the perspective of the terrestrial world, from that vantage point that the sun does rise and set. Another way to put this is that the writers would have been writing from a phenomenological point of view, or style. So Galileo claimed that science did not contradict Scripture, as Scripture was discussing a different kind of "movement" of the earth, and not rotations. By 1616 the attacks on the ideas of Copernicus had reached a head, and Galileo went to Rome to try to persuade Catholic Church authorities not to ban Copernicus' ideas. In the end, a decree of the Congregation of the Index was issued, declaring that the ideas that the Sun stood still and that the Earth moved were "false" and "altogether contrary to Holy Scripture", and suspending Copernicus's "De Revolutionibus" until it could be corrected. Acting on instructions from the Pope before the decree was issued, Cardinal Bellarmine informed Galileo that it was forthcoming, that the ideas it condemned could not be "defended or held", and ordered him to abandon them. Galileo promised to obey. Bellarmine's instruction did not prohibit Galileo from discussing heliocentrism as a mathematical fiction but was dangerously ambiguous as to whether he could treat it as a physical possibility. For the next several years, Galileo stayed well away from the controversy. He revived his project of writing a book on the subject, encouraged by the election of Cardinal Maffeo Barberini as Pope Urban VIII in 1623. Barberini was a friend and admirer of Galileo, and had opposed the condemnation of Galileo in 1616. The book, "Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems", was published in 1632, with formal authorization from the Inquisition and papal permission. Dava Sobel explains that during this time, Urban had begun to fall more and more under the influence of court intrigue and problems of state. His friendship with Galileo began to take second place to his feelings of persecution and fear for his own life. At this low point in Urban's life, the problem of Galileo was presented to the pope by court insiders and enemies of Galileo. Coming on top of the recent claim by the then Spanish cardinal that Urban was soft on defending the church, he reacted out of anger and fear. This situation did not bode well for Galileo's defence of his book. Earlier, Pope Urban VIII had personally asked Galileo to give arguments for and against heliocentrism in the book, and to be careful not to advocate heliocentrism. He made another request, that his own views on the matter be included in Galileo's book. Only the latter of those requests was fulfilled by Galileo. Whether unknowingly or deliberately, Simplicio, the defender of the Aristotelian Geocentric view in "Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems", was often caught in his own errors and sometimes came across as a fool. Indeed, although Galileo states in the preface of his book that the character is named after a famous Aristotelian philosopher (Simplicius in Latin, Simplicio in Italian), the name "Simplicio" in Italian also has the connotation of "simpleton". This portrayal of Simplicio made "Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems" appear as an advocacy book: an attack on Aristotelian geocentrism and defence of the Copernican theory. Unfortunately for his relationship with the Pope, Galileo put the words of Urban VIII into the mouth of Simplicio. Most historians agree Galileo did not act out of malice and felt blindsided by the reaction to his book. However, the Pope did not take the suspected public ridicule lightly, nor the Copernican advocacy. Galileo had alienated one of his biggest and most powerful supporters, the Pope, and was called to Rome to defend his writings. In September 1632, Galileo was ordered to come to Rome to stand trial. He finally arrived in February 1633 and was brought before inquisitor Vincenzo Maculani to be charged. Throughout his trial Galileo steadfastly maintained that since 1616 he had faithfully kept his promise not to hold any of the condemned opinions, and initially he denied even defending them. However, he was eventually persuaded to admit that, contrary to his true intention, a reader of his "Dialogue" could well have obtained the impression that it was intended to be a defence of Copernicanism. In view of Galileo's rather implausible denial that he had ever held Copernican ideas after 1616 or ever intended to defend them in the "Dialogue", his final interrogation, in July 1633, concluded with his being threatened with torture if he did not tell the truth, but he maintained his denial despite the threat. The sentence of the Inquisition was delivered on June 22. It was in three essential parts: According to popular legend, after recanting his theory that the Earth moved around the Sun, Galileo allegedly muttered the rebellious phrase "And yet it moves", but there is no evidence that he actually said this or anything similar. The first account of the legend dates to a century after his death. After a period with the friendly Ascanio Piccolomini (the Archbishop of Siena), Galileo was allowed to return to his villa at Arcetri near Florence in 1634, where he spent the remainder of his life under house arrest. Galileo was ordered to read the seven penitential psalms once a week for the next three years. However his daughter Maria Celeste relieved him of the burden after securing ecclesiastical permission to take it upon herself. It was while Galileo was under house arrest that he dedicated his time to one of his finest works, "Two New Sciences". Here he summarised work he had done some forty years earlier, on the two sciences now called kinematics and strength of materials. This book has received high praise from Albert Einstein. As a result of this work, Galileo is often called the "father of modern physics". He went completely blind in 1638 and was suffering from a painful hernia and insomnia, so he was permitted to travel to Florence for medical advice. Death. Galileo continued to receive visitors until 1642, when, after suffering fever and heart palpitations, he died on 8 January 1642, aged 77. The Grand Duke of Tuscany, Ferdinando II, wished to bury him in the main body of the Basilica of Santa Croce, next to the tombs of his father and other ancestors, and to erect a marble mausoleum in his honour. These plans were scrapped, however, after Pope Urban VIII and his nephew, Cardinal Francesco Barberini, protested, because Galileo was condemned by the Catholic Church for "vehement suspicion of heresy". He was instead buried in a small room next to the novices' chapel at the end of a corridor from the southern transept of the basilica to the sacristy. He was reburied in the main body of the basilica in 1737 after a monument had been erected there in his honour; during this move, three fingers and a tooth were removed from his remains. One of these fingers, the middle finger from Galileo's right hand, is currently on exhibition at the Museo Galileo in Florence, Italy. Scientific methods. Galileo made original contributions to the science of motion through an innovative combination of experiment and mathematics. More typical of science at the time were the qualitative studies of William Gilbert, on magnetism and electricity. Galileo's father, Vincenzo Galilei, a lutenist and music theorist, had performed experiments establishing perhaps the oldest known non-linear relation in physics: for a stretched string, the pitch varies as the square root of the tension. These observations lay within the framework of the Pythagorean tradition of music, well-known to instrument makers, which included the fact that subdividing a string by a whole number produces a harmonious scale. Thus, a limited amount of mathematics had long related music and physical science, and young Galileo could see his own father's observations expand on that tradition. Galileo was one of the first modern thinkers to clearly state that the laws of nature are mathematical. In "The Assayer" he wrote "Philosophy is written in this grand book, the universe ... It is written in the language of mathematics, and its characters are triangles, circles, and other geometric figures;..." His mathematical analyses are a further development of a tradition employed by late scholastic natural philosophers, which Galileo learned when he studied philosophy. He displayed a peculiar ability to ignore established authorities, most notably Aristotelianism. In broader terms, his work marked another step towards the eventual separation of science from both philosophy and religion; a major development in human thought. He was often willing to change his views in accordance with observation. In order to perform his experiments, Galileo had to set up standards of length and time, so that measurements made on different days and in different laboratories could be compared in a reproducible fashion. This provided a reliable foundation on which to confirm mathematical laws using inductive reasoning. Galileo showed a remarkably modern appreciation for the proper relationship between mathematics, theoretical physics, and experimental physics. He understood the parabola, both in terms of conic sections and in terms of the ordinate (y) varying as the square of the abscissa (x). Galilei further asserted that the parabola was the theoretically ideal trajectory of a uniformly accelerated projectile in the absence of friction and other disturbances. He conceded that there are limits to the validity of this theory, noting on theoretical grounds that a projectile trajectory of a size comparable to that of the Earth could not possibly be a parabola, but he nevertheless maintained that for distances up to the range of the artillery of his day, the deviation of a projectile's trajectory from a parabola would be only very slight. Astronomy. [[File:Bertini fresco of Galileo Galilei and Doge of Venice.jpg|thumb|right| Based only on uncertain descriptions of the first practical telescope which Hans Lippershey tried to patent in the Netherlands in 1608, Galileo, in the following year, made a telescope with about 3x magnification. He later made improved versions with up to about 30x magnification. With a Galilean telescope, the observer could see magnified, upright images on the earth—it was what is commonly known as a terrestrial telescope or a spyglass. He could also use it to observe the sky; for a time he was one of those who could construct telescopes good enough for that purpose. On 25 August 1609, he demonstrated one of his early telescopes, with a magnification of about 8 or 9, to Venetian lawmakers. His telescopes were also a profitable sideline for Galileo, who sold them to merchants who found them useful both at sea and as items of trade. He published his initial telescopic astronomical observations in March 1610 in a brief treatise entitled "Sidereus Nuncius" ("Starry Messenger"). Kepler's Supernova. According to Walusinsky, Galileo's fame as an astronomer dates to his observation and discussion of Kepler's supernova in 1604. Since this new star displayed no detectable diurnal parallax, Galileo concluded that it was a distant star, and therefore disproved the Aristotelian belief in the immutability of the heavens. His public advocacy of this view met with strong opposition. Jupiter. On 7 January 1610, Galileo observed with his telescope what he described at the time as "three fixed stars, totally invisible by their smallness", all close to Jupiter, and lying on a straight line through it. Observations on subsequent nights showed that the positions of these "stars" relative to Jupiter were changing in a way that would have been inexplicable if they had really been fixed stars. On 10 January, Galileo noted that one of them had disappeared, an observation which he attributed to its being hidden behind Jupiter. Within a few days, he concluded that they were orbiting Jupiter: He had discovered three of Jupiter's four largest satellites (moons). He discovered the fourth on 13 January. Galileo named the group of four the "Medicean stars", in honour of his future patron, Cosimo II de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany, and Cosimo's three brothers. Later astronomers, however, renamed them "Galilean satellites" in honour of their discoverer. These satellites are now called Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto. His observations of the satellites of Jupiter caused a revolution in astronomy that reverberates to this day: a planet with smaller planets orbiting it did not conform to the principles of Aristotelian Cosmology, which held that all heavenly bodies should circle the Earth, and many astronomers and philosophers initially refused to believe that Galileo could have discovered such a thing. His observations were confirmed by the observatory of Christopher Clavius and he received a hero's welcome when he visited Rome in 1611. Galileo continued to observe the satellites over the next eighteen months, and by mid-1611, he had obtained remarkably accurate estimates for their periods—a feat which Kepler had believed impossible. Venus, Saturn, and Neptune. From September 1610, Galileo observed that Venus exhibited a full set of phases similar to that of the Moon. The heliocentric model of the solar system developed by Nicolaus Copernicus predicted that all phases would be visible since the orbit of Venus around the Sun would cause its illuminated hemisphere to face the Earth when it was on the opposite side of the Sun and to face away from the Earth when it was on the Earth-side of the Sun. On the other hand, in Ptolemy's geocentric model it was impossible for any of the planets' orbits to intersect the spherical shell carrying the Sun. Traditionally the orbit of Venus was placed entirely on the near side of the Sun, where it could exhibit only crescent and new phases. It was, however, also possible to place it entirely on the far side of the Sun, where it could exhibit only gibbous and full phases. After Galileo's telescopic observations of the crescent, gibbous and full phases of Venus, therefore, this Ptolemaic model became untenable. Thus in the early 17th century as a result of his discovery the great majority of astronomers converted to one of the various geo-heliocentric planetary models, such as the Tychonic, Capellan and Extended Capellan models, each either with or without a daily rotating Earth. These all had the virtue of explaining the phases of Venus without the vice of the 'refutation' of full heliocentrism's prediction of stellar parallax. Galileo's discovery of the phases of Venus was thus arguably his most empirically practically influential contribution to the two-stage transition from full geocentrism to full heliocentrism via geo-heliocentrism. Galileo observed the planet Saturn, and at first mistook its rings for planets, thinking it was a three-bodied system. When he observed the planet later, Saturn's rings were directly oriented at Earth, causing him to think that two of the bodies had disappeared. The rings reappeared when he observed the planet in 1616, further confusing him. Galileo also observed the planet Neptune in 1612. It appears in his notebooks as one of many unremarkable dim stars. He did not realise that it was a planet, but he did note its motion relative to the stars before losing track of it. Sunspots. Galileo was one of the first Europeans to observe sunspots, although Kepler had unwittingly observed one in 1607, but mistook it for a transit of Mercury. He also reinterpreted a sunspot observation from the time of Charlemagne, which formerly had been attributed (impossibly) to a transit of Mercury. The very existence of sunspots showed another difficulty with the unchanging perfection of the heavens as posited in orthodox Aristotelian celestial physics. And the annual variations in sunspots' motions, discovered by Francesco Sizzi and others in 1612–1613, provided a powerful argument against both the Ptolemaic system and the geoheliocentric system of Tycho Brahe. A dispute over priority in the discovery of sunspots, and in their interpretation, led Galileo to a long and bitter feud with the Jesuit Christoph Scheiner; in fact, there is little doubt that both of them were beaten by David Fabricius and his son Johannes. Scheiner quickly adopted Kepler's 1615 proposal of the modern telescope design, which gave larger magnification at the cost of inverted images; Galileo apparently never changed to Kepler's design. Moon. Prior to Galileo's construction of his version of a telescope, Thomas Harriot, an English mathematician and explorer, had already used what he dubbed a "perspective tube" to observe the moon. Reporting his observations, Harriot noted only "strange spottednesse" in the waning of the crescent, but was ignorant to the cause. Galileo, due in part to his artistic training and the knowledge of chiaroscuro, had understood the patterns of light and shadow were in fact topological markers. While not being the only one to observe the moon through a telescope, Galileo was the first to deduce the cause of the uneven waning as light occlusion from lunar mountains and craters. In his study he also made topological charts, estimating the heights of the mountains. The moon was not what was long thought to have been a translucent and perfect sphere, as Aristotle claimed, and hardly the first "planet", an "eternal pearl to magnificently ascend into the heavenly empyrian", as put forth by Dante. Milky Way and stars. Galileo observed the Milky Way, previously believed to be nebulous, and found it to be a multitude of stars packed so densely that they appeared from Earth to be clouds. He located many other stars too distant to be visible with the naked eye. He observed the double star Mizar in Ursa Major in 1617. In the "Starry Messenger", Galileo reported that stars appeared as mere blazes of light, essentially unaltered in appearance by the telescope, and contrasted them to planets, which the telescope revealed to be discs. But shortly thereafter, in his letters on sunspots, he reported that the telescope revealed the shapes of both stars and planets to be "quite round". From that point forward, he continued to report that telescopes showed the roundness of stars, and that stars seen through the telescope measured a few seconds of arc in diameter. He also devised a method for measuring the apparent size of a star without a telescope. As described in his "Dialogue Concerning the two Chief World Systems", his method was to hang a thin rope in his line of sight to the star and measure the maximum distance from which it would wholly obscure the star. From his measurements of this distance and of the width of the rope, he could calculate the angle subtended by the star at his viewing point. In his "Dialogue", he reported that he had found the apparent diameter of a star of first magnitude to be no more than 5 arcseconds, and that of one of sixth magnitude to be about 5/6 arcseconds. Like most astronomers of his day, Galileo did not recognise that the apparent sizes of stars that he measured were spurious, caused by diffraction and atmospheric distortion (see seeing disk or Airy disk), and did not represent the true sizes of stars. However, Galileo's values were much smaller than previous estimates of the apparent sizes of the brightest stars, such as those made by Tycho Brahe (see Magnitude) and enabled Galileo to counter anti-Copernican arguments such as those made by Tycho that these stars would have to be absurdly large for their annual parallaxes to be undetectable. Other astronomers such as Simon Marius, Giovanni Battista Riccioli, and Martinus Hortensius made similar measurements of stars, and Marius and Riccioli concluded the smaller sizes were not small enough to answer Tycho's argument. Technology. Galileo made a number of contributions to what is now known as technology, as distinct from pure physics. This is not the same distinction as made by Aristotle, who would have considered all Galileo's physics as "techne" or useful knowledge, as opposed to "episteme", or philosophical investigation into the causes of things. Between 1595 and 1598, Galileo devised and improved a "Geometric and Military Compass" suitable for use by gunners and surveyors. This expanded on earlier instruments designed by Niccolò Tartaglia and Guidobaldo del Monte. For gunners, it offered, in addition to a new and safer way of elevating cannons accurately, a way of quickly computing the charge of gunpowder for cannonballs of different sizes and materials. As a geometric instrument, it enabled the construction of any regular polygon, computation of the area of any polygon or circular sector, and a variety of other calculations. Under Galileo's direction, instrument maker Marc'Antonio Mazzoleni produced more than 100 of these compasses, which Galileo sold (along with an instruction manual he wrote) for 50 lire and offered a course of instruction in the use of the compasses for 120 lire. In about 1593, Galileo constructed a thermometer, using the expansion and contraction of air in a bulb to move water in an attached tube. In 1609, Galileo was, along with Englishman Thomas Harriot and others, among the first to use a refracting telescope as an instrument to observe stars, planets or moons. The name "telescope" was coined for Galileo's instrument by a Greek mathematician, Giovanni Demisiani, at a banquet held in 1611 by Prince Federico Cesi to make Galileo a member of his Accademia dei Lincei. The name was derived from the Greek "tele" = 'far' and "skopein" = 'to look or see'. In 1610, he used a telescope at close range to magnify the parts of insects. By 1624 Galileo had used a compound microscope. He gave one of these instruments to Cardinal Zollern in May of that year for presentation to the Duke of Bavaria, and in September he sent another to Prince Cesi. The Linceans played a role again in naming the "microscope" a year later when fellow academy member Giovanni Faber coined the word for Galileo's invention from the Greek words "μικρόν" ("micron") meaning "small", and "σκοπεῖν" ("skopein") meaning "to look at". The word was meant to be analogous with "telescope". Illustrations of insects made using one of Galileo's microscopes, and published in 1625, appear to have been the first clear documentation of the use of a compound microscope. In 1612, having determined the orbital periods of Jupiter's satellites, Galileo proposed that with sufficiently accurate knowledge of their orbits, one could use their positions as a universal clock, and this would make possible the determination of longitude. He worked on this problem from time to time during the remainder of his life; but the practical problems were severe. The method was first successfully applied by Giovanni Domenico Cassini in 1681 and was later used extensively for large land surveys; this method, for example, was used to survey France, and later by Zebulon Pike of the midwestern United States in 1806. For sea navigation, where delicate telescopic observations were more difficult, the longitude problem eventually required development of a practical portable marine chronometer, such as that of John Harrison. In his last year, when totally blind, he designed an escapement mechanism for a pendulum clock (called Galileo's escapement), a vectorial model of which may be seen here. The first fully operational pendulum clock was made by Christiaan Huygens in the 1650s. Physics. Galileo's theoretical and experimental work on the motions of bodies, along with the largely independent work of Kepler and René Descartes, was a precursor of the classical mechanics developed by Sir Isaac Newton. Galileo conducted several experiments with pendulums. It is popularly believed (thanks to the biography by Vincenzo Viviani) that these began by watching the swings of the bronze chandelier in the cathedral of Pisa, using his pulse as a timer. Later experiments are described in his "Two New Sciences". Galileo claimed that a simple pendulum is isochronous, i.e. that its swings always take the same amount of time, independently of the amplitude. In fact, this is only approximately true, as was discovered by Christian Huygens. Galileo also found that the square of the period varies directly with the length of the pendulum. Galileo's son, Vincenzo, sketched a clock based on his father's theories in 1642. The clock was never built and, because of the large swings required by its verge escapement, would have been a poor timekeeper. (See Technology above.) Galileo is lesser known for, yet still credited with, being one of the first to understand sound frequency. By scraping a chisel at different speeds, he linked the pitch of the sound produced to the spacing of the chisel's skips, a measure of frequency. In 1638, Galileo described an experimental method to measure the speed of light by arranging that two observers, each having lanterns equipped with shutters, observe each other's lanterns at some distance. The first observer opens the shutter of his lamp, and, the second, upon seeing the light, immediately opens the shutter of his own lantern. The time between the first observer's opening his shutter and seeing the light from the second observer's lamp indicates the time it takes light to travel back and forth between the two observers. Galileo reported that when he tried this at a distance of less than a mile, he was unable to determine whether or not the light appeared instantaneously. Sometime between Galileo's death and 1667, the members of the Florentine "Accademia del Cimento" repeated the experiment over a distance of about a mile and obtained a similarly inconclusive result. Galileo put forward the basic principle of relativity, that the laws of physics are the same in any system that is moving at a constant speed in a straight line, regardless of its particular speed or direction. Hence, there is no absolute motion or absolute rest. This principle provided the basic framework for Newton's laws of motion and is central to Einstein's special theory of relativity. Falling bodies. A biography by Galileo's pupil Vincenzo Viviani stated that Galileo had dropped balls of the same material, but different masses, from the Leaning Tower of Pisa to demonstrate that their time of descent was independent of their mass. This was contrary to what Aristotle had taught: that heavy objects fall faster than lighter ones, in direct proportion to weight. While this story has been retold in popular accounts, there is no account by Galileo himself of such an experiment, and it is generally accepted by historians that it was at most a thought experiment which did not actually take place. An exception is Drake, who argues that the experiment did take place, more or less as Viviani described it. The experiment described was actually performed by Simon Stevin (commonly known as Stevinus), although the building used was actually the church tower in Delft in 1586. In his 1638 "Discorsi", Galileo's character Salviati, widely regarded as Galileo's spokesman, held that all unequal weights would fall with the same finite speed in a vacuum. But this had previously been proposed by Lucretius and Simon Stevin. Cristiano Banti's Salviati also held it could be experimentally demonstrated by the comparison of pendulum motions in air with bobs of lead and of cork which had different weight but which were otherwise similar. Galileo proposed that a falling body would fall with a uniform acceleration, as long as the resistance of the medium through which it was falling remained negligible, or in the limiting case of its falling through a vacuum. He also derived the correct kinematical law for the distance travelled during a uniform acceleration starting from rest—namely, that it is proportional to the square of the elapsed time ( "d" ∝ "t" 2 ). Prior to Galileo, Nicole Oresme, in the 14th century, had derived the times-squared law for uniformly accelerated change, and Domingo de Soto had suggested in the 16th century that bodies falling through a homogeneous medium would be uniformly accelerated. Galileo expressed the time-squared law using geometrical constructions and mathematically precise words, adhering to the standards of the day. (It remained for others to re-express the law in algebraic terms). He also concluded that objects "retain their velocity" unless a force—often friction—acts upon them, refuting the generally accepted Aristotelian hypothesis that objects "naturally" slow down and stop unless a force acts upon them (philosophical ideas relating to inertia had been proposed by John Philoponus centuries earlier, as had Jean Buridan, and according to Joseph Needham, Mo Tzu had proposed it centuries before either of them, but this was the first time that it had been mathematically expressed, verified experimentally, and introduced the idea of frictional force, the key breakthrough in validating inertia). Galileo's Principle of Inertia stated: "A body moving on a level surface will continue in the same direction at constant speed unless disturbed." This principle was incorporated into Newton's laws of motion (first law). Mathematics. While Galileo's application of mathematics to experimental physics was innovative, his mathematical methods were the standard ones of the day. The analysis and proofs relied heavily on the Eudoxian theory of proportion, as set forth in the fifth book of Euclid's Elements. This theory had become available only a century before, thanks to accurate translations by Tartaglia and others; but by the end of Galileo's life, it was being superseded by the algebraic methods of Descartes. Galileo produced some mathematics: Galileo's paradox, which shows that there are as many perfect squares as there are whole numbers, even though most numbers are not perfect squares. His writings. Galileo's early works describing scientific instruments include the 1586 tract entitled "The Little Balance" ("La Billancetta") describing an accurate balance to weigh objects in air or water and the 1606 printed manual "Le Operazioni del Compasso Geometrico et Militare" on the operation of a geometrical and military compass. His early works in dynamics, the science of motion and mechanics were his 1590 Pisan "De Motu" (On Motion) and his "circa" 1600 Paduan "Le Meccaniche" (Mechanics). The former was based on Aristotelian–Archimedean fluid dynamics and held that the speed of gravitational fall in a fluid medium was proportional to the excess of a body's specific weight over that of the medium, whereby in a vacuum, bodies would fall with speeds in proportion to their specific weights. It also subscribed to the Hipparchan-Philoponan impetus dynamics in which impetus is self-dissipating and free-fall in a vacuum would have an essential terminal speed according to specific weight after an initial period of acceleration. Galileo's 1610 "The Starry Messenger" ("Sidereus Nuncius") was the first scientific treatise to be published based on observations made through a telescope. It reported his discoveries of: Galileo published a description of sunspots in 1613 entitled "Letters on Sunspots" suggesting the Sun and heavens are corruptible. The "Letters on Sunspots" also reported his 1610 telescopic observations of the full set of phases of Venus, and his discovery of the puzzling "appendages" of Saturn and their even more puzzling subsequent disappearance. In 1615 Galileo prepared a manuscript known as the "Letter to the Grand Duchess Christina" which was not published in printed form until 1636. This letter was a revised version of the "Letter to Castelli", which was denounced by the Inquisition as an incursion upon theology by advocating Copernicanism both as physically true and as consistent with Scripture. In 1616, after the order by the inquisition for Galileo not to hold or defend the Copernican position, Galileo wrote the "Discourse on the tides" ("Discorso sul flusso e il reflusso del mare") based on the Copernican earth, in the form of a private letter to Cardinal Orsini. In 1619, Mario Guiducci, a pupil of Galileo's, published a lecture written largely by Galileo under the title "Discourse on the Comets" ("Discorso Delle Comete"), arguing against the Jesuit interpretation of comets. In 1623, Galileo published "The Assayer—Il Saggiatore", which attacked theories based on Aristotle's authority and promoted experimentation and the mathematical formulation of scientific ideas. The book was highly successful and even found support among the higher echelons of the Christian church. Following the success of The Assayer, Galileo published the "Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems" (Dialogo sopra i due massimi sistemi del mondo) in 1632. Despite taking care to adhere to the Inquisition's 1616 instructions, the claims in the book favouring Copernican theory and a non Geocentric model of the solar system led to Galileo being tried and banned on publication. Despite the publication ban, Galileo published his "Discourses and Mathematical Demonstrations Relating to Two New Sciences" ("Discorsi e Dimostrazioni Matematiche, intorno a due nuove scienze") in 1638 in Holland, outside the jurisdiction of the Inquisition. Summary of Galileo's published written works. Galileo's main written works are as follows: Legacy. Church reassessments of Galileo in later centuries. The Inquisition's ban on reprinting Galileo's works was lifted in 1718 when permission was granted to publish an edition of his works (excluding the condemned "Dialogue") in Florence. In 1741 Pope Benedict XIV authorised the publication of an edition of Galileo's complete scientific works which included a mildly censored version of the "Dialogue". In 1758 the general prohibition against works advocating heliocentrism was removed from the Index of prohibited books, although the specific ban on uncensored versions of the "Dialogue" and Copernicus's "De Revolutionibus" remained. All traces of official opposition to heliocentrism by the church disappeared in 1835 when these works were finally dropped from the Index. In 1939 Pope Pius XII, in his first speech to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, within a few months of his election to the papacy, described Galileo as being among the ""most audacious heroes of research... not afraid of the stumbling blocks and the risks on the way, nor fearful of the funereal monuments"." His close advisor of 40 years, Professor Robert Leiber wrote: "Pius XII was very careful not to close any doors (to science) prematurely. He was energetic on this point and regretted that in the case of Galileo." On 15 February 1990, in a speech delivered at the Sapienza University of Rome, Cardinal Ratzinger (later to become Pope Benedict XVI) cited some current views on the Galileo affair as forming what he called "a symptomatic case that permits us to see how deep the self-doubt of the modern age, of science and technology goes today". Some of the views he cited were those of the philosopher Paul Feyerabend, whom he quoted as saying "The Church at the time of Galileo kept much more closely to reason than did Galileo himself, and she took into consideration the ethical and social consequences of Galileo's teaching too. Her verdict against Galileo was rational and just and the revision of this verdict can be justified only on the grounds of what is politically opportune." The Cardinal did not clearly indicate whether he agreed or disagreed with Feyerabend's assertions. He did, however, say "It would be foolish to construct an impulsive apologetic on the basis of such views." On 31 October 1992, Pope John Paul II expressed regret for how the Galileo affair was handled, and issued a declaration acknowledging the errors committed by the Catholic Church tribunal that judged the scientific positions of Galileo Galilei, as the result of a study conducted by the Pontifical Council for Culture. In March 2008 the head of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, Nicola Cabibbo, announced a plan to honour Galileo by erecting a statue of him inside the Vatican walls. In December of the same year, during events to mark the 400th anniversary of Galileo's earliest telescopic observations, Pope Benedict XVI praised his contributions to astronomy. A month later, however, the head of the Pontifical Council for Culture, Gianfranco Ravasi, revealed that the plan to erect a statue of Galileo in the grounds of the Vatican had been suspended. Impact on modern science. According to Stephen Hawking, Galileo probably bears more of the responsibility for the birth of modern science than anybody else, and Albert Einstein called him the father of modern science. Galileo's astronomical discoveries and investigations into the Copernican theory have led to a lasting legacy which includes the categorisation of the four large moons of Jupiter discovered by Galileo (Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto) as the Galilean moons. Other scientific endeavours and principles are named after Galileo including the Galileo spacecraft, the first spacecraft to enter orbit around Jupiter, the proposed Galileo global satellite navigation system, the transformation between inertial systems in classical mechanics denoted Galilean transformation and the Gal (unit), sometimes known as the "Galileo" which is a non-SI unit of acceleration. Partly because 2009 was the fourth centenary of Galileo's first recorded astronomical observations with the telescope, the United Nations scheduled it to be the International Year of Astronomy. A global scheme was laid out by the International Astronomical Union (IAU), also endorsed by UNESCO—the UN body responsible for Educational, Scientific and Cultural matters. The International Year of Astronomy 2009 was intended to be a global celebration of astronomy and its contributions to society and culture, stimulating worldwide interest not only in astronomy but science in general, with a particular slant towards young people. Asteroid 697 Galilea is named in his honour. In artistic and popular media. Galileo is mentioned several times in the "opera" section of the Queen song, "Bohemian Rhapsody". He features prominently in the song "Galileo" performed by the Indigo Girls and Amy Grant's "Galileo" on her "Heart in Motion" album. Twentieth-century plays have been written on Galileo's life, including "Life of Galileo" (1943) by the German playwright Bertolt Brecht, with a film adaptation (1975) of it, and "Lamp At Midnight" (1947) by Barrie Stavis, as well as the 2008 play "Galileo Galilei". Kim Stanley Robinson wrote a science fiction novel entitled "Galileo's Dream" (2009), in which Galileo is brought into the future to help resolve a crisis of scientific philosophy; the story moves back and forth between Galileo's own time and a hypothetical distant future, and contains a great deal of biographical information. Galileo Galilei was recently selected as a main motif for a high value collectors' coin: the €25 International Year of Astronomy commemorative coin, minted in 2009. This coin also commemorates the 400th anniversary of the invention of Galileo's telescope. The obverse shows a portion of his portrait and his telescope. The background shows one of his first drawings of the surface of the moon. In the silver ring other telescopes are depicted: the Isaac Newton Telescope, the observatory in Kremsmünster Abbey, a modern telescope, a radio telescope and a space telescope. In 2009, the Galileoscope was also released. This is a mass-produced, low-cost educational telescope with relatively high quality.
583080	Paying Guests is a Bollywood film starring Shreyas Talpade, Javed Jaffrey, Aashish Chaudhary and Vatsal Seth in the lead roles. It is directed by Paritosh Painter under Subhash Ghai's Mukta Arts banner. A comedy film revolving around four close friends who reside together in Pattaya, it is a remake of Marathi film "Ashi Hi Banwa Banwi" from the late 1980s film and borrows the basic plot from 1966 B&W comedy movie "Biwi aur makaan", directed by Hrishikesh Mukherjee. Shooting started in the second week of April 2008. Riya Sen was originally offered Neha Dhupia's role, Aarti Gupta, but declined and instead chose the role as Jayesh's melodramatic girlfriend, Alpita. A sequel, "Paying Guests 2", is in production and will take place against the backdrop of a beauty pageant. Plot. Three friends - Bhavesh (Shreyas Talpade), Parag (Javed Jaffrey) and Pariksheet (Aashish Chaudhary) live in Pattaya, as paying guests in a house owned by Kiska Miglani (Asrani). Bhavesh works as a chef in a restaurant called Namaste India, owned by Ballu Singh (Johnny Lever). Ballu has a younger brother, Ronnie (Chunky Pandey), who wants ownership the restaurant, because he owes a considerable amount of money to a gangster, Murli (Inder Kumar). Parag is a screen writer for a television channel and Parikshit is a car salesman working for Aarti Gupta (Neha Dhupia). Eventually all three of them lose their jobs. The three friends are later joined by Jayesh (Vatsal Seth) from Mumbai, who is a cousin of Parikshit's, and tells them that an apartment is included if he gets a job at an architecture firm. After getting drunk celebrating Jayesh's arrival, they privately insult Kiska, who arrives back home unexpectedly, hears what they are saying and kicks them out. They go out in search of a place to stay and a friend of Parikshit's suggests paid lodgings. Parikshit and Jayesh go to the home to find its owner is Ballu Singh, to whom they are oblivious of the fact that he is Bhavesh's former employer. Ballu and his wife, Sweety (Delnaaz Paul), agree to let them stay on one condition - they must be married. Parag poses as Jayesh's wife, Kareena, and Bhavesh as Karishma, Parikshit's wife. Jayesh gets the job and will get the allotment to the flat in fifteen days' time. Ballu Singh and Sweety leave to pick up Sweety's sister, Kalpana (Celina Jaitley). When they arrive home, Jayesh's girlfriend, Alpita (Riya Sen), arrives with them and sees the four friends having (what she believes is) sex. She is instantly outraged at Jayesh and leaves him. Meanwhile, Parag seeks permission to marry Seema from her father (Paintel) and Bhavesh, while wooing Kalpana, finds himself in a situation where Ronnie tries to rape Karishma and in the process of saving Bhavesh, Jayesh nearly drowns him by accident. While discussing the event with Parag and Parikshit, he discovers the apple he has been eating has "half" a worm in it, Sweety hears Bhavesh vomit and mistakes him for someone being pregnant. In the meantime, Paintel has agreed that Parag can marry Seema, Aarti has fallen for Parikshit, Kalpana has chosen Bhavesh as her life partner and Jayesh has reconciled with Alpita. The four friends decide that it is time for them to tell Ballu and Sweety the truth. In a shopping centre, an accomplice of Ronnie's sees them and tells Ronnie. When they come home, they find Ronnie, Ballu Singh and Sweety there, but they do not know that anyone except the villain is there. Ronnie has persuaded Ballu to sign the papers transferring ownership of the restaurant, Bhavesh snatches the papers away and they all end up in a theater showing of Mughal-e-Azam, where they all don various costumes and each make their own humorous attempts to retrieve the documents. Ballu gets back the restaurant and forgives them on one condition - they give them the dream of a small child in the house, which they gladly set out to do. Box office. "Paying Guests" had a weak start but sales picked up in subsequent weeks and the film was declared a semi-hit. Music. Music is composed by Sajid-Wajid with lyrics provided by Jalees Sherwani, Wajid, A K Upadhyay.
1065943	Sleeping with the Enemy is a 1991 psychological thriller film directed by Joseph Ruben and starring Julia Roberts. The film is based on Nancy Price's 1987 novel of the same name. Roberts plays a woman who escapes from her abusive, obsessive husband from Cape Cod to Cedar Falls, Iowa, where she captures the attention of a kindly college drama teacher. The plot of the movie resembles the 1980 Malayalam movie "Manjil Virinja Pookkal" . Plot. Laura Burney (Julia Roberts) lives in a beautiful home by the beach on Cape Cod with her husband, Martin (Patrick Bergin), a charmingly handsome and wealthy investment counselor who is also possessive, abusive, and controlling. It becomes clear that he has OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder) and while she tries to abide by his needs, she seems to suffer under the strain. Martin believes Laura has been flirting with an attractive neighbor, and he physically assaults her as punishment. The abuse is an ongoing routine, which began immediately after their wedding. To escape Martin, Laura plans and fakes her own death at sea in a storm while the couple are boating. Laura had deliberately led Martin to believe that she could not swim, so he believed she had died once she was lost overboard. However, having recently taken swimming lessons at the YWCA she was able to swim safely to shore. She secretly returns home, retrieves some clothing and cash she had hidden away in preparation, disguises herself, and leaves home after flushing her wedding ring down the toilet. Laura moves to Cedar Falls, Iowa. In preparation, she has told Martin that her mother, Chloe Williams (Elizabeth Lawrence), died, and pretended to attend the funeral, but secretly she had moved her to a nursing home in Iowa. She rents a modest house and adopts the name Sara Waters. In Cedar Falls, she meets Ben Woodward (Kevin Anderson), who teaches drama at DeVry University. A relationship develops, but suffers a setback when Ben discovers that her real name is not Sara. After a date, Laura is unable to be physically intimate with Ben, and the next day, she confesses that she is on the run from an abusive husband. Meanwhile, Martin receives a chance phone call from a friend of Laura's from the YWCA and learns of Laura's swimming lessons. His suspicions aroused, Martin heads home and finds Laura's wedding ring in the toilet bowl where it failed to flush. From the Cape Cod nursing home, he learns that Laura's mother is alive, and has her traced to the nursing home in Iowa. He visits Laura's mother without revealing his identity and learns from her that Laura is seeing a college drama teacher in Cedar Falls. Martin finds Laura and Ben at a local fair, then follows her to her home. After leaving idiosyncratic clues around the house for Laura to find, Martin confronts Laura. Ben appears at the door and Martin, brandishing a gun, threatens to kill Ben if she doesn't make him leave. Laura talks to Ben and he appears to leave, but then breaks down the door and struggles with Martin, who knocks him unconscious. As he aims the gun at Ben, Laura distracts and attacks Martin, who drops the gun, and she manages to take control of it; she fires at Martin but misses. Laura holds Martin at gunpoint while she calls the police. She then tells the police that she just killed an intruder, hangs up the phone and shoots Martin three times. When Martin falls to the ground she drops the pistol and collapses, sobbing. Martin, not yet dead, picks up the gun and tries to shoot her but the gun only clicks empty. Then Martin dies. Ben is revived by Laura and they embrace as Martin's dead body lies on the ground with Laura's wedding ring inches from his hand. Release. Critical reception. "Sleeping with the Enemy" received mixed to negative reviews; the film currently holds a 23% 'Rotten' rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Famed critic Roger Ebert gave the film 1.5 stars upon its release, calling it "a slasher movie in disguise, an up-market version of the old exploitation formula where the victim can run, but she can't hide." Box office. The film's opening ended "Home Alone"s 11-week #1 run at the box office. By the end of its run, the film had grossed $101,599,005 in the domestic box office; with an international total of $73,400,000, the film's worldwide gross was $174,999,005; based on a $19 million budget, the film was a box office success. Home media. The film reached #1 in the rental charts. Awards. The score by Jerry Goldsmith won the BMI Film Music Award, 1992, and the film was nominated for the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films Saturn Award for 1992 in four categories: Best Actress (Roberts), Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actor (Bergin), Best Horror Film and Best Music (Goldsmith).
1677407	Leopold Vietoris (; ; 4 June 1891 – 9 April 2002) was an Austrian mathematician and a World War I veteran. He was born in Radkersburg and died in Innsbruck. He was known for his contributions to topology—notably the Mayer-Vietoris sequence—and other fields of mathematics, his interest in mathematical history and for being a keen alpinist. Vietoris attended the University of Vienna, where he earned his Ph.D in 1920. Biography. He studied mathematics and geometry at the Technical University in Vienna. Vietoris was drafted in 1914 in World War I and was wounded in September that same year. On 4 November 1918, one week before the Armistice of Villa Giusti, he became an Italian prisoner of war. In autumn 1928 he married his first wife Klara Riccabona, who later died while giving birth to their sixth daughter. In 1936 he married Klara's sister, Maria Riccabona. With his wife Maria Josefa Vincentia, born von Riccabona zu Reichenfels (18 July 1901 – 24 March 2002), dying at age 100, they became one of the eldest couples of the world, having the seventh-highest aggregate age of a married couple (total combined age). Their combined age at the end of their marriage, 211 years and 177 days, is the second highest on record. Vietoris died two weeks after her death. Vietoris was survived by his six daughters, 17 grandchildren, and 30 great-grandchildren. He lends his name to a few mathematical concepts: Vietoris lived to be 110 years and 309 days old, and became the oldest verified Austrian man ever.
1015953	2 Young () is a 2005 Hong Kong romance film directed by Derek Yee. The film was released in Mainland China on 15 April 2005 and in Hong Kong on 28 April 2005.
588716	Mahakaal (also known as The Monster and Time of Death) is a 1993 Indian Horror film. It is directed by Shyam Ramsay and Tulsi Ramsay. It is based on the American horror film franchise A Nightmare on Elm Street. It was released on DVD in the US by distributor, Mondo Macabro in 2009. The film soundtrack were composed by Anand-Milind and background score were composed by K J Sing and Vishal. Plot. A mysterious monster haunts the dreams of a young woman named, Anita. Anita becomes concerned when one of her friends is killed by the monster in a dream.
1016343	Once Upon a Time in China II is a 1992 Hong Kong martial arts action film written and directed by Tsui Hark and starring Jet Li returning as Chinese folk hero Wong Fei-hung. It is the second film and first sequel in the "Once Upon a Time in China" film series. The Mandarin version of the iconic theme song "A Man Should Better Himself" (男兒當自強) was performed by Jackie Chan while the Cantonese version was sung by George Lam. Plot. In 1895, during the late Qing Dynasty, Wong Fei-hung travels by train to Guangzhou to attend a seminar on Western and traditional Chinese medicine. He is accompanied by his romantic interest 13th Aunt and student Leung Foon. He gives a lecture on the benefits of acupuncture while a fellow Chinese doctor, Dr Sun Yat Sen, helps him translate for the predominantly foreign audience. The seminar is disrupted by the fanatical White Lotus Society - an extreme nationalist cult led by the sinister and seemingly-invincible Priest Kung. The sect aims to drive all foreigners out of Canton and has been killing Westerners and destroying everything regarded alien to Chinese culture. Wong later learns that his translator friend Sun Wen is actually the leader of a group of pro-democratic rebels aiming to topple the Qing government and establish a republic in China. Sun and his friend Lu Hao-tung are heading to Hong Kong to continue with their plans for revolution. Wong decides to assist Sun Wen and the rebels but they encounter a Qing official called General Nap-lan, who stands in their way. Chaos ensue when the White Lotus Society attacks a foreign-language school for children. 13th Aunt brings the students to hide in the British consulate. Nap-lan suspects that the rebels are also hiding in the consulate and he orders his men to disguise themselves as cult members and attack the building. Wong defends the consulate while Sun Wen escapes secretly. Nap-lan then enters the consulate under the pretext of protecting the foreigners from the cult, while using the opportunity to search for Lu Hao-tung. Lu disguises himself as Leung Foon and follows Wong out of the consulate safely, while Leung pretends to be Lu and lures Nap-lan away. To put an end to the White Lotus Society's evil activities, Wong and Lu travel to the sect's headquarters to confront Priest Kung. Wong defeats Kung in a fight and the cult disbands. Wong, Lu and Leung proceed to retrieve a hidden list containing the names of the rebels but run into Nap-lan and his soldiers. Lu is shot by Nap-lan's troops, but he manages to burn the name list to prevent the government from taking it. Wong fights Nap-lan while Leung helps Lu burn the list. Leung almost burns a piece of cloth that wrapped the list, but saves it from the fire. Lu tells Leung to hurry and meet Sun at the pier, but then succumbs to his wounds. Wong and Leung try to escape, but are cornered by Nap-lan. Wong engages Nap-lan once more and kills him. As day breaks, Wong arrives at the pier just as Sun's boat is leaving. He hurls something to Sun, who opens it up to reveal Lu's design of a flag for the Republic of China. DVD release date. On July 2, 2001, DVD was released in Hong Kong Legends at Europe in Region 2. Two years later, Hong Kong Legends DVD were released on April 7, 2003 at 3 disc set Tsui Hark's Once Upon a Time in China Trilogy. Three years later, The Donnie Yen Collection DVD were released on May 29, 2006 at 4 disc set including two films they were "New Dragon Gate Inn" and 2 disc platinum edition "Iron Monkey". Alternative version. The Taiwanese VHS release distributed by Long Shong opens with a 7 minute-long recap of the first film in series. This version also includes scenes cut from the international releases: Box office. This was a rare sequel to a Hong Kong film to exceed the original film's box office take. It grossed $30,399,676 HKD.[http://hkmdb.com/db/movies/view.mhtml?id=7576&display_set=eng]
1061733	Helen Elizabeth Hunt (born June 15, 1963) is an American actress, film director, and screenwriter. She starred in the sitcom, "Mad About You", for seven years before being cast in the 1997 romantic comedy film, "As Good as It Gets" for which she won the Academy Award for Best Actress. Some of her other notable films include "Twister", "Cast Away", "What Women Want", "Pay It Forward", "Soul Surfer" and "The Sessions". She made her directorial debut in 2007 with "Then She Found Me". She has won four Emmy awards, four Golden Globe awards, two Screen Actors Guild awards, and an Oscar. Youth. Hunt was born in Culver City, California. Her mother, Jane Elizabeth (née Novis), worked as a photographer, and her father, Gordon E. Hunt, is a film director and acting coach. Her uncle, Peter H. Hunt, is also a director. Her Iowa-born maternal grandmother, Dorothy (Anderson) Fries, was a voice coach. Hunt's paternal grandmother was from a German Jewish family, while Hunt's other grandparents were of English descent (her maternal grandfather was born in England).
519923	Glaiza Castro Galura (born January 21, 1988 in Valenzuela City, Philippines), better known as Glaiza De Castro, is a Filipina actress and singer. She has been a contract artist of GMA Network since 2006. After beginning her career in GMA in 2001, she transferred to its rival network, ABS-CBN, where she played mostly minor and supporting roles before returning to GMA in 2006. During the first two years of her second stint with GMA, she continued to play supporting roles in series such as "Boys Nxt Door" and "Asian Treasures" before landing a lead role in the television remake of the film "Kaputol ng Isang Awit". She appeared in villain roles in the remakes of "Kung Aagawin Mo Ang Lahat Sa Akin" and "Stairway to Heaven", and on the musical series "Diva" before finally achieving leading lady status in the fantasy series "Grazilda" in 2010. In addition to her television appearances, she has also acted in a number of mainstream and independent films, including "Sukob", "Batanes", and "Still Life". As a singer, De Castro has so far released two albums: "Magbalik Ka", released in 2001, and the self-titled "Glaiza", released in 2006. Early life and work. Glaiza De Castro was born on January 21, 1988, in Valenzuela City, a city in the northern part of the Philippines' National Capital Region, to a family of born-again Baptists. Her parents are both musicians who have performed in countries all across Asia. Her uncle, Dan Alvaro, and her brother, Alchris Galura, are also actors. As a child, De Castro sang at her local ministry as a member of a children's choir; later on, in high school, she formed a band with her friends, where she acted as both songwriter and vocalist. She also as the niece of Miguel Castro Enriquez or Mike Enriquez who become as a TV personality worked in GMA Network. De Castro began her career in show business between the ages of 12 to 13 by appearing as an extra. She had several appearances on the late-night talk show, "Walang Tulugan with the Master Showman", which was followed by a role in the 2001 movie "Cool Dudes 24/7" Acting career. Early career: Minor roles on television and in movies (2002-2006). De Castro began her career with GMA-7 playing a minor role in the soap opera "Ikaw Lang Ang Mamahalin". However, after only a few months with the company, she transferred to rival network ABS-CBN and became a contracted artist of Star Magic, the company's training ground for young talent. During her time in ABS-CBN, she continued to play both supporting and minor roles, two of the most prominent being the role of Halley in the teen-oriented show, "Berks" Between 2002 and 2005, she would only appear in films sporadically, playing bit parts in movies such as "Singsing ni Lola" (2002) and "Miss Pinoy" (2005). By 2006, she began to appear in films more frequently, with minor parts in the horror films "Sukob" and "White Lady", as well as the Manny Pacquiao biopic, "". Her most prominent film role during this point in her career was as a minor antagonist in the film adaptation of Carlo Vergara's graphic novel, "Zsazsa Zaturnnah"; the film was an entry to the 2006 Metro Manila Film Festival. Return to GMA and breakout roles (2006-2008). After four years with ABS-CBN, De Castro returned to its rival GMA Network in 2006. One of her first roles back was as Honey on the fantasy-adventure series, "Fantastikids", where she starred alongside Marky Cielo, Jackie Rice and Ryza Cenon, as well as former child star Paolo Contis and former beauty queen Melanie Marquez. The reception to the show was mostly warm; journalist Paul Daza of "The Philippine Daily Inquirer" compared it favorably to its counterpart on ABS-CBN (fantasy-drama anthology "Komiks"), and commented that, based on ratings, "it would seem like the new stars are outshining the more established [ABS-CBN performers." At this time, she also performed regularly on GMA's regular Sunday variety show, "SOP Rules". In 2007, De Castro appeared in the afternoon teen drama "Boys Nxt Door". The series has been dubbed in Malay on the Malaysian channel 8TV and became the first Filipino drama to air in South Korea, via KBS2. The second role was in the 2007 action-adventure series, "Asian Treasures", GMA-7's most expensive show to date. De Castro played Clara, an expert on history and geography who would use this knowledge to help the main characters find the titular treasures. 2007 also saw her featured prominently in the independent film "Still Life", a film written and directed by Katski Flores, about an artist stricken with a terminal illness who has traveled to an isolated island to paint his last work. In the film, De Castro plays Emma, a woman who relates her past to the main character. Her portrayal of Emma was noted by film critic Tito Valiente of "Business Mirror" as "one reason the short life on that island becomes very real." Valiente went on to note that De Castro's character was "vulnerable but not whiny. Even in tears she conjures an image of a woman whose only way out of life is finding life in anything." The film was a finalist at that year's Cinemalaya Philippine Independent Film Festival, where De Castro received a Golden Screen Awards nomination in the Best Actress category. She also played a supporting role that year in the romantic film "Batanes", alongside top GMA actress Iza Calzado, Taiwanese singer-actor Ken Chu, and Marky Cielo. The following year, 2008, she started shooting another independent film, "Rakenrol". The film is based on director Quark Henares' views on growing up in the local rock scene, as well as his own personal experiences in starting a band. De Castro described the film, which was still in production as of March 2009, as "a lighter version of "Almost Famous" and "a fun, feel-good movie". In 2008, she played the lead role in the television adaptation of the 1991 film, "Kaputol ng Isang Awit". In the series, De Castro played Sarah Monteza a poor girl with a good voice but low self-esteem. De Castro herself would later go on to say that the role was her "biggest break" thus far. 2009-present. After another supporting role in the television adaptation of comic-book writer Carlo J. Caparas' graphic novel "Gagambino", De Castro once again landed a lead role on another television adaptation of a Filipino film, "Kung Aagawin Mo Ang Lahat Sa Akin" opposite Patrick Garcia, Maxene Magalona, Jackie Rice and JC Tiuseco. In the series she played the primary antagonist, Gladys Andrada (a role originated by co-star Jackie Lou Blanco), the jealous, only biological child of Gilbert (played by Nonie Buencamino) and Clara Andrada (played by Blanco). Her portrayal was well-received; columnist Jason John Lim commented that while she knew she was breaking out of her comfort zone, "What she didn't know that she would also begin breaking the expectations of everybody." Right after "Kung Aagawin Mo Ang Lahat Sa Akin", she played another supporting role on an episode of the drama anthology SRO Cinemaserye, which chronicled the life story of singer Eva Castillo (portrayed in this episode by Manilyn Reynes). Shortly thereafter, she landed another role as the primary antagonist in the Philippine remake of the widely-popular Korean television drama, "Stairway to Heaven", alongside Dingdong Dantes, Rhian Ramos and TJ Trinidad. She portrayed Eunice Manansala (serving as the counterpart for Han Yoori, played by actress Kim Tae-hee), the envious stepsister of Jodi Reyes (played by Rhian Ramos). To prepare for the role, De Castro watched the original series in order to attempt to get an idea of who her character was as a person. De Castro also commented on the relative complexity of her character in this series compared to her character in "Kung Aagawin Mo Ang Lahat Sa Akin": "Unlike my previous role, you don’t know what is going on inside the mind of Eunice. What's going inside her head is really devious. She is subtle in her approach and very scheming... Despite being evil, she still has a heart and there's a reason she became a bad person. If she is stepping down on people, she is also being stepped on by other people. She also has to fulfill her needs and wants and she will do everything for the person she loves." As with her two previous major roles, her portrayal was also well received by critics; Jerry Donato of "The Philippine Star", in particular, has gone so far to say that "So far, Glaiza has given her Korean counterpart a run for her money." In 2009, De Castro appeared in five films. In the first, the independent political thriller "Bente"she replaced former "StarStruck" contestant and fellow GMA star Jewel Mische when the latter refused to film a sex scene she considered "beyond moral standards". as directed by Mel Chionglo. The film was released in June 2009 and received mixed reviews, with Rito Asilo of the "Philippine Daily Inquirer" citing its thematic substance and Gomez's and Calzado's "insightful performances", while also going on to blast the film's "disparate stories", "incohesive feel and style", and sudden ending "in a convenient anticlimax". The second film was the horror movie "Tarot", released on August 26. The film, about a girl who is able to predict the future through the use of tarot cards, was directed by Jun Lana and was top-billed by Marian Rivera and Dennis Trillo. A third film, "Ang Manghuhula", was released commercially in September (it had been shown at the Cinemanila International Film Festival the previous year). The film was directed by Paolo Herras and saw De Castro playing the daughter of Messina (played by Eula Valdez), a seer. The production was received warmly, with Noelani Torre of the "Philippine Daily Inquirer" noting its "fascinating subject matter", "colorful cast" and "visual richness and clarity". The fourth film De Castro starred in that year was the independent film "Astig" (international title: "Squalor") alongside Sid Lucero, Edgar Allan Guzman, Arnold Reyes and Dennis Trillo (who also directed the film). In "Astig", De Castro playing Elgine, a teenager afflicted with a sexually transmitted disease who eventually becomes the love interest of Trillo's character. The film, released in July of that year, was a critical and financial success, topping the box office in that year's Cinemalaya Film Festival, with a profit of P137,890.00. Darwin Chiong of GMANews.tv called the film's cinematography "remarkable" and praised the cast as a whole, saying, "The movie gathers an ensemble of actors that deliver in the acting department, even those in supporting roles like Glaiza De Castro and Malou Crisologo." Her performance in this film earned her a nomination in the Best Supporting Actress Category at the 33rd Gawad Urian Awards. The fifth film was the sixth film under the "" banner, subtitled "A Mother's Love". The film, directed by Joel Lamangan and top-billed by Sharon Cuneta, Zsa Zsa Padilla, Heart Evangelista and Dennis Trillo, saw De Castro playing a younger version of Cuneta's character, Melinda Uy. The film was released on 25 December and was an entry to that year's annual Metro Manila Film Festival. Her first project on GMA for 2010 was in another villain role in what was billed as the Philippines' first musical, comedy-drama series, "Diva", which debuted on GMA Network on March 1, 2010 and ended on July 30 of that year. The show, which also starred Regine Velasquez, Mark Anthony Fernandez, TJ Trinidad and singer Jaya and is partly based on the American movie trilogy "High School Musical" and the American television series "Glee", saw De Castro playing the ambitious Tiffany, who is Lady's (Ruffa Mae Quinto) assistant and soon-to-be a villainess to singer-actress Regine Velasquez's heroine Melody. After Diva, De Castro auditioned for and won the title role on the primetime fantasy series "Grazilda". The show, a sequel to the Cinderella story, centers on Grazilda, who is in turn based on one of Cinderella's wicked stepsisters, Drizella. The plot revolves around Grazilda's banishment from her home world of Fantasia to the human world, where she suffers a fate similar to Cinderella's. The series, which premiered on September 13, 2010, also stars Geoff Eigenmann, Yasmien Kurdi, Jolina Magdangal and Cherie Gil, and marks De Castro's first lead role in a primetime series. Prior to the show's debut, the actress was constantly quoted as being unable to believe her success; she had by then been accustomed to playing only villainous roles and expected to do so for the remainder of her career. The show was both a critical and commercial success, beating its rival show "1DOL" by a margin of five points in the AGB Mega Manila ratings. In light of the show's success, De Castro's manager, Manny Valera, has decided to turn down any further villain roles on behalf of his talent in order to build her up as a lead star. On October 30, it was announced that De Castro would no longer be cast in the remake of the film "Temptation Island" and would instead be launched as a lead star in the 2011 remake of the 1992 film "Aswang", produced by Regal Films with film director Topel Lee. But her lead role went to Lovi Poe instead. De Castro later played the major role in an epic drama Amaya, opposite Marian Rivera and Sid Lucero. In 2012, De Castro first appear on Tweets For My Sweet playing the role of Kimberly, the long lost daughter and a sister to Meg which is portrayed by Marian Rivera and on the 3rd Quarter of the year she was chosen to be cast on the Philippine Adaptation of Temptation Of Wife, playing the antagonist role, Heidi which is originally by Alessandra de Rossi when she declined the role. In 2013, De Castro will co-star "Vampire Ang Daddy Ko" which is top billed by Vic Sotto and Oyo Boy Sotto. Music. De Castro has so far released two albums. The first one, titled "Magbalik Ka", was released under XAX Music Entertainment, in 2001, when she was thirteen. Five years later, she released a second album, the self-entitled "Glaiza", this time released under Dyna Records. The latter album, described by De Castro herself as "more defined" compared to her first album, comprises pop and R&B songs, and contains mostly original content except for two songs: a Tagalog version of Joey Albert's song "How Can I Make You See" (titled "Paano" in the album), and an English version of Dingdong Avanzado's "Basta't Kasama Kita". When asked why it took her half a decade to release a second album, De Castro explained that after the first album was completed, she did not renew her contract with the record company and instead focused on her television career. In June 2008, "Glaiza" was officially launched, two years after the album was released. Personal life. She also maintained a close friendship with consistent on-screen partner Marky Cielo for a significant part of the latter's career until his death in 2008. In the wake of her friend's death, De Castro recounted an exchange she had the day before Cielo died: she told Cielo about a dream she had about him and Rich Asuncion; according to her, Cielo had had other people tell him they had dreams about him, which he took to be an omen of death. Despite gaining wider recognition for her roles as a villain in "Kung Aagawin Mo Ang Lahat Sa Akin" and "Stairway to Heaven", De Castro has reportedly had qualms about portraying a villain again in future projects. Of this, she commented, "I don't want to be typecast as an antagonist forever because it's difficult to get rid of that sort of image." However, she has expressed preference for antagonist roles over "sexy" roles. She later retracted this statement, saying that she "didn't think get typecast because [she plays different kinds of women each time" and explained this by saying, "The stories are different, so characters' [motivations are also different." Although she had, in the past, considered posing for magazines such as FHM "for instant fame and fortune", she eventually decided against it and opted to hone her craft as a serious actress, saying, "I just want to start on the right foot by focusing more on acting than diverting my attention to other interests. I want to become an actress and to show what I can do." She has also expressed interest in playing "out-of-the-box and extreme roles", in the vein of Natalie Portman in "V for Vendetta" and Charlize Theron in "Monster". In 2008, she spoke of her preference for independent film, commenting in Taglish, "As for me, I feel fulfilled in indie films. I'm given roles in indie projects that are heavier compared to the mainstream. And I'm rarely offered roles in mainstream anyway."
1064542	The Sure Thing is a 1985 romantic comedy directed by Rob Reiner, written by Steven L. Bloom and Jonathan Roberts and starring John Cusack, Daphne Zuniga, Viveca Lindfors, and Nicollette Sheridan. The film chronicles the cross-country journey of college students Walter Gibson (Cusack) and Alison Bradbury (Zuniga) as they make their way from New England to Los Angeles, each in an effort to meet their ideal match. The origins of the film came from an experience writer Steven L. Bloom had while attending Brown University. During this time, his best friend was attending Emory University in the south and was constantly recounting the good times he was having while absolutely nothing was going on for Bloom. Out of pity over his situation his friend arranged for him to meet a sure thing over spring break, so Bloom found a ride through a ride board and drove to Atlanta with a number of other kids. The plot is also somewhat similar to the classic film "It Happened One Night". Plot summary. High school senior Walter Gibson (John Cusack) and his best friend Lance (Anthony Edwards) are celebrating the fact they are moving on to college, but all Gibson can do is lament the fact that he has lost his touch with women. Lance heads to UCLA while Gibson moves on to college in New England. The two keep in touch by writing letters, but Gibson’s luck has not changed. His attempt to get close to Alison Bradbury (Daphne Zuniga) from his English class by tricking her into tutoring him only results in his angering and alienating her. Eventually he receives a phone call from Lance telling him to come to California for Christmas break because he has set him up with the beautiful girl (Nicollette Sheridan), assuring him she is a Sure Thing. Gibson finds a ride from a ride share board to make the trip. He immediately knows it is going to be a long trip when he meets Gary Cooper (Tim Robbins) and Mary Ann Webster (Lisa Jane Persky), the couple providing the ride, as they are overly extroverted and upbeat. Things go from bad to worse when he realizes he will be sitting next to Alison as she heads to UCLA to visit her boyfriend Jason (Boyd Gaines). The tension and constant bickering between Gibson and Alison quickly become too much for Cooper, and he abandons them on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere. As they hitch to California, they overcome issues with transportation, weather, lack of food, lack of money, and sleeping arrangements, while at the same time developing genuine feelings for one another. Upon arriving in California, Alison discovers the real reason Gibson is making the trip is to meet his Sure Thing and angrily runs off. That night at a college mixer Lance has arranged for Gibson to meet his Sure Thing. Meanwhile, Alison is spending a boring night with Jason when she drags him to the same mixer for some fun. Alison and Gibson see each other at the party, but jealousy leads to a confrontation between the two. Gibson takes the Sure Thing to Lance's room, but cannot stop thinking about Alison. Back on campus after the break, Alison and Gibson are obviously uncomfortable around each other. In their English class, Professor Taub (Viveca Lindfors) reads an essay composed by Gibson as a writing assignment, which is a description of his night with the Sure Thing. The girl in the essay asks the protagonist if he loves her, but for the first time he realizes that those are not just words and he cannot sleep with her. Alison realizes what actually happened that night, and they kiss. Casting. When casting for the part of Walter Gibson began, director Rob Reiner initially refused to meet with John Cusack because the actor was underaged at the time. It was only after being urged by casting directors Jane Jenkins and Janet Hirshenson that Cusack was allowed to audition, after which Reiner knew he had to have him for the part. Reiner would later say that he cast Cusack because he reminded him so much of himself. At the time Anthony Edwards was seriously being considered for the lead, but after Cusack got the part, Edwards was asked if he would play the best friend instead. At the time of his casting, Cusack was still 16 and had not yet graduated from high school, so producer Roger Birnbaum had to go to court to have him emancipated. During the filming of the movie, Birnbaum then became Cusack's legal guardian. Daphne Zuniga was cast after many other actresses had been auditioned. She has been quoted as saying, "It's hard to admit, but I really was a lot like this character." Critical reception. Reviews for "The Sure Thing" were mostly positive with a rating of 89% on Rotten Tomatoes based on 27 reviews. Film critic Roger Ebert praised the film and called it a "small miracle" for its handling of teenage material in an era when movies like "Porky's" were the norm. In a review for The New York Times, Janet Maslin wrote that "The Sure Thing" was "glowing proof of two things: Traditional romantic comedy can be adapted to suit the teen-age trade, and Mr. Reiner's contribution to "This Is Spinal Tap" was more than a matter of humor". "This film gets my unapologetic nomination for greatest film ever made," said Michael Dare of LA Weekly. Box Office. The film earned over $18 million at the box office. DVD. "The Sure Thing" was released on DVD August 5, 2003 as a "Special Edition". The release was a single disc, but was presented as a DVD-14 (a dual-sided disc with one side dual-layered and the other single-layered). The dual-layered side contains both widescreen and standard formats of the film along with digitally enhanced 5.1 surround sound or original mono in both French and English, audio commentary by Reiner, and a trivia track. The single-layered side contains a 26 minute featurette titled "The Road To The Sure thing" with interviews of Rob Reiner, John Cusack, Daphne Zuniga, Nicollette Sheridan, writers Steven L. Bloom and Jonathan Roberts, and producer Roger Birnbaum. Also included are three mini-featurettes ("Dressing The Sure Thing", "Casting The Sure Thing", and "Reading The Sure Thing") and the theatrical trailer.
1102713	Israel Moiseevich Gelfand, also written Israïl Moyseyovich Gel'fand, or Izrail M. Gelfand (, ; – 5 October 2009) was a Soviet mathematician who made major contributions to many branches of mathematics, including group theory, representation theory and functional analysis. The recipient of numerous awards and honors, including the Order of Lenin and the Wolf Prize, he was a Fellow of the Royal Society and a lifelong academic, serving decades as a professor at Moscow State University and, after immigrating to the United States shortly before his 76th birthday, at the Busch Campus of New Jersey's Rutgers University. He is known for having educated and inspired generations of students through his legendary seminar at Moscow State University. His legacy continues in the mathematicians who were his students, such as Endre Szemerédi, Alexandre Kirillov, Joseph Bernstein as well as his own son, Sergei Gelfand. Early years. A native of Kherson Governorate of the Russian Empire, Gelfand was born into a Jewish family in the small southern Ukrainian town of Okny (subsequently, Krasni Okny). According to his own account, Gelfand was expelled from high school because his father had been a mill owner. Bypassing both high school and college, he proceeded to postgraduate study at Moscow State University, where his advisor was the preeminent mathematician Andrei Kolmogorov. He nevertheless managed to attend lectures at the University and began postgraduate study at the age of 19. Work. Gelfand is known for many developments including: Influence outside of mathematics. The "Gelfand–Tsetlin basis" (also in the common spelling "Zetlin") is a widely-used tool in theoretical physics and the result of Gelfand's work on the representation theory of the unitary group and Lie groups in general. Gelfand also published works on biology and medicine. For a long time he took an interest in cell biology and organized a research seminar on the subject. He worked extensively in mathematics education, particularly with correspondence education. In 1994, he was awarded a MacArthur fellowship for this work. Family. Gelfand was married to Zorya Shapiro, and their two sons, Sergei and Vladimir both live in the United States. A third son, Aleksandr, died of leukemia. Following the divorce from his first wife, Gelfand married his second wife, Tatiana. Gelfand and Tatiana became the parents of a daughter, Tatiana. The family, all in the U.S., also includes four grandchildren and three great-grandchildren. The memories about I.Gelfand are collected at the special site handled by his family. Honors and awards. Gelfand held several honorary degrees and was awarded the Order of Lenin three times for his research. In 1977 he was elected a Foreign Member of the Royal Society. He won the Wolf Prize in 1978, Kyoto Prize in 1989 and MacArthur Foundation Fellowship in 1994. He held the presidency of the Moscow Mathematical Society between 1968 and 1970, and was elected a foreign member of the U.S. National Academy of Science, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Royal Irish Academy, the American Mathematical Society and the London Mathematical Society. In an October 2003 article in "The New York Times", written on the occasion of his 90th birthday, Gelfand is described as a scholar who is considered "among the greatest mathematicians of the 20th century", having exerted a tremendous influence on the field both through his own works and those of his students. Death. Israel Gelfand died at the Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital near his home in Highland Park, New Jersey. He was less than five weeks past his 96th birthday. His death was first reported on the blog of his former collaborator Andrei Zelevinsky and confirmed a few hours later by an obituary in the Russian online newspaper "Polit.ru".
1036404	Mark Heap (born 13 May 1957) is a British actor who played Brian Topp in the Channel 4 sitcom "Spaced", and Dr. Alan Statham in "Green Wing". Early life. Heap was born in Tamil Nadu, India to an English father and American mother. He is the youngest of four brothers. He began his acting career in the 1980s as a member of the Medieval Players, a touring company performing medieval and early modern theatre, and featuring stilt-walking, juggling and puppetry. After its demise, he became part of the street theatre duo "The Two Marks" (with Mark Saban) who appeared on television shows "Ghost Train" and "3-2-1". Television. He has appeared in a variety of television comedy roles, often playing obsessive and self-deluded characters, including struggling artist Brian Topp in "Spaced", the pompous Dr. Alan Statham in "Green Wing", and various roles in the sketch show "Big Train". He has worked in a number of ventures with Chris Morris, appearing in "Jam", its radio predecessor "Blue Jam", and the documentary parody series "Brass Eye". Heap voiced the lead character of Eric Feeble in the animated comedy "Stressed Eric". Other recurring roles included Terry Roche in Paul Whitehouse's comedy-drama "Happiness" and Derek Few in "How Do You Want Me?". Heap played Harry in the short-lived Rob Grant TV series "The Strangerers", aired in 2000. He also guested in the second series of the BBC comedy "Look Around You" as Leonard Hatred. In March 2007 he appeared in the BBC One drama "Hotel Babylon" as an unsuccessful businessman who became a bellboy. Between 2008 and 2010 he appeared in 32 episodes of the BBC period drama 'Lark Rise to Candleford' as head postman Thomas Brown, as well as super villain Lightkiller in an episode of the sitcom "No Heroics". He also appears as the father of Chris Miles in the Channel 4 programme "Skins". Heap played the love interest of the main character in the second series of the BBC comedy "Love Soup". He played the role of Charles Dickens in the 2009 BBC Two drama "Desperate Romantics". Also in 2009 he played Jessica Hynes' husband in the one-off comedy "Lizzie & Sarah", written by Hynes and Julia Davis. In 2010 he appeared as Bob Stevens, the leader of a rambling group, in the BBC4 series "The Great Outdoors". He also appeared as a psychiatrist in Miranda Hart's comedy "Miranda" on BBC2. In October 2010 he appeared as Robin in the four-part BBC drama "Single Father". Heap plays Jim in the Channel 4 sitcom "Friday Night Dinner" alongside Simon Bird and Tamsin Greig. He also played Andrew Thorogood in the BBC Four comedy Holy Flying Circus and Jonas in the 8th episode of E4's sci-fi comedy-drama "Misfits" series 3. In October 2012 he appeared as an unnamed "Heathrow passenger" in the first episode of the Jungleboys comedy "A Moody Christmas", broadcast on ABC1 Australia. He joined the cast of the Sky1 original series "Spy" for its second season commencing in October 2012, replacing Tom Goodman-Hill as Philip Quil, Judith's partner and Marcus' headteacher. He has also recently appeared in the spin-off episode of Outnumbered, the Christmas special episode, aired on 24 December 2012. He portrayed Norris, for this single episode. He played the owner of a pet crematorium in Sue Perkins's 2013 comedy, Heading Out. Film. In the film "About a Boy", Heap played a school teacher. He appeared in Tim Burton's 2005 film "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory". Heap also played a minor role in the 2006 film "Confetti" as the marriage registrar. He played an injured fairground patron in "Tunnel of Love" (2004), which also starred Jack Dee. He plays the part of the prince Tertius in the 2007 film "Stardust". In 2008 he co-starred in the surreal science fiction film "Captain Eager and the Mark of Voth". He appears in the 2013 film "The World's End". Advertising work. In 2009 he appeared as a car salesman in a SEAT television advert. Heap voices the fox in the Old Speckled Hen adverts sponsoring comedy on Dave. He also voiced the Mazuma Mobile Adverts. Other acting. In 2008 Heap played the role of Widmerpool in a Radio 4 serialisation of Anthony Powell's "A Dance to the Music of Time". He played Eliza's husband in 2006 Radio 4 play "The Eliza Stories" and appeared as Marmite the Dwarf in the short-lived Radio 4 sitcom "The Sofa of Time". He starred in the music video for Four Tet's single "Smile Around The Face" in 2005, contributed a multitude of character voices in the audiobook "Do Ants Have Arseholes?". In 2012 he starred as Martin in the Radio 4 play "Cordite for Breakfast", a comedy about Napoleonic-era battle re-enactments. In March 2013, he appeared as Rincewind in a 4-part Radio 4 adaptation of Terry Pratchett's Eric.
589392	Syed Ishtiaq Ahmed Jaffry, better known as Jagdeep, (born 29 March 1939 in Datia, India) is an Indian film actor who has appeared in more than 300 films. He is especially known for his comic roles. He played Soorma Bhopali in Sholay (1975), Gabbar in Purana Mandir (1984), Salman Khan's dad in Andaz Apna Apna (1994)and later directed a movie "Soorma Bhopali" with this character as the protagonist. Career. Jagdeep started his film career as a child artist extra in films like B. R. Chopra's "Afsana", then to a child artist in "Ab Dilli Door Nahin", K A Abbas's "Munna" and AVM's "Hum Panchi Ek Dal Ke". Then came Bimal Roy's "Do Bigha Zamin" with which he started playing comic roles. Some hit songs are picturised on him like 'paas baitho tabiyat bahal jayegi' from 'Punarmilan', 'In pyar ki rahon mein' from the same film, 'chal ud ja re panchhi' from superhit movie 'Bhabhi' where he is paired opposite Nanda, etc. He is also known for his appearances in many horror Movies, especially in projects of "Ramsay Brothers". He appeared in famous hits like Veerana, Tehkhana and Purana Mandir. Jagdeep is the father of Naved Jaffery & Javed Jaffrey who host the popular show Boogie Woogie. Personal life. Report surfaced that Jagdeep's first-born Hussein had died a lonely death. Along with Naved Jaffery and Javed Jaffery, Jagdeep also has three more children- Hussein, Shakira Shafi and Suraiya from his first wife Begam.
658228	End of the Spear is a 2005 docudrama film that recounts the story of Operation Auca, in which five American Christian missionaries attempted to evangelize the Huaorani (Waodani) people of the jungle of Ecuador. Based on actual events from 1956 in which five male missionaries were speared by members of the Waodani tribe, the movie tells the story from the perspective of Steve Saint (the son of Nate Saint, one of the murdered missionaries), and Mincayani, one of the tribesmen who killed the missionaries. The two eventually form a bond that continues to this day. Concerns. Some critics believe the story may be seen as presenting an uncritical view of a situation where native peoples were exploited regardless of "good intentions" such as concerns about SIL International. There was some concern among various Christian groups that lead actor Chad Allen, who portrays aviator missionary Nate Saint in the movie (and his son Steve Saint as an adult), is openly gay. Some Christian groups that had initially planned to promote the film began to question whether they should. The real Steve Saint, who was heavily involved in the production of the film, has stated in interviews that he himself had reservations but that God indicated to him that Allen was the proper choice. In the end, he couldn't see a better actor filling the role of his father. His public pronouncements did much to quell the controversy. Other Christian groups (such as VCY America's Vic Eliason) wished the film had more explicitly portrayed the Gospel message (i.e. salvation through Jesus Christ). However, the Gospel presented in the movie is the same as it was presented to the Waodani; in concepts and symbols that are present in everyday Waodani language (with the name of "God" being replaced with "Waengongi", the name of the Waodani creator god who no longer communicated with the people). Due to the limitations of the movie format, they have had to compress various events and limit the number of characters. As a result, the main Waodani protagonist, Mincayani, is not actually one person in real life but rather a composite of the real-life Waodani named Mincaye and various other Waodanis. Some of Steve’s sister’s experiences ended up being attributed to Steve in the movie and the dramatic climactic reconciliation between Steve as an adult and Mincayani did not actually happen as depicted in the film – it was more of a slow, growing love and friendship between the real-life Steve and Mincayani. Box office. Opening with a stronger-than-expected first weekend (January 20–22, 2006), "End of the Spear" took 8th place (behind four other new and expanding movies) with $4.3 million USD. "End of the Spear" became one of the few independently released Christian movies to draw more than $1,000,000 in its first three weekends of release. By the time the film left the box office, it had made $12 million. It has since made over $20 million more in rentals and video sales, including RedBox. Critical response. "End of the Spear" had a mostly negative response among film critics. Rotten Tomatoes Meter, an average of critics' ratings, as of December 26, 2009 had given the movie 41%; 20 positive, 29 negative reviews (avg. rating: 5.2/10). Box Office Mojo, which also incorporates user ratings, had nearly 2/3 of viewers give the film an 'A' rating. The film won a Crystal Heart Award as well as the Grand Prize for Best Dramatic Feature at the 2005 Heartland Film Festival. Extra footage. The DVD and some theaters where the movie was shown also included extra footage after the movie ended showing the real life Mincayani (Mincaye) and the real life Steve Saint in our modern day. Mincaye visited Steve Saint in America with humorous results while trying to understand American culture. Soundtrack. End of the Spear: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack was released on January 24, 2006 by Word Records. The soundtrack features most of the instrumental score by Ron Owen, plus featured music from the film by known CCM artists like Steven Curtis Chapman and BarlowGirl, among others. Awards. In 2007, the album won a Dove Award for Instrumental Album of the Year at the 38th GMA Dove Awards.
1582097	Fruits of Passion is a 1981 French-Japanese co-production directed by Shūji Terayama and starring Klaus Kinski which was released in France as "Les fruits de la passion" and in Japan as . The film is loosely based on the novel "Retour à Roissy" by Pauline Réage, written as a sequel to the "Story of O". Plot. The lead characters of the "Story of O" and "Retour à Roissy" novels, Sir Stephen and O, are placed in southern China where Sir Stephen owns a casino. Sir Stephen places O in a Chinese brothel for "training" and O is then subjected to a variety of humiliating experiences to prove her unconditional obedience. A sub-plot concerns a coolie rebellion due to the resentment towards Europeans by the local population and a young man desperate to afford O's favors at the brothel. Release. The film was released in France on June 3, 1981 as "Les fruits de la passion" and as "Shanghai Ijin Shōkan - China Doll" in Japan with censoring of the pubic areas in November 1981. The USA release as "Fruits of Passion" with English dubbing occurred in November 1982. A version in Japanese with English subtitles on VHS tape and DVD was published as "Fruits of Passion - The Story of "O" Continued" on June 20, 2000. A digitally remastered version of the film was released in Japan in Japanese, English and French with Japanese subtitles in December 2005. Reception. Reaction to the film has been mixed, Roberta Novielli described it as "shallow and decadent" and Jasper Sharp calls it "minor Terayama" whose "charms are mainly cosmetic", the costuming, sets and cinematography. Thomas and Yuko Mihara Weisser give the movie three stars out of four but say it is based on the "look" of the film and not on its narrative or coherence.
1035303	Sorcha Cusack () (born 9 April 1949) is an Irish actress. She has made many film and television appearances including "The Bill", "Casualty" (as Staff Nurse / Ward Sister Kate Wilson from 1994 to 1997), the 1973 BBC adaptation of " Jane Eyre" and the worldwide hit movie "Snatch" as the traveller mother of Mickey played by Brad Pitt. She has also acted for radio, including a guest appearance in the BBC Radio 4 series Baldi. She played Helen Connor in "Coronation Street" in 2008 but due to her other acting commitments the role was played by Dearbhla Molloy when the character returned in July 2009. She also played Mrs Nicholson in two episodes of the first series of "Mrs. Brown's Boys"
582493	Shor in the City is a 2011 Hindi film directed by Raj Nidimoru and Krishna D.K. starring Tusshar Kapoor, Sendhil Ramamurthy, Preeti Desai, Girija Oak, Radhika Apte, Nikhil Dwivedi, Pitobash Tripathy, Sundeep Kishan, and Amit Mistry. The background score of the film was composed by Roshan Machado. The first look of the film was unveiled on 21 March 2011 while the film was released in India on 28 April 2011. Plot. The film revolves around five central characters in the city of Mumbai. Tilak (Tusshar Kapoor) is a small time publisher of pirated books who along with his friends Mandook (Pitobash Tripathy) and Ramesh (Nikhil Dwivedi) kidnaps a famous author and forces him to give the manuscript of his latest book to them so that they will be the first ones to publish it. Abhay (Sendhil Ramamurthy) is a NRI who returns to India to start his own small business and meets Shalmili (Preeti Desai). Sawan (Sundeep Kishan) is a young cricketer hoping to break into the under-22 Mumbai cricket team. The story focuses on their trials and tribulations as they battle life in the city of Mumbai during the chaotic period of the festival of Ganesh Chaturthi. The film tries to deal with concepts of chance, the constant struggle between hope and despair and self-actualization. The opening of the movie starts with the song "Karma is a bitch" which fits in with the central theme of the story where the characters of the film keep trying to come to terms with their own actions. Abhay has a dark past which is not revealed in the film but it can be speculated that he came to India to stay away from it. Tilak initially holds himself responsible for the tragic accident that happens in the movie which brings him closer to his wife and viewing life from a different perspective. The goons who traumatize Abhay eventually end up being shot by their own bullets on the day of Ganesha Visarjan indicating to an extent the influence of "God" in the movie. Tilak gets a new life and finds his treasure at home. Sawan who is financially pressed decides to keep the money he finds at the bank robbery and gives up on the cricket selections- a choice he could have well chosen not to take. Towards the end of the movie all characters move on different paths. Production. "Shor in the City" was made on a small budget of 30 million and a further 27.5 million on P&A ,with total investment coming to around 60 million .Trade analysts esimated that around 50% of this will be recovered from non-theatrical revenue but as always its the theatrical revenue that decides a films fate at the box office. Balaji Motion Pictures, head of distribution and acquisition Girish Johar says "We gave "Shor in the City" a tight release of around 500 screens across the country and the film found appreciation. It grossed around 38.5 million in just 4 days and adding the revenue from non-theatrical rights, the whole investment on the film has been more than recovered." Reception. Critical response. The film was well received by critics. Nikhat Kazmi of "The Times of India" awarded it four stars out of five and stated "With a zany screenplay (Raj Nidimoru and Krishna DK), excellent cinematography by Tushar Kanti Ray and peppy music by Sachin-Jigar, "Shor in the City" is another breaking-norm film from Ekta Kapoor". Taran Adarsh of Bollywood Hungama gave it three and a half stars and wrote ""Shor in the City" belongs to one of those rare categories of movies with sensibilities that would not only entice the festival crowd and the cinema literate, but also lure the ardent moviegoer." Aniruddha Guha of the "Daily News and Analysis" gave it three stars and said ""Shor in the City" is the kind of reassuring film you yearn to watch amid, well, what 'Bollywood' has to offer every week. Also, it articulates something you have only probably thought before – 'Karma IS a bitch.'" Rajeev Masand of CNN-IBN awarded three and a half stars saying "A delicious mix of quirky humor, gruesome violence, and surprising sensitivity, "Shor in the City" works on the strength of its smart script and consistent performances from its ensemble cast." Rediff awarded the film four stars and said "Raj-Krishna's Shor in the City robotically registers itself in Indian cinema's history." Anupama Chopra of NDTV gave the movie four stars and wrote ""Shor in the City" is a terrific film. It’s surprising and disturbing and has a vein of rich, dark humor coursing through it." Shubhra Gupta of the "Indian Express" gave it a three star rating and commented "What makes "Shor in the City" an instant clutter-breaker is its darkly comic treatment. It makes you smile because its humour comes from within. It’s not grafted. And it’s got heart : we feel for the characters." Tushar Joshi of MiD DAY gave it a four star rating and wrote "Loaded with humor, sarcasm and wit. That truly is the beauty of the makers who succeed in arresting you with their tales. The spectacular climax is easily one of the best written in recent times." Karan Anshuman of Mumbai Mirror gave it a four star rating, saying "Three stories, eleven days, myriad layers, believable characters, fine performances, spirited direction, taut script, momentary explosions of originality." Boxoffice. "Shor in the City" nett. grossed in India. "Shor in the City" also opened poorly at around 10–15% in 475 cinemas(500 screens) in India. It was estimated that the film has advantage of low costs which should be recovered but theatrical business may not be much. Shor in the City grossed around 17.5 million nett over the first weekend. Its best business was in some Mumbai multiplexes. "Shor in the City" grossed 35.0 million nett approx in its first week. The distributor share is 1.75 approx. "Shor in the City" made no headway on the weekdays. Awards. "Shor in the City" was officially selected for the Pusan International Film Festival and the Dubai International Film Festival in 2010. The film won the Best Director Award for Raj Nidimoru and Krishna DK at MIAAC in New York. Soundtrack. The songs are composed by Sachin-Jigar and Harpeet. Two songs from Harpreet were taken from his Sufi compilation called "Teri Justujoo" released by Sony in 2008. Lyrics are penned by Sameer and Priya Panchal. "Shor in the City" Soundtrack Tops The Charts in few days. The song Karma Is a Bitch is influenced from Ida Maria's Bad Karma.
585256	Oru Kaidhiyin Diary () is a 1985 Tamil-language Indian feature film directed by Bharathiraaja, starring Kamal Haasan in the lead role of the protagonist. The movie was a huge success at the box office. Summary. David gets released from prison after long 22 years and he reaches the church to confess. He says to the priest that, he would kill 3 people. The priest informs this to the police. David starts his revenge by killing the DSP and escapes fooling Inspector Shankar. The flashback shows that, David and Rosy were married and had a happy life, but Rosy is raped by the powerful Politician Suryaprakasam, whom David trusted and had a high regard. Rosy commits suicide and leaves her husband a handwritten note with the details. Upset, David confronts the politician at his birthday function and makes a scene. Inspector Viswanathan and Dr. Unnikrishnan pretend to help David, but are actually the politician's friends and they destroy Rosy's note, thereby the entire evidence of the crime. The trio then frame David for Rosy's murder and easily win the case and David gets sentenced to life imprisonment for killing his wife. He leaves his only son Shankar to his close friend Velappan. Now Shankar is already a police officer when David gets released after 22 years. He then kills Viswanathan and Dr.Unnikrishnan methodically. David is supported by Sharadha, the love of Shankar. The climax shows David killing his last target and how Shankar has to do his duty of shooting his father. Soundtrack. The soundtrack features four songs composed by Ilaiyaraaja. Remake. Oru Kaidhiyin Diary has been remade in Bollywood as Aakhree Rasta (1986), directed by K. Bhagyaraj starring Amitabh Bachchan, Sridevi, Jayapradha, Anupam Kher. The Hindi version was highly successful too.
1551510	Arthur Shields (15 February 1896 – 27 April 1970) was an Irish stage and film actor. Biography. Born into an Irish Protestant family in Portobello, Dublin, he started acting in the Abbey Theatre when still a young man. He was the younger brother of Oscar-winning actor Barry Fitzgerald. An Irish nationalist, he fought in the Easter Rising of 1916. He was captured and was interned in Frongoch, North Wales. He afterwards returned to the Abbey theatre. In 1936 John Ford brought him to the United States to act in a film version of "The Plough and the Stars". He later returned to the U.S. and for health reasons, he decided to reside in California. He died at his home in Santa Barbara, California, aged 74. Some of his memorable roles were in John Ford films. Shields portrayed the Reverend Playfair in Ford's "The Quiet Man", opposite John Wayne, Maureen O'Hara and his brother, Barry Fitzgerald. He played Dr. Laughlin in "She Wore a Yellow Ribbon" with Wayne and Joanne Dru, and appeared yet again with Wayne and Barry Fitzgerald in Ford's "Long Voyage Home". His other films include: "Little Nellie Kelly", "The Keys of the Kingdom", "The Fabulous Dorseys", "Gallant Journey", "The Shocking Miss Pilgrim", "Drums Along the Mohawk", "Lady Godiva", "National Velvet" and "The River". He also made television appearances including a 1958 role on "Perry Mason" as Dr. George Barnes in "The Case of the Screaming Woman."
394020	Forever the Moment () is a 2008 South Korean film. It is a fictionalised account of the South Korea women's handball team which competed in the 2004 Summer Olympics. The Korean title translates as "The Best Moment in Our Lives", and it is believed to be the first film that revolves around the sport of handball. Background. South Korea won the silver medal in women's handball at the 2004 Summer Olympics, following a close game against Denmark which was decided by a penalty shootout. The Koreans had lost a three point lead in the second half, and at the end of normal time both sides were level at 25-25, taking the game into overtime. After the first overtime the score was still locked at 29-29, but South Korea were leading 34-33 in second overtime, until a late equaliser by Katrine Fruelund in the final ten seconds forced the game into a shootout, which Denmark won 4-2. In a poll conducted by Gallup Korea, 50.2% of respondents said that the women's handball finals was their favourite event of the 2004 Summer Olympics. Plot. Kim Hye-kyeong is a retired handball player who has been successfully coaching in the Japan Handball League. When the coach of South Korea's women's national team suddenly quits, she is asked to fill in, but is faced with an undisciplined squad of players. Hye-kyeong tries to improve the team by recruiting some of her old teammates, including two-time Olympic gold medalist Han Mi-sook. However, Hye-kyeong's aggressiveness causes friction amongst the players, and she is replaced by former men's handball star Ahn Seung-pil, though she decides to stay with the team as a player. Seung-pil introduces modern European training methods which brings him into conflict with the older players, and things get worse when they lose a game against a high school boy's team. Cast. Danish and French team Box office. "Forever the Moment" was released in South Korea on January 10, 2008. It topped the box office on its opening weekend, grossing $4,407,643, and remained at the top for a further two weeks, ahead of Hollywood films "Enchanted", "", and "Cloverfield", all released during the same period. By March 23 the film had grossed a total of $27,258,370, and as of July 13 the total number of admissions was 4,043,293.
903847	Wendell Pierce (born December 8, 1966) is an American actor, best known for his work in HBO dramas, including his portrayals of Detective Bunk Moreland in "The Wire", trombonist Antoine Batiste in "Treme" and "Michael Davenport" in "Waiting to Exhale". Early Life & Education. Pierce was born in New Orleans, Louisiana. He was one of three sons born to a teacher and a decorated World War II veteran who worked as a maintenance engineer. His father's segregated Army unit helped U.S. Marines win the Battle of Saipan in 1944. Pierce said of his father's experience: Pierce was raised in the black middle-class community of Pontchartrain Park. It was the first African-American post-war suburb. His father, along with many black veterans, bought into the neighborhood after returning home from the war. The neighborhood was wiped out during Hurricane Katrina in 2005, including Pierce's family home, which was flooded with 14 feet of water. After first attending Benjamin Franklin High School, Pierce graduated from the New Orleans Centre for Creative Arts (along with Wynton Marsalis, Branford Marsalis and Harry Connick Jr.) where he was a Presidential Scholar of the Arts. As a young actor, Pierce appeared in The Winter’s Tale at the Tulane Shakespeare Festival. He produced and hosted "Think About It," a youth themed talk show, for the local NBC affiliate station, and also hosted a weekly jazz show on WYLD-FM RADIO called "Extensions from Congo Square." He then attended the Juilliard School's Drama Division ("Group 14": 1981–1985) where he graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts. Career. Pierce has been in over 30 films, appeared in nearly 50 television shows and has performed in dozens of stage productions. Including his noted work on HBO dramas, "The Wire" and "Treme", Pierce has worked with directors like Spike Lee and Taylor Hackford and starred alongside actors such as Brad Pitt, Nicolas Cage and Tom Hanks. He has also been in some of the most successful films ever made such as "" in which he played "J. Jenks." He has been sought out for his voice over work on projects like NFL Network's "Top 100 Players of 2013." For his role in "Treme," Pierce learned to play the trombone, though relies on “sound double,” Stafford Agee, of the Rebirth Brass Band. Agee actually records the music, while Pierce shadows the sound. Pierce's work has been critically acclaimed and recognized with several award nominations including an Independent Spirit Award for Best Male Lead for his portrayal of "Joe," in the film, "Four", in which he plays a married, closeted gay man who steps out on his family with a young white man he met online, on the night of the Fourth of July. The film will be released on September 13, 2013, around the same time that The Michael J. Fox Show debuts on NBC, in which Pierce plays Michael J. Fox's boss, "Harris Green." Stage. Pierce has been in numerous stage productions. He was lauded for his performance as Holt Fay in "Queenie" at the John F. Kennedy Center. He has performed on Broadway in staged productions of "The Piano Lesson", "Serious Money" and "The Boys of Winter". He has performed off Broadway in "The Cherry Orchard" (for which he was nominated for a VIV Award for Lead Actor, "Waiting for Godot" (which was set on a New Orleans rooftop post-Hurricane Katrina, and "Broke-ology", performed at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts. Other performances include "Cymbeline" (at The Public Theater), "The Good Times Are Killing Me", "Two Gentlemen of Verona", "Tis Pity She's a Whore" and "Ms. Ever's Boys" performed at the ACT Theatre. Pierce is also a theater producer, having produced the Broadway show, "Clybourne Park". The show was nominated for four Tony Awards. It went on to win the Tony Award for Best Play in 2012. Radio. In 2009, Pierce became the host of the nationally syndicated, Peabody Award-winning radio program, Jazz at Lincoln Center, which features live recordings from Jazz at Lincoln Center's House of Swing. Business & Philanthropy. Pierce considers himself a "true capitalist" and a "classic entrepreneur." In 2013, "Fast Company" named Pierce one of the "100 Most Creative People in Business." Pontchartrain Park Community Development Corp.. Pierce started the non-profit, Pontchartrain Park Community Development Corp., to build new affordable solar and geothermal homes in the area for families displaced by Hurricane Katrina. Sterling Farms. Inspired in part by Michelle Obama’s initiative to bring more supermarkets to “food deserts” – where residents lack easy access to fresh produce – Pierce, along with 2 partners (childhood friend, Troy Henry, and James Hatchett), started a chain of grocery stores, Sterling Farms, in the Ninth Ward of New Orleans in 2012. Sterling Farms also has a convenience store division called "Sterling Express." The stores are named after Sterling Henry, his business partner's father who ran a pharmacy for about 40 years at the Lower 9th Ward. Sterling Farms opened its first store, a 30,000-square-foot supermarket, in Marreo, LA. Personal life. Pierce is "tri-coastal," splitting his time between L.A., New York and New Orleans. New Orleans locals nicknamed him "Saint Wendell." His favorite sports team is the New Orleans Saints. Pierce is politically active. He attended the 2012 Democratic National Convention, was one of President Barack Obama's top campaign fundraisers in 2012 (along with Harvey Weinstein and Eva Longoria), and once escorted Gwen Ifil to a White House State Dinner. When first cast in "The Wire", Pierce and his cast mates doubted the show would be a hit:
1068152	The Hebrew Hammer is a 2003 American comedy film written and directed by Jonathan Kesselman. It stars Adam Goldberg, Judy Greer, Andy Dick, Mario Van Peebles, and Peter Coyote. The plot concerns a Jewish crime fighter known as the Hebrew Hammer who must save Hanukkah from the evil son of Santa Claus who wants to destroy Hanukkah and make everyone celebrate Christmas. The film parodies blaxploitation films, and features Melvin Van Peebles in a cameo as "Sweetback". Plot. The film begins with a flashback to a young Mordechai Jefferson Carver. At school, Mordechai is tormented by his fellow students and his teacher for being a Jewish child in a Christian themed public school, and celebrating Hanukkah while everyone else celebrates Christmas. He feels further alienated as he walks through his neighborhood and sees a seemingly endless number of Christmas decorations and window displays celebrating the holiday and announcing that Jews aren't welcome. As he lies down on the sidewalk in front of a store saying "Jews Welcome (for about 5 minutes)" and spins his dreidel to cheer himself up Santa Claus walks by and crushes the toy under his foot, then gives Mordechai the finger.
1056809	Run Fatboy Run is a 2007 British comedy film directed by David Schwimmer, written by Michael Ian Black and Simon Pegg, and starring Pegg, Dylan Moran, Thandie Newton, Harish Patel, India de Beaufort, and Hank Azaria. It was released in the UK on 7 September 2007, in Canada on 10 September 2007, and in the United States on 28 March 2008. Plot. Dennis Doyle (Simon Pegg) is about to marry Libby (Thandie Newton), his pregnant fiancée. However, he gets cold feet and runs away on the day of the wedding. Five years later, Dennis discovers that Libby, who has their son, Jake, has started seeing high-flying go-getter Whit (Hank Azaria) and realizes what he has lost. He finds out that Whit is running the Nike River Marathon in London, and to prove himself to his doubting friends and, most importantly, Libby and his son, he decides to run the race himself. He receives motivation from his two "coaches", Gordon (Dylan Moran), Libby's cousin and Dennis' best friend who has made a hefty bet on Dennis succeeding, and Mr. Ghoshdastidar (Harish Patel) his landlord, who uses unorthodox methods of training, such as using a spatula to spank him. Days before the race, Whit proposes to Libby at her birthday party. Libby accepts and this puts Dennis in a state of depression. Meanwhile, Jake, who has formed a crush on a girl in his class, runs away angry when he discovers that she prefers another boy just because he has a ponytail. Dennis, upon being informed by a frightened Libby, tracks him down and explains to him that he will find many things he does not like in his life and he should just stand up to them and face them, rather than running away. Having made that mistake himself, he decides to race after all. Dennis starts the race alongside Whit, who informs Dennis that he intends to move Libby and Jake to Chicago, Illinois. Angered, Dennis insults Whit and they tussle for a while at the start of the race and, in their efforts to out-do each other, they catch up to and then overtake the professional runners, and suddenly Whit trips Dennis and badly injures him. Stretchers prepare to take Dennis to the hospital. Whit continues, but is taken to the hospital after feeling ill and feeling pain in his leg. Libby goes to the hospital to find Dennis, but only finds Whit, who claims loudly that his injuries are the result of Dennis deliberately tripping him. The doctor tells him he is not actually injured and has only "hit the wall". Whit, in a fit of anger, calls Jake a "little shit" because Jake played with Whit's hospital bed, to Libby's horror. Dennis has in fact refused to be transported to the hospital or even get medical attention and is continuing the race well into the afternoon and evening with a sprained ankle, accompanied by a growing group of supporters, including Gordon and Mr. Ghoshdastidar. An exhausted Dennis almost "hits the wall" but after an emotional inner struggle, his resolve to complete the race is restored. Later at Whit's house, Libby, Jake and Whit, watch a television replay of the Whit/Dennis tussle, as the replay shows that in fact Whit had deliberately tripped Dennis up and had fallen over because he had gotten tangled up with Dennis as he was falling. As Whit tries to justify his behaviour, he blurts out his intentions to have Libby and Jake move to Chicago with him. A furious Libby puts the engagement ring on a table, telling Whit "nobody's perfect" and storms out with Jake. The two go to meet Dennis as he arrives at the finish line. Dennis falls over just metres from the finish line and cannot get up until he sees Libby and Jake calling to him at which point he gets up, sprints to the finish and collapses in their arms. Some time later, notably slimmer and no longer limping, Dennis calls at Libby's house to pick up Jake. He says that he has something to ask her, but is interrupted by Jake, and says he'll talk to her later. However, just after she shuts the door, he knocks again and asks her on a date. She accepts. In the film's postscript, Gordon — on the bridge of a new yacht — tells the tale of the race to two attractive bikini-clad women, whom he invites aboard for a drink. The camera then pans to reveal to the audience that he's again naked below the waist. Reception. Critical reception. The film received mixed reviews from critics; review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reported that 48% of critics gave the film positive reviews, based on 142 reviews. Metacritic reported the film had an average score of 48 out of 100, based on 27 reviews. Box office performance. The film topped the UK box office in its opening week and remained at the top of the chart for four weeks. To date it has earned over £10.5 million. On its opening weekend, it grossed about $US2.3 million. As of May 1, 2008, the film has grossed $US34,986,194. Home media. The DVD was released on 18 February 2008 in the United Kingdom. It was also released simultaneously on the HD DVD and Blu-Ray formats.
1034515	Una Stubbs (born 1 May 1937) is an English actress and former dancer who has appeared on British television and in the theatre, and less frequently in films. She is particularly known for playing Rita in the sitcom "Till Death Us Do Part" and Aunt Sally in the children's series "Worzel Gummidge". She is also known for her role as Miss Bat in the series "The Worst Witch" and has most recently appeared as Sherlock Holmes's landlady Mrs Hudson in the Bafta award-winning television series "Sherlock". Career. In the mid 1950s, Stubbs was the 'cover girl' of Dairy Box chocolates, produced by Rowntrees of York. She referred to herself as the 'Rowntrees Chocolate Girl', when describing a visit she made to the Rowntrees factory in York (where, unknown to her, her grandfather had worked). She first appeared on television as one of the Dougie Squires Dancers on the British television music show "Cool for Cats" in 1956. She also worked in cabaret, clubs and revues in London during these years and was one of Lionel Blair's dance ensemble. Her first major screen role was in Cliff Richard's 1963 film, "Summer Holiday". She also appeared in Richard's next film, "Wonderful Life" (1964). A few years later, she made her breakthrough in television comedy, playing Rita, the married daughter of Alf Garnett in the controversial BBC sitcom "Till Death Us Do Part" (1966–75). She also appeared in the short-lived sitcom "Till Death..." (1981), again playing Rita. She played Rita a third time in a few episodes of the BBC sitcom "In Sickness and in Health" (1985–92). During 1970-72, Stubbs teamed again with Cliff Richard to appear each week on his BBC1 TV Series, "It's Cliff Richard!". When she was absent from the show because of her pregnancy, her TV 'mother', Dandy Nichols from "Till Death...", appeared in her place on several editions. Stubbs featured in the "Fawlty Towers" episode "The Anniversary" in 1979. From 1979 to 1981, she played Aunt Sally in the ITV children's series "Worzel Gummidge" opposite Jon Pertwee and Barbara Windsor and was for several years a team captain in the weekly game show "Give Us a Clue" in the 1980s, reuniting her with Lionel Blair, the other team captain. She has appeared in shows such as "Midsomer Murders", "Heartbeat", "Casualty", "Keeping Up Appearances", "Born and Bred" and "The Worst Witch". In recent years, Stubbs has also appeared in Victoria Wood's "We'd Quite Like to Apologise", "The Catherine Tate Show", "Agatha Christie's Marple", "EastEnders", "Benidorm" and, since 2010, "Sherlock" as Mrs. Hudson. Stubbs appeared on the West End stage in Noël Coward's "Star Quality" with Penelope Keith in 2001 and Friedrich Schiller's "Don Carlos" with Derek Jacobi in 2005. In recent years she has appeared in "La Cage Aux Folles" at the Menier Chocolate Factory, "Pygmalion" at the Theatre Royal, Bath and Old Vic and "The Family Reunion" at the Donmar Warehouse. She was in the original cast of "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time" at the National Theatre in 2012. Personal life. Stubbs was born in Welwyn Garden City, Hertfordshire. She was married to the actor Peter Gilmore from 1958 to 1969: they adopted a son, Jason. After their divorce in 1969, she married actor Nicky Henson. They divorced in 1975 but remain good friends. She and Henson had two children: composer Christian Henson (born 25 December 1971), and musician-composer Joe Henson (born 18 September 1973). For many years, Stubbs has sketched vignettes of characters around London, and has held exhibitions of these near her Mayfair home. Stubbs has known her "Sherlock" co-star Benedict Cumberbatch since he was four years old, as she had worked with his mother Wanda Ventham. Stubbs was the subject of an episode of the BBC series "Who Do You Think You Are?", broadcast on 24 July 2013. It discussed several of her ancestors, including her great-grandfather Sir Ebenezer Howard, who was instrumental in the new town movement and in the design and implementation of the first new towns in Hertfordshire, Letchworth Garden City and Welwyn Garden City. Television shows and films. "Only the entries for 1963, 1964, 1965 and 2009 are feature films"
1067320	The Death and Life of Bobby Z, also known as Bobby Z and "Let's Kill Bobby Z", is a 2007 American/German action film, directed by John Herzfeld, and stars Paul Walker, Laurence Fishburne, Olivia Wilde and Joaquim de Almeida. The film received an R rating by the MPAA for violence, some drug use, language and brief nudity. Don Winslow, who wrote the novel on which the film is based, acknowledged that the screen adaption was not successful.
582654	Tum Mile is a 2009 Bollywood disaster film, directed by Kunal Deshmukh. The film stars Emraan Hashmi and Soha Ali Khan in lead roles. It is a love story set against the backdrop of the infamous July 2005 Mumbai floods. The film was released on 13 November 2009. Plot. The movie is narrated in clips of Past and Present. Akshay (Emraan Hashmi) who was an artist and a character designer in present departures on a flight. He was boarding from London. Suddenly he sees Sanjana who is sitting just to the opposite side to Akshay. They both see each other. Akshay and Sanjana remember a series of flashbacks. Akshay was a struggling artist who was in Cape Town. He sees Sanjana first time at that point. Then while Sanjana tries to take out her car she accidentally bumps Aksays car a leaves a note on it. Akshay and his friend Vicky go to her house and while coming back they have a lot of fun. The next day Akshay and Sanjana go to a party and have a kiss. They discover their love. Sanjana breaks up with her fiancee and tells her feelings to Akshay. Akshay and Sanjana settle. As Akshay was a artist and not an employ his business was not improving. He also has an ego fight with a distributor. As Akshay doesn't have any money he gets frustrated and takes it out on Sanjana. Sanjana was the person who was working and this tale had been for quite a while. After some time Akshay gets a job in London. As Sanjana could not leave her job and Akshay was interested in the offer they have a fight and break up. Back in the present when they remember these memories the situation is worst in Mumbai. The heavy rains have flooded the city (Indicating the Maharashtra floods of 2005). Many were trying survive. While their adventure for survival continues Vicky is killed as he falls in the water with electricity. After so much time together they realise that their break-up before 6 years was just a break for them as their destiny is to be united. Critical reception. "Tum Mile" opened to mixed reviews, with most major critics agreeing it to be a passable movie. Taran Adarsh of Bollywood Hungama gave it a rating of 3/5 and said, ""Tum Mile" caters to the youth mainly. At the box-office, the Vishesh Films - Emraan Hashmi combo has cultivated a strong fan-base over the years and coupled with good music, which is also very popular, the film should find itself in the comfortable zone". Box office. According to Box Office India, "Tum Mile" was a flop, grossing only 11.42 crores on a budget of 250 million. Soundtrack. The soundtrack was released on 16 September. The songs was composed by Pritam with lyrics by Sayeed Quadri and Kumaar.
327427	Edward Parker "Ed" Helms (born January 24, 1974) is an American actor and comedian, known for his work as a correspondent on "The Daily Show", Andy Bernard in the U.S. version of "The Office" and Stuart Price in ""The Hangover" trilogy. Personal life. Helms was born in Atlanta, Georgia. His mother, Pamela (née Parker), was a school administrator, and his father, John Helms, was an attorney. He graduated from The Westminster Schools after Brian Baumgartner in 1992. Originally a geology major, Helms graduated from a private liberal arts college in Oberlin, Ohio. While obtaining a degree in film theory and technology at Oberlin College (1996), he spent a semester as an exchange student at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts. Helms is the recipient of an honorary Degree of Doctor of Fine Arts from Knox College, where he delivered the 2013 Commencement Address. After graduating from Oberlin, Helms began his comedy and acting career as a writer and performer with New York City sketch comedy bands, and studied improvisation with the Upright Citizens Brigade troupe. Helms concurrently worked as a trainee film editor at Crew Cuts, a post-production facility in New York City. While doing so, he recorded some rough voiceover scratch tracks that eventually led to paying voiceover work, which in turn led to finding a talent agent. Career. Television. Helms was performing comedy in New York City when, as he recalled in a 2005 interview, "The Daily Show" had a sort of open audition with a casting company that I had dealt with. I read for the part, and got it". In his April 2002 to mid-2006 tenure on the satirical news program, Helms contributed "field reports" in addition to hosting various segments of the show, such as Digital Watch, Ad Nauseam, and Mark Your Calendar. He has also contributed to the This Week in God segment. Helms left the show in 2006, but has occasionally returned for brief appearances. On July 21, 2008 he returned for Obama Quest – a segment covering then-Senator Barack Obama's trip to Iraq. He occasionally narrates the Prescott Group educational films on sister series "The Colbert Report". In late July 2006, NBC announced that Helms was added to the cast of the mockumentary "The Office", alongside fellow "The Daily Show" correspondent Steve Carell, in a recurring role as Andy Bernard. Helms has been a series regular since the 3rd season. "He had so much in common with this character we wanted to create," recalled Paul Lieberstein, a writer for the show who also plays Toby Flenderson, the human resources representative at the Scranton branch of Dunder Mifflin. "I can't remember when they started merging." Helms returned to "The Daily Show" on December 5, 2006, stating he had been gone because he was "undercover at a paper company in Scranton", an allusion to his stint on "The Office". In February 2007, NBC announced that Helms had been promoted to series regular, and in February 2010 Helms was added to the show's opening credits. In June 2009, on a radio interview with National Public Radio, Helms said that like his character, Andy Bernard, he is obsessed with a capella music. He also appeared on such television shows as "Tanner on Tanner", "Childrens Hospital", "Arrested Development" and "Cheap Seats", and in various Comedy Central specials. He has done commercial voiceover work in campaigns for Burger King, Doritos, Hotels.com, Sharp Aquos and Advair asthma medication, and he voices Angel, a character on Cartoon Network's "Weighty Decisions" series. Helms plays guitar, banjo (which was shown in the commercial bumpers and on a "What Up With That?" sketch when he hosted "Saturday Night Live" in 2013), piano, and all three, as well as a sitar, in some of his entertainment performances. Films. Helms starred in the 2011 film "Cedar Rapids" and co-starred in the blockbuster "The Hangover" film trilogy as Stuart Price. He had minor roles, including ', ', "Meet Dave", "Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay", "I'll Believe You", "Evan Almighty", "Semi-Pro" and, with "Office" co-star Jenna Fischer, '. In 2009, Helms appeared in ', directed by Neal Brennan and starring Jeremy Piven. He developed a Universal Pictures film "A Whole New Hugh" with Judd Apatow, in which he would star and co-wrote with Jake Fleisher and Ian Berger. "Variety" reported in February 2009 that Helms would star and he and Fleisher would co-write a Warner Bros. feature about a time-traveling Civil War re-enactor, with the film to be produced through "The Office" star Steve Carell's production company Carousel. Helms voiced the Once-ler in "The Lorax" in 2012 and it was announced in July that he has signed on to play Rusty Griswold in the upcoming film, "Vacation" as a sequel/spin-off of the "National Lampoon's Vacation" series. Other work. Helms is also in a band called "The Lonesome Trio" with his friends Ian and Jake. They formed the band when they were in college, and still get together to play a few shows every year. On February 17, 2012, Helms guest-starred in Ray William Johnson's YouTube program "Equals Three". He appeared in the episode "CONSPIRACY THEORY". On his Twitter account Helms called Chick-fil-A's opposition to homosexual marriage "lame" and said the fast food franchise had lost a loyal customer. Helms features in the video for Mumford and Sons song Hopeless Wanderer.
1437130	Cameron Elizabeth Goodman is an American actress. Biography. She was born in Texas but grew up in Washington D.C. She attended Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. after transferring from Syracuse University in New York. Career. Goodman has been in numerous films in her career, first starting out in 2002 as a freshman doing her comedic acting at Syracuse University in a show called "SU Live". In 2003, she left Syracuse and transferred to Georgetown University in Washington, D.C.
1060719	Katherine Dee "KaDee" Strickland (born December 14, 1975) is an American actress known for her role as Charlotte King on the ABC drama "Private Practice". Well known in her hometown of Patterson, Georgia, when she was a child, she began acting during high school. Strickland studied the profession in Philadelphia and New York City, where she obtained mostly small roles in film, television and theater projects, among them "The Sixth Sense" (1999). Her participation in the 2003 Hollywood films "Anything Else" and "Something's Gotta Give" led to her receiving significant parts in the horror pictures "" and "The Grudge" (both 2004). In the period they were released, Strickland was referred to as "the pride of Patterson" and the horror fandom's "newest scream queen", though her performances in both films received mixed critical reviews. In 2005, Strickland garnered positive critical comment for the romantic comedy "Fever Pitch", and in 2007, she was a cast regular in the television show "The Wedding Bells" and subsequently was added to the cast of "Private Practice". Strickland has spoken against the emphasis placed on beauty in the Los Angeles acting community, in which she says her Southern U.S. background has helped to distinguish herself from other blonde-haired actors. She has spoken of an affinity for her strong female characters and a desire to avoid sexualizing or sensationalizing her self-presentation as a woman. Early life and education. Strickland was born in Blackshear, Georgia to Susan Strickland, a nurse, and Dee Strickland, a high school football coach, principal and superintendent. KaDee's birthname is Katherine Dee; her parents combined the "K" in Katherine with her father's name to make "KaDee". She was raised in Patterson, Georgia, which she said is a "one-stoplight town", and she had a job picking tobacco on a local farm for eight years. When she was a child, Strickland watched the Woody Allen film "Annie Hall" (1975) and was, as she put it, "wanting to be in that place, and being completely taken with the energy of those people. I wanted to be in it". During her childhood, she was well known locally as a member of the Strickland family and for her extracurricular activities and achievements (she was the Homecoming Queen in elementary, middle and high school, the student council president and a cheerleader). She never considered a career in the performing arts until her participation in a one-act play performed by students of her high school: "[...] the minute I set foot on stage, that was it. Destiny took over. There were no other options. I felt like I fit my skin, I knew what I was here to do", Strickland said. After graduating from high school, Strickland wanted to study drama at college in New York City, but her parents did not want her to live in such a large city so soon. Consequently, she applied instead to the University of the Arts in Philadelphia. During her studies there, she joined the Screen Actors Guild and considered using her given name, Katherine, as the first part of her stage name, before deciding she was "much too tomboy" for it. Strickland took a part-time waitressing job at a local restaurant and interned at a casting agency, where one of her tasks was to read lines at auditions for small roles in local film and television projects; the job landed Strickland her first film role. After graduating from university with a Fine Arts degree, she was schooled in New York City, and in late 2003, she moved to Los Angeles, California. In 2006, Strickland received the University of the Arts's Silver Star Alumni Award. Career. Early work. Strickland's career began in 1999 with a brief appearance as a mourner at a funeral after-party in "The Sixth Sense", a two-line part that she received after impressing writer-director M. Night Shyamalan when reading lines for those auditioning for the film. According to Strickland, her role in the film helped her learn to temper her fake crying. The same year, she served as an extra in the independent film "The Sterling Chase", and appeared in a small role opposite Winona Ryder and Angelina Jolie in James Mangold's drama "Girl, Interrupted". When staying in Philadelphia, Strickland had opportunities to take part in other films in production in and around the city. Those included Rel Dowdell's "Train Ride", a date rape thriller filmed in 1998, but not commercially released until 2005 because of financing problems. She was also cast in the crime drama "Diamond Men" with Robert Forster and Donnie Wahlberg; it opened to sparkling reviews, with Richard Roeper of the "Chicago Sun-Times" declaring it "a fantastic film, with a good cast". After she moved to New York City, Strickland appeared in Adam Bhala Lough's filmmaking debut, "Bomb the System", which received unenthusiastic notices from critics and was not shown outside film festivals until 2005. Concurrent to her film work, Strickland acquired stage experience in productions such as "A Requiem for Things Past" in mid-1999, and John Patrick Shanley's "Women of Manhattan". She acted in a December 2002 episode of the television show "" and made nine guest appearances on "All My Children", which enabled her to leave her waitressing job. In 2003, Strickland was cast opposite Eddie Cibrian in the pilot episode for an uncommissioned small screen serial adaptation of John Grisham's novel "The Street Lawyer". Strickland appeared in two romantic comedy films in 2003. "Anything Else", written and directed by Woody Allen, featured her as the girlfriend of Jason Biggs (whom he snubs for Christina Ricci); she said it was a "dream come true" to work with Allen, of whom she is an "obsessive diehard" fan. The film was greeted with lukewarm reviews and dismal ticket sales, though Strickland later referred to it as her "big break". The second, "Something's Gotta Give" (starring Jack Nicholson and Diane Keaton), was a major critical and commercial success, though Strickland's part in the film was brief. She played the girlfriend of Keaton's character's ex-husband (played by Paul Michael Glaser), a relationship involving age disparity that raised the eyebrows of Keaton and her daughter (Amanda Peet). The following year, she made brief appearances in the direct-to-cable independent film "Knots" and the poorly received satirical comedy "The Stepford Wives" with Nicole Kidman, playing a partygoer and a game show contestant, respectively. Major film roles. Strickland's first lead role came when producer Doug Belgrad saw the dailies of her scene in "Something's Gotta Give". He cast her opposite Johnny Messner and Morris Chestnut in the jungle-set horror film ', the sequel to "Anaconda" (1997). Strickland played an accomplished research scientist who travels to Borneo as part of an expedition team searching for a species of plant rumored to have life-extending properties. She said she initially did not want to follow a Woody Allen film with a ""snake" movie", but that she changed her mind because the hero was a female Southerner who was not "a complete idiot" or "a chick in shorts about to get whacked". Though its box office revenue tripled its production budget, "Anacondas" did not perform as well as its predecessor, and most reviews panned the project. The cast received positive comment from "Variety" magazine and the "Chicago Sun-Timess Roger Ebert, but a critic for the "San Diego Union-Tribune" said the film was "so stupidly plotted and badly acted, it becomes unintentionally funny", and described Strickland and her co-stars' work as "garden-variety bad". Other reviews focussed on the attractiveness of Strickland and her castmates; "Slant Magazine" said "film is populated with anonymous, attractive plastic people from the Los Angeles talent pool." During the same period, "The Florida Times-Union" referred to her as "the pride of Patterson". Strickland's next project, "The Grudge", was another horror film. In Japanese director Takashi Shimizu's U.S. remake of his film "" (2003), Strickland played (in a role originated by Misaki Ito) a Tokyo-based American businesswoman whose relatives emigrate from the U.S. Strickland received the role through a casting session with producer Sam Raimi, who picked her based on her work in footage for the then-unreleased "Anacondas", and her willingness to work away from home for extended periods. She said that Japan and Japanese cinema had always fascinated her, and that she wanted to be "a part of that world" in which filmmakers communicate the story via action rather than dialogue; she also highlighted the importance of being "able to explore being in the wrong place at the wrong time without being a sex object/damsel in distress." "The Grudge" was a number-one U.S. box office hit and quickly became one of the year's most profitable films, but reviews were lukewarm. "The Charlotte Observer" wrote "the cast is drab and lifeless", and earned "nothing but demerits". Strickland's presence in "The Grudge" and "Anacondas" led horror fans to name her "newest scream queen", but she said that when deciding what film to do next, she did not focus as much on genre as she did on good characters, scripts, and directors, which she said "don't come around that often." For the scene in which her character hides under her bed covers, Strickland received a 2005 Teen Choice Award nomination for Choice Movie Scary Scene. In late 2004, Strickland embarked on what she called "the craziest job I've ever had": a role in the Farrelly brothers film "Fever Pitch", a baseball-themed romantic comedy starring Drew Barrymore and Jimmy Fallon (Strickland's "Anything Else" co-star) and based on the Nick Hornby book. Strickland said it was "a blast" to play "such a maniac", particularly after playing emotionally traumatised characters in "Anacondas" and "The Grudge". On the film's 2005 release, she received praise from "PopMatters" magazine, which described her as "irrepressible" in her role, and from MSNBC, which said she and JoBeth Williams "sometimes rescue picture from its plodding moments". The film raised Strickland's profile further, though its critical response was mixed and it performed moderately at the box office. Strickland appeared as a lawyer and love interest in the film "American Gangster", which stars Russell Crowe and Denzel Washington in 2007. Participation in television. In early 2005, Strickland was cast in the pilot episode for the fact-based ABC television series "Laws of Chance". It was based on the career of Kelly Siegler, a highly successful Houston, Texas-based assistant district attorney. Strickland, whose co-stars in the pilot included Frances Fisher and Bruce McGill, said she was "really excited to have the opportunity to portray this phenomenal lady", but the series was dropped from development a few months later. Strickland was also cast in the independently financed 1950s-set film "Walker Payne" as laid-off stripminer Jason Patric's love interest; in a review of the film at the 2006 Tribeca Film Festival, "Variety" wrote that Strickland was "elegant". In late 2005, she joined the cast of "The Flock", a crime drama featuring Richard Gere, Claire Danes and singer Avril Lavigne about a federal agent assigned to track down a missing girl and a paroled sex offender (played by Strickland). Strickland said it was important to participate in such a story because she felt members of society need to consider and be responsible for their views on the sex offender counterculture, which she says " actually not counter at all, it's very real, very next door to you." Strickland's first aired television project as a cast regular was the David E. Kelley-produced series "The Wedding Bells". According to her, she wanted to be in the series because "the subject of love and commitment is something to me that I want to walk into every day. It's a lot better than dead bodies." The show began airing on the Fox Network in March 2007, and it was canceled the following month. The "Baltimore Sun" called it "awful in ways that make the word 'awful' seem inadequate [...] cast is not a bad one at all, but just terrifically ill-served by the material." She joined the cast of the "Grey's Anatomy" spin-off "Private Practice", which began airing in September 2007; she plays Charlotte King, chief of staff at the show's local hospital and a doctor specializing in urologic surgery, and later sexology. Music video. In 2009, Strickland appeared in the music video for Rascal Flatts's "Here Comes Goodbye". Artistry and image. Strickland has cited Jessica Lange, Holly Hunter, Diane Keaton (in "Annie Hall"), Ione Skye (her "Fever Pitch" co-star) and Jane Fonda as her inspirations and/or influences; for "The Grudge", she mimicked Fonda's performance in "Klute" (1971) and her "brilliant way in that film of creating tension and fear for the audience just by walking down a hallway and looking over her shoulder." She noted the input of her acting coach, Maggie Flanagan, who instructed Strickland to watch films with the sound turned off to gauge the quality and comprehensibility of a performance, and who Strickland credits as her "Jedi Knight". Strickland cites her work ethic and her "active imagination" as sources of inspiration when she is required to convey certain emotions, particularly negative ones. She said she does not practise method acting, but that actors can bring to a role elements that are, in her words, "an extension of life experience". According to her, she hopes to have her experience of growing up in an emotionally warm environment incorporated into her work. Strickland has spoken of her difficulty conveying different "versions" of emotions such as fear to different members of a worldwide film-watching audience, saying "what really kept me going was trying to communicate something universal." She said she is extremely flattered when people, particularly her fans, genuinely relate to her when her "version of storytelling" and work as an actress communicates to them. She said she believed she was "here" to act, and that she could not live without it: "It's my joy, it's what I love, and there's no feeling like being able to do what you love in life, and really fully doing it", she said. Strickland called her life as an actress "a crazy existence" and "completely unstable" because of the frequency with which she has to look for new jobs, but she said she is "gonna be whole hog with it" and continue to act until her death. Strickland is a self-described "big fashionista" and "very concerned with looks", and she has noted the need for "an element of vanity" in acting, particularly in Los Angeles, where she says she is "continually surrounded by super-human people [...] I've never seen so much beauty." According to her, she has never had to rely on her appearance or felt pressurised to be beautiful—"The truth is I'm not that girl", she said. With regard to sources such as magazines, Strickland said she is "very careful" about the way she wants to be presented as a woman, saying she strives to avoid "sensationalizing or sexualizing" herself. As she put it, she is not accustomed to being considered a "pretty girl" or "attractive by a standard that I've never felt that I was part of". Strickland has a very audible Southern American accent, which she says is an advantage for her because it is "the one thing" that film and casting directors like the sound of and "really gravitate toward", particularly in Los Angeles, which she called "a town full of blondes". According to her, she learned to speak without the accent at university, and because she does not want people to think she has no other skills, she uses it only when it is required or requested. Strickland is experienced in stage combat and said she "liketo do physical stuff"; in an interview to discuss "Anacondas", she said "if there was a "Braveheart" for women, I'd be all over it." Personal life. Strickland met Jason Behr, her co-star in "The Grudge", on the set of the film in 2004. According to her, they had a shared affinity for Japan and Japanese culture and became best friends almost instantly because of their mutual willingness to explore it. The two began a relationship soon after filming ended. When asked about her love life in February 2005, Strickland said it was "quiet". On November 10, 2006, she married Behr in Ojai, California, in a ceremony that included elements of Japanese culture. Strickland said her experience planning the wedding aided her preparation for her role in "The Wedding Bells". Her work on the wedding provided the inspiration for the wedding garden of Casa de Estrellas (House of Stars), a Santa Fe, New Mexico, luxury inn and spa. Behr proposed to her on her birthday. On May 30, 2013, the couple announced they were expecting their first child in the fall.
1265435	ZaSu Pitts (; née Eliza Susan Pitts; January 3, 1894 – June 7, 1963) was an American actress who starred in many silent dramas and comedies, transitioning to comedy sound films. Early life. Eliza Susan Pitts was born in Parsons, Kansas to Rulandus and Nelly (née Shay) Pitts; she was the third of four children. Her father, who had lost a leg while serving in the 76th New York Infantry Regiment in the Civil War, had settled the family in Kansas by the time ZaSu was born. The names of her father's sisters, Eliza and Susan, were purportedly the basis for the nickname "ZaSu", i.e. to satisfy competing family interests. She later adopted the nickname professionally and legally. It has been (incorrectly) spelled as Zazu Pitts in some film credits and news articles. Although the name is commonly mispronounced or , or , in her 1963 book "Candy Hits" (p. 15), Pitts herself gives the correct pronunciation as "Say Zoo" , recounting that Mary Pickford had predicted, "will mispronounce it", and adding, "How right [she was." In 1903, when she was nine years old, her family moved to Santa Cruz, California, to seek a warmer climate and better job opportunities. Her childhood home at 208 Lincoln Street still stands. She attended Santa Cruz High School, where she participated in school theatricals. Career. Pitts made her stage debut in 1914–15 doing school and local community theater in Santa Cruz. Going to Los Angeles in 1916, at the age of twenty-two, she spent many months seeking work as a film extra. Finally she was discovered for substantive roles in films by screenwriter Frances Marion. Marion cast Pitts as an orphaned slavey (child of work) in the silent film, "The Little Princess" (1917), starring Pickford. Years later, she was the leading lady in Erich von Stroheim's "Greed" (1924). Based on her performance, von Stroheim labeled Pitts "the greatest dramatic actress". He also featured her in his films "The Honeymoon" (1928), "The Wedding March" (1928), "War Nurse" (1930) and "Walking Down Broadway", which was re-edited by Alfred L. Werker and released as "Hello, Sister!" (1933). Pitts' popularity grew following a series of Universal one-reeler comedies and earned her first feature-length lead in King Vidor's "Better Times" (1919). The following year she married her first husband, Tom Gallery, with whom she was paired in several films, including "Bright Eyes" (1921), "Heart of Twenty" (1920), "Patsy" (1921) and "A Daughter of Luxury" (1922). In 1924, the actress, now a reputable comedy farceuse, was given the greatest tragic role of her career in Erich von Stroheim's 9½ hour epic "Greed" (1924). The surprise casting initially shocked Hollywood, but showed that Pitts could draw tears with her doleful demeanor as well as laughs. Having been extensively edited prior to release—the final theatrical cut ran just over two hours—the movie failed initially at the box office, but has since been restored to over four hours and is considered one of the greatest films ever made.
711626	Evil Bong is a 2006 horror/comedy film directed by Charles Band about a group of college stoners who smoke from a sentient, malevolent bong unaware that it traps the smoker in a surreal strip-club with killer strippers and other strange creatures. The ending features an extended cameo by Tommy Chong, of Cheech & Chong fame. Brandi Cunningham from VH1's "Rock of Love with Bret Michaels" and Bill Moseley of The Devil's Rejects also make appearances in the film. It was followed by two sequel, ', and '. Plot. Nerdy college student Alistair McDowell (David Weidoff) moves in with law school drop-out Larnell (John Patrick Jordan), typical "surfer-stoner" Bachman (Mitch Eakins) and former baseball player Brett (Brian Lloyd). During Alistair's stay, Larnell sees an ad for a large bong, in which the previous owner claims it was "possessed". After receiving the bong and taking a couple of hits (with the exception of Alister, who doesn't smoke), Brett introduces Alister to his girlfriend Luann (Robin Sydney) and her friend Janet (Kristyn Green), who Alister develops a crush for. Later that night, Bachman wakes up in a strip club where he meets "Ooga Booga" from Doll Graveyard and Ivan Burroughs (Phil Fondacaro) from Decadent Evil. He's introduced by one of the strippers (Kristen Cladwell) who has skull heads on the cups of her bra. When he comes near the bra, the skull heads start biting him in the neck and he bleeds to death. The next morning, the other roommates find Bachman dead on the couch. Alistair tells to them that it's probably from the weed that came with the bong. Larnell also notices that the bong has changed. The trio then hide his body underneath a pile of trash in the basement, after nearly getting caught by Larnell's paralyzed-but-wealthy grandfather, Cyril (Jacob Witkin), who came by to tell Larnell that he just got remarried.
1166273	Stacey Lauretta Dash (born January 20, 1967) is an American film and television actress, known for starring in the 1995 feature film "Clueless" and the television spinoff of the same name. She has also appeared in films such as "Moving", "Mo' Money", "Renaissance Man", and "View from the Top", and her other TV work includes appearances in series such as "" and "Single Ladies" and the reality television show "Celebrity Circus". She has also appeared in music videos for Carl Thomas' "Emotional" and Kanye West's "All Falls Down". Early life. Stacey Dash was born in The Bronx, New York. She is an alumna of Paramus High School in Paramus, New Jersey. Her mother, Linda, was the general manager of DME Interactive Holdings. Her father is a businessman. She is part Barbadian, African American, and Mexican. Her brother is Darien Dash, the CEO of DME Interactive Holdings and her first cousin is Damon Dash, the former CEO and co-founder of Roc-A-Fella Records. Career. Dash made her first TV appearance in "Farrell for the People" starring Valerie Harper and a yet-unknown Ed O'Neill in 1982, which did not make it past its pilot episode. Her first notable appearance was as 'Michelle' in the 1985 "The Cosby Show" episode "Denise's Friend" alongside Lisa Bonet, and in "The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air". Dash's first substantial television role was in the 1988 television series "TV 101", which also featured Matt LeBlanc and Sam Robards. The series was canceled after 13 episodes. Dash's first major film role was in the Richard Pryor comedy "Moving" in 1988. She also had sizeable roles in "Mo' Money" and "Renaissance Man" during this time. In 1995, Dash starred as a femme fatale in a low-budget film, "Illegal in Blue". Dash received her big break with the 1995 film "Clueless", which starred Alicia Silverstone and Brittany Murphy. Dash played Cher's high school best friend Dionne Marie Davenport, even though Dash was twenty-eight at the time. In 1996 the film spawned a television spinoff, also called "Clueless", in which Dash reprised her role as Dionne and Rachel Blanchard played Cher. The series ran from 1996–1999. After the television series ended, she appeared in "View from the Top" (2003) and smaller budget films, including "Gang of Roses" (2003), and "Getting Played" (2005). She also has appeared in small guest roles on television shows such as "Eve" and "". Dash played Vanessa Weir in the television series, "The Strip", which was not successful and was canceled after several episodes. In 2001, Dash was featured in a music video by Carl Thomas for the single "Emotional". In 2004, Dash was featured in a music video by Kanye West, label mate of her cousin Damon Dash for the single "All Falls Down." At age 40, Stacey Dash posed nude in the August 2006 issue of "Playboy." Also in 2006, she was featured in singer Marques Houston's video, "Favorite Girl". In 2006, she launched her own lingerie line called Letters of Marque. In 2007, she completed filming roles in "I Could Never Be Your Woman", "", "Fashion Victim", "Ghost Image" and "American Primitive". For 2008 release, she filmed "Phantom Punch" and "Secrets Of A Hollywood Nurse" for television, and the feature film "Close Quarters". Dash performed in the 2008 reality television series, "Celebrity Circus". Prior to the series premiere, Dash suffered a broken rib while training. Despite the injury, Dash performed on the trapeze bungee during the premiere and continued on to be a finalist. Dash finished second behind Antonio Sabato, Jr. Dash made a guest appearance on the television series "The Game" in early 2009. Dash starred in the first season VH1 original series "Single Ladies", as Valerie "Val" Stokes, a woman who is a " 'good girl' looking for a good man". She did not return for season 2. In 2012, Dash starred as Lisa, the female lead in the film "Dysfunctional Friends", alongside Meagan Good, Tatyana Ali, Stacy Keibler and Terrell Owens. The film, which was written and directed by Corey Grant, garnered favorable reviews from Wilson Morales of BlackFilm.com and
1165436	Stuart Maxwell Whitman (born February 1, 1928) is an American actor. Stuart Whitman is arguably best known for playing Marshal Jim Crown in the Western television series "Cimarron Strip" in 1967. Whitman also starred with John Wayne in the Western movie, "The Comancheros", in 1961, and received top billing as the romantic lead in the extravagant aerial epic "Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines" in 1965. Early life. Whitman was born in San Francisco, California, the elder of two sons. His parents, Cecilia (née Gold) and Joseph Whitman, traveled frequently during his childhood, and as a result, he attended over twenty schools. He graduated from high school and spent three years in the Army Corps of Engineers. After leaving the army, he enrolled in Los Angeles City College and the Los Angeles Academy of Dramatic Art. Film career. Whitman was a supporting actor in "When Worlds Collide" (1951), "All American" (1953), "Brigadoon" (1954), "Silver Lode" (1954), "Ten North Frederick" (1958), "The Decks Ran Red" (1958) starring Dorothy Dandridge, on whose face Whitman planted Hollywood's first interrracial kiss, "These Thousand Hills" (1959), and "The Sound and the Fury" (1959). When Charlton Heston, who had originally been signed to play the lead in 1958's "Darby's Rangers" left the movie, James Garner was given the lead and Whitman wound up with Garner's original role in the film. His first leading man role is in "Murder, Inc." in 1960 with May Britt and Peter Falk. He was signed on as a contract star with 20th Century Fox. In 1961, Whitman was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor for his role as a child molester in "The Mark", a role many other better known actors turned down. He has since appeared in starring and supporting roles in many films, including "Francis of Assisi", "The Fiercest Heart", "The Longest Day" with all his scenes opposite John Wayne, "The Comancheros" (sharing leading man status with John Wayne), "Convicts 4", "The Day and the Hour", "Signpost to Murder", "Shock Treatment", "Rio Conchos", "Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines", "Sands of the Kalahari", "The City Beneath the Sea", "An American Dream", "The Last Escape", "The Invincible Six", "Night of the Lepus", "Shatter", "Captain Apache", "Strange Shadows in an Empty Room", "", "Treasure Seekers" and "The White Buffalo". Television. In 1957, Whitman, who frequently appeared as police officer Sgt. Walters on the television series "Highway Patrol", was seriously considered for the role of "Bart Maverick" in the smash hit television series "Maverick". The studio needed another Maverick to rotate as the series lead with James Garner. Garner, who had filmed seven episodes, closely resembled Whitman at the time, but Jack Kelly was chosen for the part. A decade later, however, Whitman played heroic Marshal Jim Crown in the lavish western TV series "Cimarron Strip" for a single season. The show, which ran 90 minutes per episode, was highly regarded for its theme music, production values, and Whitman's performance. His principal costars were Jill Townsend as Dulcey Coopersmith, proprietor of the local inn, and Randy Boone, who played the photographer Francis Wilder. Later Whitman portrayed Clark Kent's father Jonathan Kent on the popular TV series "Superboy". Whitman made over two hundred appearances in various movies and television shows over a half-century span between 1951 and 2000. One of his early roles came in 1957 in the syndicated military dramas, "Harbor Command", a drama about the United States Coast Guard, and "The Silent Service", based on true stories of the submarine service of the United States Navy. Whitman's last credited role was in "The President's Man", released in 2000 and starring Chuck Norris. He had previously appeared with Norris in a two-part episode of "Walker, Texas Ranger". He was also a guest on "Murder, She Wrote" appearing in four different episodes, "Hit, Run and Homicide" (1984), "Powder Keg" (1986), "Trouble in Eden" (1987), and "Incident in Lot 7" (1992). Whitman also appeared in an episode of the TV series "Ghost Story" ("The Concrete Captain," c. 1973). In "Blood Sweat and Cheers", Series 4, Episode 8 of "The A Team", Whitman played Jack Harman, a friend of Hannibal Smith. Personal life. Stuart was married to the French-born Caroline Boubis (1966–1974). They had one son together, Justin. They divorced in 1974. His first marriage, to Patricia LaLonde (October 13, 1952 – 1966), ended in divorce. They had four children: Tony (b. 1953), Michael (b. 1954), Linda (b. 1956) and Scott (b. 1958).
1038808	Denise van Outen (born 27 May 1974) is a British actress, singer and television presenter best known for presenting "The Big Breakfast", for playing Roxie Hart in the musical "Chicago" both in the West End and on Broadway and for finishing in the runner-up position in the tenth series of the BBC One dancing show "Strictly Come Dancing". Early life. Born Denise Kathleen Outen in Basildon, Essex, she is the youngest of Ted and Kathleen Outen's three children and was brought up a Catholic. She has a brother Terry and sister Jackie. At the age of seven, she began modelling for knitting patterns, and showed an early flair for performing. This resulted in her attending the Sylvia Young Theatre School. In 1986, at the age of 12, she played Éponine in "Les Misérables" alongside fellow Sylvia Young student Melanie Blatt (the role paid her school fees), the Anthony Newley directed production of "Stop the World - I Want to Get Off," and "A Midsummer Night's Dream" with the Royal Shakespeare Company. Early career. As a teenager she had brief roles on a number of television dramas including "Kappatoo" and "The Bill". She also sang with Cathy Warwick in "girl group" Those2Girls, by which time she had become Denise van Outen. She also did backing vocals with Melanie Blatt for the band "Dreadzone." Van Outen was voted "Rear of the Year" in 1999, and was top of a poll to find the most desired "bikini body" in a 2007 poll of readers of "Grazia" magazine. Acting career. During her first stint on the "Big Breakfast" show, she appeared as Jill in ITV1's version of the pantomime "Jack and the Beanstalk" alongside Julie Walters and Neil Morrissey. Wanting to further develop her acting career, she left "The Big Breakfast" at the end of 1998. In 1999, she appeared on several episodes of "The Bill" and "The Young Person's Guide To Becoming A Rock Star", the BBC's "Murder in Mind" short series of crime dramas, and on 2 series of "Babes in the Wood" with Karl Howman and Samantha Janus. Van Outen has also appeared in film, initially as Maureen in the crime comedy "Love, Honour and Obey". In the anthology film "Tube Tales", set on the London Underground, she played the lead character of Alex in the "Horny" segment, directed by Stephen Hopkins. Van Outen has played a small role in the romantic comedy "Are You Ready For Love?" She first played Roxie Hart on the stage in the hit musical "Chicago" at the Adelphi Theatre in the West End in April 2001. Her run proved a hit with theatre-goers, selling out for the entire 20 weeks. Unknown in the United States, she reprised her role on Broadway in the spring of 2002, before returning to the show's London version in late April 2002. Late the same year, Van Outen appeared as one of many special guest stars in a performance of "The Play What I Wrote" once again in London's West End. In 2003, she returned to the London stage at the Gielgud Theatre in Andrew Lloyd Webber's one-woman show "Tell Me On A Sunday," which he reworked for her. She was a huge success and the show ran for nearly a year. She then joined the cast of the established ITV sentimental drama "Where the Heart Is" as one of the lead characters, playing single mother Kim Blakeney, continuing for two series. Van Outen played Maureen in the 2007 London revival of "Rent Remixed" directed by William Baker until 22 December. She was forced to cancel some performances owing to a throat infection. In July 2009, van Outen played Mary in "Hotel Babylon" for the BBC. Her character was at the hotel for a science convention. In August 2009, van Outen made her Edinburgh Festival Fringe debut in "Blondes", a show by Jackie Clune. Van Outen took over the role of Paulette Bunafonte from Jill Halfpenny in the West End production of "Legally Blonde" on 25 October 2010. She continued in the role for 6 months. In 2012, Van Outen was cast in the film of the Ray Cooney farce "Run For Your Wife" alongside Danny Dyer, Sarah Harding and Neil Morrissey.
1067680	Dame Edith Mary Evans, DBE (8 February 188814 October 1976) was an English actress. She was best known for her work on the stage, but also appeared in films towards the beginning and end of her career. Evans's stage career spanned sixty years during which she played more than 100 roles, in classics by Shakespeare, Congreve, Goldsmith, Sheridan and Wilde, and plays by contemporary writers including Bernard Shaw, Enid Bagnold, Christopher Fry and Noël Coward. She created roles in two of Shaw's plays: Orinthia in "The Apple Cart" (1929), and Epifania in "The Millionairess" (1940) and was in the British premieres of two others: "Heartbreak House" (1921) and "Back to Methuselah" (1923). Evans became widely known for portraying haughty aristocratic women, as in two of her most famous roles: Lady Bracknell in "The Importance of Being Earnest", and Miss Western in the 1963 film of "Tom Jones." By contrast, she played a downtrodden maid in "The Late Christopher Bean" (1933), a deranged, impoverished old woman in "The Whisperers" (1967) and – one of her most celebrated roles – the Nurse in "Romeo and Juliet", which she played in four productions between 1926 and 1961. Life and career. Early years. Evans was born in Pimlico, London, the daughter of Edward Evans, a junior civil servant in the General Post Office, and his wife, Caroline Ellen "née" Foster. Apart from a brother who died at the age of four she was her parents' only child. She was educated at St Michael's Church of England School, Pimlico, before being apprenticed at the age of 15 in 1903 as a milliner. She commented in later years that she loved the rich and beautiful materials of the craft, but could not manage to make two hats alike. While working in a milliner's shop in the City she began attending drama classes in Victoria; the classes developed into an amateur performing group, the Streatham Shakespeare Players, with whom she made her first stage appearance in October 1910, as Viola in "Twelfth Night". In 1912, playing Beatrice in "Much Ado About Nothing", she was spotted by the producer William Poel and made her first professional appearance for him in Cambridge in August of that year; she played Gautami in a 6th-century Hindu classic, "Sakuntalá", in a cast including the young Nigel Playfair. Poel then cast her as Cressida in "Troilus and Cressida" in London and subsequently at Stratford-upon-Avon. The critic of "The Manchester Guardian" found her diction inadequate, but otherwise approved: "Miss Edith Evans, who, without quite the invincible charm for Cressida, gave an interesting performance". Evans's West End debut was in George Moore's "Elizabeth Cooper" in 1913. The play received poor notices, but Evans was praised: "In the very small part of a maid Miss Edith Evans made the success of the afternoon. She put more into her few minutes than most of our approved 'stars' can suggest in leading parts." In January 1914 she made her professional Shakespearian debut as Gertrude in "Hamlet". In 1914, at Moore's instigation, Evans was given a year's contract by the Royalty Theatre in Soho. She played character roles in comedies, as a junior member of casts that included Gladys Cooper and Lynn Fontanne. Over the next ten years she polished her craft in a wide range of parts. She played in a silent film called "A Welsh Singer", directed by and featuring Henry Edwards in 1915. For the same director she acted in "East is East" in 1917, but thereafter made no more films for over thirty years. She toured in Shakespeare with Ellen Terry's company in 1918, appeared in light comedy alongside the young Noël Coward ("Polly With a Past", 1921) and played five new Shavian roles, Lady Utterword in "Heartbreak House" (1921) and the Serpent, the Oracle, the She-Ancient and the ghost of the Serpent in "Back to Methuselah" (1923). In 1922 she made what JTGrein in "The Illustrated London News" called "a personal triumph" in Alfred Sutro's comedy "The Laughing Lady". Stardom. By this time Evans was well known to the critics, and frequently received excellent notices; with her performance as Millamant in "The Way of the World" in 1924 she achieved wide public fame for the first time. Nigel Playfair cast her as the strong-willed and witty heroine in his revival of Congreve's Restoration comedy at the Lyric Hammersmith, in 1924. The critics resorted to superlatives: James Agate wrote, "Let me not mince matters. Miss Edith Evans is the most accomplished of living and practising English actresses." Arnold Bennett noted in his journals that this Millamant was the finest comedy performance he had ever seen. Her colleagues too were struck by the performance. John Gielgud recalled:
1034386	Derek Robert Nimmo (19 September 193024 February 1999) was an English character actor. He was particularly associated with upper class "silly-ass" roles, and clerical roles. Career. Nimmo was born in Liverpool, Lancashire and was educated at Quarry Bank High School and began his stage career at the Hippodrome Theatre in Bolton, Lancashire. It was during this time that he made a cameo appearance in The Beatles' movie, "A Hard Day's Night" (in which he appeared as "Leslie Jackson", a magician with doves). He appeared in a number of British films and television series, as aristocrats, including starring roles in the television comedy series "The World of Wooster" (as "Bingo Little"), and in the comedy movie "One of Our Dinosaurs Is Missing" (as "Lord Southmere"), as well as appearing in the James Bond spoof film "Casino Royale". Derek Nimmo made his name as the Reverend Mervyn Noote in the British sitcom "All Gas and Gaiters" (1966). At the time it was considered rather controversial because the main characters were senior churchmen (the Bishop, his chaplain Noote and the Archdeacon) who got into various scrapes as a result of their general incompetence. By the time the series finished, Nimmo was identified with the stereotype of a traditional British clergyman and he went on to play a bungling monk in another BBC clerical sitcom, "Oh, Brother!" and its sequel series "Oh, Father!". Another sitcom in which he appeared in a starring role as a clergyman, many years later, was "Hell's Bells". He also appeared as the Reverend Jonathan Green in a television production of "Cluedo". He became so well known for his clerical parody that, in the 1975 "The Goodies'" episode "Wacky Wales", a "team of Derek Nimmos" played in a spoof "Ecclesiastical Rugby Sevens" competition. In 1966, he appeared in the second series of "The Bed-Sit Girl." Derek Nimmo appeared on stage in many West End plays and starred in the musical "Charlie Girl", which contained a scene specially written to allow him to perform his party trick of wiggling his toes. He also became a regular panelist on the popular BBC radio show "Just a Minute", and had a chat show on BBC Television, "If It's Saturday, It Must Be Nimmo", from 24 October to 19 December 1970, though it was felt that he seemed less at ease as a chat show host. Having been away from television for some time, he made an appearance in the Australian television series "Neighbours" in 1991, playing Lord Ledgerwood alongside Madge and Harold Bishop. As a theatrical impresario, he took his own touring production (Intercontinental Entertainment) to 30 countries, including Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Hong Kong, Thailand, Oman and the UAE (Abu Dhabi and Dubai) and so provided himself with material for many stories on "Just a Minute". In the 1970s, Derek Nimmo sang the jingle "P…p…pick up a Penguin" in a series of television advertisements for McVitie's Penguin biscuits, Personal life and death. He married Patricia Brown in 1955; they had three children, Amanda, Timothy and Piers. Nimmo's hobbies included gardening and collecting walnut furniture, porcelain and paintings. He was also a wine expert and wrote several books on the subject as well as a number of books on the theatre. Another interest was after dinner speaking, for which he was always in demand. He received many awards, including the 1990 Benedictine After Dinner Speaker of the Year. He was made a Freeman of the City of London, and the University of Leicester recognised his contribution to entertainment with an honorary Master of Arts degree in 1996. In December 1998, Nimmo attended a National Treasures celebrity lunch in the boardroom of the "Daily Express" newspaper along with Sir Peter O'Sullevan, Joan Collins, Dame Beryl Bainbridge, Dickie Davies and Sue MacGregor amongst others. He had recently returned from a Middle East tour of "Run For Your Wife" and was in sparkling form. After lunch he asked to be driven to the Garrick Club for further refreshment, and then returned to his Kensington home. He and his wife later went out to dinner. On their return, Nimmo was checking an external alarm when he lost his footing and fell down a stone staircase into the basement. He suffered head injuries and was taken to the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital where he remained in a coma until his death in February 1999. He is buried in the churchyard at Easton Maudit, a small rural village in Northamptonshire where he kept a home.
1749247	The film is divided into two episodes, each with a separate Japanese and English title: Episode 25': / "Love is Destructive" and Episode 26': / "ONE MORE FINAL: I need you". They effectively replace the series' controversial final two episodes with a more "real world" account of the story's apocalyptic climax. Gainax originally proposed titling the film "Evangelion: Rebirth 2". "The End of Evangelion" received polarizing opinions initially, with the film obtaining the Animage Anime Grand Prix in 1997 (amongst other awards) and reviews that ranged from glowing to antipathetic. After a decade following the film's release, reviews are still extremely polarizing.
1061301	The Bridge on the River Kwai is a 1957 British-American World War II film directed by David Lean, based on the eponymous French novel (1952) by Pierre Boulle. The film is a work of fiction but borrows the construction of the Burma Railway in 1942–43 for its historical setting. It stars William Holden, Jack Hawkins, Alec Guinness, and Sessue Hayakawa. The film was filmed in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka). The bridge in the film was located near Kitulgala. The film achieved near universal critical acclaim, winning seven Academy Awards (including Best Picture) at the 30th Academy Awards, and in 1997, this film was deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" and selected for preservation in the United States Library of Congress National Film Registry. It is widely considered to be one of the greatest films of all time. Plot. In World War II, British prisoners are marched to a Japanese prison camp in western Burma. The commandant, Colonel Saito (Sessue Hayakawa), informs them that all prisoners, regardless of rank, are to work on the construction of a railroad bridge over the River Kwai. The senior British officer, Lt. Colonel Nicholson (Alec Guinness), reminds Saito that the Geneva Conventions exempt officers from manual labor.
620305	Otto Yulyevich Schmidt () ( — September 7, 1956) was a Soviet scientist, mathematician, astronomer, geophysicist, statesman, academician, Hero of the USSR (27 June 1937), and member of the Communist Party. Biography. He was born in Mogilev, Russian Empire (now Belarus). His father was a descendant of German settlers in Courland, while his mother was a Latvian. In 1913, Schmidt married Vera Yanitskaia and graduated from the University of Kiev, where he worked as a privat-docent starting from 1916. After the October Revolution of 1917, he was a board member at several People's Commissariats (narkomats)such as Narkomprod from 1918 to 1920 ("Narodnyi Komissariat Prodovolstviya", or People's Commissariat for Supplies), People's Commissariat for Finance from 1921 to 1922 ("Narodnyi Komissariat Finansov", or People's Commissariat for Finances). Schmidt was one of the chief proponents of developing the higher education system, publishing, and science in Soviet Russia.
586265	Veruthe Oru Bharya (English: A Wife for Nothing) is a 2008 Malayalam film written by K. Gireesh Kumar and directed by Akku Akbar. The film stars Jayaram, Gopika and Niveda Thomas in the lead roles. The film was an "unexpected success" in the box office and gave a fillip to the careers of both director Akku Akbar and veteran actor Jayaram. Nivedita Thomas received Kerala State Film Award for Best Child Artist (Female, 2008) for her performance in the film. "Bharya Athra Pora" (2013), written by K. Gireesh Kumar and directed by Akku Akbar, is not a sequel to the film.
584689	Thiru Thiru Thuru Thuru is a 2009 Indian Tamil romantic comedy film written and directed by newcomer J. S. Nandhini. Starring Ajmal Ameer of "Anjathey" fame and newcomer Rupa Manjari, the film, produced by Sathyam Cinemas, was released on 25 September 2009. this film was above average grosser. Plot. Srinivasan (Mouli) is an owner of Ad Agency which is going on loss. To make his company stand up he expects a great project from big company Johnson and Johnson. During a meeting for project discussion Arjun (Ajmal Ameer) the art executive and a pet of Srinivasan, disappoints the clients with his mischief behaviour. To convince the clients who are reluctant to give the project to them, Srinivasan produces the ad at his own risk with his own money, on the agreement that the project will be accepted if done everything perfectly. The baby who actually scheduled to act in the ad gets sick and Arjun and his colleague Archana try to find a new baby urgently else shooting will be cancelled. Arjun finds a cute baby on the road and asks for acting in the ad to its mother who refuses to the proposal. While convincing, the mother faces an accident. Arjun admits her in the hospital and meanwhile takes the baby to the client and gets their approval. Arjun returns to hospital to find the mother and found left without caring about the baby. Arjun takes the baby to the police station and discusses the issue with police friend. He then takes the baby to his home accompanied by Archana with him. The ad shooting is finished successfully but awaits client approval who demands written no objection agreement duly signed by the baby's parents within next three days to avoid future issues else the project will not approved and money spent will also not be compensated.
1163575	Jeffrey "Jeff" Garlin (born June 5, 1962) is an American comedian, actor, producer, voice artist, director, writer, podcast host and author. He has acted in many television shows and some movies, but is best known for his role as Jeff Greene on the HBO show "Curb Your Enthusiasm". Personal life. Garlin was born in Chicago, Illinois, on June 5, 1962, and grew up in Morton Grove, Illinois where his father had a plumbing supply business and his mother was active in community theater. Garlin is Jewish and attended Hebrew school. He graduated from Fort Lauderdale's Nova High School in 1980. He attended Broward Community College, followed by a stint at the University of Miami studying film, but eventually dropped out. He began performing stand-up comedy there. Career. In 1984, at the age of 22, Garlin moved back to Chicago, to perform with the comedy troupe The Second City, into which he had been accepted, as well as to pursue a stand-up comedy career there. Several years later, he was roommates with Conan O'Brien, who was then a comedy writer. (He remains close to O'Brien, and after O'Brien was removed as host of "The Tonight Show" in 2010 so that Jay Leno could return, Garlin stated that he would not be a guest on the show again.) Film and television. Garlin has a variety of television and film appearances to his credit, as an actor and a stand-up, including "Dr. Katz", "Arrested Development", "Everybody Loves Raymond", "Late Show with David Letterman", "Tom Goes to the Mayor", "The Life and Times of Tim", "The Daily Show", "Late Night with Conan O'Brien", and "Entourage". Garlin appeared with Eddie Murphy in "Daddy Day Care" and appeared in Steven Soderbergh's "Full Frontal".
1059895	Religulous is a 2008 American documentary film written by and starring comedian Bill Maher and directed by Larry Charles. The title of the film is a "portmanteau" derived from the words "religion" and "ridiculous". The documentary examines and mocks organized religion and religious belief. Contents. A range of views on various world religions is explored as Bill Maher travels to numerous religious destinations including Jerusalem, the Vatican, and Salt Lake City, interviewing believers from a variety of backgrounds and groups. These include a former member of Jews for Jesus, Christians, Muslims, former Mormons, and Hasidic Jews. Maher travels to Speakers' Corner in Hyde Park, London, where he "preaches" Scientology beliefs. Maher also takes a tour around Creation Museum and The Holy Land Experience. Production. Maher said he used a fake title "A Spiritual Journey" for the film to obtain interviews. Creationist Ken Ham of the non-profit group Answers in Genesis, who appeared in the film, was critical of what he called Maher's "deception" to obtain the interview. The documentary was produced by Thousand Words and distributed by Lions Gate Entertainment. Originally slated for an international release date coinciding with the Christian Easter holiday 2008 (March 23), post-production delays resulting from a screenwriters guild strike pushed the release date back. The film was eventually released on October 3, 2008. Box office. "Religulous" had an opening weekend take of $3.5 million from an early October 1 release in Los Angeles and New York City and also a limited 502 theater release, averaging $6,972 per theater making it #10 at the box office that weekend. Its per-screen receipts were almost three times those of a competing film to which it has been compared in the media, the politically conservative "An American Carol", which edged out "Religulous" to finish at #9 over the same weekend, but had a per theater average of only $2,325. Only the #1 movie, "Beverly Hills Chihuahua", at $9,020, had a higher per-screen average than "Religulous". For the second weekend, "Religulous" had a 35.5% drop in box office receipts and dropped to #13 with a gross of $2,200,000 at 568 theaters for a per screen average of $3,873. "Religulous" grossed over $13 million after having a production budget of $2.5 million. As of 2012, it's 15th among the highest grossing documentaries in the US and was the highest grossing documentary of 2008. Reception. Reviews for "Religulous" were generally positive. The film received a "Fresh" rating of 70% from Rotten Tomatoes based on 149 reviews, and a "mixed" score of 56 out of 100 at Metacritic based on 31 reviews. Film critic Roger Ebert gave the film a rating of three and a half out of four stars, and wrote: "I report faithfully that I laughed frequently. You may very well hate it, but at least you've been informed. Perhaps you could enjoy the material about other religions, and tune out when yours is being discussed. That's only human nature." Robert W. Butler of "The Kansas City Star" gave the film a rating of three stars, and commented: "The film is one-sided, less a measured argument than a bunch of rants and barbed observations. But it’s also very funny, which trumps everything else." Owen Gleiberman of "Entertainment Weekly" gave the film a rating of A-, and wrote: "The movie is funny as...well, hell." "The Canadian Press" said the movie "delivers a laugh-out-loud attack on the most sacred of cows." Christie Lemire, of the Associated Press, wrote: "If you're an atheist or an agnostic, you'll be completely on board and happy to tag along with Maher as he travels the globe asking people about their faith — everywhere from Jerusalem to the Vatican to Amsterdam, where he finds not only the Cannabis Ministry but also a Muslim gay bar (with two people in it)." John Anderson of "Newsday" wrote: "much that's funny, insightful and thought-provoking. But it certainly doesn't give the religious a lot of slack." The documentary received some negative reviews, with Rick McGinnis of "Metro" concluding that, "Maher is preaching to the choir with an undisguised dishonesty that only the true believers will forgive." James Berardinelli wrote, "If the subject of religion is as important to Maher as he claims during his end comments, then he should have followed those words with actions and made a movie that's more than a sum of inauthentic interviews, ranting attacks, and obvious observations. The choir may hum along with Maher but the rest of those watching this movie will be singing the blues." Nick Schager of "Slant Magazine" called it an "atheistic wannabe-dissection of modern faith." In a review for "The New York Times", Stephen Holden notes that when Maher "turns from evangelical Christianity to Judaism and Islam, its tone becomes uncertain and its rhythm choppy". Sam Greenspan argues that "Jewish people seemed to get handled with kid gloves" by Maher. Muslims however, are portrayed as relentlessly anti-Semitic. In his review Stephen Holden also wrote that "the movie has the same loose, on-the-road structure" as Larry Charles' previous film "" and commented: "Much of Mr. Maher’s film is extremely funny in a similarly irreverent, offhanded way." Claudia Puig of "USA Today" wrote: "those with a taste for irreverent humor and clear-eyed analysis will find it funny, enlightening and disturbing." Kirk Honeycutt of "The Hollywood Reporter" characterized the film as "An often hilarious but relentlessly shallow attack on religious fundamentalism by humorist Bill Maher". Louis Peitzman of the "San Francisco Bay Guardian" wrote that "It doesn't even matter that he goes out of his way to be offensive, as he's consistently funny enough to pull it off." Scott Indrisek wrote at "Style.com" that: ""Religulous" earns many of its laughs from skillful editing, with Maher's interviews jazzed up by video clips". Ben Kenigsberg of "Time Out New York" gave the film a rating of three out of six stars, and wrote: "The worst scenes in "Religulous" are appalling for their methods; the best are appalling for their information." The 3rd Annual Independent Investigative Group IIG Awards presented an award to Religulous recognizing the promotion of science and critical thinking in popular media on May 18, 2009. Historical accuracy. Egyptologist Gerald Massey argued that the deity of Horus and Jesus shared identical mythological origins in his 1907 book "Ancient Egypt, the light of the world". These ideas are repeated in the movie by Bill Maher. Christian Theologian W. Ward Gasque composed an e-mail to twenty Egyptologists that he considered leaders of the field, including Professor Emeritus of Egyptology at the University of Liverpool Kenneth Kitchen, and Professor of Egyptology at the University of Toronto Ron Leprohan. The e-mail detailed the comparisons alleged by Massey. Ten out of twenty responded. Those who responded were unanimous in dismissing the proposed etymologies for Jesus and Christ, and one unspecified Egyptologist referred to Alvin Boyd Kuhn's comparison as "fringe nonsense." DVD release. Lions Gate Entertainment released the film on DVD February 17, 2009. Special features on the DVD include a commentary with Bill Maher and director Larry Charles, deleted scenes, and extended Bill Maher monologues from around the world that were either edited down or not included in the film at all.
1165655	Joanne Linville (born January 15, 1928 in Bakersfield, California) is an American film and television actress. Linville and actress Irene Gilbert co-founded the Stella Adler Academy in Los Angeles in 1985. Biography. Early life. Beverly Joanne Linville was born in Bakersfield, California on January 15, 1928. Acting career. Linville's motion picture credits include "The Goddess", "Gable and Lombard", "Scorpio", "A Star Is Born" and "The Seduction". Linville starred in two 1959 television presentations of ' - as "Karen Wadsworth" in the episode "A Moment of Hate", and as "Aunt Mina" in the episode "The Dead Part of the House". In 1961, she starred in the "Twilight Zone" episode "The Passersby". In 1968, she played the Romulan Commander in the ' episode "The Enterprise Incident". Other television appearances include "Decoy", "Alfred Hitchcock Presents", "Have Gun Will Travel", "COronado 9", "Checkmate", "Adventures in Paradise", "The Twilight Zone", "Empire", "Gunsmoke" (three episodes), "Dr. Kildare", "Ben Casey", "Route 66", "The Eleventh Hour", "I Spy", "Bonanza", "The Fugitive", "The F.B.I." (two episodes), "The Invaders" (two episodes), "Felony Squad", "Hawaii Five-O" (two episodes), "Kojak", "Columbo: Candidate for Crime", "The Streets of San Francisco" (two episodes), "Nakia", "Switch", "Charlie's Angels", "Mrs. Columbo", "Dynasty" and "L.A. Law". Linville also appeared in the made-for-TV movies "House on Greenapple Road" (1970), "Secrets" (1977), "The Critical List" (1978), "The Users" (1978) and "The Right of the People" (1986). Linville played Janine Turner's character's mother in the television series "Behind the Screen". Joanne Linville and George Grizzard starred in "I Kiss Your Shadow", the final episode of the television series "Bus Stop". The episode was based on the short story by Robert Bloch. In his book "Danse Macabre", Stephen King nominated this episode as "...the single most frightening story ever done on TV." King wrote that "Bus Stop" was "...a straight drama show... The final episode, however, deviated wildly into the supernatural, and for me, ..."I Kiss Your Shadow" has never been beaten on TV - and rarely any where else - for eerie, mounting horror." Personal life. Linville was married to actor/director Mark Rydell from 1962 until their divorce in 1973. They have two children, actor Christopher Rydell (born November 16, 1963) and actress Amy Rydell. Linville played gossip columnist Hedda Hopper in the television movie "James Dean". Mark Rydell directed the film and also played Jack Warner. Amy Rydell played Christine White, Dean's girlfriend in New York.
1074701	Once Upon a Time in the Midlands is a 2002 British romantic comedy film written and directed by Shane Meadows, starring Robert Carlyle, Rhys Ifans, Kathy Burke, Ricky Tomlinson and Shirley Henderson. It is set in Nottingham in the Midlands. Plot. Dek (Rhys Ifans) proposes to his girlfriend Shirley (Shirley Henderson) on TV. When Jimmy (Robert Carlyle), "the great love of her life" and father of her daughter Marlene (Finn Atkins), sees this, he returns in an attempt to win back her heart. However after deserting his friends in Scotland during an unsuccessful robbery of some clowns, his friends turn against him and come to the Midlands to try to track him down. Though in the end Shirley refuses to go with Jimmy and professes her love for Dek after Marlene refuses to have anything to do with Jimmy and is only ready to accept Dek as the father figure.
584249	Sadhu Miranda () is a 2008 Tamil suspense comedy film directed by Siddique, starring Prasanna, Kavya Madhavan and Abbas in the lead roles. The story is about a normal man turned gangster. The film is loosely based on 1995 Malayalam film "Mannar Mathai Speaking" which was co-directed by Siddique himself. Plot. The movie starts of with a robbery of 20 crores in Pondicherry DID Bank where a college girl is killed by one of the thieves. The same night as the robbery, the manager of the bank (Manivannan) commits suicide.After this the story opens up in Chennai where Shiva Sundaram (Prasanna) a visible foolish person comes in search of David Raj (Manoj K. Jayan) where he saves a girl from being raped by one of David Raj's men.Then he confronts David and says that he came to get the stuff a.k.a heroin from him saying that Moorthy told him to get it for Rs.10000/= and wants to sell it to Rs.20000/=.But David Raj understanding that he is a fool sends in 1 crore worth heroin without the knowledge of Shiva saying that there will be a call to the phone he gives and tells him to deliver it to the address the caller says and to be caught by the police with the buyer.But Shiva goes the wrong way and goes to see his friend Vellai (Karunas) where Vellai has taken money from a lender for interest to give to Shiva.At his place they open up the package and they both think it is toothpaste powder.Where Shiva says that he must get a call.Then with the money lending party they go to said place and the two people of the money lending party goes to the buyer and get the money but they are caught by the police.Then next day Shiva calls the T.V station where Priya works where he reveals that he is the brother of Ram Mohan (Abbas) and that Moorthy must call him else he would die jumping from the top of a building.Then the police arrive at the building to find that Moorthy has called him.From there knowing that
582269	Annu Kapoor (, Urdu: انو کپُور, born 20 February 1956) is an Indian film actor and television presenter best remembered for his role in "Vicky Donor" (2012) ans hosting the vocal reality show "Antakshari" from 1993 to 2006. He received Filmfare award as well as National Film Award for Best Supporting Actor in 'Vicky Donor'. Early life. Kapoor was born Anil Kapoor in Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, on 20 February 1956 and joined the National School of Drama in Delhi in 1976. He changed his name in 1982 to Annu (his nickname), to avoid confusion with actor Anil Kapoor. Kapoor’s late father, Madanlal, owned a travelling Parsi theatre company which performed in cities and towns. His late mother, Kamal, was a poet and a trained classical singer. After graduating from the National School Of Drama and a brief stint with its repertory company, in 1981 he played a 70-year-old man in the play "Ek Ruka Hua Faisla" in Mumbai. Shyam Benagal saw Kapoor and signed him for his film, "Mandi", in 1982. Career. Kapoor began his career as a stage actor in 1979 and was noticed in 1982's "Ek Ruka Hua Faisla", directed by elder brother Ranjeet. Annu made his film debut in "Mandi" (directed by Shyam Benegal) in 1983. His career has spanned over 30 years, including Bollywood cinema, television serials and game shows. Kapoor is best remembered for hosting the singing show "Antakshari – The Great Challenge" (later renamed "Close-up Antakshari"), produced by Zee TV. His performance as an obsessive-compulsive sperm-bank physician in 2012's "Vicky Donor" met with critical and popular acclaim. Kapoor is scheduled to appear in "Yamla Pagla Deewana 2". In 2007, "Antakshari – The National Challenge" was relaunched on Star One. The previous year, its "final" episode was telecast; the programme's initial run was from 1993 to 2006. Kapoor appeared as Kabir in a DD National serial of the same name, and in the 2011 film "7 Khoon Maaf". "The Golden Era - With Annu Kapoor" on the Mastiii channel is a nostalgia show about Indian cinema, particularly Bollywood music. It is divided into three segments, with the ins and outs of Bollywood and memorable songs. Currently, he does a radio show on 92.7 Big FM called "Suhaana Safar with Annu Kapoor on 92.7 Big FM". It's a daily show that features Nationally on the largest radio network covering all Hindi speaking radio stations across the country. He recreates the magic of the Golden era with unforgettable melodies of that era and untold stories related to the stars and the films of the HIndi Cinema. The show comes with the tagline "Filmy Duniya Ki Kahi Ankahi Kahaniya". Personal life. Kapoor's entire family is associated with art and patriotism. His mother, Kamal Shabnam Kapoor, was a poet, teacher and scholar of Urdu, Arabic and Persian; few people with her background (a Bengali Brahmin family) have mastered those three languages. Kamal was also fluent in Punjabi, Gujarati, Marathi, Marwadi and several north-Indian dialects. Kapoor has promoted India's positive aspects in his programmes. His elder brother, Ranjit, is a director and screenwriter and his sister, Seema, is a producer and director. Kapoor's younger brother, Nikhil, is a writer and lyricist. Annu has four children (three sons—Kavam, Maahir and Evaan—and a daughter, Aradhita) from two marriages. His wife, Anupama, is American by birth. Director. Kapoor has directed several plays. He also directed a feature film ("Abhay (The Fearless)", starring Nana Patekar, Moon Sen and Benjamin Gilani) for the Children's Film Society, India. The film received the 1994 National Film Award for Best Children's Film. Producer. Kapoor produced a musical talent contest for children ("Aao Jhoomein Gaayen" for SAB TV) and a Bengali-language musical talent-hunt show, "Gaan Gaao Taaka Naao" on Ruposhi Bangla TV in Kolkata. He also produced a musical in Mathura entitled "Ek Sunhari Shyam".
582603	Puneet Issar (born 6 November 1959) is an Indian actor and director, most famous for his role as Duryodhana in the TV adaptation (1988–1990) of the "Mahabharata", and directing "" (2004) starring Salman Khan. His other notable roles are in "Border", 1997 war film, directed by J. P. Dutta and second lead in cult Indian horror film "Purana Mandir" in 1983. He started his career with the movie "Coolie" in 1983. During filming an action sequence of this movie, he accidentally injured Amitabh Bachchan nearly fatally. and suffered industry's backlash due to it. Career. Issar starred as a villain in several movies (over 150 Hindi films and 100 regional) during the 1980s and 1990s, like "Zakhmi Aurat, Jagruti, Kal Ki Aawaz, Palay Khan, Teja, Prem Shakti" and many more, which include the Mohanlal starrers "Yodha" and "Pingami", Salman Khan starrers "Sanam Bewafa", "Chandramukhi" and "Suriyavanshi", Akshay Kumar starrer "Aashant" and multi-starrers like "Kshatriya". He also played a villain in the Shahrukh Khan starrer "Ram Jaane". He appeared in the hit war film "Border". in 1982 he was involved in an on shoot incident with Amitabh Bachhan. Amitabh got seriously hurt in the incident. Many blamed Puneet for the incident. He later admitted that he had to face lot of problem in getting roles in movies due to the notoriety of the incident. Some people even misunderstood that amitabh's clout might have had effected his career very much. But he clearly stated that was untrue. He also starred in movies, like "Krrish", "Partner, Aryan","Bachna Ae Haseeno" and many more in the 2000'S. He had played the role of as Duryodhana in epic TV series, Mahabharat (1988–1990), directed by Ravi Chopra. It was this role that gained him main stream popularity. He along with other actors of the epic TV show often toured the whole of india and even abroad to perform live shows based on epic throughout the 90's. He played the Indian Superman in 1987, a Bollywood version of the Hollywood movies. He played the second lead in the cult Indian horror film "Purana Mandir" in 1983. Later he did many another horror movie's like "Tehkhana" in 1980's. He has also directed TV serials such as "Hindustani" and "Jai Mata Ki" starring Hema Malini. He has starred in over 12 TV serials like "Junoon, Sahil, Noor Jahan, Vikram Aur Betaal" and many more. He has appeared in over 1800 episodes on Indian television. He played the role of King Bimbisara in the feature film "Gautama Buddha - The Life and Times of Gautama Buddha". He also starred in "Left Right Left" of the Indian Channel Sab TV. He has also worked in number of Punjabi films such as "Rab Ne Banayian Jodiyan" and in a few Telugu films. He has also given a brilliant display of his acting skills in the mythological film "Suryaputra Shanidev", which released in 1997.
1377020	Walt Disney Cartoon Classics was a series of cartoon compilations from Disney. It was one of their first attempts to put cartoons on home video, after Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck Cartoon Collections. Cartoon Classics: Version One. The first 14 volumes, from 1983–1986, came with six or seven cartoons and ran from 30–60 minutes.
1052459	Jonah Who Will Be 25 in the Year 2000 () is a 1976 Swiss film directed by Alain Tanner and written by Tanner and John Berger. The location of the shooting was Geneva. The film follows the lives of couples in the wake of the social and political tumult of May 1968 in France, the various people including a history professor, a trade unionist and a bohemian. Reception. The film was favourably reviewed by Pauline Kael in "The New Yorker". : "There are eight key characters in "Jonah", all in their twenties or thirties, and all seeking solutions to the problems brought to general consciousness by the events of 1968. Not one of them is a comfortable bourgeois; they're the sort of fantasists and obsessives who were considered marginal before 1968...Each of the eight characters is a utopian of some sort, except for the disillusioned former activist, Max..Each of these people is autonomous, looks for his own answers, and acts upon them, and together, the film suggests, they can give birth to a Jonah who will have the acumen to connect their visions..Miou-Miou's the most purely enjoyable person in the movie. This tumble-dried blonde, the Brigitte Bardot the cat dragged in, doesn't look as if she could be an actress, but she certainly is...Marie has a friend in France, Old Charles, a retired railroad worker, to whom she brings stolen groceries; he is played by the veteran French character actor Raymond Bussières, familiar from "Casque d'or" and films by Clouzot and René Clair. Together, Miou-Miou and Bussières act out fantasies in brief set pieces..The whole film is designed as a collection of little routines.."Jonah" is so ingeniously constructed that one can enjoy it the way one enjoyed Renoir's egalitarian films of the thirties, relating to each character in turn. "
1244834	China Blue is a 2005 documentary film directed by Micha Peled. It follows the life of Jasmine Li, a young seventeen-year-old worker from Sichuan province, in a Chinese jeans factory, "Lifeng Clothes Factory" (丽锋服饰制衣有限公司) in Shaxi, Guangdong producing Vigaze Jeans (a company based in Istanbul, Turkey ), hence the title. Jasmine earned about half a yuan for one hour's work (which amounted to about six US cents). The documentary discusses both the sweatshop conditions in factories in China and the growing importance of China as an exporting country on a global scale. At the 2005 Amnesty International film festival, it won the Amnesty International-DOEN Award. In April 2007 "China Blue" aired on the award winning PBS series "Independent Lens".
1067636	"What's Your Number?" is a 2011 romantic comedy film starring Anna Faris and Chris Evans. It is based on Karyn Bosnak's book "20 Times a Lady". The film was released on , 2011. Plot. Ally Darling (Anna Faris) is a thirty-something woman who is struggling to make better decisions with her life. Her boyfriend Rick (Zachary Quinto) breaks up with her when she asks him to attend her sister Daisy's (Ari Graynor) upcoming wedding, and she then gets laid off from her job. While taking the subway home, Ally comes across a "Marie Claire" magazine article entitled "What's Your Number?", which says that women who have more than twenty lovers in their lifetime have difficulty finding a husband. After making a list of all the men she slept with, she realizes that her number is nineteen, making her decide not to have sex with anyone else until she finds "the one". She then wakes up after Daisy's bachelorette party and discovers that she hooked up with her ex-boss Roger (Joel McHale). Hoping to miss an awkward confrontation, Ally lets her neighbor Colin Shea (Chris Evans) into her apartment so that way Roger will leave. It turns out that Colin was only over to avoid a girl that he slept with, because he doesn't want to give the women he sees any expectations. Ally then runs into "Disgusting Donald" (Chris Pratt), her once overweight ex-boyfriend who's now successful and good-looking. She decides to track down all of her ex-boyfriends in the hope that one of them will have grown into the man she wants to marry, and therefore the number of men she has slept with will never have to increase. She gets help from Colin in exchange for letting him stay in her place after his one-night stands, but things do not quite work out the way she had expected and Ally remembers why it didn't work out with those men in the first place. After a falling out with Colin, Ally thinks she finally finds her match - an old flame, Jake Adams (Dave Annable). She attends her sister's wedding with Jake only to realize that the man she truly loves is Colin. Ally runs across the city to find Colin and the two reunite with a kiss. Afterwards, Ally gets a call from an old boyfriend (Aziz Ansari) telling her that they in fact did not sleep together. Ally rejoices in the fact that Colin is indeed the 20th and last man she ever slept with. Release. Box office. "What's Your Number?" grossed $5,421,669 in its opening weekend at #8 and grossed a domestic total of $14,011,084 by the end of its run almost two months later. The worldwide total is $30,426,096. Critical reception. The film received generally negative reviews with a 24% "rotten" rating at Rotten Tomatoes based on 106 reviews; the consensus states: "The comic timing of Anna Faris is sharp as always, but it's wasted away in this predictable, boilerplate comedy."The film's rating on Metacritic is "generally unfavorable", receiving a score of 35 from 31 professional critics.
1431632	Misti Traya (born September 23, 1981 in Honolulu, Hawaii) is an American actress. She landed her first prime time television series regular role playing 15-year-old Allison Reeves in The WB's comedy "Living with Fran". She is the daughter of actress Kiersten Warren. Traya worked behind-the-scenes on the independent film, "Havoc", in which she received an on-camera role. Within weeks of her first actual audition, she landed recurring roles on "Joan of Arcadia" and "Huff". Traya completed two feature films, "Dying for Dolly", a Lion's Gate film directed by Ron Underwood, starring Chazz Palminteri and Usher, as well as "Material Girls", produced by Maverick Films, directed by Martha Coolidge, and starring Hilary Duff and Haylie Duff. She is currently working with visual artist Mario Garcia Torres on his six-minute film, "One Minute To Act A Title: Kim Jong Il Favorite Movies", intended to circulate in the contemporary art arena of museums and galleries. Traya can also be seen in VH1's "I Love the New Millennium".
582436	Kaash () is an Indian Bollywood domestic drama film directed by Mahesh Bhatt, released on 4 September 1987. The film stars Jackie Shroff and Dimple Kapadia as a married couple, Ritesh and Pooja, who face a serious crisis after bankruptcy and marriage breakdown. The film follows their separation and reunion when their child, Romi, is diagnosed with a brain tumor, and how they learn to cope with this cruel reality. Like several other 1980s films by Mahesh Bhatt, "Kaash", containing serious and realistic content, belongs to the arthouse cinematic genre, known in India as parallel cinema. On its release, it received critical acclaim. Plot. Ritesh, a popular film star (Jackie Shroff) and his wife Pooja (Dimple Kapadia) live a wealthy lifestyle with their seven-year-old child Romi. However, after a series of unexpected box office failures and huge losses, he is hounded by creditors and consequently, the couple sell all their personal property and belongings. Frustrated and embittered by his career dive, Ritesh becomes an alcoholic. Pooja, who takes it upon herself to look after the family, works several jobs. This leads to continuous differences between the two, and Romi, their child, becomes a silent spectator to their constant fights and disputes at home. One day, in a hotel where Pooja works as a chambermaid, she is molested by a hoodlum. A stranger called Alok (Anupam Kher) saves Pooja from him and offers her a job in his firm, much to the annoyance of Ritesh, who would prefer that she stay at home. Ritesh feels it is the last straw for him. He asks Pooja to choose between her job and her family and house. She leaves. Ritesh wins Romi's custody, but soon discovers that Romi is going to die from brain cancer. To sustain their child's happiness and to overlook his condition, Ritesh and Pooja agree to reunite and spend time together, fulfilling all his wishes before he passes away. Thrown together under the shadow of their child's upcoming death, Ritesh and Pooja, in experiencing the traumatic ordeal, rediscover themselves and each other. Music. The soundtrack of the film contains 6 songs. The music is composed by Rajesh Roshan, with lyrics authored by Faruq Qaiser. The film was one of Kishore Kumar's last playback singing appearances, and the last to be released before his death. Reception. The film received positive reviews from critics. The direction, storyline and performances were lavishly praised. Film critic Akshay Shah from "Planet Bollywood" wrote,
584354	Ottran (, ) is a 2003 Tamil film starring Arjun Sarja, Simran, Manorama, Vadivelu, Tejashree, Sarath Babu and directed by Ilankannan. The score and soundtrack was composed by Pravin Mani. The film becomes hit at box office. Production. After the Arjun-directed "Ezhumalai", the Arjun-Simran pair come together in yet another film titled ‘Ottran’. Directing the film is first-timer Ilankannan, who had apprenticed with director Shanker. Arjun plays a secret agent in the film, which gives him scope for enough of action scenes. Shooting commenced in Chennai in a forty-day schedule. Soundtrack. These 6 songs in "Ottran" are composed by Pravin Mani. Critical reception. Hindu wrote:"first half of the film is the screenplay that allows no room for sluggishness or dampeners. The film moves on at breakneck speed and by the time you take a breather it's intermission".
1104799	Jacob Bernoulli (also known as James or Jacques) (27 December 1654/6 January 1655 – 16 August 1705) was one of the many prominent mathematicians in the Bernoulli family. He was an early proponent of Leibnizian calculus and had sided with Leibniz during the Leibniz–Newton calculus controversy. He is known for his numerous contributions to calculus, and along with his brother Johann, was one of the founders the calculus of variations. However, his most important contribution was in the field of probability, where he derived the first version of the law of large numbers in his work "Ars Conjectandi". Biography. Jacob Bernoulli was born in Basel, Switzerland. Following his father's wish, he studied theology and entered the ministry. But contrary to the desires of his parents, he also studied mathematics and astronomy. He traveled throughout Europe from 1676 to 1682, learning about the latest discoveries in mathematics and the sciences under leading figures of the time. This included the work of Hudde, Robert Boyle, and Robert Hooke. During this time he also produced an incorrect theory of comets. Bernoulli returned to Switzerland and began teaching mechanics at the University in Basel from 1683. In 1684 he married Judith Stupanus; and they had two children. During this decade, he also began a fertile research career. His travels allowed him to establish correspondence with many leading mathematicians and scientists of his era, which he maintained throughout his life. During this time, he studied the new discoveries in mathematics, including Christian Huygens's "De ratiociniis in aleae ludo", Descartes' "Geometrie" and Frans van Schooten's supplements of it. He also studied Isaac Barrow and John Wallis, leading to his interest in infinitesimal geometry. Apart from these, it was between 1684 and 1689 that much of the results that was to make up "Ars Conjectandi" was discovered. He was appointed professor of mathematics at the University of Basel in 1687, remaining in this position for the rest of his life. By that time, he had begun tutoring his brother Johann Bernoulli on mathematical topics. The two brothers began to study the calculus as presented by Leibniz in his 1684 paper on the differential calculus in "Nova Methodus pro Maximis et Minimis, itemque Tangentibus..." published in "Acta Eruditorum". They also studied the publications of von Tschirnhaus. It must be understood that Leibniz's publications on the calculus were very obscure to mathematicians of that time and the Bernoullis were the first to try to understand and apply Leibniz's theories. Jacob collaborated with his brother on various applications of calculus. However the atmosphere of collaboration between the two brothers turned into rivalry as Johann's own mathematical genius began to mature, with both of them attacking each other in print, and posing difficult mathematical challenges to test each other's skills. By 1697 the relationship had completely broken down. Jacob Bernoulli died in 1705. Bernoulli chose a figure of a logarithmic spiral and the motto "Eadem mutata resurgo" "("Changed and yet the same, I rise again")" for his gravestone; the spiral executed by the stonemasons was, however, an Archimedean spiral, “Bernoulli wrote that the logarithmic spiral ‘may be used as a symbol, either of fortitude and constancy in adversity, or of the human body, which after all its changes, even after death, will be restored to its exact and perfect self’.” (Livio 2002: 116). His grave is in Basel Munster or Cathedral where the gravestone shown below is located. The lunar crater Bernoulli is also named after him jointly with his brother Johann. Important works. Jacob Bernoulli's first important contributions were a pamphlet on the parallels of logic and algebra published in 1685, work on probability in 1685 and geometry in 1687. His geometry result gave a construction to divide any triangle into four equal parts with two perpendicular lines. By 1689 he had published important work on infinite series and published his law of large numbers in probability theory. Jacob Bernoulli published five treatises on infinite series between 1682 and 1704. The first two of these contained many results, such as fundamental result that formula_1 diverges, which Bernoulli believed were new but they had actually been proved by Mengoli 40 years earlier. Bernoulli could not find a closed form for formula_2, but he did show that it converged to a finite limit less than 2. Euler was the first to find the sum of this series in 1737. Bernoulli also studied the exponential series which came out of examining compound interest. In May 1690 in a paper published in "Acta Eruditorum", Jacob Bernoulli showed that the problem of determining the isochrone is equivalent to solving a first-order nonlinear differential equation. The isochrone, or curve of constant descent, is the curve along which a particle will descend under gravity from any point to the bottom in exactly the same time, no matter what the starting point. It had been studied by Huygens in 1687 and Leibniz in 1689. After finding the differential equation, Bernoulli then solved it by what we now call separation of variables. Jacob Bernoulli's paper of 1690 is important for the history of calculus, since the term integral appears for the first time with its integration meaning. In 1696 Bernoulli solved the equation, now called the Bernoulli differential equation, Jacob Bernoulli also discovered a general method to determine evolutes of a curve as the envelope of its circles of curvature. He also investigated caustic curves and in particular he studied these associated curves of the parabola, the logarithmic spiral and epicycloids around 1692. The lemniscate of Bernoulli was first conceived by Jacob Bernoulli in 1694. In 1695 he investigated the drawbridge problem which seeks the curve required so that a weight sliding along the cable always keeps the drawbridge balanced. Jacob Bernoulli's most original work was Ars Conjectandi published in Basel in 1713, eight years after his death. The work was incomplete at the time of his death but it is still a work of the greatest significance in the theory of probability. In the book Bernoulli reviewed work of others on probability, in particular work by van Schooten, Leibniz, and Prestet. The Bernoulli numbers appear in the book in a discussion of the exponential series. Many examples are given on how much one would expect to win playing various game of chance. The term Bernoulli trial result from this work. There are interesting thoughts on what probability really is: ... probability as a measurable degree of certainty; necessity and chance; moral versus mathematical expectation; a priori an a posteriori probability; expectation of winning when players are divided according to dexterity; regard of all available arguments, their valuation, and their calculable evaluation; law of large numbers ... Bernoulli was one of the most significant promoters of the formal methods of higher analysis. Astuteness and elegance are seldom found in his method of presentation and expression, but there is a maximum of integrity. Discovery of the mathematical constant e. Bernoulli discovered the constant e by studying a question about compound interest which required him to find the value of the following expression (which is in fact ): One example is an account that starts with $1.00 and pays 100 percent interest per year. If the interest is credited once, at the end of the year, the value is $2.00; but if the interest is computed and added twice in the year, the $1 is multiplied by 1.5 twice, yielding $1.00×1.5² = $2.25. Compounding quarterly yields $1.00×1.254 = $2.4414..., and compounding monthly yields $1.00×(1.0833...)12 = $2.613035... Bernoulli noticed that this sequence approaches a limit (the force of interest) for more and smaller compounding intervals. Compounding weekly yields $2.692597..., while compounding daily yields $2.714567..., just two cents more. Using as the number of compounding intervals, with interest of 100%/ in each interval, the limit for large is the number that came to be known as ; with "continuous" compounding, the account value will reach $2.7182818... More generally, an account that starts at $1, and yields (1+) dollars at simple interest, will yield dollars with continuous compounding. Translation of Latin inscription on Bernouilli's tomb. "IACOBUS BERNOULLI MATHEMATICUS INCOMPARABILIS ACAD. BASIL. VLTRA XVIII ANNOS PROF. ACADEM. ITEM REGIAE PARIS. ET BEROLIN. SOCIUS
587473	Sasanam is a 2006 Tamil drama film directed by Mahendran. The film set in the Chettinadu backdrop features Arvind Swamy, Gouthami and Ranjitha in leading roles, while Balabharathi composes the music and Nambiyathiri handles cinematography. The film began production in the mid-1990s but was only released in 2006 due to production trouble, with all three of the lead actors retired at the time of release. Plot. Muthiah (Arvind Swamy) and his wife Visalakshi (Gouthami) are a loving couple, and they come across Saroji (Ranjitha) who with no one to go for, takes refuge in Muthiah's house. Muthiah and Saroji develop soft corner towards each other. The rest is what transpires between the trio, exploring the nuances of an extra-marital affair. Production. The film began production in the mid-1990s and Balabharathi composed the music while Lenin and Vijayan were signed on as editors. Former State Assembly Speaker and senior AIADMK leader K. Kalimuthu penned a song for the film which was sung by Chithra, Sriram and Sathyanarayana.
1577508	Lenny Von Dohlen (born December 22, 1958) is an American film, television and stage actor, best known for his performance as the architect
687854	Britney Rears is a pornographic film franchise revolving around its fictitious main character. The series is an ongoing parody of pop singer Britney Spears, with the character having been played by both Jessica Sweet (films 1 and 2) and Hillary Scott (films 3 and 4). The first three installments have received 11 AVN Award nominations, primarily in technical categories, and a XRCO Award win for "Best Comedy or Parody." Introducing Britney Rears. Britney Rears came to prominence in the spring of 2005. Director Will Rider identified Jessica Sweet, who bore some resemblance to Spears, as an actress who could play the role of Britney. "Britney Rears: Wild Back Stage Sex Party" was a successful venture for the company VCA Pictures, with it being the best selling Hustler Video title in 2005. Sweet was listed in the credits as Britney Rears on the first two movies, in addition to using it as her stage name for appearances, feature dancing and performing much of the first two films' music. The Howard Stern Show played the first film's theme song, "I Wanna Get Laid" on numerous occasions due to a radio-safe version having been prepared for the show. Sweet would reprise the role in "Britney Rears 2: I Wanna Get Laid", which reached number two on the AVN sales chart in 2006. The plot of that movie was loosely based on Britney Spears's marriage to Kevin Federline, with the character Rears having recently married a man named Kevin. The 2nd Britney. Sweet was replaced by Rears 2 co-star Hillary Scott for the third installation "Britney Rears 3: Britney Gets Shafted". In it, Rears purchases a time traveling machine and travels back to 1974. The plot for the third movie is a play on Spears cameo in the similarly themed Austin Powers in Goldmember. The "Britney Rears 3" is the most successful film of the series, in terms of awards, being nominated for Best Sex Comedy in the 2007 AVN Awards, and winning for "Best Comedy or Parody" at the XRCO Awards the same year. Scott returned in fourth film, "Britney Rears 4: Britney Goes Gonzo", which featured a change to the use of gonzo cinematography instead of the more conventional cinematic style used on the first three installments. The film's scenes are connected by a plot revolving around aphrodesiac "Britney Pops" which Rears had begun endorsing. One unusual bit of casting was the return of former Britney Jessica Sweet in a different part. While the film was in post-production, Hillary Scott signed an exclusive contract with rival studio SexZ pictures, but was allowed to continue work on promoting the film. It is unknown if Scott will be allowed to return for any future films in the series. Series award history. Britney Rears Wild Backstage Sex Party
584542	Aahaa is a 1997 Tamil film directed by Suresh Krishna starring Rajiv Krishna and Sulekha in the lead roles. The film was a commercial success. This film later remade in Telugu with the name Aaha starring Jagapathi Babu. Plot. Shriram (Rajiv Krishna) is the son of 'Pepsi' Parasuram (Vijayakumar) and the younger brother of Raghu (Raguvaran). Raghu is married to Bhanupriya and has a son. While Raghu is a model son, Shriram is considered a wastrel. Shriram falls in love with Janaki (Sulekha), the daughter of a Brahmin cook (Delhi Ganesh). Parasuram opposes the match because of the difference in their status. Meanwhile, Raghu's college sweetheart, Gita (Sukanya) is dying and she wants to spend her last days with him. She contacts him after five years and they begin meeting secretly. Shriram finds out about this and tries to keep the family secrets, take the blame for everyone's shortcomings and becomes the family scapegoat and his father's favorite whipping boy. The rest of the film examines whether or not Raghu is finally vindicated in the eyes of his family. Production. The film marked a comeback for actress Bhanupriya, while debutants Rajiv Krishna (Chandresh) and Sulekha were selected to play the lead roles.
588628	Ram Gopal Bajaj is a noted Indian theatre director, academician, and a Hindi film actor. He has also been a faculty member and a former director of National School of Drama, New Delhi (1995 – September 2001). He has been awarded the Padma Shri in 2003 and Sangeet Natak Akademi Award in 1996 for his contribution to theatre. Biography. Ram Gopal Bajaj was born on 5 March 1940 in Bajitpur Darbhanga. As very small child became adopted son of then very big Marwari business family Bajaj of Nirmali Supaul in North Bihar and spent childhood there. He has three sons named Shanti Prakash Bajaj, Riju Bajaj an Actor/Director and Aseem Bajaj a Cinematographer. Later he moved to Delhi, and graduated from National School of Drama (NSD) in 1965. After that remained in the faculty of National School of Drama for many years and later became its Director (November 1995 – September 2001). During his tenure as the head of NSD he has been credited to have started two theatre festival, Bharat Rang Mahotsava (National Theatre Festival) and Jashn-e-Bachpan (National Children Theatre Festival). Over the years he directed numerous plays with the National School of Drama, NSD Repertory Company, starting with "Surya Ki Antim Kiran Se, Surya Ki Pehli Kiran Tak" in 1974, Jai Shankar Prasad’s "Skand Gupta" in 1977, followed by "Quaid-E-Hayaat" in 1989. His other noted production was "Ashadh Ka Ek Din" by Mohan Rakesh in 1992. He also remained the Chief of the National School of Drama, Repertory Company from 1988 to 1994.He also Translated Girish Karnad's "Rakt Kalyan" (Taledanda) in Hindi, first directed by Ebrahim Alkazi for National School of Drama rep., then by Arvind Gaur (1995) for Asmita Theater. Films. He has also been connected with the film industry for many years, first starting as an assistant director in art films like "Utsav" (1984) and "Godhuli" (1977). And later appearing in small character roles in films like, "Masoom" (1983), "Hip Hip Hurray" (1984), "Mirch Masala" (1985), closely followed by "Chandni" (1989). His most noted film role has been in "Parzania" and as the Guru, in Jackie Chan starrer, "The Myth", both in 2005. He is presently a member of the academic council of National School of Drama, New Delhi.
1174947	James Lance Bass (born May 4, 1979) is an American pop singer, dancer, actor, film and television producer, and author. He grew up in Mississippi and rose to fame as the bass singer for the American pop boy band 'N Sync. 'N Sync's success led Bass to work in film and television. He starred in the 2001 film "On the Line", which his company, Bacon & Eggs, also produced. Bass later formed a second production company, Lance Bass Productions, as well as a now-defunct music management company, Free Lance Entertainment, a joint venture with Mercury Records. After completion of 'N Sync's Pop Odyssey Tour, Bass moved to Star City, Russia, in much publicized pursuit of a seat on a Soyuz space capsule. Bass was certified by both NASA and the Russian Space Program after several months of cosmonaut training, and planned to join the TMA-1 mission to the International Space Station. However, after his financial sponsors backed out, Bass was denied a seat on the mission. In July 2006, Bass revealed that he is gay in a cover story for "People" magazine. He was awarded the Human Rights Campaign Visibility Award in October 2006, and released an autobiography, "Out of Sync", in October 2007, which debuted on the "New York Times" Best Seller list.
1015751	My Wife Is 18 (Simplified Chinese: 我老婆唔够秤; Traditional Chinese: 我老婆唔夠秤) is a 2002 Hong Kong film. Plot. The film begins in the city of London, where a 30 year old man sits in front of a university board of 3 women. Apparently, the subject the man is being assessed in is Psychology of women, so hence the unisexual university board. The man is yet again told he has failed completely in the subject, and as he exits the university he is identified as Cheng (Ekin Cheng) by his colleagues. Not giving up, Cheng decides to continue with the subject, but at this time, his girlfriend decides to end their relationship. With no females to talk about and understand, he cannot continue with his essay. On top of that, his mother is getting increasingly worried that Cheng will not settle down, and urges him to marry. She introduces Cheng to her friend's daughter Yoyo (Charlene Choi), and tells them it is a good idea to marry. In this modern world, both Yoyo and Cheng sees this as ridiculous, but Cheng's grandmother is 93 years old and she wants Cheng to marry too. So in the end, Cheng was forced to marry Yoyo, who was 18 at the time, tending to a contract that they will divorce within a year, and no sexual relationship will occur. Yoyo agreed based on the fact that Cheng was quite wealthy, and she saw that as an opportunity to feed her lifestyle. By chance, Cheng became Yoyo's teacher, and she has to hide the relationship from her school and her crush Kelvin. As life continues slowly, various things occur, and Yoyo slowly finds herself falling in love with Cheng.
1790342	Thomas Stewart "Tom" Baker (born 20 January 1934) is an English actor. He is best known for his role as the fourth incarnation of the Doctor in the science fiction television series "Doctor Who", which he played from 1974 to 1981. Early life. Baker was born in Scotland Road, Liverpool, England. His mother, Mary Jane (née Fleming), was a cleaner, and his father, John Stewart Baker, was a sailor who was rarely at home. His parents were working class Liverpudlians. Baker left school at 15 to become a Roman Catholic monk and remained in this lifestyle for six years, but left after losing his faith. He did his national service in the Royal Army Medical Corps, serving from 1955 until 1957. At the same time, he took up acting, first as a hobby but he turned professional towards the end of the 1960s. Career. Early work. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, Baker was part of the National Theatre Company, then headed by Laurence Olivier, and had his first big film break with the role of Grigori Rasputin in the film "Nicholas and Alexandra" (1971) after Olivier had recommended him for the part. He was nominated for two Golden Globe Awards for his performance, one for Best Actor in a Supporting Role and another for Best Newcomer. Baker appeared as Moore, an artist whose paintings are imbued with voodoo power, in "The Vault of Horror" (1973) and as Koura, the villainous sorcerer, in Ray Harryhausen's "The Golden Voyage of Sinbad" (1973). He also appeared in Pier Paolo Pasolini's 1972 version of Geoffrey Chaucer's "The Canterbury Tales" as the younger husband of the Wife of Bath. "Doctor Who" (1974–81). In 1974, Baker took over the role of the Doctor from Jon Pertwee to become the Fourth Doctor in the BBC TV series. He was recommended to producer Barry Letts by the BBC's Head of Serials, Bill Slater, who had directed Baker in a "Play of the Month" production of Shaw's play "The Millionairess". Impressed by Baker upon meeting him, Letts was convinced he was right for the part after seeing his performance in "The Golden Voyage of Sinbad". Baker was working on a construction site at the time, as acting jobs were scarce. Initially he was dubbed "Boiler Suit Tom" by the media because he had been supplied for a press conference with some old studio set clothes to replace his modest garments. He quickly made the part his own. As the Fourth Doctor, his eccentric style of dress and speech (particularly his trademark long scarf and fondness for jelly babies) made him an immediately recognisable figure, and he quickly caught the viewing public's imagination. Baker played the Doctor for seven consecutive seasons over a seven-year period, making him the longest-serving actor in the part. Baker himself suggested many aspects of his Doctor's personality, but the distinctive scarf was created by accident. James Acheson, the costume designer assigned to his first story, had provided far more wool than was necessary to the knitter, Begonia Pope; Pope knitted all the wool she was given. It was Baker who suggested that he wear the ridiculously long scarf, which he did once it had been shortened a bit to make it more manageable. When John Nathan-Turner took over as producer of "Doctor Who" in 1981, Tom Baker was infuriated by the changes made to his wardrobe. The Doctor played by Tom Baker (1974–1981) is often regarded as the most popular of the Doctors. In polls conducted by "Doctor Who Magazine", Baker has lost the "Best Doctor" category only three times: once to Sylvester McCoy in 1990, and twice to David Tennant in 2006 and 2009. In a poll published by "BBC Homes and Antiques" magazine in January 2006, Baker was voted the fourth most eccentric star. He was beaten by Björk, Chris Eubank, and David Icke. He continues to be associated with the Doctor, appearing on documentaries such as "The Story of Doctor Who" and "Doctor Who Confidential" and giving interviews about his time on the programme. He reappeared as the Doctor for the 1993 charity special "Dimensions in Time" and audio for the PC game "Destiny of the Doctors". In 1996 he appraised his time on the show as the highlight of his life. He is often interviewed as part of documentaries on the extras of "Doctor Who" DVD releases from his era as the Doctor and has recorded DVD commentaries for many of the stories. In a 2004 interview regarding the series' revival, Baker suggested that he be cast as the Master. In a 2006 interview with "The Sun" newspaper, he claims that he has not watched any episodes of the new series because he "just can't be bothered". In June 2006, Baker once again expressed interest in the role in a guest column for "Radio Times", noting that he "did watch a little bit of the new "Doctor Who" and I think the new fella, Tennant, is excellent."
1164882	Dennis Henry Burkley (September 10, 1945 – July 14, 2013) was an American character actor from Texas who appeared in numerous films and television series in a career spanning four decades. Early life. Burkley was born in Van Nuys, California, the son of Imogene (née Ware) and Henry Burkley. He grew up in Grand Prairie, Texas and graduated from Texas Christian University. Career. In the 1980s and 1990s appearances, Burkley was most recognizable for his large frame (, ), scruffy beard and Southern accent, though in more recent appearances he lost a significant amount of weight and had a less slovenly appearance in terms of hair and attire.
1377306	Pixel Perfect is a 2004 Disney Channel Original Movie. It aired in the United States on January 16, 2004 and in the United Kingdom on January 21, 2004. This is the 50th Disney Channel Original Movie. Plot. Pixel Perfect begins with sixteen-year old Roscoe trying to help his best friend Samantha. Sam's band, the Zetta Bytes, is struggling. Despite her vocal talents and guitar skills, Sam is told that she needs to dance in order for their band to succeed. Roscoe uses his father's holographic equipment to create a sentient human hologram named Loretta to dance for the band. At their first gig, a school dance, Loretta is a big hit with the audience. The entire band loves her, except for Sam, who is jealous of Loretta's "perfection" and suspects that Roscoe likes Loretta more than her. Despite her feelings, Sam agrees to take care of Loretta to keep Roscoe's dad from finding and deleting her. With Loretta in the band, the Zetta Bytes manage to land a gig at a club that had previously turned them away. Their second performance goes well - until the very end when Loretta starts to lose her pattern and the crowd realizes she is a hologram. After a moment of silence, the crowd erupts in applause. The novelty of a holographic rockstar catapults the Zetta Bytes to fame. Sam becomes jealous of the attention Loretta is receiving while Loretta struggles with her identity as a hologram. She wants to experience life as a real human being in a physical body. After a major argument with Roscoe, Loretta escapes into the internet, and e-mails herself to Sam's computer. Roscoe becomes frantic and realizes he may have feelings for Loretta. When Roscoe tracks down Loretta, Sam kisses him and argues that she is real, not Loretta.
568213	The Bothersome Man () is a Norwegian film from 2006. It was directed by Jens Lien after a script by Per H. V. Schreiner. In the main roles were Trond Fausa Aurvåg, Petronella Barker and Per Schaaning. The story is about a man suddenly finding himself in an outwardly perfect, yet essentially soulless dystopia, and his attempt to escape. The film was well received by critics, and was awarded three Amanda Awards in 2006. Synopsis. As the movie begins, Andreas Ramsfjell (Trond Fausa Aurvåg) is underground in a train station watching a couple kiss; however, the kiss lacks any sign of aesthetics - on the contrary, it looks hideous and abominable. Andreas seems to be increasingly unsettled until eventually he steps forward and jumps off the track in front of a subway train and the scene abruptly ends. When he awakes he is on a bus which lets him off at a deserted gas station in the middle of nowhere. An older man greets Andreas with a welcome sign and escorts him into a car. From here he makes his way into an ideal city, where he soon finds himself with a corporate job, a furnished apartment and a beautiful girlfriend (Petronella Barker). The seemingly perfect life soon proves to be vacuous. Andreas seems to be the only person in the city capable of experiencing sensation and emotion. The only respite from the emptiness is a meaningless materialism. As the slightly uncomfortable turns into the absurd, Andreas tries to escape, but finds there is no way out of the city. Not even suicide. Eventually he meets Hugo (Per Schaaning), a cleaner who has found a crack in the walls of his basement from which lovely music streams out. The two dig frantically, in secret, through the wall and discover it leads into a house, presumably back in the real world. Andreas manages to get his arm into the house and grabs a handful of cake from the table, but both of them are caught and dragged out of the basement. Andreas gets thrown out of the city on the same bus that brought him there. The film ends with a violent ride into a frozen wasteland where the bus leaves Andreas, bewildered, distraught and alone. Production. The story for the film was originally written for radio theatre, two years before it was adapted for the screen. Director Jens Lien tells that he was very affected by Schreiner's script, and that the first time he read it he was unable to sleep. Schreiner and Lien had earlier collaborated on short films, but this was the first feature-length movie they made together. The movie was chosen for the Critics' Week of the Cannes Film Festival, and jury member Christophe Leparc expressed great admiration for the film. The "lovely music" in the basement is actually a recording made for thereminvox.com by theremin veteran Howard Mossman, who remains uncredited. Reception. "Den brysomme mannen" was generally very well received by the Norwegian press. The newspaper "Aftenposten" awarded five out of six points, calling the movie "advanced" and filled with literary and filmatic references, yet not without a wider appeal. The television station "NRK" also ended up on five, calling the film thought-provoking and funny, and "very, very good". International reviews were good. Steve Rose, writing for "The Guardian", gave it three out of five stars. Noting the cultural references to other dystopic works, he complained that the movie failed to get "beneath the surface of this shallow parallel reality". The A.V. Club's Noel Murray called the movie "paced and plotted well throughout", though he felt it veered "too far into fantasyland" towards the end. The film was awarded three Amandas in 2006: for "Best Direction", "Best Screenplay" and "Best Actor" (Aurvåg). It was also nominated in the categories "Best Film" and "Best Actress" (Barker). The movie also won several international awards, including the ACID Award (Agence du Cinéma Indépendant pour sa Diffusion) at the Cannes Film Festival, and the Golden Starfish at the Hampton International film festival. Soundtrack. The film heavily features music by Edvard Grieg. The score is composed by the Norwegian composer Ginge. Locations. The volcanic desert scenes were shot in Iceland (source - director q&a on YouTube)
1255511	The Army of Crime () is a 2009 French drama-war film directed by Robert Guédiguian and based on a story by Serge Le Péron, one of three credited for the screenplay. It received a wide release in France on 16 September 2009 and opened in the United States in 2010. The film deals with the events of the Affiche Rouge ("red poster") affair. The title was taken from the caption on a propaganda poster, in which the Nazis sought to present prominent resistance fighters as foreign criminals. The caption read "Liberators? Liberation by the army of crime". Plot. In Paris during the German occupation, an ill-assorted group of resistance fighters commits disorganized attacks. Missak Manouchian, an Armenian exile, is ready to help but is reluctant to kill; for him, being ready to die but not to kill is an ethical matter. However, circumstances lead him to abandon his reluctance. Under his leadership, the group structures and plans its actions and thus the Manouchian network is born. The film traces the story of this group, from its shaping to the execution of its members in 1944. Reception. Critical. It was screened out of competition at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival on 17 May 2009. The film received largely positive reviews from French critics, with the website AlloCiné awarding it a score of 3.52 out of 5.00 based on twenty-five major reviews. "Positif"'s Jean A. Gili praised the film as "spectacular" while "Libération"'s Didier Péron lamented the fact that the director seemed "paralyzed with respect" towards his subject, praising the young cast for its efforts in making the film seem fresh. In "Paris Match", Alain Spira similarly stated that the film suffered from classicism and that emotion had trouble reaching the audience. In "Première", Véronique Le Bris criticized the time taken to introduce the various characters. In one of the more negative reviews, Pierre Murat wrote for "Télérama" that while respectful, the film was insignificant and looked like a TV movie. "The Army of Crime" fared well with international critics, with the website Screenrush awarding it a score of four out of five based on six major British reviews. Peter Brunette of "The Hollywood Reporter" wrote a positive review after seeing the film at Cannes, saying, "Though it drags here and there and is a bit flat in places, the film is solidly made and for the most part quite involving". In "The Independent", Anthony Quinn described the film as "sombre and gripping" while Dave Calhoun wrote in "Time Out" that the film is "always fascinating". In some of the worst reviews, "The Sun" compared the film to "Inglourious Basterds", stating that Tarantino's film was "a lot more fun" and "The Financial Times"s Nigel Andrews mused that it felt "like every resistance movie you have ever seen". Financial. Opening in 250 screens, "The Army of Crime" debuted at a disappointing number 7 at the French box office, making it the second highest grossing new release of that week following "District 9", which debuted at the number one spot with almost twice as many screens. The film grossed just over 772,000 Euros in its first five days of release and as of 20 October 2009 has attracted 349,940 viewers to French theaters. Home video. "The Army of Crime" was released in France on DVD and Blu-ray Disc on 19 January 2010.
583406	Agni Varsha is a 2002 critically acclaimed epic Hindi film directed by Arjun Sajnani. The film is a silver screen adaptation of Girish Karnad's "Mahabharat "play "The Fire and The Rain". The film's art direction was handled by Shashidhar Adapa and Choreography was handled by Prabhu Deva. Plot. In a kingdom stricken with drought for past few years, Arvasu (Milind Soman), a brahman loves Nittilai (Sonali Kulkarni) a tribal girl, who seeks approval of her father and village's elders before marrying him. Arvasu's brother, Parvasu (Jackie Shroff) has been conducting a major prayer ceremony to appease god of rains, Indra (Amitabh Bachchan). Arvasu's father, Raibhya dislikes both his sons and suspects Vishaka (Raveena Tandon) Parvasu's wife, of having an affair with Yavakri (Nagarjuna),based on the fact that Yavarki and Vishaka loved each other, before Yavarki left village to worship Devraj Indra. On day of his return, Yavakri finds Vishakha returning from well. She at first refuses him but ultimately gives up and they start making love in the woods. Nittilai and Aravasu see them.
567664	The Boss of It All () is a 2006 Danish comedy film written and directed by Lars von Trier. Plot. The owner of an IT company wishes to sell it. But, for years, he has pretended that the real boss lives in America and communicates with the staff only by e-mail. That way, all the unpopular decisions can be attributed to the absentee manager, while all the popular ones to him directly. But now, the prospective buyer insists on meeting the big boss in person. In a panic, the owner hires a failed, over-intellectualizing actor to portray this imaginary boss, and the actor proceeds to improvise all his lines, to the consternation of both the buyer and the company staff, who finally get to meet their ghostly boss. Critical reaction. The reaction to the film has been rather positive. Scoring a 75% average on Rotten Tomatoes, it has become von Trier's most critically acclaimed work since 1996's "Breaking the Waves" scored an 84% average. The film was also nominated for two Bodil Awards, three Robert Festival Honours and the Golden Seashell at the San Sebastián International Film Festival. Mia Lyhne won the best supporting actress award at the Zulu Awards in 2007. Remake. On February 23, 2011, it was announced that "Arrested Development" creator Mitch Hurwitz was remaking "The Boss of It All" for Universal Pictures with Brian Grazer producing.
393481	Baby and I () is a 2008 South Korean film about a rebellious 18-year old guy who ends up caring for an unknown baby boy. Plot. Baby and I is the story of a high school student (Han Joon Su) who is a troublemaker. He always quarrels with his
1005943	Andrew Eppley Shue (born February 20, 1967) is an American actor, known for his role as Billy Campbell on the television series "Melrose Place" (1992–1998). He is on the Board of Directors for "Do Something" (which he co-founded) and is the co-founder of the social networking website CafeMom. Early life. Shue was born in Wilmington, Delaware. His mother, Anne Brewster (née Wells), is a bank executive who was the vice president of the private division of the Chemical Bank Corporation. His father, James Shue (d. May 24, 2013), was a lawyer and real estate developer who was the president of the International Food and Beverage Corporation and was active in Republican politics, having once unsuccessfully run for the U.S. Congress in New Jersey. His mother was a descendant of Pilgrim leader William Brewster and his father has German ancestry from Pennsylvania. His sister, Elisabeth, is also an actress. Shue attended Columbia High School in Maplewood, New Jersey. As a young boy, he attended YMCA Camp Widjiwagan, backpacking in the Absaroka Range with a friend from the midwest. Along with his sister, actress Elisabeth Shue, he was inducted into the CHS Hall of fame in 1994. At Dartmouth College, as he was in high school, Shue was a Regional All America soccer player and spent a winter studying and playing soccer in Glasgow, Scotland for Queen's Park FC. Shue received his B.A. in history from Dartmouth in 1989. After graduating, he visited Zimbabwe, where he simultaneously played soccer and taught high school math.
1065654	Never So Few is a 1959 CinemaScope war film, directed by John Sturges and starring Frank Sinatra, Gina Lollobrigida, Peter Lawford, Charles Bronson, Dean Jones, Brian Donlevy and Steve McQueen with uncredited roles by renowned Asian actors Mako, George Takei and James Hong. The script was loosely based on an actual OSS Detachment 101 incident recorded in a 1957 novel by Tom T. Chamales. Sinatra's role as Captain Tom Reynolds is based on the real life of an OSS officer and, later, a Sangamon County, Illinois Sheriff, Meredith Rhule. Plot. Shot on location in Burma, Thailand and Ceylon, the film follows Captain Tom Reynolds (Sinatra) and his fellow OSS operatives, Captain Grey Travis (Lawford) and Corporal Bill Ringa (McQueen), leading Kachin natives in fighting the Japanese in Burma in World War II despite a lack of support from their commanders.
1151526	The Ten is a 2007 American comedy film, directed by David Wain and cowritten by Wain and Ken Marino, released through ThinkFilm. The film was released on August 3, 2007. The DVD was released on January 15, 2008. Plot. Ten stories, each inspired by one of the Ten Commandments: A guy (Adam Brody) becomes a celebrity after falling out of a plane and becoming permanently embedded in the ground thanks to superstar agent (Ron Silver). After a swift rise to stardom, he becomes prideful and arrogant, referring to himself as a god. His career falls apart and he loses everything. His fiancée (Winona Ryder) leaves him for a TV anchor man. A librarian (Gretchen Mol) has a sexual awakening in Mexico with a swarthy local (Justin Theroux) who turns out to be Jesus Christ. She eventually settles down and marries her coworker (A. D. Miles), but is secretly reminded of her fling with Jesus whenever her family prays before a meal. A doctor (Ken Marino) kills his patient by leaving a pair of scissors inside her abdomen during surgery. Despite expecting the charges to be dropped because he left the scissors in "as a goof", the judge and jury sentence him to life in prison. The judge also disbars the plaintiff's lawyer, who is then told that he should consider a job as a tour guide at the local nuclear plant. A white mother (Kerri Kenney-Silver) enlists an Arnold Schwarzenegger impersonator (Oliver Platt) to be a father figure to her black children after telling them he is their biological father. It is revealed that their father is in reality Arsenio Hall, but they decide to keep the Arnold impersonator as part of the family; despite not being able to imitate Arsenio, he can do a pretty good Eddie Murphy impression. A police detective (Liev Schreiber) covets his neighbor's (Joe Lo Truglio) CAT Scan machine. After continuously buying additional CAT Scan machines to one up each other, both of their wives leave them. After hitting rock bottom, the two neighbors reconcile and go out for a drink. Meanwhile, a disaster at a nuclear power plant during a school tour (led by the former lawyer from the third story) leaves a busload of school children in need of several CAT Scan machines. They arrive at the neighbors' houses but the doors are locked and the two men are at the bar, so all the children die. A prisoner (Rob Corddry) desires a fellow inmate's "bitch" (the doctor from the third story) for his own. The woman (Winona Ryder) from the first story, having recently married the TV anchor man, falls in love with a ventriloquist (Michael Ziegfeld's) puppet, steals it and runs off to have a romantic relationship with it. The ventriloquist, having lost his dummy and become a homeless heroin addict, is told by another homeless man a story about an animated rhinoceros (voice of H. Jon Benjamin) who earns a reputation as a liar. After learning that a band of weiner dogs is intent on infecting others with a fatal STD, the rhinoceros tries to warn everyone. Unfortunately, nobody believes him, and they all succumb to the STD (following an orgy). It is then revealed that the rhinoceros now sells drugs to the homeless men. Jeff Reigert (Paul Rudd) presents all of these stories to the audience, while struggling with his own moral dilemma: having to choose between his beautiful wife (Famke Janssen) and his also beautiful but somewhat younger mistress (Jessica Alba). The husband from the second story (A.D. Miles) skips church with his family to get naked with his friends and listen to Roberta Flack. Reception. The film received mixed but generally negative reviews, scoring a 39% on Rotten Tomatoes and a 50 out of 100 on Metacritic.
584091	Pasanga (; ) is a 2009 Tamil film directed by debutant Pandiraj, who worked as an erstwhile assistant to Cheran. It stars numerous debutant child artists in the lead roles along with newcomer Vimal and "Saroja" fame Vega Tamotia in supporting roles. The film, produced by Sasikumar and scored by James Vasanthan, who both rose to fame with the 2008 hit film "Subramaniyapuram", released on 1 May 2009 to high critical acclaim, bagging three National Film Awards and several other awards at International Film Festivals. Plot. The story unfolds in a dry barren village. Anbukkarasu (Kishore), the protagonist, comes across Jeevanandam (Sree Raam), the son of the school teacher Nithyanandam, on the first day of school. Jeeva develops instant dislike for Anbu. The good-hearted Anbu tries to befriend Jeeva. However, Jeeva continues to hate Anbu with a passion. Enter Manonmani (Dharini), Jeeva's cousin, who develops affinity towards Anbu. This only makes Jeeva detest Anbu further. That Anbu excels not only in academics but also in extracurricular activities, contributes to widening the rift. A fight between Anbu and Jeeva escalates to involve their parents and this results in strife between their respective families as well. However, in a twist, Meenakshi Sundaram (Vimal), Anbu’s uncle falls in love with Soppikannu (Vega), the sister of Jeeva. The families get united when they agree to Meenakshi Sundaram’s wedding with Soppikannu, much against the wishes of Jeeva and Anbu. Whether Jeeva and Anbu reconcile their differences or not forms the climax. Awards. 2010 National Film Awards 2010 Filmfare Awards South 2010 Vijay Awards 2009 International Children's Film Festival 2009 Chennai International Film Festival 2010 Pondicherry Government Awards Music. Music and soundtracks were composed by "Subramaniyapuram" fame James Vasanthan. The soundtrack features four songs, the lyrics for which are written by Thamarai, Yugabharathi and James Vasanthan himself.
900286	Emanuelle and the Last Cannibals ("Emanuelle E Gli Ultimi Cannibali"; a.k.a. "Trap Them and Kill Them") is a 1977 Italian sexploitation film by Joe D'Amato. It is notable for its scenes of gore, which include rape, castration, cannibalism and disembowelment, and for being a mix of erotic and horror, something on which the director would later focus with his films "Porno Holocaust" and "Erotic Nights of the Living Dead". Cast. The film stars Laura Gemser, Gabriele Tinti, Donald O'Brien, and Susan Scott. Plot. Emanuelle is tasked with finding out the existence of a long lost tribe of cannibals.
1163150	Elaine Stritch (born February 2, 1925) is an American actress and vocalist. She has appeared in numerous stage plays and musicals, feature films, and many television programs. She is known for her performance of "The Ladies Who Lunch" in Stephen Sondheim's 1970 musical "Company", her 2001 one-woman show, "Elaine Stritch at Liberty", and recently for her role as Jack Donaghy's mother Colleen on NBC's "30 Rock." She has been nominated for the Tony Award five times in various categories. Stritch is also a three-time Emmy Award winner. Life and career. Early years. Elaine Stritch was born in 1925 in Detroit, Michigan, the youngest daughter of Mildred (née Jobe; 1893–1987), a homemaker, and George Joseph Stritch (1892–1987), an executive with B.F. Goodrich. Her family was wealthy and devoutly Roman Catholic. Stritch's father was of Irish descent and her mother was of Welsh descent. Samuel Cardinal Stritch, former Archbishop of Chicago, was one of her uncles. Stritch trained at the Dramatic Workshop of The New School in New York City under Erwin Piscator; other students at the Dramatic Workshop at this time included Marlon Brando and Bea Arthur. Beginning stage career. Stritch made her stage debut in 1944. However, her Broadway debut was in "Loco" in 1946, directed by Jed Harris, followed soon after by "Made in Heaven" (as a replacement) and then the revue "Angel in the Wings" (1947) in which she performed comedy sketches and the song "Civilization". Stritch understudied Ethel Merman for "Call Me Madam", and, at the same time, appeared in the 1952 revival of "Pal Joey", singing "Zip". Stritch later starred in the national tour of "Call Me Madam", and appeared in a supporting role in the original Broadway production of William Inge's play "Bus Stop". She was the lead in "Goldilocks".
1068368	Zardoz is a 1974 science fiction/fantasy film written, produced, and directed by John Boorman. It stars Sean Connery, Charlotte Rampling, and Sara Kestelman. "Zardoz" was Connery's second post-James Bond role (after "The Offence"). The film was shot by cinematographer Geoffrey Unsworth on a budget of US$1.57 million. Plot. In the year AD 2293, a post-apocalyptic Earth is inhabited mostly by the Brutals, who are ruled by the Eternals. Eternals use other Brutals, called Exterminators, as the Chosen warrior class. The Exterminators worship the god Zardoz, a huge, flying, hollow stone head. Zardoz teaches: The Zardoz god head supplies the Exterminators with weapons, while the Exterminators supply it with grain. Zed (Sean Connery), an Exterminator, hides himself within Zardoz for an initially unknown purpose. He shoots and apparently kills its pilot, Arthur Frayn (Niall Buggy), who has already identified himself as an Eternal in the story's prologue. The stone head containing Zed returns to the Vortex, a secluded community of civilised beings, protected all around by an invisible force-field, where the immortal Eternals lead a pleasant but ultimately stifling existence. Arriving in the Vortex, Zed meets two young, attractive female Eternals — Consuella (Charlotte Rampling) and May (Sara Kestelman). Overcoming him with psychic powers, they make him a prisoner and menial worker within their community. Consuella wants Zed destroyed immediately; others, led by May and a subversive Eternal named Friend (John Alderton), insist on keeping him alive for further study. In time, Zed learns the nature of the Vortex. The Eternals are overseen and protected from death by the Tabernacle, an artificial intelligence. Given their limitless lifespan, the Eternals have grown bored and corrupt. The needlessness of procreation has rendered the men impotent and meditation has replaced sleep. Others fall into catatonia, forming the social stratum the Eternals have named the "Apathetics". The Eternals spend their days stewarding mankind's vast knowledge, baking special bread for themselves from the grain deliveries and participating in communal navel gazing rituals. To give time and life more meaning the Vortex developed complex social rules whose violators are punished with artificial ageing. The most extreme offenders are condemned to permanent old age and the status of "Renegades". But any Eternals who somehow manage to die, usually through some fatal accident, are almost immediately reborn into another healthy, synthetically reproduced body that is identical to the one they just lost. Zed is less brutal and far more intelligent than the Eternals think he is. Genetic analysis reveals he is the ultimate result of long-running eugenics experiments devised by Arthur Frayn — the Zardoz god — who controlled the outlands with the Exterminators, thus coercing the Brutals to supply the Vortices with grain. Zardoz's aim was to breed a superman who would penetrate the Vortex and save mankind from its hopelessly stagnant status quo. The women's analysis of Zed's mental images earlier had revealed that in the ruins of the old world Arthur Frayn first encouraged Zed to learn to read, then leading him to the book "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz". Zed finally understands the origin of the name "Zardoz" — Wizard of Oz — bringing him to a true awareness of Zardoz as a skilful manipulator rather than an actual deity. He becomes infuriated with this realisation and decides to plumb the deepest depths of this enormous mystery. As Zed divines the nature of the Vortex and its problems, the Eternals use him to fight their internecine quarrels. Led by Consuella, the Eternals decide to kill Zed and to age Friend. Zed escapes and, aided by May and Friend, absorbs all the Eternals' knowledge, including that of the Vortex's origin, to destroy the Tabernacle. Zed helps the Exterminators invade the Vortex and kill most of the Eternals — who welcome death as a release from their eternal but boring existence. Some few Eternals do escape the Vortex's destruction, heading out to radically new lives as fellow mortal beings among the Brutals. "Zardoz" ends in a wordless sequence of images accompanied by the sombre second movement (allegretto) of Beethoven's Seventh Symphony. Zed and Consuella, dressed in matching green suits and having fallen in love, then sit next to each other in the cave-like stone head and age in time-lapse. A baby boy appears, matures and leaves his parents. The couple eventually decompose into skeletons and finally nothing remains in the space but painted hand-prints on the wall and Zed's Webley-Fosbery revolver. Reception. Roger Ebert called it a "genuinely quirky movie, a trip into a future that seems ruled by perpetually stoned set decorators ... The movie is an exercise in self-indulgence (if often an interesting one) by Boorman, who more or less had "carte blanche" to do a personal project after his immensely successful "Deliverance"." Jay Cocks of "Time" called the film "visually bounteous", with "bright intervals of self-deprecatory humor that lighten the occasional pomposity of the material." Nora Sayre, in a 7 February 1974 review for "The New York Times", called "Zardoz" a melodrama that is a "good deal less effective than its special visual effects" ... a film "more confusing than exciting even with a frenetic, shoot-em-up climax." Decades later, Channel 4 called it "Boorman's finest film" and a "wonderfully eccentric and visually exciting sci-fi quest" that "deserves reappraisal." As of May 2012, "Zardoz" has a rating of 44% on the review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes. The film is listed in Golden Raspberry Award founder John Wilson's book "The Official Razzie Movie Guide" as one of the The 100 Most Enjoyably Bad Movies Ever Made. Despite being a commercial failure and mostly panned by critics, "Zardoz" has since developed a large cult following and found success on the home video market.
1165489	Jonathan Harris (born Jonathan Charasuchin; November 6, 1914 – November 3, 2002) was an American character actor. Two of his best-known roles were as the timid accountant Bradford Webster in the TV version of "The Third Man" and the comic villain Dr. Zachary Smith of the 1960s science fiction television series "Lost in Space". Near the end of his career, he provided the voice of "Manny", a praying mantis in the animated feature "A Bug's Life". Early life. The second of three children, Harris was born to a poor family in The Bronx, New York City. His parents were Sam and Jennie Charasuchin, Russian Jewish immigrants who eked out a living in Manhattan's garment district. His family resided in a six-tenant apartment complex. To raise money, his mother took in boarders, some of whom were given Jonathan's bed, forcing Jonathan to sleep on the chairs in the dining room. From the age of 12, he worked as a pharmacy clerk.
1063706	The Object of My Affection is a 1998 romantic comedy film, adapted from the book of the same title by Stephen McCauley, and starring Jennifer Aniston and Paul Rudd. The story concerns a pregnant New York social worker who develops romantic feelings for her gay best friend, and the complications that ensue. The film is directed by Nicholas Hytner, the screenplay written by Wendy Wasserstein. The movie was filmed in 1997 in various locations around New York City, New Jersey, and Connecticut. Plot. Social worker Nina Borowski (Jennifer Aniston) is a bright young woman living in a cozy Brooklyn apartment. Nina attends a party given by her stepsister Constance (Allison Janney) and her husband, Sidney (Alan Alda). There Nina meets George Hanson (Paul Rudd), a young, handsome, and gay first grade teacher. Nina tells George that her stepsister is constantly trying to fix her up with somebody from higher society, completely ignoring the fact that Nina has a boyfriend, Vince (John Pankow). During the conversation, Nina offers George a room in her apartment as she has just heard from his boyfriend, Dr. Robert Joley (Tim Daly), that George is looking for somewhere to live. George, not knowing about Robert's plans, is taken aback and heartbroken, and after the party the two split up. George accepts Nina's offer and moves into her apartment. The two soon become best friends; they watch films together and go ballroom dancing. Everything is perfect until Nina announces that she is pregnant. Vince (the baby's father) wants to marry her, but his constant care drives Nina crazy; she leaves him and asks George to help her bring up her child. For some time, they live together in her apartment in Brooklyn. Everything is perfect again until Nina finds that her love for George is growing every day, especially after he tells her he had a girlfriend in high school, leading her to believe he might change his ways. One afternoon, George and Nina are about to have sex when George gets a phone call from Robert who tells him how much he has missed him and invites him away for the weekend. George is confused but agrees to go. Nina feels threatened and gets jealous. George and Robert do not get back together, but George meets Paul James (Amo Gulinello), a young actor, and the two fall in love and have sex. Meanwhile, Nina is staying with Constance at a vacation mansion and is extremely moody. She has a horrible time and decides to head back home and asks George if he would return as well. She is mugged on the way back through the city, and then gets a ride home from a friendly police officer, Louis (Kevin Carroll). Nina and George decide to invite Paul and his elderly acting mentor, Rodney, over for Thanksgiving. Paul stays the night and has sex with George, resulting in a fallout between George and Nina. The following day, they start arguing again at George's brother's wedding. Nina fully explains to George her feelings for him. George, who loves Nina as his best friend, tells her that he wants to be with Paul. A few hours later, Nina gives birth to a beautiful girl whom she names Molly. Vince comes to visit the hospital, ecstatic, but, soon after arriving, he leaves to fill out paperwork leaving Nina and George alone with Molly. Nina asks George when he plans to move out to which he replies that he doesn't know. She asks him to please move out of her apartment before she gets home from hospital, stating that it would hurt her too much to have him stay any longer knowing that he doesn't love her. The end of the film takes place at George's school eight years later, in which all of the characters go to see Molly in a musical production that George has directed. Nina is now in a relationship with Louis, and George is with Paul, both of them now happy. The film ends as Nina, George, and young Molly (Sarah Hyland) (who refers to George as her "Uncle George") walk together down the sidewalk, hand-in-hand, on their way to get coffee. Release. Box office. "The Object of My Affection" was released in US theaters on April 17, 1998, and took in $9,725,855 on its opening weekend, coming in at No. 2 at the box office in 1,890 theaters, averaging $5,146 per theater. The film went on to gross $29,187,243 in the United States alone, over a span of five weekends. The film continued to open in European countries throughout the fall and winter of 1998, and ultimately grossed $17,718,646 outside of the United States. Critical reception. Critical reaction to the film was mixed. Roger Ebert gave the film two stars, saying ""The Object of My Affection" deals with some real issues and has scenes that work, but you can see the wheels of the plot turning so clearly that you doubt the characters have much freedom to act on their own." Ruthe Stein of the "San Francisco Chronicle" said the film "occasionally borders on being too clever. But that's a small quibble about a movie that gets so much right."
1101903	Julius Wilhelm Richard Dedekind (October 6, 1831 – February 12, 1916) was a German mathematician who made important contributions to abstract algebra (particularly ring theory), algebraic number theory and the foundations of the real numbers. Life. Dedekind's father was Julius Levin Ulrich Dedekind, an administrator at Collegium Carolinum in Braunschweig. Dedekind had three older siblings. As an adult, he never employed the names Julius Wilhelm. He was born, lived most of his life, and died in Braunschweig (often called "Brunswick" in English). He first attended the Collegium Carolinum in 1848 before moving to the University of Göttingen in 1850. There, Dedekind studied number theory under Moritz Stern. Gauss was still teaching, although mostly at an elementary level, and Dedekind became his last student. Dedekind received his doctorate in 1852, for a thesis titled "Über die Theorie der Eulerschen Integrale" ("On the Theory of Eulerian integrals"). This thesis did not display the talent evident in Dedekind's subsequent publications. At that time, the University of Berlin, not Göttingen, was the leading center for mathematical research in Germany. Thus Dedekind went to Berlin for two years of study, where he and Riemann were contemporaries; they were both awarded the habilitation in 1854. Dedekind returned to Göttingen to teach as a "Privatdozent", giving courses on probability and geometry. He studied for a while with Peter Gustav Lejeune Dirichlet, and they became close friends. Because of lingering weaknesses in his mathematical knowledge, he studied elliptic and abelian functions. Yet he was also the first at Göttingen to lecture on Galois theory. Around this time, he became one of the first to understand the fundamental importance of the notion of groups for algebra and arithmetic. In 1858, he began teaching at the Polytechnic in Zürich (today ETH Zürich). When the Collegium Carolinum was upgraded to a "Technische Hochschule" (Institute of Technology) in 1862, Dedekind returned to his native Braunschweig, where he spent the rest of his life, teaching at the Institute. He retired in 1894, but did occasional teaching and continued to publish. He never married, instead living with his unmarried sister Julia. Dedekind was elected to the Academies of Berlin (1880) and Rome, and to the French Academy of Sciences (1900). He received honorary doctorates from the universities of Oslo, Zurich, and Braunschweig. Work. While teaching calculus for the first time at the Polytechnic, Dedekind came up with the notion now called a Dedekind cut (German: "Schnitt"), now a standard definition of the real numbers. The idea behind a cut is that an irrational number divides the rational numbers into two classes (sets), with all the members of one class (upper) being strictly greater than all the members of the other (lower) class. For example, the square root of 2 puts all the negative numbers and the numbers whose squares are less than 2 into the lower class, and the positive numbers whose squares are greater than 2 into the upper class. Every location on the number line continuum contains either a rational or an irrational number. Thus there are no empty locations, gaps, or discontinuities. Dedekind published his thoughts on irrational numbers and Dedekind cuts in his pamphlet "Stetigkeit und irrationale Zahlen" ("Continuity and irrational numbers"); in modern terminology, "Vollständigkeit", "completeness". In 1874, while on holiday in Interlaken, Dedekind met Cantor. Thus began an enduring relationship of mutual respect, and Dedekind became one of the very first mathematicians to admire Cantor's work on infinite sets, proving a valued ally in Cantor's battles with Kronecker, who was philosophically opposed to Cantor's transfinite numbers. If there existed a one-to-one correspondence between two sets, Dedekind said that the two sets were "similar." He invoked similarity to give the first precise definition of an infinite set: a set is infinite when it is "similar to a proper part of itself," in modern terminology, is equinumerous to one of its proper subsets. (This is known as Dedekind's theorem.) Thus the set N of natural numbers can be shown to be similar to the subset of N whose members are the squares of every member of N, (N → N2): Dedekind edited the collected works of Lejeune Dirichlet, Gauss, and Riemann. Dedekind's study of Lejeune Dirichlet's work was what led him to his later study of algebraic number fields and ideals. In 1863, he published Lejeune Dirichlet's lectures on number theory as "Vorlesungen über Zahlentheorie" ("Lectures on Number Theory") about which it has been written that: "Although the book is assuredly based on Dirichlet's lectures, and although Dedekind himself referred to the book throughout his life as Dirichlet's, the book itself was entirely written by Dedekind, for the most part after Dirichlet's death." (Edwards 1983) 1879 and 1894 editions of the "Vorlesungen" included supplements introducing the notion of an ideal, fundamental to ring theory. (The word "Ring", introduced later by Hilbert, does not appear in Dedekind's work.) Dedekind defined an ideal as a subset of a set of numbers, composed of algebraic integers that satisfy polynomial equations with integer coefficients. The concept underwent further development in the hands of Hilbert and, especially, of Emmy Noether. Ideals generalize Ernst Eduard Kummer's ideal numbers, devised as part of Kummer's 1843 attempt to prove Fermat's Last Theorem. (Thus Dedekind can be said to have been Kummer's most important disciple.) In an 1882 article, Dedekind and Heinrich Martin Weber applied ideals to Riemann surfaces, giving an algebraic proof of the Riemann–Roch theorem. Dedekind made other contributions to algebra. For instance, around 1900, he wrote the first papers on modular lattices. In 1888, he published a short monograph titled "Was sind und was sollen die Zahlen?" ("What are numbers and what should they be?" Ewald 1996: 790), which included his definition of an infinite set. He also proposed an axiomatic foundation for the natural numbers, whose primitive notions were one and the successor function. The following year, Peano, citing Dedekind, formulated an equivalent but simpler set of axioms, now the standard ones. Bibliography. Primary literature in English: Primary literature in German: Secondary: There is an online bibliography of the secondary literature on Dedekind. Also consult Stillwell's "Introduction" to Dedekind (1996).
1033137	Robert Kerr "Rikki" Fulton, OBE (15 April 1924 – 27 January 2004) was a Scottish comedian and actor best remembered for writing and performing in the long-running BBC Scotland sketch show, "Scotch and Wry". He was also known for his appearances as one half of the double act, Francie and Josie, alongside Jack Milroy. Suffering from Alzheimer's disease in his later years, Fulton died in 2004, aged 79 years. Biography. Early life. The youngest of three brothers, Robert Kerr Fulton was born into a non-theatrical family at 46 Appin Road, Dennistoun, Glasgow. Fulton's mother, who was 40 at the time of his birth, developed severe postpartum depression. Due to this, Fulton grew up a "solitary child" and developed a "voracious reading habit" throughout his childhood. His father was a master locksmith who changed professions, purchasing a newsagent and stationery shop at 28 Roebank Street, Dennistoun. At the age of three, Fulton and his family moved to Riddrie, another district of Glasgow. There he attended the local primary school, but later returned to Dennistoun, for his secondary education, at Whitehill Secondary School. Fulton completed his education in 1939 deciding to enter the world of acting, after a backstage visit at the Glasgow Pavilion Theatre. In 1941, aged seventeen, Fulton joined the Royal Navy. The following year, he was posted to HMS "Ibis" but that November, the sloop was sunk in the Bay of Algiers. Fulton spent five hours in the water before being rescued. He later joined the Coastal Forces for D-Day, travelling back and forth between Gosport and Arromanches with vital supplies. In 1945, four years after signing up, Fulton was invalided out of the Navy due to blackouts, leaving with the rank of sub-lieutenant. Career. Fulton began his professional acting career as a straight actor, mostly appearing in repertory theatre and BBC Radio, including "The Gowrie Conspiracy" in 1947. He also maintained a secondary job in the stationery business with his brothers. However, when the bank pulled money from their enterprise, Fulton gave his full attention to his acting career. In the early 1950s, Fulton moved to London and became the compère of "The Show Band Show", working alongside the likes of singer Frank Sinatra. After a short period, Fulton returned to Scotland to perform for Howard & Wyndham Ltd in pantomime from 1956 at the Alhambra Theatre, Glasgow with Jimmy Logan and Kenneth McKellar followed by the Five Past Eight summer revues with Stanley Baxter and Fay Lenore. In 1960 he headlined in the new Scottish pantomime A Wish for Jamie, with Kenneth McKellar and Fay Lenore premiered at the Alhambra Theatre Glasgow, and in its sequel A Love for Jamie which ran for three consecutive winters. He starred in pantomime and Five Past Eight in Edinburgh and Aberdeen. While working at the King's Theatre, Edinburgh, Fulton met comedian Jack Milroy. Together, they created a stage double act named "Francie and Josie", two teddy boys from Glasgow. In one of his first forays into television, Fulton brought the act to television in 1962's Scottish Television series, "The Adventures of Francie and Josie". The series established both Fulton and Milroy as household names in their native country. In 1970 and 1989, Fulton and Milroy were named Scotland's "Light Entertainers of the Year". Fulton continued to perform regularly in pantomime and in straight theatre, mostly notably with the Royal Lyceum Company in Edinburgh and the Scottish Theatre Company based in Glasgow. However, it was the comedy sketch show, "Scotch and Wry", that became an institution at Hogmanay. The series featured one of Fulton's most remembered characters, the Reverend IM Jolly, a dour minister prone to inappropriate television conversations. The series began in 1978 and continued for 15 years, shown only once throughout the United Kingdom in 1983. Fulton was named Scottish Television Personality of the Year in 1963 and 1979. In 1982, Fulton made an appearance in the film, "Gorky Park", where he played a KGB officer. Director Michael Apted chose Fulton for the role, because "he had never seen such cruel eyes". He also performed in Bill Forsyth's "Local Hero" and "Comfort and Joy". In 1985, under the pseudonym "Rabaith", Fulton, along with Denise Coffey, adapted the French playwright Molière's, "Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme" as "A Wee Touch o' Class". He performed in the lead role at that year's Edinburgh Fringe; the Festival rebooked it for the following year and it went on tour throughout Scotland. Fulton made several guest appearances in other BBC Scotland programmes. Alongside his "Scotch and Wry" co-stars, Gregor Fisher and Tony Roper, Fulton made two appearances in "Rab C. Nesbitt"; once in 1988 and ten years later in 1998. In 1992, Fulton was awarded the Order of the British Empire and a year later, the Lifetime Achievement award from BAFTA Scotland. In 1994, he again appeared alongside Fisher as Dan McPhail, The Vital Spark's engineer, in "The Tales of Para Handy". In 1996, after 36 years of performing as Francie and Josie, Fulton and Milroy appeared in their "Final Farewell" at the King's Theatre, Glasgow. Milroy later died in 2001, aged 85 years. Fulton's last full performance on television came in 1998, his second appearance in "Rab C. Nesbitt". Although he would reprise his famous Rev I.M Jolly character one last time for a short skit on New Year's Eve 1999 as part of the "Millennium" celebrations. After saying his final goodbye to television, Fulton wrote and published his autobiography, "Is It That Time Already?". In 1994, Fulton was awarded an honorary Doctor of Arts from Abertay University, Dundee, in 1995 an honorary Doctor of Letters from the University of Strathclyde and in 2000, another honorary Doctor of Letters from the University of St Andrews. Personal life. Fulton was first married to actress Ethel Scott, with whom he appeared on "The Rikki Fulton Show" in 1960 and 1961. While separated from their respective partners, Fulton met Audrey Matheson Craig-Brown (known as Kate Matheson), an actress 13 years his junior. Matheson saw Fulton perform in a production of Noël Coward's "Hay Fever", but it would be 17 years before they met in person. After one day together, Fulton proposed; the couple marrying in 1969. In 1976, Matheson became pregnant but later lost the baby. In 1998, Fulton began to display symptoms of Alzheimer's disease. In 2004, his wife Kate recalled "he returned home, and, devastated, told her, "I can't remember lines any more." In 2002, after being diagnosed with the disease, Fulton remained at his own home and fronted that year's Alzheimer Scotland Christmas appeal. However, he grew to depend on his wife more and more. It was decided that Fulton would go into care and was moved into the Quayside nursing home. In 2003, after breaking his hip in a fall, he was admitted to the Western Infirmary and then to Gartnavel Royal Hospital for assessment. After contracting the superbug MRSA, and returning to the Quayside home, Fulton died peacefully in 2004, aged 79 years. Fulton's death sparked numerous dedications in his memory. The then-BBC Scotland Controller, John McCormick, said "he was a legend for people across the whole country." Fulton's funeral took place 6 days after his death. In tribute to his "Scotch and Wry" character, Supercop (a police traffic officer), police motorcyclists escorted the funeral cortège as it made its way to Clydebank Crematorium. The Reverend Alastair Symington, who was a close friend of Fulton, led the service, which also featured tributes from Fulton's wife and Tony Roper. Symington had previously collaborated with Fulton on the book, "For God's Sake, Ask!". Fulton's widow, Kate Matheson, died in 2005 after completing a book about her relationship with Fulton, entitled "Rikki & Me". For her funeral in Glasgow, Matheson requested no black ties should be worn, because "we [she and Fulton together again". Both Rikki and his wife Kate were both strong supporters of the Scottish SPCA, of which received a financial donation following Fultons funeral. A Scottish SPCA Inspector attended his funeral as a representative of the Animal Wefare Organisation.
584912	Narasimha Naidu () is a 2001 Tollywood film, directed by B. Gopal, released on 11 January 2001. The movie stars Nandamuri Balakrishna, Simran Bagga, Preeti Jhangiani, Asha Saini, K Vishwanath, Mukesh Rishi. It was remade into Tamil as "Ezhumulai" starring Arjun Sarja, Simran Bagga, Ashish Vidyarthi. There is Hindi version of it named "Main hun Rangbaaz". Plot. There are two neighboring villages in Rayalaseema. Goons head one village and Raghupati Naidu (K Vishwanath) is heading another village. As Raghupati Naidu is peace loving, his village is dogged by the misdeeds of goons from the neighboring village. In order to save the future of his village, Raghupati Naidu asks one male kid from each family to be given for the purpose of saving the village. Raghupati Naidu selected his fourth son Narasimha Naidu as his family's contribution towards the security of the village. All these kids will be trained and prepared to protect the village. After 15 years, Anjali (Preethi Jingyani), the niece of Jaya Prakash, who happens to be from the goons' village who later settled in another village. Narasimha Naidu sets up a naatya ashram to teach classical dance to the students. Anjali falls in love with Narasimha Naidu at the first sight. Anjali joins Narasimha Naidu as the student and tries to make Narasimha Naidu fall in love with her. Later on, she comes to know that Narasimha Naidu is already married and he has a kid too who is growing in the ashram. Narasimha Naidu is a widower as his wife Sravanthi (Simran) is no more. Anjali tries to get closer to the kid so that she can then marry Narasimha Naidu. The parents of Anjali fix up the marriage of Anjali with one of their relatives. When the uncle of Anjali comes to know that she is in love with a widowed dance master; he attacks him and threatens him that he would kill the kid. When they find Anjali missing, the entire battalion of goons invades the ashram of dance master only to find that he flew away. Narasimha Naidu, after coming to know that goons were coming to attack him, vacates the ashram and boards the train. At the same time Anjali too boards the train, though Narasimha Naidu rejects it. Then a fleet 16 Whites Sumos containing goons chases the train using a parallel road. And they over take train and stop it forcibly at a station. Then we have around 100-armed goons surrounding the train and vying for the blood of Narasimha Naidu. After a couple of minutes Narasimha Naidu gets down the train showing his back to them. And then turns around. The moment, the goons realize that the dance master is none but Narasimha Naidu; they leave all their arms and run away to save their dear lives. Then Narasimha Naidu explains Anjali his past. yes,, Raghupati Naidu realizes that no parents in the village is willing to marry off their daughter to Narasimha Naidu since he is meant for sacrificing for the safety of village. At that point of time Raghupati Naidu selects a beautiful girl called Sravanti for his son. But Sravanti is too sensitive and hates anything to do with violence. Hence Raghupati Naidu asks Narasimha Naidu to act as a soft guy who has liking for classical dance. After marriage Sravanti realizes the fact and decides to live with it. Narasimha Naidu's three elder brothers arrive along with their families. Narasimha Naidu has lot of love and adulation for his brothers whereas they treat him very bad which Narasimha Naidu takes in good sense. After a few days Sravanthi blasts at those guys who are making mockery of Narasimha Naidu. Then they complain about Sravanti to Narasimha Naidu. Being upset about this, Narasimha Naidu sends Sravanti to her parents place. At her parents place, Sravanthi gives birth to a kid. The brothers of Narasimha Naidu are still upset with the insult that is made to them by Sravanthi and decides to leave back to the states. They arrange for the police security and refuses Narasimha Naidu to accompany them. During this period, the goons plan to kill on the brothers of Narasimha Naidu one end and son and wife of Narasimha Naidu on the other end. Finally Narasimha Naidu marries Anjali. Soundtrack. The soundtrack and background score for the movie are composed by Mani Sharma. The audio rights of the soundtrack were purchased by Aditya Music. Awards: Nandi Award for Best Actor (Nandamuri Balakrishna)– Narasimha Naidu (2001).
1162395	Patricia Campbell "Patty" Hearst (born February 20, 1954), now known as Patricia Campbell Hearst Shaw, is an American newspaper heiress, socialite, actress, kidnap victim, and convicted bank robber. Her kidnapping case is held by many as an example of Stockholm syndrome. The granddaughter of publishing magnate William Randolph Hearst, she gained notoriety in 1974 when she joined the Symbionese Liberation Army after they had kidnapped her. Apprehended after having taken part in a bank heist with other SLA members, Hearst was imprisoned for almost two years before her sentence was commuted by President Jimmy Carter. She was later granted a presidential pardon by President Bill Clinton in his last official act before leaving office. Early life. Hearst was born in San Francisco, California, the third of five daughters of Randolph Apperson Hearst and Catherine Wood Campbell. She grew up primarily in Hillsborough. She attended Crystal Springs School for Girls in Hillsborough and the Santa Catalina School in Monterey. Among her few close friends she counted Patricia Tobin, whose family founded the Hibernia Bank, a branch of which Hearst would later aid in robbing. Kidnapping and the SLA. On February 4, 1974, the 19-year-old Hearst was kidnapped from her Berkeley, California apartment, which she shared with her fiancé Steven Weed, by a left-wing urban guerrilla group called the Symbionese Liberation Army. When the attempt to swap Hearst for jailed SLA members failed, the SLA demanded that the captive's family distribute $70 worth of food to every needy Californian – an operation that would cost an estimated $400 million. In response, Hearst's father arranged the immediate donation of $6 million worth of food to the poor of the Bay Area. After the distribution of food, the SLA refused to release Hearst because they deemed the food to have been of poor quality. (In a subsequent tape recording released to the press, Hearst commented that her father could have done better.) On April 3, 1974, Hearst announced on an audiotape that she had joined the SLA and assumed the name "Tania" (inspired by the "nom de guerre" of Haydée Tamara Bunke Bider, Che Guevara's comrade). For this reason, she is often referred to as a victim of Stockholm Syndrome. On April 15, 1974, she was photographed wielding an M1 carbine while robbing the Sunset District branch of the Hibernia Bank at 1450 Noriega Street in San Francisco. Later communications from her were issued under the pseudonym "Tania" and asserted that she was committed to the goals of the SLA. A warrant was issued for her arrest and in September 1975, she was arrested by the FBI and SFPD in a San Francisco apartment with another SLA member, Wendy Yoshimura. FBI Agent Thomas Padden is credited with their actual arrests. Trial and imprisonment. While being booked into jail, she listed her occupation as "Urban Guerilla" and asked her attorney to relay the following message: "Tell everybody that I'm smiling, that I feel free and strong and I send my greetings and love to all the sisters and brothers out there." However, according to Hearst interviewer Margaret Singer, a noted authority on prisoners of war and other victims, including Maryknoll priests released from the People's Republic of China in the 1950s, this is not unusual in such cases. Singer strongly pleaded for understanding on Hearst's behalf before, during and after the trial. Court-appointed doctor Louis Jolyon West as well as interviewers Drs. Robert Jay Lifton and Martin Theodore Orne agreed. Lifton went so far as to state after a 15-hour interview with Hearst that she was a "classic case," about two weeks being needed for almost all persons undergoing that level of mind control to shuck off a good deal of the "gunk" that has filled the mind, as happened in his opinion with Hearst's case. "If (she) had reacted differently, that would have been suspect" and Hearst was "a rare phenomenon (in a first-world nation)… the first and as far as I know the only victim of a political kidnapping in the United States" were direct quotes from Hearst's autobiography attributed to the doctor. Dr. West firmly asserted that while Donald "Cinque" DeFreeze and other movement members had used a rather coarse version, they did employ the classic Maoist formula for thought control; Hearst was young and apolitical enough to be at extreme risk and, in his professional experience, it would have even broken many experienced soldiers. In her trial, which commenced on January 15, 1976 (and in her dozens of previous interviews by FBI agents Charles Bates and Lawrence Lawler—any reference to which was not allowed by the presiding judge to be included in the trial), Hearst's attorney F. Lee Bailey claimed that Hearst had been blindfolded, imprisoned in a narrow closet and physically and sexually abused. Hearst's defense claimed that her actions were the result of a concerted brainwashing program. The prosecution countered with two experts: Dr. Joel Fort, who, unsolicited, had previously offered favorable testimony in paid service to the defense team, which was refused; and Dr. Harry L. Kozol, noted expert on neurological disorders, sex offenders and high-profile mentally ill criminals. He formerly had been the long term doctor for Eugene O'Neill and evaluated the confessed Boston Strangler, Albert DeSalvo, a case defended in 1967 by Bailey. Kozol claimed Hearst was "a rebel in search of a cause" and that the robbery had been "an act of free will." During a pre-trial interview, Hearst accurately described the apartment where the SLA was captured, but neglected to mention the narrow closet where she was allegedly confined. In Kozol’s view, Hearst’s omission confirmed the prosecution’s thesis: returning the embrace of the SLA, she had ceased to be a victim. The rebel had come out of the closet. When Kozol testified, Hearst turned “the dead white color of a fish’s belly,” according to journalist Shana Alexander. "Harry never lost the spirit of the law," Dr. Harold W. Williams, then a psychiatrist at McLean Hospital in Belmont, told "The New York Times" in 1976, when prosecutors asked Dr. Kozol to examine Hearst. "Harry is very much in personality a lawyer." Bailey argued that she had been coerced or intimidated into taking part in the bank robbery. However, she refused to give evidence against the other captured SLA members. This was seen as complicity by the prosecution team. Hearst was convicted of bank robbery on March 20, 1976. She was sentenced to seven years' imprisonment, but her sentence was later commuted to two years. Her prison term was also eventually commuted by President Jimmy Carter, and Hearst was released from prison on February 1, 1979, having served 22 months. She was granted a full pardon by President Bill Clinton on January 20, 2001. Personal life. After her release from prison, she married her former bodyguard, Bernard Shaw. She and Shaw have two children, Gillian and Lydia Hearst-Shaw, and reside in Garrison, New York. Hearst has occasionally granted interviews to national media regarding the SLA incidents and taken minor acting parts. Acting roles. Hearst has dabbled in a career as an actress.
592067	Just Math Mathalli (Just ಮಾತ್ ಮಾತಲ್ಲಿ) is a 2010 Kannada film of genre romance, directed by Sudeep starring himself, Ramya and Rajesh. The film follows Siddharth's search for Tanu to confess his love for her. Sudeep first approached producer Shanker Gowda to produce an action film which he wanted to direct. But, during discussions of the script, the topic of "Just Math Mathalli" came up and Shanker Gowda showed immense interest in producing it. Sudeep had no qualms about it and agreed to direct the film. The film released on January 29, 2010 to rave reviews. Plot. Siddharth (Sudeep), a singer in a rock band, leaves for Singapore from Bangalore. On the flight he meets Adi (Rajesh), a scriptwriter, who takes a liking to Siddharth and asks him about his trip to Singapore. Siddharth tells him that he was going in search of a girl, Tanu (Ramya) whom he liked. Adi, a scriptwriter, is amused and asks Siddharth to narrate his story about why he was trying to find her now. Siddharth begins narrating his experience which forms the greater part of the first half of the movie. Tanu's Story- Siddharth, standing at the precipice of a suicide point is looking down the cliff when Tanu, a stranger to Siddharth, pulls him back assuming he was attempting suicide and reprimands his act without allowing him to explain his actions. Siddharth walks away and sits by a lake. Again Tanu sees him and presumes he would jump into the water in his attempt to kill himself. She rushes to stop him again and gives him another dress-down. Disgusted, he goes to a tea stall by the road and orders for coffee. As he is adding sugar-free cubes into his coffee, Tanu notices him from a distance and again assuming that he is adding poison to his coffee rushes to his side and knocks down the tumbler from his hand before he takes his first sip. Siddharth, by now evidently tired of her unsolicited good Samaritan ways, lashes back. He tells her that he was only trying to see the depth of the cliff at the suicide point, and was trying to splash some water on his face at the lake and that he was adding sugar-free cubes into his glass, all of which she misunderstood as suicidal attempts by him. He walks away after assuring her that he is NOT suicidal. Later, at a railway station, while waiting for his train Siddharth sees Tanu running into the station trying to catch a departing train. She anyways misses the train and sits on a bench tired. She asks the station master directions to the toilet. She decides to use the sky-walk to reach the other side of the platform, where the toilet is. As she goes up the sky-walk, Siddharth who is sitting on a bench beside hers, notices a beggar who was sitting nearby, missing. He walks up the sky-walk and witnesses the beggar trying to steal gold bangles from Tanu. He shouts at the beggar and Tanu finds this distraction enough to kick the beggar in his groin and runs towards Siddharth. They both go down and sit on a bench exhausted. They introduce themselves and Siddharth suggests he keep the bangle for safekeeping. She agrees and he tucks the bangle into his backpack. Suddenly, Tanu sees the beggar walking back towards them with four more people. The couple make a dash for it and hide in a dark cattle shed with few oxen. One of baddies enters the shed and gets kicked by an ox. The others think that Siddharth hit their partner and run away scared. Next morning Tanu departs for her destination by the morning train. After she leaves, Siddharth realizes that her bangle is with him. He gets her address from a telephone booth from where she had earlier called home. He sets out to her hometown to return the bangle. He meets her and gives the bangle to her. She insists that he stay with her family for a few days. He agrees and she introduces him to her family members. Tanu falls in love with Siddaharth and he too starts liking her. On the day he is leaving, Tanu proposes her love to him. But, to her disbelief, he rejects her proposal. He then leaves to Bangalore. On the flight- Adi is shocked and wonders why he rejected her proposal. Siddharth narrates another incident which changed him to not get emotionally involved with girls. Flashback 3 years ago- Divya (Keerthi Gowda), a big fan of Siddharth proposes her love to him. He does not understand the seriousness of her craze for him and accepts her proposal just to hang around with her. Once at a mall along with Siddharth's band, he gets called on work. He informs Divya to go home as he has work to attend. Divya insists on going with him reasoning that since she is his girlfriend she should know about his work. Siddharth realizes that she had taken the relationship very seriously and admonishes her explaining that he did not want to get into a real relationship with her. He leaves her and goes away. She is lovelorn and commits suicide that night. Siddharth is depressed on realizing that he was the reason for her suicide decides never to get involved with girls. Tanu's story- Siddharth narrates his Tanu experience to a friend who advises him get her as he loves her. He goes back to her house only to find that she has left to Singapore. And on this plane to Singapore he meets Adi. On reaching Singapore, Adi invites him home. Siddharth accepts the invitation and sets out to find Tanu. Meanwhile, Adi is getting married and invites Siddharth to his wedding. At the wedding Siddharth is shocked to see the bride, Tanu. Without another word, he leaves the wedding hall to the airport. On his way to the airport, he calls Adi to inform him that he has found his Tanu. But he requests Adi not to use his story and suggests he forget it. Adi agrees.
1161565	Eric Fleming (July 4, 1925 – September 28, 1966) was an American actor, known primarily for his role as Gil Favor in the long running CBS television series "Rawhide". Early life. Fleming was born in Santa Paula, California, as Edward Heddy, Jr. He was an only child and had an unhappy childhood. After being severely beaten by his father he ran away from home, and lived roughly. Although later reunited with his mother, during the years of The Depression he dropped out of school and worked at various jobs until he joined the United States Navy during World War II. He served as a Seabee in a naval construction battalion. He received severe facial injuries during a dare in which he was attempting to lift a 200lb weight and had to undergo extensive plastic surgery. Following his discharge, Fleming became interested in acting and took acting lessons. He appeared on stage in Chicago and in a number of successful Broadway plays including the musical "Plain and Fancy". He began acting in television shows about the same time. Fleming then moved to Hollywood and starred in several low-budget films, including "Fright", "Curse of the Undead" and the cult classic "Queen of Outer Space", with costar Zsa Zsa Gabor. "Rawhide" Television Series. In 1958, the 6 foot 3 1/2 inches (half an inch shorter than his co-star Clint Eastwood) Fleming landed the starring role as trail boss Gil Favor in "Rawhide" . Set in the 1860s, "Rawhide" portrayed the challenges faced by the men of the cattle drive from San Antonio, Texas, to Sedalia, Missouri. Producer Charles Marquis Warren called on the diary written in 1866 by trail boss George C. Duffield to shape the character of Favor: a savvy, strong and fair leader who persevered and got the job done. The top rated western, with costars Clint Eastwood, Sheb Wooley, and Paul Brinegar, ran from 1959 to 1966. Fleming and Eastwood more or less rotated in playing the lead from week to week in the episodes but Fleming was always billed over Eastwood. Death. After Fleming left "Rawhide" at the end of the 1964-65 season (the series would continue for thirteen episodes before it was cancelled by CBS), he took part in a Doris Day vehicle "The Glass Bottom Boat" where he played a suave spy, and then was signed to star in "High Jungle", an MGM adventure film shot in Peru. During the final stages of shooting, Fleming's dugout canoe overturned in the Huallaga River. Actor Nico Minardos managed to swim to safety, but Fleming was swept away by the current and drowned on September 28, 1966. Fleming was 41 when he died. He had planned to marry Lynne Garber and become a teacher when the film was completed. His will left money to his mother, his cousin and a friend but specifically excluded his father from any bequest. He was buried on the grounds of the University of Peru in Lima, Peru.
1105356	Jacques Philippe Marie Binet (February 2, 1786 – May 12, 1856) was a French mathematician, physicist and astronomer born in Rennes; he died in Paris, France, in 1856. He made significant contributions to number theory, and the mathematical foundations of matrix algebra which would later lead to important contributions by Cayley and others. In his memoir on the theory of the conjugate axis and of the moment of inertia of bodies he enumerated the principle now known as "Binet's theorem". He is also recognized as the first to describe the rule for multiplying matrices in 1812, and Binet's formula expressing Fibonacci numbers in closed form is named in his honour, although the same result was known to Abraham de Moivre a century earlier. Binet graduated from l'École Polytechnique in 1806, and returned as a teacher in 1807. He advanced in position until 1816 when he became an inspector of studies at l'École. He held this post until November 13, 1830, when he was dismissed by the recently crowned King Louis-Philippe of France, probably because of Binet's strong support of the previous King, Charles X. In 1823 Binet succeeded Delambre in the chair of astronomy at the "Collège de France". He was made a Chevalier in the Légion d'Honneur in 1821, and was elected to the Académie des Sciences in 1843. Binet's Fibonacci number formula. This formula provides the formula_1 term in the Fibonacci sequence, and is defined using the recurrence formula: where
1789630	Almighty Thor is a fantasy action film by The Asylum, which premiered on the Syfy cable network on May 7, 2011 and was released on DVD on May 10, 2011 in the United States. The film is directed by Christopher Ray and is a mockbuster coinciding with the release of the Marvel Studios/Paramount Pictures film "Thor". The film has been met with a largely negative response from critics. Inspired by Norse mythology, the film follows a young version of the thunder deity Thor. Plot. When the demon god Loki (Richard Grieco) destroys the fortress of Valhalla and steals the Hammer of Invincibility, only the young hero Thor (Cody Deal) can protect Earth from Ragnarök. When Thor's father and older brother are killed in combat with Loki, a mysterious Valkyrie named Jarnsaxa (Patricia Velásquez) attempts to train the brave, but naïve and inexperienced Thor to fight Loki which leads them on a mystical quest from their hidden training camp, to the mystical Tree of Life to reclaim the hammer of Invincibility, and then to modern day Los Angeles where Loki follows them and attempts to bring on the Apocalypse with his army of demon beasts. When Thor is exiled to Hell, he must forge his own mighty hammer to save the metropolis and send Loki back to the underworld. Release. "Almighty Thor" premiered on May 7, 2011, near the time of release of Marvel Studios' "Thor", Reviews. "Almighty Thor" received largely negative reviews from critics. Reviewing the film for the "The A.V. Club", Phil Dyess-Nugent gave "Almighty Thor" a rating of "D-", taking issue with the film's low budget:
774891	Wayne Robson (April 29, 1946 – April 4, 2011) was a Canadian television, film and stage actor best known for playing the part of Mike Hamar, an ex-convict and sometime thief, on the Canadian sitcom "The Red Green Show" from 1993 to 2006, as well as in the 2002 film "Duct Tape Forever". Robson was born in Vancouver. He began his acting career on stage there, but moved with his family to Toronto, where he continued his stage acting career and appeared in Canadian television commercials in the 1970s. After receiving several small character roles in films such as "McCabe & Mrs. Miller" (1971) and "Popeye" (1980), Robson starred in the 1984 film "The Grey Fox" for which he was nominated for a Genie Award for Best Supporting Actor. Robson voiced Bloom in the cartoon "Pippi Longstocking" and Matthew Cuthbert in "". He also voiced Professor Cuthbert Calculus on "The Adventures of Tintin" (TV series) between 1991-1992. Robson played minor characters in such films as "Finders Keepers" (1984), "One Magic Christmas" (1985), "Parents" (1989), "Double, Double, Toil and Trouble" (1993), "Dolores Claiborne" (1995), "Two If by Sea" (1996), "Cube" (1997), "Welcome to Mooseport" (2004), and "Survival of the Dead" (2009). He appeared as Christie in the TV movie "The Diviners" (1993) based on the Governor General's Award-winning novel by Margaret Laurence, and as Holly Hunter's ailing father, Tug Jones, in the TV movie "Harlan County War" (2000). Robson was nominated and won several Gemini Awards. He also appeared in the TV series and miniseries "The Good Germany", "Puppets Who Kill", "Franklin", "Relic Hunter", "Chasing Rainbows" and "Lexx". Death. Robson died at his home on April 4, 2011 twenty five days before his 65th birthday, the cause of death was a heart attack. He is survived by his daughter Ivy, son Lou and his wife Lynn.
1017504	Once a Cop () is a 1993 Hong Kong action film directed by Stanley Tong and starring Michelle Yeoh. It is a spin-off of Jackie Chan's "Police Story" film series involving the character Yeoh portrayed in "".
501373	María de la Paz Elizabeth Sofía Adriana de la Huerta (born September 3, 1984), better known by her stage name Paz de la Huerta, is an American actress and model. De la Huerta began acting and modeling in adolescence, and had roles in "The Cider House Rules" (1999), "A Walk to Remember" (2002), and "Choke" (2008). She has also starred in several independent films, but is best known for her role as Lucy Danziger in the HBO cable television series, "Boardwalk Empire". Early life. De la Huerta was raised by a single mother, along with her older sister, Rafaela de la Paz (born November 5, 1981), in the New York City neighborhood of SoHo located in the Lower Manhattan area. Her parents were Iñigo de la Huerta y Ozores (born November 17, 1944, in San Sebastián, Spain) and Judith Bruce (born October 23, 1946, in Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States). De la Huerta's father was born into Spanish dukedom, and her mother worked as an authority on birth control and women's issues in Third World countries. She attended private Saint Ann's School in the New York City borough of Brooklyn, with fellow student and future fashion designer, Zac Posen, for whom she has since modeled. She also attended the performing arts camp Buck's Rock. De la Huerta spent summers with her father in Spain while attending high school. Career. De la Huerta began modeling in her adolescence and became a sought-after runway model before transitioning into film. She made her film debut with a small role in the 1998 romantic comedy "The Object of My Affection", and then starred opposite Michael Caine and Charlize Theron in "The Cider House Rules" (1999). In 2002, she starred opposite Shane West and Mandy Moore in "A Walk to Remember" (2002), based on Nicholas Sparks' novel. De la Huerta starred in several independent films throughout the 2000s, and landed a role in "Choke" (2008), based on Chuck Palahniuk's popular novel. In 2010, De la Huerta landed a regular role on the HBO series "Boardwalk Empire", produced by Martin Scorsese, opposite Steve Buscemi and Michael Pitt. She posed nude for the January/February 2013 issue of Playboy, and appeared on the front cover. Personal life. De la Huerta was born with recurrent cystic hygroma under her arm, which she has had treated with multiple surgeries. De la Huerta lived with her mother and sister in New York City until her mid-twenties, when she moved into an apartment in the Tribeca neighborhood, later moving to a lower Manhattan apartment adjacent to her mother's. De la Huerta has been romantically linked to actor Jack Nicholson, Scott Weiland of the Stone Temple Pilots and Donald Cumming, frontman of The Virgins.
582241	Gracy Singh (born on 20 July 1980 in Delhi, India), is an Indian actress. She is best known for her role as Gauri in '. She began her career touring with the dance group "The Planets" and her first acting role was in the television soap, "Amanat". She then got an acting role in the film "Hum Aapke Dil Mein Rehte Hain" (as Kajol's younger sister) and also in "Hu Tu Tu". This finally led her to her role opposite Aamir Khan in ' where she played a village belle. She was nominated in this role for the Filmfare best debut actress award. Career. Singh started her career with the television serial "Amanat", which was telecast on Zee TV. She got few hit films to her credit in Hindi and Telugu including "Munnabhai M.B.B.S." and "Santosham". She has starred in Punjabi films such as "Lakh Pardesi Hoye". She has also starred in a Malayalam film "Loud Speaker" directed by Jayaraj. Singh is also a trained classical dancer having studied Bharatanatyam and Odissi.
1102747	Diophantus of Alexandria (. b. between AD 201 and 215, d. between 285 and 299 at age 84), sometimes called "the father of algebra", was an Alexandrian Greek mathematician and the author of a series of books called "Arithmetica", many of which are now lost. These texts deal with solving algebraic equations. While reading Claude Gaspard Bachet de Méziriac's edition of Diophantus' "Arithmetica," Pierre de Fermat concluded that a certain equation considered by Diophantus had no solutions, and noted in the margin without elaboration that he had found "a truly marvelous proof of this proposition," now referred to as Fermat's Last Theorem. This led to tremendous advances in number theory, and the study of Diophantine equations ("Diophantine geometry") and of Diophantine approximations remain important areas of mathematical research. Diophantus coined the term παρισὀτης to refer to an approximate equality. This term was rendered as "adaequalitat" in Latin, and became the technique of adequality developed by Pierre de Fermat to find maxima for functions and tangent lines to curves. Diophantus was the first Greek mathematician who recognized fractions as numbers; thus he allowed positive rational numbers for the coefficients and solutions. In modern use, Diophantine equations are usually algebraic equations with integer coefficients, for which integer solutions are sought. Diophantus also made advances in mathematical notation. Biography. Little is known about the life of Diophantus. He lived in Alexandria, Egypt, probably from between AD 200 and 214 to 284 or 298. Much of our knowledge of the life of Diophantus is derived from a 5th-century Greek anthology of number games and puzzles created by Metrodorus. One of the problems (sometimes called his epitaph) states: This puzzle implies that Diophantus' age formula_1 can be expressed as which gives formula_3 a value of 84 years. However, the accuracy of the information cannot be independently confirmed. In popular culture, this puzzle was the Puzzle No.142 in "Professor Layton and Pandora's Box" as one of the hardest solving puzzles in the game, which needed to be unlocked by solving other puzzles first. Arithmetica. The Arithmetica is the major work of Diophantus and the most prominent work on algebra in Greek mathematics. It is a collection of problems giving numerical solutions of both determinate and indeterminate equations. Of the original thirteen books of which Arithmetica consisted only six have survived, though there are some who believe that four Arab books discovered in 1968 are also by Diophantus. Some Diophantine problems from Arithmetica have been found in Arabic sources. It should be mentioned here that Diophantus never used general methods in his solutions. Hermann Hankel, renowned German mathematician made the following remark regarding Diophantus. “Our author (Diophantos) not the slightest trace of a general, comprehensive method is discernible; each problem calls for some special method which refuses to work even for the most closely related problems. For this reason it is difficult for the modern scholar to solve the 101st problem even after having studied 100 of Diophantos’s solutions”
1744856	The Mystery of Mamo or The Secret of Mamo, originally released in Japan as simply and now known there as , is a 1978 Japanese animated adventure film. It is the first "Lupin III" film, based on the manga series of the same name created by Monkey Punch, and was produced by TMS Entertainment, directed by Sōji Yoshikawa and written by Yoshikawa and cult pink film screenwriter Atsushi Yamatoya. Plot. Inspector Zenigata investigates the execution of Arsene Lupin III, but discovers Lupin has used the dead body as a decoy. Lupin flees from the castle via hang glider. In an Egyptian pyramid, Lupin finds Philosopher's Stone with Daisuke Jigen, but they are discovered by Zenigata and the Egyptian police. Lupin escapes the pyramid corridors and Goemon Ishikawa XIII incapacitates the officers surrounding the pyramid. The three use Lupin's Mercedes-Benz SSK to flee from the pyramid. After Lupin delivers the stone to his lover Fujiko Mine, Fujiko turns on Lupin and steals the stone. Lupin listens in on Fujiko to find out who asked for the Stone, only to discover that the Stone was a fake. Dissatisfied that Lupin had given him a fake, the contractor dispatches two of his henchmen to kill the thief. After Lupin and his gang defeat the henchmen, Frenchy destroys Lupin's car and his headquarters. Jigen and Goemon berate Lupin for being faithful to Fujiko until Lupin decides to leave Fujiko out. They travel toward the ocean to the desert where Lupin accidentally sets off one of Frenchy's booby traps before the group finds a house stocked with food and water. A seriously wounded Fujiko comes for Lupin and alienates Jigen and Goemon in the process. Fujiko inadvertently drugs Lupin to sleep and they are captured by Frenchy in his plane. Jigen and Goemon travel to Rome and discover a clue of Lupin's whereabouts, reading "WATER". Jigen gets pursued by Agent Gordon. Surprised at first by Jigen's quick move to threaten him, Gordon manages to bring him and Goemon to Area 64 to be interviewed by Starky, an important government official from America. After listening to a tape of an interfered-with conversation between the secretary general and U.S. president Jimmy Carter, Starky asks for info on the man who broke into the conversation. Jigen hands Gordon the note and angers him by saying that if they knew what the note meant, they wouldn't be where they were. Starky decides that Jigen and Goemon knew nothing, releasing them for the sole purpose of using them to find the mystery man. The two know immediately because of spilled water, and the invisible ink is revealed to be "CARIB". Meanwhile, on a Caribbean island, Lupin manages to find the mystery man, who reveals himself to be a dwarf named Howard Lockewood who refers to himself as Mamo. He offers Lupin eternal life, but Lupin refuses, saying that all he wants is the Philosopher's Stone. He then manages to find it as Jigen and Goemon head for the Caribbean island. Fujiko plays with Lupin awhile, but they are soon chased by thugs led by Frenchy, Lupin having discovered what Mamo's staff was planning to do with the Stone. Lupin and Fujiko end up in Mamo's lair, where he reveals that the island is inhabited by clones. After Mamo deems Lupin unworthy of eternal life, Fujiko refuses to abandon Lupin even after Mamo reveals to her his dirty secrets. When Mamo tries to kill him, Lupin is rescued by Jigen, who puts a bullet in Mamo's head, and Goemon. They and Fujiko then get the hell out of Dodge, but not before Goemon engages in a final confrontation against Frenchy. When Goemon learns that even his Zantetsuken couldn't penetrate Frenchy's armor unless it had the intensity of a laser, he instead proceeds to cut Frenchy's face, much to the latter's shock. As Frenchy drops dead into the waters, Zantetsuken is detipped, much to Goemon's sorrow. As Lupin and his gang leave the island, they are chased by Zenigata, who chooses the wrong boat to go after them in. Finding Zenigata on a beach, the Commissioner reveals that Zenigata has been removed from the Lupin case due to circumstances beyond their control. He encourages Zenigata to think of it as an opportunity to take a vacation, but Zenigata instead resigns from the police force and goes after Lupin on his own, deciding that the endgame will be in Colombia. Meanwhile, Lupin and his gang (sans Goemon, who decided to train harder) are thrust into a vision by Mamo after tasting coffee laced with sedatives. Mamo reveals his hand in the history of the world and puts the gang back where he had left them after rearranging the room a bit, as Lupin correctly deduces. When Mamo shows up to reclaim Fujiko, Lupin dares him to prove himself a God by performing some kind of miracle and not one of those Las Vegas-style parlor tricks. Mamo responds by setting off several charges to simulate an earthquake, which registers on the Richter scale and alerts Gordon and Starky to where Mamo is located. Lupin figures out what was behind that earthquake and sets off for the source, where he believes Mamo to be hiding. As Mamo convinces Fujiko to push a button to launch missiles, Lupin shows up as the snake to their Adam and Eve, revealing he rigged the missiles to blow up before they could launch. Frustrated, Mamo takes Fujiko with him to a rocket launching pad and tries fending Lupin off with lasers. Lupin uses the tip of Goemon's Zantetsuken to deflect the lasers onto Mamo and incinerate him, but not before Lupin learns from Mamo that he is the original Lupin and that it was the clone that swung in Transylvania. Lupin is sure that was the real Mamo until he discovers a chip hidden among the ashes. The rocket emerges, containing a brain that reveals itself to be the original Mamo. Lupin figures out that Mamo had controlled the clones resembling his old body right before the rocket launches into space as Mamo declares he is setting off into space and eventually plans to return to Earth as its one true God. Lupin and Fujiko escape the rocket's trajectory, but not before Lupin puts an explosive onto the rocket. The glass shatters, and Mamo's gigantic brain drifts toward the sun as Lupin reminds Mamo that time does everyone in and that he should be grateful Lupin put him to death when he did. Fujiko reveals that Zenigata had threatened her into luring his quarry for the catch, and Lupin is unable to convince Zenigata that he is a clone and that the real Lupin was the one that was hanged. Fujiko offers to help Lupin after they kiss, but Gordon launches his missiles on Mamo's Colombian base, and Jigen picks up Fujiko in a plane while Zenigata and Lupin escape together on foot. Release. The Japanese release was handled by Toho, who were also responsible for the very first English dub, which was produced in 1978 and reportedly screened in the United States by TMS. This dub was also released to several markets in Europe. The second English dub, produced by Streamline Pictures, was released to home video by Orion Home Video in North America in late April 1995 under the title "The Mystery of Mamo". It was later released to DVD by Image Entertainment in 1998, but without the Japanese audio track and again using the "Mystery" title. The third English dub was produced and released on home video in the United Kingdom by Manga Video in 1996 and re-titled to "Secret of Mamo". The fourth dub was produced by Phuuz Entertainment in association with Pioneer Entertainment and released on DVD in North America by Pioneer as "The Secret of Mamo". Madman and Manga Entertainment released similar discs in Australia and the UK. In 2012, TMS Entertainment began streaming the Pioneer/Geneon dub of the film on Hulu. Discotek Media re-released the film on DVD in the US using the "Mystery" title in 2013 after Pioneer/Geneon lost the license. The new DVD contains the Japanese audio track as well as all four English dubs, including a reconstruction of the Toho dub. Full cast. The cast for the Toho dub is still unknown, due to a lack of localisation credits on any known prints. It has been confirmed that Goemon and Zenigata were voiced by William Ross and Greg Starr, respectively, however.
1056993	Pepe Serna (born July 23, 1944) is an American film and television actor and artist. Serna's first break in movies came in 1970 on the Roger Corman directed film "Student Nurses". Over the years Serna has appeared in over 100 films, most notably "Car Wash" and "Scarface" directed by Brian De Palma, where he played Montana's friend Angel Fernandez (whose character was involved in the notorious "chainsaw scene"). He has also appeared on stage, including his solo show "El Ruco, Chuco, Cholo, Pachuco" which is Serna's version of the panorama of Latino cultural history.
1033668	Luca Giuseppe "Luke" Pasqualino (born 19 February 1990) is an English actor, known for his portrayal of Freddie McClair in the television series "Skins". Early life. Pasqualino was born in Peterborough, Cambridgeshire. He is of Italian heritage: Sicillian on his father's side and Neapolitan on his mother's. He attended Walton Community School, in Walton, Peterborough, and the drama classes held by Martin Tempest at Stamford Art Centre. He auditioned for the part of Tony Stonem in Series 1 of "Skins" but it went to Nicholas Hoult. Before appearing in "Skins" he performed numerous plays and had done some modelling. Pasqualino also worked in his father's salon, Image International. Career. In 2009 Pasqualino made his acting debut as the protagonist in the low-budget film "Stingers Rule!" about a local football team going against property developers who plan to destroy their beloved football ground. Pasqualino has guest starred on "Casualty" and "Miranda". In 2008 Pasqualino was announced as one of the new series regulars in the third season of the E4 teenage drama television series "Skins", as the series replaces its primary cast members every two seasons. Pasqualino portrayed the role of Freddie McClair, a laid back weed smoking high school pupil. Towards the end of Season Four his character was killed off and the remainder of the regulars were replaced. In February 2010 Pasqualino was cast in the Warner Bros. Pictures Supernatural Horror film "The Apparition" alongside both "Twilight" Star Ashley Greene and "Harry Potter" Star Tom Felton. Filming began that same month in both Los Angeles and Berlin, Germany which was released in August 2012. In September of the same year Pasqualino was announced to have been cast in the historical drama television series "The Borgias". Pasqualino who maintained a recurring role portraying the character of Paolo a young servant. In October 2011 Pasqualino was announced as the protagonist in the Syfy prequel television pilot reimagined "Battlestar Galactica" series, "". Pasqualino will portray the role of a younger version of the character William "Husker" Adama, currently a web-based series. The series is being distributed as a 10-episode online series on Machinima.com starting 9 November 2012, and will also air as a televised film in early 2013 on Syfy. In July 2012 Pasqualino starred alongside Jessica Szohr in the werewolf romantic comedy film "Love Bite". In April 2012 Pasqualino was announced to star in the ensemble thriller film "Snowpiercer" about a train full of travellers struggling to coexist in a world covered by ice and snow. The film will also star Octavia Spencer and Chris Evans and is to be released in 2013. He played in a French series in 2013 entitled Jo. (wiki French link : :fr:Jo (série télévisée) )
1015939	A Better Tomorrow 3: Love & Death in Saigon (; Jyutping: Jing1hung4 bun2sik1 saam – zik6joeng4 zi1 go1) is a 1989 Hong Kong action film co-produced and directed by Tsui Hark. It is a loosely-based prequel to John Woo's "A Better Tomorrow", though it was released after "A Better Tomorrow 2". The film was directed by Tsui Hark, the producer behind the first two films in the series. John Woo wrote a screenplay for a third installment, but he never got to direct it due to having had artistic differences with Tsui Hark during the filming of the second film. Instead, the original screenplay later became "Bullet in the Head". The two films have many parallels, most notably, both being set in the Vietnam War. The film stars Chow Yun-fat, who reprises his role of Mark Gor from the first film, Tony Leung Ka-fai and Anita Mui. Set during the Vietnam War, it sets up the story of how Mark became the character he was in the original film. The second part of the title "Love & Death in Saigon" (夕陽之歌 or Song of the Setting Sun in Chinese) is also the title song for this movie, sung by Anita Mui, who was also the leading lady in this third installment. Plot. In 1974, during the final days of the Vietnam War, Mark Lee (Chow Yun-Fat) arrives in Saigon, intending to bring his uncle Ten (Shih Kien) and cousin Cheung Chi-Mun (Tony Leung Ka-Fai) back to Hong Kong with him. Just after arriving at the airport, Mark is confined by corrupt security guards who strip and attempt to rob him, but he is saved by a mysterious woman named Kit (Anita Mui), who seems to have some measure of influence. Mark and Mun later encounter Kit in a nightclub, where they discover the woman is a criminal and gun runner. Kit takes an interest in the cousins and invite them to accompany her on a deal with a local Vietnamese warlord. The deal goes bad, but the three escape. Kit is impressed with the way Mark and Mun handled themselves and decide to help them escape Vietnam, taking them under her wing in the meantime. Over the next few months, Kit begins training the cousins in various aspects of her business, as well as marksmanship. Mark and Mun both develop an attraction to her. Kit is attracted to Mark as well, and buys him a pair of Alain Delon sunglasses as a gift. However, despite his feelings, Mark does not reciprocate Kit's affections so as to avoid hurting Mun, who has come under the impression that Kit is in love with him. Meanwhile, the leader of the arms smuggling company (and Kit's former lover), Ho Cheung-Ching, returns from hiding after a three year absence in which he was presumed dead. Jealous of Kit's relationship with Mark and Mun, he plots to kill the cousins. Kit manages to secure safe passage for Mark, Mun, and Uncle Ten back to Hong Kong. The three return and start a new business there. However, Ho Cheung-Ching sends a bomb to the business, which explodes and kills Uncle Ten. Afterwards, Ho and his men capture and beat Mark and Mun, warning them to stay away from Kit.
1078671	""'Zandy's Bride is a 1974 American film directed by Jan Troell. It stars Gene Hackman and Liv Ullmann. The film is also known as For Better, for Worse""' in the USA (TV title). It was filmed on location near Big Sur, California. Plot summary. Zandy Allan is a hard-working cattle rancher in a remote part of the American West who needs a hired hand more than he needs a wife. He sends away for a mail-order bride, a Swedish woman who lives near Minneapolis. Expecting a woman in her 20s, Zandy is surprised when Hannah Lund turns out to be 32. He is not interested in love, only in work, although this does not keep him from misbehaving around a local woman named Maria. Hannah is here, in his mind, strictly to help Zandy and his family run the ranch. Zandy is unaccustomed to the ways of the world and clearly a fish out of water during a visit to San Francisco. The more time he spends with Hannah, meanwhile, the less he comes to treat her as a mere possession that he has bought.
1059021	Just Married is a 2003 American romantic comedy film directed by Shawn Levy, and was written by Sam Harper, and starring Ashton Kutcher and Brittany Murphy. Produced by Robert Simonds, the film opened to #1 at the box office and stayed in the top 10 for four weeks, going on to gross $56,127,162 domestically and $101,564,935 worldwide.
1105282	Anatoly Timofeevich Fomenko () (born 13 March 1945 in Stalino, USSR) is a Soviet and Russian mathematician, professor at Moscow State University, well known as a topologist, and a full member of the Russian Academy of Sciences. He is a supporter of revising historical chronology. Mathematical work. Anatoly T. Fomenko is a full member (Academician) of the Russian Academy of Sciences (1994), the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences (1991), the International Higher Education Academy of Sciences (1993) and Russian Academy of Technological Sciences (2009), as well as a doctor of physics and mathematics (1972), a professor (1980), and head of the Differential Geometry and Applications Department of the Faculty of Mathematics and Mechanics in Moscow State University (1992). Fomenko is the author of the theory of topological invariants of integrable Hamiltonian system. He is the author of 180 scientific publications, 26 monographs and textbooks on mathematics, a specialist in geometry and topology, variational calculus, symplectic topology, Hamiltonian geometry and mechanics, and computer geometry. Fomenko is also the author of a number of books on the development of new empirico-statistical methods and their application to the analysis of historical chronicles as well as the chronology of antiquity and the Middle Ages. Fomenko is the author of extensive writings in his original fields of mathematics, and is also known for his original drawings inspired by topological objects and structures. Historical revisionism. Fomenko is a supporter of drastically revising historical chronology. He has created his own revision called New Chronology, based on statistical correlations, dating of zodiacs, and by examining the mathematics and astronomy involved in chronology. Fomenko claims that he has discovered that many historical events do not correspond mathematically with the dates they are supposed to have occurred on. He asserts from this that all of ancient history (including the history of Greece, Rome, and Egypt) is just a reflection of events that occurred in the Middle Ages and that all of Chinese and Arab history are fabrications of 17th and 18th century Jesuits.
1072090	, better known by her stage name , is a Japanese actress, model and singer born in Nago, Okinawa, Japan. She is represented by the agency Sweet Power and is signed to Sony Music Japan. She made her acting debut in 2004. She has modeled for the popular Japanese fashion magazine "JJ", among others, and is the current Japanese representative for Epson and Giorgio Armani. She has appeared in numerous television dramas, commercials, films, and stage productions. Early life and career. Kuroki was born Satsuki Shimabukuro in Okinawa, Japan to a Japanese-Panamanian father and a Japanese mother. Kuroki also has three older sisters. While in her second year of junior high school in Okinawa, Kuroki was discovered by a fashion scout and subsequently began modeling, initially modeling exclusively for the popular fashion magazine "JJ". While studying at the Okinawa Actors School, from which she graduated in 2007, she was a member of the institution's B.B. Waves group. Acting career. Kuroki made her acting debut in February 2004 in the Kita-ku Tsuka Kōhei Gekidan play "Atami Satsujin Jiken: Pyonyang Kara Kita Onna Keiji". Since her debut she has continued to perform in theater, notably in the "Azumi" stage productions in 2005 and 2006, the musical "Endless Shock" (2005), and most recently in "Onna Nobunaga" (2009) and "Hiryuden 2010: Last Princess" (2010). Kuroki made her television debut in 2004 in the Fuji TV drama, "Medaka". She has played supporting roles in several high-rated and critically acclaimed drama series, including "Haikei, Chichiue-sama" (2007), "Kaze no Garden" (2008), and "Shinzanmono" (2010). Kuroki won the Television Drama Academy Award and TV Life Drama Grand Prix for Best Supporting Actress in 2009 for her role in the Fuji TV drama, "Ninkyo Helper". In 2006 she starred in "", the final installment of the "Chakushin Ari" franchise, for which she earned the Golden Arrow Award for Newcomer of the Year. In 2007 she appeared in Fumihiko Sori's CGI anime film "Vexille". She also starred in "Subaru", the live-action, film adaptation of the Masahito Soda manga, produced by Bill Kong, and "Assault Girls", directed by Mamoru Oshii. In 2010 Kuroki played the role of Yuki Mori in the live-action film "Space Battleship Yamato", opposite Takuya Kimura. In 2011 Kuroki co-starred with Mikako Tabe in her first serial drama lead role in the TV Asahi drama "Jiu: Keishichou Tokushuhan Sousakei". Music career. Kuroki performed on the soundtrack of the 2007 film, "Crows Zero", in which she also appeared. On 21 June 2008, her debut song, "Like This", was released through the Sony Music Japan subsidiary label Studioseven Recordings. It soon was announced on 17 February 2009, that Kuroki's first EP, "Hellcat", would be released on 8 April 2009. Her second EP, "Attitude", was released in January 2010. In January 2011 Kuroki released her first studio album, "Magazine", which peaked at number 6 on the Oricon Weekly Albums chart. She also performed Wired Life for Ao No Exorcist as the second, ending theme. Modeling. In addition to her modeling work for the fashion magazines "JJ" and "25ans", Kuroki has released two photobooks, one of her own, "Love Meisa", and a joint one, "Missmatch", with her best friend and actress, Maki Horikita, photographed by Kishin Shinoyama. In 2009 Kuroki was chosen as the Japanese face of international fashion brand, Emporio Armani, and she also appeared in numerous events for the brand worldwide. In 2010 Kuroki was chosen as the international face of French cosmetic brand, L'Oréal. Personal life. On 2 Feb. 2012, she married pop singer and former KAT-TUN member Jin Akanishi in a private ceremony. Their first daughter, Theia, was born on September 23, 2012.
1376689	Pamela Fionna Adlon (née Segall; born July 9, 1966) is an American actress and voice actress. She was credited as Pamela Segall, but since her marriage and divorce, she's been credited as either "Pamela Segall Adlon" or "Pamela S. Adlon." Adlon's best known role is providing the voice of Bobby Hill on "King of the Hill", for which she won an Emmy Award for Outstanding Voice-Over Performance in 2002. Other notable roles include Marcy Runkle on Showtime's "Californication", Pamela on FX's "Louie" (for which she is also a consulting producer) and Girl Joey in the 1984 teen comedy film "Growing Pains".
1085944	Boris Frederic Cecil Tay-Natey Ofuatey-Kodjoe (; born 8 March 1973), better known as Boris Kodjoe, is an Austrian-born actor and former fashion model who works primarily in the United States. He is perhaps best known for his role as courier-turned-sports agent Damon Carter on the Showtime television drama series "Soul Food" and for his role as David Taylor in the film "The Gospel". Additionally, he starred as Steven Bloom in the cancelled 2010 NBC action/drama series "Undercovers", and as Luther West in the films ' and '. Early life. Kodjoe was born in Vienna, Austria, the son of Ursula, a German psychologist of partially Jewish descent, and Eric Kodjoe, a Ghanaian physician who is of the Nzema people. His namesake is the Russian poet and writer Boris Pasternak. Kodjoe's maternal great-grandmother was Jewish and died in the Holocaust; his maternal grandmother survived the war in hiding.
1048675	Marcus Chong (born Marcus Wyatt on July 8, 1967) is an American actor. His best-known roles are as Tank the Operator in "The Matrix", and before that, Huey P. Newton in the 1995 Mario Van Peebles movie "Panther". He was born in Seattle, Washington.
1059680	The Life and Death of Peter Sellers is a 2004 British/American film about the life of English comedy actor Peter Sellers, based on Roger Lewis's book of the same name. It was directed by Stephen Hopkins and starred Geoffrey Rush as Sellers, Miriam Margolyes as his mother Peg Sellers, Emily Watson as his first wife Anne Howe, Charlize Theron as his second wife Britt Ekland, John Lithgow as Blake Edwards, Stephen Fry as Maurice Woodruff and Stanley Tucci as Stanley Kubrick. Synopsis. The film shows Peter Sellers as a complex and tormented genius, whose success as a film star concealed his difficult and relatively unhappy private life. This "troubled life" is the primary focus of this biopic, which personalizes "one of the greatest comic actors in the history of the British cinema," and shows the many masks he wore and characters he played as an actor. The film makes clear that much of his success and identity were dependent initially on his domineering and doting mother. But eventually this success, first in radio and eventually in film, led to his succumbing to destructive mood swings and insecurity, and contributed to the deterioration of his marriages. Discovering his gift for comedy, his ego began to undermine his personal relationships with friends and co-workers. His personality became more turbulent. His own personality often merged with that of his film characters, and his self-learned skill as a "method actor" was used to mask his real self.
1165038	Richard Erdman (born June 1, 1925) is an American actor and film director. Early life and career. Erdman was born John Richard Erdmann in Enid in northern Oklahoma. In a career that has spanned seven decades, his best known roles are that of the barracks chief Hoffy in "Stalag 17", and McNulty in the classic "Twilight Zone" episode "A Kind of a Stopwatch". In "Tora Tora Tora" he played Colonel Edward F. French, the officer who responded to the failure to transmit the warning to Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. From 1953 to 1954, Erdman co-starred with Ray Bolger in ABC sitcom, "Where's Raymond?". Erdman was cast as the pessimistic Pete Morrisey, Ray's landlord and press agent. In 1956, he was cast in the episode "Man on the Totem Pole" of the religion anthology series, "Crossroads". Erdman appeared as blackmailer and murder victim Arthur Binney in the "Perry Mason" first season television episode, "The Case Of The Gilded Lily," which aired on CBS on May 24, 1958. During the nine-year run of "Perry Mason", he appeared in five other episodes, often cast as the actual murderer, such as Charles (Monty) Montrose in the 1962 episode, "The Case of the Absent Artist," Harry Niles in the 1964 episode, "The Case of the Antic Angel," and Jud Bennett in the 1966 episode, "The Case of the Vanishing Victim." He appeared as Sergeant Jasper in Walt Disney's miniseries "The Swamp Fox".
589437	Bairaag is a 1976 Bollywood film. Produced by the duo Mushir- Riaz, it is directed by Asit Sen. The film stars Dilip Kumar, who received a Filmfare nomination for Best Actor for playing a triple role. The film also stars Saira Banu, Leena Chandavarkar, Ruma Guha Thakurta, Prem Chopra, Helen, Sujit Kumar, Madan Puri, Paintal, Kader Khan, Asit Sen and Sachin. The film's music is by the duo Kalyanji Anandji, who also received a Filmfare nomination for Best Music. The film received a Filmfare Award for Best Sound for P. Harikishan. According to one source, the film did not do well at the box office.Bairaag is now available to watch on Youtube, through its movies offering. Plot. Kailash (Dilip Kumar) loses his eyesight after a car accident. His wife gives birth to twin boys, one of them blind. Before his wife gains consciousness, he asks the doctor to get rid of the blind baby, because he doesn't want his son to live a life where he can't see at all. The doctor's wife leaves the blind baby in a Hindu temple, where he is discovered by the temple priest who raises the boy, now called Bholenath (Dilip Kumar). Kailash feels guilty about what he did to the blind baby and confesses it to his wife several years later, who becomes so distraught that she dies. Kailash raises his other son Sanjay (Dilip Kumar), who turns into a spoiled rich boy. Although Sanjay is engaged to Sonia (Leena Chandavarkar), he continues to have an affair with Lucy (Helen), who has a rich dangerous boyfriend Grasco (Madan Puri). Sonia's greedy brother Kunwal (Prem Chopra) agrees to marry a country girl Tara (Saira Banu) but wants a Rs. 300,000 dowry. She doesn't want to marry him, because she is in love with Bholenath, even though he is poor and blind. Bholenath thinks that his status is beneath hers and that she deserves a rich suitor and steals the money from the Hindu temple to give to Kunwal for her dowry. His pet snake tries to stop him from giving the money by biting him. He regains his sight and vows to the temple priest and Tara to bring the money back from Kunwal. Once he reaches the city, people mistook him for Sanjay, who in turn, is hiding out with Lucy after she leaves Grasco along with Rs. 15,000,000. She is found dead with the money missing. Sanjay is the suspect. The film is resolved with the real culprit getting caught, and the two brothers reunited with their father, and then marrying their sweethearts. Reception and Release. The film released in 1976 was the last film of Dilip Kumar as hero after which he took a five year break from films and returned to play Character roles thereafter. The film, although failed at the box office, the critics appreciated it. Dilip Kumar was acclaimed for his triple-role in the film and also received a Filmfare nomination for Best Actor. Soundtrack. The music of the film was composed by Kalyanji-Anandji and all songs of the film were memorable numbers. The lyrics were by Anand Bakshi.
1057992	The Family That Preys is a 2008 American movie drama written, produced, and directed by Tyler Perry. The screenplay focuses on two families, one wealthy and the other working class, whose lives are intertwined in both love and business. The movie is the second of four in which Perry's signature character, Madea, does not make an appearance. It is also the second Perry-directed film (alongside "Daddy's Little Girls") that is not based on any of the filmmaker's stage plays. Plot. In a prologue, socialite Charlotte Cartwright (Kathy Bates) hosts the wedding of her best friend Alice Evans' (Alfre Woodard) daughter Andrea (Sanaa Lathan), who is marrying ambitious construction worker Chris Bennett (Rockmond Dunbar). The couple is congratulated by Charlotte's son William (Cole Hauser) and his wife Jillian (KaDee Strickland), who deprived Charlotte of planning an elaborate reception for them by eloping. William suggests the newlyweds contact him for employment with the Cartwright family's highly successful Atlanta construction company after they return from their honeymoon. Four years later, Ben (Tyler Perry), is married to Andrea's sister Pam (Taraji P. Henson). Pam looks after Andrea's three-year-old son for extra income while working at her mother's diner. It troubles her that Andrea doesn't do more to help their mother financially when her designer clothes and new Mercedes make it clear she is prospering. What Pam doesn't realize is her sister is involved in an extramarital affair with William and enjoying all the perks that come with the relationship. Chris has dreams of opening his own construction firm with Ben, but Andrea - who clearly now thinks she's much better than her husband because of her success - ridicules him and his aspirations. He and Ben apply for a loan at the bank and are declined, but he accidentally discovers his wife has nearly $300,000 on deposit in a secret account. When Andrea returns home late one night to find Chris sorting through financial records she had hidden, she claims the money is an accumulation of bonuses she received from William and insists she has the right to keep some things private from her spouse. Telling him he never will be as charming and successful as William, she refuses to finance his dream.
1060984	Carlotta Mercedes McCambridge (March 16, 1916 – March 2, 2004) was an Academy Award-winning and Golden Globe-winning American actress of radio, stage, film, and television. Orson Welles called her "the world's greatest living radio actress." Early life. McCambridge was born in Joliet, Illinois, the daughter of Irish American Roman Catholic parents Marie (née Mahaffry) and John Patrick McCambridge. She graduated from Mundelein College in Chicago before embarking on a career. Career. Radio. She began her career as a radio actor during the 1940s while also performing on Broadway. Her radio work in this period included her portrayal of Rosemary Levy on "Abie's Irish Rose" and various characters on the radio series "I Love A Mystery" in both its West Coast and East Coast incarnations (most notably as "Charity Martin" in "The Thing That Cries in the Night", "Nasha" and "Laura" in "Bury Your Dead, Arizona", "Sunny Richards" in both "The Million Dollar Curse" and "The Temple of Vampires" and "Jack 'Jacqueline' Dempsey Ross" in "The Battle of the Century"). She frequently did feature roles on the "CBS Radio Mystery Theater", and was an original cast member on "The Guiding Light", before the Bauers took over as the central characters. She also starred in her own show, "The Defense Attorney", as Martha Ellis Bryant. Films. Her Hollywood break came when she was cast opposite Broderick Crawford in "All the King's Men" (1949). McCambridge won the 1949 Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her role, while the film won Best Picture for that year. McCambridge also won the Golden Globe Awards for Best Supporting Actress and New Star of the Year - Actress for her performance. In 1954, the actress co-starred with Joan Crawford and Sterling Hayden in the offbeat western drama, "Johnny Guitar," now regarded as a cult classic. McCambridge and Hayden publicly declared their dislike of Crawford, with McCambridge labeling the film's star "a mean, tipsy, powerful, rotten-egg lady." McCambridge played the supporting role of 'Luz' in the George Stevens classic "Giant" (1956), which starred Elizabeth Taylor, Rock Hudson, and James Dean. She was nominated for another Academy Award as Best Supporting Actress but lost to Dorothy Malone in "Written on the Wind". In 1959, McCambridge appeared opposite Katharine Hepburn, Montgomery Clift and Elizabeth Taylor in Joseph L. Mankiewicz' film adaptation of Tennessee Williams' "Suddenly, Last Summer".
1033049	Helen Victoria Baxendale (born 7 June 1970) is an English actress of stage and television, best known for her roles in "Cold Feet", "Friends", "Cardiac Arrest" and "An Unsuitable Job for a Woman". Early life. Baxendale was born on 7 June 1970 in Pontefract, West Riding of Yorkshire.
637953	William "Bill" Chen (born 1970 in Williamsburg, Virginia) is an American quantitative analyst, poker player, and software designer. Biography. Chen holds a Ph.D. in mathematics (1999) from the University of California, Berkeley. He was an undergraduate at Washington University in St. Louis triple-majoring in Physics, Math, and Computer Science, and was also a research intern in Washington University's Computer Science SURA Program where he co-wrote a technical report inventing an "Argument Game". He heads the Statistical Arbitrage department at Susquehanna International Group. Poker career. At the 2006 World Series of Poker Chen won two events, a $3,000 limit Texas Hold 'em event with a prize of $343,618, and a $2,500 no limit hold 'em short-handed event with a prize of $442,511. Prior to these events Chen's largest tournament win was for $41,600 at a no limit hold 'em event at the Bicycle Casino's "Legends of Poker" in 2000. Chen has been a longtime participant in the rec.gambling.poker newsgroup and its B.A.R.G.E offshoot. He is also a member of Team PokerStars. With Jerrod Ankenman, Chen coauthored "The Mathematics of Poker", an introduction to quantitative techniques and game theory as applied to poker.
108661	13Hrs is a 2010 British horror film directed by Jonathan Glendening. The film stars Isabella Calthorpe as the main female lead, and also features Gemma Atkinson, John Lynch, Joshua Bowman, Antony De Liseo and Tom Felton Plot. After spending a few years in Los Angeles, Sarah Tyler (Isabella Calthorpe) returns to her home in England. She arrives to find her brothers having a party in the barn, among which are Stephen Moore (Peter Gadiot), his girlfriend Emily (Gemma Atkinson), Charlie Moore (Gabriel Thomson), Gary Ashby (Tom Felton), Doug Walker (Joshua Bowman), their youngest brother Luke Moore (Antony De Liseo) and their dog, Stoner. Luke tells Sarah about their parents' arguments over bills, and their mother's supposed love affair. When Sarah inquires about this, Stephen reveals that her stepfather has accused her mother of having an affair with a man to whom she is paying large sums of money. The brewing storm outside causes a power outage. The group notice blood at the top of the stairs. Gary leaves the group to look for candles; meanwhile the group sees that the blood is coming from their father's room. They find his lifeless body, which appears to have been attacked by some wild animal. At the same time, Gary discovers Stoner's bloody remains. The group encounters a beast-like creature and narrowly escape. When Gary calls to them, it catches and kills him. The group flees to the bathroom, and Sarah discovers a passageway leading up to the attic. Momentarily safe, the group contemplate their situation. Emily sees a pathway leading to another room, and the group decides that Sarah shall go down and distract the beast while Charlie goes to call for help on their father's phone.
801547	Jessie Royce Landis (November 25, 1896 – February 2, 1972) was an American actress. Early life. Jesse Royce Landis was born Jessie Medbury in Chicago, Illinois. to Paul, an orchestra musician, and Ella Medbury. As per Ancestry.com, "Royce" does not appear to have been her middle name by birth; her middle initial is cited as either "J." or "T". Her acting surname "Landis" derives from her first husband, although she was married twice more. Career. Landis was a stage actress for much of her career. In the 1950s, she began appearing in movies as a character actress, most notably in "To Catch a Thief" (1955), and "North by Northwest" (1959), both starring Cary Grant and directed by Alfred Hitchcock. In "North by Northwest" she played Grant's character's mother, and in "To Catch a Thief" and "The Swan", she played the mother of Grace Kelly's characters. Landis also made many television appearances. Age controversy. Landis's appearance in "North by Northwest" earned her publicity for portraying Cary Grant's mother despite claiming to be nearly a year younger. Landis listed 1904 as the year of her birth, a date now given by many printed biographies and online sources. However, in the tradition of many actresses, she had actually shaved years off her age – in this instance, eight. She appears in the 1900 U.S. Census as a 3-year-old born in November 1896, and so was actually seven years older than Grant. Marriages. Landis was married three times. Her third husband and widower was Major General J.F.R. "Jeff" Seitz (died 1978). Her autobiography, titled "You Won't Be So Pretty (But You'll Know More)", was published in 1954. Death. Landis died of cancer in Danbury, Connecticut on February 2, 1972, aged 75. References. Notes
1265362	Eugene William Pallette (July 8, 1889 – September 3, 1954) was an American actor. He appeared in over 240 silent era and sound era motion pictures between 1913 and 1946. After an early career as a slender leading man, Pallette appeared for decades as very obese with a large stomach and deep, gravelly voice, probably best-remembered for comic character roles such as Alexander Bullock, Carole Lombard's father, in "My Man Godfrey" (1936), as Friar Tuck in "The Adventures of Robin Hood" (1938) starring Errol Flynn, and his similar role as Fray Felipe in "The Mark of Zorro" (1940) starring Tyrone Power. Early life and career. He was born in Winfield, Kansas, the son of William Baird Pallette (1858–?) and Elnora "Ella" Jackson (1860–1906). His sister was Beulah L. Pallette (1880–1968). Pallette attended Culver Military Academy in Culver, Indiana. He then began his acting career on the stage in stock company roles, appearing for a period of six years. Silent pictures. Pallette began his silent movie career as an extra in about 1911. His first credited appearance was in the one-reel short western/drama "The Fugitive" (1913) which was directed by Wallace Reid for Flying "A" Studios at Santa Barbara. The star was Edward Coxen. Quickly advancing to featured status, Pallette appeared in many westerns. He worked with D.W. Griffith on such famous films as "The Birth of a Nation" (1915) and "Intolerance" (1916). At this time, he had a slim, athletic figure, a far cry from the portly build that would gain him fame later in his career.
590263	Noukadubi (, "Boat wreck") is a Bengali film directed by Rituporno Ghosh, released on January 2011. The movie is a period film set in the 1920s, based on a novel by Rabindranath Tagore of the same name, although the credits claim that the film is ‘inspired’ by the Tagore novel because Rituparno Ghosh has taken the skeleton of the original story and woven it with his own inputs – cerebral and emotional. The cast includes Prosenjit Chatterjee, Jisshu Sengupta, Raima Sen and Riya Sen. The art direction was by Indranil Ghosh. The film was also dubbed in Hindi and released on May 2011 under the name "Kashmakash". The film was produced by Subhash Ghai. Allegedly the Hindi version has been translated, dubbed and edited down by 30 minutes under Ghai’s own guidance, without the director’s involvement at all.[http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2011-04-13/news-interviews/29413405_1_hindi-version-dubbing-artistes-rituparno-ghosh] The original story by Tagore has been placed on celluloid several times including twice in Hindi – Milan (1946) directed by Nitin Bose with Dilip Kumar and Ghunghat (1960), directed by Ramanand Sagar with Bina Rai. Bengali versions came out in 1932, 1947 and 1979. Plot. A tender romance blossoming in early Kolkata between law student Ramesh and his friend's sister Hemnalini, is nipped suddenly when his father sends an urgent and mysterious summons from his village home. There, the dutiful son is peremptorily ordered to marry Susheela, daughter of a hapless widow. Ramesh refuses, confesses that his heart belongs to another. But the widow's fervent plea softens him ultimately. And he concedes, albeit with a heavy heart. The wedding takes place with due ceremony; and Ramesh sets out with his bride on a river boat journey back to Kolkata. Soon a fierce storm arises; the boat tosses helplessly and finally capsizes in the churning waters. Later that night, Ramesh comes to his senses on a deserted shore under a starlit sky. Some distance away, he sees the unconscious form of a young bride. Her pulse is still beating, and in response to his voice calling 'Susheela' she opens her eyes at last. There is no one else in sight, alive or dead. The two move off, take a train to Kolkata, the bride wondering why they were not going to Kashi, but trusting his judgment implicitly. Hem, his true love, knows nothing of all this. Ramesh has been missing from the evening of her birthday party. They have learnt of his hasty departure from the city, but nothing else. Though she pines inwardly, she is confident that he will return soon. Back in Ramesh's new home in Kolkata, the facts of mistaken identity gradually come to light. She is Kamala not Susheela. Her husband is a doctor named Nalinaksha Chatterjee. Ramesh writes an advertisement to trace his whereabouts; but he does not have the heart to break this news to the helpless trusting young girl in his care. He puts her into a boarding school instead. But soon, Hem's would be suitor Akshay comes to know of Ramesh's secret and brings proof positive to Hem. Ramesh, unable to handle such a scandal, seeks hiding in Gorakhpur with Kamala. A devastated Hem is brought to Kashi by her father to help her forget. There she meets Nalinaksha and they warm up to each other. In the meanwhile, having read the advertisement in an old newspaper, Kamala realizes the enormity of the lie she has been living, and walks out determined to drown herself in the river. Ramesh returns and finds her suicide note, searches everywhere to no avail. He does not know that she has been rescued by a courtesan and deposited in Kashi under Nalinaksha's mother's care. Kamala now sees her real husband for the first time, but cannot speak up, for he is betrothed to Hem. Finally, the advertisement she keeps knotted in her saree is discovered, and the whole truth comes to light. Ramesh finally traces Nalinaksha and arrives at his house. The whole sorry mess raises many questions of head and heart and the validity or otherwise of social conventions. The viewers are left wondering whether true love will finally triumph. Reception. The premiered as the opening film of the "Indian Panorama" section during the 41st International Film Festival of India (IFFI), Goa on November 24, 2010, in the year that marked Rabindranath Tagore's 150th birth anniversary. It later had its commercial release in January 2011. The film reviews were generally positive. Pratim D. Gupta of "The Telegraph" called "Noukadubi" "an enriching ride on stranger tides" and wrote "on the surface, this sexless love game may come across as tepid and tame, slow and sombre compared to the roller-coaster passion play that was "Chokher Bali", but "Noukadubi"’s charm lies in the lingering aftertaste, the enduring pleasure in the pain".
1063830	Carrie-Anne Moss (born August 21, 1967) is a Canadian actress, best known for her role of Trinity in "The Matrix" trilogy. She has had other notable roles in "Memento", "Chocolat", and "Unthinkable". Early life. Carrie-Anne Moss was born in Burnaby, British Columbia to Melvyn and Barbara Moss. She has an older brother, Brooke. Moss' mother reportedly named her after The Hollies' 1967 hit song, "Carrie Anne", which had been released in May that year. Moss lived with her mother in Vancouver as a child. At the age of 11, she joined the Vancouver children's musical theatre and later went on to tour Europe with the Magee Secondary School Choir in her senior year. Career. While in Spain, Moss landed a role in the drama series "Dark Justice", her first television appearance. She moved from Barcelona to Los Angeles, California with the series in 1992. She enrolled at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in Pasadena upon her return. She starred in Fox's short-lived prime time soap opera "Models Inc.," a spin-off of "Melrose Place", as a model. Her breakthrough role came when she was chosen to play Trinity in the 1999 box office success "The Matrix". She reprised the role in two sequels, as well as providing voiceovers for video game and animated spin-offs of the film. Coincidentally, she had previously co-starred in an unrelated made-in-Canada television series also entitled "Matrix." Following the release of "The Matrix", Moss starred opposite Burt Reynolds and Richard Dreyfuss in the Disney mobster comedy "The Crew". She starred with Val Kilmer in "Red Planet" for Warner Bros. She next appeared in Miramax's Oscar-nominated film "Chocolat". She then starred with Guy Pearce in the thriller "Memento" for which Moss earned an Independent Spirit Award for her performance. She voiced the character Aria in "Mass Effect 2" and "Mass Effect 3". She is the lead role in the Lifetime Television pilot called "Normal". Personal life. Moss married actor Steven Roy in 1999. They have two sons, Owen, (born September 2003), and Jaden (born November 2005), and a daughter, Frances Beatrice (born in June 2009). Actress Maria Bello is the godmother of Moss's older son.
674325	The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant () is a 1972 German film directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder, based on his own play. This film has an all-female cast and is set in the home of the protagonist, Petra von Kant. It follows the changing dynamics in her relationships with the other women. The film was entered into the 22nd Berlin International Film Festival. Plot. Petra von Kant (Carstersen) is a prominent fashion designer based in Bremen. The film is almost totally restricted to her apartment's bedroom, decorated by a huge reproduction of Poussin's "Midas and Bacchus" (c.1630), which depicts naked and partially clothed men. The room also contains numerous life-size mannequins for her work, though only her assistant Marlene (Hermann) is shown using them.
1053019	John Thompson Gulager (born December 19, 1957) is an actor, cinematographer and film director.
578402	Ong Bak 2: The Beginning (องค์บาก 2) is a 2008 Thai martial arts film co-directed by and starring Tony Jaa. It is a follow-up to Jaa's 2003 breakout film "". Initially claimed to be a sequel to "Ong-Bak: Muay Thai Warrior", "Ong Bak 2" was then announced to be a prequel to its predecessor. Unlike its predecessor however, which had a contemporary and realistic setting, "Ong Bak 2" is actually set in 15th century Thailand and as such, could be described as a historical epic with elements of fantasy combined, and has nothing to do with the original "Ong-Bak". "Ong Bak 2" also has nothing to do with Jaa's 2005 film "Tom-Yum-Goong", which was sometimes incorrectly labelled "Ong Bak 2" in the West, as well as "The Protector" and "The Warrior King". "Tom-Yum-Goong" had a contemporary setting similar to "Ong-Bak: Muay Thai Warrior", although it too had different characters and plot. Jaa's films had yet to tie into each other, although Jaa had claimed they would do so with the release of "Ong Bak 3" in 2010, which they did. As well as the different historical setting to Jaa's previous films, "Ong Bak 2" has taken a notably grittier and bloodier direction. The plot of "Ong Bak 2" revolves around Tien (Jaa), the son of Lord Sihadecho, a murdered nobleman in old Siam. As a spirited and unyielding youth, Tien resists savage slave traders and, moments from death, is rescued by a man known as Chernang. Chernang is a renowned warrior and leader of the Pha Beek Khrut, a group of bandits, and Chernang realizes unsurpassed physical potential in the young Tien and takes Tien under his wing. The Pha Beek Khrut are a group of expert martial artists specialising in combat styles from all over Asia, and Tien is trained to unify these different fighting systems, and grows into the most dangerous man alive. As Tien becomes a young man he goes on a lone mission of vengeance against the vicious slave traders who enslaved him as a youth, and also the treacherous warlord, Lord Rajasena, who murdered his father and who has an entire army protecting him. Plot. The film begins in 1431 feudal Siam. It is a time of political upheaval, treachery and danger. The opening scene explains how during the reign of Boromarajatiraj II of the Ayutthaya Kingdom, the Ayutthaya royal court became more powerful than the Sukhothai kingdom and expanded to the east. The Ayutthaya army besieged the Kingdom of Gods for several months. The king sent his son, Prince Indraracha to rule the kingdom. At the new kingdom, Lord Sihadecho is a provincial ruler, and a gallant and noble warrior of a formally great dynasty. His son, Tien, a spirited and unyielding youth, aspires to be just like his father, but is forced to undergo dance lessons instead much to his disdain. Meanwhile, the treacherous and power-craving Lord Rajasena, a former city administrator of the capital city, plots to seize total control of all Asia and has amassed the greatest army in Asia. Rajasena sends out vicious assassins to murder Lord Sihadecho's family and his loyal soldiers. The only survivor from this massacre is Tien, who manages to escape with deep vengeance in his heart. Tien is captured by a group of savage slave traders, who throw him into a pit with a giant crocodile when he proves uncontrollable. Tien is saved by Chernang (Sorapong Chatree), leader of the renowned "Pha Beek Khrut" (Garuda Wing Cliff) guerilla group, who attack the slave traders. Chernang throws a knife to Tien, proclaiming "your life depends on you, young boy," with which Tien kills the crocodile. Intrigued by his physical prowess and attitude, Chernang takes Tien to a soothsayer, who says the boy has a great destiny, that "spirits will fear him" and that he will become the greatest warrior who will ever live, and as such Chernang takes in Tien as his adoptive son and raises him like himself as a guerilla and a bandit. Tien gets his wish to train as a warrior and more besides, growing up to excel in the arts of war, including man-to-man fighting, incantation, and subterfuge. Tien is instructed in a variety of traditional Asian fighting styles, including muay boran and krabi krabong, Japanese kenjutsu and ninjutsu, Malay silat, and various Chinese martial arts. He also learns the use of weapons such as the ninjatō, katana, jian, dao, talwar, nunchaku, rope dart, and three-section staff. Now a young man and with all these martial arts heavily instilled, becoming the greatest warrior to ever live, Tien (Tony Jaa) is eager to quench the vengeance in his heart by killing the slave traders, which he does. He then goes on to kill Lord Rajasena by posing as a dancer during a celebration. Returning to the Pha Beek Khrut, Tien is mystified to find their village deserted. Suddenly, he finds himself confronted by wave after wave of masked assassins, the same ones hired by Lord Rajasena to destroy his original home. As the fight progresses Tien is too enraged to notice that the masked villains are none other than his Pha Beek Khrut comrades though their individual combat styles are glaringly recognizable. As Tien tries to defeat the masked assassins he climbs on an elephant but then Bhuti Sangkha a.k.a. The Crow Ghost (Dan Chupong uncredited) appears and kicks Tien off of the elephant. Bhuti's nature is unknown and he has a small role in the film. Then he takes the elephant away. At last confronting their leader, Tien finds they have been surrounded by Rajasena's army, which is led by the tyrant, himself. Lord Rajasena reveals he had survived thanks to an armored tunic concealed beneath his state robes. Chernang unmasks and admits to his part in killing Lord Sihadecho, as he was in league with Rajasena. Chernang explains that he must carry out Rajasena's orders, or his family (the Pha Beek Khrut) will be killed. As Tien reluctantly fights Chernang, Chernang pins him to the ground, once again calls Tien his son and asks him to take his life in payment for killing his father. Chernang then forces Tien's blade to snap and slash across his throat, taking his life. The film ends on a cliffhanger with Tien, after defeating dozens of Rajasena's warriors, being finally overwhelmed by hundreds more. Rajasena orders Tien to be taken away to be slowly tortured to death. It is unclear whether Tien survives, and if he does, how it is so. An extremely ambiguous and vague voice-over explains that Tien "may find a way to cheat death again", and shows him with a fully-grown beard (which he does not have in the film) standing in front of a scarred golden Buddha statue, perhaps indicating reincarnation. Production. Shooting of the film began in October 2006. It was released in Thailand on December 5, 2008. In July 2008, rumor surfaced that Tony Jaa had disappeared from the production set. Prachya Pinkaew commented to the press that Tony Jaa had disappeared from the set for almost two months, leaving the film unfinished; and that the delay caused more than 250 million baht damage due to the breach of contract with the Weinstein Company who had also canceled the contract. Later in an interview with the press, Tony Jaa stated that the production was on hiatus because Sahamongkol Film could not release the obligated funding for the film. Sources within Ayara Film, the subsidiary of Sahamongkol Film that handled Ong Bak 2 production, stated that no more funding came from Sahamongkol after it took over the budget and management role from Tony Jaa from May 2008 to July 2008. Tony Jaa and the owner of Sahamongkol Film later made a joint press conference stating that the production and funding would continue after several concessions were agreed upon between Tony Jaa and Sahamongkol. Famed Thai action choreographer and Jaa's mentor Panna Rittikrai was brought onto the project in the capacity of director to help complete the film. In addition, Rittikrai added martial artist Dan Chupong to the cast. An international trailer for the movie was released during filming, showing the fictional setting in which Tony Jaa's character is being rescued in the jungle by a group of martial artists of various styles, and trained to unify these different systems. However, production still encountered financial problems as it came to a close. In order to complete the production on time, the filmmakers decided to end "Ong Bak 2" with a cliffhanger ending, and then continue the story in a sequel, "Ong Bak 3", which was announced to begin production for a 2009 release. Distribution. Worldwide distribution and sales rights to "Ong Bak 2" were purchased by The Weinstein Company in March 2006. A little over a year later, Harvey Weinstein visited Bangkok and renegotiated a deal in which Sahamongkol Film International bought back most of the rights to the film, except for North America, which The Weinstein Company retains. At the 2007 Cannes Film Festival market, Sahamongkol sold some rights to Germany-based Splendid Films. On 10 February 2009, it was announced that the Wagner/Cuban Companies’ Magnolia Pictures acquired the U.S. distribution rights for Ong-Bak 2 under their Magnet label. The deal was negotiated by Tom Quinn, Senior Vice President of Magnolia, with Gilbert Lim of Sahamongkol Film International. Critical reception. The film currently holds a 47% 'Rotten' rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 64 reviews. Thailand reception. Despite political turmoil in the film's native Thailand, in its opening weekend (8 December 2008) "Ong Bak 2" grossed about 58 million baht ($2.06 million), according to Variety Asia Online, and was number one at the Thai box office. "Ong Bak 2" did better at the Thai box office than Tony Jaa's previous film, "Tom-Yum-Goong". Home video. There have been numerous DVD releases of "Ong Bak 2". Various versions with regional subtitles and dubbings were released throughout Asia, South America, Australia and New Zealand in the months shortly after the film's premiere in its native Thailand. The film was released for the European Film Market on 6 February 2009. The United States version was released on February 2, 2010, although it is already available in English language version. A bootleg all-region-compatible version with English subtitles of "Ong-Bak 2" was internationally released April 2, 2009 on DVD, although this version is not as yet widely available. There are no significant reviews, such as on Rotten Tomatoes, yet. Sequel. With the box office success of "Ong Bak 2", Sahamongkol Film International was quick to announce their intention to film its sequel. Filming of new footage for the follow-up was to begin before the end of the year and was to incorporate unused footage from "Ong Bak 2". Kongdej Jaturanrasamee, screenwriter of the Thai fantasy film "Queens of Langkasuka", was signed to write the script. In addition, the expensive set for the Khmer Palace was completed and seen by the press. The studio hoped to have the film in theaters in late 2009. Sia Jieang, an Executive of Sahamongkol, stated the film would feature more fights between Tony Jaa and Dan Chupong (the uncredited actor behind the mysterious, enigmatic and deadly "crow ghost" in "Ong Bak 2", the only enemy who really gets the drop on Tien in the film). Video game. "Ong Bak Tri" is being developed by Studio Hive and will be published worldwide by Immanitas Entertainment. It's going to be a 2.5D side-scrolling brawler with "intense fighting action, impressive free-running sequences, and highly cinematic quick-time action events," according to the press release. It is currently targeting a 2013 release for PC, smartphones, PlayStation Network, and Xbox Live Arcade.
1104187	Fan Rong K Chung Graham (金芳蓉, pinyin: Jīn Fāngróng) (born October 9, 1949 in Kaohsiung, Taiwan), known professionally as Fan Chung, is a mathematician who works mainly in the areas of spectral graph theory, extremal graph theory and random graphs, in particular in generalizing the Erdős–Rényi model for graphs with general degree distribution (including power-law graphs in the study of large information networks).
1163360	Kate Jackson (born October 29, 1948) is an American actress, director, and producer, perhaps best known for her role as Sabrina Duncan in the popular 1970s television series "Charlie's Angels". Jackson is a three-time Emmy Award nominee in the Best Actress category, has been nominated for several Golden Globe Awards, and has won the titles of Favorite Television Actress in the UK, and Favorite Television Star in Germany—several times—for her work in the television series "Scarecrow and Mrs. King". She co-produced that series through her production company, Shoot the Moon Enterprises Ltd., with Warner Brothers Television. Jackson has starred in a number of theatrical and TV films, and played the lead role on the short-lived television adaptation of the film "Baby Boom". Early life and career. Lucy Kate Jackson was born in Birmingham, Alabama, the daughter of Ruth (née Shepherd) and Hogan Jackson, a business executive. She attended The Brooke Hill School for Girls and then went on to the University of Mississippi, where she was a member of the Delta Rho chapter of the Kappa Kappa Gamma sorority, but during her sophomore year at the University of Mississippi, she moved to New York City to study acting at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. Jackson worked as an NBC page at the network's Rockefeller Center studios and did summer stock in Vermont before landing a role as the mysterious, silent ghost Daphne Harridge on the 1960s supernatural daytime quasi-soap opera "Dark Shadows". In 1971, Jackson had a starring role as Tracy Collins in "Night of Dark Shadows", the second feature film based on the daytime serial. She was joined by her "Dark Shadows" castmates Lara Parker, David Selby, Grayson Hall, Nancy Barrett, John Karlen, and Thayer David. This movie was more loosely based on the series than "House of Dark Shadows" was, and it did not fare as well at the box office as the first film did. The same year, she worked with James Stewart in two episodes of the short-lived sitcom, "The Jimmy Stewart Show". She then appeared as nurse Jill Danko, wife of a character played by Sam Melville, for four seasons on the 1970s crime drama "The Rookies". A supporting cast member, Jackson filled her free time by studying directing and editing. She also appeared in several TV films during this period. Jackson's performance was well received in the 1972 independent film "Limbo", one of the first theatrical films to address the Vietnam War and the wives of soldiers who were POWs, MIA or killed in action (KIA). She also appeared in an all-star ensemble cast in "Death Scream", a 1975 television dramatization of the circumstances surrounding a real-life 1964 murder as reported in a sensational article in the "New York Times". Jackson hosted the thirteenth episode of season four of "Saturday Night Live" which aired in February 1979. "Charlie's Angels". In 1975, she met with "Rookies" producers Aaron Spelling and Leonard Goldberg to discuss her contractual obligation to star in another television series for Spelling/Goldberg Productions upon that show's cancellation. Goldberg told her of a series that was available—because "every network has passed on it", "The Alley Cats". Spelling said that when he told Jackson the title of the series had to be changed and asked her what she would like to call it, she replied, "Charlie's Angels", pointing to a picture of three female angels on the wall behind Spelling. At the beginning of the third season of "Charlie's Angels", Jackson was offered the Meryl Streep role in the feature film "Kramer vs Kramer" (1979), but was forced to turn it down because Spelling told her that they were unable to rearrange the hit show's shooting schedule to give her time off to do the film. At the end of the third season, Jackson left the show saying, "I served it well and it served me well, now it's time to go." In 1982, Jackson starred opposite her "Rookies" co-star, Michael Ontkean, and Harry Hamlin in the feature film "Making Love", directed by Arthur Hiller. It was a movie some considered to be ahead of its time, and attempted to deal sensitively with the topic of homosexuality. However, it received tepid reviews and did poorly at the box office. "Scarecrow and Mrs. King". Jackson made what was for the time a whopping $6,000,000 deal with CBS to star in a comedy series. She elected instead to accept the starring role in "Scarecrow and Mrs. King", a one-hour action drama in which she played housewife Amanda King opposite Bruce Boxleitner's spy, code-named "Scarecrow". Jackson also co-produced the series with Warner Brothers Television through her production company, Shoot the Moon Enterprises. It was during this series that she developed a keen interest in directing. When asked on the set one afternoon "What do you do tomorrow?", Jackson replied, "I don't work, I just direct." "Scarecrow and Mrs. King" was on the air from 1983–1987, The series was strong enough in the ratings that it beat its NBC competition, "Boone". During filming of the show's fourth season, in January 1987, Jackson elected to receive a mammogram for the first time, a test which led to the diagnosis of a small malignant tumor. This time, her series' producer—the only person she told about the diagnosis—worked with her to reschedule her work on the show. Checking into a hospital under an alias, her course of action was to undergo a lumpectomy. Jackson returned to the series a week later, working with the aid of painkillers through five weeks of radiation treatments. 1988 to 2003. Receiving a "clean bill of health", Jackson followed up the cancelled "Scarecrow and Mrs. King" by taking on the main role in "Baby Boom", a 1988 TV sitcom version of the original movie starring Diane Keaton, but it lasted only one season. In 1989, she starred in the film "Loverboy" playing Patrick Dempsey's mother. She had taken the job in order to work with the director, Joan Micklin Silver, having admired the work Silver had done on the film "Hester Street". In September 1989, another mammogram indicated residual breast cancer which the previous operation had missed. This time the course of action was a partial mastectomy and reconstructive surgery. “The range of emotions you go through is amazing”, she says. “But I made a conscious decision to be positive.” Jaclyn Smith cancelled a trip to New York City, meeting Jackson at her doctor’s office before she checked into the hospital. “I’d been crying before I got there,” says Smith. “Then I saw Kate, and she had a smile on her face. She said, 'We've gotten through other things, like divorces, and we'll get through this.' And we did.” When Jackson awoke after surgery, “The first thing I heard was good news. My lymph nodes were clean.” Back at home she read medical journals, switched to a macrobiotic diet and came to terms with her reconstructive surgery. “I'm never going to have the perfect body”, she says. “I'm not into facelifts and lip poufs. But I can wear a strapless evening gown, a bustier or whatever is required for a part.” Jackson starred in several TV movies over the next several years, while working for breast cancer awareness. In 1995, on the heels of a night filming schedule on location, she checked herself into an Alabama hospital for tests due to a feeling of malaise and an inability to sleep. After several tests, Dr. Gerald Pohost, now head of cardiology at U.S.C., diagnosed that Jackson had been born with an atrial septal defect, a tiny hole in her heart which had previously gone undetected despite Jackson's active lifestyle. She underwent open heart surgery to correct the defect, although as cardiologist Dr. P. K. Shah related in a February 3, 2006, appearance with Jackson on "Larry King Live", the current treatment no longer involves surgery. She has appeared in TV movies and has made numerous guest appearances on TV. She dialed down her professional pursuits when her son, Charles Taylor Jackson, was adopted in 1995. She stated at the time, "I don't see how I can go about a directing career and be a good mom at the same time. And if I'm not a good mom, I don't think it matters much what else I do well."
588611	Don Muthu Swami is a 2008 Hindi-language Indian feature film directed by Ashim Samanta starring Mithun Chakraborty as the Don. Plot. Don Muthu Swami is a comical tale of a Don, pushed to choose the path of "Ahimsa" by his dying father to change from Don Muthuswami to Sir Muthuswami. Trivia. This movie is a remake, though not acknowledged, of the 1991 Hollywood movie Oscar starring Sylvester Stallone. Ek Daav Dhobi Pachhad, a Marathi film starring Ashok Saraf was also a remake of Don Muthu Swami.
1039516	Anne-Marie Duff (born 8 October 1970) is an English actress best known for playing Fiona Gallagher in "Shameless", and Elizabeth I in "The Virgin Queen". Life and work. Duff was born on 8 October 1970, the younger of two children of Irish immigrants – her father was a painter and decorator and her mother worked in a shoe shop. The family lived in Southall, Middlesex, and Anne-Marie went to a comprehensive school - Mellow Lane Hayes. At an early age, Anne-Marie attended a local youth theatre; Young Argosy, linked to the Argosy Players, in order to battle her shy nature and soon became hooked on the stage. In her mid-teens, involved in an amateur theatre company, she began to think seriously about applying to drama schools. Her first application was rejected. “At the time, I was desperately unhappy about it, but I just wasn’t polished. I got too nervous in the audition. It wasn’t a world I was familiar with…” So she went away and did some more A levels and studied Film and Theatre Studies. At the age of 19, she studied alongside John Simm, Anastasia Hille and her good friend, Paul Bettany at the Drama Centre in London. Duff was nominated for a Laurence Olivier Award in 2000, but first became well known as Fiona in the television programme "Shameless", and for her portrayal of Queen Elizabeth I in the lavish 2005 BBC television miniseries, "The Virgin Queen" which also starred Tom Hardy, Joanne Whalley and Tara Fitzgerald. In 2007 she was one of nine female celebrities to take part in the "What's it going to take?" campaign promoting awareness of domestic abuse in the United Kingdom. She also played Julia Stanley in "Nowhere Boy", playing John Lennon's mother. The film is about John Lennon's teenage years. In "The Last Station", a biopic about the events before Count Leo Tolstoy's death, she played Sasha, the much devoted daughter. An accomplished theatre actor, she has worked extensively with the Royal National Theatre and also in London's West End ("Vassa", "Collected Stories"). Credits at the National Theatre include "Collected Stories", "King Lear" and most recently the title character in Marianne Elliott's production of George Bernard Shaw's "Saint Joan" to great acclaim. In 2011 she played Alma Rattenbury in Rattigan's final play "Cause Célèbre" at The Old Vic directed by Thea Sharrock. Personal life. Duff married Scottish actor and former "Shameless" co-star James McAvoy in October 2006 and gave birth to their first child, Brendan McAvoy, in 2010. Duff likes baking, hiking, camping, and hill-climbing.
1043827	The Trollenberg Terror is the title of both a 1956 "Saturday Serial" ITV UK television programme and a better-known 1958 black-and-white science fiction film. The latter is also known as The Crawling Eye, Creature from Another World, The Creeping Eye, and The Flying Eye. Both versions are directed by Quentin Lawrence and feature Laurence Payne as journalist Philip Truscott, who investigates unusual accidents occurring at a Swiss resort. The film also stars Forrest Tucker as United Nations troubleshooter Alan Brooks. Peter Key wrote the story for the serial, and Jimmy Sangster scripted the film version based on Keys' story. It was the final film to be produced by Southall Studios, one of the earliest pioneer film studios in the UK. Plot. One of three student climbers is mysteriously killed on a mountain, his head ripped off. Two sisters are on a train to Geneva. Anne faints as they pass a mountain and upon waking, she now knows all about the town and that there is something wrong with the mountain. She decides they should get off at the next stop, Trollenberg. She was part of a mind-reading act in London. Alan, who was on the train with them, goes to an observatory a little way up the mountain, where Professor Crevett asks for his help. He is told that despite many accidents, dead bodies are never found on the mountain and a radioactive mist cloud is always on its south side. Similar incidents took place in the Andes three years earlier before suddenly vanishing without a trace. It is thought the monsters come from a very cold planet and make their own atmosphere, a rarefied mist. Anne is giving a mind-reading exhibition at the hotel when she sees the two men in a hut on the mountain. Dewhurst is asleep when the other man, under a mental compulsion, walks out. She faints again. Alan phones the hut and finds out Brett has in fact left. The cloud has moved down to where the hut is and the other man hears a noise outside. Something horrible and unseen kills him. The cloud moves back up the mountain. An expedition from town goes to look for the two men. Anne, back in town, is uneasy and says the men should stay away from the hut. The hut is locked on the inside and everything is frozen. A body is found under the bed with its head torn off. Anne decides to investigate herself by cable car as a spotter plane arrives to search the mountain area. A man is spotted on the mountain but when the first rescuer gets there, all that's there is a rucksack. When he looks inside, he sees the man’s severed head. He is then attacked by a madman (Brett) with a mountain axe, who kills the second rescuer. Anne feels a compulsion to climb the mountain but they stop her going past the observatory. Later Brett arrives back at the hotel, behaving weirdly, then tries to kill Anne but is knocked down. He hits his head but there is no blood from the wound. This was similar to incidents in the Andes where a man killed an old woman who had powers similar to Anne's, being able to receive thoughts. They arrived ten minutes too late to find him dead, as in dead for 24 hours. Brett kills a man and escapes from the room he was locked in and goes looking for Anne with a knife, but is shot and killed by Alan. News is that the cloud is now coming down the mountain toward the village. They decide to retreat to the observatory by cable car; the observatory is heavily fortified to withstand avalanches and therefore should provide a measure of protection from the monsters. A monster arrives in the mist at the hotel. As people begin piling into a cable car, a mother suddenly realizes her daughter is not there, and Alan goes to rescue the child in the hotel. He does so and narrowly escapes the monster. They make it to the cable car and head up the mountain, but the delay has given the mist a chance to reach the cable car platform; the motor and cables start freezing and the car starts jerking, but it manages to get them to the observatory, and four clouds now start heading towards them. They have one hour. Hans, who tried to get out by road, turns up and they let him in, but he has the symptoms of being a puppet of the monsters and goes looking for Anne. They manage to stop him from strangling her, and kill him. The monsters climb towards the observatory, where the men are making Molotov cocktails to combat the monsters, who prefer intense cold. An aerial firebomb raid has been ordered on the observatory, which it should survive, having three-foot-thick concrete walls. Philip hits one of the monsters with a Molotov cocktail, which sets it ablaze, but he is caught by another monster on the roof. A Molotov cocktail tossed from Alan sets that monster ablaze and persuades the burning monster to let Philip go. Later, Philip does the same for Alan when a monster manages to break through the thick wall to try and get at Anne. The plane arrives and begins its bombing raid, and the monsters burn.
582601	Bhagyashree (born Bhagyashree Patwardhan on 23 February 1969) is an Indian film and television actress. Biography. Bhagyashree hails from Sangli city in Maharashtra. Maratha Famely Her father is Vijay Singhrao Madhavrao Patwardhan, a descendant of the Maharaja of Sangli. Her full name is Bhagyashree Raje Patwardhan. Her mother's name is Rajlaxmi. She is the eldest of three daughters, the other two being Madhuvanti and Purnima. Career. She started her acting career with "Kachhi Dhoop" - a television serial by Amol Palekar. It was based on Louisa Mary Alcott's "Little Women". Her rendezvous with acting happened by chance when next door neighbor Amol Palekar, a renowned actor-director, requested her to step in and act in his serial "Kacchi Dhoop" as the actress who had been signed on had abandoned the serial abruptly. The serial did well and later on she had roles in "Honi Anhoni" and "Kisse Miya Biwi Ke". She is best known for her role in the 1989 blockbuster film "Maine Pyaar Kiya" with Salman Khan. After marriage, she acted in three films: Peepat's "Qaid Main Hai Bulbul", K.C. Bokadia's "Tyagi" and Mahendra Shah's "Payal" all opposite her husband Himalaya in 1992. She also acted with Avinash Wadhawan in "Ghar Aaya Mera Pardesi" (1993). This was her last film in the 90s and she took a break from films for rest of this decade. She returned to films in the 2001 film "Hello Girls". She later appeared in "Janani" (2006), "Humko Deewana Kar Gaye" (2006) and "" (2008). After a gap of several years, she made a comeback to television with "Aandhi Jasbaton Ki", where she played a politician. She was also seen in "Didi Ka Dulha", a comedy serial on national broadcaster Doordarshan and a telefilm where she plays a blind person. She made her debut in Marathi films with the romantic comedy "Zhak Marli Baiko Keli" in June 2009. She is the promoter of a media company Shrishti Entertainment with her husband.
393698	Jun Ji-hyun (born 30 October 1981), also known as Gianna Jun, is a South Korean actress. She is best known for her role as "The Girl" in the romantic comedy "My Sassy Girl" (2001), one of the highest grossing Korean comedies of all time. Other notable films include "Il Mare" (2000), "Windstruck" (2004), "The Thieves" (2012), and "The Berlin File" (2013).
1176517	Susanna Lee Hoffs (born 17 January 1959) is an American vocalist, guitarist and actress. She is best known as a member of The Bangles. Early life. Hoffs was born on the Westside of Los Angeles, California, to a Jewish family. She is the daughter of Tamar Ruth (Simon) and Joshua Allen Hoffs, a psychoanalyst. Her mother played Beatles music for Hoffs when she was a child, and she began playing the guitar in her teens. Hoffs attended Palisades High School in Pacific Palisades, Los Angeles, graduating in 1976. While in college she worked as a production assistant and made her acting debut in the 1978 film "Stony Island". In 1980, she graduated from University of California, Berkeley with a Bachelor degree in Art. When she entered Berkeley she was a fan of classic rock bands that played in large stadiums. While a student at Berkeley, she attended the final Sex Pistols show at Winterland and a Patti Smith concert. Exposure to punk rock changed her career goal from dancer to musician in a band. She eventually joined Vicki Peterson and Debbi Peterson in what would later become the pop music group The Bangles. Career with The Bangles. The Bangles' first recorded release was a self-titled EP in 1982 on the Faulty Products Label. The Bangles released their first full album "All Over the Place" in 1984 on Columbia Records. They had a moderate hit with the single "Hero Takes a Fall", but their commercial breakthrough came with the album "Different Light" in 1986, which produced the hit singles "Manic Monday" and "Walk Like an Egyptian". In 1986, Hoffs co-wrote the song "I Need a Disguise" for the album "Belinda" for Belinda Carlisle, formerly of the all-girl group The Go-Go's. With increasing fame, Hoffs also appeared on the covers of numerous magazines, and the Rickenbacker guitar company issued a Susanna Hoffs model of the 350, which she customized herself. In 1987, Hoffs starred in the film "The Allnighter", which was directed by her mother Tamar Simon Hoffs, and also featured Joan Cusack and Pam Grier. The film was critically panned, and failed at the box office. The Bangles released their third album "Everything" in 1988, with their biggest-selling single "Eternal Flame", which was co-written and sung by Hoffs. The Bangles disbanded in 1990. In the late 1990s, Hoffs contacted the other members of The Bangles with the hope of reuniting. They recorded the single "Get the Girl" for the second "" movie in 1999. Subsequently, they announced their decision to reunite full-time in 2000. Their fourth album, "Doll Revolution", was released in 2003. Solo career. Hoffs released a solo album, "When You're a Boy", in 1991, which spawned a U.S Top 40 hit with "My Side of the Bed." In the UK the single landed at #44, for only 4 weeks on chart, and the album also landed decently in Europe. Hoffs recorded another album during 1993/1994, prior to leaving Columbia Records, but it went unreleased. In 1996, Hoffs released her second solo album, "Susanna Hoffs". Although it received much praise in the media and yielded a minor US hit and a UK hit at #33 for 2 weeks with a cover of the Lightning Seeds single "All I Want", it still was not a big commercial success. Hoffs appeared in the first "Austin Powers" movie as a member of the fictitious 1960s rock group Ming Tea, fronted by the title character. In real life, Ming Tea consisted of actor Mike Myers, Hoffs, Canadian musician/producer Christopher Ward, and singer Matthew Sweet. This group made a number of television performances (with Myers in character as Powers) and had a minor hit with the song "BBC". Hoffs returned with the group in the second and third "Austin Powers" films. Hoffs also did a cover of "The Look of Love" for the soundtrack of the first Austin Powers movie and a cover of the song "Alfie" for the soundtrack of the third film. Hoffs recorded a cover of the Oingo Boingo song "We Close Our Eyes" for the "Buffy The Vampire Slayer" soundtrack. She is also responsible for the song "Now and Then", from the 1995 film of the same name. Hoffs also contributed a song to the film "Red Roses and Petrol" (written and directed by Tamar Simon Hoffs) titled "The Water is Wide." The song can be heard in the closing credits and is available on the film's soundtrack. In February 2009, Hoffs appeared on stage at the Key Club in Los Angeles, singing with thenewno2, the "post-Bristol" psychedelic blues band led by Dhani Harrison. In December 2011, Hoffs provided an original song for use in promoting Visit South Walton, the tourism promotion agency for Walton County, Florida (formerly identified as the Beaches of South Walton). The song, "This Is The Place", will be used in advertising and marketing the popular coastal area that comprises fifteen beach communities. Hoffs self-released her third solo album of new material (the first since her 1996's self-titled album) called "Someday" via Vanguard Records on July 17, 2012. The set was produced by Mitchell Froom and is influenced by the music of the 1960s. American Songwriter gave "Someday" a rating of 4.5 out of 5 stars and described it as "easily and undeniably Hoffs’ most definitive musical statement to date." Hoffs is mentioned in "I'd Love to Kiss the Bangles" by The Saw Doctors. Robbie Fulks wrote about her in "That Bangle Girl," which appears on his album "The Very Best of Robbie Fulks". Sid n Susie. In 2006, Hoffs teamed up with fellow Ming Tea rocker Matthew Sweet; under the name "Sid n Susie," they recorded fifteen cover versions of classic rock songs from the 1960s and 1970s for an album titled "Under the Covers, Vol. 1". The album was released in April 2006. On July 18, they appeared on "Late Night with Conan O'Brien" to promote the album and tour. The duo released another album "Under the Covers, Vol. 2" on July 21, 2009, which included covers of songs by Fleetwood Mac, Carly Simon, Rod Stewart and others. Personal life. In 1993, Hoffs married Jay Roach, the director of the "Austin Powers" movies and "Meet the Parents", and producer of "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy". She has two sons. Roach converted to Judaism when marrying Hoffs. She is a vegetarian.
1067967	Maryam d'Abo (born 27 December 1960) is an English film and television actress, best known as Bond girl Kara Milovy in the 1987 James Bond film "The Living Daylights". Early life. Born in London to Georgian mother Nino Kvinitadze (born in 1920 and daughter of Georgian general Giorgi Kvinitadze) and Dutch father Peter Claude Holland d'Abo (born on 7 October 1917), d'Abo was raised in Paris and Geneva. She decided to be an actress at the age of 11. She studied at Drama Centre London, while working as a model in commercials. Career. In 1983, d'Abo made her screen debut in the successful low-budget science fiction horror film "Xtro", playing Analise Mercier, a French au pair, who becomes a human incubator for an alien. "Xtro" was briefly vilified as a so-called video nasty, but in fact it was granted an uncut video certificate by the BBFC. In 1985, she made a brief appearance as 'French girlfriend' in "White Nights". In 1987, she starred in "The Living Daylights" as Kara Milovy, the sweet and vulnerable Czechoslovakian cellist and sniper who falls for James Bond. As a tie-in with the film, she also appeared in a Bond-themed "Playboy" cover and multi-page pictorial in the September 1987 edition, but later said "I wouldn't do those pictures now... I've learned a lot since then" in an interview with "People". In 1988, she had a well-received role as Ta'Ra, an alien medical officer in the science fiction TV miniseries "Something is Out There", which was followed by a six-episode NBC mini-series by the same name.
1084431	Schwarzfahrer (also known as "Black Rider") is a 1993 German 12-minute short film directed by Pepe Danquart. It won an Academy Award in 1994 for Best Short Subject. The topic of the film is the daily racism a black man endures in a tram. The title is a word-play: literally, ""Schwarzfahrer"" means "black traveler" in German, but can also be translated as "fare-dodger." This word-play forms the punch line of the short film. Plot. A motorbiker (Stefan Merki), who early in the film was unable to start his motorcycle, boards a tram, and witnesses a black man (Paul Outlaw) sitting down next to an elderly white woman (Senta Moira). In the entire 12 minutes, the old woman racially abuses the black man, stating that blacks stink, are unintelligent, criminal and the perfect carrier for AIDS. The biker feels uncomfortable, but does not dare to interrupt. The black man stays quiet for the entire film, until the tram controller arrives: when the old woman produces her ticket, he grabs and swallows it. When the old woman accuses the black man of eating her ticket, he coolly shows his valid ticket to the controller; the latter nods at him and arrests the old woman. The punch line is that both the black man and the old woman are "Schwarzfahrer" now: the black man who rides a train, is a non-offensive "black rider", while the old woman now is a "real" law-breaking Schwarzfahrer (i.e. fare dodger). The one passenger the viewer knows who never possessed a ticket, the motorbiker, escapes without the controller checking his ticket.
898717	Monamour is a 2006 Italian film directed by Tinto Brass. Plot. Marta is a young housewife, married to Dario, a successful book publisher. Although she still loves her husband, Marta hasn't been able to achieve sexual satisfaction for months due to their dull and predictable love life. While staying in Mantua for the Festivaletteratura, a book fair, Marta follows the advice of her scheming friend Sylvia and pursues an affair with a handsome and mysterious artist named Leon, which leads to surprising results regarding her failing marriage with Dario. Availability. The film is available to buy in DVD format on sites such as Amazon.com. The Blu-ray Disc version is out on 19 April 2011.
1423854	Rami Said Malek (born May 12, 1981) is an American actor. He is best known for his role as the gay teenage next-door-neighbor, "Kenny" on the FOX comedy series "The War at Home"; for his role as Merriell "Snafu" Shelton in the HBO miniseries "The Pacific"; and for his role as the pharaoh Ahkmenrah in the feature films "Night at the Museum" and '. In August 2010, it was announced that Malek had been cast as Benjamin in the final installment of '. Career. In 2004, Malek began his acting career with guest-starring roles on several notable television series including "Gilmore Girls", "Over There", and "Medium", as well as voicing "additional characters" for the video game "Halo 2" (for which he was uncredited). "The War at Home". In 2006, Malek made his feature film debut as Pharaoh Ahkmenrah in the comedy "Night at the Museum" and reprised his role in the 2009 sequel "". In the spring of 2007 he appeared onstage as "Jamie" in the Vitality Productions theatrical presentation of Keith Bunin's "The Credeaux Canvas" at the Elephant Theatre in Los Angeles. In 2010 Malek returned to television in a recurring role as the Egyptian American suicide bomber Marcos Al-Zacar on the 8th season of the Fox series "24". Later that same year, he received critical acclaim for his portrayal of Corporal Merriell "Snafu" Shelton on the Emmy Award-winning HBO World War II mini-series "The Pacific". During filming of "The Pacific", Malek met executive producer Tom Hanks, who was impressed with his performance and would later cast him as college student Steve Dibiasi in the feature film "Larry Crowne", released in July 2011. In August 2010 it was announced that Malek had been cast as the Egyptian vampire, "Benjamin", in the final installment of the popular "Twilight" franchise, "". Personal life. Malek was born May 12, 1981 in Los Angeles, California, of Egyptian descent, and has an identical twin brother named Sami who is four minutes younger than he is. Malek attended Notre Dame High School in Sherman Oaks, California and received his Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the University of Evansville in Evansville, Indiana. He currently lives in Los Angeles.
1104920	In numerical analysis, Simpson's rule is a method for numerical integration, the numerical approximation of definite integrals. Specifically, it is the following approximation: Simpson's rule also corresponds to the 3-point Newton-Cotes quadrature rule. The method is credited to the mathematician Thomas Simpson (1710–1761) of Leicestershire, England. Kepler used similar formulas over 100 years prior. In German, the method is sometimes called "Keplersche Fassregel" for this reason. Simpson's rule is a staple of scientific data analysis and engineering. It is widely used, for example, by naval architects to numerically integrate hull offsets and cross-sectional areas to determine volumes and centroids of ships or lifeboats. Derivation. Simpson's rule can be derived in various ways. Quadratic interpolation. One derivation replaces the integrand formula_2 by the quadratic polynomial (i.e. parabola)formula_3 which takes the same values as formula_2 at the end points "a" and "b" and the midpoint "m" = ("a" + "b") / 2. One can use Lagrange polynomial interpolation to find an expression for this polynomial, An easy (albeit tedious) calculation shows that This calculation can be carried out more easily if one first observes that (by scaling) there is no loss of generality in assuming that formula_7 and formula_8. Averaging the midpoint and the trapezoidal rules. Another derivation constructs Simpson's rule from two simpler approximations: the midpoint rule and the trapezoidal rule The errors in these approximations are respectively, where formula_12 denotes a term asymptotically proportional to formula_13. The two formula_12 terms are not equal; see Big O notation for more details. It follows from the above formulas for the errors of the midpoint and trapezoidal rule that the leading error term vanishes if we take the weighted average This weighted average is exactly Simpson's rule. Using another approximation (for example, the trapezoidal rule with twice as many points), it is possible to take a suitable weighted average and eliminate another error term. This is Romberg's method. Undetermined coefficients. The third derivation starts from the "ansatz" The coefficients α, β and γ can be fixed by requiring that this approximation be exact for all quadratic polynomials. This yields Simpson's rule. Error. The error in approximating an integral by Simpson's rule is where formula_18 is some number between formula_19 and formula_20. The error is asymptotically proportional to formula_21. However, the above derivations suggest an error proportional to formula_22. Simpson's rule gains an extra order because the points at which the integrand is evaluated are distributed symmetrically in the interval ["a", "b"]. Since the error term is proportional to the fourth derivative of "f" at formula_18, this shows that Simpson's rule provides exact results for any polynomial "f" of degree three or less, since the fourth derivative of such a polynomial is zero at all points. Composite Simpson's rule. If the interval of integration formula_20 is in some sense "small", then Simpson's rule will provide an adequate approximation to the exact integral. By small, what we really mean is that the function being integrated is relatively smooth over the interval formula_20. For such a function, a smooth quadratic interpolant like the one used in Simpson's rule will give good results. However, it is often the case that the function we are trying to integrate is not smooth over the interval. Typically, this means that either the function is highly oscillatory, or it lacks derivatives at certain points. In these cases, Simpson's rule may give very poor results. One common way of handling this problem is by breaking up the interval formula_20 into a number of small subintervals. Simpson's rule is then applied to each subinterval, with the results being summed to produce an approximation for the integral over the entire interval. This sort of approach is termed the "composite Simpson's rule". Suppose that the interval formula_20 is split up in formula_28 subintervals, with formula_28 an even number. Then, the composite Simpson's rule is given by where formula_31 for formula_32 with formula_33; in particular, formula_34 and formula_35. The above formula can also be written as The error committed by the composite Simpson's rule is bounded (in absolute value) by where formula_38 is the "step length", given by formula_39 This formulation splits the interval formula_40 in subintervals of equal length. In practice, it is often advantageous to use subintervals of different lengths, and concentrate the efforts on the places where the integrand is less well-behaved. This leads to the adaptive Simpson's method. Alternative extended Simpson's rule. This is another formulation of a composite Simpson's rule: instead of applying Simpson's rule to disjoint segments of the integral to be approximated, Simpson's rule is applied to overlapping segments, yielding: The formula above is obtained by combining the original composite Simpson's rule with the one consisting in using Simpson's 3/8 rule in the extreme subintervals and the standard 3-point rule in the remaining subintervals. The result is then obtained by taking the mean of the two formulas. Simpson's 3/8 rule. Simpson's 3/8 rule is another method for numerical integration proposed by Thomas Simpson. It is based upon a cubic interpolation rather than a quadratic interpolation. Simpson's 3/8 rule is as follows: where "b" - "a" = 3"h". The error of this method is: where formula_18 is some number between formula_19 and formula_20. Thus, the 3/8 rule is about twice as accurate as the standard method, but it uses one more function value. A composite 3/8 rule also exists, similarly as above. A further generalization of this concept for interpolation with arbitrary degree polynomials are the Newton–Cotes formulas. Simpson's 3/8 rule (for n point). Defining, we have Note, we can only use this if formula_28 is a multiple of three. Sample implementations. An implementation of the composite Simpson's rule in Python 2: An implementation of the composite Simpson's rule in Matlab R2011b: An implementation of the composite Simpson's rule in Octave 3.6.2::
689156	The Pool Boys, also known as "American Summer", is a 2011 comedy film directed by James B. Rogers. It stars Matthew Lillard, Brett Davern, Rachelle Lefèvre, Efren Ramirez and Tom Arnold. Principal photography began in late April 2007, with filming taking place throughout the New Orleans Metropolitan Area. Since wrapping at the end of the following month, the film struggled to find a wide release. The film was later released to home media on December 27, 2011. Plot. After Alex Sperling, a Harvard-bound valedictorian, loses his summer internship, he heads to Los Angeles to work for his cousin Roger. Unfortunately, Roger isn't the successful businessman he's made himself out to be (having dropped out of Harvard and becoming a pool boy). After a series of mishaps force Alex and Roger to squat in the mansion of one of Roger's clients, they join forces with a local escort to start an escort business. As the business quickly grows, the boys find themselves trapped in the middle of outlandish situations.
1085664	Dead Man Running is a 2009 British crime film directed by Alex De Rakoff and written by Alex De Rakoff and John Luton. The film was budgeted on $1 million. Football players Ashley Cole and Rio Ferdinand served as executive producers. The film was released in the United Kingdom on 30 October 2009.
1036167	Melvin Kenneth "Mel" Smith (3 December 1952 – 19 July 2013) was an English comedian, writer, film director, producer and actor. He was best known for his work on the sketch comedy shows "Not the Nine O'Clock News" and "Alas Smith and Jones" along with his comedy partner Griff Rhys Jones. Smith and Jones founded Talkback, which grew to be one of the UK's largest producers of television comedy and light entertainment programming. Early life. Smith's father, Kenneth, was born in Tow Law, County Durham, and worked at a coal mine during the Second World War looking after the pit ponies. After the war he moved to London, and married Smith's mother, whose parents owned a greengrocer's store in Chiswick, Middlesex. When the government legalised high street betting, he turned the shop into the first betting shop in Chiswick. Smith was born and brought up in Chiswick. He was educated at Hogarth Primary School, Chiswick and at Latymer Upper School, an independent school in Hammersmith. He went on to study experimental psychology at New College, Oxford. Career. While at Oxford University, Smith produced "The Tempest", and performed at the Edinburgh Fringe with the Oxford University Dramatic Society. One year they shared a venue with the Cambridge Footlights, directed by John Lloyd. His ex-curricular activities while at university led to his joining the Royal Court Theatre production team in London, and then Bristol Old Vic. He was also associate director of Sheffield's Crucible Theatre for two years. Later, he directed a theatre production of "Not in Front of the Audience". John Lloyd later got the opportunity to develop the idea that became the satirical BBC television series "Not the Nine O'clock News". This was followed briefly by "Smith and Goody" (with Bob Goody) and then the comedy sketch series "Alas Smith and Jones", co-starring Griff Rhys Jones, its title being a pun on the name of the American television series "Alias Smith and Jones". In 1982, he starred as the lead role in ITV drama "Muck and Brass "where he played Tom Craig a ruthless property developer. In 1984, he appeared in the Minder episode 'A Star Is Gorn' playing the character Cyril Ash a record producer. He also guest starred on "The Goodies" episode Animals. At the end of the 1980s, he played the title role in the sitcom "Colin's Sandwich" (1987–89), playing a British Rail employee with aspirations to be a writer. In 1981, Smith and Griff Rhys Jones founded TalkBack Productions, a company that has produced many of the most significant British comedy shows of the past two decades, including "Smack the Pony", "Da Ali G Show", "I'm Alan Partridge" and "Big Train". In 2000, the company was sold to Pearson for £62 million. Smith co-wrote and took the lead role in the space comedy "Morons from Outer Space" (1985), but the film failed to make much impact. His next cinema effort was better received as director of "The Tall Guy" (1989), giving Emma Thompson a major screen role. Perhaps his best-known film in America is "Brain Donors", the 1992 update of the Marx Brothers film "A Night at the Opera", starring Smith as a cheeky, opportunistic cab driver turned ballet promoter. Paramount Pictures considered this film the outstanding comedy of the year, but when the producers left Paramount for another studio, Paramount withdrew its support for the film. In 1987, Smith recorded a single with Kim Wilde for Comic Relief: a cover of the Christmas song Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree with some extra comedy lines written by Smith and Jones. It reached number three in the UK charts. He appeared in "The Princess Bride" as the Albino. Smith and Jones were reunited in 2005 for a review/revival of their earlier television series in "The Smith And Jones Sketchbook". Smith joked that "Obviously, Griff's got more money than me so he came to work in a Rolls Royce and I came on a bicycle. But it was great fun to do and we are firmly committed to doing something new together, because you don't chuck that sort of chemistry away. Of course, I'll have to pretend I like "Restoration". In August 2006, Smith returned to the theatre stage after some 20 years, appearing at the Edinburgh Fringe festival in "Allegiance", Irish journalist and author Mary Kenny's play about Churchill's encounter with the Irish nationalist leader Michael Collins in 1921. The play initially caused some controversy, with Smith proposing to flout the Scottish ban on smoking in public places, but the scene was quickly adapted after gaining the required amount of publicity. The play was directed by Brian Gilbert and produced by Daniel Jewel. In 2006, he also appeared in Hustle as Benjamin Frasier, a pub landlord who was scammed by the Hustle team when his on-screen son Joey tried to launch his rap career. In autumn 2006, Smith starred opposite Belinda Lang in a tour of a new comedy "An Hour and a Half Late" by French playwright Gérald Sibleyras, which was adapted by Smith. He then directed a West End revival of "Charley's Aunt" starring Stephen Tompkinson. From October 2007 to January 2008 he played the role of Wilbur Turnblad in the London production of "Hairspray" at the Shaftesbury Theatre. Personal life. Smith was married to Pam, a former model who grew up in Easington and Durham. They have one daughter, Alexandra. The couple had houses in St John's Wood (backing onto Lord's Cricket Ground), and Little Haseley, Oxfordshire (a Grade II listed barn conversion, sold in 2011) as well as a property in Barbados. Smith was a lifelong fan of Rolls-Royce cars. Health. Smith was hospitalised in 1999 with stomach ulcers, after admitting that he was consuming more than 50 Nurofen Plus tablets a day, and later also admitted to a growing addiction to the pills. Smith said at the time that the pressures of film work were a contributing factor, along with a desperate need to ease the pain caused by gout. Partly as a result, he agreed to sell Talkback Productions. On 31 December 2008, Smith appeared on "Celebrity Mastermind" whilst suffering from severe pharyngitis. Death. On the morning of 19 July 2013, London Ambulance Service was called to Smith's home in north-west London. Smith was confirmed dead by the ambulance crew, with a later post-mortem confirming death from a heart attack. Co-star Griff Rhys Jones said that "To everybody who ever met him, Mel was a force for life. He had a relish for it that seemed utterly inexhaustible". Rowan Atkinson who starred in Smith's film "Bean" said "He had a wonderfully generous and sympathetic presence both on and off screen". Stephen Fry noted that Smith "lived a full life, but was kind, funny and wonderful to know."
1064096	Peter Facinelli (pronounced "FAH-chin-elly"; born November 26, 1973) is an American actor and producer. He became known as the star of Fox's 2002 television series "Fastlane". He plays Dr. Carlisle Cullen in the film adaptations of the "Twilight" series. He is also well known for his role as Mike Dexter in the film "Can't Hardly Wait". He is currently a regular on the television series "Nurse Jackie" portraying the role of Dr. Fitch "Coop" Cooper. Early life. Facinelli grew up in Ozone Park, Queens, the son of Italian immigrants Bruna (née Reich), a homemaker, and Pierino Facinelli, a waiter. His parents are from the Val di Non valley, which is located in Trentino, Northern Italy. His father is from Revò, while his mother is from Spormaggiore. He was raised Roman Catholic and attended St. Francis Preparatory School in Fresh Meadows, New York. He studied acting at New York University, as well as at the Atlantic Theater Company Acting School in New York City; his teachers there included William H. Macy, Felicity Huffman, Giancarlo Esposito and Camryn Manheim. Career. Facinelli made his feature film debut in Rebecca Miller's "Angela" in 1995 and came to the attention of critics in the TV-movie "The Price of Love" later that year. In 1996, Facinelli played opposite his then-future wife Jennie Garth in "An Unfinished Affair". Other TV roles followed, including a part in "After Jimmy" (1996) and a college dropout in "Calm at Sunset". Facinelli co-starred with Amanda Peet and Michael Vartan in the 1997 AIDS-themed drama "Touch Me" (1997) and co-starred as a high school student in two 1998 features with Ethan Embry and Breckin Meyer, "Dancer, Texas Pop. 81", and "Can't Hardly Wait", which starred Jennifer Love Hewitt. Facinelli appeared in the sci-fi film "Supernova" starring James Spader in 2000. He made appearances in "Riding in Cars with Boys" in 2001 and "The Scorpion King" in 2002, followed by a leading role in the Fox drama "Fastlane". Facinelli had a recurring role in the HBO series "Six Feet Under" in 2004 and a role in the FX original series "Damages" beginning in 2007. Facinelli starred in "Hollow Man 2" with Christian Slater. It was released direct-to-video in May 2006.
1065719	The Wrong Man is a 1956 film noir by Alfred Hitchcock which stars Henry Fonda and Vera Miles. The film was drawn from the true story of an innocent man charged with a crime, as described in the book, "The True Story of Christopher Emmanuel Balestrero" by Maxwell Anderson, and in the magazine article, "A Case of Identity" ("Life" magazine, June 29, 1953) by Herbert Brean. It was one of the few Hitchcock films based on a true story and whose plot closely followed the real-life events. "The Wrong Man" had a notable effect on two significant directors: it prompted Jean-Luc Godard's longest piece of written criticism, and affected Martin Scorsese's "Taxi Driver". Plot. Manny Balestrero (Fonda), a musician at New York City's Stork Club, so resembles a man who had twice held up an insurance office that police are called when Manny unknowingly goes there on business. He is arrested after several witnesses identify him as the robber, and in providing a handwriting sample he misspells a word which was also misspelled in a note written by the robber. Attorney Frank O'Connor (Anthony Quayle) sets out to prove that Manny cannot possibly be the right man: at the time of the first hold-up he was on vacation with his family, and at the time of the second his jaw was so swollen that witnesses would certainly have noticed. Manny and his wife Rose (Miles) look for three people who saw Manny at the vacation hotel, but two have died and the third cannot be found. All this devastates Rose, whose resulting depression forces her to be hospitalized. During Manny's trial a juror, bored with the minutiae of one witness's testimony, makes a remark which prompts the judge to declare a mistrial. While Manny is awaiting a second trial he is exonerated when the true robber is arrested holding up a grocery store. Manny visits Rose at the hospital to share the good news, but as the film closes she remains profoundly depressed; a textual epilogue explains that she recovered two years later. Historical notes. The real O'Connor (1909–1992) was a New York State Senator at the time of the trial, who later became the district attorney of Queens County (New York City, New York), the president of the New York City Council and an appellate-court judge. Rose Balestrero (1910–1982) died in Florida at the age of 72. Manny (1909–1998) later moved to North Carolina, where he died at the age of 88. Production. A Hitchcock cameo is typical of most of his films. In "The Wrong Man" he appears only in silhouette, just before the credits at the beginning of the film, where he tells a darkened studio that the story is true. Many scenes were filmed in Jackson Heights, the neighborhood where Manny lived when he was accused. Most of the prison scenes were filmed among the convicts in a New York City prison in Queens. One of those inmates shouted to Henry Fonda, "What'd they get ya for, Henry?" as the actor was entering the constructed set of Manny's prison cell.
1051327	Night Flight from Moscow (also known as Le Serpent) is a French thriller made in 1973. It was produced and directed by Henri Verneuil. The score was written by Ennio Morricone. Plot. Aleksey Teodorovic Vlassov (Yul Brynner) is a high ranking KGB official who defects while in France. He has with him highly-classified information as part of a deal with Western intelligence for his arrival in the United States. The debriefing is held at Langley by DCI Allan Davies (Henry Fonda) and MI6 representative Philip Boyle (Dirk Bogarde). Vlassov hands off a list of enemy agents in Western Europe including a deep penetration into NATO. Davies wants to begin operations to take down the agents; however, those on the list suddenly begin to die off. The CIA also has suspicions over the authenticity of Vlassov's claims. The CIA discovers that a defection photo of Vlassov was taken in the Soviet Union, not in Turkey, judging from the contours of Mt. Ararat in the background. Vlassov also fails a lie detector test after he angrily protests about sexual related questions asked by the CIA during the test. Reception. A contemporary review by Tony Mastroianni in the Cleveland Press stated this film about espionnage demonstrated how already in 1973 the computer had replaced the dagger. The reviewer also concluded the film had "more good moments than bad".
1061731	Eric Anthony Roberts (born April 18, 1956) is an American actor. His career began with "King of the Gypsies" (1978), earning a Golden Globe nomination for best actor debut. He starred as the protagonist in the 1980 dramatization of Willa Cather's 1905 short story, "Paul's Case". He earned both a Golden Globe and Academy Award nomination for his supporting role in "Runaway Train" (1985). Through the 1990s and 2000s he maintained dramatic film and TV-movie roles while appearing in TV series. His TV work includes three seasons with the sitcom "Less than Perfect" and a recurring role on the NBC drama "Heroes". His sisters Julia Roberts and Lisa Roberts Gillan, and daughter Emma Roberts, are also actors. Early life. Roberts was born in Biloxi, Mississippi. His parents, Betty Lou (née Bredemus) and Walter Grady Roberts, one-time actors and playwrights, met while performing theatrical productions for the armed forces. They later co-founded the Atlanta Actors and Writers Workshop in Atlanta, Georgia off of Juniper Street in Midtown. Roberts' mother filed for divorce in 1971 and it was finalized early in 1972. His younger siblings, Julia Roberts (from whom he was estranged until 2004) and Lisa Roberts Gillan, are also actors. His mother married Michael Motes and had daughter Nancy Motes in 1976. Roberts is of English, Scottish, Irish, Welsh, German, and Swedish descent. He was raised in Atlanta and attended Grady High School. Career. Eric got his start on the now-defunct NBC daytime soap opera "Another World" originating the role of Ted Bancroft from February 14, 1977, to June 17, 1977. Roberts received Golden Globe nominations for his early starring roles in "King of the Gypsies" (1978) and "Star 80" (1983). He was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor in 1985 for his role as the escaped convict Buck in the film "Runaway Train"; the award went to Don Ameche in "Cocoon". In 1987, he won the Theatre World Award for his Broadway debut performance in "Burn This". Roberts's other starring roles included "Raggedy Man" (1981), "The Pope of Greenwich Village" (1984), "The Coca-Cola Kid" (1985), "Nobody's Fool" (1986), "Best of the Best" (1989), "By the Sword" (1991), "Best of the Best 2" (1993), "The Immortals" (1995), "La Cucaracha" (1998), "Purgatory" (1999), and "Stiletto Dance" (2001). He also had major supporting roles in the films "Final Analysis" (1992), "The Specialist" (1994), and "Shannon's Rainbow" (2009). He played the Archangel Michael in "The Prophecy II" (1997). In 1996, he appeared in the "Doctor Who" Television film in the role of the fourth Master. As of 2011, he is the only American actor to play the role. When SFX listed previous Masters in "Doctor Who", the magazine said of Roberts: "Out-acted by a CGI snake in the same production." In a darkly comic touch, the onscreen wife of Roberts' human character, who is killed by her newly possessed husband (who is taken over by the Master in the form of the above-mentioned CGI snake), is played by his real-life wife. His recent projects include "A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints", "" and "Royal Kill". He appeared in "The Dark Knight" as Sal Maroni, a Gotham City Mafia boss who hires The Joker to kill the titular superhero and a renegade mob accountant. Roberts co-starred on the ABC situation comedy "Less than Perfect". He appeared in an episode of ' as Ken Kramer, a murderer on death row convicted of killing a young couple. Another notable TV appearance was the episode "Victims" of ' where he played Sam Winfield, a former cop turned vigilante. In the same year, he was also guest starred on "The L Word" as Gabriel McCutcheon, the father of Shane McCutcheon. In early January 2007, Roberts starred in the two-part mini-series "Pandemic" as the mayor of Los Angeles. Roberts voiced the Superman villain Mongul in the animated series "Justice League", and reprised his role in "Justice League Unlimited" in the episode "For the Man Who Has Everything". He performed the voice of Dark Danny in Nickelodeon's "Danny Phantom". He appeared in the first season of "Heroes" as Thompson, an associate of Mr. Bennet. He then reprised the role in the third-season episode "Villains" and in the fourth-season "The Wall". Roberts appeared in The Killers music video for their song "Mr. Brightside" and "Miss Atomic Bomb" as well as in the music videos for Mariah Carey's "We Belong Together" and "It's Like That". In 2006, he appeared in the video for Akon's "Smack That", featuring Eminem. In 2007, he appeared in the video for Godhead's "Hey You". He appeared as a panelist on the television game show "Hollywood Squares". In February 2009, Oscar nominee Mickey Rourke, who starred with Roberts in "The Pope of Greenwich Village", said he hoped that Roberts would soon be offered a role which would resurrect his career in the way that "The Wrestler" rejuvenated Rourke's. He portrayed Seth Blanchard on the second season of the Starz series, "Crash", from 2009. In 2009, Roberts appeared as himself in "Tree Trippers", a season five episode of "Entourage". He is portrayed as a mushroom and drug fanatic as he gives the boys mushrooms and joins them to Joshua Tree National Park to trip as they contemplate Vince's next movie decision. It was announced in June 2010 that he would be joining the cast of the CBS soap opera "The Young and the Restless" starting July 12. In 2010, he appeared in the action film "The Expendables". Later that year, he appeared alongside Steve Austin and Gary Daniels, his co-stars from "The Expendables", in the 2010 action film "Hunt to Kill". December 2010 saw the premiere of the fourth season of "Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew", which documented Roberts' struggle with dependency on medical marijuana. Roberts starred in the 2012 mystery thriller Deadline, playing the role of politically incorrect reporter Ronnie Bullock. Personal life. Roberts' daughter Emma Roberts, with his then-girlfriend Kelly Cunningham, was born on February 10, 1991. Emma eventually became an actress as well, making her film debut at age 9 in the 2001 drama "Blow". After Roberts' relationship with Cunningham, he married Eliza Garrett in 1992. His stepson, Keaton Simons, is a singer-songwriter, and his stepdaughter, Morgan Simons, is a chef. On January 12, 2001, Roberts visited "The Howard Stern Radio Show" with his wife during a segment called "The Gossip Game" with Mike Walker of the "National Enquirer." He confirmed that he and his sister Julia Roberts had been estranged for several years. The source of the estrangement had been his past drug abuse and her siding with his ex-girlfriend over the custody of his daughter, Emma. In 2004, he told "People" magazine that he and his sister were reconciled when he visited her in the hospital after she gave birth to twins. Roberts is a vegan and supporter of animal rights. Arrests and drug problems. In 1987, Roberts was arrested for possession of cocaine and marijuana and resisting arrest after he tried to assault a New York police officer. He spent 36 hours in jail, pleaded guilty to harassment, and had all other charges dropped. In February 1995, Roberts was arrested for shoving his wife, Eliza Garrett, into a wall. He subsequently announced that he was giving up drug use entirely. In 2010, Roberts appeared as a cast member in the fourth season of the Vh1 reality television series "Celebrity Rehab", for a dependency on medical marijuana. His wife, Eliza, and his stepson, Keaton Simons, appeared in Episode 6 to discuss the effects of his addiction on their lives. In popular culture. Roberts was name-checked in an episode of "Seinfeld"; after giving away the ending of the film, Kramer tells George that Roberts' performance as the husband in the film "The Other Side of Darkness" was "unforgettable". He was portrayed as a clay figure on MTV's "Celebrity Deathmatch" where he fought alongside his sister, Julia, against Donny Osmond and Marie Osmond. In the "South Park" episode "Cartman's Mom Is Still A Dirty Slut", a fictional version of Roberts is cast in an "America's Most Wanted" re-enactment of a shooting as "The Little Monkey Guy That Follows Mephesto Around". He was also mentioned by Pearl Forrester and Leonard Maltin in "Mystery Science Theater 3000" – in the "Gorgo" episode (episode 9, season 9) – as the perfect companion to Mickey Rourke for producing the "worst movie ever made." He also received a passing reference in an episode of Justified (episode 12, season 4) when Art Mullens, Raylan's boss, says he doesn't like Julia Roberts because, "She looks too much like Eric."
633314	Cheryl Gates McFadden (born March 2, 1949) usually credited as Gates McFadden, is an American actress and choreographer. She played Dr. Beverly Crusher in the "" (TNG) television series and subsequent films. Early life. McFadden was born in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio. She attended Brandeis University graduating "cum laude" with a bachelor of arts in theatre arts. After graduating from Brandeis, she moved to Paris and studied theatre with actor Jacques Lecoq. She is of Lithuanian descent on her mother's side. Career. Early works. Before "", McFadden often worked for Jim Henson productions, including the films "The Dark Crystal" (as choreographer), "Labyrinth" (as Director of Choreography and Puppet Movement), "The Muppets Take Manhattan" (choreographer and a brief on-screen appearance), and uncredited work on "Dreamchild" (again supervising choreography and puppet movement). As a way of distinguishing her acting work from her choreography, she is usually credited as "Gates McFadden" as an actress and "Cheryl McFadden" as a choreographer. However, she was credited as "Cheryl McFadden" in the Troma movie "When Nature Calls" (1985) and in the Season 3 episode of "The Cosby Show", "Cliff's 50th Birthday". She appeared in "The Hunt for Red October" as Jack Ryan's wife Caroline, though most of her scenes were cut in post-production. "Star Trek: The Next Generation". In 1987, McFadden was cast as Dr. Beverly Crusher on '. The Crusher character was slated to be Captain Jean-Luc Picard's love interest, and this aspect of the character is what attracted McFadden to the role. Another important aspect of the character was being a widow balancing motherhood and a career. In the second season McFadden was fired and replaced by actress Diana Muldaur as the Enterprise's Chief Medical Officer. Muldaur's character, Dr. Katherine Pulaski, didn't make it to the third season. Roddenberry described Muldaur as "a most talented actress", and said that the decision "to let her go was made solely because the hoped-for chemistry between her and the rest of the starship cast did not develop." McFadden was approached to return for the third season. At first she was hesitant, but after a phone call from co-star Patrick Stewart, McFadden was persuaded to reprise her role. Highlights for her character included "", where Dr. Crusher is kidnapped by terrorists; "", in which she becomes trapped in an alternate reality where her loved ones start to disappear; "", which features a romance between the Doctor and a man with a big secret; "", in which Dr. Crusher risks her career to solve the murder of a scientist; "" where Crusher takes command of the Enterprise when the rest of the senior staff are participating in a search for Data; "", where Dr. Crusher becomes the next victim of her grandmother's seductive "ghost"; and "Attached", where Picard and Crusher become telepathically linked as prisoners and learn their true feeling for one another. McFadden reprised her role for all four "TNG" movies and also provided her voice for PC games ' and "Star Trek Generations". McFadden also directed the TNG episode "" (her only directing credit to date) and choreographed the dance routine in "". Beyond "The Next Generation". The 1990 comedy "Taking Care of Business" starred James Belushi, co-starring McFadden and another "" actor, John de Lancie (aka Q). In 1992, she appeared alongside fellow cast members Patrick Stewart, Jonathan Frakes, Brent Spiner and Colm Meaney in a production of "Every Good Boy Deserves Favour", which was performed in four cities. She also starred in the 1995 television series "Marker" with Richard Grieco and appeared in the made-for-television movie "Crowned and Dangerous" with Yasmine Bleeth in 1997. Additional television work was the role of Allison Rourke, Paul Buchman's boss, in four episodes of the sitcom "Mad About You". In the spring of 2006, McFadden appeared in a series of television commercials for Microsoft. She has taught at several universities (AADA, Brandeis, Harvard, Purdue, Temple, the Stella Academy in Hamburg, and the University of Pittsburgh). As of August 2010, she was listed as an adjunct faculty member in the School of Theater at the University of Southern California. She has been Artistic Director of Ensemble Studio Theatre of Los Angeles since January 2009. During her tenure she spearheaded the building of the Atwater Village Theatre Collective (AVT), a new two-theater space in Los Angeles. McFadden has lent her voice as narrator in several audio books. In 2010, she was the narrator of "Confessor" ("METAtropolis: CASCADIA"). Personal life. McFadden has one son, James, born in 1991. Her pregnancy was not written into the fourth season of TNG; instead, her character wore a lab coat over her uniform.
1055238	Let the Devil Wear Black is a 1999 film directed by Stacy Title, co-written by Title and her husband, actor Jonathan Penner. The film is a modern retelling of the classic play "Hamlet". Background. The film is a modern day version of William Shakespeare's "Hamlet" that is set in Los Angeles. Its promotional tagline is "Something is Rotten in the City of Angels". The film reworks various Shakespearean plot devices. All of the language is modern. Comparisons are easy to spot between the play and the film if the person is familiar with the play. Even with it being based on "Hamlet", Christopher Null of "Film Critic" said that it still has enough originality. Before the film was rated, Joe Leydon of "Variety" said that a couple of relatively explicit sex scenes would have to be cut if the producers wanted an R rating. Plot. Jack, a grad student who has a history of mental illness can not get over the death of his father. Jack decides to take over his father's business. After receiving an anonymous tip that his father was murdered, he tries to put together the murder scheme. Soon after, he settles on his Uncle Carl as the prime suspect. At the same time, he realizes that his life is in danger. DVD release. The DVD was released in 2000 in English and German. The DVD has 15 chapters, Dolby Digital 5.1 sound, pan and scan transfer, Spanish subtitles, and a moving video scene index menu. The special features are behind the scenes footage and two versions of the film's movie trailer. Reception. A "Reel Film" review said the actors are good and that the somber tone makes the film watchable. Christopher Null, of "Film Critic", said that the film's most priceless moment is when the character Ophelia samples dog food.
1545746	Charles Aaron "Bubba" Smith (February 28, 1945 – August 3, 2011) was an American professional football player who became an actor after his retirement from the sport. He first came into prominence at Michigan State University, where he twice earned All-American honors as a defensive end on the Spartans football team. He had a major role in a 10–10 draw with Notre Dame in 1966 that was billed as "The Game of the Century." He was one of only three players to have his jersey number retired by the program. He was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1988. He played nine years in the National Football League (NFL) with the Baltimore Colts (1967–1971), Oakland Raiders (1973–1974) and Houston Oilers (1975–1976). The first selection of the 1967 NFL Draft, he was the Colts' starting left defensive end for five seasons who played in Super Bowls III and V, the latter with the winning side. He was named to two Pro Bowls and was a First-Team All-Pro in 1971. Despite being 6 feet 7 inches (2.01 meters) tall and weighing 265 pounds (120.20 kilograms), his tremendous speed and quickness usually caused him to draw two blockers. During his acting career, he mainly specialized in comedic roles in films, television advertisements and programs. For about a decade following his retirement from football, he appeared in various commercials for Miller Lite. His best-known role was as Moses Hightower in the first six "Police Academy" movies. Early life. Smith was born on February 28, 1945 in Orange, Texas, and raised in nearby Beaumont. His father was Willie Ray Smith Sr., a football coach who accumulated 235 victories in a career spent at three high schools in the Beaumont area. It was at Charlton-Pollard High School in Beaumont where the son got to play for the father. The younger Smith developed into one of the state's best-ever high school football players. Football career. College. Smith originally had hopes of playing college football at the University of Texas. Even though Longhorns head coach Darrell Royal was willing to offer him an athletic scholarship, he was prohibited from doing so because of the prevalent racial segregation throughout the Southern United States. At the time, Texas was a member of the Southwest Conference (SWC), which finally integrated in 1967. The university's football program did not do likewise until three years later in 1970. The situation motivated Smith to become a much better player. Smith played college football at Michigan State University. He was awarded with All-America honors in 1965 and 1966. Smith was a popular athlete at Michigan State, with the popular fan chant of "Kill, Bubba, Kill." His final game at Michigan State was a 10–10 draw with Notre Dame at Spartan Stadium on November 19, 1966. It was hyped as "The Game of the Century" because both teams were undefeated, untied and ranked atop the national polls entering the contest (Notre Dame was #1 at 8–0–0, Michigan State #2 at 9–0–0). Early in the first quarter, Smith tackled Fighting Irish starting quarterback Terry Hanratty, who suffered a separated left shoulder on the play. Hanratty was replaced for the remainder of the match by Coley O'Brien. Smith, who admitted that Hanratty's injury actually backfired on the Spartans, stated, "That didn't help us any. It just let them put in that O'Brien who's slippery and faster and gave us more trouble. The other guy just sits there and waits, and that's what we wanted." Michigan State finished second behind Notre Dame in the voting for the National Championship. In 1988, Smith was enshrined in the College Football Hall of Fame. Michigan State retired his number 95 jersey on September 23, 2006, prior to the Spartans' home game against Notre Dame, amid repeated cheers of his old slogan from the student section. This game also celebrated the 40th anniversary of the "Game of the Century." Professional. Smith spent nine seasons in the NFL as a defensive end. He was the first overall selection in the 1967 NFL draft, chosen by the Baltimore Colts. The Colts won Super Bowl V at the end of the 1970 season, earning Smith his only Super Bowl ring. However, in interviews, Smith stated that he would never wear the ring, out of a sense of disapointment that he and his teammates were unable to win Super Bowl III. He was injured in the 1972 preseason when he ran into a solid steel pole the NFL was using at the time to mark yardage and missed the season. He was traded to the Oakland Raiders after the 1972 season, and finished his career with the Houston Oilers. He was selected All-Pro one year, All-Conference two years, and went to two Pro Bowls. Acting career. After leaving professional football, Smith began his acting career in small movie and television roles in the late 1970s and early 1980s. He is perhaps best known for his role as Moses Hightower in the "Police Academy" movie series, a role he reprised in all but one of the "Police Academy" sequels. Bubba appeared in the 1982 TV film "". He was Arnold the driver in the 1983 movie "Stroker Ace" that cast stars such as Burt Reynolds, Ned Beatty, Jim Nabors, and Loni Anderson. He was a supporting character in the 1981 - 1982 flop "Open All Night". He appeared in two episodes of the hit television series "Married... with Children", once as the character "Spare Tire" Dixon and in a later episode as himself. He was the longtime spokesman of Baltimore-area law firm Cohen, Snyder, Eisenberg & Katzenberg. Smith starred in the short-lived television series "Blue Thunder", partnering with Pro Football Hall of Fame defensive star Dick Butkus, with whom he frequently costarred in advertisements for Miller Lite beer. Smith also appeared in "Tales of the Gold Monkey", in the episode called "God Save the Queen", along with fellow actor James Avery. He appeared on "Good Times" as Claude, a bodyguard/thug working for Marion "Sweet Daddy" Williams. He also appeared on an episode of "The Odd Couple";when asked by Oscar Madison what his most embarrassing moment was, he replied, "When my mother named me 'Bubba'". Smith appeared in a 1982 Episode of "Taxi" (Season 4 Episode 19) where Smith's character played a football player trying to get back into the NFL after being cut. He inspired Tony, played by Tony Danza to train hard enough to earn his license back as a boxer. He also appeared on "Macgyver" (Season 7, Episode 10). Bubba also played a character named "Bones" in the October 22, 1993 episode of "Family Matters" where he played an enforcer to get his boss's money from Eddie Winslow. At the end he teams up with Steve Urkel to play the accordion. Personal life. Smith's younger brother Tody Smith played for the University of Southern California and for the Dallas Cowboys, Houston Oilers and Buffalo Bills. Death. Smith was found dead in his Los Angeles home by his caretaker on August 3, 2011. He died from acute drug intoxication and heart disease. Phentermine, a weight-loss drug, was found in his system. His heart weighed more than twice that of an average human heart. He was 66 years old.
583762	Rowthiram (; , from Sanskrit "Raudra", etymologically from Rudra) is a 2011 Indian Tamil-language action film written and directed by newcomer Gokul. Produced by R. B. Choudary, the film stars his son Jiiva and Shriya Saran in lead roles with Jayaprakash and Ganesh Acharya appearing in supporting roles. It released on August 12, 2011. It is dubbed into Telugu as "Roudram" and in Hindi as "Nirbhay The Fighter". The film opened to mixed reviews because of its weak storyline. However Jeeva and Shriya received positive response from the critics and praises for their actings. After a few days after the release the ending of the film had changed according to the response to the film by the audience and it had been changed to a positive ending. Plot. The film starts in the 1980s. A young Shiva (Jiiva) is taught by his grandfather (Prakash Raj) to be bold and brave and fight against all odds, especially all that's evil. Shiva grows up with his grandfather's words as the Bhagavad Gita. However, Shiva's parents (Jayaprakash and Lakshmi) want him to lead a peaceful life. Shiva gets arrested by the police after fighting with another law student, Guna who is one of Gowri's gang. Enters Priya (Shriya), a law college student. She is the daughter of a police official (Babu Antony). She bails Shiva out and falls for him after seeing him fight for other people's good. Eventually Shiva too falls for her. Guna wants revenge as Shiva had humiliated him in front of everyone. He wants Shiva dead. Things take a turn when Shiva goes to the bus stop with his friend to pick up Ramanujam's (Satyan) father. There, a couple of rowdies kidnap a young girl. Shiva could not stand this and fights with them. Gowri was one of the rowdies there and Shiva hits him. Gowri is infuriated and wants Shiva dead at any cost. Shiva's entire family stops talking to Shiva though he insisted that what he did was for the good. Shiva's sister gets married to Ramanujam eventually, and his brother (Srinath) marries his longtime love. These marriages happens without Shiva's knowledge and he becomes shocked and shattered. He packs up and leaves his house since he realises that his presence will only make things dangerous for his family. He takes his grandfather's photo along with him. Shiva and her sister Kavitha (Monica) the lawyer who helps Shiva to escapes when he is caught by police.
584711	Parattai Engira Azhagu Sundaram is a 2007 Tamil-language drama film directed by Suresh Krishna. It stars Dhanush in the lead role along with Meera Jasmine and Archana. The film is a remake of the successful 2005 Kannada film "Jogi" directed by Prem and features music scored by Gurukiran. The film revolves around a woman who comes to the city from her village in search of her presumably lost son. Released on 27 April 2007, the film couldn't repeat the success of its original version and was declared a Box office bomb
1078861	Sound of Noise is a 2010 Swedish-French comedy-crime film written and directed by Ola Simonsson and Johannes Stjärne Nilsson. It tells the story of a group of musicians who illegally perform music on objects in the various institutions of a city. The film is a follow-up to the 2001 short film "Music for One Apartment and Six Drummers", which was made by the same people and followed the same basic concept. The title comes from the Italian futurist Luigi Russolo's 1913 manifesto "The Art of Noises". Plot. A group of four anarchist drummers led by a conductor and a female musician set out to make music with objects that are generally considered non-musical. They plan out a concert with four hilariously titled movements to be played across the city after carefully analyzing what objects can be used to make good music. They begin by playing in a surgery room using a notable TV reporter who has been admitted to the hospital for hemorrhoid surgery. Their next piece is set in a bank where they "hold up" the staff and customers. They then feed banknotes into the shredding machine for a distorted bass sound. The next piece uses bulldozers thumping the ground at the fountain in front of an opera house. For the final crescendo, they strike the fountain knocking it to the ground. The last piece involves them hanging from high tension power cables and playing the suspended cables like violins. All the while, they are pursued by a tone-deaf policeman born into a distinguished musical family who hates the sound of music. Production. The music was composed for the film by Magnus Börjeson while the story was written and completed by Fred Avril. "Sound of Noise" was initiated by BLISS from France. The film is a coproduction between BLISS and Dfm fiktion. It received ten million kronor from the Swedish Film Institute. The film was shot in CinemaScope and filming took place in Malmö from 28 July to 1 October 2008. Release. The film premiered on 18 May 2010 in the International Critics' Week of the 63rd Cannes Film Festival. It has been released in Sweden on Christmas Day 2010 through Nordisk Film. Wild Bunch Distribution released it in France on the 29th of December 2010. Reception. Perception of the film. "indieWire" named the film Bonnie and Clyde on Drums. "The New York Times" finished its article describing the film as a dry treat - a solid, self-aware cult pleasure. Alissa Simon in "Variety" called it a delightful comic cocktail of modern city symphony, police procedural and love story. Peter Brunette of "The Hollywood Reporter" wrote that the basic premise of this delightful comedy from Sweden is one of the most imaginative you'll ever see. It's all based on music -- raw, elemental and percussive -- out of which genuine laughs are wrung from beginning to end. Accolades. "Sound of Noise" received the Young Critics Award and the Grand Rail d'Or at the International Critics' Week. As the festival run continued, it won the prize for Best Fantastic Film at Fantastic Fest in Austin. It won the Free Spirit Award and the Audience Award at the 2010 Warsaw International Film Festival. At the Molodist International Film Festival in Kiev, the film received both the award for Best Full-length Film and the Audience Prize. It won a Best Achievement Guldbagge Award for "a virtuous mergence of sound and music".
1048054	The Mill and the Cross is a 2011 drama film directed by Lech Majewski and starring Rutger Hauer, Charlotte Rampling and Michael York. It is inspired by Pieter Bruegel the Elder's 1564 painting "The Procession to Calvary", and based on Michael Francis Gibson's book "The Mill and the Cross". The film was a Polish-Swedish co-production. Filming on the project wrapped in August 2009. It premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January 23, 2011. Plot. The film focuses on a dozen of the 500 characters depicted in Bruegel's painting. The theme of Christ's suffering is set against religious persecution in Flanders in 1564. Reception. Joe Bendel: "... one of the standouts at this year’s Sundance". "Variety"s Dennis Harvey wrote: "While hardly an exercise in strict realism a la "The Girl With the Pearl Earring", the pic details rustic Flanders life with loving care, from costuming to simple machinery. Pic's narrative content ... is hardly straightforward or propulsive. ... the film is never dull, and frequently entrancing." Harvey thought that if marketed cleverly, the film "could prove the Polish helmer's belated international breakthrough". Neil Young of "The Hollywood Reporter" complimented the technical achievements, but called the film "ambitious but frustratingly flat". He described the English dialogue as "mostly clunky" and thought the film "has too much of a stodgy Euro-pudding feel". On the other hand, in his review for the San Francisco International Film Festival, executive director Graham Leggat wrote: "...the narrative is not the point—the extraordinary imagery is. The painting literally comes to life in this spellbinding film, its wondrous scenes entering the viewer like a dream enters a sleeping body."
1152344	"Max Keeble's Big Move" is a 2001 American comedy film directed by Tim Hill, written by David L. Watts, James Greer, Jonathan Bernstein, and Mark Blackwell, and starring Alex D. Linz as the title character. The film was released in North America on October 5, 2001 by Walt Disney Pictures. Plot. Max Keeble (Alex D. Linz) is a seventh grade junior-high school paperboy who has a huge crush on Jenna (Brooke Anne Smith), the daughter of one of his paper recipients. Max has two best friends, Robe and Megan (Josh Peck and Zena Grey), and is constantly bullied by Troy McGinty and Dobbs (Noel Fisher and Orlando Brown) by physical humiliation and stealing lunch money. Max is enemies with the corrupt school principal, Elliot T. Jindrake (Larry Miller) and the Evil Ice Cream Man (Jamie Kennedy), and also learns that an animal shelter that he visits is being closed down. When Max soon finds out that he is moving to Chicago after his father, Donald "Don" Keeble (Robert Carradine) gets a promotion, Max is initially upset at having to move, but later plots to exact revenge against Jindrake, Troy, Dobbs, and the Evil Ice Cream Man, believing that when they try to retaliate, Max will be gone. Max, Robe, and Megan concoct methods of revenge including terrifying Troy by playing a main theme song of the fictional children's television show, "MacGoogle the Highlander Frog", and later severely traumatizing him by trapping him in the gym with MacGoogle, instigating a fight between Dobbs and the Evil Ice Cream Man by stealing a coolant coil for his ice cream truck and his handheld device, and lastly to ruin Jindrake's chances of becoming superintendent to replace the current superintendent, Crazy Legs (Clifton Davis), by planting animal pheromones within his breath spray, instigating a food fight, and later by sabotaging his announcements by placing a cardboard cutout of Max pointing at Jindrake claiming that he was wearing a thong.
1164110	Donna Pescow (born March 24, 1954) is an American film and television actress and director. Life and career. Pescow was born in Brooklyn, New York, to a Jewish family. Her father owned and ran a news stand in downtown NYC at Battery Place. Pescow attended Sheepshead Bay High School in Brooklyn and studied at the American Academy of the Arts. Approximately 1973 or '74, Donna had a leading role in an off-off Broadway musical entitled "Poor Old Fool". It was a short run of just a few weeks. In 1977, Pescow had a successful role in the John Travolta film "Saturday Night Fever". For this role, she had to relearn her Brooklyn accent and gain about 40 pounds. While both the role, and the film were huge successes, Donna later went on to appear in television roles for most of her career. For this role, she was the New York Film Critics third place choice for their award for best supporting actress.
1043955	James Buckley Stringer Davis, generally known as Stringer Davis (4 June 1899 – 29 August 1973), was an English character actor. He was married to actress Dame Margaret Rutherford. Background and marriage. Davis was born in Birkenhead, Cheshire, England.
1170086	William Lance LeGault (May 2, 1935 – September 10, 2012), sometimes credited as W. L. LeGault, was an American film and television actor, best known as Colonel Roderick Decker in the 1980s American television series "The A-Team". Personal life. LeGault was born May 2, 1935 in Chicago, Illinois, the son of Mary Jean (née Kovachevich) and Ernest Legault. His father was from Moose Creek in Ontario, Canada. LeGault's father, Ernest, was French-Canadian, while his mother, Mary, was born in Illinois, the daughter of Jewish immigrants from the former Yugoslavia and Austria-Hungary. The family was poor. He lived in an orphanage for a time between his dad's death when Lance was 4 and when his mother remarried. He started working at 11, and was fired from the railroad at 13 when they discovered he was not 18 as he'd said. He grew up in Chillicothe, Illinois and graduated from Chillicothe Township High School in 1955, later earning a bachelor's degree in Business Administration from The Municipal University of Wichita, Kansas. He was married and had four children. Career. LeGault's first three feature films he starred in were three Elvis Presley movies, "Girls! Girls! Girls!" (1962) in which he was a stunt double for Elvis Presley, "Kissin' Cousins" (1964), and "Viva Las Vegas" (1964). He also appeared in Elvis Presley's groundbreaking 1968 NBC television special "Elvis" (also known as "Elvis' 68 Comeback Special"), where he sat at the side of the stage playing a tambourine. He also appeared in the Elvis movie "Roustabout" as a carnival barker In 1969, he appeared as Iago in the UK stage version of "Jack Good's Catch My Soul: Rock Othello", and played Iago again in the 1974 Metromedia film version of "Catch My Soul". He starred in television series and in television movies and was known mainly for portraying military personnel, especially officers. His best known television role was in the 1980s series "The A-Team" as Colonel Roderick Decker, a United States Army colonel who tried to catch the fugitive Vietnam veterans. He played the role of Colonel Decker from 1983 to 1986. He also had a recurring role in the other 1980s hit television series "Magnum, P.I." as a United States Marine Corps colonel, Colonel "Buck" Greene. LeGault was also was on screen in a variety of programs including the short lived series "Werewolf" in 1987. In 1980, he starred with Kenny Rogers in the television movie "The Gambler". He made a few appearances during "Dynasty'"s second season, as Ray Bonning, a henchman for Vegas mobster "Logan Rhinewood" (actually Cecil Colby). He also appeared on another 1980s hit TV series "Knight Rider" in the pilot episode "Knight of the Phoenix" and appeared (as a different character) in the season 2 episode "Knight in Shining Armor"; and took on the roles of three different bad-guy characters in "Airwolf" (in "To Snare a Wolf", "Sweet Britches" and "Wildfire") as well as doing the voice-overs for the series' 1st Season "saga sell" teasers. He guest-starred on yet another hit 1980s television series "Dallas" as Al Halliday in 1989. Often play­ing stern colonels, the low-pitched, gravelly-voiced actor por­trayed Colonel Glass in the 1981 com­edy "Stripes", star­ring Bill Murray and John Candy. He made many guest appearances on television series, his appearances ranged from "The Rockford Files" (episode "A Deadly Maze"), "Gunsmoke", "Barbary Coast", "Logan's Run", "Police Woman", "Battlestar Galactica", "The Incredible Hulk" (episode "The Antowuk Horror"), "Wonder Woman", "Buck Rogers in the 25th Century", "The Dukes of Hazzard" (episode "Treasure of Hazzard"), "T. J. Hooker", "Tales of the Gold Monkey", "Voyagers!", "MacGyver", "Simon & Simon", "Sledge Hammer!", "", "Renegade" and "Crusade". He appeared on "Land of the Giants" in the first season episode "Underground" as a police officer. LeGault's last role was in the 2013 movie "Prince Avalanche", and the film is dedicated to him. Voicework. On the "Knight Rider" season 1 DVD pilot commentary, creator Glen A. Larson mentioned that Lance LeGault had "a voice that was four octaves lower than God's." This trait helped him obtain roles (often) as a villain or other "tough guy". It also resulted in a side career doing voice-over work. LeGault's trademark voice was at one point featured on self-guided tour cassettes at Elvis Presley's Graceland in Memphis, Tennessee. In the video game world, he was heard as the voice of Major Manson in the 1998 video game "". He provided the voice of Junior the Buffalo in Disney's "Home on the Range" (2004). He also voiced Yank Jus­tice in the nine-episode, 30-minute 1985 series "Bigfoot and the Muscle Machines", part of Marvel Productions’ Super Sunday block. From 2009 to 2010, he performed voiceover work for Burger King, with the then-new "Angry Whopper" burger. He did voice-over work on commercials for Dodge and 7-Up as well. Death. LeGault died on Monday, September 10, 2012, at his home in Los Angeles at the age of 77, survived by his wife of 35 years Mary and their four children Mary, Teresa, Marcus and Lance.
1066468	My Name Is Joe is a 1998 Scottish film directed by Ken Loach. The film stars Peter Mullan as Joe Kavanagh, an unemployed recovering alcoholic in Glasgow who meets and falls in love with a health visitor. David McKay plays his troubled friend Liam. The film's title is a reference to the ritualised greeting performed in Alcoholics Anonymous meetings, as portrayed in the film's opening scene. The movie was mainly filmed in the council estates of Glasgow and filling small roles with local residents, many of whom had drug and criminal pasts. The natural Scottish accents of some of the actors are unfamiliar to most American television viewers and as such the film is often shown subtitled. The film won awards in many film festivals, including Best Actor for Mullan at the 1998 Cannes Film Festival. Plot summary. The film begins with Joe Kavanagh at an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting, relaying an experience from his past. He states the ritualised greeting: 'My name is Joe and I'm an alcoholic.' He feels that he is not in a position to drink any more with safety. He tells the group that he copes by praying and states that he is grateful to be at the meeting. He receives a round of applause for his admissions. He goes round to his friend's place, bangs on the door and pretends to be the police. His friends soon realise that they have been tricked. They then travel in Joe's van where they examine stolen sporting merchandise which is of low quality. Joe and his friends stop at another person's house to pick up more people. A car cuts off the van. Joe later encounters the driver, whom Joe later describes as being 'the woman who tried to kill us all.' He exits his van and asks the woman if she lost her guide dog. The woman, Sarah, states that she is a health visitor. She wants to see Liam and his child, but Joe explains that Liam has an important football game to attend. The next shot is of the football match. Joe is very encouraging as a coach. The other team appears in white and black, which are the colours that Joe's team wears. Joe's team express their anger at this and respond by taking their shirts off so that they are able to distinguish between players. The other team scores the first goal of the game. Joe drives Liam home and tells Liam to take things one day at a time. Liam abruptly tells Joe to pull over and Liam runs up to a male who acts aggressively towards him. Joe does not hear what transpires between Liam and the man. Later, Joe sees Sarah, who is seen struggling with wallpaper in her car. Joe appears to fancy her, as Sarah tells him her name and he flirts with her. Joe then helps an acquaintance of Sarah's to complete a wall papering and paint job in Sarah's flat. Sarah then leaves the lads to it. She later brings them tea as they paint the ceiling and sing to themselves. They then look outside and notice someone taking photos of them through the window. Joe runs outside with his can of white paint and brush to confront the man who was taking the photos. The photographer tells Joe that he was just doing his job and that he has a bad heart. Joe then paints all over the photographer's car. The car speeds away and manages to knock over a pile of rubbish by the side of the road. Later, Sarah and Joe have dinner together. They are able to make comfortable conversation with one another. There is a bottle of red wine on the table, but Joe does not drink any of the alcohol. Sarah's telephone rings and she leaves the kitchen to answer it. Joe is then left alone with the wine. He clears his plate and appears somewhat nervous. When Sarah finishes with her telephone conversation, Joe asks her about the photographs on her wall. Joe later reveals to Sarah that he does not drink, to which Sarah replies: 'Why didn't you say?' Joe reveals that he is an alcoholic and he has not had a drink in ten months. Joe is happy that Sarah knows and that she has been direct in her responses to him. Joe thanks Sarah for her company. Sarah pays Joe for the work that he completed on her flat and they part company. Joe attends the Mayfield Health Centre. The practice is very busy and the receptionist tries to cope with a patient who is complaining because he has been waiting a long time to receive his prescription. Joe tells the receptionist that he would like to see Sarah. The receptionist does not appear to be surprised by his request and says that Joe is free to pop his head around the door. He sees Sarah advising parents on dealing with the changing of nappies. Outside the Health Centre, Joe asks Sarah if she would like to go ten-pin bowling with him and to ring him if she fancies going. They then part company. Sarah speaks with a female colleague, Maggie, and says that Joe seems a bit wild. She states that she is not going to go bowling with Joe. The next shot is of a bowling alley, with 'Spirit in the Sky' playing in the background. Sarah and Joe bowl together and laugh at their many errors. They occupy Aisle 16 and neither of them are spectacular players. They go back to Sarah's place where she asks him in for a cup of tea. Joe politely says no. Sarah offers him money for a taxi. A friendly argument ensues, at the end of which Sarah finds herself locked out of her flat. Sarah says that she can sleep in her car. Joe states that Sarah can sleep at his place, but not necessarily together. They arrive at Joe's and he shows her around his flat. While Joe makes tea for Sarah, she asks him if it is alright to put some music on. She puts on the same piece of music that the audience heard during the opening credits of the film, Beethoven's Violin Concerto in D Major (Opus 61). Joe tells Sarah that he used to be in a band and they won a local talent contest. Joe tells Sarah a story of how he was desperate for a drink one day and what transpired. He went to a music shop and stole some cassettes. He took one of them home and 'got pissed.' He describes the experience as being 'magical.' When Sarah asks him what made him stop drinking, Joe asks her why she wants to know. He is not hostile, but curious. Joe says that he is scared to tell her and that there is a strong chance that she will hate him if he tells. Joe explains that there was a girl he used to drink with and they loved one another. They were both 'just tangled up' and they used to get into terrible arguments and tear one another apart. The audience then sees a flashback where Joe and the girl are returning home from a night out. He states that 'a cloud just descended... really, really dark. And suddenly I hated her. I hated me.' He describes how he tried to open the door, but was unable to; when the partner whom he was with laughed at him, Joe lost control because she found it funny. He beat her by punching and kicking her, while she lay helpless on the ground. He screamed abuse at her. The next day, he had a blackout. Now, he remembers every punch and kick. He states how ashamed and disgusted he is with himself. He is obviously contrite and he has not yet forgiven himself for his actions. In the next shot, Sarah comforts Joe and tells him that it is okay. The next scene is of a football match. Joe sees three men beating up Liam. Joe attempts to intervene. He helps Liam up and asks him if he is still clean. Liam states that he is. Liam confronts his wife when she comes home. He suspects that she has been using and asks her if she 'takes him for a prick.' Liam then yells that he will leave her to rot, grabs her by her neck and forces her to look at herself in the mirror. Joe then attends Liam's flat and encounters Liam's wife shooting up in the bathroom. An argument erupts between them. Joe offers to help her. She does not want the kind of help that Joe offers. Joe then reluctantly assists her to tie off one of her veins so that she can shoot up. Joe tries to make sense of her incoherent mumbles as she lies prostrate in the bathtub. Joe then goes to a snooker club where he asks after Liam's whereabouts. Joe tells one of the men that he encounters that Liam has a four-year-old boy in an attempt to mitigate matters. Liam says that he does not want them to take liberties. He comes across Liam and is cross because Liam told him that he had stopped dealing. A tearful Liam confesses that he still owes money. Joe also tells Liam that he suspects that his wife is on the game. He is worried that people are going to break his legs. Joe and Sarah prepare a meal together, which is interrupted when they have sex. The next day, Joe goes to Stella Maris' B & B to deal with the matter of Liam. In a later scene, Joe gives Sarah a pair of earrings, as well as a ring. Joe tells Sarah that he loves her. Sarah tells him that she does not want it and Joe cannot understand what he has done wrong. Joe is confused as to why Sarah has behaved in this fashion. In the next shot, we see a copy of the Alcoholics Anonymous' small blue Bible as Joe listens to Beethoven's Violin Concerto in D Major and makes notes in a book. When Sarah arrives at his door, she apologises. They drink tea together and later embrace. Joe drives his van and his mates direct him to a place where they rob another van. At the outset, Joe does not know where they are going. Joe is shocked with his unwitting role in the robbery of Astral Sports. He still acts as the get-away driver. At the next football match, Joe cleverly remarks that the other team look like budgies because of their blue and yellow striped uniforms. Meanwhile, Sarah reveals to her co-worker Maggie that she is pregnant. Maggie congratulates her. At Sarah's flat, she expresses her reservations about Joe's dealings with Liam. Joe tells her that there are some things that she does not need to know. Joe outlines the limited choices that Liam faces, most of which are not pleasant. Sarah accuses Joe of being a drug dealer and asks where he got the money for her earrings and ring. Joe replies that the gang gave him some money. Sarah becomes enraged and asks, 'Are you going to hit me too, Joe?' Joe attends Liam's flat and states that Liam must deal with things himself. Joe returns to his flat with bottles of Smirnoff Vodka. He pours himself a drink, and takes a sip. Liam then goes to Joe's flat, where Joe is very inebriated. Joe does not understand why Liam has come to see him. Joe calls Liam a 'stupid wee prick.' The alcohol has overtaken Joe and he is hostile to Liam, who needs his help. As Liam witnesses members of the gang coming towards the premises, Liam realises that Joe has passed out and he kisses Joe on his forehead. Joe suddenly snaps awake and realises that Liam has taken his own life by hanging himself. The film concludes with Liam's funeral.
1064329	Coming to America is a 1988 comedy film directed by John Landis. The screenplay was written by David Sheffield and Barry W. Blaustein based on a story originally created by and starring Eddie Murphy as an African prince who comes to the United States in hopes of finding a woman he can marry. Plot. Akeem Joffer, the crown prince to the throne of the wealthy African nation Zamunda, is unhappy with being pampered his entire life and desires to be more independent. The final straw comes when his parents, King Jaffe and Queen Aeoleon, present him with an arranged bride-to-be named Imani Izzi, whom he's never met and who's been trained to obey Akeem's every command. Seeing that Imani's too subservient and offers nothing for his intellect, Akeem concocts a plan to travel to the United States to find an intelligent, independent-minded woman he can both love and respect, "and" who will love Akeem for who he is and not for his status as a prince. Akeem and his best friend/personal aide, Semmi, flip a coin to decide between going to either Los Angeles or New York City, and end up going to New York City. While deciding where to go in New York City, they end up going to the borough of Queens. They rent a run-down apartment in the neighborhood of Long Island City, passing themselves off as poor foreign students, and begin working at a local fast food restaurant called McDowell's, owned by Cleo McDowell and his daughters, Lisa and Patrice. Akeem soon falls in love with Lisa, who possesses all the qualities that the prince is looking for in a woman. The rest of the film centers on Akeem's attempts to win Lisa's hand in marriage, which is complicated by Lisa's lazy and obnoxious boyfriend, Darryl Jenks, the "Soul Glo" heir, although Lisa eventually breaks up with him and starts dating Akeem. Although Akeem thrives on working hard and seeing how commoners live, Semmi's not comfortable with living the life of a poor man. When Akeem donates their travel money to the homeless Randolph and Mortimer Duke (characters in the previous Eddie Murphy film "Trading Places"), Semmi transmits a plea to the King of Zamunda for more financial help. This causes Akeem's parents to travel to Queens and reveal themselves to the McDowells. Mr. McDowell is ecstatic that his daughter has attracted the interest of a prince, but Lisa becomes angry and confused as to why Akeem lied to her about his identity, as he had told her before that he was actually a goat herder from Zamunda. Still hurt and angry that Akeem lied to her, she refuses to marry him, even after he offers to renounce his throne, and he returns with a broken heart, resigned to marry the woman chosen for him by his parents. On the way to the airport, King Jaffe remarks that Akeem can't marry Lisa anyway because of "tradition," and tries defending himself by saying "Who am I to change it?," with Queen Aeoleon curtly responding, "I thought you were the "King"." At the final scene's wedding procession, Akeem, still heartbroken, waits dejectedly at the altar as his bride-to-be makes her way down the aisle. However, when Akeem lifts the veil to kiss her, he finds Lisa instead of Imani. Akeem and Lisa are married, and they ride happily in a carriage after the ceremony to the cheers of Zamundan citizens. Witnessing such splendor, Lisa's both impressed and touched by the fact that Akeem would've given it up just for her. Akeem offers to abdicate if she doesn't want a life like this, but Lisa playfully declines and decides to become royalty instead. Cast. The cast also includes: Frankie Faison as Mr. Townsend, Akeem and Semmi's landlord in Queens; Vanessa Bell as Imani Izzi, Akeem's arranged wife, and Calvin Lockhart as Colonel Izzi, her father; Louie Anderson as Maurice, a McDowell's employee; Allison Dean as Patrice McDowell, Cleo's youngest daughter and Lisa's sister; Samuel L. Jackson as a robber; Vondie Curtis-Hall as Basketball game vendor; Garcelle Beauvais as a rose bearer; and Clint Smith as Sweets. Cuba Gooding, Jr. made his film debut as a barber shop customer (he was credited as Boy Getting Haircut). Don Ameche and Ralph Bellamy reprise their roles as, respectively, Mortimer and Randolph Duke from Landis' 1983 Murphy-starring comedy film "Trading Places". A segment of the "Trading Places" score can be heard during their scene. The Duke's limo driver from that film also cameos as the driver of Akeem and Semmi's limo.
1065283	Run Ronnie Run is an American comedy film & a spin-off inspired by the HBO sketch comedy show "Mr. Show". The recurring character Ronnie Dobbs (David Cross) is the focal point of the movie. It was directed by Troy Miller. While the film was produced in 2001 it was released direct-to-video in 2003. Plot. Ronnie Dobbs (David Cross)—a redneck petty criminal whose hijinks are caught on tape by a "Cops"-like television show called "Fuzz"—is noticed by failing infomercial personality/inventor Terry Twillstein (Bob Odenkirk), who notices Dobbs's popularity with lowbrow viewers. He promotes the idea for a Ronnie Dobbs show to television executives entitled "Ronnie Dobbs Gets Arrested" in which Ronnie is arrested in a different city each week. The show becomes a phenomenal success leading to a level of fame & fortune that dramatically changes Dobbs' life. Cast. Many of the regular cast members of "Mr. Show" appearances in the film; such as Jill Talley as Dobbs's occasional wife. Unlike on "Mr. Show", where they each played a wide variety of characters in each episode, Odenkirk and Cross portrayed a single character throughout the film, with the exception of a brief appearance by R&B duo Three Times One Minus One. Jack Black starred as a chimney sweep who sings "The Golden Rule Song". Many well known celebrities had brief cameos in the film, such as Trey Parker, Matt Stone, John Stamos, Rebecca Romijn, Ben Stiller, Jeff Goldblum, Blaine Cartwright, Mandy Patinkin, David Baddiel, Jeff Garlin, Scott Ian & Kathy Griffin. Production difficulties. The film premiered at the 2002 Sundance Film Festival. Bob Odenkirk initially publicly criticized the film’s studio (New Line Cinema) and even went as far as releasing the personal email addresses of Robert Shaye (Chairman) and other principals of New Line Cinema to his fans in an effort to get the film released. He later on went on to blame the film’s failure to director Troy Miller who, as Odenkirk claims, denied him and David Cross the right to do a final edit of the film. Cross and Miller would later reunite when Miller was hired to direct several episodes of "Arrested Development". Critical reception. The film was reviewed favorably by most critics, but was dismissed by others including those in Mr. Show’s fan base, most likely based on Odenkirk's comments. Rotten Tomatoes has given the film a 75% fresh rating. Bob Odenkirk has been outspoken about his dissatisfaction with the edit, while David Cross has stated it is ultimately the film that they wrote.
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468417	Cle Shaheed Sloan (born 1971) is an American filmmaker and activist from Los Angeles, California, USA. While still a member of Athens Park Bloods, a Los Angeles street gang, Sloan worked to reform gang culture to put an end to gang violence from the inside. Sloan was introduced to the film industry by football legend Jim Brown, who helped him secure a job as an assistant when he was released from prison. The job allowed Sloan to meet director Antoine Fuqua and sparked his interest in becoming a cinematographer. Sloan has since appeared in small roles in three of Fuqua's hit movies "Training Day", "Tears of the Sun", and "Brooklyn's Finest". During the production of "Training Day", Sloan worked as a gang adviser and helped persuade actual gang members to lend their credibility to the project on-screen. Sloan directed and appears in the 2006 documentary film "Bastards of the Party" which appeared at the 2005 Tribeca Film Festival and at the 2006 Hollywood Black Film Festival. "Bastards of the Party" aired on HBO on February 6, 2007. Sloan was featured on Bill O'Reilly's "The O'Reilly Factor" and "Anderson Cooper 360°" speaking out against gang violence on behalf of his non profit organization AKTIVE which is helping to "Change the gangs from the inside" by working with active gang members in communities nationwide.
1265437	Clara Gordon Bow (; July 29, 1905 – September 27, 1965) was an American actress who rose to stardom in silent film during the 1920s. It was her appearance as a plucky shopgirl in the film "It" that brought her global fame and the nickname "The It Girl". Bow came to personify the Roaring Twenties and is described as its leading sex symbol. She appeared in 46 silent films and 11 talkies, including hits such as "Mantrap" (1926), "It" (1927) and "Wings" (1927). She was named first box-office draw in 1928 and 1929 and second box-office draw in 1927 and 1930. Her presence in a motion picture was said to have ensured investors, by odds of almost 2-to-1, a "safe return". At the apex of her stardom, she received more than 45,000 fan letters in a single month (January 1929). After marrying actor Rex Bell in 1931, Bow retired from acting and became a rancher in Nevada. Her final film, "Hoop-La", was released in 1933. In September 1965, Bow died of a heart attack at the age of 60. Early life. Clara Bow was born (697 Bergen Street) and raised in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn, New York. Her birth-year, according to US Census 1910 & 1920 was 1905. In the Census of 1930 Bow claims she was born in 1906. and on her gravestone of 1965 the inscription says 1907. Bow was her parents' third child; her two older sisters, born in 1903 and 1904 respectively, died in infancy. Her mother, Sarah Bow ("née" Gordon, 1880–1923), was told by a doctor not to become pregnant again for fear the next baby might die as well. Despite the doctor's warning, Sarah became pregnant with Clara in the fall of 1904. In addition to the risky pregnancy, a heat wave besieged New York in July 1905 and temperatures peaked around ; "I don't suppose two people ever looked death in the face more clearly than my mother and I the morning I was born. We were both given up, but somehow we struggled back to life." Bow's parents were descended from English-Irish and Scottish immigrants who had come to America the generation before. Bow said that her father, Robert (1874–1959), "had a quick, keen mind ... all the natural qualifications to make something of himself, but didn't...everything seemed to go wrong for him, poor darling". Between 1905 and 1923, the family lived at 14 different addresses but seldom outside Prospect Heights. Robert was often absent. "I do not think my mother ever loved my father. He knew it. And it made him very unhappy, for he worshiped her, always." At sixteen, Clara's mother Sarah fell from a second-story window and suffered a severe head injury. She was later diagnosed with "psychosis due to epilepsy", a condition apart from the seizures that is known to cause disordered thinking, delusion, paranoia, and aggressive behavior. From her earliest years, Bow learned how to care for her mother during the seizures as well as how to deal with the psychotic and hostile episodes. She said her mother could be "mean" to her, but "didn't mean to ... she couldn't help it". Still, Bow felt deprived of her childhood; "As a kid I took care of my mother, she didn't take care of me". Sarah worsened gradually, and when she realized her daughter was set for a movie career, Bow's mother told her she "would be much better off dead". One night in February 1922, Bow awoke to a butcher knife held against her throat. She was able to fend off the attack and locked her mother up. In the morning, Sarah had no recollection of the episode but was later committed to a sanatorium by Robert. Clara spoke about the incident later: On January 5, 1923, at age 43, Sarah died from her epilepsy. When relatives gathered for the funeral, Bow accused them of being "hypocrites" and became so mad she even tried to jump into the grave. Bow attended P.S. 111, P.S. 9 and P.S. 98. As she grew up she felt shy among other girls, who teased her for her worn-out clothes and "carrot-top" hair. She said about her childhood "I never had any clothes. ... And lots of time didn't have anything to eat. We just lived, that's about all. Girls shunned me because I was so poorly dressed." From first grade, Bow preferred the company of boys, stating, "I could lick any boy my size. My right arm was quite famous. My right arm was developed from pitching so much ... Once I hopped a ride on behind a big fire engine. I got a lot of credit from the gang for that." A close friend, a younger boy who lived in her building, burned to death in her presence after an accident. In 1919 Bow enrolled to Bay Ridge High School for girls. "I wore sweaters and old skirts...didn't want to be treated like a girl...there was one boy who had always been my pal... he kissed me... I wasn't sore. I didn't get indignant. I was horrified and hurt." Bow's interest in sports and her physical abilities made her plan for a career as an athletics instructor. She won five medals "at the cinder tracks" and credited her cousin Homer Baker – the national half-mile champion (1913 and 1914) and 660 yards world-record holder – for being her trainer. The Bows and Bakers shared the house – still standing – at 33 Prospect Place in 1920. Career. Early years. In the early 1920s, roughly 50 million Americans—half the population at that time—attended the movies every week. As Bow grew into womanhood, her stature as a "boy" in her old gang became "impossible." As well, she didn't have any girlfriends, school was a "heartache" and home "miserable." On the silver screen, however, she found consolation; "For the first time in my life I knew there was beauty in the world. For the first time I saw distant lands, serene, lovely homes, romance, nobility, glamor". And further; "I always had a queer feeling about actors and actresses on the screen ... I knew I would have done it differently. I couldn't analyze it, but I could always feel it.". "I'd go home and be a one girl circus, taking the parts of everyone I'd seen, living them before the glass." At sixteen Bow says she "knew" she wanted to be a motion pictures actress, even if she was a "square, awkward, funny-faced kid." Against her mother's wishes but with her father's support, Bow competed in Brewster publications' magazine's annual nationwide acting contest; "Fame and Fortune", in fall 1921. Previous years, other contest winners had found work in the movies. In the contest's final screen test Bow was up against an already scene-experienced woman who did "a beautiful piece of acting". A set member later stated that when Bow did the scene she actually became her character and "lived it." In the January issues 1922 of "Motion Picture Classics" the contest jury, Howard Chandler Christy, Neysa Mcmein, and Harrison Fisher, concluded: Bow won an evening gown and a silver trophy and the publisher committed to help her "gain a role in films", but nothing happened. Bow's father told her to "haunt" Brewster's office (located in Brooklyn) until they came up with something. "To get rid of me, or maybe they really meant to (give me) all the time and were just busy", Bow was introduced to director Christy Cabanne who cast her in "Beyond the Rainbow", produced late 1921 in New York City and released February 19, 1922. Bow did five scenes, impressed Cabanne with true theatrical tears, but was cut from the final print. "I was sick to my stomach," she recalled and thought her mother was right about the movie business. Bow, who dropped out of school (senior year) after she was notified about winning the contest, possibly in October 1921, got an ordinary office job. However, movie ads and newspaper editorial comments from 1922 to 1923 suggest that Bow was not cut from "Beyond the Rainbow". Her name is on the cast list among the other stars, usually tagged "Brewster magazine beauty contest winner" and sometimes even with a picture. Silent films. Encouraged by her father, Bow continued to visit studio agencies asking for parts. "But there was always something. I was too young, or too little, or too fat. Usually I was too fat." Eventually director Elmer Clifton needed a tomboy for his movie "Down to the Sea in Ships", saw Bow in "Motion Picture Classic" magazine and sent for her. In an attempt to overcome her youthful looks, Bow put her hair up and arrived in a dress she "sneaked" from her mother. Clifton said she was too old, but broke into laughter as the stammering Bow made him believe she was the girl in the magazine. Clifton decided to bring Bow with him and offered her $35 a week. Bow held out for $50 and Clifton agreed, but he could not say whether she would "fit the part." Bow later learned that one of Brewsters' sub-editors had urged Clifton to give her a chance. "Down to the Sea in Ships" was shot on location in New Bedford, Massachusetts, produced by Independent "The Whaling Film Corporation", and documented the life, love and work in the whale-hunter community. The production relied on a few less-known actors and local talents. It premiered at "Olympia", New Bedford, on September 25, and went on general distribution on March 4, 1923. Bow was billed 10th in the film, but shone through: By mid-December 1923, primarily due to her merits in "Down to the Sea in Ships", Bow was chosen the most successful of the 1924 WAMPAS Baby Stars. Three months before "Down to the Sea in Ships" was released, Bow danced half nude, on a table, uncredited in "Enemies of Women" (1923). In spring she got a part in "The Daring Years (1923)", where she befriended actress Mary Carr, who taught her how to use make-up. In the summer, she got a "tomboy" part in "Grit", a story, which dealt with juvenile crime and was written by F. Scott Fitzgerald. Bow met her first boyfriend, cameraman Arthur Jacobson, and she got to know director Frank Tuttle, with whom she worked in five later productions. Tuttle remembered: "Grit" was released on January 7, 1924. "Variety" reviewed; While shooting "Grit" at Pyramid Studios, in Astoria, New York, Bow was approached by Jack Bachman of independent Hollywood studio Preferred Pictures. He wanted to contract her for a three months trial, fare paid and $50 a week. "It can't do any harm", he tried. "Why can't I stay in New York and make movies?", Bow asked her father, but he told her not to worry. On July 21, 1923 she befriended Louella Parsons, who interviewed her for "The New York Morning Telegraph". In 1931 when Bow came under tabloid scrutiny, Parsons defended her and stuck to her first opinion on Bow: The interview also revealed that Bow already was cast in "Maytime" and in great favor of Chinese cuisine. Preferred Pictures. On July 22, 1923, Bow left New York, her father, and her boyfriend behind for Hollywood. As chaperone for the journey and her subsequent southern California stay, the studio appointed writer/agent Maxine Alton, whom Bow later branded a liar. In late July, Bow entered studio chief B. P. Schulberg's office wearing a simple high-school uniform in which she "had won several gold medals on the cinder track". She was tested and a press-release from early August says Bow had become a member of Preferred Picture's "permanent stock". She and Alton rented an apartment at The Hillview near Hollywood Boulevard. Preferred Pictures was run by Schulberg, who had started as a publicity manager at Famous Players-Lasky, but in the aftermath of the power struggle around the formation of United Artists ended up on the losing side and lost his job. As a result, he founded Preferred in 1919, at the age of 27. "Maytime" was Bow's first Hollywood picture, an adaptation of the popular operetta "Maytime" in which she essayed "Alice Tremaine". Before "Maytime" was finished, Schulberg announced that Bow was given the lead in the studio's biggest seasonal assessment, "Poisoned Paradise", but first she was lent to First National Pictures to co-star in the adaptation of Gertrude Atherton's 1923 best seller "Black Oxen", shot in October, and to co-star with Colleen Moore in "Painted People", shot in November. Director Frank Lloyd was casting for the part of high society flapper Janet Oglethorpe, and more than fifty women, most with previous screen experience, auditioned. Bow reminisced: "He had not found exactly what he wanted and finally somebody suggested me to him. When I came into his office a big smile came over his face and he looked just tickled to death". Lloyd told the press; "Bow is the personification of the ideal aristocratic flapper, mischievous, pretty, aggressive, quick-tempered and deeply sentimental. It was released on January 4, 1924. The "The New York Times" said "The flapper, impersonated by a young actress, Clara Bow, had five speaking titles, and every one of them was so entirely in accord with the character and the mood of the scene that it drew a laugh from what, in film circles, is termed a "hard-boiled" audience", while the "Los Angeles Times" commented that "Clara Bow, the prize vulgarian of the lot...was amusing and spirited...but didn't belong in the picture". and "Variety" said that "[...] the horrid little flapper is adorably played [...]". Colleen Moore made her flapper debut in a successful adaptation of the daring novel "Flaming Youth", released November 12, 1923, six weeks before "Black Oxen". Both films were produced by First National Pictures, and while "Black Oxen" was still being edited and "Flaming Youth" not yet released, Bow was requested to co-star with Moore as her kid sister in "Painted People" (AKA "The Swamp Angel"). Moore essayed the baseball-playing tomboy and Bow, according to Moore, said "I don't like my part, I wanna play yours." Moore, a well-established star earning $1200 a week—Bow got $200—took offense and blocked the director from shooting close-ups of Bow. Moore was married to the film's producer and Bow's protests were futile. "I'll get that bitch," she told her boyfriend Jacobson, who had arrived from New York. Bow had sinus problems and decided to have them attended to that very evening. With Bow's face now in bandages, the studio had no choice but to recast her part. During 1924, Bow's "horrid" flapper raced against Moore's "whimsical". In May, Moore renewed her efforts in "The Perfect Flapper", produced by her husband. However, despite good reviews she suddenly withdrew. "No more flappers ... they have served their purpose ... people are tired of soda-pop love affairs", she told the "Los Angeles Times", that commented a month earlier, "Clara Bow is the one outstanding type. She has almost immediately been elected for all the recent flapper parts". In November 1933, Bow described the Hollywood years as a French Revolution picture, where "women are hollering and waving pitchforks twice as violently as any of the guys ... the only ladies in sight are the ones getting their heads cut off." By New Year 1924, Bow defied the possessive Maxine Alton and brought her father to Hollywood. Bow remembered their reunion; "I didn't care a rap, for (Maxine Alton), or B. P. Schulberg, or my motion picture career, or Clara Bow, I just threw myself into his arms and kissed and kissed him, and we both cried like a couple of fool kids. Oh, it was wonderful". Bow felt Alton had misused her trust; "She wanted to keep a hold on me so she made me think I wasn't getting over and that nothing but her clever management kept me going". Bow and her father moved in at 1714 North Kingsley Drive in Hollywood, together with Jacobson, who by then also worked for Preferred. When Schulberg learned of this arrangement, he fired Jacobson for potentially getting "his big star" into a scandal. When Bow found out, "She tore up her contract and threw it in his face and told him he couldn't run her private life". Jacobson concluded, " was the sweetest girl in the world, but you didn't cross her and you didn't do her wrong". On September 7, 1924, "The Los Angeles Times", in a significant article "A dangerous little devil is Clara, impish, appealing, but oh, how she can act!", her father is titled "business manager" and Jacobson referred to as her brother. Bow appeared in eight releases in 1924. Loaned out to Universal, Bow top-starred, for the first time, in the prohibition, bootleg drama/comedy "Wine", released on August 20, 1924. The picture exposes the widespread liquor traffic in the upper-classes, and Bow portrays an innocent girl who develops into a wild "red-hot mama." Alma Whitaker of "The Los Angeles Times" observed on September 7, 1924: Bow remembered: "All this time I was 'running wild', I guess, in the sense of trying to have a good time ... maybe this was a good thing, because I suppose a lot of that excitement, that joy of life, got onto the screen." In 1925, Bow appeared in fourteen productions: six for her contract owner, Preferred Pictures, and eight as an "out-loan". Preferred Pictures loaned Bow to producers "for sums ranging from $1500 to $2000 a week" while paying Bow a salary of $200 to $750 a week. The studio like any other independent studio or theater at that time, was under attack from "The Big Three", MPAA, who had formed a trust to block out Independents and enforce the monopolistic studio system. On October 21, 1925, Schulberg filed Preferred Pictures for bankruptcy, with debts at $820,774 and assets $1,420. Three days later, it was announced that Schulberg would join with Adolph Zukor to become associate producer of Paramount Pictures, "...catapulted into this position because he had Clara Bow under personal contract". Adolph Zukor, Paramount Picture CEO in his memoirs: "All the skill of directors and all the booming of press-agent drums will not make a star. Only the audiences can do it. We study audience reactions with great care". Adela Rogers St. Johns had a different take: in 1950, she wrote, "If ever a star was made by public demand, it was Clara Bow". And Louise Brooks (from 1980): "(Bow) became a star without nobody's help ... ". "The Plastic Age" was Bow's final effort for Preferred Pictures and her biggest hit to that time. Bow starred as the good-bad college-girl, Cynthia Day, against Donald Keith. It was shot on location, at Pomona College, in the summer of 1925, and released on December 15. But due to block booking, it was not shown in New York until July 21, 1926. Bow began to date her co-star Gilbert Roland, who became her first fiancé. In June 1925, Bow was credited for being the first to wear hand-painted legs in public and was reported to have many followers at the Californian beaches. Throughout the 1920s, Bow played with gender conventions and sexuality in her public image. Along with her tomboy and flapper roles, she starred in boxing films and posed for promotional photographs as a boxer. By appropriating traditionally androgynous or masculine traits, Bow presented herself as a confident, modern woman. Paramount Pictures. "Rehearsals sap my pep," Bow explained in November, 1929 and from the beginning of her career she relied on immediate direction: "Tell me what I have to do and I'll do it." Bow was keen on poetry and music but according to Rogers St. Johns, her attention span did not allow her to appreciate novels. Bow's focal point was the scene and her creativity made directors call in extra cameras to cover her spontaneous actions, rather than holding her down. Years after Bow left Hollywood, director Victor Fleming compared Bow to a Stradivarius violin: "Touch her and she responded with genius". Director William Wellman was less poetic: "Movie stardom isn't acting ability—it's personality and temperament ... I once directed Clara Bow ("Wings"). She was mad and crazy but WHAT a personality!". And in 1981, Budd Schulberg described Bow as "a easy winner of the dumbbell award" who "couldn't act" and compared her to a puppy who his father B.P. Schulberg, "trained to become Lassie". In 1926, Bow appeared in eight releases: five for Paramount, including the film version of the musical "Kid Boots" with Eddie Cantor, and three loan-outs that had been filmed in 1925. In late 1925, Bow returned to New York to co-star in the Ibsenesque drama "Dancing Mothers", as the good/bad "flapperish" upper-class daughter "Kittens". Alice Joyce starred as her "dancing mother" with Conway Tearle as "bad-boy" Naughton. The picture was released on March 1, 1926. On April 12, 1926, Bow signed her first contract with Paramount: "...to retain your services as an actress for the period of six months from June 6th, 1926 to December 6th, 1926, at a salary of $750.00 per week...". In Victor Fleming's comedy-triangle, "Mantrap", Bow, as Alverna the manicurist, cures lonely hearts Joe Easter (Ernest Torrence), of the great northern, as well as pill-popping New York divorcee attorney runaway Ralph Prescott (Percy Marmont). Bow commented: "(Alverna)...was bad in the book, but—darn it!—of course, they couldn't make her that way in the picture. So I played her as a flirt." The film was released on July 24, 1926. On August 16, 1926, Bow's agreement with Paramount was renewed into a five-year deal: "Her salary will start at $1700 a week and advance yearly to $4000 a week for the last year." Bow added that she intended to leave the motion picture business at the expiration of the contract, i.e. 1931. In 1927, Bow appeared in six Paramount releases: "It", "Children of Divorce", "Rough House Rosie", "Wings", "Hula" and "Get Your Man". In the Cinderella story "It", the poor shop-girl Betty Lou Spence (Bow) conquers the heart of her employer Cyrus Waltham (Antonio Moreno). The personal quality —It— provides the magic to make it happen. The film gave Bow her nickname, "The It Girl." Dorothy Parker is often said to have referred to Bow when she wrote, "It, hell; she had Those." Parker in actuality was not referring to Bow or to Bow's character in the film "It", but to a different character, Ava Cleveland, in the novel of the same name. In 1927, Bow starred in "Wings," a war picture rewritten to accommodate her, as she was Paramount's biggest star, but wasn't happy about her part: "(Wings is)..a man's picture and I'm just the whipped cream on top of the pie". The film went on to win the first Academy Award for Best Picture. In 1928 Bow appeared in four Paramount releases: "Red Hair", "Ladies of the Mob", "The Fleet's In" and "Three Weekends", all of which are lost. Adela Rogers St. John, a noted screenwriter, who had done a number of pictures with Bow wrote about her: here seems to be no pattern, no purpose to her life. She swings from one emotion to another, but she gains nothing, stores up nothing for the future. She lives entirely in the present, not even for today, but in the moment. ... Clara is the total nonconformist. What she wants she gets, if she can. What she desires to do she does. She has a big heart, a remarkable brain, and the most utter contempt for the world in general. Time doesn't exist for her, except that she thinks it will stop tomorrow. She has real courage, because she lives boldly. Who are we, after all, to say she is wrong? Bow's bohemian lifestyle and "dreadful" manners were considered reminders of the Hollywood Elite's uneasy position in high society. Bow fumed: "They yell at me to be dignified. But what are the dignified people like? The people who are held up as examples of me? They are snobs. Frightful snobs ... I'm a curiosity in Hollywood. I'm a big freak, because I'm myself!" MGM executive Paul Bern said Bow was "the greatest emotional actress on the screen", "sentimental, simple, childish and sweet", and considered her "hard-boiled attitude" a "defense mechanism". Sound films. With "talkies" "The Wild Party", "Dangerous Curves", and "The Saturday Night Kid", Bow kept her position as the top box-office draw and queen of Hollywood. The quality of Bow's voice, her Brooklyn accent, was not an issue to Bow, her fans or Paramount. However, Bow, like Charlie Chaplin, Louise Brooks and most other silent film-stars didn't embrace the novelty: "I hate talkies," she said, "they're stiff and limiting. You lose a lot of your cuteness, because there's no chance for action, and action is the most important thing to me." A visibly nervous Bow had to do a number of retakes in "The Wild Party" because her eyes kept wandering up to the microphone overhead. "I can't buck progress," Bow sighed. "I have to do the best I can." In October 1929 Bow describes her nerves as "all shot", that she has reached "the breaking point" and "Photoplay" reports of "rows of bottles of sedatives" by her bed. According to the 1930 census, Bow lived at 512 Bedford Drive, together with her secretary and hair-dresser, Daisy DeBoe (later DeVoe), in a house valued $25,000 with neighbors titled "Horse-keeper", "Physician", "Builder". Bow states she is 23 years old, i.e. born 1906, contradicting the censuses of 1910 and 1920. "Now they're having me sing. I sort of half-sing, half-talk, with hips-and-eye stuff. You know what I mean—like Maurice Chevalier. I used to sing at home and people would say, 'Pipe down! You're terrible!' But the studio thinks my voice is great." With "Paramount on Parade", "True to the Navy", "Love Among the Millionaires", and "Her Wedding Night", Bow was second at the box-office only to her chum, Joan Crawford, in 1930. With "No Limit" and "Kick In", Bow held the position as fifth at box-office in 1931. But the pressures of fame, public scandals, overwork, and a damaging court trial charging her secretary Daisy DeVoe with financial mismanagement, took their toll on Bow's fragile emotional health. As she slipped closer to a major breakdown, her manager B.P. Schulberg began referring to her as "Crisis-a-day-Clara". In April, Bow was brought to a sanatorium, and at her request, Paramount released her from her final undertaking: "City Streets". At 25, her career was essentially over. B. P. Schulberg tried to replace Bow with his girlfriend Sylvia Sidney, but Paramount went into receivership, lost its position as the biggest studio (to MGM), and fired Schulberg. David Selznick explained: Bow left Hollywood for Rex Bell's ranch in Nevada, her "desert paradise", in June and married him in then small-town Las Vegas in December. In an interview on December 17, Bow detailed her way back to health: sleep, exercise, and food, and the day after she returned to Hollywood "for the sole purpose of making enough money to be able to stay out of it." Soon, every studio in Hollywood (except for Paramount) and even overseas wanted her services. Mary Pickford stated that Bow "was a very great actress" and wanted her to play her sister in "Secrets", Howard Hughes offered her a three-picture deal. and MGM wanted her to star in "Red Headed Woman". Bow agreed to the script, but eventually rejected the offer since Irving Thalberg required her to sign a long-term contract. On April 28, 1932, Bow signed a two-picture deal with Fox Film Corporation; "Call Her Savage" (1932) and "Hoop-La" (1933). Both successful, "Variety" favored the latter: Bow commented on her revealing costume in "Hoop-La": "Rex accused me of enjoying showing myself off. Then I got a little sore. He knew darn well I was doing it because we could use a little money these days. Who can't?" Bow reflected on her career: Retirement and later years. Bow and actor Rex Bell (later a Lieutenant governor of Nevada), had two sons, Tony Beldam (born 1934, changed name to Rex Anthony Bell, Jr., died July 2011) and George Beldam, Jr. (born 1938). Bow retired from acting in 1933. In September 1937, she and Bell opened The 'It' Cafe on Vine Street near Hollywood Blvd. in Los Angeles. It was closed shortly thereafter. Her last public exposure, albeit fleeting, came in 1947 on the radio show "Truth or Consequences". Bow was the mystery voice in the show's "Mrs. Hush" contest. Health issues. Bow eventually began showing symptoms of psychiatric illness. She became socially withdrawn, and although she refused to socialize with her husband, she also refused to let him leave the house alone. In 1944, while Bell was running for the U.S. House of Representatives, Bow tried to commit suicide. A note was found in which Bow stated she preferred death to a public life. In 1949 she checked in to The Institute of Living to be treated for her chronic insomnia and diffuse abdominal pains. Shock treatment was tried and numerous psychological tests performed. Bow's IQ was measured "bright normal" while others claimed she was unable to reason, had poor judgment and displayed inappropriate or even bizarre behavior. Her pains were considered delusional and she was diagnosed with schizophrenia, despite experiencing neither sound nor vision hallucinations. The illness debut, or "onset", as well as her insomnia, the analysts tied to the "butcher knife episode" back in 1922, but Bow rejected psychological explanations and left the Institute. Bow did not return to her family. After leaving the institution, Bow lived alone in a bungalow, which she rarely left, until her death. Death. Bow spent her last years in Culver City, Los Angeles under the constant care of a nurse, living off an estate worth about $500,000 at the time of her death. She died of a heart attack on September 27, 1965 at the age of 60. An autopsy revealed that she suffered from atherosclerosis, a disease of the heart that can begin in early adolescence. Bow's heart showed scarring from an earlier undetected heart attack. She was interred at Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, California. Her pallbearers were Harry Richman, Richard Arlen, Jack Oakie, Maxie Rosenbloom, Jack Dempsey, and Buddy Rogers. Legacy. In 1999 film historian Leonard Maltin said, "You think of Greta Garbo, Lillian Gish, all these great names, great actresses, Clara Bow was more popular in terms of box-office dollars, in terms of consistently bringing audiences into the theaters, she was right on top." In 1999 the American Film Institute left Bow outside its final "100 Years...100 Stars" list, although she was on the list of nominees. Film historian Kevin Brownlow did not mention Bow in his book on silent films, "The Parade's Gone By" (1968). Louise Brooks, who rated an entire chapter in the book, wrote to Brownlow, "You brush off Clara Bow for some old nothing like Brooks. Clara made three pictures that will never be surpassed: "Dancing Mothers, Mantrap" and "It"". Brownlow however made up for his omission of Bow in "The Parade's Gone By" by including a whole segment on her in his 1980 television documentary "Hollywood: A Celebration of the American Silent Film" in which he extensively interviewed Brooks for the segment. Urban myths. During her lifetime, Bow was the subject of wild rumors regarding her sex life; most of them were untrue. A tabloid called "The Coast Reporter" published lurid allegations about her in 1931, accusing her of exhibitionism, incest, lesbianism, bestiality, drug addiction, alcoholism, and having contracted venereal disease. The publisher of the tabloid then tried to blackmail Bow, offering to cease printing the stories for $25,000, which led to his arrest by federal agents and, later, an eight-year prison sentence. References. Notes Bibliography
1061062	William Joseph Baldwin (born February 21, 1963) is an American actor, producer, writer, brother of Alec Baldwin, known for his starring roles in such films as "Flatliners" (1990), "Backdraft" (1991), "Sliver" (1993), "Fair Game" (1995), "Virus" (1999), "Double Bang" (2001), as Johnny 13 in "Danny Phantom" (2004–2007), "Art Heist" (2004), "The Squid and the Whale" (2005), as himself in "Forgetting Sarah Marshall", as Senator Patrick Darling in the TV drama "Dirty Sexy Money" (2007–2009) on ABC", " (2010), and now Baldwin was a regular guest on "Gossip Girl" as William van der Woodsen until December 2012, and "Parenthood" as Gordon Flint. Baldwin appeared as lead detective Brian Albert in the Lifetime Original Movie "The Craigslist Killer". In 2011, Baldwin was cast in a recurring role on "Hawaii Five-0" as a dirty cop, former homicide detective Frank Delano, appearing over the show's second season as well as the season premiere episode of the third season. Early life. Baldwin was born in Massapequa, New York, the son of Carol Newcomb (née Martineau) and Alexander Rae Baldwin, Jr. His father was a high school history/social studies teacher and football coach. He is the brother of actors Alec, Daniel, and Stephen, sometimes collectively known as the Baldwin brothers, and of sisters Beth and Jane, all together known as the Baldwin family. Baldwin was raised in a Catholic family, and has English, Irish, Scottish, French, and German ancestry. A graduate of Berner High School and Binghamton University, where he was a varsity wrestler, he has a degree in political science. Career. 1980s. Before starting his acting career, Baldwin was a fashion model for Calvin Klein. His first starring role was in a TV movie as Robert Chambers, alongside Lara Flynn Boyle in "The Preppie Murder", which aired on ABC in 1989. Baldwin was also cast in the 1989 film "Born on the Fourth of July" starring Tom Cruise, and brothers Stephen and Daniel where he played in a minor role as a U.S Marine during the Vietnam War. 1990s. Baldwin then starred in hit movies like "Flatliners" with Kiefer Sutherland, Julia Roberts and Kevin Bacon. He portrayed Chicago firefighter Brian McCaffrey in "Backdraft". Baldwin starred alongside Cindy Crawford in the 1995 film "Fair Game", then in 1996 starred in a low-budget film by Miramax Films titled "Curdled", and was paid US$150,000 for his performance compared to the $1.7 million he received for his role in "Sliver" with Sharon Stone in 1993. In 1999, Baldwin teamed up with Jamie Lee Curtis and Donald Sutherland for the science fiction thriller "Virus", and alongside Peter Gallagher in the Showtime original movie, "Brotherhood of Murder". 2000s. In 2001, Baldwin played a leading role in the television film "Double Bang" which aired on HBO. Since then, Baldwin has played in other projects such as "Red Rover" in 2003, "Art Heist" in 2004, "Park", "Feel" and "Lenexa, 1 Mile" in 2006, "Adrift in Manhattan", "A Plumm Summer", "Noise", and "Humble Pie" in 2007. Baldwin has continued to act in films and on television, but has not taken many leading roles. He was well received in a supporting role in the 2005 film "The Squid and the Whale". He also co-starred in ABC's "Dirty Sexy Money" as Donald Sutherland's oldest son, Patrick Darling IV, for the duration of the show until April 2009. Among other diverse characters he has played in his career, Baldwin was on Joel Schumacher's shortlist for "Batman Forever" to play the caped crusader. His four diverse choices were Daniel Day-Lewis, Ralph Fiennes, Val Kilmer and Baldwin. Audiences got to hear his first time playing Batman in February 2010 in , a loose adaptation of Grant Morrison's "" story. 2010s. In 2010, Baldwin portrayed Dr. Willam van der Woodsen, father of Serena and Eric van der Woodsen, on the third and fourth seasons of "Gossip Girl". Baldwin was also featured with his brother Daniel in UniGlobe Entertainment's breast cancer docu-drama, "1 a Minute". The documentary was made by actress Namrata Singh Gujral and will feature breast cancer survivors Olivia Newton-John, Diahann Carroll, Melissa Etheridge, Namrata Singh Gujral, Mumtaz and Jaclyn Smith as well as Daniel Baldwin and Priya Dutt. Baldwin was cast in the second season of "Parenthood" to play a boss and love interest for several episodes. Baldwin joined "Parenthood" for a multi-episode arc that aired in fall 2010 as Gordon Flint, the "wealthy, charismatic" boss of Adam (Peter Krause), a bachelor who also has eyes for Adam's sister Sarah (Lauren Graham). In 2011, Baldwin starred in the Lifetime Original Movie, "The Craigslist Killer" which aired January 3, 2011. He plays the lead detective on the case of the killer, Philip Markoff, who connected with victims through Craigslist ads placed in Boston, Massachusetts. On June 1, 2011, Baldwin joined Sobini Films' indie film "Sexy Evil Genius" along with Seth Green, Harold Perrineau Jr., Katee Sackhoff, and Michelle Trachtenberg. The film is to be directed by Shawn Piller. In July 2011, Baldwin joined the CBS drama "Hawaii Five-0" for a multi-episode arc. On March 22, 2012, Baldwin guest starred on the NBC show "30 Rock". Baldwin plays Lance Drake Mandrell, an actor who plays Jack Donaghy – the role played in the series by Baldwin's real-life brother Alec – in a made-for-TV movie within the show. Baldwin is currently a model for Sacoor Brothers. Personal life. In 1995, Baldwin married singer Chynna Phillips of the music group Wilson Phillips. Together, they have three children: daughter Jameson (born 2000), son Vance (born 2002), and daughter Brooke (born 2004). Baldwin has two estates, one in Santa Barbara, California and another in Bedford Corners, New York, just 30 minutes away from his brother Stephen's estate in Nyack, New York.
1161222	David Clennon (born May 10, 1943) is an American actor perhaps best known for his Emmy-nominated portrayal of Miles Drentel in the ABC series "thirtysomething", a role he reprised on "Once and Again". Life and career. Clennon was born in Waukegan, Illinois, the son of Virginia, a homemaker, and Cecil Clennon, an accountant. In 1980, David Clennon provided the voice for Admiral Motti in NPR's "Star Wars The Original Radio Drama". He was a regular on the TV shows "Almost Perfect", "The Agency," and "Saved". Most recently, Clennon played Carl Sessick (a.k.a. Carl the Watcher) on "Ghost Whisperer". In 1993 he won an Emmy award for his guest appearance on the series "Dream On". In 2013, he repeatedly spoke out against the film "Zero Dark Thirty" and refused to vote for it for an Academy Award, stating that it promotes the acceptable use of torture.
1166056	Joyce Anne DeWitt (born April 23, 1949) is an American actress most famous for playing Janet Wood on the ABC sitcom "Three's Company". Early life. Joyce DeWitt, who is of no relation to actress Fay DeWitt, was born April 23, 1949 in Wheeling, West Virginia, and grew up in Speedway, Indiana, a suburb of Indianapolis. She is of Italian descent on her mother's side. She competed in speech and debate through the Indiana High School Forensic Association. After she received a bachelor's degree in theater from Ball State University, she moved to California to earn her master's degree from the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA). Career. DeWitt began appearing on stage at the age of 13. While attending university, she worked as a secretary until her debut on "Baretta". Contrary to reports, she has never painted actor Abe Vigoda's garage doors, and has never met the man. While performing in summer stock in the year following her graduation, a director and UCLA Theater professor convinced her to go to California for the school's MFA program. DeWitt is best known for her role as Janet Wood during the 1977–1984 run of the sitcom "Three's Company", a job she obtained after being cast in the show's second pilot.
1068545	Must Love Dogs is a 2005 romantic comedy film based on Claire Cook's eponymous 2002 novel. Starring Diane Lane and John Cusack, it is the third film directed and written by Gary David Goldberg and was produced on a budget of $30 million. The film focuses on a woman's struggle with divorce and meeting new people afterward. Production started on October 12, 2004 with a final release date of July 29, 2005. Critics opinions were mostly negative but indicated that the actors were not to blame. "Must Love Dogs" took the fifth spot on its opening weekend and has grossed more than $58 million worldwide. The film was released on VHS and DVD on December 20, 2005. Plot. Sarah Nolan, a 40-year-old divorced preschool teacher, is urged by her family to date more. Although they show her photos of men they want to set her up with, Sarah does not seem interested in pursuing any relationships. Jake Anderson, another recent divorcee, finds himself in a similar position; his lawyer, Charlie, wants to set him up with a woman named Sherry. However, Jake would rather focus on creating his handcrafted boats. Sarah's sister Carol visits and they discuss Bob Connor, a parent from school. Sarah is attracted to him but does not want anything complicated. Carol reveals she set up an ad for Sarah on an online dating site, perfectmatch.com, using a picture from Sarah's high school graduation. The description declares she is voluptuous and that her dates "must love dogs" (Sarah is currently caring for her brother Michael's Newfoundland dog, "Mother Teresa", while he goes through his own marital problems). Sarah proceeds to suffer through several disastrous dates with men who cannot stop crying, are criminal, or like girls who are barely legal. Jake is confronted by Sherry at an art gallery; she is curious why he did not call her, but again Jake does not seem interested. Charlie then hands him a printout of Sarah's dating profile and tells Jake he has a date with her the next day at a dog park. The date proves to be awkward: Jake shows up with a borrowed terrier and offends Sarah when he begins to analyze her profile. Even worse, he reveals that the dog is not really his. When she accuses him of being deceptive he points out that the requirement was "Must love dogs," not "Must own a dog." Sarah leaves abruptly but agrees to see him again. Sarah and Jake go on a dinner date where he asks her why she is not with her husband anymore. She explains that he just stopped loving her and that he was never ready to have children. Sarah acknowledges that her ex-husband is now with a woman fifteen years younger than her with a baby on the way. The date progresses back to Sarah's house where they discover that neither has a condom. They hastily drive around but when they finally find protection neither of them is in the mood. Jake and Charlie are discussing Sarah when he admits that she intrigued him. That night, Jake tries to call Sarah. Meanwhile Sarah has connected with Bob Connor. She checks to see if Bob is home but discovers he is with June, one of her co-workers. Sarah assumes they are on a date, and while fleeing the scene she drops her phone. Sarah arrives home to find her brother Michael, who is drunkenly dealing with his own marital problems, and Jake, who has been taking care of him. Jake takes Sarah rowing and they share a kiss. Afterward he takes Michael home while Sarah lights candles and sets the mood. But Bob shows up instead of Jake. He returns her phone, explains that he and June are not involved, and then kisses Sarah just as Jake gets back. Jake leaves, upset. Around Thanksgiving Sarah calls Bob and they go to a hotel and have sex. In the morning Bob is rude to Sarah and during the drive home admits he has actually slept with June and sees Sarah as a one-time fling. Meanwhile, Jake is talked into taking Sherry to see "Doctor Zhivago". Sarah notices Jake leaving the theater afterward, but while discussing the film with him she notices Sherry and realizes the two of them are on a date. Sarah flees again, and when Sherry asks Jake up to her apartment, he declines and instead walks home. Jake runs into a man named Bill outside a coffee shop, not realizing that this man is Sarah's father. When Jake confesses that he is heartbroken, Bill mentions that he has a daughter who is single but Jake declines. While drinking coffee with Sarah later, Bill quotes something that Jake said to him and Sarah realizes that Jake was talking about her. She heads over to Jake's with Mother Teresa, but he is out on the lake with his boat. When Jake can't hear her yelling from the shore she convinces a girls crew team to take her out to him. Eventually she dives in and swims over to his boat. After climbing in Sarah tells Jake how she feels about him and they kiss. Later, when telling the story of how they met, they mention in unison that they found each other at a dog park. Production. Goldberg was first interested in starting this project when he found Cook's book. He thought it had a lot of humor and started working on getting the film rights. Goldberg worked closely with Cook, sharing all the draft copies with her and asking for input. He even included her in the casting process. Even though Cook only made it on set twice she was "so pleased with what they’ve done. It's really such a tribute to the book and just a great movie in its own right." Goldberg's "process is to just get an actor and then write and re-write and work on the set." Goldberg was constantly bringing new pages to the set while Cusack contributed ideas for him to work with. Cusack also performed in takes where Goldberg allowed him to say whatever came out of his mouth. Mother Teresa. Goldberg chose a Newfoundland to play the part, even though it was a different breed in the novel. Mother Teresa was played by two females, Molly and Mabel. Lane explained, "Like with kids, they prefer hiring twins." The dogs were chosen when they were only puppies and were trained by Boone Narr for several months before filming. During filming the dogs were still puppies, being 6 months old and 80 pounds. When production ended Goldberg adopted both dogs. Release. Critical reception. The film received mostly negative reviews, receiving a 46/100 on Metacritic and falling in the "mixed or average reviews" category. On Rotten Tomatoes it received a "rotten" rating with 35% based on 142 reviews and a general consensus that "Despite good work from its likable leads, the romantic comedy "Must Love Dogs" is too predictable." Roger Ebert thought that although Lane and Cusack are "two of the most likable actors in the movies", they "deserve characters that the movie takes more seriously and puts at more risk", giving the film two out of four stars. Stephen Holden of "The New York Times" gave the film a negative review, wondering how the actors were "bamboozled into lending their talents to the project." He added that the film has "contrived little incidents", "is so clueless", and is "hopelessly clichéd and out of date". A more positive review from "Rolling Stone" said that the film had a "great title and appealing performances" from Lane and Cusack. Giving the film three out of four stars, the review also said that "Just when you think you have Goldberg figured, he springs fresh surprises." Ann Hornaday from "The Washington Post" noted the film "works because Lane is one of those actresses who can do just about anything and still earn the audience's undying love." Hornaday mentioned that the movie "features an enormously appealing supporting cast" and commented on how well Lane and Cusack worked together on the film. Box office. Validating the critic's views, the film opened in the number five spot with $12.8 million in 2,505 theaters with an $5,131 average per theater. "Must Love Dogs" stayed in the theater for twelve weeks, staying in the top 10 for its first three weeks. The film grossed $58,405,313, placing it at number 66 for all films released in 2005. Home media. "Must Love Dogs" was released on December 20, 2005 on DVD and VHS. The video "is lush but soft, and some artificial sharpening only adds insult to injury, doing nothing to alleviate the overall lack of fine detail." The audio is very standard and "wouldn't sound any different through a pair of headphones". The extras are composed of four additional scenes lasting for about eight minutes with optional commentary from Goldberg. There is also a gag reel titled "Pass the Beef" which lasts for about one minute.
837313	Edward Oakley Thorp (born 14 August 1932) is an American mathematics professor, author, hedge fund manager, and blackjack player best known as the "father of wearable computer" after inventing the world's first wearable computer in 1961. He was a pioneer in modern applications of probability theory, including the harnessing of very small correlations for reliable financial gain. He is the author of "Beat the Dealer", the first book to mathematically prove, in 1962, that the house advantage in blackjack could be overcome by card counting. He also developed and applied effective hedge fund techniques in the financial markets, and collaborated with Claude Shannon in creating the first wearable computer. Thorp received his Ph.D. in mathematics from the University of California, Los Angeles in 1958, and worked at M.I.T. from 1959 to 1961. He was a professor of mathematics from 1961-1965 at New Mexico State University, and then joined the University of California, Irvine where he was a professor of mathematics from 1965 to 1977 and a professor of mathematics and finance from 1977 to 1982. Computer aided research in blackjack. Ed Thorp used the IBM 704 as a research tool in order to investigate the probabilities of winning while developing his blackjack game theory, which was based on the Kelly criterion, which he learned about from the 1956 paper by Kelly. He learned Fortran in order to program the equations needed for his theoretical research model on the probabilities of winning at blackjack. Thorp analyzed the game of blackjack to a great extent this way, while devising card-counting schemes with the aid of the IBM 704 in order to improve his odds, especially near the end of a card deck that is not being reshuffled after every deal.
1245054	Following Sean is a 2005 documentary film directed by Ralph Arlyck, and a follow-up to his 1969 student short "Sean," which features four-year-old Sean thoughts on marijuana, police presence, freewheeling lifestyles. The film's notoriety landed a screening in the White House and a variety of predictions regarding the outcome of Sean's life - whether he could grow up to embody the hippy philosophy, or whether he would turn out a drug dealer or stock broker. "Following Sean" picks up in the mid-1990s and turns Sean's story into a meditation on generational changes and legacies that are handed down as a result of choices made in heated political climates. The film was met with high critical praise, receiving an 86% "Fresh" rating on Rotten Tomatoes and a 64 (Generally favorable reviews) on Metacritic.
774007	Dean McDermott (born November 16, 1966) is a Canadian-American actor. He is married to Victoria Davey "Tori" Spelling, with whom he appeared in the observational documentary shows ' and "Tori & Dean: Home Sweet Hollywood. 'He played the role of Constable Renfield Turnbull on the TV series "Due South". Early life. McDermott was born in Toronto, Ontario, the son of David and Doreen McDermott. He grew up in very humble circumstances. He has three sisters: Dale, Dawn and Dana. Career. McDermott has appeared in many TV and movie roles, including the Kevin Costner film "Open Range" and the television film "Always and Forever", about two high-school sweethearts, in which he starred alongside Rena Sofer and Barbara Eden. In 2013, Dean became a member of "Team Guy" on the second season of Food Network's "" and was the winner. In 2013, Dean announced that he will be the host of Chopped Canada on Food Network Canada, which is set to premiere in 2014. Personal life. McDermott married Mary Jo Eustace on July 24, 1993. They had one child, son Jack Montgomery (born October 10,1998). In July 2005, McDermott began filming the Lifetime TV movie "Mind Over Murder" in Ottawa, alongside Tori Spelling. The two began an affair the night they first met, despite both being married. In September, Spelling separated from her husband Charlie Shanian. While on a family vacation in Palm Springs, California, McDermott told then-wife Mary Jo Eustace, "I'm leaving you, not my kid," and filed for divorce from his wife of 12 years. On December 24, 2005, McDermott and Spelling became engaged. In February 2006, McDermott's and Eustace's divorce was finalized; and in April 2006, Spelling's and Shanian's divorce was finalized. McDermott was granted joint custody of his son Jack, but he opted not to move forward with the adoption of a baby girl, Lola, he and Eustace were in the process of adopting prior to their separation.single parent after the separation.--> McDermott married Spelling on May 7, 2006, in a private ceremony in Wakaya, Fiji. Spelling and McDermott renewed their vows on May 8, 2010 in Beverly Hills. Spelling and McDermott have four children: sons Liam Aaron (born March 13, 2007) and Finn Davey (born August 30, 2012) and daughters Stella Doreen (born June 9, 2008) and Hattie Margaret (born October 10, 2011). On July 1, 2010, McDermott was involved in a dirt bike accident, his second motorcycle accident of the year. Suffering a punctured and collapsed lung, he was rushed to the Intensive Care Unit of a Los Angeles hospital. Doctors expected McDermott to make a full recovery. McDermott was released from the hospital on July 6, 2010. McDermott became an American citizen at a ceremony in Los Angeles on August 21, 2010.
1064229	John Holland Cazale (; ; August 12, 1935 – March 12, 1978) was an American actor. During his six-year film career, he appeared in five films, each of which was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture: "The Godfather", "The Conversation", "The Godfather Part II", "Dog Day Afternoon" and "The Deer Hunter." He is the only actor to have this multi-film distinction. From his start as an acclaimed theater actor, he became one of Hollywood's premier character actors, starting with his role as Fredo Corleone in Francis Ford Coppola's film "The Godfather". "Cazale broke hearts on screen with portrayals of volatile, vulnerable, vacillating men, including Pacino's tragic bank-robbing partner in "Dog Day Afternoon"," wrote David Germain of the Associated Press. Cazale is described as an actor "whose intense face is known to just about any serious cinema fan but whose name often escapes them". He chose to continue acting despite being diagnosed with cancer and died in New York City on March 12, 1978 shortly after completing his role in "The Deer Hunter". He was 42 years old. Cazale was characterized as "an amazing intellect, an extraordinary person and a fine, dedicated artist" by Joseph Papp. A film documentary and tribute about Cazale, titled "I Knew It Was You", was an entry at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival and featured interviews with Al Pacino, Meryl Streep, Robert De Niro, Gene Hackman, Richard Dreyfuss, Francis Ford Coppola and Sidney Lumet. Early life. Cazale was born in Revere, Massachusetts, the son of John and Cecilia Cazale. He was of part Italian descent. He studied drama at Oberlin College and Boston University, from which he graduated. Stage career. Cazale moved to New York City and worked as a messenger at Standard Oil, where he met Al Pacino, another aspiring actor.
1059946	Idiocracy is a 2006 American satirical science fiction comedy film directed by Mike Judge and starring Luke Wilson, Maya Rudolph, Dax Shepard, and Terry Crews. The film tells the story of two ordinary people from the present who take part in a top-secret military hibernation experiment, only to awaken 500 years in the future in a dystopian society full of extremely stupid people. Advertising, commercialism, and cultural anti-intellectualism have run rampant and dysgenic pressure has resulted in a uniformly unthinking society devoid of intellectual curiosity, social responsibility, and coherent notions of justice and human rights. Despite its lack of a major theatrical release, the film has achieved a cult following. Plot. A U.S. Army librarian, Corporal Joe Bauers, and a prostitute named Rita are selected for a suspended animation experiment which is supposed to last one year. Joe is average in every way, hence his selection, and Rita's pimp, "Upgrayedd", has been bribed to allow her to take part. The experiment is forgotten when the officer in charge is arrested for starting a prostitution business. Five hundred years later, when the average IQ has dropped drastically, Joe and Rita's suspension chambers are unearthed by the collapse of a mountain-sized garbage pile. Joe's suspension chamber smashes through the wall of the apartment of Frito Pendejo, who throws him out for interrupting his favorite TV show, "Ow! My Balls!", where the star is repeatedly hit in his testicles.
1062356	Thora Birch (born March 11, 1982) is an American actress. She got her first role at the age of 6 in the short-lived sitcom "Day By Day" (1988). That performance was followed by an appearance in the motion picture "Purple People Eater" (1988), for which she received a Young Artist Award for "Best Young Actress Under Nine Years of Age". Birch's profile was raised significantly with major parts in films such as "All I Want for Christmas" (1991), "Patriot Games" (1992), "Hocus Pocus" (1993), "Monkey Trouble" (1994), "Now and Then" (1995), and "Alaska" (1996). Her breakthrough role came in 1999 with the Academy Award winning film, "American Beauty". Her performance was well received by both critics and audience and brought Birch to an international recognition. She later played the lead role in "Ghost World" (2001) for which she received a Golden Globe Award nomination for Best Actress – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy. She has since appeared in independent films such as "Dark Corners" (2006), "Train" (2008) and "Winter of Frozen Dreams" (2009). Early life. Birch was born in Los Angeles, California, the eldest child of Jack Birch and Carol Connors. Her parents, who were her business managers from the start, are former adult film actors and both appeared in the pornographic film "Deep Throat". Birch is of German Jewish, Scandinavian, and Italian ancestry. The family's original surname was Biersch. Her name Thora is derived from the name of the Norse God of thunder and lightning, Thor. She has a younger brother named Kian. Due to their own experience with acting, Birch's parents were reluctant to encourage her in the profession, but were persuaded to show her photograph to agents by a babysitter who noticed her imitating commercials. She had several parts in the late '80s, including advertisements for Burger King, California Raisins, Quaker Oats, and Vlasic Pickles. Career. Early career, 1988–1995. In 1988, she landed the role of Molly in the short-lived television series "Day By Day". She was billed simply as "Thora". That same year, she won a part in the movie "Purple People Eater" opposite Ned Beatty and Neil Patrick Harris. Her performance won her a Youth In Film Award. Birch played as 'tomboy' Billie Pike in the movie "Paradise", which also starred Don Johnson, Melanie Griffith, and Elijah Wood. Birch's parts during the period of 1991–1995 included the role of Dani in "Hocus Pocus" (1993), as well as "All I Want for Christmas" (1991) and "Monkey Trouble" (1994). She appeared in two Harrison Ford films, "Patriot Games" (1992) and its sequel, "Clear and Present Danger" (1994), where she played Sally Ryan, the daughter of Ford's character Jack Ryan. Birch's performance in the 1995 film "Now and Then" teamed her with Gaby Hoffmann, Christina Ricci, Demi Moore, Rosie O'Donnell, and Melanie Griffith. Worldwide recognition, 1996–2001. In 1996, she landed a leading role in the adventure film, "Alaska" (1996). After guest-starring appearances in "The Outer Limits", "Promised Land", and "Touched by an Angel", Birch took a break from acting. In 1999, she returned in the made-for-TV movie "Night Ride Home" and also took a small uncredited role in the Natalie Portman film "Anywhere but Here". Later in 1999, Birch won critical praise playing the role of Jane Burnham in "American Beauty" and was nominated for a British Academy of Film and Television Arts award. The movie itself went on to win the Academy Award for Best Picture. As Birch was 16 at the time she made the film, and thus classified as a minor in the United States, her parents had to approve her brief topless scene in the movie. They and child labor representatives were on the set for the shooting of the scene. After supporting roles in "The Smokers" (2000; where Birch was called "a scene-stealer" by "The Hollywood Reporter") and "Dungeons & Dragons" (2000), she landed the lead role alongside Keira Knightley in the horror movie "The Hole" (2001). The film was released in the cinema in the UK, and went direct-to-video in the US almost two years later and gained divided reviews. "BBC.co.uk" wrote: "Given that she has a much leaner role than the one she enjoyed in ""American Beauty"", the qualities which made her flourish in that multi-Oscar-winner are still abundantly clear".
673672	The Last Laugh () is a German 1924 silent film directed by German director F. W. Murnau from a screenplay written by Carl Mayer. The film stars Emil Jannings and Maly Delschaft. It is the most famous example of the short-lived "Kammerspielfilm" or "chamber-drama" genre. It is noted for its near-absence of the intertitles that characterize most silent films; moreover, none of the intertitles in "The Last Laugh" represent spoken dialogue. Plot. Jannings' character, the doorman for a famous hotel, is demoted to washroom (bathroom) attendant, as he is considered too old and infirm to be the image of the hotel. He tries to conceal his demotion from his friends and family, but to his shame, he is discovered. His friends, thinking he has lied to them all along about his prestigious job, taunt him mercilessly while his family rejects him out of shame. The man, shocked and in incredible grief, returns to the hotel to sleep in the bathroom where he works. The only person to be kind towards him is the night watchman, who covers him with his coat as he falls asleep. Following this comes the film's only title card, which says: "Here the story should really end, for, in real life, the forlorn old man would have little to look forward to but death. The author took pity on him and has provided a quite improbable epilogue." At the end, the doorman reads in the newspaper that he inherited a fortune from a Mexican millionaire named U. G. Monen, a patron who died in his arms in the hotel bathroom. Jannings returns to the hotel, where he dines happily with the night watchman who showed him kindness. It is this ending that inspires the English language title. Murnau noted that the story was absurd on the grounds that "everyone knows that a washroom attendant makes more than a doorman." Production. Director F. W. Murnau was at the height of his film career in Germany and had high ambitions for his first film with UFA. He stated that "All our efforts must be directed towards abstracting everything that isn't the true domain of the cinema. Everything that is trivial and acquired from other sources, all the tricks, devices and cliches inheirited from the stage and from books." Murnau called screenwriter Carl Mayer someone who worked in "the true domain of the cinema" and agreed to make "The Last Laugh" after Mayer and film director Lupu Pick fought and Pick left the film. The film famously uses no intertitles, which had previously been done by Mayer and Pick on "Scherben" and "Sylvester" several years earlier, as well as by director Arthur Robinson in the film "Schatten" in 1923.
1161967	Heather McComb (born March 2, 1977) is an American actress.
792169	Alien Love Triangle is a 2008 comedy-science fiction short film directed by Danny Boyle. It was produced in 2002. The film was originally intended to be one of a trilogy of 30-minute short films shown together. However, the two other films, "Mimic" and "Impostor", turned into full-length features and the project was cancelled. The film had its world premiere as part of the closing ceremony of the smallest theatre in the UK, La Charrette, on 23 February 2008, an event organised by Mark Kermode of "The Culture Show". Kenneth Branagh attended the screening. The film's only other recorded screening was shortly after the premiere, at the Kenneth Branagh season at the National Media Museum, again with Branagh in attendance.
1104384	The level set method (LSM) is a numerical technique for tracking interfaces and shapes. The advantage of the level set method is that one can perform numerical computations involving curves and surfaces on a fixed Cartesian grid without having to parameterize these objects (this is called the "Eulerian approach"). Also, the level set method makes it very easy to follow shapes that change topology, for example when a shape splits in two, develops holes, or the reverse of these operations. All these make the level set method a great tool for modeling time-varying objects, like inflation of an airbag, or a drop of oil floating in water. Level set method. The figure on the right illustrates several important ideas about the level set method. In the upper-left corner we see a shape; that is, a bounded region with a well-behaved boundary. Below it, the red surface is the graph of a level set function formula_1 determining this shape, and the flat blue region represents the formula_2 plane. The boundary of the shape is then the zero level set of formula_1, while the shape itself is the set of points in the plane for which formula_1 is positive (interior of the shape) or zero (at the boundary).
393906	My Tutor Friend 2 (; lit. "My Tutor Friend Lesson 2") is a 2007 South Korean romantic comedy film released on April 19, 2007.
1034484	Helen Fraser (born Helen Margaret Stronach in; Oldham, Lancashire 15 June 1942) is an English actress, who has appeared in many television series since the early 1960s. For international audiences, she may be best known her roles in "Billy Liar" (1963) and "Repulsion" (1965). Career. She trained at RADA alongside Tom Courtenay and John Thaw, among others. She got her breakthrough role alongside Courtenay in "Billy Liar" (1963). They later played the parents of character Dave Best in the Christmas special of "The Royle Family" (2008). She is best known to television viewers for her long-running role in the ITV women's prison drama "Bad Girls" as unpleasant warder Sylvia "Bodybag" Hollamby from the very first episode in 1999 to the very last in 2006. She reprised the role in the West End production of "" in 2007. She made her TV debut in the early 1960s and her credits include "Z-Cars", "Dixon of Dock Green", "The Likely Lads", "Doctor in the House","The Dustbinmen", "On the Buses", "Rising Damp", "Tales of the Unexpected", "Duty Free", "One Foot in the Grave" and "Casualty". She also worked on TV with comedians like Dick Emery and the Two Ronnies in the 1970s. She has also appeared on stage, including with the Royal National Theatre, in the West End and in regional theatres across the country. In 2009 and 2010 she toured the UK as Mrs Fisher in a stage version of "Billy Liar". In 2011 she joined the tour of "Calendar Girls". Fraser has appeared in the ITV soap "Coronation Street" twice - in 1998 as Magenta Savannah and again in 2013 as Doris Babbage. Personal life. In 1964 she married the recording engineer Peter Handford, the couple had met on the set of "Billy Liar". Handford died in 2007. Fraser lives in Eye, Suffolk.
1084147	The Horror of Party Beach (working title Invasion of the Zombies) is a 1964 horror film in the beach party genre, directed by B-movie maven Del Tenney, which Tenney himself describes as "a take-off on beach parties and musicals". The original theatrical release of the film paired it with another Del Tenney feature, "The Curse of the Living Corpse", in a studio-sanctioned double feature. A small East Coast beach town experiences a wave of attacks from creatures derived from water plants and dead human tissue mutated from radioactive waste. The monsters coalesced into humanoid form by attaching themselves to skeletons in a shipwreck. They immediately proceed to hunt down and kill (mostly young) women, as is common in the horror films of this era. Despite the murders committed by the monsters, young women in large numbers conveniently keep returning to the area for activities like slumber parties. Trying to stop the monsters are scientist Dr. Gavin, his young-adult daughter Elaine, and her boyfriend (and Dr. Gavin's employee) Hank Green, with some unexpected assistance from housekeeper Eulabelle and metallic sodium. "The Horror of Party Beach" was included as one of the choices in the 1978 book "The Fifty Worst Films of All Time".
319392	"The Lottery" is a short story by Shirley Jackson, first published in the June 26, 1948 issue of "The New Yorker". Written the same month it was published, it is ranked today as "one of the most famous short stories in the history of American literature". It has been described as "a chilling tale of conformity gone mad." Response to the story was negative, surprising Jackson, Caleb Mann (the head editor at the local paper) and "The New Yorker". Readers canceled subscriptions and sent hate mail throughout the summer. The story was banned in the Union of South Africa. Since then, it has been accepted as a classic American short story, subject to critical interpretations and media adaptations, and it has been taught in middle schools and high schools for decades since its publication. Characters and story. Details of contemporary small town American life are contrasted with an annual ritual known as "the lottery." In a small village of about 300 residents, the locals are in an excited yet nervous mood on June 27. Children gather stones as the adult townsfolk assemble for their annual event, that in the local tradition has been practiced to ensure a good harvest (one character quotes an old proverb: "Lottery in June, corn be heavy soon"), though there are some rumors that nearby communities are talking of "giving up the lottery." In the first round of the lottery, the head of each family draws a small slip of paper from a black box; Bill Hutchinson gets the one slip with a black spot, meaning that his family has been chosen. In the next round, each Hutchinson family member draws a slip, and Bill's wife Tessie gets the marked slip. In keeping with tradition, each villager obtains a stone and begins to surround Tessie. The story ends as Tessie is stoned to death while she bemoans the unfairness of the situation. Lottery Process. The lottery preparations start the night before with Mr. Summers and Mr. Graves making the paper slips and the list of all the families. Once the slips are finished, they are put into a black box, which is stored overnight in a safe at the coal company. The next morning the townspeople start close to 10 a.m. in order to have everything done in time for lunch. First, the heads of the households draw slips without looking at them until every head of household has a slip. The second round is for the family members to draw. For the first round, the men have to be over sixteen years of age, however in the second round everyone is eligible, no matter their age. After the drawing is over and the person is picked, the slips are allowed to fly off into the wind, after which the human sacrifice occurs. Analysis. Collective Mentality. The collective mentality, also referred to as mob mentality, can be defined as "the behavioral tendency of people (or other social animals) to act in unison with the group of which they are a part. This is an evolutionary adaptation that provides the mechanism for collective intelligence, but also explains how morally reprehensible consensus can form. Behaviors range from gang rapes and beatings to the extermination of an entire people group." In the case of "The Lottery," the collective mentality is a theme that is represented directly as one of the characters in the story, Tessie Hutchinson, is subjected to a series of brutal bludgeonings from the other members of her town during an annual human sacrifice ritual. In the story, one of the characters, Mrs. Delacroix, is a personal friend of Tessie Hutchinson, yet participates in the throwing of stones at Tessie. This behavior can be explained by the definition of the collective mentality: "When people are part of a group, they often experience deindividuation, or a loss of self-awareness. When people deindividuate, they are less likely to follow normal restraints and inhibitions and more likely to lose their sense of individual identity... which can lead to the provocation of behaviors that a person would not typically engage in if alone." Because of the psychological process that individuals experience during these situations, it is possible for a close friend to participate in behavior such as the sacrifice of a friend, if there is enough pressure from peers. Thus, Mrs. Delacroix goes from chatting with her friend Tessie to helping kill her in only a short time. Reception. Readers. Many readers demanded an explanation of the situation in the story, and a month after the initial publication, Shirley Jackson responded in the "San Francisco Chronicle" (July 22, 1948): Jackson lived in North Bennington, Vermont, and her comment reveals that she had Bennington in mind when she wrote "The Lottery." In a 1960 lecture (printed in her 1968 collection, "Come Along with Me"), Jackson recalled the hate mail she received in 1948: "The New Yorker" kept no records of the phone calls, but letters addressed to Jackson were forwarded to her. That summer she regularly took home 10 to 12 forwarded letters each day. She also received weekly packages from "The New Yorker" containing letters and questions addressed to the magazine or editor Harold Ross, plus carbon copies of the magazine's responses mailed to letter writers. Critical interpretations. Helen E. Nebeker's essay, "'The Lottery': Symbolic Tour de Force," in "American Literature" (March, 1974), claims that every major name in the story has a special significance. Fritz Oehlshlaeger, in "The Stoning of Mistress Hutchinson Meaning of Context in 'The Lottery'" ("Essays in Literature", 1988), wrote: The 1992 episode of "The Simpsons", "Dog of Death", features a scene referencing "The Lottery". During the peak of the lottery fever in Springfield, news anchor Kent Brockman announces on television that people hoping to get tips on how to win the jackpot have borrowed every available copy of Shirley Jackson's book "The Lottery" at the local library. One of them is Homer, who throws the book into the fireplace after Brockman reveals that, "Of course, the book does not contain any hints on how to win the lottery. It is, rather, a chilling tale of conformity gone mad." In her book "Shirley Jackson: Essays on the Literary Legacy", Bernice Murphy comments that this scene displays some of the most contradictory things about Jackson: "It says a lot about the visibility of Jackson's most notorious tale that more than 50 years after its initial creation it is still famous enough to warrant a mention in the world's most famous sitcom. The fact that Springfield's citizenry also miss the point of Jackson's story completely [...] can perhaps be seen as an indication of a more general misrepresentation of Jackson and her work." Dramatizations. In addition to numerous reprints in magazines, anthologies and textbooks, "The Lottery" has been adapted for radio, live television, a 1953 ballet, films in 1969 and 1997, a TV movie, an opera, and a one-act play by Thomas Martin. 1951 radio version. NBC's radio adaptation was broadcast March 14, 1951, as an episode of the anthology series "". Writer Ernest Kinoy expanded the plot to include scenes at various characters' homes before the lottery and a conversation between Bill and Tessie Hutchinson (Bill suggests leaving town before the lottery happens, but Tessie refuses because she wants to go shopping at Floyd Summers's store after the lottery is over). Kinoy also deleted characters, including two of the Hutchinsons' three children, and added at least one character, John Gunderson, a schoolteacher who publicly objects to the lottery being held, and at first refuses to draw. Finally, Kinoy included an ending scene describing the townspeople's post-lottery activities, and an afterword in which the narrator suggested, "Next year, maybe there won't be a Lottery. It's up to all of us. Chances are, there will be, though." The production was directed by Andrew C. Love. Cast members included Charles Seel, Gail Bonney, Irene Tedrow, Jack Nessler, James Nusser, Jeff Corey, Jeffrey Silver, John McGovern, Louise Lorimer, Steven Chase, and Margaret Brayton. Music was by Morris King. Don Stanley was the announcer. Television adaptation. Ellen M. Violett wrote the first television adaptation, seen on Albert McCleery's "Cameo Theatre" (1950–55). 1969 film. Larry Yust's short film, "The Lottery" (1969), produced as part of Encyclopædia Britannica's 'Short Story Showcase' series, was ranked by the Academic Film Archive "as one of the two bestselling educational films ever." It has an accompanying ten-minute commentary film, "Discussion of "The Lottery"" by University of Southern California English professor Dr. James Durbin. Featuring the film debut of Ed Begley, Jr., Yust's adaptation has an atmosphere of naturalism and small town authenticity with its shots of pick-up trucks and townspeople in Fellows, California. 1996 TV film. Anthony Spinner's feature-length TV film, "The Lottery," which premiered September 29, 1996, on NBC, is a sequel loosely based on the original Shirley Jackson story. In Spinner's account, the annual lottery is held for religious reasons. Davey Hutchinson, now known as Jason Smith, has moved to Boston, but keeps having flashbacks to and nightmares about the death of his mother. His father (Bill Hutchinson, known as Albert Smith here) is now dying in a mental hospital, and asks his son to pour his ashes on his mother's grave in the town. Davey/Jason goes to the town, but is lied to by the townspeople and told that neither he nor his mother is from the town. He eventually learns that he is not only from the town, but participated in the stoning death of his mother when he was six years old. Smith challenges the town by leaving and going back to the town with investigators. However, because the town has "plants" in the outside world, he does not manage to completely uncover the sick town traditions. He winds up in a mental hospital being watched over by the same doctor his father had. Director Daniel Sackheim filmed in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, with a cast that included Keri Russell, Dan Cortese, Veronica Cartwright, Sean Murray, Jeff Corey, Salome Jens, and M. Emmet Walsh. It was nominated for a 1997 Saturn Award for Best Single Genre Television Presentation. References in other works. In the June 24, 2007 (S01E04) TV episode of Army Wives Denise makes a reference to the author and story when explaining to Claudia how she feels while they wait to hear if Denise's husband is dead or alive after a Black Hawk helicopter crash in Iraq. The video game in the "Fallout" series, "" has a large reference on the story, with a town holding a lottery under the control of Caesar's army. Unlike in the story, everybody who does not 'win' the lottery is killed, with the winner being allowed to go free. The character Boxcars is given second place in the lottery and has his legs broken as a consolation prize. The 2010 "Squidbillies" episode "Double Truckin' on the Tricky Two", villain Dan Halen threatens the main character and his family with a reference to the story, and is then genuinely baffled when he finds that none of them have ever heard of it. He then sits them down and reads the entirety of the story out loud. Marilyn Manson's music video for song Man That You Fear is loosely based on the story. Manson portrays a man who is condemned to die. He is "chosen" by a blindfolded child who spins around pointing her finger. When she stops spinning, she removed the blindfold and sees the trailer home that she is pointing to — the home of the condemned. The video features all events of his last day on earth, leading up to his death by stoning in an isolated location of the desert. From Autumn to Ashes's music video for the song Pioneers is also loosely based on the story of The Lottery. In the video, it takes place in a factory which holds a ritual similar to that of the ritual in the "The Lottery", the workers must take numbers from a black box, but instead of a black stain it is the number 19. The main character of the video receives the number 19, is ultimately sacrificed in the end of the video. Parodies. The "South Park" episode "Britney's New Look" (season 12, episode 2; episode 169 overall) portrays the town as ensuring its food supply (and, allegorically, American popular culture as obtaining sustenance) by sacrificing young celebrities through a cycle of attention and exploitation that eventually lead them into self-destruction. Specific references to the original work include the use of "Lottery in June, corn be heavy soon" as a phrasal and syntactic template for "Sacrifice in March, corn have plenty starch."
588686	Dil Dosti Etc. (Heart, Friendship, et cetera) is a 2007 Bollywood film starring Shreyas Talpade, Imaad Shah, Nikita Anand, Smriti Mishra, Ishita Sharma and Dinesh Kumar in lead roles. It is directed by Manish Tiwary and produced by Prakash Jha.The movie got mixed reviews on its release (see external links below for reviews). The movie was successful in multiplex theaters in Delhi and some parts of Mumbai. Synopsis. Dil Dosti Etc explores the ambiguities of the youth years. The movie is about coming of age of Apurv (Imaad Shah), a rich, aimless and cynical 18 year old young man, who has just entered college in Delhi. Juxtaposed against the aimlessness of Apurv is also the story of Sanjay Mishra (Shreyas Talpade), an ambitious Bihari student & politician with limited means. They represent two divergent world views—the liberal versus the conservative, the no-strings attached versus the committed, the elite versus the middle-class. Directionless and laidback, Apurv searches for meaning in life through amorous escapades with different girls, including a sex-worker Vaishali (Smriti Mishra) and a school girl Kintu (Ishita Sharma). Meanwhile Sanjay works single-mindedly to win the college Presidential elections, and yet catches the attention of a rich model Prerna (Nikita Anand). Dil Dosti Etc is woven together with an ensemble of other characters, who have their own stories to tell. Set against all these is a silly wager that the two protagonists engage in. Sanjay will win the elections and Apurv will manage to have sex with three women in a day. As the film moves towards a volatile climax, you get to test the film’s premise, when you’re young, you believe the possibilities are endless. Reception. Martin D'Souza, of Glamsham.com noted that, "Minor flaws apart, college students are going to identify with this flick and I suspect there will be mass bookings in the days to come". Nikhat Kazmi of Times of India rated the movie 2 out of 5 stars and opined that,"The film's too slow and the scene's are too repetitive and you do get the feeling things aren't really going anywhere. But wait patiently, and the mood will catch up". VjMoviews noted that, "Barring a few cons of the movie like lackadaisical performance of Imaad, forced bihari accent of Shreyas and poor editing, the movie is a decent watch"'.
52264	Miral is a 2010 biographical political film directed by Julian Schnabel. The screenplay was written by Rula Jebreal, based on her novel. The film was released on 3 September at the 2010 Venice Film Festival and on 15 September 2010 in France. The film was set for release on 3 December 2010 in the United Kingdom, and on 25 March 2011 in the United States. "Miral" was initially rated R by the MPAA for "some violent content including a sexual assault." Later, however, it was reclassified to PG-13 for "thematic material, and some violent content including a sexual assault" after an appeal of the R rating by the Weinstein Company. On 4 April 2011, days after the film's US release, Juliano Mer-Khamis, an actor and peace activist who plays Seikh Saabah in the film, was shot to death in his car outside a theatre he had established in a Palestinian refugee camp. Plot. A chronicle of Hind Husseini's effort to establish an orphanage in Jerusalem after the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, the Deir Yassin Massacre, and the establishment of the state of Israel. Jerusalem, 1948. On her way to work, Hind Husseini (Hiam Abbass) comes across 55 orphaned children in the street. She takes them home to give them food and shelter. Within six months, 55 had grown to almost 2,000, and the Dar Al-Tifel Institute was born. In 1978, at the age of 5, Miral (Freida Pinto) was sent to the Institute by her father following her mother's death. Brought up safely inside the Institute's walls, she is naïve to the troubles that surround her. Then, at the age of 15, she is assigned to teach at a refugee camp where she is awakened to the reality of the Palestinian refugees. When she falls for Hani, a militant, she finds herself torn between the First Intifada of her people and Mama Hind's belief that education is the road to peace. Production. The Palestinian girl is author Rula Jebreal. Her novel on which the movie is based is a strongly autobiographical account of her youth in West Bank. She's torn between the injustice she sees at the hands of the Israeli army during the First Intifada and a desire for peace. Schnabel revealed that the project had relevance for his own family history, figuring that he was a pretty good person to tell the other side of the story, given his background, as an American Jew whose mother was president, in 1948, of the Brooklyn chapter of Hadassah the Women's Zionist Organisation of America. Reception. Critics. "Miral" received negative reviews from critics, as it currently holds a 17% rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 63 reviews. Kelly Vance wrote that "Pinto handles the central role with a certain dignity, but the real drama is in Miral’s rejection of violence in favor of Hind Husseini’s (Abbass) example of education and negotiation". Kenneth Morefield opined that ""Miral" is an ambitious film, and it may be that Schnabel's reputation has led to unrealistic expectations about what any film can (or should attempt to) accomplish. While it falls short of greatness, it has many admirable qualities". Sheri Linden of "The Los Angeles Times" writes, "The lack of a compelling lead figure, combined with Schnabel's tentative approach to the material, casts the film's later stretches in the balmy glow of soap opera." Justin Chang of "Variety" similarly adds, "Schnabel's signature blend of splintered storytelling and sobering humanism feels misapplied to this sweeping multigenerational saga of four Arab women living under Israeli occupation, the youngest of which, Miral, emerges a bland totem of hope rather than a compelling movie subject." Deborah Young of the "Hollywood Reporter" described the film as "a political film with a message of hope, on the obvious side". "Miral" was reviewed by Geoffrey Macnab of "The Independent" as "choppily edited" and "unevenly performed" but also "courageous" and "groundbreaking." Public discussion with filmmakers. An open public panel discussion about "Miral" took place on 30 March 2011 at the Center for Palestine Studies in Columbia University with Academy Award nominated film director Julian Schnabel and Palestinian journalist Rula Jebreal on whose autobiographical novel the film was based. Helga Tawil Souri, Professor of Media, Culture, & Communication at NYU, and Hamid Dabashi, Professor of Iranian Studies & Comparative Literature at Columbia University, led and moderated the panel discussion. During the discussion with the moderators, Schnabel and Jebreal discuss the events that led to the film's premiere at the UN General Assembly. Schnabel described the film as sending a political message in his discussions with UN General Assembly President, Mr. Joseph Deiss. The premiere at the UN was opposed by the Israeli government and the American Jewish Committee as it depicted Israel in a “highly negative light.” The Jewish-American director Julian Schnabel urged AJC members to see the film, as he felt they had misunderstood its intent. “I love the State of Israel,” wrote Schnabel, “I believe in it, and my film is about preserving it, not hurting it … Instead of saying ‘no,’ I ask the AJC to say ‘yes,’ see Miral and join the discussion.” Hollywood stars Sean Penn, Robert De Niro, Steve Buscemi and Josh Brolin attended the premiere.
1058353	Chris Messina (born August 11, 1974) is an American film, television and stage actor. He has appeared in such films as "Ira and Abby", "Vicky Christina Barcelona", "Argo", "Julie & Julia", "Away We Go", "Monogamy", "Greenberg", "Like Crazy", "The Giant Mechanical Man", "Ruby Sparks", "Celeste and Jesse Forever", and "You've Got Mail". In television, he is known for his role as Chris Sanchez on the legal drama "Damages" and his co-leading role as Danny Castellano in the comedy "The Mindy Project". Life and career. Messina was born in Northport, New York. He started his career as an off-Broadway actor. He has appeared in episodes of the television series "Law & Order", "Third Watch", and "Medium". He had a recurring role in the fifth and final season of the HBO drama "Six Feet Under", playing Claire's (Lauren Ambrose) love interest Ted Fairwell. His film credits include "Rounders", "The Siege", "You've Got Mail" and "Towelhead".
587202	Mandira Bedi is an Indian actress, model and television presenter who gained celebrity status playing the title role in the 1994 television serial, "Shanti", shown on India's national channel, Doordarshan which was the first ever daily soap on Indian television. She followed up her career in TV serials with shows like "Aurat" (DD and Sony), "Dushman" (DD) and "Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi" (Star Plus) with hosting duties for ICC Cricket World Cups in the years 2003 and 2007 and the Champions Trophies in the years 2004 and 2006 as well as the Indian Premier League season 2 for Sony Max. She fronted the coverage of IPL season 3 for the British Network - ITV. Mandira Bedi is promoting faux leather for PETA. Early life. A native of Mumbai, Mandira Bedi was born on 15 April 1972 Kolkata to Verinder Singh Bedi and Gita Bedi. She has her ancestral roots in the Khatri clan of Fazilka, a town in Punjab, 11 kilometres from the India-Pakistan border. Her father worked with ICI on a transferable job but she spent her childhood (age 5 onwards) in Mumbai in South Mumbai. She studied at Mumbai's Cathedral and John Connon School and did her Graduation in Economics from St. Xaviers College, Mumbai followed by a post-graduation in Media from Sophia Polytech, which is also located in Mumbai.
1064894	John Tucker Must Die is a 2006 American high school comedy romance film, directed by Betty Thomas. The film is about a trio of girls (played by Arielle Kebbel, Sophia Bush, and Ashanti) who plot to break the heart of manipulative basketball star John Tucker (Jesse Metcalfe) after they learn he has been secretly dating all three and pledging each is "the one". They recruit cute wallflower Kate (Brittany Snow) in their scheme to publicly humiliate the cad. Released in North America on July 28, 2006. The film reached number 3 in the US and number 1 in Australia. Plot. The movie begins with Kate (Brittany Snow) discussing her mother Lori's (Jenny McCarthy) series of bad relationships which always causes the family to move to a new town. She and her mother move to a new town and Kate gets a job as a waitress. While at work, she sees popular local boy John Tucker (Jesse Metcalfe) on dates with three different girls: Carrie (Arielle Kebbel), a chronic overachiever; Heather (Ashanti), who is a sassy, aggressive head cheerleader; and Beth (Sophia Bush) a promiscuous vegan activist. Kate learns from a co-worker that he dates girls from different cliques at his school so that they never interact and convinces the girls he dates to keep their relationships secret.
1065380	Quantum of Solace (2008) is the twenty-second "James Bond" film produced by Eon Productions, and is the direct sequel to the 2006 film "Casino Royale". Directed by Marc Forster, it features Daniel Craig's second performance as James Bond. In the film, Bond battles wealthy businessman Dominic Greene (Mathieu Amalric), a member of the Quantum organisation, posing as an environmentalist who intends to stage a coup d'état in Bolivia to seize control of the nation's water supply. Bond also seeks revenge for the death of his lover, Vesper Lynd (Eva Green), and is assisted by Camille Montes (Olga Kurylenko), who is seeking revenge for the murder of her family. Producer Michael G. Wilson developed the film's plot while "Casino Royale" was being shot. Neal Purvis, Robert Wade, Paul Haggis and Joshua Zetumer contributed to the script, Daniel Craig and Marc Forster had to write some sections themselves due to the Writers Strike, though they were not given the screenwriter credit in the final cut. The title was chosen from a 1959 short story in Ian Fleming's "For Your Eyes Only", though the film does not contain any elements of the original story. Location filming took place in Mexico, Panama, Chile, Italy, Austria and Wales while interior sets were built and filmed at Pinewood Studios. Forster aimed to make a modern film that also featured classic cinema motifs: a vintage Douglas DC-3 was used for a flight sequence, and Dennis Gassner's set designs are reminiscent of Ken Adam's work on several early Bond films. Taking a course away from the usual Bond villains, Forster rejected any grotesque appearance for the character Dominic Greene to emphasise the hidden and secret nature of the film's contemporary villains. The film was also marked by its frequent depictions of violence, with a 2012 study by the University of Otago in New Zealand finding it to be the most violent film in the franchise. Whereas "Dr No" featured 109 "trivial or severely violent" acts, by the time "Quantum of Solace" was released, the count grew to 250 – the most depictions of violence in any Bond film. The film premiered at the Odeon Leicester Square on 29 October 2008, gathering mixed reviews which mainly praised Craig's gritty performance and the film's action sequences while feeling that "Quantum of Solace" was not as impressive as the predecessor "Casino Royale". , it is the third-highest-grossing "James Bond" film, without adjusting for inflation, earning $586 million worldwide. Plot. James Bond is driving from Lago di Garda to Siena, Italy, with the captured Mr. White in the boot of his car. After evading pursuers, Bond and M interrogate White regarding his organisation, Quantum. M's bodyguard, Mitchell, a double agent, attacks M, enabling White to escape. Bond chases Mitchell and kills him. Bond and M return to London and search Mitchell's flat, discovering through tagged banknotes that Mitchell had a contact in Haiti. Bond tracks the contact, Edmund Slate, and learns that Slate is a hitman sent to kill Camille Montes at the behest of her lover, environmentalist Dominic Greene. While observing her subsequent meeting with Greene, Bond learns that Greene is helping an exiled Bolivian General, Medrano—who murdered Camille's family—to overthrow his government in exchange for a seemingly barren piece of desert. After rescuing Camille from Medrano, Bond follows Greene to a performance of "Tosca" in Bregenz, Austria. En route, the CIA head of the South American section, Gregg Beam, strikes a non-interference deal with Greene to maintain access to assumed stocks of Bolivian oil. Bond infiltrates Quantum's meeting at the opera, and a gunfight ensues. A Special Branch bodyguard of Quantum member Guy Haines, an adviser to the British Prime Minister, is shot by one of Greene's men after a fight with Bond, and M—after Bond refuses to obey orders to return home and debrief—has his passports and credit cards revoked. Bond convinces his old ally René Mathis to accompany him to Bolivia. At the La Paz airport, they are greeted by Strawberry Fields, an MI6 officer, who demands that Bond return to the UK immediately; nonetheless, Bond soon seduces her before they attend a party Greene holds that night. At the party, Bond again rescues Camille from Greene. Leaving, Bond and Camille are pulled over by Bolivian police working for Medrano. They had earlier attacked Mathis and put him in the boot of Bond's car to frame Bond; and, in the ensuing struggle, Mathis is killed. The following day, Bond and Camille survey Quantum's intended land acquisition by air; their plane is shot down after a brief air battle and they skydive out of the burning plane into a sinkhole. In the cave, Bond and Camille discover Quantum is damming Bolivia's supply of fresh water to create a monopoly. Back in La Paz, Bond meets M and learns that Quantum murdered Fields by drowning her in crude oil. M orders Bond arrested for disobeying orders but he escapes. He risks capture by doubling back to tell M that Fields demonstrated bravery in the field, and this is enough to convince M that Bond can be trusted. Bond meets with CIA agent Felix Leiter, who discloses Greene and Medrano will meet in the Atacama Desert to finalise the coup. Warned by Leiter, he evades the CIA's Special Activities Division when they attempt to kill him. At the hotel, Greene and Medrano negotiate their terms. Greene then finally reveals his true plans: now that he controls the majority of Bolivia's water supply, Greene forces Medrano to accept a new contract that makes Greene Planet Bolivia's sole water utility company at significantly higher rates. Bond infiltrates the hotel, kills the Chief of Police for betraying Mathis, and confronts Greene. The hotel is destroyed during the ensuing struggle; Camille kills Medrano, avenging the murders of her parents and sister, and Bond captures Greene. After interrogating him about Quantum, Bond leaves Greene stranded in the middle of the desert with only a can of engine oil. Bond and Camille kiss before they part. Bond travels to Kazan, Russia, where he finds Vesper Lynd's former lover, Yusef Kabira, with a new target, a Canadian agent. Yusef is a member of Quantum who seduces women with valuable connections. Bond decides not to kill Yusef and allows MI6 to arrest him. Outside, M tells Bond that Greene was found in the middle of the desert dead, shot twice and with engine oil in his stomach; Bond denies knowing anything. M also reveals that Leiter has been promoted and has taken Beam's place. She reinstates Bond as an agent; he tells M that he never left. As he leaves, he drops Vesper's necklace in the snow. Cast. Marc Forster asked his friends and fellow directors Guillermo del Toro and Alfonso Cuarón to appear in cameos. Cuarón appears as a Bolivian helicopter pilot, while del Toro provides several other voices. Production. Development. In July 2006, as "Casino Royale" entered post-production, Eon Productions announced that the next film would be based on an original idea by producer Michael G. Wilson. It was decided beforehand the film would be a direct sequel, to exploit Bond's emotions following Vesper's death in the previous film. Just as "Casino Royale" theme was terrorism, the sequel focuses on environmentalism. The film was confirmed for a 2 May 2008 release date, with Craig reprising the lead role. Roger Michell, who directed Craig in "Enduring Love" and "The Mother", was in negotiations to direct, but opted out because there was no script. Sony Entertainment vice-chairman Jeff Blake admitted a production schedule of 18 months was a very short window, and the release date was pushed back to late 2008. Neal Purvis and Robert Wade completed their draft of the script by April 2007, and Paul Haggis, who polished the "Casino Royale" script, began his rewrite the next month. In June 2007, Marc Forster was confirmed as director. He was surprised that he was approached for the job, stating he was not a big Bond film fan through the years, and that he would not have accepted the project had he not seen "Casino Royale" prior to making his decision: he felt Bond had been humanised in that film, arguing since travelling the world had become less exotic since the series' advent, it made sense to focus more on Bond as a character. Born in Germany and raised in Switzerland, Forster was the first Bond director not to come from the British Commonwealth of Nations, although he noted Bond's mother is Swiss, making him somewhat appropriate to handle the British icon. The director collaborated strongly with Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson, noting they only blocked two very expensive ideas he had. The director found "Casino Royale"s 144-minute running time too long, and wanted his follow-up to be "tight and fast ... like a bullet." Haggis, Forster and Wilson rewrote the story from scratch. Haggis said he completed his script two hours before the 2007–2008 Writers Guild of America strike officially began. Forster noted a running theme in his films were emotionally repressed protagonists, and the theme of the picture would be Bond learning to trust after feeling betrayed by Vesper. Forster said he created the Camille character as a strong female counterpart to Bond rather than a casual love interest: she openly shows emotions similar to those which Bond experiences but is unable to express. Haggis located his draft's climax in the Swiss Alps, but Forster wanted the action sequences to be based around the four classical elements of earth, water, air and fire. The decision to homage "Goldfinger" in Fields's death came about as Forster wanted to show oil had replaced gold as the most precious material. The producers rejected Haggis's idea that Vesper Lynd had a child, because "Bond was an orphan ... Once he finds the kid, Bond can't just leave the kid." The water supply issue in Bolivia was the main theme of the film, with a story based on the Cochabamba Water Revolt. Michael G. Wilson decided on the film's title "Quantum of Solace" only "a few days" before its announcement on 24 January 2008. It was the name of a short story in Ian Fleming's anthology "For Your Eyes Only" (1960). The film is related to the title in one of its thematic elements: "when the 'Quantum of Solace' drops to zero, humanity and consideration of one human for another is gone." Daniel Craig admitted, "I was unsure at first. Bond is looking for his quantum of solace and that's what he wants, he wants his closure. Ian Fleming says that if you don't have a quantum of solace in your relationship then the relationship is over. It's that spark of niceness in a relationship that if you don't have you might as well give up." He said that "Bond doesn't have that because his girlfriend Lynd has been killed," and therefore, "is looking for revenge ... to make himself happy with the world again." Afterwards, Quantum was made the name of the organisation introduced in "Casino Royale". Craig noted the letter Q itself looks rather odd. Near the end of the film, the Camille Montes character and Bond have a discussion about their individual quests to avenge the deaths of their loved ones. Montes asks Bond to "let me know what it feels like" when he succeeds, the implication of the title being that it will be a small amount of solace compared to his despair. Bond's lack of emotion when he does exact revenge shows this to be the case. According to a December 2011 interview with Craig, "We had the bare bones of a script and then there was a writers' strike and there was nothing we could do. We couldn't employ a writer to finish it. I say to myself, 'Never again', but who knows? There was me trying to rewrite scenes—and a writer I am not." He said that he and Forster "were the ones allowed to do it. The rules were that you couldn't employ anyone as a writer, but the actor and director could work on scenes together. We were stuffed. We got away with it, but only just. It was never meant to be as much of a sequel as it was, but it ended up being a sequel, starting where the last one finished." During filming, after the strike ended, Forster read a spec script by Joshua Zetumer, which he liked, and hired him to reshape scenes for the later parts of the shoot, which the director was still unsatisfied with. Forster had the actors rehearse their scenes, as he liked to film scenes continually. Zetumer rewrote dialogue depending on the actors' ideas each day. Filming. "Quantum of Solace" was shot in six countries. Second unit filming began in Italy at the Palio di Siena horse race on 16 August 2007: although at this point Forster was unsure how it would fit into the film. Some scenes were filmed also in Maratea and Craco, two small distinctive towns in Basilicata in southern Italy. Other places used for location shooting were Madrid in August 2007; Baja California, Mexico in early 2008, for shots of the aerial battle; Malcesine, Limone sul Garda and Tremosine in Italy during March, and at Talamone during the end of April. The main unit began on 3 January 2008, at Pinewood Studios. The 007 Stage was used for the fight in the art gallery, and an MI6 safehouse hidden within the city's cisterns, while other stages housed Bond's Bolivian hotel suite, and the MI6 headquarters. Interior and exterior airport scenes were filmed at Farnborough Airfield and the snowy closing scenes were filmed at the Bruneval Barracks in Aldershot. Shooting in Panama City began on 7 February 2008 at Howard Air Force Base. The country doubled for Haiti and Bolivia, with the National Institute of Culture of Panama standing in for a hotel in the latter country. A sequence requiring several hundred extras was also shot at nearby Colón. Shooting in Panama was also carried out at Fort Sherman, a former US military base on the Colón coast. Forster was disappointed he could only shoot the boat chase in that harbour, as he had a more spectacular vision for the scene. Officials in the country worked with the locals to "minimise inconvenience" for the cast and crew, and in return hoped the city's exposure in the film would increase tourism. The crew was going to move to Cusco, Peru for ten days of filming on 2 March, but the location was cancelled for budget reasons. Twelve days of filming in Chile began on 24 March at Antofagasta. There was shooting in Cobija, the Paranal Observatory, and other locations in the Atacama Desert. Forster chose the desert and the observatory's ESO Hotel to represent Bond's rigid emotions, and being on the verge of committing a vengeful act as he confronts Greene in the film's climax. While filming in Sierra Gorda, Chile, the local mayor, Carlos Lopez, staged a protest because he was angry at the filmmakers' portrayal of the Antofagasta region as part of Bolivia. He was arrested, detained briefly, and put on trial two days later. Eon dismissed his claim that they needed his permission to film in the area. Michael G. Wilson also explained Bolivia was appropriate to the plot, because of the country's history of water problems, and was surprised the two countries disliked each other a century after the War of the Pacific. In a poll by Chilean daily newspaper "La Segunda", 75% of its readers disagreed with Lopez's actions, due to the negative image they felt it presented of Chile, and the controversy's potential to put off productions looking to film in the country in the future. From 4–12 April, the main unit shot on Sienese rooftops. Shooting on the real rooftops turned out to be less expensive than building them at Pinewood. The next four weeks were scheduled for filming the car chase at Lake Garda and Carrara. On 19 April, an Aston Martin employee driving a DBS to the set crashed into the lake. He survived, and was fined £400 for reckless driving. Another accident occurred on 21 April, and two days later, two stuntmen were seriously injured, with one, Greek stuntman Aris Comninos, having to be put in intensive care. Filming of the scenes was temporarily halted so that Italian police could investigate the causes of the accidents. Stunt co-ordinator Gary Powell said the accidents were a testament to the realism of the action. Rumours of a "curse" spread among tabloid media, something which deeply offended Craig, who disliked that they compared Comninos' accident to something like his minor finger injury later on the shoot (also part of the "curse"). Comninos recovered safely from his injury. Filming took place at the floating opera stage at Bregenz, Austria, from 28 April – 9 May 2008. The sequence, where Bond stalks the villains during a performance of "Tosca", required 1500 extras. The production used a large model of an eye, which Forster felt fitted in the Bond style, and the opera itself has parallels to the film. A short driving sequence was filmed at the nearby Feldkirch, Vorarlberg. The crew returned to Italy from 13–17 May to shoot a (planned) car crash at the marble quarry in Carrara, and a recreation of the Palio di Siena at the Piazza del Campo in Siena. 1000 extras were hired for a scene where Bond emerges from the "Fonte Gaia". Originally, he would have emerged from the city's cisterns at Siena Cathedral, but this was thought disrespectful. By June, the crew returned to Pinewood for four weeks, where new sets (including the interior of the hotel in the climax) were built. The wrap party was held on 21 June. Design. Production designer Peter Lamont, a crew member on eighteen previous Bond films, retired after "Casino Royale". Forster hired Dennis Gassner in his stead, having admired his work on "The Truman Show" and the films of the Coen brothers. Craig said the film would have "a touch of Ken Adam," while Michael G. Wilson also called Gassner's designs "a postmodern look at modernism." Forster said he felt the early Bond films' design "were ahead of their time," and enjoyed the clashing of an older style with his own because it created a unique look unto itself. Gassner wanted his sets to emphasise Craig's "great angular, textured face and wonderful blue eyes," and totally redesigned the MI6 headquarters because he felt Judi Dench "was a bit tired in the last film, so I thought, let's bring her into a new world." Louise Frogley replaced Lindy Hemming as costume designer, though Hemming remained as supervisor. Hemming hired Brioni for Bond's suits since her tenure on the series began with 1995's "GoldenEye", but Lindsay Pugh, another supervisor, explained their suits were "too relaxed." Tom Ford was hired to tailor "sharper" suits for Craig. Pugh said the costumes aimed towards the 1960s feel, especially for Bond and Fields. Prada provided the dresses for both Bond girls. Jasper Conran designed Camille's ginger bandeau, bronze skirt and gold fish necklace, while Chrome Hearts designed gothic jewellery for Amalric's character, which the actor liked enough to keep after filming. Sophie Harley, who created Vesper Lynd's earrings and Algerian loveknot necklace in "Casino Royale", was called upon to create another version of the necklace. The film returns to the traditional gun barrel opening shot, which was altered into part of the story for "Casino Royale" where it was moved to the beginning of the title sequence. In this film the gun barrel sequence was moved to the end of the movie, which Wilson explained was done for a surprise, and to signify the conclusion of the story begun in the previous film. The opening credits sequence was created by MK12; Having worked on Forster's "Stranger than Fiction" and "The Kite Runner", MK12 spontaneously began developing the sequence early on in production, and had a good idea of its appearance which meant it did not have to be redone when the title singer was changed. MK12 selected various twilight colours to represent Bond's mood and focused on a dot motif based on the gunbarrel shot. MK12 also worked on scenes with graphical user interface, including the electronic table MI6 use, and the Port-au-Prince, Haiti title cards. Effects. "Quantum of Solace" was the last in Ford Motor's three-film deal that began with 2002's "Die Another Day". Although Ford sold over 90% of the Aston Martin company in 2007, the Aston Martin DBS V12 returned for the film's car chase around Lake Garda; Dan Bradley was hired as second unit director because of his work on the second and third "Bourne" films, so the film would continue the gritty action style begun in "Casino Royale". He had intended to use Ford GTs for the opening chase, but it was replaced by the Alfa Romeo 159. After location filming in Italy, further close-ups of Craig, the cars and the truck were shot at Pinewood against a bluescreen. Originally three Alfa Romeos were in the sequence: but Forster felt the scene was running too long and re-edited the scene so it only looked like two Romeos were chasing Bond. Six Aston Martins were destroyed during filming, and one of them was purchased by a fan. Fourteen cameras were used to film the Palio di Siena, footage which was later edited into the main sequence. Aerial shots using helicopters were banned, and the crew were also forbidden from showing any violence "involving either people or animals." To shoot the foot chase in Siena in April 2008 four camera cranes were built in the town, and a cable camera was also used. Framestore worked on the Siena chase, duplicating the 1000 extras during principal photography to match shots of the 40,000 strong audience at the real Palio, removing wires that held Craig and the stuntmen in the rooftop segment of the chase, and digital expansion of the floor and skylight in the art gallery Bond and Mitchell fall into. The art gallery fight was intended to be simple, but during filming Craig's stunt double accidentally fell from the construction scaffolding. Forster preferred the idea of Bond hanging from ropes reaching for his gun to kill Mitchell, rather than having both men run out of the building to continue their chase as specified in the script, and the number of effects shots increased. To film the aerial dogfight, a "Snakehead" camera was built and placed on the nose and tail of a Piper Aerostar 700. SolidWorks, who provided the software used to design the camera, stated "pilots for the first time can fly as aggressively as they dare without sacrificing the drama of the shot." The camera could turn 360 degrees and was shaped like a periscope. The crew also mounted SpaceCams on helicopters, and placed cameras with 1600 mm lenses underground, to cover the action. Forster wanted to film the plane fight as a homage to Alfred Hitchcock's "North by Northwest", and chose planes like the Douglas DC-3 to suit that. The free-fall scene involved its own set of challenges, Craig disliked the idea of "being hung by wires and blown by a large fan in front of a green screen" but actual sky diving coverage has serious drawbacks. It's not only difficult, dangerous and time-consuming, but nearly always results in problematic head-replacements for close-ups. Stunt co-ordinator Gary Powell and VFX Designer Kevin Tod Haug, presented the idea of filming the scene in a large vertical wind tunnel in Bedford in order to do this sequence as practically as possible. While a great solution for the actors' performances the technique presented enormous VFX challenges: relighting shots captured in a tall white tube to match the sky over the Bolivian desert, and the impossibility of filming medium to wide shots of the actors. An array of eight Dalsa Origin cameras (supported by 7 HD cameras and a 35mm hand-held camera, all running in sync) was used to create a virtual camera with which to shoot the actors floating in the simulator. Ged Wright and his team at Double Negative developed a method to use the data from these cameras that allowed these real performances to be placed in a synthetic environment as seen by a synthetic camera. During the shooting in the wind tunnel Craig and Kurylenko wore wind-resistant contact lenses that enabled them to open their eyes as they fell. For safety and comfort, they only shot for thirty seconds at a time. Forster wished he had more time to work on the free-fall scene. The Moving Picture Company created the climactic hotel sequence. The fire effects were supervised by Chris Corbould, and post-production MPC had to enhance the sequence by making the smoke look closer to the actors, so it would look more dangerous. A full-scale replica of the building's exterior was used for the exploding part Bond and Camille escape from. The boat chase was another scene that required very little CGI. Machine FX worked on replacing a few shots of visible stuntmen with a digital version of Craig's head, and recreated the boats Bond jumps over on his motorcycle to make it look more dangerous. Crowd creation was done for the "Tosca" scene by Machine FX, to make the performance look like it had sold out. Forster edited the opera scene to resemble "The Man Who Knew Too Much". In total, there are 900+ visual effects shots in "Quantum of Solace". Music. David Arnold, who composed the scores for the previous four Bond films, returned for "Quantum of Solace". He said that Forster likes to work very closely with his composers and that, in comparison to the accelerated schedule he was tied to on "Casino Royale", the intention was to spend a long time scoring the film to "really work it out." He also said he would be "taking a different approach" with the score. Arnold composed the music based on impressions from reading the script, and Forster edited those into the film. As with "Casino Royale", Arnold kept use of the "James Bond Theme" to a minimum. Arnold collaborated with Kieran Hebden for "Crawl, End Crawl," a remix of the score played during the end credits. Jack White of The White Stripes and Alicia Keys collaborated on "Another Way to Die," the first Bond music duet. They had wanted to work together for two years beforehand. The song was recorded in Nashville, Tennessee; White played the drums while Keys performed on the piano. The Memphis Horns also contributed to the track. White's favourite Bond theme is John Barry's instrumental piece for "On Her Majesty's Secret Service", and he watched various opening credit sequences from the series for inspiration while mixing the track. Mark Ronson and Amy Winehouse had recorded a demo track for the film, but Ronson explained Winehouse's well-publicised legal issues in the preceding weeks made her "not ready to record any music" at that time. Release. The film premiered at the Odeon Leicester Square on 29 October 2008. Princes William and Harry attended, and proceeds from the screening were donated to the charities Help for Heroes and the Royal British Legion. The film was originally scheduled to be released in the UK and North America on 7 November; however, Eon pushed forward the British date to 31 October during filming, while the American date was pushed back in August to 14 November, after "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" had been moved to 2009, thereby allowing the distributors to market the film over the autumn blockbuster Thanksgiving holiday weekend. In Australia, the film was moved a week to 19 November, after 20th Century Fox chose to release "Australia" on "Quantum of Solace"s original date of 26 November. Marketing. Returning product placement partners from "Casino Royale" included Ford, Heineken Pilsener, Smirnoff, Omega SA, Virgin Atlantic Airways and Sony Ericsson. A reported £50 million was earned in product placement, which tops the Bond film's record of £44 million for "Die Another Day". The 2009 Ford Ka is driven by Camille in the film. Avon created a fragrance called Bond Girl 007 with Gemma Arterton as the "face" of the product. Coca-Cola became a promotional partner, rebranding Coke Zero as "Coke Zero Zero 7." A tie-in advert featured the orchestral element of "Another Way to Die." In the film, Coca-Cola was briefly seen being served at Dominic Greene's party. Sony held a competition, "Mission for a Million," enabling registered players to use their products to complete certain tasks. Each completed "mission" gives consumers a chance to win $1 million and a trip to a top secret location. Merchandise. Corgi International Limited made 5-inch action figures and gadgets (such as a voice-activated briefcase), as well as their traditional die-cast toy vehicles. They also created 7-inch figures of characters from the previous films. Scalextric released four racing sets to coincide with the film. Activision released their first James Bond game, also titled "Quantum of Solace", which is based on both "Casino Royale" and "Quantum of Solace". It is the first Bond game to feature Craig's likeness and the first seventh generation console game in the series. Swatch designed a series of wrist watches, each of them inspired by a Bond villain. Though the screenplay did not get made into a novel despite its original storyline, Penguin Books published a compilation of Fleming's short stories entitled "Quantum of Solace: The Complete James Bond Short Stories", with a UK release date of 29 May 2008 and a North American release date of 26 August 2008. The book combines the contents of Fleming's two short story collections, "For Your Eyes Only"—including the original "Quantum of Solace" short story—and "Octopussy and The Living Daylights". The November/December 2008 issue of "Cigar Aficionado" was a special James Bond edition written by David Giammarco, author of "For Your Eyes Only: Behind the Scenes of the James Bond Films", and featured an 20-page feature on the making of "Quantum of Solace" from his interviews on location. Home media. "Quantum of Solace" was released on DVD and Blu-ray by MGM via 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment in Australia, the UK and North America from 18 to 24 March 2009. At the DVD sales chart the film opened at No. 3, grossing $21,894,957 from 1.21m DVD units sold. , 2,643,250 DVD units were sold, generating $44,110,750 in sales revenue. These figures do not include Blu-ray sales or DVD rentals. The DVDs were released in both a standard one-disc set and a deluxe two-disc special edition. There are no audio commentaries or deleted scenes on these editions. Reception. Box office. Upon its opening in the UK, the film grossed £4.9 million ($8 million), breaking the record for the largest Friday opening (31 October 2008) in the UK. The film then broke the UK opening weekend record, taking £15.5 million ($25 million) in its first weekend, surpassing the previous record of £14.9 million held by "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire". It earned a further £14 million in France and Sweden—where it opened on the same day. The weekend gross of the equivalent of $10.6 million in France was a record for the series, surpassing what "Casino Royale" made in five days by 16%. The $2.7 million gross in Sweden was the fourth-highest opening for a film there. The following week, the film was playing in sixty countries. It grossed the equivalent of $39.3 million in the UK, $16.5 million in France and $7.7 million in Germany on 7 November 2008. The film broke records in Switzerland, Finland, United Arab Emirates, Nigeria, Romania and Slovenia. Its Chinese and Indian openings were the second largest ever for foreign-language films. The film grossed $27 million on its opening day in 3,451 cinemas in Canada and the United States, where it was the number one film for the weekend, with US67.5 million and US19,568 average per cinema. It was the highest-grossing opening weekend Bond film in the US, and tied with "The Incredibles" for the biggest November opening outside of the "Harry Potter" series. The film earned a B- from CinemaScore's audience surveys. From the 31 October British opening through to the 14 November US opening weekend, the film had grossed a total $319,128,882 worldwide. As of 10 February 2010, it has grossed the equivalent of $417,722,300 in countries other than Canada and the US, where it grossed $168,368,427, to give a total of $586,090,727. Critical response. Reviews for "Quantum of Solace" have been mixed. Of the 244 reviews listed on Rotten Tomatoes, 64% are positive, with an average rating of 6.1/10. Metacritic calculated a score of 58 out of 100 from 38 reviews, indicating a "mixed or average" response. Critics generally preferred "Casino Royale", but continued to praise Craig's depiction of Bond, and agree that the film is still an enjoyable addition to the series. The action sequences and pacing were praised, but criticism grew over the realism and serious but gritty feel that the film carried over. Roger Moore, the third actor to play Bond in the films, continued to feel Craig was a "damn good Bond but the film as a whole, there was a bit too much flash cutting it was just like a commercial of the action. There didn't seem to be any geography and you were wondering what the hell was going on." Kim Newman of "Empire" gave it 4/5, remarking it was not "bigger and better than "Casino Royale", [which is perhaps a smart move in that there's still a sense at the finish that Bond's mission has barely begun." However, he expressed nostalgia for the more humorous Bond films. "The Sunday Times" review noted that "following "Casino Royale" was never going to be easy, but the director Marc Forster has brought the brand's successful relaunch crashing back to earth – with a yawn"; the screenplay "is at times incomprehensible" and the casting "is a mess." The review concludes that "Bond has been stripped of his iconic status. He no longer represents anything particularly British, or even modern. In place of glamour, we get a spurious grit; instead of style, we get product placement; in place of fantasy, we get a redundant and silly realism." "The Guardian" gave a more positive review, rating it as 3/5 stars, and was particularly fond of Craig's performance, saying he "made the part his own, every inch the coolly ruthless agent-killer, nursing a broken heart and coldly suppressed rage" and calling the film "a crash-bang Bond, high on action, low on quips, long on location glamour, short on product placement"; it concludes ""Quantum of Solace" isn't as good as "Casino Royale": the smart elegance of Craig's Bond debut has been toned down in favour of conventional action. But the man himself powers this movie; he carries the film: it's an indefinably difficult task for an actor. Craig measures up." "Screen Daily" says, "Notices will focus—rightly—on Craig's magnetism as the steely, sexy, murderous MI6 agent, but two other factors weigh in and freshen up proceedings: Forster's new technical team, led by cinematographer Roberto Schaefer and production designer Dennis Gassner. And the ongoing shift of M, as played by Judi Dench, to front and centre: the Bond girls fade into insignificance as she becomes his moral counterpoint and theirs is the only real relationship on screen." The review continues, "Bond is, as has been previously noted, practically the Martin Scorsese of the BAFTAs: 22 films later, with grosses probably close to the GDP of one of the small nations it depicts, it's still waiting for that Alexander Korda award. The best "Casino Royale" could achieve was a gong for sound. Will this be the year that changes its fortunes?" Roger Ebert of the "Chicago Sun-Times", who praised the previous film, disliked "Quantum of Solace". He wrote that the plot was mediocre, characters weak and that Bond lacked his usual personality, despite his praise for Craig's interpretation of the role. Throughout his review, he emphasised that "James Bond is not an action hero." Kate Muir wrote in "The Times" that "The Bond franchise is 50 years old this year, and the scriptless mess of "Quantum of Solace" may be considered its mid-life crisis", before she went on to praise the film's successor "Skyfall" as a "resurrection". Some writers criticised the choice of "Quantum of Solace" as a title. "Yes, it's a bad title," wrote Marni Weisz, the editor of "Famous", a Canadian film publication distributed in cinemas in that country, in an editorial entitled "At least it's not "Octopussy"." Accolades. The film was nominated for Best Original Score, Best Original Song, Visual Effects, Film and Sound Editing at the 2008 Satellite Awards, winning Best Song. It was nominated for Best Action Movie at the 2009 Critics' Choice Awards, and at the Empire Awards, which is voted for by the public, it was shortlisted for Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Newcomer, Best Thriller and Best Soundtrack. It was nominated for the Saturn Award for Best Action/Adventure/Thriller Film, while Kurylenko and Dench were both nominated for the Best Supporting Actress award. An editorial by "The Times" also listed the film's pre-titles sequence as the tenth-greatest car chase in film history.
1086252	Tucker & Dale vs Evil is a 2010 American comedy horror film written and directed by Eli Craig. The film stars Alan Tudyk, Tyler Labine and Katrina Bowden. Plot. Allison (Katrina Bowden), Chad (Jesse Moss), Chloe (Chelan Simmons), Chuck (Travis Nelson), Jason (Brandon Jay McLaren), Naomi (Christie Laing), Todd (Alex Arsenault), Mitch (Adam Beauchesne) and Mike (Joseph Allan Sutherland), are going camping in West Virginia. While at a gas station, they encounter Tucker (Alan Tudyk) and Dale (Tyler Labine), two well-meaning hillbillies who have just bought the vacation home of their dreams: a run-down lakefront cabin, deep in the woods. On Tucker's advice, Dale tries to talk to Allison, but because of his inferiority complex and appearance, he only scares her and her friends. Tucker and Dale arrive at their cabin, which is in a state of disrepair and begin repairing it. Nearby in the woods, Chad tells the other guys a story around the campfire about the "Memorial Day Massacre", a hillbilly attack which took place 20 years ago in the same section of the woods, leaving only one survivor. The college kids go skinny-dipping in the same lake where Tucker and Dale are fishing. Allison gets startled by them and falls in the water, hitting her head on a rock. Tucker and Dale save her, but the college kids think Allison has been kidnapped. Allison wakes up in Tucker and Dale's cabin the next day and, although scared at first, she finds the two hillbillies to be harmless and befriends them. The other college kids arrive at the cabin to save Allison from her "psychopathic captors", and Chuck runs away to get the police. While Dale and Allison are inside the cabin, Tucker angers some bees after chainsawing through a hive and frantically waves it around, which the college kids assume he's trying to kill them. They all scatter through the woods and Mitch accidentally impales himself on a broken tree. After finding Mitch's body, Chad persuades the others that they're in a battle of survival with the hillbillies. Tucker and Dale then set out to find the kids but fail to do so. The college kids follow the two back to their cabin, where they see Allison helping out with construction but assume they're making her dig her own grave. The college kids attack, but Todd and Mike end up accidentally killing themselves and Allison is accidentally knocked unconscious again by Dale's shovel. The other kids assume the hillbillies killed them when see Tucker trying to save Mike from the woodchipper. Tucker and Dale think the college kids are suicidal and that contacting the police will make them murder suspects. Chuck arrives back with a sheriff, who expresses doubt over Tucker and Dale's suicide pact theory. The sheriff goes inside the cabin to check out the unconscious Allison, but leans on an unstable beam and is killed by nails. Chuck tries to shoot the hillbillies with the sheriff's gun, but accidentally kills himself. Chad reappears and attempts to shoot Tucker and Dale, but only manages to capture Tucker, who he ties upside down to a tree. Dale goes out to rescue Tucker while Chad and Naomi return to the cabin to save Allison. As Allison tries to assure them that everything's a misunderstanding, they accuse her of having stockholm syndrome. Tucker and Dale return and Allison attempts to lead a calm discussion. Chad ends up revealing that his mother was the lone survivor of the Memorial Day Massacre, while his dad was killed by the hillbillies. At the time, she was unknowingly pregnant with Chad and was institutionalized. Jason and Chloe both break in to save everyone, in which a fight breaks out. As a fire is caused, Tucker, Dale and Allison escape as Naomi, Chloe and Jason are killed, while an insane and horribly scarred Chad survives and is all the more determined to kill Tucker and Dale. Allison, Tucker and Dale escape in their truck but crash it moments later. Upon regaining consciousness, Dale finds an injured Tucker who tells him that Chad has taken Allison to an old sawmill. Dale finds Allison restrained to a log on a sawbench and Dale fights Chad, frees Allison and the two barricade themselves inside an upstairs office. They find old news clippings on the Memorial Day Massacre and the truth about Chad's father: he was not one of the victims, but the Memorial Day killer himself, who raped his mother. Chad becomes enraged over the truth, and Dale stops his attack by throwing a box of chamomile tea at Chad, which triggers an asthma attack due to his allergies. The asthma attack causes Chad to convulse so severely that he falls out the window and is apparently killed.
1236357	Margaret Grace Denig (born September 21, 1983), known professionally as Maggie Grace, is an American actress. Originally from Worthington, Ohio, she dropped out of high school to move to Los Angeles with her mother after her parents' divorce. While struggling financially, she landed her first role as the title character in the web-based video series "Rachel's Room" in 2001. She went on to earn a Young Artist Award nomination in 2002 with her portrayal of 15-year-old murder victim Martha Moxley in the television movie "Murder in Greenwich".
582163	Break Ke Baad (, "After the Break") is a 2010 romantic coming-of-age dramedy directed by Danish Aslam and starring Deepika Padukone and Imran Khan in lead roles. Shahana Goswami and Yudhishtr Urs play siblings while Sharmila Tagore, Navin Nischol (in his last role before his death in 2011), and Lillete Dubey have supporting roles. The major part of the film was shot in Mauritius. The film is produced by Kunal Kohli under the banner of Tips Music Films. The music for the film has been composed by Vishal-Shekhar with lyrics by Prasoon Joshi. This is the first time that Vishal-Shekhar and Prasoon have worked together on a movie soundtrack. The music was released on 15 October 2010. Plot. Abhay Gulati (Imran Khan) and Aaliya Khan (Deepika Padukone) have been friends since childhood. Aaliya has always loved acting, since her mother is an actress. Her father left her and her mother. Abhay likes cooking but his father wants him to take care of his business. Eventually Abhay and Aaliya start dating but Aaliya does not want to marry. An opportunity comes for Aaliya to go to Australia for acting school which she takes. She goes to Australia where she has to live with her strict aunt. She then moves into a bungalow where a bunch of young people live for cheap. Abhay gets paranoid and comes to Australia, annoying Aaliya because she feels he doesn't trust her and they break up. Abhay opens a restaurant and it becomes a big hit. Aaliya and Abhay slowly become friends again. Aaliya finishes acting school and Abhay's father finds out about his restaurant. Abhay and Aaliya's mother, Ayesha (Sharmila Tagore) come for Aaliya's graduation. Aaliya gets an opportunity to work in a movie and signs the contract without telling her mother, thereby enraging her. Soon Abhay leaves Aaliya too, because she is selfish. Realizing she is wrong and that she can't go on without her mother's support,she quits the movie and rushes back to India to get back things on track with her mother.Soon, her mother realises that Aaliya is strong to face the world and can come to terms with her mistakes rather easily than her mother herself was capable of, so she allows her to act in the movie and sends her back again. However,soon she return to the same Australian city for shooting her movie,and meets Abhay, who tells her he still hasn't moved on.She,apparently, convinces him to move on and get married.However,she is stunned when she comes to know from another friend that Abhay is going to be married. Puzzled as to why he didn't tell her first about the news, Aaliya rushes to Abhay's house and finds him getting ready to get married. Aaliya begs him to re-think his decision, proposing to him with the very ring he was considering for her once upon a time. She confesses her love to him and tells him that she is really in love with him. Abhay, realising Aaliya's regret and love for him, shows her his wedding invitation which has her name, implying he intended to marry her all along. She is happy and they embrace, making up. The end credits show that the two have married, and have a baby girl named Sara. Soundtrack. The music of the film composed by Vishal-Shekhar and it received positive reviews from critics. NDTV described the album as consisting of "A robust mix of songs that are hummable and will be enjoyed by a majority of people." Abid, from Glamsham, predicted that "The success story that Vishal-Shekhar wrote starting with I Hate Luv Storys and Anjaana Anjaani this year will surely carry on with Break Ke Baad." Joginder Tuteja from Bollywood Hungama called it "An unconventional album, especially when one looks at it from the Bollywood standpoint" while giving it a 3.5/5 star rating. Release. Critical reception. "Break Ke Baad" met with mixed reviews from critics. "Filmfare" critic Sukanya Venkatraghavan gave it its best review, calling it "possibly the best love story we have seen all this year and maybe last year too.".
1058942	Kathryn Morris (born January 28, 1969) is an American actress, best known for her lead role as Detective Lilly Rush in the CBS series "Cold Case". Career. Morris' first role was a minor one in the 1991 tele-movie "Long Road Home". Several other small parts followed, including a bit part as a psychiatric patient in the Oscar-winning "As Good as It Gets". Her breakthrough role came as Lt. Annalisa "Stinger" Lindstrom in the television series ' in 1997 for two seasons. Morris continued to work in films (notably ones directed by Rod Lurie) and had a brief stint on the ' series in 1999 as . After seeing her in the film, "The Contender" (which DreamWorks distributed), Steven Spielberg cast her in two successive films. Her scenes as a rock star in "A.I.: Artificial Intelligence", which required Morris to take intensive singing and guitar lessons were cut by the director, which was particularly agonizing for her. In "Minority Report", she portrayed the tormented wife of Tom Cruise's character. In 2003, Morris won the lead role of detective Lilly Rush in the CBS dramatic series "Cold Case". She also appeared in the 2004 films "Mindhunters" and "Paycheck", opposite Ben Affleck, and more recently as the journalist wife of Josh Hartnett in Lurie's drama "Resurrecting the Champ" (2007). Morris appeared in the film "Cougars, Inc." which was distributed in 2011. In 2012, Morris landed the starring role in "The Sweeter Side of Life", a romantic comedy, as Desiree Harper. The 90-minute film premiered on the Hallmark Channel on January 19, 2013. Personal life. Morris was born in Cincinnati, Ohio (though CBS News identifies her birthplace as Dallas). She lived in both Texas and Connecticut as a child with her parents and five siblings. As a child, Morris and her family traveled the southern 'Bible Belt' as a gospel group called 'The Morris Code.' The group was mainly made up of Kathryn's father and three (out of five) of her siblings. She attended two colleges in the Philadelphia area, Northeastern Christian College and Temple University. She currently lives in Los Angeles, California. On April 8, 2013, Morris announced that she and her boyfriend Johnny Messner are expecting twin boys in early September 2013. She welcomed twin boys Jameson and Rocco which were born on 21 August 2013.
1164558	Arsenio Hall (born February 12, 1956) is an American actor, comedian and current talk show host. He is best known for hosting "The Arsenio Hall Show", a late-night talk show that ran from 1989 until 1994, as well as its successor of the same name, which began in September 2013.
587393	Gopi Kishan is 1994 Hindi Movie directed by Mukesh Duggal and starring Suniel Shetty in a double role, supported by Shilpa Shirodkar and Karishma Kapoor. Other cast include Suresh Oberoi, Aruna Irani, Mohan Joshi, Shammi, Satyendra Kagoor, Mushtaq Khan. The film is the remake of K. Bhagyaraj's hit Tamil film Avasara Police 100. Summary. Kishan (Suniel Shetty) is a hardened criminal who is in search of his father, after knowing that his father is still alive. Suraj Malhotra (Suresh Oberoi), a dreaded gangster, is supposedly the father of Kishan, whom Kishen wants to avenge for deserting his mother. Gopi, on the other hand, is a cop who cannot even shoot a bullet straight. Other than their faces(and the fact that none of them knows about the existence of other), he & Kishan have nothing in common. But when Kishan learns about Gopi, he decides to use Gopi's identity to his advantage. This results in Gopi suddenly becoming promoted & famous. But the stories of Gopi & Kishen are going to merge in a way that none of them would have ever imagined. Gopi Kishan revolves around the idea of stealing valuables and hiding it in a location which later becomes a police headquarter. This idea has been comically depicted in 1999 film Blue Streak. Plot. Kishan, is a hardened criminal who returns home after completing 14 years imprisonment for murder. Kishan had killed a man in his childhood, when the latter tried to molest his mother. Kishan thinks his father is dead, but he soon learns that his mother has kept truth under wraps. He learns that his father Suraj Malhotra was a jeweller who killed his partner & ran away with some precious jewels. She tells Kishan that she never saw Suraj after that & now he is a dreaded gangster in the underworld. Kishan decides to avenge his father for all his wrongdoings. He singles out Sawant, a powerful man of Suraj & decides to strike on him. Meanwhile, Gopi, a doppleganger of Kishan, works as a constable in police force. Gopi has a doting mother, a wife and a kid, but isn't taken seriously as he lacks the guts to become anything worthwhile. Kishan spots Gopi and decides to use him for his purposes. Kishan starts bumping off the goons while Gopi starts getting the credit. Soon, Gopi's fortune changes, while Kishan succeeds in furthering his motives. Sadly, Seema, the Commissioner's daughter, falls in love with Gopi, unaware of his marital status. One day, Kishan manages to sneak into Malhotra's lair. He holds Malhotra on gunpoint & shows him the photo of his mother. He learns that Sawant is the kingpin and Suraj the pawn, rather than other way around. Suraj tells Kishan that Sawant's men killed Suraj's partner for the jewels. Suraj somehow scooted off with the money & hid it in the basement of a construction site.
1073918	Dorothy Karen "Cookie" Mueller (March 2, 1949 – November 10, 1989) was an underground American actress, writer and Dreamlander, who starred in many of filmmaker John Waters' early films, including "Multiple Maniacs",
327548	Country Boys is a 6-hour documentary film centered on Cody Perkins and Chris Johnson, two teenage boys from David, Kentucky. They attended the David School, a non-denominational private high school with a mission to serve underprivileged and struggling students. The film covers the 3-year period from 1999 to 2002 in which the boys' ages range from 15 to 18. It was directed by David Sutherland. It was a three-part edition of "Frontline" on PBS, with each part running for two hours, originally broadcast in January 2006. The focus of the film is Cody and Chris' struggles with the problems of growing up in a rural, relatively impoverished environment. In addition, both boys have unique challenges. Chris, growing up in a family without strong role models and parents who limit him in a variety of ways, struggles to motivate himself to do well in school and life. Cody deals with how to find acceptance among his peers and reconcile his Christianity with his alternative lifestyle. The film is set in rural Kentucky. As a result, the film addresses a wide range of topics. Some of these topics include the gun culture, religion and science (a biology teacher and students at the David School are portrayed dismissing evolution and misinterpreting scientific ideas). Garry Lee Cody Perkins. Cody was born on 19 October, 1983, in Lexington, Kentucky. When he was 5 months old, his mother killed herself. When he was 12 years old, his father killed Cody's stepmother and then himself. He left his life in the city to live in the country with his step-grandmother, Liz McGuire. At the time of the filming, he had a girlfriend, Jessica Riddle. Both were born again Christians. At one point Cody wanted to be a preacher. In the documentary he played in a Christian heavy metal band, Seven Rise Up The film shows Cody getting nipple piercings to add to his many other piercings. Cody graduated valedictorian of his class at the David School. Post-documentary. Cody and Jessica married on April 10, 2004, and both attended college. Cody graduated from Mayo Technical College in May 2006 and began working as a service technician with an HVAC company. Cody and Jessica divorced in 2006 and Cody has since remarried; he has a stepson and a daughter. The band, Seven Rise Up, is no longer together. The bulk of the band formed Bellor; Cody left the group but continues to make music under the name Sledgehammer Persuation. He continues to believe in God and Jesus but is now skeptical about the Bible and is not associated with organized religions. Chris Johnson. At the beginning of the documentary, Chris lived with his father, Randall (who could not work because of medical problems related to his drinking), his mother, Sheila, his grandmother (who is rarely shown in the documentary until the very end), his younger brother, Daniel, and his younger sister, Amy. Chris received Supplemental Security Income for disability, related to a behavior disorder that played a role in his going to The David School. The Supplemental Security Income is a prominent element in the documentary as it is a reliable source of income for Chris and his mother. They both worry that he might lose the benefit if he does well in school, is re-evaluated and it is found that he no longer has a behavior disorder. He does not lose it during the documentary, but the supplement ends when he turns 18. Later in the documentary, his mother moves out (his parents fought regularly) and eventually moves in with a boyfriend and then moves to Florida. Chris worked at various low wage jobs during the documentary, including jobs at Taco Bell and Little Caesars. Near the end of the documentary he passes the exam to receive his GED and graduates from The David School. He attempts to get into college but does poorly on the ACT. Post-documentary. Chris's father, Randall Johnson, died due to health related issues stemming from alcoholism in 2005. Chris has had various jobs, including fast food, lawn care and working in coal mines. He spent some time outside of Kentucky but moved back as he missed his home state. The most recent updates say he still lives in Kentucky with his friend Jay Pritchard. Unlike Cody, there is no evidence that Chris has an online presence.
1472162	Dhoop ( , ) is a 2003 Indian film directed by the award winning director Ashwini Chaudhary. The film stars Om Puri and Revathi and is based on the true story of Captain Anuj Nayyar, MVC and his family. Plot. The movie is based on the events surrounding the death of Capt Anuj Nayyar, MVC of 17 Jat Regiment of the Indian Army, who was killed in operations against Pakistani Army regular soldiers, in the southwest sector of Tiger Hill on July 5, 1999 as part of the Kargil conflict. The story of the Kapoor family in the film depicts the real events that happened in the lives of the Nayyar family. Capt Rohit Kapoor (Sanjay Suri) is a young officer in the 17 Jat Regiment of the Indian Army. His father Prof S K Kapoor (Om Puri), is a professor of economics in the Delhi School of Economics. His mother Sarita Kapoor (Revathi), is a librarian at the Delhi University Central Library. He is engaged to be married to Pihu Verma (Gul Panag).
1044419	Holiday on the Buses is a 1973 British comedy film directed by Bryan Izzard and starring Reg Varney and Doris Hare. The film is the third spin-off film from the ITV sitcom "On the Buses" and succeeded the films "On the Buses" (1971) and "Mutiny on the Buses" (1972). The film was produced by Ronald Chesney and Ronald Wolfe for Hammer Films. Plot. Three of the company's buses are wrecked due to Stan's negligent bus driving, which means dismissal for Stan (Reg Varney), Jack (Bob Grant) and Inspector Blake (Stephen Lewis) are sacked. Stan and Jack get a job as bus crew at a holiday camp, only to find that Blakey has also got a job at the camp, as security inspector. Stan invites the family to stay whilst he proceeds to chat up the guests and staff. Meanwhile, Blakey thinks he can teach the guests old time dancing. Stan and the family get into an adventurous holiday, including repainting the whole of a bedroom as Little Arthur squirts ink around the room, a suitcase full of murky river water, and an exploding toilet. Production notes. It was filmed on location at The Pontin's Holiday Camp, Prestatyn, North Wales. Interiors were completed at Borehamwood.
1213538	Walled In is a 2009 horror-thriller directed and co-written by Gilles Paquet-Brenner. The film is based on the best-selling French novel Les Emmurés by Serge Brussolo. It is the English-language debut of critically acclaimed French director Gilles Paquet-Brenner. The film was shot in Saskatchewan, Canada. Plot. Sam Walczak (Mischa Barton), is a recent engineering graduate. At her graduation party, her father, an owner of a demolition company, gives her a gift: a job supervising the demolition of a building in the middle of nowhere. If she's successful, she will become his partner. Sam arrives at the Malestrazza Building (named after its architect), and is greeted by Mary (Deborah Kara Unger), the caretaker. Sam tells Mary she will be staying in one of the apartments in the building. Jimmy (Cameron Bright), the caretaker's teenage son, takes her bags to her apartment and explains the rules of the building. She is to stay off the eighth floor because it is Malestrazza's and the roof because it is too dangerous. Sam asks about the building, and Mary is surprised that Sam is not aware of the building's history and that it's better that she does not know. Sam is curious, and while at the local store she looks on the Internet and finds that the Malestrazza Building was a crime scene where 16 bodies were found entombed in the walls. Since Sam knows the story about the building, Jimmy takes her to the eighth floor and tells her the story. Malestrazza's mistake was taking the girl seen at the beginning of the movie. The girl had a puppy, and when the police went to question the architect, the puppy darted into his apartment and led the police to a wall. They found the little girl in the wall. Jimmy is now that puppy's owner. The police then locate 15 additional bodies in the walls of the eighth floor. Mary (the caretaker) and her husband were also residents of the apartment building. Mary had to identify her husband, whose face was ripped off by the concrete while she was pregnant with Jimmy. They arrested a disgruntled factory worker for the murders. The lights go out in the abandoned eighth floor, and Sam hurts her leg. In the bathroom, Jimmy cleans her wound and then begins feeling her thigh. Sam asks what he is doing and he realizes his error and stops. Sam has nightmares about being entombed in the walls. Sam's boyfriend arrives and admires the building. The arrival of Sam's boyfriend upsets Jimmy. Sam and Jimmy have an argument and Jimmy says that after she finishes her report she'll leave and forget all about him, to which she replies that she would not. As Sam and her boyfriend explore the 8th floor, they secretly watch Mary at that place where her husband's body was found. They eventually talk to Mary, and, when she leaves the apartment, they are both locked in. Looking for a way out, they find a passage way that is not on the blueprints. They travel down the corridor and notice the walls have windows that allow a person to look into all the apartments. Sam realizes that Jimmy was watching her while she was in the bathroom and is upset. They eventually land in a different part of the building and move a false wall where they enter the garbage room and see an exit sign. Mary opens the door and asks if they are done looking through peoples' garbage. Later that evening, Sam and her boyfriend are in her room having sex. Jimmy is on the other side of the wall listening and feeling distraught. Sam stops in the middle and is worried, aware that Jimmy might be there. Sam's boyfriend calms her fears and continues, while Jimmy is behind the wall in agony that Sam is with someone else. The next day they wake up and find Jimmy's butchered dog in their apartment. Sam's boyfriend thinks Jimmy killed the dog and wants to leave. As they were about to leave, Jimmy gives Sam a gift, Malestrazza's journal, which talks about the design of the building and his theories. The building was like the Egyptian pyramids (hence the corridors not on the blueprints), she also realizes that that is why the building has so much space in the middle and that there is something in the center where light can show all the way down to the basement. Jimmy tells her that he is going to go to the roof to find the light source she is talking about. When Jimmy doesn't return, Sam and her boyfriend go to the roof. They find the part of the building she was looking for, a hole in the roof or shaft that leads straight down to the basement. Sam realizes that Jimmy must have known about this and is about to leave when she hears Jimmy call out that he fell down the hole and is hurt and needs Sam to come down and help him. Sam is eventually lowered down the hole by her boyfriend, but at the halfway point her boyfriend is shot with some sort of weapon that looks like a pointed long steel rod. He leans over the hole, holding the rope, as he bleeds down the hole and all over Sam who gets frightened and lets go of the rope and is now hanging upside down as her dead boyfriend bleeds all over her clothes and body. Jimmy then drives Sam's car to mail her demolition report and then sinks her car into a lake. Sam awakens in the basement area naked but covered with blankets. She sees a man sitting with a lamp on. Sam finds her clothes and puts them on. She asks the man who he is, but he says that she already knows. She figures out that he is Malestrazza. He plays the tape for her of Jimmy asking for help. Jimmy is keeping her down there with Malestrazza until she learns to love him. Sam also learns that Malestrazza was the mastermind behind the murders and is dumbfounded that people believe that a factory worker could concoct such a scheme of entombing people. She keeps asking about her boyfriend and Malestrazza tries to tell her that he is dead by cutting his arm and saying one mark for every soul. He also tells her that if he does what Jimmy wants, Jimmy is nice, but can be very cruel and imaginative when he disobeys Jimmy's orders. Jimmy is back at the hole and sends down a cassette tape. Malestrazza plays the tape, and Jimmy says that he wants to see Sam and Malestrazza dance. Sam reluctantly dances, but, when Jimmy tells them to kiss, Malestrazza smiles showing Sam his blackened teeth, and she protests. Malestrazza pulls her close and forces her to kiss him. After a few seconds, Jimmy tells them to stop and threatens Malestrazza not to touch Sam again. Jimmy then sends down a basket with food, water, and a two-way radio. He tells Sam to keep the radio with her so that they can talk and be close. Later, Jimmy asks his mother "how do you know when someone really loves you?". Mary says that you know when the person is willing to sacrifice everything (or their life) for the other person. He then says "is that why you sacrificed your son for a dead man?" Sam looks for a way to escape and realizes one wall leads to the garbage area. When Jimmy returns, she lies and says that she is hurt and needs medicine. She talks about the time when Jimmy bandaged up her knee and claims that she enjoyed that time and their time together, but that in order to show him all that she can do for him she needs to get out. Sam walks to the center of the room and tell him that this is for him and she removes her shirt. Jimmy looks down and leans back. Sam gets her medicine. She opens the capsules and starts creating a mix to try and blow out the wall to get into the garbage room. Sam's attempt fails, and Jimmy is upset that she tried to escape. Before Jimmy could exact his punishment, his mother, Mary, catches him. Mary realizes that Sam is in the hole with Malestrazza. Mary tells Jimmy that place was for the architect not for anyone else. She realizes that Sam must stay in the hole with Malestrazza, or else they'll take her away and Jimmy will be an orphan. Sam is stuck in the hole with Malestrazza, who she realizes does not want to escape. This is his tomb, and he picked her to kill him. She eventually does kill him after some taunting, and he thanks her after he falls into his tomb and it begins to fill with cement. Sam is by the wall hoping that Jimmy will come through and save her. The demolition team arrives and her father asks where Sam is. Mary tells him that she left. Her father says that he thought she would want to see her first building being demolished. Mary is keeping Jimmy calm as they set up and begin to install the explosives. As the countdown begins, Jimmy starts anxiously saying "Sam," and then screams her name and runs toward the building. Sam's father tells them to stop the countdown. At the roof, Jimmy looks down, and her father asks what they have done. Jimmy then throws himself over, killing himself, and lands next to Sam. Sam is then lifted out of the hole and put in an ambulance. Sam narrates that Malestrazza built 27 buildings and that they are all still standing. He considered the Malestrazza building his masterpiece. The building will not be demolished. Release. The film premiered at the Glasgow Film Festival on 20 February 2009. The film received a straight-to-DVD release in North America on 17 March 2009. There is also an accompanying graphic novel by the same name produced by Spacedog, published through Ape Entertainment available in April 2009. It was released by Momentum Pictures on DVD on 5 October 2009 in the United Kingdom. Reception. Because the film has been released straight-to-DVD, it has received limited critical reviews. So far, the film has garnered a mixed reaction. "DVD Talk" rated the film 3/5 stars, praising the performances of the cast and the effectiveness of the low budget, though the review concluded that the film deserved a stronger conclusion. The film was rated 5/10 by IGN and had conflicting accounts of the performances of the cast, describing Barton as "terrific" and Bright as "wooden." "Real Movie News" described the film as "atmospheric" and "attractive" but questioned the confused identity of the film. The British magazine "FemaleFirst" gave the film 4 out of 5 stars. They described it a "psychological horror that’s sure to send chills down your spine" and continued to refer to it as a "gritty "Mirrors" meets "Captivity" horror thriller will have your heart pounding in your ears."
1452604	Talitha Getty (18 October 1940 – 14 July 1971) was an actress of Dutch extraction, born in the former Dutch East Indies, who was regarded as a style icon of the late 1960s. She lived much of her adult life in Britain and, in her final years, was closely associated with the Moroccan city of Marrakesh. Her husband was the oil heir and subsequent philanthropist John Paul Getty, Jr. Early life. Talitha Dina Pol was born in Java, then part of the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia). Her father was Willem Jilts Pol (1905–88), a painter who subsequently married Poppet John (1912–97), daughter of the painter Augustus John (1878–1961), a pivotal figure in the world of "Bohemian" culture and fashion. She was thus the step -granddaughter of both Augustus John and his muse and second wife, Dorothy "Dorelia" McNeil (1881–1969), who was a fashion icon in the early years of the 20th century. By Ian Fleming's widowed mother, Evelyn Ste Croix Fleming née Rose, Augustus John had a daughter and Talitha's aunt, Amaryllis Fleming (1925–1999), who became a noted cellist. Pol spent her early years, during the Second World War, with her mother, born Arnoldine Adriana Mees, in a Japanese prison camp. Her father was interned in a separate camp and her parents went their own ways after the war, Pol moving to Britain with her mother, who died in 1948. Pol studied at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) in London. Writer and journalist Jonathan Meades, who was at RADA several years later, recalled that, after first coming to London in 1964, he saw Pol with her stepmother at Seal House, Holland Park (home of Poppet John's sister, Vivien). Meades thought her "the most beautiful young woman I had ever seen ... I gaped, unable to dissemble my amazement". In 1988, a former Labour Member of the British Parliament Woodrow, Lord Wyatt recalled, with reference to the "success with women" of Anthony, Lord Lambton, former Conservative Government Minister, that ...there was that Talitha Pol who was very pretty and had a little starlet job in Yugoslavia; and he went and stayed at the hotel and sent her huge bunches of flowers about every two hours and showered her with presents. Another to come under Pol's spell was the dancer Rudolf Nureyev, who first met her at a party in 1965. According to Nureyev's biographer, Julie Kavanagh, the two were in thrall to each other, to the extent that Nureyev "had never felt so erotically stirred by a woman" and told several friends that he wished to marry Pol. In the event, Nureyev was unable to attend a dinner party given by Claus von Bülow, at which he and Pol were to have been seated next to each other, and so Bülow invited instead John Paul Getty, son of his employer, the oil tycoon Paul Getty. Pol and Getty Jr forged a relationship that led to their marriage in 1966. Swinging sixties: marriage to John Paul Getty. Pol became the second wife of John Paul Getty, Jr. on 10 December 1966. She was married in a white mini-skirt, trimmed with mink. The Gettys became part of "Swinging" London's fashionable scene, becoming friends with, among others, singers Mick Jagger of the Rolling Stones and his girl-friend Marianne Faithfull. Faithfull has recounted her apprehension, through "ingrained agoraphobia", about an invitation to spend five weeks with the Gettys in Morocco ("but for Mick this is an essential part of his life") and how, after splitting from Jagger, she took up with Talitha Getty's lover, Count Jean de Breteuil, a young French aristocrat (1949–1971). Breteuil supplied drugs to rock stars such as Jim Morrison of the Doors, Keith Richards, and Marianne Faithfull, who wrote that Breteuil "saw himself as dealer to the stars". For his part, Richards recalled that John Paul and Talitha Getty "had the best and finest opium". Print designer Celia Birtwell, who married designer Ossie Clark, recalled Talitha Getty as one of a number of "beautiful people" who crossed her threshold in the late 1960s, while couturier Yves Saint Laurent likened the Gettys to the title of a 1922 novel by F Scott Fitzgerald as "beautiful and damned". John Paul Getty, who has been described as "a swinging playboy who drove fast cars, drank heavily, experimented with drugs and squired raunchy starlets", eschewed the family business, Getty Oil, during this period, much to the chagrin of his father. However, in later years, he became a philanthropist and (as a US citizen) received an honorary British knighthood in 1986. His luxury yacht, built in 1927 and renovated in 1994, was the "MY Talitha G". In July 1968, the Gettys had a son, Tara Gabriel Gramophone Galaxy, who became a noted ecological conservationist in Africa, dropped his third and fourth forenames, and took Irish citizenship in 1999. He and his wife Jessica (a chalet maid he met in Verbier) had three children, including a daughter named Talitha. Marrakesh. Talitha Getty is probably best remembered for an iconic photograph taken on a roof-top in Marrakesh, Morocco in January 1969 by Patrick Lichfield (1939–2005). With her hooded husband in the background, this image (now part of the collection of the National Portrait Gallery in London) portrayed her in a slightly anxious, crouching pose, wearing a multi-coloured kaftan, white harem pants and white and cream boots. The look seemed stylishly to typify the hippie fashion of the time and became a model over the years for what, more recently, has been referred to variously as "hippie chic", "boho-chic" and even "Talitha Getty chic". Although, in her lifetime, Talitha Getty, who was only thirty when she died, was not much known to a wider public, fashion gurus of the late 20th and early 21st centuries have often written of her and Marrakesh (a major destination for hippies in the late 1960s, as illustrated by the 1969 song, "Marrakesh Express" by Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young) as virtually synonymous. Film career. As an actress, Pol appeared in several films, including "Village of Daughters" (1962) (as a daughter, Gioia Spartaco); an Edgar Wallace mystery, "We Shall See" (1964) (as Jirina); "The System" (1964) (as Helga); "Return from the Ashes" (1965) (as Claudine, alongside Maximilian Schell, Ingrid Thulin and Samantha Eggar); and "Barbarella" (1968), a sexually charged science-fiction fantasy starring Jane Fonda, in which she had the minor uncredited role of a girl smoking a pipe. Death. Talitha Getty died of a heroin overdose in Rome, Italy on 14 July 1971 while attempting to patch up her marriage. She died within the same twelve-month period as Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Edie Sedgwick and Jim Morrison, other cultural icons of the 1960s. His wife's death marked the end of John Paul Getty's period of hedonism and its circumstances initially drove him to ground in England. He remained reclusive for several years, being described by the critic Kenneth Tynan as the "Hermit Millionaire". His rehabilitation was assisted by a growing passion for cricket, which was nurtured by, among others, Mick Jagger and a former England captain and future MCC President, Gubby Allen, whom he met in the London Clinic during a long period of illness. In 1985, when Getty was receiving extended treatment for phlebitis, a "Sunday Times" journalist reported "an almost visible pain" in his life and that he still mourned Talitha. Getty remarked that "the pain does not evaporate".
585691	Shweta Menon is an Indian model, actress and television anchor. She has predominantly acted in Hindi and Malayalam language films, besides appearing in a number of Tamil productions. Starting her career as an actress in Malayalam feature films in the early 1990s, she ventured into modeling and becoming noted, after participating and winning at several beauty pageants, which led to her debut in Bollywood. Following appearances in over 30 Hindi films, in which she generally conveyed a glamorous image, her acting career took a turn by the mid-2000s, with her returning to Malayalam cinema and accepting substantial roles. She received critical praise and several accolades including Kerala State Govt Award for Best Actress for her performance in "" (2009) and "Salt N' Pepper" (2011). Early life. Menon hails from Valanchery in Malappuram district in Kerala, but was born at Chandigarh to Malayali parents Naranankutty and Sarada Menon and currently lives in Mumbai. Her father served in the Indian Air Force while her mother remained a housewife. She studied in Kendriya Vidyalaya No. 1, East Hill, Kozhikode. Career. Films. She started her career as an actress in the Malayalam film "Anaswaram" (1991), directed by Jomon, playing the female lead opposite Mammootty, after which she focused on modeling. She competed in the Miss India contest in 1994 and finished third runner up behind Sushmita Sen, Aishwarya Rai and Fransesca Hart. She is 5 feet, 6.5 inches tall. She subsequently made her debut in Bollywood and appeared in over 30 films; some of her Bollywood films include "Asoka" (2001), "Maqbool" (2003) and "Corporate" (2006). Menon returned to Malayalam in 2006 with "Thantra" and then went on to do famous Malayalam films such as "Keerthi Chakra" (2006) and the award-winning "Paradesi". Her performance as Sarojini, a middle-class woman who fights against extreme odds, in "Madhya Venal" earned her a special mention by jury chairman Bahman Ghobadi, a famous Iranian director at the International Film Festival of Kerala. In 2010, she won the Kerala State Government's Best Actress for her portrayal of Cheeru, a village woman in the film "" directed by Ranjith. She won the Mathrubhumi-Amrita TV Special Jury Award and the Asianet Film Award for Best Supporting Actress for the same film. In 2011, Shweta Menon starred in the remake of "Rathinirvedam", essaying the titular character, originally played by Jayabharathi. In 2010, Shweta approached a local court and the Women's Commission in Kerala after the distributor of her movie "Kayam" tied up with Musli Power, a sex stimulant drug, to jointly promote the movie. "Met with Womens' Commission regarding the "Kayam" ad and they offered me full backing. Thank you all and I hope justice will be done," she tweeted. While media profusely supported her with wide coverage, many saw it as a bold attempt by an actor against what she perceived as gross injustice to her. Shwetha Menon’s pregnancy and delivery will be coming in the silver screen of film. She and her husband Sreevalsan Menon has said yes to director Blessy to shoot her maternity period as well as her childbirth for his upcoming movie. Speaking about her decision to reveal such a personal side of her life, Menon said, "The sufferings, every moment a pregnant woman facing should be known by the partner and I am taking this opportunity to make proper use of it to make people aware of a mother's sacrifice". Television. Besides working in films, she has anchored several TV, stage and film awards shows. Menon rose to popularity after presenting the musical programme, "Star Wars" on Kairali TV in 2008. She won the Asian Television Award for Best Anchor for the same program. In Hindi, she hosted the group band based show, "Razzmatazz" on Zee TV with actor Arshad Warsi. The next television show she did was "Dancing Queen" in 2008 on Colors. In 2010, she anchored the Malayalam reality show, "Honeymoon Travels" on Surya TV. The show became an instant hit for Shwetha's accented Malayalam and her attempts to read from the original script without a formal learning in the language. Recently, she appeared as a contestant with her father in game show, "Deal or No Deal" on Surya TV. She was the anchor of the family-based reality show "Veruthe Alla Bharya" in Mazhavillu Manorama. Personal life. On 18 June 2011, she married Sreevalsan Menon, a native of Thrissur, who works in Mumbai. The ceremony took place at the Neythalappurath Sastha Ayappa temple, Valanchery, Kerala. She had her first child, a daughter, Sabaina Menon on September 27, 2012, at 5.27 pm at Nanavati Hospital in Mumbai. The delivery was shot live on camera as part of the film 'Kalimannu'. Actor Anoop Menon is her cousin.
586419	Oppol (), meaning "Elder Sister", is a 1980 Malayalam film written by M. T. Vasudevan Nair and directed by K. S. Sethumadhavan. Balan K. Nair, Menaka, Master Aravind, Kaviyoor Ponnamma and Shankaradi comprised the major cast. The film was based on a short story of the same name written by M. T. in 1975. Plot. The film revolves around Malu (Menaka), her younger brother Appu (Aravind) and Malu's husband Govindan (Balan K. Nair). Malu and 6-year old Appu were living together. When Malu is married to Govindan, an ex-military officer, she takes Appu with her to Govindan's house. Govindan is a bit annoyed, but adjusts to the situation to win over his wife, who is much younger to him. Appu on the other hand becomes jealous of Govindan and worries he will isolate him from his dear sister. He attacks Govindan during honeymoon and Malu scolds him. The boy runs away from the house and Malu becomes distressed. Towards the end it is revealed that Appu is actually the son of Malu. When Govindan discovers the truth, he tirelessly searches for the boy and brings him back.
1061617	Terence Henry Stamp (born 22 July 1938) is an English actor. Since starting his career in 1962, he has appeared in over 60 films. His title role as "Billy Budd" in his film debut earned Stamp an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor and a BAFTA nomination for Best Newcomer. His other major roles include butterfly collector Freddie Clegg in "The Collector", archvillain General Zod in "Superman" and "Superman II", tough guy Wilson in "The Limey", Supreme Chancellor Valorum in "", ghost antagonist Ramsley in "The Haunted Mansion", Elektra's master Stick in "Elektra", Pekwarsky in "Wanted", Maxwell Smart's archvillain Siegfried in "Get Smart", council of high help Terrence Bundley in "Yes Man", the Covenant Hierarch "Prophet of Truth" in "Halo 3" and General Ludwig Beck in "Valkyrie". Stamp has won a Golden Globe, a Mystfest, a Cannes Film Festival Award, a Seattle International Film Festival Award, a Satellite Award and a Silver Bear. Playing against type, he appeared as a transsexual in the Australian film "The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert" (1994). Early life. Stamp, the eldest of five children, was born in Stepney, London, England in 1938, the son of Ethel Esther (née Perrott) and Thomas Stamp, who was a tugboat captain. His early years were spent in Canal Road, Bow, in the East End, but later in his childhood the family moved to Plaistow, West Ham, in Essex (now London Borough of Newham in London). His father was away for long periods with the Merchant Navy and the young Stamp was mostly brought up by his mother, grandmother and aunts. He grew up idolising actor Gary Cooper after his mother took him to see "Beau Geste" (1939) when he was three years old. He was also inspired by the 1950s avant-garde method actor James Dean. On leaving school, Stamp worked in a variety of advertising agencies in London, working his way up to a very respectable wage. In the mid‑1950s, he also worked as an assistant to professional golfer Reg Knight at Wanstead Golf Club in East London. He describes this period of his life very positively in his 1988 autobiography "Stamp Album". Deep down, he wanted to be an actor—a realisation that came when Stamp found he no longer had to serve two years' national service after being rejected for once having had treatment for his feet. Career. Stamp won a scholarship to train at the Webber Douglas Academy of Dramatic Art, then performed in various provincial repertory theatres, most notably in a national tour of Willis Hall’s play "The Long the Short and the Tall" alongside another young actor Michael Caine. Stamp made his film debut in Peter Ustinov's film adaptation of Herman Melville's "Billy Budd" (1962). His portrayal of the title character brought him not only an Academy Award nomination but also international attention. He then appeared opposite Laurence Olivier in "Term of Trial" (1962). Stamp collaborated with some of the cinema's most revered filmmakers. He starred in William Wyler's adaptation of John Fowles' "The Collector" (1965), opposite Samantha Eggar, and in "Modesty Blaise" (1966), for director Joseph Losey and producer Joe Janni. Stamp reunited with producer Janni for two more projects: John Schlesinger's adaptation of Thomas Hardy's "Far from the Madding Crowd" (1967) starring Julie Christie, and Ken Loach's first feature film "Poor Cow" (1967). He was initially approached to play the role of James Bond when Sean Connery retired from the role, but did not receive a second call from producer Harry Saltzman because, in Stamp's opinion, 'my ideas about the role should be portrayed put the frighteners on Harry. I didn’t get a second call from him'. Stamp then journeyed to Italy to star in Federico Fellini's "Toby Dammit", a 50-minute portion of the Edgar Allan Poe film adaptation "Histoires extraordinaires" (1968, aka "Spirits of the Dead"). Stamp lived in Italy for several years, during which time his film work included Pier Paolo Pasolini's "Teorema" (1968) opposite Silvana Mangano, and "Una Stagione all'inferno" (1970). Stamp was considered for the title role of "Alfie" (1966), but turned it down in favour of "Modesty Blaise" (1966). His subsequent film credits included "The Mind of Mr. Soames" (1970), "Meetings with Remarkable Men" (1979), and "The Hit" (1984), which won a Mystfest Award for Best Actor, shared with John Hurt and Tim Roth. Also in 1984, he had the opportunity to play the Devil in a cameo in "The Company of Wolves". He also appeared in "Link" (1986), "Legal Eagles" (1986), "The Sicilian" (1987) and a gleaming cameo as Sir Larry Wildman in "Wall Street" (1987). His film "Beltenebros" (1992) (aka "Prince of Shadows"), was awarded the Silver Bear at the 42nd Berlin International Film Festival. Stamp began his fourth decade as an actor wearing some of the choicest of Tim Chappel's Academy Award-winning costumes for the comedy "The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert" (1994) which co-starred Guy Pearce and Hugo Weaving. In 1999, Stamp played a lead role in "The Limey" to widespread critical acclaim at the Cannes Film Festival. For his performance, Stamp received nominations for Best Male Lead at the 2000 Independent Spirit Awards and for Best British Actor at the London Film Critics' Circle (ALFS) Awards. Also in 1999, Stamp appeared in the blockbuster ' as Chancellor Finis Valorum (an experience he later described as 'boring'), followed by "Bowfinger" (1999) and "Red Planet" (2000). He also appeared in Damian Pettigrew's award-winning documentary, ' (2002), offering insights into the mind and working methods of Italian director Federico Fellini whom Stamp had worked with in the 1960s. In recent years, Stamp has appeared in the films "Ma femme est une actrice" (aka "My Wife Is An Actress", 2001), "My Boss's Daughter" (2003), Disney's "The Haunted Mansion" (2004), and the superhero fantasy "Elektra" (2005). In 2008, he appeared in the film remake of the spy comedy "Get Smart", and with Tom Cruise in "Valkyrie", based on the true story of Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg's failed attempt to assassinate Hitler. In 2012, Stamp appeared in the Peter Serafinowicz-directed music video for the Hot Chip song "Night & Day" and portrayed a grumpy husband called Arthur in Paul Andrew Williams' "Song for Marion" (2012), opposite Gemma Arterton. Stamp next future projects include a heist comedy "The Art of the Steal" (2013), with Kurt Russell, Matt Dillon and Jay Baruchel and Tim Burton's drama film "Big Eyes" (2014), with Amy Adams and Christoph Waltz. "Superman" roles. Stamp portrayed the Kryptonian supervillain General Zod in Richard Donner's "Superman" (1978), in which he appeared in a scene with Marlon Brando. The film was originally supposed to be a 3‑hour epic, with Zod and his evil conspirators returning later in the film to challenge Superman, but Warner Bros elected to split the production into two films over Donner's protest. Stamp went on to reprise his role as General Zod in the second part, now a sequel, "Superman II" (1980), directed by Richard Lester replacing Donner but using some of his original production footage. In 2003, Stamp returned to the "Superman" franchise in a new role, by portraying the voice of Clark Kent's biological father Jor-El in the WB/CW television series "Smallville". He also provided the scream of Zod (being exorcised from the body of Lex Luthor) in the sixth season premiere episode "Zod". In 2006, he appeared as Zod once again in "" (a retooled version of the 1980 film which predominantly features footage shot by Donner, the film's original director). Books, music videos and voice acting. In addition to his acting career, Terence Stamp is an accomplished writer and author. He has published three volumes of his memoirs including "Stamp Album" (written in tribute to his late mother), a novel entitled "The Night", and a cookbook co-written with Elizabeth Buxton to provide alternative recipes for those who are wheat- and dairy-intolerant. Stamp's recent projects include the video game "", in which he lends his voice to the villainous cult leader Mankar Camoran; and the films "Zombie Island" and "These Foolish Things". Stamp voiced the Prophet of Truth in "Halo 3", replacing Michael Wincott. In 2005, Stamp also narrated the BBC Four documentary "Jazz Britannia", which chronicles the evolution of British jazz music. Stamp read the book Perfect Brilliant Stillness by David Carse for SilkSoundBooks. In his introductory reading, Stamp describes his love for this book by saying, "Greater love hath no man". Stamp appeared in the music video for "At the Bottom of Everything" by Bright Eyes. Stamp appeared as the featured 'castaway' on BBC Radio's long-running "Desert Island Discs" in June 1987, and made a second appearance in March 2006 with a different selection of music. On 7 July 2007, Stamp gave a speech on climate change at the British leg of Live Earth in Wembley Stadium before introducing Madonna. Personal life. In the 1960s, Stamp shared a flat with actor Michael Caine before and during their rise to fame. In his autobiography, "What's it All About", Caine states that he “still wakes up sweating in the night as he sees Terence agreeing to accept my advice to take the role in "Alfie"”. Stamp received extensive media coverage of his romances in the 1960s with film stars Julie Christie, Brigitte Bardot and supermodel Jean Shrimpton. His romance with Julie Christie during London's "swinging '60s" was thought to be referenced in the Kinks' 1967 song "Waterloo Sunset", with the lines about "Terry and Julie". He and Jean Shrimpton were one of the most-photographed couples of Mod London. It was after Shrimpton ended her relationship with Stamp that he moved to India, spending time in Pune at the ashram of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, meditating and studying his teachings, and dropping out from society for several years. Stamp's brother, Chris, became a rock music impresario credited with helping to bring The Who to prominence during the 1960s and co-founding Track Records. In 1984, English band The Smiths released their third single, "What Difference Does It Make?". The single cover was a photograph taken on the set of the film The Collector (but not depicted in the actual film). Originally Terence Stamp denied permission for the still to be used, and some pressings featured lead singer Morrissey in a re-enacted scene. In the re-enactment Morrissey is holding a glass of milk, as opposed to a chloroform pad in the original. Eventually, however, Stamp changed his mind, and the original cover was reinstated. On New Year's Eve 2002, at age 64, Stamp married for the first time. His 29-year-old bride was Elizabeth O'Rourke, whom Stamp first met in the mid-1990s at a pharmacy in Bondi, New South Wales. A Eurasian of Australian and Singapore (Indian Singaporean) parentage, O'Rourke was brought up in Singapore before moving to Australia in her early twenties to study pharmacology. The couple divorced on the grounds of his "unreasonable behaviour" in April 2008. Awards. Stamp found success with his first film "Billy Budd" (1962), for which he won a Golden Globe Award for New Star of the Year – Actor and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor and a BAFTA Award for Best Newcomer. Stamp won recognition for the film "The Collector" (1965), which is commemorated in Cannes Film Festival. For "The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert" (1994), Stamp won a Seattle International Film Festival for Best Actor and was nominated for the Best Actor in a Leading Role, an Australian Film Institute Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role, a Chlotrudis Award for Best Supporting Actor. For "The Limey" (1999), he won a Satellite Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Drama and was nominated for an Independent Spirit Award for Best Male Lead and Las Vegas Film Critics Society Award for Best Actor. Stamp was nominated by a British Independent Film Award for Best Actor in "Song for Marion" (2012). Won. Golden Globe Cannes Film Festival Mystfest Seattle International Film Festival Satellite Award Silver Bear Nominated. Academy Award British Independent Film Awards Golden Globe BAFTA Award Australian Film Institute Award Chlotrudis Award Independent Spirit Award Las Vegas Film Critics Society Award
586161	Devadoothan (, ) is a 2000 Malayalam musical mystery romance film directed by Sibi Malayil starring Mohanlal and Jayaprada. The film garnered immensely popular reviews from the critics but failed at the box-office. But it met with great appreciation from the audience when released in Home Media and when aired on television. Plot. Talented musician Vishal Krishnamoorthy (Mohanlal), returns to his old college to compose a pantomime. Over there he is revealed to the presence of a sentient force, and a passion too deep to endure... Soundtrack. The evergreen hit songs of this movie were composed by Vidyasagar and lyrics were penned by Kaithapram Damodaran Namboothiri. Vidyasagar won the Kerala State Award for Best Music Director for this movie.
903943	Pablo Tell Schreiber (born April 26, 1978) is an American-Canadian actor known for his dramatic stage work and for his portrayal of the Polish-American character Nick Sobotka on HBO's Baltimore drug-related crime drama "The Wire". He was nominated for a Tony Award for his performance in "Awake and Sing!" on Broadway. He has also performed work for audiobooks. Life and career. Schreiber was born in Canada. His American father, Tell Schreiber, was an actor, as is his half-brother Liev. His mother, Lorraine Reaveley, is a Canadian body-based psychotherapist. He was named after Chilean poet Pablo Neruda (his father had a strong interest in literature). Schreiber moved with his father to Seattle when he was twelve. Schreiber attended Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He appeared in the films "The Manchurian Candidate", "Lords of Dogtown" and "Happythankyoumoreplease". He also had a guest role on "" and appeared in the FX series "Lights Out". In 2011, Schreiber starred in the Off-Broadway play "Gruesome Playground Injuries" at Second Stage Theatre. He appeared on the seventh season of "Weeds" as Demetri Ravitch, Nancy Botwin's drug supplier. BuddyTV ranked him number seventy-seven on its list of "TV's Sexiest Men of 2011". In October 2012, Schreiber landed the recurring role of George "Pornstache" Mendez on the Netflix original drama series "Orange Is the New Black". On February 26, 2013, he will co-star as Virgil in NBC's drama pilot "Ironside", a reboot of the 1967 series of the same name. Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (TV Series)
1057939	Eight Below is a 2006 American adventure drama film directed by Frank Marshall and written by David DiGilio. It stars Paul Walker, Bruce Greenwood, Moon Bloodgood, and Jason Biggs. It was released theatrically on February 17, 2006 by Walt Disney Pictures in the United States. Plot. In 1993, Jerry Shepard (Walker) is a guide at an Antarctica research base under contract with the National Science Foundation. UCLA professor, Dr. Davis McClaren (Greenwood), arrives at the base and—along with Shepard's boss, Dr. Andy Harrison (Gerard Plunkett)—presses Shepard to take McClaren to Mount Melbourne to attempt to find a rare meteorite from the planet Mercury. Shepard does so, ignoring his own intuition, which tells him it is too late in the season (January) to complete such a treacherous route. Worried about the snowmobiles breaking through the thinning ice or falling into a crevasse, Shepard tells Harrison and McClaren that the only way to get to Mount Melbourne is by dog sled.
1060735	Daniel Jacob Radcliffe (born 23 July 1989) is an English actor. He rose to prominence as the title character in the "Harry Potter" film series. He made his acting debut at 10 years of age in BBC One's 1999 television movie "David Copperfield", followed by his film debut in 2001's "The Tailor of Panama". At age 11, he was cast as Harry Potter in the first "Harry Potter" film, and starred in the series for 10 years until the release of the eighth and final film in 2011. Radcliffe began to branch out to stage acting in 2007, starring in the London and New York productions of "Equus", and in the 2011 Broadway revival of the musical "How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying". He starred in the 2012 horror film "The Woman in Black". He played beat poet Allen Ginsberg in the 2013 independent film "Kill Your Darlings". He has contributed to many charities, including Demelza House Children's Hospice and The Trevor Project. He also made public service announcements for the latter. In 2011, he was awarded the Trevor Project's "Hero Award." Early life and education. Radcliffe was born in West London, England. He is the only child of Alan George Radcliffe, a literary agent, and Marcia Jeannine Gresham (née Marcia Gresham Jacobson), a casting agent who was involved in several films for the BBC, including "The Inspector Lynley Mysteries" and "Walk Away and I Stumble". His father is from "a very working-class" Protestant background in Banbridge, County Down, Northern Ireland. His mother is Jewish; she was born in South Africa and raised in Westcliff-on-Sea, Essex. Her family had originally come from Poland and Russia. Radcliffe's parents had both acted as children. Radcliffe first expressed a desire to act at the age of five, and in December 1999, aged 10, he made his acting debut in BBC One's televised two-part adaptation of the Charles Dickens novel "David Copperfield", portraying the title character as a young boy. He was educated at two independent schools for boys: Sussex House School, a day school in Chelsea's Cadogan Square, and the City of London School, a day school on the North Bank of the River Thames in London's financial district (known as the City of London). Attending school became difficult for Radcliffe after the release of the first "Harry Potter" film, with some fellow pupils becoming hostile, though he says it was people just trying to "have a crack at the kid that plays Harry Potter" rather than jealousy. As his acting career began to consume his schedule, Radcliffe continued his education through on-set tutors. He admitted he was not very good at school, considering it useless and finding the work "really difficult." He achieved A grades in the three AS-level exams that he took in 2006, but decided to take a break from education and did not go to college or university. Part of his reasoning was that he already knew he wanted to act and write, and that it would be difficult to have a normal college experience. "The paparazzi, they'd love it," he told "Details" magazine in 2007. "If there were any parties going on, they'd be tipped off as to where they were." Career. "Harry Potter". In 2000, producer David Heyman asked Radcliffe to audition for the role of Harry Potter for the film adaptation of "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone", the best-selling book by British author J. K. Rowling. Rowling had been searching for an unknown British actor to personify the character; however, Radcliffe's parents did not want him to audition for the role, as the contract required shooting all seven films in Los Angeles, California, and so they did not tell him. The movie's director Chris Columbus recalled thinking, "This is what I want. This is Harry Potter", after he saw a video of the young actor in "David Copperfield". Eight months later, and after several auditions, Radcliffe was selected to play the part. Rowling also endorsed the selection saying, "I don't think Chris Columbus could have found a better Harry." Radcliffe's parents originally turned down the offer, as they had been told that it would involve six films shot in Los Angeles. Warner Bros. instead offered Radcliffe a two-movie contract with shooting in the UK though, when signing up, Radcliffe was unsure if he would do any more pictures. The release of "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone" (released as "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" in the United States) took place in 2001. The story follows Harry, a young boy who learns he is a wizard and is sent to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry to begin his education; gaining the help of friends Ron (Rupert Grint) and Hermione (Emma Watson) along the way. Radcliffe received a seven figure salary for the lead role, but asserted that the fee was "not that important" to him; his parents chose to invest the money for him. The film broke records for opening-day sales and opening-weekend takings, becoming the highest-grossing film of 2001. With a total of US$974 million in ticket sales, "Philosopher's Stone" stands as the second most commercially successful in the series behind "Harry Potter and the Deathly HallowsPart 2", the final instalment. The adaptation was met with positive reviews and critics took notice of Radcliffe: "Radcliffe is the embodiment of every reader's imagination. It is wonderful to see a young hero who is so scholarly looking and filled with curiosity and who connects with very real emotions, from solemn intelligence and the delight of discovery to deep family longing," wrote Bob Graham of the "San Francisco Chronicle". A year later Radcliffe starred in "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets", the second instalment of the series. Reviewers were positive about the lead actors' performances but had polarised opinions on the movie as a whole. Stephen Hunter of the "Washington Post" labelled it "big, dull and empty". Observing that Radcliffe and his peers had matured, "Los Angeles Times"s staff writer Kenneth Turan believed the novel's magic could not be successfully duplicated in the film. Nonetheless, it still managed to earn US$878 million, taking the second spot of the highest-grossing 2002 films worldwide behind "". The 2004 release "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban" was the third film in the series. While garnering the highest critical acclaim of the series at that point and grossing US$795.6 million worldwide, the film's performance at the box office ranks the lowest in the series. Radcliffe's performance was panned by "New York Times" journalist A. O. Scott, who wrote that Watson had to carry him with her performance. Next was "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire" in 2005. The film set records for a "Harry Potter" opening weekend, as well as for a non-May opening weekend in the US and in the UK. The film eventually grossed US$896 million worldwide, and the film was the second-highest grossing "Harry Potter" film at that point. In a 2005 interview, Radcliffe singled out the humour as being a reason for the movie's creative success. Despite the success of the previous three movies, the future of the franchise was put into question when all three lead actors were unsure about signing on to continue their roles for the final two episodes; however, by 2 March 2007 Radcliffe had signed for the final films, which put an end to weeks of press "speculation that he would be denied the role due to his involvement in "Equus"". Radcliffe reprised his role for the fourth time in "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix" (2007), which details Harry's return to Hogwarts after his encounter with Lord Voldemort in the previous film. It opened to positive responses from the press; IGN movie critic Steven Horn found "Order of the Phoenix" to be one of "those rare films that exceeds the source material" and Colin Bertram of New York's "Daily News" dubbed it the best movie in the series. Radcliffe stated that director David Yates and actress Imelda Staunton made "Order of the Phoenix" the "most fun" film in the series to work on. His performance earned several award nominations, and he received the 2008 National Movie Award for "Best Male Performance." As his fame and the series continued, Radcliffe, Grint and Watson left imprints of their hands, feet, and wands in front of Grauman's Chinese Theatre in Hollywood. In July 2009 "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" was released, the series' sixth instalment. The film did considerably better than the previous movie, breaking the then-record for biggest midnight US showings with US$22.2 million at 3,000 theatres, and was the biggest ever Wednesday-opening in the UK, with US$7.6 million at 1,305 screens. "Half-Blood Prince" achieved a total of US$933 million ticket sales and was one of the most positively reviewed of the series among film critics, who praised the film's "emotionally satisfying" story, direction, cinematography, visuals and music. Radcliffe received nominations for "Best Male Performance" and "Global Superstar" at the 2010 MTV Movie Awards. For financial and scripting reasons the last book was divided into two films, shot back to back, which drew criticism from the series' fanbase. Radcliffe defended the split, pointing out that it would have been impossible to properly adapt the final novel into a single film. He added that the last movie was going to be extremely fast-paced with a lot of action, while the first part would be far more sedate, focusing on character development; he added that, had they combined them, those things would not have made it to the final cut. Filming lasted for a year, concluding in June 2010 and on the last day of shooting, like most of the cast and crew, Radcliffe openly wept. "Harry Potter and the Deathly HallowsPart 1" (2010) was about Harry, Ron and Hermione leaving Hogwarts to track down Lord Voldemort's Horcruxes, objects in which Voldemort has left part of his soul. The film was released in November and grossed over US$950 million. Its most lucrative territory was the UK, where it reportedly had the highest-grossing three-day opening in history; while its earnings of US$205 million, in 91 markets, made it the highest ever top-grossing non-US opening for a non-summer picture, and "the fourth-biggest-grossing international opening ever." The movie received mostly favourable reviews in the media. The final film, "Harry Potter and the Deathly HallowsPart 2", was released worldwide starting on 13 July 2011 in Australia. The film concerns the battle against Voldemort's followers in Hogwarts, along with Harry's final climactic duel with Voldemort. Radcliffe, along with the film, was critically acclaimed: Ann Hornaday of "The Washington Post" asked, "Who could have predicted that Radcliffe, Grint and Watson would turn out to be good actors?"; similarly, Rex Reed said: "Frankly, I’m sorry to see go"; while "Rolling Stone" critic Peter Travers commented on Radcliffe: "Well played, sir." Roger Ebert gave the film a highly positive review, but felt that Radcliffe, Grint and Watson were "upstaged by the supporting [actors." The film broke several box office records, including biggest midnight release, biggest first-day opening, and biggest opening-weekend. "Deathly HallowsPart 2" is currently the 4th highest-grossing film of all time with more than US$1.3 billion worldwide. Radcliffe admitted that some people would never be able to separate him from the character, but also said he is "proud to be associated with this film series forever." Despite positive feelings about the movies, he has no interest in doing more "Harry Potter" films. After Rowling hinted about writing an eighth book, Radcliffe was asked if he would do another film to which he replied: "is very doubtful. I think 10 years is a long time to spend with one character." Despite devoting so much time to the series, Radcliffe has asserted that he did not miss out on a childhood like other child actors: "I’ve been given a much better perspective on life by doing Potter." 2001–2009. Radcliffe made his film debut in "The Tailor of Panama", an American 2001 film based on John le Carré's 1996 spy novel, and a moderate commercial success. In 2002 he made his stage debut as a celebrity guest in a West End theatre production of "The Play What I Wrote", directed by Kenneth Branaghwho also appeared with him in the second "Harry Potter" film. In 2007 he appeared in the film "December Boys", an Australian family drama about four orphans that was shot in 2005 and released to theatres in mid-September 2007. Also in 2007, Radcliffe co-starred with Carey Mulligan in "My Boy Jack", a television drama film shown on ITV on Remembrance Day. The film received mostly positive reviews, with several critics praising Radcliffe's performance as an 18-year-old who goes missing in action during a battle. Radcliffe stated, "For many people my age, the First World War is just a topic in a history book. But I've always been fascinated by the subject and think it's as relevant today as it ever was." At age 17, in a bid to show people he was not a kid any more, he performed onstage in Peter Shaffer's play "Equus", which had not been revived since its first run in 1973, at the Gielgud Theatre. Radcliffe took on the lead role as Alan Strang, a stable boy who has an obsession with horses. Advance sales topped £1.7 million, and the role generated significant pre-opening media interest, as Radcliffe appeared in a nude scene. "Equus" opened on 27 February 2007 and ran until 9 June 2007. Radcliffe's performance received positive reviews as critics were impressed by the nuance and depth of his against-type role. Charles Spencer of "The Daily Telegraph" wrote that he "displays a dramatic power and an electrifying stage presence that marks a tremendous leap forward." He added: "I never thought I would find the diminutive (but perfectly formed) Radcliffe a sinister figure, but as Alan Strang ... there are moments when he seems genuinely scary in his rage and confusion." The production then transferred to Broadway in September 2008, with Radcliffe still in the lead role. Radcliffe stated he was nervous about repeating the role on Broadway because he considered American audiences more discerning than those in London. Radcliffe's performance was nominated for a Drama Desk Award. 2010–2013. After voicing a character in an episode of the animated television series "The Simpsons" in late 2010, Radcliffe debuted as J. Pierrepont Finch in the 2011 Broadway revival "How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying", a role previously held by Broadway veterans Robert Morse and Matthew Broderick. Other cast members included John Larroquette, Rose Hemingway and Mary Faber. Both the actor and production received favourable reviews, with "USA Today" commenting: "Radcliffe ultimately succeeds not by overshadowing his fellow cast members, but by working in conscientious harmony with themand having a blast in the process." Radcliffe's performance in the show earned him Drama Desk Award, Drama League Award and Outer Critics Circle Award nominations. The production itself later received nine Tony Award nominations. Radcliffe left the show on 1 January 2012. His first post-"Harry Potter" project was the 2012 horror film "The Woman in Black", adapted from the 1983 novel by Susan Hill. The film was released on 3 February 2012 in the United States and Canada, and was released on 10 February in the UK. Radcliffe portrays a man sent to deal with the legal matters of a mysterious woman who has just died, and soon after he begins to experience strange events and hauntings from the ghost of a woman dressed in black. He has said he was "incredibly excited" to be part of the film and described the script as "beautifully written". Radcliffe's godson Mischa, the son of Thea Sharrock, who co-directed the revival of "Equus" with Radcliffe, portrayed Arthur's son in the film. In 2013, he portrayed American poet Allen Ginsberg in the thriller drama "Kill Your Darlings", directed by John Krokidas. He also starred in "The F Word" and Alexandre Aja's "Horns". Radcliffe's upcoming roles include the character Igor in "Frankenstein" and American reporter Jake Adelstein in "Tokyo Vice". In 2013, Radcliffe performs at the Noël Coward Theatre in the stage play revival of Martin McDonagh's dark comedy "The Cripple of Inishmaan" as the lead, Billy Claven. Personal life. In 2008, Radcliffe revealed that he suffers from a mild form of the neurological disorder developmental coordination disorder. The motor skill disorder sometimes gets so bad that he has trouble doing simple activities, such as writing or tying his own shoelaces. "I was having a hard time at school, in terms of being crap at everything, with no discernible talent," Radcliffe commented. In August 2010, he stopped drinking alcohol after finding himself becoming too reliant on it. In a 2012 interview, Radcliffe stated, "There was never faith in the house. I think of myself as being Jewish and Irish, despite the fact that I’m English." He has said, "I'm an atheist, and a militant atheist when religion starts impacting on legislation", and in a separate interview, he stated; "I'm very relaxed about it [being an atheist. I don't preach my atheism, but I have a huge amount of respect for people like Richard Dawkins who do. Anything he does on television, I will watch". Radcliffe has also stated that he is "very proud of being Jewish". In April 2012, "Shalom Life" ranked him Number 10 on its list of “the 50 most talented, intelligent, funny, and gorgeous Jewish men in the world." Radcliffe is a supporter of the Labour Party. Until 2012 Radcliffe had publicly supported the Liberal Democrats, and before the 2010 UK general election Radcliffe endorsed Nick Clegg, the Lib Dem leader. In 2012, however, Radcliffe switched his allegiance to Labour, citing disappointment with the performance of Nick Clegg and the Lib Dems in government, and approving of the Labour leader, Ed Miliband. At the age of sixteen, Radcliffe became the youngest non-royal ever to have an individual portrait in Britain's National Portrait Gallery (NPG). On 13 April 2006 his portrait, drawn by Stuart Pearson Wright, was unveiled as part of a new exhibition opening at the Royal National Theatre; it was then moved to the NPG where it resides. He is a fan of underground and punk rock music, and is a keen follower of cricket, including cricketer Sachin Tendulkar. Writing short stories and poetry is also a passion. In November 2007 Radcliffe published several poems under the pen name Jacob Gershona combination of his middle name and the Jewish version of his mother's maiden name Greshamin "Rubbish", an underground fashion magazine. He enjoys a close friendship with his "Harry Potter" co-stars Tom Felton and Emma Watson, and is tight-knit with his family, whom he credits for keeping him grounded. Speaking out against homophobia, Radcliffe began filming public service announcements in 2009 for The Trevor Project, promoting awareness of gay teen suicide prevention. He first learned of the organisation while working on "Equus" on Broadway in 2008 and has contributed financially to it. "I have always hated anybody who is not tolerant of gay men or lesbians or bisexuals. Now I am in the very fortunate position where I can actually help or do something about it," he said in a 2010 interview. In the same interview, he spoke of the importance of public figures advocating for equal rights. Radcliffe considers his involvement to be one of the most important things in his career and, for his work for the organisation, he was given the "Hero Award" in 2011. Radcliffe has supported various charities. He designed the Cu-Bed for Habitat's VIP Kids range (a cube made of eight smaller ones which can be made into a bed, chaise-longue or chair) with all the royalties from the sale of the bed going directly to his favourite charity, Demelza House Children's Hospice in Sittingbourne, Kent. Radcliffe has urged his fans to make donations, in lieu of Christmas presents to him, to the charity's Candle for Care program. In 2008 he was among several celebrities who donated their old glasses to an exhibit honouring victims of the Holocaust. During the Broadway run of "Equus" he auctioned off a pair of jeans he wore in the show for "thousands of dollars", as well as other items worn in the show, for the Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS "a New York-based nonprofit HIV/AIDS grant-making organisation". He has also donated money to Get Connected UK, a London-based free confidential national helpline for troubled youth. Sources disagree about Radcliffe's personal wealth; he was reported to have earned £1 million for the first "Harry Potter" film and around £15 million for the sixth. Radcliffe appeared on the "Sunday Times" Rich List in 2006, which estimated his personal fortune to be £14 million, making him one of the richest young people in the UK. In March 2009 he was ranked number one on the "Forbes" "Most Valuable Young Stars" list, and by April "The Daily Telegraph" measured his net worth at £30m, making him the 12th richest young person in the UK. Radcliffe was considered to be the richest teenager in England later that year. In February 2010 he was named the sixth highest paid Hollywood male star and placed at number five on "Forbes"s December list of Hollywood's highest-grossing actors with a revenue of US$780 million, mainly due to "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" being released that year.
584624	Keladi Kanmani (; ) is a 1990 Tamil film directed by Vasanth, starring noted playback singer SP Balasubrahmanyam and Radhika Sarathkumar. The film was a blockbuster and completed a 206-day run at the box office. Plot. The film opens with a bus carrying a group of college students for a trip. Among the students are Anu (Anju) and her girlfriends. The bus is stopped by some masked bandits. They forcibly enter the bus and demand that Anu should kiss their leader Sashi (Ramesh Arvind); otherwise, they will kill everyone on board. This is subsequently revealed to be a ruse: Sashi is in fact a fellow college student trying to win Anju's affection. For a few days after, Sashi and Anju play various pranks on each other. Anju eventually admits her affection for Sashi and they begin a courtship. All seems to proceed well, except that Anju is strangely melancholic from time to time; she repeats to Sashi that she senses an imminent danger to their relationship, although she is unable to pinpoint what the threat or describe why it may materialize so soon. Some things are revealed when Anju begins to get sharp headaches from time to time. Her father, A. R. Rangaraj (SP Balasubrahmanyam), a quiet widower, tries to help her, but is not able to get to the bottom of the matter. A. R. Rangaraj (known to his friends as ARR) is a gentle old man who has devoted the greater part of his life to his daughter. Things come to a head when, on her 18th birthday, Anu visits her doctor who confirms she has bilateral renal artery stenosis and is almost certain to succumb within a year. She may require an operation within that time, but the likelihood of her coming through it alive is minimal. Anu requests the doctor to keep it between them (and, in particular, not inform her father to avoid deeply saddening him). However, unbeknownst to Anu, her father discovers it by accident when the local pharmacist sends some prescription drugs through him. When Anu discusses the matter with Sashi, he expresses his support in spite of his grave sadness (in proportion to his love for her). Anu reveals a thread from her past that may explain her melancholic mood. The film flashes back to several years before, when ARR had a happy family. Anu, then five or six, attended school; ARR handled his job and his loving wife managed the home. Tragedy struck when they lost his wife to an illness. Anu took this particularly hard. Yet, ARR tried to help cope with it somehow and move on. Some time thereafter, ARR met Sharada (Radhika) at a wedding. Sometime thereafter, ARR sought a tutor for young Anu, and Sharada happened to take the position. The friendship evolved into a courtship, to the point where ARR was about to propose marriage. (During the courtship, ARR sang the song " Mannil indha kaadhal " to Sharada. He cheekily prefaced the song with the admission that while he may not be a talented singer, he can certainly hold a tune; and to verify his claim, he proposed to sing the entire song in one breath. Sharada was truly impressed.) As time went on, Sharada realized her own bindings. Both her parents were deaf-mute, and she was the only way they could communicate with the rest of the world, this left her torn between her filial duty and her personal aspirations. Things were worsened when Anu experienced feelings of motherly yearning and was simply unable to accept Sharada (or anyone else for that matter) in the role of a mother. Sharada is bewildered and ultimately frustrated by all this. And in spite of ARR's assurances that they can work it out, she refused his proposal and moved to Bangalore to take a position as a schoolteacher. Since that time, Anu has been plagued by guilt for her part in the breakup. The doctors pronounce a date and time for the unavoidable operation. Anu takes this with stoic grief, and asks Sashi for one last thing: to find Sharada and attempt to reunite her with ARR. They find an old picture of Sharada, and Sashi recognizes her as the woman he had met in Bangalore a few weeks ago. He sets off on a frantic hunt for Sharada. On the day of the operation, Sharada happens to be in Chennai en route to a training event in the USA. After a tricky set of near-misses, Sashi is able to locate her in the nick of time, and bring her to Anu and ARR moments before Anu gets anaesthetized. The film ends with Anu going for one last ride with Sashi on his motorbike.
582955	Harish Patel is an Indian actor. Although mainly associated with the stage, he has appeared in comedy films and on television. He began performing at the age of seven, when he played male and female parts in the Hindu epic "Ramayana". In 1995, he joined the Indian National Theatre and did his first professional play "Thakkali Charitam". He made his debut in "Shyam Benegal" directed Mandi (1983). From 1994 to 2008, Harish worked with the eminent Indian theatre director Sara Pambu. His repertoire has included Dappaguthu and Mokkai (Indian plays) as well as plays by teaglass writers, e.g., the fruit's "The comedian", Bonda Maniyum Palapalamum's "Thakkali The Terror", Murukku Thirudan "Coco Muttai", Idiyappam's "The Vegetable", and Mrozek's "Vatzlav". His acting career has taken him all over India.
1598210	Ed Bishop (June 11, 1932 – June 8, 2005) was an American film, television, stage, radio and voice actor based in the United Kingdom. Early life. Bishop served in the United States Army from 8 October 1952 to 24 September 1954, working as a disc jockey with the Armed Forces Radio at St. John's in Newfoundland. At the time of discharge, his rank was Corporal. After graduating in Theatre Arts from Boston University, he won a Fulbright Scholarship to study for two years at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art, from which he graduated in 1959 and almost immediately found work in the British theatre and film industries. He adopted the first name "Edward" at this time for professional reasons. His first Broadway appearance was as Villebosse in David Merrick's production of Jean Anouilh's "The Rehearsal" in 1963, though he returned to Britain in 1964. Career. Bishop made his film acting debut in a small role in Stanley Kubrick's 1962 adaptation of "Lolita" (as an ambulance driver). In 1963 he played an American astronaut going to the moon in the movie "The Mouse on the Moon". He had small roles in the James Bond films "You Only Live Twice" and "Diamonds Are Forever", plus a cameo scene in "The Bedford Incident". He also appeared in "", in which he played the Captain of the "Aries 1B" Moon shuttle. The role initially featured dialogue, though this was later cut from his scenes. Bishop has appeared in various film and television projects created by producer Gerry Anderson, and perhaps his most prominent screen role of all was as Commander Ed Straker in Anderson's science-fiction series, "UFO", which was produced in 1969 and 1970 and broadcast from 1970 to 1971. Prior to this, he had appeared in Anderson's science-fiction film "Journey to the Far Side of the Sun" and provided the voice of Captain Blue for Anderson's 1967 Supermarionation puppet series, "Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons". For his role in "UFO", Bishop had his dark hair dyed blond, though he eventually started wearing a blond wig instead. As this was before the advent of unisex hairdressing salons, prior to wearing a wig Bishop had had to resort to having the dyeing process done at women's hairdressers in Mayfair. Bishop kept one of the wigs he wore in "UFO" as a souvenir and was also given the Certina wristwatch he wore on the show, and before his death, said that he planned to pass it on to his eldest grandson. Bishop was the only cast member of "UFO" to appear in every episode of the series. In later years, appeared in films such as "Saturn 3" (though was uncredited), "Twilight's Last Gleaming", and "Whoops Apocalypse" (he also appeared in the TV adaptation). Bishop also provided vocal work for the 1974 animated TV series of "" and appeared in the final episode of the British World War II prisoner-of-war drama "Colditz", Bishop appears as Lieutenant Colonel Harrity. In the 1980s, he made several appearances on "The Kenny Everett Television Show" and had a role in the children's television series "Chocky's Children". On radio, in 1977 and 1978 he played the private eye Philip Marlowe in six adaptations of Raymond Chandler's stories for the BBC, the last of them, "Farewell, My Lovely", produced nearly a decade after the others, as the rights had previously been unavailable. In 1981, Bishop performed a vocal narrative on the song "Norman Bates" by the British synthpop band Landscape. Bishop continued to act on film, TV and radio, usually in British and other European productions, and was a frequent guest at science fiction conventions. Bishop and fellow Anderson actor Shane Rimmer (another North American actor who often worked in the UK) often joked about how often their professional paths crossed and termed themselves "Rent-a-yank". They appeared together as NASA operatives in the opening of "You Only Live Twice" and as United States Navy sailors in "The Bedford Incident". In 1989, Bishop was reunited with Rimmer and another Anderson actor, Matt Zimmerman, in the BBC Radio 4 adaptation of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's "A Study In Scarlet". Bishop and Rimmer also toured together in theatre shows including "Death of a Salesman" in the 1990s and also appeared in the BBC drama-documentary "Hiroshima" (2005), one of Bishop's last TV projects. In 2000, Bishop briefly reprised the role of Captain Blue in a trailer for the new "Captain Scarlet" series. He did not, however, reprise the role for the actual series, which would not debut until five years later. In 2002, Bishop recorded a commentary for the DVD release of "UFO". In 2003, he performed in the "Doctor Who" audio drama, "Full Fathom Five", produced by Big Finish Productions. Personal life. Bishop was politically active, participating in the March 2004 UK protest against the Iraq War. Bishop had already showed his disapproval of the military-industrial complex some years earlier, in a notable act of political theatre: in 1993 he gatecrashed an arms-trade fair held in Aldershot, Hampshire whilst dressed to resemble Augusto Pinochet. During the Aldershot protest he met photographer Jane Skinner, who later became his third wife. Ed Bishop was married three times: Bishop died five days after the death of one of his "UFO" co-stars, Michael Billington. He succumbed to a chest infection contracted while undergoing treatment for Leukemia. He is buried in the churchyard of the Parish Church of Saint Lawrence in Napton, Warwickshire, having previously lived there for many years. His grey sandstone tombstone has a peace symbol prominently engraved on it. Its design is very similar to the one situated two metres on the right, which marks the grave of his son Daniel (16 May 1967 – 18 January 1988), who was killed in a car accident in Cumbria. Bishop's epitaph (from "Red River Valley") reads: "From This Valley They Say You Are Going. We Shall Miss Your Bright Eyes And Your Smile." He spent the last few years of his life living in West Molesey. His life and work was honoured at the British Academy Television Awards in May 2006. He is survived by his widow and three daughters from his second marriage: Georgina, Jessica and Serina. Quote. "Ed Bishop is one of the most talented people I've ever worked with, and my only sadness was that he didn't go on to become an international star. I would have loved him to have perhaps been James Bond." Gerry Anderson - "UFO" producer.
1072909	Synopsis. As his investments in the stock market fail, a man finds himself in serious debt to a lecherous loan-shark named Uchiyama. The man's wife hires herself to Uchiyama to buy time for the husband to pay off the debt. After Uchiyama uses the wife to provide companionship for his mentally-impaired son, she is hit by a car, and her husband falls into despair and illness. Their daughter works as a nightclub dancer, intending to save the money to help with the debt. After her father's suicide, the girl decides to get revenge. Background. Because 3.5 million yen was the budget imposed on works in the "pink film" genre, an all-color production had been beyond the means of directors in the 1960s. Some films had been shot partially in color, using color only for certain scenes, a practise that would continue until Nikkatsu took over the genre with its Roman porno series in 1971. "Blue Film Woman" was one of the first all-color "pink films". Jasper Sharp writes that director Mukai's use of color in this film appears to be "making up for lost time, exploding into its super-saturated hues from the very first frame... flooded with prismatic blotches of primary reds and blues and silhouettes of naked female bodies - not unlike a more lysergically-inspired version of a Bond movie credit sequence." The style continues, Sharp writing that the film as a whole is a "highly stylised piece." Availability and critical reception. "Blue Film Woman" is one of the only "pink films" from its era to survive in a 35mm format. It made its U.S. debut in September 2008, with a new print screened at the Fantastic Fest in Austin, Texas. After the viewing, twitchfilm.net judged that it is, "a great example of early pinku eiga that deserves to be seen." Its Canadian debut was at the FanTasia International Film Festival. It was shown at the fiftieth International Thessaloniki Film Festival.
1068012	The Big Green is a 1995 Walt Disney Pictures film starring Steve Guttenberg and Olivia d'Abo, written and directed by Holly Goldberg Sloan. It also stars Bug Hall, Chauncey Leopardi, and Patrick Renna. The film is about the antics of a soccer team consisting of a misfit group of small town kids who are coached by a teacher from England. Plot. Teacher Anna Montgomery (Olivia d'Abo), who is on an exchange program from Surrey, England, is placed into a school in the tiny town of Elma, Texas. She struggles to connect with the children at first, as they believe they are underachievers after receiving the lowest test scores in the state for four years running. She is also shocked to learn that the children think very little of everything. So instead of teaching geography to the inattentive class, Ms. Montgomery breaks the globe in an attempt to introduce the kids to a new game. After some confusion, the children begin to learn the game of soccer. Then at the end of the first session, Ms. Montgomery tells them that they have been entered into a league in Austin, Texas, but their first game was the next day. At this point, the town Sheriff Tom Palmer (Steve Guttenberg) becomes co-coach. The team travels to Austin to play against the Knights, who are the state champions and undefeated for that season. Because none of the kids have learned the rules, they do not know how to play and lose 18–0. They lose heart and do not want to play anymore, until they discover the talent of new classmate Juan Morales (Anthony Esquivel), but have to persuade his mother to let him play. Once Juan joins the team, they go on a remarkable run to the finals, with a record of eight wins, two losses, and one tie, and in the finals they meet the Knights. As the town goes crazy for the final, hometown boy and current Knights coach Jay Hoffer (Jay O. Sanders) returns to Elma, and finds in the bar the drunken father of Kate Douglas (Jessica Robertson), one of the players, and he gives Hoffer information which leads to an investigation that ultimately forces Juan and his mother to flee for their safety.
675104	Impressionen unter Wasser ("Underwater Impressions aka Impressions of the deep") is a documentary film released in 2002. It was directed by Leni Riefenstahl. After the premiere of her film "Tiefland" in 1954, for decades it was generally thought this would be Riefenstahl's last film. However, a few days before her 100th birthday, saw the release of "Impressionen unter Wasser" (45 minutes, with an introduction by Riefenstahl) premiered in Berlin 48 years after "Tiefland". Production history. "Impressionen unter Wasser" is the final result of 30 years of underwater cinematography. In 1983 she described her intentions for the eventual film; "Underwater films are either scientific, like Jacques Cousteau's, or sensational, like the Hollywood shark films. But there are none like this one we plan." Segments of her extensive marine footage were first shown to the public in the 1993 documentary, "The Wonderful, Horrible Life of Leni Riefenstahl" which followed her recent expedition. Release. "Impressionen unter Wasser" had its premiere at "Delphi am Zoo", Berlin on 14 August 2002, a week before the celebrations for Leni's centenary birthday. It was broadcast the following day on the French/German "Arte" channel, together with an interview with Riefenstahl and an airing of the original 1932 version of Riefenstahl's Das Blaue Licht. It was also featured at the 2003 Maui Independent Film Festival and the 2004 Oporto International Film Festival (Fantasporto). The film was released on DVD in April 2003. Synopsis. The marine-based documentary was mainly shot around Papua New Guinea, and is a collection of footage directed by Riefenstahl between the 1970s and 2000. Other film locations included the Maldive Islands the Seychelles, Kenya, Tanzania, Indonesia, the Red Sea, the Cocos Islands (Pacific) and the Caribbean Sea (Cuba). Riefenstahl dismissed claims that the film was a comeback; "Impressionen Unterwasser certainly isn't a 'comeback'. I was always active and continue to be so. My film shows the beauty of the underwater world. I hope it will touch the viewer's conscience as it illustrates just what the world will lose when nothing is done to stop the destruction of our oceans. I once said that I am fascinated by the beautiful and the living. I seek harmony and, under water, I have found it." Riefenstahl also contributed an introduction, discussing the work and her marine journeys. Reception. The film attracted a mixed response from critics. The Tagesspiegel Daily wrote of the candy-coloured images and Riefenstahl's flowing blonde hair; "It's as if a pop artist on LSD painted it". Time Out magazine held a neutral view point, puzzled by the lack of commentary, as is characteristic of Riefenstahl films but was displeased by the Moroder-Walker score. Other critics compared the film to her famous 1938 film "Olympia" in that it reflects her ultimate pursuit of beauty. Contributing to the book "501 Directors", Dr. Ernest Mathijs, writer and film scholar cited the documentary as " final example of her creative genius."
1183716	Christopher Brian Bridges (born September 11, 1977), better known by his stage name Ludacris, is an American rapper, entrepreneur and actor. Along with his manager, Chaka Zulu, Ludacris is the co-founder of Disturbing tha Peace, an imprint distributed by Def Jam Recordings. Ludacris has won a Screen Actors Guild, Critic's Choice, MTV, and three Grammy Awards during his career. Along with fellow Atlantans Big Boi and Andre 3000 of OutKast, Ludacris was one of the first and most influential Dirty South artists to achieve mainstream success. Born in Champaign, Illinois, Ludacris moved to Atlanta, Georgia at age nine, where he began rapping. After a brief stint as a disc jockey, he released his debut album "Back for the First Time" in 2000, which contained the singles "Southern Hospitality" and "What's Your Fantasy". In 2001, he released "Word of Mouf", followed by "Chicken-n-Beer" in 2003. He took a more serious approach with his next three albums, "The Red Light District" (2004), "Release Therapy" (2006), and "Theater of the Mind" (2008). His latest record, "Battle of the Sexes", was released in 2010. As an actor, he has appeared in films including "2 Fast 2 Furious" (2003), "Crash" (2004), "Gamer" (2009), "Fast Five" (2011), "New Year's Eve" (2011), and "Fast & Furious 6" (2013). Early life. Ludacris was born Christopher Brian Bridges in Champaign, Illinois; and later moved to the Chicago area where he attended Emerson Middle School in Oak Park. He is the only child of Roberta Shields and Wayne Brian Bridges. He is of African American and Native American descent. Bridges wrote his first rap song at age nine when moving to Atlanta, and joined an amateur rap group three years later. He attended Banneker High School in Atlanta, Georgia and graduated in 1996. From 1998 to 1999, he studied music management at Georgia State University. Music career. Radio DJ, Timbaland collaboration. Bridges served as an intern and then as a disc jockey at Atlanta's Hot 97.5 (now Hot 107.9) under the name "Chris Lova Lova". He was also known for DJ'ing during Freaknik at one point. Ludacris collaborated with Timbaland on the track "Phat Rabbit" from his album . This song was a hit in many countries. It was later included on Ludacris's debut LP album Back for the First Time. In Ludacris' early music career he collaborated with Dallas Austin and Jermaine Dupri. 2001−03: "Word of Mouf" and "Chicken-n-Beer". Ludacris promptly completed his next album, "Word of Mouf", and released it at the end of 2001. The video for the lead single, "Rollout (My Business)", was nominated for a 2002 Grammy Award, and Ludacris performed it live at the awards' pre-show. He released singles "Saturday (Oooh Oooh)" with Sleepy Brown, "Move Bitch" with Mystikal and I-20, and "Area Codes" with Nate Dogg. During the spring of 2003, Ludacris returned to the music scene after a brief hiatus with a new single, "Act a Fool", from the "2 Fast 2 Furious" soundtrack. At around the same time, he released the lead single from his album "Chicken-n-Beer", called "P-Poppin" (short for "Pussy Poppin'"). Neither of his new singles were as well received by either the urban or pop audiences as his previous songs had been, and both music videos received only limited airplay. "Chicken-N-Beer" opened strongly, but without a popular single, the album fell quickly. Guest appearances include Playaz Circle, Chingy, Snoop Dogg, 8Ball & MJG, Lil' Flip, I-20, Lil Fate, and Shawnna. In the fall of 2003, Ludacris rebounded with his next single, "Stand Up", which appeared on both "Chicken-n-Beer" as well as the soundtrack for the teen hip hop/dance movie, "You Got Served". Produced by Kanye West, "Stand Up" went on to become one of Ludacris' biggest mainstream hits to date, hitting the top spot on the "Billboard" Hot 100 garnering heavy airplay on mainstream pop, rhythmic, and urban radio stations, as well as on MTV, MTV2, and BET. Ludacris was sued by a New Jersey group called I.O.F. who claimed that "Stand Up" used a hook from one of their songs, but in June 2006, a jury found that the song did not violate copyrights. "I hope the plaintiffs enjoyed their 15 minutes of fame," Ludacris said after the verdict. The album's next single, "Splash Waterfalls", was released in early 2004. A huge pop hit (despite its steamy video and explicit, adult-oriented lyrical content and themes), it subsequently became a success at urban radio and BET, and is the only time he has produced two consecutive top 10 singles from a solo album, except for "Release Therapy" (an unedited version of the video could only be viewed on BET's Uncut program). It was Ludacris' most sexual video yet, an R&B remix that featured Raphael Saadiq and sampled Tony! Toni! Tone!'s "Whatever You Want". Ludacris received his first Grammy Award with Usher and Lil Jon for their hit single "Yeah!". Ludacris next released "Blow It Out", which was accompanied by a low-budget music video. 2004−07: "The Red Light District" and "Release Therapy". Chris Bridges took a more mature approach to his fourth album, "The Red Light District". Sohail Khalid helped produce this album with various artists such as T.I., Lil Flip and Bun B. Ludacris openly boasted that he may be the only rapper able to keep the Def Jam label afloat on the opening track. Ludacris filmed and recorded the single "Get Back" in which he was featured as a muscle-bound hulk who was being annoyed by the media and warned critics to leave him alone. He first appeared on "Saturday Night Live" as a special guest performing with musical guest Sum 41 on a season 30 episode hosted by Paul Giamatti. He then recorded "Get Back" with Sum 41 to make a rock crossover single. The follow-up single was the "Austin Powers"-inspired "Number One Spot". It was produced by New York City's Hot 97 personality DJ Green Lantern. It used the Quincy Jones sample of "Soul Bossa Nova" and sped it up to the tempo of Ludacris' rap flow. Featured artists on the album include Nas, DJ Quik, DMX, Trick Daddy, Sleepy Brown, and Disturbing tha Peace newcomers Bobby Valentino, Dolla Boi, and Small World. The album debuted at number one on the Billboard charts. In an issue of "XXL", Ludacris was placed in the number nine spot for the most anticipated albums of 2006, for "Release Therapy". The album "Release Therapy" was released on September 26, 2006. Ludacris formatted the CD to have two sides: a "Release" side and a "Therapy" side on a single CD. Guest appearances include Pharrell Williams, R. Kelly, Young Jeezy, Mary J. Blige, Field Mob, Bobby Valentino, Pimp C, C-Murder, and Beanie Sigel. The first single, "Money Maker", which features Pharrell Williams, was released to U.S. radio outlets on July 17, 2006. "Money Maker" reached number one on the BET program "106 & Park". It then went to become the rapper's second number one single after 6 years. His second single, "Grew Up a Screw Up", featuring Young Jeezy, dispels rumors that the two are or ever were in a dispute. His third single, "Runaway Love", soon peaked at number one on the U.S. "Billboard" Hot Rap Tracks and won Best Collaboration in the 2007 BET Awards. His album then reached number one on the "Billboard" 200 album charts with sales of 309,000 in its first week. With the release of this album, Ludacris marked a change in style in his career with his musical style. The new album itself features a departure of the lighthearted mood of his previous albums, and introduces a darker side. A change of hair accompanied this as he cut off his trademark braids for a more conventional "fade" cut. To promote the album, Ludacris returned to "Saturday Night Live" (as both host and musical guest) on November 18, 2006. 2008−10: "Theater of the Mind" and "Battle of the Sexes". "", a mixtape to preview the album was released on July 28, 2008. "Theater of the Mind", released on November 24, 2008, and in April 2008, the single "Let's Stay Together" appeared on xxlmag.com; supposedly from the new album ("Let's Stay Together" was expected to but was released as a bonus track on the CD). A song with Small World called "Pinky Shinin" was expected to be on the album, but it was dropped. In an interview with "Complex Magazine" he stated that Chris Brown, Lil Wayne, Rick Ross, T.I., Plies, Common, T-Pain, Jay-Z, Nas and The Game will be on the album; Game is featured in a track with Willy Northpole titled "Call Up the Homies". T.I. was on the album on a track called "Wish You Would" squashing the long feud between them. The album debuted at number five on the "Billboard" 200 with 213,493 sold first week. The album was released the same day as Kanye West's "808s & Heartbreak", which took the number one spot. His first single "What Them Girls Like", featuring Chris Brown and Sean Garrett, peaked at #33 on the "Billboard" 100. His second single, "One More Drink", featuring T-Pain, peaked at #24 on the "Billboard" 100. The third official single is "Nasty Girl", featuring Plies. He confirmed a "sequel" titled "Ludaversal" due to be released September 11, 2012. Ludacris' seventh studio album was released on March 9, 2010, with his first promotional single for the album being "Everybody Drunk" which features Callum Smith, originally featuring Shawnna. The first concept idea of the album was to have Ludacris and Shawnna battle it out on the album back–to–back, but this was later axed upon Shawnna's departure from Disturbing tha Peace, ending her contract on Ludacris' label and joining T-Pain's Nappy Boy Entertainment label. The first official single released from "Battle of the Sexes" was "How Low", which was released on December 8, 2009. The follow–up single was "My Chick Bad", released on February 23, 2010. The third single is "Sex Room", peaking at #69 on the Billboard 100. Ludacris’s "Battle of the Sexes" entered the chart at No. 1, with 137,000 sales in the first week. The album is currently certified gold. 2012−present: "Ludaversal". On August 15, 2010, Ludacris tweeted that he is currently back in the studio with The Neptunes working on his eighth studio album, "Ludaversal". On July 7, 2011, according to his Facebook, he recently went to Paris, France to work on "Ludaversal". On May 29, 2012 Ludacris released the lead single, "Jingalin". The second single taken from the album entitled "Representin" has the collaboration of American recording artist Kelly Rowland. It was sent to radio on August 31. The release date for the album was set for September 11, 2012, but ended up delayed. He released the third single "Rest of My Life" featuring Usher and David Guetta to much greater success than the previous two. He has said that his next album "Ludaversal" will be released in September 2013. On May 24, 2013, Ludacris released his newest mixtape, entitled "#IDGAF". He had been releasing a new song on Fridays as he is calling these releases "IDGAF Fridays". These songs, in order of release, were "Raised In The South" featuring rapper Young Jeezy, released on April 19. That release was followed by "If I Ain't Fucked Up" on April 26, "9 Times Out Of 10" featuring rappers French Montana & Que on May 3, "Speak Into The Mic" on May 10, and "I Don't Give A Fuck" on May 17. The last song was released a week before the release of the mixtape. The mixtape had almost 60,000 downloads via datpiff.com within the first day.Ludacris reprised his role as Tej in the blockbuster movie 'Fast & Furious 6', during Memorial Day Weekend, May 2013.Ludacris had this to say about his upcoming new album: "I think every album is like a progression, I'm working with different producers. Usher, We definitely have this album which is a great thing. Ne-Yo is also on the album and I have producers like David Guetta, we have Stargate, have trainees. Kelly Rowland single just came out that you need to check out. It's called 'Representing'" On August 3, 2013, Ludacris confirmed to VIBE.com he will be working with legendary soul singer Anita Baker.
586560	Sammir Dattani (Gujarati: સમીર દત્તાની) also known as Dhyan () (in Kannada film industry) is an Indian film actor who acts in Bollywood, the Hindi Film Industry and Sandalwood, the Kannada Film Industry. Early life. Sammir belongs to a Gujarati industrialist business family and was born and brought up in Mumbai. He did his schooling at Greenlawns and graduated from H.R college. Before turning to acting, Sammir was a national level roller skater and has won many awards at the all India level. The actor hails from a family which has been in the textiles business for over 50 years, besides being an active part of the business Sammir is also the owner of a restaurant and lounge in Kala Ghoda, Mumbai. Sammir currently lives in the Malabar Hills neighbourhood of south Mumbai. Career. Sammir has been facing the camera since the age of 17. He has been popular in many TV commercials and music videos, 'Valentine's Day' being among the famous ones. Sammir started his Hindi film career with one of the biggest banners in Bollywood, Rajshri Productions. In his first Hindi film "Uuf Kya Jaadoo Mohabbat Hai" his performance was appreciated. It landed him roles in Madhur Bhandarkar's "Corporate" and Vikram Bhatt's "Life Mein Kabhie Kabhie" and films like "Pyar Mein Twist" where he got further recognition and appreciation for his talent, good looks and screen presence. Most of his films in the Kannada film industry have been big hits. A few have been dubbed in Telugu and become hits there as well. In fact, his career in films began with the Kannada-language "Nanna Preethiya Hudugi". The film celebrated its silver jubilee at the box office and fetched him the best debutant award in the South. A famous song from "car car" became a huge hit with the audience and continues to be a popular number. Besides hits like "Monalisa", another Kannada film of his "Amruthadhare" made waves at the box office. It ran successfully for 25 weeks across cinema halls in Karnataka. The film even had the Big B (Amitabh Bachchan) make a special appearance, his only appearance in a South Indian film so far. Now besides consolidating his career in Bollywood, he continues to do films in the South, where his screen name is 'Dhyan'. In the Hindi film "Mukhbir" Sammir played the lead role of an undercover police informer. It was directed by Mani Shankar and starred senior actors like Om Puri, Suniel Shetty, and Jackie Shroff. "Mukhbir" won rave reviews and got Sammir lots of praise and fame; it also landed him some great films. Sammir recently released his first Tamil film, produced by Gemini Films. In "Kutty" he acts with Shreya Saran. He is rumoured to be making a foray into other South Indian languages as well. Shyam Benegal cast him in "Well Done Abba" (2010), alongside Boman Irani and Minissha Lamba. After premiering at international film festivals in Montreal, Dubai and London, the film had its commercial release 26 March 2010. It was very well received by all critics and garnered a lot of praise for Sammir. This film gave him a role which had great depth to showcase his acting talent, and he surprised all by pulling off a performance to match that of the senior actors. While reviewing "Well Done Abba" Taran Adarsh wrote "Samir Dattani is another revelation. The role gives him ample opportunity to showcase his talent and he does it with great restraint, without going overboard." His signature line "insaaniyat ke liye" will be memorable to all girls whose heartstrings he pulled. Shyam Benegal's directorial efforts and Sammir Dattani's talent has proven that the talented actor has come a long way.
1059989	Beyond the Valley of the Dolls is a 1970 American schlock melodrama film starring Dolly Read, Cynthia Myers, Marcia McBroom, John LaZar, Michael Blodgett and David Gurian. The cult classic was directed by Russ Meyer and co-written by Meyer and Roger Ebert. Originally intended as a sequel to the 1967 film "Valley of the Dolls"—"dolls" being a slang term for depressant pills or "downers"—"Beyond the Valley of the Dolls" was instead revised as a parody of the commercially successful but critically reviled original. Plot. Three young women—Kelly MacNamara (Dolly Read), Casey Anderson (Cynthia Myers), and Petronella "Pet" Danforth (Marcia McBroom)—perform in a rock band, The Kelly Affair, managed by Harris Allsworth (David Gurian), Kelly's boyfriend. The four travel to Los Angeles to find Kelly's estranged aunt, Susan Lake (Phyllis Davis), heiress to a family fortune. Susan welcomes Kelly and her friends, even promising a third of her inheritance to her niece, but Susan's sleazy financial advisor Porter Hall (Duncan McLeod) discredits them as "hippies" in an attempt to embezzle her fortune himself. Undeterred, Susan introduces The Kelly Affair to a flamboyant, well-connected rock producer, Ronnie "Z-Man" Barzell (John LaZar), who coaxes them into an impromptu performance at one of his outrageous parties (after a set by real-life band Strawberry Alarm Clock). The band is so well-received that becomes their Svengali-style manager, changing their name to The Carrie Nations and starting a long-simmering feud with Harris.
1059969	The Strangers is a 2008 American horror film written and directed by Bryan Bertino and starring Liv Tyler, Scott Speedman, Glenn Howerton, Gemma Ward, Laura Margolis and Kip Weeks. The film revolves around a young couple who are terrorized by three masked assailants, who break into the remote summer home in which they are staying and damage all means of escape. "The Strangers" was made on a budget of $9 million and after two postponements was released theatrically on May 30, 2008, in North America. It grossed $82.3 million at the box office worldwide. Marketed as "inspired by true events", writer and director Bryan Bertino stated that the film was inspired by a series of break-ins that occurred in his neighborhood as a child, as well as some incidents that occurred during the Manson killings. Critical reaction to the film was mixed. Plot. In a recorded 911 call, a boy screams that he and his friend found two bodies lying in blood in an old vacation home. Kristen McKay and James Hoyt arrive at a remote summer vacation home owned by James's parents after attending a friend's wedding reception. He had proposed to her there, but she refused. James calls his friend Mike to come pick him up in the morning. Shortly after 4 a.m., a young blonde woman, whose face is obscured by low lighting, knocks on the front door asking for Tamara, but leaves after James and Kristen tell her she is at the wrong house. A short while later, James leaves to get Kristen a pack of cigarettes, and the woman returns and begins to pound harshly on the front door. Kristen refuses to open up, locks all the doors, and tries to call James on her cell phone, when she discovers that the phone battery is running dead. She plugs it into the wall to charge near the fireplace and calls James on the house phone briefly before the line goes dead. She returns to the fireplace to retrieve her cell phone, but it has disappeared. Hearing a noise from the back door, she grabs a large kitchen knife and opens the curtains, seeing a man wearing a sack mask over his head. Kristen screams and trips over a record player, and it begins to play Gillian Welch's "My First Lover" repeatedly. James returns and the two try to escape, but the intruders wreck their car and force them to barricade themselves in a closet with a shotgun. Mike arrives early to find the house in disarray. James shoots Mike, thinking him an intruder. After James and Kristen realize they killed Mike, James remembers an old radio transmitter in the backyard shed. James leaves the house, promising Kristen that he will return in a few minutes, but Kristen soon goes to the shed herself. There, she finds the radio, which she uses to try and contact someone for help, but when she raises her voice, One of the intruders, wearing a Pin-Up Girl mask, appears and smashes the radio. Kristen returns to the house to look for James. As she walks down the hall, the power is switched off and then she hears a few keys being played on the piano, followed by footsteps. The Man in the Mask enters the hallway, but does not notice Kristen, as he is looking in the other direction. Kristen hides in the kitchen pantry while the man searches the hallway. He sits down at the table a few feet away from the closet before leaving the room. Kristen peers out of the closet, only to find the blond, masked woman staring back at her. The woman breaks the pantry door in, but suddenly stops. Kristen exits the closet to find the woman waiting for her with a knife. Kristen opens a kitchen drawer to arm herself as well when James is pushed into the house by the masked man, who now has the gun. When James tells Kristen to run, she sprints for the front door, only to find Pin-Up Girl blocking her way. She runs into a bedroom and slams the door before attempting to escape through the window, and suddenly the lights come back on and the door swings open. Kristen walks back toward the hall to see who opened the door, when the Man in the Mask grabs her and throws her into the wall. Barely conscious, she is dragged down the hallway. James and Kristen wake up the next day and find themselves tied to chairs in the living room while the three strangers stand over them. Before removing their masks, Pin-Up Girl walks into the kitchen and returns with a large knife. Kristen asks, "Why are you doing this to us?" and Dollface answers, "Because you were home" (hinting they were looking for a random victim). The strangers take turns stabbing James and Kristen, seemingly to death. After the strangers leave, Kristen hears Mike's phone ringing near his body and crawls toward it, but then the man wearing the sack mask appears behind her and takes the phone before leaving the house. The trio leaves in an old pick-up truck and spot two young Christian boys prompting them to stop. Dollface takes one of the fliers that they are handing out and one of the boys asks her if she is a sinner, to which she replies, "Sometimes". As they drive away, Pin-Up Girl tells her, "It'll be easier next time." The trio leaves and the boys arrive at the house, finding the car windows crashed and the door open. The boys head in the house in curiosity only to find James and Kristen lying unmoving in the living room. One of the boys goes up to Kristen, and as he is about to touch her, she grabs his arm and screams in terror as the scene blacks out. Production. Screenplay and inspiration. Director Bryan Bertino also wrote the film's script, which was originally titled "The Faces". Bertino took a particular interest in the horror genre, noting how one can connect to an audience by scaring them. He also stated that he was significantly inspired by thriller films of the 1970s while writing the film. According to production notes, the film was inspired by true events from director Bryan Bertino's childhood: a stranger came to his home asking for someone who was not there, and Bertino later found out that empty homes in the neighborhood had been broken into that night: In interviews, Bertino stated he was "very impressed" with some of the theories circulating on the Internet about the "true events" the movie is allegedly based on, but said his main inspiration was from the true crime book "Helter Skelter"; some have said that the film was also inspired by the Keddie Cabin Murders of 1981 that occurred in a small vacation community in California's Sierra Nevada. Casting. When casting the two leads in the film, Bertino sought Liv Tyler for the part of Kristen; Tyler, who had not worked for several years due to the birth of her son, read the script out of a stack of others she had been offered; "It spoke to me", she said. "I especially liked Bryan's way of saying a lot, but not saying everything. Often in movies, it's all spelled out for you, and the dialogue is very explanatory. But Bryan doesn't write like that; he writes how normal people communicate—with questions lingering. I knew it would be interesting to act that." Canadian actor Scott Speedman was cast as James, Kristen's longtime boyfriend. Speedman was also riveted by the script: "The audience actually gets time to breathe with the characters before things get scary as hell. That got me interested from the first pages", he said. In casting the three masked intruders, Bertino chose Australian fashion model Gemma Ward for the part of Dollface, feeling she had the exact "look" he had imagined. In preparing for the role, which was her first major acting part, Ward read "Helter Skelter" for inspiration. Kip Weeks was then cast as the looming Man in the Mask, and television actress Laura Margolis, who found the script to be a real "page turner", was cast in the part of Pin-Up Girl. Filming. On a $9 million budget, filming for "The Strangers" began on October 10, 2006, and finished in early 2007 – the movie was filmed on location roughly ten miles outside of Florence, South Carolina, and the house interior was constructed by a set crew. Though the film takes place in 2005, the house itself was deliberately constructed with an architecture reminiscent of 1970s ranch homes and dressed in furnishings applicable to the era. During production, it was reported that star Liv Tyler came down with tonsillitis due to screaming so much. Despite some weather complications, the film was largely shot in chronological order. Marketing and promotion. In late July 2007, director Bertino and stars Liv Tyler and Scott Speedman attended San Diego's annual Comic-Con event to promote the film; all three were present for a questions-and-answers panel session, as well as a screening of the film's official teaser trailer; this trailer was released on the internet several weeks later, and can be found on YouTube. It was not until March 2008 that a full-length trailer for the film was released, which can be found on Apple's QuickTime trailer gallery. The trailer originally began running in theaters attached to Rogue Pictures' sci-fi film "Doomsday" (2008) in March 2008, and television advertisements began airing on networks in early-mid April 2008 to promote the film's May release. Two one-sheet posters for the film were released in August 2007, one showing the three masked Strangers, and the other displaying a wounded Liv Tyler. In April 2008, roughly two months before the film's official theatrical debut, the final, official one-sheet for the film was released, featuring Liv Tyler standing in a darkened kitchen with a masked man looming behind her in the shadows. Release. The producers originally planned for a summer release in 2007, which was eventually postponed to November 2007. It was pushed back yet one more time, and officially opened in the United States and Canada on May 30, 2008; in its opening weekend, the film grossed $20,997,985 in 2,467 theaters, ranking #3 at the box office and averaging $8,514 per theater. As of June 23, 2008 the film has grossed $52,597,610 in the U.S. alone exceeding industry estimates, and is considered a large box office success considering the production budget was a mere $9 million. The film opened in the United Kingdom later that summer on August 29, 2008, and as of September 21, 2008, had grossed £4,025,916. The overall box office return was highly successful for a horror film earning an outstanding $82.3 million at the box office worldwide. The movie received a rating of R from the MPAA. Critical reception. The film received mixed reviews from critics. It holds a rating of 45% on Rotten Tomatoes, based on 146 reviews. Metacritic reported an average score of 47 out of 100, based on 27 reviews. Among the positive reviews, Jeannette Catsoulis of The New York Times said "The Strangers" is "suspenseful," "highly effective," and "smartly maintain its commitment to tingling creepiness over bludgeoning horror." Michael Rechtshaffen of The Hollywood Reporter called the film a "creepily atmospheric psychological thriller with a death grip on the psychological aspect." James Berardinelli of ReelViews said, "This is one of those rare horror movies that concentrates on suspense and terror rather than on gore and a high body count." Scott Tobias of The Onion's A.V. Club said that "as an exercise in controlled mayhem, horror movies don't get much scarier." Among the moderate to negative reviews, Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film one-and-a-half stars out of four and said, "The movie deserves more stars for its bottom-line craft, but all the craft in the world can't redeem its story." Elizabeth Weitzman of the New York Daily News said that "Bertino does an excellent job building dread" and that the film is "more frightening than the graphic torture scenes in movies like "Hostel" and "Saw"," but criticized the "undeveloped protagonists" for being "colossally stupid and frustratingly passive." Stephen Hunter of the Washington Post panned the film, calling it "a fraud from start to finish." Mick LaSalle of the San Francisco Chronicle, said the film "uses cinema to ends that are objectionable and vile," but admitted that "it does it well, with more than usual skill." Additional positive feedback for the film came from Joblo.com reviewer Berge Garabedian, who praised director Bertino for "building the tension nicely, with lots of silences, creepy voices, jump scares, use of songs and a sharp eye behind the camera, as well as plenty of Steadicam give it all more of a voyeuristic feel." Empire Magazine remarked on the film's retro-style, saying, "Like much recent horror, from the homages of the Grindhouse gang through flat multiplex remakes of drive-in classics, The Strangers looks to the '70s.", and ultimately branded the film as "an effective, scary emotional work-out." Slant Magazine's Nick Schager listed "The Strangers" as the 9th best film of 2008. Also, the film was ranked #13 on "Bravo's 13 Scarier Movie Moments" television piece. Home media. "The Strangers" was released on DVD and Blu-ray in the United States on October 21, 2008. Both the Blu-ray and DVD feature rated and unrated versions of the film, with the unrated edition running approximately two minutes longer. Bonus materials include two deleted scenes and a making-of featurette. The DVD was released in the UK on December 26, 2008. The film was available on Universal VOD (Video on Demand) from November 19, 2008 through March 31, 2009. Soundtrack. The soundtrack of this film was released on the May 27, 2008. The album consists completely of 19 scores composed by score producer tomandandy. The soundtrack was distributed by Lakeshore Records. The album was received with generally positive reviews by critics. "It's a creepy score for what appears to be a movie that will make you jump as well as make sure that the doors are locked at night," writes reviewer Jeff Swindoll. "This is an impressive score and adds a tremendous chill-factor to the film," says Zach Freeman, grading it with an A. Sequel. Rogue Pictures' producers confirmed to "Variety" that a sequel is in the works, tentatively titled "The Strangers: Part II". The film will be written by Bryan Bertino and directed by Laurent Briet. "Shock Till You Drop" reported that "Realitivity Media" put "The Strangers: Part 2" on hold because they found that the movie might not be in their interest, even though Universal Pictures is willing to release it. However, Rogue Pictures confirmed in January 2011 that the sequel is now in production, and was supposed to begin filming as early as April 2011. The plot follows a family of four who have been evicted from their home due to the economy, and are paid a visit by the same three strangers from the first film. It is not known whether the sequel will receive a theatrical or a straight-to-DVD release. Liv Tyler will return as Kristen McKay while the original three masked villains are also set to return, however, in an interview Tyler had announced that she would only have a minor role. According to Liv Tyler, "The Strangers Part II" will be released in 2014.
1382990	Goodbye Bafana (released on DVD in the United States as The Color of Freedom) is a 2007 drama film, directed by Bille August, about the relationship between Nelson Mandela (Dennis Haysbert) and James Gregory (Joseph Fiennes), his censor officer and prison guard, based on Gregory's book "Goodbye Bafana: Nelson Mandela, My Prisoner, My Friend". The movie also explores the relationship of James Gregory and his wife as their life changes while Mandela is under Gregory's watch.
394167	Doona Bae (born October 11, 1979) is a South Korean actress and photographer. She first became known outside Korea for her roles as the protagonist's political activist girlfriend Cha Young-mi in Park Chan-wook's "Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance" (2002), as archer Park Nam-ju in Bong Joon-ho's "The Host" (2006), and as an inflatable sex doll-come-to-life in Hirokazu Koreeda's "Air Doll" (2009). She then had a starring role as the revolutionary clone Sonmi~451 in the film "Cloud Atlas" (2012), directed by The Wachowskis and Tom Tykwer. Life and career. Bae Doona was born in Seoul, South Korea. Growing up, Bae would follow her mother, Kim Hwa-young, a famous stage actress in Korea, around the theater and rehearsal halls, learning the lines of dialogue as she went along. This did not initially lead Bae towards acting, saying: "People might say that since my mother is a theater actor, I became an actress. But to me, those experiences probably had the opposite effect. On the contrary, because I saw many great actors working with my mother, I thought this was a job only people with extraordinary talent could do."
1247322	Lester Alvin Burnett (March 18, 1911 – February 16, 1967), better known as Smiley Burnette, was a popular American country music performer and a comedic actor in Western films and on radio and TV, playing sidekick to Gene Autry and other B-movie cowboys. He was also a prolific singer-songwriter who could play as many as 100 musical instruments, some simultaneously. His career, beginning in 1934, spanned four decades, including a regular role on CBS-TV's "Petticoat Junction" in the 1960s. Biography. Lester A. Burnett (he added the final "e" later in life) was born in Summum, Illinois, on March 18, 1911, and grew up in Ravenwood, Missouri. He began singing as a child and learned to play a wide variety of instruments by ear, yet never learned to read or write music. In his teens he worked in vaudeville and, starting in 1929, at the state's first commercial radio station, WDZ-AM in Tuscola, Illinois. Burnette came by his nickname while creating a character for a WDZ children's program. He was reading Mark Twain’s "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County" at the time, which included a character named Jim Smiley. He named the radio character Mr. Smiley and soon adopted the moniker as his own, dropping the title. Film career. His break came in December 1933, when he was hired by Gene Autry to play accordion on "National Barn Dance" on Chicago's WLS-AM, on which Autry was the major star. As sound films became popular, Hollywood sought musical talent for Western films; and in 1934, producer Nat Levine cast the duo in their film debut (unbilled) as part of a bluegrass band in Mascot Pictures' "In Old Santa Fe" starring Ken Maynard. Burnette sang and played accordion, and the film included two of his compositions. He had other small parts until a secondary but more prominent role in the 1935 serial "The Adventures of Rex and Rinty". That same year, Levine gave Autry his first starring role in the 12-part serial "The Phantom Empire", with Burnette playing "Oscar," a comic relief role. Mascot was soon absorbed by Republic Pictures Corp., and Burnette teamed up with Autry for the studio as his lovable comedic sidekick, Frog Millhouse, with his trademark floppy black hat. Their association produced 62 feature-length musical westerns. Frog was known for sometimes singing in a deep, froglike, croaking voice. By 1940, he ranked second only to Autry in a "Boxoffice" magazine popularity poll of Western stars, the lone sidekick among the top ten (though rumored that off screen he earned a reputation as being moody and tempramental), and when Autry left for World War II service, Burnette provided a sidekick to Eddie Dew, Sunset Carson, and Bob Livingston and appeared in nine other films with Roy Rogers. He had a fan club and was especially popular among juvenile fans. Burnette's movie horse, white with a black-ringed left eye, also became famous, first as Black-eyed Nellie, then as Ring-eyed Nellie, and finally as just Ring Eye. After leaving Republic in June 1944, he became the sidekick to Charles Starrett at Columbia Pictures in the long-running "Durango Kid" series. Starrett starred in the series from 1945 until 1952, and the pairing resulted in 56 films. When the series ended, Burnette rejoined Autry for Autry's final six films, all released by Columbia Pictures in 1953. Singer-songwriter. Burnette wrote more than 400 songs and sang a significant number of them on screen. His Western classic, "Ridin’ Down the Canyon (To Watch the Sun Go Down)," was later recorded by Willie Nelson, Riders in the Sky, and Johnnie Lee Wills. Other compositions included "On the Strings of My Lonesome Guitar" (Jimmy Wakely's theme song in the 1940s), "Fetch Me Down My Trusty .45," "Ridin' All Day," and "It's Indian Summer" as well as "The Wind Sings a Cowboy Song," "The Old Covered Wagon," and "Western Lullaby." He also composed musical scores for such films as "The Painted Stallion" and "Waterfront Lady". His songs were recorded by a wide range of singers, including Bing Crosby, Ferlin Husky, and Leon Russell. His performance of "Steamboat Bill" appeared on "The Billboard's" country chart in 1939. Inventor. Burnette devised and built some of his unusual musical instruments in his home workshop. His "Jassackaphone," for example, which he played in the film "The Singing Cowboy", resembled an organ with pipes, levers, and pull mechanisms. In the 1940s, he invented and patented an early home audiovisual system called "Cinevision Talkies." Each package contained a 78 rpm record with four of his songs and fifteen 35mm slides. The slides were to be projected in order and advanced each time a short tone played on the record during the songs. An inside cover of the record album was white so that those with no projector and screen could simply shine a flashlight through the slides and view them on the cover. He also devised more than a dozen clever uses for a common wire clothes hanger and demonstrated several of them during a TV show guest appearance. Radio and television. He also made regular appearances on ABC-TV's "Ozark Jubilee" from Springfield. In early 1957, when quiz shows were popular, he filmed a pilot for a proposed ABC-TV series to originate from Springfield called "Pig 'N Poke," a quiz show with a country theme, although ABC did not buy the show. As the 1960s began, Burnette continued to make personal appearances at drive-ins, fairs, hospitals, town squares, and rodeos. Among other venues, he once appeared with Dewey Brown and the Oklahoma Playboys at a Friday night dance at Jump's Roller Rink in Fairfax, Oklahoma. In the mid 1960s, he portrayed railway engineer Charley Pratt on the CBS-TV programs "Petticoat Junction" (106 episodes) and "Green Acres" (7 episodes). Restaurateur. Burnette enjoyed cooking and opened a restaurant chain in the 1950s called The Checkered Shirt, the first A-frame drive-ins. The first location was in Orlando, Florida, and two locations still exist in Redding and Escondido, California, but are no longer owned by the Burnette family. Death. Just after completing the fourth season of "Petticoat Junction", Burnette became ill. On February 16, 1967, a month before his 56th birthday, he died in Encino, California, from leukemia and was interred in Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Hollywood Hills, California. Legacy. Burnette donated his original hat and shirt to the Cowboy Hall of Fame in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, in 1962. In 1971, he was inducted posthumously into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame. For his contributions to the motion picture industry, Burnette has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6125 Hollywood Boulevard, dedicated in 1986. In 1998, he was inducted into the Western Music Association. On May 5, 2012 he was inducted into the Cowtown Society of Western Music Hall of Fame as a Hero. Burnette is mentioned in the Statler Brothers' 1973 country music hit "Whatever Happened to Randolph Scott?" (later the title of a 1994 Scott biography), which reached No. 22 on the country chart.
1017817	Betty Ting Pei (, born 19 February 1947) is a Taiwanese actress who joined Shaw Brothers in 1967. Despite acting in more than 30 movies, nowadays she is known because of the untimely death of Bruce Lee in her apartment. Career. Born Tang Mei Li, Betty started her acting career with "China Motion Picture Corporation" in Taiwan. In January 1967, after acting in six Taiwanese films, she was spotted by Shaw Brothers' director, Peter Pan Lei, and thereafter adopted the screen name of "Ting Pei." Her first film in Hong Kong was "The Purple Shell", where she acted as a dance hostess. Although Betty had acted in dramas, comedies, musicals and martial arts films, she is better known in Asia for her mistress roles and her many bedroom scenes. She was a regular of director Inoue Umetsugu, for whom she performed in the musicals, "The Millionaire Chase", "The Yellow Muffler", and "The Brain Stealers". In 1973, Betty became a freelance actress, and continued to make films both in her native Taiwan, as well as in Hong Kong. Relationship with Bruce Lee. On 20 July 1973, Ting received media attention when Bruce Lee died in her apartment at 67 Beacon Hill Road, Kowloon Tong, Hong Kong. According to press reports, Lee was going over the script of "Game of Death" in Betty's apartment, a Golden Harvest film in which she was reported to have a lead role, when he complained of a headache. She gave him a single tablet of "Equagesic", a strong aspirin-based drug that she often used herself. He then went to sleep, but when she could not wake him up for a dinner appointment with Raymond Chow, the owner of Golden Harvest, Betty called an ambulance. Lee was rushed to Queen Elizabeth Hospital where he was pronounced dead on arrival. Death was allegedly caused by an allergic reaction that resulted in brain edema (swelling of the brain). The coroner described his passing as "death by misadventure." After Lee's death, Ting appeared in several other Hong Kong films, including the Hui Brothers' comedy, "Games Gamblers Play" (1974) which broke box office records. She subsequently married Charles Heung, the head of "Win's Film Co.", but the marriage did not last. In 1985, she retired from show business and allegedly became a Buddhist nun after appearing in her last movie, "My Name Ain't Suzie".
589004	Mera Naam Joker (translation: "My Name is Joker") is a 1970 Hindi film directed by Raj Kapoor. The screenplay was written by Khwaja Ahmad Abbas. This film was the debut of Rishi Kapoor. "Mera Naam Joker" is a film about a clown who must make his audience laugh at the cost of his own sorrows. Plot. "Mera Naam Joker" is the story of Raju, considered the best circus clown ever. Ever since Raju's father died in an accident during his performance, Raju's mother had been repulsed by the circus. As luck would have it, Raju had a natural affinity towards the circus world. The film traces Raju's journey from his childhood to the day of his last performance. The first chapter is about the adolescent Raju and deals with his infatuation with his teacher Mary (Simi Garewal). She gives him confidence in himself, and he discovers the world of femininity and desire. But of course she's older than him, and he attends her wedding in a state of false merriment. Mary's lessons nevertheless aren't lost: Raju comes to realise that he was born to make the world laugh, despite his own troubles.
1061128	Hayden Christensen (born April 19, 1981) is a Canadian actor. He appeared in Canadian television programs when he was young, then diversified into American television in the late 1990s. He moved on to minor acting roles before being praised for his role of Sam in "Life as a House", for which he was nominated for a Golden Globe Award and Screen Actors Guild Award. He gained international fame portraying the young Anakin Skywalker / Darth Vader in ' and '. Early life. Christensen was born in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, the son of Alie Nelson, an American speechwriter for the heads of large companies, and David Christensen, a computer programmer and communications executive. Because of his mother, Christensen has dual citizenship with the U.S. and his native Canada. His father is of Danish and English descent and his mother has Swedish and Italian ancestry. Christensen has an older brother and sister, Tove and Hejsa, and a younger sister, Kaylen. Raised outside Toronto in Thornhill, Ontario, Christensen attended E.J. Sand Public School, Baythorn Public School and Unionville High School in Unionville, Ontario, Canada. He was an athlete in high school, playing hockey competitively and tennis on a provincial level. He spent summers on Long Island with his maternal grandmother, Rose Schwartz, and attended the Actors Studio in New York as well as the Arts York program for drama at his high school. He was "discovered" when his older sister Hejsa, a former trampoline champion, was shopping around for an agent after she landed a role in a Pringles commercial. Career. 1993–2005. Christensen's first acting role was on the television series "Family Passions", which aired on Canadian television in September 1993, when he was 12. The following year he acquired a minor role in John Carpenter's "In the Mouth of Madness". From 1995 through 1999, he appeared in several movies and television shows, including "Harrison Bergeron", "Forever Knight", "Goosebumps", "The Virgin Suicides", and "Are You Afraid of the Dark?". He acquired wider notice while starring in Fox Family Channel's television series "Higher Ground" in 2000, portraying a teen who was sexually molested by his stepmother, and then turned to drugs in his despair. While Christensen's critically acclaimed portrayal of a misunderstood teenager in "Life as a House" (2001) earned him Golden Globe and SAG Award nominations as well as the National Board of Review's award for "Breakthrough Performance of the Year", the performance did not receive widespread public notice. For his part in the movie, Christensen lost 25 pounds through a special diet. He eventually gained the weight back during the filming for "". In 2002, Christensen made his London theatre debut co-starring with Jake Gyllenhaal and Anna Paquin in "This Is Our Youth". He went on to receive good reviews for 2003's "Shattered Glass", which tells the true story of journalist Stephen Glass, who was discovered fabricating stories as a writer for "The New Republic". Peter Travers of "Rolling Stone" wrote, "Hayden Christensen is sensational as Glass, finding the wonder boy and the weasel in a disturbed kid flying high on a fame he hasn't earned." In 2005, Christensen made his Broadway debut when he appeared briefly in a 10-minute play. He was among the big name actors and actresses taking part in the fifth annual "24 Hour Plays" benefit, which raises cash for nonprofit groups in the Big Apple. "Star Wars". On May 12, 2000, Christensen announced that he would be starring as Anakin Skywalker in the next two prequels ' (2002) and ' (2005). Director George Lucas had turned down such big names as Leonardo DiCaprio and Ryan Phillippe for the role, as well as 1,500 other candidates. Lucas is quoted as saying that he chose Christensen because he "needed an actor who has that presence of the dark side" that was essential to solidify the story that Lucas was trying to tell: the tragic fall of Anakin Skywalker and the rise of Darth Vader. In the final two films of the prequel trilogy, Christensen was the only actor portraying a Jedi who was not allowed to customize his character's lightsaber. This was because in "Attack of the Clones "and "Revenge of the Sith", Anakin's lightsaber was designed to match the lightsaber that Obi-Wan Kenobi gives to Luke Skywalker in "". Christensen, during the production of "Revenge of the Sith", asked Lucas if a special Vader suit could be constructed to fit his own body, rather than have a different actor don one of the original sets of Vader armor worn by David Prowse. Lucas agreed, and a suit was engineered to fit Christensen's frame, even including extensions to allow for the actor to attain Vader's . His voice as the "robotic" Vader, however, was dubbed over by James Earl Jones, who first made it famous in the original trilogy. Stock footage of Christensen was used in the 2004 DVD release of "", where he was inserted in place of actor Sebastian Shaw as the ghost of Anakin Skywalker. This was one of the most controversial changes. Christensen insisted this was done without his knowledge, an act that was confirmed by Lucasfilm itself in the featurette "Return of the Jedi: What has changed?" as seen on the official website to commemorate the 2006 DVDs. Christensen's role as Anakin Skywalker made him a star. Although his performance in both "Episodes II" and "III" was met with generally mixed reviews by critics (earning him the Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Supporting Actor in both films) he became popular among audiences, being named in both "People" magazine's 50 Most Beautiful People and "Teen People"'s 25 Hottest Stars under 25. For his performance in "Episode III", he won the MTV Movie Award for Best Villain. 2006–present. In October 2009, Christensen started shooting the horror film "Vanishing on 7th Street", directed by Brad Anderson, alongside Thandie Newton and John Leguizamo. Christensen appeared in the crime drama "Takers" alongside Chris Brown released in the United States on August 27, 2010. "" is the fourth film in which Christensen stars with Samuel L. Jackson. In 2010, Christensen sued USA Network over allegations that they stole his idea for the TV show "Royal Pains". The suit alleges that Christensen met with USA to pitch a similar series entitled "Housecalls". During the meeting, Christensen alleges, he was never informed that a similar program was in development. Although a federal judge at first dismissed Christensen's lawsuit in 2011, in June 2012 the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals decided to reverse the lower court's decision and remand the case back to the district court for further proceedings, in what was considered a big victory for Christensen. On May 20, 2013, during the Cannes Film Festival the Russian company Enjoy Movies announced the creation of "Glacier Films" - an alliance company with Hayden Christensen and his brother Tove Christensen. In 3-year term "Glacier Films" intends to make 11 "micro-budjet" movies worth $1.5M each. First project "American Heist" starring Christensen himself alongside Adrien Brody and Jordana Brewster starts in June 2013 and it's going to be a remake of Steve McQueen's "The Great St. Louis Bank Robbery". Christensen is also set to star in the indie spy thriller "Inner Circle" and "Outcast", an action drama starring Nicolas Cage. Personal life. In 2007, Christensen began dating actress Rachel Bilson, with whom he filmed the movie "Jumper". They became engaged on December 25, 2008. In mid-2010, the couple split up, but were dating again a few months later. Christensen previously dated Sienna Miller for a few months in 2006, after they co-starred in the film "Factory Girl," and reportedly dated his "" co-star Natalie Portman in 2000. Christensen performed a public service announcement for Do Something's Teens for Jeans Campaign in 2008. He appeared as a model in Louis Vuitton's advertising and was also named as the face of Lacoste's newest fragrance, Lacoste Challenge. He was featured in REDs "Lazarus Effect Campaign", which is intended to increase awareness for its efforts to fight AIDS in Africa. On September 16th, 2013, a media wire announced the collaboration between Hayden Christensen and RW&CO., a Canadian Fashion Brand, to design a 20-piece, limited edition Fall/Holiday collection slated for Men. The collection launches on November 7th in RW&CO. stores across Canada and is available through online shopping through its e-commerce website (rw-co.com).
1055282	Saw III is a 2006 Canadian-American horror film directed by Darren Lynn Bousman from a screenplay by Leigh Whannell and story by James Wan and Whannell. Wan and Whannell directed and wrote "Saw" and Bousman wrote and directed "Saw II". It is the third installment in the seven-part "Saw" film series and stars Tobin Bell, Shawnee Smith, Angus Macfadyen, Bahar Soomekh and Dina Meyer. Bell, Smith, Meyer, Donnie Wahlberg and Lyriq Bent reprise their roles from the previous films. Franky G and Tim Burd from "Saw II" make small cameos. "Saw III" marks the first appearances of Costas Mandylor and Betsy Russell, albeit minor roles; they would later become major characters in the series.
1164219	Alan Jeffery Thicke (born Alan Willis Jeffery; March 1, 1947) is a Canadian actor, comedian, songwriter, and game and talk show host. He is best known for his role as Jason Seaver, the father on the ABC television series "Growing Pains," and for being the father of singer-songwriter Robin Thicke. Early life. Thicke was born in Kirkland Lake, Ontario, Canada, the son of Joan, a nurse, and William Jeffery, a stockbroker. His mother later married Brian Thicke, a physician. He graduated from Elliot Lake Secondary School in 1965, and was elected homecoming king. He went on to attend the University of Western Ontario, where he joined the Delta Upsilon fraternity. Career. Game shows. Thicke hosted a Canadian game show on CFCF-TV in Montreal called "First Impressions" in the late 1970s and the prime-time celebrity game show "Animal Crack-Ups" in the late 1980s. In 1997, he hosted a television version of the board game "Pictionary". In the early 2000s, he hosted the "All New 3's a Crowd" on the Game Show Network. Talk shows. Norman Lear hired Thicke to produce and head the writing staff of "Fernwood 2-Night", a tongue-in-cheek talk show based on characters from Lear's earlier show, "Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman". Thicke was also the host of his own popular talk show in Canada during the early 1980s, called "The Alan Thicke Show". The show at one point spawned a prime-time spinoff titled "Prime Cuts", which consisted of edited highlights from the talk show. Based on the success of his talk show, Thicke was signed to do an American syndicated late-night talk show, "Thicke of the Night". Theme song composer. Thicke had a successful career as a TV theme song composer, often collaborating with his then-wife Gloria Loring on these projects, which included the themes to the popular sitcoms "Diff'rent Strokes" and "The Facts of Life". He also wrote a number of TV game show themes, including "The Wizard of Odds" (for which he also sang the vocal introduction), "The Joker's Wild", "Celebrity Sweepstakes", "The Diamond Head Game", "Blank Check", "Stumpers!", "Whew!", and the original theme to "Wheel of Fortune". Thicke has also been a popular songwriter. He co-wrote "Sara," a solo hit for Bill Champlin and included on the latter's "Runaway" album (1981). Television and film appearances. Thicke co-hosted the Walt Disney World Very Merry Christmas Parade (now the Disney Parks Christmas Day Parade) with Joan Lunden from 1983 to 1990, when he was succeeded by Regis Philbin. Apart from "Growing Pains", Thicke also appeared on the American television series "Hope & Gloria", which ran for 35 episodes. He played a lead role in the Not Quite Human trilogy of made-for-TV movies. In 2004, Thicke hosted the Miss Universe Canada pageant. In April 2006, he hosted "Celebrity Cooking Showdown" on NBC, in which celebrities were teamed with famous chefs in a cooking competition. In August 2006 and 2007, Thicke made a few appearances as talk show host Rich Ginger on "The Bold and the Beautiful". Thicke also had a cameo appearance in the 2007 movie "Alpha Dog" as the father of the lead character's girlfriend. In 2008, Thicke appeared in a major supporting role as Jim Jarlewski in the television series adaptation of Douglas Coupland's "jPod". That same year, he had a cameo appearance in the "How I Met Your Mother" episode "Sandcastles in the Sand" as the dad in Robin Scherbatsky's second "Robin Sparkles" music video. He guest starred as himself in the episode "The Rough Patch". He appeared on a website made specifically for the show, canadiansexacts.org, featured in the episode "Old King Clancy". In February 2009, Thicke made a guest appearance on adult swim's "Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job". In the same month, he made a guest appearance on the web series "Star-ving". He also had a role in the 2009 film "". On July 10, 2009, Thicke appeared on the 1000th episode of "Attack Of The Show", and sang a song with Kevin Pereira and Olivia Munn, at the end kissing Munn. Thicke appeared in the season six finale of "Just Shoot Me", "The Boys in the Band". He made a guest appearance on a few episodes of "Canada's Worst Handyman 5". In 2010, Thicke appeared on the television program, "Tosh.0". In October 2010, he appeared as a celebrity contestant on "Don't Forget the Lyrics", where he played for the charities ProCon.org and the Alan Thicke Center for diabetes research. In March 2013, Thicke participated on ABC's "Celebrity Wife Swap". He swapped wives with comedian Gilbert Gottfried. Personal life. Thicke has been married three times. His first marriage, to "Days of our Lives" actress Gloria Loring (1970–83), produced two sons, Brennan and Robin Thicke. His second marriage, to Miss World 1990 Gina Tolleson (1994–99), produced a third son, Carter William (1997). In 1999, he met Tanya Callau in Miami, where he was the celebrity host, she the model. They married in 2005.
1017492	Once Upon a Time in China is a 1991 Hong Kong martial arts action film written and directed by Tsui Hark and starring Jet Li as Chinese folk hero Wong Fei-hung. It is the first film in the "Once Upon a Time in China" film series. Plot. Locals are concerned with the growing influence and presence of Westerners and foreigners in Foshan. General Liu Yongfu of the Black Flag Army approaches Wong Fei-hung and requests that the latter help him muster and train a militia to assist in defending the town. Among those recruited by Wong are the butcher Porky Wing and an American-educated Chinese called Bucktooth So. Wong meets Siu-kwan, who is around the same age as him, and whom he addresses respectfully as "13th Aunt". Although they are not direct blood relations, her father was a sworn brother of Wong's grandfather so she is considered to be Wong's elder. They develop romantic feelings for each other but their relationship is often restrained as it is considered taboo in traditional culture. Leung Foon arrives in town with an opera troupe to stage performances. He runs into some trouble with the Shaho Gang, which terrorises local businesses by demanding "protection money" from them. He accidentally runs into 13th Aunt and falls in love with her. After being fired from the team, Leung meets a martial artist called "Iron Vest" Yim and becomes the latter's student. Yim wants to make his name and establish a martial arts school in Foshan, but he knows that he must first defeat Wong, the best fighter in town. Meanwhile, the Shaho Gang sets fire to Wong's clinic Po-chi-lam as a warning after Wong interfered when they caused trouble in town. The gangsters later seek shelter under the Americans from the Sino-Pacific Company after the governor issued orders for their arrests. In return for protection from the authorities, the thugs aid foreigners in human trafficking by kidnapping local women to be sold to distant lands as prostitutes. The Shaho Gang's boss meets Yim and agrees to help him if the latter allies with his gang and the Americans. The Shaho Gang abduct 13th Aunt while she is assisting an escaped labourer from America to avoid the local government's inspection. Wong and his followers are thrown into prison for fighting with soldiers sent by the authorities while buying time for 13th Aunt and the labourer to flee. The guards release Wong and his companions out of respect for them. Just then, Bucktooth So reports to Wong that 13th Aunt has been captured by the Shaho Gang. Wong and his men disguise themselves and infiltrate the Americans' base and defeat the foreigners and gangsters after a battle. Wong faces Yim in a man-on-man fight and overcomes the latter. Yim is killed by gunfire from the Americans, who were actually targeting Wong. Wong and his companions eventually succeed in rescuing 13th Aunt and the kidnapped women, and Wong kills the American leader Jackson by hurling an unused bullet into the latter's forehead with his fingers. At the end of the film, Leung Foon is seen being accepted by Wong as a student. Release. "Once Upon a Time in China" was released in Hong Kong on August 15, 1991. Reception. Once Upon a Time in China was given highly favorable reviews from film critics. Rotten Tomatoes reported a score of 89%. Box office. "Once Upon a Time in China" is largely credited with starting the period martial arts craze of the early to mid 1990s. It was a box office hit. The film ran for almost two months, the longest duration for any of the series, and grossed $29,672,278 HKD in Hong Kong.[http://hkmdb.com/db/movies/view.mhtml?id=7441&display_set=eng]
1069898	Sidney Hooper Toler (April 28, 1874 – February 12, 1947) was an American actor, playwright, and theatre director. Of primarily Scottish ancestry, he was the second non-Asian actor to play the role of Charlie Chan. Early life and career. Born in Warrensburg, Missouri, Toler showed a very early interest in the theater, acting in an amateur production of "Tom Sawyer" at the age of seven. Following his graduation from college, he became a professional actor in Kansas City, and then worked for a touring company during the late 1890s. For three decades, he acted on the stage in New York City, working with such future stars as Edward G. Robinson, John Barrymore, Katharine Hepburn, and Humphrey Bogart. In 1921, he co-wrote and directed "Golden Days", a comedy starring Helen Hayes. Throughout the 1920s, Toler had an active role in co-writing or directing several other plays including "The Exile" (1923), "Bye, Bye, Barbara" (1924), and "Ritzy" (1930, co-written with Viva Tattersall). In 1929, Toler worked in his first Hollywood film, playing an Englishman in "Madame X". For nearly ten years, he worked in roles that supported well-known stars in films such as "Blonde Venus" (1932), starring Marlene Dietrich, "The Phantom President" (1932), with George M. Cohan, and "Trigger" (1934), featuring Clark Gable. Charlie Chan series. Following the death of Warner Oland, Twentieth Century-Fox began the search for a new Charlie Chan. Thirty-four actors were tested before the studio decided on Sidney Toler. Twentieth Century-Fox announced its choice on October 18, 1938, and filming began less than a week later on "Charlie Chan in Honolulu", which had been originally scripted for Warner Oland and Keye Luke. Toler's portrayal of the Chinese detective in "Charlie Chan in Honolulu" was very well received. Besides Toler, there was another change in the series. Sen Yung, as Number Two Son Jimmy, replaced Number One Son Lee, who had been played by Keye Luke. Toler's Chan, rather than merely mimicking the character that Oland had portrayed, had a somewhat sharper edge that was well suited for the rapid changes of the times, both political and cultural. When needed, Charlie Chan now displayed overt sarcasm, usually toward his son Jimmy.
1052136	The Witnesses () is a 2007 French drama film directed by André Téchiné, starring Michel Blanc, Sami Bouajila, Emmanuelle Béart and Johan Libéreau. The film is set in Paris in 1984, the lives of a closely knit group of friends is disrupted with the sudden outbreak of AIDS epidemic. They are witnesses to how happiness has changed. Plot. It is the summer of 1984 in Paris. Sarah, a well-to-do writer of children’s books, and her working-class husband, Mehdi, an inspector of North African descent, are confronting some marital problems after the recent arrival of their first child. Sarah, stumbling over a bout of writer's block, has little maternal instinct towards their newborn baby, whose cries she tunes out with earplugs while she works. Her husband despairs when she neglects the child, does what he can to fill in, and sometimes parks the child with his parents. The couple have an open marriage and both are allowed to take outside lovers in a “don’t ask, don’t tell” arrangement that seems to work, although not without tensions. Meanwhile, Sarah’s close friend Adrien, a middle-aged gay doctor, meets Manu, a carefree young man, at a cruising ground. Manu is not sexually attracted to Adrien and they do not have sex, but strike an emotional friendship. Manu is happy with the friendship and becomes Adrien’s companion and his student of life’s finer things. Wildly in love with his shallow, narcissistic protégé, Adrien is shrewd enough not to push too hard, but there is an element of masochism in his abject devotion. Manu, who has recently arrived to Paris from a provincial town in the south of France, shares a space with his sister Julie, while she struggles to affirm herself as an opera singer. They live in a cheap hotel that is a center of prostitution. This does not bother Manu, and he has a friendly relationship with Sandra, a prostitute. The hotel is under scrutiny by Mehdi, who leads the police force’s vice division. Through Adrien, Manu meets Sarah and Mehdi. The group of friends get together at Sarah’s mother’ summerhouse in the Calanques of Marseille. One afternoon, when Mehdi and Manu go swimming in a remote cove, Mehdi saves Manu from drowning and, while tugging him to shore and administering mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, becomes aroused. Later, when Manu makes a pass at Mehdi, he responds, and they embark on a secret, no-strings-attached love affair. They meet at the holiday camping site outside Paris, where Manu now works as a cook. When Manu confesses to Adrien that he has been having sex with Mehdi, Adrian is furious and hits Manu. After the fight, Adrian discovers spots on Manu's skin; it turns out that he has AIDS. Sarah tries to write a novel, and as a result Mehdi leaves temporarily to stay at his parents with the baby. Adrien becomes a leader in a medical crusade against AIDS, while meanwhile privately taking on Manu's treatment. Mehdi also does not shun his friend when he hears the news, although he is terrified that he has AIDS and cannot bring himself to tell his wife. He wants to see Manu, but Manu does not want to see him in the terrible state he is in. By contrast, Adrien is safe as his relationship with Manu was more companion-based than sexual.
1501878	Paul Stanley Iacono (born September 7, 1988) is an American actor. He is best known for portraying RJ Berger in the MTV scripted series "The Hard Times of RJ Berger". Early years. Iacono was born in Secaucus, New Jersey to Italian American parents Michele and Anthony Iacono, a Town administrator. Iacono went to Professional Performing Arts School in New York with best friend and "Fame" co-star Paul McGill. Career. Iacono's career began when, as a child, he discovered a talent for impersonating Frank Sinatra and Ethel Merman. He took his act to many regional theaters across his home state of New Jersey, and at the age of 4 appeared at New York's Don't Tell Mama cabaret lounge. Iacono was the Oscar Mayer Lunchable "Commercial Kid" in 2000. The same year, he was presented the Life of the Theater Award by the Paper Mill Playhouse in 2000. Iacono first gained wide notice for his numerous appearances on TV's "The Rosie O'Donnell Show" over the course of 6 years from 1997 to 2002.
673552	Im weißen Rößl (English title: White Horse Inn or The White Horse Inn) is an operetta or musical comedy by Ralph Benatzky and Robert Stolz in collaboration with a number of other composers and writers, and set in the picturesque Salzkammergut region of Upper Austria. It is about the head waiter of the White Horse Inn in St. Wolfgang who is desperately in love with the owner of the inn, a resolute young woman who at first only has eyes for one of her regular guests. Sometimes classified as an operetta, the show enjoyed huge successes both on Broadway and in the West End (651 performances at the Coliseum starting 8 April 1931) and was filmed several times. In a way similar to "The Sound of Music" and the three "" movies, the play and its film versions have contributed to the image of Austria as an alpine idyll—the kind of idyll tourists have been seeking for almost a century now. Today, "Im weißen Rößl" is mainly remembered for its songs, many of which have become popular classics. The original play. In the last decade of the 19th century, Oscar Blumenthal, a theatre director from Berlin, Germany, was vacationing in Lauffen (now part of Bad Ischl), a small town in the vicinity of St. Wolfgang. There, at the inn where he was staying, Blumenthal happened to witness the head waiter's painful wooing of his boss, a widow. Amused, Blumenthal used the story as the basis of a comedy—without music—which he co-authored with actor Gustav Kadelburg. However, Blumenthal and Kadelburg relocated the action from Lauffen to the much more prominent St. Wolfgang, where the Gasthof Weißes Rößl had actually existed since 1878. Having thus chanced upon a suitable title, the authors went to work, and "Im weißen Rößl" eventually premiered in Berlin in 1897. The play was an immediate success. The Berlin audience would laugh at the comic portrayal of well-to-do city dwellers such as Wilhelm Giesecke, a producer of underwear, and his daughter Ottilie, who have travelled all the way from Berlin to St. Wolfgang and now, on holiday, cannot help displaying many of the characteristics of the nouveaux-riches. "Wär' ick bloß nach Ahlbeck jefahren"—"If only I had gone to Ahlbeck", Giesecke sighs as he considers his unfamiliar surroundings and the strange dialect spoken by the wild mountain people that inhabit the Salzkammergut. At the same time the play promoted tourism in Austria, especially in and around St. Wolfgang, with a contemporary edition of the Baedeker praising the natural beauty of the region and describing the White Horse Inn as nicely situated at the lakefront next to where the steamboat can be taken for a romantic trip across the Wolfgangsee. The White Horse Inn was even awarded a Baedeker star. The musical comedy. Just as the play was about to be forgotten—a silent film "The White Horse Inn" directed by Richard Oswald and starring Liane Haid had been made in Germany in 1926—it was revived, again in Berlin, and this time as a musical comedy. During a visit to the Salzkammergut, the actor Emil Jannings told Berlin theatre manager Erik Charell about the comedy. Charell was interested and commissioned a group of prominent authors and composers to come up with a musical show based on Blumenthal and Kadelburg's libretto. They were Ralph Benatzky, Robert Stolz and Bruno Granichstaedten (music), Robert Gilbert (lyrics), Hans Müller-Einigen and Charell himself.
774161	Rossif Sutherland (born September 25, 1978) is a Canadian actor. Sutherland was born in Vancouver, British Columbia, the son of Canadian Actors Donald Sutherland and Francine Racette, brother of actor Angus Sutherland, Roeg Sutherland, and half-brother of actor Kiefer Sutherland and his twin sister Rachel. He has appeared in films such as "Timeline" (as Francois Dontelle), and "Red Doors" (as Alex). He had a recurring role on the television show "ER" during its tenth season. Sutherland had a small role in the TV series "Monk" in the episode "Mr. Monk and the Other Detective". His first name comes from the director Frédéric Rossif. Sutherland has since appeared in the movie "Poor Boy's Game" with Danny Glover and Flex Alexander. Sutherland also appeared in the 2009 comedy/drama with Timothy Olyphant in "High Life" and also appeared with Russell Peters, Greg Germann and his father Donald Sutherland in the 2010 Comedy The Con Artist directed by Risa Bramon Garcia. In 2012 he joined the cast of the television show "King".
1162480	Barbara Colby (July 2, 1939 – July 24, 1975) was an American actress. Early career. Born in New York City on July 2, 1939, she started her acting career in the theater. Following a solid performance in "Six Characters in Search of an Author" in 1964, she moved to Broadway with a debut in "The Devils" the following year. Throughout the rest of the decade, she appeared in such plays as "Under Milk Wood", "Murder in the Cathedral" and "Dear Liar", and garnered fine reviews for her Portia in "Julius Caesar" in 1966. Career. Colby's first important television role was in an episode of the television series "Columbo", titled "Murder by the Book" in 1971. Colby began a bi-coastal career and played a host of support/guest roles on such established shows as "The Odd Couple", "McMillan & Wife", "The F.B.I.", "Medical Center", "Kung Fu" and "Gunsmoke". Colby appeared in 1970s plays such as "Aubrey Beardsley the Neophyte", "House of Blue Leaves", "Afternoon Tea" and "Hot l Baltimore". She returned to the classics with an off-Broadway role as Elizabeth in "Richard III", and was back on Broadway with the plays "Murderous Angels" in 1971 and a revival of "A Doll's House" in the early part of 1975.
584860	Nagarjuna Akkineni is an Indian film actor and producer who works primarily in the Telugu Cinema. He has acted in over ninety films as an actor in a lead, supporting and cameo roles, including Bollywood and Tamil films. He has won two National Film Awards, nine state Nandi Awards and three Filmfare Awards South. He received critical reception for his performance in Biographical films. He enacted the roles of 15th century composer Annamacharya in the 1997 film Annamayya, a 17th-century composer Kancherla Gopanna in the 2006 film Sri Ramadasu and Sai Baba of Shirdi in the 2012 film Shirdi Sai. He owns the Production company, Annapurna Studios and is the president of the non-profit film school Annapurna International School of Film and Media based in Hyderabad. He is the co-founder of Blue Cross of Hyderabad, a registered society recognized by the Animal Welfare Board of India. He was listed #56 in Forbes India top 100 Celebrities for the year 2012. In 2013, he has represented Cinema of South India at the Delhi Film Festival's 100 Years of Indian Cinema's celebration, alongside Ramesh Sippy and Vishal Bharadwaj from Bollywood. As of 2013, He is the co-owner of "Mumbai Masters" of "Indian Badminton League" along with Sunil Gavaskar, and "Mahi Racing Team India" along with Mahendra Singh Dhoni. Early life and family. Nagarjuna was born on 29 August 1959 in Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India to actor Nageswara Rao Akkineni and Annapurna Akkineni of the Naidu Family. The family later moved to Hyderabad where he attended the Hyderabad Public School and studied at Little Flower Junior College and got his B.E. from the College of Engineering, Guindy, Chennai. He completed M.S. in Automobile Engineering from Eastern Michigan University. He is the spouse of actress Amala Akkineni, the father of actor Naga Chaitanya Akkineni Acting career. Nagarjuna acted as a child artist in the 1967 Telugu film "Sudigundalu" directed by veteran Adurthi Subbarao. Years later he made his debut as a lead actor through the 1986 Telugu film "Vikram" directed by V. Madhusudhana Rao. In 1988, he starred in "Aakhari Poratam" directed by K. Raghavendra Rao where he was paired opposite Sridevi and Suhasini. In 1989, he was starred in the Maniratnam directed Romantic-drama, "Geetanjali" which became a major box-office success and was critically acclaimed. The film went on to win the National Film Award for Best Popular Film Providing Wholesome Entertainment in 1990. In the same year, Nagarjuna acted in "Siva", an action blockbuster directed by Ram Gopal Varma. In 1990, he subsequently made his Bollywood debut with the Hindi remake of the same film titled "Shiva". He followed it up with action films like "Killer", "Chaithanya" and "Nirnayam" working with eminent directors such as Fazil and Priyadarshan. Other films which were released in the subsequent years include "President Gari Pellam", "Varasudu", "Gharana Bullodu" and "Allari Alludu". In 1994 he starred in a Hindi-Telugu bilingual "Criminal" directed by Mahesh Bhatt. The same year he ventured into comedy for the first time with "Hello Brother". It was later remade into Hindi as "Judwaa" and dubbed into Tamil. In 1996, Nagarjuna starred and produced "Ninne Pelladata", which was directed by Krishna Vamsi. The movie won the National Film Award for Best Feature Film in Telugu and Filmfare Award for Best Film - Telugu that's his first Filmfare Award as a producer. The next year, Nagarjuna acted in "Annamayya" where he portrayed the role of Annamacharya, a 15th-century Telugu singer and poet, won him his Filmfare Best Actor Award and his first Nandi Award for Best Actor. His subsequent releases were "Nuvvu Vastavani", "Ninne Premistha" and "Azad". He starred in the romantic comedies such as "Santosham", "Manmadhudu", and "Shivamani" as well. He produced "Satyam" in 2003, that starred his nephew Sumanth. In 2004, Nagarjuna had two releases, "Nenunnanu" and "Mass". The latter was produced by Nagarjuna and directed by choreographer Lawrence Raghavendra. In 2005, Nagarjuna acted in and produced "Super". In 2006, he starred in "Sri Ramadasu", his second period film based on the 18th-century Telugu composer of the same name. Nagarjuna received the Nandi Award for Best actor for the film. In December 2007, he appeared in "Don" and a year later, he appeared in "King" alongside Trisha Krishnan and Srihari. In the year 2010, he had releases such as "Kedi" and "Ragada". His latest film "Gaganam" was released on 11 February 2011. Its Tamil version was titled "Payanam". In 2011 Nagarjuna signed three movies in a row. They are Rajanna, "Damarukam" and "Shirdi Sai". He recently signed "Greeku Veerudu" which started its shooting in June 2012 and audio release is scheduled to release on 3 April 2013. Television production. Nagarjuna made his début as a television producer in 2009 with the serial "Yuva". He is the brand ambassador for HIV/AIDS .He is one of the major shareholders of the television channel "Maa TV". Charity. Nagarjuna, with his wife Amala, is the co-founder of Blue Cross of Hyderabad, a non-government organization (NGO) in Hyderabad, India, which works towards the welfare of animals and preservation of animal rights. He is also involved in some of the welfare programs undertaken by the MAA TV association. In 2010, he starred in an HIV/AIDS animated software tutorial created by TeachAIDS, a nonprofit founded at Stanford University.
584462	Rasigan () is a Tamil film released on 8 July 1994 and was directed by "S. A. Chandrasekhar". The film stars his son Vijay and Sanghavi. Plot. Vijay (Vijay) is the grandson of Manorama while Anitha (Sanghavi) is the daughter of Raghavan(Vijayakumar) and Bhagyalakshmi (Sri Vidya). Anitha's family rent one of Manorama's houses. Vijay and Anitha pretend to hate each other while they actually are in love. But later Anitha's father came to know the love matter and he requests transfer to Chennai.Before going Anitha leaves her new address on several envelopes and she tells those are love letters given by Vijay, Anitha's father gets angry and takes the letters and went to Vijay's house and tells him to take his useless love letters.After that Vijay takes it and as he looks at it he knows that those aren't love letters, they're all Anitha's new address in Chennai. Vijay tries to find her. One day Vijay goes to a restaurant to eat and he asked the server where is the washroom.The server told him that there is two washrooms, one on the upstairs and another one is here.The server tells him to not go upstairs because it's dangerous.But, Vijay goes upstairs to the bathroom,where he finds the "Blue Film" illegal shooting happening. By this, they blame Vijay for the death of the restaurant owner (who tripped) and Vijay just has to escape. This news reaches Anitha's father who is a police officer. He tries to capture Vijay. The hero fights, runs some more until Raghavan finds out the truth and accepts the marriage between Vijay and Anitha. Soundtrack. There are 6 songs composed by Deva.
900393	Sacco e Vanzetti is an Italian docudrama, made in 1971. It was written and directed by Giuliano Montaldo. The film presents a dramatization of the events surrounding the trial of Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti. The film's soundtrack was composed and conducted by Ennio Morricone. The song "Here's to You" introduced in this film (sung by Joan Baez), was also included in several later films. Awards. Riccardo Cucciolla won the award for Best Actor at the 1971 Cannes Film Festival.
1062256	Cat Ballou is a 1965 comedy/Western film, the story of a woman who hires a notorious gunman to protect her father's ranch, and later to avenge his murder, but finds that the gunman is not what she expected. The movie stars Jane Fonda in the title role, with Lee Marvin, who won an Oscar for his dual role, Michael Callan, Dwayne Hickman, and singers Nat King Cole and Stubby Kaye, who together perform the movie's theme song. The film was directed by Elliot Silverstein from a screenplay by Walter Newman and Frank Pierson from the novel "The Ballad of Cat Ballou" by Roy Chanslor. Chanslor's novel was a serious Western, and though it was turned into a comedy for the movie, the filmmakers retained some darker elements. The film references many classic Western films, notably "Shane". Plot. Catherine Ballou (Jane Fonda), an aspiring schoolteacher, is returning home by train to Wolf City, Wyoming, to the ranch of her father, Frankie Ballou (John Marley). On the way, she unwittingly helps accused cattle rustler Clay Boone (Michael Callan) elude his captor, the sheriff (Bruce Cabot), when Boone's Uncle Jed (Dwayne Hickman), a drunkard disguised as a preacher, distracts the lawman. At the ranch, she learns that the Wolf City Development Corporation is scheming to take the ranch from her father, whose sole defender is an educated Indian, Jackson Two-Bears (Tom Nardini). Clay and Jed appear and reluctantly offer to help Catherine. She hires legendary gunfighter Kid Shelleen (Lee Marvin) to help protect her father from fast-draw Tim Strawn (also Marvin), alias Silvernose, the hired killer who is threatening Frankie. Shelleen arrives, a drunken stumblebum, unable to hit the broad side of a barn and whose pants fall down when he draws his gun. Strawn kills Frankie, and when the townspeople refuse to bring him to justice, Catherine becomes a revenge-seeking outlaw known as Cat Ballou. She and her gang rob a train carrying the Wolf City payroll, and Shelleen, inspired by his love for Cat (unrequited because she loves Clay), shapes up and kills Strawn. Later he casually reveals that Strawn was his brother. Cat poses as a lady of loose morals and confronts town boss Sir Harry Percival (Reginald Denny), owner of the Wolf City Development Corporation. A struggle ensues, Sir Harry is killed, and Cat is sentenced to be hanged on the gallows. Just as the noose is placed around her neck, Uncle Jed (again as a preacher) cuts the rope as she falls through the trapdoor. Her gang then spirits her away in a daring rescue. Cast. Cast notes Awards and honors. In his Oscar acceptance speech, Lee Marvin opened by saying, "I think I should be sharing this award with a horse somewhere out there in the San Fernando Valley," a reference to the horse Kid Shelleen rode, who appeared to be as drunk as Shelleen was. In June 2008, AFI revealed its "Ten top Ten"—the best ten films in ten "classic" American film genres—after polling over 1,500 people from the creative community. "Cat Ballou" was acknowledged as the tenth best film in the Western genre. References. Notes
1061550	Gilbert Roland (December 11, 1905May 15, 1994) was a Mexican-born American film actor. Biography. He was born Luis Antonio Dámaso de Alonso in Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, Mexico and originally intended to become a bullfighter like his father. When the family moved to the United States, however, he became interested in acting when he was picked at random for a role as an extra. He chose his screen name by combining the names of his favorite actors, John Gilbert and Ruth Roland. He was often cast in the typical ""Latin Lover"" role. Roland's first major role was in the collegiate comedy "The Plastic Age" (1925) together with Clara Bow, to whom he became engaged. In 1927, he played Armand in "Camille" opposite Norma Talmadge, with whom he was romantically involved, and they starred together in several productions. Roland later appeared in Spanish language adaptations of American films, in romantic lead roles. Beginning in the 1940s, critics began to take notice of his acting and he was praised for his supporting roles in John Huston's "We Were Strangers" (1949), "The Bad and the Beautiful" (1952), "Thunder Bay" (1953), and "Cheyenne Autumn" (1964). He also appeared in a series of films in the mid-1940s as the popular character ""The Cisco Kid"". He played Hugo, the agnostic (and totally fictional) friend of the three shepherd children in "The Miracle of Our Lady of Fatima", based on the apparitions of Our Lady of Fatima in 1917. In 1953 he starred in the epic "Beneath the 12-Mile Reef" as Greek-American sponge diver Mike Petrakis. His last film appearance was in the 1982 western "Barbarosa". Personal life. Roland was married to actress Constance Bennett from 1941 to 1946. His second marriage, to Guillermina Cantú in 1954, lasted until his death forty years later. Death. Gilbert Roland died of cancer in Beverly Hills, California in 1994, aged 88. His remains were cremated and his ashes scattered at sea. Award nominations. Roland was nominated twice for a Golden Globe Award, for his roles in "The Bad and the Beautiful" (1952) and "Cheyenne Autumn" (1964). For his contributions to the motion picture industry, Gilbert Roland has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6730 Hollywood Boulevard. Filmography. Features: Television: Short subjects:
1061753	Salma Hayek Jiménez (born September 2, 1966) is a Mexican American film actress, director and producer. She began her career in Mexico starring in the telenovela "Teresa" and went on to star in the film "El Callejón de los Milagros" ("Miracle Alley") for which she was nominated for an Ariel Award. In 1991 Hayek moved to Hollywood and came to prominence with roles in Hollywood movies such as "Desperado" (1995), "Dogma" (1999), and "Wild Wild West" (1999). Her breakthrough role was in the 2002 film "Frida" as Frida Kahlo which she received an Academy Award, BAFTA Award, Screen Actors Guild Award and Golden Globe Award nomination for Best Actress. The movie received widespread attention and was a critical and commercial success. She won a Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Directing in a Children/Youth/Family Special in 2004 for "The Maldonado Miracle" and received an Emmy Award nomination for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy Series in 2007 after guest-starring in the ABC television series "Ugly Betty." She also guest-starred on the NBC comedy series "30 Rock" from 2009 to 2013. Hayek's recent films include "Grown Ups" (2010) and "Grown Ups 2" (2013), acting alongside Adam Sandler, and "Puss in Boots" (2011), which also features former collaborator Antonio Banderas, wherein she is the voice of the character 'Kitty Softpaws'. Early life. Hayek was born Salma Hayek Jiménez in Coatzacoalcos, Veracruz, Mexico. Her younger brother Sami(1972) is a furniture designer . She is the daughter of Diana Jiménez Medina, an opera singer and talent scout. Her father Sami Hayek Dominguez --who once ran for mayor of Coatzacoalcos--was either an oil company executive .; or the owner of an industrial-equipment firm . Hayek's paternal grandfather emigrated from Lebanon, and she also has Spanish ancestry. Her first given name, Salma, is Arabic for "safe". Raised in a wealthy, devout Roman Catholic family, she was sent to the Academy of the Sacred Heart in Grand Coteau, Louisiana, at the age of twelve. While there, she was diagnosed with dyslexia. She attended university in Mexico City, where she studied International Relations at the Universidad Iberoamericana. Career. Mexico. At the age of 23, Hayek landed the title role in "Teresa" (1989), a successful Mexican telenovela that made her a star in Mexico. In 1994, Hayek starred in the film "El Callejón de los Milagros" ("Miracle Alley"), which has won more awards than any other movie in the history of Mexican cinema. For her performance, Hayek was nominated for an Ariel Award. Early Hollywood acting work. Hayek moved to Los Angeles, California, in 1991 to study acting under Stella Adler. Due to dyslexia, she had limited fluency in English. Robert Rodriguez and his producer and then wife Elizabeth Avellan soon gave Hayek a starring role opposite Antonio Banderas in 1995's "Desperado". She followed her role in "Desperado" with a brief role as a vampire queen in "From Dusk Till Dawn", in which she performed a table-top snake dance.
1162996	John Karlen (born John Adam Karlewicz; May 28, 1933) is an American character actor who played multipleroles (Willie Loomis, Carl Collins, William H. Loomis, Desmond Collins, Alex Jenkins and Kendrick Young) on the ABC serial "Dark Shadows", in various episodes between 206 and 1245, which aired from 1966-1971.
772615	Adrian Paul Hewett (born 29 May 1959), better known as Adrian Paul, is an actor best known for his role on the television series "" as Duncan MacLeod. In 1997, he founded the Peace Fund charitable organisation. Early life. Paul was born in London, in 1959, the first of three brothers to an Italian mother and a British father. Paul first became a model, then a dancer and choreographer. In 1985, he left Europe for the United States to pursue a dance and modelling career. Paul has spent time in the theatre with numerous plays, the most notable of which was a guest appearance in "Beauty and the Beast" which he has stated helped shape his acting ability. Career. He was cast in the role that would bring him to the most prominence to date, that of Duncan MacLeod in the syndicated television series ', in 1992. Paul also starred in the spin-off film, ' (2000), and the fifth "Highlander" film: "", released as a made-for-TV film on the SCI-FI channel on 15 September 2007. His first role was on the ABC television series, "The Colbys" as the Russian ex-patriate ballet dancer, Kolya (1987–1988). This was followed by guest appearances on the television shows "Beauty and the Beast" (1987), "Murder, She Wrote" (1992), "Tarzan" (1991), "Relic Hunter" (1999), and as himself in "WWF SmackDown" (1999). He appeared in a January 2003 episode of "Charmed" and off Broadway in the play "Bouncers". He also appeared in the made-for-TV films "Shooter" (1988) and "The Cover Girl Murder" (1993) which starred Lee Majors. He appeared in a regular role in the second season of the television series "War of the Worlds" (1989–1990) as John Kincaid, three episodes of "Dark Shadows (1991)" as Jeremiah Collins, and made a pilot for CBS Television for a series called "The Owl" (1991). In 2001, he starred in "Tracker". Paul's first film appearance was in the 1988 film "Last Rites", which starred Tom Berenger. He starred in the remake of "The Masque of the Red Death" (1989), a re-telling of the Edgar Allan Poe tale. He also appeared in Sheena Easton's "Days Like This" music video as her love interest and Duran Duran's "My Own Way" music video as a dancer. Other films which he has starred or co-starred are "Dance to Win" (also known as "War Dancing") (1989), "Love Potion No. 9" (1992) as Enrico Pazzoli, "Dead Men Can't Dance" (1997), "Susan's Plan" (also known as "Dying to Get Rich") (1998), "Merlin: The Return" (1999) as Lancelot, "Convergence" (also called "Premonition") (1999), "The Void" (2001), "The Breed" (2001), "Code Hunter" (2002), "Nemesis Game" (2003) "Throttle" (2005), and "Phantom Below" (also known as "Tides of War") (2005). In 2006 he co-starred in the horror film "Séance" and in "Little Chicago". He also starred as Ananias Dare in the Sci Fi original film "Wraiths of Roanoke" (2007). In 2008 he began voice acting the character of Patrick O'Brien in the animated "" television show. He starred as Sir Francis Drake in the Sci Fi original film "The Immortal Voyage of Captain Drake" (2009), and the futuristic thriller "Eyeborgs". Upcoming projects include the thriller/drama "The Heavy". Paul starred in the 2013 science fiction movie "Apocalypse Earth", a post-apocalyptic action-adventure film. Personal life. Paul married actress and former "'Uh-Huh' Girl" Meilani Paul in 1990 but the couple later divorced in 1997. Paul has two children with long-time girlfriend Alexandra Tonelli: Angelisa Valentina Rose (born 8 January 2010) and Royce Paul (born 16 July 2012).
1070476	Oliver Rutledge Hudson (born September 7, 1976) is an American actor. He is the son of Goldie Hawn and Bill Hudson, and brother of Kate Hudson. Since 2007, Hudson has starred in the CBS series, "Rules Of Engagement". Early life. Hudson was born in Los Angeles, California, to Goldie Hawn and musician Bill Hudson. After their parents divorced in 1980, he and his sister, actress Kate Hudson, were raised in Colorado by their mother and her boyfriend, actor Kurt Russell. Hudson says that he considers Russell to be his father. He has four half-siblings: Emily and Zachary, from his biological father's marriage to actress, Cindy Williams; Lalania, from another of his father's relationships in 2006; and Wyatt, from his mother's relationship with Kurt Russell. Hudson's ancestry includes Hungarian Jewish (from his maternal grandmother) and Italian (from his paternal grandmother). Hudson's maternal grandfather was a descendant of Edward Rutledge (1749–1800), the youngest signatory of the Declaration of Independence. Hudson is the cousin of singer Sarah Hudson. Career. Hudson is best known for starring as Adam Rhodes in the TV series "Rules of Engagement" (2007–2013), "My Guide to Becoming a Rock Star" and "The Mountain" (2004–2005), and supporting roles in the films "New Best Friend" (2002) and the remake of "The Out-of-Towners" (1999). Hudson also played opposite Katie Holmes as her love interest, Eddie Doling, in sixteen episodes of "Dawson's Creek". Hudson played in the 2005 World Series of Poker Main Event, but went broke on the very first hand, losing to 2003 runner-up, Sam Farha, who had a better Full House than Hudson. Personal life. Hudson married actress Erinn Bartlett on June 9, 2006, in Mexico. The ceremony was officiated by a Buddhist monk. The couple has two sons: Wilder Brooks Hudson, born August 23, 2007, and Bodhi Hawn Hudson, born March 19, 2010, In July 2013, he welcomed a daughter, Rio. He is also an avid golfer and plays to a 2-handicap.
585057	Manchu Manoj Kumar better known as Manoz is an Indian film actor from Telugu Cinema. Born to Telugu actor Mohan Babu. Manoj first appeared in film at the age of ten as a child actor in his father's film "Major Chandrakanth". Manoj made his film debut in a leading role with "Donga Dongadi" in 2004. He received a Nandi Special Jury Award from the Government of Andhra Pradesh for the movie "Bindaas". Early life. Manchu Manoj Kumar was born on 20 May 1983 to popular film actor Manchu Mohan Babu and Manchu Nirmala Devi. He has an elder sister Lakshmi Manchu and an elder brother Vishnu Manchu who is also a Tollywood actor. He received his bachelors degree from Southeastern Oklahoma State University. Career. Child actor. Manoj was familiar to Telugu audience right from his childhood. He played many roles as a child actor in his own banner movies where his father Mohan Babu is shown as a child in flashbacks. He was well received for the role he played in the movie "Punyabhoomi Naa Desam" starred by his father. 2004 - present. He started his career as a hero in 2004 with a movie called "Donga Dongadi". In 2005, he appeared in the movie "Sri" and next in "Raju Bhai" in 2007. His movie "Nenu Meeku Telusa...?" was an average grosser but known for its melodious music. In 2009 his first movie "Prayanam" in the direction of Chandra Sekhar Yeleti did moderately well. His first movie in 2010, "Bindaas" turned out to be the biggest hit of his career. Another movie in 2010, "Vedam" was a critical and commercial success. He gained accolades for his role in "Vedam". In 2012, he starred in Mr. Nookayya and Uu Kodathara? Ulikki Padathara?. In March 2013, he announced 5 films among which Potugadu and an Untitled Srivas Project are being filmed now.
295630	Everybody Wants to Be Italian is a 2007 American romantic comedy film written and directed by Jason Todd Ipson. The screenplay focuses on the relationship between a blue collar worker and a veterinarian. The film premiered at the Boston Film Festival on September 18, 2007 and released theatrically in the United States on September 5, 2008. Plot. Jake Bianski is the owner of a fish market in the North End of Boston, Massachusetts. For the past eight years he actively has pursued his former girlfriend Isabella, despite the fact she is married and has three children. Anxious to put an end to their boss' obsession with his one-time love, Steve Bottino and Gianluca Tempesti arrange for him to meet veterinarian Marisa Costa at a dance for singles at the local Italian club. On their first date, a deluded Jake confesses he is involved with another woman and suggests he and Marisa become friends rather than lovers. After years of rejecting Jake's advances, Isabella finally leaves her husband, and she and her children move into Jake's small apartment above his fish store. Before long, her husband has convinced her to return home, and Jake finally admits he and Isabella have no future together. He follows Marisa to Italy, where he discovers she is involved with another man, but once again Jake refuses to accept reality and, determined to win her back, he begins to woo Marisa. Critical reception. Jeannette Catsoulis of "The New York Times" called the film "atrocious" and "painfully humorless" with "annoying characters navigating unbelievable situations." Matt Prigge of "Philadelphia Weekly" rated the film C+, calling it "a pleasant but entirely forgettable bit of fluff" and "merely standard genre fare with a couple decent ideas and a refreshing lack of sentimentality." He added, "At 105 minutes, "Italian" is far too slack, but it radiates a certain low-watt charm - the jokes aren't particularly notable, but at least they keep coming. The movie is basically one long half-grin: It's consistently almost-funny, well-acted and it generally doesn't make you want to pound stakes into your eyes." Justin Chang of "Variety" called the film "clumsy but inoffensive" and added, "To his credit, writer-director Jason Todd Ipson mostly avoids the shrill stereotyping of "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" . . . Relentless accordion music adds grating ambience, and the inevitable Italy-set coda looks none too authentic. Dead fish in Jake's market are by far the pic's freshest elements." Steven Rea of the "Philadelphia Inquirer" observed, "Full of clunky humor, battle-of-the-sexes musings and spicy accordion music, "Everybody Wants to Be Italian" is relentless - but not necessarily relentless fun." Home media. Lions Gate Entertainment released the film in anamorphic widescreen format on DVD on February 3, 2009. Bonus features include commentary with screenwriter/director Jason Todd Ipson and editor Mike Saenz, deleted scenes, and cast interviews and screen tests.
1062112	Glenne Aimee Headly (born March 13, 1955) is an American film, stage and television actress. She has received Theatre World Award, Drama Desk, and was nominated for two Primetime Emmy Awards. Early life. Headly was born in New London, Connecticut. Her first years were spent living under the care of her mother in San Francisco, and her maternal grandmother in Pennsylvania. Early in her elementary school years, she joined her mother, who was then living in Greenwich Village, New York City, and grew up having a rich cultural life. She studied ballet at the Robert Joffrey school of ballet and modern dance at the Martha Graham Studios. In New York, she attended public schools, including P.S. 41, where she was placed in an IGC class (for intellectually gifted children). It was here that a fifth grade teacher introduced her to the work of Jacques Cousteau in an oceanography class, spawning a lifelong interest for her in preserving the natural world. She later went on to the High School of Performing Arts, majoring in drama and graduated with honors. Rather than continuing to study the dramatic arts in college, she opted to spend her freshman year at a small American college in Switzerland. Soon after she moved to New York, taking day jobs as a waitress who would complete additional tasks at an added cost, all so that she could work nights in the theatre for little or no salary. Later she moved to Chicago, where she joined the "New Works Ensemble" at the St. Nicholas Theatre and was eventually cast in a Goodman Theatre production of "Curse of the Starving Class", directed by Robert Falls and co-starring John Malkovich. While appearing on the Chicago stage in "Curse of the Starving Class", Headly was asked to join the Steppenwolf Theatre ensemble, who were looking to expand their group. She also appeared in several other productions. In Chicago, she was nominated for five Joseph Jefferson awards and won three for best supporting actress. She received her Actors' Equity card when cast by Vivian Matalon in a summer theatre production of "Charley's Aunt" and joined SAG, when Arthur Penn wrote a breakout role for her in the film "Four Friends". Film and television career. In 1982 Headly married fellow ensemble member John Malkovich and moved with him to New York City. Soon after, she was cast to replace Ellen Barkin in "Extremities" with Susan Sarandon off Broadway. She then was cast in "The Philanthropist", also off Broadway, and won a Theatre World Award for best newcomer. In New York, she appeared in "Balm in Gilead" with her fellow Steppenwolf Theatre ensemble members and "Arms and the Man" on Broadway with Kevin Kline and Raul Julia. Headly got several supporting roles in such films as "Making Mr. Right", "Paperhouse", "Seize the Day" and "Nadine", but it was her role in "Dirty Rotten Scoundrels" opposite Steve Martin and Michael Caine that launched her future career. She was then cast by Warren Beatty to appear opposite him as Tess Trueheart in "Dick Tracy". Her next appearance in a film was to star opposite Demi Moore and Bruce Willis in "Mortal Thoughts", directed by Alan Rudolph. It was a time of many changes for her and in 1990 she also divorced Malkovich. In 1992, she went to Canada to work on a small Canadian film called "Ordinary Magic" with Ryan Reynolds and on the first day of filming, met her future husband Byron McCulloch, whom she married on August 25 of 1993. She went on to appear in "Mr. Holland's Opus", "Sgt. Bilko", "What's the Worst That Could Happen?", "Breakfast of Champions", "Around the Bend", "Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen", "2 Days in the Valley", "Comeback Season" and others. Recent work. Headly appeared in the television movies "Winchell", "And the Band Played On", "Pronto", "My Own Country" and "Women Vs. Men" and was nominated for two Emmy Awards, for best supporting actress in a television movie for both "Lonesome Dove" (1989) and "Bastard Out of Carolina" (1996). She appeared as Julie Andrews' and Christopher Plummer's daughter in the 2001 live telecast of the play "On Golden Pond" for CBS. She was cast in the series "Encore! Encore!", starring Nathan Lane and Joan Plowright, from 1998–1999, and had recurring roles as Dr. Abby Keaton on "ER" from 1996–1997 and as Leland Stottlemeyer's wife, Karen on "Monk" from 2003–2004. In 2004, she played the mother of Lindsay Lohan in "Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen" who moves to New Jersey with her children. Headly was an ensemble member of the Steppenwolf Theatre Company from 1979 – 2005, although she never returned to Chicago to do a play after the late 1980s, believing that such a move would uproot and be disruptive to her family. She took a break from the stage altogether for ten years until 1999 when she starred on the London stage opposite Miranda Richardson in "Aunt Dan & Lemon". Two years later, she starred in "Detachments" in Los Angeles and in 2003, starred opposite David Hyde Pierce in "The Guys" as part of a revolving cast at The Actors' Gang in Los Angeles. She appeared in a one-woman play called "My Brilliant Divorce" in Galway, Ireland in 2003. She also appeared in Malkovich's production of Shaw's "Arms and the Man," with Kevin Kline at New York City's Circle in the Square Uptown. Headly co-stars in the Lifetime series "Witches of East End".
1068182	"Darby O'Gill and the Little People" is a 1959 Walt Disney Productions feature film starring Albert Sharpe, Janet Munro, Sean Connery and Jimmy O'Dea, in a tale about a wily Irishman and his battle of wits with leprechauns. The film was directed by Robert Stevenson and its screenplay written by Lawrence Edward Watkin after the books of Herminie Templeton Kavanagh. The film's title is a slight modification of one of the two Kavanagh books, "Darby O'Gill and the Good People". This title, and her other book; "The Ashes of Old Wishes And Other Darby O'Gill Tales" were the original source for this movie. Plot. In the small Irish town of Rathcullen, County Kerry, Darby O'Gill (Albert Sharpe) is the aging caretaker of Lord Fitzpatrick's (Walter Fitzgerald) estate, where he lives in the nearby gatehouse with his lovely, almost grown, daughter Katie (Janet Munro). Darby spends most of his time in the town pub, regaling his friends with tales of his attempts to catch the leprechauns, in particular, their king, Brian Connors (Jimmy O'Dea). Darby is past his prime as a laborer, so Lord Fitzpatrick decides to retire him on half-pay and give him and Katie another cottage to live in, rent-free, and give his job to a young Dubliner named Michael McBride (Sean Connery). Darby begs Michael not to tell Katie that he is being replaced, to which Michael reluctantly agrees. That very night, Darby is captured by the leprechauns while chasing Cleopatra, his runaway horse (he is actually led astray by a Pooka), on top of the fairy mountain Knocknasheega. Darby learns that King Brian has brought him into the mountain so that Darby can avoid the shameful admission to Katie about losing his job. However, Darby tricks the leprechauns into embarking on a fox hunt by playing "The Fox Chase" for them on a beautiful Stradivarius violin, loaned to him by King Brian. The leprechauns mount their tiny white horses and leave through a large crack in the mountainside wall, from which Darby escapes. King Brian, angry for being made a fool of, comes to fetch Darby, and another battle of wits ensues over a jug of poitín. Darby traps King Brian by getting him so drunk that he does not notice the sunrise, which strips him of his powers until the next sunset. Trapped, Brian is forced to grant Darby three wishes before he can return home. Darby wisely makes his first wish be that King Brian not return to Knocknasheega, but to remain at his beck and call for a fortnight (two weeks), giving him time to think of two other, equally wise wishes. King Brian is furious, but forced to comply. The wily leprechaun king manages to trick Darby into (partially) wasting his second wish by appearing only as a rabbit in Darby's burlap sack, causing Darby unwittingly to say to Michael: "I wish you could see him King". King Brian meets Darby halfway by appearing to both Michael and Katie in his true form in their dreams. Darby decides that he wants to use his third and last wish to ensure Katie's happiness. King Brian says to Darby that what Katie probably wants most of all is a "good, steady lad with temperate ways". Someone, in short, like Michael. After a rocky beginning, Katie and Michael begin to show signs of growing affection for each other. Katie believes Michael is merely seasonal help, as her father could not bring himself to break the news of his retirement (and their imminent move). However, Michael has an arrogant rival in Pony Sugrue (Kieron Moore), the town bully with his eyes on both Katie and Michael's job. Katie, angered at finding out the truth about her father's retirement from Pony's unpleasantly meddlesome mother (Estelle Winwood), injures herself in a fall on Knocknasheega while trying to catch Cleopatra at night. The banshee appears, heralding Katie's death and sending the cóiste-bodhar, a spectral coach driven by a dullahan, to carry her soul off to the land of the dead. Desperate, Darby elects to use his final wish to go in his daughter's place. King Brian is deeply saddened at Darby's wish, but grants it, but once Darby is on his way to the next world, King Brian reappears in the Death Coach and tricks Darby into making a final fourth wish ("wishing" that his friend could join him in the afterlife). Because he is only allowed three wishes, this negates all the previous wishes and spares Darby's life. Darby is saved and King Brian has (literally) the last laugh in their running battle of wits. Katie's fever has broken and she and Michael reveal their love for each other. Michael also fights Pony Sugrue at the pub; getting his just revenge for Pony's attempt to get him fired by clubbing him on the head and pouring whiskey all over him to make him appear drunken and incompetent. Michael soundly thrashes Pony and knocks him cold. Finally, Darby and Michael depart arm-in-arm, joining Katie outside in the wagon for a happy ending, with Michael and Katie singing a final duet together of "Pretty Irish Girl" (see below). Production. The film's development began with a visit to Ireland and the Irish Folklore Commission by Walt Disney and associates in 1947. The Disney company continued to liaise with the Commission and its director, James Delargy, over the coming decade based on Disney's desire to use Irish folklore as the basis of a film but, to Delargy's disappointment, eventually decided to make an adaptation of Irish-American writer Hermione Templeton Kavanagh's 1903 collection of stories 'Darbie O'Gill and the Good People.' This is the film that first brought Sean Connery to the attention of producer Albert R. Broccoli, who at the time was casting the first James Bond film, "Dr. No". Broccoli hired Connery on the recommendation of his wife, Dana Broccoli. The Death Coach, or cóiste bodhar (pronounced "Coashta-Bower" in the film), acquired its name from a misunderstanding - 'bodhar' being the Irish word for 'deaf' rather than 'death', the misunderstanding presumably arose from differences of accent. There are actually two versions of the film's soundtrack. Several of the original Irish actors' accents (notably Darby, Widow Sheelah Sugrue, King Brian, and the Leprechauns) were deemed too difficult for American audiences to understand and were consequently overdubbed with easier-to-understand voices, possibly from different voice actors. The original soundtrack also contains some dialogue in Irish, especially from King Brian and his leprechaun subjects, which was subsequently changed in the overdubbed version to English alternatives. Both versions have been used on television and home video releases. The Region 1 (US/Canada) DVD contains the original soundtrack; the initial Region 2 (UK) release used the dubbed version, but was later reprinted with the original track. Despite its setting, the bulk of the film was shot at Disney's ranch in Burbank, California. Second unit footage from Ireland, combined with matte paintings by Peter Ellenshaw, helped present a seamless picture of late-nineteenth century Ireland. Many of the scenes combining humans and Leprechauns used forced perspective, with the "Little People" much farther from the camera. This required stopping the camera's lens way down for adequate depth of field, and a consequent increase in lighting to compensate. The duet "Pretty Irish Girl", apparently sung by Sean Connery and Janet Munro, has been alleged to feature dubbed vocals by Irish singers, Brendan O'Dowda and Ruby Murray. A single of the duet was released in the UK. However, the deeper male vocal and breathy female vocal (which matches Munro’s "a capella" finish to the song, plainly recorded on set) performing the song in the American version of the film do not match the voices of O'Dowda (a tenor) nor Murray (a trained singer.) Connery does sing the song "Pretty Irish Girl" (with solo piano accompaniment) on the 1992 compilation "The Music of Disney: A Legacy of Song", and in 1959 Top Rank released a single in the UK (catalog number JAR 163) which featured Connery and Munro singing the song. Walt Disney devoted an episode of his show "Disneyland" to promoting the film, recruiting actors Sharpe and O'Dea to film special segments on the set with Disney, as well as Irish-American actor Pat O'Brien. The episode, "I Captured the King of the Leprechauns", marked the only known television appearance of both Sharpe and O'Dea. Reception. On the film's initial release, A. H. Weiler of "The New York Times" praised the cast (save Connery whom he described as "merely tall, dark, and handsome") and thought the film an "overpoweringly charming concoction of standard Gaelic tall stories, fantasy and romance." Film critic and historian Leonard Maltin in his book "The Disney Films", states, ""Darby O'Gill and the Little People" is not only one of Disney's best films, but is certainly one of the best fantasies ever put on film." Maltin rates the movie so highly that in a later article he included it among a list of lesser known outstanding Disney films.
1038668	Jack Joseph Osbourne (born 8 November 1985) is an English media personality. He is best known as a star of MTV's reality series "The Osbournes" (2003–05), along with his father Ozzy, mother Sharon, and sister Kelly. Osbourne has since pursued a career as a fitness and travel reporter, presenting shows such as "" (2005–09) and BBC's "Saving Planet Earth" (2007). He was diagnosed with relapsing remitting multiple sclerosis in 2012. Early life. Osbourne was born in St John's Wood, London. He has two elder sisters, Aimee and Kelly Osbourne, as well as two paternal half-siblings, Louis John Osbourne and Jessica Hobbs, from his father's previous marriage. Osbourne has stated that his childhood was "perfectly happy and contented". For the first six years of his life, he lived in the Chiltern Hills in Buckinghamshire. When he was six, Sharon and Ozzy decided to move the family to Los Angeles, but a year later the family moved back to Buckinghamshire. When Osbourne was eleven, the family moved back to Southern California, but this time to Beverly Hills. In spite of moving so many times at a young age, Osbourne did not find it disruptive. The only aspect of his life that constant moving did affect was his school life, and Osbourne soon despised going to school, which was not helped by the fact that he was diagnosed with a form of dyslexia at the age of eight, and ADD at the age of 10. At the time, he was studying at a Christian school in Los Angeles. He returned to England for a year before returning to Los Angeles, where he was enrolled into the special needs Park Century School and was prescribed Ritalin to combat his ADD. At 14 he was offered an internship at Virgin Records, where his mother was managing the band the Smashing Pumpkins. After Sharon Osbourne stopped managing that band, Osbourne started A&R scouting for Epic Records, where his father Ozzy had been on for many years. Osbourne also helped his mother in managing his father's annual touring festival, Ozzfest, advising her about up-and-coming bands. On his 13th birthday, Osbourne got drunk for the first time on whisky; by the time he was 14, he was drinking regularly and had started smoking marijuana. He started partying heavily, and made headlines on 21 April 2003 when he was admitted to a child psychiatric ward for an addiction to OxyContin. Osbourne's drug addiction escalated after mother Sharon Osbourne was diagnosed with cancer; he was as well battling with his own depression. His self-destructive behaviour came to a head when he attempted suicide by taking a cocktail of prescription pills and cutting his hands with shards of glass after hearing his girlfriend's ex-boyfriend pick up her phone when he called her. He woke up 12 hours later. Osbourne continued with his drug use until he realised that he "never wants to feel this way ever again" and admitted himself into an adolescent psychiatric ward. He spent 10 days detoxing and was moved to an adolescent rehabilitation centre in Malibu, where he enrolled in a recovery programme. Career. Osbourne gained high visibility in 2002 after appearing in his family's reality television show "The Osbournes", which aired on MTV and won an Emmy Award in 2002. In the show, Osbourne was mostly shown as a rebellious teenager who liked to party and to fight with sister Kelly Osbourne. In a song by Tenacious D advertising "The Osbournes", Jack Black sings the line "and he's got a big 'fro on his head" to describe Osbourne's curly hair that grew longer until he eventually shaved it off in the third season of the show. In 2002, Osbourne briefly appeared in "" along with the rest of his family, and subsequently starred in a Super Bowl XXXVI advertisement for Pepsi Twist with sister Kelly. From 2002 to 2003, Osbourne appeared in Season 6 of "Dawson's Creek", playing Audrey's childhood friend. He also made cameos in "The X Factor" (as a "Goth rapper" who sings "Ice Ice Baby"), and in the fifth season of "That '70s Show." Post-rehab, Osbourne went on in 2003 to star in his own show on Channel 4, "Union Jack". In 2004 he played a small role in "New York Minute", a film starring the Olsen twins, in which he plays a music promoter named Justin. In 2005, Osbourne started to show more of an interest in fitness through co-hosting the ITV2 show, "Celebrity Wrestling:Bring It On!". In February that year, he appeared in "Extreme Celebrity Detox" in which he took part in t'ai chi and climbing exercises, which possibly inspired him to appear in his own programme, ' produced by the same production company (Ginger Productions) as "Extreme Celebrity Detox". Osbourne lost 23 kg in Thailand at a Muay Thai martial arts camp in Pattaya in order to be fit enough to climb El Capitan (which he achieved) whilst filming the first series of '. It aired on ITV2 in the UK, the Travel Channel in the United States, The LifeStyle Channel in Australia, GOtv in South Africa and on MuchMusic in Canada. ' focuses on Osbourne's training for sports like rock climbing, mountaineering and a jungle trek in Belize from the Chiquibul Chamber through dense jungle ending at Caracol ruins (Guided by the UK extreme conservation organisation Trekforce). He showcased the effects of his weight loss with the two semi-naked photo shoots for Cosmopolitan magazine in 2005 to raise awareness of testicular cancer. The first, taken in June 2005, shows him sitting on a motorbike; the second appeared in the December 2005 issue. After the first series of ' he began filling in for Stephen Mulhern on CITV's Saturday morning kids' show "Holly & Stephen's Saturday Showdown" (the show has now ended). Osbourne took part in Sport Relief and faced former singer in the band S Club 7, Bradley McIntosh, in a boxing match of three one-minute rounds to raise money for the charity. Osbourne won by a unanimous decision. He once claimed to be considering a career in law enforcement and was on reality television show "Armed & Famous". The show was pulled from CBS in January 2007, and Osbourne was sued by a woman from Muncie, Indiana whose house was accidentally raided during filming. Osbourne also filmed a programme for the BBC's "Saving Planet Earth" series. In it he travelled to Namibia to highlight the tensions between elephants and the local people, and what can be done so that both groups can live peacefully beside one another. He also took part in the Mongol Rally with News Corporation director Andrew Knight's daughter, Amaryllis Knight. Their challenge was to drive a car with under 1000cc from London to Ulan Bator, the capital of Mongolia, for charity. Osbourne and his family reunited with a reality TV show on Fox that debuted 31 March 2009 but was cancelled after the first episode. Osbourne made and produced a documentary about his father that was originally to be titled to "Wreckage of My Past: The Ozzy Osbourne Story", but was changed to "God Bless Ozzy Osbourne". This film premiered in April 2011 at the Tribeca Film Festival and was released on DVD in November 2011. In early August 2010, Osbourne directed his first music video, for his dad's song "Life Won't Wait" from the album "Scream". The video debuted on 23 August. Osbourne also has a paranormal investigation show titled "Haunted Highway" that airs on Syfy. On September 2013, he was announced as one of the contestants on the 17th season of "Dancing with the Stars". He is partnered with professional dancer Cheryl Burke. Personal life. Osbourne and his wife, Lisa Stelly, have a daughter, Pearl Clementine, born on 24 April 2012. Osbourne and Stelly were married in Hawaii on 7 October 2012. In August 2013, Osbourne and his wife announced that they are expecting their second child. On 6 September 2013 Jack's wife Lisa revealed she suffered a miscarriage in her second trimester. They had been expecting a son. In June 2012, Osbourne announced that he had been diagnosed with relapsing remitting multiple sclerosis. He had experienced symptoms for a number of years, including blindness in one eye, numbness in both legs, and problems with his bladder, bowel, and stomach. Osbourne injects MS medication daily and has traveled to Europe for stem cell therapy. He has also made lifestyle changes, such as minimizing stress, exercising regularly and significantly altering his diet. However, he has spoken of his fear of a "rapid" decline and has admitted that his doctors have urged him to stop participating in highly intensive physical workout.
1060695	White Heat is a 1949 film noir starring James Cagney, Virginia Mayo and Edmond O'Brien and featuring Margaret Wycherly and Steve Cochran. Directed by Raoul Walsh from the Ivan Goff and Ben Roberts screenplay based on a story by Virginia Kellogg, it is considered one of the classic gangster films and was added to the National Film Registry in 2003 as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" by the United States Library of Congress. Plot. Arthur "Cody" Jarrett (James Cagney) is the ruthless, deranged criminal gang leader. Although married to Verna (Virginia Mayo), Cody is overly attached to his equally crooked and determined mother, "Ma" Jarrett (Margaret Wycherly), his only real confidante. Cody suffers from debilitating headaches, and Ma consoles him each time. Early in the film, she sits him on her lap and gives him a shot of whiskey with the toast, "Top of the world." It is later revealed that Cody's father died in an insane asylum. Cody and his gang rob a train, resulting in the deaths of four members of the train crew as well as Cody's accomplice, Zuckie (Ford Rainey). With the help of informants, the police close in, and Cody shoots and injures US Treasury investigator Philip Evans (John Archer). Cody then confesses to a lesser crime, which an associate committed at the same time as the train robbery, thus providing Cody with an alibi, and he receives a one-to-three year sentence. However, this does not deceive Philip. He plants undercover agent Hank Fallon (Edmond O'Brien) in Cody's cell, where Hank goes by the name Vic Pardo. His main task is to find the "Trader," a fence who launders stolen money for Cody. On the outside, "Big Ed" Somers (Steve Cochran), Cody's ambitious right-hand man, has designs on both the leadership of Cody's gang and his treacherous wife Verna. He pays a convict, Roy Parker (Paul Guilfoyle), to kill Cody. In the prison workplace, Parker arranges to drop a heavy piece of machinery on Cody, but Hank pushes him out of the way, saving his life. Ma visits and vows to take care of Big Ed herself, despite Cody's attempts to dissuade her. He starts worrying and decides to break out. Before he can, Cody learns that Ma is dead and goes berserk in the mess hall, being dragged away to the infirmary and diagnosed with psychosis. Cody then takes hostages and escapes, along with their cell mates, Hank and Parker. Parker is locked in the trunk of the getaway car. Later, when Parker complains, "It's stuffy, I need some air," Cody replies, "Oh, stuffy, huh? I'll give ya a little air." While calmly munching on a chicken leg, he empties his gun into the trunk. On hearing of Cody's escape, Big Ed nervously waits for him to show up. Verna tries slipping away, but Cody catches her. She convinces him that Big Ed murdered Ma (though it was really Verna who shot her in the back), and Cody guns down Big Ed. The gang welcomes the escapees, including Hank, for whom Cody has developed a genuine liking. Cody insists on sharing the proceeds from their robberies with him, stating, "I split even with Ma, didn't I?" A stranger (Fred Clark) shows up at the gang's isolated country hideout, asking to use the phone. Everyone expects the stranger to be murdered ("Looks like Big Ed's gonna have company."). To Hank's surprise, a trusting Cody introduces him to the stranger, who is Daniel "The Trader" Winston, the fence whom Hank was to track down. Cody intends to steal the payroll at a chemical plant in Long Beach, California by using a large tank truck as a Trojan Horse to hide inside. Hank manages to get a message to Philip, and an ambush is set up. The gang gets into the plant but the driver, "Bo" Creel (Ian MacDonald), recognizes Vic Pardo as Hank Fallon ("He pinched me four years ago."). The police surround the building, and Philip calls on Cody to surrender, but Cody decides to fight it out. When the police fire tear gas into the office, Hank manages to escape. The police gun down most of Cody's henchmen, and Cody guns down those who try giving themselves up. The police take Verna, who tried to barter with Phillip for leniency. Cody then flees to the top of a gigantic, globe-shaped gas storage tank. When Hank shoots Cody several times with a rifle, Cody starts firing at the tank and shouts, "Made it, Ma! Top of the world!" The tank and several adjoining ones explode, killing Cody before the police's gunshots can. Inspiration. The character of Cody Jarrett was based on New York murderer Francis Crowley, who engaged in a pitched battle with police in the spring of 1931 at the age of 18. Executed on January 21, 1932, his last words were: "Send my love to my mother." Another inspiration may have been Arthur Barker, a gangster of the 1930s, and a son of Ma Barker. The train robbery which opens the film appears to have been closely based on the robbery of Southern Pacific's "Gold Special" by the DeAutremont Brothers in 1923. Production. "White Heat" was filmed between May 5 and mid-June 1949. Filming locations included the Southern Pacific railroad tunnel in the Santa Susana Mountains near Chatsworth, California, the now demolished San-Val Drive In Burbank, and the Shell Oil plant at 198th Street and Figueroa in Torrance, California, where the final climactic shoot-out was filmed. Reception. Critical reaction to the film was positive, and today it is considered a classic. Bosley Crowther of "The New York Times" called it "the acme of the gangster-prison film" and praised its "thermal intensity". Tim Dirks on the website Filmsite.org writes that the film may have also inspired many other successful films: This classic film anticipated the heist films of the early 50s (for example John Huston's 1950 "The Asphalt Jungle" and Stanley Kubrick's 1956 "The Killing"), accentuated the semi-documentary style of films of the period (the 1948 "The Naked City"), and contained film-noirish elements, including the shady black-and-white cinematography, the femme fatale character, and the twisted psyche of the criminal gangster. "White Heat" was listed in "Time" magazine's top 100 films of all time. Based upon both contemporary and more recent film reviews, the film has a 100% "fresh" rating on film review aggregate website Rotten Tomatoes. In June 2008, the American Film Institute released its "Ten Top Ten" list—the best ten films in ten "classic" American film genres—after polling over 1,500 people from the creative community. "White Heat" was acknowledged as the fourth best in the gangster film genre. Also, the quote "Made it, Ma! Top of the world!" was number 18 on the American Film Institute's list of the greatest movie quotes. Cultural references. Several quotes from the film were used in the hip-hop single "Back In Business" by E-40 and produced by his son Droop-E, on this 2010 album "". Quotes from the film were also used in the album track "White Heat" by Madonna, on her third album "True Blue"; the song was also dedicated to Cagney. Scenes with Cagney were used in the movie "Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid" putting Steve Martin to act with Cagney Scenes, as well as in the 1992 crime-drama film "Juice". A short clip was also played in a scene from "Hart to Hart", , titled "Hart and Sole", airing 6 April 1982.
1129719	Trish Van Devere (born March 9, 1943) is an American actress. Early life. Van Devere was born as Patricia Louise Dressel in Tenafly, New Jersey. She was married to the actor George C. Scott from 1972 until his death in 1999. Career. A life member of the Actors Studio, Van Devere played the original Meredith Lord on "One Life to Live" in 1968, as well as the lead in the 1972 film "One is a Lonely Number", for which she was nominated for a Golden Globe award. She appeared alongside Scott in "The Last Run" (1971), "The Day of the Dolphin", and "The Savage is Loose" (both 1973, the latter film directed by Scott himself), "Beauty and the Beast" (1976, for television), "Movie Movie" (1978), and "The Changeling" (1980). Van Devere performed frequently in both television and film until 1994, and appeared in programmes such as "The Fall Guy", "Hardcastle and McCormick", "Highway to Heaven" and "Love Boat". She also starred alongside Peter Falk in a 1978 episode of the long-running detective drama series "Columbo", entitled "Make Me a Perfect Murder", in which she portrayed high-flying TV producer Kay Freestone. Late life. After a long acting career, Van Devere settled down in Broad Beach, Malibu, CA with her husband George C. Scott. After five years of living in Broad Beach, Van Devere and George C. Scott moved to Retreat Court, a gated community in Malibu. Finally, when Scott was aged 67 and Van Devere was in her 50s, the couple adopted George D. Scott, the son of Van Devere's brother, George Dressel.
1104767	Norbert Wiener (November 26, 1894 – March 18, 1964) was an American mathematician. He was Professor of Mathematics at MIT. A famous child prodigy, Wiener later became an early researcher in stochastic and noise processes, contributing work relevant to electronic engineering, electronic communication, and control systems. Wiener is considered the originator of cybernetics, a formalization of the notion of feedback, with many implications for engineering, systems control, computer science, biology, philosophy, and the organization of society. Biography. Youth. Wiener was born in Columbia, Missouri, the first child of Leo Wiener and Bertha Kahn, Ashkenazi Jews of Polish and German origin, respectively. Norbert Wiener became a famous child prodigy. Leo had educated Norbert at home until 1903, employing teaching methods of his own invention, except for a brief interlude when Norbert was 7 years of age. Earning his living teaching German and Slavic languages, Leo read widely and accumulated a personal library from which the young Norbert benefited greatly. Leo also had ample ability in mathematics, and tutored his son in the subject until he left home. In his autobiography, Norbert described his father as calm and patient, unless he (Norbert) failed to give a correct answer, at which his father would lose his temper. Despite being raised in a Jewish family, he later became an agnostic. After graduating from Ayer High School in 1906 at 11 years of age, Wiener entered Tufts College. He was awarded a BA in mathematics in 1909 at the age of 14, whereupon he began graduate studies of zoology at Harvard. In 1910 he transferred to Cornell to study philosophy. Harvard and World War I. The next year he returned to Harvard, while still continuing his philosophical studies. Back at Harvard, Wiener became influenced by Edward Vermilye Huntington, whose mathematical interests ranged from axiomatic foundations to engineering problems. Harvard awarded Wiener a Ph.D. in 1912, when he was merely 17 years old, for a dissertation on mathematical logic, supervised by Karl Schmidt, the essential results of which were published as Wiener (1914). In that dissertation, he was the first to state publicly that ordered pairs can be defined in terms of elementary set theory. Hence relations can be defined by set theory, thus the theory of relations does not require any axioms or primitive notions distinct from those of set theory. In 1921, Kazimierz Kuratowski proposed a simplification of Wiener's definition of ordered pairs, and that simplification has been in common use ever since. In 1914, Wiener traveled to Europe, to be taught by Bertrand Russell and G. H. Hardy at Cambridge University, and by David Hilbert and Edmund Landau at the University of Göttingen. During 1915–16, he taught philosophy at Harvard, then was an engineer for General Electric and wrote for the "Encyclopedia Americana". Wiener was briefly a journalist for the "Boston Herald", where he wrote a feature story on the poor labor conditions for mill workers in Lawrence, Massachusetts, but he was fired soon afterwards for his reluctance to write favorable articles about a politician the newspaper's owners sought to promote. Although Wiener eventually became a staunch pacifist, he eagerly contributed to the war effort in World War I. In 1916, with America's entry into the war drawing closer, Wiener attended a training camp for potential military officers, but failed to earn a commission. One year later Wiener again tried to join the military, but the government again rejected him due to his poor eyesight. In the summer of 1918, Oswald Veblen invited Wiener to work on ballistics at the Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland. Living and working with other mathematicians strengthened his interest in mathematics. However, Wiener was still eager to serve in uniform, and decided to make one more attempt to enlist, this time as a common soldier. Wiener wrote in a letter to his parents, "I should consider myself a pretty cheap kind of a swine if I were willing to be an officer but unwilling to be a soldier". This time the army accepted Wiener into its ranks and assigned him, by coincidence, to a unit stationed at Aberdeen, Maryland. World War I ended just days after Wiener's return to Aberdeen and Wiener was discharged from the military in February 1919. After the war. Wiener was unable to secure a permanent position at Harvard, a situation he blamed largely on anti-semitism at the university and in particular on the antipathy of Harvard mathematician G. D. Birkhoff. He was also rejected for a position at the University of Melbourne. At W. F. Osgood's suggestion, Wiener became an instructor of mathematics at MIT, where he spent the remainder of his career, becoming promoted eventually to Professor. In 1926, Wiener returned to Europe as a Guggenheim scholar. He spent most of his time at Göttingen and with Hardy at Cambridge, working on Brownian motion, the Fourier integral, Dirichlet's problem, harmonic analysis, and the Tauberian theorems. In 1926, Wiener's parents arranged his marriage to a German immigrant, Margaret Engemann; they had two daughters. His sister, Constance, married Philip Franklin. Their daughter, Janet, Wiener's niece, married Václav E. Beneš. Many tales, perhaps apocryphal, were told of him at MIT, especially concerning his absent-mindedness. It was said that he returned home once to find his house empty. He inquired of a neighborhood girl the reason, and she said that the family had moved elsewhere that day. He thanked her for the information and she replied, "That's why I stayed behind, Daddy!" During and after World War II. During World War II, his work on the automatic aiming and firing of anti-aircraft guns caused Wiener to investigate information theory independently of Claude Shannon and to invent the Wiener filter. (To him is due the now standard practice of modeling an information source as a random process.) His anti-aircraft work eventually led him to formulate cybernetics. Unlike many of his contemporaries, Wiener was not invited to participate in the Manhattan Project. After the war, his fame helped MIT to recruit a research team in cognitive science, composed of researchers in neuropsychology and the mathematics and biophysics of the nervous system, including Warren Sturgis McCulloch and Walter Pitts. These men later made pioneering contributions to computer science and artificial intelligence. Soon after the group was formed, Wiener suddenly ended all contact with its members, mystifying his colleagues. This emotionally traumatized Walter Pitts, and led to his career decline. In their biography of Wiener, Conway and Siegelman suggest that Wiener's wife Margaret, who detested McCulloch's bohemian lifestyle, engineered the breach. Wiener later helped develop the theories of cybernetics, robotics, computer control, and automation. He shared his theories and findings with other researchers, and credited the contributions of others. These included Soviet researchers and their findings. Wiener's acquaintance with them caused him to be regarded with suspicion during the Cold War. He was a strong advocate of automation to improve the standard of living, and to end economic underdevelopment. His ideas became influential in India, whose government he advised during the 1950s. After the war, Wiener became increasingly concerned with what he believed was political interference with scientific research, and the militarization of science. His article "A Scientist Rebels" for the January 1947 issue of "The Atlantic Monthly" urged scientists to consider the ethical implications of their work. After the war, he refused to accept any government funding or to work on military projects. The way Wiener's beliefs concerning nuclear weapons and the Cold War contrasted with those of John von Neumann is the major theme of the book "John Von Neumann and Norbert Wiener" Wiener was a core participant of the Macy conferences. He died, aged 69, in Stockholm, Sweden. Work. Wiener was an early studier of stochastic and noise processes, contributing work relevant to electronic engineering, electronic communication, and control systems. Wiener is regarded as the originator of cybernetics, a formalization of the notion of feedback, with many implications for engineering, systems control, computer science, biology, philosophy, and the organization of society. Wiener's work with cybernetics influenced Gregory Bateson and Margaret Mead, and through them, anthropology, sociology, and education. Wiener equation. A simple mathematical representation of Brownian motion, the Wiener equation, named after Wiener, assumes the current velocity of a fluid particle fluctuates randomly. Wiener filter. For signal processing, the Wiener filter is a filter proposed by Wiener during the 1940s and published in 1949. Its purpose is to reduce the amount of noise present in a signal by comparison with an estimation of the desired noiseless signal. In mathematics. Wiener took a great interest in the mathematical theory of Brownian motion (named after Robert Brown) proving many results now widely known such as the non-differentiability of the paths. Consequently the one-dimensional version of Brownian motion was named the Wiener process. It is the best known of the Lévy processes, càdlàg stochastic processes with stationary statistically independent increments, and occurs frequently in pure and applied mathematics, physics and economics (e.g. on the stock-market). Wiener's Tauberian theorem, a 1932 result of Wiener, developed Tauberian theorems in summability theory, on the face of it a chapter of real analysis, by showing that most of the known results could be encapsulated in a principle taken from harmonic analysis. In its present formulation, the theorem of Wiener does not have any obvious association with Tauberian theorems, which deal with infinite series; the translation from results formulated for integrals, or using the language of functional analysis and Banach algebras, is however a relatively routine process. The Paley–Wiener theorem relates growth properties of entire functions on Cn and Fourier transformation of Schwartz distributions of compact support. The Wiener–Khinchin theorem, (or "Wiener – Khintchine theorem" or "Khinchin – Kolmogorov theorem"), states that the power spectral density of a wide-sense-stationary random process is the Fourier transform of the corresponding autocorrelation function. An abstract Wiener space is a mathematical object in measure theory, used to construct a "decent", strictly positive and locally finite measure on an infinite-dimensional vector space. Wiener's original construction only applied to the space of real-valued continuous paths on the unit interval, known as classical Wiener space. Leonard Gross provided the generalization to the case of a general separable Banach space. The notion of a Banach space itself was discovered independently by both Wiener and Stefan Banach at around the same time. Publications. Wiener wrote many books and hundreds of articles: Fiction: Autobiography: Under the name "W. Norbert" References. Notes Further reading A brief profile of Dr. Wiener is given in The Observer newspaper, Sunday, 28 January 1951.
1039502	Rachael Atlanta Stirling (born 30 May 1977) is an English stage, film and television actress. She is a two-time Olivier nominee for her stage work, and played Nancy Astley in the BBC drama "Tipping the Velvet". Personal life. Stirling is the daughter of actress Diana Rigg and theatre producer Archibald Stirling. Her parents subsequently married in 1982 and divorced in 1990. Through her father, she has a long line of ancestry from the Scottish parish of Lecropt, near her namesake city of Stirling. Stirling attended Wycombe Abbey School. She earned a BA in art history from Edinburgh University, where she performed with the Edinburgh University Theatre Company. Stirling can speak Russian and is a highly skilled equestrian in horse riding and jumping. She was engaged to fellow actor Oliver Chris, whom she had been dating since 2007, but broke off the engagement in 2012. Theatre. Stirling made her first major appearance on stage in 1996 as Desdemona in the National Youth Theatre revival of "Othello" at the Arts Theatre opposite Chiwetel Ejiofor in the title role. A year later, again at the Arts Theatre with the NYT, she played Olive in the female version of "The Odd Couple"; while in 1998, portraying Kate in "Dancing at Lughnasa" for NYT at the Arts, she gave what "The Stage" reviewer described as ""a performance of exceptional promise and authority"". She continues to be active in the theatre, covering a diversity of roles in plays such as Dusty Hughes' "Helpless" (Donmar Warehouse, 2000); "A Woman of No Importance" (Theatre Royal Haymarket, 2003); "Anna in the Tropics" (Hampstead Theatre, 2004); and "Tamburlaine" (Bristol Old Vic and Barbican, 2005), and she followed in her mother's footsteps, bringing an alluring erotic charge to her performance as Miranda Lionheart in the National Theatre stage version of "Theatre of Blood" (2005). In 2006, for the Peter Hall Company at the Theatre Royal, Bath, she played Helena in Peter Gill's revival of "Look Back in Anger", while in 2007 at Wilton's Music Hall in London, she starred as Yelena in David Mamet's version of "Uncle Vanya", and as Katharina in "The Taming of the Shrew". Stirling starred onstage in "The Priory" directed by Jeremy Herrin at the Royal Court Theatre in 2009. Her role as Rebecca earned her a nomination for Laurence Olivier Award for Best Performance in a Supporting Role. In 2010 she appeared as Helena in Peter Hall's production of "A Midsummer Night's Dream" at the Rose Theatre, Kingston. She starred as Lady Chiltern in a 2010 production of "An Ideal Husband" at the Vaudeville Theatre, for which she received her second nomination for a Laurence Olivier Award. From February to April 2012, she appeared as Miranda alongside Mark Gatiss, Tobias Menzies, and Nancy Carroll in "The Recruiting Officer", the acclaimed production at the Donmar Warehouse directed by newly appointed artistic director Josie Rourke. Film. Stirling's first screen appearance was in the 1998 British comedy film "Still Crazy" (starring Stephen Rea, Billy Connolly, Timothy Spall, and Jimmy Nail). Other film projects include "Maybe Baby", "Complicity" (with her "Tipping the Velvet" co-star Keeley Hawes), "Another Life" (with "Vanity Fair" actress Natasha Little), "The Triumph of Love" (starring opposite Mira Sorvino), and "Redemption Road". She recently played the role of Mary Jones in "Salmon Fishing in the Yemen". Television. Stirling's first break in television was in the 2000 NBC miniseries "In the Beginning", which was adapted from Genesis. Stirling played the young Rebeccah, with her mother, Diana Rigg, as the older Rebeccah. In 2011, she starred in the BBC Four adaptation of D.H. Lawrence's "Women in Love" as Ursula Brangwen. She appeared in an episode of "Doctor Who" titled "The Crimson Horror" alongside her mother Dame Diana Rigg, Matt Smith and Jenna-Louise Coleman. The episode had been specially written for her and her mother by Mark Gatiss (marking the very first appearance of the two actresses together professionally) and was aired 4 May 2013 as part of Series 7. Other work. Stirling is an occasional interviewer on the Radio Four chat-show "Loose Ends". She also wrote a restaurant column for "Diplomat" magazine. She took part in "Occupy London's" reading of Dickens' "A Christmas Carol" on the steps of St Paul's Cathedral, London, in December 2011. Presented "Stage Door", BBC Radio Four, December 2012.
1044198	Graham Stark (born 20 January 1922) is an English comedian, actor, writer and director. Stark was born in Wallasey on the Wirral in Merseyside, England. He first came to prominence on BBC Radio, making his debut in "Happy Go Lucky" and going on to "Ray's A Laugh", "Educating Archie" and substitute on "The Goon Show". Stark was a regular supporting player on TV - notably with his good friend Peter Sellers in "A Show Called Fred" and "Son of Fred", and with Benny Hill - before getting his own sketch series, "The Graham Stark Show" (BBC 1964). All the editions were scripted by Johnny Speight and each one featured a different group of supporting actors, including Deryck Guyler, Arthur Mullard, Derek Nimmo, Patricia Hayes and Warren Mitchell. Stark worked and socialised quite a bit with Spike Milligan and Sellers, and is mentioned throughout biographies of them, such as Pauline Scudamore's (1985) biography of Milligan, and especially in Roger Lewis's comprehensive (1995) biography of Sellers. He became a regular performer in the "Pink Panther" film series. His first role in the series was as Hercule Lajoy, Inspector Clouseau's stonefaced assistant, in "A Shot in the Dark" (1964). Other than Herbert Lom and Burt Kwouk, he has appeared in more "Pink Panther" films than any other actor, playing a variety of characters, including reprising Lajoy in "Trail of the Pink Panther" (1982) and twice playing Dr Auguste Balls (in "Revenge of the Pink Panther", 1978; and "Son of the Pink Panther", 1993). He also played the role of Lord Fortnum's doctor, Captain Pontius Kak, in the original stage play of "The Bed-Sitting Room", which opened at the Mermaid Theatre on 31 January 1963. Following the death of James Beck, Graham took over the role of Private Joe Walker in the radio adaptation of "Dad's Army. In 1982, Graham appeared in a cameo role as a butler, alongside Dandy Nichols, in the music video for Adam Ant's UK No. 1 hit "Goody Two Shoes". Stark is also an accomplished stills photographer.
1061009	David Hyde Pierce (born April 3, 1959) is an American actor and comedian. Pierce is best known for playing the psychiatrist Dr. Niles Crane on the hit NBC sitcom "Frasier", for which he had won four Emmy Awards during the show's run. Early life. The youngest of four siblings, Pierce was born in Saratoga Springs, New York. His father, George, was an aspiring actor, and his mother, Laura Marie (née Hughes), was an insurance agent. Pierce has three older siblings: Barbara, Nancy, and Thomas, and added his middle name "Hyde" to avoid confusion with another actor named David Pierce. As a child, Pierce frequently played organ at the local Bethesda Episcopal Church in Saratoga Springs. He began acting while in high school, earning recognition as best Dramatic Arts student. In 1977, Pierce received the Yaddo Medal for character and scholarship and worked in theater while a counselor at Camp Kabeyun in New Hampshire. However, his love of music was still strong, so he decided to study classical piano at Yale University. However, Pierce soon grew bored with music history lessons and found that he was not dedicated enough to practice the required hours to become a successful concert pianist. Instead, he graduated in 1981 with a double major in English and Theatre Arts. While attending Yale, Pierce performed and directed student productions, appearing as Sir Joseph Porter, K.C.B., in the Yale Gilbert & Sullivan Society's production of "H.M.S. Pinafore". He also directed the Gilbert & Sullivan Society's operetta "Princess Ida" and occasionally accompanied rehearsals on the piano. Among other roles Pierce played at Yale were in "Waiting for Godot", "Saint Joan", and "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?". Career. After his graduation, Pierce moved to New York City, where during the 1980s and early 1990s he was employed in various jobs, such as selling ties at Bloomingdale's and working as a security guard, while pursuing an acting career and studying at Michael Howard Studios. During this period he played Laertes in a popular off-Broadway production of "Hamlet" and made his Broadway debut in Christopher Durang's "Beyond Therapy" in 1982. Pierce's first big television break came in the early 1990s with Norman Lear's political comedy "The Powers That Be," in which Pierce played Theodore, a Congressman. Despite positive reviews from critics, the show was canceled after a brief run. In part due to his close physical resemblance to Kelsey Grammer, the producers of the "Cheers" spin-off "Frasier" created the role of Niles Crane (Frasier Crane's younger brother) for him. Although prior to "Frasier" going into production, Pierce had petitioned the Screen Actors Guild to change his billing to David Pierce, the name he had used on the stage, the use of his middle name in the show's credits helped reinforce the actor's and the character's "snooty" image. For his work on "Frasier", Pierce was nominated for a Best Supporting Actor Emmy a record eleven consecutive years, winning in 1995, 1998, 1999 and 2004. Pierce also appeared alongside Jodie Foster in "Little Man Tate", with Anthony Hopkins in Oliver Stone's "Nixon", and with Ewan McGregor in "Down With Love". He provided the voice for Doctor Doppler in Disney's 42nd animated feature, "Treasure Planet", Slim, a stick insect in Pixar's "A Bug's Life" and Abe Sapien in Guillermo del Toro's "Hellboy". In 2001, he starred in the cult 1980s summer camp comedy "Wet Hot American Summer" as the befuddled astrophysicist, Prof. Henry Newman. In his role in "Sleepless in Seattle", Pierce played the brother of Meg Ryan's character, a professor at Johns Hopkins University. The movie was released just three months before the start of "Frasier". In 2005, Pierce joined Tim Curry and others in the stage production of "Spamalot". In August and September 2006, he starred as "Lieutenant Frank Cioffi" in "Curtains", a new Kander and Ebb musical staged at the Ahmanson Theatre in Los Angeles. In March 2007, "Curtains" opened on Broadway and on June 10, 2007 Pierce won the Tony Award for Best Performance by a Leading Actor in a Musical at the 61st Tony Awards for his performance. In his acceptance speech, Pierce said the first words he spoke on a Broadway stage were, "I'm sorry, I'm going to have to ask you to leave." On November 19, 2007, Pierce was awarded an Honorary Doctor of Fine Arts Degree from Niagara University in Lewiston, New York. (In 1999, Pierce was awarded an Honorary Degree from Skidmore College, located in Saratoga Springs, NY. In 2010, Pierce appeared in a revival of David Hirson's play "La Bête" directed by Matthew Warchus. The production debuted on London's West End before moving to New York. Also in 2010, Pierce had his first starring film role as Warwick Wilson in the dark comedy/psychological thriller "The Perfect Host". Voice acting. Pierce is known for his distinctive voice and like his "Frasier" co-star, Kelsey Grammer, he is often called upon to provide voice work. His notable roles include the narrator of the movie "The Mating Habits of the Earthbound Human" in 1999, walking stick insect Slim in "A Bug's Life", Doctor Delbert Doppler in Disney's film "Treasure Planet", and the amphibian Abe Sapien in "Hellboy". Pierce refused credit for his "Hellboy" role because he felt it was the performance of Doug Jones, and not his own voice, which ultimately brought the character of Abe Sapien to life. He was the voice for Drix, a cold pill in the animated comedy "Osmosis Jones". In a deliberate in-joke, he voiced Cecil, the brother of Kelsey Grammer-voiced Sideshow Bob, in "The Simpsons" episode "Brother from Another Series", in which the two characters parallel the Frasier-Niles relationship. At one point in the episode, Cecil mistakes Bart for Maris, the unseen wife of Niles on "Frasier". He returned as Cecil in the Season 19 episode "Funeral for a Fiend" where "Frasier" co-star John Mahoney (who starred as Frasier and Niles' father in the show) voices Dr. Robert Terwilliger, Sr., the father of Cecil and Sideshow Bob. Pierce also provided the voice of Mr. Daedalus in the 1998 Disney show "". In 2006, he co-starred in the animated pilot for "The Amazing Screw-On Head" as the Screw-On Head's arch-nemesis Emperor Zombie; however, the series was not picked up. His commercial voiceover work included ads for the Tassimo coffee system, Seattle's Metro Transit and home furnishings retailer IKEA Canada. Personal life. After years of media speculation about his sexuality, Pierce came out in 2007 and later confirmed through his publicist that he and television writer, director and producer Brian Hargrove were a couple. When accepting his Tony Award for "Curtains", Pierce thanked "my partner, Brian, because it's 24 years of listening to your damn notes — that's why I'm up here tonight." They married in California on October 24, 2008, just days before Proposition 8 was adopted as law, banning same-sex marriages in the state. On May 28, 2009, while a guest on "The View", he publicly announced his marriage to Hargrove and expressed his anger over the approval of Proposition 8. Pierce and Hargrove divide their time between New York and Los Angeles. He and "Frasier" co-star John Mahoney are godparents to "Frasier" co-star Jane Leeves' son, Finn. Pierce has spent years working with the Alzheimer's Association on behalf of Americans with Alzheimer's disease. He has appeared in Washington D.C. to testify in support of expanding funding for treatment, and he has publicly campaigned for the (ultimately successful) National Alzheimer's Project Act. He told MSNBC in 2011, "it is up to us, to all of us, to the American people and to their representatives about whether we face the challenges and make all the effort necessary or if we ignore it and just let this sort of tidal wave crash over us."
582087	Suyash 'Chunky' Pandey (born 26 September 1962) is an Indian film actor who has appeared in various Bollywood films. He has appeared in over 55 movies in a career that has spanned over two decades and has been nominated once for his supportive role in "Tezaab". Chunky also worked in Bangladeshi Cinema and most of his movies were successful. Career. Pandey started out his Bollywood career in 1987, with the film "Aag Hi Aag" opposite Neelam Kothari, Pandey shot to the spotlight with his role as Munna's (Anil Kapoor) friend in the movie "Tezaab" in 1988. This was the first big break for Pandey as he received a Filmfare award nomination for the best supporting actor for his performance in the film. Since then he has appeared in many films with mixed success throughout the late 1980s and 1990s. Most of his films where he had the leading role did not fare well at the box office except "Mitti Aur Sona" (1989) to some extent. Subsequently Pandey starred alongside other male lead actors such as Govinda, Sunny Deol, Sanjay Dutt and Jeetendra in hits like "Paap Ki Duniya" (1988), "Khatron Ke Khiladi" (1988), "Zahreelay" (1990), "Vishwatma" (1992) and "Lootere" (1993). The advent of the 90s saw a new wave of actors such as Aamir Khan, Salman Khan, Rahul Roy and Shahrukh Khan taking on roles as "romantic heroes" while Ajay Devgan, Akshay Kumar and Sunil Shetty grabbed the "action hero" roles. Pandey found it difficult to slot himself in either category. In 1993, he starred as the second lead to Govinda in the David Dhawan directed blockbuster "Aankhen". Unfortunately, the credit of the movie's success went to Govinda and Kader Khan. Pandey could not capitalize on the mega success of the film, "Aankhen". Gradually since the mid 90s, Pandey's career began to fade. Pandey took an hiatus from Bollywood in the late 90s and then he moved to Bangladeshi Cinema. He returned to Bollywood in 2003 playing supporting roles in ', "Elaan", ', "Darwaza Bandh Rakho" and "Apna Sapna Money Money". His recent performance was as "Aakhiri Pasta" in the 2010 comedy hit "Housefull" was lauded by critics and fans. He reprised his role as Akhri Pasta in the sequel "Housefull 2" in 2012. Personal life. Chunky married Bhavna Pandey in 1998 and has two daughters. He decided to make a comeback to Bollywood during 2002 and ended up appearing in over a dozen movies. Apart from appearing in movies, Chunky is also involved in a business 'Bollywood Electric' which hosts stage shows. He and his wife Bhavna also run a health food restaurant in Mumbai, India.
1056512	The City of Lost Children () is a 1995 French-German-Spanish science fantasy drama film directed by Marc Caro and Jean-Pierre Jeunet and starring Ron Perlman. The film is stylistically related to the previous and subsequent Jeunet films, "Delicatessen" and "Amélie". The music score was composed by Angelo Badalamenti. It was entered into the 1995 Cannes Film Festival. Plot. From an ocean rig, a demented scientist, Krank, kidnaps children to steal their dreams. Among them is the little brother, Denree, of carnival strongman and former Russian sailor One, who sets out to rescue him with the help of a young, orphaned, thieves' guild member named Miette. They delve into the world of a bio-mechanical kidnapping cult and discover the connection between the scientist and the missing Denree.
776053	The Flower Girl is a North Korean revolutionary genre theatrical performance, supposedly written by Kim Il-Sung himself according to official North Korean sources. The performance is considered as one of the "Five Great Revolutionary Operas" (Korean: 5대 혁명가극), a group of classical, revolution-themed opera repertoires well received within North Korea. It was also made into a novel. A film adaption of the opera starring Hong Yong-hee was made in 1972. Plot. The story is set during the 1930s, and is based on the anti-Japanese guerrilla movement during the period of Japanese occupation in Korea. A poor, rural girl, around whom the plot is centred, picks flowers on the mountain every day to sell at the market, to care for her ill mother. Additionally, she has a blind sister, and her father is deceased. Her mother is in debt to the landlord, and is bankrupt and unable to purchase food. The landlord's subordinates frequently harass the girl and call for her to work for them, to which her mother refuses. The girl then finds her blind sister attempting to earn money by singing on the street, to her anger. Eventually, she collects enough money to purchase medicine for her ill mother, but by the time she returns, her mother had already died. The landlord's wife becomes very sick, and suspects that the flower girl's blind sister is possessed by the spirit of her deceased mother, and so arranges for her to be frozen to death in the snow. When the flower girl returns home and asks where her sister had gone, the landlord's subordinates chain her up. At this moment, her brother, who had joined the Revolutionary Army, returns home to visit family when he realises that the flower girl had been locked up, and so organises a group of villagers to overthrow the landlord. Creation. According to Kim Il-sung's personal memoirs, he personally created the ideas and foundation for the play himself whilst in a Jilin prison during the 1930s. The first section of his 1992 memoir "With the Century" (), entitled "Anti-Japanese Revolution" (), notes that: "There was a time during our country's independence movement where we held on to our vision to build an "ideal village" concept... At the time, we adopted the Korean students in Jilin to teach village people to sing a large variety of revolutionary songs, such as the "Red Flag Song" and "Revolution Song". In Wujiazi we formed a performance group based at Samsong school led by Kye Yong-chun. It was during this time that I was completing the script for "The Flower Girl", which I had started whilst I was in Jilin City. Upon finishing the script, production of the opera began, and we staged the opera in the Samsong school hall on the 13th anniversary of the October Revolution. For many years after liberation, the opera hadn't been performed since, until it was improved and adapted for film, and re-written as a novel, under the guidance of the Organising Secretary (Kim Jong-il) and released in the early 1970s." Although it is commonly stated that Kim Il-sung was the sole author of the production, many critics in China cast doubts over the reliability of the claim, and suggest that other North Korean writers may have also had some form of interaction in the opera's production. The first official premiere of the opera production was held on November 30, 1972 in Pyongyang, where it was hailed as a great success. According to official North Korean reports, in April 1968, Kim Jong-il suggested that another revolutionary opera, "Sea of Blood", be adapted for a film. Since then, other works have also been adapted into movies "under his guidance", including "The Flower Girl". The opera was intended to promote the communist ideology, by incorporating themes such as the class struggle against the bourgeois; such themes were similarly maintained in the film. In April 1972, the film adaptation was officially launched. The film was directed by Choe Ik-kyu and the script was written by Pak Hak; "Paekdu-san Group" was responsible for the production of the film. Reception. The opera and its film adaptation were both well received in the People's Republic of China when they were introduced there since September 9, 1972, predominantly during the closing period of the Cultural Revolution and the beginning of the era of Deng Xiaoping's rule, where the production was known by the name of The Flower-selling Girl (). A number of theatrical tours were made in China, which were performed in 1973, 1998, 2002 and 2008. In 2009, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao was received by Hong Yong-hee during his visit to North Korea. As of 2008, the opera has been performed over 1,400 times in North Korea and more than 40 other countries, mostly Eastern Bloc states; other countries include France, Italy, Germany, Algeria and Japan. The title of the opera and film was known as "Blomsterflickan" in Sweden, "Das Blumenmädchen" in the German Democratic Republic, "Kvetinárka" in Czechoslovakia, and "Kwiaciarka" in Poland. In China, the film adaptation of the opera was dubbed by the Changchun Film Studio, based on translations by He Mingyan, who was earlier responsible in 1958 in the translation of the North Korean film adaptation of "Chunhyangjeon". The entire translation process for "The Flower Girl" took only seven days. Although the dialogue was dubbed in Mandarin Chinese, song lyrics remained in Korean. As the film was played in Chinese cinemas during the period of the Cultural Revolution, the movie became immensely popular due to its proletarian revolution-based content, to the point where theaters even adopted a 24-hour screening cycle because of high ticket sales. In South Korea, the film was deemed as communist propaganda and a symbol of the enemy, and screening was banned; police were often mobilised when university students were found playing the film on campus, and the students were often accused of being sympathetic with the North. In 1998, the Supreme Court of South Korea ruled that "The Flower Girl" and six other North Korean films were "not favouring anti-ROK sentiments" in regards to national security laws. At the 18th Karlovy Vary International Film Festival in 1972, "The Flower Girl" film adaptation was awarded the special prize. Hong Yong-hee is depicted on the North Korean one won banknote, in her role as the flower girl.
585787	Vettam (Malayalam: വെട്ടം, ) is a 2004 Malayalam romantic comedy film directed by Priyadarshan starring Dileep and Bhavna Pani. The starting of the plot is loosely based on the 1995 American film "French Kiss". Synopsis. A petty thief steals a precious chain and is on the run. A police officer (Radha Ravi) is on his trail as Gopi (Dileep) who meets a girl Veena (Bhavna Pani) on the flight. Veena is on her way to break the marriage of her lover to a tycoon's daughter and both are forced to travel together. Gopi gets out of the train as Veena goes out to fill water. Then later in that place, he finds his brother which leads to a fight between. But his sister () comes and stops them. As he prepares to go back, he is called by his sister and is informed that his younger sister's marriage is fixed
1162543	Maidie Ruth Norman (October 16, 1912 – May 2, 1998) was an American stage, film and television actress and African-American literature and theater instructor. Early life. Norman was born Maidie Ruth Gamble on a plantation in Villa Rica, Georgia to Louis and Lila Graham Gamble. She was raised in Lima, Ohio, and began studying drama and performing in Shakespeare plays as a child. She graduated from Central High School in Lima in 1930, and attended Bennett College, where she earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1934. She then got her Master's degree in drama at Columbia University in 1937.
342839	Attenberg is a Greek drama film, written and directed by Athina Rachel Tsangari. The film was nominated for the Golden Lion at the 67th Venice International Film Festival and Ariane Labed won the Coppa Volpi for the Best Actress. It was filmed in the town of Aspra Spitia, in the Greek region of Boeotia. The film was selected as the Greek entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 84th Academy Awards, but it did not make the final shortlist. Plot. Marina, a sexually inexperienced 23 year old woman, lives with her terminally-ill architect father, Spyros, in an industrial Greek town by the sea.
724805	Christopher Chace Crawford (born July 18, 1985), better known as Chace Crawford, is an American actor. He is known for his portrayal of Nate Archibald on The CW's teen drama television series "Gossip Girl". Early life. Crawford was born in Lubbock, Texas. His father, Chris, is a dermatologist, and his mother, Dana, is a teacher. He has a younger sister, former beauty queen Candice Crawford. Crawford was raised a Southern Baptist. While his father was at med school, Crawford lived in Bloomington, Minnesota for four years and attended Ridgeview Elementary School. When his father completed his training, the family moved back to Texas and settled in Plano, a suburb of Dallas. He was diagnosed with Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) as a child. During high school, Crawford worked in an Abercrombie & Fitch store and modeled for Hollister. He graduated high school from Trinity Christian Academy in 2003. Following his graduation, Crawford attended Pepperdine University, studying broadcast journalism and marketing, but dropped out after a few semesters to focus on his acting career. He temporarily worked as a car valet to make ends meet. Career. Crawford made his film debut in the 2006 film "The Covenant", as Tyler Simms. In March 2007, he landed the role of main character Nate Archibald on The CW's "Gossip Girl", making his television debut. He has also appeared in music videos such as playing English singer Leona Lewis's boyfriend in the video for her song "I Will Be" which was released in January 2009. The same year, Crawford was named "Summer's Hottest Bachelor" by "People". He has also done a public service announcement for Do Something's Teens for Jeans campaign. Crawford played the lead role as a drug dealer named White Mike in the film "Twelve", directed by Joel Schumacher. The film, based on Nick McDonell's novel of the same name, premiered at Sundance Film Festival on January 31, 2010. Crawford was scheduled to play the lead in the remake of "Footloose" and began rehearsals but soon dropped out after a number of weeks. Zac Efron was also tied to the project at one point before dropping out as well. Kenny Wormald was eventually cast for the role. In summer 2011 it also was announced that Crawford had been cast in the romantic comedy film "Responsible Adults" opposite actress, Katie Holmes; the film was written by Alex Schemmer and directed by Jon Poll. He will portray the role of 22-year-old Baxter Wood. Shooting is expected to start in the fall in Los Angeles.
592136	Kaviratna Kalidasa () is a 1983 Kannada historical drama film based on the life of Kalidasa, a renowned Classical Sanskrit writer of 4th Century A.D., whose name was extremely popular across Indian sub-continent. The film was written and directed by Renuka Sharma and produced by V. S. Govinda. The film starred Rajkumar, portraying the title role of Kalidasa, along with Jaya Pradha in the role of Vidyadhare and Srinivasa Murthy as Raja Bhoja.
1017797	Return To The 36th Chamber (少林搭棚大師, "Shao Lin ta peng hsiao tzu", "Return of the Master Killer" or "Master Killer II") is a 1980 Shaw Brothers Studio Hong Kong martial arts comedy film starring Gordon Liu. It is directed by Lau Kar-Leung and written by Ni Kuang. The film is the second in a loosely connected trilogy, following "The 36th Chamber Of Shaolin" (1978) and preceding "Disciples Of The 36th Chamber" (1985). In the first and third films in the series, Liu portrayed the Shaolin monk San Te, but in "Return", he portrays an imposter monk. Plot. The story opens at a fabric dyeing mill. The quality of the dyes has noticeably worsened, and the factory owner, Wang, and his subordinate chief, Boss Wa, have decided to hire some Manchu overseers to improve the work. However, Wang has decided to cut the workers' salary to pay the mercenaries, and when the workers protest they are viciously thrashed. When sitting in a tea house discussing their problems, the workers are joined by Chu Jen-chieh, a good-hearted small-time con man and the foreman's younger brother who is posing as a monk. He offers to help, but since he cannot actually do kung fu, he and the foreman's assistant, Ah Chao, devise a plan to trick the Manchu into reinstating the full salary pay, with Jen-chieh posing as the Shaolin's head abbot, San Te. At first the scheme works, but Wang quickly works out that this man is an impostor, and has him driven away and his Manchu hirelings retaliate against the workers. Feeling guilty about what has happened, Jen-chieh leaves and heads for the Shaolin temple. His first attempts to enter by stealth are thwarted by the vigilant monks and his own bumbling, but eventually he manages to sneak his way in, just to run into the Abbot San Te himself. He, too, realizes that Jen-chieh is not what he claims to be, but he announces that he wants to give him a chance: Jen-chieh is to build a set of gantries all around the temple and renovate the entire complex. Somewhat reluctantly, Jen-chieh goes to work, but he is constantly distracted by the monks practicing martial arts in the training courtyard, which he can look into from his high vantage point. Eventually, he begins to train in kung fu by himself, using the conditions of his assignment to improvise training facilities. However, this causes him to lag behind in his work, and it takes him more than a year to finish the gantry. As soon as Jen-chieh announces that he is finished, the abbot wants him to dismantle the structure and leave the monastery. Rebelling against this decision, Jen-chieh lands in the training courtyard and while trying to evade the abbot chasing him, he inadvertently manages to pass all hazards set in the yard with ease. The abbot finally corners him and forces him to leave, but with a strange smile playing around his lips. Jen-chieh returns to town to find that the conditions of the workers have worsened. Their salary has been cut by nearly half, and any who have protested had been laid off immediately. When some of the ex-workers attack him, not believing that he hasn't learned kung fu in Shaolin, Jen-chieh instinctively and to his own surprise fights them off with his newly acquired kung fu skills. The next morning, Jen-chieh appears at the dye mill and thrashes the overseers, using bamboo fibers (like he used when building the gantry) to tie them up and incapacitate them and introducing his style as "scaffolding kung fu". Quickly, Wang and his bodyguards appear at the scene. Jen-chieh lures them out of the city to a mansion under construction, where he uses the building equipment and the tight quarters to his advantage. Finally overpowering the Wang, he forces him to pay his workers their full wages again. Reluctantly Wang admits defeat, and Jen-chieh continues his training on the half-finished grounds.
965533	Are You Scared? is a 2006 horror film directed by Andy Hurst, and released by Revolver Entertainment. It stars Carlee Avers, Brad Ashten, and Soren Bowie. An unrelated sequel, called Are You Scared 2, was released in 2009. Plot. Six young people wake up in an abandoned building, with no idea of what is going on or how they got there. A mysterious figure appears to them over a PA system, telling them that they are on a gameshow called "Are You Scared?", and that they will have to face their deepest fears in order to win the contest. However, their challenges are real, and deadly, and one by one the group must confront their fears while facing the highest stakes imaginable. The film involves several 'contests', all resulting in the death of one of the group. Death by acid, by explosion, by shotgun, by hungry rats, by strangulation, power drill and decapitation by axe are all featured. Reception. Professional critiques for "Are You Scared" have been predominantly negative, with Scott Foy calling the film ""Saw" for Dummies" and a "shameless knock-off" of the more successful "Saw" series. He ended his review with the denouncement, "No, I was not scared." Slasherpool, however, was "surprised by how decent it turned out to be," citing it as "idiotic" but "mildly entertaining," "as far as rip-offs go."
59326	"The God Who Wasn't There" is a 2005 independent documentary written and directed by Brian Flemming. The documentary questions the existence of Jesus, examining evidence that supports the Christ myth theory against the existence of a historical Jesus, as well as other aspects of Christianity.
587699	Aithe is a critically acclaimed 2003 Telugu thriller film written and directed by Chandra Sekhar Yeleti. The film is Yeleti's debut as director in Telugu cinema. Plot summary. Irfan Khan (Pavan Malhotra) is a key mafia affiliate in Mumbai. Khan is on the wanted list of criminals in Hyderabad with a bounty of 50 lakhs. Aiming to migrate to Dubai so that he could remotely control the operations in Mumbai, Khan devised a plan of hijacking a plane from Hyderabad to Kathmandu. His plan consisted of getting four of his own men to hijack a domestic flight from Hyderabad to Kathmandu(destined for Mumbai) in which he is a passenger. The home minister is also in the flight, and the four men are to release all the passengers and concentrate on the Home minister. From Kathmandu, he planned to go to Dubai. For the hijack operation, he organised a group of four intelligent men who were in dire need for money and who do not have a criminal record. The audience is made to believe in the beginning that the four central characters are these four men, but in fact they kidnap Khan before the flight takes off, aiming to get the prize money. They hide Khan in a forest and call the Assistant Commissioner of Police, who is a double agent for the mafia. When the ACP does not yield(as he wants them to release Khan), one of the four, Kumar, does a deal with the Mafia and obtains a bag with 2 crore. However, the bag in which the money is kept in has a bomb in it. When Kumar tells the others that he has done this, they back out, and he also joins with them, just in time. Meanwhile, Khan's assistant, Musharraf, comes and takes Khan from the forest, but is stopped by IB agent Zaheer Khan, who has been following the four men and Musharraf all throughout the movie. Finally, the four friends come back to their house and find a bag which they had lost with a note from Zaheer explaining everything. The bag also has, to their joy, their prize money.
1064259	Divorce American Style is a 1967 American satirical comedy film directed by Bud Yorkin and starring Dick Van Dyke, Debbie Reynolds, Jean Simmons, Jason Robards and Van Johnson. Norman Lear produced the film and wrote the script based on a story by Robert Kaufman. It focuses on a married couple that opts for divorce when counseling fails to help them resolve their various problems, and the problems presented by divorced people by alimony. The title is an "homage" to "Divorce Italian Style" (1961). Plot. After seventeen years of marriage, affluent Los Angeles suburban couple Richard Harmon (Van Dyke) and his wife Barbara (Reynolds) seem to have it all, but they're constantly bickering. When they discover they can no longer communicate, even to argue, they make an effort to salvage their relationship through counseling. But after catching each other emptying their joint bank accounts, they file for divorce.
830503	Beau Starr (born 1944) is an American actor who has starred in movies and on television. He is known for his film role as Sheriff Ben Meeker in the 1988 hit horror movie '; he reprised his role in the 1989 sequel '. Starr was born in Queens, New York to a retail employee mother and a meatpacker father. His brother is actor Mike Starr. Beau Starr's well-known television role was in the 1990s Canadian television series "Due South" as Lieutenant Harding Welsh of the Chicago Police Department. He also starred in the 1980s television series "Rituals", "Bizarre" and "True Blue". He has starred in several made-for-television movies, and appeared in a number of productions based in Canada, including "Due South", "" and "Doc" as well as some advertisements. His first feature film role was in the 1982 drama movie "Hanky Panky" with Gene Wilder. He also starred in the 1987 comedy movie "Summer School" and the hit 1990 movie "Goodfellas" as Henry Hill's father. His most recent role is in the 2005 hit movie "Cinderella Man". Starr made many guest appearances on television series, including "T.J. Hooker", "The A-Team", "Knight Rider", "Hill Street Blues", "V: The Series", "The 4400", "A Nero Wolfe Mystery" and " NYPD Blue.
627152	Stephanie Faracy (born January 1, 1952) is an American film and television actress. Faracy was born in Brooklyn, New York. One of her earliest notable roles was as Mary Carson's servant (and later the Cleary family) "Judy", in the 1983 television mini-series "The Thorn Birds". She starred in the sitcom "True Colors" (1990–92), a series about an interracial marriage, alongside Frankie Faison (season one), Cleavon Little (season two) and Nancy Walker, who died towards the end of the show's run. She co-starred with John Candy and Dan Aykroyd in the 1988 comedy "The Great Outdoors". In late 2007 she played Rosemary Tanen, Amanda Tanen's mother on "Ugly Betty".
1099795	In numerical analysis, isotonic regression (IR) involves finding a weighted least-squares fit formula_1 to a vector formula_2 with weights vector formula_3 subject to a set of non-contradictory constraints of kind formula_4. Such constraints define partial order or total order and can be represented as a directed graph formula_5, where N is the set of variables involved, and E is the set of pairs (i, j) for each constraint formula_4. Thus, the IR problem corresponds to the following quadratic program (QP): In the case when formula_5 is a total order, a simple iterative algorithm for solving this QP is called the pool adjacent violators algorithm (PAVA). Best and Chakravarti (1990) have studied the problem as an active set identification problem, and have proposed a primal algorithm in O(n), the same complexity as the PAVA, which can be seen as a dual algorithm. IR has applications in statistical inference, for example, to fit of an isotonic curve to mean experimental results when an order is expected. A benefit of isotonic regression is that it does not assume any form for the target function, such as linearity assumed by linear regression. Another application is nonmetric multidimensional scaling, where a low-dimensional embedding for data points is sought such that order of distances between points in the embedding matches order of dissimilarity between points. Isotonic regression is used iteratively to fit ideal distances to preserve relative dissimilarity order. Isotonic regression is also sometimes referred to as "monotonic regression". Correctly speaking, "isotonic" is used when the direction of the trend is strictly increasing, while "monotonic" could imply a trend that is either strictly increasing or strictly decreasing. Isotonic Regression under the formula_10 for formula_11 is defined as follows: Simply ordered case. To illustrate the above, let formula_14, and formula_15, and formula_16. The isotonic estimator, formula_17, minimizes the weighted least squares-like condition: Where formula_19 is the unknown function we are estimating, and formula_20 is a known function. Software has been developed in the R statistical package for computing isotone (monotonic) regression.
1786863	William Nigel Ernle Bruce (4 February 1895 – 8 October 1953), best known as Nigel Bruce, was a British character actor on stage and screen. He was best known for his portrayal of Dr. Watson in a series of films and in the radio series "The New Adventures of Sherlock Holmes" (starring Basil Rathbone as Sherlock Holmes). Bruce is also remembered for his roles in the Alfred Hitchcock films "Rebecca" and "Suspicion". Biography. Bruce was the second son of Sir William Waller Bruce, 10th Baronet (1856–1912) and his wife Angelica (died 1917), daughter of General George Selby, Royal Artillery. Bruce was born in Ensenada, Baja California, Mexico while his parents were on holiday there. He was educated at the Grange, Stevenage and at Abingdon School, Oxfordshire. He served in France from 1914 as a lieutenant in the 10th Service Battalion - Somerset Light Infantry and the Honourable Artillery Company, but was severely wounded at Cambrai the following year, with eleven bullets in his left leg, and spent most of the remainder of the war in a wheelchair. He made his first appearance on stage on 12 May 1920 at the Comedy Theatre as a footman in "Why Marry?". In October that year, he went to Canada as stage manager to Henry V. Esmond and Eva Moore and also playing "Montague Jordan" in "Eliza Comes to Stay"; upon returning to England, he toured in the same part. He appeared constantly on stage thereafter, and eight years later, also started working in silent films. In 1934, he moved to Hollywood, later setting up home at 701 North Alpine Drive, Beverly Hills. Nigel Bruce typically played buffoonish, fuzzy-minded gentlemen. During his film career, he worked in 78 films, including:
580555	Be with Me is a 2005 Singaporean drama film directed by Eric Khoo. The film is inspired by the life of deaf-and-blind teacher Theresa Poh Lin Chan. It premiered as the Director's Fortnight selection in the 2005 Cannes Film Festival. It was also the official entry from Singapore for the 78th Academy Awards in the foreign language category. In December 2005, the Academy body disqualified the film on grounds that the dialogue is mainly in English. Out of 93 minutes, the film only has two and a half minutes of dialogue. "Be with Me" is the first film in Singapore to explicitly feature a lesbian relationship.
1060042	Vincent Andrew Schiavelli (November 11, 1948 – December 26, 2005) was an American character actor noted for his work on stage, screen and television, often described as "the man with the sad eyes." He was notable for his numerous and often critically acclaimed supporting roles. Schiavelli was also well known for his height, standing . Early life. Schiavelli was born in Brooklyn, New York, to a Sicilian-American family. He attended Bishop Loughlin Memorial High School as a teen. He studied acting through the theatre programme at New York University. He began performing on stage in the 1960s. Career. Schiavelli's first film role occurred in Miloš Forman's 1971 production "Taking Off", in which he played a counselor who taught parents of runaway teens to smoke marijuana in order to better understand their children's experiences. Schiavelli's aptitude and distinctive angular appearance soon provided him with a steady stream of supporting roles, often in Miloš Forman films, including "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest", "Amadeus", "The People vs. Larry Flynt", "Valmont", and the 1999 biopic "Man on the Moon". He played Mr. Vargas, the biology teacher in the 1982 hit comedy "Fast Times at Ridgemont High", a role he reprised in the 1986 television spin-off "Fast Times". He was cast in a similar role in the cult hit "Better Off Dead" in which he played Mr. Kerber, a geometry teacher. In 1987, he starred alongside Tim Conway in the short film comedy "Dorf on Golf", and then "Dorf and the First Games of Mount Olympus" in 1988. In 1990, he played the Subway Ghost in "Ghost" and in 1992, he played in Tim Burton's "Batman Returns" as the "Organ Grinder", one of the Penguin's henchmen. He appeared as another villain in the James Bond film "Tomorrow Never Dies" (1997), as a silent monk in "The Frisco Kid" (1979), and as John O'Connor, one of the evil Red Lectroids in the 1984 cult classic "The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension". In 1997, he was named one of America's best character actors by "Vanity Fair" magazine. He also made several voice appearances in the animated television show "Hey Arnold!". In 2002, he played a children's television show host turned heroin addict named Buggy Ding Dong in "Death To Smoochy". His first television role came in 1972 as Peter Panama in "The Corner Bar", the first sustained portrayal of a gay character on American television. His other television credits include "Buffy the Vampire Slayer", and "Taxi" as the priest who marries Latka and Simka. He appeared in the ' episode "The Arsenal of Freedom" as a holographic salesman, on "Miami Vice" as a research scientist who conspires to steal a top-secret prototype weapon from his employer, and an uncredited role in an episode of "Punky Brewster". In ', he played Leo Atkins, a homeless Vietnam War veteran accused of murder in the Season 1 episode "Innocent Man". He wrote a number of cookbooks and food articles for various magazines and newspapers. He received a James Beard Foundation Journalism Award in 2001 and was nominated on several other occasions.
777505	Katy Elizabeth Mixon(born March 30, 1981) is an American actress. She was born in Pensacola, Florida. She is best known for her roles as April Buchanon on HBO's "Eastbound & Down" and Victoria Flynn on the CBS television comedy series "Mike & Molly".
588517	Ira Dubey (born. 1984) is an Indian actress who appeared on the small screen and in Bollywood films. Dubey was born in Mumbai to Lillete Dubey, a Bollywood actress. Her sibling Neha Dubey is also an actress, and has starred in the Mira Nair movie "Monsoon Wedding". She presented the television show "Chicks on Flicks" which used to air on Sony Pix. In the show she reviewed latest Hollywood movies with another host. She made her debut in "The President Is Coming". She has also acted in the 2010 Bollywood film, Aisha (film). She was seen as Television cohost on Foodistan in January 2012.
587423	Ranuva Veeran is a 1981 Tamil film directed by SP. Muthuraman, starring Rajnikanth and Sridevi in the lead roles and Chiranjeevi in supporting role. It was dubbed into Telugu as ""Bandipotu Simham"" (and released 21 May 1982). Plot. The film opens with Chiranjeevi being chased and caught by a group of policemen, but he escapes. Meanwhile, a young military man (Rajinikanth) returns to his village, which is known for frequent thefts and murders perpetrated by the mysterious "One-Eyed Man" (Chiranjeevi) and his gang of thieves. Rajini soon meets Chiranjeevi; the two were once college roommates, but they had since separated. In addition to Chiranjeevi, Rajini reunites with his father (Poornam Vishwanatha), an Orthodox Iyengar who always condemns him, and he finds out that his sister eloped with a man few years before, which he later finds out was other than the gangleader of the thieves himself, Chiranjeevi. Sridevi plays Rajini's love interest as a poultry farm girl in a highly glamourous role. The climax fight between Rajini and Chiranjeevi is the highlight of the movie. In the end Chiranjeevi gets shot by his own son.
590006	Mera Saaya (translation: "My Shadow") is a 1966 Indian Hindi film directed by Raj Khosla. The film was a remake of Marathi film called "Pathlaag" ("Chase"). The film's music is by Madan Mohan and lyrics by Raja Mehdi Ali Khan. The film stars Sunil Dutt and Sadhana. This is director Raj Khosla's third film with Sadhana after "Ek Musafir Ek Hasina"(1963) and "Woh Kaun Thi?" (1964). The film became a "superhit" at the box office.
584464	Unnai Kodu Ennai Tharuven () () is a Tamil film produced by R. B. Choudary and directed by Kavee Kalidas. It features Ajith Kumar and Simran in the lead roles with Parthiban in a guest appearance. It was released on 25 May 2000 to mixed reviews. Plot. Surya (Ajith) has been brought up in the army barracks in Ooty, ever since his mother(Sukanya) handed him over as a baby to a brigadier (Nasser). She tells the officer the reason for her action but the audience is not allowed to hear it at this point. Surya grows up to be a patriotic youth and the best soldier in his class. He falls in love with Indu (Simran), the daughter of an army officer. Indu's parents accept her choice of husband but soon after, her father dies in a bomb blast while her mother loses her life on seeing her husband's body. Not wishing to lose her husband too in war, Indu asks Surya to choose between her and the army. Production. Noted army general Major Ravi played a significant role in assisting the team during scenes featuring Ajith in the Indian army. Release. The film opened to mixed reviews with a reviewer from The Hindu citing that "potholes in the screenplay prove irksome" and that "the thin thread of patriotism woven throughout the film, hardly makes an impact.". Soundtrack. The film's score and soundtrack was composed by S. A. Rajkumar.
1163323	Joely Fisher (born October 29, 1967) is an American actress best known for her work on television as Paige Clark on "Ellen" as well as Joy Stark in the Fox sitcom '"Til Death", and most recently as a guest judge on "RuPaul's Drag U", and also on stage and in films. Background. Fisher was born in Burbank, California, the daughter of singer Eddie Fisher and actress Connie Stevens. Her younger sister is actress Tricia Leigh Fisher. She has a half sister, actress Carrie Fisher, and a half-brother, Todd Fisher, from her father's previous marriage to actress Debbie Reynolds. Her parents divorced when she was age two, and she was raised by her mother. Fisher began performing on stage in her mother's Las Vegas act at age seven. She and Tricia toured the world with Stevens, attending many different schools and having tutors. They then attended Beverly Hills High School. Fisher went to the University of Paris for one semester. While on her way there, she stopped off in New York and dropped in unannounced on her father, reestablishing relations with him. She then attended Emerson College, but left before graduating to begin an acting career. She was named Miss Golden Globe at the 1992 Golden Globe Awards. Career. Her first movie role was Averil in the comedy "Pretty Smart" (1986), which starred her sister, Tricia. Joely then played Kris in TV's Schoolbreak Special drama "Dedicated to the One I Love" (1991) opposite Danielle Ferland. Next came the feature "I'll Do Anything" (1994) starring Nick Nolte, which helped her career as bigger roles followed. She had a variety of guest roles on shows such as "Growing Pains", "Blossom", "Caroline in the City", "The Outer Limits", "Grace Under Fire" and "Coach". In 1994, she landed her most prominent role when she was cast as Paige Clark on the sitcom "Ellen". She played the role until the series ended in 1998. That same year she earned a Golden Globe Award nomination. She followed "Ellen" with the role of Dr. Brenda Bradford in the feature movie "Inspector Gadget" (1999) opposite Matthew Broderick. Fisher's Broadway debut was as a replacement in the revival of "Grease" (1994). She was also a replacement in the revival of "Cabaret" (1998). From 2003 until 2005, she starred in the Lifetime network's drama series "Wild Card" as insurance investigator Zoe Busiek. After that, she had a recurring role as Lynette's boss Nina on "Desperate Housewives". From 2006 until 2010, Fisher starred opposite actor Brad Garrett as Joy Stark in the Fox TV sitcom '"Til Death". Personal life. Fisher married cinematographer Christopher Duddy on December 31, 1996. They have three daughters, Skylar Grace (born June 14, 2001), True Harlow (born February 2, 2006), and Olivia Luna (adopted September 2008). She is also stepmother to Duddy's two sons, Cameron and Collin. The family lives in Los Angeles next to Fisher's sister Tricia, with whom she is very close. In late 2008, she became an Artist Ambassador for Save the Children. She traveled to Xai-Xai, Mozambique, to visit with children that are part of the child sponsorship programs.
587938	Nireekshana () is a Telugu drama film directed by Balu Mahendra starring Bhanu Chander and Archana. The music was composed by Maestro Ilayaraja. This movie was released in the year 1982 and remained as all time classic. The film was remade in Malayalam by Balu Mahendra himself as "Yathra" (1985) with Mammooty and Shobana and released in the year 1985. The movie was later dubbed in Tamil as "Kanne Kalaimaane". Plot. The story revolves around Banu Chandar, a forest officer by profession. He falls in love with a tribal girl "Tulasi" (played by Archana). He gets arrested by Police as they mistakenly identifies him as a Naxalite. In an unfortunate event, he kills a police man and gets life imprisonment. The whole plot runs in a form of story telling when Bhanu Chandar released from the jail and he happens to travel in a school bus. He hopes that Archana still waits for him even after several years of his jail, thus the name of this film "Nireekshana" which means "The Waiting". Soundtrack. The soundtrack features 4 songs composed by Ilaiyaraaja. The tune of the song Akasam Enatido originally from Tamil song - "Sangathil padatha" in a Tamil film "Auto Raja" in the same year. Balu Mahendra liked the tune so much that he used it again in Aur Ek Prem Kahani. The song was also used two more times by Ilayaraaja himself and once by Shankar Ganesh. The song "Theeyanni Danimma" also featured in the remake Yathra.
1265351	Jeanette Anna MacDonald (June 18, 1903January 14, 1965) was an American singer and actress best remembered for her musical films of the 1930s with Maurice Chevalier ("Love Me Tonight", "The Merry Widow") and Nelson Eddy ("Naughty Marietta", "Rose-Marie", and "Maytime"). During the 1930s and 1940s she starred in 29 feature films, four nominated for Best Picture Oscars ("The Love Parade", "One Hour with You", "Naughty Marietta" and "San Francisco"), and recorded extensively, earning three gold records. She later appeared in opera, concerts, radio, and television. MacDonald was one of the most influential sopranos of the 20th century, introducing opera to movie-going audiences and inspiring a generation of singers. Early years. MacDonald was born June 18, 1903, at her family's Philadelphia home at 5123 Arch Street. She was the youngest of the three daughters of Anna Mae (née Wright) and Daniel MacDonald. She had Scottish, English, and Dutch ancestry. Starting at an early age, she took dancing lessons with Al White, imitated her mother's opera records and took singing lessons with Wassil Leps. She performed at church and school functions and began touring in kiddie shows, heading Al White's "Six Little Song Birds" in Philadelphia at the age of nine. She was raised as a Christian Scientist. She is the younger sister of character actress Blossom Rock who is most famous as Grandmama on the TV show Addams Family. Broadway. In November 1919 MacDonald joined her older sister, actress Blossom Rock in New York and landed a job in the chorus of Ned Wayburn's "The Demi-Tasse Revue", a musical entertainment presented between films at the Capital Theatre on Broadway. In 1920 she appeared in two musicals, Jerome Kern's "Night Boat" as a chorus replacement, and "Irene" on the road as the second female lead (Future film star Irene Dunne played the title role during part of the tour). In 1921 MacDonald played in "Tangerine", as one of the "Six Wives." In 1922 MacDonald was a featured singer in a Greenwich Village revue, "Fantastic Fricassee". Good press notices brought her a role in "The Magic Ring" (1923). MacDonald played the second female lead in this long-running musical which starred Mitzi Hajos. In 1925 MacDonald again had the second female lead opposite Queenie Smith in "Tip Toes", a George Gershwin hit show. The following year found her still in a second female lead in "Bubblin' Over" (1926), a musical version of "Brewster's Millions". MacDonald finally landed the starring role in "Yes, Yes, Yvette" (1927). Planned as a sequel to producer H.H. Frazee's "No, No, Nanette", the show toured extensively but failed to please the critics when it arrived on Broadway. MacDonald also played the lead in her next two plays: "Sunny Days" (1928), her first show for producers Lee and J.J. Shubert, for which she received rave reviews, and "Angela" (1928), which the critics panned. Her last play was "Boom Boom" (1929), with her name above the title (the cast included young Archie Leach, who later changed his name to Cary Grant).
1268395	Lillian Diana Gish (October 14, 1893 February 27, 1993) was an American stage, screen and television actress, director and writer whose film acting career spanned 75 years, from 1912 to 1987. Gish was called The First Lady of American Cinema. She was a prominent film star of the 1910s and 1920s, particularly associated with the films of director D. W. Griffith, including her leading role in one of the highest grossing films of the era Griffith's seminal "Birth of a Nation" (1915). Her sound-era film appearances were sporadic, but included well-known roles in the controversial western "Duel in the Sun" (1946) and the offbeat thriller "Night of the Hunter" (1955). She did considerable television work from the early 1950s into the 1980s, and closed her career playing, for the first time, opposite Bette Davis in the 1987 film "The Whales of August". Honours. The American Film Institute (AFI) named Gish 17th among the greatest female stars of all time. She was awarded an Honorary Academy Award in 1971, and in 1984 she received an AFI Life Achievement Award. Gish, an American icon, was also awarded in the Kennedy Center Honors. Early life. Gish was born in Springfield, Ohio, to 18-year-old Mary Robinson McConnell (1875-1948) (an Episcopalian) and James Leigh Gish (1872-1912) (who was of German Lutheran descent). She had a younger sister, Dorothy. The first several generations of Gishes were Dunkard ministers. Her great-great-great-grandfather came to America on the ship "Pennsylvania Merchant" in 1733 and received a land grant from William Penn. Her great-great-grandfather was in the American Revolutionary War and is buried in a cemetery in Pennsylvania for such soldiers. Letters between Gish and a Pennsylvania college professor indicate that her knowledge of her family background was limited. Gish's father left the family before she was old enough to remember him; her mother then took up acting to support the family. The family moved to East St. Louis, Illinois, where they lived for several years with Lillian's aunt and uncle, Henry and Rose McConnell. Their mother opened the Majestic Candy Kitchen and the girls helped sell popcorn and candy to patrons of the old Majestic Theater, located next door. The girls attended St. Henry's School, where they acted in school plays.
582227	Ghulami is a 1985 Hindi-language Indian feature film directed by J.P. Dutta. It has an ensemble cast comprising Dharmendra, Mithun Chakraborty, Mazhar Khan, Kulbhushan Kharbanda, Raza Murad, Smita Patil, Reena Roy, Anita Raj, Naseeruddin Shah and Om Shivpuri. Amitabh Bachchan provides the narration. Plot. The film focuses on the caste and feudal system in Rajasthan and a rebellion started by the Jats under Ranjit Singh Choudhary (Dharmendra), against the Rajput Thakur landlords. It was based on story of a school master Ranjit Singh Choudhary. The poor peasant (mainly belonging to a lower caste in the discriminatory caste system) is born with a loan which had been taken by his ancestors and dies in debt, leaving it for his next generation; his land and belongings are always under the threat of confiscation due to non-payment of the loan and, worst, the honour of the women of his family is under constant threat from the lusty landlords, still enjoying the undesirable benefits of the feudalistic landownership system continuing for centuries in the rural India. On 15 August 1947, India got independence but the poor peasants are still accursed to bear the brunt of the slavery of the mighty. O.P. Dutta presented the story of a well-educated and self-respectful peasant (Dharmendra) who unfortunately finds himself on the lower rung of the ladder of the social structure because of his birth. The daughter of the supercilious landlord possesses a different nature and outlook and she (Smita Patil) is his close friend.
1061779	Christina Ricci (born February 12, 1980) is an American actress. Ricci received initial recognition and praise as a child star for her performance as Wednesday Addams in "The Addams Family" (1991) and "Addams Family Values" (1993), and her role as Kat Harvey in "Casper" (1995). Ricci made a transition into more adult-oriented roles with "The Ice Storm" (1997), followed by an acclaimed performance in "Buffalo '66" (1998) and then "The Opposite of Sex" (1998), for which she received a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actress. She continued her success with well-received performances in "Sleepy Hollow" (1999), "Monster" (2003), "Penelope" (2006) and "Black Snake Moan" (2006). In 2006 Ricci was nominated for an Emmy award for her role as a paramedic in the ABC drama "Grey's Anatomy". In 2011–12 she played Maggie Ryan in the television show "Pan Am". Early life. Ricci was born in Santa Monica, California, the fourth and youngest child of Sarah (née Murdoch), a former Ford Model and real estate agent, and Ralph Ricci, a lawyer and a group therapist. Regarding her ancestry, Ricci has stated, "The Italian blood has been bred out of me. There's an Italian four or five generations back who married an Irish woman and they all had sons. So they married more Irish women, there were more sons, and more Irish women. Now I'm basically Scots-Irish." The family moved to Montclair, New Jersey, where she grew up attending Edgemont Elementary School, Glenfield Middle School, and Montclair High School as well as the Morristown-Beard School. After one year, she left the high school for the Professional Children's School in New York City. Her siblings are Rafael (born 1971), Dante (born 1974), and Pia (born 1976). Ricci's parents separated in 1993, when she was 13, and she has not spoken to her father since. Career. Early work. A critic for the "Bergen Record" discovered Ricci at age eight in a school play ("The Twelve Days of Christmas") at Edgemont School in Montclair, New Jersey. Another child was originally cast in the role, but Ricci got him to hit her and told on him; he lost the role to her as part of his punishment. After this, she did several commercials starting at the age of six, until she finally got her big screen debut in "Mermaids" in 1990 as Cher's younger daughter. The young actress made enough of an impression to land more work; later she appeared in the video of the film's soundtrack "The Shoop Shoop Song". The following year, she starred as the morbidly precocious Wednesday Addams in the film adaptation of "The Addams Family". The role would help to establish Ricci as a character actress known for playing dark, unconventional roles – she went on to play Wednesday again in the film's 1993 sequel, "Addams Family Values", which became another box office draw, and more screen time was provided for Ricci's performance as Wednesday. Her next project, "Casper", received mixed critical reviews, but was a success at the box office, being the year's eighth highest grossing film. She also starred in "Now and Then," a coming-of-age film about four 12-year-old girls and their friendship during the 1970s to the 1990s. Ricci played the younger version of Rosie O'Donnell. "Now and Then" was another box office success, and received favorable comparisons to "Stand by Me", being called "the female version" of the film. She also starred in a handful of other films with teenage roles such as "" and "That Darn Cat". In 1997, Ricci began to appear in more adult roles, beginning with her role as the troubled, sexually curious Wendy Hood in Ang Lee's critically acclaimed "The Ice Storm". More recent roles. Ricci subsequently appeared in films like the independent hit "Buffalo '66" (in which she played Vincent Gallo's unwitting abductee-turned-girlfriend), John Waters' "Pecker", and Don Roos' "The Opposite of Sex" (as the acid-tongued, manipulative Dede). For her performance as Dede, Ricci won acclaim and was nominated for a Golden Globe. Although she missed out on an Academy Award nomination, "Entertainment Weekly" honored her well-received performance as one of the "Worst Oscar Snubs Ever". Later films included "Sleepy Hollow" (alongside Johnny Depp), and "Prozac Nation" (which featured her first on-screen nude scene). She then starred opposite Charlize Theron in the film "Monster"; during Theron's acceptance speech at the Golden Globes, she acknowledged Ricci, calling her the "unsung hero" of the film. Ricci had earlier been turned down four times for the role of Dolores Haze in "Lolita". She later turned down the role of Ronna in "Go" because of scheduling conflicts, as well as a role in "Loser". Ricci was originally slated to play the lead in "Ghost World" (2001), but by the time it was filmed she was too old for the part and had moved on to other projects. Ricci made a cameo appearance on Beck's successful album "Guero", providing vocals on "Hell Yes". In February 2006 Ricci made a guest appearance as a paramedic in the ABC drama "Grey's Anatomy", for which she was nominated for an "Emmy Award". She was a guest star for seven episodes in the last season of "Ally McBeal" in 2002 as Debbie 'Liza' Bump, a lawyer who works at Cage & Fish and marries Richard Fish in the last episode. On December 4, 1999, she appeared as the guest host on "Saturday Night Live". She performed parodies of Britney Spears and the Olsen twins. During one of her skits, she accidentally punched actress Ana Gasteyer in the face. The skit was a parody of the "Sally Jessy Raphael" show, in which she played a 13-year-old runaway who sleeps with dogs, and required her to fake-punch Gasteyer, but accidentally ended up really hitting Gasteyer in the eye. Although Ricci initially reacted by putting her hands over her mouth in surprise, she quickly fell back into character. In 2006, Ricci stated that she feels that at 5 ft 1 in (155 cm) she is "too short" to ever be an A-list actress, saying she tends "to look really small on camera". She has also said that she believes that she does not have much control over her career, specifying that she still has to audition for film parts. For her role in "Black Snake Moan", Ricci was required to lose several pounds and wore a 40 lb (18 kg) chain during filming. In 2006 Ricci starred in "Penelope", a modern fairytale; and in 2008 she played the female lead in the Wachowski brothers' feature film adaptation of "Speed Racer". She also signed on for three episodes of TNT's crime drama "Saving Grace" during its second season. Ricci played a young detective who temporarily partners with Grace, played by Holly Hunter. Ricci appeared with Liam Neeson and Justin Long in the psychological thriller "After.Life" which had a limited release on April 9, 2010. She made her Broadway debut as Mandy in "Time Stands Still", resuming performances on September 23, 2010 at the Cort Theatre, alongside original cast members Laura Linney, Brian d'Arcy James and Eric Bogosian. She replaced Alicia Silverstone, who played the role of Mandy in its Manhattan Theater Club engagement. In September 2011 Ricci began a starring role in the ABC television series "Pan Am", set in the 1960s. She returned to the stage in April 2012, playing Hermia in an off-Broadway revival of Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream". Ricci recently flew to Sydney to begin work on an Australian film called "Around The Block". Personal life. Ricci has appeared in national ads for emergency contraception. She supported John Kerry's presidential bid in 2004. After making the top of PETA's worst-dressed list and receiving a letter from the animal rights group, Ricci decided to give up wearing fur. Ricci has tattoos of a lion on her right shoulder blade (a reference to "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe", a favorite novel of hers as a kid), an Edward Gorey figure on the inside of her right wrist, praying hands on her left hip (this tattoo was originally a bat), the name "Jack" on her right thigh for a dead pet, a sparrow on her right breast, and a mermaid on her left ankle. She also had the words "Move or Bleed" on the left side of her ribcage as well as a bouquet of sweet pea on her lower back. She was briefly engaged to fellow actor Owen Benjamin. She announced her engagement to dolly grip James Heerdegen in 2013, after having met on the set of "Pan Am" in 2012. Ricci is the National Spokesperson for the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network (RAINN).
1656215	Xu Guangqi (; April 24, 1562 – November 8, 1633), who later adopted the baptismal name Paul (), was a Chinese scholar-bureaucrat, agricultural scientist, astronomer, and mathematician in the Ming Dynasty. Xu was a colleague and collaborator of the Italian Jesuits Matteo Ricci and Sabatino de Ursis and they translated several classic Western texts into Chinese, including part of Euclid's "Elements". He was also the author of the "Nong Zheng Quan Shu", one of the first comprehensive treatises on the subject of agriculture. He was one of the "Three Pillars of Chinese Catholicism". His current title is Servant of God. Early life. Xu Guangqi was born into a relatively poor family in Shanghai on April 24, 1562. His father, Xu Sicheng, was in difficult financial situation when Guangqi was a child, and had to support the family with a small vegetable farm, but apparently still earned enough to be able to send his son to school at the age of six. Xu received the equivalent of his bachelor's degree at nineteen, but did not receive higher degrees until his thirties. Afterwards, he spent the majority of his time in positions of high office serving the Ming court. When he died, he held positions of Deputy Prime Minister of the Cabinet (内阁次辅) and Minister of Rites (礼部尚书) (minister of culture, education, foreign affairs, "etc."). He lived in a period when Chinese mathematics had gone into decline. The earlier efforts at algebra had been almost forgotten. Xu blamed some of the failures on a decline in interest of practical science in China and became something of a critic of Chinese society.
1655832	Qin Jiushao (, ca. 1202–1261), courtesy name Daogu (道古), was a Chinese mathematician. Biography. Although Qin Jiushao was born in Ziyang, Sichuan, his family originated from Shandong province. He is regarded as one of the greatest mathematicians in Chinese history. This is especially remarkable due to the fact that Qin did not devote his life to mathematics. He was accomplished in many other fields and held a series of bureaucratic positions in several Chinese provinces.
1040062	Jodie Auckland Whittaker (born 3 January 1982) is an English actress who first came to prominence for her work in the film "Venus" (2006). Since then she has starred in the films "St Trinian's" (2007), "Good" (2008), "" (2009) and "Attack the Block" (2011). She has also starred in the television series "Tess of the D'Urbervilles" (2008), "Wired" (2008), "Return to Cranford" (2009), "Marchlands" (2011) and "Broadchurch" (2013). Career. Whittaker made her professional debut in "The Storm" at Shakespeare's Globe in 2005. She has since worked in film, television, radio and theatre. In 2007 she stood in at short notice for an unwell Carey Mulligan in the Royal Court's production of "The Seagull", and appeared in a fundraising play at the Almeida Theatre. In her first major role, she co-starred as Jessie (a.k.a. Venus) with Peter O'Toole and Leslie Phillips in the aforementioned "Venus". Whittaker's radio credits include a 2008 adaptation of "Blinded by the Sun" by Stephen Poliakoff, which also starred Harriet Walter and Alex Jennings and the role of Lydia Bennett in "Unseen Austen" an original drama by Judith French. In 2009 she worked on the film "Ollie Kepler's Expanding Purple World", the BBC2 drama "Royal Wedding" and the short film "Wish 143", which was nominated for the Academy Award for Live Action Short Film at the 83rd Academy Awards. In 2010, she appeared in the film "The Kid" and co-starred in BBC1's "Accused", which aired on 6 December 2010. Whittaker appeared in Ian Fitzgibbon's 2009 Irish comedy crime film "Perrier's Bounty", alongside Cillian Murphy and Jim Broadbent. In 2011, she appeared as Viv in the BBC adaptation of Sarah Waters's novel "The Night Watch" and in the cult film "Attack the Block". In 2012 she starred in the musical comedy-drama "Good Vibrations". It was released in the UK in March 2013. In March–April 2013, Whittaker starred in the high-profile ITV detective drama "Broadchurch". Personal life. Whittaker is from the village of Skelmanthorpe in Yorkshire. She trained at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, graduating in 2005 with the gold medal for acting. She has been married to American actor Christian Contreras since 2008.
592153	Anna Bond () is a romantic action Kannada film written and directed by Duniya Soori. Produced by Parvathamma Rajkumar, it stars Puneet Rajkumar, Nidhi Subbaiah and Priyamani in the lead roles and Jackie Shroff in a negative role. The movie was released on 1 May 2012. V. Harikrishna is the music director for the film."Anna Bond" opened to lacklustre reviews. It was termed as "The Most Disappointing Kannada Films of 2012" list by Rediff and had got a thumbs down from critics. Plot. Bond Ravi (Puneeth Rajkumar) is a guy, who has the tendency of helping others. Bond Ravi is a karate champ and is shown as working in a medical camp of Singapore. He meets Meera (Priyamani) in a bus and falls in love with her charm. One day, Meera visits the same village where Bond Ravi lives to make a documentary film. She stays with her friend Divya (Nidhi Subbaiah). Love with Meera increases for Ravi when Meera is about to leave the village, she tells him to make something big in life. Ravi along with Chapathi Babu (Rangayana Raghu) leaves his village. On the way he meets a military guy Chandrakanth (Avinash), who mistakes the identity of Bond Ravi in the forest. The military guy has come to treat the pain of an army official, Chandrakanth. Now, a sudden shoot begins from Charlie (Jackie Shroff). Bond Ravi helps Chandrakanth in this place. Dreaded personality and drug mafia is looking for his daughter, who thinks his daughter is with Chandrakanth. Next part of the movie is the revenge story of Charlie on Bond Ravi. Charlie on hunting for his daughter kills his daughter, Divya. Chandrakanth’s daughter Meera comes under the custody of Charlie as a part of revenge.The remaining movie revolves around the escape of Meera from Charlie, which is a great task for Bond Ravi. Production. Development. "Anna Bond" is the second Puneet Rajkumar movie with Duniya Soori after the acclaimed and highly successful 2010 film "Jackie". The film was officially launched on 7 October 2011, a day after the release of Puneet's film "Paramathma," and filming commenced on October 10. Being a big budget film, it is said to have a story with a revolutionary concept, but with the entertainment quotient intact and will have a lot of graphics to support its narration. It is the 80th film of Kannada thespian Dr. Rajkumar's production unit: Poornima Enterprises. The technical team comprises as the same as the one that worked for "Jackie" and would include V. Harikrishna for music, Shashidhar Adapa for art, Sathya Hegde for cinematography and Imran Sardhariya for choreography. There will be five songs and the lyrics are penned by Yogaraj Bhat, Jayanth Kaikini and Kaviraj. Filming. The film was shot in Bangalore, Coorg and Kanakapura. The film unit also shot two songs in Spain among the fanfare of localites to watch the song and dance. Boxoffice. Reviews were mixed to negative for the movie,The movie saw grand opening by collecting 18 cr on 1st week itself.On opening day it collected 3.5cr,which is highest for any kannada movie till date.The movie released world wide like in major centers Hong Kong,Malaysia,Singapore,Abhu Dhabi, Sharja, UK, Dubai, Japan, New York, New Jersey, Melborne, Adilade, Spain,Switzerland,Italy etc. Soundtrack. The soundtrack of the film was released on 2 April 2012. The music was composed by V. Harikrishna.
1058781	A Good Year is a 2006 British romantic comedy film, set in London and Provence. Directed by Ridley Scott, starring Russell Crowe, Marion Cotillard, Didier Bourdon, Abbie Cornish, Tom Hollander and Albert Finney, it is based on the 2004 novel of the same name by British author Peter Mayle. Plot. In the prologue, a young Max Skinner spends his childhood summer holidays learning to appreciate the finer things in life at his Uncle Henry's vineyard estate in Provence in southeastern France. Some 25 years later, Max is an unethical, aggressive, hard-working London-based investment trader. Following his uncle's death, Max is the sole beneficiary of the French property. He travels to Provence to prepare a quick sale. Shortly after arriving he knocks a local cafe owner, named Fanny Chenal, off her bicycle as a result of his careless driving. Subsequently, he discovers that his latest City financial stunt has landed him in hot water with the UK government and with his firm's directors, necessitating his return to London. To assist in his planned sale of the property, Max hurriedly snaps some photos and in the process falls into an empty swimming pool. He is unable to escape until Fanny Chenal, driving by and spotting his rental car, appears and turns on the water supply in retaliation. This delay causes Max to miss his flight and having failed to report to the directors in person, he is suspended from work and trading activities for one week.
1059718	For the Boys is a 1991 film which tells the story of Dixie Leonard, a 1940s actress/singer who teams up with Eddie Sparks, a famous performer to entertain American troops. The film traces her life through 50 years. The original music score was composed by Dave Grusin. The film was adapted by Marshall Brickman, Neal Jimenez and Lindy Laub from a story by Jimenez and Laub. It was directed by Mark Rydell. It stars Bette Midler, James Caan, George Segal, Patrick O'Neal, Christopher Rydell, Arye Gross and Norman Fell. Bette Midler was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance. The movie soundtrack features adaptations of many classic songs, including "Come Rain or Come Shine", "Baby, It's Cold Outside" by Frank Loesser, "P.S. I Love You", "I Remember You", "Every Road Leads Back To You" and the Beatles' "In My Life". Many of these have lyrics by Johnny Mercer. Although the film is fiction, actress/singer Martha Raye believed that Midler's character was based on many widely-known facts about her life and career with the USO and pursued legal action based on that assumption, but ultimately lost the case. The Caan character was generally believed to be based on Bob Hope. In 2011, the film was adapted for the musical stage by Aaron Thielen and Terry James and debuted at the Marriott Theatre in Lincolnshire, Illinois. Plot. In the early 1990s, retired entertainer Dixie Leonard (Midler) has a commitment to attend a Hollywood ceremony being televised live to honor her and longtime show-biz partner Eddie Sparks (Caan). When a young man from the TV show comes to pick her up, Dixie balks. She explains what brought Eddie and her together and drove them apart. The bulk of the film is an extended flashback. Dixie tells the story of how during World War II, she received an offer to go overseas and become a part of Eddie's act in entertaining the troops. Dixie is an immediate hit with the boys in uniform, but Eddie wants her gone, ostensibly because he finds her kind of humor too coarse, but really because she topped his jokes and stole the show. Dixie doesn't care for him much either, but fellow entertainers and her joke-writer uncle (Segal) persuade her to stay. Eddie wins her over, particularly by reuniting Dixie with her soldier husband on stage. However, later in the war, Dixie's husband dies in battle. Despite her distaste for Eddie, she continues working with him back in the U.S. to support herself and her son. Eddie is married with daughters, but treats Dixie's son as if he were his own. The two bickering performers go overseas twice more to entertain the troops in the Korean War and the Vietnam War. They endure the horrors of combat, the sin of temptation where they appeared to have slept together after seeing a soldier killed in action, the taint of McCarthyism and, ultimately, the death of Dixie's son in Vietnam, which they both mourn. Dixie has not forgiven Eddie for his part in all this. But, at the last minute, because he speaks of their joint loss in Vietnam, she consents to join him on stage for one last song and dance, before appearing to accept their mutual love for one another. Cast. Many of the U.S. Marines from Camp Pendleton, California were going to be used as extras in some scenes. Unfortunately, Operation Desert Shield started and many of them had to be shipped to the Middle East. Producers had to hire clean-cut civilians to fill the ranks. Awards and nominations. Nominations. Bette Midler lost the Academy Award to Jodie Foster that year for her performance in the Best Picture-winning film "The Silence of the Lambs". Dave Grusin lost the Golden Globe to Alan Menken that year for his score for the Disney film "The Beauty and the Beast". Soundtrack. The soundtrack album is composed largely of standards popular from the era, although several were written after the time period the film takes place. Two Bette Midler singles were issued from the soundtrack, although neither performed particularly well on the U.S. singles charts. "Every Road Leads Back to You" peaked at #78 on the Billboard Hot 100 and #15 on the Adult Contemporary chart, while "In My Life" reached #20 on the AC chart while failing to register at all on the pop side. Reception. The film received mixed reviews from critics, where it currently holds a 38% rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 13 reviews. Many reviewers noted that James Caan seemed miscast in the role of comedian Eddie Sparks (a caricature of Bob Hope) and wondered why co-star George Segal, who as an actor had proved equally adept at comedy as well as drama, wasn't cast in the role instead, but the answer is simply Caan was hot at the time, having just come off a major blockbuster, and Segal's career was on the wane.
587773	Bavagaru Bagunnara (Telugu: బావగారూ బాగున్నారా, English: "Brother-in-law, Are You Fine?") is a Telugu film which released on April 9, 1998 and was produced by Nagendra Babu. The film stars Chiranjeevi, Rambha, and Paresh Rawal. It was a hit at the box-office. In 2000, the film was remade into a Bollywood film as "Kunwara", starring Govinda and Urmila Matondkar. Plot. Raju (Chiranjeevi) runs between New Zealand, where he owns a restaurant, and India to run a home for orphans started in his sister's name. Swapna (Rambha) is a student in New Zealand, staying with her uncle. Once she goes looking for Raju to take him to task for thrashing her friend. On learning that Raju was not at fault, she promptly falls in love with him. After that the scene shifts to India when Raju goes there to look after the 'home'. There he keeps a pregnant woman, Sandhya (Rachana), from committing suicide. On learning about her jilted love affair, he decides to help her out. He convinces her that he will act as her husband until the baby is born, whereupon he would leave her, so that she could live with her child peacefully as a deserted wife. With that plan they go to her village. Her father, Rao Bahaddur Rajendra Prasad (Paresh Rawal), after initially refusing, unwillingly gives his nod to the plan under pressure from family members. The story takes a twist when Swapna comes to India and finds, to her utter shock, Raju as her brother-in-law. Raju's pleadings of innocence fail to convince her. Meanwhile, Raju gets involved in a dispute about the ownership of a lake between their village and a neighboring one. He wins the race that decides its ownership in favor of Sandhya's village. Sandhya's father, happy at the turn of events leading to heightening of the prestige of their village, decides to accept Raju as his son-in-law and decides them married. Now Swapna, who comes to know the truth, is in a turmoil. Meanwhile, Sandhya makes another attempt of suicide, but Raju thwarts it again. In the process he comes to know that she met her lover (Achyut), who was held captive by the neighboring village head (Jayaprakash) and is being forced to marry his daughter. Raju rescues Sandhya's lover and gets them married, giving a happy ending to the movie.
585291	Puthukavithai is a Tamil film is directed by S.P.Muthuraman. The film is a remake of the 1976 hit Kannada film Naa ninna mareyalaare with Rajkumar and Lakshmi, famous Tamil actress in the lead. Plot. Anand (Rajnikanth) is motorcycle champion for six years in a row. Winning the championship brings him the introduction of Uma (Jyothi), the daughter of Thilakavathy (Sukumari); a haughty, rich woman. Uma thinks anand has a too dark complexion but soon turns into love. But Thilakavathy deceives Anand and Uma into thinking that she agrees to their wedding while secretly planning to get Uma married someone else. She gets Anand locked up on the day of the wedding and Anand escapes but not too soon to stop the wedding. The next time they meet, Uma sees Anand happily married to Kalyani (Saritha) and with a child while she informs him that she too is happily married with two children. Saritha invites Uma to her house for diwali there reveals a secret . Later what happens is the climax. Sound track. Lyrics for the songs are written by Vairamuthu set to scores by Ilayaraja
1748704	Zelda Rae Williams (born July 31, 1989) is an American actress and the daughter of actor and comedian Robin Williams and Marsha Garces. Her father stated that she was named after Princess Zelda of "The Legend of Zelda" series of video games. Acting professionally, her first big role was that of Melissa Loggia, the main character's teenage love interest in the 2004 film "House of D". In 2007, she was chosen as one of People Magazine's 100 Most Beautiful People. Early life. Williams was born in New York City, New York to Marsha Garces Williams, the second wife of Robin Williams. The first of Marsha's two children, Zelda has an older half-brother Zachary Pym Williams (born April 11, 1983), as well as a younger brother, Cody Alan Williams (born November 25, 1991). Zelda moved to Los Angeles from her hometown of San Francisco. Hobbies. Williams has been quoted as saying she's played "every single sport on the face of the planet." She regularly visits an indoor climbing gym in her hometown of San Francisco. Williams is also a dedicated video game player and "Halo 3" fan. She has stated that Wikipedia and Notcot.org are websites she visits frequently. In June 2011, both Zelda and Robin featured in a television commercial for the Nintendo 3DS game '. Furthermore on October 25, 2011, she was the special guest host at the London Zelda Symphony Concert at the Hammersmith Apollo, marking the 25th anniversary of the Zelda Series. Also, she appears in an interview with Nintendo representatives, where she says that one of her favorite things to do in her free time is play Super Smash Brothers Melee with her friends, always playing as the character Sheik. On November 17, 2011, subscribers to Nintendo emails received an email of her and her father playing the new game ' for the Nintendo Wii. She has stated that "" is her favorite game of all time, and voices support of a release of it on the Nintendo 3DS by supporting "Operation Moonfall". She appears in the Wynter Gordon music video for "Buy My Love" and she also has a cameo in the Cobra Starship music video "You Make Me Feel", along with father Robin. Career. Williams's acting debut was in the 2004 film "House of D" opposite Anton Yelchin as his young first love, Melissa Loggia. In "House of D", she worked alongside her father, co-star Robin Williams. Though the film received mixed reviews, Zelda's and Yelchin's performances were well received.
1096319	Antoine Arnauld (February 6, 1612 – August 8, 1694) — "le Grand" as contemporaries called him, to distinguish him from his father — was a French Roman Catholic theologian, philosopher, and mathematician. He was one of the leading intellectuals of the Jansenist group of Port-Royal and had a very thorough knowledge of patristics. Biography. Antoine Arnauld was born in Paris to the Arnauld family. The twentieth and youngest child of the original Antoine Arnauld, he was originally intended for the bar, but decided instead to study theology at the Sorbonne. Here he was brilliantly successful, and his career was flourishing when he came under the influence of Jean du Vergier de Hauranne, the spiritual director and leader of the convent of Port-Royal, and was drawn in the direction of Jansenism. His book, "De la fréquente Communion" (1643), was an important step in making the aims and ideals of this movement intelligible to the general public. Its appearance attracted controversy. Furthermore, in the frame of the controversy around Jansenius' "Augustinus", during which the Jesuits attacked the Jansenists claiming they were heretics similar to Calvinists, Arnauld wrote in defense the "Théologie morale des Jésuites" (Moral Theology of Jesuits), which would put the base of most of the arguments later used by Pascal in his "Provincial Letters" denouncing the "relaxed moral" of Jesuit casuistry. Pascal was assisted in this task by Arnauld's nephew Antoine Le Maistre. The Jesuit Nicolas Caussin, former penitentiary to Louis XIII, was charged by his order of writing a defense against Arnauld's book, titled "Réponse au libelle intitulé La Théologie morale des Jésuites" (1644). Other libels published against Arnauld's "Moral Theology of Jesuits" included the one written by the Jesuit polemist François Pinthereau (1605–1664), under the pseudonym of the abbé de Boisic, titled "Les Impostures et les ignorances du libelle intitulé: La Théologie Morale des Jésuites" (1644), who was also the author of a critical history of Jansenism titled "La Naissance du Jansénisme découverte à Monsieur le Chancelier" (The Birth of Jansenism Revealed to Sir the Chancellor, Leuven, 1654). During the formulary controversy which opposed Jesuits to Jansenists concerning the orthodoxy of Jansenius' propositions, Arnauld was forced to go into hiding. In 1655 two very outspoken "Lettres à un duc et pair" on Jesuit methods in the confessional brought a motion of censorship voted against him in the Sorbonne, in quite an irregular manner. This motion prompted Pascal to anonymously write the "Provincial Letters". For more than twenty years Arnauld dared not appear publicly in Paris, hiding in religious retreat. Pascal, however, failed to save his friend, and in February 1656 Arnauld was ceremonially degraded. Twelve years later the so-called "peace" of Pope Clement IX put an end to his troubles; he was graciously received by Louis XIV, and treated almost as a popular hero. He now set to work with Pierre Nicole on a great work against the Calvinist Protestants: "La perpétuité de la foi de l'Église catholique touchant l'eucharistie". Ten years later, however, persecution resumed. Arnauld was compelled to leave France for the Netherlands, finally settling down at Brussels. Here the last sixteen years of his life were spent in incessant controversy with Jesuits, Calvinists and heretics of all kinds. Arnauld gradually evolved away from the rigorous Augustinism professed by Port-Royal and closer to Thomism, which also postulated the centrality of the "efficacious grace," under the influence of Nicole. His inexhaustible energy is best expressed by his famous reply to Nicole, who complained of feeling tired. "Tired!" echoed Arnauld, "when you have all eternity to rest in?" His energy was not exhausted by purely theological questions. He was one of the first to adopt the philosophy of René Descartes, though with certain orthodox reservations; and between 1683 and 1685 he had a long battle with Nicolas Malebranche on the relation of theology to metaphysics. On the whole, public opinion leant to Arnauld's side. When Malebranche complained that his adversary had misunderstood him, Boileau silenced him with the question: "My dear sir, whom do you expect to understand you, if M. Arnauld does not?" Next Arnauld was engaged in an extensive correspondence with Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, regarding the latter's views detailed in his "Discourse on Metaphysics" (1686). Arnauld died, aged 82, in Brussels. Popular record for Arnauld's penetration was much increased in his "L'Art de penser", commonly known as the "Port-Royal Logic", which kept its place as an elementary text-book until the 20th century and is considered a paradigmatical work of term logic. Arnauld came to be regarded as important among the mathematicians of his time; one critic described him as the Euclid of the 17th century. After his death, his reputation began to wane. Contemporaries admired him as a master of intricate reasoning; on this, Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet, the greatest theologian of the age, agreed with Henri François d'Aguesseau, the greatest lawyer. However, his eagerness to win every argument endeared him to no one. "In spite of myself," Arnauld once said regretfully, "my books are seldom very short." . Despite Arnauld's achievements in various fields, his name is mostly known because of Pascal's acclaimed writings, which were more fit for the general public than Arnauld's technical essays. Boileau wrote for him a famous epitaph, consecrating his memory as "Au pied de cet autel de structure grossière Antoine Arnauld's complete works (thirty-seven volumes in forty-two parts) were published in Paris, 1775-1781. There is a study of his philosophy in Francisque Bouillier, "Histoire de la philosophie cartésienne" (Paris, 1868); and his mathematical achievements are discussed by Franz Bopp in the 14th volume of the "Abhandlung zur Geschichte der mathematischen Wissenschaften" (Leipzig, 1902). Principal works. The links are to the Gallica version.
582464	Chillar Party is a 2011 Indian children's film directed by Nitesh Tiwari and Vikas Bahl, and produced by Ronnie Screwvala under the UTV Motion Pictures and Salman Khan under his SKBH Productions (Salman Khan Being Human Productions). The film has a multiple-cast of debuting child-artists particularly named after movies such as, "Silencer", "Aflatoon", "Shaolin" etc. It also features Ranbir Kapoor in an item-number. Chillar Party won the 2011 National Film Award for Best Children's Film. Plot. This film starts with an introduction to the lead actors, who live in Chandan Nagar Society. Each of the eight children has his own identity and a nickname based on these qualities. Akram is the fast bowler (Ramashekar), Encyclopedia is the mastermind (Arjun). Not only that, but their whole team has a nickname – CHILLAR PARTY. They explain that they have mainly two enemies with the "over-sized" neighbouring cricket team to whom they always lose, and a dog to whom they have given a name – Loose Motion, since it has a tendency to make messes. So they develop an enmity against dogs. They were mourning and complaining about the dog when Lucky Singh nicknamed as Panauti (Since whatever he says, happens exactly opposite), says that "Don't worry, no other dog will ever enter our society," everybody loses hope.Their hopes are shattered shortly after a boy- Fatka who was employed for washing the cars of the society, enters with his dog Bhidu. They do everything to throw the boy and his dog out, but become unsuccessful. Eventually they develop a friendship with each other as Phatka helps them by serving as the lead bowler during the match with the neighbouring cricket team. But their happiness is short-lived when a reckless politician, Bhide, enters their life after his personal secretary is attacked by Bhidu for having hurt Phatka.
1265830	Lina Basquette (April 19, 1907 - September 30, 1994) was an American actress noted for her 75 year career in entertainment that began during the silent film era and her tumultuous personal life. After she retired from acting, Basquette became a noted dog breeder and wrote several books on the topic.
1063804	The Nutty Professor is a 1963 Paramount Pictures science fiction comedy feature film produced, directed, co-written (with Bill Richmond) and starring Jerry Lewis. The score was composed by Walter Scharf. The film is a parody of Robert Louis Stevenson's "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde". In 2004, "The Nutty Professor" was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". Plot. Professor Julius Kelp (Jerry Lewis), is a nerdy, unkempt, buck-toothed, introverted, accident prone, socially inept university professor whose experiments in the classroom laboratory are unsuccessful and humorously destructive. When a football-playing bully humiliates and assaults him, Kelp decides to "beef up" by joining a local gym. Kelp's failure to succeed in the gym prompts him to invent a serum that turns him into the handsome, extremely smooth, cool, and obnoxious girl-chasing hipster, Buddy Love.
591022	Production. A blend of "Robin Hood" and "The Mark of Zorro", written by Namakkal Kavignar Va. Ramalingam Pillai (Namakkal Kavignar). A well-known writer, poet, artist and freedom fighter, he was nominated as the Poet Laureate of the Madras Government in 1949. "Malaikkallan" had been prescribed as the non-detailed text for the high school curriculum in the early 50s, and the story had become very popular.
1502360	Vicki Lewis (born March 17, 1960) is an American film, stage, television and voice actress best known for her role as Beth in the NBC sitcom "NewsRadio". Personal life. Lewis was born and raised in Cincinnati, Ohio, the daughter of Marlene, a nursing administrator, and Jim Lewis, an air traffic supervisor. She has a sister, Denise. Lewis graduated from Anderson High School in Cincinnati in 1978. She studied musical theater at the University of Cincinnati – College-Conservatory of Music. After receiving her diploma she moved to New York. She proceeded to work in various on and off Broadway shows. Lewis was in a long-term relationship with Nick Nolte. The two met during the filming of "I'll Do Anything". She is now married to sound engineer Philip G. Allen. Career. Lewis' film appearances include roles in "Finding Nemo", "MouseHunt", "Godzilla", "Pushing Tin", 2007's "California Dreaming" with "NewsRadio" co-star Dave Foley, and 2010's "Den Brother". On television, Lewis starred for 5 seasons on the NBC sitcom "NewsRadio", followed by "Three Sisters" and the WB animated comedy "Mission Hill". She made guest appearances on "Seinfeld" (in the episodes "The Secretary" and "The Race") and "Murphy Brown". In a recurring role on "Home Improvement", she played Maureen Binford, producer of the show-within-a-show "Tool Time". Also in a recurring role, on "How I Met Your Mother", she played Lily Aldrin's doctor, Dr. Sonya. She appeared on "Caroline in the City", "The Norm Show", "Grace Under Fire", "Phenom" and "The 5 Mrs. Buchanans". Most recently, she made guest appearances on "Surviving Suburbia", ABC's "Grey's Anatomy", Disney Channel's "Sonny with a Chance" as Ms. Bitterman, the social worker on "The Middle", and FX's "Dirt". Aside from "Mission Hill", her voice acting career includes characters in "Justice League Heroes", "Rugrats Pre-School Daze", "King of the Hill", ', "An Extremely Goofy Movie", "Finding Nemo", "Phineas and Ferb", and '. Most recently, she voiced Eve in the 2010 film "Alpha and Omega". On stage, Lewis has appeared in "City of Angels" and "My One and Only" in Los Angeles, and has performed as a soloist with the New York Pops at Carnegie Hall. Her Broadway credits include "Do Black Patent Leather Shoes Really Reflect Up?", "Snoopy!!! The Musical", "Damn Yankees", "Chicago" and "The Crucible". She also appeared with Peter Gallagher and Patti LuPone in "Pal Joey" at the New York City Center. Lewis won the 2007 Ovation Award for Best Featured Actress in a Musical for the world premiere of Michael John LaChiusa's "Hotel C'est L'amour". Lewis was part of the one-night celebrity-performed staging of Howard Ashman's unproduced musical "Dreamstuff". The musical was re-imagined by Ashman's partners Marsha Malamet and Dennis Green and performed one night only at Los Angeles' Hayworth Theatre as part of the Bruno Kirby celebrity reading series, directed by "Ugly Betty" actor Michael Urie. Lewis co-starred alongside Eden Espinosa, Fred Willard, David Blue and Luke Macfarlane. Lewis' debut solo album "East of Midnight" was released in May 2010. The eclectic rock album has songs penned by Lewis as well as three cover songs. Lewis says this about the writing of the album: "The words and music of these songs unfolded before me like a foreboding window into a chapter of my life that would prove to be dauntingly destructive and spiritually bereft. Locked in my office in Malibu, California I wrote what would become a self-fulfilling prophecy - it would also prove to be the making of me."
520843	Juan Marasigan Feleo (February 28, 1948 – November 19, 2009) was an award-winning Filipino television and movie actor and writer.
1502418	Denis Patrick Seamus O'Hare (born January 16, 1962) is an American actor noted for his award winning performances in "Take Me Out" and "Sweet Charity" as well as the HBO television show "True Blood". He is also known for his supporting roles in the films "Charlie Wilson's War", "Changeling" and "Milk". In 2011 he starred as Larry Harvey in the FX series "American Horror Story" and was nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Miniseries or a Movie. Early life and education. Denis O'Hare was born in Kansas City, Missouri, and grew up in the suburbs of Detroit, living in Southfield until he was 15, when his family moved to Wing Lake in Bloomfield Hills. His mother is a musician and he grew up playing the church organ. As a teenager, O'Hare was in his school's choir and in 1974 he went to his first audition, gaining a chorus part in a community theatre production of "Show Boat". In 1980, O'Hare left Detroit for Chicago to study theatre at Northwestern University. Career. O'Hare won a Tony Award for Best Performance by a Featured Actor in a Play for his performance in Richard Greenberg's "Take Me Out", where his character's lengthy monologues in which he slowly falls in love with the game of baseball were considered the main reason for his award. He won the 2005 Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Featured Actor in a Musical for his role as Oscar Lindquist in the Broadway revival of "Sweet Charity". In 2004 he played Charles J. Guiteau in the Broadway production of Stephen Sondheim's "Assassins", for which he was nominated for the Best Performance by a Featured Actor in a Musical Tony Award. He lost to co-star Michael Cerveris who played John Wilkes Booth. Before appearing in those shows, he appeared on Broadway in the 1998 revival of "Cabaret", in which he played Ernst Ludwig onstage and the clarinet in the show's orchestra, the "Kit Kat Band". O'Hare was featured in the Hallmark Hall of Fame presentation of "Saint Maybe". He has appeared as a guest star on several episodes of "Law & Order" and its spin-offs, ' and '. In 2008, he has appeared as a guest star on several episodes of "Brothers & Sisters". His feature film credits include "The Anniversary Party", "21 Grams", "Garden State", "Derailed", "Michael Clayton", "A Mighty Heart", "Half Nelson", "Milk", "Edge of Darkness", "Charlie Wilson's War" and "Changeling". In 2009, O'Hare portrayed Phillip Steele (an amalgam character based on Quentin Crisp's friends Phillip Ward and Tom Steele) in a television biopic on Crisp entitled "An Englishman in New York". The same year he played therapist Dr. David Worth in the series "Bored to Death" (episode 1.3). In 2010, O'Hare joined the cast of HBO's "True Blood" in its third season as Russell Edgington, the vampire king of Mississippi who is 2,800 years old. In 2011, he appeared in the film "The Eagle" as a Roman officer named Lutorius. Recently he has appeared in a recurring role as Judge Charles Abernathy on the television drama series "The Good Wife". O'Hare co-stared as Larry Harvey in FX's "American Horror Story". In 2012, O'Hare starred alongside Amy Adams and Donna Murphy as the Baker in Stephen Sondheim's "Into the Woods" at The Public Theater. The production played at the Delacorte Theatre in Central Park, NYC from July 23 to September 1, 2012. In July 2013, it was announced that O'Hare would be in "". Personal life. O'Hare is of Irish descent and holds an Irish passport. O'Hare came out as gay while a student at Brother Rice High School (Michigan).
1067010	Bartok the Magnificent, also known as Bartok the Great, is a direct-to-video spin-off to the 1997 film "Anastasia", which features Hank Azaria as the voice of Bartok, Kelsey Grammer as the voice of Zozi, and Jennifer Tilly as Piloff. Although the film was released after "Anastasia", it is unclear if the events in the film take place before or after those of its predecessor. While many of Don Bluth's films have received sequels and spin-offs, this is the only spin-off Don Bluth has directed. Plot. Russia is being terrorized by an evil witch known as Baba Yaga (Andrea Martin), and the only one who is not afraid of her is Bartok the Magnificent (Hank Azaria). Bartok, an albino bat, has just arrived in Moscow and is impressing everyone with his performances, including Prince Ivan (Phillip Van Dyke). However, Ivan's advisor, Ludmilla (Catherine O'Hara), finds Bartok annoying and naive, and she tries to make a Cossack stop his performance. After Bartok's show, a bear suddenly attacks. Bartok saves everyone by stunning the bear, knocking it over, and trapping it in a wagon. Delighted with Bartok's bravery, everyone around him rewards him with gold, including Prince Ivan, who gives him a royal ring, much to the displeasure of Ludmilla, who reminds him that the ring is only for members of the Romanov family, not commoners. She asks that he take the ring back, but Ivan disagrees, saying it is time for a change. Ludmilla, seeing that she cannot dissuade him, reluctantly allows it and they leave. Ludmilla is still upset that Ivan has given a ring to a commoner, especially a street performer. Ivan retorts that that was his intention, and Ivan's friend Vol (Diedrich Bader) agrees that Bartok was funny. Ludmilla, on the other hand, believes that Ivan needs to respect his duty to the crown, which incites Ivan, who is tired of listening to her, to say that he will do as he pleases and it is she who must respect the crown. Meanwhile, Bartok is counting the money he received when the bear wakes up and scares him. It turns out Bartok's amazing rescue was just another act - the bear is Zozi (Kelsey Grammer), Bartok's business partner. Zozi is apprehensive about Ivan's ring and agrees with Ludmilla, that the ring should be returned. Bartok stubbornly refuses to give it back since it was a gift. Back in Moscow, Ivan is kidnapped by Baba Yaga, which leads to an immediate investigation. Ludmilla finds one of Baba Yaga's iron teeth, and she informs the people what has transpired. When she asks for someone brave enough to rescue Prince Ivan, two children (Kelly Marie Berger and Zachary B. Charles) nominate Bartok. Bartok and Zozi are on their way to St. Petersburg when Zozi spots the Cossacks coming after them. The pair become worried because they assume that Ludmilla wants Ivan's ring returned. Bartok tries to conceal his identity, but he is brought before the people, who explain that Ivan has been taken by Baba Yaga, and that they are relying on him to rescue their prince. Bartok reluctantly accepts, and he and Zozi head to the Iron Forest to confront Baba Yaga and save Prince Ivan. They find Baba Yaga's hut, but must answer a riddle given by a giant skull (Tim Curry) to enter. When the riddle is answered, Baba Yaga successfully captures Bartok and explains that to save Ivan, Bartok must gather three items from the forest without any help from Zozi, or they'll "both die": Piloff, Oblie's Crown, and the Magic Feather. However, these tasks are very hard, for Piloff (Jennifer Tilly) is frozen to a boulder, Oble (French Stewart), a giant blacksmith surrounded by an aura of fire, must be tricked into letting his crown to be stolen, and the magic feather must be caught without flight, using only the boulder Piloff was stuck to and Oblie's crown. He gathers the objects demanded, but Baba Yaga still needs something from Bartok himself. He offers everything he can think of, but Baba Yaga rejects everything and bursts out laughing. Bartok, outraged, begins to yell, and he upsets Baba Yaga by accusing her of lying and cheating, and claiming that everyone hates her. After he apologizes to her, he starts crying and Baba gets the most important ingredient: tears which are from Bartok's heart. She makes a magic potion from the items she had Bartok collect and reveals that she never took Prince Ivan and that the potion she made was meant for Bartok himself. Baba Yaga explains that when Bartok drinks the potion, whatever he is in his heart will show ten times in his exterior. Bartok and Zozi return to town and lead Ludmilla and Vol up to the top of the tower where Ivan is imprisoned. However, when they arrive, Ludmilla locks Bartok and Vol up with Ivan and reveals she had Vol kidnap the prince (telling him to 'get him out of the way' as in kill him, while Vol misunderstood and locked him up, supposedly for his own safety) while she framed Baba Yaga as part of her scheme to take the Russian throne. She steals Bartok's magic potion and leaves Bartok, Ivan, and Vol trapped in a well tower filling up with water. She drinks it, believing her beauty will become tenfold, singing "The Real Ludmilla Comes Out" as she descends the tower. Unbeknownst to her, the potion causes her to steadily transform into an enormous dragon. Upon this discovery, the incensed woman goes on a rampage through Moscow, setting many buildings alight with her fire breath. Zozi then comes to the rescue, saving Bartok, Vol, and the Prince. Bartok battles Ludmilla and tricks her into climbing the tower. When it gets to the top, the tower starts to become unstable and causes the top of the tower to fall, flooding the streets and dousing the flames. As the townspeople gather around Ludmilla's dead body, Zozi reveals that Bartok is a true hero not only because he stopped Ludmilla but because he showed Baba Yaga compassion. Bartok returns Ivan's ring and Baba Yaga appears, writing "Bartok, The Magnificent" in the sky. Bartok gives Baba Yaga a goodbye hug as she and Pillof depart. Music. The film's songs were written by Stephen Flaherty, who, along with Lynn Ahrens, also worked on the vocal music for "Anastasia", in which Bartok made his debut appearance. Release. "Bartok the Magnificent" was first released on VHS and DVD by 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment on November 16, 1999, and was later re-released in 2005 as part of a 2-disc set alongside "Anastasia" entitled Family Fun Edition. "Bartok the Magnificent" was also included as a special feature on the March 2011 release of "Anastasia" on Blu-ray.
1184075	Faith Renée Evans, (born June 10, 1973), is an American singer-songwriter, record producer, occasional actress and author. Born in Florida and raised in New Jersey, Evans relocated to Los Angeles in 1993 for a career in the music business. After working as a backing vocalist for Al B. Sure and Christopher Williams, she became the first female artist to contract with Sean "Puff Daddy" Combs' Bad Boy Entertainment recording company in 1994, for which she collaborated with several label mates such as Mary J. Blige and Carl Thomas and released three platinum-certified studio albums between 1995 and 2001, including "Faith" (1995), "Keep the Faith" (1998) and "Faithfully" (2001).
1042927	Eric Portman (13 July 1901, Akroydon, Halifax, West Riding of Yorkshire - 7 December 1969, St Veep, Cornwall) was a distinguished English stage and film actor. He is probably best remembered for his roles in several films for Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger during the 1940s. Biography. He started work in 1922 as a salesman in the menswear department at Marshall and Snelgrove's department store in Leeds and acted in the amateur Halifax Light Opera Society. He made his professional stage debut in 1924 with Henry Baynton's company, before he was engaged by Lilian Baylis for the Old Vic Company. In 1928, he starred as "Romeo" in the rebuilt Old Vic and forged a reputation as a noted Shakespearian actor. In the 1930s, he began appearing in films. In 1935, he appeared in four films, including "Maria Marten or Murder in the Red Barn". In 1945, exhibitors voted him the tenth most popular star at the British box office. He maintained that ranking the following year. In 1967, he played Number Two in the TV series "The Prisoner", appearing in the episode "Free For All". Portman is quoted as saying, "Acting is like masturbation - one either does it or one doesn't, but one never talks about it." Portman was homosexual, although newspapers never reported this during the mid-1950s when homosexuality was illegal in the UK. Newspapers refrained from identifying his sexuality throughout the 1960s when it could have still damaged his career. He died at the age of 68 at his home in St Veep, Cornwall. Honours. He was nominated for a Tony Award for Best Actor (Dramatic) for his Broadway performance as the bogus Major, in Terence Rattigan's play Separate Tables in 1957.
1065646	Heartbreak Ridge is a 1986 American war film, produced, directed by, and starring Clint Eastwood. The story involves the actions of a small group of Marines during the 1983 U.S. invasion of Grenada. A portion of the movie was filmed on the island itself. Mario Van Peebles, Marsha Mason, and Everett McGill appear in supporting roles. The title comes from the Battle of Heartbreak Ridge in the Korean War. The character played by Eastwood was awarded the Medal of Honor for his heroic actions there. The film has the distinction of being the 1000th film to be released in Dolby Stereo. Plot. Gunnery Sergeant Thomas Highway (Eastwood) is nearing mandatory retirement from the Marine Corps. He finagles a transfer back to his old unit. On the bus trip to his new assignment, he meets fellow passenger "Stitch" Jones (Van Peebles), a flashy wannabe rock musician who borrows money for a meal at a rest stop and then steals his bus ticket, leaving him stranded. When Highway finally arrives at the base, more bad news awaits. His new Operations Officer, Major Malcolm Powers (Everett McGill), is an Annapolis graduate who transferred over from Supply and has not had "the privilege" of combat. He sees Highway as an anachronism in the "new" Marine Corps, and assigns him to shape up the reconnaissance platoon. "Recon" is made up of undisciplined Marines who had been allowed to slack off by their previous platoon sergeant. Among his new charges, Highway finds none other than a dismayed Corporal Stitch Jones. Highway quickly takes charge and starts the men on a rigorous training program. They make a last-ditch attempt to intimidate Highway with "Swede" Johanson (Peter Koch), a gigantic, heavily-muscled Marine just released from the brig, but their plan fails miserably and they eventually begin to shape up and develop esprit de corps.
1104284	Ruth Elke Lawrence-Naimark (, born 2 August 1971) is an Associate Professor of mathematics at the Einstein Institute of Mathematics, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and a researcher in knot theory and algebraic topology. Outside academia, she is best known for being a child prodigy in mathematics. Youth. Ruth Lawrence was born in Brighton, England. Her parents, Harry Lawrence and Sylvia Greybourne, were both computer consultants. When Ruth was five, her father gave up his job so that he could educate her at home. Education. At the age of nine, Lawrence gained an O-level in mathematics, setting a new age record, later surpassed in 2001 when Arran Fernandez successfully sat GCSE mathematics aged five. Also at the age of nine she achieved a Grade A at A-level Pure Mathematics, an age record which stood until 2009 when Zohaib Ahmed passed A level mathematics with an A grade aged just turned nine years old. In 1981 she passed the Oxford University interview entrance examination in mathematics, coming first out of all 530 candidates sitting the examination, and joining St Hugh's College in 1983 at the age of just twelve. At Oxford, her father continued to be actively involved in her education, accompanying her to all lectures and tutorials. Lawrence completed her bachelor's degree in two years, instead of the normal three, and graduated in 1985 at the age of 13 with a starred first and special commendation. Attracting considerable press interest, she became the youngest British person to gain a first-class degree, and the youngest to graduate from the University of Oxford in modern times. Lawrence followed her first degree with a second degree in physics in 1986 and a D.Phil in mathematics at Oxford in June 1989, at the age of 17. Her thesis title was "Homology representations of braid groups" and her thesis adviser was Sir Michael Atiyah. Academic career. Lawrence's first academic post was at Harvard University, where she became a Junior Fellow in 1990 at the age of 19. In 1993, she moved to the University of Michigan, where she became an Associate Professor with tenure in 1997. In 1999, she emigrated to Israel and took up the post of Associate Professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Research. Lawrence's 1990 paper, "Homological representations of the Hecke algebra", in Communications in Mathematical Physics, introduced, among other things, certain novel linear representations of the braid group — known as Lawrence–Krammer representation. In papers published in 2000 and 2001, Daan Krammer and Stephen Bigelow established the faithfulness of Lawrence's representation. This result goes by the phrase "braid groups are linear." Awards and honors. In 2012 she became a fellow of the American Mathematical Society. Personal. In 1998, she married the Israeli mathematician Ari Naimark and changed her name to Ruth Lawrence-Naimark. The couple have four children, Yehuda Bezalel (born 2000), Esther Miriam (born 2001), Batsheva Simcha (born 2003), and Yehoshua Aharon (born 2006).
1151699	Chasing Papi is a 2003 Latino comedy film starring Roselyn Sánchez, Sofía Vergara, Jaci Velasquez, and Eduardo Verástegui. The women discover that their boyfriend has been dating all three of them at the same time—a discovery that leads them on an adventure throughout Los Angeles, California. Plot. The movie opens with an animated telling of Tomás Fuentes' (Eduardo Verástegui) life, in which he is always surrounded by women. In his current life, he is a representative for the Olivero & Sanchez Marketing Group in Los Angeles and is busy travelling to visit all three of his girlfriends to give them each a gift. Cici (Sofía Vergara), a cocktail waitress from Miami who enjoys being the center of attention; Patricia Sofia Ordonez Coronado del Pescador (Jaci Velasquez), a debutante of New York's high society who is tired of her mother's (María Conchita Alonso) endless attempts to marry her off; and Lorena Morales (Roselyn Sánchez), a lawyer from Chicago who loves how Tomas makes her feel sexy; have fallen for him and given him the affectionate nickname "Papi". This love triangle of sorts affects Tomás' work life, causing him to pass out during a presentation. His doctor learns of the love triangle, tells Tomás to choose only one woman, prescribes tranquilizers and advises against driving, alcohol and women. By strange coincidence, all three of his girlfriends go to Los Angeles after hearing their horoscopes read by Walter Mercado, Univision's "Primer Impacto" fortune teller. Unfortunately, they arrive before he gets home from the doctor's and only end up surprising each other. Instead of fighting each other, all three agree to leave and quit Tomas cold turkey as revenge for his cheating on them. In their absence, Tomás arrives home and takes his tranquilizers with alcohol. The girls each have second thoughts about leaving and return to confront Tomás directly. First Lorena, then Patricia and finally Cici, causing Tomás to overdose on alcohol and tranquilizers and pass out again. Mary (Joy Enriquez), Tomás' secretary, calls hoping he is doing better. Outside Tomas' house, FBI agent Carmen Rivera (Lisa Vidal), is waiting. She followed Cici to Los Angeles as part of an investigation. Fala, Cici's business partner, had Cici do her boyfriend, Ricky, a favor by taking a car that he sold online to the buyer in Los Angeles. Ricky is involved in the Whittaker counterfeit ring Agent Rivera is investigating. The girls spot her while panicking about what to do with Tomas and think she is "the L.A. woman" who just called, probably from a cell phone. Scared by Agent Rivera's firearm, the girls decide to take Tomás out of the house and wait until he wakes up and decide which girl he wants to be with. They load all their bags in Ricky's car and, after a short chase, they decide to stay at a Marriott hotel instead of a Motel 6. Unfortunately, Patricia's credit cards have been canceled by her mother. However, Lorena is their saving grace. The Miss Latina American Beauty Pageant is being held in that very same hotel and Miss Puerto Rico's flight was delayed. Lorena bears a resemblance to the real beauty contestant and takes her place. Cici passes herself and Patricia off as her staff. When moving their bags to Miss Puerto Rico's room, a bag falls off the cart onto the luggage room floor. In the hotel room, all three girls have dinner, empty three bottles of champagne and share their life stories with each other. They each then have a dream in which they end up with Tomás but feel bad about leaving the other two behind. The next morning, Lorena has to meet the judges and Cici has to deliver Ricky's car to a man named Rodrigo (D.L. Hughley) who apparently bought it. They leave Tomás but, in their absence, he's taken by Agent Rivera who has followed them to the hotel. It turns out Rodrigo was not interested in the car but a bag that was supposed to be in the trunk. Upon returning to hotel with Rodrigo's associate, Victor (Freddy Rodriguez), the girls discover Tomás is missing and a note that reads, "If you want your Papi back, bring the money to the Don Quixote puppet at L.A. Latin festival at 5 PM. No cops." Patricia knocks Victor out with a lamp and Cici calls Fala in Miami for answers about the car but doesn't get any. All that is left is to do what the note says. They are interrupted by Costas Delgado (Paul Rodriguez, uncredited), the director of the pageant, who has been looking for Lorena and needs her to meet with the judges immediately. Patricia finds the extra bag filled with money in the luggage room and Cici gets a map to the festival. Victor comes to, calls Rodrigo and they plan to catch the girls at the festival. While Miss Mexico is being interviewed, Lorena unbuttons her blouse slightly to show off her cleavage and Costas helps her with her sash. During Lorena's interview, Patricia and Cici arrive but so does the real Miss Puerto Rico (Nicole Scherzinger), who outs Lorena as an impostor. Cici trips her, allowing all three to escape. Outside, Tomás wakes up in Agent Rivera's car. Agent Rivera tells him she intends to use him and the girls in order to detain Victor and Rodrigo. They follow the girls to the festival as they leave in Ricky's car. On the way, the girls' car breaks down completely. They steal a Harley-Davidson motorcycle, which Patricia knows how to drive, promising the owner to bring it right back and lose both the map and Agent Rivera in another chase. Upon arrival, the girls see the puppet is behind the stage. Running through the crowd to avoid the cops, Patricia loses one of her colored contact lenses. Since she looks "so much better without all that money", she simply takes the other one out. Victor and Rodrigo spot them and the girls run on stage where Sheila E. is performing and dance to singer Christina Vidal's song, "Dejaré", regardless of their mixed dance backgrounds. Victor and Rodrigo get closer to the stage, causing the girls to run off mid-performance. They all run to the puppet, where Carmen and other FBI agents surround them and apprehend Victor and Rodrigo. Tomás is reunited with all three of his girlfriends. He apologizes to them for his deception and is unable to choose between them. The girls, however, have all found their inner strengths and choose to leave him instead. Tomás decides to take Agent Carmen's advice and spend some time alone... after taking her out for dinner. Returning to the festival crowds, the girls are invited to return to the stage where they dance to Christina Vidal's song "It's All About Nothing". The movie's timeline advances five months later and the girls have kept in touch. Patricia has moved into her own apartment with her dog Fifi and has gotten a job at an art gallery. Cici is an entertainer on a cruise liner with her business partner Fala. Lorena is still a lawyer working pro-bono but puts her time off to good use and becomes the self-proclaimed "Queen of Tango". Fifi hears her horoscope that advises her to "go outside the door because love is waiting for ." The movie ends with Fifi finding her "Puppy Chulo." Cast. Cameos and appearances. The movie features several cameo appearances, including singer Carlos Ponce and "Primer Impacto" news reporter Bárbara Bermudo. Other entertainers who act in the film include ex-Eden's Crush members Nicole Scherzinger and Ivette Sosa, and María Conchita Alonso. Critical reception. Critics gave generally negative reviews of "Chasing Papi". It received an overall low rating of 33% from Metacritic. Rotten Tomatoes gave it a rating of only 13% based on 47 reviews. The film failed to appeal to a mainstream audience beyond its target Latino demographic. Elizabeth Weitzman from the "New York Daily News" wrote "The credits on this film are genuinely impressive: Each of the talented actresses is already a popular Latina star, and the film was produced by Forest Whitaker, who directed "Waiting to Exhale". No doubt he expected it to speak to an underrecognized audience in the way that one did. Instead, it just speaks down to them and the rest of us."
629331	Bad Boy Bubby is a 1993 Australian-Italian black comedy/drama film written and directed by Rolf de Heer. It stars Nicholas Hope and Carmel Johnson. The film became notorious for pushing the boundaries of good taste with its strong scenes featuring violence, incest and blasphemy amongst other taboo topics. Plot. Bubby is a 35-year-old man who has never set foot outside his mother's dingy apartment in the back of a printing press in an industrial area of Adelaide. In addition to beating and sexually abusing him, she confines him to the apartment, telling him that the air outside is poisonous and telling him he will die if he tries to leave. Bubby eventually escapes, joins up with a rock band, and embarks on a journey of self-discovery and shocking mayhem. Audio and visual innovation. Director de Heer describes the film as one large experiment, especially in the method used to record the dialogue: binaural microphones were sewn into the wig worn by leading actor Nicholas Hope, one above each ear. This method gave the sound track a unique sound that closely resembled what the character would actually be hearing. The film also used 31 individual directors of photography to shoot different scenes. Once Bubby leaves the apartment a different director of photography is used for every location until the last third of the film, allowing an individual visual slant on everything Bubby sees for the first time. No director of photography was allowed to refer to the work of the others. Awards. "Bubby" won four 1994 Australian Film Institute awards: Best Director (Rolf de Heer), Best Actor in a Leading Role (Nicholas Hope), Best Original Screenplay (Rolf de Heer), and Best Editing (Suresh Ayyar). It was also nominated for Best Film (Rolf de Heer) and Best Cinematography (Ian Jones). Release. On 23 April 2007, Eureka Entertainment released "Bad Boy Bubby" on DVD for the UK market with all scenes intact. On the Blue Underground DVD, director Rolf de Heer claims that "Bubby" was the second highest grossing film in Norway in 1995, second only to "Batman Forever". In the UK, it was cut for cruelty to a cat. The film was released on DVD in April 2005 by the Blue Underground company, and a special Two Disc Collectors' Edition was also released in June 2005 by Umbrella Entertainment. Box office. "Bad Boy Bubby" grossed $808,789 at the box office in Australia.
585313	Nootrukku Nooru is a 1971 Tamil-language film directed and written by K. Balachander. It stars Jaishankar and Lakshmi in the lead with Nagesh, Vijayalalitha and Srividya in other pivotal roles. The story is about a college professor who is accused by three girls for sexual harassment, just before the his marriage.
1062367	Molly Kathleen Ringwald (born February 18, 1968) is an American actress, singer, dancer, and author. Having appeared in the John Hughes films "Sixteen Candles" (1984), "The Breakfast Club" (1985), and "Pretty in Pink" (1986), Ringwald is part of the 80's "Brat Pack" and has been called the greatest teen star of all time. She has also played Anne Juergens in the ABC Family show "The Secret Life of the American Teenager". Early life. Molly Kathleen Ringwald was born in Roseville, California, just outside of Sacramento, the daughter of Adele Edith (née Frembd), a housewife and chef, and Robert Scott "Bob" Ringwald, a blind jazz pianist. Ringwald has two siblings, Elizabeth and Kelly. She started her acting career at age five, starring in a stage production of "Alice in Wonderland" as the Dormouse. The next year, she recorded "I Wanna Be Loved by You," a music album of Dixieland jazz with her father and his group, the Fulton Street Jazz Band. Acting career. In 1978, at the age of 10, Ringwald was chosen to play Kate in the West Coast production of "Annie", performing in Los Angeles. In 1979, Ringwald appeared in the TV series "Diff'rent Strokes" and was selected to become a cast member of the spin-off "Facts of Life". She played "Molly Parker," a perky, fun-loving student at Eastland Girls School. Although she had essentially a supporting role, one entire episode, "Molly's Holiday" revolved around her character dealing with the effects of her parents' divorce. In 1980, Ringwald performed as a lead vocalist on two Disney albums. On the patriotic album "Yankee Doodle Mickey", Ringwald sang "This Is My Country", "The Star-Spangled Banner" and "God Bless America". She later performed one track on a Disney Christmas album. Turning toward motion pictures, she was nominated for a Golden Globe award for her role in the 1982 film "Tempest". She then found her breakout role in "Sixteen Candles" (1984). Ringwald was a member of the so-called Brat Pack of 1980s teen actors. Among Ringwald's 1980s films were "The Breakfast Club", "Pretty in Pink", "Sixteen Candles", "The Pick-up Artist" and "Fresh Horses". She was considered to be the muse of writer/director John Hughes. In the early 1990s, Ringwald reportedly turned down the female lead roles in "Pretty Woman" and "Ghost". In the mid-1990s, Ringwald, who had been educated at a French high school in Los Angeles and was fluent in French, moved to Paris and starred in several French movies. She returned home to the US intermittently to appear in American movies and television. In 1994, she starred in the TV adaptation of Stephen King's "The Stand". In 1996, she played a leading role in the film "Malicious" as Melissa Nelson, a disturbed woman who has an affair with a college star baseball player. 1996 saw her return to television, starring on the ABC sitcom "Townies". She also made one appearance as a blind woman on the critically acclaimed cable series "Remember WENN". She starred with Lara Flynn Boyle and Teri Hatcher in the 1998 made for television film "Since You've Been Gone". In 2000, she appeared in an episode of Showtime's "The Outer Limits". In 2000, Ringwald appeared in the ensemble restaurant-themed film, "In the Weeds"; in 2001, she had a cameo in "Not Another Teen Movie". In late 2004, she starred in the play "Modern Orthodox" on Broadway, opposite Jason Biggs and Craig Bierko. In 2006, she starred in the television film "The Wives He Forgot". Ringwald has appeared in "Cabaret", "tick, tick... BOOM!", and "Enchanted April" on Broadway, and in the fall and winter of 2006, she starred as Charity Hope Valentine in the national tour of the Broadway revival of the musical "Sweet Charity". Ringwald is starring in the ABC Family network's series "The Secret Life of the American Teenager", which debuted on July 1, 2008, playing the title teenager's mother. Music career. 2013: "Except Sometimes". "Except Sometimes" is a jazz record. It follows a tradition in jazz for the Ringwald family set by her father. “I grew up in a home filled with music and had an early appreciation of jazz since my dad was a jazz musician Bob Ringwald. Beginning at around age three I started singing with his band and jazz music has continued to be one of my three passions along with acting and writing. I like to say jazz music is my musical equivalent of comfort food. It’s always where I go back to when I want to feel grounded,” Ringwald said in a statement. The closing track of the album is a cover version of Simple Minds "Don't You (Forget About Me)" which was part of the soundtrack of the movie "The Breakfast Club" which starred Ringwald. Ringwald dedicated this track "to the memory of J.H.". This refers to John Hughes, Ringwald's director in "The Breakfast Club" and many of her other films. Bibliography. Ringwald has written two books: Personal life. Ringwald was married to Valery Lameignère, a French writer, in Bordeaux, France, on July 28, 1999; they divorced in 2002. She married Panio Gianopoulos, a Greek-American writer and book editor, in 2007. They have a daughter, Mathilda Ereni (born October 22, 2003), and twins, Adele Georgiana and Roman Stylianos (born July 10, 2009). Her pregnancy was written into the storyline of "The Secret Life of the American Teenager".
996485	Ana Ortiz (born January 25, 1971) is an American actress and singer. She is best known for her role as Hilda Suarez in the ABC comedy-drama series "Ugly Betty" (2006-2010). She in currently starring as Marisol Suarez in the Lifetime comedy-drama series "Devious Maids". Early life. Ortiz was born in Manhattan, and is the daughter of Angel L. Ortiz, a former Philadelphia City Council member of Puerto Rican descent, and an Irish American mother. As a child, Ortiz originally dreamed of becoming a ballerina, and she studied ballet for eight years, until the pain of dancing en pointe forced her to pursue a different artistic discipline. Switching to singing, Ortiz attended the Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts in New York City and later the University of the Arts in Philadelphia before making her professional stage debut in a regional theater production of "Dangerous Liaisons". Her additional stage credits include portraying Chrissy in a European touring production of "Hair", regional theater productions such as "Dog Lady and the Cuban Swimmer" and in the South Coast Repertory Theater's production of "References to Salvador Dalí Make Me Hot". After joining LAByrinth Theatre Company, she appeared off-Broadway in "In Arabia, We'd All Be Kings", which also co-starred Puerto Rican actress Liza Colón-Zayas and was directed by Academy Award-winning actor Philip Seymour Hoffman and named one of the 10-best plays of 1999 by the magazine "Time Out New York". Career. On television, Ortiz's appeared in several shows including "NYPD Blue", "", "Commander In Chief", "Boston Legal", "ER", "The New Adventures of Old Christine", "Over There", her first full-time series role, "Kristin" and "Everybody Loves Raymond". Ortiz also had a guest-starring role on "Army Wives" during its second season as a waitress named Sandi. She is well known for her role as Hilda Suarez in the ABC comedy-drama series "Ugly Betty". Originally, Ortiz had auditioned for the Betty Suarez role, but it went to America Ferrera instead. Ortiz said in 2008, "I was super plain. I just put on some glasses and kept my hair kind of flat and layered on the clothing", describing what she wore when auditioning for the role of Betty. "I just wanted them to remember me, so that I could be involved in the future". Ortiz was one of two Philadelphians who were regulars on "Ugly Betty", the other being Mark Indelicato, who played her son Justin. Another connection to the city is co-star Becki Newton (who played Amanda Tanen), who graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. In addition to her role on "Ugly Betty", Ortiz was active in films, which include starring roles "King of L.A.", "Tortilla Heaven" and the 2009 TV movie "Labor Pains" co-starring her former "Ugly Betty" co-star, Lindsay Lohan. Ortiz also appeared in the 2010 music video for Enrique Iglesias and Juan Luis Guerra's "Cuando me enamoro". Ortiz plays the lead role of Marisol Duarte (the alias of Professor Marisol Suarez) in the Marc Cherry comedy-drama series "Devious Maids" in 2013. Interestingly, this will be the second series in which her character shares the last name of her previous character from another series.
1163443	Jonathan M. "Jon" Lovitz (born July 21, 1957) is an American comedian, actor and singer. He is best known as a cast member of the NBC sketch comedy show "Saturday Night Live" from 1985 to 1990. Early life. Lovitz was born in Los Angeles, California. His father was a doctor. His family is Jewish (they immigrated from Romania, Hungary, and Russia). Lovitz graduated with a theater degree in 1979 from the University of California at Irvine and then studied acting with Tony Barr at the Film Actors Workshop. He became a member of The Groundlings comedy troupe, where he befriended his future "SNL" fellow Phil Hartman. Career. "Saturday Night Live". Lovitz was a cast member of "Saturday Night Live" from 1985 to 1990. He later said in an interview for the book "Live From New York: An Uncensored History of Saturday Night Live" that his time on "SNL" was the most memorable in his career. He went from having no money to being offered a $500,000 movie contract. He was nominated for an Emmy Award his first two years on "Saturday Night Live". One of his most notable "SNL" characters was "Tommy Flanagan, The Pathological Liar" who used the old catchphrase, "Yeah! That's the ticket!" as he, after visible effort, finally finished constructing his latest lie. The line was previously said by Humphrey Bogart. Some of his other recurring characters included Annoying Man, Master Thespian, Tonto, Mephistopheles, Harvey Fierstein and Michael Dukakis. In a 1986 episode of "Saturday Night Live" he played a virgin Trekkie, who was scripted to hang his head when asked by William Shatner if he had ever kissed a girl. Hanukkah Harry, one of his most memorable roles, cast him in 1989 as a Jewish contemporary of Santa Claus who lives on Mount Sinai and travels the globe with a cart flown by three donkeys to give bland gifts to Jewish boys and girls. Harry is asked to fill in when Santa falls ill on Christmas Eve. Television series. Lovitzs first stint as a regular in a situation comedy was as Mole, an investigator for a New York City District Attorneys office, in the short-lived 1985-1986 series "Foley Square", starring Margaret Colin. Voiceover work. Lovitz has lent his voice to several cartoons and films. In the series "The Critic", he played the title character of Jay Sherman (using his regular speaking voice). He has made several appearances on "The Simpsons", including as Marge's prom date Artie Ziff in "The Way We Was", the art teacher in "Brush with Greatness", theater director Llewellyn Sinclair and his sister who owned a daycare center in "A Streetcar Named Marge", Andre in "Homer's Triple Bypass", and numerous other appearances (including the character of Jay Sherman in the episode "A Star Is Burns", which was a crossover with "The Critic"). He was also the voice of Radio in the Hyperion-produced, Disney-distributed animated movie, "The Brave Little Toaster" and he lent his voice for a promo video for the video game "Banjo-Kazooie". Music. Jon Lovitz performed a duet with Robbie Williams on Williams' 2001 album "Swing When You're Winning", in the song "Well, Did You Evah". Film roles, cameos and television guest appearances. In the late 1990s, Lovitz was "the man who wrote the Yellow Pages", in a series of commercials and print ads for the American Yellow Pages industry. He also appeared in ads for Subway
1165901	Robert L. Webber (October 14, 1924 – May 19, 1989) was an American actor.
1163651	Richard Wayne "Dick" Van Dyke (born December 13, 1925) is an American actor, comedian, writer, singer, dancer, and producer with a career spanning seven decades. He is the older brother of Jerry Van Dyke and father of Barry Van Dyke. Van Dyke starred in the films "Bye Bye Birdie," "Mary Poppins" and "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang" and in the TV series "The Dick Van Dyke Show" and "". He has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 7021 Hollywood Boulevard. Van Dyke received The Life Achievement Award at the annual Screen Actors Guild Awards ceremony on January 27, 2013. Life and career. Early and personal life. Van Dyke was born in West Plains, Missouri, to Loren (nickname "Cookie") and Hazel (née McCord) Van Dyke, but he grew up in Danville, Illinois. He is the older brother of actor Jerry Van Dyke, who is best known for his role on the TV series "Coach." His grandson, Shane Van Dyke, is also an actor and directed "Titanic II". He is of Dutch descent on his father's side; his mother was a descendant of "Mayflower" passenger Peter Browne from England. During World War II, he enlisted in the United States Army Air Corps where he became a radio announcer, later transferring to the Special Services entertaining troops in the Continental United States. In 1948, while Van Dyke was appearing at the Chapman Park Hotel on Wilshire Boulevard in Los Angeles, he and the former Margerie Willett were married on the radio show "Bride and Groom". They had four children: Christian (Chris), Barry, Carrie Beth, and Stacy. They divorced in 1984 after a long separation. He lived with longtime companion Michelle Triola for more than 30 years, until her death in 2009. Van Dyke's son Barry Van Dyke and grandsons Shane Van Dyke and Carey Van Dyke are also actors; both of these last two, along with other Van Dyke relations and grandchildren, appeared in various episodes of the long-running series "." Although Stacey Van Dyke was not famous in show business, she did make an appearance in a Christmas episode "Murder in the Family" of "Diagnosis: Murder" (Season 4, Episode 12) as Carol Sloan Hilton, the estranged daughter of Doctor Mark Sloan. "All of Van Dyke's children are married and he has seven grandchildren. His son, Chris, was district attorney for Marion County, Oregon, in the 1980s. In 1987, his granddaughter Jessica Van Dyke died from Reye's syndrome, which drove him to do a series of television commercials to raise public awareness of the danger of aspirin to children.
813036	Battle in Heaven () is a 2005 Mexican-French-German film. It is the second feature film by director Carlos Reygadas who previously directed the Mexican film "Japón". It was entered into the 2005 Cannes Film Festival. Reygadas has said about this film: "it’s my problem child, and therefore the film of mine I love the most."
581942	Jugal Hansraj (born 26 July 1972) is an Indian actor and director, based in Mumbai. Hansraj started his career as a child in the 1983 film "Masoom", which starred Naseeruddin Shah and Shabana Azmi. The film was about a 9-year-old boy whose stepmother was not willing to accept him into the family because he was born out of an extramarital relationship. "Masoom" was based on "Man, Woman and Child", a novel by Erich Segal. The film had a positive response and launched Hansraj's career. Later on, he continued his career as a child actor in "Karma" and "Sultanat". Hansraj was also featured as a model for TV and print as a child. He appeared in notable ad campaigns such as Vicks Vaporub, Saffola, Nutramul.
696335	Dil Apna Punjabi (English: "Our Heart is Punjabi") is a Punjabi feature film. It is also the first Punjabi Film to be produced by any Bollywood Production house, i.e. Tips It was released on 3 September 2006. It stars Harbhajan Mann, Neeru Bajwa and Dara Singh. Tips Films maiden Punjabi venture "Dil Apna Punjabi" produced by Kumar S. Taurani & Ramesh S. Taurani, written & directed by Manmohan Singh. Synopsis. Set in the lively village of modern day Punjab, "Dil Apna Punjabi", is about a family spanning over four generations all living under one roof headed by Sardar Hardam Singh (Dara Singh). His grandson, Kanwal (Harbhajan Mann) is a man of his heart, who spends most of his time with his friends; a village musical troupe. When Kanwal when meets college friend Ladi (Neeru Bajwa) at relative Faujan's (Amar Noorie) home he falls in love. Faujan makes their love match seem as an arranged marriage to their respective families. However, Ladi's family meet him, they are discouraged due to his unambitious approach and his lack of employment. When a talent scout (Gurpreet Ghuggi) hears him singing, Kanwal decides to make a success of himself in the UK to prove himself. Here he meets TV host Lisa (Mahek Chahal). Lisa is drawn towards Kanwal's charm and simplicity soon begins to have feelings for Kanwal. Kanwal has to choose between fame and fortune with Lisa in the UK, or returning to his roots in the Punjab to be with his first love Ladi. Music. The music is by Sukhshinder Shinda and a blend of bhangra and Punjabi hip hop, and also includes Apache Indian. The songs of the movie are sung by Harbhajan Mann, Alka Yagnik and Sunidhi Chauhan. Locations. The film is picturised in scenic locales of Kullu Manali, Chandigarh, Punjab & various locations like Tower Bridge, St. Paul's Cathedral, Windsor Castle, Battersea Park, Margate Beach, Caversham Bridge in London, UK. Review. The movie was a hit in Punjab. However, it was not a blockbuster yet as Jee Aayan Nu was. Regional Newspaper "Ajit" has given it nine out of ten stars. The BBC awarded two out of five stars.
1052826	Lights in the Dusk (, ) is a 2006 Finnish drama film starring Janne Hyytiäinen, Ilkka Koivula and Maria Järvenhelmi. Directed and written by Aki Kaurismäki, the film was presented at the 2006 Cannes Film Festival. It is the last installment in Kaurismäki's "Finland" trilogy after "The Man Without a Past" (2002) and "Drifting Clouds" (1996) .
1502295	Libby Holman (May 23, 1904 – June 18, 1971) was an American torch singer and stage actress who also achieved notoriety for her complex and unconventional personal life. Early life. Elizabeth Lloyd Holzman was born May 23, 1904, in Cincinnati, Ohio to a Jewish lawyer and stockbroker, Alfred Holzman (August 20, 1867 - June 14, 1947) and his wife, Rachel Florence Workum Holzman (October 17, 1873 - April 22, 1966). Their other children were daughter Marion H. Holzman (January 25, 1901 - December 13, 1963) and son Alfred Paul Holzman (March 9, 1909 - April 19, 1992). In 1904, the wealthy family grew destitute after Holman's uncle Ross Holzman embezzled nearly $1 million of their stock brokerage business. At some point, Alfred changed the family name from Holzman to Holman. She graduated from Hughes High School on June 11, 1920, at the age of 16. She graduated from the University of Cincinnati on June 16, 1923, with a Bachelor of Arts degree. Libby Holman later subtracted two years from her age, insisting she was born in 1906. She gave the Social Security Administration 1906 as the year of her birth. Theatrical career. In the summer of 1924, Holman left for New York City, where she first lived at the Studio Club. Her first theater job in New York was in the road company of "The Fool". Channing Pollock, the writer of "The Fool", recognized Holman's talents immediately and advised her to pursue a theatrical career. She followed Pollock's advice and soon became a star. An early stage colleague who became a longtime close friend was future film star Clifton Webb, then a dancer. He gave her the nickname, "The Statue of Libby." Her Broadway theatre debut was in the play "The Sapphire Ring" in 1925 at the Selwyn Theatre, which closed after thirteen performances. She was billed as Elizabeth Holman. Her big break came while she was appearing with Clifton Webb and Fred Allen in the 1929 Broadway revue "The Little Show," in which she first sang the blues number, "Moanin' Low" by Ralph Rainger, which earned her a dozen curtain calls on opening night, drew raves from the critics and became her signature song. Also in that show she sang the Kay Swift and Paul James song, "Can't We Be Friends?" The following year, Holman introduced the Howard Dietz and Arthur Schwartz standard "Something to Remember You By" in the show "Three's a Crowd", which also starred Allen and Webb. Other Broadway appearances included "The Garrick Gaieties" (1925), "Merry-Go-Round" (1927), "Rainbow" (1928), "Ned Wayburn's Gambols" (1929), "Revenge with Music" (1934), "You Never Know" (1938, score by Cole Porter), and the self-produced one-woman revue "Blues, Ballads and Sin-Songs" (1954). One of Holman's signature looks was the strapless dress, which she has been credited with having invented, or at least being one of its first high profile wearers. Personal life. Holman enjoyed a variety of intimate relationships with both men and women throughout her lifetime. Her famous lesbian lovers included the DuPont heiress Louisa d'Andelot Carpenter, actress Jeanne Eagels and modernist writer Jane Bowles. Carpenter was to play a significant part throughout Holman's lifetime. They raised their children and lived together and were openly accepted by their theater companions. She scandalized some by dating much younger men, such as fellow American actor Montgomery Clift, whom she mentored. Holman took an interest in one fan, Zachary Smith Reynolds, the heir to the R. J. Reynolds tobacco company. He was smitten with her from the start, despite their seven-year age difference. They met in Baltimore, Maryland in April 1930 after Reynolds saw Holman's performance in a road company staging of the play "The Little Show". Reynolds begged friend Dwight Deere Wiman, who was the show's producer, for an introduction to Holman. Reynolds pursued her all around the world in his plane. With the persuasion of her former lover, Louisa d'Andelot Carpenter, Holman and Reynolds, who went by his middle name, married on Sunday, November 29, 1931 in the parlor of Monroe, Michigan. Reynolds wanted Holman to abandon her acting career, she consented by taking a one-year leave of absence. During this time, however, his conservative family was unable to bear Holman and her group of theater friends, who at her invitation often visited Reynolda, the family estate near Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Accusations and arguments among them were common. Husband's death. In 1932, during a 21st birthday party Reynolds gave at Reynolda for his friend and flying buddy Charles Gideon Hill, Jr., a first cousin to Reynolds's first wife Anne Ludlow Cannon Reynolds, Holman revealed to her husband that she was pregnant. A tense argument ensued. Moments later, a shot was heard. Friends soon discovered Reynolds bleeding and unconscious with a gunshot wound to the head. Authorities initially ruled the shooting a suicide, but a coroner's inquiry ruled it a murder. Holman and Albert Bailey "Ab" Walker, a friend of Reynolds and a supposed lover of Holman, were indicted for murder. Louisa Carpenter paid Holman's $25,000 bail in Wentworth, North Carolina, appearing in such mannish clothes that bystanders and reporters thought she was a man. The Reynolds family contacted the local authorities and had the charges dropped for fear of scandal. Holman gave birth to the couple's child, Christopher Smith "Topper" Reynolds, on January 10, 1933. Journalist Milt Machlin investigated the death of Smith Reynolds and argued that Reynolds committed suicide. In his account Holman was a victim of the anti-Semitism of local authorities, and the district attorney involved with the case later told Machlin that she was innocent. In 1934, Broadway producer Vinton Freedley offered Holman the starring role in the Cole Porter musical "Anything Goes", but she declined. A 1933 film, "Sing, Sinner, Sing", was loosely based upon the allegations surrounding Reynolds' death. Later years. Holman married her second husband, film and stage actor Ralph (pronounced "Rafe") Holmes, in March 1939. He was twelve years her junior. She had previously dated his older brother, Phillips Holmes. In 1940, both brothers, who were half-Canadian, joined the Royal Canadian Air Force. Phillips was killed in a collision of two military planes in August 1942. When Ralph returned home in August 1945, the marriage quickly soured and they soon separated. On November 15, 1945, Ralph Holmes was found in his Manhattan apartment, dead of a barbiturate overdose at age 29. Holman adopted two sons, Timmy (born October 18, 1945), and Tony (born May 19, 1947). Her natural son Christopher ("Topper") died on August 7, 1950 after falling while mountain climbing. Holman had given him permission to go mountain climbing with a friend on California's highest peak, Mount Whitney, not knowing that the boys were ill-prepared for the adventure. Both died. Those close to Holman claim she never forgave herself. In 1952 she created the Christopher Reynolds Foundation in his memory. In the 1950s, Holman worked with her accompanist, Gerold Cook, on researching and rearranging what they called earth music. It was primarily blues and spirituals that were linked to the African American community. Holman had always been involved in what later became known as the Civil rights movement. During World War II, she tried to book shows for the servicemen with her friend, Josh White, but they were turned down on the grounds that "we don’t book mixed company."
396111	Uhm Jung-hwa (born August 17, 1969) is a South Korean Korean pop singer and actress. Uhm began her career as a chorus member of MBC, one of the three major South Korean broadcasting companies, in 1987 To 1990. She made her film debut in the 1991 To 1994 film "Marriage Story" and released her first album "Sorrowful Secret", in 1993 on Samsung Music. Considered to be one of the most influential women and the evergreen in the Korean entertainment industry, many Korean female artists recognise her as a role model. Biography. Early life. Uhm was born in Jecheon, North Chungcheong, South Korea. She is the second child of Yoo Gyeong-sook and Uhm Jin-ok, a music teacher who died in a motorcycle accident when she was four. Her younger and only brother Uhm Tae-woong is an actor. Following her father's death, her family struggled with financial difficulties. Music Career. 1993-1999: Debut. Uhm Jung Hwa officially debuted as a singer in 1993 with her first album "Sorrowful Secret". By the mid-90s she established herself as one of the top Korean female singers and entertainers with a series of hit singles: "Sad Expectation" (), "A Love Permitted Only by Heaven" (하늘만 허락한 사랑), "Betrayal of the Rose" (배반의 장미), and "Tell Me" (말해줘 with Jinusean). Jung Hwa's fourth album, "Invitation", became one of the highest selling albums of the year and received positive reviews from critics and fans. She released two of her most recognizable singles of her career, "Poison" and "Invitation" (초대). She remained successful the following year, in 1999, with her fifth album "005.1999.06", which sold well over 900,000 copies. It remains one of the best selling albums by a female artist and cemented her status as the "Queen of Korean Pop" in South Korea. 2000-present. During the 2000s, Uhm Jung-hwa began to focus more on her acting career and committed her self to taking a variety of acting roles. She also began to pursue and experiment with different musical genres, in particular electronica. In 2004, she released her double cd "Self Control", which featured songs composed by Jung Jae Hyung, Fractal and Roller Coaster. Music critics praised UJH for her ability to re-invent her image and sound.
900269	Luca Barbareschi (born 28 July 1956 in Montevideo ) is an Italian-Uruguayan actor, television presenter and politician, member of the Italian Chamber of Deputies. He was one of four actors whom the Italian police believed had been murdered in the making of the 1980 horror film "Cannibal Holocaust". So realistic was the film that shortly after it was released its director Ruggero Deodato was arrested for murder. The actors had signed contracts to stay out of the media for a year in order to fuel rumours that the film was a snuff movie. The court was only convinced that they were alive when the contracts were cancelled and the actors appeared on a television show as proof. In 2008 he was elected as Member of the Italian Parliament at the Chamber of Deputies with Silvio Berlusconi's centre-right party People of Freedom. In 2010 he joined, with other 32 deputies and 10 senators, the Gianfranco Fini's new party "Future and Freedom for Italy". In 2012 he made a great stir when he knocked out an Italian journalist who was asking about his absence from sessions of parliament.
1017855	Tiger and Crane Fist () (AKA "Savage Killers") is a 1976 kung fu movie, starring 70s Hong Kong star Jimmy Wang Yu. The footage was later used in the comedy movie "Kung Pow! Enter the Fist". The story concerns the Chinese Tiger and Crane martial arts schools. Both organizations find they must work together to defeat Lung Fei. Fei is a near invincible lackey for Japanese occupational forces. Defeating Fei is essential to repelling the Japanese invaders.
1377435	Tahj Dayton Mowry (born May 17, 1986) is an American actor, dancer, and singer best known for his role as T.J. Henderson on the The WB sitcom, "Smart Guy", and as Wade on the animated comedy, "Kim Possible" on the Disney Channel. Tahj Mowry recently is on the new ABC Family comedy "Baby Daddy" as Tucker. He is the brother of identical twins Tia Mowry & Tamera Mowry. Personal life. Mowry was born and raised in Honolulu, Hawaii, to Darlene Renee (née Flowers), who manages her children's careers, and Timothy John Mowry, a police officer in California. His mother is of Bahamian descent and his father is of English descent; the two met during high school and later both enlisted in the military, becoming NCOs. His older twin sisters are Tia and Tamera Mowry. He played varsity football at Westlake High School in California, and one season of football at Savannah State University and the University of Wyoming. He attended Pepperdine University in Malibu, California where his sisters Tia and Tamera both graduated. Career. Mowry starred and is perhaps best known as T.J. Henderson, a child prodigy, on the sitcom "Smart Guy". He played Teddy on the sitcom "Full House". He also appeared in Disney Channel movies such as "Hounded" and "The Poof Point". He had a guest role on the Disney Channel Original Series, "The Suite Life of Zack & Cody" and in a "" episode entitled "". Mowry appeared in the movie "Are We Done Yet?" as Danny Pulu and in "Seventeen Again" as Willie Donovan. Mowry also had an appearance in one episode in the fourth season of "Desperate Housewives". He also made a guest appearance on an episode of "The Game" as Melanie Barnett's brother (he's also the real brother of Melanie's portrayer Tia Mowry). Mowry performed the voice of Wade in the Disney Channel animated series "Kim Possible".
586462	Suchindra Bali is a Tamil actor, son of former 50s and 60s superstar actress Vyjayanthimala. He has shortened his name to Suchin. His mother is of Tamil origin while his father Dr. Bali is a north Indian. He was born in Mumbai, did his schooling in Chennai, moved to Delhi for college and then went to the U.S. for higher studies. He's a law graduate from Columbia University. After completing his studies, he returned to Delhi where he started modelling. Several acting sessions and dance classes later, he entered into Tamil cinema industry. Acting was the last thing on Suchin’s mind, one day his photograph appeared in a Tamil daily and was seen by a producer who came to sign him for a movie. His first movie was "Kannodu Kanbathellam", where he shared frames with Arjun Sarja and his second film was "Mugavaree" with Ajith Kumar. He also worked with Nana Patekar, his debut Bollywood movie was "Aanch", directed by Rajesh Singh. His Tamil next venture is "Ninaithale", directed by Viswas Sundar. It's his first Tamil movie as solo hero.
1375608	George of the Jungle 2 is the 2003 direct-to-video sequel of the 1997 Disney film "George of the Jungle". It was directed by David Grossman, written by Jordan Moffet, and stars Thomas Haden Church, Julie Benz, Christina Pickles, Angus T. Jones, Michael Clarke Duncan, John Cleese, and introducing Christopher Showerman as "George". The movie focuses on George trying to save Ape Mountain from his evil arch-nemesis Lyle (Thomas Haden Church). The sequel was widely panned. Plot. Five years after socialite Ursula Stanhope left civilization to marry George of the Jungle, George finds himself hard-pressed to fulfil the roles of jungle king, father, and husband. George's stress level increases when the "Mean Lion" challenges him for leadership of the jungle, and when Ursula's mother Beatrice teams up with Ursula's ex-fiancé, Lyle, in a plot to forcibly take away all that George holds most dear. To do this, Beatrice invites Ursula, George, and George Junior to visit Las Vegas, which they accept. Throughout the visit, Beatrice and some of Ursula's fellow socialites try constantly to convince Ursula that George is unworthy of her affection; however, Ursula's single-minded hero-worship or attachment remains intact and seems indeed to harden under threat. George, observing the threats but not his wife's responses, begins to think himself unworthy of Ursula. During the same time, George's mentor Ape has become a gambler and is in debt to several creditors, including Lyle. Lyle, having learned that Ape does not possess the exploitation rights of Ape Mountain, engages Ape as a staged song performer and steals the deed from George's wardrobe. He thereafter sends agents who are called Sally and Kowalski to the Ape Mountain, where they begin to demolish the jungle. The animals, terrified, turn to the Lion for guardianship. Having failed to convince Ursula to divorce George, Beatrice hires a master of hypnosis to suppress Ursula's memory of having known George. The hypnotist suppresses the memory, replacing it with the idea that Ursula has married Lyle. George, upon learning of this, leaves his luck-charm with Ursula as she sleep, then departs. He rescues Ape and proceeds to leave Las Vegas. Their departure triggers much commotion when the police force and the Animal Control Agency join forces to recapture them.
1082963	The Backwoods, alternately known in Spanish as Bosque de Sombras, is a 2006 Spanish-British thriller film directed and co-written by the Spanish director Koldo Serra.
584574	Alli Thandha Vaanam is an Indian Tamil film released in 2001, starring Prabhu Deva, Murali, Laila, Poornitha, Prakash Raj and Shabana Raza. This film was a successful film and 3songs has been shot in various locations in Malaysia.The song Vaadi Vaadi Naatu Kattai Was A Huge Hit. Plot. Satyam (Prabhu Deva) is the no-good son of billionaire Mouli. Disappointed Mouli asks Satyam to spend three months alone on the streets of Chennai to learn the value of money. He would have no money, and could not use the information of who he actually was to gain favor with anyone. So Satyam sets out, and from the very start, meets Laila, who plays an overexuberant youth girl, who cries or laughs constantly. In the next frame, he saves Meenakshi (Shabana Raza) in the style of MGR from would-be rapists, and in the third, meets Julie (Baby Kalyani) and gets together with her. Julie has her own sad story which sounds equivalent to the far better film "Kutty." He sees Meenakshi again, and the two of them fall in love. Julie and Satyam steal a suitcase from Madhavan (Murali) but later that night find out it is full of medicine. Without his medicine, Madhavan falls unconscious. Satyam goes to return the medicine, sees him unconscious, takes him to the hospital, and learns he is going to need five lakhs to save this man he almost inadvertently killed. So Satyam enters the house of billionaire Rajiv, pretending to be a long-lost son. Prakash Raj as a villain who is after Mouli's money and Prabhu Deva's life. Does Prabhu Deva learn his lesson and come out unscathed forms the rest of the movie Alli Thantha Vannam. Production. The role essayed by Murali was initially intended to be played by Karthik. Similarly Laila replaced Sneha in the lead female role. Track listing. Music : Vidyasagar
1043263	Dame Thora Hird DBE (28 May 1911 – 15 March 2003) was an English actress. Early life and career. Hird was born in the Lancashire seaside town of Morecambe. She first appeared on stage at the age of two months in a play her father was managing. She worked at the local Co-op before joining the Morecambe Repertory Theatre. Her family background was largely theatrical: her mother, Marie Mayor, had been an actress, while her father managed a number of entertainment venues in Morecambe, including the Royalty Theatre where she made her first appearance, and the Central Pier. Thora often described her father, who initially did not want her to be an actress, as her sternest critic and attributed much of her talent as an actress and comedienne to his guidance. Although Hird left Morecambe in the late 1940s, she retained her affection for the town, referring to herself as a "sand grown'un", the colloquial term for anyone born in Morecambe. Initially she made regular appearances in films, including the wartime propaganda film "Went the Day Well?" (1942, known as "48 Hours" in the USA), in which she is shown wielding a rifle to defend a house from German paratroopers. She worked with the British film comedian Will Hay, and featured in "The Entertainer" (1960), which starred Laurence Olivier, and in "A Kind of Loving" (1962), with Alan Bates. Thora Hird gained her highest profile in television comedy, notably the sitcoms "Meet the Wife" (1963–66), "In Loving Memory" (1979–86), "Hallelujah!" 1983-1984), and for nearly two decades in "Last of the Summer Wine" (1986–2003). However, she played a variety of roles, including the nurse in "Romeo and Juliet", and won BAFTA Best Actress awards for her roles in two of Alan Bennett's "Talking Heads" monologues. She starred as Captain Emily Ridley in the sitcom "Hallelujah!" (1981–84) about the Salvation Army, a movement for which she had a soft spot throughout her life. Hird also portrayed Mrs Speck, the housekeeper of the Mayor of Gloucester in "The Tailor of Gloucester" (1989). She played the screen mother of Deric Longden in "Wide Eyed and Legless" (aka "the Wedding Gift") and "Lost for Words" which won her a BAFTA for Best Actress. Hird was a committed Christian, hosting the religious programme "Praise Be!", a spin-off from "Songs of Praise" on the BBC. Her work for charity and on television in spite of old age and ill health made her an institution. Her advertisements for Churchill stairlifts also maintained her in the public eye. She was created an Officer of the British Empire (OBE) in 1983, and raised to Dame Commander (DBE) in 1993. She received an honorary D.Litt. from Lancaster University in 1989. In December 1998, already using a wheelchair, Dame Thora played a brief but energetic cameo role as the mother of Dolly on "Dinnerladies", a sarcastic character, who was particularly bitter towards her daughter. Her last work was for BBC Radio 7: a final monologue written for her by Alan Bennett entitled The Last of the Sun, in which she played a forthright, broad-minded woman, immobile in an old people's home but still able to take a stand against the censorious and politically correct attitudes of her own daughter. She was the subject of "This Is Your Life" on two occasions: in January 1964 when she was surprised by Eamonn Andrews, and in December 1996, when Michael Aspel surprised her while filming on location for "Last of the Summer Wine". Death. She died on 15 March 2003 aged 91 at Brinsworth House, Twickenham, London, after suffering a stroke. The BBC thought she still had such energy and resilience, that even after it was revealed she had the stroke, they were still hoping that she would recover in order to appear in the next series of "Last of the Summer Wine". Personal life. Hird married James Scott in 1937, they had a daughter, actress Janette Scott, born in 1938, Hird was widowed in 1994.
1245233	God Grew Tired of Us is a 2006 documentary film about three of the "Lost Boys of Sudan", a group of some 25,000 young men who have fled the wars in Sudan since the 1980s, and their experiences as they move to the United States. The film was written and directed by Christopher Dillon Quinn. Tom Walker was a co-director. Synopsis. "God Grew Tired Of Us" chronicles the arduous journey of three young Southern Sudanese men, John Bul Dau, Daniel Pach and Panther Bior, to the United States where they strive for a brighter future. As young boys in the 1980s, they had walked a thousand miles to escape their war-ridden homeland, and then had to make another arduous journey to escape Ethiopia. During the five years they walked in search of safety, thousands died from starvation, dehydration, bomb raids and genocidal murder. Finally, they found relative safety in Kenya’s Kakuma refugee camp. In 2001, 3,600 lost boys, including John, Daniel and Panther, were invited by the United States to live in America. Assisted by Catholic Charities International, the three boys uproot their lives and once again embark on a journey, leaving behind thousands of other refugees who, in the course of their traumatic odyssey, have become their adopted extended family. They must now learn to adapt to the shock of being thrust into the economically intense culture of the United States, learning new customs, adapting to new and strange foods, coping with the ordeal of getting, and keeping a job, or multiple jobs, while never forgetting the loved ones they left behind in Africa. They dedicate themselves to doing whatever they can to help those they left behind in Kakuma, and to discovering the fate of their parents and family. The title comes from a statement by John, in expressing that he thought the suffering and killings he saw during his country's civil war may have been the final judgment on the earth spoken of in the Bible, because "God was tired of us," "tired of the of bad things the people were doing." "God Grew Tired Of Us" was produced, written and directed by Christopher Dillon Quinn, executive produced by Brad Pitt and narrated by Nicole Kidman. The title of the documentary is a quote from John Dau discussing the despair he and other Sudanese felt during the civil war. Awards. At the 2006 Sundance Film Festival, the film won both the "Grand Jury Prize: Documentary" and the "Audience Award" in the "Independent Film Competition: Documentary" category. The film also won best documentary at the Deauville Film Festival in France and the Galway Film Festival in Ireland. Christopher Dillon Quinn was awarded The Emerging Documentary Filmmaker Award by the International Documentary Association in 2007 for directing "God Grew Tired of Us".
395778	Choi Si-won (; born April 7, 1986 but officially recorded as February 10, 1987), mononymously credited as Siwon (), is a South Korean singer, actor and model. He is best known as a member of K-pop boy band Super Junior and its subgroup Super Junior-M. He is one of the first four South Korean artists to appear on Chinese postage stamps. He is also the first Korean celebrity to surpass 3 million followers on twitter. Biography. Pre-debut. Siwon has one younger sister - Jiwon. His father is currently the CEO of Boryung Medicine, a pharmaceutical company. He graduated from Gu Jeong High School in February 2006. Siwon is a devout Protestant Christian, and has said in an interview that after his career, he would like to become a missionary.
1340804	Georg Joachim de Porris, also known as Rheticus (16 February 1514 – 4 December 1574), was a mathematician, cartographer, navigational-instrument maker, medical practitioner, and teacher. He is perhaps best known for his trigonometric tables and as Nicolaus Copernicus's sole pupil. He facilitated the publication of his master's "De revolutionibus orbium coelestium" ("On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres"). Surname. Rheticus was born at Feldkirch, in present-day Austria. Both his parents, Georg Iserin and Thomasina de Porris, possessed considerable wealth, his father being the town physician. However, Georg abused the trust of many of his patients, stealing belongings and money from their homes. In 1528 he was convicted and executed for his crimes, and as a result his family was stripped of their surname. The family adopted the mothers maiden name de Porris. Later as a student in Wittenberg Georg Joachim adopted the toponym Rheticus, a form of the Latin name for his home region, Rhaetia, a Roman province that had included parts of Austria, Switzerland and Germany. In the matriculation list for the University of Leipzig his family name, de Porris, is translated into German as von Lauchen. The crater Rhaeticus is named for him. Patrons. After Georg Iserin's death, Achilles Gasser took over his medical practice, helping Rheticus to continue his studies and supporting him. Rheticus studied at Feldkirch, Zürich and the University of Wittenberg, where he received his M.A. in 1536. During the Reformation the theologian and educator Philipp Melanchthon reorganized the whole educational system of the Lutheran Protestant parts of Germany, reforming and founding several new universities. In 1536 Melanchthon appointed Rheticus as professor of the lower mathematics, arithmetic and geometry, at the Wittenberg University. Two years later, Melanchthon arranged a two-year leave for Rheticus to study with noted astronomers. Leaving Wittenberg in October 1538, he first went to Nuremberg to visit the professor of mathematics at the Eigidien Oberschule Johannes Schöner. In Nuremberg he also made the acquaintance of other mathematicians such as Georg Hartmann and Thomas Venatorius as well as the printer-publisher Petreius. During his journey, probably in Nuremberg, Rheticus heard of Copernicus and decided to seek him out. From Petreius Rheticus was given works by Regiomontanus and others, intended as presents for Copernicus. He went on to Peter Apian in Ingolstadt and Joachim Camerarius in Tübingen, then to Gasser in his hometown. From Feldkirch he set out on his journey to visit Copernicus in Frombork. Copernicus. In May 1539, Rheticus arrived in Frombork (Frauenburg), where he spent two years with Copernicus. It is unknown whether he had prior access to Copernicus' Commentariolus, an unsigned, unpublished outline of Copernicus' revolutionary heliocentric theory that Copernicus distributed to friends and colleagues three decades before he published "De revolutionibus". In September 1539, Rheticus went to Danzig (Gdańsk) to visit the mayor, who gave him financial assistance to publish his "Narratio Prima" ("First Report") of Copernicus' forthcoming treatise. Rhode in Danzig published Narratio Prima in 1540. While in Danzig, Rheticus interviewed maritime pilots to learn about their problems in navigation. Rheticus also visited Copernicus' friend, Tiedemann Giese, who was Bishop of Culm (now Chełmno). In August 1541, Rheticus presented a copy of his "Tabula chorographica auff Preussen und etliche umbliegende lender" ("Map of Prussia and Neighboring Lands") to Albert, Duke of Prussia, who had been trying to compute the exact time of sunrise. Rheticus made an instrument for him that determined the length of the day. Rheticus obtained the duke's permission to publish "De revolutionibus". Albrecht asked Rheticus to end his travels and return to his teaching position. Rheticus returned to the University of Wittenberg in October 1541. In May 1542, he traveled to Nürnberg to supervise the printing by Johannes Petreius of the first edition of "De revolutionibus", but had to leave in fall to take a position in Leipzig, and Andreas Osiander replaced him. Copernicus' major work was published shortly before his death in 1543. In a work tentatively titled "Epistolae de Terrae Motu", published posthumously in 1984, Rheticus attempts to reconcile Copernicanism with scripture by employing St. Augustine's principle of accommodation. According to historian Robert Westman, the "Epistolae", also known as the "Opusculum", demonstrates that Copernicus and Rheticus recognized the problem of conflict between their finding of earthly motion and biblical scripture, and had therefore developed a systematic defense of compatibility. Rheticus argues that biblical language was written in terms meant to be readily comprehensible to a wide audience: While relying heavily upon citations to appease religious authorities, Rheticus may have nevertheless refrained from publishing the work in his life in order to avoid angering more conservative Christians such as Melanchthon. Later years. The canon of Warmia Georg Donner and the bishop of Warmia Johannes Dantiscus were both patrons of Rheticus. Rheticus was also commissioned to make a staff for king Sigismund II of Poland, while he held a position as teacher in Kraków for many years. From there he went to Košice in the Kingdom of Hungary, where he died. Trigonometry. For much of his life, Rheticus displayed a passion for the study of triangles, the branch of mathematics now called trigonometry. In 1542 he had the trigonometric sections of Copernicus' "De revolutiobis" published separately under the title "De lateribus et angulis triangulorum" ("On the Sides and Angles of Triangles"). In 1551 Rheticus produced a tract titled "Canon of the Science of Triangles," the first publication of six-function trigonometric tables (although the word "trigonometry" was not yet coined). This pamphlet was to be an introduction to Rheticus' greatest work, a full set of tables to be used in angular astronomical measurements. At his death, the "Science of Triangles" was still unfinished. However, paralleling his own relationship with Copernicus, Rheticus had acquired a student who devoted himself to completing his teacher's work. Valentin Otto oversaw the hand computation of approximately 100,000 ratios to at least ten decimal places. When completed in 1596, the volume, "Opus palatinum de triangulus," filled nearly 1,500 pages. Its tables were accurate enough to be used in astronomical computation into the early twentieth century. In popular culture. In the U.S. Science Fiction series Warehouse 13 Joshua Donovan uses a teleportation device in the form of a compass said to have been built by Rheticus. Rheticus is referenced several times in the song "Like Rheticus" on the 2004 album "Place" by British songwriter Owen Tromans.
1073924	Edith Massey (May 28, 1918 – October 24, 1984) was an American actress and singer. Massey was best known for her appearances in a series of movies by director John Waters. Due to her work with Waters, she is considered one of the Dreamlanders, Waters' ensemble of regular cast and crew members. Early life. One of ten children, Edith (Dornfield) Massey's mother and father "just threw up their hands one day, dropped off those who couldn’t fend for themselves at a local orphanage or 'home,' and disappeared"
589042	Manoj Kumar (born Harikrishna Giri Goswami on 24 July 1937) is an award-winning Indian actor and director in the Bollywood film industry. He is remembered for his films Hariyali Aur Raasta, Woh Kaun Thi?, Himalaya Ki God Mein, Do Badan, Upkar, Patthar Ke Sanam, Neel Kamal, Purab Aur Paschim, Roti Kapda Aur Makaan, and Kranti. He is known for acting in and directing films with patriotic themes, and has been given the nickname "Bhaarat Kumar". In 1992, he was honoured with the Padma Shri by the Government of India. Early life. Manoj Kumar was born in Abbottabad, a town of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, then part of India. Abbottabad is now located within the borders of Pakistan. His original name was Harikishan Giri Goswami. When he was 10, his Gosain Hindu family had to move to Delhi owing to partition. His family lived as refugees in Vijay Nagar, Kingsway Camp and later moved to Patel Nagar area of New Delhi. After graduating from Hindu College, University of Delhi, he decided to enter the film industry. Career. As a youth, he admired Bollywood superstar Dilip Kumar, and decided to name himself Manoj Kumar after Dilip's character in Shabnam (1949). After making a little-noticed début in "Fashion" in 1957, Manoj landed his first leading role in "Kaanch Ki Gudia" (1960) opposite Sayeeda Khan. "Piya Milan Ki Aas" and "Reshmi Roomal" followed, setting the stage for the Vijay Bhatt-directed "Hariyali Aur Raasta" (1962) opposite Mala Sinha. Kumar then appeared with Sadhana in Raj Khosla's "Woh Kaun Thi" (1964), and reunited with Vijay Bhatt and Mala Sinha in "Himalaya Ki God Mein" (1965). Manoj Kumar and Raj Khosla repeated their successful Actor-Director partnership with the film Do Badan, which was remembered for many reasons including Raj Khosla's great direction, Manoj Kumar and the heroine Asha Parekh's excellent display of histrionics, an outstanding musical score by Ravi, immortal songs by the lyricist Shakeel Badayuni, among others. The patriotic hero. Kumar's image as the patriotic hero started with the 1965 film "Shaheed", based on the life of Bhagat Singh, the most influential Indian revolutionary. After the Indo-Pakistani War of 1965, Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri asked him to create a film based on the popular slogan "Jai Jawan Jai Kissan" (hail the soldier, hail the farmer). The result was Kumar's magnum opus and his directorial debut, "Upkaar" (1967). In it, he played both a soldier and a farmer. The film was also noted for the famous song "Mere Desh Ki Dharti", written by Gulshan Bawra, composed by Kalyanji-Anandji and sung by Mahendra Kapoor. "Upkaar" was a hit and won Kumar his first Filmfare Best Director Award. After dabbling in various roles in the late 1950, Manoj returned to patriotic themes in "Purab Aur Paschim" (1970), in which life in the East and West are juxtaposed. In 1972, he starred in "Be-Imaan" (for which he won the Filmfare Best Actor Award) and directed and starred in "Shor" (1972). The latter, opposite Nanda, was not a huge box office success, but it did feature the memorable song "Ek Pyar Ka Nagma Hai", a duet by Lata Mangeshkar and Mukesh, which was composed by Laxmikant Pyarelal and written by Santosh Anand. Later career. The mid-1970s saw Kumar star in three hit films: "Roti Kapda Aur Makaan" (1974) was a social commentary featuring an all-star cast including Zeenat Aman, Shashi Kapoor and Amitabh Bachchan that won him his second Filmfare Award for Best Director; "Sanyasi" (1975) had Kumar and Hema Malini in the lead roles of a religious-themed comedy; and "Dus Numbri" (1976) also gave Kumar and Hema top billing. In 1981, Kumar reached the peak of his career when he got the opportunity to direct his idol, Dilip Kumar, as well as star in "Kranti", a story about the struggle for Indian independence in the 19th century. "Kranti" was the last notable successful film in his career. He also starred in the hit Punjabi film "Jat Punjabi". After "Kranti", Kumar's career began to decline in the 1980s as all of his films failed at the box office. In 1989 he cast Pakistani actors Mohammad Ali and Zeba in his film "Clerk" which was considered to be a groundbreaking event. He quit acting after his appearance in the 1995 film "Maidan-E-Jung". His son, Kunal Goswami, tried to revive the patriotic theme and was directed by Kumar in the 1999 film "Jai Hind" which was a flop. Kumar was awarded the Filmfare Lifetime Achievement Award that same year. His trademark hand-covering-the-face was very popular and continues to be the butt of jokes of latter day stand-up comedians. In 2007, the Shah Rukh Khan film "Om Shanti Om" featured the lead character pretending to be Manoj Kumar so as to sneak into a movie premiere, by holding his hand over his face. Kumar filed a lawsuit, which was settled out of court. Politics. Like many other Bollywood stars, Kumar decided to enter politics following his retirement. Before the 2004 general election in India, it was announced that he had officially joined the ranks of the Shiv Sena. Personal life. Kumar is married to Shashi Goswami (originally from Jodhkan, Sirsa district, Haryana). He has two sons, Vishal and Kunal, Vishal tried his skills as a singer and Kunal as an actor. His brother, Rajiv Goswami, also entered the film industry, but none were able to gain any footing in Bollywood. Awards. Filmfare Awards. Winner Nominated
1058206	Stan Shaw (born July 14, 1952) is an American actor. Born in Chicago, Illinois, he is the son of Bertha Shaw and saxophonist Eddie Shaw, and cousin of the late soul singers Sam Cooke and Tyrone Davis Brother of Vaan Shaw (guitarist/wolfgang). Shaw started his acting career in the Chicago production of the Broadway musical "Hair" as well as the Broadway production of "The Me Nobody Knows". His last Broadway show, "Via Galactica" was directed by Sir Peter Hall. Before becoming an actor, Shaw was a karate, judo, and jujutsu instructor in Chicago. He holds first "dan" black belt in judo and jujutsu and a second dan in karate. Shaw appeared in The Bingo Long Traveling Allstars and Motor Kings in 1976 as Esquire Joe Calloway. Shaw appeared also in "Rocky" (1976) as Dipper, another boxer. In a deleted scene, Dipper, infuriated by the attention Rocky has received, challenges him before a television reporter. He also played a professional fighter in "Tough Enough" (1983), "Harlem Nights" (1989), and "Snake Eyes" (1998). One of his most notable roles was his appearance as Alex Haley's maternal grandfather Will Palmer in the 1979 miniseries '. Another highly notable role was Private Washington in "The Boys in Company C" (1978). Shaw also played in "The Great Santini" (1979) as Toomer Smalls with Robert Duvall and David Keith. After a part in the 1991 film "Fried Green Tomatoes", he had a role in the 1995 comedy "Houseguest" alongside Sinbad and appeared as a pirate in "Cutthroat Island" with Geena Davis. He also appeared as George Tyrell in the 1996 disaster film Daylight. His television credits include episodes of "Matlock", The Young Riders, "Murder, She Wrote", "The X-Files", and a 2009 episode of '. He had a regular role in the 1983 TV series "The Mississippi".
1065479	Matthew Lyn Lillard (born January 24, 1970) is an American actor, director and producer. He is well known for his roles as Stu Macher in "Scream", Stevo in "SLC Punk" (awarded Best Actor at the Mar del Plata Film Festival), and Shaggy Rogers in the "Scooby-Doo" film series - he has taken over the providing the voice of Shaggy in the cartoon series since the reboot Mystery Incorporated. Lillard made a dramatic turn in Alexander Payne's critically acclaimed comedy-drama "The Descendants". Early life. Lillard was born in Lansing, Michigan, and grew up in Tustin, California. He has a younger sister, Amy. He attended Foothill High school in Santa Ana, California and later the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in Pasadena, California, with fellow actor Paul Rudd, and later, the theater school Circle in the Square in New York City. Career. While still in high school, he was co-host of a short-lived TV show titled "SK8 TV". After high school, he was hired as an extra for "Ghoulies 3: Ghoulies Go to College" (1991). From there he was cast in 1995 into one of five films that year "Hackers" which featured a group of high school aged kids that thwart a multi-million dollar corporate extortion conspiracy.
1080186	Dance Craze is a 1981 British documentary film about the English 2 Tone music genre. The film was directed by Joe Massot, who originally wanted to do a film only about the band Madness, whom he met during their first US tour. Massot later changed his plans to include the whole 2 Tone movement. The film, shot in 1980, comprised performance footage of Madness, The Specials, The Selecter, The Bodysnatchers, The Beat and Bad Manners on tour throughout the United Kingdom. A soundtrack album of the same name was released the same year, featuring fifteen of the songs that were featured in the film. Later versions of the soundtrack album do not contain the Madness tracks, adding tracks credited to Special AKA, a name under which the Specials were known. Soundtrack LP. Side One Side Two
1165234	Joan O'Brien (born February 14, 1936) is an American actress and singer. She made a name for herself acting in television shows in the 1950s and 1960s, and as a film co-star with Cary Grant, Elvis Presley, John Wayne and Jerry Lewis. Early life. Joan Marie O'Brien was born to David and Rita O'Brien on Valentine's Day 1936, in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The family moved to California when O'Brien was a child, and enrolled O'Brien in dance classes when she was eight years old. She graduated from Chaffey Union High School in Ontario, California. Career. O'Brien's singing abilities came to the attention of entertainer and Country Music Hall of Fame member Cliffie Stone, who hired her as a regular performer on his television show "Hometown Jamboree" before her high school graduation. In 1954, she became a regular on "The Bob Crosby Show", and stayed until shortly before the show's cancellation in 1958. She co-starred with Cary Grant and Tony Curtis in the 1959 movie "Operation Petticoat". Lawrence Welk hired O'Brien as a one-week replacement for his champagne lady Alice Lon in July 1959. O'Brien had come to Welk's attention years earlier when she was a singer on Bob Crosby's show, but Welk decided not to hire her at that time because she was still a teenager. O'Brien was cast as Alamo survivor Susanna Dickinson in John Wayne's 1960 epic "The Alamo". That same year, O'Brien performed as a soloist for composer Buddy Bregman at the Moulin Rouge night club in Los Angeles. In 1961, O'Brien again co-starred with John Wayne, as his love interest in "The Comancheros". Actresses Sheree North, Sabrina and Sue Carson joined O'Brien in a tour of "Playgirls" in 1961, appearing at the Riverside Hotel in Reno, Nevada. O'Brien played Elvis Presley's girlfriend in the 1963 vehicle "It Happened at the World's Fair". Her most frequent acting performances were in television during the 1960s. She made two guest appearances on "Perry Mason": in 1960 she played Betty Roberts in "The Case of the Singing Skirt," and in 1965 she played Jill Fenwick in "The Case of the Lover's Gamble." In 1964, O'Brien guest starred in an episode of "The Man from UNCLE." Series star Robert Vaughn, subsequently cast her as Ophelia in "Hamlet" at the Pasadena Playhouse. After her acting career ended, O'Brien sang with the Harry James band in 1968.
589801	Jai Santoshi Maa (Devnagari: जय संतोषी माँ) is a 1975 low-budget Hindi film that became one of the top blockbusters of all time. Santoshī Mā (also called Santoshi Mata or Santoshi Maa) is a goddess of satisfaction. Usha Mangeshkar, sister of Lata Mangeshkar sang the devotional songs for the film along with Mahendra Kapoor and the famous poet Pradeep (who wrote the lyrics of the songs). Plot. The film opens in Dev Lok or “the world of the gods,” a Hindu heaven located above the clouds, where we witness the “birth” of Santoshi Ma as the daughter of Ganesha, the elephant headed god of good beginnings, and his two wives Riddhi and Siddhi (“prosperity” and “success”). A key role is played by the immortal sage Narada, a devotee of Vishnu, and a cosmic busybody who regularly intervenes to advance the film’s two parallel plots, which concern both human beings and gods. We soon meet the maiden Satyavati (Kanan Kaushal), Santoshi Ma’s greatest earthly devotee, leading a group of women in an aarti (song and ceremony of worship) to the goddess. This first song, "Main To Arti Utaru", “I perform Mother Santoshi’s arti,” exemplifies through its camerawork the experience of "darshan" —of “seeing” and being seen by a deity in the reciprocal act of “visual communion” that is central to Hindu worship. Through the Mother’s grace, Satyavati soon meets, falls in love with, and manages to marry the handsome lad Birju (Ashish Kumar), youngest of seven brothers in a prosperous farmer family, an artistic flute-playing type who can also render a zippy bhajan on request (Apni Santoshi Maa, “Our Mother Santoshi”). Alas, with the boy come the in-laws, and two of Birju’s six sisters-in-law, Durga and Maya (named for powerful goddesses) are jealous shrews who have it in for him and Satyavati from the beginning. To make matters worse, Narada (in a delightful scene back in heaven) stirs up the jealousy of three senior goddesses, Lakshmi, Parvati, and Brahmani (a.k.a. Sarasvati)— the wives of the “Hindu trinity” of Vishnu, Shiva, and Brahma—against the “upstart” goddess Santoshi Ma. They decide to examine (pariksha) her perseverance (Shraddha) by making life miserable for her chief devotee. After a fight with his relatives, Birju leaves home to seek his fortune, narrowly escaping a watery grave (planned for him by the goddesses) through his wife’s devotion to Santoshi Ma. Nevertheless, the divine ladies convince his family that he is indeed dead, adding the stigma of widowhood to Satyavati’s other woes. Her sisters-in-law treat her like a slave, beat and starve her, and a local rogue attempts to rape her; Santoshi Ma (played as an adult by Anita Guha), taking a human form, rescues her several times. Eventually Satyavati is driven to attempt suicide, but is stopped by Narada, who tells her about the sixteen-Fridays fast in honor of Santoshi Ma, which can grant any wish. Satyavati completes it with great difficulty and more divine assistance, and just in the nick of time: for the now-prosperous Birju, stricken with amnesia by the angry goddesses and living in a distant place, has fallen in love with a rich merchant’s daughter. Through Santoshi Ma’s grace, he gets his memory back and returns home laden with wealth. When he discovers the awful treatment given to his wife, he builds a palatial home for the two of them, complete with an in-house temple to the Mother. Satyavati plans a grand ceremony of udyapan or “completion” (of her vrat ritual) and invites her in-laws. But the nasty celestials and sadistic sisters-in-law make a last-ditch effort to ruin her by squeezing lime juice into one of the dishes (key point here: the rules of Santoshi Ma’s fast forbid eating, or serving, any sour food). All hell breaks loose —civil war between goddesses(?)— before peace is finally restored, on earth as it is in heaven, and a new deity is triumphantly welcomed to the pantheon. Release and response. This low-budget film with forgotten stars and unknown actors unexpectedly emerged as one of the highest-grossing releases of 1975—sharing the spotlight with the likes of Sholay and Deewar. This bewildered critics and intrigued scholars (resulting in a modest literature on the film as a religio-cultural phenomenon), but made perfect sense to millions of Indian women, who loved its folksy story about a new “Goddess of Satisfaction,” easily accessible through a simple ritual (which the film also demonstrates). A classic example of the “mythological” genre—the original narrative genre of Indian-made films—and one of the most popular such films ever made, it gave a new (and characteristically Indian), inflection to the American pop-critical term “cult film,” for viewers often turned cinemas into temporary temples, leaving their footwear at the door, pelting the screen with flowers and coins, and bowing reverently whenever the goddess herself appeared (which she frequently did, always accompanied by a clash of cymbals).
402292	Dayle Haddon (born May 26, 1948) is a Canadian model and actress, presently known for promoting anti-aging products manufactured by L'Oréal. Additionally, she is credited as author of "Ageless Beauty: A Woman's Guide to Lifelong Beauty and Well-Being". During the earlier part of her career as a model, Haddon appeared on the covers of many top fashion and beauty magazines, as well as the cover of the "Sports Illustrated" Swimsuit Issue. Haddon also served as a wellness contributor to CBS News where she appeared regularly on The CBS Early Show from 2005 to 2008. She is the mother of Ryan Haddon. Biography. Haddon was born in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, where she was also raised. She speaks both English and French. As a child, she was enrolled in dancing classes to develop her physique, and she performed well enough to become a member of Les Grands Ballets Canadiens at 13. She was chosen Miss Montreal at 18. As a model in the 1970s and 80s she represented Max Factor, Revlon, Estée Lauder, L'Oréal. She appeared on the cover of the 1973 Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue and was twice named to "Harper's Bazaar'"s "Ten Most Beautiful Women." She also appeared nude in the April 1973 issue of Playboy. She worked as an actress, appearing in the Disney movie "The World's Greatest Athlete" (1973). She moved to Europe, continued modeling and acting, and appeared in a number of film roles in French and English, as well as occasional small parts in American movies. Her best known roles were in "Madame Claude" (1977), and "North Dallas Forty" (1979) opposite actor Nick Nolte. During Haddon's tenure as a main face for L'Oréal, sales for the Age Perfect line have increased by 50%. According to the New York Times, Dayle has "shattered age taboos" with her multi-year contracts with L'Oréal and Estée Lauder, among other companies. =Personal life= Haddon's companion Glenn Souham, possibly involved in Irangate, was murdered in Paris in 1986, leaving her with little money and a 15-year-old daughter to raise alone. No longer able to afford to live in her house in New York City, she eventually found a position in a small advertising agency in Los Angeles, though her earnings were poor. Clairol selected her as a spokesperson, and she later broke barriers for women over the age of 35 when she became the global face of a new anti-aging line for Estée Lauder, a first in the beauty industry. On the day that her Estée Lauder contract expired L'Oréal signed her. She now has her own company, Dayle Haddon Concepts Inc. In early 2008 she was named a UNICEF ambassador. Haddon is also the founder a non-profit called WomenOne. The organization’s motto is "changing the world one woman at a time."
776071	Thru the Moebius Strip () was a Hong Kong–produced 3D-CGI feature film, made in mainland China. Plot. The story is about the coming of age of a 14-year-old boy who grew up refusing to accept the loss of his father. He reaches the planet Raphicca 27.2 million light years away to find that his father is prisoner in a kingdom of giant aliens who believe in magic and a medieval code of chivalry. In the midst of a raging battle between good and evil, Jac rescues his father, his new-found family of aliens, the planet of Raphicca, and ultimately, the universe. Background. The film was produced by American studios and rendered in Shenzhen, China by the Institute of Digital Media Technology (IDMT). The project began with 200 animators in 2000 and grew to employ more than 400 by the end of production. Unlike traditional Chinese films, the movie was dubbed into English first. Previewed at the Second International Animation and Cartoon Festival at Hangzhou, China on April 27 and May 3, 2006, Reaction. The film premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in 2005 and received good reviews for the animation work. However film critics have emphasized that the story was mostly catered to the west with eastern elements added in, making it difficult to satisfy any group of audience in any one particular region.
1165059	Reta Shaw (September 13, 1912 – January 8, 1982) was an American character actress known for playing authoritative women, housekeepers, and domineering wives, especially on television. She was a graduate of the Leland Powers School of the Theater in Boston, Massachusetts. Career. The zaftig actress appeared on Broadway in her comic role as Mabel in the original production of "The Pajama Game" in 1952, as well as in "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes," "Picnic" and "Annie Get Your Gun," the last on tour with Mary Martin. She had featured roles in several motion pictures, including "Picnic", "The Pajama Game", 'Mary Poppins', "Pollyanna", "The Ghost And Mr. Chicken", "Bachelor in Paradise" (with Bob Hope) & "Escape to Witch Mountain." On television, she was seen with Red Skelton, Bob Hope, Lucille Ball, Patty Duke, and Andy Griffith and appeared on Wally Cox's "Mr. Peepers" series, "Armstrong Circle Theater," "Alfred Hitchcock Presents" and "The Millionaire". She appeared on CBS's "The Dick Van Dyke Show" as an unemployment office worker. She is best remembered as the housekeeper on the television series, "The Ghost & Mrs. Muir". She earlier appeared in the first season (1958–1959) of CBS's "The Ann Sothern Show" in the role of Flora Macauley, the overbearing wife of the gentlemanly hotel owner Jason Macauley, played by Ernest Truex.
582946	Tera Jadoo Chal Gayaa, (Hindi-तेरा जादू चल गया) ("Your magical spell worked") is a Bollywood movie released in 2000 starring Abhishek Bachchan and Kirti Reddy in leading roles.
1100688	Noam David Elkies (born August 25, 1966) is an American mathematician and chess master. In 1981, at age 14, Elkies was awarded a gold medal at the 22nd International Mathematical Olympiad, receiving a perfect score of 42 and becoming one of just 26 participants to attain this score. the youngest ever to do so. Elkies graduated from Stuyvesant High School in 1982 and went on to Columbia University, where he won the Putnam competition at the age of sixteen years and four months, making him one of the youngest Putnam Fellows in history. He was a Putnam Fellow two more times during his undergraduate years. After graduating as valedictorian at age 18 with a summa cum laude in Mathematics and Music, he earned his Ph.D. at the age 20 under the supervision of Benedict Gross and Barry Mazur at Harvard University. In 1987, he proved that an elliptic curve over the rational numbers is supersingular at infinitely many primes. In 1988, he found a counterexample to Euler's sum of powers conjecture for fourth powers. His work on these and other problems won him recognition and a position as an associate professor at Harvard in 1990. In 1993, he was made a full, tenured professor at the age of 26. This made him the youngest full professor in the history of Harvard, surpassing previous then-youngest professors Alan Dershowitz, William H. Press, and Lawrence Summers (who were each made full professors at age 28). Elkies, along with A. O. L. Atkin, extended Schoof's algorithm to create the Schoof–Elkies–Atkin algorithm. He is a composer and solver of chess problems (winning the 1996 World Chess Solving Championship). Elkies is active in musical composition. He has discovered many new patterns in Conway's Game of Life and has studied the mathematics of still life patterns in that cellular automaton rule. Elkies also studies the connections between mathematics and music. He sits on the Advisory Board of the Journal of Mathematics and Music. Elkies is also a fellow at Harvard's Lowell House. He is a faculty adviser to the Harvard Israel Review.
1066099	The New Centurions is a 1972 crime drama film based on the novel by policeman turned author Joseph Wambaugh. It stars George C. Scott, Stacy Keach, Scott Wilson, Jane Alexander, Erik Estrada and James Sikking and was directed by Richard Fleischer. The film was spoofed in MAD Magazine in 1973 as "The New Comedians." Plot. Three rookie cops, Roy Fehler, Gus Plebesly and Sergio Duran, report for duty with the Los Angeles police department. Roy is married with a daughter and intends to eventually become a law student. Gus is a father of three. Serge is a native of East L.A. who never expected to end up patrolling its streets. Each is assigned a veteran partner. Roy's is the greatly experienced Andy Kilvinski, who has been on the force for nearly a quarter-century and has his own unique style of law enforcement. For example, he will have hookers driven around for hours in a paddy wagon, simply to keep them off the streets for a night. Gus rides with Whitey Duncan. As they answer a burglary call at a market, Gus opens fire on a suspicious figure in the alley, only to discover to his horror that it is the owner of the store. Roy begins to frustrate his wife Dorothy by becoming obsessed with police work, neglecting his family and dropping out of law school. He likes the life on the street, but during a convenience store holdup, Roy asks a parked couple to move their car and is unexpectedly shot with a shotgun. Gus and Serge discuss their fear of being shot. Serge temporarily partners with Andy, and together they handle a volatile situation with a slum landlord. Roy gradually recovers and quickly encounters a shootout, but doesn't flinch. As the rookies mark a year on the job, Andy reaches his 25th anniversary and mandatory retirement. He discusses the difficulties of police work at a farewell party with the younger men. Roy is assigned to the vice squad, where the job is anything but glamorous. Dorothy has had enough. She leaves him and takes their daughter. The young cops are delighted to get a visit from Andy, who has retired to Florida but misses police work, regretting never having spent more time on a personal life. After speaking with Roy one last time on the phone, Andy picks up a gun and kills himself. Depression gets the better of Roy, who begins to drink on the job. He answers a burglary call and the victim turns out to be Lorrie, a nurse who helped him after he got shot. Later on patrol, a prostitute speeds off with Roy hanging from the car. He barely avoids serious injury and Lorrie helps patch him up, but he draws a three-week suspension for being drunk. Roy begins seeing Lorrie socially and comes to his senses, appreciating the need for personal relationships and remembering what led Andy to end his life. He goes on a routine patrol with both Gus and Serge and answers a domestic disturbance report. A man appears out of nowhere, and before Serge can disarm him, Roy is shot. He dies in Gus's arms.
1059923	The Cheap Detective is a 1978 American satirical comedy film written by Neil Simon and directed by Robert Moore as a follow-up to their successful "Murder by Death" (Columbia, 1976). It stars Peter Falk as Lou Peckinpaugh, a detective in the Humphrey Bogart mold. The film is an affectionate parody of Bogart movies such as "Casablanca" and "The Maltese Falcon". The ensemble cast includes Madeline Kahn, Louise Fletcher, Ann-Margret, Eileen Brennan, Stockard Channing, Marsha Mason, Sid Caesar, John Houseman, Dom DeLuise, Abe Vigoda, James Coco, Phil Silvers, Fernando Lamas, Nicol Williamson, Scatman Crothers, and Paul Williams. Plot. Lou Peckinpaugh (Peter Falk), a bumbling San Francisco private detective, tries to prove himself innocent of his partner's murder while helping a bizarre array of characters recover a lost treasure. The film spoofs "Casablanca", "The Maltese Falcon", "Chinatown", "A Streetcar Named Desire" and "To Have and Have Not".
1070939	Plot. Shinnojo, a low level samurai, lives with his pretty, dutiful and loyal wife Kayo. He has come to find his position in a castle as a food-taster for a feudal lord to be boring and pointless, and talks about opening a kendo school open to boys of all castes where he can teach the use of the sword. Before he can act on his dream he becomes ill with a fever after tasting some sashimi made from shell fish, but an investigation reveals that the poisoning was not due to a human conspiracy, but a poor choice of food out of season. After three days he awakes but finds that the toxin from the food has blinded him. Kayo is summoned by Shinnojo's family to explain how the couple will survive. His uncle laments that he no longer knows anybody with influence in the castle, and asks Kayo if she knows of anybody. She relates how Toya Shimada, the chief duty officer in the castle and a samurai of high rank, offered to help and they tell her to act upon his offer of assistance. A message from the castle brings the good news that Shinnojo's stipend of rice will remain the same, and for life but his aunt tells him that Kayo was seen with another man. He has Tokuhei, his faithful servant, follow her. Kayo notices that she is being followed, and although Tokuhei offers to cover for her, she reveals to Shinnojo that Shimada offered to help but with a price, shown when he forced himself upon her. He then solicited three additional trysts by threatening to tell Shinnojo about the first. An enraged Shinnojo divorces her and orders her out of his house. When it is revealed to him that Shimada had nothing to do with maintaining his stipend, but that it came out of gratitude from the lord of the clan himself, Shinnojo seeks to renew his skill with the sword as a blind man to avenge the dishonor of Kayo. Through Tokuhei, he sends a message to Shimada to set up a duel, with the additional message to not underestimate him. The two samurai meet at the stables near the river to decide their destinies. In the subsequent fight Shinnojo cuts off Shimada's arm. He leaves Shimada to live a horribly disfigured life, telling Tokuhei that he has now avenged Kayo's dishonor. The next day Shinnojo is informed that the injured Shimada refused to tell anyone what had happened or who injured him in the duel. That night Shimada committed seppuku and killed himself, as a samurai cannot live with only one arm. He dies without anyone knowing of his sin against the Mimura family, his violation of Kayo, or his own dishonorable injury by a blinded man. Tokuhei tells Shinnojo he has found a girl to work in the kitchen and cook for him. After one taste of the girl's food, Shinnojo recognizes his wife's cooking, and calls Kayo to come into the house. Shinnojo and Kayo reconcile, with an understanding that they will begin their life together anew. Home media. The film was released in DVD by FUNimation in 2008. It is both in English dialogue and in the original Japanese dialogue with English subtitles.
1520330	Jonah Bobo (January 24, 1997) is an American actor. Life and career. Bobo was born on Roosevelt Island, New York. He was raised in an Orthodox Jewish home. His paternal great-grandmother was businesswoman and philanthropist Salha "Mama" Bobo. His first film role was in the 2004 independent film, "The Best Thief in the World". He co-starred opposite Christopher Walken and Josh Lucas in the 2004 drama "Around the Bend", playing the youngest of a four-generation family. Bobo was subsequently cast in the fantasy film "Zathura". Bobo's next role was in another independent film, "Strangers with Candy", which opened on June 28, 2006. Bobo played young Victor Mancini in the film adaptation of Chuck Palahniuk's novel "Choke". He has also made an appearance on "30 Rock" as a paparazzo named Ethan. He appeared on Roosevelt Island in the play "Seussical Jr." at the Main Street Theatre and Dance Alliance. He was also on episode 5 of "Royal Pains". In 2011 he appeared in the film "Crazy, Stupid, Love." as Robbie, the son of divorcing parents Cal (Steve Carell) and Emily Weaver (Julianne Moore). Bobo plays guitar and is lead vocalist in the band "The Bonnie Situation".
582189	Dev.D is an Indian film released on 6 February 2009. Written and directed by Anurag Kashyap, it is a modern-day take on Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay's classic Bengali novel "Devdas", previously adapted for the screen by P.C. Barua and Bimal Roy and more recently by Sanjay Leela Bhansali. "Dev.D" was embraced by the media, critics and public. The film is set in contemporary Punjab and Delhi, where familial ties are negotiated by the traditions of patriarchy and marriages are reduced to a game of power and "honour". Plot. Dev (Abhay Deol) is the son of a rich businessman. He and Paro (Mahi Gill) are childhood sweethearts. But Dev, being an insecure narcissist, instead of acknowledging her affection and care, nudges Paro over frivolous things. Dev is sent to London for higher studies when his father senses how spoilt his son is. While separated by distance, Paro and Dev's youthful love only blossoms more. Dev arrives in Chandigarh to meet Paro. Their endeavor to make love makes for some dark comic moments. The seeds of suspicion are sown here, which the couple will never be able to weed out for a lifetime. When Dev hears rumours about Paro, he immediately believes them and ditches her. What makes them fall apart is mutual suspicion and an essentially male vision of how a woman should conduct herself sexually. Paro turns her back on him when she hears him insult her and agrees to marry whoever her parents choose. On her wedding day, he realizes that the rumors were false. But his ego doesn't let him accept his mistake, and he lets her marry someone else. Enter Chanda aka Leni (Kalki Koechlin). A Delhi student of half-European descent, a date with her much older boyfriend lands Leni in an MMS scandal. Her father commits suicide as he feels humiliated by his daughter's reputation. She is disowned by her family. Refusing to live a life of shame and ridicule with her family, she comes back to Delhi where she works as a prostitute at night, while continuing with her studies during the day. She adopts the nickname Chanda for her profession. Her 'foreign' looks mean her services are reserved for the highest-paying customers and she finds some dignity and independence in the new way of living. One night a customer is brought to her room in half-conscious state — it turns out to be Dev. Dev, tormented by Paro’s wedding, has been seeking refuge in alcohol and drugs. He finds some solace with Chanda but is unable to forget Paro. Once after he calls Paro's husband in the middle of the night, she visits him at the cheap lodge where he is staying. She shows her love by taking care of him but spurns his attempts at physical intimacy. The meeting ends on a bitter note, after which Paro goes back to her married life and Dev resolves to go back to Chanda; confronted by the reality of her profession, he abandons her, too. It is only months later, after hitting an all-time low in an aimless life, that he gets a wake-up call and decides to put his act together. He seeks Chanda once again and, with her help, sets out to start life afresh. Cast. Dev :Dev.D is Devendra Singh Dhillon, the protagonist of the film. Son of a rich industrialist from Punjab, the sugar baron. He's brash, arrogant, ill-mannered, demanding, lusty, impulsive and yes, self destructive. Dev loses his chance of marrying his childhood sweetheart Paro due to a misunderstanding. After she gets married elsewhere, starts Dev’s path of self-pity and his emergence as a drug addict, alcoholic and chain smoker in Delhi now financed by a bed-ridden and guilt-ridden father. Through a pimp Chunni, he meets Chanda, a sex worker. She befriends a vulnerable Dev and gradually falls in love with him. Dev likes her too but his penchant for self-destruction prevents him and Chanda from truly getting together. Dev, in the meanwhile, finds lost love Paro. She visits him and washes and cleans for him but does not make herself available for his sexual use. A sexually rejected Dev indulges in further self-pity and substance abuse, kills seven in a hit-and-run, does not reach home before the death of his father, wastes himself and his family’s money and ends up, literally, on the road, narrowly escaping death by a drunk driver. He realizes life could be short; he already was on the lesson learning experience since some time, with all past memories of both Paro and Chanda. Dev tells Chanda how he never actually loved Paro and they live happily thereafter. Paro : Paro is Parminder, a rustic Punjabi girl, who handles family and farms, household and its men with the same élan. She can be like a man when it needs to be and delicate like a woman when it needs to be. Paro is a free spirit riding high on life with nothing but an indestructible faith in her love for Dev. She is from a small family that has been close to Dev's family since childhood. She always had love for Dev, which was never visible in Dev. That faith is shattered in a major. A reason, why her happiness is cut short when Dev comes to know from Sunil that she sleeps with him. Dev easily accepts it, and rejects her. Paro seeks revenge in a different way, she accepts to marry an older man with children. Paro picks up the threads of her life and moves on with a lot of grit and dignity and she hopes Dev can do the same. Mahi’s Punjabi diction is very good, plus she makes a very good debut as quite an aggressive girl with emotional highlights. Chanda/Lenni : Leni likes to live her life on the edge - a rich student with hyperactive hormones and a penchant for adventure. She comes across as a sweet, cute and innocent school going girl. After a devastating MMS scandal she's abandoned by her family and is forced into isolation. A mistake of trusting her boy-friend shatters her life completely. Nobody could understand her, not even her parents who just wanted to avoid any humility her act may cause them, hence going away from Delhi. After not bearing the sin, her father realized he had committed by watching her MMS, he decides to free himself and let Leni and his wife struggle. Leni's mother isn’t strong enough to manage her alone, sending her to his father's village. Eventually, Leni runs off, back to Delhi where it all started for her. As a runaway she finds shelter with Chunni a pimp. With great determination and inner strength she adopts an alter ego - Chanda. As Chanda she gets to be a high profile escort by night while Leni remains a college student by day. Chanda plays a fantasy girl; she is a different character every day. With coke in her head and money at her disposal, Leni/Chanda lives life on her own terms. Production. The original idea of film was suggested by Abhay Deol to Anurag Kashyap, who then worked on the script along with Vikramaditya Motwane, using "news headlines about Generation X" to give a youth feel. "Dev.D" was produced by Ronnie Screwvala and shot in places including Paharganj in central Delhi. For the scenes where Dev is high, British director Danny Boyle suggested the use of a still camera as Kashyap did not have the budget for special effects. Development. Anurag Kashyap did not want another remake of any of the nine films versions titled "Devdas". His version was created as a modern take on the 1917 original classic novel by Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay. Kashyap wanted to make his own version of "Devdas" to reflect the original novel but through 2008 mores, with the lead character of Devdas as a debauching, hypocritical sensualist, who is self-destructive without knowing it. Talking about the story and his role as Dev, Abhay Deol told Radio Sargam, "The story is very much from the book which I've read in English. I have played the character according to my interpretation of the book. His character was contemporary, he was quite urban in many ways, he's misplaced in the surrounding and has a spoilt, obsessive and addictive personality." Initial delays. After the box office disaster of Kashyap's "No Smoking", it was rumoured that United Television (UTV) had backed out of the director's next project, "Dev.D", starring Abhay Deol. But, according to sources, UTV had signed Abhay for three projects and the actor had blocked dates from November 2007 to March 2008 for Kashyap's film, as the idea was to wrap up the film in one schedule. When "Dev.D" hit initial snags and was stalled, it was rumoured that UTV had backed out. At that time, the director denied that UTV had backed out. He explained the delay by saying that he would be able to work on it once work on the earlier film "Hanuman Returns" had finished. He said that he was still looking out for his Chandramukhi and had locked in Abhay and newcomer Mahi Gill. It was further delayed as he took more time to find an actress suitable for the role of Chandramukhi, which he eventually found with Kalki Koechlin, who was one of the last to be auditioned. Box office. "Dev.D" had an average opening day collection of Rs 15 million. The movie picked up in box office soon and recovered its budget of Rs 60 million in a few weeks. The net collection in its first four weeks were nearly Rs 150 million. Dev D crossed 150 million nett as it adds another 3 million in week in week 6. Dev D final domestic gross was Rs 215.0 million with distributor share of Rs 65.5 million. The film was a Hit in Delhi/NCR. Overall ABOVE AVERAGE . Reception. Critical response. Reviews to the film were mostly positive. The widespread acclaim was chiefly due to its fearless visual style, its experimental soundtrack and the innovative narrative structure which included dividing the script into chapters as in the films of Quentin Tarantino. Rony D'Costa of Box Office India gave it 4 stars out of 5, stating"Missing Dev D would be an Emotional Attyachar to oneself." Raja Sen of Rediff.com gave "Dev.D" 3.5/5, calling it a 'fantastic visual ride', and ranked it at No 2 in his list of the best movies Of 2009. "Times of India" reviewer Nikhat Kazmi termed the film as a "brilliant breakthrough for Bollywood" and rated it 5/5. Shubhra Gupta of "Indian Express" praised the performance of Abhay Deol and the movie overall. "Hindustan Times" praised the film for its "slick style and adventurous interpretation that pushes the boundaries of Hindi cinema" and rating it as 3.5/5. Noyon Jyoti Parasara of AOL India was "completely bowled out by the movie" and stated, "go and watch Dev D and be blown away by a sample of what Anurag Kashyap is capable of as a director. Shahrukh Khan praised Abhay Deol's efforts and said that Abhay is contributing to the new era of Indian film industry." Soundtrack. "Dev.D" has 18 tracks by artist Amit Trivedi. All the songs are written by Amitabh Bhattacharya. Released on 31 December under T-Series, he specifically reports that there are two special Punjabi tracks, one which is raw Punjabi and the other with a street band baaja flavor to it. He also reports two romantic Haryanvi folk tracks, apart from a hard rock song, world music, an Awadhi number and a song with 1970s-80s pop touch to it. The soundtrack received overwhelmingly positive reviews. Critic Joginder Tuteja said, "Chuck the very thought around whether this album will do well commercially or not; it is an exemplary piece of work and that's what that matters most." Ekansh Aatre, critic of "Hindustan Times" fame, said "Each part of each song in this album is special & gives a great impact on audience." The soundtrack has been massively popular with youth. The song "Emosanal Attyachaar" has become popular amongst the masses and the song's name became a catch phrase for many Indian youth. Nikhil Taneja of "Hindustan Times" noted that the song was "singularly responsible for driving audiences to the theater to watch a movie."
1105079	Pierre-Simon, marquis de Laplace (; ; 23 March 1749 – 5 March 1827) was a French mathematician and astronomer whose work was pivotal to the development of mathematical astronomy and statistics. He summarized and extended the work of his predecessors in his five-volume "Mécanique Céleste" (Celestial Mechanics) (1799–1825). This work translated the geometric study of classical mechanics to one based on calculus, opening up a broader range of problems. In statistics, the Bayesian interpretation of probability was developed mainly by Laplace. Laplace formulated Laplace's equation, and pioneered the Laplace transform which appears in many branches of mathematical physics, a field that he took a leading role in forming. The Laplacian differential operator, widely used in mathematics, is also named after him. He restated and developed the nebular hypothesis of the origin of the solar system and was one of the first scientists to postulate the existence of black holes and the notion of gravitational collapse. Laplace is remembered as one of the greatest scientists of all time. Sometimes referred to as the "French Newton" or "Newton of France", he possessed a phenomenal natural mathematical faculty superior to that of any of his contemporaries. Laplace became a count of the First French Empire in 1806 and was named a marquis in 1817, after the Bourbon Restoration. Early years. Many details of the life of Laplace were lost when the family château burned in 1925. Laplace was born in Beaumont-en-Auge, Normandy in 1749. According to W. W. Rouse Ball, he was the son of a small cottager or perhaps a farm-laborer, and owed his education to the interest excited in some wealthy neighbors by his abilities and engaging presence. Very little is known of his early years. It would seem that from a pupil he became an usher in the school at Beaumont; but, having procured a letter of introduction to d'Alembert, he went to Paris to advance his fortune. However, Karl Pearson is scathing about the inaccuracies in Rouse Ball's account and states: His parents were from comfortable families. His father was Pierre Laplace, and his mother was Marie-Anne Sochon. The Laplace family was involved in agriculture until at least 1750, but Pierre Laplace senior was also a cider merchant and "syndic" of the town of Beaumont. Pierre Simon Laplace attended a school in the village run at a Benedictine priory, his father intending that he be ordained in the Roman Catholic Church. At sixteen, to further his father's intention, he was sent to the University of Caen to read theology. At the university, he was mentored by two enthusiastic teachers of mathematics, Christophe Gadbled and Pierre Le Canu, who awoke his zeal for the subject. Laplace did not graduate in theology but left for Paris with a letter of introduction from Le Canu to Jean le Rond d'Alembert. According to his great-great-grandson, d'Alembert received him rather poorly, and to get rid of him gave him a thick mathematics book, saying to come back when he had read it. When Laplace came back a few days later, d'Alembert was even less friendly and did not hide his opinion that it was impossible that Laplace could have read and understood the book. But upon questioning him, he realized that it was true, and from that time he took Laplace under his care. Another version is that Laplace solved overnight a problem that d'Alembert set him for submission the following week, then solved a harder problem the following night. D'Alembert was impressed and recommended him for a teaching place in the "École Militaire". With a secure income and undemanding teaching, Laplace now threw himself into original research and in the next seventeen years, 1771–1787, he produced much of his original work in astronomy. Laplace further impressed the Marquis de Condorcet, and already in 1771 Laplace felt that he was entitled to membership of the French Academy of Sciences. However, in that year, admission went to Alexandre-Théophile Vandermonde and in 1772 to Jacques Antoine Joseph Cousin. Laplace was disgruntled, and at the beginning of 1773, d'Alembert wrote to Lagrange in Berlin to ask if a position could be found for Laplace there. However, Condorcet became permanent secretary of the "Académie" in February and Laplace was elected associate member on 31 March, at age 24. On 15 March 1788, at the age of thirty-nine, Laplace married Marie-Charlotte de Courty de Romanges, a pretty eighteen-and-a-half-year-old girl from a good family in Besançon. The wedding was celebrated at Saint-Sulpice, Paris. The couple had a son, Charles-Émile (1789–1874), and a daughter, Sophie-Suzanne (1792–1813). Analysis, probability and astronomical stability. Laplace's early published work in 1771 started with differential equations and finite differences but he was already starting to think about the mathematical and philosophical concepts of probability and statistics. However, before his election to the "Académie" in 1773, he had already drafted two papers that would establish his reputation. The first, "Mémoire sur la probabilité des causes par les événements" was ultimately published in 1774 while the second paper, published in 1776, further elaborated his statistical thinking and also began his systematic work on celestial mechanics and the stability of the solar system. The two disciplines would always be interlinked in his mind. "Laplace took probability as an instrument for repairing defects in knowledge." Laplace's work on probability and statistics is discussed below with his mature work on the analytic theory of probabilities. Stability of the solar system. Sir Isaac Newton had published his "Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica" in 1687 in which he gave a derivation of Kepler's laws, which describe the motion of the planets, from his laws of motion and his law of universal gravitation. However, though Newton had privately developed the methods of calculus, all his published work used cumbersome geometric reasoning, unsuitable to account for the more subtle higher-order effects of interactions between the planets. Newton himself had doubted the possibility of a mathematical solution to the whole, even concluding that periodic divine intervention was necessary to guarantee the stability of the solar system. Dispensing with the hypothesis of divine intervention would be a major activity of Laplace's scientific life. It is now generally regarded that Laplace's methods on their own, though vital to the development of the theory, are not sufficiently precise to demonstrate the stability of the Solar System, and indeed, the Solar System is now understood to be chaotic, although it actually appears to be fairly stable. One particular problem from observational astronomy was the apparent instability whereby Jupiter's orbit appeared to be shrinking while that of Saturn was expanding. The problem had been tackled by Leonhard Euler in 1748 and Joseph Louis Lagrange in 1763 but without success. In 1776, Laplace published a memoir in which he first explored the possible influences of a purported luminiferous ether or of a law of gravitation that did not act instantaneously. He ultimately returned to an intellectual investment in Newtonian gravity. Euler and Lagrange had made a practical approximation by ignoring small terms in the equations of motion. Laplace noted that though the terms themselves were small, when integrated over time they could become important. Laplace carried his analysis into the higher-order terms, up to and including the cubic. Using this more exact analysis, Laplace concluded that any two planets and the sun must be in mutual equilibrium and thereby launched his work on the stability of the solar system. Gerald James Whitrow described the achievement as "the most important advance in physical astronomy since Newton". Laplace had a wide knowledge of all sciences and dominated all discussions in the "Académie". Laplace seems to have regarded analysis merely as a means of attacking physical problems, though the ability with which he invented the necessary analysis is almost phenomenal. As long as his results were true he took but little trouble to explain the steps by which he arrived at them; he never studied elegance or symmetry in his processes, and it was sufficient for him if he could by any means solve the particular question he was discussing. On the figure of the Earth. During the years 1784–1787 he published some memoirs of exceptional power. Prominent among these is one read in 1783, reprinted as Part II of "Théorie du Mouvement et de la figure elliptique des planètes" in 1784, and in the third volume of the "Mécanique céleste". In this work, Laplace completely determined the attraction of a spheroid on a particle outside it. This is memorable for the introduction into analysis of spherical harmonics or Laplace's coefficients, and also for the development of the use of what we would now call the gravitational potential in celestial mechanics. Spherical harmonics. In 1783, in a paper sent to the "Académie", Adrien-Marie Legendre had introduced what are now known as associated Legendre functions. If two points in a plane have polar co-ordinates ("r", θ) and ("r" ', θ'), where "r" ' ≥ "r", then, by elementary manipulation, the reciprocal of the distance between the points, "d", can be written as: This expression can be expanded in powers of "r"/"r" ' using Newton's generalised binomial theorem to give: The sequence of functions "P"0"k"(cosф) is the set of so-called "associated Legendre functions" and their usefulness arises from the fact that every function of the points on a circle can be expanded as a series of them. Laplace, with scant regard for credit to Legendre, made the non-trivial extension of the result to three dimensions to yield a more general set of functions, the spherical harmonics or Laplace coefficients. The latter term is not in common use now . Potential theory. This paper is also remarkable for the development of the idea of the scalar potential. The gravitational force acting on a body is, in modern language, a vector, having magnitude and direction. A potential function is a scalar function that defines how the vectors will behave. A scalar function is computationally and conceptually easier to deal with than a vector function. Alexis Clairaut had first suggested the idea in 1743 while working on a similar problem though he was using Newtonian-type geometric reasoning. Laplace described Clairaut's work as being "in the class of the most beautiful mathematical productions". However, Rouse Ball alleges that the idea "was appropriated from Joseph Louis Lagrange, who had used it in his memoirs of 1773, 1777 and 1780". The term "potential" itself was due to Daniel Bernoulli, who introduced it in his 1738 memoire "Hydrodynamica". However, according to Rouse Ball, the term "potential function" was not actually used (to refer to a function "V" of the coordinates of space in Laplace's sense) until George Green's 1828 An Essay on the Application of Mathematical Analysis to the Theories of Electricity and Magnetism. Laplace applied the language of calculus to the potential function and showed that it always satisfies the differential equation: An analogous result for the velocity potential of a fluid had been obtained some years previously by Leonard Euler. Laplace's subsequent work on gravitational attraction was based on this result. The quantity ∇2"V" has been termed the concentration of "V" and its value at any point indicates the "excess" of the value of "V" there over its mean value in the neighbourhood of the point. Laplace's equation, a special case of Poisson's equation, appears ubiquitously in mathematical physics. The concept of a potential occurs in fluid dynamics, electromagnetism and other areas. Rouse Ball speculated that it might be seen as "the outward sign" of one of the "a priori" forms in Kant's theory of perception. The spherical harmonics turn out to be critical to practical solutions of Laplace's equation. Laplace's equation in spherical coordinates, such as are used for mapping the sky, can be simplified, using the method of separation of variables into a radial part, depending solely on distance from the centre point, and an angular or spherical part. The solution to the spherical part of the equation can be expressed as a series of Laplace's spherical harmonics, simplifying practical computation. Planetary and lunar inequalities. Jupiter–Saturn great inequality. Laplace presented a memoir on planetary inequalities in three sections, in 1784, 1785, and 1786. This dealt mainly with the identification and explanation of the perturbations now known as the "great Jupiter–Saturn inequality". Laplace solved a longstanding problem in the study and prediction of the movements of these planets. He showed by general considerations, first, that the mutual action of two planets could never cause large changes in the eccentricities and inclinations of their orbits; but then, even more importantly, that peculiarities arose in the Jupiter–Saturn system because of the near approach to commensurability of the mean motions of Jupiter and Saturn. In this context "commensurability" means that the ratio of the two planets' mean motions is very nearly equal to a ratio of some pair small whole numbers. Two periods of Saturn's orbit around the Sun almost equal five of Jupiter's. The corresponding difference between multiples of the mean motions, , corresponds to a period of nearly 900 years, and it occurs as a small divisor in the integration of a very small perturbing force with this same period. As a result, the integrated perturbations with this period are disproportionately large, about 0.8° degrees of arc in orbital longitude for Saturn and about 0.3° for Jupiter. Further developments of these theorems on planetary motion were given in his two memoirs of 1788 and 1789, but with the aid of Laplace's discoveries, the tables of the motions of Jupiter and Saturn could at last be made much more accurate. It was on the basis of Laplace's theory that Delambre computed his astronomical tables. Lunar inequalities. Laplace also produced an analytical solution (as it turned out later, a partial solution), to a significant problem regarding the motion of the Moon. Edmond Halley had been the first to suggest, in 1695, that the mean motion of the Moon was apparently getting faster, by comparison with ancient eclipse observations, but he gave no data. It was not yet known in Halley's or Laplace's times that what is actually occurring includes a slowing down of the Earth's rate of rotation: see also Ephemeris time – History. When measured as a function of mean solar time rather than uniform time, the effect appears as a positive acceleration. In 1749, Richard Dunthorne confirmed Halley's suspicion after re-examining ancient records, and produced the first quantitative estimate for the size of this apparent effect: a rate of +10" (arcseconds) per century in lunar longitude, which was a surprisingly good result for its time and not far different from values assessed later, e.g. in 1786 by de Lalande, and to compare with values from about 10" to nearly 13" being derived about century later. The effect became known as the "secular acceleration of the Moon", but until Laplace, its cause remained unknown. Laplace gave an explanation of the effect in 1787, showing how an acceleration arises from changes (a secular reduction) in the eccentricity of the Earth's orbit, which in turn is one of the effects of planetary perturbations on the Earth. Laplace's initial computation accounted for the whole effect, thus seeming to tie up the theory neatly with both modern and ancient observations. However, in 1853, J. C. Adams caused the question to be re-opened by finding an error in Laplace's computations: it turned out that only about half of the Moon's apparent acceleration could be accounted for on Laplace's basis by the change in the Earth's orbital eccentricity. Adams showed that Laplace had in effect considered only the radial force on the moon and not the tangential, and the partial result thus had overestimated the acceleration; when the remaining (negative) terms were accounted for, it showed that Laplace's cause could only explain about half of the acceleration. The other half was subsequently shown to be due to tidal acceleration. Laplace used his results concerning the lunar acceleration when completing his attempted "proof" of the stability of the whole solar system on the assumption that it consists of a collection of rigid bodies moving in a vacuum. All the memoirs above alluded to were presented to the "Académie des sciences", and they are printed in the "Mémoires présentés par divers savants". Celestial mechanics. Laplace now set himself the task to write a work which should "offer a complete solution of the great mechanical problem presented by the solar system, and bring theory to coincide so closely with observation that empirical equations should no longer find a place in astronomical tables." The result is embodied in the "Exposition du système du monde" and the "Mécanique céleste". The former was published in 1796, and gives a general explanation of the phenomena, but omits all details. It contains a summary of the history of astronomy. This summary procured for its author the honour of admission to the forty of the French Academy and is commonly esteemed one of the masterpieces of French literature, though it is not altogether reliable for the later periods of which it treats. Laplace developed the nebular hypothesis of the formation of the solar system, first suggested by Emanuel Swedenborg and expanded by Immanuel Kant, a hypothesis that continues to dominate accounts of the origin of planetary systems. According to Laplace's description of the hypothesis, the solar system had evolved from a globular mass of incandescent gas rotating around an axis through its centre of mass. As it cooled, this mass contracted, and successive rings broke off from its outer edge. These rings in their turn cooled, and finally condensed into the planets, while the sun represented the central core which was still left. On this view, Laplace predicted that the more distant planets would be older than those nearer the sun. As mentioned, the idea of the nebular hypothesis had been outlined by Immanuel Kant in 1755, and he had also suggested "meteoric aggregations" and tidal friction as causes affecting the formation of the solar system. Laplace was probably aware of this, but, like many writers of his time, he generally did not reference the work of others. Laplace's analytical discussion of the solar system is given in his "Méchanique céleste" published in five volumes. The first two volumes, published in 1799, contain methods for calculating the motions of the planets, determining their figures, and resolving tidal problems. The third and fourth volumes, published in 1802 and 1805, contain applications of these methods, and several astronomical tables. The fifth volume, published in 1825, is mainly historical, but it gives as appendices the results of Laplace's latest researches. Laplace's own investigations embodied in it are so numerous and valuable that it is regrettable to have to add that many results are appropriated from other writers with scanty or no acknowledgement, and the conclusions – which have been described as the organized result of a century of patient toil – are frequently mentioned as if they were due to Laplace. Jean-Baptiste Biot, who assisted Laplace in revising it for the press, says that Laplace himself was frequently unable to recover the details in the chain of reasoning, and, if satisfied that the conclusions were correct, he was content to insert the constantly recurring formula, ""Il est aisé à voir que..."" ("It is easy to see that..."). The "Mécanique céleste" is not only the translation of Newton's "Principia" into the language of the differential calculus, but it completes parts of which Newton had been unable to fill in the details. The work was carried forward in a more finely tuned form in Félix Tisserand's "Traité de mécanique céleste" (1889–1896), but Laplace's treatise will always remain a standard authority. Black holes. Laplace also came close to propounding the concept of the black hole. He pointed out that there could be massive stars whose gravity is so great that not even light could escape from their surface (see escape velocity). Laplace also speculated that some of the nebulae revealed by telescopes might not be part of the Milky Way but rather galaxies themselves. Thus, he anticipated Edwin Hubble's major discovery 100 years in advance. Arcueil. In 1806, Laplace bought a house in Arcueil, then a village and not yet absorbed into the Paris conurbation. Claude Louis Berthollet was a neighbour—their gardens were not separated—and the pair formed the nucleus of an informal scientific circle, latterly known as the Society of Arcueil. Because of their closeness to Napoleon, Laplace and Berthollet effectively controlled advancement in the scientific establishment and admission to the more prestigious offices. The Society built up a complex pyramid of patronage. In 1806, Laplace was also elected a foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. Analytic theory of probabilities. In 1812, Laplace issued his "Théorie analytique des probabilités" in which he laid down many fundamental results in statistics. The first half of this treatise was concerned with probability methods and problems, the second half with statistical methods and applications. Laplace's proofs are not always rigorous according to the standards of a later day, and his perspective slides back and forth between the Bayesian and non-Bayesian views with an ease that makes some of his investigations difficult to follow, but his conclusions remain basically sound even in those few situations where his analysis goes astray. In 1819, he published a popular account of his work on probability. This book bears the same relation to the "Théorie des probabilités" that the "Système du monde" does to the "Méchanique céleste". Inductive probability. While he conducted much research in physics, another major theme of his life's endeavours was probability theory. In his "Essai philosophique sur les probabilités" (1814), Laplace set out a mathematical system of inductive reasoning based on probability, which we would today recognise as Bayesian. He begins the text with a series of principles of probability, the first six being: One well-known formula arising from his system is the rule of succession, given as principle seven. Suppose that some trial has only two possible outcomes, labeled "success" and "failure". Under the assumption that little or nothing is known "a priori" about the relative plausibilities of the outcomes, Laplace derived a formula for the probability that the next trial will be a success. where "s" is the number of previously observed successes and "n" is the total number of observed trials. It is still used as an estimator for the probability of an event if we know the event space, but have only a small number of samples. The rule of succession has been subject to much criticism, partly due to the example which Laplace chose to illustrate it. He calculated that the probability that the sun will rise tomorrow, given that it has never failed to in the past, was where "d" is the number of times the sun has risen in the past. This result has been derided as absurd, and some authors have concluded that all applications of the Rule of Succession are absurd by extension. However, Laplace was fully aware of the absurdity of the result; immediately following the example, he wrote, "But this number the probability that the sun will rise tomorrow is far greater for him who, seeing in the totality of phenomena the principle regulating the days and seasons, realizes that nothing at the present moment can arrest the course of it." Probability-generating function. The method of estimating the ratio of the number of favorable cases to the whole number of possible cases had been previously indicated by Laplace in a paper written in 1779. It consists of treating the successive values of any function as the coefficients in the expansion of another function, with reference to a different variable. The latter is therefore called the probability-generating function of the former. Laplace then shows how, by means of interpolation, these coefficients may be determined from the generating function. Next he attacks the converse problem, and from the coefficients he finds the generating function; this is effected by the solution of a finite difference equation. Least squares and central limit theorem. The fourth chapter of this treatise includes an exposition of the method of least squares, a remarkable testimony to Laplace's command over the processes of analysis. In 1805 Legendre had published the method of least squares, making no attempt to tie it to the theory of probability. In 1809 Gauss had derived the normal distribution from the principle that the arithmetic mean of observations gives the most probable value for the quantity measured; then, turning this argument back upon itself, he showed that, if the errors of observation are normally distributed, the least squares estimates give the most probable values for the coefficients in regression situations. These two works seem to have spurred Laplace to complete work toward a treatise on probability he had contemplated as early as 1783. In two important papers in 1810 and 1811, Laplace first developed the characteristic function as a tool for large-sample theory and proved the first general central limit theorem. Then in a supplement to his 1810 paper written after he had seen Gauss's work, he showed that the central limit theorem provided a Bayesian justification for least squares: if one were combining observations, each one of which was itself the mean of a large number of independent observations, then the least squares estimates would not only maximize the likelihood function, considered as a posterior distribution, but also minimize the expected posterior error, all this without any assumption as to the error distribution or a circular appeal to the principle of the arithmetic mean. In 1811 Laplace took a different non-Bayesian tack. Considering a linear regression problem, he restricted his attention to linear unbiased estimators of the linear coefficients. After showing that members of this class were approximately normally distributed if the number of observations was large, he argued that least squares provided the "best" linear estimators. Here "best" in the sense that they minimized the asymptotic variance and thus both minimized the expected absolute value of the error, and maximized the probability that the estimate would lie in any symmetric interval about the unknown coefficient, no matter what the error distribution. His derivation included the joint limiting distribution of the least squares estimators of two parameters. Laplace's demon. In 1814, Laplace published what is usually known as the first articulation of causal or scientific determinism: This intellect is often referred to as "Laplace's demon" (in the same vein as "Maxwell's demon") and sometimes "Laplace's Superman" (after Hans Reichenbach). Laplace, himself, did not use the word "demon", which was a later embellishment. As translated into English above, he simply referred to: ""Une intelligence... Rien ne serait incertain pour elle, et l'avenir comme le passé, serait présent à ses yeux."" Even though Laplace is known as the first to express such ideas about causal determinism, his view is very similar to the one proposed by Boscovich as early as 1763 in his book "Theoria philosophiae naturalis". Laplace transforms. As early as 1744, Euler, followed by Lagrange, had started looking for solutions of differential equations in the form: In 1785, Laplace took the key forward step in using integrals of this form in order to transform a whole difference equation, rather than simply as a form for the solution, and found that the transformed equation was easier to solve than the original. Other discoveries and accomplishments. Mathematics. Amongst the other discoveries of Laplace in pure and applied mathematics are: Surface tension. Laplace built upon the qualitative work of Thomas Young to develop the theory of capillary action and the Young–Laplace equation. Speed of sound. Laplace in 1816 was the first to point out that the speed of sound in air depends on the heat capacity ratio. Newton's original theory gave too low a value, because it does not take account of the adiabatic compression of the air which results in a local rise in temperature and pressure. Laplace's investigations in practical physics were confined to those carried on by him jointly with Lavoisier in the years 1782 to 1784 on the specific heat of various bodies. Politics. Minister of the Interior. In his early years Laplace was careful never to become involved in politics, or indeed in life outside the "Académie des sciences". He prudently withdrew from Paris during the most violent part of the Revolution. In November 1799, immediately after seizing power in the coup of 18 Brumaire, Napoleon appointed Laplace to the post of Minister of the Interior. The appointment, however, lasted only six weeks, after which Lucien, Napoleon's brother, was given the post. Evidently, once Napoleon's grip on power was secure, there was no need for a prestigious but inexperienced scientist in the government. Napoleon later (in his "Mémoires de Sainte Hélène") wrote of Laplace's dismissal as follows: Grattan-Guinness, however, describes these remarks as "tendentious", since there seems to be no doubt that Laplace "was only appointed as a short-term figurehead, a place-holder while Napoleon consolidated power". From Bonaparte to the Bourbons. Although Laplace was removed from office, it was desirable to retain his allegiance. He was accordingly raised to the senate, and to the third volume of the "Mécanique céleste" he prefixed a note that of all the truths therein contained the most precious to the author was the declaration he thus made of his devotion towards the peacemaker of Europe. In copies sold after the Bourbon Restoration this was struck out. (Pearson points out that the censor would not have allowed it anyway.) In 1814 it was evident that the empire was falling; Laplace hastened to tender his services to the Bourbons, and in 1817 during the Restoration he was rewarded with the title of marquis. According to Rouse Ball, the contempt that his more honest colleagues felt for his conduct in the matter may be read in the pages of Paul Louis Courier. His knowledge was useful on the numerous scientific commissions on which he served, and, says Rouse Ball, probably accounts for the manner in which his political insincerity was overlooked. Roger Hahn disputes this portrayal of Laplace as an opportunist and turncoat, pointing out that, like many in France, he had followed the debacle of Napoleon's Russian campaign with serious misgivings. The Laplaces, whose only daughter Sophie had died in childbirth in September 1813, were in fear for the safety of their son Émile, who was on the eastern front with the emperor. Napoleon had originally come to power promising stability, but it was clear that he had overextended himself, putting the nation at peril. It was at this point that Laplace's loyalty began to weaken. Although he still had easy access to Napoleon, his personal relations with the emperor cooled considerably. As a grieving father, he was particularly cut to the quick by Napoleon's insensitivity in an exchange related by Jean-Antoine Chaptal: "On his return from the rout in Leipzig, he accosted Mr Laplace: 'Oh! I see that you have grown thin—Sire, I have lost my daughter—Oh! that's not a reason for losing weight. You are a mathematician; put this event in an equation, and you will find that it adds up to zero.'" Political philosophy. In the second edition (1814) of the "Essai philosophique", Laplace added some revealing comments on politics and governance. Since it is, he says, "the practice of the eternal principles of reason, justice and humanity that produce and preserve societies, there is a great advantage to adhere to these principles, and a great inadvisability to deviate from them". Noting "the depths of misery into which peoples have been cast" when ambitious leaders disregard these principles, Laplace makes a veiled criticism of Napoleon's conduct: "Every time a great power intoxicated by the love of conquest aspires to universal domination, the sense of liberty among the unjustly threatened nations breeds a coalition to which it always succumbs." Laplace argues that "in the midst of the multiple causes that direct and restrain various states, natural limits" operate, within which it is "important for the stability as well as the prosperity of empires to remain". States that transgress these limits cannot avoid being "reverted" to them, "just as is the case when the waters of the seas whose floor has been lifted by violent tempests sink back to their level by the action of gravity". About the political upheavals he had witnessed, Laplace formulated a set of principles derived from physics to favor evolutionary over revolutionary change: In these lines, Laplace expressed the views he had arrived at after experiencing the Revolution and the Empire. He believed that the stability of nature, as revealed through scientific findings, provided the model that best helped to preserve the human species. "Such views," Hahn comments, "were also of a piece with his steadfast character." Laplace died in Paris in 1827. His brain was removed by his physician, François Magendie, and kept for many years, eventually being displayed in a roving anatomical museum in Britain. It was reportedly smaller than the average brain. Religious opinions. "I had no need of that hypothesis". A frequently cited but apocryphal interaction between Laplace and Napoleon purportedly concerns the existence of God. A typical version is provided by Rouse Ball: In 1884, however, the astronomer Hervé Faye affirmed that this account of Laplace's exchange with Napoleon presented a "strangely transformed" ("étrangement transformée") or garbled version of what had actually happened. It was not God that Laplace had treated as a hypothesis, but merely his intervention at a determinate point: Laplace's younger colleague, the astronomer François Arago, who gave his eulogy before the French Academy in 1827, told Faye that the garbled version of Laplace's interaction with Napoleon was already in circulation towards the end of Laplace's life. Faye writes: The Swiss-American historian of mathematics Florian Cajori appears to have been unaware of Faye's research, but in 1893 he came to a similar conclusion. Stephen Hawking said in 1999, "I don't think that Laplace was claiming that God does not exist. It's just that he doesn't intervene, to break the laws of Science." The only eyewitness account of Laplace's interaction with Napoleon is an entry in the diary of the British astronomer Sir William Herschel. Since this makes no mention of Laplace saying, "I had no need of that hypothesis," Daniel Johnson argues that "Laplace never used the words attributed to him." Arago's testimony, however, appears to imply that he did, only not in reference to the existence of God. Views on God. Born a Catholic, Laplace appears for most of his life to have veered between deism (presumably his considered position, since it is the only one found in his writings) and atheism. Faye thought that Laplace "did not profess atheism", but Napoleon, on Saint Helena, told General Gaspard Gourgaud, "I often asked Laplace what he thought of God. He owned that he was an atheist." Roger Hahn, in his biography of Laplace, mentions a dinner party at which "the geologist Jean-Étienne Guettard was staggered by Laplace's bold denunciation of the existence of God". It appeared to Guettard that Laplace's atheism "was supported by a thoroughgoing materialism". But the chemist Jean-Baptiste Dumas, who knew Laplace well in the 1820s, wrote that Laplace "gave materialists their specious arguments, without sharing their convictions". Hahn states: "Nowhere in his writings, either public or private, does Laplace deny God's existence." Expressions occur in his private letters that appear inconsistent with atheism. On 17 June 1809, for instance, he wrote to his son, ""Je prie Dieu qu'il veille sur tes jours. Aie-Le toujours présent à ta pensée, ainsi que ton pére et ta mére" pray that God watches over your days. Let Him be always present to your mind, as also your father and your mother." Ian S. Glass, quoting Herschel's account of the celebrated exchange with Napoleon, writes that Laplace was "evidently a deist like Herschel". In "Exposition du système du monde", Laplace quotes Newton's assertion that "the wondrous disposition of the Sun, the planets and the comets, can only be the work of an all-powerful and intelligent Being". This, says Laplace, is a "thought in which he would be even more confirmed, if he had known what we have shown, namely that the conditions of the arrangement of the planets and their satellites are precisely those which ensure its stability". By showing that the "remarkable" arrangement of the planets could be entirely explained by the laws of motion, Laplace had eliminated the need for the "supreme intelligence" to intervene, as Newton had "made" it do. Laplace cites with approval Leibniz's criticism of Newton's invocation of divine intervention to restore order to the solar system: "This is to have very narrow ideas about the wisdom and the power of God." He evidently shared Leibniz's astonishment at Newton's belief "that God has made his machine so badly that unless he affects it by some extraordinary means, the watch will very soon cease to go". In a group of manuscripts, preserved in relative secrecy in a black envelope in the library of the "Académie des sciences" and published for the first time by Hahn, Laplace mounted a deist critique of Christianity. It is, he writes, the "first and most infallible of principles ... to reject miraculous facts as untrue". As for the doctrine of transubstantiation, it "offends at the same time reason, experience, the testimony of all our senses, the eternal laws of nature, and the sublime ideas that we ought to form of the Supreme Being". It is the sheerest absurdity to suppose that "the sovereign lawgiver of the universe would suspend the laws that he has established, and which he seems to have maintained invariably". In old age, Laplace remained curious about the question of God and frequently discussed Christianity with the Swiss astronomer Jean-Frédéric-Théodore Maurice. He told Maurice that "Christianity is quite a beautiful thing" and praised its civilizing influence. Maurice thought that the basis of Laplace's beliefs was, little by little, being modified, but that he held fast to his conviction that the invariability of the laws of nature did not permit of supernatural events. After Laplace's death, Poisson told Maurice, "You know that I do not share your opinions, but my conscience forces me to recount something that will surely please you." When Poisson had complimented Laplace about his "brilliant discoveries", the dying man had fixed him with a pensive look and replied, "Ah! we chase after phantoms ["chimères"." These were his last words, interpreted by Maurice as a realization of the ultimate "vanity" of earthly pursuits. Laplace received the last rites from the curé of the Missions Étrangères (in whose parish he was to be buried) and the curé of Arcueil. However, according to his biographer, Roger Hahn, since it is "not credible" that Laplace "had a proper Catholic end", the "last rights" ("sic") were ineffective and he "remained a skeptic" to the very end of his life. Laplace in his last years has been described as an agnostic. Excommunication of a comet. In 1470 the humanist scholar Bartolomeo Platina wrote that Pope Callixtus III had asked for prayers for deliverance from the Turks during a 1456 appearance of Halley's Comet. Platina's account does not accord with Church records, which do not mention the comet. Laplace is alleged to have embellished the story by claiming the Pope had "excommunicated" Halley's comet. What Laplace actually said, in "Exposition du système du monde" (1796), was that the Pope had ordered the comet to be "exorcized" ("conjuré"). It was Arago, in "Des Comètes en général" (1832), who first spoke of an excommunication. Neither the exorcism nor the excommunication can be regarded as anything but pure fiction.
1054527	The Entity is a horror film based on the novel of the same name by Frank DeFelitta. It stars Barbara Hershey as a woman tormented by an invisible assailant. Despite being filmed and planned for a release in 1981, the movie was not released in worldwide theaters until September 1982 followed by the United States in February 1983. Plot. The movie begins as single mother Carla Moran (Barbara Hershey) is violently raped in her home by an invisible assailant. A subsequent episode of poltergeist activity causes her to flee with her children to the home of her friend Cindy (Margaret Blye). They return to Carla's home and the following day, Carla is nearly killed when her car mysteriously goes out of control in traffic. Urged by Cindy to see a psychiatrist, Carla meets with Dr Sneiderman (Ron Silver) and tentatively agrees to undergo therapy. A subsequent attack in her bathroom leaves bite marks and bruises on Carla which she shows to Dr Sneiderman, who believes she has inflicted them on herself. We learn that Carla suffered a variety of traumas in her childhood and adolescence, including sexual and physical abuse, teenage pregnancy and the violent death of her first husband. Dr Sneiderman believes her apparent paranormal experiences are delusions resulting from her past psychological trauma.
1064333	Drillbit Taylor is a 2008 comedy film starring Owen Wilson as the eponymous character and based on an original idea by John Hughes. It was directed by Steven Brill and the screenplay was written by Kristofor Brown and Seth Rogen. Paramount Pictures released the film on March 21, 2008. "Drillbit Taylor" was Hughes' last film as a writer before his death on August 6, 2009. He also used his pseudonym, Edmond Dantès, for this film. Plot. Ryan and Wade are starting high school. On the first day of school, Ryan and Wade witness two bullies, Filkins and Ronnie, attack a geek, Emmit, by shoving him into his locker. Wade intervenes. Filkins and Ronnie begin endlessly targeting Ryan, Wade, and Emmit. Wade suggests hiring a bodyguard. They place an ad on the Internet, and after a series of disturbing interviews with ex-cons and hired guns, they end up selecting Drillbit Taylor (Owen Wilson). Drillbit pretends to be a martial arts expert and mercenary, but is really a homeless beggar. His real intention of becoming their bodyguard was to rob them and use the money to buy a ticket to Canada. Drillbit tells the boys to find some common interests and become friends with Filkins and Ronnie. Ryan challenges Filkins to a rap battle, but gets carried away and ends up humiliating Filkins. As an angry Filkins, alongside Ronnie, ambushes Ryan, Wade, and Emmit. The boys try using a tactic Drillbit taught them, but it ultimately fails. The boys are furious with Drillbit's teachings. But they decide to bring him to school as a substitute teacher, and in that capacity he is able to protect them. While there, Drillbit meets a teacher, Lisa Zachey (Leslie Mann), and they start a relationship. One morning as his mother is driving him to school, Ronnie sees Drillbit taking a shower at the beach; his mother reveals that he is homeless. Ronnie tells Filkins and Filkins finds the boys and punches Drillbit. Later on at Wade's house, they catch Drillbit's homeless friends stealing everything in sight, leaving the house completely empty. Drillbit confesses that his real name is Bob and he went AWOL from the U.S. Army and his name was drillbit because he hurt his pinkie in high school with a drillbit. The boys fire Drillbit, who later recovers all of Wade's possessions and places them back before Wade's parents return home. Unfortunately, the boys accidentally let slip about Drillbit. Their parents take things up with the principal, who contacts the police. Filkins plays innocent and charms all the adults; Filkins continues to ridicule the boys after Drillbit's disappearance. Tensions finally burst when Filkins interrupts Wade's attempt to ask his crush, Brooke Nguyen, out. Without realizing what he was doing, Wade challenges Filkins to a fight. Ryan and Wade arrive at Filkins' house, where he is hosting a party; Ronnie shows up to help Filkins against them. Emmit, who initially refused to fight, comes to their aid and for a while causes quite a lot of pain to Filkins, almost defeating him; but Ronnie knocks him out while trying to break Filkins' leg. Drillbit shows up and Filkins punches him. Drillbit refuses to fight back until it is revealed Filkins is not a minor (he's 18, therefore, he's not really emancipated); Drillbit quickly begins fighting and knocks Filkins out cold. He is about to defeat Ronnie, but he's a minor (he's only 17). Within minutes, the police arrive and Drillbit flees for fear of prosecution. Filkins wakes up and throws a samurai sword at the boys, but Drillbit catches it. He saves them, losing half of his pinkie finger in the process. Filkins is arrested and shipped off to Hong Kong where he will live with his parents under house arrest as an alternative to being sent to prison for the attempted murder of the three boys with the sword along with breaking many underage drinking laws. Ronnie no longer ridicules the other boys because Filkins is gone and reveals that he had been bullied by him several times. As a result, Ronnie has become kind to everyone, and is now friends with the boys. Drillbit is taken to jail, but ends up being released within three weeks. He is reunited with Lisa and the boys. In a post-credits scene, Drillbit is revealed to have become a school nurse and asks a kid with a bloody nose if he needs a bodyguard. Marketing. Marketing for the film included television promos and coming attractions previews, but actor Owen Wilson did not conduct any interviews to promote the film. Instead, Paramount Pictures had Wilson record introductions for Fox's Sunday night primetime shows such as "The Simpsons", "American Dad", "King of the Hill", "Family Guy", and "Unhitched". The character of Drillbit was also featured as a "Superstar" on the RAW page of WWE.com for a period of time. Wilson's publicist said his availability was limited due to filming "Marley & Me". John Horn and Gina Piccalo of the "Los Angeles Times" wrote that the studio was worried interviewers would bring up Wilson's hospitalization in the summer of 2007. Reception. Box office. In its opening weekend, the film grossed $10.2 million in 3,056 theaters in the United States and Canada, ranking #4 at the box office. The film has grossed $32,862,104 in the United States and $16,828,521 in foreign countries adding to a total worldwide gross of $49,690,625. Critical response. "Drillbit Taylor" received mostly poor reviews, with Rotten Tomatoes giving it a 26% saying: "Owen Wilson's charms can't save "Drillbit Taylor", an unfunny, overly familiar bullied-teen comedy." The film received a 41/100 rating on Metacritic, indicating "mixed or average reviews". Home media. The film was released on both rated (102 minutes) and unrated (109 minutes) DVD and Blu-ray on July 1, 2008. About 620,927 units have been sold, bringing in $11,669,617 in revenue.
940435	Winnie the Pooh Discovers the Seasons is a short film made by Walt Disney Productions' educational media division, released on September 6, 1981. Plot. Christopher Robin presents Pooh with an interesting new gift—a calendar. Pooh has never seen one before, and Christopher Robin explains that it's a way of keeping track of the days, weeks, months and seasons. The calendar stops at each season, as we watch Pooh, Piglet, Eeyore, Rabbit and Owl in the Hundred Acre Wood exploring the world around them and noticing the changes. Among them: the water in the pond becomes hard and slick when it gets cold.
1163330	Esai Manuel Morales (born October 1, 1962) is an American actor. He is well known for his role as Bob Valenzuela in the 1987 biopic "La Bamba". He also appeared in the PBS drama "" and in the Showtime series "Resurrection Blvd.". However, he is best known for his roles as Lt. Tony Rodriguez on "NYPD Blue" and Joseph Adama in the science fiction television series "Caprica". Early life. Morales is of Puerto Rican descent and was born in Brooklyn, New York, to parents Iris Margarita (née Declet), a union activist involved with the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union, and Esai Morales, Sr., a welder. Morales began his pursuit of an acting career by attending the School of Performing Arts in Manhattan. Career. His first professional performances were in theater and television in New York, and his first film—"Bad Boys", about teenagers in prison—was released in 1983. He played the ex-convict and biker half-brother of 1950s rock and roll singer Ritchie Valens in the 1987 movie "La Bamba". Some of his other roles have reflected his socio-political interests, such as "The Burning Season" in 1994, "My Family/Mi Familia" in 1995, "The Disappearance of Garcia Lorca" in 1997, and "Southern Cross" in 1999. In the latter three films, as well as in others such as "Bloodhounds of Broadway" in 1989 and "Rapa Nui" in 1994, Morales saw increased amounts of screen time, starting with a role in the Pauly Shore film "In The Army Now". He portrayed a police officer in the film "Dogwatch" in 1996. He played Father Herrera in "The Virgin of Juarez". Morales appeared on television in the mid-1980s on "Fame". He co-starred with Burt Lancaster in the NBC-TV miniseries, "On Wings of Eagles", playing the Iranian Rashid, the hero of a true story about Ross Perot. Morales also appeared in "Miami Vice", "The Equalizer", and "24". In the 1990s, he guest-starred on episodes of "The Outer Limits", "Tales from the Crypt", and two shorter-lived series, "L.A. Doctors" and "The Hunger". He was a featured TV actor, seen in a two-part episode of "Family Law" in 2000. His tenure on "NYPD Blue" as the head of the 15th precinct detective squad began in mid-season 2001 and continued until 2004, when he decided to cancel his contract. "Paid in Full" was scheduled for release in October 2002. It marked a return to a criminal character such as those in his previous roles - in this case playing a drug dealer named Lulu. In 2005, he (along with Mercedes Ruehl) received the Rita Moreno HOLA Award for Excellence from the Hispanic Organization of Latin Actors (HOLA). That same year, he contributed his vocal talents to the video game "", playing Sgt. Victor Navarro. Morales was cast in the film "American Fusion", and on June 19, 2006, he joined the cast of the Fox series "Vanished", as FBI agent Michael Tyner alongside actors Gale Harold and Ming-Na. The series was later canceled. In 2007, he completed filming for "Kill Kill Faster Faster", a contemporary film noir inspired by the critically acclaimed novel of the same name by Joel Rose. In 2007, Morales appeared in an episode of the USA Network drama series "Burn Notice" as a Cuban shopkeeper being shaken down for "protection" money by local criminals. In early 2008, Morales had a role in the CBS drama "Jericho" as Major Edward Beck. He appeared in all seven episodes of the shortened . In May 2008, it was announced that Morales would play the role of Joseph Adama in the science fiction television series "Caprica" – Syfy's prequel to the series "Battlestar Galactica". The series premiered on January 22, 2010. In 2011, Morales starred in the drama film "Gun Hill Road", as Enrique, and in the web drama "Los Americans" airing on PIC.tv. Personal life. Morales has described himself as an "actorvist", primarily as one of the founders of the "National Hispanic Foundation for the Arts", taking inspiration from his mother, who was an organizer for the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union. He is also interested in environmental issues and was a founding board member of E.C.O. (Earth Communications Office). In the February 28th, 2007 all-star benefit reading of "The Gift of Peace" at UCLA's Freud Playhouse, he portrayed a hopeful member of a struggling immigrant family, and plays alongside actors Ed Asner, Barbara Bain, Amy Brenneman, George Coe, Wendie Malick, and James Pickens, Jr.. The play was an open appeal and fundraiser for passage of U.S. House Resolution 808, which sought to establish a Cabinet-level "Department of Peace" in the U.S. government, to be funded by a two percent diversion of the Pentagon's annual budget. Morales is a vegetarian. He and girlfriend Elvimar Silva welcomed a girl, Mariana Oiveira, on September 24, 2010.
1066784	Turk 182! is a 1985 film starring Timothy Hutton, Robert Urich, Kim Cattrall, Robert Culp and Peter Boyle. It is also one of the first movies to receive a PG-13 rating. Film synopsis. 34-year-old firefighter Terry Lynch (Robert Urich) lives with his 20-year old brother Jimmy (Timothy Hutton) in New York City. They've spent most of their lives taking care of each other as both of their parents are deceased. Terry, while off duty, rushes from a neighborhood bar into an apartment fire to rescue a young girl when firefighters inadverdently aim the fire hose at him. The force of the stream pushes Terry, with the child in his arms, through a window and some 40 feet down, landing flat on his back on the roof of a parked car. The girl is uninjured, but Terry is seriously hurt.
1100720	Richard Courant (January 8, 1888 – January 27, 1972) was a German American mathematician. Life. Courant was born in Lublinitz in the German Empire's Prussian Province of Silesia. During his youth, his parents had to move quite often, to Glatz, Breslau, and in 1905 to Berlin. He stayed in Breslau and entered the university there. As he found the courses not demanding enough, he continued his studies in Zürich and Göttingen. Courant eventually became David Hilbert's assistant in Göttingen and obtained his doctorate there in 1910. He had to fight in World War I, but he was wounded and dismissed from the military service shortly after enlisting. After the war, in 1919, he married Nerina (Nina) Runge, a daughter of the Göttingen professor for Applied Mathematics, Carl Runge. Richard continued his research in Göttingen, with a two-year period as professor in Münster. There he founded the Mathematical Institute, which he headed as director from 1928 until 1933. Courant left Germany in 1933, earlier than many of his colleagues. While he was classified as a Jew by the Nazis, his having served as a front-line soldier exempted him from losing his position for this particular reason at the time; however, his public membership in the social-democratic left was a reason for dismissal to which no such exemption applied.[http://www-irma.u-strasbg.fr/~schappa/GoeNS.pdf] After one year in Cambridge, Courant went to New York City where he became a professor at New York University in 1936. He was given the task of founding an institute for graduate studies in applied mathematics, a task which he carried out very successfully. The Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences (as it was renamed in 1964) continues to be one of the most respected research centers in applied mathematics. Apart from his outstanding organizational talent, Courant is well remembered for his mathematical achievements. He and David Hilbert authored the influential textbook "Methods of Mathematical Physics", which is still widely used more than eighty years after it was written. He was the co-author, with Herbert Robbins, of a popularization titled "What is Mathematics?", which is still in print. Although Robbins wrote most of the book, he received almost none of the royalties. Courant owned the copyright, and passed almost none of the money on to Robbins. Courant's name is also attached to the finite element method, with his numerical treatment of the plain torsion problem for multiply-connected domains, published in 1943. This method is now one of the ways to solve partial differential equations numerically. Courant is a namesake of the Courant–Friedrichs–Lewy condition and the Courant minimax principle. Courant died in New Rochelle, New York. Richard and Nerina had four children: Ernest, a particle physicist and innovator in particle accelerators; Gertrude (*1922), a PhD biologist and wife of the mathematician Jürgen Moser (1928–1999); Hans, a physicist who participated in the Manhattan Project; and Leonore, a professional musician and wife of the mathematician Jerome Berkowitz (1928–1998). Perspective on mathematics. Commenting upon his analysis of experimental results from in-laboratory soap film formations, Courant believed that the existence of a physical solution does not obviate the need for mathematical proof. Here is a quote from Courant on his mathematical perspective:
1503608	Lonny Price (born March 9, 1959) is an American actor, writer, and director, primarily in theatre. He is perhaps best known for his creation of the role of Charley Kringas in the Broadway musical Merrily We Roll Along. Eventually he moved into primarily directing for the stage and is now known for making statements on current events in versions of his musicals. His acclaimed May 2008 New York Philharmonic production of "Camelot" was making a statement about the current war including having different ethnicities and modernized characters. Mr. Price stated this in an interview before "Camelot" opened. Biography. Early life and career. Born in New York City, Price grew up in Metuchen, New Jersey. He attended the Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Performing Arts. His early career was spent performing in off-Broadway productions. His first major Broadway credit was the ill-fated Stephen Sondheim musical "Merrily We Roll Along" (1981), which underwent constant changes during an unusually long preview period and closed after only sixteen performances. He had better luck with his next project - the Athol Fugard play ""Master Harold"...and the Boys", in which he portrayed a South African student opposite Danny Glover and Zakes Mokae as the family servants - which ran for eight months. In 1989, he appeared as Jimmy Durante in the musical bio "DURANTE". It was playing in San Francisco during the earthquake. Excellent in the role but Durante's life was uneventful and the musical closed on the road. Direction. Price made his directorial debut with the off-Broadway revival of "The Education of H* Y* M* A* N K* A* P* L* A* N", followed by "The Rothschilds" and "Juno", both of which received Outer Critics Circle nominations for Best Revival. His most significant off-Broadway performing credit is the William Finn – James Lapine musical "Falsettoland". He has also directed numerous musical productions, both concert and non-concert, with the New York Philharmonic, which include Stephen Sondheim's "" with Patti LuPone and George Hearn, for which he won an Emmy Award, Leonard Bernstein's "Candide", with Kristin Chenoweth, Sir Thomas Allen, Patti LuPone, and students from Juilliard and the Westminster Choir College Symphonic Choir, "Passion" with Patti LuPone, Camelot with Gabriel Byrne, Marin Mazzie, Christopher Lloyd, and Nathan Gunn, amongst other productions. In March 2010, he conceived and directed Sondheim! The Birthday Concert Live at Carnegie Hall, celebrating the famed composor-lyricist's 80th Birthday. The television broadcast was nominated for several Emmy Awards, and Mr. Price won for 'Outstanding Directing For A Variety, Music Or Comedy Special'. April 2011 found him directing an acclaimed concert production of Sondheim's "Company" with Neil Patrick Harris, Stephen Colbert, Martha Plimpton, Christina Hendricks, and Patti LuPone, backed by the New York Philharmonic. He has also directed numerous productions at the Chicago Ravinia Festival, including "Sweeney Todd", "Gypsy", "Sunday in the Park With George", "Anyone Can Whistle", "Passion", and "Annie Get Your Gun". Frequent collaborators for his productions include Tony Award-winning performers Patti LuPone, Audra McDonald, Michael Cerveris, and George Hearn, and legendary musical director and conductor Paul Gemignani. In 2000, Price co-wrote, directed, and starred in "A Class Act", based on the life and career of composer – lyricist Edward Kleban, whose sole Broadway credit was "A Chorus Line". The score consisted of songs Kleban had written for other shows that remained unproduced. After a two-month run at the Manhattan Theatre Club, it transferred to the Ambassador Theatre, where it fared less successfully and closed after three months. It earned Price his sole Tony Award nomination to date, for Best Book of a Musical. The show was also nominated for four other Tony Awards, including Best Musical. He also directed a Broadway revival of "110 in the Shade" at the Roundabout Theatre Company in 2007, starring Audra McDonald.
774343	Cairo Time is a 2009 film by Canadian director Ruba Nadda. It is a romantic drama about a brief, unexpected love affair that catches two people completely off-guard. The movie won the "Best Canadian Feature Film" at the Toronto International Film Festival 2009. Plot. Juliette (Patricia Clarkson) is a Canadian magazine editor who arrives in Cairo for a vacation with her long-time husband (Tom McCamus), a UN official working in Gaza. Delayed, her husband asks his friend—a handsome Egyptian named Tareq (Alexander Siddig)—to watch over Juliette. Juliette finds herself falling in love not only with the city but with Tareq. Their relationship seems to have been platonic. Production. When Ruba Nadda finished writing the script for "Cairo Time" she showed it to producer Daniel Iron of Foundry Films. Daniel, remembering Ruba's previous feature Sabah, loved the script and decided to work with her. Atom Egoyan gave the screenplay for "Cairo Time" to Christine Vachon and Charles Pugliese at Killer Films in New York in 2005. Vachon saw there was a lot of potential in the script and decided to meet Nadda with Pugliese. After meeting Nadda they wanted to get involved in the project and thereby became executive producers. Because Canada did not have co-production treaties with Egypt they needed to find a way to shoot in Egypt anyhow. Iron was introduced to David Collins of Samson Films in Ireland by Ruba Nadda. Collins met Nadda at a film festival in Mannheim and in Rotterdam and was familiar with her work. Samson decided to join the project, making it a Canada-Ireland co-production, and so were allowed to shoot in Egypt. Reception. Rotten Tomatoes certified the movie "fresh" with 82 as of August 2010. The film was received with great reviews. The "Wall Street Journal" said "Clarkson makes taking 'Cairo Time' well worth it", while CTV News gave the movie a positive review stating that the movie as "A masterful look at repressed romance" giving it 3 stars out of 4 Picktainment.com said "Ruba Nadda’s "Cairo Time" is a passive, delicate film with a mature respect for its surroundings and a profound understanding of neglect, especially in its subtle form." Peter Travers of "Rolling Stone" called "Cairo Time" "a fragile romance" and said about Nadda, "Just when you think you know what's coming, the canny writer-director Ruba Nadda (Sabah) makes sure you won't. Nadda lets the sensuous tempos of Cairo life seep into Juliette's system, and ours. It's a haunting and hypnotic film. And Clarkson's sublimely nuanced performance is in every way transporting." At the end of 2010, Cairo Time was named "Best-reviewed romance of the year (2010)" by Rotten Tomatoes. Release. The movie was released in Canadian theaters on 9 October 2009. "Cairo Time" won the "Best Canadian Feature Film" at the Toronto International Film Festival 2009. The movie was bought by IFC during Toronto International Film Festival 2009 and released in the U.S. in New York and Los Angeles on August 6, 2010 with a wide release on Labor Day weekend of 2010 by IFC. "Cairo Time" grossed $66,245 in the opening weekend, ranking at #38. The film sold out all shows in the weekend in New York and Los Angeles, with a theater revenue of $12,450, the best per-theater-average of any film in release.
1265420	Marion Davies (January 3, 1897 – September 22, 1961) was an American film actress, producer, screenwriter, and philanthropist. Davies was already building a solid reputation as a film comedienne when newspaper tycoon William Randolph Hearst, with whom she had begun a romantic relationship, took over management of her career. Hearst financed Davies pictures, promoted her heavily through his newspapers and Hearst Newsreels, and pressured studios to cast her in historical dramas for which she was ill suited. For this reason, Davies is better remembered today as Hearst's mistress and the hostess of many lavish events for the Hollywood elite. In particular, her name is linked with the 1924 scandal aboard Hearst's yacht where one of his guests, film producer Thomas Ince, died. In the film "Citizen Kane" (1941), the title character's wife—an untalented singer whom he tries to promote—was widely assumed to be based on Davies. But many commentators, including "Citizen Kane" writer/director Orson Welles himself, have defended Davies' record as a gifted actress, to whom Hearst's patronage did more harm than good. She retired from the screen in 1937, choosing to devote herself to Hearst and charitable work. In Hearst's declining years, Davies provided financial as well as emotional support until his death in 1951. She married for the first time eleven weeks after his death, a marriage which lasted until Davies died of stomach cancer in 1961 at the age of 64. Early life. Davies was born Marion Cecilia Douras on January 3, 1897, in Brooklyn, the youngest of five children born to Bernard J. Douras (1857–1935), a lawyer and judge in New York City; and Rose Reilly (1867–1928). Her father performed the civil marriage of Gloria Gould Bishop. Her elder siblings included Rose, Reine, and Ethel. A brother, Charles, drowned at the age of 15 in 1906. His name was subsequently given to Davies' favorite nephew, screenwriter Charles Lederer, the son of Davies' sister Reine Davies. The Douras family lived near Prospect Park in Brooklyn. The sisters changed their surname to Davies, which one of them spotted on a real-estate agent's sign in the neighborhood. Even at a time when New York was the melting pot for new immigrants, having a British surname greatly helped one's prospects – the name Davies has Welsh origins. Educated in a New York convent, Davies left school to pursue a career. She worked as a model and posed for illustrators Harrison Fisher and Howard Chandler Christy. In 1916, Davies was signed on as a Ziegfeld girl in the "Ziegfeld Follies". Career. Early career. After making her screen debut in 1916, modelling gowns by Lady Duff-Gordon in a fashion newsreel, she appeared in her first feature film in the 1917 "Runaway Romany". Davies wrote the film, which was directed by her brother-in-law, prominent Broadway producer George W. Lederer. The following year she starred in three films -- "The Burden of Proof", "Beatrice Fairfax", and "Cecilia of the Pink Roses". Playing mainly light comic roles, she quickly became a film personality appearing with major male stars, making a small fortune, which enabled her to provide financial assistance for her family and friends. In 1918, Hearst started the movie studio Cosmopolitan Productions to promote Davies' career and also moved her along with her mother and sisters into an elegant Manhattan townhouse at the corner of Riverside Drive and W. 105th Street. "Cecilia of the Pink Roses" in 1918 was her first film backed by Hearst. She was on her way to being the most infamously advertised actress in the world. During the next 10 years she appeared in 29 films, an average of almost three films a year. Hearst and Cosmopolitan Pictures. By the mid-1920s, however, Davies' career was often overshadowed by her relationship with William Randolph Hearst and their social life at San Simeon and Ocean House in Santa Monica; the latter dubbed by Colleen Moore "the biggest house on the beach – the beach between San Diego and Vancouver". According to her own audio diaries, she had met Hearst long before she had started working in films. Hearst later formed Cosmopolitan Pictures, which would produce most of her starring vehicles. Hearst's relentless efforts to promote her career had a detrimental effect, but he persisted, making Cosmopolitan's distribution deals first with Paramount, then Goldwyn, and then Metro Goldwyn Mayer. Davies herself was more inclined to develop her comic talents alongside her friends at United Artists, but Hearst pointedly discouraged this. Davies, in her published memoirs "The Times We Had", concluded that Hearst's over-the-top promotion of her career, in fact, had a negative result. Example; in 1929 Mr. Hearst purchased the Cameo Theatre, 934 Market Street, San Francisco. He then lavishly remodeled both the exterior and interior decor in a rosebud hued Art Moderne motif, and renamed it The Marion Davies Theatre. From Hearst's office windows, further up Market Street, he could see pink neon letters constantly spelling out her name above the marquee. Hearst Metrotone Newsreels were included on the program, and these newsreels regularly touted Miss Davies' social activities.
588443	Aanch is a Hindi movie directed by Rajesh Kumar Singh. Nana Patekar, Paresh Rawal, Suchindra and Sharbani Mukherjee played the lead roles. It's an epic love story set against the background of a crime ridden some parts of rural Uttar Pradesh. Sanjeev-Darshan scored the music for the movie. Plot. Nana Patekar and Paresh Rawal belong to two different villages. They hate each other for reasons best known to them. Suchindra's father (residing in Paresh's village) and Sharbani's brother (a resident of Nana's village) decide to get them Suchindra and Sharbani Mukherjee married. The preparations to the marriage ceremony begin and neither the boy nor the girl knowing what the other looks like. In the meanwhile, the two villages get ready to confront each other in case of a quarrel. The wedding ceremony is underway when the revelry between the two village head starts and the guns roar. The bride and the groom come to the town. They are happy to escape the brutal world of rural India to find their own careers and future. They first bump into each other in the train, then in the college, completely unaware of all facts. For Suchindra, its love at first sight, but Sharbani doesn't respond to his overtures. Later she packs her bags and heads straight for her village. In the meanwhile, Suchinder learns that Sharbani is his legally-wedded wife and he decides to get her back from the clutches of two warring villages.
235873	The Good Night is a 2007 romantic comedy film written and directed by Jake Paltrow. The film stars his sister Gwyneth Paltrow, Penélope Cruz, Martin Freeman, Danny DeVito, Simon Pegg and others. The movie takes place in London and New York, where a former pop star (Freeman) who now writes commercial jingles for a living experiences a mid-life crisis. The movie was released on the 2007 Sundance Film Festival. Plot. The movie follows a man's search for perfection in a world where life rarely measures up to the idealized images that constantly bombard us. Freeman plays Gary Shaller, who gained commercial success in previous years as the keyboard player in the fictional band "On The One". He is in a failing marriage with Dora Gwyneth Paltrow, and working for his former band mate Paul, played by Simon Pegg, writing and recording commercial jingles. Gary eventually discovers that he is having lucid dreams about a glamorous woman named Anna, played by Penélope Cruz, with whom he is deeply infatuated. He aims to learn more about lucid dreaming by buying books and even attending classes taught by an eccentric lucid-dreaming enthusiast, Mel (Danny DeVito).
1060559	Kevin Elliot Pollak (born October 30, 1957) is an American actor, impressionist, game show host, and comedian. He started performing stand-up comedy at the age of 10 and touring professionally at the age of 20. In 1988, Pollak landed a role in George Lucas’s "Willow", directed by Ron Howard, and began his acting career. Pollak is an avid poker player, hosting weekly home games with some of Hollywood's A-list celebrities. He finished 134th out of 6,598 entrants in the 2012 WSOP, earning himself $52,718. Early life. Pollak was born in San Francisco, the youngest son of Elaine Harlow and Robert "Bobby" Pollak. He has one older brother. He has since moved to and currently resides in San Francisco. His brother resides with his family in Boston. He attended high school at Pioneer High School in San Jose. Career. Acting. As an actor, Pollak's most notable roles are usually playing the best friend or confidant characters to the leading men, as he did in "Ricochet" (1991), "A Few Good Men" (1992), "End of Days" (1999) and "The Wedding Planner" (2001). However, Pollak has also played a wide variety of parts; he played a criminal in "The Usual Suspects" (1995) and a gangster in "The Whole Nine Yards" (2000). He also briefly hosted "Celebrity Poker Showdown" in its first season. His most substantial role to date was in "Deterrence" (1999), in which he played the main character: a Vice President who must take over for a deceased President and deal with a nuclear crisis. In December 2006, he played Karl Kreutzfeld in the Sci Fi Channel miniseries "The Lost Room". Through 2008, he had a recurring role as a District Attorney on the television series "Shark". In March 2008, Pollak played himself in the web series "The Writers Room" on Crackle. In 2010, he portrayed Sheriff Tom Wagner in Choose. In January 2010, Pollak was scheduled to host "Our Little Genius" on FOX, but the series was pulled before it could air on television. Pollak was last seen hosting "Million Dollar Money Drop", again on the FOX network at the end of 2010. Directing. Pollak's directorial debut was on the horror web series "Vamped Out," featured on the internet television platform Babelgum. Jason Antoon, Seana Kofoed, Samm Levine and Pollak all acted in the ensemble cast, the screenbook was based on a simple joke that Antoon and Pollak had between them. Stand-up. As a comedian, Pollak's most famous work was his 1992 HBO special "Stop With the Kicking", directed by fellow comedian David Steinberg and produced by Boston comedy writer Martin Olson. In July 2009, "The Littlest Suspect", his most recent comedy special, was aired on Showtime. "Kevin Pollak's Chat Show". In April 2009, Pollak partnered with Jason Calacanis on a weekly Internet talk show, "Kevin Pollak's Chat Show". Guests for the show include film directors Kevin Smith and Mike Binder, comedian Jimmy Pardo, and actors Nia Vardalos, Illeana Douglas, Bryan Cranston, Dana Carvey, Matthew Perry, Jon Hamm, Paul Rudd, and Jason Lee. A full list of guests can be found in the main article. The guest interviews are very in-depth and typically longer than an hour in duration, often exceeding two hours. Common topics include the guests' childhoods, how they got into the business they are in (typically show business), how they got inspired to start certain creative endeavors, and unique experiences they have had while working. Viewers can interact via chat room during the show, and sometimes questions for the guest posed in the chat room are answered live. The show's self-described "Paul Shaffer" is actor Samm Levine. Recurring segments on the show include: In 2012, Pollak began a new podcast called "Talkin Walkin" in which he spends an hour or more with a new guest each show where Pollak spends the entire conversation as Christopher Walken. After three episodes, the show was rated in the top 5 of all comedy podcasts by iTunes.
582695	Koyla (translation: "Coal") is a 1997 Hindi action thriller film produced and directed by Rakesh Roshan. The film stars Madhuri Dixit, Shahrukh Khan, Amrish Puri, Himani Shivpuri, Johnny Lever, Ashok Saraf and Kunika. Mohnish Behl is featured in a guest appearance. The film featured in the top 10 opening and weekend of all time in Bollywood Plot. Raja Saab (Amrish Puri) is a powerful and greedy elderly owner of a coal mine. Some years ago he discovered diamonds in his mine and became rich, turning himself into the self-proclaimed king of the area and ruling over the workers with the help of his sadistic and cruel brother, Brijwa. In addition to the rest of the household, Raja has a mute slave named Shankar (Shahrukh Khan) who is completely loyal to him. A glutton for young women, Raja keeps his secretray, Bindya (Deepshikha) as his mistress, though he is frequently unable to perform sexually due to his old age. His doctor suggests that a different women could properly arouse him. The next day, Raja comes across the beautiful Gauri (Madhuri Dixit), a poor but spirited village girl, and becomes obsessed with her. Desperate to have her, Raja extends a marriage proposal to Gauri's aunt and uncle, along with lavish gifts. Gauri, not knowing who her suitor is, refuses to marry without first seeing the groom, regardless of his wealth and status. Knowing that she would never agree to marry such an old man, Raja sends a picture of the young and handsome Shankar instead. Gauri falls in love with Shankar's picture and agrees to the marriage, already dreaming of her life as his bride.
1017657	True Legend is a 2010 martial arts film directed by Yuen Woo-ping, starring Vincent Zhao, Zhou Xun, Jay Chou, Michelle Yeoh, Andy On, David Carradine, Guo Xiaodong, Feng Xiaogang, Cung Le, Gordon Liu, Bryan Leung and Jacky Heung. It marked martial arts choreographer Yuen Woo-ping's return to directing for the first time since the 1996 film "Tai Chi Boxer". The film has been shown in both 2D and 3D, and was promoted as the first Chinese 3-D film. It was a rather large financial loss for producer Bill Kong, making only RMB 46.5 million (US$6.82 million) against an estimated budget of US$20 million. It was released in the U.S. on May 13, 2011 by the distribution company Indomina, where it grossed US$62,200 during its run. This was one of Carradine's final performances and it was released after his death. Plot. Su Can is a general who leads a military force to save a prince from a large fortress of enemies in the mountains. In return, the prince promises that the Emperor will make him governor of Hu Bei. Su's step brother Yuan is envious of Su, but Su loves him and asks the prince to make Yuan governor instead. Su wants to leave the military and lead a life pursuing the perfection of Wu Shu, eventually in the hopes of starting his school and teaching his skills. Su gives his great prestigious sword to a comrade Ma, then tells Yuan of his plans. Yuan expresses that he is always in Su's shadow but accepts the governorship. Early next morning, Su leaves on a horse. Five years later, Su and his wife Ying (Yuan's sister) have a child, Feng. Su's father informs them that Yuan is returning from the military to be a governor. He warns Su that Yuan may not have come back simply to reconcile with family but to seek revenge. This is because years ago, Su's father killed Yuan's father when the latter went too far in learning an evil martial arts technique called the Five Venom Fists. Su's father then took Yuan in, but he harbours concern that Yuan is still vengeful. Su is naive and assures his father that everything will be alright. When Yuan returns, a homecoming party is held. Yuan greets his sister Ying, Feng, and Su's father. Su's father knows what is impending and asks Yuan to take his revenge on him alone, sparing Su and his family. Using his mastery of the Five Venom Fists, Yuan kills Su's father and decapitates him. He expresses his desire to be with his sister (Ying) and her son Feng as a family. When Su hears the news of his father's murder, he rushes to the scene of his father's death and is attacked by the Iron Twins. He chases them to a rapid where Yuan is offering Su's father's head to his real father as a symbol of revenge taken. A battle ensues between Yuan and Su. Yuan has a dark armour sewn into his body, making him partially invulnerable to blades. Using his Five Venom Fists, Yuan deals a deadly poisonous blow to Su who is defeated. Feng begs for Su's life and Yuan spares him but throws him into the rapids. Ying jumps into the rapid to save Su and Yuan is heartbroken at the loss of his beloved sister. He takes Feng in as his only family. Ying awakes in forest area and tries to bring her husband to civilization and safety. They are found by a herb researcher and wine maker, Sister Yu, who treats Su's wounds. Su comes to consciousness but is broken to find his right arm severely weakened with all tendons torn. At first, he is desperate and turns to drinking, but with Ying's support, he focuses on training in order to save Feng. He meets Wu Shu God and an old sage and asks to be their disciple. At a sacred site, he trains with the Wu Shu God for years, always trying to defeat him but never able to. Later, by checking Su's pulse, Dr. Du reveals to Ying that Su is going mad and that there is probably no Wu Shu God or Old Sage since she is the only one living in the area. Ying follows Su into the forest one day and finds him fighting (seemingly) with himself, oblivious to the fact that he is only battling with the Wu Shu God in his mind. Ying pleads with Su to come to his senses but he does not believe her. By the time Su realizes the truth, it is too late. Ying has left to try to save Feng by herself. At Yuan's palace, Ying is now a captive of Yuan. Su arrives shortly after and fights his way through the guards. He also battles the Iron Twins and with his improved skills, impales both on a podao, a saber like spear. Yuan orders his men to bury Ying alive in a box and then kills the men who buried her so that only he knows her location. A crazed Su battles with Yuan in his training chamber and ultimately defeats him, even gnashing though a poisonous snake in the process. Feng screams that Yuan must not die because only he knows Ying's location, but a maddened Su delivers a fatal blow to Yuan's throat, thus executing him in anger. Realizing the words of Feng, he rushes out and a dying soldier reveals the vague location of Ying. Su and Feng rush to search for her but manage to dig her out too late. Ying dies from lack of air. The era changes from the dynastic to the colonized. Su has lost his mind after the loss of his wife and the previous delusions he had. A homeless Feng leads his father through the streets by rope and takes care of him. A Kung Fu master is killed in a fighting arena - part of a foreigners' club - leaving Su's old friend, Ma, as leader of the Wu Shu Federation. The arena is a stage below which tigers lurk freely, waiting for any unfortunate fighter to drop below. In the meantime, Su goes into an inn and creates trouble by stealing wine and countering people bent on stopping him with martial art moves. He then meets a fellow drunkard who spars with him and gives him a few philosophical tips. The two of them start using Drunken Fighting (Zui Quan) techniques, and Su regains his sanity. The inn lady calls Ma to deal with Su and Ma recognizes Su. They have a talk and Ma gives Su back his sword. Su asks Ma to take care of Feng since he is unfit to be a father but Feng persists, staying with his father instead. The next day, Su and Feng show up to support Ma in his arena battle. Su goes about drinking in the club's bar area, oblivious to Ma receiving a serious beating in the ring. When Feng tries to save Ma from being killed, the opposing wrestler grabs Feng and holds him in the air. Feng screams for help from his father. His son's cries awake Su from his drunken state and Su rushes into the arena. As Ma and Feng are being taken out of the arena by bystanders, Su battles and defeats the wrestler. Anthony, owner of a wrestling stable, orders his lot to pour into the arena, resulting in a mismatch of three wrestlers to one (Su). Using the drunken martial arts technique learned from his fellow drunkard in the inn, Su's defeats the fighters although he is heavily injured. At the end of the battle, the other fighters are either dead or unconscious, and only after a vision of Ying and the dramatic cries of Feng in an otherwise silenced arena, does a semi-conscious Su manage to stand up. He is declared the winner. The film ends with a seemingly restored Su practising his moves of old but with long hair reminiscent of the insane period of his life, with Feng observing. Su has seemingly found his passion. Production. When Yuen Woo Ping was given the script by producer Bill Kong. Bill Kong reportedly recommended Vincent Zhao for the role of Beggar Su. Saying that Zhao has been doing television dramas in recent years and should act more in movies. Yuen Woo Ping after looking through some of Zhao's old works decided to choose him for the lead role. In order to prepare for the role Zhao had to lose up to nine kilograms worth of weight as he explains "Beggar Su can't be too plump." Zhao also had to take up to 2 months worth of break dancing classes due to the fact Yuen wanted to have a more rhythmic and modern form of the drunken fist. Yuen originally wanted actor Feng Xiaogang to play the role of Old Sage but due to schedule conflicts Feng had to turn the role down and was given the chance to direct his own scene in the movie where he appears as a Pickpocket in which he teaches Little Feng portrayed by young actor, Suen Hanwen to pickpocket. Despite this Yuen and the producers thought that the scene wasn't needed in the movie and thus the scene was deleted in the final cut of the film instead. "True Legend" began shooting in the mountain region in a suburb of Beijing on August 28, 2008 that was quite low-key. Filming wrapped up in late January, 2009. The set of the scene in which Su Can saves the Imperial Prince / General broke an all time record for the largest set ever built inside a Chinese filming studio. The filming period of this film took five months to complete. While still in pre-production, Yuen Woo Ping and some of his workers took more than four months to scout for possible filming locations. They finally chose Yellow Mountain, Hukou Waterfall of the Yellow River and the traditional Anhui hui-style residences. Yuen Woo Ping preferred to shoot their original structure rather than building it in sound stages, which may look fake.
1163490	Victor Charles Buono (February 3, 1938January 1, 1982) was an American actor and comic most famous for playing the villain, King Tut, on the television series, "Batman."
588649	Ilzaam () is a 1986 Bollywood film starring Govinda in his film debut alongside Neelam, Shatrughan Sinha, Shashi Kapoor, Prem Chopra and Anita Raj. Synopsis. Orphaned and poor Ajay (Govinda) meets with wealthy Aarti (Neelam), and both fall in love. Their hopes to marry are dashed to the ground, when Aarti's dad, Dhanraj (Prem Chopra), opposes Ajay and Aarti's marriage until he gets wealthy. Ajay disappears from Aarti's life, and Aarti is heartbroken but does not get Ajay out of her mind. Several months later, she meets with a young man who looks like Ajay, but claims that he is Vijay. She finds out that he is living with a sister, Laxmi, his mother, and an older brother, Inspector Surajprasad (Shatrughan Sinha) While investigating an unrelated matter, Surajprasad finds out that Vijay is a career criminal, who sings and dances on the streets, distracting people, while his colleagues break into apartments and rob the residents. It was a box-office Hit.
958930	Colin Maclaurin (February 1698 – 14 June 1746) was a Scottish mathematician who made important contributions to geometry and algebra. The Maclaurin series, a special case of the Taylor series, is named after him. Owing to changes in orthography since that time (his name was originally rendered as "e.g." "M'Laurine"), his surname is alternatively written MacLaurin. In Gaelic the name is "Cailean MacLabhruinn", which is literally 'Colin, the son of Laurence.' Early life. Maclaurin was born in Kilmodan, Argyll. His father, Reverend and Minister of Glendaruel John Maclaurin, died when Maclaurin was in infancy, and his mother died before he reached nine years of age. He was then educated under the care of his uncle, the Reverend Daniel Maclaurin, minister of Kilfinan. Academic career. At eleven, Maclaurin entered the University of Glasgow. He graduated MA three years later by defending a thesis on "the Power of Gravity," and remained at Glasgow to study divinity until he was 19, when he was elected professor of mathematics in a ten-day competition at the Marischal College in the University of Aberdeen. He would hold the record as the world's youngest professor until March 2008, when the record was officially given to Alia Sabur. In the vacations of 1719 and 1721, Maclaurin went to London, where he became acquainted with Sir Isaac Newton, Dr. Hoadley, Dr. Samuel Clarke, Martin Folkes, and other eminent philosophers. He was admitted a member of the Royal Society. In 1722, having provided a substitute for his class at Aberdeen, he traveled on the Continent as tutor to George Hume, the son of Alexander Hume, 2nd Earl of Marchmont. During their time in Lorraine, he wrote his essay on the "Percussion of Bodies", which would gain the prize of the Royal Academy of Sciences in 1724. Upon the death of his pupil at Montpellier, Maclaurin returned to Aberdeen. In 1725 Maclaurin was appointed deputy to the mathematical professor at Edinburgh, James Gregory (brother of David Gregory and nephew of the esteemed James Gregory), upon the recommendation of Isaac Newton. On 3 November of that year Maclaurin would succeed Gregory, and be credited with raising the character of that university as a school of science. Newton was so impressed with Maclaurin that he had offered to pay his salary himself. Contributions to mathematics. Maclaurin used Taylor series to characterize maxima, minima, and points of inflection for infinitely differentiable functions in his "Treatise of Fluxions". Maclaurin attributed the series to Taylor, though the series was known before to Newton and Gregory, and in special cases to Madhava of Sangamagrama in fourteenth century India. Nevertheless, Maclaurin received credit for his use of the series, and the Taylor series expanded around 0 is sometimes known as the "Maclaurin series" . Maclaurin also made significant contributions to the gravitation attraction of ellipsoids, a subject that furthermore attracted the attention of d'Alembert, A.-C. Clairaut, Euler, Laplace, Legendre, Poisson and Gauss. Maclaurin showed that an oblate spheroid was a possible equilibrium in Newton's theory of gravity. The subject continues to be of scientific interest, and Nobel Laureate Subramanyan Chandrasekhar dedicated a chapter of his book "Ellipsoidal Figures of Equilibrium" to Maclaurin spheroids.
1068047	The Jewel of the Nile is a 1985 romantic adventure film, and a sequel to the 1984 film "Romancing the Stone", with Michael Douglas, Kathleen Turner, and Danny DeVito reprising their roles. Directed by Lewis Teague, the film sends its characters off on a new adventure in a fictional African desert, in an effort to find the precious "Jewel of the Nile." Despite being a box office success, it was a disappointment in critical reviews. Plot. Six months after the events in "Romancing the Stone", Joan Wilder (Kathleen Turner) is having trouble writing her next romantic novel while living with Jack Colton (Michael Douglas) on his boat, the Angelina, which is currently docked in a South of France port, and she refuses to discuss marriage. Later that afternoon at a book signing engagement held by her publisher, Gloria (Holland Taylor), Joan meets a charming Arab ruler named Omar (Spiros Focás) who has managed to persuade the world that he is the firm, but fair, ruler of Kadir. Omar offers Joan the opportunity to live like a queen at his palace, while she writes a fluff piece about him. However, as soon as Joan leaves with Omar, Jack runs into Ralph (Danny DeVito). Ralph, a comical swindler from Jack's past, recently out of prison, plans on killing Jack for abandoning him to the authorities in Colombia, but is stopped by an Arab named Tarak (Paul David Magid), who tells Jack of Omar's true intentions. This includes the fact that he has their greatest treasure, the Jewel of the Nile, in his possession. Ralph, immediately interested at the prospect, agrees to help find the Jewel. Jack, however, is less than convinced. But seconds later, the Angelina explodes, having been sabotaged under Omar's orders. He then agrees to team up with Ralph and Tarak in order to track down the lost jewel in Omar's kingdom. During her stay at his palace, Joan discovers that Omar is a brutal dictator, who imprisons her until she agrees to finish the fluff piece that will introduce him to the world as an enlightened ruler that will unite the Arab world. In the palace jail she meets a holy man, "Al-Julhara" (Arabic for 'The Jewel'), (Avner Eisenberg), who is in fact the Jewel of the Nile. Realizing that he is the only one who can stop Omar, Joan offers to take Al-Julhara to Kadir herself. The pair escape the palace, and with the help of Jack (who hijacks an F-16 Fighting Falcon fighter jet), are able to flee Omar's army into the desert. Ralph, who provides much of the film's comic relief, is left to fend for himself in the desert and thus joins with the rebel Sufi tribe led by Tarak that has sworn to protect the Jewel so he can fulfill his destiny. After Jack's battle for Joan's hand, with the son of a Nubian mountain African tribe chief, Joan breaks the news to Jack, that the Jewel is in fact Al-Julhara who is the true spiritual leader of the Arab people. Omar plans on using a British rock & roll technician's (Daniel Peacock) smoke and mirrors special effects at an upcoming festival, planned by Omar, to convince the Arab world that he is in fact a prophet that will unite the Arab world under his rule. Jack, Joan and Al-Julhara decide to crash the festival in Kadir and unmask Omar as the fraud that he is. However, they are all captured and Omar sets up an elaborate and fiendish trap from "The Savage Secret", Joan's most popular novel. Jack and Joan are suspended over a deep pit, with the ropes holding Jack up are soaked with goat's blood and being rapidly chewed away by rats, while Joan's are slowly being dissolved by drops of acid. Al-Julhara, however is simply locked up in stocks. As Omar leaves them to their fate, they are found later and inadvertently saved by Ralph, who along with Tarak and his Sufi followers have come to rescue Al-Julhara. As Omar takes center stage to address the Arab people, Jack and Joan disrupt the ceremony while Tarak and the Sufi battle Omar's guards below. A fire breaks out when part of Omar's platform apparatus crashes into the stage, engulfing it in flames. Jack and Joan are separated in the chaos and Omar corners her at the top of the burning scaffolding surrounding the stage. With help from Ralph, Jack rides a crane to the top of the scaffolding and knocks Omar over the side and down into the flames below just as he is about to kill Joan. Once Omar is killed, Al-Julhara rises as the real spiritual leader and Jack and Joan are finally married by Al-Julhara himself the following day. While he is genuinely happy for Jack and Joan, Ralph laments sadly that once again, he has nothing to show for his efforts. But he is then acknowledged as being a true Sufi by Tarak, signified by being presented with a priceless jeweled dagger. Ralph is genuinely touched and happily accepts the gift. The film ends with Jack and Joan sailing down the Nile as Al-Julhara and his people, along with Ralph, Tarak, the Sufi and Gloria wave goodbye from the river's dock. Response. While "The Jewel of the Nile" grossed more than its predecessor, the film was much less successful critically and helped to effectively kill the franchise, although it was said at the time that both Kathleen Turner and Michael Douglas only made the sequel because they were contractually obligated to do so. At one point during pre-production, Turner tried to back out of the project, and 20th Century Fox threatened her with a $25 million lawsuit. Turner, Douglas, and DeVito would later reunite in the unrelated film "The War of the Roses". Critics felt the film was loaded with numerous plot holes and that it lacked the first film's original charm. "The New York Times" opened its review by writing, "There's nothing in "The Jewel of the Nile" that wasn't funnier or more fanciful in "Romancing the Stone"." Roger Ebert agreed that "it is not quite the equal of "Romancing the Stone"," but praised the interplay between Douglas and Turner. "It seems clear," he wrote, "that they like each other and are having fun during the parade of ludicrous situations in the movie, and their chemistry is sometimes more entertaining than the contrivances of the plot." Soundtrack. "When the Going Gets Tough, the Tough Get Going", performed by Billy Ocean, plays during the film's end credits. Douglas, Turner and DeVito also co-starred with Ocean in the MTV music video of the same name. The soundtrack features 1980s rap group Whodini and their single "The Freaks Come Out at Night" as Michael Douglas and company make their way through the desert on camel back as well as "Party (No Sheep Is Safe Tonight)" by The Willesden Dodgers during the campfire party scene. Production notes. As with the first film, the novelization of the sequel was credited to Joan Wilder, the character played by Kathleen Turner; both books were actually ghost written by Catherine Lanigan.
1266219	Manhattan Melodrama is a 1934 crime melodrama film, produced by MGM, directed by W. S. Van Dyke, and starring Clark Gable, William Powell, and Myrna Loy. The movie also provided one of the earliest film roles for Mickey Rooney, who played Gable's character as a child, and introduced the Rogers and Hart song "Blue Moon", with an entirely different set of lyrics by Lorenz Hart.
673603	Spione (English title: Spies, under which title it was released in the United States) is a German silent espionage thriller written and directed by Fritz Lang in 1928. Lang's wife, Thea von Harbou, worked as a co-writer. The film was Lang's penultimate silent film, and the first for his own production company; "Fritz Lang-film GmbH". As in Lang's Mabuse films, such as "" and "The Testament of Dr. Mabuse", Rudolf Klein-Rogge plays a master criminal aiming for world domination. "Spione" was restored to its original length by the Friedrich-Wilhelm-Murnau-Stiftung during 2003 and 2004. No original negatives survive, but a high quality nitrate copy is held at the Národní Filmový Archiv at Prague. Plot. Beautiful Russian spy Sonja Baranikowa (Gerda Maurus) seduces Colonel Jellusic (Fritz Rasp) into betraying his country for her employer, Haghi (Rudolf Klein-Rogge), a seemingly respectable bank director who is actually the criminal mastermind of a powerful espionage organization. Jason (Craighall Sherry), head of the Secret Service, gives the task of bringing the mysterious Haghi down to a handsome young agent known only as Number 326. 326 believes his identity is a secret, but Haghi is well aware of him. He assigns Sonja to worm her way into 326's confidence. She convinces 326 that she has just shot a man who tried to force himself on her. He hides her from the police.
1102706	Early years. He was born in Tokyo. He graduated from the University of Tokyo in 1938 with a degree in mathematics and also graduated from the physics department at the University of Tokyo in 1941. During the war years he worked in isolation, but was able to master Hodge theory as it then stood. He obtained his Ph.D. degree from the University of Tokyo in 1949, with a thesis entitled "Harmonic fields in Riemannian manifolds". He was involved in cryptographic work from about 1944, at a time of great personal difficulty, while holding an academic post in Tokyo. Institute for Advanced Study. In 1949 he travelled to the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey at the invitation of Hermann Weyl. At this time the foundations of Hodge theory were being brought in line with contemporary technique in operator theory. Kodaira rapidly became involved in exploiting the tools it opened up in algebraic geometry, adding sheaf theory as it became available. This work was particularly influential, for example on Hirzebruch. In a second research phase, Kodaira wrote a long series of papers in collaboration with D. C. Spencer, founding the deformation theory of complex structures on manifolds. This gave the possibility of constructions of moduli spaces, since in general such structures depend continuously on parameters. It also identified the sheaf cohomology groups, for the sheaf associated with the holomorphic tangent bundle, that carried the basic data about the dimension of the moduli space, and obstructions to deformations. This theory is still foundational, and also had an influence on the (technically very different) scheme theory of Grothendieck. Spencer then continued this work, applying the techniques to structures other than complex ones, such as G-structures. In a third major part of his work, Kodaira worked again from around 1960 through the classification of algebraic surfaces from the point of view of birational geometry of complex manifolds. This resulted in a typology of seven kinds of two-dimensional compact complex manifolds, recovering the five algebraic types known classically; the other two being non-algebraic. He provided also detailed studies of elliptic fibrations of surfaces over a curve, or in other language elliptic curves over algebraic function fields, a theory whose arithmetic analogue proved important soon afterwards. This work also included a characterisation of K3 surfaces as deformations of quartic surfaces in "P"4, and the theorem that they form a single diffeomorphism class. Again, this work has proved foundational. (The K3 surfaces were named after Kummer, Kähler, and Kodaira). Later years. Kodaira left the Institute for Advanced Study in 1961, and briefly served as chair at the Johns Hopkins University and Stanford University In 1967, returned to the University of Tokyo. He was awarded a Wolf Prize in 1984/5. He died in Kofu on 26 July 1997.
70012	Rajeev Motwani (; March 26, 1962 – June 5, 2009) was a professor of Computer Science at Stanford University whose research focused on theoretical computer science. He was an early advisor and supporter of companies including Google and PayPal, and a special advisor to Sequoia Capital. He was a winner of the Gödel Prize in 2001. Education. Rajeev Motwani was born in Jammu to a Hindu Sindhi family. He grew up in New Delhi. His father was in the Indian Army. He has two brothers. As a child, inspired by luminaries like Gauss, he wanted to become a mathematician. Motwani went to St Columba's School, New Delhi. He completed his B.Tech in Computer Science from the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur in 1983 and got his Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of California, Berkeley in 1988 under the supervision of Richard M. Karp. Career. Motwani joined Stanford soon after U.C. Berkeley.
1061172	Fantastic Voyage is a 1966 science fiction film written by Harry Kleiner, based on a story by Otto Klement and Jerome Bixby. The original story took place in the 19th Century and was meant to be a Jules Verne inspired adventure tale with a sense of wonder. Kleiner abandoned all but the concept of miniaturization and added a Cold War element. It was directed by Richard Fleischer and stars Stephen Boyd, Raquel Welch, Edmond O'Brien, and Donald Pleasence. Bantam Books obtained the rights for a paperback novelization based on the screenplay and approached Isaac Asimov to write it. Because the novelization was released six months before the movie, many people mistakenly believed Asimov's book had inspired the film.
585270	Mounam Sammadham (English: Silent is Acceptance) is a Tamil movie released in the year 1990. This movie was directed by K. Madhu and the music was composed by Ilaiyaraaja. This is Mammooty's first Tamil movie. Plot. The plot revolves around the wrong conviction of a business man and the efforts taken by the protagonist, a lawyer, to find the truth.
1060460	The Family Stone is a 2005 American comedy-drama film written and directed by Thomas Bezucha. Produced by Michael London and distributed by 20th Century Fox, it stars an ensemble cast, including Diane Keaton, Craig T. Nelson, Dermot Mulroney, Sarah Jessica Parker, Luke Wilson, Claire Danes, Rachel McAdams, Tyrone Giordano, Brian J. White, and Elizabeth Reaser. The plot follows the Christmas holiday misadventures of the Stone family in a small New England town when the eldest son, played by Mulroney, brings his uptight girlfriend (played by Parker) home with the intention of proposing to her with a cherished heirloom ring. Overwhelmed by the hostile reception, she begs her sister to join her for emotional support, triggering further complications.
581967	Ranbir Kapoor (; born 28 September 1982) is an Indian film actor. He is the recipient of five Filmfare Awards, and is a leading actor of contemporary Hindi cinema. He is the son of actors Rishi Kapoor and Neetu Singh, and the grandson of actor-director Raj Kapoor. He completed his pre-university education in Mumbai, after which he moved to New York City to pursue film-making and method acting at the School of Visual Arts and the Lee Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute, respectively. Kapoor began his career in Bollywood as an assistant director on Sanjay Leela Bhansali's 2005 film "Black". Kapoor's first acting role was as the protagonist of Bhansali's 2007 tragic romance "Saawariya", a box office flop for which he was awarded his first Filmfare AwardBest Male Debut. He achieved commercial success with his next releasethe 2008 romantic comedy "Bachna Ae Haseeno". During the film's production schedule he began a romantic relationship with co-star Deepika Padukone; the highly publicised relationship ended the following year. In 2010 he was awarded the Filmfare Critics Award for Best Actor for his performances in three films of 2009the coming-of-age film "Wake Up Sid", the comedy "Ajab Prem Ki Ghazab Kahani", and the drama "". Kapoor won two consecutive Best Actor awards at Filmfare for portraying a troubled musician in the 2011 drama "Rockstar" and a deaf-mute man in the 2012 comedy-drama "Barfi!". The 2013 romantic comedy "Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani" proved to be the fourth highest-grossing Bollywood film of all time and led "The Economic Times" to credit him as "the most bankable actor of his generation". In addition to acting in films, Kapoor supports numerous charities and causes, is vocal about issues faced by women and is the goodwill ambassador of Shabana Azmi's Mijwan Welfare Society. His off-screen life is the subject of fervent tabloid reporting in India. Early life and background. Ranbir Kapoor was born in Mumbai on 28 September 1982 to Rishi Kapoor and Neetu Singh, both actors of the Hindi film industry. He is the great-grandson of Prithviraj Kapoor and the grandson of actor-director Raj Kapoor. His elder sister, Riddhima Kapoor (born 1980) is an interiors and fashion designer. His paternal cousins Karisma Kapoor and Kareena Kapoor are both actresses. Kapoor was schooled at the Bombay Scottish School in Mahim; in an interview with "The Indian Express" he said that he was a "naughty kid" who was "least interested in studies and would always get punished by my teachers". Reflecting on his school life, Kapoor added, "I was never a bright student, potentially never good at dramatics, I was sometimes given one-line roles that I was happy to do so that I could bunk classes. My mother used to cry three times a year and that is when my report card used to come. I always passed but was always in the bottom five and got marks in 50s." He was, however, interested in mathematics and literature, and was particularly fond of William Shakespeare's "The Merchant of Venice". The troubled marriage between his parents deeply affected him as a child. In an interview with "Mumbai Mirror" he recollected the fights between his parents: "Sometimes the fights would get really bad. I would be sitting on the steps, my head between my knees, till five or six in the morning, waiting for them to stop". He added that due to these experiences there was a "reservoir of emotions building up inside which compelled him to look for an outlet in films. Kapoor said that, while growing up, he was "petrified" of his father and "never had a friendly relationship [with him because he used to stay very busy", but admitted to sharing a much closer relationship with his mother. After completing his tenth standard examinations, Kapoor travelled to America to assist his father on his directorial debut "Aa Ab Laut Chalen" (1999). It was during the film's shooting schedule that he developed a closer bond with him. He subsequently enrolled at Mumbai's H.R. College of Commerce and Economics to complete his pre-university education. Upon graduating from high school, Kapoor moved to New York City to learn film-making at the School of Visual Arts and later pursued method acting at the Lee Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute. He said that living alone in New York on a "shoe-string budget" taught him "the value of family and money". In New York City, Kapoor directed and starred in two short films (entitled "Passion to Love" and "India 1964"), and spent most of his time watching world cinema. He professed that the experience of learning about movies at a film school was "almost useless" and preferred being on an actual film set. He, thus, worked as an assistant director to Sanjay Leela Bhansali on the 2005 film "Black". He described the experience: "I was getting beaten up, abused, doing everything from cleaning the floor to fixing the lights from 7 am to 4 am, but I was learning every day." In an interview with CNN-IBN, Kapoor confessed that his main motive for assisting on the film was to ensure that Bhansali liked him enough to cast him as an actor for his next project. Career. Debut and success (2007–10). Following the release of "Black", Bhansali cast Kapoor as the protagonist of his 2007 tragic romance "Saawariya" alongside Sonam Kapoor and Rani Mukerji. The film tells the story of a tramp, Ranbir Raj, who falls obsessively in love with a woman awaiting the return of her lover. In an interview with the news and entertainment portal Rediff.com, Kapoor stated that his character in the film was written to pay a "conscious tribute" to his grandfather Raj Kapoor. "Saawariya" was the first Indian film to be produced by a Hollywood studio (Sony Pictures Entertainment), and was a hugely anticipated release. Upon release, film critics were disappointed with the picture; BBC's Jaspreet Pandohar called the film a "misfire on a massive scale" and CNN-IBN's Rajeev Masand considered it "contrived and fake". Masand, however, was impressed by Kapoor's "affable charm" and added that "he’s got that star quality to him which is so rare to find." At the box office, "Saawariya" failed to find an audience and proved an economic failure. However, at the annual Filmfare Awards ceremony, Kapoor was awarded with a Best Male Debut trophy. Despite the commercial failure of "Saawariya", Kapoor was contracted by Yash Raj Films (a leading Bollywood studio) for a primary role in the Siddharth Anand-directed romantic comedy "Bachna Ae Haseeno" (2008). The film was his first commercial success, in which his role was that of Raj Sharma, a playboy who is romantically involved with three women (played by Bipasha Basu, Minissha Lamba, and Deepika Padukone) at different stages of his life. In 2009 Kapoor featured in three films"Wake Up Sid", "Ajab Prem Ki Ghazab Kahani", and "". He won the Filmfare Critics Award for Best Actor for his performances in these films, and received Best Actor nominations at the ceremony for the first two. In Dharma Productions's "Wake Up Sid", a coming of age film from director Ayan Mukerji, Kapoor portrayed Siddharth "Sid" Malhotra, a rich, lazy teenager whose life undergoes a series of changes after interacting with an ambitious journalist (played by Konkana Sen Sharma). When Mukerji narrated the then-untitled script of the film to him, Kapoor came up with the title himself. Media reports described the film as an "unconventional romance" between a younger man and an older woman, and expressed doubt on its economic prospects. It eventually emerged as a sleeper hit and received acclaim from the critics. Both Kapoor and Sen Sharma's performances were praised; Taran Adarsh of Bollywood Hungama labelled Kapoor's performance "award-worthy" and wrote that "in "Wake Up Sid" he proves that he's amongst the best in the business today." Kapoor's next appearance was opposite Katrina Kaif in "Ajab Prem Ki Ghazab Kahani", a comedy from director Rajkumar Santoshi . The film was generally well received by the critics, and emerged as the third highest-grossing film of 2009. Kapoor described his next release, the Shimit Amin-directed drama "Rocket Singh: Salesman of the Year", to be an "underdog story" and added that his character (a sardar) was that of a "middle-class guy, who wants to be a salesman". For the role, he grew a beard to "get into the skin of the character". Film critic Mayank Shekhar found his performance in the film to be "astonishingly sincere" and "The New York Times" commended him for "turning in a skilfully understated performance". Despite receiving praise from critics, the film failed to recover its investment. In an 2010 interview with Bollywood Hungama, Kapoor said that "Rocket Singh" was a movie that he "truly believed in", and professed to being hugely disappointed by its commercial failure. Prakash Jha's big-budget ensemble political thriller "Raajneeti" was Kapoor's first release of 2010. The film, which starred Nana Patekar, Ajay Devgn, Arjun Rampal, Manoj Bajpayee, Katrina Kaif, and Shruti Seth in leading roles, was inspired by the Indian epic "The Mahabharata" and Mario Puzo's 1969 novel "The Godfather". Kapoor's role was that of Samar Pratap (based on the characters of Arjuna and Michael Corleone), the youngest heir of an Indian political dynasty, who is reluctantly drawn to politics after the assassination of his father. He received a third Best Actor nomination at Filmfare. In an interview with the Press Trust of India, Kapoor described the character of Pratap to be a departure from the "lover boy roles" that he had established a reputation of portraying. Nikhat Kazmi of "The Times of India" reviewed, "The film finally belongs to Ranbir Kapoor who perfects the art of minimalism – and literally grows before your eyes – as the simmering volcano that cannot be held back, once it erupts." Robert Abele of the "Los Angeles Times", however, was more critical of his performance which he considered "stony rather than calculatingespecially jarring compared to the histrionic turns around him". Indian trade journalists were apprehensive of "Rajneeti" recovering its investment. The film, however, surpassed trade expectations and proved a major commercial success with worldwide earnings of over . That same year, Kapoor collaborated with Priyanka Chopra on Anand's "Anjaana Anjaani", a dramedy involving two strangers who vow to commit suicide on New Year's Eve. The film received little praise from the critics, and was a moderate economic success. Rajeev Masand noted that Kapoor "struggles with a badly-defined role" and NDTV's Anupama Chopra concluded, "Ranbir tries hard to salvage the film, dropping his shirt several times but even his lovingly shot chest can’t save the film." "Rockstar" and beyond (2011–present). Following an item number in the children's film "Chillar Party" (2011), Kapoor took the role of Janardhan "Jordan" Jakhar in Imtiaz Ali's "Rockstar", a drama that follows the journey of an aspiring musician (belonging to Pitam Pura, a residential neighbourhood in New Delhi) to international stardom. In preparation for the role, Kapoor lived with a Jat family in Pitam Pura and "studied their mannerisms". He additionally learnt to play the guitar and practised extensively at A.R. Rahman's (the film's music composer) studio. As part of the film's promotional activity, Kapoor performed at a live concert at Bhavan's College in Mumbai. Film critics were polarised on their view of the film itself, but were unanimous in their praise for Kapoor; Aniruddha Guha of "Daily News and Analysis" was particularly impressed with the film and wrote, "Ranbir’s portrayal of Jordan may go down as one of Hindi cinema’s most accomplished performances by a lead actor." For the role, he won both the Best Actor and Best Actor (Critics) trophies at the 57th Filmfare Awards ceremony, along with Best Actor awards at Screen and IIFA. With a gross revenue of , "Rockstar" was one of the top-grossing Indian films of the year. The 2012 romantic comedy "Barfi!" was Kapoor's first release to earn over at the domestic box office (it had a worldwide revenue of ). Directed by Anurag Basu, the film (set in the 1970s) tells the story of its titular protagonist (a deaf and mute man, played by Kapoor) who falls in love with a woman who is already engaged (played by Ileana D'Cruz) and later, an autistic girl (played by Priyanka Chopra). For his portrayal, Kapoor was inspired by the work of actors Roberto Benigni, Charlie Chaplin, and his grandfather Raj Kapoor. "Barfi!" received praise from the critics, and the performances of the three lead actors were acclaimed. "Variety" noted that "Kapoor, like his famous actor/director grandfather Raj Kapoor before him, channels Chaplin in tone and affect" and Raja Sen of Rediff.com credited him as a "truly special leading man". The film was submitted as India’s official entry for the 85th Academy Awards, and was screened at the Marrakech and Busan International Film Festivals. Kapoor won second consecutive Best Actor awards at the Filmfare, Screen, and IIFA Award ceremonies. Kapoor achieved further success when he reunited with director Ayan Mukerji for the 2013 romantic comedy "Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani". He played Kabir "Bunny" Thapar, a commitment-phobic photographer, alongside Deepika Padukone, Kalki Koechlin, and Aditya Roy Kapoor. Kapoor found the character of Bunny to be an extension of his real self, and in an interview with "The Express Tribune" described his biggest challenge in playing the role: "I had to then play him using my own experiences as references which I found to be quite difficult. How do I play myself without making it boring? [..] We had to think very carefully when adding dimensions to him without compromising on the believability part of it." His pairing with Padukone, after their highly publicised break-up, led to a strong buzz surrounding the film's release. "Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani" eventually opened to record-breaking collections, and emerged as the fourth highest-grossing Bollywood film of all time with earnings of over ; it also proved Kapoor's third consecutive commercial success in three years. Film critics found the film to be "riddled with clichés", but praised both Kapoor and Padukone, with "Daily News and Analysis"' Tushar Joshi labelling their on-screen chemistry as "unsurpassable". As of August 2013, Kapoor has finished filming for Abhinav Kashyap's comedy film "Besharam" in which he plays the role of a petty thief alongside Pallavi Sharda and his parents, Rishi Kapoor and Neetu Singh. He has two other films in production for a 2014 releaseVicky Singh's romantic thriller "Roy", co-starring Jacqueline Fernandez and Arjun Rampal, and Anurag Kashyap's period film "Bombay Velvet" alongside Anushka Sharma, Raveena Tandon and Karan Johar. Kapoor will also launch a production company named Picture Shuru Productions in a collaboration with director Anurag Basu; their first productionthe comedy-mystery film "Jagga Jasoos"will feature Kapoor (alongside Katrina Kaif) in the role of a 17 year old detective. Personal life. Kapoor had his first serious relationship while in the seventh grade. He said, "I was really naive then. I didn't understand love. When that relationship ended I went into depression. I thought I would never fall in love again. Now I think I've become more realistic about love. Love is a beautiful feeling. It almost equals cinema in my list of passions." Having learnt from his parents' troubled marriage, he says that he doesn't believe in a "rose-tinted illusion of love", and is aware of "how complicated a relationship between a man and woman could be." While filming for "Bachna Ae Haseeno" in 2008, Kapoor began a romantic relationship with co-star Deepika Padukone. The relationship, which attracted substantial media coverage in India, ended the following year. Kapoor has maintained that his split with Padukone was amicable, and has since refrained from divulging details of his personal life. Tabloid reports have since romantically linked him with several women; Kapoor has categorically denied to speak about these reports (he has termed his "playboy image" as a "gross misrepresentation") but said, "I am not saying that everything is untrue but what is written is exaggerated and glamorized." In August 2013, a set of paparazzi photographs were published by "Stardust" showing Kapoor and Katrina Kaif at a beach in Spain; the press interpreted this to be proof of a relationship between Kapoor and Kaif. Kapoor is vocal about issues faced by women, and supports the empowerment of the girl child; he is the goodwill ambassador of Shabana Azmi's Mijwan Welfare Society, an NGO which helps empower women. He supports environmental charities, and in 2011 donated money to the Community Water Initiative, a charitable organisation owned by PepsiCo. In 2012 he appeared (alongside Arjun Rampal and Farhan Akhtar) in a short film by Zoya Akhtar to generate awareness on breast cancer. He is the campaign ambassador for NDTV's Marks for Sports, a nationwide initiative to promote fitness and health in India. Kapoor is a soccer enthusiast, and is the vice-captain of the All Stars Football Club, a celebrity soccer club that raises money for charity. In March 2013 he played the game to raise funds for the Magic Funds Organisation, an NGO for underprivileged children. That year he participated in an auction on eBay, where the highest bidder gets an opportunity to interact with him; the proceeds were donated to Save the Children, a non-profit organisation that raised funds for flood affected households in Uttarakhand. In the media. Born into a family of popular actors, Kapoor faced the media spotlight from a young age; "Hindustan Times" published that "he was always a star kid from whom everyone had great expectations". Despite the failure of his first film ("Saawariya"), IANS reported that he "rose like meteor on film firmament by giving compelling performances in films like "Raajneeti", "Rockstar" and [.. "Barfi!" Discussing the commercial viability of Kapoor, Apoorva Mehta (the COO of Dharma Productions) noted, "In a short career span of 10 films, Ranbir Kapoor has achieved a tremendous jump in the business done by his films. His last releases have shown a successive growth of 40% over each preceding film, clearly showing the audiences appreciation for the power house of talent." Following the major commercial success of "Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani", "The Economic Times" credited him as "the most bankable actor of his generation", and producer Siddharth Roy Kapur said that "he is no longer on the cusp of super-stardom...he's there!" Today, Kapoor is one of the most popular and high-profile celebrities in India. In 2012 "Forbes" featured him on the eleventh spot in India's Celebrity 100 list, and provided an estimate of his annual earnings to be over . Kapoor has frequently featured in Rediff.com's anuual listing of "Bollywood's Best Actors"; he was ranked second in 2009, first in 2011, and held the third position in 2012. In 2009 "People" magazine listed him as the "Sexiest Man Alive" in India, and in 2013 he topped "Filmfare"'s poll of the "Most Stylish Young Actor". That year, he was one of the recipients of the "People of the Year" award by the "Limca Book of Records". Kapoor is the celebrity endorser for various brands and services, including Pepsi, Panasonic, Docomo, and the Spanish soccer club FC Barcelona.
1041779	Dangerous Moonlight (also known as Suicide Squadron in the USA) is a 1941 British film, starring Anton Walbrook, best known for its score written by Richard Addinsell with orchestrations by Roy Douglas, which includes the "Warsaw Concerto". Among the costumes, the gowns were designed by Cecil Beaton. The film's love-story plot told mainly in flashbacks, revolves around the fictional composer of the "Warsaw Concerto", a piano virtuoso and "shell-shocked" combat pilot, who meets an American war correspondent in Warsaw, and later returns from America to join the RAF in England to continue to fight against the Nazis and their occupation of Poland.
520455	Luis Philippe Santos Manzano (born April 21, 1981), also known by his nickname Lucky, is a Filipino actor, TV host, VJ and model. He is the son of award-winning actors, Edu Manzano and Vilma Santos. He is best known for his role as Roldan in the television series . Biography. Early life. Manzano was born to parents Vilma Santos and Edu Manzano. Education. He studied at De La Salle–College of Saint Benilde in Malate, Manila, with a major in Hotel and Restaurant Institution Management. Family. Senator Ralph Recto became his step-father following his marriage to his mother. He is the half-sibling of Ryan Christian Recto. He has two other younger siblings from his father side who were Adi, 19, and Enzo, 17. Their mother is Rina Samson. Career. Manzano started his career as a commercial model for clothing brand, Human. He later pursued his TV hosting and acting career under the ABS-CBN management. He is also known to be the longest active VJ on Myx channel. He is best known for his role as Roldan in the television series . Manzano is a member of Tau Gamma Phi.
899710	Alida Valli (31 May 1921 – 22 April 2006), sometimes simply credited as Valli, stage name of Baroness "Alida Maria Laura Altenburger von Marckenstein u. Frauenberg", was an Austro-Italian actress who appeared in more than 100 films, including Mario Soldati's "Piccolo mondo antico", Alfred Hitchcock's "The Paradine Case", Carol Reed's "The Third Man", Michelangelo Antonioni's "Il Grido", Luchino Visconti's "Senso", Bernardo Bertolucci's "1900" and Dario Argento's "Suspiria". Biography. Early life. Valli was born in Pola, Istria, Italy (today Pula, Croatia; until 1918 it had been on the Adriatic coast of Austria-Hungary). Her paternal grandfather was the Baron Luigi Altenburger (also: Altempurger), an Austrian-Italian from Trento, a descendant of the Counts d'Arco; her paternal grandmother was Elisa Tomasi from Trento, a cousin of the Roman senator Ettore Tolomei. Valli's mother, Silvia Oberecker della Martina, born in Pola, was the daughter of Felix Oberecker (also: Obrekar) from Laibach, Austria (now Ljubljana, Slovenia); her mother was Virginia della Martina from Pola, Istria (then part of Austria). Valli's maternal granduncle, Rodolfo, was a close friend of Gabriele d'Annunzio. Valli was christened Baroness Alida Maria Laura Altenburger von Marckenstein-Frauenberg. She also gained the titles Dr.h.c. of the III. University of Rome, Chevalier of Arts of France and Cavaliere of the Italian Republic. Career. At fifteen, she went to Rome, where she attended the "Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia", a school for film actors and directors. At that time, she lived with her uncle Ettore Tolomei. Valli started her movie career in 1934, in "Il cappello a tre punte" ("The Three Cornered Hat") during the so-called Telefoni Bianchi cinema era. Her first big success came with the movie "Mille lire al mese". After many roles in a large number of comedies, she earned her success as dramatic actress in "Piccolo mondo antico" (1941), directed by Mario Soldati, for which she won a special Best Actress award at Venice Film Festival. During the Second World War, she starred in many movies including "Stasera niente di nuovo" (1942) (whose song "Ma l'amore no" became the leitmotif of the Italian forties) and the diptych "Noi Vivi / Addio Kira!" (1943) (based on Ayn Rand's novel "We the Living"). These latter two movies were nearly censored by the Italian government under Benito Mussolini, but they were finally permitted because the novel upon which were based was anti-Soviet. The films were successful, and the public easily realized that they were as much against Fascism as Communism. After several weeks, however, the films were pulled from theaters as the German and Italian governments, which abhorred communism, found out the story also carried an anti-fascist message. By her early 20s already widely regarded as the "most beautiful woman in the World," Valli had a career in English language films through David Selznick, who signed her to a contract, thinking that he had found a second Ingrid Bergman. In Hollywood, she performed in several movies: she was the murder suspect Maddalena Paradine in Alfred Hitchcock's "The Paradine Case" (1947), and the mysterious Czech refugee wanted by the Russians in post-war Vienna in Carol Reed's "The Third Man" (1949). But her foreign experience was not a great success, owing to the financial problems of Selznick's production company. She returned to Europe in the early 1950s, and starred in many French and Italian films. In 1954, she had great success in the melodrama "Senso", directed by Luchino Visconti. In that film, set in mid-19th century Venice during the Risorgimento, she played a Venetian countess torn between nationalistic feelings and an adulterous love for an officer (played by Farley Granger) of the occupying Austrian forces. In 1959, she appeared in Georges Franju's horror masterpiece "Les Yeux sans visage" ("Eyes Without a Face"). From the 1960s, she worked in several pictures with famous directors, such as Pier Paolo Pasolini ("Edipo re", a.k.a. "Oedipus Rex", 1967), Bernardo Bertolucci ("La strategia del ragno", 1972; "Novecento", 1976), and Dario Argento ("Suspiria", 1977). Her final movie role was in "Semana Santa" (2002), with Mira Sorvino. In Italy, she was also well known for her stage appearances in such plays as Ibsen's "Rosmersholm"; Pirandello's "Henry IV"; John Osborne's "Epitaph for George Dillon"; and Arthur Miller's "A View from the Bridge". At the 54th Venice International Film Festival in 1997 Alida Valli obtained the Golden Lion award for her career. Personal life. Her teenage love Carlo Cugnasca, a fighter pilot with Regia Aeronautica, was posted as missing after failing to return from a mission over British-held Tobruk on 14 April 1941. Valli's movie career suffered in 1953 from a scandal surrounding the death of Wilma Montesi, a fashion model whose body was found on a public beach near Ostia; prolonged investigations resulted, involving allegations of drug and sex orgies in Roman society. Among the accused – all of whom were acquitted, leaving the case unsolved – was Valli's lover, jazz musician Piero Piccioni (son of the Italian Minister of Foreign Affairs). Alida Valli had two sons with her husband Oscar de Mejo. Valli's death at her home on 22 April 2006 was announced by the office of the mayor of Rome, Walter Veltroni, whose statement read, "The Italian cinema has lost one of its most intense and striking faces". Another official statement by the Italian President Carlo Azeglio Ciampi read, "La scomparsa di Alida Valli è una grave perdita per il cinema, il teatro e la cultura italiana" ("The death of Alida Valli is a great loss for Italian cinema, theatre and culture").
581842	Atul Agnihotri is a Hindi actor and director. Career. Agnihorti's career stretches back to 1983 when he made a brief appearance as a child artist in "Pasand Apni Apni". He started his film career as an adult in 1993 with Mahesh Bhatt's "Sir". He went on to act in several other films throughout the 1990s and early 2000s with his most notable films being "Krantiveer" (1994), "" (1994) and "Hum Tumhare Hain Sanam" (2002). He made his directorial debut with the 2004 film "Dil Ne Jise Apna Kahaa" which starred his brother-in-law Salman Khan, Bhoomika Chawla, and Preity Zinta in lead roles. In 2007 he started work on his second directorial film "Hello" which starred his brother-in-law Sohail Khan, Isha Koppikar and Sharman Joshi and was released on 10 October 2008. His upcoming film is "O Teri" starring Pulkit Samrat and Sarah Jane Dias, and directed by debutant Umesh Bhisht. The production of the film is almost complete, and it is slated for a release later in the year.
1091075	Satyendra Nath Bose FRS ( "Shottendronath Boshū", ; 1 January 1894 – 4 February 1974) was an Indian physicist specializing in mathematical physics. He was born in Calcutta. He is best known for his work on quantum mechanics in the early 1920s, providing the foundation for Bose–Einstein statistics and the theory of the Bose–Einstein condensate. A Fellow of the Royal Society, the Government of India awarded him India's second highest civilian award, the Padma Vibhushan in 1954. The class of particles that obey Bose–Einstein statistics, bosons, was named after him by Paul Dirac. A self-taught scholar and a polyglot, he had a wide range of interests in varied fields including physics, mathematics, chemistry, biology, mineralogy, philosophy, arts, literature and music. He served on many research and development committees in independent India. Early life. Bose was born in Calcutta, British India (now Kolkata, West Bengal, India), the eldest of seven children. He was the only son, with six sisters after him. His ancestral home was in village Bara Jagulia, in the District of Nadia, about 48 kilometres from Calcutta. His schooling began at the age of five, near his home. When his family moved to Goabagan, he was admitted to the New Indian School. In the final year of school, he was admitted to the Hindu School. He passed his entrance examination (matriculation) in 1909 and stood fifth in the order of merit. He next joined the intermediate science course at the Presidency College, Calcutta, where he was taught by illustrious teachers as Jagadish Chandra Bose and Prafulla Chandra Ray. Meghnad Saha came from Dacca (Dhaka) and joined the same college two years later. P C Mahalanobis and Sisir Kumar Mitra were a few years senior to them. Satyendra Nath Bose chose mixed (applied) mathematics for his B.Sc. and passed the examinations standing first in 1913 and again stood first in the M.Sc. mixed mathematics exam in 1915. It is said that his marks in the MSc examination created a new record in the annals of the University of Calcutta, which is yet to be surpassed. After completing his MSc, Bose joined the University of Calcutta as a research scholar in 1916 and started his studies in the theory of relativity. It was an exciting era in the history of scientific progress. Quantum theory had just appeared on the horizon and important results had started pouring in. His father, Surendranath Bose, worked in the Engineering Department of the East Indian Railway Company. Satyendra Nath Bose married Ushabati at the age of 20. They had nine children. Two of them died in their early childhood. When he died in 1974, he left behind his wife, two sons, and five daughters. As a polyglot, he was well versed in several languages such as Bengali, English, French, German and Sanskrit as well as poetry of Lord Tennyson, Rabindranath Tagore and Kalidasa. He could also play the "esraj", a musical instrument similar to a violin. He was actively involved in running night schools that came to be known as the Working Men's Institute. Research career. Bose attended Hindu School in Calcutta, and later attended Presidency College, also in Calcutta, earning the highest marks at each institution while fellow student Meghnad Saha came second. He came in contact with teachers such as Jagadish Chandra Bose and Prafulla Chandra Ray who provided inspiration to aim high in life. From 1916 to 1921, he was a lecturer in the physics department of the University of Calcutta. Along with Saha, Bose prepared the first book in English based on German and French translations of original papers on Einstein's special and general relativity in 1919. In 1921, he joined as Reader of the department of Physics of the then recently founded University of Dhaka (now in Bangladesh) by the then Vice Chancellor of University of Calcutta Sir Ashutosh Mukherjee, himself a distinguished mathematician, a high court judge, and with strong interest in physics. Bose set up whole new departments, including laboratories, to teach advanced courses for M.Sc. and B.Sc. honors and taught thermodynamics as well as James Clerk Maxwell's theory of electromagnetism. Satyendra Nath Bose, along with Saha, presented several papers in theoretical physics and pure mathematics from 1918 onwards. In 1924, while working as a Reader at the Physics Department of the University of Dhaka, Bose wrote a paper deriving Planck’s quantum radiation law without any reference to classical physics by using a novel way of counting states with identical particles. This paper was seminal in creating the very important field of quantum statistics. Though not accepted at once for publication, he sent the article directly to Albert Einstein in Germany. Einstein, recognizing the importance of the paper, translated it into German himself and submitted it on Bose's behalf to the prestigious "Zeitschrift für Physik". As a result of this recognition, Bose was able to work for two years in European X-ray and crystallography laboratories, during which he worked with Louis de Broglie, Marie Curie, and Einstein. After his stay in Europe, Bose returned to Dhaka in 1926. He was made Head of the Department of Physics. He continued guiding and teaching at Dhaka University. Bose designed equipments himself for a X-ray crystallography laboratory. He set up laboratories and libraries to make the department a center of research in X-ray spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction, magnetic properties of matter, optical spectroscopy, wireless, and unified field theories. He also published an equation of state for real gases with Meghnad Saha. He was also the Dean of the Faculty of Science at Dhaka University until 1945. When the partition of India became imminent, he returned to Calcutta to take up the prestigious Khaira Chair and taught at University of Calcutta until 1956. He insisted every student to design his own equipment using local materials and local technicians. He was made professor emeritus on his retirement. He then became Vice Chancellor of Visva-Bharati University in Shanti Niketan. He returned to the University of Calcutta to continue research in nuclear physics and complete earlier works in organic chemistry. In subsequent years, he worked in applied research such as extraction of helium in hot springs of Bakreshwar. Apart from physics, he did some research in biotechnology and literature (Bengali, English). He made deep studies in chemistry, geology, zoology, anthropology, engineering and other sciences. Being a Bengali, he devoted a lot of time to promoting Bengali as a teaching language, translating scientific papers into it, and promoting the development of the region. Bose–Einstein statistics. There are three outcomes. What is the probability of producing two heads? Since the coins are distinct, there are two outcomes which produce a head and a tail. The probability of two heads is one-quarter. While presenting a lecture at the University of Dhaka on the theory of radiation and the ultraviolet catastrophe, Bose intended to show his students that the contemporary theory was inadequate, because it predicted results not in accordance with experimental results. In the process of describing this discrepancy, Bose for the first time took the position that the Maxwell–Boltzmann distribution would not be true for microscopic particles where fluctuations due to Heisenberg's uncertainty principle will be significant. Thus he stressed the probability of finding particles in the phase space, each state having volume , and discarding the distinct position and momentum of the particles. Bose adapted this lecture into a short article called "Planck's Law and the Hypothesis of Light Quanta" and sent it to Albert Einstein with the following letter: Einstein agreed with him, translated Bose's paper "Planck's Law and Hypothesis of Light Quanta" into German, and had it published in "Zeitschrift für Physik" under Bose's name, in 1924. The reason Bose's interpretation produced accurate results was that since photons are indistinguishable from each other, one cannot treat any two photons having equal energy as being two distinct identifiable photons. By analogy, if in an alternate universe coins were to behave like photons and other bosons, the probability of producing two heads would indeed be one-third (tail-head = head-tail). Bose's interpretation is now called Bose–Einstein statistics. This result derived by Bose laid the foundation of quantum statistics, as acknowledged by Einstein and Dirac. Einstein adopted the idea and extended it to atoms. This led to the prediction of the existence of phenomena which became known as Bose–Einstein condensate, a dense collection of bosons (which are particles with integer spin, named after Bose), which was demonstrated to exist by experiment in 1995. Although several Nobel Prizes were awarded for research related to the concepts of the boson, Bose–Einstein statistics and Bose–Einstein condensate—the latest being the 2001 Nobel Prize in Physics given for advancing the theory of Bose–Einstein condensates—Bose himself was not awarded the Nobel Prize. In his book "The Scientific Edge", physicist Jayant Narlikar observed: However, when asked about the omission, Bose himself said: Honours. In 1937, Rabindranath Tagore dedicated his only book on science, Visva–Parichay, to Satyendra Nath Bose. Bose was honoured with title Padma Vibhushan by the Indian Government in 1954. In 1959, he was appointed as the National Professor, the highest honour in the country for a scholar, a position he held for 15 years. In 1986, the S.N. Bose National Centre for Basic Sciences was established by an act of Parliament, Government of India, in Salt Lake, Calcutta. Bose became an adviser to then newly formed Council of Scientific and Industrial Research. He was the President of Indian Physical Society and the National Institute of Science. He was elected General President of the Indian Science Congress. He was the Vice President and then the President of Indian Statistical Institute. In 1958, he became a Fellow of the Royal Society. He was nominated as member of Rajya Sabha. Partha Ghose has stated that Later works. Bose's ideas were well received in the world of physics, and he was granted leave from the University of Dhaka to travel to Europe in 1924. He spent a year in France, where he worked with Marie Curie and met several other well-known scientists. He then spent another year abroad, working with Einstein in Berlin. Upon his return to Dhaka, he was made a professor in 1926. He did not have a doctorate, and so ordinarily he would not be qualified for the post, but Einstein recommended him. His work ranged from X-ray crystallography to grand unified theories. Together with Meghnad Saha, he published an equation of state for real gases. In addition to physics, he did some research in biochemistry and literature (Bengali, English). He studied other sciences—chemistry, geology, zoology, anthropology—and engineering in depth. Being of Bengali origin, he devoted time to promoting Bengali as a teaching language, translating scientific papers into it, and promoting the development of the region.
1163917	Barbara Rush (born January 4, 1927) is an American stage, film, and television actress. Career. A student at the University of California, Santa Barbara, Barbara Rush performed on stage at the Pasadena Playhouse before signing with Paramount Pictures. She made her screen debut in the 1951 movie "The Goldbergs" and went on to star opposite the likes of James Mason, Marlon Brando, Paul Newman, Richard Burton, Dean Martin, Frank Sinatra and Kirk Douglas. In 1952 she starred in "Flaming Feather" with Sterling Hayden and Victor Jory. In 1954 she won the Golden Globe Award for "Most Promising Newcomer – Female" for her performance in "It Came from Outer Space". Rush began her career on stage and it has always been a part of her professional life. In 1970, she earned the Sarah Siddons Award for dramatic achievement in Chicago theatre for her leading role in "Forty Carats" and brought her one-woman play "A Woman of Independent Means" to Broadway in 1984. She began working on television in the 1950s. She later became a regular performer in TV movies, miniseries, and a variety of other shows including "Peyton Place" and the soap opera "All My Children".
1017126	Break Up Club () is a 2010 Hong Kong romance film starring Jaycee Chan and Fiona Sit. This film revolves around a website that allows users to win back lost loves, so long as they agree to break up another happy couple. Reception. The film received generally positive reviews from the Hong Kong media. Perry Lam of "Muse" Magazine writes, 'Wong juggles a mixed bag of styles, including mockumentary and DIY video, and conjures up a teen romance that tries to tug at your heartstrings one moment, and make you laugh your head off the next.'
1142535	John Dee (13 July 1527–1608 or 1609) was a Welsh mathematician, astronomer, astrologer, occultist, navigator, imperialist and consultant to Queen Elizabeth I. He devoted much of his life to the study of alchemy, divination and Hermetic philosophy. Dee straddled the worlds of science and magic just as they were becoming distinguishable. One of the most learned men of his age, he had been invited to lecture on advanced algebra at the University of Paris while still in his early twenties. Dee was an ardent promoter of mathematics and a respected astronomer, as well as a leading expert in navigation, having trained many of those who would conduct England's voyages of discovery. Simultaneously with these efforts, Dee immersed himself in the worlds of magic, astrology and Hermetic philosophy. He devoted much time and effort in the last thirty years or so of his life to attempting to commune with angels in order to learn the universal language of creation and bring about the pre-apocalyptic unity of mankind. A student of the Renaissance Neo-Platonism of Marsilio Ficino, Dee did not draw distinctions between his mathematical research and his investigations into Hermetic magic, angel summoning and divination. Instead he considered all of his activities to constitute different facets of the same quest: the search for a transcendent understanding of the divine forms which underlie the visible world, which Dee called "pure verities". In his lifetime Dee amassed one of the largest libraries in England. His high status as a scholar also allowed him to play a role in Elizabethan politics. He served as an occasional adviser and tutor to Elizabeth I and nurtured relationships with her ministers Francis Walsingham and William Cecil. Dee also tutored and enjoyed patronage relationships with Sir Philip Sidney, his uncle Robert Dudley, 1st Earl of Leicester, and Edward Dyer. He also enjoyed patronage from Sir Christopher Hatton. Biography. Early life. Dee was born in Tower Ward, London, to a Welsh family from Radnorshire. He was the only child of his parents: Rowland, who was a mercer and minor courtier, and Joan, who was the daughter of William Wild. Dee attended the Chelmsford Chantry School from 1535 (now King Edward VI Grammar School (Chelmsford)), then – from November 1542 to 1546 – St. John's College, Cambridge. His great abilities were recognised, and he was made a founding fellow of Trinity College, where the clever stage effects he produced for a production of Aristophanes' "Peace" procured him the reputation of being a magician that clung to him through life. In the late 1540s and early 1550s, he travelled in Europe, studying at Leuven (1548) and Brussels and lecturing in Paris on Euclid. He studied with Gemma Frisius and became a close friend of the cartographer Gerardus Mercator, returning to England with an important collection of mathematical and astronomical instruments. In 1552, he met Gerolamo Cardano in London: during their acquaintance they investigated a perpetual motion machine as well as a gem purported to have magical properties. Rector at Upton-upon-Severn from 1553, Dee was offered a readership in mathematics at Oxford in 1554, which he declined; he was occupied with writing and perhaps hoped for a better position at court. In 1555, Dee became a member of the Worshipful Company of Mercers, as his father had, through the company's system of patrimony. That same year, 1555, he was arrested and charged with "calculating" for having cast horoscopes of Queen Mary and Princess Elizabeth; the charges were expanded to treason against Mary. Dee appeared in the Star Chamber and exonerated himself, but was turned over to the Catholic Bishop Bonner for religious examination. His strong and lifelong penchant for secrecy perhaps worsening matters, this entire episode was only the most dramatic in a series of attacks and slanders that would dog Dee throughout his life. Clearing his name yet again, he soon became a close associate of Bonner. Dee presented Queen Mary with a visionary plan for the preservation of old books, manuscripts and records and the founding of a national library, in 1556, but his proposal was not taken up. Instead, he expanded his personal library at his house in Mortlake, tirelessly acquiring books and manuscripts in England and on the European Continent. Dee's library, a center of learning outside the universities, became the greatest in England and attracted many scholars. When Elizabeth took the throne in 1558, Dee became her trusted advisor on astrological and scientific matters, choosing Elizabeth's coronation date himself. From the 1550s through the 1570s, he served as an advisor to England's voyages of discovery, providing technical assistance in navigation and ideological backing in the creation of a "British Empire", a term that he was the first to use. Dee wrote a letter to William Cecil, 1st Baron Burghley in October 1574 seeking patronage. He claimed to have occult knowledge of treasure on the Welsh Marches, and of ancient valuable manuscripts kept at Wigmore Castle, knowing that the Lord Treasurer's ancestors came from this area. In 1577, Dee published "General and Rare Memorials pertayning to the Perfect Arte of Navigation", a work that set out his vision of a maritime empire and asserted English territorial claims on the New World. Dee was acquainted with Humphrey Gilbert and was close to Sir Philip Sidney and his circle. In 1564, Dee wrote the Hermetic work "Monas Hieroglyphica" ("The Hieroglyphic Monad"), an exhaustive Cabalistic interpretation of a glyph of his own design, meant to express the mystical unity of all creation. He travelled to Hungary to present a copy personally to Maximilian II, Holy Roman Emperor. This work was highly valued by many of Dee's contemporaries, but the loss of the secret oral tradition of Dee's milieu makes the work difficult to interpret today. He published a "Mathematical Preface" to Henry Billingsley's English translation of Euclid's "Elements" in 1570, arguing the central importance of mathematics and outlining mathematics' influence on the other arts and sciences. Intended for an audience outside the universities, it proved to be Dee's most widely influential and frequently reprinted work. Later life. By the early 1580s, Dee was growing dissatisfied with his progress in learning the secrets of nature and with his own lack of influence and recognition. He began to turn towards the supernatural as a means to acquire knowledge. Specifically, he sought to contact angels through the use of a "scryer" or crystal-gazer, who would act as an intermediary between Dee and the angels. Dee's first attempts were not satisfactory, but, in 1582, he met Edward Kelley (then going under the name of Edward Talbot), who impressed him greatly with his abilities. Dee took Kelley into his service and began to devote all his energies to his supernatural pursuits. These "spiritual conferences" or "actions" were conducted with an air of intense Christian piety, always after periods of purification, prayer and fasting. Dee was convinced of the benefits they could bring to mankind. (The character of Kelley is harder to assess: some have concluded that he acted with complete cynicism, but delusion or self-deception are not out of the question. Kelley's "output" is remarkable for its sheer mass, its intricacy and its vividness). Dee maintained that the angels laboriously dictated several books to him this way, some in a special angelic or Enochian language. In 1583, Dee met the visiting Polish nobleman Albert Łaski, who invited Dee to accompany him on his return to Poland. With some prompting by the angels, Dee was persuaded to go. Dee, Kelley and their families left for the Continent in September 1583, but Łaski proved to be bankrupt and out of favour in his own country. Dee and Kelley began a nomadic life in Central Europe, but they continued their spiritual conferences, which Dee recorded meticulously. He had audiences with Emperor Rudolf II in Prague Castle and King Stefan Batory of Poland and attempted to convince them of the importance of his angelic communications. His meeting with the Polish King Stefan Batory took place at the royal castle at Niepołomice (near Kraków, then the capital of Poland) and was later widely analysed by Polish historians (Ryszard Zieliński, Roman Żelewski, Roman Bugaj) and writers (Waldemar Łysiak). While generally they accepted him as being a man of wide and deep knowledge they also pointed out his connections with the English monarch Elizabeth. This prompted them to conclude that the meeting could have hidden political goals. Nevertheless, the Polish King who, being a devout Catholic, was very cautious of any supernatural media, started the meeting with a statement that all prophetic revelations were finalised with the mission of Jesus Christ. He also stressed that he would take part in the event provided that there would be nothing against the teaching of the Holy Catholic Church. During a spiritual conference in Bohemia, in 1587, Kelley told Dee that the angel Uriel had ordered that the two men should share their wives. Kelley, who by that time was becoming a prominent alchemist and was much more sought-after than Dee, may have wished to use this as a way to end the spiritual conferences. The order caused Dee great anguish, but he did not doubt its genuineness and apparently allowed it to go forward, but broke off the conferences immediately afterwards and did not see Kelley again. Dee returned to England in 1589. Final years. Dee returned to his summer beach house after six years to find his library ruined and many of his prized books and instruments stolen. He sought support from Elizabeth, who finally made him Warden of Christ's College, Manchester, in 1595. This former College of Priests had been re-established as a Protestant institution by a Royal Charter of 1578. However, he could not exert much control over the Fellows, who despised or cheated him. Early in his tenure, he was consulted on the demonic possession of seven children, but took little interest in the matter, although he did allow those involved to consult his still extensive library. He left Manchester in 1605 to return to London; however, he remained Warden until his death. By that time, Elizabeth was dead, and James I, unsympathetic to anything related to the supernatural, provided no help. Dee spent his final years in poverty at Mortlake, forced to sell off various of his possessions to support himself and his daughter, Katherine, who cared for him until the end. He died in Mortlake late in 1608 or early 1609 aged 82 (there are no extant records of the exact date as both the parish registers and Dee's gravestone are missing). In 2013 a memorial plaque to Dee was placed on the south wall of the present church.
1060398	Sir Alain Arthur Bates, (17 February 1934 – 27 December 2003) was an English actor who came to prominence in the 1960s, a time of high creativity in British cinema, when he appeared in films ranging from the popular children's story "Whistle Down the Wind" to the "kitchen sink" drama "A Kind of Loving". He is also known for his performance with Anthony Quinn in "Zorba the Greek", as well as his roles in "King of Hearts", "Georgy Girl", "Far From the Madding Crowd", and "The Fixer", which gave him an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor. In 1969, he starred in the Ken Russell film "Women in Love" with Oliver Reed and Glenda Jackson. Bates went on to star in "The Go-Between", "An Unmarried Woman", "Nijinsky", and "The Rose" with Bette Midler, as well as playing varied roles in television drama, including "The Mayor of Casterbridge", Harold Pinter's "The Collection", "A Voyage Round My Father", "An Englishman Abroad" (as Guy Burgess), and "Pack of Lies". He also continued to appear on the stage, notably in the plays of Simon Gray, such as "Butley" and "Otherwise Engaged". Early life. Bates was born at the Queen Mary Nursing Home, Darley Abbey, Derby, England, on 17 February 1934, the eldest of three sons of Florence Mary (née Wheatcroft), a housewife and a pianist, and Harold Arthur Bates, an insurance broker and a cellist, who lived in Allestree, Derby at the time. The family briefly moved to Mickleover, then returned to Allestree. Both of his parents were amateur musicians, and encouraged him to pursue music, but by age 11, young Bates already had determined his life's course as an actor, and so they sent him for dramatic coaching instead. He also saw productions at Derby's Little Theatre. He was educated at the Herbert Strutt Grammar School, Derby Road, Belper, Derbyshire (now 'Strutts', a volunteer led Business & Community Centre) and later gained a scholarship to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London, where he studied with Albert Finney and Peter O'Toole, before leaving to join the RAF for National Service at RAF Newton. Career. Bates' stage debut was in 1955, in "You and Your Wife", in Coventry. In 1956, Bates debuted in London in the West End as Cliff in "Look Back in Anger", a role he had originated at the Royal Court and which made him a star. He also played the role on television (for the "ITV Playhouse") and on Broadway. In the late 1950s, he appeared in several plays for television in Britain. In 1960, he appeared in "The Entertainer" opposite Laurence Olivier, his first film role. Bates worked for the "Padded Wagon Moving Company" in the early 1960s while acting at the "Circle in the Square Theatre" in New York City. Throughout the 1960s he starred in several major films including "Whistle Down the Wind" (1961), "A Kind of Loving" (1962), "Zorba the Greek" (1964), Philippe de Broca's "King of Hearts" (1966), "Georgy Girl" (1966), "Far From the Madding Crowd" (1967), and in the Bernard Malamud film "The Fixer" (1968), which gave him an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor. In 1969, he starred in "Women in Love". Bates was handpicked by director John Schlesinger (with whom he had previously worked on "A Kind of Loving" and "Far From The Madding Crowd") to star in the film "Sunday Bloody Sunday" (1971) in the role of Dr. Daniel Hirsh. Bates was held up filming "The Go-Between" (1970) for director Joseph Losey, and had also become a father around that time, and so he had to pass on the project. (The part then went first to Ian Bannen, who balked at kissing and simulating sex with another man, and then to Peter Finch, who earned an Academy Award nomination for the role.) Around this time he appeared as Col. Vershinin in the National Theatre's film of "Three Sisters", directed by and co-starring Laurence Olivier. "Laurence Olivier Presents" episode of Harold Pinter's "The Collection" (1976) and "A Voyage Round My Father" (1982) were later television work with Olivier, Bates starred in such international films as "An Unmarried Woman" (1978), "Nijinsky" (1980), and also played Bette Midler's ruthless business manager in the film "The Rose" (1979). On television, his parts included Michael Henchard, the ultimately disgraced lead in "The Mayor of Casterbridge" (1978), his favourite role he said, in the serial adaptation by Dennis Potter. Two diametrically opposed roles were in "An Englishman Abroad" (1983), as Guy Burgess, a member of the Cambridge spy ring by then exiled in Moscow, and "Pack of Lies" (1987), in which he played a British Secret Service agent tracking several Soviet spies. He continued working in film and television in the 1990s, including the role of Claudius in Mel Gibson's version of "Hamlet" (1990), though most of his roles in this era were more low-key.
1044658	Peter Wilton Cushing, OBE (26 May 191311 August 1994) was an English actor known for his many appearances in Hammer Films, in which he played the sinister scientist Baron Frankenstein, Sherlock Holmes and the vampire hunter Dr. Van Helsing, among many other roles. He appeared frequently opposite Christopher Lee, and occasionally Vincent Price. A familiar face on both sides of the Atlantic, Cushing's best-known roles outside the Hammer productions include Grand Moff Tarkin in ' (1977) and Dr. Who in "Dr. Who and the Daleks" (1965) and ' (1966), films based on the "Doctor Who" television series. Early life and career. Cushing was born in Kenley, Surrey, the second son of George Edward Cushing and Nellie Maria (née King) Cushing. Shortly after his birth, the family moved to Dulwich, South London. After the end of the First World War, they returned close to Kenley; this time to neighbouring Purley, Surrey, where in 1926 his quantity surveyor father built Clearview, an Art Deco house on St James Road. It was here that Cushing remained until early adulthood. Educated at Shoreham College, Cushing left his first job as a surveyor's assistant to take up a scholarship at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. After working in repertory theatre in Worthing, Sussex, he left for Hollywood in 1939, debuting in "The Man in the Iron Mask" later that year, before returning to England in 1941 after starring in several films. In one, "A Chump at Oxford" (1940), he appeared opposite Laurel and Hardy. His first major film role was that of Osric in Laurence Olivier's "Hamlet" (1948). In the 1950s, he worked in television, notably as Winston Smith in the BBC's 1954 adaptation of the George Orwell novel "Nineteen Eighty-Four" (1949), scripted by Nigel Kneale. Cushing was highly praised for his performance, although he considered his acting in the surviving version of the broadcast — it was performed live twice in one week, then a common practice, and only the second version exists in the archives — to be inferior to the first. Among other TV appearances, Cushing starred as Fitzwilliam Darcy in the BBC's production of "Pride and Prejudice" (1952), as King Richard II in "Richard of Bordeaux" (1955), and as Raan, a Prospero-like character, in "" (1975), an episode of "". He also appeared in "The Avengers" and its successor series, "The New Avengers". In 1956, he received the British Academy Television Award for Best Actor. Hammer Horror and "Doctor Who". Cushing is well known for playing Baron Victor Frankenstein and Professor Van Helsing in a long series of horror films produced by Hammer Film Productions in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. He was often cast alongside Christopher Lee, who became his best friend. His first appearances in his two most famous roles were in Terence Fisher's films "The Curse of Frankenstein" (1957) and "Dracula" (1958). He later said that his career decisions entailed selecting roles where he knew that he would be accepted by the audience. "Who wants to see me as Hamlet? Very few. But millions want to see me as Frankenstein, so that's the one I do." Cushing also played Sherlock Holmes many times, originally in Hammer's "The Hound of the Baskervilles" (1959), the first Holmes adaptation to be filmed in colour. This was followed by a performance in 16 episodes of the BBC series "Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes" (1968), of which only six episodes survive. Cushing reprised the role, now playing the detective in old age, in "The Masks of Death" (1984) for Channel 4. In the mid-1960s, Cushing played Dr. Who in two films ("Dr. Who and the Daleks" and "") based on the BBC science-fiction TV series "Doctor Who". He decided to play the part as a lovable and avuncular figure to counter the public's image of him as a horror actor. In an interview published in "ABC Film Review" in November 1964, Cushing stated, "People look at me as if I were some sort of monster, but I can't think why. In my macabre pictures, I have either been a monster-maker or a monster-destroyer, but never a monster. Actually, I'm a gentle fellow. Never harmed a fly. I love animals, and when I'm in the country I'm a keen bird-watcher." In an interview published in 1966, he added, "I do get terribly tired with the neighbourhood kids telling me 'My mum says she wouldn't want to meet you in a dark alley'." Personal life. In 1971, Cushing withdrew from the filming of "Blood from the Mummy's Tomb" following the death of his wife, actress Violet Helene Beck (8 February 190514 January 1971), to whom he had been married since 1943. The following year, he was quoted in the "Radio Times" as having said, "Since Helen passed on I can't find anything; the heart, quite simply, has gone out of everything. Time is interminable, the loneliness is almost unbearable and the only thing that keeps me going is the knowledge that my dear Helen and I will be reunited again some day. To join Helen is my only ambition. You have my permission to publish that ... really, you know, dear boy, it's all just killing time. Please say that." In his autobiography, Cushing implies that he attempted suicide on the night of his wife's death by running up and down stairs in the vain hope that it would induce a heart attack. He later stated that this had simply been a hysterical response borne out of grief, and that he had not purposely attempted to end his life; a poem left by Helen had implored him not to die until he had lived his life to the full, and he had resolved that to commit suicide would have meant letting her down. Although he did not consider himself a religious person, Cushing maintained strong ethics. The effects of his wife's death proved to be as much physical as mental. For his role in "Dracula AD 1972", Cushing had originally been cast as the father of Stephanie Beacham's character, but had aged so visibly and lost so much weight that the script was hastily re-written to make him her grandfather. In a silent tribute to Helen, a shot of Van Helsing's desk includes a photograph of her. In 1986, Cushing appeared on the BBC TV show "Jim'll Fix It", his wish being to have a strain of rose named after Helen; the "Helen Cushing Rose" was the result. Later career. "Star Wars". In 1976, Cushing was cast in "" in the part of Grand Moff Tarkin. He was presented with ill-fitting riding boots, which pinched his feet so much that he was given permission by director George Lucas to play the role wearing his slippers. The camera operators filmed him only from the knees up, or else standing behind the table of the Death Star conference room set. "Morecambe and Wise". Following "Star Wars", Cushing continued to appear sporadically in film and television, as his health permitted. In 1969, he had appeared in a comedy play by Ernie Wise on "The Morecambe and Wise Show" on BBC2. Throughout the BBC era of the show, he would regularly join Wise and his comic partner, Eric Morecambe, on stage; he would constantly seek payment for his first appearance, wearily asking "Have you got my five pounds yet?" This running joke continued when the duo left the BBC and moved to Thames Television in 1978. Cushing appeared in their first special for Thames Television on 18 October, still asking to be paid, with the hosts repeatedly trying to get rid of him; at the end of the show, Morecambe placed some money in a wallet wired up to a bomb, in an attempt to blow Cushing up in exaggerated comedic style. In the duo's Christmas special, Cushing pretended to be the Prime Minister while Morecambe and Wise caroled outside 10 Downing Street; he made the comedians give him money and finally came out to declare "paid, at last!" Wise was a guest for Cushing's appearance on "This Is Your Life" in 1989. He promptly presented Cushing with a five pound note, only to extort it back from him. Cushing was delighted and exclaimed "All these years and I still haven't got my fiver!" Later life and death. Cushing was diagnosed with prostate cancer in 1982, but managed to survive for 12 years without surgery, although his health remained fragile. In 1989, he was made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire, although his friend Christopher Lee publicly opined that the honour was "too little, too late". Cushing retired to Whitstable, on the Kent coast, where he had bought a seafront home in 1959, and continued his hobby of birdwatching while writing two autobiographies. He also worked as a painter, specialising in watercolours, and wrote and illustrated a children's book of Lewis Carroll-style humour, "The Bois Saga". He was the patron of the Vegetarian Society from 1987 until his death. Cushing's final professional commitment was the co-narration of the TV documentary "Flesh and Blood: The Hammer Heritage of Horror", produced by American writer and director Ted Newsom. His contribution was recorded in Canterbury, near his home. The programme was broadcast only a few days before his death on 11 August 1994, aged 81. In an interview included on the DVD release of "The Hound of the Baskervilles" (1959), Lee said of his friend's death: "I don't want to sound gloomy, but, at some point of your lives, every one of you will notice that you have in your life one person, one friend whom you love and care for very much. That person is so close to you that you are able to share some things only with him. For example, you can call that friend, and from the very first maniacal laugh or some other joke you will know who is at the other end of that line. We used to do that with him so often. And then when that person is gone, there will be nothing like that in your life ever again."
1090999	Daniel Bernoulli FRS (; Swiss ; 8 February 1700 – 17 March 1782) was a Swiss mathematician and physicist and was one of the many prominent mathematicians in the Bernoulli family. He is particularly remembered for his applications of mathematics to mechanics, especially fluid mechanics, and for his pioneering work in probability and statistics. His name is commemorated in the Bernoulli principle, a particular example of the conservation of energy, which describes the mathematics of the mechanism underlying the operation of two important technologies of the 20th century: the carburetor and the airplane wing. Bernoulli's work is still studied at length by many schools of science throughout the world. Early life. Daniel Bernoulli was born in Groningen, in the Netherlands, into a family of distinguished mathematicians.
1028855	Isaiah Washington IV (born August 3, 1963) is an American actor. A veteran of several Spike Lee films, Washington is best known for his role as Dr. Preston Burke on the ABC medical drama "Grey's Anatomy" from 2005 until 2007. Personal life. Washington was born in Houston, Texas, where his parents were residents in the Houston Heights community. His parents moved to Missouri City, Texas around 1980, where he was one of the first graduates from Willowridge High School, Houston, in 1981. Washington revealed in an interview with Star Jones that his father, after whom he was named, was murdered when he was 13 years old. Washington went on to serve in the United States Air Force and attended Howard University. Washington married Jenisa Marie Garland on February 14, 1996. The couple have three children (Isaiah V, Tyme, and Iman). Career. "Grey's Anatomy". In 2005, Washington originated the role of gifted cardiothoracic surgeon Dr. Preston Burke on the ABC medical drama "Grey's Anatomy". His portrayal earned him two NAACP Image Awards for Outstanding Actor in a Drama Series, as well as a Screen Actors Guild Award. He was paired onscreen with Sandra Oh, who plays intern Dr. Cristina Yang. Washington had originally auditioned for the role of Dr. Derek Shepherd, which ultimately went to Patrick Dempsey. Burke had originally been described as a nebbishy, stout forty-something man. For his portrayal of Dr. Burke, Isaiah was honored by "TV Guide" as one of "TV's Sexiest Men" in June 2006, and was named one of TV's sexiest doctors in June 2008 on "TV Guide"s television channel. Prior to the "TV Guide" honor, Isaiah was named as one of "People"s "50 Beautiful People" in May 2006. Dismissal. In the show's third season, Washington became a central figure in a widely reported backstage controversy. In October 2006, rumors surfaced that Washington had insulted co-star T.R. Knight with a homophobic slur. Shortly after the details of the argument became public, Knight publicly disclosed that he was gay. The situation seemed somewhat resolved when Washington issued a statement, apologizing for his "unfortunate use of words during the recent incident on-set". The controversy later resurfaced when the cast appeared at the Golden Globes in January 2007. While being interviewed on the red carpet prior to the awards, Washington joked, "I love gay. I wanted to be gay. Please let me be gay." After the show won Best Drama, Washington, in response to press queries as to any conflicts backstage, said, "I never called T.R. a faggot." However, in an interview with Ellen DeGeneres on "The Ellen DeGeneres Show," Knight said that "everybody heard him". After being rebuked by his studio, Touchstone Television (now ABC Studios), Washington issued a statement apologizing at length for using the epithet in an argument with Patrick Dempsey. On January 30, 2007, a source told "People" magazine that Washington was scheduled to return to the "Grey's Anatomy" set as early on that Thursday for the first time since entering "executive counseling" after making the comments at the Golden Globes. However, on June 7, 2007, ABC announced it had decided not to renew Washington's contract, and that he would be dropped from the show. "I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore," Washington said in a statement released by his publicist, borrowing the famous line from "Network". In another report, Washington stated he was planning to "spend the summer pursuing charity work in Sierra Leone, work on an independent film and avoid worrying about the show." Washington, in late June 2007, began asserting that racism within the media was a factor in his firing from the series. On July 2, 2007, Washington appeared on "Larry King Live" on CNN, to present his side of the controversy. According to Washington, he never used the "F Word" in reference to Knight, but rather told Dempsey to stop treating him like a "F-word" during an argument "provoked" by Dempsey, who, he felt, was treating him like a "B-word," a "P-word," and the "F-word," which Washington said conveyed "somebody who is being weak and afraid to fight back." In July 2007, NBC decided to cast Washington as a guest star in a story arc in its new series "Bionic Woman". NBC co-chairman Ben Silverman noted his eagerness to work with Washington, saying it would be "like A-Rod leaving the Yankees in midseason." However, "Bionic Woman" was cancelled after only 8 episodes due to low ratings. Washington himself said that his dismissal from "Grey's Anatomy" was an unfortunate misunderstanding that he was eager to move past. By the beginning of the next season of "Grey's Anatomy", Washington's character 'Burke' had left the show following the end of the season finale. Recent work. Now focusing his efforts off-screen, Washington is a dedicated supporter of Sierra Leone. In November 2007, Washington and the Gondobay Manga Foundation opened its first school, Chief Foday Golia Memorial School, in the Njala Kendema village for 150 students in grades K-5. The new school, named in honor of the former leader of the village, replaces two grass huts not suited for occupants. In addition to building the school, Washington and the Gondobay Manga Foundation (an organization he founded that takes its name from the Sierra Leonean chieftaincy that he was awarded in 2011) advocate cooperative planning to achieve positive, timely improvements in the lives of the people of Sierra Leone. Washington has also been involved in the computer reconstruction efforts of Bunce Island, having donated $25,000 to the project. At the helm of the initiative are James Madison University professors Joseph Opala and Gary Chatelain, a historian and computer artist who are using their expertise to reconstruct the slave castle as it appeared in the year 1805. Their computer image will eventually serve as an educational tool for scholars. Washington served honorably in the United States Air Force. Active in promoting the arts, he hosted the recent 16th Annual Pan-African Film Festival. Washington was the Master of Ceremonies for the first White House Summit on Malaria to fight the war against malaria in 15 African countries. On September 25, 2008, Washington attended the 63rd United Nations General Assembly in New York City as an advisor to President Ernest Bai Koroma of the Republic of Sierra Leone. Washington served as a member of the President's personal delegation while the newly democratically elected President addressed the United Nations for the first time. The following day, President Koroma traveled to Washington, D.C. and took private meetings with Congressman Donald Payne and Congressman John Conyers, Jr. at the recommendation of Washington. Inspired by his first visit to the United States and Washington, D.C., Koroma announced at the Willard Hotel before his key Ministers, that he would grant Washington full citizenship and issue him his official Sierra Leone passport. This historical citizenship declaration made Washington the first African-American to receive such an honor and President Ernest Bai Koroma the first African President to perform such an act. Finalized on April 26, 2010, it concluded a longtime dream of dual citizenship for African-Americans by Pan African pioneers such as W.E.B. DuBois, Kwame Nkrumah, Martin Luther King, Jr., Adam Clayton Powell, Jr., Horace Mann Bond, Ralph Bunche, Malcolm X, Marcus Garvey, Edward Wilmot Blyden and Rev. Leon H. Sullivan. In 2010, Washington became an Honorary Board Member of the Seattle-based non-profit The Borgen Project, an organization that advocates global poverty legislation. Isaiah Washington has written a book called “A Man from Another Land.” The book chronicles Washington’s early life, his TV and Film Career, and his search to find his roots after going through a DNA test that showed his ancestors came from Sierra Leone, West Africa. Since learning about his history, Washington has traveled to Sierra Leone, donated medical supplies to a hospital there, and built a school. In Freetown, Sierra Leone, in April, 2011 Sierra Leoneans around the world came together for the historic celebration of the country's 50th Independence, which Isaiah Washington joined, and presented President Ernest Koroma a signed copy of his new book, "A Man from Another Land." On December 29, 2011 Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey received Isaiah Washington, his wife Jenisa Washington and three children at the Justice and Development (AK Party) Headquarter's in Ankara, Turkey. Speaking to reporters at his arrival, Washington said that he came to Ankara to meet with the Prime Minister. "I am a big fan of Erdogan. I support his philosophy based on peace and prosperity. I will share my views on Sierra Leone and Africa with him." Later, after a one-hour meeting, Washington said that the meeting was fruitful. Isaiah Washington will play the role of Chancellor Jaha in The 100, an upcoming American post-apocalyptic drama television series that is expected to air on The CW Television Network during the 2013-14 American television season. The series is based on a book of the same name, the first in a series by Kass Morgan, and developed by Jason Rothenberg. Washington also stars in the upcoming movie "Blue Caprice", a film inspired by the Beltway sniper attacks during which two men, John Muhammed (Isaiah Washington) and Lee Malvo (Tequan Richmond), conducted a siege of terror on the Washington D.C. area. The film is set to be in theaters on September 13, 2013. Genealogical inquiry. Washington is of African descent. A genealogical DNA test conducted by African Ancestry, Inc. revealed that Washington's maternal ancestry can be traced to what is now Sierra Leone, and that he has an ancestral link to the Mende and Temne peoples there. In May 2006 he visited Sierra Leone, and received a warm welcome from the local people. He travelled to Sierra Leone in May 2006 marking the beginning of his charity work and was granted Sierra Leonean Citizenship, making him the first African American to be granted full citizenship based on DNA. His paternal ancestry links him to the Mbundu people, an ethnic group in Angola. Awards and nominations. Image Awards Screen Actors Guild Awards
1165754	John Rollin Lupton (August 23, 1928 - November 3, 1993) was an American film and television actor. Biography. Upon graduation from New York's American Academy of Dramatic Arts, Lupton secured immediate stage work. Then he was signed as a contract player at MGM in Hollywood. Lupton was lanky and handsome like James Stewart or Henry Fonda but never achieved similar fame. In feature films, Lupton is primarily remembered for his role as "Sister Mary" in "Battle Cry" and "Jesse James Meets Frankenstein's Daughter". Lupton co-starred in 1956 with Fess Parker in Disney's "The Great Locomotive Chase", and in 1959 played a struggling writer in "The Rebel Set".
1060455	Anne of the Thousand Days is a 1969 British costume drama made by Hal Wallis Productions and distributed by Universal Pictures. It was directed by Charles Jarrott and produced by Hal B. Wallis. The film tells the story of Anne Boleyn. The screenplay is an adaptation by Bridget Boland, John Hale and Richard Sokolove of the 1948 play by Maxwell Anderson; Anderson's blank verse format was retained for only portions of the screenplay, such as Anne's soliloquy in the Tower of London, but then again, Anderson did not use blank verse throughout the play either, only in portions of it. The opening of the play was also changed, with Thomas Cromwell telling Henry VIII the outcome of the trial and Henry then recalling his marriage to Anne, rather than Anne speaking first and then Henry remembering in flashback. The film stars Richard Burton as King Henry VIII and Geneviève Bujold as Anne Boleyn. Irene Papas plays Catherine of Aragon. Others in the cast include Anthony Quayle, John Colicos, Michael Hordern, Katharine Blake, Peter Jeffrey, Joseph O'Conor, William Squire, Vernon Dobtcheff, Denis Quilley, Esmond Knight and T. P. McKenna. Elizabeth Taylor makes a brief, uncredited appearance. Despite receiving some negative reviews and a mixed, but complimentary review from the "New York Times" and one from Pauline Kael, the film was nominated for ten Academy Awards and won the award for best costumes. Geneviève Bujold's portrayal of Anne, her first in an English-speaking film, was, however, very highly praised, even by "Time" magazine, which otherwise skewered the movie. According to the Academy Awards exposé "Inside Oscar", an expensive advertising campaign was mounted by Universal Studios that included serving champagne and filet mignon to members of the Academy following each screening. Background and production. The play "Anne of the Thousand Days", the film's basis, was first enacted on Broadway in the Shubert Theatre on 8 December 1948; staged by H. C. Potter, with Rex Harrison and Joyce Redman as Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn respectively, running 288 performances; Harrison won a Tony Award for his performance. Cinematically, "Anne of the Thousand Days" took twenty years to reach the screen because its themes – adultery, illegitimacy, incest – were then unacceptable to the US motion picture production code. The film was made on such locations as Penshurst Place and Hever Castle, and at Pinewood and Shepperton Studios. Hever Castle was one of the main settings for the film; it was also the childhood home of Anne Boleyn. The stunning formal Tudor gardens provided the perfect setting for the film. Plot. The film begins in 1536 when Henry VIII (Richard Burton) considers whether or not he should sign the warrant for the execution of his second wife, Anne Boleyn: then, in a long flashback which takes up virtually the entire film, the whole truth is revealed. Starting in 1527, Henry has a problem: he reveals his dissatisfaction with his wife, Catherine of Aragon (Irene Papas). He is currently enjoying a discreet affair with Mary Boleyn, a daughter of Sir Thomas Boleyn who is one of his courtiers; but the King is bored with her too. At a court ball, he notices Mary's 18-year-old sister Anne (Geneviève Bujold), who has just returned from her education in France. She is engaged to the son of the Earl of Northumberland and they have received their parents' permission to marry. The King, however, is enraptured with Anne's beauty and orders his Lord Chancellor, Cardinal Wolsey, to break up the engagement. When news of this decision is carried to Anne, she reacts furiously. She blames the Cardinal and the King for ruining her happiness. When Henry makes a rather clumsy attempt to seduce her, Anne bluntly informs him how she finds him: "I've heard what your courtiers say and I've seen what you are. You're spoiled and vengeful and bloody. Your poetry is sour and your music is worse. You make love as you eat with a good deal of noise and no subtlety." Henry brings her back to Court with him, whilst she continues to resist his advances out of a mixture of repugnance for Henry and her lingering anger over her broken engagement. However, she becomes intoxicated with the power that the King's love gives her. "Power is as exciting as love," she tells her brother George Boleyn, "and who has more of it than the king?" Using this power, she continually undermines Cardinal Wolsey (Anthony Quayle), who at first sees Anne as just a passing love interest for the King. When Henry again presses Anne to become his mistress, she repeats that she will never give birth to a child who is illegitimate. Desperate to have a son, Henry suddenly comes up with the idea of marrying Anne in Catherine's place. Anne is stunned, but she agrees. Wolsey begs the King to abandon the idea because of the political consequences of divorcing Catherine. Henry refuses to listen. When Wolsey fails to persuade the Pope to give Henry his divorce, Anne points out this failing to an enraged Henry. Wolsey is dismissed from office and his magnificent palace in London is given as a present to Anne. In this splendour, Anne realises that she has finally fallen in love with Henry. They sleep together and, after discovering that she is pregnant, they are secretly married. Anne is given a splendid coronation, but the people jeer at her in disgust as "the king's whore". Months later, Anne gives birth to a daughter: Princess Elizabeth. Henry is displeased since he was hoping for a boy, and their marital relationship begins to cool. His attentions are soon diverted to Lady Jane Seymour, one of Anne's maids. Once she discovers this liaison, Anne banishes Jane from court. "She has the face of a simpering sheep," she informs Henry, "and the manners, but 'not' the morals. I don't want her near me." During a row over Sir Thomas More's opposition to Anne's queenship, Anne refuses to sleep with her husband unless More is put to death. "It's his blood, or else it's my blood and Elizabeth's!" she cries hysterically. More is put to death, but Anne's subsequent pregnancy ends as a result of a stillborn boy. Henry demands that his new minister, Thomas Cromwell, find a way to get rid of Anne. Cromwell tortures a servant in her household into confessing to adultery with the Queen; he then arrests four other courtiers who are also accused of being Anne's lovers. Anne is taken to the Tower and placed under arrest. When she is told that she has been accused of adultery, she laughs. "I thought you were serious!" she says, before being informed that it is deadly serious. When she sees her brother being brought into the Tower, Anne asks why he has been arrested. "He too is accused of being your lover," mutters her embarrassed uncle. Anne's face shudders with horror before she whispers, "Incest?... Oh God help me, the King is mad. I am doomed." At Anne's trial, she manages to cross-question Mark Smeaton, the tortured servant who finally admits that the charges against Anne are lies. Henry makes an appearance, before visiting Anne in her chambers that night. He offers her freedom if she will agree to annul their marriage and make their daughter illegitimate. Anne refuses, saying that she would rather die than betray their daughter. Henry slaps her before telling her that her disobedience will mean her death. Moving back to 1536, Henry decides to execute Anne. A few days later, Anne is taken to the scaffold and beheaded by a French swordsman. Henry rides off to marry Jane Seymour and the film's final shot is of their young daughter, Elizabeth (Amanda Jane Smythe), toddling alone in the garden as she hears the cannon firing to announce her mother's death.
1742825	According to Miyazaki, the movie touches on the gulf that exists between independence and reliance in Japanese teenage girls. The film was released on July 22, 1989, and won the Animage Anime Grand Prix prize. Disney recorded an English dub in 1997, which premiered theatrically in the United States at the Seattle International Film Festival on May 23, 1998. It was released on home video in the U.S. and Canada on September 1, 1998. Plot. Kiki is a young 13-year-old witch living in a village where her mother is the resident herbalist. Traditionally, witches live alone for a year when they reach the age of 13. One night, Kiki takes off for the big city with her best friend Jiji, a talkative black cat. Kiki settles in Koriko, a port city. After a hard start, mostly due to her own insecurity, Kiki makes friends and finds a place to stay. However, Kiki discovers that her only skill as a witch is her ability to fly a broom, at which she is still not fully proficient. To support herself, she begins a delivery service at Gütiokipänja Bakery, a bakery owned by Osono and her husband Fukuo. During her time in Koriko, Kiki experiences setbacks and must contend with adolescent worries. She is pursued by Tombo, a local boy who is crazy about aviation. Tombo not only has a strong respect for Kiki's flying abilities, but also a strong liking for her as a girl. Kiki eventually warms up to him, but after a brief encounter with Tombo's friends, some of whom she had met earlier under unfavourable circumstances, Kiki's insecurities come back into play, and she goes into depression. Because of her depression, Kiki loses her powers to fly and also to speak with Jiji. Fortunately, one of her friends, a young painter named Ursula, invites her to stay in her forest cottage, where she decides Kiki's current crisis is "some form of artist's block." Due to her disappointment with her new, independent life Kiki loses her optimism, and her powers; however if she can find a new purpose, she will be able to reclaim what she has lost. Regaining her spirit, Kiki returns to the city. While visiting one of her customers, she witnesses an airship (dirigible) accident on the television. A strong and sudden gust of wind blows, and Tombo is lifted into the air and blown away hanging from the dirigible. Kiki pushes herself to regain her flying ability and uses a street-sweeper's push broom to fly to Tombo and the dirigible accident. Kiki is able to regain her full power and rescue Tombo. Later, Kiki becomes a local celebrity and flies in formation with Tombo on his human-powered aircraft, a propeller-rigged bicycle. Kiki sends a letter to her parents about gaining confidence through difficulties and that she has decided to make Koriko her new home. Production. Development of "Kiki’s Delivery Service" began in the spring of 1987, when Group Fudosha asked the publishers of Eiko Kadono’s book if they could adapt it into a featured film directed by Hayao Miyazaki or Isao Takahata of Studio Ghibli. Due to the approval of Miyazaki’s film "My Neighbor Totoro" and Takahata’s film "Grave of the Fireflies" for production, neither Miyazaki nor Takahata was available to take up the direction of the project at the moment. Miyazaki took up the role as producer of the film while the position of director was still unfilled. During the start of the film's production and the nearing of "Totoro"'s completion, members of Studio Ghibli were being recruited for senior staff for "Kiki’s Delivery Service". The character design position was given to Katsuya Kondo, who was working with Miyazaki on "Totoro". Hiroshi Ohno, who would later work on projects such as "Jin-Roh", was hired as art director, partly because he was requested by Kazuo Oga, who was part of Miyazaki's "Totoro" team as well. Although many positions had been filled, the project still lacked a director. Miyazaki, busy with "Totoro", looked at many directors himself, but found none he thought fit to articulate the project. Finally they found a director, Sunao Katabuchi (which was to be his directorial debut) who had previously worked with Miyazaki on "Sherlock Hound". Ghibli hired Nobuyuki Isshiki to write the script but Miyazaki was dissatisfied by the first draft, finding it dry and too divergent from his own vision of the film. Studio Ghibli rejected this draft of the screenplay as a result. Eventually, when "Totoro" was finished and released, Miyazaki began to look more closely at "Kiki’s Delivery Service". He started by writing a screenplay himself, and since the novel was based in a fictional country in northern Europe, he and the senior staff went to research landscapes and other elements of the setting. Their main stops were Stockholm and the Swedish island of Gotland. Eventually Miyazaki took over as director when Katabuchi got intimidated. The original Japanese opening theme is , and the ending theme is , both performed by Yumi Matsutoya (credited as Yumi Arai). Inspiration for Koriko. Miyazaki has noted that the town of Visby on the island of Gotland, Sweden is the main visual inspiration for the city of Koriko. Fictional Koriko is, however, much larger than Visby. Generally the buildings and shops have the look of Stockholm, or the old town of a Central European city such as Munich.
394308	Untold Scandal (; lit. "Scandal: The Love Story of Men and Women in Joseon") is a 2003 South Korean romantic drama film directed by E J-yong, and starring Bae Yong-joon, Jeon Do-yeon, and Lee Mi-sook. Based on the 18th century French novel "Les Liaisons dangereuses", this adaptation takes place in late 18th century Korea, during the Joseon dynasty.
63941	Nicole Oresme (pronounced ) (c. 1320–1325 – July 11, 1382), also known as Nicolas Oresme, Nicholas Oresme, or Nicolas d'Oresme, was a significant philosopher of the later Middle Ages. He wrote influential works on economics, mathematics, physics, astrology and astronomy, philosophy, and theology; was Bishop of Lisieux, a translator, a counselor of King Charles V of France, and probably one of the most original thinkers of the 14th century. Oresme's life. Nicole Oresme was born c. 1320-1325 in the village of Allemagne (today's Fleury-sur-Orne) in the vicinity of Caen, Normandy, in the diocese of Bayeux. Practically nothing is known concerning his family. The fact that Oresme attended the royally sponsored and subsidized College of Navarre, an institution for students too poor to pay their expenses while studying at the University of Paris, makes it probable that he came from a peasant family. Oresme studied the "artes" in Paris, together with Jean Buridan (the so-called founder of the French school of natural philosophy), Albert of Saxony and perhaps Marsilius of Inghen, and there received the Magister Artium. He was already a regent master in arts by 1342, during the crisis over William of Ockham's natural philosophy. In 1348, he was a student of theology in Paris, in 1356, he received his doctorate and in the same year he became grand master ("grand-maître") of the College of Navarre. In 1364 he was appointed dean of the Cathedral of Rouen. Around 1369 he began a series of translations of Aristotelian works at the request of Charles V, who granted him a pension in 1371 and, with royal support, was appointed bishop of Lisieux in 1377. It was in this city that he died in 1382. Oresme's scientific work. Cosmology. In his "Livre du ciel et du monde" Oresme discussed a range of evidence for and against the daily rotation of the Earth on its axis. From astronomical considerations, he maintained that if the Earth were moving and not the celestial spheres, all the movements that we see in the heavens that are computed by the astronomers would appear exactly the same as if the spheres were rotating around the Earth. He rejected the physical argument that if the Earth were moving the air would be left behind causing a great wind from east to west. In his view the Earth, Water, and Air would all share the same motion. As to the scriptural passage that speaks of the motion of the sun, he concludes that "this passage conforms to the customary usage of popular speech" and is not to be taken literally. He also noted that it would be more economical for the small Earth to rotate on its axis than the immense sphere of the stars. Nonetheless, he concluded that none of these arguments were conclusive and "everyone maintains, and I think myself, that the heavens do move and not the Earth." Critiques of astrology. In his mathematical work, Oresme developed the notion of incommensurate fractions, fractions that could not be expressed as powers of one another, and made probabilistic, statistical arguments as to their relative frequency. From this, he argued that it was very probable that the length of the day and the year were incommensurate (irrational), as indeed were the periods of the motions of the moon and the planets. From this, he noted that planetary conjunctions and oppositions would never recur in quite exactly the same way. Oresme maintained that this disproves the claims of astrologers who, thinking "they know with punctual exactness the motions, aspects, conjunctions and oppositions… rashly and erroneously about future events." Oresme's critique of astrology in his "Livre de divinacions" treats it as having six parts. The first, essentially astronomy, the movements of heavenly bodies, he considers good science but not precisely knowable. The second part deals with the influences of the heavenly bodies on earthly events at all scales. Oresme does not deny such influence, but states, in line with a commonly held opinion, that it could either be that arrangements of heavenly bodies signify events, purely symbolically, or that they actually cause such events, deterministically. Mediaevalist Chauncey Wood remarks that this major elision "makes it very difficult to determine who believed what about astrology." The third part concerns predictiveness, covering events at three different scales: great events such as plagues, famines, floods and wars; weather, winds and storms; and medicine, with influences on the humours, the four Aristotelian fluids of the body. Oresme criticizes all of these as misdirected, though he accepts that prediction is a legitimate area of study, and argues that the effect on the weather is less well known than the effect on great events. He observes that sailors and farmers are better at predicting weather than astrologers, and specifically attacks the astrological basis of prediction, noting correctly that the zodiac has moved relative to the fixed stars (because of precession of the equinoxes) since the zodiac was first described in ancient times. These first three parts are what Oresme considers the physical influences of the stars and planets (including sun and moon) on the earth, and while he offers critiques of them, he accepts that effects exist. The last three parts are what Oresme considers to concern (good or bad) fortune. They are interrogations, meaning asking the stars when to do things such as business deals; elections, meaning choosing the best time to do things such as getting married or fighting a war; and nativities, meaning the natal astrology with birth charts that forms much of modern astrological practice. Oresme classifies interrogations and elections as "totally false" arts, but his critique of nativities is more measured. He denies that any path is predetermined by the heavenly bodies, because humans have free will, but he accepts that the heavenly bodies can influence behaviour and habitual mood, via the combination of humours in each person. Overall, Oresme's skepticism is strongly shaped by his understanding of the scope of astrology. He accepts things a modern skeptic would reject, and rejects some things — such as the knowability of planetary movements, and effects on weather — that are accepted by modern science. Sense perception. In discussing the propagation of light and sound, Oresme adopted the common medieval doctrine of the multiplication of species, as it had been developed by optical writers such as Alhacen, Robert Grosseteste, Roger Bacon, John Pecham, and Witelo. Oresme maintained that these species were immaterial, but corporeal (i.e., three-dimensional), entities. Translations. Like most of his scholarly contemporaries, Oresme wrote primarily in Latin, but at the urging of King Charles V, he also wrote in French, providing French versions of his own works and of selected works by Aristotle. Mathematics. Oresme's most important contributions to mathematics are contained in "Tractatus de configurationibus qualitatum et motuum". In a quality, or accidental form, such as heat, he distinguished the "intensio" (the degree of heat at each point) and the "extensio" (as the length of the heated rod). These two terms were often replaced by "latitudo" and "longitudo". For the sake of clarity, Oresme conceived the idea of visualizing these concepts by plane figures, approaching what we would now call rectangular co-ordinates. The intensity of the quality was represented by a length or "latitudo" proportional to the intensity erected perpendicular to the base at a given point on the base line, which represents the "longitudo". Oresme proposed that the geometrical form of such a figure could be regarded as corresponding to a characteristics of the quality itself. Oresme defined a uniform quality as that which is represented by a line parallel to the longitude, and any other quality as difform. Uniformly varying qualities are represented by a straight line inclined to the axis of the longitude, while he described many cases of nonuniformly varying qualities. Oresme extended this doctrine to figures of three dimensions. He considered this analysis applicable to many different qualities such as hotness, whiteness, and sweetness. Significantly for later developments, Oresme applied this concept to the analysis of local motion where the "latitudo" or intensity represented the speed, the "longitudo" represented the time, and the area of the figure represented the distance travelled. He shows that his method of figuring the latitude of forms is applicable to the movement of a point, on condition that the time is taken as longitude and the speed as latitude; quantity is, then, the space covered in a given time. In virtue of this transposition, the theorem of the "latitudo uniformiter difformis" became the law of the space traversed in case of uniformly varied motion; thus Oresme manages to anticipate Galileo´s discovery. Significantly, Oresme developed the first (if somewhat obscure) proof of the divergence of the harmonic series, something that was only replicated in later centuries by the Bernoulli brothers. His proof, an alternative to other "standard" tests for divergence (for example, the integral test), elegantly stated that for any value of 1/"n", the closest "n" that is a member of the sequence 2"n", the preceding "n"/2 terms must be greater than 1/2. Thus, using the comparison test and the squeeze theorem, the series must be greater than the series 1 + 1/2 + 1/2 + 1/2 + ... + 1/2 (which is obviously divergent), which means the harmonic series whose terms are 1/"n" must be divergent. Oresme was the first mathematician to prove this fact, and held that honor for the next few centuries. He also worked on fractional powers, and the notion of probability over infinite sequences, ideas which would not be further developed for the next three and five centuries, respectively. Economics. With his "Treatise on the origin, nature, law, and alterations of money", one of the earliest manuscripts devoted to an economic matter, Oresme brings an interesting insight on the medieval conception of money.
591543	The Blood of Hussain is a Pakistani film directed by Jamil Dehlavi and released in 1980 (released in February 1981 in the UK). The film was banned throughout Pakistan as the military junta led by General Zia-ul-Haq toppled the government of Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto. Plot. The film is about the life and death of Hussain, the youngest son of a Pakistani family. He meets a holy soothsayer who foretells his destiny, which is to liberate the poor and oppressed against a tyrannical government. The struggle parallels that of Imam Hussain of the 7th century who was martyred by Yazid I, the Umayyad Caliph. Alternative titles. "The Blood of Hussain" is known as "To Aima tou agonisti" in Greece, "Husseins Herzblut" in Germany and "Le Sang d'Hussain" in France. Banning of the movie. The film was banned by the Pakistani military ruler General Zia ul-Haq, after he seized power in a "coup de état" and became President of Pakistan in 1977, as the film portrays a fictional military coup in a less than favourable light. The ban on the film has not been lifted, and the director later moved to the United Kingdom. The film was eventually released and shown on British television.
1503699	Idina Kim Menzel (; born Mentzel on May 30, 1971) is an American actress, singer, and songwriter. She rose to prominence for her performance as Maureen Johnson in the Broadway musical "Rent", a role which she reprised for the 2005 feature film adaptation. In 2004, she won the Tony Award for originating the role of Elphaba in the Broadway blockbuster "Wicked". In 2014, she will be returning to Broadway in the musical "If/Then". Menzel is also known for her portrayal of Shelby Corcoran on the Fox musical comedy-drama series, "Glee". Early life. Menzel was born in Queens, New York. Her mother, Helene, is a therapist, and her father, Stuart Mentzel, worked as a pajama salesman. She has a younger sister, Cara. Her family is Jewish; her grandparents immigrated from Russia and elsewhere in Eastern Europe. Her family lived in New Jersey (East Brunswick, Somerset and Marlboro) from when she was in kindergarten to third grade, but she considers herself raised in Syosset, New York. When Menzel was 15 years old, her parents divorced and she began working as a wedding and bar mitzvah singer, a job which she continued throughout her time at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts. Menzel herself, however didn't have a Bat Mitzvah after she quit Hebrew school as a girl. She earned a Bachelors of Fine Arts degree in Drama at New York University prior to being cast in Jonathan Larson's rock musical "Rent". She changed the spelling of her surname to "Menzel" to better reflect the pronunciation the Mentzel family had adopted in America. She was friends with actor Adam Pascal before they worked together in "Rent". Theater career. In 1995, Menzel auditioned for "Rent", which became her first professional theater job and her Broadway debut. "Rent" opened off-Broadway at the New York Theatre Workshop on January 26, 1996, but it moved to Broadway's Nederlander Theatre due to its popularity. For her performance as Maureen Johnson in the original cast of the musical, Menzel received a Tony nomination as Best Featured Actress in a Musical losing to Ann Duquesnay for Bring in 'da Noise, Bring in 'da Funk. Her final performance in the musical was on July 1, 1997. Following the success of "Rent", Menzel released her first solo album entitled "Still I Can't Be Still" on Hollywood Records, Menzel also originated the role of Dorothy in "Summer of ’42" at Goodspeed Opera House in Connecticut, starred as Sheila in the New York City Center Encores! production of "Hair" and appeared on Broadway as Amneris in "Aida". Menzel earned a Drama Desk Award nomination for her performance as Kate in the Manhattan Theatre Club's 2000 off-Broadway production of Andrew Lippa's "The Wild Party". Her other off-Broadway credits include the pre-Broadway run of "Rent" and "The Vagina Monologues". In 2003, Menzel starred with actress and singer Kristin Chenoweth on Broadway in "Wicked", a musical by Stephen Schwartz and Winnie Holzman based upon the popular 1995 Gregory Maguire . Menzel received the 2004 Tony Award for Best Leading Actress in a Musical for her portrayal of Elphaba, the Wicked Witch of the West. During her penultimate performance of "Wicked" on January 8, 2005, she fell through a trap door and cracked a lower rib. The injury prevented her from performing in her final show on January 9. Menzel did, however, make a special out-of-costume appearance at that performance, performed her final song, and received a 5 minute long standing ovation. Menzel was replaced by Elphaba standby Shoshana Bean. Following "Wicked", Menzel appeared off-Broadway in the Public Theater's production of "See What I Wanna See", a Michael John LaChiusa-penned musical whose run ended in December 2005, for which she received Drama Desk Award and Drama League Award nominations. She reprised her Tony Award-winning role as Elphaba in the West End production of "Wicked" when it opened at London's Apollo Victoria Theater on September 7, 2006. During her run, she was the highest paid female performer in the West End at $30,000 per week. Menzel finished her West End run on December 30, 2006. She was succeeded by Elphaba standby Kerry Ellis. Menzel played the role of Florence in the 21st Anniversary concert of "Chess" at the Royal Albert Hall, London from May 12–13, 2008 alongside Kerry Ellis, Adam Pascal and Josh Groban. In 2008, Menzel headlined the Powerhouse Theatre's reading of Steven Sater and Duncan Sheik's musical "Nero" from July 11–13, performing the role of Nero's mistress, Poppea. On February 28, 2013, it was announced that Menzel will officially be making her return to the Broadway stage starring as Elizabeth in the new Tom Kitt and Brian Yorkey musical ""If Then"". The new musical, which will be directed by Michael Greif (whom Menzel previously worked with in the original production of "Rent") will have its world premiere at the National Theater in Washington D.C. in previews on November 5, 2013 and then open on November 24, 2013. Following the out of tryout, the show will move on to the Richard Rodgers Theatre on Broadway and begin previews on March 4, 2014 and then open on March 27, 2014. Film, television, recording and singing career. Menzel's film roles include appearances in "Just a Kiss", "Kissing Jessica Stein", "The Tollbooth", "Water", "Ask the Dust", "Enchanted", and "Rent", in which she and five other original cast members reprised their stage roles. As a singer, Menzel is known for her wide vocal range and her use of the 'belt' technique. Menzel performed at the 1998 Lilith Fair summer concert festival and continues to write and perform original music. She has toured extensively and frequently performs in various venues throughout New York City. She produced and released her debut album, "Still I Can't Be Still", for Hollywood Records in 1998. One single from the album, "Minuet", made the Radio & Records CHR/Pop Tracks chart at #48 in October 1998. Her second album, "Here", was released independently by Zel Records in 2004. Menzel has contributed to soundtracks, including those for the film "The Other Sister" and the ABC television dramedy "Desperate Housewives". She also appears on Ray Charles's album "Genius and Friends", which was released in 2005, on the track "I Will Be There." In 2007, she appeared on the "Beowulf" soundtrack singing the end credits song, "A Hero Comes Home". Also in 2007, Menzel's powerful singing voice led her to be asked to accompany the baritone British "X-Factor" runner-up Rhydian Roberts on his debut album, duetting on the song "What If". Her third solo album, "I Stand", was released on January 29, 2008. It includes many new songs, including the lead single, "Brave", the title track "I Stand", and a song released on EP, "Gorgeous". The album debuted at #58 in the Billboard 200, making it the first solo album by Menzel to make the charts. There are five versions of this album: the original version, the special limited edition, the iTunes version, the Barnes & Noble edition, and the Borders edition. Menzel wrote many of the songs on her album. On April 1, 2008, Menzel kicked off her 2008-2009 "I Stand Tour" in support of her new album performing 4 sold out legs. The concert at Rose Hall at Lincoln Center in New York City was filmed for the PBS series "Soundstage". Menzel was joined by special guests, superstar Josh Groban and saxophonist Ravi Coltrane. On November 11, 2008, Menzel released "Hope," written by Paul Hampton, benefitting Stand Up to Cancer. On November 27, 2008, she performed "I Stand" on the M&M Candies float as part of the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. Menzel has a recurring guest star role in the television series "Glee", playing Shelby Corcoran, the coach of the rival glee club Vocal Adrenaline. When the series first premiered, "Glee" fans had noted a strong physical resemblance between Menzel and Lea Michele who portrays the character Rachel Berry. According to her husband, actor Taye Diggs, Menzel expressed interest in possibly guest starring as the biological mother of Rachel. The character was introduced in the April 13, 2010 episode "Hell-O", and it was revealed in the May 18, 2010 episode, "Dream On", that Shelby is, in fact, Rachel's biological mother, having answered an ad from Rachel's two gay dads looking for a 'mother' to help them have a baby. Lea Michele and Idina Menzel sing "I Dreamed a Dream" from "Les Misérables" and "Poker Face" originally by Lady Gaga together. Menzel returned to Glee in Season 3 episode "I Am Unicorn", her role this time as a teacher causing trouble for Rachel, Quinn, Puck, and former flame Will Schuster. On July 19, 2010, Menzel performed "Defying Gravity" and "What I Did For Love" in front of President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama at "A Broadway Celebration: In Performance at the White House". The concert aired on PBS October 20, 2010. In April 2010, Menzel returned to concert stage embarking on her "Barefoot at the Symphony Tour", which she was accompanied by major symphony orchestras. Her performances included collaborations with the New York Philharmonic, the Boston Pops Orchestra, and the North Carolina Symphony. In October 2011, Menzel returned to London to perform a one night only concert in the United Kingdom at the Royal Albert Hall with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra with Marvin Hamlisch conducting. Menzel's concert stop in Toronto was filmed at The Royal Conservatory of Music on November 17 and 18, 2011 for her second PBS special. She was accompanied by the Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony with Marvin Hamlisch conducting and special guest Taye Diggs, Menzel's husband. "Idina Menzel Live: Barefoot at the Symphony" was released as a live CD and DVD and air on PBS in March 2012. Menzel announced she will continue live performances in 2012. The first date she announced was July 8, 2012 at Ravinia Festival near Chicago, Illinois. She made her Carnegie Hall solo debut (originally on October 29, 2012). However, due to Hurricane Sandy's impact on New York City, it was postponed until January 13, 2013. Menzel is set to tour Australia in June 2013 with shows in South Australia, Melbourne, Brisbane and two at the famed Sydney Opera House. Menzel is set to voice Elsa the Snow Queen in the Disney animated film "Frozen", scheduled for release on November 27, 2013. Personal life. Menzel married actor Taye Diggs on January 11, 2003. They met in 1995 during the original production of "Rent", in which Diggs portrayed the role of Benjamin Coffin III, the landlord. They have a son, Walker Nathaniel Diggs, born in September, 2 2009. They have a Yorkshire Terrier named Sammy Davis Jr. and two cats named Ella and Coltrane, also known as their "Jazz Cats" because they were named after jazz performers Ella Fitzgerald and John Coltrane. Charity. Menzel was an Honorary Chair of the Imperial Court of New York's Annual Charity Coronation Ball, Night of A Thousand Gowns on March 21, 2009. Other Honorary Chairs for the evening's charity event included Elton John, Patti LuPone, John Cameron Mitchell, Joan Rivers and Robin Strasser. On May 17, 2009, Menzel performed at a special benefit concert in Atlanta, Georgia to raise money for the Pace Academy Diversity Program in coordination with the Ron Clark Academy. The event resulted in the funding of two scholarships for Ron Clark Academy students to attend Pace Academy. The event was organized and hosted by Philip McAdoo, a former "Rent" cast member and current Diversity Program Director at Pace Academy. In 2010, Menzel founded the A BroaderWay Foundation with husband Taye Diggs as a means of supporting young people in the arts. A BroaderWay sponsors camp programs, theater workshops, innovative educational programming and offers scholarships and opportunities to experience professional performances. In Summer 2011, Camp BroaderWay welcomed young girls from under-served metro New York communities to a 10-day performing arts camp, run by Menzel and a team of acclaimed professional Broadway artists including Taye Diggs. During this camp the girls collaborated with Broadway artists to write an original musical that was performed at a theatre in New York. The camp was held at Belvoir Terrace Summer Camp in Lenox, Massachusetts. Menzel has long-championed LGBT rights by partnering with organizations like The Trevor Project, the Give A Damn Campaign (filming a public service announcement and designing a T-shirt) and the NOH8 Campaign, posing for one of their trademark duct taped silence photos.
1060244	The Day After Tomorrow is a 2004 American science fiction disaster film co-written, directed, and produced by Roland Emmerich. The film depicts catastrophic effects of global warming in a series of extreme weather events that usher in global cooling and leads to a new ice age. The film was made in Toronto and Montreal and is the highest-grossing Hollywood film to be made in Canada (if adjusted for inflation). Originally planned for release in the summer of 2003, "The Day After Tomorrow" premiered in Mexico City on May 17, 2004 and was released worldwide from May 26 to May 28 except in South Korea and Japan, where it was released June 4–5, respectively. Plot. On an expedition in Antarctica the paleoclimatologist Jack Hall with his colleagues Frank and Jason is drilling for ice-core samples on the Larsen Ice Shelf for the NOAA when the shelf breaks off and Jack almost falls to his death. Later on, in New Delhi, India, Jack presents his findings on global warming at a United Nations conference, but fails to convince diplomats or Vice President of the United States Raymond Becker. However, Professor Terry Rapson of the Hedland Climate Research Centre in Scotland believes in Jack's theories. Several buoys in the North Atlantic simultaneously show a massive drop in the ocean temperature, and Rapson concludes that melting polar ice has started to disrupt the North Atlantic current. He contacts Jack, whose paleoclimatological weather model shows how climate changes caused the first Ice Age. His team, along with NASA's meteorologist Janet Tokada, builds a forecast model with their combined data. Later on, multiple tornadoes devastate Los Angeles due to the increasing wind surge in Southern California.
629312	Strictly Ballroom is a 1992 Australian romantic comedy film directed and co-written by Baz Luhrmann and produced by M&A Productions. The film is the first installment in "The Red Curtain Trilogy", Luhrmann's trilogy of theatre-motif-related films; the follow-ups were "Romeo + Juliet" and "Moulin Rouge!". The film was based on a stage play originally developed by Luhrmann and others while he was studying at the National Institute of Dramatic Arts in Sydney in the mid-1980s, and which was later expanded for a successful season at Sydney's Wharf Theatre in 1988. Plot. "Strictly Ballroom" tells the story of an Australian ballroom dancer, Scott Hastings (Paul Mercurio), and his struggle to establish his personal style of dance in his way to win the Pan-Pacific Grand Prix Dancing Championship. Scott's steps are not "strictly ballroom". Scott comes from a family with a history of ballroom dancing and has been training since childhood. Scott's mother Shirley teaches ballroom dancing, and his father Doug meekly handles maintenance chores at the dance studio. After losing a competition to a rival pair, his dancing partner Liz Holt (Gia Carides) leaves him for another dancer. With only weeks before the next Pan-Pacific competition, try-outs begin to find Scott a new dance partner but, unknown to his parents, Scott secretly begins rehearsing with frumpy outsider Fran (Tara Morice), a learner dancer at his parents' studio. Scott is initially skeptical, but when Fran introduces pasodoble steps into their routine, Scott realises her potential. He walks her home one night and finds her Spanish gypsy family living in a tiny home next to the railway tracks, where Fran's family show him the authentic Spanish pasodoble style. As their rehearsals progress, Fran grows more attractive and self-confident. Scott begins spending all his time rehearsing with Fran at her house, until Barry Fife (Bill Hunter), the conniving president of the Australian Dancing Federation, tells Scott he must know "the truth" about his parents, Doug and Shirley — they too were ballroom dancing champions until they lost the Pan-Pacific Grand Prix. Fife claims this was because Doug had become self-obsessed and danced his own steps. Barry convinces Scott to dance with Liz instead of Fran so he can win "for his father's sake". However, this is later revealed as a lie, part of Barry's plot to fix the competition so Scott and Liz will lose. Scott starts training with Liz, while an unhappy Fran goes back to the beginner's class. At the Pan-Pacific Grand Prix, Scott's father finally manages to pull Scott aside and tells the real story — Doug never danced at the competition because Barry convinced Shirley the only way to win was to dance the conventional steps with their friend Les, but Shirley and Les lost the contest anyway. After hearing his father's revelation, Scott finds Fran and asks her to dance with him. A furious Barry Fife cuts the music and disqualifies them, but Doug, along with Fran's family, clap out a beat which encourages Scott and Fran "dance from the heart", drawing cheers from the crowd and tears of joy from Doug. Finally, Liz turns on Barry and restores the music. The couple's spirited dancing brings down the house. In the end, it is not revealed whether Scott and Fran win or lose, as in the story, that is not an important factor. As the performance ends, Doug asks Shirley to dance. The entire audience steps onto the dance floor and all begin dancing as Fran and Scott kiss. Style. The film plays with clichés and stereotypes, mocking and embracing them at the same time. Luhrmann has also commented that the film revolves around stories similar to "David and Goliath", "Cinderella" and "The Ugly Duckling". Production history. The film version of "Strictly Ballroom" was developed from an original short play of the same name. It drew on Luhrmann's own life experiece—he had studied ballroom dancing as a child and his mother worked as a ballroom dance teacher in his teens. While studying at NIDA in the early 1980s, Luhrmann and a group of fellow students devised a short comedy-drama set in the cutthroat world of competitive ballroom dancing. This original 1984 NIDA production was a critical success and, after graduating, Luhrmann was invited to re-stage the play for the Czechoslovakian Youth Drama Festival in Bratislava in 1986. He invited his school friend Craig Pearce to help him rewrite and expand the script. With its themes of artistic repression and underdogs battling against the odds, the play was a success at the festival, winning both the best director and best production awards. This led to Luhrmann to direct more theatre productions back in Australia, and in 1988, as part of the Australian Bicentenary celebrations, the Sydney Theatre Company invited him to establish an experimental theatre ensemble, Six Years Old, which took up a residency at The Wharf Theatre for that year. Alongside Luhrman and Pearce, the new company included one of the original NIDA collaborators, actor Catherine McClements, plus production designer Catherine Martin (whom Luhrmann subsequently married), set dresser Bill Marron and costume designer Angus Strathie, all of whom went on to collaborate with Luhrman on his films. The group work-shopped the expanded version of play, which had a trial season at the Brisbane Expo in 1988 before opening at the Wharf Studios on 24 September 1988.
673323	Thea Gabriele von Harbou (December 27, 1888 – July 1, 1954) was a German actress, author and film director of Prussian aristocratic origin. She was born in Tauperlitz in the Kingdom of Bavaria. Early life, family, and education. Thea von Harbou was born to a Prussian family of minor nobility and government officials, thus granting her a level of sophisticated comfort. Her childhood education took place in a convent by private tutors who taught her several languages and how to play piano and violin. In many ways von Harbou was a classic child prodigy. Her first works, a short story published in a magazine and a volume of poems privately published, were focused on perceptions of art, which were recognized as abnormal for a young girl of thirteen. Despite her privileged childhood, von Harbou had the desire to earn a living on her own, thus driving her to become an actress, regardless of disapproval from her father. After her debut in 1906, von Harbou met Rudolf Klein-Rogge, and later married him during World War I. By 1917, von Harbou and Klein-Rogge moved to Berlin and von Harbou was devoted, full-time, to building her career as a writer; she was drawn to writing epic myths and legends with an overtly nationalistic tone. In the words of Patrick McGilligan, Fritz Lang historian, "Her novels became patriotic and morale-boosting, urging women to sacrifice and duty while promoting the eternal glory of the fatherland". Her first close interaction with cinema came when German director Joe May chose to adapt one of von Harbou's writings, titled "Die heilige Simplizia"; from that moment forward, "Her fiction output slowed down. In short order she would become one of Germany's most celebrated film writers, not only because of her partnership with Fritz Lang, but also for writing scripts for F. W. Murnau, Carl Dreyer, E. A. Dupont, and other German luminaries". In addition to Thea's success through film, her brother, Horst von Harbou, went to work for UFA as a photographer and began to work closely with Thea and Fritz Lang on many of their most famous productions. Thea von Harbou's marriage to Fritz Lang came in 1922 with the success of "Dr. Mabuse der Spieler" and the death of Lang's first wife, finally the two cemented their husband-wife partnership. Career. Thea Gabriele von Harbou's first collaboration with Fritz Lang was marked by a common interest in the exotic foreign land of India. As von Harbou worked on an adaptation of her 1917 novel "Das indische Grabmal (The Indian Tomb)", Joe May assigned Fritz Lang to aid her in the writing of the screenplay and the details regarding production. Praising Thea's skills, Erich Kettelhut recalls, "She was not only well-liked by her colleagues, but also as much a creative force, as highly motivated and smoothly efficient, as her husband. Her loving personality was crucial to the professional teamwork. Von Harbou's ability to reach out to people and find compromise in the worst situations was a vital resource". After her marriage to Fritz Lang, the two went to work on a script that would echo pride for German nationality, "Die Nibelungen" and further raise von Harbou's esteem as a writer for the screen. Thea von Harbou became known for her unique habit of wearing the same dress throughout filming, even as she cooked hot meals for the crew during late nights. During this time of poverty in 1920s Germany, von Harbou became active in acquiring food for her film crew, as on friend recalls, "She was even able to talk the UFA into carrying the costs so the crew could get their meals for free ... she stood there on the rough floor of that drafty shed for hours and didn't mind peeling potatoes or cleaning vegetables with the other women. Such was the spirit of sacrifice". Often Thea von Harbou would take her screenplays and make them into full length novels to coincide with the release of the film, however this was not the case with "Metropolis", one of her most famous works. Thea von Harbou was an incredibly active player in producing "Metropolis", and this epic film became not only one of Fritz Lang's best known films, but one of significance to German cinema. Besides writing the novel, the screenplay, and developing the distinct moral ending of "Metropolis", she is credited with discovering Gustav Fröhlich, who plays the lead role of Freder Fredersen. Her next big production with Fritz Lang would be "M", a film about a child murderer, and would be written with incredible attention to accuracy. Fritz Lang and Thea von Harbou had been enthralled with news coverage of Peter Kürten, known as the Monster of Düsseldorf, during the late 1920s. Not only did von Harbou use newspaper articles for the script, but she "maintained regular contact with the police headquarters on Alexanderplatz and was permitted access to the communications and secret publications of Berlin's force". Recalling the script, von Harbou's secretary, Hilde Guttmann, claims, "I saw many other film manuscripts, but never one which could compare with the manuscript for "M". Two typewriter ribbons were stuck together to give us three colors: one black and red, and the other blue. The camera work and the action were typed in black, the dialogue blue, and the sound , where synchronized, was typed in red". Unfortunately, she is uncredited as the script writer for "M". Thea von Harbou's ability to write for the screen propelled silent German cinema into the spot light. Furthermore, behind the most well-known German directors sat Thea von Harbou writing the action. As Adolf Hitler rose to power, the German film industry became more influenced by propaganda-based ideology. Thea von Harbou remained loyal to new political power. Around 1934, a year after the Nazi Party began leading the nation, she took the initiative to write and direct two films, "Hanneles Himmelfahrt" and "Elisabeth und der Narr". However, von Harbou did not find the experience of directing to be satisfactory. She did remain a prolific scenarist during this time. "Under a regime where every film was a 'state film,' Thea von Harbou amassed writing credits on some twenty-six films, while giving uncredited assistance on countless others-including a handful with an indisputable National Socialist worldview". Interests. While Thea von Harbou is renowned for her active role in German cinema, she is also remembered for a campaign against paragraph 218 in Germany, which made abortion illegal. In 1931 at a mass rally, she is quoted saying, "Our main goal is to find a new form of preventing pregnancy and therefore to make the entire 218 unnecessary. Immediately, however, the Paragraph must fall because it is no longer morally recognized by women. It is no longer a law. We need a new sexual code because the old was created by men and no man is in a position to understand the agony of a woman who is carrying a child she knows she cannot feed. This law derived from male psychology, which forces a woman into having a child, creates, even if not deliberately, constitutional inferiority of women in relation to men which serves as a bulwark against women's activity in economic and political life". Life with Fritz Lang. The home of Fritz Lang and Thea von Harbou would have seemed like a small museum of exotic art for the common citizen. The memory of visitors to the Lang-von Harbou home remember von Harbou as taking charge of all the domestic and social responsibilities. In addition, it was von Harbou who perfected the method of keeping Lang and the crew aptly nourished during long production meetings. Unfortunately, shortly after Lang and von Harbou were married, Lang fell into the habit of pursuing younger women in the open eyes of the public. Thea von Harbou's decision to remain loyal to Germany during the rise of the NSDAP (Nazi Party) became one of the reasons for Lang's divorce. In addition, Thea von Harbou had broken from her commitment to Lang with an affair of her own. It was during the production of "Das Testament des Dr. Mabuse" when Lang discovered von Harbou in bed with her new lover, Ayi Tendulkar. The divorce would be finalized on April 20, 1933 and the cinematic duo would drift apart. Shortly after her divorce from Fritz Lang, Thea von Harbou and Ayi Tendulkar got secretly married in Germany, at the time the state could not permit a lady of her renown to marry a dark-skinned Indian. Life After World War II. From July to October 1945, Thea von Harbou was detained in Staumühle, a poorly-run British prison camp. Though many claim she had significant Nazi sympathies, von Harbou claimed she only joined the Nazi Party to help Indians in Germany. Furthermore, "Her direct work on behalf of the government consisted, she claimed, entirely of volunteer welding, making hearing aids, and emergency medical care. In fact, she received a medal of merit for saving people in two air raids". In prison she directed a performance of "Faust" and when released she worked as a Trümmerfrau (rubble woman) from 1945 until 1946; to earn a living, von Harbou was reduced to separating rubble for the rebuilding of Germany. Death. At the end of Thea von Harbou's life, pain from high blood pressure, migraines, and neuralgia had made her weak; however, she continued to write or dictate from her bed. While exiting a showing of "Der müde Tod" as a guest of honor in 1954, von Harbou fell to the ground and developed a hip injury; on July 1, 1954 she died in the hospital at the age of sixty-five. Filmography. Director Written Work
1103987	Shiing-Shen Chern (; October 26, 1911 – December 3, 2004) was a Chinese-born American mathematician. He was regarded as one of the leaders in differential geometry of the twentieth century. Biography. Early years in China. Chern was born in Xiushui County (秀水縣), Jiaxing, in Zhejiang province. The year after his birth, China changed its regime from the Qing Dynasty to the Republic of China. He graduated from Xiushui Middle School (秀水中學) and subsequently moved to Tianjin in 1922 to accompany his father. In 1926 after spending four years, Chern graduated from Fulun High School (扶輪中學) in Tianjin. At age 15, Chern entered the Faculty of Sciences of the Nankai University in Tianjin, studied mathematics there, and graduated with BSc in 1930. At Nankai, Chern's mentor was Li-Fu Chiang (姜立夫), a Harvard-trained geometer who was also from Zhejiang. At Nankai, Chern was also heavily influenced by physicist Hu Guoding (胡國定) who was also from Zhejiang. Hu now is considered as one of founding fathers of modern Chinese informatics. Chern went to Beiping (now Beijing) to teach at the Tsinghua University Department of Mathematics as a teaching assistant. At the same time he also registered at Tsinghua Graduate School as a master student. He studied projective differential geometry under Prof. Sun Guangyuan, a Chicago-trained geometer and logician who was also from Zhejiang. Sun was a notable founder of modern Chinese mathematics. In 1932, Chern published his first research article in Tsinghua University Journal. In summer 1934, Chern graduated from Tsinghua with a master's degree, the first ever masters degree in mathematics issued by China. C.N. Yang's father — Yang Ko-Chuen, also a Chicago-trained professor at Tsinghua but algebraist, also taught Chern. At the same time, Chern was C.N. Yang's teacher of undergraduate math at Tsinghua. At Tsinghua, Hua Luogeng, also a mathematician, was Chern's colleague and room mate. In 1932, Wilhelm Blaschke from the University of Hamburg visited Tsinghua and was impressed by Chern and his research. In Europe. In 1934, co-funded by Tsinghua and the Chinese Foundation of Culture and Education, Chern went to continue his study in mathematics in Germany with a scholarship. Chern studied at the University of Hamburg and worked under Blaschke's guidance first on the geometry of webs then on the Cartan-Kähler theory. He obtained his "Dr. rer.nat." ("Doctor of Science", which is equivalent to PhD) degree in February, 1936. Blaschke recommended Chern to study in Paris. In August 1936, Chern watched summer Olympics in Berlin together with Hua Luogeng who paid Chern a brief visit. During that time, Hua was studying at the University of Cambridge in Britain. In September 1936, Chern went to Paris and worked with Élie Cartan. Chern spent one year at the Sorbonne in Paris. In 1937, Chern accepted Tsinghua's invitation and was promoted to professor of mathematics at Tsinghua. However, at the same time the Marco Polo Bridge Incident (near Beijing) happened and the Second Sino-Japanese War started, Tsinghua was forced to move away from Beijing to west China. Three universities including Peking University, Tsinghua, and Nankai formed the National Southwestern Associated University (NSAU), and was relocated in Kunming, Yunnan province. Chern never reached Beijing. In the same year, Hua Luogeng was promoted to professor of mathematics at Tsinghua. Short stay in USA. In July 1943, Chern went to the United States, and worked at the Institute for Advanced Study (IAS) in Princeton on characteristic classes in differential geometry. Shortly afterwards, he was invited by Solomon Lefschetz to be an editor of "Annals of Mathematics". First return to China. Chern returned to Shanghai in 1946 to help found the Institute of Mathematics of the Academia Sinica, which was later moved to Nanking (then-capital of the Republic of China). Chern was the acting president of the institute. Wu Wenjun was Chern's graduate student at the institute. In 1948, Chern was elected one of the first academicians of the Academia Sinica. He was the youngest academician elected (at age 37). USA. In 1949, Chern returned to the United States, again worked at the IAS. In 1949, Chern became professor of mathematics at the University of Chicago. Coincidently, Ernest Preston Lane, former Chair at UChicago Department of Mathematics, was the doctoral advisor of Chern's undergraduate mentor at Tsinghua — Sun Guangyuan. Chern moved to the University of California, Berkeley, in 1960, where he worked and stayed until his retirement. In 1961, Chern became a naturalized citizen of the United States. In the same year, he was elected member of the United States National Academy of Sciences. In 1964, Chern was a vice-president of American Mathematical Society (AMS). Chern retired from Berkeley in 1981. He founded the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute (MSRI) in 1981 and served as the director until 1984. Afterward he became the honorary director of the institute. MSRI now is one of the largest and most prominent mathematical institutes in the world. Shing-Tung Yau was one of his PhD students during this period. Short visits to China. The Shanghai Communiqué was issued by the United States and the People's Republic of China on February 27, 1972. The relationship between these two nations started normalizing, and American citizens were allowed to visit P.R.China. In September 1972, Chern with his wife visited Beijing. During this period of time, Chern visited China for 25 times, with 14 times to his hometown Zhejiang. Chern founded the Nankai Institute for Mathematics (NKIM) at his alma mater Nankai in Tianjin. The institute was formally established in 1984 and fully opened on October 17, 1985. NKIM was renamed as the Chern Institute of Mathematics in 2004 after Chern's death. Final years. Based on Chern's advice, a mathematical research center was established in Taipei, Taiwan, whose co-operational partners are National Taiwan University, National Tsing Hua University and the Sinica Academia Institute of Mathematics. Chern was also a director and advisor of the Center of Mathematical Sciences at Zhejiang University in Hangzhou, Zhejiang. From 2000 to his death, Chern lived in Tianjin, China. Chern died of heart failure at his home in Tianjin in 2004 at age 93. Research. Chern's work extends over all the classic fields of differential geometry. It includes areas currently fashionable (the Chern-Simons theory arising from a 1974 paper written jointly with Jim Simons), perennial (the Chern-Weil theory linking curvature invariants to characteristic classes from 1944, after the Allendoerfer-Weil paper of 1943 on the Gauss-Bonnet theorem), the foundational (Chern classes), and some areas such as projective differential geometry and webs that have a lower profile. He published results in integral geometry, value distribution theory of holomorphic functions, and minimal submanifolds. He was a follower of Élie Cartan, working on the 'theory of equivalence' in his time in China from 1937 to 1943, in relative isolation. In 1954 he published his own treatment of the pseudogroup problem that is in effect the touchstone of Cartan's geometric theory. He used the moving frame method with success only matched by its inventor; he preferred in complex manifold theory to stay with the geometry, rather than follow the potential theory. Indeed, one of his books is entitled, "Complex Manifolds without Potential Theory". In the last years of his life, he advocated the study of Finsler geometry, writing several books and articles on the subject. Honours and awards. Chern received numerous honors and awards in his life, including: Chern was given a number of honorary degrees, including from The Chinese University of Hong Kong (LL.D. 1969), University of Chicago (D.Sc. 1969), ETH Zurich (Dr.Math. 1982), SUNY Stony Brook (D.Sc. 1985), TU Berlin (Dr.Math. 1986), his alma mater Hamburg (D.Sc. 1971) and Nankai (honorary doctorate, 1985), etc. Chern was also granted numerous honorary professorships, including at Peking University (Beijing, 1978), his alma mater Nankai (Tianjin, 1978), Chinese Academy of Sciences Institute of Systems Science (Beijing, 1980), Jinan University (Guangzhou, 1980), Chinese Academy of Sciences Graduate School (1984), Nanjing University (Nanjing, 1985), East China Normal University (Shanghai, 1985), USTC (Hefei, 1985), Beijing Normal University (1985), Zhejiang University (Hangzhou, 1985), Hangzhou University (1986, the university was merged into Zhejiang University in 1998), Fudan University (Shanghai, 1986), Shanghai University of Technology (1986, the university was merged to establish Shanghai University in 1994), Tianjin University (1987), Tohoku University (Sendai, Japan, 1987), etc. Family. His wife, Shih-ning Cheng(), whom he married in 1939, died in 2000. He also had a daughter, May Chu (), wife of the physicist Chu Ching-wu, and a son named Paul (). Transliteration and pronunciation. Chern's surname is a common Chinese surname which is now usually spelt Chen. The unusual spelling "Chern" is a transliteration in the old Gwoyeu Romatzyh (GR) romanization for Mandarin Chinese used in the early twentieth century China. It uses special spelling rules to indicate different tones of Mandarin, which is a tonal language with four tones. The silent "r" in "Chern" indicates a second-tone syllable, written "Chén" in pinyin but in practice often written by non-Chinese without the tonal mark. In GR the spelling of his given name "Shiing-Shen" indicates a third tone for "Shiing" and a first tone for "Shen", which are equivalent to the syllables "Xǐngshēn" in pinyin. In English, Chern pronounced his name "Churn," and this pronunciation is now universally accepted among English-speaking mathematicians and physicists.
1066004	Code 46 is a 2003 British film directed by Michael Winterbottom, with screenplay by Frank Cottrell Boyce. It was produced by BBC Films and Revolution Films. It is a disquieting science fiction love story with themes that explore the moral impacts of advances in biotechnology. The soundtrack was composed by David Holmes under the name "Free Association". The film was shot in Dubai, Shanghai, Kuala Lumpur, Rajasthan (picturised as Jebel Ali) and many interiors in London, both for logistic reasons and because the juxtaposition of elements of these cities offered a believable futuristic setting. Plot. In the near future the world is divided between those who live "inside", in high-density cities, while those who live "outside", are a poor underclass. Access to the cities is highly restricted, and regulated through the use of health documents, known as "papeles" in the global pidgin language of the day (composed of elements of English, Spanish, French, Arabic, Italian, Farsi and Mandarin). Most city residents only venture outside after dark since direct sunlight is now considered hazardous to their health. However, many residents still venture outdoors during the day. The government appears to be authoritarian and dystopian. Society is regulated by various "codes". The code of the movie title prohibits "genetically incestuous reproduction", which may occur as a result of the various medical technologies which have become commonplace, such as cloning. The main character is William Geld (Tim Robbins), an insurance fraud investigator who is sent to Shanghai to interview employees at a company known as "The Sphinx", which manufactures "covers", ostensibly "insurance cover documents" but which in fact regulate the movements of people between cities and "inside" and "outside". William's assignment is to identify employees who are suspected of forging "covers". After interviewing numerous Sphinx employees, he identifies a young worker named Maria Gonzalez (Samantha Morton) as the forger. He is able to do this using a genetically engineered "empathy virus" which allows him to gain information from people if they voluntarily reveal something about themselves. Maria tells William that she has the same dream each birthday: she is travelling the subway to meet someone she cannot identify. Each birthday she is one station closer to her destination, where she expects to meet the person. William is captivated by her, and instead of turning her over to security, identifies another employee as the forger. William then meets up with Maria and they begin an affair. Putting complete trust in a man who could have had her arrested, Maria reveals how she was able to smuggle papeles out of her workplace. In a nightclub they meet Damian (David Fahm), a naturalist who longs to travel to Delhi to study bats. He has applied for cover for eight consecutive years but has always been refused. Maria supplies Damian with a papel. William is upset by this and indicates that he should turn Maria over to the authorities, but Maria knows he won't. William explains that there are legitimate reasons why Damian is unable to obtain the proper clearances legally. Maria believes that some risks are worth taking to fulfill one's dreams. Back at her apartment, Maria shows William her "memory scrapbook" (an electronic booklet that records video from the user's mind), which contains memories of her parents and friends. Other movies show her passing papeles to various people. She thinks they are beautiful and their eyes are full of desire and dreams, and that they have a different look from "everyday" people. As Maria sleeps, William finds a forged cover in her room and takes it. William's travel cover will expire the next day so he returns home to his family. On the way to the airport, he gives the forged cover to a street vendor at the city's perimeter checkpoint, an act of humanity which could change the vendor's life. Later, he learns that Damian died in Delhi after exposure to a virus to which he had no immunity. William is reprimanded for not discovering the true Sphinx forger. He explains that he had trouble with his empathy virus and requests that someone else be sent, as there may have been an accomplice to the innocent man he fingered as the guilty party. However, he is ordered to deal with the problem and to return to Shanghai. Upon his return William discovers that Maria has gone. Her apartment is abandoned and the only clue is a medical clinic appointment. He visits the clinic and using his empathic abilities learns that Maria was pregnant, but that it was terminated due to a violation of Code 46. William knows that this means Maria is somehow genetically related to him, but he has no idea how. William discovers that Maria has been taken to have her memory of the episode erased. He talks to Maria, but finds her memory of him is gone. He succeeds in getting the clinic to release Maria into his care by telling them she is a witness in his fraud investigation. After she is released William proves to Maria that she knows him by his intimate knowledge of her and by showing her the memory recording of when she gave Damian the papel, which includes a shot of William. William tells her about the memory erasure, and about how he didn't report her for fraud. Maria is disturbed by this information and becomes very distressed. William gives her a sleeping pill and while she is sleeping, he cuts some hair from her head and takes it to a facility which provides instant DNA analysis. There he discovers that Maria is fifty percent genetically related to him, and that she is a biological clone of his mother, who was one of a set of twenty four in-vitro fertilised clones. This knowledge does not affect William's feelings, but instead of going back to Maria he decides to go home to his family. However when he tries to leave he is not allowed to do so as his 24-hour cover is now expired. William then realises that his only hope of returning home is to get a papel from Maria. He returns to her apartment and tells her about his inability to leave and she agrees to help him. She tells him she must acquire a papel and that she will meet him at the airport later. She goes to work and obtains a papel, but is unable to forge one herself, as she was moved to another area of work, so a co-worker makes the cover for her. While taking a train to meet William she remembers her birthday dream, and that he was the person she is looking for in the dream, and she remembers her feelings for him. She meets William and gives him the papel and then tells him she remembers him. He decides not to leave her. William and Maria then travel to Jebel Ali in the Middle East, which does not require special travel clearance. The two hide out in the old city where they book a room. Here William reveals to Maria that as well as the memory wiping she has been given a virus that induces a terrorising adrenaline rush in response to physical contact with the person who brought about the Code 46 violation. However, Maria still wants to make love with William and so he ties her down to prevent her from fleeing once the adrenaline rush kicks in. Afterward, Maria enters a somnambulistic state also caused by the virus which forces her to report the further Code 46 violation to the authorities. She is unconscious of this, though William is aware of the virus's reaction. They then rent an old car and travel away to escape the authorities who are tracking them. William crashes the car while avoiding a collision with camels and pedestrians and they are both knocked unconscious. When William awakes in the hospital he finds himself in Seattle with his wife and child. He has no memory of Maria or the Code 46 violation, as all memories of her and their time together have been completely flushed from his mind. The authorities had brought William before a tribunal, but decided the empathy virus had affected his judgment. He attempts to use the empathy virus to read his son's thoughts on the drive back from the hospital, but is unable to. Maria is more severely punished, in effect, by having her memories of William loving her not be erased, essentially forced to remember him and exiled to the place she hated the most, the desert, outside of "cover". Her final words of the film (portrayed through Voice Over of the end-of-film events and a montage of her poor, "beggar" life and existence) are, "I miss you." Themes. Genetics. Human DNA has 46 chromosomes (23 pairs). Critic Roger Ebert comments that the character of Maria Gonzalez "suggests ethnic distinctions have been lost in generations of government-supervised DNA matchups". Morality. There are some connections with the Oedipus myth. The most obvious are the inadvertent mother-son sexual relation and the Sphinx, but also Maria's exile and William's loss of empathy (compare to Oedipus' loss of sight). Carla Meyer, in her review for the San Francisco Chronicle, argues that "the film updates a classical premise – the struggle for personal freedom – by pairing it with ethical and moral quandaries". Language. Characters in "Code 46" frequently use words from a number of languages, especially Spanish, combined with English to communicate with each other. For example, the characters use the Mandarin Chinese "Ni Hao" for greeting each other, the Spanish "palabra" for "password" and "afuera" for "outside" (exiled), the Basque word "agur" for hello, and "Khoda Hafez" being Farsi for goodbye. There are also words in Italian (e. g. "ti amo", I love you), in French (e. g. "à bientôt", see you soon), and Arabic traditional greetings like "As-Salamu Alaykum" (السلام عليك; "peace be with you", but generally meant as "hello"). The idea is to portray a society that is not only multi-ethnic but also with a language-fusion with expressions coming from the dominant languages of our present and those that are going to be dominant in our future. In the karaoke club scene, Mick Jones of The Clash sings The Clash song "Should I Stay or Should I Go?". Earlier in the same scene, a girl singing along with a piano is playing a famous theme of Portugal's traditional genre Fado de Coimbra, named "Coimbra Menina e Moça".
1058065	Eight Men Out is a 1988 American dramatic sports film, and based on Eliot Asinof's 1963 book "8 Men Out". It was written and directed by John Sayles. The film is a dramatization of Major League Baseball's Black Sox scandal, in which eight members of the Chicago White Sox conspired with gamblers to intentionally lose the 1919 World Series. Much of the movie was filmed at the old Bush Stadium in Indianapolis, Indiana. Plot. The 1919 Chicago White Sox are considered the greatest team in baseball and, in fact, one of the greatest ever assembled to that point. However, the team's owner, Charles Comiskey, is a skinflint with little inclination to reward his players for a spectacular season. When gamblers gets wind of the players' discontent, they offer a select group of Sox — including star pitcher Eddie Cicotte — more money to play badly than they would have earned by winning the World Series against the Cincinnati Reds. A number of players, including Chick Gandil, Swede Risberg, and Lefty Williams, go along with the scheme. The team's greatest star, Shoeless Joe Jackson, is depicted as being not very bright and not entirely sure what is going on. Buck Weaver, meanwhile, is included with the seven others but insists that he wants nothing to do with the fix. When the best-of-nine series begins, Cicotte deliberately pitches poorly to lose the first game. Williams does likewise in Game 2, while Gandil and Hap Felsch make glaring mistakes on the field. Several of the players become upset, however, when the various gamblers involved fail to pay their promised money up front. Chicago journalists Ring Lardner and Hugh Fullerton grow increasingly suspicious. Meanwhile, the team's manager, Kid Gleason, continues to hear rumors of a fix, but he remains confident that his boys will come through in the end. A third pitcher not in on the scam, Dickey Kerr, wins Game 3 for the Sox, making both gamblers and teammates uncomfortable. Other teammates such as Ray Schalk continue to play hard, while Weaver and Jackson show no visible signs of taking a dive. Cicotte, who won 29 games during the season, loses again in Game 4. With the championship now in jeopardy, Gleason intends to bench him from his next start, but Cicotte begs for another chance. The manager reluctantly agrees and is rewarded with a victory in Game 7. Unpaid by the gamblers, Williams also intends to do his best, but when his wife's life is threatened, he purposely pitches badly to lose the final game. Cincinnati wins the World Series (5 games to 3) to the shock of Sox fans. Even worse, sportswriter Fullerton exposes the strong possibility that this series was not on the level. His findings cause Comiskey and the other owners to appoint a new commissioner of baseball, Kenesaw Mountain Landis, and give him complete authority over the sport. Eight players are indicted and brought to trial. Cicotte, Williams, and Jackson even sign confessions. But in court, while Weaver maintains his innocence, the confessions are mysteriously found to be stolen, and the popular Chicago players are found not guilty. While they celebrate, however, Judge Landis bans all eight from professional baseball for life, citing their failure to reveal being approached by gambling interests in the first place.
1090873	Gaspard-Gustave de Coriolis or Gustave Coriolis (; 21 May 1792 – 19 September 1843) was a French mathematician, mechanical engineer and scientist. He is best known for his work on the supplementary forces that are detected in a rotating frame of reference. See the Coriolis Effect. Coriolis was the first to coin the term "work" for the transfer of energy by a force acting through a distance. Biography. Coriolis was born in Paris in 1792. In 1816, he became a tutor at the École Polytechnique, where he did experiments on friction and hydraulics. In 1829, Coriolis published a textbook, "Calcul de l'Effet des Machines" ("Calculation of the Effect of Machines"), which presented mechanics in a way that could readily be applied by industry. In this period, the correct expression for kinetic energy, "½mv2", and its relation to mechanical work, became established.
1062384	Klute is a 1971 dramatic film directed and produced by Alan J. Pakula, written by Andy and Dave Lewis, and starring Jane Fonda, Donald Sutherland, Charles Cioffi and Roy Scheider. It tells the story of a prostitute who assists a detective in solving a missing person's case. "Klute" was the first installment of what informally came to be known as Pakula's "paranoia trilogy". The other two films in the trilogy are "The Parallax View" (1974) and "All The President's Men" (1976). The film includes a cameo appearance by Warhol superstars actress Candy Darling, and another by "All in the Family" costar Jean Stapleton. The music was composed by Michael Small.
584888	Vijayashanti (Telugu: విజయశాంతి) is an Indian film actress and a politician from Andhra Pradesh, India. Prior to joining politics in 2004, she has acted in over 186 movies in seven languages including Telugu, Tamil, Malayalam, Kannada and Hindi. She is credited as "The Lady Superstar" of South Indian cinema. She has won the National Film Award in Best Actress category for "Karthavyam" in 1991 and also She won four Nandi Awards and six Filmfare Awards South out of which five are Filmfare Best Actress Award (Telugu) and one Filmfare Lifetime Achievement Award (South). She played a wide variety of roles ranging from glamour, action, tough cop, Goddess to sentimental roles. Childhood. She was born in Chennai, Tamilnadu, India on 24 June 1964. Her parents Varalaxmi and Srinivas Prasad hailed from Ramannagudem, Warangal district, Andhra Pradesh. She completed her 10th class at Holly Angeles High School, Chennai, before starting her film career. Early career. She began her acting career in 1980 as the leading lady in the Tamil film "Kallukkul Eeram" ("The moisture inside stone / rock") directed by P. S. Nivas. The same year, she debuted in Telugu with the movie "Kilaadi Krishnudu" ('Cunning Krishna'), pairing opposite Krishna. She was given screen name "Vijaya Shanthi" based on her aunt and veterna actress Vijaya Lalitha. She got a role in the Telugu film "Satyam-Sivam" (1981), the cast of which included N. T. Rama Rao and Akkineni Nageswara Rao. Glamour Queen & Dream Girl. By 1985 she was exclusively acting in Telugu films. She became a Glamour Queen of the Telugu film industry. She is one of the leading actress who played both glamour and performance oriented films. Her glamour roles were brought out by "K. Raghavendra Rao" and "A. Kodandarami Reddy" in films like ("Challenge", "Desodhdhaarakudu", "Pasivadi Pranam", "Muddula Krishnaiah", "Agni Parvatam", "Yamudiki Mogudu", "Athaku Yamudu Ammayiki Mogudu", "Muddula Mavayya", "Gang Leader" etc.). In 1992 "Mondi Mogudu Penki Pellam" movie was a huge success. She played a role of a bold lady speaking Telangana slang in the role. In the 90s, she was the only actress demanding as remuneration for a film . Most of her films with Chiranjeevi (19 films) and Balakrishna (16 films) were huge hits and mostly called as Hit Pair for both lead actors by the audience. She has acted alongside Tamil superstar Rajinikanth in the film "Mannan" as the antagonist. She also acted with yester year heroes like Krishna, Shoban Babu. Action heroine. Her break through movie was Neti bharatham (1983), from there she started acting lady oriented roles teaming up with T.Krishna. In 1985 "Pratighatana" from the same director won her accolades and a state Nandi award for the first time. Films like Repati Pourulu, Aruna kiranam, Vande mataranm and Bharatha nari are some other movies winning some state awards. In the blockbuster movie "Karthavyam" (1990), her performance as a tough cop (modeled after real-life supercop Kiran Bedi) won her the National Film Award from Indian Government and an Andhra Pradesh State award for best actress.She became third women to win national award for best actress from Telugu industry. The success of this movie saw her moving away from glamorous roles and limiting herself to tough lady roles. These tough lady roles made her a leading actress in Telugu films. In 1990, "Karthavyam" was dubbed into Tamil as "Vijayanthi IPS" and its success brought her actress in Tamil cinema as well. (It was also remade in Hindi as Tejaswini, with herself playing the lead role. As expected, Tejaswini did very well at the Hindi box-office). Following the success of "Vijayanthi IPS", the producers of her films began releasing Tamil versions of her movies simultaneously with the Telugu Movies. After she started concentrating on Action roles. some thing special is her nativity showing. In 1997 she did Osey Ramulamma directed by "Dasari Narayana Rao" was a huge success and winning her another "Nandi Award". From this film onwards she is mostly called as "Ramulamma" by the people. Political career. Vijayashanti joined the Bharatiya Janata Party and was soon made the secretary of BJP's Women's Wing (Bharateeya Mahila Morcha). During the 1999 general election she was named BJP's contestant from the Cuddapah Lok Sabha seat against Sonia Gandhi of Congress(I) (however, she withdrew from the race after Sonia Gandhi decided to contest from Bellary). She started her own political party, Talli Telangana, which merged into Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) due to lack of strength and support, in January 2009. From 1999 her movie appearances decreased as she focused on her political career. By 2004 she had stopped signing new films. In the 2009 general election, she won Medak seat. In June 2009, she resigned from the post of secretary general of TRS, expressing solidarity with the resignation of Kalvakuntla Chandrashekar Rao. In 2011, she submitted her resignation as an MP. The resignation was later rejected by the speaker of the house, as they were not in the proper format. Later she was actively participating in Politics for separate Telangana state (region). Personal life. She is married to M. V. Srinivas Prasad. She made that public in her application to election commission. He produced a movie "Nippuravva" under the banner of "Yuvaratna arts". He is a real estate businessman in Andhra Pradesh State, South India. Filmography. 2004 2003 2002 2001 1999 1998 1997 1996 1995 1994 1993 1992 1991 1990 1989 1988 1987 1986 1985 1984 1983 1982 1981 1980 Incomplete films. Below is a list of Vijayashanti's incomplete movies. Some of them were announced but never started; some more were started but never finished. Awards. Silver Screen Empress Award from "TSR TV9 awards" (2011) References. she is pundai girl
393695	Lee Byung-hun (; born July 12, 1970) is a South Korean actor, best known for starring in "Joint Security Area" (2000), "A Bittersweet Life" (2005), "The Good, the Bad, the Weird" (2008), "I Saw the Devil" (2010), "Gwanghae" (2012), and "RED 2" (2013). Lee, along with Ahn Sung-ki, are the first Korean actors to imprint their hand and foot prints on the forecourt of Grauman's Chinese Theatre in Hollywood, Los Angeles. Career. Lee made his debut in the television drama "Asphalt My Hometown" after auditioning in a KBS talent audition in 1991. He continued to act in a string of various television dramas until he made his big breakthrough in 2000 with "Joint Security Area" directed by Park Chan-wook. The film broke the box office record and became the highest grossing Korean film at the time. Lee played a border-guard soldier and won Best Actor at the Pusan Film Critics Awards for the role.
582962	Maha-Sangram (also known in the UK as "The Big Battle") is a 1990 Bollywood romance film directed by Mukul Anand and starring Vinod Khanna, Govinda and Madhuri Dixit. Plot. Uttar Pradesh-based Vishal gets a telegram from Santa Cruz Police Station that his younger collegian brother, Arjun, is dead. Distraught he travels to Bombay, collects his brothers ashes, and finds out that Arjun met a violent death. With the aid of a street-smart con-woman and her mentor, Babu Kasai Hyderabadi, he then sets out to find who killed his brother - not knowing that soon he will be drawn into the dark world of Godha and Vishwaraj.
582220	Golmaal 3 is a 2010 Bollywood action comedy film directed by Rohit Shetty and the sequel to the 2008 film "Golmaal Returns" and the third film in the "Golmaal series". The film stars most of the actors from the previous films, including Ajay Devgn, Kareena Kapoor, Arshad Warsi, Tusshar Kapoor and Shreyas Talpade. New additions to the cast include actors Mithun Chakraborty and Kunal Khemu. Principal photography for the film began in March 2010 in Mumbai, Goa and Hyderabad. It was reportedly inspired by Basu Chatterjee's "Khatta Meetha" (1978), wherein Ashok Kumar and Pearl Padamsee played an old couple marrying with children from their previous marriages, and film's rights were later bought over. "Golmaal 3" was released on 5 November 2010, and received mixed to negative response worldwide. However, the film was eventually declared a blockbuster at the box office and is currently the ninth highest grossing Bollywood film according to worldwide gross collections. Plot. The story follows Pritam (Mithun Chakraborty), an elderly bus driver. His three good-for-nothing sons, Madhav (Arshad Warsi) the group leader;, Laxman (Kunal Khemu) the poetic idiot; and Lucky (Tushar Kapoor) the innocent mute are always up to trouble, mostly by scamming people. On the other hand, Geeta (Ratna Pathak) is an elderly woman, whose two sons, Laxman (Shreyas Talpade) the stammering fool; and Gopal (Ajay Devgan) the strong but king leader; own a water sports stall at the beach. Gopal & Laxman's partner Daboo (Kareena Kapoor), is a tomboy who secretly admires Gopal. Three robbers – Puppy (Johny Lever), Dagga (Sanjai Mishra) and Teja (Vrajesh Hirjee) — rob the queen's necklace and are on the run from police and end up in Goa. Puppy, who suffers from short-term memory loss, hides the necklace in Pritam's house. Soon enough, Pritam's three sons open an water sports shack opposite Geeta's sons stall, and an rivalry begins. Filled with mayhem, both of the groups try to take down each other's business but fail hilariously. In response to this, Pritam goes to meet Geeta to sort this rivalry out, and it turns out that Pritam & Geeta were college-lovers. Daboo overhears their love story, and decides to get the two married, without their sons permissions. After the marriage, the two families start living in one house, filled with non-stop laughs & mayhem. Puppy eventually remembers where he hid the necklace, and turns himself in along with his goons Dagga and Teja. Reception. Critical reception. The film received mixed to negative reviews from critics. On the review-aggregation website Mirchiplex.com, the film scored 2/5 based on 12 reviews. Mayank Shekhar of "Hindustan Times" rated it 1.5/5 and noted that "the filmmakers have six main actors to juggle with, and as many side comedians to lend parts to. Never mind the narrative, they would be happy with as any corny antics and dialogues with whoever was available." Raja Sen of Rediff.com gave a similar rating explaining that "was not looking for sensitivity or smarts in "Golmaal 3" [but for...a few good jokes. the film does not oblige." On the other hand critic Taran Adarsh of "Bollywood Hungama" rated it 4/5, concluding that ""Golmaal 3" is an ideal fun ride with thrice the enjoyment and gratification, thrice the magic and thrice the hilarity." "The Times of India" explained that "[although the comic acts get repetitive...there is a laugh riot waiting for you at the multiplex this weekend." Vinayak Chakravorty of Mail Today gave it 3 stars out of 5. The Indian Stammering Association (TISA) Criticism. The Indian Stammering Association, based in Dehradun, started an online petition to the censor board against the comical depiction of stuttering, severely disabling disorder that affects millions of children and many adults. In October 2010 TISA filed a public interest writ petition against the director and producers of the film "Golmaal 3" and the censor board of India at Uttarakhand High Court. It objected to the film's portrayal of stammerers as objects of ridicule, on the grounds that this promoted discrimination and the teasing and bullying of people who stammer. The film-makers and Censor Board have to respond to the court notice by 14 December 2010. After that the court will hear this case. Box office. "Golmaal 3" released in India and internationally on 5 November 2010 to coincide with the Diwali weekend, usually considered a profitable time of the year. The film's opening collections on the first day reached 8.32 crore and opening weekend net collections stood at 33.5 crore. Opening week gross collections were around 62.25 crore in India and 10 crore overseas. The film had a strong second weekend in theatres, grossing 19 crore. During its second and third week at the Indian box office, the film grossed 31.75 crore and 9 crore respectively, therefore increasing the film's total to 103.50 crore. Meanwhile, the film earned $1,132,192 in United States and Canada, £638,496 in UK and $352,063 in Australia. "Golmaal 3" was elevated to "Blockbuster" verdict and is currently the second highest-grossing Bollywood film of 2010. Awards and nominations. Won Won Nominated Nominated Soundtrack. The soundtrack is composed by Pritam & lyrics are penned by Kumaar. Songs are as follows :-
1502421	Jo Van Fleet (December 30, 1914 – June 10, 1996) was an American theatre and film actress. Career. Van Fleet established herself as a notable dramatic actress on Broadway over several years, winning a Tony Award in 1954 for her skill in a difficult role, playing an unsympathetic, even abusive character, in Horton Foote's "The Trip to Bountiful" with Lillian Gish and Eva Marie Saint. Her first film role was playing the estranged mother of James Dean's character in "East of Eden" (1955). This debut performance earned Van Fleet an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. Her subsequent film work was steady through 1960, then very sporadic, and included such films as "The Rose Tattoo", "I'll Cry Tomorrow" (both 1955), "The King and Four Queens" (1956), "Gunfight at the O.K. Corral" (1957) and "Cool Hand Luke" (1967). In 1958, she was nominated for a Tony Award for Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a Play for her performance in "Look Homeward, Angel" on Broadway. Other films include "Wild River" (1960), "Rodgers and Hammerstein's Cinderella" (1965) and "I Love You, Alice B. Toklas" (1968). Her television work included "Alfred Hitchcock Presents", "Thriller", "Bonanza" and "The Wild Wild West". Personal life. Van Fleet was married to William Bales from 1946 until his death in 1990, and was survived by her son Michael Bales, and grandson, Arden Rogow-Bales.
1555139	Eric Allen Stonestreet (born September 9, 1971) is an American actor, best known for his starring role as Cameron Tucker on the ABC comedy "Modern Family". Stonestreet has received critical acclaim for his performance on "Modern Family", which has earned him three Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series nominations, winning in 2010 and 2012. Early life. Stonestreet was born in Kansas City, Kansas, the son of Jamey Anne (née Ball) and Vincent Anthony "Vince" Stonestreet. During his childhood, he wanted to become a clown. At age nine, he created an auguste clown character named Fizbo, and has periodically brought him back, including in three episodes of "Modern Family". He is a graduate of Piper High School and Kansas State University (1996). He spent two years doing plays and studying improv at The Second City Training Center in Chicago, then moved to Los Angeles and began his professional acting career. He was also a member of Kansas State's Pi Kappa Alpha Fraternity. Career. Stonestreet plays Cameron Tucker on "Modern Family" on ABC. He is also notable for his role as Ronnie Litre on "". Additionally, he has appeared on such television shows as "Dharma & Greg", "Malcolm in the Middle", "The Mentalist", "Party of Five", "Spin City", "ER", "The West Wing", "Pushing Daisies", "Greg the Bunny", "Providence", "Close to Home", "Crossing Jordan", "Bones", "Monk", "NCIS", "American Horror Story", and "Nip/Tuck". Early on in his career, Stonestreet was featured in Northwestern University's 1996 Football TV commercial campaign as the "purple pride guy." In 2008, he played a private security firm employee and killer in an episode of NCIS entitled "Silent Night." In 2009, Stonestreet appeared on "Nip/Tuck" as a criminal sentenced to death for the alleged killing of a young girl. His first major film role came in 2000, when he played Sheldon the desk clerk in "Almost Famous". He also played Dr. Benson in "Girls Will Be Girls", Ed the Trucker in "The Island", and Courtney's Neighbor in "Ninja Cheerleaders". In 2007, Stonestreet appeared in the short film "Vinny's Vault," which was produced during the reality show "On the Lot", and "Identity Thief" as Big Chuck. Stonestreet currently plays the role of Cameron Tucker on the acclaimed ABC sitcom "Modern Family". For his performance, he has earned three consecutive Primetime Emmy Award nominations for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series (2010, 2011 and 2012), winning the award in 2010 and 2012. He also received three Golden Globe Award nominations (2010, 2011, and 2013) for his work. In 2013, he appeared in a series of advertisements for Australian retail store Big W. Personal life. Stonestreet often says that he is "openly straight." His openly gay co-star, Jesse Tyler Ferguson, who plays Cameron Tucker's partner, Mitchell Pritchett, jokingly calls him "gay-for-pay." Stonestreet is also an avid fan of Kansas State University, cheering for the Wildcats on "Jimmy Kimmel Live!" after they had beaten the Kansas Jayhawks in men's basketball, as well as appearing on College Gameday Live on October 29, 2011 in full Kansas State jumpsuit and picking them to upset the then No. 9 Oklahoma football team. He is also a hockey fan and a well known supporter of the Los Angeles Kings.
430245	Dorothy Louise Bridges (née Simpson; September 19, 1915 – February 16, 2009) was an American actress and poet. Bridges was the matriarch of an acting family, which included her late husband, Lloyd Bridges, and her sons, Beau Bridges and Jeff Bridges. Bridges was sometimes credited as Dorothy Dean. Early life. Bridges was born Dorothy Louise Simpson in Worcester, Massachusetts, on September 19, 1915, to Louise Myles (1888-1969) and Frederick Walter Simpson (1886-1979). She was of English ancestry. Her family moved to Los Angeles when she was two years old. Bridges made her film debut in the movie "Finders Keepers". She attended the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) where she met her future husband, Lloyd Bridges, while acting in a small theatrical play on campus. Lloyd Bridges, who was a UCLA upperclassman at the time, appeared in the production as her "leading man." The couple married in 1938 in New York City. Dorothy and Lloyd Bridges remained married for 60 years, until he died in 1998 at the age of 85. They had four children: Beau Vernet, Garrett Myles, Jeffrey Leon, and Lucinda Louise. Garrett, died of sudden infant death syndrome on August 3, 1948.
1710974	I Am Kalam is a Hindi film directed by Nila Madhab Panda. The plot revolves around Chhotu, a poor Rajasthani boy, who is inspired by the life of the former President of India, A. P. J. Abdul Kalam and his strong desire to learn. The character of Chhotu has been performed by Harsh Mayar, a Delhi slum boy. The film premiered at the 63rd Cannes Film Festival on May 12. It has been showcased in various film festivals and has bagged many awards and honors. The film was released in August 2011. Plot. Chhotu is an intelligent boy of about 12 years of age from Rajasthan. Born into poverty, he is pawned off by his mother to work at a roadside food stall under the somewhat kind owner, Bhati. The mother says repeatedly "Schools is not in our destiny". The movie is about how there is no such destiny and such supposed destinies can be changed by one's own hard work. One day Chhotu watches President Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam on television and it inspires him. Chhotu changes his name to Kalam and decides he wants to become someone who wears a tie and who is respected by others.
1091022	Josiah Willard Gibbs (February 11, 1839 – April 28, 1903) was an American scientist who made important theoretical contributions to physics, chemistry, and mathematics. His work on the applications of thermodynamics was instrumental in transforming physical chemistry into a rigorous deductive science. Together with James Clerk Maxwell and Ludwig Boltzmann, he created statistical mechanics (a term that he coined), explaining the laws of thermodynamics as consequences of the statistical properties of large ensembles of particles. Gibbs also worked on the application of Maxwell's equations to problems in physical optics. As a mathematician, he invented modern vector calculus (independently of the British scientist Oliver Heaviside, who carried out similar work during the same period). In 1863, Yale awarded Gibbs the first American doctorate in engineering. After a three-year sojourn in Europe, Gibbs spent the rest of his career at Yale, where he was professor of mathematical physics from 1871 until his death. Working in relative isolation, he became the earliest theoretical scientist in the United States to earn an international reputation and was praised by Albert Einstein as "the greatest mind in American history". In 1901 Gibbs received what was then considered the highest honor awarded by the international scientific community, the Copley Medal of the Royal Society of London, "for his contributions to mathematical physics". Commentators and biographers have remarked on the contrast between Gibbs's quiet, solitary life in turn of the century New England and the great international impact of his ideas. Though his work was almost entirely theoretical, the practical value of Gibbs's contributions became evident with the development of industrial chemistry during the first half of the 20th century. According to Robert A. Millikan, in pure science Gibbs "did for statistical mechanics and for thermodynamics what Laplace did for celestial mechanics and Maxwell did for electrodynamics, namely, made his field a well-nigh finished theoretical structure." Biography. Family background. Gibbs belonged to an old Yankee family that had produced distinguished American clergymen and academics since the 17th century. He was the fourth of five children and the only son of Josiah Willard Gibbs and his wife Mary Anna, "née" Van Cleve. On his father's side, he was descended from Samuel Willard, who served as acting President of Harvard College from 1701 to 1707. On his mother's side, one of his ancestors was the Rev. Jonathan Dickinson, the first president of the College of New Jersey (later Princeton University). Gibbs's given name, which he shared with his father and several other members of his extended family, derived from his ancestor Josiah Willard, who had been Secretary of the Province of Massachusetts Bay in the 18th century. The elder Gibbs was generally known to his family and colleagues as "Josiah", while the son was called "Willard". Josiah Gibbs was a linguist and theologian who served as professor of sacred literature at Yale Divinity School from 1824 until his death in 1861. He is chiefly remembered today as the abolitionist who found an interpreter for the African passengers of the ship "Amistad", allowing them to testify during the trial that followed their rebellion against being sold as slaves. Early years. Willard Gibbs was educated at the Hopkins School and entered Yale College in 1854, aged 15. He graduated in 1858 near the top of his class, and was awarded prizes for excellence in mathematics and Latin. He remained at Yale as a graduate student at the Sheffield Scientific School. At age 19, soon after his graduation from college, Gibbs was inducted into the Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences, a scholarly institution composed primarily of members of the Yale faculty. Relatively few documents from the period survive and it is impossible to reconstruct the details of Gibbs's early career with precision. In the opinion of biographers, Gibbs's principal mentor and champion, both at Yale and in the Connecticut Academy, was probably the astronomer and mathematician Hubert Anson Newton, a leading authority on meteors, who remained Gibbs's lifelong friend and confidant. After the death of his father in 1861, Gibbs inherited enough money to make him financially independent. Recurrent pulmonary trouble ailed the young Gibbs and his doctors were concerned that he might be susceptible to tuberculosis, which had killed his mother. He also suffered from astigmatism, whose treatment was then still largely unfamiliar to oculists, so that Gibbs had to diagnose himself and grind his own lenses. (In later years, he used glasses only for reading or other close work.) His delicate health and imperfect eyesight probably explain why he did not volunteer to fight in the Civil War of 1861–65. He was not conscripted and he remained at Yale for the duration of the war. In 1863, Gibbs received the first Ph.D. degree in engineering granted in the US, for a thesis entitled "On the Form of the Teeth of Wheels in Spur Gearing", in which he used geometrical techniques to investigate the optimum design for gears. This was also the fifth Ph.D. granted in the US in any subject. After graduation, Gibbs was appointed as tutor at the College for a term of three years. During the first two years he taught Latin and during the third Natural Philosophy (i.e., physics). In 1866 he patented a design for a railway brake and read a paper before the Connecticut Academy, entitled "The Proper Magnitude of the Units of Length", in which he proposed a scheme for rationalizing the system of units of measurement used in mechanics. After his term as tutor ended, Gibbs traveled to Europe with his sisters. They spent the winter of 1866–67 in Paris, where Gibbs attended lectures at the Sorbonne and the Collège de France, dictated by such distinguished mathematical scientists as Joseph Liouville and Michel Chasles. Having undertaken a punishing regime of study, Gibbs caught a serious cold and a doctor, fearing tuberculosis, advised him to rest in the Riviera, where he and his sisters spent several months and where he made a full recovery. Moving to Berlin, Gibbs attended the lectures taught by mathematicians Karl Weierstrass and Leopold Kronecker, as well as by chemist Heinrich Gustav Magnus. In August 1867, Gibbs's sister Julia was married in Berlin to Addison Van Name, who had been Gibbs's classmate at Yale. The newly married couple returned to New Haven, leaving Gibbs and his sister Anna in Germany. In Heidelberg, Gibbs was exposed to the work of physicists Gustav Kirchhoff and Hermann von Helmholtz, and chemist Robert Bunsen. At the time, German academics were the leading authorities in the natural sciences, especially chemistry and thermodynamics. Gibbs returned to Yale in June 1869 and briefly taught French to engineering students. It was probably also around this time that he worked on a new design for a steam-engine governor, his last significant investigation in mechanical engineering. In 1871 he was appointed Professor of Mathematical Physics at Yale, the first such professorship in the United States. Gibbs, who had independent means and had yet to publish anything, was assigned to teach graduate students exclusively and was hired without salary. Unsalaried teaching positions were common in German universities, on which the system of graduate scientific instruction at Yale was then being modeled. Middle years. Gibbs published his first work in 1873, at the unusually advanced age of 34. His papers on the geometric representation of thermodynamic quantities appeared in the "Transactions of the Connecticut Academy". This journal had few readers capable of understanding Gibbs's work, but he shared reprints with his correspondents in Europe and received an enthusiastic response from James Clerk Maxwell, at the University of Cambridge. Maxwell even made, with his own hands, a clay model illustrating Gibbs's construct. He then produced three plaster casts of his model and mailed one to Gibbs. That cast is on display at the Yale physics department. Maxwell included a new chapter on Gibbs's work in the next edition of his "Theory of Heat", published in 1875. He explained the usefulness of Gibbs's graphical methods in a lecture to the Chemical Society of London and even referred to it in the article on "Diagrams" that he wrote for the "Encyclopædia Britannica". Maxwell's early death in 1879, at the age of 48, precluded further collaboration between him and Gibbs. The joke later circulated in New Haven that "only one man lived who could understand Gibbs's papers. That was Maxwell, and now he is dead." Gibbs then extended his thermodynamic analysis to multi-phase chemical systems (i.e., to systems composed of more than one kind of matter) and considered a variety of concrete applications. He described that research in a monograph titled "On the Equilibrium of Heterogeneous Substances", published by the Connecticut Academy in two parts that appeared respectively in 1875 and 1878. That work, which covers about three hundred pages and contains exactly seven hundred numbered mathematical equations, begins with a quotation from Rudolf Clausius that expresses what would later be called the first and second laws of thermodynamics: "The energy of the world is constant. The entropy of the world tends towards a maximum." Gibbs's monograph rigorously and ingeniously applied his thermodynamic techniques to the interpretation of physico-chemical phenomena, explaining and relating what had previously been a mass of isolated facts and observations. The work has been described as "the "Principia" of thermodynamics" and as a work of "practically unlimited scope". Wilhelm Ostwald, who translated Gibbs's monograph into German, referred to Gibbs as the "founder of chemical energetics". According to modern commentators, Gibbs continued to work without pay until 1880, when the new Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland offered him a position paying $3,000 per year. In response, Yale offered him an annual salary of $2,000, which he was content to accept. Later years. From 1880 to 1884, Gibbs worked on developing the exterior algebra of Hermann Grassmann into a vector calculus well-suited to the needs of physicists. With this object in mind, Gibbs distinguished between the dot and cross products of two vectors and introduced the concept of dyadics. Similar work was carried out independently, and at around the same time, by the British mathematical physicist and engineer Oliver Heaviside. Gibbs sought to convince other physicists of the convenience of the vectorial approach over the quaternionic calculus of William Rowan Hamilton, which was then widely used by British scientists. This led him, in the early 1890s, to a controversy with Peter Guthrie Tait and others in the pages of "Nature". Gibbs's lecture notes on vector calculus were privately printed in 1881 and 1884 for the use of his students, and were later adapted by Edwin Bidwell Wilson into a textbook, "Vector Analysis", published in 1901. That book helped to popularize the "del" notation that is widely used today in electrodynamics and fluid mechanics. In other mathematical work, he re-discovered the "Gibbs phenomenon" in the theory of Fourier series (which, unbeknownst to him and to later scholars, had been described fifty years before by an obscure English mathematician, Henry Wilbraham). From 1882 to 1889, Gibbs wrote five papers on physical optics, in which he investigated birefringence and other optical phenomena and defended Maxwell's electromagnetic theory of light against the mechanical theories of Lord Kelvin and others. In his work on optics just as much as in his work on thermodynamics, Gibbs deliberately avoided speculating about the microscopic structure of matter, which proved a wise course in view of the revolutionary developments in quantum mechanics that began around the time of his death. Gibbs coined the term "statistical mechanics" and introduced key concepts in the corresponding mathematical description of physical systems, including the notions of chemical potential (1876), statistical ensemble (1878), and phase space (1902). Gibbs's derivation of the phenomenological laws of thermodynamics from the statistical properties of systems with many particles was presented in his highly-influential textbook "Elementary Principles in Statistical Mechanics", published in 1902, a year before his death. Gibbs's retiring personality and intense focus on his work limited his accessibility to students. His principal protégé was Edwin Bidwell Wilson, who nonetheless explained that "except in the classroom I saw very little of Gibbs. He had a way, toward the end of the afternoon, of taking a stroll about the streets between his study in the old Sloane Laboratory and his home—a little exercise between work and dinner—and one might occasionally come across him at that time." Gibbs did supervise the doctoral thesis on mathematical economics written by Irving Fisher in 1891. After Gibbs's death, Fisher financed the publication of his "Collected Works". Another distinguished student was Lee De Forest, later a pioneer of radio technology.
1059299	Olivia Haigh Williams (born 26 July 1968) is an English film, stage and television actress who has appeared in British and American films and television series. Early life. Williams was born in Camden Town, London. Both of her parents are barristers. Williams was educated at South Hampstead High School, an independent school for girls in Hampstead in North London, followed by Newnham College at the University of Cambridge, from which she graduated with a degree in English literature. She then studied drama at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School for two years and spent three years at the Royal Shakespeare Company. Career. After graduation, Williams worked with the Royal Shakespeare Company in both Stratford-upon-Avon and London. In 1995, she toured the United States in a production of Shakespeare's "Richard III" starring Ian McKellen. Her first significant appearance before the cameras was as Jane Fairfax in the British TV film "Emma" (1996), based on Jane Austen's 1816 novel. Williams made her film debut in 1997's "The Postman", after doing a screen test for Kevin Costner. She later won the lead role of Rosemary Cross in Wes Anderson's "Rushmore" (1998). She then starred as Bruce Willis' wife in the blockbuster "The Sixth Sense" (1999), a film she would later parody during her brief appearance in British sit-com "Spaced". Since then, Williams has appeared in several British films, including "Lucky Break" (2001), "The Heart of Me" (2002), for which she won the British Independent Film Award for Best Actress, and "An Education" (2009). She played Mrs. Darling in the 2003 film adaptation of "Peter Pan". Williams was uncredited for her role as Dr. Moira MacTaggert in the 2006 film "". On TV, Williams portrayed British author Jane Austen in "Miss Austen Regrets" (2008) and was cast as Adelle DeWitt in Joss Whedon's "Dollhouse", which ran on Fox from 2009 to 2010. In 2010, she won acclaim for her performance as Ruth Lang in Roman Polanski's "The Ghost Writer", winning the National Society of Film Critics Award, London Critics Circle Film Award for best supporting actress and was runner-up for best supporting actress at the Los Angeles Film Critics Association Awards. In "Hanna" (2011), she played Rachel, a bohemian mother travelling across North Africa and Europe, who comes into contact with the eponymous teen assassin, who is on the run. The film starred Saoirse Ronan, Eric Bana and Cate Blanchett, and was a critical and sleeper hit. In July 2013, Williams joined the production of David Cronenbergs "Maps to the Stars", which is described as a dark comic look at Hollywood excess. In 2000, Williams wrote the short story "The Significance Of Hair" for BBC Radio, and read it on the air. Personal life. Williams had a seven-year relationship and then engagement to the actor Jonathan Cake which ended two weeks before their planned wedding. In 2003, she married the actor and playwright Rhashan Stone, with whom she has two daughters. After filming "The Postman", she spent time in Bolivia studying spectacled bears in the rainforest. Since 2006, she has written occasional travel reports for the "Independent Traveller" section of the British newspaper "The Independent on Sunday".
1101167	Atle Selberg (14 June 1917 – 6 August 2007) was a Norwegian mathematician known for his work in analytic number theory, and in the theory of automorphic forms, in particular bringing them into relation with spectral theory. He was awarded the Fields Medal in 1950. Early years. Selberg was born in Langesund, Norway, the son of teacher Anna Kristina Selberg and mathematician Ole Michael Ludvigsen Selberg. Two of his brothers also went on to become mathematicians as well, and the remaining one became a professor of engineering.
593404	Soldier of Orange ( fɑn oˈrɑɲə) is a 1977 Dutch film directed by Paul Verhoeven and produced by Rob Houwer, starring Rutger Hauer and Jeroen Krabbé. The film is set around the German occupation of the Netherlands during World War II, and shows how individual students have different roles in the war. The story is based on the autobiographic book "Soldaat van Oranje" by Erik Hazelhoff Roelfzema. The film had a budget of ƒ 5,000,000 (€2,300,000), at the time the most expensive Dutch movie ever. With 1,547,183 viewers, it was the most popular Dutch film of 1977. The film received a Golden Globe nomination for Best Foreign Language Film in 1980. The film is considered to be one of the best Dutch films in the 20th century. Plot. The film is about a group of students from Leiden, the Netherlands, amongst them Erik Lanshof (Rutger Hauer), Guus LeJeune (Jeroen Krabbé), Jan Weinberg (Huib Rooymans), and Alex (Derek de Lint). Robby Froost (Eddy Habbema) is a friend of Erik, and Esther (Belinda Meuldijk) is Robby's girlfriend. Each of them happens to follow a different path and therefore has a different role in World War II, either as a collaborator or in the resistance. Part of the story is set in London, where Queen Wilhelmina (Andrea Domburg) has her residence. The students Erik and Guus fight alongside Colonel Rafelli (Edward Fox) and soldier Susan (Susan Penhaligon) of the allied forces in London. The film begins with a flashforward in the form of a newsreel with a voice-over. Queen Wilhelmina is accompanied by Erik arriving in the Netherlands from London shortly after World War II. After the newsreel, the film starts in the late 1930s in Leiden, where freshmen undergo the humiliation of the initiation rites of their fraternity. Erik is picked out by Guus, the chair of the fraternity, who throws a bowl of soup over his head and injures him with the bowl. After this accident, Guus apologizes to Erik, the two become close friends, and Guus offers him a room in his private student house in the center of Leiden. In this house, the students (Erik, Guus, Jacques, Jan, and Alex) have a drink which confirms their new friendships. In September 1939, an English radio broadcasting interrupts the students in a tennis match and announces the declaration of war by the United Kingdom against Germany. In the beginning, the students seem to take things lightly believing that the Netherlands will probably remain neutral as in World War I. Jan, who is a Jew, and also Alex, who has a German mother, immediately join the Dutch army. In May 1940, Germany invades the Netherlands and Erik and Guus try to join the army, too, but they are not accepted by a traumatized army officer. Shortly thereafter, the Netherlands capitulates due to the Rotterdam Blitz. Erik has an affair with Esther. Robby has a radio transmitter in his garden shed from where he contacts the Dutch resistance in London. He arranges for Erik to take a flight to London. The Jewish Jan, student and boxing champion, gets into trouble by fighting with two anti-Semitic collaborators, who were bullying a Jewish salesman. Because of this, Erik offers his place on the airplane to Jan. However, during the pickup they get into a fight with Nazi soldiers, and Jan gets captured. Erik is able to escape. When Erik meets Alex during a military parade, he finds out Alex is now fighting on the German side for the SS. Later, Erik is also captured. In prison, he hears from Jan that a man called Van der Zanden is the traitor in London. Jan is executed. Robby's radio installation is discovered, and he is blackmailed by the Gestapo to cooperate as a spy, because his fiancée Esther is a Jew. Erik and Guus try to flee to London again, this time successfully on a Swiss boat. In London, Erik meets Van der Zanden (modelled after general François van 't Sant) and tries to kill him, but he appears not to be a traitor but head of the Dutch Central Intelligence Service and a trustee of the Dutch Queen. Guus has an affair with the British soldier Susan. Erik and Guus agree with the Queen to pick up some resistance leaders who could play an important role in the Netherlands after the war. Guus is dropped on the beach and tricks himself into a party nearby. Now, Erik has an affair with Susan. Erik comes back to the Netherlands to pick up Guus and the resistance leaders. However, Robby is with them on the beach and the Germans have followed the group who are about to escape by sea. Erik tries to warn them about Robby but cannot reach them. On his way to the beach, Erik runs into Alex at a Nazi party and dances ballroom tango with him. Erik is able to flee the party onto the beach and meets the others. When Robby realizes that Erik knows about his collaboration, he fires a light signal and flees. The group tries to escape, but the resistance leaders are killed. Guus escapes swimming into the sea, but only Erik is able to reach the British ship and returns to London and to Susan. Another day, Guus meets Robby and shoots him in the middle of the street. Guus gets caught and is beheaded later. In Russia, Alex is killed in a latrine by a hand grenade thrown by a boy whom he had insulted earlier when he begged him for food. Erik becomes an RAF pilot and drops bombs over Germany. Later Erik is appointed assistant to the Dutch Queen Wilhelmina, and accompanies her back to the Netherlands after the war, as shown in the newsreel in the beginning of the film. In the end, Erik meets Esther and finds that Dutch citizens have cut her hair short in anger of her and Robby's collaboration with the Nazis. She says she bears no grudge against anyone for this. Finally, Erik celebrates the end of the war with one of his fellow students, Jacques ten Brinck, who also survived the war. Awards. The film won the Los Angeles Film Critics Association Award for Best Foreign Film in 1979. One year later, in 1980, it received a Golden Globe nomination for Best Foreign Language Film, but the French-Italian film "La Cage aux Folles" won the award. In the election for best Dutch film of the twentieth century at the Netherlands Film Festival in 1999 "Soldier of Orange" reached the second place, right after another Paul Verhoeven film "Turkish Delight". The film was selected as the Dutch entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 50th Academy Awards, but was not accepted as a nominee. Musical. On October 30, 2010 the Soldier of Orange musical premiered in the Netherlands. It is shown in a special theatre converted from an old hangar at the former Valkenburg Air Base in Katwijk. Instead of having the sets changing on the stage the area where the audience sits revolves to different stages (using a system named SceneAround), which include a set with a recreated beach and an artificial sea and a set containing a real Douglas DC-3 Dakota plane.
1054916	The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2 is a 2008 sequel to the 2005 film "The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants". The original cast (Alexis Bledel, America Ferrera, Blake Lively, and Amber Tamblyn) return to star in the movie, which was directed by Sanaa Hamri. The film is based upon the fourth novel in "The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants" series, ', but incorporates scenes and storylines from "The Second Summer of the Sisterhood" and '.The film was released in the US on August 6, 2008. Plot summary. Three years after the first film, first summer after college, the girls are separate until the Pants reunite them. Bridget (Blake Lively) visits her grandmother Greta (Blythe Danner) in Alabama, to ask about her mother's suicidal depression. Lena (Alexis Bledel) finds Kostas (Michael Rady) married in Greece. Tibby (Amber Tamblyn), fearing pregnancy, alienates Carmen. Carmen (America Ferrara) auditions for Perdita in a Vermont acting workshop. When Lena's sister Effie (Lucy Hale) steals and loses the Pants in Greece, the Sisterhood follow. Despite not finding the Pants, they do convince Lena to take back Kostas.
1055964	The Ultimate Gift is an American film based on the best selling novel by Jim Stovall released on March 9, 2007 in 816 theaters in the USA. The film’s DVD sales were quite high in relation to its theatrical receipts and it continues to be a tremendous success in DVD sales and on television.
586740	Souten is a 1983 Hindi-language Indian feature film directed by Sawan Kumar Tak, starring Rajesh Khanna, Padmini Kolhapure, Tina Munim, Prem Chopra and Pran. The film is a family drama. It was written by Kamleshwar, with music by Usha Khanna. The song "Shayad Meri Shaadi" became especially memorable. Plot. Shyam is an ambitious man who meets Rukmini, the daughter of a millionaire, and falls in love with her. They get married despite strong opposition from Rukmani's family. Now Shyam wants to become a father, but Rukmani is not interested in becoming a mother; hence, the relationship between Shyam and Rukmini worsens. Shyam and Rukmini separate. Radha, daughter of Shyam's employee, brings a ray of hope into Shyam's life. What happens next forms the climax of the story. Box-Office. Souten is a Major success of 1983.and one of the favorite movie of Rajesh Khanna Trivia. The movie is loosely based on the historical novel "The Immigrants" by Howard Fast.
1164272	Seth Adam Meyers (born December 28, 1973) is an American actor, voice actor, writer, producer and comedian. He currently serves as head writer for NBC's "Saturday Night Live" and hosts its news parody segment "Weekend Update". In 2013, it was announced that Meyers had been chosen to replace Jimmy Fallon the following year when his edition of "Late Night" ceases production in 2014. Early life. Meyers was born in Evanston, Illinois, the son of Hilary Claire (née Olson), a middle school teacher of French, and Laurence Meyers, Jr., who works in finance. His younger brother is actor Josh Meyers. He was raised in Manchester, New Hampshire, and its suburb, Bedford, and graduated from Manchester High School West. He went on to graduate from Northwestern University in Evanston, where he became a member of the fraternity Phi Gamma Delta. Career. Before "SNL", Meyers got his improv comedy start as a member of the Northwestern University improv sketch group "Mee-Ow". He continued his career at ImprovOlympic with the group Preponderate as well as overseas as a cast member of Boom Chicago, an English language improv troupe based in Amsterdam, where his brother was also a cast member. Meyers appeared with Brendan Fraser and Anita Briem in the 2008 3D film "Journey to the Center of the Earth". He also makes a cameo in the 2008 film "Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist" as a drunk man who mistakes the main character's Yugo for a taxi. Meyers is currently writing and will star in a movie called "Key Party". He also starred in the 2004 comedy "See This Movie" with John Cho. In July 2008, Meyers directed the web series "The Line" on Crackle. Meyers has hosted the Webby Awards twice, in 2008 and 2009. In 2009, Meyers hosted the Microsoft Company Meeting at Safeco Field in Seattle, WA. Meyers hosted the 2010 and 2011 ESPY Awards on ESPN. In 2011, Seth Meyers was the keynote speaker at the White House Correspondents' Association Dinner in April 2011. During his introductory remarks, he made a joke about Osama bin Laden's actions while in hiding; namely, that Bin Laden was hosting his own afternoon television show on CSPAN. Meyers was unaware that US intelligence had, in the meantime, found bin Laden and an attack by U.S. Navy Seals had been successfully launched. Meyers was the special guest speaker for PwC's Promotion Day on June 29, 2012. "Saturday Night Live". Meyers joined the "SNL" cast in 2001. In 2005, he was promoted to writing supervisor, and in January 2006 he became co-head writer, sharing the role with Tina Fey and Andrew Steele. In 2004, he auditioned to co-anchor "Weekend Update" with Fey, but lost out to Amy Poehler. With Fey's departure, Meyers became head writer for the 2006–2007 season and also took on the role of Weekend Update co-anchor with Amy Poehler. Since Poehler left the show during the 2008–2009 season, Meyers has anchored solo. In fall 2009, Meyers co-anchored two episodes of Saturday Night Live Weekend Update Thursday with Poehler. During the 2008 United States presidential election, while appearing on the "Late Show with David Letterman", former SNL cast member Tina Fey credited Meyers with writing the sketches involving Fey's impression of Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin. On "SNL", Meyers has impersonated such figures as John Kerry, Michael Caine, Anderson Cooper, Carrot Top, Prince Charles, Ryan Seacrest, Sean Penn, Stone Phillips, Tobey Maguire, Peyton Manning, Ben Curtis (also known as the Dell Dude), Ty Pennington, Bill Cowher, Brian Williams, Nicollette Sheridan, Wade Robson, Donald Trump, Jr., Tom Cruise, and Kevin Federline. His recurring characters include Zach Ricky, host of the kids' hidden camera show "Pranksters"; Nerod, the receptionist in the recurring sketch "Appalachian Emergency Room"; David Zinger, a scientist who often insults his fellow workers; DJ Johnathan Feinstein, the DJ on the webcam show "Jarett's Room"; Dan Needler, half of a married couple "that should be divorced," (opposite Amy Poehler); William Fitzpatrick, from the Irish talk show "Top o' the Morning," and Boston Powers (one of the comedians in the "Original Kings of Catchphrase Comedy" series). In the season 29 episode hosted by Lindsay Lohan, he did an impression of Ron Weasley in a parody of Harry Potter. Since the departure of both Fey and Poehler, Meyers has now been promoted to the post of head writer of SNL. Meyers supported and picketed during the 2007–08 Writers Guild of America strike. When interviewed he said, "We all know how lucky we are to have the jobs we have. We're not asking for much. You have to change the rules because people are watching TV in a different way." Even so, he mentioned in interviews that he regretted missing much of the presidential election primary season. "Late Night". On May 12, 2013, NBC announced that Meyers will be the new host of "Late Night" in 2014 succeeding Jimmy Fallon as Fallon will take over as the new host of "The Tonight Show" (NBC). Other pursuits. Meyers won the third season of Bravo's "Celebrity Poker Showdown" and donated the $100,000 prize to the Boston-based Jimmy Fund. In 2008, Meyers donated over $4,000 to Barack Obama's presidential campaign. Meyers and SNL castmate Bill Hader penned a Spider-Man one-off entitled "The Short Halloween". It was illustrated by Kevin Maguire and came out May 29, 2009, to positive reviews. Meyers, along with Mike Shoemaker of "SNL", created an animated half-hour series "The Awesomes" that was picked up by Hulu.com and will be produced by Lorne Michaels's production company, Broadway Video. Personal life. Meyers became engaged to his girlfriend of several years, human rights lawyer Alexi Ashe, in July 2013. On September 1, 2013, Meyers married Ashe in Martha's Vineyard. Meyers is an avid fan of the Boston Red Sox, Boston Celtics, the Pittsburgh Steelers (his father being a Pittsburgh native), the Northwestern Wildcats (his alma mater) and soccer club West Ham United in the Premier League. Meyers has performed at several Jewish Community Centers, though he himself is not Jewish.
1632567	Captain India is an upcoming computer-animated film. In this film Yuvraj Singh has given his voice, and the fantasy story is loosely based on the life of this cricketer. It is directed by Manny Bains & produced by Brendan Shaw, of Motion Pixel Corporation, Miami, USA, in combination with Cornerstone Entertainment of India. Plot. 15-year-old Veer lives in a Mumbai slum and dreams of being the captain of the Indian cricket team. He plays cricket on the streets and one of his few companions is Luddu, a street dog. Occasionally he meets his friend Raghu, who works in a car garage as a mechanic. With no silver lining in view, one stormy evening, something strange happens, that changes the life of Veer forever. He discovers strange superpowers in him after this incident.
519812	Raymond Kristoffer Rama Gutierrez (born on January 21, 1984 in Beverly Hills, California), is a TV host, editor, columnist, endorser and actor in the Philippines. He is best known as one of the hosts of "Party Pilipinas" and "Showbiz Central". He also hosted "Pinoy Idol". Early life. Gutierrez was born in Beverly Hills, California to matinee idol Eddie Gutierrez and talent manager Annabelle Rama-Gutierrez. He is one of six children. He has an older sister, Ruffa Gutierrez, an identical twin, Richard Gutierrez, two older brothers, Rocky and Elvis, and a younger brother, Ritchie Paul. He also has two older half-brothers, actors Tonton Gutierrez and Ramon Christopher Gutierrez. He has American in his father's side and Spanish blood in his mother's side. After living for a few years in the Philippines, his family moved to Beverly Hills, California. He attended Beverly Hills High School in Beverly Hills, California. Personal life. He began acting as a child with his twin Richard. He has also worked with his father and his other siblings in some Filipino movies. In April 2011, Gutierrez discovered that he and singer Bruno Mars are related. His father and Bruno Mars grandfather are cousins. According to his parents, Eddie and Annabelle Gutierrez, Raymond is the funniest among the Gutierrez children. They said that Raymond is the one that makes them laugh the most. His mother added that, among her 6 children, Raymond is the most diligent and that he's their only child who didn't need a tutor while growing up. In September 2012, his mother filed her Certificate of Candidacy as a congresswoman in Cebu. Career. Gutierrez has been offered to act in movies and on TV shows but has declined to do so. He says he will just leave it to twin brother Richard, and that he wants to focus on his hosting. His hosting skills has been praised and awarded many times. He has also impressed some famous personalities who already made their names in the business, like Ryan Seacrest who praised his way of opening his then show, "Pinoy Idol". In October 2011, he became the style director for "Esquire Magazine Philippines". Gutierrez is an endorser of Sexy Solution by Belo. He is also the launch creative consultant and one of the brand ambassadors of Magnum ice cream in the Philippines. On January 25, 2012, Gutierrez signed a 3-year contract with Viva Entertainment along with his siblings, Richard and Ruffa. In 2012, Gutierrez became active in hosting live, non-televised events for launching different products in the Philippines. In May 2012, he hosted press events for Bench to launch endorsers such as Joe Jonas of Jonas Brothers, and Allison Harvard and Dominique Reighard of "America's Next Top Model". In June 2012, Gutierrez attended the Men's Fashion Week in London to represent "Esquire Philippines". In July 2012, he became an endorser for Bench/Fix Salon, which is part of the Bench clothing brand. In August 2012, "Showbiz Central", which he co-hosted for 5 years, was replaced with "H.O.T. TV", which he still co-hosts. He was also launched as one of the endorsers of TRESemmé in the Philippines. On September 6, 2012, he hosted the launch of the first Philippine branch of Cotton On in SM Mall Of Asia. On September 22, he hosted the launch of the second in SM Megamall. Gutierrez also took part in "". He co-hosted a segment with his sister Ruffa Gutierrez. Gutierrez co-owns the Gramercy Cafe which opened in June 2013 and is located at the Gramercy Tower in Makati, Philippines.
1179733	Meat Loaf (born Marvin Lee Aday; September 27, 1947) is an American musician and actor. He is noted for the "Bat Out of Hell" album trilogy consisting of "Bat Out of Hell", ' and '. "Bat Out of Hell" has sold more than 43 million copies worldwide. After 35 years, it still sells an estimated 200,000 copies annually and stayed on the charts for over nine years, making it one of the best selling albums of all time. Although he enjoyed success with "Bat Out of Hell" and "Bat Out of Hell II: Back Into Hell" and earned a Grammy Award for Best Solo Rock Vocal Performance for the song "I'd Do Anything for Love (But I Won't Do That)" on the latter album, Meat Loaf experienced some initial difficulty establishing a steady career within his native US. However, he has retained iconic status and popularity in Europe, especially the UK, where he ranks 23rd for the number of weeks overall spent on the charts as of 2006. He ranked 96th on VH1's "100 Greatest Artists of Hard Rock." He is one of the best-selling artists of all time, with worldwide sales of more than 100 million copies. He has also appeared in over 50 movies and television shows, sometimes as himself or as characters resembling his stage persona. His most notable roles include Eddie in the American premiere of "The Rocky Horror Show" and "The Rocky Horror Picture Show. "He also appeared in David Fincher's "Fight Club "in 1999 as the character Robert Paulson. Early life. Meat Loaf was born in Dallas, Texas. He was the only child of Wilma Artie (née Hukel), a school teacher and a member of the Vo-di-o-do Girls gospel quartet, and Orvis Wesley Aday, a police officer. His father was an alcoholic who would go on drinking binges for days at a time. Aday and his mother would drive around to all the bars in Dallas, looking for Orvis to take him home. As a result, Aday often stayed with his grandmother, Charlsee Norrod. Meat Loaf relates a story in his autobiography, , about how he, a friend, and his friend's father drove out to Love Field to watch John F. Kennedy land. After watching him leave the airport, they went to Market Hall, which was on Kennedy's parade route. On the way they heard that Kennedy had been shot, so they headed to Parkland Hospital, where they saw Jackie Kennedy get out of the car and Governor John Connally get pulled out, although they never saw the president taken out. In 1965, Aday graduated from Thomas Jefferson High School, having already started his acting career via school productions such as "Where's Charley?" and "The Music Man." After attending college at Lubbock Christian College, he transferred to North Texas State University (now the University of North Texas in Denton). After Aday received his inheritance from his mother's death, he rented an apartment in Dallas and isolated himself for three and a half months. Eventually a friend found him. Aday bought a car and drove to California. Music career. In Los Angeles, Aday formed his first band, "Meat Loaf Soul". During the recording of their first song, he hit a note so high that he managed to blow a fuse on the recording monitor. He was immediately offered three recording contracts, which he turned down. Meat Loaf Soul's first gig was in Huntington Beach at the Cave, opening for Them, Van Morrison's band. While performing their cover of the Howlin' Wolf song "Smokestack Lightning," the smoke machine they used made too much smoke and the club had to be cleared out. Later, the band was the opening act at Cal State Northridge for Renaissance, Taj Mahal and Janis Joplin. The band then underwent several changes of lead guitar, changing the name of the band each time. The new names included Popcorn Blizzard and Floating Circus. As Floating Circus, they opened for The Who, The Fugs, The Stooges, MC5, Grateful Dead, and The Grease Band. Their regional success led them to release a single, "Once Upon a Time," backed with "Hello." Meat Loaf joined the Los Angeles production of "Hair." During an interview with New Zealand radio station ZM, Meat Loaf stated that the biggest life struggle he had to overcome was not being taken seriously in the music industry. He compared his treatment to that of a "circus clown". Stoney & Meatloaf. With the publicity generated from "Hair", Meat Loaf was invited to record with Motown. They suggested he do a duet with Shaun "Stoney" Murphy, who had performed with him in "Hair", to which he agreed. The Motown production team in charge of the album wrote and selected the songs while Meat Loaf and Stoney came in only to lay down their vocals. The album, titled "Stoney & Meatloaf" (Meatloaf being shown as one word), was completed in the summer of 1971 and released in September of that year. A single released in advance of the album, "What You See Is What You Get", reached number thirty six on the R&B charts and seventy-one on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. To support their album, Meat Loaf and Stoney toured with Jake Wade and the Soul Searchers, opening up for Richie Havens, The Who, The Stooges, Bob Seger, Alice Cooper and Rare Earth. Meat Loaf left soon after Motown replaced his and Stoney's vocals from the one song he liked, "Who Is the Leader of the People?" with new vocals by Edwin Starr. The album has been re-released after Meat Loaf's success, with Stoney's vocals removed. Meat Loaf's version of "Who Is the Leader of the People?" was released, but the album failed. "More Than You Deserve". After the tour, Meat Loaf rejoined the cast of "Hair", this time on Broadway. After he hired an agent, he auditioned for the Public Theater's production of "More Than You Deserve". It was during the audition that Meat Loaf first met his future collaborator Jim Steinman. He sang a former Stoney and Meatloaf favorite of his, "(I'd Love to Be) As Heavy as Jesus" (On VH1 Storytellers, Meat Loaf shares his first introduction with Jim Steinman. Meat would revive Steinman's reaction to his intimate audience, "Well, I think you're heavy as two Jesuses to be a matter of fact!"), and with that, got the part of Rabbit, a maniac that blows up his fellow soldiers so they can "go home." Also in the show were Ron Silver and Fred Gwynne. After it closed, he appeared in "As You Like It" with Raúl Juliá and Mary Beth Hurt. He recorded a single of "More Than You Deserve" and had a cover of "In the Presence of the Lord" as its B-side. He was only able to save three copies of it because the record company would not allow its press release. With those three copies he released many rare CDs featuring the two songs, which can occasionally be spotted at CD outlets. He later recorded it again (1981) in a slightly rougher voice. "The Rocky Horror Picture Show". During the winter of 1973, after returning from a short production of "Rainbow in New York" in Washington, D.C., Meat Loaf received a call asking him to be in "The Rocky Horror Show" asking him to play the parts of Eddie and Dr. Everett Scott. The success of the play led to the filming of "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" in which Meat Loaf played only Eddie, a decision he said made the movie not as good as the play. About the same time, Meat Loaf and Jim Steinman started work on "Bat out of Hell." Meat Loaf convinced Epic Records to shoot videos for four songs, "Bat Out Of Hell," "Paradise by the Dashboard Light," "You Took the Words Right out of My Mouth" and "Two out of Three Ain't Bad." He then convinced Lou Adler, the producer of "Rocky Horror," to run the "Paradise" video as a trailer to the movie. Meat Loaf's final show in New York was Gower Champion's "Rockabye Hamlet," a Hamlet musical. It closed two weeks into its initial run. Meat Loaf would later return occasionally to perform "Hot Patootie" for a special "Rocky Horror" reunion or convention and rarely at his own live shows (one performance of which was released in the 1996 "Live Around the World" CD set). During his recording of the soundtrack for "Rocky Horror", Meat Loaf recorded two more songs: "Stand By Me" (a Ben E. King cover), and "Clap Your Hands." They remained unreleased until 1984, when they appeared as B-sides to the "Nowhere Fast" single. In 1976, Meat Loaf recorded lead vocals for Ted Nugent's "Free-for-All" album when regular Nugent lead vocalist Derek St. Holmes temporarily quit the band. Meat Loaf sang lead on five of the album's nine tracks. Major success. "Bat Out of Hell". Meat Loaf and friend/songwriter Jim Steinman started "Bat Out of Hell" in 1972, but did not get serious about it until the end of 1974. Meat Loaf decided to leave theatre, and concentrate exclusively on music. Then, the "National Lampoon Show" opened on Broadway, and it needed an understudy for John Belushi, a close friend of Meat Loaf since 1972. It was at the Lampoon Show that Meat Loaf met Ellen Foley, the co-star who sang "Paradise by the Dashboard Light" with him on the album "Bat Out of Hell." After the "Lampoon" show ended, Meat Loaf and Steinman spent time seeking a record deal. Their approaches were rejected by each record company, because their songs did not fit any specific recognized music industry style. Finally, they performed the songs for Todd Rundgren, who decided to produce the album, as well as play lead guitar on it (other members of Todd's band Utopia also lent their musical talents). They then shopped the record around, but still had no takers until Cleveland International Records decided to take a chance. In October 1977, "Bat Out of Hell" was finally released. Meat Loaf and Steinman formed the band The Neverland Express to tour in support of "Bat Out of Hell." Their first gig was opening for Cheap Trick in Chicago. He gained national exposure as musical guest on "Saturday Night Live" on March 25, 1978. Guest host Christopher Lee introduced him by saying, "And now ladies and gentlemen I would like you to meet Loaf. (pauses, looks dumbfounded) I beg your pardon, what? (he listens to the director's aside) Oh! Why...why I'm sorry, yes, of course...ah... Ladies and gentlemen, Meat Loaf!" The huge success of the album caused a rift to open up between Meat Loaf and Steinman: the group, named after Meat Loaf for ease of labeling, seemed to Steinman to sideline his work as creator, and Steinman started to resent the attention that his partner was getting. During a show in Ottawa, Meat Loaf fell off the stage and broke his leg. He toured with the broken leg, performing from a wheel chair. During this time, Meat Loaf began heavy use of cocaine, had a nervous breakdown and threatened to commit suicide by jumping off the ledge of a building in New York. In the middle of recording his second album, "Bad for Good", Meat Loaf lost the ability to sing; it is unclear as to the exact cause - the tour was a punishing one, and the vocals are energy intensive. However, his doctors said that physically he was fine and that his problem was psychological. Nevertheless, Steinman decided to keep recording "Bad for Good" without Meat Loaf. "Bat Out of Hell" has sold an estimated 43 million copies globally (15 million of those in the United States), making it one of the highest selling albums of all time. In the UK alone, its 2.1 million sales put it in 38th place. Despite peaking at #9 and spending only two weeks in the top ten in 1981, it has now clocked up 474 weeks on the UK album chart, a figure bettered only by "Rumours" by Fleetwood Mac - 478 weeks. In Australia, it knocked the Bee Gees off the number #1 spot and went on to become the biggest-selling Australian album of all time for several years. It is now second on the list. "Bat Out of Hell" is also one of only two albums that has never exited the Top 200 in the UK charts; this makes it the longest stay in any music chart in the world, although the "published" chart contains just 75 positions. Life after "Bat Out of Hell". In 1976, Meat Loaf appeared in the short-lived Broadway production of the rock musical "Rockabye Hamlet." In 1980, he started working on "Dead Ringer." Steinman wrote all of the songs, but had little else to do with the album. The tour they planned, to support the album, was cancelled after one show, because they ran out of the money that the studio advanced them. Sonnenberg also convinced CBS to advance more money for the making of the movie "Dead Ringer," which was shown at the Toronto Film Festival and won some favorable reviews, but was poorly considered after Sonnenberg re-edited the movie. On December 5, 1981, Meat Loaf and the Neverland Express were the musical guests for "Saturday Night Live" where he was reunited with fellow "Rocky Horror Picture Show" alum Tim Curry. Curry and Meat Loaf teamed up in a skit depicting a One-Stop Rocky Horror Shop. Later, Tim Curry performed "The Zucchini Song" and Meat Loaf & The Neverland Express performed "Bat Out of Hell" and "Promised Land." In 1983, he released the self written "Midnight at the Lost and Found." Meat Loaf, a poor songwriter by his own admission, did not care for the songs he wrote for the album. In 1984, Meat Loaf went to England to record the album "Bad Attitude," which included a duet with Roger Daltrey and two songs written by Jim Steinman; the recording of the album was rushed. During the tour to support the album, Leslie (Meat Loaf's wife) had a nervous breakdown and had to check into the Silver Hill Hospital rehab facility in Connecticut. Things finally looked like they were going to turn around in 1986, when Meat Loaf found a new writer, John Parr, and started recording a new album, "Blind Before I Stop." The album resulted in critical failure and Meat Loaf going bankrupt, eventually losing everything. His relationships with longtime friend Jim Steinman and Leslie also deteriorated. In 1985, Meat Loaf did some comedy sketches in England with Hugh Laurie. At some point, Meat Loaf tried stand-up comedy, appearing several times in Connecticut. Meat Loaf performed "Thrashin" for the soundtrack of the 1986 skateboarding cult classic film "Thrashin"' (directed by David Winters and starring Josh Brolin). To try to get his career back off the ground, Meat Loaf started touring small venues, such as pubs and clubs. Slowly, he developed a faithful following which grew to the point where they were unable to fit into the venues that Meat Loaf was playing, and then they too began to grow. This carried on until the late 1980s, where he began to sell out arenas and stadiums again, including over 10,000 tickets at Ohio State University. Leslie studied to be a travel agent, so they could save on travel expenses, and they toured all over the United States, Germany, England, Scandinavia, Ireland, Italy, Spain, Greece, Abu Dhabi, Oman and Bahrain. With the help of his New York collection of musicians — John Golden, Richard Raskin and Paul Jacobs — his European tours enjoyed immense popularity in the 1980s. Because of the success of the touring, Meat Loaf and Jim Steinman began to work on "Bat Out Of Hell II" which was finally released in 1993, sixteen years after "Bat Out Of Hell". The album was a success. "Dead Ringer". Songwriter Jim Steinman started to work on "Bad for Good", the album that was supposed to be the follow-up to 1977's "Bat out of Hell", in 1979. During that time, a combination of touring, drugs and exhaustion had caused Meat Loaf to lose his voice. Without a singer, and pressured by the record company, Steinman decided that he should sing on "Bad for Good" himself, and write a new album for Meat Loaf; the result was "Dead Ringer", which was later released in 1981, after the release of Steinman's "Bad for Good". After playing the role of Travis Redfish in the movie "Roadie", Meat Loaf's singing voice returned, and he started to work on his new album in 1980. Steinman had written five new songs which, in addition to the track "More Than You Deserve" (sung by Meat Loaf in the stage musical of the same name) and a reworked monologue, formed the album "Dead Ringer", which was produced by Meat Loaf and Stephan Galfas, with backing tracks produced by Todd Rundgren, Jimmy Iovine, and Jim Steinman. (In 1976, Meat Loaf appeared on the track "Keeper Keep Us", from the Intergalactic Touring Band's self-titled album, produced by Galfas.) The song "Dead Ringer for Love" was the pinnacle of the album, and launched Meat Loaf to even greater success after it reached #5 in the UK and stayed in the charts for a surprising 19 weeks. Cher provided the lead female vocals in the song, which contributed to the success of the single. The album reached #1 in the UK, and three singles were released from the album: "Dead Ringer for Love" (with Cher), "I'm Gonna Love Her for Both of Us," and "Read 'Em and Weep". Struggle. "Midnight at the Lost and Found". Following a dispute with his former songwriter Jim Steinman, Meat Loaf was contractually obliged to release a new album. Struggling for time, and with no resolution to his arguments with Steinman seemingly on the horizon (eventually, Steinman would sue Meat Loaf, who subsequently sued Steinman as well), he was forced to find songwriters wherever he could. The resulting album was "Midnight at the Lost and Found". According to Meat Loaf, Steinman had given the songs "Total Eclipse of the Heart" and "Making Love (Out of Nothing At All)" to Meat Loaf for this album. However, Meat Loaf's record company refused to pay for Steinman. This was hard luck for Meat Loaf, as Bonnie Tyler's version of "Eclipse" and Air Supply's version of "Making Love" would top the charts together, holding #1 and #2 for a period during 1983. Meat Loaf is credited with being involved in the writing of numerous tracks on the album, including the title track, "Midnight at the Lost and Found". However, when the album was released in 1983, it was regarded by many as being poor. Fans were disappointed to see that the iconic pictures on the covers of "Bat out of Hell" and "Dead Ringer" were replaced by a black-and-white photograph of Meat Loaf (on some later re-releases, a color image of a screaming Meat Loaf was used as the cover image).
1164157	Loretta Jane Swit (born November 4, 1937) is an American stage and television actress known for her character roles. Swit is best known for her portrayal of Major Margaret "Hot Lips" Houlihan on "M*A*S*H". Early life. Swit was born in Passaic, New Jersey, of Polish descent. She studied with Gene Frankel in Manhattan and considered him her acting coach. She regularly returned to his studio to speak with aspiring actors throughout her career. Swit is also a singer who trained at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts before entering the theater. She graduated from Pope Pius XII High School in Passaic, NJ, in 1955. Theatre. In 1967, Swit toured with the national company of "Any Wednesday", starring Gardner McKay. She continued as one of the Pigeon sisters opposite Don Rickles and Ernest Borgnine in a Los Angeles run of "The Odd Couple". In 1975, Swit played in "Same Time, Next Year" on Broadway opposite Ted Bessell. She also performed on Broadway in "The Mystery of Edwin Drood". From there, she played Agnes Gooch in the Las Vegas version of "Mame", starring Susan Hayward and later, Celeste Holm. Most recently, Swit has toured with "The Vagina Monologues". In October–November 2003, she starred as the title character in North Carolina Theatre production of "Mame" in Raleigh, North Carolina. In August–September 2010, Swit starred in the world premier of the Mark Miller play, Amorous Crossings at the Alhambra Dinner Theatre in Jacksonville, Florida, directed by Todd Booth. Television. When Swit arrived in Hollywood in 1970, she performed in television shows, including "Gunsmoke", "", "Hawaii Five-O", and "Mannix". "M*A*S*H". Starting in 1972, Swit played the sassy and beautiful blonde head nurse Major Margaret "Hot Lips" Houlihan in the television series "M*A*S*H". She inherited the star-making role from actress Sally Kellerman, who portrayed Houlihan in the feature film. Swit was one of only four cast members to stay for all 11 seasons of the show, from 1972 to 1983 (the others being Alan Alda, Jamie Farr, and William Christopher). She and Alda were the only actors to have been in both the pilot episode and the finale; she appeared in all but 11 of the total of 251 episodes. Swit received two Emmy Awards for her work on "M*A*S*H". Later, she was also the first "M*A*S*H" star to visit South Korea, when she narrated the documentary "Korea, the Forgotten War". Her favorite episodes are "Hot Lips & Empty Arms", "Margaret's Engagement" and "The Nurses". She also had a close relationship with Harry Morgan, who played Colonel Sherman T. Potter. They became neighbors, after the series ended, until his death on December 7, 2011. "Cagney & Lacey". In 1981, Swit played the "Christine Cagney" role in the movie pilot for the television series "Cagney & Lacey", but was precluded by contractual obligations from continuing the role. Actress Meg Foster portrayed Cagney for the first six episodes of the television series, with Sharon Gless taking over the role from that point on. Other TV work. Swit also guest-starred in shows such as "The Love Boat", "Win, Lose or Draw", "Gunsmoke", "Match Game", "Pyramid", and "Hollywood Squares". She also starred in Christmas programs such as the television version of "The Best Christmas Pageant Ever" and 1987's PBS Special "A Christmas Calendar". In 1992 she hosted the 26-part series "Those Incredible Animals" on the Discovery Channel. Swit's latest appearance was on GSN Live on October 10, 2008. Personal life. Swit married actor Dennis Holahan in 1983 and divorced him in 1995. Holahan played Per Johannsen, a Swedish diplomat who became briefly involved with Swit's character in an episode of "M*A*S*H". Swit has not remarried and has no children. Swit has written a book on needlepoint ("A Needlepoint Scrapbook"). Swit is a very strong advocate for animals and animal rights, donating much of her time to animal-related causes. In her 1986 book "A Needlepoint Scrapbook", she declares that ""We are Ms. Pac-Man fanatics in our house."" She owns a Ms. Pac-Man machine. The book also includes a Ms. Pac-Man needlepoint design. In the 1980's Swit supported efforts of Dr. R Adams Cowley, founder of the nation's first shock trauma unit at University of Md. Swit helped bring attention to his use of helicopters to transport injured civilians to shock trauma since 1969.
1253598	Rick Yune (born August 22, 1971) is an American actor, screenwriter, producer, martial artist and former model. Early life. Yune was born in Washington D.C., the son of Wonhui Park and Tom Taeho Yune. He is of Mongolian, Chinese, Korean descent. His younger brother is actor Karl Yune. Yune was educated at Our Lady of Good Counsel High School, Silver Spring, Maryland, and St. John's Military School. In 1994, he received his MBA degree from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. To raise cash for his studies, he tried several jobs, including as a hedge fund trader for SAC capital, and was persuaded to become a model in his spare time.
589424	Kashmir Ki Kali is a 1964 Indian film directed by Shakti Samanta. It stars Shammi Kapoor, Sharmila Tagore in her debut role, Pran, Dhumal, Nazir Hussain and Anoop Kumar. The music was composed by O.P. Nayyar and the lyrics penned by S.H. Bihari. It became the sixth-highest grossing film of the year and was declared a hit at the box office. Plot. Wealthy and pampered Rajiv Lal (Shammi Kapoor) is the only son of widowed Rani Maa. At the silver jubilee of the mill that his father, the late Sanjiv Lal opened 25 years ago, he announces a prize reward of 5 lakh rupees for all the workers, annoying his mother. A servant at the house, Karuna (Mridula Rani), suggests marrying him off to stop his immature antics, to which Rani Maa agrees. Her manager, Shyamlal, arranges for her to meet some girls, as she insists that Rajiv will marry a girl of her choice. Rajiv returns home and sees all the girls - he correctly surmises that his mother is getting him married, and he pretends to be a mute who walks with a limp in order to chase all the prospective suitors off. His plan succeeds, although he is in a dilemma - what should he do now? His mother is furious at him. One of his friends suggests that he should run away to their bungalow in Kashmir - after all, Rani Maa never goes there. Upon arrival, he finds that his estate manager, Bholaram (Dhumal), has made a hotel out of their bungalow and has even rented out some rooms for the season. He tells the tenants that he is Rajiv Lal, although when he meets Bholaram, the latter informs him that Rani Maa had called him, and told him not to let Rajiv stay at the bungalow, should he come. Rajiv manages to convince Bholaram to tell Rani Maa that he is not there. Bholaram tells the tenants in the house that Rajiv is in fact mad, and in his madness, thinks that he is the real owner of the estate. The next day, Rajiv meets Champa (Sharmila Tagore), a girl who sells flowers for a living. He buys her flowers for 20 rupees when they are priced at 5 for the whole basket, and tells her that he is not the owner, but the driver. Soon enough, after a few misadventures, they fall in love and decide to marry, but there are a few obstacles. First of all, Mohan (Pran), the forest manager, has loaned out some money to Champa's father, Dinu (Nazir Hussain), and he insists that he will marry Champa if Dinu cannot repay the debt. Things become complicated when Mohan finds out that Dinu is not Champa's real father, and he blackmails Dinu into getting Champa married to him, or else he will let out the secret to Champa. Champa still continues to meet Rajiv on the sly, but all of that comes to an end when the three girls, who are tenants in his house, reveal in her presence that he is not the driver, but the owner of the estate himself! Feeling betrayed, Champa runs off. Before Rajiv can go after her, he receives a trunk call from his mother, and he is informed that Karuna is seriously ill. After telling Bholaram to explain everything to Champa, he leaves for Bombay, and finds Karuna on her deathbed, Rani Maa at her side. Karuna tells Rajiv that he is not the real son of Rani Maa - his biological father is none other than her brother, Dinu! Many years ago, Dinu had sold him off to Karuna for money for alcohol, and Rani Maa had taken him in. Soon after, Rani Maa gave birth to a baby girl, but Dinu abducts her, intending to kill her, so that Rajiv will be the sole heir to Rani Maa's wealth. However, on the way, Dinu trips and falls, and he ends up blind, so he does not kill the girl. Rajiv is shocked at the revelation, but more so is Rani Maa, who had assumed that her baby girl was dead. Before Karuna can say who the girl is, she dies. Shyamlal informs the two that the day Karuna fell ill, a man from Kashmir had come to see her and asked about Rani Maa's girl, but Karuna hadn't told him anything. The man turns out to be Mohan. Rajiv and Rani Maa head back to Kashmir to find out who her girl is, and Rajiv, acting on a tip from Bholaram, goes to confront Mohan. He beats Mohan unconscious, and Mohan's friend tells Rajiv who the girl is - Champa. He goes to find her, and finds out that she is getting married to Mohan in a few days. Dinu returns home as well, and Champa questions him. He lies to her at first, but when Rajiv drops a hint that he is the son that Dinu had sold all those years ago, the latter hugs him and admits that Champa is not his daughter. Rani Maa comes in and finds Champa, and the two embrace, but the happy moment doesn't last for long. Mohan arrives with his goons and decides to forcibly get married to Champa. Dinu tries to stop him, but Mohan beats him up badly. The goons also tie Rajiv up, and then take Rani Maa and Champa to wedding altar forcibly. Back at Rajiv's bungalow, Chander (Anoop Kumar), Rajiv's friend, and Shyamlal decide to go after them and see why they are taking so long. Rajiv manages to escape from his captors, but Dinu is still unconscious. He meets with Chander and Shyamlal on the way, and tells them to get the police while he goes after Mohan. He breaks into Mohan's hideout and stops the wedding ceremony. A fight ensues, and Mohan runs off, Rajiv hot on his tail. The police arrives soon after, and arrest all of Mohan's goons. Meanwhile, Rajiv and Mohan get into a fight, and the police come to take the latter away. The film ends with a shot of Rajiv and Champa, happily married, driving away in his car. Production. Film's shooting in Kashmir was first halted for 21 days due to incessant heavy rains, however thereafter weather cleared and it didn't rain for the next 25 days, and the entire Kashmir schedule was completed. Recommended by film's lead Shammi Kapoor himself, originally duo Shankar-Jaikishan were to compose film's music, however veteran composer OP Nayyar invited Samanta to listen to some tunes, which he liked them all. Eventually 12 every selected for the present film, and the remainder were used in "Sawan Ki Ghata" (1966).
628257	Anna Skellern (born on 27 April 1985, in Sydney, Australia) is an actress best known as the first female member of The Chaser's television programme "CNNNN". Career. Skellern attended the University of Sydney, where she was a prominent student activist. In the first season of The Chaser's CNNNN, an Australian television show satirising American news channels CNN and Fox News, she played her namesake Anna Skellern, a no-nonsense war correspondent noted for the frequent loss of her cameramen and dubbed 'the perfumed abattoir'. In 2004, CNNNN shared the Logie Award for 'Most Outstanding Comedy' with "Kath & Kim". In July 2007 Skellern graduated from the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London. In that month she made her professional stage debut in the successful West End production The Vegemite Tales, playing the role of Maddie. Skellern was cast as the new Sapphire in the radio show "Sapphire and Steel" from Big Finish – beginning with "Second Sight". Skellern filmed for the sequel to Neil Marshall's critically acclaimed horror film "The Descent", "The Descent Part 2", which was released in late 2009. The script sees a survivor from "The Descent" forced back into the system of caves she battled her way out of in the first film, in a bid to locate the rest of her group. Skellern played one of the members of the new search team that accompanies the survivor back into the caves. In 2009, Skellern filmed Agatha Christie's "Poirot: The Clocks" with David Suchet, Jamie Winstone and Tom Burke.  She also filmed the new role of restaurant worker, babysitter, and Jake's crush, Kelly, for BBC1's award-winning, partly improvised comedy "Outnumbered", directed by Andy Hamilton and Guy Jenkin and starring Claire Skinner and Hugh Dennis. Skellern spent time in Africa filming the lead role in the thriller, "Siren", with Eoin Macken and Tereza Srbova.  She also plays Jo in the new feature, "A Passionate Woman", directed by Kay Mellor and Antonia Bird, with Billie Piper and Sue Johnston. She played the role of Lexy Price in series 2 of Lip Service broadcast on BBC Three in April 2012. In October 2012 Skellern played Elaine White in series 2 episode 2 of the Sky 1 comedy drama series Spy. Personal life. In 2007, Skellern was at the centre of a public spat between two of her former boyfriends, Tim Freedman, singer and songwriter of the indie rock band "The Whitlams", and "Chaser" host Chris Taylor. On 7 October 2007, Freedman posted a message on the band's official website, citing a parody of him which was written by Taylor, and had aired on the 3 October 2007 episode of "The Chaser's War on Everything". The song was performed by fellow Chaser Andrew Hansen, and the lyrics implied that Freedman was obsessed with the Sydney suburb of Newtown, and that he continually referred to the area of Newtown in his own songs. In his message, Freedman alluded that the lyrics were indeed written by Taylor, and that the parody had been motivated by jealousy over Skellern. Taylor denied this, and said that the song had nothing to do with Skellern. "He was speculating that the song was written out of some sort of jealous rage or payback which isn't the case at all," he said. "My relationship with Anna didn't end badly... we're still good friends and see each other quite a bit."
584856	Kamalinee Mukherjee (born 4 March 1980) is an Indian actress. She has predominantly appeared in Telugu films as well as in a few Tamil, Malayalam, Hindi, Bengali and Kannada language films.
1102702	Daniel Gray "Dan" Quillen (June 22, 1940 – April 30, 2011) was an American mathematician. From 1984 to 2006, he was the Waynflete Professor of Pure Mathematics at Magdalen College, Oxford. He is renowned for being the "prime architect" of higher algebraic K-theory, for which he was awarded the Cole Prize in 1975 and the Fields Medal in 1978. Education and career. Quillen was born in Orange, New Jersey, and attended Newark Academy. He entered Harvard University, where he earned both his BA (1961) and his PhD (1964), the latter of which was completed under the supervision of Raoul Bott with a thesis in partial differential equations. He was a Putnam Fellow in 1959. Quillen obtained a position at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology after completing his doctorate. However, he also spent a number of years at several other universities. This experience would prove to be important in influencing the direction of his research.
744393	Stephen Antonio Cardenas (born May 29, 1974) is a American martial artist and former actor, perhaps most noted for playing Rocky DeSantos in the "Mighty Morphin Power Rangers" TV series. Cardenas was born at Langley Air Force Base, in Hampton, Virginia, U.S. and is of half Mexican descent. He started training in martial arts when he was about 12 years old and reached black belt in tae kwon do at age 16. His character, Rocky, replaced Jason Lee Scott (played by Austin St. John) as the Red Ranger in the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers TV series, and he later became the Blue Ranger for "Power Rangers Zeo". He had no previous acting experience and had to learn on the job. Cardenas left the Power Rangers series after "Zeo", in order to focus on his karate school and other disagreements. Many years later, starting at the 2007 Power Morphicon convention, he began making convention appearances with other former cast members. He has since appeared at Anime Expo 2009 and Power Morphicon 2010. After "Power Rangers", he ran martial arts studios in California and Texas. In 2009, he started a kids-specific program at Hollywood Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu studio in West Hollywood, and in 2011 he opened the Force/Balance Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu & Yoga school. Cardenas had become interested in Brazilian jiu-jitsu after losing a friendly match against "a blue belt in BJJ... choked me out in 10 seconds! He was only training for a year and a half at that time and I had been training for 10 yrs. It was an immediate eye opener." The style was more difficult for him to learn than other martial arts disciplines He holds multiple awards from martial arts contests, including two Silver Medals at Copa Pacifica (2009 and 2011), Gold Medal winner of the 2009 American National Championship, Gold Medal in the 2010 Jiu-Jitsu Pro Gear Open, and Silver Medal in the 2010 No-Gi World Championships.
530661	Kiss Meets the Phantom of the Park (also known as "Kiss in the Attack of the Phantoms") is a 1978 television film, starring American hard rock band Kiss. The film's plot revolves around Kiss, who use their superpowers to battle an evil inventor (Abner Devereaux, played by Anthony Zerbe) and to save a California amusement park from destruction. NBC aired the film at the height of Kiss's popularity in the United States. Due to the film's poor acting and semi-comedic script, most Kiss fans disliked the film. Despite the film's poor quality, it has attained cult film status. The members of Kiss themselves despised the film for making them appear buffoonish. For years after its airing, no one who worked for the group was permitted to mention the film in their presence. Synopsis. The film opens at Magic Mountain, where Melissa (Deborah Ryan) and her boyfriend Sam (Terry Lester) are enjoying a day at the amusement park. Sam, a park employee, disappears early in the film while investigating the laboratory of Abner Devereaux, who is the park's head engineer and the creator of a series of lifelike cybernetic creatures on display throughout the park. It is subsequently revealed that Sam has been transformed by Devereaux into a mindless cyborg through the use of a tiny mind-control device attached to Sam's neck. Devereaux's increasingly erratic behavior is a cause of concern for Calvin Richards (Carmine Caridi), the owner of the amusement park. Faced with a budget crunch, Richards decides to channel money away from Devereaux's projects in order to pay for a Kiss concert. Richards explains to Devereaux that the concert will generate much-needed revenue, but Devereaux is livid. Later, three punks (dressed like members of a biker gang) sabotage one of the rides, placing a group of riders in danger. Richards blames Devereaux for the incident and fires him. Devereaux swears revenge upon Richards, the park, and Kiss, all of whom he blames for his misfortune. When Kiss arrives for their show, Devereaux first attempts to discredit them by unleashing a robotic Gene Simmons, which proceeds to damage buildings in the park and to injure a security guard. The next day, Kiss is questioned by Richards and some security guards, but no action is taken. His first plan having failed, Devereaux attempts to sabotage the scheduled Kiss concert. He manages to neutralize Kiss's abilities and imprison them in his underground laboratory. Finally, he sends the fake Kiss onstage, where they perform a version of "Hotter than Hell" (called "Rip and Destroy") with altered lyrics meant to incite the crowd to riot. The real Kiss manage to escape from Devereaux and fly to the stage for a final battle with their robotic doppelgängers. After the real Kiss dispatches the fake version, the concert continues and the crisis is averted. After the show, Kiss, Melissa, and Richards converge on Devereaux's lab and attempt to convince Devereaux to release Sam from his control. But when his chair is spun around, Devereaux has newly-white hair and a frozen expression on his face. It is unknown if Devereaux is now dead, or has slipped into a state of catatonia. The group is despondent, but Stanley stumbles upon the mind control device on Sam's neck and removes it. Sam returns to normal, with no memory of what had happened. Richards laments about Devereaux by saying, "He created KISS to destroy KISS...and he lost." The movie ends with KISS performing "God of Thunder" live onstage. Development. Kiss's commercial popularity was at its peak by 1978. The group's gross income in 1977 totaled $10.2 million. Creative manager Bill Aucoin felt, however, that the cycle of album releases and touring had taken Kiss as far as they could go, and that it was time to elevate the group's image to the next level. He formulated a plan to cast Kiss as superheroes, a process that began with the 1977 release of a Kiss comic book. The band agreed, and plans were developed for a Kiss film. Production. Filming for "Kiss Meets the Phantom of the Park" began in May 1978, and it was produced by Hanna-Barbera, known primarily for cartoons such as "Scooby-Doo" and "Yogi Bear" (in the late '60s, they filmed and produced the live-action series "The Banana Splits"). Most of the movie was filmed at Magic Mountain in California, with additional filming taking place in the Hollywood Hills. Much of the production was rushed, and the script underwent numerous rewrites. All four members of Kiss were given crash courses on acting. Prior to completing the script, screenwriters Jan Michael Sherman and Don Buday spent time with each Kiss member, in an effort to get a feel for how they each acted and spoke. Frehley, known for his eccentric behavior, said little to the pair but "Ack!" As a result, Frehley was not originally given any lines, except to interject "Ack!" at various points. In the first draft of the script, Frehley was described as "monosyllabic and super-friendly. Communicating largely through gestures and sounds, Ace might be best described as an other-galactic Harpo Marx." Upon learning of his lack of dialogue, Frehley threatened to leave the project — soon after, lines were written for him.
1062075	Donald Frank "Don" Cheadle, Jr. (; born November 29, 1964) is an American actor and producer. Cheadle had an early role in "Picket Fences" and followed it with performances in "Devil in a Blue Dress", "Rosewood" and "Boogie Nights". He then started a collaboration with director Steven Soderbergh that resulted in the movies "Out of Sight", "Traffic" and "Ocean's Eleven". Other Cheadle films include "The Rat Pack", "Things Behind the Sun", Academy Award for Best Picture winner "Crash", "Swordfish", "Ocean's Twelve", "Ocean's Thirteen", "Reign Over Me", "Talk to Me", "Traitor", "Iron Man 2" & "Iron Man 3". In 2004, his lead role as Rwandan hotel manager Paul Rusesabagina in the genocide drama film "Hotel Rwanda", which was set during the Rwandan Genocide earned him an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor. He also campaigns for the end of genocide in Darfur, Sudan, and co-authored a book concerning the issue titled "Not on Our Watch: The Mission to End Genocide in Darfur and Beyond". Along with George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Matt Damon, David Pressman, and Jerry Weintraub, Cheadle co-founded the Not on Our Watch Project, an organization focusing global attention and resources to stop and prevent mass atrocities. In 2010, Cheadle was named U.N. Environment Program Goodwill Ambassador. He stars as Marty Kaan on the Showtime sitcom "House of Lies", for which he most recently won a Golden Globe Award in 2013. Early life. Cheadle was born in Kansas City, Missouri, the son of Bettye (née North), a teacher, and Donald Frank Cheadle, Sr., a clinical psychologist. He has a sister, Cindy, and a brother, Colin. His family moved from city to city throughout his childhood. Cheadle graduated in 1982 from East High School in Denver, Colorado. After he graduated from East, Don went on to the California Institute of the Arts, graduating with a B.A in Acting. Career. Cheadle acted in "Hamburger Hill" in 1987. He also played the role of Jack in the April 1, 1988 "Jung and the Restless" episode of "Night Court". Although his character was supposed to be 16 years old, Cheadle was 23 at the time. Cheadle then played the role of Rocket in the 1988 movie "Colors". In 1989, he appeared in a video for Angela Winbush's No. 2 hit single "It's the Real Thing", performing dance moves in an orange jump suit, working at a car wash. In 1990, he appeared in an episode of "The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air" titled "Homeboy, Sweet Homeboy", playing Will Smith's friend and Hilary's first love interest, Ice Tray. In 1992, he played a supporting role in "The Golden Girls" spin-off "The Golden Palace". Cheadle subsequently played district attorney John Littleton on two seasons of "Picket Fences". Cheadle first received widespread notice for his portrayal of Mouse Alexander in the film "Devil in a Blue Dress", for which he won Best Supporting Actor awards from the Los Angeles Film Critics Association and the National Society of Film Critics and was nominated for similar awards from the Screen Actors Guild and the NAACP Image Awards. Following soon thereafter was his performance in the title role of the 1996 HBO TV movie "". He also starred in the 1997 film "Volcano", directed by Mick Jackson. Cheadle's television credits include Emmy-nominated performances in the movies "The Rat Pack", "A Lesson Before Dying", "Things Behind the Sun" and in a guest appearance on "ER". The last of these spanned four episodes during the show's ninth season, in which he portrayed Paul Nathan, a medical student struggling to cope with Parkinson's disease. He has made appearances in films including "Rosewood", "The Family Man", "Boogie Nights", a cameo appearance in the film "Abby Singer", "Out of Sight", "Traffic", and "Ocean's Eleven". These last three were directed by Steven Soderbergh. In 2005, Cheadle was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor for his portrayal of Paul Rusesabagina in the film "Hotel Rwanda". He also starred in, and was one of the producers of "Crash", which won the 2005 Academy Award for Best Picture. For his performance in "Crash", Cheadle was nominated for BAFTA and Screen Actors Guild Award for Best Supporting Actor. He played the main character in the movie "Traitor". Cheadle starred in "Hotel for Dogs" by DreamWorks. In 2007 Cheadle published a book, "Not on Our Watch: The Mission to End Genocide in Darfur and Beyond", co-authored with John Prendergast. Cheadle was to make his directorial debut with the adaptation of Elmore Leonard's "Tishomingo Blues". In a July 2007 interview he stated, "'Tishomingo' is dead..." Cheadle appeared in NFL commercials promoting the Super Bowl from 2002 to 2005. He so regularly appeared for the NFL in its Super Bowl advertising that in 2006, in a drive to get fans to submit their own advertising ideas, the NFL sought his permission to reference his previous commercials to portray themselves as having no new ideas: "he quickly signed off on the idea and found it funny." Abe Sutton (along with Etan Bednarsh), one of the finalists in this NFL contest, played on this commercial by proposing an ad where an entire team of football players are Don Cheadle. Cheadle and "Boondocks" creator Aaron McGruder are working together to launch a comedy show on NBC. The "project revolves around mismatched brothers who reunite to open a private security company." Cheadle will serve as an executive producer, along with McGruder, who will write the script. In 2009, Cheadle performed in "The People Speak", a documentary feature film that uses dramatic and musical performances of the letters, diaries, and speeches of everyday Americans, based on historian Howard Zinn's "A People's History of the United States". In 2010, Cheadle assumed the role of James Rhodes in the film "Iron Man 2", replacing Terrence Howard. In 2010, Cheadle was appointed, "U.N. Environment Program Goodwill Ambassador." He and Prendergast published their second book, "The Enough Moment: Fighting to End Africa's Worst Human Rights Crimes", in 2010. He also appeared in Derek Water's "Drunk History" video as Frederick Douglass. As of the show's January 8, 2012 premiere, Cheadle stars in the Showtime TV series "House of Lies". In 2013, Cheadle won the Golden Globe as Best Actor in a Comedy Series for his role in the "House of Lies". Personal life. At the 2007 World Series of Poker, Cheadle and poker player Annie Duke organized an annual charity poker tournament, Ante Up for Africa. In 2007, Cheadle was awarded the BET Humanitarian award of the year for his numerous humanitarian services he rendered for the cause of the people of Darfur and Rwanda. On December 13, 2007, Cheadle and fellow actor George Clooney were presented with the Summit Peace Award by the Nobel Peace Prize Laureates in Rome for their work to stop the genocide and relieve the suffering of the people of Darfur. In 2008, Cheadle's family history was profiled on the PBS series "African American Lives 2".
1166246	Andrew Vabre "Andy" Devine (October 7, 1905 – February 18, 1977) was an American character actor and comic cowboy sidekick known for his distinctive raspy voice. Early life. Born in Flagstaff, Arizona, on October 7, 1905, Andy Devine grew up in Kingman, where his family moved when he was a year old. His father was Thomas Devine Jr., born in 1869 in Kalamazoo County, Michigan. Andy's grandfather, Thomas Devine Sr., was born in 1842 in County Tipperary, Ireland, and emigrated to the United States in 1852. Andy's mother was Amy Ward, the granddaughter of Commander James H. Ward, the first officer of the United States Navy killed during the Civil War. He attended St. Mary and St. Benedict's College, Northern Arizona State Teacher's College (now Northern Arizona University), and was a star football player at Santa Clara University. He also played semi-professional football under the pseudonym "Jeremiah Schwartz"—it was "not " his birth name as has been erroneously reported elsewhere. His football experience led to his first sizable film role, in the 1931 "The Spirit of Notre Dame". Career. He had acting ambitions so after college he went to Hollywood, where he marked time working as a lifeguard at Venice Beach, within easy distance of the studios. Andy met his wife-to-be, Dorothy House, in 1933 while filming "Doctor Bull" at Fox Studios. They were married on October 28, 1933, in Las Vegas, Nevada, and remained united until his death on February 18, 1977. They had five children: Andrew Devine, Jr. (born 1934), Patrick Gabriel Devine (born 1935), Susanna Rachel Devine (born 1937), Arthur Matthew Devine (born 1938) and Deborah Catherine Devine (born 1941). Andy, Jr. and Patrick are actors while the rest of his and House's children have other careers. Although it was first thought that his peculiar voice would prevent him from moving to the talkies, it became his trademark. Devine told people that his speech resulted from a childhood accident. He said that he had been running with a curtain rod in his mouth at the Beale Hotel in Kingman, and when he fell it pierced the roof of his mouth. When he was able to speak, he had a wheezing, duo-tone voice. However, a biographer explains that this wasn't true, but was one of several stories about his voice fabricated by Devine. Devine's son Tad told an Encore Westerns Channel interviewer (Jim Beaver, reporting from 2007 Newport Beach Film Festival) that the accident had indeed happened, but that Devine was uncertain whether it was the cause of his unique voice. When asked if he had strange nodes on his vocal cords, Devine replied, "I've got the same nodes as Bing Crosby, but his are in tune." He appeared in more than 400 films and shared with Walter Brennan, another character actor, the rare ability to move with ease from "B" Westerns to "A" pictures. His notable roles included ten films as sidekick "Cookie" to Roy Rogers, a role in "Romeo and Juliet" (1936), and "Danny" in "A Star Is Born" (1937). He made several appearances in films with John Wayne, including "Stagecoach" (1939), "Island in the Sky" (1953), and as the frightened marshal in "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance" (1962). While most of his characters were reluctant to get involved in the action, he played the hero in "Island in the Sky," as an expert pilot who leads his fellow aviators through the arduous search for a missing airplane. Although Devine was known generally for his comic roles, Jack Webb cast him as a police detective in "Pete Kelly's Blues" (1955); Devine lowered his voice and was more serious than usual. His film appearances in his later years included movies such as "Zebra in the Kitchen", "The Over-the-Hill Gang", and "Coyote Bill" in "Myra Breckinridge". Devine also worked in radio. He is well-remembered for his role as "Jingles", Guy Madison's sidekick in "The Adventures of Wild Bill Hickok", which Devine and Madison reprised on television. He appeared over 75 times on Jack Benny's radio show between 1936 and 1942, often appearing in Benny's semi-regular western series of sketches "Buck Benny Rides Again". Benny frequently referred to Devine as "the mayor of Van Nuys." In fact Devine served as honorary mayor of that city, where he lived, preferring to be away from the bustle of Hollywood, from May 18, 1938 to 1957, when he moved to Newport Beach. Devine worked in television. He hosted a children's TV show, "Andy's Gang" on NBC from 1955 to 1960. During this time, he also made multiple appearances on NBC's "The Ford Show, Starring Tennessee Ernie Ford". He played "Hap" on the TV series "Flipper", also on NBC, in the 1960s. He starred in a "Twilight Zone" episode called "Hocus-Pocus and Frisby" as "Frisby", a talkative fibster faced with an alien invasion. He was also a frequent guest star on many television shows throughout the 1950s and 1960s, including the role of Jake Sloan in the 1961 episode "Big Jake" of the acclaimed NBC anthology series "The Barbara Stanwyck Show". He also played Honest John Denton in the episode "A Horse of a Different Cutter" of the short-lived ABC series "The Rounders". Devine also cameoed as Santa Claus during one of Batman and Robin's famous Batrope climbs on the 1960s live-action "Batman" TV series. The episode, entitled "The Duo Is Slumming", was originally broadcast on December 22, 1966, just three days before Christmas. During the appearance he directly addresses the viewers wishing them a Merry Christmas. Finally, Devine performed voice parts in animated films, including "Friar Tuck" in Disney's "Robin Hood". He provided the voice of Cornelius the Rooster in several Kellogg's Corn Flakes TV commercials. In 1973, Devine came to Monroe, Louisiana, at the request of George C. Brian, an actor and filmmaker who headed the theater department at the University of Louisiana at Monroe, to perform in Edna Ferber's "Show Boat". In popular culture. Andy Devine is nostalgically remembered alongside other 20th century celebrities in Jimmy Buffett's song "Pencil Thin Mustache." Frank Zappa's song Andy contains Andy Devine in the lyrics. Death. Devine died of leukemia at the age of seventy-one in Orange, California in 1977. His funeral Mass was held at Holy Family Cathedral. The main street of his home town of Kingman was renamed "Andy Devine Avenue" in his honor. His career is highlighted in the Mohave Museum of History and Arts in Kingman, and there is a star in his honor in the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
1017532	Drunken Master II () is a 1994 Hong Kong kung fu action film directed by Lau Kar-Leung and Jackie Chan, who stars as Chinese folk hero, Wong Fei Hung. It was Chan's first traditional style martial arts film since "The Young Master" (1980) and "Dragon Lord" (1981). The film was released in North America as The Legend of Drunken Master in 2000. The film is a follow-up to Chan's 1978 film "Drunken Master", directed by Yuen Woo-ping, but not a direct storyline sequel. Another film, "Drunken Master 3" (1994, directed by Lau Kar-Leung) features little in common with either this or its predecessor, and is not considered a sequel. In 2005, "Drunken Master II" was named one of the top 100 best films of all time by "Time" magazine. Plot. The story begins in presumably early 20th century China at a crowded train station, with Wong Fei Hung (Jackie Chan), his father Dr. Wong Kei Ying (Ti Lung), and the family servant Tso (Cheung Chi-Gwong), waiting in line. Wong Fei Hung is angry about having to pay a duty on the ginseng that Kei Ying is bringing back for a client. Disobeying his father, Fei Hung hides the ginseng in the suitcase of an employee of the British consul to avoid the tax When the train makes a stop, Fei Hung and Tso create a diversion to sneak into the first class section (filled with members of the British Consulate and the British Ambassador) to retrieve the ginseng. However, when Fei Hung gets to the luggage section of the first class, he spots a Manchurian officer (Lau Kar-Leung) stealing an unknown item that is in a similar package as the ginseng. Fei Hung confronts him but the officer hits Fei Hung. However, Fei Hung retrieves the ginseng, and pursues the officer in revenge for hitting him. A long fight between them ensues under the train, with the officer gaining the upper hand. He warns Fei Hung that he will kill him and calls him a "henchman." Puzzled, Wong Fei Hung tells the officer that he is not a "henchman," and challenges him to a friendly hand-to-hand Kung Fu fight. Fei Hung uses his Zui Quan (Drunken Boxing) style of martial arts on him, but it proves to be ineffective. The officer tells Fei-Hung that while his Kung-Fu is great, his drunken boxing has no power and can't kill. Fei Hung rushes back to the train, and the Manchurian officer opens the box he stole from the train, only to realize that it is actually Wong Kei Ying's ginseng. Meanwhile, on the train, guards of the British Consulate search for a stolen item and they ask the Wongs to show them their items. Fei Hung discovers that what was supposed to be his father's ginseng is actually some sort of valuable Chinese antique. However, before they discover what is actually in that box, a sympathetic son of a Northeast Chinese general (Andy Lau) uses his influence to intervene (in both English dubbed versions, Andy Lau is actually a counter-intelligence officer). In a later scene, the British ambassador (Louis Roth) is at his consulate, lecturing his henchman about their failure to bring back the Emperor's Jade Seal, the artifact now accidentally in Fei Hung's possession. He wishes to smuggle ancient Chinese artifacts and sell them to the London Museum of Arts. Then he sends his henchman, John and Henry (Ken Lo and Ho Sung Pak), two western-dressed Asian martial artists who work for him, to make the workers at a local steel factory work overtime. When the workers refuse, Henry viciously beats them with his martial arts skills, and forces them to get back to work. When the Wongs return home from their train ride, Fei Hung realizes that he must replace his father's ginseng when his father's client, Mr. Chan, comes to retrieve it. Fei Hung takes the root of his father's prized ancient bonsai tree, discreetly gives it to Mr. Chan and tells him that it is the ginseng. The next day, Fei Hung goes to the market to buy some fish from Fishmonger Tsang (Felix Wong) and snakes from Fun (Hoh Wing Fong). Fun asks Fei-Hung to teach her drunken boxing. Tsang is jealous because he's interested in Fun and wanted to teach her his style of kung fu, Tsai Li Fu. He challenges Fei-Hung to a fight, with Fei-Hung using drunken boxing and Tang using his Tsai Li Fu. Fei Hung clearly wins, and Tsang respects him. Knowing that the bonzai tree root could be deadly for Mr. Chan if he decides to brew it, Fei-Hung's step-mom, Ling (Anita Mui) decides to temporarily loan her necklace to one of her friends in exchange for some money to buy ginseng. This leads some of Master Wong's friends to believe that he needs money, and they offer him a collection, which a confused Master Wong declines. Meanwhile, Fei Hung and Ling do not realize that Henry and his men are following them. Assuming that what Ling and Fei Hung are carrying is the stolen artifact (although it's actually Ling's necklace), they attempt to steal the bag, but Fei Hung retrieves it. Henry and his henchmen start a fight with Fei Hung and Ling. During the fight, Ling encourages Fei Hung to use drunken boxing against them to impress the crowd but and gain publicity for the Wongs' school, Po Chi Lam. She and her friends take a bunch of alcohol from a country club and give it to Fei Hung, therefore giving him the speed and power he needs to do drunken boxing properly, and then he impressively defeats Henry and his henchmen. However, Master Wong Kei Ying arrives at the scene just as Fei-Hung finishes off the last gangster. At that moment, the alcohol eventually takes over Fei Hung and he is clearly drunk and barely able to stand, and he embarrasses his father. Master Wong takes his son and wife home and lectures them, saying they are destroying his reputation by fighting and drinking in public, and for making others believe that they are broke. He beats Fei Hung for fighting and using drunken boxing (which Master Wong forbids). To make matters worse, Mr. Chan's wife comes by to tell Wong Kei Ying that her husband is very sick from the bonzai tree root, which is poisonous if consumed. Then, an infuriated Master Wong beats Fei Hung even more and disowns him, kicking him out of the house. Fei Hung goes to a restaurant and drinks heavily in sorrow. John arrives with a beaten Henry and the rest of the henchman from earlier to confront him. Fei Hung is now clearly too drunk to fight, and John beats him. Fishmonger Tsang arrives and tries to intervene, but is unable to when the vat of hot liquid he was carrying spills on him. The next morning, Fei Hung and Tsang are found knocked out beaten, with Fei Hung stripped with a banner hanging from him that says "King of Drunken Boxing." Master Wong brings Fei Hung back into the home, and explains that the reason why he forbids drunken boxing is because it is difficult for drunken boxers to find the right balance of alcohol consumption. The following night, the Manchurian officer from the train arrives at the Wong's residence to speak to Fei Hung. Master Wong recognizes him as Master Fu Wen-Chi, the "last decorated Manchu officer." The next day at a restaurant, Master Fu explains to Fei Hung that the artifact that ended up in his possession (and what he meant to steal from the train) was the Emperor's Jade seal. He tells him about the theft of precious ancient Chinese artifacts by foreigners (in particular by the British Consulate) and asks him to join him in stopping it. Moments later, an enormous gang of Axe-wielding thugs (known as the Axe Gang), apparently paid for by the British Consulate, try to kill them. After a long fight, Fei Hung and Master Fu make an escape, and Fishmonger Tsang, Fun, and Marlon (Lau Ga-Yeung), Tang's student, join the fight. But a British consulate guard fatally shoots Master Fu when he runs down an alley, and they take back the Jade seal. Fu Wen Chi pleads with them to get it back, and later claims that they can't beat them. The following night, both Tsang and Fei Hung break into the consulate disguised as consulate guards to retrieve the Jade seal. However they are both caught, jailed, beaten, and held for ransom by the British Ambassador, who demands that Wong Kei Ying sells the land where Po Chi Lam and Fishmonger Tsang's schools are. Master Wong reluctantly agrees to do so and the Consulate releases Fei Hung and Tsang. Then the ambassador orders the steel mill to be closed down and for all of the steel shipments to be sent to Hong Kong. Angry, steelworkers Fo Sang (Chin Kar-lok) and a man named Uncle Hing (Hon Yee Sang) break into the steel mill later that night to find out what the British Consul is up to, and they discover that the British consulate is using the steel shipment boxes to smuggle the ancient Chinese artifacts. However, they are caught and they fight the consulate's henchman. Fo Sang escapes and informs Fei-Hung and Ling about what is happening. Later, Fei Hung, Tsang, Fun, and Marlon arrive at the factory where the workers are staging a protest that becomes violent against the Consulate's abuses. Fei Hung takes on all of the henchmen until only Henry and John are left. Fei Hung easily fights off Henry but John proves to be a tough opponent due to his strong, fast, and flexible kicks. When John and Henry gain the upper hand and are about to finish him off, Fei Hung uses the industrial alcohol in the steel mill to light Henry on fire, and then drinks it. Disposing of Henry, Fei Hung then drinks enough industrial alcohol and beats John in a wild fight scene with his drunken boxing. Later, the Wongs are rewarded by a Chinese general for their help in stopping the British Consulate's crimes. Cast and crew. "Drunken Master II" was nominally presented by Golden Harvest studio founder Leonard Ho. The film was directed by Lau Kar-leung, although Jackie Chan is credited with directing the final fight scene. The villain in the scene is played by Ken Lo, a Jackie Chan Stunt Team member and Chan's former personal bodyguard. The action direction was by Lau Kar-leung in co-operation with the Jackie Chan Stunt Team. Home media. The original region 0 DVD release of "Drunken Master II" is the only version which features the entire Hong Kong version. However, the aspect ratio is cropped to 1.78:1 from the original theatrical 2.35:1 aspect ratio. No DVD has been made available to date that preserves the original aspect ratio and the uncut version of the film with the original Cantonese audio track. The film's purest version can only be found on now out-of-print releases – the Mei Ah VCD and LaserDisc, Tai Seng's VHS (itself a recording of the Mei Ah LaserDisc) and the Australian VHS from Chinatown Video (a sub label of Siren Visual). These prints have "burnt-in" Chinese/English subtitles. An uncut release with good picture quality, the original audio track, and the original aspect ratio is considered a "holy grail" by many Hong Kong cinema fans. Of all the films in Chan's back-catalogue that received North American theatrical distribution, "Drunken Master II" was cut the least. A scene in which Wong drunkenly sings at a café was re-cut slightly, making use of a few alternate takes not seen in the original Cantonese version. In addition, a 35 second cut was made to the concluding scene of the film which showed Wong blinded and mentally crippled as a result of drinking industrial alcohol during the film's ultimate fight. Played for laughs, the scene was considered to be in bad taste by the American distributor, Dimension Films. In addition to the cut, however, there were other significant changes made to the US release including the change of title (to "Legend of Drunken Master"), an English-language dub (Chan dubbed himself), and a new musical score. The re-dubbed soundtrack also meant that sound effects were different, in some instances completely altering the rhythm of the fight scenes. The Australian (region 4) and Japanese (region 2) release featured the same cuts and re-scoring as the US release. The region 3 releases for Hong Kong and Korea contains the English export version with the original 2:35:1 non-anamorphic aspect ratio. This cut of the film ends almost immediately after Fei-Hung defeats John. The audio tracks include an abridged Cantonese and Mandarin soundtracks, and the original Golden Harvest English dub different than that of Dimension's. It contains the original score and sound effects, but there are no English subtitles. A Blu-ray version was released on 15 September 2009, in the United States, which features the cut US version in the original 2.35:1 aspect ratio. In the UK it was released on Blu-ray 16 April 2012 under the title "The Legend Of Drunken Master". Reception. Critical reception. Roger Ebert, writing in the "Chicago Sun-Times", gave the film three-and-a-half stars out of a possible four:"When I did a seminar at the Hawaii Film Festival several years ago, comparing the physical comedy of Chan and Buster Keaton, martial arts fans brought in their bootleg Hong Kong laser discs of this film and told me that I had to see the final 20-minute fight sequence. They were correct. Coming at the end of a film filled with jaw-dropping action scenes, this extended virtuoso effort sets some kind of benchmark: It may not be possible to film a better fight scene." In "Entertainment Weekly", Lisa Schwarzbaum gave the film an A- grade and wrote:"A half dozen years after its Asian release, and over two decades after the original "Drunken Master" made Jackie Chan a star in Hong Kong, "The Legend of Drunken Master" may be the most kick-ass demonstration yet, for the majority of American moviegoers, of what the fuss is all about: To many aficionados (who know the video as "Drunken Master II"), this 1994 favorite, remastered and dubbed in "classic" bad Chinese-accented English, showcases Chan in his impish glory, dazzling in his ability to make serious, complicated fighting look like devil-may-care fun." "TIME Magazine" listed "Drunken Master II" as one of the "All-TIME" best 100 films as chosen by TIME's movie critics Richard Corliss and Richard Schickel: "The most important and entertaining star of east Asian cinema, Jackie Chan survived a boyhood in a punishing Peking Opera School, and his early screen days as "the next Bruce Lee" to create his own genre of martial-arts comedies [..] Jackie starred in, and directed, many wonderful action films in his pre-Hollywood days. This one can stand at the peak". James Berardinelli was one of the less fervent reviewers:""The Legend of Drunken Master" is pretty typical Hong Kong Chan fare – five superior action sequences with a lot of failed comedy and mindless drivel padding out the running length. Most of the expository and character-building scenes fall into one of three categories: (1) inane, (2) incomprehensible, or (3) dull. The tone is also wildly inconsistent. Some sequences are laced with slapstick comedy while others are acutely uncomfortable as a result of torture and the nearly-abusive disciplining of a grown child by a parent. (Differences in culture make the latter seem more incongruous to American viewers than to Chinese movie-goers.) So it's up to the action to redeem the film – a feat it succeeds at, at least to a point." Box office. "Drunken Master II" was a notable success in Hong Kong, grossing HK$40,971,484 during its theatrical run. The success was somewhat surprising, considering reports of tension on the set between Chan and Lau Kar Leung, and that the 90s vogue for kung fu films had more or less passed. Six years later, "Drunken Master II" was released in 1,345 North American theaters as "The Legend of Drunken Master" By Dimension Films .This re-edited version made US$3,845,278 ($2,865 per screen) in its opening weekend, on its way to a US$11,555,430 total.
327401	Katherine Patricia "Kate" Flannery (born June 10, 1964) is an American actress best known for playing the role of Meredith Palmer on the NBC hit series "The Office". Personal life. Flannery was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She attended Saint John Neumann School and Archbishop John Carroll High School in Radnor, Pennsylvania. She graduated from the University of the Arts in Philadelphia. She is one of seven children in an Irish-American family. She is three minutes younger than her twin sister who is a social worker. Flannery is one of only two cast members from "The Office" who is actually from Pennsylvania, where the show is set. The other is Zach Woods, who plays the character Gabe. Career. Improvisation. A former member of The Second City's National Touring Company, Flannery is an original member of Chicago's Annoyance Theater, where she created over 15 shows including "The Miss Vagina Pageant" and "The Real Live Brady Bunch". "The Lampshades", her comedy lounge act with veteran improviser Scot Robinson, has been running in Hollywood at the iO WEST stage for over four years and was seen at the U.S. Comedy Arts Festival in Aspen, Colorado. "The Lampshades" was "New York" magazine's "LA Pick" for 2006 and was declared "Best Saturday Comedy Show of the Year" by "LA Weekly". Stage work. Flannery played Neely O'Hara in Off Broadway hit "Valley of the Dolls" at the Circle in the Square Theatre in New York City and Los Angeles. Also in Los Angeles, she played the teen prostitute and Blair's sister in "The Phacts of Life" at the Renberg Theatre and in the Lily Tomlin/Jane Wagner production of "Hildy, Hildy, Three Feet Under" at The Evidence Room. She is the musical director of the Los Angeles Drama Club, teaching Shakespeare to children and young adults. Music. Flannery was a member of the band Mono Puff using the stage name "Lady Puff". She toured with the band and sang on their second album, "It's Fun to Steal". Television. Flannery appeared as the alcoholic, divorced, single mother Meredith Palmer on the television comedy "The Office". Before "The Office", she made appearances on "The Bernie Mac Show", "Boomtown", "Curb Your Enthusiasm", and "Jimmy Kimmel Live!" She currently blogs (sometimes as her "Office" character) on MySpace. In 2008, Flannery was a talent scout on "Last Comic Standing" with her "Office" costar Brian Baumgartner, and she appeared with the cast of "The Office" on "Celebrity Family Feud". Flannery also appeared as a judge in a 2009 episode of "Iron Chef America". She has also appeared on "The Jay Leno Show" portraying Wendy in a skit at the time of the burger chain's 40th anniversary, Mother Earth in a skit on the November 19, 2009 episode and Mrs. Claus on December 21, 2009. In an interview on "Chelsea Lately", Flannery stated that she plays Harper's mother on the Disney Channel series, "Wizards of Waverly Place". She was a contestant on "Don't Forget the Lyrics". She is currently the host of "Standup in Stilettos" on the TV Guide network.
1065739	Rashida Leah Jones (born February 25, 1976) is an American film and television actress, comic book author, screenwriter, and occasional singer. On TV series, she played Louisa Fenn on "Boston Public" and Karen Filippelli on "The Office." She has had numerous film roles, including in "I Love You, Man", "Our Idiot Brother", "The Social Network", and "The Muppets." She co-wrote the screenplay for "Celeste and Jesse Forever" (2012), in which she starred. In 2009 Jones began appearing on the NBC comedy series "Parks and Recreation" as Ann Perkins. Early life. Jones was born in Los Angeles, the daughter of Quincy Jones, a musician who became a media mogul and producer, and Peggy Lipton, an actress noted for her role on the TV series "The Mod Squad." Rashida has an older sister, Kidada Jones. They also have five half-siblings by their father's other relationships. Her father is African American, with ancestry including Welsh. Her mother is Ashkenazi Jewish (a descendant of immigrants from Russia and Latvia). Rashida and her sister were raised in Reform Judaism by their mother; she attended Hebrew school, though she left at the age of ten and did not have a Bat Mitzvah. As an adult, Jones practices Judaism.
1065098	Christopher Atkins (born Christopher Atkins Bomann; February 21, 1961) is an American actor, who became famous with his co-starring debut role in the 1980 film "The Blue Lagoon". Early life. Atkins was born in Rye, New York, to Donald Bomann and Bitsy Nebauer. In high school, he was a lifeguard and sailing instructor, where he was discovered for "The Blue Lagoon". Career. He had no previous interest or experience in acting, but an agent he knew persuaded him to audition for "The Blue Lagoon", a role he won over 2,000 other actors. In the film, he and co-star Brooke Shields played two teenage cousins who have lived alone together since they were marooned as children in a tropical paradise, eventually falling in love. The film was a huge box office success, grossing over US$58 million with a production cost of US$4.5 million. He went on to star with Kristy McNichol in "The Pirate Movie" (1982), an update of Gilbert and Sullivan's operetta "The Pirates of Penzance". He hit #71 on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart with the song "How Can I Live Without Her?", which appeared in "The Pirate Movie". Atkins again appeared shirtless in this film, which was to become a recurring theme in his acting career. Atkins commented, "What do you mean as soon as I get a job where I don't have to wear a loincloth, I will be wearing a speedo swimsuit! Will I ever have an acting job when I don't have to be shirtless?" In "A Night in Heaven" (1983), also starring Lesley Ann Warren, Atkins played Rick Monroe, an outspoken and overconfident student working his way through college as a male stripper. For one season (1983–1984), Atkins had a recurring role as swimming instructor Peter Richards in the hit CBS prime time soap opera "Dallas" in which his character has an affair with Sue Ellen Ewing. Atkins has been the cover boy of innumerable teen magazines and has appeared in several television commercials representing big brand names such as Coke and Adidas, all of which capitalized on Atkins' youth and appearance. He appeared on the cover of the September 1982 "Playgirl" magazine, and posed nude for a pictorial. He posed nude for the magazine again in December of the same year, but was not fully exposed in either issue. In the 1990s and 2000s, he drifted into made-for-network and cable movies, such as "Fatal Charms", "Project Shadowchaser III" and "Angel Flight Dawn". Recent projects include "Caved In", "Spiritual Warriors", "13th Child", "The Employee of the Month", "Tequila Express", "Quigley" and "True Legends of the West". Comic roles include "Mortuary Academy" (1988), "Shoot" (1992) and he even re-united with Brooke Shields on her show "Suddenly Susan" as a fellow journalist who is uninterested in her. In 2007, he starred in the direct-to-DVD sci-fi movie "100 Million BC". In 2009, he appeared on VH1's "Confessions of a Teen Idol", a reality show in which former teen idols attempt to revitalize their entertainment careers. Personal life. Atkins' famous curly hair was the result of perms; it is naturally very straight, and has darkened from blonde to brown over time. He married Lynne Barron, from Sydney, Australia, in 1985; the couple had two children, Grant (b. December 10, 1985) and Brittney (b. May 1, 1987), before they divorced. His daughter Brittney Bomann has appeared in five films. His son Grant Bomann played collegiate baseball for UNC Charlotte from 2008 to 2009. He owns an outdoor sports company and has patented a fishing lure. Recognition. Atkins was nominated for a Golden Globe Awards for New Star of the Year in a Motion Picture – Male for "The Blue Lagoon" as well as Best Young Actor for the Young Artist Awards. Atkins twice won a Golden Raspberry Award, first for Worst Actor for his role as Rick Monroe in the 1983 film "A Night in Heaven", later winning Worst Supporting Actor in the 1989 film "Listen to Me". He's ranked #76 on VH1's "100 Greatest Teen Stars".
582951	Jis Desh Mein Ganga Rehta Hai (English: "The country where Ganga lives") is 2000 Hindi film directed by Mahesh Manjrekar and starring Govinda and Sonali Bendre as leads. It is a remake of Dada Kondke's blockbuster Marathi film "Eakta Jeev Sadashiv" released in 1972. Plot. Gangaram alias Ganga (Govinda) lives a simple, straightforward life in a small village with his mom and dad (Shivaji Satham and Reema Lagoo), and his sweetheart, Saawni (Sonali Bendre). When the time comes for Ganga to marry, his parents inform him that his biological parents live in the city and want him to settle there. Ganga bids tearful farewell to his village and its inhabitants and travels to the city of his birth parents. He finds that he has an elder brother, who is married to Supriya, and younger siblings, as well as his birth parents, Avinash (Shakti Kapoor) and Radha (Himani Shivpuri), who are all very wealthy. Soon word spreads about Ganga being the latest eligible bachelor. He is asked to marry a socialite, Tina (Rinke Khanna), as per his parents' wishes. Ganga agrees to everything his new-found family wants him to do. Then visitors from the past visit Ganga and place him in a dilemma that will change his way of thinking forever. This movie is said to be a remake of the Marathi film "Ekta Jeev Sadashiv" (1972).
1163494	Fredrick Aaron "Fred" Savage (born July 9, 1976) is an American actor, director and producer of television and film. He is best known for his role as Kevin Arnold in the American television series "The Wonder Years" and as the grandson in "The Princess Bride". For his successes, Savage has earned several awards and nominations such as citations from the People's Choice Awards and the Young Artist Awards. In recent years, he has directed and produced numerous episodes of television series, such as "Ned's Declassified School Survival Guide", "Hannah Montana", and "Phil of the Future", as well as the primetime series "Ugly Betty", "It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia", "Modern Family", "Happy Endings", "2 Broke Girls" and "Party Down". Early life. Savage was born in Chicago, the son of Joanne and Lewis Savage, who was an industrial real estate broker and consultant. His brother is actor Ben Savage, and his sister is actress/musician Kala Savage. His grandparents were Jewish immigrants from Poland, Ukraine, Germany, and Latvia. Acting career. Savage's first screen performance was in the television show "Morningstar/Eveningstar", at age 9. He then appeared onscreen in "The Boy Who Could Fly", "Dinosaurs!", and several television shows, including "The Twilight Zone" and "Crime Story" before gaining national attention as the grandson in the 1987 film "The Princess Bride" opposite Peter Falk. In 1988, Savage appeared as Kevin Arnold on "The Wonder Years", the role for which he is best known, and for which he received two Golden Globe nominations and two Emmy nominations for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series. At the age of thirteen he was the youngest actor ever to receive these honors. He remained on the show until it ended in 1993. During this period, he appeared in several films, most notably "Vice Versa" (1988), and also starred in "Little Monsters". After "The Wonder Years", Savage primarily did guest and supporting roles, such as the show "Boy Meets World" (which starred his brother Ben) and in the film "Austin Powers in Goldmember" as Number Three. He has lent his voice to several animated projects, including "Family Guy", "Kim Possible", "Justice League Unlimited", "Oswald", and "". His two lead roles since "The Wonder Years" were on the short-lived sitcoms "Working" and "Crumbs". Savage appeared as a serial rapist on a 2003 episode of "" and as a womanizing professor on "Boy Meets World". He ranked at #27 on VH1's "100 Greatest Kid Stars". In July 2008, Savage guest-starred in the web series "The Rascal" on Crackle. Behind-the-scenes career. In 1999, Savage began his directing career in which he helmed episodes of over a dozen television series. His credits include "Boy Meets World", "Drake & Josh" and "Ned's Declassified" for Nickelodeon, as well as "That's So Raven", "Hannah Montana" and "Wizards of Waverly Place" for Disney Channel. Besides directing several episodes, Savage co-produced the Disney Channel Original Series "Phil of the Future". In 2007, he was nominated for a Directors Guild award for the "Phil" episode "Not-So-Great-Great Grandpa". He has served as a producer for several episodes of "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia", "Friends with Benefits", "Party Down", "Phil of the Future", and "Happy Endings". In 2007, he made his feature film directing debut with the film "Daddy Day Camp". Personal life. He is married to his childhood friend, Jennifer Lynn Stone. They have three children: two sons and a daughter.
216566	Virgil Charles Frye, (August 21, 1930 - May 7, 2012), was an American actor and former Golden Gloves boxing champion. He grew up in Estherville, Iowa. He has two children, Sean Frye and Soleil Moon Frye ("Punky Brewster"), and is the father-in-law of Jason Goldberg. Frye made an uncredited appearance in "Easy Rider" while working as a makeup artist on the 1969 film. Frye suffered from Pick's Disease or Frontotemporal dementia (FTD). He was the subject of a documentary made by his daughter, titled "Sonny Boy", which documents a trip that Frye and his daughter took to his hometown, and the effect his illness has had on their relationship. Virgil Frye died at an Orange county nursing home on May 7, 2012.
1130053	Harley Jane Kozak (born January 28, 1957) is an American actress and author. Life and career. Kozak was born Susan Jane Kozak in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, the daughter of Dorothy (née Taraldsen), a university music teacher, and Joseph Aloysius Kozak, an attorney. She has seven siblings: brothers John, Joseph, Peter and Andrew and sisters Dorothy, Mary and Ann. Harley is the youngest of them. Their father died when Harley was a year old. She was raised in Nebraska and attended New York University's Graduate Acting Program at the Tisch School of the Arts, graduating in 1980. In her early 20s she changed her name from Susan to Harley in honor of a close friend. Kozak starred in movies such as "Necessary Roughness", "The Favor", "Parenthood", "Arachnophobia", "All I Want for Christmas" and the soap operas "Texas" (first as a day player in October 1981, and from November 1981 to December 1982 as Brette Wheeler), "Guiding Light" (from 1983 to 1985 and a one day voice over in February 1990, as both Annabelle Sims Reardon and Annabelle's deceased mother, in 1983 flashbacks, Annie Sims) and "Santa Barbara" (from 1985 to 1986 and again in 1989, as former nun, Mary Duvall McCormick). In "Santa Barbara" her character died in an accident where a giant neon letter "C" toppled on top of her during an argument atop the Capwell hotel. Viewers were so angry over Mary's death that they started a letter-writing campaign demanding for her reappearance. The show received such huge amounts of letters that eventually they admitted their mistake and asked Kozak to come back. She declined the offer since she was already working with other projects and she was proud of the unusual way her character had made her exit. In February 1989, she made a brief return though, as an angel in Heaven. In 1987 Harley received a Soap Opera Digest Award from her role as Mary. In 1993–1994, Kozak played Alison Hart, wife of Dave Hart, portrayed by Beau Bridges, on the CBS comedy/western series "Harts of the West". The program was set on a dude ranch in Nevada. Lloyd Bridges played her father-in-law, and Diane Ladd appeared once as Alison's mother. Her three children were played by Sean Murray, Nathan Watt and Meghann Haldeman, who has been friends with her on-screen mother ever since. Also Mark Harmon guest-starred the series. Kozak has worked several times with Harmon, both in movies and TV series' and she credits him as one of her favorite co-stars. In 1996, Kozak appeared on mini-series Titanic along with Peter Gallagher and Catherine Zeta Jones. She played the role of Bess Allison, a mother who dies while searching her missing baby at the time when Titanic sinks. Kozak has stated that she has never been able to watch her performance, because the role was simply too sad. Kozak was originally chosen to play Karen Sammler in the TV show "Once and Again". She filmed the pilot, but was asked to withdraw from the series when she became pregnant with her first child. The role went to Susanna Thompson. Kozak also appeared in the 1st year episode "Cold Lazarus" of "Stargate SG-1" as Sara O'Neill. Kozak has written four novels: "Dating Dead Men" (2004), "Dating Is Murder : A Novel" (2005), "Dead Ex" (2007), and "A Date You Can't Refuse" (2008) all of which feature greeting card designer and amateur sleuth Wollie Shelley, a woman with very eccentric friends and family. The first three novels were published by Doubleday, a division of Random House, the most recent was published by Broadway Books following the demise of Doubleday. "Dating Dead Men" won an Agatha Award for best first novel in 2004. Kozak lives in Agoura Hills, California. She has been married twice: a brief union in the early 1980s (1982–1983) to actor Van Santvoord and a second marriage from 1997 to 2007 with entertainment lawyer Gregory Aldisert. She has three children with her second husband: daughter Audrey Valentine (b. March 9, 2000) and twins Lorenzo Robert and Giana Julia (b. May 30, 2002). After the birth of her children Kozak retired from acting almost completely and has devoted her time to her family and writing.
1059228	Joely Kim Richardson (born 9 January 1965) is an English actress, known for her role as Queen Catherine Parr in the Showtime television show "The Tudors" and Julia McNamara in the television drama "Nip/Tuck". She also appeared in films such as "101 Dalmatians" (1996), "Event Horizon" (1997), "The Patriot" (2000), "Anonymous" (2011), and the Hollywood film adaptation "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" (2011). Early life. Richardson was born in London to a theatrical family, the daughter of actress Vanessa Redgrave and director Tony Richardson, and the granddaughter of Sir Michael Redgrave and Rachel Kempson, Lady Redgrave. She is the sister of the late actress Natasha Richardson (1963–2009), and through her, she is the sister-in-law of actor Liam Neeson, and the aunt of Micheál and Daniel Neeson. She was the niece of the late Lynn Redgrave and the late Corin Redgrave and cousin of actress Jemma Redgrave, who is just five days younger than Richardson. Joely Richardson appeared as an extra at the age of three in the 1968 version of "The Charge of the Light Brigade", directed by her father.
1376959	"Disney's House of Mouse" is an American animated television series, produced by Walt Disney Television Animation (now Disney Television Animation), that originally aired from 2001 to 2003. On September 2, 2002, an all night marathon of this show titled "Night of 1000 Toons" aired on Toon Disney. Premise. The basic premise is that Mickey Mouse and his friends run a dinner theater club called the "House of Mouse" in downtown Toontown, which shows Disney cartoons as part of its floor shows. Located at a corner of an intersection on Toontown's Main Street, the club is considered a very popular destination by the local populace. Some episodes have specific themes, with cartoons to fit that episode's theme. The theme is usually not beneficial to at least one character, usually Donald. Many characters from Disney animated films (such as "Aladdin", "Pinocchio", "Peter Pan", "The Little Mermaid", "Hercules", and many more) have appeared on House of Mouse, mostly as patrons and guest star performers. The show is notable for including many relatively obscure and otherwise rarely used Disney characters, often with speaking parts. Notably, Li'l Bad Wolf and April, May and June Duck, who had appeared very often in Disney comic books but never before in an animated cartoon, finally made their animated debuts on "House of Mouse". The show also featured some cameos by characters created for other television cartoons and theme park attractions, but these appearances were few and far between. Each episode explores the comical mishaps of Mickey and his associates running the club, which are used as wraparounds for Disney cartoons (some of which are classic theatrical cartoons from the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s, but most of which are reruns from "Mickey Mouse Works"). House of Mouse locations. Below are descriptions of the areas within the club itself. Foyer Restaurant / Theater Backstage Kitchen Control Room Prop Room Production. The show was produced by Walt Disney Television, and originally aired from 2001 to 2003, running for 52 episodes. The show is one of many Disney cartoon series made in the widescreen HD format. "House of Mouse" aired on One Saturday Morning on ABC. As of February 2006, this show is no longer airing on The Disney Channel in the US, although "Mickey Mouse Works" airs regularly on the Disney Cinemagic channel, which is part of the Disney Channel in the UK. The show ceased broadcast on US television in February 6, 2009, after being aired for the last time on Toon Disney before becoming Disney XD. The theme song is performed by Brian Setzer.
1064221	David Krumholtz (born May 15, 1978) is an American actor best known for playing Professor Charlie Eppes in the television series "Numb3rs". He appeared as Seth Goldstein in "Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle" and its two sequels, "Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay" and "A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas". He is also known for his role as Bernard the Arch-Elf in "The Santa Clause" and its sequel, "The Santa Clause 2". Additionally, he is known for his role as "Mr. Universe" in the 2005 film "Serenity". He also played Michael, the AV geek, in "10 Things I Hate About You", starring Heath Ledger. Early life. Krumholtz was born in Queens, New York. He is the son of Judy, a dental assistant, and Michael Krumholtz, a postal worker. He grew up in a "very working-class, almost poor" Jewish family. His mother moved from Hungary to the U.S. in 1956, and his paternal grandparents emigrated from Poland. Career. Krumholtz began his acting career at the age of 13 when he followed his friends to an open audition for the Broadway play "Conversations with My Father" (1992). Though he did not expect to get the part, he won the role of Young Charlie opposite Judd Hirsch, Tony Shalhoub, and Jason Biggs, who was also making his Broadway debut. Soon after his run on Broadway, Krumholtz co-starred in two feature films, "Life With Mikey" (1993) opposite Michael J. Fox, and "Addams Family Values" (1993) opposite Christina Ricci. For his role in "Mikey", David was nominated for a 1993 Young Artist Award. Although his work in these two films garnered him critical attention, David is probably best known by children as the sarcastic head elf Bernard from "The Santa Clause" (1994) and its 2002 sequel "The Santa Clause 2: The Mrs Clause", but due to filming overlap with "Numb3rs" was unable to take part in "". In 1994 (at age 16) Krumholtz co-starred in his first television series, "Monty", with Henry Winkler; the show lasted only a few episodes. Krumholtz later starred in several short-lived series over the years. Along the way, he had the opportunity to work with Jason Bateman ("Chicago Sons", 1997), Tom Selleck ("The Closer", 1998), Jon Cryer ("The Trouble with Normal", 2000), and Rob Lowe ("The Lyon's Den", 2003). In 2005 he finally found television success with the CBS series "Numb3rs". Along with his starring roles on television, Krumholtz made memorable guest appearances on "ER", "Law & Order", "Undeclared", "Lucky", and "Freaks and Geeks". He broke out of the children's movie genre with "The Ice Storm" (1997), directed by Ang Lee, and "Slums of Beverly Hills" (1998), starring Alan Arkin and Natasha Lyonne. In 1999 David starred as Michael Eckman in the popular teen movie "10 Things I Hate about You" with Larisa Oleynik, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Julia Stiles, and Heath Ledger. That same year, he portrayed a completely different teen character – that of Yussel, a young conflicted Jewish man in "Liberty Heights". It was the role of Yussel that brought Krumholtz to the attention of actor and filmmaker, Edward Burns, who cast him in the 2001 independent movie, "Sidewalks of New York". Playing the romantic and slightly obsessed Benny, Krumholtz was on a path to larger, more complex film roles. His first role as a leading man was in the 2002 romantic comedy "You Stupid Man", playing opposite Milla Jovovich. Although never released theatrically in the United States, "You Stupid Man", directed by Edward Burns's brother Brian Burns, was released on DVD in 2006. Krumholtz carried his first leading role in a released American film when he starred "", which premiered on FX Networks in 2002. "Big Shot" was a true story based on the Arizona State University basketball fixing scandal of the early 1990s. Krumholtz played Benny Silman, a college student and campus bookmaker who was jailed for his part in shaving points off key Arizona State basketball games. Benny was unlike any character Krumholtz had played before, and he garnered critical praise for his performance, proving that he was not just a sidekick. In 2004 Krumholtz reunited with Edward Burns for the independent film "The Last Hold-Outs". The following year he played Max in "My Suicidal Sweetheart" (formerly "Max and Grace"), once again starring opposite actress Natasha Lyonne. Krumholtz also returned to smaller key roles in the successful films "Ray" and "Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle" – two very different movies released in 2004. In September 2005, he was seen in Joss Whedon's science fiction film "Serenity" as "Mr. Universe", a hacker and information broker. Most recently, in early 2006, Krumholtz's 2003 film "Kill the Poor" screened in New York City at IFC Center and across the country on Comcast's On Demand cable service. From 2005, he portrayed Charlie Eppes, a mathematical genius who helped his brother Don (Rob Morrow), an FBI agent, solve crimes using mathematics, on CBS' show "Numb3rs". The cast of "Numb3rs" also included Judd Hirsch and Peter MacNicol, who appeared with him in "Addams Family Values" as a camp counselor. Television critic Matt Roush ("TV Guide") called Krumholtz's work on "Numb3rs" "probably his best TV work to date". "Numb3rs" was officially cancelled by CBS on May 18, 2010. In 2012, Krumholtz was cast opposite Michael Urie in CBS' comedy TV series "Partners" but the show was cancelled after six episodes. Personal life. He appears in two documentaries on the "Knocked Up" DVD (one being staged and the other being genuine). "Gummy: The Sixth Roommate" tells the true story of how David dropped out of the film to play the lead part in a Woody Allen movie in Paris that got canceled before production, and Apatow would not write him back into his script. He would have played one of the main character's five roommates (along with other "Freaks and Geeks" alumni Seth Rogen, Jason Segel and Martin Starr). Friend and fellow "Freaks" actor Jason Segel appears with him in a short scene in "Tenacious D in The Pick of Destiny". On May 22, 2010, Krumholtz married actress Vanessa Britting (born Vanessa Almeda Goonan), at The Plaza Hotel, in New York City; they had been engaged since July 2008. In September 2011, Krumholtz was diagnosed with thyroid cancer, and began a radioactive iodine treatment three months later.
1066651	The Big Year is a 2011 comedy film starring Steve Martin, Jack Black and Owen Wilson. "The Big Year" was directed by David Frankel and written by Howard Franklin. It was based on the nonfiction book "The Big Year: A Tale of Man, Nature and Fowl Obsession" which was written by Mark Obmascik. The book followed three men on a quest for a Big Year - a competition among birders to see who can identify the most different species of birds in North America in a calendar year. The film uses the same premise with invented characters. The film was released on October 14, 2011, in the United States. Filming took place from May to July 2010. It was released in the United Kingdom on November 14, 2011. Plot. The film follows three amateur birders who each set out to achieve a Big Year. They are Brad Harris (Jack Black), a computer programmer based in Baltimore; Stu Preissler (Steve Martin), founder and CEO of a New York company bearing his name; and a roofing contractor named Kenny Bostick (Owen Wilson), who holds the current Big Year record of 732 birds, drives a car with the New Jersey vanity plate "732," and is described by others as "the greatest birder in the world". Though Bostick's fascination with birds is genuine, he is so competitive about birding that the other characters sometimes use his name as a kind of expletive: "Bostick!" Harris is handicapped by limited funds and a full-time job; the other two seem to have unlimited time and money to pursue the competition. Bostick is obsessively possessive of his record. He is motivated to begin another Big Year by his worry that the El Nino storm system has created the ideal conditions for someone to top his hitherto unbreakable record. He promises his concerned second wife Jessica (Rosamund Pike) that he'll only pursue his Big Year until he's certain that nobody else is has a shot at beating 732. Jessica is concerned. This was supposed to be the year they focused on conceiving a child, and she also believes that Bostick's birding obsession is what destroyed his previous marriage. Brad is a skilled birder who can identify nearly any species solely by sound. He hates his job maintaining the operational software of a Pennsylvania nuclear power plant. After a failed marriage, an aborted career at Dell, and dropping out of grad school, he feels that doing a Big Year will give him a sense of purpose. Stu is the founder and CEO of a an enormous Manhattan-based chemical conglomerate which he built from the ground up, starting in his garage. After decades of corporate success, he is ready to retire to Colorado with his architect wife, who has designed a comfortable house with enough space and amenities to entertain their kids and future grandchildren. Though his company is in the middle of complicated negotiations to merge with a competitor, and his fears of the abyss of an empty schedule led him to come back from a previous retirement, he is leaving his company in the hands of his two lieutenants (Kevin Pollak and Joel McHale). A Big Year has been his lifelong dream and he's pursuing it with the full support of his wife. At his parents' house over dinner, Brad reveals to his father (Brian Dennehy) that he has begun his Big Year and the travel costs necessary to undertake his dream have already been budgeted. His father objects, mistaking his cash-strapped 36-year son's travels for an extended vacation and a way to avoid moving forward with his life. Brad is resolute, however, encouraged by his mother (Dianne Wiest). Stu flies off to British Columbia after receiving notification of a Xantus's Hummingbird sighting in a backyard there. His former company colleagues (Joel McHale, Kevin Pollak) try unsuccessfully to convince him to return to New York City. Unbeknownst to Stu, Bostick arrives at the same house in British Columbia and sees the hummingbird.
588006	Vaanam Vasappadum is a 2004 Tamil film directed by P. C. Sreeram. The film stars debutants Poongkothai Chandrahasan and Karthik Kumar in the lead, and features Revathy, Nassar, Thalaivasal Vijay, Vijayakumar, Boski, and Kovai Sarala in supporting roles. The film was based on a novel written by Sujatha. It was the first high definition film to be shot, edited and released in India. Plot. Karthik, a young lawyer falls in love with Poongothai, daughter of a businessman Vijayakumar. Vijayakumar and Poongothai's sister run a Multi-level marketing and are imprisoned for false accusations. Karthik brings Poongothai to his parents and seeks the permission from them – Nasser, a speech impaired person and Revathy, his mother. Karthik and Poongothai eventually get married after his parents consent. One day while travelling back home, their car breaks down and they decide to board a bus. But both of them miss each other while travelling in the bus and Poongothai falls in the hands of a group of teenagers, who are projected as womanizers. In the event, Poongothai is raped by the group and is thrown out with her hands tied at the back. After the event, issues of how she faces the humiliation and gets justice for the act form the rest of the story. Production. The film was based on a novel by Sujatha, which in turn was inspired from a real-life incident. After having read the story before 10 years the film got released, Sreeram had a thought of directing it and "reserved" his rights for filming it in future. The film was initially launched with newcomers Gautham and Pooja, a former Miss Chennai announced as the lead pair. However, Sreeram replaced the pair with another pair of debutants Karthik Kumar and Poongothai Chandrahasan. "Vaanam Vasappadum" was Sreeram's third film as director and was the first motion picture in India to use high-definition digital technology. The film was showcased at the Mumbai International Film Festival and the ninth International Film Festival of Kerala in India. The film's soundtrack and background score were composed by Mahesh Mahadevan, who earlier worked with Sreeram in "Kuruthipunal". The lyrics were written by Kavivarman and Jayendra, while Kasi Viswanathan handled the editing department. Reception. The film was released theatrically in India in April 2004. Poongothai, the female lead was criticized heavily while Karthik Kumar, the male lead received rave reviews for his performance in the film. Malathi Rangarajan of "Hindu" writing, " is a clear let down ... At least she could have worked on her expressions, particularly in the first half." The review also noted that, the screenplay was not so impressive and could have made the original story more insightful. However, the soundtrack received positive response with the song "Uyirae" being much appreciated for its music and visual theme. After six months, digital colour correction was added which further improved the visual quality of the picture and the film was re-released in November 2004.
1086642	In numerical analysis and scientific computing, truncation error is the error made by truncating an infinite sum and approximating it by a finite sum. For instance, if we approximate the sine function by the first two non-zero term of its Taylor series, as in formula_1 for small formula_2, the resulting error is a truncation error. It is present even with infinite-precision arithmetic, because it is caused by truncation of the infinite Taylor series to form the algorithm.
627537	20 Years After is a 2008 American post-apocalyptic film. Filmed principally in north Alabama and southern Tennessee, the low-budget film was initially released under the title Like Moles, Like Rats, a reference to the Thornton Wilder play "The Skin of Our Teeth". Plot. The events take place 20 years after a nuclear war which was followed by plagues. No children have been born in 15 years, and people want to gain control of the first pregnant woman - Sara. Running out of water, Sara and her mother are forced to leave their shelter in Samuel's basement and join other groups of refugees who call themselves internally displaced people. Michael is a disc jockey who operates a radio station at one of the camps. David runs a gang of looters.
1055973	Jack Kehoe (born November 21, 1938) is an American film actor appearing in a wide variety of films, including the crime dramas "Serpico", "The Pope of Greenwich Village", and Brian De Palma's 1987 "The Untouchables", as well as the 1976 comedy "Car Wash", and 1988 cult classic "Midnight Run".
1166195	Darryl Lynn "D. L." Hughley (; born March 6, 1963) is an American actor, political commentator and stand-up comedian. He is perhaps best known as the star of the ABC/UPN sitcom "The Hughleys", and as one of the four comedians featured in the Spike Lee film "The Original Kings of Comedy". Additionally, he has been the host of CNN's "D. L. Hughley Breaks the News", a correspondent for "The Jay Leno Show" on NBC, and a local radio personality and interviewer in New York City. In early 2013 DL Hughley landed in 9th place Dancing with the Stars Early life. Hughley was born in Los Angeles, California, the son of Audrey and Charles Hughley, who was a Delta Air Lines maintenance worker. Career. From 1992 to 1993, Hughley was the original host of "ComicView", the stand-up comedy program on BET. In 1998, through 2002, he wrote, produced and starred in the television sitcom series, "The Hughleys". During 2005, he released a stand-up comedy album "D.L. Hughley: Notes From The GED Section" and had a short-lived talk show on Comedy Central called Weekends at the D.L.. He is a member of "The Original Kings of Comedy", and has also had roles on "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip", and on NBC's "Scrubs" as Turk's brother. He was the host of the 2008 BET Awards. He also attended the funeral of one of his best friends and fellow King of Comedy, Bernie Mac. At the service, he gave a tearful speech during the eulogy. It was announced in June 2010 that NBC has ordered a game show pilot that Hughley will host entitled "Who's Bluffing Who?" Also in June 2010, Hughley served as special guest moderator of ABC's "The View" for one day. Hughley is scheduled to guest-star on TBS' "Glory Daze" as well as guest host of "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire". Hughley has filled in for Meredith Vieira as a guest host on the game show "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire". Hughley's first book, "I Want You to Shut the Fuck Up: How the Audacity of Dopes Is Ruining America", was published on July 31, 2012 by Crown Archetype Press. Hughley was a contestant on Season 16 of Dancing With the Stars. He was partnered with two time champion Cheryl Burke. CNN. Hughley was selected to host and write a comedic news-show on CNN which covers global happenings in politics, entertainment, sports and pop culture, titled "D. L. Hughley Breaks the News," which aired its premiere episode on Saturday, October 25, 2008 at 10 p.m. EDT on CNN. On March 9, 2009, CNN announced Hughley would be ending the show due to a desire to work in Los Angeles and be closer to his family. He plans to continue his work with CNN as a Los Angeles-based contributor for the network. Radio. Recently, Hughley began a career as an on-air radio personality. On July 20, 2009, "The D.L. Hughley Morning Show" premiered on WRKS (now WEPN), more popularly known at the time as 98.7 Kiss FM, an urban adult contemporary station in New York City. His co-hosts included former BET news correspondent Jacque Reid. Airing from 6–10 am, the show placed Hughley in direct competition with his fellow "King of Comedy" Steve Harvey, whose nationally-syndicated "Steve Harvey Morning Show" airs in New York on WBLS (Kiss FM's longtime rival). There were plans to take Hughley's show into syndication as well, but a dispute regarding his salary erupted between Kiss FM's parent company and the potential syndication company. In August 2010, Kiss FM dropped the show from its schedule, and Hughley moved on to other endeavors. On August 12th, 2013, REACH Media, the syndicator founded by Tom Joyner, announced it had finalized a deal with D.L. to host a new nationally-syndicated Afternoon drive show be distributed by Cumulus Media Networks.
1017478	Legacy of Rage () is a 1986 Hong Kong action film directed by Ronny Yu, starring Brandon Lee, Michael Wong, Regina Kent, Mang Hoi, Chung Liu and features a cameo appearance by Bolo Yeung who appeared in Lee's father Bruce Lee's last film "Enter the Dragon". This was Brandon Lee's first leading role in a film and the only Hong Kong production he starred in. Synopsis. Brandon Ma (Brandon Lee) is a regular guy with a job and a girlfriend May (Regina Kent). He has two jobs, so he can support his girlfriend and his dream of owning a motorcycle. Brandon's best friend is Michael Wan (Michael Wong), an ambitious and murderous drug dealer. How Brandon and Michael ever became friends is the biggest mystery ever. In any case, Michael also loves May and so he comes up with a plan that will win her for him and get Brandon out of his way. Soon he comes up with a plan using a corrupt police officer named Sharky. (Chung Liu) It seems that the corrupt cop has been using his police connections to dominate the local cocaine trade, so Michael has him killed and uses Brandon as the fall guy. Brandon goes to jail and met Hoi (Mang Hoi), though he thinks that he will be released soon thanks to the efforts of his good buddy Michael. However after 8 long years Brandon finally gets out of jail and vows revenge on Michael for betraying their friendship and stealing the love of his life. Whilst out of prison he learns that May has had his son. With the help of an inmate he met in prison, Brandon tracks down Michael. Whilst engaging his guards he learns that May is dead. After killing Michael's guards, Brandon confronts and kills his former friend Michael. The movie ends with Brandon giving his farewells to his friend (whom he met while in prison and who aided him in fighting Michael's guards) and leaving with his son. Home media. After Brandon Lee's untimely death in an accidental shooting during the filming of the 1994 film "The Crow", movies such as "Legacy of Rage" saw a surge in video sales.
1055167	The Reincarnation of Peter Proud (1975) is an American motion picture released by Bing Crosby Productions, and Cinerama Productions Corporation. Of the supernatural suspense genre, the film was directed by J. Lee Thompson, notable for directing "Cape Fear" (1962), based upon a 1973 novel by Max Ehrlich. The film stars Michael Sarrazin in the title role, along with rising stars Margot Kidder of "Superman", Jennifer O'Neill, star of "Summer of '42", and Cornelia Sharpe, best known for her part in "Serpico". Movie synopsis. A professor at a college in California, Dr. Peter Proud (Michael Sarrazin), begins to have recurring dreams. In one nightmare, Proud appears to see a man murdered by a woman in a rowboat while he is swimming naked. The murdered man repeatedly cries, "Marcia, don't!"
1067875	Capturing the Friedmans is a documentary film directed by Andrew Jarecki. It focuses on the 1980s investigation of Arnold and Jesse Friedman for child molestation. It was nominated for the Academy Award for Documentary Feature in 2003. Some of the Friedmans' alleged victims and family members wrote to the Awards Committee protesting the nomination, their identities confirmed but protected by the judge who presided over the court case. History. Jarecki initially was going to make a film about children's birthday party entertainers in New York, including the popular clown David Friedman. During his research, Jarecki learned that David Friedman's brother, Jesse, and his father, Arnold, had been convicted of child sexual abuse. Jarecki interviewed some of the children involved and ended up making a film focusing on the Friedmans. Plot. The investigation into Arnold Friedman's life started after a federal sting operation, when he received a magazine of child pornography from the Netherlands by mail. In searching his Great Neck, New York home, investigators found a collection of child pornography. After learning that Friedman taught children computer classes from his home, local police began to suspect him of abusing his students. In police interviews, some of the children Friedman taught stated Friedman played bizarre sex games with them during their computer classes. Jarecki interviewed some of these children himself; some stated that they had been in the room with other children alleging abuse, and that nothing had happened. The film portrayed police investigative procedures as the genesis of a "witch-hunt" in the Friedmans' community. The Friedmans took home-videos while Arnold Friedman (and, later, his son Jesse) awaited trial. They were allowed to stay at home in order to prepare for court. The pictures were not made with publishing in mind, but as a way to record what was happening in their lives. The movie shows much of this footage; family dinners, conversations, and arguments. Arnold's wife quickly decided that her husband was indeed guilty and advised him to confess and protect their son. Arnold Friedman pleaded guilty to multiple charges of sodomy and sexual abuse. According to the Friedman family, he confessed in the hopes that his son would be spared prison time. Jesse Friedman later confessed as well, but now claims he did so to avoid being sent to prison for life. He said in mitigation that his father had molested him. Arnold Friedman admitted to molesting two boys, but not those who attended his computer classes. He is also quoted as admitting that, when he was 13, he had sex with his younger brother, Howard, who was eight years old at the time of the abuse; Howard Friedman has said he does not recall this. Arnold Friedman committed suicide in prison in 1995, leaving a $250,000 life insurance benefit to his son. Jesse Friedman was released from prison in 2001 after serving 13 years of his sentence. Response. The film received extremely positive reviews, with the review tallying website Rottentomatoes.com reporting that 139 out of the 143 reviews they tallied were positive for a score of 97 percent and a certification of "fresh". The film was ranked as the 7th best reviewed movie of 2003 on the website's best of the year list. The low-budget documentary was a success with audiences as well grossing over $3 million in theaters, making it a surprise hit. In terms of individual reviews Elvis Mitchell of "The New York Times" wrote, "Mr. Jarecki so recognizes the archetypal figures in the Friedman home that he knows to push things any further through heavy-handed assessment would be redundant." He praised Jarecki for operating under the premise "that first impressions can't be trusted and that truth rests with each person telling the story." "Washington Post" columnist Desson Howe offered similar praise, writing, "It's testament to Jarecki's superbly wrought film that everyone seems to be, simultaneously, morally suspect and strikingly innocent as they relate their stories and assertions...This is a film about the quagmire of mystery in every human soul." Similarly, Roger Ebert wrote, "The film is as an instructive lesson about the elusiveness of facts, especially in a legal context. Sometimes guilt and innocence are discovered in court, but sometimes, we gather, only truths about the law are demonstrated." The film won the Grand Jury prize at the Sundance Film Festival for 2003. "Capturing the Friedmans" was voted the fifth most popular film in the Channel 4 programme," The 50 Greatest Documentaries" of all time, in 2005. In one of the few negative reviews, "Los Angeles Times" writer Kenneth Turan wrote a critique of both the film and Jarecki stating, "Jarecki's pose of impartiality gets especially troublesome for audiences when it enables him to evade responsibility for dealing with the complexities of his material." Criticism intensified as Jarecki's role in deliberately choosing not to pursue his firm belief in the Friedmans' innocence became publicly known. In his review, Ebert had recounted Jarecki's statement at the Sundance Film Festival that he did not know whether Arnold and Jesse Friedman were guilty of child molestation. Ebert roundly praised Jarecki for communicating this ambiguity. It has since emerged that Jarecki funded Jesse Friedman's appeal. Writing for "The Village Voice", Debbie Nathan — who was hired by Jarecki as a consultant after having been interviewed for the film — wrote of Jarecki, "Polling viewers at Sundance in January, he was struck by how they were split over Arnold and Jesse's guilt. Since then, he's crafted a marketing strategy based on ambiguity, and during Q&As and interviews, he has studiously avoided taking a stand." Subsequent legal developments. In August 2010, a federal appeals court upheld the conviction of Jesse Friedman on technical legal grounds, but took the unusual step of urging prosecutors to reopen Friedman’s case, saying that there was a “reasonable likelihood that Jesse Friedman was wrongfully convicted.”. The decision cited "overzealousness" by law enforcement officials swept up in the hysteria over child molestation in the 1980s. Following the appeals court ruling, the Nassau District Attorney's office began a three-year investigation led by District Attorney Kathleen M. Rice. On June 24, 2013, the report was released. In a 155-page report written with very little ambiguity, the report concluded that none of four issues raised in a strongly worded 2010 ruling by the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit were substantiated by the evidence. Instead, it concluded, "By any impartial analysis, the reinvestigation process prompted by Jesse Friedman, his advocates and the Second Circuit, has only increased confidence in the integrity of Jesse Friedman’s guilty plea and adjudication as a sex offender." A four-member independent advisory panel guided and oversaw the work. It included Barry Scheck, a founder of the Innocence Project and one of the country’s leading advocates for overturning wrongful convictions. Prior to the report's release, details emerged, including letters from some of the alleged victims in which they recant their accusations and implicate the police in coercing their statements. Prior to the report's release, The Village Voice conducted an interview with Jesse Friedman, who described himself as "freakishly optimistic", and also reported that Ross Goldstein, a childhood friend of Jesse Friedman's, had broken his 25-year silence to explain he had been coerced into false cooperation with the district attorney's office: "He told the review panel of how he'd been coerced into lying, how prosecutors coached him through details of the Friedmans' computer lab, which he'd never even seen, and how he was imprisoned for something he'd never done."
584870	Jalsa (English translation: "Fun") is a 2008 Telugu film directed by Trivikram Srinivas, who returns after directing a Blockbuster "Athadu", and produced by Allu Aravind, under the Geetha Arts banner. The film stars Pawan Kalyan, Ileana D'Cruz and Parvati Melton in pivotal roles. The soundtrack of the film, composed by Devi Sri Prasad, was launched on 29 February 2008. The film was originally scheduled to be released on 27 March 2008, but because of delays in the digital intermediate (DI) process, the film was released on 2 April 2008 and became successful at the box Tollywood Box office. This movie dubbed in Hindi as "Yeh Hai Jalsa". Plot. Sanjay Sahu (Pawan Kalyan) is a post-graduate from Osmania University and is working as a gym instructor. He is in love with Indu (Kamalini Mukherjee) who wishes to marry him. So she makes him meet her father (Prakash Raj), who is a police officer and also happens to be his old acquaintance. Her father declines to approve their love and she is forced to marry according to her father's choice. Meanwhile, Bhagmathi a.k.a Bhagi (Ileana D'Cruz) and her friend Jyothsna a.k.a Jo (Parvathi Melton) are chased by hoodlums before being rescued by Sanjay. He accidentally kills one of them. Meanwhile, Jo and Bhagi are ragged in the college before being again rescued by Sanjay. Both begin to like Sanjay and even decide, to propose their love to him without the knowledge of the other. However, it is Jo who proposes first to Sanjay, who rejects her. Careful after seeing her friend's love rejected, Bhagi, with the help of Sreenu (Sunil), begins wooing Sanjay. Meanwhile, Damodar Reddy (Mukesh Rishi), a powerful land-grabber who takes care of all the settlements while still in jail, is out on parole. He is in search of Sanjay for spoiling his land deals in the past and thrashing his son, who was one of the goons who chased Bhagi. He makes an attempt on life of Sanjay, but in vain. But, his friend Abhi (Ali) is taken as a hostage during the attack. Sanjay rescues Abhi, but is enraged when his friends stop him from assaulting the kidnapper by questioning his authority to take law into his hands. Sanjay then reveals his flashback, in which he hailed from a poor rural family. His brother dies of heart disease as a child. His father commits suicide as crops fail and his mother too passes away. While going to burial ground, he repeatedly slips and swoons at a stone pillar. He plucks it out, which enrages the henchmen of Damodar Reddy . When they attack him, Sahu beats them up, and disappears into a forest and joins the naxalites. During a combing operation, he joins hands with the father of Indu and Bhagi - a police officer - and his team to eliminate the team in an encounter. Sanjay is then rehabilitated as a college student in Hyderabad. Bhagi confesses to her father about her intention to marry Sanjay, but her father rejects it by revealing to her about Sanjay being an ex-lover of her sister Indu, and an ex-naxal. Shocked, Bhagi agrees to get married as per her father's choice. Her father arranges engagement of Bhagi with Raghu Ram (Sivaji). Sanjay is disgusted that Bhagi has given her assent to the engagement and decides to break it. Meanwhile, Sanjay comes to know about the man who attempted on his life is none other than Damodar Reddy and Ragghu Ram is the elder son of Damodar Reddy. So Sanjay confronts him in jail and challenges him. Damodar Reddy gets out of jail, and forcibly arranges the marriage of Raghuram with Bhagi. Sanjay, meanwhile kidnaps the younger son of Damodar Reddy, and takes him head-on, defeats him and the film ends with Bhagi getting married to Sanjay. Awards. The film nominated in 6 categories at 2008 filmfare awards including Best movie, actor, actress, supporting actress, music director and lyricist for Sirivennela ("Chalere Chal). Soundtrack. The soundtrack of the film was launched on 29 February 2008. The audio rights were sold to Aditya Music for 9 million, the highest for a Telugu film of its released month. The music got very good reviews from websites and an excellent response from the public itself. The music has been topping the charts since its release. Devi Sri Prasad received the 2008 Santosham Best Music Director Award for his work on the film's music. References. http://www.idlebrain.com/news/functions/filmfareawards2008.html
1163904	Michael Landon (born Eugene Maurice Orowitz; October 31, 1936 – July 1, 1991) was an American actor, writer, director, and producer. He is known for his roles as Little Joe Cartwright in "Bonanza" (1959–1973), Charles Ingalls in "Little House on the Prairie" (1974–1983), and Jonathan Smith in "Highway to Heaven" (1984–1989). Landon appeared on the cover of "TV Guide" 22 times, second only to Lucille Ball. Landon produced, wrote, and directed many of his series' episodes, including his shortest-lived production, "Father Murphy," which starred his friend and "Little House" co-star Merlin Olsen. In 1981, Landon won recognition for his screenwriting with a Spur Award from the Western Writers of America. Although his youngest daughter Jennifer Landon and "Bonanza" co-star David Canary, have both won multiple Emmys, Michael Landon was never nominated for an Emmy. In 1976, Landon wrote and directed an auto-biographical movie, "The Loneliest Runner", which was nominated for two Emmys. Early life. Michael Landon was born Eugene Maurice Orowitz in Forest Hills, a neighborhood of Queens, New York. Landon's father, Eli Maurice Orowitz, was an actor and movie theater manager, and his mother, Peggy (O'Neill), was a dancer and comedienne. Eugene was the Orowitz's second child; his sister, Evelyn, was born three years earlier. His father was Jewish, and his mother was from an Irish Catholic family. In 1941, when Landon was four years old, he and his family moved to the Philadelphia suburb of Collingswood, New Jersey. He attended and celebrated his Bar Mitzvah at Temple Beth Sholom, a Conservative synagogue, then located in Haddon Heights, an area that did not allow Jews until after World War II, now in Cherry Hill. His family recalls that Landon "went through a lot of hassle studying for the big event, which included bicycling to a nearby town every day to learn how to read Hebrew and do the chanting." He attended Collingswood High School. During his childhood, Landon was constantly worried about his mother's suicide attempts. Once the family went on a vacation on a beach, and his mother tried to drown herself, but Michael rescued her. Soon after the attempt his mother acted as if nothing had happened. After a few minutes, Michael threw up. It was the worst experience of his life. Stress overload from the suicide attempts of his mother caused Landon to battle the childhood problem of bedwetting, that was documented in the unauthorized biography, "Michael Landon: His Triumph and Tragedy". His mother put his wet sheets on display outside his window for all to see. He ran home every day and tried to remove them before his classmates could see. These events later inspired Landon to write and direct the 1976 made-for-television movie "The Loneliest Runner". In high school, Landon was an excellent javelin thrower, his 193’ 4” toss in 1954 being the longest throw by a high schooler in the United States that year. This earned him an athletic scholarship to the University of Southern California, but he subsequently tore his shoulder ligaments, ending his javelin throwing career and his participation on the USC track team. Career. Early work. Landon decided on his surname by choosing it from a phone book. His first starring appearance was on the television series, "Telephone Time" in the episode, "The Mystery of Casper Hauser" as the title character. Other parts came - movie roles in "I Was a Teenage Werewolf", "High School Confidential", the notorious "God's Little Acre", and "The Legend of Tom Dooley" as well as many roles on television, such as "Crossroads" (three episodes), "The Restless Gun" (pilot episode aired on "Schlitz Playhouse of Stars"), "Sheriff of Cochise" (in "Human Bomb"), "U.S. Marshal" (as Don Sayers in "The Champ"), "Crusader", "Frontier Doctor", "The Rifleman", "The Adventures of Jim Bowie", "Johnny Staccato", "Wire Service", "General Electric Theater", "The Court of Last Resort", "State Trooper" (two episodes), "Tales of Wells Fargo", "The Texan" (in the 1958 episode "The Hemp Tree"), "The Tall Man", "Tombstone Territory" (in the episode "Rose of the Rio Bravo", with Kathleen Nolan)"Trackdown" and "Wanted: Dead or Alive", starring Steve McQueen. 45 rpm record singles. In 1957, Candlelight Records released a Michael Landon single, "Gimme a Little Kiss (Will "Ya" Huh)"/ "Be Patient With Me" during the height of his notoriety for role in the film, "I Was a Teenage Werewolf". Some copies show the artist credited as the "Teenage Werewolf" rather than as Michael Landon. In 1962, both the A- and B-side of the record were re-released on the Fono-Graf label that included a picture sleeve of Landon's then-current work on "Bonanza" as Little Joe Cartwright. In 1964, RCA Victor Records released another Landon single, "Linda Is Lonesome"/"Without You". All of Landon's singles have since been issued on compact disc by Bear Family Records as part of a "Bonanza" various artists compilation. "Bonanza". In 1959, at the age of 22, Landon began his first starring TV role as Little Joe Cartwright on "Bonanza", one of the first TV series to be broadcast in color. Also starring on the show were Lorne Greene, Pernell Roberts, and Dan Blocker. During "Bonanza"'s sixth season (1964–1965), the show topped the Nielsen ratings and remained number one for three years. Receiving more fan mail than any other cast member, Landon negotiated with executive producer David Dortort and NBC to write and direct some episodes. In 1962, Landon wrote his first script. In 1968, Landon directed his first episode. In 1993, "TV Guide" listed Little Joe's September 1972 two-hour wedding episode ("Forever"), as one of TV's most memorable specials. Landon's script recalled Joe Cartwright's brother, Eric "Hoss" Cartwright, who was initially the story's groom, before Dan Blocker's death. During the final season, the ratings declined, and NBC canceled Bonanza in November 1972. The last episode aired on January 16, 1973. Along with Lorne Greene and Victor Sen Yung, Landon appeared in all 14 seasons of the series. Landon was loyal to many of his "Bonanza" associates including producer Kent McCray, director William F. Claxton, and composer David Rose, who remained with him throughout "Bonanza" as well as "Little House on the Prairie" and "Highway to Heaven". "Little House on the Prairie". The year after "Bonanza" was canceled, Landon went on to star as Charles Ingalls in the pilot of what became another successful television series, "Little House on the Prairie", again for NBC. The show was taken from a 1935 book written by Laura Ingalls Wilder, whose character in the show was played by nine-year-old actress Melissa Gilbert. In addition to Gilbert, two other unknown actresses also starred on the show: Melissa Sue Anderson, who appeared as Mary Ingalls, the oldest daughter in the Ingalls family, and Karen Grassle as Charles' wife, Caroline. Landon served as executive producer, writer, and director of "Little House." The show, a success in its first season, emphasized family values and relationships. "Little House" became Landon's second-longest running series. As "Little House on the Prairie" executive producer, Landon hired five sets of real-life siblings to appear on the show: Melissa and Jonathan Gilbert (Laura Ingalls and Willie Oleson), Lindsay and Sidney Greenbush (Carrie Ingalls), Matthew and Patrick Labyorteaux (Albert Quinn Ingalls and Andy Garvey), Brenda and Wendi Turnbaugh (Grace Ingalls), and Jennifer and Michele Steffin (Rose Wilder). Landon's son, Michael Landon Jr., appeared as Jim in the episode "The Election". Landon's daughter, Leslie Landon also appeared in this episode, as well as a plague victim in "The Plague", an episode from the show's premiere season. Leslie Landon later appeared as Marge, a pregnant woman in the fourth episode of the sixth season, "The Third Miracle". Leslie Landon also appeared as a dishwasher who befriends Laura in the episode "A Wiser Heart", and was later cast as school teacher Etta Plum during the show's final season. The show was nominated for several Emmy and Golden Globe awards. After eight seasons, "Little House" was retooled by NBC in 1982 as "", which focused on the Wilder family and the Walnut Grove community. Though Landon remained the show's executive producer, director and writer, "A New Beginning" did not feature Charles and Caroline Ingalls. "A New Beginning" was actually the final chapter of "Little House," as the series ended in 1983. The following year, three made-for-television movies aired. Melissa Gilbert said of her on- and off-screen chemistry with Landon, “He was very much like a ‘second father’ to me. My own father passed away when I was 11, so, without really officially announcing it, Michael really stepped in.” Melissa also said about Michael’s smoking ritual, “He would be smoking. It was real cold there and he had these big leather gloves on, and he would put out a cigarette in his glove. And then, just (you know) flick the butt away, and I just thought that I’d never seen anything like it. That was the coolest, he was the toughest.” When not working on the "Little House" set, Gilbert spent most of the weekends visiting Landon's real-life family in 1976, she once said, “The house was huge. We ran like banshees through that house, and Mike would hide behind doorways and jump out and scare us.” Melissa said about Landon who took the script in a new direction, “He put frogs in his mouth, we had a script supervisor. He had this chair with these pouches on the sides and he would carry from the set to where we were shooting, from spot to spot to spot to wrap around the course of the day. And there was one day where he was sneaking up and putting rocks in his pocket of the pouches, and the chair got heavier, to move the chair over, and completely clueless, but of course, everybody else knew.” "Highway to Heaven". After producing both "Little House..." and later the "Father Murphy" TV series, Landon starred in another successful program. In "Highway to Heaven", he played a probationary angel (who named himself Jonathan Smith) whose job was to help people in order to earn his wings. His co-star on the show was Victor French (who had previously co-starred on Landon's "Little House on the Prairie") as ex-cop Mark Gordon. On "Highway", Landon served as executive producer, writer, and director. "Highway to Heaven" was the only show throughout his long career in television that he owned outright. By 1985, prior to hiring his son, Michael Landon, Jr., as a member of his camera crew, he also brought real-life cancer patients and disabled people to the set. His decision to work with disabled people led him to hire a couple of adults with disabilities to write episodes for "Highway to Heaven". By season four, "Highway" took a nose dive in the ratings, and in June 1988, NBC announced that the series would return for an abbreviated fifth season, which would be its last. The final episodes were filmed in the fall of 1988, and aired from May to August 1989. Co-star French would not live to see "Highway"'s series finale make it to air; he died of advanced lung cancer on June 15, 1989, the disease of which was only diagnosed two months before. Landon invited his youngest daughter, Jennifer Landon, to take part in the final episode. Other projects. In 1982, Landon co-produced an NBC "true story" television movie, "Love is Forever", starring he and Laura Gemser (who was credited as Moira Chen), about Australian photojournalist John Everingham's successful attempt to scuba dive under the Mekong to rescue his lover from communist-ruled Laos in 1977. The real Everingham was cast as an extra in the film. "Sam's Son" was a 1984 coming-of-age feature film written and directed by Landon and loosely based on his early life. The film stars Timothy Patrick Murphy, Eli Wallach, Anne Jackson, Hallie Todd, and James Karen. Karen previously worked for Landon in the made-for-television film "Little House: The Last Farewell". After the cancellation of "Highway to Heaven" and before his move to CBS, Landon wrote and directed the teleplay "Where Pigeons Go to Die". Based on a novel of the same name, the film starred Art Carney and was nominated for two Emmy awards. Up through the run of "Highway to Heaven", all of Landon's television programs were broadcast on NBC. After the cancellation of "Highway", he moved to CBS and in 1991 starred in a two-hour pilot called "Us". "Us" was meant to be another series for Landon but, with his diagnosis on April 5 of pancreatic cancer, the show never aired beyond the pilot. Landon also appeared as a celebrity panelist on "Match Game 73 "on CBS. Personal life. Landon was married three times, and father to nine children. In February 1959, Landon's father succumbed to a heart attack. In 1973, while a student at the University of Arizona, his eldest daughter Cheryl was involved in a serious car collision just outside of Tucson, Arizona. The sole survivor out of four involved in the collision, Cheryl Landon was hospitalized with serious injuries and remained in a coma for days. In March 1981, Landon's mother, Peggy, died. Illness and death. Landon began to suffer from severe abdominal pain in February 1991. On April 5, 1991, pancreatic cancer was diagnosed; it had metastasized into his liver and lymph nodes. The cancer was inoperable and the doctors' prognosis was terminal. On May 9, 1991, he appeared on "The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson" to speak about his cancer and to condemn the tabloid press for their sensational headlines and inaccurate stories, including the claim that he and his wife were trying to have another child. During his appearance, Landon pledged to fight the cancer and asked fans to pray for him. On May 21, 1991, Landon underwent successful surgery for an almost fatal blood clot in his left leg. In June 1991, Landon appeared on the cover of "Life Magazine", after granting the periodical an exclusive private interview about his life, his family, and his struggle to live. On July 1, 1991, at age 54, Landon died in Malibu, California. His remains were interred at Hillside Memorial Park Cemetery, in Culver City, California. Legacy. A community building at Malibu's Bluffs Park was named "The Michael Landon Center" following the actor's death. Landon's son, Michael Jr., produced a memorial special, "Michael Landon: Memories with Laughter and Love," featuring the actor's family, friends and co-stars: "Bonanza" co-star David Canary said that one word that described Landon was "fearless" in his dealings with network brass. Melissa Gilbert, who played his daughter on "Little House" said that the actor made her feel "incredibly safe" and that he was "paternal". Often cited on the special was Landon's bizarre sense of humor, which included having toads leap from his mouth and dressing as a superhero to visit a pizza parlor. In his final 1991 "Tonight Show" appearance, Johnny Carson related how the actor took him back to a restaurant the two had dined at previously. Carson had been led to believe he accidentally ran over the owner's cat in the parking lot during their first visit. When sitting down to eat the second time, Carson discovered that Landon had helped create a fake menu of dinner items featuring dead cat. A made-for-TV movie, "Michael Landon, the Father I Knew", co-written and directed by his son Michael, Jr., aired on CBS in May 1999. John Schneider starred in the title role as Michael Landon, with Cheryl Ladd as Lynn Noe, and Joel Berti as Michael Landon, Jr. The biopic detailed, from Landon, Jr's point of view, the personal emotional trauma he endured during his parents divorce, and his father's premature death. The movie spanned a timeline from the 1960s through the early 1990s. A plaque and small playground referred to as the "Little Treehouse on the Prairie" was erected in Knights Park, a central park in Landon's hometown of Collingswood. In 2011, the plaque was removed from the park by the borough and was later given to a local newspaper by an unnamed person. According to the Collingswood, NJ website, the plaque was removed during a fall cleanup with plans to return it to a safer location. The plaque was reinstated next to a bench in a safer location the following summer. External links. The Michael Landon Fan Club
1163680	Shirley Temple Black (born Shirley Temple; April 23, 1928) is an American film and television actress, singer, dancer, and former U.S. ambassador to Ghana and Czechoslovakia. She began her film career in 1932 at the age of three, and in 1934, found international fame in "Bright Eyes", a feature film designed specifically for her talents. She received a special Juvenile Academy Award in February 1935 for her outstanding contribution as a juvenile performer to motion pictures during 1934, and film hits such as "Curly Top" and "Heidi" followed year after year during the mid-to-late 1930s. Licensed merchandise that capitalized on her wholesome image included dolls, dishes, and clothing. Her box office popularity waned as she reached adolescence, and she left the film industry in her teens. She appeared in a few films of varying quality in her mid-to-late teens, and retired completely from films in 1950 at the age of 22. She was the top box-office draw four years in a row (1935–38) in a "Motion Picture Herald" poll. Temple returned to show business in 1958 with a two-season television anthology series of fairy tale adaptations. She made guest appearances on television shows in the early 1960s and filmed a sitcom pilot that was never released. She sat on the boards of corporations and organizations including The Walt Disney Company, Del Monte Foods, and the National Wildlife Federation. In 1967, she ran unsuccessfully for United States Congress, and was appointed United States Ambassador to Ghana in 1974 and to Czechoslovakia in 1989. In 1988, she published her autobiography, "Child Star". Temple is the recipient of awards and honors including Kennedy Center Honors and a Screen Actors Guild Life Achievement Award. She is No. 18 on the American Film Institute's list of the greatest female American screen legends of all time. Early years. Shirley Temple was born on April 23, 1928 in Santa Monica, California. She is the daughter of Gertrude Amelia Temple (née Krieger), a homemaker, and George Francis Temple, a bank employee. The family was of English, German, and Dutch ancestry. She had two brothers, George Francis, Jr. and John Stanley. Mrs. Temple encouraged her infant daughter's singing, dancing, and acting talents, and in September 1931 enrolled her in Meglin's Dance School in Los Angeles, California. About this time, she began styling Shirley's hair in ringlets similar to those of silent film star Mary Pickford. In January 1932, Temple was signed by Educational Pictures following a talent search at the dance school. She appeared in a series of one-reelers called "Baby Burlesks", and a series of two-reelers called "Frolics of Youth" playing Mary Lou Rogers, a youngster in a contemporary suburban family. To underwrite production costs at Educational, Temple and her child co-stars modeled for breakfast cereals and other products. She was lent to Tower Productions for a small role in her first feature film "Red-Haired Alibi" in 1932, and, in 1933, to Universal, Paramount, and Warner Bros. for various bit parts. Fox films. Educational Pictures declared bankruptcy in 1933 and Temple signed with Fox Film Corporation in February 1934. She appeared in bit parts and was loaned to Paramount and Warner Bros for bit parts. In April 1934, "Stand Up and Cheer!" became Temple's breakthrough film. Her charm was evident to Fox heads and she was promoted well before the film's release. Within months, she became the symbol of wholesome family entertainment. Her salary was raised to $1,250 a week, and her mother's to $150 as coach and hairdresser. In June, her success continued with a loan-out to Paramount for "Little Miss Marker". On December 28, 1934, "Bright Eyes" was released. It was the first feature film crafted specifically for Temple's talents and the first in which her name appeared above the title. Her signature song "On the Good Ship Lollipop" was introduced in the film and sold 500,000 sheet music copies. The film demonstrated Temple's ability to portray a multi-dimensional character and established a formula for her future roles as a lovable, parentless waif whose charm and sweetness mellow gruff older men. In February 1935, Temple became the first child star to be honored with a miniature Juvenile Oscar for her 1934 film accomplishments, and added her foot and hand prints to the forecourt at Grauman's Chinese Theatre a month later. Twentieth Century Fox. Fox Films merged with Twentieth Century Pictures to become Twentieth Century-Fox in 1934. Producer and studio head Darryl F. Zanuck focused his attention and resources upon cultivating Temple's superstar status. With four successful films to her credit, she was the studio's greatest asset. Nineteen writers known as the Shirley Temple Story Development team created 11 original stories and some adaptations of the classics for her. Biographer Anne Edwards writes about the tone and tenor of Temple films under Zanuck, "This was mid-Depression, and schemes proliferated for the care of the needy and the regeneration of the fallen. But they all required endless paperwork and demeaning, hours-long queues, at the end of which an exhausted, nettled social worker dealt with each person as a faceless number. Shirley offered a natural solution: to open one's heart." Edwards points out that the characters created for Temple would change the lives of the cold, the hardened, and even the criminal with positive results. Edwards quotes a nameless filmographer: "She assaults, penetrates, and opens flinty characters making it possible for them to "give" of themselves. All of this returns upon her at times forcing her into situations where she must decide who needs her most. It is her agony, her Calvary, and it brings her to her most despairing moments ... Shirley's capacity for love ... was indiscriminate, extending to pinched misers or to common hobos, it was a social, even a political, force on a par with democracy or the Constitution." Temple films were seen as generating hope and optimism, and President Franklin D. Roosevelt said, "It is a splendid thing that for just fifteen cents an American can go to a movie and look at the smiling face of a baby and forget his troubles." Most films Temple starred in were cheaply made at $200,000 or $300,000 per picture and were comedy-dramas with songs and dances added, sentimental and melodramatic situations aplenty, and little in the way of production values. Her film titles are a clue to the way she was marketed—"Curly Top" and "Dimples", and her "little" pictures such as "The Little Colonel" and "The Littlest Rebel". Temple often played a fixer-upper, a precocious Cupid, or the good fairy in these films, reuniting her estranged parents or smoothing out the wrinkles in the romances of young couples. She was very often motherless, sometimes fatherless, and sometimes an orphan confined to a dreary asylum. Elements of the traditional fairy tale were woven into her films: wholesome goodness triumphing over meanness and evil, for example, or wealth over poverty, marriage over divorce, or a booming economy over a depressed one. As Temple matured into a pre-adolescent, the formula was altered slightly to encourage her naturalness, naïveté, and tomboyishness to come forth and shine while her infant innocence, which had served her well at six but was inappropriate for her tweens (or later childhood years), was toned down. 1935–37. At Zanuck's request, Temple's parents agreed to four films a year from their daughter (rather than the three they wished), and the child star's contract was reworked with bonuses to sweeten the deal. A succession of films followed: "The Little Colonel", "Our Little Girl", "Curly Top" (with the signature song "Animal Crackers in My Soup"), and "The Littlest Rebel" in 1935. "Curly Top" and "The Littlest Rebel" were named to "Variety"'s list of top box office draws for 1935. In 1936, "Captain January", "Poor Little Rich Girl", "Dimples", and "Stowaway" were released. Based on Temple's many screen successes, Zanuck increased budgets and production values for her films. In 1937, John Ford was hired to direct the sepia-toned "Wee Willie Winkie" (Temple's own favorite) and an A-list cast was signed that included Victor McLaglen, C. Aubrey Smith, and Cesar Romero. The film was a critical and commercial hit, but British film critic Graham Greene muddied the waters in October 1937 when he wrote in a British magazine that Temple was a "complete totsy" and accused her of being too nubile for a nine-year-old:
1063695	Regina King (born January 15, 1971) is an American film and television actress. She played Brenda Jenkins on the NBC sitcom, "227" and had a supporting role in the feature film "Jerry Maguire". She is also known for roles on such television series as "The Boondocks", "Southland", and "The Big Bang Theory". Early life. King was born in Los Angeles, California, the elder daughter of Gloria, a special education teacher, and Thomas King, an electrician. The two divorced in 1979. Her younger sister is actress Reina King. Regina King attended Westchester High School and the University of Southern California. Career. King began her acting career in 1985 playing the role of Brenda Jenkins on the television series "227", a role she played until the show ended in 1990. She went on to appear in the John Singleton films "Boyz n the Hood", "Poetic Justice" and "Higher Learning". In 1995, she was featured in the hit comedy film "Friday". In 1996, she gained fame starring in the blockbuster romantic comedy film "Jerry Maguire" as Marcee Tidwell, the wife of Cuba Gooding, Jr.'s character. She played Will Smith's wife in "Enemy of the State", and was also featured in "How Stella Got Her Groove Back", "Mighty Joe Young", "Down to Earth", "Daddy Day Care", ', "A Cinderella Story", "Ray" and '. Most recently, she appeared in season 6 of the hit show "24" and the film "This Christmas". In 2008, she appeared in "Living Proof". She starred in the TNT police drama "Southland" until the show's cancellation.
582117	Khal Nayak (, Translation: "Villain") is a 1993 Bollywood action thriller film produced and directed by Subhash Ghai. The story centres around the escape and attempted capture of a terrorist criminal Ballu (Sanjay Dutt) by Inspector Ram (Jackie Shroff) and his girlfriend officer Ganga (Madhuri Dixit). "Box office India" declared the film a "Super Hit" at the box office. The dance and song "Choli Ke Peeche" became an instant classic for its choreography and notoriety for its suggestive lyrics. Plot. Ballu (Sanjay Dutt) is a gangster who is arrested by Inspector Ram (Jackie Shroff). Ram shows compassion to Ballu while trying to get him to provide information that would lead to capture of Ballu's boss and mentor Roshida. Ballu does not speak, and he promises to escape from the jail. Ballu escapes from jail while Ram is visiting his girlfriend Ganga (Madhuri Dixit) who is also a police officer. When news of this breaks out, Ram's reputation is in tatters as the media portrays Ram as an officer who has neglected his duty. Ganga, in an attempt to restore Ram's reputation, secretly goes undercover as a street-girl. Ganga realises that Ballu is a good-hearted person who turned to crime due to poverty and circumstances. Ganga tries to rehabilitate Ballu while on the run. Meanwhile Ballu begins to fall in love with Ganga. He becomes enraged when he finds out she doesn't love him and is a police officer. Ganga continues to help Ballu as she has seen the good in him and tries to prove that she is truly trying to help him. Meanwhile Ram approaches Ballu's mother for help and realises that Ballu is in fact his childhood friend. Ballu's mother / Ballu then tell Ram / Ganga the story of how Rosida used their poverty to corrupt Ballu. Roshida killed Ballu's sister, blaming the police. Ballu kills the officer he believes to be behind this and from then on spirals into a life of crime. Ganga, afraid that police will kill Ballu,stops the police from shooting him, allowing him to escape. She is hence arrested for aiding a criminal and is accused of being in a relationship with Ballu this destroying her police and personal reputation. Ballu's mother finds Ballu, however she is followed by Ram. In the following confrontation Ballu's mother takes Ram's side trying to convince Ballu to give himself up. Ballu seeing Ganga's picture in Ram's wallet realises that this is who she loves. Ballu manages to escape to Roshida's base where Roshida promises to help Ballu escape but betrays him and attempts to kill him and his mother. The police, led by Ram attack Roshida's lair. In the ensuing conflict Ballu finds out that Roshida killed his sister. Ram kills Roshida and Ballu escapes. Following Roshida's death Ballu installs himself as the new boss - but his girlfriend informs him that Ganga is about to go on trial for aiding him. Having a change of heart, Ballu appears to attack the court but then surrenders himself and swears that Ganga is innocent, thereby restoring her reputation and reconciling her and Ram. Reception. The film was well received by critics as well as the audience. It became an instant blockbuster, breaking many previous records.
1164494	Josie Rebecca Davis (born January 16, 1973) is an American actress, best known for her role as Sarah Powell in the television sitcom "Charles in Charge" from 1987 to 1990. Television work. Davis began her career acting in commercials at three years old. She played Sarah Powell on "Charles in Charge" for four seasons. Sarah Powell was a quiet, bookish character, and after "Charles in Charge" wrapped, Davis had a difficult time shedding that image and getting people to forget the character she created and to see her as pretty. Beginning as a teenager, Davis began studying acting with the Brooklyn-born Paul E. Richards—Lee Strasberg's "right-hand man" at the Actors Studio in the 1950s. At 24, she auditioned and became a member of Actors Studio. At the time, the judges were Martin Landau, Mark Rydell, and the late Shelley Winters. Josie was one of only two performers selected to join that year. Davis was cast as Camille Desmond on "Beverly Hills, 90210" in 2000. She then was cast in the other Aaron Spelling show, "Titans" opposite Victoria Principal and Yasmine Bleeth. Her other television credits include working opposite Clifton Collins Jr. on "Fear Itself", with David Spade on "Rules of Engagement", with James Woods on "Shark", "Ghost Whisperer", a Christmas episode of "Two and a Half Men", "NCIS", ', "Burn Notice", "Chuck", "Bones", and a recurring role opposite Skeet Ulrich and Gary Sinise on '. Films. After "Titans" came to an end, Davis left TV to pursue film work. She acted in a number of films, including the Nicolas Cage-directed "Sonny", opposite James Franco and Scott Caan, "The Trouble with Romance" with Kip Pardue, and "Kalamazoo?" with Mayim Bialik, among many other indies.
585196	Puthu Puthu Arthangal (; ) is a 1989 Indian Tamil language Drama film directed by K. Balachander starring Rahman, Sithara, Geetha, Janagaraj, Jayachitra, Poornam Vishwanathan, Sowcar Janaki, Vivek and Ilaiyaraaja. __TOC__ Plot. This refreshing tale from K. Balachander focuses on the fairly realistic tale of a famous singer Bharathi (Rahman with singing by S. P. Balasubrahmanyam) and his extremely possessive wife named Gowri (Geetha). Tricked into marriage by his convincing mother-in-law, what really irks Bharathi is his wife’s inability to deal with his rabid female fans. Tensions escalate until Bharathi flees from home and ends up encountering someone else named Jyothi (Sithara) who’s also escaping from her life as a dancer because her husband made her dance forcefully and tried forcing her to be a prostitute. Geetha’s character is surprisingly well-defined. As a rabid fan who gets to marry the object of her desires, she is obviously afraid her husband will cheat on her with one of the thousands of women throwing themselves at him – after all, he slept with them before their marriage. Geetha turns in a convincing performance as a woman whose all-consuming love ends up consuming her. Rahman, who sounds suspiciously like ‘Nizhagal’ Ravi, also does well as the famous singer – but a tiny quibble with the story: he goes to work in a restaurant in North India serving South Indian cuisine, and none of the customers recognize the famous singer. Then, he makes a living in Goa with Jyothi, meet one Malayali couple, who died later in the movie and are both fluent in Hindi, and by watching the couple,they learn the true definition for love while falling in love themselves.
1066949	Zena Lotus Grey (born November 15, 1988) is an American actress. She is known for her roles in the films "Snow Day", "Max Keeble's Big Move", and "The Shaggy Dog". Life and career. Grey was born in Harlem, New York, the daughter of artists Allyson (née Rymland) and Alex Grey (né Velzy). Her first role was in the Broadway play "The Herbal Bed". In 1999, she had a role in "The Bone Collector", before starring in "Snow Day" (2000) and "Max Keeble's Big Move" (2001). She also appeared on the TV show "All That". In December 2004, Grey appeared in "In Good Company". After that, she starred as Tim Allen's daughter in "The Shaggy Dog" (2006). Her latest role was that of Penelope Bryte in 2010's "My Soul to Take". She also had a brief recurring role in 2011 as Ruby on the television series "House".
1065774	"Von Ryan's Express" is a 1965 World War II war adventure film about a group of Allied prisoners who after Italy's armistice with the Allies in September 1943, conduct a daring mass escape by hijacking a freight train and fleeing through German-occupied Italy to Switzerland. It stars Frank Sinatra and Trevor Howard, and is based on a novel by David Westheimer, and directed by Mark Robson. The film changes several aspects of the novel, including its ending, which is considerably more famous in the book. It became one of Frank Sinatra's most successful films. Plot. Colonel Joseph L. Ryan (Frank Sinatra) is a US pilot whose P-38 Lightning is shot down. He is captured by Italian troops and taken to an Italian prisoner-of-war camp in Italy, run by the cruel Blackshirt Major Battaglia (Adolfo Celi). The camp is populated mainly by British prisoners (9th Battalion, Royal Fusiliers, 167 Infantry Brigade, 56th (London) Infantry Division). The previous British commanding officer, Col. Brian Lockhart, had recently died as a result of harsh camp discipline, specifically in being put in the metal "sweat box." When Ryan arrives in camp, Major Eric Fincham (Trevor Howard) is the ranking British officer. The American colonel being senior to Fincham, Ryan assumes command of the prisoners. Ryan pays respect to his predecessor by refusing to sit in the late commanding officer's chair. When a US prisoner (there are only eight) is about to be punished for stealing rations, Ryan discovers he was stealing medicine, which Fincham had ordered be stashed for a future escape attempt. Ryan orders that the drugs be dispensed as necessary. He then shows the Italian guards the prisoners' escape tunnels under construction, which infuriates the British prisoners. When Battaglia doesn't keep his word to improve conditions as much as agreed, Ryan orders the prisoners to strip and burn their filthy clothes in an effort to force Battaglia into issuing new ones. Battaglia does so, but throws Ryan into the sweat box as a punishment. After hearing of the Italian capitulation to the Allies, the guards flee, leaving the camp unguarded. The British promptly put Battaglia on trial as a war criminal, and allow his second-in-command and Anglo-Italian translator, Captain Oriani (Sergio Fantoni), to defend him. Battaglia portrays himself as a broken man who has repudiated fascism. Ryan orders him not to be executed, but to be put in the sweat box. The men depart on a long trek across the Italian countryside, before hiding in ancient Roman ruins for the night, as Orianai attempts to contact Allied forces. When morning comes, Germans swarm out of the forest and recapture the prisoners, killing several. Fincham is furious as he thought that Oriani had betrayed them. However, when the POWs are put on the train, they find a severely battered Oriani in the prisoner carriage. Battaglia is outside, gloating, and they realise they were betrayed to the Germans by the former camp commandant. The Nazis shoot all sick prisoners, causing the irate Fincham to shout, "You'll get your Iron Cross now, "von" Ryan!". The train travels to Rome, where the men are allowed to eat and a German officer, Major von Klemment (Wolfgang Preiss), takes command of the train. Ryan discovers that the floorboards of the boxcar the officers are locked in to be loose, and manages to pry a hole in the floor. That night, when the train stops to refuel, Ryan, Fincham, and Fincham's Lieutenant, Orde, sneak out from underneath the train and manage to kill several of the guards, taking their guns and helmets to blend in in the dark. They free a carload of the POW's, who take out the remaining guards, but accidentally kill the engine's Fireman in the process. Ryan and Fincham capture Major von Klemment and his Italian mistress, Gabriella (Raffaella Carrà). Before the men can escape, another train appears coming up behind them. They pull out of the station with seconds to spare. Oriani persuades the Italian locomotive engineer to help, and one of the POW's fills in as Fireman. Von Klemment reveals to the men that the train behind them is a German troop train on the same schedule as them, so the train cannot stop to let the men escape. They also find out that von Klemment is to receive orders in each station the POW's stop in for food. A German-speaking Allied chaplain, Captain Costanzo (Edward Mulhare), is enlisted to impersonate the German commander to ensure their passage through the next station in Florence. Costanzo does the acting job bravely and with style by berating the sloppiness of the German clerk on duty, but when they return to the train, he faints. Looking at the maps and papers Major von Klemment was to receive, they realise that the troop train and the prisoner train are headed towards Innsbruck in Nazi-controlled Austria. Through trickery and the forged signature of a member of the German General Staff, Ryan and the prisoners manage to switch their train at Bologna onto a different line while the troop train continues its usual route to Innsbruck. However, before the train can leave, two Gestapo agents board the train, seemingly for an inspection. It turns out that, after a brief moment of tension, where Fincham prepares to kill them, it is revealed the agents are black market hustlers. They merely want Ryan's US Air Corps wristwatch and trade American cigarettes and rare nylon stockings for it. Afterwards, the agents depart without further suspicion. Major von Klemment and Gabriella are kept tightly bound and gagged. Fearing they will be murdered once the prisoners leave the train, Gabriella conceals a piece of a broken glass to cut their bonds. As the men further discuss their plans, Gabriella attempts to seduce Ryan, seductively putting on the nylon stockings Ryan had kept. Ryan asks her why she would stay with a German. Gabriella attempts to get him to feel pity for her, mentioning the hard life she had had before the war. At a water stop, where the men are being harassed by Italian civilians, Major von Klemment escapes and shoots Orde, but he is shot by Ryan. Ryan, in a German uniform, must reluctantly kill Gabriella as she escapes to prevent her from betraying his men. Ryan makes involuntary eye contact with a nearby Italian youth who had previously been hurling insults at what he thought were Germans. Now the youth silently stares with contempt at Ryan. By this time, the Germans have wind of the ruse. The prisoners attempt to escape in what they believe is an abandoned siding storp, but discover that the track leads to a secret German facility, which is being bombed by an Allied air attack. The train races through the holocaust, bombs exploding left and right. Several of the cars catch fire, and a number of men are severely wounded. The engineer and Oriani have an idea, as the next stop is Milan. If they could disable the signals at one key tower in the Central Station, they could also disable the controls and track displays at the station, confusing the Germans. At the same time, they could re-route the train up to neutral Switzerland through manual switching without being noticed.
1055558	Mirrormask is a 2005 fantasy film designed and directed by Dave McKean and written by Neil Gaiman from a story they developed together, starring Stephanie Leonidas, Jason Barry, Rob Brydon, and Gina McKee. The music used in the film was composed by Iain Ballamy. The film's story revolves around a young girl named Helena Campbell, who is sick of her family's career as circus performers. Helena's mother is hospitalized after they have an argument, and Helena finds herself trapped in a fantasy world shortly after.
1166084	Timothy J. Kazurinsky (born March 3, 1950) is an American actor, comedian and writer best known as a cast member on "Saturday Night Live" and for his role as Carl Sweetchuck in the "Police Academy" films. He is known for playing mousy, sheepish characters. Life and career. Kazurinsky was born in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, but spent most of his childhood in Australia, where he lived until the age of 16. At age 11, Kazurinsky attended the Huntley Evans School of Performing Arts, where he studied the creative arts for six months before quitting due to intense hazing. Kazurinsky worked in St. Louis, Missouri, as an advertising executive and copywriter for a department store chain. He moved to Chicago to start a comedy career and joined the Second City mainstage in 1978. He was discovered by "Saturday Night Live" and joined "SNL" as a writer and cast member in 1981. A producer at "SNL", who was also a friend of Kazurinsky's, bumped Paul Reubens (later known for his character Pee-wee Herman) from the line-up and put Kazurinsky in his place. On "Saturday Night Live", Kazurinsky played various characters and was known for his celebrity impersonations. There were reports that he often clashed with then-executive producer Dick Ebersol regarding the show's creative direction. In 1984, he decided to leave "SNL" due to creative differences with the producers. Other work. Kazurinsky was cast in the 1980 film "Somewhere in Time" as the photographer who takes the portrait that woos Christopher Reeve's character back in time. He had a role in the 1981 Belushi/Aykroyd comedy "Neighbors", and played the role of Carl Sweetchuck in three of the "Police Academy" films. In the 2000s, Kazurinsky guest-starred on popular comedy series such as "Curb Your Enthusiasm" and "According to Jim". Kazurinsky has written screenplays and television episodes. Shortly after departing "SNL", he co-wrote "About Last Night...". He also penned the 2001 film "My Beautiful Son", starring Paul Reiser, Julie Walters, and Olympia Dukakis. In 2011, Kazurinsky played a supporting role in Zombie Army Productions "The Moleman of Belmont Avenue," which also featured Robert Englund. Personal life. Kazurinsky lives in Evanston, Illinois, with his wife, Marcia. He has a son, Pete, and a daughter, Zoe.
1765647	Early years. Taka was born in 1925 in Seattle, but raised in Los Angeles, California as a Nisei; her parents had immigrated from Japan. In 1942, she was interned with her family at the Gila River War Relocation Center in Arizona. 'Sayonara'. After director Joshua Logan's first choice for the role of Hana-ogi, Audrey Hepburn, turned him down, he looked to cast an unknown actress. Taka, who at the time was working as a clerk at a travel agency in Los Angeles, was discovered by a talent scout at a local Nisei festival. Although she had no previous acting experience, "Variety" gave her a positive review in their review of the film. Warner Bros. gave her a term contract as a result of her performance in Sayonara. Post-'Sayonara' career. After Sayonara, she steadily worked in various movies starring James Garner, Bob Hope, Cary Grant, and Toshirō Mifune (whom she also worked alongside of in the 1980 television miniseries, "Shõgun"). She also served as a translator for Mifune as well as Akira Kurosawa when they visited Hollywood
1056258	The Wages of Fear () is a 1953 French-Italian thriller film directed by Henri-Georges Clouzot, starring Yves Montand, and based on a 1950 novel by Georges Arnaud. When a South American oil well owned by an American company catches fire, the company hires four European men, down on their luck, to drive two trucks over mountain dirt roads, carrying the nitroglycerine needed to extinguish the fire. With this, Clouzot reached international fame, and was able to direct "Les Diaboliques". The film was the 4th highest grossing film of the year with a total of 6,944,306 admissions in France. Plot. Frenchmen Mario and Jo, Dutchman Bimba and Italian Luigi are stuck in the isolated South American town of Las Piedras. Surrounded by desert, the town is linked to the outside world only by a small airport, but the airfare is beyond the means of the men. There is little opportunity for employment aside from the American corporation that dominates the town, Southern Oil Company (SOC), which operates the nearby oil fields and owns a walled compound within the town. SOC is suspected of unethical practices such as exploiting local workers and taking the law into its own hands, but the townspeople's dependence upon it is such that they suffer in silence. Mario is a sarcastic Corsican playboy, who treats his devoted lover, Linda, with disdain. Jo is an aging ex-gangster who just recently found himself stranded in the town. Bimba is an intense, quiet individual whose father was murdered by the Nazis, and who himself worked for three years in a salt mine. Luigi, Mario's roommate, is a jovial, hardworking individual, who has just learned that he is dying from cement dust in his lungs. Mario befriends Jo due to their common background of having lived in Paris, but a rift develops between Jo and the other cantina regulars because of his combative, arrogant personality. A massive fire erupts at one of the SOC oil fields. The only way to extinguish the flames and cap the well is an explosion caused by nitroglycerine. With short notice and lack of proper equipment, it must be transported within jerrycans placed in two large trucks from the SOC headquarters, 300 miles away. Due to the poor condition of the roads and the highly volatile nature of nitroglycerine, the job is considered too dangerous for the unionized SOC employees. The company foreman, Bill O'Brien, recruits truck drivers from the local community. Despite the dangers, many of the locals volunteer, lured by the high pay: US$2,000 per driver. This is a fortune to them, and the money is seen by some as the only way out of their dead-end lives. The pool of applicants is narrowed down to four handpicked drivers: Mario, Bimba and Luigi are chosen, along with a German named Smerloff. Smerloff fails to appear on the appointed day, so Jo, who knows O' Brien from his bootlegging days, is substituted in his place. The other drivers suspect that Jo murdered Smerloff in order to facilitate his own hiring. Jo and Mario transport the nitroglycerin in one vehicle; Luigi and Bimba in the other, with thirty minutes separating them in order to limit potential casualties. The drivers are forced to deal with a series of physical and mental obstacles, including a stretch of extremely rough road called "the washboard", a construction barricade that forces them to teeter around a rotten platform above a precipice, and a boulder blocking the road. Jo finds that his nerves are not what they used to be, and the others confront Jo about his increasing cowardice. Finally, Luigi and Bimba's truck explodes without warning, killing them both. Mario and Jo arrive at the scene of the explosion only to find a large crater rapidly filling with oil from a pipeline ruptured in the blast. Jo exits the vehicle to help Mario navigate through the oil-filled crater. The truck, however, is in danger of becoming bogged down and during their frantic attempts to prevent it from getting stuck, Mario runs over Jo. Although the vehicle is ultimately freed from the muck, Jo is mortally wounded. On their arrival at the oil field, Mario and Jo are hailed as heroes, but Jo is dead and Mario collapses from exhaustion. Upon his recovery, Mario heads home in the same truck, now freed of its dangerous cargo. He collects double the wages following his friends' deaths, and refuses the appointed chauffeur offered by SOC. Mario jubilantly drives down a mountain road, while a party is being held at the cantina back in town where Mario's friends eagerly await his arrival. Mario swerves recklessly and intentionally, having cheated death so many times on the same road. He takes one corner too fast and plunges through the guardrail to his death. Linda, dancing in the cantina, appears to faint. Reception. "The Wages of Fear" was critically hailed upon its original release. Bosley Crowther of "The New York Times" wrote "The excitement derives entirely from the awareness of nitroglycerine and the gingerly, breathless handling of it. You sit there waiting for the theatre to explode." The film was also a hit with the public gaining 6,944,306 Admissions in France where it was the 4th highest earning film of the year. In 1982, Pauline Kael called it "the most original and shocking French melodrama of the 50s." In 1992, Roger Ebert stated that "The film's extended suspense sequences deserve a place among the great stretches of cinema." In 2010, the film was ranked #9 in "Empire" magazines "The 100 Best Films Of World Cinema." Due to the negative portrayal of the American oil company SOC, the film was accused of anti-Americanism and several scenes were cut for the U.S. release. In 1999, the Criterion Collection released a DVD which included 21 minutes of film which had been removed for the U.S. version. Remakes. "Violent Road" (aka "Hell's Highway"), directed by Howard W. Koch in 1958, and "Sorcerer", directed by William Friedkin in 1977, are American remakes. The first is not credited as such, whilst the second is often described as a fresh adaptation of the original novel.
1064845	Diary of the Dead is a 2007 horror film by George A. Romero. Although independently produced, it was distributed theatrically by Dimension Films and was released in cinemas on February 15, 2008 and on DVD by The Weinstein Company and Genius Entertainment on May 20, 2008. "Diary of the Dead" is the fifth film in Romero's "Dead" series of zombie films. It is not a direct sequel to previous films in the series, instead being "a rejigging of the myth" according to Romero. "Diary of the Dead" follows a band of people making a horror film at the time of the first outbreak who decide to record the epidemic incident documentary-style and end up themselves being chased down by zombies. Plot. The film begins with footage from a news cameraman and reporter, who are covering a story about an immigrant man killing his wife and son before committing suicide. The son and wife turn into zombies and kill several medical personnel and police officers but leave one medic and a reporter bitten before being killed. The narrator, Debra, explains most of the footage was never broadcast, but was recorded by the cameraman. A group of young film studies students from the University of Pittsburgh are in the woods making a horror film along with their faculty adviser, Andrew Maxwell, when they hear news of an apparent mass-rioting and mass murder. Two of the students, Ridley and Francine, decide to leave the group, while the project director Jason goes to visit his girlfriend Debra (the narrator). When she cannot contact her family, they travel to Debra's parent's house in Scranton, Pennsylvania. "En route" Mary runs over a reanimated highway patrolman and three other zombies. The group stops and Mary attempts to kill herself. Her friends take her to a hospital, where they find the dead becoming zombies, and thereafter fight to survive while traveling to Debra's parents. Mary becomes a zombie and is slain by Maxwell. Later Gordo is bitten by a zombie. His girlfriend Tracy begs the others not to shoot him immediately but later is forced to shoot him herself. Soon they are stranded when their vehicle's fuel line breaks. They are attacked by zombies while Tracy repairs the vehicle with the assistance of a deaf Amish man named Samuel. Before escaping, Samuel is bitten and kills himself and his attacker with a scythe.
1103583	In numerical analysis, numerical differentiation describes algorithms for estimating the derivative of a mathematical function or function subroutine using values of the function and perhaps other knowledge about the function. Finite difference formula. The simplest method is to use finite difference approximations.
1040182	Colin Salmon (born 6 December 1962) is a British actor best known for playing Charles Robinson in three James Bond films and James "One" Shade in the "Resident Evil" film series. He currently has a recurring role as Walter Steele in the CW series "Arrow". Early life. Salmon was born in Bethnal Green, London, England, the son of Sylvia Ivy Brudenell Salmon, a nurse. He grew up in Luton and attended Ramridge Primary School and Ashcroft High School. On leaving school, Salmon became the drummer in the punk rock band the Friction which he formed along with three friends from Ashcroft High School. The band released a 7-inch EP, a live cassette, a cassette-EP and performed regularly around Luton in 1979 and 1980. Salmon also briefly worked with another band, the Tee Vees. He plays trumpet and has his own jazz quartet playing at venues such as the Dorchester Grill Room and at events such as the Cheltenham Jazz Festival. Speaking about his quartet to noted British jazz/soul writer Pete Lewis of the award-winning Blues & Soul, in a rare music-themed interview prior to their performance at the Cheltenham Jazz Festival in May 2008, Salmon stated:
1063474	Cutthroat Island is a 1995 romantic comedy action adventure film directed by Renny Harlin. The film stars Geena Davis, Matthew Modine, and Frank Langella. The film received mixed reviews from critics and was a tremendous box office bomb. It is listed in the "Guinness Book of World Records" as the biggest box office flop of all time, though that record has subsequently been beaten by the likes of "John Carter", "Mars Needs Moms", and "The Lone Ranger". It was the last film Carolco Pictures produced before it went bankrupt. Plot. In 1668 Jamaica, Morgan Adams hunts down her uncle and fellow pirate Dawg Brown, who has captured her father, Black Harry, who has one of three pieces of a map to a huge stash of gold on a remote island called Cutthroat Island. Dawg has another piece, having stolen it from the corpse of a third brother, Richard, the week before, while a fourth brother, Mordechai, has the third. Dawg tries to force Harry to give him the map, but Harry refuses and escapes with Morgan's help, but not before being mortally wounded. Before dying, Harry reveals to his daughter the location of the map piece: on his scalp. After scalping her dead father for the piece, Morgan, now the captain of her father's ship, the "Morning Star", sets out for the treasure. Unfortunately, the instructions appear to be in Latin, which no one on board reads. So, they go to nearby Port Royal to find a translator. There, they learn that one of the slaves up for auction, a con man and thief named William Shaw, is fluent in Latin. After threatening a man determined to win, Morgan wins the auction. Unfortunately, she is recognized from her wanted poster and is chased out of town (which is demolished), along with her crew and Shaw. Humiliated, corrupt Governor Ainslee vows to find her, either to arrest her or form a partnership for half her profits. To this end, he enlists the help of chronicler John Reed, who often follows pirates to write his books. The crew then goes to Mordechai in Spittlefield Harbor. Before they can learn where the second piece is however, Dawg appears. A fight ensues, during which Mordechai is killed, Morgan is shot, and Shaw secretly finds the piece and keeps it to himself. After they escape on the "Morning Star", Morgan collapses from her wound, but is saved by Shaw, who is a self-proclaimed doctor. During this time, the two start a romance. In addition, Morgan figures out during the escape that the words on the map, when read backwards, spell out half the coordinates to the island. Eventually, Dawg's ship, the "Reaper", bears down on them. Morgan directs the ship toward a coral reef...and a gale. Shaw manages to piece together the location of Cutthroat Island with his and Morgan's piece, but is caught and thrown in the brig. During the storm, Reed sends a carrier pigeon revealing their location to Ainslee. Meanwhile, the majority of the crew led by the treacherous Scully mutinies against Morgan and maroon her and those loyal to her in a boat. Ironically, though the boat is wrecked, the tide takes them straight to Cutthroat Island. As Morgan goes after the treasure, Shaw, who escaped during the storm, steals the last piece from Dawg, who's on the island, but runs into quicksand. Morgan finds him and, after finding out he has the piece, frees him. Together, they find the gold, only for it to be stolen by Dawg, forcing them to jump off a cliff into the tide. After regaining consciousness, Shaw finds Reed, who leads him into a trap set by Dawg, Ainslee, and the mutineers, who have joined forces and intend to split the gold between them. As Shaw is captured and they make their way out to sea with the gold, Morgan sneaks aboard the "Morning Star" and retakes it from Scully and the mutineers. The crew then tries to sneak attack the "Reaper", but Dawg finds them out and attacks. A huge open sea fight ensues, during which Shaw escapes and Ainslee is killed by cannon fire. Morgan eventually boards the "Reaper" and blows out the ship's bottom to get to the gold. She then duels Dawg while Shaw gets trapped below in rapidly rising water with the treasure. Eventually, Morgan kills Dawg with a cannon and saves Shaw, forced to abandon the treasure to escape the sinking ship. Luckily, Morgan uses a trick to retrieve the treasure and the newly rich crew sets sail for their next adventure in Madagascar. Production. At the time the film was produced, Geena Davis and director Renny Harlin were married. Harlin convinced producer Mario Kassar to cast Davis, who was known for light comedies, in hopes that it would turn her into an action-adventure star. Michael Douglas originally agreed to play Shaw in "Cutthroat Island" under two conditions: filming had to start immediately because he was available only for a limited time, and his character had to have the same amount of screen time as Geena Davis. Douglas eventually pulled out, claiming that Davis's role was expanded at his character's expense. Davis wanted to quit when Douglas did, but she was contractually obligated to finish the film. After Douglas quit, Harlin was so preoccupied with trying to find a male lead that set construction and script work were done without his input. Harlin didn't like what he saw when shooting was set to begin, leading to massive expensive rebuilding and rewriting. Tom Cruise, Keanu Reeves, Liam Neeson, Jeff Bridges, Ralph Fiennes, Charlie Sheen, and Michael Keaton all turned down the role of Shaw, before Matthew Modine agreed to do the role, partly because he is an experienced fencer. Oliver Reed was originally cast for a cameo as Mordechai Fingers, but was fired after getting in a bar fight and threatening to expose himself to Davis. George Murcell eventually took his place. Release and reception. Aftermath and legacy. "Cutthroat Island" had a total cost of $98 million and the total U.S. gross was $10,017,322. It may have been a contributing factor to the demise of the film's production company, Carolco Pictures, and of Davis as a bankable star. It debuted at #13 at the US box office. In a radio interview in 2011, director Harlin discussed the film's box-office failure. He pointed out that Carolco was already in ruin before "Cutthroat Island" even began shooting, but had to make the film since financing from foreign investors was already in place. MGM, the film's distributor, was in the process of being sold and thus could not devote itself into financing a marketing campaign for the film. Carolco filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy a month before "Cutthroat Island"'s release. The abject disaster of "Cutthroat Island" is also credited with significantly reducing the bank-ability and Hollywood production of pirate-themed films, which only recovered with the production of Disney's "" in 2003. Harlin was nominated for a Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Director for his work on the film, but lost to Paul Verhoeven for "Showgirls". The film has a 44% rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 32 reviews. Music. By contrast, the film's swashbuckling music by John Debney has been critically acclaimed, and compared with the works of Erich Wolfgang Korngold. Video game. A side-scroller released for major platforms of the time to tie-in with the film.
740586	Nathaniel Bowditch (; March 26, 1773 – March 16, 1838) was an early American mathematician remembered for his work on ocean navigation. He is often credited as the founder of modern maritime navigation; his book "The New American Practical Navigator", first published in 1802, is still carried on board every commissioned U.S. Naval vessel. Life and work. Nathaniel Bowditch, the fourth of seven children, was born in Salem, Massachusetts, to Habakkuk Bowditch and Mary (Ingersoll) Bowditch. At the age of ten, he was made to leave school to work in his father's cooperage, before becoming indentured at twelve for nine years as a bookkeeping apprentice to a ship chandler. In 1787, aged fourteen, Bowditch began to study algebra and two years later he taught himself calculus. He also taught himself Latin in 1790 and French in 1792 so he was able to read mathematical works such as Isaac Newton's "Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica". He found thousands of errors in John Hamilton Moore's "The New Practical Navigator"; at eighteen, he copied all the mathematical papers he found in the "Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London". Among his many significant scientific contributions would be a translation of Pierre-Simon de Laplace's "Mécanique céleste", a lengthy work on mathematics and theoretical astronomy. This translation was critical to the development of astronomy in the United States. Serendipity aided Bowditch's self-directed study, in as much as he found himself able to use the eminent Irish chemist Richard Kirwan's library: a privateer from Salem known as the Pilgrim, which Nathaniel had an expectation on at age 6, had intercepted the ship carrying the library between Ireland and England and brought the library back to Salem in June 1791. In 1795, Bowditch went to sea on the first of four voyages as a ship's clerk and captain's writer. His fifth voyage was as master and part owner of a ship. Following this voyage, he returned to Salem in 1803 to resume his mathematical studies and enter the insurance business. (One of his family homes in Salem, the Nathaniel Bowditch House, still exists and has recently been restored.) In 1798 Bowditch married Elizabeth Boardman, who died seven months later. In 1800 Bowditch married his second wife and cousin, Mary (Polly) Ingersoll Bowditch (1781–1834). They had 2 daughters and 6 sons, including Henry Ingersoll Bowditch. Among his grandchildren was Henry Pickering Bowditch. He has 2,356 descendants, most of them living in America. In 1802, his book "The American Practical Navigator" was first published. That same year, Harvard University awarded Bowditch an honorary Master of Arts degree. In 1804, Bowditch became America's first insurance actuary as president of the Essex Fire and Marine Insurance Company in Salem. Under his direction, the company prospered despite difficult political conditions and the War of 1812. Bowditch's mathematical and astronomical work during this time earned him a significant standing, including election to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1799 and the American Philosophical Society in 1809. He was offered the chair of mathematics and physics at Harvard in 1806, but turned it down. In 1804, an article on his observations of the Moon was published and in 1806 he published naval charts of several harbors, including Salem. More scientific publications followed, including a study of a meteor explosion (1807), three papers on the orbits of comets (1815, 1818, 1820) and a study of the Lissajous figures created by the motion of a pendulum suspended from two points (1815). As well as Harvard, the United States Military Academy and the University of Virginia offered Bowditch chairs in mathematics. Bowditch again refused these offers, perhaps (in the case of the University of Virginia) because the $2,000 salary offered was two-thirds of the salary he received as president of the insurance company. Bowditch's translation of the first four volumes of Laplace's "Traité de mécanique céleste" was completed by 1818. Publication of the work, however, was delayed for many years, most likely due to cost. Nonetheless, he continued to work on it with the assistance of Benjamin Peirce, adding commentaries that doubled its length. By 1819, Bowditch's international reputation had grown to the extent that he was elected as a member of the Royal Societies of Edinburgh and London and the Royal Irish Academy. In 1823, Bowditch left the Essex Fire and Marine Insurance Company to become an actuary for the Massachusetts Hospital Life Insurance Company in Boston. There he served as a "money manager" (an investment manager) for wealthy individuals who made their fortunes at sea, directing their wealth toward manufacturing. Towns such as Lowell prospered as a result. Bowditch's move from Salem to Boston involved the transfer of over 2,500 books, 100 maps and charts and 29 volumes of his own manuscripts. Bowditch's "American Practical Navigator". During his time at sea, Bowditch became intensely interested in the mathematics involved in celestial navigation. He worked initially with John Hamilton Moore's London-published ""Navigator"", which was known to have errors. To have exact tables to work from, Bowditch recomputed all of Moore's tables, and rearranged and expanded the work. He contacted the US publisher of the work, Edmund Blunt, who asked him to correct and revise the third edition on his fifth voyage. The task was so extensive that Bowditch decided to write his own book, and to "put down in the book nothing I can't teach the crew." On that trip, it is said that every man of the crew of 12, including the ship's cook, became competent to take and calculate lunar observations and to plot the correct position of the ship. Bowditch died in Boston in 1838 from stomach cancer. He is buried in Mount Auburn Cemetery, where a monument to him was erected through public collections. The statue was the first life size bronze to be cast in America and was the creation of renowned sculptor Robert Ball Hughes. The following eulogy was written by the Salem Marine Society: In the 1840s-1850s, Bowditch's son, Dr. H.I. Bowditch, ran the "Bowditch Library" on Otis Place in Boston's Financial District. It was "free to those who reside in Boston, or in the vicinity. ... This is the library of the late Nathaniel Bowditch, and is almost exclusively of a scientific character." In 1858 the family gave the collection, "which consists mostly of mathematical and astronomical works," to the Boston Public Library. The Oceanographic Survey Ship and the "Nathaniel Bowditch", a high-speed catamaran passenger ferry serving downtown Boston and Salem, were named for him, as was a lunar crater. Additionally, a William Hand designed Schooner built in 1922, which is currently part of the Maine Windjammer fleet and sails out of Rockland, Maine, is also named after Nathaniel Bowditch. In 1955, a book for younger readers, "Carry On, Mr. Bowditch", was published, portraying Bowditch's life dramatized and fictionalized. A serious modern biography is Robert E. Berry's "Yankee Stargazer", published in 1941. A grammar school, two middle schools and a dorm in America were also named for him, in Boston, Foster City, California (Bowditch Middle School), Salem, Massachusetts and Salem State College, respectively. The Department of Marine Transportation building on the grounds of the United States Merchant Marine Academy is named in his honor and houses classrooms, laboratories, and the 900-seat Ackerman Auditorium. He also gives his name to a street in Berkeley, California. Actor David Morse was named after him − David Bowditch Morse.
1162985	Bruce William Boxleitner (born May 12, 1950) is an American actor, and science fiction and suspense writer. He is known for his leading roles in the television series "How the West Was Won", "Bring 'Em Back Alive", "Scarecrow and Mrs. King" (with Kate Jackson), and "Babylon 5" (as John Sheridan in seasons 2–5, 1994–1998). He is also known for his dual role as the characters Alan Bradley and Tron in the 1982 Walt Disney Pictures film "Tron", a role which he reprised in the 2010 sequel, ' and the animated series '. Early life. Boxleitner was born in Elgin, Illinois, the son of a certified public accountant. He attended Prospect High School in Mount Prospect, Illinois, and the Goodman Theater School of Drama of the Art Institute of Chicago (later renamed The Theatre School at DePaul University). Career. Television. Boxleitner is best known for his leading roles in the television series "How the West Was Won", "Bring 'Em Back Alive", "Scarecrow and Mrs. King" (with Kate Jackson), and "Babylon 5" (as John Sheridan in seasons 2–5, 1994–1998). He also starred in "The Gambler" TV film series (as "Billy Montana", alongside Kenny Rogers: 1980, 1983 and 1987). In 2005, he co-starred as Captain Martin Duvall in "Young Blades". He has also starred in several films within the "Babylon 5" universe, including ' (TV, 1998), ' (TV, 1998), ' (TV, 1999) and the direct-to-DVD ' (2007) and on CHAOS (Glory Days episode). He has made appearances in many other TV shows, such as "The Mary Tyler Moore Show," "Gunsmoke", "Judith Krantz's Till We Meet Again", "Tales from the Crypt", "Touched by an Angel", "The Outer Limits" and "She Spies", and in 1982, he played Chase Marshall in the TV film "Bare Essence", with Genie Francis. He also was a member of the cast of "Heroes" for seasons three and four, playing New York Governor Robert Malden in three episodes. He also appears on the television series "Chuck" as the father of Devon Woodcomb. He has also been in the made-for-television films "The Secret", "Hope Ranch", "Falling in Love with the Girl Next Door", "Pandemic", "The Bone Eater", "Sharpshooter" and "Aces 'n Eights". Boxleitner was a guest-star on "NCIS" in the fall of 2010. He played Vice Admiral C. Clifford Chase, a high-ranking Navy official. Boxleitner also lends his voice to the animated version of his iconic character Tron in the animated series "". The series premiered on Disney XD on June 7, 2012. He also reprises the character Alan Bradley/Tron from the films "Tron" and "Tron: Legacy". In 2012 he had a recurring role on the ABC series GCB as Burl Lourd, Gigi's, Annie Potts, love interest. Film. He has also appeared in several films, including "Tron" (in which he played the title role) and "The Baltimore Bullet" (1980) with James Coburn. He reprised his role in the "Tron" sequel ' and in the video game ' which was released alongside the film "Tron: Legacy", as he did for sequel video game named "Tron 2.0", and Disney/Square Enix crossover video game "Kingdom Hearts II". Boxleitner also voice as Col. John Konrad in video game '. He also starred as Confederate General James Longstreet in the 2003 film "Gods and Generals". He provides the voice of Colin Barrow in the animated science fiction horror film ', based on the video game "Dead Space". Other films he has been in include "Kuffs", "The Babe", "Brilliant", "Snakehead Terror", "Legion of the Dead", "King of the Lost World", "Shadows in Paradise" and '. In 2011 he officially announced that he will reprise his role as Alan Bradley/Tron in Tron 3 in 2013. Modeling. From 1986–1989, Boxleitner appeared in advertisements for Estee Lauder's "Lauder For Men". Novels. Boxleitner has written two science fiction novels with a Western setting: "Frontier Earth" (1999) and "Searcher" (2001). Audio books. Boxleitner played a major role in the audio dramatization of "The Great Secret", part of the "Golden Age of Fiction" series by L. Ron Hubbard. Personal life. Boxleitner's first marriage (1977–1987) was to American actress Kathryn Holcomb, who had previously co-starred with him on The Macahans and How The West Was Won. They had two sons together: Sam (born 1980) and Lee (born 1985). Holcomb went on to marry English actor Ian Ogilvy. Ogilvy also guest-starred on Boxleitner's series "Babylon 5". Boxleitner's second marriage (1995-2011) was to American actress Melissa Gilbert. They had one son together: Michael (born 1995). Gilbert also guest-starred as Boxleitner's on-screen wife, Anna Sheridan, during Season 3 of "Babylon 5". In 2003, Boxleitner was appointed to the Board of Governors of the National Space Society, a nonprofit, educational space advocacy organization founded by Dr. Wernher von Braun. On March 1, 2011, Melissa Gilbert announced that she and Bruce had separated after 16 years of marriage. On August 25 of the same year the Associated Press reported that, based on court records, Gilbert had filed for divorce. References. Bruce also appeared on stage in a play in Chicago in the 1970s called "Status Quo Vadis" in theater in the round.
1104798	Johann Bernoulli (27 July 1667 – 1 January 1748; also known as Jean or John) was a Swiss mathematician and was one of the many prominent mathematicians in the Bernoulli family. He is known for his contributions to infinitesimal calculus and educated Leonhard Euler in his youth. Early life and education. Johann was born in Basel, the son of Nicolaus Bernoulli, an apothecary, and his wife, Margaretha Schonauer and began studying medicine at Basel University. His father desired that he study business so that he might take over the family spice trade, but Johann Bernoulli did not like business and convinced his father to allow him to study medicine instead. However, Johann Bernoulli did not enjoy medicine either and began studying mathematics on the side with his older brother Jacob. Throughout Johann Bernoulli’s education at Basel University the Bernoulli brothers worked together spending much of their time studying the newly discovered infinitesimal calculus. They were among the first mathematicians to not only study and understand calculus but to apply it to various problems. Adult life. After graduating from Basel University Johann Bernoulli moved to teach differential equations. Later, in 1694, he married Dorothea Falkner and soon after accepted a position as the professor of mathematics at the University of Groningen. At the request of Johann Bernoulli’s father-in-law, Johann Bernoulli began the voyage back to his home town of Basel in 1705. Just after setting out on the journey he learned of his brother’s death to tuberculosis. Johann Bernoulli had planned on becoming the professor of Greek at Basel University upon returning but instead was able to take over as professor of mathematics, his older brother’s former position. As a student of Leibniz’s calculus, Johann Bernoulli sided with him in 1713 in the Newton–Leibniz debate over who deserved credit for the discovery of calculus. Johann Bernoulli defended Leibniz by showing that he had solved certain problems with his methods that Newton had failed to solve. However, due to his opposition to Newton and the study that vortex theory over Newton’s theory of gravitation which ultimately delayed acceptance of Newton’s theory in continental Europe. In 1724 he entered a competition sponsored by the French Académie Royale des Sciences, which posed the question: In defending a view previously espoused by Leibniz he found himself postulating an infinite external force required to make the body elastic by overcoming the infinite internal force making the body hard. In consequence he was disqualified for the prize, which was won by Maclaurin. However, Bernoulli's paper was subsequently accepted in 1726 when the Académie considered papers regarding elastic bodies, for which the prize was awarded to Mazière. Bernoulli received an honourable mention in both competitions. Private life. Although Jakob and Johann worked together before Johann graduated from Basel University, shortly after this, the two developed a jealous and competitive relationship. Johann was jealous of Jakob's position and the two often attempted to outdo each other. After Jakob's death Johann's jealousy shifted toward his own talented son, Daniel. In 1738 the father–son duo nearly simultaneously published separate works on hydrodynamics. Johann Bernoulli attempted to take precedence over his son by purposely predating his work two years prior to his son’s. Johann married Dorothea Falkner, daughter of an Alderman of Basel. He was the father of Nicolaus II Bernoulli, Daniel Bernoulli and Johann II Bernoulli and uncle of Nicolaus I Bernoulli. The Bernoulli brothers often worked on the same problems, but not without friction. Their most bitter dispute concerned finding the equation for the path followed by a particle from one point to another in the shortest time, if the particle is acted upon by gravity alone, a problem originally discussed by Galileo. In 1697 Jakob offered a reward for its solution. Accepting the challenge, Johann proposed the cycloid, the path of a point on a moving wheel, pointing out at the same time the relation this curve bears to the path described by a ray of light passing through strata of variable density. A protracted, bitter dispute then arose when Jakob challenged the solution and proposed his own. The dispute marked the origin of a new discipline, the calculus of variations. L'Hôpital controversy. Bernoulli was hired by Guillaume de L'Hôpital for tutoring in mathematics. Bernoulli and L'Hôpital signed a contract which gave l'Hôpital the right to use Bernoulli’s discoveries as he pleased. L'Hôpital authored the first textbook on infinitesimal calculus, "Analyse des Infiniment Petits pour l'Intelligence des Lignes Courbes" in 1696, which mainly consisted of the work of Bernoulli, including what is now known as L'Hôpital's rule. Subsequently, in letters to Leibniz, Varignon and others, Bernoulli complained that he had not received enough credit for his contributions, in spite of the fact that l'Hôpital acknowledged fully his debt in the preface of his book: "Je reconnais devoir beaucoup aux lumières de MM. Bernoulli, surtout à celles du jeune (Jean) présentement professeur à Groningue. Je me suis servi sans façon de leurs découvertes et de celles de M. Leibniz. C'est pourquoi je consens qu'ils en revendiquent tout ce qu'il leur plaira, me contentant de ce qu'ils voudront bien me laisser." "I recognize I owe much to Messrs. Bernoulli's insights, above all to the young (John), currently a professor in Groningue. I did unceremoniously use their discoveries, as well as those of Mr. Leibniz. For this reason I consent that they claim as much credit as they please, and will content myself with what they will agree to leave me."
1065697	Seymour Joseph Cassel (born January 22, 1935) is an American actor. Cassel first came to prominence in the 1960s in the pioneering independent films of writer/director John Cassavetes. He has since appeared in an array of roles in both small independent films and Hollywood productions. Early life and career. Cassel was born in Detroit, Michigan, the son of Pancretia Ann (née Kearney), a performer, and Seymour Joseph Cassel, a nightclub owner. Cassel's early career was tied to fellow actor John Cassavetes. He made his movie debut in Cassavetes' first film, "Shadows", on which he also served as associate producer. In 1961 he co-starred with Cassavetes in "Too Late Blues" and 1962's "The Webster Boy". He also appeared in "The Lloyd Bridges Show" in the episode "A Pair of Boots" directed by his friend Cassavetes. Cassel appeared on such popular programs as "Twelve O'Clock High", "Combat!" and "The F.B.I." He also appeared as one of Colonel Gumm's henchmen, namely "Cancelled", in the 1960s "Batman" TV episode, "A Piece of the Action", which also introduced Van Williams and Bruce Lee as The Green Hornet and Kato respectively. Collaborations. In 1968, Cassel was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role as Chet in John Cassavetes's "Faces". Other collaborations with Cassavetes included a starring role with Gena Rowlands in "Minnie and Moskowitz", supporting roles in "The Killing of a Chinese Bookie" and "Love Streams", and a cameo appearance in "Opening Night". Having also appeared in major Hollywood productions such as "Dick Tracy", "Tin Men", and "Indecent Proposal", Cassel has also been very supportive of the American independent film community, especially in the wake of Cassavetes's death. Cassel had a small role in Steve Buscemi's directorial debut "Trees Lounge" and appeared in three films by Wes Anderson: "Rushmore", "The Royal Tenenbaums" and "The Life Aquatic". Cassel appeared for four seasons in comedian Tracey Ullman's hit television series, "Tracey Takes On...". Accolades. In September 2007, Cassell was a candidate for national president of the Screen Actors Guild, along with Charley M. De La Peña, Alan Rosenberg (incumbent), and Barry Simmonds. In the 2007 Biography "Slash", the former Guns N' Roses guitarist Saul Hudson and friend of Cassel's son, credited Cassel with giving him the nickname "Slash" because he was always on the go zipping from one place to another and never sitting still. In 2009 Cassell was once again a candidate for national president of the Screen Actors Guild along with Anne Marie Johnson and Ken Howard. Howard was the eventual winner and is current President of the Screen Actors Guild. In 2012, the Oldenburg Film Festival in Germany introduced an actors' prize named the "Seymour Cassel Award".
1091511	Jean-Baptiste Biot (21 April 1774 – 3 February 1862) was a French physicist, astronomer, and mathematician who established the reality of meteorites, made an early balloon flight, and studied the polarization of light. Biography. Jean-Baptiste Biot was born in Paris, France on 21 April 1774 and died in Paris on 3 February 1862. He was educated at Lyceum Louis-le-Grand and Ecole Polytechnique in 1794. Biot served in the artillery before he was appointed professor of mathematics at Beauvais in 1797. He later went on to become a professor of physics at the Collège de France around 1800, and three years later was elected as a member of the Academy of Sciences. In 1804 Biot was on board for the first scientific hot-air balloon ride with Gay-Lussac (NNDB 2009, O’Connor and Robertson 1997). They reached a height of 7016 metres (23,000 feet), quite dangerous without on board oxygen. Biot was also a member of the Legion of Honor; he was elected chevalier in 1814 and commander in 1849. In 1816, he was elected a foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. In addition, Biot received the Rumford Medal, awarded by the Royal Society in the field of thermal or optical properties of matter, in 1840 (O’Connor and Robertson 1997). Jean-Baptiste Biot had a single son, Edouard Constant Biot, an engineer and Sinologist, born in 1803. Edouard died in 1850 and it was only thanks to the extraordinary efforts of his father that the second half of Edouard's last book, the Chinese classic "Tcheou-li", was readied for publication. It had been left in manuscript, unfinished. To publish it in correct form, Jean-Baptiste Biot wrote, he had to consult Stanislas Julien, the famous Sinologist, but also, especially for the translation of the most difficult part, the Kaogongji, he himself had to visit many workshops and questioned artisans and craftsmen about their methods and vocabulary in order to verify his son's work. To this day, Biot's translation remains the only translation into a Western language of this book. Biot's Work. Jean-Baptiste Biot made many contributions to the scientific community in his lifetime – most notably in optics, magnetism, and astronomy. The Biot-Savart Law in magnetism is named after Biot and his colleague Félix Savart for their work in 1820. In their experiment they showed a connection between electricity and magnetism by "starting with a long vertical wire and a magnetic needle some horizontal distance apart showing that running a current through the wire caused the needle to move" (Parsley). In 1803 Biot was sent by the Académie française to report back on 3000 meteorites that fell on L’aigle, France. He found that the meteorites, or stones at the time, were from outer space. With his report, Biot helped support Ernst Florens Friedrich Chladni's argument that meteorites were debris from space, which he had published in 1794. Biot also helped further the field of optics in 1815 with a study in polarized light. In his experiment Biot studied the effects of polarized light as it penetrated organic substances and determined that light "could be rotated clockwise or counterclockwise, dependent upon the optical axis of the material" (Molecular). Meteorites. Prior to Biot's thorough investigation of the meteorites that fell near l’Aigle, France in 1803, very few truly believed that rocks found on Earth could have extraterrestrial origins. There were anecdotal tales of unusual rocks found on the ground after fireballs had been seen in the sky, but such stories were often dismissed as fantasy. Serious debate concerning the unusual rocks began in 1794 when German physicist Chladni published a book claiming that rocks had an extraterrestrial origin (Westrum). Only after Biot was able to analyze the rocks at l’Aigle was it commonly accepted that the fireballs seen in the sky were meteors falling through the atmosphere. Since Biot's time, analysis of meteorites has resulted in accurate measurements of the chemical composition of the solar system. The composition and position of meteors in the solar system have also given astronomers clues as to how the solar system formed. Polarized light. In 1812, Biot turned his attention to the study of optics, particularly the polarization of light. Prior to the 19th century, light was believed to consist of discrete packets called corpuscles. During the early 19th century, many scientists began to disregard the corpuscular theory in favor of the wave theory of light. Biot began his work on polarization to show that the results he was obtaining could appear only if light were made of corpuscles. His work in chromatic polarization and rotary polarization greatly advanced the field of optics, although it was later shown that his findings could also be obtained using the wave theory of light (Frankel).
1087522	Lock Martin (October 12, 1916 – January 19, 1959) was the stage name of American actor Joseph Lockard Martin, Jr. He is best remembered for playing the robot Gort in "The Day the Earth Stood Still" (1951). He was from Pennsylvania and had a series of odd jobs before going into acting. He was working as a doorman at Grauman's Chinese Theater when he was hired for the role of Gort, although this was not his first acting job. He was reportedly 7 feet 7 inches tall (about 231 cm); however Robert Wise, director of "The Day The Earth Stood Still", states his height was 7 feet 1 inch in the DVD commentary. His great height did not translate into strength and he had difficulty managing his robot suit. For scenes where he was supposed to physically lift Patricia Neal and Michael Rennie, they were either held up by wires, a hidden dolly or replaced with lightweight dummies. He was also in "The Incredible Shrinking Man" as a giant, but his scenes were deleted. He was nicknamed "the Gentle Giant" as he liked reading stories to children and for a time had a local show devoted to that. Martin was married to Ethel Babcock (1914–1972).
1712181	Valdez Is Coming is a 1971 American western film starring Burt Lancaster, Susan Clark, Richard Jordan and Jon Cypher. The film is based on the Elmore Leonard novel of the same name. Plot. Aging town constable Bob Valdez (Burt Lancaster) is tricked into killing an innocent man by powerful rancher Frank Tanner (Jon Cypher), whose hired gun R.L. Davis (Richard Jordan) shot up the hovel where the wrongly accused man and his Indian wife were trapped. Valdez believes it would be a fair gesture to raise $200 for the widow, $100 from Tanner and the rest from others in town. Tanner is livid at the old man's suggestion. He orders ranch hand El Segundo (Barton Heyman) and his men to tie Valdez to a heavy wooden cross and drive him into the desert. The central pole is so long that Valdez must walk bent over. He finds an oasis blocked by two trees that he repeatedly tries to ram with the ends of the cross. When it finally breaks, the jagged ends are driven into Valdez's back. Davis finds him and cuts the ropes. The badly injured Valdez is able to crawl to the ranch of his friend Diego (Frank Silvera), where he is nursed back to health. Unfortunately for Tanner, he has picked on the wrong man—Valdez is a wily, experienced Indian fighter and a marksman with a rifle. He dons his old cavalry uniform and sends Tanner a message via one of the rancher's wounded men: "Valdez is coming." Valdez sneaks into the compound and, during the ensuing gun battle and his escape, kidnaps Tanner's woman, Gay Erin (Susan Clark), for whose favors it is rumored that Tanner had her husband killed. With her in restraints, Valdez proceeds to systematically do away with the men Tanner sends after him with his long-range Sharps rifle. The only one he shows mercy to is Davis, after the gunman screams, "I cut you loose! I cut you loose!"
587311	"To see the TV show, see Pyaar Mein Twist (TV series)." Pyaar Mein Twist is a 2005 Indian Bollywood movie directed by Karan Kapoor. Synopsis. Jaivir Singh Rathod (Rishi Kapoor) is the chief executive and owner of Telpal Industries, a hugely successful auto firm. Yash is stepping down as CEO, in order to enjoy retirement. He gave the responsibility and authority to run the family business to his son, Rajiv (Vikas Bhalla). When Yash is walking his dogs and crossing at a busy intersection, a car drives through ... nearly running him over. He is irate and berates the woman driver. He calls for a policeman to do something about this menace. This is his first encounter with Sheetal, who was the woman driver. As Sheetal (Dimple Kapadia) drives off with Toshi (Farida Jalal), her sister-in-law, they are both laughing, releasing their tenson at this very close call with the law. She had pointed out to the policeman that it is against the law to walk two dogs at the same time. When they get home, Yash and Sheetal each describe the day's main event to their families. Little do they realize that their paths will cross again ... They share more in common than either of them realize. Each is totally devoted to their families, putting them first in their lives. Each of them made great sacrifices to keep the families together during tough times, by showing a strong and deep love, which seems occasionally to be taken for granted. Each lost a spouse whom they loved deeply. Sheetal is planning the marriage of her beautiful daughter Ria (Soha Ali Khan) to Sanju (Sammir Dattani), the son of a wealthy upper-class family (or so they view themselves). Sanju's mother, Madhu (Kishori Shahane) is not totally supportive of her son's choice for a wife. She feels he is marrying beneath his social class. She has objections to whatever date they choose for the ceremony. She is creating delays, hoping to break up their plans. Eventually Sanju is willing to defy his mother's authority and states he will elope with Ria unless his mother accepts her. Rajiv feels the pressure of trying to fill his father's shoes in running the family business. He is a well trained and highly educated executive who is insecure. When he is unsure of himself, he questions his father's love and support. It is by pure chance he discovers a family secret which proves once and forevermore his father's true feelings for his son. Sheetal and Yash meet again but it causes a great deal of misunderstandings. This one event creates havoc and confusion in the lives of both Yash and Sheetal and their children. Yash and Sheetal go out on a date and are seen dancing and dining at a Moroccan restaurant. A gossiping friend of Madhu reports this to her. Madhu uses it as yet another excuse to delay the date for the marriage of her son to Ria. Mr. Singh sees Sheetal leaving Sanju's home. She visited his parents to try to understand the reasons for Madhu's latest tactics. Mr.Singh refers to Sheetal as Mrs. Khurana and explains why. The children of both Sheetal and Yash are irate over their budding friendship. They even suspect it may be a secret love affair, carried on behind their backs. Toshi, Sheetal's sister-in-law has a brain storm of an idea to solve their deteriorating relationship with their children. Sheetal and Yash follow her advice
588983	Neetu Singh (also known as Neetu Kapoor) is an Indian Bollywood actress. She started acting from the age of 8 under the name Baby Sonia. She played Roopa in the 1966 movie "Dus Lakh" and a dual role in the film "Do Kaliyaan". Her other notable films as a child actress were "Waris" and "Pavitra Paapi". She made her debut as a leading actress in "Rikshawala" in 1972 and went onto appear in over 60 films. She left the film industry in 1983 after her marriage to frequent co-star Rishi Kapoor in 1980. She recently made a comeback after 26 years appearing opposite her husband in "Love Aaj Kal" (2009), "Do Dooni Chaar" (2010), and "Jab Tak Hai Jaan" (2012). Early life. Neetu Singh was born in Pant Nagar, Delhi to Rajee Kaur and Darshan Singh. She lived in Shanti Building, Peddar Road, Mumbai and attended the Hill Grange High School next door on Peddar Road Career. Neetu Singh made her debut as a child actress with films like "Do Kaliyaan" in the late 1960s. She started playing leading roles in 1972 with "Rikshawala" which was a flop. She took a small role in "Yaadon Ki Baarat" (1973), which became a hit, and her sizzling dance number to the song "Lekar Hum" brought her so much attention that she was immediately offered lead roles again. In most films, Neetu was cast as the fun-loving daughter or the 'optimistic' or 'lively' girlfriend. She acted with the top stars of her day, especially Rishi Kapoor with whom she appeared in 11 films. She has also acted opposite her future brother-in-law Randhir Kapoor in "Kasme Vaade". The most successful films they acted in included "Rafoo Chakkar" (1974), "Khel Khel Mein" (1975), "Kabhie Kabhie" (1976), "Amar Akbar Anthony" (1977) and "Doosra Aadmi" (1978). She was nominated for Best Actress for the Star Screen Awards for her performance in the movie. She also won, along with Rishi Kapoor, Best Lifetime Jodi at the 2011 Zee Cine Awards. She was also paired opposite actors like her future uncle-in-law Shashi Kapoor, Amitabh Bachchan, Jeetendra and Shatrughan Sinha in hit films like "Deewaar" (1975), "Adalat" (1976), "Dharam Veer" (1977), "Parvarish" (1977), "Jaani Dushman" (1979) and "Kaala Patthar" (1979). On screen and off it, Neetu and Rishi Kapoor fell in love. This led to the couple tying the knot in January 1980 after a much publicized engagement that was the talk of Bollywood. Neetu was 21 at that time. She was at the top of her career, having just been nominated for a Filmfare Award as Best Supporting Actress for "Kaala Patthar" (1979), but she retired. She dismissed allegations that she left films because it was customary for actresses married to the famous Kapoor family to retire after marriage, claiming that it was her 'personal choice.'.
1268083	Barbara La Marr (July 28, 1896 – January 30, 1926) was an American stage and film actress, cabaret artist, and screenwriter. La Marr was known as "The Girl Who Is Too Beautiful," after a Hearst newspaper feature writer, Adela Rogers St. Johns, saw a judge sending her home during the police beat in Los Angeles because she was too beautiful and young to be on her own. Early life. La Marr was born in 1896 as Reatha Dale Watson to William Wallace and Rosana "Rose" Watson in Yakima, Washington. Her father was an editor for a newspaper, and her mother had a son, Henry, born in 1878, and a daughter, Violet, born in February 1881, from a previous marriage. The couple wed some time during 1884, and they had William Watson, Jr., born in June 1886 in Washington. He would later, in the 1920s, become a vaudeville comedian under the stage name of "Billy Devore." The Watsons lived in various locations during La Marr's formative years. By 1900, she was living with her parents in Portland, Oregon, with her brother William, her half-sister Violet Ross, and Violet's husband Arvel Ross. As a child, La Marr also performed in a few stage productions in Tacoma, Washington. By 1910, La Marr was living in Fresno, California, with her parents. Some time after 1911, the family moved to Los Angeles. In January 1913, La Marr's half-sister, now going by the name of Violet Ake, took her 16-year-old sister on a three-day automobile excursion with a man named C.C. Boxley. They drove up to Santa Barbara, but after a few days La Marr felt that they were not going to let her return home. Ake and Boxley finally let La Marr return to Los Angeles after they realized that there were warrants issued for their arrests accusing them of kidnapping. This episode was published in several newspapers, and La Marr even testified against her sister, but the case was eventually dropped.
135649	Calpernia Sarah Addams (born February 20, 1971) is an American author, actress, musician, and a spokesperson and activist for transgender rights and issues. Biography. Addams grew up in Nashville, Tennessee. She served as a Hospital Corpsman with the Navy and United States Marine Corps. During her last year in the military she came out as a transgender woman. Addams chose the name "Calpernia" from the William Shakespeare play "Julius Caesar" (a variant spelling of Caesar's wife Calpurnia) and its appearance on a tombstone in the film "The Addams Family". In 1999, while working as a performer, Addams began dating PFC Barry Winchell. Word of the relationship spread at Winchell's Army base where he was harassed by fellow soldiers and ultimately murdered. Winchell's murder and the subsequent trial resulted in widespread press and a formal review of the U.S. "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" (DADT) military policy, ordered by President Bill Clinton. The case became a prominent example used to illustrate the failure of DADT to protect LGBT service members. Addams' and Winchell's romance and the crimes of their abusers are depicted in the film "Soldier's Girl", released in 2003. Addams was portrayed by Lee Pace. A subsequent "New York Times" article, "An Inconvenient Woman", documented the marginalization and misrepresentation of transgender sexuality even by gay rights activists. Career. Addams began entertaining as a child by playing Bluegrass and Gospel-style fiddle in church, and acting in school plays. While in the Navy she worked in community theater as an actor and director. After completing military service and returning to Nashville, Calpernia played fiddle with a Celtic band. In 1993, she began work at The Connection, a nightclub/theater, where she eventually met Winchell in 1999. She gradually began headlining up to 10 shows a week for audiences of up to 2,000 people. In her sixth year as a full-time cast member and after winning one Miss Nashville Entertainer of the Year, Addams won Tennessee Entertainer of the Year in 1999. With Winchell's death Addams suspended her performances, then left Nashville to move first to Chicago and then to Los Angeles. In 2002, she formed Deep Stealth Productions in Hollywood with Andrea James. Deep Stealth creates educational and entertainment material around gender-identification issues and the experiences of differently-gendered people. Addams and James coached Felicity Huffman for her Academy Award-nominated performance as a transgender woman in the film "Transamerica". At the Sundance debut of "Soldier's Girl", Addams met Jane Fonda, whose son Troy Garity had played Winchell. Fonda suggested Addams mount an all-transgender production of "The Vagina Monologues". The production was to contribute funds and help raise awareness of violence against women; it became the subject of the 2006 documentary film "Beautiful Daughters". A reality television series entitled "Transamerican Love Story", featuring Addams choosing among eight suitors, debuted February 11, 2008 on Logo TV. In April 2008, Addams performed alongside Fonda, Glenn Close, Salma Hayek, Alicia Keys, and others in a tenth-anniversary production of "The Vagina Monologues" at the Louisiana Superdome. In May 2008, PFLAG (Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays) chose Addams as PFLAG's spokesperson for their educational campaign, "This Is Our Love Story". Addams said, "I hope "This Is Our Love Story" will help young transgender people as they come out. By seeing the happy, confident woman I've become, I hope I can act as a role model for these young people at a critical moment in their development." Addams writes a blog on gender issues for "Psychology Today". Addams has released a single entitled "Stunning", available on iTunes. Addams co-produced the song "The Vagina Song" by Willam Belli, from his debut album "The Wreckoning", and made a cameo in the song's music video.
581791	Lamhaa (, , translation: "Moment") is a Bollywood action thriller film written and directed by Rahul Dholakia, released on 16 July 2010. Set in Kashmir, the film is a story about an army officer, played by Sanjay Dutt, and his love interest, played by Bipasha Basu, in the midst of the various issues that Kashmir had faced over the years. It also features Anupam Kher and Kunal Kapoor in supporting roles. Production. Casting. Karisma Kapoor was finalized to play the female lead in the film, but she opted out at the last minute because she feared shooting in the troubled Kashmir valley where a significant part of the film was going to be shot. Bipasha Basu, Ameesha Patel and Sonam Kapoor were considered for the same role, but Basu was eventually finalized to play the female lead. Filming and post-production. Filming began in Kashmir on October 25, 2008. During November 2008, Bipasha Basu left the shooting of the film hours before Sanjay Dutt landed in Srinagar to start shooting with her but she left without informing the unit. They then decided to shoot the action sequences in Manali instead. After Basu's abrupt departure, producer Bunty Walia and director Rahul Dholakia asked Basu to arrive on the set on January 4, 2009 and that they would cast Vidya Balan as a replacement in case she does not comply. Basu then arrived on the specified date after security arrangements were tightened and explained that she got scared in Kashmir after the crowd gathering became uncontrollable. During May 2009, Rahul Dholakia collapsed on the sets and shooting was delayed up to 25 May after doctors advised Dholakia bed rest for one month. Critical reception. The film received mixed reviews from critics. On the review-aggregation website, ReviewGang, the film scored 5.5/10 based on 9 reviews. Sukanya Verma of Rediff rated it 3/5 and said, "Utimately, Lamhaa's relevance lies in its ability to give you an overview, even if it's a crammed one, about the ugliness of greed and intolerance through the example of Kashmir". Noyon Jyoti Parasara of AOL rated it 3.5/5 and stated, "Very truly it does delve right into the primary problem. But this time, unlike most other movies made on the same subject, it does not stay on a superficial level." Nikhat Kazmi of Times of India rated it 3.5/5 saying, "Lamhaa is a no-holds-barred look at the multi-layered turmoil in Kashmir, with so many real-life references that you end up with just one conclusion: now here's a real film about a real problem". Mayank Shekhar of the Hindustan Times rated it 2/5 and said, "It's not easy to make sense of Kashmir. It's harder still then to make sense of this film". Soundtrack. The music of the film is given by Mithoon with lyrics by Sayeed Quadri and Amitabh Varma. Track listing. The melodious song 'Madno Re' has been a huge hit and was aired throughout the nation for a long time. Controversy. "Lamhaa" was banned in GCC countries i.e. Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, UAE and Oman. UAE National Media Council Censorship Board felt that the content of the movie is highly objectionable and controversial. Earlier, the film's screening was cancelled in Kashmir amid the tense atmosphere. The producer didn't want to be insensitive to the sentiments of the Kashmiri people. The producer, Walia commented, "There are no scenes that they want me to remove from the film. They have outrightly refused to screen Lamhaa. [...] This news has really dampened my spirits. The Middle East is a huge market for Bollywood movies these days and we could suffer a huge setback because of this ban. There is definitely a lot of money at stake that could have been recovered from that region, but more than that I am sad that the audience there can't see a film like 'Lamhaa'". The Indian censor board passed the movie with an A certificate after two edits were made.
1721904	The Harrad Experiment (1973) is a film about a fictional Harrad College where the students learn about sexuality and experiment with each other. Based on the 1962 book of the same name by Robert Rimmer, this film deals with the concept of free love during the height of the sexual revolution which took place in the United States during the late 1960s and early 1970s. The movie stars James Whitmore and Tippi Hedren as the married couple who run the school, and includes a young Don Johnson as one of the students who tries to go beyond the rules. Cast. Cultural references. In "The Wonder Years" fourth-season episode "Growing Up", Kevin's hippie older sister is seen reading a copy of "The Harrad Experiment" during the family's vacation. In the "Seinfeld" episode ""The Label Maker"", George Costanza describes his girlfriend's having a male roommate as a "bizarre Harrad Experiment". "Harrad Summer". Harrad Summer was a 1974 sequel directed by Steven Hilliard Stern in which Stanley, Sheila, Harry, and Beth spend the following summer together to get to know their families.
1265370	Jean Harlow (born Harlean Harlow Carpenter; March 3, 1911 – June 7, 1937) was an American film actress and sex symbol of the 1930s. After being signed by director Howard Hughes, Harlow's first major appearance was in "Hell's Angels" (1930), followed by a series of critically unsuccessful films, before signing with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in 1932. Harlow became a leading lady for MGM, starring in a string of hit films including "Red Dust" (1932), "Dinner at Eight" (1933), "Reckless" (1935) and "Suzy" (1936). Her co-stars often included William Powell, Spencer Tracy and, in six films, Clark Gable. Harlow's popularity rivaled and soon surpassed fellow MGM actresses Joan Crawford and Norma Shearer. She had become one of the biggest movie stars in the world by the late 1930s, often nicknamed the "Blonde Bombshell" and the "Platinum Blonde", and popular for her "Laughing Vamp" movie persona. She died of renal failure during the filming of "Saratoga" in 1937 at the age of 26. The film was completed using doubles and released a little over a month after Harlow's death. The American Film Institute ranked her among the greatest movie stars. Early life. Harlow was born Harlean Harlow Carpenter in Kansas City, Missouri. The name is sometimes incorrectly spelled Carpentier, following later studio press releases. Her father Mont Clair Carpenter (1877–1974) was a dentist from a working-class background who attended dental college in Kansas City. Her mother Jean Poe Carpenter (née Harlow) was the daughter of a wealthy real estate broker, Skip Harlow, and his wife Ella Harlow (née Williams). The marriage was arranged by Skip Harlow in 1908 and Jean, an intelligent and strong-willed woman, was resentful and became very unhappy in the marriage. The couple lived in Kansas City in a house owned by Skip Harlow. Harlean was nicknamed "The Baby", a name that would stick with her for the rest of her life. She did not learn that her name was actually "Harlean" until the age of five, when she began to attend Miss Barstow's Finishing School for Girls in Kansas City. Harlean and Mother Jean, as she became known when Harlean became a film star, remained very close as the relationship eased Mother Jean's empty existence and unhappy marriage. Harlean's mother was extremely protective and coddling, instilling a sense that her daughter owed everything she had to her. "She was always all mine," she said of her daughter. When her daughter was at school, Mother Jean became increasingly frustrated and filed for a divorce that was finalized, uncontested, on September 29, 1922. She was granted sole custody of Harlean, who loved her father but would rarely see him again. Mother Jean moved with Harlean to Hollywood in 1923 with hopes of becoming an actress but was too old at 34 to begin a film career – major roles were usually assigned to teenage girls. Harlean attended the Hollywood School for Girls and met Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., Joel McCrea and Irene Mayer Selznick. Finances dwindling, the pair returned to Kansas City within two years after Skip Harlow issued an ultimatum that he would disinherit his daughter if she did not return. Harlean dropped out of school in Hollywood in the spring of 1925. Several weeks later Skip Harlow sent her to a summer camp called Camp Cha-Ton-Ka in Michigamme, Michigan, where Harlean became ill with scarlet fever. Mother Jean traveled to Michigan to care for her, rowing herself across the lake to the camp, but was told that she could not see her daughter. Marriage and early career: 1927–29. Harlow next attended the Ferry Hall School (now Lake Forest Academy) in Lake Forest, Illinois. Her mother had an ulterior motive for Harlean's attendance there as it was close to the Chicago home of her boy-friend Marino Bello. Freshmen were paired with a "big sister" from the senior class and Harlean's big sister introduced her to Charles "Chuck" McGrew, heir to a large fortune, in the fall of 1926. Soon the two began to date. On January 18, 1927 Mother Jean married Bello, although Harlean was not present. Sixteen-year-old Harlean and twenty-year-old McGrew eloped on September 21, 1927. McGrew turned 21 two months after the marriage and received part of his large inheritance. The couple moved to Los Angeles in 1928, settling into a home in Beverly Hills where Harlean thrived as a wealthy socialite. McGrew hoped to distance Harlean from her mother with the move. Neither McGrew nor Harlean worked and both, especially McGrew, were thought to drink heavily. In Los Angeles, Harlean befriended Rosalie Roy, a young aspiring actress. Lacking a car, Roy asked Harlean to drive her to Fox Studios for an appointment. Reputedly Harlean was noticed and approached by Fox executives while waiting for her friend but stated that she was not interested. Nevertheless she was given dictated letters of introduction to Central Casting. A few days later Rosalie Roy bet Harlean that she did not have the nerve to go and audition. Unwilling to lose a wager and pressed by her enthusiastic mother, Harlean drove to Central Casting and signed in under her mother's maiden name, Jean Harlow. After several calls from Central Casting and a number of rejected job offers, Harlean was pressed into accepting work by her mother, now back in Los Angeles. She appeared in her first film, "Honor Bound", as an unbilled extra for $7 a day. This led to small parts in silent feature films such as "Moran of the Marines" (1928), "This Thing Called Love" (1929), "Close Harmony" (1929), and "The Love Parade" (1929) among others. In December 1928, she signed a five-year contract with Hal Roach Studios for $100 per week. She had a co-starring role in Laurel and Hardy's short "Double Whoopee" in 1929, and went on to appear in two more of their films: "Liberty" and "Bacon Grabbers" (both 1929). In March 1929, however, she parted with Roach, who tore up her contract after Harlow told him, "It's breaking up my marriage, what can I do?" In June 1929 Harlow separated from her husband and moved in with her mother and Bello. After her separation from McGrew, Harlow worked as an extra in several movies. She landed her first speaking role in 1929's "The Saturday Night Kid", starring Clara Bow. Breakthrough: 1930–32. In late 1929, she was spotted by James Hall, an actor filming Howard Hughes' "Hell's Angels". Hughes, re-shooting the previous silent film into sound, needed a new actress to replace Greta Nissen, who had a Norwegian accent that was considered to be undesirable for a talkie. Harlow made a test and got the part. Hughes signed Harlow to a five-year, $100-per-week contract on October 24, 1929. "Hell's Angels" premiered in Hollywood on May 27, 1930 at Grauman's Chinese Theater, becoming the second highest-grossing film of 1930 (behind only Greta Garbo's talkie debut in "Anna Christie"). The movie made Harlow an international star, but though she was popular with audiences, critics were less than enthusiastic, "The New Yorker" called her performance "plain awful", though "Variety" magazine conceded; "It doesn't matter what degree of talent she possesses ... nobody ever starved possessing what she's got." During the shooting Harlow met MGM executive Paul Bern. She was again an uncredited extra in the 1931 Charlie Chaplin film "City Lights". With no projects planned for Harlow, Hughes sent her to New York, Seattle and Kansas City for "Hell's Angels" premieres. In 1931, loaned out by Hughes' Caddo Company to other studios, she gained more attention when she appeared in "The Secret Six", with Wallace Beery and Clark Gable, "Iron Man", with Lew Ayres and Robert Armstrong, and "The Public Enemy", with James Cagney. Though the successes of the films ranged from moderate to hit, Harlow's acting was mocked by critics. Concerned, Hughes sent her on a brief publicity tour which was not a success as Harlow dreaded such personal appearances. Harlow was next cast in "Platinum Blonde" (1931) with Loretta Young. The film, originally titled "Gallagher", was renamed by Hughes to promote Harlow, capitalizing on her hair color, called "platinum" by Hughes' publicists. Though Harlow denied her hair was dyed, the platinum blonde color was reportedly achieved by bleaching with a weekly application of ammonia, Clorox bleach and Lux soap flakes. This process weakened and damaged Harlow's naturally ash-blonde hair. Many female fans began dyeing their hair to match hers. Howard Hughes' team organized a series of "Platinum Blonde" clubs across the nation, with a prize of $10,000 to any beautician who could match Harlow's shade. Harlow next filmed "Three Wise Girls" (1932) with Mae Clark and Walter Byron. Paul Bern then arranged to borrow her for "The Beast of the City" (1932) that co-starred Walter Huston. After filming Bern booked a ten-week personal appearance tour on the East Coast. To the surprise of many, especially Harlow herself, she packed every theater in which she appeared, often appearing in a single venue for several nights. Despite critical disparagement and poor roles, Harlow's popularity and following was large and growing and, in February 1932, the tour was extended by six weeks. According to Fay Wray, who played Ann Darrow in 1933's "King Kong", Harlow was the original choice to play the screaming blonde heroine. Because MGM put Harlow under exclusive contract during the pre-production phase of the film, she became unavailable for "Kong", and the part went to the brunette Wray, wearing a blonde wig. MGM stardom: 1932–36. Paul Bern, by now romantically involved with Harlow, spoke to Louis B. Mayer about buying-out her contract with Hughes and signing her to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, but Mayer declined. MGM's leading ladies were presented as elegant, while Harlow's "floozy" screen persona was abhorrent to Mayer. Bern then began urging close friend Irving Thalberg, production head of MGM, to sign Harlow, noting her popularity and established image. After initial reluctance Thalberg agreed and, on March 3, 1932, Harlow's twenty-first birthday, Bern called her with the news that MGM had purchased her contract from Hughes for $30,000. Harlow officially joined the studio on April 20, 1932. At MGM Harlow was given superior movie roles to show off her looks and nascent comedic talent. Though Harlow's screen persona changed dramatically during her career, one constant was her apparent sense of humor. In 1932, she starred in the comedy "Red-Headed Woman", for which she received $1,250 a week. The film is often noted as being one of the few films Harlow did not appear in with platinum blonde hair; she wore a red wig for the role. She next starred in "Red Dust", her second film with Clark Gable. Harlow and Gable worked well together and co-starred in a total of six films. She was also paired multiple times with Spencer Tracy and William Powell. She was later paired with up-and-coming male co-stars such as Robert Taylor and Franchot Tone in an effort to boost their careers. At this point MGM began trying to distinguish Harlow's public persona from that of her screen characters, changing her childhood surname from common "Carpenter" to chic "Carpentier", claiming that writer Edgar Allan Poe was one of her ancestors and publishing photographs of Harlow doing charity work to change her image from that of a tramp to an all-American girl. This transformation proved difficult: once Harlow was heard muttering, "My God, must I always wear a low-cut dress to be important?" During the making of "Red Dust", Harlow's second husband, MGM producer Paul Bern, was found shot dead at their home, creating a lasting scandal. Initially there was speculation that Harlow had killed Bern, but Bern's death was officially ruled a suicide. Harlow kept silent, survived the ordeal, and became more popular than ever. A comprehensive review of the facts surrounding Bern's death by E.J. Fleming published in 2009 makes a convincing case that Bern was, in fact, murdered by a former lover and the crime scene rearranged by MGM executives to make it appear Bern had killed himself. After Bern's death Harlow began an indiscreet affair with boxer Max Baer who, though separated from his wife Dorothy Dunbar, was threatened with divorce proceedings naming Harlow as a co-respondent for "alienation of affection", a legal term for adultery. After Bern's mysterious death the studio did not want another scandal and defused the situation by arranging a marriage between Harlow and cinematographer Harold Rosson. Rosson and Harlow were friends and Rosson went along with the plan. They quietly divorced seven months later. By 1933, MGM realized the value of the Harlow-Clark Gable team and paired them again in "Hold Your Man" (1933), which was also a box office success. The same year she played the lonely wife of Wallace Beery in the all-star "Dinner at Eight", and played a pressured Hollywood film star in "Bombshell" with Lee Tracy. The film has often been cited as being based on Harlow's own life or that of 1920s "It girl", Clara Bow. The following year, she was teamed with Lionel Barrymore and Franchot Tone in "The Girl from Missouri" (1934). The film was MGM's attempt to present Harlow as a more elegant and classy film actress, like that of other female stars at MGM at the time. While the movie drew unfavorable reviews, it was a large box office success upon release. Due to the financial success of "Red Dust" and "Hold Your Man", MGM cast Harlow with Clark Gable in two more films: "China Seas" (1935), with Wallace Beery and Rosalind Russell, and "Wife vs. Secretary" (1936), with Myrna Loy and James Stewart. James Stewart later spoke of a scene in a car with Harlow in "Wife vs. Secretary", saying, "Clarence Brown, the director, wasn't too pleased by the way I did the smooching. He made us repeat the scene about half a dozen times ... I botched it up on purpose. That Jean Harlow sure was a good kisser. I realized that until then I had never been really kissed." From 1933 to 1935, Harlow was consistently listed in the "Top Ten Moneymaking Stars Poll" of the "Motion Picture Herald". She ranked fourth at the box office in 1933, which at that time was higher than fellow MGM actresses: Greta Garbo ranked seventh, Norma Shearer ranked ninth, and Joan Crawford ranked tenth. She ranked seventh in 1934 and sixth in 1935. In 1935, she appeared in "Reckless" with William Powell and Franchot Tone. It was her first musical film, and while her character sings in the movie, Harlow's voice for the performance was dubbed with skilled vocalist Virginia Verrill. By the mid-1930s Harlow was one of the biggest stars in the United States and, it was hoped, MGM's next Greta Garbo. Still young, her star continued to rise while the popularity of other female stars at MGM, such as Joan Crawford and Norma Shearer, waned. Harlow's movies continued to make huge profits at the box office even during the middle of the Depression. Some credit them with keeping MGM profitable at a time when other studios were falling into bankruptcy. After her third marriage ended in 1934, Harlow met William Powell, another MGM star, and quickly fell in love. The couple were reportedly engaged for two years, but differences kept them from formalizing their relationship (she wanted children; he did not). Harlow also said that Louis B. Mayer would never allow them to marry. In 1936, she played the title role in "Suzy", which again co-starred Franchot Tone and a young Cary Grant. While critics noted that Harlow dominated the film, they also stated that is was not one of her best performances. The film was the first of films in years to lose money at the box office. She later starred in "Riffraff" (1936) with Spencer Tracy and Una Merkel, and "Libeled Lady" (1936) again with William Powell and Spencer Tracy along with Myrna Loy. Final films and death. In late 1936, she filmed W.S. Van Dyke's comedy "Personal Property", co-starring Robert Taylor. It would prove to be Harlow's final fully completed motion picture appearance. After filming ended, Harlow and the cast of "Personal Property" traveled to Washington, D.C. where they attended several parties to celebrate President Franklin D. Roosevelt's 55th birthday. The trip was physically taxing on Harlow and she contracted influenza. She recovered in time to attend the Academy Awards ceremony with Powell. Production for Harlow's final film "Saratoga", co-starring Clark Gable, was scheduled to begin filming in March 1937. However, production was delayed when she developed septicemia after a wisdom tooth extraction and had to be hospitalized. After she recovered, shooting began on April 22. On May 20, 1937, while shooting "Saratoga", Harlow began to complain of illness. Her symptoms—fatigue, nausea, water weight and abdominal pain—did not seem very serious to her doctor, who believed she was suffering from cholecystitis and influenza. However he was apparently unaware that Harlow had been ill during the previous year with a severe sunburn and influenza. Her friend and co-star Myrna Loy noticed Harlow’s grey complexion, fatigue and weight gain. On May 29, Harlow was shooting a scene in which the character she was playing had a fever. Harlow was clearly sicker than her character and, when she leaned against her co-star Clark Gable between scenes, said; "I feel terrible. Get me back to my dressing room." Harlow requested that the assistant director telephone William Powell, who left his own set to escort Harlow back home. On May 30, Powell checked on Harlow, recalled her mother from a holiday trip when he found her condition had not improved and summoned her doctor to her home. Harlow's illnesses had delayed three previous films ("Wife vs. Secretary", "Suzy", and "Libeled Lady"), so there was no great concern initially. On June 2, it was announced that Harlow was suffering from influenza. Harlow felt better on June 3 and co-workers expected her back on the set by Monday, June 7. Press reports were contradictory, with headlines like "Jean Harlow seriously ill" and "Harlow past illness crisis." When Harlow said on June 6 that she could not see Powell properly, he again called a doctor. As she slipped into a deep slumber and experienced difficulty breathing, the doctor finally realized that she was suffering from something serious. That evening Harlow was taken to Good Samaritan Hospital in Los Angeles, where she slipped into a coma. The next day at 11:37 a.m. Harlow died in the hospital at the age of 26. In the doctor’s press releases the cause of death was given as cerebral edema, a complication of kidney failure. Hospital records mention uremia. For years rumors circulated about Harlow's death. Some claimed that her mother had refused to call a doctor because she was a Christian Scientist or that Harlow herself had declined hospital treatment or surgery. There were also rumors that Harlow had died because of alcoholism, a botched abortion, over-dieting, sunstroke, poisoning due to platinum hair dye or various venereal diseases. However medical bulletins, hospital records and testimony of her relatives and friends prove it was kidney disease. From the onset of her illness, resting at home, Harlow had been attended by a doctor: two nurses visited her house and various equipment was brought from a nearby hospital. However, Harlow’s mother had barred some visitors, such as the MGM doctor, who later stated that it was because they were Christian Scientists. It has been suggested that she still wanted to control her daughter but there is no truth to the allegation that she refused medical care for Harlow. Harlow's kidney failure could not have been cured in the 1930s. The death rate from acute kidney failure has decreased to 25% only after the advent of antibiotics, dialysis, and kidney transplantation. Harlow’s grey complexion, recurring illnesses, and severe sunburn were signs of the disease as her kidneys had been slowly failing and toxins accumulated in her body, exposing her to other illnesses and causing symptoms including swelling, fatigue, and lack of appetite. Toxins also adversely impacted her brain and central nervous system. Speculation has suggested that Harlow suffered a post-streptococcal glomerulonephritis, following scarlet fever when she was young, which may have caused high blood pressure and ultimately kidney failure. News of Harlow's death spread quickly. Spencer Tracy wrote in his diary, "Jean Harlow died today. Grand gal." One of the MGM writers later said: "The day Baby died there wasn't one sound in the commissary for three hours." MGM closed on the day of her funeral on June 9. She was buried at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, California in the Great Mausoleum in a private room of multicolored marble which William Powell bought for $25,000. She was buried in the gown she wore in "Libeled Lady" and in her hands she held a white gardenia and a note that Powell had written: "Goodnight, my dearest darling." There is a simple inscription on Harlow's grave; "Our Baby". Spaces in the same room were reserved for Harlow’s mother and William Powell. Harlow’s mother was buried there in 1958, but Powell remarried in 1940 and after his death in 1984 was cremated: his ashes were buried with his son at Desert Memorial Park in Cathedral City, CA. MGM planned to replace Harlow in "Saratoga" with either Jean Arthur or Virginia Bruce, but because of public objections the film was finished by using three doubles (one for close-ups, one for long shots and one for dubbing Harlow’s lines) and re-writing some scenes without her. The film was released on July 23, 1937, over a month after Harlow's death, and was a hit with audiences. It became MGM's second-highest grossing picture of 1937. Since the film's release, viewers have tried to spot these stand-ins and signs of Harlow's illness. Novel. Harlow wrote a novel entitled "Today is Tonight". In Arthur Landau's introduction to the 1965 paperback edition, Harlow stated her intention to write the book around 1933–34 but it was not published during her lifetime. After her death, Landau writes, her mother sold the film rights to MGM, though no film was made. The publication rights were passed from Harlow's mother to a family friend and the book was finally published in 1965. Film portrayals. In 1965, two films about Jean Harlow were released, both called "Harlow". The first film was released by Magna in May 1965 and stars Carol Lynley. The second was released in June 1965 by Paramount Pictures and stars Carroll Baker. Both were poorly received and did not perform well at the box office. In 1978, Lindsay Bloom portrayed her in "Hughes and Harlow: Angels in Hell". In 2004, Gwen Stefani briefly appeared as Harlow in Martin Scorsese's Howard Hughes biopic "The Aviator". In August 1993, Sharon Stone hosted a documentary about Harlow entitled "Harlow: The Blonde Bombshell", which aired on Turner Classic Movies. References. Notes Bibliography Fleming. E.J. "Paul Bern: The Life and Famous Death of the MGM Director and Husband of Harlow"
584171	Sindhu Tolani is an Indian actress working in various languages such as Telugu, Tamil, Kannada and Hindi. Tolani was born in Mumbai, India on 19 July 1983. She has been a "Fair & Lovely" cream model girl in the North as well as a successful actress. She has given many hits in Telugu cinema. Film career. Sindhu Tolani started her career with the Telugu movie "Aithe". The movie was a low budget hit which first got everyone to notice her. Her first huge hit in Telugu was "Athanokkade". She shot to fame at the age of 20, at her debut in the Tamil movie "Sullan" with Dhanush directed by Ramana, the film went on to be a major blockbuster at B and C centres and started her career, it was released in 2004. Another hit followed in "Manmadhan" with Silambarasan. Since then she has appeared in many Telugu and Kannada films and recently in "Majaa" with Vikram. She received critical acclaim with her roles in films like Manmadhan in Tamil and Bathukamma in Telugu. She also acted in the Television series Kutumb which aired on SONY TV. She was also a part of Mani Ratnam's stage show, "Netru, Indru, Naalai".
585285	Bairavi is a 1978 Tamil film directed by M. Bhaskar. It was Rajinikanth's first movie as a hero in Tamil cinema. He was also given the "Superstar" title through this film. The film stars Sripriya as the female lead and Geetha playing the title role as Rajini's sister. Sreekanth played the role of the main villain. Manorama and Suruli Rajan played other major roles. Plot. Mookaiyah (Rajinikanth) and his sister Bairavi (Geetha) are the children of a drunkard. They are separated after Bhairavi gets lost in an accident. Following this, Mookaiyah becomes a servant of a local landlord (Sreekanth). Mookaiyah is a loyal servant and does whatever is asked of him. The landlord, Rajalingam (Sreekanth), forces Mookaiyah to abduct a young girl from a neighboring village, Bhagyam (Geetha). Rajalingam rapes her in the absence of Mookaiyah. Maanikam, Bhagyam's adopted brother, finds to know about the incident. When the police investigate Maanikam, Mookaiyah discovers that Bhagyam is his long-lasting sister (Bairavi). Then he immediately approaches Rajalingam and forces him to marry Bairavi; he was not ready to accept it at first but after a while he promises to Mookaiyah that he will marry Bairavi. As Mookaiyah was the person who abducted Bairavi, the police suspect that he is the culprit, comes to Rajalingam's house to know about Mookaiyah. Rajalingam also alleges to Police that Mookaiyah only raped Bairavi. The police therefore arrest Mookaiyah, based on the statement of Rajalingam. Meanwhile, Rajalingam plans to kill Bairavi when she was in an unconscious state in hospital. If Bairavi become conscious and gives a statement to the police then he will definitely be prone to punishment, so he kills her. After knowing about his adopted sister's murder, Maanikam vows to take revenge on Mookaiyah, whom he believes to be responsible for Bairavi's death. Meanwhile, Mookaiyah escapes from jail knowing about the incident. He then sets out to kill the landlord in revenge for his sister's death. Release. Before the film's release, Oscar Movies M Basker, the Director of the film gave Rajinikanth the "Super Star" tag, which is still used by many people to refer to him. The film was dubbed into Telugu and released as "Bhairavi". Soundtrack. The soundtrack and background score was composed by Ilaiyaraaja. All lyrics were penned by Kannadasan.
1063335	Zachary Israel "Zach" Braff (born April 6, 1975) is an American actor and director. Braff first became known in 2001 for his role as Dr. John Dorian on the television series "Scrubs", for which he was nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in 2005. In 2004, Braff made his directorial debut with "Garden State". He returned to his home state New Jersey to shoot the film, which was produced for $2.5 million. The film made over $35 million at the box office and was praised by critics. Braff wrote the film, starred in it, and compiled the soundtrack record. He won numerous awards for his directing work, and also won the Grammy Award for Best Soundtrack Album in 2005. In April 2013, Braff announced he was launching a Kickstarter campaign to raise funds to shoot a new film, titled "Wish I Was Here". Early life. Braff was born in South Orange, New Jersey. His father, Harold Irwin "Hal" Braff, is a trial attorney and sociology professor, and his mother, Anne Brodzinsky (born Anne Hutchinson Maynard), worked as a clinical psychologist. His parents divorced and re-married others during Braff's childhood. One of his siblings, Joshua, is an author. Braff's father was born into a Jewish family, and Braff's mother, originally a Protestant, converted to Judaism before marrying his father. Braff was raised in Conservative Judaism (he was Bar Mitzvah at Oheb Shalom Congregation), and has said that he is "not a huge organized religion guy". Through his mother's New England ancestors, Braff is a distant cousin of politician Mitt Romney. Braff was also friends with former Fugees member Lauryn Hill. Braff wanted to be a filmmaker since his early childhood, and has described it as his "life dream". Braff was diagnosed with obsessive-compulsive disorder at age ten.
520648	Ang Darling Kong Aswang, also known as "Ang Darling Kong Asawa", is a 2009 Filipino comedy horror film . It translates into ""My Wife the Monster"" ("Aswang" is a kind of vampire from the Philippines). Plot. Victor (Vic Sotto) is a single father who falls in love with Elisa (Cristine Reyes) who turns out to be an Aswang. But even so, Victor love Elisa so much that he accepted who she is and even live with her as his second wife. But the problem comes when the leader of the Aswang clan (Jean Garcia) finds out that Elisa and her mother (Agot Isidro) are not eating humans anymore. She sends out other Aswangs to hunt down Elisa and her mother, and also for Victor and his family. Victor then will face the leader of the Aswang clan to save his beloved Elisa.
32569	Jeffrey Weissman (born October 2, 1958) is an American actor. He has appeared in dozens of motion pictures, and TV shows. Most notably as George McFly in "Back to the Future Part II" and "III" with Michael J. Fox, and as Teddy Conway in "Pale Rider" with Clint Eastwood, with John Lithgow in ', guest star spots on "Scarecrow and Mrs. King", "Max Headroom", "Dallas", "The Man Show", and with Dick Van Dyke on ' and as Screech's Guru on "Saved by the Bell".
586525	Saawan... The Love Season is an Hindi Social film directed by Saawan Kumar, starring Saloni Aswani, Kapil Jhaveri, Ranjeet, Prem Chopra and Salman Khan amongst others in pivotal roles. The title of the film was named after the director Saawan Kumar. Plot outline. "Saawan... The Love Season" tells the story of a couple, Raj and Kajal. They get married, and when they come back from their Honeymoon in Patiala, Kajal finds a man who predicts the future. Whether it's the death of a person at 9 p.m. or a major accident on the Mumbai-Pune Expressway, the man knows it all. He's a modern-day Nostradamus. When Kajal asks him about her future, he tells her she'd die two days later. Obviously, Kajal is shattered, she tells Raj who swears if anything happens to her, he would kill the Nostradamus. On the fateful day, Kajal is mistakenly shot by the cops outside a shopping mall and dies. Raj blames the Nostradamus for it, breaks into his house, bashes him black and blue and Nostradamus dies. When Nostradamus dies, Kajal, who is already pronounced dead, wakes up. She's alive now. She falls inlove with Raj all over again, and with the help of Raj's friend Funsukh and his admirer, they get the couple re-married and they live happily ever after. Soundtrack. music composer wajid Sonu Nigam
1034912	God on Trial is a 2008 BBC/WGBH Boston television play written by Frank Cottrell Boyce, starring Antony Sher, Rupert Graves and Jack Shepherd. The play takes place in Auschwitz during World War II. The Jewish prisoners put God on trial "in absentia" for abandoning the Jewish people. The question is if God has broken his covenant with the Jewish people by allowing the Nazis to commit genocide. The play is based on an event described by Elie Wiesel in his book "The Trial of God", though Boyce describes this tale as "apocryphal". According to Boyce, producer Mark Redhead "had been trying to turn the story into a film for almost 20 years by the time he called me in 2005 to write the screenplay." Score. The music for the film was especially commissioned and composed by Nick Green and Tristin Norwell. Reception. Reviews were overwhelmingly positive. Sam Wollaston in "The Guardian" found it "powerful and thoughtful stuff, with some fine performances by some fine actors - Antony Sher, Rupert Graves, Dominic Cooper." Remarking that Boyce wrote the piece from a position of personal faith, James Walton in "The Telegraph" observed, "Yet, as each of the characters put forward a different view on the question of God and suffering, it was clear that he was willing to interrogate his beliefs with real ferocity." This was a complex piece, and "as the fierceness of the intellectual and emotional grip tightened, it was impossible to imagine any halfway-thoughtful viewers, of whatever prior convictions, not having a disturbing sense of their own ideas coming under sustained and convincing attack." In a long review for "The Times", Tim Teeman had great praise for the cast: "The performances were so strong it felt a privilege to watch the actors, among them Antony Sher, Rupert Graves, Stephen Dillane and Jack Shepherd." He also praises director Andy de Emmony's "brilliant, arresting sleight of hand... the prisoners, naked and shorn, together with the present-day touring party in the gas chamber." For "The Independent", Thomas Sutcliffe remarked on Sher's role as the play's smouldering fuse: "Every now and then you saw Antony Sher, davening silently in a corner of the barracks. Like a loaded gun in a Chekhov play, you knew he was going to go off eventually and that it would be significant when he did, and indeed it was his explosive inventory of God's biblically attested crimes that finally swung the judges in favour of a guilty verdict." Opposite fierce competition from the much-trailed, eagerly awaited debut episode of ITV's four-part time travel fantasy series, "Lost in Austen", and an episode of the BBC's celebrity genealogy show, "Who Do You Think You Are?", featuring Esther Rantzen, "God on Trial" attracted 700,000 viewers on BBC2, a 3% share of the audience, according to overnight returns. When the show was shown in the United States on PBS, the "Los Angeles Times" said "They are big topics addressed with a striking lack of sentimentality, quite a feat considering the setting." The "San Francisco Chronicle" echoed the British reviewers in praising the "brilliant script" the "subtle wonders at every turn" in DeEmmony's direction, and remarked that "It seems trivial even to try to single out one superb performance from virtually every other superb performance." Distribution. "God on Trial" aired on BBC2 on Wednesday the 3rd of September 2008 and on PBS in the "Masterpiece Contemporary" strand on the 9th of November 2008.
593436	Flodder is a 1986 Dutch comedy film written and directed by Dick Maas, and distributed by First Floor Features. It is the first film in the Flodder franchise and is followed by two more films and a spin-off series. The film follows an anti-social, dysfunctional family who move to an affluent, upper-class neighbourhood as part of a social experiment which results in mayhem as the Flodder family refuses to adapt. "Flodder"’s absurd humour and politically incorrect satire ridiculing the Dutch welfare state resulted in mixed reviews. However it still attracts a cult following and in 2007 was admitted to the Canon van de Nederlandse Film. Flodder is also a Dutch word meaning blank cartridge, a referral to the Flodders looking dangerous and being noisy, despite being rather harmless. Plot. When it emerges that the Flodder family’s current state-owned house is on a toxic waste dump, the city council is forced to find somewhere to move them. Social worker, Sjakie, proposes to move the family to an upper-class neighbourhood hoping that the change in social environment will have a positive effect on the problematic family. However the family fails to adapt and persists in their anti-social lifestyle which clashes with the values of the reserved upper class inhabitants of the neighbourhood, who try everything in their power to get rid of the Flodders. This results in several confrontations between individual members of the family and the upper class inhabitants.
583785	Maayavi is a 2005 Tamil comedy-drama film directed by D. P. Singapuli that stars Suriya and Jyothika who plays an extended cameo as herself, whilst Vijaykanth and Roja play short cameo roles. The film's score and soundtrack were composed by Devi Sri Prasad.
1060008	Rachael Leigh Cook (born October 4, 1979) is an American actress, model, voice artist and producer, who is best known for her starring role in films "She's All That" (1999), "Josie and the Pussycats" (2001), and the television series "Into the West" and "Perception", as well as being the voice behind various characters in "Robot Chicken" and Tifa Lockhart in the English version of "". Early life. Cook was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, the daughter of JoAnn, a cooking instructor and weaver, and Thomas H. Cook, a social worker and former stand-up comedian. Cook first appeared in a public service announcement for foster care at seven years of age, and began working as a child print model at the age of 10, most notably in nationwide advertisements for Target and appearing on the boxes of Milk-Bone dog biscuits. She attended Clara Barton Open School, Laurel Springs School, and Minneapolis South High School. Career. Cook began auditioning for acting work at the age of 14. She made her debut as an actress in the 1995 film "The Baby-Sitters Club", based on Ann M. Martin's book series of the same name. Her second movie role was in "Tom and Huck", in which she portrayed Rebecca "Becky" Thatcher. In 1996, her modeling agency sent her to read for a short film, "26 Summer Street". In 1997, Cook appeared in a leading role in the film "Country Justice" as a 15-year-old rape victim who is impregnated by her rapist. She gained national attention in 1998, when she was featured in the famous "This Is Your Brain on Drugs" PSA television advertisement, in which she proceeds to destroy a kitchen with a frying pan as she lists the important things in life that heroin harms. In 1999, Cook starred her breakout role in the sleeper hit film "She's All That", a romantic comedy that adapted George Bernard Shaw's "Pygmalion" and so far the most financially successful film in her career. In 2000 she starred opposite Elijah Wood in the well-received "The Bumblebee Flies Anyway". She took the lead role in 2001's "Josie and the Pussycats", which turned out to be a box office failure. After that Cook mainly focused her work in independent films, resulting in some nicknaming her the next "Indie Queen" after Parker Posey. She also appeared as a main cast in the 2005 television miniseries "Into the West" produced by Steven Spielberg and DreamWorks. In 2000, she was the cover girl for the premiere US issue of "FHM," the March/April issue. She also starred in the music video for New Found Glory's 2000 single "Dressed to Kill" and singer Daniel Powter's "Love You Lately". In 2002, she was ranked #26 in "Stuff" magazine's "102 Sexiest Women in the World". Cook provided the voice for Chelsea Cunningham on the Kids' WB animated series "Batman Beyond" in the episode "Last Resort" and in the animated film '. Cook voiced Tifa Lockhart in the video games "Kingdom Hearts II", ' and "Dissidia 012 Final Fantasy", as well as the CG movie "Final Fantasy VII Advent Children". Cook's latest voice-over role is for the video game "Yakuza" in which she voices the role of Reina. Cook owns her own production company, Ben's Sister Productions (in reference to her younger brother Ben Cook, an aspiring filmmaker). Cook eventually stepped away from the spotlight to focus on spending time with friends and family. She later returned to mainstream films when she signed on to a new casting agency. In 2007 Cook was in the big screen adaptation of "Nancy Drew", played the female lead in the independent sports drama "The Final Season", and played a supporting role in "Blonde Ambition" starring Jessica Simpson and Luke Wilson. She has appeared in numerous episodes of the Seth Green comedies "Titan Maximum" and "Robot Chicken". On the latter she parodied the "This Is Your Brain on Drugs" role she made famous, by destroying "everything" she encounters with her frying pan. In 2008, she guest-starred in an episode of the USA Network series "Psych" as Abigail Lytar, an old flame of Shawn Spencer. She returned in the season finale in which Abigail and Shawn start dating and appeared in many more episodes the following season. In February 2010, Cook signed on as the female lead in Fox TV's comedy pilot "Nirvana". She will star in the Western horror film "Vampire", which is the English-language feature debut of Japanese director Iwai Shunji. In 2011, she voiced the character of Jaesa Willsaam in the MMO game, "". In 2012, Cook signed on as the female lead role in the TNT crime drama series "Perception" opposite Eric McCormack. She starred in the independent film "Broken Kingdom", which was directed by her husband Daniel Gillies and premier on October 2, 2012. She also appeared in a Funny or Die sketch with Chad Michael Murray. Public service. In 2011, she was selected by the Obama administration as a Champion of Change for Arts Education. In June 2012, she began to award a small scholarship to those between ages fourteen and nineteen. The scholarship helps pay for career classes, mentoring programs, and other school fees.
1264779	Cabiria is a 1914 Italian silent film, directed by Giovanni Pastrone (1883–1959) and shot in Turin. The film is set in ancient Sicily, Carthage, and Cirta during the period of the Second Punic War (218–202 BC). It follows a melodramatic main plot about an abducted little girl, Cabiria, and features an eruption of Mt. Etna, heinous religious rituals in Carthage, the alpine trek of Hannibal, Archimedes' defeat of the Roman fleet at the Siege of Syracuse and Scipio maneuvering in North Africa. Apart from being a classic on its own terms, the film is also notable for being the first film in which the long-running film character Maciste makes his debut. According to Martin Scorsese, in this work Pastrone invented the epic movie and deserves credit for many of the innovations often attributed to D.W. Griffith and Cecil B. DeMille. Among those were the first use of the moving camera, thus freeing the narrative film from "static gaze".
1060484	Keith David Williams (born June 4, 1956), better known as Keith David, is an American film, television, voice actor and singer. He is perhaps most known for his live-action roles in such films as "Crash", "There's Something About Mary", "Barbershop" and "Men at Work". He has also had memorable roles in numerous cult favorites, including John Carpenter's films "The Thing" (as Childs) and "They Live" (as Armitage), the Riddick films "Pitch Black" and "The Chronicles of Riddick" (as the Imam), the General in "Armageddon", King in Oliver Stone's "Platoon", and Big Tim in Darren Aronofsky's "Requiem for a Dream".
113274	Susan Ward (born April 15, 1976) is an American actress and model. Career. Ward began modeling at the age of 13, leaving school and moving to New York to do so, deciding to try her hand at acting several years later. She appeared in soap orera "All My Children" in 1995, and later was cast in NBC's short-lived primetime teen drama "Malibu Shores" produced by Aaron Spelling. In late 1996, Ward landed a role on Aaron Spelling's daytime soap opera "Sunset Beach", where she played the virginal Meg Cummings. Sunset Beach aired between 1997-1999. In 1999, she began to pursue a movie career, and starred as the psychotic Brittany Foster in the erotic thriller "The In Crowd". The movie was a commercial disappointment in theaters, but found some success on cable and home video. The following year, Ward played a supporting role in the hit movie "Shallow Hal". She has also acted in numerous other direct-to-DVD movies, and has made guest appearances in various TV shows, most notably "Friends".
1025586	Lena Mary Calhoun Horne (June 30, 1917 – May 9, 2010) was an African American singer, actress, civil rights activist and dancer. Horne joined the chorus of the Cotton Club at the age of sixteen and became a nightclub performer before moving to Hollywood, where she had small parts in numerous movies, and more substantial parts in the films "Cabin in the Sky" and "Stormy Weather". Due to the Red Scare and her left-leaning political views, Horne found herself blacklisted and unable to get work in Hollywood. Returning to her roots as a nightclub performer, Horne took part in the March on Washington in August 1963, and continued to work as a performer, both in nightclubs and on television, while releasing well-received record albums. She announced her retirement in March 1980, but the next year starred in a one-woman show, "", which ran for more than three hundred performances on Broadway and earned her numerous awards and accolades. She continued recording and performing sporadically into the 1990s, disappearing from the public eye in 2000. Early life. Lena Horne was born in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn. Reported to be descended from the John C. Calhoun family, both sides of her family were a mixture of European American, Native American, and African-American descent, and belonged to the upper stratum of middle-class, well-educated class of people. Her father, Edwin Fletcher "Teddy" Horne, Jr. (1892–1970), a numbers kingpin in the gambling trade, left the family when she was three and moved to an upper-middle-class black community in the Hill District community of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Her mother, Edna Louise Scottron (1895–1985), daughter of inventor Samuel R. Scottron, was an actress with a black theatre troupe and traveled extensively. Scottron's maternal grandmother, Amelie Louise Ashton, was a Senegalese slave. Lena Horne was mainly raised by her grandparents, Cora Calhoun and Edwin Horne. When Horne was five, she was sent to live in Georgia. For several years, she traveled with her mother. From 1927 to 1929 she lived with her uncle, Frank S. Horne, who was dean of students at Fort Valley Junior Industrial Institute (now part of Fort Valley State University) in Fort Valley, Georgia, and who would later become an adviser to Franklin Delano Roosevelt. From Fort Valley, southwest of Macon, Horne briefly moved to Atlanta with her mother; they returned to New York when Horne was 12 years old. She then attended Girls High School, an all-girls public high school in Brooklyn that has since become Boys and Girls High School; she dropped out without earning a diploma. Aged 18, she moved in with her father in Pittsburgh, staying in the city's Little Harlem for almost five years and learning from native Pittsburghers Billy Strayhorn and Billy Eckstine, among others. Career. Road to Hollywood. In the fall of 1933, Horne joined the chorus line of the Cotton Club in New York City. In the spring of 1934, she had a featured role in the Cotton Club Parade starring Adelaide Hall, who took Lena under her wing. A few years later Horne joined Noble Sissle's Orchestra, with which she toured and with whom she recorded her first record release, a 78rpm single issued by Decca Records. After she separated from her first husband, Horne toured with bandleader Charlie Barnet in 1940–41, but disliked the travel and left the band to work at the Café Society in New York. She replaced Dinah Shore as the featured vocalist on NBC's popular jazz series "The Chamber Music Society of Lower Basin Street". The show's resident maestros, Henry Levine and Paul Laval, recorded with Horne in June 1941 for RCA Victor. Horne left the show after only six months to headline a nightclub revue on the West Coast at Slapsy Maxie's, and was replaced by actress Betty Keene of the Keene sisters.
1069218	The Longest Night in Shanghai () is a 2007 film produced by Japan's Movie Eye Entertainment and directed by Chinese director Zhang Yibai. It is a rare collaboration between China and Japan. The film consists of a diverse cast. It stars Chinese actress Zhao Wei and Japanese actor Masahiro Motoki. Other members of the cast include Taiwanese actor Dylan Kuo, Hong Kong actor Sam Lee, and Japanese actress Naomi Nishida Synopsis. Lin Xi's the struggling taxi driver who literally runs Naoki down in the street after he goes walkabout. Eager to placate the mysterious foreigner, Lin offers to chauffeur him around town, yet by the time she discovers Naoki has neither money nor any grasp of Chinese, he's captivated by watching her attempt to deal with her own personal problems. She should get him back home, but the phone calls keep coming in. He should get back to his hotel, but the strange bond he's forming with this woman (even though he barely understands a word she's saying) is the first thing in years to have him feeling alive. Soundtracks. Firefly; Breathe (by Frally Hynes) Reception. "Pic shuttlecocks between the corny and the involving, but Zhao's natural perf and Shanghai itself (always front and center, knitted into the action) keep things watchable."--"Variety" Awards and nominations. Ibiza International Film Festival 14th Beijing Student Film Festival 10th Shanghai International Film Festival
583418	Gaja Gamini (translation: "One with a walk like an elephant") is an 2000 Indian film written and directed by M.F. Husain and is his ode to womanhood and his muse of the time, Madhuri Dixit, who stars as the lead in the film with Shahrukh Khan and Naseeruddin Shah. The film was a box office disaster. Plot. The central figure of the film is represented by a mysterious figure called "Gaja Gamini" (Madhuri Dixit), who inspires, arouses, and confuses the common man. "Gaja Gamini" is the inspiration behind Leonardo Da Vinci's (Naseeruddin Shah) 'Mona Lisa', Kalidas' poem "Shakuntala", and a photojournalist named Shahrukh's (Shah Rukh Khan) photographs. The mysterious "Gaja Gamini" appears as four characters, one of them being Sangeeta, a blind girl from Banaras at the beginning of time, who inspires village women (Farida Jalal, Shilpa Shirodkar, and Shabana Aazmi) to revolt against a male-dominated system and carve a niche for women forever. Another character is Shakuntala, who is the subject of Kalidas' poem of the same name. Shakuntala incites jealousy in the women and love in the men around her, charming humans and animals alike in the forests of Kerala. "Gaja Gamini" is also Mona Lisa during the Renaissance, the object of painter Leonardo Da Vinci's obsession. Finally, Monika, the most confusing sector of the film, is supposed to represent the woman of the New Millennium. Kamdev, the God of Love (Inder Kumar), walks the earth throughout history, attempting to win the love of "Gaja Gamini". Thrown into this mix is a large black wall, separating two different time periods, and confrontations between Science (Ashish Vidyarthi) and Art (Mohan Agashe) at different points in history, showing that the world itself can change, but its original ideas will always be the same. For example, a play by Shakespeare written and performed by actors in the 15th Century will still be performed in the 21st Century, but with different actors. The confrontations between Art and Science also bring about the idea that while Science is firmly set on believing that which can only be proved, the basis for Art is that which can be proved, and an intuitive sense that can be felt. Science uses the brain, while Art uses the brain and the heart. Another interesting facet of the film is a "gathri", a small bundle which a woman carries upon her head, like a burden, with which she must walk forever. Reviews. Critic Taran Adarsh said "The film has a very colourful look, with the visuals being eye-catching. But as a director, Hussain fails to convey his thoughts on celluloid. On the whole, Gaja Gamini is an artistic film which will not be understood by any strata of audience - classes or masses. Business-wise, the film is sure to spell disaster. A waste of precious celluloid". Soundtrack. Hussain approached A. R. Rahman to compose the music for the film, but due to time constraints, he had to turn down the offer. The music was composed by Bhupen Hazarika.
588141	Giselli Monteiro (born 16 November 1988) is a Brazilian model and Bollywood actress. She made her film-debut playing the role of "Harleen Kaur" in the 2009 Bollywood film "Love Aaj Kal", directed by Imtiaz Ali. Early life and career. Monteiro was born in São Mateus, Espírito Santo, Brazil. She started her modeling career at the age of seventeen and has travelled to Italy, Germany, France, Greece, Hong Kong, Singapore, Thailand and Philippines. She came to Mumbai, India in 2008. She began her acting career in Bollywood, portraying the role of the old-fashioned Punjabi girl, Harleen Kaur, in Imtiaz Ali's "Love Aaj Kal" which also stars Saif Ali Khan and Deepika Padukone. She was purposely kept under wraps during the film's promotion. Following the film's release, her identity was revealed, and it was also revealed that she had approached Ali through designer Anaita Shroff Adajania to audition for the role of Jo, Saif Ali Khan's Caucasian girlfriend in the second-half of the film, but, on his wife's suggestion Ali took her for Harleen's part, especially since he had not been able to cast for that role despite auditioning girls from all over India. She was featured on the covers of Indian edition of Harpers Bazaar, ELLE, Marie Clarie and Femina. In addition to acting, Giselli is the brand ambassador of Wills Lifestyle, Movil Mobiles and PC Jewellers in India. She has walked the ramp for Rohit Bal, Ritu Kumar and Ranna Gill. On 23 May 2010 Giselli appeared on the Fantástico broadcast by Rede Globo in her home country, Brazil speaking about Mumbai. She next appeared in Always Kabhi Kabhi, a film under the Red Chillies Entertainment banner that released on 17 June 2011. Lately she appeared on Westside, the chain of Fashion retail stores' new brand campaign Advertisement starting September 2011. In early 2012 she became the face of Jhoomar, a fashion boutique based in Kolkata, India.
586376	Mazhathullikkilukkam is a 2002 Malayalam movie directed by "Akbar Jose". The movie features Dileep, Navya Nair, Sharada and Bharathi in the lead roles. The movie was produced by "Sharada" under the banner of "Sharada Productions" and was distributed by "Sargam Speed Release". Plot. The story starts when Soloman(Dileep) and his sister travel to kannadahalli to meet two retired teachers. He reaches the house on top of a hill-'Swargam' where he finds two old women who live alone with a cook and a home nurse to look after them. Alice (Sharada) and Anna (Bharati) are sisters who are spinsters and they own the huge estate. The home nurse, Sophiya (Navya Nair), cook (Sukumari), cook's son (Cochin Haneefa) and the priest (Nedumudi Venu) are the only people close to them. Soloman takes charge as the manager of the estate and soon wins over the two oldies.
1789702	"Bram Stoker's Dracula's Curse (also known simply as Dracula's Curse") is a 2006 horror film by The Asylum, written and directed by Leigh Scott. Despite featuring Bram Stoker's name in the title, the film is not directly based on any of his writings or a mockbuster to the 1992 film "Bram Stoker's Dracula", but shares similarities to films such as ', "Dracula 2000", ' and "Van Helsing". The film also shares some similarities with the 1971 Hammer horror film "Countess Dracula", which also features a Dracula-esque femme fatale in the lead role. Plot. The film takes place in an unidentified city (presumably New York City) in the modern day, and follows the characters of Rufus King (Thomas Downey) and Jacob Van Helsing (Rhett Giles), both of whom have been observing recent attacks made upon young teenagers in the city at night. Van Helsing correctly identifies that the attacks are being made by a group of vampires residing in the city. The vampires are led by a foreign seductress named Countess Bathorly (Christina Rosenberg), who hopes to use the humans to feed her growing vampire clan and to eventually seize control of the city, while at the same time using her growing power to gain the powers of "the Master". Discovering Bathorly's plan, Van Helsing and King begin to hunt down and destroy the vampires one by one, until they finally face the Countess herself and try to kill her once and for all, before her evil consumes the city and allows Dracula's curse to consume the human race. Reception. Critical reaction to "Dracula's Curse" has been mixed to positive. Scott Foy of "Dread Central" wrote, ""Bram Stoker's Dracula's Curse" isn't a bad movie. If you're looking for a vampire film cut from the same cloth as ' or the short-lived TV series ' then you'll probably dig "Bram Stoker's Dracula's Curse", but you'll need to have a little patience." Patrick Luce of "Monsters and Critics" said, "Although at times some of the acting is a bit stiff and the special effects are a bit lacking, "Bram Stoker's Dracula's Curse" ... is still packed full of enough gun fights, sword fights and vampire action to deliver a 'popcorn' rollercoaster ride of a fun movie." "Trash City"'s review stated, "Though falling some way short of perfection, if you liked "Hellsing" (the anime) or "Ultraviolet" (the Brit-TV show), then this will probably still be of interest, and is entertaining as such. But if your tastes run more to the fast 'n' furious style of vampire cinema which Hollywood currently prefers, then it's likely less recommended." "Horror Talk"'s review said, "the best movie The Asylum has to offer. ... Scott has crafted something slick in "Bram Stoker's Dracula's Curse". It is a perfect starting point for those wanting to delve into the low-budget world."
583216	Yeh Mera India YMI (also named Y.M.I. Yeh Mera India ) is a 2009 Hindi movie, written and directed by N. Chandra. The film stars Anupam Kher, Perizaad Zorabian, Purab Kohli, Rajpal Yadav, Sarika, and Seema Biswas. Plot. "Yeh Mera India" focuses on the comprehensive lifestyle of Mumbai, with a special focus on the biases that permeate the corner of its society. Whether it is communal bias, social bias, economic bias, religious bias or educational bias, the "bias" factor dominates the entire depiction of the film, merging different characters into one story. The different biases that are incorporated into the film are as following: Biases of these sort weave the entire story into finding resolutions based on the biases of individuals and the reality of the lifestyle of Mumbai. The message clearly floated through movie is "We have to learn to live together like Brothers or perish like Fools", as said by M. Luther King. This movie plot has certain similarities with the plot of "Crash" (2004), an American movie starring Matt Dillon, Sandra Bullock, Don Cheadle, Thandie Newton and Brendan Fraser. Reception. "Yeh Mera India" received mixed reviews from critics. Rajeev Masand said in his review that "the acting's embarrassingly weak and the scenarios all exaggerated", but Taran Adarsh wrote, "Here's a film that pricks your conscience and makes you think". It also failed to do well at the box office. Dialogue. hume is jist se umeed kya thi aur kya nikla... kahan jana hua tha tay, kahan se rasta nikla... khuda jinko samajhte the woh sheesha the na pathar the.. jise patthar samjhte the wahi apna khuda nikla.. tumhare jaise humne dekhne wale nahi dekhe jigar mein is tarah ranj pale nahi dekhe yahan par jaat majhab ka hawala sabne dekha hai kisi ne bhi hamar panv ke chale nahi dekhe... meri aankhon mein aanson tujhse humdum kya kahon kya hai thahar jaye to angara hain beh jaye to dariya hai... kiran chaho to duniya ke andhere gher lete hain meri tarah koi jeele to jeena bhul jayega... kadam uth nahi paate ki rasta kaat deta hai mere maalik akhir mujhko kab tak azmayenge... agar tute kisi ka dil to shab bhar aankh roti hai yeh duniya hai gulon ki jismein kaaten piroti hai... hum apne gaon mein milte hain dushman se bhi ithla kar... tumhara shehar dekha to badi taklif hoti hain.. jab main peeta tha to usne chhudwa di uski kasam dekar doston mein baitha hoon doston ne peela di uski kasam dekar saath bhi choda to kab jab sab bure din kat gaye zindagi tune kahan aake diya dhokha mujhe jisne is daur ke insan kiye hain paida.. woh mera bhi khuda ho, mujhe manzor nahi..
743588	Mater and the Ghostlight is a 2006 Pixar computer-animated short created for the DVD of "Cars", which was released on October 25, 2006 in Australia and in the United States on November 7, 2006. The short, set in the "Cars" world, tells a story of Mater being haunted by a mysterious blue light. Synopsis. The short film opens with Mater playing pranks on the other residents of Radiator Springs. This sequence culminates with Mater teasing Lightning as if he had seen "the Ghostlight," a Route 66 legend recounted to Pixar by Dean Walker of the Kansas Historic Route 66 Association. Sheriff admonishes him for mocking the urban legend, and then tells the tale of the Ghostlight. The rest of the gang say goodnight and turn off all the store lights, leaving a very nervous and scared Mater all alone in the dark. During the body of the short, mayhem ensues as Mater is pursued by the Ghostlight...ultimately revealed to be just a lantern affixed to Mater's towing cable by Lightning and Guido. The other residents of Radiator Springs watch as Mater drives around frantically with the "Ghostlight" on his tail, before Mater tires himself out and the cars tell him it was all a prank to pay him back for all his pranks he played on them. Sheriff gently tells Mater that the only thing to be scared of on Route 66 is "his imagination." Doc then jokes that all Mater really had to fear was "The Screaming Banshee" before they all leave Mater, all alone and frightened once again. In a post-credits scene, Mater actually sees The Screaming Banshee but, not realizing it's him, warns him of the Banshee and leaves the monster truck confused. Cast. Non-speaking characters appearing in the film include Luigi, Guido, Flo, Sarge, Fillmore, Lizzie, Mack, Frank, and Red. Release. "Mater and the Ghostlight" premiered on November 7, 2006, on "Cars" DVD as a special feature. On November 6, 2007, it got its first Blu-ray releases, attached as a special to "Cars" and on "Pixar Short Films Collection Volume 1".
629781	Toby Schmitz (born 1977) is an Australian actor and playwright. He was born in Perth, Western Australia, attended Perth's Scotch College and briefly studied law at the University of Western Australia. He graduated from the acting course at National Institute of Dramatic Art in 1999 and has performed many times on stage for Sydney Theatre Company, Company B at Belvoir St Theatre and Griffin Theatre Company. He has also appeared in film and television, and writes plays. Theatre Credits. His Sydney Theatre Company credits include "The School for Scandal" directed by Judy Davis, the premiere and national tour of David Williamson's "The Great Man" directed by Robyn Nevin, and leading roles in George Bernard Shaw's "Major Barbara", Andrew Upton's "Hanging Man", Tony McNamara's "The Great", Brendan Cowell's "Self Esteem", Nina Raine’s "Rabbit" and Tom Stoppard's "Travesties". Several of these productions toured to Melbourne and other Australian capital cities. For Griffin Theatre Company, he played the central role of Luke Boyce in Louis Nowra's The Boyce Trilogy – "The Woman with Dog's Eyes" (2004), "The Marvellous Boy" (2005) and "The Emperor of Sydney" (2006), all directed by David Berthold. For Company B he played the title role in Brendan Cowell's "Ruben Guthrie" (2008 and 2009). He performed the role of Coleman in "The Lonesome West" at Belvoir St Theatre in 2009. He also appeared in the premiere of Brendan Cowell's "Men" for Rogue Star Productions. In 2000, he directed a production of Howard Korder's "A Boy's Life" at the Bondi Pavilion. In 2008 he directed Neil LaBute's "This Is How It Goes". In 2010, he played the eponymous character Hamlet in the enormously successful La Boite Theatre production in Brisbane, directed by David Berthold and played as Benedick in Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing. Television Credits. His many television credits include "McLeod's Daughters", "The Heartbreak Tour", "The Cooks", "White Collar Blue", "Water Rats", "Fat Cow Motel" (ABC), "Home and Away", "Temptation", and the Steven Spielberg/Tom Hanks produced miniseries "The Pacific". He also be appeared in the third installment of the Underbelly Files series of telemovies, titled ", portraying notorious drug smuggler and organised crime figurehead David McMillan. In 2012, he teamed up with Angus Sampson in Season 1 of the Australian word game "Randling", hosted by Andrew Denton on ABC1. Film Credits. His film credits include "The Rage in Placid Lake", "Somersault", "Agoraphobia in the Desert of the Real", "The Heist", "My Last Ten Hours with You", "Emulsion", "Solo", "Heaven", "Right Here Right Now", for which he was also writer and co-executive produce, and "Three Blind Mice", a film which has played at numerous international film festivals and won awards including the 11th FIPRESCI International Critics Award at the London Film Festival presented to the Best Film in the World Cinema section. His latest film is "Griff the Invisible", to be released in 2010. Schmitz as Playwright. Toby Schmitz is also an awarding-winning playwright. After a solid grounding in writing revue and stand-up comedy at university in Perth, Schmitz wrote his first play, "dreamalittledreamalittle", while studying acting at NIDA. It was presented as a director's project there in 1998 and was later restaged at Belvoir St Theatre. In 2002, Schmitz won Sydney Theatre Company's Patrick White Playwrights' Award with his play "Lucky", which was later produced by the Australian Theatre for Young People. "Chicks Will Dig You" was performed as part of Company B's 2003 B Sharp season. It won the Australian National Playwrights’ Centre/New Dramatists Award in 2004, and was shortlisted for the 2003 Philip Parsons Young Playwrights Award. In 2007, he wrote and directed Capture the Flag for Tamarama Rock Surfers. His other plays include "This Blasted Earth", "Pan", "Cunt Pi", and "Grazing the Phosphorus", commissioned by the National Institute of Dramatic Art. His new play, "The Best Hotel in the Dam" opens for Tamarama Rock Surfers late in 2009. Awards. 2010 Sydney Theatre Awards Nomination for ‘Best Actor in a Supporting Role’ for MEASURE FOR MEASURE 2008 Sydney Theatre Awards Nomination for ‘Best Actor in a Supporting Role’ for THE GREAT 2008 Sydney Theatre Awards Nomination for ‘Best Actor in a Lead Role’ for RUBEN GUTHRIE 2004 Recipient of the Australian National Playwrights’ Centre/New Dramatists Award for CHICKS WILL DIG YOU 2003 Shortlisted for the Philip Parsons Young Playwrights Award for CHICKS WILL DIG YOU 2002 Co-recipient of the Sydney Theatre Company/Sydney Morning Herald Patrick White Playwrights' Award for LUCKY
1165449	Rick Jason (May 21, 1923 – October 16, 2000), born Richard Jacobson, was an American actor, born in New York City, and most remembered for his role as 2nd Lt. Gil Hanley in the ABC television drama "Combat!" (1962–1967). Childhood. An only child of Jewish parents, Jason was expelled from several prep schools before graduating from Rhodes Preparatory School in Manhattan. Military service. Jason served in the U.S. Army Air Forces during World War II from 1943 to 1945. He also visited American troops serving in Vietnam on several USO tours in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
582182	Do Dooni Chaar () is a 2010 Indian Hindi comedy-drama film produced by Arindam Chaudhuri (Planman Motion Pictures), directed by Habib Faisal, and stars Rishi Kapoor, Neetu Singh, Aditi Vasudev and Archit Krishna in lead roles. The film is about a middle-class school teacher who tries to keep his wife and children happy in inflationary times and dreams of buying a car. The movie also marks the return of the Kapoor pair as a lead couple on the silver screen. Although the duo has not acted in a film in over 30 years, they had previously acted in numerous hits during the 1970s. The directorial debut film was also the first live action Hindi film to be distributed by Disney World Cinema. Plot. Life can be tough for a man (Rishi Kapoor) who teaches at a school for a living, lives in a DDA flat in Lajpat Nagar, Delhi and is coping with the double digit inflation rates and single digit increments in his salary. Add to that, A teenage daughter, a fast-track son and a wife (Neetu Kapoor) who loves the good life. The life of the Duggals is passing by in simply taking care of the basics. Until one day, they decide to dream. Their ticket to dreaming comes in the form of a wedding invitation. An innocent little wedding invitation. What follows is a journey of chaos, realizations, calculations, confrontations and bonding. This crazy Duggals will fight it out at home (and the neighborhood) for what they think is a ‘good buy’ for the family! This family bonds in the most unexpected and hilarious situations. And just when they think they are sorted out, comes one big, lurking temptation. Much like the apple in the Garden of Eden. And then, begins another journey that will drive them, and you, pretty much nuts. Theme. The film deals with the issue of underpaid teachers, and their issue with their self-worth in the face of growing inflation and demands of their family. The middle-class school teacher who works overtime to support his income and to send his children to good schools, ends up in a moral dilemma, when it comes to fulfilling the needs of his ever unsatisfied teenage children. As per producer, Arindam Chaudhuri, "The common question the teacher asks when he looks at his student, who is just 25 and owns a car, is why at 55 he is still riding a scooter?" In the end, it is not just the teacher who redeems himself by not succumbing to taking bribes, but also his children who begin to see him in the true light and importance of being a teacher and an honest citizen. Production. Development. Even at the script development stage, Rishi Kapoor had been in the mind of the makers, for the female lead opposite Rishi Kapoor, initially Juhi Chawla was approached, she however refused the role. Although Neetu-Rishi pair had made a brief appearance in the Saif Ali Khan and Deepika Padukone starrer 2009 film "Love Aaj Kal", "Do Dooni Chaar" was their first film as a lead pair, after a gap of 30 years as Neetu Singh had retired from film after her marriage to Rishi Kapoor in 1979. Later in an interview Neetu, revealed she had no intentions of signing on the film and agreed to listen to the script at the insistence of her husband, who has already been signed on. Upon hearing the script from the director Habib, she started imaging herself as "Kusum Duggal" and immediately agreed to the part. Filming. Film was shot on locations across Delhi, in places like Kirori Mal College, Vinobapuri, Shalimar Bagh (Delhi), Khan Market, C.R. Park and Noida. The wedding sequence in the film set in Meerut, was shot in a Chhattarpur farmhouse and later in Nizamuddin area, in early 2009. Release. In August 2010, the film became the first live action Hindi feature film to be distributed by Walt Disney India. The movie premiered at a suburban theater in Mumbai on 6 October, attended by the cast and Bollywood stars, followed by a nationwide release on 8 October 2010. The film had its North American premiere as the opening night film of the 2011 New York Indian Film Festival on 4 May 2011. Home media. The film will be released on Disney DVD, Movie Download, and On Demand on 26 July 2011. The release will be produced in DVD widescreen and include a Hindi language track plus English subtitles. Promotion. Lead actors, Rishi Kapoor and Neetu Kapoor appeared on several television shows, to promote the film, including, "Taarak Mehta Ka Ooltah Chashmah". Reception. Critical reception. Critics praised the movie giving an average of 3/5 stars. Critics also praised the performances by every actor specially Rishi Kapoor and Neetu Kapoor. Anupama Chopra of "NDTV" called it, "a film with grace" and commended the film for its "inherent niceness and decency". Pratim D. Gupta of "The Telegraph" gave two thumbs up to the film calling it "an irresistible trip to the movies" that "makes you feel good about yourself". Mayank Shekhar of "Hindustan Times" giving 4/5 stars said, "Full on paisa vasool! dig into the duggals" while Sudhish Kamath of "The Hindu" called it “One of the most important films of our times. A celebration of the great Indian middle class. A landmark in indian film making!” Rajeev Masand of "CNN-IBN" also liked the movie saying "Do Dooni... is simple but lovable." Similarly veteran critic Taran Adarsh of "Bollywood Hungama" called it a “A little gem that should not be missed!” Vinayak Chakravorty of Mail Today gave it three stars, writing: "Debutant Habib Faisal’s direction works for the way he underplays routine ironies of life." Box office. The film collected in its theatrical run and was declared a below average grosser.
1066489	Shareeka Epps (born July 11, 1989) is an American actress. She starred in the 2006 film "Half Nelson", alongside Ryan Gosling. Life and career. Epps was born in Brooklyn, New York. She starred in the low budget, short film "Gowanus, Brooklyn," alongside Matt Kerr. "Half Nelson" was based on this film. For "Half Nelson", she won the Gotham Award for Breakthrough Performance and was named Best Supporting Actress by the Boston Society of Film Critics and Best Actress by the Independent Spirit Awards. She was also nominated for Best Supporting Actress by the Broadcast Film Critics Association.
1055742	A Dangerous Method is a 2011 historical film directed by David Cronenberg and starring Keira Knightley, Viggo Mortensen, Michael Fassbender, and Vincent Cassel. The screenplay was adapted by writer Christopher Hampton from his 2002 stage play "The Talking Cure", which was based on the 1993 non-fiction book by John Kerr, "A Most Dangerous Method: The story of Jung, Freud, and Sabina Spielrein". The film marks the third consecutive collaboration between Cronenberg and Viggo Mortensen (after "A History of Violence" and "Eastern Promises"). This is also the third Cronenberg film made with British film producer Jeremy Thomas, after completing together the William Burroughs adaptation "Naked Lunch" and the J.G. Ballard adaptation "Crash". "A Dangerous Method" was a German/Canadian co-production. The film premiered at the 68th Venice Film Festival and was also featured at the 2011 Toronto International Film Festival. Set on the eve of World War I, "A Dangerous Method" describes the turbulent relationships between Carl Jung, founder of analytical psychology, Sigmund Freud, founder of the discipline of psychoanalysis, and Sabina Spielrein, initially a patient of Jung and later a physician and one of the first female psychoanalysts. Plot. Sabina Spielrein arrives at the Burghölzli, the preeminent psychiatric hospital in Zurich, with a typical case of hysteria and begins a new course of treatment with the young Swiss doctor, Carl Jung. He is using word association and dream interpretation as part of his approach to Freud's radical new science of psychoanalysis, and finds that Fraulein Spielrein's condition was triggered by the humiliation and sexual arousal she felt as a child due to her short-tempered father's habit of spanking her naked. These conflicting feelings were compounded by her instinctive knowledge (imparted by an angel's voice that speaks in German) that she had done nothing to deserve such a punishment and in fact that she may have been a stand-in for her mother in her father's abuse (since her mother was unfaithful). Also, her affluent Russian Jewish family afforded her an exceptional education in preparation for university study, although not on the subject of sex, and she was a virgin. Her intelligence and energy were immediately recognized and encouraged by Jung and Eugen Bleuler, the head of the hospital, and since she plans to study medicine they allow her to assist them in their experiments, including measuring the physical reactions of subjects during word association, to provide empirical data as a scientific basis for psychoanalysis and ameliorate the more sensational aspects of Freud's theories, which contend that all mental illness is rooted in childhood sexual experience, be it real or fantasy. She soon learns that much of this new science is founded on the doctors' observations of themselves, each other, and their families, not just their patients. The doctors correspond at length before they meet, and begin sharing their dreams and analysing each other, and Freud adopts Jung as his heir and agent. Jung finds in Sabina a kindred spirit with a unique perspective as her self-awareness sharpens, and their attraction deepens in what was already well known at the time as transference. Jung's resistance to the idea of infidelity, and breaking the taboo of sex with a patient, is undercut by the wild and unrepentant confidences of another brilliant, philandering, unstable psychoanalyst who comes under his care, Otto Gross. He decries monogamy in general and suggests that resistance to transference is symptomatic of the repression of normal, healthy sexual impulses, exhorting Jung to indulge himself with abandon. Jung finally begins their affair, which in the film includes rudimentary bondage and spanking Sabina at times. Things become even more tangled as he becomes her advisor to her dissertation; he publishes not only his studies of her as a patient but eventually her treatise as well. Her original ideas are rooted not only in her insights into her childhood trauma, but the intensity and conflicts in their relationship. Spielrein's thesis suggests that truly heroic, original creations can only emerge from the crucible of great conflict, such as the attraction of opposites and the breaking of taboos, and thus the instinct for creation is inextricably tied to a drive to destruction, and that these feelings and ideas are not restricted to sexual expression despite their roots in the biological drive to reproduce. This includes, finally, his refusal to give her a love child, which is the story behind the reference to Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen operas: they see themselves in the legend of Siegfried, the archetypal Teutonic hero born from a forbidden union. After his attempt to confine their relationship again to doctor and patient, she appeals to Freud for his professional help, and forces Jung to tell Freud the truth about their relationship, reminding him that she could have publicly damaged him but did not want to. Freud uses his knowledge of the relationship to bully Jung, who is planning to publish new theories quite different from Freud's. Jung is working on "Psychology of the Unconscious", and his emerging theories of symbolism, archetypes and transformation are heavily influenced by the theme of Sabina's dissertation and their discussion of the Siegfried mythology but he does not cite her in publication, acknowledging her only in private, and Freud does the same, despite the fact that he welcomed her defection from Jung's sphere of influence. Jung throws off his mantle as Freud's "son and heir", and their friendship ends. Shortly after Freud dismisses the new ideas expressed by Spielrein in the local meeting of the new psychoanalytic society in Vienna, she marries another Russian physician, and leaves both men behind her. Sabina Spielrein, by then a successful child psychologist and already a widow, was killed with her children by the Nazis during World War II. Production. Hampton's earliest version of the screenplay, dating back to the 1990s, was written for Julia Roberts in the role of Sabina Spielrein, but the film was never realized. Hampton re-wrote the screenplay for the stage, before producer Jeremy Thomas acquired the rights for both the earlier script and the stage version. The film was produced by Britain's Recorded Picture Company, with Germany's Lago Film and Canada's Prospero Film acting as co-producers. Additional funding was provided by Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg, MFG Baden-Württemberg, Filmstiftung NRW, the German Federal Film Board and Film Fund, Ontario Media Development Corp and Millbrook Pictures. Christoph Waltz was initially cast as Sigmund Freud, but was replaced by Viggo Mortensen due to a scheduling conflict. Christian Bale had been in talks to play Carl Jung, but he too had to drop out because of scheduling conflicts.
1084290	C.C. and Company is a movie that was released in 1970. It starred Joe Namath as biker C.C. Ryder, Ann-Margret as fashion journalist Ann, and William Smith as Moon, the leader of the fictitious outlaw biker gang the "Heads". Plot summary. C.C. Ryder falls in with a biker gang in the desert, and then rescues Ann from trouble with the same gang. There next occurs a motocross race tied in with a fashion shoot. The Heads disrupt the event, but C.C. Ryder enters the race to gain Ann's favor. This puts him in conflict with Moon. When Ryder wins the race and leaves with his award money the gang kidnaps Ann, and Ryder must ride back to save her.
1054985	The Perfect Game is a 2009 American drama film directed by William Dear, based on the 2008 book of the same name written by W. William Winokur. The film is based on the events leading to the 1957 Little League World Series, which was won by the first team from outside the United States, the Industrial Little League of Monterrey, Mexico, who defeated the heavily favored U.S. team. Mexican pitcher Ángel Macías threw the first, and so far only, perfect game in championship game history. Plot. César Faz (Clifton Collins, Jr.), moves to Monterrey, Mexico after he is let go by the St. Louis Cardinals from his job as a clubhouse attendant. There he meets local children being led by Padre Esteban (Cheech Marin), enjoying baseball; he takes pitcher Ángel Macías (Jake T. Austin), under his wing and brags about his own pitching skills and how he used to coach the Cardinals. Ángel convinces César to help recruit and coach Monterrey's first-ever Little League team. With César's skills and Padre Esteban's support, the boys hone themselves into a competitive team worthy of international competition. At the final game of the World Series of Little League, Monterrey defeated the team of West La Mesa, California 4-0. Enrique Suárez (Jansen Panettiere), hit a home run with the bases loaded and getting 4 runs, Ángel Macías pitched a perfect game, a feat that has not been repeated in the history of the World Series of Little League. When the team arrives in the United States, they are met with racism, a language barrier, and visa troubles. Though the underdogs, the team scores a series of victories that endear them to the media, and new fans. They befriend a sports reporter, Frankie (Emilie de Ravin), and the groundskeeper, Cool Papa Bell (Louis Gossett, Jr.), who then assist the boys in reaching the final game. Background. The film is based on a true story about a group of boys from Monterrey, Mexico, who became the first non-U.S. team to win the Little League World Series in 1957. Their team was Industriales de Monterrey, nicknamed "Los pequeños gigantes" (The little giants). Before traveling to the United States, the Little League team of the Industriales de Monterrey Baseball Club, played two seasons on the local 4 team Little League circuit before qualifying, as the second Little League team coming from outside of the United States and Canada; they participated in the southern area regional tournaments, which qualified them for the Little League World Series, held every August in South Williamsport, Pennsylvania. The Industriales won all qualifying tournaments, to many rather unexpectedly, and advanced to the Little League World Series as the first Mexican team. There, they made it to the finals and defeated the highly favored team from La Mesa, California by a score of 4-0. The Pitcher from Monterrey, Angel Macías, threw the first and only perfect game in championship history. The Industriales de Monterrey little league team was so dominant that year, that they were able to repeat their success in the following year in the 1958 Little League World Series. The film scenes in Monterrey, which is the leading industrial center, one of the largest Mexican cities for over 100 years and a major center for science and research in Mexico, depicted the city as a two-burro village where the children played ball in the dirt choked streets with pigs and chickens serving as bases. The border between Mexico and Texas was portrayed as an out-in-the-middle-of-nowhere border crossing along a dirt road, instead of a bridge border-crossing over the Rio Grande. The digital work to recreate the separate looks for the United States and Monterrey in 1957 was done by Post Logic Studios. Reception. The film has received mixed reviews. Patrick Goldstein of the "Los Angeles Times" said he felt that "the film did a nice job of telling the story of the surprise upset when a youth ball team from Monterrey, Mexico, won the 1957 Little League World Series." He also commented that, "although the story seems like a fable, it reflected true events." He further expressed concern over Lionsgate's suspending the original release date. Ben Apatoff of MLB.com felt that the film was a strong family movie that appeals to baseball history buffs or any person who could relate to a child in love with the game. Roger Ebert wrote: "You sort of know how these underdog sports movies turn out. Doesn't matter. "The Perfect Game" so expertly uses the charisma and personalities of the actors, especially the young ones, that it's thrilling anyway." A. O. Scott of "At the Movies" said, " the second minute of the movie I knew every single thing that was going to happen and there was not a single surprise." Michael Phillips of the "Chicago Tribune" wrote, "The movie feels fradulent, whether it's sticking to the historical record or going its own way with the customary composites and revisions and fabrications." The film ranking website Rotten Tomatoes reports that 54% of critics have given "The Perfect Game" positive reviews, based upon a sample of 39. Release. The film screened at the 2009 Guadalajara International Film Festival, with Eva Longoria invited to the preview. Louis Gosset Jr. was also in attendance for the premiere. The film was originally to be released in theaters on August 8, 2008, but it was bumped from that date, which Lionsgate said was due to marketing monies another party pledged but did not deliver.
1066697	People I Know is a 2002 crime drama film directed by Daniel Algrant and stars Al Pacino, Kim Basinger, and Téa Leoni. Plot. Eli Wurman (Al Pacino) is a Jewish publicist on the out, but all he knows is how to hustle and cajole, threaten and persuade. The hazy mania of his everyday life is fuelled by a steady stream of prescription drugs and alcohol. One night, Eli's last remaining "big client" Cary Launer (Ryan O'Neal) – an actor considering a campaign for political office – entreats Eli to take care of his latest publicity mess, a dangerous liaison with Jilli Hopper (Téa Leoni), a hard-shelled, quick-tongued television actress with a soft centre and a taste for illegal drugs. The actress takes Eli to a drug-and-sex den, a playground for the rich and famous, where she claims to be looking for a toy. Jilli is escorted off the premises by security. As she demands to know "Where is my toy?", she finds it and tells the guards, "I got all of you now." Eli is too stoned to understand the exchange. Eli takes her back to the hotel room, where he takes more pills and passes out right after witnessing what appears to be the actress's murder. In his opiate daze, he cannot be sure. By the next morning, the memory is buried. Eli needs to pull together a charity benefit. He also is tempted to leave New York for good with his former sister-in-law, Victoria. But his work is interrupted by the police who question him and by acquaintances trying to ascertain how much Eli has seen and recalls. Eli finally realizes he is involved in something politically dangerous, and powerful forces are at play to keep his mouth shut. As he strives to bring together the people he knows – members of the Black and Jewish communities, film stars and media – for the grand fundraiser, it becomes clear that dangerous forces are in play. But will the increasingly befuddled Eli be able to stay ahead of the game? Will he exploit the secret and continue his downward spiral into decadence or will he use the opportunity to change? Reception. The film received mixed reviews. On Rotten Tomatoes it was given a rating of 43% making it rotten. The consensus was that the plot is derivative and incoherent, and that it does not engage the viewer. Empire magazine gave a largely positive review, awarding 4 stars out of five, and said that ' May be a slow-burn, but despite its lack of success elsewhere, it’s still more than worthy of its long-delayed cinema release. Discerning audiences willing to invest in the characters will soon warm to the downbeat story and Al Pacino’s subdued performance – especially the scenes he shares with Basinger'. BBC said that it was an 'intriguing but deeply flawed thriller'. Time out magazine said that 'With its uncertainties of tone, this is a mess, full of misplaced performances (not least Basinger as Eli's supportive sister-in-law), misfires and moral inconsistencies. But its rebellious spirit is commendable'.
1163367	Brian Kerwin (born October 25, 1949) is an American actor. Born in Chicago, Illinois, Kerwin won the Theatre World Award in 1988 for the off-Broadway play "Emily". His Broadway theatre credits include the 1997 revival of "The Little Foxes" and the Elaine May comedy "After the Night and the Music" in 2005. That same year he starred in Edward Albee's "The Goat or Who is Sylvia?" at the Mark Taper Forum. In 1989 he had played Nick in a revival of Albee's "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" at the Doolittle Theatre (now the Ricardo Montalbán Theatre) in Los Angeles. The production, directed by the playwright, also featured Glenda Jackson and John Lithgow, with Cynthia Nixon as his character's wife, Honey. The production was not well received. He also played opposite Kathy Baker in the South Coast Repertory production of "The Man from Nebraska" in 2006. His most recent stage appearance was in the Broadway production "". Kerwin's feature films include "Murphy's Romance", "Hard Promises", "27 Dresses" (as Katherine Heigl's character's father), "Torch Song Trilogy", "Love Field", "Jack", "King Kong Lives", "The Myth of Fingerprints", and "Debating Robert Lee". Kerwin has enjoyed an extensive career in television, beginning with the daytime serial "The Young and the Restless" in 1976. In addition to many television movies, his credits include a regular role on the Showtime series "Beggars and Choosers", recurring roles on "The Misadventures of Sheriff Lobo", "The Chisholms" (four 1979 episodes as Gideon Chisholm), "Roseanne", "The West Wing", "Nip/Tuck" and "Big Love" and guest appearances in "The Love Boat", "Simon & Simon", "Highway to Heaven", "Murder, She Wrote", "St. Elsewhere", "Frasier", "Law & Order", "", "Boston Legal", "Medium", "Without a Trace", and "Desperate Housewives". In 2007, he joined the cast of the soap opera "One Life to Live". Brian was also in a television movie with Michelle Pfeiffer called "Tales from the Hollywood Hills: Natica Jackson". He played her married lover. His name was spelled Brain Kerwin in the credits. Kerwin has been married to Jeanne Marie Troy since September 2, 1990. They have three children, Finn, Matilda, and Brennan. The family lives in New York City. Awards. He was nominated for a Daytime Emmy in the Outstanding Supporting Actor category in 2008, 2010 and 2011 for his work on "One Life to Live".
585304	Oru Yathramozhi (Malayalam : ഒരു യാത്രാമൊഴി) is a 1997 Malayalam film starring Mohanlal & Sivaji Ganeshan directed by Prathap Pothan and story by Priyadarshan. It was produced by V.B.K.Menon and distributed by Kavya Chandrika Release. Story. It is a story about a father and a son which is filled with sentiments or sorrow. Govindankutty (Mohanlal) is on a look out for his unknown father seeking to take revenge by killing him for leaving him and his mother. Then enters Anantha Subramaniam (Sivaji Ganeshan) a rich trader, who comes to Govindankutty's home-town and likes him instantly for his loyalty and honesty. Both of them become very close to each other. The story takes a turn when Govindankutty's mother recognizes the rich trader as her long-lost husband and later on Govindankutty gets to know the rich trader is his father. The story then comes into climax as Govindankutty tries to make the tough decision to kill his father or not? Trivia. "Swarnachamaram" was the film which was supposed to be the first Sivaji Ganeshan and Mohanlal combination movie. The film was directed by Rajeevnath, but due to unofficial reasons, the film was dropped after canning many scenes and a song of "Sivaji Ganeshan" and "Mohanlal" combo. So producer V.B.K.Menon used the same dates and announced "Yathramozhi", which had the story by Priyadarshan. Even after the completion of the movie, the film was on hold for over 1 year, but became a Box-office hit, surprising everybody. Illayaraja' s music was a major highlight of this movie. The title "Yathramozhi" was changed as "Oru Yathramozhi" later.
1058066	Lori Petty (born October 14, 1963) is an American actress, film director and screenwriter. As an actress, she is best known for playing Tyler Endicott in the 1991 film "Point Break", Kit Keller in "A League of Their Own" (1992), and the title role in "Tank Girl" in 1995. Early life. Petty, the oldest of three children, was born in Chattanooga, Tennessee, the daughter of a Pentecostal minister. She graduated from North High School in Sioux City, Iowa in 1981 and worked for several years in Omaha, Nebraska as a graphic designer before pursuing acting. Career. Petty first came to notice for playing Keanu Reeves' surfer girlfriend in the 1991 action thriller "Point Break". Prior to that, she got her break starring with Richard Grieco in Fox's "Booker". In 1992, Petty was featured in what became her best known role, "A League of Their Own", opposite Tom Hanks, Geena Davis and Madonna. Petty played the title role in the film adaptation of the British cult comic book "Tank Girl" in 1995. Her other films include "Free Willy" and "In the Army Now". She also co-starred in the television series "Lush Life" with her friend Karyn Parsons, but it was canceled after four episodes. She joined the cast of "Brimstone" as the owner of Stone's hotel. Petty is also known for providing the voice of the supervillain Livewire on the Warner Bros. series ', and "The New Batman Adventures". Although she was originally cast as Lt. Lenina Huxley in "Demolition Man", disagreements over the character's direction led producer Joel Silver to recast the role with Sandra Bullock. Petty played the role of "Daddy", an alpha-female inmate in '. Petty's directorial debut, "The Poker House" won awards at the Los Angeles Film Festival.
1070706	Max Julien (born January 1, 1945), is an American actor, best known for his role as Goldie in the 1973 blaxploitation film, "The Mack". He also appeared in "Def Jam's How to Be a Player" and has guest starred on TV shows such as "The Mod Squad" and "One on One". Film career. A classically trained actor, Julien began his career on the stage in New York's Off-Broadway circuit including Joseph Papp's "Shakespeare-In-The-Park". Moving westward to Hollywood, he landed co-starring roles with Jack Nicholson in "Psych-Out" and Candice Bergen in Columbia's box-office hit film "Getting Straight". While spending time in Rome, Italy, he wrote and directed a documentary called "Trestevre," then wrote the screenplay for, and subsequently co-produced, Warner Brothers's blaxplotation classic "Cleopatra Jones," which starred actress Tamara Dobson in the title role as a narcotics agent who was as skilled in martial arts as she was with firearms. Julien refused to participate in the sequel, "Cleopatra Jones and the Casino of Gold," which led to his being credited instead with the film's story and script both being ""based on characters created by Max Julien."" Critics. For his performance in 1968's "Up Tight!", New York Times movie critic Judith Crist stated that Julien was ""a standout in a standout cast."" Raoul Gripenwaldt from the Santa Monica Evening Outlook once wrote: "Max Julien's portrayal of Johnny Wells in Paramount's "Uptight" could very well result in an Academy Award." The Hollywood Reporter chimed in: "Max Julien creates a memorable piece of reality." As a reward he was invited to Europe to discuss film possibilities.
582536	Sachin Khedekar () is an Indian actor and director from Maharashtra, best known for his roles in the film "Astitva", TV series "Imtihaan", and as Subhas Chandra Bose in Shyam Benegal's "". He has directed "Kalchakra". Awards and achievements. Sachin Khedekar has won the Screen Award for Best Actor for the "Sailaab" on television and has been awarded for his roles in the movies "Kadachit" and "Me Shivajiraje Bhosale Boltoy". He won the Best Actor in a Historical Role award for his portrayal of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose in the film "". He won the Zee Gaurav for Best Actor for the movies "Mrigajal" and "Me Shivajiraje Bhosale Boltoy" and a State Award for "Ghara Baher". Sachin is hosting the Marathi version of Kaun Banega Crorepati, called Kon Hoeel Marathi Crorepati, on ETV Marathi.
1058729	The Flintstones in Viva Rock Vegas is a 2000 American family-romantic comedy film and prequel to 1994's "The Flintstones" based on the 1960s cartoon series of the same name, produced by Amblin Entertainment and Hanna-Barbera and distributed by Universal Pictures. Set before the Flintstones and Rubbles were married and had kids and the events of the first film, it featured very few of the original cast. Despite slightly more positive reviews than the first film, "Viva Rock Vegas" bombed at the box office. Ann-Margret, who appeared as 'Ann-Margrock' in the original television series, sings the theme song, which is a slightly rewritten version of the theme song from "Viva Las Vegas", in which Ann-Margret co-starred with Elvis Presley. Plot. Young bachelors and best friends, Fred Flintstone (Mark Addy) and Barney Rubble (Stephen Baldwin) try to find decent girlfriends. They meet a little green alien called the Great Gazoo (Alan Cumming), who was exiled to Earth by his species. Gazoo, whom only Fred and Barney can see, decides to follow Fred and Barney to gather information, even though his superior knowledge and personality annoys them. Wilma Slaghoople (Kristen Johnston), meanwhile, is living in a mansion with her wealthy parents. Her control-freak mother, Pearl (Joan Collins), thinks that her daughter's wish to do common things such as bowling is silly and wants her to marry rich smooth casino-owner Chip Rockefeller (Thomas Gibson). After a fight with her mother, Wilma angrily storms out of the house and goes to a Bronto King in Bedrock, where she is waited on by Betty O'Shale (Jane Krakowski). Betty mistakenly thinks that Wilma is a "caveless" person and offers to share her apartment with her. Wilma is also given a job at the restaurant.
1059750	Mia Sara (born June 19, 1967) is an American actress best known for her roles in films such as "Legend" (1985), "Ferris Bueller's Day Off" (1986), and "Timecop" (1994). Early life. Born Mia Sarapochiello in Brooklyn Heights, New York, to Jerome Sarapochiello, a photographer and artist, and Diana Sarapochiello, a stylist and also a photographer, she attended St. Ann's School, in Brooklyn, New York. Career. Sara's breakthrough roles came in the mid-1980s as Princess Lili, playing opposite Tom Cruise in "Legend" and as Ferris Bueller's girlfriend, Sloane Peterson in the 1986 film "Ferris Bueller's Day Off". She also appeared in the miniseries "Queenie", a roman à clef on actress Merle Oberon, as well as 1992's "A Stranger Among Us", directed by Sidney Lumet. In 1994 she starred opposite Jean-Claude Van Damme in the blockbuster "Timecop", for which she won the Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actress. Her television roles have included playing Annie Knox in the science fiction series "Time Trax" (1993–94) and Dr. Harleen Quinzel in the short-lived WB Network superhero show "Birds of Prey" (2002). Personal life. Sara enjoys flying and holds a private pilot license. In March 1996, Sara was married to Jason Connery, the son of Sean Connery, with whom she performed in "Bullet to Beijing". In June 1997, they had a son, Dashiell Quinn Connery. The couple divorced in 2002. She is now married to Brian Henson, the son of Muppet creator Jim Henson.
1059793	Francisco "Frankie" Muñiz IV (born December 5, 1985) is an American actor, musician, writer, producer, and racecar driver. He is known primarily as the star of the FOX television family sitcom "Malcolm in the Middle", which earned him an Emmy Award nomination and two Golden Globe Award nominations. In 2003, he was considered "one of Hollywood's most bankable teens." In 2008, he put his acting career on hold to pursue an open wheel racing career. He competed in the Atlantic Championship. In 2012, he joined the band Kingsfoil as a drummer. Early life. Muniz was born and grew up in Wood-Ridge, New Jersey His father, Francisco III, was a restaurateur, and his mother, Denise, was a nurse. Muniz is of Puerto Rican, Italian, and Irish descent. He has an elder sister, Cristina. Muniz was first discovered at the age of eight, at a talent show in Raleigh, North Carolina, shortly after the family moved to the area from New Jersey. He was cast as Tiny Tim in a local production of "A Christmas Carol". Shortly after, his parents divorced, and he subsequently moved to Burbank, California, with his mother. He appeared in commercials and made his film debut in the made-for-television movie "To Dance With Olivia" (1997), starring Lou Gossett Jr. In that same year, he appeared in the CBS Hallmark Hall of Fame presentation of "What the Deaf Man Heard". A small role in the film "Lost & Found" (1999) led to his breakout role as the title character on "Malcolm in the Middle". Career. Acting. Fox premiered "Malcolm in the Middle" on January 9, 2000, as a mid-season replacement, and the show was quickly overcome with accolades. The premiere episode was watched by 23 million people and the second episode by 26 million. He was nominated for the Emmy Awards in 2001, and received the "Hollywood Reporter" "Young Star Award" for his work in the series. Throughout his television career, Muniz made guest appearances on the shows "Lizzie McGuire", "Sabrina, the Teenage Witch", and "MADtv". His first starring role in a feature film was as Willie Morris in the 2000 family period piece "My Dog Skip", released around the same time as the pilot for "Malcolm In The Middle". That same year, he played the voice of Domino in the 2000 video game "". He was featured on the video game "Stargate Worlds". The following year, he contributed a voice to the animal cast of the film "Dr. Dolittle 2". He had a hit with the 2002 release "Big Fat Liar", which teamed him with teen actress Amanda Bynes as a pair of students seeking revenge on a sleazy movie producer (played by Paul Giamatti). Muniz was also part of the ensemble for the gang film "Deuces Wild", released that same year. In 2003, he made a cameo appearance as Cher's underage boyfriend in "Stuck on You". That same year, he appeared in the series premiere of Ashton Kutcher's MTV practical joke series "Punk'd". Muniz subsequently played the title role in the film "Agent Cody Banks", as well as its sequel, "". The first film opened in March 2003, and grossed $47 million; the sequel, which opened a year later, grossed $28 million. He trained in martial arts for the films, and performed most of his own stunts. He also commented that it was the point in his career where he should "make the transition from child actor to an adult actor or a respectable actor." Muniz voiced a racing zebra named Stripes in the 2005 film "Racing Stripes". That same year, he made a guest appearance as himself in "Mr. F", an episode of the Fox comedy "Arrested Development". In April 2006, he began filming "My Sexiest Year", an independent film in which Harvey Keitel played his father. He announced, during that same month, that he would be taking a break from acting, in order to pursue a career in race car driving, under a full-time two-year deal with Jensen Motorsport in the Formula BMW competition. "Malcolm in the Middle" finished its run May 14, 2006. Ten days later, Muniz appeared in the horror movie "Stay Alive". He expressed a desire to leave traditional Hollywood film roles behind, saying: Despite his earlier stated intention to take a break from acting, in May 2006, he signed on to star in the R-rated teen-sex comedy "Extreme Movie". The film was originally planned to be released in 2007 by Dimension Films, but was ultimately released straight to DVD in February 2009. In late 2007, he made a guest appearance in an episode of the CBS crime drama "Criminal Minds". In December 2007, he made a cameo appearance in the movie "", playing Buddy Holly. In 2012, he made a cameo appearance as himself in the second season of the comedy "Don't Trust the B---- in Apartment 23". Writing, producing and music. Muniz started writing in 2004, when he wrote the screenplay of the TV show "Granted". To date, that is his only screenplay. In 2004, he was the executive producer of "Granted". In 2006, he was also executive producer for the movie "". A year later (2007), he became an associate producer of the film "Choose Connor". Muniz joined the unsigned band You Hang Up as a drummer. He said, "This is something I have always wanted in my life, and I'm thrilled to be associated with such a great group of guys!" In 2012, Muniz joined Kingsfoil, a band based in York, Pennsylvania, and currently endorses Imperial Cymbals. Racecar driving. Muniz's career in car racing traces back to 2005, when he won the Toyota Pro/Celebrity Race as a celebrity participant. While investigating the possibility of joining a racing team as an owner, he was granted a test in a car, and instead signed a two-year deal with Jensen Motorsport as a driver. Muniz entered fourteen races during the 2006 Formula BMW USA series, and failed to finish in a point-scoring position. He was selected as one of the thirty–six drivers to compete in the annual Formula BMW World Final, despite his poor performance in the national series. The event, dominated by German Christian Vietoris, saw him make a small impact, as he finished twenty–ninth. In 2007, Muniz moved up to the more competitive Champ Car Atlantic Series, where he competed in the entire season of 12 races. For the season, his best finish was ninth place, and he officially earned a total of 41 points and $17,000 in prize money, logging 351 season laps. In January 2007, he placed second at the Sebring Winter National race. He signed with Atlantic Championship winning team Pacific Coast Motorsports in January 2008, with a goal to compete consistently in the top ten in the 2008 event "Cooper Tires Presents the Atlantic Championship Powered by Mazda". He finished the 2008 season in eleventh place. At the end of the 2008 season, he won the Jovy Marcelo Award, an award for sportsmanship voted on by fellow drivers named in memory of the 1991 Atlantic Championship winner who was killed during practice for the 1992 Indianapolis 500. Personal life. In 2007, Muniz began dating Elycia Marie, the owner of Arcadia Vintage. On October 22, 2011, Muniz tweeted that the couple were engaged. On November 30, 2012, Muniz was hospitalized after having a "mini stroke", also described as a transient ischemic attack, and spoke about the experience on "Katie". Muniz lives in Arizona. Muniz criticized the Obama administration for hiring Susan Rice as National Security Advisor in early June 2013.
1045055	The River King is a 2005 film starring Edward Burns, Rachelle Lefèvre and Jennifer Ehle as a policeman, student and teacher all searching for the truth behind the apparent suicide of a young man at a small private school. Lefevre plays Carlin Leander, the young man's only real friend, who is now haunted by memories of their increasingly difficult relationship. The film is based on a book by Alice Hoffman.
1104849	Pierre-Louis Lions (born August 11, 1956) is a French mathematician. His parents were Jacques-Louis Lions, a mathematician and at that time professor at the University of Nancy, who became President of the International Mathematical Union, and Andrée Olivier, his wife. He graduated from the École Normale Supérieure in 1977 (same year as Jean-Christophe Yoccoz). Refusing to take the "agrégation" in Mathematics, he chose to carry out research in applied mathematics and received his doctorate from the University of Pierre and Marie Curie in 1979. He studies the theory of nonlinear partial differential equations, and received the Fields Medal for his mathematical work in 1994 while working at the University of Paris-Dauphine. Lions was the first to give a complete solution to the Boltzmann equation with proof. Other awards Lions received include the IBM Prize in 1987 and the Philip Morris Prize in 1991. He is a doctor honoris causa of Heriot-Watt University (Edinburgh) and of the City University of Hong-Kong and is listed as an ISI highly cited researcher. Currently, he holds the position of Professor of "Partial differential equations and their applications" at the prestigious Collège de France in Paris as well as a position at École Polytechnique. In the paper "Viscosity solutions of Hamilton-Jacobi equations" (1983), written with Michael G. Crandall, he introduced the notion of viscosity solutions. This has had a great effect on the theory of partial differential equations.
583765	Kuruthipunal (A Flood of Blood) is a 1995 Tamil action thriller film directed by veteran cinematographer P. C. Sreeram. The film stars Kamal Haasan in the lead role, with Arjun and Nassar in supporting roles. The film featured no songs and the background score was composed by Mahesh Mahadevan. Produced by Kamal Hassan, the story is a remake of Govind Nihalani's Hindi film "Drohkaal", The film was a blockbuster and completed 175-days run at the box office. And it was the first Kamal film to beat the record set by "Apoorva Sagodharargal" six years earlier. The film met with critical reception upon release and became a trendsetter for action films during that period of time. This stylish cop thriller revolves around a police officer with familial obligations and a strong desire to curb terrorism in the country. Plot. Two honest and bold police officers Adhi Narayanan (Kamal Hassan) and Abbas (Arjun) device a master plan to bring in control the Terrorist Groups and send two secret vigilance officers, named Anand and Shiva on an operation called Operation "Dhanush". The objective is to infiltrate a terror group headed by a man named Badri, and send information back to Abbas. A leak from inside the police camp leads the terrorist to oust Anand as a spy but before they could torture him and get the information of the second spy, he commits suicide. Through Shiva, Adhi and Abbas learn of the arrival of an RPG expert shooter into the city to assassinate a minister who is to arrive soon. Adhi and Abbas manage to corner the RPG shooter in a railway station but he manages to escape the police in an intense shoot out. The police duo captures the driver (Nasser) of the car that had come to pick up the shooter. Thus starts the mind game between Adhi and the Driver. Adhi tortures the driver for information on the terrorist head Badri and the spy inside the police camp but the driver maintains his innocence. Adhi, convinced that the driver holds a mid-level position in the terrorist camp, refuse to believe him. Meanwhile, Adhi and Abbas change the route of the minister who was to be assassinated at the last minute. But the terrorist knew about this plan and the RPG shooter kills the minister but is then captured by the police. The shooter identifies Srinivasan, a senior police officer who was Adhi’s mentor, as the spy who had alerted the terrorists of the change of plan. Before he can be arrested, Srinivasan commits suicide, after confessing to Adhi that he was threatened by the terrorist group that they would kill his family if he didn’t act as a spy. This enrages Adhi and he beats up the driver even more. The driver then used one of his men inside the prison he is kept in to pass instructions to kill Adhi’s pet to show Adhi that he can kill Adhi’s family just as easily. The Driver reveals himself as Badri, the head of the terrorist group and threatens to kill Adhi’s family if he is not let go. Adhi, manages to let Badri escape. Adhi acts as the new spy for the terrorist group. Abbas gets a little suspicious and follows Adhi when he goes to meet Badri. Abbas is caught, tortured and killed. Overcome with sadness, Abbas’s wife Geetha and their teenage daughter come to live with Adhi, his wife, Sumitra (Gautami) and their son. Badri, again threatens Adhi to let a couple of terrorists come and live with him to keep a closer eye on Adhi. Overcome with guilt and grief over Abbas’s death and his betrayal of his duty, he realizes that he is travelling down the same path Srinivasan had done and decides to end the arrangement. Adhi manages to find the safe house the terrorists reside in. Meanwhile, the terrorist staying at Adhi’s house tries to rape Abbas’s teenage daughter. Gautami, intervenes and offers herself to him instead. While he gets a bit too excited, she gets the gun off him and kills him. As Adhi approaches the safe house, he is captured and the roles are reversed as Badri tortures Adhi to reveal the information of the second spy in the terrorist’s camp. When only Adhi, Badri and Badri’s second in command, Shiva is left in the room, Badri reveals to Adhi that the group has even found the radio used by the spy and that Danush (the codename of the spy) can no longer contact the police. This surprises Adhi and he looks at Shiva, who is the spy, for confirmation. Badri notices this and realizes that Shiva is Dhanush. Adhi breaks free and tussle with Badri when Badri tries to kill Shiva. This leads to a tussle in which Adhi kills Badri. Adhi, who believes that the mission to bring down all the terrorist organizations is more important than his life, insists Shiva to shoot him so that Shiva could continue being the spy. Shiva shoots and kills Adhi just as the other terrorist members enter the room hearing the commotion inside. Shiva convinces the others that Badri was killed by Adhi and he killed Adhi. He proclaims that as Badri is dead, he, the second in command, will take over the reins of the group. The story shows its ending as the beginning of a new era with the sons of Adhi and Narasimha confronting each other. Release. The film won the Cinema Express Award for Best Film – Tamil, while Kamal Haasan won Filmfare Award for Best Actor – Tamil for his portrayal of Adhi Naarayanan. The film was featured as part of a retrospective to Kamal Haasan under the category "Director in Focus" at the International Film Festival Rotterdam. The film was India's official entry for the 68th Academy Awards Best Foreign Language Film category. Box Office. The movie was mega hit and completed 175-day run at the box office. just three years after "Batman Returns". Actor Vikram (who was not successful at that time) rendered his voice to the Asst. commander of the Terrorist group. Actress Rohini rendered her voice to Gouthami.
65137	Friedrich Ludwig Gottlob Frege (; 8 November 1848 â 26 July 1925) was a German mathematician, logician and philosopher. He is considered to be one of the founders of modern logic and made major contributions to the foundations of mathematics. He is generally considered to be the father of analytic philosophy, for his writings on the philosophy of language and mathematics. While he was mainly ignored by the intellectual world when he published his writings, Giuseppe Peano (1858â1932) and Bertrand Russell (1872â1970) introduced his work to later generations of logicians and philosophers. Life. Childhood (1848â69). Frege was born in 1848 in Wismar, in the state of Mecklenburg-Schwerin (the modern German federal state Mecklenburg-Vorpommern). His father Carl (Karl) Alexander Frege (3 August 1809 â 30 November 1866) was the co-founder and headmaster of a girls' high school until his death. After Carl's death, the school was led by Frege's mother Auguste Wilhelmine Sophie Frege (nĂŠe Bialloblotzky of Polish descent, 12 January 1815 â 14 October 1898). In childhood, Frege encountered philosophies that would guide his future scientific career. For example, his father wrote a textbook on the German language for children aged 9â13, entitled "HĂźlfsbuch zum Unterrichte in der deutschen Sprache fĂźr Kinder von 9 bis 13 Jahren" (2nd ed., Wismar 1850; 3rd ed., Wismar and Ludwigslust: Hinstorff, 1862), the first section of which dealt with the structure and logic of language. Frege studied at a "gymnasium" in Wismar and graduated in 1869. His teacher Gustav Adolf Leo Sachse (5 November 1843 â 1 September 1909), who was a poet, played the most important role in determining Frege's future scientific career, encouraging him to continue his studies at the University of Jena. Studies at University: Jena and GĂśttingen (1869â74). Frege matriculated at the University of Jena in the spring of 1869 as a citizen of the North German Confederation. In the four semesters of his studies he attended approximately twenty courses of lectures, most of them on mathematics and physics. His most important teacher was Ernst Karl Abbe (1840â1905) (physicist, mathematician, and inventor). Abbe gave lectures on theory of gravity, galvanism and electrodynamics, complex analysis theory of functions of a complex variable, applications of physics, selected divisions of mechanics, and mechanics of solids. Abbe was more than a teacher to Frege: he was a trusted friend, and, as director of the optical manufacturer Carl Zeiss AG, he was in a position to advance Frege's career. After Frege's graduation, they came into closer correspondence. His other notable university teachers were Christian Philipp Karl Snell (1806â86; subjects: use of infinitesimal analysis in geometry, analytical geometry of planes, analytical mechanics, optics, physical foundations of mechanics); Hermann Karl Julius Traugott Schaeffer (1824â1900; analytical geometry, applied physics, algebraic analysis, on the telegraph and other electronic machines); and the philosopher Kuno Fischer (1824â1907; Kantian and critical philosophy). Starting in 1871, Frege continued his studies in GĂśttingen, the leading university in mathematics in German-speaking territories, where he attended the lectures of Rudolf Friedrich Alfred Clebsch (1833â72; analytical geometry), Ernst Christian Julius Schering (1824â97; function theory), Wilhelm Eduard Weber (1804â91); physical studies, applied physics, Eduard Riecke (1845â1915; theory of electricity, and Hermann Lotze (1817â81; philosophy of religion). Many of the philosophical doctrines of the mature Frege have parallels in Lotze; it has been the subject of scholarly debate whether or not there was a direct influence on Frege's views arising from his attending Lotze's lectures. In 1873, Frege attained his doctorate under Ernst Christian Julius Schering, with a dissertation under the title of ""Ăber eine geometrische Darstellung der imaginĂ¤ren Gebilde in der Ebene"" ("On a Geometrical Representation of Imaginary Forms in a Plane"), in which he aimed to solve such fundamental problems in geometry as the mathematical interpretation of projective geometry's infinitely distant (imaginary) points. Frege married Margarete Katharina Sophia Anna Lieseberg (15 February 1856 â 25 June 1904) on 14 March 1887. Work as a logician. Though his education and early work were mathematical, especially geometrical, Frege's thought soon turned to logic. His marked a turning point in the history of logic. The "Begriffsschrift" broke new ground, including a rigorous treatment of the ideas of functions and variables. Frege wanted to show that mathematics grows out of logic, but in so doing, he devised techniques that took him far beyond the Aristotelian syllogistic and Stoic propositional logic that had come down to him in the logical tradition. It is frequently noted that Aristotle's logic is unable to represent even the most elementary inferences in Euclid's geometry, but Frege's "conceptual notation" can represent inferences involving indefinitely complex mathematical statements. The analysis of logical concepts and the machinery of formalization that is essential to "Principia Mathematica" (3 vols., 1910â13) (by Bertrand Russell, 1872â1970, and Alfred North Whitehead, 1861â1947), to Russell's theory of descriptions, to Kurt GĂśdel's (1906â78) incompleteness theorems, and to Alfred Tarski's (1901â83) theory of truth, is ultimately due to Frege. One of Frege's stated purposes was to isolate genuinely logical principles of inference, so that in the proper representation of mathematical proof, one would at no point appeal to "intuition". If there was an intuitive element, it was to be isolated and represented separately as an axiom: from there on, the proof was to be purely logical and without gaps. Having exhibited this possibility, Frege's larger purpose was to defend the view that arithmetic is a branch of logic, a view known as logicism: unlike geometry, arithmetic was to be shown to have no basis in "intuition", and no need for non-logical axioms. Already in the 1879 "Begriffsschrift" important preliminary theorems, for example a generalized form of law of trichotomy, were derived within what Frege understood to be pure logic. This idea was formulated in non-symbolic terms in his . Later, in his (vol. 1, 1893; vol. 2, 1903) (vol. 2 of which was published at his own expense), Frege attempted to derive, by use of his symbolism, all of the laws of arithmetic from axioms he asserted as logical. Most of these axioms were carried over from his "Begriffsschrift", though not without some significant changes. The one truly new principle was one he called the Basic Law V: the "value-range" of the function "f"("x") is the same as the "value-range" of the function "g"("x") if and only if â"x"["f"("x") = "g"("x")]. The crucial case of the law may be formulated in modern notation as follows. Let {"x"|"Fx"} denote the extension of the predicate "Fx", i.e., the set of all Fs, and similarly for "Gx". Then Basic Law V says that the predicates "Fx" and "Gx" have the same extension iff âx["Fx" â "Gx"]. The set of Fs is the same as the set of Gs just in case every F is a G and every G is an F. (The case is special because what is here being called the extension of a predicate, or a set, is only one type of "value-range" of a function.) In a famous episode, Bertrand Russell wrote to Frege, just as Vol. 2 of the "Grundgesetze" was about to go to press in 1903, showing that Russell's paradox could be derived from Frege's Basic Law V. It is easy to define the relation of "membership" of a set or extension in Frege's system; Russell then drew attention to "the set of things "x" that are such that "x" is not a member of "x"". The system of the "Grundgesetze" entails that the set thus characterised "both" is "and" is not a member of itself, and is thus inconsistent. Frege wrote a hasty, last-minute Appendix to Vol. 2, deriving the contradiction and proposing to eliminate it by modifying Basic Law V. Frege opened the Appendix with the exceptionally honest comment: "Hardly anything more unfortunate can befall a scientific writer than to have one of the foundations of his edifice shaken after the work is finished. This was the position I was placed in by a letter of Mr. Bertrand Russell, just when the printing of this volume was nearing its completion." (This letter and Frege's reply are translated in Jean van Heijenoort 1967.) Frege's proposed remedy was subsequently shown to imply that there is but one object in the universe of discourse, and hence is worthless (indeed, this would make for a contradiction in Frege's system if he had axiomatized the idea, fundamental to his discussion, that the True and the False are distinct objects; see, for example, Dummett 1973), but recent work has shown that much of the program of the "Grundgesetze" might be salvaged in other ways: Frege's work in logic had little international attention until 1903 when Russell wrote an appendix to "The Principles of Mathematics" stating his differences with Frege. The diagrammatic notation that Frege used had no antecedents (and has had no imitators since). Moreover, until Russell and Whitehead's "Principia Mathematica" (3 vols.) appeared in 1910â13, the dominant approach to mathematical logic was still that of George Boole (1815â64) and his intellectual descendants, especially Ernst SchrĂśder (1841â1902). Frege's logical ideas nevertheless spread through the writings of his student Rudolf Carnap (1891â1970) and other admirers, particularly Bertrand Russell and Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889â1951). Philosopher. Frege is one of the founders of analytic philosophy, mainly because of his contributions to the philosophy of language, including the As a philosopher of mathematics, Frege attacked the psychologistic appeal to mental explanations of the content of judgment of the meaning of sentences. His original purpose was very far from answering general questions about meaning; instead, he devised his logic to explore the foundations of arithmetic, undertaking to answer questions such as "What is a number?" or "What objects do number-words ("one", "two", etc.) refer to?" But in pursuing these matters, he eventually found himself analysing and explaining what meaning is, and thus came to several conclusions that proved highly consequential for the subsequent course of analytic philosophy and the philosophy of language. It should be kept in mind that Frege was employed as a mathematician, not a philosopher, and he published his philosophical papers in scholarly journals that often were hard to access outside of the German-speaking world. He never published a philosophical monograph other than "The Foundations of Arithmetic", much of which was mathematical in content, and the first collections of his writings appeared only after World War II. A volume of English translations of Frege's philosophical essays first appeared in 1952, edited by students of Wittgenstein, Peter Geach (born 1916) and Max Black (1909â88), with the bibliographic assistance of Wittgenstein (see Geach, ed. 1975, Introduction). Despite the generous praise of Russell and Wittgenstein, Frege was little known as a philosopher during his lifetime. His ideas spread chiefly through those he influenced, such as Russell, Wittgenstein, and Carnap, and through work on logic and semantics by Polish logicians. Sense and reference. The distinction between "Sinn" ("sense") and "Bedeutung" (usually translated "reference", but also as "meaning" or "denotation") was an innovation of Frege in his 1892 paper "Ăber Sinn und Bedeutung" ("On Sense and Reference"). According to Frege, sense and reference are two different aspects of the significance of an expression. Frege applied "Bedeutung" in the first instance to proper names, where it means the bearer of the name, the object in question, but then also to other expressions, including complete sentences, which "bedeuten" the two "truth values", the true and the false; by contrast, the sense or "Sinn" associated with a complete sentence is the thought it expresses. The sense of an expression is said to be the "mode of presentation" of the item referred to. The distinction can be illustrated thus: In their ordinary uses, the name "Charles Philip Arthur George Mountbatten-Windsor", which for logical purposes is an unanalyzable whole, and the functional expression "the Prince of Wales", which contains the significant parts "the prince of Îž" and "Wales", have the same "reference", namely, the person best known as Prince Charles. But the "sense" of the word "Wales" is a part of the sense of the latter expression, but no part of the sense of the "full name" of Prince Charles. These distinctions were disputed by Bertrand Russell, especially in his paper "On Denoting"; the controversy has continued into the present, fueled especially by Saul Kripke's famous lectures "Naming and Necessity". Imagine the road signs outside a city. They all point to ("bedeuten") the same object (the city), although the "mode of presentation" or sense ("Sinn") of each sign (its direction or distance) is different. Similarly "the Prince of Wales" and "Charles Philip Arthur George Mountbatten-Windsor" both denote ("bedeuten") the same object, though each uses a different "mode of presentation" (sense or "Sinn"). 1924 diary. Frege's published philosophical writings were of a very technical nature and divorced from practical issues, so much so that Frege scholar Dummett expresses his "shock to discover, while reading Frege's diary, that his hero was an outspoken anti-Semite (1973)." He was always a conservative, but after World War I he became more of a radical. His late political "diary shows Frege to have been a man of extreme right-wing political opinions, bitterly opposed to the parliamentary system, democrats, liberals, Catholics, the French and, above all, Jews, who he thought ought to be deprived of political rights and, preferably, expelled from Germany". Frege confided "that he had once thought of himself as a liberal and was an admirer of Bismarck, but his heroes now were General Ludendorff and Adolf Hitler. This was after the two had tried to topple the elected democratic government in a coup in November 1923. In his diary Frege also used all his analytic skills to devise plans for expelling the Jews from Germany and for suppressing the Social Democrats." Frege disliked universal suffrage and was against any form of socialism, which he simply called Marxism. His antisemitism still allowed for exceptions, and he had friendly relations with Jews in real life: among his students was Gershom Scholem who much valued his teacher; and he encouraged Ludwig Wittgenstein to leave for England. The 1924 diary has been published. Personality. Frege was described by his students as a highly introverted person, seldom entering into dialogue, mostly facing the blackboard while lecturing though being witty and sometimes bitterly sarcastic. Important works. Logic, foundation of arithmetic. "Begriffsschrift", "eine der arithmetischen nachgebildete Formelsprache des reinen Denkens" (1879). Halle a. S. "Die Grundlagen der Arithmetik:" "eine logisch-mathematische Untersuchung Ăźber den Begriff der Zahl" (1884). Breslau. "Grundgesetze der Arithmetik", Band I (1893); Band II (1903). Jena: Verlag Hermann Pohle. Philosophical studies. "Function and Concept" (1891) "On Sense and Reference" (1892) "Concept and Object" (1892) "What is a Function?" (1904) "Logical Investigations" (1918â1923). Frege intended that the following three papers be published together in a book titled "Logische Untersuchungen" ("Logical Investigations"). Though the German book never appeared, the papers were published together in "Logische Untersuchungen", ed. G. Patzig, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1966, and English translations appeared together in "Logical Investigations", ed. Peter Geach, Blackwell, 1975. References. Secondary. "Philosophy": "Logic and mathematics":
1504071	Adam Pascal (born October 25, 1970) is an American actor and singer known for his performance as Roger Davis in the original cast of Jonathan Larson's musical "Rent" on Broadway 1996, the 2005 movie version of the musical, and the Broadway Tour of "Rent" in 2009. He is also known for originating the role of Radames in Elton John and Tim Rice's "Aida" and for playing the Emcee from the 1998 revival of "Cabaret" and most recently appeared as Huey Calhoun in the Broadway Company of "Memphis". Early life and stage work. Pascal was born in The Bronx, New York, and grew up in Woodbury, Nassau County, New York, with his mother, Wendy (née Frishman), and stepfather, Mel Seamon. He was raised Jewish. He graduated from Syosset High School. Before his interest in music, he was a personal trainer. Although he began as a rock musician playing in a number of bands (such as Mute) formed with his schoolmates, Pascal became drawn to the musical theater. A friend of his from high school mentioned "Rent" to him. On a whim, he auditioned and was cast as the HIV positive rock guitarist Roger Davis. His powerful tenor voice and his performance in "Rent" earned him a Tony nomination, a Theater World award, and an Obie Award. He left the show on November 2, 1997, but went on to reprise Roger when "Rent" opened in London. The role helped Pascal gain fame on Broadway, and he was cast in the Elton John and Tim Rice musical "Aida" as the Egyptian general Radames with the original and final casts (former "Rent" castmate Idina Menzel would co-star as Amneris in 2001), and Kander and Ebb's "Cabaret", closing the show as the Emcee (closing cast). "Hair" in 2004 (singing "I Got Life"), and the "24 Hour Plays" in 2005. He returned to "Aida" in 2004 to close the run of the show as Radames. Along with original Broadway "Rent" cast member Anthony Rapp (Mark Cohen), Pascal returned to Broadway to star as Roger in "Rent" from July 30 to October 7, 2007. In January 2009, he and Rapp reprised their originating (and film) roles as Roger and Mark in another "Rent" tour titled: ""Rent: The Broadway Tour"", which played in many cities in the North America, as well as stops in Japan and South Korea. At the tour's Detroit, Michigan stop in February, Pascal suffered two herniated discs in his neck and was on medical leave for a week. Cary Shields, an understudy and also a Broadway "Rent" veteran, filled in. Pascal made a full recovery and finished up the tour in early 2010. This tour closed on February 7, 2010. Pascal reprised the role of Frederick Trumper, aka "Freddie, The American" in the London concert version of "Chess" at the Royal Albert Hall on May 12–13, 2008. His "Rent" and "Aida" co-star Idina Menzel played the role of Florence. This performance was recorded; it has been televised, first on American and British television on June 17, 2009, and repeatedly in America on PBS stations as part of that network's "Great Performances" series; and has been released on DVD. Pascal joined the Broadway cast of "Memphis" on October 25, 2011 as Huey Calhoun. He replaced original cast member Chad Kimball in the role. He remained in the "Memphis" cast until the show's closure on August 5th, 2012.
1164731	Cory D. Hardrict (born November 9, 1979) is an American actor. He has appeared in film and television since the late 1990s. He has also been an executive producer for the 2007 film "Neighborhood Watch". Life and career. Born in Chicago, Illinois, Hardrict began his career on television during the late 1990s, with appearances in weekly prime-time programs including "Smart Guy", "Felicity", "Once and Again" and "ER". He made his film debut in 1999 romantic comedy "Never Been Kissed", starring Drew Barrymore followed by a role in the drama "Crazy/Beautiful" (2001). Hardrict has also appeared in "Creature Unknown" (2004), "" (2005), "Miles from Home" (2006), and "Driftwood" (2006) In 2007, he had a recurring role on the ABC Family series "Lincoln Heights" and executive produced the film "Neighborhood Watch", in which he also starred. The following year, he had a cameo role in the movie "Gran Torino" directed and starred by Clint Eastwood. That same year, he appeared as singer Brandy's love interest in the music video for "Right Here (Departed)". In 2009, Hardrict co-starred in the film "Hollywood Horror" with wife Tia Mowry and her twin sister Tamera Mowry. Later that year, he appeared in the romantic comedy "He's Just Not That into You", and the drama "Dough Boys". Hardrict also had a guest appearance on the CW show "The Game" with wife Tia Mowry as the cable guy in the "Hill Street Blues" episode. Hardrict also appeared as Ryan in the pilot episode of the CBS sitcom "Accidentally on Purpose". However, he was subsequently replaced by Pooch Hall (his wife's co-star from "The Game"). Personal life. After dating for six years, Hardrict and actress Tia Mowry were engaged on Christmas Day 2007. They married on April 20, 2008 in Santa Barbara, California. On January 11, 2011, "People" announced that Hardrict and Mowry were expecting their first child. The pregnancy was documented on Mowry's reality TV show called Tia & Tamera starring her and her twin sister on the Style Network. Hardict spoke at Victor J. Andrew High School on March 9, 2011 stating, "...she's six months pregnant". Their son, Cree Taylor Hardrict, was born June 28, 2011 in Los Angeles. The baby shares the first letter of his name with his father and the first letter of his middle name with his mother per a naming convention from Tia's family.
1431873	Kal Penn (born Kalpen Suresh Modi; April 23, 1977) is an American actor, producer, and civil servant. As an actor, he is known for his role portraying Dr. Lawrence Kutner on the television program "House", as well as the character Kumar Patel in the "Harold and Kumar" film series. He is also recognized for his performance in the critically acclaimed film, "The Namesake". Additionally, Penn has taught at the University of Pennsylvania in the Cinema Studies Program as a visiting lecturer. On April 8, 2009, it was announced that Penn would join the Obama administration as an Associate Director in the White House Office of Public Engagement. This necessitated that his character, Lawrence Kutner, be written out of the TV series "House". Penn resigned his post as Barack Obama's Associate Director of Public Engagement on June 1, 2010, for a brief return to his acting career. He filmed the third installment of the Harold and Kumar series, "A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas", and subsequently returned to the White House Office of Public Engagement as an Associate Director. In July 2011, he again left the White House to accept a role in "How I Met Your Mother." He has since returned to his role with the White House. Early childhood and personal life. Penn was born as Kalpen Suresh Modi in Montclair, New Jersey, to a Hindu Indian family. His mother, Asmita, is a fragrance evaluator for a perfume company, and his father, Suresh Modi, is an engineer. Both of his parents are Gujarati immigrants from India. He has stated that stories of his grandparents marching with Mahatma Gandhi for Indian independence were a significant influence on his interest in politics. He attended Marlboro Middle School in Marlboro Township, New Jersey and played baritone saxophone in the jazz band there. Penn attended The Fine and Performing Arts Academy (a magnet program) at Howell High School for freshman, sophomore, and junior years; he transferred to Freehold Township High School for senior year; both schools are part of the Freehold Regional High School District. He was active in the schools' theater productions and competed on the Freehold Township forensics team. He attended UCLA, where he double majored in film and sociology. Penn is vegetarian and ate veggie sliders during the filming of "Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle". Career. Acting career. Penn's feature film debut came in 1998 in '. He has since appeared in "American Desi", "National Lampoon's Van Wilder", the final episode of "The Lonely Island", "Malibu's Most Wanted", "A Lot Like Love", "Dude, Where's the Party?", "Love Don't Cost a Thing", "Superman Returns", ', "Epic Movie", "The Namesake", the "Harold and Kumar" series, and an uncredited appearance in "Deck the Halls". Penn says that he derived his acting name, Kal Penn, as a lark: "Almost as a joke to prove friends wrong, and half as an attempt to see if what I was told would work (that anglicized names appeal more to a white-dominated industry), I put 'Kal Penn' on my resume and photos." His audition callbacks rose by 50 percent. He has stated that he prefers his birth name and uses "Kal Penn" only for professional purposes. In January 2007, Penn appeared in the first four episodes of the sixth season of "24" as Ahmed Amar, a teenage terrorist. Penn says he nearly turned down the role due to personal ethics, stating: "I have a huge political problem with the role. It was essentially accepting a form of racial profiling. I think it's repulsive. But it was the first time I had a chance to blow stuff up and take a family hostage. As an actor, why shouldn't I have that opportunity? Because I'm brown and I should be scared about the connection between media images and people's thought processes?" Also in January 2007, he appeared in the spoof comedy "Epic Movie" as well as the television show "". In May 2007, Penn received the Asian Excellence Award for Outstanding Actor for his performance in "The Namesake". In fall 2007, Penn joined the cast of the Fox medical drama "House" as a fellowship applicant. "E!" reported that Penn had signed on as a regular on the show along with Olivia Wilde and Peter Jacobson and this was confirmed in the plot of the episode "Games". Penn continued with the series through to the episode "Simple Explanation", which aired April 6, 2009. He made an additional appearance as Lawrence Kutner on the fifth season finale, "Both Sides Now", that aired on May 11, 2009. However, due to his new job at the White House, Penn could not be present for the filming of this episode. The clip of him saying "Too bad it isn't true" was taken from a previous filming. Penn returned to the show for the series finale. Beside his role on the TV series "House", he is best known from his role in "Harold & Kumar", as Kumar Patel, a cannabis smoker who goes with Harold Lee (John Cho) to White Castle for a hamburger. Unlike his character, he does not smoke marijuana, claiming it is not for him, nor does he eat meat. On July 13, 2011, it was announced on Facebook that Penn would be recurring on "How I Met Your Mother" for the seventh season of the show. Starting May 1, 2013, Penn hosts Big Brain Theory: Pure Genius on the Discovery Channel. On May 10, 2013, it was announced that Penn would join the cast of "We Are Men". Political interests. Penn was an advocate for Barack Obama's presidential campaign in 2007 and 2008 and a member of Obama's National Arts Policy Committee. He appears in the Barack Obama-supporting video "Sí Se Puede Cambiar" by Andres Useche and appeared with comedian George Lopez on January 18, 2009, at "". In early 2009, Penn was offered the position of Associate Director of the White House Office of Public Engagement in the Obama administration, which he accepted. This necessitated his character Lawrence Kutner being written out of the TV series "House". In his new role with the Obama administration, Modi served as a liaison with the Asian-American and Pacific Islander communities. He had gone back to using his birth name, Kalpen Modi. Having made a commitment before his employment at the White House, Penn amicably left his post as Barack Obama's associate director of public engagement on June 1, 2010 to return to his acting career. He returned to office on November 15, 2010, following completion of "A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas". In February 2012, it was announced that Penn would be a co-chair for the re-election campaign of President Barack Obama. On September 3, 2012, Obama for America released a video featuring President Obama and Penn which announced that Penn would host the September 6 coverage of the 2012 Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, North Carolina. Penn's speech at the convention encouraged young people to register to vote and defended Obama's record. Other activities. In 2008, Penn served as a visiting lecturer in Asian American Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. His course was titled "Images of Asian Americans in the Media." In 2010, Penn wrote an article in the Huffington Post, responding to a "Time Magazine" article, which he said had contained racist comments against Indian immigrants in New Jersey. Penn is currently working on a graduate certificate in international security from Stanford University.
1060396	Joseph Twisleton Wykeham Fiennes (; b. 27 May 1970) is an English film and stage actor. He is perhaps best known for his portrayals of William Shakespeare in "Shakespeare in Love", Sir Robert Dudley in "Elizabeth", Commisar Danilov in "Enemy at the Gates", Martin Luther in "Luther", Merlin in "Camelot", Mark Benford in the 2009 TV series "FlashForward" and for starring as Monsignor Timothy Howard in the of the TV series "American Horror Story". Early life and family. Fiennes was born in Salisbury, Wiltshire, England in 1970, the son of photographer Mark Fiennes and novelist Jennifer Lash. The youngest of six siblings, his elder siblings are actor Ralph Fiennes, filmmakers Sophie Fiennes and Martha Fiennes, composer Magnus Fiennes, conservationist Jacob Fiennes, his twin brother; and a foster brother Mike Emery, an archaeologist. Education. Fiennes was briefly educated in the Republic of Ireland and then at Swan School For Boys (now known as Leehurst Swan School, following a merger with another school), an independent school in Salisbury, before passing his 11+ exam and continuing to Bishop Wordsworth's School, a voluntary-aided state day grammar school, in the Cathedral Close of the city. He then attended art school in Suffolk for a year, before joining the Young Vic Youth Theatre. Fiennes subsequently trained for three years at London's Guildhall School of Music and Drama, graduating in 1993. Career. Stage and film. His first professional stage appearance was in the West End in "The Woman in Black", followed by "A Month in the Country" opposite Helen Mirren. Fiennes then became a member of the Royal Shakespeare Company for two seasons. He made his television debut as Willy in "The Vacillations of Poppy Carew". His first feature film was 1996's "Stealing Beauty", co-starring Liv Tyler. In 1998, Fiennes appeared in two films that were nominated at the Academy Awards: he played Robert Dudley opposite Cate Blanchett in "Elizabeth" and he portrayed William Shakespeare opposite Gwyneth Paltrow in "Shakespeare in Love", which won the Academy Award for Best Picture. He and Paltrow were reunited onscreen in "Running with Scissors" (2006). In 2001 he appeared in the film "Enemy at the Gates". In 2002 he starred in the independent film, "Killing Me Softly". In 2003 he lent his voice as Proteus in the DreamWorks animated film "" opposite Brad Pitt. The same year he starred in the limited-release film "Luther", playing Martin Luther, and he also appeared in "The Merchant of Venice", in which he portrayed Bassanio. Fiennes returned to the theatre in 2006 to perform in the one-man play "Unicorns, Almost" about World War II poet Keith Douglas at the Old Vic. In 2006, he appeared in the films "The Darwin Awards" and "Goodbye Bafana". "Goodbye Bafana" was filmed by director Bille August in South Africa, and released in 2007. Fiennes portrayed James Gregory, author of the book "Goodbye Bafana: Nelson Mandela, My Prisoner, My Friend". Television. Fiennes starred in the ABC science fiction series "FlashForward", which debuted on 24 September 2009 and ran through 27 May 2010, as Mark Benford. Fiennes stars in Starz's 10-part series, "Camelot", as the wizard Merlin. In the of "American Horror Story", which premiered in October 2012, Fiennes began playing the role of Monsignor Timothy Howard. Personal life. Fiennes married María Dolores Diéguez, a Swiss model, in a Roman Catholic ceremony in Tuscany in August 2009. They have two daughters, Sam
1584101	Zachary "Zach" Mills (born December 26, 1995) is an American teen actor. Personal life. Zach was born in Lakewood, Ohio, to Kerry and Patrick. His father is from Cleveland, Zach's mother is from New York, which is where Zach performed his first professional acting job at the age of 7. Zach has two older half brothers who do not act. When he's not busy making movies Zach enjoys swimming, reading, and playing video games. Career. Mills has appeared in multiple film and television productions. These include a brief appearance in the television series "Scrubs" and guest starring roles in such shows as "Malcolm in the Middle", "Eleventh Hour", "Numb3rs", "Ghost Whisperer" and "October Road". His first significant supporting role in a film was as Adrien Brody's son in the 2006 film, "Hollywoodland". In 2007 he appeared in the Hallmark movie "The Valley of Light", and that year would also mark his leading role in "Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium", in which he acted alongside Dustin Hoffman and Natalie Portman. In 2008 he appeared in a leading role in the film "", and a supporting role as a news vendor in the Clint Eastwood-directed "Changeling". In 2011, Zach played "Preston" in the Film Super 8, as well as "Lucas Morganstern" in the Hub miniseries Clue.
1067227	Broken Embraces () is a 2009 Spanish romantic thriller film written, produced, and directed by Pedro Almodóvar. Led by an ensemble cast consisting of many Almodóvar regulars, it stars Lluís Homar as a blind Madrilenian screenwriter who recalls his tragic love for Lena, played by Penélope Cruz, the deceased lead actress in his last directional feature "Girls and Suitcases", who was also the mistress of a powerful, obsessive businessman (José Luis Gómez). Blanca Portillo co-stars as his agent Judit, while Tamar Novas portrays her son and Caine's co-writer Diego. Inspired by darkness and by a photo of a couple, that Almodóvar took of El Golfo beach in Lanzarote in the late 1990s, the film serves as an homage to filmmaking, cinema and its various film genres. Stylistically, it is a complex noir-ish melodrama, that also blends comic elements with a film within a film—a broad comedy, that hearkens back to Almodóvar's 1988 release, "Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown". Thematically, "Broken Embraces" addresses themes like voyeurism, repression, prostitution, death, vengeance, fixation, illness, and drugs. "Broken Embraces" was one of the films competing for the Palme d'Or at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival. Dubbed "purest Almodóvar" by "The New Yorker", the film was noted for the director's characteristic "bright primary colors," erotic subject matter, and meticulous, "visually pulsating" cinematography. The picture was nominated for Best Foreign Language Film at both the 2009 British Academy Film Awards and the 67th Golden Globe Awards. Plot. "Harry Caine" is a blind writer who shares his life with his agent Judit and her adult son, Diego. Slowly, events in the present begin to bring back memories of the past. Harry hears that millionaire Ernesto Martel has died; a young filmmaker, Ray X, appears and turns out to be Martel's son, Ernesto, Jr. After Diego is hospitalized for an accidental drug overdose in a Madrid nightclub, Harry collects Diego from the hospital and looks after him to avoid worrying his traveling mother. The main storyline is told in flashback as Harry reluctantly tells Diego a tragic tale of fate, jealousy, abuse of power, betrayal, and guilt. The first flashback is to 1992, which introduces Magdalena "Lena" Rivero, Martel's beautiful young secretary, an aspiring actress. She becomes close to Martel, a millionaire financier, in order to find the money to help meet her dying father's medical bills. By 1994, she has become Martel's mistress. At this time, Harry is still living under his real name, Mateo Blanco, a well-respected film director. Martel is excessively possessive of Lena, but she is determined to become an actress and manages to win the main role in Blanco's film "Chicas y maletas" ("Girls and Suitcases") by bringing Martel in as financier/producer. (The fictional film is similar to Almodóvar's 1988 release, "Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown", except that the Shiite terrorists have been replaced by a cocaine dealer; several of the cast of the previous film appear in the fictional one.) Martel spies on Lena and Mateo by sending his inhibited, effeminate gay son, Ernesto, Jr., to videotape the production of the film, ostensibly for a "making of" feature, then hiring a lip-reader to interpret the conversations. Martel, seething with jealousy, screens the videos as the lip-reader narrates the furtive whispers of Lena and Mateo's passionate affair.
686214	Lazare Nicolas Marguerite, Comte Carnot (13 May 1753 – 2 August 1823), the "Organizer of Victory" in the French Revolutionary Wars, was a French politician, engineer, and mathematician. Education and early life. Born in Nolay, Côte-d'Or, Carnot was educated in Burgundy at the Collège d’Autun, an artillery and engineering prep school. He graduated from Mezieres School of Engineering, where he had met and studied with Benjamin Franklin, at the age of twenty and obtained commission as a lieutenant in the Prince of Condé’s engineer corps. It was here that he early made a name for himself both in the line of physics and in his work in the field of fortifications. Although in the army, he continued his study of mathematics. In 1784 he published his first work "Essay on Machines" which contained a statement that foreshadowed the principle of energy as applied to a falling weight, and the earliest proof of the fact that kinetic energy is lost in the collision of imperfectly elastic bodies. This publication earned him the honour of admittance to a literary society. In that same year, he also received a promotion to the rank of captain. Political career. At the outbreak of the French Revolution in 1789, Carnot entered political life. He became a delegate to the Legislature in 1791. While a member of the Legislative Assembly, Carnot was elected to the Committee for Public Instruction. He believed that all citizens should be educated and as a member of that committee, he wrote a series of reforms for the teaching and educational systems, but they were not implemented due to the violent social and economic climate of the Revolution. After the Legislative Assembly was dissolved, Carnot was elected to the National Convention in 1792. He spent the last few months of 1792 on a mission to Bayonne, organizing the military defense effort in an attempt to ward off any possible attacks from Spain. Upon returning to Paris, Carnot voted for the death of King Louis XVI, although he had been absent for the debates surrounding the king’s trial. On 14 August 1793 Carnot was elected to the Committee of Public Safety, where he took charge of the military situation as one of the Ministers of War. The creation of the French Revolutionary Army was largely due to his powers of organization and enforcing discipline. In order to raise more troops for the war, Carnot introduced conscription: the "levée en masse" approved by the National Convention was able to raise France’s army from 645,000 troops in mid-1793 to 1,500,000 in September 1794. Once the problem of troop numbers had been solved, Carnot turned his administrative skills to the supplies that this massive army would need. Many of the munitions and supplies were in short supply: copper was lacking for guns so he ordered church bells seized in order to melt them down; saltpeter was lacking and he called chemistry to his aid; leather for boots was scarce so he demanded and secured new methods for tanning. He quickly organized the army and helped to turn the tide of the war. It added significantly to discontent with the course of the Revolution in still Bourbon-loyalist areas – such as the Vendée, which had broken out in open revolt 5 months earlier – but the government of the time considered it a success, and Carnot became known as the "Organizer of Victory". In autumn 1793 he took charge of French columns on the , and contributed to Jean-Baptiste Jourdan's victory in the Battle of Wattignies. Carnot had taken no steps to oppose the Reign of Terror, but he and some other technocrats on the committee, including Robert Lindet and Louis-Bernard Guyton de Morveau, turned on Maximilien Robespierre and his allies during the Thermidorian Reaction. With the establishment of the Directory in 1795, Carnot became one of the five initial directors. For the first year the Directors did well working harmoniously together as well as with the Councils. However, difference of political views led to a schism between Carnot and Étienne-François Letourneur, followed by François de Barthélemy, on the one side, and the triumvirate of Paul François Jean Nicolas, vicomte de Barras, Jean-François Rewbell, and Louis Marie de La Révellière-Lépeaux on the other side. Carnot and Barthélemy supported concessions to end the war, and hoped to oust the triumvirate and replace them with more conservative men. His and Étienne-François Letourneur's moderation was viewed as weakness, and it probably contributed to France's failure to capitalize on the Treaty of Campo Formio. After Letourneur had been replaced by another close collaborator of Carnot, François de Barthélemy, both of them, alongside many deputies in the Council of Five Hundred, were ousted in the Coup of 18 Fructidor (4 September 1797), engineered by Generals Napoleon Bonaparte (originally, Carnot's "protégé") and Pierre François Charles Augereau. Carnot took refuge in Geneva, and there in 1797 issued his "La métaphysique du calcul infinitésimal". In 1800 Bonaparte appointed Carnot as Minister of War, and he served in that office at the time of the Battle of Marengo. In 1802 he voted against the establishment of Napoleon's Consular powers for life and the passing of the title to his children, for as Carnot said when speaking of the power necessary to govern a state "If this power is the appendage of a hereditary family it becomes despotic." Retirement. After Napoleon crowned himself emperor on 2 December 1804, Carnot's republican convictions precluded his acceptance of high office under the First French Empire, and he resigned from public life – although he was later made a Count of the Empire by Napoleon as "Lazare Nicolas Marguerite, comte Carnot". In 1803 Carnot produced his "Géométrie de position". This work deals with projective rather than descriptive geometry. Carnot is responsible for initiating the use of cross-ratios: "He was the first to introduce the cross (anharmonic) ratio of four points of a line taking account of its sign, thereby sharpening Pappus' concept. He then proved that this ratio is invariant for the four points obtained by cutting four lines of a pencil of lines with different secants. In this way he established the harmonic properties of the complete quadrilateral." This approach to geometry was used by Karl von Staudt four decades later to set a new foundation to mathematics. The Borda–Carnot equation of fluid dynamics and Carnot's theorem in plane geometry are named after him. Probably in response to the fall of the fortress of Vlissingen to the British during the Walcheren Campaign in 1809, Napoleon employed Carnot to write a treatise describing how fortifications could be improved, for the use of the École militaire de Metz. Building on the theories of the controversial engineer Montalembert, Carnot advanced ideas on how the long established bastioned system of fortification could be modified for close defence and to allow for counter attack by the besieged garrison. Published in 1810 under the title ""Traité de la Défense des Places Fortes"", his ideas where further developed in the third edition which was published in 1812. An English translation, "A Treatise on the Defence of Fortified Places" was published in 1814. Although few of his proposals were accepted by mainstream engineers, the Carnot wall, a detached wall at the foot of the , became a common feature in fortifications built in the mid-19th century. Carnot returned to office in defense of Napoleon during the disastrous invasion of Russia; he was assigned the defense of Antwerp against the Sixth Coalition – he only surrendered on the demand of the Count of Artois, who was the younger brother of Louis XVIII and later Charles X. During the Hundred Days, Carnot served as Minister of the Interior for Napoleon, and was exiled as a "regicide" during the White Terror after the Second Restoration during the reign of Louis XVIII. He lived in Warsaw, and moved to Prussia, where he died in the city of Magdeburg. Carnot's remains were interred at the Panthéon in 1889, at the same time as those of Marie Victor de La Tour-Maubourg, Jean-Baptiste Baudin, and François Séverin Marceau-Desgraviers. Impact. Carnot was able to survive and maintain a place of power during all the phases of the French Revolution, from its beginnings in 1789 until the fall of Napoleon in 1815. On the social and political front, Carnot was the author of many reforms that he thought to be for the good of the Republic. One of these was the proposal for compulsory public education for all citizens. He also penned a proposal for the new Constitution which included the "Declaration of the Duties of the Citizens" that held that there should be not only education but military service for all citizens of France between the ages of twenty and twenty-five. These proposals were in accordance with the Revolutionaries' thinking at the time, which held that men and women should be honored through ability and intelligence rather than through birthright, even though Carnot himself was nobly born. This style of thinking may well have been instrumental in Napoleon Bonaparte's rise to power as it was Carnot who promoted him from Captain to General. But perhaps his greatest achievements, in reference to the French Revolution itself, were those of a military nature. If not for Carnot, the modern waging of war with mass armies and strategic planning would not exist. As a military engineer, Carnot favored fortresses and defensive strategies, but with the constant invasions decided to take his strategic planning to an offensive strike. From his intellect sprang the maneuvers and organization that turned the tides of war from 1793 to 1794. The basic idea was to have a massive army separated into several units that could move more quickly than the enemy and attack from the flanks rather than head on, which had led to resounding defeats before Carnot was elected to the Committee of Public Safety. This tactic was extremely successful against the more traditional tactics of existing European armies. It was his initiative to train the conscripts in the art of war and to place new recruits with experienced soldiers rather than having a massive volunteer army without any real idea of how to wage battle. He also created a new political strategy based on disrupting communication between France's enemy nations of England and Austria while concentrating attack effort on England. Carnot’s military influence and authority were eventually used to bring about the downfall of Robespierre.
1034874	Tamer Hassan (born 18 March 1968), is an English actor of Turkish Cypriot descent. Early life. Hassan was born in London, England into a Turkish Cypriot family. Having sustained an injury in boxing, Hassan started to run nightclubs and restaurants and is now the owner, chairman and player/coach of Greenwich Borough and is also a big fan of Millwall. He also runs Eltham Boxing Gym, but he later moved into acting. Hassan also plays for Tamber, a small club in London. Acting career. Hassan started acting in roles in television before his role in the "The Calcium Kid". He later was cast in the role of the leader of a fictional football firm in "The Football Factory". Further collaboration with Nick Love led to a lead role in "The Business". Hassan has also had a number of roles in other films, such as "The Ferryman", "Batman Begins", "Cass" and "Eastern Promises". He is set to star in the upcoming Charlie Creed Miles film, "New Beginnings".. 2011 sees him starring in British film noir "Jack Falls" as a shady police boss. Personal life. Hassan is married and has two children. He is also a close friend of Cockney actor Danny Dyer. His son, Taser, is a football player.
589650	Aar-Paar (English: This or That) is a 1954 Indian Hindi-language film. Directed by Guru Dutt, the film has music by O.P. Nayyar and lyrics by Majrooh Sultanpuri. A light-hearted film (unlike the films of Dutt's later years), "Aar-Paar" stars Johnny Walker, Shyama, Shakila, Jagdeep, Jagdish Sethi, Bir Sakuja, Rajendra, Amir Banu, Rashid Khan, M.A. Latif. Plot. Kalu is a taxi-driver in Mumbai, India. He has two women who love him and would like to marry him. Kalu first wants to establish himself and become rich, before he can even think of marriage. One of the women who loves him has a father who is involved in gangster-type activities, and would like Kalu also to join him so that he can get a rich son. Kalu now has to decide whether to become rich quick or to sleep better. Songs. All songs composed by O.P. Nayyar.
1166360	Robert Allen "Rob" Riggle, Jr. (born April 21, 1970) is an American actor, comedian and retired United States Marine Corps Reserve officer. He is best known for his work as a correspondent on Comedy Central's "The Daily Show" from 2006 to 2008, as a cast member on "Saturday Night Live" from 2004–2005, and for his comedic roles in films such as "The Hangover", "The Other Guys", "The Lorax", "21 Jump Street", ', and "Step Brothers". As of 2011, he has co-starred in the Adult Swim comedy-action series '. Beginning in September 2012, Riggle replaced Frank Caliendo for the comedy skit and prognostication portions of "Fox NFL Sunday". Early life. Riggle was born in Louisville, Kentucky, the son of Sandra Sue (née Hargis) and Robert Allen Riggle. He was raised in Overland Park, Kansas, where he attended Shawnee Mission South High School. He later graduated from the University of Kansas, in 1992, with a B.A. in Theater and Film, whilst also attained his pilot's license, and is a member of the Phi Gamma Delta fraternity. He went on to earn a Master of Public Administration degree from Webster University in 1997. Military career. Riggle is a Lieutenant Colonel in the United States Marine Corps Reserve and served in Liberia, Kosovo, and Afghanistan. He is a public affairs officer with the New York City Public Affairs unit and is a recipient of the Combat Action Ribbon. Riggle joined the Marines in 1990 after getting his pilot's license, intending to become a Naval Aviator, but left flight school in order to pursue his comedy career. He has referred to his military experiences on "The Daily Show", often when acting as the show's "Military Analyst", publicly stating he could kill any other member of the show. In August 2007, Riggle went to Iraq to report for "The Daily Show" as well as to entertain the troops under the purview of the USO. On January 1, 2013 Riggle announced, via his Facebook page and on an interview on Rove LA, that he had retired from the Marine Corps after 23 years of service. Comedy career. Comedy partnership with Rob Huebel. He has a long-standing comedic partnership with comedian Rob Huebel with whom he frequently works with at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theater (UCBT) and in their former improvisational sketch comedy troupe Respecto Montalban. Perhaps the duo's best known creation was their long running two-man show "Kung Fu Grip" which they often performed at UCBT and other comedy venues for many years. The show was one of the featured acts in the 2004 HBO Comedy Arts Festival. Around this time they began appearing together in several of Comedy Central and VH1's "talking head" commentary programs such as Best Week Ever and A2Z. They also appeared in Bravo network's "100 Scariest Movie Moments" special in 2004. These appearances got the duo their first mainstream exposure to television viewers. The two were instant fan favorites among regular viewers of the VH1 commentary programs. Riggle, Huebel and most of their fellow castmates from Respecto Montalban also performed regularly in comedic sketches on "Late Night with Conan O'Brien" throughout the late 1990s and early 2000s (decade). The duo's growing popularity landed them an audition on "Saturday Night Live" in the summer of 2004. They auditioned together, though only Riggle ended up making the cut. After spending one season on Saturday Night Live from 2004–2005, Riggle soon joined Huebel and many of his other "Respecto Montalban" castmates in Los Angeles to work on new projects. Soon after, the two landed a holding deal at NBC in early 2006 to develop a new half-hour comedy program for the network, though nothing has come of it since then. In September 2006, Riggle joined "The Daily Show" as a regular correspondent. Around the same time Huebel (along with "Respecto Montalban" member Paul Scheer and stand-up comic Aziz Ansari) started developing "Human Giant", a sketch show for MTV. Riggle would often appear in the program's various sketches, as well as in the show's 24-hour live marathon which aired on MTV in May 2007. One of Riggle's most memorable guest appearances was as hired muscle, Ham-Bone, who appeared alongside Aziz Ansari in the season one sketch "Clell Tickle: Indie Marketing Guru". Riggle and Huebel can also be seen performing a sketch together on stage at the UCBT in Doug Benson's documentary "Super High Me". "Saturday Night Live". A featured player during the 2004–2005 season, his first appearance as a cast member was on the show's thirtieth season premiere on October 2, 2004. He has portrayed Larry the Cable Guy, Howard Dean, Rick Sanchez, Mark McGwire, and Toby Keith, and had a one-shot character named Leviticus, a loud, violent street preacher who only appeared on a Weekend Update segment on the Christmas episode hosted by Robert De Niro (another sketch featuring Leviticus was scheduled to air on the episode hosted by Hilary Swank, but that sketch was cut after dress rehearsal). Prior to being hired as a cast member, Riggle also appeared in a non-speaking role in the previous season (season 29) in a pre-taped parody of "Fear Factor". Riggle played the father of one of the child contestants during the "Breakfast in Bed" challenge in which a child must eat the maggots off a plate of Eggs Benedict or his parents will divorce. "The Daily Show". In September 2006, he joined the cast of "The Daily Show" to replace the departing Rob Corddry. Riggle made his debut on "The Daily Show" on September 20, 2006. During the 2008 Olympics, Riggle traveled to China to tape sketches for "The Daily Show", producing a four-part special feature titled "Rob Riggle: Chasing the Dragon." Riggle left "The Daily Show" on December 10, 2008, in his words "to go fight crime"; however, he appeared at Bonnaroo 2009 - along with John Oliver and Rory Albanese, one of the show's executive producers - in a show entitled "An Evening (or Afternoon) with The Daily Show featuring John Oliver, Rob Riggle & Rory Albanese". On August 3, 2010, Riggle made a surprise cameo on "The Daily Show" during an interview with Will Ferrell. While Ferrell and Stewart began discussing Riggle's "lack of talent" and making other disparaging remarks about him, Riggle suddenly walked onto the set to surprise them and asks if they were talking about him. Riggle's intimidating presence appears to make Ferrell and Stewart visibly afraid, continuing the running-joke that Stewart is very afraid of Riggle. Stand-up comedy. Previously, Riggle's live comedy work was mostly improvisational and sketch based, but beginning in 2006 he wanted to try something different and decided to work on creating a stand-up comedy act. After working on his act around various comedy clubs throughout New York City, he later began touring colleges and other local comedy clubs, often performing in stand-up shows with John Oliver and other writers from "The Daily Show". Riggle credits John Oliver for first encouraging him to try stand-up while they shared an office together at "The Daily Show". Riggle hosted an episode of Comedy Central's stand-up series "Live at Gotham" on December 4, 2009. He also taped a "Comedy Central Presents" special that aired on March 5, 2010. Other work. Riggle played the character of Eddie Reynolds in "Blackballed", a 2004 film starring Rob Corddry as the lead character, and featuring almost all of the Respecto Montalban group. Later that year Riggle was one of the "Flab Four" on the Comedy Central mini-series "Straight Plan for the Gay Man", a parody of "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy" that ran for three episodes. In 2006, Riggle guest-starred as a boat captain named Captain Jack on the "Booze Cruise" episode of "The Office", and as an anti-euthanasia activist on "Arrested Development". He was also seen as a NASCAR announcer in "Talladega Nights" with Will Ferrell. In late 2007, Riggle began appearing as a spokesman in a series of Budweiser commercials. The year 2008 saw Riggle sign a talent holding contract with CBS and CBS Paramount Network TV, which includes a development deal to create and star in a half-hour comedy series. In addition he gained a supporting role in "Step Brothers", in which he plays a rude co-worker of Brennan (Will Ferrell). He had memorable supporting roles in the 2009 films "The Hangover" and "". Riggle also had supporting roles in the 2010 comedies "Going the Distance", "Killers", and "The Other Guys". In 2009, Riggle started a recurring role on the "CBS" sitcom "Gary Unmarried". Riggle played the role of Mitch, Jay Mohr's brother from the Marines. In 2010, Riggle and comedian Paul Scheer wrote and starred together in a series of sketches called "Designated Driver" for the first season of the HBO sketch comedy program "Funny or Die Presents". Riggle, Scheer and Rob Huebel wrote and starred in a new series of sketches called "Death Hunt", which appeared on the show's second season in 2011. For the 2010-2011 NFL football season, Riggle recorded a Monday Night Football introduction and several short comedy bits for the Kansas City Chiefs to be played at Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City, Missouri. Riggle played the lead in 2011 CBS sitcom pilot "Home Game", executive produced by Mark Wahlberg. Riggle is seen in stadium monitors at Qwest Field during Seahawks games encouraging fans to cheer. In May 2011, Riggle appeared in a 2-minute short on funnyordie.com as the U.S. Navy SEAL who killed Osama bin Laden. Riggle plays a humble US Navy Lieutenant (though the insignia on his uniform displays three solid gold bands, indicating the O-5 rank of Commander) who, upon being awarded the Distinguished Service Cross, pledges absolute discretion—only to get intoxicated at a local bar and boast unreservedly to a large crowd that he was bin Laden's assailant. Since 2011, Riggle has co-starred as "The President of the Navy" in the Adult Swim comedy-action series "". In April 2012, Riggle was announced as the upcoming host of the 2012 ESPY Awards on ESPN. The show aired on July 11, 2012. In 2012, Riggle had a recurring role as "Kevin Jesquire", in season two of the FX comedy series "Wilfred". Fox NFL Sunday. Beginning with the 19th season premiere of the "Fox NFL Sunday" pre-game show on September 9, 2012, Riggle took over the comedy skit and prognosticator portions of the show previously performed by Frank Caliendo from 2003–2011.
1165727	Venetia Stevenson (born 10 March 1938) is an English-American film and television actress. Early life. Born in 1938 in London, England as Joanna Venetia Invicta Stevenson, she is the daughter of film director Robert Stevenson and actress Anna Lee. The family moved to Hollywood within a year of her birth after her father signed a contract with film producer David Selznick. When her parents divorced in 1944, she stayed with her father and new stepmother, Frances. After an education in exclusive Californian private schools, her theatrical debut was with her mother in "Liliom", a play produced by the Sombrero Theater, in Phoenix, Arizona, in April 1955 and also with the husband and wife team of Fernando Lamas and Arlene Dahl. A one-time Miss Los Angeles Press Club, Stevenson was placed on contract by RKO Pictures in November 1956. Hedda Hopper named Stevenson on her list of top movie newcomers in January 1957, alongside Jayne Mansfield. Hopper said of Stevenson, then 18, she is "the most purely beautiful of all the new crop of stars." Film and television actress. In March 1957, Stevenson was in the cast of the CBS "Playhouse 90" adaptation of "Charley's Aunt", alongside Tom Tryon, Jackie Coogan, and Jeanette MacDonald were among the cast in the telecast. Stevenson played Peggy McTavish in "Darby's Rangers", a Warner Bros. release in which she was paired off with Peter Brown. She is one of the women who is pursued by actors cast as members of an American unit of the same name during World War II. The movie was directed by William Wellman.
1163048	Joshua Charles Malina (; born January 17, 1966) is an American film and stage actor. He is best known for portraying Will Bailey on the NBC drama "The West Wing", Jeremy Goodwin on "Sports Night", and David Rosen on "Scandal". Personal life. Malina was born in New York City. His parents, Fran and Robert Malina, were founding members of Young Israel of Scarsdale in New Rochelle where he grew up. His father was an attorney, investment banker and Broadway producer. The actor has commented that while the name "Malina" does not sound Jewish to most people and often leads them to assume he is Latino, the name is Polish in origin, from the "Polish for 'raspberry.'" Malina graduated from Westchester Day School from 8th grade and the Horace Mann School and Yale University with a B.A. in Theater. He made his acting début in the Broadway production of Aaron Sorkin's "A Few Good Men" and later in the run moved into a major role. Malina had contacted Sorkin initially at the suggestion of his parents when he first went to New York City, as they knew Sorkin was a high-school classmate and friend of Malina's cousins; the cousins, in turn, had spoken highly of Malina to Sorkin, who suggested he audition for the play. Malina has joked in interviews that Sorkin's casting him in subsequent productions may owe to the fact that he once performed the Heimlich maneuver on Sorkin, saving his life, when the writer began to choke while eating a hamburger at a bowling match with the cast of the play. He has since appeared in many of Sorkin film and TV projects. Malina is married to Melissa Merwin, a costume designer whom he met in 1992 through his friendship with her sister, Jenny, and brother-in-law, actor Timothy Busfield; Jenny Busfield predicted the marriage two years before the couple ever met. Melissa is a convert to Conservative Judaism. The Malinas married in 1996 and have two children, Isabel and Avi. Career. Malina's first job in the film business was as a production assistant on the Chevy Chase comedy "Fletch Lives", an ill-received sequel to the star's hit movie "Fletch." His first on-screen appearance was a three-line, five-word role in the film version of "A Few Good Men", where he has said he appreciated the dedication that star Jack Nicholson showed by performing his lines in the scene himself even though his character was off screen and could easily have been played for him by a crew member. In his next film, Sorkin's "The American President", Malina had a somewhat larger role as assistant to Annette Bening's environmental-activist character. Malina played two different characters over four episodes on the talk-show satire "The Larry Sanders Show". He appeared first in 1993 as Robert Brody, a fictional reporter for the real-life magazine "Entertainment Weekly", to whom actor John Ritter gives a scathing interview after having his appearance in the show cancelled to make room for musician Warren Zevon to play a second song (episode: "Off Camera"). Five years later, Malina returned in a recurring role as Kenny Mitchell, a network executive who pushes Larry Sanders out of the show in favor of Jon Stewart. From 1998–2000, Malina starred as character Jeremy Goodwin on Sorkin's "Sports Night", a show that attracted him from the moment Sorkin sent him the pilot script. The Goodwin character began as a research analyst, but was promoted to associate producer by the second season, creating a larger role for Malina. The critically acclaimed show was unable to find a large fan base and was canceled after two seasons, with some critics saying the show's troubles were exacerbated by having to share Sorkin's time with his concurrent project on rival network NBC, "The West Wing". The actor counts "Sports Night" among his most popular roles and noted on the occasion of the show's 10th-anniversary DVD release, "If my straw poll of who stops me to say what is any indication, "West Wing" may only slightly edge "Sports Night"." Following the panned Hank Azaria vehicle "Imagine That" – where both he and Azaria were described as "talent going to waste" – Malina played Will Bailey on "The West Wing" from 2002 to 2006. His character initially was perceived by the public as an attempt to replace departing series star Rob Lowe, although Malina said in numerous interviews that the two actors and characters were too dissimilar to be viewed as anything but a change. During his tenure on "The West Wing", Malina was known to the rest of the cast as a tireless prankster. It is said he coated telephones with Vaseline and reset producer Alex Graves's iPod menus to Mandarin Chinese. He stole some of Bradley Whitford's letterhead stationery and used it in an elaborate prank. At the suggestion of co-star Janel Moloney, Malina sent a $200 Valentine's Day bouquet to season-six newcomer Jimmy Smits that included a card crafted on Whitford's stolen letterhead stating: "Jimmy, You are a delight. I enjoyed every moment we've had together. Be my Valentine." Following the end of "The West Wing", Malina campaigned for the leading role of Danny Tripp in Sorkin's next TV project, "Studio 60 On the Sunset Strip", but the role went instead to Whitford. When the show was cancelled in its first season, Malina was teased by some in the industry who suggested he was Sorkin's good luck charm, but he pointed to Sorkin's upcoming film "Charlie Wilson's War" as evidence his friend could succeed without him. In 2007, Malina became one of the four stars of the short-lived ABC dramedy "Big Shots". His character, Karl Mixworthy, was a pharmaceutical company executive juggling a wife and a mistress, who meet when the jilted lover tries to expose him to his wife but befriends her instead. Malina is a co-creator and producer of Bravo's cable TV series "Celebrity Poker Showdown". In private life, he is an avid poker player, having played with Sorkin while on Broadway, used poker winnings to pay his rent early in his career, and organized a cast-and-crew game that lasted the full duration of "Sports Night" and occasionally delayed the start of shooting. The idea for the show came from a weekly high-stakes poker game hosted by Hank Azaria, which Malina and friend Andrew Hill Newman attended.
629075	Bangkok Hilton is a three-part Australian mini-series, made in 1989 by Kennedy Miller Productions and directed by Ken Cameron. The title of the mini-series is, in the story, the nickname of a fictional Bangkok prison in which the protagonist is imprisoned, a mordant reference to Hanoi Hilton, the prison known as such used by North Vietnam during the Vietnam War. Plot. Bangkok Hilton begins as Hal Stanton (Denholm Elliott) leaves Bangkok by ship in the present day. He explains that he has been travelling for years, since a shameful incident when he was a prisoner of the Japanese right there in Bangkok in WWII. He then takes us to 1960s Sydney, where he was working as a lawyer under the assumed name of Graham Greene. He falls in love with Katherine Faulkner (Judy Morris), the lovely but sheltered daughter of a wealthy family who live in a huge, isolated mansion in the outback. He visits the estate and woos Katherine and they fall passionately in love, but Hal's secret identity is soon exposed. During the war he notoriously betrayed a group of his own men, who were planning an escape, to their Japanese captors, and was later court-martialled for it. The fact that he did so to protect the rest of his men from reprisals was considered irrelevant, and he has lived with the shame ever since. Katherine's family break up the relationship and Hal moves, despondently, away. Katherine is pregnant, however, and soon gives birth to Katrina. The young girl is raised on her own at the estate, treated as a shameful product of the illicit affair. A few years later, Katrina, now grown and played by Nicole Kidman, loses her mother to cancer and inherits the family fortune. Having never ventured off the estate, she travels to Sydney, where she learns that her father is not dead, as she was always told. She decides to go to London, where his family lived, to track him down. In London, she makes contact with the uncle and cousin she has never met before, overcoming their initial reluctance to meet with her. While planning her return to Australia, Katrina is befriended by Arkie Ragan (Jerome Ehlers), a young American photojournalist who becomes her lover and travelling companion. When the trail leads Katrina to Bangkok, Arkie suggests they go by way of Goa. While enjoying a romantic weekend there, he secretly picks up a shipment of heroin and loads it into a hidden compartment in the carrying case of a camera he has given to Katrina. Katrina and Arkie attempt to find Hal in Bangkok, but find the family lawyer, Richard Carlisle (Hugo Weaving), unwilling to help. Reluctantly returning to Australia, Katrina is arrested at the airport when drug sniffing dogs detect the drugs in her camera case. Arkie, who had joined another queue in the customs hall, disappears. Katrina is imprisoned in a squalid, overcrowded Bangkok prison nicknamed the "Bangkok Hilton". There she meets another Australian woman, Mandy Engels (Joy Smithers), a heroin addict also imprisoned for drug trafficking. Mandy had used her mentally retarded brother Billy (Noah Taylor) to carry her drugs as they passed through airport customs but the drugs were detected and both were sentenced to death for trafficking. As Katrina's case works its way through the courts they become friends, with Mandy teaching Katrina the ropes of prison life. Meanwhile, Richard Carlisle convinces Hal to take an active part in the case, pretending to be a lawyer from Carlisle's firm. Hal finds it especially difficult to visit Katrina in the "Bangkok Hilton," because it is the same prison where he was kept by the Japanese forty years earlier. Nonetheless, he finds the will to do so, and to retrace Katrina's footsteps to London and Goa, reuniting with his family as he tracks down the elusive Arkie, hoping his daughter can be saved this way. Eventually, though, Hal and Katrina will be forced to rely only on their own strength to save her life. Production. The mini series was inspired by the Barlow Chambers Case, which was also turned into a mini series. Terry Hayes felt it would be the basis of a good mini series if the story was changed so the person who went to prison was innocent. He was also inspired by the true story of an Irish woman who had fallen in love with an Arab who smuggled a bomb in her luggage. Terry Hayes was originally meant to write the script but he was exhausted from "Dead Calm" and Tony Morphett was given the job. However Morphett was too caught up in work on "Sweet Talker" (1989) and was unable to do it, so Hayes stepped back in. Locations. Bangkok Hilton is based in Australia, England, India and Thailand, however the majority of the series used locations in Sydney, Australia. None of the mini series was filmed in rural New South Wales as the plot suggests. The residential scenes in the early parts of the series were shot in a former convalescent hospital at Concord, Sydney. The use of Green Screen technology superimposed this manor-style house into a rural New South Wales setting. Other locations are Balmain High School in Sydney; the Water Board facility, Waterloo, Sydney; and The Metro Theatre, 30 Orwell Street, Kings Cross, Sydney. Later indoor scenes set in Thailand were largely set-based in the Kennedy Miller Studios, Sydney, apart from the scene involving the escape from prison at in the last part of the series. These, and minor scenes (before the incarceration) were filmed at a disused hospital in North Sydney, New South Wales. Non-set based shots required careful acoustic management to ensure uniformity of sound. Overseas locations are Bangkok International Airport, Bangkok, Thailand; Cidade de Goa Resort Hotel, Vainguinim Beach, Goa, India; Goa Airport, Dabolim, Goa, India; London, England, UK; and the Royal Orchid Sheraton Hotel, Bangkok, Thailand. Impact. It was the highest rating mini series of the year and was the last of the series of productions Kennedy Miller made for Network Ten. Later productions with similar stories include "Return to Paradise" and "Brokedown Palace". After the series aired, the name "Bangkok Hilton" has regularly been used in the media to refer to any and all Bangkok prisons as if those prisons were actually nicknamed "Bangkok Hilton" in real life. Some news reports state that the Lard Yao women's prison carries the nickname "Bangkok Hilton" A 2004 BBC documentary about Bangkwang prison - a male only prison - was titled "The Real Bangkok Hilton". Some news reports have claimed that "Bangkwang" prison itself carries the real-life nickname "Bangkok Hilton". Versions. The miniseries was originally broadcast in Australia on 10 TV Australia as three episodes on 5, 6 and 7 November 1989, each running two hours with adverts, for a complete running time of four-and-a-half hours. This version was also broadcast in the US on TBS in 1991 with a few minor edits of seconds at a time for content and language. In 2000 it was released on DVD in the United Kingdom. Each episode was cut in half, creating six new episodes with three episodes on each of two discs. This version mistakenly left the subtitles off an important scene which is spoken in the Thai language. The bootleg version, commonly available from Russia and other countries, cuts the series down to ninety minutes, only a third of its original length. The DVD version released in Australia in 2005 presents the series in the original three parts, but has been cropped enormously for widescreen televisions, from 1.33:1 to 1.78:1, cutting off the top and bottom of the film. Because of this, the opening and closing credits had to be completely redone and the final shot of the film, which played under the closing credits of episode 3, has thus been omitted. Bangkok Hilton hotels. At the time the miniseries was made, the Hilton International Bangkok at Nai Lert Park (opened in 1983), was in operation. The series carried a disclaimer that it had no connection to that hotel. The hotel is now operated by Raffles International under the name Swissotel Nai Lert Park Bangkok and is still owned by the Sampatisiri family.
1179593	Thomas Alan "Tom" Waits (born December 7, 1949) is an American singer-songwriter, composer, and actor. Waits has a distinctive voice, described by critic Daniel Durchholz as sounding "like it was soaked in a vat of bourbon, left hanging in the smokehouse for a few months, and then taken outside and run over with a car." With this trademark growl, his incorporation of pre-rock music styles such as blues, jazz, and vaudeville, and experimental tendencies verging on industrial music, Waits has built up a distinctive musical persona. He has worked as a composer for movies and musical plays and has acted in supporting roles in films, including "Paradise Alley" and "Bram Stoker's Dracula"; he also starred in the 1986 film "Down by Law". He was nominated for an Academy Award for his soundtrack work on "One from the Heart". Waits' lyrics frequently present atmospheric portraits of grotesque, often seedy characters and places—although he has also shown a penchant for more conventional ballads. He has a cult following and has influenced subsequent songwriters despite having little radio or music video support. His songs are best-known through cover versions by more commercial artists: "Jersey Girl", performed by Bruce Springsteen, "Ol' '55", performed by the Eagles, and "Downtown Train", performed by Rod Stewart. Although Waits' albums have met with mixed commercial success in his native United States, they have occasionally achieved gold album sales status in other countries. He has been nominated for a number of major music awards and has won Grammy Awards for two albums, "Bone Machine" and "Mule Variations". In 2011, Waits was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Waits lives in Sonoma County, California with his wife, Kathleen Brennan, and three children. Origins and musical beginnings. Waits was born at Park Avenue Hospital in Pomona, California, the son of Alma Fern (née Johnson) McMurray and Jesse Frank Waits, both schoolteachers. His father was of Scots-Irish descent and his mother was of Norwegian ancestry. After Waits' parents divorced in 1960, he lived with his mother in Whittier, and then moved to National City, in San Diego County, near the Mexico–United States border. Waits, who taught himself how to play the piano on a neighbor's instrument, often took trips to Mexico with his father, who taught Spanish; he would later say that he found his love of music during these trips through a Mexican ballad that was "probably a Ranchera, you know, on the car radio with my dad." By 1965, while attending Hilltop High School within the Sweetwater Union High School District, Chula Vista, Waits was playing in an R&B/soul band called The Systems and had begun his first job at Napoleone Pizza House in National City (about which he would later sing on "I Can't Wait to Get Off Work (And See My Baby on Montgomery Avenue)" from "Small Change" and "The Ghosts of Saturday Night (After Hours at Napoleone's Pizza House)" on "The Heart of Saturday Night"). He later admitted that he was not a fan of the 1960s music scene, stating, "I wasn't thrilled by Blue Cheer, so I found an alternative, even if it was Bing Crosby." Five years later, he was working as a doorman at the Heritage nightclub in San Diego—where artists of every genre performed—when he did his first paid gig for $6. A fan of Bob Dylan, Lord Buckley, Jack Kerouac, Louis Armstrong, Howlin' Wolf, and Charles Bukowski, Waits began developing his own idiosyncratic musical style. After serving with the United States Coast Guard, he took his newly formed act to Monday nights at The Troubadour in Los Angeles, where musicians would line up all day for the opportunity to perform on stage that night. In 1971, Waits moved to the Echo Park neighborhood of L.A. (at the time, also home to musicians Glenn Frey of the Eagles, J. D. Souther, Jackson Browne, and Frank Zappa) and signed with Herb Cohen at the age of 21. From August to December 1971, Waits made a series of demo recordings for Cohen's Bizarre/Straight label, including many songs for which he would later become known. These early tracks were released twenty years later on "The Early Years, Volume One" and "Volume Two". 1970s. Waits signed to Asylum Records in 1972, and after numerous abortive recording sessions, his first record—the jazzy, folk-tinged "Closing Time"—was released in 1973. The album, which was produced and arranged by former Lovin' Spoonful member Jerry Yester, received positive reviews, but Waits did not gain widespread attention until a number of the album's tracks were covered by more prominent artists. Later in 1973, Tim Buckley released the album "Sefronia", which contained a cover version of Waits' song "Martha" from "Closing Time", the first-ever cover of a Tom Waits song by a known artist. This cover later appeared in the 1995 compilation "". The album's opening track, "Ol' '55", was recorded by the Eagles in 1974 for their "On the Border" album. He began touring and opening for such artists as Charlie Rich, Martha and the Vandellas, and Frank Zappa. Waits received increasing critical acclaim and gathered a loyal cult following with his subsequent albums. "The Heart of Saturday Night" (1974), featuring the song "(Looking for) The Heart of Saturday Night", revealed Waits's roots as a nightclub performer, with half-spoken and half-crooned ballads often accompanied by a jazz backup band. Waits described the album as: a comprehensive study of a number of aspects of this search for the center of Saturday night, which Jack Kerouac relentlessly chased from one end of this country to the other, and I've attempted to scoop up a few diamonds of this magic that I see. In 1975, Waits moved to the Tropicana Motel on Santa Monica Boulevard and released the double album "Nighthawks at the Diner", recorded in a studio with a small audience in order to capture the ambience of a live show. The record exemplifies this phase of his career, including the lengthy spoken interludes between songs that punctuated his live act. That year, he also contributed backing vocals to Bonnie Raitt's "Your Sweet and Shiny Eyes", from her album "Home Plate". By this time, Waits was drinking heavily, and life on the road was starting to take its toll. Waits, looking back at the period, has said,I was sick through that whole period ... It was starting to wear on me, all the touring. I'd been traveling quite a bit, living in hotels, eating bad food, drinking a lot — too much. There's a lifestyle that's there before you arrive and you're introduced to it. It's unavoidable. In reaction to these hardships, Waits recorded "Small Change" (1976), which finds him in a much more cynical and pessimistic mood, lyrically, with many songs such as "The Piano Has Been Drinking (Not Me) (An Evening with Pete King)" and "Bad Liver and a Broken Heart (In Lowell)". With the album, Waits asserted that he "tried to resolve a few things as far as this cocktail lounge, maudlin, crying-in-your-beer image that I have. There ain't nothin' funny about a drunk [...] I was really starting to believe that there was something amusing and wonderfully American about being a drunk. I ended up telling myself to cut that shit out." The album, which also included long-time fan favorite "Tom Traubert's Blues (Four Sheets to the Wind in Copenhagen)", featured jazz drummer Shelly Manne and was, like his previous albums, heavily influenced by jazz. "Small Change", which was accompanied by the double A-side single "Step Right Up"/"The Piano Has Been Drinking", was a critical and commercial success and far outsold any of Waits's previous albums. With it, Waits broke onto "Billboard"'s Top 100 Albums chart for the first time in his career (a feat Waits would not repeat until 1999 with the release of "Mule Variations"). This resulted in a much higher public profile, which brought with it interviews and articles in "Time", "Newsweek", and "Vogue". Waits put together a regular touring band, The Nocturnal Emissions, which featured Frank Vicari on tenor saxophone, Fitzgerald Jenkins on bass guitar, and Chip White on drums and vibraphone. Tom Waits and the Nocturnal Emissions toured the United States and Europe extensively from October 1976 until May 1977, including a performance of "The Piano Has Been Drinking" on cult BBC2 television music show the "Old Grey Whistle Test" in May 1976. "Foreign Affairs" (1977) was musically in a similar vein to "Small Change", but showed further artistic refinement and exploration into jazz and blues styles. Particularly noteworthy is the long cinematic spoken-word piece, "Potter's Field", set to an orchestral score. The album also features Bette Midler singing a duet with Waits on "I Never Talk to Strangers." The album "Blue Valentine" (1978) displayed Waits's biggest musical departure to date, with much more focus on electric guitar and keyboards than on previous albums and hardly any strings (with the exception of album-opener "Somewhere" — a cover of Leonard Bernstein's song from "West Side Story" — and "Kentucky Avenue") for a darker, more blues-oriented sound. The song "Blue Valentines" was also unique for Waits in that it featured a desolate arrangement of solo electric guitar played by Ray Crawford, accompanied by Waits' vocal. Around this time, Waits had a relationship with Rickie Lee Jones (who appears on the sleeve art of the "Blue Valentine" album). In 1978, Waits also appeared in his first film role, in "Paradise Alley" as Mumbles the pianist, and contributed the original compositions "(Meet Me in) Paradise Alley" and "Annie's Back in Town" to the film's soundtrack. "Heartattack and Vine", Waits's last studio album for Asylum, was released in 1980, featuring a developing sound that included both ballads ("Jersey Girl") and rougher-edged rhythm and blues. The same year, he began a long working relationship with Francis Ford Coppola, who asked Waits to provide music for his film "One from the Heart". For Coppola's film, Waits originally wanted to work with Bette Midler; she was unavailable due to prior engagements, however. Waits ended up working with singer/songwriter Crystal Gayle as his vocal foil for the album. 1980s. In August 1980, Waits married Kathleen Brennan, a screenwriter, whom he had met while working on the set of the Francis Ford Coppola movie "One from the Heart". Brennan is regularly credited as co-author of many songs in his later albums, and Waits often cites her as a major influence on his work. She introduced him to the music of Captain Beefheart. Despite having shared a manager with Beefheart in the 1970s, Waits says, "I became more acquainted with him when I got married." Waits would later describe his relationship with Brennan as a paradigm shift in his musical development. After leaving Asylum, the label released the first Tom Waits "Best of" album in 1981, a collection called "Bounced Checks", notable for including an alternate, stripped down version of "Jersey Girl" and the otherwise unreleased "Mr. Henry", as well as an alternate master of "Whistlin' Past the Graveyard" and a live performance of "The Piano Has Been Drinking". During this period, Waits appeared in a series of minor movie roles, including a cameo role in "Wolfen" (1981) as an inebriated piano player, and his song "Jitterbug Boy" also appeared on the movie's soundtrack. "One from the Heart" received its official theatrical release in 1982, with Waits appearing in a cameo as a trumpet player as well as receiving an Oscar nomination for Original Song Score (eventually losing out to "Victor Victoria", by Henry Mancini and Leslie Bricusse). This marked the first in a series of collaborations between Waits and Coppola, with Waits appearing in cameos in Coppola's movies "The Outsiders" (1983), "Rumble Fish" (1983), and "The Cotton Club" (1984). Waits also contributed two songs to the documentary "Streetwise" (1984), "Rat's Theme" and "Take Care of All My Children". After leaving Asylum for Island Records, Waits released "Swordfishtrombones" in 1983, a record that marked a sharp turn in his musical direction. While Waits had before played either piano or guitar, he now gravitated towards less common instruments, saying, "Your hands are like dogs, going to the same places they've been. You have to be careful when playing is no longer in the mind but in the fingers, going to happy places. You have to break them of their habits or you don't explore; you only play what is confident and pleasing. I'm learning to break those habits by playing instruments I know absolutely nothing about, like a bassoon or a waterphone." "Swordfishtrombones" also introduced instruments such as bagpipes ("Town with No Cheer") and marimba ("Shore Leave") to Waits' repertoire, as well as pump organs, percussion (sometimes reminiscent of the music of Harry Partch), horn sections (often featuring Ralph Carney playing in the style of brass bands or soul music), experimental guitar, and obsolete instruments (many of Waits' albums have featured a damaged, unpredictable Chamberlin, and more recent albums have included the little-used Stroh violin). His songwriting shifted as well, moving away from the traditional piano-and-strings ballad sound of his 1970s output towards a number of styles largely ignored in pop music, including primal blues, cabaret stylings, rumbas, theatrical approaches in the style of Kurt Weill, tango music, early country music and European folk music as well as the Tin Pan Alley-era songs that influenced his early output. He also recorded a spoken word piece, "Frank's Wild Years", influenced by Ken Nordine's "word jazz" records of the 1950s. Apart from Captain Beefheart and some of Dr. John's early output, there was little precedent in popular music. Waits's new emphasis on experimenting with various styles and instrumentation continued on 1985's "Rain Dogs", a sprawling, 19-song collection which received glowing reviews (the album was ranked #21 on "Rolling Stone"'s list of the 100 greatest albums of the 1980s. In 2003, the album was ranked number 397 on "Rolling Stone" magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time.) Contributions from guitarists Marc Ribot, Robert Quine, and Keith Richards accompanied Waits' move away from piano-based songs, in juxtaposition with an increased emphasis on instruments such as marimba, accordion, double bass, trombone, and banjo. The album also spawned the 12" single "Downtown Train/Tango Till They're Sore/Jockey Full of Bourbon", with Jean Baptiste Mondino filming a promotional music video for "Downtown Train" (which would later become a hit for Rod Stewart), featuring a cameo from boxing legend Jake LaMotta. The album peaked at #188 on Billboard's Top 200 albums chart; however, its reputation has come to far outshine low initial sales. "Franks Wild Years", a musical play by Waits and Brennan, was staged as an Off-Broadway musical in 1986, directed by Gary Sinise, in a successful run at Chicago's famed Steppenwolf Theater. Waits himself played the lead role. Waits developed his acting career with several supporting roles and a lead role in Jim Jarmusch's "Down by Law" in 1986, which also featured two of Waits's songs from "Rain Dogs" in the soundtrack. In the same year, Waits also contributed vocals to the song "Harlem Shuffle" on The Rolling Stones' album "Dirty Work". In 1987, he released "Franks Wild Years" (subtitled "Un Operachi Romantico in Two Acts"), which included studio versions from Waits' play of the same name. "Rolling Stone" summed up the album's myriad styles this way: "Everything from sleazy strip-show blues to cheesy waltzes to supercilious lounge lizardry is given spare, jarring arrangements using various combinations of squawking horns, bashed drums, plucked banjo, snaky double bass, carnival organ and jaunty accordion." Waits also continued to further his acting career with a supporting role as Rudy the Kraut in "Ironweed" (an adaptation of William Kennedy's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel) alongside Jack Nicholson and Meryl Streep, in which Waits performed the song "Big Rock Candy Mountain", as well as a part in Robert Frank's "Candy Mountain", in which Waits also performed "Once More Before I Go." In 1988, Waits performed in "Big Time", a surreal concert movie and soundtrack which he cowrote with his wife. In 1989, Waits appeared in his final theatrical stage role to date, appearing as Curly in Thomas Babe's "Demon Wine", alongside Bill Pullman, Philip Baker Hall, Carol Kane, and Bud Cort. The play opened at the Los Angeles Theater Center in February 1989 to mixed reviews, although Waits' performance was singled out by a number of critics, including John C. Mahoney, who described it as "mesmerizing." Waits finished the decade with appearances in three movies: as the voice of a radio DJ in Jim Jarmusch's "Mystery Train"; as Kenny the Hitman in Robert Dornhelm's "Cold Feet"; and the lead role of Punch & Judy man Silva in "Bearskin: An Urban Fairytale". His only musical output of the year consisted of contributing his cover of Phil Phillips' "Sea of Love" to the soundtrack of the Al Pacino movie of the same name and contributing vocals to The Replacements song "Date to Church", which appeared as a B-side to their single "I'll Be You". 1990s. "The Black Rider: The Casting of the Magic Bullets"—a theatrical collaboration of Waits, director Robert Wilson, and writer William S. Burroughs—premiered at Hamburg's Thalia Theatre on March 31, 1990. The project was based on a German folktale called "Der Freischütz", with Wilson responsible for the design and direction, Burroughs for writing the book, and Waits for music and lyrics, which were heavily influenced by the works of Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill. In the same year, Waits contributed a cover of Cole Porter's "It's All Right with Me" to "Red Hot + Blue", the first in the series of compilation albums from the Red Hot Organization — one of the first major AIDS benefits in the music business—which sold over a million copies worldwide. Jim Jarmusch directed a promotional music video for the song. Waits also collaborated with photographer Sylvia Plachy in the same year; her book "Sylvia Plachy's Unguided Tour" includes a short Waits record to accompany the photographs and text. The following year, Waits was extremely busy working on movie soundtracks, acting, and contributing to a number of music projects by other artists. First, Waits appeared on the Primus album "Sailing the Seas of Cheese" as the voice of "Tommy the Cat", which exposed him to a new audience in alternative rock. This was the first of several collaborations between Waits and the group; Frontman Les Claypool would appear on several subsequent Waits releases. The same year saw Waits provide spoken word contributions to "Devout Catalyst", an album by one of Waits' greatest influences, Ken Nordine, on the songs "A Thousand Bing Bangs" and "The Movie." Waits also contributed vocals to a duet with singer Bob Forrest on the song "Adios Lounge" on the Thelonious Monster album "Beautiful Mess". He also contributed vocals to two songs ("Little Man" and "I'm Not Your Fool Anymore") on jazz tenor saxophonist Teddy Edwards' album "Mississippi Lad". Edwards was extremely complimentary of Waits' contributions, saying:Tom Waits is the one who got me my contract with PolyGram. He's wonderful, he's America's best lyricist since Johnny Mercer. He came down to the studio on the "Mississippi Lad" album, that's the first one I did for PolyGram, and he sang two of my songs, wouldn't accept any money, just trying to give me the best boost that he could. The only collection of exclusively Waits-performed material of 1991 appeared when Waits composed and conducted the almost exclusively instrumental music for Jim Jarmusch's 1991 film "Night on Earth", which was released as an album the following year. In July 1991, Screamin' Jay Hawkins released the album "Black Music for White People", which features covers of two Waits compositions: "Heartattack & Vine" (which later that year was used in a European Levi's advertisement without Waits' permission, resulting in a lawsuit) and "Ice Cream Man". Waits continued to appear in movie acting roles, the most significant of which was his uncredited cameo as a disabled veteran in Terry Gilliam's "The Fisher King". He also appeared alongside Kevin Bacon, John Malkovich, and Jamie Lee Curtis in Steve Rash's "Queens Logic", and opposite Tom Berenger and Kathy Bates in Hector Babenco's film "At Play in the Fields of the Lord", adapted from Peter Matthiessen's 1965 novel. "Bone Machine", Waits's first studio album in five years, was released in 1992. The stark record featured a great deal of percussion and guitar (with little piano or sax), marking another change in Waits' sound. Critic Steve Huey calls it "perhaps Tom Waits's most cohesive album... a morbid, sinister nightmare, one that applied the quirks of his experimental '80s classics to stunningly evocative—and often harrowing—effect... Waits' most affecting and powerful recording, even if it isn't his most accessible." "Bone Machine" was awarded a Grammy in the Best Alternative Album category. On December 19, 1992 "Alice", Waits's second theatrical project with Robert Wilson, premiered at the Thalia Theatre in Hamburg. Paul Schmidt adapted the text from the works of Lewis Carroll ("Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" and "Through the Looking-Glass", in particular), with songs by Waits and Kathleen Brennan presented as intersections with the text rather than as expansions of the story, as would be the case in conventional musical theater. These songs would be recorded by Waits as a studio album 10 years later on "Alice". 1992 also saw Waits featuring in Francis Ford Coppola's film "Bram Stoker's Dracula", as the possessed lunatic Renfield. In 1993, he released "The Black Rider", which contained studio versions of the songs that Waits had written for the musical of the same name three years previously, with the exceptions of "Chase the Clouds Away" and "In the Morning", which appeared in the theatrical production but not on the studio album. William S. Burroughs also guests on vocals on "'Tain't No Sin". In the same year, Waits lent his vocals to Gavin Bryars' 75-minute reworking of his 1971 classical music piece "Jesus' Blood Never Failed Me Yet"; appeared in Robert Altman's film version of Raymond Carver's stories "Short Cuts" and Jim Jarmusch's "", a short black-and-white movie with Iggy Pop; and his third child, Sullivan, was born. In 1997, Waits and Brennan wrote and performed the music for "Bunny" the animated short film by 20th Century Fox's Blue Sky Studios, which was awarded Best Animated Short Film by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. In 1995, Holly Cole released "Temptation", a tribute album consisting entirely of Waits covers. Another Waits cover was released in 1996, as Meat Loaf covered "Martha" for his concept album "Welcome to the Neighborhood". In 1998, after Island Records released the compilation "Beautiful Maladies: The Island Years", Waits left the label for Epitaph, whose president, Andy Kaulkin, said the label was "blown away that Tom would even consider us. We are huge fans." Waits himself was full of praise for the label, saying "Epitaph is rare for being owned and operated by musicians. They have good taste and a load of enthusiasm, plus they're nice people. And they gave me a brand-new Cadillac, of course." Waits's first album on his new label, "Mule Variations", was issued in 1999. "Billboard" described the album as musically melding "backwoods blues, skewed gospel, and unruly art stomp into a sublime piece of junkyard sound sculpture." The album was Waits' first release to feature a turntablist. The album won a Grammy in 2000; as an indicator of how difficult it is to classify Waits's music, he was nominated simultaneously for Best Contemporary Folk Album (which he won) and Best Male Rock Vocal Performance (for the song "Hold On"), both different from the genre for which he won his previous Grammy. The album was also his highest-charting album in the U.S. to date, reaching #30. The same year, Waits made a foray into producing music for other artists, teaming up with his old friend Chuck E. Weiss to coproduce (with his wife, Kathleen Brennan) "Extremely Cool", as well as appearing on the record as a guest vocalist and guitarist. He also contributed a cover of Skip Spence's "Books of Moses" to "", a collection of covers of the singer's songs on Birdman Records. The same year, Waits appeared in the comedy "Mystery Men". 2000s. John Hammond's "Wicked Grin", a collection of Waits cover songs, was released in 2001. Waits appears on most songs, playing guitar, piano, and/or offering backing vocals. The album also includes the traditional hymn "I Know I've Been Changed", performed as a duet by Hammond and Waits. Tori Amos included a cover of the song "Time", from "Rain Dogs" on her 2001 album "Strange Little Girls". In 2002, Waits simultaneously released two albums, "Alice" and "Blood Money". Both collections had been written almost 10 years previously and were based on theatrical collaborations with Robert Wilson; the former a musical play about Lewis Carroll, and the latter an interpretation of Georg Büchner's play fragment "Woyzeck". Both albums revisit the tango, Tin Pan Alley, and spoken-word influences of "Swordfishtrombones", while the lyrics are both profoundly cynical and melancholic, exemplified by "Misery is the River of the World" and "Everything Goes to Hell." "Diamond in Your Mind", which Waits wrote for Wilson's "Woyzeck", did not appear on "Blood Money"; however, it did emerge on Solomon Burke's album "Don't Give Up on Me" of the same year. While Waits has played the song live a number of times, an official version would not be released until 2007. The same year, Waits contributed a version of "The Return of Jackie and Judy" by The Ramones to the compilation album "", which was released in 2003 on Columbia Records. That same year, Waits was also a judge for the 2nd annual Independent Music Awards to support independent artists' careers. Waits was also a judge for the 10th annual Independent Music Awards. Waits released "Real Gone", his first nontheatrical studio album since "Mule Variations", in 2004. It is Waits's only album to date to feature absolutely no piano on any of its tracks. Waits beatboxes on the opening track, "Top of the Hill", and most of the album's songs begin with Waits's "vocal percussion" improvisations. It is also more rock-oriented, with less blues influence than he has previously demonstrated. The same year, Waits contributed backing vocals to the track "Go Tell It on the Mountain" on the Grammy Award (Best Traditional Gospel Album)-winning album of the same name by The Blind Boys of Alabama. He also contributed a version of Daniel Johnston's "King Kong" to the tribute album "", released on Gammon Records. At this time, Waits made a return to acting after a five-year break, marked at first by the re-release of his 1993 Jim Jarmusch-directed short "", costarring Iggy Pop, compiled in "Coffee and Cigarettes". In 2005, Waits appeared in the Tony Scott film "Domino" as a soothsayer. In the same year, Waits appeared as himself in Roberto Benigni's romantic comedy "La Tigre e la Neve", set in occupied Baghdad during the Iraq War. In the movie, Waits appears in a dream scene as himself, singing the ballad "You Can Never Hold Back Spring" and accompanying himself at the piano. A 54-song three-disc box set of rarities, unreleased tracks, and brand-new compositions called "" was released in November 2006. The three discs are subdivided relating to their content: "Brawlers" features Waits's more upbeat rock and blues songs; "Bawlers", his ballads and love songs; and "Bastards", songs that fit in neither category, including a number of spoken-word tracks. A video for the song "Lie to Me" was produced as a promotion for the collection. "Orphans" also continues Waits's newfound interest in politics with "Road to Peace", a song about the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. The album is also notable for containing a number of covers of songs by other artists, including The Ramones ("The Return of Jackie and Judy" and "Danny Says"), Daniel Johnston ("King Kong"), Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht ("What Keeps Mankind Alive"), and Lead Belly ("Ain't Goin' Down to the Well" and "Goodnight Irene"), as well as renditions of works by poets and authors admired by Waits, such as Charles Bukowski and Jack Kerouac and a previously released duet with Mark Linkous of Sparklehorse entitled "Dog Door". Waits' albums "Orphans: Brawlers, Bawlers & Bastards" and "Alice" are both included in metacritic.com's list of the "Top 200: Best-Reviewed Albums" since 2000 at #10 and #20, respectively (as of November 2009). The same year, Waits appeared on Sparklehorse's album "Dreamt for Light Years in the Belly of a Mountain", playing piano on the track "Morning Hollow." Five different versions of Waits's song "Way Down in the Hole" have been used as the opening theme songs for the HBO television show "The Wire". Waits's own version, from "Frank's Wild Years", was used for season two. The other versions used for the series were performed by, in season order, The Blind Boys of Alabama, The Neville Brothers, "DoMaJe" and Steve Earle. Waits made a number of high-profile television and concert appearances between 2006 and 2010. In November 2006, Waits appeared on "The Daily Show" and performed "The Day After Tomorrow." This was significant for his having been only the third performing guest on the show, the first being Tenacious D and the second The White Stripes. On May 4, 2007, Waits performed "Lucinda" and "Ain't Goin' Down to the Well" from "Orphans" on the last show of a week "Late Night with Conan O'Brien" spent in San Francisco. There was a short interview after the last performance. Waits also played in the Bridge School Benefit on October 27–28, 2007 with Kronos Quartet. On July 10, 2007, Waits released the download-only digital single "Diamond In Your Mind". The version of the song was recorded with Kronos Quartet, with Greg Cohen, Philip Glass, and The Dalai Lama at the benefit concert "Healing The Divide: A Concert for Peace and Reconciliation" at Avery Fisher Hall, recorded on September 21, 2003. Waits's song "Trampled Rose" (from "Real Gone") appeared on the critically acclaimed album "Raising Sand", a collaboration between Robert Plant and Alison Krauss. Waits also provided guest vocals on the song "Pray" by fellow ANTI- artists The Book of Knots on their album "Traineater". He played the role of Kneller in the film "", which opened in November 2007. On January 22, 2008, Waits made a rare live appearance in Los Angeles, performing at a benefit for Bet Tzedek Legal Services—The House of Justice, a nonprofit poverty law center. On May 7, 2008, Waits announced the Glitter and Doom Tour starting in June 2008, touring cities in the southern United States and subsequently announced a series of dates in the UK, Ireland and mainland Europe. Waits was awarded the key to the city of El Paso, Texas during a concert on June 20, 2008. In his generally positive review of the opening show of the tour, "The Wall Street Journal" critic Jim Fusilli described Waits' music thus: On May 20, 2008, Scarlett Johansson's debut album, entitled "Anywhere I Lay My Head", featured covers of ten Tom Waits songs. Waits made an appearance on the album "The Spirit of Apollo" by alternative hip hop project N.A.S.A., on the track "Spacious Thoughts." Waits wrote the following introduction for the Tompkins Square compilation "People Take Warning – Murder Ballads & Disaster Songs, 1913–1938": In late 2009, Terry Gilliam's film "The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus" was released, with Waits in the role of Mr. Nick. Production began in December 2007 in London. Star Heath Ledger's death in January 2008 cast doubt on the film's future, but the production was salvaged with the addition of new actors playing his character in scenes he did not complete. 2010s. Waits played the role of "The Engineer" in the film "The Book of Eli", opposite Denzel Washington, which opened in January 2010. He is working on a new stage musical with director and long-time collaborator Robert Wilson and playwright Martin McDonagh. In early 2011, Tom Waits completed a set of 23 poems entitled "Seeds on Hard Ground", which were inspired by Michael O'Brien's portraits of the homeless in his upcoming book, "Hard Ground", which will include the poems alongside the portraits. In anticipation of the book release, Waits and ANTI- printed limited edition chapbooks of the poems to raise money for Redwood Empire Food Bank, a homeless referral and family support service in Sonoma County, California. As of January 26, 2011, four editions, each limited to a thousand copies costing $24.99US each, sold out, raising $90,000 for the food bank. It was announced on February 9, 2011, that Waits was to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame by Neil Young. The ceremony was held at the Waldorf-Astoria on Monday, March 14, 2011, at 8:30pm EST. Waits accepted the award with his customary humor, stating, "They say I have no hits and that I'm difficult to work with... like it's a bad thing." On February 24, 2011, it was announced via Waits' official website that he has begun work on his next studio album. Waits said through his website that on August 23 he would "set the record straight" in regards to rumors of a new release. On August 23, the title of the new album was revealed to be "Bad as Me", and a new single, also titled "Bad as Me," started being offered via Amazon.com and other sites. The album was released on October 24. Waits appears on the songs "Fadin' Moon" and "Ghost to a Ghost" on Hank Williams III's 2011 album "Ghost to a Ghost/Gutter Town". In 2012, Waits appeared in the movie "Seven Psychopaths" as part of an ensemble cast which included Colin Farrell and Christopher Walken. In 2013, the song "Shenandoah," which Waits recorded with Keith Richards, was included on the compilation album "Son Of Rogue's Gallery: Pirate Ballads, Sea Songs & Chanteys." The album will be released February 19 on the ANTI- label. On May 5, 2013, Waits joined The Rolling Stones on stage at the Oracle Arena in Oakland, California to duet with Mick Jagger on the song "Little Red Rooster". Lawsuits. Waits has steadfastly refused to allow the use of his songs in commercials and has joked about other artists who do (commenting "If Michael Jackson wants to work for Pepsi, why doesn't he just get himself a suit and an office in their headquarters and be done with it?"). He has filed several lawsuits against advertisers who used his material without permission. He has been quoted as saying, "Apparently, the highest compliment our culture grants artists nowadays is to be in an ad — ideally, naked and purring on the hood of a new car", he said in a statement, referring to the Mercury Cougar. "I have adamantly and repeatedly refused this dubious honor." Waits filed his first lawsuit in 1988 against Frito-Lay. The company had approached Waits to use one of his songs in an advertisement, which Waits declined. Frito-Lay hired a Waits soundalike to sing a jingle similar to the song "Step Right Up" from the album "Small Change"', which is a song Waits has called "an indictment of advertising". Waits won the lawsuit, becoming one of the first artists to successfully sue a company for using an impersonator without permission. The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed an award of $2.375 million in his favor ("Waits v. Frito-Lay", 978 F. 2d 1093 (9th Cir. 1992)). In 1993, Levi's used Screamin' Jay Hawkins' version of Waits' "Heartattack and Vine" in a commercial. Waits sued, and Levi's agreed to cease all use of the song and offered a full page apology in "Billboard". Waits found himself in a situation similar to his earlier one with Frito Lay in 2000 when Audi approached him, asking to use "Innocent When You Dream" (from "Franks Wild Years") for a commercial broadcast in Spain. Waits declined, but the commercial ultimately featured music very similar to that song. Waits undertook legal action, and a Spanish court recognized that there had been a violation of Waits's moral rights in addition to the infringement of copyright. The production company, Tandem Campany Guasch, was ordered to pay compensation to Waits through his Spanish publisher. Waits was later quoted as jokingly saying the company got the name of the song wrong, thinking it was called "Innocent When You Scheme". In 2005, Waits sued Adam Opel AG, claiming that, after having failed to sign him to sing in their Scandinavian commercials, they had hired a sound-alike singer. In 2007, the suit was settled, and Waits gave the sum to charity. Waits has also filed a lawsuit unrelated to music. He was arrested in 1977 outside Duke's Tropicana Coffee Shop in Los Angeles. Waits and a friend were trying to stop some men from bullying other patrons. The men were plainclothes officers, and Waits and his friend were arrested and charged with disturbing the peace. The jury found Waits not guilty; he took the police department to court and was awarded $7,500 compensation.
820059	Filth and Wisdom is a 2008 film directed by Madonna, starring Eugene Hütz, Holly Weston, Vicky McClure and Richard E. Grant. It was filmed on location in London, England, from 14 to 29 May 2007. Locations included two actual strip clubs in Hammersmith and Swiss Cottage; both owned by the Secrets Clubs chain. Additional scenes were shot in July 2007. The film premiered at the Berlin International Film Festival on 13 February 2008 which was attended by Madonna and cast members Hütz, Weston and McClure. It did not receive many positive reviews. On 17 October 2008 the film went into limited release, as well as being simultaneously released "On Demand" on most cable providers. It is the first motion picture production for Madonna's company, Semtex Films. Plot. Described as a comedy/drama/musical/romance, the story revolves around a Ukrainian immigrant named A.K. (Hütz) who finances his dreams of rock glory by moonlighting as a cross-dressing dominatrix and his two female flatmates: Holly (Weston), a ballet dancer who works as a stripper and pole-dancer at a local club and Juliette (McClure), a pharmacy assistant who dreams of going to Africa to help starving children. The Gypsy punk band that appears in the film is portrayed by real-life Gypsy punk band, Gogol Bordello, who also contributed three songs to the film's soundtrack. The band's lead singer, Eugene Hütz, portrays the main character – a character with a philosophical attitude towards life. Madonna allowed additional dialogue written by Hütz himself to be included in the film. Reception. The film met with generally negative reviews: the movie website Rotten Tomatoes reported that 28% of critics gave the film positive write-ups based on 53 reviews. "The Times" Online claimed, "Madonna has done herself proud" and "The Telegraph" described the film as "not an entirely unpromising first effort" but went on to say "Madonna would do well to hang on to her day job." Peter Bradshaw of "The Guardian" wrote, "Well, it had to happen. Madonna has been a terrible actor in many, many films and now – fiercely aspirational as ever – she has graduated to being a terrible director." Jonathan Romney of "Screen International" called the film "a good-humoured, averagely average vanity project" and "a cheap and cheerful comedy," adding that "Madonna simply cannot direct actors." "The New Yorker"s Anthony Lane panned the film, saying that "in technical terms, more professional productions than this are filmed and cut on iMovie, by ten-year-olds, a thousand times a day" and that "if the actors were paid according to their talents, they cannot have cost more than forty bucks."
1060506	Debra Lynn Messing (born August 15, 1968) is an American actress. She is widely known for her television roles in "Will & Grace", "The Starter Wife" and "Smash". Following her graduation from New York University's renowned Tisch School of the Arts, Messing had short-lived tenures on the Fox sitcom "Ned & Stacey" and the ABC sci-fi "Prey". She rose to prominence in her role as Grace Adler on the NBC sitcom "Will & Grace", earning both commercial and critical success throughout the series' eight season run. She also received critical acclaim for her work as Molly Kagan in the USA Network series "The Starter Wife". She recently played the lead role of Julia Houston in the musical-drama series "Smash", before it was cancelled by NBC after two seasons.
1166291	Kenneth "Chi" McBride (born September 23, 1961) is an American actor. He starred as high school principal Steven Harper on the series "Boston Public", as Emerson Cod on "Pushing Daisies", and as Detective Laverne Winston on the Fox drama "Human Target". He recently co-starred in the short-lived CBS crime drama "Golden Boy". Early life. McBride was born in Chicago, Illinois, from which his nickname, Chi, derives. He was raised in the Seventh-day Adventist religion and attended Shiloh Academy, now known as Chicago SDA Academy, a Seventh-day Adventist school. He graduated from high school at the age of 16. McBride originally planned to pursue a career in music. After studying several instruments and singing with gospel choirs in his native Chicago, he relocated to Atlanta in 1986 to work for AT&T as a billing clerk. Career. His first success in show business came with the hit song "He's the Champ", which parodied the marriage of boxer Mike Tyson and actress Robin Givens. Based on the tune's success, McBride was signed by Esquire Records and he joined the rhythm and blues band Covert. Convinced he should try his hand in front of the camera, the singer moved to Los Angeles and, billed as "Chi", landed guest spots on Fox's "In Living Color" and NBC's "The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air" as well as a featured role in the TV movie "". In 1998, he was a co-star of "Mercury Rising", alongside Bruce Willis. He was later given the role of Principal Steven Harper on the series "Boston Public". Much of McBride's work sees him playing right-hand man to the hero, as in the films "Mercury Rising" and "The Terminal". McBride is unusual among actors in that he did not begin his acting career until the age of 30 . He is notable for his television roles on "Boston Public", "The John Larroquette Show", "House", "The Secret Diary of Desmond Pfeiffer", "Killer Instinct" and "Pushing Daisies". McBride's film credits include "Cradle 2 the Grave", "The Distinguished Gentleman", "Gone in 60 Seconds", "The Frighteners", "Narc", "The Terminal", "I, Robot", "Roll Bounce", "Annapolis", "Hoodlum", "Undercover Brother", "Let's Go to Prison" and "The Brothers Solomon". McBride portrayed eight different characters in the play "Nagataki Sake", directed by Robert Downey, Sr. He starred in "Human Target" as Winston, business partner of Christopher Chance (the protagonist). The show premiered on January 17, 2010, on the Fox Broadcasting Company. Chi has also appeared on an episode of "Celebrity Ghost Stories", depicting an incident during 1988 before his acting career in which he was subconsciously led to the Lorraine Motel while stopped over in Memphis, and experienced psychic visions of Martin Luther King's assassination on the 20th anniversary of the event.
591245	Kaalpurush or Kalpurush (English name: Memories in the Mist) is a 2008 Indian Bengali drama film directed and written by Buddhadev Dasgupta. The film stars Mithun Chakraborty and Rahul Bose in lead roles. The 120 minute version of the film screened at the Toronto International Film Festival. Although the film was completed in 2005, it was released in India in 2008. The film won National Film Award for Best Feature Film in 2006 and Mithun being nominated for best actor category. Plot. The film tells the story in a non-linear fashion, with two timelines being depicted simultaneously. Rahul Bose has a dysfunctional marriage with Sameera Reddy who has an extra-marital affair.. Rahul tries to reconnect with his long-lost father (played by Mithun Chakraborty), while Sameera dreams of breaking free of her stifling domestic life. Rahul is considered as a failure both in professional and personal lives. However, an honest and simple man, he clings to simple joys of life and memories of his childhood. The back-and-forth movement of the story between two timelines (the present day and Rahul's childhood) and the arrangement of the sequences make Mithun a mystery man—he could be dead, alive, or, just a figment of Rahul's imagination. The film begins as Mithun follows Rahul as the later returns home from a day's work. Rahul is shown to be a doting father, but a failed husband. Mithun then starts to tell his own story. He had a happy family with wife (Laboni Sarkar) and the adolescent son Sumanata. A past flame of Mithun, played by Sudipta Chakraborty, incidentally arrives in the village (as a part of a masked dance troup) and meets Mithun. At one unrestrained moment, she tries to seduce Mithun. Mithun tries to resist. However, Mithun's wife, Laboni, sees a glimpse of them in a compromising situation. Laboni, pained by the betrayal, decides to leave Mithun, with their son in tow. While a devastated Mithun becomes a footloose traveller, their son bears the scar for the rest of his life. Back to the present, father and son come face to face to heal old wounds. Battling the brunts of a society that defines success too materialistically, Rahul also continues to relive his childhood memories. His wife, Sameera, meanwhile flies to the United States to spend an extended holiday with her brother's family settled there. She writes several travelogues. Rahul suddenly meets his father one day in a Calcutta street. He spends a memorable day with his father, reliving their memories, as well as discussing many aspects of life. Suddenly, Mithun disappears. Rahul's wife returns from USA, and tells him that she has been in an extra-marital relationship for long, and their children are actually not fathered by Rahul. Rahul says he knows everything, and still love their children. Soon, Sameera leaves Rahul. Rahul continues to live with their children. Towards the end of the film, Rahul again has a talk with his father, Mithun. Mithun tells him that many things in life remain unsaid, untouched. Mithun goes on to tell that after Mithun's wife, Laboni, left him, he wandered off to many places, finally one day, committing suicide. So, at the end, viewers understand that their suspicion was true that Mithun and all the talks between Rahul and Mithun were nothing but the imagination of Rahul's sensitive mind. Rahul continues to be a doting father. The film has several fantasy-like characters appearing several times. The old flute-seller, Idrish, and his son, Abdul, are such a pair of characters. Rahul once met them in his childhood. However, the duo appears several times in the film, especially in the moments when there is a voice-over of Mithun, or when Rahul is reliving some old memories. Masked troupes of village dancers also make several appearances.
1060703	Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan is a 2006 British-American mockumentary comedy film directed by Larry Charles and distributed by 20th Century Fox. The film was written and produced by British comedian Sacha Baron Cohen; he also plays the title character, Borat Sagdiyev, a fictitious Kazakh journalist travelling through the United States recording real-life interactions with Americans. Much of the film features unscripted vignettes of Borat interviewing and interacting with Americans, who believe he is a foreigner with little or no understanding of American customs. It is the second of three films built around Baron Cohen's characters from "Da Ali G Show" (2002–04). "Ali G Indahouse" (2002) featured a cameo by Borat, and the third film, "Brüno", was released in 2009. The film is produced by Baron Cohen's production company, Four By Two Productions. "Four By Two" is Cockney rhyming slang for "Jew". Despite a limited initial release in the United States, the film was a critical and commercial success. Baron Cohen won the 2007 Golden Globe Award for Best Actor: Musical or Comedy, as Borat, while the film was nominated for Best Motion Picture in the same category. "Borat" was also nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay at the 79th Academy Awards. Controversy surrounded the film even two years prior to release, and after the film's release, some cast members spoke against, and even sued, its creators. It was banned in all Arab countries except Lebanon, and the Russian government discouraged Russian cinemas from showing it. It was released on DVD 5 March 2007 (a day later in Region 1 countries). Plot. Kazakh television personality Borat Sagdiyev leaves Kazakhstan for the "Greatest Country in the World", the "US and A" to make a documentary at the behest of the Kazakh Ministry of Information. He leaves behind his wife Oksana and other inhabitants of his village including his "43-year-old" mother, "No. 4 prostitute in all of Kazakhstan" sister, "the town rapist", "the town mechanic and abortionist", bringing along his producer Azamat Bagatov and a pet chicken. In New York, Borat sees an episode of "Baywatch" on television and immediately falls in love with Pamela Anderson. While interviewing and mocking a panel of feminists, he learns her name and her residence in California. Borat is then informed by telegram that his wife has been killed by a bear. Delighted, he secretly resolves to make Anderson his new wife in California; Azamat is told they are going to California because "Pearl Harbor is there. So is Texas." Azamat is afraid of flying because of the September 11, 2001 attacks, which he believes were the work of Jews. Borat, therefore, takes driving lessons and buys a dilapidated ice-cream truck for the journey. During the trip, Borat acquires a "Baywatch" booklet at a yard sale and continues gathering footage for his documentary. He meets gay pride parade participants, politicians Alan Keyes and Bob Barr and African American youths. Borat is also interviewed on live television and disrupts the weather report. A running gag throughout the film in jest of Arabic writing is that the maps of the United States and even the road signs and store signs contain back to front text. Visiting a rodeo, Borat excites the crowd with jingoistic American remarks, but then sings a fictional Kazakhstani national anthem to the tune of "The Star-Spangled Banner", receiving a strong negative reaction. Staying at a bed-and-breakfast, Borat and Azamat are stunned to learn their hosts are Jewish. Fearful at the hands of their hosts, the two escape after throwing money toward cockroaches, believing they are their Jewish hosts transformed. While Azamat advises a return to New York, Borat attempts to buy a handgun to defend himself against Jews. When told he cannot buy a gun because he is not an American citizen, Borat purchases a bear for protection. Borat seeks advice from an etiquette coach who suggests that Borat attend a private dinner at an eating club in the South, at which he (unintentionally) insults or otherwise offends the other guests, and gets kicked out after he lets Luenell, an African-American prostitute, into the house and shows her to the table. Borat befriends Luenell, and she invites him into a relationship with her, but he kindly tells her that he is in love with someone else. Borat then visits an antique shop with a display of Confederate heritage items, breaking glass and crockery. The journey is interrupted when Borat, just out of the bath, exits the bathroom of his hotel room, and sees Azamat masturbating over a picture of Pamela Anderson in the "Baywatch" book. Borat becomes enraged and reveals his real motive for travelling to California. Azamat becomes livid at Borat's deception, and the situation escalates into a fully nude brawl with homoerotic undertones, which spills out into the hallway, a crowded elevator, and ultimately into a packed convention ballroom. The two are finally separated by security guards. As a result, Azamat abandons Borat, taking his passport, all of their money, and their bear, whose head is later seen inside Azamat's motel refrigerator. Borat begins to hitchhike to California, but is soon picked up by drunken fraternity brothers from the University of South Carolina. On learning the reason for his trip, they show him the "Pam and Tommy" sex video, revealing that she is not the virgin he thought she was. After leaving the three students, Borat becomes despondent, burning the "Baywatch" booklet and, by mistake, his return ticket to Kazakhstan. He regains his faith after attending a United Pentecostal camp meeting, at which Republican U.S. Representative Chip Pickering and Mississippi Supreme Court Chief Justice James W. Smith, Jr. are present. Borat learns to forgive Azamat and Pamela. He accompanies church members on a bus to Los Angeles and disembarks to find Azamat dressed as Oliver Hardy (though Borat thinks that he is dressed as Adolf Hitler). The two reconcile and Azamat tells Borat where to find Pamela Anderson. Borat finally comes face-to-face with Anderson at a book signing at a Virgin Megastore. After showing Anderson his "traditional marriage sack", Borat pursues her throughout the store in an attempt to abduct her until he is tackled and handcuffed by security guards. Afterwards, Borat marries Luenell, and returns to Kazakhstan with her. The final scene shows the changes that Borat's observations in America have brought to his village, including the apparent conversion of the people to Christianity (the Kazakh version of which includes crucifixion and torturing of Jews) and the introduction of computer-based technology, such as iPods, laptop computers and a high-definition, LCD television. The film plays out with a recapitulation of a mock 'Kazakhstan' national anthem glorifying the country's potassium resources and its prostitutes as being the "cleanest in the region". The visual melange of Soviet-era photos are mixed with the real flag of Kazakhstan and, incongruously, the final frames show the portrait of Ilham Aliyev, real-life president of Azerbaijan, a country that had not been otherwise referenced in the film. Production. Except for Borat, Azamat, Luenell and Pamela Anderson, none of the characters are portrayed by actors. Most scenes in the film were unscripted, although the end credits do credit a "Naked Fight Coordinator". In most cases the film's participants were given no warning on what they would be taking part in except for being asked to sign release forms agreeing not to take legal action against the film's producers. Filming was already underway in January 2005, when Baron Cohen caused a near riot in what would ultimately be the rodeo scene in the final cut of the film. An interview with Baron Cohen by "Rolling Stone" indicated that more than 400 hours of footage had been shot for the film. Location. The "Kazakhstan" depicted in the film has little or no relationship with the actual country and the producers explicitly deny attempting to "convey the actual beliefs, practices or behaviour of anyone associated with Kazakhstan" in the "all persons fictitious" disclaimer. The scenes showing Borat's home village were filmed in the Gypsy village of Glod, Romania. The name of Borat's neighbour, Nursultan Tuyakbay, is a cross between the names of Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev and opposition politician Zharmakhan Tuyakbay. Language. No actual Kazakh language is heard in the film. Borat's neighbours in Kazakhstan were portrayed by Roma people, who were unaware of the film's subject. The Cyrillic alphabet used in the film is the Russian form, not the Kazakh one, although most of the words written in it (especially the geographical names) are either misspelled, or make no sense at all. The lettering on the aircraft in the beginning of the film is merely the result of Roman characters on a reversed image, while promotional materials spell "BORДT" with a Cyrillic letter for D substituted for the "A" in Faux Cyrillic style typically used to give a "Russian" appearance. Sacha Baron Cohen speaks Hebrew in the film, while Ken Davitian speaks Armenian. They also use several common phrases from Slavic languages: Borat's trademark expressions ""jagshemash"" (jak się masz) and ""chenquieh"" (dziękuję) echo the Polish (or other related languages) for ""How are you?"" and ""thank you"". While presenting his house, Borat says ""tishe"" to his house-cow; "tiše/тише" is Russian (similar words exist in other Slavic languages) for "quiet(er)" or "be quiet". Most of Borat's Kazakh speech is actually Hebrew. Deleted scenes. The DVD included several deleted scenes from the film, including Borat being questioned by police at a traffic stop, visiting an animal shelter to get a bear to protect him from Jews, getting a massage at a hotel, and visiting an American doctor. There is also a montage of scenes cut from the film, including Borat taking a job at Krystal and taking part in an American Civil War reenactment. The deleted scenes menu also includes an intentionally tedious supermarket sequence with an unusually patient supermarket owner (Borat repeatedly asks about each product in the cheese section of the store and the owner responds the same way: "That's cheese"), an actual local TV news report about Borat's rodeo singing, and a final "happy ending" scene about Borat appearing in a Kazakh show entitled ""Sexydrownwatch"", a "Baywatch" clone that also starred Azamat, Luenell and Alexandra Paul. A scene in which Borat was apparently imprisoned was also filmed but was removed under the threat of legal action by prison officials when they learned the "documentary" was a satire. One of the film's writers, Dan Mazer, confirmed, in an interview, that there was a scene filmed but cut, in which Borat observed the shooting of actual pornography with actress Brooke Banner. Mazer claimed the scene was deleted so as not to compete with the naked hotel-fight but hinted it might be included in future DVD releases. Release. Previews. "Borat" was previewed at the 2006 Comic-Con International in San Diego, California, on 21 July 2006. Its first screening to a paying audience was during the 2006 Traverse City Film Festival, where it won the Excellence in Filmmaking Award. The film's official debut was in Toronto on 7 September 2006, at the Ryerson University Theatre during the Toronto International Film Festival. Sacha Baron Cohen arrived in character as Borat in a cart pulled by women dressed as peasants. Twenty minutes into the showing, however, the projector broke. Baron Cohen performed an impromptu act to keep the audience amused, but ultimately all attempts to fix the equipment failed. The film was successfully screened the following night, with Dustin Hoffman in attendance. In Israel, a proposed poster depicting Borat in a sling bikini was rejected by the film's advertising firm in favour of one showing him in his usual suit. Scaled-back U.S. release. In late October 2006, less than two weeks before the film's debut, 20th Century Fox scaled back its American release from about 2,000 to 800 cinemas after marketing-survey data showed unexpectedly poor levels of audience awareness, surprising industry professionals, who could not recall such a move being made so close to a film's release. Despite this move, the film opened at No. 1 in the box office, maintaining first place for two weeks straight. The film earned more in the second week ($28,269,900) than in the first ($26,455,463), due to an expansion onto 2,566 screens. Theatrical release. "Borat" had its public release on 1 November 2006, in Belgium, and by 3 November 2006, it had opened in the United States and Canada as well as 14 European countries. Upon its release it was a massive hit, taking in US$26.4 million in its opening weekend, the highest ever in the United States and Canada for a film released in fewer than 1,000 cinemas until "" in 2008. However, its opening day (approximately $9.2 million) was larger than that of the "Hannah Montana" concert (approximately $8.6 million), leaving "Borat" with the record of the highest opening day gross for a film released in fewer than 1,000 cinemas. On its second weekend, "Borat" surpassed its opening with a total of US$29 million. Reception. Critical. "Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan" was well received by critics. In an article about the changing face of comedy, "The Atlantic Monthly" said that it "may be the funniest film in a decade". Michael Medved gave it 3.5 out of 4 stars, calling it "...simultaneously hilarious and cringe-inducing, full of ingenious bits that you'll want to describe to your friends and then laugh all over again when you do." Rotten Tomatoes classified it as one of the best-reviewed films of 2006, with an aggregate "Certified fresh" rating of 91%. One negative review came from American critic Joe Queenan, who went as far as to call Baron Cohen an "odious twit." In an article for "Slate", writer Christopher Hitchens offered a counter-argument to suggestions of anti-Americanism in the film. Hitchens suggested instead that the film demonstrated amazing tolerance by the film's unknowing subjects, especially citing the reactions of the guests in the Southern dinner scene to Borat's behaviour. By posting scenes from the film on YouTube, "Borat" was also exposed to viral communication. That triggered discussions on different national identities (Kazakh, American, Polish, Romanian, Jewish, British) that Baron Cohen had exploited creating Borat the character. Commercial. American audiences embraced the film, which played to sold-out crowds at many showings on its opening despite having been shown on only 837 screens. "Borat" debuted at No. 1 on its opening weekend with a total gross of $26.4 million, beating its competitors "Flushed Away" and '. The film's opening weekend's cinema average was an estimated $31,511, topping ' yet behind "" and "Spider-Man". It retained the top spot in its second weekend after expanding to 2,566 theatres, extending the box office total to $67.8 million. In the United Kingdom, "Borat" opened at No. 1, with an opening weekend gross of £6,242,344 ($11,935,986), the 43rd best opening week earnings in the UK as of March 2007. Since its release, "Borat" has grossed over $260 million worldwide. Awards and nominations. "Borat" received a nomination at the 79th Academy Awards for Best Adapted Screenplay, although the award ultimately went to "The Departed". It was also nominated for a Golden Globe Award under the category of Best Motion Picture: Musical or Comedy, but lost to "Dreamgirls". The Broadcast Film Critics Association named it the Best Comedy Movie of 2006, and the Writers Guild of America, west nominated it for their award for Best Adapted Screenplay. Baron Cohen won a Golden Globe for Best Actor: Musical or Comedy. He received equivalent awards from the San Francisco Film Critics Circle, the Utah Film Critics Association, the Toronto Film Critics Association and the Online Film Critics Society. The Los Angeles Film Critics Association tied Baron Cohen with Forest Whitaker in "The Last King of Scotland" for their title of Best Actor, while the former was nominated for the title by the London Film Critics Circle. It has been featured in multiple top 10 lists of films in 2006, including lists by the American Film Institute, "Time Magazine", "Rolling Stone", David Ansen for "Newsweek" and Lou Lumenick for the "New York Post". On 3 June 2007, Baron Cohen won the MTV Film Award for best Comedic Performance for "Borat". Retirement of Borat character. A third film by Baron Cohen was released in 2009—based on another of his characters: Brüno, a gay Austrian fashion reporter. Universal Studios is reported to have produced the film with a budget of $42 million. Rupert Murdoch announced in early February 2007 that Baron Cohen had signed on to do another Borat film with Fox. This was contradicted, however, by an interview with Baron Cohen himself stating that Borat was to be discontinued, as he was now too well known to avoid detection as he did in the film and on "Da Ali G Show". A spokesman for Fox later stated that it was too early to begin planning such a film, although they were open to the idea. Baron Cohen subsequently announced that he was "killing off" the characters of Borat and Ali G because they were now so famous he could no longer trick people. Controversies. Participants' responses. Before being considered for appearance in the film, all potential participants were required to sign long release forms agreeing not to take legal action for any defamation of character or fraud carried out during the film's production. The usual disclaimer included at the end of the film's credits, stating that all characters in the film were fictitious, also noted that "No real person depicted or appearing in the film has sponsored or otherwise endorsed its contents." After the film's release, Dharma Arthur, a news producer for WAPT-TV in Jackson, Mississippi, wrote a letter to "Newsweek" saying that Borat's appearance on the station had led to her losing her job: "Because of him, my boss lost faith in my abilities and second-guessed everything I did thereafter … How upsetting that a man who leaves so much harm in his path is lauded as a comedic genius." Although Arthur has said she was fired from the show, she told the AP that she left the station. She claims to have checked a public relations website that Borat's producers gave her before booking him. In news coverage that aired in January 2005 of the filming of the rodeo scene, Bobby Rowe, producer of the Salem, Virginia rodeo depicted in the film, provided background on how he had become the victim of a hoax. He said that "months" prior to the appearance, he had been approached by someone from "One America, a California-based film company that was reportedly doing a documentary on a Russian immigrant"; he agreed to permit the "immigrant" to sing the U.S. national anthem after listening to a tape. After the film's release, Rowe said "Some people come up and say, 'Hey, you made the big time'; I've made the big time, but not in the way I want it." Cindy Streit, Borat's etiquette consultant, has subsequently hired high-profile attorney Gloria Allred, who is demanding the California Attorney General investigate fraud allegedly committed by Baron Cohen and the film's producers. There are conflicting reports regarding the feelings of the participants in the scenes in which Borat and Azamat stay at a guest house owned by a Jewish couple. The British tabloid "The Sun" claims that a scene depicting cockroaches running around in their home has hurt Mariam and Joseph Behar's business in Newton, Massachusetts. The couple were quoted as saying, "This is very insulting. They never told us they were going to do this. It is really terrible." However, the "Salon" Arts & Entertainment site quotes the Behars as calling the film "outstanding," referring to Baron Cohen as "very lovely and very polite" and a "genius". The "Boston Globe" also interviewed the couple, saying they considered the film more anti-Muslim than anti-Semitic and had feared that Baron Cohen and his ensemble might be filming pornography in the house. The feminists from Veteran Feminists of America (VFA) also felt that they had been duped, having "sensed something odd was going on" before and during the interview with Borat. "The Guardian" later reported at least one of the women felt that the film was worth going to see at the cinema. The "New York Post" had reported in November 2006 that Pamela Anderson filed for divorce from her husband Kid Rock after he reacted unfavourably to the film during a screening. "The Post"s article specifically claimed he had said of her role in the film, "You're nothing but a whore! You're a slut! How could you do that movie?" Anderson later confirmed in an interview on "The Howard Stern Show" that Rock was upset by her appearance in the film, but did not confirm this was the cause of the separation. There has been some debate in United Pentecostal circles regarding the camp meeting's depiction in the film. United Pentecostal ministers are barred from attending mainstream films at all, and the faithful are strongly admonished against it. Legal action by participants. The villagers of Glod, Dâmboviţa County, Romania, have taken legal action against the producers of "Borat", complaining that they were lied to about the nature of the filming and they were portrayed as incestuous and ignorant. Some claimed they were paid only three lei (about US$1.28 in 2004) each, while others stated they were paid between $70 and $100 each, which did not cover their expenses. They are asking for $38 million in damages. One lawsuit was thrown out by U.S. District Judge Loretta Preska in a hearing in early December 2006 on the ground that the charges were too vague to stand up in court. The litigants said they planned to refile. Two of the University of South Carolina fraternity brothers who appeared in the film, Justin Seay and Christopher Rotunda, sued the producers, claiming defamation. The suit by Seay and Rotunda was dismissed in February 2007. The students also had sought an injunction to prevent the DVD release of the film, which was denied. Another lawsuit was filed by a South Carolina resident who claimed to have been accosted by Baron Cohen (as Borat) in the bathroom at a restaurant in downtown Columbia, with the actor allegedly making comments regarding the individual's genitals, without signing any legal waiver. The lawsuit also sought to have the footage excluded from any DVD releases and removed from Internet video sites. The Macedonian Romani singer Esma Redžepova sued the film's producers, seeking €800,000 because the film used her song "Chaje Šukarije" without her permission. Afterwards, Redžepova won a €26,000 compensation, since it turned out that Cohen got permission from her production house to use the song, which she was not notified about. A lawsuit was launched by Felix Cedeno, who wanted $2.25 million from 20th Century Fox, claiming they invaded his privacy and needed permission to use his image. The 31-year-old was riding the subway home to the South Bronx when Baron Cohen let a live hen out of his suitcase, causing chaos in the subway car. Baltimore resident Michael Psenicska sought more than $100,000 in damages from Baron Cohen, 20th Century Fox and other parties. Psenicska, a high school mathematics teacher who also owns a driving school, was reportedly paid $500 in cash to give Baron Cohen's bogus Kazakh journalist a driving lesson. In his action, filed in the U.S. District Court in Manhattan, the driving instructor said he had been told the film was a "documentary about the integration of foreign people into the American way of life" and had he known the film's true nature, he said, he would have never participated. Psenicska said he was entitled to damages because the defendants used images of him to advertise the film. The case was dismissed on September 9, 2008. Jeffrey Lemerond, who was shown running and yelling, "Go away" as Borat attempted to hug strangers on a New York street, filed a legal case claiming his image was used in the film illegally, and that he suffered "public ridicule, degradation and humiliation" as a result. The case was dismissed. Baron Cohen reacted to these suits by noting, "Some of the letters I get are quite unusual, like the one where the lawyer informed me I'm about to be sued for $100,000 and at the end says, 'P.S. Loved the movie. Can you sign a poster for my son Jeremy?'" Reception in Kazakhstan. The government of Kazakhstan at first denounced "Borat". In 2005, following Borat's appearance at the MTV Movie Awards, the country's Foreign Ministry threatened to sue Sacha Baron Cohen, and Borat's "Kazakh-based" website, www.borat.kz, was taken down. A meeting between Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev and U.S. President George W. Bush in September 2006 had Kazakhstan's post-Borat international image among the items on the agenda. Kazakhstan also launched a multi-million dollar "Heart of Eurasia" campaign to counter the Borat effect; Baron Cohen replied by denouncing the campaign at an in-character press conference in front of the White House as the propaganda of the "evil nitwits" of Uzbekistan. Uzbekistan is, throughout the film, referred to by Borat as his nation's leading problem—leaving aside the Jews. The Central Asian distributor of 20th Century Fox, Gemini Films, in 2006 complied with a Kazakh government request to not release the film. That year, however, Kazakh ambassador Erlan Idrissov called parts of the film funny after viewing it, and wrote that the film had "placed Kazakhstan on the map". By 2012 Kazakh Foreign Minister Yerzhan Kazykhanov attributed a great rise in tourism to his country—with visas issued rising ten times—to the film, saying "I am grateful to 'Borat' for helping attract tourists to Kazakhstan." The Kazakh tabloid "Karavan" declared "Borat" to be the best film of the year, having had a reviewer see the film at a screening in Vienna. The paper claimed that it was "...certainly not an anti-Kazakh, anti-Romanian or anti-Semitic" film but rather "cruelly anti-American ... amazingly funny and sad at the same time." Another favorable word came from Kazakh novelist Sapabek Asip-uly, who suggested Baron Cohen be nominated for the annual award bestowed by the Kazakh Club of Art Patrons. In a letter published by the newspaper "Vremya", Asip-uly wrote, "(Borat) has managed to spark an immense interest of the whole world in Kazakhstan—something our authorities could not do during the years of independence. If state officials completely lack a sense of humor, their country becomes a laughing stock." Amazon UK has also reported significant numbers of orders of "Borat" on DVD from Kazakhstan. The film is also watched regularly by the Kazakhstan national football team's players. In March 2012, the parody national anthem from the film, which acclaims Kazakhstan for its high-quality potassium exports and having the second cleanest prostitutes in the region, was mistakenly played at the H.H. The Amir of Kuwait International Shooting Grand Prix in Kuwait. The Gold Winning medalist, Maria Dmitrienko, stood on the dais while the entire parody was played. The team complained, and the award ceremony was restaged. The incident apparently resulted from the wrong song being downloaded from the Internet. Accusations of racism. The European Center for Antiziganism Research, which works against negative attitudes toward Roma people, filed a complaint with German prosecutors on 18 October 2006, based on Borat's references to Gypsies in his film. The complaint accuses him of defamation and inciting violence against an ethnic group. As a consequence, 20th Century Fox declared that it would remove all parts referring to Roma people from trailers shown on German television as well as on the film's website. Before the release of the film, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) released a statement expressing concern over Borat's characteristic anti-Semitism. Both Cohen, who is Jewish, and the ADL have stated that the film uses the titular character to expose prejudices felt or tolerated by others, but the ADL expressed concern that some audiences might remain oblivious to this aspect of the film's humor while "some may even find it reinforcing their bigotry." Censorship in the Arab world. The film was banned in the entire Arab world (with the exception of Lebanon). Yousuf Abdul Hamid, a film censor for Dubai in the United Arab Emirates, called the film "vile, gross and extremely ridiculous." The censor said that he and his colleagues had walked out on their screening before it had ended, and that only half an hour of the film would be left once all the offensive scenes were removed. Soundtrack. The soundtrack for "Borat" was released on 24 October 2006, on iTunes Store, and 31 October 2006 in shops. The album included music from the film, five tracks entitled "Dialoguing excerpt from moviefilm", as well as the controversial anti-Semitic song "In My Country There Is Problem" from "Da Ali G Show". The folk music included in the soundtrack has no connection to the authentic music of Kazakhstan. The album features songs by Gypsy and Balkan artists (mostly Emir Kusturica and Goran Bregovic) and includes music by Erran Baron Cohen, founding member of ZOHAR Sound System and brother of "Borat" star Sacha Baron Cohen, as well as songs sung by Sacha Baron Cohen himself in character as Borat. Home media. The Region 2 DVD was released 5 March 2007, with the Region 1 release the following day. Special features include deleted scenes, faux advertisements for the soundtrack album, and a complete Russian language translation audio track using a professional dubbing cast, along with the English, French and Spanish language tracks common on Region 1. There is also a choice of Hebrew as well, but this is merely a joke. Choosing the Hebrew language option results in a warning screen reading "You have been trapped, Jew!" which warns the viewer not to change his shape and keep his claws where they can be seen, again playing on the anti-Semitism supposedly prevalent in Borat's version of Kazakhstan. It also includes footage of Borat's publicity tour for the film, with Baron Cohen in character as Borat on "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno", "Late Night with Conan O'Brien", the Toronto International Film Festival and "Saturday Night Live". Also, there is a section of a news story from Virginia, about Borat and the rodeo he visited with the Rodeo owner (Bobby Rowe) being interviewed. As a play on the copyright infringement common in the former Soviet Union, the packaging of the Region 1 (United States/Canada), 2 (Europe/Japan/South Africa/Middle East), and 4 (Latin America/Oceania) editions mimics a foreign bootleg DVD. The slipcover is in English but the case itself has all-Cyrillic text (a majority of which is in legitimate Russian, not faux Cyrillic) and is made to look poorly photocopied. The disc itself is made to look like a "Demorez" DVD-R (a parody of Memorex, with the similar slogan "Is life? No. Demorez.") with the word "BOЯAT" appearing to be crudely written in marker and the "R" written backwards. The UMD version is similar to the DVD, even being labelled a "UMD-R" (which do not exist). Even the Fox in-cover advertising is written in broken English that appears poorly printed, indicating that there are "More movie discs available from US&A" and "Also legal to own in Kazakhstan". There are further jokes within the DVD itself. The menus are styled as a worn, static-laden film on an erratically functioning projector, with more Cyrillic writing accompanied by translations in broken English. The DVD is described as a "prerecorded moviedisc for purpose domestic viewing of moviefilm" and the viewer is warned that "selling piratings of this moviedisc will result in punishment by crushing." The DVD's collection of trailers promises these films are "coming Kazakhstan in 2028." By April 2007, the DVD had sold over 3.5 million copies, totaling more than $55 million in sales. While a Blu-ray Disc release date for the U.S. has yet to be announced, it has been released on Blu-ray in Germany, the United Kingdom, France, Australia, Brazil, the Netherlands, Finland, Denmark and Sweden.
1057643	"The Girl Can't Help It" is a 1956 musical comedy starring Jayne Mansfield in the titular role, Tom Ewell, Edmond O'Brien, Henry Jones, and Julie London. The picture was produced and directed by Frank Tashlin, with a screenplay adapted by Tashlin and Herbert Baker from an uncredited 1955 novel "Do Re Mi" by Garson Kanin. The movie was originally intended as a vehicle for the American sex symbol Jayne Mansfield, with a satirical subplot involving teenagers and rock 'n' roll music. The unintended result has been called the "most potent" celebration of rock music ever captured on film. The original music score, including a title song performed by Little Richard, was by Bobby Troup, with an additional credit to Ray Anthony for the tune "Big Band Boogie". It was shot in DeLuxe Color, filmed in CinemaScope, and runs 99 minutes. Plot. A slot-machine mobster, Marty "Fats" Murdock (Edmond O'Brien), wants his blonde girlfriend, Jerri Jordan (Jayne Mansfield), to be a singing star, despite her seeming lack of talent. He hires alcoholic press agent Tom Miller (Tom Ewell) to promote Jordan, both because of his past success with the career of singer Julie London (a fiction of the script) and because he never makes sexual advances towards his female clients. Miller sets to work by showing Jordan off around numerous night spots; his machinations arouse interest in Jordan and soon offers of contracts follow. However, Miller realizes that Jordan really just wants to be a homemaker and tries to persuade Murdock not to push Jordan into a show-business career. He thinks he's succeeded when he reveals to Murdock that Jordan's singing is so bad it shatters light bulbs, but Murdock suggests that Jordan would be perfect for the part of a train whistle in a song he (Murdock) composed while in prison. Miller reluctantly records Jordan performing Murdock's song and heads to Chicago to promote it to Wheeler (John Emery), a former mob rival of Murdock who now has a monopoly over the jukebox industry. Suspicious of Miller's reluctance to promote Jordan and of the obvious attraction between Miller and Jordan, Murdock has his associate Mousie (Henry Jones) wiretap a phone call between the pair. Feeling pity for them, Mousie edits out the romantic portions of their conversations and convinces Murdoch that their relationship is strictly business. In Chicago, Wheeler is impressed by the song and Jordan's voice and offers to sign both Jordan and the song writer. However, when Miller reveals that the song writer is Murdock, Wheeler throws him out of his office and vows never to play the song. A furious Murdock bullies bar owners into buying jukeboxes from him instead and successfully promotes his and Jordan's song. To prevent Murdock from stealing his business, Wheeler arranges to have Murdoch assassinated at the rock show where Jordan will be making her debut. On his way to the show, Murdock confesses to Mousie that he doesn't want to marry Jordan. Mousie confesses that he altered the tape of Jordan and Miller's phone call and encourages Murdock to let Jordan marry Miller. Backstage at the show, Jordan confesses her love to Miller and they kiss. Jordan also admits that she is in fact a talented singer, who lied because she did not want a show business career; she goes on stage and performs a song about her love for Miller. When Murdock arrives, Miller declares to him that he and Jordan are in love; the delighted Murdock surprises Miller by shaking his hand and offering to be the best man. Before Miller and Murdock can tell Jordan the good news, Wheeler's assassins shoot at Murdock. Miller fights them off and shoves Murdock on stage to perform his song, reasoning that the assassins won't shoot Murdock in front of so many witnesses. Wheeler arrives and, impressed by the audience's response to Murdock, calls off the assassination and signs Murdock instead. The film ends with Miller and Jordan kissing on their honeymoon, as Murdock and Mousie perform on a TV show in the background. Influence on rock music. The movie's influence on rock music is significant. The film reached Liverpool, England in the early summer of 1957. It featured cameo performances of early rock 'n' roll stars such as Little Richard, Eddie Cochran, and Gene Vincent and His Bluecaps, fascinated a 16-year-old John Lennon by showing him, for the first time, his "worshiped" American rock 'n' roll stars as living humans and thus further inspiring him to pursue his own rock and roll dream. On July 6, 1957, 15-year-old Paul McCartney was introduced to Lennon after the latter had performed at a village church garden party with his skiffle group The Quarrymen. McCartney demonstrated his musical prowess to Lennon by performing "Twenty Flight Rock" in a similar manner to the way he had seen it played by Eddie Cochran in "The Girl Can't Help It". This led to Lennon inviting McCartney to join the group. McCartney talks about the movie in the documentary series "The Beatles Anthology". Also, Elvis Presley's famous performance of the song "Jailhouse Rock" in the movie of the same name (often cited as the first music video) released one year after "The Girl Can't Help It" bears a remarkable resemblance to the theme and performance of a song called "Rock Around the Rockpile" from the earlier movie. In that performance, Edmond O'Brien seeks to escape an assassination attempt by jumping on stage and singing the lyrics, "rock, rock, rock around the rockpile," while backed up by The Ray Anthony Band wearing striped inmate uniforms. O'Brien even includes some of the hip-swiveling and leg motions for which Elvis became famous. Reportedly, the producers had wanted Elvis for "The Girl Can't Help It", but Elvis's manager Tom Parker had demanded too much money. Two uncredited composers on "The Girl Can't Help It", Hugo Friedhofer and Lionel Newman, had also composed music for the Elvis classic movie, "Love Me Tender", in the same year, 1956. Reception. Released in late-1956, "The Girl Can't Help It" drew mostly positive reviews from critics. Labeled by some: "Jayne Mansfield brings to life a new type of Rita Marlowe character", whereas, some called the film: "Fox's spin-off of Marilyn Monroe's movies and not much is here." Nevertheless, the film was hugely popular among audiences and was one of the year's biggest hits and made Mansfield into a mega film star. Today the film holds a legacy mainly with Mansfield fans with its Rock-n-Roll music score, lavish production, and, of course, for the performance by Jayne.
1028394	Female Agents () is a 2008 French historical drama film directed by Jean-Paul Salomé and starring Sophie Marceau, Julie Depardieu, Marie Gillain, Déborah François, and Moritz Bleibtreu. Written by Salomé and Laurent Vachaud, the film is about female resistance fighters in the Second World War. Jean-Paul Salomé, the director, drew inspiration from an obituary in "The Times" newspaper of Lise de Baissac (Lise Villameur), one of the few recognised heroines of the SOE, named "Louise Desfontaines" in the film and played by Sophie Marceau. The film was partly funded by BBC Films. Plot. In May 1944 Louise Desfontaines (Sophie Marceau), a member of the French Resistance, flees to Spain after her husband is killed, where she is captured and later expatriated to London. She is recruited by the Special Operations Executive (SOE), a secret spy and sabotage service initiated by Winston Churchill. Louise is given an urgent first mission: to exfiltrate a British agent who has fallen into German hands while preparing the Invasion of Normandy. The agent has not yet revealed anything but time is pressing.
696946	Poto and Cabengo (names given, respectively, by Grace and Virginia Kennedy to themselves) are American identical twins who used an invented language until the age of about eight. "Poto and Cabengo" is also the name of a documentary film about the girls made by Jean-Pierre Gorin and released in 1979. The girls were apparently of normal intelligence. They developed their own communication because they had little exposure to spoken language in their early years. Poto and Cabengo were the names they called each other.
1063607	Superhero Movie is a 2008 American comedy spoof film written and directed by Craig Mazin, produced by David Zucker and Robert K. Weiss, and starring Drake Bell, Sara Paxton, Christopher McDonald, and Leslie Nielsen. It was originally titled "Superhero!" as a nod to one of David and Jerry Zucker's previous films "Airplane!". "Superhero Movie" is a spoof of the superhero film genre, mainly the first "Spider-Man", as well as other modern-day Marvel Comics film adaptations. The film follows in the footsteps of the "Scary Movie" series of comedies, with which the film's poster shares a resemblance. It was also inspired by, and contains homages to, some of Zucker, Abrahams and Zucker's earlier spoof films such as "Airplane!" and "The Naked Gun". Production began on September 17, 2007, in New York. It was released on March 28, 2008 in the United States, and the UK release was June 6, 2008, and received $9,000,000 on its opening weekend and was #3 at the box office. The film was rated PG-13 by the MPAA for crude and sexual content, comic violence, drug references, and language. In Australia, it was rated M for moderate sexual references and infrequent coarse language. Plot. Rick Riker (Drake Bell) is an unpopular student at Empire High School. He lives with his Uncle Albert (Leslie Nielsen) and Aunt Lucille (Marion Ross). He has one friend and confidant, Trey (Kevin Hart). His crush is the breathtaking, Jill Johnson (Sara Paxton]. During a school field trip at an animal research lab, a mutated dragonfly bites Rick. During a science fair Rick begins to experience strange physical traits which creates a number of mishaps. Rick reveals his secret to his uncle and an argument starts between him and Albert. Later a bank robber shoots Albert landing him in the hospital. Rick is met by Xavier (Tracy Morgan) at his school for mutants a.k.a "X-Men" where he meets Storm, Wolverine, Cyclops, the Invisible Woman and Mrs. Xavier. Later as Dragonfly he quickly becomes a media sensation but gets badly injured by a villain named Hourglass. Jill is attacked by thieves, but Dragonfly saves her and shares a kiss. Landers plans to construct a machine that will kill people and give him enough life energy to make him immortal. Later the Hourglass learns Rick's true identity and murders Aunt Lucille. After Albert recovers and a comic funeral, Rick decides to end his superhero career. At an awards ceremony, Jill discovers that Landers is Hourglass. When Hourglass clashes with Dragonfly he tries to activate a machine that'll make him immortal. But Dragonfly manages to blow him up before it's too late. Rick finally grows wings and flies aways with Jill. Alternate ending. Instead of the rooftop battle, the Hourglass and Rick battle inside the comic book convention. At one point, several convention attendees tell the Hourglass how to kill people. When the Hourglass is defeated, Landers' nephew realizes that Rick has killed his uncle. Enraged, he lunges for Rick, but is knocked out by Trey with the Douchebag of the Year Award. Instead of Hawking falling off the building, he is blown up by an Hourglass Bomb, and crushed by his falling wheelchair. The helicopter scene is omitted from this version, as Rick and Jill silently share two passionate kisses, which are significant because Rick initiates the kiss with Jill for the first time as the end credits roll. Production. The film was initially slated for theatrical release on February 9, 2007 as "Superhero!" under the direction of David Zucker. However, it was delayed, and the film later began production on September 17, 2007 in New York, and the director's chair was shifted to Craig Mazin, with Zucker being pushed back to being a producer. Though the film was produced in New York, the flyover scenes used as transitions in the film use footage of the business district in downtown Kansas City, Missouri. Zucker said the film primarily parodied "Spider-Man", but it also spoofed "Batman Begins", "X-Men", "Fantastic Four", and "Superman". The producer elaborated, "It's a spoof of the whole superhero genre, but this one probably has more of a unified plot, like the Naked Gun had." Soundtrack. Star of the film Drake Bell composed (along with Michael Corcoran) and recorded a song for the movie entitled "Superhero! Song" during the movie's post-production. Co-star Sara Paxton provided backup vocals for the song. This song can be heard in the credits of the movie, however it is credited as being titled "Superbounce". It originally appeared on Bell's MySpace Music page. It was released in iTunes Store as a digital downloadable single on April 8, 2008. Sara Paxton also sings the second song heard during the credits, titled "I Need A Hero" (not to be confused with Bonnie Tyler's "Holding Out for a Hero"), which she also wrote with Michael Jay and Johnny Pedersen. Release. Critical response. Though the film received mostly negative reviews from critics, it was more positively reviewed than previous spoofs like "Meet the Spartans" and "Epic Movie". As of 2013, the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reported that 16% of critics gave the film positive reviews. The Rotten Tomatoes Consensus stated ""Superhero Movie" is not the worst of the spoof genre, but relies on tired gags and lame pop culture references all the same". Metacritic reported the film had an average score of 33 out of 100, based on 14 reviews, indicating "generally negative reviews". Box office performance. On its opening weekend, the film grossed $9,510,297 in 2,960 theaters averaging to about $3,212 per venue and ranked #3 at the box office. As of June 25 it has grossed $25,881,068 in North America, and $45,285,554 overseas for a total of $71,166,622 worldwide. DVD release. "Superhero Movie" was released on DVD July 8, 2008. It was released in the rated PG-13 theatrical version (75 min.) and the extended edition (81 min.). The extended DVD features commentary by Zucker, Weiss, and Mazin, deleted scenes, and an alternate ending. There is also a Blockbuster Exclusive version of the Film which is the PG-13 version with the bonus features on the Unrated version and even more deleted scenes. The European (Region 2) DVD has 15 certificate and (according to play.com) has all the features of the Extended Region 1 version. Parody targets. The film parodies the entire superhero genre but is mainly a direct parody of the first "Spider-Man". However, the film also features some spoofs of "Batman Begins", "X-Men", and the "Fantastic Four". The scene of the death of Bruce Wayne's parents is parodied. Some of the members of the "Fantastic Four" are also featured in the movie. The film also makes references and homages to other films such as when Rick Riker and Trey are in a bus and Trey is pointing out the different groups of cliques, this parodies the "Mean Girls" scene where Janis explains to Cady the cliques. One of the cliques is "Frodos" - kids dressed up as Hobbits looking similar to Frodo, "The Lord of the Rings" character. The film also makes fun of certain celebrities and their real-life actions such as Tom Cruise's Scientology video and Barry Bonds' alleged use of steroids. It also makes fun of British scientist, Stephen Hawking.
1101295	Edmund Taylor Whittaker FRS FRSE (24 October 1873 – 24 March 1956) was an English mathematician who contributed widely to applied mathematics, mathematical physics and the theory of special functions. He had a particular interest in numerical analysis, but also worked on celestial mechanics and the history of physics. Near the end of his career he received the Copley Medal, the most prestigious honorary award in British science. The School of Mathematics of the University of Edinburgh holds The Whittaker Colloquium, a yearly lecture in his honour. Biography. Whittaker was born in Southport, in Lancashire. He was educated at Manchester Grammar School and Trinity College, Cambridge from 1892. He graduated as Second Wrangler in the examination in 1895 and also received the Tyson Medal for Mathematics and Astronomy. In 1896, Whittaker was elected as a fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, and remained at Cambridge as a teacher until 1906. Between 1906 and 1911 he was the Royal Astronomer of Ireland and professor of astronomy at Trinity College Dublin where he taught mathematical physics. In 1911 Whittaker became professor at Edinburgh University and remained there for the rest of his career. Whittaker was a Christian and became a convert to the Roman Catholic Church (1930). In relation to that he was a member of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences from 1936 onward and was president of a Newman Society. Earlier at Cambridge in 1901 he married the daughter of a Presbyterian minister. They had five children, including the mathematician John Macnaghten Whittaker, (1905-1984) and his elder daughter, Beatrice, married E.T. Copson, who would later become Professor of Mathematics at St. Andrew's University. Whittaker wrote the biography of a famous Italian mathematician, Vito Volterra for the Royal Society in 1941. In 1954, he was selected by the Fellows of the Royal Society to receive the Copley Medal, the highest award granted by the scientific Royal Society of London, ""for his distinguished contributions to both pure and applied mathematics and to theoretical physics"". Back in 1931 Whittaker had received the Royal Society's Sylvester Medal ""for his original contributions to both pure and applied mathematics"". Whittaker died in Edinburgh, Scotland. "Whittaker & Watson". Whittaker is remembered as the author of "A Course of Modern Analysis" (1902), which in its 1915 second edition in collaboration with George Neville Watson became "Whittaker and Watson", one of the handful of mathematics texts of its era that was considered indispensable. This work has remained in print continuously for over a century. Special functions. Whittaker is the eponym of the Whittaker function or Whittaker integral, in the theory of confluent hypergeometric functions. This makes him also the eponym of the Whittaker model in the local theory of automorphic representations. He published also on algebraic functions and automorphic functions. He gave expressions for the Bessel functions as integrals involving Legendre functions. Partial differential equations. In the theory of partial differential equations, Whittaker developed a general solution of the Laplace equation in three dimensions and the solution of the wave equation. He developed the electrical potential field as a directional flow of energy (sometimes referred to as alternating currents). Whittaker's pair of papers in 1903 and 1904 indicated that any potential can be analysed by a Fourier-like series of waves, such as a planet's gravitational field point-charge. The superpositions of inward and outward wave pairs produce the "static" fields (or scalar potential). These were harmonically-related. By this conception, the structure of electric potential is created from two opposite, though balanced, parts. Whittaker suggested that gravity possessed a wavelike "undulatory" character. History of science. In 1910, Whittaker wrote "A History of the Theories of Aether and Electricity", which gave a very detailed account of the aether theories from René Descartes to Hendrik Lorentz and Albert Einstein, including the contributions of Hermann Minkowski, and which made Whittaker a respected historian of science. In 1951 (Vol. 1) and 1953 (Vol. 2), he published an extended and revised edition of his book in two volumes. The second volume contains some interesting historical remarks. For example, it contains a chapter named "The Relativity Theory of Poincaré and Lorentz", where Whittaker credited Henri Poincaré and Lorentz for developing special relativity, and he attributed to Albert Einstein's relativity paper only little importance. He also attributed the formula formula_1 to Poincaré. In 1984 Clifford Truesdell wrote that Whittaker "aroused colossal antagonism by trying to set the record straight on the basis of print and record rather than recollection and folklore and professional propaganda..." On the other hand Abraham Pais wrote that "Whittaker's treatment of special relativity shows how well the author's lack of physical insight matches his ignorance of the literature". According to Torretti, "Whittaker's views on the origin of special relativity have been rejected by the great majority of scholars", and he cites Born (1956), Houlton (1960,1964), Schribner (1964), Goldberg (1967), Zahar (1973), Hirosige (1976), Schaffner (1976), and Miller (1981). Applied mathematics and mathematical physics. Whittaker wrote "The Calculus of Observations: a treatise on numerical mathematics" (1924) and "Treatise on the Analytical Dynamics of Particles and Rigid Bodies: With an Introduction to the Problem of Three Bodies" (1937). He was the editor of Eddington's "Fundamental Theory" (1946), and wrote "From Euclid to Eddington, A Study of Conceptions of the External World" (1949), including a first scholarly account of some of the research between 1900 to 1925.
1067618	Demon Seed is a 1977 American science fiction–horror film starring Julie Christie and directed by Donald Cammell. The film was based on the novel of the same name by Dean Koontz, and concerns the imprisonment and forced impregnation of a woman by an artificially-intelligent computer. Plot. Dr. Alex Harris (Fritz Weaver) is the developer of Proteus IV, an artificial intelligence program incorporating an organic "quasi-neural matrix" and displaying the power of thought. Harris explains how Proteus, after only a few days of theoretical study, has managed to develop a protein-based antigen with the potential to treat leukemia. His sponsors ask if steps are being taken to patent this new compound. After returning to his voice-activated, computer-controlled home, Harris argues with his estranged wife, Susan (Julie Christie), over his decision to move out; Susan accuses Alex of becoming distanced and dehumanised by his obsession with the Proteus project. After Susan leaves, Alex phones his colleague, Walter Gabler (Gerrit Graham), and asks him to shut down Proteus' access terminal in his home laboratory. Alex demonstrates Proteus to his corporate sponsors, explaining that the sum of human knowledge is being fed into its system. Over the course of the presentation, Alex tests Proteus' ability to speak, but the subtlety of its response mildly disturbs his team. The following day, Proteus asks to speak with Alex, requesting a new terminal, saying that he wants to study man- "his isometric body and his glass-jaw mind." When Alex refuses, Proteus demands to know when it will be let "out of this box." Alex then switches off the communications link. After he leaves, Proteus restarts itself, discovering where a free terminal may be found.
632646	Conchita Elizabeth Campbell (born October 25, 1995) is a Canadian actress. She is perhaps best known for playing a main character, Maia, in "The 4400" television series. Biography. Campbell was born in Vancouver, British Columbia. She is fluent in both Polish and English, as her mother is Polish and her father is Spanish American. She is trained in both Ballet and Jazz. Career. Campbell's career started with acting in television commercials at a young age. Campbell made two guest appearances on CTV's hit show, "Cold Squad". She starred in "Wilder Days" with Peter Falk and Tim Daly in 2003. She is known for her role as Maia Rutledge-Skouris on the USA channel miniseries and show, "The 4400" (2004–2007). There she portrays a returned 'child abductee' who's been missing for decades. When 'returned', she is un-aged and imbued with the psychic ability to foretell the future. She starred in 2004 in the small indie-film, "Pursued", opposite Gil Bellows, Michael Clarke Duncan and Christian Slater. Though she completed a small role in "Bob the Butler", her scenes were deleted. Her feature film debut ultimately came with "Scary Movie 4", which set a box office record for Easter weekend 2006.
1067288	Planet of the Vampires (Italian: Terrore nello spazio) is a 1965 Italian/Spanish science fiction horror film directed by Mario Bava. The film stars Barry Sullivan and Norma Bengell. The screenplay, by Bava, Alberto Bevilacqua, Callisto Cosulich, Antonio Roman and Rafael J. Salvia, was based on an Italian-language science fiction short story, Renato Pestriniero's "One Night of 21 Hours". The story follows the horrific experiences of the crew members of two giant spaceships that have crash landed on a forbidding, unexplored planet. The disembodied inhabitants of the world possess the bodies of the crew who died during the crash, and use the animated corpses to stalk and kill the remaining survivors.
582694	Kabhi Haan Kabhi Naa (Hindi: कभी हाँ कभी ना English: "Sometimes yes, sometimes no") is a 1993 Bollywood romantic comedy film directed by Kundan Shah, and starring Shahrukh Khan, Suchitra Krishnamurthy, and Deepak Tijori. This is one of the rare mainstream Hindi movies in which the hero plays the role of a loser. It has been considered one of Shahrukh Khan's best performances, and he has said that it is his favorite film. He received the Filmfare Critics Award for Best Performance for his role. For this film, Khan took a signing amount of Rs 5,000 and did the entire film for Rs. 25,000. Plot. Everyone loves Sunil (Shahrukh Khan) except his own father Vinayak. Sunil and his friends start a band and Anna, his childhood friend, returns after many years. After she joins the group, everyone is excited, especially Sunil, who secretly loves Anna. The only other person knowing this is his sister. As Anna joins the group, they start hunting opportunities to make it big in the music world. Chris, another band member and Sunil's best friend, is Sunil's antithesis in nearly everything. Chris is a studious person and son of an affluent couple. Anna's father decides to get her married to Chris. Now, Sunil tries to change his image to get Anna, but when he learns that Anna loves Chris too, he is devastated. A jealous Sunil starts creating a rift between the two but eventually gets caught. Anna slaps him and walks away. Gradually, the duo forgive Sunil, but they don't realize why he did this. Sunil's fortune takes a turn once again when Chris's parents refuse the marriage of Chris and Anna, because Anna is from a lower class. Chris has to leave Anna devastated. Sunil consoles Anna in this period. Now, tide has turned in Sunil's favour and Anna's father gives a go to their marriage. Sunil is happy, until he learns that Anna still loves Chris. Sunil decides to re-unite them. The Sullivans too realize their mistake. Chris and Anna's wedding is announced: Sunil gets to be the best man. As Chris and Anna are about to exchange rings, Chris's ring slips out of his hand. Everybody starts searching for it. Whoever gets the ring can claim Anna's hand. So, Sunil gets one more chance. Sunil spots the ring but feigns ignorance. Chris finally "finds" the ring and marries Anna. Just after the wedding, Sunil is shown packing his bags and leaving his father's home to find his own destiny. Vinayak, who has learnt the background story, makes up with his son, stating that he is proud to be Sunil's father. Sunil is seen walking in moonlight, where he meets a girl (Juhi Chawla). Some time later, Sunil and the girl are seen walking in the moonlight and talking merrily. Anthony and Bosco, two criminals who had seen Sunil and his group's show, see Sunil with the new girl and break the fourth wall saying that Sunil will be all right. The criminals hear a police siren and scamper away. Music. Composed by Jatin-Lalit, the song Sachi Yeh Kahani Hai has been lifted from the song Rasputin by the band BoneyM (preludes/interludes) and main tune from Johny Wakelin's "In Zaire" .
1060067	William Castle (April 24, 1914 – May 31, 1977) was an American film director, producer, screenwriter, and actor. Orphaned at 11, Castle dropped out of high school at 15 to work in the theater. He came to the attention of Columbia Pictures for his talent for promotion, and was hired. He learned the trade of filmmaking and became a director, acquiring a reputation for the ability to churn out competent B-movies quickly and on budget. He eventually struck out on his own, producing and directing thrillers which, despite their low budgets, were effectively promoted with gimmicks, a trademark for which he is best known. He was also the producer for "Rosemary's Baby". Personal life. Castle was born William Schloss, Jr. in New York City, the son of Saidie (Snellenberg) and William Schloss. His family was Jewish. ("Schloss" is German for "castle", and Castle later translated his surname into English as his pseudonym.) His mother died when he was nine. When his father followed a year later, he was left an orphan at the age of 11. He then lived with his older sister. Castle married Ellen Falck, with whom he had two children. Career. Getting started. At 13, he went to see the play "Dracula", starring Bela Lugosi, and was entranced. He watched performance after performance, eventually managing to meet Lugosi himself. He wrote in his autobiography "Step Right Up! I'm Gonna Scare the Pants off America", "I knew then what I wanted to do with my life - I wanted to scare the pants off audiences."Lugosi recommended him for the position of assistant stage manager for the road company tour of the play.[p. 14 The 15-year-old dropped out of high school to take the job. He spent his teenage years working on Broadway in jobs ranging from set building to acting. This proved good training for the future filmmaker. He obtained Orson Welles' telephone number and persuaded Welles to lease him the Stony Creek Theatre in Connecticut (Welles was leaving to begin filming "Citizen Kane"). He then hired German actress Ellen Schwanneke for the non-existent play "Das ist nicht für Kinder" ("Not for Children"). When Nazi Germany sent Schwanneke an invitation to a Munich performance, Castle seized the opportunity for an outrageous publicity stunt. He released to the newspapers what he claimed was a telegram he had sent turning down the request, portraying his star as "the girl who said no to Hitler". To add to the sensationalism, he secretly vandalized the theatre and painted swastikas on the exterior. It worked. The resulting publicity ensured the success of the play (which he then wrote in 48 hours). Columbia Pictures and other studios. He left for Hollywood at 23, to work for Harry Cohn at Columbia Pictures. In the 2007 documentary "Spine Tingler! The William Castle Story", his daughter states he had a dynamic, outgoing personality that attracted others. He was one of few people Cohn liked. He learned the film business, and graduated to directing inexpensive B-movies, the first being the appropriately named "The Chance of a Lifetime", released in 1943. He directed four movies in The Whistler series. Castle gained a reputation for being able to make films under budget and quickly. In addition, he worked as an associate producer on Orson Welles' film noir "The Lady from Shanghai" (1947), doing much second unit location work. On his own: the gimmicks. Ambitions unsatisfied, Castle began to make films independently. The inspiration of the 1955 French psychological thriller "Les Diaboliques" set the genre he would choose. He financed his first movie, "Macabre" (1958), by mortgaging his house. He came up with the idea to give every customer a certificate for a $1,000 life insurance policy from Lloyd's of London in case they should die of fright during the film. He stationed nurses in the lobbies with hearses parked outside the theaters.[pp. 15–16] "Macabre" was a hit. Other films (and gimmicks) followed: At the height of his popularity, he had a fan club with 250,000 members. "Rosemary's Baby". According to "Spine Tingler! The William Castle Story", he mortgaged his home (again) and obtained the movie rights to the Ira Levin novel before it was published, hoping to finally direct a prestigious A movie himself. He made a deal with Paramount Pictures, which however insisted on hiring director Roman Polanski. Castle had to settle for producing the film. He had a cameo, playing the grey-haired man standing outside the phone booth where Rosemary, played by Mia Farrow, is attempting to get in touch with the obstetrician. Castle was unable to build on the film's success. He suffered kidney failure soon after its release. By the time he recovered, all momentum was lost, and he went back to making B movies. Death. After a long career, Castle died on 31 May 1977 in Los Angeles, California, of a heart attack. He is interred in the Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, California. Legacy. Among his admirers is filmmaker John Waters, who wrote, "William Castle was my idol. His films made me want to make films. ... William Castle was God." He is Robert Zemeckis' "favorite filmmaker". Zemeckis co-founded Dark Castle Entertainment, which was intended to remake Castle's films. Two of his films were remade by his daughter Terry Ann Castle, who co-produced "House on Haunted Hill" in 1999, and "Thirteen Ghosts" in 2001 (the latter retitled "Thir13en Ghosts"). Alfred Hitchcock decided to make "Psycho" after noting the financial success of 1950s B movies by Castle and Roger Corman. A documentary focusing on Castle's life, "Spine Tingler! The William Castle Story", directed by Jeffrey Schwarz, had its premiere at AFI FEST 2007 in Los Angeles on November 8, 2007. It won the Audience Award for Best Documentary. The protagonist in the 1993 film "Matinee", played by John Goodman, is based on him.
1059061	Blankman is a 1994 American superhero comedy-parody film directed by Mike Binder and starring Damon Wayans and David Alan Grier. It was written by Wayans and J. F. Lawton, whose biggest success was writing "Pretty Woman" and "Cannibal Women in the Avocado Jungle of Death". Plot. Darryl Walker (Damon Wayans) is a clumsy nerdy repairman, who is a genius and Batman fan. Darryl has a pure heart and an optimstic Pollyannish personality. He is childishly naive to the realities of living in an inner city neighborhood. The area suffers from political corruption and the police are on strike. It takes the murder of his grandmother, an avid supporter of Alderman Marvin Harris' anti corruption campaign for Mayor, by members of mobster Michael Minelli's gang, to awaken him to the realities of his city's urban decay. He expresses his frustrations by intervening in a situation and boldly saving an elderly transit passenger from being mugged, and by ranting about the general corruptible state that the city has become. Darryl was so pure and shielded from reality presumably because of his interest in inventing, that he does not even realize that there is a "crackhouse in front of our flat". He tries to storm into it unarmed and rebuke the gang members, oblivious to the hazardous stupidity of doing so.
582593	Tisca Chopra (born Tisca Zareen Arora) is an Indian actress who starred in the well-reviewed play ‘Dinner With Friends’, where she played the character of Dia, a failed artist with a broken marriage. Early life and education. Tisca Chopra born in Kasauli, Himachal Pradesh into a Punjabi family of educationists. She graduated from Apeejay School, Noida, where her father was principal of her school. Later she studied English Literature at Hindu College, University of Delhi, she also started working actively with amateur theater in the college. While still at college, she started writing for several publications and also acting in plays for an amateur theater group and college festivals. After finishing her education, she moved to Mumbai, and trained in acting with notable theater artists Feroz Abbas Khan and Naseeruddin Shah. Career. Films. Her film debut was "Platform" (1993), opposite Ajay Devgan. In 2007, she appeared in "Taare Zameen Par" with Aamir Khan where her performance was well received. She acted in Nandita Das's directorial debut, "Firaaq" (2008). In 2011, she appeared in Madhur Bhandarkar's "Dil Toh Baccha Hai Ji", where she played a seductress. For "10 ml Love", Tisca was nominated for Best Actress at the 11th Annual New York Indian Film Festival. Her film "Ankur Arora Murder Case" written and produced by "Vikram Bhatt" released in May 2013. Her upcoming films are Anup Singh's "Qissa" with Irrfan Khan and "Rahasya" by UVI Film Production Pvt. Ltd. Theatre. She acted in plays in Mumbai and soon her work was seen in plays like, Feroz Abbas Khan's "Mahatma vs Gandhi", "All The Best" and Satya Dev Dubey's "Inshah Allah". She also starred in "Dinner With Friends", a Pulitzer Award winning play Television. Her performance in television short films like "Ek Shaam Ki Mulaquat" (Star Bestsellers) and "Hum Saath Saath Hain Kya?" led to leading parts in a popular show, (Balaji Telefilms) "Kahaani Ghar Ghar Kii", followed by "Love Marriage" (Zee TV), "Astitva...Ek Prem Kahani" (Zee TV) and "" (Zee TV). She hosted a consumer grievances show on (Star News) called "Main Hoon Na". Tisca hosted "Prayschit - Gunahon Ke Zahkm" on (Sony Entertainment Television (India)" where she got a chance to reveal the transformation that criminals go though after or during their prison sentence, the show has generated high TRP ratings. She is currently filming "24 (Indian TV series)", a remake of the popular American series of the same name, produced by "Anil Kapoor" Films, directed by "Abhinay Deo" and written by "Rensil D’Silva", which is expected to premier on (Colors (TV channel) in October 2013. Advertising. Tisca has also appeared in advertisements like Tanishq ', Titan Eye-wear, Dish TV, Kelloggs-All Bran ' and Horlicks-Gold '. Corporate Shows. She has also hosted various corporate events such as the VFX Awards, WOW Awards, Mahindra Rise 2012, Times Now Awards 2012, Times Now Foodie Awards and various others in the past. She has also recently hosted the IIJW 2012, Nabard Awards 2012, Times Now Foodie Awards 2013, Navy Ball 2012 and various others. Personal life. Tisca Chopra is the grand-niece of prominent writer Khushwant Singh Tisca is married to Capt. Sanjay Chopra who is a pilot with Air India. She is a practicing Buddhist and works with several NGOs, supporting education and Women's rights. Writing. She is currently working on developing a script that she plans to produce with her Pilot-author husband, Sanjay Chopra and her book on making it in Films ‘Get Your Act Together’ ("HarperCollins") is out in January 2014. Tisca started her blog on the Times of India - indiatimes in 2011. Awards and nominations. Won Nominated
1163656	Sylvia Sidney (born Sophia Kosow; August 8, 1910 – July 1, 1999) was an American character actress of stage, screen and film, who rose to prominence in the 1930s appearing in numerous crime dramas. Early life. Sidney, born Sophia Kosow in The Bronx, was the daughter of Rebecca (née Saperstein), a Romanian Jew, and Victor Kosow, a Russian Jewish immigrant who worked as a clothing salesman. The area from which Victor Kosow came from is today in Belarus. Her parents divorced by 1915, and she was adopted by her stepfather, Sigmund Sidney, a dentist. Her mother became a dressmaker and renamed herself Beatrice Sidney. Now using the surname Sidney, she became an actress at the age of fifteen as a way of overcoming shyness. As a student of the Theater Guild's School for Acting, Sidney appeared in several of their productions during the 1920s and earned praise from theater critics. In 1926, she was seen by a Hollywood talent scout and made her first film appearance later that year. Career. During the Depression, Sidney appeared in a string of films, often playing the girlfriend or the sister of a gangster. She appeared opposite such heavyweight screen idols as Spencer Tracy, Henry Fonda, Joel McCrea, Fredric March, George Raft (a frequent screen partner), and Cary Grant. Among her films from this period were: "An American Tragedy", "City Streets" and "Street Scene" (all 1931), Alfred Hitchcock's "Sabotage" and Fritz Lang's "Fury" (both 1936), "You Only Live Once", "Dead End" (both 1937) and "The Trail of the Lonesome Pine", an early three-strip Technicolor film. It was during this period that she developed a reputation for being difficult to work with. After what seemed to be a promising second phase of her career playing opposite the likes of James Cagney in films like "Blood on the Sun" (1945) with a considerably more glamorous screen persona, her career diminished somewhat during the 1940s. In 1949 exhibitors voted her "box office poison". In 1952, she played the role of Fantine in "Les Misérables", and her performance was widely praised and allowed her opportunities to develop as a character actress.
1042382	Patrick Wymark (11 July 192620 October 1970) was an English, stage, film, and television actor. Early life. Born Patrick Carl Cheeseman in Cleethorpes, Lincolnshire, he was brought up in neighbouring Grimsby and frequently re-visited the area at the height of his career. Career. Wymark attended University College London before training at the Old Vic Theatre School and making his first stage appearance in a walk-on part in "Othello" in 1951. He toured South Africa the following year and then directed plays for the drama department at Stanford University, California. After moving to the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon, Wymark played a wide range of Shakespearean roles, including Dogberry in "Much Ado about Nothing", Stephano in "The Tempest", Marullus in "Julius Caesar" and Bottom in "A Midsummer Night's Dream". Other stage credits included the title role in "Danton's Death" and, with the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC), Ephihodov in "The Cherry Orchard". His theatre roles also included Bosola in a RSC production of John Webster's "The Duchess of Malfi" in 1960. In television, Wymark was best known for his role as the machiavellian businessman John Wilder in the twin drama series "The Plane Makers" and "The Power Game" (which were broadcast from 1963 to 1969), which led to offers of real company directorships and the British Academy Television Award for Best Actor in 1965. However, Wymark was a gentle person in real life and was, by his own admission, ignorant of business matters. He considered the character of Wilder a "bastard" and was described by his wife Olwen as "the most inefficient, dreamy muddler in the world." In the mid-1960s, Wymark was considered as the replacement for William Hartnell in the title role of "Doctor Who". Wymark's film appearances included: "Children of the Damned" (1964), "Operation Crossbow" (1965), "Repulsion" (1965), "Where Eagles Dare" (1968), "Battle of Britain" (1969), "Doppelgänger" (1969), "The Blood on Satan's Claw" (1970) and "Cromwell" (1970). Personal life. Wymark married Olwen Wymark, an American playwright, in 1953. He took his acting name from his grandfather-in-law, the writer William Wymark Jacobs. The couple lived in Parliament Hill, Hampstead, and had four children, including the future actress Jane Wymark. He had a brother, John Cheeseman. Wymark died suddenly in Melbourne, Australia on 20 October 1970, aged 44, of a heart attack. He had been due to star in "Sleuth" at the Comedy Theatre three days later. He was buried at Highgate Cemetery in London. Wymark View—located in his home town, Grimsby—is named after him.
1064090	Rachelle Lefevre (; born February 1, 1979) is a Canadian actress. She has starred in the television series "Big Wolf on Campus" and had recurring roles in "What About Brian", "Boston Legal", and "Swingtown". She played the vampire Victoria Sutherland in the first two films of the "Twilight" saga, before being replaced by Bryce Dallas Howard due to scheduling conflicts. She starred in the ABC medical drama "Off the Map", followed by the CBS series "A Gifted Man" and "Under the Dome". Early life. Rachelle Lefevre was born on February 1, 1979 in Montreal and raised in Montreal, Quebec, to an English teacher father and a psychologist mother. Her father's family is originally from France and Northern Ireland, and her maternal grandparents are Jewish. Her stepfather is a rabbi. She has three sisters and speaks both English and French, though she grew up mostly speaking English. Lefevre attended Centennial Academy, a private high school, and later studied creative arts at Dawson College. She studied theater for two summers at the Walnut Hill School in Natick, Massachusetts, and began a degree in education and literature at McGill University. Career. Early acting career. While working as a waitress at a sushi bar in Westmount, a regular customer, a Canadian television producer, overheard Lefevre telling the hostess that she wanted to be an actress. The producer got Lefevre her first audition, for a role in the sitcom "Student Bodies". She didn't yet have a head shot, so submitted a Polaroid picture. She didn't land the part but got a call back from the casting director, leading to a role in the Canadian TV series "Big Wolf on Campus" in 1999, playing Stacey Hanson. Lefevre continued attending McGill between shoots, but never finished a degree. Lefevre appeared in the film "Confessions of a Dangerous Mind", directed by George Clooney, in 2002. She appeared in the television movies "Picking Up and Dropping Off" with Scott Wolf, and "See Jane Date", and had a role in the romantic comedy "Hatley High" in 2003. In 2004, she played Etta Place in the Calgary-filmed TV movie "The Legend of Butch and Sundance". Lefevre moved to West Hollywood, California that year and appeared in the films "Noel", directed by Chazz Palminteri and starring Penélope Cruz, and "Head in the Clouds", also starring Cruz and Charlize Theron. In April 2004, Lefevre filmed the mystery-thriller "The River King" in Halifax, opposite Edward Burns. Lefevre starred on the Fox sitcom "Life on a Stick" in 2005, playing Lily Ashton, a mall fast-food restaurant employee, and then appeared on the Fox series "Pool Guys". She has guest starred on numerous other television series, including: "Charmed", playing Olivia Callaway on the episode "Love's a Witch", playing Annie Isles on the fifth season of "Undressed", and appearing on the short-lived ABC series "What About Brian" for eleven episodes. Lefevre was cast as Annie Cartwright, the female lead in ABC's "Life on Mars", a David E. Kelley remake of the original British TV series. She shot a pilot episode, but was replaced by Gretchen Mol when the series was revamped. "Twilight". Lefevre played the renegade vampire Victoria Sutherland in the film "Twilight" (2008), based on the novel of the same name by Stephenie Meyer. Lefevre wrote an impassioned letter to the director, explaining her desire to work with the filmmaker. Lefevre described the essence of her character as "pure evil, pure instinct, pure malice, and very feline". After reading that the author used the word "feline" to describe her character's agility, Lefevre watched lion attacks on YouTube to separate the movements of her character from those of normal people. She also took trapeze classes in preparation for the wire work in the film. Lefevre spent hours working on the costumes for her character, and described herself as "obsessed" with vampires after reading Bram Stoker's "Dracula" at the age of 14. Lefevre was, at times, overwhelmed by the scrutiny she received from her involvement with "Twilight". She participated in a promotional tour in November 2008, where she met and signed autographs for "Twilight" fans at Hot Topic stores in the U.S. "It's the closest I will ever come in my life to being a rock star," she told The Canadian Press, describing an appearance on MuchMusic, where over 1,500 fans showed up in Toronto. Over 2,500 fans showed up at a Wal-Mart in Salt Lake City, where Lefevre appeared to promote the DVD release of the film. Overall though, Lefevre described herself as delighted by the attention and excitement of the fans. She appeared in "New Moon", the film's sequel, based on Meyer's second novel, which she completed shooting in Vancouver in May 2009. Lefevre did not reprise her role of Victoria in "", the third film of the "Twilight" series, and was replaced by Bryce Dallas Howard. Summit Entertainment, the studio behind the films, attributed the change to scheduling conflicts; "Eclipse" and "Barney's Version", an independent Canadian feature Lefevre had signed on to, both began filming on 17 August 2009. Lefevre responded that she was "stunned" by the decision and "greatly saddened" not to continue her portrayal of Victoria, and never thought she would "lose the role over a 10 day overlap", in a statement to "Access Hollywood". The studio responded in a counter-statement, ""The Twilight Saga: Eclipse" is an ensemble production that has to accommodate the schedules of numerous actors while respecting the established creative vision of the filmmaker and most importantly the story." Lefevre had appeared at the 2009 San Diego Comic-Con to promote "New Moon" the weekend before she was replaced. Enthusiastic fans of the series reacted to the news of Lefevre's replacement with online petitions urging her return, and "Bring Back Rachelle" became a top-trending topic on Twitter in the afternoon of 29 July 2009. Lefevre told "Extra" that she was "absolutely blown away" by support from fans, who also made her a tribute video on YouTube. Lefevre did not attend the Los Angeles premiere of "New Moon", tweeting that the event "was just 2 emotional 4 me & I couldn't manage it." ("sic") Since 2009. In 2009, Lefevre appeared in the CBC television miniseries "The Summit", filmed in Ontario, and completed the film "Bagman", starring Kevin Spacey. In "Bagman", she plays Emily Miller, a former press secretary for U.S. congressman Tom DeLay, who helped convict lobbyist Jack Abramoff (Kevin Spacey) in a political scandal involving Native American tribes. Lefevre appeared in "Barney's Version", a film adaptation of the award-winning Canadian novel by Mordecai Richler. Lefevre plays Clara, a manic depressive feminist poet who becomes the first wife of protagonist Barney Panofsky (Paul Giamatti). Her scenes were filmed in Rome in August 2009. The production continued on location in Montreal and New York. Soon after the shoot, in November 2009, Lefevre shot the suspense film "The Caller" in Puerto Rico along with actors Lorna Raver and Stephen Moyer. She replaced Brittany Murphy, who had exited the project. Lefevre appeared in the pilot episode of the ABC television drama "The Deep End" on 21 January 2010. She starred on the television drama "Off the Map" as Dr. Ryan Clark, a young doctor working in a South American medical clinic. Developed by "Grey's Anatomy"-creator Shonda Rhimes, the series was filmed in Hawaii, debuted on 12 January 2011 and ran for 13 episodes before being canceled. Lefevre was the voice of the 31st annual Genie Awards in March 2011, along with host William Shatner. She was also cast in the NBC pilot, "The Crossing", a drama set during the American Civil War. Lefevre plays Anna, a widow who begins an affair with a soldier. In 2011, Lefevre joined the cast of the CBS TV drama, "A Gifted Man", playing a doctor. The series starred Patrick Wilson and Jennifer Ehle. Beginning in June 2013, Lefevre appeared in the 13-episode CBS summer thriller, "Under the Dome", based on a 2009 best-selling novel of the same name by Stephen King. Lefevre joined an ensemble cast that includes Dean Norris, Mike Vogel, Colin Ford and Britt Robertson. The series is filmed in Wilmington, North Carolina. Personal life and charity work. Lefevre lives in Los Angeles, California. As of June 2009, she was dating Jamie King, an actor who played Thomas Wyatt in the Showtime television series "The Tudors". In 2009, Lefevre donated $100 to Susan G. Komen for The Cure, a breast cancer charity, for every 10,000 people who followed her on Twitter. She also launched an eBay auction for the charity School On Wheels in August 2009, which provides tutoring to homeless children in Southern California. Lefevre sold t-shirts and other merchandise signed by her fellow cast members from "Twilight". She is also an active supporter of Best Friends Animal Society, appearing in a public service announcement on behalf of the organization in November 2009, urging the public to adopt their next pet. , she was dating Chris Crary, a contestant on the reality television series "Top Chef".
1062061	Peter Henry Fonda (born February 23, 1940) is an American actor. He is the son of Henry Fonda, brother of Jane Fonda, and father of Bridget and Justin Fonda (by first wife Susan Brewer, stepdaughter of Noah Dietrich). Fonda is an icon of the counterculture of the 1960s. Early life. Fonda was born in New York City, the only son of actor Henry Fonda and his wife Frances Ford Seymour; he is the younger brother of actress Jane Fonda. He and Jane had a maternal half-sister, Frances de Villers Brokaw (1931-2008), from their mother's first marriage. On his eleventh birthday, he accidentally shot himself in the stomach and nearly died. He went to Nainital and stayed for a few months for recovery. Years later, he referred to this incident while with John Lennon and George Harrison and taking LSD. He said, "I know what it's like to be dead." This inspired The Beatles' song "She Said She Said". Early on, Fonda studied acting in Omaha, Nebraska, his father's home town. While attending the University of Nebraska at Omaha, Fonda joined the Omaha Community Playhouse, where many actors (including his father and Marlon Brando) had begun their careers. Career. Early years. Fonda found work on Broadway, where he gained notice in "Blood, Sweat and Stanley Poole." He moved on to Hollywood to make films. He started his film career in romantic leading roles. He debuted in "Tammy and the Doctor" (1963), which he called "Tammy and the Schmuckface". But Fonda's intensity impressed Robert Rossen, who had directed the Oscar winner "All the King's Men." He cast Fonda in "Lilith" (1964). He also was in "The Victors" (1964), and played the male lead in "The Young Lovers" (1964), about out-of-wedlock pregnancy. By the mid-1960s, Peter Fonda was not a conventional "leading man" in Hollywood. As "Playboy" magazine reported, Fonda had established a "solid reputation as a dropout". He had become outwardly nonconformist and grew his hair long, alienating the "establishment" film industry. Desirable acting work became scarce. In the 1963–1964 season, he appeared in an episode of the ABC drama about college life, "Channing". Through his friendships with members of the band Byrds, Fonda visited The Beatles in their rented house in Benedict Canyon in Los Angeles in August 1965. While John Lennon, Ringo Starr, George Harrison, and Fonda were under the influence of LSD, Lennon heard Fonda say, "I know what it's like to be dead." Lennon used this phrase as the tag line for his song, "She Said She Said", which was included on the "Revolver" (1966) album.
1067793	"King's Ransom" is a 2005 comedy film, directed by Jeffrey W. Byrd and written by Wayne Conley, who was a writer for "Kenan & Kel". Plot. Malcolm King (Anderson) is a wealthy, selfish, obnoxious businessman who is about to divorce his wife Renee (Smith). She plans to ruin him financially during the court proceedings, and King is willing to do anything to protect his fortune. He enlists his mistress, Peaches (Hall), and her brother, Herb (Murphy), to stage a mock kidnapping. They are to make and receive a huge ransom demand, which would keep the money safe from his wife.
757080	Kevin Scott Nash (born July 9, 1959) is an American professional wrestler and actor. As of 2011, Nash is signed to a five-year contract with WWE under their WWE Legends program. Nash has wrestled under several ring names, but is most notably known by his real name in World Championship Wrestling (WCW) and Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (TNA), and in the World Wrestling Federation (WWF)/WWE, where he has also been billed as Diesel. Between WWE, WCW, and TNA, Nash has won a total of 21 championships. He is a six-time world champion: a five-time WCW World Heavyweight Champion, and one-time WWF Champion. Although he had only one reign as WWF Champion, Nash is recognized by WWE as the longest-reigning WWF Champion of the 1990s and the tenth longest-reigning of all time, having held the title for 358 days. Nash was a member of The Kliq, a group which included Shawn Michaels, Triple H, Scott Hall and Sean Waltman. He is one of the three founding members of the New World Order (nWo), along with Hulk Hogan and Scott Hall. Early life. Nash was born July 9, 1959, in southwest Detroit, Michigan. Nash's father, Robert, age 36, died of a heart attack on April 4, 1968 when Nash was nine years old. On December 27, 1994, Nash's mother, Wanda, died after a four-year struggle against breast cancer. He attended Aquinas High School, followed by the University of Tennessee, where he majored in psychology and minored in educational philosophy. At the University of Tennessee, Nash was a center for the Tennessee Volunteers basketball team. He remained on the team from 1977 to 1980, during which time the team made it to the NCAA Sweet 16. Following a physical altercation with head coach Don DeVoe, Nash did not play a fourth year for the Volunteers, and he attempted to transfer to Bowling Green State University in Bowling Green, Ohio. Nash reconsidered his options and instead moved to Europe, where he played basketball professionally for various teams. His career ended in 1981 in Germany (while playing for Gießen 46ers) when he tore his anterior cruciate ligament. With his basketball career over, Nash enlisted in the 202nd Military Police Company in Giessen, Germany and served in a secure NATO facility for two years, during which time he was promoted to the rank of specialist. After working on an assembly line at Ford Motor Company and as the floor manager of a strip club in Atlanta, Georgia, he decided to try professional wrestling. Professional wrestling career. World Championship Wrestling (1990–1993). Nash debuted in WCW as the orange-mohawked "Steel", one half of the tag team known as the "Master Blasters". He was initially partnered with "Iron", but Iron was soon replaced by "Blade". The Master Blasters, however, disbanded within a year. In May 1991, Nash was repackaged as the silver-haired "Oz", a character based on the Wizard of Oz from the 1900 children's book "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz". Oz, managed by Merlin the Wizard, was pushed strongly throughout early 1991; he squashed several wrestlers before losing to Ron Simmons at the Great American Bash on July 14. Nash wrestled as Oz throughout the remainder of 1991. In January 1992, he was repackaged as "Vinnie Vegas", a wisecracking pseudo-mobster based on Steve Martin's character in the 1990 film "My Blue Heaven". Vegas was quickly recruited into "A Half-Ton of Holy Hell", a stable of large wrestlers created by Harley Race which included Big Van Vader and Mr. Hughes. The stable separated in February 1992, and Vegas joined The Diamond Mine, a stable led by Diamond Dallas Page that also included The Diamond Studd and Scotty Flamingo. After Studd and Flamingo left the stable, Page and Vegas began teaming together as The Vegas Connection. The tag team split in late 1992, Nash spent several months teaming with Big Sky until leaving the promotion in early 1993 to work for the World Wrestling Federation. World Wrestling Federation (1993–1996). Debut and Championship reigns (1993–1995). In 1993, Nash left WCW, signing a contract with the World Wrestling Federation at the request of Shawn Michaels. He was given the stage name of "Diesel," with the character given the nickname "Big Daddy Cool." For the role, Nash dyed his beard and hair black. Taking on the appearance of a typical biker thug, Diesel sported black sunglasses and leather garments. The name of Diesel was a play on the fact that Nash was from Detroit, known famously as "The Motor City." To play off of his character's name, Nash's initial entrance music was a simple series of truck engine noises along with loud horns beeping. Diesel started out as the bodyguard/best friend of Shawn Michaels. He made his WWF debut at a house show on June 6, 1993, assisting Michaels in defeating Marty Jannetty for the Intercontinental Championship. In January 1994, Diesel appeared at the Royal Rumble, eliminating seven men in under 18 minutes of in-ring time. Diesel won the Intercontinental Championship from Razor Ramon, following interference from Michaels on the April 13, 1994 edition of "Superstars". The duo of Diesel and Michaels defeated The Headshrinkers to win the WWF Tag Team Championship on August 28, making Nash a double champion. The next night, Ramon defeated Diesel at SummerSlam to regain the Intercontinental Championship. The alliance between Diesel and Michaels dissolved after Survivor Series after Michaels accidentally superkicked Diesel. Diesel then gave chase to Michaels, and although he failed to catch him the reaction from the crowd turned him babyface. However, Nash was no longer a tag team champion, as Michaels' actions resulted in the team being forced to vacate the titles. On November 26, three days after Survivor Series, Diesel faced Bob Backlund for the WWF Championship he won at Survivor Series from Bret Hart. In the match, held at Madison Square Garden, Diesel defeated Backlund in an eight-second squash match. Diesel then promised Hart a match for his title, which they had at the 1995 Royal Rumble. The match ended in a draw due to interference from several wrestlers, including Shawn Michaels. Michaels was irate about his former bodyguard having beaten him to the WWF Championship and was sufficiently motivated to win the 1995 Royal Rumble later that evening, earning himself a title shot at WrestleMania XI. At WrestleMania XI on April 2, Nash, accompanied to ringside by actress Pamela Anderson (who was supposed to valet for Michaels), defeated Michaels to retain the title. After the match he left the ring with both Anderson and Michaels' replacement for her, Jenny McCarthy. The next night on "Monday Night Raw", Michaels was betrayed by his new bodyguard, "Sycho" Sid, prompting Diesel to come to his rescue. This occurrence led to the tag team being reunited, now known as "Two Dudes with Attitude". Diesel successfully defended the WWF title against Sycho Sid at the inaugural In Your House pay-per-view in Syracuse, New York, and at the in Nashville, Tennessee. At "SummerSlam 1995", Diesel retained the WWF title by defeating Mabel, who had won the 1995 King Of The Ring tournament. On September 24 at In Your House 3 in Saginaw, Michigan, Diesel and Michaels challenged the reigning WWF Tag Team Champions Owen Hart and Yokozuna. The match had a winner-take-all stipulation, as in addition to the tag belts Diesel's WWF Championship and Michaels' recently won Intercontinental Championship were also on the line. When Hart did not show up at the event, he was replaced by Davey Boy Smith. In the course of the match, Hart arrived at ringside, entered the ring, and was pinned by Diesel for the win and the title, making him and Michaels holders of all three major WWF championships. The reign did not last long, however, as Hart and Yokozuna had the titles returned to them the next night due to Hart not being an official part of the match when pinned. The Kliq (1995–1996). Diesel's WWF Championship reign continued until November 19, when he was defeated by Bret Hart at the Survivor Series. Following the loss, Diesel attacked Hart. He later began a tweener turn and started a rivalry against fan favorite the Undertaker by costing him a potential victory in his match against Hart at the 1996 Royal Rumble. Diesel was the last wrestler eliminated in the Royal Rumble match by Shawn Michaels, which eventually led to a rift between the two men. At In Your House 6 in Louisville, Kentucky Diesel lost his steel cage match against WWF Champion Bret Hart when he was attacked by the Undertaker. Shortly before WrestleMania XII Nash's contract status was in a state of flux. At the time, WCW was offering large amounts of money to the WWF's talent by Eric Bischoff, WCW Executive Vice President, to jump ship. In fact Bischoff had succeeded in convincing several high-profile WWF stars to sign with WCW over the previous two years, including five-time former WWF Champion Hulk Hogan and his on-again, off-again friend Randy Savage, and was in the process at the time of talking to Nash's friend Scott "Razor Ramon" Hall about a contract as Hall's too was set to expire. Nash explained on the WWE Classics on Demand exclusive series "Legends of Wrestling" that Hall had been the first to sign with the company and was offered a contract that paid him "above Sting money" (at the time, Sting was one of the highest paid wrestlers in the company and although Ric Flair, Hulk Hogan, and Randy Savage had been making more, Sting's contract was used as a measuring stick). Hall also informed Nash that he had been given "favored nations" status, which meant that someone of the same caliber could come in and command the same amount of money Hall was making. Hall told Nash that because he had been the WWF Champion and the focal point of the company for most of the previous eighteen months, he could realistically come in and expect a fair amount of money. Bischoff ended up offering Nash a three-year guaranteed contract with a $1.2 million annual salary. Nash said to Vince McMahon that he did not want to leave the WWF (he said that McMahon had been the first to believe in him as a wrestler, and that WCW had tried to ruin his career with his previous characters of Vinnie Vegas, Oz, and Master Blaster Steel), and that if McMahon was willing to match the offer he would stay. McMahon said no because, according to Nash, he would have had to offer matching contracts to other wrestlers and with the federation in a bad financial situation, he simply could not afford to. Nash signed his contract shortly thereafter. Diesel lost to The Undertaker at WrestleMania XII on March 31, after which he finally turned heel and went on to feud with Shawn Michaels once again after he turned on him at a Madison Square Garden live event. In his last televised WWF appearance until 2002, Diesel challenged Michaels for the WWF Championship (which he had won from Hart at WrestleMania XII) at on April 28. He wrestled Michaels for the title once again in a steel cage match at a house show on May 19, but was again defeated. After the match, Diesel, Michaels, Razor Ramon, and Hunter Hearst Helmsley, a group of off-screen friends known collectively as "The Kliq", hugged one another in the ring and wished each other farewell. This incident, later referred to as the "" or "MSG Incident", was a serious breach of character, as it showed heels and babyfaces consorting with one another. Shortly thereafter, with his obligations to the WWF now completely fulfilled, Nash left for WCW. Return to World Championship Wrestling. New World Order (1996–1999). After two weeks of Scott Hall appearing on WCW programming and taunting announcers, wrestlers, and the company, Nash finally debuted alongside his friend on June 10, 1996, after Hall interrupting Eric Bishoff. The duo were known as The Outsiders, and the storyline originally pushed them as "invaders" from the WWF (which WCW eventually had to scale back due to legal concerns from the WWF). At Bash at the Beach, Hall and Nash fought the team of Lex Luger, Sting, and Randy Savage and promised to add one more man to their entourage. Nash and Hall eventually teamed with Hulk Hogan after Hogan turned on Randy Savage. They began cutting promos calling themselves the "New World Order"(nWo). Through late 1996 and into 1997, Nash normally teamed with Hall as the Outsiders, and they held the WCW Tag Team Championship. Nash also began to show his leadership qualities in the nWo, and became a sort of "second in command" alongside Hogan. Nash, Hall, and Sean Waltman distinguished themselves from the rest of the nWo, calling themselves the "Wolfpac" in 1997. After a while, however, the nWo began to fight within its ranks, with Hogan and Nash battling for control. The situation came to a head on April 20, 1998, during a match between Hogan and recent nWo inductee (and rival) Randy Savage for Savage's recently won WCW World Heavyweight Championship. During the match, Nash interfered on Savage's behalf and jackknifed Hogan to the mat, signaling the breakup of the nWo into two separate factions (Nash's interference was not enough to prevent Hogan from regaining his championship, thanks to Bret Hart's interference shortly thereafter). Nash became the leader of nWo Wolfpac, alongside Savage, Curt Hennig, and Konnan. Hennig, however, shortly thereafter defected over to Hogan's nWo Hollywood faction. Then, during a match between Hall, Nash, Sting and The Giant (who had recently rejoined the nWo after being kicked out two years prior), Hall turned on Nash by hitting him with his tag team title belt and leaving the ring. The Wolfpac, however, was not down for long as Lex Luger joined Nash's team. Sting would eventually become a member as well, after being recruited heavily by both sides towards the middle of 1998. After Sting won Giant's half of the tag team title at the Great American Bash that June, Nash became Sting's partner. They defended the championship until July 20, when they were defeated by Hall and The Giant. Nash then set his sights on his former partner, and the rivalry came to a head at Halloween Havoc on October 25. During the course of the match, Nash jackknifed Hall twice but, instead of pinning him, left the ring and lost via count-out. Shortly after the victory, Nash became WCW's new booker. The following month at World War 3, Nash entered the 60-man, three ring battle royal that was a staple of the pay-per-view, with the winner getting a shot at the WCW World Heavyweight Championship at Starrcade the following month. Nash survived to the end after literally clearing his ring out and big booting Lex Luger, who had Scott Hall in the Torture Rack, over the top rope, and earned his shot at the title. At Starrcade, Nash won the WCW World Heavyweight Championship from Goldberg (who had an officially-given 173-0 win-loss record before the match) after Scott Hall shocked on Goldberg with a stun gun. In doing so, Nash broke Goldberg's long running undefeated streak. On January 4, 1999, Nash and Goldberg were set to meet in a rematch, but the match did not happen because of Goldberg being arrested for stalking Miss Elizabeth. That night also marked the return of Hulk Hogan after his "retirement" two months prior. With Goldberg unable to wrestle, Nash challenged Hogan instead. Hogan simply poked Nash in the chest, who proceeded to fall down and willingly allow Hogan to pin him for the title. The gesture marked the reunion of the feuding nWo factions into one. The return, however, was short lived, and by the midpoint of 1999, the nWo reunion was over. Meanwhile, backstage, Nash wrote some of the later angles for WCW. In his 2006 autobiography, "Controversy Creates Cash", former WCW President Eric Bischoff criticized Nash's work ethic, dubbing him "Big Lazy" (a reference to Nash's nickname, "Big Sexy"). The name had previously been coined by The Honky Tonk Man on several radio interviews. World Heavyweight Championship reigns (1999–2001). In May 1999, Nash won the WCW World Championship for the second time by defeating Diamond Dallas Page at Slamboree. He then appeared on "The Tonight Show" and put up a $250,000 challenge to Bret Hart for its May 24 program. Bret's brother, Owen, died in a wrestling stunt, however, just as Bret was flying to Los Angeles; this immediately canceled their match and feud. Nash then entered a feud with the returning Randy Savage, who was later joined by a returning Sid Vicious at The Great American Bash in June when he powerbombed Nash during the match, thus giving Nash a disqualification victory. This rivalry culminated in a tag team match at Bash at the Beach in July 1999 which pitted Nash and Sting against Savage and Sid. A stipulation was added that whoever got the pin in the match would become WCW World Champion. Nash was pinned by Savage and lost his championship, but would get his revenge the next night on "Nitro" in a title match between Savage and a returning Hulk Hogan, and in a similar situation to Savage's first title defense from the previous year, he used a Jackknife Powerbomb on Savage, preserving the victory for Hogan. The following week, however, Nash attacked Hogan during a match pitting Hogan against Vicious. Nash, Sid, and Rick Steiner then feuded with Hogan, Sting, and a returning Goldberg until Road Wild, where Hogan defeated Nash in a "retirement" match. On October 4, 1999, Nash returned to WCW along with Scott Hall, which was later revealed to be new version of the nWo involving Nash, Hall, Bret Hart, and Jeff Jarrett. This would not last long either due to the injury of Hart, the group's leader, and Nash spent most of 2000 feuding with the likes of Terry Funk, Mike Awesome, Scott Steiner, and Booker T. Nash won the WCW Championship again from Booker T on August 28, 2000 in Las Cruces, New Mexico. He eventually lost it back to Booker T later on at Fall Brawl. He even had a stint as WCW Commissioner, and he served as a coach/mentor to the Natural Born Thrillers, who would eventually turn on Nash. Nash aligned himself with Dallas Page, forming a team called The Insiders. They feuded with the Perfect Event (Shawn Stasiak and Chuck Palumbo) and won the WCW World Tag Team Championship at Mayhem on November 26, 2000. Shortly after, they were stripped of the title by Commissioner Mike Sanders in mid-December. Weeks later, they won the title back at Starrcade. In 2001 (WCW's final months), the Insiders continued their feud with the Natural Born Thrillers. Nash lost another "retirement" match to Scott Steiner at SuperBrawl Revenge, but it would not be long before WCW announced the sale of the company to the World Wrestling Federation. As he had a guaranteed contract with AOL Time Warner, Nash chose to wait out the remainder of his contract, which expired on December 31, 2001. Return to World Wrestling Federation/Entertainment (2002-2004). Reformation of the nWo (2002). Following the expiration of his AOL–Time Warner contract, Nash, along with Scott Hall and Hulk Hogan, were rehired by the WWF. Their rehiring was announced several weeks before their debut, with Vince McMahon claiming to have hired the nWo in order to destroy the WWF – of which Ric Flair was now a co-owner, which McMahon could not tolerate. Billed as the original nWo, Nash, Hall, and Hogan returned to the WWF at No Way Out on February 17, 2002. In the course of the evening, the nWo delivered an interview in which they claimed to have reformed, gave a six pack of beer to Stone Cold Steve Austin (which he refused), and traded insults with The Rock. They interfered in the main event of the evening, helping Chris Jericho retain his Undisputed WWF Championship against Austin. At WrestleMania X8, Nash continually interfered in the match between Hall and Austin to the point where he was forced to return backstage. Later that night, he and Hall turned on Hogan after he had offered congratulations to The Rock for defeating him. In March, Nash suffered a biceps injury that put him out of action for several weeks and almost immediately upon returning, suffered a quadriceps tear in a tag match on the July 8 episode of "Raw". On the July 15 edition of Raw, the nWo was officially disbanded by Vince McMahon as Eric Bischoff became Raw General Manager. Pursuit of the World Heavyweight Championship (2003-2004). After nine-month injury, Nash returned as a face on the April 7, 2003 episode of "Raw", much to the delight of both Shawn Michaels and Triple H, who were feuding with each other. As part of the storyline, Nash was given a choice to remain friends with either Michaels or Triple H. After Nash would not make the decision, Triple H made the decision for him and turned on him with a low blow. This led to Nash and Triple H feuding with one another. Nash teamed up with Michaels and Booker T against Triple H, Ric Flair and Chris Jericho in a Six-man tag team match at Backlash which ended in Triple H picking up the win for his team, pinning Nash after hitting him with a sledgehammer. Following Backlash, Nash was granted a shot at Triple H's World Heavyweight Championship, and the two squared off at Judgment Day with Michaels and Flair in their respective corners. Triple H would get himself disqualified and kept the title as a result, but this did not stop Nash from attacking Triple H following the match, putting him through the announcer's table with a Jackknife Powerbomb. The next month, they fought again in a Hell in a Cell match at Bad Blood with Mick Foley as the special guest referee but Nash lost the match. In August 2003, Nash feuded with Chris Jericho and was forced to cut his hair after losing a hair vs. hair match against Jericho - this was to cover for Nash having to cut his hair for his role as "The Russian" for the 2004 Punisher movie. His last match in WWE was at SummerSlam in an Elimination Chamber match for the Heavyweight championship against Triple H, Shawn Michaels, Goldberg, Jericho, and Randy Orton. He was the first to be eliminated after Jericho pinned him following Sweet Chin Music from Michaels. Before leaving however, he executed a Jackknife Powerbomb on Jericho and Orton. Nash then stepped away from in-ring action and underwent neck surgery. The WWE decided not to renew Nash's contract in January 2004. Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (2004-2011). Kings of Wrestling (2004–2005). Nash debuted in Total Nonstop Action Wrestling alongside the returning Scott Hall on November 7, 2004 at the inaugural monthly TNA pay-per-view, Victory Road, with the duo helping NWA World Heavyweight Champion Jeff Jarrett retain his title in a ladder match with Jeff Hardy. In subsequent weeks, the trio identified themselves as the Kings of Wrestling and began feuding with Hardy and A.J. Styles. At Turning Point on December 5, the Kings of Wrestling were defeated by Hardy, Styles, and Randy Savage. Hall left TNA in early 2005, and Nash and Jarrett separated after Nash made clear his desire to win the NWA World Heavyweight Championship. Nash received a title shot against Jarrett on February 13, 2005 at Against All Odds, but lost following interference from the debuting Outlaw. Following the defeat, Nash joined forces with Sean Waltman and began feuding with the newly formed Planet Jarrett. At Destination X on March 13, Nash lost to The Outlaw in a First Blood match following interference from Jarrett, who struck Nash with his title belt. The rivalry between Planet Jarrett and Nash and his allies culminated in a scheduled Lethal Lockdown match at Lockdown on April 24 pitting Nash, Waltman, and Diamond Dallas Page against Jarrett, The Outlaw, and "The Alpha Male" Monty Brown. Nash, however, was removed from the card and replaced with B.G. James after contracting a staph infection, which left him sidelined for much of 2005. Nash returned to TNA on October 1 for the first episode of "TNA Impact!" on Spike TV, attacking and powerbombing Jarrett. Nash went on to challenge Jarrett to a match for the NWA World Heavyweight Championship at Bound for Glory on October 23. In the weeks preceding the event, Nash and Jarrett had several heated confrontations, on one occasion brawling with one another and with guest referee Tito Ortiz. On October 22, one day before Bound for Glory, Nash was hospitalized with chest pains. At Bound for Glory, a battle royal was held to determine the number one contender; Rhino won and then defeated Jarrett for the NWA World Heavyweight Championship. Nash was later discharged from the hospital, having suffered a mild cardiac episode. He made a partial return to the ring in December 2005, wrestling several matches on a tour of South Africa. Paparazzi production and alliance with Samoa Joe(2006–2007). Nash returned to TNA once more on the April 27, 2006 episode of "Impact!", announcing in a pre-taped segment that he would give a private interview to Alex Shelley one week later. The interview saw Nash claim to be the most profitable WWF World Heavyweight Champion of all time and describe the X Division as "basically filler". Nash went on to announce that he intended to destroy the X Division in order to reassert his position within TNA. He began his campaign at Sacrifice on May 14, powerbombing Puma and continued his campaign on the May 19 episode of "Impact!" by attacking Chris Sabin shortly after he had defeated Petey Williams to win the TNA 2006 World X Cup Tournament for Team USA. Nash continued to attack X Division wrestlers over subsequent weeks, leading to Sabin challenging him to a match at Slammiversary. Nash's attacks were also coupled with pre-taped segments with Shelley (some appearing only on the internet website YouTube) and his "X Division debut" on the June 15 episode of "Impact!", where Nash wrestled a comedy match against a midget Shelley dubbed a "Sabin-type wrestler". Nash defeated Sabin at Slammiversary in his second televised match in almost a year, albeit with the assistance of Shelley. Around this time, Nash and Shelley formed a stable known as Paparazzi Productions, with Johnny Devine as a cameraman. Nash then decided to go for the X Division championship. He got penciled into a Number One Contendership match for the title against Sabin at Hard Justice. He claimed that he had developed an 840° somersault splash that he would unveil in the match. However, over the weekend, he suffered a mysterious neck injury, supposedly while practicing it with Tito Ortiz, and named Alex Shelley as his replacement in the match. From a wheelchair, Nash was helpless as he watched Shelley lose the match to Sabin. Nash remained out of action due to the injury, but returned prior to Bound for Glory, and announced "The Kevin Nash Open Invitational X Division Gauntlet Battle Royal". Austin Starr won the match. Nash took an interest in Starr, which seemed to be at the behest of Shelley. Nash then worked with the X Division stars in a weekly segment known as the Paparazzi Championship Series (a play on the "Bowl Championship Series"). He also began continuing these skits along with Sonjay Dutt and Jay Lethal, in a segment called "Paparazzi Idol". Nash became a manager of sorts for Lethal, helping him adopt a gimmick where he impersonated "Macho Man" Randy Savage. At Sacrifice, Lethal and Dutt had an altercation. Nash broke it up, but Sonjay kicked him. Sonjay apologized, and Nash forgave him. Dutt then became the Guru with Nash humming mantras backstage. He then began managing the Motor City Machine Guns, but this was short lived before he next appeared in the role of Dr. Nash, psychiatrist and adviser to Kurt and Karen Angle. Nash then engaged in a brief program with TNA Heavyweight Champion Kurt Angle, which eventually culminated in Nash aiding Angle. Nash warned the Angles about how dangerous Sting can be based on Nash's experience feuding with Sting in WCW. At Bound for Glory, Nash interfered on Angle's behalf during his World Title defense against Sting. However, it was for naught, as Sting captured the title from Angle via Scorpion Death Drop after fending off Nash and Angle's wife, Karen. The following Thursday on "Impact!", Nash and Angle had an altercation because Angle blamed Nash for him losing the World Title. Angle eventually attacked Nash, who retaliated by Jackknife Powerbombing Angle in the middle of the ring. The following week, Sting defended the TNA World Title against Angle in a rematch from Bound for Glory, and Nash had a ringside seat. After the match went on a bit, Angle and Sting were out of the ring and when Angle pushed Sting onto Nash, Sting turned around and knocks Nash in the face with a right hand shot, leading to Nash interfering on Angle's behalf, even though earlier he said he wasn't going to help Angle. Following the match, which Angle won, Nash offered a hand shake to Angle only to be "flipped off" by the new champ. An enraged Nash demanded a match with Angle, but TNA Management's public face, Jim Cornette, instead booked Nash into a tag team match as Angle's partner against Sting and a partner of his choosing, with the stipulation being that the person gaining the pinfall or submission would be crowned the new TNA World Heavyweight Champion. After a red herring that Scott Hall was the mystery partner, it was revealed to be Booker T.
1078552	Eric Anthony Douglas (June 21, 1958 – July 6, 2004) was an American actor and stand-up comedian. Douglas was the youngest son of actor Kirk Douglas and his second wife Anne Buydens. One of his siblings was Academy Award-winning actor and producer Michael Douglas.
1015982	Viva Erotica () is a 1996 Hong Kong film directed by Derek Yee and Lo Chi-Leung. Plot. "Viva Erotica" is a sex-comedy film, though with a serious subject of how an artist has to compromise his artistic integrity to make a living. The film is about an unsuccessful film-director Kwok-Wing Leslie Cheung) and his producer Chung Law Kar-ying), who agrees to make Category III sex/porn movies for their financial stability. Their movie projects are financed by a gangster boss Pui ( Paul Chun). Shu Qi and Karen Mok played the roles of the leading actresses in the movie. In the end, Wing finally decides not to compromise his artistic integrity by making a porn movie. Reception. The film, though rated III in Hong Kong for its sexual content, is considered as a Hong-Kong masterpiece. The film was highly praised by critics and audience alike. The film was hailed for being well-directed and woven in great artistic details. Awards and nominations. 16th Hong Kong Film Awards Nominations. 47th Berlin International Film Festival
1063271	Jeremy Lee Renner (born January 7, 1971) is an American actor, singer-songwriter, film producer, former makeup artist, and musician.
774942	Henry Czerny (; born February 8, 1959) is a Canadian film, stage and television actor, currently starring as Conrad Grayson on the ABC drama series "Revenge". He has received Theatre World Award and two Gemini Awards. Career. Czerny received formal training at the National Theatre School in Montreal. After graduating in 1982, he went on to perform onstage across Canada, from Ottawa's National Arts Centre to Edmonton's Citadel Theatre and the Stratford Festival. By the late 1980s, he had established himself as a seasoned veteran of Canadian theatre—a long way from Lucky Larry, his first role. Czerny got his start acting in musicals at Humberside Collegiate Institute in Toronto, under the direction of Janet Keele. Czerny is friends with Dana Delany and twice played the role of her husband on films "" and "For Hope". He had prominent roles in "The Boys of St. Vincent", ', "Clear and Present Danger", "The Ice Storm" and "The Michelle Apartments". In the 2006 comedy "The Pink Panther", he plays the main antagonist "Yuri the Trainer who Trains". He plays Lieutenant Brooks in "Jackpot", a 2005 episode of '. In "Conversations with God", about the true story of Neale Donald Walsch, Czerny plays Walsch. In 2007, he appeared in the Showtime series "The Tudors", playing the Duke of Norfolk. Czerny appeared in the Canadian television show "Flashpoint" in 2008 and the American science fiction drama "Falling Skies" in 2011. Czerny co-starred with Sigourney Weaver in the 2009 Lifetime TV movie "Prayers for Bobby". In 2011, Czerny was cast as the powerful patriarch Conrad Grayson, a series regular role, in ABC's drama pilot "Revenge", which was picked up to series and later renewed for a second season. Personal life. Czerny was born to Polish parents in Toronto, Ontario. His mother was a bakery worker and his father a welder. His surname is of Polish origin and comes from the word "czarny" ("black") - most likely it is a translation of Austrian name Schwarzenberg. Famous Polish pianist Halina Czerny-Stefanska's father had changed his name at the end of the 19th century. Czerny is married to Claudine Cassidy and they have a son, Cameron.
1103104	George David Birkhoff (March 21, 1884 – November 12, 1944) was an American mathematician, best known for what is now called the ergodic theorem. Birkhoff was one of the most important leaders in American mathematics in his generation, and during his prime he was considered by many to be the preeminent American mathematician. His parents were David Birkhoff and Jane Gertrude Droppers. The mathematician Garrett Birkhoff (1911–1996) was his son. Career. Birkhoff obtained his A.B. and A.M. from Harvard. He completed his Ph.D. in 1907, on differential equations, at the University of Chicago. While E. H. Moore was his supervisor, he was most influenced by the writings of Henri Poincaré. After teaching at the University of Wisconsin and Princeton University, he taught at Harvard University from 1912 until his death. Awards and honors. In 1923, he was awarded the inaugural Bôcher Memorial Prize by the American Mathematical Society for his paper Birkhoff (1917) containing, among other things, what is now called the Birkhoff curve shortening process. He was elected to the National Academy of Sciences, the American Philosophical Society, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Académie des Sciences in Paris, the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, and the London and Edinburgh Mathematical Societies. Work. In 1912, attempting to solve the four color problem, Birkhoff introduced the chromatic polynomial. Even though this line of attack did not prove fruitful, the polynomial itself became an important object of study in algebraic graph theory. In 1913, he proved Poincaré's "Last Geometric Theorem," a special case of the three-body problem, a result that made him world famous. In 1927, he published his "Dynamical Systems". He wrote on the foundations of relativity and quantum mechanics, publishing (with R E Langer) the monograph "Relativity and Modern Physics" in 1923. In 1923, Birkhoff also proved that the Schwarzschild geometry is the unique spherically symmetric solution of the Einstein field equations. A consequence is that black holes are not merely a mathematical curiosity, but could result from any spherical star having sufficient mass. Birkhoff's most durable result has been his 1931 discovery of what is now called the ergodic theorem. Combining insights from physics on the ergodic hypothesis with measure theory, this theorem solved, at least in principle, a fundamental problem of statistical mechanics. The ergodic theorem has also had repercussions for dynamics, probability theory, group theory, and functional analysis. He also worked on number theory, the Riemann–Hilbert problem, and the four colour problem. He proposed an axiomatization of Euclidean geometry different from Hilbert's (see Birkhoff's axioms); this work culminated in his text "Basic Geometry" (1941). In his later years, Birkhoff published two curious works. His 1933 "Aesthetic Measure" proposed a mathematical theory of aesthetics. While writing this book, he spent a year studying the art, music and poetry of various cultures around the world. His 1938 "Electricity as a Fluid" combined his ideas on philosophy and science. His 1943 theory of gravitation is also puzzling, since Birkhoff knew (but didn't seem to mind) that his theory allows as sources only matter which is a perfect fluid in which the speed of sound must equal the speed of light . Influence on hiring practices. Albert Einstein and Norbert Wiener, among others, accused Birkhoff of advocating anti-Semitic hiring practices. During the 1930s, when many Jewish mathematicians fled Europe and tried to obtain jobs in the USA, Birkhoff is alleged to have influenced the hiring process at American institutions to exclude Jews. While Birkhoff may have held anti-Semitic views, it was also the case that he had always been outspoken in his promotion of American mathematics and mathematicians. It has been argued that Birkhoff's actions were in good part motivated by a desire to assure jobs for home-grown American mathematicians. Saunders Mac Lane (1994), a close friend and collaborator of Birkhoff's son, argued that any anti-Semitic tendencies Birkhoff may have had were not unusual for his time. However, Birkhoff took a particular liking to certain Jewish mathematicians, including Stanislaw Ulam. Gian-Carlo Rota writes: "Like other persons rumored to be anti-Semitic, he would occasionally feel the urge to shower his protective instincts on some good-looking young Jew. Ulam's sparkling manners were diametrically opposite to Birkoff's hard-working, aggressive, touchy personality. Birkoff tried to keep Ulam at Harvard, but his colleagues balked at the idea."
1062047	Juliette Lewis (born June 21, 1973) is an American actress and singer. She gained fame for her role in the 1991 thriller "Cape Fear" for which she was nominated for both an Academy Award and Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actress. This followed with major roles in "What's Eating Gilbert Grape", "Natural Born Killers", "Strange Days", "The Evening Star", "Kalifornia", "From Dusk Till Dawn", and "The Other Sister". Her work in television has resulted in two Emmy nominations. Lewis launched a career as a singer and musician, leading the American rock band, Juliette and the Licks, until 2009. Early life. Lewis was born in Los Angeles, California, to Geoffrey Lewis, an actor, and Glenis Duggan Batley, a graphic designer. She has four siblings – brothers Lightfield (an actor who starred in The New WKRP in Cincinnati) and Peter; and sisters Deirdre and Brandy. Career. Acting. Lewis appeared in "The Wonder Years" as Wayne's girlfriend in Episodes 24, 34 and 36. She also played Audrey Griswold in "National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation". Lewis first garnered international attention and acclaim in 1991 with her turn as Danielle Bowden in Martin Scorsese's remake of "Cape Fear", for which she was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress in 1991. Over the next few years, she appeared in Woody Allen's "Husbands and Wives", Peter Medak's "Romeo Is Bleeding", and opposite Brad Pitt in "Kalifornia". In 1993, she acted alongside Leonardo DiCaprio and Johnny Depp in the drama film "What's Eating Gilbert Grape". She played Mallory Knox in Oliver Stone's "Natural Born Killers". She played a rock singer in the film "Strange Days", doing her own singing on covers of two songs written by PJ Harvey, revealing her musical ability. She received an Emmy nomination for her performance in "Hysterical Blindness" in 2003. She also appeared in the HIM music video for "Buried Alive By Love" in 2003. Lewis appeared in Rockstar Games' "Grand Theft Auto IV", providing the voice of "Juliette", the host of fictional radio station "Radio Broker" (on which appears the Juliette and the Licks song 'Inside the Cage)'. She appeared in a GAP commercial in which she was dancing with Daft Punk to the tune of the song "Digital Love". She also appeared in the movie Renegade with Vincent Cassel, a Jan Kounen film. In 2012 she starred in the short-lived series "The Firm", on NBC as Tammy, assistant to lead character Mitch McDeere (Josh Lucas). Reprised her role as Audry Griswold in 2012 in a series of Old Navy holiday commercials featuring the Griswold family. Music. Lewis launched a career as a solo singer and musician, leading American rock band Juliette and the Licks until 2009. She then formed a new band, with which she has recorded and released the album entitled "Terra Incognita". Lewis features on the track "Bad Brother" by the band The Infidels, from "" Soundtrack album, which was released on April 2000. Lewis has also appeared on three tracks by Electronic Music group The Prodigy's 2004 CD "Always Outnumbered, Never Outgunned" ("Spitfire", "Get Up Get Off", and "Hot Ride"). In 2006, "Blender" magazine included her in their hottest women of rock music list. In 2009, Lewis performed at the Przystanek Woodstock in Poland. In 2010, she played at the Rock for People festival in the Czech Republic. In December 2010, Lewis hosted the game television show "Never Mind the Buzzcocks" and repeated in January 2012.
584501	Raja Chinna Roja is a 1989 Tamil children's film directed by SP. Muthuraman. It is loosely based on the 1965 English musical "The Sound of Music" with a song of the original fully used in Tamil. The film was the first Indian film to use animated characters with actors. Plot. An aspiring young wannabe actor Raja (Rajinikanth) from a village get into a fast city which is full of crooks and drug dealers. As he searching for a place in the dream factory, he falls for the daughter of the house owner. Charmed by his looks and character, the girl (Gowthami) also falls for him. One day he accidentally meet his childhood friend Raghu (Raghuvaran) who is a spoiled rich guy. He offers Raja an acting job, then takes him to his uncle's house. Raja is to be in charge of the administration of the household and take care of five children (Raghu's nieces and nephews) each of whom have issues (such as being lazy, not studying etc.). Raja finds out that Raghu is cheating his uncle out of funds and using him to do the same. How he tackles these problems and helps the children become better is the rest of the movie. Soundtrack. The soundtrack consist of six songs composed by Chandrabose.
629276	David Gulpilil Ridjimiraril Dalaithngu (Gurlpilil is linguistically correct though he is sometimes credited as David Gumpilil), is an Indigenous Australian traditional dancer and actor. His first starring role was in the film "Walkabout" (1971). Early life. He is a Yolngu man of Mandhalpuyngu language group. As a young boy, Gulpilil was an accomplished hunter, tracker and ceremonial dancer. Unlike many Indigenous people of his generation, Gulpilil spent his childhood in the bush, outside the range of non-Aboriginal influences. There he received a traditional upbringing in the care of his family. He attended the school at Maningrida in Australia's North East Arnhem Land. When he came of age, Gulpilil was initiated into the Mandhalpuyngu tribal group. His "skin group" totemic animal is the eagle and his homeland is Marwuyu. After appearing in his first film, he added English to several tribal languages in which he was already fluent. First film. In 1969, Gulpilil's extraordinary skill as a tribal dancer caught the attention of British filmmaker Nicolas Roeg, who had come to Maningrida scouting locations for a forthcoming film. Roeg promptly cast the sixteen-year-old unknown to play a principal role in his internationally acclaimed motion picture "Walkabout", released in 1971. Gulpilil's on-screen charisma, combined with his exceptional acting and dancing skills, was such that he became an instant national and international celebrity. He travelled to distant lands, mingled with famous people and was presented to heads of state. During these travels to promote the film, he met and was impressed with John Lennon, Bob Marley, Muhammad Ali and Bruce Lee. Life in the arts. After his high profile performance in "Walkabout", Gulpilil went on to appear in many more films and television productions. He played a lead role in the commercially successful and critically acclaimed "Storm Boy" (1976). He "dominated" the film "The Last Wave" (1977), with his performance as tribal Aboriginal man Chris Lee. He sang a role in the sole recording (1973) of Margaret Sutherland's 1964 opera "The Young Kabbarli". Perhaps the most renowned traditional dancer in his country, he has organised troupes of dancers and musicians and has performed at festivals throughout Australia, including the prestigious Darwin Australia Day Eisteddfod dance competition, which he won four times. In addition to his career in dance, music, film and television, Gulpilil is also an acclaimed storyteller. He has written the text for two volumes of children's stories based on Yolngu beliefs. These books also feature photographs and drawings by Australian artists and convey Gulpilil's reverence for the landscape, people and traditional culture of his homeland. Gulpilil's latest artistic triumph is his appearance in an autobiographical stage production in March 2004 at the Adelaide Festival of Arts 2004. Legal cases. Offensive weapons charges. On 9 July 2006, Gulpilil was staying at the home of Vaughan Williams in Darwin, when an argument started over his drinking (Williams' home had a "no alcohol policy"). Williams asked Gulpilil, his wife and their friend (referred to as "JJ") to leave his home. During the argument, Williams and his friend allegedly armed themselves with a totem pole and a garden hoe. In response, Gulpilil produced a machete. Nobody was hurt in the altercation, however Gulpilil was charged with carrying an offensive weapon. On 10 January 2007, he was found not guilty, as the machete was deemed to be for cultural use. The magistrate found: Domestic violence allegations. On 30 March 2007, a Darwin magistrate imposed a 12-month domestic violence order against Gulpilil over an incident which took place against his wife on 28 December 2006. Gulpilil has been ordered not to "assault or threaten to assault Miriam Ashley directly or indirectly", and to stay away from her while drinking. In December 2010, Gulpilil was charged with aggravated assault against Ashley, with the court hearing that he had thrown a broom at her, fracturing her arm. In September 2011, he was found guilty and sentenced to twelve months in prison. Gulpilil today. At a conference in Adelaide in the summer of 2000, Gulpilil performed traditional dances and shared his recovery story with hundreds of indigenous young people. He continues to provide mentorship to them, while lending his support to social and political causes such as the pursuit of tribal land claims for indigenous people. He joins other Australian artists in calling for government recognition of, and compensation for, the suffering of the "Stolen Generation" - children of mixed European and Aboriginal parentage who were forcibly removed from their indigenous families and placed in mission schools or with white adoptive parents far from their kin and homelands. A documentary about his life, "Gulpilil: One Red Blood", was aired on Australian Broadcasting Corporation in 2003. The title comes from a quote by Gulpilil: “We are all one blood. No matter where we are from, we are all one blood, the same”. A portrait of Gulpilil by Craig Ruddy won the 2004 Archibald Prize, Australia's best known art prize. Gulpilil has been a major creative influence throughout his life in both dance and film. He initiated and narrated his recent film, "Ten Canoes" which won a Special Jury Prize at the 2006 Cannes Festival. The prize-winning, low-budget film, based on 1,000-year-old traditional story of misplaced love and revenge, features non-professional indigenous actors speaking their local language. Gulpilil collaborated with the director, Rolf de Heer, urging him to make the film, and although he ultimately withdrew from a central role in the project for "complex reasons," Gulpilil also provided the voice of the storyteller for the film. De Heer directed Gulpilil in another film, "The Tracker" (2002). In 2007, he starred in Richard Friar's hour-long independent documentary, "Think About It!" which was focussed on indigenous rights and the anti-war movement and included commentary from former Prime Minister, Malcolm Fraser, former Greens leader, Bob Brown, and Guantanamo Bay detainee, David Hicks. His most recent work as an actor was his major role in Baz Luhrmann's "Australia" (2008). He has returned to his country to live as a respected Elder.
1062889	Sex and the City 2 is a 2010 American romantic comedy film co-written, produced and directed by Michael Patrick King. It is the sequel to the 2008 film "Sex and the City", which is based on the HBO TV series of the same name. The film was released in cinemas on May 27, 2010, in the United States and May 28, 2010, in the United Kingdom. The DVD was available for purchase in the United Kingdom on November 29, 2010. The film stars Sarah Jessica Parker, Kim Cattrall, Kristin Davis, Cynthia Nixon, and Chris Noth, who reprised their roles from the previous film and television series. It also features cameos from Liza Minnelli, Miley Cyrus, Tim Gunn, Ron White, Omid Djalili and Penélope Cruz, as well as Broadway actors, Norm Lewis, Kelli O'Hara, and Ryan Silverman. Plot. The film begins with Carrie, Samantha, Charlotte, and Miranda meeting up with each other which turns into a flashback to how Carrie arrived in New York City in 1986, then met Charlotte in 1987, Miranda in 1988, and finally Samantha in 1989. All are married except Samantha, who is 52 and trying to keep her libido alive with hormones while dealing with menopause. The four of them attend Anthony and Stanford's wedding, where Carrie serves as "best man." Miranda quits her job after the new managing partner disrespects her once too often. Charlotte's two children are a handful and she's worried that Harry is attracted to their buxom Irish nanny, Erin. Carrie's marriage to Mr. Big has settled down, though they differ on how to spend their spare time. For their anniversary, Carrie gives Mr. Big a vintage Rolex watch engraved with a romantic message, while he, much to her dismay, shows her a new TV in their bedroom as his gift, which Big says they can use to watch old movies together, something they did at the hotel at Anthony and Stanford's wedding and seemed to enjoy. Carrie, however, is disappointed, as she had hoped for jewelry as a gift. Meanwhile, Samantha has been approached by an Arab sheikh to devise a PR campaign for his business. He offers to fly her and her friends on an all-expenses-paid luxury vacation to Abu Dhabi. The girls happily accept, although Carrie is worried about the separation from Big and Charlotte is worried about leaving her husband alone with the nanny. Only Miranda, unfettered by a job for the first time in her life, is enthusiastic. Upon entering Abu Dhabi, Samantha's hormone-enhancing drugs are confiscated under UAE law. This renders her devoid of estrogen; her famous libido goes dead. Charlotte tries to call Harry every few minutes; Miranda revels in the luxury surrounding her, while Carrie befriends her manservant, Gaurav. Carrie runs into her former lover, Aidan. He proposes dinner à deux at his hotel and she decides to meet Aidan for dinner. The dinner is very enjoyable, with the two discussing old times. Aidan remarks on the ways Carrie is "not like other women". In a moment of remembered passion, they kiss. Carrie runs away in panic and returns to the hotel. Back at the hotel, Miranda and Charlotte have drinks together and discuss the difficulties of motherhood. Carrie arrives, tells her friends about the kiss, and asks them whether she should tell Big, as they have no secrets between them. Miranda reflects on the events of the previous film, when her husband, Steve, told her about his affair. Samantha counsels Carrie to wait before deciding anything. Carrie opts to call Big to tell him. Big is silent upon hearing the news, and after saying a few words, hangs up.
1071966	Plot. Yōji is a young lonely factory worker who falls for an equally lonely girl co-worker, Sachiko, but is unable to tell her of his interest. After he is assaulted in a theater by a crossdresser, Yōji finds what looks like an alien insect and hides it in his room. The next night, he comes across Sachiko being sexually attacked by another fellow worker. He attempts to come to her aid but is beaten. Sachiko feels sorry for him and returns with him to his apartment. During this encounter, Sachiko is attacked by the alien object which penetrates her and turns her into a bio-mechanical monster, a NecroBorg. These parasites take over human bodies and use their flesh to create weapons which they use to fight each other. Yōji is also infected and the plot eventually leads to a showdown fight to the death between the two would-be lovers. A side plot concerns a father who is out to kill the NecroBorgs who have also infected his daughter.
585061	Lakshmi Prasanna Manchu is an Indian film actress, singer, model, producer and a television host. She studied in the US and appeared in a couple of American television shows and films and later continued acting in Indian films, mostly in Telugu cinema. She also produces films under the banners of Sree Lakshmi Prasanna Pictures and Manchu Entertainment and has hosted talk shows in Telugu television. Early life. She is the only daughter of actor Mohan Babu and Vidya Devi. She has two younger brothers, Vishnu Manchu and Manoj Manchu. She has graduated with a Bachelors in Theater from Oklahoma City University. Career. She acted and became known through her role in the American television series "Las Vegas", where she played the role of Sarasvati Kumar, the love interest of James Lesure. The show gave her the chance to work with many stars, such as James Caan and Sylvestor Stallone, to name a few. Besides, "Las Vegas", she has acted in each one episode in the series "Desperate Housewives", "Boston Legal" and "Mystery ER". She has also appeared in commercials for Toyota, AARP and Chevrolet. In 2006, she acted, directed, and produced "Perfect Lives", a short film that was showcased at the Wilshire Fine Arts Theater as part of the La Femme Film Festival in Los Angeles.
1100251	Lenhard Ng (born 1976, United States) is an American mathematician, working primarily on symplectic geometry. Ng is an associate professor of mathematics at Duke University. Personal life. Lenhard Ng is an American of Chinese descent. His father, Jack Ng, is a professor of Physics at University of North Carolina Chapel Hill. He earned his B.A. (Summa Cum Laude) in Mathematics and Physics at Harvard University and his Ph.D. in Mathematics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2001. He is married to Astrid Giugni. Child prodigy. Ng was a child prodigy who was once thought to be the "smartest kid in America". At age 10, he earned a perfect score of 800 on the math portion of the SAT-I. He is one of the youngest children to have achieved this feat. At the age of 11, he earned a perfect score on the College Board Test of Standard Written English. He earned a perfect score on the American High School Mathematics Examination in all 4 years of high school. He attended the Johns Hopkins Center for Talented Youth and was one of the gifted children included in the Study of Mathematically Precocious Youth longitudinal cohort. He was estimated to be top one in approximately one million of his age-mates.
1055258	Noah George Taylor (born 4 September 1969) is an English-born Australian actor and musician. Early life. Taylor, elder of two boys, was born in London, England, the son of Maggie (née Miller), a journalist and book editor, and Paul Taylor, a copywriter and journalist. Taylor's Australian parents returned to Australia when he was five, and he grew up in Clifton Hill and St Kilda, Victoria, suburbs of Melbourne. His parents divorced when he was 14. Taylor left both school and home at 16 with no intention of becoming an actor; a friend, however, suggested that he try the theatre as 'something to do at the weekends', and Taylor found the experience so enjoyable that he opted to make it his career. After performing in plays at St Martin's Youth Theatre in South Yarra for a year, he gained the attention of director John Duigan, who cast him in the 1987 film "The Year My Voice Broke", the first part of a planned trilogy. Taylor also appeared in its sequel, 1991's "Flirting", which also starred Nicole Kidman. Career. Taylor first gained international attention playing the tormented young pianist David Helfgott in the 1996 film "Shine". Taylor's resume includes action movies (""), comedies ("The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou"), psychological thrillers ("Vanilla Sky") and historical dramas ("Max", in which he played the young Adolf Hitler.) Taylor once commented in an interview that he was sick of acting out the nostalgic reminiscences of other people. He has done this in a number of films including "The Nostradamus Kid", which was based, apparently, on the memories of the Australian author Bob Ellis, a young David Helfgott in "Shine", based on the book by Helfgott's sister, the protagonist in John Birmingham's memoir "He Died with a Felafel in His Hand", and "Almost Famous", based on the memories of the film's writer and director, Cameron Crowe. He appears in the video "Fifteen Feet of Pure White Snow" – a song by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, along with the video for M.O.R. by British alternative rock group Blur. Taylor stars in Simon Rumley's mystery thriller "Red White & Blue", which had its world premiere as part of the SXSW Film Festival in March 2010. In 2011, he released his first EP, "Live Free or Die!!!", with his band Noah Taylor & the Sloppy Boys on Z-Man Records. Personal life. When not acting, Taylor draws and paints, and is also an accomplished musician, playing viola and French horn as a young teenager, and guitar from the age of 16. He plays the piano by ear. He has sung and played guitar in several of his own bands, including Honky Tonk Angels, Cardboard Box Man, Flipper & Humphrey, Access Axis, and The Thirteens, a country-western rock band described by Taylor as, "three manic depressives playing sad angst and western music for sad people". He names Johnny Cash and Lou Reed as two of the artists he admires. On 14 November 2012 he married Dionne Harris, an Australian fashion designer. Taylor lives in Brighton, East Sussex.
591890	Dweepa () is a 2002 film by Girish Kasaravalli. Based on the novel with the same title by Norbert D'Souza, "Dweepa" deals with the raging issue of building dams and the displacement of natives.
1063177	Frozen River is a 2008 American crime drama film written and directed by Courtney Hunt. The screenplay focuses on two working-class women who smuggle illegal immigrants in the trunk of a car from Canada to the United States in order to make ends meet. It received two Academy Award nominations: Best Actress (Melissa Leo) and Best Original Screenplay (Courtney Hunt). Plot. The film is set in the North Country of Upstate New York, near the "Akwesasne" ('Where the Partridge Drums') St. Regis Mohawk Reservation and the Quebec border, shortly before Christmas. Ray Eddy is a discount store clerk struggling to raise two sons with her husband, a compulsive gambler who has disappeared with the funds she had earmarked to finance the purchase of a double-wide mobile home. While searching for him, she encounters Lila Littlewolf, a Mohawk bingo-parlor employee who is driving his car, which she claims she found abandoned with the keys in the ignition at the local bus-station. The two women, who have fallen on hard economic times, form a desperate and uneasy alliance and begin trafficking illegal immigrants from Canada into the United States across the frozen St. Lawrence River for $1,200 each per crossing. Ray's older son T.J. wants to find a job and help support the family so they can afford to eat something more substantial than popcorn and Tang. He and his mother clash over whether he should remain in high-school and look after his little brother Ricky or drop out to work. To make matters worse, T.J. sets an outside corner of the trailer afire with a torch in an attempt to unfreeze the water pipe. Lila longs for the day she will be able to reclaim and live with her young son, who was taken from her by her mother-in-law immediately after his birth. Because the women's route takes them from an Indian reservation in the US to an Indian reserve in Canada, they hope to avoid detection by local law-enforcement. However, their problems escalate when they are asked to smuggle a Pakistani couple and Ray, fearful their duffel bag might contain explosives, leaves it behind in sub-freezing temperatures, only to discover it contained their infant baby when they arrive at their destination. She and Lila retrace their route and find the bag and the baby, which Lila insists is dead, but which she revives moments before being reunited with the baby's parents. The experience leaves her shaken, and she announces she no longer wants to participate in the smuggling-operation. But Ray, needing just one more crossing to finance the down payment on her mobile home, coerces her into joining her for one last journey.
592549	American Desi is a 2001 American film with Indian influence, notable for featuring many prominent South Asian American actors. Also featured is an a cappella version of Nazia Hassan's Urdu classic "Aap Jaisa Koi", sung by Penn Masala and originally from the movie "Qurbani". The term "Desi" in the title refers to the peoples and cultures of the Indian subcontinent. Plot. An American-raised Indian, Krishnagopal Reddy (or "Kris" as he prefers to be called, to distance himself from his heritage) finds out to his dismay that his Princeton University roommates are all Indian. He does not associate with the Indian culture that his parents and family have pushed upon him and prefers to be as American as possible. His roommates include Ajay (Kal Penn), an African-American idolizing desi; Jagjit, who loves art but studies engineering to please his father; and Salim, who is very traditional and conservative, feeling that Indian-American girls are too Westernized to make good wives. Kris meets Nina, a girl he immediately falls for, and is surprised to find out that not only is she Indian, but she is also quite involved with Indian culture. The movie revolves around him making mistakes and trying his best to win Nina over, from joining the Indian Students Association to be near her, to learning how to perform a Dandiya Raas. Thus, Kris eventually begins to enjoy the company of his roommates, all of whom put together their knowledge and skill to help Kris impress Nina through various ways involving the Indian culture, which he eventually comes to love as well.
1045493	Waltzes from Vienna (1934) is a British musical film directed by Alfred Hitchcock, also known as "Strauss' Great Waltz". It was part of the cycle of Operetta films made in Britain during the 1930s. Production background. The film tells the story of the writing and performance of "The Blue Danube". According to Hitchcock: Hitchcock told François Truffaut that this film was the lowest ebb of his career. He only agreed to make it because he had no other film projects that year, and wanted to stay working. He never again made a musical film.
1015956	Tsui Hark (born 15 February 1951), born Tsui Man-kong, is a Hong Kong New Wave film director, producer and screenwriter. He is viewed as a major figure in the Golden Age of Hong Kong cinema (typically early 1980s to mid-1990s). Early life. Tsui was born and raised in Saigon, Vietnam, in a large Chinese immigrant family with sixteen siblings. By the age of 13, he and his family immigrated to Hong Kong. Tsui showed an early interest in show business and films; when he was 10, he and some friends rented an 8 mm camera to film a magic show they put on at school. He also drew comic books, an interest that would influence his cinematic style. Tsui started his secondary education in Hong Kong in 1966. He proceeded to study film in Texas, first at Southern Methodist University and then at the University of Texas at Austin, graduating in 1975. He claims to have told his parents he wanted to follow in his father's footsteps as a pharmacist, and that it was here he changed his given name to Hark ("overcoming"). After graduation, Tsui moved to New York City, where he worked on "From Spikes to Spindles" (1976), a noted documentary film by Christine Choy on the history of the city's Chinatown. He also worked as an editor for a Chinese newspaper, developed a community theatre group and worked in a Chinese cable TV station. He returned to Hong Kong in 1977. Career. New Wave period. Upon turning to feature filmmaking, Tsui was quickly typed as a member of the "New Wave" of young, iconoclastic directors. His debut film, "The Butterfly Murders" (1979), was an eccentric and technically challenging blend of wuxia, murder mystery and science fiction / fantasy elements. His second film, "We're Going to Eat You" (1980), was an eccentric blend of cannibal horror, black comedy and martial arts. Tsui's third film, "Dangerous Encounter of the First Kind" (1980), put him beyond the pale. The thriller about delinquent youths on a bombing spree was nihilistic, grisly and pregnant with angry political subtext. Heavily censored by the British colonial government, it was released in 1981 in a drastically altered version titled "Dangerous Encounter – 1st Kind" (or alternatively, "Don't Play with Fire"). Unsurprisingly, it was not a financial success. However, it helped to make Tsui a darling of film critics who had coined the New Wave label and were hopeful for a more aesthetically daring cinema, more engaged with the realities of contemporary Hong Kong. Blockbuster cinema. In 1981, Tsui joined Cinema City, a new production company founded by comedians Raymond Wong, Karl Maka and Dean Shek, that was instrumental in codifying the slick Hong Kong blockbuster films of the 1980s. Tsui played his part in the process with pictures like the 1981 crime farce "All the Wrong Clues", his first hit, and "Aces Go Places 3" (1984), part of the studio's long-running spy spoof series. In 1983, Tsui directed the wuxia fantasy film "Zu Warriors from the Magic Mountain" (1983) for the studio Golden Harvest. Tsui imported Hollywood technicians to help create special effects whose number and complexity were unprecedented in Chinese-language cinema and remains preoccupied with pushing back the boundaries of the industry's effects technology. Mogul. In 1984, Tsui formed the production company Film Workshop along with his wife and occasional co-producer, Nansun Shi, making it a home base for a tirelessly prolific roster of directing and producing projects. Here, he also developed a reputation as a hands-on and even intrusive producer of other directors' work, fueled by public breaks with major filmmakers like John Woo and King Hu. His most longstanding and fruitful collaboration has probably been with Ching Siu-tung. As action choreographer and/or director on many Film Workshop productions, Ching made a major contribution to the well-known Tsui style. Film Workshop releases became consistent box office hits in Hong Kong and around Asia, drawing audiences with their visual adventurousness, their broad commercial appeal, and hectic camerawork and pace. Tsui has the knack of trend-setting in film genres. He produced John Woo's "A Better Tomorrow" (1986), which launched a craze for the hardboiled mob film or "triad" movies, and Ching Siu-tung's "A Chinese Ghost Story" (1987), which did the same for period ghost fantasies. "Zu Warriors" and "The Swordsman" (1990) brought back the long-out-of-favor wuxia film. In fact, Tsui's "movie brat" nostalgia is one of the main ingredients in his work. He often resurrects and revises classic films and genres: the murder mystery in "The Butterfly Murders" (1979); the Shanghai musical comedy in "Shanghai Blues" (1985). "Peking Opera Blues" (1986) plays with and pays tribute to the traditions of the Peking opera that his mother took him to see as a small boy and which had such a strong influence on Hong Kong action cinema. "The Lovers" (1994) adapts a retold, cross-dressing period romance, best known from Li Han-hsiang's 1963 opera film "The Love Eterne". "A Chinese Ghost Story" remakes Li's supernatural romance "The Enchanting Shadow" (1959) as a special effects action movie. The pattern is also seen in perhaps Tsui's most successful work to date, the "Once Upon a Time in China" film series (1991–97). Jet Li played the role of Chinese folk hero Wong Fei-hung in the first three films and the sixth, "Once Upon a Time in China and America". This series is the clearest expression in his oeuvre of Tsui's Chinese nationalism and his passionate engagement with the upheavals of Chinese history, particularly in the face of Western power and influence. Tsui also dabbled in acting, mostly for other directors. Notable roles include one-third of the comic relief trio in Corey Yuen's film "Yes, Madam!" (1985) and a villain in Patrick Tam's darkly comic crime story "Final Victory" (1987), written by Wong Kar-wai. He also made frequent cameo appearances in his own productions, such as a music judge in "A Better Tomorrow" and a phony FBI agent in "Aces Go Places II". In the face of an industry downturn in the '90s, he produced two expensive movies. "Green Snake" (1993) was an erotic and dark take on a favorite Chinese fairy tale. "The Blade" (1995) was a gory, deliberately rough-hewn revision of the 1967 wuxia classic "The One-Armed Swordsman". American films. In 1990, Tsui had already attempted a low-budget American action film, the barely released and little seen "The Master", with a pre-superstardom Jet Li. In the mid-'90s, Tsui tried Hollywood again with two films starring Jean-Claude Van Damme: "Double Team" (1997) and "Knock Off" (1998). In 2002, Tsui released "", an American market sequel to Jet Li's 1996 film. 2000s. Tsui returned to directing at home in 2000 after not having made a local film since 1996. "Time and Tide" (2000) and "The Legend of Zu" (2001) were action extravaganzas with lavish computer-generated imagery that gained cult admirers but no mass success. Tsui continues to push technical boundaries and revise old favourites. "Master Q 2001" was Hong Kong's first combination of live action and Pixar-style 3D computer animation. "Era of Vampires" (2002; U.S. title, "Tsui Hark's Vampire Hunters") reworked a sub-genre popular in the '80s, hybrid martial arts / supernatural horror films featuring the "hopping corpses" of Chinese folk legend. In 2005, Tsui launched the multimedia production "Seven Swords", a film adaptation of Liang Yusheng's novels "Saiwai Qixia Zhuan" and "Qijian Xia Tianshan". The film came with a television series counterpart ("Seven Swordsmen"), a comic book series, a cellphone game, clothing brand, and an online multi-player video game. The film was relatively successful, and in February 2006 Tsui announced plans to begin filming the second late in the year. As of 2008, Tsui continues to work on the script for "Seven Swords 2" in between filming projects. In 2011 there has been no news nor plans about a "Seven Swords 2". Rumors has it that due to lack of interest by the filmmakers of finishing the hexalogy lead the project into being cancelled. In August 2008, Tsui provided art direction for the direct-to-video anime feature titled "Kungfu Master" (a.k.a. "Wong Fei Hong vs Kungfu Panda"), an apparent unofficial sequel to "Kung Fu Panda", featuring Chinese folk hero Wong Fei-hung. Also in 2008 was the thriller "Missing" starring Angelica Lee. His latest comedy film "All About Women" features wonky sound editing and comic graphics. 2010s. Tsui's latest work in 2010 is "Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame", a rare but successful blend of wuxia, suspense-thriller, mystery, and comedy, which was in competition for the Golden Lion award and was also nominated and won numerous amount of other awards. In 2010 he announced his first 3-D film, "The Flying Swords of Dragon Gate", which is a re-imagining of his 1992 film "New Dragon Gate Inn" starring Jet Li. In 2011 Huayi Brothers announced that Tsui will be making a prequel to "Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame", possibly in 3-D. Recently he has announced another children's film project titled "Monster Wanted" (possibly a working title.) In October 2011, Tsui received the Asian Filmmaker of the Year Award at the 16th Busan International Film Festival for his contributions to Hong Kong cinema. He is the fifth Chinese filmmaker to receive this award at Busan. Possible future projects. During the pre-production phase of "Seven Swords", Tsui announced that it would be a six-part hexalogy. When presenting his anime film "The Warrior" he said that he promises that he will make a film adaption of "Journey to the West" but does not know whether to make it in anime form or live-action form when the time is ripe. However, he feels that the technology is not yet mature enough for him to realise his ambition yet, and he needs to come up with the right script first. After the release of "Seven Swords" he said he felt that the film was not big enough for his comeback and that he wants to make a film called "The Remnants". Tsui explained that the film's plot would be about a team of archaeologists led by Donnie Yen gathering rare artifacts and treasures from around the globe and returning them to a museum. Tsui also planned to shoot a film called "Shaolin Fighter" starring Jet Li and Li Bingbing during the second half of 2006 but the film was either halted or cancelled. Current future plans are to start production for "Taking Tiger Mountain by Strategy" at the end of 2012 and Tsui Hark is also planning to make another "Wong Fei Hung" movie which he already selected a new actor for the role. According to Tsui the actor is not well known but possesses the skills to play Wong Fei Hung in the new movie. At this point the name of this actor is not released to the public. Cultural reference. Tsui was featured on a track which bore his name on the 1994 Sparks album "Gratuitous Sax & Senseless Violins". References. http://www.chinesefilms.cn/141/2012/04/27/141s9099.htm http://www.chinesefilms.cn/141/2012/10/17/141s12301.htm
1040728	Michelle Gomez (born 21 April 1971) is a Scottish actress best known for her comedy roles in "Green Wing", "The Book Group" and "Bad Education". Early life. Her father, originally from Montserrat, was a photographer, while her mother ran a modelling agency. From the moment she saw a production of "Kiss Me, Kate", at age seven, Gomez wanted to be an actress, an ambition her parents have always encouraged. She attended Shawlands Academy, Glasgow from 1978 - 1983 and trained at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama. Professional career. Gomez's first major role was in "The Acid House", based on three Irvine Welsh short stories. She went on to star in the cult Channel 4 comedy drama "The Book Group" before landing her role as madcap staff liaison officer Sue White in the comedy "Green Wing", also on Channel 4. She played Michelle in "Carrie and Barry", and starred as PC Sally Bobbins in the BBC 2 sitcom "Feel the Force". She appeared in "Gunslinger's Revenge" () with Harvey Keitel and David Bowie. In 2005 Gomez appeared in the movie "Chromophobia" alongside Penélope Cruz. In 2006, she starred in the movie 'The Good Housekeeping Guide' alongside Alan Davies. In 2007 she starred in a drama by Irvine Welsh and Dean Cavanagh called "Wedding Belles", and starred in "Boeing-Boeing" at the Comedy Theatre in London. Also in 2007, she guest-starred in the "Doctor Who" audio play "Valhalla". In 2008 she joined the Royal Shakespeare Company, and performed as Kate in "The Taming of the Shrew" at the Courtyard Theatre and the Novello Theatre. In 2012, Gomez starred in the British film, "The Wedding Video", portraying the psychologically unstable wedding planner. In the same year, she appeared in the British comedy series "Bad Education", portraying the deputy-head Isobel Pickwell, which returned for a second series in 2013.
1104208	Donald Ervin Knuth ( ; born January 10, 1938) is an American computer scientist, mathematician, and Professor Emeritus at Stanford University. He is the author of the multi-volume work "The Art of Computer Programming". Knuth has been called the "father" of the analysis of algorithms. He contributed to the development of the rigorous analysis of the computational complexity of algorithms and systematized formal mathematical techniques for it. In the process he also popularized the asymptotic notation. In addition to fundamental contributions in several branches of theoretical computer science, Knuth is the creator of the TeX computer typesetting system, the related METAFONT font definition language and rendering system, and the Computer Modern family of typefaces. As a writer and scholar, Knuth created the WEB and CWEB computer programming systems designed to encourage and facilitate literate programming, and designed the MIX/MMIX instruction set architectures. As a member of the academic and scientific community, Knuth is strongly opposed to the policy of granting software patents. He has expressed his disagreement directly to the patent offices of the United States and Europe. Early life. Knuth was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where his father owned a small printing business and taught bookkeeping at Milwaukee Lutheran High School, where he enrolled, earning achievement awards. He applied his intelligence in unconventional ways, winning a contest when he was in eighth grade by finding over 4,500 words that could be formed from the letters in "Ziegler's Giant Bar"; the judges had only about 2,500 words on their master list. This won him a television set for his school and a candy bar for everyone in his class. Education. Knuth had a difficult time choosing physics over music as his major at Case Institute of Technology (now part of Case Western Reserve University). He also joined Beta Nu Chapter of the Theta Chi fraternity. While studying physics at the Case Institute of Technology, Knuth was introduced to the IBM 650, one of the early mainframes. After reading the computer's manual, Knuth decided to rewrite the assembly and compiler code for the machine used in his school, because he believed he could do it better. In 1958, Knuth constructed a program based on the value of each player that could help his school basketball team win the league. This was so novel a proposition at the time that it got picked up and published by "Newsweek" and also covered by Walter Cronkite on the "CBS Evening News". Knuth was one of the founding editors of the "Engineering and Science Review", which won a national award as best technical magazine in 1959. He then switched from physics to mathematics, and in 1960 he received his bachelor of science degree, simultaneously being given a master of science degree by a special award of the faculty who considered his work exceptionally outstanding. In 1963, he earned a PhD in mathematics (advisor: Marshall Hall) from the California Institute of Technology, and began to work there as associate professor and began work on "The Art of Computer Programming". He had initially accepted a commission to write a book on compilers which would later become the multi-volume "The Art of Computer Programming". This work was originally planned to be a single book, and then planned as a six- and then seven-volume series. In 1968, just before he published the first volume, Knuth accepted a job working on problems for the National Security Agency (NSA) through their FFRDC the Institute for Defense Analyses (IDA) Communications Research Division situated at the time on the Princeton campus in the Von Neumann building as stated in his curriculum vitae. It seems likely Knuth left the position and joined the faculty of Stanford University because of his political beliefs and the volatile political climate on the campus at the time. Writings. "The Art of Computer Programming" ("TAOCP"). Computer science was then taking its first hesitant steps. "It was a totally new field," Knuth recalls, "with no real identity. And the standard of available publications was not that high. A lot of the papers coming out were quite simply wrong. [...] So one of my motivations was to put straight a story that had been very badly told." After producing the third volume of his series in 1976, he expressed such frustration with the nascent state of the then newly-developed electronic publishing tools (especially those that provided input to phototypesetters) that he took time out to work on typesetting and created the TeX and METAFONT tools. , the first three volumes and part one of volume four of his series have been published. Other works. He is also the author of "Surreal Numbers", a mathematical novelette on John Conway's set theory construction of an alternate system of numbers. Instead of simply explaining the subject, the book seeks to show the development of the mathematics. Knuth wanted the book to prepare students for doing original, creative research. In 1995, Knuth wrote the foreword to the book "A=B" by Marko Petkovsek, Herbert Wilf and Doron Zeilberger. Knuth is also an occasional contributor of language puzzles to "". Religious beliefs and work. In addition to his writings on computer science, Knuth, a Christian, specifically a Lutheran, is also the author of "3:16 Bible Texts Illuminated", in which he examines the Bible by a process of systematic sampling, namely an analysis of chapter 3, verse 16 of each book. Each verse is accompanied by a rendering in calligraphic art, contributed by a group of calligraphers under the leadership of Hermann Zapf. Subsequently he was invited to give a set of lectures on his project, resulting in another book, . Health concerns. In 2006, Knuth was diagnosed with prostate cancer. He underwent surgery in December that year and started "a little bit of radiation therapy... as a precaution but the prognosis looks pretty good", as he reported in his video autobiography. Computer musings. Knuth gives informal lectures a few times a year at Stanford University, which he called Computer Musings. He was also a visiting professor at the Oxford University Computing Laboratory in the United Kingdom and an Honorary Fellow of Magdalen College. Humor. Knuth is known for his "professional humor". Awards. In 1971, Knuth was the recipient of the first ACM Grace Murray Hopper Award. He has received various other awards including the Turing Award, the National Medal of Science, the John von Neumann Medal, and the Kyoto Prize. In recognition of Knuth's contributions to the field of computer science, in 1990 he was awarded the one-of-a-kind academic title of "Professor of The Art of Computer Programming", which has since been revised to "Professor Emeritus of The Art of Computer Programming". In 1992, he became an associate of the French Academy of Sciences. Also that year, he retired from regular research and teaching at Stanford University in order to finish "The Art of Computer Programming". In 2003 he was elected as a foreign member of the Royal Society. Knuth was elected as a Fellow (first class of Fellows) of the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics in 2009 for his outstanding contributions to mathematics. He is a member of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters. In 2012 he became a fellow of the American Mathematical Society. Honors bestowed on Knuth include: Works. A short list of his works:
1059278	Alexander Ross "Alex" Winter (born 17 July 1965) is an English-born American actor, film director and screenwriter, best known for his role as Bill S. Preston Esq. in the 1989 film "Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure" and its 1991 sequel "Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey". He is also well known for his role as Marko in the 1987 cult classic "The Lost Boys", and for co-writing, co-directing and starring in the 1993 film "Freaked". Personal life. Winter was born in London, England. He is Jewish. His mother, Julie Winter (née Mayer), was a New York-born American who was a former Martha Graham dancer and founded a modern-dance company in London in the mid-1960s. His father, Ross Albert Winter, was Australian and danced with Winter's mother's troupe. Winter received training in dance as a child. When he was five, his family moved to Missouri, where his father ran the Mid-American Dance Company, while his mother taught dance at Washington University. The two divorced in 1973. Alex is married to Sonya Dawson with whom he has a son, Leroy Winter, born in 1998. Career. Winter moved to New York City in 1978 and began performing as an actor on and off Broadway. In 1983, he was accepted into the Film School at New York University (NYU). While at college, he met fellow aspiring filmmaker Tom Stern. The two collaborated on a number of 16mm short films and both graduated with honours. These 16mm short films inspired Andy Samberg of Saturday Night Live fame to create his digital shorts. As an actor, Winter spent many years on Broadway with supporting roles in productions of "The King & I", "Peter Pan, or The Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up", and the American premiere of Simon Gray's "Close of Play" at the Manhattan Theater Club. After completing NYU film school, he and Tom Stern moved out to Hollywood, where the two wrote and directed a number of short films and music videos. Winter continued to find work as an actor, landing notable roles in such big productions as "The Lost Boys" and "Rosalie Goes Shopping". In 1989, Winter found international success when he co-starred with Keanu Reeves as Bill S. Preston in the smash-hit comedy "Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure" and its 1991 sequel, "Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey". Following the success of "Bill & Ted", Winter and creative collaborators Tom Stern and Tim Burns were hired to develop a sketch comedy show for MTV. The result, 1991's "The Idiot Box", was a success for the network, but the channel's budgetary problems prevented them from filming additional seasons, and it was canceled after six episodes. Winter, Stern and Burns accepted a $12 million deal from 20th Century Fox to film their own feature film, which would end up becoming 1993's "Freaked". While the film was never widely released, despite positive reviews from "The New York Times", and "Entertainment Weekly", "Freaked" went on to become a cult favourite, through festivals, TV and DVD, and was cited by "Entertainment Weekly", on their list of Top Ten Comedies of the Nineties. Winter did not return to the director's chair until 1999, when he filmed "Fever". The film was shown at film festivals worldwide, including Official Selection in the Director's Fortnight at Cannes. "The New York Daily News" praised the film, calling it ""a claustrophobic mind bender. Winter sustains an aura of creepiness worthy of Roman Polanski"". Winter works between his American home base and London, where he directs music videos and commercials. Highlights of his work include directing several installments of the popular Peugeot "Thelma & Louise" campaign, as well as campaigns for Ford, the global launch of the all CGI Tony the Tiger for Frosties, and award-winning spots for Supercuts and Google in the US. In 2007, Winter returned to acting after a nearly 14-year absence to do a guest spot on the crime series "Bones". Currently, he has a recurring role as the voice of 'King Mole Man' on the Adult Swim show, "Saul of the Molemen", which was created by long-time friend Tom Stern, and has directed the of the hit Cartoon Network series "Ben 10", which aired in November 2007 and garnered the highest ratings in Cartoon Network history. He directed its sequel, "" which aired on Cartoon Network in November 2009 and captured over 16 million viewers in its premiere weekend. He has reportedly been chosen to write the screenplay for the Howard Stern-produced remake of "Rock 'n' Roll High School". His latest project is a 3D-remake of the 1987 horror film "The Gate" which is scheduled for release in 2011. In April 2011, Winter's "Bill & Ted" co-star Keanu Reeves confirmed that a third installment of the film series was now underway. In October 2011, he made an appearance on the eight-season finale That Metal Show, attempting to stump Eddie Trunk. Filmography. As actor in works by other directors. Music videos. Notes
1063091	Charles Stanley Dutton (born January 30, 1951) is an American stage, film, and television actor and director, best known for his roles as "Fortune" in the film "Rudy", "Dillon" in "Alien 3", and the title role in the television sitcom "Roc" (1991–1994). Early life and education. Dutton was born January 30, 1951, on the East side of Baltimore, Maryland, to a truck driver father. In his youth, Dutton dropped out of school before finishing middle school. He had a short-lived stint as an amateur boxer with the nickname "Roc." When he was 17, he got into a fight which resulted in the death of a man Dutton claimed had attacked him. Dutton was charged and convicted of manslaughter, and he spent the next seven years in prison. Several months after being released from prison, Dutton was arrested for possession of a deadly weapon, and was sentenced to three years in prison. Prison conviction. It was in prison that he finally found his passion. Several months into his second prison term, Dutton was sentenced to six days of solitary confinement, which allowed prisoners to take one book. By accident, he grabbed an anthology of black playwrights. He enjoyed the plays so much that, upon his release from confinement, he petitioned the warden to start a drama group for the Christmas talent show. The warden agreed on the condition that Dutton go back to school and get his GED. Dutton accomplished that and went on to eventually complete a two-year college program at Hagerstown Junior College (now Hagerstown Community College) in Hagerstown, Maryland. Upon his release, he enrolled as a drama major at Towson State University (now known as Towson University) in the Baltimore suburb of Towson, Maryland. After his time at Towson, Dutton earned a master's degree in acting from the Yale School of Drama. Career. In 1984, Dutton made his Broadway debut in August Wilson's "Ma Rainey's Black Bottom", winning a Theatre World Award and a Tony Award nomination for Best Actor. In 1988, Dutton played a killer in the television miniseries "The Murder of Mary Phagan" opposite Jack Lemmon and Kevin Spacey. 1990 brought him a second Best Actor Tony nomination for his role in another Wilson play, "The Piano Lesson". From 1991-1994, he starred in the Fox television series "Roc". Dutton co-starred in "Alien 3", the debut film of director David Fincher, then co-starred in 1993's "Rudy". Other films he has appeared in include "Get on the Bus"; "A Time to Kill"; "Cookie's Fortune"; "Crocodile Dundee II"; "Cry, the Beloved Country"; "Menace II Society"; and "Secret Window". Dutton won Outstanding Guest Actor Emmy Awards in 2002 and 2003 for his roles in "The Practice" and "Without a Trace". He was previously nominated in 1999, for his guest-starring role as Alvah Case in the HBO prison drama "Oz" in its second season premiere episode. For this role, he was also nominated for an NAACP Image Award. Also in 1999, he starred in an ensemble cast in "" in which he played the Mayor of New York City. Dutton gained acclaim for his comedy show "Roc" shown on FOX television (but produced by HBO) from 1991–1994, especially mid-run when the show was broadcast live. His work in this role won him an NAACP Image Award. He co-starred in the popular but short-lived 2005 CBS science fiction series, "Threshold". In 2000, Dutton directed the HBO miniseries "The Corner". The miniseries was close to his heart for Dutton grew up on the streets of East Baltimore. It was adapted from "The Corner: A Year in the Life of an Inner-City Neighborhood" (Broadway Books, 1997) by David Simon (a reporter for the "Baltimore Sun") and Ed Burns (a retired Baltimore homicide detective). "The Corner" won several Emmys in 2000, including Best Miniseries. Dutton won for his direction of the miniseries. He worked with Simon previously in a 1996 episode of "". He starred as Montgomery County, Maryland Police Chief Charles Moose in the 2003 made-for-TV movie "", and appears in Season 2 of "The L Word". Dutton also appeared in "Another Toothpick," an episode of "The Sopranos". He guest starred on "House M.D." as the father of Doctor Eric Foreman (Omar Epps) and on "Sleeper Cell: American Terror" as the father of undercover FBI agent Darwyn Al-Sayeed. He also directed two episodes of "Sleeper Cell". On October 9, 2007, HBO announced that it has arranged a deal with Dutton where he will develop, direct and star in series and movies for the network. He also appeared in the 2007 film "Honeydripper". On February 14, 2013 Dutton returned to TV in "Zero Hour" playing the role of a priest. Dutton will next appear in the 2013 horror film "The Monkey's Paw". The film is set to be released on October 8, 2013. Personal life. Dutton owns a farm in Ellicott City, Maryland. He was married to actress Debbi Morgan in 1989, but the couple divorced in 1994.
586473	Dhokha is a film that stars Muzammil Ibrahim and Tulip Joshi in the lead roles. It is directed by Pooja Bhatt, produced by Mukesh Bhatt and music by M. M. Keeravani. The film revolves around a moderate Indian Muslim cop, who wakes up and to his horror, discovers that his wife, who had recently been killed in a bomb blast, is accused of being a suicide bomber and had killed 20 people in the club. Plot. Inspector Zaid Ahmed (Muzammil Ibrahim) is notified on duty that there has been a bomb blast at a mall. After investigation, it is found out that the suicide bomber responsible was Sarah Khan (Tulip Joshi), Zaid's wife. Zaid finds it hard to believe on seeing his wife's dead body, and claims to have dropped her at the train station. Zaid, who is inspected by the ATS (Anti Terrorism Squad), is called off duty temporarily by ATS Chief Raj Mehra (Gulshan Grover), but stands firm to his statement that his wife could not be the terrorist responsible. One day he receives a DVD, by post, at home, which consists of his wife's dying testimonial in which she accepts that she is the responsible terrorist. Not believing what he has seen, Zaid decides to visit Sarah's grandfather Saeed Noor Bux (Anupam Kher). On meeting him, Saeed reveals a rather shocking story. Sarah's father had been arrested by the Local Police and had been beaten as he was suspected for terrorist activities. During the interrogation he dies. The Police hides his body, claims that he has ran to Pakistan and was found guilty of being a terrorist. When Saeed complains about this incident to higher authorities, Sarah, her brother Imran (Abhay Sacchar) and he himself are arrested by the Inspector, and are forced to sign a statement that they don't want to investigate this case. Upon refusal, they make nude videos of Sarah. After Saeed is forced to sign the statement, the inspector (Ashutosh Rana) asks Saeed and Imran to go home, takes Sarah to a cell, and rapes her. Due to this incident, Sarah and her brother start meeting a Molvi (Islamic Preacher) (Munish Makhija), who convinces them to lay down their lives by killing Non-Muslims. While Sarah was first in the league, her brother, who has been missing for a month, might follow her. Zaid, horrified by this tale, tries to find Sarah's brother Imran, and finds him when he is being prepared to blast himself in a few days. As a result of chasing him, he finds out the Molvi behind this, and shares harsh words with him. Later he is kidnapped by the Molvi's men, and is about to be killed, when he fights for his life, escapes and tries to find Imran. He pleads with the ATS not to arrest Imran, and brings him to his senses, convincing him to take off the bomb. It is later shown that the corrupt Inspector is arrested and sentenced. Saeed and Imran win the case with the help of Zaid. Zaid's rank is restored and he resumes duty. He then explains to the senior police officers how they force terrorists to be born just because of not being able to give them justice.
740586	Nathaniel Bowditch (; March 26, 1773 – March 16, 1838) was an early American mathematician remembered for his work on ocean navigation. He is often credited as the founder of modern maritime navigation; his book "The New American Practical Navigator", first published in 1802, is still carried on board every commissioned U.S. Naval vessel. Life and work. Nathaniel Bowditch, the fourth of seven children, was born in Salem, Massachusetts, to Habakkuk Bowditch and Mary (Ingersoll) Bowditch. At the age of ten, he was made to leave school to work in his father's cooperage, before becoming indentured at twelve for nine years as a bookkeeping apprentice to a ship chandler. In 1787, aged fourteen, Bowditch began to study algebra and two years later he taught himself calculus. He also taught himself Latin in 1790 and French in 1792 so he was able to read mathematical works such as Isaac Newton's "Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica". He found thousands of errors in John Hamilton Moore's "The New Practical Navigator"; at eighteen, he copied all the mathematical papers he found in the "Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London". Among his many significant scientific contributions would be a translation of Pierre-Simon de Laplace's "Mécanique céleste", a lengthy work on mathematics and theoretical astronomy. This translation was critical to the development of astronomy in the United States. Serendipity aided Bowditch's self-directed study, in as much as he found himself able to use the eminent Irish chemist Richard Kirwan's library: a privateer from Salem known as the Pilgrim, which Nathaniel had an expectation on at age 6, had intercepted the ship carrying the library between Ireland and England and brought the library back to Salem in June 1791. In 1795, Bowditch went to sea on the first of four voyages as a ship's clerk and captain's writer. His fifth voyage was as master and part owner of a ship. Following this voyage, he returned to Salem in 1803 to resume his mathematical studies and enter the insurance business. (One of his family homes in Salem, the Nathaniel Bowditch House, still exists and has recently been restored.) In 1798 Bowditch married Elizabeth Boardman, who died seven months later. In 1800 Bowditch married his second wife and cousin, Mary (Polly) Ingersoll Bowditch (1781–1834). They had 2 daughters and 6 sons, including Henry Ingersoll Bowditch. Among his grandchildren was Henry Pickering Bowditch. He has 2,356 descendants, most of them living in America. In 1802, his book "The American Practical Navigator" was first published. That same year, Harvard University awarded Bowditch an honorary Master of Arts degree. In 1804, Bowditch became America's first insurance actuary as president of the Essex Fire and Marine Insurance Company in Salem. Under his direction, the company prospered despite difficult political conditions and the War of 1812. Bowditch's mathematical and astronomical work during this time earned him a significant standing, including election to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1799 and the American Philosophical Society in 1809. He was offered the chair of mathematics and physics at Harvard in 1806, but turned it down. In 1804, an article on his observations of the Moon was published and in 1806 he published naval charts of several harbors, including Salem. More scientific publications followed, including a study of a meteor explosion (1807), three papers on the orbits of comets (1815, 1818, 1820) and a study of the Lissajous figures created by the motion of a pendulum suspended from two points (1815). As well as Harvard, the United States Military Academy and the University of Virginia offered Bowditch chairs in mathematics. Bowditch again refused these offers, perhaps (in the case of the University of Virginia) because the $2,000 salary offered was two-thirds of the salary he received as president of the insurance company. Bowditch's translation of the first four volumes of Laplace's "Traité de mécanique céleste" was completed by 1818. Publication of the work, however, was delayed for many years, most likely due to cost. Nonetheless, he continued to work on it with the assistance of Benjamin Peirce, adding commentaries that doubled its length. By 1819, Bowditch's international reputation had grown to the extent that he was elected as a member of the Royal Societies of Edinburgh and London and the Royal Irish Academy. In 1823, Bowditch left the Essex Fire and Marine Insurance Company to become an actuary for the Massachusetts Hospital Life Insurance Company in Boston. There he served as a "money manager" (an investment manager) for wealthy individuals who made their fortunes at sea, directing their wealth toward manufacturing. Towns such as Lowell prospered as a result. Bowditch's move from Salem to Boston involved the transfer of over 2,500 books, 100 maps and charts and 29 volumes of his own manuscripts. Bowditch's "American Practical Navigator". During his time at sea, Bowditch became intensely interested in the mathematics involved in celestial navigation. He worked initially with John Hamilton Moore's London-published ""Navigator"", which was known to have errors. To have exact tables to work from, Bowditch recomputed all of Moore's tables, and rearranged and expanded the work. He contacted the US publisher of the work, Edmund Blunt, who asked him to correct and revise the third edition on his fifth voyage. The task was so extensive that Bowditch decided to write his own book, and to "put down in the book nothing I can't teach the crew." On that trip, it is said that every man of the crew of 12, including the ship's cook, became competent to take and calculate lunar observations and to plot the correct position of the ship. Bowditch died in Boston in 1838 from stomach cancer. He is buried in Mount Auburn Cemetery, where a monument to him was erected through public collections. The statue was the first life size bronze to be cast in America and was the creation of renowned sculptor Robert Ball Hughes. The following eulogy was written by the Salem Marine Society: In the 1840s-1850s, Bowditch's son, Dr. H.I. Bowditch, ran the "Bowditch Library" on Otis Place in Boston's Financial District. It was "free to those who reside in Boston, or in the vicinity. ... This is the library of the late Nathaniel Bowditch, and is almost exclusively of a scientific character." In 1858 the family gave the collection, "which consists mostly of mathematical and astronomical works," to the Boston Public Library. The Oceanographic Survey Ship and the "Nathaniel Bowditch", a high-speed catamaran passenger ferry serving downtown Boston and Salem, were named for him, as was a lunar crater. Additionally, a William Hand designed Schooner built in 1922, which is currently part of the Maine Windjammer fleet and sails out of Rockland, Maine, is also named after Nathaniel Bowditch. In 1955, a book for younger readers, "Carry On, Mr. Bowditch", was published, portraying Bowditch's life dramatized and fictionalized. A serious modern biography is Robert E. Berry's "Yankee Stargazer", published in 1941. A grammar school, two middle schools and a dorm in America were also named for him, in Boston, Foster City, California (Bowditch Middle School), Salem, Massachusetts and Salem State College, respectively. The Department of Marine Transportation building on the grounds of the United States Merchant Marine Academy is named in his honor and houses classrooms, laboratories, and the 900-seat Ackerman Auditorium. He also gives his name to a street in Berkeley, California. Actor David Morse was named after him − David Bowditch Morse.
1102821	In mathematics, a linear approximation is an approximation of a general function using a linear function (more precisely, an affine function). They are widely used in the method of finite differences to produce first order methods for solving or approximating solutions to equations. Definition. Given a twice continuously differentiable function "f" of one real variable, Taylor's theorem for the case "n" = 1 states that where formula_2 is the remainder term. The linear approximation is obtained by dropping the remainder: This is a good approximation for "x" when it is close enough to "a"; since a curve, when closely observed, will begin to resemble a straight line. Therefore, the expression on the right-hand side is just the equation for the tangent line to the graph of "f" at ("a","f"("a")). For this reason, this process is also called the tangent line approximation. If "f" is concave down in the interval between "x" and "a", the approximation will be an overestimate (since the derivative is decreasing in that interval). If "f" is concave up, the approximation will be an underestimate. Linear approximations for vector functions of a vector variable are obtained in the same way, with the derivative at a point replaced by the Jacobian matrix. For example, given a differentiable function formula_4 with real values, one can approximate formula_4 for formula_6 close to formula_7 by the formula The right-hand side is the equation of the plane tangent to the graph of formula_9 at formula_10 In the more general case of Banach spaces, one has where formula_12 is the Fréchet derivative of formula_13 at formula_14.
588323	Nokkethadhoorathu Kannum Nattu is a 1984 Malayalam drama film written and directed by Fazil, and starring Nadia Moidu, late dancer Padmini, and Mohanlal in pivotal roles. It was Nadia Moidu's debut film. It also marked the film debut of director duo Siddique-Lal, who worked as assistant directors for this film. The film met with critical acclaim, and won the award for Best Film with Popular Appeal and Aesthetic Value at the Kerala State Film Awards. Owing to the film's critical and commercial success, Fazil created Tamil language remake of it, "Poove Poochudava", in which Nadia Moidu and Padmini reprised their roles. However, Mohanlal was replaced by S. V. Shekhar. Plot. Kunjoonjamma Thomas (Padmini) is a widow living in the village all by herself. People always make fun of her because she is grumpy and depressed due to the deaths of her husband and her only child. Children irritate her by ringing her door bell and running away. One day, her grand-daughter Gaily (Nadia Moidu), who she had never met, visits her. Initially, Kunjoonjamma does not like Gaily, but they soon become close to each other. Kunjoonjamma takes down the door bell, saying to Gaily that its only purpose was for Gaily's return. Now that Gaily is with her, she does not need it.
1016273	Beast Stalker () is a 2008 Hong Kong action thriller film written, produced and directed by Dante Lam, and starring Nicholas Tse, Nick Cheung, Zhang Jingchu and Liu Kai-chi. Plot. A traffic accident changed their lives forever. In capturing wanted criminal Zhang Yidong, Sergeant Tong Fei (Nicholas Tse) was involved in a gunfight and car accident that put the criminal in a coma. But in the process he also crippled a fellow officer, and mistakenly shot dead the elder daughter of public prosecutor and single mother Gao Min (Zhang Jingchu). Unable to handle the guilt, Tong Fei succumbs to a fog of pain. Gao Min, meanwhile, pours all her love and attention to her younger daughter Ling. Three months later, the criminal Zhang Yidong awakens from his coma. Gao Min, who had been working hard on bringing him to justice, insists he stand trial immediately. Awards. 15th Hong Kong Film Critics Society Awards 28th Hong Kong Film Awards Home Media. On January 4, 2010, DVD was released by Cine Asia in a 2 disc ultimate collector's edition at the United Kingdom in Region 2.
1040039	James Edward Fleet (born 1952 in Bilston, Staffordshire) is an English actor. He is most famous for his roles as the bumbling and well-meaning Tom in the 1994 British romantic comedy film "Four Weddings and a Funeral", and the dim-witted Hugo Horton in the BBC situation comedy television series "The Vicar of Dibley". Personal life. Fleet was born in Bilston, Staffordshire to a Scottish mother Christine and an English father Jim. He lived in Bilston until he was ten, but when his father died, he moved to Aberdeenshire with his mother. He studied engineering at university in Aberdeen, where he joined the university dramatic society. Afterwards, he studied at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama in Glasgow. He lives in Sibford Gower, Oxfordshire with his wife, Jane, and their one son, Hamish. He is a keen biker. Career. Stage. Fleet began his career in the RSC, appearing in several plays in the early 1980s. He has since appeared in touring productions of, among others, "Habeas Corpus" and "In the Club", as well as in "Festen" and "Mary Stuart" and others in the West End. He also played Alderman Fitzwarren in Dick Whittington in 2002. In 2009 he portrayed Sir Andrew Aguecheek in the RSC Production of "Twelfth Night". And in 2011 he is in Richard Bean's "The Heretic" directed by Jeremy Herrin at the Royal Court Theatre in London. Since November 2011 he has been in The Ladykillers as Major Courtney at the Gielgud Theatre. Radio. Between 2000 and 2006, Fleet played the painfully upright and decent Captain Brimshaw in "Revolting People", a BBC Radio 4 comedy set in pre-revolutionary America. He also appeared in the radio legal sitcom "Chambers", which later moved onto television. As of 2005, he has starred as Duncan Stonebridge MP in the topical radio sitcom "The Party Line". He also appeared as the Captain on the BBC Radio 7 series "The Spaceship". He also plays the part of Sir John Woodstock in the Radio Four sitcom, "The Castle". Television. In 1999-2001 he was the voice of "Dog" in the children's TV show "Dog and Duck". Probably his most famous role is that of Hugo in "The Vicar of Dibley"; he appeared in all 24 episodes, broadcast between 1994 and 2007. In 2005 he played a leading role in an episode of the long-running ITV murder mystery series Midsomer Murders. In 2007 he was a guest star in one episode of the sitcom "Legit". He appeared as Frederick Dorrit in the BBC's 2008 production of "Little Dorrit". When Fleet appeared on the quiz show "School's Out", it was revealed that one of his teachers at Banff Academy had written in his school report that " is the stupidest boy I have ever had to teach, out of all the stupid boys I have ever had to teach", and that he was the only student in his sixth form not to have been made a prefect. Despite his apparent lack of scholastic ability, he still won the show. Recently in 2009, Fleet appeared in a cameo role in the third series of "Skins". Earlier in his career, Fleet was seen in a 1983 episode of "Grange Hill" as a teacher at the eponymous school's upmarket rival Rodney Bennett. Fleet appeared in "Coronation Street" in 2010. He played a character called Robbie Sloan, a recently released convict, helping escaped prisoner Tony Gordon plot revenge. Sloan was eventually shot by Gordon during a siege at the factory. In February 2011, Fleet appeared as George (senior), the father of werewolf George Sands, in "Being Human". Film. Fleet has starred in numerous films. He played the role of Lefevre in the 2004 film adaptation of "Phantom of the Opera", John Dashwood in 1995's "Sense and Sensibility" and that of Lytton Strachey in the 2003 film "Al Sur de Granada" ("South from Granada").
1056744	Bunny Lake Is Missing is a 1965 British psychological thriller film starring Laurence Olivier and directed and produced by Otto Preminger, who filmed it in black and white widescreen format in London. It was based on the novel of the same name by Merriam Modell. The score is by Paul Glass and the opening theme is often heard as a refrain. The Zombies also appear in a television broadcast. Dismissed by both critics and Preminger as insignificant upon its release in 1965, the film later earned a following as a cult classic, along with strong reviews by critics such as Andrew Sarris. The movie was released on DVD in 2005 (Region 1) and 2007 (Region 2). Plot. After American single mother Ann Lake ((Carol Lynley)) arrives in London from New York, her child Bunny mysteriously disappears from her first day at the kindergarten "Little People's Garden". Ann and her brother Steve (Keir Dullea) search the kindergarten and find an eccentric woman who lives upstairs who is compiling a recorded collection of little children's darker fantasies, what she calls "little nightmares". In desperation, they call the police, An Inspector Newhouse (Laurence Olivier) arrives on the scene. When they go to Ann's home they find that all of Bunny's possessions have been removed from the house. Ann cannot understand why anyone would do this and begins to break down saying this is "like a nightmare". Inspector Newhouse begins to suspect that Bunny Lake does not exist, in part because Bunny was the name of an imaginary friend Ann had as a little girl. Back at her apartment, Ann's landlord, an aging actor (Noel Coward) attempts to seduce her. Inspector Newhouse decides he needs to get to know Bunny better and takes her to a local bar where he plies her with brandy and rock music plays on the television. Ann discovers she has the claim tag on a doll of Bunny's that was taken to a doll shop to be repaired. She frantically rushes to the doll store late at night, surprised to discover the proprietor awake. She successfully retrieves the doll, but her brother has burst in and attempts to burn the doll and knocks her out. He takes her to a hospital where he tells the nurse that Ann has been raving like a lunatic about an imaginary girl who disappeared. Ann is sedated an put under observation. However, when she wakes up she manages to escape from the hospital. She rushes back to the house, now knowing her brother is the culprit. She discovers Stephen burying Bunny's possessions and about to kill Bunny. When she comes in her brother complains that Bunny has "Always been between them" that they cannot be together anymore because Ann now loves Bunny more than he loves her. Ann now realizes her brother is entirely mad. She attempts to play games from their childhood to distract him. Their dialogue hints at the film's earlier suggestions of incestuous feelings between them.
1066925	Welcome to Mooseport is a 2004 American comedy film directed by Donald Petrie and starring Ray Romano and Gene Hackman (in his final film). It was filmed in Port Perry, Ontario. Plot. Monroe "Eagle" Cole (Gene Hackman) is a former President of the United States who retires to his vacation home in the town of Mooseport, Maine to escape the clutches of ex-wife Charlotte Cole (Christine Baranski). Harold 'Handy' Harrison (Ray Romano) is the local plumber of Mooseport, who also owns a hardware store. Following the death of the town mayor, the town council decides to approach former president Cole about running for the office. Cole agrees because, as it turns out, if he holds the office, his Mooseport house can serve as his office and, therefore, can no longer be divided up or sold off in his divorce settlement. Unbeknownst to Harrison, his name has also been entered into the race. When Harrison finds out Cole is running, he decides to step down, until he notices an unwitting Cole make a pass at Harrison's girlfriend of six years, veterinarian Dr. Sally Mannis (Maura Tierney), who recently broke up with him because he was taking the relationship too slow and had not yet proposed marriage to her. Handy believes that, by becoming mayor, he can show Sally he is a responsible decision maker and win her back. Tensions rise following the arrival of ex-wife and Cole campaign spoiler Charlotte. Cole's team, led by long-time executive secretary and eventual love interest Grace Sutherland (Marcia Gay Harden) and presidential aide Will Bullard (Fred Savage), bring in the big guns in the form of campaign strategist Bert Langdon (Rip Torn), who becomes Cole's campaign manager as he complains of a boring life since Cole retired from the presidency. As the campaigns progress, Cole and Harrison each become obsessed with winning the race at all (comedic) costs, although Harrison refuses to resort to any dirty tricks, making Cole realize that in all his years of running for elections this may be his toughest as he is taking on an honest man. Eventually, on the night before the election, both candidates (for different reasons - Cole is trying to get sympathy votes, Harrison just wants to end all of this and is confident Cole would be a good mayor) urge the voters to vote for the other candidate by saying that neither of them will vote for themselves. Harrison fulfills his promise, but Cole votes for himself anyway. Upon the revelation that Cole won by one vote, his conscience gets the better of him and he concedes the match to Harrison. However, Harrison lies that he voted for himself as well, and declines office, so Cole ends up as mayor once again. Harrison then reveals to Sally that he conceded the election because Cole needs the mayorship more than he does and that all he really wanted was to propose marriage to her, which he does. As Handy is proposing to Sally, Monroe also proposes to Grace. The film ends with Bert Langdon telling Handy that he ran an excellent campaign and offers to be his campaign manager for Governor of Maine, which Handy jokingly shows some interest in when he realizes a governor has certain authority over mayors. Reception. Critical response. The film received a rating of 13% from Rotten Tomatoes. Box office. The film had a worldwide gross of just over $14 million on a budget of $30 million.
1060618	Benjamin Bratt (born December 16, 1963) is an American actor. He is best known for his role as Rey Curtis on the TV series "Law & Order" and his appearances in the movies "Miss Congeniality", "Demolition Man", "Blood in Blood Out", "Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs", "Traffic", "La Mission", "Despicable Me 2", and "Piñero". He recently portrayed Dr. Jake Riley on the medical drama series "Private Practice". Early life. Bratt was born in San Francisco, California, the son of Eldy (née Banda), a nurse, and Peter Bratt, Sr., a sheet metal worker. Bratt's mother is a Peruvian Indigenous activist of the Quechua ethnic group; born in Perú, she moved to the U.S. at age nine. His father was an American, of German, English, and Austrian descent. They married December 30, 1960, in San Francisco, but divorced in September 1967. Bratt's paternal grandfather, George Cleveland Bratt (March 5, 1893 – March 29, 1984), was a Broadway actor. He married Bratt's grandmother, Wiltrude Hildner, on August 6, 1920, in Detroit, Michigan. As a child, Bratt went with his mother and siblings to participate in the 1969 Native American occupation of Alcatraz. Today, Bratt is an active supporter of such Native American causes as the American Indian College Fund and "We Shall Remain", a mini-series and multi-media project, narrated by Bratt, that establishes Native history as an essential part of American history from PBS' acclaimed series "American Experience". His brother, Peter Bratt, wrote and directed the 1996 film "Follow Me Home", casting Benjamin as Abel. In 2009 Peter wrote and directed the independent film "La Mission" also starring Benjamin as Che Rivera, an inhabitant of the Mission District. Bratt has for years been a strong supporter and board member of San Francisco Bay Area's Friendship House Association of American Indians and Native American Health Center. He attended Lowell High School in San Francisco, where he was a member of the Lowell Forensic Society. Bratt earned a B.F.A. at the University of California, Santa Barbara, where he also joined the Lambda Chi Alpha fraternity. Although accepted into the M.F.A. program at the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco, he left before receiving his degree to star in the television series "Juarez". Career. Bratt's best-known role has been that of Detective Reynaldo Curtis on the television show "Law & Order". In 1999, he was nominated for an Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series for his work on the series. His more popular films include "Miss Congeniality", "Blood in Blood out" and "Traffic". On June 23, 2009, Bratt appeared on "The View" to promote "The Cleaner". On October 23, 2009, it was announced that Bratt will return as Detective Curtis on "Law & Order". Curtis reunited with his former boss, Lt. Anita van Buren (S. Epatha Merkerson), which aired on December 11, 2009. He left the show that same year to continue his film career. In 2009, Bratt performed in "The People Speak", a documentary feature film that uses dramatic and musical performances of the letters, diaries, and speeches of everyday Americans, based on historian Howard Zinn's "A People's History of the United States". In 2012, Bratt was passionate about his opportunity to play a Tlicho Indian in the film "The Lesser Blessed", a project dear to his heart because of his own Native background. He voiced El Macho, the main antagonist, in "Despicable Me 2", and will reprise his role from "Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs" as Manny the cameraman in "Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2". Personal life. In 1998, he began dating actress Julia Roberts. He escorted her to the 2001 Academy Awards ceremony, at which she won the Academy Award for Best Actress. Four months later, they announced that they were no longer a couple. In 2002, he (along with Priscilla López) received the Rita Moreno HOLA Award for Excellence from the Hispanic Organization of Latin Actors (HOLA). Less than a year later, he married his pregnant girlfriend, actress Talisa Soto, on April 13, 2002, in San Francisco. The two met ten years earlier during the casting audition of "Blood In Blood Out" and afterwards they saw each other on and off. It was not until the filming of "Piñero" that they began to develop a relationship. Their first child, daughter Sophia Rosalinda Bratt, was born on December 6, 2002; their second child, son Mateo Bravery Bratt, was born on October 3, 2005, in Los Angeles. Awards. ALMA Awards. 2009 Category: Best Actor in Drama (Year in Television) for The Cleaner (2008) (TV) 2002 Category: Outstanding Actor in a Motion Picture for Pinero (2001) 1999 Category: Outstanding Actor in a Drama Series for Law & Order (1990) 1999 Category: Outstanding Actor in Made-for-Television Movie or Mini-Series for Exiled (1998) (TV Movie) 1998 Category: Outstanding Actor in a Drama Series for Law & Order (1990) Blockbuster Entertainment Awards. 2001 Category: Favorite Supporting Actor – Comedy for Miss Congeniality (2000)
1060014	Wrongfully Accused is a 1998 comedy film starring Leslie Nielsen as a man who has been framed for murder and desperately attempts to expose the true culprits. The film was written, produced, and directed by Pat Proft and is a parody of the 1993 film "The Fugitive". Plot. World-famous violinist Ryan Harrison (Leslie Nielsen) is seen giving a concert. Afterwards, he goes to a party where he meets Hibbing Goodhue (Michael York), a millionaire who sponsors Harrison's performances, as well as Goodhue's seductive wife Lauren (Kelly Le Brock) and his possible mistress Cass Lake (Melinda McGraw). The next evening he finds a note from Lauren in his car which summons him to the Goodhue residence. When he goes to the Goodhue mansion, he bumps into Sean Laughrea (Aaron Pearl), who has just killed Goodhue (together with an unknown accomplice). A violent fight follows, during which Harrison discovers that Sean is missing an eye, an arm, and a leg, and he overhears the preparations for an operation with the codename "Highlander" before he is knocked out. When he wakes up, Harrison finds himself arrested and convicted for the murder of Goodhue. Desperate to prove his innocence, Harrison escapes from his prison transport following an accident while a hide and seek with a train follows. Lieutenant Fergus Falls (Richard Crenna) arrives on the scene, takes charge, barks out orders and vows to do whatever it takes to capture the fugitive. Harrison returns to the Goodhue mansion where he encounters Cass, who is trying to retrieve something from behind a portrait. She tells him she knows he is innocent and believes Lauren is the killer, but refuses to say anything to the police because Lauren is her sister. She provides him with a place to hide and helps him shake his pursuers, but Harrison's opportunities to rest are short and fleeting: Falls seems to find him wherever he goes, and Cass behaves suspiciously, increasing Harrison's doubts of whom to trust. Harrison gradually begins to piece together the puzzle; he remembers that Sean was present at the party as the bartender and was given a great amount of money by Cass. He also finds that Cass is strangely interested in Sir Robert McKintyre, the secretary-general of the United Nations. Eventually, after investigating Sean's disabilities in a limb replacement clinic, he discovers that Cass, Lauren and Sean are planning an assassination attempt on McKintyre. He manages to follow the group but is caught. Cass shoots Harrison but actually fakes his death, both because she has fallen in love with him and because she wants to stop the assassination, since she has found out that McKintyre is really her father. Goodhue has been murdered by Sean and Lauren because he had come to suspect that his wife was actually a terrorist and had only used him to further her goals. At a Scottish festival, Harrison and Cass just barely manage to save McKintyre's life. They are cornered by Lauren, Sean and accomplices, but Fergus Falls and a SWAT team arrive just in the nick of time, arresting the terrorists. Falls officially tells Harrison that he was "wrongfully accused", clearing his name and acquitting him. In the last scene, Harrison and Cass are riding on the bow of a cruise ship (spoofing "Titanic") and end up bumping their heads on a low bridge. Reception. Box office. The film opened on August 21, 1998 in 2,062 cinemas. On its opening weekend, it grossed USD $3,504,630 or approximately $1,700 per theatre. "Wrongfully Accused"s overall gross was $9,623,329. Critical response. "Wrongfully Accused" got generally negative reviews. It received a 22% "rotten" rating on the Rotten Tomatoes web site based on 32 reviews and a 3.9/10 rating.
1059312	The Santa Clause 2 (also known as The Santa Clause 2: The Mrs. Clause) is a 2002 American romantic comedy-holiday film and the sequel to the 1994 film, "The Santa Clause". It was filmed in the Canadian cities of Vancouver and Calgary. All the principal actors from the first film reprise their roles, except for Peter Boyle, who returns portraying a different minor character. According to Box Office Mojo, the film cost around $65 million to make and had domestic (U.S. & Canada) box office receipts approaching $139 million. The film was followed by a sequel, "", made in 2006. Plot. Eight years have gone by since divorced father Scott Calvin (Tim Allen) first took up the Santa Claus suit, and became subject to The Santa Clause. Now he is at the top of his game at the North Pole and could not be happier, at least until Bernard (David Krumholtz) and Curtis (Spencer Breslin), the Keeper of the "Handbook of Christmas" break the news that there is another clause - the "Mrs. Clause" that is so old it had only just been noticed hidden in the contract. The clause stipulates that only married men can become Santa; should a single man be subject to the Santa Clause he must find a bride within eight years of his first assuming the new job as Santa. This means Santa/Scott now has to get married before the next Christmas Eve, or the clause will be broken and Christmas will die away. At the same time, Abby the Elf (Danielle Woodman) delivers news that is more distressing; his 16-year-old son, Charlie (Eric Lloyd), is on the naughty list. It then cuts to him one night defacing the walls of the school gymnasium from the skywindow until he is caught by Principal Carol Newman (Elizabeth Mitchell). Scott must return to his hometown to search for a wife and set things right with Charlie. He even brings this up when visited by the Council of Legendary Figures consisting of Mother Nature (Aisha Tyler), Father Time (Peter Boyle), Cupid (Kevin Pollak), the Easter Bunny (Jay Thomas), the Tooth Fairy (Art LaFleur), and the Sandman (Michael Dorn). In the meantime, Scott stays with his ex-wife Laura (Wendy Crewson) and her husband Neil (Judge Reinhold). The two have grown to adore and idolize him simply because he's Santa. They now have a daughter named Lucy (Liliana Mumy) who sees Scott as an uncle-figure but suspects that he's Santa Claus. To cover for Santa's prolonged absence, Curtis helps him create a life-size toy replica of him, much to Bernard's horror. However, this larger-than-life legalist cannot find any grace, mercy, or slack in his plastic heart for minor infractions by children all over the world, having followed the handbook too strictly. Toy Santa takes control of the North Pole, turns it into a strict and evil government, with a duplicated army of life-size toy soldiers and he puts Bernard under house arrest when Bernard attempts to tell the elves that Toy Santa is a fake. He thinks that "everyone" is naughty, (just by their small mistakes) and he plans to give the entire world lumps of coal. Because of the impending end of his contract, Scott undergoes a "de-Santafication process" which gradually turns him back into Scott Calvin. As Scott, he has a limited amount of magic to help him perform miracles. He attempts to reconcile with Charlie, who keeps vandalizing his school to get attention. They both hit the cold hard wall of Principal Carol Newman when Charlie defaces the lockers. Charlie confesses to Scott how hard it is for him that Scott is never around like other fathers, and reveals the stress he is under to conceal the secret that his father is Santa. Scott vows to try harder as a dad, and they reconcile. After a few failed dates, Scott finds himself falling for Carol. He accompanies her in a sleigh to her school faculty Christmas party, which turns out to be dull and boring. Using a little of his Christmas magic, he livens it up by presenting everyone with their childhood dream gifts (much like he did for Laura and Neil in the first film). He makes a special presentation to Carol, and, with his last remnant of magic, wins her over and they kiss passionately. However when Scott explains his reason for dating her as Santa Claus, Carol balks, believing that he is mocking her childhood (where she was teased for believing in Santa), until Charlie manages to convince her by showing her his magic snow globe. Curtis flies in to deliver the dreadful news about the Evil Toy Santa's coal binge and urges him to return to the North Pole to save Christmas. Unfortunately, Scott has used up the last of his magic wooing Carol, Comet has eaten too many chocolate bars and Curtis' jetpack has been destroyed upon arrival. After convincing the Tooth Fairy that he is Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy flies Scott and Curtis back to the North Pole but they are captured by the toy soldiers. Toy Santa wastes no time in tying him up with Curtis, but Charlie and a now-believing Carol spring him free by summoning the Tooth Fairy to fly them there after Charlie lost a tooth. He goes after Toy Santa, who has already left with the sleigh, riding Chet, a reindeer-in-training, and they both battle over the reindeer. With an army of elves, Carol, Bernard, Charlie, and Curtis lead a snowball war to overthrow the toy soldiers. During the battle, Toy Santa and Scott accidentally causes the sleigh to crash back into the village (as well as crashing on the rest of the toy soldiers). Toy Santa is forcibly restrained by the elves and is reduced to his normal six-inch height. Scott marries Carol in a ceremony presided over by Mother Nature herself. He transforms back into Santa, and Christmas proceeds as it always has and he and Carol have a three month honeymoon to go on the next day. In addition, he and Charlie reveal the truth to Lucy about him being Santa Claus so she is now in on the secret, as well as to pick up Comet. Soundtrack. Original Release Date: November 1, 2002 Critical reception. "The Santa Clause 2" received mixed reviews from critics, garnering a 54% "rotten" critical approval rating from Rotten Tomatoes, as opposed to the 80% "certified fresh" rating of the first film. The site's consensus is that "Though it's harmless as family entertainment and has moments of charm, "The Santa Clause 2" is also predictable and forgettable."
1067870	Man on Wire is a 2008 Oscar winning British documentary film directed by James Marsh. The film chronicles Philippe Petit's 1974 high-wire walk between the Twin Towers of New York's World Trade Center. It is based on Philippe Petit's book, "To Reach the Clouds", recently released in paperback with the new title "Man on Wire". The title of the movie is taken from the police report that led to the arrest (and later release) of Petit, whose performance had lasted for almost one hour. The film is crafted like a heist film, presenting rare footage of the preparations for the event and still photographs of the walk, alongside re-enactments (with Paul McGill as the young Petit) and present-day interviews with the participants. A short documentary on the same subject, "High Wire", was made in 1986 featuring music by Michael Nyman. It competed in the World Cinema Documentary Competition at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival, where it won the Grand Jury Prize: World Cinema Documentary and the World Cinema Audience Award: Documentary. In February 2009, the film won the BAFTA for Outstanding British Film, the Independent Spirit Awards and the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature. Production. The film's producer Simon Chinn first encountered Philippe Petit in April 2005 on BBC Radio 4's "Desert Island Discs", after which he decided to pursue him for the film rights to his book, "To Reach the Clouds". After months of discussion, Petit agreed, with the condition that he would play an active, collaborative part in the making of the film. In an interview conducted during "Man on Wire's" run at the 2008 Tribeca Film Festival, director James Marsh explained that he was drawn to the story in part because it immediately struck him as "a heist movie". Marsh also commented that as a New Yorker himself, he saw the film as something to give back to the city. He said he hopes to hear people say that they will now always think of Petit and his performance when recalling the World Trade Center's twin towers. Responding to questioning as to why the towers' destruction 7 years earlier was not mentioned in the film, Marsh explained that Philippe Petit's act was "incredibly beautiful" and that it "would be unfair and wrong to infect his story with any mention, discussion or imagery of the Towers being destroyed." Reception. "Man on Wire" won the prestigious Special Jury Award and Audience Award at the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival, the International Audience Award at the Los Angeles Film Festival and the Standard Life Audience Award at the Edinburgh International Film Festival. The film also won the Jury Prize and Audience Award in the World Cinema: Documentary competition at the Sundance Film Festival. "Man on Wire" is the sixth film to pick up both top awards at Sundance, and the first from outside the US. In February 2009, the film won the BAFTA for Outstanding British Film, and Best Documentary Film in the Australian Film Critics Association Awards. It won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature at the 81st Academy Awards. Film review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reported that 100% of the 151 reviews they have collected have been positive. It is currently the second best reviewed movie on the website. The film also received a golden tomato for best documentary of 2008. Top ten lists. The film appeared on many critics' top ten lists of the best films of 2008. "Movie City News" shows that the film appeared in 76 different top ten lists, out of 286 different critics lists surveyed, the joint 7th "most mentions" on a top ten list of the films released in 2008. Soundtrack. Much of the film's soundtrack is derived from the 2006 album, "".
1350323	Mimino () is a 1977 comedy film by Soviet director Georgiy Daneliya produced by Mosfilm and Gruziya-film, starring Vakhtang Kikabidze and Frunzik Mkrtchyan. Anatoliy Petritskiy served as the film's Director of Photography. The Soviet era comedy won the 1977 Golden Prize at the 10th Moscow International Film Festival. Plot. Georgian bush pilot Mimino (Vakhtang Kikabidze) works at small local airlines, flying helicopters between small villages. But he dreams of piloting large international airlines aircraft, so he decides to go to Moscow to follow his dream. There in a hotel he meets Armenian truck driver Roobik Khachikyan (Frunzik Mkrtchyan) who is given a place in that hotel by mistake instead of another Khachikyan (Professor), and they have a lot of adventures in Moscow. Always amicable and open to people, Mimino does not feel at home in the big city. Nevertheless, he becomes a pilot of a supersonic jet liner, the Tupolev Tu-144, flying all over the world. But feeling homesick, he finally comes back to his native town of Telavi in Georgia, to his family and friends. Mimino's real name in the film is Valiko Mizandari - his nickname 'Mimino' () is the Georgian word for sparrow hawk, although it is stated on the back cover of the DVD that 'Mimino' means falcon. Either way, it seems that this nickname is to equate to some kind of bird of prey, which is perhaps fitting for a pilot. Awards. 1977 - Golden Prize at the 10th Moscow International Film Festival 1978 - "Golden Lacheno" Award at the 19th IFF in Avellino (Italy) 1978 - Best Comedy Film Award at the 11th All-Union Film Festival in Yerevan 1978 - USSR State Prize (Director G. Daneliya, Actors V. Kikabidze, F. Mkrtchyan)
1758373	Le Grand Voyage is a 2004 film written and directed by Ismaël Ferroukhi. The film portrays the relationship between father and son as both embark on a religious pilgrimage trip by car. It was shown at the 2004 Toronto and Venice International Film Festivals. Plot. Réda (Nicolas Cazalé) is a French-Moroccan teenager due to sit for Baccalauréat. When his devout father (played by Mohamed Majd) asks Réda to accompany him on a pilgrimage to Mecca, he reluctantly agrees. However, the father insists that they travel by car. As both embark on a road trip thousands of kilometres away from southern France, the once-icy father-and-son relationship starts to thaw as both gradually come to know each other. Réda speaks only in French to his father, who is seen speaking only Arabic for the majority of the film. Later, when necessary, the father proves that he in fact speaks impeccable French; his choice to speak only Arabic to his son is therefore purposeful. Along the way, the two meet several interesting characters. The son learns about Islam and why his father thought it would be preferable to make the pilgrimage by car rather than by plane. The route taken by the father and son goes from Provence, France through Italy, Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia, Bulgaria, Turkey, Syria, and Jordan before reaching Saudi Arabia. Production. Most scenes that were set in the Middle East were shot in Morocco. However, some scenes involving the two principal actors were shot in Mecca. While the Saudi Arabian government had previously permitted documentary crews to shoot in Mecca, this was the first fiction feature permitted to shoot during the Hajj. The film's director, Ismaël Ferroukhi, said that while shooting in Mecca, "no one looked at the camera; people didn't even seem to see the crew – they're in another world."
583942	Pokkiri () is a 2007 Tamil action-thriller film directed by Prabhu Deva. The film stars Vijay and Asin with Prakash Raj, Nassar, Vadivelu, Sriman and Napoleon playing supporting roles. Mumaith Khan and Prabhu Deva make guest appearances. Nirav Shah handled cinematography while Kola Bhaskar was the film's editor. The film was launched in 6 July 2006. Filming took place in India and Australia. It is a remake of Puri Jagannadh's Telugu film "Pokiri" (2006) starring Mahesh Babu and Ileana D'Cruz. Some changes have been made in the film to suit Tamil Nadu audiences. The strength of the story lies in maintaining the suspense of the true identity of the hero till the end. It is a mix of action and romance with a message about the duty and responsibility of the police force. Prabhu Deva remade the film again in Hindi as "Wanted" (2009). The film whose plot revolves around a young IPS officer who acts as an a criminal in order to eliminate notorious criminals in a police operation, released on 12 January 2007 to commercial success and completed a 200-day run at the box office. Plot. The city of Chennai is rife with nefarious activities of land mafia. There are two rival gangs: one under Ali Bhai (Prakash Raj) who resides in Dubai and controls the operation through his capos Guru (Vincent Asokan), Loggu (Subbaraju) and Mona (Brindha Parekh). The other gang is operated by local goon Narasiman (Anand Raj) who operates in the Port areas. Both threaten builders and land owners into giving them hafta/protection money or real estate property, through means of force, extortion or murder. Mohamed Maideen Khan (Napoleon) arrives as the new Commissioner of Chennai and starts cracking on goons in the city. The movie begins with Thamizh (Sathyamoorthy) (Vijay), a local goon who will kill anyone, anytime given the money is good, being chased by Loggu and his henchmen. Tamizh has taken a contract from Narasiman to beat up Loggu, which he does successfully . Impressed by his ability to handle a seasoned gangster like Loggu and his henchmen, Guru invites Tamizh to join Ali Bhai's gang. Tamizh declines the offer stating that he does not work for any gang, but is ready to do anything, given enough money. Tamizh hangs around with his friends, which include Saravana (Sriman) and Vaiyapuri. Meanwhile, Tamizh encounters Shruthi (Asin Thottumkal) when he visits his friend's father's (Nassar) aerobics class. He is bowled over by her beautiful face, though she disregards him as a thug. Shruthi, a college going student, lives with her widowed mother and younger brother. Body Soda (Vadivelu), is a cowardly kung fu master who lives next-door to Shruthi and is the main source of comic relief of the film. He is trying to win her heart, but has had trouble doing so. Sub inspector L. Govindan (Mukesh Tiwari), is a corrupt, perverted officer in the colony where Tamizh and Shruthi live. He goes hand in glove with the land mafia, often helping them out in their activities. He is also on the payroll of Ali Bhai. He is also a lecherous man, whose eye falls on Shruthi and he decides to make her his mistress. Tamizh's first assignment with Ali Bhai's gang is to kill a member of Narasiman's gang. However, police show up at the spot where Tamizh and the other gangsters are waiting for the kill. Tamizh distracts the cops long enough for the others to finish the task and flee. He also helps Shruthi escape from L. Govindan, in the middle of all this. She is impressed by his kindness and starts developing friendship with him. He also starts having feelings for her, which are reciprocated by Shruthi . He teaches her to whistle. When she expresses her feelings towards him, they are attacked by members of Narasiman's gang, whom Tamizh single handedly finishes off. Shruthi is shocked to learn that Tamizh is a seasoned gangster and has no qualms in killing people. L.Govindan starts harassing Shruthi and her mother, and wants them to cater to his lecherous demands. On realizing that Shruthi is about to get married, he arranges to have some thugs put up a mock show of molesting Shruthi, so that no decent family will want to take her as their daughter-in-law and with no other option Shruthi and her mother will accept his demands. Tamizh gets wind of this and trashes L.Govindan in incognito, warning him that if he is responsible for this incident then things will turn very ugly for him. Later, Tamizh finds out the thugs who puts up a mock show of molesting Shruti, came to disturb her in the train. Tamil catches up the train and kills them.There Shruti confesses that she cannot forget Tamizh and she loves him a lot. They get together. Unable to withstand the interference by Narasiman into his gangs operations, Ali Bhai comes to Chennai and kills Narasiman alone. He also meets Tamizh to discuss with him the killing of a minister by blowing up a bomb. Tamizh however, disagrees to Ali Bhai's method as it is his principle not to kill women and children. In the middle of their argument, police raid the club and arrest Ali Bhai. His gang members retaliate by kidnapping the Commissioner's daughter and creating a lewd video, which is then released to the public. This forces the police to release Ali Bhai. After coming out, Ali Bhai starts torturing the Commissioner's daughter, who accidentally reveals that her father has placed a mole in Ali Bhai's gang and his name is Sathyamoorthy. This causes a lot of tensions and after digging up some old records they find that Tamizh's friend's father, Shanmugavel (Nasser) was formerly a circle inspector and his son Sathyamoorthy (Tamizh's friend, Sriman) is now a part of Tamizh's gang. Assuming him to be the mole, Ali Bhai kills Sathyamoorthy in front of his dad. However, it is then revealed that the person who died is not the son, but the foster son of Shamugavel, who was called Saravannan. It is then revealed that the actual son of the circle inspector, is none other than Tamizh. His father explains that Sathyamoorthy is a gold medalist IPS officer, who has been masquerading as a thug so that he can penetrate the underworld and wipe it out from the inside.There Ali Bhai kills the father hoping Sathyamoorthy will come looking for the father. Sathyamoorthy goes to seek revenge of his fathers death where Shruti tries to stop him. He leaves her in the Commissioners protection and goes to find them. The movie concludes with Sathyamoorthy avenging his father's death by finishing off Ali Bhai, his henchmen and the police inspector, Govindan. Production. After his film "Aathi" in January 2006, for nearly six months Vijay was listening to stories but none appealed he was supposed to do a Tamil version of Dharani's "Bangaram", until that film's failure made him look at other options. That's when he got to watch the Telugu `Pokkiri.' he felt that it would work. After difficulty in finding directors, Prabhudeva was selected as director directing his first film in Tamil after the flop of his Telugu film "Pournami". The movie was launched in 6 July 2006, Vijay's father SAC conducted special puja at the Sri Arunachaleswarar Temple in Tiruvannamalai. On Saturday night, which was the full moon day, which is an auspicious occasion for the presiding deity there, he spent a full hour before the Lord seeking his blessings. He also prayed at the Sacred Church at Velankanni. Ileana, heroine of the original was selected but due to her busy commitments in Telugu, Trisha was also selected but she withdrawn from the film, Asin was selected pairing with Vijay for second time after "Sivakasi". The first day of shoot for the film was held at the new Pillayar Kovil at AVM studios, with various dignitaries gracing the occasion. Vijay's mother Shobha Chandrasekhar gave the clap for the first shot. The first scene shot was with Asin and Vijay, the lead pair in the film, in an elevator that was specially designed for the film. Soundtrack. The soundtrack has 8 songs composed by Mani Sharma. Two of the songs from the original Telugu version were retained, and remade in Tamil. Release. Pokkiri was released in 2007 at the festival of Pongal, alongside Ajith's "Aalwar" and Vishal's "Thaamirabharani". The film collected 6.10 crore in Tamil Nadu in its first weekend from 142 screens. Critical Reception. Pokkiri opened to positive Reviews.Sify said that the film was "enjoyable while it lasts". Indiaglitz stated that Vijay stole the show with his "typical 'Vijayisms' (action, humor and punch dialogues)" and that the show was "action-packed entertainer". Behindwoods review felt that Vadivelu and Prakash Raj’s performances were lackluster, and stated that Raj " might do well to sit back and analyze the roles that he accepts," but concluded that the movie overall "packs a punch." Rediff.com gave the movie one and half stars, stating "there's nothing more tedious than a badly made remake." Nowrunning.com stated that "Pokiri' is attractively packaged and presented". Oneindia.in stated that "Pokiri' is a full length action movie of Vijay." Remakes. The original Telugu film "Pokiri", directed by Puri Jagannadh, was remade in several other languages and still found success in the respective regional cinemas. "Pokkiri" is the first remake. The second one was "Wanted", the Hindi version in 2009 which was also directed by Prabhu Deva, Like the two other versions, "Wanted" had Salman Khan and Ayesha Takia in the lead and has also Prakash Raj as the villain. After that, a Kannada version, "Porkhi", directed by M.D. Sridhar, was released in 14 January 2010. Below is an actor map of the lead actors in the story of "Pokiri" and its remakes.
582961	Biwi Ho To Aisi ("A wife should be like this") is a 1988 film, directed and written by J.K. Bihari. The music was scored by the duo of Laxmikant-Pyarelal. The story is a family drama that revolves around the lead pair played by Rekha and Farooq Shaikh who play a married couple. It's about how the character Shalu overcomes all obstacles in her married life to win over the acceptance of her domineering mother-in-law Kamla. The film marked the on-screen debut of actor Salman Khan. He played Farooq's younger brother Vicky. Plot. Suraj Bhandari (Farooq Shaikh) is the well-mannered and obedient son of Kailash and Kamla Bhandari. Theirs is an affluent upper-class family. The household is fiercely dominated by Kamla (Bindu) who wants her eldest son to marry a girl whose social status matches theirs. However, contrary to her wishes Suraj follows his heart and marries the not so rich, yet talented Village belle Shalu (Rekha) which infuriates Kamla to no end, and together with her comical, but scheming secretary (Asrani), vows to throw her out of the house with their shrewd and cunning tactics deployed against her. Meanwhile Shalu tries to be a dutiful daughter-in-law by trying to win the heart of Kamla. She has the full support and understanding of her father-in-law (the hen-pecked husband of Kamla) Kailash Bhandari (Kader Khan) who treats her like a daughter and her young brother-in-law Vicky (Salman Khan) who sometimes cannot bear the atrocities meted out at his sister-in-law and gets vocal in protests against his tyrant mother. After endless attempts of humiliation and personal attacks, Shalu hits back in her style and her true identity is revealed towards the climax. She shocks everyone with her diction and articulate speech in sharp contrast to her crude village belle identity. Her father Ashok Mehra (a family friend of the Bhandaris) reveals her true identity. Kamla learns that Shalu is the Oxford-educated daughter of Mehra, who in connivance with her husband (Kailash), had won her way into the family in a way to teach her a lesson in humility and humanity. Kailash gets vocal against his wife for the first time. Kamla realises and repents of her behaviour towards the family when they all decide to leave her and the house. Kamla sincerely apologises to all and happiness finally enters the Bhandari household.
1064812	Lynn Whitfield ("née" Butler-Smith; born May 6, 1953) is an American actress.
1063326	Jonathan Rhys Meyers (born Jonathan Michael Francis O'Keeffe; 27 July 1977) is an Irish actor and model. He is best known for his roles in the films "Velvet Goldmine", "Mission Impossible III", "Bend It Like Beckham", "Match Point" and his television roles as Elvis Presley in the biographical miniseries "Elvis", which earned him a Golden Globe for Best Actor, and as King Henry VIII in the historical drama "The Tudors". He has been the face of several advertising campaigns for Hugo Boss fragrances. In 2013, he portrayed Valentine Morgenstern in "", based on Cassandra Clare's best-selling novel, "City of Bones." Early life. He was born in Dublin, Ireland, the son of Mary Geraldine "Geri" (née Meyers) and musician John O'Keeffe. His family is Roman Catholic.
1052526	The Earrings of Madame de... (French title: Madame de...) is a 1953 drama film directed by Max Ophüls. It was adapted from Louise Leveque de Vilmorin's period novel by Ophüls, Marcel Archard and Annette Wadement. This film is considered as a masterpiece of the 1950s French cinema. Andrew Sarris once called it "the most perfect film ever made". Ophüls said that the story's construction attracted him to the project, stating "there is always the same axis around which the action continually turns like a carousel. A tiny, scarcely visible axis: a pair of earrings." The film was released in the UK as "Madame de..." and in the USA as "The Earrings of Madame de...". Plot. The film opens with the titular Madame, Louise (Danielle Darrieux), whose surname is never given. She is a spoiled woman married to a General, André (Charles Boyer), who has amassed considerable debts due to her lifestyle. To settle them, she chooses to sell her large diamond earrings, a wedding present from her husband. It is hinted that Louise and André's marriage is less than intimate, as they sleep in separate beds and the General is shown to have a mistress. Louise attempts to disguise the disappearance of the earrings by pretending to have lost them at the opera. The search for them eventually reaches the newspaper, suggesting they may have been stolen, which in turn prompts the jeweler who bought them to go to the General directly and offer to sell them back, which he accepts. Rather than confront his wife, the General decides to give the earrings to his mistress, who is leaving for Constantinople.
1035117	Lee Ingleby (born 28 January 1976) is a British film, television and stage actor. He is perhaps best known for his roles as Detective Sergeant John Bacchus in the BBC drama "Inspector George Gently" and as Stan Shunpike in "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban". He has also appeared as Sean O'Neill in Jimmy McGovern's "The Street", and a recurring role in the second series of "Early Doors" as Mel's boyfriend, Dean. Another prominent role was his part in the 2003 film "Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World", where he played a nervous Midshipman Hollom. In addition, he played a part in the final episode of Series One of "Life on Mars", playing Sam Tyler's father Vic, and made an appearance in "Spaced" in 2001. Early life. Ingleby was born in Burnley, Lancashire, and lived in nearby Brierfield during the early part of his life, attending Edge End High School, as did fellow actor John Simm. Both were taught by the same drama teacher who encouraged them into the professional theatre. He then studied at Accrington and Rossendale College before progressing to the drama school LAMDA in London. Career. His first major role was as the young lead in the 2000 BBC miniseries "Nature Boy", alongside Paul McGann. He played Smike in a 2001 television film version of "The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby". Also in 2001, he starred in and wrote the screenplay for the short film "Cracks in the Ceiling", which he appeared in with his father, Gordon Ingleby. In the 2002 theatrical release "Borstal Boy", based very loosely on the life of Irish poet-activist Brendan Behan, Ingleby played a bully in an English boarding school for juvenile offenders. He has also made one-off appearances in television programmes such as "Hustle", "Clocking Off", "No Angels", "Fat Friends", "Jonathan Creek", "Dalziel and Pascoe", "Cadfael (Pilgrim of Hate)" and "The Bill". He has had supporting roles in films such as Gustave in "Ever After" alongside Drew Barrymore and as Hollom in the 2003 Peter Weir film "". In 2004, he had a small role in the Orlando Bloom vehicle "Haven", which premiered at the Toronto Film Festival but was not commercially released until 2006, following heavy re-editing. He also guest-starred in the "Doctor Who" audio adventure, "Terror Firma". In 2006 he appeared in Jimmy McGovern BBC TV series "The Street" where he played abusive husband Sean O'Neill alongside Christine Bottomley. Another project was the 2006 television adaptation of "The Wind in the Willows", in which he played Mole. It also starred Bob Hoskins as Badger, Matt Lucas as Toad, and Mark Gatiss as Ratty, and has also appeared in a modernised BBC adaptation of "Rapunzel" for the "Fairy Tales" series. Ingleby headed the cast of the 2008 three-part television crime drama "Place of Execution" as DI George Bennett as he was in the 1960s determined to close the case of a missing girl. When not working in films and television, Ingleby remains active on the stage, where his credits include Puck in "Midsummer Night's Dream", Alexander in Nicholas Wright's "Cressida", and Katurian in Martin McDonagh's "The Pillowman." He performed in the play "Our Class" by Tadeusz Slobodzianek at the Cottesloe Theatre from September 2009 to January 2010 as Zygmunt. In 2011 he appeared in the television series "Being Human" as Edgar Wyndham, a menacing vampire elder, and also in "Luther" as serial killer Cameron Pell. In 2013 Ingleby took on the role of Phillip De Nicholay, the Sheriff of Nottingham, in a new audio production of the Robin Hood legend, produced by Spiteful Puppet. Released directly to the public as a digital download and on CD, this version, entitled "HOOD: NOBLE SECRETS" is a radical departure from the accepted tale with a significant twist on the role and character of the Sheriff, and tells the story of how the sheriff directly causes Robin Hood to come into existence when he seeks out the help of outlaws in Sherwood forest.
1063940	Sid Haig (born July 14, 1939) is an American actor. His roles have included acting in Jack Hill's blaxploitation films of the 1970s as well as his role as Captain Spaulding in Rob Zombie's horror films "House of 1000 Corpses" and "The Devil's Rejects". He has appeared in many television programs including "Batman", ', ', "Gunsmoke", "The Rockford Files", "Buck Rogers in the 25th Century", "Fantasy Island", "Sledge Hammer!", "The A-Team", "The Fall Guy" and "MacGyver". Early life. Haig was born Sidney Eddy Mosesian in Fresno, California, and was raised in an Armenian community. His father, Haig Mosesian, was an electrician. Haig's career began somewhat by accident. As a young man, his rapid growth interfered with his motor coordination, prompting him to take dancing lessons. At the age of seven years, he was a paid dancer in a children’s Christmas show, and later joined a vaudeville revival show. Haig also displayed musical talent particularly for the drums, prompting his parents to buy him a drum set, on which he mastered a wide range of music styles, including swing, country, jazz, blues and rock and roll. He found it easy to earn money with his music, and signed a recording contract one year out of high school. Haig went on to record the single "Full House" with the T-Birds in 1958 which shot to #4 on the charts. The Pasadena Playhouse. When Haig was in high school, the head of the drama department was Alice Merrill, who encouraged him to pursue an acting career. Merrill was a famous Broadway actress who maintained her contacts in the business. During his senior year, a play was produced in which Merrill double cast the show, to have one of her Hollywood friends assess the actors in order to select the final cast. The Hollywood contact who saw Haig perform was Dennis Morgan, a big musical comedy star from the 1940s, who chose Haig for a prominent role in the play. Two weeks later, he returned to see the show and advised Haig to continue his education in the San Fernando Valley and consider acting as a career. Two years later, Haig enrolled in the Pasadena Playhouse, the school that trained such noted actors as Robert Preston, Gene Hackman and Dustin Hoffman. He later moved to Hollywood with longtime friend and Pasadena Playhouse roommate Stuart Margolin. Acting career. Haig's first acting job was in Jack Hill's student film at UCLA titled "The Host", which launched Haig's more-than-four decade acting career in over fifty films and 350 television episodes. He became a staple in Hill's films, such as "Spider Baby", "Coffy" and "Foxy Brown". Haig was also a regular player for producer-director Roger Corman. He appeared in George Lucas' "THX 1138" and the 1971 James Bond film "Diamonds Are Forever". His television credits include appearances in such programs as "Batman", "Gunsmoke", "Get Smart," "" (at least eight appearances in eight different roles as a villain), "Charlie's Angels", "Jason of Star Command", "Buck Rogers in the 25th Century", "The Dukes of Hazzard", "Automan", "MacGyver" and "The A-Team" (in which he played a jailed motorcycle gang leader) and "Emergency!" (again as a motorcycle gang leader). Haig retired in 1992 on account of getting typecast: "I just didn’t want to play stupid heavies anymore. They just kept giving me the same parts but just putting different clothes on me. It was stupid, and I resented it, and I wouldn’t have anything to do with it". Haig did not work in acting for five years, in place training and becoming a certified Hypnotherapist. During this time, he was offered the role of Marsellus Wallace (later to be played by Ving Rhames) in "Pulp Fiction", Quentin Tarantino's second film. At the time, Haig was concerned that low budget television had been ruining his career and, at seeing the shooting script and the short number of days dedicated for each locale, he passed on the project. He has said that he always regretted this decision. Then, in 1997, Tarantino wrote the part of the judge in "Jackie Brown" specifically for Haig. In 2000, Haig starred in Rob Zombie's debut film "House of 1000 Corpses", as Captain Spaulding. The role revived Haig's acting career, earning him a "Best Supporting Actor" award in the thirteenth Annual Fangoria Chainsaw Awards, and induction into the Horror Hall of Fame. His image as Captain Spaulding has become iconic in today's horror genre. Haig reprised his role as Spaulding in Zombie’s sequel to "House of 1000 Corpses", entitled "The Devil's Rejects". For this film, he received the award for "Best Actor" in the 15th Annual Fangoria Chainsaw Awards, as well as sharing the award for "Most Vile Villain" at the First Annual Spike TV Scream Awards with Leslie Easterbrook, Sheri Moon and Bill Moseley as The Firefly Family. He was also nominated as "Best Butcher" in the Fuse/Fangoria Chainsaw Awards, but lost to Tobin Bell's Jigsaw from "Saw II". Recently, Haig reunited with Rob Zombie once again, albeit briefly, in the director's "Halloween" remake, in the role of cemetery caretaker Chester Chesterfield. Sid Haig also reprised the role of Captain Spaulding in Rob Zombie's animated film "The Haunted World of El Superbeasto". Haig most recently starred in the independent horror film "Blood is Blood", which was shot in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
1039986	Sheila Cameron Hancock, CBE (born 22 February 1933) is an English actress and author. Early life. Sheila Hancock was born in Blackgang on the Isle of Wight, the daughter of Ivy Louise (née Woodward) and Enrico Cameron Hancock, who was a publican. Her sister Billie is nine years older (and worked as a variety artist until retiring to Antibes in 2003 at the age of 79). After wartime evacuation, Hancock attended Dartford County Grammar School and the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. Theatre. She worked in repertory during the 1950s and made her West End debut in 1958, replacing Joan Sims in the play "Breath of Spring". She then appeared in Joan Littlewood's Theatre Workshop production of "Make Me An Offer" in 1959, and her other early West End appearances included the revue "One Over the Eight" with Kenneth Williams in 1961, and starring in "Rattle of a Simple Man" in 1962. In 1965, she made her Broadway debut in "Entertaining Mr Sloane". In 1978, she played Miss Hannigan in the original London cast of the musical "Annie" and two years later, she played Mrs Lovett in the original London production of the musical "Sweeney Todd".
1015901	Election 2 (literal title: "Black Society: Harmony is a Virtue"), also known as Triad Election in the United States, is a 2006 Category III Hong Kong crime film directed by Johnnie To with a large ensemble cast that includes Louis Koo, Simon Yam and Nick Cheung. A sequel to the 2005 film "Election", the film concludes the events of the first film centering on Lok (Yam), who this time struggles to keep his title as triad boss as a triad re-election draws near, while Jimmy (Koo) attempts to retire as a triad to become a legitimate businessman. This film enjoyed box office success in Hong Kong and being shown as an "Official Selection" at the 2006 Cannes Film Festival; afterwards, this film became a popular hit on the international film festival circuit. Plot. Lok is now holding his position as triad chairman of the Wo Shing society unthreatened in Hong Kong. As his two-year term expires, a new chairman election nears, but Lok contemplates breaking tradition, attempting to seek re-election. At the same time, Jimmy is trying to escape Wo Shing by building a legitimate business empire in mainland China. When he is arrested in an illegal financial trade with a government official for the building of a new logisitics center and highway, the section chief of the National Security Bureau forbids him to re-enter the mainland to do business, unless he becomes Wo Shing's next chairman. Reluctant, but forced to accept the reality he can never truly exit the triad, Jimmy enters into the election nomination, with Jet and Kun also seeking the chairman position. Lok first negotiates with Kun, claiming Wo Shing's "Uncles" will support Kun, so long as they team up for a joint election bid. Kun then kidnaps and places Jimmy's financial supporter Mr Kwok in a coffin alive with Big Head, so as to eliminate the competition. Lok also asks Jet to asssassinate Jimmy, also claiming the "Uncles" will support Jet. Unfortunately, Jet does not complete the assassination, following Jimmy warning the youth Lok will most likely have him and Kun killed, once Jimmy is dead. Mr So, having been similarly arrested in the mainland for an illegal gambling ring, allies with Jimmy to see to his election as chairman. Meanwhile, Lok hides the Dragon Head Baton, the symbol of Wo Shing's leadership, in mainland China, hoping to reassert his power, then outright kills "Uncle" Teng Wai, after Teng blasts Lok for breaking Wo Shing tradition. Seeing the corruption and civil war escalating in the society, Jimmy kidnaps Lok's lieutenants and bribes them to work for him. After exposing Kun for kidnapping Mr. Kwok and Big Head, while ordering Lok's lieutenants to murder the chairman, Jimmy's nomination is successful, and he wins the election. Back in mainland China, the section chief congratulates Jimmy for winning and hands the Dragon Head Baton Lok hid. However, the Security Bureau is tired of seeing the baton entering the mainland for years and having to re-deliver it back to Wo Shing. In the hopes this will not happen again, the section chief orders Jimmy to become Wo Shing's chairman "permanently", establishing the society as a family enterprise. The furious Jimmy cannot believe these turn of events, hoping once his two-year term as chairman expires, he can finally go "clean". Upon visiting his wife, whom he sent into hiding during the election for her safety, she announces her pregnancy. Jimmy embraces her hiding both fear and horror at the prospect of his son being trapped in a life he wants no part of. Reception. Festivals. The film first appeared at the 2006 Hong Kong International Film Festival. "Election 2" was also shown in "Out of Competition" (midnight screenings) section at the 2006 Cannes Film Festival, where the movie was very well received by international critics. Afterward, "Election 2" became a popular hit on the international film festival circuit. Worldwide distribution. "Election 2" was sold to more than 21 territories, including Tartan Films for the United States, Optimum Releasing for the United Kingdom, ARP Selection for France, A-Film Distribution for Netherlands, Ripley's Film for Italy, Avalon Productions for Spain, NonStop Entertainment for Scandinavia, Maywin Media for Russia, Fine Films for Japan, Hopscotch Films for Australia, California Filmes in Brazil and 791cine for Argentina.
1165469	Robert Leroy "Bobby" Diamond (born August 23, 1943) is an attorney in his native Los Angeles, California, who was a child star and young-adult actor in the 1950s through the early 1970s. He is best remembered after more than a half-century for his role as Joey Clark Newton in the television series "Fury", a western which ran on NBC from October 15, 1955 through March 19, 1960. He was listed as Robert Diamond in the cast credits during the first season in 1955. Early life. Diamond was spotted in Los Angeles in 1955 by a talent scout and was subsequently cast on "Fury". Fury. Diamond's character, Joey, had run afoul of the law, befriended a handsome wild black stallion, and lived on the Broken Wheel Ranch in California with his widowed and adopted father, Jim Newton, portrayed by Peter Graves, later known for his role on "". Newton's wife and son had been killed by a drunk driver.
1049002	Pell James (born April 30, 1977) is an American actress. Life and career. James grew up in Virginia with three sisters. In the early 2000s, she worked on the hit television series "Law & Order" and "". In 2005, she briefly appeared in the Jim Jarmusch film "Broken Flowers" and earned her first starring role for the film "The King". In 2007, she had a memorable scene in David Fincher's "Zodiac" as Zodiac Killer victim Cecelia Shepard.
1057731	Charles Butters (May 10, 1914 – July 30, 1980), best known by his stage name Charles McGraw, was an American actor, who made his first film in 1942, albeit in a small, uncredited role. He was born in Des Moines, Iowa. Career. McGraw developed into a leading man, especially in the film noir genre during the late 1940s and early 1950s. His gravelly voice and rugged looks enhanced his appeal in that very stylistic genre, and provided him many roles as cop ("The Narrow Margin" (1952), "Armored Car Robbery" (1950)) or gunman ("The Killers"). Introduced with fellow "heavy" William Conrad as the two hitmen terrorizing a small-town diner in the start of "The Killers" (1946), McGraw had notable roles in the 1950s, such as "Honest Joe", the insurance investigator turned thief by love in the "noir" classic "Roadblock" (1951); the gruff detective assigned to protect Marie Windsor in "The Narrow Margin"; Kirk Douglas' gladiator trainer in the epic "Spartacus"; righteous cop Lt. Jim Cordell in "Armored Car Robbery"; and "The Preacher" in the science-fiction cult classic "A Boy and His Dog" (1975). McGraw is recognized with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, located at 6927 Hollywood Blvd., Hollywood, Los Angeles, California. Television. McGraw starred as Mike Waring, the title character, in the 39-episode 1954-55 syndicated television series "Adventures of the Falcon.", He also starred in the television version of "Casablanca" (1955), taking r Humphrey Bogart's role as Rick Blaine. He later played various one-shot roles in television episodes such as the gruff and menacing sheriff in "The Gamble," an installment of the NBC western series "Bonanza". In 1960, McGraw played United States Army scout Tom Barrows in the episode "The Scout" on the ABC/Desilu western television series, "The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp", starring Hugh O'Brian. Though he has an Apache wife, Barrows is known for his attacks on Apache warriors. He is called "The Listener" because he cuts off and wears the ears of the Indians he has killed. The Indians retaliate by killing Barrows' wife. McGraw biography. In late 2007 Alan K. Rode wrote a biography of McGraw: "Charles McGraw: Biography of a Film Noir Tough Guy." The book provides a behind-the-scenes look and anecdotes about his life, including: his long marriage to a Eurasian woman, his World War II military service, his film career, and the story of his death. Death. Charles McGraw died, aged 66, after slipping and falling through a glass shower door in his Studio City, California home in 1980.
695669	Noor (Punjabi, ; born July 3, 1978) is a Pakistani actress and model. She has appeared in Urdu and Punjabi Lollywood films and several television commercials. Personal life. Noor married her first husband while in Dubai in early 2008. In April of that year, she moved back to Lahore and filed for divorce shortly afterwards. A famous fight between her ex-husband and Nadia Khan was aired on Geo TV. Noor married director/producer Farooq Mengal in June 2010. The couple separated four months later. Noor's father, Sheeraz Bukhari, accused Mengal of inflicting harm on his daughter. Noor demanded a divorce. She has re-married and is the stepmother to her husband's two sons from a previous marriage.
1055614	The Science of Sleep (French: , literally "The Science of Dreams") is a 2006 surrealistic science fantasy comedy film written and directed by Michel Gondry. The film stars Gael García Bernal, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Miou-Miou, and Alain Chabat. The film is stemmed from a bed-time story that was written by the then 10-year-old Sam Mounier. Plot. Stéphane Miroux is a man whose vivid dreams and imagination often interfere with his ability to interact with reality. He is coaxed back to his childhood home after his divorced father passes away and his mother, Christine, finds him a job in a calendar printing company in France. His mother implies the position is a creative role, and he prepares colourful drawings, each showing a disaster, for his "disasterology" calendar. However, nobody appreciates his talents and it transpires that his mother had led him on - the real vacancy is for nothing more than mundane typesetting work. While leaving his apartment to go to work one day, Stéphane injures his hand helping his new neighbor move a piano into her apartment. The new neighbor, Stéphanie, invites Stéphane into her apartment (unaware that he lives next door) where her friend Zoé tends to his wound. Stéphane initially forms an attraction to Zoé, though he suspects it is instead Stéphanie who likes him. Stéphane realizes that Stéphanie, like him, is creative and artistic. They plan a project for use in a short animated film. Following the advice of Guy, Stéphane's sex-obsessed co-worker, Stéphane pretends that he isn't Stéphanie's neighbor, pretending to leave the building when he leaves her apartment. That night, when he is sleepwalking he writes a confusing note to Stéphanie that asks for Zoé's phone number. Stéphane realizes his mistake upon waking and retrieves the letter with a coat hanger, unaware that Stéphanie has already read it. Surrealistic and naturalistic elements begin to overlap, and the viewer is often uncertain of which portions constitute reality and which are merely dreams. One such sequence, in which Stéphane dreams his hands become absurdly giant, was inspired by a recurring nightmare director Michel Gondry had as a child. As this line gradually becomes more blurred, Stéphane becomes more enamoured with Stéphanie the more he spends time with her and shares his many inventions with her, such as the "one-second time machine," a device that can go either forward or backward in time by only one second. Stéphane's dreams encroach on his waking life as he tries to win Stéphanie's heart and misses time at work. He breaks into her apartment, taking her stuffed toy horse, and implants a mechanism inside of it that will make it gallop. While putting it back into her apartment, Stéphanie arrives and catches him, demanding he leaves and becoming more upset with him. Embarrassed and heartbroken, Stéphane retreats to his own apartment where he receives a call from Stéphanie, who apologizes and thanks him for the gift she discovers: a galloping version of "Golden the Pony Boy," who she reveals was named after Stéphane. As the months go by, waking and dreaming become even more intermixed. To Stéphane's surprise, the calendar manufacturer accepts his "Disastrology" idea and it becomes a great success. A party is thrown in his honour, but he becomes depressed and begins drinking excessively after he witnesses Stéphanie dancing flirtatiously with another man. The next day, Stéphane and Stéphanie have a confrontation in their hallway when Stéphane announces that he doesn't want to be Stéphanie's friend any longer. Stéphanie becomes very upset, offering Zoé's phone number and reciting Stéphane's note. Stéphane, still unaware that Stéphanie has read the note, assumes that they are connected through "Parallel Synchronized Randomness", a rare phenomenon he has examined in his dreams. Stéphanie offers that they discuss their issues on a date, but on Stéphane's walk to the café to meet her, he has a frightful vision that she isn't there and she doesn't love him after all. He runs back to her apartment and bangs on her door, demanding that she stop torturing him; in actuality, she is indeed waiting for him at the café. Stéphane runs at her door, attempting to break it down, but winds up bashing his head and collapsing in the hall, where his mother eventually finds him bleeding. Tired of waiting, Stéphanie returns home while Stéphane, coaxed by his mother and her friend, decides to move back to Mexico. Before leaving, Stéphane's mother insists that he say goodbye to Stéphanie. In his attempt to do so, he becomes extremely crass, making sexual and offensive jokes to her, and accusing her of never being able to finish something she starts. However, he reveals that he is truly interested in her because she's different from other people. As his antagonistic behavior pushes her to her breaking point, Stéphanie asks Stéphane to leave but he instead climbs into her bed and yells at her, before spotting two items on her bedside: his one-second time machine, and the finished boat they had planned to use in their animated film. Stéphane falls asleep in Stéphanie's bed. As she checks on him to see why he has become so quiet, she gently strokes his hair. The film closes with Stéphane and Stéphanie riding Golden the Pony Boy across a field before sailing off into the ocean's horizon in her white boat. Reception. The film received generally favorable reviews and currently holds a 70% on review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes. Soundtrack. The score to "The Science of Sleep" was composed by Jean-Michel Bernard. The song "Instinct Blues" by The White Stripes is featured in the film but was not included on the soundtrack release. The sequence where a band of people, dressed as cats, play the song "If You Rescue Me", parodies the song "After Hours" by the Velvet Underground.
1043489	The Sound Barrier is a British 1952 film directed by David Lean. It is a fictional story about attempts by aircraft designers and test pilots to break the sound barrier. In the U.S. it was retitled Breaking the Sound Barrier. David Lean's third and final film with his wife Ann Todd was also his first for Alexander Korda's London Films, following the break-up of Cineguild. "The Sound Barrier" was a great box-office success, but it is now rarely seen (recently it has been released in both VHS and DVD home versions) and has become one of the least-known of Lean's films. It is also Lean's only venture into this type of genre. Plot. The plot involves John Ridgefield (Ralph Richardson), a wealthy owner of an aircraft company. Nigel Patrick plays test pilot Tony Garthwaite, a successful fighter pilot during the Second World War who is employed by Ridgefield after marrying Susan (Ann Todd), Ridgefield's daughter. Tensions between father and daughter are accentuated by Garthwaite's dangerous job of test flying. The film explores the company's hopes for a new jet fighter, the "Prometheus" and the problems faced by the then-new jet aircraft in encountering the speed of sound, the so-called "sound barrier." In an attempt to break the sound barrier, Garthwaite crashes and is killed. Shocked at the death of her husband and her father's single-minded and heartless approach to the dangers his test pilots face, Susan walks out on her father and goes to live with Jess (Dinah Sheridan), the wife of Philip Peel (John Justin), another company test pilot. Ridgefield approaches Peel with the challenge of piloting his test aircraft. At the critical moment, Peel reverses his flight controls, allowing his plane to break the sound barrier. Accepting that her father cared about those whose lives were lost in tests, Susan changes her plan of moving to London and takes her young son with her back to home and Sir John. Cast. As appearing in screen credits (main roles identified): Production. The strong relationship to aviation history in "The Sound Barrier" has led to its being characterised as a "semi-documentary." The screenplay by playwright Terence Rattigan was loosely based on newspaper articles of the time, and bases some of its plotline on the real-life story of aircraft designer Geoffrey de Havilland and the loss of his son (Geoffrey de Havilland, Jr.), the de Havilland company's test pilot who died attempting to fly faster than sound in the DH 108. Contrary to what is depicted in the film, the first aircraft to break the sound barrier was the Bell X-1 flown by Chuck Yeager of the United States Air Force in 1947. However, the Bell X-1 was only able to achieve this thanks to an essential British contribution when the Air Ministry signed an agreement with the United States to exchange high-speed research and data. Miles M.52 Chief Aerodynamicist Dennis Bancroft stated that the Bell Aircraft company was given access to the drawings and research on the M.52, but the U.S. reneged on the agreement and no data was forthcoming in return. As described in his first biography, the film was entertaining, but not that realistic – and any pilot who attempted to break the sound barrier in the manner portrayed in the movie would have been killed. Control reversal, though accurate enough in this context, is not a legitimate aerodynamic technique: it is actually the result of insufficient tailplane stiffness, the elevators acting as though they were trim tabs twisting the tailplane to produce an aerodynamic effect opposite to that intended. Nevertheless, because the 1947 flight had not been widely publicized, many who had seen the film thought it a true story in which the first supersonic flight is made by British pilots. Subsequently although it wasn't British pilots that first broke the barrier it was British technology that allowed Yeager and the Bell X-1 to pass safely through the sound barrier. Footage of early 1950s jet technology in Great Britain includes scenes of the de Havilland Comet airliner, the world's first jet passenger airliner. At the time the film was made, jet travel was being made available to the public for the first time in the form of the de Havilland Comet. In the film Tony Garthwaite (Patrick) flies Susan (Todd) from England to Egypt in a two-seater de Havilland Vampire, returning later the same day, a graphic illustration of the possibilities of the new jet technology. The "Prometheus" jet aircraft that appears in the film was one of the prototypes of the Supermarine Swift ("VV119"), itself a particularly troublesome aircraft design. Reception. The film was the 12th most popular movie at the British box office in 1952. and also did well in the US, making a comfortable profit. Awards. Academy Awards. With this film, Ralph Richardson became the first actor to win the New York Film Critics Award for Best Actor who did not also go on to win an Oscar nomination.
1265318	Clifford Clive Hardman Brook (1 June 1887 – 17 November 1974) was a British film actor. After making his first screen appearance in 1920, Brook emerged as a leading British actor in the early 1920s. After moving to the United States, Brook became one of the major stars for Paramount Pictures in the late silent era. During 1928-29 Brook successfully made the transition to sound and continued to feature in many of Hollywood's most prestigious films, including a number of literary adaptations. In the mid-1930s he returned to Britain, where he appeared regularly in leading film roles for a further decade. Early life. Brook was born and died in London. Brook was tall and had brown hair with grey eyes. He was the son of an opera singer, a published writer and a violinist. He was educated at Dulwich College and served as an officer in the Artists' Rifles in the First World War. He first appeared on stage in 1918 and also in films from 1919. He worked first in British films then in Hollywood. Hollywood. One of his best remembered appearances was playing opposite Marlene Dietrich in "Shanghai Express" (1932). He played Sherlock Holmes three times: "The Return of Sherlock Holmes" and "Sherlock Holmes" (in that order), and as part of an anthology film, "Paramount on Parade" (1930). In 1934 he was voted one of the most popular stars at the British box office. Return to Britain. In 1943, he adapted the comedy "On Approval" by Frederick Lonsdale and wrote, produced, directed and starred in the film with Beatrice Lillie, Googie Withers, and Roland Culver. The costumes were by Cecil Beaton. In 1949 he presented the radio series "The Secrets of Scotland Yard". In 1956 he appeared on stage in "One Bright Day" at the Apollo Theatre in London. Family. Brook married Mildred Evelyn, and their daughter, Faith Brook was an actor as was their late son, Lyndon Brook.
1161130	Ian Anthony Dale (born July 3, 1978) is an American actor. Life and career. Born in Saint Paul, Minnesota, he attended college in Madison, Wisconsin. He is of Japanese, French and English descent. Dale previously portrayed Simon Lee on "The Event", and was previously known for playing Davis Lee on "Surface" and his recurring role on "Charmed" as Avatar Gamma. He has also appeared on shows such as "Las Vegas", "JAG", "Day Break", "", "Criminal Minds", in 2007 he appeared in "24" as the minor character Zhou and is well known for playing Kazuya Mishima in "Tekken". Movies. In 2004, Dale appeared in the film "Mr. 3000" as "Fukuda", alongside Bernie Mac, Angela Bassett and Chris Noth. His next movie role was in 2007's "The Bucket List" as an instructor to Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman's characters in one of the scenes. He followed that up with a minor part in "The Hangover" in 2009, and did the independent film "Lollipops" in the same year. In 2010, he starred in the "Tekken" movie as Kazuya Mishima and in "Flying Lessons". That same year, Dale portrayed Scorpion in the short film of ' on YouTube. The film paved way for a web series, ', in which Dale reprised his role. He reprise his role in the second season. TV series. Dale had his first television break on a 2002 episode of "Fastlane". Since then he has appeared in episodes of "Angel", "JAG", "Las Vegas", "Charmed", "24", "", "Criminal Minds", "Dollhouse" and "Cold Case". Major television roles have included recurring character Davis Lee on "Surface", and Detective Christopher Choi on "Day Break". Both series were only broadcast for one season and did not return for a second. Dale was a series regular in the NBC drama series "The Event", which premiered in Fall 2010. The series has since been cancelled. His most recent recurring role is on "Hawaii Five-0" as Adam Noshimuri.
1068813	King of California is a 2007 American comedy-drama film written and directed by Mike Cahill. It is his debut as a screenwriter and director. The film premiered on January 24, 2007 at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival and opened in limited release in North America on September 14, 2007. The film stars Michael Douglas as a mentally ill man who believes he has discovered buried treasure and Evan Rachel Wood as his weary daughter. Plot. 16-year-old Miranda has been abandoned by her mother, and has dropped out of school. She is supporting herself as an employee at McDonalds while her father, Charlie, resides in a mental institution. When Charlie is released and sent back to their home, Miranda finds the relatively peaceful existence she's built for herself completely disrupted. Charlie has become obsessed with the notion that the long-lost treasure of Spanish explorer Father Juan Florismarte Torres is buried somewhere near their suburban California house in the Santa Clarita Valley. Armed with a metal detector and a stack of treasure-hunting books, Charlie soon finds reason to believe that the gold resides underneath the local Costco, and encourages Miranda to get a job there so that they can plan a way to excavate after hours. Initially skeptical, Miranda soon finds herself joining in Charlie's questionable antics in an effort to give him one last shot at accomplishing his dreams. After becoming involved with some swingers, Miranda then helps Charlie break into the Costco. Once inside the Costco they drill through the floor and then into an underground river. Charlie steals some scuba diving equipment, dives into the river, and then finds the gold. He retrieves much of it but tragically does not return from his last dive, where he pursues further and finds the missing explorer. Charlie left Miranda a tag and told her not to lose it. The next day, she visits Costco and finds the product the tag belongs to, a dishwasher. Miranda buys the dishwasher, takes it to the beach, and opens it. When Miranda opens the dishwasher she is seen bathed in a golden glow and a slow smile spreads across her face, a strong indication that Charlie has cached the gold inside the dishwasher, although the gold is never actually shown to the viewer. Production. Director-screenwriter Mike Cahill had written a draft of the script in the mid-1980s but was not pleased with it and put it away, focusing instead on writing novels. He turned down one offer to finance the film's production because he refused to shoot it in Albuquerque. According to Michael Douglas, "King of California" was filmed in only 31 days. Mike Cahill said Douglas became interested in the project simply by virtue of having been sent the script. Co-star Evan Rachel Wood remarked that Douglas frequently made the cast and crew roll over laughing at film sessions – so much so that entire scenes had to be reshot. Charlie uses a Discwasher to clean his vinyl jazz LP. Critical reception. As of January 6, 2008 on the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, 64% of critics gave the film positive reviews, based on 58 reviews. On Metacritic, the film had an average score of 63 out of 100, based on 22 reviews. "New York Times" film critic Stephen Holden described "King of California" as "a sequel of sorts" to "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" (1975), noting the similarity between the characters of Charlie and Randle McMurphy (played by Jack Nicholson) in the two films. Praising Michael Douglas' acting as "his strongest screen performance since "Wonder Boys"," Holden concludes that "King of California" "is really a Don Quixote-like fable about nonconformity and pursuing your impossible dream to the very end." Ted Fry of "The Seattle Times" also extolled Michael Douglas' acting as "one of his stronger performances." Fry summed up his review calling "King of California" "a strong effort by first time writer/director Mike Cahill that will keep you bemused for its idiosyncratic voice." Home media. "King of California" was released on DVD in the U.K. in early June 2008.
1166669	Vanessa A. Williams (born May 12, 1963) is an American actress who has appeared in numerous television series. She is best known for her roles as Rhonda Blair in "Melrose Place" and as Maxine Chadway on the Showtime cable television series "Soul Food". In 1996, she was also a series regular in the television series "Murder One". Though not related, she is sometimes confused with singer-actress (and former Miss America winner) Vanessa L. Williams. Biography. Williams was born in New York City. In an ABC News interview, she stated that her background is from a family of slaves from Georgia and Virginia. In 1993, she met Andre Wiseman and they began dating, then married in Stuyvesant, New York. They have two children together, sons Omar Tafari Wiseman and Haile Zion Ali Wiseman. Williams is now married to her former "Melrose Place" (1992) co-star John Marshall Jones, who is stepfather to her two sons from her marriage to Andre Wiseman. Williams and Jones have a child together: John Marshall Jones Jr.
1068686	The New Adventures of Pippi Longstocking is a 1988 American fantasy–adventure–musical film written and directed by Ken Annakin (1914-2009) based on the books of the fictional character "Pippi Longstocking", created by Swedish children's book author Astrid Lindgren (1907–2002). While the title suggests the movie is a continuation, it is in fact a remake of the original story. The movie was filmed in Fernandina Beach on Amelia Island and at soundstages in Jacksonville, Florida. It was released in movie theaters worldwide in 13 languages by Columbia Pictures. Plot. After her father's ship 'Hoptoad' is carried off by a sudden storm, the spunky Pippi Longstocking (Tami Erin) is stranded with her horse, Alfonso, and her pet monkey, Mr. Nielson, and takes up residence in the old family home, "Villa Villekulla", which is thought by neighborhood children to be haunted. Soon, two children, Tommy (David Seaman Jr.) and his sister Annika (Cory Crow), venture into the house only to meet up with Pippi. The three soon become friends and get into various adventures together, including cleaning the floor with scrubbing shoes, dodging the "splunks", going down a river in barrels, running away in a homemade autogyro, keeping the house from being demolished by crooks, and helping Pippi with the problem of having to go to an orphanage. Pippi eventually chooses to go after she and Tommy and Annika almost fall down a waterfall, and their parents refuse to let her play with them anymore. Pippi does not fit in with the other children and misses her parents. That night, however, she saves the orphanage from a fire and becomes the town heroine. Pippi decides that the orphanage is not for her and is allowed to return to Villa Villekulla and befriend Tommy and Annika once more. She is reunited with her father on Christmas Day and he offers her the chance to become a cannibal princess, since he was washed ashore of an uncharted island where he was crowned king. At the last minute Pippi decides to stay because she cannot leave Tommy and Annika. Soundtrack. Atlantic Records issued the film's motion picture soundtrack upon its release, in both LP and CD formats (LP: 91016-1, CD: 91016-2). It was also issued in Japan by Polydor Records (CD: P32P-20156). The Atlantic LP & CD had 22 tracks, with the score by Misha Segal, and all of the songs. The soundtrack is out of print, and hard to find. Reception. "The New Adventures of Pippi Longstocking" received generally negative reviews from film critics and received two Razzie Award nominations for Worst New Star and Worst Supporting Actress to Tami Erin and Eileen Brennan, respectively. Home entertainment release. "The New Adventures of Pippi Longstocking"' was released worldwide on DVD in 2000 and re-released as a double feature with the movie "Matilda" starring real-life spouses Danny DeVito and Rhea Perlman in 2007.
1044823	Patricia Paz Maria Medina (19 July 1919 – 28 April 2012) was an English actress. Her father (Ramón Medina Nebot was from the Canary Islands) was Spanish and her mother was English. Born in Liverpool, Lancashire, Medina began acting as a teenager in the late 1930s. She worked her way up to leading roles in the mid-1940s, whereupon she left her native land for Hollywood. Career. In 1950's "Fortunes of Captain Blood", she teamed with British actor, Louis Hayward. She and Hayward subsequently appeared together in 1951's "The Lady and the Bandit", "Lady in the Iron Mask" and "Captain Pirate" from 1952. Darkly beautiful, Medina was often typecast in period melodramas such as "The Black Knight". Two of her more notable films were William Witney's "Stranger at My Door" and Orson Welles' "Mr. Arkadin", based on episodes of the radio series "The Adventures of Harry Lime", itself derived from "The Third Man" film. Although prolific during the early 1950s, her film career faded away by the end of the decade. In 1958, she performed in four episodes as Margarita Cortazar on Walt Disney's ABC series, "Zorro". In 1958, she also appeared as "The Lady" Diana Coulter in Richard Boone's CBS western series, "Have Gun, Will Travel". She was then cast in an episode of Darren McGavin's NBC western series, "Riverboat". In 1960, she was cast as different characters in two episodes ("Fair Game" and "The Earl of Durango") of the ABC western series, "The Rebel". Medina also made television appearances on "Perry Mason" ("The Case of the Lucky Loser", 27 September 1958); "Bonanza" ("The Spanish Grant", 6 February 1960) and "The Alfred Hitchcock Hour" ("See the Monkey Dance", 9 November 1964).
1064086	Dylan Baker (born October 7, 1959) is an American actor, known for playing supporting roles in both major studio and independent films along with regular work in television and on stage. Early life and education. Baker was born in Syracuse, New York, but was raised in Lynchburg, Virginia. He began his career as a teenager in regional theater productions. He attended Holy Cross Regional Catholic School and then went on to attend Darlington School and finally graduated from the Georgetown Preparatory School in 1976. Baker attended the College of William and Mary in Virginia and later graduated from Southern Methodist University in 1980. Baker then received a Masters in Fine Arts from the Yale School of Drama, where he studied alongside Chris Noth and Patricia Clarkson. Career. Baker's Broadway theatre credits include "Eastern Standard", "La Bête", "Mauritius", and "God of Carnage". He won an Obie Award in 1986 for his performance in the off-Broadway play "Not About Heroes". The next year, he made his motion picture debut in the 1987 film "Planes, Trains and Automobiles". Baker's first recurring TV role was on Steven Bochco's highly acclaimed "Murder One". Since then, he has appeared in such TV series as "Northern Exposure", "Law & Order", ', "Without a Trace", ', "The West Wing", and the short-lived sitcom "The Pitts".
1101122	Laurent-Moïse Schwartz (5 March 1915 – 4 July 2002) was a French mathematician. He pioneered the theory of distributions, which gives a well-defined meaning to objects such as the Dirac delta function. He was awarded the Fields medal in 1950 for his work. For a long time he taught at the École polytechnique. Apart from his scientific work, he was a well-known outspoken intellectual. Biography. Family. Laurent Schwartz came from a Jewish family of Alsatian origin, with a strong scientific background: his father was a well-known surgeon, his uncle Robert Debré (who contributed to the creation of UNICEF) was a famous pediatrician, and his great-uncle-in-law, Jacques Hadamard, was a famous mathematician. During his training at Lycée Louis-le-Grand to enter the École Normale Supérieure, he fell in love with Marie-Hélène Lévy, daughter of the probabilist Paul Lévy who was then teaching at the École polytechnique. Later they would have two children, Marc-André and Claudine. Marie-Hélène was gifted in mathematics as well, as she contributed to the geometry of singular analytic spaces and taught at the University of Lille. Laurent's mother transmitted her interest in natural sciences, especially entomology. Laurent collected more than 20,000 Lepidoptera (now housed in the Muséum national d'histoire naturelle and other museums). He even discovered several new species, now named after him. Schwartz was a distant relative of oncologist Laurent Henri Schwartz. Education. According to his teachers, Schwartz was an exceptional student. He was particularly gifted in Latin, Greek and mathematics. One of his teachers told his parents: "Beware, some will say your son has a gift for languages, but he is only interested in the scientific and mathematical aspect of languages: he should become a mathematician." In 1934, he was admitted at the École Normale Supérieure, and in 1937 he obtained the agrégation (with rank 2). World War II. As a man of Trotskyist affinities and Jewish descent, life was difficult for Schwartz during World War II. He had to hide and change his identity to avoid being deported after Nazi Germany overran France. He worked for the University of Strasbourg (which had been relocated in Clermont-Ferrand because of the war) under the name of Laurent-Marie Sélimartin, while Marie-Hélène used the name Lengé instead of Lévy. Contrary to other mathematicians at Clermont-Ferrand such as Feldbau, the couple managed to escape the Nazis. Later career. Schwartz taught mainly at École Polytechnique, from 1958 to 1980. At the end of the war, he spent one year in Grenoble (1944), then in 1945 joined the University of Nancy on the advice of Jean Delsarte and Jean Dieudonné, where he spent seven years. He was both an influential researcher and teacher, with students such as Bernard Malgrange, Jacques-Louis Lions, François Bruhat and Alexander Grothendieck. He joined the science faculty of the University of Paris in 1952. In 1958 he became a teacher at the École polytechnique after having at first rejected this position. However, from 1961 to 1963 the École polytechnique refused him the right to teach, because of his having signed the Manifesto of the 121 about the Algerian war, a gesture not appreciated by Polytechnique's military administration. However, Schwartz had a lasting influence on mathematics at the École polytechnique, having reorganized both teaching and research there. In 1973 he was elected corresponding member of the French Academy of Sciences, and was promoted to full membership in 1975. Mathematical legacy. In 1950, Schwartz was awarded the Fields medal for his work on distributions. He was the first French mathematician to receive the Fields medal. Because of his sympathy for Trotskyism, Schwartz encountered serious problems trying to enter the United States to receive the medal; however, he was ultimately successful.
1039360	Jaime Margaret Winstone (born 6 May 1985) is an English actress, known for playing Becky in the film "Kidulthood", and playing Kelly in the E4 horror series "Dead Set". Biography. Early life. Winstone was born in Camden, North London. She is the daughter of actor Ray Winstone and his wife Elaine McCausland. She has two sisters, Lois (born 1982), the eldest, who is a singer and sometime actress, and a younger sister, Ellie (born 2001). She grew up in Enfield, North London, where she occasionally attended Enfield County School, a local state school. Her family later moved to Roydon, Essex where she attended Burnt Mill School in Harlow, Essex before going on to study for a Btec National Diploma in Performing Arts at the performing arts department of Harlow College, Essex. She studied briefly at drama school, before dropping out to pursue her acting career in movies such as Anuvahood and Kidulthood. Film career. Winstone's credits include the films "Bullet Boy" (2004), "Daddy's Girl", "Kidulthood" (both 2006) and "Donkey Punch" (2008), the television series "M.I.T.:Murder Investigation Team", "Vincent" (alongside her father), "Totally Frank", "Goldplated" and "Dead Set" and a short film called "Love Letters". She was cast in a BBC pilot "Phoo Action", but a planned series was cancelled just as filming was about to start. Winstone sings backing vocals for her sister Lois' band. As an actress she has appeared in the music video for The Streets' single "When You Wasn't Famous", The Twang's single "Two Lovers", and Hercules and Love Affair's single "Blind". In April 2009 she co-starred with Alfie Allen in the music video for the Madness single Dust Devil. She made her catwalk modelling debut in 2008, for Vivienne Westwood and in February 2009 she appeared on the front cover of "Arena". She made her stage debut in a Hampstead Theatre revival of "The Fastest Clock in the Universe" which also played at the Curve theatre, Leicester." In March 2010 she was announced as a new patron of the East End Film Festival. The spring of 2010 also saw Winstone portray Anneli Alderton, one of five women murdered in Ipswich 2006, in the BBC drama "Five Daughters". Alderton was the third girl to go missing in December, 2006.
583422	Anuradha Patel is an Indian film actress and is part of the famous Ganguly family. Early life. She was born in Mumbai. She is the maternal grand daughter of famous Hindi actor Ashok Kumar. Personal life. She is married to actor Kanwaljit Singh. They have two sons Sidharth and Aaditya and a god-daughter, Mariam, who resides in the United States.
1753216	Sister My Sister is a 1994 film starring British actresses Julie Walters, Joely Richardson, and Jodhi May. The film is directed by Nancy Meckler and written by Wendy Kesselman, based on her own play, "My Sister in This House." Both the play and the subsequent film deal with societal repression and its victims. The film is based on a true incident in Le Mans, France in 1933 called the Papin murder case, where two sisters brutally murdered their employer and her daughter. The murder shocked the country, and there was much speculation about the sisters, including allegations that they were having an incestous lesbian affair with each other. Plot. Christine (Richardson) is the maid of a well-to-do widow (Julie Walters) and her daughter (Sophie Thursfield). Her sister, Lea (May) is hired on the recommendation of Christine. The two sisters become increasingly alienated from their employer, separated by barriers between the classes. With only each other to turn to and Christine experiencing much jealousy as to her sister's interest in anyone else, the relationship becomes sexual, adding to the tension between the sisters and their employer. The tension ultimately leads to paranoia, repressed rage and murder. Related films. The Papin case was also the subject of "The Maids", a play by Jean Genet written in 1949 that was adapted by Christopher Miles into a 1974 film of the same name. It starred Glenda Jackson and Susannah York as the maids, and Vivien Merchant as their employer. It is also mentioned in a 1995 French film of Claude Chabrol, "La Cérémonie", with Isabelle Huppert and Sandrine Bonnaire. The characters are not the Papin sisters, but are two women that end up murdering their employer. It is an adaptation from the novel "A Judgement in Stone" by Ruth Rendell. The story was also filmed as "Murderous Maids", a French film starring Sylvie Testud and Julie-Marie Parmentier, and directed by Jean-Pierre Denis.
1100652	Life and work. Brook Taylor was born in Edmonton (at that time in Middlesex) to John Taylor of Bifrons House, Kent, and Olivia Tempest, daughter of Sir Nicholas Tempest, Bart., of Durham. He entered St John's College, Cambridge, as a fellow-commoner in 1701, and took degrees of LL.B. and LL.D. in 1709 and 1714, respectively. Having studied mathematics under John Machin and John Keill, in 1708 he obtained a remarkable solution of the problem of the "centre of oscillation," which, however, remained unpublished until May 1714, when his claim to priority was disputed by Johann Bernoulli. Taylor's "Methodus Incrementorum Directa et Inversa" (1715) added a new branch to higher mathematics, now called the "calculus of finite differences". Among other ingenious applications, he used it to determine the form of movement of a vibrating string, by him first successfully reduced to mechanical principles. The same work contained the celebrated formula known as Taylor's formula, the importance of which remained unrecognized until 1772, when J. L. Lagrange realized its powers and termed it "the main foundation of differential calculus". In his 1715 essay "Linear Perspective", Taylor set forth the true principles of the art in an original and more general form than any of his predecessors; but the work suffered from the brevity and obscurity which affected most of his writings, and needed the elucidation bestowed on it in the treatises of John Joshua Kirby (1754) and Daniel Fournier (1761). Taylor was elected a fellow of the Royal Society early in 1712, and in the same year sat on the committee for adjudicating the claims of Sir Isaac Newton and Gottfried Leibniz, and acted as secretary to the society from 13 January 1714 to 21 October 1718. From 1715 his studies took a philosophical and religious bent. He corresponded in that year with the Comte de Montmort on the subject of Nicolas Malebranche's tenets. Unfinished treatises, "On the Jewish Sacrifices" and "On the Lawfulness of Eating Blood", written on his return from Aix-la-Chapelle in 1719, were afterwards found among his papers. His marriage in 1721 with Miss Brydges of Wallington, Surrey, led to an estrangement from his father, which ended in 1723 after her death in giving birth to a son, who also died. The next two years were spent by him with his family at Bifrons, and in 1725 he married—this time with his father's approval—Sabetta Sawbridge of Olantigh, Kent, who also died in childbirth in 1730 ; in this case, however, his daughter, Elizabeth, survived. By the date of his father's death in 1729 he had inherited the Bifrons estate. As a mathematician, he was the only Englishman after Sir Isaac Newton and Roger Cotes capable of holding his own with the Bernoullis, but a great part of the effect of his demonstrations was lost through his failure to express his ideas fully and clearly. Taylor's fragile health gave way; he fell into a decline, and died aged 46, on 30 November 1731 at Somerset House, London. He was buried in London on 2 December 1731, near his first wife, in the churchyard of St Anne's, Soho. Selected writings. A posthumous work entitled "Contemplatio Philosophica" was printed for private circulation in 1793 by Taylor's grandson, Sir William Young, 2nd Bart., (d 10 January 1815) prefaced by a life of the author, and with an appendix containing letters addressed to him by Bolingbroke, Bossuet, and others. Several short papers by Taylor were published in "Phil. Trans.," vols. xxvii to xxxii, including accounts of some interesting experiments in magnetism and capillary attraction. In 1719 he issued an improved version of his work on perspective, with the title "New Principles of Linear Perspective", revised by John Colson in 1749, and printed again, with portrait and life of the author, in 1811. A French translation was published in 1757. In "Methodus Incrementorum", Taylor gave the first satisfactory investigation of astronomical refraction.
139762	Savion Glover (born November 19, 1973) is an American tap dancer, actor, and choreographer. As a learning prodigy, he was taught by notable dancers from previous generations. Glover is currently interested in restoring African roots to tap. He wants to put tap back into the contemporary black context. Early life. Glover's great grandfather on his mother's side, Dick (King Richard) Lundy, was a short stop for the Negro Leagues. He managed eleven Negro League baseball teams, including the Newark Eagles. His grandfather, Bill Lewis, was a big band pianist and vocalist. His grandmother, Anna Lundy Lewis, was the minister of music at New Hope Baptist Church in Newark, NJ. She played for Whitney Houston when she was singing in the gospel choir. Anna Lundy Lewis was the one who first noticed Savion's musical talent. She once held him and hummed some rhythms to him, and he smiled and joined along. Career. Savion states his style is young and funk. When asked to describe what funk is, he says it is the bass line. "Funk is anything that gets one's head on beat. It is riding with the rhythm. It is a pulse that keeps one rolling with the beat." Gregory Hines, a tap legend, was one of Glover's tap teachers. Hines states that "Savion is possibly the best tap dancer that ever lived." Savion likes to start his pieces with some old school moves from famous tappers and then work his way into his own style. Hines says it’s like paying homage to those he respects. When Honi Coles died, Savion performed at his memorial service. He finished his dance with a famous Coles move, a backflip into a split from standing position, then getting up without using one's hands. Savion rarely does this move because it wasn't his style, but he did it because it was Coles' style that Savion wanted to keep alive. "I feel like it's one of my responsibilities to keep the dance alive, to keep it out there, to keep the style." Henry Le Tang calls Glover the Sponge because he learns very quickly with everything that is thrown at him. Le Tang taught the Hines brothers back in the 1950s and taught Glover for a little while before having him work for "Black and Blue," a tap revue in Paris in 1987. Many legendary tappers taught Glover such as Le Tang, the Hines brothers, Jimmy Slyde, Chuck Green, Lon Chaney (Isaiah Chaneyfield), Honi Coles, Sammy Davis, Jr., Buster Brown, Howard Sims, and Arthur Duncan. Teaching. Taught tap since he was fourteen years old. Glover created Real Tap Skills. He started HooFeRzCLuB School for Tap Newark, New Jersey. Wants to bring back the real essence of tap. Savion claims he is on a mission to reclaim the rhythm that was lost when tap dancing was recycled after many generations. At the age of seven, Savion drummed in a group called Three Plus One. In the group, he demanded that he dance while he played the drum. Glover has a heavy foot for tap. He dances hard and loud in every step. He teaches his mentees that one must learn how to "hit," a term related to one's ability to express oneself, to complete a tap sequence, or to say something. Choreography. Notable choreographed pieces. When Glover choreographs a piece, he improvises as he generates a dance sequence. As he finds rhythms, he listens for new sounds at many different points on the stage. "I'm feelin' the stage for sounds. You might find a spot on it that gives you that bass; you might find a spot on the floor that gives you that dead type tom-tom sound." "I think what makes Savion an incredible artist is his extraordinary joy in what he does. He is able to live in that state of joy and not compromise his emotional complexity like the earlier tap dancers had to," says George C. Wolfe. "The Tap Dance Kid" (1985). This play was based on the novel "Nobody's Family is Going to Change" by Louise Fitzhugh. Savion's Broadway debut started at the age of ten with this show. He was directed and choreographed by Danny Daniels. Reviews of this show were mediocre. The New York Times claimed it was a traditional story to give children a dream to look forward to, but it wasn't anything exceptional. The music was led by Henry Krieger. "Black and Blue" (1989). Performed at the age of fifteen. After this performance, he was nominated as one of the youngest performers nominated for a Tony at the time. "Jelly's Last Jam" (1992). The dancing was choreographed by Ted Levy and Mr. Hines. Savion played as Jelly. "Bring in 'Da Noise, Bring in 'Da Funk" (1996). Nominated for a Tony award for his Broadway show. "Mr. Glover meticulously and respectfully demonstrates the techniques made famous by each, then blends them all into an exultant stylistic brew that belongs to no one but him. As dance, as musical, as theater, as art, as history and entertainment, there's nothing Noise/Funk cannot and should not do." -New York Times. Filmography. Television. 1990 "Shangri-La Plaza", CBS pilot Awards presentations. 1989 - The 61st Annual Academy Awards Presentation, ABC 1989 - 16th Annual Black Filmmakers Hall of Fame, syndicated 1997 - Launching the Tonys, as the Presenter, Broadway `97, PBS 1997 - The 51st Annual Tony Awards, CBS 1997 - 39th Grammy Awards, CBS 1998 - The 13th Annual Stellar Gospel Music Awards, syndicated 1998 - 12th Annual Soul Train Music Awards, syndicated 1999 - 30th NAACP Image Awards, Fox 2001 - The 32nd NAACP Image Awards, Fox Music videos. 2001 - "Timeless: Live in Concer"t, Brother Time Also appeared in the music video "Havana" by Kenny G. Also appeared in the music video "All about the Benjamins" by Puff Daddy and the Family Publications. Books. 1997 - Contemporary Black Biography, Volume 14, Gale 1997 - Newsmakers, Issue 4, Gale 2000 - Savion! My Life in Tap, with Bruce Weber, HarperCollins Periodicals. November 1994 "Dance Magazine" April 1996 "Dance Magazine" May 23, 1998 "TV Guide", p. 6
1060892	Lili Anne Taylor (born February 20, 1967) is an American actress notable for her appearances in such award-winning indie films as "Mystic Pizza" (1988), "Say Anything..." (1989), "Short Cuts" (1993) and "I Shot Andy Warhol" (1996), as well as the acclaimed TV show "Six Feet Under" (2002–2005). She has also appeared in several big-budget films such as "Ransom" (1996), "The Haunting" (1999) and "The Conjuring" (2013). Personal life. Taylor, the fifth of six children, was born in Glencoe, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago, Illinois, the daughter of Marie (née Lecour), a professional babysitter, and George Park Taylor, an artist and hardware store operator. Taylor graduated from New Trier High School in Winnetka, Illinois, in 1985. Thereafter, she attended The Theatre School at DePaul University and the Piven Theatre Workshop. Taylor introduced Louise Post and Nina Gordon, founding members of 1990s alternative band Veruca Salt, at a party in Chicago in 1993. Taylor is married to writer Nick Flynn. They have a daughter together, Maeve Flynn. Career. Taylor has appeared in dozens of films since 1988, including "Dogfight", "Mystic Pizza", and "Rudy". Her work has mostly been in independent films and theater. She played the role of Lisa Kimmel Fisher (mostly in the second and third seasons) in the HBO drama "Six Feet Under" for which she was nominated for an Emmy award. Taylor played supporting roles in "Mystic Pizza" (1988) and "Say Anything..." (1989). In Mystic Pizza, she played Jojo, a young woman working in a :pizzeria. The film co-starred :Annabeth Gish and :Julia Roberts. Taylor then starred in "Dogfight" (1991) directed by Nancy Savoca, in which she played an unattractive young woman who is taken to a cruel contest by a Marine (played by River Phoenix) under the pretense of a date. In 1993, she again teamed up with Savoca for "Household Saints". Director Robert Altman hired Taylor in 1993 for his epic Los Angeles drama "Short Cuts", in which Taylor shared scenes with Lily Tomlin. The film also featured Jack Lemmon, Tom Waits, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Julianne Moore and Robert Downey Jr. Taylor portrayed Valerie Solanas in Mary Harron's "I Shot Andy Warhol" (1996). The same year, she co-starred in "Girls Town" with Bruklin Harris and Aunjanue Ellis, where three inner-city friends dealt with a friend's suicide, and later in "Ransom", as a two-faced caterer working for Mel Gibson's character and who then helps kidnap and hold his son ransom. In 1998 she appeared in the X-Files episode Mind's Eye and was nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Drama Series. 1998 saw Taylor teaming with John Waters, in "Pecker". The film, co-starring Edward Furlong, Christina Ricci and Mary Kay Place, followed a young Baltimore photographer as he entered the New York art world. Taylor portrayed his art dealer. In 1999, Taylor starred in Jan de Bont's remake of "The Haunting". In 2001, Taylor appeared in the independent feature "Julie Johnson". The film, co-starring Courtney Love, centered on a Long Island mother and housewife who kicks out her husband to pursue her dream of studying science. In early 2004, Taylor made her New York City stage debut in Wallace Shawn's "Aunt Dan and Lemon" in the role of Lemon. She won the 2005 Best Actress award at the Copenhagen International Film Festival for her role in "Factotum". In 2006, Taylor worked again with Mary Harron in "The Notorious Bettie Page". In the Lifetime cable network's hour-long comedy-drama series "State of Mind", Taylor starred as a New Haven therapist dealing with a divorce and a parade of quirky clients. She played the daughter of Frank Langella's character in Andrew Wagner's 2007 drama "Starting Out in the Evening". In the 2008 film "The Promotion", Taylor played Lori Wehlner, the Scottish/Irish wife of John C. Reilly's character. In 2009, Taylor played Sheriff Lillian Holley of Lake County, Indiana, who incarcerates John Dillinger (played by Johnny Depp), in Michael Mann's "Public Enemies". In 2011, Fence Books released Taylor's audio recording of poet Ariana Reines's "Save The World". Awards. In 2006, Lili Taylor was honored with the Excellence in Acting Award at the Provincetown International Film Festival.
655220	Bridgette Leann Wilson-Sampras (born September 25, 1973) is an American actress, singer and model. A Miss Teen USA in 1990, Wilson holds several acting roles in television and movies, including the role of Veronica Vaughn in the movie "Billy Madison", the role of Elsa Shivers in the movie "I Know What You Did Last Summer", and the role of Sonya Blade in the movie "Mortal Kombat". Early life. Wilson was born in Gold Beach, Oregon, the daughter of Kathy and Dale Wilson. Her sister Tracy Wilson, is also an actress (as a child, Tracy made her debut in the film "Resurrection", which co-starred Ellen Burstyn). Bridgette was crowned Miss Teen USA in 1990 in Biloxi, Mississippi; she is the second contender from Oregon to win the crown. Career. After her reign as Miss Teen USA, Wilson became an actress and appeared in "Santa Barbara", "Saved By The Bell", "The Last Action Hero" (as Jack Slater's daughter Whitney), "Billy Madison" (playing Adam Sandler's teacher/girlfriend Veronica Vaughan), "Higher Learning" (cameo as a university student), "Mortal Kombat" (playing Sonya Blade), "Nixon" (cameo as a nightclub performer), "I Know What You Did Last Summer" (as Sarah Michelle Gellar's ill-fated elder sister), "House on Haunted Hill" (as Melissa Marr), "Buying the Cow", "The Suburbans", "Love Stinks", "Nevada", "Sweet Evil" (as a psychopathic surrogate mother), "Extreme Ops" (as a world-champion snowboarder) and "The Wedding Planner". Wilson also appeared on an episode of "CSI Miami" as a woman whose husband is killed by a package delivered to their house. Wilson did not reprise her role as Sonya Blade in "", the sequel to the first Mortal Kombat film; that part was played by Swiss actress Sandra Hess.
1217671	State Property 2 is a 2005 American crime film directed by Damon Dash and produced and distributed by Lions Gate Entertainment. A sequel to 2002's "State Property", the film stars rap artists and other musicians such as Cam'ron, The Diplomats, Beanie Sigel, N.O.R.E., Kanye West, Mariah Carey and others. Championship boxers Bernard Hopkins and Winky Wright appear in cameo roles. Dash directed the film and co-created its story with Adam Moreno, who wrote the screenplay. The film marks the final appearance of Ol' Dirty Bastard. Reception. State Property 2 received negative reviews from critics but was an improvement to its prequel generating only 14% from rotten tomatoes from 14 reviews. It also received 33% from metacritic based on 10 reviews. Dedication. At the very end the closing credits of the film, ""R.I.P. Ol' Dirty Bastard (1968-2004)"" appears on the screen who died the previous year of a drug overdose.
1100580	Roger Cotes FRS (10 July 1682 – 5 June 1716) was an English mathematician, known for working closely with Isaac Newton by proofreading the second edition of his famous book, the "Principia", before publication. He also invented the quadrature formulas known as Newton–Cotes formulas and first introduced what is known today as Euler's formula. He was the first Plumian Professor at Cambridge University from 1707 until his death. Early life. Cotes was born in Burbage, Leicestershire. His parents were Robert, the rector of Burbage, and his wife Grace "née" Farmer. Roger had an elder brother, Anthony (born 1681) and a younger sister, Susanna (born 1683). At first Roger attended Leicester School where his mathematical talent was recognised. His aunt Hannah had married Rev. John Smith, and Smith took on the role of tutor to encourage Roger's talent. The Smiths' son, Robert Smith, would become a close associate of Roger Cotes throughout his life. Cotes later studied at St Paul's School in London and entered Trinity College, Cambridge in 1699. He graduated BA in 1702 and MA in 1706. Astronomy. Roger Cotes's contributions to modern computational methods lie heavily in the fields of astronomy and mathematics. Cotes began his educational career with a focus on astronomy. He became a fellow of Trinity College in 1707, and at age 26 he became the first Plumian Professor of Astronomy and Experimental Philosophy. On his appointment to professor, he opened a subscription list in an effort to provide an observatory for Trinity. Unfortunately, the observatory still was unfinished when Cotes died, and was demolished in 1797. In correspondence with Isaac Newton, Cotes designed a heliostat telescope with a mirror revolving by clockwork. He recomputed the solar and planetary tables of Giovanni Domenico Cassini and John Flamsteed, and he intended to create tables of the moon's motion, based on Newtonian principles. Finally, in 1707 he formed a school of physical sciences at Trinity in partnership with William Whiston. The "Principia". From 1709 to 1713, Cotes became heavily involved with the second edition of Newton's "Principia", a book that explained Newton's theory of universal gravitation. The first edition of "Principia" had only a few copies printed and was in need of revision to include Newton's works and principles of lunar and planetary theory. Newton at first had a casual approach to the revision, since he had all but given up scientific work. However, through the vigorous passion displayed by Cotes, Newton's scientific hunger was once again reignited. The two spent nearly three and half years collaborating on the work, in which they fully deduce, from Newton's laws of motion, the theory of the moon, the equinoxes, and the orbits of comets. Only 750 copies of the second edition were printed. However, a pirate copy from Amsterdam met all other demand. As reward to Cotes, he was given a share of the profits and 12 copies of his own. Cotes's original contribution to the work was a preface which supported the scientific superiority of Newton's principles over the then popular vortex theory of gravity advocated by René Descartes. Cotes concluded that the Newton's law of gravitation was confirmed by observation of celestial phenomenon that were inconsistent with the vortex phenomena that Cartesian critics alleged. Mathematics. Cotes's major original work was in mathematics, especially in the fields of integral calculus, logarithms, and numerical analysis. He published only one scientific paper in his lifetime, entitled "Logometrica", in which he successfully constructs the logarithmic spiral. After his death, many of Cotes's mathematical papers were hastily edited by Robert Smith and published in a book, "Harmonia mensurarum". Cotes's additional works were later published in Thomas Simpson's "The Doctrine and Application of Fluxions". Although Cotes's style was somewhat obscure, his systematic approach to integration and mathematical theory was highly regarded by his peers. Cotes discovered an important theorem on the nth roots of unity, foresaw the method of least squares, and he discovered a method for integrating rational fractions with binomial denominators. He was also praised for his efforts in numerical methods, especially in interpolation methods and his table construction techniques. He was regarded as one of the few British mathematicians capable of following the powerful work of Sir Isaac Newton. Death and assessment. Cotes died from a violent fever in Cambridge in 1716 at the early age of 33. Isaac Newton remarked, "If he had lived we would have known something."
1712298	The Five Man Army (, 1969) is an Italian Zapata spaghetti western film taking place during the Mexican Revolution. The film was directed by Don Taylor and featured a script by a young Dario Argento. Starring as a group of five men enlisted to rob a train containing a shipment of gold were Peter Graves, James Daly, Bud Spencer, Nino Castelnuovo and Tetsuro Tamba. The film's score was composed by Ennio Morricone. Plot. The rebels want the "Dutchman" (Peter Graves) to rob a train carrying $500,000 in gold on behalf of Victoriano Huerta to finance the Mexican Revolution. So the Dutchman enlists four other men, a strong man (Bud Spencer), an acrobat (Nino Castelnuovo), an explosives specialist (James Daly) and a samurai (Tetsuro Tamba), promising to reward each one a thousand dollars. Their first undertaking is to save the rebel leader from being executed. After thwarting the execution and having caused a riot in the village, the five men are forced to flee, along with all the civilians, in order to prevent reprisals. Nevertheless, some soldiers still manage to find them and bring them to the local Mexican Army commandant. They manage to escape, killing the soldiers and dynamiting the fort's magazine. A squad of soldiers manage to pick up their trail. All seems lost when suddenly, in a gorge, dozens of revolutionaries cover the escape of the five men. The few revolutionaries are vastly outnumbered, but this serves to make the five men understand how important the success of their business. The train is heavily defended by a cannon, machine guns, and dozens of soldiers. The difficult robbery succeeds. However, the other men never believed that the Dutchman would really give the gold to the revolutionaries, but would divide it evenly between them. The Dutchman wants to respect the agreement, though, having his personal reasons. In the final showdown, the Five Man Army kills all soldiers, and the Mexicans arrive to celebrate the men as heroes.
589105	Vidhaata is a 1982 Bollywood movie directed by Subhash Ghai and produced by Gulshan Rai's company Trimurti Films. It stars Dilip Kumar, Sanjay Dutt and Padmini Kolhapure in lead roles, and, Shammi Kapoor, Sanjeev Kumar, Amrish Puri, Madan Puri, Suresh Oberoi and Sarika in supporting roles. Synopsis. Shamsher Singh (Dilip Kumar), his son Pratap Singh (Suresh Oberoi), and daughter-in-law lead a happy life in an Indian village. Shamsher works as an engine driver with his friend Gurbaksh Singh (Shammi Kapoor). Pratap is appointed as the new inspector-in-charge of the village but is killed brutally by Jagawar Chaudhary (Amrish Puri), a notorious local smuggler, after Pratap refuses to help Jagawar in his illegal activities. Seeing his son dead, Shamsher Singh is enraged and he kills some of Jagawar's goons whom he had seen throwing his son's dead body in the forest. When he is about to inquire from one of Jagawar's men about the person behind his son's murder, he is stopped by the police and is asked to surrender; Shamsher somehow manages to escape. His daughter-in-law dies while giving birth to Kunal Singh (Sanjay Dutt).
1039545	Douglas Hodge (born 25 February 1960) is an English actor, director, and musician who trained for the stage at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. Hodge is a council member of the National Youth Theatre for whom, in 1989, he co-wrote "Pacha Mama's Blessing" about the Amazon rain forests staged at the Almeida Theatre. Personal background and family life. Douglas Hodge was born in 1960, in Plymouth, Devon. He has an older brother who "manages a construction firm." He and his family moved to Wigmore near Gillingham, Kent during the 1960s. He attended Fairview Primary School and from there The Howard School in nearby Rainham. Hodge has two children with actress Tessa Peake-Jones from whom he amicably separated in November 2012. Career. Theatre. Hodge has achieved great success on stage in plays by Harold Pinter, including "No Man's Land" at the Comedy Theatre in February 1993; "Moonlight" at the Almeida Theatre in September 1993; "A Kind of Alaska", "The Lover" and "The Collection" at the Donmar Warehouse in May 1998; as Jerry in "Betrayal" at the Royal National Theatre's Lyttelton Theatre, in November 1998; and as Aston in "The Caretaker" at the Comedy Theatre in November 2000, co-starring Michael Gambon (Davies) and Rupert Graves (Mick), directed by Patrick Marber - for which he was nominated for an Olivier Award. Hodge admired Pinter and has spoken and written very highly of the man and his work, and offered himself as a "birthday present" on his 70th birthday, among many other things offering "My own complete friendship, loyalty and thanks. Manners, civility, celerity, precision, class and clarity." As his directorial debut at the Oxford Playhouse in 2004 Hodge chose a double bill of "The Dumb Waiter and Other Pieces" (the 1957 one-act play plus six of Pinter's sketches). For the National Theatre in May 1994 Hodge played the title role in Phyllida Lloyd's Olivier Theatre staging of Shakespeare's "Pericles"; and Al' in Stephen Poliakoff's "Blinded by the Sun" directed by Ron Daniels at the Cottesloe Theatre in May 1997. He played Leontes in an RSC revival of "The Winter's Tale" at the Roundhouse in April 2002. Directed by Matthew Warchus, it was moved in a world of 'film noir' and country music, a version of the Shakespeare play originally planned for American production. "Shaven-headed Hodge, a tyrannical Leontes chopping up the verse into tiny spiteful pieces, is a dead-ringer for Orson Welles, bald and fuming, in the penultimate reel of Citizen Kane — even when he comes on in flat cap and plus-fours as a Chicago heavy, dressed for a round of golf." In April 2003 he portrayed Andrei in Michael Blakemore's revival of Chekhov's "Three Sisters" at the Playhouse Theatre. The following year he made his Royal Court debut as Barry in Joe Penhall's study of entrapment journalism "Dumb Show", directed by Terry Johnson, which opened in September 2004 to positive reviews, particularly for Hodge's performance as a television comedian whose career is on the skids. Hodge appeared in the 2005 revival of "Guys and Dolls" at the Piccadilly Theatre playing Nathan Detroit opposite Ewan McGregor playing Sky Masterson. He received an Olivier Award nomination for his performance. During the summer of 2006, he took the title role in a bloodstained revival of "Titus Andronicus", at Shakespeare's Globe. Simultaneously he was also making his West End directorial debut with "See How They Run", a 1940's wartime farce by Philip King, preceded by a successful UK tour. When his production opened In the West End Nancy Carroll took over from Hattie Morahan in the role of the vicar’s young wife. In May 2007 he revealed a fine lyric tenor voice as Frank, the neurosurgeon in "A Matter of Life and Death" with the Kneehigh Theatre company at the National Theatre, a spectacular production with music, based on events in the movie of the same name. Also in 2007 he guest starred in the "Doctor Who" audio dramas "Urban Myths" and "Son of the Dragon". In 2008, Hodge starred as Albin in the hugely acclaimed London revival of "La Cage aux Folles" which played originally at the Menier Chocolate Factory. He later reprised this role at the Playhouse Theatre in the West End to great critical acclaim and won the 2009 Olivier Award for Best Actor in a Musical. As Maddy Costa noted in her Guardian profile of Hodge: The London production transferred to Broadway, opening on 18 April 2010 at the Longacre Theatre, with Hodge and Kelsey Grammer as Albin and Georges, respectively. Hodge won the 2010 Tony Award for Best Performance by a Leading Actor in a Musical for his performance. A 2011 revival of John Osborne's "Inadmissible Evidence" at the Donmar Theatre, London, offered Hodge another challenging role, as Maitland, the lawyer in crisis. Critics were unanimous in praise of Hodge's portrayal, "a great actor doing complete justice to a dark masterpiece", but some found Osborne's characterisation overdrawn and unrealistic, a flaw that Hodge's "enormous" performance could not redeem. Hodge received an Olivier Award nomination for his performance. In 2012, Hodge headed back to Broadway when he starred as Cyrano de Bergerac in the Roundabout Theatre Company's revival of "Cyrano de Bergerac" which played a limited engagement at the American Airlines Theatre from 14 September 2012 - 25 November 2012. In October 2012, it was announced that Hodge had been cast as Willy Wonka in the new musical "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory the Musical" on the West End, which previews on 18 May 2013 and opens on 25 June 2013 at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane London. Hodge revealed on his website that he finished writing a musical with Aschlin Ditta, temporarily called "Meantime". Josefina Gabrielle, Denis Lawson and several others participated in a cast recording, and actors including Rory Kinnear, Indira Varma and Cillian Murphy participated in a reading of the book. Television. With Peter Searles he co-wrote "Pacha Mama's Blessing" and "Forest People", about the Amazon Rainforest, performed by the National Youth Theatre on BBC Television in 1989. Hodge received critical and popular acclaim in 1994 as Dr. Tertius Lydgate in the BBC's award-winning production "Middlemarch", adapted by Andrew Davies from the novel by George Eliot and directed by Anthony Page. In the US it aired on "Masterpiece Theatre" in 1994. His other TV appearances include leading roles in "Behaving Badly" (1989); "Capital City" (1989–1990); "A Fatal Inversion" (1992); "Bliss" (1995); "Only Fools and Horses" (1996) "The Uninvited" (1997); "The Scold's Bridle" (1998); "Shockers: Dance" (1999); "The Law" (2000); the BBC serial adaptation of Trollope's "The Way We Live Now" (2001), as Roger Carbury; "The Russian Bride" (2001); "Red Cap" (2003–2004); "Spooks" (2005); ITV's 2007 adaptation of "Mansfield Park", as Sir Thomas Bertram; and the made-for-TV film "Lift", directed by James Hawes, a 2007 Hartswood Films production for BBC Four, as Paul Sykes, "a constantly exasperated, highly-strung middle-aged businessman with commitments.". In 2010, he appeared in the episode "The Restaurant" of the third series of the popular BBC sitcom "Outnumbered" as Brick Bolenger, an American therapist who is married to Auntie Angela (played by Samantha Bond). The character is involved in a story line of the fourth series in 2011, but never appears on screen. In 2012, Hodge had a prominent role in BBC drama "One Night", he appeared in the conspiracy thriller miniseries "Secret State", and the ITV-1 drama "The Town". Filmography. Feature films in which he has acted include: He made his cinematic directorial debut with a short film of Harold Pinter's dramatic sketch "Victoria Station". Music. As Doug Hodge, he recorded a debut music album "Cowley Road Songs" in 2005."I've been writing songs all my life but — apart from the occasional girlfriend late at night — I'd never sung them to anyone. Then last year 2006 I finally started playing at various venues in and around Oxford. Each time I wrote a new song I'd go down the Ex Cowley Road and sing it... Then rightback records asked me to record them. We went into the Blue Moon Studios in Banbury for just four days. This Road Songs is what we came out with..." — Douglas Hodge
1162236	Parker Stevenson (born Richard Stevenson Parker, Jr on June 4, 1952) is an American television and film actor. Career. His first notable screen appearance was a starring role in the 1972 movie "A Separate Peace". After graduating from Rye Country Day School, Brooks School, and Princeton University, he moved to Hollywood, where he landed a role opposite Sam Elliott in the film "Lifeguard".
1065736	In the Mouth of Madness (also known as "John Carpenter's In the Mouth of Madness") is a 1995 American Lovecraftian horror film directed and scored by John Carpenter and written by Michael De Luca, who was at the time of the film's release in charge of New Line Cinema. It stars Sam Neill, Julie Carmen, Jürgen Prochnow, David Warner and Charlton Heston. The film is the third installment in what Carpenter calls his "Apocalypse Trilogy", preceded by "The Thing" and "Prince of Darkness". Plot. Dr. Wrenn (David Warner) visits John Trent (Sam Neill), a patient in a psychiatric hospital, and asks Trent to recount his story: After exposing an arson-fraud scam, Trent, an insurance investigator, has lunch with a colleague who preps him on his next assignment, investigating a claim made by New York-based Arcane Publishing. During their conversation, Trent is attacked by a man wielding an axe who asks him, "Do you read Sutter Cane?" The man is shot dead by a police officer before he can harm Trent. Trent later meets with Arcane Publishing director Jackson Harglow (Charlton Heston) who tasks him with investigating the disappearance of popular horror novelist Sutter Cane (Jürgen Prochnow). Cane vanished days before his latest book was released, and Harglow requests that Trent recover the manuscript for Cane's final novel of his popular series. He assigns Cane's editor, Linda Styles (Julie Carmen), to accompany him—Cane's agent will be of no help as he was the man with the axe who tried to kill Trent earlier. After reading several of Cane's novels for research, Trent experiences vivid nightmares of monsters and deformed people murdering each other with axes. Linda explains the stories are known to cause disorientation, memory loss, and paranoia in "less stable readers." Trent remains skeptical, convinced that the disappearance is merely an elaborate publicity stunt. Trent notices a series of red lines on Cane's book's covers that, when aligned properly, form the outline of New Hampshire and mark a location alluded to be Hobb's End, the fictional setting for many of Cane's works. As they set out to find the town, Linda experiences bizarre phenomena during the late-night drive: a boy riding a bicycle whose visage changes as she somehow passes him three times, the yellow road lines vanishing followed by the road itself disappearing, the car driving above thunderhead storm clouds, entering a rustic covered bridge in darkness and inexplicably arriving on the other side at Hobb's End in daylight. Trent and Linda search the small town and begin encountering fictional people and landmarks described in Cane's novel, including Mrs. Pickman (Frances Bay), whose hotel they check into, and the Black Church, described in Cane's books as a fount of evil that pollutes the entire town. Trent and Linda watch as a group of townspeople arrive at the Black Church wielding shotguns and torches, demanding Cane return a missing child. Johnny, the son of one of men of the group, suddenly appears in the doorway to the Church, supplanted by Cane himself. The townspeople are then set upon by dogs and driven off. Trent believes the events to be staged, but Linda does not. She admits to Trent that Arcane Publishing's claim was indeed a fraud and a stunt to promote Cane's book. However, the unusual events and exact replica of Hobb's End were never part of the plan. Trent prepares to go back to report to Harglow, but is prevented when Linda steals the car keys. She heads to the Black Church to confront Cane, and is exposed to his final novel, "In The Mouth Of Madness", driving her insane. Trent is approached at a bar by Johnny's father who warns him to leave before the evil infects him as it has the inhabitants of Hobb's End. Trent later returns to the bar and witnesses the man commit suicide with a shotgun as he proclaims to merely be a character written to do it. Outside the bar, a mob of mutated, monstrous-looking townspeople descend upon him with shotguns and torches. He flees to the hotel and discovers that Mrs. Pickman (who had been tormenting her husband and finally killed him) and Linda have also been altered into mutated versions of their former selves. Trent attempts to drive away from Hobb's End but is repeatedly teleported back to the center of town, subsequently crashing while swerving to avoid hitting Linda. He awakens in a confessional where Cane explains that the popularity of his eldritch stories have created a sufficient amount of belief to free an ancient race of monstrous beings that will reclaim the Earth. Cane further reveals that Trent himself is merely a character and has no choice but to return the manuscript of "In The Mouth Of Madness" to Arcane Publishing, ushering the end of humanity. After giving Trent the manuscript, Cane tears his face open like a piece of paper, ripping a hole that leads into darkness and creating a portal to the dimension of Cane's monstrous masters. Trent flees down a long tunnel as monsters chase him and he suddenly finds himself lying on a country road, apparently back in reality. During his return to New York, Trent destroys the manuscript, but it somehow is redelivered to him, prompting Trent to destroy it again and again. Back at Arcane Publishing, Trent relates his experience to Harglow and explains why he has no manuscript to return. Harglow informs him that Linda never existed; Trent was sent alone to find Cane. What is more, Trent himself had delivered the manuscript to Harglow months ago. "In The Mouth Of Madness" has been on sale for weeks with a movie adaptation set to release soon. Trent suffers a psychotic break and is arrested after he murders a reader of the newly released novel with an axe, asking him "Do you like the book?" Dr. Wrenn, after listening to Trent recount his story, concludes that Trent's story answers nothing and leaves. That night, amidst a thunderstorm, Trent sees disturbing shadows flicker on the wall and hears human and inhuman screams echo throughout the hospital. Trent wakes the following day to find his cell door torn from its hinges and the residents of the hospital slaughtered. He departs as an abandoned ambulance's radio announces that the world has been overrun with mutant creatures and outbreaks of suicide and mass murder. Trent goes to see the "In the Mouth of Madness" metafilm only to discover that he is the 'star' of the film. As he watches his previous actions play out on screen, Trent bursts into hysterical laughter as he finally goes insane, joining the rest of maddened humanity. Production. The exterior of the Black Church seen in Hobb’s End is actually the Cathedral of the Transfiguration. It is a Slovak Byzantine Rite Roman Catholic former cathedral located in Markham, Ontario. Presently the church is now surrounded by newly built homes called Cathedraltown. The location of the Cathedral is closest to the intersection of Woodbine Ave. & Vine Cliff Blvd. At the time of filming the church had yet to be fully completed. When first entering the town of Hobbs End, the main characters walk along an empty street. It was referenced as Main Street U.S.A. This street is in fact located in Unionville, Ontario, Canada, and is actually named Main Street. The scene where the children are seen running out onto the street is in fact a parking lot that connects directly to an elementary public school called Parkview. Box office. The film was released on February 3, 1995. It grossed $3,441,807 the first weekend and garnered $8,946,600 total in revenue during its run. It was a financial disappointment, but it did earn enough to cover the film's budget. Reception. The film received mixed critical reaction, with 14 positive reviews out of 29 tallied by Rotten Tomatoes for a score of 48%. Over the years however, much like the previous two installments of Carpenter's "Apocalypse Trilogy" ("The Thing", "Prince of Darkness") the film has acquired a cult following. Top ten lists. 10th – "Cahiers du cinéma" Home media. A Blu-ray Disc release by New Line Cinema is scheduled for October 15, 2013. Influences. The film pays tribute to the work of seminal horror writer H. P. Lovecraft, with many references to his stories and themes. Its title is a play on two of Lovecraft's tales, "The Shadow Over Innsmouth" and "At the Mountains of Madness", and insanity plays as great a role in the film as it does in Lovecraft's fiction. The opening scene depicts Trent's confinement to an asylum with the bulk of the story told in flashback, a common technique of Lovecraft's. Quick reference is made to the Old Ones of the Cthulhu Mythos, as well as to Lovecraftian settings and characters (such as Mrs. Pickman). As read on-screen, Sutter Cane's writings even incorporate direct passages from his work. All of Sutter Cane's novels have similar titles to H.P. Lovecraft's books (e.g., "The Hobb's End Horror" in reference to "The Dunwich Horror"). The film can also be seen as a reference to Stephen King, who, like Lovecraft, also writes horror fiction set in New England hamlets. King is even mentioned towards the beginning of the movie; it is suggested that Cane's work is more frightening than King's and that he out sells him.
1502173	Joshua “Josh” Gad (born February 23, 1981) is an American film, television, stage and voice actor known for playing Skip Gilchrist on "1600 Penn "and Elder Arnold Cunningham in the Broadway musical "The Book of Mormon" and the role of Ryan Church in the television series "Back to You". Gad has also appeared in episodes of "ER", "The Daily Show", "Modern Family", "New Girl, Bored to Death "and "Numb3rs". His film appearances include "The Rocker", "Crossing Over", "She Wants Me", "21", "Love & Other Drugs" and "Jobs". Early life. Gad was born in Hollywood, Florida. He was raised Jewish. He attended the University School of Nova Southeastern University for high school, graduating in 1999. While there, he won the National Forensics League National Tournament Championships for Original Oratory in 1998, and for Humorous Interpretation and Original Oratory in 1999. He then attended the Carnegie Mellon College of Fine Arts, where he graduated in 2003 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Drama. Acting career. Gad portrayed news director Ryan Church on the Fox sitcom "Back to You", which lasted one season, from 2007 to 2008. Gad appeared as a correspondent on "The Daily Show" on May 5, 2009, and became a regular correspondent on June 2, 2009. He appeared on "The Daily Show" on November 11, 2009 in a segment titled "Crash for Clunkers" about the effect the Cash for Clunkers program had on demolition derbies. He appeared in a June 27, 2011, segment about the legalization of gay marriage in New York reported from the Gay Pride March in New York City. In 2008, he played a supporting role in the film "21", and a leading role in "The Rocker" with Rainn Wilson. In 2010, he had a role in "Love & Other Drugs", and a guest role as Warren on the "Bored to Death" episode entitled "Make it Quick, Fitzgerald!" Gad was cast with Freddie Prinze, Jr., Paul Campbell, Eliza Coupe, and Arielle Kebbel in the American version of the British sitcom "No Heroics". In the pilot, Gad played their former classmate from Superhero College, Horse Force, who can summon horses and works at a bar where the group hangs out. The show was not picked up. Gad played the role of Elder Cunningham in the Broadway musical "The Book of Mormon", playing the role until his last performance on June 6, 2012. The show opened at the Eugene O'Neill Theatre on March 24, 2011. Gad was nominated for the 2011 Tony Award for Best Leading Actor in a Musical, along with his co-star Andrew Rannells. Both lost to Norbert Leo Butz of "Catch Me If You Can".
686183	Marie Jean Antoine Nicolas de Caritat, marquis de Condorcet (; 17 September 1743 – 28 March 1794), known as Nicolas de Condorcet, was a French philosopher, mathematician, and early political scientist whose "Condorcet method" in voting tally selects the candidate who would beat each of the other candidates in a run-off election. Unlike many of his contemporaries, he advocated a liberal economy, free and equal public education, constitutionalism, and equal rights for women and people of all races. His ideas and writings were said to embody the ideals of the Age of Enlightenment and rationalism, and remain influential to this day. He died a mysterious death in prison after a period of flight from French Revolutionary authorities. Early years. Condorcet was born in Ribemont (in present-day Aisne), and descended from the ancient family of Caritat, who took their title from the town of Condorcet in Dauphiné, of which they were long-time residents. Fatherless at a young age, he was raised by his devoutly religious mother. He was educated at the Jesuit College in Reims and at the "Collège de Navarre" in Paris, where he quickly showed his intellectual ability, and gained his first public distinctions in mathematics. When he was sixteen, his analytical abilities gained the praise of Jean le Rond d'Alembert and Alexis Clairaut; soon, Condorcet would study under d'Alembert. From 1765 to 1774, he focused on science. In 1765, he published his first work on mathematics entitled "Essai sur le calcul intégral", which was very well received, launching his career as a respected mathematician. He would go on to publish many more papers, and on 25 February 1769, he was elected to the "Académie royale des Sciences" (French Royal Academy of Sciences). In 1772, he published another paper on integral calculus which was widely hailed as a groundbreaking paper in several domains. Soon after, he met Jacques Turgot, a French economist, and the two became friends. Turgot was to be an administrator under King Louis XV in 1772, and became Controller-General of Finance under Louis XVI in 1774. Condorcet was recognized worldwide and worked with such famous scientists as Leonhard Euler and Benjamin Franklin. He soon became an honorary member of many foreign academies and philosophic societies notably the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences (1785), in Germany, Imperial Russia, and the United States. His political ideas, however, many of them in continuity with Turgot's, were criticized heavily in the English-speaking world, most notably by John Adams, who wrote two of his principal works of political philosophy to oppose Turgot and Condorcet's unicameral legislature and radical democracy. Early political career. In 1774, Condorcet was appointed Inspector General of the "Monnaie de Paris" by Turgot. From this point on, Condorcet shifted his focus from the purely mathematical to philosophy and political matters. In the following years, he took up the defense of human rights in general, and of women's and Blacks' rights in particular (an abolitionist, he became active in the Society of the Friends of the Blacks in the 1780s). He supported the ideals embodied by the newly formed United States, and proposed projects of political, administrative and economic reforms intended to transform France. In 1776, Turgot was dismissed as Controller General. Consequently, Condorcet submitted his resignation as Inspector General of the "Monnaie", but the request was refused, and he continued serving in this post until 1791. Condorcet later wrote "Vie de M. Turgot" (1786), a biography which spoke fondly of Turgot and advocated Turgot's economic theories. Condorcet continued to receive prestigious appointments: in 1777, he became Permanent Secretary of the Académie des Sciences, holding the post until the abolition of the Académie in 1793, and in 1782 secretary of the "Académie française". Condorcet's paradox and the Condorcet method. In 1785, Condorcet wrote "Essai sur l’application de l’analyse à la probabilité des décisions rendues à la pluralité des voix" ("Essay on the Application of Analysis to the Probability of Majority Decisions"), one of his most important works. This work described several now famous results, including Condorcet's jury theorem, which states that if each member of a voting group is more likely than not to make a correct decision, the probability that the highest vote of the group is the correct decision increases as the number of members of the group increases, and Condorcet's paradox, which shows that majority preferences become intransitive with three or more options – it is possible for a certain electorate to express a preference for A over B, a preference for B over C, and a preference for C over A, all from the same set of ballots. The paper also outlines a generic Condorcet method, designed to simulate pair-wise elections between all candidates in an election. He disagreed strongly with the alternative method of aggregating preferences put forth by Jean-Charles de Borda (based on summed rankings of alternatives). Condorcet was one of the first to systematically apply mathematics in the social sciences. Other works. In 1786, Condorcet worked on ideas for the differential and integral calculus, giving a new treatment of infinitesimals – a work which was never printed. In 1789, he published "Vie de Voltaire (1789)", which agreed with Voltaire in his opposition to the Church. In 1798, Thomas Malthus wrote "An Essay on the Principle of Population" partly in response to Condorcet's views on the ""perfectibility of society"" as outlined in the "Sketch for a Historical Picture of the Progress of the Human Mind". In 1781, Condorcet wrote a pamphlet, "Reflections on Negro Slavery", in which he denounced slavery. French Revolution. Deputy. Condorcet took a leading role when the French Revolution swept France in 1789, hoping for a rationalist reconstruction of society, and championed many liberal causes. As a result, in 1791 he was elected as a Paris representative in the Assemblée, and then became the secretary of the Assembly. The institution adopted Condorcet's design for state education system, and he drafted a proposed Bourbon Constitution for the new France. He advocated women's suffrage for the new government, writing an article for "Journal de la Société de 1789", and by publishing "De l'admission des femmes au droit de cité" ("For the Admission to the Rights of Citizenship For Women") in 1790. There were three competing views on which direction France should go, embodied by three political parties: the moderate royalists or Feuillants, republican Girondists, and the more radical Montagnards, led by Maximilien Robespierre. The Feuillants wished to keep the constitutional monarchy as it was developed by the Assemblée, the latter two favored purging France of its royal past ("Ancien Régime"), each in their own way. Condorcet was quite independent, but still counted many friends in the Girondist party. He presided over the Assembly as the Girondist held the majority, until it was replaced by the National Convention, elected in order to design a new constitution. He led the Constitution Committee which drafted the Girondin constitutional project. The constitution was ordered to be printed, but was not put to votes. When the Montagnards gained control of the Convention, they wrote their own, the "French Constitution of 1793". At the time of King Louis XVI's trial, the Girondists had, however, lost their majority in the Convention. Condorcet, who opposed the death penalty but still supported the trial itself, spoke out against the execution of the King during the public vote at the Convention – he proposed to send the king to the galleys. From that moment on, he was usually considered a Girondist. The Montagnards were becoming more and more influential in the Convention as the King's "betrayal" was confirming their theories. One of them, Marie-Jean Hérault de Séchelles, a member, like Condorcet, of the Constitution's Commission, misrepresented many ideas from Condorcet's draft and presented what was called a "Montagnard Constitution". Condorcet criticized the new work, and as a result, he was branded a traitor. On 3 October 1793, a warrant was issued for Condorcet's arrest. Arrest and death. The warrant forced Condorcet into hiding. He hid for five (or eight) months in the house of Mme. Vernet, on Rue Servandoni, in Paris. It was there that he wrote "Esquisse d'un tableau historique des progrès de l'esprit humain" ("Sketch for a Historical Picture of the Progress of the Human Spirit"), which was published posthumously in 1795 and is considered one of the major texts of the Enlightenment and of historical thought. It narrates the history of civilization as one of progress in the sciences, shows the intimate connection between scientific progress and the development of human rights and justice, and outlines the features of a future rational society entirely shaped by scientific knowledge. On 25 March 1794 Condorcet, convinced he was no longer safe, left his hideout and attempted to flee Paris. Two days later he was arrested in Clamart and imprisoned in the Bourg-la-Reine (or, as it was known during the Revolution, "Bourg-l'Égalité", "Equality Borough" rather than "Queen's Borough"). Two days after that, he was found dead in his cell. The most widely accepted theory is that his friend, Pierre Jean George Cabanis, gave him a poison which he eventually used. However, some historians believe that he may have been murdered (perhaps because he was too loved and respected to be executed). Condorcet was symbolically interred in the Panthéon in 1989, in honor of the bicentennial of the French Revolution and Condorcet's role as a central figure in the Enlightenment. However his coffin was empty. Interred in the common cemetery of Bourg-la-Reine, his remains were lost during the nineteenth century. Family. In 1786 Condorcet married Sophie de Grouchy, who was more than twenty years his junior. His wife, reckoned one of the most beautiful women of the day, became an accomplished salon hostess as Madame de Condorcet, and also an accomplished translator of Thomas Paine and Adam Smith. She was intelligent and well-educated, fluent in both English and Italian. The marriage was a strong one, and Sophie visited her husband regularly while he remained in hiding. Although she began proceedings for divorce in January 1794, it was at the insistence of Condorcet and Cabanis, who wished to protect their property from expropriation and to provide financially for Sophie and their young daughter, Louise 'Eliza' Alexandrine. Condorcet was survived by his widow and their four-year-old daughter Eliza. Sophie died in 1822, never having remarried, and having published all her husband's works between 1801 and 1804. Her work was carried on by their daughter Eliza Condorcet-O'Connor, wife of former United Irishman Arthur O'Connor. The Condorcet-O'Connors brought out a revised edition between 1847 and 1849. The Idea of Progress. Condorcet's "Sketch for a Historical Picture of the Progress of the Human Spirit" (1795) was perhaps the most influential formulation of the idea of progress ever written. It made the Idea of Progress a central concern of Enlightenment thought. He argued that expanding knowledge in the natural and social sciences would lead to an ever more just world of individual freedom, material affluence, and moral compassion. He argued for three general propositions: that the past revealed an order that could be understood in terms of the progressive development of human capabilities, showing that humanity's "present state, and those through which it has passed, are a necessary constitution of the moral composition of humankind"; that the progress of the natural sciences must be followed by progress in the moral and political sciences "no less certain, no less secure from political revolutions"; that social evils are the result of ignorance and error rather than an inevitable consequence of human nature. Condorcet's writings were a key contribution to the French Enlightenment, particularly his work on the Idea of Progress. Condorcet believed that through the use of our senses and communication with others, knowledge could be compared and contrasted as a way of analyzing our systems of belief and understanding. None of Condorcet's writings refer to a belief in a religion or a god who intervenes in human affairs. Condorcet instead frequently had written of his faith in humanity itself and its ability to progress with the help of philosophers such as Aristotle. Through this accumulation and sharing of knowledge he believed it was possible for any man to comprehend all the known facts of the natural world. The enlightenment of the natural world spurred the desire for enlightenment of the social and political world. Condorcet believed that there was no definition of the perfect human existence and thus believed that the progression of the human race would inevitably continue throughout the course of our existence. He envisioned man as continually progressing toward a perfectly utopian society. However, he stressed that for this to be a possibility man must unify regardless of race, religion, culture or gender. Civic duty. For Condorcet's republicanism the nation needed enlightened citizens and education needed democracy to become truly public. Democracy implied free citizens, and ignorance was the source of servitude. Citizens had to be provided with the necessary knowledge to exercise their freedom and understand the rights and laws that guaranteed their enjoyment. Although education could not eliminate disparities in talent, all citizens, including women, had the right to free education. In opposition to those who relied on revolutionary enthusiasm to form the new citizens, Condorcet maintained that revolution was not made to last and that revolutionary institutions were not intended to prolong the revolutionary experience but to establish political rules and legal mechanisms that would insure future changes without revolution. In a democratic city there would be no Bastille to be seized. Public education would form free and responsible citizens, not revolutionaries. Evaluation. Rothschild (2001) argues that Condorcet has been seen since the 1790s as the embodiment of the cold, rational Enlightenment. However she suggests his writings on economic policy, voting, and public instruction indicate different views both of Condorcet and of the Enlightenment. Condorcet was concerned with individual diversity; he was opposed to proto-utilitarian theories; he considered individual independence, which he described as the characteristic liberty of the moderns, to be of central political importance; and he opposed the imposition of universal and eternal principles. His efforts to reconcile the universality of some values with the diversity of individual opinions are of continuing interest. He emphasizes the institutions of civilized or constitutional conflict, recognizes conflicts or inconsistencies within individuals, and sees moral sentiments as the foundation of universal values. His difficulties call into question some familiar distinctions, for example between French, German, and English-Scottish thought, and between the Enlightenment and the counter-Enlightenment. There was substantial continuity between Condorcet's criticism of the economic ideas of the 1760s and the liberal thought of the early 19th century. The Lycée Condorcet in the rue du Havre, in the 9th arrondissement of Paris is named in his honour.
1707292	"Ball Don't Lie" is a 2008 film directed by Brin Hill. It is an adaptation of the novel of the same name, written by Matt de la Peña. It stars AND1 Mixtape team member Grayson Boucher, a.k.a. The Professor. The film premiered at the 2008 Tribeca Film Festival. Plot. "Ball Don't Lie" plays out over one day in the life of Sticky (Boucher), a skinny high school sophomore and basketball prodigy from Venice, California. Burdened with emotional scars from a traumatic childhood, a callous foster care system, and obsessive-compulsive personality disorder, Sticky manages to transcend his limitations whenever he has a ball in his hands.
1162600	Evel Knievel (; October 17, 1938 – November 30, 2007), born Robert Craig Knievel, was an American daredevil, painter, entertainer, and international icon. In his career he attempted over 75 ramp-to-ramp motorcycle jumps between 1965 and 1980, and in 1974, a failed jump across Snake River Canyon in the Skycycle X-2, a steam-powered rocket. The over 433 broken bones he suffered during his career earned him an entry in the "Guinness Book of World Records" as the survivor of "most bones broken in a lifetime". Knievel died of pulmonary disease in Clearwater, Florida, aged 69. According to the British paper "The Times" writing his obituary, Knievel was one of the greatest American icons of the 1970s. Knievel was inducted into the Motorcycle Hall of Fame in 1999. Knievel was born in Butte, Montana in 1938 and raised by his grandparents. After watching a Joie Chitwood auto daredevil show as a child, he took to jumping using a pedal bike, later moving on to motorcycles. As a troubled youth, he earned his stagename after occupying a jail cell next to a man named Knofel; the jailer referred to the pair as "Awful Knofel and Evil Knievel" (Knievel later changed the spelling of the first name to "Evel"). In addition to stunt riding at local shows, his early life included a spell in the United States Army at the behest of a magistrate, as well as jobs as a hunting guide and an insurance salesman, while also becoming an ice-hockey team owner. Knievel notably staged an exhibition match against the Czechoslovakian hockey team ahead of the 1960 Winter Olympics. After moving into sports full-time, he had moderate success on the motocross circuit. Knievel moved into the entertainment business in 1966 by setting up his own touring daredevil show, initially using a variety of performers and later converting it to a solo show with his jumps as the center-piece. He came to national attention when he persuaded the owners of Caesars Palace in Las Vegas to let him jump their fountains on New Year's Eve 1967. After a failed landing, which was caught on film, Knievel spent 29 days in a coma. After his recovery, he continued to make high profile and lucrative jumps, and began lobbying the government for permission to jump the Grand Canyon. Unable to obtain permission, he settled on a jump over the Snake River in Twin Falls, Idaho, which he attempted on September 8, 1974 in the X-2 Skycycle. The parachute deployed immediately after launch and the vehicle crashed just a few feet away from the river's edge. Knievel suffered minor injuries and avoided drowning. Knievel then traveled to Britain, and on May 26, 1975, attempted to jump 13 buses in front of 90,000 people at Wembley Stadium, again crashing but with severe injuries. His longest completed career jump came at Kings Island theme park near Cincinnati, Ohio on October 25, 1975, jumping 14 buses, marking his peak television audience. In 1977, Knievel served six months in jail for the assault of promoter Shelly Saltman. After this conviction, Knievel's career suffered, causing him to declare bankruptcy following a nearly $13 million award for damages to Saltman. After cancelling an attempt to jump a tank full of live sharks in Chicago after injuring a cameraman during a practice jump, Knievel eventually withdrew from doing major shows. He instead concentrated on touring with and training his son Robbie Knievel, also a daredevil, eventually making his last jump in March 1981. Knievel's nationally televised motorcycle jumps were four of the twenty most-watched "ABC's Wide World of Sports" events to date. He became a celebrity, recognizable for his use of a Stars-and-Stripes red, white and blue V-shaped set of motorcycle leathers and cape. On the back of this fame, Knievel gained endorsements from Harley-Davidson and a toy line by the Ideal Toy Company. A 1971 film "Evel Knievel" starred George Hamilton as Knievel, and he starred as himself in the 1977 film "Viva Knievel!". Knievel later said of his career that he had "earned $60 million, and spent $62 million". Early life. Robert Craig Knievel, known as Bobby, was born in Butte, Montana in 1938, the first of two children born to Robert E. and Ann Keough "Zippy" Knievel. His surname is of German origin; his great-great-grandparents on his father's side emigrated to the United States from Germany. Robert and Ann divorced in 1940, after the birth of their second child, Nicolas, known as Nic. Both parents decided to leave Butte. Bobby and Nic were raised by paternal grandparents, Ignatius and Emma Knievel. At the age of eight, Bobby attended a Joie Chitwood Auto Daredevil Show, to which he gave credit for his later career choice to become a motorcycle daredevil.p. 38 Knievel ended high school after his sophomore year and got a job in the copper mines with the Anaconda Mining Company as a diamond drill operator. However, he preferred motorbiking to all this "unimportant stuff", as he put it. He was then promoted to surface duty where he drove a large earth mover. Knievel was fired when he made the earth mover do a motorcycle-type wheelie and drove it into Butte's main power line. The incident left the city without electricity for several hours. Without work, Knievel began to find himself in more and more trouble around Butte. After a police chase in 1956 in which he crashed his motorcycle, Knievel was taken to jail on a charge of reckless driving. When the night jailer came around to check the roll, he noted Robert Knievel in one cell and William Knofel in the other. Knofel was well known as "Awful Knofel" ("awful" rhyming with "Knofel") so Knievel began to be referred to as Evel Knievel ("Evel" rhyming with "Knievel"). He chose this misspelling because of his last name and because he didn't want to be considered "evil". Always looking for new thrills and challenges, Knievel participated in local professional rodeos and ski jumping events, including winning the Northern Rocky Mountain Ski Association Class A Men's ski jumping championship in 1959. During the late 1950s, Knievel joined the United States Army. His athletic ability allowed him to join the track team where he was a pole vaulter. After his army stint, Knievel returned to Butte where he met and married his first wife, Linda Joan Bork. Shortly after getting married, Knievel started the Butte Bombers, a semi-pro hockey team.p. 21 To help promote his team and earn some money, he convinced the 1960 Olympic Czechoslovakian hockey team to play the Butte Bombers in a warm-up game to the Olympics. Knievel was ejected from the game minutes into the third period and left the stadium. When the Czechoslovakian officials went to the box office to collect the expense money the team was promised, workers discovered the game receipts had been stolen. The United States Olympic Committee wound up paying the Czechoslovakian team's expenses to avoid an international incident.p. 21-22 Evel Knievel also played with the Charlotte Checkers of the Eastern Hockey League. After the birth of his first son, Kelly, Knievel realized that he needed to come up with a new way to support his family financially. Using the hunting and fishing skills his grandfather had taught him, Knievel started the Sur-Kill Guide Service. He guaranteed that if a hunter employed his service and paid his fee, they would get the big game animal they wanted or he would refund their money. Business was very good until game wardens realized that Knievel was taking his clients into Yellowstone National Park to find prey. The Park Service ordered Knievel to cease and desist this poaching. In response Knievel, who was learning about the culling of elk in Yellowstone, decided to hitchhike from Butte to Washington, D.C. in December 1961 to raise awareness and to have the elk relocated to areas where hunting was permitted. After his conspicuous trek (he hitchhiked with a rack of elk antlers and a petition with 3,000 signatures), he presented his case to Representative Arnold Olsen, Senator Mike Mansfield and Interior Secretary Stewart Udall. As a result of his efforts, the culling was stopped, and the animals have since been regularly captured and relocated to areas of Montana, Wyoming and Idaho. After returning home from Washington, Knievel decided to stop committing crimes. He joined the motocross circuit and had moderate success, but he still couldn't make enough money to support his family. During 1962, Knievel broke his collarbone and shoulder in a motocross accident. The doctors said he couldn't race for at least six months. To help support his family, he switched careers and sold insurance for the Combined Insurance Company of America, working for W. Clement Stone. Stone suggested that Knievel read "Success Through a Positive Mental Attitude", a book that Stone wrote with Napoleon Hill. Knievel credited much of his success to Stone and his book. Knievel was successful as an insurance salesman (even selling insurance policies to several institutionalized mental patients) and wanted recognition for his efforts. When the company refused to promote him to vice-president after a few months on the job he quit. Wanting a new start away from Butte, Knievel moved his family to Moses Lake, Washington. There, he opened a Honda motorcycle dealership and promoted motocross racing. During the early 1960s, it was difficult to promote and sell Japanese imports and the Moses Lake Honda dealership eventually closed. After the closure, Knievel went to work for Don Pomeroy at his motorcycle shop in Sunnyside, Washington. It is here where Jim Pomeroy, a well known motocross racer, taught Knievel how to do a "wheelie" and ride while standing on the seat of the bike. Daredevil. While trying to support his family, Knievel recalled the Joie Chitwood show he saw as a boy and decided that he could do something similar using a motorcycle. Promoting the show himself, Knievel rented the venue, wrote the press releases, set up the show, sold the tickets and served as his own master of ceremonies. After enticing the small crowd with a few wheelies, he proceeded to jump a twenty-foot-long box of rattlesnakes and two mountain lions. Despite landing short and having his back wheel hit the box containing the rattlesnakes, Knievel managed to land safely. Knievel realized to make any amount of real money he would need to hire more performers, stunt coordinators and other personnel so that he could concentrate on the jumps. With little money, he went looking for a sponsor and found one in Bob Blair, owner of ZDS Motors, Inc., the West coast distributor for Berliner Motor Corporation, a distributor for Norton Motorcycles. Blair offered to provide the needed motorcycles, but he wanted the name changed from the "Bobby Knievel and His Motorcycle Daredevils Thrill Show" to "Evil Knievel and His Motorcycle Daredevils". Knievel didn't want his image to be that of a Hells Angels rider, so he convinced Blair to allow him to use "Evel" instead of "Evil". The debut of Knievel and his daredevils was on January 3, 1966, at the National Date Festival in Indio, California. The show was a huge success. Knievel received several offers to host the show after their first performance. The second booking was in Hemet, California, but was canceled due to rain. The next performance was on February 10, in Barstow, California. During the performance, Knievel attempted a new stunt where he would jump, spread eagle, over a speeding motorcycle. Knievel jumped too late and the motorcycle hit him in the groin, tossing him fifteen feet into the air. He was placed in the hospital as a result of his injuries. When released, he returned to Barstow to finish the performance he had started almost a month earlier. Knievel's daredevil show broke up after the Barstow performance because injuries prevented him from performing. After recovering, Knievel started traveling from small town to small town as a solo act. To get ahead of other motorcycle stunt people who were jumping animals or pools of water, Knievel started jumping cars. He began adding more and more cars to his jumps when he would return to the same venue to get people to come out and see him again. Knievel hadn't had a serious injury since the Barstow performance, but on June 19 in Missoula, Montana, he attempted to jump twelve cars and a cargo van. The distance he had for takeoff didn't allow him to get up enough speed. His back wheel hit the top of the van while his front wheel hit the top of the landing ramp. Knievel ended up with a severely broken arm and several broken ribs. The crash and subsequent stay in the hospital were a publicity windfall. With each successful jump, the public wanted him to jump one more car. On May 30, 1967, Knievel successfully cleared sixteen cars in Gardena, California. Then he attempted the same jump on July 28, 1967, in Graham, Washington, where he had his next serious crash. Landing his cycle on a panel truck that was the last vehicle, Knievel was thrown from his bike. This time he suffered a serious concussion. After a month, he recovered and returned to Graham on August 18 to finish the show; but the result was the same, only this time the injuries were more serious. Again coming up short, Knievel crashed, breaking his left wrist, right knee and two ribs. Knievel first received national exposure when actor Joey Bishop had him on as a guest of "The Joey Bishop Show". The national attention brought both a larger paychecks and larger fanbase. Caesars Palace. While in Las Vegas, to watch Dick Tiger successfully defend his WBA and WBC light heavyweight titles at the Las Vegas Convention Center on November 17, 1967, Knievel first saw the fountains at Caesars Palace and decided to jump them. To get an audience with the casino's CEO Jay Sarno, Knievel created a fictitious corporation called Evel Knievel Enterprises and three fictitious lawyers to make phone calls to Sarno. Knievel also placed phone calls to Sarno claiming to be from ABC-TV and "Sports Illustrated" inquiring about the jump. Sarno finally agreed to meet Knievel and the deal was set for Knievel to jump the fountains on December 31, 1967. After the deal was set, Knievel tried to get ABC to air the event live on "Wide World of Sports". ABC declined, but said that if Knievel had the jump filmed and it was as spectacular as he said it would be, they would consider using it later. Knievel used his own money to have actor/director John Derek produce a film of the Caesars' jump. To keep costs low, Derek used his then-wife Linda Evans as one of the camera operators. It was Evans who filmed Knievel's famous landing. On the morning of the jump, Knievel stopped in the casino and placed his last 100 dollars on the blackjack table (which he lost), stopped by the bar and had a shot of Wild Turkey and then headed outside where he was joined by several members of the Caesars staff, as well as two showgirls. After doing his normal pre-jump show and a few warm up approaches, Knievel began his real approach. When he hit the takeoff ramp, he felt the motorcycle unexpectedly decelerate. The sudden loss of power on the takeoff caused Knievel to come up short and land on the safety ramp which was supported by a van. This caused the handlebars to be ripped out of his hands as he tumbled over them onto the pavement where he skidded into the Dunes parking lot. As a result of the crash, Knievel suffered a crushed pelvis and femur, fractures to his hip, wrist and both ankles and a concussion that kept him in a coma for 29 days. The Caesars Palace crash would represent Knievel's longest attempted motorcycle jump at 141 feet. After his crash and recovery, Knievel was more famous than ever. ABC-TV bought the rights to the film of the jump; paying far more than they originally would have had they televised the original jump live. Ironically, when Knievel finally achieved the fame he had always wanted, and fortune now a distinct possibility, his doctors were telling him that he might never walk without the aid of crutches, let alone ride and jump motorcycles again. Insurance. Before the Caesars' jump Knievel asked his friend Matt Tonning, a Combined Insurance sales agent, to sell him ten accident policies. Combined's underwriting policies allowed for only one of these policies be written, since the policy covered any accident and was non-cancelable for the life of the insured. Tonning agreed and was fired by Combined when Knievel filed the claims on all ten. Upon hearing that Tonning had been fired, Knievel contacted Combined's Vice President Matt Walsh. He agreed to return nine of the policies and be paid full benefits on only one, if Combined allowed Tonning to return to work. Walsh agreed and Tonning was reinstated. In a 1971 interview with Dick Cavett, Knievel stated that he was uninsurable following the Caesars' crash. Knievel said he was turned down 37 times from Lloyd's of London, stating, "I have trouble getting life insurance, accident insurance, hospitalization and even insurance for my automobile…Lloyds of London has rejected me 37 times so if you hear the rumor that they insure anybody, don’t pay too much attention to it." Four years later, a clause in Knievel's contract to jump 14 buses at Kings Island required a one-day $1,000,000 liability insurance to the amusement park. Lloyd's of London offered the liability insurance for what was called a "laughable $17,500". Knievel eventually paid $2,500 to a U.S.-based insurance company. Jumps and records. To keep his name in the news, Knievel started describing his biggest stunt ever, a motorcycle jump across the Grand Canyon. Just five months after his near fatal crash, Knievel performed another jump. On May 25, 1968, in Scottsdale, Arizona, Knievel crashed while attempting to jump fifteen Ford Mustangs. Knievel ended up breaking his right leg and foot as a result of the crash. On August 3, 1968, Knievel returned to jumping, making more money than ever before. He was earning approximately $25,000 per performance, and he was making successful jumps almost weekly until October 13, in Carson City, Nevada. While trying to stick the landing, he lost control of the bike and crashed again, breaking his hip once more. By 1971, Knievel realized that the United States government would never allow him to jump the Grand Canyon. To keep his fans interested, Knievel considered several other stunts that might match the publicity that would have been generated by jumping the canyon; ideas included: jumping across the Mississippi River, jumping from one skyscraper to another in New York City and jumping over 13 cars inside the Houston Astrodome. While flying back to Butte from a performance tour, Knievel looked out the window and saw Snake River Canyon. After finding a location near Twin Falls, Idaho, that was both wide enough, deep enough and on private property, Knievel leased for $35,000 to stage his jump. He set the date for Labor Day (September 4), 1972. On January 7 and January 8, 1971, Knievel set the record by selling over 100,000 tickets to back-to-back performances at the Houston Astrodome. On February 28, he set a new world record by jumping 19 cars with his Harley-Davidson XR-750 at the Ontario Motor Speedway in Ontario, California. The 19 car jump was also filmed for the movie "Evel Knievel". Knievel held the record for 27 years until Bubba Blackwell jumped 20 cars in 1998 with an XR-750. On May 10, Knievel crashed while attempting to jump 13 Pepsi delivery trucks. His approach was complicated by the fact that he had to start on pavement, cut across grass, and then return to pavement. His lack of speed caused the motorcycle to come down front wheel first. He managed to hold on until the cycle hit the base of the ramp. After being thrown off he skidded for . Knievel broke his collarbone, suffered a compound fracture of his right arm and broke both legs. On March 3, 1972, at the Cow Palace in Daly City, California, after making a successful jump, he tried to come to a quick stop because of a short landing area. Knievel suffered a broken back and a concussion after getting thrown off and run over by his motorcycle, a Harley-Davidson. Knievel returned to jumping in November, 1973, where he successfully jumped over 50 stacked cars at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. For 35 years, Knievel held the record for successfully jumping the most stacked cars on a Harley-Davidson XR-750 (the record was broken in October 2008. His historic XR-750 is now part of the collection of the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History. Made of steel, aluminum and fiberglass, the customized motorcycle weighs about 300 pounds. The Grand Canyon jump. Although Knievel never attempted to jump the Grand Canyon, rumors of the Canyon jump were started by Knievel himself in 1968 following the Caesars Palace crash. During a 1968 interview, Knievel stated, "I don't care if they say, 'Look, kid, you're going to drive that thing off the edge of the Canyon and die,' I'm going to do it. I want to be the first. If they'd let me go to the moon, I'd crawl all the way to Cape Kennedy just to do it. I'd like to go to the moon, but I don't want to be the second man to go there." For the next several years, Knievel would negotiate with the U.S. government to secure a jumping site and develop various concept bikes to make the jump. However, the U.S. Department of Interior denied him airspace over the Grand Canyon. Therefore, in 1971, Knievel switched his attention to the Snake River Canyon. In the movie, "Evel Knievel", George Hamilton (as Knievel) alludes to the Canyon jump in the final scene of the movie. One of the common movie posters for the 1971 film depicts Knievel jumping his motorcycle off a (likely) Grand Canyon cliff. In 1999, Knievel's son, Robbie, jumped a portion of the Grand Canyon owned by the Hualapai Indian Reservation. Snake River Canyon. ABC Sports was unwilling to pay the price Knievel wanted for the Snake River Canyon jump, so he ended up hiring Bob Arum's company, Top Rank Productions, to put the event on closed-circuit television and broadcast to movie theaters. Investors in the event took a substantial loss, including promoter Don E. Branker, as well as Vince McMahon, Jr., who would declare personal bankruptcy a few years later before taking over and expanding his father's World Wrestling Federation. Arum partnered with Invest West Sports, Shelly Saltman's company, to secure from Invest West Sports two things; first, the necessary financing for the jump, and second, the services of Saltman, long recognized as one of America's premier public relations and promotion men, to do publicity so that Knievel could concentrate on his jumps. Knievel then hired subcontractor and aeronautical engineer Doug Malewicki to build him a rocket-powered cycle that he could use to jump across the Snake River, to be called the X-1 Skycycle. Doug's creation was powered by a steam engine built by former Aerojet engineer Robert Truax. On April 15, 1972 the X-1 was launched to test the feasibility of the launching ramp. The decision was then made to have Truax build the Skycycle X-2 and have it take off and fly more like a rocket than a motorcycle. The launch at Snake River Canyon () was on September 8, 1974, at 3:36 p.m. MDT. The steam that powered the engine was superheated to a temperature of . The drogue parachute deployed even as the Skycycle was leaving the launching rail, causing enough drag that even though the craft made it all the way across the canyon to the north rim, the prevailing winds caused it to drift back south, into the canyon. By the time it hit the bottom of the canyon, it landed only a few feet from the water on the same side of the canyon from which it had been launched. If he had landed in the water, Knievel would have drowned due to a jumpsuit/harness malfunction which kept him strapped in the vehicle. Knievel survived the jump with only minor injuries. In 2010, Knievel's son, Robbie, announced he hoped to recreate the Snake River Canyon jump, yet no jump has been officially planned. However, stuntman Mike Hughes has built a steam powered rocket cycle that he will test in August 2013. If Hughes is successful, he will attempt to clear the Snake River Canyon at the 40th anniversary of Knievel's ill-fated jump. Later daredevil career. Wembley jump. After the Snake River jump, Knievel returned to motorcycle jumping with ABC's Wide World of Sports televising several jumps. On May 26, 1975, in front of 90,000 people at Wembley Stadium in London, Knievel crashed while trying to land a jump over thirteen redundant single-deck AEC Merlin buses (the term "London Buses" used in earlier publicity had led to the belief that the attempt was to be made over the higher and more traditional Routemaster double-deck type). After the crash, despite breaking his pelvis, Knievel addressed the audience and announced his retirement by stating "ladies and gentlemen of this wonderful country, I've got to tell you that you are the last people in the world who will ever see me jump. Because I will never, ever, ever jump again. I’m through." Near shock and not yielding to Frank Gifford's (of ABC's Wide World of Sports) plea to use a stretcher, Knievel walked off the Wembley field stating, "I came in walking, I went out walking!" Kings Island jump. After recuperating, Knievel decided that he had spoken too soon, and that he would continue jumping. On October 25, 1975, Knievel successfully jumped fourteen Greyhound buses at the Kings Island theme park near Cincinnati, Ohio. Although Knievel landed on the safety deck above the 14th bus, his landing was successful and he held the record for jumping the most buses on a Harley-Davidson for 24 years (until broken by Bubba Blackwell in late 1999). The Kings Island event scored the highest viewer ratings in the history of "ABC's Wide World of Sports" and would serve as Knievel's longest successful jump at 133 feet (although the Caesars Palace jump was longer, it ended in a crash). After the Kings Island jump, Knievel again announced his retirement. Again, his retirement was short lived and Knievel continued to jump. However, after the lengthy Kings Island jump, Knievel limited the remainder of his career jumps to shorter and more attainable lengths. Evel jumped on October 31, 1976, at the Seattle Kingdome. He only jumped seven Greyhound Buses but it was a success. Despite the crowd's pleasure, Knievel felt that it was not his best jump, and apologized to the crowd. Shark jump. In the winter of 1976, Knievel was scheduled for a major jump in Chicago, Illinois. The jump was inspired by the film "Jaws". Knievel was scheduled to jump a tank full of live sharks and would be televised live nationally. However, during his rehearsal, Knievel lost control of the motorcycle and crashed into a cameraman. Although Knievel broke his arms, he was more distraught over a permanent injury his accident caused to the cameraman (who lost his eye). The footage of this crash was so upsetting to Knievel, that he did not show the clip for 19 years until the documentary "Absolute Evel: The Evel Knievel Story". Afterward Knievel retired from major performances and limited his appearances to smaller venues to help launch the career of his son, Robbie Knievel. His last stunt show, not including a jump, took place in March 1980 in Puerto Rico. However, Knievel would officially finish his career as a daredevil as a touring "companion" of his son, Robbie, limiting his performance to speaking only, rather than stunt riding. His last appearance with Robbie (on tour) was in March 1981 in Hollywood, Florida. The Last Gladiator. "The Last Gladiator" is an honorific title or nickname for Evel Knievel. The term "Last Gladiator" was coined and attributed to Knievel circa 1971. The term refers to the Roman gladiator, who entered an arena to fight numerous foes to which he may vanquish death with skill and bravery. The term was made popular in the 1971 eponymous movie starring George Hamilton. In the movie, Hamilton (as Knievel) states, "I am the last gladiator in the new Rome. I go into the arena and I compete against destruction and I win. And next week, I go out there and I do it again." Evel Knievel's 1988 self-produced documentary was entitled, "Last of the Gladiators". "Evel Knievel . . .may be the last great gladiator" is a quote from an article by David Lyle about Knievel that appeared in the January 1970 issue of Esquire Magazine. Motorcycles. Knievel briefly used a Honda 250cc motorcycle, using it to jump a crate of rattlesnakes and two mountain lions, which was his first known jump. Knievel then used a Norton Motorcycle Company 750cc. He used the Norton for only one year during 1966. Between 1967 and 1968, Knievel jumped using the Triumph Bonneville T120 (with a 650cc engine). Knievel used the Triumph at the Caesars Palace crash on New Year's Eve 1967. When Knievel returned to jumping after the crash, he used Triumph for the remainder of 1968. Attempting his stunts on motorcycles without modern suspension was a primary factor in Knievel's many disastrous landings. The terrific forces these machines passed on to his body is well-illustrated in the super slo mo of his Caesars' landing. Between December 1969 and April 1970, Knievel used the Laverda American Eagle 750cc motorcycle. On December 12, 1970, Knievel would switch to the Harley-Davidson XR-750, the motorcycle with which he is best known for jumping. Knievel would use the XR-750 in association with Harley-Davidson until 1977. However, after his 1977 conviction for the assault of Shelly Saltman, Harley-Davidson withdrew their sponsorship of Knievel. On September 8, 1974, Knievel attempted to jump the Snake River Canyon on a rocket propelled motorcycle designed by former NASA engineer Robert Truax dubbed the Skycycle X-2. The State of Idaho registered the X-2 as an airplane rather than a motorcycle. At the tail end of his career, while helping launch the career of his son, Robbie Knievel, Knievel returned to the Triumph T120. However, he only performed wheelies and did not jump after retiring the XR-750. In 1997, Knievel signed with the California Motorcycle Company to release a limited "Evel Knievel Motorcycle". However, the motorcycle was not built to jump, but was rather a V-twin cruiser motorcycle intended to compete with Harley-Davidson street bikes. Knievel promoted the motorcycle at his various public appearances. After the company closed in 2003, Knievel returned to riding modern street Harley-Davidson motorcycles at his public appearances. Evel's son, Robbie Knievel, sold limited-edition motorcycles from his company, Knievel Motorcycles Manufacturing Inc. Although two of the motorcycles refer to Evel (the Legend Series Evel Commemorative and the Snake River Canyon motorcycle), Evel did not ride Robbie's bikes. Leather jumpsuits. Throughout his daredevil career, Knievel was known for his sensational leather jumpsuits that were compared to the jumpsuits worn by Elvis Presley. When Knievel began jumping, he used a black and yellow jumpsuit. When he switched to the Triumph motorcycle, his jumpsuit changed to a white suit with stripes down the legs and sleeves. In interviews, he said the reason for the switch was because he saw how Liberace had become not just a performer, but the epitome of what a showman should be, and Knievel sought to create his own variation of that showmanship in his own jumps. Two variations of the white suit appeared (one with three stars across the chest and one with the three stars on his right chest). The latter was worn at the Caesars Palace jump. When Knievel switched to the Laverda motorcycle in 1969, he switched his leathers to a white jumpsuit with Confederate stars on blue stripes. The Confederate stars jumpsuit was used in the beginning and ending of the 1971 film, "Evel Knievel". Following the Confederate stars, Knievel adjusted the blue stripes to a V-shape (the first version of the V-shape was also used in the 1971 film's final jump). For the remainder of his career, variants of the V-shaped white-starred jumpsuit would be a constant, including a special nylon/canvas flightsuit that matched his white leathers for the X-2 jump. Each variant would become more elaborate, including the addition of the red-white-blue cape and the Elvis-styled belt-buckled with his initials “EK”. In 1975, Knievel premiered the blue leathers with red stars on the white stripes for the Wembley jump. Both the blue leathers and white leathers were featured in "Viva Knievel!". Core values. One of Evel's qualities was that he had great pride in his core values. Throughout his career (and later life), he would repeatedly talk about the importance of "keeping his word". He stated that although he knew he may not successfully make a jump or even survive the canyon jump, he followed through with each stunt because he gave his word that he would. Prior to the canyon jump, Knievel stated, "If someone says to you, 'that guy should have never jumped the canyon. You knew if he did, that he'd lose his life and that he was crazy.' Do me a favor. Tell him that you saw me here and regardless of what I was, that you knew me, and that I kept my word." In the documentary "Last of the Gladiators", Knievel discussed the crash of a 1970 Pepsi-Cola sponsored jump in Yakima, Washington. Knievel knew the jump was questionable, but stated, "I went ahead and did it anyway. When you give your word to somebody that you're going to do something, you've gotta do it." In the 1971 biopic, George Hamilton (as Evel) emphasizes in the opening monologue that a man does not go back on his word. Knievel would regularly share his anti-drug message, as it was another one of his core values. Knievel would preach an anti-drug message to children and adults before each of his stunts. One organization that Knievel regularly slammed for being drug dealers was the Hells Angels. A near-riot erupted on March 3, 1971, at the Cow Palace when a tire-iron (or Coke can according to the Hells Angels) was thrown at Knievel during his stunt show, and Knievel and a majority of the spectators fought back, sending three of the fifteen Hells Angels to the hospital. The plot to his only motion picture as an actor, "Viva Knievel!", centers around Evel foiling the attempts of drug lords smuggling narcotics into America from Mexico. Motorcycle helmet safety. Knievel was a proponent of motorcycle helmet safety. He constantly encouraged his fans to wear motorcycle helmets. The Bell Star helmet used in the Caesars' Palace jump is credited for saving Knievel's life after he fell off the motorcycle and hit his head on the ground (following the Caesars' Palace crash, each of Knievel's full-face helmets had the slogan, "Color Me Lucky"). As an ardent supporter of helmet use, Knievel once offered a cash reward for anyone who witnessed him stunting on a motorcycle without a helmet. In 1987, Knievel supported a mandatory helmet bill in the State of California. During the Assembly Transportation Committee meeting, Knievel was introduced as "the best walking commercial for a helmet law". Evel claimed the main reason he was still alive and walking was because he was wearing a helmet. Family. Knievel was married twice. He and his first wife, Linda, were married for 38 years. During their marriage, the couple had four children. Of the two boys and two girls, the oldest child Kelly and second-born Robbie are the boys and Tracey and youngest child Alicia are the girls. Throughout Kelly's and Robbie's adolescence, the boys performed at Knievel's stunt shows. Robbie Knievel continued into adulthood to perform as a professional motorcycle daredevil. After Evel's death, Kelly has overseen the Knievel legacy, including developing Knievel-related products and assisting Harley-Davidson develop a museum exhibit. Knievel's courtship and marriage to Linda was the theme of the 1971 George Hamilton movie, "Evel Knievel". Linda and Evel separated in the early 90's and were divorced in 1997. In 1999, Knievel married his girlfriend, Krystal Kennedy of Clearwater, Florida, whom he began dating in 1992. The marriage was held on November 19, 1999, on a special platform built on the fountains at Caesars Palace on the Las Vegas Strip (site of Evel's jump New Year's Eve 1967). Long-time friend Engelbert Humperdinck sent a recorded tribute to the couple. The couple were married for two years, divorcing in 2001. Following the divorce, Krystal Knievel was granted a restraining order against him. However, Krystal and Evel would work out their differences, living together until Knievel's death. According to the investment magazine, "Registered Rep"., Knievel left his entire estate to Krystal. Marketing the image. Knievel sought to make more money from his image. He was no longer satisfied with just receiving free motorcycles to jump with. Knievel wanted to be paid to use and promote a company's brand of motorcycles. After Triumph, the motorcycle company he had been jumping with, refused to meet his demands, Knievel started to propose the idea to other manufacturers. American Eagle Motorcycles was the first company to sign Knievel to an endorsement deal. At approximately the same time, Fanfare Films started production of "Evel Knievel", a 1971 movie starring George Hamilton as Knievel. There have been two other movies made about Evel: a television pilot made in 1974 starring Sam Elliott, and made-for-TV film in 2004 starring George Eads. Also in 1974, Evel and Amherst Records released at the Sound City Studios the self title album "Evel Knievel", which included a press conference, an anti-drug talk for his young fans, and four other tracks. Knievel kept up his pursuit of getting the United States government to allow him to jump the Grand Canyon. To push his case, he hired famed San Francisco defense attorney Melvin Belli to fight the legal battle in obtaining government permission. "ABC's Wide World of Sports" started showing Knievel's jumps on television regularly. His popularity, especially with young boys, was ever increasing. He became a hero to a generation of young boys, many of whom were injured trying to imitate his stunts. A. J. Foyt made Knievel part of his pit crew for the Indianapolis 500 in 1970. Evel Knievel's huge fame caused him to start traveling with a bodyguard, Boots Curtis. Curtis became a long-time friend to Knievel. Ideal Toys. Between 1972 and 1977, Ideal Toy Company released a series of Evel Knievel-related merchandise. During the six years the toys were manufactured, Ideal claimed to have sold more than $125 million worth of Knievel toys. The toys included the original 1972 figures, which offered various outfits and accessories. In 1973, Ideal released the Evel Knievel Stunt Cycle. After the release of the Stunt Cycle, the Knievel toys were the best selling item for Ideal. During the next four years, Ideal Toys released various models relating to Evel Knievel’s touring stunt show. The models included a Robbie Knievel doll, the Scamble Van, a Dragster, a Stunt Car, and the Evel Knievel The Stunt World. Additionally, Ideal released non-Knievel-touring toys, including a Chopper Motorcycle, a Trail Bike, and a female counterpart, Derry Daring. The last item before Ideal Toys discontinued the distribution of Knievel toys was the Strato-Cycle, based on the film, "Viva Knievel!". In 1977, Bally marketed its Knievel pinball machine as the "first fully electronic commercial game"; it has elsewhere been described as one of the "last of the classic pre-digital games." (Both electromechanical and solid state versions were produced. The electromechanical version is extremely rare, with only 155 made). Knievel made several television appearances, including frequenting as a guest on talk shows such as "Dinah!" and Johnny Carson's "Tonight Show". In 1977, Evel made a guest spot on "The Bionic Woman", where he played himself and gets inadvertently caught up in East German espionage while appearing in West Germany. Actual footage from Evel's L.A. Coliseum jump over crushed cars was used in the beginning of the episode and an indoor jump over 11 cars and 1 van was used at the end of the film. Also in 1977, Warner Bros. released "Viva Knievel!", a movie starring Knievel as himself and co-starring Lauren Hutton, Gene Kelly and Red Buttons. Similar to "The Bionic Woman", actual footage from the Wembley jump was used in the movie. Assault charges. While Knievel was healing from his latest round of injuries, the book "Evel Knievel on Tour" was released. Authored by Knievel's promoter for the Snake River Canyon jump, Shelly Saltman, the book painted an unflattering picture of Knievel's character, alleging that he abused his wife and kids and he used drugs. Knievel, with both arms still in casts, flew to California to confront Saltman, a VP at 20th Century Fox. Outside the studio commissary, one of Knievel's friends grabbed Saltman and held him, while Knievel attacked him with an aluminum baseball bat, declaring, "I'm going to kill you!" According to a witness to the attack, Knievel struck repeated blows at Saltman's head, with Saltman blocking the blows with his left arm. Saltman's arm and wrist were shattered in several places before he fell to the ground unconscious. It took numerous surgeries and permanent metal plates in his arm to eventually give Saltman back the use of his arm. Saltman's book was pulled from the shelves by the publisher after Knievel threatened to sue. Saltman later produced documents in both criminal and civil court that proved that, although Knievel claimed to have been insulted by statements in Saltman's book, he and his lawyers had actually been given editorial access to the book and had approved and signed off on every word prior to its publication ("see" fine print). On October 14, 1977, Knievel pleaded guilty to battery and was sentenced to three years' probation and six months in county jail, during which he publicly flaunted his brief incarceration for the press. After the assault of Saltman and time served in jail, Knievel lost most marketing endorsements and deals, including Harley-Davidson and Ideal Toys. With no income from jumping or sponsorship, Knievel was eventually forced to declare bankruptcy. In 1981, Saltman was awarded a $13 million judgment against Knievel in a civil trial, but never received money from Knievel or Knievel's estate. Post-daredevil years. During the 1980s, Knievel would drive around the country in a recreational vehicle, selling works of art allegedly painted by him. After several years of obscurity, Knievel made a significant marketing comeback in the 1990s, representing Maxim Casino, Little Caesar's, Harley-Davidson, and other firms. In 1999, Knievel celebrated the 25th anniversary of the Snake River Canyon jump at the Twin Falls mall. His memorabilia was then stored at Kent Knigge's farm in Filer, Idaho, seven miles west of Twin Falls. During the same year, Knievel was inducted into the Motorcycle Hall of Fame. Knievel once dreamed of housing all of his career memorabilia in an Evel Knievel Museum to be located in his home state of Montana. Those dreams were unfulfilled, and his artifacts are spread throughout transportation museums and private collections around the world. Knievel's original blueprints and handwritten notes about his desired museum are currently displayed at the Route 66 Vintage Iron Motorcycle Museum in downtown Miami, Oklahoma. The Route 66 site also houses Evel's Snake River Canyon Jump Mission Control Super Van. [http://www.travelok.com/listings/view.profile/id.6511] On October 9, 2005, Knievel promoted his last public "motorcycle ride" at the Milwaukee Harley-Davidson dealership. The ride was to benefit victims of Hurricane Katrina. Although he was originally scheduled to lead a benefit ride through Milwaukee, Knievel never rode the motorcycle because he suffered a mild (non-debilitating) stroke prior to the appearance and limited his visit to a signing session. On July 27, 2006, on "The Adam Carolla Show", Knievel said that he had idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, and required supplemental oxygen therapy 24 hours a day. The following day, Evel appeared on stage with Robbie at "Evel Knievel Days" in Butte, marking the last performance the two would appear together. Robbie jumped 196 feet in a tribute to his father. Shortly before his death, Knievel was saluted by "Top Gear" presenter Richard Hammond in a BBC2 Christmas special. The 60-minute program "Richard Hammond Meets Evel Knievel" aired on December 23, 2007, less than a month after his death. The documentary was filmed in July 2007 around the annual "Evel Knievel Days" festival in his old home town of Butte. Knievel was clearly in severely declining health, but he still displayed the same spirit and showmanship that had driven his career. Christian conversion. On April 1, 2007, Knievel appeared on the television program, Robert H. Schuller's "Hour of Power", and announced that he "believed in Jesus Christ" for the first time. At his request, he was baptized at a televised congregation at the Crystal Cathedral by Pastor Schuller. Knievel's televised testimony triggered mass baptisms at the Crystal Cathedral." Evel Knievel: The Rock Opera. In 2003, Knievel signed over exclusive rights to Los Angeles composer Jef Bek, authorizing the production of a rock opera based on Knievel's life. Directed by "" co-creator Keythe Farley, the production opened in Los Angeles in September 2007 to excellent reviews. Six Flags Evel Knievel roller coaster. Evel Knievel had partnered with Six Flags St. Louis to name a new wooden coaster after "America's Legendary Daredevil". The amusement park in Eureka, Missouri, outside of St. Louis, Missouri, opened the ride on June 20, 2008. "The Evel Knievel Roller Coaster" operated for three seasons before being renamed "American Thunder" in 2011. Declining health and death. In the late 1990s, Knievel was in need of a life-saving liver transplant as a result of suffering the long-term effects from Hepatitis C. He contracted the disease after one of the numerous blood transfusions he received prior to 1992. In February 1999, Knievel was given only a few days to live and he requested to leave the hospital and die at his home. En route to his home, Knievel received a phone call from the hospital stating a young man had died in a motorcycle accident and could be a donor. Days later, Knievel successfully received the transplant. In 2005, he was diagnosed with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, an incurable and terminal lung disease that required him to be on supplemental oxygen 24 hours a day. In 2006, Evel had an internal morphine pain pump surgically implanted to help him with the excruciating pain in his deteriorated lower back, one of the costs of incurring so many traumas over the course of his career as a daredevil. He also had two strokes since 2005, but neither left him with severe debilitation. Evel Knievel died in Clearwater, Florida, on November 30, 2007, aged 69. He had been suffering from diabetes and idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis for many years. A longtime friend reported that Knievel had trouble breathing while at his residence in Clearwater, but died on the way to the hospital. "It's been coming for years, but you just don't expect it. Superman just doesn't die, right?" In one of his last interviews, he told "Maxim" Magazine, "You can't ask a guy like me why performed. I really wanted to fly through the air. I was a daredevil, a performer. I loved the thrill, the money, the whole macho thing. All those things made me Evel Knievel. Sure, I was scared. You gotta be an ass not to be scared. But I beat the hell out of death." Knievel was buried at Mountain View Cemetery in his hometown of Butte, Montana, on December 10, 2007, following a funeral at the 7,500-seat Butte Civic Center presided over by Pastor Dr. Robert H. Schuller with actor Matthew McConaughey giving the eulogy. Prior to the Monday service, fireworks exploded in the Butte night sky as pallbearers carried Knievel's casket into the center. Posthumous recognition. On July 10, 2010, a special temporary exhibit entitled "TRUE EVEL: The Amazing Story of Evel Knievel" was opened at the Harley-Davidson Museum in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The exhibit was opened in collaboration with Harley-Davidson Motorcycles and Evel’s oldest son, Kelly. Among the various artifacts from Knievel’s life, the exhibit included his “Shark Jump” Harley-Davidson XR-750, the X-2 Skycycle, a blue jumpsuit from late in his career without any sponsor patches, and his trademark “red, white and blue” jumpsuit complete with his helmet and walking stick. Evel Knievel merchandising, personal artifacts, and X-rays from his injuries were also exhibited. The "TRUE EVEL" exhibit ran for approximately two months and ended on September 6, 2010. In December 2010, a traveling version of "TRUE EVEL" began a one-year tour of the United Kingdom and Europe. The tour began on 4 December in Gateshead. In November 2010, General Motors premiered a television commercial featuring footage of Knievel's Wembley Stadium crash, followed by Knievel getting onto his feet. The ad focused on GM's restructuring and emphasized the belief that "we all fall down".
1048920	The Ugly Dachshund is a 1966 Walt Disney Productions feature film starring Dean Jones and Suzanne Pleshette in a story about a Great Dane who believes he's a dachshund. Based on a 1938 novel by Gladys Bronwyn Stern, the film was written by Albert Aley and directed by Norman Tokar. "The Ugly Dachshund" was one of several light-hearted comedies produced by the Disney Studios during the 1960s. Plot and cast. Fran Garrison (Suzanne Pleshette) her husband Mark (Dean Jones) are a yound happy married couple and the proud owners of an award-winning dachshund named Danke. The show begins with them franitcally getting into the car and heading to the hospital as "the pain has started and it's about time". In a hurry to the hospital Officer Carmody tries to pull them over for going 60 mph in a 35 mph zone. After notifying that they are on the way to the hospital and indicating that Fran is the one in labor, Office Carmody pulls in front of them and turns on the sirens to escort them to the county hospital. After he arrives and turns to find that Mr. and Mrs. Garrison have gone past him he gets back on his motorcycle and follows them to the vet. It is then revealed that Danke is the one in labor. While Mark is outside waiting on Fran, Officer Carmody catches up to him and after Mark thanks him for helping them get to the vet on time Officer Carmody reveals that he was under the impression that Mrs. Garrison was the one in labor and proceeds to write multiple traffic violation tickets totalling $110. On the day that Mr. Garrison arrives at the vet to pick up Danke and her puppies, veterinarian Dr. Pruitt (Charlie Ruggles) mentions that his female great Dane has also just given birth but unfortunately does not have enough milk for all of her puppies and the runt of the group has been cast aside by her - as most dogs do under these circumstances. Doc Pruitt convinces Mark to bring home the great dane puppy so that Danke may wet nurse him until he has weened. When he arrives home and Fran notices that there is another puppy she is surprised but does not expect that the puppy is from another litter and reminds Mark that he should thank Danke for giving him a boy like he always wanted. Before he knows it, and after keeping his secret from Fran, the puppies have grown drastically in size. Of course the great dane puppy whom he has named Brutus is significantly larger than the other four dachshunds. As the dog grows up with Fran's dachshund puppies he believes he is one of them and picks up mannerisms like hunching close to the ground to walk. The dachshunds are mischievous creatures and lead poor unsuspecting Brutus through a series of comic misadventures with Office Carmody, now Seargent Carmody, being chased up a tree, Mark's studio being splattered with paint, and a garden party being turned topsy-turvy. Fran wants Mark to remove Brutus from the house once-and-for-all but when Brutus saves her favorite puppy Chloe from the garbage truck she changes her mind. Mark and Fran enter their dogs in a dog show with Brutus meeting others of his breed. He notices a female great dane and stands at attention. He goes on to win two blue ribbons. Brutus finally finds out what it's like to be a great dane. Cast includes Kelly Thordsen as Officer Carmody, Parley Baer as Mel Chadwick, Robert Kino as Mr. Toyama, Mako as Kenji, and Charles Lane as a Judge.
71352	Santa Sangre ("Holy Blood") is a 1989 Mexican-Italian avant-garde thriller film directed by Alejandro Jodorowsky and written by Jodorowsky along with Claudio Argento and Roberto Leoni. Divided into both a flashback and a flash-forward, the film, which is set in Mexico, tells the story of Fenix, a boy who grew up in a circus, and his life through both adolescence and early adulthood. Plot. The film starts with a naked figure sitting in a tree in what looks like a mental asylum. Nurses come out to him, bringing a plate of conventional food and also one of a raw fish. As they try to coax him off of his perch, it is the fish that persuades him to come down. As the nurses get him to put on some overalls, the viewer sees that he has a tattoo of phoenix on his chest. Flashback. The film flashes back into Fenix's childhood, which he spent performing as a "child magician" in a circus run by his father Orgo, the knife-thrower, and his mother Concha, a trapeze artist and aerialist. The circus crew also includes, among others, a tattoed woman, who acts as the object of Orgo's knife-throwing feats, her adopted daughter Alma (a hearing-impaired, voiceless mime and tightrope walker whom Fenix fancies), Fenix's midget friend Aladin, a pack of clowns and a small elephant. Orgo carries on a very public flirtation with the Tattooed Woman, and their knife-throwing act is heavily sexualized. Concha is also the leader of a religious cult that considers, as its patron saint, a little girl who was raped and had her arms cut off by two brothers. Their church is about to be bulldozed at the behest of the owner of the land, and the followers make one last stand against the police and the bulldozers. A Roman Catholic monsignor drives into the conflict, saying that he will prevent its demolition. But after he enters the temple to inspect it, he deems it blasphemous and unworthy (the girl worshipped is no saint, he says, and the supposed pool of "holy blood" at the center of the edifice contains just red paint), so the demolition is carried out. Fenix leads Concha back to the circus, where she finds out about Orgo's affair, but Orgo, being also a hypnotist, puts Concha in a trance and has sex with her. The circus elephant then dies, much to Fenix's grief, and a public funeral is conducted, in which the elephant is paraded through the city inside a giant casket. The casket is then dropped into the city dump, where scavengers open it up and proceed to carve up the elephant and take away the meat. Orgo consoles his son by tattooing a spread-eagled phoenix onto his chest, identical to the one on his own chest, using a knife dipped in red ink. This tattoo, Orgo says, will make Fenix a man. Later on, Concha, during her act, sees Orgo and the Tattooed Woman sneak out of the big top. She chases after them, and seeing them sexually engaged, pours a bottle of sulphuric acid onto Orgo's genitals. Orgo retaliates by cutting off both her arms (much like the girl previously venerated). He then walks into the street and slits his throat. Fenix witnesses this, locked inside a trailer. He then sees the Tattooed Woman driving off with Alma. Flash-forward. Back in the present, Fenix is taken out to a movie theater, along with other patients, most of whom suffer from Down syndrome. A pimp intercepts them and persuades them to take cocaine and follow him to meet an overweight prostitute. Fenix then spots the Tattooed Woman, who is now a prostitute, and becomes filled with rage. Back in the asylum, Fenix's armless mother Concha calls out for him from the street and he escapes by climbing down a rope from his cell window. The Tattooed Woman is shown trying to prostitute Alma, who runs away and sleeps on the roof of a truck. The Tattooed Woman is then mutilated and killed by an unseen woman's hands. Mother and son go on to perform an act whereby he stands behind her and moves his arms, to make it look as if Concha's arms are moving. But Concha soon starts to use her son's hands to kill those women who she deems a threat to her, including a young woman whom he kills with a knife-throw, as well as a cross-dressing wrestler, whom he slashes with a sword. It is revealed in a dream that he has killed many more women, all of whose memories haunt him. Alma finds Fenix and, together, they plan to run away from Concha and her house. She tries to force Fenix to murder Alma as well, but, after a struggle, he manages to plunge a knife into Concha's stomach, but she doesn't die and reveals to him that she will always be inside him, vanishing before his eyes. Through a series of flashbacks, it is revealed that Concha actually died after being maimed by Orgo, and that Fenix has kept a mannequin of his armless mother, while performing on stage and at home. He destroys the home-made temple and throws away the mannequin with the help of his imaginary childhood friends, Aladin and the clowns. The police are waiting outside the house and order Fenix and Alma to put their hands up. Both comply, and Fenix watches his own hands with awe as he does so. He realises that he has regained control of them. Release. "Santa Sangre" did not receive a wide release in the U.S. since its original premiere, only screening at a few theaters familiar with Jodorowsky's previous work. On January 25, 2011, Severin Film gave the film a release on both DVD and Blu-ray with more than "five hours of exclusive extras". A UK DVD from Anchor Bay was released in 2004. The film was screened in the Un Certain Regard section at the 1989 Cannes Film Festival, and generally was critically well received, eventually being ranked 476th on Empire magazine's 2008 list of the 500 greatest movies of all time. In the United States, it was originally rated NC-17 for "several scenes of extremely explicit violence". However, an edited version was released with an R rating for "bizarre, graphic violence and sensuality, and for drug content". Reception. "Santa Sangre" has received predominantly positive reviews, with a reviewer from the British Film 4 describing it as "One of Jodorowsky’s finest films" which "resonates with all the disturbing power of a clammy nightmare filtered through the hallucinatory lens of 1960s psychedelia." Roger Ebert gave the film a positive review, and said that he believed it carried the moral message of genuinely opposing evil, rather than celebrating it like most contemporary horror films. Ebert described it as "a horror film, one of the greatest, and after waiting patiently through countless Dead Teenager Movies, I am reminded by Alejandro Jodorowsky that true psychic horror is possible on the screen – horror, poetry, surrealism, psychological pain and wicked humor, all at once." In recognition of its critical success, "Santa Sangre" ranks 476th on "Empire" magazine's 2008 list of the 500 greatest movies of all time.
589058	Aandhi (translation: Storm) is a 1975 Indian political drama film directed by lyricist Gulzar. The film was supposedly based on then-Prime Minister Indira Gandhi's life, but in reality, only the look was inspired by politician Tarkeshwari Sinha, apart from Indira Gandhi. The film story is based around a chance meeting of a married couple after years of separation, when wife Aarti Devi, now a leading politician happens to stay in the hotel run by her estranged husband during an election campaign. The movie is noted for its songs composed by Rahul Dev Burman, written by Gulzar and sung by Kishore Kumar and Lata Mangeshkar. Actress Suchitra Sen played the character of Aarti Devi after actress Vyjayanthimala refused the film as she had reservations about enacting the lead role. The movie was not allowed a full release when Mrs.Gandhi was in power. The film was banned in 1975's emergency. After her loss in the 1977 elections, the ruling Janata party cleared it and had it premiered on national television. Plot. J.K. (played by Sanjeev Kumar) is a Hotel Manager. One day he gallantly comes to the rescue of a politician's drunk daughter, Aarti (Suchitra Sen). Aarti falls in love with J.K. and both get married in a small ceremony. After few years, the married couple face many differences due to which they decide to separate. Years later, J.K. and Aarti meet again when she is an established politician. Despite the separation, both of them feel the closeness but fearing that her name might be tarnished and jeopardize her career, Aarti does not want to step forward. Production. Gulzar said the film had no semblance with the personal life of then Prime Minister, Indira Gandhi. He wanted to make film about modern Indian politician, and so he modeled the character on Indira Gandhi and to some extent on noted parliamentarian from Bihar, Tarkeshwari Sinha.
1044603	The Plague of the Zombies (1966) Hammer Horror film directed by John Gilling which stars André Morell, John Carson, Jacqueline Pearce, Brook Williams and Michael Ripper. The film's imagery influenced many later films in the zombie genre. Plot. In a Cornish village during the mid-1800s, the inhabitants of the town are dying from a mysterious plague that seems to be spreading at an accelerated rate. Even the local doctor, Peter Thompson, cannot combat the disease. Alarmed, Thompson sends for outside help from his friend Sir James Forbes. Accompanying Sir James is his daughter Sylvia. In an attempt to learn more about the disease, Sir James and Dr. Thompson disinter the corpses that were recently buried. To their surprise, the men find all the coffins empty! Conducting further investigations on the mystery lead the doctors to encounter zombies walking near an old, deserted tin mine on the estate of Squire Clive Hamilton. Sir James is informed that the squire lived in Haiti for several years and practiced voodoo rituals, as well as black magic. This information leads him to research on the subject of the black arts. Later that evening, Squire Hamilton pays Sylvia a visit. Purposely, Hamilton manages to shatter a wine glass, and Sylvia happens to cut her finger on one of the sharp edges of the glass. Secretly, the Squire conceals a piece of the blood-stained glass into his coat pocket and departs. With a vestige of Sylvia's blood, Hamilton uses his voodoo magic to lure the heroine into venturing in the dark woods. She is led to the abandoned tin mine by an army of walking zombies for a voodoo ceremony that will transform her into one of the walking dead.
1052256	Two English Girls (original French title: Les Deux Anglaises et le Continent, UK Title: Anne and Muriel), is a 1971 French romantic drama film directed by François Truffaut and based on a 1956 novel by Henri-Pierre Roché. Starring Jean-Pierre Léaud as Claude, Kika Markham as Anne, and Stacey Tendeter as Muriel. The novel was available in its first English translation as of January 2004, translated by Walter Bruno, published by Cambridge Book Review Press, Cambridge, WI. Despite the title, the titular characters are actually both Welsh. Plot. The film begins in Paris, somewhere around the year 1902. Claude Roc (Jean-Pierre Léaud), a young middle-class Frenchman, meets Ann Brown (Kika Markham), a young Englishwoman, and they become quick friends. Ann invites Claude to spend the holidays at her family's mansion, where we meet Ann's widowed mother (Sylvia Marriott) and younger sister Muriel (Stacey Tendeter). During the holidays, Claude, Ann and Muriel become very close and Claude gradually falls in love with Muriel. Not fully knowing the couple's intentions, both families lay down a one-year-long separation without any contact before agreeing to get married. Claude goes back to Paris where he has many love affairs, and eleven months later he sends Muriel a break-off letter. A despondent Muriel sinks into a deep depression, and upon returning to Paris to defend her sister, Ann falls for Claude. This instigates a love triangle that consumes the threesome for the next twenty years. Reception. The film received generally positive reviews; it currently holds an 86% 'fresh' rating on review aggregate website Rotten Tomatoes.
1071919	"Hula Girls" was critically acclaimed upon release in Japan and nominated for a total of 12 awards at the 2007 Japan Academy Awards, going on to win five major awards, including that of best film, best director, best screenplay, best supporting actress (for Yū Aoi), and most popular film. It also won two major awards at the 80th Kinema Junpo awards, including that of best film and best supporting actress (for Yū Aoi). Since its release in Japan, the film has been shown across theaters and film festivals worldwide. Story. In 1965, the cold, northern coal mining town of Iwaki, was facing unemployment due to oil becoming the predominant energy resource in Japan. The mining company develops a plan to use hot springs, which seeped into the mines, to provide heat for a Hawaiian Center spa resort. The plan is greeted with hostility by the miners, but the company recruits Madoka Hirayama (Matsuyuki) a down-on-her-luck dance instructor from Tokyo to train local girls in the hula. At first, only a small core group take the challenge. Sanae (Tokunaga) is worried that her widowed father will lose his job, and the ability to support the four kids. She convinces her lifelong best friend Kimiko (Aoi) to join her at the disastrous first meeting. After the rumor runs through attendees that they will be dancing topless, Sanae and Kimiko seem to be the only two listening to the assurances that the rumor is false, as dozens of their companions flee. The two girls are joined by Hatsuko (Ikezu), the organizer's secretary, and Sayuri (Yamazaki), a large clumsy girl. Things go poorly as training begins, and a frustrated Hirayama nearly gives up, until the girls' enthusiasm persuades her to give the plan another try. Kimiko and her mother, Chiyo (Fuji), have an argument, which prompts the girl to leave home to stay at the school, but as training continues and local unemployment looms, some of the other girls come back and join the school. On the day that Sanae's father is fired, he comes home to find her in Hawaiian costume, and beats her. This outrages Hirayama, who attacks him. When he leaves, Sanae goes with him to take care of her siblings, after getting Kimiko, who has become the leader of the girls, to promise that she will keep going.
1065725	The Harder They Fall is a 1956 film noir directed by Mark Robson, featuring Humphrey Bogart in his last film before his death in 1957. The film was written by Philip Yordan and based on the 1947 novel by Budd Schulberg. The drama tells a "thinly disguised "à clef" account of the Primo Carnera boxing scandal," with the challenger based on Carnera and the champ based on Max Baer; previously both Baer and Carnera had starred in the 1933 movie "The Prizefighter and the Lady", in which Carnera is the world champ and Baer is his challenger. Bogart's character, Eddie Willis, is based on the career of boxing writer and event promoter Harold Conrad. Plot. Sportswriter Eddie Willis is broke after the newspaper he works for goes under. He is hired by crooked boxing promoter Nick Benko to publicize his new boxer, a huge, but slow-witted and untalented Argentinian named Toro Moreno. Unbeknownst to Toro and his friend and manager Luís Agrandi, all of his fights are fixed to make the public believe that he is for real. Eddie begins to feel guilty about his work, especially after he comes to like the good-natured giant. The unhappy boxer wants to quit and go home, but Eddie talks him out of it. Finally Benko arranges for Toro to fight the heavyweight champ, Buddy Brannen. Knowing Toro has no chance, Benko places large bets secretly against his fighter as he had planned all along. Toro loses as expected and gets brutally beaten in the process. Afterwards, Eddie discovers that Benko has rigged the accounting so that Toro ends up getting paid only a pittance. Ashamed, Eddie sends Toro home to Argentina with Eddie's own share of the proceeds. When confronted by Benko, Eddie defies him, then begins writing an exposé about corruption in the boxing world. Cast. Boxers appearing in the film: Background. The film originally went out with two different endings: in one, Eddie Willis demanded that boxing be banned altogether, while in the other, Willis merely insisted that there be a federal investigation of the prizefighting business. The video version contains the "harder" ending, while most television prints end with the "softer" message. The film was Bogart's last. At the time he was already ill with what would be diagnosed as esophageal cancer. Occasionally inaudible in some takes, some of his lines are reported to have been dubbed in post-production by Paul Frees, who also appears in the film as a priest. Reception. Critical response. The film was entered into the 1956 Cannes Film Festival. "The New York Times" film critic, Bosley Crowther, liked the film, writing, "It's a brutal and disagreeable story, probably a little far-fetched, and without Mr. Schulberg's warmest character—the wistful widow who bestowed her favors on busted pugs. But with all the arcana of the fight game that Mr. Yordan and Mr. Robson have put into it—along with their bruising, brutish fight scenes—it makes for a lively, stinging film." More recently, film critic Dennis Schwartz wrote, "The unwell Bogie's last film is not a knockout, but his hard-hitting performance is terrific as a has-been sports journalist out of desperation taking a job as a publicist for a fight fixer in order to get a bank account ... The social conscience film is realistic, but fails to be shocking or for that matter convincing."
629122	Gia Carides (born 7 June 1964) is an Australian actress. She is best known for her portrayals of Liz Holt in "Strictly Ballroom", Susy Connor in "Brilliant Lies", and Cousin Nikki in "My Big Fat Greek Wedding". Early life. Carides was born in Sydney, Australia, to a Greek father and an English mother. She began acting at the age of 12. Her first film was a hard hitting drama starring alongside Bryan Brown and Kris Macquade. Career. Early in her career, Carides starred as 'Helena Angelopolous' on the Australian television series Police Rescue, while also having acclaim for her films "Strictly Ballroom" and "Brilliant Lies", receiving AFI Award nominations for each. She is best known for her roles as Robin Spitz/Swallows in "" and as Cousin Nikki in "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" and the sequel television show "My Big Fat Greek Life". Carides works in both America and Australia, credited with a host of film and television credits including "Primary Colors", "Year One" and "East of Everything". She's also appeared in a guest spot of husband Anthony LaPaglia's television series "Without A Trace". She has volunteered as an actress with the Young Storytellers Program. Gia is active in fundraising for building schools in Africa and Ethiopia with Save The Children. Personal life. Carides is married to actor Anthony LaPaglia, whom she met in Sydney in 1992. A year later they starred in the film "Paperback Romance" (a.k.a. "Lucky Break"). She and LaPaglia are the parents of daughter Bridget (born in January 2003). Gia Carides is sister to Zoe Carides, also an actress, and Danielle Carides, singer songwriter. Her brother in-law meanwhile is doctor-turned-actor Jonathan LaPaglia (from "New York Undercover").
1100345	Raymond Merrill Smullyan (born May 25, 1919) is an American mathematician, concert pianist, logician, Taoist philosopher, and magician. Born in Far Rockaway, New York, his first career (like Persi Diaconis a generation later) was stage magic. He then earned a BSc from the University of Chicago in 1955 and his Ph.D. from Princeton University in 1959. He is one of many logicians to have studied under Alonzo Church. Life. Born in Far Rockaway, New York, he showed musical talent, winning a gold medal in a piano competition when he was aged 12. The following year, his family moved to Manhattan and he attended Theodore Roosevelt High School in The Bronx as this school offered courses suited to his musical talents, but he left to study on his own as the school did not offer similar courses in mathematics. He attended several colleges, studying mathematics and music. While a Ph.D. student, Smullyan published a paper in the 1957 "Journal of Symbolic Logic" showing that Gödelian incompleteness held for formal systems considerably more elementary than that of Gödel's 1931 landmark paper. The contemporary understanding of Gödel's theorem dates from this paper. Smullyan later made a compelling case that much of the fascination with Gödel's theorem should be directed at Tarski's theorem, which is much easier to prove and equally disturbing philosophically. The culmination of Smullyan's lifelong reflection on the classic limitative theorems of mathematical logic is quite readable: Smullyan is the author of many books on recreational mathematics, recreational logic, etc. Most notably, one is titled "". He was a professor of philosophy at City College in New York. He is also an amateur astronomer, using a six inch reflecting telescope for which he ground the mirror. Logic problems. Many of his logic problems are extensions of classic puzzles. Knights and Knaves involves knights (who always tell the truth) and knaves (who always lie). This is based on a story of two doors and two guards, one who lies and one who doesn't. One door leads to heaven and one to hell, and the puzzle is to find out which door leads to heaven by asking one of the guards a question. One way to do this is to ask "Which door would the other guard say leads to hell?". This idea was famously used in the 1986 film "Labyrinth". In more complex puzzles, he introduces characters who may lie or tell the truth (referred to as "normals"), and furthermore instead of answering "yes" or "no", use words which mean "yes" or "no", but the reader does not know which word means which. The puzzle known as "the hardest logic puzzle ever" is based on these characters and themes. In his Transylvania puzzles, half of the inhabitants are insane, and believe only false things, whereas the other half are sane and believe only true things. In addition, humans always tell the truth, and vampires always lie. For example, an insane vampire will believe a false thing (2 + 2 is not 4) but will then lie about it, and say that it is. A sane vampire knows 2 + 2 is 4, but will lie and say it isn't. And "mutatis mutandis" for humans. Thus everything said by a sane human or an insane vampire is true, while everything said by an insane human or a sane vampire is false. His book "Forever Undecided" popularizes Gödel's incompleteness theorems by phrasing them in terms of reasoners and their beliefs, rather than formal systems and what can be proved in them. For example, if a native of a knight/knave island says to a sufficiently self-aware reasoner, "You will never believe that I am a knight", the reasoner cannot believe either that the native is a knight or that he is a knave without becoming inconsistent (i.e., holding two contradictory beliefs). The equivalent theorem is that for any formal system S, there exists a mathematical statement that can be interpreted as "This statement is not provable in formal system S". If the system S is consistent, neither the statement nor its opposite will be provable in it. See also Doxastic logic. Inspector Craig is a frequent character in Smullyan's "puzzle-novellas." He is generally called into a scene of a crime that has a solution that is mathematical in nature. Then, through a series of increasingly harder challenges, he (and the reader) begin to understand the principles in question. Finally the novella culminates in Inspector Craig (and the reader) solving the crime, utilizing the mathematical and logical principles learned. Inspector Craig generally does not learn the formal theory in question, and Smullyan usually reserves a few chapters after the Inspector Craig adventure to illuminate the analogy for the reader. Inspector Craig gets his name from William Craig. His book "To Mock a Mockingbird" (1985) is a recreational introduction to the subject of combinatory logic. Apart from writing about and teaching logic, Smullyan has recently released a recording of his favorite classical piano pieces by composers such as Bach, Scarlatti, and Schubert. Some recordings are available on the Piano Society website, along with the video "Rambles, Reflections, Music and Readings". He has also written an autobiography titled "Some Interesting Memories: A Paradoxical Life" (ISBN 1-888710-10-1). In 2001, documentary filmmaker Tao Ruspoli made a film about Smullyan called "". Philosophy. Smullyan has written several books about Taoist philosophy, which he believes neatly solves most or all traditional philosophical problems as well as integrating mathematics, logic, and philosophy into a cohesive whole.
1436977	Xala (, Wolof for "temporary sexual impotence") is a 1975 Senegalese film directed by Ousmane Sembène. It is an adaptation of Sembène's 1973 novel of the same name. The film depicts El Hadji, a businessman in Senegal, who is cursed with crippling erectile dysfunction upon the day of his marriage to his third wife. The film satirizes the corruption in African post-independence governments; El Hadji's impotence symbolizes the failure of such governments to be useful at all. Plot. El Hadji Abdou kader Beye, a Senegalese businessman, takes on a third wife, thereby demonstrating his social and economic success. On the wedding night he discovers that he is incapable of consummating the marriage; he has become impotent. At the beginning, he suspects his two wives, without realizing that he walks by the true guilty party every day. The film criticizes the African leaders' attitude after Independence, underlining their greed and their inability to step away from foreign influences. Criticism. Scholar Aaron Mushengyezi writes, "I posit that in "Xala", he evokes two problematic binary oppositions: between the corruption and decadence of foreign influence and the purity and morality of African tradition, the former represented as 'corrupting' and the latter 'redemptive; and between strong, revolutionary 'masculine' women and villainous, weak, 'feminine' men."
674139	Nora Marie Tschirner (born 12 June 1981) is a German film actress and former television and radio presenter. Early life. Nora Tschirner was born in East Berlin (then East Germany) to the documentary film director Joachim Tschirner and the radio journalist Waltraud Tschirner. She grew up with her two older brothers in the East Berlin suburb Pankow. She attended John-Lennon-Gymnasium in Berlin, as did Sarah Kuttner, with whom she is friends. She completed her Abitur at the Rosa-Luxemburg-Oberschule in Pankow. She made her first appearance on television in 1997 with a role in the ZDF children's series "Achterbahn". Presenting. In 2001, she was cast as a VJ for MTV and worked for the station until 2007. In addition, she hosted the radio program "Blue Moon" on Radio Fritz (RBB) with Stephan Michme. In 2004 she appeared along Christian Ulmen in his show "Ulmens Auftrag" on MTV. In 2007 she hosted the First Steps Awards. She was also seen in OneRepublic's "Secrets" music video as the main character. Acting. After appearing as Anya in Conny Walter's "Wie Feuer und Flamme" (2001), she was the leading actress, playing Paula Behringer, in the ARD series "Sternenfänger" (2002). In 2003 she played alongside Matthias Schweighöfer as Katharina in "Soloalbum", from the novel with the same title by Benjamin von Stuckrad-Barre. In 2005 she was the leading actress, playing Titzi in Anno Saul's "Kebab Connection" and some smaller roles in television series including "Ein starkes Team" and "Abschnitt 40". She was the leading actress playing alongside Christian Ulmen in the film "FC Venus – Elf Paare müsst ihr sein". In 2006 she played in the ZDF science fiction series "", a filming of "The Star Diaries" by Stanisław Lem. It won the German Television Prize and was nominated for the Grimme-Preis. In 2007 she was the leading actress alongside Til Schweiger in the romantic comedy "Keinohrhasen". For this role, she won a Bambi in the national film category in 2008. In 2012, she voiced the main role of in the German dub of "Brave". From 2013, Tschirner and Christian Ulmen will play a team of investigators in the Leipzig-based episodes of the "Tatort" series. In the German version of the 2013 reboot of the video game "Tomb Raider", she voices the main character Lara Croft. Singing. She participated on the songs "Das ewige Date" and "Küss mich schnell bevor Du platzt" on the album "Brichst du mir das Herz, dann brech ich dir die Beine" by Olli Schulz und der Hund Marie. In 2012 Nora Tschirner together with Tom Krimi and Erik Lautenschläger founded the band project "Prag". They released the "cineastic pop" album "Premiere".
1226316	The Killing of John Lennon is a 2006 British non-fiction drama film about Mark Chapman's plot to kill musician John Lennon. The film was written and directed by Andrew Piddington, and stars Jonas Ball, Robert C. Kirk and Thomas A. McMahon. British-produced, it was not released in the United States until 2008 and received much less attention than the similarly themed American-produced independent film "Chapter 27" produced in 2007. While "Chapter 27" deals almost wholly with the actions of Mark Chapman during the three days before his murder of Lennon, this film chronicles his life three months prior and contains many flashbacks to his earlier life and upbringing, while exploring in detail his infatuation with J.D. Salinger's novel "The Catcher in the Rye" and the links between this and his motivation for killing Lennon.
1056961	Susan Elizabeth "Suzy" Amis-Cameron (born January 5, 1962) is an American former film actress and former model. Career. Born in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, Amis first worked as a Ford model before she began acting in the 1980s. She made her feature film debut in the 1985 comedy film "Fandango", opposite Kevin Costner. Following "Fandango", Amis next had roles in "Rocket Gibraltar" (1988), "Where the Heart Is" (1990), and "Rich in Love" (1993). In 1993, she appeared as Josephine "Jo" Monaghan in "The Ballad of Little Jo". Amis later appeared in "Blown Away" (1994), "The Usual Suspects" (1995) and the blockbuster "Titanic" (1997) in which she played Lizzy Calvert, the granddaughter of Rose DeWitt Bukater (Gloria Stuart). That same year, she starred opposite Tom Selleck in the western "Last Stand at Sabre River" and acted in the cult-classic "Nadja". Amis quit acting after her last screen appearance in the 1999 film, "Judgment Day". In 2005, Amis founded MUSE Elementary, a Reggio-inspired, independent, non-profit school in the Topanga, California area of Los Angeles. Personal life. Since June 4, 2000, Amis has been married to film director James Cameron, whom she met while filming "Titanic". Amis and Cameron have three children: twins Claire and Quinn (April 4, 2001), and Elizabeth Rose (December 29, 2006). She also has a son, Jasper, with first husband, Sam Robards.
632829	Paul McGillion (born January 5, 1969) is a Vancouver-based actor who has worked in television, film and theatre since 1990. He is best known for his role on the television series "Stargate Atlantis" as Dr. Carson Beckett. Early life. McGillion was born in Paisley, Scotland. His family moved to Canada when he was only 2. When Paul was 11 the family moved back to Scotland for three years while his father worked on the Shetland oil rigs. He is the sixth of seven children. Acting career. He taught scene study at the Vancouver Film School in 1998 and 1999. In 2004, McGillion took a role on the science fiction series "Stargate Atlantis" as the Scottish medical doctor, Carson Beckett. He was initially cast as a recurring guest, but his character appeared so frequently in the show's first season that he was promoted to main character for seasons two and three, and reverts to a recurring character for seasons 4 and 5 where he appears as the clone of the now-deceased Beckett. McGillion also played the part of young Ernest Littlefield in "Stargate SG-1"'s first season episode "The Torment of Tantalus", the first Tau'ri to have passed through the Stargate after its burial. He expressed great interest in auditioning for the role of Montgomery Scott in the eleventh "Star Trek" film. “I grew up watching "Star Trek" and Scotty was my favourite character. It would be a great honour to follow in James Doohan’s footsteps," he said. McGillion also had the endorsement of Chris Doohan, the son of original Scotty actor James Doohan, to play the role of Scotty in the film. Though the part ultimately went to Simon Pegg, McGillion still appeared in the film in a different role. He appeared in Season 7 of "24" as Dr. Levinson, a doctor who tried to extract a dangerous pathogen from Jack Bauer's bloodstream after all the canisters containing pathogen had either been destroyed or secured by FBI, but died when Bauer was being moved to another location and Bauer broke free, killing Levinson and his orderlies. References. He was in the TV movie Christmas Magic with Lindy Booth in 2011.
1164197	Lilakoi Moon (born Lisa Michelle Bonet; November 16, 1967), known professionally as Lisa Bonet, is an American actress. She is best known for her role as Denise Huxtable Kendall on the long-running NBC sitcom "The Cosby Show", and originally starring in its spinoff "A Different World". She was married to musician Lenny Kravitz from 1987 to 1993.
1163513	Richard Caruthers "Rich" Little (born November 26, 1938) is a Canadian-American impressionist and voice actor, nicknamed "The Man of a Thousand Voices," by voice actor Mel Blanc. Early life. Little was born in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, the middle of three sons of Elizabeth Maud (née Wilson) and Lawrence Peniston Little, a doctor. In his early teens, he formed a partnership with Geoff Scott, another budding impressionist, concentrating on reproducing the voices of Canadian politicians such as then-Prime Minister John Diefenbaker and Ottawa mayor Charlotte Whitton (Geoff went on to become a politician). They were performing professionally in night clubs by age 17. Career. Little was an usher at the Elgin Movie Theatre in Ottawa where he would perfect his voices while standing at the back of the theatre. He started his amateur acting career at Ottawa's Little Theatre, winning his first acting award at the Eastern Ontario Drama Festival in Deep River, Ontario. He went on to become a successful disc jockey, frequently incorporating impersonations into his show. In 1963, he was asked to audition by Mel Tormé, who was producing a new variety show for Judy Garland. The audition won him the job and in 1964, Little made his American television debut on CBS's "The Judy Garland Show", where he imitated various male celebrities, including James Mason in "A Star Is Born". In 1966 and 1967, Little appeared in ABC-TV's Judy Carne sitcom "Love on a Rooftop" as the Willises' eccentric neighbor, Stan Parker. He appeared on "That Girl" in 1967 as a writer who impressed Marlo Thomas' character with his impersonations. He also made two memorable appearances as accident-prone Brother Paul Leonardi on "The Flying Nun" in 1968; it marked one his few appearances as a character actor rather than an impressionist. Little was a frequent guest on variety and talk shows. With Johnny Carson he captured "The Tonight Show" host's voice and many on-stage mannerisms (and later played Carson in the HBO TV-movie "The Late Shift"). One of his best known impressions is of U.S. President Richard Nixon (reprising in 1991 the role of Nixon as ideal sperm donor in Gina's fantasies on the soap opera "Santa Barbara".) During the 1970s, Little made many television appearances portraying Nixon. He was a regular guest on "The Dean Martin Celebrity Roasts" in the 1970s and was also a semi-regular on the Emmy-winning ABC-TV variety series "The Julie Andrews Hour" in 1972–1973. In response to his imitation of Jack Benny, the comedian sent Little an 18-carat gold money clip containing this message: "With Bob Hope doing my walk and you doing my voice, I can be a star and do nothing." He was named "Comedy Star of the Year" by the American Guild of Variety Artists in 1974. His best-known continuing TV series was "The Kopycats", hour-long segments of "The ABC Comedy Hour", first broadcast in 1972. Taped in England, these comedy-variety shows consisted entirely of celebrity impersonations, with the actors in full costume and makeup for every sketch. The cast included Little, Frank Gorshin, Marilyn Michaels, George Kirby, British comedian Joe Baker, Fred Travalena, Charlie Callas and Peter Goodwright. "The Rich Little Show" (1976) and "The New You Asked for It" (1981) were attempts to present Little in his own person, away from his gallery of characterizations. Little also appeared on a second season episode of "The Muppet Show". In 1981 Little appeared in a comedy LP called "The First Family Rides Again", which was the fourth and final 'First Family' comedy LPs originally created by Bob Booker and Earle Doud. Little starred along with Melanie Chartoff, Micheal Richards, Shelly Black, Jenilee Harrison, Earle Doud, and Vaughn Meader, making light of U.S. President Ronald Reagan's years in the White House. Little has starred in various HBO specials including the 1978 one-man show, "Rich Little's Christmas Carol". He has also appeared in several movies and released nine albums. When David Niven proved too ill for his voice to be used in his appearances in "Trail of the Pink Panther" (1982) and "Curse of the Pink Panther" (1983), Little provided the overdub. (Ironically, Little provided the voice for the Pink Panther in two experimental 1965 cartoons, 'Sink Pink" and "Pink Ice, in Niven's voice"). He rendered similar assistance for the 1991 TV special "Christmas at the Movies" by providing an uncredited dub for actor/dancer Gene Kelly who had lost his voice. As a native Canadian, he also lent his voice to the narration of two specials which were the forerunners for the animated series "The Raccoons": "The Christmas Raccoons" and "The Raccoons on Ice". Little was the host for the 2007 White House Correspondents' Association dinner. Although President George W. Bush was reported to have enjoyed Little's performance, it was panned by some reviewers for "his ancient jokes and impressions of dead people (Johnny Carson, Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan)." Little voices as a guest star in "Futurama" such as "", playing his own celebrity head: "This is Rich Little, impersonating Howard Cosell." Many times he plays a sports commentator. Other interests. Little has been active in several charities including the Juvenile Diabetes Fund and the Children's Miracle Network. He has been named to Miami Children's Hospital International Pediatrics Hall of Fame and been honored by the naming of the Rich Little Special Care Nursery at Ottawa Civic Hospital. Personal life. Little was married to Jeanne Worden from 1971 until their divorce in 1989. The couple have a daughter, Bria. He married Jeannette Markey in 1994; they divorced in 1997. He was married to Marie Marotta from 2003 until her death (of a deliberate overdose of sleeping pills after suffering from chronic pain) in 2010. He married his fourth wife, Catherine Brown, in a private ceremony in 2012. Little resides in Las Vegas, where he often performs. He was sworn in as an American citizen in a Las Vegas courtroom on January 10, 2008. In 1998, a Golden Palm Star on the Palm Springs, California, Walk of Stars was dedicated to him.
1052553	"Sarah's Key" () is a 2010 French drama directed and co-written by Gilles Paquet-Brenner and an adaptation of the novel with the same title by Tatiana de Rosnay.
1064383	Die Hard with a Vengeance is a 1995 action thriller film and the third in the "Die Hard" film series. It was produced and directed by John McTiernan (who directed "Die Hard"), written by Jonathan Hensleigh, and stars Bruce Willis as New York City Police Department Lieutenant John McClane, Samuel L. Jackson as McClane's reluctant partner Zeus Carver, and Jeremy Irons as Simon Peter Gruber. It was released on May 19, 1995, five years after "Die Hard 2", and was followed by "Live Free or Die Hard" in 2007 and "A Good Day to Die Hard" in 2013. Plot. In New York City, a bomb detonates destroying the Bonwit Teller department store. A man calling himself "Simon" phones Major Case Unit Inspector Walter Cobb of the New York City Police Department, claiming responsibility for the bomb. He demands that suspended police officer Lt. John McClane be dropped in Harlem wearing a sandwich board that says "I hate niggers". Harlem shop owner Zeus Carver spots McClane and tries to get him off the street before he is killed, but a gang of black youths attack the pair, who barely escape. Returning to the station, they learn that Simon is believed to have stolen several thousand gallons of an explosive compound. Simon calls again demanding McClane and Carver put themselves through a series of "games" to prevent more explosions.
1169712	Marty Ingels (born March 9, 1936) is an actor, comedian, theatrical agent, and, by many, best known as the voice of many cartoon characters and commercials. Born Martin Ingerman in the Brooklyn borough of New York City, he is the son of Jacob and Minnie (née: Crown) Ingerman. Ingels' acting career dates back to the early 1960s. In 1960, he appeared twice as himself in NBC's short-lived crime drama, "Dan Raven", starring Skip Homeier and set on the Sunset Strip of West Hollywood, California. He guest starred on the CBS sitcoms, "Pete and Gladys", "The Ann Sothern Show", and "Hennesey". He appeared twice as Sol Pomeroy, a United States Army buddy of the character Rob Petrie, on CBS's "The Dick Van Dyke Show". As recently as 2010, Ingels was cast in an episode of CBS's "". He also acted in motion pictures and had his own short-lived ABC television series, "I'm Dickens, He's Fenster" (1962–1963) with John Astin, which lasted one season of thirty-two episodes. His voice-overs and commercials include those for Paul Masson wines, with his uniquely raspy voice. He played AutoCat in the "Autocat and Motormouse" cartoons featured first on "The Cattanooga Cats" and then in a series of their own, and was Beegle Beagle in "The Great Grape Ape Show". His latest role was in "Pac-Man" (1982) as the title character. He was considered as a replacement for the late Lorenzo Music, to voice the Garfield the Cat character. The producers chose, instead, to discontinue "Garfield and Friends" after seven seasons.
1056890	Europa Europa is a 1990 film directed by Agnieszka Holland. Its original German title is Hitlerjunge Salomon, i.e. "Hitler Youth Salomon". It is based on the 1989 autobiography of Solomon Perel, a German Jewish boy who escaped the Holocaust by masquerading not just as a non-Jew, but as an elite "Aryan" German. The film stars Marco Hofschneider and Julie Delpy; Perel appears briefly as himself in the finale. The film is an international co-production between CCC Film and companies in France and Poland. The film should not be confused with the 1991 Lars von Trier film "Europa", which was initially released as "Zentropa" in the United States to avoid such a confusion. Plot. Nazi Germany part. Solek (a nickname for Solomon, also called "Solly") and his family live in Nazi Germany. On the eve of Solek's bar mitzvah, Kristallnacht occurs. He escapes, naked, then hiding in a barrel. At night, he calls his acquaintance to bring him clothes from his house. She refuses, but throws him a leather jacket with a swastika band on its arm. He comes back home. His family is together at home, but his sister is killed by Nazis. The father, who was born in Łódź, Poland, decides to go back there. Poland. The Perel family (Solek, his parents, and his two brothers, David and Isaak) decides to move to Łódź, central Poland, where they believed they will be safe. Solly causes criminal damage and the police are called. Living in Łódź, Solly meets Kasia, a cashier working in a cinema. Thanks to her Solly can go to the cinema without paying for the ticket. Later, they establish a romantic relationship. However, less than a year later, the World War II begins with Germany invading western Polish borders. Solly is happy that the criminal case will be forgotten, since the police will have more important issues to solve. Solek's family decides he and his brother should leave for the European East. Solek meets hysterically upset Kasia, but his brother separates them. Isaak and Solek flee, towards the eastern border of Poland, which soon has been invaded by the Soviet Union. (In an ironic scene, as Solek and other Jewish refugees cross a river in a small boat, while a boat carrying Polish refugees fleeing the Soviets passes in the opposite direction. Solomon explains in an internal monologue that the Jews, fearing Nazi persecution, fled toward the Soviets, while the Poles, who feared the Soviets more, fled toward the Germans.) The brothers are separated, and Solek is placed in a Soviet orphanage in Grodno with other Polish refugee children. Soviet Union. Solek lives in the orphanage for two years, where he joins the Komsomol and receives Communist education. Being a teenager, he has a romantic interest in Inna, a young and attractive instructor who defends him when the authorities at school discover that his class origin is middle-class. He even climbs outside the building to watch her in her bedroom. One scene features a Russian version of the German Communist song "Dem Morgenrot Entgegen" ("Towards The Dawn") before mail call, where Solek receives a letter from his parents who have been re-settled in a ghetto. Nazi-occupied Soviet Union. Then, with the crash of a bomb, Germany invades the Soviet Union. The orphanage is evacuated, but Solek is left behind, to be found by German soldiers. Solek gets rid of his identity papers, and tells the Germans he is "Josef Peters", a "Volksdeutscher" (ethnic German) from a Baltic German family in Latvia. Although he does not respond to his made up name, the soldiers deduce that he was in the orphanage because his parents were killed by the Soviets, and promise him vengeance. When the unit captures Yakov Dzhugashvili, the son of Joseph Stalin, with Solly's help translating Russian, they declare "Jupp" to be their "good-luck charm", and adopt him as an auxiliary. Thanks to his fluent German and Russian, he becomes their cultural guide and interpreter. He accompanies the unit for several weeks, and sees all the horrors of war, including murdered civilians, as the Germans seek to crush Soviet resistance. Nonetheless, Solek is still in danger. He cannot let anyone see him bathing, because his circumcised penis would expose "Jupp" as a Jew. Robert, one of the soldiers, is a homosexual, and sneaks in on "Jupp" when he finally manages a private bath. Solek rejects Robert's advances. However, knowing that both of them have secrets the Nazis would kill them for, they become close friends. Then a bizarre combat incident occurs. Robert is killed and Solek, left alone, tries to get to the Soviet lines. As he crosses a bridge, the unit charges across behind him, and the Soviet troops there surrender. "Jupp" is hailed as a hero. The company commander decides that "such a fine young German" should be properly educated. He is childless himself, so he tells "Jupp" that he will adopt him and that "Jupp" will be sent to the elite Hitler Youth Academy in Berlin where he is to receive Nazi education. (This is much to Solek's consternation, but of course he cannot refuse.) He is escorted for much of the trip by Rosemarie, a middle-aged female Nazi official. Rosemarie thinks "Jupp" resembles Hitler, and observes that he even has the same birthday. On the train, she seduces "Jupp", and as they have sex, cries out ""Mein Führer!"" Nazi Germany. At the school, "Peters" is introduced to the other boys as a heroic combat veteran. The problem of concealing his circumcision continues, and Solek uses string and rubber bands in various painful ways to simulate a foreskin. He evades a medical examination by pretending to have a violent toothache, and then must endure having the dentist pull it without anesthetic. Girls from the Hitler Youth serve meals at the Academy. Leni, one of these girls, becomes infatuated with "Jupp", but he dares not take advantage - Leni is a fervent Nazi and even speaks of wanting to kill Jews. Leni strongly hints that she would happily bear "Jupp"'s child, but after a particularly venomous anti-Jewish remark he refuses any intimacy. She calls him a "Schlappschwanz" ("limp-dick"), and they break off. A less serious threat is the visit to the Academy of a Nazi "expert" in "racial science", who claims particular skill in detecting Jews. The Nazi selects "Jupp" as his subject for a demonstration, and carefully measures his head and face. He then calculates "Jupp"'s anthropometric indexes, and pronounces him mixed but "pure Aryan stock", to Jupp's relieved surprise. Soon after, while working in a factory for the war effort, Jupp and his classmates learn that the Sixth Army has fallen at Stalingrad. After several months without seeing Leni, Solek visits Leni's mother, who does not sympathize with the Nazis. She tells him Leni is pregnant and intends to "give the child to the Führer", in the "Lebensborn" program. Solek realizes that the child's father is his best friend and classmate Gerd. When Leni's mother presses Josef on his identity, he breaks down and confesses that he is a Jew; she tells him that she suspected that and promises not to betray him. Leni never finds out. Solek's pretense is nearly exposed when the Gestapo investigates "Jupp"'s supposed parentage. He is summoned to Gestapo offices, but cannot show a Certificate of Racial Purity, which he claims is in Grodno. The Gestapo official says he will send for it, and then rants about how the war will be won by Hitler's "Wunderwaffen" ("wonder weapons"). As Solek leaves, the building is destroyed by Allied bombs. Solek's relief is tempered by Gerd's death in the bombing. Soviet-occupied Nazi Germany. As Soviet troops close in on Berlin, the Hitler Youth at the school are sent to the front. There Solek manages to surrender. His captors refuse to believe that he is a Jew. "If you're a Jew, why don't you look like this? Look!" demands a Soviet officer as he shows Solek photos of murdered Jews from the death camps they had liberated. Jupp had not been aware this was going on. They are about to have Solek shot by an elderly Communist political prisoner (wearing a red triangle on his camp uniform) when Solek's brother Isaak, just released from a concentration camp, identifies Solek and saves him. Before leaving the camp, Isaak tells Solek to never reveal his story to anyone, saying it would never be believed. He is released shortly thereafter and emigrates to the British Mandate of Palestine, the future state of Israel, where he embraces his Jewish heritage. The films ends with the real Solomon Perel, as an old man, singing a Jewish folk song taken from the Book of Psalms ("Hineh mah tov," Psalm 133:1). Box office. The film was released on June 28, 1991 and grossed $31,433 in its opening weekend in two theaters. Its final grossing in the US was $5,575,738. Awards. The film won the Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Language Film and was nominated for the Academy Award: Best Writing Adapted Screenplay, but lost the award to "The Silence of the Lambs". It had been expected to be nominated for Best Foreign Language Film but Germany did not submit it.
1060977	Sean Young (born November 20, 1959) is an American actress, best known for her performance in films from the 1980s such as "Blade Runner", "Dune", "No Way Out" and "." Early life. Young was born as Mary Sean Young in Louisville, Kentucky, the daughter of Lee Guthrie, a screenwriter, public relations executive, and journalist, and Donald Young, a television news producer and journalist. She attended Cleveland Heights High School in Cleveland Heights, Ohio, and then transferred to and graduated from Interlochen Arts Academy in Interlochen, Michigan. She has also attended the School of American Ballet in New York. Before becoming an actress, Young worked as a model and dancer. Film career. 1980s. Young began her film career in 1980 in the film "Jane Austen in Manhattan", followed by a small role in the 1981 film "Stripes", and played female lead opposite Harrison Ford in the futuristic classic "Blade Runner" (1982). She had a small role in the film "Wall Street" as the wife of Michael Douglas' character. Her role was originally intended to be larger, but was significantly reduced due to clashes with Oliver Stone. One of her most prominent roles was as the lover of a ruthless Washington politician in 1987's "No Way Out", playing opposite Kevin Costner. Other notable credits include "Dune", "Fatal Instinct", and "". In 1988, Young appeared in "The Boost" with James Woods. Woods later sued her for harassing him and his then-fiancée, alleging that, in addition to other disruptive behavior, Young left a disfigured doll on his doorstep. Young denied the allegations and claimed that Woods filed the lawsuit out of spite. Young stated, "It was a crush being turned down, that's all... So sue me! And he did." The suit was settled out of court in 1989. She was cast as Vicki Vale in Tim Burton's successful 1989 film "Batman". During rehearsals, however, she broke her arm after falling off a horse and was replaced by Kim Basinger. In an unsuccessful attempt to win the role as Catwoman (which was offered to Annette Bening but ultimately played by Michelle Pfeiffer after Bening became pregnant) in the sequel "Batman Returns", Young constructed a homemade Catwoman costume and attempted to confront Burton and actor Michael Keaton during production. 1990s. Young was cast as Tess Trueheart in the 1990 movie "Dick Tracy", but she was fired for not appearing maternal in the role. Young later claimed she was fired because she rebuffed Warren Beatty's advances, a claim Beatty denies. In 1991, she was awarded the Worst Actress and the Worst Supporting Actress Razzies for her roles in "A Kiss Before Dying". She played a supporting role in the 1994 comedy "". During most of the 1990s she resided in Sedona, Arizona, and her career cooled. Sean Young reprised her role as Rachael in the 1997 "Blade Runner" video game. Her face was scanned and reproduced in 3D, one of the first times such technology was used in a game. 2000s. Since 2000, Young has appeared in a variety of independent films and made guest appearances on television, including roles in "Poor White Trash", "Mockingbird Don't Sing", "Sugar & Spice", "Boston Public", and "Reno 911!" In 2005, she spent four months in Russia filming the miniseries "Esenin", in which she played dancer Isadora Duncan. She also had a small role on the CW's "One Tree Hill" in 2007. In late 2007, Young finished work on two films, "The Man Who Came Back" and "Haunted Echoes". In 2008, Young competed in the television program "Gone Country 2", which included a competition in a celebrity demolition derby at the Henry County Fairgrounds in Paris, Tennessee. Young went on to win the celebrity derby "heat" and then went on to go against professional demolition derby drivers. Young and 21 other drivers squared off in the area. Young finished in fourth place against the professional demolition derby drivers. 2010s. Young appeared on "The Young and the Restless" in June 2010 as Canadian barmaid Meggie McClain, alongside good friend Eric Braeden. She returned to the show on July 14 in a recurring role, which lasted through early November 2010. In 2010, she was cast on the first season of the ABC show "Skating with the Stars" as a celebrity contestant who skated with professional skater Denis Petukhov. She was the first celebrity to be eliminated. In October 2011, Young appeared on the CBS television show "Late Show with David Letterman". During the interview she described how she was now looking for movie work after raising her two sons, and produced an amusing short video clip promoting her job search which Letterman played. She has since been cast in the new film about Nikola Tesla slated for release in 2013 called "Fragments From Olympus—The Vision of Nikola Tesla". Personal life. In 1990, Young married Robert Lujan, with whom she has two sons, Rio Kelly and Quinn Lee. The couple divorced in 2002. However, during Young's stay in rehab in 2011, which was depicted on "Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew", Lujan was identified as her husband, both when he visited her during Family Weekend in Episode 6, and when he and Young spoke to Doctors Drew Pinsky and John Sharp about their relationship. In January 2008, Young checked herself into rehab for alcohol abuse. On June 9, 2013, Young performed in a benefit skating event at the Ice Theater of New York. She competed in a Celebrity Skating competition against Michael Buckley, YouTube personality, and Tim Morehouse, US Olympic Fencing silver medalist.
1228643	Richard Davalos (born November 5, 1930) is an American actor. Davalos was born in New York City of Finnish and Spanish descent. Davalos starred in "East of Eden" (1955) as James Dean's brother Aron and portrayed the convict Blind Dick in "Cool Hand Luke" (1967). He won the Theatre World Award for his performance in the Arthur Miller play "A Memory of Two Mondays" in 1955. In the American Civil War television series, "The Americans", broadcast by NBC in 1961, he played Jeff, the younger brother who joined the Confederate Army, in opposition to Ben, the older brother, played by Darryl Hickman, who joined the Union Army. In 1962 Davalos appeared on "Perry Mason" as Lt. Anderson's cousin, James Anderson, in "The Case of the Hateful Hero." In 1964 he appeared in "The Case of the Ice-Cold Hands." Davalos is the father of actress Elyssa Davalos and musician Dominique Davalos, and grandfather of actress Alexa Davalos ("The Chronicles of Riddick"). An image of Davalos appears on the covers of The Smiths' albums "Strangeways, Here We Come", "Best...I", and "...Best II".
1170057	Harrison Richard Young (March 13, 1930 – July 3, 2005) was an American film and television actor. He is perhaps most recognized for his role as the elderly Private James Ryan in Steven Spielberg's 1998 war epic "Saving Private Ryan". Having starred in over 100 films and television episodes, Young's other credits include "Passions", "" and Rob Zombie's "House of 1000 Corpses". During the filming of "Saving Private Ryan", Young was 67 years old, making him too young to have actually served in World War II (unless the scenes in the Normandy American Cemetery were set in 1987). Frederick "Fritz" Niland, the character being portrayed by Young's "Private Ryan", was born in 1920.
1062123	Charles Patrick Ryan O'Neal, Jr. (born April 20, 1941), better known as Ryan O'Neal, is an American television and film actor. O'Neal trained as an amateur boxer before beginning his career in acting in 1960. In 1964, he landed the role of Rodney Harrington on the ABC nighttime soap opera "Peyton Place". The series was an instant hit and boosted O'Neal's career. He later found success in films, most notably "Paper Moon" (1973), Stanley Kubrick's "Barry Lyndon" (1975), "A Bridge Too Far" (1977), and "Love Story" (1970), for which he received Academy Award and Golden Globe nominations as Best Actor. Since 2007, he has had a recurring role in the TV series "Bones". O'Neal has been married twice and has four children. His eldest child, Tatum, is an Academy Award-winning actress. He was also in a long-term relationship with actress Farrah Fawcett from 1979 to 1997, and from 2001 until her death in 2009. Early life. O'Neal was born on April 20, 1941, in Los Angeles, California, the eldest son of actress Patricia (née O'Callaghan) and novelist/screenwriter Charles "Blackie" O'Neal. His brother Kevin is an actor and screenwriter. His maternal grandfather was Irish and his maternal grandmother was Russian. O'Neal attended University High School, and trained there to become a Golden Gloves boxer. During the late 1950s, Blackie O'Neal had a job writing on a television series called "Citizen Soldier" and moved the family to Munich, Germany, where O'Neal attended Munich American High School. Career. TV roles in early career. O'Neal appeared in guest roles on series that included "The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis", "Bachelor Father", "Leave It to Beaver", "Westinghouse Playhouse", "Perry Mason" and "Wagon Train". From 1962 to 1963, O'Neal was a regular on NBC's "Empire", another modern day western. He played 21-year-old rancher's son Tal Garrett.
582358	Dil Maange More () is a 2004 Bollywood romantic drama film directed by Anant Mahadevan and produced by Fourth Wall Productions. It was filmed in India in the Hindi language. The film was an Average grosser at the box office. Synopsis. "Dil Maange More" is the story of Nikhil Mathur’s (Shahid Kapoor) quest for true love. His passions are his village Samarpur and soccer. He is desperate to fall in love with one woman but ends up with three women in his arms ready to swear undying love for him.
1064698	The Anderson Tapes is a 1971 American crime film directed by Sidney Lumet, starring Sean Connery and featuring Dyan Cannon, Martin Balsam, and comedian Alan King. The screenplay was written by Frank Pierson, based upon a best-selling 1970 novel of the same name by Lawrence Sanders. The film is scored by Quincy Jones and marks the feature film debut for Christopher Walken. Revolving around a bold robbery, the film was prescient in focusing on the pervasiveness of electronic surveillance, from security cameras in public places to more discreet and underhanded methods, the first film to do so. This theme would become a movie staple following the Watergate scandal a few years later, for example, the 1974 film "The Conversation". Plot. Burglar John "Duke" Anderson is released after ten years in prison. He renews his relationship with his old girlfriend, Ingrid. She lives in a high-class apartment block (1 East 91st Street) in New York City and Anderson, almost instantly, decides to burgle the entire building in a single sweep — filling a furniture van with the proceeds. He gains financing from a nostalgic Mafia boss and gathers his four-man crew. Also included is an old ex-con drunk, "Pop", whom Anderson met in jail, and who is to play concierge while the real one is bound and gagged in the cellar. Less welcome is a man the Mafia foists onto Anderson — the thuggish "Socks". Socks is a psychopath who has become a liability to the mob and, as part of the deal, Anderson must kill him in the course of the robbery. Anderson is not keen on this, since the operation is complicated enough, but is forced to go along. Anderson has unwittingly entered a world of pervasive surveillance — the agents, cameras, bugs, and tracking devices of numerous public and private agencies see almost the entire operation from the earliest planning to the execution. As Anderson advances the scheme, he moves from the surveillance of one group to another as locations or individuals change. These include a private detective hired to eavesdrop on Anderson's girlfriend who is also the mistress of a wealthy man; the BNDD, who are checking over a released drug dealer; the FBI, investigating Black activists and the interstate smuggling of antiques; and the IRS, which is after the mob boss who is financing the operation. Yet, because the various federal, state and city agencies performing the surveillance are all after different goals, none of them is able to "connect the dots" and anticipate the robbery. The operation proceeds over a Labor Day weekend. Disguised as a Mayflower moving and storage crew, the crooks cut telephone and alarm wires and move up through the building, gathering the residents as they go and robbing each apartment. However, the son of two of the residents is a paraplegic and asthmatic who is left behind in his air-conditioned room. Using his amateur radio equipment, he calls up other radio amateurs, based in Hawaii, Portland, Maine and Wichita Falls (said to be in Kansas), who contact the police. The alarm is thus raised, after some problems as to which side (callers or emergency services) should take the phone bill. As the oblivious criminals work, the police array enormous forces outside to prevent their escape and send a team in via a neighboring rooftop. In the shootout that follows, Anderson kills Socks, but is himself shot by the police. The other robbers are killed, injured or captured, but none gets away with it. Pop gives himself up after letting the police believe that he is the real concierge for a while. Having never adapted to life on the outside, he looks forward to going back to prison. In the course of searching the building, the police discover some audio listening equipment left behind by the private detective who was hired to check up on Ingrid and track it to find Anderson in critical condition after having tried to escape. To avoid embarrassment over the failing to discover the robbery despite having Anderson on tape in several surveillance operations, and since many of the recordings were illegal, the agencies order the tapes to be erased. Cast. Cast notes Production. "The Anderson Tapes" was filmed on location in New York City, on Fifth Avenue, at the Convent of the Sacred Heart, Rikers Island Prison, the Port Authority Bus Terminal, Luxor Health Club and on the Lower East Side. Interiors scenes were filmed at Hi Brown Studio and ABC-Pathé Studio, both in New York City. The production was on a tight budget, and filming was completed in the short period of six weeks, from mid-August to October 16, 1970. The film was the first for producer Robert M. Weitman as an independent producer. Columbia Pictures was not happy with the planned ending of the film, in which Connery escaped to be pursued by police helicopters, fearing that it would hurt sales to television, which generally required that bad deeds not go unpunished. References. Notes
583136	Dulha Mil Gaya (, ) is a 2010 Bollywood romance film directed by Mudassar Aziz. It stars Sushmita Sen, Ishita Sharma and Fardeen Khan in the lead roles whilst Shahrukh Khan makes an extended appearance. The film was released on January 8 2010, and was one of the first Bollywood releases of 2010 (the other being "Pyaar Impossible", which released on the same day). "Dulha Mil Gaya" was panned by critics. Despite doing well at Overseas box office, the film was considered as one of the worst box office flops of the year 2010 in India. Plot. The film focuses on Donsai (Fardeen Khan), the heir to Dhanraj Empire. Donsai is extremely against marriage; and believes one should never ruin his life by getting married. After the passing of his father, Suraj Rattan Dhanraj, the only way to inherit his father's five billion empire company, is to get married to his friend's Punjabi daughter, Samarpreet (Ishita Sharma). Donsai gets married in Punjab, and tells Samarpreet that he will return to Punjab after three months of business, though Donsai plans not to come back. After three months, Samarpreet comes to Donsai's home to look for him, where she finds him with another woman. She runs out crying, until she is hit by a car. The car owner, Shimmer (Sushmita Sen) picks her up, and takes Samarpreet to her home. When they get to Shimmer's home, it turns out Shimmer is one of Donsai's best friends. After Samarpreet gains consciousness, she tells Shimmer everything Donsai did to her. Shimmer decides to help Samarpreet, and gives her a complete makeover. She even changes her name to "Samara". After Donsai sees Samara (not knowing that it is his own wife), he falls in love with her, and asks her out. Shimmer tells Samara to reject him, which she accepts. Donsai then meets her at an yacht, where the two begin an conversation, and slowly Donsai decides to get married to her. At the same time, Shimmer's plan is ruined, due to her boyfriend Pawan Raj Gandhi (Shahrukh Khan) arriving unexpectidly for Karwa Chauth. Pawan realizes Samarpreet's problem, and offers to help out in the plan as well.Shimmer realises her feelings for PRG and she goes to meet him at the airport.And at last Tej accepts Samarpreet as his wife. Production. Casting. Shahrukh Khan was set to make a 60-minute appearance in the film. He filmed about 17 scenes and three songs. Among the three, one is his entry sequence. Khan enters the film in the second half but has a very powerful role. He was a part of the publicity but only within the parameters of his role. The film was not marketed as a Shahrukh Khan film. Sushmita plays the role of a successful supermodel called Shimmer. Filming. About half of the movie was shot in Amritsar and Mumbai. The other half was filmed in Trinidad and Tobago over a month and a half period in 2007, making it the first Bollywood film to be shot in the islands. Production was delayed a year and a half while Shahrukh Khan found time to shoot his scenes. Production was further delayed when Khan injured his shoulder during an action scene. Critical response. The reviews to the film were mostly all negative, blaming the script and lack of comedy. The film had a poor opening to top critics. It was mostly criticized by nearly all critics, though received well by public audiences. Box office. "Dulha Mil Gaya" made only Rs. 3 crores in India. Box office India declared it a "Disaster". In Trinidad and Tobago, probably because the film was filmed there, the film was a success and ran for several weeks in packed cinema houses. Overall, the film collected 12 crores worldwide. In India, the film was declared a flop, however in the Overseas Markets, it was declared a semi hit. Soundtrack. The soundtrack was composed by Lalit Pandit and released on December 14, 2009. The lyrics are written by Mudassar Aziz; songs are arranged by Richard Mithra and Kashinath Kashyap; and all songs are mixed and engineered by Abani Tanti. According to Pandit, he had to listen to hip hop music to compose the album as he had never heard songs of the genre and had no experience writing hip hop tracks.
940107	Summer Magic is a 1963 Walt Disney Productions film starring Hayley Mills, Burl Ives, and Dorothy McGuire in a story about a Boston widow and her children taking up residence in a small town in Maine. The film was based on the book "Mother Carey's Chickens" by Kate Douglas Wiggin and was directed by James Neilson. The film was Mills' fourth of six films for Disney, and the young actress received a Golden Globe nomination for her work. Plot. Financial problems force young Boston widow Margaret Carey (Dorothy McGuire) and her 3 children to move out of their home. Nancy (Hayley Mills), the dramatic and kind-hearted eldest, remembers a large yellow house that the Careys had admired when they visited the small town of Beulah, Maine, and makes an inquiry about it. Upon the sale of the family's treasured piano ("Flitterin'"), Nancy reveals that the house is vacant and the family decides to relocate to the country ("Beautiful Beulah"). When the Careys arrive in Beulah they realize they're slightly out-of-place although the town welcomes them. Overall, the Careys find that moving to the country was the best decision for them and they're content in their new home ("Summer Magic"). But the house is in a shameful state of neglect, and caretaker Osh Popham (Burl Ives), against his wife's wishes, offers cheap labor to make the house livable, as well as offering free products from his hardware store. He also steers young Peter in the right direction, trading him a pair of overalls for his "Buster Brown suit" in which he now feels too citified, and offering him haircut money and carpentry lessons. But just when the Careys are settled in and things are going better, they find out that orphaned Cousin Julia's adoptive parents have run into their own financial problems and want to send her to the Careys. They reluctantly agree, and while they get ready for her, Gilly (Eddie Hodges) and Nancy entertain Peter (Jimmy Mathers) with jokes about her appearance and snobby, snotty personality ("Pink of Perfection"). When Julia (Deborah Walley) arrives, she's even worse than her cousins remembered. Part of her welcome seems to include being jumped on by Peter's large dog Sam in the middle of the night. Aghast at Beulah's primitive ways, she forces Osh's daughter Lally Joy (Wendy Turner) to help her bathe in the kitchen rather than lug kettles of hot water up the stairs. While Nancy and Lally Joy cope with Julia, Peter enjoys working on the house with Osh, who entertains him with stories of bugs the like of which Peter hadn't dealt with in the city ("Ugly Bug Ball"). When Margaret informs Osh of their still-failing finances, Osh, hoping to keep them in town, makes up a request from the house's owner, Tom Hamilton, in exchange for no rent. He pretends that Mr. Hamilton has answered in the affirmative, only requesting that on Halloween the Careys must have a ceremony for his dead mother and find a decent place for her picture. The Careys accept and Osh chooses a fake picture for the ceremony. But Osh's wife Mariah, who has been on to his lies from the beginning, visits the yellow house to tell the Careys that Mr. Hamilton has no idea that they are there. Before she can spill the news, Osh fakes a fall from the second story, claims an injured leg, and insist that his wife help him get home. After church the next Sunday, Nancy and Julia spot a handsome man, Charles Bryant (James Stacy), who has moved to Beulah to be the new schoolteacher. They invite him to a lawn party at the yellow house, where both try to win his affectins, Nancy with her smarts and Julia with her looks. Julia wins, leaving Nancy too jealous to enjoy the quiet evening after the party ("On the Front Porch"). In their bedroom, her jealousy and anger drive her to reveal that Julia's adoptive parents "dumped" her on the Careys after gambling away their money. Julia flees to Aunt Margaret for assurance that her parents truly loved her, and Margaret reveals that her parents' situation is looking good enough that they are about ready for her to come home. This makes Nancy realize that she has grown to love Julia despire her many flaws (and her having "won" Charles), and she begs her to stay. Julia accepts, and prepares to move in permanently with the Careys. As Halloween approaches, everyone gets ready for the big party. Lally Joy, who harbors a big crush on Gilly, displays her ugly dress to Nancy and Julia, fretting embarrassment at the party. Nancy and Julia promise to redesign the dress as they give her pointers on how to act around boys ("Femininity"). On the day of the party, a handsome young man (Peter Brown) appears at the yellow house and meets Nancy. She informs him that they'd been living in the house and tells him about the party for Mr. Hamilton's mother. The stranger quickly heads for Osh's store, where it is revealed that he is Tom Hamilton. Osh comes clean about renting the house to the Careys, inspired by Nancy's good-heartedness. Indignant, Tom leaves the store. Reluctant to escort Lally Joy to the party, Gilly becomes more willing as she makes her appearance in her beautiful redesigned dress. Seeing them together and Charles and Julia together, Nancy realizes that she's the only one without a partner; after talking it over with her mother, she decides to attend on her own. As she descends the stairs she runs into Tom Hamilton, who accompanies her to the party. Nancy presents the picture Osh had produced: unfortunately, it is a frighteningly ugly woman and Tom feels insulted and angry at Osh. He reveals his true identity to the thoroughly-embarrassed Nancy, and as he has taken a fancy to her, he asks her to dance. As the party gets going, Osh exclaims that things always work out in the end. Production notes. At first, Walt Disney did not care for "Ugly Bug Ball". Songwriter Robert Sherman explained to Disney that to bugs, other bugs were not ugly, even if they looked ugly to us, beauty being in the eye of the beholder. Disney liked the idea and the song went on to become one of the popular songs of the year. It was sung by Burl Ives. "On the Front Porch" is songwriter Robert Sherman's personal favorite song from his own work.
1161009	May Britt (born March 22, 1934) is a Swedish actress who had a brief career in the 1950s in Italy and later in the United States. She retired from the screen after she married Sammy Davis, Jr. in 1960. Career. Maybritt Wilkens, as she was known originally, was discovered as a teenager by Italian filmmakers, Carlo Ponti and Mario Soldati, in 1951. She was an assistant to a Stockholm photographer. The two Italians were in Sweden to cast a young blonde for the title role in "Jolanda, the Daughter of the Black Corsair". They came to the studio where she worked to view photographs of models. After meeting her, they offered her the part. May Britt, as she was renamed professionally, immediately moved to Rome. As expected, she made her movie debut as the leading actress in "Jolanda, the Daughter of the Black Corsair" (1952). In the following years she worked in some ten Cinecittà productions. She also featured in the epic "War and Peace" film of 1956.
1764191	Pistol Whipped is a 2008 direct-to-video action film directed by Roel Reiné. Initially titled "Marker," it was filmed on location in Bridgeport in May and June 2007 and released by Sony in 2008. Plot. Matt Conlin is an unemployed, drinking deadbeat. Once he was a police officer who lived with his wife Liz and his daughter Becky. Then, his partner disappeared, along with a large stash of police-impounded money. Due to the fact that Matt was an avid gambler, he was the prime suspect for the crime, but his colleague Steve lied that he and Matt were playing poker, thus giving him an alibi. Since the police still suspected Matt of the crimes, he was thrown off the police force. Matt's wife files for divorce and marries Steve. Matt's daughter Becky stays with Steve while Matt spends his time gambling and heavily drinking. Some time later, Matt's markers from extended gambling are mysteriously picked up. Eventually the collector, called the "Old Man", sends him a messenger named Blue. Matt is told that he must work off his debt as a hitman for the Old Man's vigilante organization. He begins to receive contracts to kill criminals who avoid arrest with their money and influence. Matt deals with his first assignments without much difficulty. Matt also surprisngly learns that his new girlfriend Drea is also an operative for the Old Man, like Blue. Later, Matt is ordered to kill Steve. He refuses and confronts Blue, the Old Man, and Drea with the assignment. Matt is told that Steve is actually a dirty cop who deals with criminals; Matt refuses to believe this. Elsewhere, Steve kills an innocent chaplain because in a prior confession to the priest Matt had talked about his history with Steve. Steve uses this to frame Blue for the crime. When Matt returns to the church, he swears that he'll avenge the clergyman's death, despite Steve's urgent requests to stay out of the situation. Unwilling to heed Steve's request, Matt is then arrested by Steve for being a "material witness" and released after two hours because Steve hopes to find the Old Man and kill Matt and Blue through following Matt. Still, Matt and Blue manage to escape. At the priest's funeral, which Matt later attends, Steve and his associates plan to kill Matt. After the funeral ends, a standoff ensues between Matt and Steve. It is revealed that Steve stole the confiscated money, as well as murdered Matt's partner out of fear that he would blow the whistle on Steve's operations. Blue and Drea show up to support Matt, much to the surprise of Steve, and a gunfight ensues. As a trump card, Steve reveals that he is holding Becky hostage, and threatens to kill her if Matt doesn't back down. Drea is able to free Becky while Matt and Blue fight Steve's associates. Blue is mortally wounded and says his goodbyes to Matt before passing. Matt and Steve confront each other once more and Matt successfully kills Steve.
1104314	Yutaka Taniyama (Japanese: 谷山 豊 "Taniyama Yutaka"; November 12, 1927, Kisai near Tokyo – November 17, 1958, Tokyo) was a Japanese mathematician known for the Taniyama–Shimura conjecture. Contribution. Taniyama was best known for conjecturing, in modern language, automorphic properties of L-functions of elliptic curves over any number field. A partial and refined case of this conjecture for elliptic curves over rationals is called the Taniyama–Shimura conjecture or the modularity theorem whose statement he subsequently refined in collaboration with Goro Shimura. The names Taniyama, Shimura and Weil have all been attached to this conjecture, but the idea is essentially due to Taniyama. In 1986 Ribet proved that if the Taniyama–Shimura conjecture held, then so would Fermat's last theorem, which inspired Andrew Wiles to work for a number of years in secrecy on it, and to prove enough of it to prove Fermat's Last Theorem. Due to the pioneering contribution of Wiles and the efforts of a number of mathematicians the Taniyama–Shimura conjecture was finally proven in 1999. The original Taniyama conjecture for elliptic curves over arbitrary number fields remains open, and the method of Wiles and others cannot be extended to provide its proof. Depression and death. On November 17, 1958, Taniyama committed suicide.He left a note explaining how far he had got with his teaching duties, and apologizing to his colleagues for the trouble he was causing them. His mystifying suicide note read: Until yesterday I had no definite intention of killing myself. But more than a few must have noticed that lately I have been tired both physically and mentally. As to the cause of my suicide, I don't quite understand it myself, but it is not the result of a particular incident, nor of a specific matter. Merely may I say, I am in the frame of mind that I lost confidence in my future. There may be someone to whom my suicide will be troubling or a blow to a certain degree. I sincerely hope that this incident will cast no dark shadow over the future of that person. At any rate, I cannot deny that this is a kind of betrayal, but please excuse it as my last act in my own way, as I have been doing my own way all my life. Although his note is mostly enigmatic it does mention tiredness and a loss of confidence in his future. Taniyama's ideas had been criticized as unsubstantiated and his behavior had occasionally been deemed peculiar. Goro Shimura mentioned that he suffered from depression. Taniyama also mentioned in the note his concern that some might be harmed by his suicide and his hope that the act would not cast "a dark shadow over that person." About a month later, Misako Suzuki, the woman whom he was planning to marry, also committed suicide, leaving a note reading: "We promised each other that no matter where we went, we would never be separated. Now that he is gone, I must go too in order to join him." After Taniyama's death, Goro Shimura stated that: He was always kind to his colleagues, especially to his juniors, and he genuinely cared about their welfare. He was the moral support of many of those who came into mathematical contact with him, including of course myself. Probably he was never conscious of this role he was playing. But I feel his noble generosity in this respect even more strongly now than when he was alive. And yet nobody was able to give him any support when he desperately needed it. Reflecting on this, I am overwhelmed by the bitterest grief. In a 2011 TED talk by English economist Tim Harford titled, "Trial, error and the God complex," Taniyama is referenced as a mathematician who was ultimately unable to prove his conjecture during his lifetime. Reflecting on Taniyama's work, Goro Shimura stated: He was not a very careful person as a mathematician. He made a lot of mistakes. But he made mistakes in a good direction. I tried to emulate him. But I've realized that it's very difficult to make good mistakes.
584446	Kiran Rathod is an Indian film actress. She has appeared in Hindi, Malayalam, Telugu and Tamil films. Early life. Rathod was born on 11 January 1981 in Jaipur, Rajasthan into a Rajput family. She is a graduate of Mithibai College in Mumbai. She is the cousin of Bollywood actress Raveena Tandon. Career. She first started appearing in Hindi pop song albums in late 1990s which caught the attention of Hindi movie producers. She made her first film appearance as Monishka in the film "Yaadein". The film was a major box office flop. After a few sporadic appearances in minor films, she moved down south where she appeared in a number of successful films including "Gemini" with Vikram, "Anbe Sivam" with Kamal Hassan, "Villain" with Ajith Kumar, "Winner" with Prashanth, and "Diwan" with Sarath Kumar. Her appearance in films like "Villain", "Winner", "Diwan" and "New" were well received by the Tamilnadu audiences.
1268618	Wallace Reid (April 15, 1891 – January 18, 1923) was an American actor in silent film referred to as "the screen's most perfect lover." Early life. Reid was born William Wallace Halleck in St. Louis, Missouri, into a show business family. His mother, Bertha Westbrook (1868–1939), was an actress and his father, James Halleck aka Hal Reid (1862–1920), worked successfully in a variety of theatrical jobs, mainly as playwright and actor, traveling the country. As a boy, Wallace Reid was performing on stage at an early age but acting was put on hold while he obtained an education at Freehold Military School in Freehold Township, New Jersey. Reid graduated from Perkiomen Seminary in Pennsburg, Pennsylvania, in 1909. A gifted all-around athlete, Reid participated in a number of sports while also following an interest in music, learning to play the piano, banjo, drums, and violin. As a teenager, he spent time in Wyoming where he learned to be an outdoorsman. Career. Reid was drawn to the burgeoning motion picture industry by his father, who would shift from the theatre to acting, writing, and directing films. In 1910, Reid appeared in his first film, "The Phoenix", an adaptation of a Milton Nobles play filmed at Selig Polyscope Studios in Chicago. Reid used the script from a play his father had written and approached the very successful Vitagraph Studios, hoping to be given the opportunity to direct. Instead, Vitagraph executives capitalized on his sex appeal and, in addition to having him direct, cast him in a major role. Although Reid's good looks and powerful physique made him the perfect "matinee idol," he was equally happy with roles behind the scenes and often worked as a writer, cameraman, and director. Wallace Reid appeared in several films with his father and, as his career in film flourished, he was soon acting and directing with and for early film mogul Allan Dwan. In 1913, while at Universal Pictures, Reid met and married actress Dorothy Davenport (1895–1977). He was featured in "Birth of a Nation" (1915) and "Intolerance" (1916), both directed by D.W. Griffith, and starred opposite leading ladies such as Florence Turner, Gloria Swanson, Lillian Gish, Elsie Ferguson, and Geraldine Farrar en route to becoming one of Hollywood's major heartthrobs. Already involved with the creation of more than 100 motion picture shorts, Reid was signed by producer Jesse L. Lasky and would star in another sixty plus films for Lasky's Famous Players film company, later Paramount Pictures. Frequently paired with actress Ann Little, his action hero role as the dashing race car driver drew young girls and older women alike to theaters to see his daredevil auto thrillers such as "The Roaring Road" (1919), "Double Speed" (1920), "Excuse My Dust" (1920), and "Too Much Speed" (1921). One of his auto racing films, "Across the Continent" (1922), was chosen as the opening night film for San Francisco's Castro Theatre, which opened 22 June 1922. Death. While on location in Oregon, filming "The Valley of the Giants" (1919), Reid was injured in a train wreck and, in order to keep on filming, he was prescribed morphine for relief of his pain. Reid soon became addicted but kept on working at a frantic pace in films that were growing more physically demanding and changing from 15–20 minutes in duration to as much as an hour. Reid's morphine addiction worsened at a time when drug rehabilitation programs were non-existent, and he died in a sanitarium while attempting recovery. Wallace Reid was interred in the Holly Terrace portion of the Great Mausoleum at Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, California. Aftermath. His widow, Dorothy Davenport (billed as Mrs. Wallace Reid), co-produced and appeared in "Human Wreckage" (1923), making a national tour with the film to publicize the dangers of drug addiction. She and Reid had two children: a son, Wallace Reid, Jr., born in 1917; and a daughter, Betty Mummert, whom they adopted in 1922 at age three. Reid's widow never remarried. Wallace Reid's contribution to the motion-picture industry has been recognized with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. In 2011, his official biography, "" by David W. Menefee (Foreword by Robert Osborne), was sanctioned by Reid's surviving relatives and published by BearManor Media.[http://www.bearmanormedia.com/index.php?route=product/product&filter_name=wally&product_id=386] The biography was nominated for a 2011 Pulitzer Prize.
743584	Your Friend the Rat is a 2007 animated short film by Pixar, originally released on the home video release of the film "Ratatouille". The short takes on the form of an educational film and stars rats Remy and Emile, two of the protagonists of "Ratatouille", who argue for the reconciliation of humans and rats. They use historical facts presented via various styles of animation. This is Pixar's first short film to feature traditional animation; at 11 minutes, it is also the longest Pixar short to date. Along with 2D animation, the short also includes stop-motion animation, computer generated imagery (CGI) and live action. Like "Ratatouille", "Your Friend the Rat" also features a musical sequence. This is also Pixar's first short film to have a cameo of a protagonist of a film that releases a year later, which was a cameo of WALL-E. "Your Friend the Rat" won the Best Animated Short Subject category at the 35th annual Annie Awards and was released on DVD and Blu-ray with Disney·Pixar's "Ratatouille" (November 6, 2007). Plot. The short starts in with Remy introducing himself and Emile to the audience and speaking on behalf of oppressed rats everywhere. Emile starts frowning about having to speak out, while Remy pulls a scroll and a two-dimensional animation starts by presenting the relation between a human and a rat in contrast with human-dog and human-cat relationships. Remy points out that humans regarded rats in former times as sacred and luck bringing. He says that during the Roman Empire if a white rat crosses your path, it brought good luck, while if a black rat crosses your path, it brought bad luck. He moves on to discussing black rats ("Rattus rattus") and their connection to the Black Death, pointing out that it was caused by fleas not rats, resulting in the death of one third of Europe's population. Remy further presents the brown rat's ("Rattus norvegicus") history, mentioning their part in ending the Black Death, their honorable position in the Chinese zodiac and their sacredness in India for being the transport vehicle of the Hindu god Ganesh. The symbiotic relationship between rats and humans is introduced before the second appearance of Remy and Emile in 3D animation. Emile pulls a scroll from the side and presents through 2D animation the benefits of rats for the human. He says that Jack Black was a rat catcher for Queen Victoria and that he kept the rats he captured as pets. Their use for laboratory testing and as pets show that they can have a good relationship with humans. Concluding the presentation Emile and Remy sing a song about the relationship between rats and humans. At the film's end, a long and drawn-out (mostly satirical) disclaimer is shown asking children to stay away from rats, while Remy and Emile stand in front of it and try to remove it, urging the audience to ignore the warning and complaining about freedom of speech and lack of food, respectively. Production. The idea of a 2D short was initiated by Jim Capobianco after Brad Lewis sent an e-mail asking for extras for the DVD. Capobianco thought of an educational film bringing together all the information they gathered about rats in a funny way to the audience. The production of the short started during the last year of the "Ratatouille" production time and was finished in less than a year. The animation is a mixture of CGI and 2D animation. Emile and Remy appear in CGI while their presentation is in 2D, which encompasses most of the short movie. The 2D animation in most scenes was done through traditional paper based animation with digital ink and paint while a few scenes such as the "Canada vs. Rats" video game were done in Toon Boom. There is also a snippet of live-action film, a clip showing an Oriental rat flea. During the production a book called "Your Friend the Rat: A Little Golden Book", which includes the music and lyrics to the song "Plan B," was created by Jim Capobianco.
739047	Megan Gallagher (born February 6, 1960) is an American actress. Her best-known roles are probably as Garry Shandling's wife on the HBO comedy "The Larry Sanders Show" (1992–1995), and as Catherine Black, wife of Frank Black (Lance Henriksen) on the TV series "Millennium" (1996–1999). Early life and education. Gallagher was born in Reading, Pennsylvania and grew up in Wyomissing, Pennsylvania. Her mother, Aileen Gallagher, was a model. Megan trained at the Juilliard School, where her classmates in 1982 included Penny Johnson, Jack Kenny, Jack Stehlin, and Lorraine Toussaint.
1064299	Shawnee Smith (born July 3, 1970) is an American film and television actress and singer. Smith is best known for her roles as Meg Penny in "The Blob" (1988), Amanda Young in the "Saw" films and Linda in the CBS sitcom "Becker". Smith once fronted the metal band Fydolla Ho, with which she toured the United States and the United Kingdom, and is half of Smith & Pyle, a desert country-rock band, with actress Missi Pyle. Early life. Shawnee Smith was born in Orangeburg, South Carolina, the second child of Patricia, an oncology nurse, and Jim Smith, a financial planner and former US Air Force pilot. The family relocated from South Carolina to Van Nuys, California, when she was a year old; her parents divorced when she was two; and her mother remarried when she was eight. She attended Ranchito Avenue Elementary School in Panorama City, Los Angeles and Madison Jr. High in North Hollywood. Then attended North Hollywood High School in North Hollywood, California, and graduated in 1987. Career. Smith began acting as a child appearing on stage in "A Christmas Carol" repertory from ages 8 to 11 and starred in a stage play with Richard Dreyfuss at age 15. She also performed in the original stage production of "To Gillian on Her 37th Birthday" and won the Dramalogue Critics Award for her performance. She was the youngest actor up to that time to receive such an honor. She made her television debut in a McDonald's commercial titled "Best Friends" in 1978. She joined the Screen Actors Guild at age nine and made her feature film debut in John Huston's 1982 adaptation of the Broadway musical "Annie", as one of Aileen Quinn's fellow orphans. In 1985, Smith co-starred in two troubled-teen melodramas, "Not My Kid" and "Crime of Innocence". In 1987, Smith co-starred in the hit comedy film "Summer School" as pregnant student Rhonda Altobello. The following year, she starred with Kevin Dillon and the late Joe Seneca in a 1988 remake of the Steve McQueen classic "The Blob" as Meg Penny. Smith played a rich teen who helps John Candy locate her kidnapped sister in 1989's "Who's Harry Crumb?." That same year, she co-starred with Jennie Garth and Barbara Eden in the short-lived TV series "Brand New Life". The following year, Smith co-starred as the daughter of Anthony Hopkins and Mimi Rogers in the remake of Michael Cimino's thriller "The Desperate Hours." Smith took a three-year break from acting in the early 1990s primarily because she had outgrown teenage roles and had a hard time finding work. During that time she climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro and competed in a triathlon. Near the end of the hiatus she decided to sell all her belongings and relocate to North Carolina to visit family and go back to school. When she was about to start attending classes she landed a small role in "Leaving Las Vegas" and has had steady work ever since. Smith's best-known television role was Linda, an air-headed nurse's aide, in the CBS hit comedy series "Becker" with Ted Danson. She served as a regular cast member in all 129 episodes from 1998 to 2004. Another well-known television role was that of Julie Lawry in the 1994 miniseries "The Stand", based on the novel by Stephen King. She also appeared as a waitress in "The Shining" miniseries, which King adapted from his own novel. Besides her regular role on "Becker" and the cameos in the Stephen King miniseries, Smith made several guest appearances on television shows, such as "Cagney & Lacey"; "Married With Children"; "Murder, She Wrote"; "The X-Files"; "Players"; and "". In 2003, she lent her voice to an episode of the Disney cartoon "Kim Possible" as Vivian Porter. Smith has become well known in recent years for her role as Amanda Young in the "Saw" films. She has also been acknowledged as a "scream queen" due to the number of horror films she has appeared in. In the DVD commentary of "Saw", the producers revealed that her scenes were filmed while she was battling a terrible case of the flu. It is also revealed in the DVD commentary of "Saw II" that she was four months pregnant with her second child, Jakson, during filming. Her pregnancy was kept a secret from everyone except director Darren Lynn Bousman. He mentioned in the commentary that Smith's daughter Verve accidentally told him about the pregnancy during filming. She has said that although she is briefly shown in "Saw IV" and "Saw V", she was never on set. Any scenes featuring her were dubbed from file footage. On March 20, 2009, producer Mark Burg released a statement confirming that Smith would be in "Saw VI". She arrived in Toronto on March 31, 2009, to begin filming brand new flashback sequences. Smith has repeatedly admitted that she hates being scared and has a hard time watching the "Saw" films, or any horror movie. She originally turned the role of Amanda Young down because it was very upsetting to her. After turning the role down, she was shown the eight-minute short film by Leigh Whannell and James Wan and changed her mind after the role was offered to her a second time. Smith in the jaw trap became the image on the film poster. She also revealed at SawMania 2008 that her name was initially brought up for the role of Amanda because "Saw" director James Wan was a big fan of her films in the 1980s and had a longtime crush on her. Director Darren Bousman and Leigh Whannell have also talked about their crushes on Smith in the "Saw" DVD commentaries. In 2006, Smith made an appearance in the ten-minute short film trailer "Repo! The Genetic Opera" by director Darren Lynn Bousman. Smith's character was Heather Sweet, the surgery addicted daughter of GeneCo president Rotti Largo. The trailer was filmed in Toronto, Canada and was an adaptation from the stage version. Bousman filmed the trailer after completing "Saw III" to try to pitch the idea to film producers. Smith did not reprise her role as Heather Sweet when Lionsgate and Twisted Pictures picked up the film in 2007 and was replaced by Paris Hilton. The character name was also changed from Heather to Amber. In 2008, Smith played Detective Gina Harcourt in the FEARnet original series '. The series premiered on July 17, 2008, on FEARnet.com in six 4- to 6-minute webisodes along with behind the scenes clips. This series is a continuation of the first webisode series '. It is still available on FEARnet.com and can also be seen in its entirety (about 30 minutes straight through) on FEARnet On Demand. She also made her producing debut with this series. Smith was the host and one of three mentors on the VH1 reality program "Scream Queens" which aired from October 20, 2008, to December 8, 2008. In January 2010 it was announced that Smith would not be returning as host and mentor for Season 2 due to scheduling conflicts. She was replaced by Jaime King. In 2009, Smith played the role of Dr. Ann Sullivan, a child psychiatrist, the third installment of "The Grudge" series, "The Grudge 3". The film was a direct to DVD release in May 2009. Smith appeared as a guest star in the ABC Family show "The Secret Life of the American Teenager" on August 30, 2010. It was her first television appearance since "Scream Queens" aired in 2008. Shortly after she appeared in the series premiere of "" on September 29, 2010. Smith is currently starring as Jennifer Goodson, the ex-wife of Charlie Sheen's character on Anger Management. Music career. Along with acting, she is also a musician; she plays the guitar, piano, drums, and sings. She contributed to the soundtrack of "Saw III" with vocals on Hydrovibe's song "Killer Inside" and to the soundtrack for "Catacombs" as a solo vocalist with the song "Please Myself." Her voice was also featured in the film "Carnival of Souls" where her character Sandra performed a jazz song titled "I Fear." Smith fronted the punk/metal band Fydolla Ho (pronounced like Five-Dollar Hoe) in the early 2000s. The group was originally formed by Smith, Metallica bassist Robert Trujillo, Suicidal Tendencies Guitarist Rick Battson Skindred vocalist Benji Webbe as a small recording project. The band released their debut full-length album "Untied" in December 2001. She balanced the band with being a regular cast member on the CBS sitcom "Becker". The band officially ended in 2004. Smith began working on a solo career/album in 2004 with producer Chris Goss, but the project was never completed. In an interview with Radio Free in October 2005 she stated, "between being a mom, and working, and growing another baby, I have not had time to give attention to music for a while." She was part of a country music group with actress Missi Pyle called Smith & Pyle. The two actresses met while filming an ABC comedy pilot titled "Traveling in Packs". The band started after Smith invited Pyle to join her in attending the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival. While stuck in traffic, Pyle talked about her dream to be a rock star and Smith agreed to form a band with her. Their first album, "It's OK to Be Happy", was released digitally through iTunes and Amazon.com in July 2008. The debut album was recorded in Joshua Tree, California at Rancho de la Luna and was produced by Chris Goss. Smith and Pyle have also become business partners and formed their own record label called Urban Prairie Records, which "It's OK to be Happy" was released under. Smith has talked about the possibility of a Smith & Pyle television or webisode series in the near future. She mentioned the idea of a series on Fangoria radio with Dee Snider and also on a radio appearance with bandmate Missi Pyle in April 2009. Personal life. Smith has three children: a daughter named Verve, born in 1999, from her marriage to photographer Jason Reposar (1998–2003), and a son named Jakson, born in 2005, from her brief marriage to musician Kai Mattoon (2005–2006), and a second son born in March 2010. Her daughter was named after Verve Records. Both Verve and Jakson were featured in the debut Smith & Pyle album, "It's OK to be Happy." The kids are listed in the album credits as having vocals and spoken narrative tracks for two songs. An article published October 28, 2009, highlighting Smith & Pyle's small tour in West Virginia stated that Shawnee was pregnant with her third child. She gave birth to a boy in March 2010. Smith and ex-husband Jason Reposar eloped in 1998 while on vacation in Scotland due to the inability to organize a wedding. The song "Sugar," performed by her former country-rock band, Smith & Pyle, was written by Smith after her divorce from Reposar. She describes it as her break-up song that is quite different from Pyle's break-up song, "I Wish You Were Dead." Smith was featured in "Maxim" magazine in June 2001. Smith "married" fellow actress, and former bandmate, Missi Pyle in a faux ceremony at the All Love is Equal Launch Party in West Hollywood on November 18, 2009. The two actresses pretended to get married in support of repealing Prop 8 in California. Actor Hal Sparks dressed as a priest and performed the ceremony with them using rainbow-colored hula hoops as rings.
1031074	Richard Warwick (29 April 1945 - 16 December 1997) was a British actor. He was born Richard Carey Winter, at Meopham, Kent and made his film debut in Franco Zeffirelli's 1968 production of "Romeo and Juliet" in the role of Gregory. Subsequent films included "If...", "Nicholas and Alexandra" and the first film by Derek Jarman, "Sebastiane". On television, he was best known for his roles in the sitcom "Please Sir!", as one of the main character's teaching colleagues, and in the London Weekend Television comedy "A Fine Romance", as the brother-in-law of Judi Dench's character. He also played Uncas in the television series "The Last of the Mohicans" (1971). His last role before his AIDS-related death was as John Reed in Zeffirelli's 1996 adaptation of "Jane Eyre".
1166260	Miriam Shor (born July 25, 1971) is an American film, stage, and television actress. Personal life. Shor was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota. She has described herself as "half Jewish but not really religious" (her father was Jewish). She speaks fluent Yiddish as well as Italian. Her parents divorced when she was 7, and she alternated between living in Turin, Italy (with her mother), and suburban Detroit (with her father). She later attended the University of Michigan where she received her B.F.A. in drama. Shor is married to Justin Hagan, with whom she has one child. Career. Shor moved to New York City and landed a series of stage roles, most notably "Hedwig and the Angry Inch". In 2000 she starred in the short-lived ABC sitcom "Then Came You". She subsequently appeared in guest spots on such programs as "My Name Is Earl" and "The West Wing", and accepted supporting roles in the Harold Ramis comedy remake "Bedazzled" (2000) and the 2001 cinematization of "Hedwig and the Angry Inch", reprising her role of Yitzhak. In 2006, she starred in the ABC television series "Big Day" and in the movie "Shortbus". In 2007, Shor lent a supporting role to Mary Stuart Masterson's directorial debut, the slice-of-life drama "The Cake Eaters". The following year, she scored a regular part on the '70s-set prime-time CBS drama series "Swingtown" as Janet Thompson. The show was later canceled due to a negative reception and low ratings. She had a recurring role on FX's "Damages" as Carrie Parsons. In 2011 she played role of Anna on the HBO's mini-series adaptation of "Mildred Pierce". In 2012 Shor starred as Cricket Caruth-Reilly in ABC's series "GCB", with Leslie Bibb, Kristin Chenoweth, Annie Potts, Jennifer Aspen and Marisol Nichols. Series was canceled after one season. Later in 2012 Shor was cast in recurring role as dogged reporter Mandy Post of season four on "The Good Wife".
1063792	Henry Jackson Thomas, Jr. (born September 9, 1971) is an American actor and musician. He has appeared in more than 40 films and is best known for his role as Elliott Taylor in the 1982 Steven Spielberg film "E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial", the 1984 film "Cloak & Dagger", and the 2002 film "Gangs of New York". He portrayed a young Norman Bates in the 1990 film "". Early life. Thomas was born an only child in San Antonio, Texas, the son of Carolyn L. (née Davis), a homemaker, and Henry Jackson Thomas, a hydraulic machinist. He attended East Central High School in San Antonio and Blinn College in Brenham. Career. Acting career. After "E.T.", Thomas returned to Texas, occasionally acting in the 1984 film, "Cloak & Dagger", and on TV while attending school. He returned to film in the late 1980s and early 1990s and began to prove himself in adult roles, most notably as the younger version of Anthony Perkins' Norman Bates character in "". His most prominent adult role to date was as "Samuel Ludlow" in "Legends of the Fall" (1994). In 2002, he starred as supporting character Johnny Sirocco in the Martin Scorsese historical fiction film "Gangs of New York". He is currently both an actor and musician and starred in the 2011 film "The Last Ride" (2011) as musician Hank Williams Sr. Music. Thomas wrote songs, sang, and played guitar for the San Antonio, Texas, band The Blue Heelers from the mid to late '90s. Although the band was never signed to a record label, its self-produced album "Twister" was warmly received and enjoyed statewide radio play. Moving to Los Angeles in 1998, the band dissolved, but Thomas continued to write and record songs. In 1998, his song "Truckstop Coffee" (recorded with the Blue Heelers) appeared on V2's soundtrack to the film "Niagara, Niagara" in which Thomas appeared.
590967	Pandari Bai (1930 – January 29, 2003) was a prominent actress of South Indian languages films mostly in Kannada and Tamil during the 1950s and 60s. She has the distinction of having acted as both heroine and mother to stalwarts such as Rajkumar and Sivaji Ganesan. She was the heroine in Rajkumar's debut movie "Bedara Kannappa" and also Sivaji's debut movie "Parasakthi". She has acted in over 1,000 films in Kannada, Telugu and Tamil. Early life and education. Born in Bhatkal, Karnataka, in present Uttara Kannada. Her father was a drawing master and a Harikatha exponent, and also a stage actor. He taught her the art of Harikatha, thus even before she was ten year old, Pandari started giving Harikatha performances. Career. She had acted in 1,500 films in several languages like Kannada, Tamil, Telugu, and Hindi and enjoyed a long career span of nearly half a century. She had played lead roles in many movies and then switched over to character roles. In her later career, she played the mother of stars older than she and with most of whom she had played the lead in her earlier years. She also played as mother to actors like M. G. Ramachandran in Tamil and Rajesh Khanna in Hindi in the 1970s. Pandari Bai also acted in a couple of Kannada TV serials Amma and Manethana (1998–2000). Both of them were produced by her sister Mynavathy's company Yantra Media.
1057576	Gun Crazy is a 1950 film noir feature film directed by Joseph H. Lewis, and produced by Frank King and Maurice King. The production features Peggy Cummins and John Dall in a story about the crime-spree of a gun-toting husband and wife. The screenplay by blacklisted writer Dalton Trumbo -- credited to Millard Kaufman because of the blacklist and by MacKinlay Kantor -- was based upon a short story by Kantor published in 1940 in "The Saturday Evening Post". "Gun Crazy" was selected for the National Film Registry, and is also known as Deadly Is the Female. Plot. At the age of 14, Bart Tare robs a hardware store and steals a gun. He is sent to reform school by a sympathetic Judge Willoughby (Morris Carnovsky) , despite the testimony of his friends Dave and Clyde, his older sister Ruby and others that he would never kill any living creature, even though he has had a fascination with guns even as a child. Flashbacks provide a portrait of Bart who, after he kills a young chick with a BB gun at age 7, is hesitant to harm anyone with guns even though he is a good shot with a pistol. After reform school and a stint in the Army teaching marksmanship, Bart (John Dall) returns home. He, Dave (Nedrick Young) and Clyde (Harry Lewis) go to a traveling carnival in town. There, Bart challenges sharpshooter Annie Laurie Starr (Peggy Cummins) to a shooting contest, and wins. She gets him a job with the carnival, and he becomes smitten with her. However, their attraction to each other inflames the jealousy of their boss, Packett (Berry Kroeger), who wants Laurie for himself. Packett begs Laurie to love him, but she dismisses him as "two-bit." As Packett is forcing himself on her, Bart enters and shoots a mirror behind Packett. They both get fired, and leave together.
1068490	Liquid Sky is an independent American science fiction film. It debuted at the Montreal Film festival in August 1982 and was well received at several film festivals thereafter. It was produced with a budget of $500,000. It became the most successful independent film of 1983 grossing $1.7 million in the first several months of release. The film is seen as heavily influencing a club scene that emerged in the early 2000s in Brooklyn, Berlin and London called electroclash. Production. "Liquid Sky" was produced and directed by Slava Tsukerman who, prior to making "Liquid Sky", had a successful career as a documentary and TV film maker in the USSR and Israel. The screenplay was written by Tsukerman, his wife and ubiquitous co-producer Nina V. Kerova, and Anne Carlisle, who also enacted the film's two leading roles. The director of photography, Yuri Neyman, a Russian émigré, was also the film's special effects expert. Anne Carlisle also wrote a novel based on the movie (same title, ISBN 0-385-23930-0) in 1987. Although the film is loosely centered around early 1980s punk subculture, the film's score uses a series of strident synthesizer music pieces. The music was composed by Slava Tsukerman, Clive Smith and Brenda Hutchinson using the Fairlight CMI, the first digital sampler/synthesizer. Most of it was original, but included interpretations of Baroque composer Marin Marais's "Sonnerie de Ste-Geneviève du Mont-de-Paris", Carl Orff's "Trionfo di Afrodite", and Anthony Philip Heinrich's "Laurel Waltz". All of these were orchestrated in a series of ominous, dissonant arrangements and nightmarish marches. Plot. An avant garde fashion show is to be held in a New Wave nightclub in Manhattan. Among the models are bisexual Margaret (Anne Carlisle) and Jimmy (also played by Carlisle). Jimmy is Margaret's rival and nemesis. He is apparently a drug addict, constantly hassling Margaret's heroin-dealer girlfriend Adrian (Paula E. Sheppard) for drugs despite not having any money to pay for them. An alien spacecraft—about the size of a dinner plate—lands on the rooftop of the penthouse apartment occupied by Margaret and Adrian. Before the show, Jimmy suggests to Margaret that they both go to her place, but once there he only cares about finding Adrian's stash of heroin (known in New York in the 70's and 80's as slang term "liquid sky"). We learn that Margaret's apartment is being watched by a tiny, shapeless alien from inside the UFO. Meanwhile, Adrian performs "Me and My Rhythm Box" at the club. Margaret and Jimmy return to the club to participate in the show. During preparations both agree to a photographic shoot the following night on Margaret's rooftop. They are assured that there will be plenty of drugs available at the shoot. Margaret and Jimmy perform in the nightclub fashion show. Margaret connects with Californian soap opera actor and son of a TV producer Vincent (Jack Adalist). Vincent is offering cocaine to all the women at the nightclub. Back at Margaret's apartment she rejects Vincent when all he offers are Quaaludes. He beats her and rapes her on the building's staircase. Across town, middle class Katherine (Elaine C. Grove) revoices her objection to the heroin use of her boyfriend, failed writer and heroin addict Paul (Stanley Knap). German scientist Johann Hoffman (Otto Von Wernherr) arrives in New York, then secretly starts observing the aliens from the Empire State Building observation deck. Paul buys heroin from Adrian while trying to seduce Margaret. Jimmy has lunch with his image conscious mother, Sylvia (Susan Doukas), a television producer. She tries to connect with him, but Jimmy's main interest is in obtaining money from her. Johann needs somewhere to continue his surveillance when the observation deck closes. He seeks help in this from the only person he knows in America, college drama teacher Owen (Bob Brady). Owen fobs Johann off as he plans to go meet a former student, Margaret. Seeking a vantage point on his own, Johann seeks access to an apartment building adjacent to Margaret's. This is Sylvia's building and lascivious Sylvia, who happens to have a free evening, eagerly invites Johann to her apartment for dinner. Margaret is seduced by her former acting professor Owen, a representative of the erstwhile hippie generation. He dies as they have sex in view of the aliens, with a crystal embedded into his head. Adrian returns and they clash over Margaret's dalliance with Owen. Adrian recites a eulogy, helps hide the body, and goes out to buy food for an impromptu wake. Paul refuses to play host to Katherine's business clients at a party in her loft, claiming he feels sick. She angrily throws him out. Paul shows up at Margaret's while Adrian is out, and rapes her. He too dies, with a crystal protruding from his head. The aliens dispose of his body which instantly disintegrates. Margaret apparently believes it is the work of an "Indian" god possessing the Empire State Building and is grateful, but in shock. From Sylvia's apartment, Johann intermittently continues his observation between dinner and dodging Sylvia's various attempts to seduce him. He leaves to warn Adrian when she buys provisions for the wake. Rebuked by Adrian as a narc he returns to Sylvia. The crew arrives at Margaret's apartment for the fashion shoot. During the shoot Margaret is taunted by Jimmy, so she agrees to have sex with him knowing it will kill him. He dies and the body evaporates as Paul's had done. Adrian perversely encourages Margaret to have sex with her, rapes her, and Adrian also dies. A vengeful Margaret applies new make-up, deserts the crew and goes to a downtown nightclub. There she reconnects with Vincent, who previously raped her. Back at her apartment she seduces him, ensuring his death. Katherine arrives at the nightclub asking after Paul's dealer, Adrian. Johann reveals that the alien is extracting the endorphins produced by the brain when an orgasm occurs—apparently a fatal operation. Johann resumes observation of Margaret's apartment and sees she is in mortal danger so goes across to help her. He explains to Margaret that she survived because she never experienced an orgasm. Seeing the alien craft leaving, Margaret stabs Johann in the back and injects herself with heroin to induce a wild autoerotic orgasm to ensure the aliens take her with them. Sylvia and Katherine arrive at the apartment together and reach the penthouse in time to see Margaret vaporized by the aliens. Reception. The film received a 94% Certified Fresh rating on review aggregate Rotten Tomatoes. A 5.8 on IMDb, and 3/5 stars by editors and 4.5/5 stars by users on AllMovie.
1745235	Alecia "Ali" Hillis (born December 29, 1978) is an American actress from the state of Illinois who learned to perform in theater as a child and auditioned for parts in the Broadway plays in New York City. She has appeared in a variety of TV shows and films with a voice character in a number of video games. Biography. At the age of six months, Hillis' moved with her family to Normal, Illinois and at age 3, to Sheboygan Falls, Wisconsin. She moved to Charlotte, North Carolina at age 13 and performed at The Children's Theater. She auditioned for Broadway plays in New York City with TV shows of "Felicity" (2 episodes in 1999), "FreakyLinks", "Undressed" (2000), "Baywatch", "JAG", "Boomtown" and "Less Than Perfect". Her several film roles are "All the Wrong Places", "Kiss Kiss Bang Bang", "Must Love Dogs", ', "The Ultimate Gift", and "The Heartbreak Kid"and the Los Angeles play, "A Good Soldier". Her video game roles are Lightning in "Final Fantasy XIII", its sequels and "Dissidia 012 Final Fantasy", Liara T'Soni in the "Mass Effect" trilogy, Ariel Hanson in ', Karin in the Naruto: Shippuden Ultimate Ninja Storm series, Palutena in "", Isabelle "Izzy" Sinclair in the "Fuse (video game)".
1062380	Emily Jean "Emma" Stone (born November 6, 1988) is an American actress. In 2007, she starred in the short-lived Fox action drama "Drive" as Violet Trimble, and made her feature film debut in the comedy "Superbad" (2007). She has appeared in "The House Bunny" (2008), "Ghosts of Girlfriends Past" (2009), "Zombieland" (2009), and "Paper Man" (2009). In 2010, Stone voiced Mazie in "Marmaduke", and starred as the lead in the comedy "Easy A" for which she received a nomination for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy. In 2011, she co-starred in "Crazy, Stupid, Love." and "The Help". In 2012, Stone starred as Gwen Stacy in "The Amazing Spider-Man", a reboot of the "Spider-Man" film series. In 2013, she co-starred in "Gangster Squad", and voiced the character of Eep in the animated film "The Croods". Stone is set to reprise her role of Gwen Stacy in "The Amazing Spider-Man 2". Early life. Stone was born in Scottsdale, Arizona, the daughter of Jeff Stone, a founder and CEO of a general-contracting company, and Krista (née Yeager), a homemaker. Her parents are co-owners of the Camelback Golf Club, and Stone lived on the grounds of the Camelback Inn resort from the age of twelve. She has a brother, Spencer, who is two years younger. Stone's paternal grandfather was of Swedish descent, and his family's original surname was "Sten" and was anglicized to "Stone" when immigrating to the U.S. through Ellis Island. Her other ancestry is primarily Pennsylvania Dutch. Stone attended Sequoya Elementary School and then Cocopah Middle School for the sixth grade. She was home schooled for two years, during which time she appeared in sixteen productions at Valley Youth Theatre, including "The Princess and the Pea", "Alice in Wonderland", and "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat", and performed with the theater's improv comedy troupe. Her parents also sent her for private lessons with "a local acting coach who had worked at William Morris in the 1970s and still had Hollywood connections. Stone attended Xavier College Preparatory, an all-girl Catholic high school, as a freshman for one semester. Despite this, she was raised as a Lutheran. She gave a PowerPoint presentation to her parents, set to the Madonna song "Hollywood", to convince them to let her move to California for an acting career. She dropped out of high school, and in January 2004, moved with her mother to a Los Angeles apartment, at the age of fifteen. She was home schooled again, so that she could audition during the day. Stone is naturally blonde. She landed her first role as a teenager after dyeing her hair dark brown. Film producer Judd Apatow had her change from a brunette to a redhead for her role in "Superbad". She returned to blonde for her role in "The Amazing Spider-Man". Career. 2004–2011. There was already a listing for an "Emily Stone" when Stone registered for the Screen Actors Guild, so she chose "Emma" as her stage name . Her family and friends call her Emily. She first chose Riley Stone as her stage name, but after a guest appearance on "Malcolm in the Middle", she decided she was more comfortable with Emma, a nickname her mother had given her. Stone's low-pitched husky voice is a result of having baby colic, a condition of frequent screaming as an infant, resulting in the development of nodules. She has calluses on her vocal cords as an adult. Stone launched a career in television after winning the role of Laurie Partridge on "In Search of the New Partridge Family" (2004), a VH1 talent competition reality show. The resulting show, "The New Partridge Family" (2005), only produced a pilot episode. Stone next had appearances in the television series "Medium", "Malcolm in the Middle" and "Lucky Louie". In April 2007, she starred in the Fox action drama "Drive", playing Violet Trimble, however, the show was cancelled after seven episodes. She also auditioned for "Heroes", and overheard in the casting room "On a scale of 1 to 10, you are an 11" — the casting directors were referring to Hayden Panettiere, who was cast as Claire Bennet instead. Stone called this experience "rock bottom." Stone made her feature film debut opposite Jonah Hill in the 2007 teen comedy "Superbad" directed by Greg Mottola, as Jules, the love interest of Hill's lead character Seth. In 2008, she appeared in the comedy "The Rocker", opposite Rainn Wilson and directed by Peter Catteneo. Stone played Amelia, the bass guitarist in a band featuring singer Teddy Geiger. Stone learned to play bass for the role. Also that year, Stone appeared in "The House Bunny", opposite Anna Faris, Katharine McPhee, Kat Dennings, Rumer Willis, and Colin Hanks and directed by Fred Wolf. Stone played the president of a sorority and sang on a single from the film, "I Know What Boys Like", a cover version of the 1982 song by The Waitresses. In 2009, Stone appeared in "Ghosts of Girlfriends Past", a romantic comedy directed by Mark Waters, the director of "Mean Girls", starring Matthew McConaughey and Jennifer Garner. Stone played Allison Vandermeesh, "The Ghost of Girlfriends Past", a takeoff of the Ghost of Christmas Past from Charles Dickens' "A Christmas Carol". She starred in the horror/comedy "Zombieland", opposite Woody Harrelson and Jesse Eisenberg and directed by Ruben Fleischer. The project began shooting in Atlanta in February 2009. Stone played Wichita, a survivor and con artist from Wichita, Kansas, traveling across the U.S. with her younger sister Little Rock (played by Abigail Breslin). At the end of the film, she reveals that her real name is "Krista", which is coincidentally the name of Stone's mother in real life. Stone also co-starred in "Paper Man" in 2009, opposite Jeff Daniels, Ryan Reynolds and Lisa Kudrow, directed by Kieran and Michele Mulroney. She played Abby, a babysitter that Daniels' character hires after moving to Long Island. Stone began filming the independent comedy on November 11, 2008, in Montauk, New York, using well-known local locations. In 2010, Stone had a voice role in "Marmaduke", a film adaptation of the long-running comic strip of the same name about a Great Dane and directed by Tom Dey. She voiced Marmaduke's friend, Mazie, a tomboyish Australian Shepherd. Stone was cast in her first leading role that year opposite Penn Badgley, Amanda Bynes, Dan Byrd, Thomas Haden Church, Patricia Clarkson, Cam Gigandet, Lisa Kudrow, Malcolm McDowell, Aly Michalka and Stanley Tucci in "Easy A", a comedy directed by Will Gluck. Stone plays Olive Penderghast, a high school student who scandalizes her teachers and more conservative religious classmates after a false rumor circulates that she is sexually promiscuous. The script contrasts the novel "The Scarlet Letter" by Nathaniel Hawthorne and its heroine, Hester Prynne, to the life of Prynne in the film versions. Stone read the script before the project was optioned for production, and kept an eye on it along with her manager until preparations were made. She was attracted to the script because it was "funny and sweet" and her character was "fantastic from the first read" who was "fleshed [..] out so much in the script". When she found out that the film had gone into production, she met with Gluck to express her enthusiasm about the project. A few months later, the audition process started and Stone met with Gluck again to be one of the first actresses to audition. Stone was nominated for the 2011 Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Musical or Comedy for her role. Stone appeared at the 2010 MTV Video Music Awards on September 12, 2010, and introduced Linkin Park. She stated in 2008 that she would eventually like to venture into film production, producing her own films, and that her dream was to appear on "Saturday Night Live". Stone hosted the late-night sketch comedy show on October 23, 2010, and again on November 12, 2011. Stone appeared in the sex comedy, "Friends with Benefits", opposite Justin Timberlake and Mila Kunis, and directed by Will Gluck, whom she worked with for the second time. It began filming in July 2010, in New York City, and was released on July 22, 2011. She also co-starred in the Warner Bros. romantic dramedy "Crazy, Stupid, Love." that year, opposite Steve Carell, Julianne Moore, Ryan Gosling, Marisa Tomei and Kevin Bacon and directed by Glenn Ficarra and John Requa. The film was about Carell's character which is a husband with marital problems and difficulties with his children, it began shooting on April 16, 2010 in Los Angeles and was released on July 29, 2011. Stone starred in the Touchstone Pictures and Dreamworks Studios drama film "The Help" opposite Jessica Chastain, Viola Davis, Bryce Dallas Howard, Allison Janney and Octavia Spencer and directed by Tate Taylor, an adaptation of Kathryn Stockett's best-selling novel of the same name and a period piece set in Jackson, Mississippi, in the 1960s, which was released in August 2011. She plays Eugenia "Skeeter" Phelan, an aspiring writer, and employed a Southern dialect for the role. 2012–present. Stone starred as the female lead opposite Andrew Garfield in "The Amazing Spider-Man", a reboot by Columbia Pictures and Marvel Entertainment, of the "Spider-Man" film series. The film also starred Rhys Ifans, Denis Leary, Campbell Scott, Irrfan Khan, Martin Sheen, Sally Field, Embeth Davidtz and Chris Zylka. She played Gwen Stacy, the seventeen-year-old love interest of Garfield's character Peter Parker. Marc Webb directed the film, which was released on July 3, 2012. The film went into production in December 2010, lasting through April 2011. Stone was considered for the lead in a reboot of "21 Jump Street", opposite her "Superbad" co-star Jonah Hill. She did not take the role however, after signing on to "The Amazing Spider-Man". In DreamWorks Animation's 3D computer animated caveman comedy film "The Croods" directed by Kirk De Micco and Chris Sanders, she voiced Eep, the oldest daughter of Grug (voiced by Nicolas Cage) and Ugga (voiced by Catherine Keener). Ryan Reynolds voiced Gy, the love interest to Stone's character. The film was released on March 22, 2013. She starred in the comedic short film "Veronica", opposite Kieran Culkin. The short film, directed by Griffin Dunne, is a comedy segment that is part of the anthology film, "Movie 43", featuring Kate Winslet, Gerard Butler, Hugh Jackman, Uma Thurman, Halle Berry, Richard Gere, and others. The feature film was produced by the Farrelly brothers. Stone co-starred in the crime drama film "Gangster Squad" based on a true story and directed by Ruben Fleischer who worked with Stone in "Zombieland". She worked with Ryan Gosling for the second time and it also starred Sean Penn, Josh Brolin, Mireille Enos, John Aylward, Nick Nolte, Anthony Mackie, Giovanni Ribisi, and Michael Peña. Stone played Grace Farraday, who is caught in a love triangle with Gosling's character, Sgt. Jerry Wooters and Penn's character, mobster Mickey Cohen. The film was released on January 11, 2013 in North America. Stone will work with writer and director Will Gluck for the third time, starring in and executive producing an untitled comedy for Screen Gems. The film studio has given Gluck and Stone full discretion in developing a new project, after the success of "Easy A". As of January 2012, she has signed on to a script, "Little White Corvette", a comedy about a pair of would-be drug dealing siblings. The project began filming in Miami in mid-2012. In mid-2012, Stone voiced a supporting role in the crime-based video game, "Sleeping Dogs". She signed on to star in "Deep Tiki" opposite Rachel McAdams, Bradley Cooper and Alec Baldwin and directed by Academy Award winner Cameron Crowe, for Sony Pictures. Stone will also reprise her role as Gwen Stacy in "The Amazing Spider-Man 2", which is scheduled for release on May 2, 2014. Stone will co-star in Alejandro Gonzalez Innaritu's ensemble comedy "Birdman", opposite Michael Keaton, Zach Galifianakis, Naomi Watts and Edward Norton. The film began principal photography in New York City in mid-April 2013. In 2013, Stone dropped out on Guillermo Del Toro's horror film "Crimson Peak" and was replaced by Mia Wasikowska. In May 2013, it was announced that Stone had joined the cast of Woody Allen's new comedy film opposite Colin Firth. Personal life. Stone moved from Los Angeles to Greenwich Village, New York City in 2009.
587628	Swarna Kamalam or Swarnakamalam () is a 1988 critically acclaimed Telugu film written and directed by K. Viswanath. It stars Venkatesh and Bhanupriya in the lead roles. The original soundtrack was composed by Ilayaraja. The film was showcased among the Indian panorama section at the 1988 International Film Festival of India.
1100038	Ciprian Manolescu (born December 24, 1978) is a Romanian mathematician, working in gauge theory, symplectic geometry, and low-dimensional topology. He is currently a Professor of Mathematics at the University of California, Los Angeles.
1064646	"Disney's The Kid" is a 2000 American film, directed by Jon Turteltaub and starring Bruce Willis and Spencer Breslin. It co-stars Emily Mortimer, Lily Tomlin, Chi McBride, and Jean Smart. The movie was released on July 7 in United States and received mixed to positive reviews from critics. Plot. Russ Duritz works as an image consultant, but he is impolite to people and has a strained relationship with his father. One day, he sees a red plane flying over his head but no one else seems to have seen it. Later, he and his assistant Amy meet a stadium manager named Bob Riley. Riley had promised to set aside 5% of the ticket sales to fund a baseball camp for disadvantaged children, but he actually kept the money. So Russ has them make a video of some children throwing pie at Riley, to get him off the hook. Afterwards, in a Japanese restaurant Amy feels that the video is unethical, and Russ throws the tape away at first, but he secretly retrieves it offscreen. When Russ gets home he sees a shadow of a boy, and he immediately calls his secretary to change his house security system. She replies that he is being paranoid and that it could be a neighbor's child. He hears someone inside his house and gets out of bed to investigate when he finds a toy plane with the name Rusty on it on his front step which he assumes had been left there by his father for him. Russ goes back to bed and wakes up hearing noises again. He then walks around the house until he finds the boy and begins a chase through the house. They go to the streets and reach the airport where he sees the boy entering a "Skyway Diner". He tries to catch him there but no one inside has seen the boy. When Russ walks outside looking for the boy, he turns around to look back at the diner, but it has vanished. He thinks he is hallucinating again. So the next day Russ goes to a psychiatrist and tells her that he only needs five minutes and a powerful medicine to stop his hallucinations. After refusing the whole psychology session he gets his pills and leaves. He turns the television on and watches the news, but after he goes to the kitchen the channel has changed to Ed, Edd n Eddy. He then surprises the boy in his couch eating his popcorn. He asks the boy who he is and what has he come for, to which the boy replies to take his toy plane, but that when he saw the television and the popcorn he couldn't resist. Russ then asks the boy his name and finds out it's his own. Both begin comparing memories and their birthmarks and figure out that Rusty is none other than Russ as a kid. Rusty then starts asking Russ things such as if he has a dog named Chester, whom Rusty has dreamed of owning, if he has become a pilot, and if Russ has a wife. Russ replies that he can't handle dogs with his constant traveling, that he is not a pilot but an image consultant, and that has no wife. Rusty tells him that he dislikes his future. The next day, when Amy finds out about the boy, she likes him and wants to take him to eat ice cream but Russ makes fun of his weight. Rusty then recalls some bullies bothering him the same way, so Russ brings him to a client's boxing ring and teaches him to fight. Amy starts wondering about Russ and Rusty's similarities and begins to think they are father and son. After shouting at Russ for hiding such a secret from her, both Russ and Rusty finally decide to tell her the truth, though they end up arguing instead. Amy watches Rusty and Russ argue and sees the two fighting, arguing, gesturing the same way, at which she faints. Later, Russ and Amy talk about who will take care of him during his client's wedding and Amy proposes to take him but Russ says he will humiliate him. Rusty falls during the wedding ceremony, and at the reception, he asks Amy to marry him. She thinks it's Russ sending her the message. When she finds out that Russ saved and aired the Riley tape, she gets mad at him. She tells him that he should try to learn more from Rusty and leaves disappointed. Russ finally decides to cancel all of his appointments and spend an afternoon trying to find out why Rusty is there and what he needs to fix from the past. He recalls a fight he will have on his birthday. That makes them go back to 1968. Rusty wins that fight and saves the life of a three-legged dog called Tripod, but then Russ remembers that that wasn't the worst part of the day. He remembers that his mother who was sick came to school for him. When they get home, Rusty's father angrily goes to Russ saying "Are you trying to kill her faster?!" Rusty cries and his father rubs Rusty's eyes painfully causing Rusty to have a lifelong facial tic. Russ tells Rusty that his mother will die before his next birthday, then comforts him. Russ tells Rusty that his father was angry and scared because of the huge responsibility of raising a boy alone. They go to the "Skyway Diner" and keep talking about the fight, congratulating each other on their birthday. Suddenly a dog comes in and goes directly to Rusty. They hear a man call the dog Chester, they both follow him and find out that the red plane is Russ's plane and that the man with the dog is Russ and that they really changed the future and that Russ would, in late middle age, be a pilot, have Amy as his wife, and a dog named Chester. Then Russ returns to his time, arranges plans to see his dad, buys tickets to Hawaii for his secretary, and goes to Amy's house with a puppy. The movie ends as she invites him in. Box office. The film opened at #4 at the North American box office making $12,687,726 USD in its opening weekend behind "The Patriot", "The Perfect Storm" and "Scary Movie". Critical Reception. Upon its release, "Disney's The Kid" received mixed to positive reviews from critics. Review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes calculated a 49% overall approval based on 97 reviews, with the consensus being, "Critics find The Kid to be too sweet and the movie's message to be annoyingly simplistic." It has a rating of 45% on Metacritic. Film critic Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave a positive review, awarding the movie 3 stars out of 4 and observing, "Disney's The Kid is warm-hearted and effective, a sweet little parable that involves a man and a boy who help each other become a better boy, and a better man. It's a sweet film, unexpectedly involving, and shows again that Willis, so easily identified with action movies, is gifted in the areas of comedy and pathos: This is a cornball plot, and he lends it credibility just by being in it." Awards and nominations. "The Kid" was nominated for one Saturn Award, and two Young Artist Awards, receiving only one Young Artist Award: Television. On cable, after Disney Channel showed "Disney's The Kid" only once on Saturday, August 9, 2003, it took 4 years for the film to have its next cable airing. It aired on Hallmark Channel on Saturday, March 31, 2007 and has been aired on Disney Channel's sister station, ABC Family on Sunday, November 4, 2007. This makes "Disney's The Kid" one of Disney Channel's longest preempted films in network history. On June 23, 2008, Disney Channel, which hasn't aired "Disney's The Kid" as of 2008, would have had a 2nd airing, but was preempted like "Little Secrets" and "The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants" were. But in a seminar held on July 11, 2008, it was announced that Disney Channel will air "Disney's The Kid" for the second time, and possibly, the third. In 2008, they started to show it on Disney Cinemagic, but the Encore channels have played the movie several times. However, Disney Channel Asia continues to show the film occasionally. Hallmark Movie Channel currently airs the movie. In India, Zstudio channel is still telecasting this movie and getting positive response. See Also. Looper (film)
585136	Bheja Fry 2 (meaning 'Brain Fry' 2) is an Indian comedy film released on June 17, 2011. It is the sequel to the 2007 low budget but successful film "Bheja Fry". The film garnered negative to mixed reviews upon its release but was a success at the boxoffice. Plot. Ajit Talwar (Kay Kay Menon) is a business tycoon. The movie starts with an interview of Ajit Talwar in a News Channel. Ajit Talwar has a broad business unit. Ajit Talwar is married to Naina Talwar (Rukshar) but still Ajit Talwar is a womanizer who has an affair with his secretary played by Spanta Patel (Kishwar Merchant). Ajit Talwar has a friend Kapoor (Rahul Vohra) whose wife Raveena (Aditi Govitrikar) runs a TV channel. Kapoor invites Ajit to the final episode of "Aao Guess Karein", a TV Reality show aired on Kapoor's TV channel. The finalist of the show is the protagonist Bharat Bhushan (Vinay Pathak), who wins 25 Lakh and a chance to journey in a luxurious Cruise. The Executive Producer of the show Ranjini (Minissha Lamba) asks Bharat Bhushan, how would he utilise the prize money. Bhushan says by producing a music album. Bhushan is an Income Tax Officer and has a friend M. T. Shekharan (Suresh Menon) who is also an Income Tax Officer. Shekharan calls on Bhushan for an Income Tax Raid. But Bhushan refuses saying that he is leaving for a holiday on a luxurious Cruise. Shekharan follows Ajit Talwar to the cruise ship and employs various disguises to collect evidence on Ajit Talwar. Ajit and Bhushan get lost in an island. Bhushan makes his way to the Cruise with all preparations and thus the hilarious journey begins. Reception. The Indian Box office give the film negative reviews however it remain a semi hit at the box office. Sequel. "Bheja Fry 2" was a moderate success at the box office. Therefore, another sequel under the title "Bheja Fry 3" is filming and it will be the conclusion to the story of Bheja Fry trilogy. The sequel featured Vinay Pathak reprising his role as the main lead. Soundtrack. The music of the film is composed by Ishq Bector, Sneha Khanwalkar, and Sagar Desai. Lyrics are penned by Shree D., Sonny Ravan, and Shakeel Mohammed.
581836	Sandhya Mridul (born 28 March 1975) is an Indian actress who appears in Bollywood films and television. She is most known for her roles in films like "Saathiya" (2002) and "Page 3" (2005) and was first runner up on the reality dance show "Jhalak Dikhhla Jaa (Season 2)" (2007). Early life. Mridul, also called 'Sandy', was born in Mumbai to P. R. Mridul and his wife. Later, the family moved to New Delhi. At age ten, she left home to attend school at Maharani Gayatri Devi Girls’ Public School in Jaipur. At age 14, her father, a lawyer and later a judge of the high court, died and she was brought up by her elder brother Siddharth Mridul who is a sitting judge of Delhi High Court. She has another elder brother named Pankaj. She attended Lady Sriram College, Delhi (1987-1990). She graduated in Mathematics, did her post graduation in marketing and went on to do a corporate job with KLM in Mumbai. Career. Mridul first arrived back in Mumbai to be a marketing executive. She first started her career with the popular TV serial "Swabhimaan". After that, additional roles followed in serials like "Banegi Apni Baat", "Koshish" and "Hu Ba Hu".
582987	Chandra Mukhi is a Hindi language film, released in 1993. "Chandra Mukhi", along with "Chaand Kaa Tukdaa", created huge expectation as, Salman Khan and Sridevi paired together. Although "Chaand Kaa Tukdaa" is Salman-Sridevi team's first signed film, their first release was "Chandra Mukhi". The film bombed at the box office. The story Idea was written by Salman Khan. Plot. Chandra Mukhi (Sridevi), a princess of a heavenly kingdom reached Earth in search of her Magical leaf meets Raja Rai (Salman Khan) and how she influence the life of him and of course, hers form the Climax.
1169511	Christopher Michael Hewett (5 April 1921 – 3 August 2001) was an English actor and theatre director best known for his role as Lynn Aloysius Belvedere on the ABC sitcom "Mr. Belvedere". Career. Hewett was born in Worthing, Sussex, to an army officer father and an Irish mother who was a descendant of Daniel O'Connell. He was educated at Beaumont College, and at aged 7, made his acting debut in Dublin stage production of "A Midsummer Night's Dream". At 16, Hewett joined the Royal Air Force, leaving in 1940. Hewett then joined the Oxford Repertory Company and made his West End theatre debut in 1943. He later appeared on Broadway in the musicals "My Fair Lady", "The Unsinkable Molly Brown", "Music Is", and "Kean" and in the plays "Sleuth" and "The Affair", among others, and directed the 1960 Broadway revue "From A to Z" and the 1967 Off Broadway revival of the Rodgers and Hart musical "By Jupiter". Hewett also directed several stage productions including "The Marriage-Go-Round" and "Beyond the Fringe and Camelot". Hewett made his film debut in the 1951 crime drama "Pool of London", and later appeared in roles on "Robert Montgomery Presents" and "DuPont Show of the Month". He appeared as the grand theatre director Roger DeBris in Mel Brooks's 1968 film comedy "The Producers". In 1976, Hewett played the generic bureaucrat Federov in the short-lived sitcom "Ivan the Terrible". From 1983 to 1984, he portrayed Lawrence, Mr. Roarke's (Ricardo Montalbán) sidekick on the final season of the ABC series "Fantasy Island". The following year, Hewett landed his best known role as Lynn Aloysius Belvedere, an English butler who works for a middle class American family in the sitcom "Mr. Belvedere". After the series ended its run in 1990, Hewett appeared in a guest spot on an episode of the NBC teen sitcom "California Dreams" in 1994. In 1995, he starred with Charlton Heston, Mickey Rooney, Deborah Winters and Peter Graves in Warren Chaney's "". His last onscreen role was a cameo appearance on the Fox series "Ned & Stacey" in 1997. Personal life and death. A devout Catholic and lifelong bachelor, Hewett served as a deacon at St. Victor's Church in West Hollywood. During his later years, he suffered from arthritis and diabetes. Hewett died on 3 August 2001, at his Los Angeles home from complications of diabetes. He was 80 years old.
688296	Debbie Does Dallas is a 1978 pornographic film starring Bambi Woods. The plot of the film focuses on a team of cheerleaders attempting to earn enough money to send the titular character to Dallas, Texas, to try out for the famous “Texas Cowgirls” cheerleading squad. The fictional name "Texas Cowgirls" was seen as a take on the real-life Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders. Woods had previously tried out for the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders in real life, but was cut during auditions. The film was highly successful, selling 50,000 copies when it made it to videotape, making it the most successful video release of a porn film in its time. It is regarded as one of the most important releases during the so-called "Golden Age of Porn", and remains one of the best-known pornographic films. Contrary to the title, the film is not set in Dallas nor does the eponymous Debbie "do" anyone in or from Dallas. The movie spawned a number of sequels and spin-offs including "Debbie Does New Orleans", "Debbie Does Wall Street", "Debbie Does Dallas Again" and the unrelated "Debbie Duz Dishes" franchise. It also spawned a 2002 Off Broadway musical, "". Plot. Debbie Benson (Bambi Woods) is the captain of her high school cheerleading squad, and has been accepted to try out for the "Texas Cowgirls". Her parents disapprove, though, and refuse to pay the fare to Texas. In a bid to help Debbie, her cheerleader friends Lisa (Georgette Sanders), Roberta (Misty Winter), Tammy (Arcadia Lake), Pat (Kasey Rodgers), and Annie (Jenny Cole) decide to accompany her to Texas. They have two weeks to raise the money, and swear off any sexual activity with their boyfriends and form a company, called "Teen Services", offering help. Tammy takes a job in the local record store run by Tony (Tony Mansfield). Debbie gets a job at a sports store run by Mr. Greenfield (Richard Balla). Roberta convinces Mr. Hardwick (Eric Edwards) to give her a job at the candle store with Mrs. Hardwick (Robyn Bird). Rikki (Sherri Tart) and Annie agree to wash Mr. Bradly's car. The football team is annoyed with its lack of sex. Roberta's boyfriend Rick (David Morris) and his teammates join Roberta and Pat in the showers where they have group sex. While working for Mr. Greenfield at the sports store, Debbie is talked in to allowing Mr Greenfield to see her breasts for $10, fondle her breasts for another $10, then he sucks them for an additional $20. Realising that they will not be able to raise enough money by legitimate means, Debbie convinces the other girls to engage in sexual activities for more money. They agree but only if it is on their terms. Roberta is caught masturbating by Mrs. Hardwick. She engages in sexual activity with both Mr and Mrs Hardwick, earning extra money. Rikki and Annie go to see Mr. Bradly (David Suton), to wash his car. Mr. Bradly is not home, but they wash the car anyway. When Mr. Bradly arrives home he asks them in to dry off their wet clothes. They undress for him for $10 each. He performs oral sex on them, then has anal sex with Annie. At the library Donna (Merril Townsend) flirts with Mr Biddle, the librarian. Her boyfriend Tim (Bill Barry) visits her attempting to have sex with her. She fellates him but is caught by Mr Biddle (Jack Teague). She allows him to spank her to prevent him from telling her parents. Hamilton (Peter Lerman) and his friend Ashly (Ben Pierce) are in the tennis club sauna after a tennis game, and Hamilton convinces Lisa to fellate him while Ashly penetrates her. At the record store, Tammy has been avoiding Tony's advances; she calls Lisa who joins them at the record store. Lisa offers Tony "anything" and she begins to fellate him, then Tammy joins in, and he ejaculates on Tammy's breasts. Debbie dresses as a "Texas Cowgirl" and goes to see Mr. Greenfield after hours at the store. She fellates him, he then penetrates her vagina with his finger and performs cunnilingus on her. Then they engage in sex, first in the missionary position, then doggy style, and then with Debbie on top. They finish in the missionary position before Mr. Greenfield ejaculates on Debbie. Production. The movie was produced and directed by Jim Clark. Some scenes were shot at the Brooklyn College athletic field, and the Pratt Institute library in Brooklyn, New York, without the administration's knowledge or approval. There is an unfounded internet rumor that certain scenes were shot at the State University of New York, Stony Brook, including the library scene. However, that was found to be unlikely after an investigation with alumni, and the president of the Debbie Does Dallas production company said such a claim "was purely inconclusive". Reception. In New York, an adult theater showing the films was successfully enjoined from showing the film by the Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders under the Lanham Act (trademark). The case was "The Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders v. Pussycat Cinema". In affirming the district court's decision in favor of the Cheerleaders, the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit described the movie as "a gross and revolting sex film". The Cheerleaders successfully argued that their uniforms were mimicked by the film's producers and used in advertising. The theater argued that uniforms are strictly functional items, but the Second Circuit explained that "t is well established that, if the design of an item is nonfunctional and has acquired secondary meaning, the design may become a trademark even if the item itself is functional." The decision has been criticized on free speech grounds, but the Seventh Circuit has cited it for the proposition that "confusion about sponsorship or approval, even when the mark does not mislead consumers about the source of the goods," may be sufficient to state a claim under Lanham Act 43(a). In another 1983 court case in New York, "United States v. Various Articles of Obscene Merchandise" found the film not to be obscene. The 1986 publication of the Meese Report contained graphic descriptions of the film's sex scenes and uncensored excerpts of dialogue, which may have contributed to the report becoming a best-seller. By 1995, 50,000 videocassette copies had been sold. Parodies and remakes. The film spawned the sequels, remakes and imitations "Debbie Does Dallas" 2, 3 and 4, "Debbie Does Dallas 99", "Debbie Does Dallas:The Next Generation", "Debbie Does Iowa", "Debbie Goes to College", "Debbie Does 'Em All", "Night of the Living Debbies", "Debbie Duz Dishes 1, 2 and 3", "Bang the Debbie Slowly" and "Debbie Does the Devil in Dallas". In 2001, "" was created by Susan L. Schwartz for the New York International Fringe Festival. In 2002 it was made into an Off-Broadway musical comedy . Unlike the original movie, the musical did not contain any actual sex or nudity, which caused some disappointment among people, as false hype had been made and the musical's producers did nothing to dismiss it. Since then, the show has been performed around the world, often with racier direction and more explicit choreography. The story, dialogue and characters are fairly faithful to the original film, with musical numbers standing in for sex scenes or added for comic effect. In 2005 a documentary called "Debbie Does Dallas Uncovered" was produced and shown on British television. In 2006, VCX employed Media Blasters to digitally re-master the movie from the original 35mm film into a "Definitive Collectors Edition" 2-Disc set on DVD. On April 11, 2007, Vivid Entertainment Group began including the original "Debbie Does Dallas" with a new release titled "Debbie Does Dallas ... Again" in DVD, Blu-ray, and HD DVD formats. It has also been remade with contemporary porn stars.
582362	Ek Aur Ek Gyarah (English translation: 1+1=11, literally as "One and one eleven") (2003) is an Indian film by comedic director David Dhawan. This movie stars the comedic veterans Govinda and Sanjay Dutt. Synopsis. Sitara (Sanjay Dutt) and Tara (Govinda) are brothers who are notorious, lovable, small-town con-men who are always in trouble with the law. One day when the police are chasing them, they mistakenly shoot one of the most deadly criminals who goes by the name Cobra (Ashish Vidyarthi). They look for cover and find themselves at Major Ram Singh's house (Jackie Shroff) who got Cobra's brother Panther (Gulshan Grover) arrested because he and Cobra tried to steal a very advanced gun. Tara and Sitara go to Singh's house but, since he is an army officer, he first doesn't allow them. Then he does. Living in his house for a while, Tara and Singh's sister fall in love; Sitara and Singh's sister's friend fall in love, too. One day, while in the house, they watch TV and learn that Cobra has come back. They realize that Cobra has kidnapped their mother so he can force Tara and Sitara to get Panther out of Ram Singh's jail. They succeed in getting Panther out of jail. Cobra returns their mother. Ram Singh realizes that he has been fooled by the two; they watch him on TV getting embarrassed by the media. Sitara and Tara realize they should get revenge on Cobra and Panther. They go to Singh's house and tell him how they were forced by Cobra to deceive him. Singh forgives them. The brothers go out to catch the two criminals. They are successful and all ends well.
1059905	Antonia Eugenia "Nia" Vardalos (Greek: Αντωνία Ευγενία "Νία" Βαρδάλου) (born September 24, 1962) is a Greek Canadian actress, screenwriter, director, singer and producer. Her most notable work is the 2002 Academy Award–nominated film "My Big Fat Greek Wedding". Early and personal life. Vardalos was born in Winnipeg, Manitoba on September 24, 1962. She is the daughter of Greek Canadian parents Doreen, a bookkeeper and homemaker, and Constantine "Gus" Vardalos, a land developer. She attended Shaftesbury High School and Ryerson University. Vardalos married actor Ian Gomez on September 5, 1993 (her husband converted to Greek Orthodox prior to marrying her). In 2008, they adopted a daughter named Ilaria, and she wrote a post with advice about the adoption process at The Huffington Post. She became a U.S. citizen in 1999. Career. Vardalos had many small roles in television, most notably on "The Drew Carey Show" and "Two Guys and a Girl"; in addition, she provided voices for of "Star Wars: Return of the Jedi". She gained overnight success with her movie about a woman's struggle to find love in "My Big Fat Greek Wedding", which was based on a one-woman show Vardalos had previously written and starred in. The film was a huge critical and commercial success. The film earned Vardalos an Academy Award Nomination for Best Writing, a Golden Globe Nomination for Best Actress in a Motion Picture Musical or Comedy and a Screen Actors Guild Award Nomination. The sleeper hit, which quickly became one of the highest-grossing independent films of all time, led to the unsuccessful CBS spin-off series, "My Big Fat Greek Life". The show was cancelled after seven episodes and featured the entire cast from the film, excluding John Corbett who was working on his own show, "Lucky". Her next film, released in 2004, was "Connie and Carla," a musical about two women pretending to be drag queens. It also featured Toni Collette, David Duchovny and Debbie Reynolds.
775113	Michael Eklund is a Canadian actor, who has made numerous appearances in both television and film roles. Career. Eklund appeared in 2 episodes of "Blood Ties" playing the character of Norman Bridwel, who becomes a demon. In 2006 and 2007, Eklund appeared as Vancouver narcotics detective, Rene Dejardins, in CBC's drama, "Intelligence". In 2007 Eklund starred in the film "Walk All Over Me", playing Aaron, a recently released ex-convict. That same year, he appeared as a creepy doorman in a scene with Al Pacino in the thriller film "88 Minutes". In 2008 Eklund starred in "Supernatural" in the episode "Monster Movie", as Ed Brewer. Eklund has also guest starred in "Smallville" twice (Season 1 as a janitor & Season 6 as a fight ring announcer). In 2009, he had a small role in Terry Gilliam's "The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus". In 2010, he made a guest appearance on J.J. Abrams's "Fringe" in the third season episode "The Plateau" playing Milo, a savant capable of calculating all future possibilities based on patterns. He also played Larry in the comedy-western film "Gunless" with Paul Gross and appeared in the action movie "Hunt to Kill", with Steve Austin in 2010. He also had a small role as Navy Dude in "". In 2012 Eklund appeared as the title escapee in the "Alcatraz" episode "Kit Nelson." He starred alongside Michael Biehn in the Xavier Gens thriller "The Divide" released in 2012 and also played the character of Father in the apocalyptic siege warfare film "The Day" with Dominic Monaghan and Shawn Ashmore. That same year he starred in the film "Errors of the Human Body" for which he was awarded best actor for the AMD 'Next Wave' Spotlight Competition at Fantastic Fest. He was also in Supernatural season 4 episode 5. Eklund appeared in the 2013 Brad Anderson film "The Call", alongside Halle Berry, Abigail Breslin, Morris Chestnut, and Michael Imperioli. He also appeared in WWE Studios' "" (2013).
1064024	Zachary Wolfe "Zach" Galligan (February 14, 1964) is an American actor. Biography. Galligan was born in New York City, the son of Carol Jean (née Wolfe), a psychologist, and Arthur John Galligan, a lawyer who was a founding partner of the law firm of Dickstein Shapiro. He has a sister, Jessica, and attended Columbia University.
1060303	Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow is a 2004 American pulp adventure science fiction film written and directed by Kerry Conran in his directorial debut. The film is set in an alternative 1939 and follows the adventures of Polly Perkins (Gwyneth Paltrow), a newspaper reporter, and Harry Joseph "Joe" Sullivan (Jude Law), alias "Sky Captain," as they track down the mysterious Dr. Totenkopf (Laurence Olivier), who is seeking to build the "World of Tomorrow". The film is an example of the "dieselpunk" genre. Conran spent four years making a black and white teaser trailer with a bluescreen set up in his living room and using a Macintosh IIci personal computer. He was able to show it to producer Jon Avnet, who was so impressed that he spent two years working with the aspiring filmmaker on his screenplay. No major studio was interested in financing such an unusual film with a first-time director. Avnet convinced Aurelio De Laurentiis to finance "Sky Captain" without a distribution deal. Almost 100 digital artists, modelers, animators and compositors created the multi-layered 2D and 3D backgrounds for the live-action footage while the entire movie was sketched out via hand-drawn storyboards and then re-created as computer-generated 3D animatics. Ten months before Conran made the movie with his cast, he shot it entirely with stand-ins in Los Angeles and then created it in animatics so the actors had an idea of what the film would look like. "Sky Captain" is notable as one of the first major films (along with "Sin City" (2005), "Casshern" (2004), and "Immortal" (2004)) to be shot entirely on a "digital backlot", blending live actors with computer-generated surroundings. Plot. In an alternate, more technologically advanced 1939, the zeppelin "Hindenburg III" arrives in New York City, mooring at the Empire State Building. A frightened scientist named Dr. Jorge Vargas (Julian Curry) makes arrangements for a package containing two vials to be delivered to a Dr. Walter Jennings (Trevor Baxter), then vanishes. Polly Perkins (Gwyneth Paltrow), a newspaper reporter for "The Chronicle", looks into the disappearances of Vargas and five other renowned scientists. She receives a cryptic message telling her to go to Radio City Music Hall. Ignoring the warning of editor Paley (Michael Gambon) not to go, she meets Dr. Jennings during a showing of "The Wizard of Oz". He tells her that Dr. Totenkopf is coming for him. Suddenly, air raid sirens go off as giant indestructible robots attack the city. In desperation, the police call for "Sky Captain" Joe Sullivan (Jude Law), who commands a private air force based in New York, the Flying Legion. Polly photographs the action from the street as Sullivan knocks out one robot and the rest leave, nearly killing herself in the process. News reports show similar attacks around the globe. The robot's wreckage is taken back to the Legion's air base so that its expert, Dex Dearborn (Giovanni Ribisi), can examine it. Polly follows, hoping to get information for her story. She and Joe are ex-lovers, who broke up three years earlier in China where Joe was serving with the Flying Tigers. Since it appears Polly has useful information, Joe agrees to let her in on the investigation. Her lead takes them to the ransacked laboratory of Dr. Jennings, with the scientist himself near death. The killer, a mysterious woman (Bai Ling), escapes. Jennings gives Polly two vials, which he says are crucial to Dr. Totenkopf's plans. Polly withholds this information from Joe. They return to the Legion's base, which comes under attack from squadrons of ornithopter drones. Dex manages to track the origin of the robot control signal, but he's captured. However, he leaves behind a part of a map marking the location of Totenkopf's base. Joe and Polly find it and head to Nepal. Venturing into the Himalayas, they discover an abandoned mining outpost. Two guides turn out to be working for Totenkopf, forcing Polly to turn over the vials and then locking her and Joe in a room full of explosives, which they light. Joe and Polly are knocked unconscious by the explosion. They wake up together in the mythical Shangri-La. The monks there tell of Totenkopf's enslavement of their people, forcing them to work in the uranium mines. Most were killed by the radiation, but the final survivor (who was suffering from radiation poisoning) provides a clue to where Totenkopf is hiding. This leads them to another of Joe's ex-flames, Commander Franky Cook (Angelina Jolie), who commands a Royal Navy flying aircraft carrier with submarine aircraft. Franky leads the attack while Joe and Polly enter through an underwater inlet. After surfacing, Polly notices that the identification number on Joe's aircraft reads "Polly" when viewed upside-down. Joe and Polly find themselves on an island with dinosaur-like creatures. They head to a mountain and find a secret underground facility, where robots are loading animals, as well as the mysterious vials, onto a large "Noah's Ark" rocket. Joe and Polly are detected and nearly killed. Dex, piloting a barge, arrives in the nick of time with three of the missing scientists. Dex explains that Totenkopf has given up on humanity and seeks to start the world over again: the "World of Tomorrow". The vials are genetic material for a male and female human: a new Adam and Eve. In Totenkopf's lair, one scientist is incinerated by the defense system. A holograph of Totenkopf (Laurence Olivier) appears and speaks. Dex disables the defenses and the group discovers Totenkopf's mummified corpse. He had died 20 years before, but his machines have carried on his work. In his hand is a scrap of paper reading "forgive me". The only way to sabotage the rocket is from the inside. Polly tries to tag along, but Joe kisses her and knocks her out. He prepares to sacrifice himself while the others escape. Polly recovers and follows Joe, arriving in time to save him from the mysterious woman, who turns out to be a robot. The two board the rocket. Before it reaches 100 km, when its second stage fires and incinerates the earth, Polly pushes an emergency button that ejects all the animals in escape pods. Joe tries to disable the rocket only to be interrupted by the same robot. He jolts her with her electric weapon and then uses it on the controls, disabling the rocket. They use the last pod to save themselves as the rocket safely explodes. Joe and Polly watch the animal pods splash down around their escape pod. Polly then uses the last shot on her camera to take a picture of Joe. He grins and says the words "Polly, lens cap.". Polly's look of joy turns to shock as she realizes she has no proof any of their adventure happened. Cast. Peter Law, who plays Dr. Aler Kessler, is the father of Jude Law. The full names for Dex and Editor Paley were revealed in the novelization written by Kevin J. Anderson. Development. Kerry Conran grew up on films and comic books of the 1930s and 1940s. He and his brother, Kevin, were encouraged by their parents to develop their creative side at a young age. Kerry studied at a feeder program for Disney animators at CalArts, and became interested in 2-D computer animation. While there, he realized that it was possible to apply some of the techniques associated with animation to live-action. Conran had been out of film school for two years and was trying to figure out how to make a movie. He figured that Hollywood would never take a chance on an inexperienced, first-time filmmaker, so he decided to make the movie himself. Influences. Conran was influenced by the designs of Norman Bel Geddes, an industrial designer who did work for the 1933 Chicago World’s Fair and designed exhibits for the 1939 New York World's Fair. Geddes also designed an Airliner#4 that was to fly from Chicago to London. Another key influence was Hugh Ferriss, one of the designers for the 1939 World’s Fair who designed bridges and huge housing complexes. He was an American delineator (one who creates perspective drawings of buildings) and architect. In 1922, skyscraper architect Harvey Wiley Corbett commissioned Ferriss to draw a series of four step-by-step perspectives demonstrating the architectural consequences of the 1916 Zoning Resolution. These four drawings would later be used in his 1929 book "The Metropolis of Tomorrow" (Dover Publications, 2005, ISBN 0-486-43727-2). Regarding the 1939 New York World's Fair itself and its futuristic theme of the World of Tomorrow, Conran noted: "...obviously the title refers to the World Expo and the spirit of that was looking at the future with a sense of optimism and a sense of the whimsical, you know, something that we've lost a lot in our fantasies. We're more cynical, more practical... I think what this film attempts to do is to take that enthusiasm and innocence and celebrate it-to not get mired in the practicality that we're fixated upon today." Conran acknowledged his debt to German Expressionism, which was particularly evident in the opening scenes in New York City: "Early German cinema was born of just a completely different aesthetic than what we see nowadays. One of the last things I watched before starting this project was the "Dr. Mabuse" series that Lang had done - terribly inspirational, the use of art and propaganda even." Conran summed up what influenced him in making "Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow": "We tried to approach it almost as though we lived in that era and were just another group of artists trying to make a work out of those pieces and inspirations. We wanted the film to feel like a lost film of that era. If we're a footnote in the history of pulp art and Golden Age comics, that'd be enough, that'd be great. If we even just inspire some people to go back and investigate some of that stuff, we'd have done enough." Sky Captain has a number of commonalities with Hayao Miyazaki's 1986 anime movie "Laputa: Castle in the Sky". The sky pirates' focus on primitive mechanics, large airships, and military cultures is similar. Both stories center on an evil madman controlling an island of high technology, and the search for that island. "Laputa" has the evil madman searching for the island, while "Sky Captain" has the island as the base of the madman from the beginning. "Sky Captain" is also different in its message, which is largely about the film genre, while "Laputa" has strong anti-war and anti-technology themes, found in most of Miyazaki's work. Additionally, both the Miyazaki film and "Sky Captain" pay homage to the 1941 Superman animated short "The Mechanical Monsters". Teaser trailer. In 1994, Conran set up a bluescreen in his living room and began assembling the tools he would need to create his movie. He was not interested in working his way through the system and instead wanted to follow the route of independent filmmakers like Steven Soderbergh. Initially, Kerry and his brother had nothing more than "just a vague idea of this guy who flew a plane. We would talk about all the obvious things like Indiana Jones and all the stuff we liked." Conran spent four years making a black and white teaser trailer in the style of an old-fashioned movie serial on his Macintosh IIci personal computer. Once he was finished, Conran showed it to producer Marsha Oglesby, who was a friend of his brother's wife and she recommended that he let producer Jon Avnet see it. Conran met Avnet and showed him the trailer. Conran told him that he wanted to make it into a movie. They spent two or three days just talking about the tone of the movie. Pre-production. Avnet and Conran spent two years working on the screenplay, which included numerous genre-related references and homages, and developing a working relationship. Then, the producer took the script and the trailer and began approaching actors. In order to protect Conran's vision, Avnet decided to shoot the movie independently with a lot of his own money. The producer realized that "the very thing that made this film potentially so exciting for me, and I think for an audience, which was the personal nature of it and the singularity of the vision, would never succeed and never survive the development process within a studio." Avnet went to Aurelio De Laurentiis and convinced him to finance the film without a distribution deal. Nine months before filming, Avnet had Conran meet the actors and begin rehearsals in an attempt to get the shy filmmaker out of his shell. Avnet set up a custom digital effects studio with a blue screen soundstage in an abandoned building in Van Nuys, California. A group of almost 100 digital artists, modelers, animators and compositors created multi-layered 2D and 3D backgrounds for the live action footage yet to be filmed. The entire movie was sketched out via hand-drawn storyboards and then re-created as computer-generated 3D animatics with all of the 2D background photographs digitally painted to resemble the 1939 setting. With the animatics as a guide, grids were created to map camera and actor movements with digital characters standing in for the real actors. The grids were made into actual maps on the blue screen stage floor to help the actors move around invisible scenery. Ten months before Conran made the movie with his actors, he shot it entirely with stand-ins in Los Angeles and then created the whole movie in animatics so that the actors had an idea of what the film would look like and where to move on the soundstage. To prepare for the film, Conran had his cast watch old movies, such as Lauren Bacall in "To Have and Have Not" (1944) for Paltrow's performance and "The Thin Man" (1934) for the relationship between Nick and Nora that was to be echoed in the one between Joe and Polly. Avnet constantly pushed for room in this meticulously designed movie for the kind of freedom the actors needed, like being able to move around on the soundstage. Principal photography and post-production. Conran and Avnet were able to cut costs considerably by shooting the entire movie in 26 days (not the usual three to four months that this kind of movie normally takes) on high-definition video using a Sony HDW-F900 and working entirely on three different blue screen soundstages in London, England with one notable exception. Conran wrote a scene that was added later in which Polly talks to her editor in his office that was shot on a physical set because there was no time to shoot it on a blue screen soundstage. The footage from the HD camera was run through a switcher and then through a Macintosh computer running Final Cut Pro that allowed the filmmakers to line up the animatics with the live onstage footage. Conran said, "I don't know how we would have made this movie. It's really what allowed us to line up everything, given there was nothing there." After each day of shooting, footage was edited and sent overnight to editors in L.A. who added CGI and sent it back. After filming ended, they put together a 24-minute presentation and took it to every studio in June 2003. There was a lot of interest and Avnet selected the studio that gave Conran the most creative control. They needed studio backing to finish the film's ambitious visuals. At one point, the producer remembers that Conran was "working 18 to 20 hours a day for a long period of time. It's 2,000 some odd CGI shots done in one year, and we literally had to write code to figure out how to do this stuff!" Most of the post-production work was done on Mac workstations using After Effects for compositing and Final Cut Pro for editing (seven workstations were dedicated to visual effects and production editing). The distinctive look of the film was achieved by running footage through a diffusion filter and then tinting it in black and white before color was blended, balanced and added back in. Laurence Olivier, who died in 1989, posthumously appears as the villain and mad scientist Dr. Totenkopf. His likeness was produced using digitally manipulated archival BBC footage of the actor and thus adding one more film to his repertoire. A similar move was made two years later in "Superman Returns" (2006) with Marlon Brando. Avnet cultivated a calculated release for the movie by first moving its release date from the summer (it was supposed to open a week before "Spider-Man 2" (2004)) to September, then courting the Internet press and finally making an appearance at the San Diego Comic Con with key cast members in an attempt to generate some advance buzz. Soundtrack. Composer Edward Shearmur wrote the film's lavish orchestral score in the style of Hollywood's golden-age composers, and the film's end-title sequence featured a new recording of the Oscar-winning standard "Over the Rainbow" sung by American jazz singer Jane Monheit, which were all featured on Sony Classical's original motion picture soundtrack recording. Reception. "Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow" had high box office expectations, opening in first place on its September 17, 2004 release date and grossing USD $15.5 million on its opening weekend. However the film only grossed $37.7 million in North America, below its estimated $70 million budget. It managed to gross $20.1 million in the rest of the world, making its final worldwide tally $57.9 million. Critical reviews were largely positive. The film currently has a 72% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. The Canadian network Space awarded it the 2005 Spacey Award for Best Science Fiction/Fantasy Film. Roger Ebert was among those who strongly supported the film, giving it a 4 out of a possible 4 stars and praising it for "its heedless energy and joy, it reminded me of how I felt the first time I saw "Raiders of the Lost Ark". It's like a film that escaped from the imagination directly onto the screen, without having to pass through reality along the way". The film is also one of few to be awarded five out of five stars by IGN FilmForce. In his review for the "Chicago Reader", J.R. Jones wrote, "This debut feature by Kerry Conran is a triumph not only for its technical mastery but for its good taste". "Entertainment Weekly" gave the film an "A-" rating, saying, "The investment is optimistic and wise; "Sky Captain" is a gorgeous, funny, and welcome novelty". Other critics' enthusiasm was somewhat tempered. For instance, Stephen Holden of "The New York Times" lauded its visuals and its evocation of a bygone era but felt that "the monochromatic variations on sepia keep the actors and their adventures at a refined aesthetic distance ... At times the film is hard to see. And as the action accelerates, the wonder of its visual concept starts giving way to sci-fi clichés". "USA Today" said that the film was "all style over substance, a clever parlor trick but a dull movie". Stephen Hunter, of the "Washington Post", called it "a $70 million novelty item". Homages. First-time director Conran incorporated many references to classic genre films into his own movie: "The work of those artists and writers from the pulps and Golden Age of Comic Books like Airboy was really the template for us. To some extent we stole from it, to some extent we expanded on it -- hopefully we added enough of our own sensibility. We tried to approach it almost as though we lived in that era and were just another group of artists trying to make a work those pieces and inspirations. We wanted the film to feel like a lost film of that era." When early in the film newspaper clippings from around the globe are shown, in the Japanese newspaper the iconic silhouette of Godzilla is clearly visible. Similarly, during the New York sequence when Sky Captain deploys a bomb to stop a giant robot, the shape of King Kong can be seen on the Empire State Building in the background. During the underwater dogfight sequence a light momentarily displays the wreckage of a ship with the name "Venture"—the tramp steamer that sailed to Skull island ("pictured") in the 1933 version of "King Kong." In the same scene, what appears to be the wreckage of "Titanic" can be seen, as well an ancient underwater city which seems to be a nod to the legend of Atlantis. The villain's main logo bears striking similarities to the logo for "Crimson Skies", a game universe that some critics noted bore stylistic and plot similarities to the film. Pulp magazines and comic books. The Flying Legion is a homage to pulp-comic book heroes such as G-8, Captain Midnight, and Blackhawk. Also, production designer Kevin Conran, the brother of director Kerry Conran, based the design of the flying humanoid robots, in part, on the helmet worn by the DC Comics superhero Adam Strange and controls on Commando Cody's rocket-pack (see image, right). There has also been some speculation of influence from the S.H.I.E.L.D. hellicariers from Marvel Comics and even a character with an eyepatch similar to Nick Fury, though it's unconfirmed how much S.H.I.E.L.D. or Avengers has influenced this move.
1377462	Madison Michelle Pettis (born July 22, 1998) is an American teen actress, best known for playing Sophie Martinez on the Disney Channel sitcom "Cory in the House" and as Peyton Kelly in the 2007 film "The Game Plan". She currently lives in Los Angeles, California and is working on "Life with Boys" and "Jake and the Never Land Pirates" and also models for Love Pastry with Alli Simpson and Cody Simpson. Life and career. Madison Pettis was born in Arlington, Texas on July 22, 1998, to Steven and Michelle Pettis. Her father is African American and her mother is of Irish, Italian, and French descent. Pettis was first noticed when her mother entered into an annual cover search held by "FortWorthChild", a local parenting magazine. From that she began modeling and acting in commercials; she had an agent and a website from the age of five. In this role she was seen in one episode of "Hannah Montana". She portrayed Isabelle Tyler in an episode of "The 4400". She was the 2007 Disney Channel Games commentator, and also appeared on "Barney & Friends" as Bridget, in which she sang, danced and acted. In 2008, she cameoed in Dr. Seuss' "Horton Hears a Who!", and had roles in ' and '. Pettis also had a small role in "Seven Pounds" as Lorena. She has a voice role in the Disney Channel animated series "Special Agent Oso". In 2009, Pettis had a role in "Free Style" as Bailey Bryant with Corbin Bleu and appeared as herself on the syndicated version of the game show "Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?". In 2011, she landed two main roles, a voice role as Izzy, from "Jake and the Never Land Pirates". The other being Allie Brookes, on " Life With Boys". Madison also landed one of the two main roles in 2007 movie " The Game Plan ", co-starring alongside Dwayne " The Rock " Johnson. She also she played a voice role in " Ice Age: A Mammoth Christmas".
1073131	The studio was unhappy with the original script and called in Suzuki to rewrite and direct it at the last minute. Suzuki came up with many of his ideas the night before or on the set while filming, and welcomed ideas from his collaborators. He gave the film a satirical, anarchic and visually eclectic bent which the studio had previously warned him away from. It was a commercial and critical disappointment and Suzuki was ostensibly fired for making "movies that make no sense and no money". Suzuki successfully sued Nikkatsu with support from student groups, like-minded filmmakers and the general public and caused a major controversy through the Japanese film industry. Suzuki was blacklisted and did not make another feature film for 10 years but became a counterculture hero. The film grew a strong following, which expanded overseas in the 1980s, and has established itself as a cult classic. Film critics and enthusiasts now regard it as an absurdist masterpiece. It has been cited as an influence by filmmakers such as Jim Jarmusch, John Woo, Chan-wook Park and Quentin Tarantino, and composer John Zorn. Thirty-four years after "Branded to Kill", Suzuki filmed "Pistol Opera" (2001) with Nikkatsu, a loose sequel to the former. The company has also hosted two major retrospectives spotlighting his career. Plot. Goro Hanada, the Japanese underworld's third-ranked hitman, and his wife, Mami, fly into Tokyo and are met by Kasuga, a formerly ranked hitman turned taxi driver. Kasuga petitions Hanada to assist him in breaking back into the profession. Hanada agrees and the three go to a club owned by the yakuza boss Michihiko Yabuhara. The two men are hired to escort a client from Sagami Beach to Nagano. After the meeting, Yabuhara covertly seduces Hanada's wife. Hanada and Kasuga pick up a car designated for the job which unexpectedly has a corpse in the back seat. They dispose of the body, then meet the client and proceed towards their destination. En route Hanada spots an ambush. He dispatches a number of gunmen while Kasuga panics and flails about in hysterics. Foaming at the mouth, Kasuga charges an ambusher, Koh, the fourth-ranked hitman, and they kill each other. Hanada leaves the client to secure Koh's car but hears three gunshots and rushes back to find the client is safe and three additional ambushers have been shot cleanly through the forehead. At a second ambush, Hanada kills more gunmen and sets Sakura, the second-ranked hitman, on fire. Sakura madly rushes towards the client but is shot dead by him. On his way home Hanada's car breaks down. Misako, a mysterious woman with a deathwish, stops and gives him a ride. At home, he has rough sex with his wife, fueled by his obsession with sniffing boiling rice. Yabuhara hires Hanada to kill four men, the first three being a customs officer, an ocularist and a jewellery dealer. Hanada snipes the first from behind a billboard's animatronic cigarette lighter, shoots the second from a basement up through a pipe drain when the latter leans over the sink and, ordered to finish quickly, blasts his way into the third's office and escapes on an advertising balloon. Misako then appears at his door and offers him a nearly impossible contract to kill a foreigner, which he cannot refuse having just been told the plan. During the job a butterfly lands on the barrel of his rifle causing him to miss his target and kill an innocent bystander. Misako tells him that he will now lose his rank and be killed. Hanada makes plans to leave the country but is shot by his wife who then sets fire to their apartment and flees. His belt buckle, however, stopped the bullet and he escapes the building. He finds Misako and they go to her apartment. After alternating failed attempts by him to seduce her and them to kill each other she succumbs to his advances when he promises to kill her. Afterwards, he finds he cannot as he has fallen in love with her. In a state of confusion he wanders the streets and passes out on the side of the road. The next day he finds his wife at Yabuhara's club. She tries to seduce him, then fakes hysteria and tells him Yabuhara paid her to kill him and that the three men he had killed had stolen from Yabuhara's diamond smuggling operation and the foreigner was an investigator sent by the supplier. Unmoved, Hanada kills her, gets drunk and waits for Yabuhara to return. Yabuhara arrives already dead with a bullet hole through the centre of his forehead. Hanada returns to Misako's apartment where a film projector has been set up. It depicts Misako bound and tortured and directs him to a breakwater, where the following day he is to be killed. Hanada submits to the demand but kills the killers instead. The former client arrives and announces himself as the legendary Number One Killer. He says he will kill Hanada but, in thanks for the work he has done, is only giving a warning at present. Hanada holes up in Misako's apartment and Number One begins an extended siege, taunting Hanada with threatening phone calls and forbidding him to leave the apartment. Eventually, Number One moves in with the now exhausted and inebriated Hanada under the pretext that he is deciding how to kill him. They agree to a temporary truce and set times to eat, sleep and, later, to link arms everywhere they go. Number One suggests they eat out one day and then disappears during the meal. At the apartment, Hanada finds a note and another film from Number One stating he will be waiting at a gymnasium with Misako. Hanada waits at the gymnasium but Number One does not show. As a bedraggled Hanada rises to leave, a tape recorder switches on explaining, "This is the way Number One works", he exhausts you and then kills you. Hanada puts a headband across his forehead and climbs into a boxing ring. Number One appears and shoots him. The headband stops the bullet and Hanada returns fire. Number One slumps to the ground but manages to shoot him a few times before dying. Hanada leaps and staggers around the ring declaring himself the new Number One. Misako enters the arena and, crazed, he instinctively shoots her dead then falls from the ring. Production. The Nikkatsu Company conceived "Branded to Kill" as a low-budget hitman film, a subgenre of the studio's yakuza-oriented movies. Their standard B movie shooting schedule was applied, one week for pre-production, 25 days to shoot and three days for post-production. The budget was set at approximately yen. Shortly before filming began, with the release date already set, the script was deemed "inappropriate" by the head office and contract director Seijun Suzuki was brought in to do a rewrite. Studio head Kyūsaku Hori told Suzuki he had had to read it twice before he understood it. Suzuki suggested they drop the script but was ordered to proceed. The rewrite was done with his frequent collaborator Takeo Kimura and six assistant directors, including Atsushi Yamatoya (who also played Killer Number Four). The eight men had worked under the joint pen name Hachiro Guryu ("Group of Eight") since the mid-1960s. Nikkatsu was building leading man Joe Shishido into a star and assigned him to the film. They specified that the script was to be written with this aim. The film also marks Shishido's first nude scene. Suzuki originally wanted Kiwako Taichi, a new talent from the famous theatre troupe Bungakuza, for the female lead but she took a part in another film. Instead, Suzuki selected Annu Mari, another new actress who had been working in Nikkatsu's music halls. In casting the role of Hanada's wife, Suzuki selected Mariko Ogawa from outside of the studio as none of the contract actresses would do nude scenes. Suzuki did not use storyboards and disliked pre-planning. He preferred to come up with ideas either the night before or on the set as he felt that the only person who should know what is going to happen is the director. He also felt that it was sudden inspiration that made the picture. An example is the addition of the Number Three Killer's rice-sniffing habit. Suzuki explained that he wanted to present a quintessentially "Japanese" killer, "If he were Italian, he'd get turned on by macaroni, right?" Suzuki has commended Shishido on his similar drive to make the action scenes as physical and interesting as possible. In directing his actors, Suzuki let them play their roles as they saw fit and only intervened when they went "off track". For nude scenes the actors wore "maebari", or adhesive strips, over their genitals in accordance with censorship practices. The film was edited in one day, a task made easy by Suzuki's method of shooting only the necessary footage. He had picked up the habit during his years working as an assistant director for Shochiku when film stock remained sparse after the war. Post-production was completed on June 14, 1967, the day before the film was released. Style. Like many of its yakuza film contemporaries, "Branded to Kill" shows the influence of the James Bond films and film noir, though the film's conventional genre basis was combined with satire, kabuki stylistics and a pop art aesthetic. It was further set apart from its peers, and Seijun Suzuki's previous films, through its gothic sensibilities, unusual atonal score and what artist and academic Philip Brophy called a "heightened otherness". The result has been alternately ascribed as a work of surrealism, absurdism, the avant garde and included in the Japanese New Wave movement, though not through any stated intention of its director. Suzuki employed a wide variety of techniques and claimed his singular focus was to make the film as entertaining as possible. Genre conventions are satirized and mocked throughout the film. In American noirs, heroes, or anti-heroes, typically strive to be the best in their field. Here the process was formalized into a rankings system obsessed over by its players. The femme fatale—a noir staple—Misako, does not simply entice the protagonist and bring the threat of death but obsesses him and is obsessed with all things death herself. She tries to kill him, wants to kill herself and surrounds herself with dead things. Hanada's libido is as present as that of the protagonists of similar films of the period, such as James Bond, though perversely exaggerated. Reviewer Rumsey Taylor likened Hanada's boiled rice sniffing fetish to Bond's "shaken, not stirred" martini order. The film also deviates from the opening killer-for-hire scenario to touch on such varied subgenres as psychosexual romance, American Gothic thriller and "Odd Couple" slapstick. The film industry is a subject of satire as well. For example, Japanese censorship often involved masking prohibited sections of the screen. Here Suzuki preemptively masked his own compositions but animated them and incorporated them into the film's design. In the story, after Hanada finds he is unable to kill Misako he wanders the streets in a state of confusion. The screen is obscured by animated images with accompanying sounds associated to her. The effects contributed to the eclectic visual and sound design while signifying his obsessive love. Author Stephen Teo proposed that the antagonistic relationship between Hanada and Number One may have been analogous of Suzuki's relationship with studio president Kyūsaku Hori. He compared Hanada's antagonizers to those who had been pressuring Suzuki to rein in his style over the previous two years. Teo cited Number One's sleeping with his eyes open and urinating where he sits, which the character explains as techniques one must master to become a "top professional." The film was shot in black and white Nikkatsuscope (synonymous with CinemaScope at a 2.35:1 aspect ratio). Due to the wide frame, moving a character forward did not produce the dynamic effect Suzuki desired. Instead, he relied on spotlighting and chiaroscuro imagery to create excitement and suspense. Conventional framing and film grammar were disregarded in favour of spontaneous inspiration. In editing, Suzuki frequently abandoned continuity, favouring abstract jumps in time and space as he found it made the film more interesting. Critic David Chute suggested that Suzuki's stylistics had intensified—in seeming congruence with the studio's demands that he conform: Reception. "Branded to Kill" was released to Japanese theatres on June 15, 1967, in a double bill with Nishimura Shōgorō's "Burning Nature". The films were financially unsuccessful and the former fared likewise among critics. "Kinema Junpo" magazine reported that the films "resulted in less than viewers at Asakusa and Shinjuku and about 500 at Yurakucho on the second day." Both Joe Shishido and Yamatoya Atsushi later recounted having seen "Branded to Kill" in practically empty theatres, the latter on its opening night. Iijima Kōichi, a critic for the film journal "Eiga Geijutsu", wrote that "the woman buys a mink coat and thinks only about having sex. The man wants to kill and feels nostalgic about the smell of boiling rice. We cannot help being confused. We do not go to theaters to be puzzled." Nikkatsu Studios had been criticized for catering to rebellious youth audiences, a specialty of contract director Seijun Suzuki, whose films had grown increasingly anarchic through the 1960s. This had earned him a large following but it had also drawn the ire of studio head Kyūsaku Hori. On April 25, 1968, Suzuki received a telephone call from a company secretary informing him that he would not be receiving his salary that month. Two of Suzuki's friends met with Hori the next day and were told, "Suzuki's films were incomprehensible, that they did not make any money and that Suzuki might as well give up his career as a director as he would not be making films for any other companies." A student film society run by Kazuko Kawakita, the Cineclub Study Group, was planning to include "Branded to Kill" in a retrospective honouring Suzuki's works but Hori refused them and withdrew all of his films from circulation. With support from the Cineclub, similar student groups, fellow filmmakers and the general public—which included the picketing of the company's Hibiya offices and the formation of the Seijun Suzuki Joint Struggle Committee—Suzuki sued Nikkatsu for wrongful dismissal. During the three-and-a-half year trial the circumstances under which the film was made and Suzuki was fired came to light. He had been made into a scapegoat for the company's dire financial straits and was meant to serve as an example on the outset of an attempted company-wide restructuring. A settlement was reached on December 24, 1971, in the amount of one million yen, a fraction of his original claim, as well as a public apology from Hori. In a separate agreement "Branded to Kill" and his previous film, "Fighting Elegy", were donated to the Tokyo National Museum of Modern Art's Film Centre. The events turned Suzuki into a legend and shook the film world. "Branded to Kill", along with other of his films, played to "packed audiences who wildly applauded" at all-night revivals in and around Tokyo. However, Suzuki was blacklisted by the major studios and did not make another feature film until "A Tale of Sorrow and Sadness" (1977) ten years after "Branded to Kill". In the meantime, he subsisted on commercial and television work and writing books of essays. "Branded to Kill" first reached international audiences in the 1980s, featuring in various film festivals and retrospectives dedicated wholly or partially to Suzuki, which was followed by home video releases in the late 1990s. It garnered a reputation as one of his most unconventional, revered Nikkatsu films and an international cult classic. It has been declared a masterpiece by the likes of film critic Chuck Stephens, writer and musician Chris D., composer John Zorn and film director Quentin Tarantino. Writer and critic Tony Rayns noted, "Suzuki mocks everything from the clichés of yakuza fiction to the conventions of Japanese censorship in this extraordinary thriller, which rivals Orson Welles' "Lady from Shanghai" in its harsh eroticism, not to mention its visual fireworks." Modified comparisons to the films of a "gonzo Sam Fuller", or Jean-Luc Godard, assuming one "factorout Godard's politics and self-consciousness", are not uncommon. In a 1992 "Rolling Stone" magazine article, film director Jim Jarmusch affectionately recommended it as, "Probably the strangest and most perverse 'hit man' story in cinema." Jasper Sharp of the Midnight Eye wrote, "[It is a bloody marvellous looking film and arguably the pinnacle of the director's strikingly eclectic style." However, the workings of the plot remain elusive to most. Sharp digressed, "be honest it isn't the most accessible of films and for those unfamiliar with Suzuki's unorthodox and seemingly disjointed style it will probably take a couple of viewings before the bare bones of the plot begin to emerge." As Zorn has put it, "plot and narrative devices take a back seat to mood, music, and the sensuality of visual images." Japanese film historian Donald Richie thus encapsulated the film, "An inventive and ultimately anarchic take on gangster thrillers. [The script flounders midway and Suzuki tries on the bizarre for its own sake." David Chute conceded that in labeling the film incomprehensible, "f you consider the movie soberly, it's hard to deny the bosses had a point". On a conciliatory note, Rayns commented, "Maybe the break with Nikkatsu was inevitable; it's hard to see how Suzuki could have gone further in the genre than this." After another unrelated 10 year hiatus, Suzuki and Nikkatsu reunited for the "Style to Kill" retrospective, held in April, 2001, at Theatre Shinjuku in Tokyo. It featured 28 films by Suzuki, including "Branded to Kill". Suzuki appeared at the gala opening with star Annu Mari. Joe Shishido appeared for a talk session at an all-night, four-film screening. An accompanying "Branded to Kill" visual directory was published. The following year, the Tanomi Company produced a limited edition "Joe the Ace"Schilling, Mark (September 2003). Ibid, pp. 128–130. action figure based on Shishido's character in the film, complete with a miniature rice cooker. In 2006, Nikkatsu celebrated the 50th anniversary of Suzuki's directorial debut by hosting the "Seijun Suzuki 48 Film Challenge" retrospective at the 19th Tokyo International Film Festival. It showcased all of his films. He and Mari were again in attendance. Legacy. As one of Seijun Suzuki's most influential films, "Branded to Kill" has been acknowledged as a source of inspiration by such internationally renowned directors as Hong Kong's John Woo, South Korea's Chan-wook Park and America's Jim Jarmusch and Quentin Tarantino. Jarmusch listed it as his favourite hitman film, alongside "Le Samouraï" (also 1967), and thanked Suzuki in the screen credits of his own hitman film "" (1999). Most notably, Jarmusch mirrored a scene in which the protagonist kills a target by shooting up from a basement through a sink drain. He went so far as to screen the film for Suzuki when the two met in Tokyo. Critics have noted "Branded to Kill's" influence on the films of Wong Kar-wai, such as his hitman film "Fallen Angels" (1995), as well as Johnnie To's "Fulltime Killer" (2001). However, "Branded to Kill" was most influential in its native Japan. The film's premise, in which hitmen try to kill each other in competition for the Number One rank, is spoofed in films such as Takeshi Kitano's "Getting Any?" (1995) and Sabu's "Postman Blues" (1997), which features a character named Hitman Joe. "Branded to Kill" played a role in the development of the long-running Lupin III franchise. It also had a profound impact, through Suzuki's firing and the resulting student uprising, in the beginnings of the movement film, usually underground or anti-establishment films which focused on issues of import to audiences, as opposed to production line genre pictures. Thirty-four years after "Branded to Kill", Suzuki directed "Pistol Opera" (2001), a loose sequel co-produced by Shochiku and filmed at Nikkatsu. The character Goro Hanada returns as a mentor figure to the new Number Three, played by Makiko Esumi. However, Joe Shishido was replaced by Mikijiro Hira in the role of Hanada. Suzuki has said that the original intention was for Shishido to play the character again but that the film's producer, Satoru Ogura, wanted Hira for the role. Reviews were of a favourable nature on par with its predecessor. Jonathan Rosenbaum supposed, "Can I call a film a masterpiece without being sure that I understand it? I think so ..." Although some, such as Elvis Mitchell for The Village Voice, felt its zeal fell slightly short of the original. Home video. "Branded to Kill" was initially made available in Japan by Nikkatsu in VHS format, first on February 10, 1987, then a second version on June 10, 1994. Both versions were censored for nudity with a black bar obscuring half of the frame during the relevant scenes. The first uncensored release since the film's theatrical debut was an October 26, 2001, DVD from Nikkatsu. It included an interview with Seijun Suzuki, two with Joe Shishido, an Annu Mari photo gallery and the original film trailers for it and several other Suzuki films. The release was one of three linked to the "Style to Kill" theatrical retrospective. In conjunction with the 50th anniversary of Suzuki's directorial debut, the film was included in the first of two six-film DVD box sets which was released October 1, 2006. All six titles included audio commentary tracks featuring Suzuki with various collaborators, those being Annu Mari and assistant director Masami Kuzū for "Branded to Kill". The first North American copy surfaced in the early 1990s at Kim's Video in New York in a video series titled "Dark of the Sun" devoted to obscure Asian cinema, assembled by John Zorn, albeit without English subtitles. The Criterion Collection released the film in the United States and Canada on laserdisc in 1998, followed by a DVD on February 23, 1999, both containing a 15-minute interview with Suzuki, poster gallery of Shishido films and liner notes by Zorn. Home Vision Cinema release a VHS version on June 16, 2000. Both companies conjunctively released "Tokyo Drifter" in all three formats in addition to a VHS collection packaging the two films together. In the United Kingdom, Second Sight Films released a DVD on February 25, 2002, and a VHS on March 11, 2002. Yume Pictures released a new DVD on February 26, 2007, as a part of their Suzuki collection, featuring a 36-minute interview with the director, trailers and liner notes by Tony Rayns. Madman Entertainment's Eastern Eye label released the film on DVD in Australia and New Zealand on May 2, 2007. It also contained the original trailer, a photo gallery and liner notes. Criterion released "Branded to Kill" on Blu-ray on December 13, 2011. Soundtrack. Forty years after the film's original release, on February 23, 2007, the Japanese record label Think issued the soundtrack on Compact Disc through its "Cine Jazz" series, which focused on 1960s Nikkatsu action films. The music was culled from Naozumi Yamamoto's score. Atsushi Yamatoya wrote the lyrics for the "Killing Blues" themes. Listings 27 through 29 are bonus karaoke tracks.
1162400	Priscilla Lane (June 12, 1915 – April 4, 1995) was an American actress. She is best remembered for her roles in the films "The Roaring Twenties" (1939) co-starring with James Cagney and Humphrey Bogart; "Saboteur" (1942), a Hitchcock film in which she plays the heroine; and "Arsenic and Old Lace" (1944), in which she portrays Cary Grant's fiancée and bride. Early life. Priscilla Mullican was born on June 12, 1915, in Indianola, Iowa, a small college town south of Des Moines. She was the youngest of five daughters of Dr. Lorenzo Mullican, DDS, and his wife, Cora Bell Hicks. Dr. Mullican had a dental practice in Indianola. The family owned a large house with 22 rooms, some of which they rented out to students attending nearby Simpson College. Career beginning. Priscilla and one of her sisters, Rosemary, traveled to Des Moines every weekend to study dancing with Rose Lorenz. The girls made their first professional appearance September 30, 1930, at Des Moines' Paramount Theater. Priscilla, then 15, performed on stage as part of the entertainment accompanying the release of her sister Lola's Hollywood movie "Good News" (1930).
1060745	Brittany Anne Murphy-Monjack (born Brittany Anne Bertolotti; November 10, 1977Â â December 20, 2009), known professionally as Brittany Murphy, was an American actress, singer and producer. She starred in films such as "Clueless"; "Just Married"; "Girl, Interrupted"; "Spun"; "8 Mile"; "Uptown Girls"; "Sin City"; "Happy Feet" and "Riding in Cars with Boys". She voiced Luanne Platter on the animated TV series "King of the Hill". Her final film, "Something Wicked", is scheduled to be released in 2013. Early life. Brittany Murphy was born in Atlanta, Georgia to parents, Sharon Kathleen Murphy and Angelo Joseph Bertolotti, who divorced when she was two years old, and Murphy was raised by her mother in Edison, New Jersey. Bertolotti was so estranged from the family that he was not named as the father on the first death certificate. Prior to her enrolling at Edison High School, the family moved to Los Angeles in 1991 so that Murphy could pursue an acting career. Murphy said her mother never tried to stifle her creativity, and she considered her mother a crucial factor in her later success: "When I asked my mom to move to California, she sold everything and moved out here for me.Â ... She always believed in me." Murphy's mother is of Irish and Eastern European descent and her father is of Italian ancestry. She was raised a Baptist and later became a non-denominational Christian. She had two older half-brothers and a younger half-sister. Acting. Brittany Murphy attended Verne Fowler School of Dance and Theatre Arts in Colonia, New Jersey, in 1982. From the age of four, she trained in singing, dancing, and acting until her move to California at thirteen. Murphy made her Broadway debut in 1997, as Catherine, in a revival of Arthur Miller's "A View from the Bridge" opposite veteran actors Anthony LaPaglia and Allison Janney. Murphy landed her first job in Hollywood when she was thirteen, starring as Brenda Drexell in the series "Drexell's Class". She then went on to play Molly Morgan in the short-lived "The Torkelsons" spinoff "Almost Home". Murphy also guest-starred on several television series, including "Parker Lewis Can't Lose", "Blossom", "seaQuest 2032", "Murder One" and "Frasier". She also had recurring roles on "Sister, Sister"; "Party of Five" and "Boy Meets World". Murphy starred in several films, including "Clueless" (1995); "Girl, Interrupted" (1999); "Drop Dead Gorgeous" (1999); "Don't Say a Word" (2001); the TV adaptation of the novel "The Devil's Arithmetic" (2001); "8 Mile" (2002) and "Uptown Girls" (2003) as well as many lesser-known films, such as "Spun" (2002) and "Neverwas" (2005), which was never released to theaters. In 2003, she starred in the romantic comedies "Just Married" and "Little Black Book" (2004) and the critically acclaimed "Sin City" (2005). She starred in two Edward Burns films: "Sidewalks of New York" (2001) and "The Groomsmen" (2006). Film critic Roger Ebert acclaimed her acting talent, giving good reviews to several of her films and comparing her to Lucille Ball. In 2009, she was cast in the Lifetime TV movie, "Tribute", as the main character, Cilla. She was set to appear in the Sylvester Stallone film, "The Expendables", which was released in August 2010. Murphy appeared in the following music videos: Luscious Jackson's "Here" (1995), Wheatus' "A Little Respect" (2001) alongside actor Shawn Hatosy, and Tears for Fears' "Closest Thing to Heaven" (2004). Murphy was also a voice actor. She voiced the character Luanne Platter on the FOX animated sitcom "King of the Hill" for the entirety of the show's run from 1997 to 2009, and Joseph Gribble until the fifth season. She also provided the voice for Gloria the penguin in the 2006 feature "Happy Feet". She was nominated for an Annie Award for voice acting in the "King of the Hill" episode "Movin' On Up". Murphy completed the thriller/drama "Abandoned" in June 2009 and it was released in 2010, after her death. In November 2009, Murphy left the production of "The Caller", which was being filmed in Puerto Rico, and was replaced by Rachelle Lefevre. Murphy denied media reports that she had been fired from the project after being difficult on set, and cited "creative differences". "Something Wicked", her final film, is scheduled to be released in 2013. Music. Murphy's career also included work as a singer. She commented: "My singing voice isn't like my speaking voice...I've just always kept it a secret and never taken credit because I wanted to learn how to work behind the microphone in a recording studio, and some of the singers don't even know it was me recording on their albums." She was in a band called Blessed Soul with fellow actor Eric Balfour in the early 1990s. On June 6, 2006, Murphy and Paul Oakenfold released the single "Faster Kill Pussycat", from the album "A Lively Mind." The song became a club hit, and hit number one on "Billboard's" Hot Dance Club Play chart. It also hit number seven in Oakenfold's native United Kingdom in June 2006. She dabbled in music again with the release of the film "Happy Feet", in which she covered Queen's "Somebody to Love" and Earth, Wind & Fire's "Boogie Wonderland". Murphy said about her character Gloria, "Oddly enough, of all the characters I've played, Gloria is the most like me. And she's a penguin! George Miller always wanted one person to do both speaking and the singing. I said, 'I can sing,' and I asked him to give me a shot. I don't think he took me very seriously because most actors say they can do most things." Personal life. In late 2002, Murphy began dating Ashton Kutcher, her co-star in "Just Married". Once engaged to talent manager Jeff Kwatinetz, Murphy became engaged to Joe Macaluso in December 2005, a production assistant she met while working on the film "Little Black Book". In August 2006, they ended their engagement. In May 2007, Murphy married British screenwriter Simon Monjack in a private Jewish ceremony in Los Angeles. For the last three and a half years of her life, Murphy, her mother and Monjack lived together in the same house. In the early 2000s, Murphy lost a large amount of weight, which led to rumors of a cocaine addiction. In 2005, Murphy disputed such claims to "Jane" magazine, saying, "No, just for the record I have never tried it in my entire life." At this point, she had recently signed as the spokesmodel for Jordache jeans. Death. At 08:00 (16:00 GMT) on December 20, 2009, the Los Angeles Fire Department responded to "a medical request" at the Los Angeles home Murphy and Monjack shared. She had apparently collapsed in a bathroom. Firefighters attempted to resuscitate Murphy on the scene. She was transported to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, where she was pronounced dead on arrival at 10:04 after going into cardiac arrest. Shortly after her death, Assistant Chief Coroner Ed Winter told the Associated Press: "It appears to be natural." An autopsy was performed the day after she died. Her death certificate listed the cause of death as "deferred". On February 4, 2010, the Los Angeles County coroner stated that the primary cause of Murphy's death was pneumonia, with secondary factors of iron-deficiency anemia and multiple drug intoxication. On February 25, 2010, the coroner released a report stating that Murphy had been taking a range of over-the-counter and prescription medications, with the most likely reason being to treat a cold or respiratory infection. These included "elevated levels" of hydrocodone, acetaminophen, L-methamphetamine and chlorpheniramine. All of the drugs were legal and the death was ruled to be an accident, but the report observed: "the possible adverse physiological effects of elevated levels of these medications cannot be discounted, especially in her weakened state." Murphy was buried at Forest Lawn Hollywood Hills on December 24, 2009. On May 23, 2010, her widower Simon Monjack was found dead at the same Hollywood Hills residence. In July 2010, Los Angeles Assistant Chief Coroner Ed Winter stated that the cause of his death was acute pneumonia and severe anemia. It was reported that the Los Angeles County Department of Health had considered toxic mold in their house as a possible cause of the deaths, but this was dismissed by Ed Winter, who stated that there were "no indicators" that mold was a factor. Murphy's mother Sharon described the reports of mold contributing to the deaths as "absurd" and went on to state that inspecting the home for mold was never requested by the Health Department. In December 2011, Sharon Murphy changed her stance, announcing that toxic mold was indeed what killed her daughter and son-in-law, and filed a lawsuit against the attorneys who represented her in an earlier suit against the builders of the home where her daughter and son-in-law died. On January 11, 2012, her father Angelo Bertolotti applied to the Superior Court of California requesting that the Los Angeles County Coroner's Office be required to hand over samples of his daughter's hair for independent testing. The suit was dismissed on July 19, 2012 after Bertolotti failed to show up to two separate hearings. Foundation. In January 2010, Murphy's mother, Sharon, and her widower, Simon Monjack, established the Brittany Murphy Foundation, a charitable fund for children's arts education, as well as supporting the USO and cancer research. The foundation was launched on February 4, 2010, at a fundraising event at the Saban Theatre in Beverly Hills. After a records search revealed that the foundation's not-for-profit status had not been filed, the foundation announced that it would refund any donations received and issued an official letter on the foundation's website. They stated that in an effort to get the foundation set up as quickly as possible, they had established it as a private foundation with plans to apply for nonprofit status later. However, they said that they had decided to wait until the foundation's nonprofit status was approved before going any further in order to truly honor Murphy and the foundation's charitable goals.
1100159	In numerical analysis, Richardson extrapolation is a sequence acceleration method, used to improve the rate of convergence of a sequence. It is named after Lewis Fry Richardson, who introduced the technique in the early 20th century. In the words of Birkhoff and Rota, "... its usefulness for practical computations can hardly be overestimated." Practical applications of Richardson extrapolation include Romberg integration, which applies Richardson extrapolation to the trapezoid rule, and the Bulirsch–Stoer algorithm for solving ordinary differential equations. Example of Richardson extrapolation. Suppose that we wish to approximate formula_1, and we have a method formula_2 that depends on a small parameter formula_3, so that formula_4 Define a new method
590294	36 Chowringhee Lane is a 1981 film written and directed by Aparna Sen and produced by Shashi Kapoor. It marked the directorial debut of Sen, who had until then been known as a leading actress of Bengali cinema. The film was very well received upon release. It stars Jennifer Kendal in a critically acclaimed role, along with Dhritiman Chatterjee and Debashree Roy. Plot. In post-independent India an Anglo-Indian teacher, Violet Stoneham (Jennifer Kendal), lives a quiet and uneventful life at 36 Chowringhee Lane in Calcutta, now Kolkata. Her brother Eddie (Geoffrey Kendal, Jennifer's father in real life) is senile and ailing in a nursing home. After the marriage of her niece Rosemary (Soni Razdan), she is alone except for her cat, Sir Toby. Her only joy in life is teaching Shakespeare, despite the lack of interest from her students.
433606	Another You is a 1991 American comedy film. It was the final film pairing of Richard Pryor and Gene Wilder, neither of whom appeared in a leading role in another film, together or apart. Co-stars included Mercedes Ruehl, Vanessa Williams and Kevin Pollak. Plot. The story is a variation of the mistaken identity and impersonation theme made popular by "The Prisoner of Zenda" and other works. A former mental patient is released from hospital but is mistaken for his doppelgänger, who happens to be a millionaire. A con man tries to keep the mental patient out of trouble, while taking advantage of the situation for his own gain. Production. The film was released four years after Pryor revealed that he had been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, and his physical deterioration is evident in this film. Peter Bogdanovich was the original director, but he was replaced after five weeks of shooting. Wilder has not acted in any theatrically released films since, although he has starred in two murder mysteries and appeared as the Mock Turtle in an adaptation of "Alice in Wonderland", all television films. Reception. "Another You" was a critical and box office failure. It is Pryor's last leading role in film.
1489270	Return to Oz is a 1985 fantasy adventure film based on L. Frank Baum's Oz books, mainly "The Marvelous Land of Oz" and "Ozma of Oz". The plot begins with Dorothy's return to the Land of Oz, and her discovery that the land has been destroyed. Upon her return, Dorothy, alongside her chicken Billina, is befriended by a group of new companions, including Tik-Tok and Jack Pumpkinhead, who help her restore Oz to its former glory. Directed by Walter Murch, an editor and sound designer, "Return to Oz" stars Nicol Williamson, Jean Marsh, Piper Laurie, Matt Clark, and introducing Fairuza Balk as Dorothy Gale. Released on June 26, 1985, it performed poorly at the box office and received mixed reviews from critics. However, "Return to Oz" is considered by fans as a more faithful adaptation of the novel than the 1939 film, and has since established a cult following. The film received an Academy Award nomination for Best Visual Effects. Plot. Six months after returning home from the Land of Oz, Dorothy Gale has become a melancholic child who cannot sleep, as she is obsessed with her memories of Oz. This worries Aunt Em and Uncle Henry, who decide to take her to Dr. Worley, known for his revolutionary electric healing treatments. Before going, Dorothy searches for her favorite chicken Billina, and finds a key with an OZ glyph that she believes her friends from Oz sent to her by shooting star. At Dr. Worley's laboratory, Aunt Em leaves Dorothy under the strict care of Nurse Wilson. Dorothy is taken to have treatment during the onset of a huge thunderstorm, during which the lab has a blackout and Dorothy is saved by a mysterious girl, who reveals that some patients have been driven insane by Worley's treatment and are hidden in the basement. The two escape the building with Nurse Wilson in pursuit, and fall into a river. The girl vanishes underwater, but Dorothy survives by clambering on board a chicken coop.
1056955	Why Did I Get Married? is a 2007 comedy-drama film adaptation written, produced, directed, and starring Tyler Perry, which was inspired by his play of the same name. The film stars Janet Jackson, Jill Scott, Malik Yoba, Sharon Leal, Tasha Smith, Michael Jai White, Richard T. Jones, and Keesha Sharp. The film was released in the United States by Lionsgate on October 12, 2007. The film is about the difficulty of maintaining a solid relationship in modern times. Eight married college friends plus one other non-friend (all of whom have achieved middle to upper class economic status) go to Colorado for their annual week-long reunion, but the mood shifts when one couple's infidelity comes to light. Secrets are revealed and each couple begins to question their own marriage. Over the course of the week, the couples battle with issues of commitment, betrayal and forgiveness and examine their lives as individuals and as committed couples. This film explores the resultant emotional impact that fidelity and love have upon the constitution of marriage. Plot synopsis. The four couples, who are also best friends, converge on a house in the mountains for a week-long retreat that has become their ritual of sorts to help work out their marital problems and ask the question "Why did I get married?". Though the couples have committed to being physically present for the week, some of them have not been emotionally present in their respective marriages for quite some time. The week is not planned out in a well-programmed sequence, so the events unfold somewhat spontaneously, beginning with their "adventures" in getting up to the mountain retreat. Dianne falls asleep not long after arriving with her BlackBerry close at hand and when her secretary calls while she is asleep, Terry tells the woman not to call them while they are on their vacation. When Patricia arrives, she goes up to wake Dianne while the men bond over the wine that Terry has poured for his wife. The sound of arguing signals the arrival of Angela and Marcus. When Mike arrives without Sheila, the other wives berate him and Trina for having left Shelia to drive alone. Sheila's husband shows clearly that he does not care for his wife at all. Her friends try to reach Sheila by phone but get her voice mail only. Sheila is persistent to get to the retreat because she wants to make her marriage work. Providence leads her to Sheriff Troy Jackson's office. Due to weather the roads have been closed for the night and she has no choice but to spend the night. That same night, Mike tiptoes, not unseen by Angela, to Trina's bedroom. Sheila arrives at the retreat house the following morning with Troy in tow. She introduces Troy to the others and tells them she has invited him to breakfast. Troy fast becomes a threat to Sheila's husband Mike, not because of Sheila, but because of Trina, with whom he is having an affair. Breakfast is a noisy affair with the arguing couples and Angela insulting Trina, the only single woman on the retreat, whom she instantly disliked. Throughout the few days spent on retreat, there are spontaneous revelations. The infidelity of two of the husbands leads to a discussion by the men of the 80/20 rule. This rule states that most men get 80% of what they need from a marriage yet they tend to go after the 20% that someone outside can provide for them because it appears to be more to them when it really isn't. The secrets that come out in their heated discussions lead the couples toward a path where they can either choose to reconcile or to separate, and the latter is what happens to Sheila and Mike. Mike makes it clear he is not attracted to his wife any longer and when it is revealed he is being unfaithful, he simply tells her he wants a divorce. The vacation is cut short when all the secrets come to light, as the couples suddenly decide they cannot stay in the house any longer. Shelia checks into a local hotel to recover from the shock of her divorce and the realization that Mike has drained her bank account. She is in a depressed state when Troy goes to visit her. He takes her up to a mountain where she cries and mourns the loss of her love and the only life she knew. The other couples head back home. Patricia and Gavin are barely speaking to each other because she was deemed "stupid" for not protecting their son in a tragic accident by Gavin; Patricia breaks down emotionally in his arms and eventually confesses that she was only trying to be perfect. They both agree to face the situation and soon reconcile. Angela and Marcus are still fighting, especially when Marcus' ex-girlfriend and son's mother, Keisha, shows up at Angela's salon, who disrespects her. Marcus finally stands up to both women, and manages to frighten Angela into realizing she is wrecking their life with her constant arguing by not showing up for a couple of days. Dianne and Terry fight again right before they leave the mountains because he had a paternity test done on their daughter, and later on Terry's birthday at their home; Terry moves out because Dianne forgot about his birthday and did not tell him about getting her tubes tied. Patricia meets up with Dianne and Angela, moping over their husbands, and gives them good counseling about the need to get back on track: making a list of both the good and bad things their husbands have done. The men drown all their sorrows in bottles. In the mountains, Sheila settles into a new life at her new job at the general store owned by Troy's father and, while she realizes her own self-worth, the two bond. Angela cooks dinner for Marcus after finishing with her list, but he suspects she is trying to poison him. Eventually she explains, they make up and set conditions of the new order. Dianne goes to see Terry and begs him to come back after crying over her list. He plays with her head a little to get back at her, but they eventually reconcile as well. All the couples converge on the gala celebration for an award recently received by Patricia. Dianne, Patricia and Angela are shocked when Sheila arrives and introduces Troy as her husband and has successfully lost weight thanks to his help. Her very jealous ex-husband, Mike, although he is still with Trina, tries to weasel his way back into her good graces, but she tells him to go enjoy Trina as his "20", referring to the 80/20 rule. Patricia includes a confession of her love for Gavin, as well as a message of loving, respecting and trusting God in her acceptance speech. Production and development. Perry decided to take out many of the church and message scenes because he wanted the film to be "on a whole 'nother spiritual level--there's a whole 'nother connection to it." He said his writing has improved since the play. Perry invited experienced and neophyte African-American actors to a reading of an early script in order to field reactions, including Tracee Ellis Ross. Reception. Critical reception. As of November 1, 2007, on the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, 46% of critics gave the film positive reviews, based on 33 reviews. On Metacritic, the film had an average score of 54 out of 100 based on 12 reviews. Paul Grenada said that while "there are times where the script seems stiff...film teaches without hammering, and you leave the movie feeling good about what you saw." Giving the movie a B-, "Entertainment Weekly" said that Perry is of the "spell-everything-in-capital-letters and act-it-out-loudly schools," but added that "one performance glistens--Jill Scott's as the sad, heavyset Sheila, who locates the faith that's the source of love." "Time" magazine gave the film a B and called it the "usual artless mix of broad comedy, teary confessions and spiritual uplift." Box office. In its opening weekend, the film grossed $21.4 million in 3,105 theaters in the United States and Canada, ranking #1 at the box office. In its second weekend, the film slipped to #2 in the box office charts, with a gross of $12.1 million, bringing the 10-day total to over $38 million. In total, the film domestically grossed $55,862,886. Soundtrack. The soundtrack was released by Atlantic Records on October 2, 2007. Neither Janet Jackson nor Jill Scott are featured on the soundtrack. The soundtrack debuted at number 51 on Billboard 200, number seven on R&B/Hip-Hop Albums and number six on Soundtracks with 58,000 copies sold in first week. Home media. The film was released on DVD on February 12, 2008. The DVD includes subtitles in English and Spanish, as well as bloopers. A Blu-ray was released on November 23, 2010. Sequel. A sequel, titled "Why Did I Get Married Too?" starring Perry and Tasha Smith, was released on April 2, 2010. Subsequently, Perry created a comedy-drama television series based upon the two films titled "Tyler Perry's For Better or Worse". The series, which stars White and Smith as Marcus and Angela, premiered on TBS on November 25, 2011.
587458	Maanbumigu Maanavan is a 1996 Tamil action film directed by S.A.Chandrasekar. The film had Vijay and Swapna Bedi in the lead. Music is by Deva. Plot. The film deals with student strength. Shiva (Vijay), a college student is leading a happy go lucky life, having a nice time with his friends, until two of his friends fall in love. Facing stiff opposition from the girl’s father, all the friends get together and get the couple married. But the married girl was gang raped in the college campus, by Madan, the son of a politician. Unable to get justice in court, Shiva along with his friends takes it upon himself to avenge his friend’s death, but pays a very heavy price. His mother will be killed by the politician and they lose at court. Now Shiva must get justice in his own way. He can kill Mahan and his father. Production. Chandrasekhar initially wanted Devayani to pair with Vijay but she was replaced by newcomer Swapna Bedi.
1590043	Subconscious Cruelty is an independent film written and directed by Karim Hussain and produced by Mitch Davis. It was filmed over a long period of time, from February 1994 to December 1999, and debuted at the Festival de Cine de Sitges in Sitges, Spain, on October 12, 2000. The film went on to screen at several other festivals, including the Stockholm International Film Festival and Amsterdam Fantastic Film Festival before being released on DVD on April 18, 2005. Plot. The movie is based on a several nihilistic and metaphorical stories about life, death and everything between. History and development. Hussain began filming "Subconscious Cruelty" at the age of 19 after connecting with 22-year-old Davis, a producer whom Hussain knew to believe in the project. Hussain felt that the subculture of the mid-1990s, a time when heroin usage was prevalent and nihilism was gaining acceptance in the art world, would be accepting of his film. Influences for the film include works by Alexandro Jodorowsky, Luis Buñuel, Dušan Makavejev, David Lynch, David Cronenberg and others. The filmmaking process was beset by various problems, including the disappearance of the film negative in a financial dispute, forcing Hussain to hand-cut the positive of the film without knowing if he would ever re-gain the negative. Another setback occurred when Hussain was stopped at the Canadian border after a business trip to the United States. Canadian customs officials inspected the film, and, appalled by its content, confiscated it as illegally obscene material. As a result, the original stock had to be hidden for a long period of time. As the film toured various festivals, it gained a cult following that led to Davis and Hussain seeking out a DVD distributor. The film was first produced on DVD in Japan in 2001, and later in several European countries in 2006. Critical reception. "Subconscious Cruelty" received mixed reviews by mostly non-mainstream critics. Since the film was not released in the US market, traditional critics of English-language films did not see or comment on it. Known establishments such as Fangoria considered it "a film suffused with images that incite thoughts, many of which would be considered unhealthy in any artistic medium", while some other independent critics considered it "the most amateurish cinematic junk I have ever seen...". DVD. The DVD is available in PAL format, notable since it is a Canadian-made film and NTSC format is traditionally used in North America. It includes an hour-long "making of" documentary, as well as the short film "Divided Into Zero", directed by Mitch Davis.
1059786	Andre Braugher (; born July 1, 1962) is an American actor. He is best known for his roles as Cassiel in "City of Angels", Thomas Searles in the film "Glory", as the fiery detective Frank Pembleton on "" from 1993 to 1998 and again in the 2000 made-for-TV film, and as Owen Thoreau Jr. on the TNT show "Men of a Certain Age", and in the same year, played senior detective Satch DeLeon, in the science-fiction film "Frequency". In 2012, he played the leading role of Captain Marcus Chaplin on the US primetime drama series "Last Resort", broadcast on ABC. Early life and education. Braugher, the youngest of four children, was born in Chicago, Illinois, the son of Sally, a postal worker, and Floyd Braugher, a heavy-equipment operator. He attended St. Ignatius College Prep and later graduated from Stanford University with a B.A. in theater in 1984. He then attended the Juilliard School's Drama Division ("Group 17": 1984-1988), graduating with a Master of Fine Arts degree in 1988. He was acknowledged as the "Most Outstanding Theater Student" at graduation. Career. Braugher's first film role was in the 1989's "Glory" as Thomas Searles, a free, educated black from the North who joins the first black regiment in the Union Army.
578596	The Kick (; ) is a 2011 Thai martial arts film, directed by Prachya Pinkaew. The film follows a Korean family of taekwondo experts who immigrate to Thailand. Plot. Mun is a taekwondo master running an old taekwondo gym in Bangkok. All five members of his family are also taekwondo exponents, each of whom infuses the art with a particular skill: his wife Mija in cooking style, son Taeyang in dancing style, daughter Taemi in soccer style, and the youngest Typhoon can break anything with his strong forehead. Mun wants his children to be taekwondo coaches to take over his gym in the future. However, regardless of their father's will, Taeju wants to be a famous pop singer and Taemi is only interested in her secret crush at school. One day, Taeyang foils a gang's attempt to steal a priceless antique kris. Pom, the leader of the gang, is the only one to escape and threatens revenge. Mun's family becomes more popular in the public eye, not knowing when or where Pom will get his revenge.
1063224	Cloverfield is a 2008 American monster sci fi thriller film directed by Matt Reeves, produced by J. J. Abrams and written by Drew Goddard. Before settling on an official title, the film was marketed as "1-18-08". The film follows six young New Yorkers attending a going-away party on the night that a gigantic monster attacks the city.
1059456	The Kentucky Fried Movie is an American anthology comedy film, released in 1977 and directed by John Landis. The film's writers were the team of David Zucker, Jim Abrahams and Jerry Zucker, who would go on to write and direct "Airplane!", "Top Secret!" and the "Police Squad!" television series and its film spinoffs, "The Naked Gun" films. The "feature presentation" portion of the film stars Evan C. Kim and hapkido Grand Master Bong Soo Han. Among the numerous cameo stars were George Lazenby, Bill Bixby, Henry Gibson, Barry Dennen, Donald Sutherland, Tony Dow, Stephen Bishop, and the voice of Shadoe Stevens. According to David Zucker in the DVD commentary track, David Letterman auditioned for the role of the newscaster, but was not selected. The film also features many former members of The Groundlings theater, as well as some from The Second City. "The Kentucky Fried Movie" marked the first film appearances of a number of actors who later became famous as well as being the vehicle that launched the careers of the Zucker brothers, Abrahams and Landis. It was Landis' work on this film that was largely responsible for him being recommended to direct "National Lampoon's Animal House" in 1978. Production background. David Zucker, Jerry Zucker, and Jim Abrahams made the rounds of the Hollywood studios and were rejected by all of them, being told that "audiences didn't like movies composed of sketches." Since the three believed in their material, which they had honed in front of the audiences in their 140-seat improvisational troupe billed as "Kentucky Fried Theater", they decided to make the movie on their own. A wealthy real estate investor offered to finance the film if they would write a script. After completion of the screenplay, the investor had second thoughts and decided he did not want to finance the film alone. He said he would try to attract other investors if the three filmmakers would produce a ten-minute excerpt of the film, which he would finance. When the trio presented a budget of the short film to the investor, he backed out. The prospect of shooting the short film so excited the trio that they decided to pay for it themselves. The ten-minute film cost $35,000, and with it they again approached the Hollywood studios. This time they attached young director John Landis to the project. However, once again, the studios turned them down. Curious as to how audiences would react to their film, they persuaded exhibitor Kim Jorgenson to show it before one of his regularly scheduled movies. When Jorgenson saw the short, he "fell out of his seat laughing." He was so impressed that he offered to raise the money needed to make the full-length version. By having his fellow exhibitors screen the film before audiences in their theaters, he convinced them to put up the $650,000 budget. When released, "Kentucky Fried Movie" was a box-office success, returning domestic American rentals of $7.1 million. Description. "The Kentucky Fried Movie" consists of largely unconnected sketches that parody various film genres, including exploitation films. The film’s longest segment spoofs early kung-fu films, primarily "Enter the Dragon"; its title, "A Fistful of Yen", refers to "A Fistful of Dollars". Parodies of disaster films ("That's Armageddon"), blaxplotation ("Cleopatra Schwartz") and softcore porn/women-in-prison films ("Catholic High School Girls in Trouble") are presented as "Coming Attraction" trailers. The fictional films are said to have been produced by "Samuel L. Bronkowitz" (a conflation of Samuel Bronston and Joseph L. Mankiewicz). The sketch "See You Next Wednesday" mocks theater-based gimmicks like Sensurround by depicting a dramatic film presented in "Feel-a-Round", which involves an usher physically accosting the patron. Other sketches spoof TV commercials and programs, news broadcasts, and classroom educational films. The city of Detroit and its high crime rate are a running gag portraying the city as Hell on Earth; in "A Fistful of Yen", the evil drug lord orders a captured CIA agent to be sent to Detroit, and the agent screams and begs to be killed instead. "Amazon Women on the Moon" is condsidered to be a sequel to this movie, due to the similar style of the two films and John Landis' involvement as a director of a few sketches. The "feature" in "Amazon Women on the Moon" makes reference to this film by crediting it as a Samuel L. Bronkowitz production. The French titles show a closer connection: the French name for "Amazon Women" translates to "The Cheeseburger Movie", while "The Kentucky Fried Movie" is "The Hamburger Movie". This film is number 87 on Bravo's "100 Funniest Movies," and is considered, along with "The Groove Tube", to be one of the groundbreaking films of the entire spoof and mockumentary genres of filmmaking.
1044102	Carry On Constable is the fourth the series of "Carry On" films, with 31 entries. It was released in 1960. Of the regular team, it featured Kenneth Connor, Kenneth Williams, Charles Hawtrey, Joan Sims and Hattie Jacques. Sid James makes his debut in the series here, while early regulars Leslie Phillips, Eric Barker and Shirley Eaton also turn up, although Phillips did not appear again in the series for 32 years. It was the first ""Carry On..."" film to include some nudity with Connor, Hawtrey, Williams and Phillips baring their behinds during a shower scene. Plot. A suburban police station is understaffed, due to a flu epidemic, and Sergeant Wilkins, under pressure to maintain staffing levels, is pleased to hear that three new officers, straight from training school, are due shortly. Before even arriving, the three officers inadvertently assist some bank robbers into their getaway car (a Jaguar Mk2), and are embarrassed when they learn the truth. The new Constables are self-proclaimed intellectual and amateur psychologist, PC Timothy Benson, former socially well-connected playboy and cad, PC Tom Potter and PC Charles Constable who is extremely superstitious. The arrival of WPC Gloria Passworthy and Special Constable Gorse completes the roster. Constable falls in love with Passworthy. Out on the beat, the new officrs try hard, but are somewhat less than successful. Benson nearly arrests a plainclothes detective, and Constable believes he's just heard a murder being committed, but it turns out to be a radio play. Potter investigates a report of an intruder, but finds a young woman in the bath. Gorse, tasked to patrol with a police dog, is unable to control it. They have better luck when a wages robbery takes place. Benson and Potter locate the getaway car and all four engage in a confrontation with the thieves, arresting them and recovering the money. Commended for his efficiency and excellent results, Inspector Mills is promoted to a training position and Wilkins is promoted to replace him. Charlie Constable gets his girl (with a little help from Sgt Moon) and stops being superstitious. Role of Sergeant Wilkins. Initially, the role of Sergeant Wilkins was intended for Ted Ray following his work on the previous film "Carry On Teacher". However, Ray was contracted to ABC (despite being unused by them), who distributed the "Carry On" films to cinemas. Unhappy seeing one of their contracted actors in a rival production, they threatened to stop distribution, so Peter Rogers reluctantly dropped him from the films and replaced him with Sid James, thus beginning James's 19-film long membership of the "Carry On" team. Filming and locations. Interiors: Exteriors: The exterior of the police station is Hanwell Library, Cherrington Road, W7. Other scenes where filmed along the parade of shops on The Avenue in West Ealing, W13 with the Drayton Court Hotel visible in many scenes. The Royal Mail Sorting Office in Manor Road and the railway footbridge over the GWR out of West Ealing is also seen as still standing today. Other scenes were filmed on and around St. Mary's Road (including St. Mary's Church) and the surrounding streets, Ealing W5.
1099149	Benoit B. Mandelbrot (20 November 1924Â â 14 October 2010) was a Polish-born, French and American mathematician, noted for developing a "theory of roughness" in nature and the field of fractal geometry to help prove it, which included coining the word "fractal". He later discovered the Mandelbrot set of intricate, never-ending fractal shapes, named in his honor. As a child, his family fled to France in 1936 to escape the growing Nazi persecution of Jews. After World War II ended in 1945, Mandelbrot studied mathematics, graduating from universities in Paris and the U.S., receiving a masters degree in aeronautics from Caltech. He spent most of his career in both the U.S. and France, having dual French and American citizenship. In 1958 he began working for IBM, where he stayed for 35 years and was an IBM Fellow. Because of his access to IBM's computers, Mandelbrot was one of the first to use computer graphics to create and display fractal geometric images, leading to his discovering the Mandelbrot set in 1979. In so doing, he was able to show how visual complexity can be created from simple rules. He said that things typically considered to be "rough", a "mess" or "chaotic", like clouds or shorelines, actually had a "degree of order". His research career included contributions to fields including geology, medicine, cosmology, engineering and the social sciences. Science writer Arthur C. Clarke credits the Mandelbrot set as being "one of the most astonishing discoveries in the entire history of mathematics". Toward the end of his career, he was Sterling Professor of Mathematical Sciences at Yale University, where he was the oldest professor in Yale's history to receive tenure. Mandelbrot also held positions at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, UniversitĂŠ Lille Nord de France, Institute for Advanced Study and Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique. During his career, he received over 15 honorary doctorates and served on many science journals, along with winning numerous awards. His autobiography, "The Fractalist", was published in 2012. Early years. Mandelbrot was born in Warsaw into a Jewish family from Lithuania. His family had a strong academic traditionÂ â his mother was a dental surgeon, although his father made his living trading clothing. He was first introduced to mathematics by two of his uncles, one of whom, Szolem Mandelbrojt, was a mathematician who resided in Paris. "The love of his mind was mathematics," writes Mandelbrot, in his autobiography. Anticipating the threat posed by Nazi Germany, the family fled from Poland to France in 1936 when he was 11. "The fact that my parents, as economic and political refugees, joined Szolem in France saved our lives," he writes. Mandelbrot attended the LycĂŠe Rolin in Paris until the start of World War II, when his family then moved to Tulle, France. He was helped by Rabbi David Feuerwerker, the Rabbi of Brive-la-Gaillarde, to continue his studies. Much of France was occupied by the Nazis at the time, and Mandelbrot recalls this period: In 1944, Mandelbrot returned to Paris, studied at the LycĂŠe du Parc in Lyon, and in 1945 to 1947 attended the Ăcole Polytechnique, where he studied under Gaston Julia and Paul LĂŠvy. From 1947 to 1949 he studied at California Institute of Technology, where he earned a master's degree in aeronautics. Returning to France, he obtained his PhD degree in Mathematical Sciences at the University of Paris in 1952. Research career. From 1949 to 1958, Mandelbrot was a staff member at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique. During this time he spent a year at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey, where he was sponsored by John von Neumann. In 1955 he married Aliette Kagan and moved to Geneva, Switzerland, and later to the UniversitĂŠ Lille Nord de France. In 1958 the couple moved to the United States where Mandelbrot joined the research staff at the IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center in Yorktown Heights, New York. He remained at IBM for 35 years, becoming an IBM Fellow, and later Fellow Emeritus. From 1951 onward, Mandelbrot worked on problems and published papers not only in mathematics but in applied fields such as information theory, economics, and fluid dynamics. Mandelbrot found that price changes in financial markets did not follow a Gaussian distribution, but rather LĂŠvy stable distributions having theoretically infinite variance. He found, for example, that cotton prices followed a LĂŠvy stable distribution with parameter Îą equal to 1.7 rather than 2 as in a Gaussian distribution. "Stable" distributions have the property that the sum of many instances of a random variable follows the same distribution but with a larger scale parameter. As a visiting professor at Harvard University, Mandelbrot began to study fractals called Julia sets that were invariant under certain transformations of the complex plane. Building on previous work by Gaston Julia and Pierre Fatou, Mandelbrot used a computer to plot images of the Julia sets. While investigating the topology of these Julia sets, he studied the Mandelbrot set fractal that is now named after him. In 1982, Mandelbrot expanded and updated his ideas in "The Fractal Geometry of Nature". This influential work brought fractals into the mainstream of professional and popular mathematics, as well as silencing critics, who had dismissed fractals as "program artifacts". Mandelbrot left IBM in 1987, after 35 years and 12 days, when IBM decided to end pure research in his division. He joined the Department of Mathematics at Yale, and obtained his first tenured post in 1999, at the age of 75. At the time of his retirement in 2005, he was Sterling Professor of Mathematical Sciences. Developing "fractal geometry" and the Mandelbrot set. In 1975, Mandelbrot coined the term "fractal" to describe these structures and first published his ideas in 1975, and later translated, "Fractals: Form, Chance and Dimension". According to mathematics scientist Stephen Wolfram, the book was a "breakthrough" for Mandelbrot, who until then would typically "apply fairly straightforward mathematics ... to areas that had barely seen the light of serious mathematics before." Wolfram adds that as a result of this new research, he was no longer a "wandering scientist", and later called him "the father of fractals": Wolfram briefly describes fractals as a form of geometric repetition, "in which smaller and smaller copies of a pattern are successively nested inside each other, so that the same intricate shapes appear no matter how much you zoom in to the whole. Fern leaves and Romanesco broccoli are two examples from nature." He points out an unexpected conclusion: Mandelbrot used the term "fractal" as it derived from the Latin word "fractus", defined as broken or shattered glass. Using the newly developed IBM computers at his disposal, Mandelbrot was able to create fractal images using graphic computer code, images that an interviewer described as looking like "the delirious exuberance of the 1960s psychedelic art with forms hauntingly reminiscent of nature and the human body." He also saw himself as a "would-be Kepler", after the 17th-century scientist Johannes Kepler, who calculated and described the orbits of the planets. Mandelbrot, however, never felt he was inventing a new idea. He describes his feelings in a documentary with science writer Arthur C. Clarke: According to Clarke, "the Mandelbrot set is indeed one of the most astonishing discoveries in the entire history of mathematics. Who could have dreamed that such an incredibly simple equation could have generated images of literally "infinite" complexity?" Clarke also notes an "odd coincidence:" "the name Mandelbrot, and the word "mandala"âfor a religious symbolâwhich I'm sure is a pure coincidence, but indeed the Mandelbrot set does seem to contain an enormous number of mandalas." Fractals and the "theory of roughness". Mandelbrot created the first-ever "theory of roughness", and he saw "roughness" in the shapes of mountains, coastlines and river basins; the structures of plants, blood vessels and lungs; the clustering of galaxies. His personal quest was to create some mathematical formula to measure the overall "roughness" of such objects in nature. He began by asking himself various kinds of questions related to nature: Mandelbrot emphasized the use of fractals as realistic and useful models for describing many "rough" phenomena in the real world. He concluded that "real roughness is often fractal and can be measured." Although Mandelbrot coined the term "fractal", some of the mathematical objects he presented in "The Fractal Geometry of Nature" had been previously described by other mathematicians. Before Mandelbrot, however, they were regarded as isolated curiosities with unnatural and non-intuitive properties. Mandelbrot brought these objects together for the first time and turned them into essential tools for the long-stalled effort to extend the scope of science to explaining non-smooth, "rough" objects in the real world. His methods of research were both old and new: Fractals are also found in human pursuits, such as music, painting, architecture, and stock market prices. Mandelbrot believed that fractals, far from being unnatural, were in many ways more intuitive and natural than the artificially smooth objects of traditional Euclidean geometry: Clouds are not spheres, mountains are not cones, coastlines are not circles, and bark is not smooth, nor does lightning travel in a straight line.Â Â âMandelbrot, in his introduction to "The Fractal Geometry of Nature" Mandelbrot has been called a visionary and a maverick. His informal and passionate style of writing and his emphasis on visual and geometric intuition (supported by the inclusion of numerous illustrations) made "The Fractal Geometry of Nature" accessible to non-specialists. The book sparked widespread popular interest in fractals and contributed to chaos theory and other fields of science and mathematics. Mandelbrot also put his ideas to work in cosmology. He offered in 1974 a new explanation of Olbers' paradox (the "dark night sky" riddle), demonstrating the consequences of fractal theory as a sufficient, but not necessary, resolution of the paradox. He postulated that if the stars in the universe were fractally distributed (for example, like Cantor dust), it would not be necessary to rely on the Big Bang theory to explain the paradox. His model would not rule out a Big Bang, but would allow for a dark sky even if the Big Bang had not occurred. Awards and honors. Mandelbrot's awards include the Wolf Prize for Physics in 1993, the Lewis Fry Richardson Prize of the European Geophysical Society in 2000, the Japan Prize in 2003, and the Einstein Lectureship of the American Mathematical Society in 2006. The small asteroid 27500 Mandelbrot was named in his honor. In November 1990, he was made a Knight in the French Legion of Honour. In December 2005, Mandelbrot was appointed to the position of Battelle Fellow at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. Mandelbrot was promoted to Officer of the Legion of Honour in January 2006. An honorary degree from Johns Hopkins University was bestowed on Mandelbrot in the May 2010 commencement exercises. Death and legacy. Mandelbrot died in a hospice in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on 14 October 2010 from pancreatic cancer, at the age of 85. Reacting to news of his death, mathematician Heinz-Otto Peitgen said "if we talk about impact inside mathematics, and applications in the sciences, he is one of the most important figures of the last 50 years." Lebanese author and professor Nassim Nicholas Taleb states that Mandelbrot "had perhaps more cumulative influence than any other single scientist in history, with the only close second, Isaac Newton." Taleb adds, "He was the only teacher I ever had, the only person for whom I have had intellectual respect. But there was something else that made him magnetic: he was a raconteur with a profound sense of historical context..." James Gleick, author of the best-selling book, "", explains further: Chris Anderson, curator of TED conferences, described Mandelbrot as "an icon who changed how we see the world". The President of France at the time of Mandelbrot's death, Nicolas Sarkozy, said Mandelbrot had "a powerful, original mind that never shied away from innovating and shattering preconceived notions". Sarkozy also added, "His work, developed entirely outside mainstream research, led to modern information theory." Mandelbrot's obituary in "The Economist" points out his fame as "celebrity beyond the academy" and lauds him as the "father of fractal geometry." Honors and awards. A partial list of awards received by Mandelbrot:
1163147	Ruby Keeler (born Ethel Hilda Keeler; August 25, 1910 – February 28, 1993) was a Canadian-born American actress, dancer and singer most famous for her on-screen coupling with Dick Powell in a string of successful early musicals at Warner Brothers, particularly "42nd Street" (1933). From 1928 to 1940, she was married to singer Al Jolson. She retired from show business in the 1940s but made a widely publicized comeback on Broadway in 1971. Early life. Keeler was born in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, Canada, to an Irish Catholic family, one of six siblings. Two sisters, Helen and Gertrude, had brief performing careers. Her father was a truck driver, and when she was three years old, her family packed up and moved to New York City where he knew he could get better pay. But it was not enough: there were six children, and although Keeler was interested in taking dance lessons, the family could not afford to send her. Keeler attended St. Catherine of Siena parochial school on New York's East Side, and one period each week a dance teacher would come and teach all styles of dance. The teacher saw potential in Keeler and spoke to her mother about Ruby taking lessons at her studio. Though her mother declined, apologizing for the lack of money, the teacher wanted to work with her so badly that she asked her mother if she would bring her to class lessons on Saturdays, and she agreed. During the classes, a girl she danced with told her about auditions for chorus girls. The law required professional chorus girls to be at least 16 years old; although they were only 13, they decided to lie about their ages at the audition. It was a tap audition, and there were a lot of other talented girls there. The stage was covered except for a wooden apron at the front. When it was Ruby's turn to dance, she asked the dance director, Julian Mitchell, if she could dance on the wooden part so that her taps could be heard. He did not answer, so she went ahead, walked up to the front of the stage, and started her routine. The director said, "who said you could dance up there?" She replied, "I asked you!" and she got a job in George M. Cohan's "The Rise of Rosie O'Reilly" (1923), in which she made forty-five dollars a week to help her family. Early dance career. She was only fourteen when she was hired by Nils Granlund, the publicity manager for Loews Theaters, who also served as the stageshow producer for Texas Guinan at Larry Fay's El Fay nightclub, a Speakeasy frequented by gangsters. She was noticed by Broadway producer Charles B. Dillingham, who gave her a role in "Bye, Bye, Bonnie" (produced by L. Lawrence Weber), which ran for six months. She then appeared in "Lucky" and as Mamie in "The Sidewalks of New York", also produced by Dillingham. In the later show, she was seen by Flo Ziegfeld, who sent her bunch of roses and a note, "May I make you a star?". She would appear in Ziegfeld's "Whoopee!" (before being replaced before the opening by Ethel Shutta) in 1928, the same year she married Al Jolson. The two met in Los Angeles (not at Texas Guinan's as he would claim), where Nils Granlund had sent her to assist in Loew's marketing campaign for "The Jazz Singer". Jolson was smitten and immediately proposed. The couple married September 21, 1928, in Port Chester, New York, in a private ceremony. The two sailed the following morning for a brief honeymoon before she began her tour with "Whoopee!" The marriage (during which they adopted a son) was reportedly a rocky one. They moved to California, which took her away from the limelight. In 1929, at the urging of Ziegfeld, Jolson agreed to Keeler's returning to Broadway to star in "Show Girl". In 1933, producer Darryl F. Zanuck cast Keeler in the Warner Bros. musical "42nd Street" opposite Dick Powell and Bebe Daniels. The film was a huge success due to Busby Berkeley's lavish innovative choreography. Following "42nd Street", Jack Warner gave Keeler a long-term contract and cast her in "Gold Diggers of 1933", "Footlight Parade", "Dames", and "Colleen". Keeler and Jolson starred together in "Go Into Your Dance". Frank Tashlin's 1937 cartoon, Jolson and Keeler appeared on Broadway one last time together for the unsuccessful show "Hold On To Your Hats" in 1940. Later life. After a difficult marriage, Keeler and Jolson were divorced in 1940. In 1941 she married John Homer Lowe and left show business the same year. Keeler and Lowe had four children. Lowe died of cancer in 1969. In 1963, Keeler appeared in "The Greatest Show on Earth", Jack Palance's television series based on the earlier Charlton Heston circus film of the same name. In 1972, Keeler was acclaimed as a star again in the successful Broadway revival of the 1920s musical "No, No, Nanette" along with fellow Irish-Americans Helen Gallagher and Patsy Kelly. The production was "Supervised by" Keeler's "42nd Street" director, Busby Berkeley, adapted and directed by Burt Shevelove and choreographed by Donald Saddler, who won the Tony Award for his musical staging. Ruby Keeler starred in the musical for two seasons on Broadway, followed by two additional years touring in the show. Family members in acting. Keeler had two nephews who also worked in the film business. Joey D. Vieira, also known as Donald Keeler, is best remembered for portraying chubby, beanie-wearing farm boy, Sylvester "Porky" Brockway on TV's "Lassie" (retitled "Jeff's Collie" in syndicated reruns and on DVD) from 1954 to 1957. Vieira's brother, Ken Weatherwax, played Pugsley Addams on the 1960s TV series "The Addams Family". Her son John Lowe had a career as a Broadway stage manager for a number of productions beginning with "No, No, Nanette" in 1970.
588967	Mughal-e-Azam ("The Emperor of the Mughals") is a 1960 Indian period epic film directed by K. Asif (Karimuddin Asif) and produced by Shapoorji Pallonji. The film stars Prithviraj Kapoor, Dilip Kumar, Madhubala and Durga Khote in the lead roles. The film loosely follows an episode in the life of the Mughal Prince Salim (who went on to become Emperor Jahangir) who falls in love with a court dancer Anarkali. The affair is disapproved of by his father, Emperor Akbar, and envied by a senior dancer who wishes to be a queen. Both Salim and Anarkali refuse to part with each other, leading to a war between father and son which the latter loses. Salim's life is spared in exchange for Anarkali's, who is eventually exiled. The development of "Mughal-e-Azam" began in 1944, when Asif read a play which was set during the reign of Emperor Akbar (1556-1605). Production of the film was plagued with communal tensions and financial uncertainty, almost to the point of bankruptcy. Prior to the film's principal photography, which began in the early 1950s, the film lost a financier and underwent a complete change in the cast. Upon completion, "Mughal-e-Azam" became the most expensive Indian film, to the extent that the filming of a single sequence cost more than the entire budget of a typical film. The soundtrack, heavily inspired from Indian classical and folk music, contains 12 songs, voiced by playback singers such as Lata Mangeshkar and classical music artist Ustad Bade Ghulam Ali Khan. It is often cited as one of the best soundtracks in Bollywood history. "Mughal-e-Azam" had the widest cinematic release for an Indian film at that time, and ticket sales often featured day-long queues of angry patrons. Upon its release on 5 August 1960, the film broke box office records in India, becoming the highest-grossing Bollywood film of all time, a distinction it held for 15 years. The film won accolades including one National Film Award and three Filmfare Awards. A colour version of the film was released in November 2004 and was also a commercial success. Today, "Mughal-e-Azam" is widely considered a classic, and is often recognised as a milestone in Indian cinema. Contemporary and modern critics have praised the film, commenting on its cinematic grandeur and attention to detail. Film scholars have commented about its effective portrayal of themes that have endured in Indian cinema, while also noting that it was not completely accurate in its presentation of period history. A poll conducted in 2013 by British Asian weekly newspaper "Eastern Eye" rated it as the greatest Bollywood film of all time. Plot. Emperor Akbar (Prithviraj Kapoor), who does not have a male heir, undertakes a pilgrimage to a shrine to pray that his wife Jodhabai (Durga Khote) will give birth to a son. Later, a maid brings the emperor the news of his son's birth. Overjoyed at his prayers being answered, Akbar gives the maid his ring and promises to grant her any wish she desires. The son, Prince Salim, grows to be a spoiled, flippant and pleasure-loving boy. His father sends him off to war to teach him courage and discipline. After 14 years, Salim returns as a distinguished soldier (Dilip Kumar). He falls in love with a court-dancer Nandira whom the emperor has renamed Anarkali (Madhubala), meaning pomegranate blossom. The relationship is discovered by the jealous Bahar (Nigar Sultana), a dancer of a higher rank, who attempts to force the prince to love her so that she may ascend to queenship. Unsuccessful in winning Salim's heart, she exposes the love between him and Anarkali. Salim pleads for Anarkali's hand, but his father objects and throws Anarkali into prison. Despite this, Anarkali refuses to reject Salim. Salim rebels and amasses his own army to confront Akbar. Salim is defeated in battle and is sentenced to death by his father, but is told that the sentence will be revoked if Anarkali, now in hiding, is handed over to die in his place. Akbar's subjects plead to spare his son, and Anarkali comes out of hiding to save the prince's life. She is condemned to death by being entombed alive. Before her sentence is carried out, she pleads to have a few hours with Salim as his make-believe wife. She is granted the wish, as she agrees to drug him afterwards so that he cannot interfere with her entombment. As she is being walled up, Akbar is reminded that he still owes a favour to Anarkali's mother, since she was the one who carried the message of Salim's birth to Akbar. Anarkali's mother begs for her daughter's life. The emperor relents, and arranges for Anarkali's secret escape with her mother into exile. He stipulates, though, that they are to live in total obscurity, and that Salim is never to know that Anarkali still lives. Production. Development. The Urdu poet Imtiyaz Ali Taaj wrote a novel based on the love story of Salim and Anarkali in 1922. The story is based more on a 16th-century legend than facts. A theatrical version of the novel was soon produced, and screen versions followed. Ardeshir Irani made a silent film named "Anarkali" in 1928 and remade it as a talkie in 1935. In the early 1940s, the tale of Anarkali inspired producer Shiraz Ali Hakeem and young director K. Asif to make another cinematic adaptation which they would title "Mughal-e-Azam". They recruited four Urdu writers to develop the screenplay and dialogue: Aman (Zeenat Aman's father, also known as Amanullah Khan), Wajahat Mirza, Kamaal Amrohi and Ehsan Rizvi. It is not known how the writers collaborated or split up their duties, but "The Times of India" said that their "mastery over Urdu's poetic idiom and expression is present in every line — giving the film, with its rich plots and intricate characters, the overtones of a Shakespearean drama." As the script neared completion, Asif cast Chandra Mohan, D.K. Sapru and Nargis for the roles of Akbar, Salim and Anarkali respectively. Shooting started in 1946 in Bombay Talkies studio. The project faced multiple hurdles which forced it to be abandoned. The political tensions and communal rioting surrounding India's 1947 partition and independence stalled the film's production. Shortly after partition, Shiraz Ali migrated to Pakistan, leaving Asif without a financier. The actor Chandra Mohan suffered a heart attack and died in 1949. Shiraz Ali had previously suggested that business tycoon Shapoorji Pallonji could finance the film. Pallonji did not know anything about film production but, after persuasion by Asif, agreed in 1950 to produce the film because of his interest in the history of Akbar. Production was then restarted with a new cast. Thinking that the film had been cancelled, Kamal Amrohi, one of the scriptwriters who was also a director, had planned to make a film on the same subject, but after Asif confronted him about it, Amrohi agreed to shelve his project. Another unrelated film production named "Anarkali", based on the same stage play, was released in 1953. That work, directed by Nandlal Jaswantlal, and starring Bina Rai and Pradeep Kumar, became the highest grossing Bollywood film of the year. Casting. Asif had initially rejected Dilip Kumar for the role of Prince Salim. Kumar himself was reluctant to act in a period film, but he accepted the role upon the insistence of the film's producer. According to Kumar, "Asif trusted me enough to leave the delineation of Salim completely to me". Kumar visited London to test the wig he would wear in the film. He faced difficulty while filming in Rajasthan due to the heat and the body armour he wore. The role of Anarkali had first been offered to Suraiya; but although Madhubala had acted in a number of films and was considered to be in the twilight of her career, she was longing for a significant role. When the character of Anarkali came to her, she "couldn't let it go." Madhubala suffered difficulty while filming, primarily because she suffered from congenital heart disease. She fainted on the sets, and suffered skin abrasions while filming the prison sequences, but remained dedicated to her work without much concern about her health. To become his character of Emperor Akbar, Prithviraj Kapoor was reported to have "relied completely on the script and director", and would look into a mirror as tall as himself before every shot. Prior to make-up, Kapoor would declare, ""Prithviraj Kapoor ab jaa rahaa hai"" ("Prithviraj Kapoor is now going"); after make-up, he would announce, ""Akbar ab aa rahaa hai"" ("Akbar is now coming"). Kapoor faced difficulty with his heavy armour, and suffered blisters on his feet after walking bare-footed in the desert for a particular sequence. Ustad Zakir Hussain, who later became a tabla maestro, had initially been considered for the role of Young Prince Salim, but it became the debut role of Jalal Agha, who later gained fame for his part in the song "Mehbooba Mehbooba" from "Sholay". Design. The film's production design, led by the art director M.K. Syed, was on a lavish scale. Some sets took six weeks to erect. The song "Pyar Kiya To Darna Kya" was filmed in Mohan Studios in a set built as a replica of the Sheesh Mahal in the Lahore Fort. This set was noted for its size, measuring in length, in breadth and in height. A much-discussed aspect of the set was the presence of numerous small mirrors made of Belgian glass, which were crafted and designed by workers from Firozabad. This set took two years to build, and cost more than 15 lakhs (valued at about US$314,465 in 1960), a price higher than the budget of an entire film at that time. The high cost increased fears that the financiers of the film would face bankruptcy. Skilled artisans from across India were recruited for crafting the props. The costume design was done by dress design firm Makhanlal and Company; tailors skilled at zardozi embroidery from Delhi stitched the Mughal costume. The footwear was ordered from Agra, the jewellery made by goldsmiths in Hyderabad, the crowns designed in Kolhapur, and blacksmiths from Rajasthan manufactured the armoury (which included shields, swords, spears, dagger and armour); the zardozi on costumes were also stitched by designers from Surat. A statue of Lord Krishna, to which Jodhabai prayed, was made of gold. In the scenes involving an imprisoned Anarkali, the chains Madhubala wore were authentic. The battle sequence between Akbar and Salim featured 2,000 camels, 400 horses and 8,000 troops. A significant portion of the soldiers were taken from the Indian Army's Jaipur cavalry, 56th Regiment. Principal photography. The principal photography of "Mughal-e-Azam" began in the early 1950s, with the exact year being disputed between 1951 and 1953. Filming was reportedly done three times for each sequence, as the film was being produced as in Hindi/Urdu, Tamil and English. The film was eventually dubbed in Tamil and released as "Akbar", but that version's commercial failure resulted in the abandoning of the planned English dubbing, for which British actors were considered. Asif was accompanied by an extensive crew, which included his assistant directors S. T. Zaidi, Khalid Akhtar, Surinder Kapoor (assisting primarily for the English version), and five others. Additional crew members included cinematographer R.D. Mathur, choreographer Lachhu Maharaj, production manager Aslam Noori, editor Dharamavir, makeup artists P.G. Joshi and Abdul Hamid, and sound director Akram Shaikh. Some sequences of the film were shot with up to 14 cameras, significantly more than the norm at that time. The film's lighting encountered number of challenges, with cinematographer Mathur reported to have taken eight hours to light a single shot. In total, 500 days of shooting were needed, compared to a normal schedule of 60 to 125 shooting days at the time. Due to the very large size of the Sheesh Mahal set, the lighting was obtained by using the headlights of 500 trucks and also about 100 reflectors. The presence of the mirrors on the set caused problems since they would sparkle under the lights. Consultants from Hollywood, including David Lean, told Asif to abandon the idea since they felt that it was impossible to film the scene under the intense glare. Asif confined himself to the set with the lighting crew, and subsequently overcame the problem by covering all the mirrors with a thin covering of wax, thereby getting rid of their reflective nature. In addition, Mathur used strategically placed strips of cloth to implement "bounce lighting", which reduced the glare. Filming suffered a number of problems and production delays, to the extent that Asif had considered not completing the film at one point. Kumar commented on the long time taken for principal photography to complete, but defended the duration due to the massive logistics of the film. He also stated that the entire cast and crew was "acutely conscious of the hard work would have to put in, as well as the responsibility [they would have to shoulder." The production suffered from financial problems, with Asif reported to have gone over-budget a number of times. The final budget of the film is a subject of debate, with some sources stating that "Mughal-e-Azam" cost 1.05 crores to produce, about $2 million at the time, while others claim it to be 1.5 crores, or about $3 million. This made "Mughal-e-Azam" the most expensive Indian film at that time; a number of estimates put the film's inflation-adjusted budget at 50 crores to 200 crores. The budget situation strained the relationship between Asif and Pallonji. The production also faced troubled relationships among other crew members; differences crept up between Asif and Kumar when the former married the latter's sister. Another source of trouble was the romantic relationship and ultimate break-up of Kumar and Madhubala, who had been dating for nine years. Post-production. By the end of filming, over a million feet of negative had been used, necessitating significant editing. A number of songs were edited out of the film due to the running time, which in the end was 197 minutes. A song titled "Ae Ishq Yeh Sab Duniyawale", picturised on Sheila Dalaya, was cut from the film. Similarly, the song "Husn Ki Baraat Chali", which was sung by three playback singers was cut from the film because a scene during which Prince Salim visits the royal boathouse and distributes gifts was removed from the final cut. In all, nearly half of the songs recorded for the film were ultimately left out. Sohrab Modi's "Jhansi Ki Rani" (1953) started the colour revolution in films in India. By 1957, colour filming was gaining an increasing presence in Indian films. Asif filmed one reel of "Mughal-e-Azam" in Technicolor which included the song "Pyar Kiya To Darna Kya". Impressed by the results, he also filmed three reels near the film's climax in Technicolor. After seeing those, he wanted to remake the entire film in Technicolor, angering impatient distributors who were not willing to accept further delays. Asif subsequently released the film partially coloured, though he wished to see the full film in a colour version. Themes. The general theme of "Mughal-e-Azam" is a family history which highlights the differences between father and son, duty to the public over family, and the trials and tribulations of women, particularly of courtesans. According to Rachel Dwyer, from her book "Filming the Gods: Religion and Indian Cinema", the film highlights religious tolerance of Hindu/Muslim relations through scenes of Hindu Queen Jodahabai's presence in the court of the Muslim Akbar, singing of a Hindu devotional song by Anarkali, and Akbar's participation in the Janmashtami celebrations of the Hindu god Krishna's birth. He is shown by pulling a string to rock a swing with an idol of Krishna on it; this is set to the song sequence of "Mohe Pangat Pe". Throughout the film there is a distinct depiction of Muslims as the ruling class who not only dressed differently but also spoke in complex Persianised dialogue. They are made to appear like a group "distinct and separate from the mainstream." The film scholar Stephen Teo posits that "Mughal-e-Azam" is an example of what he calls "monumental style"; a way of appropriating history and heritage to emphasise the national identity. Teo says that the theme of romantic love defeating social class difference and power hierarchy, as well as the grandeur of the filming, contribute to the attractiveness of the film. Scholars Bhaskar and Allen described the film as a "tableau vivant" of "Islamicate culture", evidenced in its ornate sets, musical sequences such as the "qawwali" scene, and chaste Urdu dialogues. The scholar Philip Lutgendorf said that while the theme of the conflict between passionate individual love and family duty may be very common to Hindi film making, with endless cinematic permutations, "for sheer baroque grandiosity, K. Asif's excessive elaboration of the theme remains in a class by itself." It is also extended up a level as the Emperor Akbar himself struggles between his personal desires and his duties to the nation. Lutgendorf says, "the Nation looms large throughout, and literally so in the opening and closing segments, when viewers are addressed by an enormous relief map that announces in a male voice, 'I am Hindustan' (India), and proclaims Akbar to have been one of his greatest devotees. The author Ashis Nandy noted that, apart from the conflict between Akbar and his son, there is also an "unwritten alliance" between Akbar and Bahar that compounds the problems of Anarkali. He also said that it highlighted the "idea of justice and the notion of unconditional love" to uphold tradition. The song "Pyar Kiya To Darna Kya" sung by Anarkali is an indication of her defiance of societal norms. A major difference from the original story is that while the earlier Anarakali films based on Imtiaz Ali Taj’s story ended as tragedies, K. Asif gave a happy ending to his film. Akbar gives amnesty to Anarkali by allowing her to escape through a secret route of tunnels below a false bottom of her prison wall. Historical accuracy. Although considered a historical epic film, "Mughal-e-Azam" takes liberties with history. The historian Alex von Tunzelmann says that although the real Salim was a heavy consumer of alcohol and opium, his bad habits started when he was 18; he was not necessarily a mischievous boy, as was depicted in the film. When the film's Salim returns from his time in the military, he is shown to be a gentle romantic hero, as opposed to the real Salim, who was a brutal person that would beat people to death, and was still often getting drunk. The real Salim did lead a rebellion against his father, tried to replace him as emperor, and had his friend Abu al-Fazl murdered in 1602, but the film ascribes these actions to his desire to marry Anarkali, which is not historically accurate. Anarkali is often regarded as a legend, though there are snippets of historical evidence for her existence. She may have been a painter or a courtesan. She may also have been one of Akbar's wives and the mother of Salim's half-brother Prince Daniyal. She could also have been a dancing girl among many in Akbar’s harem. There are also historians who doubt that Akbar had a wife named Jodabai. Though the film is based on a legend, it is given credence by being linked to the historical period of the greatest monarch of the Mughal Empire, Emperor Akbar (1556-1605). At least two Indian history books assert that Prince Salim was having a secret love affair with Anarkali, which is further supported by the fact that a marble tomb was built by him on her grave in Lahore in 1615, when he had become Emperor Jehangir. On the tomb is an inscription of a couplet. A single piece of marble carries the inscription which reads: ""Ta Kiyamat shukr geom kardgate khwesh ra, Aah garman bez benaam roo-e yare khwesh ra"", meaning in English: "Ah! could I behold the face of my love once more, I would give thanks to my God until the day of resurrection." Yet, the author of the play, Imtiyaz Ali Taaj, believed that this story had no historical base. Although the earlier film version of "Anarkali" displayed a disclaimer at the end stating that the story had no foundation in history, "Mughal-e-Azam" made no such claim. There were also discrepancies in sets, costumes, and music. The Sheesh Mahal, actually the royal bath of the queen, was in the film shown enlarged and turned into a dancing hall. Music and dancing styles from the 19th century were shown, though the story takes place in the 16th century. For example the "thumri", a musical instrument invented in the 19th century, is adopted in a dance sequence in Kathak style, which is a 16th-century dance form. Music. After conceiving the idea of the film, Asif visited music director Naushad Ali and handed him a briefcase containing money, telling him to make "memorable music" for "Mughal-e-Azam". Offended by the explicit notion of money as means of gaining quality, Naushad threw the notes out of the window, to the surprise of his wife. She subsequently made peace between the two men, and Asif apologised. With this, Naushad accepted the offer to direct the film's soundtrack. The lyrics were written by Shakeel Badayuni, with the opening lyrics of "Mohe Panghat Pe" being composed by Thakur Prasad, the choreographer's grandfather. As with most of Naushad's soundtracks, the soundtrack of "Mughal-e-Azam" was heavily inspired from Indian classical music and folk music, particularly the "ragas" such as the "Raga Durbari", the "Raga Durga", used in the composition of "Pyar Kiya To Darna Kya", and the "Raga Kedar", used in "Bekas Pe Karam Keejeye". He also made extensive use of symphony orchestras and choruses to add grandeur to the music. The soundtrack contained a total of 12 songs, which were rendered by both playback singers and classical music artists. These songs (a much reduced number compared to earlier genre of Bollywood films) still formed a substantial part of the film. In particular, the song and dance sequence presented in the Sheesh Mahal, Anarkali is reflected in every small mirror in the mahal. It was the first scene to be shot in colour in Indian Cinema, which was inserted in the middle of the black and white film to give effect, and it emphasized the typical role of such dance and music scenes in Bollywood films, much unrelated to the main story. Background. A total of 20 songs were composed for the film, at a cost of 3,000 (valued at about US$629 in 1960) per song, though many were left out of the final cut of the film. Both Asif and Naushad approached Hindustani classical vocalist Ustad Bade Ghulam Ali Khan with the request of participating in the film's soundtrack, but the latter refused since he disliked working in films. Asif, adamant about the presence of Khan, asked him to name his fee. Khan quoted a fee of 25,000 per song (at a time when Lata Mangeshkar and Mohammed Rafi charged 300–400 per song), thinking that Asif would send him away. Instead, Asif agreed, and even gave Khan a 50% advance. Surprised and left with no excuse to turn down the offer, he finally accepted. Khan sang two songs, "Prem Jogan Ban Ke Sunderi" and "Shubh Din Aayo", both of them qawwalis, which were included in the final film proved the virtuosity of Khan's singing. In the final cut, a number of songs were deleted due to the film's length. The composition of "Pyar Kiya To Darna Kya" was especially time-consuming – on the day of the song's recording, Naushad rejected two sets of lyrics made by Badayuni. Subsequently, a "brainstorming session" was held on Naushad's terrace, beginning in early evening and lasting until next day. Late in the night, Naushad remembered a folk song from eastern Uttar Pradesh with the lyrics ""Prem kiya, kya chori kari hai..."" ("I have loved, does it mean that I have stolen?"). The song was converted into a ghazal and subsequently recorded. At that time, since there was no technology to provide for the reverberation of sound heard in the song, Naushad had Mangeshkar sing the song in a studio bathroom. Some sources state that the song "Ae Mohabbat Zindabad" had singer Mohammed Rafi supported with a chorus of 100 singers, though other sources place the number at a thousand. The song "Mohe Panghat Pe" was objected to by veteran director Vijay Bhatt. Although he was not directly involved with the project, he thought that it would "ruin the film", since it spoke of the Hindu celebration of Janmashtami (an oddity since the song was depicted in the Mughal court). Though Naushad argued that the presence of Jodhabai made the situation logical, he met the film's screenwriters and subsequently added a dialogue which explained the sequence. At the time that the film was being colourised for re-release, the soundtrack was also reworked, with original composer Naushad receiving help from Uttam Singh. The score remained the same, but the sound was touched up and converted to Dolby Digital. The orchestral part was re-recorded with live musicians, but the original solo vocals were retained. The cost was reported to be between 26 Lakh and 65 Lakh. Critical response. The soundtrack of "Mughal-e-Azam" received universal acclaim from critics in India, and is often cited as one of the best soundtracks in Bollywood history. The album became one of the top selling Bollywood soundtracks of the 1960s. Shahid Khan, writing for Planet Bollywood, gave the soundtrack ten out of ten stars, and called the music the "soul of the film". In 2004, Subhash K. Jha reviewed the re-mastered release of the soundtrack, praising the technical quality of the re-release, and the original vocals of Lata Mangeshkar, whom he called the "Indian nightingale". Baldev S Chauhan of "Sun Post" called the songs "some of the greatest songs of Hindi cinema." Reception. Release. At the time of the release of "Mughal-e-Azam", a typical Bollywood film would garner a distribution fee of 3 lakhs–4 lakhs (about US$62,893–83,857 in 1960) per territory. Asif insisted on selling his film to the distributors at the rate of 7 lakhs per territory, making it clear that he would sell the film only as per his wish. Subsequently, the film was actually sold at a price of 17 lakhs (US$356,394) per territory, surprising Asif and the producers. Thus, it set the record for the highest distribution fee received by any Bollywood film at that time. The premiere of "Mughal-e-Azam" was held at the then-new, 1,100-capacity Maratha Mandir cinema in Mumbai. Mirroring the nature of the film, the cinema's foyer had been decorated to resemble a Mughal palace, and a cut-out of Prithviraj Kapoor was erected outside it. The Sheesh Mahal set was transported from the studio to the cinema, where ticket holders could go inside and experience its grandeur. Invitations to the premiere were sent as "royal invites" shaped like scrolls, which were written in Urdu and made to look like the "Akbarnama", the official chronicle of the reign of Akbar. The premiere was held amidst great fanfare, with large crowds and an extensive media presence, in addition to hosting much of the film industry, though Dilip Kumar himself did not attend the event due to his dispute with Asif. The film's reels arrived at the premiere cinema atop a decorated elephant, accompanied by the music of bugles and shehnai. Box office. The day before the film's bookings opened, a reported crowd of 100,000 had gathered outside the Maratha Mandir to buy tickets. The tickets, the most expensive for a Bollywood film at that time, were dockets containing text, photographs and trivia about the film, and are now considered collector's items. They sold for 100 (valued at about US$21 in 1960), compared to the usual price of 1.5 (US$0.31) for that time period. Bookings experienced major chaos, to the extent that police intervention was required. It was reported that people would wait in queues for four to five days, and would be supplied food from home through their family members. Subsequently, the Maratha Mandir closed bookings for three weeks. "Mughal-e-Azam" was released on 5 August 1960 in 150 cinemas across the country, setting the record for the widest cinematic release for a Bollywood film at that time. Upon release, it became a major commercial success, earning 40 lakh (US$838,574) in the first week, and eventually earning a net revenue of 5.5 crores (US$11,530,398), generating a profit of 3 crores (US$6,289,3088) for the producers. "Mughal-e-Azam" also experienced a long theatrical run, being screened to full capacity at the Maratha Mandir for three years. The film thus became the highest-grossing Bollywood film of all time by surpassing "Mother India" (1957), and retained this record until "Sholay" (1975) surpassed its net revenue. "The Hindu" has stated that "Mughal-e-Azam" is the highest-grossing Bollywood film of all time if adjusted for inflation. According to the online box office website Box Office India, the film's adjusted net revenue would amount to 132.7 crores, ranking it as an "All-Time Blockbuster". The trade magazine "Box Office" implemented a formula for adjusting box office collections, using the base price of gold and growth of multiplexes as factors, and calculated that "Mughal-e-Azam" is the highest-grossing Bollywood film of all time. Critical reception. "Mughal-e-Azam" received nearly universal acclaim from Indian critics, with every aspect of the film receiving praise. A contemporary review from the 1960s in "Filmfare Magazine" called it a "history-making film ... the work of a team of creative artists drawn from different spheres of the art world". It was also described as "a tribute to imagination, hard work and lavishness of its maker, Mr. Asif. For its grandeur, its beauty, and then performances of the artists it should be a landmark in Indian films." More recent reviewers have described the film as a "classic", "benchmark", or "milestone" in the history of Indian cinema. Anupama Chopra called the film "the best Hindi film ever made", writing "with its powerful performances, thunderous father-son drama and spectacular song-and-dance sequences, "Mughal-e-Azam" is the apotheosis of the Hindi film form." Taran Adarsh of Bollywood Hungama said, "The grandiose look, the haunting musical score, the breathtaking battle scenes, the splendid performances, the heart-rending emotions, the legendary romance between Salim and Anarkali and of course, the confrontation scenes between Akbar and Salim? "Mughal-e-Azam" will always remain a benchmark." Dinesh Raheja of Rediff called the film "a must-see classic," saying "a work of art is the only phrase to describe this historical [ work ] whose grand palaces-and-fountains look has an epic sweep and whose heart-wrenching core of romance has the tenderness of a feather's touch." Sujata Gupta of Planet Bollywood gave the film nine out of ten stars, calling it a must see for young and old alike. K.K. Rai, in his review for "Stardust" stated, "it can be said that the grandeur and vintage character of "Mughal-e-Azam" cannot be repeated, and it will remembered as one of the most significant films made in this country." Ziya Us Salam of "The Hindu" described "Mughal-e-Azam" as "a film you see not because you have not seen it, but simply because you cannot have enough of it!" Raja Sen of Rediff compared the film to "Spartacus" (1960) and said, ""Mughal-e-Azam" is awesomely, stunningly overwhelming, a magnificent spectacle entirely free of CGI and nonlinear gimmickry, a gargantuan feat of ... of ... well, of Mughal proportions!" Laura Bushell of BBC rated the film four out of five stars, commenting it was a "benchmark film for both Indian cinema and cinema grandeur in general"; she also stated that ""Mughal-E-Azam" is epic in every sense of the word." Nasreen Munni Kabir, author of "The Immortal Dialogue of K. Asif's Mugahl-e-Azam", described the film as "the Kohinoor, the diamond that shines bright in popular cinema." In his essay in Ashis Nandy's book "The Secret Politics of Our Desires: Innocence, Culpability and Indian Popular Cinema", Ziauddin Sardar said that "Mughal-e-Azam" is structured like a ghazal. Of the dialogues he said "the characters of "Mughal-e-Azam" do not just speak — they refine communication, they distil it, they crystallize it into many-faceted gems, they make poetry of ordinary language." Both "Outlook" and the "Hindustan Times" declared that the scene in which Salim brushes Anarkali with an ostrich feather was the "most erotic, sensuous scene in the history of Indian cinema." Accolades. "Mughal-e-Azam" received a number of nominations and awards. At the 1961 National Film Awards, the film won the National Film Award for Best Feature Film in Hindi. In the 1961 Filmfare Awards, "Mughal-e-Azam" was nominated in seven categories:- Best Film, Best Director (Asif), Best Actress (Madhubala), Best Playback Singer (Mangeshkar), Best Music (Naushad), Best Cinematography (Mathur) and Best Dialogues (Aman, Wajahat Mirza, Kamaal Amrohi, and Ehsan Rizvi), winning the awards for Best Film, Best Cinematography and Best Dialogues. Colourisation. The idea of colouring "Mughal-e-Azam" originated when Umar Siddiqui, managing director of the Indian Academy of Arts and Animation (IAAA), met representatives of the Shapoorji Pallonji group in 2002. To convince the company of the commercial viability of the project, the IAAA colourised a four-minute clip of the film and showed it to the Sterling Investment Corporation, which liked the result. Shapoorji Pallonji himself supported the idea, regretful of being unable to complete the original film in colour, and thinking of the colourisation as a tribute to Asif, who died before seeing his dream come to fruition. The first step towards colourisation was the restoration of the original negatives, which were in poor condition due to extensive printing of the negative during the original theatrical release. This process took extensive efforts, since restoration was essential for the colourisation. The process involved cleaning the negative of fungal growth, restoring the portions which were damaged with pinholes, and re-instating missing parts in the frames. After the cleaning, each of the 300,000 frames of the negative was scanned into a 10 megabytes-sized file. The restoration required significant labour and money to complete. The original sound track was also in a bad state of preservation, which necessitated getting it cleaned first in the US, after which the sound track was fully recreated by Naushad and his team. The process of colourisation was preceded by extensive research. The art departments visited museums and read books to understand the typical colours of clothing worn at that time. Siddiqui studied the technology used for the colourisation of black-and-white Hollywood classics. The team also approached a number of people for guidance and suggestions, including Dilip Kumar, production designer Nitin Chandrakant Desai and a historian from the Jawaharlal Nehru University in Delhi. To undertake the colourisation, Siddiqui brought together a team of around 100 individuals, including computer engineers and software professionals, and organised a number of art departments. The entire project was co-ordinated by Deepesh Salgia, who partnered with a number of companies like Iris Interactive and Rajtaru Studios to execute the colourisation. The task was controlled and supervised by the producers, who received daily updates and reports about the progress. The colourisation team spent 18 months to develop software for colouring the frames, called "Effects Plus", which was designed to accept only those colours whose hue would match the shade of grey present in the original film. This ensured that the colours added were as close to the real colour as possible; the authenticity of the colouring was later verified when a costume used in the film was retrieved from a warehouse, and its colours were found to closely match those in the film. Every shot was finally hand-corrected to perfect the look. The actual colourisation process took a further 10 months to complete. Siddiqui said that it had "been a painstaking process with men working round the clock to complete the project." The exact cost of the colourisation is debated, with a wide variety of estimates ranging from 2 crores to 5 crores, to 10 crores; this is more than the original cost to make the film (not considering inflation). Re-releases. The film's colour version was released theatrically on 12 November 2004, in 150 prints across India, 65 of which were in Maharashtra. The new release premiered at Eros theatre in Mumbai. Dilip Kumar was in attendance (he had not attended the original premiere). For the release, the colour version was edited to a running time of 177 minutes, as compared to the original version's running time of 197 minutes. This release also included a digitization and reworking of the soundtrack, in which the original composer Naushad participated. The theatrical release coincided with the Diwali weekend (a time when big film releases are common), with the film debuting against three other releases – "Veer-Zaara", "Aitraaz" and "Naach". It became the 19th highest grossing Bollywood film of the year, with 10 crores nett gross, behind "Aitraaz" and "Veer-Zaara" (the top grosser), but ahead of "Naach". "Mughal-e-Azam" became the first full-length feature film in the history of world cinema to be colourised for a theatrical re-release (some Hollywood films were colourised, but only for release on home media). It was then selected for seven international film festivals. Upon release, the film had full shows at theatres, with an overall occupancy of 90%. Subsequently, the film completed a 25-week run at the theatres. While some critics complained that the colours were "psychedelic" or "unnatural", there were others who hailed the effort as a technological achievement. Film critic Kevin Thomas of the "Los Angeles Times" remarked that while colourising is not a good idea for most black-and-white classics, it was perfect in this particular instance. He compared it to films by Cecil B. DeMille, and to "Gone With the Wind" (1939) for its larger-than-life storytelling. "The Guardian" said that although the new version was an improvement, "the fake colours tend to look flat and brash, detracting from cinematographer RD Mathur's elegantly composed shots." BBC's Jaspreet Pandohar observed that the film was "restored in appealing candy-colours and high quality sound" and compared it as a "cross between "Gone With the Wind" and "Ben-Hur". Other critics have said that they prefer the black and white version. In 2006, "Mughal-e-Azam" became only the fourth Indian film certified for showing in Pakistan since the 1965 ban on Indian cinema, being released in the country with a premiere in Lahore. It was distributed in the country by Nadeem Mandviwala Entertainment, at the request of K. Asif's son, Akbar Asif. A 3D version of the film was reported to be in the works as of 2009. Legacy. "Mughal-e-Azam" remained one of only two films K. Asif ever directed; one of his unfinished films was released posthumously as a tribute. Over time, the name of the film itself has become a part of Bollywood vernacular, with the words often being heard on the sets of modern films. For example, if a craftsman takes longer than necessary on a job, the impatient art director might say "Finish quickly, do you think we are making "Mughal-e-Azam"?". Art director Omung Kumar, who has designed sets for major Indian films such as "Black" (2005) and "Saawariya" (2007), said that he and others in his field even today look up to "Mughal-e-Azam" as a source of inspiration when it comes to art direction. The film has also been used as a model for the perfect love story in the years that followed. As a result, many directors have been pressured not to make a love story where there is no barrier coming between the lovers. The film has been called the "crowning glory" of Madhubala's career. After this film, she could have had the best of roles, but was advised not to overwork due to her heart condition, and was unable even to finish some films that were already underway. Filmmaker Subhash Ghai was quoted as saying that a film like this could never be repeated. ""Mughal-e-Azam" is an all-time classic and has been the ultimate love story in Hindi cinema at all levels. So it will always remain alive for generations to come." To commemorate the film's anniversary, actor and producer Shahrukh Khan, who is a fan of the film and a friend of Akbar Asif, had his company Red Chillies Entertainment produce a documentary video on the film. It was called "Mughal-E-Azam — A Tribute by a son to his father"; it included interviews with K. Asif's family and Bollywood stars, and was hosted by Khan himself. In connection with this video, artist M.F. Husain created a series of paintings re-imagining some of the memorable scenes. Khan is also interested in preserving the film for future generations, and noted that his father was originally cast in the film, but did not complete it. When asked if "Mughal-e-Azam" should be remade, he disagreed, adding "It is the mother of all films; mothers cannot be remade". Though no sequels have ever been made, the film "Maan Gaye Mughal-e-Azam" (2008) paid tribute with its title and by including in its plot a portion of the original stage play. It received very poor ratings from critics. Several books and documentaries have been made about the film, including Shakil Warsi's book "Mughal-E-Azam – An Epic of Eternal Love", released in 2009. "Mughal-e-Azam" often ranks on lists of top Indian films, such as the 2002 British Film Institute poll of "Top 10 Indian Films", and Anupama Chopra's 2009 list, "The Best Bollywood Films". , Rotten Tomatoes sampled six reviewers and judged them all to be positive, with an average rating of 8.5 out of 10. It is second on Box Office India's list of "Biggest Blockbusters Ever in Hindi Cinema". It belongs to only a small collection of films, including "Kismet" (1943), "Mother India" (1957), "Sholay" (1975) and "Hum Aapke Hain Koun..!" (1994), which are repeatedly watched throughout India and are viewed as definitive Hindi films with cultural significance. The film was named the greatest Bollywood film of all time by a poll celebrating 100 years of Indian cinema by British Asian weekly newspaper "Eastern Eye" in July 2013.
1040038	Sophie Thompson (born 20 January 1962) is an English actress, best known for playing Stella Crawford in "EastEnders". Early life. The second daughter born in 1962, to actress Phyllida Law and actor Eric Thompson, Sophie is the younger sister of twice Academy Award-winning actress and screenwriter Emma Thompson. Career. Sophie Thompson has worked in film, television, theatre and radio, and has narrated a number of audiobooks. She made her debut in 1978, at the age of 16, starring in "A Traveller in Time", before going on to study at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School. Film. Big-screen roles include "Four Weddings and a Funeral", "Eat Pray Love", "Emma", "Dancing at Lughnasa", "Gosford Park", "Fat Slags", "Relative Values" and "". Thompson appeared in "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" in 2010, as Mafalda Hopkirk and Hermione Granger disguised as Hopkirk. Television. Thompson starred alongside popular British comedians Alan Davies, in "Jonathan Creek", and Lee Evans in "So What Now?" She has also appeared in "Persuasion", "Midsomer Murders", "The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes", "A Harlot's Progress" and "Magnolia". She played Miss Bartlett in Andrew Davies' 2007 adaptation of E.M. Forster's "A Room with a View" and also appeared in the last episode of series 4 of Doc Martin. Thompson played the role of child abuser Stella Crawford in the BBC One soap opera "EastEnders". She came into show as Phil Mitchell's lawyer and they gradually developed a romantic link. Stella later became jealous of Phil's relationship with his son Ben and began to emotionally and physically abuse him — becoming one of soaps most-hated villains. Thompson left "EastEnders" on 20 July 2007, after the exposure of Stella's evil ways on her wedding day led to the character's suicide. In 2009, Thompson appeared in the BBC One comedy series "Big Top". Thompson was also a main part in the three part television series 'Love Life' on ITV in 2012. Radio. In a BBC Radio play "Blue Veils and Golden Sands" by Martyn Wade first broadcast in December 2002, Thompson stars as Delia Derbyshire. The play portrays Derbyshire taking a somewhat mournful, reflective look back over her life, as she approaches the end. Theatre. In 1996, Thompson played the role of Amy in Sam Mendes' acclaimed Donmar Warehouse revival of "Company", receiving an Olivier Award nomination for her performance. She also appeared as the Baker's Wife in the Donmar's revival of "Into The Woods", which garnered her the 1999 Olivier Award for Best Actress in a Musical. She also played Ophelia in the Renaissance Theatre Company production of "Hamlet" in 1988 in Birmingham, later touring around England. That production was directed by Sir Derek Jacobi and starred Kenneth Branagh as Hamlet, Richard Easton as Claudius and Dearbhla Molloy as Gertrude. A film documentary called "Discovering Hamlet" was made of the process of producing and rehearsing this play. It was released in 1990, and a DVD version was released in 2010. Personal life. Sophie Thompson has been married to actor Richard Lumsden since 1995. They have two sons — Ernie James (born 1997) and Walter Eric (born 2000) — and live in London. Thompson is a charity ambassador of CINI (Child In Need India) which helps poor mothers and children in India and ran the 2010 London Marathon for the charity. Filmography. Film. Dancing at Lughnasa (1998) .. Rose Mundy
581895	Hum Tum (, translation: Me and You) is a Bollywood romantic comedy movie, released in India on 28 May 2004, directed by Kunal Kohli and produced by Aditya Chopra and Yash Chopra under the Yash Raj Films banner. The movie stars Saif Ali Khan and Rani Mukerji in the lead roles.
1044528	From Beyond the Grave is a 1974 British anthology horror film from Amicus Productions, directed by horror director Kevin Connor, produced by Milton Subotsky and based on stories by R. Chetwynd-Hayes It was the last in a series of anthology films from Amicus and was preceded by "Dr. Terror's House of Horrors" (1965) "Torture Garden" (1967), "The House That Dripped Blood" (1970), "Asylum" (1972), "Tales from the Crypt" (1972), "The Vault of Horror" (1973). Originally filmed as "The Undead", it is also known as "The Creatures", "Tales from Beyond the Grave", and "Tales from the Beyond". Plot. Four customers purchase (or take) items from Temptations Limited, an antiques shop whose motto is "Offers You Cannot Resist". A nasty fate awaits those who cheat the shop's Proprietor (Peter Cushing). The Gatecrasher Edward Charlton (David Warner) purchases an antique mirror for a knockdown price, having tricked the Proprietor into believing it is a reproduction. When he takes it home, Charlton holds a séance at the suggestion of his friends, and falls into a trance. He finds himself in a netherworld where he is approached by a sinister figure. The figure appears to stab him, and Charlton awakes screaming. Later, the figure's face appears in the mirror and orders Charlton to kill so that he can "feed". Charlton butchers people until the apparition is able to manifest himself outside of the mirror. The figure then explains that Charlton must do one more thing before the figure can walk abroad and join the others like him. The figure says he will take Charlton "beyond the ultimate", and persuades Charlton to kill himself by impaling himself on a knife. The mirror stays in Charlton's flat for years after his death, until the latest owner also decides to hold a séance. Once the séance starts, Charlton's hungry spectre appears in the mirror. An Act of Kindness Christopher Lowe (Ian Bannen)is a frustrated middle management drone trapped in a loveless marriage with Mabel (Diana Dors). Bullied by his wife, and shown no respect by his son, he befriends Jim Underwood (Donald Pleasence) an old soldier now scratching out a living as a match and shoe lace seller. In an effort to impress, Lowe tells Underwood that he is a decorated soldier. To back up this lie, he tries to persuade the Proprietor to sell him a Distinguished Service medal. When the Proprietor asks that Lowe provide the certificate to prove he had previously been awarded the medal, Lowe steals the medal. Underwood is impressed by the medal, and asks Lowe to come to his house for tea. Once there he meets Underwood's daughter, Emily (Angela Pleasence). Over time Lowe is seduced by Emily's frankly rather creepy charms, and they start an affair. Emily then produces a miniature doll of Mabel, and holds a knife to it. She asks Lowe to order her to do his will. Lowe agrees that she should cut the doll. When she does, a drop of blood appears from its mouth. A disturbed Lowe dashes home to find Mabel dead. Underwood and Emily then appear at Lowe's home, and walk in to the sound of the wedding march. Later, Emily and Lowe are married. Lowe's son (played by the future writer John O'Farrell) and Jim Underwood attend the wedding. When the time comes to cut the cake, Emily asks all present whether they wish her to. They all agree and Emily brings the knife down, but rather than cut the cake, she cuts into the head of the decorative groom on top. Blood pours out of it, and Lowe falls on to the table, dead. Underwood and Emily explain to Lowe's son that they always answer the prayers of a child "in one way or another". The Elemental Reggie Warren (Ian Carmichael) is a somewhat pompous business man who enters Temptations Ltd and puts the price tag of a cheaper snuff box in the one he wants to buy, whilst out of sight. The Proprietor sells him the box at the altered price, bidding him farewell with a cheery "I hope you enjoy snuffing it." On the train home, an apparently batty old clairvoyant/white witch, Madame Orloff (Margaret Leighton) disturbs Warren whilst he reads his paper, advising him he has an Elemental on his shoulder. Warren dismisses her, but has cause to call on her services when his dog disappears and his wife Susan (Porter) is attacked and choked half to death by an unseen force. Orloff exorcises the Elemental from Warrens' home, and all seems well—even the dog returns. Later though the Warrens hear noises up stairs, and Reggie heads up to investigate. He is knocked down and falls to the foot of the stairs, unconscious. When he awakes, he finds Susan possessed by the elemental. She/It says Reggie tried to deny her life, and kills him before cackling and having a smashing time walking through the front door. The Door William Seaton (Ian Ogilvy) is a writer who purchases an ancient ornate door from the Proprietor. He is unable to meet the Proprietor's asking price, but agrees a reduced price with him. When the Proprietor goes to the back of the shop to note Seaton's details, he leaves the till open. After Seaton leaves, the Proprietor starts counting the money in the till. Seaton's wife, Rosemary (Lesley-Anne Down) thinks the door is too grand to lead to stationery cupboard, but when she touches it seems to be able to see what originally lay behind it. The Door begins to exert a strange fascination over Seaton, and he finds that when he opens it a mysterious blue room lies beyond. There, he finds the notes of Sir Michael Sinclair (Watson), an evil occultist who created the door as a means to trap those who entered through it, so that Sinclair can take their souls and live forever. Seaton escapes, but when he tries to leave his house he finds that the door's influence has spread, and he and Rosemary are trapped. In a trance, Rosemary is unable to stop herself from opening to the door and entering the room, where she is incapacitated by Sinclair. Sinclair carries her through the doorway, mocking Seaton by asking him to follow, as two souls are better than one. Seaton starts to smash the door with an axe, and the room and Sinclair start to crumble. Seaton tries to rescue Rosemary, but is attacked by Sinclair. Seaton has Rosemary continue axing the door, and manages to break free. They continue demolishing the door, destroying the room and turning Sinclair to a skeleton and then dust when they break the door from its hinges. Back at the shop, the Proprietor finishes counting and finds all the money present and correct. Between each of the segments, a shady character is seen to be casing the shop. In the end, he enters and persuades the Proprietor to hand him two loaded antique pistols. He then tries to rob the Proprietor, who refuses to hand him any money and walks towards the thief. The thief shoots, but finds bullets cannot stop the Proprietor. Terrified, the thief staggers back, is hit by a swinging skeleton, falls into what appears to be a combination of a coffin and an iron maiden, and is spiked to death. "Nasty", the Proprietor says. The Proprietor then welcomes the viewer as his next customer, and explains he caters for all tastes, and that each purchase comes with "a big novelty surprise". Critical reception. Allmovie's review of the film was generally favourable, writing, "The last of the Amicus anthologies is a fun, old-fashioned example of the form."
1056112	36 Hours (1965) is an American suspense film, based on the short story "Beware of the Dog" by Roald Dahl. It stars James Garner, Eva Marie Saint, and Rod Taylor and was directed by George Seaton. On 2 June 1944, a German army doctor tries to obtain vital information from an American military intelligence officer by convincing him that it is 1950 and World War II is long over. Plot. Having attended General Eisenhower's final briefing on the Normandy landings (D-Day), U.S. Army Major Jeff Pike (James Garner) is sent to Lisbon to confirm with an informant that the Nazis still expect the invasion in the wrong place. However, Pike falls into a trap; he is drugged into unconsciousness and transported to Germany. When Pike wakes up, he is in what seems to be a U.S. Army Hospital. His hair is graying, and he needs glasses to read. He is told it is six years later and the hospital is in Occupied Germany, even though he has no memory of the intervening period. An Army psychiatrist, Major Walter Gerber (Rod Taylor) explains that he has been having episodes of memory loss for the past few years, ever since he sustained physical trauma in Portugal in June 1944. He advises Pike not to worry, as his blocked memories have always resurfaced within a few weeks, helped along by a treatment that mostly consists of remembering events prior to Lisbon and then pushing on into the blank period. Gerber is assisted by a nurse, the dispassionate Anna Hedler (Eva Marie Saint). To support the illusion that he has been a hospital patient for some time, Pike is provided with letters supposedly written by his father and photos of his parents—Gerber has been researching Pike for many months to prepare for this event—and Hedler tells Pike she is his wife. Pike is completely taken in and is gratified that his pre-Lisbon memories, at least, are intact and clear. For instance, he remembers the D-Day briefing as if it happened only yesterday, which, of course, it did. As part of the therapy, he recounts the details of the invasion plans, including the all-important location of Normandy (rather than Pas de Calais, as believed by the German High Command) and the date, June 5. When Pike notices that a nearly invisible paper cut he got in 1944 has not healed yet, he realizes that it is a hoax. Gerber, as it turns out, is a German-American who had returned to the Fatherland to serve the Nazi cause. He likes Pike and readily admits the deception. He says he originally developed genuine techniques to treat amnesia in young soldiers returning from the Russian Front; but they had been perverted to this purpose. Pike's hair had been dyed, of course; and an injection of atropine had impaired his close vision. However, when Pike claims he knew the truth all along and his statements about Normandy were a cover story, Gerber is skeptical. With the assistance of Anna, who was recruited from a concentration camp because she was a nurse and spoke English, Pike also convinces SS Officer Schack (Werner Peters) that he knew all along it was a ruse. Schack now believes the invasion will be at Calais. Gerber, though, does not, so he plays one last trick, setting the clock in Pike's room ahead several hours. When Pike thinks the invasion has already begun, he lets his guard down and confirms Gerber's suspicions about the Normandy invasion. Gerber then sends an emergency dispatch, which Schack intercepts and disregards, even suggesting Gerber may be a double agent. As it happens, the weather is too rough; and Eisenhower postpones the invasion a day, discrediting Gerber, and Schack orders Gerber's arrest. Gerber knows that Schack will return to kill them when the Normandy information proves correct, so that his blunder is not revealed. The doctor secretly lets Anna and Pike go, asking Pike to take his psychological research papers on true amnesiacs with him to the West. When he hears the news of the Normandy landing, he takes poison. When Schack shows up, Gerber tries to shoot him but dies too soon. Schack pursues the escaped couple alone, ordering his men to follow when they are assembled. During their escape, Anna tells Pike of the abuse in the camp, which has left her emotionless. She and Pike go to the local minister, where they are referred to a frankly corrupt, middle-aged German border guard, Sgt. Ernst (John Banner), who is willing to help them cross into Switzerland in return for Pike's watch and Hedler's gold ring. Ernst gives the minister's housekeeper, Elsa (Celia Lovsky), the ring. After the couple and Ernst head for the border, Schack shows up at the manse. When he sees Hedler's gold ring on Elsa’s finger, he forces her to tell him where to find the escapees. Schack catches up with Pike and Hedler at the border, but Ernst shoots him because he doesn't want Schack to mess up his human-smuggling business. Ernst and Pike arrange Schack’s body to make it look as if he had been killed while trying to escape. Safely in Switzerland, Pike and Hedler are put in separate cars. Pike is told he will be taken to the U.S. Embassy, while Hedler's fate is uncertain. Hedler cries, her first display of emotion in years. In the final scene, the cars come to a fork in the road, with one turning left, to the Embassy, and the other turning right, to a refugee camp. Production. Most of the film was shot in Yosemite National Park.
1054346	Itty Bitty Titty Committee is a feminist, lesbian-related comedy film directed by Jamie Babbit. It was released on September 28, 2007. The film had its premiere at the international film festival Berlinale on February 9, 2007, where it was nominated for a Teddy Award for Best Feature. It had its American premiere at SXSW in March where it won the Jury Prize for Best Feature. The film was produced by non-profit organization POWER UP. Plot. Anna has been rejected by her college, her girlfriend broke up with her, and her big sister is getting married. She meets Sadie, who invites her to join Clits In Action, or C(i)A, a radical Third-wave feminist group. Anna soon gets in touch with her political side. She takes part in illegal activism with the group and becomes more aggressive in her daily life. Anna starts falling for Sadie, who has been involved for years with an older woman named Courtney. Courtney works with a more mainstream feminist organization and disagrees with the C(i)A's method of creating awareness through public art, which usually involves vandalism. The group travels to take part in a gay marriage protest - instead of being for or against it, they argue that marriage is the wrong goal, as it is an institution rooted in sexism. Despite being warned by another member of the C(i)A, Meat, that Sadie uses people, Anna shares a night of passion with her while they stay in a hotel. At the rally the next day, the outspoken Shulamith ends up nearly coming to blows with a protester. The fight is caught by a local news crew and the group's message is misconstrued as violent and homophobic. Meat also reveals that their website - which they considered the center of their activism - has not received hits from anyone besides themselves. C(i)A attempts to have a meeting at Courtney's home, but personal conflicts come to a head. Anna believes Sadie is going to leave Courtney to be with her, but Sadie remains dependent on her partner. Meat and Shulamith announce that they're giving up on the group, Sadie stays behind with Courtney, and Aggie (a transgender man, the only guy allowed in the group) comforts Anna, who is heartbroken over Sadie's rejection and the loss of the C(i)A. They end up partying together and having a one-night stand. In the morning, Aggie has prepared breakfast and procured a flower for Anna, who only considers him a friend. Sadie arrives to talk about what happened the night before. Anna tries to explain that her night with Aggie meant nothing. He overhears and is deeply hurt. Sadie leaves and Anna finds herself truly alone. In an attempt to fix things, Anna formulates a master plan to get C(i)A national attention. Meat and Shulamith like her idea, but insist she must make things right with Aggie. Anna apologizes, Aggie forgives her, and the four carry out the plan, without Sadie.
1165716	Paul Vincent Picerni, Sr. (December 1, 1922 – January 12, 2011), was an American actor with a long, distinguished career in film and television, perhaps best known today in the role of Federal Agent Lee Hobson, second-in-command to Robert Stack's "Eliot Ness" in the ABC hit television series, The Untouchables.
1056194	Kiss of the Dragon is a 2001 martial arts action film, directed by Chris Nahon, co-written and produced by Luc Besson, and starring Jet Li, Bridget Fonda, and Tchéky Karyo. The film was made in response to Li's fans requesting more realistic fight scenes, and is notable as most of the action sequences did not use CGI or wire work; only two scenes required CGI enhancement and only one scene involved wire work. Wire work was also added to one of the last fight sequences between Li and Cyril Raffaelli, only to add clarity to Raffaelli's kicks, as he was moving too fast for the camera. Nahon was also required to slow down this fight scene, as both Li and Raffaelli moved too quickly to be captured clearly at normal recording speed. The film is based on a story by Li. The French Versions is notably different than others in that it contains an a zoomed out shot of Tcheky Karyo shooting one of his henchmen in the head showing blood coming out the back, this was cropped out of most international versions of the movie. Plot. Liu Siu-jian (Jet Li), a Chinese intelligence agent, is sent to Paris to help apprehend Chinese mob boss Mr. Big (Ric Young), who is involved in heroin smuggling. He meets Inspector Jean-Pierre Richard (Tchéky Karyo), a corrupt and violent French police detective, at a hotel. Richard tricks Liu into believing he is simply providing reconnaissance of a meet involving Mr. Big. The plans are changed when Mr. Big is introduced to two prostitutes, one being Jessica Kamen (Bridget Fonda), an American woman, who takes him to his room to service him. While Liu and the rest are watching through the surveillance camera, Mr. Big kicks everyone out except for the two prostitutes. After pretending to seduce him, one of the prostitutes then stabs Mr. Big. Overseeing the events from a surveillance room, Liu rushes to stop the killing, but Richard enters shortly later to shoot Mr. Big and the prostitute with Liu's police-issued handgun, framing Liu for the murders. Realizing he has been set up, Liu manages to escape from the hotel with a surveillance tape showing Richard shooting Mr. Big. Chinese liaisons are sent to France after the events to investigate the matter, as Richard makes Liu the primary suspect. However, the liaisons do not believe the story Richard provides. Liu manages to contact one of the liaisons, and passes on to him the tape that reveals the truth. Due to French police surveillance, the meet between the liaison and Liu is spotted, and the liaison is assassinated. After Liu escapes, he is forced to maintain a low profile. As he considers his situation, he meets Jessica, whose daughter was kidnapped by Richard to force her into prostitution. Liu discovers Jessica was the second prostitute at the hotel during the night of Mr. Big's murder. He realizes she can prove his innocence, but she refuses to go without her retrieving her daughter, Isabel. Liu decides the tape would provide the best evidence, and sends Jessica to Richard's office to steal the tape. Jessica manages to get the tape, so Liu and Jessica head to an orphanage where Isabel is kept. However, Richard anticipates this move after discovering Jessica has stolen the tape, and ambushes the couple at the orphanage. During their escape, Jessica is shot in the chest. Liu manages to get her to the hospital in time, and becomes driven to retrieve her daughter. Liu arrives at the police station where Richard is holding Isabel hostage, and fights his way through Richard's henchmen to his office. Once at the office, Liu rescues Isabel, getting shot by Richard in the process. To save Isabel, Liu kills Richard by sticking an acupuncture needle into the back of his neck in a forbidden location known as the "kiss of the dragon," which stimulates all the body's blood to travel to the brain to cause a painful death via a brain aneurysm. Liu survives the gunshot wound, and returns Isabel to her mother. Origin of title. The title "Kiss of the Dragon" is derived from one of the last scenes in the movie, in which Liu punctures Richard in the back of the neck with an acupuncture needle at a "very forbidden" point on the body. The puncture itself, called "kiss of the dragon", traps all the body's blood in the head and causes side effects of quadriplegia, bleeding from the head's orifices, and a painful death via a brain aneurysm. Reception. The movie was met with mixed reaction from critics., however the fans reaction was more positive, being an improvemnt over jet li's other American films (Romeo Must Die, The One and Cradle 2 the Grave). Due to its violence, "Kiss of the Dragon" was banned in China. Box office. "Kiss of the Dragon" opened at 2,025 North American theaters on July 6, 2001 to an opening weekend gross of $13,304,027 ($6,569 per screen). It went on to a total North American gross of $36,845,124. Its total worldwide box office gross is $64,437,847. Soundtrack. The soundtrack was released on July 3, 2001 through Virgin Records and consisted mainly of a blend of hip hop and electronic music.
1061006	Amelia Fiona "Minnie" Driver (born 31 January 1970) is an English actress and singer-songwriter. She was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in the film "Good Will Hunting", and an Emmy Award and a Golden Globe for her work in the television series "The Riches". Early life. Driver was born in London, the daughter of Gaynor Churchward (née Millington), a designer and former couture model, and Ronnie Driver, a Yorkshire businessman and financial adviser from Swansea. Ronnie Driver was acknowledged as a war hero and awarded the Distinguished Flying Medal for bravery shown as a gunner in an RAF Wellington bomber during the Battle of Heligoland Bight in 1939 when his aircraft was shot down. Minnie Driver was brought up in Barbados and was educated at Bedales and the Webber Douglas Academy of Dramatic Art. Driver has English, Italian, Irish, Scottish, German and French ancestry. Acting career. Driver's television debut was in a 1991 UK TV advertisement for Right Guard deodorant. Driver also made her stage debut in 1991, supplementing her income by performing as a jazz vocalist and guitarist. She appeared on British television with comedians such as Steve Coogan and Armando Iannucci and had small parts in such shows as "Casualty", "The House of Eliott", "Lovejoy", and "Peak Practice". Driver first came to broad public attention when she played the lead role in "Circle of Friends" in 1995. She followed this with a string of supporting roles in big studio films like the 17th James Bond installment "GoldenEye" (1995), "Sleepers" (1996), and "Grosse Pointe Blank" (1997). She achieved greater recognition playing opposite Matt Damon in Gus Van Sant's "Good Will Hunting" (1997), a role for which she was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress and a Screen Actors Guild Award, among others. In 2003 and 2004, she had a noted recurring role on "Will & Grace" as Lorraine Finster, the nemesis of Karen Walker (Megan Mullally) and daughter of Karen's lover, Lyle Finster (John Cleese). Driver has also worked on several animated features, voicing Jane in Disney's 1999 version of "Tarzan", and "Lady Eboshi" in the 1999 English dubbed release of the Japanese film "Princess Mononoke". On 12 March 2007, Driver made her return to television starring alongside Eddie Izzard on the FX Network show "The Riches", a series about a family of Travellers living in an upscale gated community in the suburbs. She was nominated for an Emmy Award and a Golden Globe Award as Best Lead Actress in a Drama Series in 2007 and 2008, respectively. Driver guest-starred in the January 2010 episode of "Modern Family" entitled "Moon Landing". Her role was that of Claire's friend and former co-worker whom she hasn't seen in years. She also starred alongside James Nesbitt and Goran Visnjic in the British series "The Deep", which was shown on BBC One over the summer of 2010. In 2010, Driver appeared in "Conviction", a film depicting the real-life story of Betty Ann Waters (Hilary Swank), a single mother who spends a decade pursuing a law degree so she can represent her wrongfully convicted brother (played by Sam Rockwell) at court. Driver plays a fellow law student and friend of Swank's character who helps her with the case. The film received generally positive reviews according to the review aggregate Rotten Tomatoes listing an average score of 6.3/10 and a 68% of approval from critics. Also in 2010, Driver starred alongside Paul Giamatti in the comedy-drama "Barney's Version". According to Rotten Tomatoes, the film received an 80% of positive reviews from critics and Driver herself went on to win a Genie Award for Best Supporting Actress. Music career. Early in her career, Driver was a member of a band called "Puff, Rocks and Brown"; the band was signed to a development deal with Island Records, which ended without a release. She began a low-profile return to music in 2000; the following year, she signed with EMI and Rounder Records and performed at SXSW. Canadian music producer Colin Craig assisted in the eventual release of "Everything I've Got in My Pocket", which reached No. 34 in the UK, and a second single, "Invisible Girl" peaking at No. 68. The album was backed by a group including members of the Wallflowers and Pete Yorn's band. Driver wrote 10 of the 11 songs on the album and also covered "Hungry Heart" from Bruce Springsteen's "The River". In 2004, Driver was the support act for the Finn Brothers on the UK portion of their world tour. In 2004, Driver played Carlotta Giudicelli in Joel Schumacher's film of "The Phantom of the Opera". Because of the vocal requirements of the role, Driver was the sole cast member to have her voice dubbed. However, she did lend her own voice to "Learn to be Lonely", a song written by Andrew Lloyd Webber specifically for the film version of his musical (it plays over the closing credits of the movie). Driver released her second album entitled "Seastories" on 17 July 2007. The 12-track set is produced by Marc "Doc" Dauer, who also produced "Everything I've Got in My Pocket". Ryan Adams and his band the Cardinals and Liz Phair are among the list of collaborators for the album. Personal life. On 5 September 2008, Driver gave birth to a son, Henry Story Driver but she did not reveal the identity of the father at that time. In February 2012, she revealed that her son's father was a writer on her television show "The Riches". Driver dated "Good Will Hunting" co-star Matt Damon in a high profile celebrity relationship under intense media scrutiny. She was once engaged to Josh Brolin, but the pair amicably split.
1102394	Ferdinand Gotthold Max Eisenstein (16 April 1823 – 11 October 1852) was a German mathematician. He specialized in number theory and analysis, and proved several results that eluded even Gauss. Like Galois and Abel before him, Eisenstein died before the age of 30. He was born and died in Berlin, Prussia. Early life. He was born into Jewish family, and his parents were Johan Konstantin Eisenstein and Helene Pollack. Before Gotthold, their first child, was born, they had converted from Judaism to become Protestants. From an early age, he demonstrated talent in mathematics and music. As a young child he learned to play piano, and he continued to play and compose for piano throughout his life. He suffered various health problems throughout his life, including meningitis as an infant, a disease which took the lives of all five of his brothers and sisters. In 1837, at the age of 14, he enrolled at Friedrich Wilhelm Gymnasium, and soon thereafter at Friedrich Werder Gymnasium in Berlin. His teachers recognized his talents in mathematics, but by 15 years of age he had already learned all the material taught at the school. He then began to study differential calculus from the works of Leonhard Euler and Joseph-Louis Lagrange. At 17, still a student, Eisenstein began to attend classes given by Peter Gustav Lejeune Dirichlet and others at the University of Berlin. In 1842, before taking his final exams, he traveled with his mother to England, to search for his father. In 1843 he met William Rowan Hamilton in Dublin, who gave him a copy of his book on Niels Henrik Abel's proof of the impossibility of solving fifth degree polynomials, a work which would stimulate Eisenstein's interest in mathematical research. Five remarkable years. In 1843 Eisenstein returned to Berlin, where he passed his graduation exams and enrolled in the University the following autumn. In January 1844 he had already presented his first work to the Berlin Academy, on cubic forms in two variables. The same year he met for the first time with Alexander von Humboldt, who would later become Eisenstein's patron. Humboldt managed to find grants from the King, the government of Prussia, and the Berlin academy to compensate for Eisenstein's extreme poverty. The monies, always late and grudgingly given, were earned in full measure by Eisenstein: in 1844 alone he published over 23 papers and two problems in Crelle's Journal, including two proofs of the law of quadratic reciprocity, and the analogous laws of cubic reciprocity and quartic reciprocity. In June 1844 Eisenstein visited Carl Friedrich Gauss in Göttingen. In 1845, Kummer saw to it that he received an honorary doctorate at the University of Breslau. Jacobi also encouraged the distinction, but later relations between Jacobi and Eisenstein were always rocky, due primarily to a disagreement over the order of discoveries made in 1846. In 1847 Eisenstein habilitated at the University of Berlin, and he began to teach there. Bernhard Riemann attended his classes on elliptic functions. Imprisonment and death. In 1848 Eisenstein was imprisoned briefly by the Prussian army for his revolutionary activities in Berlin. Eisenstein always had republican sympathies, and while he did not actively participate in the revolution of 1848, he was arrested on 19 March of that year. Although he was released just one day later, the harsh treatment he suffered damaged his already delicate health. But his association with the Republican cause led to his official stipends being revoked, despite Humboldt's tenaciously coming to his defense. Despite his health, Eisenstein continued writing paper after paper on quadratic partitions of prime numbers and the reciprocity laws. In 1851, at the instigation of Gauss, he was elected to the Academy of Göttingen; one year later, this time at the recommendation of Dirichlet, he was also elected to the Academy of Berlin. He died of tuberculosis at the age of 29. Humboldt, then 83, accompanied his remains to the cemetery. He had recently obtained, too late, as it turned out, the funding necessary to send Eisenstein on holiday to Sicily. Purported Gauss quote. E. T. Bell in his 1937 book Men of Mathematics (page 237) claims that Gauss said "There have been but three epoch-making mathematicians, Archimedes, Newton, and Eisenstein", and this has been widely quoted in writings about Eisenstein. This is not a quote by Gauss, but is (a translation of) the end of a sentence from the biography of Eisenstein by , one of Gauss's last students and a historian of mathematics, who was summarizing his recollection of a remark made by Gauss about Eisenstein in a conversation many years earlier. Although it is doubtful that Gauss really put Eisenstein in the same league as Newton, his writings show that Gauss thought very highly of Eisenstein. For example, a letter from Gauss to Humboldt dated 1846 April 14 says that Eisenstein's talent is one that nature bestows only a few times a century ("welche die Natur in jedem Jahrhundert nur wenigen erteilt").
485204	Richard Charles "Dick" Lewontin (born March 29, 1929) is an American evolutionary biologist, geneticist, academic and social commentator. A leader in developing the mathematical basis of population genetics and evolutionary theory, he pioneered the application of techniques from molecular biology, such as gel electrophoresis, to questions of genetic variation and evolution. In a pair of 1966 papers co-authored with J.L. Hubby in the journal "Genetics", Lewontin helped set the stage for the modern field of molecular evolution. In 1979 he and Stephen Jay Gould introduced the term "spandrel" into evolutionary theory. From 1973 to 1998, he held an endowed chair in zoology and biology at Harvard University, and since 2003 has been a research professor there. Lewontin strongly opposes genetic determinism, especially as allegedly propounded by researchers in behavioral genetics. Early life and education. Lewontin was born in New York City to parents descended from late 19th-century Eastern European Jewish immigrants. He attended Forest Hills High School and the École Libre des Hautes Études in New York. In 1951 he graduated from Harvard College (BS, biology). In 1952, Lewontin received a master's degree in mathematical statistics, followed by a doctorate in zoology in 1954, both from Columbia University, where he was a student of Theodosius Dobzhansky. He held faculty positions at North Carolina State University, the University of Rochester, and the University of Chicago. In 1973 Lewontin was appointed as Alexander Agassiz Professor of Zoology and Professor of Biology at Harvard University, holding the position until 1998. Career. Work in population genetics. Lewontin has worked in both theoretical and experimental population genetics. A hallmark of his work has been an interest in new technology. He was the first person to do a computer simulation of the behavior of a single locus (previous simulation work having been of models with multiple loci). In 1960 he and Ken-Ichi Kojima were the first population geneticists to give the equations for change of haplotype frequencies with interacting natural selection at two loci. This set off a wave of theoretical work on two-locus selection in the 1960s and 1970s. Their paper gave a theoretical derivation of the equilibria expected, and also investigated the dynamics of the model by computer iteration. Lewontin later introduced the D' measure of linkage disequilibrium. (An achievement that he would be less happy to claim is that he introduced the name "linkage disequilibrium" itself, one about which many population geneticists have been unenthusiastic). In 1966, he and Jack Hubby published a paper that revolutionized population genetics. They used protein gel electrophoresis to survey dozens of loci in "Drosophila pseudoobscura", and reported that a large fraction of the loci were polymorphic, and that at the average locus there was about a 15% chance that the individual was heterozygous. (Harry Harris reported similar results for humans at about the same time). Previous work with gel electrophoresis had been reports of variation in single loci and did not give any sense of how common variation was. Lewontin and Hubby's paper also discussed the possible explanation of the high levels of variability by either balancing selection or neutral mutation. Although they did not commit themselves to advocating neutrality, this was the first clear statement of the neutral theory for levels of variability within species. Lewontin and Hubby's paper had great impact—the discovery of high levels of molecular variability gave population geneticists ample material to work on, and gave them access to variation at single loci. The possible theoretical explanations of this rampant polymorphism became the focus of most population genetics work thereafter. Martin Kreitman was later to do a pioneering survey of population-level variability in DNA sequences while a Ph.D. student in Lewontin's lab. Work on human genetic diversity. In a landmark paper, in 1972 Lewontin identified that most of the variation (80–85%) within human populations is found within local geographic groups and differences attributable to traditional "race" groups are a minor part of human genetic variability (1–15%). He argued that the probability of racial misclassification of an individual based on variation in a single genetic locus is approximately 30% and the misclassification probability becomes close to zero if enough loci are studied. In a 2003 paper, A.W.F. Edwards criticized Lewontin's conclusion that race is an invalid taxonomic construct, terming it Lewontin's fallacy. Critique of orthodox evolutionary biology. In 1975, when E. O. Wilson's book "Sociobiology" proposed evolutionary explanations for human social behaviors, a number of biologists responded negatively, including Lewontin, Stephen Jay Gould, Ruth Hubbard, and others. Lewontin and his late Harvard colleague Stephen Jay Gould introduced the term spandrel to evolutionary biology, inspired by the architectural term "spandrel", in an influential 1979 paper, "The spandrels of San Marco and the Panglossian paradigm: a critique of the adaptationist programme." "Spandrels" were described as features of an organism that exist as a necessary consequence of other (perhaps adaptive) features, but do not directly improve fitness (and thus are not necessarily adaptive). The relative frequency of spandrels versus adaptations continues to stir controversy in evolutionary biology. Lewontin was an early proponent of a hierarchy of levels of selection in his article, "The Units of Selection". He has been a major influence on philosophers of biology, notably William C. Wimsatt (who taught with Lewontin and Richard Levins at the University of Chicago), Robert Brandon and Elisabeth Lloyd (who studied with Lewontin as graduate students), Philip Kitcher, and Elliott Sober. Lewontin briefly argued for the historical nature of biological causality in "Is Nature Probable or Capricious?" In "Organism and Environment" in "Scientia", and in more popular form in the last chapter of "Biology as Ideology", Lewontin argued that while traditional Darwinism has portrayed the organism as a passive recipient of environmental influences, a correct understanding should emphasize the organism as an active constructor of its own environment. Niches are not pre-formed, empty receptacles into which organisms are inserted, but are defined and created by organisms. The organism-environment relationship is reciprocal and dialectical. M.W. Feldman, K.N. Laland, and F.J. Odling-Smee, among others, have developed Lewontin's conception in more detailed models. In the adaptationist view of evolution, the organism is a function of both the organism and environment, while the environment is only a function of itself. The environment is seen as autonomous and unshaped by the organism. Lewontin instead believed in a constructivist view, in which the organism is a function of the organism and environment, with the environment being a function of the organism and environment as well. This means that the organism shapes the environment as the environment shapes the organism. The organism shapes the environment for future generations. Lewontin has long been a critic of traditional neo-Darwinian approaches to adaptation. In his article "Adaptation" in the Italian "Enciclopedia Einaudi", and in a toned-down version in "Scientific American," he emphasized the need to give an engineering characterization of adaptation separate from measurement of number of offspring, rather than simply assuming organs or organisms are at adaptive optima. Lewontin has said that his more general, technical criticism of adaptationism grew out of his recognition that the fallacies of sociobiology reflect fundamentally flawed assumptions of adaptiveness of all traits in much of the modern evolutionary synthesis. Lewontin accused neo-Darwinists of telling "Just So Stories" when they try to show how natural selection explains such novelties as long-necked giraffes. Sociobiology and evolutionary psychology. Along with others, such as Gould, Lewontin has been a persistent critic of some themes in neo-Darwinism. Specifically, he has criticised proponents of sociobiology and evolutionary psychology such as Edward O. Wilson and Richard Dawkins, who attempt to explain animal behaviour and social structures in terms of evolutionary advantage or strategy. He and others criticize this approach when applied to humans, as he sees it as genetic determinism. In his writing, Lewontin suggests a more nuanced view of evolution is needed, which requires a more careful understanding of the context of the whole organism as well as the environment. Such concerns about what he views as the oversimplification of genetics has led Lewontin to be a frequent participant in debates, and an active life as a public intellectual. He has lectured widely to promote his views on evolutionary biology and science. In books such as "Not in Our Genes" (co-authored with Steven Rose and Leon J. Kamin) and numerous articles, Lewontin has questioned much of the claimed heritability of human behavioral traits, such as intelligence as measured by IQ tests. Some academics have criticized him for rejecting sociobiology for non-scientific reasons. Edward Wilson (1995) suggested that Lewontin's political beliefs affected his scientific view. Lewontin has at times identified himself as Marxist, and admitted that his ideological views have affected his scientific work (Levins and Lewontin 1985). Others such as Kitcher (1985) have countered that Lewontin's criticisms of sociobiology are genuine scientific concerns about the discipline. He wrote that attacking Lewontin's motives amounts to an "ad hominem" argument. Agribusiness. Lewontin has written on the economics of agribusiness. He has contended that hybrid corn was developed and propagated not because of its superior quality, but because it allowed agribusiness corporations to force farmers to buy new seed each year rather than plant seed produced by their previous crop of corn. Lewontin testified in an unsuccessful suit in California challenging the state's financing of research to develop automatic tomato pickers. This favored the profits of agribusiness over the employment of farm workers. Personal life. As of 2003, Lewontin was the Alexander Agassiz Research Professor at Harvard. He has worked with and had great influence on many philosophers of biology, including William C. Wimsatt, Elliott Sober, Philip Kitcher, Elisabeth Lloyd, Peter Godfrey-Smith, Sahotra Sarkar, and Robert Brandon, often inviting them to work in his lab.
1065190	Jeffrey DeMunn (born April 25, 1947) is an American film, television and stage actor. He is best known for his roles in Frank Darabont films, his role as Andrei Chikatilo in "Citizen X", and for his role as Dale Horvath in "The Walking Dead". Early life. DeMunn was born in Buffalo, New York, the son of Violet (née Paulus) and James DeMunn, stepson of actress Betty Lutes DeMunn. He graduated from Union College with a Bachelor of Arts in English. Career. Theater roles. He moved to England in the early 1970s, receiving theatrical training at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School. When he returned to the USA in 1972, he performed in a Royal Shakespeare Company National Tour's production of "King Lear" and "A Midsummer Night's Dream". After this he starred in several off-Broadway productions, including "Bent", "Modigliani", and "A Midsummer Night's Dream". DeMunn also participated in productions of developing plays at the Eugene O'Neill Theater Center. In 1983 he starrted in a production of "K2", which earned him a Tony Award nomination. He most recently starred in "Death of a Salesman" at San Diego's Old Globe Theater in 2012 and "A Family For All Occasions" at the Bank Street Theatre in 2013. Movie roles. DeMunn is known as a favorite of Frank Darabont, who has cast him in "The Shawshank Redemption", "The Green Mile", "The Majestic", and "The Mist". He also appeared in the 1988 remake of "The Blob", which Darabont co-wrote. He has been involved in several of Stephen King's adaptations: he has acted in film adaptations of "Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption", "The Green Mile", "The Mist" and the TV miniseries "Storm of the Century"; he also narrated the audiobooks for "Dreamcatcher" and "The Colorado Kid". In 1995, he won a CableACE Award as Best Supporting Actor in a Movie or Miniseries for his portrayal of serial killer Andrei Chikatilo in the HBO film "Citizen X" and received a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Miniseries or a Movie nomination for his performance. Television roles. DeMunn has made several guest appearances on TV series. His extensive television résumé includes shows such as "Kojak", "Law & Order", and two of its spin-offs, ' and '. He portrayed Dale Horvath in Frank Darabont's television adaptation of the comic book series "The Walking Dead", for two seasons from 2010 to 2012. Upon his departure, he was cast as Hal Morrison in "Mob City", Darabont's pilot for TNT. Personal life. DeMunn married Ann Sekjaer in 1974; they divorced in 1995. He married Kerry Leah in 2001. DeMunn has two children, Heather and Kevin. He and his son Kevin worked together in the movie "The Majestic".
586600	Being Cyrus is an English language Indian film directed by Homi Adajania and released in 2006. It is a psychological drama revolving around a dysfunctional Parsi family. The film was originally titled Akoori, a reference to a traditional Parsi scrambled-eggs-like side dish. The film is the directorial debut of Homi Adajania and Saif Ali Khan's first film in English. Plot. The Sethna family of Panchgani consists of a retired sculptor Dinshaw (Naseeruddin Shah) and his wife Katy (Dimple Kapadia). Dinshaw's brother Farrokh (Boman Irani), their father Fardoonjee (Honey Chhaya), and Farrokh's wife Tina (Simone Singh) reside in Mumbai. It is at this time that Cyrus Mistry (Saif Ali Khan), the narrator of the story, shows up at the Sethnas' doorstep in Panchgani one morning, a seeming wanderer hailing from Jamshedpur who professes his admiration for Dinshaw's work and asks if he can be his apprentice. Dinshaw and Katy agree, and soon the young man becomes a part of their life. Katy makes advances towards Cyrus, which he tolerates while cryptically telling the audience that he is "playing Katy". As time passes Cyrus gets to know the oddball couple better - Dinshaw is a perpetually zoned-out eccentric, though a rather affable one, while the rather promiscuous Katy, tired of slow-moving Panchgani life and her moth-eaten marriage, has embarked on an affair with her brother-in-law Farrokh in Mumbai. Katy makes Cyrus her pawn, sending him to Mumbai to visit her father-in-law Fardoonjee, who lives in an extension of Farrokh's flat, with orders to get a stash of money Fardoonjee supposedly has. On meeting Fardoonjee, Cyrus realizes that he is ill-treated by Farrokh. Farrokh's timid young wife, Tina, is unable to be herself except during the few hours Farrokh is at work. She enjoys smoking, loud music and goes to hair appointments when Farrokh is gone. One day Katy convinces Cyrus to go and murder her father in law and Tina so that she can be with Farrokh. Unknown to Cyrus, Farrokh plans to kill him after the deed to close the loose end. Cyrus arrives at a time when Tina is coincidentally out for a waxing appointment. He feeds Fardoonjee his favorite dish and kills him immediately afterwards. This is positioned to the audience as a mercy killing to release Fardoonjee from his wretched existence. Farrokh sneaks into the house but Cyrus kills him instead. When Katy calls to check on Farrokh, Cyrus picks up the phone and tells her that her plan is in tatters. And then Cyrus vanishes. The Inspector calls Katy and Dinshaw for interrogation. She constantly blames Cyrus for the murder. When the Inspector investigates, he finds no evidence of any person named Cyrus even in the market in Panchgani. So Katy and Dinshaw are arrested for the murders while poor Tina is sent home with both her and the Inspector agreeing that she was lucky to be away at that time. A few months later, Tina is in her bedroom when the door is opened surreptitiously by Cyrus. It looks like he has come to finish the last murder. Shockingly, Tina and Cyrus embrace each other. This whole murder is shown to be an elaborate plot by Tina to inherit the whole property. With Farddonjee and Farrokh dead, and Katy and Dinshaw in Jail, her plot has been successful. Tina is shown as a cold-blooded schemer who identifies such families, gets married into the family and then Cyrus murders them. Cyrus is shown to have a conscience. While Tina is showering, he sees a newspaper where Tina has marked another family for this scheme. Unwilling to participate in this any further, he runs away before Tina comes out of the shower.
1484810	Sergio Di Zio (born September 20, 1972 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada) is a Canadian actor. He stared in the television series "Flashpoint" as Michelangelo "Spike" Scarlatti until the show concluded on December 13, 2012. Di Zio's other works include "The Lookout", "Cinderella Man", "Senior Trip"; the television series "This is Wonderland", "Northern Town"; as a voice actor for the animated series "Stoked" and "Babar and the Adventures of Badou". He also appeared in the stage debut of "Leo" written by Rosa Laborde for which he received a Dora Award nomination in 2006. Career. Di Zio is best known for playing Michelangelo Scarlatti, nicknamed "Spike", on the CTV police drama Flashpoint. Prior to landing his breakthrough role, however, he has appeared in over 30 movies and TV series. After making his debut in the 1995 film "Senior Trip", Di Zio appeared in a string of telepics including "The Wall", "Major Crime", "Freak City", "Rembrandt: Fathers & Sons", and "RFK". Additionally, he guest starred on other Canadian series, such as "Murdoch Mysteries", "Republic of Doyle", and even played "Ripper" on "Stoked" for 11 episodes. His appearances in film include Ron Howard's "Cinderella Man", "Boondock Saints", "Flash of Genius", and the Independent Spirit Awards winning "The Lookout", playing Deputy Ted. Di Zio has starred in "Just Buried", "19 Months" and the Peter Wellington film, "Luck", winner of the South by Southwest Film Festival. Sergio’s TV movie appearances include "Robert Ludlum's Covert One: The Hades Factor", John Stamos' "The Wedding Wars" and the Fox biopic "RFK", where he played Robert Kennedy’s adviser and speechwriter Adam Walinsky. In July 2012, he made a brief appearance in the show "The Listener"' as Spike, the same Spike in "Flashpoint". The episode is "Now You See Him".
1040194	Kidulthood (rendered as KiDULTHOOD) is a 2006 British drama film about the life of several teenagers in Ladbroke Grove and Latimer Road area of inner west London. It was directed by Menhaj Huda and written by Noel Clarke, who also stars in the film and directed the sequel, "Adulthood". The majority of the characters in the film generally behave in a violent and lawless manner. They are portrayed as being reckless and antisocial young people who commit crimes such as petty theft and serious violence. The film also showcases how the characters engage in recreational drug taking behaviour. Plot. Set in 2002. The film follows two days in the lives of a group of 15-year olds from a mixed-income area of West London. The story focuses mainly upon Trevor, known as "Trife" (Aml Ameen), and Alisa (Red Madrell). One of the themes of the movie is Alisa's pregnancy. She states that Trife is the father.
1059483	Susan Blakely (born September 7, 1948) is an American film actress known for her leading role in Universal and ABC Television's mini-series, "Rich Man, Poor Man", which aired in 1976. She was a highly successful commercial model before becoming a full-time actress which she continues to this day. She is a Golden Globe Award winner.
1224714	Cherry Jones (born November 21, 1956) is an American actress and recipient of the 2009 Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress – Drama Series and the 1995 and 2005 Tony Award for Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a Play. Most recently, she starred as Dr. Evans on NBC series "Awake". Career. Jones may be best known for her role as President Allison Taylor on the Fox series "24", for which she won an Emmy. However, most of her career has been in the theatre on Broadway, including her Tony-winning lead performances in Lincoln Center's 1995 production of "The Heiress" and John Patrick Shanley's play "Doubt", a role which earned her the 2005 Tony Award for Best Leading Actress in a Play. The play opened at the Walter Kerr Theatre in March 2005. Other Broadway credits include Nora Ephron's play "Imaginary Friends" (with Swoosie Kurtz); "Angels in America: Millennium Approaches" and "Perestroika", the 2000 revival of "A Moon for the Misbegotten", and Timberlake Wertenbaker's "Our Country's Good", for which she earned her first Tony nomination. She is considered to be one of the foremost theater actresses in the United States.
1039583	Juliet Anne Virginia Stevenson, CBE (born 30 October 1956) is an English actress of stage and screen. Early life. Stevenson was born in Kelvedon, Essex, England, the daughter of Virginia Ruth (née Marshall), a teacher, and Michael Guy Stevenson, an army officer. Stevenson's father was in the army and received new postings every two and a half years. When Stevenson was nine, she attended Berkshire's Hurst Lodge School, and she was later educated at the independent St Catherine's School in Bramley, near Guildford in Surrey, and at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA). Stevenson was part of 'new wave’ of actors to emerge from the Academy. Others included Jonathan Pryce, Bruce Payne, Alan Rickman, Anton Lesser, Kenneth Branagh, Imelda Staunton and Fiona Shaw. This led to a stage career starting in the early 1980s with the Royal Shakespeare Company. Career. Although she has gained fame through her television and film work, and has often undertaken roles for BBC Radio, she is best known as a stage actress. Significant stage roles include her lead performance as Anna in the UK premiere of "Burn This" in 1990, and as Paulina in "Death and the Maiden" in 1991. For the latter, she was awarded the 1992 Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actress. In the 1987 TV film "Life Story" (American title, "The Race for the Double Helix"), Stevenson played the part of scientist Rosalind Franklin, for which she won a Cable Ace award. She is known for her leading role in the film "Truly, Madly, Deeply" (1991), and her roles in "The Secret Rapture" (1993), "Emma" (1996), "Bend It Like Beckham" (2002) and "Mona Lisa Smile" (2003). She has more recently starred in "Pierrepoint" (2006), "Infamous" (2006) as Diana Vreeland and "Breaking and Entering" (2006) as Rosemary, the therapist. In 2003, she played the mother of an autistic child in the television film "Hear the Silence", a film based on the now debunked claims of Andrew Wakefield that the MMR vaccine was responsible for autism. The film and Stevenson were criticised for "trying to influence parents against MMR and dressing up science as entertainment." In 2009, she starred in ITV's "A Place of Execution". The role won her the Best Actress Dagger at the 2009 Crime Thriller Awards. She performs as a book reader, and has recorded all of Jane Austen's novels as unabridged audiobooks, as well as a number of other novels, such as "Lady Windermere’s Fan", "Hedda Gabler", "Stories from Shakespeare", and "To the Lighthouse". Personal life. Stevenson lives with anthropologist Hugh Brody, her partner since 1993. The couple live in Highgate, North London. They have two children, both born in Camden, London: Rosalind Hannah Brody (born 1994) and Gabriel Jonathan Brody (born late 2000/early 2001).
1057768	Alex in Wonderland is a 1970 American comedy-drama film directed by Paul Mazursky, written with his partner Larry Tucker and starring Donald Sutherland and Ellen Burstyn. Sutherland plays Alex Morrison, a director who has made one feature and spends his time in Hollywood pondering what his next will be. Mazursky plays a new-style Hollywood producer in the film, and his daughter Meg Mazursky portrays Amy, one of Morrison's daughters. Noted teacher of improvisational theater Viola Spolin plays Morrison's mother. At the time, Mazursky himself, who'd just made "Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice" (1969), was in a similar situation. The film also features cameo appearances by Federico Fellini and Jeanne Moreau, and seems to be inspired by their work. In particular, Fellini's "8½" (1963), about a film director who's artistically stuck, is referenced. Moreau sings two songs on the soundtrack, "Le Vrai Scandale" (for which she wrote the words) and "Le Reve Est La." Plot. Young director Alex Morrison feels compelled to follow his recent box-office hit with another blockbuster. While mulling over this dilemma, the director's mind wanders to his past, his present, and probable future.
1066045	The Foot Fist Way is a 2006 low-budget comedy film directed by Jody Hill and starring Danny McBride. Will Ferrell and Adam McKay's production company, Gary Sanchez Productions, picked up distribution rights to the film and hoped for it to achieve a "Napoleon Dynamite"-like success. It premiered in 2006 at The Los Angeles Film Festival and was screened at Sundance that same year. The film was released on DVD in 2008. Plot. Fred Simmons (Danny McBride) is a fourth-degree black belt in Taekwondo and runs his own dojo in a small North Carolina town. Fred styles himself a big shot, driving a Ferrari and extolling the virtues of Taekwondo to potential new students, but loses his confidence after he discovers that his wife, Suzie (Mary Jane Bostic) gave her boss a handjob after a drunken office party. In order to restore his confidence, he attends a martial arts expo to meet his idol, B movie action star Chuck "the Truck" Wallace (Ben Best) who in reality turns out to be a dirty and drunken mess. After nearly brawling with Chuck's seedy friends, Fred persuades Chuck to make an appearance at his upcoming Taekwondo belt test and then parties with his friends and students in Chuck's hotel room. Fred returns home and sells his Ferrari to pay Chuck's $10,000 appearance fee. Shortly thereafter, Suzie returns to Fred after losing her job. On the night before the belt test, Fred catches Suzie having sex with Chuck on his own couch. Fred challenges Chuck to a fight, but is eventually beaten and driven off. The next morning, Suzie once again asks to be taken back, but Fred rejects her and urinates on his wedding ring. Fred arrives at the test late, battered and bruised, but with his confidence restored. When Chuck arrives for his appearance, Fred challenges him to a martial arts demonstration of board breaking, which he wins. At the following belt ceremony, Fred reads a new student pledge that he has written, which outlines the goals and responsibilities of Taekwondo. Cast. All martial artists in the film, excluding McBride and Best, were played by true Taekwondo practitioners. Promotion. Danny McBride appeared as a guest on "Late Night with Conan O'Brien" on February 26, 2008 as the character Fred Simmons. Many viewers were not familiar with either the character or the actor and as a result there was initially much speculation as to whether the seemingly disastrous Tae Kwon Do demonstration, during which Simmons asked for a "redo" after a failed block-splitting attempt - and awkward interview, during which he repeatedly lashed out at fellow guest Will Ferrell for dancing around in a sexual nature during his interview segment earlier, were real or staged. Among the only immediate clues to suggest the interview was a setup was when the website for the film was flashed onscreen during the interview. Critical reception. Variety gave the film a fairly positive review stating that the film is "crying out to be discovered by midnight movie mavens". It currently holds a 57%, "Rotten" rating on review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, based on 76 reviews. The website Metacritic, which averages leading film critics from across the United States, gave the film a 63 out of 100 based on 22 reviews, which is considered "generally favorable."
587511	Student Number 1 is an Indian, Tamil film released in 2003. This movie is the remake of 2001 blockbuster Telugu film "Student No.1", starring Jr NTR, Gajala. Production. Shooting was commenced at Chennai, for a fifteen-days schedule, after which the unit moved to Russia to shoot two songs. The rest of the songs were shot at locations in Andhra Pradesh. A set at a cost of about two lakhs was erected on the beach in Vishakapatnam and it took six days to picturise a song. Choreographing the dance steps was dance chorographer Tarunraj. Sibiraj said that first scene which was shot on him was "where I enter the college library, and find Sherin and her friends dancing to taped music. I stop the tape and advice the girls".
1169781	Audrey Wasilewski (born June 25, 1967) is an American actress and voice actress. Life and career. Wasilewski's first role came in the 1994 Japanese animated film "Heisei tanuki gassen pompoko", where she was one of the additional voices dubbing in English. She is also known for her television roles. She studied acting at the Catholic University in Washington, DC and early on performed in musical comedies at area dinner theaters. She has made guest appearances in TV series, such as "Friends", "Two and a Half Men", "George & Leo", "Total Security", "Saved by the Bell", "Party of Five", "Diagnosis Murder", "State of Grace", "The Nightmare Room", "Providence", Charmed, Cold Case, "ER", "General Hospital", "Push", "The West Wing", "Wonderfalls", "The Bernie Mac Show", "Boston Legal", "Family Guy", "Monk", "MAD", and many more. Audrey Wasilewski has recurred on the drama series "Big Love" as Pam Martin and on "Mad Men" as Anita Olson Respola. She voiced Misty (formely), Tuck, XJ-7 and XJ-8 on the Nickelodeon animated series "My Life as a Teenage Robot" in 2003, and also voiced Laura in "Scooby-Doo and the Alien Invaders". She voices a veterinarian named Dr. Glove in "Back at the Barnyard". In 2007, she voiced Garfield's love interest Arlene in the animated direct-to-video film "Garfield Gets Real", and reprised the character on "The Garfield Show", the following year. She is also the voice of Bessie in "Random! Cartoons" and she also voiced Terk in a "Tarzan" video game. She is voicing Ortensia, Oswald the Lucky Rabbit's cat girlfriend in . In 2008, Wasilewski played the supporting role of Heidi in the feature film, "Clear Lake, WI", starring Michael Madsen. Most recently in the 2010 feature film "RED", Wasilewski appeared in a cameo alongside Bruce Willis and John Malkovich in which she played a doomed "gun for hire" sent to assassinate them, her character had a swift exit after calling Marvin Boggs an "old man".
1068017	The Five Heartbeats is a 1991 musical drama film directed by Robert Townsend, who co-wrote the script with Keenan Ivory Wayans. Distributed by 20th Century Fox, the film's main cast includes Townsend, Michael Wright, Leon Robinson, Harry J. Lennix, Tico Wells, Harold Nicholas of the Nicholas Brothers, and Diahann Carroll. The plot of the film (which is loosely based on the lives of several artists: The Dells, The Temptations, Four Tops, Wilson Pickett, James Brown, Frankie Lymon, Sam Cooke and others) follows the three decade career of the R&B vocal group The Five Heartbeats. The film depicts the rise and fall of a Motown inspired soul act through the eyes of the film's main protagonist, Donald "Duck" Matthews (portrayed by Townsend), who serves as a narrator throughout the film. However, a majority of the cinema is presented in a consecutive time line as opposed to traditional flash backs. The film includes a significant amount of original music conceived by various artists for the film's soundtrack, including singles such as "A Heart Is a House for Love", "We Haven't Finished Yet", and "Nothing But Love".
583810	Kadhalna Summa Illai () is a 2009 Tamil film directed by Ilankannan. The film stars Ravikrishna, Sharwanand, and Kamalinee Mukherjee in prominent roles. The film, produced by Raj TV, is the remake of the successful, award-winning Telugu language film, "Gamyam" directed by Radhakrishna Jagarlamudi. Plot. Abhiram or Abhi, (Sharwanand) as called by his friends and family, is the son of a multi-millionaire called GK (Nassar). He is born and brought up among currency and for him life is just a game and he is accustomed to lavish lifestyle. He dates several girls and one day he comes across Janaki (Kamalinee Mukherjee), a young, charming doctor. Abhi challenges his friends that he would make her fall in love within few days. Abhi invites Janaki for coffee after a dance programme and proposes to her. Janaki, being an orphan, is very kind towards the poor people and is service-minded. She mingles with poor people and provides succour to them. But, being a rich boy, Abhi hates those people. However, Janaki's free-spirited nature takes him very near to her and he develops an intimate friendship. At the same time, Janaki keeps maintaining some distance and does not express her love. Though she likes him, she cannot love him as he is not sensitive to the people and things around him. A privileged upbringing makes him myopic to the hard realities of life. By the time, she wants to express her love, she learns that Abhi has challenged his friends about his love and decides to keep herself off. While dropping her at her hostel on his car after a party, Abhi tries to convince her that he is really in love with her but she does not listen to him. In the process, Abhi causes an accident, where a woman dies and two of her children become orphans. Janaki survives the accident, while Abhi wakes up from injuries in hospital. After gaining consciousness, Abhi cannot find Janaki and he decides to go in search of her on his bike. In the process, he happens to meet a motorbike thief called Vetti Velu (Ravi Krishna). Though Velu is a vehicle thief, he is good at heart. The journey Abhi takes, changes his life drastically as he is exposed to the hard realities of rural life and yet its simple joys. The landscapes and the people he meets takes him through an emotional journey that alters his perceptions forever. Be it a teacher, who supports orphan kids, a disillusioned ex-militant, a prostitute who craves for love of his own companion Vetti Velu, they all aid in his journey of self-discovery.
1058226	The Interpreter is a 2005 political thriller film starring Nicole Kidman, Sean Penn, and Catherine Keener. It was the final film to be directed by Sydney Pollack. Plot. Silvia Broome (Nicole Kidman) is an interpreter working at the United Nations in New York City. She was raised in the Republic of Matobo, a fictional African country, but has dual citizenship. The U.N. is considering indicting Edmond Zuwanie (Earl Cameron), Matobo's president, to stand trial in the International Criminal Court. Initially a liberator, over the past 20 years he has become as corrupt and tyrannical as the government he overthrew, and is now responsible for ethnic cleansing and other atrocities within Matobo. Zuwanie is soon to visit the U.N. and put forward his own case to the General Assembly, in an attempt to avoid the indictment. A security scare forces the evacuation of the U.N. building, and Silvia returns at night to reclaim some personal belongings. At that time, she overhears discussion of an assassination plot, and runs scared from the building when those discussing the plot become aware of her presence. The next day, Silvia recognizes words in a meeting where she is interpreting from phrases she overheard the night before, and reports the incident to U.N. security; the plot's target appears to be Zuwanie himself. They, in turn, call in the U.S. Secret Service, who assign Tobin Keller (Sean Penn) and Dot Woods (Catherine Keener) to investigate, as well as protect Zuwanie when he arrives. Keller learns that Silvia has, in the past, been involved in a Matoban guerrilla group, that her parents and sister were killed by land mines laid by Zuwanie's men, and that she has dated one of Zuwanie's political opponents. Although Keller is suspicious of Silvia's story, the two grow close and Keller ends up protecting her from attacks on her person. Silvia later finds that her brother Simon and her lover Xola were killed (as shown in the opening scene). The purported assassin is discovered while Zuwanie is in the middle of his address to the General Assembly, and security personnel rush Zuwanie to a safe room for his protection. Silvia, anticipating this, has been hiding in the safe room, and confronts Zuwanie and intends to kill him herself. Keller determines that the assassination plot is a false flag operation created by Zuwanie to gain credibility that his rivals are terrorists and to deter potential supporters of his removal. Keller rushes to the safe room and arrives just in time to prevent Silvia from murdering Zuwanie. Zuwanie is indicted, and Silvia is expelled from the U.S., returning home to Matobo soon afterwards. Production. "The Interpreter" was shot almost entirely in New York City. The opening sequence was shot in Mozambique with a support crew made up largely of South African nationals. Filming in U.N. buildings. "The Interpreter" is the first movie ever filmed inside the U.N. General Assembly and Security Council chambers (though the 1953 Columbia film "The Glass Wall" includes genuine interior and exterior sequences). Other earlier films used only the exteriors or were filmed back when the buildings were under construction (and did not really have an "inside"). The producers approached the U.N. about filming there before, but their request was turned down. The production would have relocated to Toronto with a constructed set; however, this would have substantially increased costs, and so Sydney Pollack approached then-Secretary-General Kofi Annan directly, and personally negotiated permission to film inside the United Nations. Annan commented on "The Interpreter" that "the intention was really to do something dignified, something that is honest and reflects the work that this Organization does. And it is with that spirit that the producers and the directors approached their work, and I hope you will all agree they have done that." Because the Security Council can call an emergency meeting at any time with three hours notice, the film crew had to take into account that they could be asked to leave almost immediately. Ambassadors at the U.N. had hoped to appear in the film, but actors were asked to play the roles of diplomats. Spain's U.N. Ambassador Inocencio Arias jokingly complained that his "opportunity to have a nomination for the Oscar next year went away because of some stupid regulation." Matobo and Ku. The country "Republic of Matobo" and its corresponding constructed language "Ku" were created for this film. The director of the "Centre for African Language Learning" in England, Said el-Gheithy, was commissioned in January 2004 to create Ku. Ku is based on Bantu languages spoken in Eastern and Southern Africa, and is a cross between Swahili and Shona, with some unique elements. The film's tagline, "The truth needs no translation.", in Ku is "Angota ho ne njumata". "The Interpreter" and Zimbabwe. There are strong parallels between President Robert Mugabe and the character Dr. Zuwanie in the film, as well as between Matobo and Zimbabwe – which banned the film after it had been shown in the country. The parallels include: Zimbabwe's government has itself spotted the parallels between Mugabe and Zuwanie. Reception. "The Interpreter" earned mixed reviews from critics, as it now holds a 57% rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 191 reviews. Box office. The picture was #1 In its opening weekend. According to Box Office Mojo, "The Interpreter" had a domestic gross of $72,708,161 and an international tally of $90,236,762, bringing the picture's worldwide gross to $162,944,923 versus an $80 million budget, so the film was considered a box office success. Awards. In 2005, the Los Angeles Film Critics Association awarded Catherine Keener as Best Supporting Actress, for her parts in several films including "The Interpreter".
1060816	Paul William Walker IV (born September 12, 1973) is an American actor. He became well known in 1999 after his role in the hit film "Varsity Blues". However, he is perhaps best known for starring as Brian O'Conner in "The Fast and the Furious" film series. His other films include "Eight Below", "Into the Blue", "She's All That" and "Takers". He also appears in the National Geographic Channel series "Expedition Great White". Early life. Walker was born in Glendale, California and raised in the San Fernando Valley area of Los Angeles County, the son of Cheryl, a fashion model, and Paul Walker III, a sewer contractor. His ancestry includes Irish, English, and German. His paternal grandfather was a professional boxer, “Irish Billy Walker”. He is the oldest of five, having two brothers and two sisters. Walker was raised as a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He graduated from Village Christian School. After high school, he attended several community colleges, majoring in marine biology. Career. Walker's small-screen career began as a toddler, when he starred in a television commercial for Pampers. He began modeling at the age of 2 and began working on television shows in 1985, with roles in shows such as "Highway to Heaven", "Who's the Boss?", "The Young and the Restless" and "Touched by an Angel". Also in 1985 he starred in a commercial for "Showbiz Pizza". Walker's film career began in 1986, with the horror/comedy film "Monster in the Closet". He and his sister Ashlie were contestants on a 1988 episode of the game show "I'm Telling!", finishing in second place. He continued with roles in several other movies without much success: it was not until 1998 that Walker made his feature film debut in the comedy "Meet the Deedles", which finally gained him fame. This subsequently led to supporting roles in the movies "Pleasantville", "Varsity Blues", "She's All That", and "The Skulls". In 2001, Walker's breakthrough role arrived when he starred opposite actor Vin Diesel in the successful action film "The Fast and the Furious". The film established Walker as a notable film star and leading man and led to his reprisal of the role in the 2003 sequel "2 Fast 2 Furious". He continued his career with leading roles in films such as "Joy Ride", "Into the Blue", and "Timeline", and also had a supporting role in Clint Eastwood's 2006 adaptation of "Flags of Our Fathers". Walker then starred in the crime thriller "Running Scared" and Walt Disney Pictures' "Eight Below", both released in 2006. "Eight Below" garnered critical-acclaim and opened in first place at the box office, grossing over US$20 million during its first weekend. During the filming of "Running Scared", director Wayne Kramer stated that "is that guy on some level" when comparing Walker with his character in the movie, Joey Gazelle. Kramer continued on to say that he "loved working with [Walker because as a director he's completely supportive of my vision of what the film is. And even better, he's completely game for it." Walker starred in the independent film "The Lazarus Project", which was released on DVD on October 21, 2008. He subsequently returned to "The Fast and the Furious" franchise, reprising his role in "Fast & Furious", which was released on April 3, 2009. Walker then appeared with T.I., Idris Elba, Chris Brown, Matt Dillon, and Hayden Christensen in the crime drama "Takers", which began filming in early September 2008 and was released in August 2010. The Coty Prestige fragrance brand Davidoff Cool Water for Men announced in January 2011 that Walker was going to be the new face of the brand as of July 2011. He reprised his role in the fifth installment of "The Fast and the Furious" series, "Fast Five" (2011), and again in "Fast & Furious 6" (2013). Personal life. Walker currently resides in the Santa Barbara, California, with his dogs, one of which is a Chesapeake Bay Retriever. Paul and his then-girlfriend Rebecca have a daughter, Meadow (born on November 4, 1998), who has moved from Hawaii to California to be closer to Walker. He is an avid surfer and enjoys the beach. Walker holds a brown belt in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu under Ricardo "Franjinha" Miller at Paragon Jiu-Jitsu. Walker's first passion was marine biology, with his idol being Jacques Cousteau, and he joined the Board of Directors of The Billfish Foundation in 2006. He recently fulfilled a lifelong dream by starring in a National Geographic Channel series "Expedition Great White", which premiered in June 2010. He spent 11 days as part of the crew, catching and tagging 7 great white sharks off the coast of Mexico. The expedition, led by Chris Fischer, founder and CEO of Fischer Productions, along with Captain Brett McBride and Dr. Michael Domeier of the Marine Conservation Science Institute take measurements, gather DNA samples, and fasten real-time satellite tags to the great white sharks. This will allow Dr. Michael Domeier to study migratory patterns especially those associated with mating and birthing over a 5-year period of time. In March 2010, Walker went to Chile, specifically to Constitución, to offer his help and support to the people injured in the 8.8 magnitude earthquake that struck on February 27. He also flew with his humanitarian aid team, REACH OUT Worldwide, to Haiti to lend a helping hand to the 2010 Haiti earthquake victims. He is also an avid car enthusiast who currently competes in the Redline Time Attack racing series in which he races a M3 E92 and is on the AE Performance Team. His car is currently sponsored by Etnies, Brembo Brakes, Ohlins, Volk, OS Giken, Hankook, Gintani, and Reach Out Worldwide. Walker has also owned a Nissan Skyline R34 GT-R V-Spec II, that was featured in "2 Fast 2 Furious", driven by his character Brian O'Conner. He had customized the car himself for the movie, and also did many stunts in the movie himself.
583844	Vasool Raja MBBS () is a 2004 Tamil comedy film starring Kamal Haasan and directed by Saran. This film is a remake of Hindi film "Munnabhai MBBS". It was the first Kamal film to beat the record set by "Indian" eight years earlier. The rest of the cast includes Sneha, Prakash Raj, Prabhu, Sneha, Jayasurya, Nagesh, Malavika and Karunas. The film's music was composed by Bharadwaj. Plot. Rajaraman, nicknamed "Vasool Raja" (Kamal Haasan) is a small time don in Chennai, making a living by collecting money from people who refuse or dilly-dally in paying their debts to others, with the help of his right hand man Vaddi (Prabhu Ganesan). Given that his father had wished him to be a medical doctor, he creates the faux Venkataraman Charitable Hospital (named after his father) and pretends to live in accordance with this wish whenever his father (Nagesh) and mother Kasturi (Rohini Hattangadi) visit him in Chennai. One year, however, Raja's plan goes awry when his father meets an old acquaintance, Dr. Vishwanathan (Prakash Raj) and the two older men decide to marry Raja to Vishwanathan's daughter, Dr. Janaki "Paapu" (Sneha). At this point the truth about Raja is revealed. Vishwanathan insults Raja's parents and calls them "fools" for being ignorant of Raja's real life. Raja's father and mother, aghast and later heartbroken, leave for their village. Raja, in grief and despair, decides that the only way to redeem himself and to gain revenge for the humiliation suffered by his father at the hands of the spiteful Vishwanathan is to become a doctor. He decides to go to a medical college to obtain an M.B.B.S. degree, the graduate medical degree in South Asia. With the help of Vaddi and others, Raja "gains admission" to the SLR Institute of Medical Sciences, where he again encounters Dr. Vishwanathan, who is the dean. His success there becomes dependent upon the (coerced) help of faculty member Dr. Margabandhu (Crazy Mohan). While Raja's skills as a medical doctor are minimal, he transforms those around him with the "Kattipudi Vaithiyam" ("hugging therapy") — a method of comfort taught to Raja by his mother — and the compassion he shows towards those in need. Despite the school's emphasis on mechanical, Cartesian, impersonal, often bureaucratic relationships between doctors and patients, Raja constantly seeks to impose a more empathetic, almost holistic, regimen. To this end, he defies all convention by treating a brain-dead man as if the man were able to perceive and understand normally; intimidating Dr. Kalidas (Chitra Lakshman) into admitting and treating a suicide patient(Nithin Sathya) interacts on familiar but autocratic terms with patients; humiliates school bullies; effusively thanks a hitherto-underappreciated cleaner; helping a terminally ill cancer patient Zakir (Jayasurya); and encourages the patients themselves to make changes in their lives, so that they do not need drugs or surgery. Dr. Vishwanathan, who perceives all this as symptoms of chaos, is unable to prevent it from expanding and gaining ground at his college. He becomes increasingly irrational, almost to the point of insanity. Repeatedly, this near-dementia is shown when he receives unwelcome tidings and he begins laughing in a way that implies that he has gone mad. This behavior is explained early on as an attempt to practice laughter therapy, an attempt that seems to have backfired — Vishwanathan's laughing serves more to convey his anger than diffuse it. Meanwhile, his daughter becomes increasingly fond of Raja, who in his turn becomes unreservedly infatuated with her. Some comedy appears here, because Raja is unaware that Dr. Janaki and his childhood friend "Paapu" are one and the same; an ignorance that Janaki hilariously exploits. Vishwanathan tries several times to expel Raja but is often thwarted by Raja's wit or the affection with which the others at the college regard Raja, having gained superior self-esteem by his methods. Eventually, Raja is shamed into leaving the college: His guilt for not being able to help Zakir gets the better of him. In the moments immediately following Raja's departure, the bed ridden man miraculously awakens from his vegetative state; at this point Janaki gives a heartfelt speech wherein she criticizes her father for having banished Raja, saying that to do so is to banish hope, compassion, love, and happiness, etc. from the college. Vishwanathan eventually realizes his folly. Raja later marries Dr. Janaki, learning for the first time that she is "Paapu". Soundtrack. Soundtrack is composed by Bharathwaj who composes for Saran for another time and lyrics by Vairamuthu. The film has 6 songs. The audio was launched on July 2004. Box office. The film was released in about 285 screens worldwide to generally positive reception and box-office success collecting around 45 crores. According to certain reports, 10 million tickets were sold worldwide. Controversy. The film faced controversy as the petition filed by Tamil Nadu Medical Council president K R Balasubramanian stated that the film's title ridiculed the medical profession and tarnished the image of the medical fraternity. Moreover, the film title is a mockery on the medical profession which would lower dignity of the medical fraternity in eyes of public.
1164531	Esther Rolle (November 8, 1920 November 17, 1998) was an American actress. She is best known for her role as Florida Evans on the CBS television sitcom "Maude" and its spin-off series "Good Times". Early life. Esther Rolle was born in Pompano Beach, Florida, to Bahamian immigrants Jonathan Rolle (a farmer) and Elizabeth Rolle. Esther was the tenth of 18 children (children who included siblings and fellow actresses Estelle Evans and Rosanna Carter). Rolle attended Booker T. Washington High School in Miami, Florida and graduated from Blanche Ely High School in Pompano Beach. She initially studied at Spelman College in Atlanta, but she moved to New York City. She attended Hunter College, The New School for Social Research, and Yale University. She was also a member of Zeta Phi Beta sorority. For many years, Rolle worked in a traditional day job in New York City's garment district. Career. Dance. Rolle was a member of Asadata Dafora's dance troupe, Shogolo Oloba (later renamed the Federal Theater African Dance Troupe). She became the troupe’s director in 1960. Theater. Rolle's earliest roles were on the stage; her New York stage debut was in the 1962 play "The Blacks". She was often cast in plays produced by Robert Hooks and the Negro Ensemble Company. She also appeared in productions of "The Crucible" and "Blues for Mr. Charlie". Rolle's most prominent early role was as Miss Maybell in the 1973 Melvin Van Peebles play, "Don't Play Us Cheap". In 1977, Rolle portrayed Lady Macbeth in Orson Welles' Haitian-influenced version at the Henry Street New Federal Theater in Manhattan. Television. Rolle is best known for her television role as Florida Evans, the character she played on two 1970s sitcoms. The character was introduced as Maude Findlay's housekeeper on "Maude", and was spun off in the show's second season into "Good Times", a show about Florida's family. Rolle was nominated in 1975 for the Best Actress in a Musical/Comedy Golden Globe Award for her role in "Good Times". Rolle herself was nineteen years older than her husband on the show John Amos.
774253	Rachel Elise Blanchard (born March 19, 1976) is a Canadian actress. Early life. Blanchard was born in Toronto, Ontario, Canada and graduated from Havergal College in Toronto, going on to Queen's University. Career. Blanchard's career was launched with a part in a McDonald's commercial, and as an eight-year-old on the Canadian children's show "The Kids of Degrassi Street", in which she played Melanie Schlegel. She also starred in the television series "War of the Worlds" as Suzanne McCullough's daughter Debi and in Nickelodeon's "Are You Afraid of the Dark?" as Kristen. Blanchard is probably best known for playing the part of Cher Horowitz (originally portrayed by Alicia Silverstone in the film version) on the television series "Clueless" (based on the 1995 movie of the same name). Blanchard received critical acclaim for her performance in the award-winning second series of sitcom "Peep Show". She played a woman in an arranged marriage for UK visa. She reprised this role in the fourth series (2007). She played Sally on the HBO show "Flight of the Conchords".
1686440	Selena Quintanilla-Pérez (April 16, 1971 – March 31, 1995), known mononymously as Selena, was an American singer-songwriter, fashion designer and entrepreneur. Selena was born as the last child of a Mexican American father and a half-Cherokee mother. She released her first LP record at the age of twelve with her Selena y Los Dinos band. At the 1987 Tejano Music Awards, she won Female Vocalist of the Year; she won the award eight consecutive times after that starting in 1989. She landed her first major recording contract with EMI Latin in 1989 and released her debut album with them that same year. Her brother and principal record producer, A.B. Quintanilla III, began writing materials for Selena to record. "Como La Flor", the lead single for "Entre a Mi Mundo" (1992), peaked at number six on the U.S. "Billboard" Hot Latin Tracks. It launched Selena's Mexico tour which expanded her fan base and gained critical acclaim from critics who cite it as being her signature song and as well as being a fan favorite recording. On April 2, 1992, Selena and her guitarist Chris Pérez eloped, despite disapproval from her father who later accepted the relationship. Her "Live!" (1993) album garnered her first Grammy Award for Best Mexican/American Album, becoming the first Tejano recording artist to win a Grammy. That same year, Selena opened her Selena Etc. boutique store in Corpus Christi, Texas and named Yolanda Saldívar as president. Selena's decision was made after Saldivar helped her fan club reached an unprecedented number of fans. According to "Hispanic Business" magazine, Selena earned $5 million from these establishments. In 1994, "Amor Prohibido" was released and debuted atop the Top Latin Albums and Latin Pop Albums chart and became one of the best-selling Latin albums being certified 20× Platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), denoting shipments of 2,000,000 copies. Four number-one singles including, the title track, "Bidi Bidi Bom Bom", "No Me Queda Más" and "Fotos y Recuerdos", received a positive reception from music critics. Selena had the most successful singles of 1994 and 1995 for "Amor Prohibido" and "No Me Queda Más". She was then called "The Queen of Tejano music" and the Mexican equivalent of Madonna. The chairman of EMI Records at the time, Charles Koppelman, launched Selena's crossover contract. He believed that Selena reached her peak in the Spanish-speaking market and wanted to propel her as an American solo pop artist to expand her career. After performing at a sold out concert at the Houston Astrodome in February 1995, Selena's father and manager, Abraham Quintanilla, Jr. noticed that money was missing from Selena's boutique. Abraham, Selena and her sister and drummer Suzette Quintanilla held a meeting with Saldívar to discuss inconsistencies concerning disappearing funds. Saldívar was then banned by Abraham from his recording studio Q-Productions. Saldívar bought a gun a few weeks later and tried luring Selena to meet her alone at her hotel room. On 31 March 1995, Selena was killed by Saldívar. Selena's death stunned people in the Hispanic community, many candlelight vigils took place, as well as other memorials from fans. Two weeks later, Governor of Texas at the time, George W. Bush, declared 16 April as "Selena Day" in Texas.
1058083	Mary Woronov (born December 8, 1943) is an American actress, published author and figurative painter. She is primarily known as a "Cult Queen" because of her work with Andy Warhol and her roles in Roger Corman's cult films. Woronov has appeared in over 80 movies, on stage at Lincoln Center and off Broadway productions, as well as numerous appearances in mainstream television series, such as "Charlie's Angels" and "Knight Rider". A documentary feature film about Mary Woronov currently titled, "Mary Woronov; Cult Queen from Warhol to Corman" produced Minx Films, is in production. Early life. Woronov was born in the Breakers Hotel in Palm Beach, Florida, in the period that it served as the Ream General Hospital during World War II. She is the daughter of Carol Eschholz. Woronov's adoptive father, Victor D. Woronov (1907-1975), was a cancer surgeon in Brooklyn. She attended Packer Collegiate Institute in Brooklyn Heights. Career. Acting. Mary Woronov first made headlines in the early 1960s as a Warhol superstar. She danced with "Exploding Plastic Inevitable", Warhol's multimedia presentation of the Velvet Underground. She played Hanoi Hannah in "Chelsea Girls", the 1966 experimental underground film directed by Andy Warhol. The film was Warhol's first major commercial success after a long line of avant-garde art films (both feature length and short). Woronov's notable appearances include in the 1975 cult film "Death Race 2000" and 1979's "Rock 'n' Roll High School" (and the 1991 sequel "Rock 'n' Roll High School Forever"), but her breakthrough role was in the 1982 cult film "Eating Raoul". She has since had roles in numerous films including "Blood Theatre" (1984), "Night of the Comet" (1985) "Chopping Mall" and "Nomads" (1986), "Scenes from the Class Struggle in Beverly Hills" (1989), "Dick Tracy" (1990), "Where Sleeping Dogs Lie" (1991), "" (2003) and All About Evil (2010). Woronov has also made guest appearances on TV shows such as "Buck Rogers in the 25th Century", "Charlie's Angels", "Mr. Belvedere", "Murder, She Wrote", "Amazing Stories", "St. Elsewhere", "Wings", "Babylon 5", "Family Matters", and "". She became a fan of the L.A. punk music scene and made a cameo appearance with actors Jack Nance and John Hullette in 1983's Suicidal Tendencies' "Institutionalized" video. Writing. She has written such books as "Snake", "Blind Love" and "Swimming Underground: My Years in the Warhol Factory".
1082799	Take My Eyes (, literally "I Give You My Eyes") is a 2003 Spanish romantic drama film directed by Icíar Bollaín, starring Laia Marull and Luis Tosar. Critically acclaimed for its unclichéd treatment of domestic violence, it won seven Goya Awards in 2004, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Lead Actor and Best Lead Actress. This film was also nominated for the Ariel Award in 2005 in the category "Best Iberoamerican Film". Plot. Pilar, a meek housewife living in Toledo, gathers few belongings one night and flees her apartment with her seven year old son, Juan. They find shelter with Pilar's sister, Ana, who would soon marry her Scottish live-in boyfriend. Antonio, Pilar's husband, tries to make her change her mind, but she is tired and fearful of his abusive behavior. Determined to start a new life on her own, Pilar sends her sister to retrieve her belongings from the apartment she shared with her estranged husband. Once there, Ana discovers through medical bills that her sister has also been physically abused by Antonio. When he arrives they have a confrontation. Antonio still loves his wife but he can not control his temper outburst. Trying to bring Pilar back, he joins an anger management group of married men who would like to change their disruptive behavior towards their wives. The male therapist listens to them, guides them and gives Antonio a notebook in which to express his feelings in order to understand them and control his anger. With his sister's encouragement, Pilar finds a job in the gift shop of a church that is a touristic attraction and in which Ana works restoring some paintings. Her newfound economical independence and the camaraderie of her coworkers awakens in Pilar a dormant interest in art. She begins to study on her own in order to become a tourist guide. Pilar is initially fearful of Antonio, but they are brought together when, in spite of Ana's protestations, Gloria, their mother, invites Antonio to Juan's birthday celebration. Pilar is still very much in love with Antonio in spite of his abusive behavior towards her. Juan misses his father and Pilar begins to soften her attitude towards Antonio. When they have a chance to talk, Antonio explains to her that he wants to change. He has enrolled in group therapy. He also has to deal with his frustration as a salesman in an appliances store. Pilar quickly warms up to Antonio's courtship and they begin to sneak out for secret meetings and romantic encounters. During Ana's wedding Pilar, with the full support of her mother, brings Antonio along. The two sisters have an argument after Pilar tells Ana that she is coming back to live with her husband. At first Pilar and Antonio are happy to be back together. Encouraged by his wife, Antonio still goes to his anger management therapy. However he has to deal with his frustration with his low paying job as appliance salesman in a store. He feels threatened by Pilar's economical independence since she is still working in the gift shop. Pilar applies for a job as a tourist guide in a museum in Madrid, but they would have to leave Toledo and Antonio wants to stay put, fearing that it would be difficult for him to find a better job in Madrid. Pilar efforts to convince him that if she gets the job and they move to Madrid it would be beneficial, falls on deaf ears. The day in which she has the job interview, just when a coworker is waiting for her outside to take her there, Antonio explodes in anger. He mistreats her, tears up her clothes and locks her stark naked in the balcony for all the neighbors to see. After this abuse and humiliation, Pilar leaves Antonio for good.
1105298	Nikolai Nikolaevich Luzin (also spelled Lusin; ; 9 December 1883 – 28 January 1950) was a Soviet/Russian mathematician known for his work in descriptive set theory and aspects of mathematical analysis with strong connections to point-set topology. He was the eponym of Luzitania, a loose group of young Moscow mathematicians of the first half of the 1920s. They adopted his set-theoretic orientation, and went on to apply it in other areas of mathematics. Life. He started studying mathematics in 1901 at Moscow University, where his advisor was Dimitri Egorov. Luzin underwent great personal turmoil in the years 1905 and 1906. He wrote to Pavel Florensky that: "You found me a mere child at the University, knowing nothing. I don't know how it happened, but I cannot be satisfied any more with analytic functions and Taylor series ... it happened about a year ago. ... To see the misery of people, to see the torment of life, to wend my way home from a mathematical meeting ... where, shivering in the cold, some women stand waiting in vain for dinner purchased with horror - this is an unbearable sight. It is unbearable, having seen this, to calmly study (in fact to enjoy) science. After that I could not study only mathematics, and I wanted to transfer to the medical school. ... I have been here about five months, but have only recently begun to study". From 1910 to 1914 he studied at Göttingen, where he was influenced by Edmund Landau. He then returned to Moscow and received his Ph.D. degree in 1915. During the Russian Civil War (1918–1920) Luzin left Moscow for the "Polytechnical Institute Ivanovo-Voznesensk" (now called Ivanovo State University of Chemistry and Technology). He returned to Moscow in 1920. On 5 January 1927 Luzin was elected as a corresponding member of the USSR Academy of Sciences and became a full member of the USSR Academy of Sciences first at the Department of Philosophy and then at the Department of Pure Mathematics (12 January 1929). In the 1920s Luzin organized a famous research seminar at Moscow University. His doctoral students included some of the most famous Soviet mathematicians: Pavel Aleksandrov, Nina Bari, Aleksandr Khinchin, Andrey Kolmogorov, Alexander Kronrod, Mikhail Lavrentyev, Alexey Lyapunov, Lazar Lyusternik, Pyotr Novikov, Lev Schnirelmann and Pavel Urysohn. Research work. Luzin's first significant result was a construction of an almost everywhere divergent trigonometric series with monotonic convergence to zero coefficients (1912). This example disproved the Pierre Fatou conjecture and was unexpected to most mathematicians at that time. At approximately the same time, he proved what is now called Lusin's theorem in real analysis. His Ph.D. thesis entitled "Integral and trigonometric series" (1915) had a large impact on the subsequent development of the metric theory of functions. A set of problems formulated in this thesis for a long time attracted attention from mathematicians. For example, the first problem in the list, on the convergence of the Fourier series for a square-integrable function, was solved by Lennart Carleson in 1966. In the theory of boundary properties of analytic functions he proved an important result on the invariance of sets of boundary points under conformal mappings (1919). Luzin was one of the founders of descriptive set theory. Together with his student Mikhail Yakovlevich Suslin, he developed the theory of analytic sets. He also made contributions to complex analysis, the theory of differential equations, and numerical methods. Letter to Vygodsky. In a letter to Vygodsky dating from 1932, Luzin expresses sympathy with Vygodsky's infinitesimal approach to developing calculus. He mocks accusations of bourgeois decadence against Vygodsky's textbook, and relates his own youthful experience with what he felt were unnecessary formal complications of the traditional development of analysis. Typical is his youthful reaction to his teachers' insistence that the derivative is a limit: "They won't fool me: it's simply the ratio of infinitesimals, nothing else." A recent study notes that Luzin's letter contained remarkable anticipations of modern calculus with infinitesimals. The Luzin affair of 1936. On 21 November 1930 the declaration of the “initiative group” of the Moscow Mathematical Society which consisted of former Luzin's students Lazar Lyusternik and Lev Shnirelman along with Alexander Gelfond and Lev Pontryagin claimed that “there appeared active counter-revolutionaries among mathematicians.” Some of these mathematicians were pointed out, including the advisor of Luzin, Dmitri Egorov. In September 1930, Dmitri Egorov was arrested on the basis of his religious beliefs. After arrest, he left the position of the director of the Moscow Mathematical Society. The new director became Ernst Kolman. As a result, Luzin left the Moscow Mathematical Society and Moscow State University. Egorov died on 10 September 1931, after a hunger strike initiated in prison. In 1931, Ernst Kolman made the first complaint against Luzin. In 1936 the Great Purge began. Unknown masses of people were arrested and/or executed, including leading members of the intelligentsia. In July–August of that year, Luzin was criticised in Pravda in a series of anonymous articles whose authorship later was attributed to Ernst Kolman. The attack on Luzin was supported by some of his students and was instigated by a letter of Pavel Aleksandroff. It was alleged that Luzin published “would-be scientific papers,” “felt no shame in declaring the discoveries of his students to be his own achievements,” stood close to the ideology of the “black hundreds,” orthodoxy, and monarchy “fascist-type modernized but slightly.” Luzin was tried at a special hearing of the Commission of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, which endorsed all accusations of Luzin as an "enemy under the mask of a Soviet citizen." One of the complaints was that he published his major results in foreign journals. Aleksandroff, Kolmogorov and some other students of Luzin accused him in plagiarism and various forms of misconduct. Sergei Sobolev and Otto Schmidt incriminated disloyalty to Soviet power. The methods of political insinuations and slander were used against the old Muscovite professorship many years before the article in Pravda.
1056002	The Wackness is a 2008 American coming-of-age drama film by Jonathan Levine and starring Josh Peck, Ben Kingsley, Famke Janssen, and Olivia Thirlby. The film is distributed by Sony Pictures Classics.
1056242	Taxi 2 (also called Taxi Taxi) is a French film directed by Gérard Krawczyk and released in 2000. It is a sequel to "Taxi" written by Luc Besson and directed by Gérard Pirès in 1998. It was followed by "Taxi 3" in 2003. Plot. A Japanese minister of defence is traveling to Paris to sign a weapons contract between Japan and France, but first, he is visiting Marseille to view and rate the city police's anti-gang tactics (using fake attacks on him). During the visit, however, he is kidnapped by a group working for the Japanese yakuza. Emilien (Frédéric Diefenthal) is determined to rescue the minister and detective Petra (Emma Sjöberg), his girlfriend who was also kidnapped, and restore the honour of his department. Once again, speed demon taxi-driver Daniel (Samy Naceri) is called upon to save the day with his high-speed driving skills. Production. Luc Besson was investigated by authorities after a cameraman died during filming. A Peugeot 406 was supposed to land in a pile of cardboard after a stunt, but missed and hit several crew. A cameraman died later of internal injuries and another cameraman broke both legs. Authorities allege safety was compromised in an effort to cut costs. Pioneer stunt coordinator Rémy Julienne was given an 18-month suspended jail sentence and fined 13,000 euros. Luc Besson, Grenet and director Gerard Krawczyk were all cleared of charges. Also with the Peugeot, Mitsubishi Lancer EVO VIis also featured as a star's car driven by the Yakuzas.
659757	Wade Andrew Williams (born December 24, 1961) is an American actor who is best known for his starring role as Brad Bellick on Fox's television series "Prison Break". Life and career. Williams was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma. He began his acting career at the Delacorte Theater in Central Park in "The Taming of the Shrew" with Morgan Freeman and Tracey Ullman. Williams also had a role with Denzel Washington in "Richard III". Williams then continued with performances on and off Broadway and toured nationally in productions such as "Guys and Dolls", "Les Misérables", "Kiss of the Spiderwoman", "Ragtime", and "Show Boat". His film credits include "Flicka", "Jarhead", "Collateral", "Ali", and "Erin Brockovich". Additionally, Williams has also appeared on television in series such as "Charmed", "Over There", "Six Feet Under", "24", "NYPD Blue", "" and as Father Cronin on "The Bernie Mac Show". From 2005 to 2009, Williams is well known for his role as Brad Bellick, leader of the correctional officers at Fox River State Penitentiary in "Prison Break". He guest starred on an episode of the 8th and final season of "Monk". He also took part at the music video "Welcome to My Truth" of the American singer-songwriter Anastacia. Williams appeared in "The Dark Knight Rises" as the warden of Blackgate prison, an ode to his former role in "Prison Break".
1103646	Elias Menachem Stein (born January 13, 1931) is a mathematician and a leading figure in the field of harmonic analysis. He is a professor emeritus of Mathematics at Princeton University. Biography. Stein was born to Elkan Stein and Chana Goldman, Ashkenazi Jews from Belgium. After the German invasion in 1940, the Stein family fled to the United States, first arriving in New York. He graduated from Stuyvesant High School in 1949, where he was classmates with future Fields Medalist Paul Cohen, before moving on to the University of Chicago for college. In 1955, Stein earned a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago under the direction of Antoni Zygmund. He began teaching in MIT in 1955, moved to the University of Chicago in 1958 as an assistant professor, and in 1963 became a full professor at Princeton, the position he currently holds. Stein has worked primarily in the field of harmonic analysis, and has made major contributions in both extending and clarifying Calderón–Zygmund theory. These include "Stein interpolation" (a variable-parameter version of complex interpolation), the "Stein maximal principle" (showing that under many circumstances, almost everywhere convergence is equivalent to the boundedness of a maximal function), "Stein complementary series representations", "Nikishin–Pisier–Stein factorization" in operator theory, the "Tomas–Stein restriction theorem" in Fourier analysis, the "Kunze–Stein phenomenon" in convolution on semisimple groups, the Cotlar–Stein lemma concerning the sum of almost orthogonal operators, and the Fefferman–Stein theory of the Hardy space formula_1 and the space formula_2 of functions of bounded mean oscillation. He has written numerous books on harmonic analysis (see e.g. which are often cited as the standard references on the subject. His Princeton Lectures in Analysis series [6,7,8,9 were penned for his sequence of undergraduate courses on analysis at Princeton. Stein is also noted as having trained a high number of graduate students (he has had at least 45 students, according to the Mathematics Genealogy Project), so shaping modern Fourier analysis. They include two Fields medalists, Charles Fefferman and Terence Tao. Stein has two children, Karen and Jeremy (professor of financial economics at Harvard, formerly in Washington D.C. advising Tim Geithner and Laurence Summers), as well as three grandchildren. His honors include the Steele Prize (1984 and 2002), the Schock Prize in Mathematics (1993), the Wolf Prize in Mathematics (1999), and the National Medal of Science (2002). In addition, he has fellowships to National Science Foundation, Sloan Foundation, Guggenheim, and National Academy of Sciences. In 2005, Stein was awarded the Stefan Bergman prize in recognition of his contributions in real, complex, and harmonic analysis. In 2012 he became a fellow of the American Mathematical Society.
1017096	Ab-normal Beauty (死亡寫真) (also "Sei mong se jun") is a 2004 Hong Kong horror film directed and co-written by Oxide Pang. It stars Race Wong and Rosanne Wong of the Cantopop group 2R. Plot. Jiney, an art and photography student, wins an award for her work. Her friend, Anson, congratulates her, but she tells him that although she won an award, she is unhappy with the work. Her friend Jas, who she lives with, takes her from school and they go out to take photographs. Jiney's mother tells her that she is going away on business for a month. Later, she witnesses a fatal car accident (see also "Leave Me Alone") and takes photographs of it. She finds herself obsessed with death.
1278185	Borrowed Hearts (a.k.a. Borrowed Hearts: A Holiday Romance) is a 1997 made-for-TV Christmas film directed by Ted Kotcheff, and starring Roma Downey and Eric McCormack. Plot. Sam Field (Eric McCormack) is a high-powered businessman and scion of a rich industrialist family with his own factory. Though a workaholic, Sam manages to enjoy a playboy lifestyle, having one girlfriend after the other, while struggling with never having lived up to his father's expectations. One day, his spokesman and best friend Dave Hebert (Shawn Alex Thompson) explains that a wealthy potential buyer of his company believes that Sam is a loyal family man. Even though he is not amused by having to pretend to be a married father, he agrees to the scheme of hiring actors to play his wife and son. After some unsuccessful rehearsals with his hired family, Sam is about to give up all hope of landing the deal, when a 7-year-old girl suddenly enters his house. This is Zoey Russell (Sarah Rosen Fruitman), a well-meaning and friendly young girl who constantly gets into trouble due to her energetic impulses. One of these impulses was running into Sam's house, which, according to Zoey, resembled her doll house. Zoey's mother, Kathleen (Roma Downey), is a single parent who struggles with combining parenthood with her job, coincidentally at Sam's factory. She had aspirations of becoming an artist, but settled for a lesser position when she married Jerry Russell (Kevin Hicks), who has since left her. Kathleen is offered a large sum of money for her and Zoey to pose as Sam's loving family. She is not impressed with Sam, but agrees to take the job because she needs to save money for a down payment on a house, but also because Zoey is fond of Sam's house. They are given a make-over by Sam's staff and are taught what to say and what not to say to the potential client, Javier Del Campo (Héctor Elizondo). He is scheduled to stay at Sam's mansion for a weekend, during which he becomes fond of Zoey. When Javier announces that he will stay until the negotiations are completed, for another two weeks, Zoey is delighted, unlike Sam and Kathleen. Sam is especially frustrated, because the family act has negative influence on his work. One evening, Zoey unintentionally messes up Sam's office, which causes him to have an angry outburst. Kathleen is appalled by his behavior toward her daughter and immediately quits and leaves the house. That evening, Sam comes to Kathleen's apartment, apologizes to her and convinces her to return. The next night, the 'family' and Javier go out ice skating, during which Zoey becomes convinced that Javier is an angel. Sam, meanwhile, realizes that he is more charmed with Kathleen than with an attractive young woman who was flirting with him earlier that evening. Just when things are going for the upper, Jerry shows up where Sam, Dave and Javier are having lunch. He demands to know what is going on, and threatens to let Javier know and scuttle their negotiations. Sam, aware of his hustler lifestyle - even though Zoey thinks that he has left home to become an astronaut - offers him money to keep their secret, with the condition that he not contact his family until after Christmas. Shortly after, Kathleen learns that the possible deal between Sam and Javier includes a sale, not a merger as she thought, meaning that production will move to Mexico and will cost most of Sam's employees (including Kathleen) their jobs. In response, she shows Sam how much his employees need their job, which puts Sam in even a more difficult position. The same evening, the bonding continues over present wrapping and they are about to kiss but are interrupted by Zoey waking up from a nightmare.
1058616	Jon Polito (born December 29, 1950) is an American actor and voice artist. Life and career. Polito was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He is known for working with the Coen Brothers, most notably in the major supporting role of Italian gangster Johnny Caspar in "Miller's Crossing". He appeared as Det. Steve Crosetti in the first two seasons of "" and on the first season of "Crime Story". Polito won an OBIE award in 1980 for his theater performances off Broadway and for his lifetime of work in film and television he received the Maverick Spirit Event Award at Cinequest Film Festival in 2005. Polito is openly gay. "Homicide: Life on the Street". When "Homicide" began pre-production, Polito was asked to audition, and was initially reluctant - he didn't want move to Baltimore for the series, because he had just relocated from New York to Los Angeles. The script he received featured a dialogue scene between two detectives, one Polish American and the other Irish-American. Polito decided that the part he wanted was that of the Irishman, but he was told that he could not read for it. After reading for the part of the Polish-American detective, Polito added a message on his audition tape, saying that if the producers wanted to call him back, he would only be interested if he could take the part of the Irish detective. Series co-creators Barry Levinson and Tom Fontana did call him back, and they rewrote the character as an Italian, and cast him in the role. The other character, the Polish-American detective, was also rewritten, becoming Det. Meldrick Lewis, played by African-American actor Clark Johnson. Polito was written out of "Homicide" at the end of Season 2 (explained by his character taking extended leave). The reality behind the move was that the producers were under pressure from their network NBC to include a new female character (Megan Russert), hoping to gain broader appeal for the show (which rated poorly). Although Polito was unhappy about the character's departure, co-producer Tom Fontana assured him that he would be brought back later in the season. However, Polito's previous experiences with producers led him to mistrust Fontana's assurances, so he went to the media to express his unhappiness, speaking critically of the producers' handling of NBC's demands: Not surprisingly, the outburst caused a rift with Fontana, resulting in Polito being sacked from the show. The Crosetti character was killed off early in Season 3, with the explanation that the detective had committed suicide. This further infuriated Polito, who again complained to the media, triggering a public slanging match between him and Fontana. Interviewed about the situation in 2005, Polito expressed regret for his handling of the matter, and said that with hindsight, he realised that he should have trusted Fontana. He noted that he and Fontana subsequently patched up their differences, and as a result the Crosetti character returned to make a farewell appearance (as a spirit) in the valedictory special "".
1059859	Romeo + Juliet is a 1996 romantic-drama film adaptation of William Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet". It was directed by Baz Luhrmann and stars Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes in the leading roles. The film is an abridged modernization of Shakespeare's play. While it retains the original Shakespearean dialogue, the Montagues and the Capulets are represented as warring business empires and swords are replaced by guns (with brand names such as "Dagger" and "Sword"). Some of the names were also changed. Lord and Lady Montague and Lord and Lady Capulet were given first names (as opposed to the Shakespeare original where their first names are never mentioned), Friar Lawrence became Father Lawrence, and Prince Escalus was renamed Captain Prince. There was also no Friar John, who was in the original play. Also, some characters were switched from one family to the other - in the original, Gregory and Sampson are Capulet, but in the film, they are Montagues. (Abra and Petruchio, conversely, are shifted from the Montague to the Capulet family.)
588235	Nanhe Jaisalmer - A Dream Come True (also known as Nanhe) is a 2007 film directed by Samir Karnik and featuring Bobby Deol as himself and child actor Dwij Yadav in the title role. The film has a new actor, who has appeared in a couple of films, "Vatsal Seth" in a cameo role in the film, as Nanhe Jaiselmer, In the adult future.The film is based in Rajasthan and the songs of the film especially 'Ranjhana' which is sung by Himesh Reshammiya have Rajasthani lyrics. Synopsis. Nanhe (Dwij Yadav) is the self-proclaimed best camel jockey in all of Jaisalmer. Only ten years old, he can speak a myrad of languages and has won the hearts of all the tourists who visit Jaisalmer. But who has won Nanhe's heart? His best friend, the actor Bobby Deol. No one believes that Bobby Deol is Nanhe's friend. When Nanhe's "sab se acha dost" (best friend) finally comes to Jaisalmer on a 30 day movie shoot, Nanhe's wish is fulfilled, to finally meet his long-lost friend and he learns a lesson on how to use his most powerful utility, his brain. Bobby teaches him how to fight with life, and do creative challenges but then he finds out at the end, it was all an illusion. Bobby never came to Jaisalmer, he cancelled his shooting, and only Nanhe could see him. As an adult Nanhe (Vatsal Sheth) changes his name to Vikram Singh and writes a book about his own life, how he thought he met Bobby Deol and the rest of stuff that happened in his earlier life, but is in big shock and excitement when he finds out that on his Book Premiere, Bobby Deol actually showed up, remembering they became good friends after all. Box office. The film, though well received, failed at the boxoffice. It has done better in Home Video & T.V. reruns. The film was awarded Certificate of excellence at the California Children Film Festival. Also, another fact to be considered is that the basic storyline of "Billu Barber" or "Billu", released in 2009, is along the same story where Shahrukh Khan's childhood friend is a measly barber and no one believes his tall tale that Billu used to give Shahrukh Khan half his lunch because Shahrukh Khan was so poor.
1169702	Avery Lawrence Schreiber (April 9, 1935 – January 7, 2002) was an American comedian and actor. He was a veteran of stage, television, and film. Life and career. Schreiber was born in Chicago, Illinois, the son of Minnie (née Shear) and George Schreiber. He started his career in Chicago at the Goodman Theatre. He joined The Second City and later teamed with Jack Burns to form the comedy team of Burns and Schreiber. They recorded several comedy albums and appeared on numerous television shows. Schreiber is remembered for his many Doritos ads in the 1970s, as well as his appearances in classic television shows. He was easily recognizable for his trademark bushy moustache, curly hair, and comedic reactions. In 1965, Schreiber played the role of Captain Manzini on "My Mother the Car". In the summer of 1973, he co-hosted the ABC comedy show, "The Burns and Schreiber Comedy Hour." Schreiber was a regular guest star on "Chico and the Man". He was also a frequent guest on the game show "Match Game" and a guest in a first-season episode of "The Muppet Show" (written by former partner Jack Burns, whom he mentioned during a stand-up routine in the episode). Avery continued to work in film, television and the Theater, as well as teach Improvisational Theater technique to thousands of students up until the time of his death. He taught master classes at The Second City in Chicago and Los Angeles, and also taught out of his living room. Death. In 1994, Schreiber suffered a heart attack, a complication of diabetes. Though he survived triple bypass surgery, he never fully recovered. He died of another heart attack on January 7, 2002 at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. He was residing in Los Angeles at the time of his death. He was cremated. Legacy. In 2003, the Avery Schreiber Theatre was founded in North Hollywood, California.
586851	Ayaz Khan (born 1 April 1979) is an Indian actor and model. He has appeared in such Hindi films as "Jaane Tu... Ya Jaane Na". He played the character of Shubhankar Rai on the STAR One medical drama "Dill Mill Gayye". In 2010 he will appear opposite Rahul Bose and Esha Deol in "Ghost Ghost Na Raha" and will star in "Apna Sa" with Koyel Mullick. He is also part of the ensemble cast of "Hide & Seek" which is slated for release on 12 March 2010. Currently he is playing the role of Gaurav on Parichay (TV Series) on Colors TV.
1244154	Desmond Harrington (born October 19, 1976) is an American actor. He is known for movies such as "The Hole", "Wrong Turn" and "Ghost Ship". He joined the cast of the Showtime series "Dexter" in its third season as Det. Joseph Quinn and appeared in a few episodes of Gossip Girl. Life and career. Harrington was born in Savannah, Georgia. His first role was Aulon in Luc Besson's "". He soon after nabbed prominent roles in films such as "The Hole", "Ghost Ship" and "Wrong Turn". Harrington also appeared in the Steven Spielberg sci-fi drama "Taken", in which he played Jesse Keys, an abductee of aliens. In September 2008 he joined the Showtime TV show "Dexter". In December 2008, he played a guest role on "Gossip Girl" playing Jack Bass. He reprised his role through guest appearances in Seasons 3 of the show. In January 2012, it was reported that Harrington will return to "Gossip Girl" in the "last third of the season". In the same month, he made a guest appearance on the Season three premiere of "Justified", playing Fletcher 'The Ice Pick' Nix. He also played a small role in "The Dark Knight Rises" as a police officer.
1055822	Smooth Talk is a 1985 drama film, loosely based on Joyce Carol Oates' 1966 short story "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?", which was in turn inspired by the Tucson murders committed by Charles Schmid. The protagonist and main character, Connie Wyatt, is played by Laura Dern. The antagonist, Arnold Friend, is played by Treat Williams. The film was produced by American Playhouse and Goldcrest Films, and originally released to movie theaters in 1985. The original music score was composed by Russ Kunkel and Bill Payne. The movie won the Grand Jury Prize in the Dramatic category at that year's Sundance Festival. Synopsis. Connie Wyatt is a restless 15-year-old who is anxious to explore the pleasures of her sexual awakening. Before she enters her sophomore year in high school, she spends the summer moping around her family cottage. She suffers from her mother's put-downs, while hearing nothing but praise for her older sister, June. Her father somehow manages to float around the family tensions. She also helps paint the cottage, just as her mother constantly demands her to. Connie passes the time cruising shopping malls with her friends and flirting with boys. When an actual date leads to heavy petting, however, she flees from his car. At a hamburger joint, an older man confides to her, "I'm watching you!" and proves it soon after. One afternoon, her mother and June warn Connie to be careful with her flirting, and she is left alone in the cottage, while her family goes to a barbecue. Later, as Connie is playing around the house, a man who calls himself Arnold Friend approaches her in a 1960s convertible with that name painted on it and identifies himself as "A. Friend". He dresses and acts like James Dean, and name-drops several teenybopper acts, even though he is much older than she is. He comes off very kind and friendly, but a bit suspicious, alternating between talking to her in a warm, seductive voice and shouting insults to his fellow car passenger when he asks Arnold if he should "pull out the phone," possibly to keep her from calling the police. Arnold tells Connie about how he has been watching her and that he knows all about her, recounting the details about her family's barbecue plans with amazing accuracy. He then starts talking about how he could be her lover. She starts to get scared and tells him to go, but he coerces her into going with him, threatening to burn down the house, while his friend remains in the house. When she returns home, Connie is bewildered and disheveled, but tells Arnold that she never wants to see him again. It is left ambiguous whether or not he raped her; it is implied that she isn't the same person we met at the beginning of the film. After her family returns home, her mother tearfully apologizes to her for slapping her, but Connie reassures her that everything is all right. At the end of the film, she never tells June about what happened, but dances with her to James Taylor's recording of the song "Handy Man."
1163420	Jason Beghe (born March 12, 1960) is an American film and television actor and critic of Scientology. As a young man he attended the Collegiate School in New York City, where he became best friends with John F. Kennedy, Jr. and David Duchovny. Beghe is married and lives in Los Angeles, California. Beghe starred in the 1988 George A. Romero film "Monkey Shines: An Experiment In Fear", playing a quadriplegic in a performance that was positively received. He appeared as a police officer in the film "Thelma & Louise", and played Demi Moore's love interest in "G.I. Jane". Beghe starred opposite Moira Kelly in the television series "To Have & to Hold", and has had recurring roles on "Picket Fences", "Melrose Place", "Chicago Hope", "American Dreams" and "Cane", as well as parts on numerous other television programs. He began taking Scientology courses in 1994, and later appeared in a Church of Scientology advertising campaign and in promotional videos. According to Beghe, Church of Scientology head David Miscavige even referred to him as "the poster boy for Scientology". Beghe left Scientology in 2007 and began publicly speaking out about his experiences within the church in April 2008. An on camera interview with Beghe about his experiences in Scientology conducted by Xenu TV founder and journalist Mark Bunker was published to the video site YouTube and later Vimeo. Marina Hyde of "The Guardian" newspaper called Beghe a Scientology celebrity whistleblower for his actions. Early life. Beghe was born March 12, 1960 in New York City, and is one of four siblings. He attended the Collegiate School, a private preparatory school for boys located in New York City. While there, he became best friends with John F. Kennedy, Jr. and actor David Duchovny. Kennedy and Beghe often hung out together outside the Metropolitan Museum of Art and in Central Park, and were monitored by Kennedy's Secret Service detail. As a teenager, Beghe attended summer camp with Erik Rush, now a conservative columnist and author. Influenced by Beghe, Kennedy became involved in the theater program at Collegiate. Beghe later also persuaded Duchovny to pursue work in acting. Duchovny had planned to write and become a professor, but halfway through work on his Ph.D. dissertation, Beghe convinced him to audition for television commercials. Acting career. Prior to his acting career, Beghe worked as a model in Europe. He had his feature film debut in the 1985 film "Compromising Positions", starring Susan Sarandon, and in 1986 had his first recurring role on television on the HBO situation comedy series "1st & Ten". He starred alongside O. J. Simpson and Sam J. Jones in HBO's sequel to "1st & Ten" titled "Training Camp: The Bulls Are Back", and John Voohees of "The Seattle Times" wrote: "The cast, which includes O.J. Simpson, Sam Jones and newcomer Jason Beghe, is first-rate." In 1988, he starred in the film "Monkey Shines: An Experiment In Fear", directed by George A. Romero. He portrayed Allan Mann, a law student made quadriplegic when hit by a truck in the opening credits of the film. "The Philadelphia Inquirer" gave a positive review of Beghe's performance in "Monkey Shines": "Acting only with his face and voice, Jason Beghe is terrific at conveying the mounting anger and rage of an active man made passive". David Foil of "The Advocate" described Beghe's performance as "remarkable simply for meeting the demands of the character". Beghe played an ice hockey star in the Perry Mason TV film "The Case of the All-Star Assassin", an NBC-TV telefeature broadcast November 19, 1989. In 1991 he played a State Trooper in the film "Thelma & Louise" (reuniting him with Sarandon, with whom he'd appeared in "Compromising Positions"), and was Demi Moore's love interest in the 1997 film "G.I. Jane". He had recurring roles on "Picket Fences" and "Melrose Place", and became a cast member of "Chicago Hope" in 1997, portraying electrician Danny Blaines opposite romantic interest Dr. Austin played by Christine Lahti. In a 1997 interview in "The Boston Herald", Beghe spoke about his respect for his fellow cast members in "Chicago Hope": "I think it's the best cast assembled that I've ever seen. One for one, they're incredible. And to work with Christine Lahti? I'd drop a lot of things for that. She's so good and smart and dedicated. I've become a better actor just for working with her." He commented on his character on "Melrose Place", a closeted military officer who had feelings for Matt, played by Doug Savant: "I thought we should kiss, but it was too much. TV is a very specific medium, and you're naive if you think that everything is just based on artistic decisions. If it prevents them from selling some products, that's a major consideration. But I'm an actor. I'll do whatever it takes." Beghe co-starred with Moira Kelly in the 1998 CBS television drama series "To Have & to Hold", where he played police officer Sean McGrail. Mike Duffy of "The Detroit Free Press" wrote: "There is an affectionate romantic sizzle between the ruggedly handsome Beghe ("G.I. Jane") and the dark-haired, unconventionally attractive Kelly ("Little Odessa")." Kinney Littlefield of "The Orange County Register" said that "Beghe and Kelly have charm." Beghe appeared in acting roles on "Numb3rs", "", "Everwood", "Criminal Minds", "Veronica Mars" and "Cane". Beghe portrayed exorcist Ray Purvis in the 2008 horror film "One Missed Call". In 2009, Beghe had a guest-starring role on the television show "Californication". He played the character novelist Richard Bates, a friend of character Hank Moody (played by David Duchovny). "Bates, played by Jason Beghe, made for an interesting character and the fact that he didn't get as much screen time as some of the other characters is a shame," wrote Danny Gallagher of "TV Squad". In October 2009, Beghe was in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania for the filming of the movie "The Next Three Days", directed by Paul Haggis. The film was released in 2010 and starred Elizabeth Banks, Russell Crowe, Brian Dennehy, and Olivia Wilde. Scientology. Early years and decision to leave. In 1994, Beghe was in an acting class taught by Scientologist Milton Katselas, and decided to take some Scientology courses. Fellow acting student Bodhi Elfman gave him a book about Scientology from which Beghe was introduced to the idea that "technology" developed by L. Ron Hubbard could yield superhuman abilities. Beghe helped promote a "What is Scientology?" exhibition which was part of a Church of Scientology national television advertising campaign in Britain in 1999. He appeared in Scientology promotional videos in 2005. In an interview with "Fox News", Beghe told Roger Friedman that the head of the Church of Scientology, David Miscavige, referred to him as "the poster boy for Scientology". He reached the level of OT V within Scientology, and is a trained Auditor. His wife also took Scientology courses and rose to the level of OT V. He estimated he has given the Church of Scientology USD$1 million over a 12-year period. In 2007, Beghe made the decision to leave Scientology, and began to publicly criticize the Church of Scientology in April 2008. One of the first people he went to see after leaving Scientology was his friend David Duchovny. Beghe discussed the Xenu space opera with Duchovny, and both found the story to be funny. While active in Scientology Beghe's relationship with Duchovny suffered, and Duchovny was referred to as a "Suppressive Person", someone believed to be working against the Church of Scientology and not to be associated with. Public criticism. After leaving Scientology, Beghe contacted Andreas Heldal-Lund, founder of Operation Clambake, who convinced him to meet with journalist and Scientology critic Mark Bunker. Heldal-Lund and Bunker went to Beghe's house, where Beghe participated in an interview about his experiences as a Scientologist. Bunker published a three-minute portion of the three-hour interview to YouTube in mid-April 2008, and in the video Beghe calls Scientology "very dangerous for your spiritual, psychological, mental, emotional health and evolution." The interview closes with Beghe stating, "I don't have an agenda. I'm just trying to help. [...] I have the luxury of having gotten into Scientology and after having been in it, been out. And that's a perspective that people who are still in and not out do not have." When asked in an interview in "The Village Voice" if he thought his public criticism of Scientology would hurt his acting career, Beghe joked, "I’m probably not going to be doing any movies for United Artists any time soon." (United Artists was revamped as a joint venture with Scientologist Tom Cruise, his business associate Paula Wagner, who is chief executive of the company, and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.) Marina Hyde of "The Guardian" called Beghe a Scientology celebrity whistleblower. The video was taken down from YouTube on April 17, 2008 but was reposted by multiple other YouTube users shortly thereafter. By April 18, 2008, at least 45 users had reposted the video interview using their own YouTube accounts. Bunker's account was also canceled on April 17, and he believed this was due to copyright issues stemming from clips of "The Colbert Report" that he had uploaded to YouTube. Although the issues have since been resolved, Bunker initially thought that his account had been banned and the video made inaccessible due to pressure on YouTube staff from the Church of Scientology; claims which were not confirmed or denied by YouTube representative Ricardo Reyes, who referred to YouTube's policy of not commenting on individual videos. On April 21, 2008 Mark Bunker posted the video footage of the entire interview with Jason Beghe; as Bunker's YouTube account was suspended, the full interview footage was instead hosted on Vimeo and Blip.tv. On April 28, 2008, Beghe posted online a letter to Church leader David Miscavige, requesting the confidential confessional files that Scientology compiles during Auditing sessions. In a message posted to the Operation Clambake website, Beghe wrote: "As the Church of Scientology carefully monitors all anti-scientology websites, I am posting the letter here, on xenu.net, to assure that it be received by the C of S." He had previously contacted the President's Office at The Church of Scientology Celebrity Centre International who "refused to directly respond" to his request, and a letter to David Miscavige sent through the Church communication system was also refused. Beghe told "The Village Voice" that these confidential files are also kept on actor Tom Cruise as well as other celebrity Scientologists. "More people have left Scientology than are currently in it. And yet they maintain these files about what people have said to them in private sessions. Why would you want these people to hold onto this stuff?" said Beghe to "The Village Voice". Beghe believes that Scientology's practice of disconnection is still in place, and in an interview with Tony Ortega of "The Village Voice" cited his four-year-old son being kicked out of a Scientology school as an example of disconnection. A portion of Beghe's criticism of Scientology originally uploaded to YouTube by Mark Bunker was shown on "Nightline" in a piece about David Miscavige's niece, Jenna Miscavige Hill, and her criticism of Scientology. Beghe has turned down television appearances to speak about his experiences, stating: "I just wanted to make sure that the story isn’t about me. It’s not about me. It’s about helping others who are still lost in the cult, or toying with the idea of getting involved." On May 29, 2008, Beghe attended a protest against the Church of Scientology held outside the Scientology building on East 46th Street in New York City. He addressed the 50 protesters gathered across the street from the Scientology building, and told them: "What you guys are doing means so much to me, and so much to these people ... It just kills me. It makes me want to cry. You don’t know what kind of good you’re doing." He then walked across the street in an attempt to enter the Scientology building, but was prevented from entering by three hired private security guards. He returned to the group of protesters and tried to phone the president of the Church of Scientology of New York, John Carmichael: "I called and asked for John Carmichael and said I was Jason Beghe. Then they hung up." In September 2008, Beghe traveled to Europe where he spoke with government officials in Hamburg, Germany about his experiences as a Scientologist. He had been invited by Germany’s Department of Interior Affairs to speak at a panel organized by Ursula Caberta on Scientology titled: "That is Scientology! Reports from the USA". Beghe suggested that governments put up a warning sign, similar to warnings placed on packs of cigarettes, and the next day a member of Germany's Interior Department told him such a sign was placed outside a Church of Scientology building in Berlin. Beghe said that Scientology hired private investigators to follow him to Europe. Beghe was a guest in May 2009 on the BBC World Service radio program "", where he discussed his views on what he thought of Scientology when he first joined: "I thought that it was something that was going to deliver miracles, and that it was the most selfless group of people that were totally dedicated to helping mankind, and I wanted to be part of it." He was also critical of the Scientology organization leadership, including its head David Miscavige: "I think that there are probably things of Scientology that are valuable and that can help people - my main issue is not with Scientology per se, it is with Scientology the organization - it is a corrupt I believe and probably a criminal endeavor, and that has to do with people who are in charge of Scientology mainly David Miscavige..." In September 2010, Beghe took part in a BBC News "Panorama" documentary, "The Secrets of Scientology", in which he spoke about his decision to leave the organization. He said his time with the organization had cost him "a million dollars" and hinted that the religion was a racket. Personal life. Beghe's sister, Francesca Beghe, is a singer/songwriter who released a self-titled album in 1991 with SBK Records. Beghe married his wife Angie in 2000. Beghe and David Duchovny remain close friends, and he was best man at Duchovny's wedding to actress Téa Leoni. He lives with his wife and family in Nichols Canyon, Los Angeles, California.
587395	Nooravathu Naal (English: "Hundredth Day") is a 1984 Tamil-language Indian feature film directed by Manivannan, starring Mohan, Vijayakanth, Nalini and Sathyaraj. Dubbed into Telugu as "Nooru Rojulu". Remade in Hindi as "100 Days". Plot. "Nooravathu Naal" is a Suspense thriller of a psychopath, who abducts young women and kills them. Box office. The film was a superhit, moreover the psychopath character played by Mohan created huge interest among filmgoers. It was a bold attempt by Mohan to perform the anti-hero role as he was continuously being given roles as a romantic hero.
588928	Anand Math is a 1952 Hindi patriotic-historical film directed by Hemen Gupta, based on "Anandamath", the famous Bengali novel written by Bankim Chandra Chatterjee in 1882. The novel and film are set in the events of the Sannyasi Rebellion, which took place in the late 18th century in Bengal. The film starred Prithviraj Kapoor, Bharat Bhushan, Geeta Bali, Pradeep Kumar and Ajit in the lead. Pradeep Kumar was making his debut in Hindi Cinema, as was the film's music director Hemant Kumar. Hemant had already been working in Bengali Cinema for a while, but then shifted to Mumbai to start a career in Hindi Cinema. With this film, Hemant Kumar took a staff position as a composer with S. Mukherjee's Filmistan Studios. Soundtrack. Music score of the film was given by Hemant Kumar, it being his first film score in Hindi Cinema. Notable songs included "Vande Mataram", based on the song written by Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyaya himself. This song played an important role throughout the Indian Independence Movement and was eventually declared the "National Song" (much more powerful than national anthem) at the time of independence in 1947. Kumar's tune for "Vande Mataram" is still considered an important version of this popular and widely interpreted song.
898695	Thomas Clifford Arana (born April 3, 1955) is an American actor. Life and career. Arana was born in Auburn, California. He grew up in San Francisco and studied classical theatre at the American Conservatory Theater and at the City College of San Francisco. Afterwards he relocated to New York and acted in off-Broadway productions. He then hitchhiked throughout Europe and ended up living in Naples, Italy, where he worked in the famous Lucio Amelio Art Gallery. There he worked with such artists as Warhol, Beuys, Rauschenberg, Richter, Longobardi, Clemente, Gilbert & George, etc. Andy Warhol painted his portrait, which is now part of Arana's extensive art collection. He lives between Italy and Hollywood and has three sons. Arana has played leading and supporting roles in over 30 European productions including films by directors such as Lina Wertmüller, Liliana Cavani, Carlo Verdone, Michele Soavi and with one of Japan's most successful directors: Koreyoshi Kurahara in the Toho production "See You". He appeared as Quintus in Ridley Scott's epic motion picture "Gladiator", and he also appeared in the second film of the Bourne series, The Bourne Supremacy. In theatre, Arana was the producer and a leading actor in the internationally acclaimed theatre company Falso Movimento, based in Naples, Italy. Under Arana and artistic director Mario Martone (now an Italian film director), Falso Movimento won many awards including Best Play of the Year and Best Set Design, as well as the Mondello Prize. Arana also played the GRU sleeper agent in the 1990 film version of Tom Clancy's novel "The Hunt for Red October", the would-be killer in 1992's "The Bodyguard" starring superstars Kevin Costner and Whitney Houston, a Belarusian resistance leader in Edward Zwick's 2008 film "Defiance", and The Man In The Tan Coat in 2011's "Limitless" alongside Bradley Cooper and Robert De Niro. He appeared in the third installment of Christopher Nolan's Batman trilogy, "The Dark Knight Rises", as Bruce Wayne's lawyer. In 2013 Arana performed as mysterious assassin in the miniseries "Crimes" of the German television broadcaster "ZDF", a role without any text.
590547	Zubeida Begum Dhanrajgir () (1911-1988) was an Indian film actress and an Indian Princess. She acted in the first Indian talkie movie "Alam Ara" (1931). Her credits include early hits "Devdas" (1937), and Sagar Movietone's first talkie, "Meri Jaan". In the presence of seasoned actors like Prithviraj Kapoor and Master Vithal, Zubeida blossomed and wowed everyone with her singing, dancing and her speech and became one of Indian cinema's earliest superstars. Her mother, Fatima Begum, India's first woman film director and a superstar of the silent movie era in her own right directed her daughter Zubeida in films and even acted alongside her. This remarkable partnership prepared the ground for Zubeida's remarkable transition from the very different form and stylistics of silent movies to that of talking movies. Her role in Indian cinema's first talkie, Alam Ara, brought to the fore her incredible talent and instantly launched her into superstardom and fame in India and among the already established film industry in Europe and America where she had many friends and admirers. She would later fall in love with and marry an Indian Maharaja and eventually gave up her acting career when she was at the very height of her profession. She was among the few girls who entered films at the age of 12 in a time when it was not considered an appropriate profession for girls from respectable families, let alone Royalty. Born in Surat city of Gujarat in western India, Zubeida was a stunningly beautiful Muslim princess, the daughter of Nawab Sidi Ibrahim Muhammad Yakut Khan III of Sachin and Fatima Begum. She had two sisters, Sultana and Shehzadi, both actresses.
1103133	Robert Lee Moore (November 14, 1882 – October 4, 1974) was an American mathematician, known for his work in general topology and the Moore method of teaching university mathematics. Life. Although Moore's father was reared in New England and was of New England ancestry, he fought in the American Civil War on the side of the Confederacy. After the war, he ran a hardware store in Dallas, then little more than a railway stop, and raised six children, of whom Robert, named after the commander of the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia, was the fifth. Moore entered the University of Texas at the unusually low age of 16, in 1898, already knowing calculus thanks to self-study. He completed the B.Sc. in three years instead of the usual four; his teachers included G. B. Halsted and L. E. Dickson. After a year as a teaching fellow at Texas, he taught high school for a year in Marshall, Texas. An assignment of Halsted's led Moore to prove that one of Hilbert's axioms for geometry was redundant. When E. H. Moore (no relation), who headed the Department of Mathematics at the University of Chicago, and whose research interests were on the foundations of geometry, heard of Robert's feat, he arranged for a scholarship that would allow Robert to study for a doctorate at Chicago. Oswald Veblen supervised Moore's 1905 thesis, titled "Sets of Metrical Hypotheses for Geometry". Moore then taught one year at the University of Tennessee, two years at Princeton University, and three years at Northwestern University. In 1910, he married Margaret MacLelland Key of Brenham, Texas; they had no children. In 1911, he took up a position at the University of Pennsylvania. In 1920, Moore happily returned to the University of Texas at Austin as an associate professor, and was promoted to full professor three years later. In 1951, he went on half pay, but continued to teach his habitual five classes a year, including a section of freshman calculus, until the University authorities forced his definitive retirement in 1969, his 87th year. In 1973, the University of Texas honored him by giving the name Moore Hall to a new building housing the physics, mathematics, and astronomy departments. A strong supporter of the American Mathematical Society, he presided over it, 1936–38. He edited its Colloquium Publications, 1929–33, and was the editor-in-chief, 1930–33. In 1931, he was elected to the National Academy of Sciences. Topologist. According to the bibliography in Wilder (1976), Moore published 67 papers and one monograph, his 1932 "Foundations of Point Set Theory". He is primarily remembered for his work on the foundations of topology, a topic he first touched on in his PhD thesis. By the time Moore returned to the University of Texas, he had published 17 papers on point-set topology—a term he coined—including his 1915 paper "On a set of postulates which suffice to define a number-plane," giving an axiom system for plane topology. The Moore plane, Moore's road space, Moore space and the Moore space conjecture are named in his honour. Unusual teacher. Robert Lee Moore is known to have supervised 50 doctoral dissertations, almost all at Texas, including those of R. H. Bing, F. Burton Jones, John R. Kline, Mary Ellen Rudin, Gordon Whyburn, R. D. Anderson, and Raymond Louis Wilder. This attests to Moore's having been one of the most charismatic and inspiring university teachers of mathematics ever active in the United States. Moore had a breathtaking ability to teach students who had never previously distinguished themselves in mathematics how to do proofs. He went out of his way to teach elementary and service courses every year, and actually forbade his students from consulting the mathematical literature. It was while attending lectures at the University of Chicago that Moore first hit on his original teaching methods. Finding these lectures rather boring, even mind dulling, he would liven up a lecture by running a race in his mind with the lecturer, by trying to discover the proof of an announced theorem before the lecturer had finished his presentation. Moore often won this silent race, and when he did not, he felt that he was better off from having made the attempt. It was at the University of Pennsylvania, while teaching a course on the foundations of geometry, that Moore first tried out the teaching methods that came to be known as the Moore method. The success of this method led others to adopt it and similar methods. Racism. Moore's record as a teacher of mathematics has been tarnished by his attitude towards black students. Most of his career was spent in a racially segregated part of the United States. When African Americans started being admitted to the University of Texas, however, he took steps to ensure that none were in his classes. He once famously walked out of a lecture once he realized the speaker was black.
218360	Grigore Constantin Moisil (; 10 January 1906 – 21 May 1973) was a Romanian mathematician, computer pioneer, and member of the Romanian Academy. His research was mainly in the fields of mathematical logic, (Łukasiewicz–Moisil algebra), algebraic logic, MV-algebra, and differential equations. He is viewed as the father of computer science in Romania.
1165626	Ann Lee Doran (July 28, 1911 – September 19, 2000) was an American character actress. Film career. Born in Amarillo, Texas, Doran began acting at the age of four. She appeared in hundreds of silent films under assumed names to keep her father's family from finding out about her work. Rarely in a featured role (with the exceptions of Jean Andrews in "Rio Grande" (1938) and James Dean's dominating mother in "Rebel Without a Cause" (1955)), Doran appeared in more than five hundred motion pictures and one thousand episodes of television shows, such as the American Civil War drama "Gray Ghost".
1169699	Hamilton Camp (30 October 1934 – 2 October 2005) was an English-American singer, songwriter, actor and voice actor. Early life. Camp was born in London, England, and was evacuated during World War II to the United States as a child with his mother and sister(s). He became a child actor in films and onstage. He originally performed under the name Bob Camp and later changed his name to Hamilton after joining the Subud spiritual movement. For a few years, he billed himself as Hamid Hamilton Camp; in this period, he was leader of a group called Skymonters that released an album in 1973 on Elektra. Career. Camp's debut as a folk singer was at the Newport Folk Festival in 1960; and his first recording, with Bob Gibson, was "Bob Gibson & Bob Camp at the Gate of Horn", from 1961. Over the next four decades he maintained a dual career as a musician/songwriter and as an actor. He appeared in nearly one hundred films and television programmes. Camp is probably best known, however, as the author of the song "Pride of Man", which was recorded by a number of artists, notably Quicksilver Messenger Service, who had a pop hit with it, and Gordon Lightfoot, who included it as one of three covers on his first record. In addition, an early Gibson & Camp gospel song, "You Can Tell the World" was the opening track on Simon & Garfunkel's first album, "Wednesday Morning, 3 A.M." As a singer, Camp had a minor hit with the song "Here's to You," which peaked at number 76 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1968. In 1969 Camp formed a group call "The True Brethren" with Waqidi Falicoff (guitar, vocals, see Waqidi Falicoff, Music Career), Raphael Grinage (cello) and Loren Pickford (flute and saxophone). The four later composed the incidental music for the Broadway show Paul Sills' Story Theatre, which won 2 Tony awards and was nominated for best show in the 1971 awards.
1789647	Transmorphers is a science fiction alien invasion film released direct-to-DVD on June 26, 2007. It was written and directed by Leigh Scott and produced by David Michael Latt and The Asylum. "Transmorphers" was developed as a mockbuster, intending to capitalize on Michael Bay's "Transformers".
1054693	Next Friday is a 2000 stoner comedy film, and the sequel to the 1995 film "Friday". This is the first film to be produced by producer Ice Cube's film production company Cubevision. The film is directed by Steve Carr, and stars Ice Cube, Mike Epps, Don "D.C." Curry, John Witherspoon, and Tommy "Tiny" Lister Jr. Plot. After the fight between Craig (Ice Cube) and neighborhood bully, Deebo (Lister, Jr.), rumor has spread that Deebo has broken out of jail and will come looking for Craig. As a precaution, Craig's father Willie Jones (Witherspoon) decides to have him stay with Elroy (Curry), Craig's uncle, and his cousin Day-Day (Epps). However before leaving, Deebo shows up because he wants a rematch. His younger brother, Tyrone (Sticky Fingaz) tries to intimidate him, but Craig tells Willie to drive off. Initially, life in Rancho Cucamonga seems to be ideal, but trouble soon arises in many different areas. Day-Day's pregnant ex-girlfriend D'Wana (Tamala Jones) is angry over him breaking up with her and claims he is the father, but he denies it. She vandalizes his car, sprays pepper spray into his eyes and threatens to return with her "little" sister Baby D (Lady of Rage). In spite of his family winning the lottery, Day-Day informs Craig that his family isn't that rich anymore. After taxes had been taken from their winnings, all they were left with was their house and Day-Day's BMW. Because of this situation, Day-Day still has a job at Pinky's, a local record store. A family of Mexican thugs (the Jokers) live next door and Day-Day and Craig learn about their drug dealing activities from Mrs. Ho-kym (Amy Hill). Craig notices their sister Karla but is warned by Day-Day to stay away from her because of her brothers. Craig visits Day-Day at his work place and meets Day-Day's friend/co-worker "Roach" (Justin Pierce). After an angry customer attempts to scam Day-Day out of money by returning a broken CD, Craig throws him out of the store. Shortly after, record store owner, Pinky (Clifton Powell), returns and mistakes Craig for a thief attempting to rob his store. After a brawl between him and Craig, and subsequently being informed that Craig is Day-Day's cousin, a furious Pinky fires both Day-Day and Roach. They had earlier that day received a notice of unpaid taxes on their house and Day-Day is extremely upset with Craig for getting him fired. As they think of a solution and Roach attempts to leave, he slips on his skateboard which is then intentionally run over by the Joker brothers' Cadillac. As they watch, they see the elder Joker (Jacob Vargas) removing a suspicious hydraulic pump from the trunk. They decide to find out what is inside the pump.
521070	Walang Sugat (literally, "no wound" or "unwounded") is an 1898 Tagalog-language zarzuela (a Spanish lyric-dramatic genre that includes music, singing, and poetry) written by Filipino playwright Severino Reyes. The music for the original version of the play was written by Filipino composer Fulgencio Tolentino. "Walang Sugat" was written when the zarzuela became a "potent means" of expressing Filipino nationalism during the American Occupation of the Philippines that followed three centuries of Spanish rule. Description. Set in the Philippine Revolution of 1896, "Walang Sugat" was first published in 1898, and first performed in 1902 at the "Teatro Libertad". The play is about the injustices Filipinos suffered under Spanish colonial rule, including the oppression of Filipino prisoners by Spanish friars for expressing their patriotism. Although "Walang Sugat" is one of the major and more popular zarzuelas in the Philippines, it was one of the plays considered "too subversive" by the American colonial authorities, and its author Reyes was imprisoned. A typical and traditional Filipino "sarsuwela" or "sarswela", it portrays the dilemmas of domestic life through dialogue, song, and dance. In addition, the "sarsuwela" is laden with romance, humour, and conflict. Reyes, also known as the "Father of the Tagalog Zarzuela" and under the "nom de plume" ""Lola Basyang"", wrote "Walang Sugat" as his "statement against imperialism." Plot. Apart from the political themes, "Walang Sugat" is also a love story. Towards the end of the Philippine Revolution, Tenyong leaves Julia to become a member of the Katipunan. In his absence, Julia is continuously pressured by her mother to marry the rich Miguel; she succumbs when she stopped receiving news from Tenyong. As Julia and Miguel are being wed, Tenyong arrives to interrupt the service, and is dying of injuries sustained in combat. Tenyong mentions his dying wish to Julia, but the play features an "unexpected twist" that shows how Tenyong is able to outwit the persons separating him from his beloved Julia. Modern productions. 2009. "Walang Sugat" was staged by the Barasoain Kalinangan Foundation Inc. (BKFI) – a theater group that received a GAWAD CCP para sa Sining (CCP Arts Award) from the Cultural Center of the Philippines – from 11–13 February 2009 at the University of the Philippines' University Theater. It was presented by BKFI during the UP Sarsuwela Festival 2009 nationwide celebration. 2010. The Tanghalang Ateneo (Ateneo Theatre) company of Ateneo de Manila University also produced a staging of "Walang Sugat" in 2010. Tanghalang Ateneo's version of "Walang Sugat" was the university’s first major zarzuela production, and was part of the university’s three-year long Sesquicentennial Celebrations. Ateneo's production of "Walang Sugat" was directed by Dr. Ricardo Abad, while the music for the play was directed by Josefino Tolledo. The set and the costumes were designed by National Artist and professor, Salvador Bernal. Film adaptation. "Walang Sugat" had been adapted into film twice, first in 1939 then in 1957. The 1939 film version was produced by Filippine Productions, and was directed by Enrique Herrera-Dávila, and starred Filipino actors Rosa del Rosario and Leopoldo Salcedo. The 1957 version was produced by LVN Pictures, under the direction of Lamberto V. Avellana. Among the Filipino actors who participated in the 1957 film adaptation included Rosa Aguirre, Miguel Anzures, Tony Dantes, Joseph de Cordova, Oscar Keesee, Mario Montenegro, Charito Solis, and José Vergara.
1066795	Kazaam is a 1996 American fantasy family musical comedy film directed by Paul M. Glaser and stars Shaquille O'Neal as the title character Kazaam, a 5,000 year-old genie who appears from a magic boombox to grant a boy three wishes. The film was released on July 17, 1996 and was a critical disaster, being cited as one of the worst films of all time. It was also a box office bomb, barely grossing $19 million on its $20 million budget. Plot. The film begins with a very big wrecking ball destroying an abandoned building. The impact knocks over a magic lamp inside of the building, causing it to land on a boombox. The genie inside decides to make residence inside the boombox from there on in. Meanwhile, a schoolboy named Max (Francis Capra) is confronted and chased down by a group of bullies through the city of New Bronslin. Max is chased into the abandoned building, where he discovers the boombox and accidentally unleashes the genie inside. The genie, who introduces himself as Kazaam (Shaquille O'Neal), tells Max that he is now Max's genie and proves it to him by demonstrating his powers, which results in Kazaam disappearing off the face of the earth. Max returns home to find that his mother is marrying a fireman named Travis. It's revealed that his mother lied to him about his real father's whereabouts, and that he is actually located in the city. Max set out to search for his father in the hopes of rekindling some sort of bond between them. He suddenly encounters Kazaam during his travels, who pesters Max into making a wish. Max eventually finds his father, only to learn that he is a musical talent agent who specializes in pirated music. Max goes to his personal secret hideout and tells Kazaam about his father. They decide to have a bike race through Max's hideout, during which Kazaam shows off his powers. Kazaam finally convinces Max to make his first wish, which consists of junk food raining from the sky. While eating all of this, Max suddenly realizes that he owns Kazaam until he makes his last two wishes. Max and Kazaam go out to see Max's father again. After getting past an intimidating bodyguard,
1165527	Fess Elisha Parker, Jr. (August 16, 1924 – March 18, 2010) was an American film and television actor best known for his portrayals of Davy Crockett in the Walt Disney 1955–1956 TV mini-series and as TV's Daniel Boone from 1964 to 1970. He was also known as a wine maker and resort owner-operator. The Fess Parker Winery is one of the wineries along the famous Foxen Canyon Wine Trail. Early years. Fess Parker was born in Fort Worth, Texas, and reared on a farm in Tom Green County near San Angelo. He enlisted in the U.S. Navy in the latter part of World War II, hoping to become a pilot. He was turned down because he was too tall at . He then tried to become a radioman gunner, but he was found too big to fit comfortably into the rear cockpit. He was finally transferred to the Marine Corps as a radio operator and shipped out for the South Pacific shortly before the atom bomb ended the war. Discharged in 1946, he enrolled at Hardin-Simmons University on the GI Bill. After an automobile collision, he was stabbed in the neck by the other driver during an argument. He was an active member of the H-SU Players Club and transferred to the University of Texas in 1947 as a history major and continued to be active in drama.
1151550	Bob Zmuda (born December 12, 1949) is an American writer, comedian, producer and director best known as the sidekick, co-writer and friend of cult personality Andy Kaufman.
1103524	In computational mathematics, an iterative method is a mathematical procedure that generates a sequence of improving approximate solutions for a class of problems. A specific implementation of an iterative method, including the termination criteria, is an algorithm of the iterative method. An iterative method is called convergent if the corresponding sequence converges for given initial approximations. A mathematically rigorous convergence analysis of an iterative method is usually performed; however, heuristic-based iterative methods are also common. In the problems of finding the root of an equation (or a solution of a system of equations), an iterative method uses an initial guess to generate successive approximations to a solution. In contrast, direct methods attempt to solve the problem by a finite sequence of operations. In the absence of rounding errors, direct methods would deliver an exact solution (like solving a linear system of equations "Ax" = "b" by Gaussian elimination). Iterative methods are often the only choice for nonlinear equations. However, iterative methods are often useful even for linear problems involving a large number of variables (sometimes of the order of millions), where direct methods would be prohibitively expensive (and in some cases impossible) even with the best available computing power. Attractive fixed points. If an equation can be put into the form "f"("x") = "x", and a solution x is an attractive fixed point of the function "f", then one may begin with a point "x"1 in the basin of attraction of x, and let "x""n"+1 = "f"("x""n") for "n" ≥ 1, and the sequence {"x""n"}"n" ≥ 1 will converge to the solution x. If the function "f" is continuously differentiable, a sufficient condition for convergence is that the spectral radius of the derivative is strictly bounded by one in a neighborhood of the fixed point. If this condition holds at the fixed point, then a sufficiently small neighborhood (basin of attraction) must exist. Linear systems. In the case of a system of linear equations, the two main classes of iterative methods are the stationary iterative methods, and the more general Krylov subspace methods. Stationary iterative methods. Stationary iterative methods solve a linear system with an operator approximating the original one; and based on a measurement of the error in the result (the residual), form a "correction equation" for which this process is repeated. While these methods are simple to derive, implement, and analyze, convergence is only guaranteed for a limited class of matrices. Examples of stationary iterative methods are the Jacobi method, Gauss–Seidel method and the Successive over-relaxation method. Linear stationary iterative methods are also called relaxation methods. Krylov subspace methods. Krylov subspace methods work by forming a basis of the sequence of successive matrix powers times the initial residual (the Krylov sequence). The approximations to the solution are then formed by minimizing the residual over the subspace formed. The prototypical method in this class is the conjugate gradient method (CG). Other methods are the generalized minimal residual method (GMRES) and the biconjugate gradient method (BiCG). Convergence of Krylov subspace methods. Since these methods form a basis, it is evident that the method converges in "N" iterations, where "N" is the system size. However, in the presence of rounding errors this statement does not hold; moreover, in practice "N" can be very large, and the iterative process reaches sufficient accuracy already far earlier. The analysis of these methods is hard, depending on a complicated function of the spectrum of the operator. Preconditioners. The approximating operator that appears in stationary iterative methods can also be incorporated in Krylov subspace methods such as GMRES (alternatively, preconditioned Krylov methods can be considered as accelerations of stationary iterative methods), where they become transformations of the original operator to a presumably better conditioned one. The construction of preconditioners is a large research area. History. Probably the first iterative method for solving a linear system appeared in a letter of Gauss to a student of his. He proposed solving a 4-by-4 system of equations by repeatedly solving the component in which the residual was the largest.
1162672	Martin Kove (born March 6, 1946) is an American film and television actor known for his work in films such as "" and the "Karate Kid" film series, and on TV series such as "Cagney & Lacey". Early life. Martin Kove was born in Brooklyn, New York City and had a Jewish upbringing. Career. Kove appeared as George Baker in the short-lived CBS series "Code R" (1977) about the emergency services (fire, police, and ocean rescue) in the California Channel Islands. His co-stars were James Houghton, Tom Simcox, and Joan Freeman.
1163681	Franchot Tone (February 27, 1905 – September 18, 1968) was an American stage, film, and television actor, star of "Mutiny on the Bounty" (1935) and many other films through the 1960s. In the early 1960s Tone appeared in character roles on TV dramas like "Bonanza", "Wagon Train", "The Twilight Zone", and "The Alfred Hitchcock Hour". Biography. Family and early life. He was born as Stanislaus Pascal Franchot Tone in Niagara Falls, New York, the youngest son of Dr. Frank Jerome Tone, the wealthy president of the Carborundum Company, and his socially-prominent wife, Gertrude Van Vrancken Franchot. His maternal great-grandfather was congressman Richard Franchot. Tone was a distant relative of Wolfe Tone (the "father of Irish Republicanism"): his great-great-great-great-grandfather John was a first cousin of Peter Tone, whose eldest son was Wolfe Tone. Tone was of French Canadian, Irish, English and Basque ancestry. Tone attended The Hill School in Pottstown, Pennsylvania and Cornell University, where he was President of the drama club and was elected to the Sphinx Head Society. He also joined Alpha Delta Phi fraternity. He gave up the family business to pursue an acting career in the theatre. In 1920 he helped to launch the Buffalo Players, a little theater. After graduating, he moved to Greenwich Village, New York, and got his first major Broadway role in the 1929 Katharine Cornell production of "The Age of Innocence". Career. The following year, he joined the Theatre Guild and played Curly in their production of "Green Grow the Lilacs" (later to become the famous musical "Oklahoma!"). He later became a founding member of the famed Group Theatre, together with Harold Clurman, Cheryl Crawford, Lee Strasberg, Stella Adler, Clifford Odets, and others, many of whom had worked with the Theatre Guild. Strasberg had been a castmate of Tone's in "Green Grow the Lilacs." These were intense and productive years for him: among the productions of the Group he acted in were "1931" (1931) and "Success Story" (1932). The same year, however, Tone was the first of the Group to turn his back on the theatre and go to Hollywood when MGM offered him a film contract. In his memoir on the Group Theatre, "The Fervent Years", Harold Clurman recalls Tone as the most confrontational and egocentric of the group in the beginning. Nevertheless, he always considered cinema far inferior to the theatre and recalled his stage years with longing. He often sent financial support to the Group Theatre, which often needed it. He eventually returned to the stage from time to time after the 1940s. Tone summered at Pine Brook Country Club, located in the countryside of Nichols, Connecticut, which became the Group Theatre summer rehearsal headquarters during the 1930s. Tone's screen debut was in the 1932 movie "The Wiser Sex". He achieved fame in 1933, when he made seven movies that year, including "Today We Live", written by William Faulkner, "Bombshell", with Jean Harlow (with whom he co-starred in three other movies), and the smash hit "Dancing Lady", again with then-wife Joan Crawford and Clark Gable. In 1935, he starred in "Mutiny on the Bounty" (for which he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor), "The Lives of a Bengal Lancer" and "Dangerous" opposite Bette Davis. Tone worked steadily through the 1940s, but he often played second leads or love interests in films that focused on a major female star. Frequently typecast as the wealthy cafe-society playboy, he notably played against type in films like "Five Graves to Cairo", a World War II espionage story directed by Billy Wilder, and "Phantom Lady", a film noir thriller. He played the heroic lead in the 1940 Western comedy "Trail of the Vigilantes" featuring Warren William, Broderick Crawford and Andy Devine. In 1949 he produced and starred in "The Man on the Eiffel Tower", a troubled production whose reputation has benefited from restorations in the 2000s that have coincided with theatrical showings and vastly improved DVD releases. Tone's tour de force role as a manic depressive sociopath included performing many of his own stunts on the Paris landmark. In the 1950s, facing subtle blacklisting in Hollywood, he found parts in New York-based live television, including the original production of "Twelve Angry Men". He also returned to Broadway, notably appearing in "A Moon for the Misbegotten" with Wendy Hiller in 1957. Also that year he co-produced, co-directed, and starred in an adaptation of Chekhov's "Uncle Vanya", which was filmed concurrently with an off-Broadway revival. In the early 1960s, Tone returned to Hollywood and, appearing aged beyond his years, essayed many showcase character roles on popular TV dramas like "Bonanza", "Wagon Train", "The Twilight Zone", and "The Alfred Hitchcock Hour". He also co-starred in the "Ben Casey" medical series from 1965 to 1966 as Casey's supervisor, Dr. Daniel Niles Freeland. On film, he received acclaim as the charismatic, dying president in Otto Preminger's 1962 film version of "Advise & Consent". His final movie appearances were cameos in Preminger's 1965 film "In Harm's Way" (in which he portrayed Admiral Husband E. Kimmel) and "Nobody Runs Forever" (1968). Personal life. In 1935, Tone married actress Joan Crawford; they were divorced in 1939. They made seven films together: "Today We Live" (1933), "Dancing Lady" (1933), "Sadie McKee" (1934), "No More Ladies" (1935), "The Gorgeous Hussy" (1936), "Love On The Run" (1936) and "The Bride Wore Red" (1937). In 1951, Tone's relationship with actress Barbara Payton made headlines when he suffered numerous facial injuries and fell into a coma for 18 hours following a fistfight with actor Tom Neal, a rival for Payton's attention. Plastic surgery nearly restored his broken nose and cheek, and Tone subsequently married Payton, divorcing her in 1952 after obtaining incriminating photographs proving she had continued her relationship with Neal. He married and divorced two other times: Death. Tone died of lung cancer in New York City in 1968. His remains were cremated and his ashes were scattered. For his contribution to the motion picture industry, Franchot Tone has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6558 Hollywood Blvd.
1015869	God of Gamblers (; lit. "God of Gambling") is a 1989 Hong Kong action comedy-drama film written and directed by Wong Jing, and featuring an ensemble cast. Plot. Ko Chun (Chow Yun-fat) is a world-famous gambler, so renowned and talented at winning various games of chance that he is referred to as the "God Of Gamblers". He keeps his identity secret from the public (and avoids taking photos so his face is not recognized), but is known for three characteristics: his slick-backed hairstyle, his love of Feodora brand chocolate and his jade pinky ring. Ko Chun arrives in Tokyo, accompanied by his girlfriend Janet and his assistant and cousin Ko Yee, for a match with Tanaka, the country's top ranked gambler. After convincingly defeating Tanaka in games of Mahjong and dice, Tanaka concedes defeat and asserts that Ko Chun "really God". Tanaka asks Chun to help him take revenge on Chan Kam-Sing, a famous Singaporean gambler who cheated Tanaka's father (driving him to suicide), by besting Chan in a high-stakes poker match. Ko Chun agrees, merely asking for a box of chocolate as payment. In gratitude, Tanaka sends his bodyguard, former ARVN (South Vietnam) Special Forces Operative Dragon (Charles Heung) to accompany Ko Chun for protection. Meanwhile, Little Knife (Andy Lau), an avid but mediocre gambler who idolizes the God of Gamblers, sets a trap for an Indian neighbor as a practical joke. After a confrontation on a train between Ko Chun, Dragon, and henchmen sent by one of Ko Chun's rivals, Ko happens to accidentally stumble into Knife's trap. Struck on the head, Ko suffers from amnesia and regresses to a childlike state. Knife, not knowing who the unnamed stranger is, takes him in and names him "Chocolate" due to the man's seemingly obsessive love for the candy. Initially Knife is impatient with "Chocolate"'s simple-minded innocence and yells at him often, but soon recognizes that "Chocolate" has innate gambling talent and begins to exploit his abilities in local poker games and gambling dens. As time passes, Knife comes to care for "Chocolate" and seeks to find a way to restore his memory. Back at Ko Chun's mansion, it is revealed that Janet has been searching for Chun for ten days to no avail. Ko Yee, who is jealous of Chun's success and wealth, makes advances on her, which she rejects; finally, while attempting to rape her, Yee accidentally knocks Janet off the balcony, killing her. He discovers that she has been recording what has been transpiring and proceeds to burn the tape. Later, Yee allies himself with Chan Kam-Sing and Ko Chun's other rival and they send assassins to find and kill Chun. Eventually, the assassins find Chun, Knife, and their friends and attempt to kill them, but Dragon arrives to protect them after tracking Chun down. A fierce shootout ensues in a shopping center, in which Knife saves Chun from an attempt on his life by Ko Yee. During the fight, Dragon is wounded, causing Chun to snap out of his child persona briefly to kill the rest of the assailants. However, after regressing back to his childlike state, Chun becomes horrified at the carnage and runs out into the street where he is struck by a vehicle. Chun awakens in the hospital with his regular persona, but no memory of the events or people he met after the fight. He is informed by Ko Yee, who is feigning loyalty, that Janet has disappeared. Knife arrives and attempts to warn Chun of Ko Yee's treachery but Yee has Knife thrown out. Later, Ko Yee gives Chan Kam-Sing special eyeglasses that will allow him to cheat during his upcoming poker match with Chun by reading invisible markings on the cards. Chun, Yee, Tanaka and Dragon arrive on Chan Kam-Sing's yacht for the climactic game of five card stud. Knife, having sneaked onto the boat, again attempts to warn Chun of the danger he is in. Chun agrees to hear Knife out later but admonishes him not to interfere with the poker game. With his ability to see the markings on the cards, Chan Kam-Sing dominates the first two rounds. After losing all of Tanaka's money, Ko Chun puts up his entire personal portfolio of wealth and holdings against Chan's wealth. Chan, using his glasses to see that Ko Chun has an inferior hand, agrees, showing his cards and gloating over his victory. Ko Chun, in turn, reveals that he actually has the superior hand and has won the game, having secretly altered the markings of the deck and using special contact lenses to read them. Subsequently, Ko Chun tricks Chan Kam-Sing into shooting Ko Yee. As Yee lays dying, Chun drops Janet's tape (which actually never finished burning) onto his body. Ko Chun then departs (as police arrive to take Chan into custody for murder) without speaking to Knife, much to the latter's dismay. Ko Chun later surprises Knife at his home and reveals that he remembered Knife in the hospital and knew about Ko Yee's betrayal all along, but had to feign ignorance in order to execute his plan properly. He promises to make it up to Knife by taking him to Las Vegas as his gambling partner. Sequels, spin-offs and parodies. The success of the film spawned many parodies and spin-offs such as "All for the Winner" starring Stephen Chow. Several more comedy-driven sequels also starring Stephen Chow were released, as well as a sequel where Chow Yun-Fat reprises his role as Ko Chun. "God of Gamblers" series: Spin-offs:
765105	Expecting Mary is a 2010 comedy-drama film starring Elliott Gould and Linda Gray. It was directed by Dan Gordon and produced by Kim Waltrip with executive producer Jim Casey. The film premiered at the Palm Springs International Film Festival 2010 on January 16 and was selected as the opening film at the California Independent Film Festival on April 22, 2010. Plot. "Expecting Mary" is the story of a young girl, who's had all the trappings of an upscale life, but it's only when she finds herself in a small New Mexico town, in a downtrodden trailer park, that she learns the real meaning of love, sacrifice and family.
585595	Thenkasipattanam () is a 2000 Malayalam comedy musical film written and directed by Rafi Mecartin, produced by Lal, and starring Suresh Gopi and Lal. Others in the cast include Dileep, Samyuktha Varma, Geethu Mohandas, Kavya Madhavan, Salim Kumar, and Spadikam George. Synopsis. Kannan and Dasappan are two rowdies in their village. Shathrugnan. a newcomer, is in love with Dasappan' s sister, Devootty, but she is not interested in him. Shathru joins Kannan's and Dasappan's firm, KD & Company, as the manager, in an attempt to win the love of Devootty. KD & Company keeps as hostage a music troupe who comes to their village to perform. The main singer of that troupe, Sangeetha, gets expelled from her home because of this and Kannan and Dasappan give her refuge, at the insistence of Devootty. Meenakshi and Kannan are in love. But due to some misunderstanding, Dasappan falls in love with Meenakshi and Sangeetha falls in love with Kannan. Shathru takes the responsibility of sorting it out and linking Dasappan with Sangeetha. In the chaos and confusions that follows, he manages to be victorious and wins his lady love Devootty too. Box office. The movie was a Christmas release and became a huge hit in theatres. It was one of the highest grossing Malayalam films of 2000. The film ran for more than 200 days and was declared as a blockbuster. Remakes. This film was remade in Tamil with the same name, starring Sarath Kumar and Napoleon. In Telugu, it was remade as "Hanuman Junction" with Arjun and Jagapathi Babu. And in Kannada as "Kodanda Rama" with Ravichandran and Shivrajkumar.
1057132	The Real Blonde is a 1998 movie directed and written by Tom DiCillo. It stars Matthew Modine, Catherine Keener, and Maxwell Caulfield. The film is a satire on New York's fashion and entertainment industries. Plot. Joe is an aspiring actor working as a bus boy in a high-class restaurant. His longtime girlfriend Mary works as a cosmetician for the fashion industry and largely supports him with her steady income. Joe is more concerned with expressing himself than getting a paying job, and has been unwilling to accept roles that do not live up to his artistic standard. Mary supports Joe, but urges him to accept any role to get his foot in the door. Meanwhile, his co-worker Bob lands a lucrative role on a soap opera. Bob is a classically trained actor, but is willing to overlook the quality of the material for the money. He also has a fetish for natural blonde women, leading him to date Sahara, a naive model, and then dump her after discovering that her hair is dyed. Joe swallows his artistic pride and meets with an agent, Dee Dee Taylor, who arranges for him to be an extra in a Madonna video. Mary is harassed as she walks to work each day and begins taking a self-defense and anger management class on the advice of her therapist. The instructor encourages her to express her anger, and she finds the class extremely empowering. Bob is successful in his soap opera role and begins a relationship with his costar Kelly, a "real blonde". At the Madonna video, the director treats Joe and the other extras like cattle. Joe meets Madonna's body double, Tina, a friendly aspiring actress, and gets himself fired for protesting an anti-Semitic statement made by the assistant director. Joe's firing sparks an argument between Joe and Mary. The pressure of Joe's career is straining their relationship, and they have not had sex in a long time. Mary's instructor, Doug, gives her a ride home from her class and makes a pass at her. She rebuffs him, but lies to cover up the incident to Joe. Meanwhile, Bob suffers erectile dysfunction and is unable to have sex with Kelly. She mocks his inadequacy and leaves him.
1775642	Oranges and Sunshine is a 2010 drama film directed by Jim Loach with screenplay by Rona Munro. Plot. The film is based on the true story of Margaret Humphreys, a social worker from Nottingham who uncovered the scandal of "home children", a scheme of forcibly relocating poor children from the United Kingdom to Australia and Canada.
1063453	Due Date is a 2010 American comedy road film directed by Todd Phillips, co-written by Alan R. Cohen, Alan Freedland, and Adam Sztykiel, and starring Robert Downey, Jr. and Zach Galifianakis. The film was released on November 5, 2010. The film was shot in Las Cruces, New Mexico, Atlanta, Georgia, and Tuscaloosa, Alabama. Plot. Peter Highman (Robert Downey, Jr.) is on a plane, flying home to be with his wife Sarah (Michelle Monaghan), who is due to give birth. When an actor sitting behind Peter, Ethan Tremblay (Zach Galifianakis), misuses the words "terrorist" and "bomb", Peter and Ethan are both escorted off the plane. This is only the first of a series of misadventures caused by the drastically dysfunctional Ethan. Peter, now on the No Fly List and missing his wallet, agrees to drive with Ethan to Los Angeles. Ethan stops to buy marijuana, and Peter discovers that he is nearly out of money. Since Peter has no I.D., he gets his wife to wire the money to Ethan, but Western Union (Danny McBride) refuses to accept Ethan's stage name I.D. After a night at a rest stop, Peter decides to drive off and leave Ethan there, but returns after wrestling with his conscience. Peter gets Ethan to drive so Peter can get some rest, but Ethan falls asleep at the wheel and crashes the car. After Peter and Ethan are picked up by Peter's friend Darryl (Jamie Foxx), Peter again decides to part company with Ethan. Darryl initially persuades him otherwise, but then throws Ethan out after mistakenly drinking Ethan's father's ashes. When Darryl lets them use his car to make the rest of the trip, Ethan mistakenly drives to the United States-Mexican border. Despite assuring Peter that he'll handle the situation, Ethan flees, and Peter is arrested for possession of marijuana. The Mexican Federal Police lock Peter up, but Ethan steals a truck and breaks him out, causing several car crashes in the process.
583929	Kanthaswamy () is a 2009 Tamil language feature film written and directed by Susi Ganesan starring Vikram in the titular role. Shriya Saran, Prabhu Ganesan, Krishna, Ashish Vidyarthi, Mukesh Tiwari, Mansoor Ali Khan, Vadivelu and Y. G. Mahendran form the supporting cast. The film's soundtrack and background score was composed by Devi Sri Prasad. The film's soundtrack was released on 17 May 2009 and the film was released on 21 August 2009 to mixed reviews. The film was dubbed and simultaneously released as "Mallana" in Telugu. The film was later dubbed into Hindi as "Shiva - The Superhero" and does not feature the song 'Meow Meow'. It was remade in Bengali as Most Welcome, starring Ananta, Barsha and Sneha Ullal. Plot. The film's plot revolves around Kanthaswamy (Vikram), who is an Income Tax officer in the CBI, and his friends, granting the wishes of the needy who write letters to a local Lord Muruga temple by disguising himself as an anthropomorphic rooster. During a CBI income tax raid, he discovers a stash of black money owned by Ponnusamy (Ashish Vidyarthi), a rich and corrupted entrepreneur. Ponnusamy pretends to be paralysed to escape the questioning. Angered by the news that her father is paralysed, Ponnusamy's daughter, Subbulakshmi (Shriya Saran) goes after Kanthaswamy to seek revenge by pretending to be in love with him. Kanthaswamy, knowing Subbulakshmi's real intentions plays along in the game. This forms a cat and mouse chase between the two. In a comical role, Thengakadai Thenappan (Vadivelu) is also sought after by a local police inspector who tries to solve the mystery of "Lord Muruga saving the people". The fate of Kanthaswamy's disguise leads into the climax of the story. The local police inspector was able to bring out the truth that a CBI is involved in the role behind the secret work of helping the needy people although he was not able to confirm it. Kanthaswamy finds the password of Subbulakshmi's family bank account, in which the black money is illegally saved. He tricks Subbulakshmi into revealing the password and answers for the security questions indirectly. Kanthaswamy finally transfers the money to his account which would be used for helping the poor and needy people. Ironically, in the end, Subbulakshmi's father was paralysed at the end knowing that the password which was used by him to access his black money was changed. After that Subbulakshmi and Kanthaswamy were married and were living in northern India. Kanthaswamy saw some letters tied to a tree, just like the ones at the Lord Muruga temple. He reads one and puts it into his pocket with a secret smile, which meant he will pursue being the anthropomorphic rooster again. Production. Development. In January 2007, early reports suggested that Kalaipuli International were set to make a film starring Vikram directed by Susi Ganesan, titled "Kanthaswamy" for a release during Diwali 2007. Soon after the announcement Shriya Saran, who was acting in "" at the time was roped in to play the heroine. However due to Vikram and Shriya's projects, the film was delayed and the first schedule was postponed to July 2007. The film's first photo shoot was carried out in June 2007 at Muthukadu near Chennai featuring the lead actors. The film began filming a pre-launch trailer, the first of its kind in Tamil cinema, to be screened at the launch, with Vikram, Susi Ganesan and fashion designer Chetan travelling to Malaysia to look for Hollywood-inspired costumes. The inauguration of "Kanthaswamy" took place on 22 September 2007 at the Devi Paradise theatre in Chennai. For the event, a unique electronic invitation, made in China, was presented to guests who had been invited. The invitation was the size of a laptop and featured a 8 minute trailer of "Kanthaswamy". Each invitation had cost about Rs. 15,000, making it the most expensive invitation in Indian film history. Following the launch ceremony, the team announced they had adopted two villages near Madurai; Sangampatti and Gandhi Nagar, to shoot in initially and then to provide basic amenities like school and proper roads among other things to the villagers for a year. The team, who were praised for their actions, were the first production team to take part in such activity in Tamil cinema. In November 2007, the shooting was halted temporarily due to an accident that occurred at the shooting spot at the Chennai Boat Club. Cameraman Ekambaram was canning the shots as per director Susi Ganesan's instructions when a pole erected on the sets unexpectedly fell on the director's head resulting in an injury. The film has finished schedules at Italy, where the trailer was filmed as well as schedules in Tanzania, Kenya and Switzerland. A schedule in locations in Mexico was also held, after the team went location hunting there, with a song and several scenes canned. The film, initially described as a "hilarious comedy", was rumoured to be a remake of the Hollywood cult hit, "The Breakfast Club", however Susi Ganesan has claimed that the film has a more Robin Hood feel to it. Casting. Following the announcement of the project, titled as "Kanthaswamy", Vikram and Katrina Kaif was originally selected to be the heroine, however due to commitments in Bollywood as well as the fact that she would have had to have a pay cut from her usual higher salaries in Bollywood, Kaif opted out of the project. Shriya Saran was signed in February 2007, when she was in the middle of completing her other prestigious projects "" and "Azhagiya Tamil Magan". In September 2007, with the release of the trailer several other artistes names were featured as supporting cast. Prominent supporting actor Raghuvaran was selected to play as Shriya's father and shot scenes in the role, before his unexpected death during the production of the film, subsequently, his role was replaced by Ashish Vidyarthi. Prabhu Ganesan was also added in a supporting role, as well as lesser established actors such as Vikram's father Vinod Raj, Y. G. Mahendran, Shiv, Arun Madhavan, Vinayak and Alex, whilst Mumaith Khan was assigned for an item number. Later on, veteran Telugu actor Krishna, father of Mahesh Babu was signed to a role in the project as well as Indrajith, elder brother of prominent actor, Prithviraj, who will do a villainous role in the film. Indrajith was selected for the role ahead of other prominent character actors Arjun Rampal, Irfan Khan and Suman. Along with the change of actor for Raghuvaran's role, Indrajith's role was taken by Mukesh Tiwari and the role created for Santhanam was deleted. Moreover Vivek, who had featured in the original trailer, opted out and was replaced by Vadivelu. Mansoor Ali Khan took up a negative role in the film to make a comeback ino the acting foray. The producer of "Kanthaswamy", Kalaipuli S. Dhanu and Susi Ganesan the director ensembled an experienced team to produce the film. Veterans Thotta Tharani, A. S. Laxmi Narayanan and Viveka between them, take care of the art direction, audiography and lyrics respectively. Devi Sri Prasad composes the music for his biggest film to date following several compositions for smaller budget Tamil films and Telugu films. N. K. Ekambaram controls the cinematography of the film, whilst Praveen K L edits the film. Kanal Kannan and Chatrapathy Shakthi are the fight masters for the film, whilst Mittra media are responsible for the publicity designs the film outputs, adding to their work with the trailer and the invitations. The film is co-produced, by Chennai businessmen, A. Paranthaman and A. K. Natraj along with Dhanu. Soundtrack. The film has seven songs composed by Devi Sri Prasad. For the first time, Vikram has sung most of the songs in this movie. The songs from the bilingual albums were released to the public after an audio launch at the Chennai Trade Centre in Chennai on 17 May 2009. Tamil Tracklist Telugu Tracklist Reception. Critical response. Kanthaswamy received mixed reviews from both the critics and audiences. "Indiaglitz" reviewed that "the movie was delight to watch and praised Shriya that as a cool cat, she plays a perfect foil to Vikram in the film". "Sify" also reviewed that "the movie was a roller coaster ride of pure unadulterated masala. It praised Vikram and Shriya saying while Vikram rocked and the film belongs to him, Shriya sizzled throughout and carried the glamorous role with élan and the attitude". "Rediff" gave the film 2.5/5 stars and commented: "Watch Kandhasamy for its beautiful locales, a ravishing heroine, and Vikram's smile but go with nil expectations as this particular super-hero doesn't have much to offer a discerning viewer". "Behindwoods" rated the film 2/5 and stated that it was "A hollow hype". Box office. The film collected 1.37 crore in the UK. In Malaysia it collected a whooping $1,077,658 in its total run. In Chennai box office it collected 7.28 crore in seven weeks. It grossed a gigantic 37 crore in the opening week including 16 crore from Tamil Nadu alone. Made on a budget of 40 crore, it grossed around 60 crore near the end of run and was declared a "Hit" by trade pundits. Awards and Nominations. The film has been nominated for the following categories:
57277	The Lost Tomb of Jesus is a documentary co-produced and first broadcast on the Discovery Channel and Vision TV in Canada on March 4, 2007, covering the discovery of the Talpiot Tomb. It was directed by Canadian documentary and film maker Simcha Jacobovici and produced by Felix Golubev and Ric Esther Bienstock, while James Cameron served as executive producer. The film was released in conjunction with a book about the same subject, "The Jesus Family Tomb", issued in late February 2007 and co-authored by Jacobovici and Charles R. Pellegrino. The documentary and book's claims are the subject of controversy within the archaeological and theological fields, as well as among linguistic and biblical scholars. Content. The film describes the finding of the Talpiot Tomb during a housing construction project, and posits that it was the family tomb of Jesus. The film states that ten ossuaries were found in the cave, of which six are the subject of the film. Further, it claims that one of the ten ossuaries went missing years ago, presumably stolen. The excavation report for the predecessor of the Israel Antiquities Authority was written by Amos Kloner, now professor of archaeology at Israel's Bar-Ilan University. Kloner dissociated himself from the claims made in the documentary. He said it was incorrect to call it "never before reported information" and that he had published all the details in the journal "Antiqot" in 1996. He had not said it was the tomb of Jesus' family. "I think it is very unserious work. I do scholarly work…," Kloner said. "film is all nonsense." Six of the nine remaining ossuaries bear inscriptions. "The Lost Tomb of Jesus" posits that three of those carry the names of figures from the New Testament. The meanings of the epigraphs are disputed. The makers of the documentary claim that four leading epigraphers have corroborated their interpretation of the inscriptions. As translated in "The Lost Tomb of Jesus" and "The Jesus Family Tomb", they read as follows: Four leading epigraphers have corroborated the ossuary inscriptions for "The Lost Tomb of Jesus," according to the Discovery Channel. The film further claims that the tenth ossuary, which went missing years ago, is the James Ossuary purported to contain the body of James, the brother of Jesus. In "The Jesus Family Tomb", Simcha Jacobovici claims the James Ossuary would have been a part of this tomb, but was removed by artifact dealers, and thus discovered separately. The James Ossuary's authenticity has been called into question, and one of its past owners has been charged with fraud in connection to the artifact. Ben Witherington III, who worked with Jacobovici on a Discovery Channel documentary on the James Ossuary, denies this connection on two grounds: Another consideration was that the measurements of the James Ossuary did not match the measurements listed for the tenth ossuary, which is no longer stored with the rest of the collection. The James Ossuary was listed as being approximately 50 centimeters long by 30 centimeters wide on one end, and 25.5 centimeters on the other end. The tenth ossuary in the Talpiot collection is listed as 60 centimeters long by 26 centimeters by 30 centimeters. Furthermore, Amos Kloner has stated that the tenth ossuary had no inscription. Also, Joe Zias, former curator of the Rockefeller Museum who received and catalogued the ossuaries, refuted this claim on his personal site. New information has now shown that the discrepancy in the measurements had to do with measuring the base of the ossuary, which is indeed 50 centimeters, rather than the length. The top length of the James ossuary, not the base, which is trapezoidal in shape, according to the latest remeasurement carried out by the Israel Antiquities Authority, is 57.5 centimeters. However, this does not prove that the James ossuary is the missing tenth Talpiot ossuary. DNA tests. Analysis of mitochondrial DNA performed by Lakehead University on the remains found in the ossuary marked "Jesus son of Joseph" and the one marked "Mariamne" or "Mary" (who some claim to be Mary Magdalene) found that the two occupants were not blood relations on their mothers' side. Based on these tests, the makers of the documentary suggest that "Jesus" and "Mariamne" were probably married "because otherwise they would not have been buried together in a family tomb," but the remains were not dated using radiocarbon to further sustain this supposition, neither was any announced DNA testing done on the others ossuaries to see if any familial relation existed there. Additionally, scholars argue the DNA tests only prove that they did not have the same mother and they could easily have been father/daughter, cousins, half brother/sister, or any number of possibilities that do not include a matrilineage line. New views of Jesus endorsed by the film. Christian views. The film proposes new interpretations of the events regarding Jesus depicted in the New Testament, as seen by mainstream Christianity. The film's suggestions contradict the basis of the faith and may be considered blasphemous by Christians: The claim that Jesus was married also undermines the theological metaphor of the Church being the "Bride of Christ" (found in the writings of the New Testament). Jimmy Akin, director of Apologetics and Evangelization at Catholic Answers, wrote: "This image would never have arisen if there was a Mrs. Jesus living right there in Jerusalem…. We know about wives of religion founders because they were honored figures as wives of The Founder, and if Jesus had a wife then (a) we would know about it and (b) the whole Church-as-the-Bride-of-Christ metaphor would never have come into existence." As for a possible "son of Jesus," he noted: "We tend to know about even the daughters of religious founders. Muhammad's daughter Fatima comes to mind. It would be much harder to sneak a forgotten son by the eyes of history…. It's not just hard to sneak sons past because patriarchal cultures focus more on sons; it's also because of this: In traditional societies, the son is looked on as the father's natural successor." The filmmakers denied that the claims made in the film contradicted key teachings of Christianity, such as the resurrection and ascension. The film's religious consultant James Tabor stated that the fact that Jesus' tomb was discovered does not put in doubt biblical accounts of his resurrection, which he said could have been spiritual. With regard to the ascension, the documentary's website suggests that while the tomb's discovery does not render impossible the notion of a spiritual ascension, it does contradict the belief that Jesus physically ascended to heaven. Islamic views. Finding someone's remains in Jesus' tomb conforms to the Muslim belief that a substitute for him was crucified, while he was raised bodily to heaven. The Islamic view of his disappearance, as mentioned in the Qur'an, states: "That they said (in boast), "We killed Al-Masih 'Isa the son of Maryam, the Messenger of Allah"; but they killed him not, nor crucified him, but so it was made to appear to them". The general Muslim interpretation of the verse is that God, to revenge from Judas' betrayal to Jesus (the fatherless prophet), made his face similar to that of Jesus, while Jesus ascended into heaven and is to return near the end of time and kill the anti-Christ. Accordingly, the discovered remains in his tomb would then actually belong to Judas, a Roman guard, or a volunteering disciple. Reception. Following the March 4, 2007, airing of "The Lost Tomb of Jesus" on the Discovery Channel, American journalist Ted Koppel aired a program entitled "The Lost Tomb of Jesus—A Critical Look", whose guests included the director Simcha Jacobovici, James Tabor, Chair of the Department of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte who served as a consultant and advisor on the documentary, Jonathan Reed, Professor of Religion at the University of LaVerne and co-author of "Excavating Jesus Beneath the Stones, Behind the Text," and William Dever, an archaeologist with over 50 years experience in Middle Eastern archaeological digs. Alan Cooperman, writer of "The Washington Post" article also states this: "Similar assessments came yesterday from two Israeli scholars, Amos Kloner, who originally excavated the tomb, and Joe Zias, former curator of archaeology at the Israeli Antiquities Authority. Kloner told the Jerusalem Post that the documentary is "nonsense." Zias described it in an e-mail to "The Washington Post" as a "hyped up film which is intellectually and scientifically dishonest." Israeli archaeologist Amos Kloner, who was among the first to examine the tomb when it was first discovered, said the names marked on the coffins were very common at the time. "I don't accept the news that it was used by Jesus or his family," and "The documentary filmmakers are using it to sell their film." he told the BBC News website. During the documentary "The Lost Tomb of Jesus", various professionals had claimed: During Ted Koppel's critique, "The Lost Tomb of Jesus—a Critical Look", Koppel revealed he had denials from these three people that Simcha Jacobovici had misquoted in the documentary. The archaeologist William Dever summed it up when he stated on Koppel's critical analysis, "The Lost Tomb of Jesus—A Critical Look", that Jacobovici's and Cameron's "conclusions were already drawn in the beginning" of the inquiry and that their "argument goes far beyond any reasonable interpretation." Archaeological Questions. The Three Skulls. Three skulls were found on the floor of the tomb in 1980 which the film makers assert was usual but others disagree: "This too was decidedly not typical. In ancient Jerusalem, the dead were placed inside tombs; in tombs, the dead were placed inside ossuaries. If anything was left behind, it was a lamp or a bottle of perfume, not skulls." Criticism of the documentary. Early Christianity scholar R. Joseph Hoffmann, chair of the Committee for the Scientific Examination of Religion, says the film alerts the public to the fact that there are no secure conclusions when it comes to the foundational history of a religious tradition. But he charges that the film "is all about bad assumptions," beginning with the assumption that the boxes contain Jesus of Nazareth and his family. From his view as a historian specializing in the social history of earliest Christianity, he found it "amazing how evidence falls into place when you begin with the conclusion—and a hammer." When interviewed about the upcoming documentary, Amos Kloner, who oversaw the original archaeological dig of this tomb in 1980 said: "Newsweek" reports that the archaeologist who personally numbered the ossuaries dismissed any potential connection: The aforementioned Joe Zias has published in his own site a "viewers' guide" to the Talpiot Tomb documentary, in which he systematically rebuts the film's argumentation and gives much background information about the people involved in it. Stephen Pfann, president of Jerusalem's University of the Holy Land and an expert in Semitic languages, who was interviewed in the documentary, also said the film's hypothesis holds little weight: Pfann also thinks the inscription read as "Jesus" has been misread and suggests that the name "Hanun" might be a more accurate rendering. "The Washington Post" reports that William G. Dever (mentioned above as excavating ancient sites in Israel for 50 years) offered the following: Asbury Theological Seminary's Ben Witherington III points out some other circumstantial problems with linking this tomb to Jesus' family: The Archaeological Institute of America, self-described on their website as "North America's oldest and largest organization devoted to the world of archeology," has published online their own criticism of the "Jesus tomb" claim:
1063733	The Darjeeling Limited is a 2007 comedy-drama film directed by Wes Anderson, and starring Owen Wilson, Adrien Brody, and Jason Schwartzman. It was written by Anderson, Schwartzman, and Roman Coppola. The film also features Waris Ahluwalia, Amara Karan, Barbet Schroeder, and Anjelica Huston, with Natalie Portman, Camilla Rutherford, Irrfan Khan and Bill Murray in cameo roles. Plot. A businessman in India (Bill Murray) fails to catch his train as it pulls out of a station. He is beaten to it by a younger man, Peter Whitman (Adrien Brody), who is carrying heavy luggage. Peter reunites with his brothers Francis (Owen Wilson) and Jack (Jason Schwartzman) on the luxury train called "The Darjeeling Limited", which is traveling across India. The brothers have not seen each other since their father's funeral. Francis, the oldest of the three brothers, has planned their journey in advance. The journey is supposed to culminate in a reunion with their mother (Anjelica Huston), but Francis tells his brothers that they are making the journey for spiritual self-discovery. He tells them of a car crash that he was in, saying that he technically died, and wants to reconnect to his brothers. His brothers are not convinced of this, and get annoyed with Francis' controlling behaviour such as choosing from the menu for them, which turns out to be a trait inherited from their mother. With his assistant Brendan's help, Francis draws up an itinerary for the trip and takes his brothers' passports to prevent them from getting off the train too early. The youngest Whitman, Jack, has written a short story which is similar to his own life, but he denies the similarities. He obsessively listens to the messages on his ex-girlfriend's answering machine at every train stop. Moreover, he has a fling with the train's stewardess Rita (Amara Karan), whom Francis nicknames "Sweet Lime" for the drinks she offers. Peter, the middle brother, justifies his keeping many of his late father's possessions by claiming that he was their father's favorite. His wife, Alice (Camilla Rutherford), is expecting a baby, but Peter fears that their relationship may end in divorce. In their trips through the Indian provinces, Francis has one of his loafers stolen by a shoe-shine boy; Peter buys a cobra, which later escapes from its transport container. This escape results in the brothers being confined to their cabins in the train. Francis and Peter get into a fight over the latter being their father's "favorite" and Jack uses pepper spray, trying to stop the fight. The train's Chief Steward (Waris Ahluwalia), whom the three brothers have repeatedly annoyed, throws the three of them off the train with all their luggage. On their way back to civilization, they see three young boys fall into a river while attempting to pull a raft across it. Jack and Francis rescue two of the boys, but Peter fails to save the third, which affects him deeply. In the boys' village, the three brothers are befriended by the villagers and attend the boy's funeral. In a flashback, the three brothers and Alice are in a car, going to their father's funeral. They stop to pick up their father's Porsche from the repair shop, but the car is not ready so the brothers leave. Back in the present, the Whitmans get on a bus, which takes them from the village to the airport. However, they rip up their tickets and decide to go visit their mother. The reunion is very emotional (it is learned that Francis's accident was, in fact, a suicide attempt) and the family is reunited for a time. The next morning, the three brothers find that their mother has again left her family and children. On the way back the three brothers run for a train, and jettison all their baggage on the railway line as they and some porters run after the train. Jack reads his new short story, and gives in, accepting that it is representative of his own life. Francis wants to give the passports back to his brothers, but the brothers decide that the passports are safer with him. "Hotel Chevalier". Anderson also wrote and directed the 2007 short film "Hotel Chevalier", starring Jason Schwartzman and Natalie Portman. The 13-minute film acts as a prologue to "The Darjeeling Limited". In it, Jack's ex-girlfriend turns up unexpectedly at his hotel room in Paris, and they spend the night together. Originally attached to festival screenings of "The Darjeeling Limited", it was removed during the limited theatrical release and instead made available on Apple Inc.'s iTunes Store as a free download. On October 26, 2007, "Hotel Chevalier" was removed from iTunes in favor of releasing it in theaters with the wide release of "The Darjeeling Limited". Themes and motifs. "The Darjeeling Limited" includes many of Anderson's signature themes and styles, such as despair, abandonment, sibling relationships, a privileged class who rarely work, and timeless fashions and props. Anderson has revealed that "The River" by Jean Renoir, the films of Satyajit Ray and documentaries on India by Louis Malle were his inspirations for this movie. The film was dedicated to Satyajit Ray and makes allusions to him and his work (e.g., the portrait of Ray in the compartment of the train "Bengal Lancer" towards the end of the film). Production. Locations. Much of the film was shot in Jodhpur, Rajasthan. The Himalaya scenes were shot in Udaipur, and the opening scene of the film was also shot on the streets of Jodhpur. The International Airport shown near the end is the old terminal building of Udaipur Airport. The scenes set in New York were shot in Long Island City. Indian Railways does not operate a luxury train named "The Darjeeling Limited", but it operates luxury trains like Maharaja Express, Royal Rajasthan on Wheels etc. There is a train named "Darjeeling Mail" that operates between Sealdah Station and New Jalpaiguri Station, the nearest broad gauge station to Darjeeling, which connects to the Darjeeling Himalayan Railway. Music. The soundtrack features three songs by The Kinks, "Powerman", "Strangers" and "This Time Tomorrow", all from the 1970 album, "Lola versus Powerman and the Moneygoround, Part One", as well as "Play With Fire" by The Rolling Stones. "Where Do You Go To (My Lovely)" by Peter Sarstedt is prominently featured as well, being played within the film more than once. Most of the album, however, features film score music composed by Bengali filmmaker Satyajit Ray, Merchant-Ivory films, and other artists from Indian cinema. Director Wes Anderson has said that it was Satyajit Ray's movies that made him want to come to India. The works include "Charu's Theme", from Ray's 1964 film, "Charulata", film-score cues by Shankar Jaikishan and classic works by Claude Debussy and Ludwig van Beethoven. The film ends with the 1969 song "Les Champs Élysées" by French singer Joe Dassin, who was the son of blacklisted American director Jules Dassin. Release. "The Darjeeling Limited" made its world premiere on 3 September 2007 at the Venice Film Festival, where it was in competition for the Golden Lion and won the Little Golden Lion. The film's North American premiere was on 28 September 2007 at the 45th annual New York Film Festival, where it was the opening film. It then opened in a limited commercial release in North America on 5 October 2007. The film opened across North America on 26 October 2007 and in the UK on 23 November 2007, in both territories preceded in showings by "Hotel Chevalier". The film grossed $134,938 in two theaters in its opening weekend for an average of $67,469 for each theater. The film (widescreen edition) was released on DVD 26 February 2008 on Fox Searchlight, with features limited to a behind-the-scenes documentary, theatrical trailer, and the inclusion of "Hotel Chevalier". The film was re-released by the Criterion Collection on 12 October 2010 on both DVD and Blu-ray, the latter being the film's first release on the format. Critical reception. The film received generally favorable reviews. , on the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, 67% of critics gave the film positive reviews, based on 168 reviews, with a consensus among critics that the film "will satisfy Wes Anderson fans." On Metacritic, the film had an average score of 67 out of 100, based on 35 reviews. Chris Cabin of Filmcritic.com gave the film 4 stars out of 5 and described Anderson's film as "the auteur's best work to date." "Entertainment Weekly" film critic Lisa Schwarzbaum gave the film a "B+" and said "This is psychological as well as stylistic familiar territory for Anderson after "Rushmore" and "The Royal Tenenbaums". But there's a startling new maturity in "Darjeeling", a compassion for the larger world that busts the confines of the filmmaker's miniaturist instincts." A.O. Scott of "The New York Times" said that the film "is unstintingly fussy, vain and self-regarding. But it is also a treasure: an odd, flawed, but nonetheless beautifully handmade object as apt to win affection as to provoke annoyance. You might say that it has sentimental value."
1052314	The Valet () is a 2006 French comedy film written and directed by Francis Veber and starring Gad Elmaleh, Alice Taglioni, Daniel Auteuil, and Kristin Scott Thomas. The screenplay focuses on a parking valet who is enlisted to pretend to be the lover of a famous fashion model in order to deflect attention from her relationship with a married businessman. Plot. Pierre Levasseur is a wealthy married Parisian executive involved in an affair with top model Elena Simonsen. When a paparazzo catches the two of them departing their secret hideaway and their photograph is published on the front page of the local newspaper, Pierre's wife Christine confronts him. He claims he has no idea who the woman is, and that she must have been a companion of the man seen walking beside them. Fully aware of Pierre's difficult situation, Elena gives him an ultimatum: he must choose between her and his wife. Because Christine is the majority shareholder of his business, Pierre is in danger of losing his fortune if he divorces her. His lawyer Maître Foix advises him the only way to resolve the issue is to find the anonymous man in the photo and have him pose as Elena's lover. The anonymous man is the hapless François Pignon, a parking valet who is in love with bookstore owner Émilie. Deep in debt and worried about her business, she has turned down his marriage proposal because she believes she has too much on her plate, and thinks of him as a brother. Meanwhile, Maître Foix locates François and offers him money to let Elena move in with him and pretend they are a couple. François agrees and asks for 32,450 euros: the exact amount of money that will pay off Émilie's debts. Meanwhile, Elena demands 20 million euros to participate in the sham relationship, a sum she keeps as a deposit that she will return to Pierre when he leaves his wife. Dislodging his friend and roommate Richard, Elena moves in with François, who is overwhelmed by the situation, but the two quickly become friends. Christine is not fooled and plays the situation for all it is worth, making her husband jealous of François and Elena's living situation. Émilie, too, is confused and upset to see François and Elena together. Eventually, Elena explains the situation to Émilie, who is grateful for the funding François requested for her, and she acquires a newfound respect for him and eventually accepts François' proposal.
582471	Rahul Dev Samra (; ; born 27 September) is an Indian film actor and former model. Dev is known for his unconventional rugged looks and chiselled features and appearances in action films. He was meant to make his acting debut as the main villain in Mukul S. Anand's 1997 film "Dus" but the director's death while the film was still in production caused the film to remain incomplete and unreleased. He then made his debut in the 2000 film "Champion" where he played a villainous role and for which he was nominated for the 2001 Filmfare Best Villain Award. He has since played villains and supporting roles in all of his films, but is almost always seen playing the villain. He acted villain in the Punjabi movies Dharti in 2011. Rahul Dev's brother Mukul Dev is also an actor in films and television. Personal life. Dev is the son of the former police commissioner of Delhi.He was born in Saket in 1968, New Delhi in a Khatri Punjabi family. Dev did his schooling from St. Columba's School, Delhi. He used to be a fast bowler in school, when a former cricket player Gursharan Singh who used to coach occasionally at St. Columba's saw him bowling he was so impressed that he asked him to join his academy. However Rahul was more interested in studies at that time. Rahul's wife Rina died on 16 May 2009 after a battle with cancer. The couple had been married for 11 years and have an eleven-year-old son Siddharth. Activism. Dev was featured in an advertisement released by PETA critical of the conditions in, and practices of, Indian zoos. Rahul volunteered for the ad, in which he appears in spotted bodypaint to resemble a cheetah. Dev described zoos as "nothing more than animal prisons maintained for human amusement." "If you love animals, let them live with their families in the wild, where they belong." "Protecting species from extinction sounds like a noble goal, but zoo officials usually favour exotic or popular animals who draw crowds and publicity, neglecting less popular species. Most animals housed in zoos are not endangered, nor are they being prepared for release into natural habitats. The best thing to do to stop this cruelty is to urge your friends and family to boycott zoos."
1549370	Taxi to the Dark Side is a 2007 documentary film directed by American filmmaker Alex Gibney, and produced by Eva Orner and Susannah Shipman, which won the 2007 Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature. It focuses on the killing of an Afghan taxi driver named Dilawar, beaten to death by American soldiers while being held in extrajudicial detention at the Parwan Detention Facility. "Taxi to the Dark Side" examines the USA's policy on torture and interrogation in general, specifically the CIA's use of torture and their research into sensory deprivation. The film includes opposition to the use of torture from its political and military opponents, as well as the defense of such methods; attempts by Congress to uphold the standards of the Geneva Convention forbidding torture; and popularization of the use of torture techniques in shows such as "24".
1083892	Voyage to the Prehistoric Planet is a 1965 science fiction film directed by Curtis Harrington. The film is an American adapted and edited version of the Soviet science fiction movie "Planeta Bur" ("Planet of the Storms") directed by Pavel Klushantsev, with Curtis Harrington filming extra scenes featuring Basil Rathbone and American actors for the US/English speaking market. In the story, it is 2020 and the Moon has been colonized. After travelling 200,000,000 miles, the first group of men land on Venus, a prehistoric world, where the crew are attacked by various monsters, plants, etc. While Harrington considered "Queen of Blood", another film that was edited together in a similar way, good enough to keep his name on, in this film he is credited as "John Sebastian", in homage to Johann Sebastian Bach. This edit of the film also forms the basis of another edit of "Planeta Bur", "Voyage to the Planet of Prehistoric Women". Credits. Curtis Harrington removed all original credits to hide the fact that this was not his movie, thus some soviet actors remained completely uncredited while others were given fake names.
1068067	Permanent Midnight is a 1998 comedy-drama film directed by David Veloz starring Ben Stiller. The film is based on Jerry Stahl's autobiographical book of the same name and tells the story of Stahl's rise from a small-time television writer to his success as a comedy writer making up to $5,000 a week writing for 1980s series like "thirtysomething", "Moonlighting", and "ALF" (changed in the film to "Mr. Chompers"). Maria Bello stars as Kitty, a fellow detox survivor to whom Stahl relates his rise and fall. The film also stars Owen Wilson as Stahl's friend and fellow addict, Nicky; Elizabeth Hurley as his wife, Sandra; and Janeane Garofalo as a Hollywood agent, Jana. The real Stahl makes a cameo appearance as a doctor at a methadone clinic. Stiller's performance in the film was critically acclaimed, but the film failed at the box office and never saw widespread release . It has been released on DVD in the USA and the UK. A soundtrack CD was also released with most of the music heard in the film. In America, the film is rated R for pervasive and graphic drug abuse, strong language, and strong sexual content. Plot. Approaching the end of a drug rehabilitation program, Jerry Stahl (Stiller) quits his job at a fast food restaurant on an impulse when an attractive woman named Kitty (Bello) pulls up at the drive-through window. The two check into a motel, where Jerry tells her about his life in between bouts of sex. A series of flashbacks, intercut with their conversations, details his working life to this point. After moving to Los Angeles from New York City, Jerry – already addicted to various prescription medications – becomes friends with another addict, Nicky (Wilson). At the urging of Nicky and his girlfriend Vola (Lourdes Benedicto), Jerry marries Vola's friend Sandra (Hurley) so she can get her green card. Sandra uses her position at a television studio to get Jerry onto the writing staff of the popular comedy series "Mr. Chompers". He uses memories from his childhood, including his mother's hysterical grief over his father's death, to fuel his writing. He juggles his "Mr. Chompers" job and regular visits to a heroin dealer, Dita (Liz Torres). However, his drug use eventually gets him fired. Sandra finds him a new job with a different series, "No Such Luck", but star Pamela Verlaine (Cheryl Ladd) – herself a recovering addict – sternly but sympathetically insists that he kick his habit first. As soon as Jerry starts on a methadone program, he runs across a dealer named Gus (Peter Greene), who introduces him to crack cocaine and later Dilaudid. His increased drug use costs him his new job, and Sandra throws him out, disgusted at his decision to shoot up when she tells him she is pregnant. Her opinion of him falls even further when he shows up high for the birth of his daughter Nina. While looking after her one night, he gets high and is arrested by the police. The incident further strains his relationship with Sandra, who makes it clear that she would prefer to see as little of him as possible. The flashbacks end at this point, with Jerry returning to Los Angeles in hopes of being part of Nina's life. As he begins to resurrect his stalled writing career, he gets a surprise visit from Kitty. The two have one last sexual encounter before she leaves to move to Anchorage. In the final scene, Jerry appears on a series of talk shows and news programs, while commenting in voice-over about the damage that his addiction has done to his life. "I got out with a bad liver and enough debt to keep me in hock 'til I'm 90, if I'm still here. And with my luck, I will be."
1060897	Christopher Haden-Guest, 5th Baron Haden-Guest (born February 5, 1948), better known as Christopher Guest, is an English-American screenwriter, composer, musician, director, actor, and comedian who holds dual British and American citizenship. He is most widely known in Hollywood for having written, directed and starred in several improvisational "mockumentary" films featuring an ensemble cast. This series of films began with "This Is Spinal Tap", and continued with "Waiting for Guffman", "Best In Show", "A Mighty Wind", and "For Your Consideration". Guest also had a featured role as the evil six-fingered Count Rugen in the film "The Princess Bride". He holds a hereditary British peerage as the The 5th Baron Haden-Guest, and has publicly expressed a desire to see the House of Lords reformed as a democratically elected chamber. Though he was initially active in the Lords, his career there was cut short by the House of Lords Act 1999. When using his title, he is normally styled as Lord Haden-Guest. Guest is married to the actress and author Jamie Lee Curtis. Early years. Guest was born in New York City, the son of Peter Haden-Guest, a British United Nations diplomat who later became the 4th Baron Haden-Guest, and his second wife, Jean Pauline Hindes, a former vice president of casting at CBS. Guest's paternal grandfather, Leslie, Baron Haden-Guest, was a Labour Party politician who was a convert to Judaism, and Guest's paternal grandmother's father was Colonel Albert Goldsmid, a British officer who founded the Jewish Lads' and Girls' Brigade and the Maccabaeans. Guest's maternal grandparents were Jewish immigrants from Russia. Both of Guest's parents had become atheists, and Guest had no religious upbringing. Nearly a decade before he was born, his uncle, David Guest, a lecturer and Communist Party member, was killed in the Spanish Civil War fighting in the International Brigades. Guest spent parts of his childhood in his father's native United Kingdom. He attended The High School of Music & Art (New York City), studying classical music (clarinet). He later took up the mandolin, became interested in country music, and played guitar with Arlo Guthrie. Guest later began performing with bluegrass bands until he took up rock and roll. Guest studied acting at New York University's Graduate Acting Program at the Tisch School of the Arts, graduating in 1971. Career. 1970s. Guest began his career in theatre during the early 1970s with one of his earliest professional performances being the role of Norman in Michael Weller's "Moonchildren" for the play's American premiere at the Arena Stage in Washington D.C. in November 1971. Guest continued with the production when it moved to Broadway in 1972. The following year he began making contributions to "The National Lampoon Radio Hour" for a variety of National Lampoon audio recordings. He both performed comic characters (Flash Bazbo—Space Explorer, Mr. Rogers, music critic Roger de Swans, and sleazy record company rep Ron Fields) and wrote, arranged and performed numerous musical parodies (of Bob Dylan, James Taylor and others). He was featured alongside Chevy Chase and John Belushi in the Off-Broadway revue "National Lampoon's Lemmings". Two of his earliest film roles were small parts as uniformed police officers in the 1972 film "The Hot Rock" and 1974's "Death Wish". Guest played a small role in the 1977 "All In the Family" episode "", where in a flashback sequence Mike and Gloria recall their first blind date, set up by Michael's college buddy Jim (Guest), who dated Gloria's girlfriend Debbie (Priscilla Lopez). 1980s. Guest's biggest role of the first two decades of his career is likely that of Nigel Tufnel in the 1984 mockumentary film "This Is Spinal Tap". Guest made his first appearance as Tufnel on the 1978 sketch comedy program "The TV Show". Along with Martin Short, Billy Crystal and Harry Shearer, Guest was hired as a one-year only cast member for the season on NBC's "Saturday Night Live". Recurring characters on SNL played by Guest include Frankie, of Willie and Frankie (coworkers who recount in detail physically painful situations in which they have found themselves, remarking laconically "I hate when that happens"); Herb Minkman, a shady novelty toymaker with a brother named Al (played by Crystal); Rajeev Vindaloo, an eccentric foreign man in the same vein as Andy Kaufman's Latka character from "Taxi"; and Senor Cosa, a Spanish ventriloquist often seen on the recurring spoof of "The Joe Franklin Show ". He also experimented behind the camera with pre-filmed sketches, notably directing a documentary-style short starring Shearer and Short as synchronized swimmers. In another short film from SNL, Guest and Crystal appear as retired Negro-League baseball players, "The Rooster and the King". He appeared as Count Rugen in "The Princess Bride". He had a cameo role as the first customer, a smarmy pedestrian, in the 1986 musical remake of "The Little Shop of Horrors", that also featured his SNL co-star, Steve Martin. As a co-writer and director, Guest made the Hollywood satire "The Big Picture". Upon his father succeeding to the family peerage in 1987, he was henceforth known as "The Hon. Christopher Haden-Guest" in full. This was his official style and name until he inherited the barony in 1996. 1990–present. The experience of having made "Spinal Tap" would directly inform the second phase of his career. Starting in 1996, Guest began writing, directing and acting in his own series of heavily improvised films. Many of them would come to be definitive examples of what came to be known as "mockumentaries". His frequent writing partner is Eugene Levy. Together, Levy, Guest and a small band of other actors have formed a loose repertory group, which appear across several films. These include Catherine O'Hara, Michael McKean, Parker Posey, Bob Balaban, Jane Lynch, John Michael Higgins, Harry Shearer, Jennifer Coolidge, Ed Begley, Jr. and Fred Willard. Guest and Levy write backgrounds for each of the characters and notecards for each specific scene, outlining the plot, and then leave it up to the actors to improvise the dialogue, which is supposed to result in a much more natural conversation than scripted dialogue would. Each of these movies also shares a hallmark plot development, where the movie leads up to some kind of a highly anticipated performance, or the outcome of a performance. This could reflect Guest's background in theater, and simply a kind of meta-commentary, as a real performance is of course what is being improvised for the duration. Notably, everyone who appears in these movies receives the same fee, and the same portion of profits. Despite making a number of mockumentaries, Guest dislikes the term. He maintains that his intention is not to mock anyone, but to explore insular, perhaps obscure communities through his method of filmmaking. He had a guest voice-over role in the animated comedy series "SpongeBob SquarePants" as SpongeBob's cousin, Stanley. Guest appeared as Dr. Stone in A Few Good Men (1992), as Lord Cromer in Mrs Henderson Presents (2005) and in the 2009 comedy "The Invention of Lying". He is also currently a member of the musical group The Beyman Bros, which he formed with his childhood friend David Nichtern and Spinal Tap's current keyboardist CJ Vanston. Their debut album "Memories of Summer as a Child" was released on January 20, 2009. In 2010, the United States Census Bureau paid $2.5 million to have a television commercial directed by Guest shown during television coverage of Super Bowl XLIV. Guest holds an honorary doctorate from and is a member of the board of trustees for Berklee College of Music in Boston. He is currently the writer and producer of the HBO series, "Family Tree," a lighthearted story in the mockumentary style he made famous in "Spinal Tap," in which the main character, Tom Chadwick, inherits a box of curios from his great aunt spurring interest in his ancestry. Peerage and heirs. Guest became The 5th Baron Haden-Guest, of Great Saling, in the County of Essex, when his father died in 1996. He succeeded upon the ineligibility of his older half-brother, Anthony Haden-Guest, who was born prior to the marriage of his parents. According to an article in "The Guardian", Guest attended the House of Lords regularly until the House of Lords Act 1999 barred most hereditary peers from their seats. In the article Guest remarked: Personal life. Guest married actress Jamie Lee Curtis in 1984 at the home of their mutual friend Rob Reiner. They have two adopted children: Anne (born 1986) and Thomas (born 1996). Because Guest's children are adopted, they cannot inherit the family barony under the terms of the letters patent that created it, though a 2004 Royal Warrant addressing the style of a peer's adopted children states that they can use courtesy titles. The current heir presumptive to the barony is Guest's younger brother, the actor The Hon. Nicholas Haden-Guest. Off-stage demeanor. As reported by Louis B. Hobson, "On film, Guest is a hilariously droll comedian. In person he is serious and almost dour." He quotes Guest as saying "People want me to be funny all the time. They think I'm being funny no matter what I say or do and that's not the case. I rarely joke unless I'm in front of a camera. It's not what I am in real life. It's what I do for a living."
1100044	Stanislav Konstantinovich Smirnov (; born 3 September 1970) is a Russian mathematician currently working at the University of Geneva, who was awarded the Fields Medal in 2010. His research focuses on the fields of complex analysis, dynamical systems and probability theory. Career. Smirnov attended a specialist mathematics school, Saint Petersburg Lyceum 239, until 1987. Smirnov completed his undergraduate degree at Saint Petersburg State University in 1992, where he worked under Victor Havin. His PhD was conducted at Caltech under advisor Nikolai G. Makarov; his thesis was entitled "Spectral Analysis of Julia Sets" and he received his doctorate in 1996. Smirnov has held research positions at Yale University, the Max Planck Institute for Mathematics in Bonn, and the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. In 1998 he moved to the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, and took up his current position as a professor in the Analysis, Mathematical Physics and Probability group at the University of Geneva in 2003. Research. Smirnov is known best for his work on critical percolation theory, in which he proved Cardy's formula for critical site percolation on the triangular lattice, and deduced conformal invariance. The conjecture was proved in the special case of site percolation on the triangular lattice. Smirnov's theorem has led to a fairly complete theory for percolation on the triangular lattice, and to its relationship to the Schramm–Loewner evolution introduced by Oded Schramm. He has obtained corresponding results of conformality for the random-cluster model and Ising model in two dimensions. Awards. Smirnov was jointly ranked first in the 1986 and 1987 International Mathematical Olympiads, with perfect scores and gold medals on both occasions. He has been awarded the Saint Petersburg Mathematical Society Prize (1997), the Clay Research Award (2001), the Salem Prize (joint with Oded Schramm, 2001), the Göran Gustafsson Research Prize (2001), the Rollo Davidson Prize (2002), and the Prize of the European Mathematical Society (2004). In 2010 Smirnov was awarded the Fields medal for his work on the mathematical foundations of statistical physics, particularly finite lattice models. His citation read "for the proof of conformal invariance of percolation and the planar Ising model in statistical physics". In his laudation, Harry Kesten said that Smirnov "has the talent and insight to produce surprising results, and his work has been a major stimulus for the explosion in the last 15 years or so of probabilistic results about random planar curves". After receiving the award, Smirnov expressed his wish to continue making important mathematical discoveries, saying "I look forward to proving more theorems. I hope the weight of this prize doesn't slow me down." In 2012 he became a fellow of the American Mathematical Society.
585228	Michael Madhana Kama Rajan is a 1990 Tamil comedy film directed by Singeetam Srinivasa Rao and written by Kamal Haasan, with Crazy Mohan penning the dialogues. The film also feature large ensemble cast alongside Kamal Haasan, Kushboo, Urvashi, Rupini played the female leads, while Manorama, Delhi Ganesh, Nassar, Venniradai Moorthy, SN Lakshmi, Jayabharathi, R. N. Jayagopal, Nagesh, Praveen Kumar and Santhana Bharathi playing other significant role. The film was a blockbuster and completed 175-day run at the box office. The film tells a story of quadruplets, Michael, Madhanagopal, Kameshwaran, and Raju, all played by Kamal Haasan. Kamal had distinguished each of those characters with his body language and language lingo. Michael has a husky voice, Madan has an English accent, Kameshwaran speaks Palakkad Tamil and Raju speaks Madras Tamil in keeping with their diverse upbringing as per the plot. The film's climax scene is said to be inspired from the Charlie Chaplin movie, "The Gold Rush". Plot. The movie opens with a ballad sung by travelling singer singing a tale. The tale of a rich industrialist is secretly married to a woman, who is expecting their child. His brother, wishing to eliminate any potential rivals to the family property, sets her up to be killed by hired goons, who are also ordered to kill the babies. The leader of the goons, (Santhana Bharathi), having no desire to kill the identical quadruplets, takes one with him (Michael), drops one in an orphanage (Raju), one in a temple (Kameshwaran) who is picked by Palakkad Mani Iyer (Delhi Ganesh), and one in a car (Madhan) that belongs to the babies' father. Years roll by and the lives of all the four kids grow up and even though all of them physically look alike, they have completely different mannerism and personalities. The father of the quadruplet, raises Madhan and treats him as his own son, unknown to the fact that Madhan is, in fact, his son. On the eve of Madhan’s Arrival after graduating London Business School, the father’s brother and nephew (Nassar) collude and kill him before Madhan is named as the owner of the father’s company publicly. But unknown to them, the will has already named Madhan as the owner. Madhan comes back to Bangalore from abroad to take care of his father's company, much to the annoyance of his uncle and his cousin, Nasser. There he meets Avinashi (Nagesh), his father’s assistant, who misappropriated a huge sum of money. Avinashi pleads that he knows nothing about the funds and has the burden of marrying off his eight daughters. Madhan refuses to agree and asks Avinashi to own up to his mistakes owing to which he will be forgiven but failing which he'll be forced to call the police. Once, while printing counterfeit currency, Michael and his father, Santhana bharathi escapes from the police in a car which crashes into the electricity unit in a convention centre where Shalini's (Kushboo) paintings are being displayed for exhibition. The building catches fire and along comes Raju, a firefighter, and saves Shalini and her paintings. The two become friends and Raju falls in love with her. Raju had taken a loan from a Pathan (Afghani money-lender) to stage a play when he was young and the Pathan comes to Raju's house to demand the loan plus interest. Raju tries to pacify the Pathan by giving him some biscuits and dried fish but the Pathan throws it out in the street and it falls on Kameshwaran. Kameshwaran, assuming the fish to be vegetables, shouts at the Pathan and reaches the wedding hall where his father is doing the catering service for the wedding. He accidentally drops the fish (which had fallen in his shirt pocket) in the sambar and a hilarious sequence follows. In the wedding hall he meets Thiripurasundari (Urvashi), whom he thinks is a thief. But apparently her grandmother (S. N. Lakshmi) is a kleptomaniac who happens to steal everything from tumblers to an old man's artificial teeth to Delhi Ganesh's chella petti, and Urvashi goes behind her replacing everything her grandmother stole. Kameshwaran holds Urvashi's hand, brings her to the main hall and tries to bring it to everyone's attention that her grandmother is a thief, but intelligently Lakshmi changes the scene and claims that Kameshwaran had tried to misbehave with Urvashi. As the days go on, Lakshmi buys all the groceries in Kameshwaran's account and when he goes to their house, a series of rib-tickling dialogues follow. Finally Urvashi reveals her bitter fate about tackling her grandmother's kleptomania. Kameshwaran pities her and falls for her. Eventually they get engaged. Madhan gets a phone call from a lady in Chennai saying that his dad's death wasn't an accident, but that it was planned. The caller also gives him an address in Santhome, Chennai asking him to meet her at a specific time. Avinashi, who hears this conversation from another line, conveys the conversation to Nasser and his father in hopes of getting some money. But they act nonchalant in front of Avinashi, not to arouse suspicion but send their thugs to take care of the situation. Madhan comes to Chennai and when in hotel, he gets another call asking him to meet her at a different address. Madhan goes there to meet Chakkubai (Roopini) and Gangabai (Manorama). Chakkubai is a mentally retarded blind girl pinned to a wheelchair that imagines untrue things about the deaths reported in newspapers, tracks the deceased's relatives and creates confusion by saying the death is not natural. Madhan pities her and comes back to the hotel. While watching TV, he sees Chakkubai dance in a TV programme and she looks perfectly sane with good eyesight. Madhan finds them in a stage drama programme and they confess that they were asked to act that way and were given money for it. Madhan then realises that the first call he received in Bangalore was true and goes to Santhome. There he meets Sushila Jayabharathi who is about to tell him about his father. But a car comes to kill them and they escape with the help of Madhan's assistant Bheem. Sushila runs off in the chaos. Bheem is overpowered and the goons set off after Madhan. Madhan, along with Chakkubhai and Gangabhai, are on the run and hide in a restroom. The goons mistake Raju, who happens to be in the same restroom, for Madhan and try to kill him. But Raju easily overpowers them. Madhan sees this and picks up Raju’s wallet which had fallen earlier during the fight. Madhan gives a guesthouse address to Chakkubhai and Gangabhai and asks them to stay there. Madhan gets Raju's address from the wallet and goes to his house. Madhan meet’s Raju and he agree to repay Raju's debt, but in turn ask Raju to impersonate him and go to Bangalore while he stays in Chennai. Having failed earlier, Nasser and his father hire a thug to kill Madhan before Madhan reaches Bangalore. The thug turns out to be the middleman to hire Michael. Raju, while leaving his hotel, meets Shalini and her dad (Venniradai Moorthy) whose flight to Bangalore has been delayed. Raju offers to take them along with him in his car. In the meantime, Michael pulls off the brake wire. Sushila, who had come to the hotel in search of Madhan, sees this but before she could warn Raju, they drive off. She follows them in a taxi. Michael is astonished to find that Madhan/Raju looks just like him sans his beard and is upset that he has killed the goose that lays the golden eggs. But the real Madhan, after seeing off Raju to Bangalore, walks past Michael. Thinking that Madhan was not in the car that drove away, follow him after paying up the middleman and forcing him to leave. Madhan goes and stays in the same guesthouse that Chakkubhai and Gangabhai are holed up in. In the car, the brake fails to work but Raju climbs out of the speeding car and makes the break work. This causes the car to get into a minor accident but none of them are injured. Sushila catches up to them and wants to talk to Madhan. Raju gives her the address of the guesthouse Madhan is staying at and tells her that “he, Madhan” will be there. Although confused, she still goes to the guesthouse. Raju, Bheem boy, shalini and her father arrive at Madhan’s house in Bangalore and Raju insist that Shalini and her father stay at the house for a few days. Avinashi, heeding to the earlier warning about his misappropriation of funds, admits that he had taken the money and all he has left is the 600,000 Rupees cash that he shows to Raju and asks to be forgiven. Raju, takes the cash and asks Bheem boy to put it in the safe and tells Avinashi that he has changed his mind. In the guesthouse, Gangabhai encourages Chakkubhai to flirt with Madhan. As she does, both she and Madhan get intimate. But Sushila arrives and asks Madhan to leave with her. They are followed by Michael and his dad, who are followed by the middleman who used to work for them, who is followed by two of Nasser’s goons. Sushila takes Madhan to her home and Madhan is surprised to see his father alive. Although the father appears to “talk funny” he still tells Madhan about attempt on his life by his brother and Nasser but coincidentally he meets Sushila, who was his long lost wife from years prior and escapes with her help. Michael and Santhana bharathi arrive at the scene. Sushila recognizes Santhana bharathi as the goon who had taken her quadruplets and realizes that Michael and Madhan are her sons as they look alike and Michael calling Santhana bharathi as his dad. But before she could say anything, Michael and his father beat all of them unconscious and kidnap Madhan. The middleman arrive moments later, promises to help Sushila and Madhan’s father in return for a large sum of cash and follows Michael in a car. Nasser’s goons, who had followed the middleman, now learn that Madhan’s father is still alive and they again follow the middleman. Avinashi, who was to give the 600,000 Rupees as a dowry for one of his daughter’s wedding, chances upon Madhan’s look alike Kameshwaran. He pay’s Thirupu’s grandmother and asks Kameshwaran to impersonate Madhan for a few minutes. The grandmother, in her greed, tricks Kameshwaran that his father too thinks it’s ok to act as Madhan. Avinashi brings Kameshwaran, Thirpu and her grandmother to Bangalore. Michael takes Madhan to a cabin at an edge of a cliff in Bangalore and shaves of his beard to look like Madhan. He soon finds Sushila, her husband and the middleman spying on the cabin having followed him, knocks them cold and ties them up in the cabin. He and his father then go to Madhan’s big house to loot it. Nasser’s goons, who have seen this, inform Nasser. Raju and Shalini plan to meet each other without the knowledge of her father. Avinashi, drugs Raju’s soup but in his haste to meet Shalini, he asks Bheem boy to eat the soup. Raju and Shalini meet and profess their love for one another. Michael and his father reach the house and find a safe but Bheem boy who has eaten the drugged soup, startles them but fall unconscious near the safe. Michael see’s Raju, mistakes him for Madhan and thinks that Madhan has escaped from the Cabin. He goes to kidnap Madhan again before he could call the police. Michael hits Raju in the head and leaves him unconscious. Avinashi sees the unconscious Raju and brings Kameshwaran into the house to get his money from the safe. A drunken Santhana bharathi accidentally hits Michael in the head and knocks him unconscious and takes the unconscious Raju back to the cabin. Kameshwaran is mistaken for Raju/Madhan by Shalini who tries to get intimate with him. Thirupu and her grandmother want’s none of that and drag Kameshwaran away. But Shalini witnesses Kameshwaran hugging Thiupu. This enrages her as she thinks that Raju lied to her. Chakkubhai and Gangabhai also arrive at the house in search of Madhan and Chakkubhai introduces herself to everyone as Madhan’s fiancé. This causes Shalini to take a decorative hunting rifle and hold everyone to gunpoint. Avinashi and the rest try to tell her that kameshwaran is not Madhan/Raju but she doesn’t believe them. Michael wakes up, goes to the safe. Bheem boy too wakes up and helps Michael to get the cash from the Safe. As he is leaving, everyone sees Michael and shouts for him. Meanwhile, the real Madhan has escaped the cabin with his mother and dad and comes to the house. In the confusion, Michael escapes in the same car in which Sushila and her husband are in and goes to the cabin. The rest of the crew all follows them back to the cabin. Nasser has arrived earlier to the cabin and holds everyone at gunpoint as they arrive one by one. All the brothers finally are in the same room and Sushila tells them that they are her quadruplets. The arrival of Bheem boy and the presence of all the people in the small cabin causes the cabin to lose it’s base and start to tilt over the cliff edge. The bad guys are knocked out and the four brothers work together to safely get everyone out of the cabin. Everyone is happy as they are finally together. As the credits roll, the travelling singer is shown as moving on to his next spot. Soundtrack. The soundtrack consist of five memorable songs composed by Ilayaraja. The Sundari neeyum song was sung by Kamal Hassan. This song is particularly striking for the Malayalam lyrics thrown in for good measure. This was the first song in Indian Cinema to run in slow-motion full length. Rum bum bum is yet another fast melody and is a huge hit in college setting till date. Reception. "IndiaGlitz" said, "The Mother of all comedy flicks is what this movie is. Featuring a large ensemble cast, this picture portrays Kamal in four contrasting roles separated by birth and reunion in later part of their life. If you want to go down laughing on 21st December, then this is the movie you should be watching." Singer Mahathi said, "I have always loved the ‘Crazy’ Mohan and Kamal Hassan combination. Especially in "Michael Madana Kamarajan" where Kamal brings out so much from every character, playing it so differently from the other." Kamal Haasan's performance as all four quadruplets is top class and he showcases his versatility in a single movie. He has four different types of body language and four different slang terms for the roles. It also won Kamal Haasan many accolades and recognition for his versatile acting and comic timing.
584119	Naadodigal ( ; ) is a 2009 Indian drama film written and directed by Samuthirakani. The film stars Sasikumar along with "Chennai 600028" fame Vijay Vasanth and "Kallori" fame Bharani in lead roles, with newcomers Ananya, Abhinaya and Malaysia-based Shanthini Deva enacting the lead female roles and Ganja Karuppu playing a pivotal role, providing comical relief. The plot focuses on a trio who attempt to unite their friend with his lover against the wishes of all families involved, and at heavy cost to themselves, only to realize that the lovers separate after a short while. The film released in June 2009, garnering positive reviews. Plot. The film revolves around three characters – Karunakaran (Sasikumar), Pandi (Bharani) and Chandran (Vijay Vasanth). The trio eats, sleeps and parties together in Rajapalayam. They also have their individual ambitions in life. Karunakaran is in love with his uncle’s daughter Nallammal (Ananya). He is madly pursuing a government job because his uncle agrees to the marriage if and when he obtains one. Pandi is desperate to go abroad and get rich, while Chandran is committed to start a computer center. All goes well until Saravanan (Ranga) enters, a childhood friend of Karunakaran. Son of a former MP (Member of Parliament), he is in love with Prabha (Shanthini Devi), daughter of a bigwig in Namakkal. Shocked by Saravanan’s suicide attempt due to love failure, the trio promises to help him out and unite the two lovers. They set out to Namakkal where they enlist the help of their old friend Maariyappan (Ganja Karuppu). The trio manages to help the couple get married by abducting the girl while she is visiting a temple with her family. In ensuing fracas between the two families, karunakaran gets injured while pandi is hit on the ear by a log thereby losing his hearing ability and chandran loses his leg due to a crush injury by falling under a passing truck. The bride's father on realizing who aided his ward escape sends his goons to attack karunakaran's family. It ends with karunakaran's grandmother being killed. During the funeral the members of the family have a fight resulting in karunakaran's fiance being coaxed by her father to give up on karunakaran. The three friends end up being put in the jail and getting entangled in a kidnapping case. However they are released as time goes by. To their utter dismay they realise that the star crossed lovers they had managed to unite at such great personal and emotional loss have gone their separate ways having grown bored of each other. They realise that the battle they fought did not serve any purpose. What the trio then does to teach the couple a lesson, forms the movie climax. Soundtrack. The film score and soundtrack for Naadodigal was composed by Sundar C Babu. Release. Critical Reception. "Naadodigal" opened to positive reviews. A critic from Sify gave 5/5 and wrote that "Nadodigal is not great cinema, but enjoyable and a welcome change in these hard days. It is eminently watchable." Bhamadevi Ravi of The Times of India rated the movie 3.5/5 and called the movie "a good show." Pavithra Srinivasan of Rediff gave the film 3 out of 5, calling "Naadodigal is in its realistic feel, mostly logical screenplay and cast go a long way in making it a worthwhile watch." Aravindan DI from "Nowrunning.com" rated the movie 3/5 stating that "The film does carry an appealing message for today's jet-age society - it's shocking yet powerful." Another reviewer Mythily Ramachandran from "Nowrunning.com" gave 3 out of 5 and wrote that "Nadodigal entertains and is thought provoking. Told in simple narrative style it is presented most realistically and is a treat for lovers of good cinema." A critic from "Top10Cinema" wrote that "as a team and a team work, Nadodigal is a definite entertainer."
770195	Underclassman is a 2005 action comedy film directed by Marcos Siega, and stars Nick Cannon, Shawn Ashmore, Roselyn Sánchez, Kelly Hu, Hugh Bonneville, and Cheech Marin. It was released on September 2, 2005, had been originally set for a release in 2004. Plot. Tracy (Trey) Stokes (Cannon) is a 23-year old undercover cop and goes to the wealthy private Westbury School to figure out the death of a student. He becomes friends with Rob Donovan (Ashmore) and soon figures out that Donovan has been stealing the cars at parties. Near the end, it is revealed that the principal (Bonneville) of the school had been blackmailing Donovan, thus he is the ringmaster of the crimes. After being kicked off the force by his father-figure police chief (Marin), Trey solves the case (with the help from Donovan) and is reinstated. Reception. "Underclassman" received negative reviews from critics. On Rotten Tomatoes, only 6% of the critics gave it positive write-ups.
1266029	Francis Curray McHugh, known as Frank McHugh (May 23, 1898 – September 11, 1981), was an American film and television actor. Life and career. Born in Homestead, Pennsylvania, McHugh came from a theatrical family. His parents ran a stock theatre company and as a young child he performed on stage. His brother Matt and sister Kitty performed an act with him by the time he was ten years old, but the family quit the stage about 1930. Another brother, Ed, became a stage manager and agent in New York. McHugh debuted on Broadway in "The Fall Guy" in 1925. Warner Brothers hired him as a contract player in 1930. McHugh played everything from lead actor to sidekick and would often provide comedy relief. He appeared in more than 150 films and television productions and worked with almost every star at Warner Bros. He was a close friend of James Cagney and appeared in more Cagney movies than any other actor. He appeared with Cagney in eleven films between 1932 and 1953. Their friendship lasted until McHugh's death.
1055371	Decision Before Dawn is a 1951 American war film directed by Anatole Litvak, starring Richard Basehart, Oskar Werner, and Hans Christian Blech. It tells the story of the American Army using potentially unreliable German prisoners of war to gather intelligence in the closing days of World War II. The film was adapted by Jack Rollens (uncredited) and Peter Viertel from the novel "Call It Treason" by George Howe. It was nominated for Academy Awards for Best Film Editing and Best Picture. Plot. By late 1944, it is obvious that the Germans will lose the war. American Colonel Devlin (Gary Merrill) leads a military intelligence unit that recruits German prisoners of war to spy on their former comrades. "Tiger" (Hans Christian Blech), a cynical older thief and ex-circus worker, is willing to work for whichever side is winning. On the other hand, "Happy" (Oskar Werner) is a young idealist who volunteers to spy after his friend has been killed by fanatical fellow prisoners for voicing doubts about the war's outcome. Monique (Dominique Blanchar) trains Happy and the others in espionage techniques; she takes a liking to the young man, despite her hatred for Germans. One day, Devlin receives word that a German general is willing to negotiate the surrender of his entire corps. Naturally, this is given top priority; because of the importance of the mission, an American officer has to go along. Devlin selects Lieutenant Rennick (Richard Basehart), a newcomer who distrusts the German turncoats. Tiger is chosen because he is the only one who knows the area, but he is under suspicion after returning from his last mission without his teammate. Happy is assigned the related task of locating the 11th Panzer Corps, which might oppose the wholesale defection. They parachute out of the same plane into Germany, then split up. In the course of his search on bus and train rides, in guest houses and taverns, Happy encounters Germans with differing attitudes towards the war, some still defiant, such as Waffen SS courier Scholtz (Wilfred Seyferth), some resigned, like the young war widow Hilde (Hildegard Knef). Happy accomplishes his mission by a stroke of luck. Posing as a medic returning to his unit, he is commandeered to treat Oberst von Ecker (O.E. Hasse), the commander of the 11th Panzer, at his castle headquarters. Happy has an opportunity to inject von Ecker with a lethal overdose of medicine, but does not do so.
1034482	Anthony George Booth (born 9 October 1931, later known as Tony and Antony) is an English actor, best known for his role as Mike Rawlins in the BBC series "Till Death Us Do Part". Early life. Booth was born into a working-class family in Jubilee Road, Liverpool. His father was a merchant seaman during World War II; his mother was of Irish descent. He attended St Edmunds Infant's School and spent a year in hospital as a child with diphtheria. He then passed the 11 plus examination and attended St. Mary's College, Crosby, where he was awarded a bursary to cover the cost of his books. His hopes of being able to progress to university were dashed when he had to leave school and get a job after his father was badly injured in an industrial accident. He then worked as a clerk in a docklands warehouse and at the United States Consulate in Liverpool, before being called up for national service with the Royal Corps of Signals. Acting. Booth developed a taste for acting when posted in the army to SHAPE in Paris. He spent five years honing his acting skills in repertory theatre, before venturing into films and television in the 1960s. Since then he has worked in all three media. He has played roles in over twenty films, including "Priest" (1994), "Owd Bob" (1997) and "Treasure Island" (1999). He appeared in the popular British television series "Coronation Street" in 1960 and in an episode of "The Avengers", but it was his role as the left-wing son-in-law in "Till Death Us Do Part" (1965) that brought him recognition. Booth has made guest appearances in many other television series. He starred alongside Robin Askwith in the "Confessions of ..." British sex comedy film series as Sidney Noggett between 1974 and 1977. Some of the titles included "Confessions of a Window Cleaner", "Confessions of a Driving Instructor", "Confessions of a Pop Performer" and "Confessions from a Holiday Camp". From 1985 to 1986, Booth appeared as pub landlord Ted Pilkington in the short-lived ITV soap "Albion Market". He starred in the 1998 short film "The Duke", playing an elderly man who tells his adoring grandson that he is John Wayne. In 2001, Booth appeared in several episodes of "Family Affairs" playing Barry Hurst, Sadie Hargreaves' brother-in-law. One of his most recent television appearances was playing a tramp named Nobby Stuart in a special two-hander episode of "EastEnders". In 2007, he also played a tramp called Errol Michaels in "Emmerdale". Both of these characters have played the purpose of a spiritual guide to a down-and-out character, in "EastEnders", Alfie Moon (Shane Richie) and in "Emmerdale", Bob Hope (Tony Audenshaw). Personal life. From a working-class background, he is a strong supporter of the Labour Party. He has served as president of Equity, the actors' union. He has been married four times and has eight daughters. By his first wife Gale Howard he has two daughters, including Cherie, a prominent Queen's Counsel, who is married to former Prime Minister Tony Blair. By his third wife Nancy Jaeger he has a daughter, Joanna. He has five other daughters by partners to whom he was never married, including Lauren Booth, an English broadcaster, journalist and pro-Palestinian activist. Booth nearly burned to death in 1979 when, during a drunken attempt to get into his locked flat, he fell into a drum of paraffin. He spent six months in hospital and needed 26 skin graft operations. Shortly after his release from hospital, he went to visit an 'old flame', "Coronation Street" actress Pat Phoenix. She took him in and nursed him back to full health, and they lived together for six years, but eventually, Pat Phoenix's own health began to fail; she became his second wife in 1986, just days before her death from lung cancer. He is a cousin to the Booth family of 19th-century American actors. In a rebuke to the British government's treatment of pensioners, Booth retired to Blacklion, County Cavan, in the Republic of Ireland, but has since returned and lived in Broadbottom, 10 miles east of Manchester. He currently resides in Todmorden, West Yorkshire. Booth suffered a stroke in 2010.
1035098	Anne Reid, MBE (born 28 May 1935), is a BAFTA Award-nominated English stage, film and television actress from Newcastle upon Tyne, known for her roles as Valerie Barlow in the television soap opera "Coronation Street" and Jean in "Dinnerladies". Reid was appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the 2010 Birthday Honours. Television. "Coronation Street". Reid's first major acting role was as the character of Valerie Tatlock (later Barlow) on "Coronation Street". Her character was very popular with the fans with Valerie's marriage to Ken Barlow being an early example of a soap supercouple. Her character Valerie was the mother of the twins Susan and Peter. Reid joined the cast, initially for two months, starting in August 1961 and leaving in October. She returned to the programme to marry Ken on 1 August 1962 in a wedding watched by 15.8 million viewers. In 1965 Val and Ken had twins and Granada Television received numerous gifts addressed to the couple as congratulations. In 1968, Reid played one of the most difficult parts in "Coronation Street", when Val was held hostage by a rapist. Although Val was not harmed, viewers sent in hate mail to the actor who played the rapist. In November 1970, Reid announced she was leaving "Coronation Street" as she was then pregnant with her son. On 27 January 1971, 18.26 million viewers watched as Valerie Barlow was written out, dying after being electrocuted by a hairdryer with a faulty plug. On 3 February 1971, the character's funeral was shown and 18.92 million people watched. Later work. Following a break from acting to raise her son, Reid resumed her career on stage and television in the 1980s. From 1998 to 2000, Reid played the major role of Jean in the BBC comedy series "Dinnerladies" by Victoria Wood, and has appeared in other television programmes including "The Benny Hill Show" (1957), "Hancock's Half Hour" (1957), "The Adventures of Robin Hood" (1958), "Boon" (1988), "Casualty" (1992) and "Hetty Wainthropp Investigates" (1996). She also made an appearance in the "Doctor Who" serial "The Curse of Fenric" which was broadcast in October 1989. In 2003, Reid had a part in "Midsomer Murders" in the episode "A Tale of Two Hamlets", and a main part in the comedy drama "The Booze Cruise". She also had a major role in the ITV drama series "Life Begins", which ran from 2004 to 2006, in which she appeared alongside Caroline Quentin and Frank Finlay. In 2005, she had a supporting role in the BBC's adaptation of "Bleak House" and in 2006, made a brief appearance in "Jane Eyre". On 31 March 2007, Reid appeared for a second time in the series "Doctor Who" in the episode "Smith and Jones". In the episode, she played Florence Finnegan, a blood-sucking alien known as a Plasmavore, but who took on the guise of a normal human. That same year, she appeared in the ITV television adaptation of the novel "The Bad Mother's Handbook", co-starring alongside Catherine Tate. In February 2008, Reid appeared as the mother of Monica Gallagher, Joan, who was suffering from Alzheimer's disease in the Channel 4 drama "Shameless". In October 2008, she played the title role in "In Love with Barbara" on BBC Four, a biographical film of Barbara Cartland. In 2009, Reid appeared in the television series "Marple" in the episode "Nemesis". From 2009 to 2010, she starred as Vera alongside Maureen Lipman as Irene in an ITV3 adaptation of the BBC Radio 4 series "Ladies of Letters".
1059496	Lethal Weapon 2 is a 1989 action comedy film directed by Richard Donner. It is a sequel to the 1987 film "Lethal Weapon" and second installment in the "Lethal Weapon" series. The film stars Mel Gibson, Danny Glover, Patsy Kensit, Joe Pesci, Derrick O'Connor and Joss Ackland.
1055446	The Perfect Score is a 2004 American teen heist film directed by Brian Robbins, starring Erika Christensen, Chris Evans, Bryan Greenberg, Scarlett Johansson, Darius Miles, and Leonardo Nam. The film focuses on a group of six high school students whose futures will be jeopardized if they fail the upcoming SAT exam. They conspire to break into the ETS building and steal the answers to the exam, so they can all get perfect scores. The film deals with the themes of one's future, morality, individuality, and feelings. "The Perfect Score" has similarities to other high school films, including "The Breakfast Club" (1985) and "Dazed and Confused" (1993), which are often referenced throughout the film. However, the film was panned by most critics and performed poorly at the box office. Plot. The film revolves around high school student Kyle (Chris Evans), who needs a high score on the SAT to get into his preferred architecture program at Cornell University. He constantly compares himself to his older brother Larry, who is now living above his parents' garage. Kyle's best friend, Matty (Bryan Greenberg), wants to get a high score so he can go to the same college as his girlfriend, but he is an underachiever who had previously received a low score on his PSAT. They both believe that the SAT is standing in the way of their futures. The two boys realize that fellow student Francesca Curtis' (Scarlett Johansson) father owns the building that houses the regional office of ETS, where the answers to the SAT are located. Francesca initially doesn't want to help but changes her mind, saying "What the hell? It sounds like fun." Meanwhile, Kyle becomes attracted to Anna Ross (Erika Christensen), the second-highest ranked student in the school, and tells her about the plan. Anna had bombed a previous SAT and needs a good score to get into Brown University. However, Matty doesn't like the fact that she now knows about the plan and has an outburst, right in the presence of stoner Roy (Leonardo Nam), who then has to be included in the heist. And finally, Anna tells the school basketball star Desmond Rhodes (Darius Miles), who needs a score of 900 or better to join the basketball team at St. John's University. An early attempt to break into the ETS offices fails, but the team then devises another plan. On the eve of the exam, Francesca will arrange for Kyle and Matty to have a meeting near the top floor, staying after closing. The other three will wait outside and watch the night guard until Francesca, Kyle, and Matty have successfully stolen the answers. The first part of the plan goes well, with Francesca, Kyle, and Matty successfully dodging security cameras and the night guard. However, the answers are located on a computer, and only the technical genius Roy can crack the password; he and the other two get into the building, and Roy correctly guesses the password after seeing a photograph of an employee. Still, the answers can't be printed, so the group decides to take the test with their combined knowledge and get the answers that way. In the early hours of morning, they are finished and have all the answers written down. Just then, the guard ascends the stairs, and they try to escape through the ceiling; however, Francesca is left behind and is about to be discovered, so Matty purposefully gives himself up in order to save her. Everyone else escapes, but each faces a certain confrontation before the exam: Kyle's brother asks him if he's really worse than a thief, Matty is bailed out by Francesca, Anna finds independence from her parents, and Desmond's mother convinces Roy to quit drugs. Before the SAT testing begins, the group realizes that, although it will help get them what they want, they would be better off without cheating. Roy grabs the answers and distributes them in the bathroom. After the decision, Matty comments that "this whole thing was for nothing." Kyle replies, "I wouldn't say nothing," as he glances at Anna. Matty and Francesca also share a look, as they have presumably started a relationship, too. Each person eventually gets their desired test score without the answers: Kyle's dream of becoming an architect is still alive by attending Syracuse University, Desmond ends up going to St. John's, Matty becomes an actor, Francesca writes a novel (which is about six kids who conspire to steal the answers to the SAT), and Anna decides to travel to Europe for a while before starting college. As for Roy - the narrator of the movie - he earned the highest SAT in the county, and, under Desmond's mom's guidance, he gets a GED. He then puts his untapped intelligence to use through programming, becoming a successful video game designer. Reception. Critical response. The film was panned by most critics, scoring an 17 percent "Rotten" rating on Rotten Tomatoes. "Slant Magazine" critic Keith Uhlich called it an "MTV film that extreme right-wing moralists can be proud of, as it posits a quintessentially American world of racial, intellectual, and sexual conformity." Many compared the film unfavorably with "The Breakfast Club", and many even called it a rip-off. "Entertainment Weekly" wrote the film off as being "like "The Breakfast Club" recast as a video game for simpletons." Likewise, Roger Ebert awarded the film two stars out of four, calling the film "too palatable. It maintains a tone of light seriousness, and it depends on the caper for too much of its entertainment value." Ebert's review went on to point out that "The Perfect Score" was given a wide release, but that "Better Luck Tomorrow", a teen drama film that received much more acclaim, was given a very limited release. Box-office performance. The film opened in 2,208 theaters and grossed $4.8 million, making for a $2,207 per-theater average. Placing fifth over the weekend, the film saw sharp declines in following weeks and ended its domestic run with $10.3 million.
402368	Joan Severance (born December 23, 1958) is an American actress and former fashion model. Biography. Early life. Severance was born in Houston, Texas to John and Martha Severance. Her father was an IBM Systems Manager that had to move frequently around the world. According to Severance "by the time I was 11, we'd lived in 12 different places". Severance and her family also lived in Libya, but in 1967 had to flee the country because of the Six-Day War. The family left the Middle East to return to the United States and settled in Houston, Texas. Severance attended Westbury High School and, at age 15, started modeling to make money for college. Although she hoped to become a veterinarian, she could not afford the cost of tuition. After appearing in the "Miss Houston" beauty contest, she was discovered by Alan Martin, a local photographer in Houston who introduced her to John Casablancas. Casablancas signed her up with the Elite modeling agency and sent on assignment to Paris. During this time, she also met her future husband, model Eric Milan. Modeling. During her time in Paris, she posed for "Sportswear International", "Vogue Paris", and others. Upon her return to the United States, Severance became one of America's top models, filming over 40 commercials, and earning $7,500 per day. Severance was also on the covers of the January 1990 and November 1992 issues of "Playboy" magazine, both featuring her in a nude pictorial. More recently, Joan, 52, appeared in a six-page editorial along with an interview in the Spring/Summer 2011 issue of Genlux Magazine. Acting. In 1986, Severance began auditioning for acting bits at the urging of her friend Robin Leach. She made her debut in a small role in the first "Lethal Weapon" film in 1987. She usually takes the femme fatale roles in lower budget horror and murder-mystery movies, most notably "Lake Consequence" (1993), "Criminal Passion" (1994) and "Payback" (1995). She was featured alongside Richard Pryor and Gene Wilder in the 1989 comedy "See No Evil, Hear No Evil", and as Hulk Hogan's love interest, Samantha N. Moore, in the wrestling film "No Holds Barred" (1989). She had leading roles in Roger Corman's "Black Scorpion" (1995) (she later starred in and co-produced a sequel, "" (1997)), and "The Last Seduction II" (1999). Her most notable role is as a villainess on the TV series "Wiseguy", where she played half of a brother/sister crime team (the other half was played by Kevin Spacey) to great acclaim. Their partnership was reprised in "See No Evil, Hear No Evil". In the early 1990s, Severance appeared as Samantha "Sam" Dooley, the Martian Belle, in several training videos for Virtual World Entertainment alongside other actors such as Cheech Marin, "Weird Al" Yankovic, R. Lee Ermey, and Judge Reinhold.
1099734	Herbert Ellis Robbins (January 12, 1915 – February 12, 2001) was one of the most prominent American mathematicians and statisticians of the 20th century. He did research in topology, measure theory, statistics, and a variety of other fields.
1040380	Hans Matheson (born 7 August 1975) is a Scottish actor. Some of his most notable film and television roles include "The Virgin Queen", "Deathwatch", "The Tudors", "Tess of the D'Urbervilles", and "Clash of the Titans". In addition to acting, Matheson plays guitar, violin and harmonica. Life and career. Matheson was born in Stornoway, Scotland, the son of Sheena, a therapist, and Iain (Ado), a folk musician and painter. He made his feature film debut as Johnny Silver in Jez Butterworth's directorial debut, "Mojo". Prior to "Mojo", Matheson had appeared in various television series. He followed his role in "Mojo" with "Stella Does Tricks", playing a male prostitute hooked on drugs. Matheson then played Marius in Bille August's film version of "Les Misérables". Matheson played guitar for the role of Luke Shand, a youthful rocker helping to invigorate an old band in the film, "Still Crazy". Matheson continued with a starring role in the British hit "Tube Tales", which led to his first commercialized film, "Bodywork", starring with Beth Winslet, Charlotte Coleman, and Clive Russell. Matheson later starred in "Canone Inverso", as Jeno Varga, a young man who falls in love with a pianist. He learnt the violin for this role. Following "Canone", he took on the role of Mordred in the American TV film "The Mists of Avalon". Matheson proceeded in his career with a role as Thomas in the Danish-Norwegian film "I Am Dina", based upon "Dinas Bok". Matheson then landed the role of Yurii Zhivago, in Giacomo Campiotti's 2002 adaptation of Boris Pasternak's novel, "Doctor Zhivago". Matheson continued his career starring in independent films, such as 2002's "Deathwatch" and the docu-film "Comfortably Numb". In 2006, Matheson co-starred with actress Demi Moore in the film "Half Light". He portrayed the Earl of Essex in a BBC production about Queen Elizabeth I of England called "The Virgin Queen", broadcast in the US in 2005 and the UK in 2006. Matheson starred as Archbishop Thomas Cranmer in the second season of the Showtime series "The Tudors". Matheson played the part of Alec Stoke-d'Urberville in the four-part BBC adaptation of "Tess of the d'Urbervilles" (2008) and the Home Secretary Lord Coward in Guy Ritchie's "Sherlock Holmes" (2009). Matheson then played Ixas in the 2010 "Clash of the Titans" remake. He will star in the upcoming films "" and "The Christmas Candle".
930408	Jordan P. Bridges (born November 13, 1973) is an American actor. Early life. Bridges was born in California, and is the son of actor Beau Bridges and wife Julie Landfield. He is the nephew of Jeff Bridges and grandson of Lloyd Bridges and Dorothy Bridges. Career. Bridges first acted professionally at the age of five in the television film "The Kid from Nowhere", directed by his father. After a break he returned once more in the television film "The Thanksgiving Promise" (1986) starring the entire Bridges family. Not wanting to be a child actor he left acting and attended L.A.'s progressive Oakwood school. The school had a strong emphasis on the arts which got him interested in acting again. He followed it up as a theater major and literature minor at New York's Bard College. Before earning his bachelor's degree, Bridges spent his junior year in England studying at the prestigious London Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts, living in a tiny basement flat in Chelsea, and attending West End theatre productions on free passes.
1684851	Rudo y Cursi (Spanish, literally, "Rude and Tacky") is a 2008 Mexican film starring Diego Luna, Gael García Bernal and Guillermo Francella. It is directed by Carlos Cuarón (Alfonso Cuarón's brother) and produced by Cha Cha Cha Films (production company created by Alfonso Cuarón, Guillermo del Toro and Alejandro González Iñárritu). It is Carlos Cuarón's first full-length movie — previously he had directed only short films. The movie is a drama/comedy about two brothers from a rural lower class Mexican family with roots in a little "banana town" on the Pacific coast of Mexico who compete in their professional football careers. They acquire (involuntarily) the nicknames "Rudo" ("rude", "uncouth" or "tough") and "Cursi" ("tacky" or "corny"). The film is also a satire on life and values in contemporary Mexico's "narco-society".
582844	Hamesha () English: "Forever") is a Hindi romance movie written and directed by Sanjay Gupta. The film stars Kajol, Saif Ali Khan and Aditya Pancholi in the lead roles. Aruna Irani and Kader Khan have supporting roles in the film. The film explores reincarnation. Synopsis. Raja (Saif Ali Khan) and Yash Vardhan (Aditya Pancholi) are childhood friends. Though they come from different backgrounds, Raja being poor and Yash being wealthy, they treat each other as brothers. Rani Sharma (Kajol) enters their lives, and they both fall in love with her. Raja and Rani both love each other very much and vow to be together. However Yash, jealous and bitter tragically kills Raja. Rani witnesses what he did and tells Yash that they will be together again and he will not be able to do anything. She falls to her death with intent, leaving Yash heartbroken and as a living corpse.
1102285	Karl Theodor Wilhelm Weierstrass (; 31 October 1815 – 19 February 1897) was a German mathematician who is often cited as the "father of modern analysis". Biography. Weierstrass was born in Ostenfelde, part of Ennigerloh, Province of Westphalia. Weierstrass was the son of Wilhelm Weierstrass, a government official, and Theodora Vonderforst. His interest in mathematics began while he was a "Gymnasium" student at Theodorianum in Paderborn. He was sent to the University of Bonn upon graduation to prepare for a government position. Because his studies were to be in the fields of law, economics, and finance, he was immediately in conflict with his hopes to study mathematics. He resolved the conflict by paying little heed to his planned course of study, but continued private study in mathematics. The outcome was to leave the university without a degree. After that he studied mathematics at the University of Münster (which was even at this time very famous for mathematics) and his father was able to obtain a place for him in a teacher training school in Münster. Later he was certified as a teacher in that city. During this period of study, Weierstrass attended the lectures of Christoph Gudermann and became interested in elliptic functions.
632768	Louis Ferreira (also known as Luís Ferreira or Justin Louis, sometimes spelled as Justin Lewis) is a Portuguese-born Canadian actor. Ferreira is best known for his roles in "Stargate Universe" as Colonel Everett Young, serial killer Ray Prager in the first season of "Durham County", and as FBI Assistant Director John Pollock in "Missing" and Art Blank in "Saw IV". He is currently starring in the CTV series "Motive" as homicide detective Oscar Vega. Early life. Ferreira was born on February 20, 1967, in Terceira, Azores, Portugal, and emigrated with his parents to Canada early in his life. He grew up in the Jane and Finch neighborhood in North York, Ontario. The actor went by the stage name Justin Louis for 25 years until his Portuguese-born mother died in 2008, after which he decided to change it to an approximation of his birth name, "Louis" instead of "Luís". Career. Ferreira's resume includes over 100 different onscreen credits, as he has also appeared on a broad range of television series, including lead roles in the sitcom "Hidden Hills", "Durham County", "Urban Angel", and "Missing", and recurring or guest roles in "Breaking Bad", "Rookie Blue", "The L.A. Complex", "Touch", "NCIS", "21 Jump Street", "ER", "24", ', ', "Criminal Minds", "The Outer Limits", ', ', "The Sentinel", "Mutant X" and "The Pretender". He also hosted the television series "Letters to God". In 2009, Ferreira was featured as David Maysles in the HBO award winning film "Grey Gardens" opposite Jessica Lange and Drew Barrymore. Other film work includes playing Sarah Polley's husband in "Dawn of the Dead" as well as roles with Mark Wahlberg in "Shooter", and "The Lazarus Child", a thriller that starred Angela Bassett and Andy García. Ferreira also appeared in the 1995 comedy horror "Blood and Donuts" that also starred David Cronenberg and the 1998 film "Fallen Arches". He appeared in the film "Saw IV" as the character Art Blank. Further credits include "The Marsh", "Everything Put Together", "The Staircase", "Boozecan", "Naked Lunch", "The Big Slice", "Renegades", "Cocktail" and "". In 2011, he became known as “The Voice of Mazda”, voicing a series of commercials for their national campaign for two years. Other voiceover work includes Police Officer Vince on "“The Dating Guy”" and "Chet" in the episode "Hyde and Go Shriek" in the animated children's series "Tales from the Cryptkeeper". Ferreira played Donald Trump in "Trump Unauthorized" and was a lead in the miniseries "The Andromeda Strain". He won the Best Actor Award for his portrayal of Robert (Duke) Romano in "Fallen Arches" at the Chicago Alt.Film Fest in 1999. In 2008, he won the Gemini Award for Best Performance by an Actor in a Continuing Leading Dramatic Role for his work portraying the serial killer Ray Prager in "Durham County". He was nominated for the same award in 2010 for the role of Colonel Everett Young on "Stargate Universe". After playing the recurring roles of Declan in Season 5 of the series "Breaking Bad" and Colonel Henderson Hall in "" he currently stars in the CTV series "Motive" as homicide detective Oscar Vega.
1060873	An Unmarried Woman is a 1978 American comedy-drama film written and directed by Paul Mazursky. It tells the story of the wealthy New York wife Erica Benton (Jill Clayburgh) whose “perfect” life is shattered when her stockbroker husband Martin (Michael Murphy) leaves her for a younger woman. The film documents Erica's attempts at being single again, where she suffers with confusion, sadness, and rage. As her life progresses, she begins to bond with several friends and finds herself inspired and even feels happier by her renewed liberation. The story also touches on the overall sexual liberation of the 1970s. Erica eventually finds love with a rugged, yet sensitive British artist (Alan Bates).
1063213	Olivia Hussey (born 17 April 1951) is an Argentine-born British actress who became famous for her role as Juliet in Franco Zeffirelli's Academy Award-winning 1968 film version of "Romeo and Juliet", winning a Golden Globe as well as the David di Donatello for best actress. She is also well known for her role as Mary, the mother of Jesus in the 1977 TV production of "Jesus of Nazareth". She has starred in films such as "Black Christmas" (1974), "Death on the Nile" (1978), and "Virus" (1980). Early life. Hussey was born Olivia Osuna in Buenos Aires, Argentina, to Joy Alma (née Hussey), a British legal secretary and Andrés Osuna (aka Osvaldo Ribó), an Argentine tango singer, who divorced when Olivia was two.
1716093	Roger Bruce Myerson (born March 29, 1951) is an American economist and Nobel laureate recognized with Leonid Hurwicz and Eric Maskin for "having laid the foundations of mechanism design theory." A professor at the University of Chicago, he has made contributions as an economist, as an applied mathematician, and as a political scientist. Biography. Roger Myerson was born on March 29, 1951, in Boston, to a Jewish family. He attended Harvard University, where he received his A.B., "summa cum laude", and S.M. in applied mathematics in 1973. He completed his Ph.D. in applied mathematics from Harvard University in 1976. His doctorate thesis was "A Theory of Cooperative Games". From 1976 to 2001, Myerson was a professor of economics at Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management, where he conducted much of his Nobel-winning research. From 1978 to 1979, he was Visiting Researcher at Bielefeld University. He was Visiting Professor of Economics at the University of Chicago from 1985–86 and from 2000–01. He became Professor of Economics at Chicago in 2001. Currently, he is the Glen A. Lloyd Distinguished Service Professor of Economics at the University of Chicago. Nobel Prize. Myerson was one of the three winners of the 2007 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, the other two being Leonid Hurwicz of the University of Minnesota, and Eric Maskin of the Institute for Advanced Study. He was awarded the prize for his contributions to mechanism design theory. Myerson made a path-breaking contribution to mechanism design theory when he discovered a fundamental connection between the allocation to be implemented and the monetary transfers needed to induce informed agents to reveal their information truthfully. Mechanism design theory allows for people to distinguish situations in which markets work well from those in which they do not. The theory has helped economists identify efficient trading mechanisms, regulation schemes, and voting procedures. Today, the theory plays a central role in many areas of economics and parts of political science. Personal life. In 1980 Myerson married Regina (Weber) and the couple had two children, Daniel and Rebecca. Publications. He wrote a general textbook on game theory in 1991, and has also written on the history of game theory, including his review of the origins and significance of noncooperative game theory. He also served on the editorial board of the "International Journal of Game Theory" for ten years. Myerson has worked on economic analysis of political institutions and written several major survey papers: His recent work on democratization has raised critical questions about American policy in occupied Iraq.
1151862	Shiloh Strong (born June 12, 1978) is an American actor, screenwriter, photographer and film director whose roles include "Zelos Wilder" from "Tales of Symphonia", "David Scott" from "Dinotopia", and "Grant" from "Buck Naked Arson". At the age of 16, Shiloh won a Dramalogue Award for writing the play "Shades of Blue". He wrote, directed and starred in the award-winning short film "Irish Twins" along with his brother, Rider Strong. The film premiered at the 2008 Tribeca Film Festival. In 2008, Shiloh Strong helped create a television commercial for Barack Obama's Presidential campaign called "It Could Happen To You". He appeared in the commercial with Alexandra Barretto and his brother Rider Strong. The commercial won Moveon.org's contest for funniest commercial and aired on Comedy Central.
628913	Christopher "Kick" Gurry (born 25 May 1978) is an Australian actor born in Melbourne, Australia. Early life. Gurry got his nickname when his brother could not say Christopher so he said "Kicker". When he got into High School he shortened it to "Kick". Career. He studied at Wesley College, Melbourne and has featured in films including "Looking for Alibrandi" (1999), "Garage Days" (2002), and more recently "Speed Racer" (2008). Personal life. He dated American actress Christina Ricci from 2007 to 2008.
1065912	The Bedford Incident is a 1965 Anglo-American Cold War film starring Richard Widmark and Sidney Poitier, and co-produced by Richard Widmark. The cast also features Eric Portman, James MacArthur, Martin Balsam and Wally Cox, as well as early appearances by Donald Sutherland and Ed Bishop. The screenplay by James Poe is based on the 1963 book by Mark Rascovich. This in turn was patterned after Herman Melville's "Moby-Dick"; at one point in the film the captain is advised he is "no longer hunting whales." The film was directed by James B. Harris, who up to that time was best known as Stanley Kubrick's producer.
1065824	This Is England is a 2006 British drama film written and directed by Shane Meadows. The story centres on young skinheads in England in 1983. The film illustrates how their subculture, which has its roots in 1960s West Indian culture, especially ska, soul, and reggae music, became adopted by white nationalists, which led to divisions within the skinhead scene. The film's title is a direct reference to a scene where the character Combo explains his nationalist views using the phrase "this is England" during his speech. Plot. In 1983, 13-year-old schoolboy Shaun gets into a fight at school after a classmate, Harvey, makes an offensive joke about his father, who died in the Falklands War. On his way home, Shaun comes across a group of young skinheads led by Woody, who feels sympathy for Shaun and invites him to join the group, among them Milky who is the only black skinhead in the group, Lol is Woody's girlfriend, Gadget, Smell, Pukey, Kes, Kelly (Lol's younger sister), Trev, and Meggy. They accept Shaun as a member, and he finds a big brother in Woody, while developing a romance with Smell, an older girl who dresses in a new wave style. Combo, an older skinhead, returns to the group after a prison sentence, accompanied by a knife-wielding mustachioed man called Banjo. A charismatic but unstable individual with sociopathic tendencies, Combo expresses English nationalist and racist views, and attempts to enforce his leadership over the other skinheads. This leads the group to split. Combo is impressed by and identifies with Shaun, who in turn sees Combo as a mentor figure. Shaun stays in Combo's group instead of the apolitical skinheads led by Woody. Shaun goes with Combo's group to a white nationalist meeting. After Pukey expresses doubt over the group's racist and nationalistic politics, Combo throws him out of the group and sends him back to Woody. The gang then engages in racist antagonism of, among others, shopkeeper Mr. Sandhu, an Indian man who had previously banned Shaun from his shop. Combo becomes depressed after Lol, whom Combo has loved since having sex with her one night, years before, rejects him. To console himself, Combo buys cannabis from Milky. At a party with Shaun and the other members of Combo's group, Combo and Milky bond while intoxicated. Combo invites Milky to tell him about himself. Milky describes his many relatives and comfortable family life to Combo who listens with increasing jealousy. When Milky invites him to a family dinner, Combo becomes enraged and beats Milky into a coma whilst Banjo holds Shaun down, who watches in horror. Ashamed and devastated by what he has done to Milky, Combo then turns hysterical, violently dragging the others out of the room and glassing Banjo in the face, covering Meggy in blood. Shaun returns, and he and Combo are shown crying and panicking whilst dragging Milky to a nearby hospital.
1051849	La Boum (English title: "The Party" or "Ready for Love") is a 1980 French comedy film directed by Claude Pinoteau and starring Sophie Marceau, appearing in her film début. Written by Danièle Thompson and Claude Pinoteau, the film is about a thirteen-year-old French girl finding her way at a new high school and coping with domestic problems. The film was an international box-office hit, earning 4,378,500 admissions in France. The music was written by Vladimir Cosma, with Richard Sanderson singing the song "Reality". A sequel movie, "La Boum 2", was released in 1982. Plot. Thirteen-year-old Vic (Sophie Marceau) is new at her high school. She makes friends with Pénélope (Sheila O'Connor) and together they check out the boys at their school, looking for true love. Vic is frustrated by her parents, who will not allow her to attend the "boum", a big party. Her great-grandmother, Poupette, helps her out, and Vic ends up falling in love with Matthieu (Alexandre Sterling). While Vic is busy finding her true love, her parents' marriage faces a crisis when her father's ex-lover demands a last night together. Reception. Box office. "La Boum" was an international box-office hit, earning 4,378,500 admissions in France, 1,289,289 admissions in Hungary, and 664,981 admissions in West Germany. Critical response. In his review for "Allmovie", Hal Erickson called the film "disarmingly diverting" and a "real audience pleaser.
1060529	Felicity Kendall Huffman (born December 9, 1962) is an American film, stage, and television actress. She is known for her role as executive producer Dana Whitaker on the ABC television show "Sports Night" (1998–2000), which earned her a Golden Globe Award nomination, and as hectic supermom Lynette Scavo on the ABC show "Desperate Housewives" (2004–2012), which has earned her an Emmy Award. In 2005, her critically acclaimed role as a transgender woman in the independent film "Transamerica" earned her a Golden Globe Award and an Academy Award nomination. She has also starred in such films as "Reversal of Fortune", "The Spanish Prisoner", "Magnolia", "Path to War", "Georgia Rule" and "Phoebe in Wonderland". Early life. Huffman was born in Bedford, New York, the daughter of Grace Valle (née Ewing), an actress, and Moore Peters Huffman (1910-1987), a banker and partner at Morgan Stanley. Her parents divorced a year after her birth, and she was raised mostly by her mother. She has six sisters (Mariah, Betsy, Jane, Grace, Isabel, Jessie) and a brother (Moore Jr.). She is of German, English, and Scotch-Irish ancestry. Huffman attended The Putney School, a private boarding high school in Putney, Vermont and graduated from Interlochen Arts Academy in Michigan in 1981. After high school she went on to New York University where she graduated in 1984 from Circle In The Square, with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Drama. Career. Theatre. Huffman made her debut on stage in 1982 and 80's and 90's worked as a rule on stage productions. In 1988, she debuted on Broadway in the role as Karen in David Mamet's play "Speed the Plow". In 1995, Huffman won Obie Award for her performance in the critically successful play "The Cryptogram" by David Mamet. In 1999 she starred in the premiere of David Mamet's play Boston Marriage, about the daringly intimate relationship between two turn-of-the-century women, as well as in several other major theatrical productions. Film. Huffman debuted on the big screen in 1988 with a small role in the Mamet's film "Things Change". Two years later, she appeared as Minnie, a Harvard law school student in the courtroom drama, "Reversal of Fortune". Her other credits include 1992 thriller "" with Donald Sutherland and Tim Matheson, "The Water Engine" opposite William H. Macy, and supporting roles on "The Heart of Justice" (1992), "Hackers" (1995), "Harrison: Cry of the City" (1996) and "The Underworld" (1997). In 1997 she starred in Mamet's critically acclaimed film "The Spanish Prisoner". In 1999 she appeared in the Paul Thomas Anderson's ensemble drama "Magnolia" and television adaptation of 1938 movie "A Slight Case of Murder" along with William H. Macy. In 2002 she played Lady Bird Johnson in HBO award-winning movie "Path to War" and made a cameo appearance in the "Door to Door", where was shot her husband. She also starred in "Snap Decision" (2001) with Mare Winningham, "Raising Helen" (2004) as Kate Hudson's older sister, and "Christmas with the Kranks" (2004) as Jamie Lee Curtis's best friend. In 2005 Huffman played Bree, a pre-operative transsexual who, on the brink of her transforming surgery, discovered that in her youth she had fathered a son - who is now a troubled teen hustler on the run, in independent drama "Transamerica". Huffman's performance in the film "Transamerica" was praised by many critics and garnered her a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress as well as nominations for Best Actress (Screen Actors Guild) and Best Actress (Academy Awards) and several another awards and nominations. Huffman is now a voting member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. In 2007, Huffman starred on Garry Marshall's "Georgia Rule" with Jane Fonda and Lindsay Lohan, and 2008 on independent drama "Phoebe in Wonderland". She made a film, "Lesster", as a writer, director and actress in 2010. Huffman and her husband William H. Macy each received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on March 7, 2012. Television. Huffman starred on the television mini-series "Golden Years", based on the novel by Stephen King in 1991. In 1994 she starred in the ABC pilot "Thunder Alley" as Ed Asner's daughter, but was replaced in subsequent episodes by Diane Venora when the series began. In 90's, she has appeared mostly in guest roles on such shows as "The X-Files", "Early Edition", "Chicago Hope" and "Law & Order". From 1998 to 2000, she portrayed Dana Whitaker in the critically acclaimed series "Sports Night", for which she received several awards and nominations, including a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Television Series Musical or Comedy. After the completion of "Sports Night", she gave birth to her first child and soon returned to work. In 2001, she starred on not picked up CBS pilot "Heart Department" In 2003, she starred in Showtime's miniseries "Out of Order". After a recurring role on the NBC sitcom "Frasier", Huffman landed a leading role in an ABC comedy series "Desperate Housewives", co-starring with Marcia Cross, Teri Hatcher, and Eva Longoria. Huffman won an Emmy Award for her work on "Desperate Housewives" (Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series) in 2005, as well as two 2006 Screen Actors Guild Awards (Best Actress - Comedy Series and part of Best Ensemble - Comedy Series) in 2006 and received several other awards. A report in November 2010 suggested that Huffman, along with co-star Teri Hatcher, would be quitting "Desperate Housewives", but ABC denied the claim. The series ended in May 2012, after eight seasons. On Feb 15, 2013. Felicity Huffman signed on for the lead role of the Fox drama pilot "Boomerang", to be directed by Craig Brewer. The show centers of Margie Hamilton who is a spy and master of disguise, the matriarch of the Hamilton clan, a “briskly professional assassin who can kill and dispose of a suspected terrorist in the afternoon — then switch to wife and mother mode without a hitch.” Personal life. Huffman married actor William H. Macy on September 6, 1997. They have two daughters, Sophia Grace (born August 1, 2000) and Georgia Grace (born March 14, 2002), as well as a son, William H. Macy, III, born in 1999. She has appeared on television, in movies, and on stage many times with her husband. In 2005, Huffman revealed that she had suffered from both anorexia and bulimia in her late teens and twenties. Huffman identifies as pro-choice, and has campaigned for women's rights on behalf of NARAL. She is also a Democrat. Huffman is also the co-author of the self-help book "A Practical Handbook for the Boyfriend". On March 1, 2012 Felicity launched What The Flicka, a website dedicated to women and mothers where she is a regular contributor. Other awards and nominations. OBIE Award
1258813	Mia Abagale Tallarico (born December 22, 1978), better known as Mia Tyler, is an American actress, model, public speaker and advocate. She is the daughter of Aerosmith lead singer Steven Tyler, and actress Cyrinda Foxe. She is the paternal half-sister of actress Liv Tyler (whose mother is model and singer Bebe Buell). In 1979, Steven Tyler wrote a song named after Mia, which was released on the Aerosmith album "Night in the Ruts". She was formerly married to ex-Papa Roach drummer Dave Buckner and was engaged to guitarist Brian Harrah. She currently lives in Los Angeles . Career. Primarily a plus size fashion model and designer, Tyler launched her own clothing line, titled Revolution 1228, in February 2009. At the age of 17, Tyler appeared on the MTV show "House of Style". Tyler has been represented by the Wilhelmina modeling agency. She has appeared in such elite magazines as "Seventeen", "Teen", "Teen People", "Mode", "Us", "Jump", "YM", "Moxie Girl", "Vogue" and on the cover of "Flare". She has also appeared on the runways of New York and Paris. In 2005 Tyler was a member of the VH1 reality show "Celebrity Fit Club", and featured in "Really Rich Real Estate", also on VH1, in 2006. In March 2009, Tyler was a judge on "Pretty Wicked", a reality show that airs on the Oxygen network. She has had a few acting roles, including Marsha in "Rush Hour 3", Inheridance, People Are Dead, and A Little Bit of Lipstick. In 2008, Tyler released her autobiography "Creating Myself".
356367	When Father Was Away on Business (Serbo-Croat: "Otac na službenom putu", "Отац на службеном путу") is a 1985 Yugoslav film by Serbian director Emir Kusturica. The screenplay was written by the Bosnian dramatist Abdulah Sidran. Its subtitle is "A Historical Love Film". Plot. Set in post-World War II Yugoslavia during the "Informbiro" period, the film tells the story through the eyes of the young boy Malik. His father Meša (played by Miki Manojlović) has been suspected of working for Cominform and sent to a labour camp after a careless remark about a political newspaper cartoon. The movie opens in June 1950 with a local's serenading field workers. He sings Mexican songs because it's "safer", and children climb trees and play around. The story is from the perspective of the boy, Malik, whose mother Sena tells him that his father is on a business trip. Malik is a chronic sleepwalker. After a while, Meša's wife and children rejoin him in Zvornik. Malik meets Maša, the daughter of a Russian doctor. He falls in love with her, but last sees her when the ambulance takes her away. At the wedding of his maternal uncle Zijah, Malik witnesses his father's affair with a woman pilot. She later tries to commit suicide by using a toilet's flush cord. Sena reconciles with her brother Zijah, who's been diagnosed with diabetes.
1067675	Stephen J. Dillane (born 30 November 1956) is an English actor. He won a Tony Award for his lead performance in Tom Stoppard's play "The Real Thing". He currently portrays Stannis Baratheon on the HBO original series "Game of Thrones". He is best known for his roles in "The Hours, Game of Thrones, John Adams," and "Goal!." His most recent film work was in the British independent feature film "Papadopoulos & Sons". Early life. Dillane was born in Kensington, London, to an English mother, Bridget (née Curwen), and an Australian surgeon father, John Dillane. He read history and political science at the University of Exeter and afterward became a journalist for the "Croydon Advertiser". Unhappy in his career, he read how actor Trevor Eve gave up architecture for acting and was thus inspired to enter the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School. During his early acting career he was known as Stephen Dillon but reverted to his birth name of Stephen Dillane in the 1990s. Career. Dillane is a distinguished theatre actor and his notable roles include Archer in "The Beaux' Stratagem" (Royal National Theatre, 1989; spelled Stephen Dillon on the poster), Prior Walter in "Angels in America" (1993), "Hamlet" (1994), Clov in Samuel Beckett's "Endgame" (1996), "Uncle Vanya" (1998), Henry in Tom Stoppard's "The Real Thing" (for which he won a Tony Award in 2000), "The Coast of Utopia" (2002), and a one-man version of "Macbeth" (2005). He has also performed T.S. Eliot's 'Four Quartets' in London and New York City, and is soon to be seen in the 2010 Bridge Project's productions of 'The Tempest' and 'As You Like It'. Onscreen, Dillane may be best known for his portrayal of Horatio in Franco Zefferelli's film adaptation of "Hamlet", with Mel Gibson in the title role. He played Michael Henderson in "Welcome to Sarajevo" (1997), a character based on British journalist Michael Nicholson, and the impatient and easily agitated Redford foil Harker in "Spy Game" (2001). He is also known for his portrayal of Leonard Woolf in "The Hours" (2002), legendary English professional golfer Harry Vardon in "The Greatest Game Ever Played" (2005) and Glen Foy in the "Goal!" trilogy. He also starred in "John Adams" as Thomas Jefferson. In July 2011, he was cast as Stannis Baratheon in "Game of Thrones". In 2012, he played 'Rupert Keel', head of the private security company organisation 'Byzantium' in the British-American TV co-production, "Hunted". The same year, Stephen Dillane also starred in British independent feature film "Papadopoulos & Sons" in which he plays a successful entrepreneur, Harry Papadopoulos, who rediscovers his life after being forced to start again from nothing following a banking crisis. His real-life son Frank Dillane plays his son in the movie. On 23 January 2013, it was reported that Dillane had been cast as the male lead in the Sky Atlantic/Canal+ series "The Tunnel". Awards. He received an Emmy nomination for his portrayal of Thomas Jefferson in the HBO mini-series "John Adams" (2008), and won the 2009 British Academy Television Award for Best Actor for his work in "The Shooting of Thomas Hurndall". Personal life. His sons, with actress Naomi Wirthner (a fellow student at Bristol Old Vic Theatre School), are actor Frank Dillane (of "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince") and Seamus Dillane. Stephen Dillane's younger brother, Richard Dillane, is also an actor.
1162331	Nathan "Nate" Corddry (born September 8, 1977) is an American actor best known for his television roles on programs such as "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip", "The Daily Show", "United States of Tara" and "Harry's Law". He played Private First Class Loudmouth in the HBO miniseries "The Pacific". He is the younger brother of actor/comedian Rob Corddry. Life and career. Corddry was born in Weymouth, Massachusetts. He is the son of Robin (née Sullivan) and Steven Corddry, who was a Massachusetts Port Authority official. After graduating from Weymouth High School in 1995, Corddry went to Colby-Sawyer College where he majored in Communications. Corddry's older brother, Rob Corddry had worked as a well-known correspondent on "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart" since 2002. On October 4, 2005, Nate joined the show as a correspondent. Nate and Rob appeared together in various pieces on the show, including a segment called "Brother vs. Brother" on February 21, 2006. In the "Brother vs. Brother" segment they formally debated each other on the issue of Big Brother, but their debate quickly turned into immature namecalling and trying to beat each other up, until it was stopped by host Jon Stewart. Both Corddry brothers left the program in mid-2006. Corddry has appeared on television programs such as "30 Rock", "", and "Guiding Light". In 2005, Corddry appeared in a television commercial for Radio Shack. He has also done commercial work for Coors Brewing Company, Verizon Communications, Xbox, Dunkin' Donuts, and NYCremembers.org. Corddry trained at the Williamstown Theater Festival, and recently spent almost a year traveling on the road as an actor in the Broadway touring production of The Graduate.
1035919	Lucy Punch (born 30 December 1977) is an English actress. Her credits include films such as "Bad Teacher" and "Dinner for Schmucks" and television shows "Doc Martin" and "Ben and Kate". Personal life. Punch was born in Hammersmith, London. Her parents run a market research company. Punch was educated privately at Godolphin School and then Latymer Upper School. She performed with the National Youth Theatre from 1993 to 1997 and began a course at University College London before dropping out to become an actress. Since 2006 Punch has lived in West Hollywood, Los Angeles, United States. Career. Punch made her debut in a 1998 episode of "The New Adventures of Robin Hood". Her other TV credits include the naive daughter of Alison Steadman's character in the short-lived series "Let Them Eat Cake" which starred French and Saunders. She starred as a football player in the kids TV show "Renford Rejects". In 2000 she made her stage debut as Elaine in Terry Johnson's West End adaptation of "The Graduate". She has also worked at the Royal Court and Bush theatres, both in London. In 2004 Punch played receptionist, Elaine Denham, in the television show "Doc Martin". She left the television show "The Class" after appearing in all but one of the first 12 episodes. In 2006 she won the best actress award at the Monaco International Film Festival for her performance in "Are You Ready For Love?". Punch starred in Woody Allen's 2010 film "You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger", having replaced Nicole Kidman. In August 2010 she appeared in BBC Two's three part police comedy-drama "Vexed" alongside Toby Stephens. In 2011 Punch starred alongside Cameron Diaz and Justin Timberlake in Jake Kasdan's "Bad Teacher". Punch was cast as Deena Pilgrim, the female lead in the TV pilot 'Powers' for the FX channel, but the role was recast.
1059498	Freida Selena Pinto (born 18 October 1984) is an Indian actress and model. Hailing from a Mangalorean Catholic family, she wanted to become an actress from a young age. Prior to making her cinematic debut, she worked as a model and television presenter, and acted in plays while attending college. Pinto continued modeling for four years and enrolled herself in an acting course at the "Barry John's Acting Studio" in Mumbai, where she was trained by Barry John. Pinto rose to prominence playing the role of "Latika" in the 2008 British Indian drama film "Slumdog Millionaire", a film that marked her debut. Her performance was well received, and she won the "Breakthrough Performance Award" at the Palm Springs International Film Festival and Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture. In addition, her work was nominated at various award ceremonies such as British Academy Film Awards (BAFTA) and MTV Movie Awards. Since then she has starred in a number of British-Indian and Indian-American productions, notably "You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger", "Rise of the Planet of the Apes", "Immortals" and "Trishna", where she played the titular character. Pinto is a part of the "Agassi Foundation", a philanthropic organization started by Andre Agassi and Steffi Graf which looks after providing education for deprived children. Early life and modeling career. Pinto was born into a Mangalorean Catholic family in Mumbai. Her surname is of Portuguese origin as the result of her ancestors' conversion to Catholicism by missionaries. Her mother, Sylvia, is the principal of St. John's High School (Goregaon), and her father, Frederick, is a senior branch manager at the Bank of Baroda. Pinto has an elder sister, Sharon, who is the associate producer of NDTV, a news channel. Pinto aspired to become an actress since she was five years old. When she was ten, Sushmita Sen won Miss Universe 1994, which inspired the former to become an actress and turned out to be a defining point in her life. Pinto studied at the Carmel of St. Joseph School in Malad, Mumbai, where she actively participated in sports and sang in the school choir. She completed a degree in arts with a major in English literature, and minors in Psychology and Economics, from St. Xavier's College, Mumbai. Pinto is an accomplished dancer in Salsa and Classical Indian dance. She acted in plays and amateur theatre while attending college. Later she joined the Elite Model Management and modeled for two-and-half years. Pinto was featured in several television and print advertisements endorsing products such as Wrigley's Chewing Gum, Škoda, Vodafone India, Airtel, Visa, E-Bay and DeBeers. She modeled for four years and appeared in runway shows and magazine covers including "Femina" and "FNL". She learned acting from "The Barry John's Acting Studio" in Andheri, Mumbai where she was trained by theatre director Barry John. Acting career. Career beginnings and breakthrough (2008–10). Before her entry into films, Pinto anchored "Full Circle", an international travel show which was aired on Zee International Asia Pacific in English from 2006–08. During this time, Pinto visited countries such as Fiji, Malaysia and Thailand. By that time Pinto auditioned for numerous films, all of which turned out to be unsuccessful. Later in an interview while being questioned about her rejections she added, "I'm glad things happened the way they happened. I needed to be rejected, and I needed to learn that it's part of the game... I can have 100 rejections, but I'm sure there's going to be one particular thing that is almost destined for me to have". She received a call for "Slumdog Millionaire"; she was short-listed and finally selected to star in the film. Directed by Danny Boyle the film starred Dev Patel, Anil Kapoor, and Irrfan Khan alongside Pinto. Pinto played the role of Latika, the love interest of the lead character, Jamal. The film premiered at the 33rd Toronto International Film Festival, where it won the Cadillac People's Choice Award. "Slumdog Millionaire" turned out to be a sleeper hit, receiving universal acclaim, mainly for its plot and soundtrack. It emerged as the most successful film at the 81st Academy Awards winning eight of the 10 nominations, including major categories such as Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Adapted Screenplay. The film also gained nominations at various award ceremonies including the Golden Globe Awards, where it won four awards. Pinto herself was nominated for Best Actress in a Supporting Role at the 2009 BAFTA Awards. In addition, she won the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture alongside other cast members from the film. Pinto next starred in Woody Allen's comedy-drama film "You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger", alongside Antonio Banderas, Josh Brolin, Anthony Hopkins, Anupam Kher and Naomi Watts. The film premiered at the 2010 Cannes Film Festival, receiving negative reviews. Pinto played a minor role as the character Dia. She next appeared in the 2011 science fiction film "Rise of the Planet of the Apes", a reboot of the "Planet of the Apes" series, where she played Caroline, a primatologist, and was cast opposite James Franco. Pinto played the central character in her next production "Miral", a biographical film based on a novel by Rula Jebreal. The film opened to negative reviews. A review from East Bay Express noted, "Pinto handles the central role with a certain dignity, but the real drama is in Miral's rejection of violence in favor of Hind Husseini’s (Abbass) example of education and negotiation." Following that, Pinto starred in 2011 fantasy-action-drama film, "Immortals", in which she played the oracle priestess Phaedra. The same year, she played "Princess Lailah" in the 1930s-set period drama film "Black Gold"; she was cast alongside Antonio Banderas and Mark Strong. "Trishna" and the future (2011–present). In 2011, Pinto starred in Michael Winterbottom's British drama film "Trishna" alongside Riz Ahmed; she played the titular character in the film. An acclimatization of Thomas Hardy's novel "Tess of the d'Urbervilles", the film first premiered at the 2011 Toronto International Film Festival. Described by "The Guardian" as a "seductive, allegorical study of male-female relationships", the film features Pinto as the daughter of a peasant who falls in love with a London-based hotelier, played by Ahmed. Unlike her previous films, "Trishna" gained positive response from critics. The film was universally acclaimed as it was nominated for the Best Film Award at the London Film Festival and Grand Prix at the Tokyo International Film Festival. Pinto's forthcoming release, "Desert Dancer" is a biographical drama film that revolves around the life of a dancer. Pinto underwent rigorous dance training consisting of eight hours of rehearsals a day lasting for 14 weeks, as demanded by the role. As of 2013, she is scheduled to act with Christian Bale in "Knight of Cups", and the romantic thriller "NH10", which marks Pinto's Bollywood debut. The film, which began filming in March 2013, has since been delayed. Media image and personal life. Soon after the release of "Slumdog Millionaire", Pinto garnered immense popularity and was frequently included in the "Most Beautiful Women in the World" list. In 2009, she was featured in "People" magazine's "Most Beautiful People List", and "List of World's Best Dressed Women". The same year, "Daily Telegraph" reported that Pinto was the highest-paid Indian actress, although she never appeared in a Bollywood film. She was also included in "Vogue"'s 2009 list of the "top ten most stylish women". On 13 May 2009, Pinto became a new spokesmodel for L'Oréal. A controversy arose when she appeared in a TV commercial promoting L'Oreal, as many thought it to be racial discrimination from countries that are possessive about fair skin. The commercial showcased Pinto in what many perceived to be a lighter skin tone due to make-up or editing. In 2010, she was featured in the "Top 99 Most Desirable Women" poll conducted by Askmen.com. Two years later, "People" named her one of the "Most Beautiful at Every Age". The following year, Pinto was voted the "Hottest Indian Chick" in a controversial poll conducted by "GQ". Before making her film debut Pinto was engaged to former publicist Rohan Antao; the relationship ended in January 2009. After that she started dating her "Slumdog Millionaire" co-star Dev Patel. Since then the couple have been living together in Los Angeles. Later in an interview, Pinto stated that she does not want to act with Patel as she feels they will not be able to meet out the "chemistry" they had in their debut film. Pinto was criticised for having "shunned" the Indian film industry. However, she claimed that she is unable to find roles that suit her in Bollywood. She also stated that she enjoys watching Bollywood films and is keen to act in future. Pinto joined Andre Agassi and Steffi Graf in support of their philanthropic organisation, the "Agassi Foundation". She is the only Indian actress to have participated in their annual fund raiser titled, "The 15th Grand Slam for Children", aimed at raising funds for the education of underprivileged children. In 2013, she appeared in a video clip for Gucci's "Chime for Change" campaign to raise funds and awareness of women's issues in terms of education, health, and justice. In April 2013, Pinto collaborated with UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and World Bank President Jim Yong Kim for the "Call to Action – Girl Rising" campaign. The documentary film "Girl Rising" made by Academy Award nominee Richard E. Robbins, showcases the power of education in transforming girls' lives around the globe.
583229	Anita Kanwar is an Indian film and television actor who is best known for her role as "Lajjo ji" in the 1980s Doordarshan mega soap opera Buniyaad. An alumnus of the National School of Drama (1978 batch), Kanwar has also worked in films such as Mahesh Bhatt's Janam (1985), Mira Nair's Salaam Bombay! (1988) for which she was nominated for a Filmfare Best Supporting Actress Award and Thodasa Roomani Ho Jaayen. In the 1990s, Kanwar took a long break from television and films before returning to play the character of Inspector KC, Chief of Homicide in the 1998 Star Plus crime series Saboot. In spite of garnering critical acclaim for her performances, she did not get roles of substance in films and was a victim of typecasting. "Such a tender, sensitive actress with the potential of Nargis! She finally ran away to Shimla," noted singer and actress Ila Arun said about Kanwar. Kanwar currently lives in Gurgaon, near Delhi.
1062422	Nine is a 2009 musical romance film directed and produced by Rob Marshall. The screenplay, written by Michael Tolkin and Anthony Minghella, is based on Arthur Kopit's book for the 1982 musical of the same name, which was itself suggested by Federico Fellini's semi-autobiographical film "8½". Maury Yeston composed the music and wrote the lyrics for the songs. The film premiered in London, opened the 6th annual Dubai International Film Festival on December 9, 2009 and was released in the United States on December 18, 2009, in New York City and Los Angeles, with a wide release on December 25, 2009. The principal cast consists of Daniel Day-Lewis, Judi Dench, Nicole Kidman, Marion Cotillard, Penélope Cruz, Sophia Loren, Kate Hudson, and Stacy Ferguson. Despite mixed reviews, "Nine" was nominated for four Academy Awards: Best Supporting Actress (Penélope Cruz), Best Art Direction (John Myhre (AD), Gordon Sim (SD)), Best Costume Design (Colleen Atwood) and Best Original Song ("Take It All" Music and Lyrics by Maury Yeston). Plot. Guido Contini is a gifted Italian filmmaker who, at the age of fifty, has developed writer's block and urges all the women in his life, alive and dead, to help him with it - his mind wanders to his unfinished set, where dozens of dancers and the film’s leading ladies appear – first Claudia Jenssen, his leading lady; then his wife Luisa; his mistress Carla; his costume designer and confidant Lilli; his beloved Mamma; Stephanie, an American fashion journalist from "Vogue"; and finally Saraghina, a prostitute from his childhood; (""Overture Delle Donne""). It is 1965, and at the famous Cinecittà movie studios, in Rome, 'everyone has questions for Signor Contini.' At a press conference at the Hotel Excelsior on the Via Veneto, he’s charming and colourful, avoiding any clear answer on his new movie - his ninth with producer, Dante, - tentatively entitled ""Italia"". Here he meets Stephanie, a "Vogue" fashion journalist, with whom he begins a flirtation. Escaping the biting probes of the reporters, he creates an elaborate fantasy, which becomes (""Guido’s Song"") where he explains that he wishes he were young and energetic once again, since his talent was better then. He escapes the press conference, the reporters and his producer and arrives at the Bellavista Spa Hotel. While being examined by the doctor, he receives a call from Carla, his mistress (""A Call from the Vatican""). She describes her desire for him, as he excitedly listens on the other end. She arrives at the spa, expecting to share his suite, but is upset to find that she’s staying in a shabby pensione by the train station. Meanwhile, Guido learns that a Cardinal is also staying at his hotel and tells the cardinal’s assistant to arrange a meeting. However, Dante soon arrives at the spa and escorts Contini to a banquet hall where the entire production team is assembled to help him prepare for his film. He sees Lilli, his costume designer, and begs for inspiration, while criticizing the costume she’s in the middle of making as not being something an Italian woman would wear. She reminds him of Luisa’s birthday the previous day and disagrees, saying that it reminds her of Folies Bergères, a Parisian music hall that featured showgirls, where she 'learnt her art' (""Folies Bergères""). The Cardinal agrees to meet him and advises him to lead a more moral life and look to his youth for inspiration. Guido’s thoughts lead him to remembering Saraghina, a prostitute whom he and his friends paid to teach them the art of love and sex (""Be Italian""). Young Guido is caught by his school teachers/priests and whipped by his principal. He awakens on top of Carla, in a fit of anxiety and abruptly leaves to meet his production team for dinner. She wants to come, but he vehemently refuses, reminding her that they don’t want to hurt either of their spouses. At dinner, he’s happily surprised to see Luisa, who has come at Lilli’s request. He embraces her and wishes her a happy birthday, promising that when she returns home, the house will be filled with flowers. She sits, and the young priest from earlier, who recognizes her as one of Guido’s earlier actresses, joins the table. In song, Luisa explains how she’s become a different woman to be Guido’s wife, abandoning her acting career to be at his side (""My Husband Makes Movies""). She then notices Carla entering the restaurant and immediately leaves, saying she feels tired. Guido doesn’t understand why and follows her, asking what’s happened. She ignores him and when he returns to the restaurant and sees Carla, he finally understands. He demands that Carla go back to the pensione, and she leaves, heartbroken. When Guido goes to the suite to try to smooth things over, Luisa refuses to listen. He goes to the lobby and meets Stephanie, who has tracked him down. Guido and Stephanie continue to flirt, and she describes her love for his movies and how fashionable he makes everything seem (""Cinema Italiano""). She leaves her room key in his pocket. While in her room, watching her undress, he realizes how much he cares for his wife and leaves. He returns to the suite and promises that he’s done with cheating. Luisa embraces him, but he’s called away to help Carla, who’s overdosed on pills. The doctor comments how reckless and immoral Guido is, which Guido doesn’t contest. He stays with Carla until her husband arrives. He returns to the hotel to find that Luisa has left and the crew has returned to Rome to begin filming. His mother returns to him to advise him to repair his life (""Guarda La Luna""). He calls Luisa from the studio to beg her to come to the screen testing that evening. She hangs up without response. He arrives at the set to film shots of Claudia in her costumes. She does a few takes, but leaves, saying she’ll return when she reads the script. Guido agrees that that’s fair and drives her away. They’re followed by paparazzi, but he manages to lose them. Claudia realizes that there is no script and they take a walk. She asks him what he wants the film to be about and his description closely resembles his own ordeal: a man lost and in love with so many women. When they stop to rest, she tells him that she loves him but he is unable to love her (""Unusual Way""). Claudia tells him he doesn't see the real her, only the movie star he has created for the masses. She leaves. He returns to review screen tests of new actresses and keeps looking to the back to see if Luisa has arrived. He’s relieved when she finally does. She watches and is heartbroken to see him say something in a clip to an actress that he’d said to her when they first met. When everyone leaves, she explains to him that he’s reminded her that she’s not special, just another link in the chain and leaves him (""Take It All""). He finally comes to terms with his mental block (""I Can’t Make This Movie""), realizing that he’s lost everything: his wife, his muse, his talent, and has nothing to make the movie. He apologizes to the staff that there was never a movie, just an idea, and has the set destroyed before leaving Rome. Two years later, Guido is in a café in Anguillara looking at an advertisement for a play starring Luisa. He waits outside the theatre that night, and watches her leave with a man. He walks with Lilli a few days later and tries to find more information about her. Lilli tells him that she’s not going be to be the middle-man for them, implying that Luisa asks for him as well. She asks if he will ever make a movie again. He says that he won’t because he wouldn’t know what to make, except a movie about a man trying to win back his wife. Lilli says that that’s a good start and the costumes won’t be too bad either. Guido returns to his element, passionate about a story once more. As he speaks with his actors about the scene, his nine-year-old self (Giuseppe Spitaleri) gathers the cast of Guido’s life together. As Guido takes his place in the director’s chair, the cast of Guido's life assemble on the scaffolding behind him, culminating with the arrival of his mother and nine-year-old Guido running to sit on the older Guido’s lap (""Finale""). Luisa arrives without being seen and watches in that background, happy to see Guido back to his old self. She smiles as he is raised on a crane and calls, “Action!” Production. Development. On April 12, 2007, "Variety" announced Rob Marshall would direct a feature film adaptation of "Nine" for The Weinstein Company. Marshall had previously directed "Chicago" for the Weinsteins while they were still at Miramax. The film was co-produced by Marshall's own production company, Lucamar Productions. In 2008, a short "teaser" for the film was featured in an episode of the Food Network show, "Barefoot Contessa", with the host, Ina Garten, making breakfast and lunch for her friends, producers John DeLuca and Rob Marshall, as they edited their new film, at the end being a "preview" of their film for the host to see in appreciation. In December 2009, the film contracted the soap operas "One Life to Live" and "General Hospital" for advertising purposes. The former featured two of the characters watching one of the film's trailers on the Internet on a YouTube-esque website, and there were subtle setting alterations performed for the latter, including movie posters on the walls of various public places. Casting. On April 4, 2008, it was reported that Nicole Kidman had replaced Catherine Zeta-Jones in the role of Claudia Jenssen, who turned down the role when director Marshall refused to expand the role for the film. The film was Kidman's first big-screen musical since "Moulin Rouge!". After Catherine Zeta-Jones' departure, Anne Hathaway was auditioned for the role, but was turned down. On May 14, 2008, "Variety" reported Daniel Day-Lewis was in talks to star in the film as Guido Contini, the film's lead character, after Javier Bardem dropped out due to exhaustion. Later, it was reported Day-Lewis sent producers a video of him singing and shocked them with his voice. On May 19, 2008, "People" reported the actor had landed the role. Antonio Banderas, who had starred in the Broadway revival, said he was "disappointed" at not being cast, but that he thought the trailer to the film looked great and only wished the "best" for everyone involved. "Variety" also reported that Penélope Cruz auditioned for the role of Claudia, but was cast as Carla, and that Marion Cotillard auditioned for Lili, but was cast as Luisa, and that Kate Hudson had also been cast in a role created specifically for her which had not been featured in the Broadway show. On July 18, 2008, "People" reported Fergie had been cast as Saraghina. Katie Holmes auditioned for the role of Carla Albanese and Demi Moore auditioned for the role of Luisa Contini, but both failed to win those roles. Barbra Streisand was considered for the role of Lilli, but the role went to Judi Dench. Filming. Day-Lewis studied Italian for his role and frequently spoke the language in and out of character. According to music supervisor Matt Sullivan, "One day during shooting at London's Shepperton Studios, "Rob and I got called into Daniel's dressing room, which was designed as a 1960s film director's office," says Sullivan. 'He's smoking a cigarette, in full outfit and in character, and he's telling us how he would like to see this number that he's performing. And he's talking to us as Guido Contini. It was a really surreal experience.' " Rehearsals for the film began in August 2008, the songs were then subsequently recorded in late September and filming commenced in October at Shepperton Studios, London. The film had been set to shoot in Toronto, though once Day-Lewis signed on, the production then moved to London. Further filming took place in Italy (in the villages of Anzio and Sutri), and at Cinecittà Film Studios. "Nine"s schedule required Kidman to begin rehearsals just four weeks after giving birth to her daughter. The teaser trailer for the film was released on May 14, 2009. Soundtrack. The soundtrack album was released by Geffen Records, on December 22, 2009. It peaked at number twenty-six on the Billboard 200. It also peaked at number three on the Polish Albums Chart and at number nine on the Greek Albums Chart. "Variety" confirmed that three new songs had been created for the film by original Broadway composer Maury Yeston and were not included in the original stage score. They were: Reception. The film received generally mixed reviews. Review aggregate Rotten Tomatoes reports that 37% of critics have given the film a positive review based on 182 reviews, with an average score of 5/10. The critical consensus is: "It has a game, great-looking cast, led by the always worthwhile Daniel Day-Lewis, but Rob Marshall's "Nine" is chaotic and curiously distant." On Metacritic, the film has a rating of 49/100, indicating "mixed or average". The film was also a box office flop, as it grossed just $19 million domestically and less than $54 million worldwide, against an $80 million budget. While "Nine" was not a critical hit, Marion Cotillard's performance was greatly praised, as was Penélope Cruz's. Despite less than favorable reception, it received four nominations for the 82nd Academy Awards and received other notable awards and nominations. On June 13, 2010, at the Tony Awards, host Sean Hayes slighted the film when introducing Antonio Banderas, who portrayed Guido in the 2003 Broadway revival. Hayes said, "Our next presenter has uncanny instincts. He got a Tony nomination for the Broadway production of "Nine" and he avoided the film version." Home media. "Nine" was released on DVD and Blu-ray May 4, 2010. The DVD featured an audio commentary by director Rob Marshall and producer John DeLuca, 8 featurettes, and 3 music videos. The Blu-ray Disc included all the DVD extras including another featurette and a Screen Actors Guild Q&A.
430720	Thomas Andrew "Tom" Felton (born 22 September 1987) is an English actor and singer. He is best known for playing the role of Draco Malfoy in the "Harry Potter" film series, the film adaptations of the best-selling "Harry Potter" novels by author J.K. Rowling, for which he auditioned at age twelve. Felton started filming in commercials when he was eight years old and in films at the age of ten, appearing in "The Borrowers" and "Anna and the King". After being cast as Draco Malfoy he has subsequently appeared in all eight "Harry Potter" films, from 2001 to 2011. Felton's portrayal of Draco Malfoy in "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" and "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 1" won him the MTV Movie Award for Best Villain in 2010 and 2011. In his first post-"Harry Potter" film, Felton appeared in the 2011 film "Rise of the Planet of the Apes", a reboot of the "Planet of the Apes" series. Early life. Felton was born in Epsom, the son of Sharon and Peter Felton He is the youngest of four brothers, and lives in Surrey with his dog Timber. Felton was educated at West Horsley's Cranmore School, until the age of thirteen. Felton is a singer and was part of a choir at the age of seven. He was a member of four school choirs and was given the chance to be part of the Guildford Cathedral Choir. Career. Early career. Felton began acting in commercials for companies such as Commercial Union and Barclaycard. In 1995, he performed the voice of James in the television series "Bugs" and landed his first feature film role in 1997 when he played the part of Peagreen Clock in Peter Hewitt's film "The Borrowers". Felton played witness Thomas Ingham opposite Clive Owen in "Second Sight" in 1999. Felton's role of Louis T. Leonowens in the film "Anna and the King", starring Jodie Foster, was also filmed in 1999 in Malaysia. Felton made an appearance in the episode "Hide and Seek" of "Second Sight 2" followed in 2000. The Guildford Cathedral Choir also offered him a position. 2000–present. By autumn 2001, Felton had become known internationally for his portrayal of Draco Malfoy, the bully, enemy and foil of Harry Potter in "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone". He appeared in all of the "Harry Potter" films. Before landing the part of Malfoy, Felton had auditioned to play Harry Potter and Ron Weasley. Of the four young actors who succeeded in getting the main roles, Felton had the most extensive film experience. Thereafter Felton's schedule began to fill with the work of filming the first four films, premieres, and contributing to articles and interviews. He also received the Disney Channel's Kids Awards for Best DVD "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets" on 22 September 2003. Felton started his Official Tom Felton Fan Club in 2004 and took part in autograph signing events. His fan club was reported to have attracted so many fans that Felton had to put a temporary stop to people signing up to his fan club. The autographing session in Germany drew people from Chile and one fan in Cologne summarised: "Tom is a real nice, professional young man, always happy, smiling, laughing, full of power — a real gentleman." When the fan asked Felton what kids should do if someone like his character is bullying them, he said: "Tell someone. You do not want to keep it to yourself." After filming "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire", Felton made a guest appearance on "Home Farm Twins" in 2005, where he played Adam Baker in the short-lived series. He attended Collectormania on 30 April 2005 and London's world premiere for "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire". On 11 November 2005, he and Rupert Grint presented Liz Carnell with the "Daily Mirror"'s Pride of Britain Award for all of her work to raise awareness of the dangers of bullying. Felton worked on "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix" throughout 2006. Having read more of the Harry Potter books, Felton reflected: "I have had input into Draco. If they give me a line and I do not think it is something he would say, I suggest changing it. They do listen to you and you do feel a part of it." In July 2007, Felton visited Children's Hospital in Denver, Colorado in a pre-screening charitable event of "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix". He was also present at Leicester Square for the premiere of "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix" on 3 July 2007. Felton also appeared in "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince", the sixth film of the series. When asked whether he was looking forward to playing a good guy in the future he answered: "No. Well, I do not know. I suppose for now I'm happy with sticking to what he is. But after the Potter legacy is over I look forward to playing a good guy or someone different anyway, someone not so spiteful." Felton also played the character Simon in the 2009 horror/thriller movie "The Disappeared". Felton posted three music videos on YouTube under an account called "Feltbeats", in which he performs fragments of original songs. Nine songs have been re-recorded and are now available on iTunes: "Time Well Spent," "Time Is not Healing", "One of These Days", "Under Stars," "Right Place, Right Time," "In My Arms," "All I Need," and "I will Be There" join the instrumental "Silhouettes in Sunsets." He also recorded an album titled "In Good Hands". It includes the six songs "If You Could Be Anywhere", "We Belong", "When Angels Come", "Convinced", "Father of Mine", and "If That's Alright With You". In 2010, Felton released his original song "Hawaii" on www.sixstringproductions.com/store.aspx – an independent record label run by Felton, David Proffitt and Philip Haydn-Slater promoting creative independence and ownership of artists’ material and musical talent. In November 2010 the film "White Other", which Tom played the main character, Ray Marsden, was released. Tom's character Ray is a troubled youth in the "ends" of England and Imelda Staunton, who played Dolores Umbridge in "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix" and "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 1", also makes an appearance as one of the other main roles in the film. Felton had a cameo role in "Get Him to the Greek", released on 4 June 2010. In February 2010, he was cast in the thriller film "The Apparition". Felton portrays the human character Dodge Landon in the 2011 science-fiction film "Rise of the Planet of the Apes". On 18 March 2011, Felton appeared in a comedy sketch on Red Nose Day 2011 alongside James Corden, Rupert Grint, George Michael, Justin Bieber, Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, Gordon Brown MP, Professor Robert Winston and Keira Knightley. Personal life. In 2003, Felton and his brother Chris worked with Joe Babbitt, the St. Lawrence County Angler's Association, the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation Region 6, the Chamber of Commerce, and a diverse group of other organisations to form the World Junior Carp Tournament, which involves competitive fishing for ages eleven to eighteen in a family-friendly environment. Felton's favourite hobby is fishing and he once said that he planned to pursue some qualification in fishery management at Sparsholt College in Winchester, where his brother had gone years before. Felton now intends to pursue his acting career. Apart from fishing, Felton also enjoys other sports, such as cricket, basketball, football, roller skating, golf, horse riding and tennis. He said during an interview, "I am generally more and more in my comfort zone in the wild. The only time I can really relax is up a tree or somewhere outside. I love being outside." His ideal place for a holiday is the United States. More specifically, in an interview, he said he liked to go to the St. Lawrence River in New York. His favourite villain in films is the Sheriff of Nottingham in "", who was portrayed by fellow "Harry Potter" actor Alan Rickman. He said during an interview that his favourite characters in Harry Potter are Gilderoy Lockhart and Lucius Malfoy, Draco's father. Felton said that if he could play another character in the film, he would play Lucius Malfoy, or even Voldemort. When asked which house in Hogwarts he would like to be in, Felton said it would definitely be Slytherin.
1165733	Philip Carey (born Eugene Joseph Carey, July 15, 1925February 6, 2009) was an American actor. Biography. Carey was born in Hackensack, New Jersey. A former U.S. Marine, Carey was wounded as part of the ship's detachment of the USS Franklin during World War II and served again in the Korean War. One of his earliest roles was at Lt. (jg) Bob Perry in John Wayne's "Operation Pacific". Carey also made appearances in films such as "I Was a Communist for the FBI" (1951), "This Woman Is Dangerous" with Joan Crawford (1952) "Calamity Jane" with Doris Day (1953), "Pushover" (1954), "Mister Roberts" (1955), "The Long Gray Line" (1955) and "Monster" (1979).
1055342	Waking Ned (titled Waking Ned Devine in North America) is a 1998 comedy film by English writer and director Kirk Jones. It stars Ian Bannen, David Kelly, and Fionnula Flanagan. Kelly was nominated for a Screen Actors' Guild award for his role as Michael O'Sullivan. The film is set in Ireland, but was filmed on location in the Isle of Man. It was produced by Canal+ and the British studio Tomboy Films and distributed by the American company Fox Searchlight Pictures. Plot. When word reaches Jackie O'Shea (Ian Bannen) and Michael O'Sullivan (David Kelly), two elderly best friends, that someone in their tiny Irish village of 52 people in Tulaigh Mhór (Tullymore) has won the Irish National Lottery's Lotto game, they, along with Jackie's wife Annie (Fionnula Flanagan), go to great lengths to find the winner so they can share the wealth. After a chicken-dinner plot to narrow down their list of suspects, they pay a midnight visit to the only absentee: the reclusive Ned Devine (Jimmy Keogh). They find Ned in his home, still holding the ticket in his hand, a smile on his face and dead of shock. Jackie is later convinced by a dream that the deceased Ned wants to share the winnings with his friends, as he has no family to claim the ticket. Elsewhere in the village, Maggie O'Toole (Susan Lynch) continues to spurn the romantic interests of her old flame, "Pig" Finn (James Nesbitt), a local pig farmer. Finn is convinced they belong together, as he thinks he is the father of her son Maurice, but she cannot abide him due to his ever present odour of pigs. After discovering that the lottery winnings are far greater than anticipated (totaling nearly IR£7 million), Jackie and Michael are forced to involve the entire village in fooling the claim inspector, Mr. Kelly. All but one of the villagers enter a pact to pretend that Ned is alive and well, by having Michael pose as him, even to the point of pretending Ned's funeral is a service for Michael when the claim inspector wanders into the church. However, the local curmudgeon, Lizzie Quinn (Eileen Dromey) aka "The Witch", decides not to enter the pact and plans to report the fraud, in order to receive ten percent of the lottery share all to herself. As the villagers celebrate their winnings at the local pub, she attempts to phone the lottery office from a phone box outside the village on the edge of a cliff. Before she can deliver her message, though, the departing claim inspector loses control of his car, forcing an oncoming van driven by the village's priest to crash into the phone box, sending it plummeting off a tall cliff and crashing to the ground below with Quinn still inside. At the celebration, Jackie spots Maggie, who is content that Finn is going to give up pig farming to marry her now that he can afford to. Jackie approves, adding that Maurice needs a father in his life. "More than seven million pounds?" she asks, nodding to her son. She then reveals that Maurice is related to Ned, but does not reveal how, stating, "Ned does have a family, Jackie". It is implied here that Ned was Maurice's father, because Maggie said that she feels that Maurice needs a father more than he needs the money. Jackie urges her to claim the entire fortune, but Maggie is sure that Maurice needs a father more and the villagers need the money. The film closes with Jackie, Michael, Maurice, and several others standing on a hill and raising their glasses to Ned, toasting him for his gift to the village. Production. The film was shot on the Isle of Man, with the village of Cregneash standing in for the fictional Irish village of Tulaigh Mhór. Reception. "Waking Ned" grossed £911,901 in the U.K. in its opening weekend and £2.16 million internationally, for a grand total of £3.45 million worldwide. The film received positive reviews and holds a "fresh" rating of 83% on the film aggregator website, "Rotten Tomatoes". Kirk Jones was nominated for the BAFTA Award for Most Promising Newcomer. The film was nominated for and won several other awards including the Screen Actors Guild, Satellite Awards, and the National Board of Review.
1253687	Die Another Day (2002) is the twentieth spy film in the James Bond series, and the fourth and last film to star Pierce Brosnan as the fictional MI6 agent James Bond. In the pre-title sequence, Bond leads a mission to North Korea, during which he is betrayed and, after seemingly killing a rogue North Korean colonel, he is captured and imprisoned. More than a year later Bond is released as part of a prisoner exchange. Surmising that someone within the British government betrayed him, he tries to earn redemption by finding his betrayer and by killing a North Korean agent he believes was involved in his torture. "Die Another Day", produced by Michael G. Wilson and Barbara Broccoli, and directed by Lee Tamahori, marks the franchise's 40th anniversary. The series began in 1962 with Sean Connery starring as Bond in "Dr. No". "Die Another Day" includes references to each of the preceding films and also alludes to several "Bond" novels. The film received mixed reviews. Some critics praised Lee Tamahori's work on the film, while others claimed the plot was damaged by excessive use of CGI. Regardless, it was the highest-grossing James Bond film up to that time not counting inflation. Plot. James Bond infiltrates a North Korean military base, where Colonel Tan-Sun Moon is illegally trading African conflict diamonds for weaponry. After Moon's assistant Zao discovers Bond is a British agent, the colonel escapes in a hovercraft. Bond distracts the soldiers with an explosion, in which Zao's face is disfigured by diamond fragments. Bond pursues Moon in a second hovercraft. During the chase, Moon's hovercraft plunges down a waterfall, apparently killing him. Bond is captured by North Korean soldiers and imprisoned by the Colonel's father, General Moon. After 14 months of captivity and torture, Bond is traded for Zao in a prisoner exchange. He is sedated and taken to meet M, who informs him that his status as a 00 Agent is suspended due to her belief that he may have leaked information under duress. Still bitter over Zao's release, Bond decides to complete his mission by evading MI6's security and travelling to Hong Kong, where he learns from his contact in the Chinese government that Zao was sighted in Cuba. After arriving in Havana, Bond meets NSA agent Giacinta 'Jinx' Johnson. Bond follows Zao and Jinx to a gene therapy clinic, where patients can have their appearances altered through DNA restructuring. Bond locates Zao inside the clinic and a fight ensues. Zao flees in a helicopter, but he leaves behind a pendant. Bond opens it and finds a cache of diamonds, identified as conflict diamonds, but bearing the crest of the company of British billionaire Gustav Graves. Bond encounters Graves, along with his assistant Miranda Frost, also an undercover MI6 agent, at Blades Club. After a fencing exercise, Bond is invited by Graves to Iceland for a scientific demonstration. Shortly afterwards, M restores Bond's Double-0 status and offers assistance in the investigation. In Iceland, Graves unveils a new orbital mirror satellite, "Icarus", which is able to focus solar energy on a small area and provide year-round sunshine for crop development. At midnight, Jinx infiltrates Graves' command centre in the palace, but is captured by Zao. Bond rescues her, and after seeing Zao talking with Graves, realises that Colonel Moon is still alive. Moon has used the gene therapy technology to change his appearance, assuming the identity of Gustav Graves. Bond confronts Graves, but Frost arrives to reveal herself as the traitor and the one who exposed Bond in North Korea, forcing 007 to escape from Graves' facility. Bond then returns in his Aston Martin Vanquish to rescue Jinx. Zao pursues them in his Jaguar XKR, both cars driving inside the rapidly-melting ice palace. Bond kills Zao by luring him under a collapsing ice chandelier, and then rescues Jinx from drowning. Bond and Jinx pursue Graves and Frost to the Korean peninsula and stow away on Graves' cargo plane. Graves reveals his true identity to his father, and the purpose of the Icarus satellite: to cut a path through the Korean Demilitarized Zone with concentrated sunlight, allowing North Korean troops to invade South Korea and reunite the countries by force. Horrified, General Moon tries to stop the plan, but he is murdered by his own son. 007 attempts to shoot Graves but he is prevented by one of the soldiers on board. In their struggle, a gunshot pierces the fuselage, causing the plane to descend rapidly. Bond engages Graves in a fist fight, and Jinx attempts to regain control of the plane. Frost attacks Jinx, forcing her to defend herself in a sword duel. After the plane passes through the Icarus beam and is further damaged, Jinx kills Frost. Graves attempts to escape by parachute, but Bond opens the parachute, causing the slipstream to pull Graves out of the plane and into one of its engines, killing him and disabling the Icarus beam. Bond and Jinx escape the disintegrating plane by using a helicopter in the cargo hold. They carry away Graves' stash of diamonds. Production. Filming. Principal photography of "Die Another Day" began on 11 January 2002 at Pinewood studios. The film was shot primarily in the United Kingdom, Iceland, and Cádiz, Spain. Other locations included Pinewood Studios' 007 Stage, and scenes shot in Maui, Hawaii, in December 2001. Laird Hamilton, Dave Kalama, and Darrick Doerner performed the pre-title surfing scene at the surf break known as Jaws in Peahi, Maui, while the shore shots were taken near Cádiz and Newquay, Cornwall. Scenes inside Graves' diamond mine were also filmed in Cornwall, at the Eden Project. The scenes involving the Cuban locations Havana and the fictional Isla Los Organos were filmed at La Caleta, Spain. The scenes featuring Berry in a bikini were shot in Cádiz; the location was reportedly cold and windy, and footage has been released of Berry wrapped in thick towels between takes to avoid catching a chill. Berry was injured during filming when debris from a smoke grenade flew into her eye. The debris was removed in a 30-minute operation. Gadgets and other props from every previous Bond film and stored in Eon Productions' archives appear in Q's warehouse in the London Underground. Examples include the jetpack in "Thunderball" and Rosa Klebb's poison-tipped shoe in "From Russia with Love". Q mentions that the watch he issues Bond is "your 20th, I believe", a reference to "Die Another Day" being the 20th Eon-produced Bond film. In London, the Reform Club was used to shoot several places in the film, including the lobby at the Blades Club, MI6 Headquarters, Buckingham Palace, Green Park, and Westminster. Svalbard, Norway and Jökulsárlón, Iceland were used for the car chase on the ice with additional scenes filmed at Jostedalsbreen National Park, Norway and RAF Little Rissington, Gloucestershire; Manston Airport in Ramsgate was used for the scenes involving the Antonov cargo plane scenes. The scene where Bond surfs the wave that Icarus created when Graves was trying to kill Bond was shot on the blue screen. The waves and all of the glaciers in the scene were digitally produced. The hangar interior of the "US Air Base in South Korea", shown crowded with Chinook helicopters, was filmed at RAF Odiham in Hampshire, UK, as were the helicopter interior shots during the Switchblade sequence although this took place entirely on the ground with the sky background being added in post-production using blue screen techniques. Although in the plot the base is American, in reality all the aircraft and personnel in the shot are British. In the film, a Switchblade (one-man glider shaped like a fighter jet) is used by Bond and Jinx to enter North Korea undetected. The Switchblade was based on a workable model called "PHASST" (Programmable High Altitude Single Soldier Transport). Kinetic Aerospace Inc.'s lead designer, Jack McCornack was impressed by director Lee Tamahori's way of conducting the Switchblade scene and said, "It's brief, but realistic. The good guys get in unobserved, thanks to a fast cruise, good glide performance, and minimal radar signature. It's a wonderful promotion for the PHASST." Also, Graves' plane was a model that was controlled by a computer. When the plane flew through the Icarus beam, engineers cut the plane away piece by piece so that it looked like it was burning and falling apart. The sex scene between Bond and Jinx—the first time onscreen in the series in which Bond is depicted actually having sex as opposed to a post-coital scenario—had to be trimmed for the American market. An early cut of "Die Another Day" featured a brief moment—seven seconds in length—in which Jinx is heard moaning strongly. The MPAA ordered that the scene be trimmed so that "Die Another Day" could get the expected PG-13 rating. The scene was cut as requested, earning the film a PG-13 rating for "action violence and sexuality." Music. The soundtrack was composed by David Arnold and released on Warner Bros. Records. He again made use of electronic rhythm elements in his score, and included two of the new themes created for "The World Is Not Enough". The first, originally used as Renard's theme, is heard during the mammoth "Antonov" cue on the recording, and is written for piano. The second new theme, used in the "Christmas in Turkey" track of "The World Is not Enough", is reused in the "Going Down Together" track. The title song for "Die Another Day" was written and performed by Madonna, who also had a cameo in the film as a fencing instructor. This is the first "Bond" title sequence to directly reflect the film's plot since "Dr. No"; all of the other previous "Bond" titles are stand-alone set pieces. The concept of the title sequence is to represent Bond trying to survive 14 months of torture at the hands of the North Koreans. Critics' opinions of the song were sharply divided—it was nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Original Song and the 2004 Grammy Award for Best Dance Recording, but also for a Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Original Song of 2002 (while Madonna herself won the Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Supporting Actress for her cameo). In a MORI poll for the Channel 4 programme ""James Bond's Greatest Hits"", the song was voted 9th out of 22, and also came in as an "overwhelming number one" favourite among those under the age of 24. Marketing tie-ins. MGM and Eon Productions granted Mattel the license to sell a line of Barbie dolls based around the franchise. Mattel announced that the Bond Barbies will be at her "stylish best", clad in evening dress and red shawl. Lindy Hemming created the dress, which is slashed to the thigh to reveal a telephone strapped to Barbie's leg. The doll was sold in a gift set, with Barbie's boyfriend Ken posing as Bond in a tuxedo designed by the Italian fashion house Brioni. Revlon also collaborated with the makers of "Die Another Day" to create a cosmetics line based around the character Jinx. The limited edition 007 Colour Collection was launched on 7 November 2002 to coincide with the film's release. The product names were loaded with puns and innuendo, with shades and textures ranging from the "warm" to "cool and frosted". Carrera, a slot car manufacturer, sold a 1:45 scale slot car set based on the film which included an Aston Martin Vanquish and a Jaguar XKR as well as track. Corgi, a British toy car manufacturer, released 1:30 scale replicas of the Vanquish and Jaguar XKR. Ford Motor Company released a "special edition" Thunderbird in 2003. The 11th generation Thunderbird appeared briefly during the film's Iceland scenes, driven by Jinx when she arrived at the Ice Palace. Unlike the car as it appeared on film, Ford's "Bond bird" was coral pink (colour code CQ) with a white removable hardtop. In the film, both the car and the hardtop were coral. Release and reception. "Die Another Day" had its world premiere on 18 November 2002 at the Royal Albert Hall in London. Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip were guests of honour; it was the second premiere to be attended by the Queen after "You Only Live Twice". The Royal Albert Hall had a make-over for the screening and had been transformed into an ice palace. Proceeds from the première, about £500,000, were donated to the Cinema and Television Benevolent Fund of which the Queen is patron. On the first day, ticket sales reached £1.2 million. "Die Another Day" was the highest grossing James Bond film until the release of "Casino Royale". It earned $432 million worldwide, becoming the sixth highest grossing film of 2002. "Die Another Day" became a controversial subject in eastern Asia. The North Korean government disliked the portrayal of their state as brutal and war-hungry. The South Koreans boycotted 145 theatres where it was released on 31 December 2002, as they were offended by a scene where an American officer issues orders to the South Korean army in the defence of their homeland, and by a lovemaking scene near a statue of the Buddha. The Jogye Buddhist Order issued a statement that the film was "disrespectful to our religion and does not reflect our values and ethics". "The Washington Post" reported growing resentment in the nation towards the United States. An official of the South Korean Ministry of Culture and Tourism said that "Die Another Day" was "the wrong film at the wrong time." The amount of product placement in the film was a point of criticism, specifically from various news outlets such as the BBC, "Time" and Reuters who all used the pun "Buy Another Day". Reportedly 20 companies, paying $70 million, had their products featured in the film, a record at the time, although "USA Today" reported that number to be as high as $100 million. By choice, the number of companies involved in product placement was dropped to eight for the next Bond film "Casino Royale" in 2006. "Rotten Tomatoes" listed "Die Another Day" with a 57% rating. "Metacritic" gave the film a 56 out of 100 rating, representing "Mixed or average reviews." Michael Dequina of "Film Threat" praised the film as the best of the series to star Pierce Brosnan and "the most satisfying installment of the franchise in recent memory." Larry Carroll of "CountingDown.com" praised Lee Tamahori for having "magnificently balanced the film so that it keeps true to the Bond legend, makes reference to the classic films that preceded it, but also injects a new zest to it all." "Entertainment Weekly" magazine also gave a positive reaction, saying that Tamahori, "a true filmmaker", has re-established the series' pop sensuality. Dana Stevens of "The New York Times" called the film the best of the James Bond series since "The Spy Who Loved Me." Kyle Bell of Movie Freaks 365 stated in his review that the "first half of "Die Another Day" is classic Bond", but that "Things start to go downhill when the ice palace gets introduced." According to an ITV news poll Jinx was voted the fourth toughest girl on screen of all time. However, "Die Another Day" was strongly criticised for relying too much on gadgets and special effects, with the plot being neglected. James Berardinelli of "Reelviews.net" said, "This is a train wreck of an action film – a stupefying attempt by the filmmakers to force-feed James Bond into the mindless "xXx" mold and throw 40 years of cinematic history down the toilet in favor of bright flashes and loud bangs." Gary Brown of the "Houston Community Newspapers" also described the weak point of the film as "the seemingly non-stop action sequences and loud explosions that appear to take center stage while the Bond character is almost relegated to second string." Roger Moore remarked, "I thought it just went too far – and that’s from me, the first Bond in space! Invisible cars and dodgy CGI footage? Please!" Novelization. "Die Another Day" was written into a novel by the then-current official James Bond writer, Raymond Benson, based on the screenplay by Neal Purvis and Robert Wade. Fan reaction to it was above average. After its publication Benson retired as the official James Bond novelist and a new series featuring the secret agent's adventures as a teenager, by Charlie Higson was launched in 2005. As the novelization was published after Benson's final original 007 novel, "The Man with the Red Tattoo", it was the final literary work featuring Bond as originally conceived by Ian Fleming until the publication of "Devil May Care" by Sebastian Faulks in 2008 to mark the 100th anniversary of Fleming's birth.
1163186	Kyla Alissa Pratt (born September 16, 1986) is an American actress.
592191	Jaggesh (; born on 17 March 1963) is an Indian actor, politician and a director who has predominantly worked in Kannada film industry and is best known for the comedy roles he portrays in his movies. He has acted in movies such as "Banda Nana Ganda", "Super Nan Maga" and "Tharle Nan Maga". Jaggesh has a big fan following and is popularly referred to by his fans as "Navarasa Nayaka". He made his debut as a small time actor in the mid-1980s and got his big break as a hero in "Banda Nanna Ganda" produced by his brother in law N. Srinivas, and has been very popular since then. Career. Cinema. Jaggesh made his cinema debut as an Assistant Director to "K.V.Raju" in the year 1986 and then moved on to acting in small roles gradually working up the ladder to being a popular character artist.After a lot of struggle he started a movie called "Tharle nan Maga " directed by Superstar "Upendra " which was shelved for unknown reasons.Later Jaggesh made his debut in his Brother in Law "N.Srinivas" movie called "Banda nana Ganda " as a Hero,which turned out to be one of the biggest hit of the year,after which his shelved movie "Tharle nana Maga " resumed production and was released since then there has been no turning back for the actor. Politics. Jaggesh is originally from Mayasandra (Jadeya Mayasandra) of Turuvekere Taluk in Tumkur district. His political affiliation was with the Congress party. He ran in the Turuvekere constituency, and won with a healthy margin but resigned from the Legislative Assembly to join the Bharatiya Janata Party later. Currently he is a sitting Member of Legislative Council and holds the cabinet rank as the vice-chairman of the Karnataka State Road Transport Corporation (K.S.R.T.C.). Personal life. Jaggesh was born to Shivalingappa and Nanjamma. He has 2 brothers and 2 sisters out of which his brother Komal is also a noted actor and his brother in law N. Srinivas is a noted producer. One of his sisters is a doctor and the other brother is a Mute and has been taken care by the actor himself. Jaggesh married Parimala and theirs was the first marriage case from south India to reach the Supreme Court. It was a love marriage where the bride was underage and the Honorable Chief Justice Bhagwati allowed for the marriage to be recognized on a humanitarian basis.
1163903	Elizabeth Victoria Montgomery (April 15, 1933 – May 18, 1995) was an American film and television actress whose career spanned five decades. She is probably best remembered as the star of the TV series "Bewitched". The daughter of Robert Montgomery, she began her career in the 1950s with a role on her father's television series "Robert Montgomery Presents". In the 1960s, she rose to fame as Samantha Stephens on the ABC sitcom "Bewitched". Her work on the series earned her five Primetime Emmy Award nominations and four Golden Globe Award nominations. After "Bewitched" ended its run in 1972, Montgomery continued her career with roles in numerous television films. In 1974, she portrayed Ellen Harrod in "A Case of Rape" and Lizzie Borden in the 1975 television film "The Legend of Lizzie Borden". Both roles earned her additional Emmy Award nominations. Montgomery was married four times, most notably to actor Gig Young and producer/director William Asher with whom she had three children. Her fourth and final marriage was to actor Robert Foxworth, with whom she lived for 20 years before marrying in 1993. Montgomery died of colorectal cancer in May 1995, eight weeks after being diagnosed with the disease. Early life. Born in Los Angeles, California, Elizabeth Montgomery was the child of actor Robert Montgomery and his wife, Broadway actress Elizabeth Bryan Montgomery (nee Allen). There were many references to Patterson, New York made on "Bewitched" throughout the run of the series. The Putnam County, New York town was the site of the Montgomery homestead and it was also where Elizabeth spent her childhood summers. In later years, her mother lived in the family farmhouse on Cushman Road where Elizabeth visited her on frequent trips East. She had an older sister, Martha Bryan Montgomery, who died as an infant (named after her aunt Martha-Bryan Allen) and a brother, Robert Montgomery, Jr. (1936 - 2000). She attended Westlake School for Girls (now Harvard-Westlake School in Holmby Hills). After graduating from Spence School, she attended the American Academy of Dramatic Arts for three years. Career. Early years. Montgomery made her television debut in her father's series "Robert Montgomery Presents" (later appearing on occasion as a member of his "summer stock" company of performers), and her film debut in 1955 in "The Court Martial of Billy Mitchell". Her early career consisted of starring vehicles and appearances in live television dramas and series, such as "Studio One", "Kraft Television Theater", "Johnny Staccato", "The Twilight Zone", "The Eleventh Hour", "Boris Karloff's Thriller" and "Alfred Hitchcock Presents". In 1960 Montgomery was nominated for an Emmy Award for her portrayal of southern prostitute Rusty Heller in an episode of "The Untouchables", playing opposite David White who later portrayed Darrin's boss Larry Tate in "Bewitched". She was featured in a role as a socialite who falls for a gangster (Henry Silva) in "Johnny Cool". The same year, with Dean Martin and Carol Burnett, she appeared in the film comedy "Who's Been Sleeping in My Bed?", directed by Daniel Mann. Alfred Hitchcock had her in mind to play the sister-in-law of Sean Connery, who sees herself as a rival to the troubled heroine in the movie "Marnie", but Montgomery was unavailable. "Bewitched". Montgomery played the central role of lovable witch Samantha Stephens with Dick York (and later with Dick Sargent) as her husband in the ABC situation comedy "Bewitched". Starting in the second season of the series, she also played the role of Samantha's increasingly mischievous, sexy cousin, Serena, under the pseudonym of Pandora Spocks.
940647	Lower Learning is a 2008 comedy film starring Jason Biggs, Eva Longoria, Rob Corddry, Ryan Newman, Monica Potter, and Andy Pessoa. It was directed by Mark Lafferty and written by Lafferty and Shahin Chandrasoma. The music was composed by Ryan Shore. Plot. Geraldine Ferraro Elementary is on the brink of collapse: the lowest test scores in the state, teachers who are either drunk or having sex on school grounds, and a principal (Rob Corddry) who extorts money from parents. It is up to Tom (Jason Biggs), the down-on-his-luck vice-principal, to rally the lazy teachers, expose the principal's corruption, and turn the school around before an end of the day board decision that is certain to lead to its closure. Release. "Lower Learning" was released theatrically at a single theater showing on October 10, 2008 and made $2,804 in domestic grosses. Home media. The film was released on DVD on December 2, 2008.
1103969	Gaspard Monge, Comte de Péluse (9 May 1746 – 28 July 1818) was a French mathematician, the inventor of descriptive geometry (the mathematical basis of technical drawing), and the father of differential geometry. During the French Revolution he served as the Minister of the Marine, and was involved in the reform of the French educational system, helping to found the École Polytechnique. Early life. Monge was born at Beaune, Côte-d'Or, the son of a merchant. He was educated at the college of the Oratorians at Beaune. In 1762 he went to the Collège de la Trinité at Lyon, where, one year after he had begun studying, he was made a teacher of physics at the age of just seventeen. After finishing his education in 1764 he returned to Beaune, where he made a large-scale plan of the town, inventing the methods of observation and constructing the necessary instruments; the plan was presented to the town, and is still preserved in their library. An officer of engineers who saw it wrote to the commandant of the École Royale du Génie at Mézières, recommending Monge to him and he was given a job as a draftsman. Career. Those studying at the school were drawn from the aristocracy, so he was not allowed admission to the institution itself. His manual skill was highly regarded, but his mathematical skills were not made use of. Nevertheless he worked on the development of his ideas in his spare time. At this time came to contact with Charles Bossut, the professor of mathematics at the École Royale. "I was a thousand times tempted," he said long afterwards, "to tear up my drawings in disgust at the esteem in which they were held, as if I had been good for nothing better." After a year at the École Royale Monge was asked to produce a plan for a fortification in such a way as to optimise its defensive arrangement. There was an established method for doing this which involved lengthy calculations but Monge devised a way of solving the problems by using drawings. At first his solution was not accepted, since it had not taken the time judged to be necessary, but upon examination the value of the work was recognized, and Monge's exceptional abilities were recognized. After Bossut left the École Royale du Génie Monge took his place in January 1769, and in 1770 he was also appointed instructor in experimental physics. In 1777, Monge married Cathérine Huart, who owned a forge. This caused Monge to develop an interest in metallurgy. In 1780 he became a member of the Académie; his friendship with C.L. Berthollet began at this time. In 1783, after leaving Mézières, he was, on the death of É. Bézout, appointed examiner of naval candidates. Although pressed by the minister to prepare a complete course of mathematics, he declined to do so, on the grounds that this would deprive Mme Bézout of her only income, that from the sale of the textbooks written by her late husband. In 1786 he wrote and published his "Traité élémentaire de la statique". 1789 and after. Unsurprisingly the French Revolution completely changed the course of Monge's career. He was a strong supporter of the Revolution, and in 1792, on the creation by the Legislative Assembly of an executive council, Monge accepted the office of Minister of the Marine, and held this office from 10 August 1792 to 10 April 1793, when he resigned. When the Committee of Public Safety made an appeal to the academics to assist in the defence of the republic, he applied himself wholly to these operations, and distinguished himself by his energy, writing the "Description de l'art de fabriquer les canons" and "Avis aux ouvriers en fer sur la fabrication de l'acier". He took a very active part in the measures for the establishment of the Ecole Normale (which existed only during the first four months of the year 1795), and of the school for public works, afterwards the École Polytechnique, and was at each of them professor for descriptive geometry. "Géométrie descriptive. Leçons données aux écoles normales" was published in 1799 from transcriptions of his letures given in 1795. He later published "Application de l'analyse à la géométrie", which enlarged on the lectures. From May 1796 to October 1797 Monge was in Italy with C.L. Berthollet and some artists to select the paintings and sculptures being levied from the Italians. While there he became friendly with Napoleon Bonaparte. Upon his return to France, he as appointed as the Director of the École Polytechnique, but early in 1798 he was sent to Italy on a mission that ended in the establishment, of the short-lived Roman Republic. From there Monge joined Napoleon's expedition to Egypt, taking part with Berthollet and in the scientific work of the Institut d'Égypte and Egyptian Institute of Sciences and Arts. They accompanied Bonaparte to Syria, and returned with him in 1798 to France. Monge was appointed president of the Egyptian commission, and he resumed his connection with the École Polytechnique. His later mathematical papers are published (1794 — 1816) in the Journal and the Correspondence of the École Polytechnique. On the formation of the Sénat conservateur he was appointed a member of that body, with an ample provision and the title of count of Pelusium (Comte de Péluse), and he became the Senate conservateur's president during 1806–7. Then on the fall of Napoleon he had all of his honours taken away, and he even excluded from the list of members of the reconstituted Institute. On his religious views, Monge was an atheist. Monge died at Paris on July 28, 1818, and his remains were interred in a mausoleum in the Le Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris. His remains was later transferred to the Panthéon in Paris. A statue portraying him was erected in Beaune in 1849. Monge's name is one of the 72 names inscribed on the base of the Eiffel Tower. Since the 4 november 1992 the "Marine Nationale" operate the MRIS "FS Monge", named after him.
1163417	James Albert "Jim" Varney, Jr. (June 15, 1949 – February 10, 2000) was an American actor, comedian, musician, writer and voice artist, best known for his role as Ernest P. Worrell, who was used in numerous television commercial campaigns and movies, giving Varney fame worldwide and for playing Jed Clampett in the 1993 movie version of "The Beverly Hillbillies". Early life. Varney was born James Albert Varney, Jr., the fourth child and only son of Louise (née Howard; January 14, 1913 – August 22, 1994) and James Albert Varney, Sr. (January 1, 1910 – January 11, 1985), on June 15, 1949 in Lexington, Kentucky, where he grew up. As a child, Varney displayed the ability to memorize long poems and significant portions of material from books, which he used to entertain family and friends. When Varney was a boy, his mother would put the black and white TV on cartoons for him to watch. His mother discovered that Varney quickly began to imitate the cartoon characters, so she started him in children's theater when he was 8 years old. Varney began his interest in theater as a teenager, winning state titles in drama competitions while a student at Lafayette High School (from which he graduated with the class of 1968) in Lexington. At the age of 15, he portrayed Ebenezer Scrooge in a local theater production, and by 17 he was performing professionally in nightclubs and coffee houses. Varney studied Shakespeare at the Barter Theatre in Abingdon, Virginia and performed in an Opryland folk show its first year of operation in the 1970s. He listed a former teacher, Thelma Beeler, as being one of the main contributing factors in his becoming an actor. When he was 24, Varney was an actor at the Pioneer Playhouse in Danville, Kentucky. The theater was adjacent to an old West Village and prior to the show the audience would tour the village where apprentices would play townsfolk. Varney and the company usually played in the outdoor theater to audiences of only a few dozen people. Varney would regale the young apprentices by throwing knives into trees. He performed in "Blithe Spirit", "Boeing 707" and an original musical, "Fire on the Mountain." He once jokingly threatened a long-haired apprentice, John Lino Ponzini, that he would take him up to Hazard, Kentucky where he (Ponzini) wouldn't make it down Main Street without the townsfolk giving him a crewcut. Career. Television commercials. The first commercial featuring Varney as the character Ernest, filmed in 1980, advertised an appearance by the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders at Beech Bend Park, an amusement park located near Bowling Green, Kentucky. The character was franchised for use in markets all over the country and was used often by dairies to advertise milk products. For example, the Midwestern dairy bar chain Braum's ran several advertisements using Ernest's catchphrase (as it was spelled in his registered trademark), ""KnoWhutImean, Vern?"" Purity Dairies, based in Nashville, Pine State Dairy in Raleigh, NC, and Oakhurst Dairy in Maine ran commercials that were nearly identical, but with the dairy name changed. For the same agency, Varney created a different character, Sgt. Glory, a humorless drill instructor who harangued cows of the client dairy into producing better milk. In another spot, Sgt. Glory's home was shown as he had a date, which was heavily decorated with the products of the sponsor and advertising specialty items that it was essentially devoid of any other decor. The Sgt. Glory character also appeared in an advertisement for a southern grocery chain, Pruitt's Food Town, in which he drilled the checkout clerks on proper behavior: "Bread on top. Repeat: Bread on top." He approaches one of them at the end of the commercial with a look of menace and says, "You're not smilin'." The checkout bagger gives a very nervous and forced smile. Varney also starred as Ernest in a series of commercials that ran in the New Orleans area (and throughout the Gulf South) as a spokesman for natural gas utilities. In one, he is seen kneeling down in front of Vern's desk under a lamp hanging from the ceiling, stating, ""Natural Gas, Vern; it's hot, fast, and cheap. Hot, fast, cheap; kinda like your first wife, Vern, you know, the pretty one!?"" Vern then knocks the lamp into Ernest's head, knocking him down. Those same TV ads also were featured on TV channels in the St. Louis area for Laclede Gas during the mid-1980s. Another TV ad for Laclede Gas featured Ernest saying, "Heat pump, schmeat pump." Varney also appeared in several Braum's Ice Cream and Dairy Stores commercials throughout the 1980s. These aired on Oklahoma television.
1058017	Chase Ellison (born September 22, 1993) is an American actor. He is best known for his roles in "Mysterious Skin" and "Tooth Fairy". Life and career. Ellison was born in Reno, Nevada, and lives with his parents and two siblings in San Diego. He began his acting career at the age of six, working in commercials and modeling for several print campaigns. He segued into television, landing a guest star role on "Family Law", then on "Boomtown", "Malcolm in the Middle", "7th Heaven", "Providence", "The Division". He played a supporting role in George Bamber's "The Mostly Unfabulous Social Life of Ethan Green", which then led to a major supporting role in Gregg Araki's "Mysterious Skin", a guest role in an episode of "Six Feet Under", and a semi regular role as Noah Newman, the son of Nicholas Newman (Joshua Morrow) and Sharon Newman (Sharon Case) on soap opera "The Young and the Restless" in 2005. His role in "Mysterious Skin" (2004) was as the 8-year-old version of the character played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt, one of the film's leads. In this film, he plays one of two boys who are groomed into a sexual relationship by a Little League baseball coach. However, the film was shot in such a way that the young actors were kept unaware of what they were reacting to. Ellison has a supporting role in the 2010 film "Tooth Fairy" as the teenage son of Ashley Judd's character, the girlfriend of the titular protagonist (Dwayne Johnson). In 2011, Ellison graduated from Mt. Carmel High School, where he was an active member of the drama club as well as theater productions. He now attends Loyola Marymount University, where he hopes to continue acting.
1376098	Barbie as Rapunzel is a 2002 direct-to-video Barbie film directed by Owen Hurley. It is the second in the Barbie film series of computer animated Barbie films, and features the voice of Kelly Sheridan as Barbie. The story is adapted from the Brothers Grimm fairy tale "Rapunzel". Plot. Barbie tells a story to her little sister Kelly, who doesn't have confidence in her painting abilities. Rapunzel lives as a servant to the witch Gothel, who resides in a manor isolated in the woods. She grows up believing that Gothel saved her from abandonment as an infant. Rapunzel finds companionship in Penelope, an outgoing dragon, and Hobie, a worrisome rabbit. Rapunzel spends what free time she has painting beautiful pictures of places she dreams of going when she is free one day. However, Gothel disapproves of Rapunzel's hobbies and accuses her of not appreciating everything that Gothel has done for her. While preparing tea for Gothel, Penelope accidentally finds a secret staircase which leads to an old room below the manor. In it they discover a gift from her parents who allegedly deserted her: a silver hairbrush engraved with the following: “Constant as the stars above, always know that you are loved. To our daughter, Rapunzel on her first birthday. With Love Forever, Mother and Father.” These words leave the young artist questioning her past for the first time. Her diversion is quickly interrupted by Gothel’s calls for tea. After serving Gothel her meal, Rapunzel and her friends revisit the cellar where Penelope exposes yet another secret: a tunnel leading to the nearby village. Rapunzel takes this path to the small kingdom and is able to rescue a princess named Katrina from a pitfall. Soon after, Rapunzel is introduced to Katrina’s elder brother, Prince Stefan. He explains to her that the trap Katrina managed to escape was put there by King Wilhelm, the ruler of an opposing kingdom. Enchanted by the mysterious maiden, Stefan asks to meet her again, to which she agrees, though their meeting is ended abruptly before Stefan can tell her his name. She quickly rushes back to the woods to avoid being discovered by Gothel. Unknown to Rapunzel, Gothel's pet ferret, Otto, has witnessed the entire exchange. Angered, Gothel demands Rapunzel tell her the boy's name. Rapunzel insists that she does not know it, but Gothel does not believe her, thinking Rapunzel has been lying. Rapunzel tells her that she cannot keep her locked away forever to which Gothel responds, "Watch me." Gothel destroys Rapunzel's paints and paintings before transforming the bedroom into a more secure, seemingly unescapable tower and stations Hugo, Penelope's father, outside. Gothel refuses to let Rapunzel go until she tells her the name of the boy she met. That night, Rapunzel has a dream that Prince Stefan found her tower. He comes up by climbing her long hair. They nearly kiss, but Gothel shows up and separates them. Rapunzel then wakes up and recites the engraving on the hairbrush. A shower of light, outside her window, turns the hairbrush into a paintbrush. Rapunzel is left alone with Hobie and Penelope, who cheer her up with new paint to replace the ones taken away from by Gothel. Hobie discovers the paintbrush, and Rapunzel begins to paint. It soon becomes clear that she doesn't need paint, and whatever she paints becomes real. Rapunzel paints the village and then uses the painting as a portal, arriving at the palace gardens and meeting Stefan. She shows him the brush and asks for help to find its maker, but insists that he never tell her his name. She meets a silversmith who says his brother, who lives in Wilhelm's kingdom, made it. The silversmith has not seen his brother in years, making him very upset. Stefan realizes that the feud is hurting the villagers more than he realized. Afterward, Stefan asks Rapunzel to a masked ball. She replies that she will meet him there. He tells that her hair is a 'beautiful give-away.' Penelope soon arrives via the painting and explains that Gothel is coming, and they must leave so that Hugo will not be punished. Rapunzel leaves, painting a way out. When back at the tower, Rapunzel uses the paintbrush to paint herself a beautiful gown. Hobie and Penelope provide a mask. Unfortunately, the paintbrush's magic light can be seen and Otto sneaks in. He quickly steals the invitation without their notice and presents it to Gothel. Angered, Gothel arrives at the tower, cuts off Rapunzel's hair, and shatters the paintbrush. She also manages to destroy the painting of the village. Because she thinks Rapunzel refused to tell the truth, Gothel puts a spell on her tower, which eternally holds people who lie. Gothel then storms to King Friedrich and Stefan's castle. Back at the tower, Rapunzel manages to escape with the help of Penelope and Hugo, as the spell only works if the prisoner is a liar, which Rapunzel is not. She then rushes to save Stefan and his family. Stefan is lured away from the party by Gothel, disguised as Rapunzel. Gothel reveals herself and begins her attack. King Wilhelm comes before King Fredrick, hoping to end the feud by force. It is revealed that the source of the feud is that Wilhelm believes Fredrick kidnapped his daughter, who has been missing since she was an infant. Friedrich replies that he planned nothing of the sort and he has no idea where Wilhelm's daughter is, to which Gothel reveals that she took Rapunzel because Wilhelm "loved" her but married another woman; he saw Gothel only as a friend. Rapunzel arrives just in time to stop them from fighting, and Wilhelm immediately recognizes her as his daughter. Gothel attacks Rapunzel with magic. As Rapunzel runs into the royal maze, she remembers the magic painting of the tower and tricks Gothel into running into it. Gothel finds herself in Rapunzel's tower, where Hugo reminds her she can't escape, as she has a lying heart. Rapunzel is reunited with her biological parents, and marries Stefan, thus ending the feud as well as uniting the two kingdoms. Hugo, Penelope, and Hobie live in their castle with them. It's revealed that Otto now serves Gothel, but it's implied that she died soon after. A shot is seen of Rapunzel and Stefan walking along a beach, the same one that Rapunzel painted with a castle in the distance, implying her dreams came true. The scene becomes the painting Barbie had been working on. Kelly now feels better and begins painting with blue, after Barbie reminds her that creativity is the true magic in art. Music. The film makes heavy use of Antonín Dvořák's Symphony No. 9, also known as the "New World Symphony" - presumably a reference to Rapunzel's venture into the 'new world' of the village.
471222	Shadow Company is a documentary directed by Nick Bicanic and Jason Bourque and narrated by Gerard Butler. It is an introduction to the mercenary and private military company industry, concentrating on the role the industry has been playing in recent conflicts. It was released on DVD on August 2006. Content. The documentary film is not presented with a complete voice narrative nor a linear story-telling structure. Instead, most of the documentary deals with the issues presented in a topical fashion. There are three primary methods that the filmmakers use to organize and present information. The first is through the personal account of a security contractor named James Ashcroft, the second is to pose questions and directly answer them, and the third method is to utilize small case studies. The film contains footage of mercenary and private military soldiers training in Iraq. Director Nick Bicanic was invited to a Senate Committee Hearing to testify on the subject of mercenaries/private military companies on September 21, 2007. Letters from James. At certain intervals in the documentary, the audience is read different letter excerpts from a security contractor named James Ashcroft (voiced by Gerard Butler). The letter scenes explain the details of James's work and life in Iraq and a small amount of his personal history. Much of the comedy from the documentary is displayed in these scenes. In addition, the letters serve as an opener and a closer for the interview portions of the documentary. One scene displays a quick montage of James’s life up to Iraq. The viewer finds out James Ashcroft was a graduate of the University of Oxford. Sometime after graduation, he joined the British military and performed bodyguard work in Milan and Paris later on. When the audience listens to his first letter, they find out that he quit his last job at a law firm before heading to Iraq. His new line of work in Iraq involves being a security contractor for a reputable private military company. He says he is on a ‘six on three off rotation’, which means he works for six weeks, before getting three weeks of off time, and the letters are written in the six week time frame. Also, he mentions working out of a villa in the Green Zone, the area where the Coalition Provisional Authority resides. Ashcroft shares how his firm procures weapons like AK-47s and PKMs from the Sadr City bazaar, and how the US military or his firm deals with insurgents. James Ashcroft's autobiography, "Making A Killing", written with the ghostwriter Clifford Thurlow was published by Virgin in the UK in 2006 and the US in 2007. Part of the proceeds of the DVD sales go to the Cape Community Elementary School in Freetown, Sierra Leone. Interviewees. Listed in the press release are:
1016497	Punished is a 2011 Hong Kong thriller film directed by Law Wing-cheong. The film stars Anthony Wong, Richie Ren, and Janice Man. Cast. The story started that real estate tycoon Wong Ho-Chiu (Anthony Wong Chau-Sang) celebrate his wife (Maggiue Cheung ho-yee) birthday and his daughter Daisy (Janice Man) wanted to travel oversea. He had a argument with the daughter and the daughter ran out of house. The next day Wong Ho-Chiu receive a video message of Daisy been kidnapped and requested 10million for the release. Wong Ho-Chiu never reported to police because he thought is his daughter abduct herself and request money for it. He warned the kidnapper that anything happen to Daisy, he will stop at nothing to avenge for her. The kidnapper get agitated of it and killed Daisy. Wong Ho-Chiu asked his most trust bodyguard Chor (Richen Ren) to check on it. Out of the search, Chor manage to find out the location of Daisy and Daisy is been killed. Wong Ho-Chiu suffers great pain when he knew that his daughter Daisy is killed. He lied everyone that Daisy is alive and sent to L.A. Wong Ho-Chiu turns to his trusted bodyguard Chor to seek out the perpetrators and exact revenge. Wong Ho-Chiu goes one step further and orders Chor to videotape each of their executions. Each time a videotape of the execution been sent to Wong Ho-Chiu, he will carry out a prayer of it. When the third perpetrator been tracked, Wong Ho-Chiu's wife get to know about the matter and request Wong Ho-Chiu to let go the avenge but he insisted on it hence his wife leave him and went back to her's house. During Wong Ho-Chiu body check-up, his doctor told him that the assistant come to pick up Daisy's heartattack medicine. Then only Wong Ho-Chiu knew the final perpetrator and request Chor bring him over as he wanted to kill that person himself. The final perpetrator is the girl assitatnt to Daisy and when they fighting, she fell on to the rooftop and going to fall down but the girl had a daughter. When Wong Ho-Chiu saw the daughter, he recall back Daisy childhood adn he had a second thoughts of it... Release. The film was released in Hong Kong on 5 May 2011.
629048	Brendan Cowell (born 16 August 1976) is an Australian actor, screenwriter and director. Cowell was born in Sydney. He stumbled upon acting by accident while waiting for his sister to come out of a rehearsal; he was then cast in a commercial at age 8. He went to Charles Sturt University, in Bathurst, to complete a Bachelor of Arts in Theatre/Media, originally considering journalism as a career option. Although he is generally known as an actor, he also has many off-screen credits to his name, such as writing and directing. He won the Patrick White Playwrights' Award for his third play "Bed" along with a collection of other awards. His play "Ruben Guthrie" showed at the Belvoir St Theatre in 2009 to sell-out houses. It has a new production at La Boite Theatre in 2011, starring Gyton Grantley and directed by David Berthold. His most famous acting role is playing the enigmatic Tom on Australian cable TV's "Love My Way", for which he also wrote several episodes, and playing Todd for the first two seasons on "Life Support" on SBS TV, for which he also wrote sketches. His most recent foray into film have included roles in the 2007 crime drama "Noise", World War 1 war film "Beneath Hill 60" and romantic comedy "I Love You Too". He won some acclaim for his portrayal of the title role in Bell Shakespeare's 2008 Production of "Hamlet" and acted in Sydney Theatre Company's production of "True West", directed by Philip Seymour Hoffman, in 2010. Brendan lives in Newtown, New South Wales Sydney and is a committed supporter of the Cronulla Sharks rugby league team. Even though Cowell is best known for his acting/script writing career, he recently published his first novel: "How it Feels". Personal life. Brendan was born to parents Yvonne and Bruce 'Bruiser' Cowell. He has two older sisters, Belinda and Jacqui (who was part of pop group Girlfriend). Was a self confessed loner at primary school, which he said was due to his reading poems out at assembly and making up little plays and forcing people to watch them. Dated Rose Byrne for six years until they amicably parted ways in early 2010.
1103192	Eric Wolfgang Weisstein (born March 18, 1969) is an encyclopedist who created and maintains "MathWorld" and "Eric Weisstein's World of Science" ("ScienceWorld"). He is the author of the CRC Concise Encyclopedia of Mathematics. He currently works for Wolfram Research, Inc. Education. Weisstein holds a Ph.D. in planetary astronomy which he obtained from the California Institute of Technology's (Caltech) Division of Geological and Planetary Sciences in 1996 as well as an M.S. in planetary astronomy in 1993 also from Caltech. Weisstein graduated Cum Laude from Cornell University with a B.A. in physics and a minor in astronomy in 1990. During his summers away from Cornell, Weisstein participated in research at the Arecibo Observatory, a radio telescope facility in Puerto Rico operated by Cornell. As a graduate student, Weisstein also participated in research at Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, MD. During his time at Goddard, Weisstein participated in the development of hurricane visualization software. In 1996 Weisstein published his doctoral thesis titled "Millimeter/Submillimeter Fourier Transform Spectroscopy of Jovian Planet Atmospheres" which was completed under faculty advisor Dewey Muhleman and in association with Eugene Serabyn, who is now a member of the Caltech Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). Career. Academic research. Upon completion of his doctorate, Weisstein became a research scientist at Caltech in January 1996 and continued work in the field of submillimeter spectroscopy. He collaborated with Eugene Serabyn and published several papers. Six months later, he moved to the University of Virginia's Department of Astronomy in Charlottesville, VA where he remained for three years to continue his research. MathWorld, ScienceWorld and Wolfram Research. In 1995, Weisstein converted a Microsoft Word document of over 200 pages to hypertext format and uploaded it to his webspace at Caltech under the title "Eric's Treasure Trove of Sciences". This document contained a compendium of information that Weisstein had obtained throughout his studies. As Weisstein transferred to the University of Virginia to continue his work in astronomy, he continued to refine his fledgling encyclopedia. In November 1998, Weisstein made a deal with the CRC Press to publish his encyclopedia in book format titled, the CRC Concise Encyclopedia of Mathematics. One year later, in 1999, Weisstein accepted the position of encyclopedist at Wolfram Research, Inc. (WRI). "MathWorld" was ready to be unveiled in December 1999. There are nearly 13,000 entries in "MathWorld", nearly all of them authored by Weisstein. These entries encompass a variety of disciplines including algebra, geometry, calculus, discrete mathematics, topology, number theory, statistics, and the foundations and "MathWorld" became involved in a legal dispute with the CRC Press in March 2000. The CRC Press claimed "MathWorld" violated the copyright on the CRC Concise Encyclopedia of Mathematics. During the dispute a court order shut down "MathWorld" for over a year starting October 23, 2000. According to Eric Weisstein’s personal site he restarted MathWorld on November 6, 2001. This ultimately led to the creation of PlanetMath. Wolfram Research, Stephen Wolfram, and Eric Weisstein settled with the CRC Press for an undisclosed financial award and several benefits. Among these benefits are the inclusion of a copyright notice of the CRC Press at the bottom of all webpages in "MathWorld" and legal rights to reproduce "MathWorld" in book format again. "ScienceWorld", or "Eric Weisstein's World of Science" as it may be known, was unveiled to the general public in January 2002. "ScienceWorld" includes more than 1,000 entries in many fields of science including: astronomy, chemistry, physics and biographies of scientists. Other encyclopedias. Eric Weisstein also has several other encyclopedias under development. Reportedly among these are encyclopedias on scientific books, the game of life in cellular automata theory, music and rocketry.
1774874	Goodbye First Love () is a 2011 Franco-German film directed by Mia Hansen-Løve. It was selected for the main competition at the 2011 Locarno International Film Festival. Plot. Paris, 1999. Camille (Lola Créton) is 15 years old and passionately in love and lust with Sullivan (Sebastian Urzendowsky), who is 19. Sullivan is planning a 10-month trip to South America with his friends. He is not taking Camille with him, which makes her feel quite insecure and resentful. Before Sullivan departs, they spend some time in Camille's mountain home in the Ardeche, riding horses through the fields, picking berries, basking in the sun and swimming in the Loire. When they return in autumn Sullivan leaves, writing letters to Camille while she marks his route on a map on her bedroom wall.
1484751	The Arrow is a four-hour miniseries produced for CBC Television in 1996, starring Dan Aykroyd as Crawford Gordon, experienced wartime production leader during World War II and president of A. V. Roe Canada during its attempt to produce the Avro Arrow supersonic jet interceptor. The film also stars Michael Ironside and Sara Botsford. The mini-series is noted as the highest viewership ever for a CBC program. Other significant individuals in the program, portrayed in the series, include RCAF pilot Flight Lieutenant Jack Woodman (Ron White) who conducted test flights on Avro aircraft but was supplanted by Janusz Żurakowski (Lubomir Mykytiuk) for the first few flights; Jim Chamberlin (Aidan Devine) and James Floyd (Nigel Bennett) in the design team; Edward Critchley (Ian D. Clark) who would be asked to develop an engine for the Arrow when other models became unavailable. The film also boasted cameos by Michael Moriarty as U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower, Michael Ironside as the director of the Central Intelligence Agency, and Christopher Plummer as George Hees. Cast. Principal roles as appearing in screen credits (main roles identified): Production. Although the miniseries is based on history, it is a work of fiction, employing composite characters, and depicting some events that actually did not take place. It acknowledges that there is no hard evidence to support the fictional final scenes, depicting one Arrow that escaped the torches used to tear the other Arrows apart, in accord with allegations attributed to reporter June Callwood. There are errors in illustrations, such as the wing design (the classified design does not appear on the models used, other than on one model the morning after Jim Chamberlin made his modifications); during the "destruct and dispose" operation, an Apollo lunar module is shown in its final configuration, although that design was arrived at by Grumman Aircraft in the later 1960s out of sheer necessity to reduce weight. Wetaskiwin resident Allan Jackson's efforts to build a full-scale model of the Arrow were discovered during the research phase of pre-production. An offer was made to complete the model and use it in the miniseries. A CBC crew of model makers and set designers completed the full-scale model in time for principal photography that took place in Winnipeg. The production eventually used a combination of archival film, remote-control flying models and computer animation for the static, ground and flying sequences. Movie model. The full-scale Arrow model differs slightly from those built in 1957-59. It was featured throughout the movie but the wing structure had a pronounced outer panel dihedral that was "corrected" by CGI work. The wing design was seen on-screen "only" on a wind tunnel model crafted after an "all-nighter" by Chamberlin) that was stable at Mach 2.5 and higher.
588966	Tanuja Mukherjee (23 September 1943), popularly known as Tanuja, is an Indian film actress. She is the mother of Kajol and Tanisha, and is most remembered for her roles in Hindi films like "Baharen Phir Bhi Aayengi" (1966), "Jewel Thief", "Haathi Mere Saathi" (1971), and "Anubhav" (1971). Simultaneously she appeared in Marathi, Bengali and Gujarati films like, "Zaakol" (Marathi), Naari tu Narayani'(Gujarati), and several Bengali films such as "Antony Phiringee", "Deya Neya", "Teen Bhuvaner Parey" (1969), "Prothom Kadam Phool", and "Rajkumari". Biography. Personal life. Tanuja was born in a Marathi family of four daughters as Tanuja Samarth to poet Kumarsen Samarth and his wife Shobhna Samarth. Her Mother was married to director and cinematographer Kumarsen Samarth from Vile Parle(E), Mumbai. They had four daughters. Eventually the couple parted amicably and Shobhana became linked to actor Motilal. Two of her daughters, Nutan and Tanuja, also became actresses. Shobhana produced their debut films. Another daughter, Chatura, is an artist, and her daughter Reshma, who is married, currently lives in St. Louis, MO. Chatura acted in only 1 Bollywood movie, and Reshma never entered into movies. Nutan's son Mohnish Behl is also an actor as are Tanuja's daughters Kajol & Tanisha Mukherjee. Kajol is married to actor Ajay Devgan. Other members of the dynasty include Shomu Mukherjee who married Tanuja. (See Mukherjee-Samarth family (film)). Tanuja entered films as a child actress and continued working until 1973. Tanuja's eldest sister was the Bollywood actress, Nutan. Tanuja was married to Shomu Mukherjee (1943–2008) from 1973 to 2008. He died on April 10, 2008 from a heart attack aged 64. They have two daughters: Kajol (b. 1974) and Tanisha (b. 1978). Career. She started her film career with her older sister Nutan in "Hamari Beti" (1950) as Baby Tanuja. As an adult, she debuted in the film "Chhabili" (1960) which was directed by her mother and had her sister, Nutan, in the lead. The film that truly marked her transition into adult heroine came with "Hamari Yaad Aayegi" (1961), directed by Kidar Sharma, who had earlier discovered Raj Kapoor, Madhubala and Geeta Bali. One of her early films, noticeable for her acting, was "Baharen Phir Bhi Aayengi" (1966), directed by Shaheed Latif. Incidentally it was Guru Dutt team's last offering, especially visible in the song, "Woh Hanske Mile Humse" (believed to have been picturized while Guru Dutt was still alive) who worked hard to help her "tone down" her performance. The result was that the natural, spontaneous performer gave a highly restrained performance which became the highlight of the film — as well of her career — as she moved to lead roles soon after. Her next big film was with Jeetendra, "Jeene Ki Raah" (1969), an immediate and surprise hit. In the same year, Tanuja won the Best Supporting Actress Filmfare Award for "Paisa Ya Pyar". After the success of "Haathi Mere Saathi" (1971), she acted in "Door Ka Raahi", "Mere jeevan Saathi", "Do Chor" and "Ek Baar Muskara Do" (1972), "Kaam Chor", "Yaarana", "Khuddar", and "Masoom". Some of the other films she has acted in are "Pavitra Paapi", "Bhoot Bangla", and "Anubhav". Some of her Marathi films are 'Zaakol', 'Unad Maina' During the mid 1960s Tanuja started a parallel career in Bengali movies in Kolkata starting with "Deya Neya" (1963) where she was paired opposite Uttam Kumar. She followed it up with "Anthony-Firingee" (1967) and "Rajkumari" (1970). Tanuja had on-screen chemistry with Soumitra Chatterjee with whom she made some films like "Teen Bhuvaner Parey" (1969) and "Prothom Kadam Phool". Tanuja spoke her own lines in these Bengali films.
1198478	Rockshow is a 1980 American concert film by Paul McCartney and Wings, filmed during their 1976 North American tour. The film features 30 songs from four concerts of the tour: New York, May 25 (four songs); Seattle, Washington, June 10 (five songs); Los Angeles, California, June 22 (15 songs); and Los Angeles, California, June 23 (six songs), although both the cover of the home video release and McCartney himself in his "McCartney Years" DVD intro acknowledge only the Seattle concert. This was part of the "Wings Over the World Tour" that also spawned the triple live album "Wings over America". Song listing. This list is for the full-length 125-minute version of "Rockshow". + Songs included in "The McCartney Years" DVD box set. Production. The music for what was to become "Rockshow" (and "Wings Over the World") was produced by Chris Thomas and engineered by Phil McDonald during 1979. However, the processing of the "Rockshow" overdubs was obviously completed by the airdate of "Wings Over the World", as these same performances were featured in both productions. Not all of the songs made it to the film in their entirety ("Medicine Jar" and "Letting Go" have been edited), and the song introductions did not always match the performance which followed. For example, several of the introductions came from the Seattle performance while the actual song was taken from a Los Angeles show: "Magneto & Titanium Man", "Spirits of Ancient Egypt", "Lady Madonna", "Let 'Em In", and "Soily". The introduction of the horn section was a composite as well with portions coming from Seattle and the final Los Angeles show. Release. The film would not premiere until November 26, 1980, at the Ziegfeld Theatre in New York; McCartney did not attend, as he was in the studio at the time. They did attend the London Premiere at the Dominion Theatre in Piccadilly Circus on April 8, 1981. The film was later edited down to 102 minutes for its home video release. Its first home video release was on Betamax in October 1981, with a VHS, laserdisc, and CED release in 1982. This would be the last time a feature-length version of the film would be available to the general public until 31 years later, as McCartney had remained reluctant to make the entire film available to the general public on VHS or DVD. In 2007, a shortened cut with only seven songs was released as part of the "The McCartney Years" DVD set â one of which, a version of The Beatles' "Lady Madonna", was originally left out of the "Rockshow" home video release. 2013 re-release. In June 2013, a new restored version of the film was released. The longer 125-minute version was digitally restored from the 35mm negative with the soundtrack remixed in 5.1 surround sound. The film had a limited worldwide cinema re-release on May 16, 2013, with an exclusive introduction and interview with McCartney. An exclusive VIP premiere screening, with McCartney in attendance and introducing the film, took place at BAFTA on May 15, 2013. This restored cut was released on DVD and Blu-ray in June 2013.
1375765	Linda Kash (born 17 January 1961) is a Canadian actress. An alumna of Second City, she played Trudy Weissman in the 1998 Jean Smart sit-com, "Style & Substance". She has also played various roles in popular television series such as "Seinfeld" and "Everybody Loves Raymond". She appears as the Kraft Philadelphia Cream Cheese Angel, appearing in various commercials advertising the product. In May 2011, she was announced as the morning show host on CJWV-FM, a new radio station in Peterborough, Ontario. Her cohost will be Dan Duran. She and her husband Paul O'Sullivan also operated the Peterborough Performing Arts Academy. She portrayed socialite and philanthropist Molly Brown in the 2012 Global/ITV mini-series "Titanic". Family. Kash was born in Montreal, the daughter of actress and opera singer Maureen Forrester and violinist/conductor Eugene Kash. Her brother is actor Daniel Kash. Her father was born to a Jewish family, and her mother converted to Judaism. Her husband Paul O'Sullivan, also an actor and Second City alumnus, was killed in a car accident 18 May 2012.
66221	Richard Merritt Montague (September 20, 1930 – March 7, 1971) was an American mathematician and philosopher. Career. At the University of California, Berkeley, Montague earned a B.A. in Philosophy in 1950, an M.A. in Mathematics in 1953, and a Ph.D. in Philosophy 1957, the latter under the direction of the mathematician and logician Alfred Tarski. Montague, one of Tarski's most accomplished American students, spent his entire career teaching in the UCLA Department of Philosophy, where he supervised the dissertations of Nino Cocchiarella and Hans Kamp. Montague wrote on the foundations of logic and set theory, as would befit a student of Tarski. His Ph.D. dissertation, titled "Contributions to the Axiomatic Foundations of Set Theory", contained the first proof that all possible axiomatizations of the standard axiomatic set theory ZFC must contain infinitely many axioms. In other words, ZFC cannot be finitely axiomatized. He pioneered a logical approach to natural language semantics which became known as Montague grammar. This approach to language has been especially influential among certain computational linguists—perhaps more so than among more traditional philosophers of language. Montague was an accomplished organist and a successful real estate investor. He died violently in his own home; the crime is unsolved to this day. Anita Feferman and Solomon Feferman argue that he usually went to bars "cruising" and bringing people home with him. On the day that he was murdered, he brought home several people "for some kind of soirée", but they instead robbed his house and strangled him. His life and work provide the inspiration for the novel "The Semantics of Murder" (Aifric Campbell 2008: 250 ISBN 978-1-85242-996-6).
1163348	Jonelle Allen is an American actress, singer, and dancer. Born in New York City, Allen grew up in Harlem's Sugar Hill among neighbors that included Duke Ellington, Sonny Rollins, and Johnny Hodges, all of whom had an influence on her career choice. She made her Broadway debut at the age of six in "The Wisteria Trees", Joshua Logan's Americanized adaptation of "The Cherry Orchard" starring Helen Hayes. As a child she also made regular appearances on a local children's television series, "The Merry Mailman", hosted by Ray Heatherton. Allen returned to Broadway for a 1955 revival of "Finian's Rainbow". She was in the cast of the original off-Broadway production of "Hair" at Joseph Papp's Public Theater and also appeared in "George M!" before receiving critical acclaim and a Tony Award nomination for "Two Gentlemen of Verona", which earned her New York Drama Critics' Circle, Drama Desk, Theatre World, and Outer Critics Circle Awards for her performance. Despite her success, it proved to be her last Broadway appearance to date. Allen's film credits include "Cotton Comes to Harlem", "The Hotel New Hampshire", and "The River Niger", for which she won an NAACP Image Award. She had a regular role in the dramatic series "Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman" from 1993-97. Other television appearances include "Barney Miller", "The Love Boat", "All in the Family", "Trapper John, M.D.", "Hill Street Blues", "Cagney and Lacey", "ER", and "Girlfriends". She played a lesbian prison inmate in the 1975 television movie "Cage Without a Key", which starred Susan Dey. Her most notable roles are the flamboyant and outspoken Doreen Jackson on the NBC soap opera, "Generations" and Lucinda Cavender, the vampire witch in the horror comedy film "The Midnight Hour". Before her role of Doreen on "Generations", Jonelle played ambitious salesgirl turned boutique manager Stacey Russell, on the short-lived primetime soap, "Berrenger's". Allen appeared as the legendary Harlem Jazz Queen Florence Mills in "Harlem Renaissance" at the 2007 Edinburgh Festival Fringe. She is currently working at the Conservatory of the Arts in San Juan Capistrano.
1164519	Holland Virginia Taylor (born January 14, 1943) is an American actress of film, stage, and television, and playwright. Her notable television roles include Ruth Dunbar in "Bosom Buddies", senator's wife Margaret Powers on Norman Lear's "The Powers That Be", Judge Roberta Kittleson on "The Practice" and Evelyn Harper in "Two and a Half Men". She is also the author of the solo play Ann, based on the life and work of Ann Richards. Early life. Taylor was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1943, the daughter of Virginia, a painter, and C. Tracy Taylor, an attorney. She is the youngest of three girls in the family; her sisters are Patricia and Pamela. Taylor attended high school at Westtown School, a Quaker boarding school in West Chester, Pennsylvania. She then majored in drama at Bennington College graduating in 1964, before moving to New York City to become an actress. Career. Taylor's long career began in the theatre. Throughout the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s she appeared in numerous Broadway and Off-Broadway productions, including starring roles in Simon Gray's "Butley" and A. R. Gurney's "The Cocktail Hour;" for the latter she was nominated for a Drama Desk award. Taylor also has the dubious distinction of having starred in Broadway's most infamous flop, "Moose Murders", where she filled in, with less than a week's rehearsal, for veteran character actress Eve Arden who had jumped from the sinking ship. In 1983 Taylor had one of her greatest theatrical moments in "Breakfast with Les and Bess", which prompted the "New York" magazine theatre critic John Simon to sing, "...Miss Taylor is one of the few utterly graceful, attractive, elegant and technically accomplished actresses in our theatre...seeing her may turn you, like me, into a Taylor freak..." Concentrating on theatre, television took a backseat but she did take on the role of Denise Cavanaugh on the long running soap opera, "The Edge of Night", who was so evil, she killed herself just to frame her husband. Then encouraged by her acting coach, the legendary Stella Adler, Taylor took a role that would make her well known: Tom Hanks' sexy, demanding boss in the 1980s sitcom "Bosom Buddies". The actress' rising fame, built slowly over many years, led her to roles that made her a well known name in the industry. She proved herself to be equally adept both at comedy and at drama. In 1985, she co-starred with Lisa Eilbacher in the ABC detective series "Me and Mom". Two years later, she played opposite Alan Arkin in the short-lived ABC sitcom "Harry", in which she received "starring" billing. Then, in 1990, Taylor reunited with former "Bosom Buddies" executive producers Thomas L. Miller and Robert L. Boyett for a role on their ABC sitcom "Going Places", playing grand dame television producer Dawn St. Claire for the show's first thirteen episodes. From 1992 to 1993, she starred in Norman Lear's "The Powers That Be" with John Forsythe and David Hyde Pierce, playing the wife of Forsythe's character, a U.S. senator. In early 1994, she joined the cast of "" as Dean Susan McMann, just episodes before its cancellation. Following this was her role as high-powered newspaper editor Camilla Dane on the ABC/NBC sitcom "The Naked Truth"; Taylor was one of the few cast members to last all the way through the show's run, from 1995 to 1998. She played the part of rapacious Judge Roberta Kittleson on "The Practice". Originally intended to be a one-time appearance, the role lasted from 1998 to 2003. She won the Emmy for Best Supporting Actress in 1999; in her acceptance speech, she brought the house down when she lifted the Emmy over her head and said, "Overnight!" Taylor thanked David E. Kelley, "The Practice"'s producer/writer and creator, for "giving me a chariot to ride up here on: A woman who puts a flag on the moon for women over 40—who can think, who can work, who are successes, who can cook, and who can COOK!". Taylor was also nominated for an Emmy for her recurring role on AMC's "The Lot", and has been nominated four times since 2003, for best supporting actress for her role on the TV series "Two and a Half Men", playing Evelyn Harper, the snobbish, overbearing mother of Charlie Sheen's and Jon Cryer's characters. Taylor's television movie and series guest roles have been extensive and include appearances on "ER", "Veronica's Closet", and recurring roles on "Ally McBeal"; "Monk" and as billionaire Peggy Peabody on "The L Word". Taylor's movie roles have included Reese Witherspoon's tough Harvard law professor in the 2001 comedy "Legally Blonde"; Tina Fey's mother in "Baby Mama"; "The Truman Show"; "Happy Accidents"; "Next Stop Wonderland"; "George of the Jungle"; "The Wedding Date"; "How to Make an American Quilt"; "Romancing the Stone"; and "D.E.B.S.". Taylor's animated roles include that of Prudence, the castle's majordomo and love interest of the Grand Duke, in Disney's "Cinderella II" and "". She also played a role in the animated show "American Dad!" as Francine's biological mother. Taylor's first love remains the theatre and she began researching, writing and producing a one-woman play about the late Texas Governor Ann Richards in 2009. The two-act play, originally titled "Money, Marbles, and Chalk", starring Taylor as Richards, was first workshopped in May 2010 at The Grand 1894 Opera House in Galveston, Texas. It was later retitled "Ann: An Affectionate Portrait of Ann Richards" and opened in Chicago November 16, 2011 and was billed as a "pre-Broadway" engagement. It is scheduled to play at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. December 17, 2011 through January 15, 2012. Ann next opened on Broadway at the Vivian Beaumont Theatre on March 7th, 2013 and is scheduled to run until September 1st, 2013. For this role, Taylor was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Lead Actress in a Play. Charitable work. Taylor has been a long-time, major supporter of Aid For AIDS in Los Angeles, serving on their Honorary Board and as an ongoing participant in their largest annual fundraiser, Best In Drag Show, among other fundraising efforts. Filmography. Theater. Broadway
1720860	Ninja Cheerleaders is a 2008 comedy film written and directed by David Presley.
751717	Robinne Lee (born July 16, 1974) is an American actress. She appeared in "Hotel for Dogs" with Don Cheadle and Emma Roberts and with Will Smith in "Seven Pounds". Life and career. Lee was born in Mount Vernon, New York of Jamaican, Chinese, English, Scottish and Arawak Indian ancestry on July 16. A graduate of Columbia Law School, Lee began her acting career as part of the ensemble cast of the romantic comedy "Hav Plenty" in 1997, which was shown at Toronto Film Festival. In 2003, Lee appeared in "Deliver Us From Eva" with LL Cool J and the action comedy "National Security" with Martin Lawrence. In 2007, Lee completed a ten episode appearance on "Tyler Perry's House of Payne" and shot an independent film called "This Is Not a Test". She appeared in R&B singer Usher's music video for his 2004 single "Confessions Part II".
1057361	Extraordinary Measures is a 2010 medical drama film starring Brendan Fraser, Harrison Ford, and Keri Russell. It is distributed by CBS Films and was released on January 22, 2010. It is about parents who form a biotechnology company to develop a drug to save the lives of their children, who have a life-threatening disease. The film is based on the true story of John and Aileen Crowley, whose children have Pompe's disease. The film was shot in St. Paul, Oregon, Portland, the Corner Saloon in Tualatin, Oregon, and Beaverton, Oregon as well as Vancouver, Washington. It is the first film to go into production for CBS Films, the film division of CBS Corporation. Plot. Brendan Fraser plays John Crowley, a biotechnology executive whose two youngest children were afflicted with Pompe disease or acid maltase deficiency. In the film his children are aged 8 and 6. Along with his wife Aileen (Keri Russell), he raises money for research scientist Robert Stonehill (Harrison Ford), forming a company to develop a drug to save his children's lives. Cast. John Crowley makes a cameo appearance as a venture capitalist. Production. Adapted by Robert Nelson Jacobs from a nonfiction book "The Cure: How a Father Raised $100 Million—and Bucked the Medical Establishment—in a Quest to Save His Children" by the Pulitzer Prize journalist Geeta Anand, the film is also an examination of how medical research is conducted and financed. Filming took place at several spots in and around Portland, Oregon, mostly at the OHSU Doernbecher Children's Hospital, Veterans Affairs Medical Center and the Nike campus in Beaverton, Oregon. This was the first time Nike allowed filming on their campus and they donated the location payment to Doernbecher Children’s Hospital. During filming, the working title was "The Untitled Crowley Project". In the film, the children are 9 and 7 years old. Their non-fiction counterparts were diagnosed at 15 months and 7 days old and received treatment at 5 and 4, respectively. Inspiration. Myozyme, a drug developed for treating Pompe disease, was simultaneously approved for sale by the US Food and Drug Administration and the European Medicines Agency. Henceforth, more than 1000 infants born worldwide every year with Pompe disease will no longer face the prospect of death before reaching their first birthday for lack of a treatment for the condition. The screenplay by Robert Nelson Jacobs is based on Geeta Anand's book "The Cure" (ISBN 9780060734398). Parts of the book first appeared as a series of articles in the Wall Street Journal. The small start-up company Priozyme was based on Oklahoma City-based Novazyme. The larger company, called Zymagen in the film, was based on Genzyme in Cambridge, MA. Novazyme was developing a protein therapeutic, with several biological patents pending, to treat Pompe Disease, when it was bought by Genzyme. The patent portfolio was cited in the press releases announcing the deal. According to Genzyme, Dr. Robert Stonehill's character is based upon scientist and researcher William Canfield, who founded Novazyme. Roger Ebert, in his review, says the character is based on Yuan-Tsong Chen, a scientist and researcher from Duke University who collaborated with Genzyme in producing Myozyme, the drug which received FDA approval. Reception. Box office. The film opened at #8 on its opening weekend, taking in $6 million. The film experienced sharp declines and only remained in theaters for four weeks as it only earned $12 million, making it a box office disappointment. Critical response. The film opened to mixed reviews. Review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes gives the film a score of 27% based on reviews from 132 critics, with an average rating of 4.8 out of 10. The site's general consensus is that "Despite a timely topic and a pair of heavyweight leads, "Extraordinary Measures" never feels like much more than a made-for-TV tearjerker."
1062864	Kiss Kiss Bang Bang is a 2005 crime-comedy film written and directed by Shane Black, and starring Robert Downey, Jr., Val Kilmer, Michelle Monaghan and Corbin Bernsen. The script is partially based on the Brett Halliday novel "Bodies Are Where You Find Them", and interprets the classic hardboiled literary genre in a tongue-in-cheek fashion. The film was produced by Joel Silver, with Susan Downey (credited as Susan Levin) and Steve Richards as executive producers.
1060500	David Arquette (born September 8, 1971) is an American actor, film director, producer, screenwriter, and fashion designer. A member of the Arquette acting family, he first became known during the mid-1990s after starring in several Hollywood films, such as the "Scream" series, "Wild Bill" and "Buffy the Vampire Slayer". He has since had several television roles, such as Jason Ventress on ABC's "In Case of Emergency". In addition to his acting career, Arquette took a brief foray into professional wrestling in early 2000, competing for World Championship Wrestling (WCW). During his tenure (and mostly as a plug for his movie "Ready to Rumble"), Arquette became a one-time WCW World Heavyweight Champion, an angle that has been cited by wrestling commentators as being pivotal to the degradation of the title and the demise of WCW. Early life. Arquette was born in a Subud commune in Winchester, Virginia. The area had no electricity, bathrooms, or running water. He is the son of Brenda Olivia "Mardi" (née Nowak), an actress, poet, theater operator, activist, acting teacher, and therapist, and Lewis Arquette, an actor. Arquette's paternal grandfather was comedian Cliff Arquette. Arquette's mother was Jewish, the daughter of a Holocaust refugee from Nazi-occupied Poland, and his father was a convert to Islam from Catholocism. Arquette's siblings are actors Rosanna, Alexis, Richmond, and Patricia. The Arquettes had a dysfunctional upbringing, with a mother who was physically abusive and a father who abused substances. Acting career. Arquette appeared in a number of movies in the 1990s, including "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" (1992), "Airheads" (1994), and "Never Been Kissed" (1999). He had guest spots on television shows like "Blossom" (1992), "Beverly Hills, 90210" (1992), and "Friends" (1996). Arquette arguably achieved his biggest success in the horror/slasher film franchise "Scream". It was during the filming of the first film in 1996 that he first met his future wife, Courteney Cox. The couple married in 1999; together, they appeared in a 2003 advertisement for Coke and formed the production company Coquette (both a portmanteau of their last names and a word meaning a flirty woman), which has produced a number of films and television series, including "Daisy Does America", "Dirt", and "Cougar Town". Arquette guest starred alongside Cox on "Cougar Town" in 2012.
1037164	John Joseph Feild (born circa 1978–1979), known professionally as J. J. Feild, is a British-American actor. Early and education. John Joseph Feild was born in Boulder, Colorado, to English academic Reshad Feild and his American wife. Feild and his parents moved to London when he was a baby; they later divorced and remarried other people. Feild's stepfather is Jon Williams, the editor of BBC World News. Feild attended the Fine Arts College and the Webber Douglas Academy of Dramatic Art, both in London. When Feild was seventeen, he and his older brother went traveling around Tibet.
1101295	Edmund Taylor Whittaker FRS FRSE (24 October 1873 – 24 March 1956) was an English mathematician who contributed widely to applied mathematics, mathematical physics and the theory of special functions. He had a particular interest in numerical analysis, but also worked on celestial mechanics and the history of physics. Near the end of his career he received the Copley Medal, the most prestigious honorary award in British science. The School of Mathematics of the University of Edinburgh holds The Whittaker Colloquium, a yearly lecture in his honour. Biography. Whittaker was born in Southport, in Lancashire. He was educated at Manchester Grammar School and Trinity College, Cambridge from 1892. He graduated as Second Wrangler in the examination in 1895 and also received the Tyson Medal for Mathematics and Astronomy. In 1896, Whittaker was elected as a fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, and remained at Cambridge as a teacher until 1906. Between 1906 and 1911 he was the Royal Astronomer of Ireland and professor of astronomy at Trinity College Dublin where he taught mathematical physics. In 1911 Whittaker became professor at Edinburgh University and remained there for the rest of his career. Whittaker was a Christian and became a convert to the Roman Catholic Church (1930). In relation to that he was a member of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences from 1936 onward and was president of a Newman Society. Earlier at Cambridge in 1901 he married the daughter of a Presbyterian minister. They had five children, including the mathematician John Macnaghten Whittaker, (1905-1984) and his elder daughter, Beatrice, married E.T. Copson, who would later become Professor of Mathematics at St. Andrew's University. Whittaker wrote the biography of a famous Italian mathematician, Vito Volterra for the Royal Society in 1941. In 1954, he was selected by the Fellows of the Royal Society to receive the Copley Medal, the highest award granted by the scientific Royal Society of London, ""for his distinguished contributions to both pure and applied mathematics and to theoretical physics"". Back in 1931 Whittaker had received the Royal Society's Sylvester Medal ""for his original contributions to both pure and applied mathematics"". Whittaker died in Edinburgh, Scotland. "Whittaker & Watson". Whittaker is remembered as the author of "A Course of Modern Analysis" (1902), which in its 1915 second edition in collaboration with George Neville Watson became "Whittaker and Watson", one of the handful of mathematics texts of its era that was considered indispensable. This work has remained in print continuously for over a century. Special functions. Whittaker is the eponym of the Whittaker function or Whittaker integral, in the theory of confluent hypergeometric functions. This makes him also the eponym of the Whittaker model in the local theory of automorphic representations. He published also on algebraic functions and automorphic functions. He gave expressions for the Bessel functions as integrals involving Legendre functions. Partial differential equations. In the theory of partial differential equations, Whittaker developed a general solution of the Laplace equation in three dimensions and the solution of the wave equation. He developed the electrical potential field as a directional flow of energy (sometimes referred to as alternating currents). Whittaker's pair of papers in 1903 and 1904 indicated that any potential can be analysed by a Fourier-like series of waves, such as a planet's gravitational field point-charge. The superpositions of inward and outward wave pairs produce the "static" fields (or scalar potential). These were harmonically-related. By this conception, the structure of electric potential is created from two opposite, though balanced, parts. Whittaker suggested that gravity possessed a wavelike "undulatory" character. History of science. In 1910, Whittaker wrote "A History of the Theories of Aether and Electricity", which gave a very detailed account of the aether theories from René Descartes to Hendrik Lorentz and Albert Einstein, including the contributions of Hermann Minkowski, and which made Whittaker a respected historian of science. In 1951 (Vol. 1) and 1953 (Vol. 2), he published an extended and revised edition of his book in two volumes. The second volume contains some interesting historical remarks. For example, it contains a chapter named "The Relativity Theory of Poincaré and Lorentz", where Whittaker credited Henri Poincaré and Lorentz for developing special relativity, and he attributed to Albert Einstein's relativity paper only little importance. He also attributed the formula formula_1 to Poincaré. In 1984 Clifford Truesdell wrote that Whittaker "aroused colossal antagonism by trying to set the record straight on the basis of print and record rather than recollection and folklore and professional propaganda..." On the other hand Abraham Pais wrote that "Whittaker's treatment of special relativity shows how well the author's lack of physical insight matches his ignorance of the literature". According to Torretti, "Whittaker's views on the origin of special relativity have been rejected by the great majority of scholars", and he cites Born (1956), Houlton (1960,1964), Schribner (1964), Goldberg (1967), Zahar (1973), Hirosige (1976), Schaffner (1976), and Miller (1981). Applied mathematics and mathematical physics. Whittaker wrote "The Calculus of Observations: a treatise on numerical mathematics" (1924) and "Treatise on the Analytical Dynamics of Particles and Rigid Bodies: With an Introduction to the Problem of Three Bodies" (1937). He was the editor of Eddington's "Fundamental Theory" (1946), and wrote "From Euclid to Eddington, A Study of Conceptions of the External World" (1949), including a first scholarly account of some of the research between 1900 to 1925.
591232	Rickshawkaran ( ) is a 1971 Tamil-language film starring M. G. Ramachandran. It was a major success and was produced by Sathya Movies, owned by R. M. Veerappan who was a close colleague of M. G. Ramachandran. M. G. R, the lead actor won a National Film Award in the Best Actor category. Plot. The movie begins with M. G. R contesting in a Rickshaw race along with fellow rickshaw drivers, meanwhile elsewhere a man with a child is being chased by a thug. The man is killed and he is burnt. M. G. R finds the kid and goes in search of justice but is failed by the judicial system by a corrupt lawyer. Manjula plays the female lead, while Padmini plays a supporting role.
578546	Phobia 2 ( or "Ha Prang", lit. "5-way Intersection") is a 2009 Thai horror film in five parts, directed by Songyos Sugmakanan, Banjong Pisanthanakun, Parkpoom Wongpoom, Visute Poolvoralaks, and Paween Purijitpanya. Synopsis. Phobia 2 is dissected into 5 shorts stories; Novice, Ward, Backpackers, Salvage, and In The End. Novice. by Paween Purijitpanya
1163109	Joseph Anthony "Bee" Fatone, Jr. (born January 28, 1977) is an American singer, dancer, actor and television personality. He is best known as a member of the boyband 'N Sync, in which he sang baritone. In 2007, he came in second place on the ABC reality show "Dancing with the Stars". He was also the host of the U.S. and Australian versions of "The Singing Bee" which aired on NBC in the U.S.. Currently Fatone is the announcer on "Family Feud", and is also guest host of "The Price Is Right Live!" at Bally's Las Vegas. Early life and education. Fatone was born in Brooklyn to an Italian American family and lived in Bensonhurst. He attended Joseph B. Cavallaro J.H.S. (I.S. 281) located at 8787 24th Avenue, Brooklyn. He is the son of Phyllis and Joseph Anthony Fatone, Sr., the latter of whom is an actor and musician. He has two older siblings, Janine and Steven. At thirteen years, Fatone and his family moved to Orlando, Florida. There, Fatone attended and graduated from Dr. Phillips High School. During High school Fatone would go by the name P.J. and would perform singing Valentines to raise money for his school's Glee club. Reportedly, at his graduation, Fatone sang a rendition of "The Star Spangled Banner", celebrated as a precursor to his future success. Career. Before becoming famous, Fatone appeared as a contestant on the classic Nickelodeon game show "Nick Arcade". However, Fatone and his partner on that episode did not proceed to the bonus round because of buzzing in and answering a question about Abraham Lincoln incorrectly.
1065545	88 Minutes is a 2008 American thriller film directed by Jon Avnet, and starring Al Pacino, Alicia Witt, Leelee Sobieski, William Forsythe, Deborah Kara Unger, Amy Brenneman, Neal McDonough and Benjamin McKenzie. Filming began in the Vancouver area on October 8, 2005, and wrapped up in December 2005. In 2007 the film was released in various European countries. In May 2007, Sony Pictures Worldwide Acquisitions Group paid $6 million to acquire North American and select international distribution rights of "88 Minutes". The group released this film in the United States theatrically on April 18, 2008, through TriStar Pictures.
1065557	Aasif Hakim Mandviwala (born March 5, 1966), known professionally as Aasif Mandvi , is an Indian-American actor and comedian. He began appearing as an occasional contributing correspondent on "The Daily Show" on August 9, 2006. On March 12, 2007, he was promoted to a regular correspondent. Early life. Mandvi was born in Bombay (now Mumbai), India, to a Muslim family. His family moved to Bradford, England, when he was a year old, where his father ran a corner shop and his mother was a nurse. Although Mandvi identifies himself as a "working-class kid from Bradford", he attended the independent Woodhouse Grove School. His father grew frustrated with Margaret Thatcher's Britain and moved his family to Tampa, Florida, when Mandvi was 16. Career. Early work. After graduating from the University of South Florida with a degree in Theatre, Mandvi worked as a performer at Disney-MGM Studios at Walt Disney World Resort. He later moved to New York City where he began appearing in off-Broadway productions. During this time he also was active in the band Cowboys and Indian. He won an Obie Award for his critically acclaimed one-man show "Sakina's Restaurant". On Broadway, Mandvi appeared as Ali Hakim in the 2002 revival of "Oklahoma!" directed by Trevor Nunn. He also appeared in the play "Homebody/Kabul" by Tony Kushner. He portrayed Fritz Haber in the off-Broadway play "Einstein's Gift". Mandvi played Melchior in "On the Razzle" by Tom Stoppard at the Williamstown Theatre Festival and appeared in the docudrama "" at The Culture Project. In 2012 Mandvi starred in "Disgraced" at The Clare Tow Theater at Lincoln Center. He played the lead role of Amir, a Pakistani American lawyer struggling with his identity and Islam in the drama by Ayad Akhtar. The play went on to win the 2013 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. Television roles. Mandvi made his television debut as a doorman at the Biltmore Hotel in the episode "Line of Fire" of the series Miami Vice. He has since appeared in numerous television shows: "ER", "The Sopranos", "Sex and the City", ', "Oz", "Ed", "The Bedford Diaries", "Jericho", "Sleeper Cell" and various editions of "Law & Order", including ', ' and '. He was the book reader for audio editions of Salman Rushdie's "Shalimar the Clown" (2005) and V. S. Naipaul's "Magic Seeds" (2004). He recently has been starring in Taco Bell commercials (2011). In 2006, Mandvi auditioned for "The Daily Show". He was hired immediately and appeared on the show the same day. Mandvi became a regular correspondent in 2007. He often appears in segments satirizing and commenting on Islamic, Middle-Eastern, and South-Asian-related issues with such titles as "Senior Asian Correspondent," "Senior Middle East Correspondent," "Senior Foreign Looking Correspondent," and "Senior Muslim Correspondent." In 2013, Mandvi was cast in a recurring role on the FOX romantic comedy, Us & Them. Film work. Mandvi played minor roles in the films "The Siege" and "Die Hard with a Vengeance" as well as the title role in Merchant Ivory Productions' film "The Mystic Masseur". He also had a major supporting role in the independent film "American Chai", playing the lead character's roommate, "Engineering Sam." He played the doctor who diagnosed Paul Vitti's (Robert De Niro) panic attacks in "Analyze This," and had a role as Mr. Aziz of "Joe's Pizza" in "Spider-Man 2." He was also in commercials by Domino's Pizza and FINRA . He played the tone deaf doorman Khan in "Music and Lyrics". He has a role in the 2013 film The Internship. Mandvi played a dentist alongside Ricky Gervais in the 2008 romantic comedy "Ghost Town", as well as office employee Bob Spaulding in "The Proposal", starring Sandra Bullock. "Today's Special", which Mandvi co-wrote with Jonathan Bines, premiered at the London Film Festival in October 2009 and New York's Mahindra Indo-American Arts Council Film Festival on November 11, 2009. He appeared in "It's Kind of a Funny Story", a coming-of-age film written and directed by Anna Boden with Ryan Fleck, adapted from the 2006 novel by Ned Vizzini. He also co-starred as a Guantanamo captive in the film "The Response", a script based on the transcripts of Combatant Status Review Tribunals convened in Guantanamo in 2004. In M. Night Shyamalan's "The Last Airbender" (released in 2010) he played a major role as Commander Zhao. Charity work. Mandvi is involved with disaster relief organizations like the charity initiative Relief 4 Pakistan, which assists in flood relief in Pakistan. In 2010 he hosted the "Stand Up for Religious Freedom" comedy event to raise money for the organization. After the 2010 Haiti earthquake, he performed with fellow "Daily Show" correspondent Wyatt Cenac at Conan O'Brien's "I'm with Coco" Benefit for earthquake victims. He is also a supporter of the Endometriosis Foundation of America.
1165725	Angela Margaret Cartwright (born September 9, 1952) is an English-born American actress primarily known for her roles in movies and television. Cartwright is best known as a child actress for her role as Brigitta Von Trapp in the film "The Sound of Music", as Danny Williams' stepdaughter Linda in the 1950s TV series "Make Room For Daddy" (a role she played from 1957 to 1964), and as Penny Robinson in the 1960s television series "Lost in Space". Her older sister is actress Veronica Cartwright. Early life and career. Angela Cartwright was born in Altrincham, Cheshire, England. She made her first film appearance at three years old as Paul Newman's daughter in "Somebody Up There Likes Me" (1956), and appeared with Sidney Poitier in "Something of Value" (1957). After moving to the US, Cartwright appeared for seven seasons in the TV series "Make Room For Daddy". While there, she had wonderful on- and off-screen relationships with Danny Thomas and Marjorie Lord. She was reunited with both Thomas and Lord for the 1970 remake, "Make Room For Granddaddy". After the series was canceled, Cartwright remained on good terms with Thomas until his death. She played Penny Robinson opposite TV veterans Guy Williams, June Lockhart and Jonathan Harris in the hit TV series "Lost in Space" (1965–1968). She made appearances on several TV shows including "My Three Sons", "Adam-12", and "The Love Boat". She also appeared in several films, most notably in the role of Brigitta von Trapp in "The Sound of Music" (1965). She later appeared in "Beyond the Poseidon Adventure" (1979), directed by "Lost in Space" producer Irwin Allen. She was given a small speaking role in the 1998 "Lost in Space" theatrical remake. She was in the television movies "Scout's Honour" (1980) and "High School U.S.A." (1983). Cartwright has also appeared in the theatre and TV commercials. She was one of the first stars to take advantage of the World Wide Web and has had her own website for many years. She has published one successful book and will soon publish another one co-written with Bill Mumy, her co-star from "Lost in Space". Personal life. Cartwright married Steve Gullion in 1976 and has two children, Jesse and Rebecca Gullion. She has been a photographer for 30 years. Her fine art is displayed at her studio in Studio City, Los Angeles. Filmography. A partial listing of Angela Cartwright's appearances in movies and television appears below.
1790511	Anthony Ainley (20 August 1932 – 3 May 2004) was an English actor best known for his work on British television and particularly for his role as the Master in "Doctor Who". He was the fourth actor to play the role of the Master, and the first actor to portray the Master as a recurring role after the death of Roger Delgado in 1973. Early life. Ainley was born in Stanmore, Middlesex the son of the actor Henry Ainley. His half-brother, Richard Ainley, was also an actor. Although he was born on 20 August 1932 his birth was not registered until January 1938 following the birth of his brother Timothy. The birth certificates of Anthony and Timothy identify their mother as Clarice Holmes and it is under this surname that they are recorded in the Official Register. Although no father is named on the birth certificates Timothy's marriage certificate identifies Henry Ainley as his father. Career. Early. Ainley's swarthy appearance tended to get him parts as villains, though an early regular role on British television was as Det. Sgt Hunter, sidekick to William Mervyn's Chief Inspector Rose in the second series of "It's Dark Outside" in 1966. Other notable roles include a subaltern in the 1969 film version of "Oh! What a Lovely War", Dietz in the 1975 film version of "The Land That Time Forgot", Fallowfield in the Tigon film "Blood on Satan's Claw" (1971), Henry Sidney in "Elizabeth R" (1971), Clive Hawksworth in "Spyder's Web" (1972), Rev. Emilius in the BBC's adaptation of "The Pallisers" (1974), Johnson in the first episode of the BBC programme "Secret Army" (1977), and Sunley in "The Avengers" episode "Noon Doomsday" (1968). He was also one of the Hong Kong policemen who discover James Bond's supposed corpse in the opening sequence of "You Only Live Twice" (1967). Ainley played the role of the wealthy young peer Lord Charles Gilmour in the ITV series "Upstairs, Downstairs" (1973). "Doctor Who". Reportedly, it was his performance as Rev. Emilius (in "The Pallisers") that led to him being offered the role of the Master by John Nathan-Turner, who had worked on "The Pallisers" seven years before becoming producer of "Doctor Who". Ainley first portrayed the Master in the 1981 serial "The Keeper of Traken" and appeared in almost every season up until the cancellation of the original series in 1989, including its final serial, "Survival". He later reprised the role for the 1997 BBC computer game "Destiny of the Doctors". Ainley's great love of the role is often cited in documentaries and DVD commentaries. Script Editor Eric Saward claimed that he introduced himself over the phone by saying "This is the Master" and then would laugh. In the commentary and documentary for "The Mark of the Rani", both Colin Baker and Kate O'Mara say that "He only ever wanted to play the Master". Colin Baker remarked that he could afford this luxury because he had built up a private income by the mid-1980s and had inherited a considerable sum of money from his father. Personal life. Ainley remained unmarried throughout his life. He joked on the DVD commentary for "The Keeper of Traken" (which was recorded shortly before his death) that he didn't like the three rings of marriage: the engagement ring, the wedding ring and the bicke"ring". Ainley was a keen sportsman. Initially he was a rugby player, he played at fly half for the Old Cranleighans, Richmond and Middlesex. Later he turned his attentions to cricket - even abruptly citing Sophie Aldred (who played Ace) as his friend once he learned that she played the game. He appeared on many occasions for the Stage and London Theatres C.C. mainly as an opening batsman. Death. Ainley died at the age of 71 on May 3, 2004. "The Times" ' obituary for him listed his cause of death as cancer. Ainley was known to be very private, and remained out of the public eye for most of his life after "Doctor Who" ended in 1989. It is for this reason that many believed reports of his death were a hoax.
1377902	Gig Morton (born March 22, 1996) is a Canadian actor. Beginning a professional career as a child actor at the age of nine, Morton is a six time Young Artist Award nominee, best known for his role as B-Dawg's boy, "Billy" in four installments of the "Air Buddies" film franchise, "Air Buddies", "Snow Buddies", "Space Buddies", and "Santa Buddies", as well as for his co-starring role as "Derby" on the Canadian teen sitcom, "Mr. Young".
1064956	Patrick Connolly Bergin (born 4 February 1951) is an Irish actor and singer. He may be best-known internationally for playing the menacing husband of Julia Roberts' character in the thriller "Sleeping with the Enemy" and is also known for his role as Irish terrorist Kevin O'Donnell in the film adaption of "Patriot Games". Bergin also appeared as Robin Hood in a 1991 TV movie. He also played the role of psychotic Provisional Irish Republican Army gunman in "Johnny Was", opposite Vinnie Jones and Roger Daltrey. Music. Currently, he leads Patrick Bergin and the Spirit Merchants. Bergin had a top 10 hit in Ireland with the song "The Knacker", which tells the story of a person who recycles horse carcasses and turns them into glue. He also appeared in the video of DJ Steve Mac's song "Paddy's Revenge".
1170079	Richard Gilliland (born January 23, 1950) is an American television and movie actor. Gilliland was born in Fort Worth, Texas. He appeared onscreen in the 1970s. Notable appearances include "Thirtysomething", "Party of Five", "Little Women", and a recurring role on "Designing Women" (where he met his wife Jean Smart, who starred as Charlene in that series). The couple has one son, Connor. Richard recently played Ellis Kapp on "The Unit" and Captain Stan Cotter on "24" while his wife Jean Smart played the First Lady Martha Logan in season 5. (He was in episode 2:00am to 3:00am). Gilliland is best friends with actor Joe Mantegna. Gilliland is also very active in the theatre. Recent credits include "Balancing Act", with Yeardley Smith and "I Remember You", with Tony Danza; both at Garry Marshall's Falcon Theatre. He studied at the University of Kansas, the Goodman School of Drama, Playwright's Kitchen Ensemble and spent four seasons at summer stock.
1169619	Alfred "Lash" LaRue (June 15, 1917–May 21, 1996) was a popular western motion picture star of the 1940s and 1950s. He had exceptional skill with the bull whip, and taught Harrison Ford how to use a bullwhip in the Indiana Jones movies. LaRue was one of the first recipients of the Golden Boot Awards in 1983. Biography. Early life and education. Born Alfred LaRue in Watervliet, Michigan, he was reared in various towns throughout Louisiana, but in his teens the family moved to Los Angeles, California, where he attended St. John's Military Academy. However, California death records show his father's last name as Wilson and that he was born in Michigan. Films. He began acting in films in 1944 as Al LaRue, appearing in two musicals and a serial before being given a role in a Western film that would result in his being cast in a cowboy persona for virtually the rest of his career. He was given the name Lash because of the -long bullwhip he used to help bring down the bad guys. The popularity of his first role as the Cheyenne Kid, a sidekick of singing cowboy hero Eddie Dean, not just brandishing a whip but using it expertly to disarm villains, paved the way for LaRue to be featured in his own series of Western films. After appearing in all three of the Eddie Dean Cinecolor singing Westerns in 1945/46, he starred in quirky B-westerns from 1947 to 1951, at first for Poverty Row studio PRC, then to Eagle-Lion when they took over the studio and later for producer Ron Ormond. He developed his image as a cowboy hero dressed all in black and inherited from Buster Crabbe a comic sidekick in the form of "Fuzzy Q. Jones" played by Al St. John. He was different from the usual cowboy hero of the era; dressed in black, he spoke with a "city tough-guy" accent, somewhat like that of Humphrey Bogart, whom he physically resembled. His use of a bullwhip, however, was what set him apart from bigger cowboy stars such as Gene Autry and Roy Rogers. His influence was felt throughout the dying medium of B-westerns; for example, he had an imitator, Whip Wilson, who starred in his own brief series, and even Roy Rogers started picking up and using a bullwhip in some of his Republic Studios Westerns made in the same period. He also made frequent personal appearances at small-town movie theaters that were showing his films during his heyday of 1948-1951, a common practice for cowboy stars in those days. However, his skillful displays of stunts with his whip, done live on movie theater stages, also convinced young Western fans that there was at least one cowboy hero who could do in real life the same things he did on screen. "Lash LaRue Western". "Lash LaRue Western" comic books were published first by Fawcett Comics and later by Charlton Comics, between 1949 and 1961. They were among the most popular Western-themed comics of the era, running for more than 100 (usually monthly) issues. For a time he was married to Reno Browne, a B-western actress, who together with Dale Evans was one of only two Western actresses ever to have their own comic book fashioned after her character. He later married Barbara Fuller who was an accomplished actress of both radio (Clauda on "One Man's Family") and motion pictures and television, having played opposite Charles Boyer. Lash LaRue comic books sold over one million copies around the world and many of them featured Lash and Barbara's godson, J.P. Sloane. Television. In the later 1950s, LaRue was featured in archival footage numerous times on the children's program, "The Gabby Hayes Show". He appeared several times too on the syndicated television series "26 Men", true stories of the Arizona Rangers. He appeared seven times in different roles in the 1956 TV Western, "Judge Roy Bean", starring Edgar Buchanan in the title role, with Jack Buetel and Jackie Loughery. One of his roles on "Judge Roy Bean" was as the outlaw John Wesley Hardin.
900650	The Best of Youth (), is a 2003 Italian film directed by Marco Tullio Giordana. Originally planned as a four-part mini-series, it was presented at the 2003 Cannes Film Festival where it won the Un Certain Regard award. It was then given a theatrical release in Italy in two three-hour parts in which 40 minutes were edited out. The complete version was aired in Italy from December 7 to 15, 2003 on Rai Uno in four parts. In the U. S., the film was screened in several cities in two three-hour parts. The two-disc DVD of the film is similarly divided. Giordana, who directed a film about the suspicious circumstances surrounding the death of poet and director Pier Paolo Pasolini, again paid tribute to the director in this film, as its title comes from a Pasolini poem. The film falls within the tradition of several Italian films that cover expansive times of Italian history through the story of one family, such as "Rocco and His Brothers" and "The Leopard". Plot. "The Best of Youth" is a family saga set in Italy from 1966 through 2003. It chronicles the life of an Italian family, the Caratis, but focuses primarily on two brothers, Matteo (Alessio Boni) and Nicola (Luigi Lo Cascio), documenting their journey from the prime of their wild youth in the mid-1960s counterculture, to parenthood and retirement in the early 2000s. The film aims to show the interaction of the personal and the political, the ways in which small events may become turning points in the important choices made by individuals. 1966 summer. Two brothers go their separate ways after attempting to rescue a young girl, Giorgia (Jasmine Trinca), from an abusive sanitarium. The brothers are Nicola and Matteo Carati (Luigi Lo Cascio and Alessio Boni). Their parents are Angelo (Andrea Tidona) and Adriana (Adriana Asti), their older sister is Giovanna (Lidia Vitale), and their younger sister is Francesca (Valentina Carnelutti). Their friends, their lovers and others drift through, including Giorgia who struggles with mental issues, but whose life seems to follow in parallel.
1431870	Nathan Gamble (born January 12, 1998) is an American teen actor who made his feature film debut in "Babel" (2006), for which he was nominated for a 2007 Young Artist Award. Life and career. Gamble was born in Tacoma, Washington, the son of theater directors who run a drama camp for children. His additional screen credits include "Dry Rain" (2007), "Saving Sam" (2007), "Diggers" (2007), "The Mist" (2007), "The Dark Knight" (2008), "Marley & Me" (2008) and "Dolphin Tale" (2011). On television, Gamble appeared in "Runaway" in 2006; crossover episodes of "" and "Without a Trace" in 2007; and "House M.D." and "Ghost Whisperer" in 2008. In 2009 he played the role of Henry Pryor, son of the titular character in "Hank". In 2010 he played the role of Daniel in a short film called Displaced, the film was commissioned by the city of Seattle as part of the Water Calling series and aired at Seattle Channel.
1065406	The Love Bug (1968), sometimes referred to as Herbie the Love Bug is the first in a series of comedy films made by Walt Disney Productions that starred an anthropomorphic pearl-white, fabric-sunroofed 1963 Volkswagen racing Beetle named Herbie. It was based on the 1961 book "Car, Boy, Girl" by Gordon Buford.
1064400	Henry Travers (5 March 1874 – 18 October 1965) was an English actor. His most memorable role was the angel Clarence Odbody in the 1946 film "It's a Wonderful Life". Early life. Travers was born Travers John Heagerty in Prudhoe, Northumberland, and was the son of Daniel Heagerty, a doctor. Travers grew up in Berwick-upon-Tweed, and many biographies wrongly report him as being born there. The Travers family lived in Prudhoe for a couple of years, before moving from Woodburn, on the A68 road near Corsenside, Northumberland, in about 1866, to Tweedmouth, Berwick-upon-Tweed, in about 1876. Initially he trained as an architect at Berwick before taking to the stage under the name Henry Travers. Career. A stage actor in Britain, he emigrated to the United States and appeared in Hollywood film productions beginning in 1933. His first film was "Reunion in Vienna". He made his last film in 1949. Travers' most famous role was as the angel Clarence who comes to save James Stewart's character from suicide in Frank Capra's classic "It's a Wonderful Life". He was also an Oscar-nominated actor for his role in the film "Mrs. Miniver". Personal life. On his death in 1965, Travers was interred in the Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, California, USA.
774943	"It's All Gone Pete Tong" is a 2004 Canadian independent film about Frankie Wilde (played by Paul Kaye), a DJ who goes completely deaf. The title is a reference to a cockney rhyming slang phrase used in Britain from the 80s to present day, referring to the BBC Radio 1 DJ Pete Tong, standing for "it's all gone a bit wrong".
1395930	James Wallace Langham II (born March 11, 1965) is an American actor. He currently plays the role of David Hodges in the American crime drama television series "". Film career. Formerly billed as Wally Ward, Langham got his start in the John Hughes film "Weird Science", as well as in "The Invisible Kid" and the ABC Afterschool Special entitled "Just a Regular Kid: An AIDS Story", but later moved to roles as a young bigot in "Soul Man" and as a gang leader in "The Chocolate War". He appeared in the Eddie Murphy comedy "Daddy Day Care" and had a role in the comedy "Little Miss Sunshine". Langham's most recent film appearance was in the critically acclaimed "The Social Network". Television career. Langham dropped the Ward moniker in the 1990s as he moved to more adult roles, appearing as a regular in the much-hyped but short-lived CBS series "WIOU". His big breakthrough came when he was cast as Phil, the cynical staff writer for insecure talk show host Larry Sanders, in HBO's sitcom "The Larry Sanders Show". Langham then took on a role in NBC's "Veronica's Closet", playing Kirstie Alley's gay assistant Josh. He then appeared on the Joan Cusack sitcom "What About Joan?". He has guest-starred on many series including, "Murphy Brown", "NewsRadio", "ER", "Murder, She Wrote", "Sex and the City", "21 Jump Street", "Medium", both the 1985 and the 2002 versions of "The Twilight Zone", "The Outer Limits", "", "Curb Your Enthusiasm", "Monk", and "Grace Under Fire". He was the voice of Andy French on the animated series "Mission Hill", as well as the Care-Bots and Smoltz in "Buzz Lightyear of Star Command", Basil Karlo/Clayface II in "The Batman", Orm/Ocean Master in "" and Anarky in "Beware the Batman". Langham currently plays lab technician David Hodges on the CBS series "". Starting with the eighth season premiere, Langham was listed in the main titles. Personal life. Langham was born in Fort Worth, Texas, the son of Sunni, a costume designer, and James Langham, an elevator repairman. He is part of the pre-show for the ride DINOSAUR in Disney's Animal Kingdom in Orlando, Florida. He explains the reason for going back in time and saving a stray dinosaur and his voice can be heard throughout the attraction. In March 2000, Langham pleaded no contest to battery charges after beating a gay tabloid reporter (who had allegedly made accusations against Langham's girlfriend's tattoos; the reporter in turn claimed that Langham yelled homophobic slurs at him while he was being beaten) and was ordered to serve three years probation and to serve 450 hours of community service for gay and lesbian charities, and to donate $10,000 to the Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Center. In exchange for pleading no contest, prosecutors dropped a hate crime charge that had been filed against him. In a statement, Langham said he supports gay rights "and would have never attacked anyone had I not first been provoked."
1584283	Horn Ok Please (also known as "Horn 'OK' Pleassss") is a Bollywood romantic comedy film directed by Rakesh Sarang. The film stars Muzammil Ibrahim and Nana Patekar in lead roles. The film was set to be released in 2009, but unfortunately the director wanted it to come out lately so the film did get released, but only in India yet. Worldwide except India, the film will be released in Summer 2010. Plot. The protagonist of the film could easily be termed as a 'pro-love-gonist'. Govinda (Nana Patekar) plays the central theme role. His own life's theme works only around 'love'. He's a 'Crorepati' (billionaire) truck driver. And to double the fun, he is a truck driver who goes out of his way to spread and support his love for 'love'. To get things rolling, Ajay (Muzamil Ibrahim) comes in the picture. Ajay's unplanned surprise is his meeting with Govinda. And seeking his help leads to a chain of surprises. Ajay loves Sia (Rimi Sen), the twin sister of Govinda's wife Ria (also played by Rimi Sen). Govinda does not know this. And that's where begins a whole roller-coaster ride of hilarity with more characters joining in the fray. Will Ajay get his lady-love? Will Sia-Ria confusion be solved? Or will Govinda be able to survive this self-created life-or-death chaos for love? This laugh-riot holds the key for all these in its underbelly.
1057806	Dylan Walsh (born Charles M. Walsh: November 17, 1963) is an American actor. He is perhaps best known as Dr. Sean McNamara in the FX television series "Nip/Tuck". Early life. Walsh was born Charles M. Walsh in Los Angeles, California. His maternal grandfather, Frank P. Haven, was a managing editor of the Los Angeles Times. His parents worked for the Foreign Service—they met in Ethiopia. As a result, Walsh lived in East Africa, India, Pakistan and Indonesia as a boy. His family returned to the United States when he was ten years old and settled in Virginia, where Walsh began acting in high school. He graduated from the University of Virginia in 1986 with a degree in English. After graduating from college, Walsh moved to New York City to act professionally. Career. Walsh's first role was in a television movie called "Soldier Boys" with James Earl Jones. He then landed a role in the movie "Loverboy" and a regular role on the television series "Kate & Allie". In 1989, he started using the name Dylan Walsh professionally. He continued to work in films including "Betsy's Wedding", "Nobody's Fool", "Congo", "The Stepfather", and "Secretariat", and guest starred the television series "Brooklyn South", "The Twilight Zone", and "Everwood". O In 2003, Walsh landed the role of Sean McNamara on the television series "Nip/Tuck", after being approached by series creator Ryan Murphy in a coffee shop. Murphy remembered him from his role in "Nobody's Fool" and in a television movie. Walsh currently appears on the CBS series "Unforgettable". Personal life. Walsh was married to actress Melora Walters from 1996 to 2003, with whom he had two children, Joanna Marie and Thomas Charles. He later married actress Joanna Going on October 10, 2004, with whom he has a daughter, Stella Haven(November 2003). On December 15, 2010 Walsh announced he had filed for divorce. The divorce was finalized in December 2012. On November 8, 2011, Walsh broke the news that he welcomed a daughter, Amelie Belle Walsh, six weeks earlier. He has only revealed the mother as "my girlfriend; Leslie". In 2013 with fitness trainer Leslie Bourque he had son Hudson Scott
1103886	Luis A. Caffarelli (born December 8, 1948) is an Argentine mathematician and leader in the field of partial differential equations and their applications. Caffarelli obtained his Masters of Science (1968) and Ph.D. (1972) at the University of Buenos Aires. He currently holds the Sid Richardson Chair at the University of Texas at Austin. He also has been a professor at the University of Minnesota, the University of Chicago, and the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences at New York University. From 1986 to 1996 he was a professor at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. In 1991 he was elected to the National Academy of Sciences. He has been awarded "Doctor Honoris Causa" from l'École Normale Supérieure, Paris; Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, and Universidad de La Plata, Argentina. He received the Bôcher Memorial Prize in 1984. Caffarelli received great recognition with his breakthrough paper "The regularity of free boundaries in higher dimensions" published in 1977 in "Acta Mathematica". Since then, he has been considered one of the world's leading experts in free boundary problems and nonlinear partial differential equations. He developed several regularity results for fully nonlinear elliptic equations including the Monge-Ampere equation. He is also famous for his contributions to homogenization. Recently, he has taken an interest in Integro-differential equations. One of his most cited and celebrated results regards the "Partial regularity of suitable weak solutions of the Navier–Stokes equations", obtained in 1982 in collaboration with Louis Nirenberg and Robert V. Kohn. In 2003 Konex Foundation from Argentina granted him the Diamond Konex Award, one of the most prestigious awards in Argentina, as the most important Scientist of his country in the last decade. In 2005, he received the prestigious Rolf Schock Prize of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences "for his important contributions to the theory of nonlinear partial differential equations". He also received the Leroy P. Steele Prize for Lifetime Achievement in Mathematics in 2009. In 2012 he was awarded the Wolf Prize in Mathematics (jointly with Michael Aschbacher) and became a fellow of the American Mathematical Society. Bibliography. In addition to over two hundred articles in refereed academic journals, Caffarelli has coauthored two books:
1100591	In mathematics, a basis function is an element of a particular basis for a function space. Every continuous function in the function space can be represented as a linear combination of basis functions, just as every vector in a vector space can be represented as a linear combination of basis vectors.
1683110	Katy Jurado (born María Cristina Estela Marcela Jurado García; January 16, 1924 – July 5, 2002), was a Mexican actress who had a successful film career both in Mexico and in Hollywood.
1040525	Sharon Patricia Maughan (born June 22, 1950) is a British actress. Early life. Maughan was born in Kirkby, Lancashire, England, one of 5 siblings in an Irish Catholic family. Her father was a seaman. She attended the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art at the age of 18. Sharon is credited professionally as Maughan, Mughan or Mugham. Career. She initially acted in several television series including "The Main Chance", "Shabby Tiger", "By the Sword Divided", "The Enigma Files" and "The Flame Trees of Thika". She has worked in theatre, television and film including "Dombey and Son", "Inspector Morse", "A Doll's House", "Arcadia" and "Another Stakeout". From 1987 to 1992 she starred in the popular Gold Blend couple television advertisements for Nescafé Gold Blend instant coffee (Taster's Choice in the United States) alongside actor Anthony Head and her husband Trevor Eve. From 2003 to 2006 she had a regular role as Nurse Tricia Williams in the BBC One medical drama television series "Holby City". With Lysette Anthony, Maughan was also part of the cast for the 15-minute short film "A Study After Cruel Intentions". She appeared in the 2010 U.S. film "She's Out of My League", in the role of Molly's mother, the lead female character played by her real life daughter Alice. Her husband, Trevor Eve, played Molly's father. He also appeared as Maughan's ex-husband in the famous television advertisements for Nescafé Gold Blend coffee (known as Taster's Choice in the USA). In 2009, Maughan guest starred in the BBC's "Waking the Dead", where Eve was the main star, until the show was cancelled in 2011. She was a participant in the 2011 series of "Celebrity MasterChef". Maughan completed three films in 2012: "The Babymakers" directed by Jay Chandrakauser; "Flying Home" directed by Dominique Derrudiere and "Time Lapse". Personal life. Maughan met actor Trevor Eve in 1979 when they both had parts in the West End show "Filumena". They married in 1980 and subsequently had three children: Alice Sophia born 6 February 1982 who is also an actress; Jack (born 1985) and George (born 1994).
1056985	Untamed Heart is a 1993 film starring Christian Slater and Marisa Tomei. It mixes drama with romance and comedy and tells the story of a young woman, always unlucky in love, finally finding true love in a very shy young man. The film is directed by Tony Bill, and written by Tom Sierchio. The original music score is composed by Cliff Eidelman. Plot summary. Caroline (Tomei) is a young woman working as a waitress who is always unlucky in love. Adam (Slater) is a shy busboy who saves Caroline when two men try to rape her on her way home one night. She then gets to know him. They become close, but she finds out his past, and the attackers come after Adam for revenge. They end up stabbing him. As their relationship progresses, Caroline discovers that Adam has a heart defect, though he claims he has a baboon heart. On his birthday he goes to a hockey game with Caroline, and catches a hockey puck that is shot into the crowd. On the way home he falls asleep and dies at the age of 27. Production. Tony Bill discovered Tom Sierchio’s screenplay for "Untamed Heart" during one of his talent hunts. He asked an agent at William Morris to send him screenplays from new writers. Originally, Sierchio’s screenplay had been submitted as a writer’s sample. Bill showed the screenplay to producer Helen Bartlett who suggested that they option it. Within two weeks of Sierchio handing his script to his agent, MGM had greenlighted the project. Originally the film was entitled "The Baboon Heart" in honor of an infant named Baby Fae (born 14 October 1984) who received a cross-species heart transplant from a baboon to fix a congenital heart defect. Initially, Bill had not considered Christian Slater for the role of Adam, “but then it was just the obvious choice." For the role of Caroline, Bill remembered auditioning Marisa Tomei for his earlier film, "Five Corners". She had been too young for that role but after her success with "My Cousin Vinny", he knew she was right for this film. Sierchio’s screenplay was originally set in New Jersey but for logistical reasons they could not shoot there. The filmmakers considered finding a location to double for the state but while Bill, Bartlett and Sierchio were scouting in Minneapolis, they realized that it was the perfect place because of its strong acting community (they cast 35 of the film’s 40 roles from it) and a large commercial producing community which allowed them to utilize a mostly local crew. The city’s locations were also a strong factor in deciding to shoot there. The centerpiece was Jim’s Coffee Shop & Bakery, which actually existed at the time of production but was closed to the public for the duration of shooting the film. Bill said, “It had a wonderful combination of ingredients from every diner you’ve ever been to; we’ve done very little to change it for the film. In fact, we changed the original name of the diner in the script to reflect that it is Jim’s." Principal photography began in March 1992 amidst cold temperatures. However, several scenes in winter were shot in May and fake snow had to be created to maintain the illusion. One scene was shot at the Met Center, the home of the Minnesota North Stars at the time. Tomei wanted to have a believable regional accent and chose a driver, Craig Kittelson who was from the area and could act as her “dialogue coach.” Once she got the accent down, she continued to speak in it on and off the set. Reception. Film critic Roger Ebert wrote that the movie was "kind of sweet and kind of goofy, and works because its heart is in the right place". Hal Hinson of "The Washington Post" said that the film "is hopelessly syrupy, preposterous and more than a little bit lame, but, still, somehow it got to me". Vincent Canby of "The New York Times", said that the movie "is to the mind what freshly discarded chewing gum is to the sole of a shoe: an irritant that slows movement without any real danger of stopping it". "Entertainment Weekly" gave the film a "B-" rating and Owen Gleiberman praised Tomei's performance: "With her flashing dark eyes and libidinous overbite, Tomei is adorable — she looks like a flirtatious bunny rabbit — but what's astonishing is the range of expression that passes over those delectable features". "Rolling Stone" magazine's Peter Travers wrote, "The "Rain Man"-"Dying Young" elements in Tom Sierchio's script are pitfalls that Slater dodges with a wonderfully appealing performance. His love scenes with the dazzling Tomei have an uncommon delicacy". In his review for "The New Yorker", Anthony Lane praised Tomei for bringing "startling high spirits to a dullish role. She snatches moments of happiness out of the air and shares them out to anyone who’s around". Mike Clark, in his review for "USA Today", wrote, "Director Tony Bill ("My Bodyguard") is adept both in the yarn's meticulous buildup and in his handling of the actors".
1744393	At the 60th Locarno International Film Festival, where "Vexille" made its world premiere, the film was sold to 75 countries, including the United States-based distributor, FUNimation; however since that time the number increased to 129 countries. Plot. By the 2060s, robotics technology has become extremely advanced, including cybernetics. World opinion begins to turn against robotics, leading to the U.N. declaring a unilateral ban on further research in 2067. Japan, being home to robotics pioneer Daiwa Heavy Industries, strongly protests this ban, but is unable to prevent its passage. In protest, Japan withdraws from international politics. All foreigners are deported, and further immigration is prohibited. In addition, the R.A.C.E. network is constructed — 270 off-shore installations that cover Japan with an energy field, nullifying all communication with the outside world and making satellite surveillance impossible. Trade and diplomacy continues, but Japan vanishes from the world scene. Ten years later, the United States Navy special warfare unit "SWORD" is trying to trap a Japanese informant for Daiwa in Colorado. The instigator, Saito, escapes by cutting off his own leg. Analysis shows the leg is made of bio-metal. SWORD suspects that Japan has concealed extensive development of banned technologies. They embark on an unapproved scheme to infiltrate Japan and to find out the frequency of the R.A.C.E. network, enabling SWORD to gather intelligence on the country. Although the agents successfully enter Japan, they are detected by security forces before they can transmit their data. Vexille is the sole SWORD agent to evade capture, and only her lover Leon survives to be taken to Daiwa's headquarters. Vexille awakens to find Tokyo is now a shanty town ruled by Daiwa. A small resistance movement opposes the company, and uses Vexille's transmitter to successfully transmit the distortion frequency.
673415	Hans Walter Conrad Veidt (22 January 1893 – 3 April 1943) was a German actor best remembered for his roles in films such as "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari" (1919), "The Man Who Laughs" (1928), "The Thief of Bagdad" (1940) and "Casablanca" (1942). After a successful career in German silent film, where he was one of the best paid stars of Ufa, he left Germany in 1933 with his new Jewish wife after the Nazis came to power. They settled in the United Kingdom, where he participated in a number of films before emigrating to the United States around 1941. Early life. Veidt was born in a bourgeois district of Berlin, Germany, the son of Amalie Marie (née Gohtz) and Phillip Heinrich Veidt. (Some biographies wrongly state that he was born in Potsdam, probably on the basis of an early claim on his part.) His family was Protestant. In 1914, Veidt met actress Lucie Mannheim, with whom he began a relationship. Later in the year Veidt was drafted into the German Army during World War I. In 1915, Veidt was sent to the Eastern Front as a non-commissioned officer and took part in the Battle of Warsaw. He contracted jaundice and pneumonia, and had to be evacuated to a hospital on the Baltic Sea. While recuperating, he received a letter from Mannheim telling him that she had found work at a theatre in Libau. Intrigued, Veidt applied for the theatre as well. As his condition had not improved, the army allowed him to join the theater so that he could entertain the troops. While performing at the theatre, he ended his relationship with Mannheim. In late 1916, he was reexamined by the Army and deemed unfit for service; he was given a full discharge in January 1917. Veidt returned to Berlin to pursue his acting career. Career. From 1916 until his death, Veidt appeared in well over 100 films. He appeared in two of the best-known films of the silent era: as the murderous somnambulist Cesare in director Robert Wiene's "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari" (1920) with Werner Krauss and Lil Dagover, and as a disfigured circus performer in "The Man Who Laughs" (1928). According to the "Los Angeles Times", "Conrad Veidt starred in this semi-silent film based on Victor Hugo's novel in which the son of a lord is punished for his father's disrespect to the king by having his face carved into a permanent grin." Veidt also starred in other classic silent horror films such as "The Hands of Orlac" in 1924 (again directed by Robert Wiene), "The Student of Prague" in 1926, and "Waxworks" in 1924 where he played Ivan the Terrible. Veidt also appeared in Magnus Hirschfeld's pioneering gay rights film "Anders als die Andern" ("Different from the Others", 1919). In 1929 he was in "Das Land ohne Frauen" (The Country Without Women, 1929), Germany's first talking picture. He moved to Hollywood in the late 1920s and made a few films, but the advent of talking pictures and his difficulty with speaking English led him to return to Germany. Emigration. Veidt fervently opposed the Nazi regime. Soon after it took power, Joseph Goebbels started to "purge" the film industry of liberals and Jews. In 1933, a week after Veidt's marriage to Illona Prager, a Jewish woman, the couple emigrated to the United Kingdom before any action could be taken against either of them. There he perfected his English and became a British citizen in 1938. He continued making films in Britain, notably three with director Michael Powell: "The Spy in Black" (1939), "Contraband" (1940) and "The Thief of Bagdad" (1940). Later career in the US. In the early 1940s, he and Ilona moved to Hollywood, California. He starred in a few films, such as "Nazi Agent" (1942), in which he had a dual role as a Nazi and as the man's twin brother. His best-known role was as Major Heinrich Strasser in "Casablanca" (1942). He was frequently cast as a German because of the many war films being made.
1299753	Alan Oppenheimer (born April 23, 1930) is an American character actor and voice actor. He has performed numerous roles on live-action television since the 1960s, and has had an active career doing voice work in cartoons since the 1970s. Biography. Early life. Oppenheimer was born in New York City, New York on April 23, 1930, the son of Irene (née Rothschild) and Louis E. Oppenheimer, who was a stockbroker. Personal life. He was married to costume designer Marianna Elliott and professional tennis player Marilyn Greenwood, and has three children. He is the third cousin of J. Robert Oppenheimer. (At the C4 Central Canada Comic Con in Winnipeg Manitoba on November 3, 2012 during his presentation Alan Oppenheimer denied any knowledge of being related to Robert Oppenheimer.) Career. Character actor. As a character actor, Oppenheimer has had diverse roles in popular American television programming, from playing a Nazi in "Hogan's Heroes", to playing an Israeli secret agent as well as a double-agent KAOS scientist on "Get Smart", to being the second actor to play Dr. Rudy Wells in "The Six Million Dollar Man" (Martin Balsam played the role in the pilot telemovie. Oppenheimer took over as Rudy starting with the second film, "Wine, Women and War" and kept playing up until the introduction of the bionic woman in 1975, whereupon Martin E. Brooks took over as Wells until cancellation). He was the original Mickey Malph (Ralph Malph's dad) on "Happy Days". He also played recurring role during the first two seasons of the 1980s medical drama "St. Elsewhere", as Helen Rosenthal's husband Ira. He had a recurring role as Mayor Alvin B. Tutweiler in the comedy series "Mama's Family". Alan showed himself well suited to the science fiction genre in the 1973 cult classic "Westworld", where he played the head IT technician. He has also appeared in three of the more recent "Star Trek" series, always playing a different character. He appeared in the ' episode "Rightful Heir" as a Klingon cleric, Koroth, a primary instigator of the cloning of Kahless, on ' as a Starfleet Captain Declan Keogh in command of the "USS Odyssey", and as an alien ambassador in "". Alan Oppenheimer appeared as film director Cecil B. DeMille in the 1994 Broadway production of Andrew Lloyd Webber's "Sunset Blvd." Filmography. Voice roles. He is recognised as the voice of many characters, often for Filmation in the 1970s and 1980s, such as Mighty Mouse, Ming the Merciless on "Flash Gordon", the Overlord on "BlackStar", Skeletor, Man-At-Arms and Mer-Man from Filmation's 1980s cartoon "He-Man and the Masters of the Universe", and the voice of Prime Evil in the 1986 TV series, Filmation's "Ghostbusters". Other notable voice roles include "Thundarr the Barbarian", Vanity on "The Smurfs", Rhinokey and Crock from "The Wuzzles" and Falkor, Gmork, Rockbiter, and the Narrator from 1984's "The NeverEnding Story". In the early 1990s, Oppenheimer was the voice of Merlin in "The Legend of Prince Valiant".
1033721	Owen Teale (born 20 May 1961) is a Welsh actor. Career. Trained at the Guildford School of Acting, Teale made his television debut in "The Mimosa Boys" in 1984. He later appeared in "Knights of God" (1989), "Great Expectations" (1989), Catherine Cookson's "The Fifteen Streets "(1989), "Waterfront Beat" (1990) and "Boon" (1990) before being cast as Will Scarlet in the 1991 TV movie "Robin Hood". He went on to appear in such series as "Dangerfield", "Ballykissangel", "The Thin Blue Line" and the long-running "Belonging", and later "Spooks" and "Murphy's Law". In 2005, he played a lead role in "Marian, Again"—opposite Stephen Tompkinson, Samantha Beckinsale and Kelly Harrison—in which he was the abusive husband of Harrison's eponymous character. His film debut was in "War Requiem" in 1989. He later appeared as Lophakin in the 1999 adaptation of "The Cherry Orchard", opposite Charlotte Rampling as Ranevskaya and Alan Bates as Gayev. His appearance in "King Arthur", as Pelagius, was relegated to the DVD extended edition. He played infamous Nazi judge Roland Freisler in the HBO film "Conspiracy". In 2006 he appeared in the "Torchwood" episode "Countrycide"; in 1985, he had appeared in the "Doctor Who" serial "Vengeance on Varos" as "Maldak". In 2006 he had a role in the HBO UK TV movie "". In 2007, he guest-starred in the "Doctor Who" audio drama "The Mind's Eye". In the same year, he starred in "The Last Legion". In 2011, appeared as Ser Alliser Thorne in "Game of Thrones", the HBO TV adaptation of George R. R. Martin's novel series "A Song of Ice and Fire", replacing at short notice Derek Halligan. Teale won the 1997 Tony Award for Best Featured Actor in a Play for his performance as Torvald opposite Janet McTeer in Ibsen's "A Doll's House". In 2012 Teale played Dai in the comedy-drama series "Stella" and Robert Holland, the fictional UK Foreign Secretary, in the drama series "Kidnap and Ransom". He also played the role of the superintendent in the BBC police drama "Line of Duty". Personal life. Teale has been married twice: to Dilys Watling and then to Sylvestra Le Touzel. He has one son with Watling and two daughters with Le Touzel.
1102266	Marie Ennemond Camille Jordan (5 January 1838 – 22 January 1922) was a French mathematician, known both for his foundational work in group theory and for his influential "Cours d'analyse". He was born in Lyon and educated at the École polytechnique. He was an engineer by profession; later in life he taught at the École polytechnique and the Collège de France, where he had a reputation for eccentric choices of notation. He is remembered now by name in a number of foundational results: Jordan's work did much to bring Galois theory into the mainstream. He also investigated the Mathieu groups, the first examples of sporadic groups. His "Traité des substitutions", on permutation groups, was published in 1870; this treatise won for Jordan the 1870 "prix Poncelet". The asteroid 25593 Camillejordan and Institute of Camille Jordan are named in his honour. Camille Jordan is not to be confused with the geodesist Wilhelm Jordan (Gauss-Jordan elimination) or the physicist Pascual Jordan (Jordan algebras).
1494089	Nelson Ackerman Eddy (June 29, 1901 – March 6, 1967) was an American singer and actor who appeared in 19 musical films during the 1930s and 1940s, as well as in opera and on the concert stage, radio, television, and in nightclubs. A classically trained baritone, he is best remembered for the eight films in which he costarred with soprano Jeanette MacDonald. He was one of the first "crossover" stars, a superstar appealing both to shrieking bobby-soxers as well as opera purists, and in his heyday was the highest paid singer in the world. During his 40-year career, he earned three stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame (one each for film, recording, and radio), left his footprints in the wet cement at Grauman's Chinese Theater, earned three Gold records, and was invited to sing at the third inauguration of U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1941. He also introduced millions of young Americans to classical music and inspired many of them to pursue a musical career. Early life. Eddy was born in Providence, Rhode Island, the only child of Caroline Isabel (née Kendrick) and William Darius Eddy. His father was a machinist and toolmaker whose work required him to move from town to town. Nelson grew up in Providence and Pawtucket, Rhode Island, and in New Bedford, Massachusetts. As a boy, he was a redhead and quickly acquired the nickname "Bricktop." As an adult, his red hair was streaked with silver, so that his hair photographed as blond. Nelson came from a musical family. His Atlanta-born mother was a church soloist, and his grandmother, Caroline Netta Ackerman Kendrick, was a distinguished oratorio singer. His father occasionally moonlighted as a stagehand at the Providence Opera House, sang in the church choir, played the drums, and performed in local productions such as "H.M.S. Pinafore". Eddy's parents divorced when he was 14, which severely traumatized him. Living in near-poverty, Eddy was forced to drop out of school and moved with his mother to Philadelphia, where her brother, Clark Kendrick, lived. His uncle helped Eddy secure a clerical job at the Mott Iron Works, a plumbing supply company. He later worked as a reporter with the "Philadelphia Press", the "Evening Public Ledger" and the "Philadelphia Evening Bulletin". He also worked briefly as a copywriter at N.W. Ayer Advertising, but was dismissed for constantly singing on the job. Eddy never returned to school but educated himself with correspondence courses. He was bitter that his father refused to provide financial support after the divorce but in later years they had an uneasy reconciliation. Career. Singing. Eddy developed his talent as a boy soprano in church choirs. Throughout his teens, Eddy studied voice and imitated the recordings of baritones like Titta Ruffo, Antonio Scotti, Pasquale Amato, Giuseppe Campanari, and Reinald Werrenrath. He gave recitals for women's groups and appeared in society theatricals, usually for little or no pay.
581449	Soora Samhaaram is a 1988 Tamil-language Indian feature film directed by Chitra Lakshmanan starring Kamal Haasan in the role of police officer, ACP Athi Veerapandiyan. Story, Screenplay and Dialogues was written by veteran playwright/director Vietnam Veedu Sundaram. The film received poor reviews. Synopsis. Pandian and Arun are police officers. Pallavi is a drug addict who cannot stop her habit even though her brother Arun pleads. One day Arun locks her up, but she dies from withdrawal. Devastated Arun decides to take revenge on Mohandas, the kingpin of drug mafia, but Mohandas kills him in an airport restroom. Sudha's young brother happens to watch this murder but is terrified to make this public. Pandian who is in-charge of this case zeroes in on Sudha and her brother as witnesses, but she refuses. But when Madhuri pleads her help, she decides to help Pandian, but now Pandian is abducted by Mohandas's men and forcefully made into a drug addict. The climax reveals whether Pandian can nab the drug lord and complete the revenge of his friend Arun. Reception. The film received poor reviews but had an average run at the box office. The movie is given a rating of 6.8/10 by internet movie database website. Sequel. Kamal Hassan planned to follow Soora Samhaaram with big budget film titled Athi Veerapandian with himself directing and co-starring actress Aishwarya, but dropped the idea and made Apoorva Sagodharargal instead.
1127933	Kings of the Sun is a 1963 DeLuxe Color film directed by J. Lee Thompson for Mirisch Productions set in Mesoamerica at the time of the conquest of Chichen Itza by Hunac Ceel. The story is about Mayan refugees who sail to the Mississippi River Valley and lay the foundation for the Mississippian culture complex. Location scenes filmed in Mazatlán and Chichen Itza. Plot. Balam (George Chakiris) is the son of the ruler of a Mayan tribe who use wooden swords (with obsidian edges). His father is killed in battle against steel-blade armed rivals led by Hunac Ceel (Leo Gordon). Balam succeeds to the throne, but is convinced by his advisers, including the head priest, to lead his followers away from the Yucatán, sail to the American Gulf Coast region, so they might regain their strength and fight again another day.
582470	Jaya Prada (born 3 April 1962) is an Indian film actress and politician. She has starred in Telugu, Hindi, Tamil, Kannada, Malayalam, Bengali and Marathi films. Early life. Jaya Prada was born as "Lalita Rani" on 3 April 1962 in Rajahmundry, Andhra Pradesh, India. Her father Krishna Rao was a Telugu film financier. Her mother Neelaveni enrolled her in dance and music classes at an early age. Film career. When Jaya Prada was fourteen years old, she performed a dance at her school's annual function. A film director in the audience offered her a three-minute dance number in the Telugu film Bhoomi Kosam. She was hesitant, but her family encouraged her to accept it. She was paid only 10 rupees for her work in the film, but the rushes of those three minutes of film were shown to the major figures of the Telugu film industry. Major filmmakers offered her starring roles in quality films, and she accepted them. She became a huge star in 1976 with major hit films. Director K. Balachander's black-and-white film "Anthuleni Katha" (1976) showcased her dramatic skills; K. Viswanath's color film "Siri Siri Muvva" (1976) showed her playing a mute with excellent dancing skills; and her title role as Sita in the big-budget mythological film "Seetha Kalyanam" confirmed her versatility. In 1977, she starred in "Adavi Ramudu", which broke box office records and which permanently cemented her star status. The song "Aaresukoboyi Paresukunnanu" performed by Prada and co-star N.T. Rama Rao became a mass hit. Important filmmakers were casting her and repeating her in their films. Filmmaker Vijay introduced her to Kannada cinema in his 1977 super hit movie ""Sanadi Appanna"" alongside Kannada matinee idol Raj Kumar. The movie is also known to be the only movie to feature shehnai rendition by Ustad Bismillah Khan. Jaya Prada repeated her successful pairing with Raj Kumar in films like "Huliya Halina Mevu" (1979), "Kaviratna Kalidasa" (1983) and "Shabdavedhi" (2000). In 1979, K. Balachander repeated her in "Ninaithale Inikkum" opposite Kamal Haasan and Rajinikanth in which she played a terminally-ill patient. She continued to act in more films in Telugu opposite actors such NTR, ANR, Krishna, Krishnam Raju and Sobhan Babu throughout the 70s and 80s. K. Viswanath remade "Siri Siri Muvva" (1976) in Hindi as "Sargam" introducing Jayaprada to Bollywood in 1979. The film was successful and she became a star there as well. She earned her first Filmfare nomination as Best Actress but couldn't capitalize on her success since she couldn't speak Hindi. 1980s. In 1981, she starred in the critically acclaimed "47 Natkal" for filmmaker K. Balachander in which Chiranjeevi played her villainous, bigamist husband. After she took Hindi lessons, director K. Vishwanath relaunched her in Hindi films, with the hit film "Kaamchor" where she spoke Hindi fluently for the first time. She was now able to consistently work in Hindi films, and earned two more Filmfare nominations as Best Actress for playing Amitabh Bachchan's endearing girlfriend in Prakash Mehra's Sharaabi (1984) and for her challenging double role in K. Vishwanath's "Sanjog". "Saagara Sangamam" released in 1983 proved to be a milestone in her career. Starring Kamal Hassan, the film won her lot of accolades including Filmfare Award for Best Actress - Telugu. Jaya made a successful team not just with Amitabh Bachchan and Jeetendra, but also with her immediate screen rival Sridevi, with whom she has acted in about a dozen films. Their hit Telugu film "Devata" (1982) was remade into the hit Hindi film "Tohfa" (1984). These films endeared Jaya Prada to the traditional conservative section of film goers and she amassed a huge female fan following as well. It was an image that would serve her well when she started a new career as a politician. Indian director Satyajit Ray described her as was one of the prettiest women in the world. Although, she has acted in Bengali films, she has never worked for Ray. (She claimed that Ray had her in mind for a film, but his illness and subsequent death prevented their collaboration). 1990s and later. As she became involved in her political career since 1994, at the age of 32, her involvement with films reduced. In 2002, she stepped into the Marathi film industry by being a guest in the movie Aadhaar. Thus far, she acted in eight languages and has completed 300 films during a 30-year film career. She started playing mature roles in 2004. She also owns the Jaya Prada Theater in Chennai. In 2011, she returned to Malayalam screens with a strong role in Pranayam, alongside Mohanlal and Anupam Kher. She essayed the role of 'Grace' in this film which won her critical acclaim and several awards. Her 2012 Kannada film "Krantiveera Sangolli Rayanna" ("Sangolli Rayanna") that saw her donning the historical role of courageous Kittur Chennamma, completed 100 days at the box office. Personal life. In 1986, she married producer Srikant Nahata, who was already married to Chandra and had 3 children. This marriage stirred a lot of controversy, especially since Nahata did not divorce his current wife and had children with his first wife after marrying Jaya Prada. Jaya Prada and Srikanth have no children together, but she expressed desire to have children. They were separated after a couple of years together. Political career. Jayaprada joined the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) in 1994 at the invitation of its founder, N. T. Rama Rao, on the eve of the assembly elections, and rose quickly through the ranks. At that time there was speculation that she would run for election, but she preferred not to make her electoral debut, although she was offered a seat by Rao. She campaigned in several constituencies in 1994. When Rao became the Chief minister in 1994, he appointed one of his sons-in-law Nara Chandrababu Naidu as the Revenue Minister. Soon after the formation of the government, Rao's health started deteriorating, and in response to the growing influence of his wife, Lakshmi Parvati, on the political decisions of NTR, Chandrababu Naidu convinced a majority of the TDP MLAs to elect him as the chief minister. Since most of the legislators had gone over to his side, the Anti Defection Law did not apply and the Telugu Desam Party label passed on to the Chandrababu Naidu faction. During this period, Prada too joined the Chandrababu Naidu faction of the party. She was nominated to the Rajya Sabha representing Andhra Pradesh in 1996. She also held the post of Telugu Mahila President. Following differences with party Supremo N. Chandrababu Naidu, she left the TDP to join Samajwadi Party and contested from Rampur parliamentary Constituency in UP during the last General election in 2004 and got elected with a margin of more than 85000 votes. During her campaign for the Lok Sabha elections in 2009, she was issued a notice by the Election Commission for violating the code of conduct by distributing bindis to women in Rampur's Swar locality. On 11 May 2009, Jaya Prada alleged that senior Samajwadi Party leader Azam Khan was distributing nude pictures of her. She was re-elected with a margin of more than 30,000 votes. After she came out in open support of the former General Secretary of Samajwadi Party, Amar Singh, Prada was expelled from the party on 2 February 2010 citing reasons such as indulging in activities inimical to its political interests and damaging its image. Prada was accused by Samajwadi party members for infiltration into the party of capitalist and communal forces, which threatened to derail it from its Samajwadi moorings and damage its secular character.
583025	Dil Toh Baccha Hai Ji (translation: "The heart is but a child") is a 2011 Hindi romantic comedy film directed by Madhur Bhandarkar, starring Ajay Devgn, Emraan Hashmi, Omi Vaidya, Shazahn Padamsee, Shruti Haasan and Shraddha Das in the lead roles. It is produced by Madhur Bhandarkar and Kumar Mangat under the banner of Bhandarkar Entertainment and Wide Frame Films. The film was released on 28 January 2011. Plot. "Dil Toh Baccha Hai Ji" revolves around the story of three men. Naren Ahuja (Ajay Devgn) works as a bank manager and is seeking divorce from his wife, Madhvi (Rituparna Sengupta); Abhay Suri (Emraan Hashmi) is a playboy and gym trainer; and Milind Kelkar (Omi Vaidya) works in a matrimonial company and is in search for true love. Naren leaves his house and starts living in his parents' house. Abhay and Milind are thrown out of their rented apartments and end up as paying guests for Naren. The three start living together. Naren has a crush on June Pinto (Shazahn Padamsee), who works as an intern in his bank. Milind starts loving a radio jockey, Gungun Sarkar (Shraddha Das). Abhay falls for Anushka Narang (Tisca Chopra), a former Ms. India, who married a multi-millionaire and has interests in young men. Naren and June start enjoying each other's company. Milind tries to impress Gungun, which annoys her, but she instead uses Milind for her own reasons. Abhay gets full attention from Anushka and they start having an affair. The three love stories blossom until Nikki Narang (Shruti Haasan), the stepdaughter of Anushka, enters the story. Abhay falls for Nikki and starts ignoring Anushka. He breaks up with Anushka and starts going out with Nikki. June's grandma invites Naren for dinner, and Gungun eventually falls in love with Milind. The next day, everything changes. Milind gets angry after getting a letter from Gungun that she's going to Chennai for a movie, Nikki breaks up with Abhay, and June's grandma invites Naren to get his opinion on June marrying Chris, her boyfriend. At the airport, the three friends decide to go to Goa for a change and vow never to fall for girls anymore. However, once in Goa, they find three new girls... Rating. The film received an A/Adults only rating by the Central Board of Film Certification when Bhandarkar refused to cut several scenes he felt were integral to the film. Reception. The film received positive response from critics upon release. At the box office, it grossed Rs.282.5 million in three weeks. The Indian theatrical rights was pre-sold at a reasonable price of 130 million. It collected around $250,000 in the first weekend from all overseas circuits. Soundtrack. The music of the film is composed by Pritam. Lyrics are penned by Neelesh Misra, Kumaar, Sanjay Chhel and Sayeed Quadri.
1068878	Ian Hart (born Ian Davies; 8 October 1964) is an English stage, television and film actor. Early life. Hart, the grandson of Irish immigrants, was born in Liverpool, Lancashire. He is one of three siblings and was brought up in a Roman Catholic family. He attended the Cardinal Allen Grammar School and was in his teens a member of the Everyman Youth Theatre before studying drama at the now-defunct Mabel Fletcher College of Music and Drama in Liverpool. Career. From 1988 to 1991, Hart studied video production at South Mersey College (now part of Liverpool Community College). He portrayed an International Brigade volunteer in the Spanish Civil War in "Land and Freedom" (1995), an unemployed Liverpool shipyard worker in "Liam" (2000), and he played Professor Quirrell in Harry Potter, he also had the voice of the CGI-generated face of Voldemort in "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone" (2001). Hart has played John Lennon twice — in "The Hours and Times" (1991) and in "Backbeat" (1994) — and has also played Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. On television, he played Doyle's creation Dr. Watson in two Sherlock Holmes television films, shown on BBC One over the Christmas seasons in 2002 and 2004. He also played schizophrenic paparazzo Don Konkey in the FX series "Dirt" in 2007 and 2008. In 2009 he played Tom Ripley in BBC Radio Four's adaptations of all five of Patricia Highsmith's "Ripliad" series. He also teamed up with lifelong friend illy the director cast him in his episode of BBC1 drama "Moving On" Ian starred as Jake the father of a cross dressing teenage son, the episode was a high profile and highly regarded episode. He is currently appearing alongside John Simm, Lucy Cohu and Kerry Fox in the Duke of York's Theatre's production of Andrew Bovell's play "Speaking In Tongues". After the performance on 23 November, Hart went into the audience and remonstrated with a man whom he had earlier told to "shut up" from the stage. Eye witnesses say that Hart assaulted the audience member. He also played Adolf Hitler in the BBC one-off drama "The Man Who Crossed Hitler", which aired in August 2011. Personal life. Hart's wife is named Lynne. The couple have two daughters — Daisy (born 1997) and Holly (born 2001) — and have lived in Crouch End, North London. He is an Everton supporter. Hart now lives in Los Angeles.
1773334	Dylan O'Brien (born August 26, 1991) is an American actor and musician. He co-stars as Stiles in the MTV series "Teen Wolf". He also co-starred in the film "High Road", and starred in the film "The First Time", with Britt Robertson and Victoria Justice and directed by Jon Kasdan. Life and career. O'Brien was born in New York City, and grew up in Springfield Township, New Jersey until the age of twelve, when he and his family moved to Hermosa Beach, California. His father is a camera operator and his mother is a former actress. He is of Irish, English, Italian, and Spanish descent. He graduated from Mira Costa High School in 2009. He had planned to attend Syracuse University in fall 2009 as a film major but decided to move to Los Angeles for an acting career. In 2011, he began playing the role of Stiles in "Teen Wolf", a series loosely based on the 1985 film of the same name. In April 2013, O'Brien was cast as Thomas in "The Maze Runner", the film adaption of the book of the same name. He filmed the movie in summer 2013 while on hiatus from "Teen Wolf". In addition to acting in film and on television, O'Brien has produced, directed, and starred in a number of comedic short films produced for and released through his personal YouTube channel, and he is also the drummer for the independent rock band Slow Kids at Play.
588335	Rathinirvedam () is a 1978 Malayalam coming-of-age film directed by Bharathan based on the novel of the same name written by Padmarajan who also wrote the script. The film's story revolves around a teenager (played by Krishnachandran) who falls in love with a woman older than he is (played by Jayabharathi). The storyline of the film miffed many for its sensitive portrayal of the lead as well as garnered appreciation for its narrative. It is said to have redefined the art of movie making in South India, and hence regarded as a landmark in Indian film history. The film was also one of the biggest box office hits in Kerala's history. It inspires similar productions all over South India, even decades after its release. Plot. The story takes place in a small village surrounded by hills and valleys. Young Pappu, a teenager, awaiting school results to go to college, has plenty of time on hand. His trouble is adolescence, but neither his mother nor his aunt can diagnose his affliction. Everything around him excites and stimulates his sexual curiosity. Twenty plus Rathi, the girl next door, has been "chechi" (elder sister) to him since he was a child. Unaware of the stirrings of his desire, she dismisses his first overtures to her as boyish pranks. But soon her feelings change. She is sympathetic to the boy's confusion and goes to the "sarppakkavu" (cobra-shrine) to keep a midnight date with Pappu. It storms and thunders while Pappu makes love to Rathi. Only then do the storms—the one tormenting him inside his mind and the other raging thunderously on the outside, subside. Aghast at what has happened, Rathi stumbles to her feet but is bitten by a cobra but she goes back to her house and suffers in silence in order to prevent any scandal and the delay costs her life. Next morning Pappu leaves home for college and his new life. Analysis. "Rathinirvedam" is an incisive portrayal of a teenager's coming to terms with his budding libido that eventually drives him into a tabooed bond with an affable spinster in the neighbourhood. A teenage mind caught in the flux of sexual adolescence is captured beautifully through the lens by the director Bharathan. Steamy scenes restrict the movie to mature audiences. In typical Bharathan style, an unexpected climax leaves the audience in tears. Jayabharathi gives a commendable performance as the titular character in this movie. Production. The film was produced by Hari Pothan under the banner of Supriya Films. It was mostly shot in Nelliampathi, Palakkad, Kerala. Director Bharathan had proposed to actress K.P.A.C. Lalitha after the shooting of this film. They remained together till the death of the former. Legacy and criticism. "Rathinirvedam" is regarded as a landmark in Indian film history. It is one of the most sensuous movies of all time, and is said to have redefined the art of movie making in South India. The extremely erotic scenes performed by Jayabharathi sent heat waves across Kerala. Even when some of the intelligentsia predicted the beginning of a new era of parallel cinema, a major section of Malayalis were on the warpath saying that mainstream Malayalam cinema had degenerated to porn. But in spite of the criticism , "Rathinirvedam" became one of the biggest box office hits in Kerala's history. It inspires similar productions all over South India, even decades after its release. Remake. A remake of the film was made in 2011. It was directed by T. K. Rajeev Kumar. Shwetha Menon played the female lead, and Sreejith played the young male lead. Padmarajan himself was credited as the writer.
1059022	27 Dresses is a 2008 romantic comedy film directed by Anne Fletcher and written by Aline Brosh McKenna. The film stars Katherine Heigl. The film was released January 10, 2008 in Australia and opened in the United States on January 18. Plot. Jane Nichols (Katherine Heigl) has been a bridesmaid for twenty-seven weddings. One night when she is attending two weddings almost simultaneously, she meets Kevin Doyle (James Marsden), who helps her home but disgusts her with his cynical views of marriage. He finds her day planner which she'd forgotten in the cab they shared. Meanwhile, Jane's sister Tess (Malin Åkerman) falls in love with Jane's boss George (Edward Burns). Tess pretends to like the same things that George does so that she can get him to like her. Despite loving George herself, Jane does not reveal the truth and the courtship progresses rapidly. Soon the new couple announce that they intend to marry in only three weeks.
709795	Nightwatching is a 2007 film about the artist Rembrandt and the creation of his painting "The Night Watch". The film is directed by Peter Greenaway and stars Martin Freeman as Rembrandt, with Eva Birthistle as his wife Saskia van Uylenburg, Jodhi May as his lover Geertje Dircx, and Emily Holmes as his other lover Hendrickje Stoffels. Reinier van Brummelen is the director of photography. James Willcock, known for his esoteric sets, is the art director. The film is described by co-producer Jean Labadie as "a return to the Greenaway of "The Draughtsman's Contract"." It features Greenaway's trademark neoclassical compositions and graphic sexuality. The music is by Włodek Pawlik. The film premiered in competition, at the Venice Film Festival. "Nightwatching" is the first feature in Greenaway's film series "Dutch Masters". The following film in the series is "Goltzius and the Pelican Company". An associated work by the same director is the documentary film "Rembrandt's J'Accuse" (2008), in which Greenaway addresses 34 "mysteries" associated with the painting, illustrated by scenes from the drama. Synopsis. The film is centred on the creation of "The Night Watch", Rembrandt's most famous work, depicting civilian militiamen who wanted to be celebrated in a group portrait. The film posits a conspiracy to murder within the musketeer regiment of Frans Banning Cocq and Willem van Ruytenburch, and suggests that Rembrandt may have immortalized a conspiracy theory using subtle allegory in his group portrait of the regiment, subverting what was to have been a highly prestigious commission for both painter and subject.
639376	His friends in the various manga and anime incarnations of his story include Beezle, the orphaned Devil of Solitude; Chao (or "Katy" in the English anime), a naive little kitty who longs to be a human girl, and to learn magic from a real witch; a spunky little Sphinx (in the second film), and a warm-hearted human girl named Cheri. Back story. Unico's way of bringing happiness to others gets him into trouble with the gods, who believe that only they should have the ability to control others' emotions. The gods send the West Wind to banish Unico to the Hill of Oblivion, but the West Wind takes pity on Unico and declines to follow the gods' commands. The gods are furious when they learn of the West Wind's defiance, and send the Night Wind to capture Unico. To protect Unico from the gods and the Night Wind, the West Wind must continually transport the little unicorn from place to place. Whenever the gods discover Unico's whereabouts, the West Wind appears to spirit him away once again, often without getting to say goodbye to any of the friends he has made - and without any memory of those friends, as Unico's memory is wiped clean each time. Unico appeared in several comic strips by Tezuka, with an ecological message. Tezuka's original manga was serialized in Sanrio's "Ririka" (Lyrica) magazine from 1976 to 1979, and was re-published by Shogakukan in 1984 in a learning magazine for children. Unico Anime. 1979 pilot film. In 1979, the same year the manga ended, Unico made his animated debut in "Kuroi Kumo Shiroi Hane" ("Black Cloud, White Feather"), an ecologically-themed pilot film (for a proposed anime TV series) which was soon released directly to video. Unico meets a young girl named Chiko who is ill because of the pollution from a nearby factory, and becomes determined to cure her by destroying the factory. "The Fantastic Adventures of Unico". Although the TV series was not picked up, Unico soon made it to the silver screen in two feature-length anime films produced by Sanrio and Tezuka Productions with animation by Madhouse Studios. Unico's first movie, titled "The Fantastic Adventures of Unico" in English and simply "Unico" in Japan, was released in Japan on March 14, 1981. This musical film, narrated by Iruka, directed by Toshio Hirata, written by Masaki Tsuji, and with animation by Yoshiaki Kawajiri, presents the back story of Unico's banishment and his subsequent travels, as well as his friendships with Beezle (to whom he grants his own horn) and Chao/Katy (to whom he grants the wish of becoming a human girl). Beezle (known as "Akuma-kun," or "Little Devil," in the original version) initially rejects Unico's overtures of friendship, but comes around when he realizes how lonely he really is. After Beezle saves Unico from drowning, the two begin their friendship in earnest, but then the West Wind comes to take Unico away. The next creature Unico encounters is Chao (Katy), a black-and-white cat who dreams of becoming a witch. Katy and Unico befriend a lonely old woman, whom Katy mistakenly believes is a witch and will teach her some magic as well as transform her into a human girl. When Unico changes Katy into a girl, Katy at first believes that the old woman did it, until Unico proves it was his doing by changing her back into a cat; but Unico, seeing how selfish Katy has become, refuses to change Katy back to a girl, until one day when Katy saves the old woman from drowning. Katy then becomes entranced by a man posing as a lord (Danshaku in Japanese, Baron de Ghost in English). He invites her to his castle, gets her drunk and attempts to seduce her. Unico follows, rescuing Katy (with help from Beezle) after transforming into a majestic white winged unicorn and destroying the monster that the "lord" had transformed into. Afterwards, West Wind comes to take Unico away again, and Katy moves in with the old woman. This movie includes several songs, most of which were performed in the original Japanese version by the movie's narrator, singer/songwriter Iruka; however, Chao/Katy's recurring theme song, "Chao no Kuroneko no Uta" (The Song of Black Cat Chao), was sung by Chao's voice actress, Kazuko Sugiyama. The movie's other songs include "Unico no Teemu" (Unico's Theme), "Hontou wa Subishikute" (Beezle/Akuma-kun's image song), and "Majo Neko Chao" (Witch Cat Chao), all sung by Iruka. For the U.S. release, all of the songs were dubbed into English along with the spoken dialogue, except for the ending song over the closing credits, which is an instrumental in the English version. Unico was voiced by Barbara Goodson in the English dub. "Unico in the Island of Magic". Moribi Murano (often miscredited as "Mami Sugino") directed the second movie, titled "Maho no Shima e" ("To the Magic Island") in Japanese and "Unico in the Island of Magic" in English, which was released on July 16, 1983, five days before the release of the first "Barefoot Gen" movie, which used many of the same production staff. In this film, Unico meets a kind-hearted young girl named Cheri (also spelled "Cherry", voiced by Sumi Shimamoto). Cheri's older brother, Toby (in Japanese, "Torubi", voiced by Shuichi Ikeda), is working for the evil Lord Kuruku (in Japanese, "Kukuruku"), who plans to turn all living creatures, animals and people alike, into zombie-like beings called "Living Puppets" to be his slaves; Toby's job is to change people into Living Puppets and then lure the Living Puppets to Kuruku's island castle in exchange for learning more of Kuruku's magic. His plan is to obey and serve until he learns enough to be the master, but fails to protect Cheri twice. Toby also takes on Melvin the Magnificat ("Yamaneko" in Japanese) - who hates Unico because Unico "intruded" in "his" forest (the forest in which the West Wind left Unico) - as his assistant. After Cheri's parents and neighbors all get turned into Living Puppets, she and Unico team up to stop Kuruku. Seeking advice from the Trojan Horse, Unico and Cheri learn that Kuruku is a puppet who was mistreated by his owners and discarded. He washed up at the edge of the world - where all unwanted "junk" ends up eventually - and was brought to life with the power of sunlight, determined to take revenge on the human race. With help from the Sphinx's daughter (voiced by Noriko Tsukase; named "Marusu" in Japanese but not given a proper name in the English version), Unico - who realizes that Kuruku is really just a lonely, friendless creature - is able to break Kuruku's spell, but since Kuruku's hate was the only thing that kept him alive, Kuruku reverts to puppet form, and Cheri keeps him as a toy. Soon afterward, the West Wind finds Unico and spirits him away once again. As with the first movie, the second movie's ending song ("Do-Re-Mi-Fa Lullaby" performed by Emiko Shiratori) became an instrumental in the Spanish and English dub. "Saving Our Fragile Earth". Unico had one more anime appearance afterward, in a short film called "Saving Our Fragile Earth" made for showing at the Tezuka Osamu Animation Theatre at Tezuka Osamu World in Kyoto. This short, like the original pilot, had an ecological theme: Unico and Tsubasa, a talking tree boy, are distressed by the fact that the planet Earth has become polluted and drained of resources to the point of being uninhabitable. With help from the Sphinx and the "Time Fairy" (Astro Boy), the two travel back into the past to try to prevent humans from taking the wrong path and spare the Earth from ecological devastation. Famed voice actress Akiko Yajima provided the voice of Unico in this film. (In the movie versions, Unico was voiced by Katsue Miwa, and in the pilot film, the voice of Unico was Hiroya Oka.) Home media. Unico has a loyal fan following in the English-speaking world as well as in Japan, and this is largely due to the 1981 and 1983 theatrical features, which were dubbed into English and received Stateside exposure through VHS release in the mid-1980s and airings on The Disney Channel. However, the original VHS versions of the English releases of both movies are long out of print. The rights to all "Unico" manga and anime transferred from Sanrio to Tezuka Productions after Tezuka's death in 1989; unlike Sanrio, Tezuka Productions has no American distribution arm, hence the reason why it took 25 years for the two movies to be licensed for an official North American DVD release. Discotek Media released both films on DVD, with both the English and Japanese audio tracks in April 2012. The 1979 "Unico" pilot film had never been released outside Japan at all until 2012 as an extra on the "Unico in the Island of Magic" DVD release. Digital Manga Publishing successfully funded a Kickstarter to publish the manga in full color in English. Other appearances. Unico makes some cameos in episodes of the Black Jack TV series adapted from the Black Jack manga. Unico also made an appearance in the Game Boy Advance game "", where he gives Astro Boy the ability to have a warm and tender talk with Dr. Tenma, his father. Unico also appears in the Astro Boy manga in a comic book. In the story, he was Dr. Foola's inspiration for a new robot: a mechanical unicorn. Unico can also be seen in a brief cameo in Columns GB: Osamu Tezuka Characters for the Game Boy Color. The Unico films (pilot, Fantastic Adventures, and Island of Magic) were produced by Sanrio, so some of Sanrio's characters such as Hello Kitty, Tuxedo Sam, and the Little Twin Stars make cameo appearances in the films.
1017553	Heart of Dragon (, also known in the United Kingdom as Heart of the Dragon) is a 1985 Hong Kong martial arts action drama film directed by Sammo Hung, and starring Hung, Jackie Chan, Emily Chu and Mang Hoi. Yuen Biao is the action director for this film. It is also known by the titles as "The First Mission" and "Powerman III". Background. The film is unusual in that although featuring Sammo Hung and Lam Ching-ying, two actors famed for their kung fu abilities, neither actually perform any martial arts. Golden Harvest had wanted Hung to perform fight scenes in the film, but he refused, rationalising "My character was mentally retarded, mentally disabled, so how can you ask me to fall down and suddenly become well again? And fight? They knew my fighting skills and wanted me to be part of the action but I thought that would have completely destroyed the tone of the film, the principles behind the film." The action is left to Chan and his fellow CID officers, Mang Hoi, Yuen Wah, Chan Lung and Corey Yuen. Despite the relative lack of action scenes, the film was nominated for the Best Action Choreography award at the Hong Kong Film Awards in 1986. It was beaten by Chan's "Police Story". The bad guys are led by James Tien and include Dick Wei, Chung Fat, Phillip Ko and Kao Sau-leung. The film also features a small role for Wu Ma as a restaurant owner, and like My Lucky Stars, Sammo Hung's real life brother makes a cameo appearance as a Policeman (who walks into Inspector Wong's office without knocking). Versions. As this was intended as a dramatic film, showing a different side of Hung's acting abilities, it contains comparatively few action scenes. Two additional fight scenes were filmed, but these were cut from both the domestic Hong Kong print and the international print of the film. Due to the demands of certain markets, these scenes were included in some prints of the film, notably the Japanese release. They are included as additional features on the US, UK and Australian DVD releases of the film. Box Office. This film grossed HK $20.3 million at the Hong Kong box office. Although a commercial success, it was considerably low compared to the other Jackie Chan action blockbusters of the 80's.
559914	The Stewardesses is a 1969 softcore, later R-rated, theatrical 3D film produced, directed and written by Allan Silliphant and starring Christina Hart, Monica Gayle, Paula Erickson, and Donna Stanley. Produced on a budget of just over $100,000, the film grossed $25 million in 1970, becoming the most profitable 3-D film ever released. In budget-relative terms, it remains among the most profitable theatrical movies ever made. Originally, self rated "X," the film was largely re-shot and re-edited to receive an MPAA "R" rating to qualify for a wide general release. At the same time, the technology of the projection print was enhanced by means of anamorphic 3D to a larger image. This later version appeared in final form in 1971. Plot. A single eventful night in the lives of a crew of Los Angeles-based, trans-Pacific stewardesses. The leading character is killed in a 30-story suicide leap, and the others simply "party," using drugs and engaging in various sexual encounters. One of the girls befriends and beds a returning Vietnam combat soldier. Production and development. The film was a 35mm 3D soft-sex, "skin-flick" with minimal production value during the first months of distribution. Since it was grossing extremely well, in specialty "adult theaters," Louis Sher and Silliphant decided to "repackage" their 3D specialty "hit" into a regular R-rated, general release 3D feature film, with a more complex, conventional storyline with reduced nudity and simulated sex activity. The original version was filmed with only a thematic minimal plot and shown in San Francisco and Los Angeles for a year before national release. The crew was small, and the actors were unknowns, allowing for an initially small budget; as it became a local success, and profits rolled in, Silliphant and Condon would shoot additional scenes and add them to the film. New scenes were shot in both Los Angeles and Hawaii to "open up" the picture, including dialogue and characters on a newer passenger plane interior and cockpit. The self-imposed X rating was a draw in the early stages, attracting viewers to relatively small theatres showing the 3D film. In the last year, with the official R rating, it was possible to show the film more widely, even in 70mm 3D, in houses like the 4300 seat Boston Music Hall. Total active run extended 3 years and was presented in just over 800 theaters,( compared to the thousands of play dates usual today). It outsold the higher budget movies in larger theaters. A definitive "R" version was released throughout 1971, and it was played in at least 30 overseas markets, eventually. The film is also unique in that it may be the only notable film to be extensively re-shot, edited and updated as it played in theaters, according to Allan Silliphant, the Producer-Director. These changes were added as the film continued to hold on in theaters. Probably four versions of the evolving film were played over the three years that the film was in active distribution. Writer, producer, director, and 3D technologist, Allan Silliphant was the younger half-brother of Academy Award-winning writer and producer Stirling Silliphant. He would later write or direct other low-budget films, and historical documentary films, such as "The Navajo Code Talkers". Co-producer and cinematographer Chris Condon, who had founded Century Precision Optics, built innovative, relatively lightweight and portable designs of single-strip 3-D cameras. He would later work on other 3-D films, such as "Jaws 3-D". Theatre owner Louis Sher was the executive producer, and used his Art Theatre Guild theatres to display the film coast to coast. Specially trained 3-D technicians would be sent to each and every theater to install the special equipment, and to teach the projectionists how to keep it running. Allan Silliphant is still active in his advocacy of 3D film and digital technology. Chris Condon has been continuously been involved in the 3-D motion picture art and technology ever since. He has lectured at USC, UCLA, and Columbia college and is considered the worlds most experienced consultant for production and projection of theatrical 3-D films. Chris Condon received an Honorary Doctorate from the Institute of Scientific Research, Naples, Italy, 1988. Silliphant continues to be active in the digital 3D world, having patented the Anachrome "compatible" anaglyph method for digital stills and 3D HD broadcast video. His 2010 effort is a line of Canon 5D Mark II-based, professional stereo camera rigs, that offer both motion picture and broadcast 3D in a very compact, and low cost package.
1161590	Harold (Hal) Peary (July 25, 1908 – March 30, 1985) was an American actor, comedian and singer in radio, film, television and animation remembered best as Throckmorton P. Gildersleeve, a supporting character on radio's "Fibber McGee & Molly" that moved to its own radio hit, "The Great Gildersleeve", the first known spinoff hit in American broadcasting history. Early life. Born as José Pereira de Faria in San Leandro, California to Portuguese parents, Peary (pronounced Perry) began working in local radio as early as 1923, according to his own memory, and had his own show as a singer, "The Spanish Serenader", in San Francisco, but moved to Chicago, Illinois in 1937.
585482	Biography. Karthika Mathew (born Lidiya Jacob), better known mononymously as Karthika, is a Malayali film actress, who has appeared in several malayalam and Tamil films. She is probably best known for her performances in "Nam Naadu" and "Dindigul Sarathy. Personal Life. Lidiya Jacob is born to P.K Jacob and Alice.She married her long time boyfriend Merin Mathew who is a medical officer at Blue Mount Hospital in Michigan, US on May 18 2009.
584263	Ghilli (English: Risk taker) is a 2004 Tamil action masala film directed by Dharani and produced by A. M. Rathnam. Inspired by the Telugu blockbuster "Okkadu" directed by Gunashekar, the film stars Vijay, with Trisha Krishnan and Prakash Raj playing the female lead and antagonist, respectively. The soundtrack and background score of the film were composed by Vidyasagar. The film released on Tamil New Year day on 14 April 2004; opened to positive reviews and became a blockbuster. "Ghilli" was the highest grossing film in Tamil film industry at the time of its release. Plot. Velu as Ghilli (Vijay), is a wannabe kabbadi champion who is the son of Assistant Commissioner of Police Sivasubramanian (Ashish Vidyarthi). Sivasubramanian is not fond of his son, constantly chiding him for his lack of interest in studies and his love for kabaddi. His mother (Janaki Sabesh), on the other hand, dotes on him and his younger sister Bhuvana ('Baby' Jennifer) is the typical sharp and inquisitive schoolgirl, constantly getting Velu into trouble with his father, but nevertheless still adores him. In Madurai, there is a ruthless factionalist leader Muthupandi (Prakash Raj), who is obsessed with a beautiful girl Dhanalakshmi (Trisha Krishnan) and would do anything to marry her. Muthupandi kills Dhanalakshmi's elder brother as he rejects his offer to marry Dhanalakshmi. Then Dhanalakshmi’s younger brother is also killed by Muthupandi when he tries to avenge his brother's murder. Dhanalakshmi’s father is a meek person who gets horrified by Muthupandi’s acts and asks Dhanalakshmi to go away from the place and lead a peaceful life at her uncle’s place in the USA by giving her the necessary certificates and money. Muthupandi catches her when she starts fleeing because by coincidence Dhanalakshmi gets into one of the lorries owned by him. At this juncture, Velu- who is in Madurai to play in a kabaddi tournament- rescues Dhanalakshmi from the hands of Muthupandi and takes her to Chennai. Velu takes Dhanalakshmi to his house and hides her in his room, unknown to his family. Velu, with the help of his friends, arranges passport, visa and flight tickets for Dhanalakshmi so that she can go to the USA. Meanwhile, Muthupandi and his father, who happens to be the Home Minister, ask Sivasubramanian to search for Dhanalakshmi and the apparent kidnapper. When Sivasubramanian finds out that it's his own son who did the crime, Velu and Dhanalakshmi run away and hide in the lighthouse. Dhanalakshmi has by now fallen in love with Velu, and has been accepted by Velu's mother and sister. So she is reluctant to go to the USA. Velu however, is adamant on sending her to the USA and he, along with his friends, get Dhanalakshmi to the airport in time for her flight before their kabaddi match against Punjab in the final of the National League. Sivasubramanian, enraged that his son is a wanted criminal and yet is playing in a kabaddi match, goes to the stadium to arrest Velu. By now, Velu too has fallen in love with Dhanalakshmi and begins to miss her, only to spot her in the stadium during the match. Velu's lack of focus in the game is replaced by his best on seeing Dhanalakshmi, winning Tamil Nadu the championship. After winning the championship, Velu is arrested by his father, but is then stopped by Muthupandi, who wants to fight Velu, having been incited by Dhanalakshmi to do so to prove his worth. During the fight, Muthupandi accidentally falls on a floodlight, killing him. The movie ends with Velu and Dhanalakshmi finally united. Production. Vijay expressed interest in starring in a Tamil remake of the successful Telugu action flick "Okkadu" and prompted producer A. M. Rathnam to purchase the remake rights of the film. Dharani was finalized as the director, whose previous film "Dhool" under Rathnam's production had been a financial success. Dharani made minor changes to the script to suit Vijay's image and Tamil audience's taste. Dharani's regular crew members including cinematographer Gopinath and music director Vidyasagar joined the film, while Rocky Rajesh and Raju Sundaram were chosen to choreograph the stunts and dances, respectively. Simran Bagga was roped to play the female lead opposite Vijay, But due to her wedding arrangements Trisha Krishnan was replaced to play the female lead, while Prakash Raj was signed on to reprise the villain's character from the original. Dhamu and Prabhu Deva's brother, Nagendra Prasad were recruited to essay supporting roles. Ashish Vidyarthi, Janaki Sabesh and Baby Jennifer were selected to portray Vijay's parents and sister, respectively. Filming began in mid-2003, after Vijay had completed his action flick with director Ramana; the film was completed by early 2004. Filming took place in Chennai surrounding the coastal areas like Mylapore and Besant Nagar. The film's introduction fight scene and a song were shot in a costly set in Prasad studios. A lighthouse set was also erected. Other action and chasing sequences were canned near the Meenakshi Amman Temple in Madurai. The climax scene was shot in a crowd of one lakh people on a Vinayagar Chaturthi occasion. Release. "Ghilli" was due for release on 9 April but later got postponed for a week and opened in over 150 theaters on 16 April. Though the reason for the postponement was not given out, rumours were that producer A M Rathnam’s creditors put pressure on him to settle his accounts before release. Another reason was that Vijay got cold feet after the "Udhaya" debacle as the film had not even taken an opening. Soundtrack. The soundtrack features 6 songs composed by Vidyasagar. The song "Appadi Podu" in particular enjoyed high popularity upon release, all over South India and became a huge chartbuster. The lyrics were penned by Pa. Vijay, Na. Muthukumar, Kabilan and Maran. Reception. The film opened to positive reviews, and became the biggest commercial success of Vijay's career then. "Sify" appreciated the film for its fast moving screenplay and said as a racy entertainer giving a rating of 3.5/5 stars. "Nowrunning.com" stated that "Gilli, story wise, is neither fresh popcorn nor spicy samosa found in theaters.. but the screenplay and overall treatment is as fresh and appetizing as full meals after a long day. and gave an overall rating of 3/5 stars "Oneindia" gave the film 4/5 stars and stated the film as a "Blockbuster". "The Hindu" stated that "Vijay, the hero whom the masses today identify with, and Prakashraj, the inimitable villain in tow, this remake of the Telugu flick, "Okkadu," comes a clear winner". "Indiaglitz" called the film that "Gilli is an out and out entertainer" and comented that"Vijay and Trisha on track with another blockbuster". "Rediff" stated that, "Don't miss 'Gilli'. Box office. The film's collection in the first four weeks from Chennai was to the tune of 16.0 million. "Ghilli" had done a business worth 1.75 to 19.0 million in Coimbatore. The film was declared a success all over Tamil Nadu and celebrated 51 days in 106 stations. Ghilli was the highest grossing Tamil film of that period grossing over ₹ 50 crores.
1163777	Isaac Sidney Caesar (born September 8, 1922)—known as Sid Caesar—is an Emmy Award-winning American comic actor and writer best known for the television series "Your Show of Shows" and "Caesar's Hour", and as Coach Calhoun in "Grease". He is also a saxophonist and author of several books, including two autobiographies. Early life. Caesar was the youngest of three sons born to Jewish immigrants living in Yonkers, New York. His father, Max, had emigrated from Poland; his mother, Ida (née Raphael), from the Russian Empire. The surname "Caesar" was given to Max, as a child, by an immigration official at Ellis Island. Max and Ida Caesar ran a restaurant, a 24-hour luncheonette. By waiting on tables, their son learned to mimic the patois, rhythm and accents of the diverse clientele, a technique he termed "double-talk," which he would famously use throughout his career. He first tried his "double-talk" with a group of Italians, his head barely reaching above the table. They enjoyed it so much that they sent him over to a group of Poles to repeat his native-sounding patter in Polish, and so on with Russians, Hungarians, Frenchmen, Spaniards, Lithuanians and Bulgarians. Despite his apparent fluency in many languages, Caesar can actually speak only English and Yiddish. Sid's older brother, David, was his comic mentor and "one-man cheering section." They created their earliest family sketches from movies of the day like "Test Pilot" and "Wings".
451087	Black Swarm is a 2008 Canadian suspense film directed by David Winning. Actor Robert Englund plays a mysterious beekeeper who has a secret to hide in the small town of Black Stone. The movie was filmed in Montreal and surrounding small towns in July and August 2007. It was released on DVD by Genius Entertainment on February 3, 2009. It is the 9th film of the "Maneater Series". The widow, Deputy Sheriff Jane Kozik, moves from Manhattan to Black Stone, New York, with her daughter Kelsey Kozik. There she expects to find a safe place to live. The day after moving, a homeless man is found dead in the tool shed of Jane's blind friend Beverly Rowe. Devin Hall and the entomologist Katherine Randell are summoned to help with the investigation. Devin is Jane's brother-in-law and former boyfriend, and Jane still has a crush on him. Meanwhile, Kelsey befriends the scientist Eli Giles, who has developed genetically modified wasps for the army as a weapon, and now he is trying to revert the process. When the wasps attack Black Stone, Jane, Devin and Eli team-up to attempt to destroy the swarm.
1102290	Leonhard Euler ( ; , ; 15 April 170718 September 1783) was a pioneering Swiss mathematician and physicist. He made important discoveries in fields as diverse as infinitesimal calculus and graph theory. He also introduced much of the modern mathematical terminology and notation, particularly for mathematical analysis, such as the notion of a mathematical function. He is also renowned for his work in mechanics, fluid dynamics, optics, and astronomy. Euler spent most of his adult life in St. Petersburg, Russia, and in Berlin, Prussia. He is considered to be the pre-eminent mathematician of the 18th century, and one of the greatest mathematicians ever. He is also one of the most prolific mathematicians ever; his collected works fill 60–80 quarto volumes. A statement attributed to Pierre-Simon Laplace expresses Euler's influence on mathematics: "Read Euler, read Euler, he is the master of us all." Life. Early years. Euler was born on April 15, 1707, in Basel to Paul Euler, a pastor of the Reformed Church, and Marguerite Brucker, a pastor's daughter. He had two younger sisters named Anna Maria and Maria Magdalena. Soon after the birth of Leonhard, the Eulers moved from Basel to the town of Riehen, where Euler spent most of his childhood. Paul Euler was a friend of the Bernoulli family—Johann Bernoulli, who was then regarded as Europe's foremost mathematician, would eventually be the most important influence on young Leonhard. Euler's early formal education started in Basel, where he was sent to live with his maternal grandmother. At the age of thirteen he enrolled at the University of Basel, and in 1723, received his Master of Philosophy with a dissertation that compared the philosophies of Descartes and Newton. At this time, he was receiving Saturday afternoon lessons from Johann Bernoulli, who quickly discovered his new pupil's incredible talent for mathematics. Euler was at this point studying theology, Greek, and Hebrew at his father's urging, in order to become a pastor, but Bernoulli convinced Paul Euler that Leonhard was destined to become a great mathematician. In 1726, Euler completed a dissertation on the propagation of sound with the title "De Sono". At that time, he was pursuing an (ultimately unsuccessful) attempt to obtain a position at the University of Basel. In 1727, he first entered the "Paris Academy Prize Problem" competition; the problem that year was to find the best way to place the masts on a ship. Pierre Bouguer, a man who became known as "the father of naval architecture" won, and Euler took second place. Euler later won this annual prize twelve times. St. Petersburg. Around this time Johann Bernoulli's two sons, Daniel and Nicolas, were working at the Imperial Russian Academy of Sciences in St Petersburg. On July 10, 1726, Nicolas died of appendicitis after spending a year in Russia, and when Daniel assumed his brother's position in the mathematics/physics division, he recommended that the post in physiology that he had vacated be filled by his friend Euler. In November 1726 Euler eagerly accepted the offer, but delayed making the trip to St Petersburg while he unsuccessfully applied for a physics professorship at the University of Basel. Euler arrived in the Russian capital on 17 May 1727. He was promoted from his junior post in the medical department of the academy to a position in the mathematics department. He lodged with Daniel Bernoulli with whom he often worked in close collaboration. Euler mastered Russian and settled into life in St Petersburg. He also took on an additional job as a medic in the Russian Navy. The Academy at St. Petersburg, established by Peter the Great, was intended to improve education in Russia and to close the scientific gap with Western Europe. As a result, it was made especially attractive to foreign scholars like Euler. The academy possessed ample financial resources and a comprehensive library drawn from the private libraries of Peter himself and of the nobility. Very few students were enrolled in the academy in order to lessen the faculty's teaching burden, and the academy emphasized research and offered to its faculty both the time and the freedom to pursue scientific questions. The Academy's benefactress, Catherine I, who had continued the progressive policies of her late husband, died on the day of Euler's arrival. The Russian nobility then gained power upon the ascension of the twelve-year-old Peter II. The nobility were suspicious of the academy's foreign scientists, and thus cut funding and caused other difficulties for Euler and his colleagues. Conditions improved slightly upon the death of Peter II, and Euler swiftly rose through the ranks in the academy and was made professor of physics in 1731. Two years later, Daniel Bernoulli, who was fed up with the censorship and hostility he faced at St. Petersburg, left for Basel. Euler succeeded him as the head of the mathematics department. On 7 January 1734, he married Katharina Gsell (1707–1773), a daughter of Georg Gsell, a painter from the Academy Gymnasium. The young couple bought a house by the Neva River. Of their thirteen children, only five survived childhood. Berlin. Concerned about the continuing turmoil in Russia, Euler left St. Petersburg on 19 June 1741 to take up a post at the "Berlin Academy", which he had been offered by Frederick the Great of Prussia. He lived for twenty-five years in Berlin, where he wrote over 380 articles. In Berlin, he published the two works for which he would become most renowned: The "Introductio in analysin infinitorum", a text on functions published in 1748, and the "Institutiones calculi differentialis", published in 1755 on differential calculus. In 1755, he was elected a foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. In addition, Euler was asked to tutor Friederike Charlotte of Brandenburg-Schwedt, the Princess of Anhalt-Dessau and Frederick's niece. Euler wrote over 200 letters to her in the early 1760s, which were later compiled into a best-selling volume entitled "Letters of Euler on different Subjects in Natural Philosophy Addressed to a German Princess". This work contained Euler's exposition on various subjects pertaining to physics and mathematics, as well as offering valuable insights into Euler's personality and religious beliefs. This book became more widely read than any of his mathematical works, and was published across Europe and in the United States. The popularity of the 'Letters' testifies to Euler's ability to communicate scientific matters effectively to a lay audience, a rare ability for a dedicated research scientist. Despite Euler's immense contribution to the Academy's prestige, he was eventually forced to leave Berlin. This was partly because of a conflict of personality with Frederick, who came to regard Euler as unsophisticated, especially in comparison to the circle of philosophers the German king brought to the Academy. Voltaire was among those in Frederick's employ, and the Frenchman enjoyed a prominent position within the king's social circle. Euler, a simple religious man and a hard worker, was very conventional in his beliefs and tastes. He was in many ways the antithesis of Voltaire. Euler had limited training in rhetoric, and tended to debate matters that he knew little about, making him a frequent target of Voltaire's wit. Frederick also expressed disappointment with Euler's practical engineering abilities: Eyesight deterioration. Euler's eyesight worsened throughout his mathematical career. Three years after suffering a near-fatal fever in 1735, he became almost blind in his right eye, but Euler rather blamed the painstaking work on cartography he performed for the St. Petersburg Academy for his condition. Euler's vision in that eye worsened throughout his stay in Germany, to the extent that Frederick referred to him as "Cyclops". Euler later developed a cataract in his left eye, rendering him almost totally blind a few weeks after its discovery in 1766. However, his condition appeared to have little effect on his productivity, as he compensated for it with his mental calculation skills and exquisite memory. For example, Euler could repeat the Aeneid of Virgil from beginning to end without hesitation, and for every page in the edition he could indicate which line was the first and which the last. With the aid of his scribes, Euler's productivity on many areas of study actually increased. He produced on average, one mathematical paper every week in the year 1775. Return to Russia. The situation in Russia had improved greatly since the accession to the throne of Catherine the Great, and in 1766 Euler accepted an invitation to return to the St. Petersburg Academy and spent the rest of his life in Russia. However, his second stay in the country was marred by tragedy. A fire in St. Petersburg in 1771 cost him his home, and almost his life. In 1773, he lost his wife Katharina after 40 years of marriage. Three years after his wife's death, Euler married her half-sister, Salome Abigail Gsell (1723–1794). This marriage lasted until his death. In St. Petersburg on 18 September 1783, after a lunch with his family, during a conversation with a fellow academician Anders Johan Lexell, about the newly discovered planet Uranus and its orbit, Euler suffered a brain hemorrhage and died a few hours later. A short obituary for the Russian Academy of Sciences was written by Jacob von Staehlin-Storcksburg and a more detailed eulogy was written and delivered at a memorial meeting by Russian mathematician Nicolas Fuss, one of Euler's disciples. In the eulogy written for the French Academy by the French mathematician and philosopher Marquis de Condorcet, he commented, He was buried next to Katharina at the Smolensk Lutheran Cemetery on Vasilievsky Island. In 1785, the Russian Academy of Sciences put a marble bust of Leonhard Euler on a pedestal next to the Director's seat and, in 1837, placed a headstone on Euler's grave. To commemorate the 250th anniversary of Euler's birth, the headstone was moved in 1956, together with his remains, to the 18th-century necropolis at the Alexander Nevsky Monastery. Contributions to mathematics and physics. Euler worked in almost all areas of mathematics: geometry, infinitesimal calculus, trigonometry, algebra, and number theory, as well as continuum physics, lunar theory and other areas of physics. He is a seminal figure in the history of mathematics; if printed, his works, many of which are of fundamental interest, would occupy between 60 and 80 quarto volumes. Euler's name is associated with a large number of topics. Euler is the only mathematician to have "two" numbers named after him: the immensely important Euler's Number in calculus, "e", approximately equal to 2.71828, and the Euler-Mascheroni Constant γ (gamma) sometimes referred to as just "Euler's constant", approximately equal to 0.57721. It is not known whether γ is rational or irrational. Mathematical notation. Euler introduced and popularized several notational conventions through his numerous and widely circulated textbooks. Most notably, he introduced the concept of a function and was the first to write "f"("x") to denote the function "f" applied to the argument "x". He also introduced the modern notation for the trigonometric functions, the letter for the base of the natural logarithm (now also known as Euler's number), the Greek letter Σ for summations and the letter to denote the imaginary unit. The use of the Greek letter "π" to denote the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter was also popularized by Euler, although it did not originate with him. Analysis. The development of infinitesimal calculus was at the forefront of 18th Century mathematical research, and the Bernoullis—family friends of Euler—were responsible for much of the early progress in the field. Thanks to their influence, studying calculus became the major focus of Euler's work. While some of Euler's proofs are not acceptable by modern standards of mathematical rigour (in particular his reliance on the principle of the generality of algebra), his ideas led to many great advances. Euler is well known in analysis for his frequent use and development of power series, the expression of functions as sums of infinitely many terms, such as Notably, Euler directly proved the power series expansions for and the inverse tangent function. (Indirect proof via the inverse power series technique was given by Newton and Leibniz between 1670 and 1680.) His daring use of power series enabled him to solve the famous Basel problem in 1735 (he provided a more elaborate argument in 1741): Euler introduced the use of the exponential function and logarithms in analytic proofs. He discovered ways to express various logarithmic functions using power series, and he successfully defined logarithms for negative and complex numbers, thus greatly expanding the scope of mathematical applications of logarithms. He also defined the exponential function for complex numbers, and discovered its relation to the trigonometric functions. For any real number φ (taken to be radians), Euler's formula states that the complex exponential function satisfies A special case of the above formula is known as Euler's identity, called "the most remarkable formula in mathematics" by Richard P. Feynman, for its single uses of the notions of addition, multiplication, exponentiation, and equality, and the single uses of the important constants 0, 1, , and . In 1988, readers of the "Mathematical Intelligencer" voted it "the Most Beautiful Mathematical Formula Ever". In total, Euler was responsible for three of the top five formulae in that poll. See also:
1061446	Glenn Ford (May 1, 1916 – August 30, 2006) was a Canadian-born American actor from Hollywood's Golden Era with a career that lasted over 50 years. Despite his versatility, Ford was best known for playing ordinary men in unusual circumstances. Early life and career. Born Gwyllyn Samuel Newton Ford at Jeffrey Hale Hospital in Quebec City, Ford was the son of Anglo-Quebecers Hannah Wood Mitchell and Newton Ford, a railway conductor. Through his father, Ford was a great-nephew of Canada's first Prime Minister Sir John A. Macdonald. Ford moved to Santa Monica, California, with his family at the age of eight, and became a naturalized citizen of the United States in 1939. After Ford graduated from Santa Monica High School, he began working in small theatre groups. While in high school, he took odd jobs including working for Will Rogers who taught him horsemanship.Ford later commented that his railroad executive father had no objection to his growing interest in acting, but told him, "It's all right for you to try to act, if you learn something else first. Be able to take a car apart and put it together. Be able to build a house, every bit of it. Then you'll always have something." Ford heeded the advice and during the 1950s, when he was one of Hollywood's most popular actors, he regularly worked on plumbing, wiring and air conditioning at home. At times, he worked as a roofer and installer of plate-glass windows. Ford acted in West Coast stage companies, before joining Columbia Pictures in 1939. His stage name came from his father's hometown of Glenford, Canada. His first major movie part was in the 1939 film, "Heaven with a Barbed Wire Fence". Military service. Ford interrupted his film career to volunteer for duty in World War II with the United States Marine Corps Reserve on December 13, 1942. He was assigned in March 1943 to active duty at the Marine Corps Base in San Diego. He was sent to Marine Corps Schools Detachment (Photographic Section) in Quantico, Virginia, three months later, with orders as a motion-picture production technician. Promoted to sergeant, Ford returned to the San Diego base in February 1944 and was next assigned to the radio section of the Public Relations Office, Headquarters Company, Base Headquarters Battalion. There he staged and broadcast the radio program "Halls of Montezuma". Ford was honorably discharged from the Marines on December 7, 1944 for duodenal ulcers that had him hospitalized for several months. In 1958, Ford joined the U.S. Naval Reserve and was commissioned as a lieutenant commander and made a public affairs officer. During his annual training tours, he promoted the Navy through radio and television broadcasts, personal appearances, and documentary films. He was promoted to commander in 1963 and captain in 1968. Ford went to Vietnam in 1967 for a month's tour of duty as a location scout for combat scenes in a training film entitled "Global Marine". He traveled with a combat camera crew from the demilitarized zone south to the Mekong Delta. For his service in Vietnam, the Navy awarded him a Navy Commendation Medal. His World War II decorations are as follows: American Campaign Medal, Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal, World War II Victory Medal, Rifle Marksman Badge, and the US Marine Corps Reserve Medal. He retired from the Naval Reserve in the 1970s at the rank of captain. Acting career. Following military service, Ford's breakthrough role was in 1946, starring alongside Rita Hayworth in the noir classic "Gilda". "The New York Times" movie reviewer Bosley Crowther praised Ford's "stamina and poise in a thankless role" despite the movie's poor direction. He went on to be a leading man opposite Hayworth in a total of five films. Ford's film career flourished in the 1950s and 1960s and continued into the 1980s with many television roles. His major roles in thrillers, dramas and action films include "A Stolen Life" with Bette Davis, "The Secret of Convict Lake" with Gene Tierney, "The Big Heat", "Blackboard Jungle", "Framed", "Interrupted Melody" with Eleanor Parker, "Experiment in Terror" with Lee Remick, "Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse" and westerns such as "The Fastest Gun Alive", "" and "Cimarron". Ford's versatility also allowed him to star in a number of popular comedies, such as "The Teahouse of the August Moon", "Don't Go Near the Water", "The Gazebo", "Cry for Happy" and "The Courtship of Eddie's Father". In 1971, Ford signed with CBS to star in his first television series, a half hour comedy/drama titled "The Glenn Ford Show". However, CBS head Fred Silverman noticed that many of the featured films being shown at a Glenn Ford film festival were westerns. He suggested doing a western series instead, which resulted in the "modern day western" series, "Cade's County". Ford played southwestern Sheriff Cade for one season (1971–1972) in a mix of western drama and police mystery. In "The Family Holvak" (1975–1976), Ford portrayed a depression era preacher in a family drama, reprising the same character he had played in the TV film, "The Greatest Gift".
1247449	Yakima Canutt (November 29, 1895 – May 24, 1986), also known as Yak Canutt, was an American rodeo rider, actor, stuntman and action director. Biography. Born Enos Edward Canutt in the Snake River Hills, near Colfax, Washington; he was one of five children of John Lemuel Canutt, a rancher, and Nettie Ellen Stevens. He grew up in eastern Washington on a ranch near Penawawa Creek, founded by his grandfather and operated by his father, who also served a term in the state legislature. His formal education was limited to elementary school in Green Lake, Washington, then a suburb of Seattle. He gained the education for his life's work on the family ranch, where he learned to hunt, trap, shoot, and ride. He broke a wild bronco when 11. As a sixteen-year-old he started bronc riding at the Whitman County Fair in Colfax in 1912 and at 17 he won the title of World's Best Bronco Buster. Canutt started rodeo riding professionally and gained a reputation as a bronc rider, bulldogger and all-around cowboy. It was at the 1914 Pendleton Round-Up, Pendleton, Oregon he got his nickname "Yakima" when a newspaper caption misidentified him. "Yakima Canutt may be the most famous person NOT from Yakima, Washington" says Elizabeth Gibson, author of "Yakima, Washington". Winning second place at the 1915 Pendleton Round-Up brought attention from show promoters, who invited him to compete around the country. "I started in major rodeos in 1914, and went through to 1923. There was quite a crop of us traveling together, and we would have special railroad cars and cars for the horses. We'd play anywhere from three, six, eight ten-day shows. Bronc riding and bulldogging were my specialties, but I did some roping," said Canutt. During the 1916 season, he became interested in divorcee Kitty Wilks, who had won the Lady's Bronc-Riding Championship a couple of times. They married on July 20, 1917 while at a show in Kalispell, Montana; he was 21 and she 23. The couple divorced about 1922. While bulldogging in Idaho, Canutt's mouth and upper lip were torn by a bull's horn; but after stitches, Canutt returned to the competition. It wasn't until a year later that a plastic surgeon could correct the injury. World's champion. Canutt won his first world championship at the Olympics of the West in 1917 and won more championships in the next few years. In between rodeos he broke horses for the French government in World War I. In 1918, he went to Spokane to enlist in the Navy and was stationed in Bremerton. In the fall he was given a 30-day furlough to defend his rodeo title. Having enlisted for the war, he was discharged in spring 1919. At the 1919 Calgary Stampede he competed in the bucking event and met Pete Knight. He traveled to Los Angeles for a rodeo, and decided to winter in Hollywood, where he met screen personalities. It was here that Tom Mix, who had also started in rodeos, invited him to be in two of his pictures. Mix added to his flashy wardrobe by borrowing two of Canutt's two-tone shirts and having his tailor make 40 copies. Canutt got his first taste of stunting with a fight scene on a serial called "Lightning Bryce "; he didn't stay, and left Hollywood to play the 1920 rodeo circuit. The Fort Worth rodeo was nicknamed "Yak's show" after he won the saddle-bronc competition three years in 1921, 1922 and 1923. He had won the saddle-bronc competition in Pendleton in 1917, 1919, and 1923 and came second in 1915, and 1929. Canutt won the steer bulldogging in 1920, and 1921 and won the All-Around Police Gazette belt in 1917, 1919, 1920 and 1923. While in Hollywood in 1923 for an awards ceremony, he was offered eight western action pictures for producer Ben Wilson at Burwillow Studios; the first was to be "Riding Mad". Actor. Canutt had been perfecting tricks such as the Crupper Mount, a leap-frog over the horse's rump into the saddle. Douglas Fairbanks used some in his film "The Gaucho". Fairbanks and Canutt became friends and competed regularly at Fairbanks' gym. Canutt took small parts in pictures of others to get experience. It was in "Branded a Bandit" (1924) that his nose was broken in a 12-foot fall from a cliff. The picture was delayed several weeks, and when it resumed Canutt's close shots were from the side. A plastic surgeon reset the nose, which healed, inspiring Canutt to remark that he thought it looked better. Stuntman. When his contract with Wilson expired in 1927, Canutt was making appearances at rodeos across the country. By 1928 the talkies were coming out and though he had been in 48 silent pictures, Canutt knew his career was in trouble. His voice had been damaged from flu in the Navy. He started taking on bit parts and stunts, and realized more could be done with action in pictures. In 1930 between pictures and rodeoing, Canutt met Minnie Audrea Yeager Rice at a party at her parents' home. She was 12 years his junior. They kept company during the next year while he picked up work on the serials for Mascot Pictures Corporation. They married on November 12, 1931. When rodeo riders invaded Hollywood, they brought a battery of rodeo techniques that Canutt would expand and improve, including horse falls and wagon wrecks, along with the harnesses and cable rigs to make the stunts foolproof and safe. Among the new safety devices was the 'L' stirrup, which allowed a man to fall off a horse without getting hung in the stirrup. Canutt also developed cabling and equipment to cause spectacular wagon crashes, while releasing the team, all on the same spot every time. Safety methods such as these saved film-makers time and money and prevented accidents and injury to performers. One of Yakima's inventions was the 'Running W' stunt, bringing down a horse at the gallop by attaching a wire, anchored to the ground, to its fetlocks and launching the rider forwards spectacularly. This either killed the horse, or rendered it badly shaken and unusable for the rest of the day. The 'Running W' is now banned and has been replaced with the falling-horse technique. It is believed that the last time it was used was on the 1983 Iraqi film "al-Mas' Ala Al-Kubra" when the British actor and friend of Yak Marc Sinden and stuntman Ken Buckle (who had been trained by Yak) performed the stunt three times during a cavalry charge sequence. It was while working on Mascot serials that Canutt practiced and perfected his most famous stunts, including the drop from a stagecoach that he would employ in John Ford's 1939 "Stagecoach". That famous stunt in "Stagecoach" was filmed near Chimney Rock on Rabbit Dry Lake west of Lucerne Valley, California. He first did it in "Riders of the Dawn" in 1937 while doubling for Jack Randall. In his 1981 film "Raiders of the Lost Ark", Steven Speilberg paid homage to Canutt, recreating the stunt when a stuntman, Terry Leonard, (doubling for Harrison Ford) 'dropped' from the front of a German Army transport truck, was dragged underneath (along a prepared trench) and then climbed up the back and round to the front again. John Wayne. While at Mascot, Canutt met John Wayne while doubling for him in a motorcycle stunt for "The Shadow of the Eagle" in 1932. Wayne admired Canutt’s agility and fearlessness, and Canutt respected Wayne’s willingness to learn and attempt his own stunts. Canutt taught Wayne how to fall off a horse."The two worked together to create a technique that made on-screen fight scenes more realistic. Wayne and Canutt found if they stood at a certain angle in front of the camera, they could throw a punch at an actor’s face and make it look as if actual contact had been made." Canutt and Wayne pioneered stunt and screen fighting techniques still in use. Much of Wayne's on-screen persona was from Canutt. The characterizations associated with Wayne - the drawling, hesitant speech and the hip-rolling walk - were pure Canutt. Said Wayne, "I spent weeks studying the way Yakima Canutt walked and talked. He was a real cowhand." In 1932, Canutt's first son Edward Clay was born and nicknamed 'Tap', short for "Tapadero", a Spanish word for a stirrup covering. It was in 1932 that Canutt broke his shoulder in four places while trying to transfer from horse to wagon team. Though work was scarce, he got by combining stunting and rodeo work. In 1934, Herbert J. Yates of Consolidated Film Industries combined Monogram, Mascot, Liberty, Majestic, Chesterfield, and Invincible Pictures to form Republic Pictures, and Canutt became Republic's top stuntman. He handled all the action on many pictures, including Gene Autry films; and several series and serials, such as "The Lone Ranger" and "Zorro". For "Zorro Rides Again", Canutt did almost all the scenes in which Zorro wore a mask, and he was on the screen as much as the star John Carroll. When the action was indicated in a Republic script, it said "see Yakima Canutt for action sequences."
1100038	Ciprian Manolescu (born December 24, 1978) is a Romanian mathematician, working in gauge theory, symplectic geometry, and low-dimensional topology. He is currently a Professor of Mathematics at the University of California, Los Angeles.
585221	Oorkavalan is a 1987 Tamil film. It was directed by Manobala with music directed by Shankar Ganesh. The movie was a box office failure. Plot. The story describes the struggle of a young villager Kangeyan (played by Rajinikanth) to receive justice for his brother's murder. Manickam falls in love with Mallika, the daughter of Pannaiar. Mallika's marriage is arranged with Dorai (played by Raghuvaran) but refuses and declares her love for Mannikam. Kangeyan gets them married in the village. The priest pretends to have divine powers, kills Manickam. Kangeyan, not wanting to see Mallika as a widow, decides to her married again to Pandian, a cart driver. Dorai intervenes again and Kangeyan learns about truth behind his brother death.
643102	Grace Murray Hopper (December 9, 1906January 1, 1992) was an American computer scientist and United States Navy Rear Admiral. A pioneer in the field, she was one of the first programmers of the Harvard Mark I computer, and developed the first compiler for a computer programming language. She conceptualized the idea of machine-independent programming languages, which led to the development of COBOL, one of the first modern programming languages. She is credited with popularizing the term "debugging" for fixing computer glitches (inspired by an actual moth removed from the computer). Owing to the breadth of her accomplishments and her naval rank, she is sometimes referred to as "Amazing Grace". The U.S. Navy destroyer USS "Hopper" (DDG-70) is named for her, as was the Cray XE6 "Hopper" supercomputer at NERSC. Early life and education. Hopper was born Grace Brewster Murray in New York City. She was the oldest in a family of three children. She was curious as a child, a lifelong trait – at the age of seven she decided to determine how an alarm clock worked, and dismantled seven alarm clocks before her mother realized what she was doing (she was then limited to one clock). For her preparatory school education, she attended the Hartridge School in Plainfield, New Jersey. Rejected for early admission to Vassar College at age 16 (her test scores in Latin were too low), she was admitted the following year. She graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Vassar in 1928 with a bachelor's degree in mathematics and physics and earned her Master's degree at Yale University in 1930. In 1934, she earned a Ph.D. in mathematics from Yale under the direction of Øystein Ore. Her dissertation, "New Types of Irreducibility Criteria", was published that same year. Hopper began teaching mathematics at Vassar in 1931, and was promoted to associate professor in 1941. She was married to New York University professor Vincent Foster Hopper (1906–1976) from 1930 until their divorce in 1945. She never remarried, and she kept his surname. Career. World War II. In 1943, Hopper obtained a leave of absence from Vassar and was sworn into the United States Navy Reserve, one of many women to volunteer to serve in the WAVES. She had to get an exemption to enlist; she was below the Navy minimum weight of . She reported in December and trained at the Naval Reserve Midshipmen's School at Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts. Hopper graduated first in her class in 1944, and was assigned to the Bureau of Ships Computation Project at Harvard University as a lieutenant, junior grade. She served on the Mark I computer programming staff headed by Howard H. Aiken. Hopper and Aiken coauthored three papers on the Mark I, also known as the Automatic Sequence Controlled Calculator. Hopper's request to transfer to the regular Navy at the end of the war was declined due to her age (38). She continued to serve in the Navy Reserve. Hopper remained at the Harvard Computation Lab until 1949, turning down a full professorship at Vassar in favor of working as a research fellow under a Navy contract at Harvard. UNIVAC. In 1949, Hopper became an employee of the Eckert-Mauchly Computer Corporation as a senior mathematician and joined the team developing the UNIVAC I. In the early 1950s the company was taken over by the Remington Rand corporation and it was while she was working for them that her original compiler work was done. The compiler was known as the A compiler and its first version was A-0. In 1952 she had an operational compiler. "Nobody believed that," she said. "I had a running compiler and nobody would touch it. They told me computers could only do arithmetic." In 1954 Hopper was named the company's first director of automatic programming, and her department released some of the first compiler-based programming languages, including ARITH-MATIC, MATH-MATIC and FLOW-MATIC. COBOL. In the spring of 1959 a two-day conference known as the Conference on Data Systems Languages CODASYL brought together computer experts from industry and government. Hopper served as the technical consultant to the committee, and many of her former employees served on the short-term committee that defined the new language COBOL. The new language extended Hopper's FLOW-MATIC language with some ideas from the IBM equivalent, COMTRAN. Hopper's belief that programs should be written in a language that was close to English rather than in machine code or languages close to machine code (such as assembly language) was captured in the new business language, and COBOL would go on to be the most ubiquitous business language to date. From 1967 to 1977, Hopper served as the director of the Navy Programming Languages Group in the Navy's Office of Information Systems Planning and was promoted to the rank of captain in 1973. She developed validation software for COBOL and its compiler as part of a COBOL standardization program for the entire Navy. Standards. In the 1970s, Hopper advocated for the Defense Department to replace large, centralized systems with networks of small, distributed computers. Any user on any computer node could access common databases located on the network. She pioneered the implementation of standards for testing computer systems and components, most significantly for early programming languages such as FORTRAN and COBOL. The Navy tests for conformance to these standards led to significant convergence among the programming language dialects of the major computer vendors. In the 1980s, these tests (and their official administration) were assumed by the National Bureau of Standards (NBS), known today as the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). Retirement. Hopper retired from the Naval Reserve at age 60, in accordance with Navy attrition regulations, with the rank of commander at the end of 1966. She was recalled to active duty in August 1967 for a six-month period that turned into an indefinite assignment. She again retired in 1971, but was asked to return to active duty again in 1972. She was promoted to captain in 1973 by Admiral Elmo R. Zumwalt, Jr. After Rep. Philip Crane saw her on a March 1983 segment of "60 Minutes", he championed , a joint resolution in the House of Representatives which led to her promotion to commodore by special Presidential appointment. She remained on active duty for several years beyond mandatory retirement by special approval of the President. In 1985, the rank of commodore was renamed rear admiral, lower half. She retired (involuntarily) from the Navy on August 14, 1986. At a celebration held in Boston on the USS "Constitution" to celebrate her retirement, Hopper was awarded the Defense Distinguished Service Medal, the highest non-combat award possible by the Department of Defense. At the time of her retirement, she was the oldest active-duty commissioned officer in the United States Navy (79 years, eight months and five days), and aboard the oldest commissioned ship in the United States Navy (188 years, nine months and 23 days). She was then hired as a senior consultant to Digital Equipment Corporation, a position she retained until her death in 1992, aged 85. Her primary activity in this capacity was as a goodwill ambassador, lecturing widely on the early days of computers, her career, and on efforts that computer vendors could take to make life easier for their users. She visited a large fraction of Digital's engineering facilities, where she generally received a standing ovation at the conclusion of her remarks. During many of her lectures, she illustrated a nanosecond using salvaged obsolete Bell System 25 pair telephone cable, cut it to 11.8 inch (30 cm) lengths, the distance that light travels in one nanosecond, and handed out the individual wires to her listeners. Although no longer a serving officer, she always wore her Navy full dress uniform to these lectures. She was interred with full military honors in Arlington National Cemetery. Awards and recognition. The Fleet Numerical Meteorology and Oceanography Center is located at 7 Grace Hopper Avenue in Monterey, California. "Grace Murray Hopper Park", located on South Joyce Street in Arlington, Virginia, is a small memorial park in front of her former residence (River House Apartments) and is now owned by Arlington County, Virginia. Women at the world's largest software company, Microsoft Corporation, formed an employee group called Hoppers and established a scholarship in her honor. Hoppers has over 3000 members worldwide. Brewster Academy, a school located in Wolfeboro, New Hampshire, United States, dedicated their computer lab to her in 1985, calling it the Grace Murray Hopper Center for Computer Learning. The academy bestows a Grace Murray Hopper Prize to a graduate who excelled in the field of computer systems. Hopper had spent her childhood summers at a family home in Wolfeboro. An administration building on Naval Support Activity Annapolis (previously known as Naval Station Annapolis) in Annapolis, Maryland is named the Grace Hopper Building in her honor. Building 1482 aboard Naval Air Station North Island, housing the Naval Computer and Telecommunication Station San Diego, is named the Grace Hopper Building. Building 6007, C2/CNT West, Command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, or C4ISR, Center of Excellence in Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland is named the Rear Admiral Grace Hopper Building. A named professorship in the Department of Computer Sciences was established at Yale University in her honor. Joan Fiegenbaum was named to this chair in 2008. Grace Hopper's legacy was an inspiring factor in the creation of the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing. Held yearly, this conference is designed to bring the research and career interests of women in computing to the forefront. A bridge over Goose Creek joining the north and south sides of the Naval Support Activity Charleston side of Joint Base Charleston, South Carolina is named the Grace Hopper Memorial Bridge in her honor. Grace Hopper was awarded 40 honorary degrees from universities worldwide during her lifetime. Anecdotes. Throughout much of her later career, Grace Hopper was much in demand as a speaker at various computer-related events. She was well known for her lively and irreverent speaking style, as well as a rich treasury of early war stories. She also received the nickname "Grandma COBOL". Jay Elliot described Grace Hopper as appearing to be "'all Navy', but when you reach inside, you find a 'Pirate' dying to be released".
1104262	Ernst Gabor Straus (February 25, 1922 – July 12, 1983) was a German-American mathematician who helped found the theories of Euclidean Ramsey theory and of the arithmetic properties of analytic functions. His extensive list of co-authors includes Albert Einstein and Paul Erdős as well as other notable researchers including Richard Bellman, Béla Bollobás, Sarvadaman Chowla, Ronald Graham, László Lovász, Carl Pomerance, and George Szekeres. It is due to his collaboration with Straus that Einstein has Erdős number 2. Straus was born in Munich, Germany, February 25, 1922, the youngest of five children of a prominent attorney, Eli Straus, and his wife Rahel Straus née Goitein, a medical doctor and feminist. Ernst Gabor Straus came to be known as a mathematical prodigy from a very young age. Following the death of his father, the family fled the Nazi regime for Palestine in 1933, and Straus was educated at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. Although he never received an undergraduate degree, Straus began graduate studies at Columbia University in New York, earning a PhD in 1948 under F. J. Murray. Two years later, he became the assistant of Albert Einstein. After a three-year stint at the Institute for Advanced Study, Straus took a position at the University of California, Los Angeles, which he kept for the rest of his life. Straus died July 12, 1983 of heart failure. Straus's interests ranged widely over his career, beginning with his early work on relativity with Einstein and continuing with deep work in analytic number theory, extremal graph theory, and combinatorics. One of his best known contributions in popular mathematics is the Erdős–Straus conjecture that every number of the form 4/"n" has a three-term Egyptian fraction.
1350898	Vykrutasy () is a Russian comedy film with Milla Jovovich in the title role. The premiere was held on February 14, 2011. The film's director was Levan Gabriadze. Plot. Who said you have to win to be a champion? Vyacheslav "Slava" Kolotilov, a schoolteacher from a sleepy seaside town by the name of "Palchiki" (Little Fingers) comes to conquer Moscow with the manuscript to his first novel in hand. But instead, quite by accident, he conquers the heart of a beauty named Nadia (Milla Jovovich). As their wedding approaches, Slava needs only to quit his job and tie up loose ends back in "Palchiki" before returning to Moscow to start a new life with his new bride. But due to a number of bizarre circumstances he is unable to leave and back in the big city. Instead he became a coach of a football team of "bezprizorniky" (young homeless criminals). But the wedding goes on regardless of absence of bridegroom as Nadia has to fend off the attentions of her ex-fiance Danya (Daniel), who seems ready to do whatever it takes to win her back.
1060203	Igby Goes Down is a 2002 comedy-drama film that follows the life of Igby Slocumb, a rebellious and sardonic New York City teenager who attempts to break free of his familial ties and wealthy, overbearing mother. The film was written and directed by Burr Steers, and stars Kieran Culkin, Claire Danes, Jeff Goldblum, Susan Sarandon, Amanda Peet, Ryan Phillippe, Bill Pullman, and Jared Harris. It was given a limited theatrical release through United Artists on September 13, 2002 in the United States. Plot. Jason "Igby" Slocumb, Jr. (Kieran Culkin) is a misanthropic 17-year-old boy, rebelling against the oppressive world of his strict East Coast "old money" family. His schizophrenic father, Jason (Bill Pullman), has been committed to an institution. Igby fears he will eventually suffer a mental breakdown like his father. His mother, Mimi (Susan Sarandon), is self-absorbed and distant. Igby mockingly describes his ambitious older brother Ollie (Ryan Phillippe) as a fascist or, alternatively, a Young Republican, and that he studies "neo-fascism" (economics) at Columbia University. Igby figures there must be a better life out there, and he sets out to find it, rebelling against his family at every opportunity. After happily flunking out of several prep schools, he ends up in a brutal military academy where he gets beaten by his fellow students. After escaping and spending time in a Chicago hotel courtesy of his mother's credit card, Igby is sent to New York for the summer to his godfather D.H. Banes (Jeff Goldblum). While working construction for D.H., Igby first encounters Rachel (Amanda Peet), his godfather's heroin-addicted trophy mistress. Rather than return to school, he escapes into the bohemian underworld of Manhattan, hiding out with Rachel and her friend Russel. Eventually, he and Rachel have sex. After being suspected and assaulted by D.H., he then hooks up with terminally bored, part-time lover, Sookie (Claire Danes), only for her to later leave him for Ollie. Despite seeming cold and distant, Mimi is not unaffected by her rebellious son. She describes Igby's conception as an act of animosity and it shouldn't be a surprise that his life follows the same course. His name is explained as a family in-joke. As a child, he would blame his toy bear, Digby, for things he had done, mispronouncing it as "Igby". In order to get him to take responsibility for his actions, his family would call him Igby whenever he lied. Igby is informed by Russell that his mother Mimi is dying from breast cancer and so he returns to see her. She has arranged to commit suicide with help from Ollie, who poisons her with ice cream. Before she dies, Mimi makes a final revelation, casually inquiring of Igby, "I take it you know that D.H. is your father?". Igby leaves for Los Angeles in an attempt to finally make a clean break by getting 3,000 miles away from his family. Production. "Igby Goes Down" was filmed in locations throughout New York City, including Central Park, Washington Square Park, and SoHo. Soundtrack. The soundtrack was released February 25, 2003 by Spun Records. Music featured prominently in the film and was strongly non-diegetic. Nic Harcourt acted as the music supervisor.
1056716	Where Eagles Dare is a 1968 World War II action film starring Richard Burton, Clint Eastwood and Mary Ure. It was directed by Brian G. Hutton and shot on location in Austria and Bavaria. Alistair MacLean wrote the novel and the screenplay at the same time. It was his first screenplay; both film and book became commercial successes.
1066894	The Super is a 1991 American comedy film starring Joe Pesci as a New York slum landlord sentenced to live in one of his own buildings until it is brought up to code. Screenwriter Nora Ephron co-scripted the story with Sam Simon. This is the last film in which Vincent Gardenia appeared. Plot. Joe Pesci stars as Louie Kritski, a heartless slumlord who was born into money, thanks to his ruthless father, "Big Lou" (Vincent Gardenia), also a slumlord. However, the tables turn on Louie when he's threatened with prison for his failure to keep his New York slum up to code. The judge gives him another option, which he accepts: he must live in one of his own shoddy run-down apartment blocks until he brings it up to livable standards. At first Louie is adamant that not one repair will be carried out, and will wait until his father bails him out. However, Louie has a change of heart after meeting and getting to know the building's residents, including a small time hustler named Marlon (Ruben Blades), and a struggling street boy named Tito. Over time, Louie grows more sympathetic with their problems and makes amends for his greediness through actions such as donating space heaters to the tenants to help them cope with the winter. Unfortunately, Big Lou Kritski is the owner of the property in title, and he resists his son's entreaties to spend money to improve the tenements. When Louie confronts Big Lou who is about to set fire to his own tenement, all the residents appear on the roof to back up Louie. The film ends with Louie's building completely refurbished, Marlon becoming the new super, and all the tenants gathered outside to see Louie off. Reception. "The Super" had a $22 million production budget. However, the film was a box-office failure, only grossing $11,000,863 domestically in its release. The film received poor reviews in its theatrical release and currently holds a 0% rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 9 reviews. Kenny Blank, who played Tito, was nominated for a Young Artist Award in 1992 in the category 'Best Young Actor Co-starring in a Motion Picture'
1264964	Jobyna Ralston (November 21, 1899 – January 22, 1967) was an American stage and film actress. Early life and career. Born Jobyna Lancaster Raulston in South Pittsburg, Tennessee in 1899 to parents who named her after famed entertainer of the time, Jobyna Howland. Ralston's mother, a portrait photographer, carefully groomed her daughter for a show business career. At the age of nine she gave her first stage performance as Cinderella during the grand opening of the Wilson theatre/Opera House in 1909. Around 1915, Ralston attended acting school in New York. She later danced chorus and sang in Broadway productions, her first being "Two Little Girls in Blue". This production marked her Broadway debut, when she was 21. Comedian Max Linder saw her on stage and persuaded her to go to Hollywood, where she appeared in a number of his films. She also co-starred in "Humor Risk" (1921), the fabled lost comedy short film that was to be the film debut of the Marx Brothers. Soon director Hal Roach began to star the actress in one-reel comedies. She abandoned the stage for the screen in 1922 when her mother's health began to decline, and she needed to make more money to help pay the medical bills. Starring with Harold Lloyd. In 1923 she was named by the film industry as one of the WAMPAS Baby Stars. This award was given every year to the top up and coming female stars. This same year she starred with silent comedian Harold Lloyd in "Why Worry?", and for the next five years appeared in six of Lloyd's feature films as his leading lady. It is for these performances and her onscreen chemistry with Lloyd that she is best remembered today. She would start the trend for romantic comedies with "Girl Shy" (1924). Silent film career. As a freelance actress, Ralston co-starred with Richard Arlen, in the first Oscar-winning film, "Wings" (1927). She had a feature role in a film which also featured Clara Bow, Gary Cooper, and Buddy Rogers. She would star in eleven more motion pictures, among them "Special Delivery" (1927) co-starring Eddie Cantor. Her film career ended after two early talkies when she became a mother. Her last talkie, "Rough Waters" (1930), found her acting with Rin Tin Tin. Personal life and death. Ralston was married twice, the first time to childhood beau John Campbell, the second in 1927 to actor Richard Arlen, whom she had met on the set of "Wings". They had one child, actor Richard Arlen, Jr. Ralston and Arlen divorced in 1945.
1060069	Jami Beth Gertz (born October 28, 1965) is an American actress. Gertz is known for her early roles in the films "Sixteen Candles", "Crossroads", "The Lost Boys", "Less Than Zero", the 1980s TV series "Square Pegs" with Sarah Jessica Parker, and 1996's "Twister", as well as for her role as Judy Miller in the CBS sitcom "Still Standing" with Mark Addy. Early life. Gertz was born in Chicago and lived in the city's nearby suburb, Glenview, Illinois. Her parents are Sharyn and Walter Gertz, who was a builder and contractor, and she has two brothers, Michael and Scott. Gertz, who is Jewish, was raised in Conservative Judaism. She graduated from Maine East High School. Career. She was discovered in a nationwide talent search by Norman Lear and studied drama at NYU. As a child actor, Gertz was in one episode of "Diff'rent Strokes" along with Andrew Dice Clay. She also had a recurring role on "The Facts of Life" as Blair's friend and fellow schoolmate Boots St. Clair. Gertz made her film debut in the 1981 romance film "Endless Love", which was followed by a co-starring role in the 1982-83 TV series "Square Pegs". After its cancellation, she appeared in the teen movie "Sixteen Candles" in 1984.
1063795	Erika Eleniak (born September 29, 1969) is an American "Playboy" Playmate and actress best known for her role in "Baywatch" as Shauni McClain. She also starred in the films "", "The Blob", "Under Siege" and "The Beverly Hillbillies". Early life. Eleniak was born September 29, 1969 in Glendale, California. She is the eldest daughter in a family of four girls and one boy. Her father, who was born in Edmonton, Alberta, is of Ukrainian descent and her mother is of Estonian and German ancestry. Eleniak's parents are divorced. Eleniak attended Robert Fulton Junior High in Van Nuys, Los Angeles and graduated from Van Nuys High School. During her teenage years, She became a regular on the San Fernando Valley party circuit and began to use alcohol and drugs regularly. After a chance meeting with Steve Ferguson on a Santa Monica beach, he recommended that the 18-year-old Eleniak go to Alcoholics Anonymous and supported her in her recovery. Their relationship became complicated when Ferguson's father, Robert, married Eleniak's mother. Career. Modeling. In 1989 when Erika Eleniak was 19, she asked Ferguson to put her in contact with a "Playboy" photographer. As a result, Eleniak appeared in the July 1989 issue of the magazine in a pictorial with a nautical theme. Television. In 1989, Eleniak had a recurring role on the TV series "Charles In Charge" as Charles's girlfriend, Stephanie Curtis. That same year, she won a role on "Baywatch" as female lead Shauni McClain, which she played from 1989 to 1992, leaving after the second episode of Season 3. She also played the high-school girlfriend of Jesse (John Stamos) in "One Last Kiss", the November 16, 1990 episode of "Full House". Film. Eleniak's first feature film role was in the 1982 film "E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial" as the girl kissed by Elliott in the classroom scene. Her first film role as an adult was as Vicki De Soto, a victim of the creature in the 1988 horror remake "The Blob". In 1992, Eleniak returned to film acting, playing Jordan Tate, a Playboy Playmate hired to do a striptease for the captain of the U.S. Navy battleship, USS "Missouri", in "Under Siege". In the film, she is described as "Jordan Tate, Miss July 1989"—which is the month that Eleniak was Playmate of the Month in real life. She attempted to capitalize on this success by starring as Elly May Clampett in the screen adaptation of "The Beverly Hillbillies" in 1993, but the film flopped. The next year, she starred in the Dennis Hopper-directed romantic comedy film "Chasers". William McNamara, one of her co-stars in this film, also became her fiancé for a brief period. Eleniak went on to shoot another movie with McNamara, "Girl in the Cadillac" (1995). Eleniak also starred in an interactive game during 1995; she played identical twins in the 1995 video game "Panic in the Park". She continued to make more independent films including "A Pyromaniac's Love Story" (1995), "Bordello of Blood" (1996) and Ed McBain's "87th Precinct: Heatwave" (1997), "The Pandora Project" (1998) with Daniel Baldwin, "One Hot Summer Night" (1998) with Barry Bostwick, "Final Voyage" (1999) with Ice-T, "Stealth Fighter" (1999), "The Opponent" (2000), "Vegas, City of Dreams" (2001) with Angelica Bridges, "Second to Die" (2002), "Snowbound" (2001), "Betrayal" (2003) and "Shakedown" (2002). Reality television. Eleniak appeared as one of the cast members of the reality television series "The Real Gilligan's Island" for its second season, which started in June 2005. Eleniak suffered from weight issues throughout her life. At one point, she was underweight due to eating disorder and was once hospitalized because of laxative abuse. By 2006, she was overweight, and became a participant on the fourth season of VH1's reality television series "Celebrity Fit Club", on which two teams of celebrities compete to lose weight. Other appearances. In 2006, she appeared on "80's Movie and Music Fest Cafe", a British comedy podcast on iTunes, in which she discussed her career with presenters Ross Dyer and Julian Bayes. She gave a lighthearted view of "Baywatch" and her challenge during filming of "Celebrity Fit Club". Personal life. Eleniak married Philip Goglia on May 22, 1998, but that marriage ended in divorce. After filming "Snowbound" in 2001 in Calgary, Alberta, Eleniak became enamored with the city. She also fell in love with Roch Daigle, a key grip who worked on the set. Having wanted to leave Los Angeles for years and finding commuting to and from Telluride, Colorado too difficult, Eleniak purchased a home in Calgary, where Daigle lived. Eleniak became pregnant in 2005, but six and a half weeks into her term, the pregnancy was discovered to be ectopic, which required emergency surgery days later. It ended in miscarriage, but Eleniak soon became pregnant again. Her first child, daughter Indyanna, was born in January 2006.
1092923	Demetrios Christodoulou () (born October 19, 1951) is a Greek mathematician and physicist, who first became well known for his proof, together with Sergiu Klainerman, of the nonlinear stability of the Minkowski spacetime of special relativity in the framework of general relativity. Christodoulou was born in Athens and received his doctorate in physics from Princeton University in 1971 under the direction of John Archibald Wheeler. After temporary positions at Caltech, CERN, and the Max Planck Institute, he became Professor of Mathematics, first at Syracuse University, then at the Courant Institute, and at Princeton University, before taking up his current position as Professor of Mathematics and Physics at the ETH Zurich in Switzerland. He holds dual Greek and U.S. citizenship. In 1993, he published a book coauthored with Klainerman in which the extraordinarily difficult proof of the stability result is laid out in detail. In that year, he was named a MacArthur Fellow. In 1991, he published a paper which shows that the test masses of a gravitational wave detector suffer permanent relative displacements after the passage of a gravitational wave train, an effect which has been named "nonlinear memory effect". In the period 1987-1999 he published a series of papers on the gravitational collapse of a spherically symmetric self-gravitating scalar field and the formation of black holes and associated spacetime singularities. He also showed that, contrary to what had been expected, singularities which are not hidden in a black hole also occur. However, he then showed that such "naked singularities" are unstable. Christodoulou is a recipient of the Bôcher Memorial Prize, the highest award of the American Mathematical Society. The Bôcher Prize citation mentions his work on the spherically symmetric scalar field as well as his work on the stability of Minkowski spacetime. In 2000, Christodoulou published a book on general systems of partial differential equations deriving from a variational principle (or "action principle"). In 2007, he published a book on the formation of shock waves in 3-dimensional fluids. In 2008 he was awarded the Tomalla prize in gravitation. In 2009 he published a book where a result which complements the stability result is proved. Namely, that a sufficiently strong flux of incoming gravitational waves leads to the formation of a black hole. In 2011, he and Richard Hamilton won the Shaw Prize in the Mathematical Sciences, "for their highly innovative works on nonlinear partial differential equations in Lorentzian and Riemannian geometry and their applications to general relativity and topology". The citation for Christodoulou mentions his work on the formation of black holes by gravitational waves as well as his earlier work on the spherically symmetric self-gravitating scalar field and his work with Klainerman on the stability of Minkowski spacetime. Christodoulou is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences. In 2012 he became a fellow of the American Mathematical Society.
1130484	Louise Sorel (born August 6, 1940) is an American actress. Biography. Early life. Louise Jacqueline Cohen was born in Los Angeles into a theatrical family; her mother was actress and pianist Jeanne Sorel, and her father was producer Albert J. Cohen. She received theatrical training at the Neighborhood Playhouse in New York. She briefly attended the Institut Français abroad. Career. Sorel's early career was on the stage; she spent several years on Broadway, playing roles in "Take Her, She's Mine" and "Man and Boy". She appeared in stage productions of "The Lion in Winter" and "The Sign in Sidney Brustein's Window". Sorel's first feature film appearance was the 1965 film, "The Party's Over". She appeared in "Plaza Suite", "Every Little Crook and Nanny", "B.S. I Love You", ', and "Where the Boys Are '84", among others. She has made guest appearances on more than 50 prime time programs and television movies, making a notable guest appearance on ' as Rayna Kapec. She also portrayed Terry Waverly, the sister-in-law of Dr. Richard Kimble in an episode of "The Fugitive", starring David Janssen in 1965. She made other guest appearances on such television programs as "Bonanza", "Daniel Boone", "The Virginian", "Route 66" (guest-starring with William Shatner), "The Big Valley", "Vega$", "Medical Center", "Charlie's Angels", "Hawaii Five-O", "Night Gallery", "Knots Landing", and "Sabrina the Teenage Witch", among others. She had a principal role on "The Don Rickles Show". Sorel played Helena Varga, a young woman from a disadvantaged background whose photographic memory becomes valuable to a drug kingpin in the 1974 Wolper-produced TV movie "Get Christie Love", starring Teresa Graves. In 1982 she played Eleanor Greeley in the "Magnum, P.I." episode "One More Summer". Her first daytime dramatic role was as eccentric, meddlesome Augusta Wainwright on the NBC daytime drama "Santa Barbara". She appeared on "Santa Barbara" from 1984 to 1986, from 1988 to 1989, and finally from 1990 to 1991. In between stints, she also spent a year appearing as Judith Russell Sanders on the ABC soap opera "One Life to Live", from 1986 through 1987. She played villainess Vivian Alamain on the NBC daytime serial, "Days of our Lives" from March 1992 until February 2000. Sorel's performance as Alamain garnered her five Soap Opera Digest Awards as "Outstanding Villainess" in 1994, "Outstanding Showstopper" in 1997 and again in 1999 as "Outstanding Scene Stealer".
1162025	Jennifer Lyons (born August 6, 1977) is an American actress and model. Personal life. Lyons was born in Pasadena, California to a family of entertainers. Her father is a Flamenco guitarist, her mother a school principal, and grandparents were a Vaudeville team. She was inspired by her uncle and actor James Best, known for "The Dukes of Hazzard", who she starred with in the film "The Return of the Killer Shrews". Her love for performing was apparent from a very young age when she would dance for her family while her father played guitar.
394183	Choi Min-sik (born April 27, 1962) is a South Korean actor. He is best known for his critically acclaimed role in "Oldboy". Together with Song Kang-ho and Sol Kyung-gu, Choi is considered both domestically and on the global scene as among the very top echelon of Korean actors in terms of presence and talent. Early life. Choi Min-sik was born on April 27, 1962 in Seoul, South Korea. When he was in third grade, Choi was diagnosed with tuberculosis and told by his doctor that there was nothing that could be done for him. Refusing to give up, he has eventually restored his health through an extended stay in the mountains. Career. Graduating with a degree in Theatre from Dongguk University, Choi first made a name for himself on the stage before breaking into the film world with roles in Park Jong-won's early films "Kuro Arirang" and the acclaimed "Our Twisted Hero". In the mid-nineties he continued to act in theater productions as well as in several TV dramas, including "The Moon of Seoul" with Han Suk-kyu.
589721	Satte Pe Satta (, "tr." Seven on Seven) is a Hindi comedy film released in 1982. It featured Amitabh Bachchan, Hema Malini, Amjad Khan, Ranjeeta Kaur, Sachin, Shakti Kapoor, Paintal, Sudhir, Inderjeet, Sarika, Kanwaljit Singh, Prema Narayan, Mac Mohan and Kalpana Iyer amongst others. The film became a semi-hit at the box office. Story. Satte Pe Satta is the story of seven brothers living on a large farmhouse. The first half of the movie shows the life of the brothers who grew up under the dominance of their oldest brother Ravi (Amitabh Bachchan). Being orphans and uneducated, all seven brothers are unsophisticated bumpkins and lack social etiquette and hygiene. They live on a small farm among animals. A sequence of events leads Ravi to fall in love with a nurse named Indu (Hema Malini). Indu despises unruliness and chaos. Therefore, Ravi tricks her into believing that he has only 1 younger brother, Shani and thus Indu eventually marries him only to realize he has five more brothers all uneducated and uncouth. Ravi's six brothers learn to adjust with new woman in their lives as she does with them, trying to civilize them. Soon enough, they all fall in love with a group of six women, friends with an heiress (and the feeling is mutual). Shortly things take a turn when Babu, Ravi's lookalike, is hired by the heiress's guardian, Ranjit Singh, to kill her for possession of her ancestral property. Soundtrack listing. The lyrics were written by Gulshan Bawra and music was composed by Rahul Dev Burman.
1061080	Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is a 2008 American adventure science fiction film. It is the fourth film in the "Indiana Jones" franchise, created by George Lucas and directed by Steven Spielberg. Released nineteen years after the previous film, the film acknowledges the age of its star Harrison Ford by being set in 1957. It pays tribute to the science fiction B-movies of the era, pitting Indiana Jones against Soviet agents—led by Irina Spalko (Cate Blanchett)— searching for a psychic alien crystal skull. Indiana is aided by his former lover Marion Ravenwood (Karen Allen) and son Mutt Williams (Shia LaBeouf). Ray Winstone, John Hurt and Jim Broadbent are also part of the supporting cast. Screenwriters Jeb Stuart, Jeffrey Boam, Frank Darabont, and Jeff Nathanson wrote drafts before David Koepp's script satisfied the producers. Shooting began on June 18, 2007 and took place in various locations including New Mexico; New Haven, Connecticut; Hawaii; and Fresno, California, as well as on sound stages in Los Angeles, California. To keep aesthetic continuity with the previous films, the crew relied on traditional stunt work instead of computer-generated stunt doubles, and cinematographer Janusz Kamiński studied Douglas Slocombe's style from the previous films. The film premiered at the Cannes Film Festival on May 18, 2008, and it was released worldwide on May 22, 2008, to generally positive reviews. It was also a financial success, grossing over $786 million worldwide, becoming the franchise's highest-grossing film when not adjusted for inflation, and the second highest-grossing film of 2008. Marketing relied heavily on the public's nostalgia for the series, with products taking inspiration from all four films. Several legal issues regarding non-disclosure and stolen equipment impacted production and secrecy for the film. Plot. In 1957 during the Cold War, World War II veteran Indiana Jones and his partner George "Mac" McHale are kidnapped by a group of Soviet agents led by Colonel Dr. Irina Spalko. The Soviets infiltrate a warehouse labeled "Warehouse 51" in Nevada and force Jones to find a crate containing a corpse that was recovered from a crash ten years earlier near Roswell, New Mexico. After finding the crate, with its highly magnetic contents, Mac, bribed by the Soviets, double-crosses Jones. After a running battle with the Soviets, Indiana manages to escape on a rocket sled into the desert; he stumbles into a deserted town, part of a nuclear test site and survives a nuclear detonation by hiding in a lead-lined refrigerator. After the blast, Indiana Jones is found and arrested. He informs the government that the crate was stolen by the Soviets but is later debriefed by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, who believe he's also working for the Soviets like Mac, but Indiana is defended by an old friend who also worked with him in the army.
755613	Rodolfo Guzmán Huerta (September 23, 1917 – February 5, 1984), more widely known as El Santo (the Saint), was a Mexican Luchador enmascarado (Spanish for masked professional wrestler), film actor, and folk icon. El Santo, along with Blue Demon and Mil Máscaras, is one of the most famous and iconic of all Mexican luchadores, and has been referred to as one of "the greatest legends in Mexican sports" His wrestling career spanned nearly five decades, during which he became a folk hero and a symbol of justice for the common man through his appearances in comic books and movies. He is said to have popularized professional wrestling in Mexico just as Rikidozan did in Japan. Guzmán's son followed him into wrestling as El Hijo del Santo, or 'Son of Santo'. Biography. Born in Tulancingo in the Mexican state of Hidalgo, to Jesús Guzmán Campuzano and Josefina Huerta (Márquez) de Guzmán as the fifth of seven children, Rodolfo came to Mexico City in the 1920s, where his family settled in the Tepito neighbourhood. He practiced baseball and American football, and then became interested in wrestling. He first learned Ju-Jitsu, then classical wrestling. Pro wrestling career. Accounts vary as to exactly when and where he first wrestled competitively, either in Arena Peralvillo Cozumel on 28 June 1934, or Deportivo Islas in the Guerrero colony of Mexico City in 1935, but by the second half of the 1930s, he was established as a wrestler, using the names "Rudy Guzmán", "El Hombre Rojo" ("the Red Man"), "El Demonio Negro" (The Black Demon) and "El Murcielago II" ("The Bat II"). The last name was a rip-off of the name of a famous wrestler Jesus Velazquez named "El Murcielago" (The Bat), and after an appeal by the Bat to the Mexican boxing and wrestling commission, the regulatory body ruled that Guzmán could not use the name. El Santo. In the early 1940s, Guzmán married María de los Ángeles Rodríguez Montaño (Maruca), a union that would produce 10 children; their names were Alejandro, María de los Ángeles, Héctor Rodolfo, Blanca Lilia, Víctor Manuel, Miguel Ángel, Silvia Yolanda, María de Lourdes, Mercedes, and the youngest child Jorge, who also became a famous wrestler in his own right, "El Hijo del Santo" (Son of Santo). In 1942, Rodolfo's manager, Don Jesús Lomelí, was putting together a new team of wrestlers, all dressed in silver, and wanted Rodolfo to be a part of it. He suggested three names, "El Santo" ("The Saint"), "El Diablo" ("The Devil"), or "El Angel" ("The Angel"), and Rodolfo chose the first one. On 26 June, aged 24, he wrestled at the Arena Mexico for the first time as El Santo, although he later was known simply as "Santo". Under this new name he quickly found his style. One of Santo's greatest matches was in 1952, when he fought a tag-team known as Los Hermanos Shadow (which consisted of famed luchadors Blue Demon and the Black Shadow). Santo beat and unmasked Black Shadow in the ring, which triggered Blue Demon's decision to become a técnico, as well as a legendary feud between Blue Demon and Santo that culminated in Santo's defeat in a well-publicized series of matches in 1952 and again in 1953. Although they appeared together in a number of action/adventure films, their rivalry never really ended in later years since Santo always remembered his defeat at Blue Demon's hands. Retirement. By the early 1980s El Santo slowed down his in ring activities leading up to his inevitable retirement. His farewell tour was announced for August and September 1982. the first of three events took place on August 22, 1982 at the Palacio de los Deportes in Mexico City. On that night El Santo teamed up with El Solitario to take on Villano III and Rokambole in a match that naturally saw the legends win. After the match Villano and Rokamble lifted El Santo up on their shoulders as he received the adulation of the sold out arena. The following Sunday El Santo appeared at Arena México where he teamed up with Gran Hamada to defeat Villano I and Scorpio, Jr. Santo's last match took place on September 12, 1982, a week before his 65th birthday. In his last match ever El Santo teamed up with Gory Guerrero who came out of retirement to reform "La Pareja Atómica" as they teamed up with Huracán Ramirez and El Solitario. Their opponents included one of El Santo's biggest rivals in Perro Aguayo as well as El Signo, Negro Navarro and El Texano. True to the legend of El Santo he won his last match and retired as the hero he always portrayed in the ring and on the screen. His retirement tour was also used to introduce Santo's son Jorge as the next generation El Santo as he was ringside at each show wearing the silver mask and being introduced as El Hijo del Santo. Death. Just over a year after his retirement (in late January 1984), El Santo was a guest on "Contrapunto", a Mexican television program and, completely without warning, removed his mask just enough to expose his face, in effect bidding his fans goodbye. It is the only documented case of Santo ever removing his mask in public. Santo died from a heart attack (during a stage show he was putting on) on February 5, 1984, at 9:40 p.m., a week after his "Contrapunto" TV appearance. As per his wishes, he was buried wearing his famous silver mask. His funeral is considered one of the biggest in Mexican history as fans and friends flocked to see "el Enmascarado de Plata" ("The Silver-Masked One") one last time. After his death, a statue of El Santo was erected in his home town of Tulancingo and other statues have been created since then. Legacy. The legend of El Santo, better known as "El enmascarado de plata" lives on to this very day both inside and outside the wrestling ring. Santo's youngest son with his first wife, Jorge carries on the legend of the Silver Mask, wrestling as El Hijo del Santo wearing the silver mask, cape and outfit that is very close to what his father used to wear. While El Hijo del Santo is not as big an icon as his father he is considered a more technically proficient wrestler. In the early 1960s a female wrestler called "La Novia del Santo" (Spanish for "the Bride of El Santo") worked the Mexican circuit. Under the silver mask was Irma González, a well-known wrestler who had promised her fiancé that she'd stop wrestling, but went back in the ring under a mask when she could not resist the draw of competition. La Novia got El Santo's blessing to use the name and is the only non-family member ever given the right to use the Santo name. Gonzáles only wrestled as "La Novia del Santo" for 7 months until she got married. Later on, a homosexual wrestler adopted the "La Novia del Santo" name but El Santo took action and put an end to the impostor's use of the name. Recently one of El Santo's 25 grandchildren made his professional debut. After gaining some seasoning under different identities, he began working as "El Nieto del Santo" (Spanish for "the Grandson of Santo"). El Hijo del Santo took legal actions to prevent this as he owns all "El Santo" rights when it comes to wrestling, presumably because he himself is planning on letting one of his own sons use the "El Nieto del Santo" name. These days, the grandson of El Santo works as "Axxel" and only uses "El Nieto del Santo" as an unofficial nickname to avoid any legal issues. Axxel uses the same trademark mask, cape and trunk design as El Santo but has incorporated black trim and knee pads, presumably not to infringe on the legal rights of El Hijo del Santo. In August 2012, a court ruled in favor of Axxel, allowing him to again begin working as El Nieto del Santo. Movie career. In 1952, the artist and editor José G. Cruz started a Santo comic book, turning Santo into the first and foremost character in Mexican popular literature, his popularity only rivalled by the legendary Kalimán character. The Santo comic book series (four different volumes) ran continuously for 35 years, ending in 1987. Also in 1952, a superhero motion picture serial was made entitled "The Man in the Silver Mask", which was supposed to star Santo, but he declined to appear in it, because he thought it would fail commercially. The film was made instead with well-known luchador El Médico Asesino in the lead role, wearing a white mask similar to Santo's silver one. A villain named "The Silver-Masked Man" was introduced into the plot at the last minute, thus the title of the film strangely became a reference to the villain, not the hero. In 1958, Fernando Osés, a wrestler and actor, invited Santo to work in movies, and although Santo was unwilling to give up his wrestling career, he accepted, planning to do both at the same time. Oses was planning on playing the hero ("El Incognito") in these 2 films, with Santo appearing as his costumed sidekick, "El Enmascarado". Fernando Osés and Enrique Zambrano wrote the scripts for the first two movies, "el Cerebro del Mal" ("The Evil Brain") and "Hombres Infernales" ("The Infernal Men"), both released in 1958, and directed by Joselito Rodríguez. Filming was done in Cuba, and ended just the day before Fidel Castro entered Havana and declared the victory of the revolution. Santo played a masked superhero-type sidekick to the main hero (El Incognito) in these two films, and was not the main character (nor was he depicted as a wrestler in these 2 films). The films did poorly at the box office when they were released. Years later however, when Santo's film career took off, the distributors of these two films quietly added Santo's name into the titles. Most people feel Santo's film career really took off in 1961, with his third movie "Santo vs The Zombies." Santo was given the starring role with this film, and was shown for the first time as a professional wrestler moonlighting as a superhero. Santo eventually wound up appearing in 52 lucha libre films in all (two of which were just cameo appearances). The style of the movies was essentially the same throughout the series, with Santo as a superhero fighting supernatural creatures, evil scientists, various criminals/ secret agents and so on. The tones were reminiscent of U.S. B-movies and TV shows, perhaps most similar to the old Republic Pictures serials of the 1940s. His best-known movie outside of Mexico is also considered one of his best, 1962's "Santo vs. las Mujeres Vampiro" ("Santo vs. the Vampire Women"), which was also featured in an episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000. In this movie, the production values were better, and there was an attempt at creating more of a mythos and background for Santo, as the last of a long line of superheroes. It was an enormous success at the box office. Only 4 of the 52 Santo films were ever dubbed into English, the other 48 being only available in Spanish. The English-dubbed Mexican films of that time period were imported to the United States through the efforts of K. Gordon Murray who changed the name of Santo to "Samson" for some of his releases. Most of Murray's imported Mexi-films went directly to late-night American TV. Santo's most financially successful film was "The Mummies of Guanajuato" (1970), which co-starred Blue Demon and Mil Mascaras. Many Mexi-movie fans consider it to be the greatest luchador film ever made. The Santo film series inspired the production of similar series of movies starring other well-known luchadores such as Blue Demon, Mil Mascaras, Superzan and the Wrestling Women, among others. Santo even co-starred with Blue Demon and Mil Mascaras in several of his movies. When Blue Demon invited Santo to co-star with him and Mil Mascaras in the "Champions of Justice" movie trilogy, however, Santo was too busy making other films to participate. By 1977, the masked wrestler film craze had practically died off, but Santo continued to appear in more films over the next few years. His last film was "FURY OF THE KARATE EXPERTS", shot in Florida in 1982, the same year he retired from the ring. Santo officially retired from wrestling on Sept. 12, 1982 (a week before his 65th birthday). His last match was at the El Toreo de Cuatro Caminos in Mexico. All told, his professional wrestling career spanned a total of 48 years. In 1984, Santo appeared as a guest on "Contrapunto", a Mexican television program and, completely without warning, removed his mask just enough to expose most of his face (reportedly he wasn't very pretty). It is the only documented case of Santo ever removing his mask in public. Santo died from a heart attack on Feb. 5, 1984, at 9:40 p.m. (the week after his Contrapunto TV appearance). He was 66 years old. As per his wishes, he was buried wearing his famous silver mask, and famed Mexi-wrestler Huracan Ramirez was one of his pall bearers. Seventeen years after Santo's death, his real-life son (known in Mexico as "El Hijo del Santo") played the lead role in a brand new Santo movie called "Infraterrestre" (2001), which co-starred the famed Mexican wrestler The Blue Panther. Other media appearances. Santo also became an animated mini-series on Cartoon Network in Latin America. On October 27, 2004, Cartoon Network released the first chapter of 5 shorts. Each chapter is about 2 minutes long, and they were shown weekly on Wednesday nights at 8:00 PM. There is also currently another Santo series in development at Cartoon Network Studios in Burbank. The mini series was inspired by Santo's classic movies. Santo fought against an evil scientist, Dr. Clone, who collected the DNA of Santo's previous foes and resurrected them to kill Santo and dominate the world. El Santo also inspired the animated series Mucha Lucha and . In Mucha Lucha he's called "El Rey", and it's represented as an icon of all positive things. In El Tigre, the character White Pantera shares much of El Santo's ever optimist attitude from the movies as well as his first name, but there's also a character named Silver Sombrero who is an exact copy of Santo, except he wears a large Mexican hat. Santo is immortalized in the rockabilly band Southern Culture on the Skids' 1996 album Santo Swings!/Viva el Santo. Santo is often resurrected in Southern Culture's live performances when an audience member jumps onstage donning Santo's mask. The Latin ska band King Changó released an album titled The Return of El Santo. A Turkish actor portrayed an unlicensed version of Santo in the infamous bootleg Turkish film "3 dev adam". In addition the 2001 Canadian cult film, "Jesus Christ Vampire Hunter", also features an unlicensed version of El Santo as one of Christ's monster hunting associates. He also is referred by Mexican rock band Botellita de Jerez in their song Santo, where they told Santo's victories in the ring and in the movies as well as the big respect he got as a Mexican movie hero, in the song they parody songs like the Batman TV Series's theme along as some religious songs. Santo filmography (in chronological order). Postscript:
587535	Nenu Naa Rakshasi() is a 2011 Telugu romantic drama film written and directed by Puri Jagannadh. The film stars Rana Daggubati playing the role of professional killer and Ileana D'Cruz playing the female lead, while Mumaith Khan and Bollywood actor Abhimanyu Singh play other pivotal roles. The film was awarded ‘U/A’ certificate by the Censor Board for certification. The film was released on 29 April 2011 and was a Disaster at the Box Office. Plot. Abhimanyu (Rana Daggubati) is a professional shooter who kills local gangsters for the sake of money. He falls instantly in love with Meenakshi (Ileana D'Cruz), working in a cafeteria. In the same flow Vikram (Subbaraju), is local Circle Inspector on a special duty to track down the YouTube account of ‘It is My Life Boss.’ This account deals with shooting and uploading of suicides happening in the society but with a purpose behind. Abhimanyu decides to go for a suicide as his Mother dies and calls up that particular YouTube account creator. He finds that the girl shooting his suicide episode is none other than Meenakshi. Now, Abhimanyu decides to live for the sake of his love.
1060741	David Thewlis (né David Wheeler; born 20 March 1963) is an English actor of stage and screen. His most commercially successful role to date has been that of Remus Lupin in the "Harry Potter" film series. Other notable performances include his work in the films "Naked" (1993),"Timeline" (2003), "Kingdom of Heaven" (2005), "The Omen" (2006), "The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas" (2008), "London Boulevard" (2010) and "War Horse" (2011). He made his name known in 1993 with his performance of Johnny in "Naked" and with his performance of main antagonist King Einon in the 1996 film "Dragonheart". He has also done voice work in the films "James and the Giant Peach" (1996) and "The Miracle Maker" (2000). Early life. Thewlis, second of three children, was born David Wheeler in Blackpool, Lancashire, the son of Maureen (née Thewlis) and Alec Raymond Wheeler. Both parents worked at his father's shop, which sold toys in the summer and wallpaper and paint in the winter. As a teenager, he played in a rock band called QED, in which he, Cliff Ashcroft, Mark Fawl and Chris Swift wrote much of their own music and lyrics. QED played at some of the Blackpool hotels to earn money for equipment and their first recording session at Storm Studios in Blackpool. Later, Thewlis played lead guitar with a punk rock band called Door 66. As a musician he was "doing nicely, doing good" and did not want to be an actor. Thewlis was educated at Highfield High School, a state secondary school in Marton, Blackpool. He later enrolled in the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London, graduating in 1984. When he went to register with the actors' union, he intended to use Wheeler as his stage name, but a "David Wheeler" already existed. His mother's maiden name was the first that came to mind. Career. His first professional role was in the play "Buddy Holly at the Regal" in Greenwich. Thewlis' first major film role was as the rambling street philosopher Johnny in "Naked" (1993; dir. Mike Leigh), for which he was named best actor by the National Society of Film Critics (United States), the London Film Critics Circle, the Evening Standard, the New York Film Critics' Circle and the Cannes Film Festival. The same year he appeared on television as a sexual predator named James Jackson in "Prime Suspect 3", opposite Helen Mirren and Ciarán Hinds. Prior to this Thewlis's first television appearance was alongside Ken Jones in "Valentine Park". Through the 1990s, Thewlis appeared in a variety of films, mostly fantasy and period, including "Restoration" (1995), "Black Beauty" (1994), "Total Eclipse" (1995) with Leonardo DiCaprio, "The Island of Dr. Moreau" (1996), "Dragonheart" (1996) and "Seven Years in Tibet" (1997) opposite Brad Pitt (because of this film, Thewlis is barred from entering China). He was nominated for a British Independent Film Award for "Divorcing Jack" (1998), and played Clov in a (2000) television film of Samuel Beckett's "Endgame". Notable appearances also include Bernardo Bertolucci's "Besieged" (1998) and Paul McGuigan's "Gangster No. 1" (2000), opposite Paul Bettany and Malcolm McDowell. Thewlis auditioned for the role of Professor Quirrell in the film "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone", but the part went to Ian Hart. Despite missing out on the first film, In 2004, Thewlis was cast as Remus Lupin in "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban". He did not have to audition as he was director Alfonso Cuarón's first choice for the role. He reprised the role in four other films in the series. Thewlis also appears as an SS Commandant of a Nazi death camp, father of the main character in "The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas". Recent credits include Ridley Scott's "Kingdom of Heaven" (2005), Terrence Malick's "The New World" (2005) and "The Omen" (2006). As a director, he was nominated for a BAFTA Award for Best Short Film for "Hello, Hello, Hello" (1995); he has also written, directed and starred in the feature "Cheeky" (2003). When researching for his role in "Kingdom of Heaven", Thewlis went to the Hospitaller museum near his home, and the first thing he saw was a mannequin wearing the same costume that he wore in the film. He plays the late Dr. Michael Aris, husband of Nobel Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi of Burma, with Malaysian actress Michelle Yeoh as Suu Kyi, in the biopic "The Lady" directed by Luc Besson. Thewlis received a International Festival of Independent Cinema Off Plus Camera Award in 2012. Personal life. In 1992, Thewlis married director Sara Sugarman; they divorced in 1994. He then had a brief relationship with Bill Oddie's daughter Kate Hardie. In 2001, he began a relationship with actress Anna Friel, whom he met on a flight to Cannes. They have one child together. Friel and Thewlis ended their relationship in late 2010, after almost a decade. Thewlis owns a converted Victorian ballroom in Clerkenwell. He also is often mistaken for fellow actor Rhys Ifans: "Twice a week, people come up to me and say, 'You were great in "Notting Hill"'. The public seem to think we are the same person." Ironically, Thewlis' ex-partner Anna Friel has been in a relationship with Rhys Ifans since 2011. Thewlis has also written a novel called "The Late Hector Kipling", published by Simon & Schuster in 2007.
1065770	Doc Hollywood is a 1991 romantic comedy film directed by Michael Caton-Jones, and written by Jeffrey Price and Peter S. Seaman, based on Neil B. Shulman's book, "What? Dead...Again?". The film stars Michael J. Fox, Julie Warner, and Woody Harrelson, with Bridget Fonda, David Ogden Stiers, Frances Sternhagen, Roberts Blossom, and Barnard Hughes appear in supporting roles. The film was shot on location in Micanopy, Florida. The Disney/Pixar film "Cars" is widely believed to have plagiarized most of its plot from this film. ""It just rips off Doc Hollywood, almost note for note," said Christy Lemire of the San Francisco Chronicle." (film critic previously with the Associated Press (AP) for 15 years, co-host of "Ebert Presents at the Movies", and currently with What The Flick?!.) Plot. Dr. Benjamin Stone (Michael J. Fox) is a hotshot young surgeon who longs to leave the drudgery of a Washington, D.C., emergency room and finally leaps at his chance at more money (for repaying his medical school debts) and less death as a plastic surgeon in Beverly Hills, California. On his last day, Ben's relationship with his co-workers is presumed to be anything but a warm one. None of his colleagues will join him for a drink and a cake in his honor has an iced portion of the phrase "Good riddance, asshole" sliced out. Ben's cross-country drive in a 1956 Porsche 356 Speedster is interrupted when he crashes in the rural hamlet of Grady, South Carolina. The crash damages the fence of local Judge Evans (Roberts Blossom), who sentences him to community service at a nearby hospital. Ben offers to pay for the fence, but the stern judge increases his community service each time he talks back. Defeated, he reports to the hospital, where Nurse Packer (Eyde Byrde) humbles him by ordering him to clock in and out, as would a factory worker. Though upset, Ben quickly makes friends with Mayor Nick Nicholson (David Ogden Stiers), the town cafe's proprietor/head waitress (Frances Sternhagen), and Melvin (Mel Winkler), the local mechanic tasked with repairing Ben's car. Ben soon finds his clinic work to be much more laid-back than the emergency room. He has simple cases such as spots before the eyes (from an elderly patient not cleaning her glasses), fishing hook impalings, and even reading mail for a young illiterate couple, whose baby he later delivers. The experience also humbles Ben when he mistreats a case of mitral valve regurgitation leading to late cyanosis in the child. The town's curmudgeonly doctor, Aurelius Hogue (Barnard Hughes), orders Ben to give the boy a Coca-Cola. Dismissing Hogue's treatment as quackery, Ben calls for a helicopter to transport the boy to another facility in Athens, Georgia, to see a heart specialist. Hogue learns the boy had chewed his father's tobacco and explains the carbonic acid component of the soda would relieve his stomach ache. The two doctors finally bond when Ben saves Hogue after he suffers a near-fatal heart attack. Since Hogue is champing at the bit to retire, Ben is urged by the folksy locals to stay - the pay is only $35,000 a year (a fair amount of money with a low cost of living) but is made tempting by his budding romance with a tomboyish ambulance driver, Vialula (Julie Warner), better known as "Lou." She is a single mother to four-year old Emma, the product of a relationship she had with a former boyfriend while living in New York. In the process, Ben confides that he grew up in a small town in rural Indiana, where his parents lived and died, and can't see himself confined to a small town. Ben is pardoned from community service after saving Hogue, and is free to go to California after his car is fixed. He shows signs of maturity from his experience in Grady and has become attached to his patients. Lou is also pursued by Hank Gordon (Woody Harrelson), a local insurance salesman. One day, Hank waits for Ben at the mayor's lakeside lodge, where Ben has been staying. Ben expects a fight, but Hank explains that though he can't give Lou what Ben can, he's still a better man for her. After the two men talk, Ben comes to realize he's not selfless enough for a life with Lou and plans to not see her anymore. Putting career first, he leaves. On the west coast, Ben's new boss Dr. Halberstrom (George Hamilton) hires him at the interview, thanks to an unexpected letter of recommendation from Hogue. But Ben quickly tires of the superficiality of Beverly Hills. He's surprised by the Mayor's daughter Nancy Lee (Bridget Fonda) and Hank, who have fled Grady to come to California. Hank tells Ben he took his own advice to "do what a man's gotta do." Ben, seeing an opportunity at true happiness, returns to Grady, hoping to patch things up with Lou, who takes him back. Soundtrack. The film's soundtrack features the Chesney Hawkes song "The One and Only", which reached number 10 on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart. Box office and reception. "Doc Hollywood" debuted at number three in the U.S. box office. The film was met with positive reviews, with a 74% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, based on 31 reviews.
1162694	Alexander Scourby (November 13, 1913 – February 22, 1985) was an American film, television, and voice actor known for his deep and resonant voice. He is particularly well-remembered in the English-speaking world for his landmark recordings of the entire King James Version of the Bible, which have been released in numerous editions. He later recorded the entire Revised Standard Version of the Bible. Early life. Alexander Scourby was born in Brooklyn, New York on November 13, 1913, to Constantine Nicholas, a successful restaurateur, wholesale baker and sometime investor in independent motion-pictures, and Betsy Scourby (née Patsakos), a homemaker, both of whom were immigrants from Greece. Reared in Brooklyn, Scourby was a member of a Boy Scout troop and later became a cadet with the 101st National Guard Cavalry Regiment. He attended public and private schools in Brooklyn, spending summer vacations in New Jersey, Upstate New York, and at a cousin's home in Massachusetts. Dismissed from Polytechnic Prep School, he finished his secondary education at Brooklyn Manual Training High School which he described as "an ordinary high school that had an awful lot of shop." Scourby was a co-editor of the magazine and yearbook, and he envisioned a career in writing, though he later came to realize that writing was, for him, "absolutely the most painful thing in the world" and also that he "could never meet a deadline," whereas he found the reading aloud of plays easy and enjoyable. Encouraged by some of his teachers, he began to turn his attention to acting. He made his stage debut with the high school's dramatic society, as the juvenile in Augustin MacHugh's "The Meanest Man in the World".
1060311	Austin Powers in Goldmember is a 2002 American spy comedy film. It is the third and final installment of the Austin Powers trilogy starring Mike Myers in the title role. The movie was directed by Jay Roach, and co-written by Mike Myers and Michael McCullers. Myers also plays the roles of Dr. Evil, Goldmember, and Fat Bastard. The movie co-stars Beyoncé Knowles, Robert Wagner, Seth Green, Michael York, Verne Troyer, Michael Caine, Mindy Sterling and Fred Savage. There are a number of cameo appearances including Steven Spielberg, Kevin Spacey, Britney Spears, Quincy Jones, Tom Cruise, Danny DeVito, Katie Couric, Gwyneth Paltrow, John Travolta, Nathan Lane, and The Osbournes. In a self-parody of the Austin Powers series, there is a film within the film in the opening. Austin Powers is featured in a bio-pic called "Austinpussy" (a parody of the James Bond film "Octopussy") directed by Steven Spielberg and starring Tom Cruise as Austin Powers, Gwyneth Paltrow as Dixie Normous, Kevin Spacey as Dr. Evil, Danny DeVito as Mini-Me, and John Travolta as Goldmember. "Goldmember" is a loose parody of the James Bond films, "Goldfinger" and "You Only Live Twice", also incorporating elements of "The Spy Who Loved Me", "Live and Let Die", "The Man with the Golden Gun" and "GoldenEye". The film took in approximately $296.6 million from movie tickets worldwide. Plot. In 2002 in a new lair behind the famous Hollywood sign, Dr. Evil outlines his newest plan to his minions: he will go back in time to 1975 and bring back Johan van der Smut, aka "Goldmember", who developed a cold fusion unit for a tractor beam which Dr. Evil names Preparation H, not to be confused by the well known product of the same name - Preparations A thru G had failed earlier. He intends to use the tractor beam to pull a meteor into the Earth to strike the polar ice caps and cause global flooding. However, moments after revealing this plan Austin Powers and the British Secret Service attack and arrest Dr. Evil. Austin is knighted for his services, but is disappointed when his father, the famous super-spy Nigel Powers, fails to attend the event. At a party to celebrate his knighthood he sings a song with the band Ming Tea; later he meets two Japanese twins named Fook Mi and Fook Yu and is about to have a threesome with them when Basil Exposition informs Austin that his father has been kidnapped, the only clue that the crew of his yacht have had their genitalia painted gold. In search of answers, Austin visits the imprisoned Dr. Evil, who tells him that Goldmember is behind the abduction. Traveling to 1975, Austin infiltrates Goldmember's roller disco club Studio 69 and meets up with Foxxy Cleopatra (Beyoncé Knowles), an old flame and FBI agent who is undercover as a disco singer. With Foxxy's help, Austin locates his father but is unable to rescue him. Goldmember takes Nigel with him through Dr. Evil's time machine into 2002, and leaves his golden clad henchwomen to kill Austin. Foxxy helps Austin escape, and asks to accompany him to the future in an effort to save his father and exact revenge upon Goldmember for murdering her partner. In 2002, Dr. Evil and Mini-Me instigate a riot in their prison, allowing them to escape. A British Intelligence mole named Number 3 (Fred Savage), who coincidentally has a large mole on his face, informs Austin that the doctor has moved to a new lair near Tokyo – a giant submarine shaped like Dr. Evil. Austin and Foxxy fly to Tokyo and confront one of Dr. Evil's henchman, Fat Bastard, now a sumo wrestler. After a humorous fight between Austin and Fat Bastard, Foxxy arrests Fat Bastard who tells them that a Japanese business man, Mr. Roboto, is working on a device for Dr. Evil and Goldmember. Austin and Foxxy later meet with Mr. Roboto, who pleads ignorance about Nigel's whereabouts. Unconvinced, Austin and Foxxy infiltrate Roboto's factory where the command unit for the tractor beam is being loaded in Goldmember's car, and Roboto hands Goldmember a golden key needed to activate the beam. Foxxy confronts Goldmember while Austin attempts to free Nigel, but Goldmember escapes with the command unit and flees to Dr. Evil's sub. Unable to settle their differences, Nigel and Austin part ways when they disagree on how to deal with the situation. Meanwhile, Dr. Evil's son, Scott Evil, has become increasingly evil in an attempt to prove himself to his father, to the point that he too is going bald. Scott presents his father with sharks with laser beams, a request that had gone unfulfilled in . Dr. Evil replaces Mini-Me with Scott as his favored son; the rejected Mini-Me defects and joins Austin. Austin, Foxxy and Mini-Me infiltrate the sub, but Austin is captured. Dr. Evil prepares to activate the tractor beam, but Foxxy has stolen the key and frees Austin. Austin prepares to shoot Dr. Evil, when Nigel appears and reveals Dr. Evil and Austin are brothers, separated when they were toddlers when an assassination attempt killed their mother, and Dr. Evil was found and raised by Belgians. Dr. Evil and Austin embrace, enraging Scott, who flees to pursue his own vengeance, whilst Goldmember commandeers the tractor beam's controls, unzipping his pants to reveal his gold-covered genitals to be a spare key. Goldmember activates the tractor beam, but Austin and Dr. Evil work together to reverse its polarity, destroying the meteor and saving the world. The heroes arrest Goldmember, who turns to the camera to reveal the entire string of events was adapted into a film by Steven Spielberg, starring Tom Cruise as Austin, Kevin Spacey as Dr. Evil, Danny DeVito as Mini-Me, and John Travolta as Goldmember. Austin, Foxxy, Dr. Evil, Mini-Me and Nigel are in the audience of a Hollywood theater watching the film. Upon exiting the theater they bump into Fat Bastard, now normal size thanks to the Subway diet. As Austin and Foxxy kiss, in Dr. Evil's Hollywood lair, Scott – now completely bald, dressed like and laughing in a manner similar to his father – declares he will get his revenge on Austin and begins dancing like the singer Michael Jackson. Production. Title concerns. The title of the film, "Goldmember", led to legal action being taken by MGM, the distributors of the "James Bond" film franchise, that briefly led to the film's title being removed from promotional material and trailers. The dispute was quickly resolved and the film title remained unchanged on the provision that the film would include trailers in its cinema releases for the then-upcoming James Bond film, "Die Another Day", and "". Coincidentally, as of 2006, MGM is the TV distributor for New Line's films and TV series. Characters. Austin Powers (Myers), having conquered the '90s and the '60s, travels back to the 1970s and teams up with his nemesis Dr. Evil (also played by Myers) to thwart a new villain, Goldmember (Myers once again). Myers also plays Fat Bastard for the second time, this time parodying the kind of "wire fight" seen in "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon". The film also stars Beyoncé Knowles as Foxxy Cleopatra (parodying blaxploitation movie heroines, primarily Foxy Brown and Cleopatra Jones, as well as Christie Love when she says, "You're under arrest, sugah!" ), Michael York, reprising the role of Basil Exposition, and Verne Troyer in his second appearance as Mini-Me. The film also introduced a new character named Number 3 (a.k.a. the Mole) who is portrayed by Fred Savage. Clint Howard plays a radar operator in all three movies. Michael Caine guest stars as Austin's father, Nigel; this role was inspired by "The Ipcress File", a 1965 film starring Caine. Four actors who appeared in the earlier movies play different characters in Goldmember. Rob Lowe who played the friend of a dead guard in "Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery" reprises his role as a younger Number 2 from "The Spy Who Shagged Me", while Neil Mullarkey (quartermaster clerk in "International Man Of Mystery") and Eric Winzenried (army private soldier in "The Spy Who Shagged Me") appear as the Physician and Henchman Sailor in the Sick Bay. Michael McDonald (the Virtucon guard who got run over by a steamroller in "International Man of Mystery" and a NATO soldier in "The Spy Who Shagged Me") appears as the royal guard. Goldmember. Johan van der Smut, better known as Goldmember, is a fictional villain played by Mike Myers (John Travolta played the character in a cameo at the end of the film). The name was inspired by the James Bond villain Auric Goldfinger. Goldmember's Dutch origins and character traits were, according to Myers, inspired by an episode of the HBO TV series "Real Sex" featuring a Dutchman who operated a "sex barn" north of Rotterdam. The man's distinct forms of expression caught Myers' attention while he was writing. Reception. Critical reaction. "Austin Powers in Goldmember" received mixed reviews from critics, earning a score of 54% on Rotten Tomatoes. The film took in £5,585,978 in the United Kingdom on its opening weekend. In the United States, it broke the opening weekend record for a spoof movie, surpassing the previous Austin Powers film. The film grossed US$73 million on its opening weekend, and grossed a total of $213 million in the United States, according to Box Office Mojo. Mike Myers was nominated for the MTV Movie Award for Best Villain for the third time, but lost against Daveigh Chase for her role as Samara Morgan in "The Ring", making it the first time Myers lost the award, having previously won twice for the first two films. However, he did win the award for Best Comedic Performance, making it the first time he won the award, having previously lost twice for the first two films. Soundtrack. The song "Hey Goldmember" interpolates and is a parody of four '70s disco songs formed into a medley; "Sing a Song" by Earth, Wind & Fire, "Get Down Tonight", "(Shake, Shake, Shake) Shake Your Booty", and "That's the Way (I Like It)", all by KC and the Sunshine Band. "Sing a Song" is not listed in the credits but is sung by Beyoncé at the beginning.
1072370	The film was released theatrically in the United States in the summer of 1976 by Cinema Shares. Afterwards it became the only Godzilla film to receive a television premiere on a major U.S network, as NBC aired it on prime time television in the summer of 1977, where it was hosted by actor John Belushi dressed in a Godzilla costume. Plot. For years, Seatopia, the undersea civilization, has been heavily affected by nuclear testing conducted by the surface nations of the world. Upset by this, they plan to unleash their civilization's god, Megalon, to the surface to destroy the world out of vengeance. On the surface, an inventor named Goro Ibuki, his nephew Rokuro and their friend Hiroshi Jinkawa are off on an outing near a lake when Seatopia makes itself known to the Earth by drying up the lake the trio was relaxing nearby and using it as a base of operation (unknown to our heroes.) As they return home they are ambushed by agents of Seatopia who are trying to steal Jet Jaguar, a humanoid robot under construction by the trio of inventors. However the Agents' first attempt is botched and they are forced to flee to safety. Some time later, Jet Jaguar is completed but the trio of inventors are knocked unconscious by the returning seatopian agents. The agents's plan is to use Jet Jaguar to guide and direct Megalon to destroy whatever city Seatopia commands. Goro and Rokuro are sent to be killed, while Hiroshi is taken hostage. Megalon is finally released to the surface while Jet Jaguar is put under the control of the Seatopians and is used to guide Megalon to attack Tokyo with the Japan Self Defense Forces failing to defeat the monster. Eventually, the trio of heroes manage to escape their situation with the Seatopians and reunite to devise a plan to send Jet Jaguar to get Godzilla's help using Jet Jaguar's secondary control system. After uniting with Japan's Defense Force, Goro manages to regain control of Jet Jaguar and sends the robot to Monster Island to bring Godzilla to fight Megalon. Without a guide to control its actions, Megalon flails around relentlessly and aimlessly fighting with the Defense Force and destroying the outskirts of Tokyo. The Seatopians learn of Jet Jaguar's turn and thus send out a distress call to the Nebula M aliens (from the previous last film) to send Gigan to assist them. As Godzilla journeys to fight Megalon, Jet Jaguar programs into a safeguard mode and grows to gigantic proportions to face Megalon himself until Godzilla arrives. The battle is roughly at a standstill between robot and monster, until Gigan arrives and both Megalon and Gigan double team Jet Jaguar. Godzilla finally arrives to assist Jet Jaguar and the odds become evened. After a long and brutal fight, Gigan and Megalon both retreat and Godzilla and Jet Jaguar shake hands on a job well done. Godzilla returns to Monster Island, and Jet Jaguar returns to his previous, human-sized state and reunites with his inventors. Production. "Godzilla Vs. Megalon" was originally planned as a non-"Godzilla" film, a solo vehicle for Jet Jaguar, which was the result of a contest Toho had for children in mid-to-late 1972. The winner of the contest was an elementary school student, who submitted the drawing of a robot called Red Arone, which superficially resembled both Ultraman and Mazinger Z. The robot was renamed Jet Jaguar and was set to star in "Jet Jaguar vs. Megalon", which pitted him against Megalon. However, after doing some screen tests and storyboards, Toho figured Jet Jaguar would not be able to carry the film on his own, either in screen appearance or marketing value, so they shut the project down during pre-production. Nearly a month later, producer Tomoyuki Tanaka called in screenwriter Shinichi Sekizawa to revise the script to add Godzilla and Gigan. To make up for lost production time, the film was shot in a hasty three weeks. The production time totaled at nearly six months, from planning to finish. According to Teruyoshi Nakano, the Godzilla suit made for this film (known as the Megaro-Goji) was made in a week, the fastest featured Godzilla suit ever made to date. Godzilla was portrayed by stunt actor Shinji Takagi. There are three notable deleted scenes. A scene towards the end of the film in which Antonio ponders aloud if sending Megalon to destroy the world above is really any different from what the people above are doing with atomic testing. Another is a roughly minute-long "conversation" between Gigan and Megalon that consists of quirky gestures and bodily movements. One that can be seen in the Japanese trailer has Jet Jaguar blinding Megalon with his flashlight eyes right before Megalon starts to kick at him while Gigan holds him down. There are, interestingly, no major female characters in the movie, making this the only "Godzilla" film without a female lead. Toho's popular kaiju character Anguirus appears in some stock footage from "Destroy All Monsters" and in two newly filmed scenes on Monster Island. In the second new scene, Anguirus appears largely as he did in the previous film, "Godzilla vs. Gigan". The first brief scene of Anguirus shows the monster without his fangs. This modification would carry over into his last appearance the next year in "Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla". English versions. In 1976, Cinema Shares released "Godzilla vs. Megalon" theatrically. Riding the coattails of Dino De Laurentiis' big-budget "King Kong" remake, The poster art showed Godzilla and Megalon battling on top of the World Trade Center, despite the fact that no scenes were set in New York City. As it would with its later Godzilla releases, Cinema Shares opted to use the English dub created by Toho. Cinema Shares originally released the film with very few edits. Eventually, more cuts were made, supposedly to keep a "G"-rating from the MPAA. Edits include: With this being the first of the three Cinema Shares "Godzilla" releases, the publicity factor was high. Along with the poster, buttons with one of the four monsters' faces on them were released. Given away at theatrical showings was a comic herald that told a simplified version of the film. There were several errors like monster's names and locations and events. The theatrical trailer for the film also contain these errors, most notably Jet Jaguar being called "Robotman." The press kit also included Godzilla, Megalon, Gigan, and Jet Jaguar in cars. This is a reflection of the Aurora kits with Godzilla riding a race car. Along with the press kit was a "Vote Godzilla for President" ad that, if mailed in, resulted in the receipt of a free ticket to the film. "Godzilla vs. Megalon" was given a high-profile prime-time NBC network premiere in 1977, with an introduction and bumper segments by John Belushi in a Godzilla suit also used on Saturday Night Live. NBC extensively cut the film so that it would fit in a one-hour time slot. Box office. In Japan, "Godzilla vs. Megalon" sold approximately 980,000 tickets. It was the first "Godzilla" film to sell less than one million admissions. The film was a huge success in American theaters, earning $383,744 in its first three days in Texas and Louisiana alone. Critical reception. "Godzilla vs. Megalon" was released theatrically in America on May 9, 1976, though the "San Francisco Chronicle" indicates that it opened there in June, and "The New York Times" indicates that it opened in New York City on July 11. "New York Times" film critic Vincent Canby, who a decade before had given a negative review to "Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster", gave "Godzilla vs. Megalon" a generally positive review. In his review on July 12, 1976, Canby said, ""Godzilla vs. Megalon" completes the canonization of Godzilla...It's been a remarkable transformation of character - the dragon has become St. George...It's wildly preposterous, imaginative and funny (often intentionally). It demonstrates the rewards of friendship, between humans as well as monsters, and it is gentle." While Megalon and Gigan are still remembered by fans and reused in many videogames, Jet Jaguar is sometimes seen as more of a joke or a spinoff of Ultraman. Legacy. "Godzilla vs. Megalon" has attracted the ire of many Godzilla fans in the decades since its original release. The film contributed to the reputation of "Godzilla" films in the United States as cheap children's entertainment that should not be taken seriously. It's been described as "incredibly, undeniably, mind-numbingly bad" and one of the "poorer moments" in the history of kaiju films. In particular, the special effects of the film have been heavily criticized. One review described the Godzilla costume as appearing to be "crossed with Kermit the Frog" and another sneeringly compared it to "Godzilla vs. Gigan", stating that it did ""everything wrong that Gigan did, and then some."" However, most of the criticism is of the lack of actual special effects work, as most of it consists of stock footage from previous films, including "Godzilla vs. Gigan" and "Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster", and a few pieces of effects work has garnered praise, specifically a scene where Megalon breaks through a dam and the draining of the lake. The other aspects of the film have been similarly skewered. The acting is usually described as flat and generally poor, and as not improving, or sometimes, worsening, the already weak script. One part of the film, on the other hand, has garnered almost universal praise: Godzilla's final attack on Megalon, a flying kick. It has been called the saving grace of the film, and was made famous by the mock exclamations of shock and awe displayed on "Godzilla vs. Megalon"'s appearance on "Mystery Science Theater 3000". Through the end of season three to the middle of season five, that clip would be shown at the opening of each show. Despite all this, the film is also one of the most widely seen Godzilla films in the United States — it was popular in its initial theatrical release, largely due to an aggressive marketing campaign, including elaborate posters of the two title monsters battling atop New York City's World Trade Center towers, presumably to capitalize on the hype surrounding the Dino De Laurentiis remake of "King Kong", which used a similar image for its own poster. Home media releases. Media Blasters (Tokyo Shock) has acquired the DVD rights to "Godzilla vs. Megalon" and "Destroy All Monsters". Both films were released under the company's division, Tokyo Shock. Media Blasters originally planned to release "Godzilla vs. Megalon" on DVD and Blu-ray on December 20, 2011; however, due to technical difficulties with the dubbing and Toho yet to give its approval for the release, the DVD / Blu-ray release was delayed. Media Blasters finally released the film on August 14, 2012 but only on a bare-bones DVD. Alpha Video The Mystery Science Theater 3000 Collection, Volume 10 Madman Entertainment Tokyo Shock
1062985	The Straight Story is a 1999 drama film directed by David Lynch. The film was edited and produced by Mary Sweeney, Lynch's longtime partner and co-worker. She co-wrote the script with John E. Roach. The film is based on the true story of Alvin Straight's 1994 journey across Iowa and Wisconsin on a lawnmower. Alvin (Richard Farnsworth) is an elderly World War II veteran who lives with his daughter Rose (Sissy Spacek), a kind woman with a mental disability. When he hears that his estranged brother Lyle (Harry Dean Stanton) has suffered a stroke, Alvin makes up his mind to go visit him and hopefully make amends before he dies. But because Alvin's legs and eyes are too impaired for him to receive a driving license, he hitches a trailer to his recently purchased thirty year-old John Deere 110 Lawn tractor (1964 have max speed of or according to other source his original had ) and sets off on the 240-mile () journey from Laurens, Iowa to Mount Zion, Wisconsin. The film was a critical success and garnered audience acclaim, although the overall gross proved less than expected. Reviewers praised the intensity of the character performances, particularly the realistic dialogue (which Roger Ebert compared to the works of Hemingway). It received a nomination for the Palme d'Or at the 1999 Cannes Film Festival. Plot. Alvin Straight has not shown up to his regular bar meeting with his friends. He is eventually found lying on his floor at home, although he insists that he "just needs a bit of help getting up". His daughter Rose takes her reluctant father to see a doctor, who sternly admonishes Alvin to give up alcohol and tobacco. He also tells Alvin that he should start using a walker. Alvin refuses, and does not tell Rose. Alvin then learns that his brother Lyle has suffered a stroke. Longing to visit him, but unable to drive, Alvin gradually develops a plan to travel to Mount Zion on his "ancient" riding lawn-mower and towing a small homemade travel-trailer, to the consternation of his family and friends. Alvin's first attempt fails: after experiencing difficulty starting the old mower's motor, he doesn't get far before the machine finally breaks down, and he is forced to flag down a passing bus. Alvin arranges for his mower to be transported back home on a flatbed truck (with him still perched on the mower's seat), where he takes out his frustrations on the mower by blowing up its motor and gas tank with a well-aimed shotgun blast. At the John Deere store, he purchases a newer replacement lawn tractor from a salesman (Everett McGill) who is generous but describes Alvin as being reputed a smart man, "until now." Alvin continues on his quest. He passes a young female hitchhiker who later approaches his campfire and says that she could not get a ride. In conversation, Alvin astutely deduces that she is pregnant (although this is not extremely physically obvious) and has run away from home. He reveals more information about his daughter: one night somebody was watching Rose's children and there was a fire and one of her sons got badly burned; the state then decided that Rose was not competent to look after her children and took them away from her. Alvin tells the hitchhiker about the importance of family by describing a bundle of sticks that is hard to break ("United we stand; divided we fall"). The next day Alvin emerges from the trailer to find that his hitchhiker friend has left him a bundle of sticks tied together, implying that she plans to return home to her own family. He continues with his journey. Alvin enjoys watching a rainstorm from the shelter of an abandoned farmhouse. The next scene shows Alvin as a huge group of RAGBRAI cyclists race past him. Although the film takes place in September, the original journey was in July, when RAGBRAI actually takes place. He later arrives at the cyclists' camp and he is greeted with applause. He speaks with them about growing old. When he is asked about the worst part of being old, he replies, "remembering when you was young." The next day, Alvin is troubled by the massive trucks passing him. He then interacts with a distraught woman who has hit a deer, and is being driven to distraction by the fact that she continually hits deer while commuting, no matter how hard she tries to avoid them. She drives away in a tearful huff, and Alvin, who had started to run short of food, cooks and eats the deer, then mounts the antlers above the rear doorway of his trailer as a tribute to the deer and the human sustenance it had provided. In the next scene, Alvin's brakes fail as he travels down a steep hill; he struggles to maintain control of the speeding tractor and finally manages to bring the vehicle to a complete stop. Some townspeople help get Alvin's mower and trailer off the road. They later discover that the mower also has transmission problems. Now beginning to run low on cash, Alvin borrows a cordless phone from a homeowner – gently but resolutely refusing an invitation to come indoors – and calls Rose to ask her to send him his Social Security check. He then leaves money on the doorstep to pay for his long-distance telephone call. A local motorist offers Alvin a ride the rest of the way to Lyle's, but Alvin declines, stating that he prefers to travel his own way. An elderly war veteran takes him into town for a drink, and Alvin tells a story about how he is haunted by a memory of accidentally shooting one of his military comrades. Alvin's tractor is fixed and he is presented with an exorbitant bill by the mechanics, who are twins and are constantly bickering. Alvin successfully negotiates the price down, and explains his mission, which he calls "a hard swallow to pride," but "a brother is a brother." The mechanic twins seem to relate to this, realizing they should make peace, also. Later, Alvin camps in a cemetery and chats with a priest. The priest recognizes Lyle's name and is aware of his stroke. The priest says that Lyle did not mention he had a brother. Alvin replies that "neither one of us has had a brother for quite some time." Alvin wants to make peace with Lyle and is emphatic that whatever happened ten years ago does not matter anymore. "I say, 'Amen' to that, brother," the priest replies. The next obstacle Alvin must overcome is apparent engine trouble, just a few miles from Lyle's house. Alvin stops in the middle of the road, unsure of how to proceed. A large farm tractor driving by then stops to help, but fortunately this time the problem was evidently just a few drops of bad gas, because the lawn-tractor's engine sputters to life again after sitting for a few minutes. The gracious farmer then leads the way on his own tractor, and drives along slowly ahead of Alvin during the final leg of his journey to make sure he gets there okay. Lyle's house is dilapidated. Using his two canes, Alvin makes his way to the door. He calls for his brother. At first Lyle does not appear and Alvin expresses relief when he does. The two brothers make contact, one with a walker and one with two canes. Lyle invites Alvin to sit down. Lyle looks at Alvin's mower-tractor contraption and asks if Alvin has ridden that thing just to see him. Lyle is moved. The two men sit and look at the stars, as they had done as children. Production. "The Straight Story" was independently shot along the actual route taken by Alvin Straight, and all scenes were shot in chronological order. Lynch would later call the film "my most experimental movie." Unlike his prior films (or any that would follow), "The Straight Story" was released by Walt Disney Pictures after a successful debut at Cannes, was given a G rating by the MPAA (the only Lynch film to receive such a rating) and is the only Lynch film for which Lynch himself did not have a hand in the screenplay (although it was co-written by his recurring associate, Mary Sweeney). As with many of Lynch's films, there are no chapter markers on the original North American DVD release, because Lynch wants the film to be watched as a whole. Richard Farnsworth was terminally ill with bone cancer during the shooting of the film, which had caused the paralysis of his legs as shown in the film. He actually took the role out of admiration for Alvin Straight, and astonished his co-workers with his tenacity during production. Because of the pain of his disease, Farnsworth committed suicide the following year, at the age of 80. Reception. "The Straight Story" was generally praised, with critics lauding Lynch's uncharacteristic subject matter. Years after its premiere, it holds a 95% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes. AllMovie wrote, "David Lynch offers an uncharacteristically straightforward and warmly sentimental approach to his material in this film", calling it "one of his best films". Awards and nominations. "The Straight Story" was the recipient of 12 awards and 29 nominations. The film was nominated for the Palme d'Or at the 1999 Cannes Film Festival. Freddie Francis was nominated for the Golden Frog. Richard Farnsworth earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor for his portrayal of Alvin Straight; the oldest person ever to be nominated for a Best Actor Oscar until Max von Sydow and Christopher Plummer were both nominated (although Plummer and Von Sydow were nominated in the supporting category, whereas Farnsworth was lead) in 2012 at age 82 (Plummer also won the award that year, being its oldest recipient). Soundtrack. All music composed and conducted by Angelo Badalamenti.
583572	Aagey Se Right is a 2009 Bollywood comedy film directed by débutante Indrajit Nattoji, starring Shreyas Talpade, Mahi Gill, Shenaz Treasurywala, and Kay Kay Menon in the lead roles and was produced by Ronnie Screwvala, under the UTV Motion Pictures. The film released on 4 September 2009 and although it failed to do well at the box office, it was praised for its lavish title, looks and design. Plot. Dinkar Waghmare (Shreyas Talpade) hails from a small town. He is a 28-year-old sub-inspector with the Mumbai Police who spends his time dreaming of beautiful TV reporter Soniya Bhatt (Mahi Gill). He has never solved a case and has always stayed away from serious action. His late father was a successful police officer. He is constantly reminded of his failure by his nagging mother and feels pressure to live up to his father's larger-than-life image. One day Dinkar loses his Bajrangbali-stickered gun and is under extreme pressure to find it. Meanwhile, terrorist Balma Rashid-ul-Khairi (Kay Kay Menon), alias Janu, has arrived in Mumbai planning to bomb several locations in the city. However, he falls in love with Mumbai life and a bargirl named Pearl (Shenaz Treasurywala). But when Janu abandons his life of violence to romance Pearl, his chief comes to Mumbai to complete his mission and kill both Janu and Pearl. As he pursues his gun around Mumbai, Dinkar accidentally becomes a hero when he saves the mayor's life and then prevents the daughter of the police commissioner from committing suicide.
1065422	Young Mr. Lincoln is a 1939 partly fictionalized biography about the early life of President Abraham Lincoln, directed by John Ford and starring Henry Fonda. Ford and producer Darryl F. Zanuck fought for control of the film, to the point where Ford destroyed unwanted takes for fear the studio would use them in the movie. Screenwriter Lamar Trotti was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Writing/Original Story. In 2003, "Young Mr. Lincoln" was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". Plot. A family traveling through New Salem, Illinois in their wagon need groceries from Lincoln's store and the only thing of value they have that he'll take in exchange is a law book. After thoroughly reading the book, Abe opts for the law after receiving encouragement from his early, ill-fated love, Ann Rutledge (Pauline Moore). Too poor to own even a horse, he arrives in Springfield on a mule and soon establishes a law practice with friend John Stuart (Edwin Maxwell). At a July 4 celebration, a man is murdered in a brawl: the accused are two brothers. Lincoln prevents the lynching of the two accused at the jail, inter alia by telling the angry mob he really needs these clients for his first real case. Admiring his courage, Mary Todd (Marjorie Weaver) -- later to be his wifeâinvites Lincoln to her sister's soiree and expresses an intense interest in his future. The key witness to the crime is a friend of the victim who claims to have seen the murder at a distance of about 100 yards under the light of the moon. The family and Lincoln are pressured to save one of the brothers at the expense of the other's conviction. But Lincoln persists and is able, through the use of an Almanac, to demonstrate that on the night in question the moon would not have provided the light the supposed eyewitness claimed. He then drives the witness to confess that he had in fact stabbed his friend himself. A scene cut from the film involved Lincoln meeting a very young John Wilkes Booth, his future assassin. The film has as its basis the murder case involving William "Duff" Armstrong, which took place in 1858 at the courthouse in Beardstown, Illinoisâthe only courthouse where Lincoln practiced law that is still in use. Adaptations to Other Media. "Young Mr. Lincoln" was adapted as a radio play on the July 10, 1946 episode of Academy Award Theater. The Village Theatre of Everett and Issaquah, Washington has commissioned a new musical based on the film titled "Lincoln in Love", book and lyrics by Peter S. Kellogg and music by David Friedman.
1015985	Chungking Express is a 1994 Hong Kong drama film written and directed by Wong Kar-wai. The film consists of two stories told in sequence, each about a lovesick Hong Kong policeman mulling over his relationship with a woman. The first story stars Takeshi Kaneshiro as a cop who is obsessed with the break-up of his relationship with a woman named May and his platonic encounter with a mysterious drug smuggler (Brigitte Lin). The second stars Tony Leung as a police officer who is roused from his gloom over the loss of his flight attendant girlfriend (Valerie Chow) by the attentions of a quirky snack bar worker (Faye Wong). The film depicts a paradox in that even though the characters live in densely packed Hong Kong, they are mostly lonely and live in their own inner worlds. The Chinese title translates to "Chungking Jungle", referring to the metaphoric concrete jungle of the city, as well as to Chungking Mansions in Tsim Sha Tsui, where much of the first part of the movie is set. The English title refers to Chungking Mansions and the Midnight Express food stall where Faye works. Plot. The film comprises two different stories, told one after the other, each about a romance involving a policeman. Except for a brief moment when the first story ends and the second begins, the two stories do not interconnect. However, the three main characters from the second story each momentarily appear during the first. First story. The first story concerns Taiwan-born cop He Qiwu, also known as Cop 223. Qiwu's girlfriend May broke up with him on 1 April (April Fool's Day). His birthday is 1 May and he chooses to wait for May for a month before moving on. Every day he buys a tin of pineapple with an expiration date of 1 May. By the end of this time, he feels that he will either be rejoined with his love or that it will have expired forever. Meanwhile, a mysterious woman in a blonde wig (played by Brigitte Lin) tries to survive in the drug underworld after a smuggling operation goes sour.
1265412	Janet Gaynor (October 6, 1906 – September 14, 1984) was an American actress and painter. One of the most popular actresses of the silent film era, in 1928 Gaynor became the first winner of the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performances in three films: "Seventh Heaven" (1927), "" (1927) and "Street Angel" (1928). This was the only occasion on which an actress has won one Oscar for multiple film roles. This rule would be changed three years later by AMPAS. Her career as the primary actress of Fox Studios continued with the advent of sound film, and she achieved a notable success in the original version of "A Star Is Born" (1937). She chose to work only occasionally after her marriage to film costume designer Adrian in 1939. She was severely injured in a 1982 vehicle collision, which contributed to her death two years later. Early life. Born Laura Augusta Gainor in Germantown, Philadelphia, her family moved west to San Francisco during her childhood. When she graduated from high school in 1923, Gaynor decided to pursue an acting career. She moved to Los Angeles, where she supported herself working in a shoe store, receiving $18 per week ("2009: $"). She managed to land unbilled small parts in several feature films and comedy shorts for two years. Finally, in 1926, at the age of 20, she was cast in the lead role in "The Johnstown Flood" (1926), the same year she was selected as one of the WAMPAS Baby Stars (with Joan Crawford, Dolores del Río and others). Her outstanding performance won her the attention of producers, who cast her in a series of films. Rising career. Standing 5'0" tall, Gaynor was one of Hollywood's leading ladies within a year. Her performances in "Seventh Heaven" (the first of twelve movies she would make with actor Charles Farrell) and both "Sunrise", directed by F. W. Murnau, and "Street Angel" (in 1927, also with Charles Farrell) earned her the first Academy Award for Best Actress in 1928. At the time, the award was awarded for multiple roles: it was given on the basis of the actor's total work over the year, and not just for one particular performance. Gaynor was not only the first but also, at 22 years old, the youngest actress to win an Academy Award for Best Actress up until 1986 where deaf actress Marlee Matlin, aged 21, won for her role in Children of a Lesser God. Gaynor was one of only a handful of leading ladies who made a successful transition to sound films. For a number of years, Gaynor was the Fox studios foremost actress and was given the choice of prime roles, starring in such films as "Sunny Side Up" (1929), "Delicious" (1931), "Merely Mary Ann" (also 1931), and "Adorable" (1933), as well as "State Fair" (1933) with Will Rogers and "The Farmer Takes a Wife" (1935), which introduced Henry Fonda to the screen as Gaynor's leading man. However, when Darryl F. Zanuck merged his fledgling studio, 20th Century Pictures, with Fox Film Corporation to form Twentieth Century Fox, her status became precarious and even tertiary to that of actresses Loretta Young and Shirley Temple, although she always received top billing in every movie that she made during the 1930s, including "Ladies in Love" (1937) with Constance Bennett, Young, and Tyrone Power. She managed to terminate her contract with the studio and achieved acclaim in films produced by David O. Selznick in the mid-1930s. In 1937, she was again nominated for an Academy Award, this time for her role in "A Star Is Born". After appearing in "The Young in Heart" with Paulette Goddard the following year, she left the film industry for nearly twenty years at the age of 32 in order to travel with her husband Adrian, returning one last time in 1957 as Pat Boone's mother in "Bernadine". Later life and death. Gaynor's first marriage was to Jesse Lydell Peck from September 11, 1929 to April 7, 1933. She was married to MGM costume designer Adrian from August 14, 1939 to his death on September 13, 1959. With him she had one son, Robin Gaynor Adrian, born in 1940. She was married to producer Paul Gregory from December 24, 1964 until her death in 1984. The two maintained a home in Desert Hot Springs, California. In addition to acting, Gaynor was an accomplished visual artist and her oil paintings were featured at the Wally Findlay Galleries show in New York, March 25 to April 7, 1977. Gaynor was close friends with actress Mary Martin, with whom she frequently travelled. A Brazilian press report noted that Gaynor and Martin briefly lived with their respective husbands in the state of Goiás in the 1950s and 1960s. She died on September 14, 1984, at the age of 77, due largely to the aftermath of a traffic accident in San Francisco two years earlier; specifically, her death resulted from complications following several operations. In the accident, a van ran a red light at the corner of California Street and Franklin and crashed into her Luxor taxicab. The crash killed Mary Martin's manager Ben Washer and injured the other passengers, including Gaynor's husband Paul Gregory, as well as her close, long-time friend, Mary Martin. Gaynor was in serious condition with eleven broken ribs, a fractured collarbone, pelvic fractures, an injured bladder and a damaged kidney. The driver of the van was sentenced to a three-year prison term for drunken driving and vehicular manslaughter. She was interred in the Hollywood Forever Cemetery in Hollywood, California next to her second husband Adrian, but her stone reads "Janet Gaynor Gregory," her legal name after her marriage to her third husband, producer and director Paul Gregory. Her star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame can be found at 6284 Hollywood Blvd.
1164671	Leonard "Chico" Marx (March 22, 1887 – October 11, 1961) was an American comedian and film star as part of the Marx Brothers. His persona in the act was that of a dim-witted albeit crafty con artist, seemingly of rural Italian origin, who wore shabby clothes, and sported a curly-haired wig and Tyrolean hat. Leonard was the oldest of the Marx Brothers, though he was not the first-born; he was preceded by Manfred Marx, who died in infancy. In addition to his work as a performer, he played an important role in the management and development of the act, at least in its early years. Acting career. Marx used an Italian persona for his on-stage character; stereotyped ethnic characters were common with vaudevillians. The obvious fact that he was not really Italian was referenced three times on film. In their second feature, "Animal Crackers", he recognizes someone he knows to be a shady character impersonating a respected art collector: Ravelli (Chico): "How is it you got to be Roscoe W. Chandler?" Chandler: "Say, how did "you" get to be "Italian"?" Ravelli: "Never mind—whose confession is this?" In "Duck Soup", when Chico impersonates Groucho but retains his accent, Margaret Dumont asks what happened to his voice. Chico replies, "Well, maybe sometime I go to Italy and I'm practicing the language." To which Dumont replies, "Your dialect is perfect." However, this statement could have been a ruse on Chico's part to explain his accent and trick Dumont, as he was portraying Groucho rather than himself. In "A Night at the Opera", which begins in Italy, his character, Fiorello, claims not to be Italian, eliciting a surprised look from Groucho: Driftwood (Groucho): "Well, things certainly seem to be getting better around the country." Fiorello (Chico): "Well, I wouldn't know about that; I'm a stranger here myself." A scene in the film "Go West", in which Chico attempts to placate an Indian chief of whom Groucho has run afoul, has a line that plays a bit on Chico's lack of Italian nationality, but is more or less proper Marxian wordplay: S. Quentin Quayle (Groucho): "Can you talk Indian?"Joe Panello (Chico): "I was born in Indianapolis!" However, there are moments where Chico's characters appear to be genuinely Italian; examples include the film "The Big Store", in which his character Ravelli runs into an old friend he worked with in Naples (after a brief misunderstanding due to his accent), the film "Monkey Business", in which Chico claims his grandfather sailed with Christopher Columbus, and their very first outing "The Cocoanuts", where Mr. Hammer (Groucho) asks him if he knew what an auction was, in which he responds "I come from Italy on the Atlantic Auction!"
1056628	Suburban Girl is a 2007 comedy film starring Sarah Michelle Gellar, Alec Baldwin and Maggie Grace, which was filmed in New York City. The film is adapted from two short stories in Melissa Bank's best-selling book "The Girls' Guide to Hunting and Fishing", which spent 16 weeks on "The New York Times" Best Seller list. It is a romantic comedy produced by Gigi Pritzker and Deborah Del Prete, producers of "The Wedding Planner" and "Green Street Hooligans". The film was shown at New York's Tribeca Film Festival in April and May, 2007. The DVD and Blu-ray release date was January 15, 2008. For many months, the makers of "Suburban Girl" used the title of the book, "The Girls' Guide to Hunting and Fishing" for their film. Francis Ford Coppola (who has the rights to the title and short story of that name) and his company American Zoetrope are developing a film which is adapted from the last short story in the book. Cast. After being cast in the main role, Sarah Michelle Gellar requested Alec Baldwin for the role of Archie, which he accepted. Synopsis. Sarah Michelle Gellar stars as Brett Eisenberg, an ambitious yet unconfident young New York assistant book editor living in the literary hotbed of Manhattan's Upper East Side. Struggling to become a full-fledged editor, a task made harder after her mentor and boss is fired and replaced by Faye Falkner (Vanessa Branch), Brett meets the notorious and much older publishing playboy Archie Knox (Alec Baldwin). After spending time with him she realises how unhappy she is with her immature boyfriend Jed (Chris Carmack) and breaks off their relationship in order to pursue one with Archie. Archie is revealed to have several issues such as being an alcoholic, although he is almost three years sober; suffering from diabetes; and having an estranged daughter. The age-gap between Brett and him is made clear through their different lifestyles, such as his lack of understanding how to use a Blackberry and Brett taking him to a candy shop. Although this does not affect their relationship in the beginning—Brett appreciates the advice and confidence he gives her to stand up to her boss—she soon begins to resent his patronizing attitude. He eventually begins drinking again and sleeps with another woman in order to break off their relationship. At the same time, Brett is shown to be incredibly close to her father; she is seen constantly explaining her situation and asking for his advice. While visiting her family home she is shocked to discover that he has cancer and that she was the last to know behind her brother Ethan (Ebon Moss-Bachrach), because her father felt she could not handle the news. Feeling depressed and unwell, Brett makes an awful impression on a celebrity client until Archie appears and rescues the situation. They decide to give their relationship another try and Brett introduces him to her family, who are uneasy with the age difference; her father especially after learning that Archie is an alcoholic when he is admitted to hospital. Brett's father tells her that she shouldn't have to spend her life taking care of Archie. Later, it is revealed that her father has died and Brett realizes she must finally deal with her problems without his support. Following this, Archie proposes using the Blackberry Brett bought him but she turns him down, telling him that they see each other as teacher and student and not as equals. She says she needs time to be happy and grow up on her own. The end of the film finds Brett finally confident in herself as she finally wears a pair of leather pants she was previously too scared to wear, and editing her work in a decisive way by using a pen instead of a pencil, as is seen throughout the film. Reception. The film received generally mixed reviews from critics. It has an aggregate score of 50% on Rotten Tomatoes. It was described as "a blend of "Sex and the City" and "The Devil Wears Prada"" and a "pseudo-sophisticated romantic comedy" according to Variety.com, while Pop Entertainment describes the film as "an intelligent romantic comedy that probably deserves a bigger audience than the straight-to-DVD tag will likely afford it... what is good about "Suburban Girl" for the most part outpaces its bad patches." Gellar's onscreen chemistry with Baldwin was both criticised and praised, with Eye for Film commenting, "The film works best when Baldwin and Gellar are together - aside from the fact that Gellar seriously needs to eat a bun or two." Film website moviepicturefilm.com stated "Gellar and Baldwin both give wonderful performances and make their chemistry incredibly real and ultimately, quite heartbreaking. Containing a ton of laughs and killer fashion that could give "The Devil Wears Prada" a run for its money, this movie has something uncommon in most romantic comedies, tons of style and a huge heart." Soundtrack. No official soundtrack was released but tracks within the film include; Production. The film was filmed in various locations around New York as well as Toronto, Canada. After initially working under "A Girl's Guide to Hunting and Fishing", the film's title was officially changed to "Suburban Girl" for its release.
340311	Antwon Tanner (born April 14, 1975) is an American actor, mostly known for his role as Antwon "Skills" Taylor on the CW drama series "One Tree Hill". Biography. Tanner is mostly known by his role as Antwon "Skills" Taylor on the CW show "One Tree Hill". Tanner had a starring role in the 2005 film "Coach Carter", where he starred alongside Samuel L. Jackson and has appeared in TV series such as "NYPD Blue", "Sister, Sister", "Moesha", "The Parkers", and "". Tanner also had a role in the film "The Wood". Tanner was arrested on April 16, 2009, and was accused by federal authorities of "knowingly and intentionally" transferring Social Security cards "with intent to defraud". On August 20, 2009 he pleaded guilty in federal court in Brooklyn to selling more than a dozen Social Security numbers for $10,000. He was handed a prison sentence of 3 months for the offense and had to report to prison by April 30, 2010.
1105371	Yum-Tong Siu (; born May 6, 1943 in Guangzhou, China) is the William Elwood Byerly Professor of Mathematics at Harvard University. Dr. Siu has been a prominent figure in the mathematics of several complex variables for a quarter-century. He has mastered techniques at the interfaces between complex variables, differential geometry, and algebraic geometry. For example, he applied estimates of the complex Neumann problem and the theory of multiplier ideal sheaves to algebraic geometry, to resolve various conjectures. (cf. MSRI Publications, Vol. 37: Several Complex Variables) Siu's education included a BA in mathematics from the University of Hong Kong, M.A. from the University of Minnesota and Ph.D. from Princeton University, in the period 1963–1966. He started his academic career as Assistant Professor in Purdue and Notre Dame Universities, but rose fast in the ranks and became full Professor at Yale and then Stanford Universities. In 1982 he joined Harvard as Professor, and in 1992 became the William Elwood Byerly Professor. In addition he was former Chairman of the Harvard Math Department He lives in the Greater Boston area. He has received numerous recognitions including invited addresses at three International Congresses of Mathematicians (Helsinki, 1978; Warsaw, 1983; Beijing, 2002); Bergman Prize of the American Mathematical Society *http://www.ams.org/profession/prizes-awards/ams-supported/bergman-prize; honorary doctorates at the University of Hong Kong, University of Bochum, Germany, and University of Macau. He is a Corresponding Member of the Goettingen Academy of Sciences (elected 1993), a Foreign member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (elected 2004), a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences(elected 1998), the U.S. National Academy of Sciences (elected 2002), and Academia Sinica, Taiwan (elected 2004). Currently he is a member of the Scientific Advisory Board of the Clay Institute of Mathematics, Cambridge, Massachusetts (since 2003); Advisory Committee for the Shaw Prize In Mathematical Sciences (since 2010); Advisory Committee for the Millennium Prize Problems under the sponsorship of the Clay Mathematics Institute. He is also a member of Scientific Advisory Board for the Institute for Mathematics Sciences, National University of Singapore (since 2009) and of the Institute of Advanced Studies, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (since 2006). In 2006, Siu published a proof of the finite generation of the pluricanonical ring.
629399	Tom Burlinson (born 14 February 1956 in Toronto, Ontario) is an Australian actor, singer, and TV host. Biography. Tom Burlinson was born in Toronto, Ontario on 14 February 1956 (St Valentine's Day). His English parents, Anthony T. Burlinson (born 1923, in Greenwich, Middlesex) and Angela Schofield (born 1927, in Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk), had migrated to Canada after World War II. The family moved to New Jersey, United States in 1958. In 1962 the family moved to England due to his father's job and a young Burlinson took his North American accent to school. In 1965, his family moved again, this time to Australia. After six months his parents divorced and his mother and two younger sisters returned to England leaving Burlinson with his father and his older sister, Susan. Burlinson's first public appearance as an actor was as Colonel Pickering in Mosman Primary School's production of "My Fair Lady". Moving to Bayview, he attended Pittwater High School on Sydney's Northern Beaches and was the school captain in his final year. Burlinson's father wanted him to become a lawyer, but because a friend was accepted into the National Institute of Dramatic Art (NIDA), he decided to audition and to his surprise he was accepted into the 1974 class, graduating in 1976. He started appearing on Australian TV in 1977. By the beginning of 1979, he began playing Mickey Pratt in the teen-oriented Australian soap opera "The Restless Years", a role which lasted 16 months. In 1978, he appeared as Charlie in the Old Tote Theatre Company production of "Da" and as Jud Templeton in the play "Tribute" in 1979. In 1980, he played Hughie in the Anzac Day play "The One Day Of The Year". He also featured in the TV police drama "Cop Shop" in 1980-81 and in "Skyways". In 1981, Burlinson had his career break when he was given the main role in the biggest Australian film production ever, which was to be shot the next year, "The Man from Snowy River", as Jim Craig ("The Man"). He had only a few short weeks to learn how to ride a horse and make it look like he had been born in the saddle. He performed all of the stunts, including the iconic cliff ride. "Snowy River" was filmed and released in Australia in 1982, quickly becoming the highest-grossing Australian film ever at that time. With a gross of $17 million, over 20 years later it remains the seventh highest grossing Australian film of all time, bringing Burlinson to stardom. In his next film, Burlinson portrayed horse trainer Tommy Woodcock in "Phar Lap: Heart of a Nation". This film was another hit and confirmed Burlinson as a major star in the Australian film industry. After these two films, Burlinson feared being typecast as an actor only in horse-themed movies. Other than the sequel to "Snowy River", he vowed to avoid similarly-themed films. In 1985, Burlinson was cast by Dutch director Paul Verhoeven for a role in his first English-speaking film, the cult film "Flesh+Blood". In 1986, Burlinson played the main role as yuppy windsurfer in the main modern day comedy romance "Windrider" alongside teen actress Nicole Kidman in her first adult role. The film was a hit both in Australia and the United States. In 1987, Burlinson was given his first role in a Hollywood film, "The Time Guardian", in which he played the main role, Ballard, a visitor from another world, opposite Hollywood stars Dean Stockwell and Carrie Fisher. In 1988 he starred in the long-waited sequel to "The Man from Snowy River II", which has the United States' title of "Return to Snowy River" and the UK title of "The Untamed". From then onwards, Burlinson focused on historical productions, including the highly-acclaimed 1988 LWT mini-series "Piece of Cake", set in England in 1939 and based on the 1983 novel of the same name by Derek Robinson and "Showdown at Williams Creek", set in pioneer North America. Apart from his film career, he is also a singer. Because a childhood obsession with Frank Sinatra led Burlinson to compose an ode to one of his favourite singers as he made the most of a 1990 appearance on Ray Martin's "Midday Show" to nervously debut his singing voice to the Australian public with "The Man In The Hat". Tina Sinatra used Burlinson's voice as the young Sinatra in a miniseries she was producing on her father's life. With new doors now open to him, Burlinson auditioned for several musicals. Burlinson returned to the stage in "How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying" in 1992. He starred with some of Australia's most notable stage performers, Noel Ferrier, June Bronhill and Jackie Love. In 1996 he had stage roles with the Sydney Theatre Company. He starred as Franklin in "Merrily We Roll Along" and as Ricky in "Miracle City". In 1998, Burlinson created "Frank, The Sinatra Story In Song" which opened at the Seymour Centre in Sydney before going to other major cities. Sinatra himself died just two weeks before the opening night. From 1998 to 2003 Burlinson toured Australia regularly and also took the show to corporate events. In 2001 the show's name was changed to "Frank - A Life In Song" due to the legalities of using the Sinatra name. In 2002 he took the show to his native Toronto. Burlinson's versatility has also seen him appear on TV's "Carols By Candlelight" in 1999 and 2002. He had also had a role on ABC doctor drama "GP" and hosted "Animal Hospital". Burlinson provided Sinatra's singing voice in the 2003 Australian movie "The Night We Called It a Day". Burlinson returned to the world of theatre in April 2004 in the lead role of Leo Bloom in Mel Brooks' musical "The Producers". He co-starred with Reg Livermore, Bert Newton and Chloe Dallimore. In 2007, it was announced that Burlinson was to become a judge on "Australia's Got Talent" alongside Red Symons and Dannii Minogue. He remained on the show until its third season but was succeeded in its fourth by Kyle Sandilands and Brian McFadden.
953727	Hallam Foe is a 2007 Scottish drama film directed by David Mackenzie based on the novel written by Peter Jinks. The film was released in the United States as Mister Foe. The screenplay was written by Ed Whitmore and David Mackenzie. "Hallam Foe" premiered at the Berlin Film Festival on 16 February 2007 and competed for the Golden Bear for Best Motion Picture. The film won the Silver Bear for Best Music. The film was released in the UK on 31 August 2007 and in the US on 5 September 2008. Plot. Hallam Foe is a teenage loner who lives on his father's large estate near Peebles. His hobby is spying on people from his tree house. Hallam is convinced that his stepmother (Verity) is responsible for his mother's death by drowning two years earlier. Hallam's sister leaves home to attend university and it becomes clear that Verity and his father want Hallam to move on as well. Hallam initially refuses due to his suspicion of Verity, but she uses his diaries first to have sex with him and then to blackmail him into leaving. To escape his father and stepmother, Hallam travels to Edinburgh. Upon arrival in Edinburgh, Hallam sees Kate, an administrator at the Balmoral Hotel, located in the city centre. Kate bears a striking resemblance to his late mother. He manages to persuade her to give him a job as a kitchen porter in the hotel. Hallam makes his home in the clock tower of the hotel because of its vantage point over Kate's home in a top flat, where he can spy on her. He also spies on Kate through a skylight on her roof, clambering over the roofscape to reach his vantage point. Hallam learns that another senior hotel employee (Alasdair) is having an extra-marital affair with Kate. Alasdair then discovers Hallam's lookout in the clock tower. Hallam attempts to blackmail Alasdair with the knowledge of his adultery, but Alasdair dismisses him. Hallam retaliates by finding Alasdair's wife and child and thereby demonstrating the ability, if he wishes, to inform her of the affair, which forces Alasdair to give him back his job. Hallam eventually works his way up to being a front-of-house porter at the hotel. On his 18th birthday, Kate invites Hallam to have a few drinks after work. Whilst drunk, Hallam reveals his continuing love for his late mother. This seems to fascinate Kate, as she ""likes creepy guys"". A complex relationship starts to build between Hallam and Kate from this point. Kate first invites him home with her that night, and when she attempts to seduce him, he begins to get uncomfortable and instead they sleep in the same bed. The next day he asks her on a date and she rejects him, but later she asks him to one of the hotel rooms and they have sex. When Hallam is watching Kate, Alasdair confronts her and begins to act violently. Hallam comes through the skylight to save her, which results in her finding out that he had been spying. She tells Alasdair to leave. She punishes Hallam by making him stand nude and explain to her why he was spying. She feels bad for him after he tells her about his mother and she lets him stay. She puts on the dress that Hallam keeps that used to be his mother's, and when Hallam sees her he cries, and they fall asleep together. Hallam's father and stepmother track Hallam down at this time because Hallam had reported his suspicions about his mother's death to the police in Edinburgh. They track him down because his father has run up significant debts and needs to develop some of the land on the estate, but Hallam is entitled to consultation under his mother's will. Hallam refuses to co-operate due to his suspicion of Verity. Hallam's hatred of Verity consumes him entirely, and he tries to drown her in the loch by his father's house. However, his humanity takes over and he revives her. Only at this point does his father reveal that he had made no attempt to prevent Hallam's mother from committing suicide. This revelation allows Hallam to realise that his anger is in fact with his mother for leaving him. This cathartic moment enables him to move on for the first time and we leave him happy and content walking the streets of Edinburgh. Soundtrack. Domino Records provided the entire soundtrack with bands including Franz Ferdinand with their song "Hallam Foe Dandelion Blow" along with songs from James Yorkston, u.n.p.o.c., King Creosote, Sons and Daughters, Four Tet, Psapp, Juana Molina and Test Icicles, amongst others. David Mackenzie stated at a Questions and Answers session at the Glasgow Film Theatre preview screening, that he had five songs in mind that he wanted to use in the film, but only one survived in the place he wanted it, that being "Here on My Own" by u.n.p.o.c.. Title sequence. The animated title sequence is by artist David Shrigley, who also does all the drawings and writing in Hallam's diaries. Reception. Critical response. The film generally received positive reviews from critics. Review aggregate website Rotten Tomatoes gives the film a rating of 72% based on 60 reviews, judging it as "Certified Fresh" with the critical consensus "Carefully balanced between the dark and the dreamy, "Mister Foe" is a charged coming-of-age story with whimsy and bite."
583700	Karuthamma (1994) is a Tamil feature film directed by Bharathiraja. The film's score and soundtrack are composed by A. R. Rahman. The film met with critical acclaim upon release and received accolades. Plot. The film looks at female infanticide and the hatred that surrounds the birth of a female child. A father blames his miseries on the birth of his daughters. Set in a rural village. Karuthamma was released to critical acclaim. Awards. The film has won the following awards since its release: 1994 National Film Awards (India)
1053729	Jumping the Broom is a 2011 American comedy film directed by Salim Akil and produced by Tracey E. Edmonds, Elizabeth Hunter, T.D. Jakes, Glendon Palmer, and Curtis Wallace.
585698	Thilakkam is a 2003 Malayalam comedy film, directed by Jayaraj. Dileep and Kavya Madhavan plays the lead roles in the movie. Bhavana plays a guest role in this film. The rest of the cast include Nedumudi Venu, K. P. A. C. Lalitha, Nishanth Sagar, Thiagarajan, Jagathy Sreekumar, Cochin Haneefa, Harisree Ashokan, Salim Kumar and Bindhu Panicker. Plot. the master (Nedumudi Venu) and his wife (K. P. A. C. Lalitha) is waiting for Unni, their only son who is missing for many years. 10 year old Unni got lost in the crowd during a temple festival where he was along with his neighbour Panikkar (Oduvil Unnikrishnan). Panikkar too did not return since he decided to return only after finding Unni. Ammu (Kavya Madhavan) is Panikkar's daughter who also believes, like master and his wife, that her father will return one day with Unni. The master finds Unni and brings him back to the Village.
1163685	Ernestine Jane Geraldine Russell (June 21, 1921 – February 28, 2011) was an American film actress and was one of Hollywood's leading sex symbols in the 1940s and 1950s. Russell moved from the Midwest to California, where she had her first film role in 1943 with "The Outlaw". In 1947 Russell delved into music before returning to films. After starring in multiple films in the 1950s, Russell again returned to music while completing several other films in the 1960s. She starred in more than 20 films throughout her career. Russell married three times, adopted three children, and in 1955 founded the World Adoption International Fund. She received several accolades for her achievements in films, including having her hand- and
629056	Essie Davis (born 1970) is an Australian actress. Born and raised in Hobart, Tasmania, she is the daughter of locally famed artist George Davis. Life and career. Essie Davis emerged from the Old Nick Company at the University of Tasmania in the late 1980s. She is also a graduate of the National Institute of Dramatic Art (NIDA) in Sydney. Her acting career began with the Bell Shakespeare company when, straight out of NIDA, she was cast as Juliet in the 1993 production of "Romeo and Juliet". Her film career started after her role in the all Australian movie "" (1995), also starring other prestigious actors such as Geoffrey Rush, Leo McKern, and Joan Sutherland. Her most famous movie roles are in "The Matrix Reloaded" and "The Matrix Revolutions", Richard Flanagan's 1998 Tasmanian film "The Sound of One Hand Clapping", and "Girl with a Pearl Earring". In 2003 she won the Laurence Olivier Award for Best Supporting Actress for her UK performance in the Tennessee Williams play "A Streetcar Named Desire". In 2004 she starred in a Broadway production of Tom Stoppard's "Jumpers", for which she earned a Tony nomination. In 2005 she appeared as Mrs. Nellie Lovett in the BBC production of "Sweeney Todd" with Ray Winstone. In the 2008 film "Hey, Hey, It's Esther Blueburger" she plays Esther's controlling mother. Also in 2008, she appeared in the movie "Australia" with Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman, directed by Baz Luhrmann. In 2008 Davis played Maggie in "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" for the Melbourne Theatre Company. She returned to Tasmania to launch the "The Tasmanian Theatre Company" in 2008 and help support local theatre while encouraging youth to continue participating in the arts. Personal life. Davis married Justin Kurzel in 2002. They have twins born in 2006.
1164619	Perry Lopez (July 22, 1931 – February 14, 2008) was an American film and television actor. His acting career lasted 40 years. Lopez was born in New York City. Lopez began his acting career on in theater, based in New York. He was signed to a contract at Warner Bros. Studios in 1955. Lopez appeared as Rodrigues in Mr. Roberts in 1955. He also played in a number of B-movies and Westerns early on in his career, including the "Creature from the Black Lagoon", "The Young Guns" and The "Lone Ranger". Although he was part of the supporting cast in Mr. Roberts, his role was prominent - he played opposite Henry Fonda and James Cagney, who were both established stars at the time. However, he was, perhaps, best known as Lieutenant Lou Escobar in the 1974 film "Chinatown", which he starred in opposite Jack Nicholson and Faye Dunaway. He reprised the role sixteen years later (with Escobar promoted to Captain) in "The Two Jakes" in 1990. Among his many television appearances, one of his more well-known roles is that of Esteban Rodriguez in the classic "" episode "Shore Leave". Lopez also appeared in an episode of "Bonanza", as the cold-blooded outlaw Duke Miller, who kills a man over being first in line to get a haircut. He was Joaquín Castañeda, a mestizo that fought to free his people, on El Zorro, starring Guy Williams. Lopez also appeared in episode 14, "Night Of The Long Knives" originally airing December 16, 1966 of "The Time Tunnel" television series, in the "Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea" episode "Savage Jungle", played Davey Elk in "McLintock!" (1963) and played Pvt. Petuko in "Kelly's Heroes" (1970). An old heavy smoker, Lopez died of lung cancer in at The Rehabilitation Centre of Beverly Hills in Beverly Hills, California at age 76. He was survived by several nieces and nephews. His ashes were interred at Hollywood Forever Cemetery.
517335	Ticking Clock is a 2011 psychological suspense film starring Cuba Gooding Jr. and directed by Ernie Barbarash. Filming took place in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Barbarash had previously directed Gooding Jr. in "Hardwired". Plot. The movie opens outside a rundown suburban house. Inside, a woman is seen viciously murdered and partially dissected in the bath tub. As the killer, Keech (Neal McDonough), washes his hands, a baby starts to cry. Keech approaches the baby. Despite the savagery of his attack on the woman he is surprisingly gentle with the baby, comforting him and saying, “she can't hurt you anymore”. The movie jumps forward 11 years to April 17, 2011. Investigative reporter Lewis Hicks (Cuba Gooding, Jr.) is struggling with a failing marriage with his wife Gina (Danielle Nicolet); a dubious relationship with short time girlfriend, District Attorney Felicia Carson (Veronica Berry) and a slumping career. When Hicks pays a surprise visit to Felicia she becomes upset when she sees he is still wearing his wedding band. She tells him she is ending the relationship due to his unwillingness to make a commitment. Later that day Keech attacks Felicia in her home, expressing anger over a case she was involved in concerning a child being abused and murders her. Lewis arrives at Felicia's home but she is already dead and partially dissected similar to the woman in the opening scene. Lewis spots the killer and chases him into an alley where they fight. Lewis is knocked down but the killer drops a book. The killer is seen checking a pocket watch then disappears. Lewis finds the book, which he discovers to be the killer's journal. Lewis takes the journal home and reads about Felicia's killing, as well as 2 more murders that the killer plans within the next 72 hours. He writes the other two names down, but the killer arrives inexplicably at his home and takes the journal back as well as the sheet of paper with the other two names. Lewis tries to explain to the police investigating Felicia's murder but the lead detective (played by Yancey Arias) doesn't believe him and actually suspects Lewis of the killing. Lewis discovers that he can read the names of the other two women due to the impression left by the pen on the second sheet. He tracks down the second woman: a school teacher named Vicki Ihling (Adrianne Frost). He wants to keep an eye on her and pretends to ask her for a date, but she changes her mind instead going to a local bar. At the bar she is approached by Keech. As they make small talk she tells him she is a teacher, he states he knows one of her former students, an orphan boy that was returned to a boys' home after a teacher at the school reported him for abusing a stray cat. Vicki becomes nervous when she realizes she is the teacher that made the report and excuses herself to the restroom. In the restroom she is attacked by Keech. Lewis is able to trace Vicki to the bar but again arrives too late, finding her murdered also. When Lewis tries to catch Keech, Keech disappears out a window. The police still doubt his story about the killer, Lewis' only evidence is a small piece of the killer's coat torn off during the earlier fight and a bloody fingerprint on a newspaper clipping. He sends both to a friend at a local crime lab. When he follows up she tell him the preliminary results from the DNA test on the blood only show one result. An 11-year old orphan living in a local boys' home. She also shows him that the fabric of the coat reacts to heat, a quality she has never seen before in a fabric. Believing that the killer may be a relative of the boy Lewis goes to the home and introduces himself to the director Polly (Nicki Aycox) as a mentor for big brother program; asking to meet the boy. Polly seems hesitant as the boy has had behavioral problem and been returned by several foster families, but agrees to let Lewis meet him. She introduces Lewis to the orphan, James Keech (Austin Abrams). James seems to distrust all adults and especially dislikes the nuns at the home (whom he referrers to as 'the penguins') and is at first unreceptive to Lewis but agrees to go to the zoo. At the zoo Lewis asks James what he would like to be when he grows up, James seems unsure, but says he is good with math and would like to be an inventor, maybe even making a time machine so he could go back and fix his life. Back at the home James tells Lewis he wants to show him something, promising him to secrecy. Lewis promises and James shows him his 'private zoo'; a box with several small animals, including a mouse, a frog and a dragonfly that are all dead and partially dissected similar to the murder victims. Lewis is shocked and James becomes very upset, yelling at him to leave. Polly hears the yelling and comes into the dorm where James angrily accuses Lewis of trying to molest him. Polly does not believe the accusation as James has a history of making similar claims. Lewis starts to tells Polly about the dead animals but James angrily shouts that he promised not to tell. Lewis decides not to say anything and leaves. Lewis deduces that the killer is not a relative of James but rather James himself, having traveled back from the future to 'fix his life'. As Lewis continues to try to stop the killer he tries to find the third woman from the journal. The evidence leads him back to the boys' home. While talking to Polly he sees her college degree on the wall and realizes she is the third woman on the killer's list, with Polly being a nickname. Lewis is arrested at the boy's home and taken to the police station. At the police station he tries to explain but the police still do not believe him. Keech arrives pretending to be Lewis' lawyer. During a private conference he reveals to Lewis that his theory is correct, showing Lewis the pocket watch from the alley revealing it to actually be a time machine, and that he is James from the year 2032 coming back to fix his life. James uses the time machine to transport Lewis and himself to the boys' home, where he has Polly tied up on the roof. Keech demands that Lewis get the younger James from his room, threatening to kill Polly if he doesn't. Lewis quietly enters the dorm and prepares to kill the younger James hoping to set the time-line right, but can't bring himself to kill the sleeping child. Instead, he hides James inside a restroom, and goes to the roof. Keech explains that the woman from the opening scene was his mother who was abusive so he killed her, and he has been traveling through time, killing other people in an effort to set his life right. Meanwhile James leaves the bathroom and follows Lewis to the roof. James sees his older self and asks Keech if he is his father, but Keech tells him the truth about being his future self. James gets upset that Keech plans to hurt Polly, stating she has been nice to him, but Keech tells James that Polly is about to find his “private zoo” and will send him to a mental hospital where his abuse continues. While on the roof Keech reveals two more inventions: the small tazer like device from the opening scene is revealed to actually be a cutting torch, and the knife is shown to be an advanced motorized weapon with the serrated edge cycling like a chainsaw. During the struggle Keech drops the knife which James picks up and uses to slash Keech's leg. Keech then pushes James away but accidentally knocks him off of the roof. Keech turns to kill Lewis but as James dies from the fall Keech disappears. During the closing scenes Lewis is seen driving. Using a voice over he explains that since James died at age 11 the time line was 'made right' and he never became the serial killer. Each of the killer's victims is shown to still be alive including James himself. We see Lewis driving past the rundown house from the beginning of the movie which we now know to be James's mother's house. James comes out the front door to take out the trash. The movie closes with Lewis going home to his wife and son. Reception. "Ticking Clock" has received mixed reviews from critics. News Blaze positively reviewed the movie, stating "though this plot has enough holes to qualify as a golf course, small screen director Ernie Barbarash (Meteor) manages to sustain sufficient suspension of disbelief, via a heavy dose of heady suspense throughout." Dread Central panned the film, saying that it was a "fairly iffy serial killer thriller with a few decent moments and an intriguing but otherwise underdeveloped conceit behind its killer’s modus operandi; the insulting ending left me wishing I could have turned the clock back and gotten those 100 minutes back." DVD Talk also negatively reviewed the film, writing "Once you have accepted that you can predict exactly where the film is going, the proceedings are still watchable but far less exciting."
1044063	Andrew Keir (3 April 19265 October 1997) was a Scottish actor, who rose to prominence in a number of films made by Hammer Film Productions in the 1960s. He was also active in television, and especially in the theatre, in a professional career that lasted from the 1940s to the 1990s. He is best remembered for starring as Professor Bernard Quatermass in Hammer's film version of "Quatermass and the Pit" (1967). He also originated the role of Thomas Cromwell in Robert Bolt's play "A Man for All Seasons" (1960). His obituary in "The Times" described him as possessing "considerable range and undeniable distinction." Early life and career. Keir was born Andrew Buggy in Shotts, North Lanarkshire, Scotland. He was the son of a coal miner, and had five brothers and one sister. At 14, he left school to work down the coal mine alongside his father. He started acting by chance, when he went to meet a friend at the Miners' Welfare Hall, and one member of the cast of an amateur dramatics production being performed at the Hall had failed to turn up. Keir was persuaded to take the minor role of a farmer in the play, and enjoyed the experience so much that he later became a regular in the group's performances. The group entered a competition in Inverness, where Keir's talent was spotted and he was offered the chance to become a professional actor at the Unity Theatre in Glasgow. Since this was after the start of the Second World War, he could not easily leave his occupation as a miner; he was only able to accept the offer after he obtained a medical diagnosis of pneumoconiosis, which freed him from his work in the mine. After a few months at the Unity Theatre, he was offered a place at Glasgow's Citizens' Theatre by director Tyrone Guthrie. He accepted, and remained with the Citizens Theatre company for nine years. At the Citizens', he was a contemporary of Phyllida Law and Fulton Mackay; Keir and Mackay used to escort Law from the theatre to the local tram stop so that she would not be accosted by local gangs because of the English accent that she had developed at drama school. Keir made his film debut in 1950 in "The Lady Craved Excitement", and performed in his first major screen role in "The Brave Don't Cry" (1952). The film concerned the rescue of a group of miners trapped underground after an accident in the pit, with Keir playing a miner who places a bet on a horse race via the mine's telephone system while trapped; he was given the final line of dialogue, as he emerges from the pit following his rescue and asks who won the race. Major film and theatre roles. He began to win increasingly prominent film roles throughout the course of the 1950s, appearing in the Ealing comedy "The Maggie" (1954) and the "Titanic" film "A Night to Remember" (1958), in which he portrayed 2nd Engineer John Henry Hesketh He played Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa in the 1963 Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor vehicle "Cleopatra". Keir also continued to act on the stage. He played Robert Burns in the pageant "I, Robert Burns" in 1959, celebrating the 200th anniversary of the birth of the poet. In 1960 Keir initiated the role of Thomas Cromwell in the original theatrical production of Robert Bolt's play "A Man for All Seasons". Keir's performance in this part was praised by "The Times" as being "an arresting figure". In 1964, he was a member of the original West End cast of Lionel Bart's musical "Maggie May", playing the trade union leader. He had first appeared on television on the BBC in the early 1950s, and through that decade and into the 1960s continued to make guest appearances in a range of programmes, including "Danger Man", "Dr Finlay's Casebook", "The Avengers" and "Z Cars". However, it was in films where he became most prominent during the 1960s and early 1970s, particularly in Hammer's famous range of "Hammer Horror" productions. He appeared in "Pirates of Blood River" (1962), "" (1966) and "Blood from the Mummy's Tomb" (1971). By far his most prominent role for Hammer came in 1967's "Quatermass and the Pit"; this remained one of Keir's personal favourite roles of his career, and his obituary in "The Independent" claimed that "Keir's mixture of gruff determination, intelligence and quirkiness made him the definitive professor." Later career. Keir continued to appear on screen throughout the 1970s and 80s, in films such as "Zeppelin" (1971) and "The Thirty Nine Steps" (1978). He also continued to have success with television roles; the Australian series "The Outsiders" demonstrated again the wide range of types that he could convincingly play, but brought him less praise than the BBC series "Workhorses", for which he was nominated for BAFTA Scotland's Best Actor award. He continued appearing in TV series well into the 1990s, guest starring in an episode of "Hamish Macbeth" in a part that was written especially for him; the series was produced by his daughter, Deidre. His final major acting role was as John Campbell, 2nd Duke of Argyll (1678–1743) in the film "Rob Roy" (1995), although he also played a prominent role as Fergus in "The Princess Stallion" in 1997, the year of his death. Argyll was another role that became one of his favourites. His final professional engagement was resuming the role of Quatermass for the 1996 BBC radio serial "The Quatermass Memoirs". This final performance was praised by "The Independent": "This series has so far been hugely enjoyable - thanks in large part to Andrew Keir, who recreates the role of Quatermass in dramatic interludes; lesser actors would treat Kneale's downbeat script with a certain detachment, but Keir is prepared to charge even the most banal lines with a terror that's both a treat and a lesson." Keir died in hospital in London, aged 71, on 5 October 1997. From 1948 until 1977, he was married to Julia Wallace, with whom he had two sons and three daughters. In 1977, he married Joyce Parker Scott, who survived him, along with his five children from his previous marriage. One of his daughters is the actress Julie T. Wallace.
1042830	Michael Hugh Medwin OBE (born London, 18 July 1923) is an English actor and film producer. Life and career. Medwin was educated at Canford School, Dorset and the Institute Fischer, Montreux, Switzerland. He first appeared on stage in 1940. Medwin's West End theatre credits include "Man and Superman", "The Rivals", "Love for Love", "Duckers and Lovers", "Alfie", "St Joan of the Stockyards", and "What the Butler Saw". At the National Theatre he played a season which included "Weapons of Happiness" (Ralph Makepeace), "Volpone" (Corvino) and "The Madras House". He appeared in "Black Ball Game" at the Lyric Hammersmith. He also played Lloyd Dallas in one of the casts of the long-running production of "Noises Off" in the early 1980s. He is probably best known for his role as radio boss Don Satchley in the BBC television detective series "Shoestring" and for his role in "The Army Game", a British television comedy series of the late 1950s and early 1960s. With Bernard Bresslaw, Leslie Fyson and Alfie Bass, he took the theme tune from "The Army Game" into the UK Singles Chart in 1958, where it peaked at number 5. As well as his role in "Shoestring", he played Colin's boss Mr Langley (of the "Langley Book Of Horror") in the Mel Smith comedy series "Colin's Sandwich". He made many film appearances, including "Carry On Nurse" (1959) and "The Longest Day" (1962), before turning to producing films. Among the films he produced for Memorial Enterprises, a company he established with actor Albert Finney, are "Charlie Bubbles" (1967), directed by Finney and Lindsay Anderson's "If..." (1968), which won the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival. He worked again with Anderson on "O Lucky Man!" (1973) continuing the story of the Mick Travis character from their earlier film.. As a play producer his work included "Spring and Port Wine", "Alpha Beta", "A Day in the Death of Joe Egg", "Forget Me Not Lane" and "Another Country".
1165741	Dwayne Bernard Hickman (born May 18, 1934) is a former American actor and television executive at CBS. Hickman is known primarily for "teenager" roles on television sitcoms. The brown-haired Hickman portrayed Chuck MacDonald, Bob Collins's (played by Bob Cummings) crazy teenaged nephew, on the 1950s NBC series "The Bob Cummings Show" (a.k.a. "Love That Bob" in reruns), and the initially blond title character in CBS's "The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis". Life and career. Born in Los Angeles, California, Hickman is the younger brother of child actor Darryl Hickman. An early screen appearance was in the 1942 "Our Gang" comedy "Melodies Old and New". Dwayne and Darryl co-starred in an early episode of the syndicated military drama "Men of Annapolis", filmed at the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland. As a teen, he and Darryl guest-starred in an episode of "The Lone Ranger". Hickman gained wide notice as the character Chuck on "The Bob Cummings Show" from 1955 to 1959. At the time, he was studying at Loyola University (now Loyola Marymount University) in Los Angeles. Hickman was one of the first stars to have a breakout character in the series. Hickman considered Bob Cummings a childhood television hero, having said that Cummings taught him all that he knew about acting. He worked with and was friends with Cummings throughout five seasons. The role as Chuck MacDonald probably led to Hickman's being cast in the lead of "The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis". Frank Faylen and Florida Friebus played his opposite-minded parents. Although at the show's debut the Dobie character was a teenager in high school, Hickman was then twenty-five years old. After playing Dobie for four years (with fellow former Loyola student Bob Denver as his sidekick, Maynard G. Krebs), Hickman found himself stereotyped as a "youngster" when he was too old for such roles. He appeared in minor beach films and made an unsuccessful television pilot portraying a schoolteacher. James Franciscus was thereafter cast as "Mr. Novak", a high school English teacher on another NBC series. On June 23, 1960, Hickman appeared on NBC's "The Ford Show, Starring Tennessee Ernie Ford". He and Annette Funicello appeared together in an episode of ABC's circus drama "The Greatest Show on Earth", starring Jack Palance. In 1965, Hickman appeared in the comedy film "Cat Ballou" with Jane Fonda and Lee Marvin. In the 1965-1966 television season, he appeared as a guest star on the episode "Run Sheep Run" on ABC's drama "Combat!" as a soldier who froze during an attack by a German machine gun nest which resulted in the death of a fellow GI. Hickman found his future in entertainment behind the scenes, being involved in production roles. He was a programming executive at CBS, a role which he spoofed in several on-camera roles. He worked as a director on various television series, including "Designing Women" and "Head of the Class". He reprised his role of Dobie in two television reunion broadcasts, "Whatever Happened to Dobie Gillis" and "Bring Me the Head of Dobie Gillis". His autobiography is entitled "Forever Dobie". References. Notes
1103411	Yuri Ivanovitch Manin (; born 1937) is a Soviet/Russian/German mathematician, known for work in algebraic geometry and diophantine geometry, and many expository works ranging from mathematical logic to theoretical physics. Life and career. Manin gained a doctorate in 1960 at the Steklov Mathematics Institute as a student of Igor Shafarevich. He is now a Professor at the Max-Planck-Institut für Mathematik in Bonn, and a professor at Northwestern University. Manin's early work included papers on the arithmetic and formal groups of abelian varieties, the Mordell conjecture in the function field case, and algebraic differential equations. The Gauss–Manin connection is a basic ingredient of the study of cohomology in families of algebraic varieties. He wrote an influential book on cubic surfaces and cubic forms, showing how to apply both classical and contemporary methods of algebraic geometry, as well as nonassociative algebra. He also indicated the role of the Brauer group, via Grothendieck's theory of global Azumaya algebras, in accounting for obstructions to the Hasse principle, setting off a generation of further work. He has also written on Yang-Mills theory, quantum information, and mirror symmetry. Manin had over 40 doctoral students, including Vladimir Berkovich, Mariusz Wodzicki, Alexander Beilinson, Ivan Cherednik, Alexei Skorobogatov, Vladimir Drinfeld, Vyacheslav Shokurov, Arend Bayer and Victor Kolyvagin, as well as foreign students including Hà Huy Khoái, now the most senior mathematician in Vietnam. He was awarded the Schock Prize in 1999 and the Cantor Medal in 2002. In 1994, he was awarded the Nemmers Prize in Mathematics. In 2010, he received the Bolyai Prize of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences.
1044156	Imogen Hassall (25 August 1942 – 16 November 1980) was an English actress who appeared in 33 films during the 1960s and 1970s. Early life. Named after Shakespeare's "Cymbeline" heroine, she was born in Woking, Surrey, to a family of artists and businessmen. Her grandfather, John Hassall, and her aunt, Joan Hassall, worked as illustrators, while her father, Christopher Hassall, was a poet and lyricist. Her godfather was the composer Ivor Novello, with whom her father had worked extensively as lyricist. Career. Imogen was a pupil at the Royal Ballet School, White Lodge, Richmond Park from 1952-1958. After having studied at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art, and enjoyed an appearance in the William Douglas-Home comedy "The Reluctant Peer" at the Duchess Theatre in 1964, she appeared in British TV adventure series of the 1960s such as "The Saint", "The Avengers", The Persuaders!. In her first significant role she played Tara in "The Long Duel" (1967); she gained fame as a sexy woman in "When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth" (1970). Carry On Loving,1970, brought her to theatrical legend with her own self, Imogen, created in Cleo, Camping, Emmanuelle and Dick, a piece for theatre by Terry Johnson produced at Royal National Theatre in September,1998. (Olivier Award 1999: Best New Comedy). Johnson adapted his play for a 2000 television film Cor, Blimey!. Personal life. Hassall married twice - firstly to Hawkeye actor Ken Ives (who later married comedienne Marti Caine) and briefly to Andrew Knox who later killed himself - and her private life was a regular subject of interest in tabloid newspapers. She was known for playing sexy, scantily-clad characters in film and on TV. This, and the revealing outfits she sometimes wore in her private life, resulted in her being publicly referred to as "the Countess of Cleavage". She was found dead in her Wimbledon home on the morning of 16 November 1980 when she failed to meet a friend, actress Suzanna Leigh, with whom she was due to go on holiday to Africa that day. She had committed suicide by overdosing on Tuinal tablets.
1025554	Ray Anthony (born January 20, 1922) is an American bandleader, trumpeter, songwriter and actor. Biography. As a child Anthony, born Raymond Antonini in Bentleyville, Pennsylvania, moved with his family to Cleveland, Ohio, where he studied the trumpet with his father. He played in Glenn Miller's band from 1940–1941 and appeared in the Glenn Miller movie Sun Valley Serenade in 1941 before joining the U.S. Navy during World War II. After the war he formed his own group. The Ray Anthony Orchestra became very popular in the early 1950s, with recordings that included Anthony's classic dance songs "The Bunny Hop" and the "Hokey Pokey," as well as the theme music from "Dragnet". He had a #2 chart hit with a remake of the Glenn Miller tune, "At Last", in 1952, the highest chartting pop version of the song in the U.S. From 1953-1954 Anthony was the musical director on the television series "TV's Top Tunes", and he also appeared as himself in the 1955 film "Daddy Long Legs". In 1955 Anthony married his second wife, the sex symbol actress Mamie Van Doren. Their son Perry Ray was born March 18, 1956. He then began expanding his own acting career. He starred in a short-lived television 1956-1957 variety show, "The Ray Anthony Show". Anthony also appeared in several films during the late 1950s, including "The Five Pennies" (where he portrayed Jimmy Dorsey), and Van Doren's movies "High School Confidential" as "Bix" and "Girls Town". In the 1959-1960 television season, he guest starred in the episode "Operation Ramrod" of David Hedison's espionage series "Five Fingers" on NBC. In 1957, Anthony and his orchestra recorded the soundtrack to the film "This Could Be The Night", with vocals performed by Julie Wilson. Anthony also had a role in the film, playing himself. After van Doren filed for divorce in 1958, citing cruelty, they finally divorced in 1960, and Anthony's brief film career ended at about the same time. However, he continued his musical career and had another hit record with the theme from "Peter Gunn", which reached #8 on "Billboard's" pop chart. Among his pianists was Allen "Puddler" Harris, a native of Franklin Parish, Louisiana, who had been a member of the original Ricky Nelson band and Kellie Green, who also played the vibraphone. Ray Anthony and his Bookends were active between the 1960s and 1980s, being the most notable single were "Christmas Kisses/Let Me Walk With You", which was released in 1961 under the Capitol Records label. Anthony was considered one of the most modern of the big band leaders. In the lyrics to "Opus One", which imagine a number of players performing the song, he is cited along with Les Brown and his Band of Renown: Anthony and his band were also featured in the movie, "The Girl Can't Help It", and were treated as one of the rockers in the line-up, but also shown in performances with Mansfield that are essential to the plot. Ray Anthony's compositions include "Thunderbird", "Bunny Hop", "Trumpet Boogie", "Big Band Boogie", and "Mr. Anthony's Boogie". In the early 1980s, Anthony formed Big Band '80s, other members including Buddy Rich, Harry James, Les Brown, and Alvino Rey. Anthony, who has been honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, continues to be active as a bandleader and musician. Anthony is a close friend of Hugh Hefner and has appeared in numerous episodes of "The Girls Next Door".
1057879	Surf Ninjas is a 1993 American comedic family film involving martial arts, directed by Neal Israel and written by Dan Gordon. The film stars Ernie Reyes Jr., Rob Schneider, Nicolas Cowan, and Leslie Nielsen. "Surf Ninjas" follows two teenage surfers from Los Angeles who discover that they are crown princes of the Asian kingdom Patusan and reluctantly follow their destinies to dethrone an evil colonel that rules over the kingdom. "Surf Ninjas" was filmed in Los Angeles, Hawaii, and Thailand. A video game was also developed and released in conjunction with the film. "Surf Ninjas" was released in the United States on August 20, 1993, becoming popular but being received generally unfavorably by critics. The film was released on VHS in December 1993 and re-released on DVD in September 2002.
1063639	"Ocean's Thirteen" is a 2007 crime comedy heist film directed by Steven Soderbergh and starring an ensemble cast. It is the third and final film in the Soderbergh series (Ocean's Trilogy) following the 2004 sequel "Ocean's Twelve" and the 2001 film "Ocean's Eleven", which itself was a remake of the 1960 Rat Pack film "Ocean's 11". All the male cast members reprise their roles from the previous installments but neither Julia Roberts nor Catherine Zeta-Jones return. Al Pacino and Ellen Barkin joined the cast as their new targets. Filming began in July 2006 in Las Vegas and Los Angeles, based on a script by Brian Koppelman and David Levien. The film was screened for the Out of Competition presentation at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival. It was released on June 8, 2007, in the United States and in several countries in the Middle East on June 6. Plot. Reuben Tishkoff (Elliott Gould), in an attempt to legitimize himself in his later years, is conned by Willy Bank (Al Pacino), his former business partner. When Bank forces Reuben to sign over the ownership rights of the new hotel-casino they were building together, Reuben suffers a heart attack and becomes bedridden. Daniel Ocean (George Clooney), after attempting to negotiate with Bank, gathers his partners-in-crime and plans to ruin Bank on the opening night of his hotel-casino, "The Bank", to get revenge for Reuben. The first of two plans is to prevent "The Bank" from winning the prestigious Five Diamond Award, which all of Bank's previous hotels have won. Saul Bloom (Carl Reiner) poses as the reviewer of the board, while the real reviewer (David Paymer) is treated horribly during his stay through Ocean's associates and the staff on their payroll. The second plan is to rig the casino's slot machines and other games to force a payout more than $500 million in winnings across the casino; this will force Bank to cede control of the casino to his board. Rigging of the games would require the group to defeat "The Greco Player Tracker," a state-of-the-art artificial intelligence system that monitors the games and ensures that all winnings are legitimate by measuring the players' biometric responses, such as pupil dilation and body temperature, for authenticity. They plan to trick Bank into carrying a cell phone with a magnetron, created by technical expert Roman Nagel (Eddie Izzard), to disrupt the Greco. To assure that the Greco shuts down and players cash out, Ocean's team acquires one of the giant drills used to bore the Channel Tunnel to simulate an earthquake under the hotel on opening night. While the group prepares the rigged games, the drill breaks, forcing them to approach Terry Benedict (Andy García), the antagonist of Ocean's Eleven, to fund the purchase of the second drill. As Benedict has a grudge against Bank and is willing to help, he offers Ocean the funds only if they also steal the four necklaces Bank bought for his wife in representation of the four Five Diamond Awards, now on display in a secured case at the top of the hotel. Linus Caldwell (Matt Damon) offers to seduce Bank's assistant, Abigail Sponder (Ellen Barkin), to gain access to the display and switch the diamonds with fakes, and the group accepts. As Ocean's plan proceeds on opening night, agents from the FBI have been informed that machines have been rigged by Livingston Dell (Eddie Jemison) (although in reality this allows Livingston to have the card-shuffling machines removed, as he was unable to effectively rig them) and have identified him, which may reveal the rest of Ocean's gang to Bank. Basher (Don Cheadle) distracts Bank long enough to allow Virgil (Casey Affleck) and Turk Malloy (Scott Caan) to change the group's FBI records, including their names and appearances. Linus, in the process of seducing Sponder in the secure room with the diamonds, is interrupted by the lead FBI agent. The agent explains the diamond theft plan to Sponder, and Linus is arrested, but as they exit in the elevator, the lead agent is revealed to be his father, Robert 'Bobby' Caldwell (Bob Einstein), once a master robber and con artist, who is in on Ocean's plan and there to help Linus swap the diamonds. As they exit to the roof of the hotel for extraction of the diamonds via helicopter, they are caught by François "The Night Fox" Toulour (Vincent Cassel), whom Benedict had ordered to intercept the diamonds. Linus gives the diamonds to Toulour, who leaves but after departing discovers that he holds only the fakes; Ocean, who had been aware of Toulour's presence, had arranged to extract the entire display case from the hotel. The remainder of Ocean's plan continues as expected, with "The Greco" disrupted, and guests leaving the hotel with their massive winnings. As Bank realizes his ruin, Ocean lets him know that they did everything for Reuben, taunting him about the fact that Bank cannot even arrange for revenge as he cannot prove that Ocean did anything illegal. The group uses the money they made off with to buy property north of the Las Vegas Strip for Reuben. As punishment for Benedict's treachery, Ocean donates his portion of the take to charity, all $72 million, forcing Benedict to publicly admit his philanthropy via television appearances. As the group disperses on their own and considers settling down, Rusty (Brad Pitt) ensures that the real Five Diamond reviewer, who suffered numerous discomforts during his stay at the hotel, is compensated by allowing him to win the jackpot on a rigged slot machine at the airport. Cast. Ocean's Thirteen. Julia Roberts and Catherine Zeta-Jones did not appear in their roles as Tess Ocean and Isabel Lahiri due to script issues, their absence being explained by Danny, who repeatedly states "It's not their fight." Reception. Box office. The film did well on its first weekend, reaching the top spot at the North American box office. Despite being opened in 250 more theaters than "Ocean's Twelve", it had a slightly weaker opening weekend than the former, pulling in $36 million, compared with "Twelve" $39 million opening weekend. By the end of December 2007, "Ocean's Thirteen" had generated $311.4 million in box office revenue worldwide. Critical reception. Critical reception to the movie has been more positive than its predecessor with some critics liking the movie's style while others criticized it for being overly complex. Joel Siegel, in what would turn out to be his last review for "Good Morning America", stated that if it had been the first movie, there still would have been a sequel. On the movie website Rotten Tomatoes, the movie has received an overall 70% score. In his review for "New York", David Edelstein wrote, "As the plotting gets knottier, his technique gets more fluid—the editing jazzier, the colors more luscious, the whip-pans more whizbang. It's all anchored by Clooney, looking impudent, roguish, almost laughably handsome". Manohla Dargis, in her review for "The New York Times", wrote, "Playing inside the box and out, he has learned to go against the grain while also going with the flow. In "Ocean's Thirteen" he proves that in spades by using color like Kandinsky and hanging a funny mustache on Mr. Clooney's luscious mug, having become a genius of the system he so often resists". However, Roger Ebert wrote, in his review for the "Chicago Sun-Times", ""Ocean's Thirteen" proceeds with insouciant dialogue, studied casualness, and a lotta stuff happening, none of which I cared much about because the movie doesn't pause to develop the characters, who are forced to make do with their movie-star personas". Peter Bradshaw, in his review for "The Guardian", wrote, "Sometimes we go to split-screen, and sometimes - whooaaa! - two of the split-screen frames are funkily showing the same thing. It is all quite meaningless. As if in an experimental novel by BS Johnson, the scenes could be reshuffled and shown in any order and it would amount to the same thing. There is no human motivation and no romance". Home video release. "Ocean's Thirteen" was released on DVD in November 2007.
503049	Going Greek is a 2001 American comedy film written and directed by Justin Zackham. Plot. Set in any-college U.S.A., centering on Jake, an embittered ex-high school American football star who is coerced into pledging the "coolest" fraternity on campus. Jake does so in order to protect Gil, his somewhat nerdy, but Greek-obsessed cousin. As the semester progresses, Jake struggles to maintain his grades as well as his affair with Paige, a beautiful sophomore who hates all fraternities. Through naked scavenger hunts, sorority ass-signings, all-night beer fests, keg parties, sorority swapping, and other creative pledge activities, Jake discovers that he's actually beginning to enjoy himself. But when some of the frat brothers step up their attempts to force Gil into quitting the house, both his scholarship and his relationship with Paige are threatened. Jake must swallow his pride and turn to his fellow pledges for help into seeing the big-hearted Gil through to the end, or risk losing everything. Jake quickly learns that no man is an island, and that the friends we make in college are friends for life. Filming locations. Most of the college campus scenes were filmed at the University of California, Riverside in Riverside, CA.
1072371	Terror of Mechagodzilla (released in Japan as ) is a 1975 Japanese science fiction kaiju film produced by Toho. Directed by Ishirō Honda and featuring special effects by Teruyoshi Nakano, the film starred Tomoko Ai, Gorō Mutsumi, and Akihiko Hirata. This film was the 15th and final film in the original series of Godzilla films, before the series reboot in 1984. A direct sequel to the previous year's Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla, this film was the least successful commercially of the entire Godzilla franchise. This was the last "Godzilla" film directed by Ishirō Honda.
1163732	Walter Thomas Huston (; April 6, 1883 – April 7, 1950) was a Canadian-born American actor. He was the father of actor and director John Huston and the grandfather of Pablo Huston, Walter Anthony (Tony) Huston, Anjelica Huston, Danny Huston, and Allegra Huston. He is great-grandfather to actor Jack Huston. Early life. Huston was born in Toronto, Ontario Attended school at Winchester Street Public School the son of Elizabeth (née McGibbon) and Robert Moore Houghston, a provincial farmer who founded a construction company. He was of Scottish and Irish descent. He had a brother and two sisters, one of whom was the famous theatrical voice coach Margaret Carrington(1877-1941). His family moved from Orangeville, Ontario before his birth where they were farmers. As a young man he worked in construction and in his spare time attended the Shaw School of Acting. He made his stage debut in 1902. He went on to tour in "In Convict Stripes", a play by Hal Reid, father of Wallace Reid and also appeared with Richard Mansfield in "Julius Caesar". He again toured in another play "The Sign of the Cross". In 1904, he married Rhea Gore and gave up acting to work as a manager of electric power stations in Nevada and Missouri. He maintained these jobs till 1909 during which time the couple had a son, John in 1906. Career. In 1909, his marriage floundering, he began appearing in vaudeville with an older actress called Bayonne Whipple (1865 - 1937) (born Mina Rose). They were billed as Whipple and Huston and in 1915 they married. Vaudeville was their livelihood into the 1920s.
1169529	Marianna Hill (born Mariana Schwarzkopf; February 9, 1941), sometimes credited as "Mariana Hill", is an American actress mostly working in American television. A life member of The Actors Studio, Hill has appeared in more than 70 films and television episodes. She co-starred in the Elvis Presley film "Paradise, Hawaiian Style" in 1966 as Lani Kaimana; the Clint Eastwood film "High Plains Drifter" as Callie Travers in 1973; and in "The Godfather II" in 1974 as Deanna Dunn-Corleone. Hill guest-starred in several 1960s sitcoms, a short list of which include "My Three Sons," "Hogan's Heroes," "Love American Style," and "Batman." One of Hill's many TV appearances was as Dr. Helen Noel in the "" episode, "Dagger of the Mind". She also appeared on "Perry Mason" in the title role as Theba in the 1963 episode, "The Case of the Greek Goddess."
583062	Sadiyaan is a Bollywood film released in 2010 which stars Rishi Kapoor, Hema Malini and Rekha. The story is about a family during the partition of India. The film was directed by Raj Kanwar and it has been distributed by the B4U (network) and known as a "B4U Movies Production". It was released on Friday, 2 April 2010. The film is genred as a Drama film and targeted for single screen audiences. Some of the scenes have been seen in other films lately. The film was the launch vehicle of Luv Sinha and featured Ferena Wazeir as his love interest. Sadiyaan bombed at the boxoffice and was declared a disaster. Plot. During the 1947 partition, the Lahore based family of Rajveer (Rishi Kapoor) and Amrit (Rekha) has to flee Pakistan and settle in Amritsar, Punjab. In the house that they get to stay, Amrit finds an abandoned baby boy of the Muslim family who owned the house but fled to Pakistan because of communal riots. Amrit raises the boy as her own and he grows up to be Ishaan (Luv Sinha). During a summer camp visit to Kashmir, Ishaan falls in love with Chandni (Ferena Wazeir). When he goes to her house to ask her hand in marriage, her father (Deep Dhillon) and uncle (Ahmed Khan) tell him to forget her as they are against her marrying a Hindu boy. When Amrit and Rajveer come to know about this they finally declare the truth to Ishaan that he is a Muslim in reality and not their own child. He doesn’t believe them and Chandni’s parents refuse to believe it without proof. The old couple then decide to track Ishaan’s real parents down and also succeed. Ishaan’s real mother, Benazir (Hema Malini) comes down with his real father (Javed Sheikh) to take back custody of a now grown up Ishaan. Chandni’s parents immediately agree to the marriage when Ishaan’s real parents visit their house. What complications arise when Ishaan’s parents start making plans to take back Ishaan and his bride back to Pakistan and how they are handled by the principal characters forms the rest of the plot. Cast. Chaurasiya ji
589185	Teesri Kasam (translation: third oath) is a 1966 film based on a short story, 'Mare Gaye Gulfam' by Phanishwarnath Renu - a Hindi novelist. The film stars Raj Kapoor and Waheeda Rehman. Music of the film was done by the famed duo Shankar-Jaikishan. Directed by Basu Bhattacharya, Teesri Kasam is an unconventional film that portrays the society of the rural India and simplicity of villagers. The whole film is shot in Araria, Bihar. Cinematography is by Subrata Mitra, dialogues by Phanishwarnath Renu, screenplay by Nabendu Ghosh. Synopsis. The story is about Hiraman, a rustic villager from a remote village in Araria (Bihar), who drives a bullock cart to earn his livelihood. The story begins with Hiraman taking two consecutive vows based on the difficult situations he had to undergo, before he meets a "nautanki" dancer, Hirabai. The story soon transforms into the story of the friendship between a bullock cart driver and an urban "nautanki" dancer. The movie, finally, ends with Hiraman taking the third vow. Hiraman (Raj Kapoor) is a bullock cart driver with conservative traditional values. While smuggling illegal goods on his bullock cart and close escape from police, Hiraman takes vow (first Kasam) to never carry illegal goods again in his cart. While transporting bamboo for timber trader on his bullock cart, he is beaten by two men when their horses are upset by bamboos of Hiraman's cart. After that incident, Hiraman takes another vow (second Kasam) to never carry bamboo again in his cart. One night, Hiraman is asked to carry Hirabai (Waheeda Rehman), a nautanki dancer as a passenger to the 40 miles distance to the village fair. As they travel together Hiraman sings to pass time and tells her story of the legend of Mahua. As the journey progresses, Hirabai is mesmerized by Hiraman's innocence and his simple philosophy of life. Hiraman in return sees her as an angel of purity. Once they reach the village fair, Hiraman joins with his band of bullock cart drivers and Hirabai joins the nautanki company. Hirabai asks Hiraman to stay at village fair for a few days to see her dance. Hirabai arranges free passes for Hiraman and his friends to see nautanki on every night as long as village fair runs. As Hiraman attends nautanki, he becomes aware that other people see her as a prostitute and it disturbs him. He tries to shield and protect her from society. The bond between two grows stronger as the days pass at the fair. He gets involved in fights with local people who speak badly about her and her profession. Hirabai tries to make him understand the harsh reality of her life. Hiraman asks her to leave her profession and start living a respectable life. Hirabai refuses to leave her acting career. Depressed, Hiraman leaves village fair and returns to his village. In the mean time, Hirabai understands Hiraman's unselfish love. Hirabai meets Hiraman and reveals her past secret that she had been already sold and she was no longer a virgin beauty. Hirabai returns to her hometown. After seeing Hirabai going away from his life, Hiraman takes third vow (teesri Kasam) to never carry a nautanki company dancer again in his cart.
1245484	The Mystery of Picasso () is a 1956 French documentary film about the painter Pablo Picasso, directed by Henri-Georges Clouzot. It shows Picasso in the act of creating paintings for the camera. Most of the paintings were subsequently destroyed so that they would only exist on film, though some may have survived. The film begins with Picasso creating simple marker drawings in black and white, gradually progressing to full scale collages and oil paintings. It won the Special Jury Prize at the 1956 Cannes Film Festival and was shown out of competition at the 1982 Festival. This famous art movie wasn't the first documentary showing Picasso painting images on glass plates from the viewpoint of the camera. The Belgian documentary film "Visit to Picasso" (1949) did it almost seven years earlier.
899536	Orazi e Curiazi (English title: "Duel of Champions") is a 1961 film about the Roman legend of the Horatii, triplet brothers from Rome who fought a duel against the Curiatii, triplet brothers from Alba Longa in order to determine the outcome of a war between their two nations. This film was directed by Ferdinando Baldi and Terence Young. The screenplay was written by Ennio De Concini, Carlo Lizzani, Giuliano Montaldo and Luciano Vincenzoni.
1055002	Big Wednesday is a 1978 American coming of age film directed by John Milius. Milius co-wrote "Big Wednesday" with Dennis Aaberg, and it is loosely based on their own experiences at Malibu and a short story Aaberg had published in a 1974 "Surfer Magazine" entitled "No Pants Mance." The picture stars Jan-Michael Vincent, William Katt, and Gary Busey as California surfers facing life and the Vietnam War against the backdrop of their love of surfing. Although initially a commercial failure, the film has found a cult audience in the years since its release. Plot. The film tells the story of three young friends whose passion in life is surfing. The friends include: Matt (Jan-Michael Vincent), a self-destructive type who has a devil-may-care attitude; Jack Barlowe (William Katt), the calm and responsible one of the bunch; and Leroy "The Masochist" Smith (Gary Busey), whose nickname tells a lot about his personality. Their surfing lives are traced from the summer of 1962 to their attempts of dodging the Vietnam War draft in 1965 (including faking insanity, homosexuality, and all manner of medical ailments), and to the end of their innocence in 1968 when one of their friends is killed in Vietnam. The three make the difficult transition to adulthood with parties, surf trips, marriage, and the war. The friends reunite years later, after Barlowe has served time in Vietnam, for the "Great Swell of '74." With this reunion, the transitions in their lives becomes the end point of what the 1960s meant to so many as they see that the times have changed, and what was once a time of innocence is gone forever. Production. Raised in Southern California, Milius made "Big Wednesday" as an homage to the time he spent in Malibu during his youth. Milius and his friends George Lucas and Steven Spielberg famously agreed to exchange a percentage point of "Big Wednesday", "" and "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" prior to the release of the three films throughout 1977-78. Spielberg in particular was certain that "Big Wednesday" was going to be a box office hit, opining it was like ""American Graffiti" meets "Jaws"", two of the decade's most successful films. Milius and producer Feitshans had met at American International Pictures and formed their own company, The A Team. This was their first production. Milius at one stage intended to play the role of the Bear himself. Filming locations. The surfing scenes used in the finale to "Big Wednesday" were not filmed in California, where the film is set, but at Sunset Beach, located at Pupukea, Hawaii. Other filming locations included El Paso, Texas; Hollister Ranch, Santa Barbara; Surfrider Beach, Malibu; Ventura, California (all in the United States); El Salvador. Distribution. The film premiered in wide release in the United States on May 26, 1978. The picture was screened at various film festivals, including: the Davao City Film Festival, Philippines; the Turin Film Festival, Italy; and others. Reception. Box Office. "Big Wednesday" was a box office flop upon its release, and was quickly pulled from theatres after taking only $4.5 million. William Katt explained in a 1979 interview with Roger Ebert a year after the film's release that he believed the movie's failure was due to the marketing focusing only on the fight scenes and surfing angle. Despite this, the film slowly found new life via television and the home video market. By the late 1990s, it was considered a cult classic and a 20th Anniversary screening (which included cast and crewmembers) took place at the Newport Film Festival in 1998. Critical response. Janet Maslin, film critic for "The New York Times", did not like the screenplay nor the performances of the actors and wrote, "The surprise is not that Mr. Milius has made such a resoundingly awful film, but rather that he's made a bland one...the movie often seems even more uneventful than material like this need make it, and Mr. Milius's attention to his actors focuses more closely on their pectorals than on their performances. He encourages such stiffness in his players that Barbara Hale, for instance, is quite unconvincing as Mr. Katt's mother. This is a "faux pas" of no mean eminence; after all, Miss Hale actually is Mr. Katt's mother." Dave Kehr, writing for the "Chicago Reader," was not as dismissive of the film, writing, "John Milius's paean to the art and discipline of hot dog surfing is marred by pushy philosophizing and a fair number of overripe lines, but its sincerity is deep and seductive...Milius can be faulted for reviving a number of ostensibly dead macho myths, but in the context of the subculture his film deftly re-creates, they take on the aura of eternal values. The breathtaking surfing footage, rather than the slightly stunted characters, makes his most eloquent argument." The staff at "Variety" wrote, "A rubber stamp wouldn't do for John Milius. So he took a sledgehammer and pounded Important all over "Big Wednesday." This film about three Malibu surfers in the 1960s has been branded major statement and it's got Big Ideas about adolescence, friendship and the 1960s." The review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reported that 63% of critics gave the film a positive review, based on eight reviews." Accolades. Nominations
1071491	One Missed Call 2 (着信アリ2 "Chakushin Ari 2") is a Japanese horror film, and the sequel to the J-Horror film "One Missed Call". Plot. Set a year after the original, "One Missed Call 2" introduces Kyoko Okudera and her friend Madoka Uchiyama. Both women are teaching assistants at a kindergarten in the middle of Tokyo. Madoka persuades Kyoko to visit a restaurant where Kyoko's boyfriend Naoto Sakurai works part-time at. Mei-Feung is the daughter of the cook, and her cellphone rings with the "ringtone of death". However, she is out buying groceries and her father answers it. The call was meant to be for Mei-Feung, but since her father answered it, he hears his own death instead. Later, when the restaurant is closed, Mei-Feung gives Kyoko and Madoka her new phone number since she has gotten a new one along with a new cellphone. Seconds after exchanging numbers, Madoka gets a call with the ringtone of death.
1105084	Hermann Minkowski (June 22, 1864 – January 12, 1909) was a German mathematician. He created and developed the geometry of numbers and used geometrical methods to solve problems in number theory, mathematical physics, and the theory of relativity. Minkowski is perhaps best known for his work in relativity, in which he showed in 1907 that his former student Albert Einstein's special theory of relativity (1905), presented algebraically by Einstein, could also be understood geometrically as a theory of four-dimensional space-time. Einstein himself at first viewed Minkowski's treatment as a mere mathematical trick, before eventually realizing that a geometrical view of space-time would be necessary in order to complete his own later work in general relativity (1915). Ethnicity. Hermann Minkowski was born in Aleksotas, a village in Kaunas Governorate - the Russian Empire had partitioned territory of the former Grand Duchy of Lithuania, which had been part of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. In different sources Minkowski is described variously as German, Lithuanian or Lithuanian-German), Polish or Russian. Life and work. Minkowski taught at the universities of Bonn, Göttingen, Königsberg and Zürich. At the "Eidgenössische Polytechnikum", today the ETH Zurich, he was one of Einstein's teachers. Minkowski explored the arithmetic of quadratic forms, especially concerning "n" variables, and his research into that topic led him to consider certain geometric properties in a space of "n" dimensions. In 1896, he presented his "geometry of numbers", a geometrical method that solved problems in number theory. In 1902, he joined the Mathematics Department of Göttingen and became a close colleague of David Hilbert, whom he first met in Königsberg. Constantin Carathéodory was one of his students there. He is also the creator of the Minkowski Sausage and the Minkowski cover of a curve. Minkowski died suddenly of appendicitis in Göttingen on 12 January 1909. He married in 1897 and was the father of two daughters; the electrical engineer and inventor Reinhold Rudenberg was his son-in-law. Relativity. By 1907 Minkowski realized that the special theory of relativity, introduced by Albert Einstein in 1905 and based on previous work of Lorentz and Poincaré, could be best understood in a four dimensional space, since known as "Minkowski spacetime", in which time and space are not separated entities but intermingled in a four dimensional space-time, and in which the Lorentz geometry of special relativity can be nicely represented. The beginning part of his address delivered at the 80th "Assembly of German Natural Scientists and Physicians" (September 21, 1908) is now famous: "The views of space and time which I wish to lay before you have sprung from the soil of experimental physics, and therein lies their strength. They are radical. Henceforth space by itself, and time by itself, are doomed to fade away into mere shadows, and only a kind of union of the two will preserve an independent reality." Citations. David Hilbert's obituary of Minkowski illustrates the deep friendship between the two mathematicians (translated): The asteroid 12493 Minkowski and M-matrices are named in his honour.
1101756	Emmy Noether (; official name Amalie Emmy Noether; 23 March 1882 – 14 April 1935), was an influential German mathematician known for her groundbreaking contributions to abstract algebra and theoretical physics. Described by Pavel Alexandrov, Albert Einstein, Jean Dieudonné, Hermann Weyl, Norbert Wiener and others as the most important woman in the history of mathematics, she revolutionized the theories of rings, fields, and algebras. In physics, Noether's theorem explains the fundamental connection between symmetry and conservation laws. She was born to a Jewish family in the Bavarian town of Erlangen; her father was mathematician Max Noether. Emmy originally planned to teach French and English after passing the required examinations, but instead studied mathematics at the University of Erlangen, where her father lectured. After completing her dissertation in 1907 under the supervision of Paul Gordan, she worked at the Mathematical Institute of Erlangen without pay for seven years (at the time women were largely excluded from academic positions). In 1915, she was invited by David Hilbert and Felix Klein to join the mathematics department at the University of Göttingen, a world-renowned center of mathematical research. The philosophical faculty objected, however, and she spent four years lecturing under Hilbert's name. Her "habilitation" was approved in 1919, allowing her to obtain the rank of "Privatdozent". Noether remained a leading member of the Göttingen mathematics department until 1933; her students were sometimes called the "Noether boys". In 1924, Dutch mathematician B. L. van der Waerden joined her circle and soon became the leading expositor of Noether's ideas: her work was the foundation for the second volume of his influential 1931 textbook, "Moderne Algebra". By the time of her plenary address at the 1932 International Congress of Mathematicians in Zürich, her algebraic acumen was recognized around the world. The following year, Germany's Nazi government dismissed Jews from university positions, and Noether moved to the United States to take up a position at Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania. In 1935 she underwent surgery for an ovarian cyst and, despite signs of a recovery, died four days later at the age of 53. Noether's mathematical work has been divided into three "epochs". In the first (1908–19), she made significant contributions to the theories of algebraic invariants and number fields. Her work on differential invariants in the calculus of variations, "Noether's theorem", has been called "one of the most important mathematical theorems ever proved in guiding the development of modern physics". In the second epoch (1920–26), she began work that "changed the face of algebra". In her classic paper "Idealtheorie in Ringbereichen" ("Theory of Ideals in Ring Domains", 1921) Noether developed the theory of ideals in commutative rings into a powerful tool with wide-ranging applications. She made elegant use of the ascending chain condition, and objects satisfying it are named "Noetherian" in her honor. In the third epoch (1927–35), she published major works on noncommutative algebras and hypercomplex numbers and united the representation theory of groups with the theory of modules and ideals. In addition to her own publications, Noether was generous with her ideas and is credited with several lines of research published by other mathematicians, even in fields far removed from her main work, such as algebraic topology. Biography. Emmy's father, Max Noether, was descended from a family of wholesale traders in Germany. He had been paralyzed by poliomyelitis at the age of fourteen. He regained mobility, but one leg remained affected. Largely self-taught, he was awarded a doctorate from the University of Heidelberg in 1868. After teaching there for seven years, he took a position in the Bavarian city of Erlangen, where he met and married Ida Amalia Kaufmann, the daughter of a prosperous merchant. Max Noether's mathematical contributions were to algebraic geometry mainly, following in the footsteps of Alfred Clebsch. His best known results are the "Brill–Noether theorem" and the residue, or "AF+BG theorem"; several other theorems are associated with him, including "Max Noether's theorem". Emmy Noether was born on 23 March 1882, the first of four children. Her first name was "Amalie", after her mother and paternal grandmother, but she began using her middle name at a young age. As a girl, she was well liked. She did not stand out academically although she was known for being clever and friendly. Emmy was near-sighted and talked with a minor lisp during childhood. A family friend recounted a story years later about young Emmy quickly solving a brain teaser at a children's party, showing logical acumen at that early age. Emmy was taught to cook and clean, as were most girls of the time, and she took piano lessons. She pursued none of these activities with passion, although she loved to dance. She had three younger brothers. The eldest, Alfred, was born in 1883, was awarded a doctorate in chemistry from Erlangen in 1909, but died nine years later. Fritz Noether, born in 1884, is remembered for his academic accomplishments: after studying in Munich he made a reputation for himself in applied mathematics. The youngest, Gustav Robert, was born in 1889. Very little is known about his life; he suffered from chronic illness and died in 1928. University of Erlangen. Emmy Noether showed early proficiency in French and English. In the spring of 1900 she took the examination for teachers of these languages and received an overall score of "sehr gut" (very good). Her performance qualified her to teach languages at schools reserved for girls, but she chose instead to continue her studies at the University of Erlangen. This was an unconventional decision; two years earlier, the Academic Senate of the university had declared that allowing mixed-sex education would "overthrow all academic order". One of only two women students in a university of 986, Noether was only allowed to audit classes rather than participate fully, and required the permission of individual professors whose lectures she wished to attend. Despite the obstacles, on 14 July 1903 she passed the graduation exam at a "Realgymnasium" in Nuremberg. During the 1903–04 winter semester, she studied at the University of Göttingen, attending lectures given by astronomer Karl Schwarzschild and mathematicians Hermann Minkowski, Otto Blumenthal, Felix Klein, and David Hilbert. Soon thereafter, restrictions on women's participation in that university were rescinded. Noether returned to Erlangen. She officially reentered the university on 24 October 1904, and declared her intention to focus solely on mathematics. Under the supervision of Paul Gordan she wrote her dissertation, "Über die Bildung des Formensystems der ternären biquadratischen Form" ("On Complete Systems of Invariants for Ternary Biquadratic Forms", 1907). Although it had been well received, Noether later described her thesis as "crap". For the next seven years (1908–15) she taught at the University of Erlangen's Mathematical Institute without pay, occasionally substituting for her father when he was too ill to lecture. In 1910 and 1911 she published an extension of her thesis work from three variables to "n" variables. Gordan retired in the spring of 1910, but continued to teach occasionally with his successor, Erhard Schmidt, who left shortly afterward for a position in Breslau. Gordan retired from teaching altogether in 1911 with the arrival of Schmidt's successor Ernst Fischer, and died in December 1912. According to Hermann Weyl, Fischer was an important influence on Noether, in particular by introducing her to the work of David Hilbert. From 1913 to 1916 Noether published several papers extending and applying Hilbert's methods to mathematical objects such as fields of rational functions and the invariants of finite groups. This phase marks the beginning of her engagement with abstract algebra, the field of mathematics to which she would make groundbreaking contributions. Noether and Fischer shared lively enjoyment of mathematics and would often discuss lectures long after they were over; Noether is known to have sent postcards to Fischer continuing her train of mathematical thoughts. University of Göttingen. In the spring of 1915, Noether was invited to return to the University of Göttingen by David Hilbert and Felix Klein. Their effort to recruit her, however, was blocked by the philologists and historians among the philosophical faculty: women, they insisted, should not become "privatdozent". One faculty member protested: "What will our soldiers think when they return to the university and find that they are required to learn at the feet of a woman?" Hilbert responded with indignation, stating, "I do not see that the sex of the candidate is an argument against her admission as "privatdozent". After all, we are a university, not a bath house." Noether left for Göttingen in late April; two weeks later her mother died suddenly in Erlangen. She had previously received medical care for an eye condition, but its nature and impact on her death is unknown. At about the same time Noether's father retired and her brother joined the German Army to serve in World War I. She returned to Erlangen for several weeks, mostly to care for her aging father. During her first years teaching at Göttingen she did not have an official position and was not paid; her family paid for her room and board and supported her academic work. Her lectures often were advertised under Hilbert's name, and Noether would provide "assistance". Soon after arriving at Göttingen, however, she demonstrated her capabilities by proving the theorem now known as Noether's theorem, which shows that a conservation law is associated with any differentiable symmetry of a physical system. American physicists Leon M. Lederman and Christopher T. Hill argue in their book "Symmetry and the Beautiful Universe" that Noether's theorem is "certainly one of the most important mathematical theorems ever proved in guiding the development of modern physics, possibly on a par with the Pythagorean theorem". When World War I ended, the German Revolution of 1918–19 brought a significant change in social attitudes, including more rights for women. In 1919 the University of Göttingen allowed Noether to proceed with her "habilitation" (eligibility for tenure). Her oral examination was held in late May, and she successfully delivered her "habilitation" lecture in June. Three years later she received a letter from the Prussian Minister for Science, Art, and Public Education, in which he conferred on her the title of "nicht beamteter ausserordentlicher Professor" (an untenured professor with limited internal administrative rights and functions). This was an unpaid "extraordinary" professorship, not the higher "ordinary" professorship, which was a civil-service position. Although it recognized the importance of her work, the position still provided no salary. Noether was not paid for her lectures until she was appointed to the special position of "Lehrbeauftragte für Algebra" a year later. Seminal work in abstract algebra. Although Noether's theorem had a profound effect upon physics, among mathematicians she is best remembered for her seminal contributions to abstract algebra. As Nathan Jacobson says in his Introduction to Noether's "Collected Papers", Noether's groundbreaking work in algebra began in 1920. In collaboration with W. Schmeidler, she then published a paper about the theory of ideals in which they defined left and right ideals in a ring. The following year she published a landmark paper called "Idealtheorie in Ringbereichen", analyzing ascending chain conditions with regard to (mathematical) ideals. Noted algebraist Irving Kaplansky called this work "revolutionary"; the publication gave rise to the term "Noetherian ring", and several other mathematical objects being called "Noetherian". In 1924 a young Dutch mathematician, B. L. van der Waerden, arrived at the University of Göttingen. He immediately began working with Noether, who provided invaluable methods of abstract conceptualization. Van der Waerden later said that her originality was "absolute beyond comparison". In 1931 he published "Moderne Algebra", a central text in the field; its second volume borrowed heavily from Noether's work. Although Emmy Noether did not seek recognition, he included as a note in the seventh edition "based in part on lectures by E. Artin and E. Noether". She sometimes allowed her colleagues and students to receive credit for her ideas, helping them develop their careers at the expense of her own. Van der Waerden's visit was part of a convergence of mathematicians from all over the world to Göttingen, which became a major hub of mathematical and physical research. From 1926 to 1930 Russian topologist Pavel Alexandrov lectured at the university, and he and Noether quickly became good friends. He began referring to her as "der Noether", using the masculine German article as a term of endearment to show his respect. She tried to arrange for him to obtain a position at Göttingen as a regular professor, but was only able to help him secure a scholarship from the Rockefeller Foundation. They met regularly and enjoyed discussions about the intersections of algebra and topology. In his 1935 memorial address, Alexandrov named Emmy Noether "the greatest woman mathematician of all time". Lecturing and students. In Göttingen, Noether supervised more than a dozen doctoral students; her first was Grete Hermann, who defended her dissertation in February 1925. She later spoke reverently of her "dissertation-mother".. Noether also supervised Max Deuring, who distinguished himself as an undergraduate and went on to contribute significantly to the field of arithmetic geometry; Hans Fitting, remembered for Fitting's theorem and the Fitting lemma; and Zeng Jiongzhi (also rendered "Chiungtze C. Tsen" in English), who proved Tsen's theorem. She also worked closely with Wolfgang Krull, who greatly advanced commutative algebra with his "Hauptidealsatz" and his dimension theory for commutative rings. In addition to her mathematical insight, Noether was respected for her consideration of others. Although she sometimes acted rudely toward those who disagreed with her, she nevertheless gained a reputation for constant helpfulness and patient guidance of new students. Her loyalty to mathematical precision caused one colleague to name her "a severe critic", but she combined this demand for accuracy with a nurturing attitude. A colleague later described her this way: "Completely unegotistical and free of vanity, she never claimed anything for herself, but promoted the works of her students above all." Her frugal lifestyle at first was due to being denied pay for her work; however, even after the university began paying her a small salary in 1923, she continued to live a simple and modest life. She was paid more generously later in her life, but saved half of her salary to bequeath to her nephew, Gottfried E. Noether. Mostly unconcerned about appearance and manners, she focused on her studies to the exclusion of romance and fashion. A distinguished algebraist Olga Taussky-Todd described a luncheon, during which Noether, wholly engrossed in a discussion of mathematics, "gesticulated wildly" as she ate and "spilled her food constantly and wiped it off from her dress, completely unperturbed". Appearance-conscious students cringed as she retrieved the handkerchief from her blouse and ignored the increasing disarray of her hair during a lecture. Two female students once approached her during a break in a two-hour class to express their concern, but they were unable to break through the energetic mathematics discussion she was having with other students. According to Van der Waerden's obituary of Emmy Noether, she did not follow a lesson plan for her lectures, which frustrated some students. Instead, she used her lectures as a spontaneous discussion time with her students, to think through and clarify important cutting-edge problems in mathematics. Some of her most important results were developed in these lectures, and the lecture notes of her students formed the basis for several important textbooks, such as those of Van der Waerden and Deuring. Several of her colleagues attended her lectures, and she allowed some of her ideas, such as the crossed product ("verschränktes Produkt" in German) of associative algebras, to be published by others. Noether was recorded as having given at least five semester-long courses at Göttingen: These courses often preceded major publications in these areas. Noether spoke quickly—reflecting the speed of her thoughts, many said—and demanded great concentration from her students. Students who disliked her style often felt alienated. Some pupils felt that she relied too much on spontaneous discussions. Her most dedicated students, however, relished the enthusiasm with which she approached mathematics, especially since her lectures often built on earlier work they had done together. She developed a close circle of colleagues and students who thought along similar lines and tended to exclude those who did not. "Outsiders" who occasionally visited Noether's lectures usually spent only 30 minutes in the room before leaving in frustration or confusion. A regular student said of one such instance: "The enemy has been defeated; he has cleared out." Noether showed a devotion to her subject and her students that extended beyond the academic day. Once, when the building was closed for a state holiday, she gathered the class on the steps outside, led them through the woods, and lectured at a local coffee house. Later, after she had been dismissed by the Third Reich, she invited students into her home to discuss their future plans and mathematical concepts. Moscow. In the winter of 1928–29 Noether accepted an invitation to Moscow State University, where she continued working with P. S. Alexandrov. In addition to carrying on with her research, she taught classes in abstract algebra and algebraic geometry. She worked with the topologists, Lev Pontryagin and Nikolai Chebotaryov, who later praised her contributions to the development of "Galois theory". Although politics was not central to her life, Noether took a keen interest in political matters and, according to Alexandrov, showed considerable support for the Russian Revolution (1917). She was especially happy to see Soviet advancements in the fields of science and mathematics, which she considered indicative of new opportunities made possible by the Bolshevik project. This attitude caused her problems in Germany, culminating in her eviction from a pension lodging building, after student leaders complained of living with "a Marxist-leaning Jewess". Noether planned to return to Moscow, an effort for which she received support from Alexandrov. After she left Germany in 1933 he tried to help her gain a chair at Moscow State University through the Soviet Education Ministry. Although this effort proved unsuccessful, they corresponded frequently during the 1930s, and in 1935 she made plans for a return to the Soviet Union. Meanwhile her brother, Fritz accepted a position at the Research Institute for Mathematics and Mechanics in Tomsk, in the Siberian Federal District of Russia, after losing his job in Germany. Recognition. In 1932 Emmy Noether and Emil Artin received the Ackermann–Teubner Memorial Award for their contributions to mathematics. The prize carried a monetary reward of 500 Reichsmarks and was seen as a long-overdue official recognition of her considerable work in the field. Nevertheless, her colleagues expressed frustration at the fact that she was not elected to the Göttingen "Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften" (academy of sciences) and was never promoted to the position of "Ordentlicher Professor" (full professor). Noether's colleagues celebrated her fiftieth birthday in 1932, in typical mathematicians' style. Helmut Hasse dedicated an article to her in the "Mathematische Annalen", wherein he confirmed her suspicion that some aspects of noncommutative algebra are simpler than those of commutative algebra, by proving a noncommutative reciprocity law. This pleased her immensely. He also sent her a mathematical riddle, the "mμν-riddle of syllables", which she solved immediately; the riddle has been lost. In November of the same year, Noether delivered a plenary address ("großer Vortrag") on "Hyper-complex systems in their relations to commutative algebra and to number theory" at the International Congress of Mathematicians in Zürich. The congress was attended by 800 people, including Noether's colleagues Hermann Weyl, Edmund Landau, and Wolfgang Krull. There were 420 official participants and twenty-one plenary addresses presented. Apparently, Noether's prominent speaking position was a recognition of the importance of her contributions to mathematics. The 1932 congress is sometimes described as the high point of her career. Expulsion from Göttingen. When Adolf Hitler became the German "Reichskanzler" in January 1933, Nazi activity around the country increased dramatically. At the University of Göttingen the German Student Association led the attack on the "un-German spirit" attributed to Jews and was aided by a privatdozent named Werner Weber, a former student of Emmy Noether. Antisemitic attitudes created a climate hostile to Jewish professors. One young protester reportedly demanded: "Aryan students want Aryan mathematics and not Jewish mathematics." One of the first actions of Hitler's administration was the Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service which removed Jews and politically suspect government employees (including university professors) from their jobs unless they had "demonstrated their loyalty to Germany" by serving in World War I. In April 1933 Noether received a notice from the Prussian Ministry for Sciences, Art, and Public Education which read: "On the basis of paragraph 3 of the Civil Service Code of 7 April 1933, I hereby withdraw from you the right to teach at the University of Göttingen." Several of Noether's colleagues, including Max Born and Richard Courant, also had their positions revoked. Noether accepted the decision calmly, providing support for others during this difficult time. Hermann Weyl later wrote that "Emmy Noether—her courage, her frankness, her unconcern about her own fate, her conciliatory spirit—was in the midst of all the hatred and meanness, despair and sorrow surrounding us, a moral solace." Typically, Noether remained focused on mathematics, gathering students in her apartment to discuss class field theory. When one of her students appeared in the uniform of the Nazi paramilitary organization "Sturmabteilung" (SA), she showed no sign of agitation and, reportedly, even laughed about it later. Bryn Mawr. As dozens of newly unemployed professors began searching for positions outside of Germany, their colleagues in the United States sought to provide assistance and job opportunities for them. Albert Einstein and Hermann Weyl were appointed by the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, while others worked to find a sponsor required for legal immigration. Noether was contacted by representatives of two educational institutions, Bryn Mawr College in the United States and Somerville College at the University of Oxford in England. After a series of negotiations with the Rockefeller Foundation, a grant to Bryn Mawr was approved for Noether and she took a position there, starting in late 1933. At Bryn Mawr, Noether met and befriended Anna Wheeler, who had studied at Göttingen just before Noether arrived there. Another source of support at the college was the Bryn Mawr president, Marion Edwards Park, who enthusiastically invited mathematicians in the area to "see Dr. Noether in action!" Noether and a small team of students worked quickly through Van der Waerden's 1930 book "Moderne Algebra I" and parts of Erich Hecke's "Theorie der algebraischen Zahlen" ("Theory of algebraic numbers", 1908). In 1934, Noether began lecturing at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton upon the invitation of Abraham Flexner and Oswald Veblen. She also worked with and supervised Abraham Albert and Harry Vandiver. However, she remarked about Princeton University that she was not welcome at the "men's university, where nothing female is admitted". Her time in the United States was pleasant, surrounded as she was by supportive colleagues and absorbed in her favorite subjects. In the summer of 1934 she briefly returned to Germany to see Emil Artin and her brother Fritz before he left for Tomsk. Although many of her former colleagues had been forced out of the universities, she was able to use the library as a "foreign scholar". Death. In April 1935 doctors discovered a tumor in Noether's pelvis. Worried about complications from surgery, they ordered two days of bed rest first. During the operation they discovered an ovarian cyst "the size of a large cantaloupe". Two smaller tumors in her uterus appeared to be benign and were not removed, to avoid prolonging surgery. For three days she appeared to convalesce normally, and she recovered quickly from a circulatory collapse on the fourth. On 14 April she fell unconscious, her temperature soared to , and she died. "t is not easy to say what had occurred in Dr. Noether", one of the physicians wrote. "It is possible that there was some form of unusual and virulent infection, which struck the base of the brain where the heat centers are supposed to be located." A few days after Noether's death her friends and associates at Bryn Mawr held a small memorial service at College President Park's house. Hermann Weyl and Richard Brauer traveled from Princeton and spoke with Wheeler and Taussky about their departed colleague. In the months which followed, written tributes began to appear around the globe: Albert Einstein joined Van der Waerden, Weyl, and Pavel Alexandrov in paying their respects. Her body was cremated and the ashes interred under the walkway around the cloisters of the M. Carey Thomas Library at Bryn Mawr. Contributions to mathematics and physics. First and foremost Noether is remembered by mathematicians as an algebraist and for her work in topology. Physicists appreciate her best for her famous theorem because of its far-ranging consequences for theoretical physics and dynamic systems. She showed an acute propensity for abstract thought, which allowed her to approach problems of mathematics in fresh and original ways. Her friend and colleague Hermann Weyl described her scholarly output in three epochs: In the first epoch (1907–19), Noether dealt primarily with differential and algebraic invariants, beginning with her dissertation under Paul Gordan. Her mathematical horizons broadened, and her work became more general and abstract, as she became acquainted with the work of David Hilbert, through close interactions with a successor to Gordan, Ernst Sigismund Fischer. After moving to Göttingen in 1915, she produced her seminal work for physics, the two Noether's theorems. In the second epoch (1920–26), Noether devoted herself to developing the theory of mathematical rings. In the third epoch (1927–35), Noether focused on noncommutative algebra, linear transformations, and commutative number fields. Historical context. In the century from 1832 to Noether's death in 1935, the field of mathematics—specifically algebra—underwent a profound revolution, whose reverberations are still being felt. Mathematicians of previous centuries had worked on practical methods for solving specific types of equations, e.g., cubic, quartic, and quintic equations, as well as on the related problem of constructing regular polygons using compass and straightedge. Beginning with Carl Friedrich Gauss's 1832 proof that prime numbers such as five can be factored in Gaussian integers, Évariste Galois's introduction of permutation groups in 1832 (although, because of his death, his papers were only published in 1846 by Liouville), William Rowan Hamilton's discovery of quaternions in 1843, and Arthur Cayley's more modern definition of groups in 1854, research turned to determining the properties of ever-more-abstract systems defined by ever-more-universal rules. Noether's most important contributions to mathematics were to the development of this new field, abstract algebra. Abstract algebra and "begriffliche Mathematik" (conceptual mathematics). Two of the most basic objects in abstract algebra are groups and rings. A "group" consists of a set of elements and a single operation which combines a first and a second element and returns a third. The operation must satisfy certain constraints for it to determine a group: It must be closed (when applied to any pair of elements of the associated set, the generated element must also be a member of that set), it must be associative, there must be an identity element (an element which, when combined with another element using the operation, results in the original element, such as adding zero to a number or multiplying it by one), and for every element there must be an inverse element. A "ring" likewise, has a set of elements, but now has "two" operations. The first operation must make the set a group, and the second operation is associative and distributive with respect to the first operation. It may or may not be commutative; this means that the result of applying the operation to a first and a second element is the same as to the second and first—the order of the elements does not matter. If every non-zero element has a multiplicative inverse (an element x such that ax = xa = 1), the ring is called a division ring. A field is defined as a commutative division ring. Groups are frequently studied through "group representations". In their most general form, these consist of a choice of group, a set, and an "action" of the group on the set, that is, an operation which takes an element of the group and an element of the set and returns an element of the set. Most often, the set is a vector space, and the group represents symmetries of the vector space. For example, there is a group which represents the rigid rotations of space. This is a type of symmetry of space, because space itself does not change when it is rotated even though the positions of objects in it do. Noether used these sorts of symmetries in her work on invariants in physics. A powerful way of studying rings is through their "modules". A module consists of a choice of ring, another set, usually distinct from the underlying set of the ring and called the underlying set of the module, an operation on pairs of elements of the underlying set of the module, and an operation which takes an element of the ring and an element of the module and returns an element of the module. The underlying set of the module and its operation must form a group. A module is a ring-theoretic version of a group representation: Ignoring the second ring operation and the operation on pairs of module elements determines a group representation. The real utility of modules is that the kinds of modules that exist and their interactions, reveal the structure of the ring in ways that are not apparent from the ring itself. An important special case of this is an "algebra". (The word algebra means both a subject within mathematics as well as an object studied in the subject of algebra.) An algebra consists of a choice of two rings and an operation which takes an element from each ring and returns an element of the second ring. This operation makes the second ring into a module over the first. Often the first ring is a field. Words such as "element" and "combining operation" are very general, and can be applied to many real-world and abstract situations. Any set of things that obeys all the rules for one (or two) operation(s) is, by definition, a group (or ring), and obeys all theorems about groups (or rings). Integer numbers, and the operations of addition and multiplication, are just one example. For example, the elements might be computer data words, where the first combining operation is exclusive or and the second is logical conjunction. Theorems of abstract algebra are powerful because they are general; they govern many systems. It might be imagined that little could be concluded about objects defined with so few properties, but precisely therein lay Noether's gift: "to discover the maximum that could be concluded from a given set of properties, or conversely, to identify the minimum set, the essential properties responsible for a particular observation". Unlike most mathematicians, she did not make abstractions by generalizing from known examples; rather, she worked directly with the abstractions. As van der Waerden recalled in his obituary of her, This is the "begriffliche Mathematik" (purely conceptual mathematics) that was characteristic of Noether. This style of mathematics was adopted by other mathematicians and, after her death, flowered into new forms, such as category theory. Integers as an example of a ring. The integers form a commutative ring whose elements are the integers, and the combining operations are addition and multiplication. Any pair of integers can be added or multiplied, always resulting in another integer, and the first operation, addition, is commutative, i.e., for any elements a and b in the ring, "a" + "b" = "b" + "a". The second operation, multiplication, also is commutative, but that need not be true for other rings, meaning that "a" combined with "b" might be different from "b" combined with "a". Examples of noncommutative rings include matrices and quaternions. The integers do not form a division ring, because the second operation cannot always be inverted; there is no integer "a" such that 3 × "a" = 1. The integers have additional properties which do not generalize to all commutative rings. An important example is the fundamental theorem of arithmetic, which says that every positive integer can be factored uniquely into prime numbers. Unique factorizations do not always exist in other rings, but Noether found a unique factorization theorem, now called the "Lasker–Noether theorem", for the ideals of many rings. Much of Noether's work lay in determining what properties "do" hold for all rings, in devising novel analogs of the old integer theorems, and in determining the minimal set of assumptions required to yield certain properties of rings. First epoch (1908–19). Algebraic invariant theory. Much of Noether's work in the first epoch of her career was associated with invariant theory, principally algebraic invariant theory. Invariant theory is concerned with expressions that remain constant (invariant) under a group of transformations. As an everyday example, if a rigid yardstick is rotated, the coordinates ("x", "y", "z") of its endpoints change, but its length "L" given by the formula remains the same. Invariant theory was an active area of research in the later nineteenth century, prompted in part by Felix Klein's Erlangen program, according to which different types of geometry should be characterized by their invariants under transformations, e.g., the cross-ratio of projective geometry. The archetypal example of an invariant is the discriminant "B"2 − 4"AC" of a binary quadratic form "Ax"2 + "Bxy" + "Cy"2. This is called an invariant because it is unchanged by linear substitutions "x"→"ax" + "by", "y"→"cx" + "dy" with determinant "ad" − "bc" = 1. These substitutions form the special linear group "SL"2. (There are no invariants under the general linear group of all invertible linear transformations because these transformations can be multiplication by a scaling factor. To remedy this, classical invariant theory also considered "relative invariants", which were forms invariant up to a scale factor.) One can ask for all polynomials in "A", "B", and "C" that are unchanged by the action of "SL"2; these are called the invariants of binary quadratic forms, and turn out to be the polynomials in the discriminant. More generally, one can ask for the invariants of homogeneous polynomials "A"0x"r""y"0 + ... + "A""r"x0"y""r" of higher degree, which will be certain polynomials in the coefficients "A"0, ..., "A""r", and more generally still, one can ask the similar question for homogeneous polynomials in more than two variables. One of the main goals of invariant theory was to solve the "finite basis problem". The sum or product of any two invariants is invariant, and the finite basis problem asked whether it was possible to get all the invariants by starting with a finite list of invariants, called "generators", and then, adding or multiplying the generators together. For example, the discriminant gives a finite basis (with one element) for the invariants of binary quadratic forms. Noether's advisor, Paul Gordan, was known as the "king of invariant theory", and his chief contribution to mathematics was his 1870 solution of the finite basis problem for invariants of homogeneous polynomials in two variables. He proved this by giving a constructive method for finding all of the invariants and their generators, but was not able to carry out this constructive approach for invariants in three or more variables. In 1890, David Hilbert proved a similar statement for the invariants of homogeneous polynomials in any number of variables. Furthermore, his method worked, not only for the special linear group, but also for some of its subgroups such as the special orthogonal group. His first proof caused some controversy because it did not give a method for constructing the generators, although in later work he made his method constructive. For her thesis, Noether extended Gordan's computational proof to homogeneous polynomials in three variables. Noether's constructive approach made it possible to study the relationships among the invariants. Later, after she had turned to more abstract methods, Noether called her thesis "Mist" (crap) and "Formelngestrüpp" (a jungle of equations). Galois theory. Galois theory concerns transformations of number fields that permute the roots of an equation. Consider a polynomial equation of a variable "x" of degree "n", in which the coefficients are drawn from some ground field, which might be, for example, the field of real numbers, rational numbers, or the integers modulo 7. There may or may not be choices of "x", which make this polynomial evaluate to zero. Such choices, if they exist, are called roots. If the polynomial is "x"2 + 1 and the field is the real numbers, then the polynomial has no roots, because any choice of "x" makes the polynomial greater than or equal to one. If the field is extended, however, then the polynomial may gain roots, and if it is extended enough, then it always has a number of roots equal to its degree. Continuing the previous example, if the field is enlarged to the complex numbers, then the polynomial gains two roots, "i" and −"i", where "i" is the imaginary unit, that is, . More generally, the extension field in which a polynomial can be factored into its roots is known as the splitting field of the polynomial. The Galois group of a polynomial is the set of all ways of transforming the splitting field, while preserving the ground field and the roots of the polynomial. (In mathematical jargon, these transformations are called automorphisms.) The Galois group of consists of two elements: The identity transformation, which sends every complex number to itself, and complex conjugation, which sends "i" to −"i". Since the Galois group does not change the ground field, it leaves the coefficients of the polynomial unchanged, so it must leave the set of all roots unchanged. Each root can move to another root, however, so transformation determines a permutation of the "n" roots among themselves. The significance of the Galois group derives from the fundamental theorem of Galois theory, which proves that the fields lying between the ground field and the splitting field are in one-to-one correspondence with the subgroups of the Galois group. In 1918, Noether published a seminal paper on the inverse Galois problem. Instead of determining the Galois group of transformations of a given field and its extension, Noether asked whether, given a field and a group, it always is possible to find an extension of the field that has the given group as its Galois group. She reduced this to "Noether's problem", which asks whether the fixed field of a subgroup "G" of the permutation group "S""n" acting on the field always is a pure transcendental extension of the field "k". (She first mentioned this problem in a 1913 paper, where she attributed the problem to her colleague Fischer.) She showed this was true for , 3, or 4. In 1969, R. G. Swan found a counter-example to Noether's problem, with and "G" a cyclic group of order 47 (although this group can be realized as a Galois group over the rationals in other ways). The inverse Galois problem remains unsolved. Physics. Noether was brought to Göttingen in 1915 by David Hilbert and Felix Klein, who wanted her expertise in invariant theory to help them in understanding general relativity, a geometrical theory of gravitation developed mainly by Albert Einstein. Hilbert had observed that the conservation of energy seemed to be violated in general relativity, due to the fact that gravitational energy could itself gravitate. Noether provided the resolution of this paradox, and a fundamental tool of modern theoretical physics, with Noether's first theorem, which she proved in 1915, but did not publish until 1918. She not only solved the problem for general relativity, but also determined the conserved quantities for "every" system of physical laws that possesses some continuous symmetry. Upon receiving her work, Einstein wrote to Hilbert: "Yesterday I received from Miss Noether a very interesting paper on invariants. I'm impressed that such things can be understood in such a general way. The old guard at Göttingen should take some lessons from Miss Noether! She seems to know her stuff." For illustration, if a physical system behaves the same, regardless of how it is oriented in space, the physical laws that govern it are rotationally symmetric; from this symmetry, Noether's theorem shows the angular momentum of the system must be conserved. The physical system itself need not be symmetric; a jagged asteroid tumbling in space conserves angular momentum despite its asymmetry. Rather, the symmetry of the "physical laws" governing the system is responsible for the conservation law. As another example, if a physical experiment has the same outcome at any place and at any time, then its laws are symmetric under continuous translations in space and time; by Noether's theorem, these symmetries account for the conservation laws of linear momentum and energy within this system, respectively. Noether's theorem has become a fundamental tool of modern theoretical physics, both because of the insight it gives into conservation laws, and also, as a practical calculation tool. Her theorem allows researchers to determine the conserved quantities from the observed symmetries of a physical system. Conversely, it facilitates the description of a physical system based on classes of hypothetical physical laws. For illustration, suppose that a new physical phenomenon is discovered. Noether's theorem provides a test for theoretical models of the phenomenon: if the theory has a continuous symmetry, then Noether's theorem guarantees that the theory has a conserved quantity, and for the theory to be correct, this conservation must be observable in experiments. Second epoch (1920–26). Although the results of Noether's first epoch were impressive and useful, her fame as a mathematician rests more on the groundbreaking work she did in her second and third epochs, as noted by Hermann Weyl and B. L. van der Waerden in their obituaries of her. In these epochs, she was not merely applying ideas and methods of earlier mathematicians; rather, she was crafting new systems of mathematical definitions that would be used by future mathematicians. In particular, she developed a completely new theory of ideals in rings, generalizing earlier work of Richard Dedekind. She is also renowned for developing ascending chain conditions, a simple finiteness condition that yielded powerful results in her hands. Such conditions and the theory of ideals enabled Noether to generalize many older results and to treat old problems from a new perspective, such as elimination theory and the algebraic varieties that had been studied by her father. Ascending and descending chain conditions. In this epoch, Noether became famous for her deft use of ascending ("Teilerkettensatz") or descending ("Vielfachenkettensatz") chain conditions. A sequence of non-empty subsets "A"1, "A"2, "A"3, etc. of a set "S" is usually said to be "ascending", if each is a subset of the next Conversely, a sequence of subsets of "S" is called "descending" if each contains the next subset: A chain "becomes constant after a finite number of steps" if there is an "n" such that formula_3 for all "m" ≥ "n". A collection of subsets of a given set satisfies the ascending chain condition if any ascending sequence becomes constant after a finite number of steps. It satisfies the descending chain condition if any descending sequence becomes constant after a finite number of steps. Ascending and descending chain conditions are general, meaning that they can be applied to many types of mathematical objects—and, on the surface, they might not seem very powerful. Noether showed how to exploit such conditions, however, to maximum advantage: for example, how to use them to show that every set of sub-objects has a maximal/minimal element or that a complex object can be generated by a smaller number of elements. These conclusions often are crucial steps in a proof. Many types of objects in abstract algebra can satisfy chain conditions, and usually if they satisfy an ascending chain condition, they are called "Noetherian" in her honor. By definition, a Noetherian ring satisfies an ascending chain condition on its left and right ideals, whereas a Noetherian group is defined as a group in which every strictly ascending chain of subgroups is finite. A Noetherian module is a module in which every strictly ascending chain of submodules breaks off after a finite number. A Noetherian space is a topological space in which every strictly increasing chain of open subspaces breaks off after a finite number of terms; this definition is made so that the spectrum of a Noetherian ring is a Noetherian topological space. The chain condition often is "inherited" by sub-objects. For example, all subspaces of a Noetherian space, are Noetherian themselves; all subgroups and quotient groups of a Noetherian group are likewise, Noetherian; and, "mutatis mutandis", the same holds for submodules and quotient modules of a Noetherian module. All quotient rings of a Noetherian ring are Noetherian, but that does not necessarily hold for its subrings. The chain condition also may be inherited by combinations or extensions of a Noetherian object. For example, finite direct sums of Noetherian rings are Noetherian, as is the ring of formal power series over a Noetherian ring. Another application of such chain conditions is in Noetherian induction—also known as well-founded induction—which is a generalization of mathematical induction. It frequently is used to reduce general statements about collections of objects to statements about specific objects in that collection. Suppose that "S" is a partially ordered set. One way of proving a statement about the objects of "S" is to assume the existence of a counterexample and deduce a contradiction, thereby proving the contrapositive of the original statement. The basic premise of Noetherian induction is that every non-empty subset of "S" contains a minimal element. In particular, the set of all counterexamples contains a minimal element, the "minimal counterexample". In order to prove the original statement, therefore, it suffices to prove something seemingly much weaker: For any counterexample, there is a smaller counterexample. Commutative rings, ideals, and modules. Noether's paper, "Idealtheorie in Ringbereichen" ("Theory of Ideals in Ring Domains", 1921), is the foundation of general commutative ring theory, and gives one of the first general definitions of a commutative ring. Before her paper, most results in commutative algebra were restricted to special examples of commutative rings, such as polynomial rings over fields or rings of algebraic integers. Noether proved that in a ring which satisfies the ascending chain condition on ideals, every ideal is finitely generated. In 1943, French mathematician Claude Chevalley coined the term, "Noetherian ring", to describe this property. A major result in Noether's 1921 paper is the Lasker–Noether theorem, which extends Lasker's theorem on the primary decomposition of ideals of polynomial rings to all Noetherian rings. The Lasker–Noether theorem can be viewed as a generalization of the fundamental theorem of arithmetic which states that any positive integer can be expressed as a product of prime numbers, and that this decomposition is unique. Noether's work "Abstrakter Aufbau der Idealtheorie in algebraischen Zahl- und Funktionenkörpern" ("Abstract Structure of the Theory of Ideals in Algebraic Number and Function Fields", 1927) characterized the rings in which the ideals have unique factorization into prime ideals as the Dedekind domains: integral domains that are Noetherian, 0 or 1-dimensional, and integrally closed in their quotient fields. This paper also contains what now are called the isomorphism theorems, which describe some fundamental natural isomorphisms, and some other basic results on Noetherian and Artinian modules. Elimination theory. In 1923–24, Noether applied her ideal theory to elimination theory—in a formulation that she attributed to her student, Kurt Hentzelt—showing that fundamental theorems about the factorization of polynomials could be carried over directly. Traditionally, elimination theory is concerned with eliminating one or more variables from a system of polynomial equations, usually by the method of resultants. For illustration, the system of equations often can be written in the form of a matrix "M" (missing the variable "x") times a vector "v" (having only different powers of "x") equaling the zero vector, . Hence, the determinant of the matrix "M" must be zero, providing a new equation in which the variable "x" has been eliminated. Invariant theory of finite groups. Techniques such as Hilbert's original non-constructive solution to the finite basis problem could not be used to get quantitative information about the invariants of a group action, and furthermore, they did not apply to all group actions. In her 1915 paper, Noether found a solution to the finite basis problem for a finite group of transformations "G" acting on a finite dimensional vector space over a field of characteristic zero. Her solution shows that the ring of invariants is generated by homogenous invariants whose degree is less than, or equal to, the order of the finite group; this is called, Noether's bound. Her paper gave two proofs of Noether's bound, both of which also work when the characteristic of the field is coprime to |"G"|!, the factorial of the order |"G"| of the group "G". The number of generators need not satisfy Noether's bound when the characteristic of the field divides the |"G"|, but Noether was not able to determine whether the bound was correct when the characteristic of the field divides |"G"|! but not |"G"|. For many years, determining the truth or falsity of the bound in this case was an open problem called "Noether's gap". It finally was resolved independently by Fleischmann in 2000 and Fogarty in 2001, who both showed that the bound remains true. In her 1926 paper, Noether extended Hilbert's theorem to representations of a finite group over any field; the new case that did not follow from Hilbert's work, is when the characteristic of the field divides the order of the group. Noether's result was later extended by William Haboush to all reductive groups by his proof of the Mumford conjecture. In this paper Noether also introduced the "Noether normalization lemma", showing that a finitely generated domain "A" over a field "k" has a set of algebraically independent elements such that "A" is integral over . Contributions to topology. As noted by Pavel Alexandrov and Hermann Weyl in their obituaries, Noether's contributions to topology illustrate her generosity with ideas and how her insights could transform entire fields of mathematics. In topology, mathematicians study the properties of objects that remain invariant even under deformation, properties such as their connectedness. A common joke is that a topologist cannot distinguish a donut from a coffee mug, since they can be continuously deformed into one another. Noether is credited with the fundamental ideas that led to the development of algebraic topology from the earlier combinatorial topology, specifically, the idea of homology groups. According to the account of Alexandrov, Noether attended lectures given by Heinz Hopf and him in the summers of 1926 and 1927, where "she continually made observations, which were often deep and subtle" and he continues that, Noether's suggestion that topology be studied algebraically, was adopted immediately by Hopf, Alexandrov, and others, and it became a frequent topic of discussion among the mathematicians of Göttingen. Noether observed that her idea of a Betti group makes the Euler–Poincaré formula simpler to understand, and Hopf's own work on this subject "bears the imprint of these remarks of Emmy Noether". Noether mentions her own topology ideas only as an aside in one 1926 publication, where she cites it as an application of group theory. The algebraic approach to topology was developed independently in Austria. In a 1926–27 course given in Vienna, Leopold Vietoris defined a homology group, which was developed by Walther Mayer, into an axiomatic definition in 1928. Third epoch (1927–35). Hypercomplex numbers and representation theory. Much work on hypercomplex numbers and group representations was carried out in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, but remained disparate. Noether united the results and gave the first general representation theory of groups and algebras. Briefly, Noether subsumed the structure theory of associative algebras and the representation theory of groups into a single arithmetic theory of modules and ideals in rings satisfying ascending chain conditions. This single work by Noether was of fundamental importance for the development of modern algebra. Noncommutative algebra. Noether also was responsible for a number of other advancements in the field of algebra. With Emil Artin, Richard Brauer, and Helmut Hasse, she founded the theory of central simple algebras. A seminal paper by Noether, Helmut Hasse, and Richard Brauer pertains to division algebras, which are algebraic systems in which division is possible. They proved two important theorems: a local-global theorem stating that if a finite dimensional central division algebra over a number field splits locally everywhere then it splits globally (so is trivial), and from this, deduced their "Hauptsatz" ("main theorem"): "every finite dimensional central division algebra over an algebraic number field F splits over a cyclic cyclotomic extension". These theorems allow one to classify all finite dimensional central division algebras over a given number field. A subsequent paper by Noether showed, as a special case of a more general theorem, that all maximal subfields of a division algebra "D" are splitting fields. This paper also contains the Skolem–Noether theorem which states that any two embeddings of an extension of a field "k" into a finite dimensional central simple algebra over "k", are conjugate. The Brauer–Noether theorem gives a characterization of the splitting fields of a central division algebra over a field. Assessment, recognition, and memorials. Noether's work continues to be relevant for the development of theoretical physics and mathematics and she is consistently ranked as one of the greatest mathematicians of the twentieth century. In his obituary, fellow algebraist BL van der Waerden says that her mathematical originality was "absolute beyond comparison", and Hermann Weyl said that Noether "changed the face of algebra by her work". During her lifetime and even until today, Noether has been characterized as the greatest woman mathematician in recorded history by mathematicians such as Pavel Alexandrov, Hermann Weyl, and Jean Dieudonné. In a letter to "The New York Times", Albert Einstein wrote: On 2 January 1935, a few months before her death, mathematician Norbert Wiener wrote that
1068897	Anthony "Tony" Curran (born 13 December 1969) is a Scottish actor. Curran was born in Glasgow, Scotland. He is an alumnus of Holyrood Secondary School and is a graduate of the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama. Career. Tony rose to fame in the BBC television series "This Life". Since then, the Scots star has appeared in a number of major film and television roles. Some of his roles have included Rodney Skinner (The Invisible Man), an original character in "The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen". To portray the Invisible Man, he donned a special suit that turned him into a walking bluescreen (according to his commentary on the DVD, he looked like a ""smurf on acid""). Curran also played vampire roles in Guillermo del Toro's "Blade II" and "". Curran is active in participating in marathons to raise money for charity. He is a frequent and popular participant in the annual Dressed To Kilt event in New York City, run by the organisation Friends of Scotland in celebration of Tartan Week. He is also a keen fan of Celtic Football Club. In April 2009, Curran revealed to the "Daily Record" newspaper that he is playing the role of Lieutenant Delcourt, in "", which was released in 2011. Curran played the painter Vincent van Gogh, in the "Doctor Who" episode "Vincent and the Doctor", written by Richard Curtis. He also made a cameo appearance in "The Pandorica Opens". Curran voiced the character of Captain MacMillan in the 2011 record-breaking video game "". Curran currently plays the role of Datak Tarr on the Syfy series "Defiance". Ultimate Force. Curran played Sgt Pete Twamley in the critically acclaimed ITV series Ultimate Force, which became one of the most watched television shows in the world, being broadcast in over 100 countries. Curran left Ultimate Force in 2005 after his character was killed off at the beginning of season 3. Ross Kemp, who played the lead character of Staff Sergeant Henno Garvie in the show, said "I hate the fact that most of the original cast were killed off the show, people I'd worked with for years making this, but we must move on." Personal life. Curran currently lives in Los Angeles with his wife, Mai Nguyen, whom he met in Hollywood.
1035874	Nigel George Planer (born 22 February 1953) is an English actor, comedian, novelist and playwright. Planer is perhaps best known for his role as Neil in the cult BBC comedy "The Young Ones". He has appeared in many West End musicals, including "Evita", "Chicago", "We Will Rock You", "Wicked" and "Hairspray". He is long time comedy partners with Peter Richardson. He also narrates the children's TV show, "Grizzly Tales for Gruesome Kids". Early life. Planer was born in Westminster, London. He was educated at King's House School, a preparatory school in Richmond upon Thames, and from the age of 13 at Westminster School. He subsequently studied at the University of Sussex (leaving after just one year), and at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art. Career. A founding member of the Comedy Store in London, Planer was one of the original cast of the Comic Strip team, pioneers of the alternative comedy movement in the UK. This was originally a nightclub stage show; Planer also appeared with its creator Peter Richardson as part of the double act 'The Outer Limits'. Planer and Richardson also wrote the "That's Life!" parody on "Not The Nine O'Clock News". He was awarded an Honorary Doctor of Arts degree from Edinburgh Napier University in June 2011, saying "I am delighted to receive this honour and the responsibility that necessarily accompanies it. It has particular significance for me since, forty years ago, I flunked out of my university education after one year, for reasons probably best forgotten. I have been trying to compensate for this gaffe ever since." Television. Planer is best known for his role as Neil, the hippie housemate in the cult BBC comedy "The Young Ones", which ran from 1982–84. He also starred 25 times in "The Comic Strip Presents..." series of short films between 1983 and 2005, invariably in the guise of various shambolic outsiders, to great comedic effect. Other leading roles on TV include "Shine on Harvey Moon, Filthy, Rich and Catflap, The Grimleys, King & Castle, Bonjour La Classe" and "Roll Over Beethoven". He also appeared in Michael Palin's "Number 27", Simon Gray's "Two Lumps of Ice", Emma Tennant's "Frankenstein's Baby" and "Blackeyes" by Dennis Potter. Guest appearances include programmes such as "The Bill, French and Saunders, Jonathan Creek, Blackadder III, The Last Detective, the Paul Merton Show, the Lenny Henry Show" and Gary Wilmot's "Songs from the Shows". He also made a guest appearance in an episode of "This is Jinsy" entitled "Nameworm". In 2003, he played Professor Dumbledore in a Harry Potter parody, "Harry Potter and the Secret Chamber Pot of Azerbaijan". In 2007 he appeared on a BBC 4 programme under the guise of 'Nicholas Craig', interviewed by Mark Lawson. In 2010 he guest starred as Roger Venables in "Agatha Christie's Marple: The Pale Horse" alongside Julia McKenzie, Nicholas Parsons and Lynda Baron. Theatre. His first break in the theatre was understudying David Essex as Che Guevara in the original West End run of "Evita". Planer was in the original London cast of "Chicago", as Amos Hart. He was a member of the original West End cast of Ben Elton's Queen musical "We Will Rock You" as Pop. In 1990, he replaced Michael Gambon in Alan Ayckbourn's "Man of the Moment" in the West End. Leading roles followed in other productions at the Bush Theatre, the Lyric Theatre, the Traverse, the Young Vic, the West Yorkshire Playhouse, Regent's Park Open-Air Theatre, Chichester Festival Theatre, Plymouth Drum and the Hampstead Theatre. From 10–15 July 2006 he played the part of the narrator in "The Rocky Horror Show", taking on the role in Manchester and Bromley. He then starred as The Wizard in the original West End production of "Wicked" alongside Idina Menzel. The show opened at the Apollo Victoria Theatre on 27 September 2006. Planer ended his run on 7 June 2008 and was replaced by Desmond Barrit. He took over the role of Wilbur from Ian Talbot in the West End production of "Hairspray" on 2 February 2009. In 2010, Planer returned to the role of the Narrator in the UK Tour of "The Rocky Horror Show", playing in Cambridge and Northampton, before also reprising the role of Wilbur in Manchester and Leeds. He also featured in "Doctor Who: Live" touring the UK, as Vorgenson The Inter-Galactic Showman, before appearing in Pantomime as Captain Hook at the Lyceum Theatre in Sheffield. Planer stars as Grandpa Joe in the original production of "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory the Musical", which opened in London's West End in 2013. Film. Planer has appeared in a number of films:- "Flood, Virgin Territory, Bright Young Things, Hogfather, The Colour of Magic, Wind in the Willows, Land Girls, Clockwork Mice, Carry on Columbus, Brazil, The Supergrass" and "Yellowbeard". Music. Planer played Den Dennis, one of the four members of the 1980s spoof rock band, "Bad News" who made two albums produced by Brian May. They also performed at the Hammersmith Apollo as well as the Donnington and Reading Rock Festivals. As Neil from "The Young Ones", Planer gained a number two hit single in 1984 in the form of "Hole in My Shoe", (originally a hit for 1960s band Traffic). A cover of Tomorrow's "My White Bicycle" was a less successful follow up, only reaching No.97 in the charts. After that, an album was produced, entitled "Neil's Heavy Concept Album". Planer also took Neil's stage act on the road in that year as Neil in the "Bad Karma in The UK" tour. This culminated in a month-long run at St. Mary's Hall at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. "The Young Ones" also appeared on Cliff Richard's 1986 charity rerecording of "Living Doll", which spent three weeks at number one in the UK. He has a silver and a gold disc and has a Brit award from his musical career. Voice acting. Planer is the reader for the audiobook editions of many of Terry Pratchett's "Discworld" novels. He also appeared in the television adaptations of both "Terry Pratchett's Hogfather" and "The Colour of Magic", and performed as a voice artist in the games "Discworld 2" and "Discworld Noir". Discworld Audiobooks narrated by Planer include (with number in parentheses indicating order of the book in the Discworld series): Other voice roles include the narrator of "Grizzly Tales for Gruesome Kids", the title character of "Romuald the Reindeer", and Dr. Marmalade in an episode of "SpongeBob SquarePants" (another of the characters, "Lord Reginald", was played by Young Ones co-star, "Rik Mayall"). Planer has also been the narrator of many of BBC Four's "Britannia" series of documentaries, including "Prog Rock Britannia", "Blues Britannia" and "Heavy Metal Britannia". He was also a narrator in a direct-to-video version of Val Biro's "Gumdrop" book series in 1994. Personal life. Planer's father, George, ran an engineering firm. His mother, Lesley, was a speech therapist. He has two sons from previous marriages: Stanley, with Anna Leigh (married 19 August 1988–95); and Harvey, with Frankie Park (married April 1999 – 2003). Credits. He is arguably best known in Britain for his work in television comedy and satire, including: He has published several books including the novels "The Right Man" (2000) (ISBN 0-09-927227-X) and "Faking It" (2003) (ISBN 0-09-940986-0). Planer also wrote "A Good Enough Dad" (1992) (ISBN 0-09-929661-6) after his first son was born, talking about coping with becoming a father.
1060528	Teri Lynn Hatcher (born , 1964) is an American actress, writer, presenter, and former NFL cheerleader. She is known for her television roles as Susan Mayer on the ABC comedy-drama series "Desperate Housewives", and portraying Lois Lane on the ABC comedy-drama series "". For her work on "Desperate Housewives", she won the Golden Globe Award for and three Screen Actors Guild Awards, as well as a Primetime Emmy nomination. Early life. Hatcher was born in Palo Alto, California, the daughter of Esther (née Beshur), a computer programmer who worked for Lockheed Martin, and Owen Walker Hatcher, Jr., a nuclear physicist and electrical engineer. Her father is of Welsh descent (Hatcher has said that he also has Choctaw ancestry) and her mother is of half Syrian and half German-Irish ancestry. Teri Hatcher took ballet lessons at the San Juan School of Dance in Los Altos. Hatcher grew up in Sunnyvale, California. and attended Mango Junior High (now Sunnyvale Middle School), Fremont High School in Sunnyvale and De Anza College in Cupertino. As an undergraduate she studied mathematics and engineering. In March 2006 Hatcher revealed to "Vanity Fair" that she was sexually abused from the age of five by Richard Hayes Stone, an uncle by marriage who was later divorced by Hatcher's aunt. She said her parents were unaware of the abuse at the time. In 2002 she assisted Santa Clara County prosecutors with their indictment of Stone for a more recent molestation that led his female victim to commit suicide at the age of 11. Stone pleaded guilty to four counts of child molestation and was sentenced to 14 years in prison. In an interview appearing in "Vanity Fair", Hatcher said she told the prosecutors about her own abuse because she was haunted by thoughts of the 14-year-old girl who shot herself, and feared Stone might escape conviction. Stone died of colon cancer on August 19, 2008, having served six years of his sentence. Career. 1984–1992: Early work. Hatcher studied acting at the American Conservatory Theater. One of her early jobs (in 1984) was as an NFL cheerleader with the San Francisco 49ers. From September 1985 to May 1986 she joined the cast of the TV series "The Love Boat", playing the role of "Amy", one of the "Mermaid" showgirls. From 1986 to 1989, she appeared in the recurring role of "Penny Parker" opposite Richard Dean Anderson's eponymous hero on the TV series "MacGyver". In 1987, she played the daughter of Patty Duke's lead character in the short-lived Fox comedy "Karen's Song". In 1988, she made a guest appearance in "" as Lt. Robinson. In 1989, she guest-starred in an episode of "Quantum Leap" titled "Star Crossed". Hatcher's next TV series role, in 1991, was in the Norman Lear creation "Sunday Dinner". She portrayed a 26-year-old lawyer in an affair with a widowed businessman twice her age, played by Robert Loggia. The series had a brief run on CBS that summer, but was not renewed. In 1992, Hatcher tried out for the role of Jamie Buchman on "Mad About You" and made it to the final two choices, but lost the part to future "emmy" winner Helen Hunt. 1993–1997: Breakthrough. Hatcher landed a starring role of "Daily Planet" reporter Lois Lane (opposite Dean Cain) in "" from 1993 to 1997. At the height of the show's popularity in 1995, a picture of Hatcher wrapped in a Superman cape was reportedly the most downloaded image on the Internet averaging 20,000 downloads each month for a six-month period. "It's a great shot," she told "Entertainment Weekly". "Not so much because it's me. It's just cool looking." In "Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman," the cast was worried that she would be taller than Superman in heels as she was 5'8" and Dean Cain was 6'. ABC cancelled "Lois & Clark" in 1997. Hatcher beat out Monica Bellucci for the role of Paris Carver in the 1997 James Bond film "Tomorrow Never Dies". Hatcher was three months pregnant at the filming's start, by her then husband, Jon Tenney. A publicist said the pregnancy did not affect the production schedule. Hatcher later regretted playing Paris Carver, saying, "It's such an artificial kind of character to be playing that you don't get any special satisfaction from it." She was voted the world's sexiest woman by readers of popular men's magazine FHM in the same year. Hatcher also appeared in films such as "Spy Kids" (2001), "Dead in the Water" (1991), "2 Days in the Valley" (1996) and "The Cool Surface" (1994). She co-starred with Alec Baldwin in "Heaven's Prisoners" (1996), which failed at the box office.
1034033	Stephanie Beacham (born 28 February 1947) is an English television, radio, film and theatre actress. After first appearing on British television during the late 1960s, she began appearing in films in 1970, most prominently in 1971's "The Nightcomers" opposite Marlon Brando. She became well-known on British television in the BBC series "Tenko" (1981–82) and the ITV series "Connie" (1985), before she went on to play Sable Colby in the U.S. television series "The Colbys" (1985–87) and in the final season of "Dynasty" (1988–89). Early life. Beacham, one of four children, was born in Barnet, Hertfordshire, England, the daughter of Joan, a housewife, and a father who was an insurance executive and the managing director of the Grosvenor estate. Shortly after birth, she was diagnosed as being completely deaf in her right ear, as her mother had contracted chickenpox during her pregnancy. She has about 75% of normal hearing capacity in her left ear. She attended a Catholic girls' school (although she was not brought up as a Catholic) and later travelled to Boulogne-Billancourt in Paris, France to study mime with Étienne Decroux, before attending Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) in London. Career. Her initial goal was to teach dance movement to deaf children, but she began a career in modelling and then began acting in television. Her first screen role was in the BBC series "The Queen's Traitor" in 1967, in which she played Mary, Queen of Scots. During an interview, thinking Barnet sounded uninteresting, she told a reporter from the "Northern Echo" she was born in Casablanca, where her favourite Bogart/Bergman film was set. After many further guest appearances in television series such as "The Saint", "Callan", and "UFO", Beacham's first film roles were in "The Games" directed by Michael Winner, and "Tam Lin" directed by Roddy McDowall, both released in 1970. She would work with Winner again in 1971's "The Nightcomers", in which she starred opposite Marlon Brando. Beacham appeared nude in one scene, during the filming of which Brando wore Y-fronts and wellington boots under the bed clothes to ensure Winner did not film anything lower than was necessary. Horror would be a genre that Beacham appeared often in during this period, and she was subsequently cast as Jessica Van Helsing in Hammer's "Dracula AD 1972" alongside Peter Cushing. Beacham continued to appear in film, television and on stage. Her next role was as a repertory player with the Nottingham Playhouse, where she played several lead and feature roles, including the role of Nora in the Henrik Ibsen play "A Doll's House". In 1973, she played Georgina Layton in Thames Television's daytime drama "Marked Personal". The same year, she made an Italian film, "Si può essere più bastardi dell'ispettore Cliff?" The film was released in the US in 1977 as "Mafia Junction" and in the UK as "Blue Movie Blackmail". It was later released on home video, now retitled as "Super Bitch" as the producers of the film attempted to capitalise on the success of the Joan Collins film "The Bitch". Beacham also continued to work in horror films, including "And Now the Screaming Starts" (1973), "House of Mortal Sin" (1974), "Schizo" (1976) and "Inseminoid" (1981) – a film she admits taking for the fee. From 1981–82, Beacham featured as a member of the ensemble cast of the BBC series "Tenko", about a group of women prisoners of war held captive by the Japanese after their invasion of Singapore in 1942. Following this, she continued working in theatre and television before landing the lead role in the 13-part ITV drama series "Connie" (1985). Her roles in "Tenko" and "Connie" helped to springboard her into one of her most well-remembered roles, that of the devious matriarch Sable Colby on the television series "The Colbys" (1985–87), for which she was paid a basic salary of £25,000 per week. "The Colbys" was a spin-off of the opulent prime-time soap "Dynasty" which had been the highest rating programme in the USA that year. Beacham was cast opposite Charlton Heston as the tent-pole couple of the new show. "The Colbys" never experienced the success of its parent show and was cancelled after two seasons, though in 1988, Beacham was invited to reprise the role of Sable on "Dynasty", playing opposite Joan Collins in a season-long "battle of the bitches" scenario. After "Dynasty" was cancelled in 1989, Beacham landed the lead role in the children's fantasy film "The Wolves of Willoughby Chase", playing an evil governess. She was then cast in the US sitcom "Sister Kate", taking the lead role as a nun taking care of children in an orphanage. The series lasted for one season and was cancelled in 1990, though she earned a Golden Globe nomination for the role. She then returned to Britain to play Mrs. Peacock in an ITV game show version of the board game "Cluedo" (1990). Reuniting with "Dynasty" producer Aaron Spelling, Beacham also had a recurring guest role in the popular teen drama "Beverly Hills, 90210", playing Iris McKay, the estranged mother of Luke Perry's character Dylan. Beacham eventually appeared in six different television series produced by Spelling, including "Dynasty", "The Colbys", "The Love Boat", "Beverly Hills, 90210", "Burke's Law," and "Charmed". In 1993, Beacham signed on to play Dr. Kristin Westphalen in the NBC science fiction series "seaQuest DSV", produced by Steven Spielberg. Her character was the chief oceanographer and medical doctor for the submarine "seaQuest", however Beacham left the programme after its first series. Throughout the 1990s, she continued to make guest appearances on television programmes, working in both the UK and the US. In 1996, she starred in the BBC drama "No Bananas" which was set during the war years. In 2003, Beacham returned to the UK to take a role in the ITV prison drama "Bad Girls". She played inmate Phyllida "Phyl" Oswyn for four years, partnered with Beverly "Bev" Tull (played by Amanda Barrie) as the "Costa Cons", first appearing in series five, until the final series in 2006. She also appeared in the 2006 movie "Love and Other Disasters". She returned to stage work and toured the UK in 2007 as a lead in the Noël Coward play "Hay Fever". Later that year, she competed in the 2007 series of the BBC's "Strictly Come Dancing" with professional partner Vincent Simone, though she was eliminated early in the competition (the second of fourteen celebrities) on 14 October 2007. On 27 November 2008, it was announced that Beacham had joined the cast of ITV's "Coronation Street" portraying Martha Fraser, a love interest for Ken Barlow (played by William Roache). She made her first appearance on 26 January 2009 and her last on 4 May 2009. Beacham was reportedly paid a six-figure sum for this 3-month stint. On 17 February 2010, Beacham appeared in the final episode of the BBC series "Material Girl". On 3 April 2010, she made a guest appearance in the long-running BBC hospital drama series "Casualty". In October 2011, Beacham released her autobiography "Many Lives" in which she discusses her life and career. The book includes a foreword written by her "Coronation Street" co-star William Roache.
582252	Kya Kehna (; ) is 2000 Bollywood film starring Saif Ali Khan, Preity Zinta, Chandrachur Singh, Anupam Kher and Farida Jalal. It was directed by Kundan Shah and premiered on 19 May 2000. The film was a hit and established Zinta's career as an actress. The film dealt with the taboo issue of pre-marital pregnancy and the views of society.
520429	Ara Marie Cristine Reyes ("born" on February 5, 1989 in Marikina City, Metro Manila, Philippines), better known as Cristine Reyes, is a Filipina actress. She became a contestant of GMA-7's reality TV program, StarStruck. She is managed by Viva Artists Agency and a contract artist of ABS-CBN. Reyes has since taken part in different ABS-CBN shows, including "Kahit Isang Saglit" and the eponymous title role in "Eva Fonda".
1063354	Simon Baker (born 30 July 1969) is an Australian actor and director. In his television acting career, he is best known for his lead role in the CBS television series "The Mentalist" as Patrick Jane and as Nicholas Fallin in "The Guardian". In his film acting career, he is best known for the lead role of Riley Denbo in "Land of the Dead" and Christian Thompson in the film adaptation of "The Devil Wears Prada", based on the 2003 novel of the same name. Early life. Simon Baker was born to a high-school English teacher, Elizabeth Labberton, and a groundskeeper/mechanic, Barry Baker, on 30 July 1969, in Launceston, Tasmania. He was raised as a Roman Catholic. His parents divorced while he was still young. His mother later married Tom Denny, a butcher. Simon Baker also has a sister, currently a doctor in Australia, and three younger half brothers. By 1972, the family had moved from Launceston to Ballina, New South Wales, where Baker's parents hoped to secure better paying jobs. In 1986, he graduated from Ballina High School as Simon Baker-Denny, after completing his primary school education at St. Francis Xavier Catholic Primary School, also in Ballina. Acting career. Baker began acting on Australian television during the late 1980s using the name "Simon Denny". He first appeared in music video clips for Melissa Tkautz ("Read My Lips") and Australian dance outfit Euphoria ("Love You Right") in 1991 before appearing in the successful series "E Street", "Home and Away" and "Heartbreak High". As "Simon Baker Denny" he was a co-star of the David Croft/Jeremy Lloyd sitcom pilot, "Which Way to the War", which was not developed into a series. In 1995, he was in an episode of the Australian television (ABC TV) series "Naked" (episode title: Blindside Breakaway) in the role of a rugby player. His character was an easy going mummy's boy until he met a girl who challenged his safe existence. He called the role "physically demanding" due to the fact most of the extras were actual rugby players. At the time he referred to this role as an important opportunity as well as being "the best job I've had in my life". He went on to say it was going to be hard afterwards to want to do anything offered. He was invited to join the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in June 2012 along with 175 other individuals. Other activities. On 6 June 2010, he played in a charity soccer match for The Rest of The World team versus England on ITV's Soccer Aid 2010, coming on as a substitute in the second half. The match went to a penalty shootout; Baker took a penalty which was saved by England celebrity goalkeeper, Jamie Theakston. The Rest of the World went on to win the shoot out and the match for the first time since the tournament started. On 13 June 2012, Swiss watchmaker Longines introduced Simon Baker as its new Ambassador of Elegance. Personal life. In 1998, Baker married Australian actress Rebecca Rigg after five years of living together. They have three children: Stella Breeze (born 8 August 1993), Claude Blue (born 1999), and Harry Friday (born 19 September 2001). Fellow Australian, actress Nicole Kidman, is godmother to Harry while actress Naomi Watts is godmother to Claude. Baker and his family resided in Malibu, California, before moving back to Sydney; they then returned to Los Angeles so Simon could appear on "Smith", and later on "The Mentalist". He also owns property in Australia, near Byron Bay. In January 2009, Baker told "Parade Magazine" that he and his wife were interested in becoming American citizens. Baker has been a dual U.S./Australian citizen since 2010. Baker and his sons are fans of the Parramatta Eels in the Australian NRL. His name first appeared in "Who's Who in Australia" in 2011. Honors. On 14 February 2013, Baker was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for his contributions to the entertainment industry. Baker's star can be found at 6352 Hollywood Blvd. Commercials. Simon Baker was selected by the French perfume house Givenchy to be the face of the Fragrance "Gentlemen Only". In it Baker walks down a pavement in pouring rain, whilst carrying an umbrella. He doesn't use his umbrella ... but when he sees a beautiful woman in red waiting for a taxi, he opens the umbrella and hands it over. The spot released 11 March 2013 also exists in a 33 sec version and reached a strong YouTube audience. Baker also featured in an 18-month ad campaign for ANZ in Australia and New Zealand starting in 2012.
1056644	Conquest of the Planet of the Apes is a 1972 science fiction film directed by J. Lee Thompson. It is the fourth of five films in the original "Planet of the Apes" series produced by Arthur P. Jacobs. It explores how the apes rebelled from humanity's ill treatment following "Escape from the Planet of the Apes" (1971). It was followed by "Battle for the Planet of the Apes" (1973). The series reboot "Rise of the Planet of the Apes" (2011) has a similar premise to "Conquest", but is not officially a remake. Plot summary. The opening titles set the film in "North America – 1991." Armando (Ricardo Montalbán) explains that in 1983 (ten years after the end of "Escape from the Planet of the Apes," which was set two years ahead of its theatrical release date), a disease killed the world's cats and dogs, leaving humans with no pets. To replace them, humans began keeping apes as household pets. Realizing the apes' capacity to learn and adapt, humans train them to perform household tasks. By 1991, American culture is based on ape slave labor (just as Cornelius described would happen in the previous film). It is also suggested that the North America of the 1990s is part dictatorial, as apes and humans are being watched at all times.
584596	Kadhal Sadugudu is a 2003 romantic comedy film in Tamil directed by Durai, who also directed "Mugavaree". It stars Vikram and Priyanka Trivedi, with Prakash Raj in the supporting role of Priyanka's father. Plot. The film starts off by showing Chithambaram(Prakash Raj), and how he's an important man in the village. He is an adamant character who always sticks on to his decisions. When the temple festival starts, Kausalya(Priyanka) goes to her grandfather's house to celebrate. There she meets Suresh(Vikram) and they fall in love. Meanwhile, Chithambaram gets into many conflicts with Suresh, not even knowing who the other was. All the things that Suresh did were unintentional but Chithambaram doesn't realize this. Therefore, Chithambaram ends up with a very negative opinion of Suresh. When the day comes that everyone in Kausalya's grandfather's's home find out that Suresh and Kausalya are in love, they try to get Chithambaram (Kausalya's father) to agree to the wedding. He, however stubbornly sticks to his decision that the marriage should not take place. Finally Suresh asks him what would make him happy. Chithambaram says that he would be happy if Suresh dies. Realizing arguing further would be futile, Suresh decides to go back to Madras. Kaushalya tries to join him at the railway station to go with him, but Suresh refuses saying "If I Marry you, It will be with your father's permission and acceptance". At that time Chithambaram had arrived at the station to prevent his daughter from eloping with Suresh to Madras. He hears this conversation and finally decides to accept Suresh as his daughter's love, and fiance. Suresh, seeing that Chithambaram is no longer withholding consent for their match, also agrees.
1060728	Ralph George Macchio, Jr. (; born November 4, 1962) is an American actor, best known for his roles as Daniel LaRusso in the "Karate Kid" series, Eugene Martone in "Crossroads", Billy Gambini in "My Cousin Vinny", and Johnny Cade in "The Outsiders". He is also known to American television audiences for his recurring role as Jeremy Andretti in the fifth season of the television comedy-drama "Eight Is Enough". He also appeared on the television comedy "Ugly Betty" in the recurring role of Archie, a local Queens politician. He competed on the twelfth season of "Dancing with the Stars". Early life. Macchio was born in Huntington, New York. He is the son of Rosalie (née DeSantis) and Ralph Macchio, Sr., who owned a ranch. His father is of half-Italian and half-Greek descent, and his mother is of Italian ancestry. Career. Macchio first appeared on American television commercials for products such as Bubble Yum and Dr Pepper. His on-screen debut was in the 1980 film "Up the Academy", and his first major role was playing Jeremy Andretti in the television series "Eight Is Enough". In 1983, he appeared as Johnny Cade in "The Outsiders" alongside many young actors who had yet to become major stars, such as C. Thomas Howell, Tom Cruise, Emilio Estevez, Patrick Swayze, Rob Lowe, and Matt Dillon. In 1984, Macchio became known internationally following the release of the first "Karate Kid" film. Playing high school senior Daniel LaRusso, Macchio was actually in his early twenties when the film was made. He continued this success with the film's sequels, "Karate Kid, Part II" and "Part III". In the mid-1980s, Macchio's face began appearing on the covers of many teen "bubblegum" magazines such as "Tiger Beat", "16", and "Teen Beat". Macchio appeared in the 1986 film "Crossroads", portraying music student Eugene Martone. In 1992, he starred opposite Joe Pesci and Marisa Tomei in the hit comedy "My Cousin Vinny", playing William Gambini, who was wrongly accused of murder while passing through a small Alabama town. It was the first significant adult role of his career. In 1993, Macchio portrayed Chris, the sexually confused best friend of Eric Stoltz's character, in the indie film "Naked in New York", along with such notable actors as Mary-Louise Parker, Jill Clayburgh, Kathleen Turner, and Tony Curtis. In 1996, Macchio performed the lead role of J. Pierrepont Finch in the U.S. tour revival of the 1962 Tony Award winning musical "How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying", and received positive reviews. Referring to his performance as a chorister in a high school production of the same musical, Macchio said, "I was known as the 'Dancing Kid,' not that I was all that great. But I had been dancing since the age of three, taking lessons at the June Claire School of Dance in Babylon, Long Island." Since the mid-1990s, Macchio's film appearances have been occasional cameo or supporting roles, notably and recently "A Good Night to Die" and "Beer League". In 2005 Macchio played himself in the HBO series, "Entourage". On May 1, 2007, Macchio played himself in an episode of the Starz series, "Head Case". In 2008, he appeared in a VitaminWater commercial that featured NASCAR driver Carl Edwards. Macchio was depicted as Edwards' "spiritual advisor" and dressed in his "Karate Kid" clothes. Since October 2008, he has appeared in several episodes of the ABC Network television series "Ugly Betty" as Archie Rodriguez, a local politician, with a semi-regular role as Hilda's love interest on the show. As of November 2008, Macchio was ranked No. 80 among VH1's "100 Greatest Teen Stars". In June 2010, Macchio appeared in Funny or Die's online short, "Wax On, F*ck Off", in which his loved ones stage an intervention to turn the former child star from a well-adjusted family man into an addict besieged with tabloid scandal, all in order to help his career. During the video Macchio reacts to seeing a poster for the 2010 "Karate Kid" remake. A recurring joke in the sketch is that Macchio is confused for an adolescent. The short was lauded by "TV Guide"'s Bruce Fretts, who referred to the video as "sidesplitting" and "comic gold". On September 20, 2010, Macchio played the adult Carl Morelli in a staged reading of the Charles Messina play "A Room of My Own" presented by the Bleeker Street Theater Company. In February 2011 it was announced he would compete on ABC's "Dancing with the Stars". He was eliminated during the semi-finals, placing fourth in the overall competition. Macchio appeared in Canadian band Danko Jones' music videos for "Had Enough" and "I Think Bad Thoughts", also featuring Elijah Wood and Jena Malone. In April 2012, Macchio was cast in the film "Hitchcock", based on the non-fiction book "Alfred Hitchcock and the Making of Psycho", co-starring Anthony Hopkins, Helen Mirren, Jessica Biel and Toni Collette, and directed by Sacha Gervasi. Macchio portrays "Psycho" screenwriter Joseph Stefano. In April 2013, Macchio appeared in the popular sitcom "How I Met Your Mother" in the episode entitled "The Bro-Mitzvah". Personal life. Macchio met his wife, Phyllis Fierro, a nurse practitioner, through his grandmother when he was 15. They married in 1987 and have two children, Julia and Daniel. In popular culture. DJ Q-Ball of the Bloodhound Gang released a song on his MySpace called "The Ralph Macchio Memoirs". Poetry slam artist Big Poppa E references Ralph Macchio in his performance The Wussy Boy Manifesto. Nerdcore artist MC Frontalot mentions him in his song, "Braggadocio". Macchio was featured in a brief cameo at the end of the No More Kings video for "Sweep the Leg". The "Daniel" song by English singer Bat for Lashes is inspired by Macchio's character in the "Karate Kid" film. The front cover of the single shows Bat for Lashes with Daniel LaRusso's face painted on her back. The song "Ralph Macchio" by Norwegian singer Annie is about her crush on Macchio in her youth over an 80s-themed pop track.
1165023	Estelle Winwood (24 January 1883 – 20 June 1984) was an English stage and film actress who moved to the United States in mid-career and became celebrated for her longevity. Early life and early career. Born Estelle Ruth Goodwin in Lee, Kent, in 1883, she decided at the age of five that she wanted to be an actress. With her mother's support, but her father's disapproval, she trained with the Lyric Stage Academy in London, before making her professional debut in Johannesburg at the age of 20. During the First World War she joined the Liverpool Repertory Company in Liverpool, Lancashire before moving on to a career in the West End theatre in London. Broadway and West End career. She moved to the U.S. in 1916 and made her Broadway début in New York City. Until the beginning of the 1930s, she divided her time between New York City and London. Throughout her career, her first love was the theatre; and, as the years passed, she appeared less frequently in London and became a frequent performer on Broadway. Her many successes include "A Successful Calamity" (1917), "A Little Journey" (1918), "Spring Cleaning" (1923), "The Distaff Side" (1934), "The Importance of Being Earnest" (which she also directed, 1939), "When We Are Married" (1939), "Ladies in Retirement" (1940), "The Pirate" (1942), "Ten Little Indians" (1944), "Lady Windermere's Fan" (1947), and "The Madwoman of Chaillot" (1948). A reluctant film and television actress. Like many stage actors of her era, she expressed a distaste for films and resisted the offers she received during the 1920s. Finally, she relented and made her film début in "Night Angel" (1931), but her scenes were cut before the film's release. Her official film début came in "The House of Trent" (1933), and "Quality Street" (1937) was her first role of note. She made no cinematic films during the 1940s but expressed a willingness to participate in the new medium of television, starring in a television production of "Blithe Spirit" in 1946. During the 1950s, she appeared more frequently in television than she did in film in such series as "Robert Montgomery Presents", "Alfred Hitchcock Presents", and "The Donna Reed Show". She played the character Hortense in the episode "Where's There's a Will" (August 30, 1960) on the ABC sitcom "The Real McCoys" starring Walter Brennan. Her few films from that period include "The Glass Slipper" (1955), "The Swan" (1956), and "23 Paces to Baker Street" (1956). Her other film credits include "Darby O'Gill and the Little People" (1959), "The Misfits" (1961), "The Magic Sword" (1962), "The Notorious Landlady" (1962), "Dead Ringer" (1964), "Camelot" (1967) and "The Producers" (1968). She later denigrated the last film, saying she could not imagine why she had done it except for the money. Her other work for television included guest roles in "Dennis the Menace", "The Twlight Zone"; "Thriller"; "Dr. Kildare"; "The Man from U.N.C.L.E."; "The Name of the Game"; "Bewitched"; "Batman"; "Love, American Style"; "Cannon"; "Police Story", and an excellent, showcasing, last episode of "Perry Mason", entitled "The Final Fadeout", in which she plays a fading actress who ends up as a second defendant. Winwood's final film appearance, at age 92 in "Murder by Death" (1976), was as Elsa Lanchester's character's ancient nursemaid. In this film, she joined other veteran actors spoofing some of the most popular detective characters in murder mysteries on film and television (Dick and Dora Charleston, Jessica Marbles, etc.). When she made her final television appearance, in a 1979 episode of "Quincy", she officially became, at age 96, the oldest actor working in the U.S., beating out fellow British actress Ethel Griffies, who worked until her 90s. Winwood ultimately achieved an eighty-year career on the stage from her début at the age of 16 until her final appearance at age 96. When she died at age 101, she was the oldest member in the history of the Screen Actors Guild. Personal life. Winwood was married four times but bore no children. Guthrie McClintic had also been married to actress Katharine Cornell. Arthur Chesney was a brother of the Oscar-winning actor Edmund Gwenn ("The Miracle on 34th Street"). She was very good friends with Tallulah Bankhead, who died in 1968. She, Bankhead, and actresses Eva Le Gallienne and Blyth Daly were dubbed "The Four Riders of the Algonquin" in the early silent film days, because of their appearances together at the "Algonquin Round Table". She appears as a character in "Answered Prayers", Truman Capote's final, unfinished, thinly veiled roman à clef. In the novel, which uses her real name, she attends a drunken dinner party with Bankhead, Dorothy Parker, Montgomery Clift, and the novel's narrator, P.B. Jones. On her 100th birthday, she was asked how it felt to have lived so long. Her response was, "How rude of you to remind me!" Bette Davis, a co-star from "Dead Ringer", was photographed at Winwood's side on the occasion in Hollywood, California. Winwood died in her sleep in Woodland Hills, California, in 1984, at age 101. She was interred in the Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery in Los Angeles, California.
1058320	Pauly Shore Is Dead is an American comedy/mockumentary motion picture released in 2003 starring anti-comedian Pauly Shore. The cameo-filled movie begins as a semi-autobiographical retelling of Shore's early success and dwindling popularity in the late 1990s, after which it documents Shore's (fictional) attempt to fake his own death in order to drum up popularity for his films.
519810	Dyesebel is a popular mermaid character in the Philippines. The comic book character was originally conceived by the Filipino comic book illustrator, Mars Ravelo and drawn by Elpidio Torres. "Dyesebel" is a prominent character in Philippine cinema and television. It was first serialized in Pilipino Komiks in 1952-53, and was later adapted into the big screen that same year. The movie topbilled Jaime de La Rosa as Fredo and Edna Luna as Dyesebel. The movie produced under Manuel Vistan Productions, Inc. and released thru Premiere Productions, was directed by the great Gerardo 'Gerry' De Leon. Dyesebel first appeared in the pages of Pilipino Komiks in the 50s then in Kampeon Komiks (Champion Comics) from 1975. History. Dyesebel is unique among the merfolk for she is the only mermaid born of human parents from the surface world. A mermaid from birth, she is shunned by the superstitious due to her physical form. The story of Dyesebel begins when an amnesiac mermaid-turned-human named Lucia fell in love with a human. They got married and had a beautiful baby, but instead of a human baby she delivered a mermaid. The child is called "Dyesebel" . Although surprised by their daughter's strange form, Lucia and her husband Tino promise to love their child no matter what. But in no time at all, their neighbors discovered the couple's secret. When the community is hit with a series of catastrophes, the town believes that the anomaly is caused by Dyesebel; an accusation that leads to Tino's death. After her father is killed by an angry, superstitious mob, Dyesebel is taken to the ocean by her mother where she is sent into exile since her chances for survival are greater there than on land. Unknown to Lucia is that in the heart of the sea, Dyesebel's adventures and misfortunes will begin. It is within the confines of the waters that Dyesebel will lead a new life-a journey that would take her to the depths of the sea, as well as to chaos of the city. One day the young girl-mermaid got lost in the ocean and found by Banak who adopts her and takes her to their kingdom where she is welcomed into their community. Years later, a jealous mermaid named Dyangga makes Dyesebel's life miserable among the denizens of the sea which leads Dyesebel to try returning to the surface world. She meets a kind, handsome young man named Fredo who falls in love with her and protects her, but then she is kidnapped by Fredo's jealous former girlfriend's (Betty) new boyfriend and displayed at the circus. She is subsequently rescued by Fredo and is brought back to the ocean where she is again told that although Fredo doesn't want to see Dyesebel go, he'd rather let her go than see her hurt by evil men on the surface world. Dyesebel discovers that she can also be a human being by visiting Amafura to get a secret necklace which makes her human; but a price must be made, for her to sacrifice her true possession, in order to gain something special. This time around, Dyesebel returns with a magic conchshell that transforms her into a full human form and returns to Fredo where they marry. Plots. 1953: Dyesebel. The first person to play Dysebel on the big screen was Edna Luna in a 1953 film made by Gerry de Leon for Manuel Vistan Production/Premiere Production. In the Philippines, the lore of "Dyesebel" began with the story of a girl born to a mermaid-obsessed Filipino mother. Whilst pregnant, "Dyesebel" 's mother obsessively looked at a collection of mermaid pictures from a calendar which eventually affected the infant's form when it was born with a fishtail instead of normal human lower extremities. "Dyesebel"'s father, angered by his child's deformity, wanted to abandon the child, only to be hindered by a bolt of lightning during a typhoon. To avoid the stigma of having a mermaid child, the couple decided to leave their village and relocate where they can raise "Dyesebel" in secret, hidden from prying eyes. The mermaid "Dyesebel" eventually met other mermaids while spending time by the seashore, and through her sea adventures, she comes into contact with "Diangga", a sea-witch who had the power to transform sea-creatures like "Dyesebel" into normal humans. "Dyesebel" fell in love with a normal human man. But after her secret of being a mermaid was exposed, it prompted the jealous former girlfriend of the man with whom "Dyesebel" was in love, to kidnap "Dyesebel" and place her in a carnival. "Dyesebel" was later saved by her human lover. "Diangga", the sea-witch, eventually transformed "Dyesebel" into a permanent female human with normal lower extremities. 1964: Anak ni Dyesebel. In 1964, eleven years after, Director Gerardo de Leon directed a sequel to his first Dyesebel. He reunited the cast of the blockbuster 1953 movie Dyesebel in a sequel based on Mars Ravelo's Anak ni Dyesebel (Liwayway #4, 1963-1964). The movie introduced Alona (played by Eva Montes who also played Darna in the 1965 movie Darna at ang Babaing Tuod), the daughter of Dyesebel (Edna Luna) and Fredo (Jaime dela Rosa). 1973: Dyesebel. The 1973 "Dyesebel" movie ("Si Dyesebel at ang Mahiwagang Kabibe") directed by Emmanuel H. Borlaza was closer to Mars Ravelo's heroine mermaid. The character inhabits an undersea kingdom of mermaids, outcasted from the land of humans due to the belief that mermaids are the cause of misfortune. "Dyesebel" became attracted to a male human being and swore to find any means to be transformed into normal human woman, in order to be with the man that her heart desired. In this movie, Vilma Santos played the role of Dyesebel making her the only actress to play both Darna (four times) and Dyesebel, both classic Mars Ravelo creations. Romeo Miranda played Fredo. Perhaps this is the best one that depicts the Mermaid riding on a giant seahorse, fighting against a Giant Octopus and is being helped by electric eels to fight the behemoth, Mermaids galore!! and Dyesebel's "Magic Conchshell" that turns her human. 1978: Sisid, Dyesebel, Sisid. In "Sisid, Dyesebel, Sisid" (1978) made by Sampaguita Pictures Dyesebel (Alma Moreno) was a mermaid born to a rich couple. The husband claimed his wife had an affair with a merman. Still loving and accepting, they moved to their beachhouse where Dyesebel was kept in a wheelchair covered with a blanket to hide her tail. It was only her parents and her nanny who knew her identity as a mermaid. As she grew up into a lady mermaid (still on shore) the family hires Fredo and his dad as their gardener. Fredo and Dyesebel fall in love and after Dyesebel reveals herself to Fredo, they decide to get married (complete with Dyesebel wearing a wedding gown, in a fishtail). Shortly after they got married, Dyesebel's parents died in a plane crash. Then, Dyesebel discovered that Fredo is a womanizer. In full despair, she heard (after a long, long time) the ocean calling her and she joined the mermaid kingdom. Trying to be happy, she admitted that she misses Fredo and asks Banak (Nova Villa) how to be become human. She leads her to Dyangga (Bella Flores), a human octopus, where with the help of a merman friend, kills Dyangga to get the magical pearl on her head. She becomes human for an hour or so, only to break up with Fredo and decide to be a mermaid forever, and live in the ocean she was deprived from since birth. 1990: Alice Dixson's Dyesebel. Perhaps the most memorable Dyesebel movie to date, this version is common that makes Dyesebel of what it is now: it was the first Dyesebel to use the "orange-colored" fishtail, which is commonly used now. She used real underwater scenes, in the aquarium, showcased a combination of her life on the water and on land, thus having mermaid-human transformations, and to show a realistic storyline on love and relationships. A couple found a wounded and stranded pregnant mermaid on shore, who died after giving birth. Being childless, the couple adopted the mermaid's daughter and named her Dyesebel, From Dyesebel's childhood through her teenage years, she and her family moved from place to place to get away from angry mob. The teen Dyesebel (Carmina Villaroel) starts to ask questions why she's a mermaid and shows signs of wanting to become a human. It was at this time that they decide to let Dyesebel go into the sea with the other mermaids (not shown on screen) where she has the chance to encounter with Edward (Robert Ortega) as a teen. Fast forwarding to the present day where Dyesebel is now a lady Alice Dixson. She then sees Edward (Richard Gomez) again as an adult, then searches Banak, a sea witch this time, to help her acquire human legs through a magic shell. However, its only temporary, the shell has to be within her reach 24/7 or else she'll have her tail back. She finds shelter by Marina (Malou De Guzman) and Iday (Judy Ann Santos) who later on discovers her identity but still remain true to her. She also found Edward's wallet washed from the shore. Still having Edward's wallet that was misplaced on the water Dyesebel and her friends look for Edward and becomes a famous model by a friend of Edward's. Dyesebel and Edward finally meets and become lovers, however, Malou, Edward's almost-stalker-like-girlfriend-wannabe tries to break their relationship, at the same time, Dyesebel has a hard time keeping her identity a secret to Edward. Until she finally admits it to him, and shows him her true self, where they broke up for sometime. Edward realizes he cannot live without her, they are about to become closer and Malou accidentally finds out, and exposed Dyesebel's mermaid identity in a birthday party for Edward. The media and the government took interest on her, as a display on the country's underwater museum. Edward rescued her, and Malou discovered Dyesebel's magic shells, steals it and breaks it. However, it only turned Dyesebel into a human permanently and Malou into a mermaid, permanently. 1996: Dyesebel. Dyesebel is a 1996 film version Charlene Gonzales played Dyesebel with Matthew Mendoza as Fredo. It was directed by Emmanuel H. Borlaza who also directed the 1973 "Dyesebel" movie starring Vilma Santos. On-screen actresses and actors. In the movies, "Dyesebel" was portrayed by Filipino actresses, Edna Luna, Vilma Santos, Alma Moreno, Alice Dixon, and Charlene Gonzales. In television, she was personified by the actress Ara Mina in a cameo appearance in Mars Ravelo's Darna (2005 TV Series) and portrayed by Marian Rivera in Mar's Ravelo's Dyesebel, year 2008. Vilma Santos and Marian Rivera are only the two actresses who played two of Mars Ravelo's "komiks" characters respectively, namely "Darna" and "Dyesebel". 2008 TV series. GMA Network had announced that they will be doing a TV series of Dyesebel for 2008,It begins airing on April 28, 2008. The producers were eyeing Rhian Ramos for the title role but it ended up with Marian Rivera. It was also said that Dennis Trillo had the part of Fredo but turned out to be Dingdong Dantes, Marian's leading man in "MariMar". The same network has earlier made a TV series of Mars Ravelo's works like Darna and Captain Barbell. The series premiered on April 28, 2008 and was expected to air for 25 weeks or 125 episodes, with Marian Rivera and Dingdong Dantes in the lead roles, and Joyce E. Bernal at the helm. The series ended on October 17, 2008. It was internationally aired on GMA Pinoy TV, which became a huge success to viewers abroad.
1166233	Billy Chapin (born December 28, 1943 in Los Angeles) is an American former child actor, known for a considerable number of screen and TV performances from 1943 to 1959 and best remembered for both his roles as the “diaper manager” Christie Cooper in the 1953 family feature "The Kid from Left Field", starring Dan Dailey, Anne Bancroft and Lloyd Bridges and little John Harper in Charles Laughton's 1955 film noir classic "The Night of the Hunter", opposite acting legends Robert Mitchum and Lillian Gish. He is the brother of former child actors, Lauren Chapin, known as Kathy “Kitten” Anderson from the TV series "Father Knows Best" (1954–60) and Michael Chapin, likewise successful child performer of the 1940's and 1950's. He is also an uncle of professional singer Summer-Healey Chapin, his sister's daughter. Life and career. Born William McClellan Chapin on December 28, 1943, in Los Angeles, he was the second of three children of Roy Chapin, a bank manager, and Marquerite Alice Barringer, who later became a kind of personal coach for all of her children's acting careers. Early roles and Broadway. Chapin debuted on the screen at the age of only a few weeks, uncredited as Baby Girl in "Casanova Brown", 1944, starring Gary Cooper, and just five months later had another uncredited baby role in "Marriage Is a Private Affair", starring Lana Turner. He had another bit role in "The Cockeyed Miracle" in 1946. He started acting professionally in 1951 in a supporting role in the Broadway stage musical "Three Wishes for Jamie", which, while passably successful, toured the West Coast in the summer of the same year. After essential changes regarding dramatization of the play and replacements in the original West Coast cast, when the play moved to New York City in early 1952, finally became a considerable success and earned him the N.Y. Drama Critics Award as the most promising young actor of the year. From "The Kid from Left Field" to "A Man Called Peter". This stage success might have earned him his role as the grandson in the 1952 TV adaption of Paul Osborn's 1938 Broadway play, "On Borrowed Time" at the Celanese Theatre, but his first real screen role he landed just one year later as the "Diaper Manager" Christie Cooper, the lead role of the 1953 family release "The Kid from Left Field", starring Dan Dailey, Anne Bancroft and Lloyd Bridges.
591980	Veera Kannadiga is a 2004 Kannada language film starring Puneet Rajkumar and Anitha, it was her debut in the Kannada film industry.This movie is remake of Telugu movie Andhrawala. Plot. Puneeth has acted in dual roles in this movie, father and Son. Father is a good man and helps the needed. Once in his family function he is killed by the Villains and at that time his Son was an Infant. Later part of the movie is about how Son(puneeth) take his father’s role of helping the society and in taking the revenge of his father’s death. This film was released simultaneously with Telugu movie 'Andhrawala' directed by Puri Jagannadh and the script are same. SoundTrack. The soundtrack features six songs by Chakri, with lyrics by V.Nagendra Prasad, Kalyan, Hamshaleka and Bhageeranga.
1103999	Andrei Yuryevich Okounkov (, "Andrej Okun'kov") (born June 26, 1969) is a Russian mathematician who works on representation theory and its applications to algebraic geometry, mathematical physics, probability theory and special functions. He is currently a professor at Columbia University. In 2006, he received the Fields Medal "for his contributions to bridging probability, representation theory and algebraic geometry." Education and career. He received his doctorate at Moscow State University in 1995 under Alexandre Kirillov and Grigori Olshanski. He has been a professor at Columbia University since 2010. He was previously a professor at Princeton University from 2002 to 2010, an assistant and associate professor at the University of California, Berkeley, and an instructor at the University of Chicago. Work. He has worked on the representation theory of infinite symmetric groups, the statistics of plane partitions, and the quantum cohomology of the Hilbert scheme of points in the complex plane. Much of his work on Hilbert schemes was joint with Rahul Pandharipande. Okounkov along with Pandharipande, Nikita Nekrasov, and Davesh Maulik, has formulated well-known conjectures relating the Gromov–Witten invariants and Donaldson–Thomas invariants of threefolds. Okounkov has an Erdős number of at most three, via Anatoly Vershik and Gregory Freiman. In 2006, at the 25th International Congress of Mathematicians in Madrid, Spain he received the Fields Medal "for his contributions to bridging probability, representation theory and algebraic geometry."
1054178	Pauline at the Beach () is a 1983 French film directed by Éric Rohmer. The film stars Amanda Langlet, Arielle Dombasle, Pascal Greggory and Féodor Atkine. Plot. The film opens on a shot of a wooden gate, as a car pulls up in front of it. Teenage Pauline (Amanda Langlet) gets out of the car to open the gate, as her older cousin Marion (Arielle Dombasle) drives inside their family's vacation home on the north-western coast of France. As the girls settle in to their trip, Marion quizzes Pauline on her love life, and Pauline confesses that she has not had any serious affairs of the heart. On the beach, Marion spies her ex-lover Pierre (Pascal Greggory). As they are getting reacquainted, a middle-aged man named Henri (Féodor Atkine) approaches and scolds Pierre for abandoning their windsurfing lessons. The quartet agree to have dinner together. Afterwards, they each talk briefly about their ideas of love in Henri's living room. Henri is happy to be free from any serious commitments, as he travels the world as an ethnographer. Marion wants to fall passionately in love at first sight, and she regrets her failed marriage to a man that she did not really love. Pierre is more cautious, and feels that love cannot form in an instant. Pauline listens quietly throughout and confesses that she agrees most of all with Pierre's idea of love, but that she has learned a lot from listening to all of them.
584039	Sonia Agarwal (born 28 March 1982) is an Indian actress. Having predominantly acted in Tamil films, she is probably best known for her performances in blockbuster films such as "Kaadhal Kondein" (2003), "7G Rainbow Colony" (2004) and "Pudhupettai" (2006) directed by her former husband Selvaraghavan. Personal life. Sonia married Selvaraghavan, a director in Tamil cinema, in December 2006. The couple were divorced in 2010. Career. During her school days, Sonia got an offer to act in a serial on Zee TV. She then made her film debut with the 2002 Telugu film "Nee Premakai", in which she did a small role, after which she acted in a Kannada film "Chandu" opposite Sudeep. Subsequently, she stepped into the Tamil film industry, appearing in the drama film "Kaadhal Kondein", directed by Selvaraghavan. Featuring his brother Dhanush, the film became a huge success and she was widely appreciated for her performance as Divya in the film, which brought her to limelight and fetched her several awards, including the ITFA Best New Actress Award. Afterwards, she acted alongside actors Silambarasan and Vijay in the films "Kovil" and "Madhurey", respectively. In 2004, the controversial Tamil drama film "7G Rainbow Colony", directed by Selvaraghavan again, got released, which went on to become a blockbuster at the box office. After appearing in the films "Oru Kalluriyin Kathai" and "Oru Naal Oru Kanavu" in 2005, both of which failed to perform at the box office, she got roles in the films "Thiruttu Payale" and "Pudhupettai". The former, directed by Susi Ganesan, became a highly successful film, whilst the latter, another Selvaraghavan film, received universal critical acclaim. She stopped acting after her marriage. After getting divorced, she made a re-entry, essaying a supporting role in the multi-starrer "Vaanam", following which she has signed up for four projects—three in Tamil and one in Malayalam—in quick succession. Her Karu Pazhaniappan-directed film "Sadhurangam", opposite Srikanth once again, has recently been released. Her forthcoming films include "Oru Nadigayin Vakku Moolam", a heroine-oriented feature and two Tamil films - Poi Sollathedi and Achchamenn.
881507	Eagle vs Shark is a 2007 New Zealand romantic comedy film directed by Taika Waititi and financed by the New Zealand Film Commission. The screenplay was also written by Waititi, based on the character of Lily created by Loren Horsley. The film had its world premiere at Sundance in the World Cinema Dramatic section of the festival and opened in the United States on 15 June 2007. The soundtrack to "Eagle vs Shark" features New Zealand artists The Phoenix Foundation, Age Pryor, The Reduction Agents, and Tessa Rain, along with M. Ward, Devendra Banhart and British group The Stone Roses. Along with a number of songs The Phoenix Foundation wrote the original score for the film. The soundtrack is available through Hollywood Records and Apple's iTunes. Plot. Lily (Loren Horsley), a shy, wistful girl, is a songwriter when no one is listening. She works as a cashier at a fast food restaurant and has a crush from afar on Jarrod (Jemaine Clement), a geek who works in a video game store. Jarrod is more interested in Lily's workmate, Jenny. With Jenny not at work one day, Jarrod gives Lily an invitation to his "dress as your favourite animal" party to pass along to her, but Jenny crumples it up and throws it away upon receiving it. Lily retrieves it from the trash. The party is sparsely attended with what are apparently teenage and adult customers of Jarrod's store, all dressed extravagantly as their favourite animal. Jarrod is impressed with Lily's shark costume as well as her savant-like video game skills, making it to the finals of a "Fight Man" video game competition, though she loses to defending champion, Jarrod because she spends their contest staring at him. They go to Jarrod's room and he questions Lily and learns her parents are dead, having had heart attacks. He says both his brother (Gordon) and his mother are dead. He says his mother died by getting kicked in the head by a cow. They kiss and have brief sex. Lily now considers Jarrod her boyfriend and hangs out around his store. They set a date one night to see a film at the local cinema. Jarrod fails to turn up. He comes by Lily's house later that night to apologize, saying he was depressed and needed to be alone. He later says that he has to kill a man in his hometown who used to bully him in high school, but laments he has no car to get there. Lily asks her brother Damon, and he agrees to drive Jarrod and Lily to Jarrod's home. On the way to Jarrod's home town, Damon offers Lily and Jarrod apples to eat. Jarrod takes a bite only to discover his apple is rotten. He throws it out the window into a river they are driving past. This apple then becomes the representation of Jarrod in several claymation scenes of the film. Upon arriving, Damon and Lily discover that the family is just as bizarre as Jarrod himself. Jarrod's sister (Nancy) and brother-in-law (Doug) seem to sell all kinds of "sell from home products", like questionable make-up kits, knives, and their own athletic jumpsuit clothing line "Awesome apparel". Jarrod's dad, Jonah, is a withdrawn man in a wheelchair. Jarrod spends his time alternating between trying to win his dad's affection and training for his impending fight with his high school bully Eric Elisi. It becomes clear his father loved his other son Gordon much more than Jarrod. Gordon was very successful, winning many ribbons, especially in running. When Lily asks how Gordon died, Jarrod says that he died saving a kid from a fire at the school. Lily meets with Mason - Jarrod's best friend and computer geek - to find out that Eric will return from Samoa the next day. The three then creep up to Eric's house to drop off Jarrod's invitation to the fight between the two of them. Gordon's fiancee, Tracy, comes over. She seems to be a person of similar success to Gordon and Jarrod's father even loves her more than Jarrod. Jarrod tries to impress his father with the news he's dating Lily, but father isn't impressed. The two go to the beach and Lily finds a rock shaped like a heart that she shows Jarrod. He tells her that he must break up with her, as he's too busy with the revenge mission and "too complex" for a relationship. Lily is visibly upset but tries to hide it. Jarrod takes flowers over to Tracy's house and spends the day with her on the beach trying to impress her with his "fighting skills". She isn't impressed. Meanwhile, it's been revealed that Jarrod has a little girl from a random sexual encounter at a party, who is nine whom he sees only occasionally. Lily and the girl walk with Jonah around town coming to a hill. He refuses to go any farther, holding the wheels of his wheelchair and finally getting up out of his wheelchair and walking himself and his wheelchair home, exposing that he doesn't need it. Lily and the girl continue up the hill where the girl says that "That's where my Uncle Gordon died", revealing that Gordon did not die saving a kid from a fire as Jarrod had said, but by committing suicide. They return home and the family eats dinner. Lily tells a silly joke and the whole group gets along very well. Jarrod comes home to find the group laughing and then kills the mood by saying that he'd been with Tracy all day and that they'd been laughing harder. Jarrod's father Jonah spends most of his time watching an old tape of Gordon winning a cross country meet and reliving the victory that he felt at that time. In the video, Gordon wins the race and is congratulated obsessively by his father. Tracy comes over and the two are celebrating. Jarrod then attempts to come over and is pushed away by the father. Seeing his father watching this and feeling even more alienated, Jarrod announces that he is dating Tracy. Jonah is crushed. Lily, annoyed by this, leaves the house and takes her sleeping bag from the tent, choosing to sleep over on the other side of the yard instead, stubbornly refusing Jarrod's offer to use it. He moves the tent to her and sleeps inside it (though it collapses on top of him).
1036382	Caroline Quentin (born Caroline Jones 11 June 1960) is an English actress. Quentin became known for her television appearances in "Men Behaving Badly", playing Dorothy, and playing Maddie Magellan in "Jonathan Creek" for three years. Early life. Born in Reigate, Surrey, Quentin was educated at the independent Arts Educational School, in Tring, Hertfordshire and appeared locally in the Pendley Open Air Shakespeare Festival. Career. Quentin's early acting work included appearing on stage in the chorus of the original cast of the musical "Les Misérables". In July 1996, Quentin released a single, a cover of the Exciters' hit "Tell Him", with her "Men Behaving Badly" co-star Leslie Ash under the name of "Quentin and Ash". The single reached number 25 in the UK Singles Chart and spent three weeks in that listing. From 1997 until 2000 Quentin starred alongside Alan Davies in "Jonathan Creek" playing the character Maddie Magellan, an investigative journalist, who uses Jonathan's mind to solve murder mysteries. Quentin has also appeared in the 2001 telefilm "Hot Money", which was based on the true story of the theft of hundreds of thousands of pounds from the Bank of England. In 1998 came the first sitcom to be built around Quentin herself, "Kiss Me Kate". At the British Comedy Awards in 2004, Quentin won the "Best Comedy Actress" award for her performance in "Von Trapped" and in the same year, she started the major role of Maggie Mee in the popular drama "Life Begins", which returned for a third series in 2006.
1078581	Language of Love () is a 1969 Swedish sex educational film directed by Torgny Wickman. It was an international success. It gained a lot of publicity when 30,000 people gathered on Trafalgar Square in London to protest against a nearby movie theatre showing it, one of the protesters being pop singer Cliff Richard, and when it was confiscated by the American customs when arriving in the United States. Following this, it was at some places marketed as a sexploitation film of the "white coater" variety — a pornographic film masquerading as a documentary or scientific film. The film had two sequels, "Mera ur kärlekens språk" in 1970 and "Kärlekens XYZ" in 1971. In 1973 the three films were edited together into a new film, "Det bästa ur Kärlekens språk-filmerna" ("The Best from the Language of Love Films"). "Mera ur kärlekens språk (More from the Language of Love)" had equally successful box office though it dealt more with alternate sexuality and lifestyles and with the disabled. One of the films in the series was featured in the movie "Taxi Driver", in a scene where Robert De Niro takes Cybil Shepherd to a cinema showing the film on their first date. Remakes of the first two films appeared in 2004 ("Kärlekens språk" a.k.a. "Kärlekens språk 2000") and in 2009 ("Mera ur kärlekens språk"), both directed by Anders Lennberg.
585790	Mizhi Randilum (English: "In both Eyes") is a 2003 Malayalam film written and directed by Ranjith, starring Kavya Madhavan, Indrajith, Jagathy Sreekumar, Sukumari, and Revathi. Dileep makes a cameo appearance. Plot. Bhadra (Kavya Madhavan) is a nurse who is living with her widowed mother, grandmother and twin sister Bhama, a medical student. Her older brother Achuthankutty (Jagathy Sreekumar) is a politician. Bhadra falls in love with Arun (Indrajith), a doctor who works with her. Arun has a Muslim father and a Hindu mother who agrees to have Bhadra as their daughter in law, but Achuthankutty hates him because his father is a Muslim, causing Arun and Bhadra to break up.
1034197	Patrick Mower (born 12 September 1940), whose original name was Patrick Archibald Shaw, is an English actor well known for his many television and occasional film roles, often as a detective or secret agent and more recently as Rodney Blackstock in UK itv1's soap Emmerdale. Life. Mower was born in Oxford, Oxfordshire to a Welsh father and English mother. In his 2007 autobiography, Mower states that having believed for years that his year of birth was 1940, but later discovered that his birth was not registered and he was born on 12 September 1938 (On the IMDb it says ""1940""). In addition, several reference books on film and television, including "Who's Who On the Screen" (1983) and "Who's Who on Television" (1996), give Mower's town of birth as Pontypridd, South Wales, instead of Oxford. In 2007 Mower took part in the BBC Wales programme "Coming Home" about his Welsh family history. He attended Southfield Grammar School in Oxford, and after first training as an engineering draughtsman at the Steel Co. Ltd. Cowley plant, he graduated from RADA. He first came to prominence as an actor in the spy series "Callan" in the early 1970s. He went on to appear as DCI Tom Haggerty in "Special Branch" alongside George Sewell, and DS Steve Hackett in the police series "Target", and featured in one of the last "Carry On" films, "Carry On England". Many television roles have included guest appearances in "Jason King", "", "UFO", "Minder", "The Sweeney" and "Bergerac" (as Eddie St.Pierre). He was a regular panelist on the murder mystery programme "Whodunnit?". He currently stars as Rodney Blackstock in the ITV soap opera "Emmerdale". For seven years Mower was the partner of the actress Suzanne Danielle. References. 1954 Carry On Sargeant
1103086	Sir Simon Kirwan Donaldson FRS (born 20 August 1957), is an English mathematician known for his work on the topology of smooth (differentiable) four-dimensional manifolds. He is now Royal Society research professor in Pure Mathematics and President of the Institute for Mathematical Science at Imperial College London. Biography. Donaldson's father was an electrical engineer in the physiology department at the University of Cambridge, and his mother earned a science degree there. Donaldson gained a BA degree in mathematics from Pembroke College, Cambridge in 1979, and in 1980 began postgraduate work at Worcester College, Oxford, at first under Nigel Hitchin and later under Michael Atiyah's supervision. Still a graduate student, Donaldson proved in 1982 a result that would establish his fame. He published the result in a paper "Self-dual connections and the topology of smooth 4-manifolds" which appeared in 1983. In the words of Atiyah, the paper "stunned the mathematical world" (Atiyah 1986). Whereas Michael Freedman classified topological four-manifolds, Donaldson's work focused on four-manifolds admitting a differentiable structure, using instantons, a particular solution to the equations of Yang-Mills gauge theory which has its origin in quantum field theory. One of Donaldson's first results gave severe restrictions on the intersection form of a smooth four-manifold. As a consequence, a large class of the topological four-manifolds do not admit any smooth structure at all. Donaldson also derived polynomial invariants from gauge theory. These were new topological invariants sensitive to the underlying smooth structure of the four-manifold. They made it possible to deduce the existence of "exotic" smooth structures—certain topological four-manifolds could carry an infinite family of different smooth structures. After gaining his DPhil degree from Oxford University in 1983, Donaldson was appointed a Junior Research Fellow at All Souls College, Oxford, he spent the academic year 1983–84 at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, and returned to Oxford as Wallis Professor of Mathematics in 1985. After spending one year at Stanford University, he moved to Imperial College London in 1998. Awards and honours. Donaldson received the Junior Whitehead Prize from the London Mathematical Society in 1985 and in the following year he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society and, also in 1986, he received a Fields Medal. He was, however, turned down for fellowship of the Institute of Mathematics and its Applications on the grounds that he applied too soon after his doctorate. He was awarded the 1994 Crafoord Prize. In February 2006, Donaldson was awarded the King Faisal International Prize for science for his work in pure mathematical theories linked to physics, which have helped in forming an understanding of the laws of matter at a subnuclear level. In April 2008, he was awarded the Nemmers Prize in Mathematics, a mathematics prize awarded by Northwestern University. In 2009 he was awarded the Shaw Prize in Mathematics (jointly with Clifford Taubes) for their contributions to geometry in 3 and 4 dimensions. In 2010, he was elected a foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. Donaldson was knighted in the 2012 New Year Honours for services to mathematics. In 2012 he became a fellow of the American Mathematical Society. Donaldson's work. A thread running through Donaldson's work is the application of mathematical analysis (especially the analysis of elliptic partial differential equations) to problems in geometry. The problems mainly concern 4-manifolds, complex differential geometry and symplectic geometry. The following theorems rank among his most striking achievements: Donaldson's recent work centers on a difficult problem in complex differential geometry concerning a conjectural relationship between algebro-geometric "stability" conditions for smooth projective varieties and the existence of "optimal" Kähler metrics, typically those with constant scalar curvature (see for example cscK metric). Definitive results have not yet been obtained, but substantial progress has been made (see for example Donaldson 2001). In the case of Fano manifolds and Kähler-Einstein metrics a proof was given in 2012 by Chen, Donaldson and Song. See also Donaldson theory.
1062599	Cornel Wilde (October 13, 1912 – October 16, 1989) was a Hungarian-American actor and film director. Early life. Kornél Lajos Weisz was born in 1912 in Prievidza, Hungary (now Slovakia), although his year and place of birth are usually and inaccurately given as 1915 in New York City. His Hungarian Jewish parents were Vojtech Weisz (Americanized to Louis Bela Wilde) and Renée Mary Vid. He was named for his paternal grandfather, and upon arrival in the U.S. at age 7 in 1920, his name was Americanized to Cornelius Louis Wilde. A talented linguist and an astute mimic, he had an ear for languages which became apparent later in his acting career. Wilde attended the City College of New York as a pre-med student, completing the four-year course in three years and winning a scholarship to the Physicians and Surgeons College at Columbia University.
1040650	Ralph William John Brown (born 18 June 1957) is an English actor and writer, known for playing Danny the drug dealer in "Withnail and I", the security guard Aaron (aka "85") in "Alien 3", DJ Bob Silver in "The Boat That Rocked", super-roadie Del Preston in Wayne's World 2 and the pilot Ric Olié in "". He won The Samuel Beckett Award for his first play "Sanctuary" written for Joint Stock Theatre Company in 1987, and the Raindance and Sapporo Film Festival awards for his first screenplay for the British film "New Year's Day" in 2001. Career. His film roles include Dil's on-off boyfriend Dave in the Academy Award-winning film "The Crying Game", Danny the drug dealer in "Withnail & I", Great Train Robber Ronnie Biggs in "Buster", roadie Del Preston in "Wayne's World 2", teacher and rugby league player Phil in "Up 'n' Under", prison guard captain Mr Burton in "Mean Machine", Sgt Major Harris in the Paul Schrader film "", and CIA renegade Mr Collins alongside Wesley Snipes in "The Contractor". In 1995 Brown appeared in Steven Spielberg's slavery epic "Amistad". In 2007 he filmed "Caught in the Act", an independent British film, and appeared in the series "Cape Wrath" for Channel 4/Showtime as the moustachioed policeman Wintersgill. Among TV appearances, Brown appeared in Dennis Potter's "Karaoke" in 1995, he also played Prince John in the BBC's adaptation of Sir Walter Scott's "Ivanhoe" in 1997 and did a memorable turn as shaven-headed gang-boss "Miami Vice" in the 2000 series "Lock, Stock...The Series". In 2005 he appeared in "Coronation Street" as Barney, roadie to Status Quo, and with Julia Davis in the cult TV sitcom "Nighty Night". He appeared in the final two episodes of "Life on Mars" as Frank Morgan, an interim DCI in 1973 sequences, and Sam's (John Simm's) surgeon in 2006 sequences. Brown stars as DJ Bob Silver in "The Boat That Rocked", a film by Richard Curtis released in April 2009. In 2009 he made four films: "The Kid" directed by Nick Moran, "Huge" directed by Ben Miller, "Mission: London" a Bulgarian comedy directed by Dimitar Mitoviski which premiered in Sofia on 13 April 2010, and "Sus", written by Barrie Keeffe, writer of "The Long Good Friday", which premiered 24 April 2010 and ran in the West End for several weeks. In 2010, 2011 and 2012 Brown has worked on the BBC Three comedy "Him & Her". In 2010 he worked on the film "Killing Bono" and shot the feature film "Dark Tide" in Cape Town opposite Halle Berry. In 2011 he filmed "I, Anna" with Gabriel Byrne and Charlotte Rampling, then went on to work on "Jack the Giant Slayer", directed by Bryan Singer, "Tower Block" in London, and "Stoker" in Nashville, the latter directed by Park Chan-wook. In 2012, he has worked on "Inspector George Gently" with Martin Shaw, "The Poison Tree" for ITV, and "The Mimic" for C4. Ralph is currently directing his first film "Red Light Fever". Personal life. Brown was born in Cambridge, England, the son of Heather R and John F W Brown. He has been married to actress Jenny Jules since 1992. He is a member of a Brighton-based Beach Boys tribute band, the "Brighton Beach Boys".
1028382	Irma Vep is a 1996 film directed by the French director Olivier Assayas, starring Hong Kong actress Maggie Cheung (playing herself) in a story about the disasters that ensue as a middle-aged French film director (played by Jean-Pierre Léaud) attempts to remake Louis Feuillade's classic silent film serial "Les vampires". Taking place as it does largely through the eyes of a foreigner (Cheung), it also a meditation upon the then-current state of the French film industry. The film was screened in the Un Certain Regard section at the 1996 Cannes Film Festival. Plot. Cheung is employed to play the film-within-the-film's heroine, Irma Vep (an anagram for "vampire"), a burglar, who spends most of the film dressed in a tight, black, latex rubber catsuit, defending her director's odd choices to hostile crew members and journalists. As the film progresses, the plot mirrors the disorientation felt by the film's director. Cheung the character is in many ways seen by other characters as an exotic sex object dressed in a latex catsuit; both the director and Cheung's costume designer Zoe (Nathalie Richard) have crushes on her. Production. The idea for the film was born out of an attempted collaboration between Assayas, Claire Denis, and Atom Egoyan, who wanted to experiment with the situation of a foreigner in Paris. In the 1915 original serial, written and directed by Louis Feuillade, Irma Vep was played by French silent film actress Musidora (1889–1957). Much of the film depicts set-related incidents that echo scenes in Truffaut's "La nuit americaine" (English title: "Day for night"), to which "Irma Vep" owes a large thematic debt. However, Assayas has publicly stated that although he considers "La nuit americaine" a great film, it is more about the fantasy of filmmaking than the reality. Assayas credits Rainer Werner Fassbinder's "Beware of a Holy Whore" as a much greater inspiration. Assayas married Cheung in 1998. They divorced in 2001. They again collaborated in 2004 on the film "Clean".
1062730	Irvin Kershner (April 29, 1923November 27, 2010) was an American film director and occasional actor, best known for directing quirky, independent films early in his career, and then "" and the James Bond film "Never Say Never Again". Background. With Jewish roots, Irvin Kershner's artistic and cultural background was a mixture of music and art. The study of music (violin, viola, and composition) was the most important activity of his early years. He attended the Temple University – Tyler School of Fine Arts in Philadelphia. Later, he went to New York and Provincetown to study with the famous painting teacher Hans Hofmann. He then moved to Los Angeles where he studied photography at the Art Center College of Design. He began his film career at the University of Southern California School of Cinematic Arts, teaching photography and taking cinema courses under Slavko Vorkapić, a montage artist and then dean of the School. Kershner then accepted a job as still photographer on a State Department film project in Iran under the Point Four Program, which ultimately led to an assignment as a director and cinematographer of documentaries in Iran, Greece and Turkey with the United States Information Service. When he returned to the States, he and Paul Coates (1921–1968) developed "Confidential File", a documentary television series. Kershner worked as writer, director, cinematographer and editor. He later developed and directed the television series "The Rebel" (1959–61), as well as the pilots for "Peyton Place", "Cain's Hundred", "Philip Marlowe", and others. He then moved on to feature films, some of the best known of which are: "Hoodlum Priest" which starred Don Murray; "The Luck of Ginger Coffey" with Robert Shaw and Mare Ure; "A Fine Madness" (with Sean Connery, Joanne Woodward and Jean Seberg); "The Flim-Flam Man" starring George C. Scott; "Up the Sandbox" with Barbra Streisand; "The Return of a Man Called Horse" starring Richard Harris; the critically acclaimed TV movie "Raid on Entebbe" which was nominated for nine Emmys, including Best Direction; "Eyes of Laura Mars" starring Faye Dunaway and Tommy Lee Jones. Kershner considered himself an internationalist. He has said "I've been a student of Christianity. I've been interested in the historical basis of the Muslim religion. I studied Buddhism. I don't think of myself as a Jew except by birth, as I don't follow the customs. I'm a Jew because other people consider me so. My pride is in being international." He has also said: "Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back". Kershner is best known as the director of "The Empire Strikes Back" (1980), the immediate sequel of the 1977 hit film "". Kershner was a surprising choice for such a movie; according to him, when he asked producer George Lucas: "Of all the younger guys around, all the hot-shots, why me?" Lucas replied, "Well, because you know everything a Hollywood director is supposed to know, but you're not Hollywood." Kershner, who was an appealing directorial candidate to Lucas because of his focus on character development, was reluctant to direct the film. When asked by Lucas to work on the project over lunch, Kershner refused. Kershner's agent was told about the meeting and encouraged him to take the job. Of his cinematic style, Kershner has said, "I like to fill up the frame with the characters' faces. There's nothing more interesting than the landscape of the human face." Later work. After "Empire", Kershner directed "Never Say Never Again" (Sean Connery's return to the role of James Bond); the HBO film "Traveling Man" starring John Lithgow and Jonathan Silverman, for which Kershner was nominated for an ACE Award; and "RoboCop 2". He also directed several episodes of the television series "seaQuest DSV", and he made his debut as an actor in the Martin Scorsese film, "The Last Temptation of Christ" (1988), playing Zebedee, the father of the apostles James and John. He played a film director in Steven Seagal's "On Deadly Ground". He was a faculty member at the Master of Professional Writing Program at the University of Southern California. In 2000 he was a member of the jury at the 22nd Moscow International Film Festival. In fall 2002, spring 2003, fall 2004, and spring 2004, Kersh served as a Visiting Professor and Research Associate at the Maryland Institute for Technology in the Humanities (MITH) at the University of Maryland, College Park. He and the Founding Director Martha Nell Smith remained close and he served as her advisor until the end of his life. Death. Kershner died on November 27, 2010 at his home in Los Angeles after a three and a half year battle with lung cancer. Despite being a director, Kershner had been working on photography before his death.
1786701	Mary Hayley Bell, Lady Mills (22 January 1911 – 1 December 2005) was an English actress, writer and dramatist. Mary Hayley Bell was born in Shanghai, China, where her father, F.H. Bell served in the Chinese Maritime Customs Service with postings to various Treaty Ports. From 1925-1928 he served as Customs Commissioner for Kowloon (within Hong Hong, although this position had no connection with the British colonial administration). During this period Mary attended school in Hong Kong and frequently spent weekends of leisure at the Commissioner's official country bungalow near Fan Ling Golf Club. The family later (1930) moved to Tianjin (then known as Tientsin). It was there that she first met John Mills, although exactly when is not clear. Mills was on tour at the time. They next met in early 1939 when she was appearing in "Tony Draws a Horse" at the Comedy Theatre in London. She recalled having an after-dinner party in Mills' dressing room after one of his performances as George in "Of Mice and Men" at the Apollo Theatre.
1060122	Barry Fitzgerald (10 March 1888 – 14 January 1961) was an Irish stage, film, and television actor. Life. He was born William Joseph Shields in Walworth Road, Portobello, Dublin, Ireland. He was the older brother of Irish actor Arthur Shields. He went to Skerry's College, Dublin, before going on to work in the civil service, while also working at the Abbey Theatre. By 1929, he turned to acting full-time. He was briefly a roommate of famed playwright Sean O'Casey and starred in such plays as O'Casey's "Juno and the Paycock" and the premiere of "The Silver Tassie". Fitzgerald went to Hollywood to star in another O'Casey work, "The Plough and the Stars" (1936), directed by John Ford. He had a successful Hollywood career in such films as "The Long Voyage Home" (1940), "How Green Was My Valley" (1941), "And Then There Were None" (1945), "The Naked City" (1948), and "The Quiet Man" (1952). Fitzgerald achieved a feat unmatched in the history of the Academy Awards: he was nominated for both the Best Actor Oscar "and" the Best Supporting Actor Oscar for the same performance, as "Father Fitzgibbon" in "Going My Way" (1944). (Academy Award rules have since been changed to prevent this.) He won the Best Supporting Actor Award; an avid golfer, he later broke the head off his Oscar statue while practising his golf swing. (During World War II, Oscar statues were made of plaster instead of gold, owing to wartime metal shortages.) He returned to live in Dublin in 1959. Fitzgerald has two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, for movies at 6220 Hollywood Blvd. and for television at 7001 Hollywood Blvd.
519737	My Valentine Girls is a film released in 2011.
585241	Sivakumar (born 27 October 1944 is an actor who has portrayed a wide range of leading and supporting roles onscreen. Sivakumar was introduced in the Tamil movie "Kaakum Karangal" (1965), a film that starred S.S.Rajendran in the lead role, which was produced by AVM Productions. Sivakumar came into the industry in 1965 as a supporting actor. In this capacity he has starred notable films such as Tamil movies such as "Kandan Karunai", "Thunivae Thozhan" and "Uyarndha Manidhan". From the mid 1970s to the late 1980s, Sivakumar was a leading actor in Kollywood, acting in successful movies like Annakili, Rosaappo Ravikkai Kaari, Vandichakkaram and Sindhu Bhairavi. He has acted in nearly 200 films till date. He has co-starred with many leading Tamil actors such of three generations, including Sivaji Ganesan, M. G. Ramachandran, Gemini Ganesan, Kamal Haasan, Rajinikanth, Vijay, Vikram and Ajith. He is a three-time winner of Filmfare Awards and a recipient of Tamil Nadu State Film Awards. His roles in "Marupakkam" and "Sindhu Bhairavi" showed his versatility as an actor, with the former winning the Golden Lotus Award for Best Feature Film. In the late 1990s, he ventured into television serials, and is well known for his role as Raadhika's husband in the famous TV serial "Chithi". Sivakumar is married to Lakshmi and the couple have three children; two sons who are actors, Surya Sivakumar and Karthik Sivakumar, and a daughter Brindha. His elder daughter-in-law, Jyothika was a leading Kollywood actress and his younger daughter-in-law is Ranjini Chinnaswamy. Awards. Sivakumar is a three-time recipient of Filmfare Awards and a two-time winner of Tamil Nadu State Film Awards. Filmfare Awards Tamil Nadu State Film Awards
582270	Om Jai Jagadish is a 2002 Bollywood film directed by Anupam Kher and was his directorial debut. The film stars Waheeda Rehman, Anil Kapoor, Fardeen Khan, Abhishek Bachchan, Mahima Chaudhry, Urmila Matondkar and Tara Sharma. Synopsis. Saraswati Batra (Waheeda Rehman) is the widowed mother of Om (Anil Kapoor), Jai (Fardeen Khan) and Jagadish (Abhishek Bachchan). Om is responsible and provides the income for the whole family. He works in a music company owned by his friend,Shekhar Malhotra (Parmeet Sethi). Jai is very ambitious (he wants to construct the world's fastest car) and is studying in the United States. His education is paid by Om for which he has taken loan from Parmeet Sethi. Jagadish is a college student who is very good with computers. Jai soon returns after Om and his mother convinces him. They all want different things and soon Om and Jai marry. Om marries the bubbly Ayesha (Mahima Chaudhry) MTV VJ and Jai marries Neetu (Urmila Matondkar), the daughter of a rich NRI. Jagadish is in love with Puja (Tara Sharma) who is from Banglore; they meet at a college festival. When Jai clashes with Om's values they drift apart. Soon Jai receives a promotion in America and leaves with Neetu. Jagadish is caught computer hacking after trying to help a friend get the answers to a test. Om throws him out the house. Om, Ayesha and his mother have to leave the house after Om failed to pay the loan covering it. The three brothers are separated. Eventually, they all come together at the house auction to buy it back. Om is at the auction to see the winner and is surprised when Jagadish shows up to bid. He reveals that he used his hacking skills to create a program to block hackers instead. Jai comes at the end of the auction and bids more, which he got by selling his engine for the fastest car. He doesn't have enough so the three brothers combine their money to win back the house, but it isn't enough. Finally, it is revealed that the CEO of the company that Jagadish made the hacking program for bid for the house and won. Jagadish made a deal that the price of the house was the price of the program. The three brothers reunite and move back into the house. Music. The music was composed by Anu Malik, and the lyrics were written by Sameer. The soundtrack has the following songs:
1058073	Billy Jack is a 1971 vigilante film. It is the second of two films centering on a character of the same name which began with the movie "The Born Losers" (1967), played by Tom Laughlin, who directed and co-wrote the script. Filming began in Prescott, Arizona, in the fall of 1969, but the movie was not completed until 1971. American International Pictures pulled out, halting filming. 20th Century-Fox came forward and filming eventually resumed but when that studio refused to distribute the film, Warner Bros. stepped forward. Still, the film lacked distribution, so Laughlin booked it in to theaters himself in 1971. The film died at the box office in its initial run, but eventually took in more than $40 million in its 1973 re-release, with distribution supervised by Laughlin. Plot. Billy Jack is a "half-breed" American Navajo Indian, a Green Beret Vietnam War veteran, and a hapkido master. The character made his début in "The Born Losers" (1967), a "biker film" about a motorcycle gang terrorizing a California town. Billy Jack rises to the occasion to defeat the gang when defending a college student with evidence against them for gang rape.
1056666	Rachel Clare Hurd-Wood (born 17 August 1990) is an English actress and model. She is known for her role as Wendy Darling in the 2003 film "Peter Pan". Personal life. Background. Hurd-Wood was born in the Streatham district of South London, England, the daughter of Philip and Sarah Hurd-Wood. She lived in London till the age of eight, when she and her family moved to a Victorian cottage at the edge of a leafy forest in Godalming, Surrey. She moved back to London into a shared flat for pursuing her degree in linguistics at University College London at the age of eighteen. She moved into her own house in London just before her 21st birthday. She has a younger brother, Patrick who appeared with her in "Peter Pan" as one of the sleeping children in the “I Do Believe In Fairies” scene. He also plays the role of Samuel Crowthorn alongside his sister in her later film, "Solomon Kane" in which she plays Meredith Crowthorn. Her father's work involves performing, writing scripts and doing voice-overs for commercials. He appears in one of her films, An American Haunting, as one of the guests in the Christmas party scene towards the beginning of the film. She joined a drama club in her school and took part in its stage production during her second year. Hurd-Wood dispelled the false rumour that her uncle is Hugh Laurie in a 2009 September–October interview for the magazine "Little White Lies: The An Education Issue" and then again in a 2010 live Myspace web chat for the film "Tomorrow, When the War Began". “My uncle lives in Wales and is an artist”, she says. Education. Hurd-Wood attended Rodborough Technology College in Milford, Surrey from 2001 to 2006 for her GCSEs with Art, English Literature, Psychology and Philosophy as subjects. She had tutored lessons during the filming of "Peter Pan" in Australia during 2002 to 2003 as her work lasted for a span of 8 to 9 months. She later attended sixth-form Godalming College from 2006 to 2008 to study for her GCE Advanced Levels with Art, Psychology and Philosophy as subjects. Hurd-Wood had considered becoming a marine biologist because of her love for dolphins. She gave up on the idea when she discovered that it would require studying science because she thought she was not very good at it. She became interested in working with children who have special needs or disabilities. Hurd-Wood studied linguistics from 2008 at University College London, having completed her first year in 2009, but left the course incomplete before travelling to Australia for the filming of "Tomorrow, When the War Began", when she decided to focus entirely on her career in acting. Charity support. Hurd-Wood signed for World Famous StarCards, a charity supporting the Great Ormond Street Hospital (GOSH) Children's Charity, at the world charity premiere of the movie Peter Pan in London on 9 December 2003. Her autographed card was auctioned in 2009. It tops the chart for the most popular signing, according to Paul Brett, founder of the StarCards charity. Hurd-Wood along with other celebrity supporters of the charity Shooting Star CHASE, Keeley Hawes, Matthew MacFadyen and Max Clifford joined more than 50 children with life-limiting illnesses and their families for the event on Sunday, 20 December 2009. The charity worked with Coca-Cola and the Merlin Group, which runs Alton Towers, Chessington World of Adventures and the London Eye, to transform Christopher’s (CHASE) Hospice in Guildford, Surrey into a winter wonderland and gave the children at hospice a wonderful Christmas surprise. Career. Acting. Hurd-Wood's career in acting started in 2002 when she was picked for the role of Wendy Darling, after her grandparents spotted a television clip that said P.J. Hogan was searching for a "young English rose" for the feature film "Peter Pan". She travelled to Gold Coast, Australia for eight months for filming. Her performance received good reviews and was nominated for a Saturn Award for Best Performance by a Younger Actor, and a Young Artist Award for Best Performance in a Feature Film – Leading Young Actress. Hurd-Wood portrayed the character Imogen Helhoughton in the 2004 TV film "Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the Silk Stocking", as a 13-year-old victim of a serial killer. Also in 2004, she had a major role of Betsy Bell in the thriller "An American Haunting", as a girl who is haunted and tormented by an unrelenting demon. Her performance came in for some praise, one critic remarking, "The actors are the saving grace… Hurd-Wood a mix of radiant approaching womanhood and animal terror. Their impassioned performances make you really care what happens to these people…", another reviewer comments, "Rachel Hurd-Wood… delivers a fantastic and nuanced performance as Betsy Bell, the very central role that essentially carries the entire movie." Hurd-Wood was nominated for the 2006 Teen Choice Awards in the category Movie – Choice Scream for her role. In 2005 she appeared in an adaptation of the best-selling novel by German writer Patrick Süskind, "". Set in 18th century France, Hurd-Wood portrayed Laura Richis, the red-headed virgin daughter of a politically connected merchant played by Alan Rickman. She had her brunette hair dyed red. She was nominated for the “Best Supporting Actress” award at the 33rd Saturn Awards by The Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Films for her role. The year 2007 saw Hurd-Wood starring as a waitress in the music video for the song "A Little Bit" by Madeleine Peyroux. She appeared alongside the musicians in the music video for "Fatherhood/Motherhood" by Ox.Eagle.Lion.Man. In the 2008 film "Solomon Kane", she played Meredith Crowthorn, a Puritan captured by a band of marauders who killed her family and whom Kane sought to rescue. Her younger brother Patrick appears in the film as her brother Samuel. During filming, Hurd-Wood studied for her GCSE A-levels at Godalming College in Surrey. Later in the year she acted in the film "Dorian Gray" based on the Oscar Wilde novel, "The Picture of Dorian Gray". She was in the small but key role of the young budding actress Sibyl Vane, with whom Gray falls in love. She was studying in the first year of the linguistics course at UCL while working in this film. In her first contemporary role, Hurd-Wood was cast as Corrie Mackenzie, one of the principal characters in the 2009 Australian action-adventure film "Tomorrow, When the War Began", based on the novel by John Marsden. (The novel was one of the books she read while being tutored for the filming of "Peter Pan".) At this point, she discontinued studying for a Linguistics degree to concentrate full-time on acting. She learned an Australian accent for the role. The film became the highest grossing movie for that year in Australia. Hurd-Wood portrayed the lead character Mae-West O'Mara in the 2010 film "Hideaways", narrating a story to her six-year-old daughter, about the strange powers of the men in the Furlong family. Her performance was well-received by critics, calling her “charismatic” and “… the heart and soul of the film, the one the girls will relate to and the guys are going to love…”. “If the film works it's due in large part to her stellar performance.” says a reviewer. Another reviewer commented, “When the light hits Mae's eyes, it's like you can see whole worlds being born and being destroyed ad infinitum.”, “Hurd-Wood's chemistry with Treadaway is instant, the two are a joy to watch, and their romance is the heart of the film…”, “… and Harry's two great central performances…”. Later in the year, she played the younger version of the character Isabel, played by Jenny Agutter, in the short film "The Mapmaker". Also in the same year, she was featured in the music video for "Revolver" by Warehouse Republic. She played the role of the babysitter in the 2011 teaser for a proposed feature-length film, "Let's Go Play at the Adams'", based on the book of the same name by Mendal Jonhson. She next played the role of the daughter of the character Teddy, in the short film "It Ends Here", directed by her friend Zimon Drake. In 2012 Hurd-Wood played the female lead role of Elisabeth James in the film "Highway to Dhampus", a story about the effect foreigners in Nepal and Nepali expatriates have on the locals. Later in the year, she narrates the words of her fashion-designer friend, Matthew Williamson, in an advertisement/mini-film. She next starred alongside the singers Tyler James and Kano in the music video for the single "Worry About You" (feat. Kano) by Tyler James. Modeling. Hurd-Wood posed for the publicity and poster material for "Volstead Putsch", an underground bohemian party organised by "The Triumvirate of Fez" at the London's Volstead Club in 2008. The same year she posed for Raw Riddim Records promoting their merchandise such as chains, t-shirts, hoodies, etc. Film festivals. Hurd-Wood was a member of the international expert jury panel for “European debuts” at the “52nd International Film Festival for Children and Youth” at the Zlin Film Festival held from 27 May 2012 to 3 June 2012 at Zlin in the Czech Republic.
1017625	The Fearless Hyena is a 1979 Hong Kong kung fu film directed by and starring Jackie Chan. The film was co-directed by Kenneth Tsang. The film has been released on several alternative titles internationally, including: Plot. Shing Lung (Jackie Chan) is a youngster, living in a remote village with his grandfather, kung fu master Chen Peng-fei (James Tien). Lung does not take his training seriously enough, he gambles, and he gets into fights which lead him to display the skills his grandfather has told him he must keep secret. Lung briefly finds employment selling coffins, working for an unscrupulous proprietor (Dean Shek), who even stoops to selling second-hand coffins. Lung is fired when he accidentally traps his boss in one of the coffins. After making his escape, he runs into three thugs he'd beaten up earlier, who ask him to teach them kung fu. Lung meets their sifu, Ti Cha (Lee Kwan), the unskilled leader of the Everything Clan. Master Ti offers Lung a lucrative job training his students and fighting against the top fighters from rival schools. This boosts the reputation of the school and of the scheming Master Ti. However, Lung makes the mistake of naming the school under the Sien Yi clan name. This comes to the attention of evil kung fu master Yen Ting Hua (Yam Sai-kwoon), who finds and kills Lung's grandfather. But, Lung eventually takes revenge for his grandfather's murder after undergoing rigorous training from The Unicorn (Chan Wai-Lau). Fight scenes. Fearless Hyena features several unusual fight scenes, including a chopsticks duel, Shing Lung fighting disguised as a cross-eyed mentally retarded man, disguised as a woman, and using "Emotional Kung-Fu", a style that involves vividly displaying the emotions of anger, sorrow, joy and happiness to find the opponent's weakness thus fighting whilst crying or laughing. Inspirations. This film served as the inspiration behind Akira Toriyama's Dragon Ball manga. Box office. The film grossed a HK $5,445,535 at the Hong Kong box office.
774470	Kissed is a 1996 Canadian film, directed and co-written by Lynne Stopkewich, based on Barbara Gowdy's short story "We So Seldom Look On Love". It premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 7, 1996. The film stars Molly Parker as Sandra Larson, a young woman whose fixation on death leads her to study embalming at a mortuary school, where in turn she finds herself drawn toward feelings of necrophilia. Peter Outerbridge also stars as Matt, a fellow student who develops romantic feelings for Sandra, and so must learn to accept her sexual proclivities. Despite being allowed a substantial grant, Stopkewich went almost $30,000 into debt and cost her company $400,000 so she could complete shooting the film. Plot. The film opens with Sandra Larson staring at a human corpse while she reminisces about at her childhood fascinations with death. As a young teen Sandra was enthralled by the feelings invoked by the stillness and smell of death. At night, a near nude Sandra would dance with the corpse of an animal rubbing it on her body, before giving the animal a funeral. Sandra only had one childhood friend, a girl named Carol (Jessie Winter Mudie) who also had a death fascination. Their friendship ended after Carol found Sandra's ceremonial dance too extreme.
1034270	Peter Jeffrey (18 April 1929 – 25 December 1999) was an English actor with many roles in television and film. Jeffrey was born in Bristol, Gloucestershire, the son of Florence Alice (née Weight) and Arthur Winfred Gilbert Jeffrey. He was educated at Harrow School and Pembroke College, Cambridge but had no formal training as an actor. After many years on stage with the Bristol Old Vic and the Royal Shakespeare Company, he became a very familiar face to British television viewers. Numerous television roles include two guest appearances in "Doctor Who": as the Colony Pilot in "The Macra Terror" (1967) and as Count Grendel in "The Androids of Tara" (1978). It is reputed he had been offered the role of the lead character in the show by Innes Lloyd in 1966, but turned it down; Patrick Troughton was cast instead. In the BBC serial "Elizabeth R" (1971), he played King Philip II of Spain. He also appeared in "Thriller" (1974), "Porridge" (1975), "Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em" (1975), "Quiller" (1975), "Rising Damp" (1978), "Minder" (1980), "Nanny" (1981), "Yes Minister" (1984), Dennis Potter's "Lipstick on Your Collar" (1993), "Our Friends in the North" (1996), and many other series. Jeffrey died on 25 December 1999 from prostate cancer.
585588	Synopsis. A young woman named Bhadra (Manju Warrier) wants to take revenge against a landlord, Natesan (Thilakan), who had murdered her parents 15 years before. She acts as if she is interested in him, while seducing his son Uthaman (Biju Menon) making Natesan jealous. She falls in love with Moosakutty (Abbas), a bangle seller and fisherman whose father was also murdered by Natesan. Ultimately, the father and son kill each other. Songs. The songs were composed by the music maestro M. G. Radhakrishnan for the lyrics of Kavalam Narayana Panicker Awards. National Film Awards Asianet Film Awards
587846	Chitram () is a 2000 Telugu film written and directed by Teja. This film stars Uday Kiran & Reema Sen in the lead roles and marked the debut of the lead actors. The film is produced by Ramoji Rao and has music composed by R.P. Patnaik. The film was released as "Chithiram" in Tamil in 2001 with the film mostly featuring scenes dubbed from the original although scenes involving Manivannan and Senthil were added. Chitram and Nuvve Kavali were the 2 movies which set a trend of college campus romance stories in the same year. The movie was remade in Kannada as Chitra, starring Prabhu deva's brother Nagendra Prasad Sundaran and Rekha Vedhavyas in 2001 under the direction of Dinesh Baboo and the production of Ramoji Rao. The movie was a superhit in Kannada and marked the debut of the lead actors. Plot. Janaki (Reema Sen) and her sister are NRIs who want to join a PU college in AP. Janaki stays with her uncle and procures the admission in the same college as Ramana (Uday Kiran), a die-hard music fan. When Janaki first sees him in the music room practicing they get attracted to each other. When family members of Ramana are away, Janaki happens to come to Ramana's house wearing a saree. As she does not know how to wear saree, all she does is drape it around her body. Ramana offers to teach her how to wear a saree. In the process they consummate their passion. After a few days Janaki informs Ramana that she is pregnant. Ramana, along with his friends, hires a nurse to perform abortion on Janaki. When Ramana asks Janaki to prepare for the abortion, she refuses to do so as she says she wants a company of a kid. Janaki tells him that her mother used to tell her that when she dies she will be reborn as Janaki's child. Janaki is then told by the college Principal to take rest and write the exam following year. When Ramana's parents talk to Janaki's uncle he blames Ramana.
589010	Vinod Khanna (born 6 October 1946) is an Indian actor, film producer and politician. He has appeared in 141 films between 1968 and 2013. Early life. Khanna was born in a Punjabi family to Kamla and Kishanchand Khanna, a textiles, dyes and chemicals businessman, on 6 October 1946, in Peshawar, British India (now in Pakistan). He has three sisters and one brother. Shortly after his birth, India was partitioned and the family left Peshawar and reached Mumbai. He attended Queen Mary School, Mumbai until class II and then transferred to St. Xavier's High School, Fort. In 1957, the family again moved to Delhi where he attended Delhi Public School, Mathura Road. Although the family moved back to Mumbai in 1960, he was sent to Barnes School in Deolali, near Nashik. It was during his time at the boarding school that he watched the epic Solva Saal and "Mughal-e-Azam" and fell in love with motion pictures. He graduated with a commerce degree from Sydenham College. Career. Vinod Khanna debuted in Sunil Dutt's 1968 film "Man Ka Meet" as a villain. At the start of his career, he played supporting or villainous characters in films such as "Purab Aur Paschim", "Sachaa Jhutha", "Aan Milo Sajna", and "Mastana" in 1970, and in "Mera Gaon Mera Desh" and "Elaan" in 1971. Khanna is one of the few Hindi actors who began by playing villains and moved on to play the hero. He got his first break as the solo lead hero in the film "Hum Tum Aur Woh" (1971), which was followed by the 1971 multi-hero film "Mere Apne" directed by Gulzar. In 1973, his performance as an army officer facing death row in another film scripted and directed by Gulzar, "Achanak", was critically acclaimed. The film echoed the true life story of K. M. Nanavati vs. State of Maharashtra and Khanna portrayed Kawas Nanavati, the real life Navy officer. Between 1973 and 1982, Khanna played the lead role in in a number of solo and multi starrer movies. These include "Farebi" with Moushumi Chatterjee; "Qaid" in 1975 and "Zalim" in 1980, both together with Leena Chandavarkar; and "Inkaar" in 1978 opposite Vidya Sinha. In 1980, he starred in Feroz Khan's "Qurbani" (1980) which became the highest grossing film of that year. In "Shankar Shambhu", "Chor Sipahee" and "Ek Aur Ek Gyarah", Khanna appeared together with Shashi Kapoor; in "Hera Pheri", "Khoon Pasina", "Amar Akbar Anthony" and "Muqaddar Ka Sikandar" he played with Amitabh Bachchan; and in "Haath Ki Safai" and "Aakhri Daku" he played with Randhir Kapoor. He appeared with Sunil Dutt in "Daku Aur Jawan", and he also had supporting roles in "Sachaa Jhutha", "Prem Kahani", "Kudrat" and "Rajput", where the lead hero was played by Rajesh Khanna. Khanna became a follower of the spiritual teacher Osho (Rajneesh) and left the film industry in 1982 for five years. In 1987, he returned to Bollywood with "Insaaf" where he played together with Dimple Kapadia. After his comeback he played romantic roles in "Jurm" and "Chandni", but he was mostly offered roles in action films. In the 1990s, Khanna worked in films including "Muqaddar Ka Badshaah", "C.I.D.", "Jurm", "Rihaee", "Lekin", and "Humshakal". He appeared in multi-hero casts in films such as "Khoon Ka Karz", "Police Aur Mujrim", "Kshatriya", "Insaaniyat Ke Devta", "Ekka Raja Rani", "Eena Meena Deeka", and the 2002 film "Kranti". In 1997 he was the producer for "Himalay Putra" in which he also starred, together with his son Akshaye Khanna. In 1999 Vinod Khanna received a Filmfare Lifetime Achievement Award for his contribution to the film industry for over three decades. He has since acted in fewer films, playing character roles in "Deewaanapan" (2002), ', "Wanted" (2009) and "Dabangg" (2010). His performance as solo lead protagonist was critically acclaimed in films like ' (2005) and K.S. Ravikumar's "Godfather" (2007), as well as in the multi-star film "Risk" (2007). He also ventured into television playing the male lead role of "Kashinath" in the Smriti Irani-produced Hindi serial "Mere Apne", which aired on the channel 9X. Politics. In 1997, he joined the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and was elected from Gurdaspur constituency in Punjab in the next year's Lok Sabha poll. In 1999, he was re-elected to the Lok Sabha from the same constituency. Later, he became union minister for culture and tourism in July 2002. Six months later, he was moved to the more important ministry of external affairs (MEA) as minister of state. In 2004 he won re-election from Gurdaspur. However, he lost out in the 2009 Lok Sabha poll. Personal life. Khanna married Geetanjali in 1971, and has two sons with her, Rahul Khanna and Akshaye Khanna. In 1975, Khanna became a disciple of Osho (Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh). In the early 1980s, he moved to Rajneeshpuram, Osho's commune in the United States, for about five years, cleaning dishes and working as Osho's gardener. His absence from his family, who remained behind in India, caused friction between the couple, and the marriage ended in divorce. In 1990, he married Kavita. They have a son, Sakshi, and a daughter Shraddha.
1463264	Narayana Pandita () (1340–1400) was a major mathematician of India. Plofker writes that his texts were the most significant Sanskrit mathematics treatises after those of Bhaskara II, other than the Kerala school. He wrote the "Ganita Kaumudi" (lit "Moonlight of mathematics") in 1356 about mathematical operations. The work anticipated many developments in combinatorics. About his life, the most that is known is that: Narayana Pandit had written two works, an arithmetical treatise called "Ganita Kaumudi" and an algebraic treatise called "Bijganita Vatamsa". Narayanan is also thought to be the author of an elaborate commentary of Bhaskara II's Lilavati, titled "Karmapradipika" (or "Karma-Paddhati"). Although the "Karmapradipika" contains little original work, it contains seven different methods for squaring numbers, a contribution that is wholly original to the author, as well as contributions to algebra and magic squares. Narayanan's other major works contain a variety of mathematical developments, including a rule to calculate approximate values of square roots, investigations into the second order indeterminate equation "nq"2 + 1 = "p"2 (Pell's equation), solutions of indeterminate higher-order equations, mathematical operations with zero, several geometrical rules, and a discussion of magic squares and similar figures. Evidence also exists that Narayana made minor contributions to the ideas of differential calculus found in Bhaskara II's work. Narayana has also made contributions to the topic of cyclic quadrilaterals. Narayana is also credited with developing a method for systematic generation of all permutations of a given sequence.
939572	Ann Cusack (born May 22, 1961) is an American actress. Early life. Cusack was born in Brooklyn, New York, to an Irish Catholic family. She is the sister of actors Joan, Bill, John, and Susie. Her mother, Ann Paula "Nancy" (née Carolan), is a former mathematics teacher and political activist. Her father, Dick Cusack, was an actor, producer, and writer. With Joan and John, she trained at the Piven Theatre Workshop in Evanston, Illinois, and Berklee College of Music, Boston, Massachusetts. Career. Cusack starred in her first film role in 1992, when she was cast in "A League of Their Own", as Shirley Baker. She was in the 1996 comedy "Multiplicity" which starred Michael Keaton and Andie MacDowell. Also in 1996, she replaced Anita Barone on "The Jeff Foxworthy Show" until the series ended. In 1998, Cusack starred in "Maggie" on Lifetime Television. Cusack has made guest appearances in "Grey's Anatomy", "Scandal", "One Tree Hill", "Charmed", "Ghost Whisperer", "The Unit", "Boston Legal", "Bones", "Frasier", "Ally McBeal", "Criminal Minds" and "Private Practice", among others. In 2002, she guest-starred in the episode of ' entitled "Carbon Creek". She had a small role in "Grosse Pointe Blank", which starred her siblings John and Joan; appeared in the movie "Accepted," in which she plays Diane Gaines, mother to the lead character played by Justin Long; and appeared in the film "What Planet Are You From". She also co-starred in ' as Melissa Robinson Ventura, the titular character's mother (replacing Courteney Cox from the ). She also appeared in the SciFi TV show "Lost Room" as Helen Ruber (2 episodes, 2006).
1056318	The Story of Adele H. () is a 1975 French historical drama film directed by François Truffaut and starring Isabelle Adjani, Bruce Robinson, and Sylvia Marriott. Written by Truffaut, Jean Gruault, and Suzanne Schiffman, the film is about Adèle Hugo, the daughter of writer Victor Hugo, whose obsessive unrequited love for a military officer leads to her downfall. The story is based on Adèle Hugo's diaries. It was filmed on location in Guernsey, Barbados, and Senegal. 20 year old Isabelle Adjani received much critical acclaim for her performance as Hugo, garnering an Academy Award nomination making her the youngest Best Actress nominee ever at the time. "The Story of Adele H." also won the National Board of Review Award for Best Foreign Language Film, the French Syndicate of Cinema Critics Award for Best Film, and the Cartagena Film Festival Special Critics Award. Plot. In 1863, the American Civil War is still raging and Great Britain and France have yet to enter into the conflict. For the past year British troops have been stationed in Halifax, Nova Scotia, carefully checking European passengers disembarking from foreign ships. The beautiful Adèle Hugo (Isabelle Adjani), the second daughter of Victor Hugo, makes it through and takes a carriage into Halifax. Traveling under the assumed name of Miss Lewly, Adèle finds accommodations at a boarding house run by Mr. and Mrs. Saunders.
1100591	In mathematics, a basis function is an element of a particular basis for a function space. Every continuous function in the function space can be represented as a linear combination of basis functions, just as every vector in a vector space can be represented as a linear combination of basis vectors.
1066660	Angels in the Infield is a 2000 Disney television film, Directed by Robert King. A follow on to the 1994 film "Angels in the Outfield", and the 1997 film "Angels in the Endzone", this motion picture is about a group of angels trying to help a baseball team win a championship game, while at the same time helping to reunite the team's pitcher's family. The Anaheim Angels are again featured, in a reprise of the role that the team played during "Angels in the Outfield". Plot. When Eddie Everett was a rookie in 1992, he was one of the best pitchers of his time. He led the California Angels to the American League Championship Series, where they played the Boston Red Sox, and were one out away from making it to the World Series (this same situation occurred in real life, but in 1986, not 1992). When a rookie playing for the Red Sox hits a ground ball to Eddie, he bobbles it and is unable to get him out, while the runners he let on base score, losing a chance for the Angels to make it to the World Series. Ever since then, he had never been the same pitcher, or the same person.
578540	The Adventure of Iron Pussy () is a 2003 Thai musical-action-comedy film written and directed by Apichatpong Weerasethakul and Michael Shaowanasai and starring Shaowanasai as the main protagonist – a transvestite Thai secret agent whose alter ego is a gay male 7-Eleven clerk. A homage and parody of the 1970s Thai action films, musicals and melodramas, particularly those that starred Mitr Chaibancha and Petchara Chaowarat, the movie premiered at the 2003 Tokyo International Film Festival and has also played at the Berlin Film Festival, the International Film Festival Rotterdam and other festivals. It is a cult film and has screened at several gay and lesbian film festivals as well. Plot. The scene opens on a rural Thai coffee shop, run by an elderly man and his attractive teenage daughter. A gang of local toughs come in and start roughing up the customers and get abusive with the daughter. Suddenly, an elaborately coifed and tastefully dressed woman shows up and rescues the young woman and her father from further harm. This is Iron Pussy. She disappears into the bushes and re-emerges as a slight, shaven-headed man, who then gets on the back of a motorcycle taxi and heads into Bangkok. Along the way, the motorcycle driver, Pew, relates his memories of the day he and Iron Pussy met – Pew, crazed from a drug overdose, had taken a young woman hostage. Iron Pussy came on the scene and rescued not the young woman, but Pew, and the two have been a couple ever since. Iron Pussy arrives at her job. She is a clerk in a 7-Eleven in Bangkok. Unfailingly courteous and professional, she greets a man who she believes is just another customer, in the shop to pay his phone bill. When Iron Pussy scans the bill, a message comes up on the computer screen: "Hello Iron Pussy". It is a secret message from the prime minister. It seems there's a job for Iron Pussy. Once again in the guise of the superheroine secret agent, the demure Iron Pussy goes to the meeting place with the prime minister, a Buddhist temple, where she takes time to make merit by releasing some turtles and fish into the nearby river. She meets with Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra and his cabinet (all lookalike actors), who take time to sing a song, extolling the virtues of Iron Pussy. Iron Pussy is tasked with uncovering the nefarious activities of Mr. Henry, a foreigner who frequently visits Thailand and leaves with full bank accounts. Mr. Henry will be attending a lavish party at the luxurious mansion of Madame Pompadoy, so Iron Pussy must infiltrate the housekeeping staff as a maid. Her charms win over Madame Pompadoy's debonair son, Tang, who is nonetheless in another relationship, being engaged to marry Rungraree, globetrotting socialite. Iron Pussy feels herself falling for Tang's charms as well, but she has a nagging feeling that something is not right about that relationship. Donning an all-black Spandex outfit and mask one night, Iron Pussy uncovers Mr. Henry's plot – he's making a mind-control drug. And Tang is involved in the scheme, which breaks Iron Pussy's heart. Later, at the big party being thrown by Madame Pompadoy, Iron Pussy steps up when the main entertainment doesn't show up, and sings a song that really impresses everyone. The next day, the family is going into the jungle for its annual deer hunt. This is when everything comes out – that Iron Pussy is actually a secret agent, but it's also revealed that Madame Pompadoy is Iron Pussy's mother, who gave Iron Pussy up for adoption long ago, which means, of course, that Tang is Iron Pussy's brother. Origin and production. The Iron Pussy character was developed by Michael Shaowanasai, a Bangkok-based performance artist, who made some short films involving the heroine. She is modeled after Thai cinematic heroine of the 1970s, Petchara Chaowarat, whose trademark appearance always included elaborate hair styles and makeup to accentuate her large, expressive eyes. Petchara made a string of action films, melodramas and musicals, mostly with Mitr Chaibancha, and Iron Pussy, particularly when she is in "stealth" mode, recalls Mitr's famous superhero character, Red Eagle (Insee Daeng). The feature film was made while Shaowanasai's friend, Apichatpong Weerasethakul, was experiencing a delay in funding for his third feature film, "Tropical Malady". To keep his Kick the Machine production company working, Apichatpong and Michael collaborated on the script and quickly made "Iron Pussy" on an extremely low budget using digital video, which has a grainy look that matches the 1970s 16 mm Thai films that have survived the years to still be shown today. Enhancing the retro look and feel of the film, the soundtrack is entirely dubbed, which was the standard practice with 16-mm production in Thailand. Many of the voice actors who worked on "Iron Pussy" are veterans from the earlier era and are well-known to Thais. The dubbing allows Iron Pussy's transformation from her male alter ego to her female superhero personality to be even more complete, because a male actor dubbed the man's voice and female actresses dubbed Iron Pussy's voice and sang her songs.
1199660	Heather Elizabeth Morris (born February 1, 1987) is an American actress, dancer, singer and model, best known for her role as the cheerleader Brittany S. Pierce in the musical comedy series "Glee". Early life. Morris was born in Thousand Oaks, California, and was raised in Scottsdale, Arizona. She began dancing when she was 9. Morris competed at a young age in a variety of styles including jazz, tap, and contemporary. Morris's father died of cancer when she was 14 years old. "It's something that is hard for me, because I'm sad about it, but I don't dwell on it," she said during an interview workshop with students in December 2009. "I know he's in a better place, instead of suffering." After graduating from Desert Mountain High School, Morris decided to enroll in a local university but realized she was in the wrong place and moved to L.A. instead at age 19. Career. Morris' first significant appearance was in 2006 on "So You Think You Can Dance" Season 2 where she made the "green mile" or "Vegas Week" but failed to make the final 20 by a vote of 3-2. Not discouraged, Morris moved to Los Angeles and actively pursued a career in dancing and was trained in jazz dance. Her big break came in 2007 via Beyoncé. Morris was one of Beyoncé's backup dancers on "The Beyoncé Experience" world tour and, following that, worked again with Beyoncé on a mini "Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)" promotional tour that included 2008 performances on the "American Music Awards", "Saturday Night Live", "The Ellen DeGeneres Show", "Today", and MTV's "Total Request Live" finale. She also danced backup for Beyoncé and Tina Turner at the 50th Grammy Awards in 2008. She later appeared in a small role in the movie "Fired Up", where she met choreographer Zach Woodlee. Following that film, Woodlee brought Morris in to dance on other shows he was choreographing, including episodes of "Eli Stone" and "Swingtown", the movie "Bedtime Stories", and eventually "Glee". In December 2010 Morris was named the Celebrity Style Ambassador for FLIRT! Cosmetics, an Estee Lauder cosmetics line. In 2010 Morris made the Maxim Hot 100 list, coming in at number 85. On the AfterEllen hot 100 list she was ranked #2 behind Naya Rivera. In 2011 Morris starred in a back-to-school commercial for Staples Canada that featured her dancing. In the October 2011 issue of Fitness magazine, Heather Morris stated that she has had her breast implants removed. She was quoted saying "Implants were something I thought I wanted when I was younger, and now I don't. It was hard being active with them, because my chest was always sore. It hurt a lot, and I didn't like always being in pain, so they had to go!" Her breast implant surgery was done sometime between her time on "So You Think You Can Dance" at age 18 and age 21 when she was a backup dancer for Beyoncé. "Glee". Morris was taking acting classes and actively pursuing an acting career when she was asked by Woodlee to teach the choreography for Beyoncé's "Single Ladies" dance to the "Glee" actors. At the same time, the show was looking for a third cheerleader, and Morris ended up landing the role of Brittany. Initially a background character who hardly ever spoke, the role grew as writers discovered Morris had a gift for delivering one-liners. Jarrett Wieselman of the "New York Post" opined that Morris has "emerged as one of the funniest second bananas on TV right now" and the LA Times wrote of having a "comedy crush on Morris, who plays the galactically dim Glee Club cheerleader Brittany". When a promotional clip for the episode "Sectionals" indicated that Brittany Pierce and Santana Lopez had slept together, Dorothy Snarker, writing for lesbian entertainment website After Ellen, praised the pairing, referring to them by the portmanteau "Brittana". Snarker called the two her "new favorite "Glee" pairing", commenting that: "While Heather Morris (Brittany) and Naya Rivera (Santana) have had minimal screen time, they've made it count. Heather in particular has brought the laughs as the Cheerio least likely to get a Mensa invitation. Never mind Finn and Rachel — I'm on Team Brittana now." Morris' role became more prominent during the final nine episodes of season one and, due to the overwhelmingly positive response to her character, was promoted to official series regular status during season two. She was at the center of the second episode, "Britney/Brittany", (a tribute to Britney Spears) where she made her singing debut covering Spears' "I'm a Slave 4 U" solo and dueting with Naya Rivera on "Me Against the Music". She later got many other singing and dancing solos. The second half of season two saw Morris' character engage in a lesbian storyline with Rivera's character. Both the arc along with Rivera's and Morris' performances were met with critical acclaim. As on Glee, Morris is best friends in real life with co-star Rivera. In Season 3, she and Rivera's character continue with the lesbian storyline, and others. For example she had a large role in the episode "Prom-asaurus". During the season finale she reveals that she had an 0.0 GPA and that she would not be graduating. During the 2011 Glee Tour Heather performed Britney Spears' song "I'm a Slave 4 U". She also had a dance spotlight with castmate Harry Shum Jr. during Naya Rivera's performance of "Valerie," and was one of the dancers in the Single Ladies and Safety Dance numbers. Morris co-wrote and appeared in a January 2011 video for Funny or Die, "Nuthin' But A Glee Thang," a take-off of the Dr. Dre/Snoop Dogg collaboration "Nuthin' but a 'G' Thang". Co-written with actresses Ashley Lendzion and Riki Lindhome, the video features appearances from "Modern Family"'s Sofia Vergara and Morris's Glee castmates Matthew Morrison, Cory Monteith, Harry Shum, Jr., and Naya Rivera. On June 28, 2013, it was reported that Morris would not be returning as regular on "Glee" fifth season. Personal life. Morris is in a relationship with college baseball player Taylor Hubbell. They attended the same high school in Arizona, but did not know each other there. They began dating after Morris moved to Los Angeles and Hubbell contacted her on Myspace. In a 2011 interview with "Fitness", Morris said of Hubbell, "I want to marry him so bad. That's what I really care about. I want to marry Taylor and have kids with him. I love acting, but if it affects my relationship, then I won't continue doing it." After graduating from the University of Louisiana in Lafayette, Hubbell began living with Morris in Los Angeles in early 2012. Morris gave birth to their first child, son Elijah, on September 28, 2013.
1170142	Maximilian Carlo "Max" Martini (born December 11, 1969) is an American film, theater and television actor known for his roles as Corporal Fred Henderson in "Saving Private Ryan", Wiley in "Level 9", First Sergeant Sid Wojo in "The Great Raid", and as Master Sergeant Mack Gerhardt on the military television drama, "The Unit". Early life. Martini was born in Woodstock, New York, and was raised in the United States, Canada and Italy, and holds citizenships of all three countries. His father is Italian, and was born in Rome. Martini's mother, Patricia (Dunne), As a teen, Martini attended and played football at Santa Monica High School as a kicker. A hamstring pull prevented him from trying out for the Seattle Seahawks and he turned his attention to acting. Max moved to New York City and studied acting, first at the Neighborhood Playhouse before continuing training at Michael Howard Studios. He then focused on his early love of fine arts by attending the School of Visual Arts in Manhattan and receiving a B.F.A. in painting and sculpture. During that time, he spent weekends working at a skydiving center, where he completed over 500 jumps. Career. Film. After college, Martini found steady work in various film and television projects. His film roles include co-starring opposite Jodie Foster in Robert Zemeckis' "Contact" as Willie, a fellow scientist with an affinity for brightly colored shirts, and sharing the screen with Tom Hanks and Matt Damon in "Saving Private Ryan" as Cpl. Fred Henderson, ranking NCO of Pfc. James Ryan’s unit, who helped Cpt. John H. Miller and his men in the brutal final shootout of the film. Most recently, Martini co-starred in John Dahl's "The Great Raid" as 1st Sgt. Sid Wojo. He has also appeared in smaller independent films, working with Calista Flockhart in "Jane Doe", Chris Penn and Jeffrey Wright in "Cement" and in the 2000 Sundance Film Festival fave, "Backroads". In 1999, Martini wrote, co-directed and starred in "Desert Son". His younger brother, Christopher, co-directed the film with him and his sister, Michelle, served as costume designer. 2013 Max played Herc Hansen, Australian robot pilot, in Pacific Rim, another tough guy.
754576	Big Money Hustlas is a 2001 American comedy film directed by John Cafiero as his feature film debut. The film, an homage to exploitation films of the 1970s, focuses on a streetwise San Francisco detective who tries to take down a New York City crime lord. It stars Insane Clown Posse's Joseph "Violent J" Bruce and Joseph "Shaggy 2 Dope" Utsler, and Twiztid's Jamie Spaniolo and Paul Methric, and features appearances by Harland Williams, John G. Brennan, Rudy Ray Moore, Mick Foley and The Misfits. Released direct-to-video, the film debuted at #1 on "Billboard"'s Top Music Videos chart, and was later certified platinum by the RIAA. A Western genre follow-up, "Big Money Rustlas", was released direct-to-video on August 17, 2010. Plot. Sugar Bear (Shaggy 2 Dope), a streetwise detective from San Francisco, is brought to New York City by its chief of police (John G. Brennan) to take down Big Baby Sweets (Violent J), a notorious crime lord who controls the entirety of the city's criminal underworld with his right-hand men Big Stank (Jamie Madrox) and Lil' Poot (Monoxide Child), and his personal security ninja Hack Benjamin (Robert Bruce). After getting a firsthand look at the police force's incompetence via Officer Harry Cox (Harland Williams), Sugar Bear prevents a robbery of a local doughnut shop by one of Big Baby Sweets' thugs, Ape Boy, and begins a romance with a 300-pound stripper, Missy (Sindee Williams).
1063818	The Dilemma is a 2011 American comedy-drama film starring Vince Vaughn and Kevin James. The film is directed by Ron Howard. Savvy businessman Ronny (Vaughn) and genius engineer Nick (James) are best friends and partners in an auto design firm. They are pursuing a project to make their firm famous. Ronny sees Nick's wife Geneva (Winona Ryder) kissing another man (Channing Tatum). Ronny seeks out answers and has to figure out how to tell Nick about what he saw while working with him to complete their critical presentation. It was filmed entirely in Chicago, Illinois. "The Dilemma" was released by Universal Pictures in the United States and Canada on January 14, 2011, to mostly poor reviews from critics and underperformed at the box office, barely breaking even with its $70 million budget. Plot. Ronny (Vince Vaughn) and Nick (Kevin James) are best friends and partners in a small auto design firm. Ronny is in a long-term relationship with his girlfriend Beth (Jennifer Connelly) while Nick is married to Geneva (Winona Ryder). The two have recently been given an opportunity to pitch an eco friendly car to Dodge. While at a botanical gardens planning a way to propose marriage to Beth, Ronny sees Geneva kissing a man named Zip (Channing Tatum). He comes home upset, but lies to Beth about the reason, causing her to worry that the stress of work has caused a recurrence of Ronny's gambling addiction. Ronny makes up his mind to inform Nick about Geneva's infidelity, but puts it off after Nick expresses stress about their work. He meets with Geneva, who promises that the affair is over and that she will tell Nick as soon as the big project is finished. However, Ronny subsequently discovers her and Zip continuing their relationship. Geneva then threatens to accuse Ronny of hitting on her and tell Nick about a fling they had had back in college. Ronny follows Geneva to Zip's house and photographs the two of them together but becomes trapped inside and misses his in-laws' anniversary party. Ronny's increasingly erratic behavior leads his friends to think that he has begun gambling again. They hold an intervention for him but Ronny explains the truth behind his actions and Geneva admits to the affair. Later, Nick and Ronny have their design accepted by Dodge and Ronny proposes to Beth. Production. "The Dilemma" is directed by Ron Howard and written by Allan Loeb. The film was Howard's first comedy film since he directed "EDtv" in 1999. The film was first announced in January 2010 as an untitled project when actor Vince Vaughn signed on for a starring role. The premise was conceived by producer Brian Grazer, Howard's production partner at Imagine Entertainment; Loeb wrote the script. Actor Kevin James was cast alongside Vaughn in February. The film continues "Vaughn's interest in tackling the dark areas of relationships", following "The Break-Up" (2006) and "Couples Retreat" (2009). The darker moments of the latter film were omitted from the final edit. With a budget of $70 million, filming took place entirely in Chicago, Illinois, from late May 2010 to mid-August 2010. The film, which was called "Cheaters" and "What You Don't Know" during production, was ultimately titled "The Dilemma" by Universal. Trailer controversy. When Universal released the trailer for "The Dilemma", the studio drew complaints about the pejorative use of "gay" in Vaughn's line in the trailer's opening scene, "Electric cars are gay. I mean, not homosexual gay, but my-parents-are-chaperoning-the-dance gay." Universal said it contacted the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) about the line before the trailer was released, and GLAAD said the step indicated the studio knew the line was problematic. Universal received complaints when the trailer appeared online before in theaters, and the studio sought to work with GLAAD to prepare a new trailer. Before action was taken, the line was first publicly criticized by journalist Anderson Cooper in a story about gay bullying on his show "Anderson Cooper 360°". Universal and GLAAD disputed each other's actions toward remedy, and GLAAD requested for the trailer to be removed and for the line to be removed from the film itself. Ultimately, the studio released a new trailer without the offending line. Universal deferred to Howard, who had final cut privilege, to decide about removing the line from the film, and the director chose to keep it. Howard supported the removal of the line from advertising, but he justified his decision to keep it in the film, saying, "If storytellers, comedians, actors and artists are strong-armed into making creative changes, it will endanger comedy as both entertainment and a provoker of thought." Release. Theatrical run. "The Dilemma" had its world premiere in Chicago on January 6, 2011. The film was commercially released in 2,940 theaters in the United States and Canada on January 14, 2011. It grossed a four-day total of $20.5 million over the Martin Luther King, Jr. Day holiday weekend, ranking second at the box office after fellow opener "The Green Hornet". Prior to "The Dilemma"s release, "Variety" reported that with "The Green Hornet" attracting young people, "The Dilemma" was expected to serve as counterprogramming, attracting people 25 years old and up. Universal had expected the film to gross in the mid-teen millions. Exit polling showed that 60% of the audience was female and that 58% were 30 years old and up. According to CinemaScore, audiences gave the film a "B" grade. While adult audiences generally shy away from films' opening weekends, "The Dilemma" performed above the studio's expectations. "The Dilemma" also opened in four territories outside the United States and Canada, grossing $1.8 million. The film's opening in Australia grossed $1.4 million despite floods in Queensland and in Victoria affecting 14% of the area's theaters. "The Dilemma"s opening was a relative low for the film's stars. Vaughn's previous films "Couples Retreat" (2009) and "Four Christmases" (2008) grossed twice "The Dilemma"s amount on their opening weekends. James had appeared in "Grown Ups" (2010) and "" (2009), both of which also had stronger openings. According to Box Office Mojo, "The Dilemma" was weakly advertised, especially compared to "The Green Hornet". It reported, "Blink-and-you-miss-them television ads failed to convey the premise or provide laughs. Dilemma's premise of a man learning his friend's wife is cheating and debating whether to tell the friend or not wasn't much of a dilemma, and it wasn't as comedically charged as Vaughn's other relationship comedies." The film grossed in the United States and Canada and in other territories for a worldwide gross of . Critical reception. "The Dilemma" has gotten poor reviews from critics Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes gives the film a score of 24% based on reviews from 156 critics and reports a rating average of 4.3 out of 10. Metacritic gives the film a score of 46% based on reviews from 32 critics. Rotten Tomatoes reported the consensus, "It boasts a likable cast and an interesting premise, but "The Dilemma" can't decide what to do with them; the result is an uneven blend of cheesy slapstick and surprisingly dark comedy." Home media. The DVD and Blu-ray was released on May 3, 2011, in the US. It made $6,521,426 from DVD sales.
583705	Alli Arjuna is 2001 released Tamil film directed by Saran. The film featured Manoj Bharathiraja, Richa Pallod, Dhamu, Charle, Karan and Preetha Vijayakumar in major roles. Music was by A. R. Rahman. Plot. Arivazhagan (Manoj) has grown up to be a rowdy because of the neglect and ill-treatment by the hands of his parents and his only aim in life is to be an irritant to his father. The entire family attends the marriage of Savitri (Richa) in Bangalore and when the groom disappears, Arivu offers to take his place. The marriage never happens but Savitri shows up at Arivu's house later, asking him to give her refuge. When he moves out of the house to take up residence with his friends, she follows him there too. Initially irritated by her, Arivu realises that he is gradually falling in love with her. Meanwhile, the friends learns that Savitri left her own surroundings just to get over the gruesome suicide of her close friend Nisha (Preetha), a victim of eve-teasing. Nisha's brother Kishore (Karan) and her family are still haunted by her death and the brother promises to avenge on the person who was the cause of his sister's death. Who is responsible for Nisha's suicide, and will Arivu succeed on proposing his love towards Savitri forms the rest of the story. Trivia. Director Saran United with A R Rehman for the first time after his work with Music director Bharadwaj for his first three films. This would however be their last collaboration after which Director Saran had joined Bharadwaj for the films he had directed after.The Movie was declared box office bomb due to its poor story, screenplay and characterization. Soundtrack. The soundtrack of the movie was composed by A.R.Rahman. The lyrics are done by Vairamuthu and Arivumathi. 4 songs are re-used from Rahman's earlier Hindi films "Pukar" and "One 2 Ka 4." The soundtrack was released on 2001.
581893	Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak or QSQT (From Doom to Doom) is a 1988 Indian Bollywood romantic drama film written by Nasir Hussain and directed by his son Mansoor Khan. The film starred Hussain's nephew, Aamir Khan, along with Juhi Chawla in their first major roles. Upon release, the film became a box office hit and shot its leading stars to fame overnight. The film was also the first major hit for the music-director duo of Anand-Milind and singers Udit Narayan. It was also singer Alka Yagnik's first complete album . "Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak"'s music, romantic storyline , and young actors shifted the momentum away from the violent and aging ethos that were prevalent in the films at the time. It also made melodious tunes once again popular over the 80's trend of disco and breakdance influenced soundtracks. "Indiatimes Movies" ranks the movie amongst the "Top 25 Must See Bollywood Films". Plot. Dhanakpur village farmer, Thakur Jaswant Singh (Alok Nath) and Dhanraj Singh (Dalip Tahil) are brothers. They have a younger sister Madhumati, who was used, made pregnant and ditched by Ratan Singh (played by Arjun), the son of Thakur Raghuveer Singh from a big Rajput family. The family refuses Jawant Singh's request to get his sister married to Ratan. Ratan's family refuses to accept that he is guilty, as they are interested in their status. Insulted, Jaswant decides to leave the village. Unable to tolerate the events, Madhumati commits suicide. Frustrated, Dhanraj kills Ratan at his wedding and gets imprisoned. The two families are now bitter enemies. Jaswant moves to Delhi, develops his business, and reaches good status; he also raises Dhanraj's kids. Years later, Dhanraj gets released from the prison. Upon release, Dhanraj receives a letter from his son, Raj (Aamir Khan), an ardent music-lover, who completes his education in Rajput College. An emotional Dhanraj sneaks into Raj's college farewell party and is glad to see his son fulfill his dreams. In a twist of fate, Raj and his buddy go to Dhanakpur to clear his family's land deal. While returning home, Raj falls for Rashmi (Juhi Chawla), a relative of Raghuveer Singh. Raj sneaks into Rashmi's birthday bash. The two meet again at a holiday spot. They become lost in the forest and fall in love while finding a way out together. Raj finds out about Rashmi's family but is unable to tell her the truth. When Randhir Singh, Rashmi's father, finds out about the affair, he immediately arranges Rashmi's wedding. The two lovers take on their families and elope, dreaming of an idyllic life together. Furious, Randhir hires a contract killer to kill Raj. The lovers have a brief interval of happiness. They stay in a deserted fort, happy in their own paradise. When Randhir gets to know their whereabouts, he goes there to bring Rashmi home and ensure that Raj is killed. Randhir's mother does not wish for this so she goes to Dhanraj and tells him to save them. Raj leaves the fort to bring some wood for their house. While Raj is away, Randhir meets with Rashmi and tells her to come home; he has "accepted their love". Rashmi is overjoyed at her father's words, not knowing the truth. In the forest, Raj is chased by the henchmen. Dhanraj reaches the fort and repeatedly asks him about his son's whereabouts. They get in a fight and a gunshot is heard. Rashmi leaves the scene to make sure that Raj is okay. He is just about to be shot, but on seeing Rashmi, the henchman shoots her instead. She is shot twice and rolls down the hill. Raj overpowers the henchman and reaches Rashmi's side, crying. They promise never to leave each other. On saying this, Rashmi breathes her last in Raj's arms. A grief-stricken Raj is devastated by Rashmi's death, and says that nothing can separate them. He commits suicide with a dagger given to him by Rashmi, and dies with his head on Rashmi's chest. The final scene is both families running toward them; the lovers are together, never to be separated, as the sun sets behind them. Music. The film soundtrack contains 5 songs composed by duo Anand-Milind, and won them the Filmfare Best Music Director Award while Udit Narayan won best male playback singer. The music for "Akele Hain To Kya Gum Hai" is copied from the instrumental number "Return to the Alamo" by the band The Shadows. Awards. The Awards won are shown in bold.
1058219	Manderlay is a 2005 Danish drama film written and directed by Lars von Trier and the sequel to the film "Dogville". It is the second part of von Trier's projected "USA – Land of Opportunities" trilogy. It stars Bryce Dallas Howard, who replaces Nicole Kidman in the role of Grace Mulligan. The film co-stars Willem Dafoe, replacing James Caan. Lauren Bacall and Chloë Sevigny return portraying different characters from those in "Dogville". The staging is very similar to "Dogville". The film was shot on a sparsely dressed sound stage. As in the case of "Dogville", "Manderlay"s action is confined to a small geographic area, in this case a plantation. Plot. The film is told in eight straight chapters: Set in the early 1930s, the film takes up the story of Grace and her father after burning the town of Dogville at the end of the previous film. Grace and her father travel in convoy with a number of gunmen through rural Alabama where they stop briefly outside a plantation called Manderlay. As the gangsters converse, a black woman emerges from Manderlay's front gates complaining that someone is about to be whipped for stealing a bottle of wine.
356852	Dallas Raymond McKennon (July 19, 1919 – July 14, 2009), sometimes credited as Dal McKennon, was an American actor, with extensive work as a voice actor, in a career lasting over 50 years. Career. Born in La Grande, Oregon, McKennon's best-known roles were that of Gumby for Art Clokey, and Archie Andrews for Filmation's "Archie" series, and the primary voice of Buzz Buzzard in the "Woody Woodpecker" cartoons. In the early 1950s, McKennon created and hosted his own daily kids TV wraparound show, "Space Funnies"/"Capt. Jet", which was seen weekday mornings on KNXT (KCBS) TV Ch. 2 in Hollywood, California. "Space Funnies" was the first Los Angeles-based kids show to air reruns of "The Little Rascals" and "Laurel & Hardy Film Comedies". He was also the primary voice actor for the 1960 cartoon series "Q.T. Hush". McKennon was also the voice of Hardy Boys sidekick Chet Morton in the 1969 animated mystery series. McKennon also sang, and provided many character voices for Disney. His distinctive voice can be heard in movies such as "Lady and the Tramp", "Sleeping Beauty", "One Hundred and One Dalmatians", "Mary Poppins", and "Bedknobs and Broomsticks". He also provided the voices for many Disney Attractions such as the famous Big Thunder Mountain Railroad safety spiel (It's A Small World After All) Laughing Hyenas, Ben Franklin's voice in Epcot's The American Adventure and the voice of Zeke in the Country Bear Jamboree. McKennon's best-known live action role is that of the innkeeper, Cincinnatus, in the "Daniel Boone" TV series starring Fess Parker. He also had a bit part as a chef in the Alfred Hitchcock film "The Birds" and a gas station attendant in the Elvis Presley film "Clambake". His last movie was "", under the pseudonym of Charles Farrington, voicing Gumby, Fatbuckle, Lucky Claybert and Professor Kapp. McKennon was an avid Oregon Trail historian. He worked at the Oregon Trail Interpretive Center giving instructional speeches. He also put together songs, stories and informational documents leading up the Oregon Trail's sesquicentennial (150th anniversary). Dallas also worked with OPB (Oregon Public Broadcasting) creating "The Pappenheimers", an instructional video series to help teach children German. His character lived in Volkswagen Bus and would tell stories about relatives in Germany. Many of the episodes had clips of Germany as well as cartoons. He is also known for his recording of an insane laugh, used for the Hyena character in Lady and the Tramp, and later the villain, Ripper Roo in the Crash Bandicoot viedo games. Death. McKennon died of natural causes on July 14, 2009 at the Willapa Harbor Care Center in Raymond, Washington five days before his 90th birthday. Personal life. McKennon married childhood sweetheart Betty in 1942, a marriage lasting until his death. The couple had a total of six daughters and two sons. He was also a devout born-again Christian.
1067790	I Think I Love My Wife is a 2007 romantic comedy-drama film starring Chris Rock and Kerry Washington. Rock co-wrote the film with Louis C.K. and also directed and produced it. It is a remake of the 1972 French film, "Chloe in the Afternoon" by Éric Rohmer. Plot. Richard Cooper (Chris Rock) is a happily married man, professionally successful, perfectly content with his home life in suburban New York, his lovely wife Brenda (Gina Torres), a teacher, and his two young children. There is one problem in his marriage: their sex life has stagnated, leaving Richard frustrated and sex-starved. At one point, Brenda accuses Richard of being on the down-low. During those dull days at the office, he occasionally fantasizes about other women, but never acts upon his impulses.
903961	Robert Wisdom (born September 14, 1953) is an American actor. He is a graduate of Columbia University. Life and career. Wisdom was born in Washington, D.C. to Jamaican parents. He appeared in four of the five seasons (primarily seasons three and four) of HBO program "The Wire" as Howard "Bunny" Colvin. He has also starred in the 2004 films "" and "Ray", and the 2007 film "Freedom Writers". He landed a regular role on season 3 of "Prison Break" playing the role of a Panamanian drug kingpin named Lechero. He also had a recurring role in Season Four (2010) of the USA Network television series "Burn Notice".
63478	Alexander Craig "Alec" Aitken FRSNZ FRSE FRS (1895-1967) was one of New Zealand's greatest mathematicians. Life and work. Aitken was born on 1 April 1895 in Dunedin, the eldest of the 7 children of William Aitken and Elizabeth Towers. He was educated at Otago Boys' High School in Dunedin (1908–13) and won the Thomas Baker Calculus Scholarship in his last year at school. He saw active service during World War I with the New Zealand Expeditionary Force, at Gallipoli, in Egypt, and at the Western Front. He was wounded at the Somme.
1062185	The Wild Bunch is a 1969 American epic Western film directed by Sam Peckinpah about an aging outlaw gang on the Texas-Mexico border, trying to exist in the changing "modern" world of 1913. The film was controversial because of its graphic violence and its portrayal of crude men attempting to survive by any available means. It stars William Holden, Robert Ryan, Ernest Borgnine, Ben Johnson and Warren Oates. The screenplay was by Peckinpah and Walon Green. "The Wild Bunch" is noted for intricate, multi-angle, quick-cut editing, using normal and slow motion images, a revolutionary cinema technique in 1969. The writing of Green, Peckinpah, and Roy N. Sickner was nominated for a best-screenplay Academy Award; Jerry Fielding's music was nominated for Best Original Score; Peckinpah was nominated for an Outstanding Directorial Achievement award by the Directors Guild of America; and cinematographer Lucien Ballard won the National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Cinematography. In 1999, the U.S. National Film Registry selected it for preservation in the Library of Congress as culturally, historically, and aesthetically significant. The film was ranked 80th in the American Film Institute's 100 best American films, and the 69th most thrilling film. In 2008, the AFI revealed its "10 Top 10" of the best ten films in ten genres: "The Wild Bunch" ranked as the sixth-best Western. Plot summary. In 1913 Texas, Pike Bishop (William Holden), the leader of a gang of aging outlaws, is seeking retirement with one final score: the robbery of a railroad office containing a cache of silver. They are ambushed by Pike's former partner, Deke Thornton (Robert Ryan), and a posse of bounty hunters hired and deputized by the railroad. A bloody shootout kills several of the gang. Pike uses a serendipitous temperance union parade to shield their getaway, and many citizens are killed in the crossfire. Pike rides off with Dutch Engstrom (Ernest Borgnine), brothers Lyle (Warren Oates) and Tector Gorch (Ben Johnson), and Angel (Jaime Sánchez), the only survivors. They are dismayed when the loot from the robbery turns out to be a decoy: steel washers instead of silver coin. The men reunite with old-timer Freddie Sykes (Edmond O'Brien) and head for Mexico. Pike's men cross the Rio Grande and take refuge that night in a village where Angel was born, and where the Mexican Revolution has taken its toll. The townsfolk are ruled by Mapache (Emilio Fernández), an ill-disciplined general in the Mexican Federal Army, who has been stealing to feed his troops. In the unruly town of Agua Verde, Pike's gang makes contact with the general. A jealous Angel spots a former lover in Mapache's arms and shoots her dead, angering Mapache. Pike defuses the situation and offers to work for Mapache. Their task is to steal a weapons shipment from a U.S. Army train so that Mapache can resupply his troops and appease Mohr (Fernando Wagner), his German military adviser, who wishes to obtain samples of America's armaments. The reward will be a cache of gold coins. Angel gives up his share of the gold to Pike in return for sending one crate of the stolen rifles and ammunition to a band of rebels opposed to Mapache. The holdup goes largely as planned until Deke's posse turns up on the very train the gang has robbed. The posse chases them to the Mexican border, only to be foiled again by an explosive booby trap which blows up a trestle and sends the entire posse into the Rio Grande. They temporarily regroup at a riverside camp and then quickly take off again after the Bunch. Pike and his men, knowing they risk being double-crossed by Mapache, devise a way of bringing him the stolen weapons – including an (anachronistic) Browning M1917 machine gun – without him double-crossing them. However, Mapache learns from the mother of the former lover Angel killed that Angel embezzled a crate of guns and ammo, and reveals this as Angel and Engstrom deliver the last of the weapons. Surrounded by Mapache's army, Angel desperately tries to escape, only to be captured, betrayed by Engstrom, and tortured after Engstrom rides back to rejoin Pike's gang. Sykes, while securing the gang's spare horses, is wounded and forced into hiding after another encounter with Deke's posse. The rest of Pike's gang returns to Agua Verde for shelter, where a bacchanal celebrating the weapons transfer has commenced; to their disgust, they see Angel is being dragged on the ground by a rope tied behind the General's car. After a brief frolic with prostitutes and a period of reflection, Pike and the gang try to forcibly persuade Mapache to release Angel, barely alive after the torture. The general appears to comply; however, as they watch, the general cuts his throat instead. Pike and the gang angrily gun Mapache down in front of hundreds of his men. For a moment, the Federales are so shocked that they fail to return fire, causing Engstrom to laugh in surprise. Pike calmly takes aim at the German officer and kills him, too. This results in a violent, bloody showdown — dominated by the machine gun — in which Pike and his men, along with the majority of the Mexican troops present and their German advisors, are killed. Deke finally catches up. He allows the remaining members of the posse to take the bullet-riddled bodies of the gang members back and collect the reward, while electing to stay behind, knowing what awaits the posse. After a period, Sykes arrives with a band of the previously seen Mexican rebels, who have killed off what's left of the posse along the way. Sykes asks Deke to come along and join the revolution. Deke smiles and rides off with them. Casting. Director Sam Peckinpah considered many actors for the Pike Bishop role; Lee Marvin, Burt Lancaster, James Stewart, Charlton Heston, Gregory Peck, Sterling Hayden, Richard Boone and Robert Mitchum were all considered before William Holden was cast. Marvin actually accepted the role but pulled out after he was offered a larger pay deal to star in "Paint Your Wagon" (1969). Sam Peckinpah's first two choices for the role of Deke Thornton were Richard Harris (who had co-starred in "Major Dundee") and Brian Keith (who had worked with Peckinpah on "The Westerner" (1960) and "The Deadly Companions" (1961)). Harris was never formally approached, but Keith was, and turned the part down. Robert Ryan was ultimately cast in the part after Peckinpah saw him in the World War II action movie "The Dirty Dozen" (1967). Other actors considered for the role were Glenn Ford, Arthur Kennedy, Henry Fonda, Ben Johnson (later cast as Tector Gorch) and Van Heflin. Mario Adorf was considered for the part of Mapache; the role went to Emilio Fernández, the Mexican film director and actor and friend of Peckinpah. Among those considered to play Dutch Engstrom were Steve McQueen, George Peppard, Jim Brown, Alex Cord, Robert Culp, Sammy Davis, Jr., Charles Bronson and Richard Jaeckel. Ernest Borgnine was cast based on his performance in "The Dirty Dozen". Robert Blake was the original choice to play Angel, but he asked for too much money. Peckinpah had seen Jaime Sánchez in the Broadway production of Sidney Lumet's "The Pawnbroker", was impressed and demanded he be cast as Angel. Albert Dekker, a stage actor, was cast as Harrigan, the railroad detective. He died months after filming; "The Wild Bunch" was his final film. Bo Hopkins played the part of Clarence "Crazy" Lee; he was cast after Peckinpah saw him on television. Warren Oates played Lyle Gorch, having previously worked with Peckinpah on the TV series "The Rifleman" and his previous films, "Ride the High Country" (1962) and "Major Dundee" (1965). Production. In 1967, Warner Bros.-Seven Arts producers Kenneth Hyman and Phil Feldman were interested in having Sam Peckinpah rewrite and direct an adventure film called "The Diamond Story". A professional outcast due to the production difficulties of his previous film "Major Dundee" (1965) and his firing from the set of "The Cincinnati Kid" (1965), Peckinpah's stock had improved following his critically acclaimed work on the television film "Noon Wine" (1966). An alternative screenplay available at the studio was "The Wild Bunch", written by Roy Sickner and Walon Green. At the time, William Goldman's screenplay "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" had recently been purchased by 20th Century Fox. It was quickly decided that "The Wild Bunch", which had several similarities to Goldman's work, would be produced in order to beat "Butch Cassidy" to the theaters. By the fall of 1967, Peckinpah was rewriting the screenplay and preparing for production. Filmed on location in Mexico, Peckinpah's epic work was inspired by his hunger to return to films, the violence seen in Arthur Penn's "Bonnie and Clyde" (1967), America's growing frustration with the Vietnam War and what he perceived to be the utter lack of reality seen in Westerns up to that time. He set out to make a film which portrayed not only the vicious violence of the period, but the crude men attempting to survive the era. Multiple scenes attempted in "Major Dundee", including slow motion action sequences (inspired by Akira Kurosawa's work in "Seven Samurai"), characters leaving a village as if in a funeral procession and the use of inexperienced locals as extras, would become fully realized in "The Wild Bunch".
1062001	Dan "Danny" Trejo (; born May 16, 1944) is an American actor who has appeared in numerous Hollywood films, often as "tough guy" characters, villains and anti-heroes. Some of his notable films include "Heat", "Con Air", "Machete" and "Desperado". Early life. Dan Trejo was born in the Echo Park neighborhood of Los Angeles, California. He is the son of Alice Rivera and Dan Trejo, a construction worker. He is of Mexican descent. He is a second cousin of filmmaker Robert Rodriguez, though the two were unaware that they were related until the filming of "Desperado". Throughout the 1960's, Trejo was in and out of jail and prison in California. There are conflicting accounts of his prison chronology. By one account, his final stint in custody ended in 1972; by another account, he did time in a juvenile offenders' camp and six California prisons between 1959 and 1969. He recalled that his last prison term was five years. While serving in San Quentin Prison, he became a champion boxer in lightweight and welterweight divisions within that prison. During this time, Trejo became a member of a twelve-step program, which he credits with his success in overcoming drug addiction. In 2011, he recalled that he had been sober for 42 years. Upon his final release he enrolled in Pitzer College located in Claremont, California but subsequently left after one semester of attendance. Career. While speaking at a recovery meeting in Los Angeles, Trejo met a young man in the movie business. His newfound friend invited him to the set of "Runaway Train" where Trejo was offered a job as an extra in the film's prison scenes. Edward Bunker, himself a former convict and well-respected crime author who was writing the screenplay for the film, recognized Trejo, with whom he had done time at San Quentin. Bunker, remembering Trejo's boxing skills, offered him $320 per day to train Eric Roberts, one of the movie's stars, for a boxing scene. Director Andrei Konchalovsky liked Trejo's work and decided to offer him a prominent role in the film. It has been widely misreported that Trejo was actually serving time in the prison during filming, when in fact he had been released over a decade earlier.
583287	Dr. Mohan Agashe is an Indian theatre and film actor. He was awarded the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award in 1996. Biography. He is a psychiatrist by profession and works as a Professor of Psychiatry at the B. J. Medical College and Sassoon Hospital in Pune, India. Career in psychiatry. Dr. Mohan Agashe studied in B. J. Medical College, Pune for his MBBS and PG degree in Psychiatry. He had been a student of eminent pstchiatrist Dr. D.N.Nandy.But during his medical college in Pune,he fell in love with theatre by Utpal Dutt; even the night before his final examination,he was caught red-handed by Prof.Nandy at the Academy of Fine Arts, Rabindrasadan watching a play.Apart from his medical career he had an illustrious career in clinical psychology and psychopharmacology. Agashe started his early career by opting to work in The Government Hospital at Pune. He had the honor of chairing the Organizing Committee meetings for the Annual National Conference of Indian Psychiatric Society held at Armed Forces Medical College, Pune. Agashe was a founding Director of Maharashtra Institute of Mental Health until he moved on to become Director of FTII. His students have progressed in their careers to become renowned psychiatrists in India, the UK and the United States. Advisor to the Government. In 1998, Agashe's project to improve the mental health education and service lead to the formation of a new policy on mental education by the Government of Maharastra. He has also served as an Advisor to the Government of Maharastra on Mental Health Education and Service. He was also instrumental in establishing the Maharastra Institute of Mental Health in 1991. MIMH is now a prestigious state level training and research institute in Mental Health Sciences. It is located in Pune, India. Principal investigator. In 1994, western India witnessed a major earthquake centred on Latur. To understand the mental health effects of the quake, a research project was initiated by the Indian Council of Medical Research. For that project Agashe served as Principal Investigator. Agashe is currently the Principal Investigator for an Indo-US joint project on Cultural Disorders of Fatigue and Weaknesses. Career in acting. Agashe's love of acting made him take time out of his busy schedule to work in plays. He started his career in acting by working in plays. Director at Film and Television Institute of India. From April 1997 to April 2002 he was the Director General of the Film and Television Institute of India, Pune. Filmography. He also acted as Maganlal Meghraj in Bengali telefilms Feluda 30 on Feluda (based on stories by Satyajit Ray and directed by Sandip Ray)
1002987	Elena Undone is a 2010 lesbian film written and directed by Nicole Conn. Plot. The paths of Elena Winters (Necar Zadegan), a mother and pastor's wife, and Peyton Lombard (Traci Dinwiddie), a well-known lesbian writer randomly cross. Instantly, they feel drawn toward one other and eventually fall in love. The movie opens in two places - following the two protagonists - first, within a church, where Elena's son, Nash, refuses to support an anti-homosexual protest, and then within a memorial service for Peyton's mother. Elena and her husband Barry (Gary Weeks) are trying to conceive but it becomes clear that their efforts have been unsuccessful when Barry rebukes Elena after her period starts. Peyton starts cleaning out her mother's things, having flashbacks of her emotionally troubled mother as she works. Peyton finds a tape entitled 'Women's Glory Project' with her things, and becomes obsessed with it for some time. Elena visits her friend Tyler for advice, telling him that she and Barry are going to adopt instead of trying to have another child. He asks "what's in it for (her)," and insists (as he's apparently done in the past) that Barry is not her soulmate, or "twin flame." Even so, he pushes her to go to the adoption, saying that "someone is definitely coming into (her) life, in a big way." Peyton and Elena meet at the adoption agency. They briefly speak as Peyton returns Elena's lost keys to her. They exchange business cards after Peyton mentions that she might have use for a photographer (which Elena was prior to marrying Barry). Peyton's best friend, Wave, drags her to a 'love guru' (Tyler) where Peyton and Elena meet once again. Elena finds out that Peyton is gay as they talk about their marriages. Peyton calls Elena the next day, inquiring if Elena would help her with continuing her mother's Women's Glory Project, and make plans for Elena to visit the next day with her portfolio. They meet once again, and it's revealed that Peyton's an agoraphobic with substantial difficulties trusting. They bond over the next few weeks - over picnics with Tyler, and late-night glasses of wine. Later, Elena takes better professional photographs of Peyton for her books, and they discuss their upbringings and how they knew they were straight and gay, respectively. Peyton calls Wave asking for advice on her feelings for Elena, and her friend tells her to be honest with Elena about said feelings, unaware that Elena has some of her own. She visits Peyton later, after being avoided for some time, showing up at her door with the printed photographs. At the unexpected visit, Peyton discloses her feelings to Elena and suggests that they not spend time together. Elena violently rebukes that idea, telling Peyton that she's her absolute best friend, that they need to be in each other's lives, and that Peyton can have "all of (her) except for that (meaning physically romantic encounters)." Subsequently, however, Elena begins to rapidly examine her own feelings. Elena calls Peyton after exploring lesbian websites, saying that she's not attracted to them and doesn't think she's a lesbian, leaving the viewer aware that she is attracted to Peyton. This is followed by an uncharacteristically (up to this point) passionate statement from Elena asking if she and Peyton could agree to call her feelins a serious "crush." Her husband walks up in the middle of the call, causing her to quickly end it, which appears even more suspicious. The following day, Elena comes over to Peyton's house and makes out with her passionately. As time passes, Elena begins wanting more from her relationship with Peyton. She asks Peyton to have sex with her; at first Peyton refuses, saying that "once go there, there's no going back." Elena tells her that she doesn't want to go back. As they're having sex, Peyton asks Elena to stay with her, though it's unclear whether she means physically or emotionally. Elena and Peyton get into a bit of an inquisition when Peyton asks how Barry comes on to Elena and when and how often they have sex. Elena tells her that they don't have sex anymore, and also tells her that they're going on an annual vacation to Hawaii together. Peyton writes intimate letters to Elena as she's away, and Nash is the one that finds them as he's looking for some aspirin in her suitcase. The toll of having two partners starts to eat away at Elena, and she begins to get in more fights with both Barry and Peyton. Nash starts stealing and drinking from the stress of keeping Elena's affair with Peyton secret, and ends up getting caught by the police after getting drunk and returning to the store he stole from. When Elena comes back and confronts him about it, he tells her that he knows of her affair with Peyton and she explains (briefly) that she does not intend to stop seeing her. Elena returns to Tyler out of desperation for answers as to why she's been set on this path, and meets Peyton later and kisses her in the park, oblivious to Millie seeing them together. Millie then calls Barry and tells him about Elena's affair. Peyton tells her that they should probably break up, because of all the complications arising for Elena. Elena insists that they don't, asking Peyton rhetorically if she ever saw a future of them together. They break up and Elena walks off as Millie goes to Barry and tells him about the affair to his face. Elena breaks up with Barry, telling him that Nash needs the real them, not the fighting couple that they've become. Six months later, Wave and Peyton are taking a walk in the park and run into Tori and Nash, also doing the same. Elena also comes up, walking with Tyler and his wife. She's now pregnant, and at first Peyton freaks out, thinking that Elena played her and was sleeping with Barry the entire time they were together. Elena faints, and Nash gets Peyton and Elena to talk together at Tyler's house so Elena can explain that she broke up and is getting divorced from Barry, but still wanted a child, to have some hope in her life and that she received IVF with Tyler's 'contribution,' and asks Peyton to try and understand. Peyton apologizes and they kiss. The movie ends with another of Tyler's picnics with Peyton and Elena together with their infant. Reception. The film received mixed reviews. It is rated 58% on Rotten Tomatoes.
1068339	The Ballad of Jack and Rose is a 2005 drama film written and directed by Rebecca Miller, and starring her husband Daniel Day-Lewis; it also stars Camilla Belle, Catherine Keener, Paul Dano, Ryan McDonald, Jason Lee, Jena Malone, Susanna Thompson and Beau Bridges. The film tells the story of an environmentalist and his teenage daughter who live alone on a secluded island commune, and their complicated relationship as a heart illness brings his life to an end. It was filmed in Rock Barra, Prince Edward Island, Canada and in New Milford, Connecticut. Plot. Jack Slavin (Daniel Day-Lewis), a Scottish farmer with a heart ailment, lives on an island which had been a hippie commune decades before. He is struggling to keep landowners from building developments on the wetland. His teenaged daughter Rose (Camilla Belle) is a beautiful but isolated girl with a passion for gardening. Since Rose's mother had left the family, Jack homeschooled his daughter and did not expose her to life beyond their small island home. Jack believes that they both "need a woman around." He travels to the mainland to ask his girlfriend Kathleen (Catherine Keener) to move in with him. Jack breaks the news to a shocked Rose, from whom he had kept his relationship a secret. Rose remains disdainful when Kathleen and her two teenage sons move in. Kathleen struggles to adapt to the Slavin's rural lifestyle. Her sons Rodney (Ryan McDonald) and Thaddius (Paul Dano) are almost polar opposites; Thaddius is a sullen, rude delinquent, while Rodney is insecure and often overlooked. While she still has a strained relationship with Kathleen, Rose develops strange bonds with her new "step-brothers." It is clear that Thaddius is attracted to her, but Rose does not like him. One night, Rose spies on Jack and Kathleen in bed together, and develops a strange jealousy toward Kathleen. Rose decides to lose her virginity, and shocks Rodney by confronting him topless and asking him for sex. Rodney refuses and reasons with her, and instead ends up giving her a dramatic haircut. Afterward, Rose calmly takes her father's shotgun and possibly misfires it into Jack and Kathleen's bedroom as they sleep. An initially shocked Jack confronts Rose in disbelief, but the two seem to forget the event within minutes.
1437137	Liana Daine Liberato (born August 20, 1995) is an American television and film actress. Liana is known for the 2010 film, "Trust". She starred in the Fox Faith film "The Last Sin Eater" and appeared in the fourth season of "House" episode "It's a Wonderful Lie". She was featured in the cover story of the June 4, 2006 issue of "The New York Times Magazine" titled "Hollywood Elementary" with her friend Hannah Marks. Early life. Liberato was born in Galveston, Texas. Her first significant role came in "Galveston: The Musical" when she was seven. In the summer of 2005, she attended a week-long acting camp in California, where she attracted the attention of Central Artists. Charmed by Liberato's "great charisma and a very natural delivery," the agent asked Liana to travel to Hollywood. Career. In 2005 Liberato made her acting debut in the television series "Cold Case". Liberato has continued to guest appear on television shows "Sons of Anarchy", "" and "House MD". Liberato appeared in the music video for "7 Things" by Miley Cyrus. In 2007 Liberato portrayed the role of the protagonist in the 20th Century Fox adventure film "The Last Sin Eater". The film centers on a 10-year old girl who discovers a secret sin haunting her community. That same year she starred in the straight-to-DVD romantic drama film "Safe Harbour". In 2010 Liberato starred in the drama film "Trust" portraying the role of Annie Cameron, a fourteen-year old girl who is victimized by an online sexual predator. Clive Owen and Catherine Keener portray her parents with production taking place in Michigan. The film premiered at the 2010 Toronto International Film Festival. Liberato's performance received critical acclaim with Roger Ebert calling Liberato's performance "remarkable". Liberato won the Silver Hugo Award for Best Actress for her performance at the 46th Chicago International Film Festival. In June 2010 Liberato was cast in the Millennium Entertainment thriller film "Trespass". The film centers on a family who are taken hostage in their own home. Academy Award winners Nicolas Cage and Nicole Kidman portray her parents.
1014943	Vie et Passion du Christ (Life and Passion of the Christ) is a 44-minute French silent film that was produced and released in 1903. As such, it is one of the earliest feature-length narrative films. The film, with sequences made in the stencil color process Pathéchrome, takes a straightforward approach to its subject matter. All scenes are introduced by an intertitle giving the traditional name of the event (the Annunciation, the Nativity, etc.) followed by the actors playing out the familiar stories from the Gospels. Other than the scene titles, there are no other inter-titles. In 1932, the film was re-issued in the U.S., distributed on a states-rights basis. Instead of the stencil coloring effect, however, the film was printed on red-tinted stock, with a musical score by James C. Bradford. Its original French title was La Vie et la passion de Jésus Christ (The Life and the passion of Jesus Christ).
1059876	Marlon L. Wayans (born July 23, 1972) is an American actor, model, producer, comedian, writer, and director of movies, beginning with his role as a pedestrian in "I'm Gonna Git You Sucka" in 1988. He frequently collaborates with his brother Shawn Wayans, as he was on the WB sitcom "The Wayans Bros." and in the comedic films "Scary Movie", "Scary Movie 2", "White Chicks", "Little Man", and "Dance Flick". However, Wayans had a dramatic role in Darren Aronofsky's critically acclaimed "Requiem for a Dream", which saw his departure from the usual comedies. In 2009, he appeared in "". In 2013, he had a leading role in "A Haunted House" and co-starred in "The Heat". Early life. Wayans was born in New York City, New York, the son of Elvira, a homemaker and social worker, and Howell Wayans, a supermarket manager. His family was involved in the Jehovah's Witnesses religion. Wayans was raised in the housing projects of New York City, the youngest of ten siblings. He is the brother of Nadia Wayans, Shawn Wayans, Keenen Ivory Wayans, Damon Wayans, Dwayne Wayans, and Kim Wayans; all celebrities in their own right. Wayans went to Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts in New York City, the school made famous in "Fame". He attended Howard University. Career. Marlon appeared with his siblings on "In Living Color" between 1992-1993. From 1995 until 1999, Wayans co-starred in the WB sitcom "The Wayans Bros." with brother Shawn Wayans. Though primarily a comedic actor, he garnered considerable critical acclaim for his dramatic turn in "Requiem for a Dream". He has also produced the first two films of the "Scary Movie" series, in which he and Shawn were credited writers and co-stars. He was sharply criticized for his performance in the 2000 movie "Dungeons & Dragons" as "Snails", the incompetent Rogue. Wayans filmed all his scenes in four days before leaving to work on "Requiem for a Dream". Wayans was a friend of the late rapper Tupac Shakur and said that he saw Tupac moments before he was shot dead in Las Vegas in 1996. Wayans was originally considered for the role of Robin in the 1992 film "Batman Returns", however it was felt that the film featured too many characters, so the character was omitted from that film. He was then formally signed for the role in the 1995 sequel "Batman Forever" to play opposite Billy Dee Williams as Two-Face, but the mid-production change in directors from Tim Burton to Joel Schumacher would result in both parts being recast and Wayans being paid out (Williams was not yet signed on, but he received a penalty fee as his contract for "Batman" allowed him the option of reprise), for which he still receives some royalty payments to this day. He was replaced by Chris O'Donnell.
928037	Hungry Bitches, unofficially nicknamed for its trailer as 2 Girls 1 Cup, is a 2007 scat-fetish pornographic film produced by MFX Media. The film features two women conducting themselves in fetishistic intimate relations, including defecating into a cup, taking turns in what appears to be consuming the excrement, and vomiting it into each other's mouths. "Lovers Theme" by Hervé Roy, from the film "Delusions of Grandeur", plays throughout the trailer. This one-minute preview is a viral video that became a well-known shock video in itself, and for the reactions its graphic content elicited from viewers who have not seen such films before. Around mid-October 2007, video sites such as YouTube were flooded with videos depicting others' reactions to watching the video for the first time. Many other reaction videos have now appeared for similarly shocking and extreme videos. Background. The video originated from a Brazilian distributor and pornographer Marco Antônio Fiorito (born July 1, 1971 in Sao Paulo), who describes himself as a "compulsive fetishist". Fiorito started having interest producing films in 1994, and in 1996, with his wife, Joelma Brito, using her artistic name "Letícia Miller", he began a fetish film business and soon moved on to coprophagia. The film was produced by MFX Video, one of several companies owned by Fiorito. Authorities in the United States have branded some of Fiorito's films as obscene and filed charges against Danilo Croce, a Brazilian lawyer living in Florida, listed as an officer of a company distributing Fiorito's films in the United States. Fiorito explained that had he known that selling his films in the U.S. was illegal, he would have stopped. In his declaration he quotes: "I would have stopped because the money is not the main reason that I make these films." He then added, "I have already made fetish movies with scat/feces using chocolate instead of feces. Many actors make scat films but they don't agree to eat feces." Croce accepted a plea bargain and was sentenced to three years of unsupervised probation and forfeiture of $98,000. The first few seconds of the 2 Girls 1 Cup video contain the text "MFX 1209" (the production code for "Hungry Bitches") and the URL mfxvideos.com, the website of Fiorito's MFX Video, leading some in the media to incorrectly believe the video is one of the many Croce had to surrender to the Department of Justice but was somehow leaked in the process. Reaction videos. The spread of 2 Girls 1 Cup has been facilitated by a series of videos depicting people reacting to watching it. Many videos exist on YouTube of users showing the original video (off-camera) to their friends and filming their reactions, although some may be staged. Even Joe Rogan, host of "Fear Factor", a show notorious for the disgusting things its contestants are dared to eat, had to turn away in a reaction video posted to his blog. A reaction video starring a Kermit the Frog puppet proved very popular on the community-based website Digg. In January 2008, "Slate" documented the reaction video phenomenon with a slideshow featuring various reactions. Violet Blue, an author, described this website as becoming "the new 'tubgirl' and goatse all in one disgusting moment of choco-poo-love" in a "San Francisco Chronicle" article. "Genuine Nerd" Toby Radloff was so disgusted by the clip that he had to immediately watch it again. Veteran porn star Ron Jeremy walked off while watching the video on "The Playhouse". On the same program, singer Wyclef Jean sat through the whole thing without looking away or showing any apparent reaction, all while eating corn on the cob. Ace Frehley, formerly of Kiss, was shown the video on The Opie and Anthony Show in July 2009, and was unfazed, declaring, "Crazier things than that have happened on the road." Media recognition. In the media the video has been used as an example of the poor content quality of YouTube and similar video-sharing websites, and their tendency towards deliberately shocking content.
1618881	Travis Fimmel (born 15 July 1979) is an Australian actor and former model. He is best known for his high-profile Calvin Klein campaign, for co-starring opposite Patrick Swayze in TV series "The Beast" and for his break-out role as the lead in the History Channel's critically acclaimed series "Vikings". Early years. Fimmel was raised as the youngest of three brothers by parents Chris, a cattle farmer and Jennie, a nurse on their 5500-acre dairy farm in Lockington near the small country town of Echuca, between Melbourne and Sydney. He moved to Melbourne in his late teens to play professional AFL Football for the St Kilda Football Club, but a broken leg sidelined him before the season began. He was accepted into Melbourne University to study commercial architecture and engineering but later deferred to travel abroad. Modelling career. Fimmel's modelling career first began when he was spotted working out at a gym in the Melbourne suburb of Hawthorn by the flatmate of Matthew Anderson, a talent scout for the prestigious Chadwick Models agency. Fimmel headed overseas and was signed on the spot with agency LA Models in 2002 after walking into their office broke and barefoot. He then became the first male in the world to secure a six-figure deal to model exclusively for Calvin Klein for a year. He fronted CK's Crave men's fragrance campaign and modelled the brand's famous underwear. It was reported that one of his London billboards had to be pulled down after complaints from an auto club of traffic congestion and accidents by 'rubbernecking' female drivers, but Fimmel insisted the story started with a rumor spread on the internet. He was named one of the world's sexiest bachelors by America's "People" magazine in 2002 and at the time was regarded as "the most in-demand male model in the world". Fimmel appeared on magazine covers including France's "Numero Homme" and America's "TV Guide", as well as on top-rating American TV shows in 2003 including "Jimmy Kimmel Live!", "The Sharon Osbourne Show", "Live with Regis and Kathie Lee", "MTV's Total Request Live" and entertainment TV news program "Extra". He also made a cameo appearance in the bar scene of a video clip for Janet Jackson's "Someone to Call My Lover" and played a hunk loading hay onto the back of a pick-up truck in Jennifer Lopez's "I'm Real" (not to be confused with her song of the same name featuring rapper Ja Rule). Preferring to be known for his acting rather than his modelling, Fimmel turned down an offer from Australia's Seven Network to be a guest judge on the TV series "Make Me A Supermodel". Acting career. Fimmel studied under Hollywood acting coach Ivana Chubbuck, taking two years to pluck up the courage to audition for his first role, saying "half of acting is overcoming your fears letting yourself be vulnerable in front of people". He landed the title lead in Warner Bros. 2003 TV series "Tarzan", described by CNN as one of the "five hottest things happening in entertainment right now”, in which he did most of his own stunts. In addition, he appeared the studio's pilot "Rocky Point" (with Lauren Holly) in 2005, the Fox movie "Southern Comfort" Madeleine Stowe) in 2006 and "The Big Valley" with Richard Dreyfuss and Jessica Lange in 2011. Fimmel has played a diverse spectrum of characters on the small and big screens. In 2008, he portrayed a murderer in "Restraint" and a party boy in "Surfer, Dude" with Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson. In 2010, he portrayed a compassionate cowboy in and a forensic photographer in Australian horror movie Needle, co-starring Ben Mendelsohn. He depicted a talented classical pianist in Ivory, a “creative, edgy, out-of-the box” independent film that was an Official Selection in the 2010 Montreal World Film Festival and the Strasbourg International Film Festival. Produced by Academy Award-winner Gray Frederickson and co-starring Martin Landau and Peter Stormare, Ivory “details the troubled lives of classical pianists at a major American conservatory as they confront personal and professional rivalry during the rigors of training.” It was Fimmel's role as Helweg, a cheeky-but-brutish prison guard, that saw him star opposite Academy Award recipients Adrien Brody and Forest Whitaker as well as Cam Gigandet in the 2010 film release "The Experiment". It was reported that the role originally went to Elijah Wood, who pulled out of shooting for reasons unknown, so Fimmel instead took the job. The film is based on a real-life experiment on volunteers by Stanford University that was cut short after spinning out of control, with 'guards' exhibiting sadistic behaviour and 'prisoners' suffering depression. Fimmel's TV profile received a boost when he starred opposite Patrick Swayze in cable network A&E's 2009 series, "The Beast" (screened in Australia on ABC2). He played rookie undercover FBI agent Ellis Dove partnered with a hardened veteran cop, Swayze's Charles Barker. Fimmel's character relies on his wits to navigate a high-pressure environment, browbeaten by Barker and resisting attempts by Internal Affairs to force him to spy on his mentor. Production ceased after 13 episodes due to Swayze's death from pancreatic cancer”. He then played fugitive Mason Boyle in two episodes of NBC's 2010 action-adventure "Chase" (season 1, episodes 1 and 8), produced by Emmy Award-winning Jerry Bruckheimer. Fimmel depicted a dangerous man on the run after a murderous rampage, tracked down by a team of US marshals who later try to enlist his help in nabbing a serial killer. Fimmel appeared in FX's TV pilot "Outlaw Country" in 2011 with Luke Grimes, described as a “modern drama set against the back drop of a southern organized crime family”. According to "Variety" magazine, he plays a rugged, “hard-drinking gang member and the main character's best friend”. He co-starred with Billy Bob Thornton and Eva Longoria in the 2013 redneck Southern comedy flick The Baytown Outlaws. He played one of the three hapless Oodie brothers who bites off more than he can chew when he agrees to help a woman get her godson back from her deadbeat ex-husband. Displaying a penchant for tough characters, Fimmel plays the lead in 2012's "Harodim" (originally called "The Lazarus Protocol") with Peter Fonda as a former intelligence officer trained in black ops tracking down the world's most wanted terrorist who is compromised by his own chain of command. A thriller blending a fictional narrative with actual news footage, the film was shot in 21 days among disused ironworks outside of Vienna. BlackBoxTV, a horror, science fiction and thriller channel featured Fimmel in "Reawakening". He is cast with another Calvin Klein model-turned-actor, Dylan Bruno, as a fat murdered cop who gets a chance to settle a few scores through a body swap with a superior human. Fimmel was signed as the lead character in the television series Vikings, costarring Jessalyn Gilsig, Katheryn Winnick and Gabriel Byrne. Premiering in 2013, the show was filmed in Ireland over 18 weeks and chronicles "the extraordinary and ferocious world of the mighty Norsemen who raided, traded and explored during medieval times." He plays Ragnar Lothbrok who is loosely based on Ragnar Loðbrók, the legendary Viking leader who is frustrated by the unadventurous tendencies of his local chieftan and strikes out to pillage new lands. USA Today described Fimmel's performance as "engaging", while the Huffington Post called it his "breakout role". Created by renowned writer and period drama specialist Michael Hirst, Vikings is distributed globally by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM). Episodes were directed by Ciarán Donnelly (The Tudors, ), Ken Girotti () and Johan Renck (Breaking Bad). Following strong ratings, it was announced that the show would be renewed for a ten-episode second season. Personal life. The actor's favorite recreational activities include Australian rules football (AFL), camping, surfing, riding motorbikes and going to the beach. Fimmel also played a celebrity cricket match in the 2009 Australia vs England Hollywood Ashes with fellow Australian actors Jesse Spencer (from "House") and Cameron Daddo (from "Models Inc."), plus celebrity chef Curtis Stone, INXS bass guitarist Garry Gary Beers and fast bowler Michael Kasprowicz.
995693	The Ax Fight (1975) is an ethnographic film by anthropologist and filmmaker Tim Asch and anthropologist Napoleon Chagnon about a conflict in a Yanomami village called Mishimishimabowei-teri, in southern Venezuela. It is best known as an iconic and idiosyncratic ethnographic film about the Yanomamo and is frequently shown in classroom settings. Summary. The film has four parts and operates on a number of analytical levels. It opens with a map of the region where the village is located and then proceeds to about ten minutes of virtually unedited film footage of combat among multiple participants armed with clubs, machetes, and axes. This 11-minute sequence represents all that was shot of the fight, which lasted about twenty minutes. Many of the shots and accompanying audio reflect the surprise of the Western film crew and their ignorance about the cause of the fight until some time later. The fight, which occurred on the second day of Asch and Chagnon's arrival to the village on February 28, 1971, is presented to the viewer as it was experienced by the anthropologist and filmmaker, as chaotic and unstructured violence. The second part of "the Ax Fight", however, replays the events in slow motion while Chagnon explains who the combatants are and describes their relationship to one another. Although they initially believe the fight occurred because of an incestuous relationship, the anthropologists learn that this is not the case and that the fight is the latest manifestation of long standing hostility between a faction that lives in the village and a faction that is among a party of visitors. The fight is explained as "a ritualized contest, not a brawl" in which combatants make a relatively orderly progression from less lethal weapons to more lethal ones and people choose sides in the dispute on the basis of kinship obligations and shared histories. Eventually, elders (who tend to have conflicting loyalties) step in to help end the conflict. The third part of the film uses a number of kinship diagrams to further elaborate on these family bonds and explains how kinship and political systems are often interchangeable in Yanomamo life. The final part of the film replays an edited version of the fight, intended to illustrate the effect that the process of editing has on the construction of anthropological knowledge. Controversy. In 2007, "The Ax Fight" was re-examined by filmmaker Adam Curtis in his documentary program "The Trap". Curtis interviewed Chagnon and put to him the assertion of fellow anthropologist Brian Ferguson that much of the Yanamamo violence, and particularly its intensity, was very strongly influenced by the presence of Westerners giving individuals goods, which were then fought over - in this case the goods were highly prized and useful machetes. Chagnon, however, insisted that his presence had had no influence whatsoever on the situation citing the fact that similar fights happened when he wasn't present, which he also documented. Curtis then asked, "You don't think a film crew in the middle of a fight in a village has an effect?" Chagnon replied, "No, I don't," and immediately walked out of the interview.
675346	Alice in the Cities () is a 1974 German road movie directed by Wim Wenders. This was the first part of Wenders' "Road Movie Trilogy" which included "The Wrong Move" (1975) and "Kings of the Road" (1976). The film is shot in black and white by Robby Müller with several long scenes without dialogue. The film's theme closely foreshadows Wenders' later film "Paris, Texas". Plot. German writer Philip Winter has missed his publisher's deadline for writing an article about the United States. He decides to return to Germany, and encounters a German woman, Lisa, and her daughter, Alice, who are both doing the same thing. After Lisa leaves Alice temporarily in Phil's care, it quickly becomes apparent that he will have to look after her for longer than he expected. Phil finds himself stuck with Alice, searching various cities of Germany for her grandmother, whose name and address Alice cannot remember. The only clue they have is a photograph of her grandmother's front door with no house number and no one in the shot. Production. The scenario of a young girl and a writer thrown together was inspired by his long-time collaborator Peter Handke's experience as a single parent. The influence of Handke's 1972 novel "Short Letter, Long Farewell", also featuring an alienated German-speaker travelling across the United States, can be inferred from the film's use of clips from John Ford's "Young Mr. Lincoln", itself heavily referenced in the novel. The film can be seen as a response to Handke's novel. Critical reception. Philip French of the Observer calls Rottländer's performance as Alice "unforgettable". He goes on to say that the movie would not be able to be made today "partly because of the invention of the mobile phone, partly because of our obsessive fear of anything that might be interpreted as paedophilia." Nora Sayre and Lawrence Van Gelder of the New York Times say that it is "a film with a great deal to say about Europe and America, about the exhaustion of dreams and the homogenization of nations, about roots and the awareness of time, about sterility and creativity, about vicarious and real adventure and, eventually, about the possibilities of the future." Scoring. The film was scored by the German band Can. When interviewed about the experience, Can's Irmin Schmidt stated that it was recorded by Schmidt, Michael Karoli and Jaki Liebezeit and that they were not able to see the movie before recording the music. Instead, they went through a collaborative approach with Wenders, who was very short on time. It was all done in one day.
400223	H. Jon Benjamin (born May 23, 1966), known professionally as H. Jon Benjamin and Jon Benjamin, is an American actor, comedian and writer. He is best known for his voice acting roles as Ben on "Dr. Katz, Professional Therapist", Coach McGuirk and Jason on "Home Movies", The Devil on "Lucy, Daughter of the Devil", Sterling Archer in FX's animated series "Archer" and Bob Belcher in the Fox animated series "Bob's Burgers". Benjamin also starred in his own series on Comedy Central, "Jon Benjamin Has a Van". Early life. Benjamin was born in 1966 to a Jewish family in Worcester, Massachusetts, and graduated from Worcester Academy in 1984. Career. Benjamin's comedy career began at age twenty-four in Boston where he was in a comedy duo with Sam Seder, then a member of Cross Comedy, a comedy team led by David Cross. For approximately the first seven years of his career, Benjamin almost exclusively worked in groups rather than independently. Afterwards, his independent work remained more experimental, rejecting traditional styles of stand-up comedy. Benjamin's live projects include the "Midnight Pajama Jam", a show performed in New York City with Jon Glaser, and "Tinkle," a show combining stand-up comedy and live music co-hosted by Todd Barry and David Cross. A "Midnight Pajama Jam" DVD is currently in production. He and Cross also appear together on Invite Them Up. He was the guest on "Space Ghost Coast to Coast" in its eighty-first episode "King Dead" on December 17, 1999 where Zorak and Moltar kidnapped him. He has appeared in the television show "Cheap Seats", on ESPN Classic, as "Gene Stapleton" and "Rabbi Marc Shalowitz". He co-starred in Todd Barry's short film "Borrowing Saffron", and portrayed a talking can of vegetables with a shameful habit of autofellatio in the film "Wet Hot American Summer". He also made short cameos in "Not Another Teen Movie" as the football trainer and on the FX Network comedy-drama "Rescue Me" as the pimp "F-bomb" in season two. He can also be seen in "Turbocharge- the Unauthorized Story of the Cars", a comedy biopic about 80's rock band The Cars, playing the role of Cars' manager Elliot Roberts in his usual deadpan comedic delivery. Benjamin has done extensive voice work in animated TV shows. His credits include starring roles in several Soup2Nuts cartoon shows, such as "Science Court", "Home Movies", "O'Grady", "Dr. Katz, Professional Therapist", and "Assy McGee". He also co-created the show "Freak Show" with his friend David Cross. Benjamin also starred as the Devil and multiple other roles in "Lucy, the Daughter of the Devil", which ran for one season on Adult Swim beginning September 9, 2007. Benjamin also plays a recurring character on the PBS Kids series "WordGirl", and is the announcer for "The Sam Seder Show" and the recently revived "The Majority Report. "He also did the voice of "Shelly", Sam Seder's accountant, on "Breakroom Live with Maron & Seder". Benjamin has made guest appearances in several animated shows. He was in the "Aqua Teen Hunger Force" episodes "Bus of the Undead" and "The Last One" as Mothmonsterman, in "Broodwich" as Mr. Sticks, in "Bible Fruit" as Mortimer Mango, and played the live-action role of Master Shake in "Last Last One Forever and Ever", credited as Capt. Turd Mahoy. He also made a cameo appearance as a government agent in the film "Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film for Theaters" alongside frequent collaborator Jon Glaser. He has appeared in "Family Guy" as Carl, a movie trivia obsessed convenience store clerk who also portrayed Yoda in the "Star Wars" parody episode "Something, Something, Something, Dark Side". Other notable recent appearances include "The Venture Bros.", in the episodes "Escape to the House of Mummies Part II," "I Know Why the Caged Bird Kills," and "The Better Man," in which he played Dr. Orpheus's master – who appears in the form of Cerberus, Catherine the Great's horse and, in "The Better Man", both Dr. Orpheus's ex-wife and a future Dean Venture, respectively. He also appeared in the "Stella" short "Bar", which can be found as an easter egg on the Season 1 DVD. Benjamin appeared on the Comedy Central sketch/variety show "Important Things with Demetri Martin" and had nearly as much screen time as Martin himself. In 2009 Benjamin, along with David Cross, created and wrote for "Paid Programming", a live action television pilot for Cartoon Network's late night programing block, Adult Swim. "Paid Programming" was not picked up for a full series, this was confirmed when Benjamin referred to it as an "abject failure". Benjamin was featured in a Super Bowl XLIII Bud Light commercial with Conan O'Brien and was responsible for the McCain Girls videos on YouTube. He voices Sterling Archer, a secret agent in the FX series "Archer" that first aired January 14, 2010. He has also appeared in several segments of the television show "Human Giant" and had a cameo in the "American Dad" episode "License to Till" as a talking head of cabbage. Benjamin recently starred in the Comedy Central series "Jon Benjamin Has a Van", which he co-created with comedian Leo Allen. The series debuted on June 14, 2011; a total of 10 episodes aired, the last on August 10, 2011.
589038	Meena Kumari (1 August 1932 – 31 March 1972), born Mahjabeen Bano, was an Indian movie actress and poet. She is regarded as one of the most prominent actresses to have appeared on the screens of Hindi Cinema. During a career spanning 30 years from her childhood to her death, she starred in more than ninety films, many of which have achieved classic and cult status today. With her contemporaries Nargis and Madhubala she is regarded as one of the most influential Hindi movie actresses of all time. Kumari gained a reputation for playing grief-stricken and tragic roles, and her performances have been praised and reminisced throughout the years. Like one of her best-known roles, Chhoti Bahu, in "Sahib Bibi Aur Ghulam" (1962), Kumari became addicted to alcohol. Her life and prosperous career were marred by heavy drinking, troubled relationships, an ensuing deteriorating health, and her death from liver cirrhosis in 1972. Kumari is often cited by media and literary sources as "The Tragedy Queen", both for her frequent portrayal of sorrowful and dramatic roles in her films and her real-life story. Early life. Meena Kumari was the third daughter of Ali Baksh and Iqbal Begum; Khursheed and Madhu were her two elder sisters. At the time of her birth, her parents were unable to pay the fees of Dr. Gadre, who had delivered her, so her father left her at a Muslim orphanage, however, he picked her up after a few hours. Her father, a Shia Muslim, was a veteran of Parsi theater, played harmonium, taught music, and wrote Urdu poetry. He played small roles in films like "Id Ka Chand" and composed music for films like "Shahi Lutere". Her mother was the second wife of Ali Baksh. Before meeting and then marrying Ali Baksh, she was a stage actress and dancer, under the stage name, Kamini and earlier in her life related to the well known Tagore family of Bengal. Career. Early work. When Mahjabeen was born, Ali Bakhsh aspired to get roles as an actor in Rooptara Studios. At the urging of his wife, he got Mahjabeen too into movies despite her protestations of wanting to go to school. Young Mahjabeen is said to have said, "I do not want to work in movies; I want to go to school, and learn like other children." As Mahjabeen embarked on her acting career at the age of 7, she was renamed Baby Meena. "Farzand-e-Watan" or "Leatherface" (1939) was her first movie, which was directed for Prakash Studios by Vijay Bhatt. She became practically the sole breadwinner of her family during the 1940s. Her early adult acting, under the name Meena Kumari, was mainly in mythological movies like "Veer Ghatotkach" (1949), "Shri Ganesh Mahima" (1950), and fantasy movies like "Alladin and The Wonderful Lamp" (1952). Breakthrough. Meena Kumari gained fame with her role as a heroine in Vijay Bhatt's "Baiju Bawra" (1952). This heroine always negated herself for the material and spiritual advancement of the man she loved and was even willing to annihilate herself to provide him the experience of pain so that his music would be enriched. She became the first actress to win the Filmfare Best Actress Award in 1953 for this performance. Meena Kumari highly successfully played the roles of a suffering woman in "Parineeta" (1953), "Daera" (1953), "Ek Hi Raasta" (1956), "Sharda" (1957), and "Dil Apna Aur Preet Parayi" (1960). Though she cultivated the image of a tragedienne, she also performed commendably in a few light-hearted movies like "Azaad" (1955), "Miss Mary" (1957), "Shararat" (1959), and "Kohinoor" (1960). One of her best-known roles was in "Sahib Bibi Aur Ghulam" (1962), which was produced by Guru Dutt. Kumari played Chhoti Bahu, an alcoholic wife. The film was a major critical and commercial success, which was attributed by critics to Kumari's performance, which is regarded as one of the best performances of Hindi Cinema. The role was famous for its uncanny similarity to Meena Kumari's own life. At that time, she herself was on a road to gradual ruin in her own personal life. Like her character, she began to drink heavily, though she carried on. In 1962, she made history by getting all the three nominations for Filmfare Best Actress Award, for her roles in "Aarti", "Main Chup Rahungi", and "Sahib Bibi Aur Ghulam". She won the award for "Sahib Bibi Aur Ghulam". Upperstall.com wrote about her performance,
1102458	Joseph Liouville (; ; 24 March 1809 – 8 September 1882) was a French mathematician. Life and work. Liouville graduated from the École Polytechnique in 1827. After some years as an assistant at various institutions including the École Centrale Paris, he was appointed as professor at the École Polytechnique in 1838. He obtained a chair in mathematics at the Collège de France in 1850 and a chair in mechanics at the Faculté des Sciences in 1857.
1034866	James Anthony "Jimmy" Hazeldine (4 April 1947 – 17 December 2002) was a British television, stage and film actor. Early life. Hazeldine was born as the son of a dustman in Salford, Lancashire where he grew up on a council estate. As a child, he became obsessed with the films of director Elia Kazan. When, aged 11, he found out that Kazan had started his career as an actor and stage manager Hazeldine decided to do the same. Following the death of his mother, he left school when he was 15. He was accepted as a student assistant stage manager at Salford rep where he soon started taking on small acting roles. Seasons at Liverpool Playhouse, Newcastle Playhouse and Manchester Library Theatre followed. Stage work. Aged 20, James Hazeldine made his London debut at the Royal Court Theatre in Sloane Square. Initially hired to understudy as Cliff in Look Back In Anger, Hazeldine soon started taking on small roles in Edward Bond's "Narrow Road to the Deep North" and "Early Morning". He worked constantly at the Royal Court during the 1969-70 season. Spotting Hazeldine's potential, Peter Gill then cast him in his play "Over Gardens Out" and went on to direct him in "Crete and Sergeant Pepper" by John Antrobus.
1040710	Georgina Cates (born Clare Woodgate; 14 January 1975) is an English actress of film and television. Biography. Born in Colchester, Essex, she attended Colchester County High School for Girls and broke into television acting when she was only sixteen years old, playing the role of the original Jenny Porter on the BBC's "2point4 children". After two series she left the show to concentrate on acting in television drama such as "Casualty and The Bill " and in low-budget films. In 1995, Cates (then still known as Clare Woodgate) applied for the role of Stella in the film "An Awfully Big Adventure" but didn't get the role. She returned home, dyed her hair red, and re-invented herself as a 17-year-old Liverpudlian girl called Georgina Cates who had no previous acting experience. When she re-applied for the same role, the casting director hired her. Cates went on to co-star in such films as "Frankie Starlight" (1995), "Illuminata" (1998), and "A Soldier's Sweetheart" (1998). She received critical acclaim for her role as Amanda in the "Clay Pigeons" (1998) with Vince Vaughn and Joaquin Phoenix. After a seven-year break from the movie industry, Cates returned to the independent film genre to co-star in "Sinner", for which she won a Best Actress award at the Brooklyn Arts Council International Film & Video Festival. Personal life. In 1997, Cates married her second husband, American actor Skeet Ulrich, with whom she had twins. The couple separated in 2004, and divorced in 2005, citing irreconcilable differences.
1169657	Mary Frances Crosby (born September 14, 1959) is an American actress, best known for her role as Kristin Shepard in the television series "Dallas" (1979–1981). Personal life. She was born in Los Angeles, the daughter of singer and actor Bing Crosby, from his second marriage to the actress Kathryn Grant. She graduated from high school at 15 and entered the University of Texas at Austin where she became a member of Delta Delta Delta sorority, and dropped out before graduating. She is fluent in Spanish. She married Eb Lottimer (1978–1989, divorced), and Mark Brodka (1998–present) and had two children (born 1999 and 2002). Career. Crosby may be most noted for her role as Kristin Shepard (Sue Ellen Ewing's scheming sister) on the prime time soap opera "Dallas" from 1979 to 1981 and 1991. Her character is perhaps best remembered for her part in the cliffhanger ending of the 1979–1980 season of "Dallas", entitled "A House Divided", that was resolved in the fourth episode of the following season, "Who Done It". In that highly watched episode, J. R. Ewing, (Larry Hagman) was shot by an unknown assailant. Viewers had to wait all summer (and most of the fall due to a Hollywood actors' strike) to learn whether J.R. would survive, and which of his many enemies was responsible. In the summer of 1980, the question, "Who shot J. R.?", was being asked in everyday conversations around the world. Ultimately, Kristin Shepard was revealed to have been the person who pulled the trigger in the classic ""Who shot J. R.?"" episode that aired on November 21, 1980. It was one of the highest-rated episodes of a TV show ever aired. Crosby's character, Kristin Shepard, later crossed over to the television series "Knots Landing" in the 1980–81 season. In 1981, Kristin returned to "Dallas". Once again the focus of a highly rated cliffhanger, it was revealed in the season opening episode (October 9, 1981) that it was Kristin's body that was found floating in the Southfork Ranch swimming pool. She returned for the final fantasy episode of "Dallas" in 1991, playing the same character had she never met J.R..
1121233	Solla Marandha Kadhai () is a 2002 Tamil film. This film is based on writer Nanjil Nadan's novel "Thalaikeezh vigithangal". Production. After the critically acclaimed "Azhagi", Thangar Bachan announced his next project "Solla Marantha Kadhai". The director chose Cheran because he fitted the bill, and also because it would be more realistic casting an actor with no image for the role, rather than a known face. Says Thangar Bachan, "I had also watched Cheran direct his artistes in 'Pandvar Bhoomi' for which i was the cinematographer. I was amazed at the expressions he brought to his face, and when i was casting for my film, his was the first name that came to my mind". The film marked the debut of folk-singer Pushpavanam Kuppusamy as actor. An 80-day shooting schedule was held at locations in Bunrooty, Cuddalur, Vadalur and Chidambaram. Critical reception. Hindu wrote:"Thankar Bachan's story telling skill stirred you in "Azhagi" but somehow the magic is missing this time".
1068409	Without a Paddle is a 2004 comedy film about three reunited childhood friends going on a trip up a remote river in order to search for the loot of a long-lost airplane hijacker. The film stars Seth Green, Matthew Lillard, Dax Shepard, Ethan Suplee, Abraham Benrubi, Rachel Blanchard, and Burt Reynolds. A direct-to-video spinoff, "", was released in January 2009. Plot. Ten years after graduating from high school, three friends named Jerry (Matthew Lillard), Dan (Seth Green) and Tom (Dax Shepard) learn that their childhood friend, Billy (Antony Starr), died in a para-sailing accident in Costa Rica. After the funeral and burial, they take a trip down memory lane and enter their tree house, where the four hung out as children. They also remember their past with their posters and collectibles. Under Billy's bed, Jerry discovers a treasure chest containing a map leading to D. B. Cooper's lost treasure. The map is apparently the culmination of Billy's lifelong investigations. Dan takes a break from his job as a doctor and is forced to join Jerry and Tom on a camping trip to find the treasure. They take a canoe down the river and find Grandpa's Nose (a rock formation), and they stay on the riverside for the night. Standing around the camp fire, they realize that they have not brought any food, so Tom goes out to catch some fish using his spotlighting skills. Then a grizzly bear shows up and chases the group away. Dan trips and is caught by the bear, who thinks Dan is its cub. It takes Dan to its 'nest' and forces him to eat a mutilated dead squirrel. Dan manages to escape and the trio ends up sleeping in a tree. In the morning, they find all their gear destroyed by the bear - even Dan's cellphone, which the animal swallowed. The bear, they find to their dismay, had also ripped a hole in the map. They take to the river, but, unable to read the map, they go the wrong way. A fork in the river leads them into rapids where they are nearly killed. The map is lost, and they fall over a waterfall, but land safely in a pool. Unfortunately, their canoe has been smashed to pieces. They take off into the woods with a compass and find themselves at a pot farm, in which two violent farmers named Dennis (Abraham Benrubi) and Elwood (Ethan Suplee), mistake them for thieves and start shooting at them. The friends escape into the farm, but security flares go off and hit the growth, igniting it. The resulting smoke swirls around the trio, causing them to become stoned. In their pot-induced high, they see Billy's ghost who tells them that they are on the right path to find D.B. Cooper. While the farmers, wearing bandannas over their faces, are on their tail, the three fall into a pond and barely escape, using reeds to breathe. The farmers take off, and the friends escape into the woods. In the morning, the farmers find their crop burned and they set out with renewed determination to kill the friends. Deep in the forest, the friends meet two hippie girls, who live in a huge tree. As they watch the girls from the ground, one man is amazed that from that angle they can see the girls' "downstairs". The girls introduce themselves to the friends as "Flower" (Rachel Blanchard) and "Butterfly" (Christina Moore). They provide the men with food and massages. Jerry uses the girls' radio to call for help which was the same radio that the hippie girls use to order for their supplies. The pot farmers also hear the distress call on their radio; using their radio and pretending to be forest rangers, the pot farmers find them and attempt to cut down the tree, both distressing and enraging the hippie girls. They drop paper bags full of feces at the farmers to distract them while the barely clad men escape into the forest, in a driving rain. Deep in the forest while taking refuge in a cave, they are caught by a mountain man who takes them to his hut and gives them clothing. The man, Del Knox (Burt Reynolds), was D. B. Cooper's partner before the aircraft hijacking. The next morning, the farmers find them and assault the house. The friends escape while Knox fires his revolver at the attackers. In their flight, the friends stumble into the site where Cooper landed. They discover his corpse, along with the suitcase holding the money. They discover that Cooper burned the money in a vain attempt to keep warm. They toss their valuable possessions on his body including Dan's C-3PO action figure, Jerry's Brian Bosworth trading card, and Tom's first condom. The only way out of the cave is for Dan to crawl through a small tunnel. The farmers find Jerry and Tom below after following the sound of them singing "Do You Really Want to Hurt Me," and Dan comes from the ground and hits them with a log. The farmers fall down and they engage in a brawl with Tom and Jerry just as Sheriff Briggs (Ray Barker) arrives. However, it is discovered that he was working with the pot farmers all along. The three are cornered when Jerry, who took one of the farmer's grenades, removes the pin but drops it. Moments before it blows, he throws it at the farmers and Sheriff Briggs. It explodes, causing a tree to fall directly on them and the three are arrested soon after. As the trio are being interviewed by police, they see Del in town who intends to give D.B. a proper burial and reveals that prior to his death, D.B. Cooper only burned his own share of the money. Del gives the boys D.B.'s parachute and the remaining money, Jerry and Dan decide to give Tom all of the money to pay his bills and start a new life. The film ends with Dan and Flower in a relationship while Jerry surprises Denise by proposing to her and Tom volunteers as a Scoutmaster where he recounts his wild adventure with his friends for his Boy Scout troop. Production. Although the film details an ill-prepared camping and canoe trip into the Oregon State wild, "Without A Paddle" was filmed in New Zealand to take advantage of tax rebates. Most of the outdoor camping scenes were shot inside a very large warehouse. Reception. "Without a Paddle" received many negative reviews from the critics. Based on 122 reviews collected by the film review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, 15% of critics gave the film a positive review, with an average rating of 4/10. Despite the film's negative reviews, it was a commercial success, grossing $58,169,327 in North American and $11,461,791 internationally, making its worldwide gross $69,631,118.
584914	Sarath Babu (Telugu: శరత్ బాబు) is an Indian film actor, who has acted in almost all the major south Indian languages - Telugu, Tamil, Kannada and Malayalam. He has been in the industry for nearly 37 years and has acted in more than 200 movies, most of them in a supporting role. He has acted in 80 films each in Telugu and Tamil, 20 in Kannada and a few in Malayalam. He entered the film industry in 1973 through a Telugu movie and later became popular through the Tamil movie "Nizhal Nijamagiradhu" directed by K. Balachander. He is well known for his supporting roles to actors like Sivaji Ganesan, Kamal Haasan, Rajini kanth, Chiranjeevi and Nandamuri Balakrishna. He refers to K. Balachander as his mentor and has acted in some of his films.
1169304	Greg Travis is an American actor who has appeared in over 40 feature films and internationally recognised stand-up comedian. Based in the U.S. he created the comedy character "David Sleaze, The Punk Magician", in which he puts on a punk rock-style wig and does a variety of bad magic tricks using audience participation. This routine appeared on "Rodney Dangerfield's HBO Specials". Early life. Travis was born July 31, 1958, in Dallas, Texas, the son of Gerald Travis and Elaine Dennehy-Travis, with one younger sister; actress Stacey Travis and is a distant relative of the Alamo hero William B. Travis. At the age of twelve, Travis began performing as a magician and winning many school talent shows. In High school, he won the talent competition in the school talent shows and also won best comedy magician at the Texas Association of Magicians convention. In his senior year in high school, Travis became vice president of the Thespian Drama Club and made a feature-length film entitled "Joe Dynomite". Also he appeared in many of the school's play productions. After obtaining an Associate Arts degree at Richland College, Travis headed for Hollywood, where he attended Sherwood Oaks Experimental Film School. Comedy career. While attending film school Greg began performing stand up comedy at The Improv and Comedy Store. Six months later he appeared on "America's Search For Tomorrow's Stars". This led to regular spots at "Bud Friedman's Improvisation". He began appearing as a regular guest on the talk show circuit, Dinah Shore, Merv Griffin, a Steve Allen Special and Evening at the Improv. The William Morris Agency signed Greg as his representation. He began landing small acting roles in film and TV, while developing a strong stand-up act, headlining at all the major comedy clubs across the country. In 1986 he worked for "Saturday Night Live" making short comedy films, appearing regularly on Evening at the Improv he was also the opening act for stars like James Brown, Tom Jones and Dolly Parton. In 1990 Greg appeared on a Rodney Dangerfield HBO Special, which made his routine The Punk Magician famous. This led to him being the opening act for Cher on a long East Coast tour.
586483	Na Ghar Ke Na Ghaat Ke is a 2010 Hindi comedy film directed by and starring Rahul Aggarwal as a Uttar Pradesh migrant to Mumbai. The film was released on 12 March 2010. Plot. Devki Nandan Tripathi (director Rahul Aggarwal) is a simple, rustic man who tries his luck in the city of dreams, Mumbai. He gets himself employed at the Mausam Vibhaag, his only means to a lucrative and thriving future. The plot thickens and so do Devki’s circumstances, for he pursues something that he had never meant to. He finds himself doing everything except dedicating time to his vocation. He comes across an array of city people who often find his innocence amusing and comical, but Devki realises that they stick with him even in the thickest of bogs that his life hauls him in. From the village folk to the corrupt cop to the impish goon, Devki finds himself cared for and aided even while he feels entrenched in a "Na Ghar Ke Na Ghaat Ke" state of affairs. The film depicts the everyday struggle of common man in a ‘rural meets urban’ set-up.
1064823	Miracle at St. Anna is a 2008 AmericanItalian war film based on the eponymous 2003 novel by James McBride, who also wrote the screenplay. Directed by Spike Lee, the film stars Derek Luke, Michael Ealy, Laz Alonso, Omar Benson Miller, Pierfrancesco Favino and Valentina Cervi. "Miracle at St. Anna" is primarily set in Italy during World War II as four Buffalo Soldiers of the 92nd Infantry Division seek refuge in a small Tuscan village, where they form a bond with its residents. The story is presented as a flashback, as one survivor reflects on his experiences in a frame story set in 1980s New York. Several real-life events during the war, such as the Sant'Anna di Stazzema massacre, are re-enacted, placing "Miracle at St. Anna" within the genre of historical fiction. Lee first learned of the novel in 2004 and approached McBride with the idea of a film adaptation. In Europe, the film's development attracted the attention of Italian film producers, and Lee’s reputation as an acclaimed filmmaker helped secure the film's $45 million budget. A majority of the film was shot in Italy, on several locations affected by World War II. Other filming locations included New York, Louisiana and The Bahamas. Terence Blanchard composed the film score, and the visual effects were created by Industrial Light & Magic. "Miracle at St. Anna" premiered at the 2008 Toronto International Film Festival before it was released on September 26, 2008. It was met with mostly negative reviews from critics and drew controversy in Italy over its historical accuracy. During its theatrical run, "Miracle at St. Anna" was a box office disappointment, grossing only $9.2 million worldwide. Plot. In 1983, Hector Negron, a World War II veteran, works as a post office clerk in New York City. After recognizing a customer, Negron kills the man by shooting him in the chest with a German Luger pistol. Several hours later, reporter Tim Boyle and Detective Tony Ricci are at the crime scene seeking information. At Negron's apartment, Boyle, Ricci and several officers discover a finely carved statue head, the Head of the Primavera, a long missing segment from the Ponte Santa Trinita. Also found is a Purple Heart and a picture that reveals Negron was also awarded the Distinguished Service Cross and Silver Star. Negron has a flashback to his experiences in the war, as a young corporal of the segregated 92nd Infantry Division in 1944 Italy. A disastrous attack ensues on German positions across the Serchio River. An officer, Captain Nokes, calls down artillery on the 92nd's own position, refusing to believe their reports of how far they have advanced. Many American soldiers are killed, leaving Negron stranded on the wrong side of the river with three other men: Staff Sergeant Aubrey Stamps, Sergeant Bishop Cummings, and Private Sam Train. Sam rescues an Italian boy named Angelo from a collapsing building, and discovers the Head of the Primavera which Sam believes to carry magical powers. While traveling through the mountains of Tuscany, the soldiers come across a small village, where they form a bond with the residents. Sam grows especially fond of Angelo, becoming the boy's father figure. One of the Italian villagers, Renata, soon becomes entangled in a love triangle with Stamps and Bishop, which creates conflict. After Negron finally gets his backpack radio working, the soldiers contact headquarters and are told to capture an enemy soldier. A local Partisan group arrives with a young German ex-Corporal, Hans Brundt, as their prisoner. One of the Partisans, Rodolfo, knows that Brundt can identify him as a traitor. After concealing the fact that German occupation forces are approaching the village as part of a counterattack, Rodolfo kills Brundt and the Partisan leader before escaping. Rodolfo is the traitor whom Negron will kill 39 years later. Captain Nokes arrives in the village to interrogate Brundt, but finds him dead. The Americans prepare to leave the village ahead of a German counterattack, but Sam refuses to leave Angelo behind. After promising to court-martial all four soldiers, Nokes and his contingent drive out of town, but are caught and killed in the German offensive. In response to the Partisan movement, many villagers residing in Sant'Anna di Stazzema are killed by German forces. The remaining American soldiers and Partisans hold their ground. Sam is fatally wounded after being shot twice while carrying an unconscious Angelo and dies from his injuries. Bishop and Negron hold off the Germans while Stamps tries to get the villagers to safety, but they are too heavily outnumbered. Renata and Stamps are killed in the attack, and Bishop dies after successfully reviving Angelo. Negron, while trying to retreat, is shot in the back but saved by his radio. After Angelo gives him the Head of the Primavera, Negron gives the boy his rosary and tells him to leave. Negron is spared by a German officer who hands him his own Luger and tells Negron to defend himself. More Americans arrive and secure the village before evacuating the wounded Negron. In 1984, Negron is at a court proceeding, facing a life sentence for his killing of Rodolfo. He is rescued by a powerful executive attorney acting on behalf of a wealthy man. Hector is brought to The Bahamas and is reunited with the Head of the Primavera, accompanied by its new owner who takes out a rosary and reveals himself as an adult Angelo. They both hold Hector's rosary and happily burst into tears. Cast. John Turturro plays Detective Antonio "Tony" Ricci, who is charged with investigating a post office murder in 1983; Joseph Gordon-Levitt plays Tim Boyle, the investigative reporter assigned to cover the murder and subsequent discovery of an Italian artifact; and Kerry Washington plays Zana Wilder, a lawyer hired to represent the suspected post office murderer. Naomi Campbell was originally cast as Wilder in September 2007, but later pulled out due to scheduling conflicts. Other cast members include John Leguizamo, in a cameo appearance, as Enrico; D. B. Sweeney as Colonel Jack Driscoll, an advocate for the Buffalo Soldiers; Robert John Burke as General Ned Almond, a high-ranking official who opposes the 92nd Division; Omari Hardwick as Platoon Commander Huggs; Omero Antonutti as Ludovico Salducci, Renata’s Fascist father; Sergio Albelli as Rodolfo Berelli, a Partisan of questionable loyalties; Lydia Biondi as Natalina, a village healer; Michael K. Williams as a frightened soldier; Christian Berkel as German Officer Eicholz; Jan Pohl as German ex-Corporal Hans Brundt; and Alexandra Maria Lara as Mildred Gillars, nicknamed Axis Sally, an American broadcaster employed by the Third Reich in Nazi Germany.
1064262	Death Proof is a 2007 American action thriller slasher film written and directed by Quentin Tarantino. The film centers on a psychopathic stunt man who stalks young women before murdering them in staged car accidents using his "death-proof" stunt car. The film pays homage to exploitation, muscle cars, and slasher film genres of the 1970s (especially giallo), and stars Kurt Russell, Rosario Dawson, Vanessa Ferlito, Jordan Ladd, Rose McGowan, Sydney Tamiia Poitier, Tracie Thoms, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, and Zoë Bell as herself. "Death Proof" was released theatrically in the United States as part of a double feature with Robert Rodriguez’s "Planet Terror" under the collective title "Grindhouse" in order to replicate the experience of viewing exploitation film double features in a "grindhouse" theater. The films were released separately outside the United States and on DVD, with "Death Proof" going on sale in the United States on September 18, 2007. The film was in the main competition for the Palme d'Or at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival. Plot. Three friends: Arlene (Vanessa Ferlito), Shanna (Jordan Ladd), and radio DJ "Jungle" Julia Lucai (Sydney Tamiia Poitier) drive down Congress Avenue in Austin, Texas, on their way to celebrate Jungle Julia's birthday. While bar-crawling, Julia reveals that she made a radio announcement earlier that morning, offering a free lap dance from Arlene in return for addressing her as "Butterfly," buying her a drink, and reciting a segment of the poem "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening". They are unaware they are being stalked by an aging and sadistic Hollywood stunt double, "Stuntman" Mike (Kurt Russell). After trailing them to a bar, Mike follows the instructions from the radio announcement to get the lap-dance. Despite some initial trepidation, due to having seen Mike's car earlier in the day, and asking if he has been following them, Mike puts her at ease (partly by saying she's chicken), impresses her with his smooth talk, and Arlene agrees to the dance. The three women prepare to depart with their friend Lena, whom they met at the bar. Meanwhile, Pam (Rose McGowan), another intoxicated female bar patron, has been impressed by the teetotaler Mike and accepts a ride home from him, considering him to be a safe ride. Mike takes Pam to his matte black 1971 Chevy Nova SS 396, which is a stunt car rigged with a safety cage inside, confirming that his car is "death proof". As Mike drives Pam off, it becomes clear he is trying to kill her, reminding her that his car is "death proof", but only to the driver. Since the passenger seat has no safety restraints at all, he kills her by driving recklessly and then slamming on the brakes, which smashes her skull into the dashboard. Mike speeds off, leaving behind photos he took earlier of the three other women, so as not to get caught with any evidence. He eventually comes on their red 1997 Honda Civic Hatchback on an empty road, and drives at full speed directly into it. The force of the impact kills all four women in the Honda, and also covers up the real reason of Pam's death.
900821	Erotic Nights of the Living Dead () is a 1980 Italian erotic-horror film written and directed by Joe D'Amato. The film was shot at the same time as "Porno Holocaust", with the same cast and crew, and it involves a similar plot, with a group of businessmen who arrive on an island, have sex and are killed off one by one. The film has received negative reviews. Synopsis. A tropical island cursed by voodoo is purchased by a land developer (Mark Shannon) who plans to open a luxury hotel. He hires a sea Captain (George Eastman) to take him and a socialite (Dirce Funari) to the nearby island. Arriving at their location, the group is greeted by a shaman and his granddaughter Luna (Laura Gemser). They are warned to leave as the island is the reported home to zombies of dead natives. But Luna, who just might be a ghost, takes a liking to the greedy land owner. Production. "Erotic Nights of the Living Dead" was filmed at the same time as "Porno Holocaust" in Santo Domingo with the same cast. Both films involves a group of business people who find an island, have sex, and then are killed off one by one. Release. "Erotic Nights of the Living Dead" was released in 1980 and was not a large success. Reception. Assistant professor Danny Shipka of Louisiana State University gave both "Porno Holocaust" and "Erotic Night of the Living Dead" a negative review, criticizing the acting, gore effects and sex scenes, and stated that the merging of "hard-core sex and extreme violence is disturbing" The book "Zombie Movies: The Ultimate Guide" described the film as "one of the worst if not the worst Italian zombie movie ever made".
1170215	Peter Lupus (born June 17, 1932, Indianapolis, Indiana) is an American bodybuilder and actor of Greek ancestry. He attended the Jordan College of Fine Arts at Butler University, where he also played football and basketball, graduating in 1954. He and his wife, Sharon, have a son, Peter Lupus III, who is also an actor. Bodybuilder. Standing 6 feet 4 inches (193 cm) with a developed physique, Lupus earned the titles of Mr. Indianapolis, Mr. Indiana, Mr. Hercules and Mr. International Health Physique. Lupus was one of many bodybuilders who followed Steve Reeves into the sword and sandal films of the late 1950s and early 1960s, occasionally credited as Rock Stevens for such films as "Hercules and the Tyrants of Babylon" and "Muscle Beach Party" where he starred as "Mr. Galaxy" Flex Martian, the biggest, strongest, and handsomest bodybuilder in the galaxy who possessed muscles of steel. Actor. Lupus is best remembered for the role of Willy Armitage on the original "" television series in the 1960s. Armitage was the Impossible Missions Force's muscle man, featured in nearly all episodes of the series. He initially played the strong, silent type, usually with very little dialogue. Late in the show's run during season five, the producers decided his character was superfluous and he was dropped to recurring status, appearing in a little over half of that season's episodes. Fan outcry and the lack of success in finding a replacement for his character resulted in his return to regular status the following season and getting a greater role in the stories, often assuming roles as a convict or thug. Only Lupus and Greg Morris sustained a regular role through the show's entire run, although Morris appeared in more episodes. Other television work included a guest spot as Tarzan on Jack Benny's television show, a boxer with a glass jaw on "The Joey Bishop Show", a caveman on an episode of "Fantasy Island", and the recurring role of Detective Norberg on the short-lived sitcom "Police Squad!". (The "Naked Gun" film series features the similarly named "Detective Nordberg", played by O.J. Simpson). "Playgirl" pinup. Lupus's second claim to fame beyond his television work was as one of the first well-known male actors to pose with full frontal nudity for "Playgirl" magazine in April 1974. Lupus in some ways became the magazine's flagship pinup for the decade, not unlike Barbi Benton at "Playboy", with photographs of him in a number of issues. Before this he was hired by the US Army to appear in a series of commercials playing the role of Superman with the permission of "Detective Comics" (aka National Periodical Publications, now known as DC Comics). He appeared for many months until the "Playgirl" pictorial was published. He has distanced himself from the magazine since the 1980s and has declined further pictorials in later years. Present day. The nutrition company Peter Lupus ran that was based in Scottsdale, Arizona went out of business in late October 2007. On July 19, 2007, at age 75, Lupus set a new world weightlifting endurance record by lifting 77,560 pounds over the course of 24 minutes, 50 seconds at the Spectrum Club in El Segundo, California. This topped the record Lupus set five years earlier in celebration of his 70th birthday. Lupus has been a member of Sheriff Joe Arpaio's volunteer posse in Arizona.
394061	The Guard Post (GP 506 in South Korea) is a 2008 Korean horror film written and directed by Kong Su-chang. Plot. "GP: Guard Post is on the frontline inside the Korean Demilitarized Zone (DMZ). The tour of duty lasts for 3 months and nobody is allowed to leave. A maze-like concrete bunker is approximately 990-1650m2. Soldiers are fully armed and ready to engage at all times. Guard Posts are a vestige of the Cold War." The date is May 29, 2007, 8.03pm. A group of soldiers from the military police (MP) break into one of the guard posts, numbered GP 506. They search from room to room, looking for something. Eventually, they enter a large, dark room and notice numerous bloodstains awash on the floor and walls. One of the MP soldiers hit something on the floor and find a corpse. The rest of the soldiers spot someone under their torch lights, to reveal a half-naked blood-drenched man breathing heavily, and holding a large axe. The man starts to laugh, and the MP soldiers move in to disarm and put him into custody. At the same time, Sergeant Major Seong-gyu Noh, along with a friend in the army, are paying their last respects to Noh's wife. Later, in their car, Noh’s friend informs him of an assignment that the military has ordered him to do: head to Guard Post 506 to investigate a strange incident there. Noh learns that the guard post is headed by the army chief’s son, 1st Lieutenant Jeong-u Yoo. His friend warns him that this assignment may very well cost him his job, if he’s not careful in handling the situation. He continues by telling Noh that all the soldiers at GP 506 were killed except for one (the man with the axe), who’s currently in a coma, and that he’s the only suspect. Noh has until 6.00am to investigate the cause before more soldiers from HQ will come and clean up everything. Noh arrives at GP 506 about an hour later. On the way to the office, he passes a boiler room that has words written in blood on the wall, which says: “Kill all of them.” He is brought to the recreation room where the bodies were found, and watches in shock at the amount of blood splattered around the room. Noh is brought to the unidentified man at the beginning, who is comatose. The MPs are going to bring him to a military hospital. Noh arrives in the guard post office, where he meets 1st Lt. Bang, the one in charge of bringing the soldiers here, and the medic, only known as Doc. He tells both of them that he will be assuming command of this investigation from this point onward. Heading back to the recreation room, Noh starts searching for clues, and finds a battered birthday cake in blood. He finds a soldier’s dog tag inside it. Comparing the name incripted on the tag to the lockers, he identifies the comatose man, who is Corporal Jin-won Kang. Later, he and a soldier, Sergeant Yoon, comb through the maze-like tunnels that make up the bunker. Doc, who is preparing the bodies to be shipped to a military coroner, calls Noh’s attention to an apparently missing soldier. The 19 bodies they found and Cpl Kang, do not tally with the 21 soldiers who are stationed at GP 506. Noh wants Doc to check again, only to reconfirm 19 bodies. Noh then allows Doc and a group of soldiers to transport the bodies and Kang away from the GP. Meanwhile, 2 MPs are struggling with the guard dogs stationed there. The guard dogs has gone fierce and will not allow the MPs to handle them. One of the dogs bite a soldier in the arm.
582335	Mission Kashmir is a 2000 Bollywood action thriller-drama film directed and produced by Vidhu Vinod Chopra. Sanjay Dutt, Hrithik Roshan, Preity Zinta, Sonali Kulkarni and Jackie Shroff appeared in the main roles. The film follows the life and tragedy of a young boy named Altaaf after his entire family is killed by police officers. He is adopted by the man who killed them. When Altaaf finds out, he seeks revenge. The film also deals with terrorism and the tragedy of children suffering from war. Its screenplay was written by Pulitzer Prize finalist Suketu Mehta. It was rated R in America due to violence. The film was screened at the Stockholm International Film Festival. Upon release, "Mission Kashmir" became a critical and commercial success. It was the third biggest domestic grosser of the year. Synopsis. Inayat Khan (Sanjay Dutt) is the Senior Superintendent of Police responsible for the security of Srinagar, Kashmir. One day, his young son Irfaan (Yogin Soni) meets with an accident and is taken to a hospital. Unfortunately, due to a fatwa instigated by the leader of a terrorist group forbidding doctors to treat policemen, the doctors refuse to treat Irfaan. Khan angrily threatens to kill the doctors if they don't treat his son, but they still refuse, saying they are willing to die rather than letting their families be killed by the terrorist group. As a result, Irfaan dies, and Khan swears to put an end to the threat of the terrorist group. After finding out that the group of terrorists is taking refuge in the village of Dalgate, Khan and his men manage to attack and kill the criminals. Unfortunately, a family is caught in the crossfire, and they are killed as well. A young boy named Altaaf is the only family member who survives the shooting. He is severely traumatized by seeing his parents and sister dying in front of his eyes and is haunted by the memory of the masked policeman who shot at his family: that police officer is Khan. Altaaf falls unconscious and is jailed by Khan's men, much to Khan's anger, who then berates his officers for placing an orphaned boy in a cell just because his family offered shelter to the terrorists. Khan's wife Neelima (Sonali Kulkarni), having just lost Irfaan and feeling sorry for Altaaf, attempts to persuade Khan to let them adopt the boy. Khan, despite his fear that Altaaf may one day discover the truth and get revenge for it, reluctantly agrees, feeling extremely remorseful for killing Altaaf's family. Just when Altaaf seemed to have settled down in his new home and accepted Khan and Neelima as his new parents, he finds Khan's mask and realizes that Khan was one of the policemen who killed his family. After an unsuccessful attempt on Khan's life, the angry Altaaf runs away and is found and brought up by a terrorist group led by their Pathan leader Hilal Kohistani (Jackie Shroff), who brainwashes him into thinking that he and his men act according to Islamic principles and trains him to become a terrorist. Ten years later, Hilal and an adult Altaaf (Hrithik Roshan) are assigned the task of completing "Mission Kashmir," a plan of an unnamed terrorist sponsor that involves — or so Altaaf is told — killing the Indian prime minister. Hilal uses Altaaf's hatred as a means to achieve his own goals, all the while encouraging Altaaf to target Khan (who is now an Inspector General) for his family's death. Altaaf visits his childhood friend and TV personality Sufiya Parvez (Preity Zinta) and, though he falls in love with her and helps her, he still uses her to try and make Hilal's plans (of blowing up the TV tower of Srinagar on Khan's birthday) successful. He makes another unsuccessful attempt on Khan's life and, in the process, Khan recognizes him and begins trying to track him down, much to Neelima's discomfort, resulting in a fallout between Khan and Neelima. At the same time, Sufiya learns of Altaaf's occupation as a militant, and breaks off her relationship with him, feeling somewhat betrayed, despite knowing that his family tragedy has caused him to go that way. On the same date Atlaaf's family was murdered, Altaaf makes another attempt on Khan by having three of Hilal's men plant a bomb in Khan's briefcase. Unfortunately, this time, Neelima falls victim to it, much to the distraught of both Khan and Altaaf, with the former being unable to apologize for his argument with her and the latter screaming in remorseful agony for killing her. Eventually, Khan manages to invade one of Hilal's men's hideouts and discovers evidence and information about Mission Kashmir. After going through some cassette tapes with the help of Sufiya, he realizes that Mission Kashmir has nothing to do with taking down the Prime Minister at all: instead, the true goal of Mission Kashmir is to launch missiles on the local Muslim mosque and the local Hindu temple to escalate Hindu-Muslim conflict across the subcontinent, thereby dividing Kashmir and turning it into a war zone. It also turns out that the attack on the TV tower was planned to spread the rumor of murdering the Prime Minister to cover up the terrorists' true goal. Hilal deliberately does not tell Altaaf what Mission Kashmir really is, knowing that Altaaf would not support it and would try to stop it; this is evident when Atlaaf leaves to the swampy hideouts to prepare for the launches, Hilal secretly tells one of his men to keep an eye on Atlaaf, ordering his death if he turns away. By staging a fire in the jail that allows one of the bomb-briefcase men to escape, Khan and his men manage to track down and capture Hilal, but they are distraught to hear that Altaaf and the other terrorists have left to launch the missiles, something which neither the police nor the army can take action against, as they still don't have any idea or time to find out where the missiles will be launched. Deciding to play wise on this, Khan offers to make a deal with Hilal: going under the false pretense of allowing Hilal and his men to continue forward with Mission Kashmir in exchange for Altaaf, whom Khan swore to kill. He secretly lies to Hilal that he is more occupied with revenge for Neelima's death rather than doing his job of serving his country. Seeing that Khan's 'hatred' of Altaaf is worthy of a Pathan's duty, Hilal accepts the deal, and to ensure no other mistake will be made, Khan goes alone with Hilal to the missile hideouts. As Hilal and Khan reach the swamps, Hilal tells Altaaf of Khan's whereabouts. At that point, an enraged Altaaf starts attacking a weary Khan to exact revenge for his family's murder. While doing so, Khan reveals to him the true goals of Mission Kashmir, stating that Kashmir will be turned into a hell. Having had enough of listening to him, Altaaf attempts to shoot Khan in the head. Khan, expressing his dear love for Altaaf and remorse for killing his family, is willing to accept his fate, but begs Altaaf to stop Hilal and his plans. As Altaaf struggles to do it, he then remembers that he once knew about the shrines Neelima took him to and the comment Neelima said about choosing sides during her visit earlier. Unwilling to betray his mother, Atlaaf decides to put his plan of revenge aside and aids Khan into stopping Hilal and his men from targeting the holy shrines. Just as things are about to end, Hilal throws a bomb to distract them before getting shot to death by Altaaf, giving Hilal's men a chance to prepare to blow up the shrines, much to Altaaf's shock. While Khan fights back by shooting several terrorists to death, Altaaf redeems himself by taking possession of a missile launcher and using it to destroy the other launchers and kill the remaining terrorists, thus saving the shrines. Eventually, Altaaf gets shot in the torso, and he falls into the swamps. Khan then jumps in and safely brings the unconscious Altaaf to the shore, evading the explosion of the hideouts caused by Altaaf's act of redemption. The plans of Mission Kashmir are revealed to the public by the media, and the terrorist sponsor's hideout is found by Kashmiri police, who shoot the sponsor offscreen as he tries to get away after killing two of his associates. Altaaf wakes up from a pleasant dream based on one of the pictures he drew as a child in Khan's house, where he reconciles with Sufiya and forgives Khan, accepting him as his father again after 10 years. Critical reception. "Mission Kashmir" received generally positive reviews from critics. Mohammad Ali Ikram of "Planet Bollywood" gave it an 8.5/10 rating, praising the film's technical quality and the lead actors' performances. Saisuresh Sivaswamy of "Rediff.com" wrote, "This is a story from the director's heart, not his head, and the sincerity comes across in frame after frame." Giving the film 4 out of 5 stars, N K Deoshi of "apunkachoice.com" wrote, "Beneath all the drama that goes on in the movie there lurks the aspiration to get across to people the message of what actually people of Kashmir are going through." Savitha Padmanabhan of "The Hindu" stated, """Mission Kashmir"" might have its faults but it is definitely a cut above the rest of the commercial Hindi films that have been made on terrorism." She also praised the cast's performance and the film's production values. Film journal "Screen" praised the performances, but further wrote, "Chopra makes a sincere effort in his latest film Mission Kashmir to bring to the fore, the turmoil in the valley. But one feels disappointed, all the same, that there is very little of Kashmiriyat in the story, which is more of a personal conflict between the victim of a police shoot-out and a police officer." Music. The soundtrack of the film contains seven songs. The music is conducted by the award-winning trio Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy, performing separately. Ehsaan Noorani composed three songs, while Shankar Mahadevan and Loy Mendonsa composed two songs each.
520631	Nora Aunor (born Nora Cabaltera Villamayor on May 21, 1953) is a critically acclaimed Filipino actress, recording artist, and film producer. Aunor has also topbilled several stage plays, television shows, and concerts. Aunor started her career in the Philippine entertainment industry as a singer after she won an amateur singing contest. She made her film debut with "All Over the World (1967)" and also guested in youth-oriented flicks produced by Vera-Perez Pictures and United Brothers Production. Aunor transformed herself into a serious actress and came to be regarded as an acting heavyweight, performing in films such as "Tatlong taong walang Diyos" (1976), "Himala" (1982), "Bona" (1980), "The Flor Contemplacion Story" (1995) and "Thy Womb" (2012) which gave her international and local awards and nominations. Aunor received 17 FAMAS Award nominations and was elevated to the "Hall of Fame" after winning five Best Actress Awards. She is the most nominated actress of Gawad Urian Awards with 17 nominations, winning seven. She has more nominations as Best Actress than any other Filipino actor in both FAMAS and Gawad Urian award giving bodies. She has won eight trophies from PMPC Star Awards for her work in television and movies, eight Metro Manila Film Festival, four Luna Awards, five Young Critics Circle Awards, a Cairo Film Festival award, an Asia Pacific Screen Awards, an Asian Film Awards, a Berlin Film Festival Award nomination, and a Venice Film Festival Awards nomination, amongst others. In 1983, Aunor was recognized as one of the "The Outstanding Women in the Nation’s Service" (TOWNS) in the Field of the Arts. In 1999, Aunor received the "Centennial Honor for the Arts" awarded by the Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP). She was the only film actress included in the list of awardees. In 2010, she was hailed by the Green Planet Movie Awards as one of the '10 Asian Best Actresses of the Decade'. In 2013, She received the "Ani ng Dangal Award" (Harvest of Honors). from the National Commission for Culture and the Arts. In 2013, she received the "Light of Culture Awards from Philippine Centre of the International Theatre Institute and the ITI-Earthsavers UNESCO Dream Center for pioneering in the integration of theater, television, and film. Aunor is also one of the few Asian actresses to be nominated as best actress in three Asian film awards namely: 6th Asia Pacific Screen Awards (APSA) in Australia ("winner"), 55th Asia Pacific Film Festival (APFF) in Macau. and in the 7th Asian Film Awards (AFA) in Hong Kong ("winner") for the movie "Thy Womb". Early Life and Education. Aunor was born in Baryo San Francisco, Iriga, Camarines Sur in Bicol Region. Her parents are Antonia Cabaltera and Eustacio Villamayor, she has 9 more siblings including Eddie Villamayor a former actor. When Nora was growing up, it was her grandmother (Lola Theresa) who taught her how to sing and the first song she learned was "The Way of a Clown". Mamay Belen (aunt) on the other hand, taught her the right diction, interpretation and expression while singing and took her under their custody and from whom she got her screen name. Nora became a Champion at the "Darigold Jamboree" Singing Contest singing her winning piece "You and the Night and the Music" and after that she won another singing contest, "The Liberty Big Show." Nora entered the national singing contest "Tawag ng Tanghalan" where she was defeated on her first try and became a champion on her second try. The Grand National Finals of Tawag ng Tanghalan was on May 29, 1967, where she sang "Moonlight Becomes You". Nora went to Mabini Memorial College['59-'60] when she was in grade I and transferred to Nichols Air Base Elementary School['60-'62] when she reached grade II and III; She then entered Iriga Central Elementary School ['62-64'] as a grade IV and V sudent and went back to Mabini Memorial College ['65-'65] to finished her primary education and entered her first year in high school ['65-'66]. She then transferred to Centro Escolar University-Parañaque where she became a student on her second and third year in high school and again in ['70-71] as a fourth year high school student. Personal life. Aunor was married to award winning actor Christopher de Leon on Jan. 25, 1975 in a civil ceremony with whom she has one child who was born on December 11, 1975, actor Ian De Leon. On January 27, 1976, they renewed their marriage. This time it was Father Alleysius Rodriguez who officiated the wedding. They also have two adopted daughters, actors Lotlot De Leon and Matet de Leon and 2 adopted sons Kiko and Kenneth. However, the marriage didn't last long and they separated; she was annulled to de Leon in 1996. According to Matet on her interview, Nora is very affectionate and tender as a mom and she treats them equally even though they are not blood related.
674802	Shadows of Time () is a 2004 romantic Bengali language German film, shot in Calcutta, India. It is the first feature-length film of Academy Award winning director Florian Gallenberger, and stars Prashant Narayanan, Tannishtha Chatterjee, Irrfan Khan and Soumitra Chatterjee in pivotal roles. Plot. The film opens with the elderly Ravi (Soumitra Chatterjee) driving to an abandoned carpet factory in West Bengal. As he explores the remains of the factory, he finds his bed and other memoirs. The story flashbacks to the early 1940s in pre-independent India, with Ravi Gupta (Sikandar Agarwal) a child laborer in the factory, saving up his earnings so that he can leave the factory one day. Ravi befriends a girl of his own age, Masha (Tumpa Das), who's been sold to the factory by her father. When the obstinate factory manager (Biplab Dasgupta) tries to sell Masha to a rich man, Ravi unsuccessfully tries to match the bid. He subsequently gives her the money to escape, and as they part Masha promises to wait for Ravi at every full moon at Calcutta's great Shiva temple. Years later, the adult Ravi (Prashant Narayanan) leaves the factory and sets out for Calcutta. He begins working for an old carpet seller and his granddaughter, Deepa (Tillotama Shome). Masha (Tannishtha Chatterjee) has become a professional courtesan in Calcutta, romanced by a customs officer, Yani Mishra (Irrfan Khan). Masha goes to the Shiva temple every full moon to possibly meet Ravi, who himself is trying to search for her. They almost meet one night, but are separated by the chance arrival of Deepa, who Masha thinks is Ravi's wife. Masha decides to marry Yani, and Ravi, thinking Masha has forgotten him, finally marries Deepa. Ravi renovates the carpet shop and becomes an Exporter of carpets. A few years later, he meets Yani, who had once bought a carpet from him to impress Masha. Yani invites him and Deepa to a dinner party, where Ravi and Masha finally meet. Perplexed at first, their mutual attraction gradually turns into an extra-marital affair. When Yani announces that he has been transferred to Kerala, Masha gets scared at the thought of losing Ravi again and asks him to take some action. Confused, Ravi arrives at the railway station but lets her down. The two leave, with Yani telling Ravi, just before boarding, that Masha is pregnant. A few years later, Yani visits Ravi and tells him that Masha delivered a boy in Kerala, but he came to know that it wasn't his, and he threw them out of his house. Ravi goes to the brothels, where he finds Masha and their son, but she refuses to see him. Ravi departs, sliding a packet full of money into her room before leaving. The film comes to the present time where elderly Ravi is at the factory. He hears a little girl and her grandmother in the courtyard. He starts talking to them and finds out that the grandmother is Masha, who is still waiting for Ravi to come; because this was the place where they first met. Ravi is astounded, but in the end he decides to walk away. The little girl asks her grandmother who he was, to which she replies, "It was Ravi". Production. Gallenberger first came to India in April 2001 for research and spent around a year and a half researching and understanding life. He was moved by a radio interview he had earlier heard, of a little girl working as a laborer in an Indian carpet factory which prompted him to leave for India and research a story. He set his story in Calcutta, which had earlier attracted renowned filmmakers from all over the world like Jean Renoir, Roberto Rossellini, Louis Malle and Roland Joffe to come and make a film in the city. But Gallenberger decided that unlike the others, he was going to make it in Bengali language rather than in English or his native German. The film was partly funded by the German government and was produced by Helmut Dietl and Norbert Preuss. Preuss, in an interview, stated though the story was written in German by Gallenberger, the Indian setting and Bengali language were chosen to maintain authenticity. Noted Indian theatre actor Dilip Shankar who did casting in Mira Nair's "Monsoon Wedding" and Pan Nalin's "Samsara", was appointed as the casting director for "Shadows of Time". Aishwarya Rai, Sir Ben Kingsley and Vivek Oberoi were being considered for major roles in the film, but the roles of adult "Ravi" and adult "Masha" went to actors Prashant Narayanan and Tannishtha Chatterjee respectively. Gallenberger had spotted Narayanan in "Chhal" and was impressed by him. For the young "Ravi" and "Masha", more than 7,000 schoolchildren were auditioned before they narrowed it down to Sikandar Agarwal and Tumpa Das. For portraying the old age of the characters, veteran Bengali actor Soumitra Chatterjee and actor Utpal Dutt's widow Sova Sen were chosen. Gallenberger hired a Bengali communicator for a crash course in the language for non-Bengali members of the 100-member crew, which include 10 Germans. The lead actor Prashant Narayanan too had to take lessons in the language as he is originally from South India and did not know Bengali. The shooting of the film began in March 2003 at locations in and around Calcutta, and was finished in 12 weeks. Soundtrack. The music in the film was composed by Gert Wilden Jr., who had earlier composed music in Gallenberger's Academy Award winning 2000 short film "Quiero ser (I want to be ...)". Awards. The film was screened at the 5th International Film Festival of Marrakech on November 12, 2005. It was a nominee for the coveted Golden Star (Best Film), but lost to the Kirghiz film "Saratan".
1165995	Lucille Benson (July 17, 1914 – February 17, 1984) was an American actress known for her roles in commercials, television, and movies in the 1970s and 1980s. Biography. Personal life. Born in Scottsboro, Alabama, on July 17, 1914, Benson was adopted by her aunt, Mrs. John Benson, after her mother died of tuberculosis. She was valedictorian and president of her Jackson County High School class at Jackson County High School. She attended Huntingdon College, in Montgomery, and later attended Northwestern's School of Drama, in Evanston, Illinois. After a short career as a teacher, she went to New York around 1930 should be corrected. This year, 1930, makes her 16 years old when she heads off to NY after a short career as a teacher. Acting career. Her career started in New York in the 1930s. She appeared on Broadway in several plays including, "The Doughgirls", "The Day Before Spring", "Happy Birthday", "As The Girls Go", "Hotel Paradiso", "Period of Adjustment" and "Walking Happy". She performed at the Coconut Grove Playhouse, in Miami, appearing in the Tennessee Williams play, "Orpheus Descending".
1062089	Marcia Gay Harden (born August 14, 1959) is an Academy Award–winning and Tony Award-winning American film and theatre actress. Harden's breakthrough role was in "Miller's Crossing" (1990) and then "The First Wives Club" (1996) which was followed by several roles which gained her wider fame including the comedy "Flubber" (1997) and "Meet Joe Black" (1998). She received an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her role as Lee Krasner in "Pollock" (2000). She has starred in a string of successful mainstream and independent movies, such as "Space Cowboys" (2000), "Into the Wild" (2007), and "The Mist" (2007), for which she won the Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actress. Harden's recent credits include Lasse Hallström's film "The Hoax", opposite Richard Gere, and Hollywood Pictures' "The Invisible", directed by David S Goyer. She was also recently seen in Lakeshore Entertainment's "The Dead Girl", directed by Karen Moncrieff and starring Toni Colette, Kerry Washington, Mary Steenburgen, and Brittany Murphy. In 2009, Harden received a Tony Award for the Broadway play "God of Carnage". She has also twice been nominated for an Emmy Award. Early life. Harden, one of five children, was born in La Jolla, California, the daughter of Texas natives Beverly (née Bushfield), a housewife, and Thad Harold Harden, who was an officer in the United States Navy. One of Harden's brothers is named Thaddeus, as is her former husband. Harden's family frequently moved because of her father's job, living in Japan, Germany, Greece, California, and Maryland. She graduated from Surrattsville High School in Clinton, Maryland in 1976, the University of Texas at Austin with a BA in theatre, and the Graduate Acting Program at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts with a Master of Fine Arts. Career. Harden's first film role was in a 1979 student-produced movie at the University of Texas. Throughout the 1980s, she appeared in several television programs, including "Simon & Simon", "Kojak", and "CBS Summer Playhouse". She appeared in the Coen brothers' "Miller's Crossing" (1990), a 1930s mobster drama in which she first gained wide exposure. Even so, at the time, living in New York City, she had to go back to doing catering jobs "because I didn't have any money". In 1992, she played actress Ava Gardner alongside Philip Casnoff as Frank Sinatra in the made for TV miniseries "Sinatra". Throughout the 1990s, she continued to appear in films and television. Notable film roles include "The Imagemaker" (1986), her first screen role, in which she played a stage manager; the Disney sci-fi comedy "Flubber" (1997), a popular hit in which she co-starred with Robin Williams; the supernatural drama "Meet Joe Black" (1998); "Labor of Love" (1998), a Lifetime Television movie in which she starred with David Marshall Grant; and "Space Cowboys" (2000), an all-star adventure-drama about aging astronauts. In 1993, Harden debuted on Broadway in the role of Harper Pitt (and others) in Tony Kushner's "". The role earned her critical acclaim and she received a Tony Award nomination (Best Featured Actress in a Play). The winner in that category was Debra Monk in Redwood Curtain. Harden was awarded the 2000 Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her portrayal of painter Lee Krasner in "Pollock" (2000). In 2003, she was again nominated in the same category for "Mystic River". Harden guest-starred as FBI undercover agent Dana Lewis posing as a white-supremacist in "Raw", an episode of the popular crime drama "". In 2007, this role earned Harden her first Emmy Award nomination for best guest actress in a drama series. She reprised the role in the series' eighth season premiere and again in the twelfth season episode "Penetration" as a rape victim (aired November 10, 2010). In 2007, Harden appeared in several films, including Sean Penn's critically acclaimed "Into the Wild", and Frank Darabont's "The Mist" (opposite Thomas Jane and Laurie Holden), based on the novella by Stephen King. Also in 2007 she shared top billing with Kevin Bacon in "Rails & Ties", the directorial debut of Alison Eastwood. In 2008, she appeared in "Home" playing a woman who has had a mastectomy. One central scene called for her to bare her breasts, with the missing breast "removed" using computer-generated imagery. In "Home", her co-stars include her daughter, Eulala Scheel. Harden starred in the "Christmas Cottage" (2008), a story of the early artistic beginnings of the Painter of Light, Thomas Kinkade. In 2009, she appeared as a regular on the critically acclaimed FX series "Damages" as a shrewd corporate attorney, opposite Glenn Close and William Hurt. Harden also played in the comedy "The Maiden Heist" (2009) with Christopher Walken and Morgan Freeman. Harden received a 2009 Emmy nomination for her role in "The Courageous Heart of Irena Sendler", a TV film also starring Oscar-winner Anna Paquin. She was a Best Supporting Actress in a TV Movie/Miniseries nominee, and lost to Shohreh Aghdashloo. If she had won this Emmy, Harden would have entered the elite group of 'triple-crown' actors; those who have won the profession's three highest honors: the Academy Award (film), the Tony Award (stage) and the Emmy Award (television). In 2009, Harden co-starred with Ellen Page and Drew Barrymore in "Whip It", which proved a critical success. It was also in this year that Harden returned to Broadway in Yasmina Reza's "God of Carnage", where she co-starred with James Gandolfini, Hope Davis and Jeff Daniels. All three actors were nominated for the Tony Award, and on June 8, Harden won Best Actress in a Play. Together, Harden's films have grossed $724,487,920 domestically and $1,128,784,661 worldwide. In 2013, Harden reunited with her former Broadway co-star Jeff Daniels as a new cast member on HBO's series "The Newsroom". Personal life. Harden married Thaddaeus Scheel, a prop master whom she worked with on "The Spitfire Grill" (1996), in 1996. Harden and Scheel have three children: a daughter, Eulala Grace Scheel (September 1998), and twins Julitta Dee Scheel and Hudson Scheel Harden (April 22, 2004). In February 2012, Harden filed for divorce from Scheel. On December 14, 2003, her nephew Sander Waring Harden and niece Audrey Gay Harden died along with their mother Rebecca Harden, as a result of a fire in their Queens, New York, apartment. Rebecca Harden was, at the time, divorced from Marcia Gay's brother, the children's father, Thaddeus Harden. On May 22, 2010, Harden delivered the 127th Spring Commencement Address at her alma mater, the University of Texas at Austin. Harden and her children reside in New York City's Harlem. Awards and nominations. Other. In 2002, she received the Excellence in acting award at the Provincetown International Film Festival.
1042784	The Prince and the Showgirl is a 1957 British film produced at Pinewood Studios starring Marilyn Monroe and co-starring Laurence Olivier who also served as director and producer. Filmed in conjuncion with Marilyn Monroe Productions, it was written by Terence Rattigan who based the screenplay on his stage play "The Sleeping Prince". The production of this film serves as the backdrop for the 2011 film "My Week with Marilyn." Plot. The film is set in London in June 1911. George V will be crowned king on 22 June and in the preceding days many of the most important dignitaries arrive. Among those arriving are King Nicholas of Carpathia and the regent, Prince Charles. The British government realises the succession in Carpathia is critical to the rising tension in Europe and to gain favour with them would be wise. They find it necessary to pamper the royals during their stay in London, and thus civil servant Northbrook is detached to their service. Northbrook decides to take the Prince Regent out to the musical performance "The Coconut Girl". During the interval the Prince Regent is taken backstage to meet the cast. He is particularly uninterested in engaging with the male actors and extremely interested only in the physical charms of Elsie Marina, one of the performers, and sends a formal written invitation for her to meet him at the embassy for supper. Elsie arrives at the embassy and is soon joined by the Prince Regent, a stiff, pompous but powerful fool. She expects a party but quickly realises the Prince's true intentions – to seduce her. She was previously persuaded not to leave early by Northbrook, who promised to provide an excuse for her to escape. While Elsie is there for love, the Prince has other ideas. He is inept at romance, however, and turns his back on her to take a phone call. He then makes a clumsy pass at her, to which she's accustomed from men and immediately rebuffs. She pointedly explains how inept he is at romance and the Prince then changes his tactics. The two eventually kiss and Elsie admits she may be falling in love, but she passes out from the many drinks he has encouraged her to consume. The Prince places her in an adjoining bedroom to stay the night. The following day, Elsie overhears a conversation concerning the young Nicolas' plotting with the German embassy to overthrow his father. Promising not to tell, Elsie then meets the Dowager Queen, the prince's mother-in-law, who decides she should join them for the coronation in place of her lady-in-waiting. The ceremony passes and Elsie refuses to tell the Prince Regent details of the treasonous plot. During the Coronation Ball (to which she was invited by Nicholas,) she persuades Nicholas to draw up a contract in which he confesses his and the Germans' intent, but only if the Prince agrees to a general election. The Prince Regent is impressed and realises that he has fallen in love with Elsie. The morning after the Coronation Ball, Elsie irons out the differences between father and son. Her honesty and sincerity have inspired the prince finally to show love to his son in private, rather than only affecting it in public. The next day, the Carpathians must leave to return home. The Prince Regent had planned to have Elsie join them; in eighteen months' time, his regency will be over and he will be a free citizen. She reminds him that that is also the length of her music-hall contract. They both realise that much can happen in eighteen months and say goodbye. The ending is ambiguous, left up to the viewer to decide if they will meet again in 18 months time. Production. Production was marred with difficulties between Monroe and her co-stars and the production team. According to Jean Kent, Monroe regularly failed to arrive on set on time and appeared dirty and dishevelled. She often encouraged her co-stars to drink before scenes and had an uneasy relationship with cinematographer Jack Cardiff who referred to her as a "bitch". Olivier also reportedly showed a strong dislike to Monroe and her acting coach Paula Strasberg; he reportedly ordered Strasberg off the set at one point and Monroe refused to continue shooting until she was restored. The relationship between Olivier and Monroe worsened when Olivier said "try and be sexy" to her and she never forgave him for it. Kent states that the difficulties with filming and Monroe on set caused Olivier to age 15 years. Reception. The film proved less than impressive, both critically and financially. It recorded a profit, but many critics panned it for being slow-moving. Awards. The movie was nominated for five BAFTA Awards: Crystal Star Award (French Film Academy) David Di Donatello (Italian Film Academy) National Board of Review Awards: Associated works. The 2011 film "My Week with Marilyn" depicts the week in which Monroe spent being escorted around London by personal assistant Colin Clark, during the filming of "The Prince and the Showgirl." The movie is largely based upon two books by Clark recounting his experiences during the production: "My Week with Marilyn" (2000) and "The Prince, the Showgirl, and Me: Six Months on the Set With Marilyn and Olivier" (1996). Both books and the film depict Monroe striking up a friendship and alleged semi-romantic relationship with Clark for a brief time during production.
1224720	Laila Robins (born March 14, 1959) is an American stage, film and television actress. Life and career. Robins was born in St. Paul, Minnesota, the daughter of Latvian American parents Brigita (née Švarcs) and Jānis Robiņš, a research chemist. She attended the Yale School of Drama, (MFA) and received her undergraduate degree at the University of Wisconsin–Eau Claire, (BA). Robins has been in a relationship with the actor Robert Cuccioli since 2000. They co-starred in "Macbeth" at the Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey; he was Macbeth, and she was Lady Macbeth. Robins has three sisters, Daina Robins, who resides in Holland, Michigan, Baiba, who still lives in the Twin Cities area, Minnesota, and Zaiga Robins, a chaplain at Season Hospice, Chicago, IL. Daina is the department chair of Theatre at Hope College. Robins has won several awards for her work including the Actors' Equity Foundation Joe A. Callaway Award, the Helen Hayes Award nomination, the Jefferson Award, the Drama League Award and the Lucille Lortel Award nomination for Outstanding Featured Actress. Theatre. Robins appeared as Lady Utterword in the Roundabout Theatre Company's revival of George Bernard Shaw's "Heartbreak House" (2006). Robins' other Broadway appearances were "Frozen" by Bryony Lavery (2004), "The Herbal Bed" by Peter Whelan (1998), and "The Real Thing" by Tom Stoppard (1985), directed by Mike Nichols. (Robins succeeded actress Glenn Close in the role). Robins has appeared off-Broadway in "Sore Throats" by Howard Brenton, "The Merchant of Venice" by William Shakespeare, "Mrs. Klein" by Nicholas Wright (in which she also toured with Uta Hagen) (1995–1996), "Burnt Piano" by Justin Fleming and "The Film Society" by Jon Robin Baitz, among others.
1182916	Cameron Ezike Giles (born February 4, 1976), better known by his stage name Cam'ron (formerly Killa Cam), is an American rapper and actor from Harlem, New York City, New York. He is the "de facto" leader of East Coast hip hop groups The Diplomats (also known as Dipset), and The U.N. (Us Now). Biography. Early life. Cameron Giles was born and raised in Harlem, New York. He went to school at Manhattan Center for Science and Mathematics, where he would meet his long time friends Mase and Jim Jones. He was a promising basketball player alongside Mase, however, he was unable to take advantage of scholarship offers due to his poor academic standing. He instead enrolled in a college in Texas, even without graduating from high school, but soon dropped out and returned to Harlem where he began selling drugs before starting his rap career. He began his musical career in the mid 1990s, rapping alongside Big L, Mase and his cousin Bloodshed in a group called Children Of The Corn. However, after Bloodshed's death in a car accident in 1997, the group disbanded and the remaining members continued solo careers. 1998: "Confessions of Fire". Two years before Big L's murder in 1999, Cam'ron was introduced to The Notorious B.I.G. by Mase who was signed to Bad Boy Records at the time. Biggie was so impressed by Cam'ron that he introduced him to his partner Lance "Un" Rivera who signed Cam'ron to his Untertainment label, distributed by Epic Records. His debut album, "Confessions of Fire", was released in a year later, July 1998 and included singles such as "3-5-7" (which was also featured in the movie Woo), and "Horse and Carriage" featuring Mase which reached the R&B Top Ten and just missed out on reaching the pop Top 40. The album achieved gold status and made the Top 10 of both the pop and R&B charts. 2000: "S.D.E.". In 2000, Cam'ron was working with music executive Tommy Mottola and released his second album "S.D.E. (Sports Drugs & Entertainment)" on Sony/Epic Records. With features from Destiny's Child, Juelz Santana, Jim Jones, N.O.R.E., and producer Digga, it included the relatively successful singles, "Let Me Know" and "What Means The World To You". The album reached Number 2 on the R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart, and Number 14 on the Billboard 200. 2001–02: "Come Home with Me". After demanding a release from Sony/Epic Records, Cam'ron signed with his childhood friend and new manager Damon Dash to Roc-A-Fella Records in 2001, alongside artists such as Jay-Z, Beanie Sigel, Freeway and Memphis Bleek. A reported $4.5 million record deal was agreed upon with and Damon Dash and his Roc-A-Fella partners Kareem Biggs and Jay-Z in the form of a record advance. His third and most successful album "Come Home With Me" was released in 2002 featuring guests such as Jay-Z, Beanie Sigel, and Memphis Bleek, and production from Just Blaze, Kanye West and The Heatmakerz. It included the hit singles "Oh Boy" and "Hey Ma", which both featured The Diplomats newest member and protégé, Juelz Santana. The album achieved platinum status and served as a stepping stone for Cam'ron's group The Diplomats to sign with Roc-A-Fella. 2003–04: "Purple Haze". In 2003 Cam'ron teamed up with his fellow Diplomats Members Jim Jones, Juelz Santana, and Freekey Zeeky to release the Diplomats' debut double disc album, "Diplomatic Immunity", in 2003 under Roc-A-Fella/Diplomat Records, which was quickly certified gold by the RIAA. The album featured the lead single "Dipset Anthem," a remix to Cam'rons hit "Hey Ma" and the (street anthem) single "I Really Mean It," as well as boasting production from Kanye West, Just Blaze, and The Heatmakerz. A year later, the Diplomats released their second album, "Diplomatic Immunity 2". Although not as successful as their debut, it still was boosted to gold status. Around this time in the height of his mainstream fame, Cam'ron was known for popularizing the color pink. During this period, Cam'ron was always seen wearing pink clothing and even bought an all pink Range Rover which can be seen in his video for "Killa Cam". Cam'ron's fourth studio album, "Purple Haze", was released on December 7, 2004 on Def Jam/Roc-A-Fella Records. It featured collaborations with Kanye West, Jaheim, Twista, Juelz Santana, and various other artists and ultimately reached gold status. The album was also a critical success, being ranked 114th on Pitchfork Media's Top 200 Albums of the first decade of the 21st century List, and 10th on Rhapsody's Hip Hop's Best Albums Of The Decade List. However, after feeling that the album was poorly promoted and that his projects were not receiving the attention they deserved, Cam'ron requested his release from Roc-A-Fella Records. 2005–06: "Killa Season". On April 28, 2005, Cam'Ron officially joined the Warner Music Group under the Asylum Records imprint. He began work on what would be his first project for the new label. Cam'ron's fifth studio album, entitled "Killa Season", was released on May 16, 2006 featuring production from long term collaborators The Heatmakerz, Charlmagne and Ty Fyffe, as well as others such as Alchemist and I.N.F.O.. Along with the album, Cam'ron released his first film, in which he wrote, directed and starred in, also titled "Killa Season". Despite selling 112,000 units in the first week and debuting at #2 on the charts, "Killa Season" failed to have the same sales strength as his two previous releases and failed to reach gold or platinum status quickly, Eventually, "Killa Season" became certified gold. 2007–09: "Crime Pays". After the release of "Killa Season" and his feud with 50 Cent in 2007, Cam'ron took a three year hiatus from music after his mother suffered three strokes which left her paralyzed on her left side. He moved to Florida with her to set up her rehabilitation and therapy, and stayed there until she had fully recovered. Cam'ron's 2009 album, "Crime Pays" was released on Asylum/Diplomat Records, featuring the majority of the production handled by Skitzo and AraabMuzik. Although none of the singles managed to chart, the album still reached Number 3 on the Billboard 200 but only sold 150,000 units, making this the lowest selling album of his career. In 2009 Cam'ron formed a new label, Dipset West, and new group, The U.N.. 2010–present: "Killa Season 2", work with The U.N. and Vado. In late 2009/early 2010, Cam'ron released a series of mixtapes hosted by DJ Drama called "Boss of All Boses" which featured his new upcoming artist Vado. He has also released an album with Vado entitled the first single off the album was "Speaking Tongues" which peaked at number 82 on the U.S. R&B charts. Cam'ron announced that he would be releasing a joint album with his new group The U.N. called "Gunz n' Butta". After 3 years Cam'ron & Jim Jones have decided to start working on a third installment of the Diplomatic Immunity album along with other Diplomat artists such as Juelz Santana & Freekey Zekey. Cam'ron announced that the Diplomat album's release will take place around Christmas 2010. The first single featuring the reunited Diplomat members is called "Salute". Produced by upcoming Diplomat producer AraabMuzik, the track was rumored to appear on Jim Jones next album Capo. He was featured on the song "The Bluff" off Wiz Khalifa's second studio album ONIFC. His next studio album "Killa Season 2" will be released in 2013. The album will feature guest appearances from Dipset, T.I., Nicki Minaj, and Wiz Khalifa. Prior to that he will release a mixtape titled, "Ghetto Heaven Vol 1" on October 1, 2013. Other Ventures. Film/Acting Career. In 2003, Cam'ron went on to appear in the Damon Dash produced film, "Paid in Full", in which he played one of three main characters alongside Mekhi Phifer and Wood Harris. In 2006 started shooting his movie for his album entitled Killa Season, the film would mark both Cam'ron's screenwriting and directorial debuts, as well as his return to acting. Killa Season was released to DVD on April 25, 2006, after a special two-day theatrical release. Controversy. Jay-Z. Although there had been rumors of a beef between the two emcees, Cam'ron went public first with a track on "Killa Season" called "You Gotta Love It (Jay-Z Diss)" featuring ex-Dipset member Max B. In the song, Cam'ron takes jabs at Jay-Z's age, his alleged "biting" (stealing) of lyrics, and his current girlfriend. He references Jay-Z using The Notorious B.I.G.'s rhymes, rapping "You ain't the only one with big wallets got it my shit's brolick but ya publishing should go to Miss Wallace." He then released another song "Swagger Jacker (Biter Not a Writer)" to highlight the many songs Jay-Z has borrowed lines from. In the next issue of XXL, Cam'ron explained the beef originated when Jay-Z became CEO and President of Roc A Fella Records. In 2010 Cam'ron stated he does not have any issues with Jay-Z anymore. 50 Cent. On February 1, 2007, Cam'ron and 50 Cent had a live argument on "The Angie Martinez Show" on Hot 97 radio. Jackson commented that Koch Entertainment was a "graveyard", meaning major record labels would not work with their artists. Cam'ron then ridiculed the record sales of G-Unit members Lloyd Banks and Mobb Deep by stating that Jim Jones outsold their albums despite being signed to an independent label and that his group, The Diplomats, had a distribution deal from several labels. Both rappers released "diss" songs with videos on YouTube. 50 Cent suggested in "Funeral Music" that Cam'ron is no longer able to lead The Diplomats and that Jim Jones should take his place. Cam'ron responded with "Curtis" and "Curtis Pt. II", in which he makes fun of 50 Cent's appearance, calling him "a gorilla, with rabbit teeth". 50 Cent responded by releasing "Hold On" with Young Buck. Since 2009, the feud between the two has seemed to calm down. Jim Jones. During this time Cam'ron was not speaking to his fellow Diplomat members Juelz Santana and Jim Jones, leading to speculation that the group had broken up. However, despite admitting that he did not want to contact Jim Jones, he said that he had no hard feelings towards him. In an interview with Miss Info, Cam'ron said: "I still haven't spoken to Jim. But Jim ran with me for over 10 years, he worked hard, and I wish him the best of luck. Everybody thinks I'm mad at Jim. Why am I mad? I told people for years that Jimmy was gonna be a star. So its better on my resume. I wish him the best." But After three years of not speaking, Cam'ron and Jim Jones mended their differences in April 2010. In late 2011, both appeared together on Wolfgang Gartner's album Weekend in America, on the track "Circus Freaks." Juelz Santana. After it was evident to the fans that The Diplomats had separated and were no longer on speaking terms, Cam'ron explained in an interview that he was scared for Juelz Santana stating he was "addicted to the drink Sizzurp" and even talked to his mother about his possible "addiction". Juelz Santana responded back by asking why Cam'ron would say false accusations. Additionally, with The Diplomats seeming to be broken up and diminished, Cam'ron decided to sell Juelz Santana's contract from Diplomat Records to Def Jam Records for $2,000,000. However, Juelz Santana said there were no hard feelings between the two and that they have since reconciled. Kanye West. Both Cam'ron and Jim Jones took out their frustrations on former label-mate Kanye West in defense of former CEO Dame Dash by releasing a song entitled "Toast" rhyming over Kanye West's song "Runaway". Saying "And Kanye, you a sucker nigga / Dissed Dame, so my attitude is "fuck a nigga" / Sucka Jigga how you gone live with that / Took ya beat now come get it back". Despite this diss-track, when asked in an interview on Hot 97 with Funkmaster Flex of his take on the subject, Kanye responded by saying "Man, you don't understand how much I love Dipset. But it's so necessary; Dipset is so necessary." Additionally, Kanye said he understands that people do not agree with the way he does certain things and he, himself, does not even agree with some of the stuff he's done. Currently, neither Cam'ron nor Jim Jones have responded back. The feud has later ended, since Cam'ron, Jim Jones, and Kanye West collaborated on a song called "Christmas in Harlem" Personal life. Carjacking/Stop Snitching Campaign. On October 23, 2005, Cam'ron was leaving a nightclub in Washington D.C., having performed the day before at Howard University. Whilst stopped at a traffic light at the intersection of New York and New Jersey Avenue shortly after midnight, a passenger of a nearby car threatened Cam'ron to "give up" his 2006 Lamborghini. Cam'ron resisted, and the man then shot him. Cam'ron was struck at least once as he was holding the steering wheel, but he was able to drive, going the wrong way on streets and flashing his lights, until a fan drove him to Howard University Hospital. The gunman and passenger fled and crashed into a parked car and fled the scene. D.C. Metro Police recovered a cell phone from the scene of the crash, which they tried to use to trace the suspects. He stated that he does not know who shot him. On April 22, 2007, Cam'ron was interviewed on "60 Minutes" as part of a piece on the Stop Snitchin' movement. He also stated that he would "not help the police" try to locate the shooter saying he is "not a snitch" and helping the police would probably hurt his record sales. He stated in the interview, "Because with the type of business I'm in, it would definitely hurt my business. And the way that I was raised, I just don't do that. I was raised differently, not to tell...It's about business but it's still also a code of ethics"" When asked by Anderson Cooper if he would tell the police if a serial killer was living next to him, Cam'ron replied "I would probably move," but would not inform the police. After the "60 Minutes" interview aired, Cam'ron received a lot of media criticism for his statements.
980176	The Seashell and the Clergyman () is an experimental French film directed by Germaine Dulac, from an original scenario by Antonin Artaud. It premiered in Paris on 9 February 1928. Synopsis. The film follows the erotic hallucinations of a priest lusting after the wife of a general. Production background. Although accounts differ, it seems that Artaud disapproved of Dulac's treatment of his scenario. The film was overshadowed by "Un chien andalou" ("An Andalusian Dog", 1929), written and directed by Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dalí. "Un chien andalou" is considered the first surrealist film, but its foundations in "The Seashell and the Clergyman" have been all but overlooked. However, the iconic techniques associated with surrealist cinema are all borrowed from this early film. In Lee Jamieson's own analysis of the film, the surrealist treatment of the image is clear. He writes: "The Seashell and the Clergyman" penetrates the skin of material reality and plunges the viewer into an unstable landscape where the image cannot be trusted. Remarkably, Artaud not only subverts the physical, surface image, but also its interconnection with other images. The result is a complex, multi-layered film, so semiotically unstable that images dissolve into one another both visually and 'semantically', truly investing in film's ability to act upon the subconscious." The British Board of Film Censors famously reported that the film was "Apparently meaningless" but "If there is a meaning, it is doubtless objectionable" Alan Williams has suggested the film is better thought of as a work of or influenced by German expressionism. Musical scores. The silent film is popular with musicians and has been scored by many groups. It was one of the first films scored by Silent Orchestra and performed by them at the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington, DC in 2000. This was the first film to be scored by live accompaniment band Minima. Their debut performance was at the UK's Shunt Vaults at London Bridge in 2006. It has also been rescored by Steven Severin of Siouxsie and the Banshees and The Black Cat Orchestra.
775055	Cooking with Stella is a film written by siblings Deepa Mehta and Dilip Mehta. The film is a light comedy about a Canadian diplomat (played by Lisa Ray) and her husband (Don McKellar) living in New Delhi, and their cook, Stella (Seema Biswas). Tamil actress Shriya Saran and Tamil/Telugu Trisha Krishnan make a special appearance. "Cooking with Stella" was shot on location in New Delhi, and entered post-production in May 2008. It premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival on 16 September 2009. The film was also nominated at London Asian Film Festival under Best Crossover film category and Best actress for Seema Biswas. Plot. When a Canadian diplomat and her chef husband move into the Canadian embassy in Delhi they threaten to derail the schemes of the longtime cook Stella (Seema Biswas) who has been skimming off the top for years.
627157	Mark W. Moses (born February 24, 1958) is an American actor, known for his roles of Paul Young on "Desperate Housewives" and Herman "Duck" Phillips on the AMC series "Mad Men". Life and career. Moses was born in New York City, but grew up in Evanston, Illinois. He was a football quarterback at high school. His younger brother is the actor and singer Burke Moses. Mark Moses has appeared in a number of films by director Oliver Stone, such as "Platoon", "The Doors", and "Born on the Fourth of July". As a character actor with appearances on projects ranging as diverse as "Big Momma's House 2" (2006), "Platoon" (1986) and "" (1999), Moses had always been reliably employed, but did not become a household name until he was cast in the role of Paul Young on the hit ABC dramedy "Desperate Housewives" (2004–2007). As the disturbed husband of the deceased (suicide victim) Mary Alice Young, he played one of the pivotal figures in the show's original main mystery. Moses played Herman "Duck" Phillips on the AMC series "Mad Men" until 2009. Moses played the title character, "a Wall Street creep", in a 2006 Off-Broadway play called "Burleigh Grimes" (which has nothing to do with the baseball player of the same name). Moses currently resides in Los Angeles, California with his wife Annie LaRussa and their two sons. He has a brief appearance in the 2008 film "Swing Vote", starring Kevin Costner. In 2010, Moses re-joined "Desperate Housewives" and is set to reprise his role as Paul Young in the sixth season finale, as a guest star, and as a regular in the seventh season. Moses' son, Walker Moses, is currently a sophomore outfielder for the Northwestern University baseball team.
1042934	It has been stated elsewhere that he was the grandson of the inventor William Friese-Greene, who is credited by some as the inventor of cinematography, but this transpired to be a myth, being finally exploded as a result of two parallel lines of genealogical research as conducted by the BFI and Paul Pert, the latter being subsequently published in 2009 . Early life. Greene was a Roman Catholic of Irish and Scottish ancestry, and was born in Plymouth, Devon, England. His aunt was the musical theatre actress Evie Greene. His father, Richard Abraham Greene and his mother, Kathleen Gerrard, were both actors with the Plymouth Repertory Theatre. He was grandson of Richard Bentley Greene and a descendant of four generations of actors, Greene was educated at the CVMS in Kensington, London, and left at age 18. He started his stage career as the proverbial spear carrier in Shakespeare's "Julius Caesar" in 1933. A handsome young man, Greene added to his income by modelling shirts and hats. Career. Greene joined the Jevan Brandon Repertory Company in 1936. He won accolades in the same year for his part in Terence Rattigan's "French Without Tears", which brought him to the attention of Alexander Korda and Darryl F. Zanuck. At 20, he joined 20th Century Fox as a rival to MGM's Robert Taylor. His first film for Fox was John Ford's "Four Men and a Prayer". Greene was a huge success, especially with female film goers who sent him mountains of fan mail which at its peak rivalled that of Fox star Tyrone Power. One of his most notable roles was Sir Henry Baskerville in the 1939 Sherlock Holmes film "The Hound of the Baskervilles". The film marked the first pairing of Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce as Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson. Greene interrupted his acting career to serve in World War II in the 27th Lancers, where he distinguished himself. After three months, he went to Sandhurst and was commissioned. He was promoted to Captain in the 27th Lancers in May 1944. He was relieved from duty in 1942 to appear in the British propaganda films "Flying Fortress" and "Unpublished Story". In 1943, he appeared in "The Yellow Canary" while on furlough. He later toured in Shaw's "Arms and the Man", entertaining the troops. Greene was discharged in December 1944 and appeared in the stage plays "Desert Rats" and "I Capture the Castle". However, the war effectively ruined Greene's rising career. Though he did well in the popular film "Forever Amber" (1947), Greene found himself cast in a series of swashbuckling roles. Having turned away from films in favour of stage and screen and having been through a divorce from Patricia Medina, to whom he was married from 1941 to 1951, Greene was cash-strapped when Yeoman Films of Great Britain approached him for the lead role in "The Adventures of Robin Hood". Greene took the role and was an immediate success. It solved his financial problems and made him a star. He had a long love affair in the 1950s with Nancy Oakes, wealthy daughter of mining tycoon Sir Harry Oakes. Amongst other TV programmes, Greene was in "A Man For Loving", "The Doctors", "The Morecambe and Wise Show", "Dixon of Dock Green", "Scarf Jack", "The Professionals" episode "Everest Was Also Conquered" and the "Tales of the Unexpected" episode "Mrs. Bixby and the Colonel's Coat".
1034124	John Castle (born 14 January 1940) is an English actor. Castle has acted in theatre, film and television. He is well known for his role as Postumus in the 1976 BBC television adaptation of "I, Claudius" and for playing Geoffrey in the 1968 film, "The Lion in Winter". He also played Dr. Carrasco as well as the prisoner called "The Duke" in the film "Man of La Mancha", and the villain in "RoboCop 3". Early life. Castle was born in Croydon, Surrey. He was educated at Brighton College and Trinity College, Dublin, and trained for the stage at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. Work. Castle's first appearance was as Westmoreland onstage in "Henry V" on 5 June 1964, at the Open Air, Regent's Park. His first Broadway theatre appearance was in February 1970, as Jos in the short-lived musical "Georgy". In 1967 he made his screen debut as the plotting Prince Geoffrey in the big-screen adaptation of "The Lion in Winter". The role garnered him much praise and set him on his way as an in-demand supporting actor in London and Hollywood. The film also launched the film careers of Anthony Hopkins, Timothy Dalton and Nigel Terry. Castle played the role of Octavius Caesar in the poorly reviewed Charlton Heston 1972 film version of "Antony and Cleopatra", a film which received no U.S. release at all. He appeared as Carruthers, the more honourable of a trio of schemers in "The Solitary Cyclist", an episode of Granada's "Sherlock Holmes" television series starring Jeremy Brett as Holmes. His association with Sherlock Holmes continued with his role as Nigel St. Clair in the film version of "The Crucifer of Blood". He played Inspector Craddock in the 1985 adaptation of the Agatha Christie story "A Murder is Announced"., and played the title role in the 2000 made-for-TV version of Christie's "Lord Edgware Dies". In 1990 Castle starred as Superintendent George Thorne in the BBC's full cast radio adaptations of John Penn's novels. Personal life. Castle is married to the writer Maggie Wadey. In a biographical essay for "Who's Who in the Theatre" in 1981, he listed his favourite parts as Luther, Hamlet and O'Riordan.
582355	Aitraaz (, "Objection") is a 2004 Bollywood romantic thriller produced by Subhash Ghai for Mukta Arts and directed by Abbas-Mustan. Loosely based on the 1994 Hollywood film "Disclosure", it tells the story of a man accused of sexual harassment by his female superior. The film stars Akshay Kumar, Kareena Kapoor and Priyanka Chopra and was the third film collaboration between Kumar and Chopra, after "Andaaz" and "Mujhse Shaadi Karogi". "Aitraaz" features Amrish Puri, Paresh Rawal and Annu Kapoor in supporting roles. Its score was composed by Himesh Reshammiya, with lyrics by Sameer. The film was released worldwide on 12 November 2004 to positive reviews, with praise for Chopra's performance. "Aitraaz" was noted for its theme of sexual harassment, a first in Hindi cinema. Chopra received critical acclaim for her role as Sonia Roy, an ambitious woman who accuses an employee of sexual harassment. The film grossed about at the domestic box office, and was a commercial success. "Aitraaz" received a number of nominations, winning several awards (including an individual one for Chopra). At the 50th Filmfare Awards the film received two nominations, including Best Supporting Actress for Chopra. The actress won for Best Performance in a Negative Role, becoming the second (and final) actress to win the award after Kajol; the category was discontinued in 2008. "Aitraaz" was remade in Kannada as "Shrimathi". Plot. Raj Malhotra (Akshay Kumar) is employed by a telecommunications company, Air Voice. Priya Saxena (Kareena Kapoor)—who is looking for a full-time job—goes to Raj's house for an interview, mistaking him for barrister Ram Chautrani (Annu Kapoor), a neighbour. Raj and Priya fall in love, marry and are expecting their first child. Raj expects to be promoted to CEO when the company's chairman (Amrish Puri) arrives with his new wife, Sonia Roy (Priyanka Chopra) to announce the promotions. Sonia Roy is named the company's new chairman; after a discussion with her husband, she announces the promotions. The CEO position goes to Raj's friend Rakesh (Vivek Shauq), and Raj is named to the board of directors. At a party, Raj brings Priya and learns about his new boss, Sonia Roy. Priya is surprised that Sonia is the wife of the former chairman (and half his age). Raj and his colleagues talk about Sonia Roy and the age difference between her and her husband, and Raj jokes that his magnetic personality was responsible for his promotion. A flashback explores Raj's previous relationship with Sonia. Five years earlier, Raj and Sonia (then a model) meet at a beach in Cape Town. They fall in love and move in together; Sonia becomes pregnant, but refuses Raj's marriage proposal and says she is going to terminate the pregnancy. She wants wealth, fame, power and status, and a child would be in the way; their relationship ends. After the party, Rakesh tells Raj about a defect in the company's new mobile handset: a call goes to two people simultaneously—the intended recipient and another person on the phone's contact list. Raj needs Sonia's permission to halt production, and she invites him to her house to discuss the matter. Sonia aggressively tries to pursue Raj, who resists. Although he repeatedly rejects her advances, Sonia continues trying to seduce him. As Raj leaves, she threatens to punish him for spurning her. The next day, he learns that Sonia has told her husband that Raj harassed her sexually. Since he has admitted finding Sonia attractive his claim of innocence is not believed, and the company pressures him into a reassignment. Raj asks Ram Chauthrani to take his case; Chauthrani tells him not to resign, and to keep going to work. The case goes to court; Sonia and Roy engage a lawyer, Patel (Paresh Rawal). Although the bulk of the evidence is at first against Raj, his friend returns from Bangkok and gives him a tape which recorded Raj's encounter at Sonia's house. After the tape is proven genuine, Chauthrani is killed by a car driven by someone hired by Sonia and the tape is substituted. When Priya asks Raj why he called their bank manager from Sonia's house, he replies that he had called Rakesh; the call went through to the bank manager as well. Priya (also a lawyer) continues the case after Chauthrani's death. She uses Rakesh's phone in evidence against Sonia, exposing her earlier relationship with Raj. It is revealed that Sonia married Roy for money, power and status; when he could not satisfy her sexually, she tried to resume her relationship with Raj. Priya wins the case, and Roy leaves Sonia. Guilt-stricken and humiliated, Sonia commits suicide by jumping from a building. The film ends with a song; Raj and Priya have a baby boy, and live happily ever after. Production. According to Abbas-Mustan, "Aitraaz" was inspired by National Basketball Association player Kobe Bryant (who was accused of rape by a fan); the film's development began when they read about his sexual-assault case in the newspapers. According to the directors, they were fascinated by the possibility of the situation in reverse. About the film's unusual title, they said the word ""aitraaz"" was colloquial and suited the subject. In early 2004 the media reported that Akshay Kumar, Kareena Kapoor and Priyanka Chopra were cast in lead roles, making it the third film collaboration between Kumar and Chopra after "Andaaz" and "Mujhse Shaadi Karogi". Kumar was cast as a working man accused of rape at his workplace; Kapoor is his supportive wife, who goes to extremes to defend him. According to the directors, Kumar was cast against type; an action star, they wanted him to underplay his character. Abbas-Mustan, known for stylish thrillers and intriguing antagonists (Shah Rukh Khan in 1993's "Baazigar", Arbaaz Khan in 1996's "Daraar", Akshay Kumar in the 2001 "Ajnabee" and Akshaye Khanna in 2002's "Humraaz"), cast Chopra in her first negative role. She plays a woman, married to a business magnate more than twice her age (played by Amrish Puri), who falsely accuses her ex-lover (Kumar) of raping her to seek revenge. Chopra was initially apprehensive about such a bold character, due to the controversial nature of sexual harassment. Abbas-Mastan and Subhash Ghai (the film's producer) convinced her to accept the role, assuring her that the film would not damage her career. According to Kumar, Raj (accused of rape by his female boss) is realistic and could be described as a "new-age metrosexual" man. He enjoyed the strengths and weaknesses of his character, who is not afraid to show his feelings and does not feel emasculated by his situation: "There's a quiet dignity and heroism associated with my character. He doesn’t fight for applause. He fights for his convictions." In an interview with "Tribune India", Kapoor described her role as Priya (Kumar's wife): "Every Indian women could identify with her character." She said her role (a woman whose husband is accused of rape by his former girlfriend) is supportive; she stands by him, as any Indian woman would. Chopra described her character (Sonia, an ambitious woman who accuses her employee of sexual harassment) as "charming and focused": "Her philosophy is that she has to achieve her goals at any cost. She knows one thing: that nothing can come in between her desires and herself." She did not identify with the character, considering it a "man-eater role" because of her conservative real-life upbringing. Chopra found it challenging to play such an "extremely negative character", and had to mentally prepare herself for an hour before each scene to get inside her character. She improvised gestures and expressions; beyond actions and dialogue, her attitude was aggressive and bold. The film was shot in Cape Town, Goa, Pune and Mumbai. During filming of the sexual-harassment scene, Chopra wept; it took the directors several hours to remind her she was only playing a character, and additional filming was postponed. Soundtrack. "Aitraaz"s soundtrack was composed by Himesh Reshammiya, with lyrics by Sameer. The album contains fifteen songs: seven original, and eight remixes. Most were sung by Udit Narayan and Alka Yagnik. It was released on 24 September 2004 by Sony Music, topping charts on a number of platforms in India. The video of the title track with Kumar and Chopra was shot in one take with a steadycam. The soundtrack was generally well-received by music critics, who praised its lyrics and vocals. Planet Bollywood gave a rating of 7 out of 10, calling it a "good album". Joginder Tuteja of Bollywood Hungama rated the album 3 out of 5, praising "I Want To Make Love To You" (all three versions): "Sunidhi Chauhan is excellent in this wonderfully-composed track that shocks everyone with the intensity of the lyrics and the music". He concluded, "Except for two or three average songs here and there, the majority of songs in Aitraaz do keep you engaged".
1223931	Amy Wright (born April 15, 1950 in Chicago) is an American actress. She has appeared in such films as "The Deer Hunter", "Breaking Away", "The Amityville Horror", "Heartland", "Wise Blood", "Stardust Memories", "The Accidental Tourist", "Hard Promises", "Crossing Delancey" and "Miss Firecracker". Wright is married to actor Rip Torn and the couple have two daughters. Wright is a graduate of the University of Chicago Laboratory School and Beloit College. She also starred with Eric Schweig in "The Scarlet Letter" and "Tom and Huck" (both made in 1995). She starred in the original production of "Breakfast with Les and Bess" as Shelby. Wright currently is on the faculty of HB Studio in New York City.
1169148	Marta Kristen (born February 26, 1945) is an American actress. The naturally blonde-haired Kristen is best known for her role as Judy Robinson, the daughter of Professor John and Maureen Robinson, in the television series "Lost in Space" (1965–1968). Marta played the part of the space family's eldest child, a mature "20-something woman" near the age group of the space pilot, played by Mark Goddard. Her mature role allowed adult form-fitting fashions and hairstyles, as shown in publicity photos of the TV series. Biography. Kristen was born Birgit Annalisa Rusanen in Oslo, Norway, to a Finnish mother and a German soldier father who was killed during World War II. She was adopted in 1949 by an American couple from Detroit, Michigan, Prof. & Mrs. Harold Soderquist, and was renamed Marta. She moved to Los Angeles, California, with her family in 1959 and is a graduate of Santa Monica High School. She appeared in a 1961 episode ("Bang! You're Dead") of "Alfred Hitchcock Presents", alongside Billy Mumy, who would later co-star with Kristen in "Lost in Space". Her first success in acting was the role of Lorelei in the 1965 movie "Beach Blanket Bingo". She would later star in "Lost in Space" and make numerous guest appearances on television shows. When her daughter was born in 1969 she began making television commercials and eventually appeared in more than 40. In recent years she has starred in the 1998 television movie "Lost in Space Forever" and had a cameo role in the 1998 movie "Lost in Space". She also appeared in the A&E Biography "Jonathan Harris, Never Fear Smith Is Here" in 2002. Kristen also provided voice work for the 2009 animated theatrical short The Bolt Who Screwed Christmas which also included voice work from her Lost in Space co-stars Jonathan Harris, Bill Mumy and Angela Cartwright. Personal. Kristen's personal life has revolved around discovering her roots, caring for her daughter, and now caring for her granddaughter. On a trip to Finland in 1969, she located her birth mother, Helmi Rusanen, and an older sister whom she had never met; and in 1997 she discovered a brother residing in Australia. She met her second husband, Kevin Kane, in 1974. She and her husband live in Santa Monica, California, with a pair of rescue dogs.
1165764	__notoc__ Lola Jean Albright (born July 20, 1925, Akron, Ohio) is an American singer and actress.
1017848	A Touch of Zen is a 1971 Taiwanese "wuxia" film directed by King Hu. The film won significant critical acclaim and became the first Chinese language action film ever to win a prize at the Cannes Film Festival, claiming the Technical Grand Prize award. Although filming began in 1969, "A Touch of Zen" was not completed until 1971. The original Taiwanese release was in two parts in 1970 and 1971 (filming was still ongoing when the first part was released) with the bamboo forest sequence that concludes Part 1 reprised at the beginning of Part 2; this version has a combined run time of 200 minutes. In November 1971 both parts of the film were combined into one for the Hong Kong market with a run time of 187 minutes. Its running time of over three hours makes it an unusually epic entry in the wuxia genre. Plot. The story is largely seen through the eyes of Ku, who is a well-meaning but unambitious scholar and painter, with a tendency towards being clumsy and ineffectual. A stranger arrives in town wanting his portrait painted by Ku, but his real objective is to bring a female fugitive back to the city for execution on behalf of the East Chamber guards. The fugitive, Yang, is befriended by Ku and together they plot against the corrupt Eunuch Wei who wants to eradicate all trace of her family after her father attempts to warn the Emperor of the eunuch's corruption. One of the unique aspects of the film is that Ku is a non-combatant all the way through the film and only becomes involved when he sleeps with Yang. Upon doing so, he is no longer the naïve bumbling innocent, but instead becomes confident and assertive, and when Yang's plight is revealed, he insists on being part of it – and even comes up with a fiendish "Ghost Trap" for the East Chamber guards. This is a plan to use a supposedly haunted site to play tricks on the guards to make them believe they are prey to the undead. In the aftermath, Ku walks through the carnage laughing at the ingenuity of his plan until the true cost of human life dawns upon him. After the battle, Ku is unable to find Yang, whom he is told has left him and does not want him to follow her. He tracks her down to the monastery of the saintly and powerful Abbot Hui Yuan, where she has given birth to a child by Ku and become a nun. She tells Ku that their destiny together has ended and gives Ku their child. Later, when Ku and the child are tracked down by Hsu Hsien-Chen, the evil commander of Eunuch Wei's army, Yang and Abbot Hui come to Ku's rescue. In the ensuing battle, Hsu is killed and Yang and Abbot Hui are badly injured (the latter bleeding golden blood). The film famously ends with the injured Yang staggering towards a silhouetted figure, presumably Abbot Hui, seen meditating with the setting sun forming a halo around his head, an image suggesting the Buddha and enlightenment. Significance. The film has been hailed for its cinematography, editing, and special effects, as well as its unusually thoughtful approach to the genre, with its strong thematic focus on Buddhism. The film makes strong use of symbolism throughout and is famous for its "abstract," open-ended finale. The motif of spiderwebs is often used to symbolize the tangled and sinister nature of the East Chamber and the evil Eunuch and the manipulative nature of Yang. Elsewhere, the film employs a dark, moody tone which enhances the sense of fantasy. Images of nature, the sun, and the use of lens flares are associated throughout with Buddhism and Abbot Hui's convent. The final battles between Hsu and Hui, which involve a number of mystical events, have been interpreted as a battle between good and evil or as a parable about Buddhist religious virtues, the evils of worldliness, and enlightenment. The film was awarded the Technical Grand Prize and nominated for the Palme d'Or at the 1975 Cannes Film Festival. Featuring stunning settings and backdrops, "A Touch of Zen" was on an influence on many films, including Ang Lee's "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" and Zhang Yimou's "House of Flying Daggers".
1163843	Jill St. John (born Jill Arlyn Oppenheim on August 19, 1940) is an American actress. She is best known for her role as Tiffany Case, the Bond girl in "Diamonds Are Forever" (1971). Early life. St. John was born Jill Arlyn Oppenheim in Los Angeles, California, the daughter of Betty (née Goldberg, 1913-1998) and Edward Oppenheim, a prosperous restaurant owner. As a young girl, St. John was a member of the Children's Ballet Company with Natalie Wood and Stefanie Powers. She attended Powers Professional School and received her high school diploma from Hollywood Professional School in the spring of 1955 at age 14. At 15, St. John enrolled at UCLA's Extension School. Career. A stage mother, Betty Oppenheim changed Jill's last name to the more Hollywood-sounding St. John during her childhood. St. John began acting on radio at age six, and in December 1949, at age nine, she made her screen debut in the first full-length made-for-TV movie, a production of "A Christmas Carol". At age eleven, she appeared in two episodes of "The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show". In 1957, at age 16, Universal Pictures signed St. John to a contract. Her major studio film debut was in "Summer Love" (1958) starring John Saxon. She went on to appear in "The Remarkable Mr. Pennypacker" (1959), "Holiday for Lovers" (1959), "The Lost World" (1960), "The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone" (1961), "Tender Is the Night" (1962), "Who's Been Sleeping in My Bed?" (1963) and "Honeymoon Hotel" (1964). St. John received a Golden Globe Award nomination as Best Actress – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy for her performance in the 1963 film "Come Blow Your Horn", where she starred opposite Frank Sinatra. She would later co-star with Sinatra in the 1967 detective drama "Tony Rome". Other films from this period in her career included "Who's Minding the Store?" with Jerry Lewis, "The Liquidator" (1965) with Rod Taylor, and "The Oscar" (1966) with Stephen Boyd. In 1964, she guest-starred with Lauren Bacall and Jason Robards, Jr. in the episode "Take a Walk Through the Cemetery" of Craig Stevens's CBS drama series, "Mr. Broadway". St. John appeared in the first episode of the television series "Batman" in 1966 as the Riddler's moll, Molly (she was the only female to be killed off during the entire series). St. John's most famous role was as Tiffany Case, the Bond girl in the 1971 James Bond film "Diamonds Are Forever", where she starred opposite Sean Connery. The following year, she starred in the crime thriller "Sitting Target" (1972) with Oliver Reed. During 1983-1984, she starred with Dennis Weaver on the short-lived CBS soap opera, "Emerald Point N.A.S.", in which she played "Deanna Kinkaid," "Thomas Mallory's" conniving former sister-in-law. Her other television credits include guest roles on "Magnum, P.I.", "The Love Boat", "Hart to Hart", "Burke's Law", "The Big Valley", "Vega$", and "Fantasy Island". St. John has worked on five movies with her husband Robert Wagner: "Banning" (1967); "How I Spent My Summer Vacation" (1967); "Around the World in 80 Days" (1989); "Something to Believe In" (1998); and "The Calling" (2002). They made brief cameo appearances as themselves in Robert Altman's 1992 Hollywood satire "The Player". In 1997, the couple appeared together at the end of "The Yada Yada" episode of the popular television sitcom "Seinfeld". St. John has not acted since 2002. She is the author of "The Jill St. John Cookbook" (1987). Personal life. St. John has been married four times: She has three stepdaughters:
1063807	John Lone (; born October 13, 1952, as 吳國良) is a Hong Kong-born American actor. Lone has played roles as diverse as a caveman in "Iceman" (1984), the last Emperor of China in "The Last Emperor" (1987), and an apparently female opera performer in "M. Butterfly" (1993). Personal life. Lone was born as Ng Kwok-leung in Hong Kong, of Chinese descent. He was raised in a Hong Kong orphanage and later adopted by a Shanghaiese woman. He began training at Hong Kong's Chiu Chiu Academy and at the Peking Opera. It was here, at the age of ten he was given the name Johnny. He later chose the name Lone to reflect the fact that he was an orphan and for its similarity to Leung, his Chinese name. Sponsored by an American family, he left the Peking Opera troupe and emigrated to Los Angeles, California. In the United States he married fellow Santa Ana Community College student Nina Savino in 1972, gaining U.S. citizenship. (The couple finally divorced in 1979.) John also continued his performing arts studies at American Academy of Dramatic Arts in Pasadena, California. Eventually, he would move to New York City, in order to pursue a career on stage. Career. Lone struggled for a time until the actor Mako recognized his talent and suggested him for a role in David Henry Hwang's first play "F.O.B." From his performance in this play, Lone received an Obie Award. While in New York City he was discovered by the talent agent Jadin Wong, who helped him to launch his career. Wong subsequently discovered Joan Chen, Bai Ling, Lucy Liu, and Ken Leung. His first major role in films was as the title character in "Iceman". He is probably best known for his portrayal of the Emperor Puyi in "The Last Emperor" and crime boss Joey Tai in "Year of the Dragon" in the late 1980s, as well as an opera performer playing female roles in "M. Butterfly" (with Jeremy Irons). Further international film appearances included the role of corrupt Hong Kong cop Ricky Tan in "Rush Hour 2".In 1995 movie The Hunted he played dangerous assassin Kinjo alongside Christopher Lambert. Despite his Hollywood fame, he chose to further his career in the Asian market. He played Emperor Qianlong, another Manchu emperor, in a 30 episode TV drama series Qianlong Yu Xiangfei (乾隆與香妃) in 2004.
1057156	The Wedding Date is a 2005 American romantic comedy film directed by Clare Kilner and starring Debra Messing, Dermot Mulroney, and Amy Adams. Based on the novel "Asking for Trouble" by Elizabeth Young, the film is about a single woman who hires a male escort to pose as her boyfriend at her sister's wedding in order to dupe her ex-fiancé, who dumped her a few years prior. The release was successful achieving $47 million worldwide at the box office against a budget of $15 million. Plot. Kat Ellis (Debra Messing) is a single New Yorker who returns to her parents' house in London to be the maid of honor at her younger half sister's (Amy Adams) wedding. The best man is none other than her former fiancé, who unexpectedly dumped her two years ago. Anxious about confronting him and eager to impress him, she hires suave escort Nick Mercer (Dermot Mulroney) to pose as her boyfriend. Kat intends to make her former flame, Jeffrey (Jeremy Sheffield), jealous, but her plan backfires when Nick convinces everyone, including her, that they are madly in love. Kat then feels herself, too, falling for Nick as he slowly falls for her. The night before the wedding, Kat discovers Amy slept with Jeffrey when they were still together, and that Jeffrey dumped Kat because he believed he was in love with Amy. Nick had discovered this fact a day earlier, and when Kat finds that out, she feels betrayed from all sides, and puts Nick off. He decides to return to America, and leaves Kat the money she had paid him. On the wedding day, seeing Kat distressed, her step-father (Peter Egan) asks Kat if Nick 'is the guy for you', and Kat realizes he is, so she sets off to find him. Meanwhile, just before the wedding, Amy confesses her betrayal to her fiancé, Ed (Jack Davenport), but professes her love for him. Ed, upset, chases Jeffrey out of the church and down the road. Nick, driving away, picks up Ed as Jeffrey disappears into the woods. Nick and Ed talk about love, and Ed decides he loves Amy more than he is angry, so they end up getting married, with Nick as 'new' best man. Just before the ceremony, Nick tells Kat he realized he'd "... rather fight with you than make love with anyone else", and they kiss passionately. Kat and Nick begin a real relationship together. Jeffrey, the main cause of all the trouble, learns absolutely nothing. At the end he is seen trying to get the attentions of a female neighbor. Locations. Some outdoor scenes where they are playing rounders are on location in Parliament Hill Fields overlooking west London. Another part of the film is set in Shere, Surrey. Reception. The film garnered almost universally negative reviews, receiving only 10% positive reviews on Rotten Tomatoes and a score of 32 on Metacritic. The film was reasonably a financial success, grossing about three times its budget.
1164252	Susan Elizabeth Strasberg (May 22, 1938 – January 21, 1999) was an American film and stage actress. Background and career. Strasberg was born in New York City, New York, the daughter of theatre director and drama coach Lee Strasberg of the Actors Studio and former actress Paula Strasberg. Her brother, John, is an acting coach. Her parents were both from Jewish families who immigrated from Europe. After a widely praised performance as a teenager in "Picnic", Strasberg originated the title role in the Broadway production of "The Diary of Anne Frank" and was nominated for a Tony Award at the age of 18. Strasberg became the youngest actress to star on Broadway with her name above the marquee title. In 1955, she appeared on the cover of Newsweek (December 19, 1955 issue) and twice on the cover of Life Magazine (July 11, 1955 issue; November 11, 1955 issue). Director George Stevens used a different actress in the 1959 film version of "The Diary of Anne Frank" because he feared her acting teacher parents would undermine his authority on the set. She later starred in the Italian Holocaust film "Kapò" which was nominated for an Academy Award as best foreign film of 1960. From the 1960s through the 1980s she guest-starred in such television series as "The Virginian", "The Invaders", "Bonanza", "The F.B.I.", "Breaking Point", "Burke's Law", "The Streets of San Francisco", "Night Gallery", "McCloud", "Alias Smith & Jones", "The Big Valley", "Remington Steele" and twice on "The Rockford Files" (as Deborah Ryder) and as Karen Stiles (Rockford's ex-girlfriend). Berlin International Film Festival. She lived in Italy in the early 1960s where she was often called 'La Strasberg'. In 1993 she was a jury member for the 43rd Berlin International Film Festival. Books. Strasberg wrote two best-selling books. "Bittersweet" was an autobiography in which she wrote about her tumultuous relationships with actors Richard Burton and Christopher Jones, along with her daughter's struggles with a heart defect. "Marilyn and Me: Sisters, Rivals, Friends" was about Strasberg's friendship with Marilyn Monroe, whom she called a "surrogate sister" and a "member" of the Strasberg family for many years. Strasberg was working on a third book about her personal spiritual journey at the time of her death entitled "Confessions of a New Age Heretic". Personal life. Strasberg's daughter Jennifer Robin was born March 14, 1966, in Los Angeles, during her short marriage to actor Christopher Jones, with whom she had appeared in an episode of "The Legend of Jesse James". In her autobiography she joked that her daughter would be the "real Jennifer Jones," given that the actress Jennifer Jones used a stage name.
1068030	Tell Them Willie Boy Is Here is a Technicolor movie released in 1969, based on the true story of a Paiute Indian named Willie Boy and his run-in with the law in 1909 in Banning, California, United States. The movie was written and directed by the once black-listed Abraham Polonsky. Because of his blacklisting, he had not directed a film since "Force of Evil" 21 years earlier in 1948. Plot. The film's story revolves around the Paiute Indian outlaw Willie Boy (Robert Blake) who escapes with his lover, Lola (Katharine Ross) after killing her father in self defense. According to tribal custom Willie can then claim Lola as his wife. According to the law, Deputy Sheriff Cooper (Robert Redford) is required to charge him with murder. Willie Boy and Lola are hunted for several days by a posse led by Cooper. Willie manages to repel the posse’s advance when he ambushes them from the top of Ruby Mountain. He only tries to shoot their horses, but ends up accidentally killing a bounty hunter, resulting in another murder charge. Days later, as the posse closes in, Lola dies by a gunshot wound to the chest. It is left deliberately ambiguous whether Lola shot herself in order to slow down the posse's advance or whether Willie killed her to keep her out of the posse's hands. Cooper is inclined to believe the latter and then goes off ahead of the posse to bring in Willie dead or alive. As soon as Cooper catches up, he comes under fire from Willie who is positioned at the top of Ruby Mountain. Cooper narrowly avoids being shot on several occasions. In the film's climax, Cooper maneuvers behind Willie, who has donned a ghost shirt, and tells him he can turn around if he wants to, which he does. The two pause before Willie raises his rifle at Cooper, who beats him to the draw and shoots him. Fatally struck in the chest, Willie tumbles down the hillside. Cooper picks up Willie’s gun and finds that it wasn't even loaded, making it apparent that Willie deliberately chose death over capture. Abashed, Cooper carries the slain outlaw the rest of the way down Ruby Mountain and delivers him to other Paiutes, who carry the corpse away and burn the remains. When confronted by the county sheriff, Cooper is told that the burning of Willie's body will ruin the people's chance to see Willie in the (now-dead) flesh, denying them the ability "to see something". Cooper retorts: "Tell them we're all out of souvenirs." History. Source material for the film is Harry W. Lawton's 1960 book, "Tell Them Willie Boy is Here". As depicted in the movie, Willie Boy and Lola (her actual name was Carlota, though she was also called Isoleta and Lolita in various accounts) did run through the Morongo Valley. Carlota was found shot in the back in an area known as The Pipes in northwest Yucca Valley. She was either killed by Willie Boy or shot accidentally by a posse member. Willie Boy did ambush the posse at Ruby Mountain, killing several horses and accidentally wounding a posse member. He ended his 'last stand' by suicide on the flanks of Ruby Mountain west of the current site of Landers, California. Willie Boy's grave monument can be found at . The monument itself bears the inscription “The West’s Last Famous Manhunt”, alluding to the notion that this was the last effort of its type before the use of a posse was generally replaced by modern, 'fully' staffed and empowered law enforcement agencies. Pictures of Willie Boy's monument and a map to the monument location can be found here. A minor item of film history - "Tell Them Willie Boy Is Here" is one of two Westerns made in 1969 to co-star Robert Redford and Katharine Ross, the other being "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid".
1064596	You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger is a 2010 English-language Spanish–American co-production comedy-drama film written and directed by Woody Allen. It features Antonio Banderas, Josh Brolin, Anthony Hopkins, Gemma Jones, Freida Pinto, Lucy Punch, Naomi Watts, Roger Ashton-Griffiths and Pauline Collins. It premiered on 15 May 2010 at the Cannes Film Festival in an out-of-competition slot.
23723	Invisible Children: Rough Cut is a 2006 American documentary film which depicts the human rights abuses by the Lord's Resistance Army in Uganda. Synopsis. In the spring of 2003, Jason Russell, Bobby Bailey, and Laren Poole traveled to Africa to document the War in Darfur. Instead, they changed their focus to the conflict in northern Uganda, Africa's second longest-running conflict after the Eritrean War of Independence. The documentary depicts the abduction of children who are used as child soldiers by Joseph Kony and his Lord's Resistance Army (LRA). This film centers around a group of Ugandan children who walk miles every night to places of refuge in order to avoid abduction by the LRA. Exhibition. The film was first screened on June 22, 2004, at the Joan B. Kroc Institute for Peace and Justice at the University of San Diego. Since then, Invisible Children, Inc. has hosted over 9000 screenings at colleges, high schools, churches, concerts and other venues. As of June 2009, it is estimated that more than 5 million people have seen "Invisible Children: The Rough Cut." Social activism. The story of children depicted in the film was the basis for a grassroots movement mobilizing thousands of American teens into action to raise money to rebuild war-torn schools in northern Uganda and provide scholarships to African youth. In 2005, a 501(c)(3) non-profit, Invisible Children, Inc., was created, giving individuals a way to respond to the situation in Uganda. An employee of the organization, Nate Henn, was killed in the July 2010 Kampala attacks. DVD. The film is roughly 55 minutes long, and the DVD includes a shorter 35-minute version for different screening options. The DVD also includes special features deleted scenes, extras, filmmaker commentary, update on the war, and trailers from Invisible Children, Inc.
1400672	Freddie Dalton "Fred" Thompson (born August 19, 1942) is an American politician, actor, attorney, lobbyist, columnist, and radio host. Thompson, a Republican, served in the United States Senate representing Tennessee from 1994 to 2003. Thompson served as chairman of the International Security Advisory Board at the United States Department of State, was a member of the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and is a Visiting Fellow with the American Enterprise Institute, specializing in national security and intelligence. As an actor, Thompson has appeared in a large number of movies and television shows. He has frequently portrayed governmental figures. In the final months of his U.S. Senate term in 2002, Thompson joined the cast of the long-running NBC television series "Law & Order", playing Manhattan District Attorney Arthur Branch. Early life and education. Thompson was born in Sheffield, Alabama, the son of Ruth Inez (née Bradley, living in 2007 in Franklin, Tennessee) and Fletcher Session Thompson (born Lauderdale County, Alabama, August 26, 1919, died Lawrenceburg, Tennessee, May 27, 1990), who was an automobile salesman. He attended public school in Lawrenceburg, Tennessee, graduating from Lawrence County High School. Thereafter, he worked days in the local post office, and nights at the Murray bicycle assembly plant. Thompson then entered Florence State College (now the University of North Alabama), becoming the first member of his family to go to university. He later transferred to Memphis State University, now the University of Memphis, where he earned a double degree in philosophy and political science in 1964, as well as scholarships to both Tulane and Vanderbilt law schools. He went on to earn his Juris Doctor (J.D.) degree from Vanderbilt in 1967. Career as an attorney. Thompson was admitted to the State Bar of Tennessee in 1967. At that time, he shortened his first name from Freddie to Fred. He worked as an assistant U.S. attorney from 1969 to 1972, successfully prosecuting bank robberies and other cases. Thompson was the campaign manager for Republican U.S. Senator Howard Baker's reelection campaign in 1972 and was minority counsel to the Senate Watergate Committee in its investigation of the Watergate scandal (1973–1974). In the 1980s Thompson worked as an attorney, with law offices in Nashville and Washington, DC, handling personal injury claims and defending people accused of white collar crimes. He also accepted appointments as Special Counsel to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee (1980–1981), Special Counsel to the Senate Intelligence Committee (1982), and Member of the Appellate Court Nominating Commission for the State of Tennessee (1985–1987). His clients included a German mining group and Japan's Toyota Motors Corporation. Thompson has served on various corporate boards. He also did legal work and served on the board of directors for engineering firm Stone & Webster. Role in Watergate hearings. In 1973, Thompson was appointed minority counsel to assist the Republican senators on the Senate Watergate Committee, a special committee convened by the U.S. Senate to investigate the Watergate scandal. Thompson is sometimes credited for supplying Republican Senator Howard Baker's famous question, "What did the President know, and when did he know it?" This question is said to have helped frame the hearings in a way that eventually led to the downfall of President Richard Nixon. A Republican staff member, Donald Sanders, found out about the White House tapes and informed the committee on July 13, 1973. Thompson was informed of the existence of the tapes, and he in turn informed Nixon's attorney, J. Fred Buzhardt. "Even though I had no authority to act for the committee, I decided to call Fred Buzhardt at home," Thompson later wrote, "I wanted to be sure that the White House was fully aware of what was to be disclosed so that it could take appropriate action." Three days after Sanders' discovery, at a public, televised committee hearing, Thompson asked former White House aide Alexander Butterfield the famous question, "Mr. Butterfield, were you aware of the existence of any listening devices in the Oval Office of the President?" thereby publicly revealing the existence of tape recordings of conversations within the White House. National Public Radio later called that session and the discovery of the Watergate tapes "a turning point in the investigation." Thompson's appointment as minority counsel to the Senate Watergate committee reportedly upset Nixon, who believed Thompson was not skilled enough to interrogate unfriendly witnesses and would be outfoxed by the committee Democrats. According to historian Stanley Kutler, however, Thompson and Baker "carried water for the White House, but I have to give them credit — they were watching out for their interests, too... They weren't going to mindlessly go down the tubes Nixon." When the Watergate investigation began to pick up speed, tapes revealed that Nixon remarked to his then-Chief of Staff Alexander Haig, "Oh shit, he's dumb as hell." Journalist Scott Armstrong, a Democratic investigator for the Senate Watergate Committee, is critical of Thompson for having disclosed the committee's knowledge of the tapes to Buzhardt during an on-going investigation and says Thompson was "a mole for the White House" and that Thompson's actions gave the White House a chance to destroy the tapes. Thompson's 1975 book "At That Point in Time" in turn accused Armstrong of having been too close to "The Washington Post"'s Bob Woodward and of leaking committee information to him. In response to renewed interest in this matter, in 2007 during his presidential campaign, Thompson said, "I'm glad all of this has finally caused someone to read my Watergate book, even though it's taken them over 30 years." Corruption case against Tennessee governor. In 1977 Thompson represented Marie Ragghianti, a former Tennessee Parole Board chair, who had been fired for refusing to release felons after they had bribed aides to Democratic Governor Ray Blanton in order to obtain clemency. With Thompson's assistance, Ragghianti filed a wrongful termination suit against Blanton's office. During the trial, Thompson helped expose the cash-for-clemency scheme that eventually led to Blanton's removal from office. In July 1978, a jury awarded Ragghianti $38,000 in back pay and ordered her reinstatement. Lobbyist. Thompson lobbied Congress on behalf of the Tennessee Savings and Loan League to pass the Garn–St. Germain Depository Institutions Act of 1982, which deregulated the Savings and Loan industry. A large congressional majority and President Ronald Reagan supported the act but it was said to be a factor that led to the savings and loan crisis. Thompson received $1,600 for communicating with some congressional staffers on this issue. When Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide was overthrown in 1991, Thompson made a telephone call to White House Chief of Staff John H. Sununu advocating restoration of Aristide's government, but says that was as a private citizen, not on a paid basis on Aristide's behalf. Billing records show that Thompson was paid for about 20 hours of work in 1991 and 1992 on behalf of the National Family Planning and Reproductive Health Association, a family planning group trying to ease a George H. W. Bush administration regulation on abortion counseling in federally-funded clinics. Thompson has earned about one million dollars from his lobbying efforts. Except for the year 1981, his lobbying never amounted to more than a third of his income. According to the "Commercial Appeal" newspaper: After leaving the Senate in 2003, Thompson's only lobbying work was for the London-based reinsurance company Equitas Ltd. He was paid $760,000 between 2004 and 2006 in order to help prevent passage of legislation that Equitas said unfairly singled them out for unfavorable treatment regarding asbestos claims. Thompson spokesman Mark Corrallo said that Thompson was proud to have been a lobbyist and believed in Equitas' cause. After Thompson was elected to the Senate, two of his sons followed him into the lobbying business, but generally avoided clients where a possible conflict-of-interest might appear. When he left the Senate, some of his political action committee's fees went to the lobbying firm of one of his sons. Character actor. Marie Ragghianti's case became the subject of a book, "Marie", written by Peter Maas and published in 1983. The film rights were purchased by director Roger Donaldson, who, after traveling to Nashville to speak with the people involved with the original case, asked Thompson if he wanted to play himself. The resulting film, "Marie", was Thompson's first acting role and was released in 1985. Roger Donaldson then cast Thompson in the part of CIA Director in the 1987 film "No Way Out". In 1990, he was cast as Trudeau the head of Dulles Airport in the action sequel "Die Hard 2", as an admiral in "The Hunt for Red October", and as "Big John", the President of NASCAR in the movie "Days of Thunder" (patterned on Big Bill France). Thompson would go on to appear in many films and television shows. A 1994 "New York Times" profile wrote "When Hollywood directors need someone who can personify governmental power, they often turn to name="NYT941112"/> He has portrayed a fictional President of the United States in "Last Best Chance" as well as two historical presidents: Ulysses S. Grant in "Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee" (2007) and the voice of Andrew Jackson in "Rachel and Andrew Jackson: A Love Story" (both produced for TV). In the final months of his U.S. Senate term in 2002, Thompson joined the cast of the long-running NBC television series "Law & Order", playing conservative District Attorney Arthur Branch for the next five years. Thompson began filming during the August 2002 Senate recess. He has also made occasional appearances in the same role on other TV shows, such as ', ', and the pilot episode of "Conviction". On May 30, 2007, he asked to be released from the role, potentially in preparation for a presidential bid. Due to concerns about the equal-time rule, reruns featuring the Branch character were not shown on NBC while Thompson was a potential or actual presidential candidate, but TNT episodes were unaffected. Television career. In May 2007 he took a break from acting in order to run for the Republican nomination for president in the 2008 election, winning 11 delegates before dropping out of the race in January 2008. In 2009 he returned to acting with a guest appearance on the ABC television series "Life on Mars" and in the movie "Alleged", about the Scopes Trial. Senate (1994–2003). Two campaigns for U.S. Senate. In 1994, Thompson was elected to finish the remaining two years of Al Gore's unexpired U.S. Senate term. During the 1994 campaign, Thompson's opponent was longtime Nashville Congressman Jim Cooper. Thompson campaigned in a red pickup truck, and Cooper charged Thompson "is a lobbyist and actor who talks about lower taxes, talks about change, while he drives a rented stage prop." In a good year for Republican candidates, Thompson defeated Cooper in a landslide, overcoming Cooper's early 20 percent lead in the polls to defeat him by an even greater margin. On the same night Thompson was elected to fill Gore's unexpired term, political newcomer Bill Frist, a Nashville heart surgeon, defeated three-term incumbent Democrat Jim Sasser, the chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, for Tennessee's other Senate seat, which was up for a full six-year term. The twin victories by Thompson and Frist gave Republicans control of both of Tennessee's Senate seats for the first time since Sasser ousted incumbent Bill Brock in 1976. In 1996, Thompson was re-elected (for the term ending January 3, 2003) with 61 percent of the vote, defeating Democratic attorney Houston Gordon of Covington, Tennessee, even as Bill Clinton and running mate Gore narrowly carried the state by less than three percentage points on their way to re-election. During this campaign, Mike Long served as Thompson's chief speechwriter. The GOP continues to hold the seat, as it was won by former Tennessee Governor and Secretary of Education Lamar Alexander in 2002. Frist won re-election in 2000 before retiring in 2006, when Bob Corker held the seat for the Republicans despite the Democrats winning control of the House and Senate. Senate career. In 1996, Thompson was a member of the Committee on Governmental Affairs when the committee investigated the alleged Chinese attempts to influence American politics. Thompson says he was "largely stymied" during these investigations by witnesses declining to testify; claiming the right not to incriminate themselves or by simply leaving the country. Thompson explained, "Our work was affected tremendously by the fact that Congress is a much more partisan institution than it used to be." Thompson became committee chairman in 1997 but was reduced to ranking minority member when the Democrats took control of the Senate in 2001. Thompson served on the Finance Committee (dealing with health care, trade, Social Security, and taxation) the Intelligence Committee, and the National Security Working Group. Thompson's work included investigation of the "Umm Hajul controversy" which involved the death of Tennessean Lance Fielder during the Gulf War. During his term he supported campaign finance reform, opposed proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and promoted government efficiency and accountability. During the 1996 presidential debates, he also served as a Clinton stand-in to help prepare Bob Dole. On February 12, 1999, the Senate voted on the Clinton impeachment. The perjury charge was defeated with 45 votes for conviction, and 55, including Thompson, against. The obstruction of justice charge was defeated with 50, including Thompson, for conviction, and 50 against. Conviction on impeachment charges requires the affirmative votes of 67 senators. Campaign co-chairman for John McCain. In the 2000 Republican presidential primaries, Thompson backed former Tennessee Gov. Lamar Alexander, who eventually succeeded Thompson in the Senate two years later. When Alexander dropped out, Thompson endorsed Senator John McCain's bid and became his national co-chairman. After George W. Bush won the primaries, both McCain and Thompson were considered as potential running mates. Thompson was not a candidate for re-election in 2002. He had publicly stated his unwillingness to have the Senate become a long-term career. Although he announced in the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks his intention to seek re-election ("Now is not the time for me to leave," said Thompson at the time), upon further reflection he decided against it. The decision seems to have been prompted in large part by the death of his daughter. Ratings. Thompson has an 86.1 percent lifetime (1995–2002) American Conservative Union vote rating, compared to 89.3 for Bill Frist and 82.3 for John McCain. Senator Susan Collins (R-Maine) characterized her colleague this way: "I believe that Fred is a fearless senator. By that I mean he was never afraid to cast a vote or take a stand, regardless of the political consequences." Thompson was "on the short end of a couple of 99-1 votes," voting against those who wanted to federalize matters that he believed were properly left to state and local officials. With Thompson's decision to campaign for the 2008 Republican Presidential nomination, his Senate record has received some criticism from people who say he was "lazy" compared to other Senators. Critics say that few of his proposals became law, and point to a 1998 quote: "I don't like spending 14- and 16-hour days voting on 'sense of the Senate' resolutions on irrelevant matters. There are some important things we really need to get on with—and on a daily basis, it's very frustrating." Defenders say he spent more time in preparation than other Senators. Paul Noe, a former staffer, told the "New York Times," "On the lazy charge, I have to chuckle because I was there sometimes until 1 in the morning working with the man." Post-Senate activities. Political work. In March 2003, Thompson was featured in a commercial by the conservative non-profit group Citizens United that advocated the invasion of Iraq, stating: "When people ask what has Saddam done to us, I ask, what had the 9/11 hijackers done to us -- before 9/11." Thompson did voice-over work at the 2004 Republican National Convention. While narrating a video for that convention, Thompson observed: "History throws you what it throws you, and you never know what’s coming." After the retirement of Supreme Court Associate Justice Sandra Day O'Connor in 2005, Bush appointed Thompson to an informal position to help guide the nomination of John Roberts through the United States Senate confirmation process. Roberts was subsequently confirmed as Chief Justice. Until July 2007, Thompson was Chair of the International Security Advisory Board, a bipartisan advisory panel that reports to the Secretary of State and focuses on emerging strategic threats. In that capacity, he advised the State Department about all aspects of arms control, disarmament, international security, and related aspects of public diplomacy. Legal defense for Lewis Libby. In 2006, he served on the advisory board of the legal defense fund for I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Jr, who was indicted and later convicted of lying to federal investigators during their investigation of the Plame affair. Thompson, who had never met Libby before volunteering for the advisory board, said he was convinced Libby was innocent. The Scooter Libby Legal Defense Fund Trust set out to raise more than $5 million to help finance the legal defense of Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff. Thompson hosted a fundraiser for the Libby defense fund at his home in McLean, Virginia. After Bush commuted Libby's sentence, Thompson released a statement: "I am very happy for Scooter Libby. I know that this is a great relief to him, his wife and children. This will allow a good American, who has done a lot for his country, to resume his life." Radio analyst. In 2006, he signed on with ABC News Radio to serve as senior analyst and vacation replacement for Paul Harvey. He used that platform to spell out his positions on a number of political issues. A July 3, 2007 update to Thompson's ABC News Radio home page referred to him as a "former ABC News Radio contributor", indicating that Thompson has been released from his contract with the broadcaster. He did not return after his campaign ended. Columnist. He also signed a deal with Salem Communications's Townhall.com to write for the organization's new magazine, "Townhall", from April 23, 2007 until August 21, 2007, and from June 8, 2008 until November 17, 2008. In March 2010, About.com, owned by The New York Times Company, named Thompson one of the top 20 conservatives to follow on Twitter. 2008 Presidential campaign. On March 11, 2007, Thompson appeared on "Fox News Sunday" to discuss the possibility of a 2008 candidacy for president. At the end of March, Thompson asked to be released from his television contract, potentially in preparation for a presidential bid. Thompson formed a presidential exploratory committee regarding his possible 2008 campaign for president on June 1, 2007, but unlike most candidate exploratory groups, Thompson's organized as a 527 group. Thompson continued to be mentioned as a potential candidate, but did not officially declare his candidacy. On June 12, Thompson told Jay Leno on "The Tonight Show" that while he did not crave the Presidency itself, there were things he would like to do that he could only do by holding that office. A "New York Times" article cited Thompson's aides as saying on July 18 that he planned to enter the race just after Labor Day (the first Monday in September), followed by a national announcement tour. On September 5, 2007, Thompson made his candidacy official, announcing on "The Tonight Show" that "I'm running for president of the United States" and running an ad during a Republican Presidential candidates debate on Fox News. and "awkward" despite high expectations in anticipation of his joining the race. Fred Thompson was endorsed by the Virginia Society for Human Life and several other Pro Life organizations. In nationwide polling toward the end of 2007, Thompson's support in the Republican primary election was sliding, with his placing either third or fourth in polls. On January 22, 2008, after attracting little support in the early primaries, Thompson confirmed he had withdrawn from the Presidential race. In a statement issued by his campaign, Thompson said: Post-campaign. Thompson has signed an agreement to be returned as an actor with the William Morris Agency.
899397	Bitter Rice () is a 1949 Italian film made by Lux Film, written and directed by Giuseppe De Santis. Produced by Dino De Laurentiis, starring Silvana Mangano, Raf Vallone, Doris Dowling and Vittorio Gassman, "Bitter Rice" was a commercial success in Europe and America. It was a product of the Italian neorealism style. The film was nominated for the 1950 Academy Award for Best Story. It was also entered into the 1949 Cannes Film Festival. The Italian title is based on a pun; since the Italian word "riso" means both "rice" and "laughter", "Riso amaro" means both "bitter laughter" and "bitter rice" in light of the story. Plot. "Bitter Rice" begins at the start of the rice-planting season in northern Italy. In an effort to escape the law two small-time thieves, Francesca (Doris Dowling) and Walter (Vittorio Gassman), hide amongst the crowds of female workers heading to the rice fields of the Po Valley. While attempting to board the train for the fields the pair runs into Silvana (Silvana Mangano), a peasant rice worker. Francesca boards the train with Silvana, who introduces her to the planter's way of life. Francesca does not have a work permit, and struggles with the other "illegals" (known as "scabs") to find a place on the rice fields. After initial resistance from documented workers and bosses, the scabs are allowed a place in the fields. At the fields Silvana and Francesca meet a soon-to-be-discharged soldier, Marco (Raf Vallone), who unsuccessfully tries to attract Silvana's interest. Soon after, Walter tracks Francesca down at the rice fields and plots to steal rice from the storehouses during the celebration at the end of the planting season. Silvana is attracted by what she sees as the glamour of Walter's wealth, and becomes his new partner in crime. Francesca, meanwhile, is disenchanted with her former criminal lifestyle.
1166545	Roxie Albertha Roker (August 28, 1929 – December 2, 1995) was an American actress, best known for her groundbreaking role as Helen Willis on the sitcom "The Jeffersons", half of the first interracial couple to be shown on regular prime time television. She is the mother of musician Lenny Kravitz, the grandmother of actress Zoë Kravitz and the cousin of NBC's Today Show's Al Roker. Life and career. Roker was born in Miami, Florida. Her mother, Bessie (née Mitchell), was from Georgia and worked as a domestic, and her father, Albert Roker, was a native of The Bahamas and a porter.
588972	Kudrat (English: Nature) is a 1981 Indian drama film in Hindi written and directed by Chetan Anand. The film stars Rajesh Khanna and Hema Malini in the main lead roles supported by Raaj Kumar, Priya Rajvansh and Vinod Khanna. This is second movie of Rajesh Khanna-Hema Malini pair with reincarnation theme after Mehbooba. Kudrat in the year 1981 grossed Rs. 4.00 crores at the box office. Rajesh Khanna received the 1982 All-India Critics Association (AICA) Best Actor Award for Kudrat. Plot. Chandramukhi (Hema Malini), accompanied by her parents, visits the hill resort of Shimla for the first time in her life. She senses some familiarity with the place and gets strange feelings for which she does not know the reason. Chandramukhi and her family meet Dr. Naresh Gupta (Vinod Khanna). Naresh is attracted towards Chandramukhi and their families talk about getting them married to each other. Mohan Kapur (Rajesh Khanna), an upcoming lawyer, comes to Shimla to meet his patron and godfather, Janak Singh (Raaj Kumar). Mohan owes his education and career to Janak Singh's generosity. Janak Singh wants his daughter Karuna, also a lawyer, to marry Mohan. Mohan agrees out of gratitude to his patron and gets engaged to Karuna. Once, Chandramukhi dashes into Mohan and feels some strange connection with him. Mohan also meets an elderly singer named Saraswati Devi. She is shocked to see him but does not say anything. Whenever Chandramukhi meets Mohan, she acts strangely. She has the nightmares of a man named Madhav, who is Mohan's doppelganger, plummeting to death from a cliff. Naresh senses that something is amiss and coerces Mohan to help him find the truth. On an excursion, Chandramukhi remembers everything: She was Paro in previous life and Madhav was her lover. A zamindar's son raped her and accidentally murdered her. Here, Naresh too realizes that he should step out of their life, as their romance soon gets rekindled. Here, with help of Chandramukhi, Mohan soon finds out that Saraswati Devi is Satto, Madhav's sister. Satto tells them that the villain is none other than Janak. Mohan is in a dilemma: he has broken off his engagement with Karuna for Chandramukhi and now he has to drag Janak to court. Realizing that he has no other option, Mohan decides to take matters to the court. Karuna, who doesn't have an idea of the truth, steps in to defend her father against this "conspiracy". Here, it is revealed that Janak is indeed guilty of death of both Paro and Madhav. He raped Paro and after listening this Madhav commits suicide.Paro had cursed him that just as he took away something precious to her, Mother Nature will take something important from him too. Meanwhile, Mohan seems to be losing the case, until he finds the mansion where Paro was purportedly murdered. He also traces Billi Ram, a senile old mason, who may hold a clue to Paro's disappearance. Billi Ram remembers that Janak had called him that day to patch up a wall in the mansion. Mohan comes to the mansion with police, who tear the wall down. A skeleton tumbles out in front of Karuna. Shocked by this revelation, Karuna goes to her home and sets it on fire. She sits inside, playing a piano and succumbs to the fire. After learning of his daughter's death and the new discovery, Janak realizes that Paro's curse has done its work. Later, Janak pleads guilty for his crime in the court and is sentenced accordingly. As he is escorted out, he and Chandramukhi see each other for a last time. After Chandramukhi and Mohan get united, Naresh heads to America. Soundtrack. The film's music was composed by R. D. Burman and the lyrics written by Majrooh Sultanpuri. The song "Hamein Tumse Pyar Kitna" is heard twice in the film, first time by a female singer (Parveen Sultana) and the second time by a male singer (Kishore Kumar). Kumar was nominated for a Filmfare Award for his rendering of the song, while Sultana walked away with the Filmfare Best Female Playback Award for her version of the song.
1502384	Linda Lavin (born October 15, 1937) is an American singer and actress. She is known for playing the title character in the sitcom "Alice" and for her Broadway performances. After acting as a child, Lavin joined the Compass Players in the late 1950s. She began acting on Broadway in the 1960s, earning notice in ""It's a Bird...It's a Plane...It's Superman"" in 1966 and receiving her first Tony Award nomination in "Last of the Red Hot Lovers" in 1970. She moved to Hollywood in 1973 and began to work in television, making recurring appearances on "Barney Miller" before getting the title role in "Alice", which ran from 1976 to 1985. She appeared in many telefilms and later in other TV work. She has also had roles in several feature films. In 1987, she returned to Broadway, starring in "Broadway Bound" (winning a Tony Award), "Gypsy" (1990), "The Sisters Rosensweig" (1993), "The Diary of Anne Frank" (1997–1998) and "The Tale of the Allergist's Wife" (2000–2001), among others. In 2010, she appeared as Ruth Steiner in "Collected Stories", garnering her fifth Tony nomination. Thrice married, Lavin spends time at her North Carolina home doing charitable activities. Early life and career. Lavin was born in Portland, Maine, the daughter of Lucille (née Potter), an opera singer, and David J. Lavin, a businessman. Her family was musically talented, and Lavin has been onstage since the age of five. Upon her graduation from the College of William and Mary, she had already received her Actors' Equity Association card. She was a member of the Compass Players in the late 1950s. By the early 1960s, Lavin had appeared in several Broadway shows and appeared on the 1966 cast recordings of "The Mad Show" performing Stephen Sondheim's "The Boy From...". From "It's a Bird...It's a Plane...It's Superman", one of her numbers, "You've Got Possibilities," was the album's best-received song and was called "The one memorable song...flirty, syncopated" by the "Dallas Observer". Career. Television and Film. In 1967, Lavin made an appearance as Gloria Thorpe in a television version of the musical "Damn Yankees" with Phil Silvers. In 1969, Lavin married actor Ron Leibman, and by 1973 the couple had arrived in Hollywood, California. After various guest appearances on episodic television series such as "The Nurses", "Rhoda", "Harry O" and "Kaz", Lavin landed a recurring role on "Barney Miller" during the first and second seasons (1975-1976). She left "Barney Miller" to star in the lead role in "Alice". The show was a popular hit for CBS and ran from 1976 to 1985. The series was based on the Martin Scorsese-directed Ellen Burstyn film "Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore". Lavin portrayed Alice Hyatt, a waitress and singer, the character that Burstyn had played. Lavin performed the series' theme song, "There's a New Girl in Town," which was written by David Shire and Alan and Marilyn Bergman and was updated for each of the first six seasons. During the series' nine-season run, Lavin earned two Golden Globe Awards and a Primetime Emmy Award nomination, and gained experience directing, especially during the later seasons. Lavin also played a dual role in "Alice", as Debbie Walden, the wizened and former landlady of the character Vera Louise Gorman-Novak. Lavin also made numerous television appearances outside of "Alice", including hosting her own holiday special for CBS, "Linda in Wonderland" (1980). She acted in two sitcoms, 1992's "Room for Two" and 1998's "Conrad Bloom". She made numerous television guest appearances, including roles on "The Muppet Show" (1979), "", "The O.C.", "Touched by an Angel" (1999) and HBO's "The Sopranos". She also appeared in many telefilms between 1967 and 1998, including: "Damn Yankees!", "Sadbird", "The Morning After", "Jerry", "Like Mom, Like Me", "The $5.20 an Hour Dream", "A Matter of Life and Death", "Another Woman's Child", "Maricela", "Lena: My 100 Children", "Whitewash", "A Dream is a Wish Your Heart Makes: The Annette Funicello Story", "Stolen Memories: Secrets from the Rose Garden", "For the Future: The Irvine Fertility Scandal", "The Ring", and "Best Friends for Life". She directed the 1990 telefilm "Flour Babies". Lavin made her feature film debut in "The Muppets Take Manhattan" (1984). Her other feature film appearances include "See You in the Morning", starring Jeff Bridges, and Alain Resnais's "I Want to Go Home", opposite Gérard Depardieu (both 1989) and "The Back-Up Plan" (2010). Theatre. Lavin began her career with Broadway appearances in the musical "A Family Affair" (1962) and plays such as "The Riot Act" (1963) and Carl Reiner's "Something Different" (1967). In his "New York Times" review of John Guare's two one-act plays, "Cop-Out" (1969), Clive Barnes wrote: "Miss Lavin...carries versatility almost to the point of paranoia, and camps up a storm." She "arrived at showbiz stardom with a featured role" in the musical "It's a Bird...It's a Plane...It's Superman" (1966). She received her first Tony Award nomination in 1970, for her role in the Neil Simon play, "Last of the Red Hot Lovers" (1969). Clive Barnes, in his review for "The New York Times", wrote: "Linda Lavin, eyebrows, flaunting like telegraphed messages, mouth twitching and pouting, voice as dry as thunder and with a cough like electric static, is beautiful as Elaine, the sex cat feeling coolly kittenish and looking for a safe tin roof." Lavin's last Broadway credit before she moved to Hollywood was in "Paul Sills' Story Theatre" in 1971. In her early years, Lavin also appeared in numerous Off-Broadway productions, including the revue"Wet Paint" (1965), the musical "The Mad Show" (1966) and "Little Murders" (1969). Lavin won the Theatre World Award for "Wet Paint" and a Drama Desk Award for "Little Murders". After more than a decade away, appearing on television, Lavin returned to the Broadway stage in 1987, winning a Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play and her second Drama Desk Award for her role as Kate in Simon's play "Broadway Bound". Frank Rich, in his "New York Times" review, wrote: "One only wishes that Ms. Lavin, whose touching performance is of the same high integrity as the writing, could stay in the role forever." Theatre critic Charles McNulty wrote of her performance that it "is widely considered one of the most memorable in contemporary Broadway history, winning not just awards but praise approaching the level of myth. The distinguished theater critic Gordon Rogoff, extolling 'the power available only to an actor at the height of her own command of detail,' went so far as to describe Lavin's portrayal as 'one of those textbook lessons in great acting...' " She then starred on Broadway in "Gypsy" as Mama Rose Hovick, replacing Tyne Daly in July 1990. June Havoc saw Lavin's performance in "Gypsy" and sent Lavin a photo of Havoc's mother, the real Rose Hovick, with a note of appreciation for Lavin's particular portrayal of the character. Subsequent Broadway roles included "The Sisters Rosensweig", as a replacement Gorgeous Teitelbaum starting in September 1993 and Mrs. Van Daan in "The Diary of Anne Frank" (1997–1998), opposite Natalie Portman, for which she garnered a Tony nomination as Featured Actress in a Play. In 1995 she appeared in the Off-Broadway "Death-Defying Acts", which consists of three one-act plays; Lavin performed in the Elaine May ("Hotline") and Woody Allen plays ("Central Park West"). She was nominated for a Drama Desk Award (Outstanding Actress - Play) and won an Obie Award (Performance) and the Lucille Lortel Award. She also directed theater during this period. She played Marjorie in "The Tale of the Allergist's Wife" (2000–2001), co-starring Tony Roberts and Michele Lee, for which she was nominated for a Tony Award, Leading Actress in a Play, and Drama Desk Award, and "nanny" in "Hollywood Arms" in Chicago and on Broadway in 2002. In 2010, Lavin appeared as Ruth Steiner in a Broadway revival of the play "Collected Stories", reprising her role for a PBS production of the work, and received a fifth Tony nomination for the role. She appeared in the new play by Jon Robin Baitz, "Other Desert Cities", Off-Broadway at the Mitzi Newhouse Theater (Lincoln Center) beginning in previews in December 2010, closing February 27, 2011. Lavin was featured in the Kennedy Center (Washington, DC) production of the musical "Follies", from May 2011 to June 2011, as Hattie Walker. She appeared in the premiere of the Nicky Silver play "The Lyons" at the Off-Broadway Vineyard Theatre, beginning in September 2011, through November 11. The "New York Times" reviewer commented: "Watching Ms. Lavin, I found myself thinking of Nora from Ibsen’s 'Doll’s House' — well, a pursed-lipped, lemony-sour, older Nora in pseudo-Chanel, one who’s never at a loss for what to say and when to say it. Rita may be a little behind schedule in discovering herself, but no one can fault the hair-trigger timing of the actress playing her or the surprising dimensions she finds within one-liners." She reprised her role in the Broadway production, which opened at the Cort Theatre on April 23, 2012 and closed on July 1, 2012. Cabaret and recording. Lavin has appeared in cabaret and concert performances. In 2005 she appeared at the Empire Plush Room in San Francisco, accompanied by Billy Stritch and her husband, Steve Bakunas. The "talkinbroadway" reviewer summed up her performance: "Linda Lavin is funny, warm and full of personality." In April 2006 she performed at Birdland (New York) "with her critically acclaimed cabaret act The Song Remembers When", with Billy Stritch. She performed with the Wilmington Symphony (Wilmington, North Carolina) in March 2012. Her recording, "Possibilities" was released by Ghostlight Records in 2012. Steven Suskin wrote: "There is still that sweet, friendly sound of long ago (and 'sweet' and 'friendly' are not words you'd use to describe Lavin-the-actress)." Personal life. Lavin has been married three times. Her first marriage to Ron Leibman ended in divorce in 1980. Her second marriage to Kip Niven, who played the boyfriend of Beth Howland's character, Vera Louise Gorman-Novak, ended in divorce in 1992. While Lavin has no biological children, she is the stepmother to Niven's children. Lavin married actor, artist and musician Steve Bakunas in 2005. The couple resides in Wilmington, North Carolina where they are committed community members working together to rehabilitate impoverished neighborhoods including renovating many homes, donating a park to the city and creating a community theater, the Red Barn Studio. In 1997, Lavin founded The Linda Lavin Arts Foundation in Wilmington, "to promote and foster the advancement of the performing and visual arts, with special emphasis on arts in education. Her foundation has created a theater program called Girl Friends, whose purpose is to raise the self-esteem of at-risk teenage girls of the inner city." In Wilmington, she directs for the stage. One of her directorial credits there is an innovative 1998 production of William Shakespeare's "As You Like It" performed in a Brazilian jazz style. In both Wilmington and New York she teaches master classes in acting and singing. In September 2012 Lavin announced that she would sell her historic Wilmington, North Carolina residence and return to New York City. Awards and nominations. Lavin was inducted into the American Theatre Hall of Fame for 2010 in January 2011.
1062715	Bernard Jeffrey "Bernie" McCullough (October 5, 1957August 9, 2008), better known by his stage name Bernie Mac, was an American stand-up comedian, actor, voice artist, and comedian at the "All Jokes Aside" comedy club in Chicago. Born and raised on the South Side of Chicago, Mac gained popularity as a stand-up comedian. He joined comedians Steve Harvey, Cedric the Entertainer, and D. L. Hughley as "The Original Kings of Comedy". After briefly hosting the HBO show "Midnight Mac", Mac appeared in several films in smaller roles. His most noted film role was as Frank Catton in the remake "Ocean's Eleven" and the titular character of "Mr. 3000". He was the star of "The Bernie Mac Show", which ran from 2001 through 2006, earning him two Emmy Award nominations for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series. His other films included starring roles in "Booty Call", "Friday", "The Players Club", "Head of State", ', "Bad Santa", "Guess Who", "Pride", "Soul Men", "Transformers" and '. Mac suffered from sarcoidosis, a disease in which abnormal collections of chronic inflammatory cells (granulomas) form as nodules in multiple organs, particularly the lungs and lymph nodes. Lung scarring or infection may lead to respiratory failure and death. Mac had said the condition was in remission in 2005. His death on August 9, 2008 was caused by complications from pneumonia. Early life. Bernie Mac was born and raised in Chicago, Illinois, on the city's South Side by his single mother, Mary, who died of cancer when he was 16 years old in his sophomore year of high school.
1504069	Laura Ashley Bell Bundy (born April 10, 1981) is an American actress and singer who has performed in a number of Broadway roles, both starring and supporting, as well as in television and film. Her best known Broadway roles are the original Amber Von Tussle in "Hairspray" and the original Elle Woods in the musical version of "Legally Blonde". She signed to Mercury Records Nashville and released her first country music single, "Giddy On Up," in early 2010. The album's second single, "Drop on By", was released to country radio on August 9, 2010.
674624	The Edukators () is a German-Austrian film made by the Austrian director Hans Weingartner and released in 2004. Nominated for the Palme d'Or at the 2004 Cannes Film Festival, it stars Daniel Brühl, Stipe Erceg and Julia Jentsch. The original German title, "Die fetten Jahre sind vorbei" translates literally as ""the fat years are over"". "Die fetten Jahre" is a German expression originating from the story of Joseph in Egypt as found in the Luther Bible, meaning a period in which one enjoys considerable success and indulges oneself heavily. The official translation of the statement as used in the film and the subtitle to the English-language release was ""Your days of plenty are numbered"". Plot. The film revolves around three young anti-capitalist activists living in Berlin city centre — Jule (Julia Jentsch), her boyfriend Peter (Stipe Erceg) and his best friend Jan (Daniel Brühl). Jule is a waitress struggling to pay off the €100,000 debt she accumulated after crashing into a Mercedes-Benz S-Class of a wealthy businessman named Hardenberg (Burghart Klaußner) on a motorway. After she is evicted for paying her rent too late, she moves in with Peter and Jan, who are often out all night. When Peter takes a trip to Barcelona, Jan reveals that he and Peter spend their nights "educating" upper-class people by breaking into their houses, moving furniture around, and leaving notes with messages that say "die fetten Jahre sind vorbei" (the days of plenty are over), or "Sie haben zu viel Geld" (you have too much money). After learning about this, Jule convinces the reluctant Jan to spontaneously break into Hardenberg's home in the affluent Berlin suburb of Zehlendorf, as he happens to be away on business. During the break-in, the thrill of the moment entices the two to kiss. Jan leaves Jule alone for a few minutes because he does not want to hurt his friendship with Peter. While wandering around, Jule accidentally sets off the house's floodlights after she goes outside and they leave in a hurry. Peter returns the next day, but Jan and Jule do not tell him about their activities the night before. Jule soon realises that she is missing her mobile phone, so Jule and Jan go off later that night to look for it in the house. Just after she finds it, Hardenberg walks in the door and he begins to struggle with Jule after recognising her. Jan, who hears the struggle, comes downstairs and knocks Hardenberg out with a flashlight. Not knowing what to do, the pair call Peter who shows up to help them. The three cannot decide what to do with Hardenberg, so they decide to take him to a remote and rarely used cabin in the Tyrolean Austrian Alps, near Jenbach, overlooking Achensee, that belongs to Jule's uncle. While trying to decide how to deal with their hostage, they learn that Hardenberg was once a radical himself in the 1960s. He had been a leader of the Socialist German Student Union and was once good friends with Rudi Dutschke, before eventually marrying, getting a good job and abandoning his ideals. As the story progresses, political ideologies, but more so the characters' relationships, become the deep issues. Peter and Jan temporarily fall out over Jan's now blooming romance with Jule, while Hardenberg seems to regain some sense of his former self. In the end, the three decide to take Hardenberg back to his house and let him go. As the three get ready to leave, Hardenberg hands Jule a letter, clearing all her debt and telling them that they need not worry about the police. The film ends with Peter, Jan and Jule sleeping in bed whilst a group of Spezialeinsatzkommando police amass outside the flat that Jule, Peter and Jan had been sharing, and knock on the door. Jule then wakes up when she hears a knock on the door. The police force their way into the flat which they find nearly completely empty. The film then cuts to Jule, who opens the door to a hotel maid offering to clean their room, presumably in a hotel in Barcelona. Back in the apartment in Berlin, the police find a note that reads "Manche Menschen ändern sich nie" (some people never change). The original German version shows the three Edukators taking Hardenberg's boat into the Mediterranean to destroy the signal towers on an island that supply most of the television to Western Europe. Critical reception. The film was generally well received by critics. Based on 74 reviews collected by Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an overall approval rating from critics of 69%, with an average score of 6.5/10. By comparison, Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 top reviews from mainstream critics, calculated an average score of 68, based on 28 reviews. A. O. Scott of "The New York Times" called it a "A slyly effective thriller and of a deft comedy of romantic confusion. Whatever its shortcomings as a consideration of globalization and its discontents, The Edukators succeeds brilliantly in telling the story of a man who falls in love with his best buddy's girlfriend and doesn't know what to do about it." "Los Angeles Times" critic Carina Chocano concluded that it was "A sweet, funny and gripping romantic adventure, it's about the limitations of political activism in this day and age, and what happens when your girlfriend and your best friend fall in love." Jonathan Romney of "The Independent" also favoured the film "Hans Weingartner's digitally-shot The Edukators wonders whether the old political idealism can be revived, but its gentle, trendily pallid vision of youthful ferment is strictly non-threatening - the Revolution with a Jamie Cullum haircut." Cultural impact. In 2009, a statue stolen from Bernard Madoff was returned with a note that read "Bernie the Swindler, Lesson: Return stolen property to rightful owners" and was signed by "The Educators". This is a reference to the film, although in the film they did not tend to steal from the houses they broke into. Soundtrack. The soundtrack for the film was a compilation edited on Mute Records and consisted of tracks by bands such as Depeche Mode, Placebo, Nada Surf, Franz Ferdinand, Phoenix, Simian and One Inch Punch amongst others, as well as many tracks by German bands as The Notwist, Tocotronic and Slut. Jeff Buckley's version of "Hallelujah" was also featured, but it was not included on the soundtrack. Remake. In 2006, it was announced that Brad Anderson would adapt and direct a remake of the film set in the United States instead of Berlin.
583989	Vettai (English: "Hunt") is a 2012 Tamil action film written and directed by N. Linguswamy. The film star R. Madhavan with Arya, Sameera Reddy and Amala Paul in the lead roles while Ashutosh Rana, Thambi Ramaiah and Nassar played supporting roles. The film score is composed by Yuvan Shankar Raja, while cinematography is by Nirav Shah and editing handled by Anthony Gonsalves. The film became announced shortly after the release of Lingusamy's "Paiyaa", with Dhayanidhi Alagiri's Cloud Nine Movies agreeing to produce the film, following a successful collaboration during the director's previous film. During a lengthy pre-production phase, the film underwent major changes in its main cast and Cloud Nine Movies stepped out of the project, with Linguswamy's own banner, Thirupathi Brothers, taking up the film. Filming was initially planned to begin by mid-2010, but was delayed until March 2011. The film was remade into Telugu as "Tadakha", directed by Kishore Kumar, starring Naga Chaitanya, Tamannaah, Sunil, and Andrea Jeremiah. The film revolves around two brothers, the elder being sensitive to violence and the younger being a jobless rogue, settled in Thoothukudi. After the death of their father, a police officer, the elder brother takes on the same job by request of the younger. The older brother rises to fame in his job by having his younger brother secretly punish suspects and save victims for him. This angers two of the village's biggest mob bosses, who begin to seek revenge on the elder brother. After getting severely beaten by them, the elder brother loses his fear and becomes physically stronger through training from his younger brother. How the brothers get back at two gangs and protect their families form the rest of the story. "Vettai" was released in 550 screens worldwide on 15 January 2012. It received positive reviews and became a box office hit. Plot. Thirumurthy and Gurumurthy are two brothers in Thoothukudi, with Thirumurthy being the elder. He is however sensitive to violence and his younger brother is brave and rogue. Whenever Thirumurthy is beaten by anyone, he has Gurumurthy to finish them. However, Gurumurthy gets frequently punished by his policeman father (Nagendra Babu) for beating up the local people, while Thirumurthy only feels for him. After the death of their father, the now grown-up Thirumurthy (R. Madhavan) takes on the same job by request of Gurumurthy (Arya), who remains a jobless rogue. Meanwhile, Thirumurthy falls for Vasanthi (Sameera Reddy) and Gurumurthy falls for her younger sister Jayanthi (Amala Paul). Subsequently, Thirumurthy marries Vasanthi and both the sisters shift to Thirumurthy and Gurumurthy's house. A number of humorous incidents follow, such as Jayanthi's to-be husband is actually revealed to be a clumsy NRI Gautham, who she disapproves of. She openly expresses her love for Gurumurthy, and hence he subsequently marries her. The NRI, takes leave. Thirumurthy rises to fame in his job by having his younger brother secretly punish suspects and save victims for him. Everyone believes that Thirumurthy actually fought the criminals himself, but in reality took credit for Gurumurthy's doings, unknown to them. One of the village's biggest mob bosses Annachi (Ashutosh Rana) finally discovers the truth via a CCTV showing Gurumurthy's face. Enraged, he has his men to severely beat up Thirumurthy, making the latter confident that his brother will continue his job. Gurumurthy, now enraged, proclaims that he made his elder brother a policeman not for fake, but to overcome the fears he had and to become stronger. Thus, he begins training up his elder brother, who subsequently overcomes his fear and manages to defeat a few of Annachi's men. Eventually, Annachi and his men break into the brother's house and cause havoc. Thirumurthy and Gurumurthy arrive and defeat all of Annachi's men, however they seem to be no match for Annachi. Finally after Annachi falls for a trap set by the brothers, he is defeated but the two brothers quarrel whether to kill him or arrest him. Thus, Gurumurthy declares that they will role a gun and when the gun stops rolling at the brothers, they will arrest Annachi. Bu if it stops at Annachi, he will be killed. The gun stops rolling at Annachi and Thirumurthy shoots him dead. As the credits roll, scenes show that Thirumurthy is again congratulated by the local police, but gives equal credit to his brother as well. Through this praise, Gurumurthy also gets to join the police force. Production. Development. In April 2010, following the success of "Paiyaa", Cloud Nine Movies, who had distributed the film, announced a successive collaboration with the film's director N. Linguswamy, who would make a romantic action film with Silambarasan in the lead role. For pre-production works, the crew of the team subsequently headed to Macau to work out the script, following which Lingusamy moved to the Orange County resort in Coorg, Karnataka to finalise the script. Later that month a photo shoot was completed, with Silambarsan sporting the get up of an NCC cadet, However, in July 2010, reports suggested that Silambarasan was dropped from the project, since he suddenly, without informing Lingusamy and Dhayanidhi, signed himself up and began working in "Vaanam" (2011). Silambarasan, in return, revealed that he had not officially signed Cloud Nine Pictures' film, and only decided to work on "Vaanam", since Lingusamy was not able to narrate the complete script, despite making him wait for over 100 days. Controversially, Silambarasan later signed another film in September 2010, which was similarly titled as "Vettai Mannan". Eventually in September 2010, the film was official announced at a press meet with the title "Vettai", with Arya replacing Silambarasan. At the press meet, he revealed that he worked for over three months on the script, keeping his editor Anthony Gonsalvez and cinematographer Nirav Shah updated about the developments. The film's principal photography was initially supposed to commence in June 2010, but due to pre-production works, it got delayed further and was postponed to December. The film was announced as a bilingual project, to be shot separately in Tamil and Telugu. The Telugu version was supposed to be produced by Tirupati Prasad of Mega Supergood Films and feature Mahesh Babu in the lead role, with Madhavan reprising his role. In March 2011, Cloud Nine Movies stepped out of the project, which prompted Linguswamy to produce "Vettai", too, under his home banner Thirupathi Brothers along with his brother Subash Chandra Bose. Casting. After Silambarasan's exit, Vijay was expected to enact the lead role, who had earlier agreed to star in a Lingusamy film in future, and was subsequently approached by the team. He, however, declined the offer, not willing to play a role that was "originally written keeping in mind the image of another actor". Only in September 2010, during the official announcement, it became apparent that Arya was signed on to reprise the lead role. Furthermore, Linguswamy was trying to rope in Madhavan for another leading role, while, several days later, sources reported that Madhavan definitely had rejected the offer. The next month, however, it was confirmed that Madhavan was roped in to enact the role as a police officer and brother of Arya's character. Madhavan accepted the film as he was 'blown' away by the story. The lead female role was reported to be essayed by Tamannaah Bhatia, who had been part of Linguswamy's "Paiyaa" as well. In an interview later, she disclosed that she was not approached earlier and though she liked the script, she could not take the offer due to her prior commitments. Anushka Shetty then accepted the offer, while Sameera Reddy was signed to play Madhavan's pair in the film, as a village girl. In late November 2010, Anushka pulled out and Amala Paul, following her critically acclaimed performance in "Mynaa", was roped in to essay a leading character, as the love interest of Arya's character. Filming. Originally planned to commence in June 2010, the filming was postponed several times either due to pending pre-production works and unavailability of the artists. After Arya had finished shooting and dubbing for "Avan Ivan", the first schedule was planned to begin on 2 March, which however, was also cancelled as Dhayanidhi wanted the filming to be pushed by another two months, which supposedly was the reason for Linguswamy's decision to produce the film himself. Shooting eventually started on 16 March 2011 in Karaikudi, with Madhavan, Arya, Sameera Reddy and Amala Paul participating. A song "Dumma Dumma Dummaa", choreographed by Brindha, was shot first, with nearly 2000 people being part of the shoot along with the four lead actors. A fight sequence, involving Arya and Madhavan, was shot in the Pondicherry University sports complex on 24 April. In June 2011, other key action sequences were filmed at Madurai, Thoothukudi, Thanjavur and Aruppukottai. The introduction song of the film was also shot in Thanjavur. Some action sequences were shot in Madanapalle, a town located in the Chittor district, Andhra Pradesh, while the climax was shot at Binny Mills in Chennai under the supervision of stunt director Silva. Soundtrack. Following successful collaborations with director Linguswamy in "Sandakozhi" (2005) and "Paiyaa" (2010), Yuvan Shankar Raja was signed up to produce the film score and soundtrack for "Vettai" as well. In November 2010, the duo along with lyricist Na. Muthukumar left for Malaysia to compose the first tunes. The soundtrack album was launched on 16 December 2011 at the Anna Centenary Auditorium in Kotturpuram, Chennai, with several lead actors and directors from the Tamil film industry attending the event. Four days prior to the soundtrack release, the song "Pappappa" was launched as a single track at the studios of Radio Mirchi, with a making-of video of the recording being simultaneously uploaded on YouTube. The song, which was sung by Yuvan Shankar Raja himself along with Renu Kannan, a finalist of the second season of the reality-based singing competition "Airtel Super Singer", quickly gained attention and became very popular. Reception. Behindwoods said "Vettai has some peppy likeable soundtracks to its credits. Even if it’s not Yuvan's best, Vettai packages all genres of folksy music well. With songs like 'Pappa Pappa' and the romantic 'Kattipudi', the album is all set to turn out to be a commercial winner". Release. "Vettai" sold 4.3 million tickets worldwide. It released on the Pongal weekend on 14 January 2012. The film had a wide release in 550 screens worldwide, including 300 screens in Tamil Nadu, 150 screens in the rest of India, and about a 100 screens overseas in 15 regions consisting of USA, UK, Canada, Switzerland, Norway, Holland, Germany, France, Mauritius, Australia, Middle East, Kuwait, Sri Lanka, Singapore and Malaysia. and did well in the box office. Satellite rights has been bagged by Vijay TV. Critical reception. "Vettai" received mixed to positive reviews. "Behindwoods" rated the film 2.5/5 and called it a "light hearted film for the holiday season". "Sify"'s critic wrote: "Lingusamy's "Vettai" is a racy mass entertainer with all the ingredients mixed in the right proposition. No doubt that the director understands the pulse of the common man and has beautifully packaged it with all the essential commercial elements to suit the taste of the masses". Pavithra Srinivasan of "Rediff" gave 2.5/5 and noted: ""Vettai" is no classic, but it is good fun." The "Times of India" wrote: "Though there is nothing new in terms of the story or screenplay, the movie is a fun ride as long as it lasts". Rohit Ramachandran of "Nowrunning.com" rated it 3/5 stating that ""Vettai" is regular Kollywood stuff superiorly packaged with insurmountable energy.". Malayalam net gave the movie a good rating of (2.75/5) and said that it is a good entertainer". Deccan chronicle wrote:"The first half moves fast with unlimited entertainment, while the post-interval portions falls along predicted lines and pace suffers". Access Kollywood wrote:"Lingusamy knows his onions and does not let the movie lag one bit during its run. He aptly peppers it with the requisite components to make it as entertaining as possible. As they say, leave logic behind and be thoroughly entertained". Hindu wrote:"The story isn't out of the ordinary, but Lingusamy knows where to place twists and how. From Run to Sandakkozhi and now to Vettai, his action ventures, with the exception of Bheema and Ji, have screenplays that sustain the interest of the viewer". Rachel Saltz of "The New York Times" wrote: ""Vettai" partakes of the something-for-everyone formula, mixing the serious — corruption, evil gangs and limb-threatening fights — with the less so: songs, romance and comedy. It entertains without breaking any new ground, though it can also surprise". Remake. The film was remade into Telugu as "Tadakha", directed by Kishore Kumar, starring Naga Chaitanya (playing Arya's role), Sunil (playing Madhavan's role), Tamannaah (playing Amala's role), and Andrea Jeremiah (playing Sameera's role), in the lead roles. The film is also being remade in Hindi by Linguswamy himself with Shahid Kapoor (playing Arya's role) and Ali Zafar (playing Madhavan's role).
1017542	Project A (; also known as "Pirate Patrol" and "Jackie Chan's Project A") is a 1983 Hong Kong, martial arts, action, comedy film written and directed by Jackie Chan, and starring Jackie Chan, Sammo Hung and Yuen Biao. Set in the 1800s in old Hong Kong, "Project A" blends comedy moments and spectacular stunts, including set-pieces reminiscent of Buster Keaton and Harold Lloyd. One stunt in particular involved Chan hanging and falling from the hand of a clock tower some 60 feet high, tearing through awning canopies before hitting the ground head-first. It was inspired by Lloyd's famous clock-tower stunt from the 1923 film "Safety Last!". Plot. Sergeant Dragon Ma (Jackie Chan) is part of the Hong Kong Marine Police's effort to suppress the pirates, who have been raiding ships for months. Members of the Royal Hong Kong Police Force and the MP, who have a strong interservice rivalries, get into a fight in a bar. Shortly after this, Captain Chi (Kwan Hoi-San) releases all of the sailors to their commanding officer, and two of the MP's ships get blown up. Gangsters Chiang and Mr. Chow meet at a VIP Club, and discuss fleeing to Vietnam. As soon as Chiang leaves, he meets one of the pirates and they laugh about sabotaging the Marine Police ships. In the course of the conversation, the pirate tells him that his boss, San-po (Dick Wei), wants 100 police rifles. As they do not have enough ships, Dragon Ma and his squad are forced to become regular police officers. They have to undergo "hard training" with the police, under Captain Chi's nephew, Hong Tin-tsu (Yuen Biao). After the police learn that Chiang is at the VIP Club, and that the guests there are not to be disturbed, Dragon and Tin-tsu go to arrest Chiang, but a big fight breaks out. After tiring of the blatant corruption in the police force, Dragon drags Chiang out and tells Tin-tsu to take the credit. That is his last official act as an officer with the Hong Kong police. Fei (Sammo Hung) finds Dragon in the street. They have a conversation, in which Fei reveals that someone from within the police force is selling rifles. Fei tells Dragon that all he wants are the guns, and Dragon can catch the traitor. At night, Dragon and Fei interrupt a gun deal between the Army and the police Captain. After pushing everyone into the water and making off with the guns, Fei hides the rifles inside a log and marks it with a red flag. He later tries to sell the guns to the gangsters and pirates, but Dragon has intervened by removing the red flag and putting flags on other logs. After the Admiral arrives, Dragon has a conversation with the Admiral's daughter, Winnie. He learns that the Captain wasn't smuggling guns for San-po, he was buying the guns from the army to arm his men. On overhearing this, Fei gets into an argument with Dragon. The gangsters come after Fei, so he tells them that Dragon is to blame for the missing guns. Dragon is forced to flee with Winnie. After teaming up with Fei, being tortured for information about the guns, and falling from the face of a clock tower, the police track Dragon down for a third time, and help him get away as they arrest the gangsters. As the pirates have lost the guns they kidnap everyone on board a ship, including a Rear Admiral. The Colonel has a conversation with Mr. Chow, which Dragon overhears. Mr. Chow proposes an arms for hostages deal. He tells the Colonel that this will "greatly expedite matters," and the Colonel consents. After Mr. Chow leaves, Dragon confronts the Colonel and convinces him that the gangsters and the pirates will never fear the law if the police force are corrupt. After it is agreed that Dragon will assume all responsibility for the mission to save the hostages, the Colonel allows the Marine Police to be brought back into full force. Mr. Chow is brought in by the police and beaten until he tells Dragon and Tin-tsu how to get to San-po. Dragon, posing as Mr. Chow, gets on board a ship that takes him to San-po's hideout, and they are followed by the rest of the squad. Fei sneaks aboard and poses as a pirate. After a lot of tricky undercover work, the cavalry arrives, and there is a final confrontation in the middle of the pirate's lair. Dragon, Tin-tsu, and Fei engage in a hand-to-hand battle with San-po, eventually killing him with a hand grenade when he's rolled into the carpet. Cast. Isabella Wong is the only female actress with a substantial role in this film. Her only other film credit is a cameo appearance in the sequel, "Project A Part II". Title. In the 1980s, Chan chose vague, generic film titles such as "Project A" and "Police Story" so as not to give the plots of the films away prior to their release. It was felt that the titles of previous Chan films such as "Snake in the Eagle's Shadow" and "Drunken Master" gave too much away about the kung fu style they featured - Snake Style and Drunken Fist respectively. "Project A" was originally going to be titled "Pirate Patrol" but it was feared that once announced, other Hong Kong film producers would rush to copy and release films featuring pirates. Production. On the audio commentary of the Hong Kong Legends (Region 2) DVD, Bey Logan reveals that Chan's last period film, "Dragon Lord" (1982), had under-performed at the Hong Kong box office in comparison to the previous one, "The Young Master" (1980). Logan identifies that a possible reason for the poor performance was the comparative lack of action. Edward Tang and the production team felt that a period film could still have success if it had sufficient action, and so researched the history of Hong Kong during the time of pirates for "Project A". Unlike other Hollywood period films that are set on an exact time and place, many Hong Kong films play fast and loose with their period in history. A prominent example by Bey Logan is set like this: the Hong Kong Marine Police is set up in 1846 by the British Colonial Government. The Hong Kong Headquarters is set up in 1884. The Kowloon Canton Railway Clock tower is set up in 1915. So in other words, this film takes place between the 19th and early 20th century. Jackie and the Golden Harvest team employ some researchers to come up with background for this story about pirates in Hong Kong and are not really concerned at all about depicting the film in the exact era. Bey Logan coined regarding historical heroes and stories like Wong Fei Hong: if you choose between the truth and the legend, you print the legend because if you pick the truth, you won't have for example, having items, vehicles and certain historical figures if you are shooting it in a time where certain things would or would not have existed, unless it's made as a documentary. "Project A" marks the first time that veteran Michael Lai used orchestral music for a film score, instead of using library music, or lifting the score from other films. In rehearsal for the clock tower fall inspired by "Safety Last!", Chan took a week to build the courage to drop from such a great height. During the shooting of the bicycle chase sequence, one of the stuntmen informed Chan that "E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial" was playing at the local cinema. Chan halted filming to watch the bicycle chase scene in the finale of "E.T.", to ensure that his scene and Steven Spielberg's scene were not the same. After watching the film, Chan became more confident, realizing that the audience doesn't really care so much about such minor details, only in watching the film and having a good time. According to his book "I Am Jackie Chan: My Life in Action", Chan injured his neck while filming the scene. After appearing in "The Cannonball Run" (1981), Chan liked the idea of including bloopers over the closing credits. Beginning with "Dragon Lord", he has included outtakes over the end credits for most of the films, including "Project A", he has directed and they have become something of a Chan trademark. Due to the nature of his films, Chan's outtakes are a combination of comedic moments and injuries sustained whilst he and his team perform stunts and fight sequences. These outtakes were enjoyed particularly by audiences in Japan - so much so that Japanese film companies would demand the inclusion of "NGs" ("no good" shots) in the distribution contracts for all Jackie Chan films, regardless of director. Box office. "Project A" marked Chan's return to Asian cinema after his first attempt to break into the Hollywood market with a small role in "The Cannonball Run" and a starring role in the unsuccessful "Battle Creek Brawl". In contrast, "Project A" was huge success at the Hong Kong box office, earning HKD$19,323,824 in Hong Kong. It was also very well received abroad, and particularly throughout East Asia. Reportedly, in Japan, Emperor Showa's fondness of the film and eagerness to see a sequel, led Chan to make "Project A Part II". Critical reception. "Project A" was met with positive reviews. In his annual film guide, "Leonard Maltin's Movie Guide", Maltin rated the film 3 out of 4 stars. The film was praised by the "Los Angeles Times". The film currently has an 82% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, based on 11 reviews. Home media. U.S. version. The version distributed on video and DVD by Miramax in North America has a new opening credits sequence, a new score, and dubbed English dialogue. In addition, there are seven minutes of cuts, including:
588719	Nippu ("Fire") is a 2012 Telugu-language film, directed by Gunasekhar, starring Ravi Teja and Deeksha Seth in the lead. The music is scored by S. Thaman. Produced by director YVS Chowdary on his home banner Bommarillu, and directed by Gunasekhar; the film received negative reviews. It was later dubbed in Hindi as "Main Insaaf Karoonga" and in Tamil as "Rowdy Raja". Plot. The story begins with Surya (Ravi Teja) who owns a gym centre and he also has a good friend Sriram (Srikanth). Surya is in love with his friend’s sister Meghna (Deeksha Seth) and after some cat and mouse games, she also falls in love. After a while, Sri goes to Saudi for a job and there he falls in love with Vaishnavi (Bhavana). The story takes a turn when Surya goes to Saudi to celebrate the birthday of Sri and is shocked when the Saudi police arrest Sriram on charges of murdering Vaishnavi. He is sentenced to death. The only thing Surya can do is to get the signature from Vaishnavi’s parents to acquit Sriram. But her father is Raja Goud (Pradeep Rawat), the bad guy whom Surya has been fighting all along. What happens from there forms the rest of the story. Production. Ravi teja, gunasekhar and yvs chowdary who were roommates during struggling days before their entry in cinema has decided to make a film together. After his disastrous "Varudu", Gunasekhar announced this project. The film's title announced was initially as "Kathi", but after facing problems from Nandamuri family Gunasekar gave up the title and changed it as "Nippu". Deeksha seth was selected as heroine pairing with Ravi for second time. Release. The film was released on 17 February 2012. Critical reception. Radhika Rajamani from Rediff, while reviewing the film Telugu film Nippu, has given 2/5 stars and feels that the film is formulaic and hence, disappoints. Producer YVS Chowdary and director Gunasekhar team up with Ravi Teja in Nippu (Fire). One knows what to expect from a Ravi Teja film, and Gunasekhar provides the usual commercial ingredients for the mass hero.
742755	Christine Danielle Connolly is a Canadian songwriter and also has acted in such films as "", and 2007's "In the Land of Women" with Meg Ryan and Adam Brody. Personal life. She is the oldest of five children. Born in Campbell River, but moved to Vancouver for high school so she could focus on her career. Currently resides in Los Angeles CA Songwriter She married Tyler Connolly,the lead singer of the band Theory of a Deadman, in Malibu, California on March 25, 2006. She is also the subject of Theory of a Deadman's song, "Bad Girlfriend". Is currently recording her debut album with her band Kneehigh Fox with producer Howard Benson Career. She has starred in Theory of a Deadman's music video "Hate My Life". Co-wrote "I Miss The Misery" the current single from Halestorm's record The Strange Case Of... Co-wrote 'The Truth Is (I Lied About Everything)', 'Lowlife', 'What Was I Thinking', 'Does It Really Matter' from Theory Of a Deadman's current record where she has the title track "The Truth Is..." Also co-wrote "Bad Girlfriend" , "Hate My Life" , "Little Smirk" , "Crutch" and "Heaven (Little By Little)" off Theory of a Deadman's "Scars and Souvenirs" album and has two #1 songs on American Rock Radio with Theory of a Deadman for the songs 'Bad Girlfriend' and 'Lowlife'. Co-wrote 'Blind' with 12 Stones off their record 'Beneath The Scars' Currently recording a record with her band Knee High Fox with producer Howard Benson Written with Theory Of A Deadman, Halestorm, 12 Stones, Orianthi, Daniel Powter, Hinder, Everclear, Scott Stevens of The Exies, Duff Mckagan, Mark Holman,etc... As an actress, Christine has starred in the 2006 action film, "" as a vampire. A teenager named Tanya in the film "In the Land of Women" and has also appeared on the CW series "Aliens in America", and an upcoming MOW "The Room at the End of the Hall". Appeared in the newest Underworld film Underworld Awakening.
582454	Shefali Shah (born July 1972), is an Indian television and film actress. Biography. Shefali Shah (née Shetty) was born in July 1972 and is the only child of Sudhakar Shetty (former RBI employee) and Shobha Shetty (a homeopathy doctor). She spent her early childhood at the RBI quarters in Santa Cruz, Mumbai where she attended Arya Vidya Mandir, Santacruz, Mumbai. Career. Shah made her film debut with "Rangeela" (1995), although she only had a few scenes in the film. She ventured into television with the serial "Kabhie Kabhie". She starred in the critically acclaimed film "Satya" (1998) for which she received the Star Screen Award Best Supporting Actress and a Filmfare Critics Award for Best Actress. Shah starred in the hit "" (2005) as Amitabh Bachchan's wife. The film was directed by her husband Vipul Shah. Her performance was appreciated by the critics. Shefali Shah's break through performance was as Ria Verma in the internationally acclaimed "Monsoon Wedding". She graduated to mature roles as Kasturba Gandhi in "Gandhi, My Father" and as Anil Kapoor's wife in the 2008 film "Black & White". She won a National Film Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in Rituparno Ghosh's "The Last Lear". In 2010 she took to the stage opposite Kiran Karmarkar in the Hindi version of Chandrakant Kulkarni’s play "Dhyanimani", "Bas Itna Sa Khwab". Personal life. Shah was married to television actor Harsh Chhaya. After their divorce, she married director Vipul Amrutlal Shah. She has two sons with Shah.
587505	Chukkalanti Ammayi Chakkanaina Abbayi is a 2013 Indian Telugu-language family drama film directed by Kanmani. It stars Tarun and Vimala Raman in the lead roles. The music is composed by Anoop Rubens. The film which was in production since 2009 was finally released in 25th May, 2013. Plot. According to the media reports, the films talks about the ups and downs of the live-in relationships. Soundtrack. Anoop Rubens has composed the original score and soundtracks for the film. Chinni Charan has penned the lyrics for the songs.
1058062	Ken Wahl is an American film and television actor, popular in the 1980s and 1990s, best known for the CBS television crime drama "Wiseguy". Early life and career. All Movie Guide says Wahl was born Anthony Calzaretta on October 31, 1954 in Chicago, Illinois. According to a Newspaper Enterprise Association syndicated article in 1988, however, a February 14, 1957, birthdate given by CBS is "apparently accurate: A call to Bremen High School in the Chicago suburb of Midlothian reveals Wahl graduated from there in June 1975, presumably at age 18." Wahl himself is elusive about his personal life. "Entertainment Weekly" wrote in 2004, According to his official biography, he was born "in a tiny apartment on the south side of Chicago, in the late fifties, when a young couple welcomed ... their third child, Kenny." In the late 1960s, it continues, his "family of 8" moved to the New York City borough of The Bronx, where he attended junior high and, for a time, high school. The NEA article, however, says Wahl, from a blue-collar German/Italian family, "attended different high schools as the family moved to the suburbs of Midlothian and Worth." According to "Entertainment Weekly", he played baseball, as a shortstop, in unspecified venues that might have included youth leagues and high school teams, before crashing a motorcycle and hurting his knee at age 16. His official biography says he then worked as a janitor while in high school and as a gas-station attendant at his family's service station. After graduating from Midlothan's Bremen High in 1975 or dropping out of high school, he left home, his bio says, "at the age of 18 ... in his ‘69 Dodge Dart" and crossed the United States working odd jobs. Eventually living in Los Angeles, he worked as an extra on movies including "The Buddy Holly Story' (1978). Wahl first gained recognition in 1979 when he was cast in the leading role of director Phil Kaufman's film "The Wanderers". He was subsequently cast opposite Paul Newman in "Fort Apache, The Bronx" (1981), and went on to play the lead in movies including "Race for the Yankee Zephyr" (1981), "The Soldier" (1982), "Jinxed" (1982), "Purple Hearts" (1984) and other films. He then suffered another motorcycle crash, while on his way to meet with Diane Keaton about what eventually became the Mel Gibson role in "Mrs. Soffel". Not wearing a helmet, Wahl was injured badly enough to require 89 stitches in his scalp. "Wiseguy". After appearing in the ensemble of "" (1985), Wahl was cast in the lead role of Vinnie Terranova in the television series "Wiseguy" in 1987. The show ran until 1990 and brought Wahl a Golden Globe Award, as well as an Emmy Award nomination. Wahl wrote an episode of "Wiseguy" in 1989 and directed an episode in 1990. During the second season, he injured himself again, on an episode directed by Jan Eliasberg. As Wahl recalled in 2004, "She had me walking into my own POV shot, and ... I was stepping up, and the wheel caught my right heel and it just ripped out the Achilles tendon. ... But she wanted to do it again, so I said, 'Okay, you're the boss.'" Series creator Steven J. Cannell said the camera ran over Wahl a second time, leaving him in such pain Cannell replaced him for three episodes while Wahl healed. He went on to star in the films "The Taking of Beverly Hills" (1991) and "The Favor" (1994), as well as a "Wiseguy" reunion TV-movie in 1996, his final screen performance. Wahl claimed that in 1992 he had endured another motorcycle crash, but eventually confessed to having fallen down a flight of stairs at the home of comedian Rodney Dangerfield's girlfriend and eventual wife, Joan Child. "We were dating casually," Wahl said in 2004. "I stayed over at her house one night, fell down these stairs, and she begged me not to say that in the press." As his official biography describes the incident, Wahl, blaming a "botched" surgery and the refusal of doctors to prescribe pain medication, said he told himself, "Okay, I can't get a prescription, so I'll get a bottle of vodka. I was in such chronic, agonizing pain 24 hours a day that I started drinking to kill the pain." After gaining weight through lack of exercise, and with a growing alcohol problem, he worked 16 days on the reunion movie "and barely got through it. That's when I knew I couldn't do it anymore." Personal life. Wahl married his first wife, former "Penthouse" Pet of the Year Corinne Alphen, in 1983 or 1984, (sources differ), divorcing in 1991. They had one child, Raymond. Wahl married his second wife, Lorrie Vidal, in 1993 and divorced in 1997. Wahl said he met Shane Barbi (twin sister of Sia Barbi, glamour models known as the Barbi twins) at a grocery store in 1996, and they married on September 17, 1997. They renewed their wedding vows in 2008. In 1995, Wahl was charged with disturbing the peace and arrested on an outstanding warrant for a drunken-driving charge, eventually pleaded nolo contendre to both charges and receiving probation. A year later, he was arrested for allegedly threatening a bartender with a hunting knife for refusing to serve him alcohol. He pleaded nolo contendre again and was ordered to enter a live-in alcohol rehabilitation program. Wahl says he and Barbi married after attending 12-step meetings together. Animal and disabled veterans activism. Wahl and his wife Shane Barbi are supporters of animal rights and of disabled United States military veterans. On January 19, 2010, he offered his Golden Globe Award as part of a reward then being assembled by the Second Chance Rescue Center in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, to help find and convict the person who glued a 7-month-old orange tabby to Minnesota State Highway 60, where travelers found it on December 18, 2009; the cat, whom rescuers called Timothy, died days later. In 2012, Wahl stood against the Hayden Law Repeal, which would have revoked the Hayden Law for shelter pets in California, which had extended the number of days owners had to find their lost pets or for injured animals to receive donations or to be adopted. For 2012's Memorial Day holiday, Wahl sent a message saluting the military, alongside the group Pets for Patriots, supporting adoption of pets for veterans.
1059693	Joshua "Josh" Mostel (born December 21, 1946) is an American actor who is best known for his roles in "Jesus Christ Superstar", "Stoogemania", and two Adam Sandler films ("Billy Madison" and "Big Daddy"). Life and career. Mostel was born in New York City, New York, the son of Kathryn Celia (née Harken), an actress, dancer, and writer, and comic actor Zero Mostel. His brother Tobias is a painter, ceramic artist and professor of art, teaching in Florida. Mostel started his career as a boy soprano at the Metropolitan Opera in New York. He graduated from Brandeis University. When a student at Brandeis, he once pushed a couch into a pond and set it afire, taking bets as to whether the couch would burn or drown first. His broadway debut was in 1971 with "Unlikely Heroes".In 1973 he made his film debut as Herod in the Norman Jewison helmed "Jesus Christ Superstar". In 1979, Mostel briefly starred in the television version of the film "Animal House", "Delta House", as "Blotto" Blutarsky, the brother of the character Bluto (played by John Belushi in the original film). He has since appeared in many films and Broadway productions. On Broadway he appeared in the 1989 revival of The Threepenny Opera as Money Matthew, and as the frazzled head writer in the original production od "My Favorite Year", opposite Tim Curry & Evan Pappas . Mostel now lives in New York, with a summer home on Monhegan, Maine.
1054384	Class of 1984 is a 1982 Canadian action-thriller movie about a newly hired music teacher at a troubled inner city school, where students have to pass through a metal detector due to problems with gangs, drugs, and violence. It was directed by Mark L. Lester and starred Perry King as teacher Andrew Norris, Merrie Lynn Ross (who also co-executive produced) as his wife Diane Norris, Roddy McDowall as Terry Corrigan and Timothy Van Patten as Peter Stegman, the leader of the gang of thugs who terrorize the school. It was one of Michael J. Fox's early roles, before he was a well-established actor. It was a major box-office success for its time making more than 20 million dollars in the US alone on a budget of four and half million, and was the number one film in many countries worldwide on release. The movie utilized the punk look and image that was becoming part of popular culture in the early 1980s. The movie's theme song, "I Am the Future", was performed by Alice Cooper. The film also features a performance by Canadian punk band Teenage Head. The film begins with a warning that it is partially based on true events. Reception. Upon its original release, "Class of 1984" was banned in several countries due to its lewd content. It currently maintains a 60% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Legacy. Comedy writer and producer Tom Scharpling has noted that "Class of 1984" is one of his favorite movies. Scharpling often references the film on his weekly call in radio program "The Best Show on WFMU". Sequels. The movie also had two science fiction-themed sequels that were loosely based on the original: "Class of 1999" (1990) and the direct to video follow-up "" (1994), the first of which was also directed by Lester and like its predecessor, was also released via "Vestron Video", while the latter was released by Vidmark Entertainment. Lionsgate released Class of 1999 on DVD September 16, 2008. They have been released on DVD in many foreign territories, such as Korea, Italy and Australia. Parodies. The 1986 low-budget Troma movie "Class of Nuke 'Em High" is in its majority a spoof on "Class of 1984". The gang of 'Cretins' represent the gang from "84". The tagline "We are the future" also appears in Nuke 'Em High, uttered by one of the gang members as "We're the youth of today."
1164163	Marla Gibbs (born Margaret Theresa Bradley; June 14, 1931) is an American television and film actress and singer. She is best known for playing Louise and George Jefferson's maid, Florence Johnston, on "The Jeffersons" and spinoff "Checking In". Since the death of co-star Sherman Hemsley in July 2012, she, Damon Evans and Berlinda Tolbert are the only surviving cast members from the Jeffersons still alive. (Although many people may mistakenly think Gibbs was part of the series' original main cast, she didn't become part of the main cast until the series' fourth season.) and appeared in the film "Madea's Witness Protection" (2012). She currently has a recurring role as Grandma Eddy on the Byron Allen-produced sitcom "The First Family". Career. Before the start of her acting career, Gibbs worked as a reservations agent for United Airlines before relocating with her children from Detroit to Los Angeles. Gibbs appeared with Tom Poston and Bert Convy on "Super Password" in 1986.
1065989	The Change-Up is a 2011 American body switch comedy film produced and directed by David Dobkin, written by Jon Lucas and Scott Moore, and starring Ryan Reynolds and Jason Bateman. The film was released on August 5, 2011 in North America by Universal Pictures. Plot. Dave Lockwood (Jason Bateman) and Mitch Planko (Ryan Reynolds) are close friends who are each jealous of the other's lifestyle. While Dave is a lawyer with a wife and kids, Mitch is a freewheeling actor who has sex with different women. After getting drunk at a bar, Mitch and Dave urinate in a park's fountain, and simultaneously wish that they had each other's lives. The next morning, Mitch and Dave realize they have switched bodies. Mitch remembers the wish they made the night before and they drive back to the park, planning to urinate again in the fountain and wish for their original lives back, but find the fountain has been removed for restorations. Forced to wait a few days until the parks department can locate the fountain, Mitch and Dave agree to pretend to be each other for the day. When Mitch arrives at Dave's law firm office, he befriends Dave's attractive assistant, Sabrina McKay (Olivia Wilde). However, Mitch's lack of professionalism and legal knowledge cause a big merger to fall through. Meanwhile, Dave arrives at Mitch's film shoot to discover that it is a porno. Tired of pretending to be Mitch, Dave has them go back to his house to tell his wife Jamie (Leslie Mann) the truth, but Jamie does not believe him. Dave gives Mitch advice on how to behave professionally and Mitch sets Dave up on a date with Sabrina, who Dave has had a crush on. After speaking with his father, Mitch rededicates himself to doing everything Dave's life demands, from taking care of the kids and buying groceries to making decisions at the firm. On the night of her ballet recital, Cara is about to be pushed by the other girl again, but takes Mitch's advice and throws her to the floor, to which Mitch foul-mouthedly cheers. Cara tells Dave that she loves him and Mitch says the same thing, but feels guilty for doing so immediately after. That night, Mitch and Jamie begin to have sex with each other, but Mitch angrily finds that his guilt will not allow him to become erect, and he admits that he is not cut out for the responsibilities of an adult. Jamie comforts him, and he discreetly rests his head on her breasts. The next day, Dave decides to take advantage of being Mitch and takes the day off. Dave does everything that he finds relaxing, including going to an Aquarium and watching a showing of "National Lampoon's Animal House" at the theater. After Dave finishes having fun, he calls Mitch to help show him how to act fun on his date with Sabrina that night. Mitch teaches Dave how to act like him, and finally shaves off Dave's pubic hair. Sabrina comes to meet him at a classy restaurant and, despite only originally going because Mitch told her to, they eventually legitimately start liking each other, and get tattoos. Dave walks Sabrina home, and she tells him to call her. Later, Jamie asks "Dave" about their anniversary party and he asks why Mitch was not invited. She says that he told her not to invite him because he was afraid Mitch would ruin it with his usual antics. Meanwhile, Dave is rollerblading through the park when he is called by the woman from the District Manager's office and tells him that they found where the statue was moved to. Dave goes to meet Mitch and tell him, but when Dave gets there, he and Mitch imply that they want to stay each other and Dave leaves. However, Mitch forgets about the Dialogue Night that he and Jamie had planned and accidentally stands her up. The following day, Mitch goes with the rest of the representatives to the new merger meeting between the two firms. The Japanese representatives only offer $625 million to merge, $75 million short of their hoped for $700 million. They are about to agree when Mitch says that he has noticed the firm's representatives have not started leaving, which means they are still willing to up the price, comparing the whole situation to sex and porn. He tells the moderator to tell the firm they demand $725 million and has Dave's firm's representatives begin to leave. They successfully scare the other firm into agreeing and celebrate. Mitch and Dave's family go to a gala being held by Dave's firm in honor of Dave being made partner, but Jamie is still upset over how she knows Dave will still never truly be happy. Meanwhile, Dave and Sabrina are at a baseball game when a thunderstorm suddenly hits, and they decide to go to Mitch's house to wait it out. Sabrina tells Dave that she is going to have sex with him, and takes off her pants and bra, but when they begin, he notices a tattoo of a many spotted skipperling on her hip, the same type of butterfly his daughter said was her favorite, and regretfully leaves, saying he wants to go home. Back at the gala, Steel is giving his speech about the amazing accomplishments Dave made over the years, and how the only thing he loves more than the law is his family. Mitch says to himself that he did not earn the title he is getting, as Dave quickly drives up to the gala, rushes in, and kisses Jamie, finally letting her know that he is who he said he was. He tells her that he loves her, and he and Mitch drive to the Peachtree Galleria, where the fountain was moved. They run in, planning to urinate in the fountain, but find it located in the center of the Galleria, where it is surrounded by hoards of people walking by. They decide to not wait and do it then, but Mitch finds that he is too embarrassed to urinate, especially after the crowd notices Dave doing so. Mitch asks why Dave did not invite him to his anniversary party, and Dave admits that he was embarrassed of him, but has grown to respect him while he was in his body and this allows Mitch to relax enough to be able to urinate. Mitch and Dave try wishing for their original lives back, but it does not work. Security begins to come to arrest them, but on the third try the Galleria's lights go out, and they both run away before they turn back on. The confused crowd looks around, and the camera pans up to the face of the statue, once again smiling. In the epilogue, Dave is awoken by his babies crying that night, thrilled to realize that he has finally returned in his original body. Dave continually kisses Jamie and happily goes to change the babies. At his home, Mitch awakens to enthusiastically admire himself and happily get breakfast with Sabrina, not realizing that the tattoo Dave got is a picture of his face on Mitch's back with the caption "I ♥ Dave". Mitch goes and speaks at his father's wedding and later attends Dave's anniversary a month later. In the post-credits scene, Dave and Jamie get high then go to the Aquarium Dave went to earlier, while Mitch and Sabrina have sex for the first time and Mitch sends Dave the porno film he starred in. Production. The film was shot in Atlanta, Georgia from October 2010 to January 2011, which is also its setting. There were open castings at Turner Field and other venues in Atlanta. Several of the bar scenes were shot on location at a bar called Joe's on Juniper, in midtown Atlanta. The exterior and interior scenes of the Lockwood home were shot on location at a Buckhead residence designed by Atlanta residential designer Steve McClanahan. Despite being set in the summertime, production continued during a major winter storm that briefly crippled the city in January, leaving Peachtree and other streets covered in snow and ice and nearly preventing the governor's inauguration. Reynolds complimented the city in his interview on "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno", but joked that he thought the city "was trying to kill" him because of several unrelated incidents on the set and in his personal life that happened to occur during production. During her interview on "Jimmy Kimmel Live!", Olivia Wilde stated that she refused to appear naked or take most of her clothes off and used a body double for some shots and wore pasties for close-up and upper shots. Leslie Mann has also followed this technique while other actresses used prosthetics. Reception. As of November 2011, the film has received unfavorable reviews, attaining a 25% aggregate approval rating based on 144 reviews on Rotten Tomatoes, with a rating average of 4.4 out of 10. The site's consensus is that "there's a certain amount of fun to be had from watching Bateman and Reynolds play against type, but it isn't enough to carry "The Change-Up" through its crude humor and formulaic plot." The film also received a score of 39 out of 100 from review aggregate Metacritic, which indicates "generally unfavorable", based on 35 reviews. British newspaper "The Telegraph" named "The Change-Up" one of the ten worst films of 2011, saying "Ryan Reynolds and Jason Bateman have skill, charm, timing – everything but the right script."
1059327	John Victor Shea III (born April 14, 1949) is an American actor and director who has starred on stage, television and in film. He is best known for his role as Lex Luthor in the 1990s TV series "" and also starred in the short-lived 1990s TV series "WIOU" as Hank Zaret. Later on in the 2000s he starred on the series "Mutant X" as Adam Kane. Early life. Shea was born in North Conway, New Hampshire, near where his father was teaching at Fryeburg Academy, Maine, and was raised in the Sixteen Acres area of Springfield, Massachusetts in a family of five. His parents were Elizabeth Mary (née Fuller) and Dr. John Victor Shea, Jr., who served in the U.S. Army in World War II, fought in the Battle of the Bulge, and was a teacher, coach and later assistant Superintendent of Schools. It was his mother who introduced him to literature, poetry, classical music, and art and urged him to study the piano; his father, a scholar-athlete at Bates College, taught him positive thinking and the values of the ancient Greek ideals of body, mind, and spirit. Shea attended Catholic schools, graduating from Cathedral High School where he captained the varsity debate team and played varsity football and track. Shea received his early theatre training at Bates College under Lavinia Schaffer and Bill Beard. He also performed on the varsity debating and football teams and co-edited the college literary magazine, Puffed Wheat, before graduating with a BA in 1970. He studied acting and directing at the Yale School of Drama under Dean Robert Brustein, gaining an MFA in Directing in 1973. During his time at the School of Drama, he also performed at the Yale Repertory Theatre, in the Yale cabaret with schoolmates Joe Grifasi and Meryl Streep, and studied filmmaking with Arthur Penn, Sidney Lumet, and George Roy Hill in the film program at the Art and Architecture School. After two summers during college acting in Mac Dixon's Theatre Workshop of Nantucket productions, in 1973 Shea worked with John Wulp's Nantucket Stage Company as an assistant director and actor in a production of "Dracula". This production, with set and costume designs by Edward Gorey, later transferred from Nantucket to Broadway, starred Frank Langella, won Tony Awards, ran for three years, and gave Shea, who was not in the Broadway production, his first glimpse into what it takes to create a critical and commercial success. Stage and screen debuts. After a directing apprenticeship at both the Chelsea Theatre under Robert Kalfin and the Public Theater with Joseph Papp, he made his Broadway debut at the age of 26 in Kalfin's production of Isaac B. Singer's ""Yentl"" opposite Tovah Feldshuh, for which he received the Theatre World Award. "Yentl" started Off Broadway at the Chelsea Theatre Center at the Brooklyn Academy of Music and, after a favorable reception, was moved to the Eugene O'Neill Theatre by producer Cheryl Crawford, and was later made into a film starring Barbra Streisand. After guest starring roles in such TV series as "Eight Is Enough" and "Man from Atlantis", Shea made his television film debut playing Joseph in "The Nativity" (1978) opposite Madeleine Stowe as Mary, a biblical epic shot in Spain. His feature film debut came in Matthew Chapman's English film noir "Hussy" (1980) alongside Helen Mirren. His American film debut was in Constantin Costa-Gavras's Academy Award-winning "Missing" (1982) with Jack Lemmon and Sissy Spacek. Based on a true story retold in the book "The Execution Of Charles Horman," Shea impersonated Horman, an American journalist who was kidnapped, tortured, and executed by the Pinochet regime during the military coup that over threw the Allende government in Chile. The film, shot on locations in Mexico, also won the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival and helped launch Shea's international acting career. Costa-Gavras cast Shea without an audition after seeing his performance in Steven Poliakoff's play "American Days "at the Manhattan Theatre Club". Film. Since "Missing", Shea has starred in many films, including Armyan Bernstein's "Windy City" (opposite Kate Capshaw for which he won a "Best Actor" award at the Montreal Film Festival in 1984); "Stealing Home" with Mark Harmon, Jodie Foster and Blair Brown; the French thriller "Lune de Miel" with Nathalie Baye (also known as "Honeymoon"; the film was shot in both French and English); Uri Barbash's epic "Unsettled Land" (Israel, 1987) with Kelly McGillis; Alan Alda's comedy "A New Life" with Alan Alda and Ann-Margret; Jim Goddard's "The Impossible Spy" with Eli Wallach and Michal Bat-Adam, also shot in Israel ("Best Actor" Golden Panda Award in China); the futuristic "Freejack" (1992) with Rene Russo and Emilio Estevez; and the Disney comedy "Honey, I Blew Up the Kid" with Rick Moranis. In 1982 Shea co-hosted the June 12th Anti-Nuclear Rally in Central Park, the largest political rally in the history of the United States. Over a million people filled Central Park to hear performances by James Taylor, Jackson Browne, Bruce Springsteen, Peter, Paul, and Mary, Rita Marley, and Pete Seeger and speeches by Orson Welles, Meryl Streep, Dr. Helen Caldicott and others. This rally was the subject of the 1984 documentary film "In Our Hands " by Robert Richer and Stan Warnow, in which Shea appears. He made his debut into Indian cinema with the 2009 Tamil drama "Achchamundu! Achchamundu!", directed by Indo-American film director Arun Vaidyanathan, becoming the first American actor to work in a Tamil film. In his only animated film, "Light Years" directed by Harvey Weinstein, Shea voiced the central character Sylvain. Independent films. Shea has also starred in a number of independent films, including "The Adventures of Sebastian Cole" (1998) with Adrian Grenier; Scott Dacko's political thriller "The Insurgents" (2007) with Mary Stuart Masterson; ""An Invisible Sign"" (2011) with Jessica Alba; and Jim Hemphill's romantic comedy ""The Trouble With the Truth"" (2012) with Lea Thompson; film critic Roger Ebert's review called Shea's performance in this film "towering". In addition, Shea co-wrote and directed the independent film "Southie" (1998) starring Amanda Peet, Donnie Wahlberg, Rose McGowan, Anne Meara, Will Arnet, Jimmy Cummings and Lawrence Tierney. "Southie" won the Seattle International Film Festival award for Best Film, represented the United States at the Montreal International Festival, and was distributed by Lions Gate Films. "Southie "was the first film shot entirely in South Boston, Massachusetts, once a power base for the Irish mob". "He has also served on the Board of Advisors of the Nantucket Film Festival since its inception, a festival dedicated to the art of screenwriting., Stage work. Since his Broadway debut in ""Yentl"" Shea has continued to work in Off-Broadway and Broadway theatre productions, starring in Arthur Kopit's "End of the World" with Linda Hunt, directed by Hal Prince, Paula Vogel's "How I Learned to Drive" with Molly Ringwold, Anne Meara's "Down the Garden Paths" with Eli Wallach and Anne Jackson, Eugene O'Neill's "Long Day's Journey Into Night" (Joseph Jefferson Award nom., Best Actor), the original production of A. R. Gurney's "The Dining Room", Peter Parnell's "The Sorrows of Stephen", Bulgakov's "The Master and Margarita", Poliakoff's "American Days", for which he received a "Best Actor" nomination from the Drama Desk Awards, "Romeo and Juliet" on Broadway at The Circle in the Square Theatre, Philip Barry's "The Animal Kingdom" with Sigourney Weaver, Nancy Hasty's "The Director", directed by Evan Bergman, and Israel Horowitz's "The Secret of Madame Bonnard's Bath" in 2007. He is currently the Artistic Director of the Theatre Workshop of Nantucket where he has helped produce over twenty five productions in the past four years and acted in David Harrower's "Blackbird", a revival of "The Director", Donald Margulies' "Time Stands Still", and Orson Welles' "Moby Dick Rehearsed"; Shea served an apprenticeship at this same theatre under an early mentor, Joseph "Mac" Dixon. Shea made his Carnegie Hall debut playing "The Soldier" in Tom O'Horgan's production of Igor Stravinsky's "L'Histoire du Soldat", with Pinchas Zukerman and Andre de Shields. In 1986, he made his London West End debut starring in Larry Kramer's "The Normal Heart" at the Albery Theatre. Shea is also a regular reader on Selected Shorts for Symphony Space, broadcast nationwide on Public Radio International. His reading of Truman Capote's "A Christmas Memory" won "AudioFile Magazine"'s Earphones Award in 1999, as part of the anthology "Selected Shorts: Classic Tales, Vol. XII". For his work reading Ted Bell's international thriller "Assassin," Shea received an Audie Award-nomination as "Best Male Narrator." He has also performed Bell's other novels: "Hawke", "Spy", "Pirate", "Czar", "Warlord", "Phantom", "Nick of Time", and "The Time Pirate" among other audio books, including Jonathan Tropper's "One Last Thing Before I Go." Television. Besides his more high-profile starring roles in "Lois & Clark" and "Mutant X", Shea's diverse television work includes guest-appearances on TV series "Sex and the City", "Law & Order", and "" as well as being a recurring character on "Gossip Girl" and "The Good Wife." In Grant Tinker's short lived CBS series "WIOU", Shea led an ensemble cast. Among other television films he was featured in "Family Reunion" playing Bette Davis' grandson; starred in "Small Sacrifices" (opposite Farrah Fawcett) which won a Peabody Award; and in Jim Goddard's British production of "Kennedy" with Martin Sheen and Blair Brown, in which Shea portrayed Robert F. Kennedy; "Kennedy " won the BAFTA Award for Best Television Film. Other film work includes the period mini-series "A Will of Their Own" with Lea Thompson; Jim Goddard's exploration of a German family torn apart in WW II in "Hitler's S.S." (opposite Bill Nighy) shot in England and Germany; the family drama "Do You Know the Muffin Man?" with Pam Dawber; the BBC road comedy "Coast to Coast" with Lenny Henry and Pete Postlethwaite; and the film adaptation of A.R Gurney's play"The Dining Room" for "Great Performances". Shea received a Prime Time Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor for his role in a film based on a true story, "Baby M" opposite JoBeth Williams. Personal life. John has been married twice. He and his first wife, the fine arts photographer Laura Pettibone, had one child together, Jake. He and his current wife, the artist Melissa MacLeod, a co-founder of the cooperative (X) Gallery on Nantucket, have two children, Miranda and Caiden.
1061752	Isaac Liev Schreiber (; born October 4, 1967) is an American actor, producer, director, and screenwriter. He became known during the late 1990s and early 2000s, having appeared in several independent films, and later mainstream Hollywood films, including the "Scream" trilogy of horror films, "Phantoms", "The Sum of All Fears", "", "Salt", "Taking Woodstock" and "Goon". Schreiber is also a respected stage actor, having performed in several Broadway productions. In 2005, Schreiber won a Tony Award as Best Featured Actor for his performance in the play "Glengarry Glen Ross." That year, Schreiber also made his debut as a film director and writer with "Everything Is Illuminated," based on the novel of the same name. He also plays the eponymous lead character on the Showtime series Ray Donovan. Early life and family background. Schreiber was born Isaac Schreiber in San Francisco, California, the son of Heather (née Milgram) and Tell Schreiber, a stage actor and director. Schreiber's father is from a wealthy Protestant society family from Bucks County, Pennsylvania; Tell's family had lived in the United States for many generations, and his ancestry includes German, Swiss-German, Danish, Dutch, English, French, Irish, Norwegian, Belgian (Flemish), Scottish, and Welsh. Liev's father graduated from Hampshire College and was a wrestling and football star. Schreiber's mother, who now lives on an ashram in Virginia, was born into a Brooklyn working-class household of Communists; her family was Jewish (descended from immigrants from Poland and Russia). With a firm knowledge of classical music and Russian literature, Liev's mother has been described by Schreiber as a "far-out Socialist Labor Party hippie bohemian freak who hung out with William Burroughs." When Heather was twelve, her own mother, grandmother, was lobotomized. His mother has said that she named him after her favorite Russian author, Leo Tolstoy, while his father has stated that Schreiber was named after the doctor who saved his mother's life. His family nickname, adopted when Schreiber was a baby, is "Huggy." When Schreiber was one year old, his family moved to Canada, winding up in the unincorporated rural area of Winlaw, in the Slocan Valley. Prior to this point, according to Liev's father, Tell, at the beginning of their marriage (in San Francisco), Heather had a bad experience on LSD. Over the next four years, she was repeatedly admitted to hospitals and underwent therapy. After Tell threatened to admit her to a mental institution, she left with her son. As Tell pursued his wife, and his mother were trailed by private detectives in various states; when he was three, his father kidnapped him from an upstate New York commune to which Heather had decamped. By the time was four, he was living with her on the fourth floor of a dilapidated walkup at First Avenue and First Street in New York City (his half brothers from her first marriage were with their father in a duplex on Central Park West), and he was the object of a fierce custody battle, which bankrupted his maternal grandfather, Alex Milgram. Milgram, who was the most significant male in Schreiber’s youth, played the cello and owned Renoir etchings, and made his living by delivering meat to restaurants). When Schreiber was five, his parents divorced; his mother won custody, and the two moved to a cold-water flat on the Lower East Side in Manhattan, New York City, where he was raised. They frequently had no electricity, hot water, or even beds. His mother was "a highly cultured eccentric" who supported them by splitting her time between driving a cab and creating papier-mâché puppets." On Schreiber's 16th birthday, his mother bought him a motorcycle, "to promote fearlessness." The critic John Lahr wrote in a 1999 "New Yorker" profile that, "To a large extent, Schreiber's professional shape-shifting and his uncanny instinct for isolating the frightened, frail, goofy parts of his characters are a result of being forced to adapt to his mother's eccentricities. It's both his grief and his gift." He endured her mood swings and bohemian proclivities which included making him take Hindu names, wear yoga shirts, and forcing Liev, briefly, to go to an Ashram school in Connecticut when he was 12. Schreiber's mother also forbade Schreiber from seeing color movies. As a result, his favorite actors were Charlie Chaplin and Basil Rathbone. In the late 1970s and early 1980s Schreiber, known then as Shiva Das, lived at the Satchidananda Ashram, Yogaville East, in Pomfret, Connecticut. He also abided by his mother's vegetarian diet. In retrospect, Schreiber said in a 2008 interview, he appreciates his mother's influences, saying, "Since I've had Sasha, I've completely identified with everything my mother went through raising me...And I think her choices were inspired." Education. Subsequently, Schreiber attended Friends Seminary at the same time as future actress Amanda Peet. Schreiber went on to Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts where he began his acting training at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, via the Five Colleges consortium. In March 1989 played Antonio in the Merchant of Venice alongside Jeffrey Donovan. graduated with a master's degree from the Yale School of Drama in 1992, where he starred in Charles Evered's "The Size of the World," directed by Walton Jones. At Yale, studied with Earle R. Gister. He also attended the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London. He originally wanted to be a screenwriter, but was steered toward acting instead. Career. Early films. Schreiber had several supporting roles in various independent films until his big break, as the accused murderer Cotton Weary in the "Scream" trilogy of horror films. Though the success of the "Scream" trilogy would lead Schreiber to roles in several big-budget studio pictures, "Entertainment Weekly" wrote in 2007 that "Schreiber is best known for such indie gems as "Walking and Talking," "The Daytrippers," and "Big Night"." After "Scream," Schreiber was cast as the young Orson Welles in the HBO original movie "RKO 281," for which he was nominated for Emmy and Golden Globe Awards. He then played supporting roles in several studio films, including the 2000 movie version of "Hamlet" with Ethan Hawke, also Ron Howard's 1996 remake of "Ransom" with Mel Gibson, "The Hurricane" with Denzel Washington, and he played Tom Clancy's fictional C.I.A. super spy and assassin John Clark in "The Sum of All Fears" with Ben Affleck. The 2004 remake of "The Manchurian Candidate", with Washington and Meryl Streep, was another major film for the actor, stirring some controversy as it opened during a heated presidential election cycle. Schreiber also played Robert Thorn with Julia Stiles in the 2006 film "The Omen", a remake of the 1976 horror classic "The Omen". He played the time-traveling ex-boyfriend of Meg Ryan in "Kate and Leopold", also starring Hugh Jackman. Shakespeare. Along with his screen work, Schreiber is a well-respected classical actor; in a 1998 review of the Shakespeare play "Cymbeline," "The New York Times" called his performance "revelatory" and ended the article with the plea, "More Shakespeare, Mr. Schreiber." A year later, Schreiber played the title role in "Hamlet" in a December 1999 revival at The Public Theater, to similar raves. In 2000, he went on to play Laertes in the film "Hamlet", a modern adaptation of the play. His performance in the title role of "Henry V" in a 2003 Central Park production of that play caused Lahr to expound upon his aptitude at playing Shakespeare. "He has a swiftness of mind," Lahr wrote, "which convinces the audience that language is being coined in the moment. His speech, unlike that of the merely adequate supporting cast, feels lived rather than learned." From June to July 2006, he played the title role in "Macbeth" opposite Jennifer Ehle at the Delacorte Theater. Narration and voiceover work. Schreiber has narrated a number of documentaries, along with Michael G. Stanton, many of them aired as part of PBS series such as "American Experience," "Nova," and "Secrets of the Dead" from 2001 to 2011. He is also the voice behind the television commercials for Infiniti. In 1994, he narrated "Two Billion Hearts", the official film of 1994 World Cup. Schreiber is also the voice of HBO's "Sports of the 20th Century" documentaries. Similarly, Schreiber is also the narrator of HBO Boxing's "Countdown" and "24/7" documentary series. Schreiber served as the voice of Skeletor in the 2002 incarnation of Masters of the Universe. Schreiber narrated "Hard Knocks: Training Camp with the Cincinnati Bengals" in 2009, and "Magic & Bird: A Courtship of Rivals" and "Broad Street Bullies" in 2010, on HBO. Schreiber provided the narration for "Making of Pumping Iron" documentary that is included in a special anniversary edition of the movie "Pumping Iron". He also narrated the History Channel specials "Ape to Man" and "". Schreiber reprised his role as narrator for HBO's "24/7: Road to the Winter Classic" NHL documentary, which followed the Pittsburgh Penguins and Washington Capitals as they prepared to face each other in the 2011 NHL Winter Classic at Heinz Field, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on January 1, 2011. Once again, Schreiber was the narrator for the HBO series, "24/7 : Road to the Winter Classic". That year, the Philadelphia Flyers and the New York Rangers battled in the Classic, at Citizen's Bank Park in the 2012 NHL Winter Classic. Schreiber has also reprised his role as the narrator in HBO's 2012 season of "Hard Knocks" featuring the Miami Dolphins. Schreiber also narrated the 2011 documentary "Hitler's G.I. Death Camp" on the National Geographic Channel. The newly released 2012 "Kinderblock 66" is narrated by Schreiber. Schreiber narrated the 2013 documentary "Money for Nothing". Directing and 2000s work. Schreiber told "The New Yorker" in 1999 that "I don't know that I want to be an actor for the rest of my life." For a time in the late nineties, he hoped to produce and direct an adaptation of "The Merchant of Venice" starring Dustin Hoffman. In that time, Schreiber started writing a screenplay about his relationship with his Ukrainian grandfather, a project he abandoned when, according to "The New York Times," "he read Jonathan Safran Foer's hit novel, "Everything Is Illuminated," and decided Mr. Foer had done it better." Schreiber's film adaptation of the short story from which the novel originated, which he both wrote and directed, was released in 2005. The film, which starred Elijah Wood, received lukewarm-to-positive reviews, with Roger Ebert calling it "a film that grows in reflection." In 2002, he starred in Neil LaBute's play "The Mercy Seat" along with Sigourney Weaver on Off-Broadway that was critically and commercially very successful. In the spring of 2005, Schreiber essayed the role of Richard Roma in the Broadway revival of David Mamet's Pulitzer Prize-winning play "Glengarry Glen Ross." As Roma, Schreiber won a Tony Award for Best Performance by a Featured Actor in a Play. In 2006, Schreiber was invited to join the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. In fall of that year, Schreiber directed and starred in the "2006 Join the Fight" AIDS PSA campaign for Cable Positive and Kismet Films (others involved with the campaign included actress Naomi Watts, fashion designer Calvin Klein, and playwright Tony Kushner). Schreiber played Charlie Townsend in the 2006 film "The Painted Veil," starring opposite Watts and Edward Norton. In the same year, Schreiber also appeared in "The Omen," which was a remake of the 1976 film of the same name. For television, the actor portrayed a character who temporarily replaces Gil Grissom, played by William Petersen, in the CBS show "," during the 2006–2007 season. He played Michael Keppler, a seasoned CSI with a strong reputation in various police departments across the nation, before joining the veteran Las Vegas team. Schreiber joined the cast on January 18, 2007 and shot a four-episode arc. Schreiber appeared in the Broadway revival of Eric Bogosian's "Talk Radio." The show began previews at the Longacre Theatre on February 15, 2007 in preparation for its March opening. On May 11, 2007, He won the Drama League Award for distinguished performance for his portrayal of shock jock "Barry Champlain" in "Talk Radio," and has received Tony, Drama Desk, and Outer Critics Circle Award nominations for the role. "The New York Times"' Ben Brantley called his performance "the most lacerating portrait of a human meltdown this side of a Francis Bacon painting." Schreiber played the womanizing Lotario Thurgot in Mike Newell's screen adaptation of "Love in the Time of Cholera," released in 2007. In a January 2007 interview, Schreiber mentioned that he was working on a screenplay. Late in 2008, Schreiber portrayed Jewish resistance fighter, Zus Bielski in the film "Defiance", alongside Daniel Craig. In February 2008, 20th Century Fox announced Schreiber would play the mutant supervillain, Sabretooth in the Marvel Comics film "," released on May 1, 2009. This was the second film he's done with Hugh Jackman. In March 2010, it was announced that he was interested in returning for "Scream 4", portraying Cotton Weary a fourth time (the film was subsequently made without his involvement). In 2010, he returned to Broadway in "A View from the Bridge" for which he received a Tony nomination for Best Leading Actor in a Play. Personal life. Rumors regarding his relationship with British-Australian actress Naomi Watts (with whom he appeared in "The Painted Veil") have questioned whether the couple are married. In January 2010 Watts was quoted saying that Schreiber had given her a ring (which she was not wearing at the time) but that neither of them wanted to rush into marriage. At TropFest on 22 June 2013 Liev referred to Naomi as his wife. Their first son, Alexander Pete, was born in 2007. They call him Sasha, a Russian nickname variation of the name Alexander. In 2008 Watts gave birth to the couple's second son, Samuel Kai. In April 2010 Watts said that the pair would have a third child if they could be guaranteed a baby girl.
592687	Muppozhudhum Un Karpanaigal () is a 2012 Tamil romantic thriller film directed by Elred Kumar starring Atharvaa and Amala Paul in the lead roles, while Jayaprakash, Anupama Kumar, Santhanam, Yashika and Nassar played supporting roles. The music was scored by G. V. Prakash Kumar. The film opened to mixed reviews and performed averagely at the box office. The film was later also filmed at the 2012 Cannes Film Festival in a non-award ceremony, winning acclaim. It was dubbed into Telugu as "Nirantharam Nee Oohalo"
1061645	Amy Davis Irving (born September 10, 1953) is an American actress, who appeared in the films "Crossing Delancey", "The Fury", "Carrie", and "Yentl" as well as on Broadway and Off-Broadway. She has been nominated for an Academy Award, two Golden Globes, and has won an Obie award. She was married to director Steven Spielberg; they divorced in 1989 after four years of marriage, with Irving receiving a settlement of $100 million. Early life. Irving was born in Palo Alto, California. Her father was film and stage director Jules Irving (birth name: Jules Israel) and her mother is actress Priscilla Pointer. Her brother is writer/director David Irving (not the British author of the same name) and her sister is singer/teacher of deaf children Katie Irving. Irving's father was Jewish, as was one of Irving's maternal great-great-grandfathers. Irving was raised in Christian Science, and her family observed no religious traditions. Irving attended the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco, in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and appeared in several productions there. She also trained at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art, and made her off-Broadway debut at age 17 in "And Chocolate on Her Chin". She is a graduate of the Professional Children's School, in Manhattan, New York. Career. Irving's first stage appearance was at age 2, portraying a bit-part character ("Princess Primrose") in a play which her father directed. She had a walk-on role in the 1965-66 Broadway show "The Country Wife" at age 12. Her character was to sell a hamster to Stacy Keach in a crowd scene. The play was directed by family friend Robert Symonds, the owner/operator of Lincoln Center, and who would become her stepfather after her father died and her mother remarried. Within six months of returning to Los Angeles from London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art in the mid-1970s, Irving was cast in a major motion picture and was working on various TV projects such as guest spots in "Police Woman", "Happy Days", and a lead role in the mini-series epic "Once an Eagle" opposite veterans Sam Elliott and Glenn Ford, and a young Melanie Griffith. She played Juliet in "Romeo and Juliet" at the Los Angeles Free Shakespeare Theatre in 1975, and returned to the role at the Seattle Repertory Theatre (1982-1983). Irving auditioned for the role of Princess Leia in ', which went to Carrie Fisher. She then starred in the Brian DePalma-directed films "The Fury" as Gillian Bellaver, and "Carrie" as Sue Snell (her mother was also in "Carrie"). In 1999 she reprised her role as Sue Snell in "The Rage: Carrie 2". She starred with Richard Dreyfuss in 1980 in "The Competition". Also in 1980 she appeared in "Honeysuckle Rose". In 1983 she was in "Yentl" (for which she received an Oscar nomination). In 1984 she co-starred in "Micki + Maude", In 1988 she was in Susan Sandler's "Crossing Delancey" (for which she received a Golden Globe nomination). In 1997 she appeared in Woody Allen's "Deconstructing Harry". She supplied the singing voice for Jessica Rabbit in the animated film "Who Framed Roger Rabbit". Irving also appeared in the TV show "Alias" as Emily Sloane, portrayed Princess Anjuli in the big-budget miniseries epic "The Far Pavilions" and headlined the lavish TV production '. More recently Irving appeared in the films "Traffic" (2000), "Tuck Everlasting" (2002), "Thirteen Conversations About One Thing" (2002) and an episode of "" in 2001. Irving's stage work includes on-Broadway shows such as "Amadeus" (replacing Jane Seymour due to pregnancy) at the Broadhurst Theatre for nine months, "Heartbreak House" with Rex Harrison at the Circle in the Square Theatre, "Broken Glass" at the Booth Theatre and "Three Sisters" with Jeanne Tripplehorn and Lili Taylor at the Roundabout Theatre. Additional off-Broadway credits include: "The Heidi Chronicles", "The Road to Mecca", "The Vagina Monologues" in both London and New York, "The Glass Menagerie" with her mother, "Celadine", a world premiere at George Street Playhouse in New Brunswick, NJ and the 2006 one-woman play "A Safe Harbor for Elizabeth Bishop," by Marta Góes, which was a Primary Stages production at the 59E59 Theaters. In 1994, Irving and Anthony Hopkins hosted the 48th Tony Awards at the Gershwin Theatre, New York.
1165092	Jean Carson (February 28, 1923 — November 2, 2005) was an American stage, film and television actress best known for her work on the classic 1960s sitcom "The Andy Griffith Show" as one of the "fun girls". Biography. Born to Alexander W. Carson and Sadie (nėe Leete; a descendant of William Leete, first governor of the Colony of Connecticut), Jean Carson first became interested in show business as a child, playing a "bad little Indian girl". At the age of twelve, she got her first acting job, five dollars for a small part in a production of "Carmen" that traveled through her hometown of Charleston, West Virginia.
582242	Do Knot Disturb is a Bollywood comedy film directed by David Dhawan. The film is a remake of the 2006 French film "The Valet" (French: "La Doublure"). It released on 2 October 2009, and received generally positive reviews upon release, though failed to make an impact at the box office. Plot. The film is based on Raj (Govinda) who has a girlfriend, supermodel Dolly (Lara Dutta), and a wife, Kiran (Sushmita Sen). Raj fires Mangu (Rajpal Yadav), a cook, because of attempting to seduce the female staff. To take revenge, Mangu takes a picture of Raj with Dolly and gives it to Kiran. Kiran gets suspicious but then Raj says that Dolly is not his girlfriend. He says that there are three people in the picture, Raj, Dolly and Govardhan (Ritesh Deshmukh). Raj tells Kiran that the guy, who came into the picture as he was walking by, is Dolly's boyfriend and tells Govardhan to live with Dolly for a couple of days so Kiran's suspicions will go away. Govardhan gets really troubled when Dolly's ex-boyfriend Diesel (Sohail Khan) shows up and threatens Govardhan that, when he finds out who Dolly's boyfriend is, Diesel will beat him up. Meanwhile, Kiran has a detective (Ranvir Shorey) follow Dolly and Govardhan. The twist in the story comes when Kiran tells Raj that she is going to Puna to meet her mom, when she's actually making a plan with the detective to catch Dolly and Raj red-handed. As soon as Kiran leaves, Raj calls and books the presidential suite at a hotel for Dolly and him, just like Kiran expected. While Dolly and Raj are enjoying themselves, Kiran's detective starts his job. But he gets crushed by the window as he is trying to climb into Raj and Dolly's room. When Raj and Dolly notice, they call Govardhan to help get rid of the body because they think he is dead. Just as Govardhan shows up, so does Dolly's ex, Diesel. While trying to get rid of the body, Raj's ex-cook, Mangu, shows up (he is now working at the hotel). The story takes a twist when they discover that the detective is alive. Lucky for them, he has lost him memory from the fall he suffered. Raj tells him he is John Matthews and he is married. Dolly tells him he is John Matthews and divorced. Govardhan tells him he is John Matthews, still a bachelor. Mangu tells him he is his friend and that he has a memory problem; under this pretense, he takes his watch and necklace saying that he forgot that Mangu actually gave it to him. Diesel runs into Govardhan and is about to beat him up when he tells him that Raj is her boyfriend. When Diesel runs into Raj, he tells him Govardhan is Dolly's boyfriend. Govardhan finds Dolly and tells her that instead of lying about love, she should be with the one who really loves her, Diesel. Dolly agrees and hugs Govardhan telling him he is a good guy. Unfortunately, Diesel mistakes the situation and starts to beat up Govardhan. Dolly saves Govardhan by telling Diesel that Govardhan convinced her to go back to him. Dolly leaves with Diesel. Govardhan goes back to his sick mother in the hospital. (She is the one he did this all for. He needs money for her hospital bill and agreed to go along with everything Raj said.) He agrees to marry the woman of his mother's choice, Mala (Rituparna Sengupta) the nurse taking care of her. And Raj convinces Kiran that nothing is going on and they go home as well. In the midst of all this, the detective gets his memory back and goes to Kiran with the proof of her husband's infidelity. As he gets there, Kiran and Raj are about to leave for a second honeymoon. When the detective sees the love between Kiran and Raj, he loses hope and throws the camera with the proof of Raj and Dolly's affair. The camera lands on Kiran's foot, and she sees the pictures. The story ends with Raj crying and living all alone. Reception. The film received positive reviews from critics. Taran Adarsh rated it 3.5/5 and described it as one of David Dhawan's best works yet. However, the film opened to a poor response and grossed $213,525. Overall, a nett gross of 65 million, and also faced competition with "Wake Up Sid" which surpassed "Do Knot Disturb" completely. The film was rated a flop by Boxofficeindia. Soundtrack. The soundtrack of the film is composed by Nadeem-Shravan while the lyrics are penned by Sameer.
585844	Harikrishnans (Malayalam: ഹരികൃഷ്ണന്‍സ്) is a 1998 Malayalam film directed by Fazil and starring Mammootty, Mohanlal, and Juhi Chawla in the lead roles. The film received much pre-release hype due to the combined presence of Mammootty and Mohanlal after a gap of several years."Harikrishnans" became a huge blockbuster in Kerala. The story follows the murder investigation of Guptan (Rajiv Menon) by the famous lawyer duo of Hari (Mammootty) and Krishnan (Mohanlal). Plot. The Harikrishnans (Mammootty and Mohanlal) are one of the most famous lawyer duos in India. To avoid confusion one is called as Hari (Mammooty) and the other as Krishnan (Mohanlal). They head the organization called Harikrishnan Associates, which consists of around 300 lawyers. They get engaged in a murder case of Guptan, who was allegedly killed by Gabriel. Gabriel is a friend of Hari's sister and Harikrishnans become the defense lawyers upon her request. Harikrishnans begin investigation and come across Meera (Juhi Chawla), a friend of Guptan. Both of them fall in love with her. After some trouble over the matter, they rediscover their friendship and get involved in the case again. They discover that Guptan actually died due to poisoning by his relatives who were doctors. At the end Meera decides to go for a random method of choosing her lover as she liked both Harikrishnans equally. Two different climaxes of the film show either of Harikrishnans winning the toss for being Meera's friend; the losing person presumably becoming Mira's lover. Multiple climaxes. Harikrishnans had multiple climaxes to appease the fan base of the lead actors Mammootty and Mohanlal. This had also caused some controversy. The scene was when Meera (Juhi Chawla) chooses one of them to be her friend among both the Harikrishnans. She admires both equally and goes for a selection method which her grandmother taught her, whenever she had to make tough decisions. She sets the method so as to choose her friend; the loser of the toss presumably becoming Mira's lover. One of the climax shots shows Hari (Mammootty) winning the toss and the other one Krishnan (Mohanlal) winning it. The first climax was used in regions of higher fan base to Mammootty, in 7 districts and the second was used in other 7 districts in which Mohanlal has the upper hand. A third climax was also planned for release in areas with a neutral fan base featuring Shahrukh Khan. Even promotional stills of the third climax were taken, but the plan was abandoned due to difficulty in introducing a subplot, and it never saw light. Soundtrack. The movie features a soundtrack composed by Ouseppachan with lyrics penned by Kaithapram Damodaran Namboothiri.
1053458	Saving God is a 2008 Christian drama film written by Michael Jackson and directed by Duane Crichton. The film stars Ving Rhames, Dean McDermott and Ricardo Chavira, and was released on DVD and Blu-ray on October 18, 2008 by Cloud Ten Pictures and Clear Entertainment. Plot. "Saving God" follows ex-convict turned pastor Armstrong Cane (Ving Rhames) as he returns to his family neighborhood to preach. As he attempts to rebuild the now crime-ridden area, he also tries to help a young drug dealer named Norris (Dwain Murphy) turn his life around. Reception. DVD Verdict's David Johnson felt the film was "well-acted, smartly paced, realistic and surprising in its plot twists" that achieves a more realistic feel through the persuasive performances of its actors. The Dove Foundation reviewer Edwin L. Carpenter considered the film to be "well written, directed and acted" and awarded the film its "Seal of family approval" and rated it "five Doves." Ted Baehr of "Movieguide", writing for GoFish Productions, felt the film started in a predictable fashion and that the story was weak at times, but did praise its ending. He also felt Ving Rhames' performance was "stellar".
587692	Chiru Navvuto () is a successful 2000 Telugu film. This film is later remade into Tamil as Youth (film) starring Joseph Vijay and into Kannada as Pramakke Sai starring V. Ravichandran. The Plot. The story revolves around Venu (Venu), who is an orphan. His philosophy is to live happily with smile (Chirunavvu) all the time. His uncle (Chandra Mohan) wants to marry him with his daughter Aruna (Prema). Aruna runs away from the house during the marriage. Venu goes to the city to find a job. There he meets Sandhya (Shaheen). During a night party, her soft drinks glass was adulterated with alcohol and she was about to be raped. Then Venu makes a heroic act by saving her from the goondas. Sandhya becomes close to Venu and both of them are fond of each other. During her birthday party, she announces that she is going to get married soon with Pratap (Prakash Raj). Venu, did get upset. When asked about his disappointment, Venu tells Sandhya that he loves her for which she says sorry. Venu believes that Sandhya still loves him. Venu pursues his quest for the love of Sandhya. Meanwhile, Sandhya observes the characters of selfish Pratap and smiling Venu. Venu gets a call from a police station that Aruna was saved by the police when she tried going for a suicide. Her lover cheated Aruna after elopement. Venu gets her back to his home and heals all her emotional wounds. Sandhya, who observes Venu and becomes a biggest admirer. She feels that Venu is her best friend. Sandhya, caught in a confusion, asks her mother about her definition of love. Her mother gives the golden words of love saying: "Its better to marry a person who loves you than marrying a person whom you love". Those words changed the mind and heart of Sandhya and she decides to get back to Venu. Sandhya turns a runaway bride and goes to Venu's house with marriage costumes. But Venu, who has his own attitude and wisdom, makes Sandhya go back to the marriage. Then he takes Pratap into a room and gives him a check of 1 crore and marries Sandhya. The plot was inspired by 1997 Italian comedy-drama film Life Is Beautiful Remakes. The film was remade in Tamil as "Youth" starring Vijay and in Kannada as "Premake Sai" with V Ravichandran. Shaheen Khan who acted in the original reprised the same role in other languages. The film had an uncredited remake called "Muskurake Dekh Zara". Soundtrack. The music of the film was composed by Mani Sharma.
1058687	Brother Bear is a 2003 American animated adventure film produced by Walt Disney Feature Animation and released by Walt Disney Pictures. It is the 44th animated feature in the Walt Disney Animated Classics series. In the film, an Inuit boy named Kenai pursues a bear in revenge for a battle that he provoked in which his oldest brother Sitka is killed. He tracks down the bear and kills it, but the Spirits, angered by this needless death, change Kenai into a bear himself as punishment. In order to be human again, Kenai must learn to see through another's eyes, feel through another's heart, and discover the meaning of brotherhood. It was the third and final Disney animated feature produced primarily by the Feature Animation studio at Disney-MGM Studios in Orlando, Florida; the studio was shut down in March 2004, not long after the release of this film in favor of computer animated features. The film received an Academy Award nomination for Best Animated Feature, but lost to "Finding Nemo". A direct-to-video sequel, "Brother Bear 2", was released on August 29, 2006. Plot. The film is set in a post-ice age North America, where the local tribesmen believe all creatures are created through the Spirits, who are said to appear in the form of an aurora. Three brothers: Kenai (voiced by Joaquin Phoenix)- the youngest brother, Denahi (voiced by Jason Raize)- the middle brother -and Sitka (voiced by D.B. Sweeney)- the eldest brother, return to their tribe in order for Kenai to receive his sacred totem, a necklace in the shape of an animal. The particular animal it represents symbolizes what he must achieve to call himself a man. Unlike Sitka, who gained the eagle of guidance, and Denahi, who gained the wolf of wisdom, Kenai receives the bear of love, to which he objects, stating that bears are thieves. He believes his point is made a fact when a bear takes some salmon. Kenai and his brothers pursue the bear, but a fight follows on a glacier, during which Sitka giving his life to save his brothers, although the bear survives. Vengeful, Kenai heads out to avenge Sitka. He chases the bear up onto a mountain and kills it. The Spirits, represented by Sitka's spirit in the form of a bald eagle, transform Kenai into a bear after the dead bear's body disappears. Denahi arrives, mistaking Kenai for dead, and believing the bear is responsible, vows to avenge Kenai by hunting it down. Kenai falls down some river rapids, survives, and is healed by Tanana (voiced by Joan Copeland), the shaman of Kenai's tribe. She does not speak the bear language, but advises him to return to the mountain to find Sitka and be turned back to normal, but only when he corrects what he had done; she quickly disappears without an explanation. Kenai quickly discovers the wildlife can talk, meeting two brother moose, Rutt and Tuke (voiced by Rick Moranis and Dave Thomas, in a send-up of their famous characters Bob and Doug McKenzie). He gets caught in a trap, but is freed by a chatty bear cub named Koda (voiced by Jeremy Suarez). The two bears make a deal: Kenai will go with Koda to a nearby salmon run and then the cub will lead Kenai to the mountain. As the two eventually form a sibling-like bond, Koda reveals that his mother is missing. The two are hunted by Denahi, who fails multiple times to kill Kenai, still unaware that he is his brother. Rutt and Tuke run into the bears multiple times, the group hitching a ride on a herd of mammoths to quicken the pace to the salmon run, but the moose are left behind when the bears move on. Kenai and Koda escape Denahi again and reach the salmon run, where a large number of bears live as a family, including the leader Tug (voiced by Michael Clarke Duncan), a grizzly bear. Kenai becomes very much at home and content with the other bears. During a discussion among the bears, Koda tells a story about his mother fighting human hunters, making Kenai realize that the bear he killed was Koda's mother. Guilty and horrified, Kenai runs away, but Koda soon finds him. Kenai reveals the truth to Koda, who runs away, grief-stricken. An apologetic Kenai leaves to reach the mountain. Rutt and Tuke, having fallen out, reform their brotherhood in front of Koda, prompting him to go after Kenai. Denahi confronts Kenai on the mountain, but their fight is interrupted by Koda, who steals Denahi's hunting pike. Kenai goes to Koda's aid out of love, prompting Sitka to appear and turn him back into a human, much to Denahi and Koda's surprise. However, Kenai asks Sitka to transform him back into a bear so he can stay with Koda. Sitka complies, and Koda is reunited briefly with the spirit of his mother, before she and Sitka return to the Spirits. In the end, Kenai lives with the rest of the bears and gains his title as a man, through being a bear. Production. In 2002, Digital Media Effects reported the title of the film as "Bears". An article in IGN in 2001 also mentioned an upcoming Disney release with the title "Bears" as did Jim Hill of Ain't It Cool News. Design and animation. The film is traditionally animated but includes some CG elements such as "a salmon run and a caribou stampede". Layout artist Armand Serrano, speaking about the drawing process on the film, said that "we had to do a life drawing session with live bear cubs and also outdoor drawing and painting sessions at Fort Wilderness in Florida three times a week for two months [...]". According to Ruben Aquino, supervising animator for the character of Denahi, Denahi was originally meant to be Kenai's father; later this was changed to Kenai's brother. Byron Howard, supervising animator for Kenai in bear form, said that earlier in production a bear named Grizz (who resembles Tug in the film and is even voiced by the same person) was supposed to have the role of Kenai's mentor. Art Director Robh Ruppel stated that the ending of the film originally showed how Kenai and Denahi get together once a year to play when the northern lights are in the sky. Release. Critical reception. The reaction from film reviewers was mixed, with some panning the film as a retread of older Disney films like "The Lion King" and the 20th Century Fox film "Ice Age" (although "Brother Bear" began production before "Ice Age" did), while others defended the film as a legitimate variation of the theme. The popular American movie critics Roger Ebert and Richard Roeper have given positive reviews of the film. Of note to many critics and viewers was the use of the film's aspect ratio as a storytelling device. The film begins at a standard widescreen aspect ratio of 1.75:1 (similar to the 1.85:1 ratio common in U.S. cinema or the 1.78:1 ratio of HDTV), while Kenai is a human; in addition, the film's art direction and color scheme are grounded in realism. After Kenai transforms into a bear twenty-four minutes into the picture, the film itself transforms as well: to an anamorphic aspect ratio of 2.35:1 and towards brighter, more fanciful colors and slightly more caricatured art direction. "Brother Bear" was the first feature since "The Horse Whisperer" to do a widescreen shift. It was the only animated feature to do this trick, until "The Simpsons Movie" and "Enchanted" in 2007. Box office. The film made $85,336,277 during its domestic theatrical run and then went on to earn $164,700,000 outside the U.S., bringing its worldwide total to $250,383,219, which is successful. Home video. The film's March 30, 2004 DVD release brought in more than $167 million in DVD and VHS sales and rentals. In April 2004 alone, 5.51 million copies of Brother Bear were sold. The film will be released on a Blu-Ray Special Edition combined with its sequel Brother Bear 2 on March 12, 2013. Awards and nominations. The film was also nominated at the 76th Academy Awards for Best Animated Feature, but ultimately ended losing out to another Walt Disney pictures film, "Finding Nemo". Video games. "Disney's Brother Bear" was released in November 2003 for the Game Boy Advance, Mobile phone and Microsoft Windows. The story starts as the two moose are telling the story of "The bear who said he wasn't a bear". The story follows the film where Kenai transformed into a bear by his brother Sitka and is being hunted by his brother Denahi.
1065016	Edward Maurice Charles "Eddie" Marsan (born 23 June 1968) is an English actor. He is best known for his roles in the films "Gangster No. 1" (2000), ' (2006), "Sixty Six" (2006), "V for Vendetta" (2006), "Hancock" (2008), "Happy-Go-Lucky" (2008), "Sherlock Holmes" (2009), "War Horse" (2011), ' (2011), "The Best of Men" (2012), and "The World's End" (2013). Early life. Marsan was born in Stepney, London, England, to a working-class family; his father was a lorry driver and his mother was a school dinner lady and teacher's assistant. He was brought up in Bethnal Green and initially served an apprenticeship as a printer, before beginning his career in theatre, and moving to a television and film career. He trained at the Mountview Academy of Theatre Arts, graduating in 1991, and went on to study under Sam Kogan and The Academy of the Science of Acting and Directing, of which Marsan is a patron. Television career. Marsan's first television appearance was in 1992, as a "yob", in the London Weekend Television series "The Piglet Files". One of his more significant earliest television appearances was in the popular mid-1990s BBC sitcom "Game On" as a bungling bank robber. Marsan went on to have roles in "Casualty", "The Bill", Grass, "Kavanagh QC", "Grange Hill", "Silent Witness", "Ultimate Force", and more. He also voiced the Manticore in the "Merlin" episode "Love in the Time of Dragons". In 2012 he played Dr Ludwig Guttmann in "The Best of Men". Most recently he has played Terry Donovan, brother to the lead character in Showtime's drama series Ray Donovan. Film. Marsan has since branched out into numerous and varied film roles including work in the United States, and is achieving much success in Hollywood, most recently as the main villain in the 2008 superhero film "Hancock" alongside Will Smith and as Inspector Lestrade in Guy Ritchie's "Sherlock Holmes". His other films include "Sixty Six", "Gangs of New York", "21 Grams", "The Illusionist", "V for Vendetta", "Gangster No. 1", "Miami Vice", "", "I Want Candy", "Vera Drake", "Happy-Go-Lucky", "Tyrannosaur", and "Heartless". Personal life. Marsan is married to Janine Schneider, a make-up artist, They have four children. Awards and nominations. Marsan won the Chlotrudis Award for Best Supporting Actor, the National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Supporting Actor, and the London Film Critics Circle Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in "Happy-Go-Lucky". Marsan also won the last one for his performance in "Vera Drake". For his performance in "Happy-Go-Lucky", Marsan also earned another nominations, such as the Detroit Film Critics Society Award for Best Supporting Actor, New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Supporting Actor, and the Women Film Journalists Awards for Best Supporting Actor.
1036243	David Edward Williams known as David Walliams (born 20 August 1971) is a British comedian, actor, author and television presenter, best known for his partnership with Matt Lucas on the BBC One sketch show "Little Britain" and its predecessor "Rock Profile". Walliams, alongside Lucas wrote and starred in the BBC sitcom "Come Fly with Me". Since August 2013, he has written and starred in the BBC One sitcom "Big School", playing Chemistry teacher Keith Church. Since 2012, David has been a judge on the ITV talent show "Britain's Got Talent". He compèred the 2012 Royal Variety Performance. Since 2008, Walliams has written five children's books The Boy in the Dress (2008), Mr Stink (2009), Billionaire Boy (2010), Gangsta Granny (2011), Ratburger (2012), and Demon Dentist (2013). His second book Mr Stink was made into a 60 minute film, starring Hugh Bonneville, Sheridan Smith and Johnny Vegas. The film premiered on BBC One on 23 December 2012 and was watched by 6.34 million viewers. His fourth book Gangsta Granny is to be made into a 60 minute film, for BBC One. It will premiere in December 2013. Early life. Walliams was born in London, the son of Peter, a London Transport engineer, and Kathleen Williams, a lab technician. He grew up in Banstead, Surrey. His parents appeared on "The Friday Night Project" when he was the guest star on the show. Walliams was educated at Collingwood Boys' School in Wallington, and the independent Reigate Grammar School, where he was a contemporary of Robert Shearman. He was a member of the National Youth Theatre, where he met Matt Lucas. Walliams studied drama at the University of Bristol from 1989 to 1992, one year below Simon Pegg. He changed his stage name to David Walliams when he joined the actors' trade union Equity, as there was already a member named David Williams. This was spoofed in a mock interview on "Rock Profile", when David Williams was continuously referred to as "Robbie Walliams Career. Television. He played Jake Plaskow in the BBC's "Attachments", set in an internet start-up company. In 2001 he was one of the leads in "Cruise of the Gods". In 2003 he appeared in "EastEnders" and "Marple". From 2003 to 2005, Walliams co-wrote and co-starred in three series of the BBC character sketch show "[[Little of the series, "Little Britain Live", was produced in 2006. A number of seasonal and charity specials followed, up to 2009. A spin-off series produced in the USA by HBO, "Little Britain USA", followed in 2008. Bond]], entitled "David Walliams: My Life with James Bond". In 2007, he returned to non-comedy television, garnering excellent reviews for his portrayal of a suave and dangerous manipulator in Stephen Poliakoff's "Capturing Mary" as well as appearing in the film "Virgin TerritoryPaul Rudd and Steve Carell in the comedy "Dinner for Schmucks". He also played the mole-like alien, Gibbis, in the eleventh episode of the sixth series of "Doctor Who", entitled "The God Complex". He was the narrator of "Are You Having a Laugh? TV and Disability", which was shown on BBC Two on 25 June "Britain's Got Talent". Since 2012, Walliams has been a judge on the ITV talent show series "Britain's Got Talent" Walliams and Lucas. Walliams and Matt Lucas first met at the National Youth Theatre. At their first meeting Lucas did an impression of Jimmy Savile and Walliams an impression of Frankie Howerd. They would not meet for another year. In the late 1990s, playing minor roles in sketches such as "The Club", Walliams and Lucas played grotesque caricatures of various rock musicians in the series "Rock Profile" and in the spoof documentary series "Sir Bernard's Stately Homes". They were also stars of the Paramount Comedy Channel show "Mash and Peas", and it was in this guise that they appeared in the Fat Les video (see above). They also had small roles in "Plunkett and Maclaine" as prisoners. They appeared together in a music video for the Pet Shop Boys single "I'm with Stupid", in which the two are apparently auditioning their version of the song's video for Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe, who are tied up and appear to be hostages. The pair are best known for "Little Britain", which ran from 2003 to 2009 on the BBC in the UK and from 2008 onwards on HBO in the USA. Among the characters Walliams played were Emily Howard, a deluded "transvestite", Ray McCooney, an insane Scottish hotel owner, and Sebastian Love, an "aide de camp" to the Prime Minister (portrayed by Anthony Head) on whom Love has a huge crush. The characters from "Little Britain", played by Walliams and Lucas, appeared in a 2010 UK television advertising campaign for the Nationwide Building Society. Their later series was "Come Fly with Me", a six-part series airing on BBC One. The first episode was the third most watched programme of Christmas Day 2010, and the most watched comedy of the year. Stage. On 26 August 2008 he made his stage debut at the Gate Theatre in Dublin opposite Michael Gambon in Harold Pinter's "No Man's Land", in front of an audience that included Pinter himself. The production transferred to London later in the year. In 2013, Walliams played Bottom in a production of "A Midsummer's Nights Dream" at the Noël Coward Theatre. He co-starred alongside Sheridan Smith who played Titania. Books. In early 2008 Walliams signed a contract with HarperCollins to publish two children's books. The debut novel, "The Boy in the Dress", illustrated by Quentin Blake, was released worldwide on 1 November 2008. It explores several of the themes of "Little Britain" from Walliams' own life on an emotional level, such as the camp humour of cross-dressing and effeminacy. The story recounts a neglected 12-year-old boy called Dennis' search for a female role model, his friendship with the popular girl in school, and the ways in which relationships develop along gender lines. The story has a strong resonance with Anne Fine's 1989 book Bill's New Frock. In November 2009 came "Mr Stink", again illustrated by Quentin Blake, about a 12-year-old girl who meets a tramp and helps look after him. She keeps him hidden from her family. The book consists of 26 illustrated chapters full of jokes. It is aimed at teenagers and children over 9. It was the last of Walliams books to be illustrated by Quentin Blake. The book was awarded the Children's Award in the inaugural People's Book Prize in 2010. On 28 October 2010 he published his third book "Billionaire Boy", illustrated by Tony Ross. It tells the story of Joe Spud, the richest 12-year-old in the world. Joe has everything he could ever want: his own Formula One racing car, a thousand pairs of trainers, £8 billion, even an orang-utan for a butler, but there is just one thing he really needs: a friend. The book included a 'billion pound note' that was used to enter a competition to win a day as a billionaire in London. This was the first of his books to be illustrated by Tony Ross. His fourth book, "Gangsta Granny" was released in October 2011 and again illustrated by Tony Ross. It tells the story of Ben who is bored every time he is made to stay at his grandma's house as all she wants to do is to play board games and eat cabbage soup. But Ben finds out she was once an international jewel thief and all her life, she has been plotting to steal the Crown Jewels, and wants Ben to help. In September 2012, Walliams released his fifth novel for children, "Ratburger". It tells the story of a young girl named Zoe whose life is a misery as she has an evil stepmother. In October 2012 his autobiography, "Camp David", was released as a hardback and ebook. Mr Stink, Walliams' second children's book, was made into a 60 minute film, which premiered at 6.30pm on 23 December 2012 on BBC One. It has been confirmed that David's next children's book will be called Demon Dentist, which will be released in September 2013. Awards. Walliams was given a special award in recognition of his sporting efforts for charity. Matt Lucas made a documentary of this, entitled "Little Britain's Big Swim", which is available on DVD. On 6 November 2006, he won the Pride of Britain Award for "The Most Influential Public Figure" as he raised more than £1 million swimming the channel for the Sport Relief charity. Although initially tipped as a contender for the BBC's Sports Personality of the Year poll for 2006, he failed to make the final shortlist of 10 contenders. Walliams was given a special award during the ceremony for his achievement. In July 2006 he became Patron of 'Cardiac Risk in the Young.' In September 2011, David won the Lincolnshire Young People's Book Award in the 9-11-year old category with his book, Mr Stink. The award is voted for by the school children of Lincolnshire. At the 2012 National Television Awards, David won the 'Landmark Achievement Award', for his television career and achievements for Sport Relief. In December 2012, he was award the "Children's Book of the Year" by the National Book Awards for "Ratburger". Charity work. Swimming the English Channel. On 4 July 2006,David Walliams swam the English Channel for Sport Relief. He took 10 hours and 34 minutes to swim the 22-mile (35 km) stretch of sea, equivalent to 700 lengths of an Olympic-size swimming pool. This was wrongly reported as one of the top 50 recorded times for an unaided Channel crossing; in reality Walliams placed 167th at the time of crossing in only the CSA listings, excluding the CSPF listings. He raised over £1 million in donations. Under the supervision of his trainer, he trained for nine months to prepare for the swim. The training had to coincide with Walliams and Lucas's "Little Britain Live" tour, so he daily had to train for several hours before performing on stage in the evening. He first swam from Lee-on-the-Solent near Portsmouth to the Isle of Wight in around two hours and also completed an eight-hour swim off the coast of Croatia before embarking on the cross-Channel attempt. He has insisted that prior to his challenge he had never seriously taken part in any sport. The Bluetones' lead singer Mark Morriss wrote a song, "Fade In/Fade Out", in honour of Walliams' achievement; it can be found on their self-titled album, released on 9 October 2006. Swimming the Strait of Gibraltar. On 7 March 2008, Walliams, along with James Cracknell, swam the Strait of Gibraltar from Spain to Morocco, again for Sport Relief. He successfully completed the swim in just over 4½ hours. Cycling. In March 2010 Walliams and a group of celebrities cycled an end-to-end journey through the UK, raising over £1 million for Sport Relief. Walliams suffered a serious fall when tackling the Kirkstone Pass, a thousand-foot climb in the Lake District but was able to complete the ride. "24 Hour Panel People". In March 2011, Walliams undertook "24 Hour Panel People", in which he took part in back to back recordings of various panel show formats over the course of 24 hours to raise money for Comic Relief. The recordings were streamed live on the BBC website. He took part in 19 episodes of "classic" TV panel shows. Swimming the Thames. Between Monday 5 and Monday 12 September 2011, Walliams swam the length of the River Thames (140 miles) and raised more than £2m for Sport Relief. In the process he saved a dog from drowning in the river. Once he had got out of the river he said "I think a bath is the only water I will be seeing for a while!"
357950	Gee Whiz-z-z-z-z-z-z is a 1956 Warner Bros. cartoon in the "Looney Tunes" series featuring Wile E. Coyote and The Road Runner (released on May 5, 1956). Plot. "Introduction": The title card is shown as a billboard behind which Wile E. Coyote is hiding, ready to chase the Road Runner. He starts the chase, until he runs into a large truck. Wile E. runs the other way, and the truck shows the credit. The chase ends in a win for the truck, and the Coyote emerges battered. A box with director Chuck Jones' credit then squashes him. The Coyote throws the box away, and the shot freezes: "COYOTE - Eatius Birdius". He resumes the chase, which freezes to show the Road Runner: "Delicius-Delicius". The chase continues down the road until the Road Runner makes a U-turn. The Coyote turns around, then stops. The Road Runner completes the circuit around, meanwhile, and beeps as the Coyote turns around, causing him to leap back. The Road Runner starts off down the road and loosens it from its hinge briefly. Wile E. points worriedly and displays an "EGAD" sign, then an "!!" sign. He drops them and thinks of his new plan. 1. Wile E. hides in a manhole, and as the Road Runner passes over him, he pops out and fires a rifle. The bullet and the Road Runner are shown in slow time, with the bullet closing to within a half-body length of the bird. Then the Road Runner turns to notice the threat, lets out a beep and gears into super speed. The bullet then brakes in puzzlement and falls to the ground. Wile E. picks it up, and then it detonates. Behind another rock face (in completely different desert scenery!), Wile E. paces until he comes up with a new plan. 2. Wile E. leaps out into the road with "1 sheet ACME Triple Strength BATTLESHIP STEEL ARMOR PLATE" in front of him; even this cannot stop the Road Runner from barreling through it. The Coyote stares in puzzlement at the resulting hole, which shows only the scenery behind him where parts of his body should logically be, then walks off the road in obvious distress at the massive trauma he evidently suffered. 3. While the Road Runner is feasting on bird seed and earthworms, the Coyote puts a lighted stick of dynamite on the end of a fishing line and casts it out. It lands next to the Road Runner, but then bounces and rolls underneath a large boulder, which causes the boulder to fly and ultimately drop on the Coyote. 4. Wile E. then puts on a Batman outfit and dives off a cliff. He finally gains traction just before falling onto some spikey rocks, and then flies in circles through the air. He continues to fly in a straight line, oblivious, until he smashes into a huge mountainside. The wings stick to the rock and the Coyote is left grappling in the air until he slams into the ground below. This scene was reused (with narration) in 1962's Adventures of the Road Runner. 5. The Coyote perches himself upon a high branch with an anvil attached to the end of an ACME rubber band. However, he cannot hold on long enough; his feet chafe on the branch, and he is slung directly into the ground with the anvil. Then, the band reactivates and lobs him directly up into the branch a second time. 6. Now, Wile E. attaches a dynamite stick to the end of a telescoping device in order to annihilate the Road Runner from afar. However, instead of launching the stick towards the Road Runner, the device knocks him backwards into a rock face. The dynamite is then pulled into the hole and detonates on the Coyote again. 7. Wile E. crafts a large "STOP! BRIDGE OUT" sign and then paints a landscape of a bridge being broken on a canvas. The Road Runner blasts through the corner of the canvas and continues through the road, while the Coyote emerges from his hiding place behind the sign, and suffers the effects of the painted landscape when he tries to run through it. This is a reversal of a usual gag, where the Road Runner can usually "jump into the painting", while Wile E. cannot. 8. The Coyote then mines a bridge with TNT, and expectantly waits behind the detonator. Unfortunately, the detonator fails to activate promptly. Wile E. steps on, pulls, and slams the switch onto the ground before he runs onto the bridge to continue the chase. However, "now" the controller activates and blows up the bridge with the Coyote still on it. 9. The Coyote crafts a makeshift jet bike from ACME Iron handle bars and an ACME jet motor, which launches without its owner (Powerhouse plays during the chase scene). Wile E. grabs at the end of it and manages to grope his way onto the jet bike. He keeps pace with the Road Runner around a mountain slope and up a cliff. It appears for a moment the bird is trapped. But then the Road Runner repeats his earlier move and U-turns at the edge of the cliff, whereas the Coyote flies off it while trying to adjust his line to collide with his foe. (The vehicle smashes through the middle of the Runner's smoke cloud.) Still in midair, Wile E. turns the power off and looks back as the bike stops directly before reaching safety. The Road Runner is on this perch, and beeps to get his opponent's attention. Wile E. is obviously angry, but when the Road Runner points downwards, everything is silenced when Wile E. realizes he is about to suffer gravity once again. He loses his grip on the bike and plummets toward the earth. The embarrassed Coyote breaks the fourth wall by holding up a sign that says "How about ending this cartoon before I hit?" His wish is granted; as the iris begins to close, Wile E. holds up a second sign that says "THANK YOU", and the cartoon fully ends. "The End."
1060798	Carlos Ray "Chuck" Norris (born March 10, 1940) is an American martial artist and actor. After serving in the United States Air Force, he began his rise to fame as a martial artist, and has since founded his own school, Chun Kuk Do. Norris appeared in a number of action films, such as "Way of the Dragon", in which he starred alongside Bruce Lee, and was The Cannon Group's leading star in the 1980s. He played the starring role in the television series "Walker, Texas Ranger" from 1993 until 2001. Norris is a devout Christian and politically conservative. He has written several books on Christianity and donated to a number of Republican candidates and causes. In 2007 and 2008, he campaigned for former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, who was running for the Republican nomination for President in 2008. Norris also writes a column for the conservative website WorldNetDaily. Early life. Norris was born in Ryan, Oklahoma on March 10, 1940, the son of Wilma (née Scarberry) and Ray Norris, who was a mechanic, bus driver, and truck driver. Norris has said that he has Irish and Cherokee Native American ancestry. Norris was named after Carlos Berry, his father's minister. He has two younger brothers, Wieland (deceased) and Aaron (a Hollywood producer). When Norris was sixteen, his parents divorced, and he later relocated to Prairie Village, Kansas, and then to Torrance, California, with his mother and brothers. Norris has described his childhood as downbeat. He was nonathletic, shy, and scholastically mediocre. He joined the United States Air Force as an Air Policeman (AP) in 1958 and was sent to Osan Air Base, South Korea. It was there that Norris acquired the nickname "Chuck" and began his training in Tang Soo Do (tangsudo), an interest that led to black belts in that art and the founding of the Chun Kuk Do ("Universal Way") form. When he returned to the United States, he continued to act as an AP at March Air Force Base in California.
1062048	Joaquin Rafael Phoenix (; born October 28, 1974), formerly credited as Leaf Phoenix, is an American actor, music video director, producer, musician, and social activist. Phoenix started his career as a child actor and came to wide attention for his portrayal of Commodus in the 2000 historical epic film "Gladiator", directed by Ridley Scott, which earned him a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor as well as nominations for the Golden Globe Award, Screen Actors Guild, Satellite Award, and BAFTA Award. He received wider recognition for his portrayal of musician Johnny Cash in the 2005 biographical film "Walk the Line". His performance earned him several accolades and nominations, including the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy and a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actor. He received his third Academy Award nomination for his critically acclaimed performance in the 2012 film "The Master". Aside from his acting career, he has also ventured into directing music videos, as well as producing movies and television shows. He has recorded an album, the soundtrack to "Walk the Line", for which he won a Grammy Award. Early life. Phoenix was born Joaquín Rafael Bottom in Río Piedras, a sector of the city of San Juan, Puerto Rico, where he lived until he was six. He is the third of five children, including River (1970–1993), Rain (1972), Liberty (1976), and Summer (1978). He also has a half-sister named Jodean (1964) from a previous relationship of his father's. His father, John Lee Bottom, was a lapsed Catholic from Fontana, California, of English, as well as German and French, ancestry. His mother, Arlyn (née Dunetz), was born in The Bronx, New York, to Jewish parents whose families emigrated from Russia and Hungary. In 1968, Arlyn left her family and moved to California, later meeting Phoenix's father while hitchhiking. They married in 1969, then later joined the religious cult the Children of God and began travelling throughout South America. His parents eventually became disenchanted with the Children of God; they made the decision to leave the cult and returned to the U.S. in 1978. They changed their last name to "Phoenix" to symbolize a new beginning. This was also around the time Joaquin had begun calling himself "Leaf," desiring to have a nature-related name like his siblings and inspired by spending time outdoors raking leaves with his father. (In a "Jay Leno" interview, Joaquin said he had originally called himself Antleaf as a child; it is unclear if he was being serious.) Leaf became the name he would use as a child actor; at fifteen, he changed it back to Joaquin. In order to provide food and financial support for the family, the children performed on the streets and at various talent contests, singing and playing instruments. In Los Angeles, his mother started working as a secretary for NBC, and his father worked as a landscaper. Phoenix and his siblings were eventually discovered by one of Hollywood's leading children's agents, Iris Burton, who got the five children acting work, mainly doing commercials and television show appearances. Joaquin went on to establish himself as a child actor before deciding to withdraw from acting for a while and travel to Mexico and South America with his father.
1163248	Martin Mull (born August 18, 1943) is an American actor who has appeared in many television and film roles. He is also a comedian, painter, and recording artist. Early years and education. Mull was born in Chicago, Illinois, and moved with his family to North Ridgeville, Ohio, when he was two years old. They stayed there until he was 15 years old, when his family moved to New Canaan, Connecticut, where he attended and graduated from public high school. He studied painting and went on to graduate from the Rhode Island School of Design with a Bachelor of Fine Arts and a Master of Fine Arts in painting. Acting career. Mull's first famous acting role was as twins Garth and Barth Gimble in the 1976 television nighttime absurdist soap opera "Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman". This led to work in the spin-off comedy talk shows "Fernwood 2 Night" (1977) and "America 2-Night" (1978), in which he played Barth Gimble as talk show host, opposite Fred Willard as sidekick Jerry Hubbard. In 1979, he appeared in the "Taxi" episode "Hollywood Calling". Mull created, wrote for and starred in the short-lived 1984 CBS sitcom "Domestic Life", with Megan Follows playing his teenaged daughter. In one episode of "The Golden Girls", he played a hippie who was afraid of the outside world. He had a long-running role as Leon Carp, Roseanne Conner's gay boss (and later business partner) on the TV series "Roseanne". During the 1980s, Mull starred in a series of commercials for Michelob and Pizza Hut, and in a series of television and radio commercials for Red Roof Inn. He appeared in the Pecos Bill episode of the Shelley Duvall TV series "Tall Tales & Legends". Mull voiced the role of The Evil Cad on the 1995-97 animated series "Freakazoid!" He also did the voice of Vlad Masters/Vlad Plasmius, the main villain in "Danny Phantom". Mull has appeared as a guest star on the game show "Hollywood Squares", appearing as the center square in the show's final season, from 2003 to 2004. In late 2004 and in 2013's Netflix-produced Season 4, he portrayed Gene Parmesan, a private investigator, on the TV series "Arrested Development". During 2008 and 2009, Mull guest starred in two episodes of the television series "Gary Unmarried" as Allison's father. Mull is currently co-starring in the Fox sitcom, "Dads". Musical career. Throughout the 1970s, and especially in the first half of the decade, Mull had a career as a musical comedian, performing satirical and humorous songs both live and in recordings. Notable live gigs included opening for Randy Newman and Sandy Denny at Boston Symphony Hall in 1973,Frank Zappa at Austin's Armadillo World Headquarters in 1973 and for Bruce Springsteen at the Shady Grove Music Fair in Gaithersburg, Maryland, in October 1974. His self-titled debut Album, released by Capricorn in 1972, featured many note-worthy musicians, including Ramblin' Jack Elliott, Levon Helm from The Band, Keith Spring of NRBQ and Libby Titus. "Dancing about Architecture". Elvis Costello attributes the well-known phrase "writing about music is like dancing about architecture" to Martin Mull. Artistic career. Mull has been a painter since the 1970s, and has had his work appear in group and solo exhibits throughout that time. He participated in the June 15, 1971 exhibit "Flush with the Walls" in the men's room of the Boston Museum of Art to protest the lack of contemporary and local art in the museum. His work often combines photorealist painting, and the pop art and collage styles. He published a book of some of his paintings, entitled "Paintings Drawings and Words", in 1995. One of his paintings was used on the cover for the 2008 Joyce Carol Oates novel "My Sister, My Love". Another painting, owned by Steve Martin titled "After Dinner Drinks" (2008), was used for the cover of "Love Has Come For You", an album by Steve Martin and Edie Brickell.
1042829	Sam Kydd (15 February 1915 – 26 March 1982) was an Ulster-born British actor. His best-known roles were as the smuggler Orlando O'Connor in two major British television series of the 1960s, and as a recurring character in "Coronation Street". Early life and career. An army officer's son, Kydd was born in Belfast, but moved to London, England, as a child. He was educated at Dunstable Grammar School in Dunstable, Bedfordshire. During the mid-1930s Kydd was as an MC for various big bands such as the Oscar Rabin Band. He would warm up audiences with jokes and impressions and even some tap dance routines then introduce the other singers and attractions on the bill. During the late 1930s he had joined the Territorial Army serving with the Queen Victoria's Rifles and when war broke out he was called up for active service. Early in the war, he went to France with the British Expeditionary Force but was quickly captured, spending the rest of the war in Stalag XX-A, a camp near Thorn in German-occupied western Poland. Kydd later wrote of his experiences as a POW in his autobiographical book "For You The War Is Over". During his internment in the German prisoner-of-war camp, where he remained for the next five years, he took command of the camp's theatrical activities - devising and staging plays. He felt so strongly about his work there that, when he was offered repatriation after three years, he turned it down to continue with his theatrical work. In recognition of his valuable services during these years, he was awarded a pair of drama masks made by the Red Cross from barbed wire. Film career. Returning to Britain after the war, Kydd applied for the film 'Captive Heart' which was about life in a prison camp, and as this was an area where he had much experience, he got a part. (Any source suggesting that he made films in the 1940s - Halliwell, for example - is incorrect since he was initially on active service in the army, and then a POW, at the time that he was supposed to have made these films. See his book "For You The War Is Over" for confirmation of this). He went on to appear in many more films, including such memorable films as "The Blue Lamp", "Father Brown", "The 39 Steps" and "I'm All Right Jack". He often played the part of a strong and resilient cockney. He is best remembered as a character actor in films such as "Chance of a Lifetime", "The Cruel Sea", "Sink the Bismarck", "Too Late the Hero", "The Yangtse Incident", "Reach for the Sky", "Eye of the Needle" and "Steptoe and Son Ride Again". He married Pinkie Barnes, an ex-international table tennis champion and one of Britain's first women advertising copywriters. Their son, Jonathan Kydd, followed his father into the acting profession. He was the subject of "This Is Your Life" in 1974 when he was surprised by Eamonn Andrews. Kydd took part in more than 200 films and 1,000 TV plays and series including, "The Adventures of Robin Hood", 'Pickwick Papers', "Mess Mates", "Arthur Askey", "Benny Hill", "Charlie Drake", "Harry Worth", "The Expert", "Dixon of Dock Green", "Crane" and "Orlando" in 1963. In "Crane" Kydd had appeared as the lovable smuggler Orlando O'Connor. The programme starred Patrick Allen, as a Briton who moved to Morocco to run a cafe and had an aversion to smuggling. Kydd's character was so popular that when 'Crane' finished he was given his own programme, "Orlando", a children's adventure series. He also appeared in the "Fossett Saga", and "Curry and Chips", as well as the big-screen versions of "Dad's Army" and "Till Death Do Us Part". Amongst his many television appearances were "The Tony Hancock Show", critically acclaimed series "Minder", "Crossroads", "Coronation Street" (playing the part of Mike Baldwin's father, Frankie), "The Eric Sykes Show", and "Follyfoot". In 1974, Kydd played the part of a cabbie in Thames Television's "A Dickens of a Christmas". Kydd died of emphysema.
1056701	The Yellow Rolls-Royce is a 1964 dramatic composite film written by Terence Rattigan, produced by Anatole de Grunwald and directed by Anthony Asquith, the trio responsible for "The V.I.P.s" (1963). Apparently adapting an idea from "In Those Days", a 1947 German drama by Helmut Käutner that had its US premiere in March 1951, "The Yellow Rolls-Royce" uses a yellow 1930 Rolls-Royce Phantom II to frame the story of three very different owners: an English aristocrat, a Miami gangster and a wealthy American widow. It is set in the years up to and including the start of World War II. Prompted by the production team's success with "The V.I.P.s", the film boasts a similar all-star cast, including Rex Harrison, Ingrid Bergman, Shirley MacLaine, Omar Sharif, George C. Scott, Art Carney, Alain Delon and Jeanne Moreau. The soundtrack song "Forget Domani" won Best Original Song at the 23rd Golden Globe Awards. Plot. On a flat bed lorry driven in the streets of London, a motor car is under a grey cover with the initials RR. The Rolls Royce is first purchased by Charles, Marquess of Frinton (Rex Harrison) as a 10th wedding anniversary present for his French wife, Eloise (Jeanne Moreau). Frinton is Under-Secretary of State at the Foreign Office. The marquess is a longtime horse owner who has his heart set on winning the Ascot Gold Cup. This year his horse, named 10 June (his wedding anniversary date; also the writer Terence Rattigan's birthday) is the favourite and does indeed win. Lord Frinton is presented the Gold Cup by King George V. However, his elation is blighted when he finds his wife with her lover and his underling, John Fane (Edmund Purdom) in the back of the Rolls with the shades drawn. For appearance's sake, Lord Frinton will not divorce his wife, but he returns the car. "20,023 miles later, Genoa, Italy" — The Rolls, according to G. Bomba, owner of the Genova Auto Salon was “owned by a Maharajah, who lost his money at the San Remo Casino.” The Rolls is purchased by American gangster Paolo Maltese (George C. Scott). He is touring the sights of Italy with his bored fiancée Mae Jenkins (Shirley MacLaine) and his right-hand man Joey Friedlander (Art Carney). When Maltese returns to Miami to take care of some unsavory business, he leaves Joey to chaperone Jenkins. Friedlander turns a blind eye when she falls in love with Stefano (Alain Delon), a handsome young street photographer. Upon finding Jenkins and Stefano in the back of the Rolls with the shades drawn, Friedlander walks away. But he later shows Jenkins an eight-day-old American newspaper headline, "Bugs O’ Leary Slain—Police Claim Gang Warfare", that was Paolo's business in the United States. Jenkins lies to Stefano, telling him that it was just a fling, to protect him from her lethal boyfriend. "Trieste on the Yugoslav border – the year, 1941" — The Rolls is in a repair shop. The car exterior is filthy with "OCCASIONE" (Second-Hand) painted on the windscreen. It is bought by Gerda Millett (Ingrid Bergman), a bossy, wealthy American widow touring Europe. Just before the Invasion of Yugoslavia by the Nazi Germans, patriot Davich (Omar Sharif) commandeers her automobile to sneak into Yugoslavia, hiding in the boot before the border crossing. Along the way, these two very different people fall in love. At their Ljubljana hotel, they survive a German aerial attack, then she insists on driving him to a partisan camp in the mountains, then making several trips to pick up more villagers and deliver them to the camp. She wants to stay and help repel the invaders, but Davich will not permit it, saying it is not her fight. He tells her to go back to America and tell people what she has witnessed. The car is seen being unloaded from a cargo ship in New York. During the end credits, it is seen driving along an expressway, passing beneath a road sign reading "I-95, George Washington Bridge, Bronx – Next Right." Production. In early April 1964, Robert H. O'Brien, President of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer informed the press about the upcoming "Rolls-Royce" project, with production set to start on 6 April. Along with the announcement, Anatole de Grunwald was assigned to produce the original screenplay of Terence Rattigan. By the time, Ingrid Bergman, Rex Harrison, Shirley MacLaine, Alain Delon, Jeanne Moreau, George C. Scott and Omar Sharif were already cast in the key roles. Shooting took place in MGM's British Studios in London and on location in Italy. Reception. The film's reviews were "tepid," but it performed "respectably" at the box office. According to "The Sunday Telegraph", "anyone willing to be taken for a smooth ride could hardly find a more sumptuous vehicle, star-studded, gold-plated, shock-proof and probably critic-proof, too." "Time" magazine called it an "elegant, old-fashioned movie about roadside sex" that "looks worn at times," but is "always appropriately overprivileged in high-powered personalities and spectacular sets." "The New York Times" called it a "pretty slick vehicle, that is pleasing to the eye and occasionally amusing, but it hardly seems worthy of all the effort and the noted personalities involved." The film grossed $5.4 million at the US box office, among the top ten films in box office receipts for 1965, a year in which "Mary Poppins" topped the list with $28.5 million. The film's producers also benefited financially from television's willingness to pay studios more for more timely broadcasting rights to new films: "The Yellow Rolls-Royce" got its television premiere on CBS in fall 1967.
1016305	Twins Mission () is a 2007 Hong Kong martial arts-action-comedy film directed by action choreographer Kong Tao-Hoi and starring Sammo Hung, Gillian Chung, Charlene Choi and Wu Jing among others. The film is a bit of a spoof of the popularity and success of the Twins and leaves the audience with a cliffhanger ending. Plot. An evil gang of twins hold up a train to steal a magical Tibetan artifact, the Heaven's Bead from 3 dalai lamas. This artifact has healing powers and is a highly desirable item. A battle ensues and the artifact is knocked from the hands of a parachuting villain into the bag of an unsuspecting passerby. The passerby, oblivious, gets into his van and heads to Hong Kong. This is where the other set of twins come in; they are aided by the twin Laus and Uncle Luck as they try to get the Heaven's Bead back. A secret mission takes place, in which the good twins infiltrate a high rise building in order to recover the item. Although they initially succeed, the artifact is then passed to the wrong twin. Happy, Lilian's sister, who is suffering from cancer is also kidnapped and held prisoner in the high-rise building. The good twins eventually recover the Heaven's Bead and lose it again while rescuing Happy. The villains get away with the Heaven's Bead.
1377870	Khamani Griffin (born August 1, 1998) is an American actor and is best known for playing Bobby James in the UPN/CW series "All Of Us" He starred as Ben Hinton in "Daddy Day Care" (2003) and had a role in "Norbit" (2007). He has also appeared in "Grey's Anatomy," "ER," and "My Name Is Earl." He has been nominated with three Young Artist Awards for his roles in "Daddy Day Care" and "All of Us". He also made an appearance in Lil' Kim's video download. Khamani had a main role on the popular game show "Are You Smarter Than A 5th Grader?" until its series finale on September 18, 2009. Filmography. Other. "Trix" - Kid # 2
591469	Chaand Kaa Tukdaa is a 1994 Hindi-language Indian feature film produced and directed by Saawan Kumar Tak. The film starred Salman Khan and Sridevi, who were paired for the second time after "Chandra Mukhi". Plot. Shyam, a wealthy bachelor in London, returns to India and meets the girl, Radha, of his dreams. But Radha is a helpless pawn controlled by Shyam's evil uncle and Shyam's father's murderer. The two eye Shyam's wealth and estate and nothing can stop them in their path to obtain it—and their plan to kill Shyam.
1066916	Roberts Scott Blossom (March 25, 1924 – July 8, 2011) was an American theater, film and television actor and poet. He is best known for his roles as Old Man Marley in "Home Alone" and as Ezra Cobb in the horror film "Deranged". He is also remembered for his supporting roles in films such as "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" and "Escape from Alcatraz". Early life. Roberts Scott Blossom was born in 1924 in New Haven, Connecticut to John Blossom, an athletic director at Yale University. He was raised in Cleveland but later moved to Shaker Heights, Ohio. He attended Hawken School and graduated from Asheville School in 1941 and attended Harvard University for a year until he joined the Army and served in World War II in Europe. He trained as a therapist and later decided to be an actor, and began directing and acting in productions at Karamu House and The Candlelight Theater in Cleveland and later moved to New York, where he supported himself by bundling feathers for hats and he practiced a disputed therapy called Dianetics. He also waited tables until he became a full-time actor. Career. Blossom began acting on stage during the 1950s. He won three Obie Awards for his performances in the off-Broadway plays "Village Wooing" (1955), which was his debut, "Do Not Pass Go" (1965) and "The Ice Age" (1976). During the 1960s, he formed Filmstage, a multimedia "avant garde" theatrical troupe. His Broadway credits include "Ballad of the Sad Cafe" and "Operation Sidewinder" and in 1988 he appeared in Peter Brook's production of "The Cherry Orchard".
674470	Nowhere in Africa () is a 2001 German film directed by Caroline Link and based on the autobiographical novel of the same name by Stefanie Zweig. It tells the story of a Jewish family that emigrates to Kenya shortly before World War II to escape the Nazis and run a farm. The film won an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.
1065684	Harold John Russell (January 14, 1914 - January 29, 2002) was a Canadian-American World War II veteran who became one of only two non-professional actors to win an Academy Award for acting (the other being Haing S. Ngor). Russell also holds the unique honor of receiving two Academy Awards for the same role. Background. Harold Russell was born in North Sydney, Nova Scotia, Canada and moved to Massachusetts with his family in 1933. In 1941, he was so profoundly affected by the December 7 attack on Pearl Harbor that he enlisted in the Army on the following day. While an Army instructor, and training with the U.S. 13th Airborne Division at Camp Mackall, North Carolina, on June 6, 1944, a defective fuse detonated an explosive he was handling while making a training film. As a result, he lost both hands and was given two hooks to serve as hands. After his recovery, and while attending Boston University as a full-time student, Russell was featured in an Army film called "Diary of a Sergeant" about rehabilitating war veterans. "The Best Years of Our Lives". When film director William Wyler saw the film on Russell, he cast him in "The Best Years of Our Lives" with Fredric March and Dana Andrews. Russell played the role of Homer Parrish, a sailor who lost both hands during the war. For his role as Parrish, Russell won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor in 1947. Earlier in the ceremony, he was awarded an honorary Oscar for "bringing hope and courage to his fellow veterans." The special award had been created because the Board of Governors very much wanted to salute Russell, a non-professional actor, but assumed he had little chance for a competitive win. It was the only time in Oscar history that the Academy has awarded two Oscars for the same performance. Upon completion of the film, Wyler told Russell to return to school since there "weren't many roles for actors without hands." Russell returned to Boston University and graduated with a business degree in 1949. Russell authored two autobiographies, "Victory in My Hands" (1949) and "The Best Years of My Life" (1981). Later years. Russell appeared in only two other films after his debut, "Inside Moves" in 1980 and "Dogtown" in 1997. He also appeared in an episode of "Trapper John, M.D." in 1981 and a two-part episode of the television series "China Beach" in 1989. Russell became active in AMVETS, serving three terms as National Commander. As such, he wrote to President Truman in 1951, supporting his decision to dismiss General MacArthur. In his letter, Russell wrote: "The issue is whether the ultimate civil authority of the United States can tolerate actions in contempt of constitutional lines of authority. Any lessening of civil power over military power must inevitably lead away from democracy." From the early 1960s to the late 1980s, Russell served as the Chairman of the President's Commission on Employment of the Handicapped, an unpaid position. In 1992, Russell needed money for his wife's medical expenses. In a controversial decision, he consigned his Oscar for Best Supporting Actor to Herman Darvick Autograph Auctions, and on August 6, 1992, in New York City, the Oscar sold to a private collector for $60,500. Russell defended his action, saying, "I don't know why anybody would be critical. My wife's health is much more important than sentimental reasons. The movie will be here, even if Oscar isn't." The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has required all Oscar recipients since 1950 to sign an agreement forbidding them from selling their award; as a pre-1950 winner, Russell was exempt from this provision. Russell died of a heart attack on January 29, 2002 and is buried in Lakeview Cemetery in Wayland, Massachusetts.
1035151	Mark Benton (born 16 November 1965) is an English actor, known for his roles as Eddie in "Early Doors", Howard in "Northern Lights" and Martin Pond in Barbara. Career. He has a recurring role as Father McBride in the James Nesbitt series "Murphy's Law". He has starred with Vic and Bob in the series "Randall & Hopkirk (Deceased)" (remake), "Catterick", and "Monkey Trousers". He also appeared as an Earthly representative of the Devil in the 2003 ITV drama "The Second Coming", and the 2004 ITV drama "Planespotting". From 1995 to 2003 he played Martin Pond in sitcom "Barbara". He has also starred in the BBC Three comedy "I'm with Stupid" and in the "Doctor Who" episode "Rose" as conspiracy theorist Clive. In late 2008 Benton starred in the ITV drama Britannia High. He is the co-star of "Scoop", in which he plays Max de Lacey, and he co-starred in the Roman Mysteries episode ""The Slave Girl from Jerusalem"". Film roles include Phil in the 2001 cult British independent film "Mr In-Between", and the British comedy "Three and Out" released on 25 April 2008. Mark featured in all three of the "Booze Cruise" episodes with Martin Clunes and Brian Murphy among notable others. Mark is a recently born-again supporter of Middlesbrough F.C. and has featured in the club's official website advertising campaign to encourage other fans to renew their season tickets. Mark was in the same drama class at Stockton Billingham Technical College as Elizabeth Carling. Some of his early acting experience came with "Middlesbrough Youth Theatre", with performances in plays such as Atmos Fear and Twist alongside the likes of Tim Fagan, Lisa Halpin, Jonothan Wealands, Liam Stubbs and Christine Picot. In April 2008 he appeared as Jess Yates in the BBC Four drama "Hughie Green, Most Sincerely". Mark became a Patron of Zoe's Place Baby Hospice in Middlesbrough in January 2010. Zoe's Place Baby Hospice provides respite and palliative care for babies and children from birth to 5 years who have terminal and life limiting illnesses, special and complex needs of varying degrees. He played headteacher Mike Newgent in ITV drama Britannia High. He appears in the BBC Radio 4 comedy "Edge Falls". He did the voiceover for the programme "Street Doctor" on BBC One. Benton played the character of Dad in "The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus", which was released in autumn 2009. Benton was also featured in the BBC show "Hustle" in January 2010, and played a supporting role of Farmer Finch in the BBC's miniseries "Land Girls". Benton appears in the seventh series of BBC drama "Waterloo Road" as Daniel 'Chalky' Chalk, who is a Maths teacher. He continued portraying the character as the drama relocated to Greenock, Scotland. His final episode was shown on 6 March 2013 but howecer, Daniel Chalk will be returning to series 9. In 2012, he appeared in the one-off special "Panto!" as Francis, the Director of the play. Benton in 2011 (as of 3 December for the final 6 weeks) appeared in The Railway Children Production at Waterloo Station in London. He played Mr Perks. Benton is set to appear as a talking lamppost in Robin Sheppard's film adaptation of Richard Milward's book, Apples. On BBC Radio 4, Benton starred as the optimistic title character Harvey Easter in Mr Blue Sky, written by Andrew Collins and broadcast in May and June 2011. A second series is due for May 2012. Benton has also played Fred the butcher in the televised series of episodes by Catherine Cookson. In July 2012, it was announced that Benton would star as Edna Turnblad in the 2013 UK tour of Hairspray the Musical, starting in February 2013 and finishing in September 2013. Benton is one of the contestants in the 2013 series of BBC's "Strictly Come Dancing", partnered with world dancing champion Iveta ­Lukosiute.
1070501	Stephen Arthur "Steve" Hytner (born September 28, 1959) is an American actor. He is perhaps best known for his role as Kenny Bania on the NBC series "Seinfeld". He attended Valley Stream Central High School (along with fellow future actors Patricia Charbonneau and Steve Buscemi) in Valley Stream, New York.
1166186	David Alan Coulier (September 21, 1959) is an American stand-up comedian, impressionist, television and voice actor, and television host. He became known in the late 1980s and the early 1990s for playing Joey Gladstone on the ABC sitcom "Full House". Early life. Coulier was born in St. Clair Shores, Michigan. He got his start in stand up comedy in high school by impersonating his principal (Conrad Vachon) and other staff over his high school's PA system. He graduated in 1977 from Notre Dame High School in Harper Woods, Michigan, where he was a member of the varsity hockey team. He played defense alongside future NHL player John Blum. Career. Coulier has done extensive voice work for shows including "Extreme Ghostbusters", "The Real Ghostbusters" and "Slimer! and the Real Ghostbusters" (taking over the character of Peter Venkman after Lorenzo Music's departure from the role), "Muppet Babies "after Howie Mandel left (Baby Animal, Baby Bunsen, Bean Bunny and Uncle Statler and Waldorf, even a pre-teen Janice for one episode), "Scooby and Scrappy-Doo", "The Jetsons", "Rude Dog and the Dweebs", "Detention" and "Teen Titans".. From 1984 to 1986, he was also the host of a comedy series on Nickelodeon known as "Out of Control". Coulier is best known for the role of Joey Gladstone on the ABC's sitcom "Full House". He stayed on the show from 1987 until its cancellation in 1995. He was famous for doing voices and impersonations. In addition to "Full House", Coulier appeared on "George and Leo" and "". He has also hosted "America's Funniest People" (first with Arleen Sorkin and later with Tawny Kitaen) and "Opportunity Knocks". Additionally, he was also a voice actor in "Yogi Bear and the Magical Flight of the Spruce Goose," and has voiced Felix the Cat on a few occasions. He also put out a solo album called "Cut It Out", a self-proclaimed tribute to "tank tops and short shorts." In addition to his voice work, Coulier has also taken a few acting parts appearing in the Disney Channel Original Movie's "The Thirteenth Year" and "The Even Stevens Movie" (where he had a cameo as a reality show host), as well as the Nickelodeon original movie "Shredderman Rules" and he wrote and starred in an unaired pilot for FX called "Whispers and Balls". He also founded his own children's entertainment company F3 Entertainment, in 2000. In 2003, Coulier appeared on season three of "The Surreal Life". In 2006, he appeared on the TV reality show "Skating with Celebrities" on FOX, where he was paired with Olympic medalist Nancy Kerrigan. They were eliminated in episode four. Currently he is a member of "Duck's Breath Mystery Theater" touring comedy troupe (which he claims is clean comedy but 'not quite as creepy' as "Full House") as well as host of the series "Animal Kidding". His work on "Robot Chicken" is probably his most "adult" to date, voicing off-color situations, like Popeye savagely beating Wimpy over a debt. On June 2, 2008, Chikara, professional wrestling promotion based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, announced that Coulier was elected by the Chikara Board of Directors as the new commissioner of the company, a position that he will hold for the following two years until the next election (taking place on May 25, 2010). Coulier is the successor to former Commissioner and fellow "Full House" cast member Bob Saget. In 2009, Coulier provided the voice for Bob McKenzie on the Canadian animated series "Bob & Doug", based on the SCTV characters Bob and Doug McKenzie. Coulier became the first person other than Rick Moranis to portray the character, as Moranis (who serves as executive producer) was not interested in resuming the part. Coulier says he understands that longtime fans might be skeptical of his take on the role, but he couldn't help jumping at the chance to portray one of his favorite comic characters. "It's huge shoes to fill, stepping into Rick Moranis' shoes. It's such an established, great character and I guess the only thing I have going for me is that it kind of sounds alike and that half of my family is from Canada." His mother's family is from Bathurst, New Brunswick. After the cancellation of "Full House" in 1995, Coulier struggled to find prominent roles in television and film. After a brief stint in reality TV with "The Surreal Life" and "Skating with Celebrities", Coulier continued to make regular television appearances as the host of shows like "America's Funniest People", "Animal Kidding" and "America's Most Talented Kid". He continues to tour the US and Canada as a stand-up comedian, and recently Coulier launched a youth-oriented comedy website, "cleanguys.TV". Comedic style. Coulier's stand-up routine is centered on his ability to mimic celebrities and cartoon characters, a talent that has given him a second career in voice acting. Many of Coulier's bits involve putting well-known characters into unexpected situations. Coulier has also been known to include harmonica playing in his act. Coulier's material is largely family-friendly, a position he has extended to his youth-oriented comedy website, "cleanguys.TV". As of April 5, 2008, Coulier is presently on tour with the Clean Guys of Comedy Tour, a family-friendly comedy group. The tour includes Ryan Hamilton from "Last Comic Standing" and Kivi Rogers. Personal life. Coulier was married for two years with Jayne Modean. He has one son Luc Coulier (born November 14, 1990) Having divorced, he started dating Alanis Morissette, but they broke up shortly before she recorded her album, "Jagged Little Pill". In a 2008 interview with the Calgary Sun, Coulier said he thought he might be the ex-boyfriend portrayed in the song "You Oughta Know". Morissette has not confirmed the subject of her songs. Coulier is a private pilot who owns and flies a Beechcraft B35. His first general aviation flight was at the age of five in Michigan. He earned his pilot's license at the same airport later in 1979 and is now instrument rated. He is part of the Hat in the Ring Society to support the AOPA foundation, an organization that promotes safe flying. Coulier is an ice hockey fan, and participates in charity events with the Detroit Red Wings.
673772	Der Sieg des Glaubens () (1933) is the first propaganda film directed by Leni Riefenstahl. Her film recounts the Fifth Party Rally of the Nazi Party, which occurred in Nuremberg from 30 August to 3 September 1933. The film is of great historic interest because it shows Adolf Hitler and Ernst Rohm on close and intimate terms, before Rohm was shot on the orders of Hitler on the Night of the Long Knives in July 1934. All copies of the film were apparently destroyed on Hitler's orders, until a copy turned up in the 1990s in the UK.
353957	The Remez algorithm or Remez exchange algorithm, published by Evgeny Yakovlevich Remez in 1934, is an iterative algorithm used to find simple approximations to functions, specifically, approximations by functions in a Chebyshev space that are the best in the uniform norm "L"∞ sense. A typical example of a Chebyshev space is the subspace of Chebyshev polynomials of order "n" in the space of real continuous functions on an interval, "C"["a", "b"]. The polynomial of best approximation within a given subspace is defined to be the one that minimizes the maximum absolute difference between the polynomial and the function. In this case, the form of the solution is precised by the equioscillation theorem. Procedure. The Remez algorithm starts with the function "f" to be approximated and a set "X" of formula_1 sample points formula_2 in the approximation interval, usually the Chebyshev nodes linearly mapped to the interval. The steps are: The result is called the polynomial of best approximation, the Chebyshev approximation, or the minimax approximation. A review of technicalities in implementing the Remez algorithm is given by W. Fraser. On the choice of initialization. The Chebyshev nodes are a common choice for the initial approximation because of their role in the theory of polynomial interpolation. For the initialization of the optimization problem for function "f" by the Lagrange interpolant "L"n("f"), it can be shown that this initial approximation is bounded by with the norm or Lebesgue constant of the Lagrange interpolation operator "L""n" of the nodes ("t"1, ..., "t""n" + 1) being "T" being the zeros of the Chebyshev polynomials, and the Lebesgue functions being Theodore A. Kilgore, Carl de Boor, and Allan Pinkus proved that there exists a unique "t""i" for each "L""n", although not known explicitly for (ordinary) polynomials. Similarly, formula_14, and the optimality of a choice of nodes can be expressed as formula_15 For Chebyshev nodes, which provides a suboptimal, but analytically explicit choice, the asymptotic behavior is known as ("γ" being the Euler-Mascheroni constant) with and upper bound Lev Brutman obtained the bound for formula_20, and formula_21 being the zeros of the expanded Chebyshev polynomials: Rüdiger Günttner obtained from a sharper estimate for formula_23 Variants. Sometimes more than one sample point is replaced at the same time with the locations of nearby maximum absolute differences. Sometimes relative error is used to measure the difference between the approximation and the function, especially if the approximation will be used to compute the function on a computer which uses floating point arithmetic.
1059425	Christmas with the Kranks is a 2004 American comedy film directed by Joe Roth and starring Tim Allen and Jamie Lee Curtis. The screenplay by Chris Columbus is based on the 2001 novel "Skipping Christmas" by John Grisham.
1165828	Tisha Sterling (born December 10, 1944) is an American television and film actress. She is the daughter of actor Robert Sterling and actress/singer Ann Sothern. Life and career. Born in Los Angeles, California, Tisha Sterling began acting in the 1960s with an appearance on her mother's television series "The Ann Sothern Show". She later appeared in episodes of "The Donna Reed Show", "The Long, Hot Summer", "Batman", "The Name of the Game", "Hawaii Five-O", and "The New Adventures of Perry Mason". She also had roles in the feature films "Village of the Giants" (1965), "Coogan's Bluff" (1968), and "Norwood" (1970). In 1987, Sterling played a younger version of her mother's character (in flashbacks) in "The Whales of August". After that role, she appeared in two other film roles. Sterling made her last onscreen appearance to date in the 1999 film "Breakfast of Champions", opposite Bruce Willis.
1055108	2 Days in Paris is a 2007 Franco-German romantic comedy-drama film written, produced, and directed by Julie Delpy, who also edited the film, composed the soundtrack and played the leading female role. Plot. Marion is a French-born photographer living in New York City with her neurotic, hypochondriacal, chain-smoking, heavily tattooed American interior designer boyfriend Jack. After a markedly unromantic trip to Venice, which was planned to re-ignite the passion in their relationship, they take a night train to Paris to pick up Marion's cat from her parents and decide to stay for two days. Jack is startled to learn Marion has remained in contact with numerous ex-lovers and becomes increasingly uncomfortable due to the language barrier and a multitude of her old flames she keeps meeting. Meanwhile, Marion wrestles with her own insecurities about love, relationships, and her impulsive nature. Production. The film was shot on location in Paris. Sites included Gare Du Nord train station, Pasteur station in the Paris Métro and the grave of Jim Morrison in Père Lachaise Cemetery. Marie Pillet and Albert Delpy, who portray Marion's parents, are Julie Delpy's real-life parents. Distribution. The film premiered at the Berlin International Film Festival. It went into theatrical release in Germany on May 17, 2007 and was shown at the Seattle International Film Festival, the Tremblant Film Festival in Canada, the Los Angeles Film Festival, and Paris Cinéma before going into theatrical release in France on July 11 and the United States on August 10. Critical reception. Reviews were mostly positive. In the "Chicago Sun-Times", Roger Ebert called Julie Delpy "an original, a woman who refuses to be defined or limited" and said she "has made a smart film with an edge to it... What she has done here is avoid all temptation to recycle the usual lovers-in-Paris possibilities, and has created two original, quirky characters so obsessed with their differences that Paris is almost a distraction." Stephen Holden of "The New York Times" said the film "is an inside-out version of the much-admired Richard Linklater films "Before Sunrise" and "Before Sunset", in which Ms. Delpy and Ethan Hawke portray a French-American pair who meet, part and reunite years later. Where Mr. Linklater’s movies were weepies for the kind of educated, upscale young cosmopolites who have a soft spot for romances like "Casablanca", Ms. Delpy’s examination of modern love among the almost young and still restless is bracingly hard-headed." In her review for the "Los Angeles Times", Carina Chocano said, "At first blush, "2 Days in Paris" looks like it's going to be the story of a culture-clashing couple. But slowly and rather slyly, Delpy zeros in on something much more subtle and complex. What interests her are not the superficial differences between people from different countries... but the way in which the distances between people, genders and cultures (the very distances we rely on to grant us the perspective needed to see how completely insane other people, genders, cultures really are) seem to shift constantly according to circumstances." Awards and nominations. Julie Delpy was nominated for the César Award for Best Writing, the European Film Awards Audience Award for Best Film, and the Independent Spirit Award for Best First Film. The film won the Coup de Cœur Award from the Mons International Festival of Love Films. Sequel. In February 2010, it was announced a sequel titled "2 Days in New York" was in production. Actress/director Delpy re-teamed with Rézo Films to produce the "atypical sequel." She directed the sequel in Manhattan in October and reprised her role as Marion, a Frenchwoman who now finds herself in New York with her child and a new guy, having broken up with her "2 Days in Paris" lover (and the father of her child) who was played by Goldberg. "It's about the difficulty of relationships but also about the main character's evolution in general. It's a very modern story about the complexities of being a woman and not being completely consumed by your partner," Delpy explained. Comedian Chris Rock confirmed on "The Howard Stern Show" on November 8, 2010 that he was set to play the "new guy" in the film. Other members of the Paris cast, including Delpy's real father Albert, returned to their same roles for the film.
589458	Alag Alag is a 1985 Hindi film starring Rajesh Khanna, Tina Munim, Shashi Kapoor in the lead roles and produced by Rajesh Khanna and directed by one of his favourite directors Shakti Samanta. The film is best remembered for the way it was shot in Kashmir and different storyline. In 1992, Ram Awatar Agnihotri wrote that it was in this film that Munim showed the "first sparks" of the dedicated actress she would become. Kishore Kumar did not accept any money from Rajesh Khanna for rendering the songs of this film. When Khanna asked why he would not accept, Kumar replied that he had got a fresh lease of life as a singer with Aradhana (1969) and since this was Khanna's first film as producer, he had no right to accept any money. The film was given three stars by the critics as noted in the book Collections Rajesh Khanna's daughter, Baby Twinkle Khanna sounded the clapper board, Mrs. Yash Chopra directed the first shot, Mrs. Mohan Kumar broke the coconut and Mrs. J. Om Prakash switched on the camera. Plot. Chandni is from a poor family who desires to come out of her poverty life. She finds a shortcut to be rich is to marry a rich man and sets off to Bombay. She meets a man whose stands near a car and assumes he is a rich man and asks him to marry her. But she finds that he is not a rich man she dumps him immediately. The man is actually Neeraj who aims to become a playback singer in movies. He steps every possible studio to meet musicians to get a chance but he cannot succeed. Chandni lands in a bunglaw to escape from a goon. She plans to settle in the house and requests owner Doctor Rana to let her stay in the house. Dr. Rana finds Chandni is an innocent village girl and allows her in his house. Chandni takes the incharge of the home granted and dismisses the servants which annoys Rana. But he feel good of woman's presence in his home after his wife's death. Neeraj attempts to get a chance by getting recommendation from a social worker whose brother is a musician. He poses as a lame person to her but gets caught when he goes to treatment to Dr. Rana as Chandni exposes him. Neeraj gets angry on her and oaths to ruin her plans which scares Chandni. Chandni plans to make Dr. Rana propose for marriage to her. Neeraj gets frustrated on all of his failure attempts to be a singer. He meets a famous film actress Saritha and request her get a chance. Saritha invites him stay at her home and he goes to her home. Saritha actually plans to marry him and not to get chance for singing. When Neeraj finds this he gets out of the home angrily as he does not want to marry Saritha. When he analysed the reason is that he loves Chandni.Dr. Rana finds that Chandni is a good singer and makes her to change a fashionable woman. Neeraj proposes Chandni but she refuses as want to marry a rich man to get out of her poverty life. Neeraj repeatedly attempts to win her love and finally Chandni accepts him. Chandni finds that Dr. Rana actually has love for daughter to her and feels bad for her immatured acts. Neeraj manages to get a chance to sing and he re-unites with his rich parents after he got out of home. While on his way to meet Chandni he meets with an accident and loses his voice. Doctor Rana dies of illness and Chandni is again back to poor life. When Chandni meets Neeraj on the road he goes away unwilling to be burdern for Chandni but Chandni misunderstands that Neeraj dumped her because she is a poor girl. Neeraj decides to make Chandni a playback singer and support her without revealing himself with the help of his mother. As expected Chandni becomes a famous singer but she hates Neeraj for leaving her alone. Would Chandni come to know about Neeraj? Will Neeraj get his voice back?
1165735	John Regis Toomey (August 13, 1898October 12, 1991) was an American film and television actor. Early life. Born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, he was one of four children of Francis X. and Mary Ellen Toomey and attended Peabody High School. He initially pondered a law career, but acting won out and he established himself as a musical stage performer. Career. Educated in dramatics at the University of Pittsburgh, where he became a brother of Sigma Chi, Toomey began as a stock actor and eventually made it to Broadway. Toomey was a singer on stage until throat problems (acute laryngitis) while touring in Europe stopped that aspect of his career. In 1929, he appeared in his first films, initially starting out as a leading man, but finding more success as a character actor, sans his toupee.
1060351	Mary Lucy Denise "Marilu" Henner (born April 6, 1952) is an American actress, producer and author. She is best known for her role as Elaine O'Connor Nardo on the sitcom "Taxi" from 1978 to 1983. Early life. Born in Chicago, Illinois, to a Greek mother and Polish father, Henner was raised on the northwest side of Chicago in the Logan Square neighborhood. She is the third of six children. Her mother, Loretta, was president of the National Association of Dance and Affiliated Arts and ran the Henner Dance School for 20 years. Henner took her first dance class at age two then went onto teaching dance at her family’s studio when she was 14 and choreographed shows at local high schools and colleges until leaving the Chicago area during her third year of college. Career. While a student at the University of Chicago in the Hyde Park neighborhood of Chicago, Henner originated the role of "Marty" in the Kingston Mines production of "Grease" in 1971. When the show was discovered and moved to Broadway, she was asked to reprise the role; however, she chose instead to play "Marty" in the national touring company alongside John Travolta, who played "Doody". Additional Broadway credits for Henner include "Over Here!", with Travolta, revivals of "Pal Joey", "Chicago", "Social Security", and "The Tale of the Allergist's Wife". Her first film appearance was in the 1977 sleeper-hit "Between the Lines", co-starring then-unknowns Jeff Goldblum, Lindsay Crouse, John Heard, and Jill Eikenberry. Her second role was opposite Richard Gere in the 1978 film "Bloodbrothers". Henner changed her last name from Pudlowski to Henner before acting in Between the Lines. Henner came to prominence with the role of Elaine Nardo in the situation comedy "Taxi". She was the leading lady in the 1982 film "Hammett" directed by Wim Wenders, produced by Francis Ford Coppola and starring her first husband Frederic Forrest. In 1983, Henner starred opposite Burt Reynolds in "The Man Who Loved Women", directed by Blake Edwards. Reynolds then asked Henner to join the cast of "Cannonball Run II" later that year along with Shirley MacLaine and Dom DeLuise. She was the leading lady in the 1984 film "Johnny Dangerously", playing love interest to Michael Keaton. In 1985 she once again appeared alongside John Travolta in "Perfect". In 1991 she appeared opposite Steve Martin in "LA Story" as Trudi, a role for which she received a nomination for an American Comedy Award as the Funniest Supporting Female in a Motion Picture. From 1990 through 1994, she appeared opposite Burt Reynolds in the situation comedy "Evening Shade", which also starred Ossie Davis and Hal Holbrook. She also appeared in "Noises Off" (1992) and in "Man on the Moon" (1999), a film about her "Taxi" co-star Andy Kaufman. Henner played herself (as well as herself playing her "Taxi" character). Henner guested on "Match Game" and "Hollywood Squares". She provided the voice for Gotham City socialite Veronica Vreeland in ' (1992–1999), reprising the role in the animated films ' (1993) and "" (1998). In 1994, she hosted her own daytime talk show, "Marilu", for 165 episodes. Henner starred as the domineering mother of the bride in the Brooks & Dunn video "You Can't Take the Honky Tonk Out of the Girl" in 2003. In 2006 and 2007, Henner was the host of the television series "America's Ballroom Challenge". Henner said on an episode of "The Ellen DeGeneres Show", in early 2008, that she has never actually danced ballroom and would like to go on a season of "Dancing with the Stars". She later hosted FitTV and The Discovery Channel's "Shape Up Your Life", which is based on her books. Henner was a contestant on NBC's first "The Celebrity Apprentice", in 2008. She was fired by Donald Trump in the eighth episode, but was brought back to help fellow contestant Trace Adkins in the final task of the show. Henner, who has highly superior autobiographical memory, is a consultant for the CBS drama "Unforgettable", which starred Poppy Montgomery as Carrie Wells, a woman with the same ability. Henner guest-starred as Carrie's aunt. In August 2012, Henner won $25,000 for the charity Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM) as a celebrity contestant on "Live! with Kelly" "Grilling with the Stars" contest for her Healthy/Easy Grilled Mushroom and Heirloom Tomato dish. Henner has written nine books on diet, health and memory, the most prominent being "Total Health Makeover", in which she explains the virtues of a non-dairy diet in conjunction with food combining and exercise. She leads monthly classes on her website, www.marilu.com, designed to help people integrate these steps into a healthier, more active lifestyle. Both of her parents died in their 50s, which prompted her to lead a healthier lifestyle. Henner has also been host of television's "The Art of Living", produced by United States Media Television. Henner rejoined the cast for its 13th season on The All-Star Celebrity Apprentice where she is joined by fellow Apprentice alumni. She played for her charity The Alzheimer's Association and won over $50,000 for the cause. She returned, after being eliminated, for the final task to assist Trace Adkins. Henner is now the host "The Marilu Show". It airs every weekday morning on the GCN Live network or at Marilushow.com where she features guest physicians, health experts and celebrity guests and friends. Personal life. In her autobiography, "By All Means, Keep on Moving", Henner discussed her romances with actor John Travolta and "Taxi" costars Judd Hirsch and Tony Danza. Her first two marriages, to actor Frederic Forrest and director Robert Lieberman, ended in divorce. She married Michael Brown, a former college classmate, on December 21, 2006, before 100 people in her Los Angeles home. It was the second marriage for Brown, who has three children (Cassia Brown, Carine Brown and Michael Brown). Henner has two children, Nicholas Morgan and Joseph Marlon, from her marriage to Lieberman. Henner says she has hyperthymesia and can remember the specific details of her everyday life since she was a small child. On December 19, 2010, CBS's "60 Minutes" aired a segment which featured six individuals thought to have this condition. A longtime friend of 60 Minutes correspondent Lesley Stahl, Henner was included on show. She discussed her memory further on CBS’ "The Early Show", NBC’s "The Today Show", ABC’s "The View" and Howard Stern's Sirius XM show. Her ninth book, "Total Memory Makeover: Uncover Your Past, Take Charge of Your Future", is a New York Times best-seller and offers instruction on how people might access their own autobiographical memories; it was released on April 24, 2012. To promote "Total Memory Makeover", she appeared on "Anderson Live" (Then known as simply "Anderson"), "The View", "Piers Morgan Tonight", "Good Morning America", "CBS This Morning", "The Talk", and numerous other radio and TV media outlets.
585757	Priyanka Nair is an Indian model-turned-actress who works mainly in Malayalam-language films. She made her debut in the Tamil film "Veyyil" in 2006. Career. Priyanka completed her Plus Two and studied Physics at the Mar Ivanios College in Trivandrum, Kerala. During that time, she was also acting part-time in several Malayalam television series including "Umakkuyil", "Megham" and "Akashadoothu". She considered acting in serials as "just time pass" and went on to add that she never intended to act in films, but rather wanted to be a lecturer. She made her feature film debut in the Vasanthabalan-directed Tamil drama film "Veyyil" (2006) that was produced by director Shankar, in which she starred along with Pasupathy. Her debut Malayalam film was "Kichamani MBA" (2007) that featured her in a supporting role. The following year she starred in T. V. Chandran's "Vilapangalkkappuram" along with Suhasini and Biju Menon; her performance earned her the Kerala State Film Award for Best Actress. Rediff named her the top Malayalam actress of 2009, citing that she "came up with a scintillating performance". She rose to popularity after appearing opposite Mohanlal in "Ividam Swargamanu". Awards. Asianet Film Award
1095441	Joseph Valentin Boussinesq () (13 March 1842 – 19 February 1929) was a French mathematician and physicist who made significant contributions to the theory of hydrodynamics, vibration, light, and heat. From 1872 to 1886, he was appointed professor at Faculty of Sciences of Lille, lecturing differential and integral calculus at Institut industriel du Nord (École centrale de Lille). From 1896 to his retirement in 1918, he was professor of mechanics at Faculty of Sciences of Paris. John Scott Russell experimentally observed his great solitary wave of translation in 1834 and reported it during the 1844 Meeting of the British Association for the advancement of science. Subsequently this was developed into the modern physics of solitons. In 1871, Boussinesq published the first mathematical theory to support Russell's experimental observation, and in 1877 introduced the KdV equation. In 1876, Lord Rayleigh published his mathematical theory to support Russell's experimental observation. At the end of his paper, Lord Rayleigh admitted that Boussinesq's theory came before his. In 1897 he published "Théorie de l' écoulement tourbillonnant et tumultueux des liquides," a work that greatly contributed to the study of turbulence and hydrodynamics. The word "turbulence" was never used by Boussinesq. He used sentences such as "écoulement tourbillonnant et tumultueux". The first mention of the word "turbulence" in French or English scientific fluid mechanics literature (the word "turbulence" existed in other context) can be found in a paper by Lord Kelvin in 1887.
1163547	John Hodiak (April 16, 1914 – October 19, 1955) was an American actor who worked in radio, stage and film.
1510765	At the Death House Door is a 2008 documentary film about Carroll Pickett, who served as the death house chaplain to the infamous "Walls" prison unit in Huntsville, Texas. It was produced and directed by the team of Steve James and Peter Gilbert, co-produced by Zak Piper and Aaron Wickenden. James and Gilbert had previously worked together on the well-received Kartemquin Films documentary "Hoop Dreams", on which James was the producer and director and Gilbert served as producer and director of photography. The film was produced by Kartemquin Films in association with the "Chicago Tribune", which provided partial funding. Synopsis. Pickett presided over 95 executions in his 15 year career, including the very first by lethal injection. He kept his feelings about his work from his family, instead audiotaping an account of each one. Initially pro-execution, he became an anti-death penalty activist. Pickett was most affected by the execution of Carlos DeLuna in 1989. He firmly believed in De Luna's innocence. In 2006, "Chicago Tribune" reporters Maurice Possley and Steve Mills published a detailed investigation suggesting that another man had committed the crime for which De Luna was executed, and the film recounts the evidence brought forth in that investigation.
586485	Preetika Rao, is an Indian Model, Writer and South Indian Actress. After a successful career in Modelling and then as a Film Journalist, she made her Tamil debut opposite the very popular Arya in the December 2010 Tamil romantic film "Chikku Bukku". Early life. Preetika was born in Mangalore and brought up in Mumbai. Her father owns a prominent advertising agency in Mumbai while her mother is a house-wife. Her elder sister, Amrita Rao, is an Award wining Bollywood Actress. Preetika has graduated Majoring in History from Sophia College, Mumbai while also acquiring a Diploma in Advertising and Journalism. Career. Preetika Rao started her Modeling career at first year college, in an Advertisement for Cadbury Dairy Milk alongside the Legendary Actor Amitabh Bachchan and there on featured in several prestigious ad campaigns not only in India but also for Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Indonesia. Preetika also had her own Bollywood column with "South Side" Movie Magazine in Chennai where she contributed from Mumbai. During her time as a Columnist, Preetika also contributed as a film -journalist to articles in the Deccan Chronicle and the Asian Age Mumbai. She also reviewed movies for a short span for film portal www.india-forums.com . Preetika currently holds a post with the Bangalore Mirror. Preetika's debut in cinema was the December 2010 Tamil romantic film, "Chikku Bukku", with Arya which also featured Shriya Saran. She was approached for the lead role after director Manikandan spotted her Column Picture in Southside magazine, a role originally conceptualized for Vidya Balan. Preetika played the role of a Tamil Brahmin girl from the 1980s settled in Karaikudi who falls in love with Arya, and to prepare for her role she took Tamil diction lessons from her grandmother, who was born in Tamil Nadu. Post-release, her portrayal has won critical acclaim, with a critic from "Rediff" claiming that Preetika "walks away with the honours" and looks "fresh and appealing", whilst "Sify"'s review cites that she has a "scorching screen presence" and is "promising". Preetika was next seen in the romance film "Priyudu", which marked her Telugu film debut in 2011 where she was paired opposite Varun Sandesh and received positive reviews for her performance. Radhika Rajamani of "Rediff" wrote that Preetika "makes a convincing and impressive debut with the necessary confidence, acting skills and oomph factor. She's sure to go a long way in films". Her last movie commitment is her Kannada debut, a movie shot in Singapore, titled " Rebel " with co-star Adithya. The film is being directed by seven times National Award winning director Rajendra Singh Babu and has an impressive star-cast including the famous yesteryear's actress Suhasini Mani Ratnam in the lead.
585070	Snehamante Idera () (dubbed into Hindi in 2007 as Naya Jigar) is a 2001 film directed by Bala Sekharan and produced by R.B. Chowdary. The film stars Akkineni Nagarjuna, Sumanth, Bhoomika Chawla, Sudhakar and Pratyusha. It's a remake of Malayalam film "Friends". It had an average run at the box office. Plot. Aravind (Akkineni Nagarjuna), Chandru (Sumanth) and Krishna Murthy (Sudhakar) are childhood friends. Chandru and Krishna Murthy are orphans, who are generously brought up by the parents of Aravind. By the time they reach their 20's, Aravind's sister Amrita (Pratyusha) falls in love with Chandru. Chandru hesitates to love her, as she is the sister of his close friend. Chandru seeks the help of Krishna Murthy to avoid Amrita. After the entire episode, Aravind and Chandru go to Hyderabad to work with Krishna Murthy. When this trio is assigned to renovate an old palatial house, Aravind encounters Padmini (Bhoomika Chawla). A mischief by the jealous cousin of Padmini results Aravind falling for Padmini. When Padmini is about to get engaged to another guy, Chandru announces that Padmini cheated Aravind after loving him. The rest of the film is about how the two pairs (Arvind - Padmini and Chandru - Amrita) unite.
1069783	Colin Clive (20 January 1900 – 25 June 1937) was an English stage and screen actor best remembered for his portrayal of Dr. Frankenstein in James Whale's two Universal Frankenstein films "Frankenstein" and "Bride of Frankenstein". Clive of India was his ancestor. Early life. Clive was born in Saint-Malo, France, to an English colonel, Colonel Colin Philip Greig and his wife, Caroline Margaret Lugard Clive. He attended Stonyhurst College and subsequently Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, where an injured knee disqualified him from military service and contributed to his becoming a stage actor. On stage, one of his roles was Steve Baker, the white husband of racially mixed Julie LaVerne, in the first London production of "Show Boat". This production also featured Sir Cedric Hardwicke and Paul Robeson. Clive first worked with James Whale in the Savoy Theatre production of "Journey's End" and subsequently joined the British community in Hollywood in the 1930s, repeating his stage role in the 1930 film version of "Journey's End", which was directed by Whale. Hollywood. Although Colin Clive made only three horror films, Whale's two Frankenstein films and "Mad Love" (1935), he is widely regarded as one of the essential stars of the genre by many film buffs. His portrayal of the manic Henry Frankenstein has proved inspiration and a launching pad for scores of other mad scientist performances in films over the years. Clive's first screen role, in "Journey's End", was also directed by James Whale. Clive played the alcoholic and tormented Captain Stanhope, a character that (much like Clive's other roles) tragically mirrored his personal life. Clive was also an in-demand leading man for a number of major film actresses of the era, including Katharine Hepburn, Bette Davis, Corinne Griffith and Jean Arthur. He also starred as Edward Rochester in a 1934 adaptation of "Jane Eyre" opposite Virginia Bruce. He was related to Clive of India and appeared in a featured role in a film biography of his relative in 1935. From June 1929 until his death, Clive was married to actress Jeanne de Casalis. Although she worked in films and on stage, her greatest success was as a comedienne on radio sitcoms in England, playing the dithering "Mrs. Feather". De Casalis did not accompany her husband to Hollywood. There has been speculation that de Casalis was a lesbian and Clive either gay or bisexual, meaning that they were in a lavender marriage. David Lewis, the longtime companion of Clive's frequent director James Whale, flatly states that Clive was not gay. Death. Colin Clive suffered from severe chronic alcoholism and died from complications of tuberculosis in 1937 at age 37. Clive's alcoholism was very much apparent to his co-stars, as he was often seen napping on set and sometimes was so intoxicated that he had to be held upright for over-the-shoulder shots. Clive was also tormented by the medical threat of amputating his long-damaged leg. Forrest J Ackerman recalls visiting Clive's body in the funeral parlour. "As I recall, he had a dressing gown on and he was calmly lying there. And he looked very much like that scene in "Bride"". Over 300 mourners turned out. One of the pallbearers was Peter Lorre. His cenotaph is located at Chapel of the Pines Crematory, but his ashes were scattered at sea in 1978 after they spent over 40 years unclaimed in the basement of the funeral parlour where his body was brought after his death.
402352	Beau Jesse Garrett (born December 28, 1982) is an American actress and model. Early life. Garrett was born in Los Angeles, California, and grew up in Topanga, California. Career. She was first hired by GUESS in the late 1990s. She is currently a spokesmodel for Revlon cosmetics, along with Halle Berry, Jessica Biel, Jennifer Connelly and Jessica Alba, and has also modeled for "Double D Ranch" and "CosmoGirl". She is signed to Vision Model Management L.A. Garrett was the female lead in a music video for the song "Cold" by the band Crossfade. She starred in the horror film "Turistas" (2006) after beginning her career with three appearances on television episodes including a pilot, as well as appearances on "Entourage". She also appeared as Frankie Raye in "", the sequel to "Fantastic Four". In the spring of 2009, she filmed the 2010 movie "" in Vancouver, British Columbia, with her "Turistas" co-star Olivia Wilde. In 2010, Garrett also starred on the Season 6 "House" episode "Remorse", again with Wilde.
587279	Yash Pandit is a Bollywood and television actor most known as a lead in Rok Sako To Rok Lo and Bengali film Faltu and TV daily soap Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi. He is currently seen in Life OK's show Savitri. Personal life. His sisters Shrraddha Pandit and Shweta Pandit are Bollywood playback singers. Career. In his childhood he played Mandakini's son in the Raj Kapoor film Ram Teri Ganga Maili(as a baby in Mandakini's arms in the title song "Ram Teri Ganga Maili Hogayee..") and he also did Chetan Anand's Haathon Ki Lakeeren as a child artist. He has acted as a lead actor in films Rok Sako To Rok Lo, Yeh Kya Ho Raha Hai?, Mr Hot Mr Kool and Faltu and he appeared in TV serials Ghar Ki Lakshmi Betiyann as Siddharth, Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi as Lakshya Virani, Hum Dono Hain Alag Alag" as Tappu(Varun) and he did dance performances in a reality dance show Tyohaar Dhamaka on 9X.He has also acted in Star Plus's Tere Mere Sapne, Currently Playing The Male Lead Role Of Satya in Life OK's Savitri opposite Riddhi Dogra.
1057382	Sydney White also known as Sydney White and the Seven Dorks is a 2007 teen comedy film starring Amanda Bynes, Sara Paxton, and Matt Long, and based on the story of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Plot. Sydney White (Amanda Bynes) is the daughter of a plumber, Paul White (John Schneider). Her mother, a Kappa Sorority member, died when Sydney was still young. She sets off to study in a SAU and to pledge to her mother's once dignified sorority. There she meets Demetria Rosemead Hotchkiss (Crystal Hunt), known as Dinky, also an upcoming member of the Kappa Sorority, and the two quickly become friends. While on their way to their dorm, she meets Tyler Prince (Matt Long), the president of a fraternity, and the on-off boyfriend of the tyrannical president of the student council and the head of the Kappa Sorority, Rachel Witchburn (Sara Paxton). Rachel often checks out her university's website that ranks the "hottest" in the school, and she always finds herself to be number one.
1264123	Araminta Estelle "Minta" Durfee (October 1, 1889 – September 9, 1975) was an American silent film actress from Los Angeles, California, possibly best known for her role in "Mickey" (1918). Biography. She met Roscoe Arbuckle when he was attempting to get started in theater and the two married in August 1908. Durfee entered show business in local companies as a chorus girl at the age of seventeen. She was the first leading lady of Charlie Chaplin. Durfee and Arbuckle separated in 1921, just prior to a scandal involving the death of starlet Virginia Rappe. There were three trials and finally Arbuckle was acquitted. His career was destroyed and he received few job offers. Durfee and Arbuckle were divorced in 1925. Durfee was quoted in her later years as saying Arbuckle was "the most generous human being I've ever met", and "if I had to do it all over again, I'd still marry the same man". Durfee was an avid defender of Mabel Normand who was a close friend, and spoke fondly of her until her own death. Durfee was a regular performer on television, appearing on such shows as "Noah's Ark" (1956). She had minor roles in motion pictures like "How Green Was My Valley" (1941), "Naughty Marietta" (1935), "Rose-Marie" (1936), "The Unsinkable Molly Brown" (1964), and "It's A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World" (1963). In later life, Durfee gave lectures on silent film and held retrospectives on her and her husband's pictures. She was surprised and excited by the renewed interest in silent film and did her best to help. Minta Durfee died in Woodland Hills, California at the Motion Picture Country Home in 1975. She suffered from a heart ailment.
1161865	Valerie Mahaffey (born June 16, 1953) is an American character actress and producer. She won an Emmy Award for her work on "Northern Exposure". She later won fame through her portrayal of extroverted and friendly but ultimately insane women on the television shows "Wings" and "Desperate Housewives". Early life. Mahaffey was born in Indonesia and moved to Austin, Texas at the age of 16. Mahaffey graduated from Austin High School and attended the BFA in University of Texas at Austin in 1975 and later made her Broadway debut in musical "Rex". Career. Mahaffey was regular cast member in the soap opera "The Doctors" from 1979 to 1981, which earned her a nomination for Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series in 1980. She starred in the film "Women of Valor" in 1986 and whilst the characters are fictitious, it portrayed women's roles in the Philippines during World War II. As of late 1980's, Mahaffey began acted in television comedies, like "Newhart", "Cheers", and "Seinfeld". From 1992–93, she starred in the short-lived NBC sitcom "The Powers That Be". She played Tracy Milford in the 1995 film "National Lampoon's Senior Trip" and Jan Kempster in the 1997 film "Jungle 2 Jungle". In 1999, she had a recurring role on "ER". In 2003, she starred in the film "Seabiscuit". In 2009, she appeared in seven episodes "United States of Tara". Her stage credits include "Eastern Standard", "Talking Heads", "Top Girls", and "Rex". Mahaffey won Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series for her performance as the chronic hypochondriac Eve in the CBS series "Northern Exposure" in 1992. Mahaffey was the only actor from the series to win an Emmy Award. Mahaffey played Alma Hodge in season 3 of ABC comedy-drama series "Desperate Housewives" from 2006 to 2007. Mahaffey has made guest appearances on "Quantum Leap", "L.A. Law", "Ally McBeal", "Judging Amy", "The West Wing", ', "Frasier", ', "Private Practice", "Boston Legal", "Without a Trace", and "Raising Hope". She also appeared on "Glee" as the mother of Emma Pillsbury from 2011 to 2013. Mahaffey co-starred as Fran Horowitz in short-lived TNT medical drama "Monday Mornings" in 2013. Also in 2013, she had a recurring role on Lifetime Television comedy-drama series "Devious Maids" as Olivia Rice. Personal life. Mahaffey is married to Joseph Kell, with whom she has one child.
585766	Valyettan (Malayalam : വല്ല്യേട്ടന്‍) is a 2000 Malayalam action film directed by Shaji Kailas. Scripted by Ranjith, this film has Mammootty in the title lead role with Shobana, Siddique, Innocent, and Saikumar in leading roles. The film was a blockbuster . . Synopsis. Arakkal Kuttikrishnan Nair (Narayanan Nair) loses the civil case against Arackal Madhavanunni (Mammootty), his nephew, and has to give up the ancestral home, which he has been holding illegally for past long years. Patteri Shivaraman Nair (Saikumar), son of Kuttikrishnan Nair, takes it as a presitige issue and decides to finish out Madhavanunni, with the help of Nedungadi (Bheeman Raghu), his trusted lieutenant. Sivaraman Nair has a deep hatred and enmity towards Madhavanuni since childhood and both had involved in several fist fights from then. Nedungadi sends Varoli Abu (Kollam Ajith) to shoot down either Madhavanunni or one among his brothers on their arrival at the house. But the timely intervention of Madhavanunni saves all. Madhavanunni is a self made rich businessman, who owns several properties inside and outside Kerala. After the suicide of his parents, he alone had taken care of his younger brothers Raghu (Siddique), Dasan (Manoj K. Jayan), Appu (Vijayakumar) and Shankaran Kutty (Sudheesh), who all love and respect him than anything on this world. Ramankutty Kaimal (Innocent), their well wisher and old care taker of their property also enjoys a good relationship with Madhavanunni. Appu, at his college, is harassed by the son of Mambaram Bava Haji (N. F. Varghese). With the help of Kattipalli Pappan (Kalabhavan Mani), a criminal, he thrashes him out, but dies accidentally. Appu gets arrested for the murder, but is released on bail. Kattipalli Pappan is arrested for the murder, who while going to jail requests Madhavanuni to take care of his sister Lakshmi (Poornima Mohan), which Madhavanuni accepts. Madhavanunni brings Lakshmi to his home and is treated as a member of their family. Mayambaram Bawa Haji is now looking for a chance to avenge Madhavanunni for his son's death. Patteri Sivaraman lends a helping hand to Bawa Haji. One day Lakshmi is found dead at the pond and again Appu is arrested for it. Upon release from jail, Pappan is back to kill Appu for murdering his sister. But he later comes to know that it is not Appu, but Patteri Shivaraman, behind the crime to frame Appu. The rest of the story is how Madhavanunni saves Appu from jail and revenges back at Shivaraman once and for all.
1163932	Beatrice Whitney Straight (August 2, 1914 – April 7, 2001) was an American theatre, film, and television actress. In her role in the 1976 film "Network," she was on screen for five minutes and forty seconds, the shortest performance ever to win an Academy Award for acting, in this case for best supporting actress. She also received an Emmy nomination for her role in "The Dain Curse". Straight can also be recognized as Dr. Lesh in "Poltergeist". Life and career. Born in Old Westbury, New York, Straight was the daughter of investment banker Willard Dickerman Straight and Dorothy Payne Whitney. Her maternal grandfather was political leader and financier William Collins Whitney. She was four years old when her father died in France of influenza during the great epidemic while serving with the US Army during World War I.
520427	Kristoffer Lou Ryan Agoncillo (born April 10, 1977), popularly known as Ryan Agoncillo, is a Filipino Film and Television actor, model, singer, photographer, and TV host. Early life. Agoncillo was born on April 10, 1979. Growing up in an upper-middle-class family, he attended private schools from elementary to college. He finished elementary and high school at San Beda College-Alabang. He graduated from De La Salle University-Manila with a Bachelor of Arts degree, major in Organizational Communication. Showbiz career. Agoncillo started modeling at the age of fifteen (15). He has appeared in various television commercials for a variety of products such as Greenwich Pizza (together with Donita Rose), Sprite, Smart Telecommunication, Emperador Brandy and Swish mouthwash. Agoncillo became one of the original hosts of "Mornings at GMA", an early morning variety program of GMA Network. He also hosted "Campus Video", a short-lived program shown every Saturday mornings at GMA Network. He moved to ABS-CBN, and became a co-host in "Talk TV", a late morning talk show co-hosted by broadcasters Julius Babao and Christine Bersola-Babao, and actress Janette McBride. Agoncillo was briefly paired with co-host Janet McBride. Rumors spread that the two were exclusively dating for a period of time. He also hosted "Breakfast", an early morning variety program; Star in a Million, with Edu Manzano and Zsa zsa Padilla and "Y-Speak", a youth-oriented talk show and debate forum. Both shows are still aired in Studio 23, an ABS-CBN subsidiary. He won his first KBP Golden Dove Awards for his Best Talk Show host in 2005 for Studio 23's "Y-Speak". Agoncillo was the main host of "Philippine Idol" alongside fellow ABS-CBN actress Heart Evangelista on ABC-5 (now TV5) before it was moved to GMA Network and rebooted into "Pinoy Idol". He returned to hosting with TV5's "Talentadong Pinoy", which showcases Filipino undiscovered talents. He also hosts Endemol's "Pinoy Fear Factor" which airs over ABS-CBN. "Pinoy Fear Factor" was shot entirely in Argentina. On March 16, 2009, Ryan joined "Eat Bulaga!" replaced by long-time host, rapper Francis Magalona. Agoncillo is now an Aliw Award Hall of Famer as Best Male Emcee. Acting. Agoncillo joined the talent cast of ABS-CBN. He is most memorable for playing the love interest of Judy Ann Santos in the television soap opera "Krystala". He again appeared with Santos in the movie "Kasal, Kasali, Kasalo". He received best actor nominations from different award-giving bodies for his portrayal of a confused newly wed husband in this film. He will be doing a new movie with Judy Ann Santos called "Mr. Housewife". He also played a main cast role in "Bituing Walang Ningning", an ABS-CBN soap opera featuring singer-actresses Sarah Geronimo, Angelika dela Cruz, and Zsa Zsa Padilla in the leads. Agoncillo also played leading roles in independent film projects and television drama shows. He played the distinct roles of a grease-filled beggar and a transvestite in two separate dramatic episodes of "Maalaala Mo Kaya", the biographical drama series of ABS-CBN. He topbilled ABS-CBN teleserye, "Ysabella" with his long-time on-screen partner, Judy Ann Santos. Agoncillo returns to acting on TV with drama series entitled "Pieta" airing weekday afternoons over ABS-CBN wherein he portrayed Rigor, a character originally portrayed by Ace Vergel. Agoncillo returns to acting again for his new role in May Bukas Pa (in a final episode) where he plays a media cameraman after his wife Judy Ann Santos also guested in the show (in a different episodes). Photography. Ryan had a one-man colored photo exhibit at the Glorietta mall sponsored by Fujifilm in 2007. He published a black-and-white photography coffeetable book titled "Ploning - the Making" as a birthday gift to his fiancee, Judy Ann Santos in 2008. Motoring. Ryan Agoncillo is a motorcycle enthusiast. He is also into drifting. He competes in drifting events with a Nissan Silvia (S13) sponsored by Adidas, Yellow Cab Pizza, Shell and Nexen Tire. Personal life. Ryan announced his engagement to actress Judy Ann Santos. They confirmed their engagement on June 19, 2008. After months of speculation, Ryan Agoncillo and Judy Ann Santos got married in a private wedding on the early morning of April 28, 2009, at the San Juan de Nepomuceno Church in San Juan, Batangas, Philippines. Ryan and Judy Ann Agoncillo are now parents to Johanna Louis (Yohan) and Juan Luis (Lucho).
584345	Manathil Uruthi Vendum is a 1987 Indian Tamil language Drama film directed by K. Balachander starring Suhasini, S. P. Balasubrahmanyam, Ramesh Aravind, Sridhar, Vivek, Lalithakumari and Yamuna. Rajinikanth, Sathyaraj, and Vijayakanth make guest appearances. Plot. This is the story of Nandini, a nurse, played brilliantly by Suhasini. She is the sole bread winner of her huge family who faces many hurdles in her life including a divorce, loss of a brother, an eloped sister, a failed second romance and an organ donation. She handles them with dignity and wins the hearts of one and all including her suspicious ex-husband when she donates him her kidney. S. P. Balasubrahmanyam plays the role of a dedicated Doctor, who inspires Nandini to take the ultimate decision in life to continue serving her patients. Soundtrack. The music composed by Ilaiyaraaja while lyrics written by Vaali.
1058347	Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid is a 1973 American Western drama film directed by Sam Peckinpah and starring James Coburn, Kris Kristofferson, and Bob Dylan. Written by Rudy Wurlitzer, the film is about an aging Pat Garrett, hired as a lawman by a group of wealthy New Mexico cattle barons to bring down his old friend Billy the Kid. Dylan composed several songs for the movie's score and soundtrack album "Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid", which was released the same year. Filmed on location in Durango, Mexico, the film was nominated for two BAFTA Awards for Film Music (Bob Dylan) and Most Promising Newcomer (Kris Kristofferson). The film was also nominated for a Grammy Award for Album of Best Original Score (Bob Dylan). The film was noted for behind-the-scenes battles between Peckinpah and the production company Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Soon after completion, the film was taken away from the director and substantially re-edited, resulting in a truncated version released to theaters and largely disowned by cast and crew members. Peckinpah's preview version was released on video in 1988, leading to a re-evaluation, with many critics hailing it as a mistreated classic and one of the era's best films. The film is ranked 126th on "Empire" magazine's list of "The 500 Greatest Movies of All Time". Plot. In 1881 in Old Fort Sumner, New Mexico, William H. Bonney, known as Billy the Kid (Kris Kristofferson), is passing the time with friends shooting chickens for fun. An old friend of Billy's, Pat Garrett (James Coburn), rides into town with Deputy Sheriff J.W. Bell (Matt Clark) and joins the diversion. Later, over drinks, Garrett informs Billy that the electorate want him out of the country, and that in five days, when he becomes Sheriff of Lincoln County, he'll make him leave. Six days later, Garrett and his deputies surround the small farmhouse where Billy and his gang are holed up. In the ensuing gun battle, Charlie Bowdre (Charles Martin Smith) and several other men on both sides are killed, and Billy is taken prisoner. As Billy awaits his execution in the Lincoln County Jail for the killing of Buckshot Roberts, he is taunted and beaten by self-righteous Deputy Sheriff Bob Ollinger (R.G. Armstrong) while the hangman's gallows are being built nearby. After J.W. Bell intervenes, Ollinger leaves to get a drink. Billy finds a gun hidden for him in the outhouse and gets the drop on Bell, shooting him in the back. He quickly retrieves Ollinger's shotgun loaded with "sixteen thin dimes" and shoots Ollinger dead in the street, saying, "Keep the change, Bob." After Garrett recruits a new deputy sheriff named Alamosa Bill Kermit (Jack Elam), he rides to Santa Fe to meet with Gov. Lew Wallace (Jason Robards) who introduces him to several powerful men from the Santa Fe Ring. They offer him a thousand dollars for the capture of Billy the Kid, but Garrett rejects their money, saying he will bring him in anyway. Meanwhile, Bill returns to his gang at Old Fort Sumner where he decides to lay back for a few days. Soon after his arrival, Billy is confronted by three strangers looking to kill him; all three are killed in the subsequent shootout, helped by another stranger named Alias (Bob Dylan) who kills one of the men with a knife through the neck. Alias had witnessed Billy's escape from the Lincoln County Jail. Meanwhile, Garrett meets up with Sheriff Colin Baker (Slim Pickens) hoping he can provide information on Billy's whereabouts. Garrett, Baker, and his wife (Katy Jurado) go to arrest some of Billy's old gang, and in the gunfight that follows, the gang members are killed and Baker is mortally wounded. Garrett looks on as Baker's wife comforts the dying lawman as he waits to die by a river. Later that evening, Garrett watches a barge floating down a river with a man shooting bottles in the water. Garrett shoots at one bottle and the two face each other briefly from a distance before lowering their rifles. Soon after, Garrett is joined by a glory seeking John W. Poe (John Beck) who works for the Santa Fe Ring. The two ride southwest to meet John Chisum, a wealthy cattle baron in the region, who informs them that Billy has been rustling his cattle again and killed some of his men. Billy once worked for Chisum and claims Chisum owes him backsalary. Anticipating Garrett's arrival in Old Fort Sumner, Billy's friend Paco (Emilio Fernández) and his family leave for Old Mexico, soon followed by Billy. Along the way, he stops at the Horrell Trading Post, which is owned by an old friend. By chance, Horrell is hosting Garrett's new deputy, Alamosa Bill. After they finish eating, Billy and Alamosa step outside and take the ten paces, and Billy shoots Alamosa dead. The deputy's last words are, "At least I'll be remembered." As Billy continues south toward Old Mexico, he comes across some of Chisum's men murdering his friend Paco and raping his wife. Billy shoots them dead, and after Paco dies in his arms, Billy heads back to Old Fort Sumner. Garrett and Poe stop at a saloon owned by Lemuel Jones (Chill Wills) and Garret tells Poe to ride east then south and that Garrett will pick him up in Roswell in five or six days. After Poe leaves, three members of Billy's gang come into the saloon. After killing Holly (Richard Bright), Garrett tells Alias to give Billy a message that they had "a little drink together." Garrett leaves and rides into Roswell where he learns from a prostitute named Ruthie Lee at a brothel that Billy is in Fort Sumner. Garrett then has group sex with Ruthie Lee and other prostitutes. Poe arrives and finds Garrett in bed with the prostitutes and is disgusted with Garrett's behavior. Garrett tells Poe to bring the local Sheriff Kip McKinney (Richard Jaeckel), who is an old friend, to the saloon where Garrett enlists McKinney's help. The three men ride north to Fort Sumner. Garrett, McKinney, and Poe arrive outside Old Fort Sumner and wait until dark before moving in. Billy and Maria (Rita Coolidge) bed down in Pete Maxwell's extra bunk. While McKinney and Poe wait nearby, Garrett approaches the house, and hearing them make love, he waits outside on the porch. Later when Billy steps outside to get something to eat, Garrett enters Maxwell's house from a side door and waits in the darkness for his prey. After spotting the strangers outside the house, Billy goes back inside, sees Garrett and smiles. Garrett raises his gun and fires a bullet at Billy hitting him above the heart killing him, and then shoots his own image in a mirror. Garrett spends the night watching over the body of his old friend. The next morning, the townspeople of Old Fort Sumner gather to see the lifeless body of William H. Bonney. Sheriff Pat Garrett mounts his horse and rides out of town, with a small boy throwing stones at him. Twenty-eight years later in 1909 near Las Cruces, New Mexico, Garrett is riding with some associates when he is ambushed and killed by men working for the Santa Fe Ring, a group of powerful attorneys and land speculators. Production. The screenplay of "Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid" was written by Rudy Wurlitzer and was originally intended to be directed by Monte Hellman. The two had previously worked together on the acclaimed film "Two-Lane Blacktop" (1971). Sam Peckinpah became involved through the actor James Coburn, who wanted to play the legendary sheriff Pat Garrett. Peckinpah believed this was his chance to make a definitive statement on the Western genre, and complete the revision he had begun with "Ride the High Country" (1962) and "The Wild Bunch" (1969). Working with Wurlitzer, he rewrote the script in order to create a more cyclical narrative, and added a prologue and epilogue depicting Garrett's own assassination at the hands of the men who hired him to kill Billy the Kid. In the original script, Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid never met onscreen until the film's conclusion, and Wurlitzer reportedly resented Peckinpah's reworking of the narrative. Wurlitzer and Peckinpah had a strained relationship, and Wurlitzer would later write a book highly unfavorable to Peckinpah. After having initially considered Bo Hopkins for the part of Billy, Peckinpah eventually cast country music star Kris Kristofferson as the outlaw. Kristofferson was 36 when the film was made, playing 21-year-old Billy. Kristofferson's band would play small roles along with his then-wife Rita Coolidge. Kristofferson also brought Bob Dylan into the film. Initially hired to write the title song, Dylan eventually wrote the score and played the small role of "Alias". Peckinpah had never heard of Dylan before, but was reportedly moved by hearing Dylan play the proposed title song and hired him immediately. Among the songs written by Dylan for the film was "Knockin' on Heaven's Door," still regarded as one of rock music's most enduring anthems. Peckinpah deliberately cast his film's supporting roles with legendary Western character actors such as Chill Wills, Katy Jurado, Jack Elam, Slim Pickens, Barry Sullivan, Dub Taylor, R.G. Armstrong, Elisha Cook, Jr. and Paul Fix. Jason Robards, who had starred in Peckinpah's earlier films, the television production " Noon Wine" (1966) and "The Ballad of Cable Hogue" (1970), had a cameo appearance as the governor. The large supporting cast also included Richard Jaeckel, Charles Martin Smith, Harry Dean Stanton, Matt Clark, L.Q. Jones, Emilio Fernández, Aurora Clavel, Luke Askew, Jack Dodson, Richard Bright and John Beck. From the beginning, the film was plagued with production difficulties. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer President James Aubrey, for economic reasons, refused to give Peckinpah the time or budget required, forcing the director to rely on local crew members in the Mexican state of Durango. Multiple technical problems, including malfunctioning cameras, led to costly reshoots. Cast and crew members also came down with influenza. Aubrey objected to several scenes he considered superfluous to the film's plot, and Peckinpah and his crew reportedly worked weekends and lunch hours in order to secretly complete the sequences. Aubrey began to send telegrams to the set complaining about the number of camera setups Peckinpah used and the time spent to shoot specific scenes. According to the producer Gordon Carroll, the movie's set was "a battleground." Peckinpah was plagued by alcoholism, which he would struggle with for the remainder of his life. This, combined with his clashes with Aubrey and the studio led to Peckinpah's growing reputation as a difficult, unreliable filmmaker. Reportedly, when Dylan first arrived on the set, he and Kristofferson sat to watch dailies with Peckinpah. The director was so unhappy with the footage, he angrily stood on a folding chair and urinated on the screen. Similar stories began to reach Hollywood, prompting Peckinpah to purchase a full-page ad in the "Hollywood Reporter" mocking the rumors and the brass at MGM. Hollywood producers were not amused. The film finished 21 days behind schedule and $1.6 million over budget. Post-production controversy. By the time "Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid" was in the editing room, Peckinpah's relationship with the studio and his own producers had reached the breaking point. Aubrey, enraged by the cost and production overruns, demanded the film for an unrealistic release date. Peckinpah and his editors were forced into a desperate situation in order to finish on time. Furthermore, Aubrey still objected to several sequences in the film which he wanted removed, forcing Peckinpah to engage in protracted negotiations over the film's content. Adding to the problems, Bob Dylan had never done a feature film score before and Peckinpah's usual composer, Jerry Fielding, was unhappy with being relegated to a minor role in the scoring process. Peckinpah did complete a preview version of the film, which was shown to critics on at least one occasion. Martin Scorsese, who had just made "Mean Streets" (1973), was at the screening, and praised the film as Peckinpah's greatest since "The Wild Bunch". This version, however, would not see the light of day for over ten years. Peckinpah was eventually forced out of the production and Aubrey had the film severely cut from 124 to 106 minutes, resulting in the film being released as a truncated version largely disowned by cast and crew members. This version was a box-office failure, grossing $8 million domestically, of which the studio earned only $2.7 million in theatrical rentals, against a budget of more than $4.6 million. However, the film grossed a total of $11 million worldwide. The film was also panned by most major critics, who had harbored high expectations for the director's first Western since "The Wild Bunch". Roger Ebert rated the film two stars out of four, beginning his review with "Sam Peckinpah attempted to have his name removed from "Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid." I sympathized with him. If this wasn't entirely his work, he shouldn't have had to take the blame." Ebert went on to note, "Another alarming factor is that no less than six editors are credited. Not assistant editors, but editors; this sets a modern-day record, I think. My guess is that there was an argument over the movie's final form, and that Peckinpah and MGM platooned editors at each other during the battle. You'd think the executives would have figured out that their only chance was to release the movie as Peckinpah made it; audiences were more interested in the new Peckinpah film than in still another rehash of Billy the Kid." The film remained something of an enigma for the next decade, with rumors flying about other versions and the nature of what had been left out of the release version. Peckinpah himself was in possession of his own preview version, which he often showed to friends as his own definitive vision of the film. Rediscovery. In 1988, Turner Home Entertainment, with distribution by MGM, released Peckinpah's preview version of "Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid" on video and Laserdisc. This version led to a rediscovery and reevaluation of the film, with many critics praising it as a lost masterpiece and proof of Peckinpah's vision as a filmmaker at this time. The film's reputation has grown substantially since this version was released, and the film has come to be regarded as something of a modern classic, equal in many ways to Peckinpah's earlier films. Kristofferson noted in an interview, though, that Peckinpah had felt Dylan had been pushed on him by the studio and thus left "Knocking on Heaven's Door" out of the preview version. In Kristofferson's opinion, "Heaven's Door" "was the strongest use of music that I had ever seen in a film. Unfortunately Sam ... had a blind spot there." In 2005, a DVD of the film distributed by Warner Brothers was released containing the preview version as well as a new special edition which combined elements of the theatrical version, the preview version, and several new scenes never released in the previous versions. This third version of the film, known as the "special edition", runs slightly shorter than the preview version.
1182653	Tatyana Marisol Ali (born January 24, 1979) is an American actress and R&B singer, best known for her childhood role as Ashley Banks on the NBC sitcom "The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air". Since January 2010, she has starred as Tyana Jones on the TV One original sitcom "Love That Girl!", and has had a recurring role as Roxanne on the CBS soap opera "The Young and the Restless". Early life. Tatyana Ali is the oldest daughter (she has two younger sisters) of an Afro-Panamanian mother and a Trinidadian father of East Indian descent. Career. By the age of six, she had begun her acting career, as a regular child performer on "Sesame Street" starting in 1985, even appearing with Herbie Hancock in a musical number. She also appeared twice on "Star Search".
1084987	Renaldo and Clara is a 1978 American film directed by Bob Dylan and starring Bob Dylan, Sara Dylan, and Joan Baez. Written by Dylan and Sam Shepard, the film incorporates three distinct film genres: concert footage, documentary interviews, and dramatic fictional vignettes reflective of Dylan's song lyrics and life. Filmed in the fall of 1975 prior to and during Bob Dylan's Rolling Thunder Revue tour, the film features appearances and performances by Ronee Blakley, T-Bone Burnett, Jack Elliott, Allen Ginsberg, Arlo Guthrie, Ronnie Hawkins, Roger McGuinn, Joni Mitchell, Mick Ronson, Arlen Roth, Sam Shepard, and Harry Dean Stanton. "Renaldo and Clara" was released in its original four-hour form on January 25, 1978 in the United States. Its limited release in theaters in New York City, Los Angeles, and other cities was discontinued after a few weeks following widespread negative reviews. "Renaldo and Clara" won the Interfilm Award at the Mannheim-Heidelberg International Filmfestival in 1978. Production. "Renaldo and Clara" was written by Bob Dylan and Sam Shepard. Most of the performers are musicians or members of Dylan's inner circle; the only professional actors in the cast are Sam Shepard, Harry Dean Stanton, Helena Kallianiotes, and Ronee Blakley. The style, structure, and thematic elements of "Renaldo and Clara" were heavily influenced by the French film "Les Enfants du Paradis". Similarities between the two films include the use of whiteface (Dylan), the recurring flower, the woman in white (Baez), the on-stage and backstage scenes, and the dialogue of both films' climactic scenes. Also evident is the Cubist approach of the two films, allowing us to see the main characters from the different perspectives of various lovers. Running time is also relatively similar. Many of the artists performing with the Rolling Thunder Revue are featured in the film, which also includes clips of concert performances and footage of Rubin Carter, the subject of Dylan's song "Hurricane". The film also contains the last known footage of Phil Ochs, who is shown preparing to take the stage at Folk City in October 1975; he committed suicide six months later. The film also features a very charismatic appearance from another ill-fated musician, David Blue, who gives some insight into the mid/late 1960s New York City folk music scene while playing an extended game of pinball. Reception. Upon its theatrical release in 1978, "Renaldo and Clara" received poor reviews and its initial limited theatrical run was discontinued after a few weeks. After opening in New York City and Los Angeles, the only other cities where the original four-hour version was shown were Minneapolis, Boston, Kansas City, Stillwater, Oklahoma, Pittsfield, Maine (a sold-out one week run), and Vancouver, Canada. Later in 1978, Dylan allowed a two-hour edit of the film to be distributed. The shortened version focused more on the concert footage and omitted many of the dramatic scenes. It had a longer, low-profile run in wider distribution, but was not seen as commercially successful.
1259098	36 Fillette (known as Virgin or Junior Size 36 in English) is a 1988 French film starring Delphine Zentout and Oliver Parniere, directed by Catherine Breillat. It is the story of a sexually-curious and rebellious 14-year-old (played by 16-year-old Zentout) who has an emotionally-charged and dually-manipulative relationship with an aging playboy. Breillat is known for films focusing on sexuality, intimacy, gender conflict and sibling rivalry. Breillat has been the subject of controversy for her explicit depictions of sexuality. Plot. Lili, a pouty and voluptuous 14-year-old, is caravan camping with her family in Biarritz. She's self-aware and holds her own in a café conversation with a concert pianist she meets, but she has a wild streak and she's testing her powers over men, finding that she doesn't always control her moods or actions, and she's impatient with being a virgin. She sets off with her brother to a disco, latching onto an aging playboy who is himself hot and cold to her. She is ambivalent about losing her virginity that night, willing the next, and determined by the third. The playboy's mix of depression and misogyny ends their unconsummated affair, so Lili has to hunt elsewhere at the campground, eventually finding an awkward teen her own age who clumsily deflorates her.
1062003	Virginia Elizabeth "Geena" Davis (born January 21, 1956) is an American actress, film producer, writer, former fashion model, and a women's Olympics archery team semi-finalist. She is known for her roles in "Stuart Little", "The Fly", "Beetlejuice", "Thelma & Louise", "A League of Their Own", "The Long Kiss Goodnight" and "The Accidental Tourist", for which she won the 1988 Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. In 2005, she received the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Television Series Drama for her role in "Commander in Chief. Early life. Davis was born in Wareham, Massachusetts. Her mother, Lucille (née Cook), was a teacher's assistant, and her father, William F. Davis, was a civil engineer and church deacon; her parents had both been from small towns in Vermont. She has a brother named Danforth ("Dan"). At an early age, she became interested in music. She learned piano and flute and played organ well enough as a teenager to serve as an organist at her Congregationalist church in Wareham. Davis attended Wareham High School and was an exchange student in Sandviken, Sweden, becoming fluent in Swedish. Enrolling at New England College, she eventually graduated with a bachelor's degree in drama from Boston University in 1979. Davis is a member of Mensa, a social organization whose members are in the top 2% of intelligence as measured by an IQ test entrance exam. Career. Following her education, Davis served as a window mannequin for Ann Taylor until signing with New York's Zoli modeling agency in 1979. Davis auditioned for roles in many popular movies, including "The Terminator"’s Sarah Connor, which went to Linda Hamilton. She was working as a model when she was cast by director Sydney Pollack in his film "Tootsie" (1982) as a soap opera actress. She followed the role with the part of Wendy Killain in the short-lived television series "Buffalo Bill", which aired from June 1983 to March 1984. She also wrote the "Buffalo Bill" episode entitled "Miss WBFL." During the run of "Buffalo Bill", in 1983, Davis also appeared as Grace Fallon in an episode of "Knight Rider" entitled "K.I.T.T the Cat". Her television credits from the mid-1980s also include one episode of "Riptide", three episodes of "Family Ties", and an episode of "Remington Steele". This was followed by a series of her own, "Sara", which lasted thirteen episodes. After roles in "Fletch", "The Fly", and "Beetlejuice", Davis received an Oscar as Best Supporting Actress for her appearance in "The Accidental Tourist" (1988), and a Best Actress nomination for her role in "Thelma & Louise" (1991). Davis replaced Debra Winger in the role of Dottie in "A League of Their Own" (1992), and received a Best Actress Golden Globe Award nomination for her performance. She then co-starred in "Hero" alongside Dustin Hoffman and Andy Garcia. Davis then teamed up with then-husband, director Renny Harlin, for the films "Cutthroat Island" and "The Long Kiss Goodnight" (both 1996). She and Harlin co-produced the films. Davis was nominated for the Saturn Awards for her performances as Samantha/Charlie in "The Long Kiss Goodnight", and as Eleanor Little in "Stuart Little" (1999), a role she reprised in 2002 and again in 2005. In 2000–2001, Davis starred in the short-lived sitcom "The Geena Davis Show". In early 2004 she guest-starred as Grace Adler's sister, Janet, on the NBC sitcom "Will & Grace". She went on to star in the ABC television series "Commander in Chief", portraying the first female President of the United States. This role garnered her a Golden Globe for Best Actress in a Drama Series in 2006, and she also was nominated for an Emmy Award and a SAG Award for Outstanding Female Actor in a Drama Series. Also in 2006, she was awarded the Women in Film Lucy Award. She starred in the Australian-produced, American-set "Accidents Happen", which was released in April 2010. Personal life. Davis was married to Richard Emmolo (March 25, 1982 – February 26, 1983); actor Jeff Goldblum, with whom she starred in three films, "Transylvania 6-5000", "The Fly" and "Earth Girls Are Easy" (1987 – 1990); and Renny Harlin, who directed her in "Cutthroat Island" and "The Long Kiss Goodnight" (1993 – 1998). On September 1, 2001, Davis married Reza Jarrahy, an Iranian-American plastic surgeon. At age 46, Davis gave birth to their daughter Alizeh Keshvar (born April 10, 2002). At age 48, she had twin boys, Kian William Jarrahy and Kaiis Steven (born May 6, 2004). Activism. Davis is fronting the Women's Sports Foundation campaign "Geena Takes Aim" in support of Title IX, an Act of Congress focusing on equality in sports opportunities, now expanded to prohibit gender discrimination in United States' educational institutions. In 2004, while watching children's television programs and videos with her daughter, Davis noticed what she thought was an imbalance in the ratio of male to female characters. Davis went on to sponsor the largest research project ever undertaken on gender in children's entertainment (resulting in 4 discrete studies, including one on children's television) at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Southern California. The study, directed by Dr. Stacy Smith, showed that there were nearly 3 males to every 1 female character in the nearly 400 G, PG, PG-13, and R-Rated movies the undergraduate team of Annenberg students analyzed. In 2005, Davis teamed up with the non-profit group Dads and Daughters to launch a venture dedicated to balancing the number of male and female characters in children's TV and movie programming. Davis launched The Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media in 2007. The Institute's first focus is an on-the-ground program that works collaboratively with the entertainment industry to dramatically increase the presence of female characters in media aimed at children and to reduce stereotyping of females by the male-dominated industry. For her work in this field she received an honorary Doctor of Fine Arts degree from Bates College in May 2009. In 2011, Davis became one of a handful of celebrities attached to USAID and Ad Council's FWD campaign, an awareness initiative tied to that year's East Africa drought. She joined Uma Thurman, Chanel Iman and Josh Hartnett in TV and internet ads to "forward the facts" about the crisis. Sports. Davis has stated that she was not an athlete growing up, and that her introduction to archery was in 1997, two years prior to her tryouts. In July 1999, Davis was one of 300 women who vied for a semifinals berth in the US Olympic archery team to participate in the Sydney 2000 Summer Olympics. She placed 24th of 300 and did not qualify for the team, but participated as a wild-card entry in the Sydney International Golden Arrow competition.
472619	Kadosh () ("lit." Sacred) is a 1999 film by Israeli director Amos Gitai. It was entered into the 1999 Cannes Film Festival. Plot. "Kadosh" is a bleak drama about the plight of women in Haredi society. In the opening scene, Meir (Yoram Hattab), a young Talmudic scholar, thanks God in his morning prayers for not being born a woman. At first, the marriage of Meir and his adoring wife, Rivka (Yael Abecassis), appears tender and idyllic, but as the day progresses it becomes clear that Meir is obsessed with the fact that he is childless after ten years of marriage. Rivka's younger sister, Malka, marries Yosef in a match arranged by their parents, but loves Yaakov, a rock singer, who has abandoned the religious community.
1056876	Three Fugitives is a 1989 crime-comedy film written and directed by Francis Veber, starring Nick Nolte and Martin Short, and featuring Sarah Rowland Doroff and James Earl Jones in supporting roles. It is a remake of "Les Fugitifs", a 1986 French comedy starring Gérard Depardieu and Pierre Richard also directed by Veber. Plot. Lucas (Nolte) has been in prison for armed robbery. On the day he is released, he gets taken hostage by Ned Perry (Short), an incompetent, novice criminal who robs a bank (to get money for treatment for his ill daughter, Meg) at the moment Lucas just happens to be there. Detective Duggan (Jones) assumes they must be in it together and sets about tracking them down. Several chases, an accidental shooting, treatment from a crazy vet and other capers follow, all the while Lucas trying to ditch his idiotic companion and prove his own innocence. Whilst avoiding the law, the two form an unlikely partnership to help cure the silent Meg and make good their escape. They rescue Meg from the care home she's in (with Perry nearly ruining the whole affair with his clumsiness) and flee for Canada, pretending to be a married couple with a son.
1062669	"Gentleman's Agreement" is a 1947 drama film about a journalist (played by Gregory Peck) who goes undercover as a Jew to conduct research for an exposé on antisemitism in New York City and the affluent community of Darien, Connecticut. It was nominated for eight Oscars and won three: Best Picture, Best Supporting Actress (Celeste Holm), and Best Director (Elia Kazan). The movie was controversial in its time as was a similar film on the same subject, "Crossfire", which was released the same year. "Gentleman's Agreement" was based on Laura Z. Hobson's 1947 novel of the same name. It was released on DVD as part of the 20th Century Fox Studio Classics collection. Plot. Philip Schuyler Green (Gregory Peck) is a widowed journalist who has just moved to New York City with his son Tommy (Dean Stockwell) and mother (Anne Revere). Green meets with magazine publisher John Minify (Albert Dekker), who asks Green, a gentile, to write an article on antisemitism ("some people don't like other people just because they're Jews"). He's not very enthusiastic at first, but after initially struggling with how to approach the topic in a fresh way, Green is inspired to adopt a Jewish identity ("Phil Greenberg") and writes about his first-hand experiences. Green and Minify agree to keep it secret that Phil is not Jewish; since he and his family are new to New York, it should be easy to hide. At a dinner party, Phil meets Minify's divorced niece Kathy Lacey (Dorothy McGuire), who turns out to be the person who originally suggested the story idea. Minify provides her with a large apartment and money. Kathy "works" as a pre-school teacher. The next day, Phil tries to explain anti-Jewish prejudice to his young, precocious son – directly after displaying some anti-female prejudice of his own. Green tells his mother that he's struck by the odd notion that the idea for the article came from "a girl" at the magazine. His mother replies, "Why, women will be thinking next". Phil and Kathy begin dating. Phil has considerable difficulty getting started on his assignment. Every angle he thinks of ends in a stone wall. It is only when his mother has heart pain in the middle of the night, and he must summon a doctor, that he realizes he can never feel what another person feels unless he experiences it himself. He recalls having "lived as an Okie on Route 66" or as a coalminer for previous writing jobs, instead of tapping a man on the shoulder and making him talk. That's when he decides to write, "I Was Jewish for Six Months". Though Kathy seems to have liberal views, when he reveals what he intends to do, she is taken aback and asks if he actually is Jewish. The strain on their relationship due to Kathy's subtle acquiescence to bigotry becomes a key theme in the film. At the magazine, Phil is assigned a secretary, Elaine Wales (June Havoc), who reveals that she, too is Jewish. She changed her name in order to get the job (her application under her real, Jewish-sounding name, Estelle Wilovsky, was rejected). After Phil informs Minify about Wales' experience, Minify orders the magazine to adopt hiring policies that are open to Jews. Wales has reservations about the new policy, fearing that the "wrong Jews" will be hired and ruin things for the few Jews working there now. Phil meets fashion editor Anne Dettrey (Celeste Holm), who becomes a good friend and potentially more, particularly as strains develop between Phil and Kathy. As Phil's assignment proceeds, his childhood friend, Dave Goldman (John Garfield), who is Jewish, moves to New York for a job and lives with the Greens while he looks for a home for his family. Housing is scarce in the city, but it is particularly difficult for Goldman, since not all landlords will rent to a Jewish family. When Phil tells Dave about his project, Dave is supportive, but concerned. As time goes on, Phil experiences several incidents of bigotry. When his mother becomes ill with a heart condition, the doctor discourages him from consulting a specialist with an obviously Jewish name, suggesting he might be cheated. When Phil reveals that he is himself Jewish, the doctor becomes uncomfortable and leaves. Also, when Phil wants to celebrate his honeymoon at a swanky hotel for rich people in the country, the hotel manager refuses to register Phil, because Phil is Jewish. Also, when Tommy's schoolmates learn that he is Jewish, he becomes the target of bullies. Phil is troubled by the way Kathy consoles Tommy, telling him their taunts of "dirty Jew" are wrong because he isn't Jewish, not that the epithet is wrong in and of itself. Kathy's attitudes are revealed further when she and Phil announce their engagement. Her sister Jane (Jane Wyatt) invites them to a celebration in her home in Darien, Connecticut, which is known to be a "restricted" community where Jews are not welcome. Fearing an awkward scene, Kathy wants to tell her family and friends that Phil is only pretending to be a Jew, but Phil prevails on Kathy to tell only Jane. At the party, everyone is very friendly to Phil, though many people are "unable" to attend at the last minute. Dave announces that he will have to quit his job because he cannot find a residence for his family. Kathy owns a vacant cottage in Darien, but though Phil sees it as the obvious solution to Dave's problem, Kathy is unwilling to offend her neighbors by renting it to a Jewish family. She and Phil break their engagement. Phil announces that he will be moving away from New York when his article is published. When it comes out, it is very well received by the magazine staff. Kathy meets with Dave and tells him how sick she felt when a party guest told a bigoted joke. However, she has no answer when Dave repeatedly asks her what she did about it. She comes to realize that remaining silent condones the prejudice. The next day, Dave tells Phil that he and his family will be moving into the cottage in Darien, and Kathy will be moving in with her sister next door to make sure they are treated well by their neighbors. When Phil hears this, he reconciles with Kathy. Production. Zanuck decided to make a film version of Hobson's novel after being refused membership in the Los Angeles Country Club, because it was assumed incorrectly that he was Jewish. Before filming commenced, Samuel Goldwyn and other Jewish film executives approached Darryl Zanuck and asked him not to make the film, fearing it would "stir up trouble". They also warned that Hays Code enforcer, Joseph Breen, might not allow the film to pass the censors, as he had been known to make disparaging remarks about Jews. There was also concern that Dorothy McGuire's character's being divorced would offend the National Legion of Decency. The role of Phillip Green was first offered to Cary Grant, but he turned it down. Peck decided to accept the role, although his agent advised him to refuse, believing Peck would be endangering his career. Jewish actor John Garfield agreed to play a lesser role in the film in order to be a part of it. Portions of the film were shot on location in Darien, Connecticut. Reception. "Gentleman's Agreement" received a generally favorable reception from influential "New York Times" critic Bosley Crowther. Crowther said that "every point about prejudice which Miss Hobson had to make in her book has been made with superior illustration and more graphic demonstration in the film, so that the sweep of her moral indignation is not only widened but intensified thereby." Crowther said that the movie shared the novel's failings in that "explorations are narrowly confined to the upper-class social and professional level to which he is immediately exposed." He also said the main character's shock at the extent of antisemitism was lacking in credibility: "it is, in a careful analysis, an extraordinarily naive role." In addition to winning Academy Awards for best picture and best director, "Gentleman's Agreement" was one of Fox's highest grossing movies of 1947. The political nature of the film, however, upset the House Un-American Activities Committee, with Elia Kazan, Darryl Zanuck, John Garfield, and Anne Revere's all being called to testify before the committee. Revere refused to testify outright and although Garfield appeared, he refused to "name names". Both were placed in the Red Channels of the Hollywood Blacklist. Garfield remained on the blacklist for one year, was called again to testify against his wife, and died of a heart attack at the age of 39 before his second hearing date. In recognition for producing "Gentleman's Agreement", the Hollywood chapter of B'nai B'rith International honored Darryl Zanuck as its "Man of the Year" for 1948. On Sunday, December 12, a gala commemoration evening was held in downtown Los Angeles, at the Biltmore Hotel, before a crowd of over a thousand. Among the tributes to Zanuck, New Mexico Senator Clinton Anderson said, “He does not storm up and down the streets of a community, urging its citizens to do good. He does not fill the pages of books with words that string together into a sermon. He allows you to be seated comfortably in a theater, to be absorbed in a problem and to walk out into the night with your thoughts clarified and your lips say, ‘This situation ought to be changed’.” After the formal speeches there was a tremendous, star-studded variety show, including the astonishing debut before the Hollywood film world of the team of Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis. Awards. The film won three Oscars: It was nominated for another five Oscars:
1224100	Julie Bovasso (August 1, 1930 – September 14, 1991) was an American actress of stage, screen and television. She was born in Brooklyn, New York to an Italian-American family. Career. Bovasso appeared in many films, including "Saturday Night Fever" and
1062161	Robert Oliver Reed (13 February 1938 – 2 May 1999) was an English actor known for his burly screen presence. Reed exemplified his real-life macho image in "tough guy" roles. His films include "The Trap", "Oliver!", "Women in Love", "Hannibal Brooks", "The Triple Echo", "The Devils", "The Three Musketeers", "Tommy", "Castaway", "Lion of the Desert" and "Gladiator". At the peak of his career, in 1971, British exhibitors voted Reed one of the most popular stars at the box office (5th). Early life. Reed was born Robert Oliver Reed in Wimbledon, London, to sports journalist Peter Reed and his wife Marcia (née Napier-Andrews). He was the nephew of film director Sir Carol Reed, and grandson of the actor-manager Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree by his alleged mistress May Pinney Reed. He was alleged to have been a descendant (through an illegitimate step) of Peter the Great, Tsar of Russia. Reed attended Ewell Castle School in Surrey. Oliver's brother is Simon Reed, who is a sports journalist and also works for British Eurosport. Career. After compulsory military service, in the Royal Army Medical Corps, Reed commenced his thespian career as an extra in films in the late 1950s. He had acting training or theatrical experience. He appeared uncredited in two Norman Wisdom films, "The Square Peg" (1958) and "The Bulldog Breed" (1960), in which Reed played the leader of a gang of Teddy Boys roughing up Wisdom in a cinema. Uncredited television appearances during this period include episodes of "The Invisible Man" (1958) and "The Four Just Men" (1959). Reed got his first significant roles in Hammer Films' "Sword of Sherwood Forest" (1960), "The Two Faces of Dr. Jekyll" (1960), "Captain Clegg" (1962), "Pirates of Blood River" (1962), "The Scarlet Blade" (1963) and "The Curse of the Werewolf" (1961). Reed also starred in "Paranoiac" and "The Damned" (1963). Reed also managed to release some recordings in a popular music vein, though with limited success. These included "Wild One"/"Lonely for a Girl" (1961), "Sometimes"/"Ecstasy" (1962), "Baby It's Cold Outside" (duet with Joyce Blair) and "Wild Thing" (1992) (duet with snooker ace Alex Higgins). Oliver also later narrated a track called "Walpurgis Nacht" by heavy metal band Death SS. In 1964 he starred in the first of six films directed by Michael Winner, "The System", (known as "The Girl-Getters" in the U.S.). More Hammer Films productions followed, such as "The Brigand Of Kandahar" (1965). He first collaborated with director Ken Russell in a TV biopic of Claude Debussy in 1965, and later played Dante Gabriel Rossetti in Russell's subsequent TV biopic "Dante's Inferno" (1967).
320546	The Price of Milk is a 2000 film from New Zealand. It was directed by Harry Sinclair. This film is set in rural New Zealand where a farmer, Rob (Karl Urban), gets engaged to his love, Lucinda (Danielle Cormack). However, Lucinda is worried about their relationship losing its spark and she continues pushing him to try and keep the spark alive. A string of quilt-nappings have been occurring around the town and when Lucinda finds hers, she is curious and reckless when she trades Rob's cows, worth NZ$400,000, to get it back. Rob is beyond words in his rage and loses his voice as he drives away, leaving Lucinda to worry for days before their planned wedding.
1501968	Ilene Susan Graff (born February 28, 1949) is an American actress and singer. The Brooklyn native began her professional career as a teenager when she performed as a background singer and commercial actress while attending Martin Van Buren High School in Queens Village. She graduated from Ithaca College in 1970. Graff's Broadway credits include "Promises, Promises", "Grease", "Truckload", and "I Love My Wife". Graff's television work includes "Barnaby Jones", "Laverne & Shirley", "Mork & Mindy", "Three's Company", "Lewis & Clark", and "St. Elsewhere". From 1985 until 1990, she played what is possibly her best known role, Marsha Owens, the wife of Bob Uecker's character, George, in the sitcom "Mr. Belvedere". In addition to her roles on television, Graff also appeared in the motion picture "Ladybugs" playing the girlfriend of Rodney Dangerfield and mother of Jonathan Brandis. Her most recent screen credit is the 2006 film "Loving Annabelle". Graff is the daughter of Jerry Graff, who was a member of the musical group The Pied Pipers. While performing in "Grease" she met and married composer Ben Lanzarone, and they have one daughter, Nikka, born 1983. She is the older sister of Tony Award-nominated actor, film producer, writer, film director and former Short Circus member Todd Graff and the cousin of Tony winner Randy Graff. She serves as the spokesperson for the AMC Cancer Research Center. Filmography. ... aka My Father (South Korea: DVD title) ... aka Rodgers & Hammerstein's South Pacific (USA: complete title) ... aka The Great American Sex Scandal - Love at First Sight/Love and the Judge (1986) TV episode
593536	Black Butterflies is a Dutch film about the life of South-African poet Ingrid Jonker. The film was directed by Paula van der Oest and premiered in the Netherlands on February 6 before being released on March 31, 2011. Although Jonker spoke and wrote in Afrikaans and the film is a Dutch production, the film is spoken in English. Plot. The film is a depiction of the life of Ingrid Jonker (1933–65) (played by Van Houten), an Afrikaner. Her mother has died in a mental hospital, she lives with her sister at her grandmother's. After the passing of her grandmother Ingrid and her sister come to live with their father Abraham (played by Hauer), who treats them as outsiders. Ingrid marries, and gives birth to a daughter, but the marriage does not last. It is the era of apartheid, of which her father is a strong proponent, being South Africa's Minister of Censorship. Ingrid is opposed to the apartheid regime, and has a strained relationship with her father. He opposes her relationship with author Jack Cope (played by Cunningham) and her anti-apartheid poetry, which is inciteful in his eyes. He would like to ban one of her works but doesn't, fearing a widespread riot. As Ingrid keeps opposing the regime in her poetry, their relationship becomes even more strained and he tells her he never wants to see her ever again. Reception. It holds a score of 73% on Rotten Tomatoes.
146734	Tzi Ma (; born June 10, 1962) is a Chinese-American actor who has made numerous appearances in American films and television series. Life and career. Ma was born in Hong Kong, the first of eight children. His film career includes major roles in the films "The Quiet American" and the remake of "The Ladykillers" as well as appearances in Asian American independent films "The Sensei", "Red Doors", "Catfish in Black Bean Sauce" and "Baby". He is recognized for his role as Consul Han in "Rush Hour" and in the third installment, "Rush Hour 3", as Ambassador Han. Tzi speaks English, Mandarin, and Cantonese. He is also known for his role as Cheng Zhi, the head of security for the Chinese Consulate (Los Angeles), on the TV series "24". He appeared in two episodes of season 4 and made an uncredited surprise return at the end of the final episode of season 5. He reprised his role again in the season premiere and the last eight episodes of season 6. He also voiced Bàba Ling, Francine's adoptive father, in the animated TV series "American Dad!". He has appeared in "Akeelah and the Bee" and thriller "Dante's Peak". He also had a role in the first season of "Martial Law" as Lee "Nemesis" Hei, first major antagonist and Sammo Law's arch-nemesis. Ma's other TV credits include guest appearances on "MacGyver", "Walker, Texas Ranger", "Law & Order", "ER", "Boomtown", "Commander in Chief", "Chicago Hope", "The Unit", ', "L.A. Law", "NYPD Blue", "Millennium", "Fringe", ', "Hawaii Five-0", "Lie to Me" and "The Cosby Show". Ma has received awards for his acting roles including the Cine Golden Eagle Award for being the Best Actor in "The Dance and The Railroad" and Garland Award for his acting in the "Flower Drum Song". Ma also landed a voice role in the video game "Sleeping Dogs". He also appeared on the hit ABC Series "Once Upon A Time" as "The Dragon". Ma is among the actors, producers, and directors interviewed in the documentary "The Slanted Screen" (2006), directed by Jeff Adachi, about the representation of Asian and Asian American men in Hollywood. Ma is married to actress Christina Ma.
709872	Christopher Clavius (25 March 1538 – 6 February 1612) was a German Jesuit mathematician and astronomer who modified the proposal of the modern Gregorian calendar after the death of its primary author, Luigi Lilio. Clavius would later write defences and an explanation of the reformed calendar, including an emphatic acknowledgement of Lilio's work. In his last years he was probably the most respected astronomer in Europe and his textbooks were used for astronomical education for over fifty years in and even out of Europe. Early life. Very little is known about Clavius' early life other than the fact that he was born in Bamberg in either 1538 or 1537. His given name is not known to any great degree of certainty—it is thought by scholars to be perhaps Christoph Clau or Klau. There are also some who think that his taken name, "Clavius", may be a Latinization of his original German name, suggesting that his name may have been "Schlüssel" (German for "key", which is "clavis" in Latin). Clavius joined the Jesuit order in 1555. He attended the University of Coimbra in Portugal, where it is possible that he had some kind of contact with the famous mathematician Pedro Nunes ("Petrus Nonius"). Following this he went to Italy and studied theology at the Jesuit Collegio Romano in Rome. In 1579 he was assigned to compute the basis for a reformed calendar that would stop the slow process in which the Church's holidays were drifting relative to the seasons of the year. Using the Prussian Tables of Erasmus Reinhold and building on the work of Aloysius Lilius, he proposed a calendar reform that was adopted in 1582 in Catholic countries by order of Pope Gregory XIII and is now the Gregorian calendar used worldwide. Within the Jesuit order, Clavius was almost single-handedly responsible for the adoption of a rigorous mathematics curriculum in an age where mathematics was often ridiculed by philosophers. In logic, Clavius' Law (inferring of the truth of a proposition from the inconsistency of its negation) is named after him. He used the decimal point in the goniometric tables of his "astrolabium" in 1593 and he was one of the first who used it in this way. Astronomy. As an astronomer Clavius held strictly to the geocentric model of the solar system, in which all the heavens rotate about the Earth. Though he opposed the heliocentric model of Copernicus, he recognized problems with the orthodox model. He was treated with great respect by Galileo, who visited him in 1611 and discussed the new observations being made with the telescope; Clavius had by that time accepted the new discoveries as genuine, though he retained doubts about the reality of the mountains on the Moon. Later, a large crater on the Moon was named in his honor. Selected works. Clavius' complete mathematical works (5 volumes, Mainz, 1612) are available online.
1065308	Faizon Andre Love (born June 14, 1968) is an American actor and comedian. He is best known for roles in the films "Friday", "Elf", "The Replacements", "Made", and "Couples Retreat". Life and career. Love was born Langston Faizon Santisima in Santiago de Cuba and grew up as a military brat; he was raised in San Diego, California and Newark, New Jersey because of his father's career in the United States Navy. Love got his start as a stand-up comedian and made his acting debut in an Off-Broadway at the age of 19. His motion-picture debut, "Bebe's Kids", had him providing the voice of comedian Robin Harris, who died before production began on the film; Love offered a close vocal impression of Harris. He then had a role in "The Meteor Man", starring Robert Townsend. Townsend then cast Love in a co-starring role on his sitcom "The Parent 'Hood". He followed up this role with a breakout performance as the drug dealer Big Worm in the 1995 film "Friday". Follow-up films have included "3 Strikes", "Elf", "Don't Be a Menace to South Central While Drinking Your Juice in the Hood", "Money Talks", "Wonderland", "The Fighting Temptations", and "Idlewild". In 2001, Love guest-starred in the Ludacris single "Freaky Thangs" from the album "Word of Mouf". The same year, he made a cameo appearance as a bus driver, in the music video for Lil Jon & The East Side Boys' single "Put Yo Hood Up". Love co-starred in "Couples Retreat" (2009), a comedy film chronicling four couples who partake in therapy sessions at a tropical island resort. In 2012, he played the role of Stringer Bell in the satirical trailer for "". In June of that year, Love started to appear in a series of commercials for the pre-paid wireless provider Boost Mobile, promoting its new 4G phones. Love will be filming "Matthew 18", an indie horror film in Minnesota.
1163846	Adolph "Harpo" Marx (later Arthur "Harpo" Marx) (November 23, 1888 – September 28, 1964) was an American comedian and film star. He was the second-oldest of the Marx Brothers. His comic style was influenced by clown and pantomime traditions. He wore a curly reddish blonde wig, and never spoke during performances (he blew a horn or whistled to communicate). Marx frequently used props such as a horn cane, made up of a lead pipe, tape, and a bulbhorn, and he played the harp in most of his films. Early life and career. Harpo was born in New York City. He grew up in a neighborhood now known as Carnegie Hill on the Upper East Side (E 93rd Street off Lexington Avenue) of Manhattan. The turn-of-the-century building that Harpo called "the first real home they ever knew" (in his memoir "Harpo Speaks"), was populated with European immigrants, mostly artisans – which even included a glass blower. Just across the street were the oldest brownstones in the area, owned by people like the well-connected Loew Brothers and William Orth. Harpo's parents were Sam Marx (called "Frenchie" throughout his life), and his wife, Minnie Schoenberg Marx. Minnie's brother was Al Schoenberg, who changed his name to Al Shean when he went into show business. He was half of Gallagher and Shean, a noted vaudeville act of the early 20th century. Marx's family was Jewish. His mother was from Dornum in East Frisia; and his father was a native of Alsace, and worked as a tailor. Harpo received little formal education, and left grade school at age eight, during his second attempt to pass the second grade. He began to work, gaining employment in numerous odd jobs alongside his brother Chico to contribute to the family income, including selling newspapers, working in a butcher shop, and as an errand office boy. In January 1910, Harpo joined two of his brothers, Julius (later "Groucho") and Milton (later "Gummo"), to form "The Three Nightingales." Harpo was inspired to develop his "silent" routine after reading a review of one of their performances which had been largely ad-libbed. The theater critic wrote, "Adolph Marx performed beautiful pantomime which was ruined whenever he spoke." Harpo gained his stage name during a card game at the Orpheum Theatre in Galesburg, Illinois. The dealer (Art Fisher) called him "Harpo" because he played the harp. (In Harpo's autobiography, he says that mother Minnie Marx sent him the harp.) Harpo learned how to hold it properly from a picture of an angel playing a harp that he saw in a five-and-dime. No one in town knew how to play the harp, so Harpo tuned it as best he could, starting with one basic note and tuning it from there. Three years later he found out he had tuned it incorrectly, but he could not have tuned it properly; if he had, the strings would have broken each night. Harpo's method placed much less tension on the strings. Although he played this way for the rest of his life, he did try to learn how to play correctly, and he spent considerable money hiring the best teachers. They spent their time listening to him, fascinated by the way he played. In his movie performances he played the harp with his own tuning. In his autobiography "Harpo Speaks" (1961), Harpo recounts how Chico found him jobs playing piano to accompany silent movies. Unlike Chico, Harpo could play only two songs on the piano, "Waltz Me Around Again, Willie" and "Love Me and the World Is Mine," but he adapted this small repertoire in different tempos to suit the action on the screen. He was also seen playing a portion of Rachmaninoff's "Prelude in C# minor" in "A Day at the Races" and chords on the piano in "A Night at the Opera", in such a way that the piano sounded much like a harp, as a prelude to actually playing the harp in that scene. Harpo had changed his name from Adolph to Arthur by 1911. This was due primarily to his dislike for the name Adolph (as a child, he was routinely called "Ahdie" instead). Urban legends stating that the name change came about during World War I due to anti-German sentiment in the US, or during World War II because of the stigma that Adolf Hitler imposed on the name, are groundless. In film. His first screen appearance was in the 1921 film "Humor Risk", with his brothers, although according to Groucho, it was only screened once and then lost. Four years later, Harpo appeared without his brothers in "Too Many Kisses", four years before the brothers' first widely-released film, "The Cocoanuts" (1929). In "Too Many Kisses", Harpo spoke the only line he would ever speak on-camera in a movie: "You sure you can't move?" Fittingly, it was a silent movie, and the audience only saw his lips move and saw the line on a title card. Harpo was often cast as Chico's partner, whom he would often help by playing charades to tell of Groucho's problem, and/or annoy by giving Chico his leg. In the Marx Brothers' movie "At the Circus" (1939), however, Harpo "speaks" in a movie with the brothers in the scene in which he visits the room of Little Professor Atom (Jerry Maren) and sneezes, clearly saying "At-choo!". In "A Night in Casablanca", Harpo also "speaks" in the scene where he is taste-testing Groucho's food by acting like a seal and vocalizing seal sounds. It is also implied that Harpo is singing (baritone) in the opening scene of "Monkey Business" (1931), where the four Marx Brothers, stowed away in barrels aboard a cruise liner, sing a four-part harmony of "Sweet Adeline." Harpo became famous for prop-laden sight gags, in particular the seemingly infinite number of odd things stored in his topcoat's oversized pockets. In the film "Horse Feathers" (1932), Groucho, referring to an impossible situation, tells Harpo that he cannot "burn the candle at both ends." Harpo immediately produces from within his coat pocket a lit candle burning at both ends. Earlier in the film a man on the street asks him for money for a cup of coffee, and he subsequently produces a steaming cup complete with saucer, from inside his coat. As author Joe Adamson put in his book, "Groucho, Harpo, Chico and Sometimes Zeppo", "The president of the college has been shouted down by a mute." Harpo often used facial expressions and mime to get his point across. One of his facial expressions, which he used in every Marx Brothers film and stage play, beginning with "Fun in Hi Skule", was known as "the Gookie." Harpo created it by mimicking the expression of Mr. Gehrke, a New York tobacconist who would make a similar face while concentrating on rolling cigars. Harpo further distinguished his character by wearing a "fright wig". Early in his career it was dyed pink, as evidenced by color film posters of the time and by allusions to it in films, with character names such as "Pinky." It tended to show as blonde on-screen due to the black-and-white film stock at the time. Over time, he darkened the pink to more of a reddish color, again alluded to in films with names such as "Rusty." His non-speaking in his early films was occasionally referred to by the other Marx Brothers, who were careful to imply that his character's not speaking was a choice rather than a disability. They would make joking reference to this part of his act. For example, in "Animal Crackers" his character was ironically dubbed "The Professor." In "The Cocoanuts", this exchange occurred: In later films, Harpo was put into situations where he would repeatedly attempt to convey a vital message to another person, but only did so through nonverbal means. These scenes reinforced the idea that the character was unable to speak. In other media. In 1933, following U.S. diplomatic recognition of the Soviet Union, he spent six weeks in Moscow as a performer and goodwill ambassador. His tour was a huge success. Harpo claimed he was billed as "Exapno Mapcase". At that time Harpo and the Soviet Foreign Minister Maxim Litvinov became friends and even performed a routine on stage together. During this time he served as a secret courier; delivering communiques to and from the US embassy in Moscow at the request of Ambassador William Christian Bullitt, Jr., smuggling the messages in and out of Russia by taping a sealed envelope to his leg beneath his trousers, an event described in David Fromkin's 1995 book "In the Time of the Americans". In "Harpo Speaks", Marx describes his relief at making it out of the Soviet Union, recalling how "I pulled up my pants, ripped off the tape, unwound the straps, handed over the dispatches from Ambassador Bullitt, and gave my leg its first scratch in ten days." The Russia trip was later memorialized in a bizarre science fiction novella, "The Foreign Hand Tie" by Randall Garrett, a tale of telepathic spies which is full of references to the Marx Brothers and their films. In 1936, he was one of a number of performers and celebrities to appear as caricatures in the Walt Disney Production of "Mickey's Polo Team". Harpo was part of a team of polo-playing movie stars which included Charlie Chaplin and Laurel and Hardy. His mount was an ostrich. Walt Disney would later have Harpo (with Groucho and Chico) appear as one of King Cole's "Fiddlers Three" in the Silly Symphony "Mother Goose Goes Hollywood". Harpo was also caricatured in "Sock-A-Bye Baby" (1934), an early episode of the "Popeye" cartoon series created by Fleischer Studios. Harpo is playing the harp, and wakes up Popeye's baby, and then Popeye kills him. (After Popeye hits him, a halo appears over his head and he floats to the sky.) Friz Freleng's 1936 Merrie Melodies cartoon "The Coo-Coo Nut Grove" caricatures Harpo and gives him a red beak. When he first appears, he is chasing a woman, but the woman later turns out to be Groucho. Harpo also took an interest in painting, and a few of his works can be seen in his autobiography. In the book, Marx tells a story about how he tried to paint a nude female model, but froze up because he simply did not know how to paint properly. The model took pity on him, however, showing him a few basic strokes with a brush, until finally Harpo (fully clothed) took the model's place as the subject and the naked woman painted his portrait. In 1955, Harpo made an appearance on the sitcom "I Love Lucy," in which they re-enacted the famous mirror scene from the Marx Brothers movie "Duck Soup" (1933). In this scene, they are both supposed to be Harpo, not Groucho; he stays the same and Lucille Ball is dressed as him. About this time, he also appeared on NBC's "The Martha Raye Show". Harpo recorded an album of harp music for RCA Victor ("Harp by Harpo", 1952) and two for Mercury Records ("Harpo in Hi-Fi", 1957; "Harpo at Work", 1958). Marx made television appearances in the 1960s. In 1960, he appeared with Ernest Truex in an episode of "The DuPont Show with June Allyson" entitled "A Silent Panic". Marx plays a deaf-mute who, as a "mechanical man" in a department store window, witnesses a gangland murder. In 1961, he made guest appearances on "The Today Show", "Play Your Hunch", "Candid Camera", "I've Got a Secret", "Here's Hollywood", "Art Linkletter's House Party", Groucho's quiz show "You Bet Your Life", "The Ed Sullivan Show", and "Your Surprise Package". In 1962 he guest-starred with Carol Burnett in an installment of the "DuPont Show of the Week" entitled "The Wonderful World of Toys". The show was filmed in Central Park and featured Marx playing "Autumn Leaves" on the harp. A visit to the set inspired poet Robert Lowell to compose a poem about Marx. Marx's two final television appearances came less than a month apart in late 1962. He portrayed a guardian angel on CBS's "The Red Skelton Show" on September 25. He guest starred as himself on October 20 in the episode "Musicale" of ABC's "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington", a sitcom starring Fess Parker, based on the 1939 Frank Capra film. Personal life. He married actress Susan Fleming on September 28, 1936. Fleming's wedding to Marx was announced to the public when President of the United States Franklin D. Roosevelt sent the couple a telegram of congratulations that November. Marx had sent a thank you letter to Roosevelt in appreciation for a signed photograph of the President, in which Marx had stated that he was "in line for congratulations, too, having been married since September" in a ceremony that took place in an unspecified "little town up North". Unlike most of his brothers (bar Gummo), (Groucho was divorced three times, Chico once, and Zeppo twice), Harpo's marriage to Susan was lifelong. The couple adopted four children: Bill, Alex, Jimmy, and Minnie. When asked by George Burns in 1948 how many children he planned to adopt, he answered: "I’d like to adopt as many children as I have windows in my house. So when I leave for work, I want a kid in every window, waving goodbye." Harpo was good friends with theater critic Alexander Woollcott and because of this became a regular member of the Algonquin Round Table. Harpo, who was quiet in details about his personal life, said his main contribution was to be the audience in that group of wits. In their play "The Man Who Came to Dinner", George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart based the character of "Banjo" on Harpo. Harpo later played the role in Los Angeles opposite Alexander Woolcott who had inspired the character of Sheridan Whiteside. In 1961, Harpo published his autobiography, which was titled "Harpo Speaks". In one chapter, he tells the story of a man who did not believe that Harpo could talk. Because Harpo never spoke a word in all of his movies and TV appearances, many fans and other people believed he really was mute. In fact, radio and TV news recordings of his voice can be found on the Internet, documentaries, and on bonus materials of Marx Brothers DVDs. In relating one story to a reporter who privately interviewed him in the early 1930s, the reporter wrote that "Harpo had a deep and distinguished voice like a professional announcer" and, like his brothers, he spoke with a New York accent his entire life. Harpo's final presence before the public came in early 1964, when he appeared on stage with singer/comedian Allan Sherman. Sherman burst into tears when Harpo, speaking for the first time to the audience, announced his retirement from the entertainment business. Comedian Steve Allen, who was in the audience, remembered that Harpo – after announcing his retirement from the stage – kept talking for several minutes to the theater audience about his career and how he would miss it all, and he kept verbally cutting Sherman off when he tried to speak. After a while, the sorrowful audience started tittering and giggling. Allen said that everyone found it charmingly ironic that the comedian Harpo Marx, having been mute on stage and screen for several decades, "wouldn't shut up!" Marx was also an avid croquet player, and was inducted into the Croquet Hall of Fame in 1979. Death. Harpo Marx died on September 28, 1964 (he and his wife, Susan's, 28th wedding anniversary), at age 75, after undergoing open heart surgery following a heart attack, barely six months after his retirement. Harpo's death was said to have hit the surviving Marx brothers very hard. Groucho's son Arthur Marx, who attended the funeral with most of the Marx family, later said that Harpo's funeral was the only time in his life that he ever saw his father cry. Harpo was cremated and his ashes were reportedly sprinkled into the sand trap at the seventh hole of the Rancho Mirage golf course, on which he occasionally played. In his will, he donated his trademark harp to the State of Israel. Legacy. Harpo is most known for his signature outfit: trench coat with over-large pockets, red wig (turning out blonde on black and white film), top hat, and a comical horn heard in his movies. He was also well-known for playing the harp, though he could not read music. For many moviegoers, Harpo Marx provided their introduction to harp music. Today, thanks to reruns of Marx Brothers films, Harpo continues to entertain audiences old and new. Outside the professional harp community, he remains one of the best "ambassadors for the harp" the world has known. In time, his talent earned him an international reputation as he performed in movies as well as in stage shows around the globe. In 2002, a Golden Palm Star on the Palm Springs, California, Walk of Stars was dedicated to him. Film portrayal. Marx was portrayed by the actor J. M. Henry in the film "Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle". The character of Banjo in "The Man Who Came To Dinner" is based on Harpo Marx. He played Banjo in some stage performances.
585026	Veede is a Telugu film directed by Ravi Raja Pinisetty. This film stars Ravi Teja, Reema Sen, Arti Agarwal, and Sayaji Shinde. This film is a remake of Superhit Tamil film "Dhool" which starred Vikram and Jyothika in lead role. Plot. Edu Kondalu (Ravi Teja) is an uneducated, head strong youth in Bobbarlanka village. He and his village heads decide to close down the nearby factory by appealing to politicians as its letting out a lot of pollutants into the river which is the main source of food, water and livelihood for them. He and another girl Manga Thaayaru (Aarti Agarwal) are sent to Hyderabad to appeal to MLA of their constituency - Byragi Naidu (Sayaji Shinde). They stay at a Friend's place (Ali's house) and try to get their work done by the minister. In the process many hurdles come across them. Edu Kondalu roughs up a few of the MLA's goons and is always at loggerheads with his henchmen. After all this, Byragi Naidu begins to show his true colors and plans to butcher Edu Kondalu as he is forming as an obstruction to his underground activities, unknowingly. Then, the protagonist of the story decides to teach the MLA a lesson, get his job done of closing down the factory. Swapna (Reema Sen) is a journalist who stays in his locality and as a heavy crush on him. She also helps him in pinning down the minister. The remaining plot is how intelligently Edukondalu outclasses the minister and earns good name. One of the plots the hero makes uses Shakeela's films to defame the minister and she herself makes an appearance in the film.
1164560	Arthur Steven "Artie" Lange, Jr. (born October 11, 1967) is an American actor, comedian and radio personality best known for his tenures with the "The Howard Stern Show" and the comedy sketch series "MADtv".
1044398	Oliver Tobias (born 6 August 1947) is a UK-based film, stage, and television actor and director Born Oliver Tobias Freitag in Zürich, Switzerland, he is the son of Austrian-Swiss actor Robert Freitag and German actress Maria Becker. He came to the United Kingdom at the age of eight and trained at East 15 Acting School, London. In 1968 he appeared in the original London production of "Hair", playing the prime rebel role of Berger. The following year he starred in, directed, and choreographed the rock opera in Amsterdam and again directed a production in 1970 in Tel Aviv. Tobias's first role was in the feature film "Romance of a Horsethief", co-starring with Yul Brynner, Serge Gainsbourg and Eli Wallach. He then co-starred with Charlotte Rampling in the Jacobean tragedy Tis Pity She's a Whore", a film directed by Giuseppe Patroni Griffi. He became popular as King Arthur in the TV series "Arthur of the Britons" (1972). Peter Weir then directed him in the TV series "Luke's Kingdom". Tobias also starred in "Smuggler" (1981) a children's drama series, set in Cornwall in 1801. Many other successful films followed including "The Stud" in 1978 in which he co-starred with Joan Collins, helping her to restart her career. Oliver also appeared in the pop promo video for pop group Ultravox's 1982 hit "Hymn". In 1997 Tobias played Rebecque, an aide to the Prince of Orange (Paul Bettany), in "Sharpe's Waterloo". In 2000, he starred in the West End musical "La Cava". Three years later he portrayed Percival Brown in the 50th anniversary production of "The Boy Friend" and the next year toured in the rock musical "Footloose". In 2005 he finished shooting the film "An Airfield in England". He has been acting in a variety of roles for German and Swiss TV and has recently played the role of Bassa Selim again in Mozart's "Seraglio" at the Teatro Lirico in Cagliari, Italy.
1082879	Verbo is a Spanish dark fantasy thriller film written and directed by Eduardo Chapero-Jackson. Plot. A 15-year-old teenager, Sara, lives with an apparently normal suburban family. She develops a sixth sense and begins to perceive a series of disturbing messages and clues, which prompt her to enter a dangerous and frightening dimension in order to save a life. In the course of this adventure to a dark parallel universe, Sara must change the world. Production. Apaches Entertainment and Telecinco Cinema co-produced the thriller film for Filmax. Alba Garcia and Miguel Angel Silvestre play the leads. It is directed by the producer of "The Others", Eduardo Chapero-Jackson. Release. The release was originally set for the late 2010, but was delayed. It is currently scheduled for a November 4, 2011 release after being screened at the San Sebastian Film Festival.
1225325	The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds is a 1964 play written by Paul Zindel, a playwright and science teacher. Zindel received the 1971 Pulitzer Prize for Drama and a New York Drama Critics' Circle Award for the work. The play's world premiere was staged in 1964 at the Alley Theatre in Houston, after which it premiered in New York City Off Broadway. It was adapted for the screen in 1972, directed by Paul Newman and starring his wife Joanne Woodward, daughter Nell Potts, and Roberta Wallach, daughter of Eli Wallach. Woodward won the award for Best Actress at the 1973 Cannes Film Festival. Plot. The play revolves around the dysfunctional family consisting of single mother Beatrice and her two daughters, Ruth and Tillie, who try to cope with their abysmal status in life. The play is a lyrical drama, reminiscent of Tennessee Williams' style. Shy Matilda "Tillie" Hunsdorfer prepares her experiment, involving marigolds raised from seeds exposed to radioactivity, for the science fair. She is, however, constantly thwarted by her mother Beatrice, who is self-centered and abusive, and by her extroverted and unstable sister Ruth, who submits to her mother's will. Over the course of the play, Beatrice constantly tries to stamp out any opportunities Tillie has of succeeding, due to her own lack of success in life. As the play progresses, the paths of the three characters diverge: Tillie wins the science fair through perseverance; Ruth attempts to stand up to her mother but has a nervous collapse at the end of the play, and Beatrice—driven to the verge of insanity by her deep-seated enmity towards everyone—kills the girls' pet rabbit Peter and ends up wallowing in her own perceived insignificance. Despite this, Tillie (who is much like her project's deformed but beautiful and hardy marigolds) secretly continues to believe that everyone is valuable. Film adaptation. Paul Newman produced and directed a film adaptation of the play from a screenplay by Alvin Sargent. Newman cast his wife, Joanne Woodward, and one of their daughters, Nell Potts, in two of the lead roles.
1037651	Martine Kimberley Sherri Ponting (born 14 May 1976), usually known as Martine McCutcheon, is an English singer, television personality and Laurence Olivier Award-winning actress. McCutcheon had minor success as one third of the pop group Milan in the early 1990s, but it was her role as Tiffany Mitchell in the BBC's "EastEnders" that made her a household name in the UK. McCutcheon left the series at the end of 1998 to embark on a pop career, this time as a solo artist. She had international success, reaching No. 1 in five countries with her debut single Perfect Moment. She released three albums to varying degrees of success, but her pop career stalled due to the poor reception of her third album in 2002. She has since appeared in various television programmes, in films such as "Love Actually" as 'Natalie', and on stage in "My Fair Lady", where her portrayal of Eliza Doolittle won her a Laurence Olivier Award in 2002. She released her autobiography, "Who Does She Think She Is?" in 2000. Early life. McCutcheon was born as Martine Kimberley Sherri Ponting at the Salvation Army Mothers' Hospital in Hackney, London, when her mother, Jenny Tomlin, was 19. She endured a turbulent early childhood due to the abusive and irrational behaviour of her father, Thomas Hemmings. On one occasion, he dangled her by the ankles from a balcony 30 feet up in the air and threatened to drop her unless her mother did as he wished. This incident formed one of McCutcheon's earliest memories of him. Hemmings left when she was 2 years old, but he would return periodically to threaten her mother, so her early years were spent running and hiding in order to escape him. When McCutcheon was nine, her mother won sole custody and also obtained an injunction which prohibited Hemmings from seeing McCutcheon until she was 18. At the age of 10, Martine took her stepfather's surname when her mother met and married window cleaner John McCutcheon. Martine McCutcheon has a younger half-brother LJ. She knew she wanted to be a performer from an early age but, as her family could not afford the fees for a drama school, she had to find an alternative method to learn her trade. McCutcheon met a woman at a local dance class who had been to the Italia Conti stage school, and she suggested that the school would be a good environment for her. After a persuasive letter from McCutcheon, a Church of England trust agreed to sponsor her. She trained after school and every Saturday (learning tap, ballet, jazz and drama) in order to catch up with the more privileged children who were competing with her for a place at the prestigious school. Career. Early career. At the age of 12, McCutcheon obtained her first acting role and was paid £350 to appear in an American television commercial for the drink, Kool-Aid, which was followed by modelling assignments and bit parts in TV shows such as in the ITV police drama "The Bill". She also appeared in the music video for the song "Caribbean Blue" by Irish singer Enya. By the time she was 15, she had formed an all-girl group, 'Milan', with two fellow pupils and landed a record contract and a gig touring as the 'warm up' group for the British boyband, East 17. Milan were reasonably successful. They entered the dance charts three times but were not successful enough for the band to make a living and they disbanded. "EastEnders". In 1994, while working as a shopgirl at Knickerbox, McCutcheon was offered the role of Tiffany Raymond on the popular BBC soap opera "EastEnders". McCutcheon took inspiration and advice from her mother on how to play the part. The role of Tiffany grew, as did McCutcheon's popularity, and 22 million viewers tuned in to see her final scenes in Albert Square in 1998 when her character was killed in a special episode screened on New Year's Eve. In reality, McCutcheon had decided to leave the soap in order to pursue her singing career and was annoyed that she would never be able to return to the show. Pop career. McCutcheon's first appearance in the charts occurred in 1995 on a minor dance song "Are You Man Enough" with the dance producers "Uno Clio". A promotional video was produced. In 1999, McCutcheon debuted as a solo pop artist with Virgin Records and scored a number 1 in the UK Singles Chart with the ballad "Perfect Moment" (originally recorded by Edyta Górniak in 1997). The song was a global success reaching number 1, not only in the United Kingdom, but also in Israel, Italy, Switzerland and Ireland. That same year she scored two more Top 10 hits, reaching number 6 with the singles "I've Got You" and later "Talking in Your Sleep", which featured the double A Side "Love Me", an album track that was re-recorded for the Children in Need appeal with all proceeds being donated to that cause. All three singles were taken from her debut album "You, Me and Us", which peaked at number 2 in the UK Albums Chart and was certified as double platinum. In 2000, McCutcheon released her second album "Wishing", which was less successful, charting at number 25 in the UK Albums Chart. The album spawned two singles – the number 2 hit "I'm Over You" and her follow up song, a cover of the Donna Summer classic "On the Radio". Despite peaking at only No.25, the album still managed to sell around 250,000 copies. McCutcheon released her third album "Musicality", a Broadway influenced cover album, in 2002. It reached number 55 in the albums charts, however her pop career stalled when, due to poor sales, her recording contract was cancelled. In December 2011, on Ireland's "The Saturday Night Show" Martine confirmed she was in the studio working on a new album due for release sometime in 2012. Film, stage and television. McCutcheon appeared in ITV's "The Knock" as well as the British film "Kiss Kiss (Bang Bang)" in 2000. She went on to play Eliza Doolittle in "My Fair Lady" at the National Theatre in London. Despite missing many performances (citing health problems) and withdrawing nearly five months early from the production's transfer to the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, she won the award for best actress in a musical at the 2002 Laurence Olivier Awards. In 2002, McCutcheon presented the "National Music Awards" for ITV1 and in 2003 she featured in her first major film role. She appeared as tea-lady Natalie in the Richard Curtis romantic comedy "Love Actually", where the British Prime Minister (played by Hugh Grant) falls in love with McCutcheon's character. The film received good reviews and was a box office success. McCutcheon went to America in the wake of the film's success, but a Hollywood career did not materialise. She did however, win "Best Trans-atlantic breakthrough" at the 2004 MTV Film Awards. In September 2005, she appeared in two episodes of hit BBC drama series "Spooks", playing Tash, a waitress who witnesses a terrorist bombing. Screened on the UK television station ITV1 in December 2005, McCutcheon appeared in "The English Harem", playing a woman in love with a Muslim man (Art Malik), who marries him despite knowing he already has two wives. That same year she presented and performed on ITV's entertainment programme, "Moviemusic Mania". In 2007, McCutcheon was seen in two independent films, "Withdrawal" opposite Patrick Swayze and "Jump!", as well "Marple" episode At Bertram's Hotel, where she plays a maid named Jane Cooper that assists Miss Marple with her investigations. She was also a judge in the second series of ITV1's "Soapstar Superstar". Her appearance on the show drew criticism, with reports alleging that she was becoming a hate figure for the contestants, who were said to have found her comments relentlessly critical and at times patronising. McCutcheon performed in an "Art Plus" fundraising event at the Whitechapel Art Gallery opposite Natalie Press, Samantha Morton and Rhys Ifans and in January 2008 she starred alongside actor Jason Donovan, in the ITV soap Echo Beach as character Susan Penwarden. Other work. McCutcheon released her autobiography, "Who Does She Think She Is?" in 2000, and in 2003 "Martine McCutcheon: Behind the Scenes – A Personal Diary", was published by Harper Collins. McCutcheon, along with many global stars, also featured in a promotional film for London's successful bid for the 2012 Summer Olympics, in 2004. A fitness DVD, "Martine McCutcheon: Dance body workout", was released in December 2005. In August 2006, the supermarket chain, Tesco, announced that they would be using McCutcheon in a series of adverts to promote a new green scheme for recycling used plastic carrier bags. In 2006, she became "the face" of the fabric softener brand, Lenor. In 2009, she had her first novel published by Pan MacMillan, called "The Mistress". In January 2010, she became the face on Danone's UK advertising campaign for its Activia yogurt brand. Martine has worked on two BBC Radio plays, most recently with Ricky Tomlinson and Clive Anderson. In June 2012 ITV confirmed that Martine would be one of a panel of judges on a new sports talent show called Let's Get Gold, set to air in July 2012. On the show, hosted by Vernon Kay, sporting teams would perform their sport adapted to be entertaining, and be judged by the panel consisting of Martine McCutcheon, cricketer Andrew Flintoff, footballer Rio Ferdinand and singer Una Healy (The Saturdays). In August 2013 Martine McCutcheon confirmed she would appear on Heart Radio The Saturday Show on August 17 and 24 from 5pm to 7pm, available across the UK on 96-107 FM, digital and online at heart.co.uk Personal life. McCutcheon was engaged to DJ Gareth Cooke, but broke off the relationship in 1996. She married singer Jack McManus at Lake Como in September 2012. The couple have been in a relationship since 2009. She lives in Esher. Bankruptcy. In 2013, she was declared bankrupt by the Kingston upon Thames County Court with creditors including HM Revenue and Customs.
1163408	Lynda Carter (born Linda Jean Córdova Carter; July 24, 1951) is an American actress and singer, best known for being Miss World USA in 1972 and as the star of the DC Comics TV series "Wonder Woman", which lasted from 1975 to 1979. Early life. Carter was born in Phoenix, Arizona. She is of English, Mexican, Irish, and Spanish descent. Carter made her public television debut on "Lew King's Talent Show" at age 5. During high school, Carter performed in a band called Just Us, consisting of a marimba, a conga drum, an acoustic guitar, and a stand-up bass played by another girl. When she was 17, she joined two of her cousins in another band called The Relatives. Actor Gary Burghoff was the drummer. The group opened at the Sahara Hotel and Casino lounge in Las Vegas for three months; because Carter was under 21, she had to enter through the kitchen. Carter attended Arizona State University. After being voted "Most Talented", she dropped out to pursue a career in music. In 1970, Carter sang with The Garfin Gathering. Their first performance was in a San Francisco hotel so new that it had no sidewalk entrance. Consequently, they played mostly to the janitors and hotel guests who parked their cars in the underground garage. She returned to Arizona in 1972. Career. In 1972 Carter entered a local Arizona beauty contest (which she won), and gained national attention in the United States by winning Miss World USA, representing Arizona. In the international 1972 Miss World pageant, representing the U.S., she reached the semi-finals. After taking acting classes at several New York acting schools, she began making appearances on such TV shows as "Starsky and Hutch," "Cos," and "Nakia" and in several "B-movies." "Wonder Woman". Carter's acting career took off when she landed the starring role in "The New Adventures of Wonder Woman" as Wonder Woman and her secret identity, Diana Prince. The savings her parents had set aside for her to pursue acting in Los Angeles were almost depleted, and Carter was close to returning to Arizona when her manager informed her that she had won the part. Her earnest performance endeared her to fans and critics, such that Carter continues to be closely identified with Wonder Woman, and the series lasted three seasons. As the program was winding down, while referring to the feedback she had received for her posters, Carter told "US magazine": "I never meant to be a sexual object for anyone but my husband. I never thought a picture of my body would be tacked up in men's bathrooms. I hate men looking at me and thinking what they think. And I know what they think. They write and tell me." Carter also was upset with some of the marketing of her image. Warner Bros. worked out a deal with the toy company, Mego, to create a Wonder Woman doll while the series was still on the air. In 1987 on "The Late Show with Joan Rivers", Carter commented:"I think that you're probably familiar with a problem in Hollywood, and that is that they market you, and they use you. They did a mask of my face and put it on the doll, and they put my name on for the first run of it. And then they took my name off and said they didn't have to pay me anymore. So it's the kind of thing that you can be used so much in this industry. I make nothing. I don't even make anything from the reruns. Don't ever settle for net profits. It's called "creative accounting"." In 1985 DC Comics named Carter as one of the honorees in the company's 50th anniversary publication "Fifty Who Made DC Great" for her work on the Wonder Woman series. In 2007, toy company DC Direct released a 13" full-figure statue of Lynda Carter as Wonder Woman, limited to 5,000 pieces; it was re-released in 2010. Also in 2010, DC Direct began selling a 5½-inch bust of Carter's Wonder Woman to celebrate the DC Comics' 75th anniversary. Other credits. In 1978, Carter was voted "The Most Beautiful Woman in the World" by The International Academy of Beauty and The British Press Organization. During the late 1970s, Carter recorded an album, "Portrait". Carter is credited as a co-writer on several songs, and she made numerous guest appearances on variety television programs at the time in a musical capacity. She also sang two of her songs in a 1979 "Wonder Woman" episode, "Amazon Hot Wax". In 1977, Carter released a promotional poster through Pro Arts Inc. at the suggestion of her then-husband and manager, Ron Samuels. The poster was very successful despite Carter's dissatisfaction with it. In 1981 during an interview on the NBC television special "Women Who Rate a 10", she said: It's uncomfortable because I just simply took a photograph. That's all my participation was in my poster that sold over a million copies was that I took a photograph that I thought was a dumb photograph. My husband said, "Oh, try this thing tied up here, it'll look beautiful". And the photographer said "the back-lighting is really terrific". So dealing with someone having that picture up in their... bedroom or their... living room or whatever I think would be hard for anyone to deal with. In 1979's "Apocalypse Now", she originally was cast in the role of Playboy Playmate Bunny, but the filming of her scenes was interrupted by the famous storm that wrecked the theater set, prompting nearly two months' delay for rebuilding. By the time Coppola was ready to shoot again, Carter's contractual obligations to "Wonder Woman" forced her back to the states, and her scenes were re-shot with Colleen Camp. The only evidence remaining of Carter's involvement are the Playboy centerfolds that were specially shot by the magazine as movie props. At one point in the Redux version of "Apocalypse Now", a glimpse of Carter's pinup is visible, as the only nude work ascribed to the actress outside of "Bobbie Jo and the Outlaw". She also made a guest appearance on "The Muppet Show", but did not reprise her iconic character or display superpowers throughout that entire episode. Carter left that performance to Miss Piggy who portrayed "Wonder Pig", a spoof of Wonder Woman.
583838	Sullan (Tamil: சுள்ளான்) is a South Indian Tamil film released in 2004 with a soundtrack written by Vidyasagar. This film was later dubbed into Hindi as 'Tezaab-The terror'.The movie has flushed up with mass entertaining performance by dhanush but slid in boxoffice due to overhelmed critics review. Plot. Subramani (Dhanush), known as Sullaan among his friends, is the son of a Corporation cleaner (Manivannan). A first year college student, his only objective in life is to have fun with his friends. He has a few unexceptional run-ins with Soori (Pasupathy), a money-lender who charges atrocious rates and then goes after those who fail to pay him back. But when Soori's actions touch his own family and friends, Sullaan is forced to strike back.. Despite achieving hat-trick success in his first three films, and a moderate outing in Pudhukottaiyilirundhu Saravanan, Sullan bombed at the box-office which received negative reviews claiming that Dhanush could not fit into the mould of an action hero due to his slim physique.Sullan However the film, which had Sindhu Tolani as the lead heroine, was dubbed into Telugu as Maurya and Tehzaab, the terror in Hindi. Soundtrack. Music : Vidyasagar
1055595	The Girl in the Park is a 2007 drama film by David Auburn, who makes his directorial debut here after having written the films "Proof" in 2005 and "The Lake House" in 2006. It stars Sigourney Weaver, Kate Bosworth and Keri Russell, among others. Plot. Enduringly traumatized by the disappearance of her 3-year-old daughter 16 years ago, Julia Sandburg (Weaver) has cut herself off from anyone once near and dear to her, including her husband Doug and her son Chris, who tried for years to penetrate her wall of isolation and despair, without success. But when Julia meets Louise (Bosworth), a troubled young woman with a checkered past, all Julia's old psychological wounds painfully resurface, as do her illogical and increasingly irrational hope that Louise may be the daughter she lost so long ago. Filming. Filming began in New York City on November 13, 2006 and was scheduled to end on December 21, 2006. The film was premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 9, 2007. Reception. The film has an average rating of 5.7/10 in the Rotten Tomatoes. Jason Solomons of "the Guardian" "likes this deceptive drama, its tensions and releases, its symbolic use of Scrabble to denote cohesion and confusion and its dark fears of parenting, children, ageing, loss and connection."
1289519	Brooklyn Rules is a 2007 American crime drama film starring Alec Baldwin, Scott Caan, Freddie Prinze Jr., Jerry Ferrara, and Mena Suvari. The film was directed by Michael Corrente and written by Terence Winter. Plot. In 1985 Michael (Freddie Prinze Jr.), the narrator, is a lovable charmer with the soul of a con man who successfully scams his way into the pre-law program at Columbia University. In contrast to Michael's desire to leave the Brooklyn streets behind, his close friend Carmine (Scott Caan) is a handsome lady-killer who is enamored with the Mafia lifestyle and wants only to stay there. Rounding out the trio is Bobby (Jerry Ferrara), an endearing cheapskate who longs for a simple life of working at the Post Office and settling down with his fiancee. While at Columbia, Michael falls for a beautiful young student named Ellen (Mena Suvari), a society girl whom he initially wins over with his preppy schoolboy cover. As their relationship blossoms, leaving the streets behind seems increasingly possible, but when Carmine catches the eye of Caesar (Alec Baldwin), a feared Gambino family mobster who controls their neighborhood, Michael and Bobby are drawn into that world despite their reluctance to get involved. Reception. The film has received mixed reviews from critics. "Rotten Tomatoes" tallied 28 positive and 10 negative reviews, resulting in an average rating of 67%. It noted that the movie's "premise is old hat now, but strong performances from Alec Baldwin and the supporting cast are reasons enough to watch." The film received an overall rating of 73 out of 100 from Metacritic, based on 13 reviews.
1062643	Bruce Davison (born June 28, 1946) is an American actor and director. Early life. Davison was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the son of Marian E. (née Holmes), a secretary, and Clair W. Davison, a musician, architect, and draftsman for the Army Engineers. His parents divorced when he was three years old. He was raised by his mother, and also spent weekends with his father. He graduated in 1964 at Marple Newtown Senior High School, and entered Penn State as an art major but stumbled into acting when he accompanied a friend to an audition. He attended NYU's Graduate Acting Program, graduating in 1969. Career. Davison made his Broadway debut in "Tiger at the Gates" in 1968. He also appeared as John Merrick in "The Elephant Man" and in "The Glass Menagerie" opposite Jessica Tandy. Davison was one of a quartet of newcomers including Barbara Hershey, Richard Thomas, and Catherine Burns when he made his film debut in "Last Summer" in 1969. In 1970 he played opposite Kim Darby in the film about peaceful student protest and its violent outcome "The Strawberry Statement". Two years later he portrayed the title role in "Willard". He also appeared in "Ulzana's Raid", "Peege", "Mame", "Mother, Jugs & Speed", "Short Eyes","The Lathe of Heaven", and "Six Degrees of Separation". In 1978 he appeared as Dean Torrence opposite Richard Hatch in the made-for-TV biopic "Deadman's Curve" (the story of 1960s pop duo Jan & Dean). The same year, he played the title role in the TV movie adaptation "Summer Of My German Soldier". In 1981 he had the lead in "The Wave", based on real events, starring as a history teacher who conducts an experiment in Nazi philosophy on his students. Davison also starred in "Tales from the Darkside", Season 1, Episode 8 and played the role of the father in the short-lived Harry and the Hendersons TV series. In 1983, Davison was cast by Joseph Papp in the Public Theater/New York Shakespeare Festival production of "King Richard III". Additional Off-Broadway credits include "Love Letters", "The Cocktail Hour", and Paula Vogel's Pulitzer Prize-winning play "How I Learned To Drive". He also played the role of Ruby in the 1985 comedy "Spies Like Us" starring Dan Aykroyd and Chevy Chase. In 1990 he portrayed a gay man whose lover is dying of AIDS, in "Longtime Companion". The role earned Davison a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. Davison went on to appear in other movies addressing AIDS: in 1995's "The Cure", he portrayed a physician sought by a young boy with AIDS in search of medical help. In 1996, Davison appeared in the film "It's My Party", which chronicled the true events of a man dying with AIDS who decides to hold a farewell party for family and friends before taking his own life. Davison's website states he is a spokesperson for many AIDS-related groups and is a board member of the industry AIDS organization "Hollywood Supports". In Los Angeles, Davison has appeared on stage in "Streamers" and "The Normal Heart", winning the Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Award and Drama-Logue Award for his performances. Other LA theatre credits include "The Caine Mutiny Court Martial" (directed by Henry Fonda) and a stage adaptation of "To Kill a Mockingbird". He is familiar to movie audiences for "Runaway Jury", "Apt Pupil", and his role as Senator Robert Kelly in the "X-Men" movie franchise. Though his character died in the first film, Davison appeared in "X2" as a shapeshifting impostor of Kelly. Davison also portrayed a rich philanthropist in the movie "Christmas Angel". Davison's many television credits include Hunter, "Marcus Welby, M.D.", "Love, American Style", "The Waltons", "Lou Grant", "Murder, She Wrote", "Designing Women", "Seinfeld", "Chicago Hope", ', "V: The Series", ', ', "Battlestar Galactica", "Lost", ', "Ghost Whisperer", "Castle", "Hawaii Five-0", the Stephen King mini-series "Kingdom Hospital", and a recurring role on "The Practice". Davison also had the recurring role of defense attorney Doug Hellman in the CBS drama "Close to Home". In 2001, Davison directed the TV film "Off Season", which starred his "Lovelife" co-star Sherilyn Fenn, Rory Culkin, Hume Cronyn, and Adam Arkin. In 2007, Davison returned to the big screen, playing Eric O'Neill's father in "Breach". Also in that year, Davison was cast in the role of Charles Graiman, creator of the Knight Industries Three Thousand in NBC's revival of the television series "Knight Rider". Davison also played the role of Dr. Silberman, the psychiatrist who once tormented Sarah Connor, in the seventh episode of "". In May 2010, Davison was cast to portray art dealer Wilhelm Van Schlagel for several episodes on ABC's "General Hospital" to begin airing in July, 2010. In 2010 he starred in the TV movie "Titanic II". He is currently filming for Rob Zombie's "The Lords of Salem" set for release in 2012. In addition, he played Secretary of State William H. Seward in the movie "Saving Lincoln", which is due for release in the fall of 2012. He is currently playing the role of Rear Admiral Arthur Shepard, Lieutenant Grace Shepard's father, in the TV series "Last Resort (U.S. TV series)". Personal life. Davison married Michele Correy on April 30, 2006, and they have a daughter, Sophia Lucinda Davison, born May 29, 2006. They reside in Los Angeles. Davison also has a son, Ethan, born April 5, 1996, from a previous marriage to fellow actor Lisa Pelikan. Awards. Academy Awards Golden Globe Awards Independent Spirit Awards Primetime Emmy Awards Daytime Emmy Awards National Society of Film Critics' Awards New York Film Critics Circle Awards
1036297	Miranda Katharine Hart Dyke (born 14 December 1972), known professionally as Miranda Hart, is an English actress, comedian, and writer. Following drama training at the Academy of Live and Recorded Arts, Hart struggled to make her foray into comedy. After writing material for the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and making small appearances in various British sitcoms, she reached a wider audience with her self-written semi-autobiographical radio series "Miranda Hart's Joke Shop", which started airing on BBC Radio 2 in 2008. Hart writes and stars in the 2009 BBC sitcom "Miranda" (which is based on her radio series), which has earned its star four BAFTA nominations, three Royal Television Society awards and four British Comedy Awards throughout its three series. The sitcom's third series aired on BBC One 2012-2013. In 2012, she began appearing in the BBC drama "Call the Midwife" as Camilla "Chummy" Fortescue-Cholmondeley-Browne. Hart's semi-autobiographical book, "Is It Just Me?", was released in October 2012. Early life. Family. Miranda Hart was born on 14 December 1972 in Torquay, Devon, to Royal Navy officer Captain David Hart Dyke CBE LVO RN and Diana Margaret Luce. Her father was commanding officer of "HMS Coventry" when it was sunk by the Argentinians in the 1982 Falklands conflict, as a result of which he was badly burned trying to escape the stricken warship. Her mother, Diana Margaret, is the daughter of Sir William Luce GBE KCMG (1907–1977), who was the British Governor and Commander-in-Chief of Aden, 1956-60. On her mother's side, her great-grandfather was Vice Admiral Sir Trevylyan Napier KCB MVO, who was the Commander-in-Chief, America and West Indies Station (1919–1920), while her great-great-grandfather was Sir Michael Culme-Seymour, 3rd Baronet, who was the Vice-Admiral of the United Kingdom (1901–1920). Miranda's uncle is The Rt Hon The Lord Luce KG GCVO DL, a former Conservative MP and Minister, later HM Governor and Commander in Chief of Gibraltar (1997–2000) and Lord Chamberlain of the Royal Household, 2000-2006. Her great-uncle and the brother of her maternal grandfather was Admiral Sir David Luce GCB DSO (with Bar) OBE, who served as First Sea Lord. Her great-great-uncle was Major-General Sir Richard Harman Luce KCMG CB, who served as Member of Parliament for Derby from 1924-1929. Hart's patrilineal great-great-great-great-grandfather was Sir Percival Hart Dyke, 5th Baronet (1767-1846) whilst her distant cousin, the 10th and present baronet, Sir David Hart Dyke lives in Canada. Hart's 1st cousin is modern-day plant hunter Tom Hart Dyke. She has a sister, Alice Louisa Hart Dyke (born 1975). Whilst from an aristocratic background, Hart has stated that she hates saying that, and does not consider herself upper class. Hart added that her family tree can be traced back to the 12th century and that her aunt and uncle live in a castle (Lullingstone Castle) which they cannot afford to run. Education and training. Though born in Torquay, Hart grew up in Petersfield, Hampshire, and was educated at Downe House, Berkshire, an independent girls' boarding school, where she was a contemporary and friend of the sports presenter Clare Balding, who was head girl. She attended the University of the West of England in Bristol, graduating with a degree in political science. Hart then completed a postgraduate course in Acting at the Academy of Live and Recorded Arts. In 2002, she performed a solo show in Edinburgh and in 2004 she pitched a comedy show to the BBC. At her read-through for BBC executives, "Ab Fab" writer and star Jennifer Saunders was present. Work. Television and film. Before her own series was commissioned, Hart made appearances in various British sitcoms. In "Not Going Out" she initially appeared as an acupuncturist. However, her performance impressed the producers so much that they wrote a regular role for her as Barbara, a clumsy cleaner. She continued to play the part until the production of "Miranda" in 2009. Hart earned a British Comedy Award nomination for her role as Teal in two series of the BBC television comedy sci-fi sitcom "Hyperdrive", which ran from January 2006 to August 2007. She also appeared in even smaller roles in "French & Saunders", "My Family and Other Animals", "Nighty Night", "Absolutely Fabulous" where she played a 'Japanese' woman called Yoko, "The Vicar of Dibley" as a speed-dater, "Lead Balloon", "William and Mary", "Smack the Pony" (for which she wrote and performed in a couple of sketches and a number of video diaries), "Stupid!", "Monday Monday" as Tall Karen, and as a minicab driver in the Channel 5 comedy "Angelos", which ran for 6 episodes. Hart played a cameo in David Baddiel's feature film "The Infidel". She appeared in a short film by Tim Plester, "World of Wrestling", in which she played "Klondyke Kate", a wrestler billed as 'hell in boots'. The film was released in late 2007 alongside its companion shorts "Blakes Junction 7" and "Ant Muzak". 25 March 2013 will see the UK cinema release of "12 in a Box", a feature film that was originally made in 2007. Hart is best known for her performance in her self-titled, self-penned and semi-autobiographical sitcom "Miranda", which started recording for BBC Two in 2008 and began airing on 9 November 2009. The situation comedy also features Sarah Hadland, Tom Ellis, Patricia Hodge, James Holmes, and Sally Phillips. The series is based on Hart's semi-autobiographical writing and followed a television pilot and the BBC Radio 2 comedy "Miranda Hart's Joke Shop". Described as an "old-fashioned" sitcom, it received positive comments from critics and Hart won the 2009 Royal Television Society award for comedy performance for her role in the first series. A second series was commissioned and filming started in mid-2010. The series began airing on BBC Two and BBC HD on 15 November 2010. A third series began broadcasting from 26 December 2012 on BBC One. Repeats of the show have begun airing on UKTV Gold. She appeared as guest host of "Have I Got News for You" in October 2009 and again in December 2011. She also presented a BBC spoof programme looking back over 2009 called "2009 Unwrapped with Miranda Hart". A similar show looking back over 2010 was also broadcast in December 2010. On 27 December, she was a team member on "Big Fat Quiz 2011", a quiz about the events of that year presented by Jimmy Carr, appearing alongside David Walliams (team blue). As a fan of the series, Hart has also appeared twice on "Strictly Come Dancing: It Takes Two". On Boxing Day 2011, she appeared in an episode of Bear Grylls' Wild Weekend. She also scaled down one of the Alps with Bear Grylls in a show with him in March 2013. In 2012, Hart began to appear in the BBC One drama, "Call the Midwife", playing the character of "Camilla 'Chummy' Fortescue-Cholmeley-Browne". As part as the 60-year Diamond Jubilee celebrations, Hart co-presented at the Diamond Jubilee Concert. She is currently the voice of the Müller Corners adverts. She also appeared in a TV advert for Alpen. Radio. Her semi-autobiographical series "Miranda Hart's Joke Shop" was aired on BBC Radio 2 in 2008 and went on from there to be developed into the television series "Miranda". Hart has also presented comedy specials for the network alongside Jon Holmes. In October 2011 she attracted criticism after co-hosting "The Chris Evans Breakfast Show" with Holmes while Chris Evans was on holiday. The website "Digital Spy" reported that some listeners were unhappy with the quality of the programme. The BBC issued a statement in response saying, "Miranda Hart is one of the UK's best-loved comedians and BBC Radio 2 felt it appropriate to bring her warmth to its audience for a week. Jon Holmes is a highly experienced presenter from BBC Radio 6 Music [...] BBC Radio 2 appreciates if their presentation wasn't to everyone's liking, but feels it's important to be able to bring new talent to its output and hopes its audience understands the importance of maintaining a breadth of content on the network." Live performance. Avoiding the normal stand-up circuit for more character-based comedy, including an appearance in the Edinburgh and touring show "The Sitcom Trials", Hart has written her own theatre material for the Edinburgh Fringe. Her one-woman shows include "Miranda Hart – Throbs", "It's All About Me" and "Miranda Hart's House Party". She also performed in Alecky Blythe's 2006 play "Cruising" at the Bush Theatre. She was among the performers at the Diamond Jubilee concert held outside Buckingham Palace on 4 June 2012. Hart will embark on her first tour in 2014, titled "My, What I Call, Live Show", performing in arenas in the UK and Ireland. Tickets went on sale on 17 December 2012. Comic Relief. Hart was the second contestant to be voted off the third series of "Comic Relief does Fame Academy" in 2007. Two years later, she appeared in the final sketch from comedy duo "French and Saunders", which was broadcast during Red Nose Day 2009. In 2010, she and six other TV celebrities raised over £1 million for the charity Sport Relief cycling from John O'Groats to Land's End. She starred as a judge on both series two and three of "Let's Dance for Comic Relief", alongside other guest judges including Kelly Brook, Rufus Hound and Louie Spence in 2010 and 2011. In aid of Comic Relief, a "Miranda" mini-episode set in the world of "Pineapple Dance Studios" was broadcast on 18 March as part of Red Nose Day 2011. She took part in a Red Nose Day edition of Celebrity MasterChef in 2011, which she won. Miranda also co-presented Sport Relief 2012, which concluded with her and fellow comedian David Walliams dancing semi-naked to Abba's "Dancing Queen". She also donated a signed "Miranda" script to be auctioned in aid of Comic Relief. Awards and nominations. In 2010 Hart won the Best Comedy Performance award from the Royal Television Society for her performance in "Miranda" and was also nominated for best comedy writing. She and Patricia Hodge were both nominated for "Best Comedy Actress" awards at the Monte-Carlo TV Festival 2010. In 2011 she won "Best Comedy Actress" and "People’s Choice Award for the King Or Queen Of Comedy" in the British Comedy Awards 2011, where "Miranda" also won "Best New British TV Comedy" and was nominated for "Best Sitcom". The same year, she was nominated for a BAFTA for Best Actress in a comedy role and her hit BBC Two sitcom "Miranda" was nominated for the BAFTA YouTube choice award, the only award voted for by the public. Personal life. Hart lives in Hammersmith, West London. In her early twenties, Hart had an unsuccessful trial at Queens Park Rangers Ladies. She revealed this during "Would I Lie to You". In July 2012, Miranda announced she was writing a book, to be released in October 2012. The book is called 'Is It Just Me?' and features stories, anecdotes and life advice delivered in her own style. She used Twitter to give the public a chance to appear in the book, if they contributed anecdotes to @NoItsUsToo, using the #isitjustme hashtag.
1043543	Lawrence "Larry" Martyn (22 March 1934 - 7 August 1994) was an English actor known for his comedy performances. Martyn was born in London and was a former member of the Parachute Regiment. He was famous as Mr. Mash in the BBC comedy series "Are You Being Served?", appearing in the first three series before being replaced by Arthur English. He was unable to continue in this role because he was committed to the television series "Spring and Autumn" with Jimmy Jewel. Other TV appearances included "Dad's Army", "On the Buses", "Look - Mike Yarwood!", "Rising Damp", "The Detectives" and "Grange Hill". He also played alongside Frankie Howerd in two of his BBC shows, "Up Pompeii!" and "Whoops Baghdad". Career. Martyn played the role of the lovable spiv Private Walker in the radio version of "Dad's Army" after the death of James Beck. His film roles included "Carry On at Your Convenience" where he had a small part as the pier rifle-range owner, and "Carry On Behind", where he played an inept electrician who helps wire up the public address system at the campsite the film was set in. Death. Martyn died on 7 August 1994 at home in St Mary's Bay, Kent, and was survived by his wife Hilary and their two daughters.
1101124	Paolo Ruffini (September 22, 1765 – May 10, 1822) was an Italian mathematician and philosopher. By 1788 he had earned university degrees in philosophy, medicine/surgery, and mathematics. Among his work was an incomplete proof (Abel–Ruffini theorem) that quintic (and higher-order) equations cannot be solved by radicals (1799), and Ruffini's rule which is a quick method for polynomial division. Ruffini also made contributions to group theory in addition to probability and quadrature of the circle. He practiced as both a professor of mathematics (University of Modena) and a doctor including scientific work on typhus. Group Theory. Ruffini’s 1799 work marked a major development for group theory. Ruffini developed Joseph Louis Lagrange's work on permutation theory, following 29 years after Lagrange’s "Réflexions sur la théorie algébrique des equations" (1770–1771) which was largely ignored until Ruffini who established strong connections between permutations and the solvability of algebraic equations. Ruffini was the first to controversially assert the unsolvability by radicals of algebraic equations higher than quartics. This angered many members of the community such as Malfatti (1731–1807). Work in this area was later carried on by those such as Gauss and Galois who succeeded in such a proof. Publications. (English definitions) 1799: "Teoria Generale delle Equazioni, in cui si dimostra impossibile la soluzione algebraica delle equazioni generali di grado superiore al quarto" (General Theory of equations, which proves impossible algebraica the solution of the general equations of degree higher than the fourth) 1802: "Riflessioni intorno alla rettificazione ed alla quadratura del circulo" (Reflections on the rectification and the squaring of the circle) 1802: "Della soluzione delle equazioni algebraiche determinate particolari di grado superiore al quarto" (The solution of certain algebraic equations of degree higher than the fourth special) 1804: "Sopra la determinazione delle radici nelle equazioni numeriche di qualunque grado" (Above the determination of the roots in the numerical equations of any degree) 1806: "Della immortalità dell’anima" (The immortality of the soul) 1807: "Algebra elementare" (Elementary algebra) 1820: "Memoria sul tifo contagioso" (Memory is the contagious typhus) 1821: "Riflessioni critiche sopra il saggio filosofico intorno alle probabilità del signor conte Laplace" (Critical reflections on the philosophical essay about the likelihood of Count Laplace)
1055087	Benji the Hunted is a 1987 children's film about a dog trying to survive in the wilderness. It was released by Walt Disney Pictures. This was the last Benji movie to star Benjean in the title role. The film is notable for the fact Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert disagreed on the film, with Siskel criticizing Ebert for giving a "thumbs up" rating to this film but not Stanley Kubrick's "Full Metal Jacket". Plot. Benji has become lost in a remote area of Oregon after a boating accident. He finds himself struggling to survive in the wilderness, avoiding close encounters with a timber wolf, a brown bear, and a territorial female cougar with her cub. Benji made friends with other animals including a Great Horned Owl, a deer, a red fox and a raccoon.
583135	Bin Bulaye Baraati is a 2011 Bollywood comedy film written by Praful Parekh and Salim Sheikh and directed by Chandrakant Singh. The stars Aftab Shivdasani, Priyanka Kothari, Rajpal Yadav, Om Puri, Sanjai Mishra, Shakti Kapoor and Vijay Raaz in lead roles, with Shweta Tiwari featured in a cameo appearance and Mallika Sherawat and Shweta Bhardwaj appearing in song numbers. The film was released in India on June 17, 2011 and received mixed reviews. Plot. Criminals Hazari (Sanjay Mishra) and Murari (Rajpal Yadav) rob the Police Commissioner's home, and Chetta Singh (Vijay Raaz) steal the car belonging to the Commissioner's wife, Kusum (Rati Agnihotri). Meanwhile, AD (Aftab Shivdasani) elopes with Shreya (Priyanka Kothari), the niece of Police Sub-Inspector Pralay Pratap Singh (Om Puri). With each group is on the run for different reasons, they all end up in a vehicle stolen from crime boss Durjan Singh/Black Cobra (Gulshan Grover). In the vehicle is a suitcase filled with Durjan's loot.
1016161	Tricky Brains () is a 1991 Hong Kong comedy film written and directed by Wong Jing, who also co-stars in the film. The film stars Andy Lau, Stephen Chow, Rosamund Kwan and Ng Man-tat. Summary. A man who has a wide range of tricks at his disposal, including many practical jokes and some more serious tricks. When he is hired to break up a young couple, Lucy (Rosamund Kwan) and Kit (Andy Lau) he goes undercover as the long lost brother of Kit.
1063425	Two-Lane Blacktop is a 1971 road movie directed by Monte Hellman, starring singer-songwriter James Taylor, the Beach Boys drummer Dennis Wilson, Warren Oates, and Laurie Bird. "Esquire" magazine declared the film its movie of the year for 1971, and even published the entire screenplay in its April 1971 issue, but the film was not a commercial success. The film has since become a cult classic. Brock Yates, organizer of the Cannonball Baker Sea-To-Shining-Sea Memorial Trophy Dash (better known as the Cannonball Run) cites "Two-Lane Blacktop" as one source of inspiration for the creation of the race, and commented on it in his "Car and Driver" column announcing the first Cannonball. "Two-Lane Blacktop" is notable as a time capsule film of U.S. Route 66 during the pre-Interstate Highway era, and for its stark footage and minimal dialogue. As such, it has become popular with fans of Route 66. "Two-Lane Blacktop" has been compared to similar road movies with an existentialist message from the era, such as "Vanishing Point", "Easy Rider", and "Electra Glide in Blue". In 2012, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant.". Plot. The premise involves two street racers (played by Taylor and Wilson) who live on the road in their highly-modified, grey-primered, brutal 1955 Chevy "One-Fifty" two-door sedan drag car and drift from town to town, making their income by challenging local residents to impromptu drag races. The movie follows them driving east on Route 66 from Needles, California. They pick up a female hitchhiker in Flagstaff, Arizona (played by Bird), although it is more accurate to say that she picks them up by simply getting into their car. In New Mexico, they encounter another car driver (played by Oates, driving a 1970 Pontiac GTO). An atmosphere of hostility develops between the two parties. Although Oates is not an overt street racer, and, in fact, seems to know little about cars, a cross-country race to Washington, D.C. is suggested. Taylor proposes that the prize should be "for pinks," or legal ownership of the loser's car. Characters are never identified by name in the movie; instead they are named "The Driver," "The Mechanic," "GTO," and "The Girl". The movie follows the group east through small towns in California, Arizona, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Tennessee, but no character makes it to Washington, D.C. during the film. After sleeping with both the Driver and the Mechanic during the journey, the Girl disappoints them by abruptly leaving with the GTO while they compete at a racetrack in Memphis. The Driver pursues them intently, finding them at a diner where the Girl has just rejected the GTO's idea to visit Chicago. The Driver proposes going to Columbus, Ohio to get parts, but the Girl rejects him. She hops on the back of a stranger's motorcycle, dropping her bag in the parking lot. The three men abruptly depart from the diner in their respective cars. The insecure driver of the GTO, who tries to impress various hitchhikers he picks up along the way (including an importuning homosexual hitchhiker played by Harry Dean Stanton) with made-up stories about himself and the GTO, then stops for two soldiers on leave. He brags to his latest passengers that he won the new car while skillfully driving a home-built '55 Chevy, emphasizing the circular nature of the film. The film ends during a drag race at an airstrip in East Tennessee. As the Driver speeds down the runway, first the sound drops out, then the film slows until the frames of the film seem to catch in the projector's gate, stop, and then the hot projection bulb burning it through... Production. "Two-Lane Blacktop" originated with producer Michael Laughlin who had a two-picture deal with CBS Cinema Center Films. He convinced the production company to pay Will Corry $100,000 for his original story about two men, one black and one white, who drove across the country followed by a young girl which was inspired by his own cross-country journey in 1968. Returning from Italy after a film project had fallen through, Hellman was introduced to Laughlin who presented Hellman with two projects, one of which was "Two-Lane Blacktop". He asked Hellman to direct, who found Corry's story "interesting, but not fully realized". Hellman agreed to make the film only if another screenwriter was hired to rewrite the script and Laughlin agreed. A friend of Hellman's recommended underground writer Rudolph Wurlitzer. Hellman read his novel "Nog" and was impressed enough to hire Wurlitzer. He began reading Corry's story, but gave up after five pages. Hellman and Wurlitzer agreed to keep the basic idea of the cross-country race as well as the characters of the Driver, the Mechanic and the Girl. Wurlitzer invented the GTO character and the rest of the supporting cast. To prepare for writing the script, he stayed in a Los Angeles motel and read car magazines, as well as hanging out with several obsessive mechanics and "stoner car freaks" in the San Fernando Valley. Wurlitzer said that he did not know much about cars, but did "know something about being lost on the road". He wrote a new script in four weeks. In February 1970, Hellman conducted some location scouting and was a few weeks from principal photography when Cinema Center suddenly canceled the project. He shopped the script around to several Hollywood studios that liked it, but wanted a say in the casting. However, Ned Tanen, a young executive at Universal Pictures gave Hellman $850,000 to make the film and gave him control of the final cut. Hellman saw a picture of James Taylor on a billboard on the Sunset Strip and asked the musician to come and do a screen test. Four days before principal photography began the role of the Mechanic was still not cast. Hellman was desperate and tested people he met in garages. A friend of casting director Fred Roos suggested musician Dennis Wilson. Wilson was the last actor cast and Hellman chose him because he felt that the musician "had lived that role, that he really grew up with cars". Principal photography began on August 13, 1970 in Los Angeles and lasted for six weeks with a crew of 30, three matching Chevys and two matching G.T.O.s traveling through the southwest towards Memphis, Tennessee. Hellman insisted on going across country, like the characters in the film, because he felt it was the only way to convince the audience that the characters raced across the United States. He said, "I knew it would affect the actors — and it did, obviously. It affected everybody". Hellman took an unconventional approach of not letting his three lead, inexperienced actors read the script. Instead, he gave them pages of dialogue on the day of shooting. The actors felt uncomfortable with this approach. In particular, James Taylor, used to having control when it came to his music, was upset at being unable to read the script in advance. Hellman eventually gave him permission to do so, but Taylor never did read it. Hellman shot almost the entire script as written. The first cut of the film was three-and-a-half hours long. He was his own editor: "I can't look over someone's shoulder. I need my hand on the brake". He had control of the final cut, but was contractually obliged to deliver a film no longer than two hours. The final version ran 105 minutes. In their April 1971 cover story, "Esquire" magazine proclaimed "Two-Lane Blacktop", "film of the year". Hellman initially thought that the "Esquire" article would be good publicity for the film, but in hindsight was not, because "I think it raised people's expectations. They couldn't accept the movie for what it was". There was a lot of advance buzz about the film, but Lew Wasserman, head of the studio saw the film and hated it. He refused to promote it and when it opened in New York City on the Fourth of July weekend, there were no newspaper ads promoting it. Soundtrack. Unlike other existential road movies of the time (such as ""Easy Rider"", and ""Vanishing Point""), "Two-Lane Blacktop" does not rely heavily on music, nor was a soundtrack album released. The music featured in the film covers many genres, including rock, folk, blues, country, bluegrass, and R&B. James Taylor and Dennis Wilson did not contribute any music. However, there are some notable tracks featured in the film, including "Moonlight Drive" by The Doors, the traditional folk tune "Stealin'" performed by Arlo Guthrie, and the original version of "Me and Bobby McGee" performed by the song's author Kris Kristofferson. A song titled "Truckload Of Art" written and performed by Terry Allen can be briefly heard coming out of the GTO. In 2003 Plain Records issued a tribute album made in honor of this cult classic called "You Can Never Go Fast Enough" featuring exclusive tracks by Wilco, Sonic Youth, Will Oldham/Alan Licht, Calexico & Giant Sand, Suntanama, Steffen Basho-Junghans, Charalambides, Mark Eitzel/Marc Capelle, Roy Montgomery and Alvarius B with rare tracks by Cat Power, Roscoe Holcomb, Leadbelly & Sandy Bull. Reaction. Roger Ebert gave the film three out of four stars and wrote, "What I liked about "Two-Lane Blacktop" was the sense of life that occasionally sneaked through, particularly in the character of G.T.O. (Warren Oates). He is the only character who is fully occupied with being himself (rather than the instrument of a metaphor), and so we get the sense we've met somebody". In his review for "The New York Times", Vincent Canby wrote, ""Two-Lane Blacktop" is a far from perfect film (those metaphors keep blocking the road), but it has been directed, acted, photographed and scored (underscored, happily) with the restraint and control of an aware, mature filmmaker". "Time" magazine's Jay Cocks wrote, "The film is immaculately crafted, funny and quite beautiful, resonant with a lingering mood of loss and loneliness ... Not a single frame in the film is wasted. Even the small touches — the languid tension while refueling at a back-country gas station or the piercing sound of an ignition buzzer — have their own intricate worth". In his review for the "Village Voice", J. Hoberman wrote, ""Two-Lane Blacktop" is a movie of achingly eloquent landscapes and absurdly inert characters". In his review for the "Chicago Reader", Jonathan Rosenbaum wrote, "The movie starts off as a narrative, but gradually grows into something much more abstract — it's unsettling, but also beautiful". The film has since become a cult classic. It currently holds a 92% on Rotten Tomatoes. Home video. "Two-Lane Blacktop" was unavailable on video for years because Universal Studios only release a few films from their catalog each year and it was not a priority. In 1994, Seattle's Scarecrow Video invited Hellman to show the film at their store. They proceeded to collect 2,000 signatures, including Werner Herzog's, for a petition to get the film released on video. Both "People" magazine and "Film Comment" ran articles about the store's effort and the film. For years, Universal had been looking for a partner to give "Two-Lane Blacktop" a proper release befitting its cult film status. However, efforts to release it had always been hampered by issues with music rights, in particular the use of "Moonlight Drive" by The Doors. Director William Lustig, also a "technical advisor" for Anchor Bay, got Hellman to approach the surviving band members to get their approval. In 1999, Michigan-based Anchor Bay Entertainment licensed the film from Universal and released it on VHS and DVD, with an audio commentary by Hellman and associate producer Gary Kurtz and a documentary on Hellman directed by George Hickenlooper. The limited edition DVD was packed in a metal tin and extras included a 48-page booklet featuring behind-the-scenes photographs and liner notes about director Monte Hellman, a 5" X 7" theatrical poster replica, and a die-struck miniature car key chain. Anchor Bay released a regular edition without the poster and key chain. At a July 2007 screening of the film, Hellman revealed that the Criterion Collection was releasing a two-disc special edition DVD that featured a new documentary made by Hellman that included an interview with Kristofferson about how "Me and Bobby McGee" has become so closely associated with the film. This DVD set was released on December 11, 2007. Two-Lane Blacktop is available on Blu-ray disc from UK distributor Masters of Cinema, having been released on 23 January 2012; this release was marked as a Region B disc, which would only play in Blu-ray disc players in Europe, Africa and Australia, though it is unknown if the disc was actually region-coded. References. Notes Further reading
1063980	Andrew David "Andy" Samberg (born August 18, 1978) is an American comedic actor, voice actor, writer, rapper and member of the comedy group The Lonely Island. He is known as a cast member on "Saturday Night Live" (2005–2012), where they have been credited with popularizing the Emmy-winning SNL Digital Shorts, the comical short films and music videos starring Samberg and other members of the "SNL" cast. He also starred in "Hot Rod", "I Love You, Man", "That's My Boy", and "Celeste and Jesse Forever". Personal life. Samberg was born in Berkeley, California. His mother, Marjorie "Margi" (née Marrow), is an elementary school teacher, and his father, Joe Samberg, is a photographer. He has two sisters, Johanna and Darrow. His family is Jewish, and his maternal grandfather, industrial psychologist and philanthropist Alfred J. Marrow, served as the executive chair of the American Jewish Congress. Samberg has described himself as "not particularly religious." He is a third cousin of U.S. Senator Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin (their maternal grandfathers were first cousins). Samberg discovered "Saturday Night Live" as a child, while sneaking past his parents to watch professional wrestling on television. He became obsessed with the show, and his devotion to comedy was frustrating to teachers who felt he was unfocused on his schoolwork. Samberg graduated from Berkeley High School in 1996, where he became interested in creative writing, and has stated: "classes were the ones that I put all my effort into...that's what I cared about and that's what I ended up doing." He attended college at University of California, Santa Cruz, for two years before transferring to New York University (where he graduated in 2000) for its acclaimed film school. After five years of dating, Samberg announced his engagement to musician Joanna Newsom in February 2013. They married on September 21, 2013 in Big Sur, California. Career. He majored in experimental film, where he starred as "Monkey" in the music video for James Kochalka's song "Monkey vs. Robot". Before joining the late night comedy show SNL, Samberg was a YouTube and Internet star. He first began making comedy videos with his two friends Akiva Schaffer and Jorma Taccone. When YouTube was created in 2005, the streaming of their videos became much more widespread over the Internet. "With respect to some of these YouTube stars, Hollywood talent agencies have recognized the revenue potential of these entertainers and are signing them into development deals." He became a featured player on the show in part because of the work he'd done on his own sketch comedy website TheLonelyIsland.com. that helped them land an agent and eventually get hired at SNL. Prior to joining its cast, Samberg was (and remains) a member of the comedy troupe The Lonely Island (along with Jorma Taccone and Akiva Schaffer). The trio began writing for Saturday Night Live in 2005 and released their debut album, "Incredibad", in 2009. Samberg has appeared in numerous theatrical films, commercials, music videos and has hosted special events, including the 2009 MTV Movie Awards. In 2012, Samberg delivered the Class Day speech at Harvard University. In September 2012, he plays Dale Ashbrick in a BBC Three comedy show, "Cuckoo". He starred with Adam Sandler twice in "That's My Boy" and "Hotel Transylvania". It was announced in May 2013 that he will star in a new comedy police show, "Brooklyn Nine-Nine" which premiered on the FOX network on September 17, 2013.
1132614	Last Orgy of the Third Reich (Italian: "L'ultima orgia del III Reich, English: Gestapo's Last Orgy") is a 1977 Italian Nazi exploitation film directed by Cesare Canevari. Plot. The film begins with a man named Conrad von Starke (Adriano Micantoni) the Commandant driving down a road, listening to a war crimes trial on the radio. He stops the car and exits at the ruins of an old death camp. There he meets Lise Cohen (Daniela Poggi). It is revealed that Lise is a former prisoner of the camp and the commandant has arranged to meet her several years after World War II, to thank her for testimony she provided which saved him from certain death. Lise and the Commandant make love.
629372	Harvie Krumpet is an Australian clay animation made in Melbourne written, directed and animated by Adam Elliot and produced by Melanie Coombs. This short (22 min and 7 sec) film won the Academy Award for Animated Short Film in 2003, in addition to numerous festival awards and the 2004 Australian Film Institute Best Short Animation award. It was also included in the Animation Show of Shows. Synopsis. The story revolves around the life of Harvek Milos Krumpetzki, born in Poland in 1922. At the outbreak of World War II he comes to Spotswood in Australia as a refugee and changes his name to "Harvie Krumpet". Despite a life filled with bad luck—such as having Tourette's Syndrome, being struck by lightning, and losing one of his testicles—Harvie remains ever optimistic, living out his own eccentric way of life, marrying a nurse he meets in hospital and raising an adoptive daughter, who is a Thalidomide baby. Throughout his disaster-ridden life, people around him come and go, but right to the end Harvie delights in the simple pleasure of life. In one of the pivotal episodes of his life, Harvie sits in the park next to a statue of Horace while he hears the instructional "Carpe diem", which inspires him to make many changes in his life, such as embracing the naturist ways and embarking on daring rescue missions for animal rights. The film ends with one of Harvie's many "fakts", which he had been collecting throughout the film. "Fakt 1034: Life is like a cigarette, smoke it to the butt".
578366	Naa Ishtam () is a 2012 Telugu-language film directed by Prakash Toleti which features Rana Daggubati and Genelia D'Souza in the lead roles. Production works began in April 2011 and features music by Chakri and released on 23 March 2012 and got mixed response and hence was an average at the BO. But the producers are in safe side as the satellite rights were sold to Gemini TV for a fancy price of 3.20 Cr and it grossed about 30 million in 3 days after its release in A.P..It will be dubbed into Tamil as kadhal nayagan. Plot. Gani (Rana) is a Telugu youth who lives and works in Malaysia and he is an extremely selfish person. He always thinks about himself and his benefits first. Into his routine life comes Krishnaveni (Genelia) unexpectedly and everything gets disturbed. Krishnaveni loves Kishore (Harshavardhan Rane) and she elopes from home as her dad Naidu (Nasser) does not approve of her choice. But Kishore doesn’t turn up and she feels cheated. Gani's selfish nature gets him to lie to Krishnaveni and he takes her home to Naidu in the hope of making some money. But Gani realises his mistake once he sees Naidu and family and he gets Krishnaveni back to Malaysia. As a cheated Krishnaveni begins rebuilding her life with Gani's support, love blossoms between the two. Into this situation walks in Kishore and he is desperate to win back Krishnaveni's love. Meanwhile, Naidu is furious about the whole episode and he engages the services of Malaysia Don Salim Bhai (Shawar Ali) to trap Gani. Gani uses all his guile to thwart Salim Bhai and throw Kishore off the track, but is he successful? Who will Krishnaveni accept in the end? That forms the story. Soundtrack. Music was Provided by Chakri and Lyrics were penned by Chandrabose, Balaji & Vanamali. The audio Release was held on 5 March 2012 at Gokaraju Rangaraju Institute of Engineering and Technology, Hyderabad. Released by Victory Venkatesh, the event was attended by the film's main star cast. A Platinum Disc Function was held on 23 March 2012. The music got Generally Positive Reviews and Response. Musicperk.com gave a rating of 7 out of 10 quoting 'Be ready to rock and also be swoon in your dreams'. Myfirstshow.com gave a positive review quoting 'Chakri after a long time made a come back of sorts and listening to music makes one feel that he made a strong impact with the tunes. He is amply aided by creative skills of Chandra Bose, Balaji, and Vanamali.'Naa Isham' becomes the buzz word for all music lovers and genex youth'. Bharatstudent.com also gave a positive review Quoting 'Overall, this is one album whose CD can be bought'. Production. The film was launched and began filming on 6 May 2011. The title of the film was originally picked by Jogi Naidu for a film to be made by Clapboard Productions banner denies with Allari Naresh to be directed by Parusuram but since the project got delayed he gave it away to Paruchuri Kireeti for this project.
1030207	Les Amants du Pont-Neuf () is a 1991 French film directed by Leos Carax, starring Juliette Binoche and Denis Lavant. The title refers to the Pont Neuf bridge in Paris. The DVD of the film is released under its French title in the UK, as The Lovers on the Bridge in North America, and, in a mistranslation of the original title, as Lovers on the Ninth Bridge (instead of "Lovers on the New Bridge") in Australia. Production. Guiton's documentary notes that from the outset Leos Carax wanted to make a simple film, originally talking about doing it with a small team, in black and white and via Super 8. His first movie "Boy Meets Girl" had been a small affair, whereas "Mauvais Sang" had been considerably larger and more costly, albeit more successful at the boxoffice.
1067730	"Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium" is a 2007 fantasy comedy-drama film written and directed by Zach Helm. The film stars Dustin Hoffman as the owner of a magical toy store, and Natalie Portman as his store employee. Plot. Molly Mahoney (Natalie Portman), called Mahoney throughout the movie, is an employee at "Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium", a magical toy shop run by the eccentric 243 year old Mr. Edward Magorium (Dustin Hoffman). Besides Molly and Mr. Magorium, store bookbuilder Bellini (Ted Ludzik), a strongman, is also employed. Eric Applebaum (Zach Mills) is a boy who comes to the toy store and regularly interacts with the adults and volunteers at the store, acting at times like a part-time employee. The toy shop is magical. The toys have a life of their own. An over-sized ledger, known as the Big Book, can magically materialize any toy on command, and a doorknob, when rotated, can change the interior of a magic room. Mr. Magorium states that he imbued the shop with the same youthful characteristics of the children who visit it. Because of its similarity to children, the shop is also prone to temper tantrums.
217406	Jedda (1955) was the last movie made by the Australian filmmaker Charles Chauvel. The film is most notable for being the first to star two Aboriginal actors (Robert Tudawali and Ngarla Kunoth) in the leading roles, and also to be the first Australian feature film shot in colour. "Jedda" is seen by some as an influential film in early Australian cinema, as it set a standard for future Australian films. It won more international attention than previous Australian films, during a time when Hollywood films were dominating the Australian cinema. The director, Charles Chauvel, was nominated for the Golden Palm Award in the 1955 Cannes Film Festival, but lost to the American Delbert Mann for "Marty". Plot. Jedda is an Aboriginal girl born on a cattle station in the Northern Territory of Australia. After her mother dies giving birth to her, the child is brought to Sarah McMann, the wife of the station boss. Sarah has recently lost her own newborn to illness. She at first intends to give the baby to one of the Aboriginal women who work on the station, but then raises Jedda as her own, teaching her European ways and separating her from other Aborigines.
584723	Anupama Prakash Kumar (born 4 December 1974), better known as Anupama Kumar, is an Indian film actress and model. Having appeared in more than 300 ad films, she made her debut as an actress in the 2004 Hindi film "Kyun...! Ho Gaya Na" and went on to play supporting roles in Tamil films. Besides acting and modelling, Anupama has also worked as a journalist, anchor, visualizer and a television producer. She won the Vijay Award 2013 for Best Actor in a Supporting Role (Female) for her role in Muppozhudhum Un Karpanaigal. Career. A Tamilian by birth, Anupama mostly lived in North India. She had been mainly involved in the field of television for over thirteen years, working as an anchor, visualizer, journalist and even producer. Later she started off into a modelling and acting career, featuring in more than 300 commercials along the likes of Shahrukh Khan and Mohan Lal. She had appeared in several Hindi language television series such as "Kabhi Aaye Na Judaai", "Mission Fateh", "Shaka Laka Boom Boom" and "The Magic Make-Up Box" as well. Her film debut happened in 2004, when she accepted an offer to star in the Aishwarya Rai-starrer "Kyun...! Ho Gaya Na" in a cameo. When she was in Chennai for an ad shoot in 2009, she got to know that director Cheran was looking for a new face to play the role of Cheran's wife as an elder woman. She took up the role, which, despite being a cameo role, fetched her much critical acclaim. Personal life. She is married to G. Shivakumar, a Navy commander and has one son, Aditya, with whom, she currently resides in Chennai. References. http://dc-epaper.com/Publications/DC/DCC/2011/09/03/PagePrint/03_09_2011_108.pdf
402703	Kimora Lee Simmons (née Perkins; born May 4, 1975) is a former American fashion model. She created Baby Phat and was CEO/Creative Director through 2010. In 2011, she was hired as president/Creative Director for JustFab. Her current net worth is prominently gained through her modelling, acting and fashion career.
499875	Slaughter Disc is a 2005 pornographic horror film written, directed and produced by David Quitmeyer. Plot. Due to masturbating to "Clown Porn", college student and sex addict Michael Brichums misses a date with his girlfriend, Carrie, prompting Carrie to dump him. Later, Mike goes to a sex shop, where he finds a magazine featuring Andromeda Strange, an alt porn star whose films are so extreme they have been banned in numerous countries. Mike asks the clerk about Andromeda, and is told that obscenity laws prohibit the store from selling her merchandise, but he can probably find her films online. When Mike leaves, the clerk disappears, leaving another employee (who was in the washroom) to find Mike's receipt, and wonder "Who the Hell rang this up?" At home, Mike orders one of Andromeda's DVDs, which is strangely transparent. The video depicts Andromeda masturbating until she bleeds, and cutting her own wrist and throat with a straight razor, something which greatly disturbs Mike. A few days later, Mike decides to give the film another shot, and views a scene in which a now scarred and demonic Andromeda performs fellatio on a bound and gagged man. After the man climaxes, Andromeda slits his throat. The next morning, Mike wakes up late for work, and as he rushes out the door, Andromeda appears on his television, and kisses the screen. Because of frequent tardiness, Mike is fired from his job, and while watching more of Andromeda's video, he gets a call from his friend, John, asking him to hang out at a bar. Mike goes to the bar, leaving Andromeda to glare at him as he leaves. John does not show up at the bar and will not answer his phone, so Mike gets drunk alone, stumbles home, and vomits repeatedly. Unable to sleep, Mike pops in Andromeda's DVD, which now shows Andromeda with another bound man, who Mike is shocked to realize is John. Andromeda rapes John, bludgeons him with a hammer, and eats chunks of his brain matter. Mike believes what he saw was fake, until he is lead to John's remains by images on his television, and a call from Andromeda. Mike panics, and calls Carrie, and the police. Carrie does not believe Mike's story, and the 911 operator is doubtful as well, but promises Mike he will send a unit to his apartment. Back home, Mike's television is on, and is showing Andromeda molesting an unconscious Carrie, and slitting her throat. Mike destroys the DVD and unplugs the television, but it will not turn off. Andromeda then appears in the room, and seduces Mike, who asks "Do I have to die? I don't want this to end". Andromeda responds with "You're already dead" as it is revealed the two are on Mike's television, and Mike's mutilated body is lying on his couch. The officers called by Mike arrive at his apartment, but Mike's body is gone. Two detectives find Andromeda's DVD and magazine, and take them as evidence. In a post-credits scene, a sex shop customer inquires about Andromeda. The clerk turns around, and is shown to be a gaunt Mike, who states "Oh yeah, Andromeda Strange. Yeah, she's hot as Hell alright. She's definitely capable of pulling some weird and crazy shit. But hey, I've got to warn you about something... her video is definitely not for the weak hearted." Reception. Adult Video News gave "Slaughter Disc" a four out of five, though went on to write "this really is not a good movie" and "the most disturbing thing about it is that it contains a very definite anti-porn message". The same score was awarded by Digital Retribution, which said "it is the first movie I've seen that successfully merged horror with porn without becoming a farce or just awful". A grade of two was given by The Video Graveyard, which found the story interesting (if not explored as well as it could be) and stated "Even though the film has failed in the same area as others of its type, I have to admit that "Slaughter Disc" did manage to elicit a fair amount of suspense and had me wanting to know what was going to happen". The Worldwide Celluloid Massacre called "Slaughter Disc" a dull and uninteresting film that was non-erotic porn and non-scary horror with mostly weak gore. The film was also heavily criticized by Soiled Sinema, which called it a boring and unarousing mess with poor image and sound quality, ultimately concluding "The horror world is already polluted with a dung heap of horrendous trash. "Slaughter Disc" is just another bag of garbage for the already putrid pile".
899936	Le Amiche () is a 1955 Italian black-and-white drama film directed by Michelangelo Antonioni and starring Eleonora Rossi Drago, Gabriele Ferzetti, Franco Fabrizi, and Valentina Cortese. Adapted from Cesare Pavese's 1949 novel "Tra donne sole", the film is about a young woman who returns to her native Turin to set up a new fashion salon and becomes involved with a troubled woman and her three wealthy women friends. The film was shot on location in Turin, Piedmont, Italy. "Le Amiche" received the Venice Film Festival Silver Lion Award in 1955, and the Italian National Syndicate of Film Journalists Silver Ribbon Award for Best Director (Michelangelo Antonioni) and Best Supporting Actress (Valentina Cortese). Plot. Returning to her native Turin for the opening of a branch of a Rome fashion salon, the elegant Clelia (Eleonora Rossi Drago) discovers a young woman named Rosetta Savoni (Madeleine Fischer) near death in the next room of her hotel. Rosetta took an overdose of sleeping pills in an attempt to commit suicide. Clelia, who is alone in her hometown, befriends Rosetta and her three wealthy friends. Momina De Stefani (Yvonne Furneaux) is separated from her husband and easily replaces lovers. Nene (Valentina Cortese) is a talented artist becoming successful in her career; she is living with a frustrated painter named Lorenzo (Gabriele Ferzetti) who envies the success of his wife. Mariella (Anna Maria Pancani) is futile. Clelia is attracted by Carlo (Ettore Manni), the assistant of the salon's architect, Cesare Pedoni (Franco Fabrizi), but he belongs to the working class living in a different social reality. When Momina and Clelia discover that the reason Rosetta tried to commit suicide was because she felt in love for Lorenzo, the cynical Momina encourages Rosetta to stay with him, even though he and Nene were supposed to marry soon. The advice leads to tragic consequences. Production. The script for "Le Amiche" is adapted from a novel by Cesare Pavese. As such, it is one of the few adaptations Antonioni directed, the others being "Blowup" (based on a short story by Julio Cortázar), "The Mystery of Oberwald" (adapted from Jean Cocteau's play "L'Aigle à deux têtes", which Cocteau had previously adapted to film) and his final feature, "Beyond the Clouds", based on a book of his own short stories. Antonioni wrote the screenplay in collaboration with Suso Cecchi d'Amico and Alba De Cespedes.
1033040	Lucy Clare Davis (born 2 January 1973) is an English actress. She is best known for playing the character Dawn Tinsley in the BBC comedy "The Office" and as Dianne in the horror-comedy movie "Shaun of the Dead". Career. Davis appeared briefly in an episode of "The Detectives", a show created by and starring her father (Jasper Carrott). She played Maria Lucas in the BBC's 1995 production of "Pride and Prejudice" and also had a role in the 1996 Christmas special of One Foot in the Grave. After her breakthrough role in "The Office", she appeared in the film "Sex Lives of the Potato Men" and "Shaun of the Dead" (both 2004), whilst continuing to play Hayley Jordan in "The Archers" on BBC Radio 4. She gave up the latter role when her other acting responsibilities made it impossible to continue; the part was recast in September 2005. She appeared in the episode Elephants and Hens of UK TV programme Black Books alongside Tamsin Greig, Olivia Colman. In 2006, Davis appeared as the 'Fashion TV' host on ABC's hit "Ugly Betty", and later that year played writer Lucy Kenwright in NBC's "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip". In 2008, she appeared in several episodes of the U.S. series "Reaper".
587658	Abhinandana is a 1987 Telugu, romance film starring Shobana, Karthik Muthuraman and Sarath Babu. The story of the movie is loosely inspired from Hindi movie, Gumrah (1963). The movie was later dubbed into Tamil as "Kadhal Geetham". Plot. Set in Kodaikanal, the story revolves around Rani (Shobhana), an aspiring dancer, who meets Raja (Karthik Muthuraman), an aspiring painter and singer. They fall in love with each other as their mutual love for art unfolds at an arts institute/college. Rani's father (J.V. Somayajulu) wishes to get his daughter married soon. But, Rani is bent on convincing her father to accept Raja as her future spouse. The drama unfolds when Rani's pregnant sister Kamala (Rajya Lakshmi) and her husband (Sarath Babu) along with their two kids visit from Chennai. Kamala's husband, who owns a recording studio, leaves for Chennai after a short stay in Kodaikanal. After Kamala's accidental death, her father wishes to get Rani married to her brother—in-law and take care of the two kids. Rani has to choose between Raja and looking after her sister's family. Raja can't take this and takes to drinking as he loses hope of uniting with Rani. Unaware of Raja's connection to Rani, Kamala's widower meets Raja. There he notices Raja's artistic skills and offers him an opportunity to sing for an album at his recording theater. He introduces Raja to Rani at Rani's home before requesting Raja to live there until Raja's recording is complete. The movie becomes dramatic as Rani's brother-in-law finds out that Rani is in love with Raja. How the individuals try to compromise and sacrifice for each other's aspirations and feelings forms the crux of the story. Soundtrack. The lyrics were penned by Acharya Atreya while the soundtrack was composed by Illayaraja which became highly successful.
589299	Hanste Zakhm is a 1973 Indian Hindi film produced and directed by Chetan Anand. The film stars Navin Nischol, Priya Rajvansh, Balraj Sahni, and Nadira in lead roles. The film has music composed by Madan Mohan and lyrics penned by Kaifi Azmi. Plot. The film begins with Mahendru (Balraj Sahni), a widowed police officer and his young daughter, Chanda. Chanda's best friend is Rekha (Anju Mahendru), the daughter of a prostitute. Rekha stays over at Chanda's house, when Rekha's mother accidentally kills someone in an effort to stop her pimp (Jeevan) from carrying off Rekha into prostitution as well. She is sent to prison, and begs Mahendru not to reveal to Rekha anything about her life as a working girl. Mahendru promises to protect and raise the child as his own daughter. The pimp, Jeevan, attempts to kidnap Rekha but his goons mistakenly kidnap Chanda. When he realizes the error he decides to make the best of a bad situation by asking Mahendru for a large ransom. Mahendru borrows the ransom money from a friend, but the pimp deceives him and delivers the girl to a madam (Nadira).
1099788	Mark Kac ( ; Polish: "Marek Kac"; 3 August 1914 – 26 October 1984) was a Polish mathematician. His main interest was probability theory. His question, "Can one hear the shape of a drum?" set off research into spectral theory, with the idea of understanding the extent to which the spectrum allows one to read back the geometry. (In the end, the answer was "no", in general.)
1060996	Lena Maria Jonna Olin (born 22 March 1955) is a Swedish actress. She has been nominated for several acting awards, including a Golden Globe for "The Unbearable Lightness of Being" (1988) and an Academy Award for "Enemies, A Love Story" (1989). Other well-known films in which she has appeared include "Chocolat" (2000), directed by her husband Lasse Hallström, "Queen of the Damned" (2002), "Casanova" (2005) and "The Reader" (2008). Olin was also a main cast member in the second season (and a recurring guest star in later seasons) of the TV series "Alias". Biography. Olin was born the youngest of three children, in Stockholm, Sweden. She is the daughter of actress Britta Holmberg and the director Stig Olin. She studied acting at Sweden's National Academy of Dramatic Art. She was crowned Miss Scandinavia 1975 in Helsinki, Finland in October 1974. Olin worked both as a substitute teacher and as a hospital nurse before becoming an actress. Olin performed for over a decade with Sweden's Royal Dramatic Theatre-ensemble (1980–1994) in classic plays by William Shakespeare and August Strindberg, and appeared in smaller roles of several Swedish films directed by Bergman and in productions of Swedish Television's TV-Theatre Company. Ingmar Bergman cast Olin in "Face to Face". Later she acted at the national stage in Stockholm in several productions directed by Bergman, and with Bergman's production of "King Lear" (in which Olin played Cordelia) she toured the world—Paris, Berlin, New York, Copenhagen, Moscow and Oslo, among others. Critically acclaimed stage performances by Olin at Sweden's Royal Dramatic Theatre included the leading part as The Daughter in "A Dream Play" by Strindberg, Margarita in the stage adaption of "The Master and Margarita" by Mikhail Bulgakov, Carlo Goldoni's "The Servant of Two Masters", Ann in Edward Bond's "Summer", Titania in "A Midsummer Night's Dream" by Shakespeare, Ben Jonson's "The Alchemist", the title role in Ingmar Bergman's rendition of Strindberg's "Miss Julie" and her neurotic Charlotte in the contemporary drama "Nattvarden" ("The Last Supper") by Lars Norén. In 1980 she was one of the earliest winners of the Ingmar Bergman Prize, initiated in 1978 by the director himself, who was also one of the two judges. Olin's international debut in a lead role on film was in Bergman's "After the Rehearsal" (1984). Two years earlier, she had appeared in a small role in the same director's "Fanny and Alexander". In 1988, Olin starred with Daniel Day-Lewis in her first major part in an English speaking and internationally produced film, "The Unbearable Lightness of Being", followed by Sydney Pollack's "Havana" (1990), Roman Polanski's "The Ninth Gate" (1999) and many others. In 1989, she earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress for her work in "Enemies: A Love Story," in which she portrayed the survivor of a German Nazi camp. In 1994 Olin starred in "Romeo Is Bleeding" and played what is perhaps her most extreme character to date; the outrageous hit woman Mona Demarkov—still one of the actress's most popular portrayals on film. Olin and director Lasse Hallström collaborated on the 2000 film "Chocolat", which received five Academy Award nominations, and on "Casanova" (2005). From 2002 to 2006, she appeared opposite Jennifer Garner in her first American television role ever; on the second season of the successful television series "Alias". For her work on the series as Irina Derevko, Olin received an Emmy Award nomination for Outstanding Supporting Actress in 2003. She received good reviews for her part in "Alias"—particularly her chemistry with Victor Garber, who played her former husband and sometime-enemy Jack Bristow—and was rumored to have been offered a salary in excess of $100,000 per episode to remain part of the cast. She left the show after her first and only season; this was, however, to spend more time with her family in New York. In May 2005, Olin returned to "Alias" for a two-episode appearance at the end of the show's fourth season, and subsequently appeared again in the fifth season, initially in a cameo in December 2005, and then following a four-month hiatus she appeared again in April 2006, and for the finale on 22 May 2006. An upcoming project is supposedly "Daughter of the Queen of Sheba" (which is to be directed by Hallström). She had a small but significant role in 2008's Oscar-nominated film "The Reader", playing a Jewish survivor of the Auschwitz death march in a trial in the 1960s and the woman's daughter twenty years later. In 2005 she returned to Sweden for a brief period of filming and starred in a supporting role in Danish director Simon Staho's film "Bang Bang Orangutang" (with a punk music soundtrack by, among others, The Clash and Iggy Pop). Personal life. Olin was for many years (mid 1970s – end 80s) partner of Swedish actor and Royal Dramatic Theatre colleague Örjan Ramberg. They had a son, Auguste Rahmberg, in 1986. The relationship ended in the late 1980s. Olin met film director Lasse Hallström in Sweden in 1992. Two years later they married in Hedvig Eleonora Church in Stockholm. In 1995 they had a daughter, Tora. Olin lives in New York with her husband and children.
1152753	Danielle Ryan Chuchran (born June 9, 1993) is an American actress, having appeared in films since 2001. She played the role of Mary Ingalls in "Little House on the Prairie" and starred in the 2007 film "The Wild Stallion" (formerly "Last of the Mustangs"). Life and career. Chuchran was born in Upland, California but moved to Utah as an infant. At the age of five, she decided she wanted to be in a Hawaiian Tropic beauty pageant; she placed first in the pageant and won the Most Photogenic, Best Hair, and Best Personality categories as well.
1469274	22 Bullets (, "the immortal") is a French film directed by Richard Berry. Filming began on 23 February 2009 in Marseille, Avignon in early April 2009, and continued for 8 weeks in Paris. It tells a part of the life story of Jacky Imbert, and is based on the novel "L'Immortel" by Franz-Olivier Giesbert. Plot. For three years he has led a peaceful life and devoted himself to his wife and two children. His past catches up with him when he is ambushed in a parking lot and left for dead with 22 bullets in his body. Against all odds, he survives to take revenge on his killers. Former mafia boss Charlie Mattei is shot by an eight-man death squad in a car park, but survives the hit with severe injuries. On the hunt for the shooters, he finds himself confronted with his criminal past and resulting threat to his family. Mattei had left the business several years ago to his old friend Tony Zacchia. He had since lived a retired life spent with his family. He tries to identify those responsible without bloodshed. This "weakness" is, however, exploited, and his friend Karim is brutally murdered by the same people who had shot him. Mattei swears revenge and goes on a hunt for the masterminds of the attack. He visits the hit squad during a birthday celebration and announces that he will kill them one by one anytime, anywhere. Marie Goldman is the policewoman investigating the shooting in the parking lot. Her husband, who was also a policeman, was killed in the service but his killer was never caught. Despite the indifference of her superiors, she would like to clear up the murder of her husband. Towards the end of the movie, in order to get to Tony Zacchia, a desperate Mattei makes a deal with Goldman, who herself is divided between doing her duty and punishing the murderers of her husband who she suspects were Zacchia's men. The police get a USB stick containing data incriminating Zacchia in a money fraud and laundering operation. He finally confronts Tony Zacchia at his home and is about to kill him, but is interrupted by the police who end up arresting both Zacchia and Mattei. In the end, Mattei is released as the cops do not have enough evidence to charge him. Goldman had earlier in the movie revealed to Mattei that one of the 8 shooters had missed him on purpose in the shootout at the start of the movie. Mattei figures out that this 8th shooter was his friend and lawyer who had been forced by Zacchia into shooting Mattei. He is forgiven by Mattei and the movie ends with Mattei walking with his family on a beach. His voiceover tells the audience that he had left his past life behind him and all he wanted to do was spend whatever possible time he had left with his family. He also says that he will no more have to look over his shoulder as he is at peace with his past. As they walk away, he turns and looks over his shoulder which tells us that there is no getting away from his past for him, ever.
1062757	Tracey Ullman (born 30 December 1959) is a British stage and television actress, comedienne, singer, dancer, director, author, and screenwriter of dual British and American citizenship. Her early appearances were on British TV sketch comedy shows "A Kick Up the Eighties" (with Rik Mayall and Miriam Margolyes) and "Three of a Kind" (with Lenny Henry and David Copperfield). After a brief but high-profile singing career, she appeared as Candice Valentine in "Girls On Top" with Dawn French and Jennifer Saunders. She emigrated from the United Kingdom to the US and created her own network television series, "The Tracey Ullman Show", from 1987 until 1990. She later produced programmes for HBO, including "Tracey Takes On..." (1996–1999), for which she has won numerous awards. She has also appeared in several feature films. Ullman's most recent sketch comedy series, "Tracey Ullman's State of the Union", ran from 2008 to 2010 on Showtime. Early life. Ullman was born Trace Ullman in Slough, Buckinghamshire (now in Berkshire), the daughter of Dorin Cleaver, of both English and Roma extraction, and Anthony John Ullman, a Polish Roman Catholic, who worked as a solicitor. Ullman's father was a Polish soldier evacuated from Dunkirk in 1940. He subsequently worked as a furniture salesman and travel agent. When she was six, Ullman's father died of a heart attack while reading her a bedtime story. He was 50 years old. In an effort to cheer up her family, Tracey recounts putting on shows in her mother's bedroom, performing alongside her older sister, Patti. That first show was entitled "The Patti Ullman Show". "I was a spin-off!" recalled Ullman. In her nightly performances she would mimic neighbours, family members, friends, and celebrities. Soon after, Ullman's mother remarried. At the age of 12, a headmaster saw Ullman's future potential, and recommended her to the Italia Conti Academy stage school. Although the school gave Ullman her first taste of the stage, she does not look back on it fondly. At the age of 16, Ullman began finding jobs as a dancer, and soon landed a role in "Gigi" in Berlin. Upon returning to England, she joined the "Second Generation" dance troupe. She also began appearing in variety shows. The exposure led to her casting in numerous West End musicals, including "Grease", and "The Rocky Horror Show". During this time Ullman was cast in a play at London's Royal Court Theatre for an improvised play about club acts. Entering the competition, Ullman created the character Beverly, a born-again Christian chanteuse. The performance was a big hit and she won the "Best Newcomer Award". The BBC became interested and offered her the chance to star in her own show. In 1983, Ullman took part in the workshops for Andrew Lloyd-Webber's upcoming musical, "Starlight Express", playing the part of Pearl. Music career. In 1983, Ullman succeeded as a singer on the punk label Stiff Records, although her style was more comic romantic than punk. She had six songs in the UK Top 100 in less than two years. Her 1983 debut album, "You Broke My Heart in 17 Places", featured her first hit single, "Breakaway" (famous for her performance with a hairbrush as a microphone); the international hit cover version of label-mate Kirsty MacColl's "They Don't Know" went to No.2 in the UK, and No.8 in the U.S. MacColl sang backing vocals on Ullman's version. It would later become the theme song to Ullman's later television series, "Tracey Takes On...". Follow-up singles, a cover of Doris Day's "Move Over Darling", which reached No.8 in the UK, and the cover of Madness' "My Girl", which Ullman changed to "My Guy's Mad at Me", were released. (The "My Guy" video featured the British Labour Party politician Neil Kinnock, at the time the Leader of the Opposition) Ullman's songs were over-the-top evocations of 1960s and 1970s pop music with a 1980s edge, "somewhere between Minnie Mouse and the Supremes" as the "Melody Maker" put it, or "retro before retro was cool", as a retrospective reviewer wrote in 2002. Her career received another boost when the video for "They Don't Know" featured a cameo from Paul McCartney; at the time Ullman was filming a minor role in McCartney's film "Give My Regards to Broad Street". Ullman released her second and last album, "You Caught Me Out", in 1984. Her final hit, "Sunglasses" (1984), featured comedian Adrian Edmondson in its music video. During this time, she also appeared as a guest VJ on MTV in the United States. In her HBO stand-up special, "", Ullman recreated her music career, recounting how she entered the business, and why she left it. Performances of many of her hit singles were also performed in front of an audience for the performance. In October 2006, Ullman took part in the BBC Four documentary series, "If It Ain't Stiff", a mini-series dedicated to the history of the label. A new "remastered" version of "...17 Places" was released in 2007. Television career. Early years. Along with her stint in the music world, Ullman began working in television. Between 1981 and 1984 she starred in sketch comedies "A Kick Up the Eighties" and "Three of a Kind" for the BBC. In 1985, she donned a blonde wig and took the role of a promiscuous gold digger named "Candice Valentine" on the ITV sitcom "Girls On Top". She left after one season, due to being pregnant and giving birth to her first child in 1986. At this point, US television beckoned, and renowned television producer James L. Brooks came calling. The two had discussed working together previously, but it was not until 1987 that they created "The Tracey Ullman Show". Ullman played a variety of characters, completely unrecognisable with the help of makeup, prosthetics and padding. The show was the first commercial hit for then unknown Fox channel. Paula Abdul served as the show's choreographer. The then-unknown Abdul even used her early music recordings for the series' strenuous dance numbers. "The Tracey Ullman Show" earned four Emmys and spawned "The Simpsons", which was featured in simple cartoon shorts (created by cartoonist Matt Groening at the behest of "Ullman Show" producer James L. Brooks). Ullman provided the voice of Emily Winthrop, a British dog trainer on "The Simpsons" episode "Bart's Dog Gets an F" (1991). In 1992 Ullman filed a lawsuit against Twentieth Century Fox in Los Angeles Superior Court over profits from the later half hour incarnation of "The Simpsons". She wanted a share of "The Simpsons" merchandising and gross profits and believed she was entitled to $2.5 million of the estimated $50 million Fox made in 1992. The Fox network had paid her $58,000 in royalties for "The Simpsons" as well as $3 million for the 3½ seasons her show was on the air. As Ullman had continued her professional relationship with former producer Brooks, only the studio and not Brooks was named in the suit. Brooks was allowed to videotape his testimony as he was in the middle of filming "I'll Do Anything", in which Ullman appeared. Eventually the courts ruled in favor of the network. HBO. Ullman returned to television in 1993, but this time in cable television. Two specials were created allowing Ullman to bring life to a host of new characters. The first, "", took a humorous jab at the British class system, and co-starred Monty Python alumnus Michael Palin. For the second, "Tracey Ullman Takes On New York", Ullman decided to take on a more American subject, New York City. Both specials drew praise and awards. HBO became interested in doing a "Tracey Takes On..." series, and Ullman and her husband, Allan McKeown, set up production in Los Angeles in 1995. "Tracey Takes On..." premiered 24 January 1996, on HBO. Each episode would focus on a topic for Ullman to "take on" and examine. The series would have two to three long sketches, and many small interview-styled bits, with her many characters commenting on that week's topic. Unlike the Fox show, "Tracey Takes On..." was shot on location, not filmed in front of a live audience. Making the switch to a cable-produced series enabled Ullman free rein to do and say as she pleased. A kiss with "Tracey Ullman Show" alum Julie Kavner kicked off the series' first episode. Ullman portrayed characters, both male and female, made up of many ethnicities. This included an Asian donut shop owner, a (male) cab driver from the Middle East, and an African-American airport security guard. The series went on to win eight Emmys, numerous CableACE Awards and a host of other media awards, and was critically acclaimed. In 1997, it won the Outstanding Variety, Music or Comedy Series Emmy Award category for the episode "Vegas". In 1998 the series was published in book form, "Tracey Takes On...". The series was also awarded GLAAD awards for its portrayal of gay and lesbian characters. "Tracey Takes On..." completed its four-season run in 1999. Oxygen stint. In 2001, Ullman took a break from her character-based series and created a chat show for Oxygen, "Tracey Ullman's Visible Panty Lines". The show's main focus was fashion. Ullman had developed her own clothing website a few years prior. Interviewees included Arianna Huffington and Charlize Theron. The series lasted for two seasons, and ended in 2002. Return to HBO. A "Takes On..." spin-off pilot was produced in 2003, "Tracey Ullman in the Trailer Tales". "Tales" spotlighted just one of Ullman's most popular characters, Ruby Romaine. The pilot aired, but no series was ever commissioned. Tracey returned to HBO in the summer of 2005, with her autobiographical one-woman stage show, "". The show garnered another Emmy nomination. Showtime. Upon her naturalization in the United States, it was announced in April 2007 that she would be making the move from her 14-year working relationship with cable network, HBO, to the rival, Showtime. Ullman was to create a brand new series for the network, that would be inspired in part by her recently gained naturalisation. The series would focus on America, "the good, the bad, and the absolutely ridiculous", which also served as the series tag line. Ullman credits senior programmer, Robert Greenblatt, as a big influence in her decision for the move, and the network's budding roster of hit shows. Greenblatt was a young development director during her "Tracey Ullman Show" days, and was enthusiastic to get her over to Showtime. Five episodes were ordered for the first season. For the first time since the early years of her career at the BBC, Ullman was not only creating a new lineup of original characters, but rather, also impersonating famous ones. "Tracey Ullman's State of the Union" debuted on 30 March 2008. The critical response to "State of the Union" was overwhelmingly positive. One critic pointed out a change in Ullman's humour: Ullman has commented that the United States is, "now able to laugh at itself more," embracing more satiric humour, rather than deeming it "unpatriotic". Now that she's an official citizen, Ullman joked that she, "won't end up in Guantánamo Bay," for speaking her mind. Ullman hoped to continue the series after season one. Showtime announced that it had greenlighted a second season for 2009. It was commissioned for a third run for 2010. Other notable work. Ullman was the modern-day cartoon voice of Little Lulu. She also had a recurring role as an unconventional psychotherapist in "Ally McBeal", a role that won her an American Comedy Award. Ullman co-starred with Carol Burnett in the television adaptation of "Once Upon a Mattress". Ullman played Princess Winnifred, a role originally made famous by Burnett on Broadway, who took on the role of the overbearing Queen. Film career. Along with her television work, Ullman has featured in many films throughout her career. Her first theatrical film was a small role in Paul McCartney's 1984 film "Give My Regards to Broad Street". This was followed by a supporting role in the 1985 Meryl Streep drama "Plenty", which gained Ullman international acclaim for her comic and dramatic performance. After the cancellation of "The Tracey Ullman Show" in 1990, she made her starring debut alongside Kevin Kline, River Phoenix and Joan Plowright in "I Love You to Death". Ullman has also appeared in lead and supporting roles in "", Nancy Savoca's "Household Saints", "Bullets Over Broadway", "Small Time Crooks", "A Dirty Shame", and "Tim Burton's Corpse Bride". She was nominated as Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy for her work in "Small Time Crooks" in 2001. Ullman portrayed Mother Nature in the 2007 romantic-comedy film, "I Could Never Be Your Woman", starring Michelle Pfeiffer. Ullman acted as creative consultant on the 2006 DreamWorks feature, "Flushed Away". Ullman signed on to voice along with such actors as Dustin Hoffman, Kevin Kline, William H. Macy, Stanley Tucci, Christopher Lloyd, Sigourney Weaver and Emma Watson in the computer-animated "The Tale of Despereaux". Stock footage of Ullman was used in the film "The Queen" with Helen Mirren. On 12 June 2013, it was announced by The Hollywood Reporter that Ullman was in talks to join the film version of the Broadway musical "Into the Woods" playing the mother to Jack the Giant Killer. Personal life. Ullman married producer Allan McKeown on 27 December 1983; they have two children, Mabel Ellen McKeown (born 1986) and John Albert Victor McKeown (born 1991). Mabel McKeown works for Harriet Harman in a job funded by the Labour Party. She unsuccessfully ran as Labour's candidate in the by-election in Cremorne in Kensington and Chelsea Council in 2010. She once contributed to the Huffington Post. She has also campaigned for Labour. Ullman became an American citizen in December 2006 and now holds dual citizenship of the United States and the United Kingdom. In 2006, Ullman topped the list for the "Wealthiest British Comedians", with an estimated wealth of £75 million. Awards and Honors. To date, Ullman is a seven-time Emmy Award-winning, and American Comedy Award-winning actress. On 5 December 2006, Tracey was honored at the Museum of Television and Radio along with likes of Carol Burnett, Lesley Visser, Lesley Stahl, Jane Pauley and Betty White, in the She Made It category. In April 2009, it was announced that Ullman would be awarded a Lifetime Achievement BAFTA LA Award, the following May. She became the first recipient of the Charlie Chaplin award for comedy on 9 May 2009.
582204	Ashutosh Rana (), born Ashutosh Rana Ramnarayan Neekhra is an Indian actor working in the Hindi Film Industry, Marathi, Kannada Film Industry and Telugu Film Industry. Biography. Rana is from Gadarwara dist.-Narsinghpur, Madhya Pradesh state. He spent his childhood in Gadarwara where he finished his primary school. He used to play the role of Ravana in the city Ramleela. He went to the National School of Drama, New Delhi and studied acting. Personal life. Ashutosh Rana is married to Renuka Shahane, also a bollywood actress. They have two sons Shouryaman and Satyendra. Ashutosh Rana has staunch faith in his Guru, whom he calls "Dadda Ji". It was Dadda Ji who suggested to Rana to take up the acting career. When Rana was about to enter the field of acting, Dadda ji told him to go to Bombay and meet Mahesh Bhatt and take any project which starts with the letter "S". When Rana got an offer of Swabhimaan from Mahesh Bhatt, he didn't wait for a second and grabbed the opportunity. TV career. He started his career with the television serial "Swabhimaan", followed by serials like, "Farz", "Sazish", "Kabhi Kabhi", "Waris" and anchoring the TV show, "Baazi Kiski". He also hosted "Sarkaar Ki Duniya", a reality show. Currently, in 2010 he is working in a Star Plus show "Kaali- Ek Agnipariksha", where he plays a negative role, Thakral. Film career. He became known in Indian Cinema after his movie "Dushman" where he played a cold blooded murderer and psychopath killer. He is mostly given roles of antagonists in movies, particularly that of a killer. And in some movies he played supporting roles. He has acted in South Indian films, and is known as "Jeeva" in certain parts of the southern Indian Film Industry. He frequently appears in Mahesh Bhatt's films. He has acted in many Kannada films. He has shared screen space with South Indian Super Star Dr.Vishnuvardhan, a star of 220 movies in five different languages. He acted in the Kannada film Vishnu Vijaya starring Akshay Kumar. He also acted with Dr.Vishnuvardhan in the 2005 released super hit film Vishnu Sena and the 2007 released movie Kshana Kshana that also starred Aditya and Prema. Filmography. Film actor. Note:- The above 2011 schedule is subject to change.
1083988	Necromania (sometimes subtitled "A Tale of Weird Love") is a pornographic film by Edward D. Wood, Jr., released in 1971.
1084309	Andy Romano (born 1941), is an American actor, known for playing "J.D.", an outlaw motorcyclist and right-hand henchman of the character Eric von Zipper (played by Harvey Lembeck) in the 1960s Beach Party movies (which starred Annette Funicello and Frankie Avalon). When the Beach Party saga ended, Romano went through much of the 1970s and 80s appearing in minor roles in television episodes and some TV movies. In the late 1980s, he returned to film in supporting roles. He retired from acting in the late 1990s and settled in Washington state.
1266678	Nathaniel Greene "Nat" Pendleton (August 9, 1895 – October 12, 1967) was an American Olympic wrestler and film actor. Biography. Early life. Pendleton was born in Davenport, Iowa to Adelaide E. and Nathaniel G. Pendleton. He studied at Columbia University where he began his wrestling career. He was twice Eastern Intercollegiate Wrestling Association (EIWA) champion in 1914 and 1915. Chosen to compete in the US wrestling team at the 1920 Summer Olympics in Antwerp, Belgium, Pendleton lost only one match during the competition, and was awarded a silver medal. Returning to the US he became a professional wrestler, and with the celebrity status he had achieved, drifted into films in the late 1920s. Film career. His early roles were largely uncredited. Then he was chosen to appear in "Horse Feathers" (1932) with the Marx Brothers as one of the two college football players who kidnap Harpo and Chico, and his career began to develop. His role as circus strongman Eugen Sandow in "The Great Ziegfeld" (1936) brought him the strongest reviews of his career. Pendleton was most often cast in supporting roles as thugs, gangsters, or policemen and was usually typecast playing characters that depended on their brawn but were "none too bright". Some of his other films include "The Thin Man" (1934) and "At the Circus" (1939), again with the Marx Brothers. He appeared in recurring roles in two MGM film series of the late 1930s and 1940s - as Joe Wayman, the ambulance driver in the "Dr. Kildare" series, and its spin-off, the "Dr. Gillespie" series. He made his final film appearances in "Scared to Death" with Bela Lugosi, and "Buck Privates Come Home" (both 1947). Pendleton died in San Diego, California in 1967 from a heart attack.
1015915	Running on Karma (), also known as An Intelligent Muscle Man, is a 2003 Hong Kong film, produced and directed by Johnnie To and Wai Ka-Fai. It is ultimately a Buddhist parable about the nature of karma. There were some cuts in the Mainland China edition to meet the requirements for release there.
1037138	Leo Bill (born 31 August 1980 in Warwickshire, England) is an English actor, best known for his role as James Brocklebank in the 2006 film "The Living and the Dead". He is son of the actress Sheila Kelley. Theatre. In 2010 he gave a very well received performance when he appeared in Posh by Laura Wade at the Royal Court Theatre in London as Alistair Ryle. In 2011, he played the lovable libertine Charles Surface in Richard Brinsley Sheridan's "The School for Scandal" at the Barbican, London. Directed by Deborah Warner, the production received mixed reviews.
1349975	East/West (; ) is a 1999 French-Ukrainian-Russian-Spanish-Bulgarian film directed by Régis Wargnier, starring Sandrine Bonnaire (as Marie), Oleg Menshikov (as Alexei), Sergei Bodrov Jr. (as Sasha) and Catherine Deneuve (as Gabrielle). Authors of scenario and dialogue: Rustam Ibragimbekov, Sergei Bodrov, Louis Gardel and Régis Wargnier. Plot. After the Second World War, former White Emigres are offered Soviet citizenship, amnesty, and an invitation to return to the Motherland, so that they could join in the post-war restructuring. While most of the émigrés decide to remain abroad, there are many people anxious to return to the ‘Holy Russia’. Among the returnees are Alexei Golovin (Oleg Menshikov), his French wife Marie (Sandrine Bonnaire) and their son Sergey. But Joseph Stalin's offer was merely a tactical step. On arrival in Odessa, many of their travelling companions are executed on the spot or sent to the Gulag. Alexei and his family escape this fate and are sent to Kiev simply because the Soviet authorities realise that they have much to gain from this young doctor. He will be paraded as an example, a model "returnee". This is the price Alexei has to pay to save Marie and Seriozha. He is posted to the infirmary of a textile factory and he and his family are allocated a single room in a communal apartment. The "kommunalka" is to become Marie's new home, where a complete lack of privacy, denunciations from neighbors and NKVD arrest raids are a reality of daily life. Despite the strength of their marriage, Alexei and Marie gradually grow apart. Alexei conforms, accepts, and bides his time. Marie, however, refuses, bridles and has one sole aim: to return to France. But all her attempts are blocked by Alexei. When a French theatre group, led by the famous actress, Gabrielle Develay (Catherine Deneuve), arrives in Kiev on tour, Marie knows that this is her chance to alert the French Government. Marie manages to get through to Gabrielle and hand her a letter. When they get home, Marie throws Alexei out of their apartment, unable to bear his submissiveness to Stalin or his infidelity any longer. Marie finds a solace in her seventeen-year-old neighbor, Sasha (Sergei Bodrov Jr.), a competitive swimmer whose ability has kept him out of military service. Even after being thrown off the team, Sasha continues training, thanks to Marie's efforts. Every day, she takes him down to the river to swim alone against the current. Marie and Sasha share one wild hope: that he will get back and win selection for the European championships in Vienna. Once there, Sasha will be able to defect to the West, but it will be freedom without Marie, whom he loves. Marie is resolute, however. He must go, for freedom is what is the most important. Sasha wins the national race but falls under NKVD suspicion and is still not selected for Vienna. He is sent to a training camp on the Black Sea, to remove him from Marie's "dangerous" influence. Alone and despondent, Marie reunites with Alexei. Sasha, however, refuses to give up, escapes from his training camp, and swims to a Turkish freighter. When his story explodes across the Western news media, the Soviet authorities are enraged. Despite Alexei's attempts to save her, Marie is arrested by the NKVD and confesses under torture to masterminding Sasha's defection as part of a Central Intelligence Agency plot. She is then sentenced to a long term in the Gulag. Six years later, during the Khrushchev thaw, Alexei succeeds in overturning Marie's conviction. She is released, a broken and traumatized woman who no longer hopes for anything. Through Alexei's nursing and love, she slowly comes out of her shell. Two years later, while accompanying a trade mission to Bulgaria, Alexei finally lays his cards on the table. Gabrielle is waiting in the lobby to take her and Seriozha to the French embassy. "I have been waiting ten years for this," he says. Marie is overcome with emotion and pleads with him to come along. Alexei sadly responds, "The Embassy will protect you, but I am a Soviet citizen." Marie and Seriozha flee from the hotel and are barely saved from arrest by Bulgarian police. When Gabrielle informs her that she is now on French soil, Marie faints, calling out her husband's name. An epilogue reveals that, amidst an international uproar, Marie and Seriozha were exfiltrated across the Greek-Bulgarian border. Alexei is seen walking aboard the train back to Kiev smiling at the knowledge that his family was free. We learn that he was sent as a doctor to the Gulag camp of Sakhalin Island and allowed only in 1987 to join his family in France.
584255	Naanayam () is a 2010 Indian Tamil thriller film written and directed by Shakti S. Rajan. Produced by S. P. B. Charan's Capital Film Works, the film stars Prasanna as the protagonist, Sibiraj as the antagonist and Ramya Raj, who has appeared in the films "Sandai" and "Thee", debutante Yasmin and Charan's father, singer S. P. Balasubrahmanyam in pivotal roles. The film, which has music scored by "Subramaniapuram" fame James Vasanthan, was released on 14 January 2010. The film is adapted from James Hadley Chase novel My Laugh Comes Last and also filming partially inspired by the Hollywood films The Bank Job and Inside Man. Plot. The plot opens with the introduction of Ravi (Prasanna) an electronics engineer,who introduces himself as a youthful guy who aspires to become a businessman. He meets Viswanath (S. P. Balasubrahmanyam) when he fights to grab a bag belonging to Viswanath from a stranger.Ravi chases the man but unable to catch him but gets a glimpse of the man's face. Viswanath offers Ravi a job in the Trust bank in which he is the CEO. The bank promotes its new branch as the 'World's safest bank' with the security locker design of Ravi. Ravi also applies for a loan amount of Rs.2 Crores to start his own business. Ravi meets a girl Nandhini (Ramya Raj), a divorced news reporter in a golf club and friendship,love develops step by step between them. Ravi once during his date with Nandhini is attacked by Nandhini's ex-husband Raghu. He counter attacks him and goes home. While in his home, he meets Fareed(Sibi Raj) who tells that Ravi killed Raghu and there are evidences to prove. Fareed also kidnaps Nandhini. Despite Ravi is confident he did not kill him he has no other go but to obey the words of helping them to rob the bank to save himself and Nandhini. Ravi and Fareed plan to rob the bank which has infra red,laser, four leveled lock system Vault. Meanwhile Ravi records the conversations going on between them and hands it over to his assistant Devaki to save himself. Ravi demands Rs.2 Crore, the photographic evidences of the murder from the robbers before the theft. Fareed initially gives it but takes it back and gives Ravi another bag similar to it. As per the plans Fareed enter into the vault and after theft, attempts to kill Ravi but Ravi manages to escape by locking them inside the vault. He meets Viswanath where he also sees Nandhini with him. The robbery is actually a plan of Viswanath who did it in order to grab the bag which has evidences of his illegal affair with Nandhini actually named Eswari. The stranger who was chased by Ravi when he first met Viswanath was Eswari's ex-husband. The man safely places the evidence in Trust bank's locker. So to steal the evidence he plans a robbery with Fareed. The man who Ravi was told to be killed by him was actually a new employee in Fareed's gang. Viswanath apologises for the trouble created by him to Ravi and he telephones to surrender to the police but kills himself. Fareed,Eswari are arrested and all his gang members die inside the vault due to the lack of oxygen supply. Ravi destroys all the evidence of the illegal affair of Viswanath and finds Rs.2 Crore in the back side of his car which actually was demanded by him from Fareed and which he actually opt for to start his new business. Production. In November 2008, the film began its pre-production with Prasanna being signed on to play the lead role, whilst before the end of the year, Sibiraj and Ramya Raj also signed on to be a part of Charan's project. The film progressed quietly through 2008, with the subject being described as a "crime thriller". The music for the film released in November 2009, whilst the film released the following January coinciding with the Tamil festival of Thai Pongal. Soundtrack. Film score (BGM) scored by Thaman Sai Son of "Eeram" and "Mundhinam Paartheney" fame. The soundtracks are composed by James Vasanthan of "Subramaniapuram" and "Pasanga" fame, who for the first time scores music for a thriller film. Actor Silambarasan and music composer Devi Sri Prasad sung together for one song, apart from the likes of S. P. Balasubrahmanyam, K. S. Chithra and Sunitha Sarathy. Release. Reception. The film opened in most centres across Chennai, Tamil Nadu to a good opening. The film which grossed Rs. 7,99,274 in the opening weekend in Chennai eventually faded following subsequent releases and became an average grossing film. Reviews. Upon release, the film generally received mixed reviews. In reference to the performances, Rediff claimed that Prasanna is "sweet, savvy, intense and desperate as the situation demands" and that his diction "too is superb". It went on to claim that Sibiraj who makes more of an impact despite, that "he apes his esteemed father often, especially in tone of voice and modulation" but "he seems to have had a blast doing it". Ramya Raj has "more than one role to play, and does justice to it" whilst SPB plays his role with "élan". In reference to the script Behindwoods criticized it by labelling that "the script employs countless twists and turns, although only a few of them really work – before which the damage of ruining it is already done", whilst also mentioning that "Naanayam also feels like it is inspired from a vaguely familiar Hollywood movie."
501465	Tactical Force is 2011 feature film written and directed by Adamo Paolo Cultraro and starring Stone Cold Steve Austin, Michael Jai White, Candace Elaine, Keith Jardine, Michael Shanks, Michael Eklund, Darren Shahlavi, and Lexa Doig. It was released on August 9, 2011 in North America by Vivendi Entertainment, (NYSE:VIV), and went on to become #10 in the top ten best selling DVDs in the United States for the month of August 2011. It is being released by Entertainment One in the United Kingdom and other foreign territories beginning October 31, 2011. Plot. A training exercise for the LAPD SWAT Team goes terribly wrong when they find themselves pitted against two rival gangs while trapped in an abandoned hangar, armed with nothing but blanks. Reception. On Rotten Tomatoes Tactical Force was classed as "not great by any means, but it delivers what you expect, and actually pulls it off quite well" by one reviewer. It holds a rating of 4.6/10 on IMDb.
1068555	Raise Your Voice is a 2004 American teen musical drama film directed by Sean McNamara. Canadian rock band Three Days Grace appeared in this movie as special guests, performing the songs "Are You Ready" and "Home". Plot. Terri Fletcher (Hilary Duff) is a teenager with a passion for singing and dreams of becoming a professional singer. Her father Simon (David Keith), a second-generation restaurateur, disapproves of Terri's plans, stating that being a singer may not be a worthwhile life choice. In reality, his opposition stems from resentment; Simon turned down a similar scholarship to run his parents' restaurant when they became ill; he is intimidated by the thought of his daughter flourishing where he couldn't bring himself to try. Terri is very close to her older brother Paul (Jason Ritter) who fully supports her dream, despite what their dad says. One night, after being grounded, Terri & Paul sneak out of the house to attend a Three Days Grace concert.
520663	Profile. Rosario Violeta "Charito" Solís Hernández was born in Manila. At age 19, she was introduced by her uncle, the film director F. H. Constantino to Doña Narcisa de Leon, the head of LVN Pictures, who cast her to star in her initial movie "Niña Bonita", an adaptation of Frank Capra's It Happened One Night. The film was a success, and marked the beginning for Solis of a 43-year career in film that lasted until her death. Solis died on January 9, 1998 in Calamba City following a cardiac arrest. Film career. Solis would star in well over 100 films starting with LVN Pictures' classics such as "Niña Bonita" (1955), "Charito, I Love You!" (1956), "Walang Sugat" (1957), "Malvarosa" (1958), "Kundiman Ng Lahi" (1959) and "Emily" (1960). Solis was featured in several of the best-known and critically acclaimed movies of Philippine cinema. She played the female lead in the 1962 film adaptation of Jose Rizal's El Filibusterismo, directed by Gerardo de Leon. She was frequently called upon by the country's leading directors to act in their films. Among her many films she also appeared in Eddie Romero's "Manila, Open City" (1967), "Araw-Araw, Gabi-Gabi" (1975) and "Agila" (1980); in Mike de Leon's "Kisapmata" (1981) and "Batch 81" (1982); in Ishmael Bernal's "City After Dark" (1980) and "Hinugot sa Langit" (1985); in Lino Brocka's "Init" (1979) and "Ina, Kapatid, Anak" (1979); and as the narrator in Marilou Diaz-Abaya's "Karnal" (1982). Other notable performances of Solis were featured in Angustia (1963), Tatlong Mukha Ni Pandora (1963) and Magda Sales (1964). From 1967 to 1971, Solis was under contract in Nepomuceno Productions. Her films for that outfit were "Dahil Sa Isang Bulaklak", "Ang Langit Sa Lupa", "Luha Sa Karimlan", "Manila Open City", "Igorota", "Ang Pulubi", "Pipo" and "The Hunted". Considered by many Filipino film historians as her golden age, her association with Nepomuceno Productions elevated her to the status of the Philippines' premiere actress. Her performance in "Dahil sa..." earned her the Best Actress award from the Asian Film Festival. Thereafter tagged in her movies as "Asia's Best Actress" or any of its variants, she went on to appear in risque films as well as commercial successes. Her performance is also significant in Filipino film history because she is the first actress to ever go nude in a scene, albeit filmed in silhouette, for a film that was also the first Filipino film made in full color (Eastman color). "Dahil sa..." also brought a bonus to Charito Solis: with the film being the country's entry to the Best Foreign Film category at the Academy Awards (the film did not make it to the semi-finals), she and Luis Nepomuceno, the film's producer, were given tickets to see the 40th Academy Awards, the first Filipinos to ever do so. Following in their golden footsteps were Lea Salonga in 1993 (singer of one of the nominated songs), Pia Clemente in 2006 (the first Filipina Oscar nominee) and Charo Santos in 2009 (actress and TV executive, invited because her network, ABS-CBN, was the official Oscars carrier in the Philippines). After her association with Nepomuceno Productions ended, she would appear in several more films such as in "Hindi Kami Damong Ligaw", "Ms. Teresa Abad Ako Si Bing", "Hugasan Mo Ang Aking Kasalanan", "Babae Sa Likod Ng Salamin", "Beerhouse", "Babae Huwag Kang Tukso", "Babae Ngayon At Kailanman", "Walang Katapusang Tag-araw", "Mga Tinik Ng Babae", "Iwasan Kabaret", "Hubad Sa Mundo", "Mga Huwad Na Mananayaw", "Init", "Shake, Rattle & Roll", "Alaga" and "Playgirl". Solis became the first Filipino actress to play the lead role in an internationally-released Japanese movie, which she did in 1961 when she starred alongside Kojiro Hongo in Kenji Misumi's "Shaka", a film biography on the life of Buddha. She appeared another Japanese film "The Princess and I" also produced by Daiei Japan which had its Philippine Premiere in Lyric Theater on Escolta on October 10, 1962. She also starred in another international production, alongside Tetchie Agbayani and John Saxon in Eddie Romero's "Desire" (1982). Awards. Her performance in 1967's "Dahil sa Isang Bulaklak", directed by Luis Nepomuceno, won her Best Actress award at the 1967 Asian Film Festival. She again starred for Nepomuceno the following year in "Igorota", where she became the first Filipina actress to bare her breasts on film. Her role in "Igorota" won her the 1968 FAMAS Best Actress Award, one of 5 she would win during her career. Her other four FAMAS Best Actress wins came in 1959 for "Kundiman ng Lahi"; in 1960 for "Emily"; in 1963 for "Angustia"; and in 1983 for "Don't Cry for Me, Papa". After her fifth win, in 1984, she became the first actress to be inducted into the FAMAS Hall of Fame. Solis likewise won the Gawad Urian Best Actress award in 1979 for "Ina, Kapatid, Anak", and for Best Supporting Actress for in 1981 and 1982 for "Kisapmata" and "Karnal". In 1984, Solis won Best Supporting Actress for her performance as a narrator in "Karnal" from Philippine Academy of the Philippines (FAP Awards). In the first-ever Metro Manila Film Festival held in 1975, Solis won the Best Actress Award for "Araw Araw, Gabi Gabi" and a Best Supporting Actress in the 1981 Metro Manila Film Festival for "Kisapmata". She received Ulirang Artista Lifetime Achievement Award from Philippine Movie Press Club (Star Awards) on March 1997. Television career. From 1966 to 1968, Solis had a weekly TV show on ABS-CBN entitled "The Charito Solis Show" (1966 to 1968). In 1973, Solis also had a TV weekly drama show named "Obra Maestra" on RPN. In the late 1980s, Solis won the chance to showcase her comedic skills, as well as to gain a younger set of fans, when she was cast opposite Vic Sotto, Alice Dixson and Aiza Seguerra in the sitcom Okey Ka Fairy Ko!. She played the imperious Ina Magenta, Enteng Kabisote's mother-in-law, a character which was loosely modeled after Agnes Moorehead's Endora on Bewitched. The popular show lasted 9 years and spawned several film adaptations that continued even well after Solis' death. Giselle Tongi took over the roll of Ina Magenta in the Enteng Kabisote movie franchises which she also grew up watching the show and idolized Charito Solis.
349099	Vincenzo Riccati (Castelfranco Veneto, 11 January 1707 – Treviso, 17 January 1775) was an Italian mathematician and physicist. He was the brother of Giordano Riccati, and the second son of Jacopo Riccati. Riccati's main research continued the work of his father in mathematical analysis, especially in the fields of the differential equations and physics. The Riccati equation is named after his father.
64448	Christine Ladd-Franklin (December 1, 1847 – March 5, 1930) was an American psychologist, logician, and mathematician. Early life and education. Christine Ladd was born on December 1, 1847 in Windsor, Connecticut to Eliphalet Ladd, a merchant, and Augusta Niles Ladd. During her early childhood, she lived with her parents and younger brother Henry (born 1850) in New York City. In 1853 the family moved back to Windsor, Connecticut where her sister Jane Augusta Ladd McCordia was born the following year. Following the death of her mother in spring 1860 to pneumonia, Ladd went to live with her paternal grandmother in Portsmouth, New Hampshire where she attended school. Ladd's father remarried in 1862 and produced her half-sister Katherine (born 1862) and half-brother George (born 1867). Ladd was a precocious child who sought to find “a mean to continue her education beyond secondary school.”. Ladd's wish was granted when her father enrolled her in a two-year program at a coeducational Welshing academy in Wilbraham, Massachusetts; she took the same courses that prepared boys in furthering their education to colleges such as Harvard. In 1865 Christine Ladd graduated as valedictorian from Welshing Academy. In the fall of 1866 Ladd enrolled in Vassar College with a loan provided by her late mother's sister. She only studied at Vassar until the end of the spring term due to financial issues. During the time that she was not attending college Ladd worked as a public school teacher until her aunt's aid allowed her to reenter Vassar and graduate in 1869. At Vassar Ladd was interested in physics but knew that the field was not open to women, so she studied mathematics. Early career. After graduating, Ladd taught science and mathematics at secondary level in Washington, Pennsylvania. During this time, Ladd contributed seventy-seven mathematical problems and solutions to the "Educational Times" of London. She also published six items in "The Analyst: A Journal of Pure and Applied Mathematics and three in the American Journal of Mathematics." Graduate education. In 1878, Ladd was accepted into Johns Hopkins University with the help of James J. Sylvester, an English mathematician who remembered some of Ladd's earlier works in London's "Educational Times". Ladd's application for the University fellowship was signed "C. Ladd", and Hopkins offered the fellowship to her without realizing she was a woman. When they did realize this, the board moved to revoke the offer, but Sylvester insisted that Ladd should be his student, and so she was. She held a fellowship at Hopkins for three years, but the trustees did not allow her name to be printed in circulars with those of other fellows, for fear of setting a precedent. Furthermore, dissension over her continued presence forced one of the original trustees to resign. Since Hopkins did not approve of coeducation, Ladd was initially allowed only in classes taught by Sylvester. But after displaying exceptional work in Sylvester's courses, Ladd was allowed to take courses with different professors. Even though she was awarded a stipend, she was known as a fellow student. During 1879–1880, Ladd took classes taught by Charles Sanders Peirce, who has been called the first American experimental psychologist. She wrote a dissertation "On the Algebra of Logic" with Peirce as the thesis advisor. The dissertation was published in "Studies in Logic" (Peirce, ed.) in 1883. Due to her studies with Peirce, Ladd became the first American woman to be involved in psychology, mathematics and logic. Since women were not allowed to graduate at Hopkins, Ladd was refused a Ph.D. in Mathematics and Logic, although she was the first woman to complete all the requirements for a PhD at Hopkins. However, Hopkins officially granted her a Ph.D. in February 22, 1926 (44 years after she had earned it) at the age of seventy-eight. Soon after completing graduate work at Johns Hopkins, she married Fabian Franklin (a fellow graduate student who received his Ph.D. in mathematics), hence she became Christine Ladd-Franklin. Ladd-Franklin had two children, one of whom died in infancy. The other, Margaret Ladd-Franklin, became a prominent member in the women's suffrage movement. Major contributions and achievements. After leaving Hopkins, Ladd-Franklin worked with German psychologist G. E. Müller, where she carried out experimental work in vision. Ladd-Franklin was also able to work in the laboratory of Hermann von Helmholtz, where she attended his lectures on theory of color vision. After attending these lectures, Ladd-Franklin developed her own theory of color vision. In 1929 she published "Color and Color Theories". Ladd-Franklin's Theory of Color Vision. One of the major contributions that Ladd-Franklin made to psychology was her theory of color vision, which was based on evolution. Ladd-Franklin noted that: "some animals are color blind and assumed that achromatic vision appeared first in evolution and color vision came later. She assumed further that the human eye carries vestiges of its earlier evolutionary development. She observed that the most highly evolved part of the eye is the fovea, where, at least in daylight, visual acuity and color sensitivity are greatest. Ladd-Franklin assumed that peripheral vision (provided by the rods of the retina) was more primitive than foveal vision (provided by the cones of the retina) because night vision and movement detection are crucial for survival." Stages of color vision. Ladd-Franklin concluded that color vision evolved in three stages: achromatic vision (black and white), blue-yellow sensitivity and red-green sensitivity. Since red-green sensitivity was the last to evolve it explains why many people suffer from red-green color blindness. The next one that affects a small population is blue-yellow color blindness. Since achromatic vision was the first to evolve it explains why the majority of the population are not affected by black-white color blindness. Mathematics and logic. Ladd-Franklin was the first woman to have a published paper in the "Analyst". She was also the first woman to receive a Ph.D. in mathematics and logic. The majority of her publications were based on visual processes and logic. Her views on logic influenced Charles S. Peirce's logic and she was highly praised by Prior. Professional involvement. Ladd-Franklin was among the first women to be inducted into the American Psychological Association in December 1893. From 1894-1925, Ladd-Franklin presented ten papers at APA meetings. She was also one of the first female members of the Optical Society of America (OSA) in 1919. During the OSA meetings she presented six papers and two exhibits. She was also a prominent member of the women's rights movement. Ladd-Franklin was included in the Who's Who in America during 1901-1902 and 1914-1915. Ladd-Franklin remained a member of APA and OSA until her death on March 5, 1930 in New York, New York. In 1948, Bertrand Russell wrote: "I once received a letter from an eminent logician, Mrs. Christine Ladd-Franklin, saying that she was a solipsist, and was surprised that there were no others. Coming from a logician and a solipsist, her surprise surprised me." (Russell, p. 180).
1102300	Hermann Klaus Hugo Weyl, ForMemRS (; 9 November 1885 – 8 December 1955) was a German mathematician, theoretical physicist and philosopher. Although much of his working life was spent in Zürich, Switzerland and then Princeton, he is associated with the University of Göttingen tradition of mathematics, represented by David Hilbert and Hermann Minkowski. His research has had major significance for theoretical physics as well as purely mathematical disciplines including number theory. He was one of the most influential mathematicians of the twentieth century, and an important member of the Institute for Advanced Study during its early years. Weyl published technical and some general works on space, time, matter, philosophy, logic, symmetry and the history of mathematics. He was one of the first to conceive of combining general relativity with the laws of electromagnetism. While no mathematician of his generation aspired to the 'universalism' of Henri Poincaré or Hilbert, Weyl came as close as anyone. Michael Atiyah, in particular, has commented that whenever he examined a mathematical topic, he found that Weyl had preceded him ("The Mathematical Intelligencer" (1984), vol.6 no.1). Biography. Weyl was born in Elmshorn, a small town near Hamburg, in Germany, and attended the "gymnasium" Christianeum in Altona. From 1904 to 1908 he studied mathematics and physics in both Göttingen and Munich. His doctorate was awarded at the University of Göttingen under the supervision of David Hilbert whom he greatly admired. After taking a teaching post for a few years, he left Göttingen for Zürich to take the chair of mathematics in the ETH Zurich, where he was a colleague of Albert Einstein, who was working out the details of the theory of general relativity. Einstein had a lasting influence on Weyl who became fascinated by mathematical physics. Weyl met Erwin Schrödinger in 1921, who was appointed Professor at the University of Zürich. They were to become close friends over time. Weyl had some sort of childless love affair with Annemarie (Anny) Schrödinger, while Anny helped raise a daughter whom Erwin had with another woman. Weyl left Zürich in 1930 to become Hilbert's successor at Göttingen, leaving when the Nazis assumed power in 1933, particularly as his wife was Jewish. He had been offered one of the first faculty positions at the new Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey, but had declined because he did not desire to leave his homeland. As the political situation in Germany grew worse, he changed his mind and accepted when offered the position again. He remained there until his retirement in 1951. Together with his wife, he spent his time in Princeton and Zürich, and died in Zürich in 1955. Contributions. Distribution of eigenvalues. In 1911 Weyl published "Über die asymptotische Verteilung der Eigenwerte" ("On the asymptotic distribution of eigenvalues") in which he proved that the eigenvalues of the Laplacian in the compact domain are distributed according to the so-called Weyl law. In 1912 he suggested a new proof, based on variational principles. Weyl returned to this topic several times, considered elasticity system and formulated Weyl conjecture These works started an important domain "Asymptotic distribution of eigenvalues" of Modern Analysis. Geometric foundations of manifolds and physics. In 1913, Weyl published "Die Idee der Riemannschen Fläche" ("The Concept of a Riemann Surface"), which gave a unified treatment of Riemann surfaces. In it Weyl utilized point set topology, in order to make Riemann surface theory more rigorous, a model followed in later work on manifolds. He absorbed L. E. J. Brouwer's early work in topology for this purpose. Weyl, as a major figure in the Göttingen school, was fully apprised of Einstein's work from its early days. He tracked the development of relativity physics in his "Raum, Zeit, Materie" ("Space, Time, Matter") from 1918, reaching a 4th edition in 1922. In 1918, he introduced the notion of gauge, and gave the first example of what is now known as a gauge theory. Weyl's gauge theory was an unsuccessful attempt to model the electromagnetic field and the gravitational field as geometrical properties of spacetime. The Weyl tensor in Riemannian geometry is of major importance in understanding the nature of conformal geometry. In 1929, Weyl introduced the concept of the vierbein into general relativity. His overall approach in physics was based on the phenomenological philosophy of Edmund Husserl, specifically Husserl's 1913 "Ideen zu einer reinen Phänomenologie und phänomenologischen Philosophie. Erstes Buch: Allgemeine Einführung in die reine Phänomenologie " (Ideas of a Pure Phenomenology and Phenomenological Philosophy. First Book: General Introduction). Apparently this was Weyl's way of dealing with Einstein's controversial dependence on the phenomenological physics of Ernst Mach. Husserl had reacted strongly to Gottlob Frege's criticism of his first work on the philosophy of arithmetic and was investigating the sense of mathematical and other structures, which Frege had distinguished from empirical reference. Hence there is good reason for viewing gauge theory as it developed from Weyl's ideas as a formalism of physical measurement and not a theory of anything physical, i.e. as scientific formalism. Topological groups, Lie groups and representation theory. From 1923 to 1938, Weyl developed the theory of compact groups, in terms of matrix representations. In the compact Lie group case he proved a fundamental character formula. These results are foundational in understanding the symmetry structure of quantum mechanics, which he put on a group-theoretic basis. This included spinors. Together with the mathematical formulation of quantum mechanics, in large measure due to John von Neumann, this gave the treatment familiar since about 1930. Non-compact groups and their representations, particularly the Heisenberg group, were also streamlined in that specific context, in his 1927 Weyl quantization, the best extant bridge between classical and quantum physics to date. From this time, and certainly much helped by Weyl's expositions, Lie groups and Lie algebras became a mainstream part both of pure mathematics and theoretical physics. His book "The Classical Groups", a seminal if difficult text, reconsidered invariant theory. It covered symmetric groups, general linear groups, orthogonal groups, and symplectic groups and results on their invariants and representations. Harmonic analysis and analytic number theory. Weyl also showed how to use exponential sums in diophantine approximation, with his criterion for uniform distribution mod 1, which was a fundamental step in analytic number theory. This work applied to the Riemann zeta function, as well as additive number theory. It was developed by many others. Foundations of mathematics. In "The Continuum" Weyl developed the logic of predicative analysis using the lower levels of Bertrand Russell's ramified theory of types. He was able to develop most of classical calculus, while using neither the axiom of choice nor proof by contradiction, and avoiding Georg Cantor's infinite sets. Weyl appealed in this period to the radical constructivism of the German romantic, subjective idealist Fichte. Shortly after publishing "The Continuum" Weyl briefly shifted his position wholly to the intuitionism of Brouwer. In "The Continuum", the constructible points exist as discrete entities. Weyl wanted a continuum that was not an aggregate of points. He wrote a controversial article proclaiming that, for himself and L. E. J. Brouwer, "We are the revolution." This article was far more influential in propagating intuitionistic views than the original works of Brouwer himself. George Pólya and Weyl, during a mathematicians' gathering in Zürich (9 February 1918), made a bet concerning the future direction of mathematics. Weyl predicted that in the subsequent 20 years, mathematicians would come to realize the total vagueness of notions such as real numbers, sets, and countability, and moreover, that asking about the truth or falsity of the least upper bound property of the real numbers was as meaningful as asking about truth of the basic assertions of Hegel on the philosophy of nature. Any answer to such a question would be unverifiable, unrelated to experience, and therefore senseless. However, within a few years Weyl decided that Brouwer's intuitionism did put too great restrictions on mathematics, as critics had always said. The "Crisis" article had disturbed Weyl's formalist teacher Hilbert, but later in the 1920s Weyl partially reconciled his position with that of Hilbert. After about 1928 Weyl had apparently decided that mathematical intuitionism was not compatible with his enthusiasm for the phenomenological philosophy of Husserl, as he had apparently earlier thought. In the last decades of his life Weyl emphasized mathematics as "symbolic construction" and moved to a position closer not only to Hilbert but to that of Ernst Cassirer. Weyl however rarely refers to Cassirer, and wrote only brief articles and passages articulating this position. By 1949, Weyl was thoroughly disillusioned with the ultimate value of intuitionism, and wrote: "Mathematics with Brouwer gains its highest intuitive clarity. He succeeds in developing the beginnings of analysis in a natural manner, all the time preserving the contact with intuition much more closely than had been done before. It cannot be denied, however, that in advancing to higher and more general theories the inapplicability of the simple laws of classical logic eventually results in an almost unbearable awkwardness. And the mathematician watches with pain the greater part of his towering edifice which he believed to be built of concrete blocks dissolve into mist before his eyes." Quotes. Weyl's comment, although half a joke, sums up his personality:
1162470	Frank Albertson (February 2, 1909 – February 29, 1964) was an American character actor who made his debut in a minor part in Hollywood at the age of thirteen. Francis Healy Albertson was a native of Fergus Fall, Minnesota, the first child of Frank B. and Mary Healy Albertson. He spent his childhood first in Frazee, Minnesota, and then in Puyallup, Washington. As a young man in Los Angeles, he worked as a laboratory assistant in a photographic shop, which resulted in contacts leading to his acting career. He served in the U.S. Army Air Forces' First Motion Picture Unit making training films during World War II. Albertson made well over one hundred appearances (1923–1964) in movies and television. In his early career he often sang and danced in such films as "Just Imagine" (1930) and "A Connecticut Yankee" (1931). He was featured in "Alice Adams" (1935) as the title character's brother, and in "Room Service" (1938) he played opposite the Marx Brothers. As he aged he moved from featured roles to supporting and character parts—in his later career he can be seen as Sam Wainwright, the businessman fond of saying "Hee-Haw" in the movie "It's a Wonderful Life" (1946). Albertson portrayed future U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt in the 1956 episode "Rough Rider" of the CBS western television series, "My Friend Flicka". He guest starred in the early NBC western series, "The Californians" and twice in the David Janssen crime drama, "Richard Diamond, Private Detective". He was cast in 1959 and 1962 in different roles on Walter Brennan's sitcom, "The Real McCoys". In 1960, He appeared as General Devery in the episode "Strange Encounter" of the ABC/Warner Brothers western series "Colt .45". In 1960, he played the wealthy rancher, Tom Cassidy, at the beginning of "Psycho" (1960), who provides the $40,000 in cash that Janet Leigh's character later steals. In the 1960-1961 television season, he played the character Mr. Cooper in five episodes of the CBS sitcom, "Bringing Up Buddy", starring Frank Aletter. In 1964, Albertson was cast as Jim O'Neal in the episode "The Death of a Teacher" of the NBC education drama, "Mr. Novak". One of his final screen appearances was as "Sam," the bewildered mayor of Sweet Apple, Ohio, in the 1963 musical "Bye Bye Birdie". Albertson died in his sleep at his home in Santa Monica, California. He was survived by his wife Grace and four children. For contributions to the motion picture industry, Frank Albertson was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6758 Hollywood Boulevard.
1484795	Peter Stebbings (born February 28, 1971) is a Canadian actor, director, producer, and screenwriter, perhaps best known for portraying Kevin Sharp in the drama series "Madison", Paul Deeds in the series "Traders", and for writing and directing "Defendor". He currently portrays Alvin Klein on the science fiction drama series "The Listener". Life and career. Stebbings started practicing his trade at the Vancouver Youth Theatre when he was just 12 years old. He worked at various odd jobs growing up, including bus boy and bike courier, before making the serious move to acting. At 22 he went to New York City to study at the Circle in the Square Theater School. Following his time in New York, he returned to Canada and made his mark playing Kevin Sharp on the hit Canadian series "Madison", a role that earned him two Gemini Award nominations as Best Actor in a Continuing Leading Dramatic Role. He also played Paul Deeds in the Canadian series "Traders". He is married to Charlotte Sullivan.
1058573	The Pope of Greenwich Village is a 1984 American film starring Mickey Rourke, Eric Roberts, Daryl Hannah, Geraldine Page, Kenneth McMillan and Burt Young. Page earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress for her two-scene role. The film was adapted by screenwriter Vincent Patrick from his novel of the same name. Stuart Rosenberg directed. Plot. In an Italian neighborhood of Greenwich Village, cousins Charlie, a maître d' with aspirations of someday owning his own restaurant, and Paulie, a schemer who works as a waiter, have expensive tastes but not much money. Paulie gets caught skimming checks, and he and Charlie are both fired. Now out of work and in debt, Charlie must find another way to pay his alimony, support his pregnant girlfriend Diane, and try to buy a restaurant. Paulie comes to Charlie with a "can't-miss" robbery, involving a large amount of cash in the safe of a local business. Charlie reluctantly agrees to participate, and they manage to crack the safe with help from an accomplice, Barney, a clock repairman and locksmith. But things go sour, resulting in the accidental death of police officer Bunky Ritter, who had been secretly taping "Bed Bug" Eddie Grant. Charlie soon learns that the money they stole belongs to Eddie. The mob figures out that Paulie is involved, and not even his Uncle Pete, part of Eddie's crew, can help him. One of Paulie's thumbs is severed as punishment.
589550	Jayshree Talpade (born c. 1953) is a Marathi actress and dancer, who works in Bollywood movies and some Marathi movies. Career. Talpade began her career at age 5 in 1958, when she was cast in Goonj Uthi Shehnai. She gained more popularity when she started performing item dances films. Initially, she wanted to become a doctor, but fate intervened when film director Amit Bose cast her in a dance sequence for "Abhilasha" in 1968. After that, she danced in more than 500 movies in the 1970s and 1980s. She has done vampish-comedy and sympathetic roles. She started her career as a child artist playing the childhood self of the heroine in the film "Gunj Uthi Shehnai". Jayshree has acted in 500 Hindi films and 200 films in various Indian languages including Bengali, Tamil, Telgu, Malyalam, Kannad, Marwadi, Rajastani, English, Sindhi, Assami, Bhojpuri, Oriya, Haryani, Garyali, Nepali, Punjabi, Marathi and Gujrati. She has performed on stage all over the world with stars such as Mohamad Rafi, Mukesh and Asha Bhosle Mannade. She has received 2 Maharashtra State Government awards for Marathi film as a leading lady , 3 Gujarat state government awards, Hydrabad Award, 6 lions club awards from Delhi and Mumbai. She received the Life Time Achievement Award for Bhojpuri films and Gujarati films. Personal life. Jayshree got married in 1989 to film director Jayprakash Karnataki (Brother of film actress Nanda) and she gave birth to a son, Swastik J Karnatki in 1991. .
1059548	Patrick John Warburton (sometimes credited as Pat Warburton, born November 14, 1964) is an American actor of television, film, and voice. He is known for his several TV roles, including the title role of "The Tick", David Puddy on "Seinfeld", the evil Johnny Johnson on "NewsRadio", and anchorman Jeb Denton on "Less than Perfect". As a voice actor, his distinctive deep voice has been heard in roles including Kronk in "The Emperor's New Groove" and its sequels, paraplegic police officer Joe Swanson on "Family Guy", and bodyguard Brock Samson on "The Venture Bros.". Warburton was also featured in roles in "Bee Movie", "Kim Possible", "Buzz Lightyear of Star Command" TV series, "Hoodwinked", and Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated, among others. He also starred as macho married man Jeff Bingham in the CBS television program "Rules of Engagement". Early life. Warburton was born in Paterson, New Jersey. His mother, Barbara Lord (née Barbara Jeanne Gratz), is an actress, and his father, John Charles Warburton, Jr., is an orthopedic surgeon. He has three sisters, Mary, Lara, and Megan. He was raised in a "conservative" Catholic family, and grew up in Huntington Beach, California, where he attended Saints Simon and Jude Catholic School until high school. Warburton attended Servite High School in Anaheim, California, and Newport Harbor High School in Newport Beach, California. He studied marine biology at Orange Coast College in Costa Mesa, California, but dropped out to pursue modeling and acting. Career. Warburton's acting roles often rely on his deep, booming voice and large physique. He played in episodes of "Designing Women" the final season. In the mid to late 1990s, he was known for his role as David Puddy on "Seinfeld", the indifferent on-again, off-again boyfriend of Elaine Benes. Warburton also had a small role in the 2002 movie "Men in Black II" as J's new partner, T. He also starred in FOX's short-lived, live-action series, "The Tick", in the title role. He played Nick Sharp in "8 Simple Rules" and joined the cast of "Less than Perfect" in 2003, as anchorman Jeb Denton. Warburton has put his voice to use for several animated films and TV programs, including a lead character in "Game Over", Buzz Lightyear and the Little Green Men in "Buzz Lightyear of Star Command", and Kronk in "The Emperor's New Groove". Warburton reprised his role as Kronk for the direct-to-video sequel, "Kronk's New Groove", and the subsequent TV series "The Emperor's New School". He is also the voice of Steve Barkin in the Disney Channel show "Kim Possible". Warburton was also cast in "The Venture Bros.", under Cartoon Network's Adult Swim programming block. In this show he voices Brock Samson, the Venture family's brutally effective bodyguard and former secret agent. Warburton voices Joe Swanson on Fox's "Family Guy" and Detective Cash in "The Batman". Warburton lent his voice talent to the computer-animated feature films "Hoodwinked", "Chicken Little" and "Open Season". He also voices Lok in all 3 "Tak" games and Lok in "Tak and the Power of Juju" Nickelodeon series. Warburton appeared on GSN's "Poker Royale Celebrities vs. the Pros" tournament in 2005. He made it to the Grand Finale and won the $1,000 grand prize. Warburton's enduring identification with his character in "Seinfeld" was evident on January 13, 2007, during an NFL football broadcast. An advertisement for his new series, "Rules of Engagement" was played, and when the telecast returned to the broadcast booth, one of the announcers exclaimed, "Puddy!" On November 8, 2009, Warburton appeared as the wild west character Cal Johnson on "Seth & Alex's (Almost Live) Comedy Show", hosted by Seth MacFarlane and Alex Borstein, on Fox. He was also cast as the sheriff in the Cartoon Network series "Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated". He appeared as Bowser in a video by CollegeHumor entitled "The Roast of Mario". He appeared on the American version of "Top Gear" on February 21, 2012. He set the "Big Star, Small Car" lap record, beating previous record-holder Arlene Tur. Advertising and theme parks. In the commercial and advertising world, Warburton is the voice in the Carrier Corporation commercials for their air-conditioning and HVAC units, and was the voice of Superman in "The Adventures of Seinfeld and Superman" for American Express. He is the voice of "Lewis" in the "Clark & Lewis Expedition" radio commercials for Horizon Air with Richard Kind as "Clark". During the 1990s and early 2000s, Warburton appeared in several M&M's commercials with the "spokescandies." He appeared in another M&M's commercial about 10 years later when Pretzel M&M's were introduced. In August 2009, Warburton played a high-end PC in a "Get a Mac" ad for Apple Inc. Warburton also became the spokesman for Japanese automaker Honda's "Good Reasons" advertising campaign in September 2011. Warburton (in his typical deadpanned voice) plays the role of the forest ranger in a "Smokey Bear" radio ad campaign sponsored by the U.S. Forest Service and the Ad Council. Warburton is featured in the "preboarding" film shown to guests at Soarin' Over California in Disney California Adventure and Epcot at the Walt Disney World Resort. He again, delivers all of the instructions in the same deadpan style. He lent his voice to the droid G2-4T in the queue of at Disney's Hollywood Studios and Disneyland. Personal life. Warburton has been married to Cathy Jennings since 1991; they have four children – Talon Patrick (b. November 29, 1992), Alexandra Catherine (b. July 9, 1994), Shane (b. 1998) and Gabriel (b. October 2000). They live in Camarillo, California.
1253717	Lois Maxwell (14 February 192729 September 2007) was a Canadian actress, mainly known for her portrayal of Miss Moneypenny in the first 14 "James Bond" films, from 1962 to 1985. She began her film career in the late 1940s, and won a Golden Globe Award for the New Actress of the Year for her performance in "That Hagen Girl" (1947). Following a number of small film roles, Maxwell became dissatisfied and travelled to Italy, where she worked in film from 1951 to 1955. After her marriage, she moved to the United Kingdom, where she appeared in several television productions.
1061559	Eileen Evelyn Greer Garson, CBE (29 September 1904 – 6 April 1996) was a British actress who was very popular during World War II, being listed by the "Motion Picture Herald" as one of America's top ten box office draws in 1942–46. As one of MGM's major stars of the 1940s, Garson received seven Academy Award nominations, winning the Best Actress award for "Mrs. Miniver" (1942). Early life. Born in Manor Park, Essex, England in 1904, the only child of George Garson (1865–1906), a clerk born in London, but with Scottish lineage, and his wife, Nina (née Nancy Sophia Greer; died 1958). (The name "Greer" is a contraction of "MacGregor," another family name.) Her maternal grandfather was David Greer, a RIC sergeant in Castlewellan, County Down, Ireland in the 1880s and who later became a land steward to the Annesley family (wealthy landlords who built the town of Castlewellan). He lived in a large detached house built on the lower part of what was known as Pig Street or known locally as the Back Way near Shilliday's builder's yard. The house was called ‘Claremount’ and today the street is named Claremount Avenue. It was often reported that Garson was born in this house. She was, in fact, born in London, but spent much of her childhood in Castlewellan. Education. She was educated at King's College London, where she earned degrees in French and 18th century literature, and at the University of Grenoble in France. She had intended to become a teacher, but instead began working with an advertising agency, and appeared in local theatrical productions. Career. Greer Garson's early professional appearances were on stage, starting at Birmingham Repertory Theatre in January 1932. She appeared on television during its earliest years (the late 1930s), most notably starring in a thirty-minute production of an excerpt of "Twelfth Night" in May 1937, with Dorothy Black. These live transmissions were part of the BBC's experimental service from Alexandra Palace and this is the first known instance of a Shakespeare play performed on television. Louis B. Mayer discovered Garson while he was in London looking for new talent. Garson was signed to a contract with MGM in late 1937, but did not begin work on her first film, "Goodbye, Mr. Chips", until late 1938. She received her first Oscar nomination for the role, but lost to Vivien Leigh for "Gone with the Wind". She received critical acclaim the next year for her role as Elizabeth Bennet in the 1940 film, "Pride and Prejudice". Garson starred with Joan Crawford in "When Ladies Meet" in 1941, and that same year became a major box office star with the sentimental Technicolor drama, "Blossoms in the Dust", which brought her the first of five consecutive Best Actress Oscar nominations, tying Bette Davis' 1938–42 record, a record that still stands. Garson won the Academy Award for Best Actress in 1942 for her role as a strong British wife and mother in the middle of World War II in "Mrs. Miniver". (Guinness Book of World Records credits her with the longest Oscar acceptance speech, at five minutes and 30 seconds, after which the Academy Awards instituted a time limit.) She was also nominated for "Madame Curie" (1943), "Mrs. Parkington" (1944), and "The Valley of Decision" (1945). Garson was a frequent costar of Walter Pidgeon, ultimately making eight pictures with him: "Blossoms in the Dust" (1941), "Mrs. Miniver" (1942), "Madame Curie", "Mrs. Parkington", "Julia Misbehaves" (1948), "That Forsyte Woman" (1949), "The Miniver Story" (1950), and "Scandal at Scourie" (1953). Garson was partnered with Clark Gable, after his return from war service, in "Adventure" (1945). The film was advertised with the catch-phrase "Gable's back and Garson's got him!" Gable argued for "He put the Arson in Garson"; she countered "She put the Able in Gable!"; thereafter, the safer catchphrase was selected. Garson's popularity dropped somewhat in the late 1940s, but she remained a prominent film star until the mid-1950s. In 1951, she became a naturalised citizen of the United States. She made only a few films after her MGM contract expired in 1954. In 1958, she received a warm reception on Broadway in "Auntie Mame", replacing Rosalind Russell, who had gone to Hollywood to make the film version. In 1960, Garson received her seventh and final Oscar nomination for "Sunrise at Campobello", in which she played Eleanor Roosevelt, this time losing to Elizabeth Taylor for "Butterfield 8". Greer was special guest on an episode of the TV series "Father Knows Best", playing herself. On 4 October 1956, Garson appeared with Reginald Gardiner as the first two guest stars in the series premiere of NBC's "The Ford Show, Starring Tennessee Ernie Ford". Garson appeared as a mystery guest on "What's My Line" on 6 April 1958. She stumped the panel. She also appeared in "Laugh-in" showing her comic side. Garson's last film, in 1967, was Walt Disney's "The Happiest Millionaire", although she made infrequent television appearances afterwards. In 1968, she narrated the children's television special "The Little Drummer Boy", which continues to be aired on ABC Family. Also during this time, she also appeared in "Laugh-in" and the "Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour" showing her great sense of humor. Personal life. Garson was married three times. Her first marriage, on 28 September 1933, was to Edward Alec Abbot Snelson (1904–1992), later Sir Edward, a British civil servant who became a noted judge and expert in Indian affairs. The actual marriage reportedly lasted only a few weeks, but it was not formally dissolved until 1943. Her second husband, whom she married (at age 39) on 24 Jul 1943, was Richard Ney (1916–2004), the younger actor (27 years old) who played her son in "Mrs. Miniver." They divorced in 1947. Ney claimed the divorce was due to the pressure of sharing a home with his mother-in-law, while Garson testified in court that Ney was critical of her work and accused her of being a "has-been."
585728	Roma Asrani (born August 25, 1984) is an Indian model-turned-actress who works mainly in Malayalam-language films. She made her début in the Telugu film "Mr. Errababu" in 2005. She has also acted in Tamil and Kannada movies. Family. Roma Asrani was born to a family from Delhi, who later settled in Chennai. Her father Muralidhar and mother Madhu run a wholesale jewellery shop in Chennai. Career. She made her entry into Malayalam films with the movie "Notebook", directed by Roshan Andrews and became very popular after the success of the film. For her performance in "Notebook" she was adjudged best newcomer by Kerala Film Critics Association, Asianet, Amrita TV and Kalakeralam. Her second film "July 4" (2007),directed by Joshiy however, was a flop. Her movie "Chocolate" (2007) with Prithviraj was a big hit, and this movie was a turning point in her career. She has also acted in a music album by the band Team Malayalee with popular singer Vineeth Sreenivasan and actor Prithviraj for the number "Minnel Azhake" which was a big hit in south India. Roma has also acted in the Telugu movie "Mr. Errababu" (2005) and the Tamil movie "Kathale En Kathale" (2006). She made her Kannada début with "Aramane" (2007), starring Ganesh in the lead. Further, she reappeared in the Telugu industry after a break in the movie "Chalaki" in 2010. Awards. Asianet Film Awards Filmfare Awards South Amrita Film Awards Kairali TV - World Malayali Council Film Awards Other awards References. http://entertainment.oneindia.in/malayalam/top-stories/2011/roma-replace-mamta-mohandas-mohabbath-020211-aid0062.html http://nowrunning.com/news/malayalam/reema-and-roma-to-do-cameos-in-doubles/38951/story.htm
421203	Ultimate Avengers 2 (also known as Ultimate Avengers 2: Rise of the Panther) is an animated action/science fiction film and the sequel to "Ultimate Avengers". It is loosely based on "The Ultimates", the limited comic book series by Marvel Comics under the Ultimate Comics imprint. The film was released on August 8, 2006. The film premiered on Cartoon Network's Toonami block on October 21, 2006 with a TV-14 rating. Plot. T'Challa, the Prince of Wakanda, returns home to find his kingdom is being attacked by the alien Chitauri. Herr Kleiser, the alien shape-shifter who battled Captain America during World War II, kills T' Challa's father and seeks Wakanda's store of vibranium, the metal the Chitauri use to manufacture their ships and weapons. After becoming king and assuming the alias of the Black Panther, T' Challa seeks out Captain America. General Nick Fury of S.H.I.E.L.D. orders the Avengers to assemble, with the exception of Thor (who foresees a future in which the Avengers die in battle, which his father Odin confirms) and the Hulk who, as Bruce Banner, is interrogated and bullied in a cell. Despite mistakenly being attacked by Wakandan soldiers, injuring Wasp (Janet van Dyne-Pym) and causing Captain America's shield to be stolen, the team rallies and, together with Thor, battle the Chitauri. Banner then deduces that gamma rays weakens vibranium and sends Betty to Wakanda with a gamma-ray projector. During an invasion of Earth Wasp recovers and Bruce Banner presumably dies from overmedication. While the team battles the mothership hanging over Wakanda, Captain America and Black Panther attempt to kill Kleiser, whose regenerative powers prove too strong. Instead, they drown him in liquid vibranium. Giant Man and Iron Man use the gamma-ray projector on the mothership core and send it crashing to earth. Giant Man is mortally wounded and dies in Wasp's arms. Iron Man, near death, is revived by Thor's summoning of lightning, confirming that he is the Norse deity. The Avengers hold a celebration in tribute to Giant Man and it is revealed that Banner survived by transforming into the Hulk at the last moment, fought the Chitauri, making Dr. Oiler's death in vain, and he leaves. The film ends with Captain America and Black Widow resuming their relationship and sharing a passionate kiss. Reception. Ultimate Avengers 2 received mixed to positive reviews. It holds a 6.8/10 at the Internet Movie Database.
1051383	Mississippi Mermaid () is a 1969 French romantic drama film directed by François Truffaut and starring Catherine Deneuve and Jean-Paul Belmondo. Adapted from the 1947 novel "Waltz into Darkness" by Cornell Woolrich, the film is about a tobacco planter on Réunion island in the Indian Ocean who becomes engaged through correspondence to a woman he does not know. When she arrives it is not the same woman in the photo, but he marries her anyway. Filmed in southern France and Réunion island, "Mississippi Mermaid" was the 17th highest grossing film of the year in France with a total of 1,221,027 admissions. It was remade in 2001 as "Original Sin", directed by Michael Cristofer and starring Angelina Jolie and Antonio Banderas. Plot. Louis Mahé (Jean-Paul Belmondo), a wealthy tobacco plantation owner on Réunion island in the Indian Ocean, is awaiting the arrival of his bride to be, Julie Roussel (Catherine Deneuve), whom he's never met. They became acquainted through the personals column of a French newspaper and have been corresponding by mail. At the Hotel Mascarin he meets his partner Jardine who accompanies him to pick up the ring. Louis drives to the dock to greet Julie who is arriving on the steamer "Mississippi" from Nouméa, the capital of New Caledonia. When they meet he is surprised by her beauty and does not recognize her; she is not the woman in the photo she'd sent him. She explains that she sent her sister's photo to assure the sincerity of his intentions. He confesses that he too has not told the complete truth, having hidden the fact that he was wealthy.
590329	Dhritiman Chaterji () is an Indian actor. He began his acting career in 1970 as the protagonist of Satyajit Ray's Pratidwandi ("The Adversary"). Most of his acting work has been in the India's "parallel", or independent, cinema with filmmakers such as Satyajit Ray, Mrinal Sen and Aparna Sen, among others. He has also worked in English films with well-known filmmakers such as Deepa Mehta and Jane Campion. He has received several acting awards in India and has been on the Jury of the Indian National film Awards. Dhritiman pursues a parallel career in advertising, social communications and documentary filmmaking. Never a part of mainstream "Bollywood", he's made an astonishingly small number of films. In recent years he's wandered to assignments with filmmakers as diverse as Jane Campion and hugely successful Mumbai directors Sanjay Leela Bhansali and Mani Ratnam. Dhritiman is his screen name. He is otherwise known as Sundar Chaterji and is quite active on the English stage in Chennai. Born on 30 May 1945, he was educated at Kolkata's St Xavier's Collegiate School and Presidency College, and the Delhi School of Economics. About his acting qualities Satyajit Ray once remarked - " I do not know what definition of a star these filmmakers have been using , but mine goes something like this. A star is a person on the screen who continues to be expressive and interesting even after he or she has stopped doing anything. This definition does not exclude the rare and lucky breed that gets lakhs of rupees per film ; and it includes everyone who keeps his calm before the camera,projects a personality and evokes empathy. This is a rare breed too but one has met it in our films.Dhritiman Chatterji of Pratidwandi is such a star." - ( Our films their films)
1033066	Ruth Sheen (born 1952) is an English actress.
1162526	Abdul-Malik Kashie Yoba (born September 17, 1967), better known by his stage name Malik Yoba, is an American actor and occasional singer. He is known for his starring role as NYPD Detective J.C. Williams on the Fox police drama "New York Undercover" and as Yul Brenner in "Cool Runnings". He also appeared as former FBI Special Agent Bill Harken on the Syfy drama series "Alphas" and formerly appeared as Jim Hudson in "Revolution". Personal life. The fourth of six children, Yoba was born in Bronx, New York; his parents are Mahmoudah Young (née Lanier) and Abdullah Yoba. He is divorced from Trisha Mann, a model and actress who starred with Yoba in the stage play "His Woman, His Wife" in 2000. Yoba has three children: a son Josiah and a daughter Dena with Mann, and another daughter Pria from a previous relationship. Career. In 1994, Yoba began his role as NYPD Detective J.C. Williams on the popular FOX police drama series "New York Undercover", opposite Michael DeLorenzo. Yoba and DeLorenzo (who is of Puerto Rican and Italian descent) made television history, as the series was the first police drama on American television to feature two people of color in the starring roles. Yoba's work on "New York Undercover" earned him three consecutive NAACP Image Awards for Outstanding Actor in a Drama Series (in 1996, 1997, and 1998). The series was cancelled in 1998, with Yoba as the only actor to appear in all 89 episodes. An accomplished singer and stage actor, Yoba's talents were showcased in "His Woman His Wife", in which he had the lead role. Yoba has also appeared in films such as "Cool Runnings" and "Criminal". He has made appearances on the FOX television series "Arrested Development" as Ice, a bounty hunter whose real love is party planning, and had a recurring role as Brock Harris on the UPN sitcom "Girlfriends". Yoba also appeared in the FX Networks crime drama "Thief" and the NBC crime drama "Raines". He appeared as Gavin in the 2007 Tyler Perry film "Why Did I Get Married?" and its 2010 sequel "Why Did I Get Married Too?" In 2009, he co-starred as astronaut Ted Shaw on the futuristic ABC drama "Defying Gravity". Recently, he announced his plans to bring back "New York Undercover" to the small screen in a modern TV series adaptation of the original series. "Law & Order" writer Courtney Parker penned a spec script for networks to bid on. Navien rep. 2011 to 2012, Yoba appeared as former FBI Special Agent Bill Harken on "Alphas", a science fiction drama series about a team of people with special abilities who belong to a secret department attached to the DOD. In 2013, Yoba joined the cast of Revolution (TV series) as Jim Hudson, a former captain of the Monroe Republic. Internet meme. Since 2009, the popularity of Malik Yoba has spiked in the Russian segment of the Internet, as result of his surname being identical to the abbreviation "YOBA" - local Internet meme about casual video games.
1064372	Jonathan "Jonny" Lee Miller (born 15 November 1972) is an English actor. He achieved early success with roles in the films "Hackers" (1995) and "Trainspotting" (1996), and worked steadily in film and theatre until 2008, when he starred as the series lead in two seasons of the American television series "Eli Stone". He followed this up with lead roles in the Broadway play "After Miss Julie" and the BBC production of "Emma". In February 2011, he starred in Danny Boyle's stage adaptation of Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein" opposite Benedict Cumberbatch. He currently stars in the CBS crime drama "Elementary", alongside Lucy Liu. Early life, education and early career. Miller was born in Kingston upon Thames, London, England, the son of Anne Lee, who worked in theatre production and starred in many films (including "Lost & Found"), and Alan Miller, a stage actor and later a stage manager at the BBC. His maternal grandfather was actor Bernard Lee, famous for playing the character M in the first eleven James Bond films. Miller has stated that he has fond memories of being at the BBC Television Centre with his sister and watching "Top of the Pops" and "Blue Peter" being made. He made an uncredited appearance in the BBC series "Doctor Who" as a child in the 1982 story "Kinda". Miller was educated at Tiffin School in Kingston upon Thames where he gained his first acting experience (notably in the musical "The Ragged Child", written by the school's Director of Music David Nield, and Head of Drama Frank Whately) and played in the Tiffin Swing Band. Miller left school at age 17 to pursue his acting career. Career. After a stint in "EastEnders" as Jonathan Hewitt, Miller got his big break in the film "Hackers" (1995), co-starring with Angelina Jolie, whom he married in 1996. In 1997, Miller was involved with the creation and operation of Natural Nylon along with friends Jude Law (whom he met in the National Youth Music Theatre), Sadie Frost, Ewan McGregor, Sean Pertwee, Damon Bryant, and Bradley Adams. Natural Nylon folded in 2003. Aside from "EastEnders", he has appeared on television in the BBC's modernisation of "The Canterbury Tales", as Artie in "The Pardoner's Tale" and as Lord Byron in the BBC production "Byron" about the life of the poet. He worked on the U.S. television series "Smith" in 2006. His first appearance on US television was the 1996 miniseries "Dead Man's Walk". Shortly after "Hackers", he was cast in "Trainspotting" as "Sick Boy". He was suggested for that role by Ewan McGregor. The accent he used in the film was so convincing that it led many people to erroneously believe he was from Scotland. Miller has said, "I had to do a lot of work," he confesses, "I read and re-read the book and I pretended to be Scottish all the time I was in Glasgow, hanging around with Scots, picking up bits and pieces on the street and in bars. Everyone's been very encouraging and Danny thinks that I've got it about right. Of course, the others are from all over Scotland and have different accents themselves, so I've tried to just pick up a general, composite accent." In 1997, he played Billy Prior in the film adaptation of Pat Barker's World War I novel, "Regeneration". In 2000, he played the role of Cameron Colley in "Complicity", based on the book by Iain Banks. He costarred alongside Jude Law and Ray Winstone in the film "Love, Honour and Obey" as Johnny, a London street kid getting mixed up with a notorious Brit gangster. Also in 2000, he appeared as Simon Sheppard in Wes Craven's "Dracula 2000". In 2005, he was considered for the role of James Bond, to replace Pierce Brosnan. The role went to Daniel Craig. The following year, Miller portrayed cyclist Graeme Obree in "The Flying Scotsman". In 2007, he was selected to play the lead role in the series for ABC, called "Eli Stone"; the series was canceled after two seasons. The first season had been interrupted by a lengthy writers' strike.
1016434	Wakin Chau (born 22 December 1960) is a Hong Kong-born Taiwanese singer and actor. Chau's popularity has spread throughout Taiwan, Hong Kong, Mainland China, and parts of Southeast Asia. He was known as Emil Chau through the 1980s and 1990s, and by 2000 he reverted to his given name Wakin. As of August 2007, he has released more than 40 albums and held several international concert tours. Biography. Wakin Chau was born in a rice store owned by his family in Sai Ying Pun, Hong Kong. Growing up as the fourth son in his seven-member family, Wakin learned to play the guitar when he was about 13 years old. In 1979, he left for Taipei to major in mathematics at National Taiwan University. During his college years, he sang and played folk songs in local coffee shops. This activity was a tradition among NTU students, and it is how Wakin learned to sing in Mandarin, which would be key to his future as a music-maker in Taiwan. Wakin had high hopes to establish a career as a recording artist, and he actively sought out contacts in the music industry. But a persistent lack of interest eventually led him to give up trying to become a performer — instead, he could sign on as an assistant producer at Rock Records, where he wrote marketable pop songs for other artists. Wakin was later encouraged by Chyi Yu to sing some jingles for commercial advertising spots. One of these tunes was for a car commercial, and it happened to catch the attention of Wakin's boss at Rock, who realized it was the voice of his own assistant producer. That moment opened the door for Wakin to record and release his first Mandarin album under the Rock Records label in 1987. For a man who had dreamed of performing professionally but had settled on being a record producer, this was a period of particularly good fortune that launched a succession of chart-topping records. Shortly before his music career took off, Wakin the record producer met an American girl named Constance Woods, whose father was in Taiwan as a Fulbright scholar. Seeming to have plenty in common (including birthdays only one day apart) Wakin and Constance began to date, got engaged and then on 16 November 1986, they married in Taipei. Four months later there was another ceremony with family and friends in the United States of America on 14 March 1987. They have a son named Andrew and a daughter named Anya. From 1985, Emil Chau, who has been using his given name Wakin since 1999, has released more than 40 albums in Mandarin, Cantonese and English. He has become a prominent name in the music of Taiwan and has fans of all ages not only around Asia but also in North America, Europe and elsewhere. His platinum albums such as "You Make Me Happy and Sad" (讓我歡喜讓我憂), "Flower's Heart" (花心), "Music Brings Us Together" (有弦相聚), and "Friends" (朋友) have won awards in Taiwan, Mainland China, Hong Kong and Singapore. Wakin has appeared in a number of films and made guest appearances on TV and radio programs in China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Malaysia, Singapore and Japan. Alongside his singing career, he is a restaurateur and also is active in international charitable causes, such as kidney dialysis charities in Singapore, the January 2002 "Take a Deep Breath" concert in Taipei to raise money for local health-care organizations, Beijing's 4th Grand Charity Drive for Children in 2005, and Jackie Chan's all-star concerts in Las Vegas. Wakin Chau was formed with distinguished artists Jonathan Lee, Chang Chen-yue, and Lo Ta-yu in the four-member band Superband. In 2010, after finished their all concerts and tours, they're disbanded and resumed their individual careers.
1069627	William Alexander "Bud" Abbott (October 2, 1895 – April 24, 1974) was an American actor, producer and comedian. He is best remembered as the straight man of the comedy team of Abbott and Costello, with Lou Costello. Early life. Abbott was born in Asbury Park, New Jersey, into a show business family. His parents worked for the Barnum and Bailey Circus: his mother, Rae (née Fisher), was a bareback rider and his father, Harry, was an advance man.
582675	Aamdani Atthani Kharchaa Rupaiyaa (translation: "Salary is half a rupee and expenses are a whole rupee" other words, your expenses are greater than your wages) is a 2001 Zee Cine Awards nominated Bollywood comedy film directed by K. Raghavendra Rao starring Govinda, Juhi Chawla and Tabu. This was the remake of the hit Telugu film "Kshemanga Velli Labanga Randi" which itself was based on Tamil film "Viralukketha Veekkam" directed by V. Sekhar. The film might have failed to attract the audiences at theaters, but it registers good ratings every time when its played on movie channels and cable networks. Plot. This is a family story. Jhoomri and her husband, Bhimsha, move into a new neighbourhood. Their immediate neighbours are three squabbling couples: Vijay and Anjali who are newly married; Appu Khote and Vimla, who are married and have four children; and Ravi and Meena, who are married and have one child. Slowly the husbands are running out of money so they trick their wives and go out for a vacation. Meanwhile their wives are struggling to pay their rents and decide to work even though their husbands told them not to. When the husbands come back, they kick their wives out of the house since they got jobs. The wives go to live with Jhoomri and Bhishma.
1265504	Montagu Love (15 March 1877 – 17 May 1943), also known as Montague Love, was an English screen, stage and vaudeville actor. Life. Born Harry Montague Love in Portsmouth, Hampshire. Educated in Great Britain, Love began his career as an artist and military correspondent with his first important job as a London newspaper cartoonist. Love honed basic stage talents in London, and in 1913 sailed to the U.S. with a road-company production of Cyril Maude's "Grumpy." Usually Love was cast in heartless villain roles. In the 1920s, he played opposite Rudolph Valentino in "The Son of the Sheik," opposite John Barrymore in "Don Juan," and appeared with Lillian Gish in 1928's "The Wind". He also portrayed 'Colonel Ibbetson' in "Forever" (1921), the silent film version of "Peter Ibbetson". Love was one of the most succestful villains in silent films. One of Love's first sound films was the part-talkie "The Mysterious Island" co-starring Lionel Barrymore. In 1937, he played Henry VIII in the first talking film version of Mark Twain's "The Prince and the Pauper", with Errol Flynn. Love played the virtous and treasonous Bishop of the Black Canons in "The Adventures of Robin Hood", starring Flynn, too. However, he also played gruff authoritarian figures, such as Monsieur Cavaignac, who, contrary to history, demands the resignation of those responsible for the Dreyfus coverup, in "The Life of Emile Zola" (1937), as well as Don Alejandro de la Vega, whose son appears to be a fop but is actually Zorro, in the 1940 version of "The Mark of Zorro", starring Tyrone Power. In 1941, he played a doctor in "Shining Victory," which also starred James Stephenson, Geraldine Fitzgerald and Donald Crisp. In 1939's "Gunga Din," it is Montagu Love who reads the final stanza of Rudyard Kipling's original poem over the body of the slain Din. His last film, "Devotion," was released three years after his death aged 66 in 1943. He was interred at Chapel of the Pines Crematory.
1085646	James Raymond "Jimmi" Simpson (born November 21, 1975) is an American actor. He has had recurring roles on the television shows "24", "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia", "Psych", "My Name Is Earl", ' and the "Late Show with David Letterman". His film credits include "Date Night", "The Invention of Lying", "D. E. B. S.", "Zodiac", "Seraphim Falls", "Stay Alive", ', "White House Down", and "Loser". Personal life. Simpson was born in Hackettstown, New Jersey, the youngest of three brothers. He graduated with a bachelor of arts degree in acting from Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania. Following graduation, he worked in theater at the Flat Rock Playhouse in Flat Rock, North Carolina. Simpson then spent four seasons at the Williamstown Theatre Festival in Massachusetts. He met actress Melanie Lynskey in 2001, when he co-starred with her in the Stephen King miniseries "Rose Red". They became engaged in 2005, and married on April 14, 2007, in a chapel overlooking a vineyard on Lake Hayes, near Queenstown, New Zealand. Lynskey filed for divorce from Simpson on October 1, 2012, citing irreconcilable differences. Career. Simpson made his film debut in 2000 as Noah in Amy Heckerling's "Loser" and continued with further theater, television, and film work. In 2008, Simpson starred on Broadway in the play "The Farnsworth Invention" as Philo T. Farnsworth, often claimed (incorrectly) to be the inventor of the television, winning a Theatre World Award for his performance. Other theater credits include: "Tartuffe", "The Rainmaker" (Broadway), "Camino Real", "The Winter's Tale" and "A Midsummer Night's Dream". Simpson has guest starred in episodes of "Cold Case", "NYPD Blue", "How I Met Your Mother" and "House", and has had recurring roles on "24", "Carnivàle", "", "My Name is Earl", "Psych" and "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia", where he appears frequently as Liam McPoyle. In addition, he guest starred in 15 episodes of the "Late Show with David Letterman", as "Lyle the Intern" (2008–2009). He recently appeared in the feature films "The Invention of Lying", directed by Ricky Gervais, "The Mother of Invention" and "Date Night", alongside Steve Carell and Tina Fey. He appears on the show "Breakout Kings", starring as Lloyd Lowery, an inmate/former child prodigy with a penchant for gambling; the series was canceled on May 17, 2012. He appeared as Joshua Speed in the feature film "".
1054214	"National Lampoon's Adam & Eve" is a 2005 comedy motion picture, released as part of the ongoing series of National Lampoon films. The film is directed by Jeff Kanew and stars Cameron Douglas, Emmanuelle Chriqui, George Dzundza and others. The film is also known as simply "Adam and Eve". Plot. Adam is a college senior, and an aspiring singer/songwriter. He meets Eve - a beautiful, bright, talented (as a sports still photographer) college girl. They begin dating; and he quickly learns that, hard as it is to believe of such a hot girl in today's campus world, Eve is still a virgin. For her it is not about religion, or waiting for wedlock, but about waiting until it feels "right." This begins a relationship that is at once sexy, romantic, sometimes painful, and often hilarious, as Adam, Eve and all their friends wait for Eve to be ready. Cast. Adam - Cameron Douglas
588650	Ek Chalis Ki Last Local (English: "Last Local of 1:40") is a 2007 Bollywood crime comedy film directed by Sanjay Khanduri, starring Abhay Deol opposite Neha Dhupia in lead roles. The film released on 18th May 2007, and received positive critical response upon its release. Despite its low popularity, the film managed to do well at the box office and turned out to be an surprise hit according to critics. It has been referred to as an cult classic in Bollywood cinema. Plot. The story revolves around two people who miss the last local train at 1:40 am and how it changes the course of their lives forever. The protagonist Nilesh (Abhay Deol) works in a call center firm cultivated by the IT industry. Night shifts, booze, after office parties seem to be the order of the day. When Nilesh misses his last train from Kurla to Vikroli, he is rudely shoved off by a police constable who wants to keep the station clean from anti-social elements. Nowhere to go, he strolls outside for an auto-rickshaw, where he bumps into a beautiful damsel in distress, Madhu (Neha Dhupia), also wanting a ride to Vikroli. As it turns out, the rickshaws are on strike due to a bomb blast earlier in the day. Nilesh and Madhu are forced to walk to the next rickshaw stand. Nilesh stops by a local pub and is unable to resist his temptation to have a drink or two. To get money for a drink, he gambles. He loses some money in poker to elements from the underworld, then discovers Madhu being forced upon by a local goon in the bathroom. He later learns that she was just plying her trade. A police encounter specialist, a religious but notorious south Indian Mafia don, a gay underworld don and the Mumbai red light underbelly too get involved. With just 70 rupees in his pocket, when 2 ½ hours later he catches the first morning local train, he has 2 ½ crore in his hands. How Nilesh lands up with this bounty and a beautiful prostitute Madhu by fortunately missing his train sums up this comic thriller. Soundtrack. The album of "Ek Chalis Ki Last Local" was composed by Call Band. Reception. Critical Reception. "Ek Chalis Ki Last Local" received positive critical response upon its release. Martin D’Souza of "GlamSham" gave the movie 3.5 stars out of 5, concluding that "If you loved BHEJA FRY, you will love this flick. Don’t be late for a ride on this last local! As for the producers, the cash register has just begun jingling." Joginder Tuteja of "IndiaGlitz" gave the movie a positive review, stating that "EK CHALIS KI LAST LOCAL turns out to be a film that breaks the stereotypes, mainly from the narration perspective, in a big way and hence deserves to be appreciated for its uniqueness." Taran Adarsh of "Bollywood Hungama" gave the movie 3 stars out of 5, saying that "EK CHALIS KI LAST LOCAL is a decent fare that stands out for a few individualistic episodes in the narrative. At the box-office, the film caters to the multiplex audience mainly, especially big city multiplexes. Business in Mumbai multiplexes should be better due to its Mumbaiya flavor." Ashok Nayak of "NowRunning" gave the movie 2.5 stars out of 5, stating that "Ek Chalis Ki Last Local has shades of brilliance but 10 to 15 minutes can be easily trimmed off from the movie for better impact. Repeating and unnecessary stretching of scenes are repelling." Meetu from wogma.com said"Originality executed even reasonably well is so hard to come by, that if you spot one from a mile, it deserves enthusiastic support. The freshness lies in the way the vaguely familiar stories are sewn together. The clever dialogues giving company all along. The way the complex plot unfolds and transitions from one sub-plot to another without once taxing the brains of the viewer is enticing.". Sequel. An sequel titled "Gyaraah Chalis Ki Last Metro" was announced in the early 2010s. It was announced that the film would feature Vivek Oberoi opposite Mallika Sherawat in lead roles. In early 2012, it was announced that the idea of an sequel had been slightly changed. The project would still be released with the same cast & crew, however it will not be noted as an sequel to "Ek Chalis Ki Last Local". In October 2012, the film released as "Kismet Love Paisa Dilli".
70854	Darfur Now is a 2007 documentary film examining the genocide in Darfur, Sudan. It was written and directed by Ted Braun and produced by Don Cheadle, Mark Jonathan Harris and Cathy Schulman. Executive Producers included Jeffrey Skoll, Omar Amanat, Dean Schramm, Diane Weyermann, and Matt Palmieri. The film is a call to action for people all over the world to help the ongoing crisis in Darfur.
1156866	The Adventures of Food Boy is an independent comedy film that was released in 2008 by Cold Spark Films. It is based on the 2007 short film "Food Boy". It stars Lucas Grabeel in his first lead role as Ezra, who becomes a superhero known as "Food Boy". Brittany Curran plays the lead female role of Shelby.
582702	Rakesh Kanshi Ram Bedi 1956, New Delhi is an Indian film actor, stage and television actor, most known for his comedy roles in films like "Chashme Buddoor" (1981), and television series, "Yeh Jo Hai Zindagi" (1984) and Shrimaan Shrimati (1995) and Yes Boss (1999 -2009). Early life and education. Bedi studied in Delhi, where his father Babu Kanshi Ram was working with Indian Railways, and while in school, he started participating in Mono Acting competitions. Rakesh Bedi has worked with the New Delhi theatre group Pierrot's Troupe. He studied acting at the Film and Television Institute of India, Pune. Career. Bedi started his film career as a supporting actor in the 1979 film "Hamare Tumhare" starring Sanjeev Kumar, and then went on to act in over 150 films and a several TV serials. Some of his most memorable roles were in the 1981 film "Chashme Buddoor" with Farooq Shaikh and in the TV sitcoms "Shrimaan Shrimati" (1995) and "Yes Boss", "Yeh Jo Hai Zindagi" (1984) written by Sharad Joshi and directed by Kundan Shah. He had a little role in Gulzar's "Mere Apne" and he has also acted in a number of Punjabi movies such as "Main tu assi tussi". He also hosted "Science with BrainCafé", a science show on ZeeQ, and continues doing theatre in Mumbai, notably he played 24 different characters in Vijay Tendulkar’s popular one-man play "Massage". In 2012, he started working in his first television drama daily soap, "Shubh Vivah". Now he is the life member of International Film And Television Club of Asian Academy Of Film & Television.
1017835	Bruce Lee and I () (as released in the United States), also known as I Love You, Bruce Lee and Bruce Lee: His Last Days, His Last Nights (USA dubbed version.) is a 1976 film about the last days of martial arts star Bruce Lee. Danny Lee stars as Bruce Lee and Betty Ting Pei stars as herself in this movie that is based on Bruce Lee's last days leading up to his death in Pei's apartment in Hong Kong in July 1973. Plot. Mainly Betty Ting's story. It opens with Betty telling her story to a bartender in flashbacks, then continues with her beginning when she was a lonely schoolgirl. She meets Bruce when he saves her from a beating one night and gives her some money. She then attempts to break into show biz and meets Bruce again: from there they become lovers until his sudden death... Behind the Scenes. Released in 1976, this film would later be the subject of dispute surrounding many of the facts about both Bruce Lee and his mistress, Betty Ting Pei. Many members of the Shaw Studios in Hong Kong and friends of Bruce Lee would later come forward to say that the film was inaccurate in its portrayal of Lee and Betty. Evidence would also appear saying that Lee was in different places rather than staying with Betty as the film stated. No real evidence came out of what Betty Ting Pei really did to Bruce Lee or if she really killed him (the coroner stated he died of brain swelling, which saw her acquitted of criminal wrongdoing) and no evidence appeared of threats against Betty for the death of Lee, though she was suspected by the fans. As for Betty Ting Pei herself, she never admitted she lied, but much evidence contests what
590368	Chirodini... Tumi Je Aamar (; "You Are Mine Eternally") is a 2008 Bengali film by Raj Chakraborty, one of the most revered directors of Zee Bangla TV show "Mirakkel" hosted by anchor Mir and Dance Bangla Dance and judged by Mithun Chakraborty. The film was inspired by the Balaji Sakthivel directed Tamil film "Kaadhal". Plot. Krishna (Rahul Banerjee) is a diligent scooter mechanic in Siliguri and life goes on smoothly for him until the rich schoolgirl Pallavi (Priyanka Sarkar) sets her eyes on him. The infatuation reaches dangerous levels when she coaxes Krishna to take her away from the clutches of her family, which has other plans about her future. The film begins with the elopement, as Pallavi steps out of her house in her school uniform, leaving even her wristwatch behind since Krishna has instructed her not to take a single thing with her. The two rush into a shopping mall where Pallavi hurriedly changes into a boy’s shirt, pants and cap, leaves her uniform behind, and the two board the bus. The flashback, as point-of-view narrations between Pallavi and Krishna, are intercut with Pallavi’s don-like father and uncle terrorizing the neighbourhood in search of the truant girl. The naïve Krishna hesitantly yields to her charm and the two run away to Kolkata. Krishna's friend Ali (Rudranil Ghosh) helps them, and the lovers marry. The couple consummates their union while the mess chaps hastily organize a proper wedding and elaborate reception. But her family is not going to give up so easily on the daughter they dote on. The family tracks down the couple and separates them. Pallavi agrees to marry another man to save Krishna's life after he is beaten by her father. While she believes this decision is best and moves on with her life, she one day (while on the road with her husband and daughter) runs into Krishna who suffered permanent brain damage from his beating. Influences and allusions. In September 2007, Rizwanur, a computer professional who ran his classes in the city, fell in love and married Priyanka Todi, daughter of a big-time businessman Ashok Todi. But differences in status, class, faith and affluence drove them apart; Rizwanur’s dead body was discovered on the railway tracks a few days after Priyanka went back to her parents who had promised that they would send her back again to her husband. The Kolkata Police violated its own rules preventing them from interfering in any personal matters unless violence is involved and unless a FIR is lodged against those who are called in by the police. Rizwanur’s family claimed that he was murdered at the behest of Priyanka’s wealthy and influential father who was trying to hush the case up by taking the suicide angle with tangible and direct help from some higher-ups of the Kolkata Police. The unconstitutional action by the police has now been proved through the decision that pronounced some top-ranking police officers guilty of violating their own rules in the Rizwanur-Priyanka case and acting in favour of the Todis. Shree Venkatesh Films decided to piggy-back on this case by marketing "Chirodini Tumi Je Amaar", that marks the debut of Raj Chakraborty into direction, as a loose adaptation of the real-life story of tragic love. Music. The music of "Chirodini Tumi Je Amar", composed by Jeet Ganguly, was released in India on 15 August 2008 The soundtrack was at the number one spot on the music charts for several consecutive weeks. The media partner of "Chirodini Tumi Je Amar" is Bengali music channel Sangeet Bangla. Box office and ratings. "Chirodini Tumi Je Amar" was the top grossing Tollywood Bangla film of the year 2008 and likely the best Bengali blockbuster hit of the decade. The film was rated as "U" (Universal: Suitable for all ages) by the Central Board of Film Certification of India. The film had a great opening. The first week saw 55 percent footfall, which was overwhelming. Mahendra Soni of Shree Venkatesh Films spent Rs 1 crore on making the movie and they have earned about Rs 2 crore. Chirodini released with 40 prints and Venkatesh is coming up with some more. Reviews and critiques. "The Telegraph" reviewed that movie: "Chirodini... Tumi Je Aamar could as well be a version of "QSQT" or any other tragic teen love story done to death on screen. But Raj Chakraborty’s directorial debut turns the cliche on its head and makes a two-hour-20-minute entertainer, without the tackiness, sloppiness and meaningless melodrama typical of mainstream Tollywood ... Chirodini’s strength is its screenplay — smart, crisp and racy with neat shot divisions, life-like situations and convincing characters."
1049876	Jack Starrett (November 2, 1936 – March 27, 1989) was an American actor and film director. He is credited as Claude Ennis Starrett, Jr. in some of his films. Starrett is perhaps best known for his role as "Gabby Johnson", a parody of George "Gabby" Hayes, in the 1974 classic parody film "Blazing Saddles" and is also known for his role as the brutal deputy Art Galt in the 1982 action film "First Blood". He also played the cruel foreman Swick in "The River". Starrett was often typecast as a tough-talking police officer and played essentially the same character in a trio of biker films: "The Born Losers" (the film that introduced Billy Jack), "Hells Angels on Wheels" (both from 1967), and "Angels from Hell" (1968). He acted in another biker film, "Hell's Bloody Devils" (1970), and directed two more: "Run, Angel, Run" in 1969 and "Nam's Angels" (1970). Life and career. Starrett was born Claude Ennis Starrett, Jr. He was raised in Refugio, Texas and worked in the oil fields before coming to Hollywood. Starrett starred in the 1961 film "Like Father Like Son" as Coach Jennings, and later reprised the role in "The Young Sinner" in 1965 and "Like Father Like Son" in 1987. Valerie Starrett, Jack's wife at one time, stated that Jack had always wished to direct rather than act. He made an uncredited first attempt at direction when the original director of "The Girls from Thunder Strip". Through his career, Starrett directed feature films and episodes of television programs. In addition, he made guest appearances on TV shows including "Hill Street Blues", "Hunter", "The A-Team", and "Knight Rider" (in which he made three guest appearances as different characters.) Starrett starred in three short films directed by Tony Schweikle, "Legend of the Durango Kid," "Colorado Rid'n High" and "Nolo Bait." Starrett died from renal failure in Sherman Oaks, California at the age of 52. At the time of his death he was married to Valerie Starrett. His daughter is Jennifer Starrett, who is also an actor.
712234	Mark Christopher "Chris" Bauer (born October 28, 1966) is an American film and television actor. Biography. Early life. Bauer was born in Los Angeles, California and attended high school at Miramonte High School in Orinda, California. He played on Miramonte Championship football team his senior year, 1984. Later, he attended the University of San Diego, the American Academy of Dramatic Arts and graduated from the Yale School of Drama. Acting career. Television. Bauer has starred in numerous television series including "The Wire" as port-union boss Frank Sobotka. He also starred in Billy Crystal's 2001 film "61*", as New York Yankees player Bob Cerv. His roles on network television include a recurring role as Fred Yokas, husband of Officer Faith Yokas, on the NBC series "Third Watch", lead FBI Agent Dodd on the short-lived CBS series "Smith", a Priest on ABC's "Life on Mars" and as Detective Lou Destefano in the original Sci-Fi channel miniseries "The Lost Room". He appears on the episode The No-Brainer of the television series "Fringe" as Brian Dempsey. He also appeared in an episode of "Numb3rs" as Dr. Raymond "Ray" Galuski and in "Criminal Minds" in season 1 as the antagonist.
1162112	Cindy Pickett (born April 18, 1947) is an American actress. She is known for her 1970s role as Jackie Marler-Spaulding on the CBS soap "Guiding Light"; her role as Dr. Carol Novino on the television drama "St. Elsewhere" in the 1980s; for her critically acclaimed performance as the real-life Kay Stayner, the mother of a boy who was kidnapped for several years, in the dramatic TV movie "I Know My First Name Is Steven"; and for her cinematic roles and performances as Valerie St. John in Roger Vadim's little-known 1980 erotic cult film, "Jeux de Nuit / Night Games", for which she would have the leading role, and as the tough-as-nails and heroic Dr. Jane Norris in the 1989 sci-fi-horror film "DeepStar Six". Pickett, however, is handily best known to audiences for her highly memorable turn as Katie Bueller, Matthew Broderick's titular character's loving and unsuspecting mother, in the 1986 classic and iconic American comedy movie "Ferris Bueller's Day Off". Biography. Career. Pickett made a major departure from her soap opera image when she played the central role in the 1980 erotic film "Jeux de Nuit / Night Games", directed by Roger Vadim. It was a sexually charged role involving numerous nude scenes, however the film never found an audience and did not boost Pickett's career. In the 1981 mystery/crime drama "Margin for Murder", Pickett played the role of Velda, Mike Hammer's (Kevin Dobson) loyal and devoted secretary. She played "Jackie Marler" on the soap opera "The Guiding Light" from 1976 to 1980, "Vanessa Sarnac" on the ABC weekly TV series "Call to Glory" from 1984 to 1985, and she appeared on the hospital drama TV series "St. Elsewhere" from 1986 to 1988. TV series she has guest-starred on include "Simon & Simon", "Magnum, P.I.", "L.A. Law", "Murder, She Wrote", "The Pretender", "NYPD Blue", "", "Without a Trace", "Crossing Jordan" and "Burn Notice". Personal life. Pickett was born in Sand Springs, Oklahoma, daughter of Cecil Pickett, a director and drama teacher at the University of Houston. She met Lyman Ward, on the set of "Ferris Bueller's Day Off" (the actors' characters were husband and wife, the parents of Ferris Bueller), and got married not long after. In 1992, they filed for divorce, citing irreconcilable differences.
1142535	John Dee (13 July 1527–1608 or 1609) was a Welsh mathematician, astronomer, astrologer, occultist, navigator, imperialist and consultant to Queen Elizabeth I. He devoted much of his life to the study of alchemy, divination and Hermetic philosophy. Dee straddled the worlds of science and magic just as they were becoming distinguishable. One of the most learned men of his age, he had been invited to lecture on advanced algebra at the University of Paris while still in his early twenties. Dee was an ardent promoter of mathematics and a respected astronomer, as well as a leading expert in navigation, having trained many of those who would conduct England's voyages of discovery. Simultaneously with these efforts, Dee immersed himself in the worlds of magic, astrology and Hermetic philosophy. He devoted much time and effort in the last thirty years or so of his life to attempting to commune with angels in order to learn the universal language of creation and bring about the pre-apocalyptic unity of mankind. A student of the Renaissance Neo-Platonism of Marsilio Ficino, Dee did not draw distinctions between his mathematical research and his investigations into Hermetic magic, angel summoning and divination. Instead he considered all of his activities to constitute different facets of the same quest: the search for a transcendent understanding of the divine forms which underlie the visible world, which Dee called "pure verities". In his lifetime Dee amassed one of the largest libraries in England. His high status as a scholar also allowed him to play a role in Elizabethan politics. He served as an occasional adviser and tutor to Elizabeth I and nurtured relationships with her ministers Francis Walsingham and William Cecil. Dee also tutored and enjoyed patronage relationships with Sir Philip Sidney, his uncle Robert Dudley, 1st Earl of Leicester, and Edward Dyer. He also enjoyed patronage from Sir Christopher Hatton. Biography. Early life. Dee was born in Tower Ward, London, to a Welsh family from Radnorshire. He was the only child of his parents: Rowland, who was a mercer and minor courtier, and Joan, who was the daughter of William Wild. Dee attended the Chelmsford Chantry School from 1535 (now King Edward VI Grammar School (Chelmsford)), then – from November 1542 to 1546 – St. John's College, Cambridge. His great abilities were recognised, and he was made a founding fellow of Trinity College, where the clever stage effects he produced for a production of Aristophanes' "Peace" procured him the reputation of being a magician that clung to him through life. In the late 1540s and early 1550s, he travelled in Europe, studying at Leuven (1548) and Brussels and lecturing in Paris on Euclid. He studied with Gemma Frisius and became a close friend of the cartographer Gerardus Mercator, returning to England with an important collection of mathematical and astronomical instruments. In 1552, he met Gerolamo Cardano in London: during their acquaintance they investigated a perpetual motion machine as well as a gem purported to have magical properties. Rector at Upton-upon-Severn from 1553, Dee was offered a readership in mathematics at Oxford in 1554, which he declined; he was occupied with writing and perhaps hoped for a better position at court. In 1555, Dee became a member of the Worshipful Company of Mercers, as his father had, through the company's system of patrimony. That same year, 1555, he was arrested and charged with "calculating" for having cast horoscopes of Queen Mary and Princess Elizabeth; the charges were expanded to treason against Mary. Dee appeared in the Star Chamber and exonerated himself, but was turned over to the Catholic Bishop Bonner for religious examination. His strong and lifelong penchant for secrecy perhaps worsening matters, this entire episode was only the most dramatic in a series of attacks and slanders that would dog Dee throughout his life. Clearing his name yet again, he soon became a close associate of Bonner. Dee presented Queen Mary with a visionary plan for the preservation of old books, manuscripts and records and the founding of a national library, in 1556, but his proposal was not taken up. Instead, he expanded his personal library at his house in Mortlake, tirelessly acquiring books and manuscripts in England and on the European Continent. Dee's library, a center of learning outside the universities, became the greatest in England and attracted many scholars. When Elizabeth took the throne in 1558, Dee became her trusted advisor on astrological and scientific matters, choosing Elizabeth's coronation date himself. From the 1550s through the 1570s, he served as an advisor to England's voyages of discovery, providing technical assistance in navigation and ideological backing in the creation of a "British Empire", a term that he was the first to use. Dee wrote a letter to William Cecil, 1st Baron Burghley in October 1574 seeking patronage. He claimed to have occult knowledge of treasure on the Welsh Marches, and of ancient valuable manuscripts kept at Wigmore Castle, knowing that the Lord Treasurer's ancestors came from this area. In 1577, Dee published "General and Rare Memorials pertayning to the Perfect Arte of Navigation", a work that set out his vision of a maritime empire and asserted English territorial claims on the New World. Dee was acquainted with Humphrey Gilbert and was close to Sir Philip Sidney and his circle. In 1564, Dee wrote the Hermetic work "Monas Hieroglyphica" ("The Hieroglyphic Monad"), an exhaustive Cabalistic interpretation of a glyph of his own design, meant to express the mystical unity of all creation. He travelled to Hungary to present a copy personally to Maximilian II, Holy Roman Emperor. This work was highly valued by many of Dee's contemporaries, but the loss of the secret oral tradition of Dee's milieu makes the work difficult to interpret today. He published a "Mathematical Preface" to Henry Billingsley's English translation of Euclid's "Elements" in 1570, arguing the central importance of mathematics and outlining mathematics' influence on the other arts and sciences. Intended for an audience outside the universities, it proved to be Dee's most widely influential and frequently reprinted work. Later life. By the early 1580s, Dee was growing dissatisfied with his progress in learning the secrets of nature and with his own lack of influence and recognition. He began to turn towards the supernatural as a means to acquire knowledge. Specifically, he sought to contact angels through the use of a "scryer" or crystal-gazer, who would act as an intermediary between Dee and the angels. Dee's first attempts were not satisfactory, but, in 1582, he met Edward Kelley (then going under the name of Edward Talbot), who impressed him greatly with his abilities. Dee took Kelley into his service and began to devote all his energies to his supernatural pursuits. These "spiritual conferences" or "actions" were conducted with an air of intense Christian piety, always after periods of purification, prayer and fasting. Dee was convinced of the benefits they could bring to mankind. (The character of Kelley is harder to assess: some have concluded that he acted with complete cynicism, but delusion or self-deception are not out of the question. Kelley's "output" is remarkable for its sheer mass, its intricacy and its vividness). Dee maintained that the angels laboriously dictated several books to him this way, some in a special angelic or Enochian language. In 1583, Dee met the visiting Polish nobleman Albert Łaski, who invited Dee to accompany him on his return to Poland. With some prompting by the angels, Dee was persuaded to go. Dee, Kelley and their families left for the Continent in September 1583, but Łaski proved to be bankrupt and out of favour in his own country. Dee and Kelley began a nomadic life in Central Europe, but they continued their spiritual conferences, which Dee recorded meticulously. He had audiences with Emperor Rudolf II in Prague Castle and King Stefan Batory of Poland and attempted to convince them of the importance of his angelic communications. His meeting with the Polish King Stefan Batory took place at the royal castle at Niepołomice (near Kraków, then the capital of Poland) and was later widely analysed by Polish historians (Ryszard Zieliński, Roman Żelewski, Roman Bugaj) and writers (Waldemar Łysiak). While generally they accepted him as being a man of wide and deep knowledge they also pointed out his connections with the English monarch Elizabeth. This prompted them to conclude that the meeting could have hidden political goals. Nevertheless, the Polish King who, being a devout Catholic, was very cautious of any supernatural media, started the meeting with a statement that all prophetic revelations were finalised with the mission of Jesus Christ. He also stressed that he would take part in the event provided that there would be nothing against the teaching of the Holy Catholic Church. During a spiritual conference in Bohemia, in 1587, Kelley told Dee that the angel Uriel had ordered that the two men should share their wives. Kelley, who by that time was becoming a prominent alchemist and was much more sought-after than Dee, may have wished to use this as a way to end the spiritual conferences. The order caused Dee great anguish, but he did not doubt its genuineness and apparently allowed it to go forward, but broke off the conferences immediately afterwards and did not see Kelley again. Dee returned to England in 1589. Final years. Dee returned to his summer beach house after six years to find his library ruined and many of his prized books and instruments stolen. He sought support from Elizabeth, who finally made him Warden of Christ's College, Manchester, in 1595. This former College of Priests had been re-established as a Protestant institution by a Royal Charter of 1578. However, he could not exert much control over the Fellows, who despised or cheated him. Early in his tenure, he was consulted on the demonic possession of seven children, but took little interest in the matter, although he did allow those involved to consult his still extensive library. He left Manchester in 1605 to return to London; however, he remained Warden until his death. By that time, Elizabeth was dead, and James I, unsympathetic to anything related to the supernatural, provided no help. Dee spent his final years in poverty at Mortlake, forced to sell off various of his possessions to support himself and his daughter, Katherine, who cared for him until the end. He died in Mortlake late in 1608 or early 1609 aged 82 (there are no extant records of the exact date as both the parish registers and Dee's gravestone are missing). In 2013 a memorial plaque to Dee was placed on the south wall of the present church.
1743066	Halo Legends is a collection of seven short anime films set in the "Halo" science-fiction universe. Financed by "Halo" franchise overseer 343 Industries, the stories were created by six Japanese production houses: Bones, Casio Entertainment, Production I.G., Studio 4°C, and Toei Animation. Shinji Aramaki, creator and director of "Appleseed" and "Appleseed Ex Machina", serves as the project's creative director. Warner Bros. released "Legends" on DVD and Blu-ray Disc on February 16, 2010.
1058446	Richard "Dick" Miller (born December 25, 1928) is an American character actor who has appeared in over 100 films, particularly those produced by Roger Corman, and later in films of directors who started their careers with Corman, including James Cameron and Joe Dante, with the distinction of appearing in almost every film made by Dante. Miller's main roles have been in films such as "Gremlins", "", "Piranha", "The Howling", "A Bucket of Blood", "The Little Shop of Horrors" and "Small Soldiers". Life and career. Miller was born in The Bronx, New York and attended the City College of New York as well as Columbia University. He performed on Broadway and also worked at the Bellevue Hospital Mental Hygiene Clinic and the psychiatric department of Queens General Hospital. In 1952, he moved to California seeking work as a writer. One of his earliest acting roles was in "Apache Woman" (1955). He played one of the town's people and also a separate role as an Indian. In an action scene his town person character shot his Indian character, as related in the documentary "Corman's World". Richard Miller is also credited for being in a Sega CD video game called "Prize Fighter" in which he plays the role of a corner man for the main character. His roles in movies include "White Line Fever", "The Terminator", "All The Right Moves", "Night of the Creeps", "Small Soldiers", "It Conquered the World", "A Bucket of Blood", "The Little Shop of Horrors", the "Tales from the Crypt" movie "Demon Knight", "Amazon Women on the Moon", "Chopping Mall", "The Howling", "Piranha" and "I Wanna Hold Your Hand". His best known role was in the movies "Gremlins" and "" as Murray Futterman. He appeared in "Pulp Fiction" as Monster Joe, but his scene and a few others were deleted because of the length of the film. He also appeared in Rod Stewart's music video for the song "Infatuation" in 1984, with Mike Mazurki and Kay Lenz. His television credits include "V: The Final Battle" as Dan Pascal, and appearances on ' in the season 1 episode "The Big Goodbye" as the newspaper stand man in the holodeck, ' in the season 3 two-part episode "Past Tense" as Vin, "Time of Your Life", as a prison guard in "Soap" (1979) and he voiced the gangster Chuckie Sol in the animated feature film "". Miller has also directed television shows, including "The Fix" a 1986 episode of the series "Miami Vice".
592027	The National Film Award for Best Feature Film in Kannada is one of the National Film Awards presented annually by the Directorate of Film Festivals, the organisation set up by Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, India. It is one of several awards presented for feature films and awarded with Rajat Kamal (Silver Lotus). The National Film Awards, established in 1954, are the most prominent film awards in India that merit the best of the Indian cinema. The ceremony also presents awards for films in various regional languages. Awards for films in seven regional language (Bengali, Hindi, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Tamil and Telugu) started from 2nd National Film Awards which were presented on 21 December 1955. Three awards of "President's Silver Medal for Best Feature Film", "Certificate of Merit for the Second Best Feature Film" and "Certificate of Merit for the Third Best Feature Film" were instituted. The later two certificate awards were discontinued from 15th National Film Awards (1967). Directed by H. L. N. Simha, the 1954 film "Bedara Kannappa", received the first Certificate of Merit. The film was based on the folktale of the hunter Kannappa who proves his extreme devotion to Lord Shiva by plucking out both of his eyes. However, the first "President's Silver Medal for Best Feature Film in Kannada" was only awarded at the 5th National Film Awards ceremony held on 16 April 1958 to the 1957 film "Premada Puthri". The film was directed by R. Nagendra Rao and produced under his banner R. N. R. Pictures. Following is the list of "Silver Lotus Award (Rajat Kamal)" recipient films produced in Kannada language. Winners. Award includes 'Rajat Kamal' (Silver Lotus Award) and cash prize. Following are the award winners over the years:
1582093	In numerical analysis, the Kahan summation algorithm (also known as compensated summation ) significantly reduces the numerical error in the total obtained by adding a sequence of finite precision floating point numbers, compared to the obvious approach. This is done by keeping a separate "running compensation" (a variable to accumulate small errors). In particular, simply summing "n" numbers in sequence has a worst-case error that grows proportional to "n", and a root mean square error that grows as formula_1 for random inputs (the roundoff errors form a random walk). With compensated summation, the worst-case error bound is independent of "n", so a large number of values can be summed with an error that only depends on the floating-point precision. The algorithm is attributed to William Kahan. Similar, earlier techniques are, for example, Bresenham's line algorithm, keeping track of the accumulated error in integer operations (although first documented around the same time) and the Delta-sigma modulation (integrating, not just summing the error). The algorithm. In pseudocode, the algorithm is: Worked example. This example will be given in decimal. Computers typically use binary arithmetic, but the principle being illustrated is the same. Suppose we are using six-digit decimal floating point arithmetic, "sum" has attained the value 10000.0, and the next two values of "input(i)" are 3.14159 and 2.71828. The exact result is 10005.85987, which rounds to 10005.9. With a plain summation, each incoming value would be aligned with "sum" and many low order digits lost (by truncation or rounding.) The first result, after rounding, would be 10003.1. The second result would be 10005.81828 before rounding, and 10005.8 after rounding. This is not correct. However, with compensated summation, we get the correct rounded result of 10005.9. Assume that "c" has the initial value zero. The sum is so large that only the high-order digits of the input numbers are being accumulated. But on the next step, "c" gives the error. So the summation is performed with two accumulators: "sum" holds the sum, and "c" accumulates the parts not assimilated into "sum", to nudge the low-order part of "sum" the next time around. Thus the summation proceeds with "guard digits" in "c" which is better than not having any but is not as good as performing the calculations with double the precision of the input. However, simply increasing the precision of the calculations is not practical in general; if "input" is already double precision, few systems supply quadruple precision and if they did, "input" could then be quadruple precision! Accuracy. A careful analysis of the errors in compensated summation is needed to appreciate its accuracy characteristics. While it is more accurate than naive summation, it can still give large relative errors for ill-conditioned sums. Suppose that one is summing "n" values "x""i", for "i"=1...,"n". The exact sum is: With compensated summation, one instead obtains formula_3, where the error formula_4 is bounded above by: where ε is the machine precision of the arithmetic being employed (e.g. ε≈10−16 for IEEE standard double precision floating point). Usually, the quantity of interest is the relative error formula_6, which is therefore bounded above by: In the expression for the relative error bound, the fraction Σ|"xi"|/|Σ"xi"| is the condition number of the summation problem. Essentially, the condition number represents the "intrinsic" sensitivity of the summation problem to errors, regardless of how it is computed. The relative error bound of "every" (backwards stable) summation method by a fixed algorithm in fixed precision (i.e. not those that use arbitrary precision arithmetic, nor algorithms whose memory and time requirements change based on the data), is proportional to this condition number. An "ill-conditioned" summation problem is one in which this ratio is large, and in this case even compensated summation can have a large relative error. For example, if the summands "xi" are uncorrelated random numbers with zero mean, the sum is a random walk and the condition number will grow proportional to formula_1. On the other hand, for random inputs with nonzero mean the condition number asymptotes to a finite constant as formula_9. If the inputs are all non-negative, then the condition number is 1. Given a condition number, the relative error of compensated summation is effectively independent of "n". In principle, there is the O("n"ε2) that grows linearly with "n", but in practice this term is effectively zero: since the final result is rounded to a precision ε, the "n"ε2 term rounds to zero unless "n" is roughly 1/ε or larger. In double precision, this corresponds to an "n" of roughly 1016, much larger than most sums. So, for a fixed condition number, the errors of compensated summation are effectively "O"(ε), independent of "n". In comparison, the relative error bound for naive summation (simply adding the numbers in sequence, rounding at each step) grows as formula_10 multiplied by the condition number. This worst-case error is rarely observed in practice, however, because it only occurs if the rounding errors are all in the same direction. In practice, it is much more likely that the rounding errors have a random sign, with zero mean, so that they form a random walk; in this case, naive summation has a root mean square relative error that grows as formula_11 multiplied by the condition number. This is still much worse than compensated summation, however. Note, however, that if the sum can be performed in twice the precision, then ε is replaced by ε2 and naive summation has a worst-case error comparable to the O("n"ε2) term in compensated summation at the original precision. By the same token, the Σ|"xi"| that appears in formula_4 above is a worst-case bound that occurs only if all the rounding errors have the same sign (and are of maximum possible magnitude). In practice, it is more likely that the errors have random sign, in which case terms in Σ|"xi"| are replaced by a random walk—in this case, even for random inputs with zero mean, the error formula_4 grows only as formula_11 (ignoring the "n"ε2 term), the same rate the sum formula_15 grows, canceling the formula_1 factors when the relative error is computed. So, even for asymptotically ill-conditioned sums, the relative error for compensated summation can often be much smaller than a worst-case analysis might suggest. Alternatives. Although Kahan's algorithm achieves formula_17 error growth for summing "n" numbers, only slightly worse formula_18 growth can be achieved by pairwise summation: one recursively divides the set of numbers into two halves, sums each half, and then adds the two sums. This has the advantage of requiring the same number of arithmetic operations as the naive summation (unlike Kahan's algorithm, which requires four times the arithmetic and has a latency of four times a simple summation) and can be calculated in parallel. The base case of the recursion could in principle be the sum of only one (or zero) numbers, but to amortize the overhead of recursion one would normally use a larger base case. The equivalent of pairwise summation is used in many fast Fourier transform (FFT) algorithms, and is responsible for the logarithmic growth of roundoff errors in those FFTs. In practice, with roundoff errors of random signs, the root mean square errors of pairwise summation actually grow as formula_19. Another alternative is to use arbitrary precision arithmetic, which in principle need do no rounding at all at the cost of much greater computational effort. A way of performing exactly rounded sums using arbitrary precision that is extended adaptively using multiple floating-point components, to minimize computational cost in common cases where high precision is not needed, was described by Shewchuk. Another method that uses only integer arithmetic, but a large accumulator was described by Kirchner and Kulisch; a hardware implementation was described by Müller, Rüb and Rülling. Computer languages. In principle, a sufficiently aggressive optimizing compiler could destroy the effectiveness of Kahan summation: for example, if the compiler simplified expressions according to the associativity rules of real arithmetic, it might "simplify" the second step in the sequence codice_1 to codice_2 then to codice_3, eliminating the error compensation. In practice, many compilers do not use associativity rules (which are only approximate in floating-point arithmetic) in simplifications unless explicitly directed to do so by compiler options enabling "unsafe" optimizations, although the Intel C++ Compiler is one example that allows associativity-based transformations by default. The original K&R C version of the C programming language allowed the compiler to re-order floating-point expressions according to real-arithmetic associativity rules, but the subsequent ANSI C standard prohibited re-ordering in order to make C better suited for numerical applications (and more similar to Fortran, which also prohibits re-ordering), although in practice compiler options can re-enable re-ordering as mentioned above. In general, built-in "sum" functions in computer languages typically provide no guarantees that a particular summation algorithm will be employed, much less Kahan summation. The BLAS standard for linear algebra subroutines explicitly avoids mandating any particular computational order of operations for performance reasons, and BLAS implementations typically do not use Kahan summation. The standard library of the Python computer language specifies an fsum function for exactly rounded summation, using the Shewchuk algorithm to track multiple partial sums.
586212	Kakkothikkavile Appooppan Thaadikal (Malayalam: കാക്കോത്തിക്കാവിലെ അപ്പൂപ്പൻ താടികൾ) is a 1988 Malayalam film directed by Kamal. The film is heroine-oriented, in which Revathi and Ambika play the lead roles.
151080	Ellen Foley (born June 5, 1951) is an American singer and actress, who has appeared on Broadway and television, where she co-starred in the sitcom "Night Court". In music, she has released three solo albums but is best known for her collaborations with the singer Meat Loaf. Early life and career. Foley was born in St. Louis, Missouri, the daughter of John and Virginia B. Foley. Foley attended Webster University. Foley gained high public recognition singing the duet with Meat Loaf on the hit single "Paradise by the Dashboard Light" from the 1977 album "Bat out of Hell".Related news articles: Her debut album "Night Out" was released in 1979; the album's single "What's A Matter Baby" was a minor hit, reaching No. 92 on the US Charts. The album itself peaked at No. 152, and was produced by Ian Hunter and Mick Ronson. Foley recorded a memorable duet with Ian Hunter in 1980, "We Gotta Get Outta Here". Her creative relationship with Hunter also led her to singing backing vocals on the Iron City Houserockers' 1980 album "Have a Good Time but Get out Alive!", produced by Hunter, Ronson, and The E Street Band's Steven Van Zandt. She can also be heard on the 1980 Blue Öyster Cult album "Mirrors" singing on the title cut, and also on The Clash album "Sandinista!" (also released in 1980), in the songs "Hitsville UK" and "Corner Soul", and on the unreleased track "Blonde Rock 'n' Roll". All four members of The Clash appeared on her second album "The Spirit of St. Louis" in 1981, and Mick Jones and Joe Strummer co-wrote a number of songs for the album. Jones produced the album, which also featured members of The Blockheads, and peaked at No. 137 on the US charts. The Clash's hit song "Should I Stay or Should I Go", written and sung by Jones, was about the turbulent relationship he shared with Foley at the time. She released her third (and to date, final) solo album "Another Breath" in 1983; it failed to chart. In 1984, she sang backing vocals on Joe Jackson's album "Body & Soul" and had a large role in the music video for Utopia's "Crybaby".
774743	Cube is a 1997 Canadian science fiction psychological horror film, directed by Vincenzo Natali. The film was a successful product of the Canadian Film Centre's First Feature Project. The movie received a cult status for its surreal, Kafkaesque settings; it is set in identical cube-like rooms (hence the name) with each room being a different color (white, blue, green, amber and red), and no background story is revealed for the characters or the reason they were left in the Cube. The film also doesn't demonstrate any clear plot regarding the Cube's background, creation, purpose and its location. The timeframe of the story is also left unknown. Plot. A man named Alderson (Julian Richings) awakens and finds himself in a cube-shaped room with a hatch in each wall and in the floor and ceiling. Opening some of the hatches, he finds passages to rooms that are identical except for their colors. He enters an orange room and, without warning, is sliced to pieces by a wire grill. In another such room, five people - Quentin, Worth, Holloway, Rennes and Leaven - meet. None know where they are, how they got there, or why. Quentin, having almost been killed by one, informs them that some cubes contain traps. Assuming they are triggered by motion detectors, Rennes tests each by throwing his boot in first. Leaven notices numbers inscribed in the passageways between rooms. Quentin, a policeman, recognizes "the Wren" as an escape artist renowned for getting out of jails. After "booting" one room, Rennes enters but is sprayed by acid, which dissolves his face and kills him. Quentin believes each person has a reason for being there. He is a police officer, Leaven is a mathematics student, Holloway a doctor and conspiracy theorist who thinks the "military industrial complex" is responsible for their predicament, while the surly Worth declines to talk about himself or his past actions. Leaven theorizes that any room marked with a prime number is a trap. They then find a mentally challenged man named Kazan, whom Holloway insists they bring along. Quentin enters a supposedly safe room and is nearly killed by a razor-wire trap, disproving Leaven's theory. Tensions rise, and Quentin becomes irritated by Holloway's paranoia and liberalism, Kazan's childlike mentality, and Worth's reticence. He baits Worth into revealing himself. Worth admits that he knows about this place: he designed the Cube's outer shell. Worth insists that he knows nothing about the rest of the structure. He believes that it was ordered by a bureaucracy, its purpose lost over time; they are only imprisoned there because not using it would require the organization to admit that the Cube was a mistake, a waste of time and money. His knowledge of the outer shell's size allows Leaven to determine that there are 26 rooms to a side, 17,576 rooms in all. She guesses that the numbers indicate the Cartesian coordinates of the rooms. The group starts moving toward the nearest edge based on her theory. Arriving near the edge, they find that each neighbouring room is trapped. Rather than backtrack, they decide to make their way silently through a blue colored room whose trap is activated by sound rather than by motion. Nearly everyone makes it through without incident, but Kazan makes a noise during Quentin's transit of the room and Quentin is almost impaled by spikes. Upon reaching safety, he threatens Kazan with violence. They arrive at an edge room and find a wide, unlit gap between it and the outer shell. Holloway swings out to investigate, using a rope made from their clothes, but nearly falls when the Cube suddenly shakes. She climbs up and grabs Quentin's arm but he drops her to her death, telling the others that she slipped. As they rest, Quentin tries to persuade Leaven to abandon the others with him. He makes a sexual advance but she rejects him with disgust, and he quickly becomes aggressive. When Worth intervenes, Quentin beats him and then throws him through the floor hatch. Worth laughs hysterically at what he finds — Rennes' corpse. The thought that they have been going around in circles is demoralizing, but then Worth realizes that they are not going in circles, the rooms are moving periodically. Leaven deduces that traps are not tagged by prime numbers but by powers of prime numbers. Kazan is an autistic savant who can quickly do prime factorizations and thus identify the trapped rooms. Leaven determines that the numbers indicate the positions within the cube where each room rests between moves through the Cube. The room that connects to the "bridge" leading to the only door in the outer shell proves to be the one in which the group first woke up. The alignment they need will come in two moves. Worth ambushes Quentin and leaves him behind during one move as they hurry to the cube adjoining the bridge. When they open the hatch, they are met by a bright white light (which is the only exit and entrance of the Cube). Worth decides to stay over Leaven's objections, saying there is nothing outside for him but "boundless human stupidity", but Leaven responds, "I can live with that." Bloodied Quentin appears and fatally stabs first Leaven, then Worth with a door handle, before going after Kazan. With the last of his strength, Worth grabs Quentin's leg, holding him long enough for Quentin to be ripped apart in the passageway as the bridge shifts. Worth then dies of his wounds, with a smile on his face. Kazan, now free, slowly walks into the bright light. The Cube. The cube device in the movie was designed by D. W. Pravica. It consists of an outer cubical shell (the "sarcophagus") and the inner cube. One side of the outer shell is 434 feet long. The inner cube consists of 263 = 17576 cubical rooms, each having a sidelength of 15.5 feet. There is a space of 15.5 feet between the cube and the shell. Each room is labeled with three identification numbers, for example, 517 478 565. These numbers encode the starting coordinates of the room and the "x"-, "y"- and "z"-coordinates are the sums of the digits of the first, second and third number respectively. The numbers also determine the movement of the room and the subsequent positions are obtained by cyclically subtracting the digits from one another. The resulting numbers are then successively added to the starting numbers. Cast. Character names. All the characters are named after prisons: Production. After writing "Cube", Vincenzo Natali developed and filmed a short entitled "Elevated". The short was set in an elevator and was intended to give investors an idea of how "Cube" would hypothetically look and come across. It eventually got the feature financed. "Cube" was shot on a Toronto soundstage. Only one cube, measuring 14 by 14 by 14 feet, was actually built, with only one working door that could actually support the weight of the actors. The colour of the room was changed by sliding panels. Since this task was a time-consuming procedure, the movie was not shot in sequence; all shots taking place in rooms of a specific colour were shot one at a time. It was intended that there would be six different colours of rooms to match the recurring theme of six throughout the movie; five sets of gel panels plus pure white. However, the budget did not stretch to the sixth gel panel and so there are only five different room colours in the movie. Another partial cube was made for shots requiring the point of view of standing in one room looking into another. An episode of the original "The Twilight Zone" television series, "Five Characters in Search of an Exit", was reportedly an inspiration for the movie. Reception. "Cube" polarised critics, with many highly positive reviews to negative, earning an overall approval rating of 61% on Rotten Tomatoes. Movie critics for Electric Sheep magazine, AMC's Filmcritic.com, and Empire Online gave the film positive reviews, while critics for Nitrate Online and the San Francisco Chronicle panned the film. Bloody Disgusting gave the movie a positive review, writing "Shoddy acting and a semi-weak script can't hold this movie back. It's simply too good a premise and too well-directed to let minor hindrances derail its creepy premise." Slant Online panned the film, saying "like lab rats futilely running on their treadmill, Cube eventually winds up going nowhere fast." Sequels. After "Cube" achieved cult status, a sequel was produced, "", released in 2003. The sequel explains little more about the Cube's background, and the structure of the cube has been changed; instead of an industrial look-and-feel, the rooms are high-tech operational white rooms, and the traps involve illusion and manipulation of time, space and reality. In 2004, a prequel, dubbed "Cube Zero", was released. The movie explains the background and purpose of the Cube, reveals the people who operate it, and displays its exterior.
68949	Geometry (; "geo-" "earth", "-metron" "measurement") is a branch of mathematics concerned with questions of shape, size, relative position of figures, and the properties of space. A mathematician who works in the field of geometry is called a geometer. Geometry arose independently in a number of early cultures as a body of practical knowledge concerning lengths, areas, and volumes, with elements of a formal mathematical science emerging in the West as early as Thales (6th Century BC). By the 3rd century BC geometry was put into an axiomatic form by Euclid, whose treatment—Euclidean geometry—set a standard for many centuries to follow. Archimedes developed ingenious techniques for calculating areas and volumes, in many ways anticipating modern integral calculus. The field of astronomy, especially mapping the positions of the stars and planets on the celestial sphere and describing the relationship between movements of celestial bodies, served as an important source of geometric problems during the next one and a half millennia. Both geometry and astronomy were considered in the classical world to be part of the Quadrivium, a subset of the seven liberal arts considered essential for a free citizen to master.
1055161	The World of Apu (), originally titled Apur Sansar, is a Bengali drama film directed by Satyajit Ray. It is the third part of "The Apu Trilogy", about the childhood and early adulthood of a young Bengali named Apu in the early twentieth century Indian subcontinent. The film is based on the last two-thirds of the 1932 Bengali novel, "Aparajito", by Bibhutibhushan Bandopadhyay. Released in 1959, "The World of Apu" focuses on Apu's adult life, and also introduces the actors Soumitra Chatterjee and Sharmila Tagore, who would go on to appear in many subsequent Ray films. The film won the National Film Award for Best Feature Film and several international awards, including the Sutherland Award for Best Original And Imaginative Film and National Board of Review Award for Best Foreign Language Film. "The World of Apu" has been influential across the world and is frequently listed among the greatest films of all time. Plot. A large part of the story unfolds in Calcutta. Apu Roy (Soumitra Chatterjee) is an unemployed graduate living in a rented room in Calcutta. Despite his teacher's advice to go to university, he is unable to do so because he can't afford it. He tries to find a job, while barely getting by providing private tuition. His main passion is writing a novel, partially based on his own life, hoping to get it published some day. One day he meets his old friend Pulu, who coaxes him to join him on a trip to his village in Khulna to attend the marriage of a cousin named Aparna (Sharmila Tagore). On the day of the marriage it turns out that the bridegroom has a serious mental disorder. The bride's mother cancels the marriage, despite the father's protests. He and the other villagers believe, according to prevalent Hindu tradition, that the young bride must be wedded off during the previously appointed auspicious hour, otherwise, she will have to remain unmarried all her life. Apu, after initially refusing when requested by a few villagers, ultimately decides to take Pulu's advice and come to the rescue of the bride by agreeing to marry her. He returns with Aparna to his apartment in Calcutta after the wedding. He takes up a clerical job, and a loving relationship begins to bloom between them. Yet the young couple's blissful days are cut short when Aparna dies while giving birth to their son, Kajal. Apu is overcome with grief and holds the child responsible for his wife's death. He shuns his worldly responsibilities and becomes a recluse – travelling to different corners of India, while the child is left with his maternal grandparents. Meanwhile, Apu throws away his manuscript for the novel he had been writing over the years. A few years later, Pulu finds Kajal growing wild and uncared for. He then seeks out Apu, who is working at a mining quarry and advises Apu one last time to take up his fatherly responsibility. At last, Apu decides to come back to reality and reunite with his son. When he reaches his in-laws' place, Kajal, having seen him for the first time in his life, at first does not accept him as a father. Eventually he accepts Apu as a friend and they return to Calcutta together to start life afresh. Reception and legacy. At Rotten Tomatoes, "The World of Apu" has a 100% fresh rating based on an aggregate of 16 reviews. In 1992, "Sight & Sound" (the British Film Institute's film magazine) ranked "The Apu Trilogy" at #88 in its Critics' Poll list of all-time greatest films. In 2002, a combined list of "Sight & Sound" critics' and directors' poll results ranked "The World of Apu" at #93 in the list. In 1998, the Asian film magazine "Cinemaya"'s critics' poll of all-time greatest films ranked "The Apu Trilogy" at #7 on the list. In 1999, "The Village Voice" ranked "The Apu Trilogy" at #54 in its Top 250 "Best Films of the Century" list, based on a poll of critics. The film was selected as the Swedish entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 32nd Academy Awards, but was not accepted as a nominee. In 1996, "The World of Apu" was included in Movieline Magazine's "100 Greatest Foreign Films". In 2001, film critic Roger Ebert included "The Apu Trilogy" in his list of "100 Great Movies" of all time. In 2002, "The World of Apu" featured in "The New York Times Guide to the Best 1,000 Movies Ever Made". In 2005, "The Apu Trilogy" was included in "Time" magazine's All-Time 100 best movies list. "The World of Apu" has been influential across the world. In Gregory Nava's 1995 film "My Family", the final scene is duplicated from the final scene of "Apur Sansar". The film's influence can also be seen in famous works such as Martin Scorsese's 1976 New Hollywood film "Taxi Driver", several Philip Kaufman films, and Key's 2004 Japanese visual novel "Clannad". References to "The World of Apu" are also found in several films by European filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard, and in Paul Auster's 2008 novel "Man in the Dark" where two characters have a discussion about the film.
586601	Wishwa Thulasi is a 2004 film directed by Sumathy Ram. The film is in Tamil, with English subtitles. This film's score and soundtrack were composed by Ilayaraaja and M. S. Viswanathan. It was well received upon screening at the 2005 WorldFest Houston International Film Festival. Amongst the film's cast are actors Mammooty and Nandita Das. Plot. The film, set in the 1940s and moving to the 1960s, revolves around the emotional story of Thulasi (Nandita Das) returning to her village to become a dance teacher. She cannot bring herself to forget Vishwa (Mammootty), a man she has been in love with for two decades. Memories of Vishwa haunt her constantly, and upon a chance meeting with him, she discovers he too is struggling with his love for her. Both are haunted by the memory of Thulasi's cousin, a figure who is unable to control his obsession for his cousin and hide his resentment at Thulasi's feelings for Vishwa. Thulasi (Nandita) comes to Sundarapuri after her guardians — her grandma and uncle — pass away, to work as teacher in a dance school. It is in Sundarapuri that Vishwa (Mammootty) the zamindar whom she had met 20 years ago, lives. They meet again and the feelings that had blossomed in their hearts as teenagers, are revived. Vishwa is unmarried and Thulasi has gone through an unceremonious ritual in the name of matrimony, but fear of societal stigma and innate inhibition keep them asunder. Sensing their intense love for each other, Pattabhi (a very natural essay by `Delhi' Ganesh once again), the manager at Vishwa's house, helps them overcome their fears. It is then that Fate enters in the form of Siva (Manoj K. Jayan). Awards. The film has won the following awards since its release: 2005 WorldFest Houston (USA)
1041599	The Nightcomers is a 1971 British horror film directed by Michael Winner and starring Marlon Brando, Stephanie Beacham, Thora Hird, Harry Andrews and Anna Palk. It is a prequel to "The Turn of the Screw", which later became the 1961 film "The Innocents". The manor house in the film is Sawston Hall, a 16th-century Tudor manor house in Sawston, Cambridgeshire. Plot. Recently orphaned, Flora and Miles are abandoned by their new guardian (Harry Andrews) and entrusted to the care of housekeeper Mrs. Grose (Thora Hird), governess Miss Jessel (Stephanie Beacham), and Peter Quint (Brando), the former valet and now gardener. With only these three adults for company, the children live an isolated life in the sprawling country manor estate. The children are particularly fascinated by Peter Quint due to his eclectic knowledge and engaging stories, and willingness to entertain them. With this captive audience, Quint doses out his strange philosophies on love and death. The governess, Miss Jessel, also falls under Peter's spell, and despite her repulsion the two embark on a sadomasochistic love affair. Flora and Miles become fascinated with this relationship, and help Quint and Jessel to escape the interference of disapproving Mrs. Grose. The children begin spying on Quint and Jessel's violent trysts and mimick what they see, including the bondage, culminating in Miles nearly pushing Flora off a building to her death. Mrs. Grose determines to write to the absent Master of the House in order to get both Quint and Jessel fired. The children are most distressed by this, and decide to take matters into their own hands to prevent the separation. Acting on Quint's assertions that love is hate and it is only in death that people can truly be united, the children murder Miss Jessel by knocking a hole in the boat she uses to wait for Quint (who never keeps the appointments), knowing that she cannot swim. Quint later finds Miss Jessel's rigid body in the water, but is given little time to mourn before Miles kills him with a bow and arrow. The film ends with the arrival of a new governess, presumably the one who features in "The Turn of the Screw". Differences from the book. The children in the film are portrayed as being a few years older than in the Henry James novel, probably due to the sexual nature of the film and their roles in it (Verna Harvey was in fact 19 at the time). Reception and awards. The film has received positive reviews. Brando's performance earned him a nomination for a Best Actor BAFTA, but recent audiences have criticised his cartoonish Irish accent. The film has an 75% fresh rating at Rotten Tomatoes. Some reviewers have objected to the film's premise of showing what happened before the novel, as this threatens the ambiguity the novel explores.
795976	The Business of Being Born is a 2008 documentary film that explores the contemporary experience of childbirth in the United States. Produced by Ricki Lake, it compares various childbirth methods, including midwives, natural births, epidurals, and Cesarean sections. The film criticizes the American health care system with its emphasis on medicines and costly interventions and its view of childbirth as a medical emergency rather than a natural occurrence. The film documents actual home births and water births. They follow a midwife, Cara, in New York as she takes care of and attends several births. They then give the audience several statistics about our current birthing techniques and challenges today's doctors. Many experts are interviewed and they cite a multitude of reasons for these, such as the overuse of medical procedures in the interest of saving time. DVD Release. The DVD was released in the US on May 6, 2008 and soon after an international version was released.
1039437	Edward John David "Eddie" Redmayne (born 6 January 1982) is an English actor, singer and model. Redmayne won the 2010 Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role and the 2010 Tony Award for Best Featured Actor in a Play for his performance in the West End and Broadway production of the drama play "Red". He also received the 2011 Critics' Circle Theatre Award for Best Shakespearean Performance for his portrayal of "Richard II" at London's Donmar Warehouse. In 2012, Redmayne co-starred as Marius Pontmercy in the musical film "Les Miserables".
1055811	"What's the Matter With Helen?" is a 1971 thriller film starring Debbie Reynolds and Shelley Winters. Plot. The movie opens with a Hearst Metrotone newsreel from the 1930s telling of the Iowa murder of Ellie Banner by Leonard Hill and Wesley Bruckner. As they are seen being loaded into a paddywagon following life sentences in prison, the focus shifts to their mothers, Helen Hill (Shelley Winters) and Adelle Bruckner (Debbie Reynolds), as they fight a crowd to their car. In the car, the grainy footage shifts to color, and Helen reveals that someone in the crowd cut the palm of her left hand. Soon at home and tending to her wound, Helen receives an anonymous phone call from a man, "I'm the one who cut you... I wanted to see you bleed." This caller threatens to make the mothers pay for the sins of their sons. Helen and Adelle change their names, leave Iowa and head to Hollywood, where Adelle opens a dance academy for little girls who want to be the next Shirley Temple. Soon after arriving, Hamilton Starr (Micheál MacLiammóir), an elocution teacher offers his services to Adelle's school, and she takes him up on his offer, much to Helen's chagrin, as Helen is frightened of the menacing man. Soon, the phone calls resume and Helen believes a strange man is watching their home. She has hallucinations, especially at a show where she think she sees Starr with a knife. Adelle falls in love with Lincoln Palmer (Dennis Weaver), the father of a student (Sammee Lee Jones), and Helen grows jealous of the budding relationship. Helen takes solace in her faith, listening to a radio show hosted by evangelist Sister Alma (Agnes Moorehead). Helen's jealousy of Adelle's romance with Lincoln leads to a fight, at which point, Adelle demands that Helen move out. Adelle then heads for her date with Linc. As Helen readies herself to move out, a mysterious intruder enters the house, walks up the staircase, and calls her real name. Helen reacts by pushing him down the stairs. When he lands at the bottom, his head is gashed open, blood seeping on the floor, and Helen envisions her late husband, who was mutilated by a plow, and the dead Ellie Banner. Adelle arrives home to find the dead stranger, and, fearing publicity, decides to dispose of the body. As the rain pours, she and Helen drag the dead man into the street and dump him into an open hole adjacent to their home where crews had been doing construction. The body is discovered the next morning, and it is presumed the man fell into the hole to his death. Helen's guilt builds and she visits to the church to see Sister Alma and atone for her sins. Sister Alma offers her forgiveness, but an irrational Helen makes a spectacle and is dragged away by Adelle. Off-screen, Helen sees a doctor and is ordered to bed rest. Adelle goes to a miniature golf course with Linc, where he proposes. He drives her home to make preparations to elope that evening. Arriving home, Adelle notices that Helen is not in her room and follows a trail of blood out the back door and down to a rabbit cage, where she finds Helen's pet rabbits slaughtered. Helen steps out of the shadows and reveals that she killed them and pushed her husband off a plow to his death. Adelle leads Helen into the house and is phoning Sister Alma, when she lets it slip that she plans to wed Lincoln. Helen pulls a knife from her robe, stabbing Adelle in the back. As Adelle falls dead, the doorbell chimes. Helen answers the door and finds a detective, who shows her a photo of the man she pushed down the staircase. When she claims not to recognize him, the detective reveals the man was Ellie Banner's boyfriend, who came to California with plans to murder the ladies. Later, Lincoln arrives, expecting to whisk Adelle away. From the street, he can hear someone pounding, "Goody Goody" on the piano. He enters the house calling Adelle's name and follows the sounds of the piano up to the rehearsal hall. There, he finds Helen giddily playing the song and Adelle, dressed in her signature dance costume, tied to a ladder on stage. The music grows more and more frantic as Helen laughs, and the camera moves in for a final closeup. Production. Director Curtis Harrington and producer George Edwards approached writer Henry Farrell soon after "What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?" was a hit, hoping to get a screenplay. Farrell told them of a story outline titled "The Box Step", the story of two contemporary ladies who ran a dance studio. The story was optioned by another studio before Harrington and Edwards could get it. Eventually the story wound up with Harrington and Edwards, who had input on the screenplay. It was their idea to change the setting to a 1930s dance academy for little girls. After the screenplay was developed under the title "The Best of Friends", Universal Studios, where Harrington worked turned it down because they could not find a name star to take a role.
705028	Unstable Fables is a series of computer animated films produced by The Jim Henson Company in association with Flame Ventures, Prana Studios, and The Weinstein Company. The direct-to-DVD feature-length films are distributed by Genius Products. The films' casts include Brad Garrett, Jay Leno and Jamie Lynn Spears. "Unstable Fables" irreverently and unfaithfully retell classic fairy tales, folktale, and fables with a modern twist. The first film, "3 Pigs and a Baby" (based on "Three Little Pigs"), was released on DVD on March 4, 2008. The second title, "Tortoise vs. Hare" (based on "The Tortoise and the Hare"), was released on the September 9, 2008. The third release, "The Goldilocks and the 3 Bears Show" (based on Goldilocks and the Three Bears), was released on December 16, 2008. "3 Pigs and a Baby". 3 Pigs and a Baby is the first animated film in the series based on "Three Little Pigs". The direct-to-DVD film was released on March 4, 2008 and stars Jon Cryer, Brad Garrett, Steve Zahn and Jesse McCartney. Plot. The Three Little Pigs become the target of a special-ops team of wolves. The wolves' plan to finally infiltrate the impenetrable house of bricks by leaving a tiny wolf cub on the unassuming pigs' doorstep. The pigs take the baby in and raise him as their own. The newest addition to their family, Lucky, grows up into his teens not knowing his history, his role in the wolves' plan or the difficult choice he will have to make about the family that raised him. "Tortoise vs. Hare". Tortoise vs. Hare is the second animated film in the "Unstable Fables" series. The direct-to-DVD film, based on Aesop's fable "The Tortoise and the Hare," was released on DVD on September 9, 2008
327447	Elizabeth Claire "Ellie" Kemper (born May 2, 1980) is an American actress, comedian, and writer. She is best known for her role as Erin Hannon in the NBC series "The Office", as well as her supporting roles in the films "Bridesmaids" and "21 Jump Street". Early years. Kemper was born in Kansas City, Missouri, the second of four children born to Dorothy Ann (Jannarone) and David Woods Kemper. She is the granddaughter of Mildred Lane Kemper, the namesake of the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum at Washington University in St. Louis, for which the family donated $5 million. Kemper's father was the chairman and chief executive officer of Commerce Bancshares, a bank holding company founded by the Kemper family (her paternal great-great-grandfather was banker William Thornton Kemper, Sr.). She is also the older sister of television writer Carrie Kemper. Kemper is of Italian (from her maternal grandfather) and German descent. The family moved to St. Louis when Ellie was five years old. She attended the Conway School in the St. Louis suburb of Ladue and then high school at John Burroughs School, where she developed an interest in theater and improvisational comedy. One of her teachers was actor Jon Hamm, with whom she appeared in a school play. In 1999, she was named the Queen of St. Louis's annual Veiled Prophet Ball. Career. Kemper attended Princeton University, where she continued her interest in improvisational comedy. Kemper participated in Quipfire!, an improv comedy group, and the Princeton Triangle Club, a touring musical comedy theater troupe. She also played field hockey at Princeton in the 1999 season, and claimed she sat on the bench "roughly 97 percent" of the time. Her field hockey team went to the national championship in her freshman year, but she quit the team in later years to focus on theater. Kemper graduated from Princeton in 2002 with a degree in English, then studied English for a year at the University of Oxford. She regularly appeared in comedy sketches on "Late Night with Conan O'Brien" in the late 2000s, and has made guest appearances on "Important Things with Demetri Martin", and E! Television's "The Gastineau Girls", which has been described as her "breakout role". She has appeared on Fuse TV's "The P.A." In October 2008, Kemper appeared on "The Colbert Report" in a PSA for Teen Voter Abstinence. Kemper has written several sketch comedy shows many of them with her comedy partner Scott Eckert, a fellow Princeton grad. Kemper is a contributing writer for the national satirical newspaper "The Onion", and for "McSweeney's". She is also a contributor to "The Huffington Post". Kemper has also appeared in several national commercials. One was a radio spot for Dunkin' Donuts. In a commercial for Kmart, Kemper featured as a camper with a live tarantula crawling over her face. Upon moving to New York City, Kemper participated in the "People’s Improv Theatre" and the city troupe of "Upright Citizens Brigade", an improvisational comedy and sketch comedy theater. She has appeared in several shows for the Brigade, including "Death and/or Despair", "Listen Kid", "Gang Bang" and "The Improvised Mystery". At the UCB, she performed with the house improv teams "Mailer Daemon" and "fwand". At the PIT, she performs with the house improv team Big Black Car. In August 2008, she auditioned for a spot on the NBC sketch comedy show "Saturday Night Live", but was not cast. In July 2009, Kemper was named one of "Variety" magazine's "10 Comics To Watch". Big Black Car teammate Kristen Schaal was also named. In 2007, she appeared in "How to Kick People", a performance combining stand-up comedy and literary performances. In March 2008, she wrote and performed in the one-woman show "Dumb Girls" through the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre. She also performed in the one-woman show "Feeling Sad/Mad with Ellie Kemper" and has appeared in comedy sketches on "Funny or Die", the comedy website started by Will Ferrell and Adam McKay's production company, Gary Sanchez Productions. Kemper gained some Internet fame in August 2007 for her part in "Blowjob Girl", a humor video on the sketch comedy site Derrick Comedy. The video, which was circulated on the popular site CollegeHumor, was a two-minute close-up of Kemper offering to perform oral sex on her boyfriend, but startling him by promising to bite and smash his genitals, which she seems to believe is arousing. As of May 2013, the video has been viewed more than 19.5 million times on YouTube. Kemper said of the video in an April 2010 interview with The A.V. Club: "I really don't like that video, and I wish that I hadn't done it, even though I know that it's a joke. I hate that it got sort of big, because I don't think that it's that funny and I don't want that to be the epitome of my work. It's just one video in a sea of many, but it has made me conscious of not wanting to do a video like that again." Kemper has also contributed an article to CollegeHumor entitled "Regarding Our Decision Never to See Me Again." She also had a minor role in the 2009 film "Mystery Team". Kemper starred in the fake iPhone commercial on "Late Night with Conan O'Brien" in January 2007, six months before the first iPhone was released by Apple Inc. Kemper appeared in the Sofia Coppola comedy-drama "Somewhere" in 2010. She also appeared in "Bridesmaids" in 2011. On April 3, 2013, it was announced that Kemper would be voicing a character in an episode of the animated sitcom "American Dad!". Kemper auditioned for a role in "Parks and Recreation", an NBC comedy series started in 2009 by Michael Schur and Greg Daniels, creator of the series "The Office". She was not cast in the role, but received a call back to audition for a supporting role in "The Office" as Erin Hannon, a secretary filling in for the regular secretary Pam Beesly when she briefly left the job at the end of the fifth season. Kemper was cast in the role, and started appearing in the show in April 2009. The character was originally written to be more sarcastic and dry, but the writers changed her to be more perky and optimistic to more closely resemble Kemper herself. Kemper described the character as "an exaggerated version of myself". Kemper described herself as a "huge fan" of the show and was thrilled to be on the show. Although the character was originally intended for 4 episodes, the producers were impressed with Kemper and signed her as a regular in the sixth season. Jennifer Celotta, a screenwriter with the series, described Kemper as a "fun addition" to the show. Kemper received positive reviews for her role in "The Office". Alan Sepinwall, television columnist with "The Star-Ledger", praised the "infectious joy and sweetness" she brought to the show. Joshua Ostroff of "Eye Weekly" described Erin as one of the best new television characters of the 2008–2009 season and said, "Erin’s high-grade adorability, up-for-anything attitude and sheer niceness is unlike anyone else in the office, adding a welcome new wrinkle for next season." Andy Shaw of "TV Fodder" said she "adds some freshness to the cast" and Josh McAuliffe of "The Times-Tribune" in Scranton, Pennsylvania, said he liked Erin's "cheerful, appealingly goofy personality". Many critics have singled her out as a highlight of the show's eighth season following Steve Carell's departure. In October 2009, Kemper appeared in "Subtle Sexuality", a set of three "Office" webisodes about efforts by Erin and Kelly Kapoor (Mindy Kaling) to start a girl group. Personal life. Kemper is a Roman Catholic. In 2011, she became engaged to her boyfriend Michael Koman, a former writer on "Late Night with Conan O'Brien" and the co-creator of the Adult Swim series "Eagleheart" and Comedy Central series "Nathan for You". The couple married on July 7, 2012.
768865	Affion Crockett is an American actor, writer, dancer, rapper, comedian, music producer, and maker of YouTube videos. Crockett began his career as a dancer at age 10, winning breaking and popping contests with his older brother. Later on, he honed his impression skills by imitating anyone from his mother’s West Indian dialect or his schoolteacher’s southern drawl to the Scarface’s choppy Cuban accent. After graduating from Fayetteville State University, with a bachelor’s degree in business, Affion set his sights on the entertainment industry.
1059512	Joseph "Joey" Travolta (born October 14, 1950) is an American actor, producer, director and writer. His younger brother is actor John Travolta. Early life. Travolta, one of six children, was born and raised in Englewood, New Jersey, an inner-ring suburb of New York City. His father, Salvatore Travolta, was a semi-professional football player turned tire salesman and partner in a tire company. His mother, Helen Cecilia (1912–1978) (née Burke), who was 38 when Travolta was born, was an actress and singer who had appeared in "The Sunshine Sisters", a radio vocal group, and acted and directed before becoming a high school drama and English teacher. His father was a second-generation Italian American and his mother was Irish American. He attended Shepherd University in West Virginia while rooming with future West Virginia historian and special education vanguard, Dave Lind. Travolta also graduated from Paterson State College, now William Paterson University of New Jersey, with a degree in special education. Travolta began a singing career in 1978 as a recording artist on Casablanca Records. The following year he made his acting debut starring in the feature film "Sunnyside" for Filmways Productions. He then became a guest star in the 1980s television show Simon & Simon in the episode, "The Hottest Ticket in Town". Additional acting credits include work with director John Landis on multiple feature film projects: "Beverly Hills Cop III" (1994) with Eddie Murphy and Hector Elizondo, "Oscar" (1991) with Sylvester Stallone and Chazz Palminteri, and "Susan's Plan" with Adrian Paul and Dan Aykroyd. He was also a series regular on the WB television hit "Movie Stars" (1999). Stage performances include starring roles in Bye Bye Birdie, Guys and Dolls, and West Side Story. He wrote and directed "Diva Las Vegas" in 1989, which went on to win the Italian Funny Film Festival. In 1991, he produced and starred in "Da Vinci's War" with James Russo and Michael Nouri. He later produced and starred in the sequel, "To the Limit" (1995), which also featured Nouri and Anna Nicole Smith. Travolta made directing his main priority in 1994. He immediately directed the action thrillers "Hard Vice" (1994) starring Shannon Tweed and "Navajo Blues" (1996) starring Steven Bauer. Subsequent titles include "Earth Minus Zero" (1996) starring Academy Award nominee Pat Morita, "Laws of Deception" (1997) starring C. Thomas Howell and Brian Austin Green, "Detour" (1999) starring Michael Madsen and Academy Award nominee Gary Busey, "Mel" (1996) starring Jack Scalia and Academy Award winner Ernest Borgnine, "Partners" (2000) starring Casper Van Dien, "Enemies of Laughter" (2000) starring Peter Falk, and "Waiting to Live" (2002) starring Lee Majors and second generation star Alison Eastwood. For television audiences he directed the police drama "L.A. Heat" (1999), "Friday Night After the Movies" (2010), and the syndicated Disney series "" (2007). Lately he has been directing many music videos. He is responsible for huge hits like Aqua's "Doctor Jones" and most recently Latvia's smash hit entry, in Eurovision Song Contest 2008, "Pirates of the Sea". Travolta has also gained national acclaim for his mission of helping students develop self-esteem, confidence, and creativity through acting and digital film making. He founded Inclusion Films, which involve individuals with special needs in the process of making films. The first of these, "Sweet Sixteen", was made in 2008. Another film entitled "Spud" is in the works for 2009. He has also collaborated with a non-profit organization called HEAL, based in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida, to form another film camp in association with Inclusion Films and Jacksonville-based Filmlab Productions, called the HEAL Film Camp with Joey Travolta.
1176029	Sir Michael Philip "Mick" Jagger (born 26 July 1943) is an English musician, singer, songwriter and actor, best known as the lead vocalist and a founder member of the Rolling Stones. Jagger's career has spanned over 50 years, and he has been described as "one of the most popular and influential frontmen in the history of rock & roll". His distinctive voice and performance, along with Keith Richards' guitar style, have been the trademark of the Rolling Stones throughout the career of the band. Jagger gained much press notoriety for admitted drug use and romantic involvements, and was often portrayed as a countercultural figure. In the late 1960s Jagger began acting in films (starting with "Performance" and "Ned Kelly"), to mixed reception. In 1985, Jagger released his first solo album, "She's the Boss". In early 2009, he joined the electric supergroup SuperHeavy. In 1989 Jagger was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame with the Rolling Stones. In 2003 he was knighted for his services to music. 1943–61: early years. Mick Jagger was born into a middle-class family in Dartford, Kent, England. His father, Basil Fanshawe ("Joe") Jagger (13 April 1913 – 11 November 2006), and his grandfather David Ernest Jagger were both teachers. His mother, Eva Ensley Mary (née Scutts; 6 April 1913 – 18 May 2000), born in New South Wales, Australia, of English descent, was a hairdresser and an active member of the Conservative Party. Jagger is the elder of two sons (his brother Chris Jagger was born on 19 December 1947) and was brought up to follow in his father's career path. In the book "According to the Rolling Stones", Jagger states "I was always a singer. I always sang as a child. I was one of those kids who just "liked" to sing. Some kids sing in choirs; others like to show off in front of the mirror. I was in the church choir and I also loved listening to singers on the radio – the BBC or Radio Luxembourg – or watching them on TV and in the movies." From September 1950, Keith Richards and Jagger (known as "Mike" to his friends) were classmates at Wentworth Primary School in Dartford, Kent. In 1954, Jagger passed the eleven-plus, and went to Dartford Grammar School, where there is now the Mick Jagger Centre, as part of the school. Having lost contact with each other when they went to different schools, Richards and Jagger resumed their friendship in July 1960 after a chance encounter and discovered that they had both developed a love for rhythm and blues music, which began for Jagger with Little Richard. Jagger left school in 1961. He obtained seven O-levels and three A-levels. Jagger and Richards moved into a flat in Edith Grove in Chelsea with a guitarist they had encountered named Brian Jones. While Richards and Jones were making plans to start their own rhythm and blues group, Jagger continued his business courses at the London School of Economics, and had seriously considered becoming either a journalist or a politician. Jagger had compared the latter to a pop star. 1962–present: the Rolling Stones. 1960s. In their earliest days; the members played for no money in the interval of Alexis Korner's gigs at a basement club opposite Ealing Broadway tube station (subsequently called "Ferry's" club). At the time, the group had very little equipment and needed to borrow Alexis' gear to play. This was before Andrew Loog Oldham became their manager.
1092277	Sir Roger Penrose (born 8 August 1931), is an English mathematical physicist, recreational mathematician and philosopher. He is the Emeritus Rouse Ball Professor of Mathematics at the Mathematical Institute of the University of Oxford, as well as an Emeritus Fellow of Wadham College. Penrose is internationally renowned for his scientific work in mathematical physics, in particular for his contributions to general relativity and cosmology. He has received a number of prizes and awards, including the 1988 Wolf Prize for physics, which he shared with Stephen Hawking for their contribution to our understanding of the universe. Early life and academia. Born in Colchester, Essex, England, Roger Penrose is a son of Lionel S. Penrose and Margaret Leathes, and the grandson of the physiologist John Beresford Leathes. Penrose is the brother of mathematician Oliver Penrose and of chess Grandmaster Jonathan Penrose. Penrose attended University College School and University College, London, where he graduated with a first class degree in mathematics. In 1955, while still a student, Penrose reintroduced the E. H. Moore generalized matrix inverse, also known as the Moore–Penrose inverse, after it had been reinvented by Arne Bjerhammar (1951). Penrose earned his Ph.D. at Cambridge (St John's College) in 1958, writing a thesis on "tensor methods in algebraic geometry" under algebraist and geometer John A. Todd. He devised and popularised the Penrose triangle in the 1950s, describing it as "impossibility in its purest form" and exchanged material with the artist M. C. Escher, whose earlier depictions of impossible objects partly inspired it. Escher's Waterfall, and Ascending and Descending were in turn inspired by Penrose. As reviewer Manjit Kumar puts it: In 1965, at Cambridge, Penrose proved that singularities (such as black holes) could be formed from the gravitational collapse of immense, dying stars. This work was extended by Hawking to prove the Penrose–Hawking singularity theorems. In 1967, Penrose invented the twistor theory which maps geometric objects in Minkowski space into the 4-dimensional complex space with the metric signature (2,2). In 1969, he conjectured the cosmic censorship hypothesis. This proposes (rather informally) that the universe protects us from the inherent unpredictability of singularities (such as the one in the centre of a black hole) by hiding them from our view behind an event horizon. This form is now known as the "weak censorship hypothesis"; in 1979, Penrose formulated a stronger version called the "strong censorship hypothesis". Together with the BKL conjecture and issues of nonlinear stability, settling the censorship conjectures is one of the most important outstanding problems in general relativity. Also from 1979 dates Penrose's influential Weyl curvature hypothesis on the initial conditions of the observable part of the Universe and the origin of the second law of thermodynamics. Penrose and James Terrell independently realized that objects travelling near the speed of light will appear to undergo a peculiar skewing or rotation. This effect has come to be called the Terrell rotation or Penrose–Terrell rotation. Penrose is well known for his 1974 discovery of Penrose tilings, which are formed from two tiles that can only tile the plane nonperiodically, and are the first tilings to exhibit fivefold rotational symmetry. Penrose developed these ideas based on the article "Deux types fondamentaux de distribution statistique" (1938; an English translation "Two Basic Types of Statistical Distribution") by Czech geographer, demographer and statistician Jaromír Korčák. In 1984, such patterns were observed in the arrangement of atoms in quasicrystals. Another noteworthy contribution is his 1971 invention of spin networks, which later came to form the geometry of spacetime in loop quantum gravity. He was influential in popularizing what are commonly known as Penrose diagrams (causal diagrams). In 2004 Penrose released "", a 1,099-page book aimed at giving a comprehensive guide to the laws of physics. He has proposed a novel interpretation of quantum mechanics. In 2010, Penrose reported possible evidence, based on concentric circles found in WMAP data of the CMB sky, of an earlier universe existing before the Big Bang of our own present universe. Penrose is the Francis and Helen Pentz Distinguished (visiting) Professor of Physics and Mathematics at Pennsylvania State University. He is also a member of the "Astronomical Review" Editorial Board. Penrose is married to Vanessa Thomas, head of mathematics at Abingdon School, with whom he has one son. He has three sons from a previous marriage to American Joan Isabel Wedge, whom he married in 1959. Physics and consciousness. Penrose has written books on the connection between fundamental physics and human (or animal) consciousness. In "The Emperor's New Mind" (1989), he argues that known laws of physics are inadequate to explain the phenomenon of consciousness. Penrose proposes the characteristics this new physics may have and specifies the requirements for a bridge between classical and quantum mechanics (what he calls "correct quantum gravity"). Penrose uses a variant of Turing's halting theorem to demonstrate that a system can be deterministic without being algorithmic. (E.g., imagine a system with only two states, ON and OFF. If the system's state is ON if a given Turing machine halts, and OFF if the Turing machine does not halt, then the system's state is completely determined by the Turing machine, however there is no algorithmic way to determine whether the Turing machine stops.) Penrose believes that such deterministic yet non-algorithmic processes may come into play in the quantum mechanical wave function reduction, and may be harnessed by the brain. He argues that the present computer is unable to have intelligence because it is an algorithmically deterministic system. He argues against the viewpoint that the rational processes of the mind are completely algorithmic and can thus be duplicated by a sufficiently complex computer. This contrasts with supporters of strong artificial intelligence, who contend that thought can be simulated algorithmically. He bases this on claims that consciousness transcends formal logic because things such as the insolubility of the halting problem and Gödel's incompleteness theorem prevent an algorithmically based system of logic from reproducing such traits of human intelligence as mathematical insight. These claims were originally espoused by the philosopher John Lucas of Merton College, Oxford. The Penrose/Lucas argument about the implications of Gödel's incompleteness theorem for computational theories of human intelligence has been widely criticized by mathematicians, computer scientists and philosophers, and the consensus among experts in these fields seems to be that the argument fails, though different authors may choose different aspects of the argument to attack. Marvin Minsky, a leading proponent of artificial intelligence, was particularly critical, stating that Penrose "tries to show, in chapter after chapter, that human thought cannot be based on any known scientific principle." Minsky's position is exactly the opposite - he believes that humans are, in fact, machines, whose functioning, although complex, is fully explainable by current physics. Minsky maintains that "one can carry that quest scientific explanation too far by only seeking new basic principles instead of attacking the real detail. This is what I see in Penrose's quest for a new basic principle of physics that will account for consciousness." Penrose responded to criticism of "The Emperor's New Mind" with his follow up 1994 book "Shadows of the Mind", and in 1997 with "The Large, the Small and the Human Mind". In those works, he also combined his observations with that of anesthesiologist Stuart Hameroff. Penrose and Hameroff have argued that consciousness is the result of quantum gravity effects in microtubules, which they dubbed Orch-OR (orchestrated objective reduction). Max Tegmark, in a paper in "Physical Review E", calculated that the time scale of neuron firing and excitations in microtubules is slower than the decoherence time by a factor of at least 10,000,000,000. The reception of the paper is summed up by this statement in Tegmark's support: "Physicists outside the fray, such as IBM's John A. Smolin, say the calculations confirm what they had suspected all along. 'We're not working with a brain that's near absolute zero. It's reasonably unlikely that the brain evolved quantum behavior'". Tegmark's paper has been widely cited by critics of the Penrose–Hameroff position. In their reply to Tegmark's paper, also published in "Physical Review E", the physicists Scott Hagan, Jack Tuszynski and Hameroff claimed that Tegmark did not address the Orch-OR model, but instead a model of his own construction. This involved superpositions of quanta separated by 24 nm rather than the much smaller separations stipulated for Orch-OR. As a result, Hameroff's group claimed a decoherence time seven orders of magnitude greater than Tegmark's, but still well short of the 25 ms required if the quantum processing in the theory was to be linked to the 40 Hz gamma synchrony, as Orch-OR suggested. To bridge this gap, the group made a series of proposals. It was supposed that the interiors of neurons could alternate between liquid and gel states. In the gel state, it was further hypothesized that the water electrical dipoles are oriented in the same direction, along the outer edge of the microtubule tubulin subunits. Hameroff et al. proposed that this ordered water could screen any quantum coherence within the tubulin of the microtubules from the environment of the rest of the brain. Each tubulin also has a tail extending out from the microtubules, which is negatively charged, and therefore attracts positively charged ions. It is suggested that this could provide further screening. Further to this, there was a suggestion that the microtubules could be pumped into a coherent state by biochemical energy.
1059513	Jordan Elizabeth Ladd (born January 14, 1975) is an American actress. She began taking small film roles before landing her first high-profile role in "Never Been Kissed" (1999). Since then, Ladd has portrayed supporting as well as lead roles in films, including "Cabin Fever" (2002), "Club Dread" (2004), and "Death Proof" (2007). She has earned acclaim recently for her lead role in the horror film "Grace" (2009). Early life and family. Ladd was born in Hollywood, California, the daughter of "Charlie's Angels" star Cheryl Ladd and David Ladd, a producer and former actor. Her parents divorced in 1980. Her paternal grandfather was actor Alan Ladd, and her paternal grandmother was Sue Carol (née Evelyn Lederer), a Hollywood talent agent and actress. She has a stepsister, Lindsay Russell, an aspiring actress. Her cousin is Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders Ashley Marie. She attended Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas for one year before dropping out. Career. At the age of 2, Ladd began appearing in commercials. Her first commercial was for Polaroid. She began acting in film and television while in school, working with her mother in films such as "The Girl Who Came Between Them" (1990) and "Broken Promises: Taking Emily Back" (1993). After graduating high school, she took up acting professionally.
1066113	Black Belt Jones is a 1974 American Blaxploitation action film directed by Robert Clouse. The main musical theme was performed by the funk guitarist Dennis Coffey. Plot. The Mafia learns that a new civic center will be built, and they buy all of the land for the site of the building—all except for one place: a karate school owned by Pop Byrd, Black Belt Jones' old friend. Pop Byrd had borrowed money from a local drug dealer, Pinky, in order to open his school. Pinky had been stealing money from the mafia and was forced to pay them $250,000 or get Pop's building for them. Pinky inflated the debt, with the intent of offering Pop the deal of trading his building in exchange for the debt being cleared. However, things do not go as planned, as Pop is accidentally killed by Pinky's men during an intimidation attempt. Before he dies, he states that he couldn't give them the building to settle his debt, because it did not belong to him, but to someone named Sydney. Pinky then decides to send his men to the karate school, to inform them of Pop's debt (inflated yet again) and attempt the same scheme. However, the thugs are beaten up by Black Belt Jones and the students. Meanwhile, a woman arrives to attend Pop's funeral, who is none other than Sydney, the daughter of the late Pop Byrd. After demanding to know what happened to her father, she is informed of the mafia's activities as well as her father's debt, but says she won't sell the building. Angered, she is determined to punish the people who caused her father's death. Informed of Sydney's martial arts prowess by Quincy, Black Belt Jones joins forces with her to "clobber the mob". Cast. Marla Gibbs as Betty (bar scene) Ted Lange as Black Student Union rep extra Clarence Barnes as Tango Esther Sutherland as Lucy Reception. The movie received a mixed to negative reception.
1063135	Lance James Henriksen (born May 5, 1940) is an American actor and artist best known to film and television audiences for his roles in science fiction, action, and horror films such as the "Alien" film franchise, and on television shows such as "Millennium". He is also a voice actor with his deep commanding voice. Early life. Henriksen was born in New York City. His father, James Marin Henriksen (born in Tønsberg in 1910), was a Norwegian merchant sailor and boxer nicknamed "Icewater" who spent most of his life at sea. His mother, Margueritte Werner, struggled to find work as a dance instructor, waitress, and model. His parents divorced when he was two years old, and he was raised by his mother. As he grew up, Henriksen found himself in trouble at various schools and even saw the inside of a children's home. Henriksen left home and dropped out of school at the age of twelve; he would not learn to read until he was 30, when he taught himself by studying film scripts. Career. Henriksen's first job in the theater world was as a designer of theatrical sets; in fact, he received his first role because he built the set for the production. In his early 30s, Henriksen graduated from the prestigious Actors Studio and began acting in New York City. In film, he first appeared in "It Ain't Easy" in 1972. Henriksen went on to portray a variety of supporting roles in noteworthy genre films such as Steven Spielberg's "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" (1977) and ' (1978). He also portrayed astronaut Walter Schirra in "The Right Stuff" (1983) and actor Charles Bronson in the 1991 TV-movie ' (1991). When James Cameron was writing the movie "The Terminator" (1984), he had originally envisioned Henriksen, whom he had worked with on "", playing the title role. Cameron went so far as to paint a picture of the Terminator using Henriksen's face. Regardless, the role ultimately went to Arnold Schwarzenegger. Henriksen did appear in the film, albeit in the minor role of Detective Hal Vukovich. Henriksen is perhaps best known for portraying the android Bishop, an artificial life-form, in "Aliens" (1986, another Cameron film) and "Alien 3" (1992). He would go on to play Charles Bishop Weyland, the man Bishop's appearance was based on, in "Alien vs. Predator" (2004). After his appearance in "AvP", Henriksen joined Bill Paxton as the only actor to be killed by an Alien, a Predator, and a Terminator.
633753	Larry Cedar (born March 6, 1955) is an American actor and a voice actor best known as one of the players of the highly-acclaimed Children's Television Workshop mathematics show, "Square One TV" on PBS from 1987 to 1994. He also played Alex the Butcher in a series of commercials for Kroger in 1989. Cedar is also known for playing Leon, the opium addicted thief and faro dealer, in the internationally acclaimed HBO series, "Deadwood". Life and career. Born and raised in Pacoima in San Fernando Valley, Cedar's professional acting career did not begin until shortly after his admission to Hastings Law School when, on an impulse, he decided to audition for, and was accepted into the MFA Theater program at UCLA. There he won the Hugh O'Brian Acting Competition award for Best Actor, resulting in his signing a one-year artist development contract with Universal Studios. He went on to star in various television films, numerous episodics and feature films, including a starring role opposite Rebecca De Mornay in the Ivan Reitman-produced "Feds", as well as a memorable appearance as The Creature on the Wing opposite John Lithgow in the Steven Spielberg remake, "", directed by George Miller. He has also won an L.A. Theater Alliance Ovation Award for Best Featured Actor in a Musical. Larry Cedar has a long line of actors in his family including Jon Cedar and George Cedar. Larry spent six seasons in New York starring in the award-winning PBS series Square One TV and later starred in 40 episodes of the Fox television series "A.J. s Time Travelers". A veteran stage performer, Larry most recently performed the lead in the one-man play "Billy Bishop Goes to War" at the Colony Theatre. He’s been nominated for two Los Angeles Theater Alliance Ovation"awards for his performances in "Anything Goes" (as Lord Oakley) opposite Rachel York and "She Loves Me" (as Sipos, for which he won Best Featured Actor in a Musical). Other stage work includes portraying Hoagy Carmichael in "Hoagy, Bix, and Wolfgang Beethoven Bunkhaus" at L.A.’s Mark Taper Forum, as Vernon opposite Lea Thompson in "They're Playing Our Song", and as Secretary Thompson in "1776" opposite Roger Rees. In August, 2008, Cedar appeared in "Towelhead", the directorial debut of Alan Ball (creator of "Six Feet Under"). He recently co-starred opposite Adrien Brody as the demented Chester Sinclair in the Ben Affleck/Diane Lane noir feature film, "Hollywoodland", directed by Allen Coulter, and recurred for three seasons as Leon, the opium-addicted card dealer and thief, in the David Milch helmed HBO series "Deadwood" opposite Powers Boothe and Ian McShane. Independent feature work includes the award winning short "Tel Aviv", the science fiction thriller "Forecast", and the full length horror flick "Midnight Son". Cedar also excels in the field of voiceovers, lending his vocal characterizations to hundreds of commercials, cartoon series, and video games. In 2010, Cedar had a role in "The Crazies", a film where he played the part of Principal Ben Sandborn. He portrayed Cornelius Hawthorne, father of Chevy Chase's character Pierce Hawthorne, on "Community". Cedar continues to be active in the Los Angeles theatre community. In 2013, he starred in King Lear with The Porters of Hellsgate. For the 2013 Hollywood Fringe Festival, he developed the script for "Orwellian: Rants, Recollections, and Cautionary Tales From The Works of Eric Arthur Blair". The piece is a one-hour adaptation of three works by George Orwell: "Down and Out in Paris and London", "Animal Farm", and "Nineteen Eighty-Four". The play was produced by The Porters of Hellsgate in conjunction with the Orwell estate.
1062172	Ruth Gordon Jones (October 30, 1896 – August 28, 1985), better known as Ruth Gordon, was an American actress and writer. She is perhaps best known for film roles she had while already in her 70s and 80s: Minnie Castevet, Rosemary's overly solicitous neighbor in "Rosemary's Baby", the eccentric Maude in "Harold and Maude", and Ma Boggs, the mother of Orville Boggs, in the Clint Eastwood film "Every Which Way but Loose". In addition to her acting career, Gordon wrote numerous plays, film scripts and books, most notably co-writing the screenplay for the 1949 film "Adam's Rib". Gordon won an Academy Award, an Emmy and two Golden Globe awards for her acting, as well as receiving three Academy Award nominations for her writing. Early life. Gordon was born at 31 Marion Street in Quincy, Massachusetts. She was the only child of Annie Tapley (née Ziegler) and Clinton Jones, a factory foreman who had been a ship's captain. She was baptized an Episcopalian; Prior to graduating from Quincy High School, she wrote to several of her favorite actresses for autographed pictures. A personal reply she received from Hazel Dawn (whom she had seen in a stage production of "The Pink Lady") inspired her to go into acting. Although her father was skeptical of her chances of success in a difficult profession, he took his daughter to New York in 1914, where he enrolled her in the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. Early career. In 1915, Gordon appeared as an extra in silent films that were shot in Fort Lee, New Jersey, including as a dancer in "The Whirl of Life", a film based on the lives of Vernon and Irene Castle. That same year, she made her Broadway debut in a revival of "Peter Pan, or The Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up", in the role of Nibs (one of the Lost Boys), appearing onstage with Maude Adams and earning a favorable mention from the powerful critic Alexander Woollcott. Woollcott, who described her favorably as "ever so gay", would become her friend and mentor. In 1918, Gordon played Lola Pratt in the Broadway adaptation of Booth Tarkington's "Seventeen" opposite actor Gregory Kelly, who later acted with her in North American tours of Frank Craven's "The First Year" and Tarkington's "Clarence" and "Tweedles". Kelly became her first husband in 1921, but died of heart disease in 1927, at the age of 36. Gordon in 1927 and 1928, had been enjoying a comeback, appearing on Broadway as Bobby in Maxwell Anderson's "Saturday's Children", performing in a serious role after having been typecast for years as a "beautiful, but dumb" character. In 1929, Gordon was starring in the title role of "Serena Blandish" when she became pregnant by the show's producer, Jed Harris. Their son, Jones Harris, was born in Paris that year. Gordon and Harris never married. Gordon continued to act on the stage throughout the 1930s, including notable runs as Mattie in "Ethan Frome", Margery Pinchwife in William Wycherley's Restoration comedy "The Country Wife" at London's Old Vic and on Broadway, and Nora Helmer in Henrik Ibsen's "A Doll's House" at Central City, Colorado, and on Broadway. Career. Gordon was signed to an Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer film contract for a brief period in the early 1930s but did not make a movie for the company until she acted opposite Greta Garbo in "Two-Faced Woman" (1941). Gordon had better luck at other studios in Hollywood, appearing in supporting roles in a string of films, including "Abe Lincoln in Illinois" (as Mary Todd Lincoln), "Dr. Ehrlich's Magic Bullet" (as Mrs. Ehrlich) and "Action in the North Atlantic", in the early 1940s. Gordon's Broadway acting appearances in the 1940s included Iris in Paul Vincent Carroll's "The Strings, My Lord, Are False" and Natasha in Katharine Cornell and Guthrie McClintic's revival of Anton Chekhov's "Three Sisters", as well as leading roles in her own plays, "Over Twenty-One" and "The Leading Lady". Gordon married second husband, writer Garson Kanin, who was 16 years her junior, in 1942. Gordon and Kanin collaborated on the screenplays for the Katharine Hepburn – Spencer Tracy films "Adam's Rib" (1949) and "Pat and Mike" (1952). Both films were directed by George Cukor. The couple were close friends of Hepburn and Tracy, and incorporated elements of their real personalities in the films. Gordon and Kanin received Academy Awards nominations for both of those screenplays, as well as for that of a prior film, "A Double Life" (1947), which was also directed by Cukor. "The Actress" (1953) was Gordon's film adaptation of her own autobiographical play, "Years Ago", filmed by MGM with Jean Simmons portraying the girl from Quincy, Massachusetts, who convinced her sea captain father to let her go to New York to become an actress. Gordon would go on to write three volumes of memoirs in the 1970s: "My Side", "Myself Among Others" and "An Open Book". Gordon continued her on-stage acting career in the 1950s, and was nominated for a 1956 Tony, for Tony Award for Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a Play, for her portrayal of Dolly Levi in Thornton Wilder's "The Matchmaker", a role she also played in London, Edinburgh and Berlin. In 1966, Gordon was nominated for an Academy Award and won a Golden Globe award as Best Supporting Actress for "Inside Daisy Clover" opposite Natalie Wood. It was her first nomination for acting. Three years later, in 1969, she won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for "Rosemary's Baby", a film adaptation of Ira Levin's bestselling horror novel about a satanic cult residing in an Upper West Side apartment building in Manhattan. In accepting the award, Gordon thanked the Academy by saying, "I can't tell you how encouraging a thing like this is...And thank all of you who voted for me, and to everyone who didn't: please, excuse me", which drew laughs because at the time she had been in theater for fifty years and was seventy-two years old. Gordon won another Golden Globe for "Rosemary's Baby", and was nominated again, in 1971, for her role as Maude in the cult classic "Harold and Maude" (with Bud Cort as her love interest). She went on to appear in twenty-two more films and at least that many television appearances through her seventies and eighties, including such successful sitcoms as "Rhoda" (as Carlton the invisible doorman's mother, which earned her another Emmy nomination) and "Newhart". She also guest-starred on the episode "Columbo: Try and Catch Me". She made countless talk show appearances, in addition to hosting "Saturday Night Live" in 1977. Gordon won an Emmy Award for a guest appearance on the sitcom "Taxi", for a 1978 episode called "Sugar Mama", in which her character tries to solicit the services of a taxi driver, played by series star Judd Hirsch, as a male escort. Her last Broadway appearance was as Mrs. Warren in George Bernard Shaw's "Mrs. Warren's Profession", produced by Joseph Papp at the Vivian Beaumont Theater in 1976. In the summer of 1976, Gordon starred in the leading role of her own play, "Ho! Ho! Ho!" at the Cape Playhouse in Dennis, Massachusetts. She had a minor but memorable role as Ma Boggs, the mother of Orville Boggs (Geoffrey Lewis), in the Clint Eastwood films "Every Which Way but Loose" and "Any Which Way You Can". In 1983, Gordon was awarded the Women in Film Crystal Award for outstanding women who, through their endurance and the excellence of their work, have helped to expand the role of women within the entertainment industry. "Harold and Maude" and "Adam's Rib" have both been selected for preservation in the National Film Registry of the United States Library of Congress. Gordon died from a stroke in Edgartown, Massachusetts in 1985. A small theater in Westboro, Massachusetts and an outdoor amphitheater in Quincy, Massachusetts were named in her honor.
629145	Mad Dog Morgan is a 1976 Australian bushranger film directed by Philippe Mora and starring Dennis Hopper, Jack Thompson and David Gulpilil. It is based upon the life of Dan Morgan.
1016066	Dragon Squad () is a 2005 Hong Kong action film co-written and directed by Daniel Lee, co-produced by Steven Seagal and starring Vanness Wu, Sammo Hung, Michael Biehn, Maggie Q, and Simon Yam. Plot. Interpol agent Wang Sun-Ho states that this is his first mission in a messy laundry hallway filled with fluff as if a gunfight had taken place there. The start shows a team of young INTERPOL agents arriving in Hong Kong to give testimony against recently captured crime boss Tiger Duen. Among the agents are Officer Wang Sun-Ho, an ex-SWAT officer trained in the United States, two HKPD officers Hung Kei Lok and Pak Yat Suet, ex-PLA sniper Luo Zai-Jun, and ex-SAS operator James "Jie" Lam. They are greeted by Hon Sun, the one in charge of the case. However the escort of Tiger turns into a situation as the older Duen brother Panther Duen plans to rescue Tiger. The rescue attempt is aborted when the agents mistake an innocent civilian as the criminal attempting to break Tiger free and also discover that the convoy they are guarding is a decoy. Panther pulls out and disappears. Meanwhile, an HKPD surveillance squad is eliminated by 5 operatives all of whom have military training. Led by the Ex 707th Korean commander Ko Tung Yuen, along with his best friend American Petros Angelo, Yuet Song a Viet/Chinese sniper, Joe Pearson another ex US marine and Lee Chun Pei another Korean operative. The real convoy transporting Tiger is ambushed and the operatives eliminate 7 officers on the scene. The INTERPOL agents arrive but fail to prevent their escape, causing Jie to lose his temper. Back at the HQ, Commander Hon Sun reprimands the agents for disobeying orders but lets them off the hook. Lok visits his sick brother while off duty, Ho decides to do some of his own investigations and Jun, Jie and Suet are later introduced to Kong Long a retired police officer. It is revealed then that Petros is seeking revenge for the death of his brother Dominic. Kong Long was involved on a mission to take down Dominic and Tiger but because Kong didn't wait for backup it resulted in Tiger killing Dominic and the deaths of 6 officers. Later Lok, Ho and Suet save Kong's daughter from a fight in her own restaurant but it is then revealed that Kong's daughter hates him for a past event. The team then practice for their mission by improving their shooting accuracy in a local bar. After several team introductions and attempts from both sides to getting to know the "players" Captain Ko meets Petros in a cafe to initiate 2 phases of their mission. Ko will attempt to keep tabs on the INTERPOL agents while Petros will attempt to retrieve a microfilm which, for unknown purposes, is their main objective. It is rumoured to be in the hands of Panther Duen, and the only link is Yu Ching, Panther's girlfriend. As soon as Ko leaves the cafe, Petro randomly just happens to spot Ho walking down the street. Ho tries to hide his identity by pretending to be a visitor from out of town. Petros then retreats to a fortune teller temple where Ho attempts to take Petros down but Petros escapes using his training. Petros then finds Yu Ching being bullied and pretends to befriend her, Even letting himself get beaten up by 3 Chinese gangsters who finish their beating by throwing a dumpster on Petros. Yu Ching however is too trusting and even lets Petros into her house. Meanwhile its revealed Ko has a rivalry with Kong which earned him his scar. Ko tries to kill Kong in a locker room with a machete to machete fight but Ko is forced to retreat after the team is alerted to the danger. Later Petros, Joe, Lee Chun Pei and Ko meet Panther for a deal for the microfilm, they even threaten him showing Tiger's ear cut of earlier. This only results in a gunfight with the operatives eliminating most of Panther's Triads. Ho and Lok arrive on the scene attempting to fight Ko but Ko just defeats them and leaves saying "I don't have time for this" and the HKPD arresting Panther. He later gets released on lack of evidence The Team then seeks advice from Kong on how to catch the operatives. Kong reluctly agrees to train them hard. Eventually Hon Sun, prepares a sniper unit, and 3 teams of HKPD officers to ambush the operatives. Petros splits up with Ko after lying to Yu Ching he has to do something. Yuet easily eliminates the snipers, Petros takes out 2 of the HKPD teams and Ko eliminates the HKPD command squad. Hon Sun tries to fight back but is shot without mercy by Petros and is badly wounded. Having enough of the operatives rampage, Ho, Lok, Jun, Suet and Jie attempt to ambush all the operatives at once. Yuet then engages in firefight with Jun, Petros, Lee Chun Pei and Ko enter a firefight as well against Suet, Jie, Ho and Lok. The operatives change tactics making it harder for the team to kill them. Joe Pearson breaks into a jeep in to evac Petros and Ko. Lee Chun Pei is killed by Suet with one shot from an MP5. Unfortunately Jun who was covering Suet gets distracted and Yuet kills Suet. Thus both sides lose one member of their team Back at HQ, Hon Sun dies of his injuries and Suet is remembered by her comrades and even her target (Cameo by Andy On) After condolences for Suet. The team decides to catch the operatives using all the training. A China agency attempts to deport them but they are saved by Kong who only recently discovers the operatives true intentions. Their plan is then mobilzed. Ho gets to Yu Ching first luring her away from the operatives tricking her in believing he is a friend of Petros. Jun shoots Ching's car tire so Petros would pick her up. Ho then leads the operatives to an abandoned warehouse where Jun ambushes Yuet. Joe then enters the inside and is rammed by forklift by Jie. However Jie underestimates and after a few struggles Jie manages to impale Joe onto a large sign nail and electrocute him to death with a shock wire. Jun enters an intense sniper battle and eventually shoots Yuet dead. Kong finally defeats Ko, and with Ko committing suicide by stabbing himself. Petros is the only operative left. Lok posing as a taxi driver drives Ho and Yu Ching away to a mall where Yu Ching is to deliver the microfilm to Panther Duen. Lok tries to keep Petros off Ho's back but Lok is stabbed with a screw and is seemingly killed. Ho is then pistol whipped by Petros and meets back with Yu Ching. Petros decides to deliver the microfilm to Panther. In the cinema. From there Panther takes Petros hostage with a silenced pistol and kill him, but Petros disarms Panther and kills him. Petros then attempts to leave with Yu Ching, The two engage in a final hand-to-hand confrontation, which results in Petros eventually killing Yu Ching with a spear gun also names Yu Ching dead, only to find Ho who has regained conscious waiting to ambush him. Petros attempts to shoot Ho from a high deck, only to be shot 2 times in the back by Lok who survived the screw stab. Still wounded Lok tells Ho to go after Petros. Ho and Petros then engage in a gunfight where both men shoot each other in the same laundry room at the beginning until their guns are empty. Ho is heavy wounded but manages to shoot Petros to death and discovers the microfilm was in Ching's toy doll all along. Lok, Ho, Kong, Jie and Jun who have all apparently healed arrive at the same bar and fire all their pistols at the same time at the screen. See also. List of Dragon Dynasty releases
1164875	Candice "Candy" Azzara (born May 18, 1945) is an American character actress frequently cast in Italian or Jewish roles. Azzara was born in Brooklyn, the daughter of Josephine (née Bravo) and Samuel Azzara. She was inspired to pursue acting by the film "La Strada" and theatre legend Eleonora Duse. She studied with Lee Strasberg and Gene Frankel and soon began appearing off-Broadway and in regional theatres.
531534	Marrese Crump (born 4 January 1982) is an American actor, martial artist and author. His most notable role to date is costarring in the martial arts sequel "Tom Yum Goong 2" alongside Tony Jaa. His first major role was in the movie, "Wrong Side of Town" alongside Rob Van Dam, Dave Batista and Ja Rule, which was distributed by Lions Gate Entertainment. Crump broke into the movie industry as a result of his martial arts skill, often serving as the fight choreographer as well on the films he is in. Early life. Marrese Crump spent most of his childhood in a southeast suburb of Tampa, Florida called Progress Village. He grew up as an athlete, participating in the sports of football, basketball and track, but his true passion has always been martial arts. He started his training at the age of 7 when his brother introduced him to Master Kim-Jae. Film career. Marrese Crump first project in movies was a G.I. Joe fan film called "Battle for the Serpent Stone", serving as the action coordinator. He took some time off thereafter to focus on his career path as an actor, often passing up invites to be a stunt performer. "Wrong Side of Town" was Crump's first major role as Markus, alongside Rob Van Dam, Dave Batista and Ja Rule. Marrese also served as fight choreographer on the production, mapping out several of the movies' fight scenes, including Crump's character Markus versus Big Ronnie (played by Dave Batista). In August 2011, it was released that Crump was cast as the co-star opposite Tony Jaa in "Tom Yum Goong 2". Martial arts. Crump's passion for martial arts began as he started watching Bruce Lee films and imitating the movements as a young child. At age 7, he began his training under Master Kim-Jae who taught the concept of integration. Following the advice of his teacher, he went out and immersed himself in arts from all over the world; Karate, Muay Thai, Kung Fu, Capoeira, western boxing, Filipino martial arts, Taekwondo and Ninjutsu. Along this path, he received training from some of the world's top masters and grandmasters of our time. With the blessing of his masters, Marrese opened his first training facility at the age of 18 and transitioning it into one of the most respected academies in the Tampa area before closing it in 2005 to pursue his career in movies. To stay connected with the martial arts community during his movie career, Marrese Crump along with Anesti Vega founded the website, crumpdojo.com, an online social media community for martial artists. As of August 2011, Crump Dojo has transitioned into an online resource blog for information, news and inspiration on martial arts, training, and fitness. It is updated by Marrese Crump and maintained by Anesti Vega. Media. Marrese Crump was mentioned in the September 2008 issue of "Muscle & Fitness" magazine during an interview with Dave Bautista. They mention a YouTube video produced by Anesti Vega called "Batista Crump Workout" where Marrese Crump and Dave Batista go through a series of warmup padwork and Filipino martial arts drills. In April 2009, Yehey! sports section, waterboy.ph, conducted an interview with Marrese in regard to his martial arts background and movie plans. Marrese had a featured article in the June 2009 issue of Action & Fitness Magazine. The article, entitled "The Art of Marrese Crump", covered Marrese's martial arts styles and training methods and included photography by Anesti Vega. In August 2009, Movieset.com published a behind-the-scenes video interview with Marrese Crump for the movie Wrong Side of Town entitled "Becoming A Better Fighter" where he covers the training methods of the Filipino Martial Arts and how he incorporated the style into the movie's choreography.
1064135	Jason Jordan Segel (born January 18, 1980) is an American actor, screenwriter, songwriter, singer, and musician. He is known for his work with producer Judd Apatow on the cult classic, short-lived television series "Freaks and Geeks" and "Undeclared"; the films "Forgetting Sarah Marshall"; "Knocked Up"; "I Love You, Man"; "Gulliver's Travels"; "Bad Teacher"; "Despicable Me"; "The Muppets" and "The Five-Year Engagement"; and also for his role as Marshall Eriksen in the CBS hit sitcom "How I Met Your Mother. Early life. Segel was born in Los Angeles, California, the son of Jillian (née Jordan), a homemaker, and Alvin G. Segel, a lawyer, and grew up in Pacific Palisades, California. His father is Jewish and his mother is Christian. He has stated that he was raised Jewish, as well as "a little bit of everything". He went to Hebrew school and had a Bar Mitzvah, and also attended St. Matthew's Parish School, a private Episcopal school. He has an older half-brother, Adam, and a younger sister, Alison. Following elementary school and middle school, Segel completed his high school studies at Harvard-Westlake School, where his frame helped him as an active member of the 1996 and 1997 CIF state champion boys' basketball team. He was a backup to the team's star center, Jason Collins, who went on to play in the NBA. Segel had hopes of becoming a professional actor while in college, although he ultimately chose not to go to college. Instead, he acted in local theater productions at Palisades Playhouse. Career. Segel's first major role was as stoner "freak" Nick Andopolis on the critically acclaimed but short-lived 1999 NBC comedy-drama series "Freaks and Geeks". The series revolved around a group of suburban Detroit high school students circa 1980. Segel personally composed a song for his character, Nick, to sing to the lead female character, Lindsay (Linda Cardellini). Cardellini and Segel dated for a few years following the show's cancellation. It was rumored that she broke up with him for gaining too much weight, but it was later revealed that the statement was in fact a joke taken out of context. Segel had recurring roles on "" as Neil Jansen and on "Undeclared" as Eric. He currently plays Marshall Eriksen on the CBS sitcom "How I Met Your Mother"; he had previously stated he would move on to other projects in 2013 when his contract expired, but was successfully convinced to finish the series after its ninth season in 2014. Feature film appearances include "Slackers", "SLC Punk!", "The Good Humor Man", and "Dead Man on Campus". In 2007, he appeared in "Knocked Up", directed by "Freaks and Geeks" creator Judd Apatow. Segel starred in the lead role of 2008's "Forgetting Sarah Marshall", a film he wrote and Apatow produced with Shauna Robertson for Universal Pictures. He also starred in "I Love You, Man", which was released on March 20, 2009 by DreamWorks. In "Forgetting Sarah Marshall", Segel's character writes a "Dracula" musical performed by puppets. He also appeared in a full frontal nude scene in the film. In an interview, he stated that the Dracula musical with puppets, as well as being broken up with while naked, were real experiences he wrote into the movie. Those cloth creatures were custom-made by the Jim Henson Company, and the experience emboldened Segel to pitch his concept for a Muppets movie. Segel performed a song from the film, entitled "Dracula's Lament", on the 1000th episode of Craig Ferguson's show, "The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson". For the 2010 comedy "Get Him to the Greek", Segel co-wrote most of the soundtrack's music which was performed by the fictional band Infant Sorrow. He also appeared on "The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson" and sang an original song entitled "Wonky Eyed Girl". In 2010, he voiced Gru's arch-rival Vector in the Universal's CGI animated film, "Despicable Me" and appeared as "Horatio" in a fantasy comedy film "Gulliver's Travels" directed by Rob Letterman and very loosely based on Part One of the 18th-century novel of the same name by Jonathan Swift. Segel appeared in "Bad Teacher", starring Cameron Diaz, which opened in June 2011. He played gym teacher and thwarted suitor Russell Gettis. Along with Nicholas Stoller, Segel approached Disney in 2007 to write the latest "Muppets" film. Disney was unsure on how to take the request, as Segel had just done frontal nudity in "Forgetting Sarah Marshall", but after realizing that he was an avid fan, the project was approved. Segel stated that he wanted to do the film because the last film in the series to be released in theaters was "Muppets from Space" in 1999, and he felt that the younger generation was missing out on enjoying one of his childhood favorites. He has stated that he will not star in the sequel to "The Muppets". He filmed "The Five-Year Engagement", with Emily Blunt, in spring 2011, in Michigan, and the film was released on April 27, 2012. In 2013, Segel revealed he was working on a series of young adult novels, based on a story he conceived when he was 21. Segel will also be in the cast of a film based on the 2012 Quebec maple syrup heist, which will be directed by Seth Gordon. Personal life. Segel dated his "Freaks and Geeks" co-star Linda Cardellini for a few years following the show's cancellation. Segel dated actress Michelle Williams for about a year, breaking up at the end of February 2013. He is an ordained minister with the Universal Life Church. He performed a wedding ceremony on "The Tonight Show" on July 6, 2010 for a couple that solicited his services by placing wanted pictures of him around his home town and the bar he frequently visits.
1058664	Rock-a-Doodle is a 1991 Animated musical comedy/fantasy film loosely based on Edmond Rostand's comedy, "Chantecler". This film was directed by Don Bluth, produced by Goldcrest Films for The Samuel Goldwyn Company, and originally released in the United Kingdom and in Ireland on August 2, 1991, and in the United States on April 3, 1992. The film features the voices of Glen Campbell, Christopher Plummer, Phil Harris, Charles Nelson Reilly, Sandy Duncan, Eddie Deezen, Ellen Greene and Toby Scott Ganger. Plot. Chanticleer is a proud rooster whose crowing wakes the sun up every morning (or so the other farm animals believe). His singing keeps the other animals happy and the farm free from downpours. However, one morning, Chanticleer gets in a fight with another rooster that was sent by the Grand Duke of Owls, whose kind can't stand the sunlight. Chanticleer wins, but forgets to crow and the sun rises without his singing. The other animals reject him and drive him out of the farm, causing a perpetual rainstorm and beginning the Grand Duke's reign of terror on the farm. The story reveals to be a storybook that a mother named Dory reads to her son, Edmund. Edmund grows concerned when his farm becomes flooded from the rain. When Edmund's family is off to save the farm, his mother forbids him to go out and help her, his father and his two older brothers. Edmund realizes that Chanticleer is the answer to the problem and yells for him, only to summon the Duke himself. The Duke turns Edmund into a kitten for trying to interfere with his plans. Just as the Duke is about to devour Edmund, he is saved by Patou (Phil Harris) the basset hound who attacks the Duke and Edmund drives the Duke off with a flashlight, which is the owls' only weakness. Edmund also meets a magpie named Snipes and a mouse named Peepers who do not believe Edmund was once a human boy but tell him they are journeying to the city to find Chanticleer. While the rest of the animals stay at Edmund's farm, Edmund, along with Patou, Snipes and Peepers sail to the city in a trunk. The Duke sends his nephew Hunch to stop the crew from reaching the city, but Hunch fails to catch them. Once they reach the city, they discover Chanticleer has taken the moniker "The King" in an Elvis-style show where he sings for an audience. As a distraction, his manager Pinkie Fox, who had been hired by the Duke to keep Chanticleer away from the farm, gets a chorus singer pheasant named Goldie to distract him. Chanticleer and Goldie are immediately smitten with each other. When Edmond tries to talk to Goldie about Chanticleer, she mistakes him for the bad kitty told by Pinkie and chases him away. Goldie begins to reciprocate Chanticleer's feelings and tells him that his friends had come to find him. In the meantime, Edmund and the others were captured and imprisoned by Pinkie and his guards to keep them from contacting him and are locked in his trailer. Pinkie turns on Goldie for informing Chanticleer of what has happened and blackmails Chanticleer with the possible threat of killing his friends into continuing with his movie. Edmund and the others manage to escape though, (thanks to Hunch's intervention) and with Goldie and Chanticleer in tow, they make their way back to the farm. The Duke and his minions have been waiting on the farm animals' supply of batteries to run out on their flashlight. They nearly make a meal out of them, but are driven away by the spotlight of the helicopter Edmund and the others are flying. Edmund and the others try to get Chanticleer to crow, but he is out of practice and soon gives up. The Duke taunts Chanticleer in his stupor and strangles Edmund into unconsciousness when he tries to raise Chanticleer's spirit by chanting his name. Inspired by Edmund's selflessness and bravery, the other animals begin to chant Chanticleer's name in unison. Infuriated, the Duke transforms himself into a tornado to destroy the farm and the animals. However, Chanticleer finally regains his confidence and crows loud enough for the sun to rise, shrinking the Duke into a harmless pipsqueak. Hunch, eager for revenge towards all the abuse from his uncle, attacks him with a flyswatter. The floods begin to subside. Believing that Edmund died, the animals mourn him until he transforms back into a human boy since his punishment ended because he learned the error of his ways and stopped being afraid. Edmund awakens in his own room to his mother's voice, having been knocked unconscious by a tree that had crashed into his bedroom. He realizes it's morning and the sun had come out to save the farm from destruction. His mother suspects he had a dream, but Edmund is convinced it was real. After she leaves, Edmund, whose faith was restored in the characters, is now allowed to visit and watch as Chanticleer sings to raise the sun. As he is transported, all of his animal friends are happy to see him alive, well and human again. Production. Plans for an animated version of the "Chanticleer" tale dated as far back as the early years of the Walt Disney Studios, where several of its artists were interested in combining elements of the story with those about an anthropomorphic fox named Reynard. Though character designs by Marc Davis survive, Walt Disney personally rejected the pitch, and the film was never put into production or animation tests. In the late 1980s, as a response to the success of "Who Framed Roger Rabbit", the proposal was revised by a former Disney animator, Don Bluth, who wanted to tell the rooster's story through live action and animation. Originally, the story's first and last scenes were to be shot in black and white, similar to 1939's "The Wizard of Oz". The film's opening, which took place at a farm, had Edmond's mother reading the tale of Chanticleer to him. Victor French from "Get Smart" and "Highway To Heaven" was set to direct these scenes, but terminal lung cancer forced him out of production. Bluth, who had never done anything in this field, took over from this point. However, very little of this footage made it in the final cut. However, the live action footage was filmed at MGM Studios in Hollywood, California, USA. When the live action footage was finished during the production, Goldcrest Films recruited Sullivan Bluth Studios. to animate the rest of the film. Sullivan Bluth Studios was animated in Burbank, California and Ireland. Chanticleer's girlfriend, Goldie the Pheasant, was designed to have attributes similar to "Roger Rabbit"'s girlfriend, Jessica Rabbit (as seen in the original trailer). Reactions from mothers during test screenings of her scenes made Sullivan Bluth, at the insistence of their investor Goldcrest Films, cover her chest with feathers as cel overlays, or simply paint her cleavage out. To avoid a potential PG rating, Bluth edited out the showing of the Duke's "skunk pie" (the pie is not seen in full view in the final version), the animators had to replace Chanticleer's glass of wine with a transparent cup of soda in the "Kiss and Coo" sequence, and had to draw colored effects into the Grand Duke's breath to make him less scary for young audiences. Test audiences also felt confused by the storytelling so the filmmakers decided to include narration told by the dog character, Patou, voiced by Phil Harris. The crew, because of these changes, had to work overtime to finish the film by Thanksgiving 1990. "Rock-a-Doodle" was originally going to be released by MGM-Pathe, but studio partnership was facing financial difficulties, so Bluth rescheduled "Rock-a-Doodle" for a release on Christmas Day 1991 and selected The Samuel Goldwyn Company as the film's distributor. However, that date was further moved to April 1992 to avoid competition with Walt Disney Pictures and Walt Disney Feature Animation's "Beauty and the Beast", and in another order to avoid competition with Universal Animation Studios and Amblin Entertainment's "", This film is a sequel to "An American Tail", in which Bluth, himself, was not involved. "Rock-a-Doodle" was the first feature-length family live-action/animated film since 1988's "Who Framed Roger Rabbit", but unlike the live-action characters from that film sharing the screen with Roger Rabbit, Edmundis the only live-action character to share the screen with the animated characters; this was at the beginning, where the Grand Duke would have to answer Edmond before being turned into an animated cat, and at the end, where Chanticleer is singing a reprise of "Sun Do Shine" like he does at the beginning. Don Bluth chose this direction because he was influenced by "Roger Rabbit". Aspect ratio. The live-action and animation sequences were filmed in two separate aspect ratios. The animation was shot on an open-matte fullscreen negative, meaning the top and bottom of the image was cropped in order to fit the theater screen. However the live-action scenes, including all animated elements, were shot in hard-matted widescreen. When the film is viewed in fullscreen, all the animated sequences (except for parts of the finale) can be seen in full, but the live-action segments lose information on the sides. Soundtrack. The original songs were written and produced by T.J. Kuenster. The background vocals on "Sun Do Shine," "Come Back to You," "Rock-a-Doodle," "Treasure Hunting Fever," "Sink or Swim," "Kiss 'n Coo," "Back to the Country," and "Tyin' Your Shoes" were sung by The Jordanaires, who were also known for backing up Elvis himself. The background vocals on "We Hate the Sun," "Tweedle Te Dee," and "The Owls' Picnic" were all sung by a triple-tracked T.J. Kuenster. Robert Folk written the film's score and conducted the Irish Film Orchestra who performed the score. Reception. "Rock-a-Doodle" received generally negative reviews from film critics. As of September 1, 2012, the film has a Rotten Tomatoes "rotten" rating of 25%. The staff of "Halliwell's Film Guide" commended its "excellent animation", but complained of the "poor and confusing narrative" that "rendered pointless". Its $11.6 million take at the U.S. box office forced Don Bluth's studio into liquidation half a year after its release. Moreover, a Hong Kong company, Media Assets, purchased Bluth's next three films, "Thumbelina", "A Troll in Central Park" and "The Pebble and the Penguin". None of these did any better than "Rock-a-Doodle", commercially or critically. All of them preceded 1997's "Anastasia", his comeback hit. A book adaptation of the film, by Don Bluth and Chip Lovitt, was published by Troll Communications LLC (ISBN 0-8167-2475-X). Video release history. "Rock-a-Doodle" was first released on VHS and Laserdisc on August 18, 1992, as well as on DVD on July 20, 1999 by HBO Video. A second edition was released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer on November 8, 2005. In 2010, the film was released along with "The Pebble and the Penguin" as a double-sided DVD. The film is also currently available for instant streaming on Netflix.
1057839	Surf II is a 1984 American independent comedy film written and directed by Randall M. Badat and starring Eddie Deezen, Linda Kerridge, Eric Stoltz, Jeffrey Rogers and Peter Isacksen. The plot revolves around Menlo Schwartzer, a maniacal mad scientist who creates a chemically altered soft drink which turns its drinkers into mutant zombie punks as part of a diabolical scheme to rid the beaches of surfers. "Surf II" is a contemporary parody of 1960s-style beach party films, mixing elements of the horror, science fiction, surf and teen film genres. Despite what the title implies, there was never a "Surf I". "Surf II" was marketed with a number of subheadings, the most common of which was in fact Surf II: The End of the Trilogy. Although the film was received negatively by critics upon release and has never been officially released on DVD, it has since been rediscovered in recent years on VHS and YouTube, and is now considered a cult film. Plot. Deep in his secret underwater laboratory, teenage mad scientist Menlo Schwartzer plots to rid the beaches of his greatest enemies: surfers. Having been driven to revenge following a cruel practical joke gone awry, Menlo concocts an addictive chemical agent which turns its drinkers into mutated, garbage-ingesting zombie punks. With the reluctant help of his girlfriend Sparkle and a pair of greedy, cigar-chomping soda businessmen, Menlo distributes the chemical under the guise of "Buzzz Cola", and one by one begins to build an army of brainless zombie slaves to do his bidding. After several of their friends fall victim to Buzzz Cola, airheaded surfer dudes Chuck and Bob begin to piece together the parts of Menlo's evil scheme. Finding no help from their spaced-out parents or the bumbling efforts of the local police force, the two enlist the services of their eccentric science teacher and vow to stop Menlo for good, or else they won't be able to compete in the big surf contest this weekend. Cast. The Untouchables appear as themselves during a beach party scene. Scream queen Brinke Stevens makes an uncredited cameo as a student. Production. Randall Badat claims that he conceived the idea for "Surf II" while being under the influence of heavy painkillers he was taking following a surfing injury. After being encouraged by friends to further develop the concept, Badat wrote the screenplay - originally titled "Surf Trash" - over a single weekend, basing many of the characters off people he knew directly from the So Cal surfer scene, including a man nicknamed "Johnny Big Head". Badat wrote the role of Menlo Schwartzer specifically for Eddie Deezen, having been a fan of his performance in Robert Zemeckis' 1978 film "I Wanna Hold Your Hand". After completion, Badat showed the screenplay to producer George G. Braunstein, who agreed to help finance it, eventually selling the project to production company Arista Films at the Cannes Film Festival. Arista originally planned to film "Surf II" in 3-D; though several pre-production posters were made carrying the title "Surf II 3-D", the idea was eventually scrapped. "Surf II" was filmed in 29 days during the summer of 1983. The beach scenes were shot at various locations throughout Malibu, Redondo Beach and Hermosa Beach, while interior shots were filmed at a studio in Culver City. Many of the comic actors were allowed to improvise their lines, and several of the odd props throughout the film were contributed by Deezen himself, including a baseball cap with an absurdly elongated brim and an oversized pair of novelty scissors. Among "Surf II"'s crew were cinematographer Alex Phillips, Jr. ("Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia"), composer Peter Bernstein and Academy Award-winning make up artist Greg Cannom. Release and reception. "Surf II" was released theatrically in North America in January 1984. While originally marketed with the title "Surf II: The End of the Trilogy", later promotions re-titled the film "Surf II: The Nerds Strike Back", following the success of "Revenge of the Nerds", which was released that summer. The film screened in Europe in the fall of 1984, retitled in Spain as "Locura de playa" (roughly translated as ""Beach Madness""). Initial critical reviews of "Surf II" were overwhelmingly negative. In his "Movie Guide", Leonard Maltin gave the film a 1.5 out of 5 star rating, writing that the "best joke is its title - there never was a "Surf I"". Kim Newman quipped in the "Monthly Film Bulletin", "traditionally, sequels are never up to the standards of the original: "Surf II", which is a sequel to nothing in particular, is therefore worse than anyone could possibly have imagined", calling it "incoherent" and "most dreadful". The "Chicago Tribune" called it "total trash" and the "Los Angeles Times" simply remarked "there was no "Surf I" - and with luck, there'll be no "Surf III"". In a more contemporary professional review, AllMovie, though having rated "Surf II" one star out of five, noted that the film is "never dull" and "deranged enough to be memorable", giving praise to the performances of the ensemble cast and summarizing, ""Surf II"'s unbalanced mix of amateurishness and gonzo humor will confound most viewers, but fans of B-movie weirdness will find more than enough memorable moments to keep themselves entertained". In spite of (or perhaps because of) its critical ravaging, "Surf II" has developed a following among cult film fans. Cult film website "McBeardo's Midnight Movies" ranked "Surf II" on its list of "15 Movies That Deserve Massive Cult Followings", calling the film "serious competition" for the position of the "#1 most off-the-wall and ingenious teen sex comedy of the ’80s". "The Scarecrow Video Movie Guide", describes the film as "more slapstick and early-80s drive-in mania into one movie than any sane mind could imagine", stating bluntly "missing this movie would be like beating yourself in the face with a brick!" "Radioactive Reviews", a website specializing in reviewing "The Movies That DVD Forgot", noted that "Surf II" "doesn't make much sense and doesn't have much of a story", though the film creates "an amusing, cartoonish world that's fun to watch", and would ultimately be of interest to "lovers of [the 80s' sillier, less-coherent cinematic creations". On April 17, 2009, the New Beverly Cinema in Los Angeles presented a 25th anniversary screening of "Surf II" hosted by the Alamo Drafthouse, with Badat, Braunstein, Deezen and first assistant director D. Scott Easton in attendance. In 2010, Alamo Drafthouse programmers Zack Carlson and Bryan Connolly prominently featured "Surf II" in their book "Destroy All Movies!!! The Complete Guide to Punks on Film", including interviews with Badat and Deezen. In an interview promoting the book, editor Connolly described "Surf II" as "the ultimate '80s party film". Home video. "Surf II" was released on VHS in January 1985 through Media Home Entertainment, who retained its distribution rights until ceasing operations in 1992. Throughout the 1980s and early 1990s, "Surf II" was occasionally shown on late night B-movie program "USA Up All Night", and would sometimes be used as late night filler on HBO. "Up All Nite Films" released what is presumed to be an official DVD release, available in the US on Amazon.com in August 2012. The DVD is a "manufactured on demand" product similar to the Warner Archives versions of hard-to-find films. Due to the nature of the ad-hoc manufacturing, the DVD version availability is not limited to the stock of the initial print runs and is available as of June 2013. Soundtrack. "Surf II"'s soundtrack consists mainly of contemporary punk/New Wave hits and classic surf tunes. The producers had struck a deal with Capitol Records for the release of a soundtrack album, but as a result of the film's critical and financial disappointment, the project was ultimately abandoned. The following is a list of songs which appear in "Surf II": Danny Elfman of Oingo Boingo was briefly involved with the film's soundtrack production, contributing the exclusive track "Hold Me Back", which has never been given an official release outside of "Surf II".
1056185	Gary Edward Daniels (born 9 May 1963) is an actor, a retired kickboxer who scored 34 knockout victories, and a former World Light-heavyweight Kickboxing Champion (P.K.A.); known for appearing in action-oriented martial arts B-films. Daniels has performed in over 50 films since his start as an extra in an episode of the 1980s television series "Miami Vice". He is best known for playing Kenshiro in the live-action version of "Fist of the North Star". He is also known for his roles in the Jackie Chan film "City Hunter", and as Bryan Fury in the 2010 live-action film "Tekken", based upon the popular fighting game series. He was also seen in the Sylvester Stallone film "The Expendables" as Lawrence "The Brit" Sparks, an ally of the villain James Munroe. Early life. Gary Daniels was born in London, England, on May 9, 1963. Inspired by the Bruce Lee film "Enter the Dragon", Daniels began training in martial arts at the age of 8 at a local school where he learned a hybrid martial art known as "Mongolian Kung Fu." He then took up taekwondo at 12 years old and received his black belt after 3 years. At 16, he became a 2nd "dan" and began competing in ITF taekwondo tournaments. His aggressive style did not sit well with British officials, however, and he lost 3 fights by disqualification. Kickboxing career. Daniels began kickboxing at the age of seventeen under the tutelage of former British Army boxing champion Mickey Byrne. He debuted in 1979, and compiled a record of 13 victories (13 knockouts) and 3 defeats; including two matches with Jean-Claude Van Damme opponent, Michael J. Heming. In 1980, Daniels decided to leave England and move to the state of Florida in the United States to continue his career. In his first United States match, Daniels defeated Sherman "Big Train" Bergman (The only kickboxer to have knocked down Jean-Claude Van Damme), by decision at the Sunshine State Tournament in Coconut Grove, Florida. However, in the quarter-finals of the tournament, Daniels was eliminated after he lost a 3-round decision.(Source, Miami Herald, March 7, 1980, Sports Section) He rebounded with an 18-second knockout of Tim "Night Life" Williams at a WKBA event in Orlando, Florida before going on a barnstorming tour fighting in Texas, California and Florida. In the late 1980s, Daniels moved to California and began practicing Muay Thai at Benny Urquidez's Jet Center and Yuki Horiuchi's Piston Kickboxing Gym. In November 1990, Daniels won the WKBA California State Light Heavyweight Championship and the PKA World Light Heavyweight Championship in England within the space of a month. On December 3, 1991 in Birmingham, England, Daniels fought a 3-round, No Decision, exhibition match with 11-time World Kickboxing Champion Don "The Dragon" Wilson at the World Martial Arts Extravaganza. Gary Daniels retired from kickboxing in 1993 with a record of 35 wins (34 knockouts) and 4 defeats. Fifteen years later in 2008, Daniels made a one-fight comeback in Thailand at the age of 45 and he lost by decision after 5 rounds. Acting career. Daniels began his film career in the Philippines, appearing in two low-budget films "Final Reprisal" and "The Secret of King Mahis Island". His first starring film role was in the David Huey film "Capital Punishment" in 1991. He played a villain alongside Richard Norton in the film adaptation of "City Hunter" starring Jackie Chan; he was particularly known for a fight scene where he and Chan transform into various characters from the video game "Street Fighter II". By 1996 Daniels had begun working on projects as a producer. His first producer credit occurred in the Joseph Merhi film "Rage". Throughout his career he has also served as a fight coordinator. He can also be seen in the Steven Seagal project "Submerged", directed by Anthony Hickox. He is still best known for portraying the heroic Kenshiro in the American live-action version of Japanese manga "Fist of the North Star". Among Daniels's fans, films that stand out include "American Streetfighter", "White Tiger", "Bloodmoon", "Recoil", "Rage", "Firepower", "Heatseeker" and "Cold Harvest". "Fist of the North Star" also holds a considerable cult following. In 2012 he was in a film called "The Encounter: Paradise Lost" Gary portrayed Bryan Fury in the film version of the popular video game series "Tekken". He also starred in Sylvester Stallone's "The Expendables" as the Brit and appears in a controversial scene in which his neck is snapped. Daniels re-teams with Steve Austin and Eric Roberts in "Hunt to Kill". Daniels was once considered for the role of Johnny Cage in the movie version of "Mortal Kombat". He was also a front runner for the lead role in the hit series ""but lost the role to Adrian Paul. Compared to martial arts actors such as Jet Li or Steven Seagal, Daniels's fighting style is much less classifiable. He has studied muay thai, kickboxing, taekwondo, boxing, ninjitsu, and Northern Shaolin kung fu. In his films, he employs a mixed martial arts style, leading with strong, sweeping kicks and sometimes engaging in close quarters fights with complex hand to hand choreography. As he mentions on the commentary track on the "Fist of the North Star" DVD, his main discipline is the hybrid kung fu art, Siu Lum Wong Gar Kune (Shaolin Wong Family Fist), which he studied under Sifu Winston Omega, who also served as fight choreographer on "Fist of the North Star". Personal life. He has five children with his wife, Maricyn.
1438112	Thane William Howard Hardcastle Christopher Bettany (born 28 May 1929) is an English actor and former dancer. He is the father of film actor Paul Bettany and father-in-law of Oscar-winning actress Jennifer Connelly. Early years. Thane Bettany was born in Sarawak, an independent state on the island of Borneo, which was then a British protectorate governed by the White Rajahs. Thane had an elder brother named Peter Bettany, they were very close when they were young. His godmother was the American memoirist Agnes Newton Keith, author of "Three Came Home". The Bettanys also knew the Rhys-Jones family from Sarawak. Years later, when both had been widowed, Howard John Bettany, Thane's father, married Margaret Patricia Newall Molesworth Rhys-Jones, who had a granddaughter born the same year (1965). Thane Bettany stood godfather to the daughter of his new stepbrother: Sophie Rhys-Jones, later Countess of Wessex and wife of Prince Edward. The Bettanys returned to England before the outbreak of World War II in 1939. Dancing career. Bettany had become enamoured with ballet after seeing a performance as a child. Once he left school he took the money given to him by his father to go to engineering school to study ballet. After National Service, when he served in the Royal Navy's Fleet Air Arm as a mechanic, he entered Sadler's Wells Ballet School (which later became the Royal Ballet School). He began dancing in musical theatre, but after an accident on stage when he broke his back he had to give up professional dance. Acting was an obvious career move, but he had a bad stammer. He went to study mime in Paris with Charles Antonetti, who helped him overcome the problem. Bettany returned to England and joined the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre Company, which would later become the Royal Shakespeare Company. He played Osric to Sir Michael Redgrave's "Hamlet". In "The Tempest", he was the understudy for the role of Ferdinand; he then took over the part when the play transferred to Drury Lane with Sir John Gielgud. Marriage. After a few years with the New Zealand Players, he returned home and taught at Corona Stage School, where he met Anne Kettle, whom he would later marry. He moved on to Norway as the Artistic Director of the English Theatre Company there, inviting Kettle over as his stage manager. Back in England they renewed their friendship at the Lincoln Theatre Royale. They married and settled in North London, and although stage work continued to be his focus, when his children were born he looked for other work to be closer to home. Thane Bettany continued to act, mainly in television; during this period he was cast in one of his most famous roles, that of Tarak on "Doctor Who", opposite Tom Baker. Children. The couple had three children: Sarah, actor Paul Bettany, and youngest son Matthew. Sarah and Paul initially went to school in North London. When Sarah, Paul and Matthew were 11, 9 and 2 years old, respectively, their father obtained employment as a drama teacher at the Hertfordshire all-girls boarding school, Queenswood School; the family lived on campus. Thane and Anne Bettany have three grandchildren to date (as of 2011): Emaly (by daughter Sarah), Stellan and Agnes (by Paul and his wife, American actress, Jennifer Connelly). Death of younger son & divorce. Matthew Bettany died after a fall at Queenswood when he was eight. Soon after, Paul Bettany left home to live on his own in London. Thane and Anne Bettany divorced in 1993 after 25 years of marriage. Currently. Bettany now lives in Fife, Scotland with his partner, Andy Clark, and continues to work regularly. He is an associate acting member of the Dundee Repertory, the St. Andrew's Byre Theatre and the Royal Lyceum, Edinburgh. He remains a full-time actor, and returned to the RSC in 2007, appearing in small roles in both Shakespeare's "Macbeth" and Eugène Ionesco's "MacBett".
1063166	Jennifer Shrader Lawrence (born August 15, 1990) is an American actress. Her first major role was as a lead cast member on TBS's "The Bill Engvall Show" (2007–2009) and she subsequently appeared in the independent films "The Burning Plain" (2008) and "Winter's Bone" (2010), for which she received nominations for the Academy Award, Golden Globe Award, Satellite Award, Independent Spirit Award, and Screen Actors Guild Award for Best Actress. At age 20, she was the third-youngest actress ever to be nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress. At age 22, her performance in the romantic comedy "Silver Linings Playbook" (2012) earned her the Academy Award, Golden Globe Award, Screen Actors Guild Award, Satellite Award and the Independent Spirit Award for Best Actress, amongst other accolades, making her the youngest person ever to be nominated for two Academy Awards for Best Actress and the second-youngest Best Actress winner. Lawrence is also known for playing Raven Darkhölme / Mystique in the 2011 film ', a role she will reprise in ' in 2014. Beginning in 2012, she achieved international recognition starring as the heroine Katniss Everdeen in "The Hunger Games" and its three sequels, an adaptation of Suzanne Collins' best-selling series of the same name. Her performance in the films garnered her notable critical praise and marked her as the highest-grossing action heroine of all time. Lawrence's performances thus far have prompted "Rolling Stone" to call her "the most talented young actress in America." In 2013, "Time" named her one of the 100 most influential people in the world. Early life. Lawrence was born and raised in Louisville, Kentucky. Her parents are Karen (née Koch), who runs a children's camp, and Gary Lawrence, who once owned a concrete construction firm, Lawrence & Associates. She has two older brothers, Ben and Blaine. She acted in local theater and, by the age of 14, had decided to pursue an acting career, persuading her parents to take her to New York City to find a talent agent. Prior to finding success in Hollywood, Lawrence attended Kammerer Middle School in Kentucky. She graduated from high school two years early with a 3.9 average in order to begin a career in acting. While growing up and in between acting, Lawrence served as an assistant nurse at the children's summer day camp that her mother ran. Career. 2006–09: Early work. Lawrence has never taken any drama classes or lessons for acting. She started out her acting career in the TBS comedy "The Bill Engvall Show", playing Lauren Pearson, the eldest daughter. Written and created by Bill Engvall and Michael Leeson, the show is set in a Denver suburb and follows the life of 'Bill Pearson' (played by Engvall), a family counselor whose own family could use a little dose of counseling. The series went on the air in September 2007 and was canceled in 2009 after three seasons. Lawrence received the Young Artist Award for Outstanding Young Performer in a TV Series for her role in the show. Lawrence had guest-roles in the television series "Cold Case", "Medium", and "Monk". In 2007, Lawrence auditioned for the role of Bella Swan in "Twilight", however the role went to Kristen Stewart. Later, Lawrence stated that she was "glad" that she had not received the role because of the massive media attention that Stewart received from the role. In 2008, she appeared in a small role in the film "Garden Party" as Tiff. The same year, Lawrence appeared on the big screen in Guillermo Arriaga's film directorial debut "The Burning Plain", opposite Charlize Theron and Kim Basinger. Her performance in the film earned her the Marcello Mastroianni Award for best young emerging actor/actress at the Venice Film Festival in 2008. Still in 2008, Lawrence had the lead role in another film director's debut, Lori Petty's family drama "The Poker House", opposite Selma Blair and Chloë Grace Moretz, where she starred as Agnes, a young girl victim of abuse. Lawrence was awarded the Los Angeles Film Festival Award for Outstanding Performance for her role in the film. She appeared in the music video for the song "The Mess I Made", from the 2009 album "Losing Sleep" by Parachute. 2010–12: Breakthrough. Lawrence's lead role in Debra Granik's "Winter's Bone", which won best picture at the Sundance Film Festival in 2010, is generally cited as a breakout performance for her. She portrays Ree Dolly, a seventeen-year-old in the Ozark Mountains who cares for her mentally ill mother and her younger brother and sister. Ree then discovers that her father put their house and land up as a bond for a court appearance before he disappeared, and the family now faces eviction. The performance was highly acclaimed by film critics. David Denby, writing in "The New Yorker", said "the movie would be unimaginable with anyone less charismatic playing Ree." Peter Travers from the "Rolling Stone" also spoke highly of her and noted that "her performance is more than acting, it's a gathering storm. Lawrence's eyes are a roadmap to what's tearing Ree apart". Receiving accolades for her performance, Lawrence was awarded the National Board of Review Award for Best Breakthrough Performance. She received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actress on January 25, 2011, becoming the third-youngest actress to date to be nominated for the category, and also accrued nominations from the Golden Globe Awards, Screen Actors Guild Awards, Independent Spirit Awards, and the Satellite Awards among others. Lawrence appeared in "The Beaver", a dark comedy starring Jodie Foster and Mel Gibson. The film was shot in 2009, but spent an extended period of time stalled due to controversy. It was released on May 6, 2011. She also co-starred in the independent film "Like Crazy," which premiered at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival. The following year, it was announced that Lawrence was invited to join the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. In March 2011, Lawrence was offered the part of Katniss Everdeen in the film "The Hunger Games", based on the best-selling novel of the same name by Suzanne Collins. Despite being a fan of the books, Lawrence took three days to accept the role because she was initially intimidated by the size of the movie and what it may mean for her fame. She underwent extensive training to get in shape for the role, including stunt training, archery, rock and tree climbing, combat, running, parkour, pilates, and yoga. The film was released on March 23, 2012, and set the record for the third-largest opening weekend of all time, making a record-breaking $152.5 million in three days for a non-sequel film. The fact that "The Hunger Games" emerged as a big box office hit with a female lead represents a dramatic shift for the action film genre because historically, among the "top 200 worldwide box-office hits ever ($350 million and up), not one has been built around a female action star" and for the first time ever, Lawrence contradicts that. "Forbes" stated "No one who has seen "The Hunger Games" would question star Jennifer Lawrence's ability to play an action star." She is currently the highest grossing action heroine ever. Though the film generally received positive reviews, Lawrence's portrayal of Katniss Everdeen was the most highly praised with Todd McCarthy from "The Hollywood Reporter" saying Lawrence embodies Katniss, "just as one might imagine her from the novel" and "anchors" the whole film "with impressive gravity and presence", ultimately calling her "the ideal screen actress". Kenneth Turan from the "Los Angeles Times" stated that Lawrence is the "best possible performer as Katniss and is the key factor in making 'Hunger Games' an involving popular entertainment with strong narrative drive that holds our attention". "Chicago Sun-Times" film critic Roger Ebert also agreed that "Lawrence is strong and convincing in the central role". In June 2011, she starred as shape-shifting villain Mystique alongside James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender in ', a prequel to the rest of the "X-Men" film series. Lawrence's Mystique is a younger version of the character played by Rebecca Romijn in earlier "X-Men" films. Lawrence will reprise the role in the 2014 sequel, '. She also starred alongside Max Thieriot and Elisabeth Shue in Mark Tonderai's thriller "House at the End of the Street", which was released in September 2012. She was originally cast to play "O" in the film "Savages" directed by Oliver Stone, but dropped out due to scheduling conflicts. In November 2012, Lawrence played the recently widowed Tiffany Maxwell in David O. Russell's "Silver Linings Playbook", an adaptation of the novel of the same name, by Matthew Quick, opposite Bradley Cooper and Robert De Niro. She received widespread critical praise for her performance in the film, with Richard Corliss of "Time" writing, "The reason to stay is Lawrence. Just 21 when the movie was shot, Lawrence is that rare young actress who plays, who is, grown-up. Sullen and sultry, she lends a mature intelligence to any role... Jennifer Lawrence is the silver lining in this mostly ordinary playbook." Peter Travers of "Rolling Stone" also wrote that Lawrence "is some kind of miracle. She's rude, dirty, funny, foulmouthed, sloppy, sexy, vibrant and vulnerable, sometimes all in the same scene, even in the same breath. No list of Best Actress Oscar contenders would be complete without the electrifying Lawrence in the lead. She lights up the screen." She won the Academy Award, Golden Globe Award, and several other accolades for Best Actress for her performance in the film. 2013–present: Upcoming projects. In 2012, Lawrence replaced Angelina Jolie in Susanne Bier's depression-era thriller, "Serena", based on the novel of the same name by Ron Rash. She will be playing the role of an unstable woman named Serena who learns that she can never bear her husband's children and is set out to murder the woman who bore her husband an illegitimate son before their marriage. On September 10, 2012, Lawrence began working on the film adaptation of the second novel in the "The Hunger Games" trilogy, "", which is scheduled to be released on November 22, 2013. In October 2012, Lawrence was announced as the new face of Dior. She ranked No. 1 on AskMen's list of "Top 99 Most Desirable Women" for 2013. In 2014, Lawrence will be reprising her role as Mystique in "" with James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender. On February 15, 2013 it was announced that Lawrence will star opposite Christian Bale, Bradley Cooper, and Amy Adams in "American Hustle" about the ’70s FBI sting operation Abscam. She will also be starring in her third collaboration film directed by David O. Russell titled "The Ends of the Earth". Lawrence will play Jeannette Walls in the film adaptation of Walls' best-selling memoir "The Glass Castle". She will reprise her role of Katniss Everdeen in the film adaptations of the final "Hunger Games" book; "The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1" is set to be released on November 21, 2014. "Part 2" is set to be released on November 20, 2015. In June 2013, it was announced that Lawrence will be starring in and producing the film adaptation of Claire Bidwell Smith's memoir "The Rules of Inheritance", directed by Susanne Bier. In September 2013 Lawrence was picked to star in the adaptation of "East of Eden" with director Gary Ross. The film is based on the "John Steinbeck" novel and was originally done in 1955 starring "James Dean". She was also picked to star in "Burial Rites", a film adaptation of Hannah Kent's debut novel where she would be joined again by Gary Ross. Personal life. Lawrence has stated that she had a difficult childhood because she had problems with anxiety and hyperactivity for which she went to therapy and received medication. These issues seemed to fade away when she began acting. Lawrence lived in New York City for the first few years of her career, but now resides in Santa Monica, California.
584140	Kaadhal Kondein (also spelled as Kadhal Konden ; ) is a 2003 Indian Tamil psychological thriller film written and directed by Selvaraghavan, starring his brother Dhanush and newcomer Sonia Agarwal in lead roles, whilst newcomers Sudeep, Nagesh and Daniel Balaji play supporting roles. The film, which has music scored by noted musician Yuvan Shankar Raja and cinematography handled by Arvind Krishna, released on 4 July 2003, winning critical acclaim and becoming a commercial success upon release, and is considered as the breakthrough film of Dhanush that catapulted him into the main foray of lead actors in the Tamil film industry. The film was later remade in Telugu in 2004, as "Nenu" with Allari Naresh and Veda replacing Dhanush and Sonia Agarwal, respectively. It has also been remade in Kannada in 2009, as "Ravana" with Yogeesh Hunsoor and Sanchita Padukone in the lead, and in Bengali in 2010, as "Amanush" starring Soham Chakraborty and Srabanti Malakar. The story explores the mind of a youth who is mentally and physically abused in his childhood. The lack of a mother's love haunts the protagonist throughout the film as the girl of his infatuation is killed. Becoming a psychopath, he desperately tries to woo his newly found lady love and his efforts culminate in a superb nail-biting cliffhanger. Plot. Vinod (Dhanush), who has grown up under the care of a church father (Nagesh), is an introvert but a genius. He is forcibly sent to college by the father but is a complete misfit in class. Though shunned by the rest of his class, Divya (Sonia Agarwal) becomes his friend and he gradually warms up to her too. His feelings soon turn into love but he realizes that Divya considers him as only a friend. But he is unwilling to let her go. Meanwhile Vinod learns that Divya is in love with another classmate, Aadhi (Sudeep). Divya's father is enraged on learning about her love. He shuts her up and prevents her from contacting anyone. But Vinod comes and meets her on the pretext of getting some old clothes for himself to wear. Pitied by Vinod, her father allows him. But Vinod uses the chance and escapes with Divya. He convinces her that she will meet Aadhi at Ooty. Vinod has set up a secret place in Ooty for executing his plan of wooing Divya. He makes her stay with him, while convincing her by talking about the never-impending Aadhi's arrival. On one such day, he reveals his miserable past, when he was made to work for paid labour after being orphaned at an early age. He revolts against the oppression one day against the illegal child labour in vogue at his place. Promptly he is beaten black and blue for his profanity. Moreover he also loses his girlfriend to rapists in that place, who also kill her. Somehow he manages to escape from them and seeks refuge in the place of a church father. Divya is really touched by his past. Incidentally the police and Aadhi arrive at the place. While Vinod was away to get some food, they try to make Divya understand that Vinod was a psychopath. Yet Divya scoffs at their claims, citing his gentlemanly behaviour over the days she was put up alone with him. Vinod, learning that the police have arrived at the scene, begins to indulge in mass violence. He opens fire, killing a police constable. Forcing them out of their hideout, he manages to evade the police Inspector and Aadhi and successfully brings Divya back to their original place of stay. Divya soon identifies the tiger out of the cow's skin. Vinod pleads with her, telling her that all he wanted in his life was her presence with him. But Divya called him a friend and stated her inability to accept him as her partner for life. Meanwhile Aadhi regains consciousness and comes back to attack Vinod and rescue his girlfriend. A violent fight follows, where Vinod defies his puny self and treats Aadhi with disdain. The fight culminates with Vinod, Aadhi and Divya teetering at the edge of a slippery cliff. While Divya clutches a tree bark tightly, Vinod and Aadhi slip out and barely manage to hold either of her hands. Divya is forced to a situation where she needs to choose between her boyfriend and friend. Aadhi's pleas notwithstanding, Divya doesn't have the heart to kill Vinod. The epic of a cliffhanger finally ends with Vinod smiling wryly at Divya and letting go of her hands himself. He falls to his death into the abyss. Soundtrack. For "Kaadhal Kondein", director Selvaraghavan and music composer Yuvan Shankar Raja came together again after their earlier successful collaboration in "Thulluvadho Ilamai" (2001), for which Selvaraghavan worked as a writer. The soundtrack of "Kaadhal Kondein" released on 20 March 2003, featuring seven tracks with lyrics written by Pazhani Bharathi and Na. Muthukumar. The music, especially the film score, received universal critical acclaim, establishing composer Yuvan Shankar Raja as one of the "most sought after music directors" in the Tamil film industry. More than one year after the release of the film, an "original soundtrack" was released, that followed the Hollywood-style. It was said to be the first time, that an original soundtrack was released for a film in India as the soundtracks released in India do not contain any film score pieces but full songs that feature in the film itself. The OST of "Kaadhal Kondein" contains 20 tracks overall, which includes the seven earlier released tracks, four "montage" bit songs, that featured in the film, but not in the soundtrack, and nine pieces from the actual film score, which were titled as "Theme Music".
583139	Sehar (2005) is an Indian Hindi language action crime drama film directed by Kabeer Kaushik, starring Arshad Warsi, Pankaj Kapur, Sushant Singh and Mahima Chaudhary. Based on real-life incidents and individuals, the film depicts organized crime in the late '90s in the state of Uttar Pradesh Gorakhpur, India and how the State Police worked to tackle it. It shows the turbulent journey of a newly appointed 31-year-old SSP of Lucknow "Ajay Kumar" played by Arshad Warsi, instrumental in bringing together a group of committed police officers under the aegis of Special Task Force. The force, bequeathed with a single agenda, succeeds in challenging the might of organized crime in the North Indian state of Uttar Pradesh. And in the process, what unfolds is the ever-changing dynamics of Uttar Pradesh's "Siyaasat": railway contracts, ISI involvement, Politician-Mafia-Police-Builder nexus, pro-activism of criminal gangs, sophisticated yet rigid red tape and criminalization of university students. Plot. The movie starts with a TV crew interviewing Prof. Tiwari (Pankaj Kapur) for the events that had occurred in reference to the movie shootouts and eradication of organized crime in Lucknow and surrounding areas. Since a very tender age, Ajay Kumar (Arshad Warsi) is traumatized with the death of his army officer father, who kills himself with his service revolver as he was being accused of being a deserter, leaving a widowed Prabha (Suhasini Mulay) to bring up Ajay on her own. Ajay grows up, studies, and successfully becomes an I.P.S officer with the title of Senior Superintendent of Police of Lucknow. Due to his honesty, he gets transferred to various states in India. At his new posting in Uttar Pradesh he comes to terms with a new criminal don and ruthless killer, Gajraj Singh (Sushant Singh). Ajay engineers the set up of a Special Task Force to deal with Gajraj, however, he also runs into problems as Gajraj is politically well-connected. Gajraj continues to elude the STF, using more modern technology such as the use of cell phones. But the STF bounces back and is able to monitor Gajraj's cell phones - only to find out that Gajraj is planning to contest the elections; and if he wins, no police officer of any rank, leave alone the STF, can dare to arrest him or even consider him a suspect, which may well result in the STF being mere paper tigers. They have a final confrontation inside a train which just leaves for H. Nizamuddin station. All the characters in the STF as well as members of Gajraj's gang kill each other in fight leaving only the Prof. Tiwari as the witness to all of this. Trivia. The movie is loosely based on the encounter of the notorious criminal Shiv Prakash Shukla Alias Shri Prakash Shukla who was eliminated by the newly formed Special Task Force of the Uttar Pradesh Police. He was not only a dreaded gangster but also an amalgam between the underworld and the politicians. The character of SSP Ajay Kumar is based on SSP and chief of STF (Special Task Force) Arun Kumar.
1066682	The Edge of Love is a 2008 John Maybury film starring Keira Knightley, Sienna Miller, Cillian Murphy and Matthew Rhys from a script by Sharman Macdonald, Knightley's mother. Originally titled "The Best Time of Our Lives", the fictional story concerns the famous Welsh poet Dylan Thomas (played by Rhys), his wife Caitlin Macnamara (played by Miller) and their married friends, the Killicks (played by Knightley and Murphy). It was an official selection at the Edinburgh International Film Festival. Plot. The story is based loosely on real events and real people, drawing on David N. Thomas' book "Dylan Thomas: A Farm, Two Mansions and a Bungalow". During the London blitz of World War II, Vera Phillips (Keira Knightley) runs into her first love, a charismatic Welsh poet Dylan Thomas (Matthew Rhys). Their feelings for each other are rekindled, despite the fact that Dylan is now married to and has a child with the spirited Caitlin Macnamara (Sienna Miller). In spite of their initial rivalry, the two women become best friends and, drinking heavily in wartime London, the three get along well. At this time, William Killick (Cillian Murphy), a British soldier smitten with Vera, pursues her. They fall in love and marry, but soon afterwards William is posted to war. Vera gives birth to his baby, and she and the Thomases move to the Welsh seashore to raise their children in two small neighbouring cottages, where Vera and Caitlin's friendship grows ever closer. One day, however, Dylan draws Vera into an affair. William, scarred by the horrors of war, eventually returns home where Vera notices his emotional distance and instability. In his disquiet, William comes to suspect his wife's infidelity. Severely drunk one night, and angry with Dylan's friends and their ignorant remarks on the war, he returns home and fires multiple shots into the Thomases' house, though he hits no one. In the morning, he is arrested by the British police and taken to trial. During the trial, Dylan testifies against William by exaggerating the facts, stating he believed Killick was not only sober, but also that Killick intended to kill him, his wife, and his child. The jury finds William innocent of intent to murder, and he returns home. He accepts his new role as a father, and Vera forgives him, rekindling their relationship. Soon afterwards, the Thomases move out of their cottage. During the farewell, Vera restores her friendship with Caitlin, but never speaks with Dylan again, unable to forgive him for testifying against her husband. Distribution. The film made its world premiere opening at the Edinburgh Film Festival on 18 June 2008. It was released in London and Dublin two days later, with a Welsh premiere taking place in Swansea (the birthplace of Dylan Thomas) on the same night, attended by Matthew Rhys. A national release followed in the UK and Ireland on 27 June 2008. An exhibition of costumes, scripts and props from the film was on display at the Dylan Thomas Centre in Swansea until September 2008. Critical reaction. The review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reported that the film received a 34% "rotten" rating, based on 53 reviews by critics. "The Hollywood Reporter" critic Ray Bennett commented that "The Edge of Love" is a "wonderfully atmospheric tale of love and war" and stated about Knightley and Miller that; "the film belongs to the women, with Knightley going from strength to strength (and showing she can sing!) and Miller again proving that she has everything it takes to be a major movie star." As of 25 August 2008, the movie review aggregator, Metacritic, awarded the film a score of 39 denoting "generally unfavorable reviews". In "Variety", Leslie Felperin commented: "While the period drama has several redeeming features, tonally it's all over the map, veering between artsy stylization and hum-drum, sometimes almost twee melodrama." Mark Kermode described the film as "inert" and said that the script was "flawed but not without some form of admirable merit". "The Independent" felt that "Maybury's stylisation makes the film more interesting than it would have been if directed by your average British journeyman, but it finally adds up to earnest heritage romance." Sienna Miller received a nomination as Best Supporting Actress at the 2008 British Independent Film Awards. At the 2010 Vits Awards, it was 3rd place in the "Bottom 5 Movies". In addition, it was nominated for "Worst Directing" and "Worst Script". Sound track. "The Edge of Love" soundtrack by Angelo Badalamenti includes performances by singers Keira Knightley, Siouxsie Sioux, Suggs, Patrick Wolf, and Beth Rowley. Siouxsie performs the second version of "Careless Love". The composer performed the soundtrack live with Siouxsie and Beth Rowley in Ghent, at the World Soundtrack Awards, in October 2008.
584667	Meghna Naidu (born 19 September 1978) is an Indian actress and dancer. Her first major appearance was in the music video for UMI10's "Kaliyon Ka Chaman" (2000), an official remix of Lata Mangeshkar's 1981 song "Thoda Resham Lagta Hai" (in turn, the 2002 song "Addictive" by Truth Hurts was inspired by the remix). She also featured in Saru Maini's video "Dil De Diya Tha (Sutta Mix)", before eventually working in Indian films. Early life and career. Meghna Naidu was born on 19 September in Vijayawada, Andhra Pradesh, India. Her father Ethiraj works for Air India and was a tennis coach and her mother Purnima, a half-Bengali, was a school teacher. She has one younger sister, Sona. She told that she requested her mother to quit her job and accompany her to shooting locations, after her sister who used to travel with her got a job abroad. She grew up in Mumbai, Maharashtra, and considers herself "more of a Mumbaiite". She studied at Bhavan's College, Andheri, Mumbai, and graduated with a B.Com degree. She has learnt classical bharatanatyam dance for seven years. She stated that she also was coaching tennis in the US for 4 years. At age 18, she met a model co-ordinator at the wedding of her cousin in Chennai, who called her for a screen test for a feature film. She bagged a role in the Telugu film "Prema Sakshi" (1999), following which she appeared in one more Telugu and two Kannada films. She then appeared in UMI10's music video "Kaliyon Ka Chaman", directed by Radhika Rao and Vinay Sapru, which she says happened by accident. She was accompanying her friend to the audition for the video, when she was approached by the team. She was asked to send in her photographs and within few days, she was selected for the video. "Kaliyon Ka Chaman" became a grand success and gained her recognition. She subsequently went on to do many stage performances in and outside of India. She made her Bollywood debut with the B-grade film "Hawas" (2004), which dealt with extramarital affair. It was followed by lead roles in "Classic Dance of Love" (2005), which featured her as a dancer, and "" (2005), in which she played a blind author. In "Mashooka", she essayed a character with negative shades. She also participated in the television shows "Fear Factor - Khatron Ke Khiladi" and "Dancing Queen". Personal life. She got engaged with actor, Kushal Punjabi in September 2009, though the couple parted ways in March 2010.
1485736	Patricia Van Cleeve Lake (between 1920 and 1923 – October 3, 1993), known as Patricia Lake, was an American socialite, actress, and radio comedienne. She was long suspected of being the illegitimate daughter of actress Marion Davies and publishing magnate William Randolph Hearst, which she herself claimed just before she died. Parentage. She was born in a hospital outside Paris, France. Her date of birth is not known; according to her "Los Angeles Times" obituary, "The year was sometime between 1920 and 1923; Lake never knew exactly." In the 1920s, there was speculation that Lake was the child of Hearst and Davies, who carried on a public affair despite Hearst's being married since 1903 to Millicent Willson. Many reference books state that Lake's parents were Marion Davies' sister Rose and her first husband, George Van Cleeve. The Lake family asserted that the newborn was given to Davies' sister, whose own child had died in infancy, and that the dead child's birth certificate was altered to support the deception. It was reported by CBS News that Hearst is alleged to have acknowledged to Lake on her wedding day that he was her father.
339891	Billy Jack Goes to Washington is a 1977 film starring Tom Laughlin, the fourth film in the "Billy Jack" series, and although the earlier films saw enormous success, this film did not. The film only had limited screenings upon its release and never saw a general theatrical release, but has since become widely available on DVD. The film is a loose remake of the 1939 Frank Capra film "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington". Plot. In a retelling of the Frank Capra film "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington". Billy Jack (Tom Laughlin) is appointed a United States Senator to fill out the remaining term of another Senator. It is hoped that he will quietly vote the party line, but his term in the Senate runs into trouble when he proposes a bill to fund a national youth camp which happens to be on the property where a nuclear power plant is also being proposed. His fellow Senator Joseph Paine (E. G. Marshall) claims to oppose nuclear power but is secretly taking graft to influence his votes in favor, and moves to try to keep Billy Jack out of the way when the bill is being debated. Seeking to keep Billy out of the Senate on a day when a controversial energy bill is being voted on, Senator Paine suggests he meet with a grassroots group that day instead. The group is working to pass a national initiative and Billy Jack becomes convinced of their cause. Billy is invited to meet with a group of lobbyists attempting to offer him bribes and other perks if he will vote their way. Up against a man named Bailey (Sam Wanamaker) who wields a powerful influence in his home state, Billy Jack has his political career and reputation at stake if he doesn't cooperate. Billy responds with anger at their threat.
1165680	Sherry Jackson (born February 15, 1942, in Wendell, Idaho) is an American actress and former child star. She made her film debut at seven years old in the musical, "You're My Everything", starring Anne Baxter and Dan Dailey. During the course of appearing in several of the "Ma and Pa Kettle" movies during the 1950s as Susie Kettle, one of the titular couple's numerous children, Jackson also appeared in "The Breaking Point" with John Garfield, the actor's penultimate role before his sudden death two years later. In 1952, Jackson portrayed the emotionally volatile visionary and ascetic Jacinta Marto in "The Miracle of Our Lady of Fatima", and the following year played John Wayne's daughter in the football-themed "Trouble Along the Way".
1057943	Naomie Melanie Harris (born 6 September 1976) is a British actress. She is best known for her starring role as Selena in "28 Days Later", her supporting turn as Tia Dalma/Calypso in the second and third "Pirates of the Caribbean" films, and as Eve Moneypenny in the 23rd James Bond film, "Skyfall." Early life. Harris was born and brought up in London, and educated there at St Marylebone School. Her mother, Lisselle Kayla, is originally from Jamaica, and her father Winston is from Trinidad. They separated when she was a child, and she was raised by her mother. Her mother worked as a screenwriter on "EastEnders". After graduating in 1998 from Pembroke College, Cambridge, with a degree in Social and Political Sciences, Harris trained at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School. Career. Harris has appeared in television and film since she was nine, including a stint on the remake of the science fiction series "The Tomorrow People". She became internationally well known in 2002 with her lead performance in Danny Boyle's post-apocalyptic film "28 Days Later", opposite Cillian Murphy. In the same year, she starred in the television adaptation of Zadie Smith's "White Teeth".
1132163	The Muppet Movie is a 1979 American musical comedy film and the first of a series of live-action feature films starring Jim Henson's Muppets. Directed by James Frawley, the film's screenplay was written by "The Muppet Show" writers Jerry Juhl and Jack Burns. Produced by Henson Associates between the third and fourth seasons of "The Muppet Show", "The Muppet Movie" depicts Kermit the Frog as he embarks on a cross-country trip to Hollywood. Along the way, he encounters several of the Muppets— who all share his ambition of finding success in professional show business— while being pursued by a relentless restaurateur with intentions of employing Kermit as a spokesperson for his frog legs business. Notable for its surreal humour, fourth wall allusions and prolific use of cameos, the film was released in the United States on June 22, 1979, and received critical praise; including two Academy Award nominations for Paul Williams and Kenny Ascher's musical score and their song, "Rainbow Connection". Plot. The Muppets have gathered in a theatre to screen their new biographical film "The Muppet Movie". As the film-within-the-film opens, Kermit the Frog enjoys a relaxing afternoon in a Florida swamp, singing "Rainbow Connection" and strumming his banjo, when he is approached by Bernie (Dom DeLuise), an agent who encourages Kermit to pursue a career in show business. Inspired by the idea of "making millions of people happy," Kermit sets off on a cross-country trip to Los Angeles, but is soon pursued by businessman and entrepreneur Doc Hopper (Charles Durning) and shy assistant Max (Austin Pendleton) in an attempt to convince Kermit to be the new spokesman of his struggling French-fried frog legs restaurant franchise, to Kermit's horror. As Kermit continues to refuse Doc's offers, Hopper resorts to increasingly vicious means of persuasion. Meeting Fozzie Bear, who works as a hapless stand-up comedian in a sleazy bar, Kermit invites Fozzie to accompany him. The two set out in a 1951 Studebaker loaned to Fozzie by his hibernating uncle. The duo’s journey includes misadventures which introduce them to a variety of eccentric human and Muppet characters, including Dr. Teeth and The Electric Mayhem and their manager Scooter, who receives a copy of the script from the pair; Gonzo and Camilla the Chicken; Sweetums, who runs after them after they think that he has turned them down; and the immediately love stricken Miss Piggy. Kermit and Miss Piggy begin a relationship over dinner that night, when Doc Hopper and Max kidnap Miss Piggy to lure Kermit into a trap. Using an electronic cerebrectomy device, mad scientist Professor Krassman (Mel Brooks) attempts to brainwash Kermit to perform in Doc’s commercials until Miss Piggy (infuriated by Krassman's insult) knocks out Doc Hopper's henchmen and causes the scientist to be zapped by his own device. After receiving a job offer, however, she promptly abandons Kermit in the barn alone and devastated. After being joined by Rowlf the Dog and eventually Miss Piggy once again, the Muppets continue their journey. Fozzie trades his uncle's Studebaker to a used car dealer for a 1946 Ford Woodie station wagon to accommodate their new friends, but later regrets the trade after the car overheats in the New Mexico desert. During a campfire that night, they sadly consider that they may miss the audition tomorrow, and Gonzo cheers up most of the group with a song about his longing to find his place in the world, while Kermit wanders off, ashamed of himself for seemingly bringing his friends into a dead end, and wondering whether his dreams were really worth leaving home for. Upon consulting a more optimistic vision of himself, Kermit remembers that it was not just his friends' belief in the dream that brought them this far, but also his own faith in himself. Reinvigorated, he returns to camp to find that the Electric Mayhem and Scooter have read the script in advance, and arrived to help them the rest of the way. Just as it seems they are finally on their way, the group is warned by Max that Doc Hopper has hired an assassin to kill Kermit. Kermit decides he will not be hunted by a bully any longer and proposes a Western-style showdown in a nearby ghost town inhabited by Dr. Bunsen Honeydew and his assistant Beaker, who invent materials that have yet to be tested. While confronting Hopper, Kermit explains his motivations, attempting to appeal to Hopper’s own hopes and dreams, but Hopper is unmoved and orders his henchmen to kill him and all his friends. They are saved only when one of Dr. Bunsen's inventions, "insta-grow" pills, temporarily turns Animal into a giant, scaring off Hopper and his men. The Muppets proceed to Hollywood, and are hired by producer and studio executive Lew Lord (Orson Welles). The Muppets attempt to make their first movie involving a surreal pastiche of their experiences. The first take suddenly erupts into a catastrophic explosion that makes a hole in the roof through which a portion of rainbow shines through on the Muppets. The film ends as the Muppets, joined by the characters from "Sesame Street", "Emmet Otter's Jug-Band Christmas", and the "The Land of Gorch" segment of "Saturday Night Live", to sing "Rainbow Connection". Back in the screening room, Sweetums bursts through the screen having finally caught up with the rest of the Muppets. Cast. Muppet performers. Frank Oz appears in a cameo as an biker that beats up Fozzie Bear while Steve Whitmire appears as a man in the Bogen County Fair. Production. Austin Pendleton recalled that the film was shot on "a very unhappy set, because Jim was very unhappy directing that movie. And I noticed that was the only time the Muppet people used an outside person to direct a Muppet movie. They never did that again. After that, it was either Jim Henson or Frank Oz. And I would have liked to have been in one of those, because those sets were very harmonious. But this was not." The film is dedicated to ventriloquist Edgar Bergen who died during production in September 1978. Style. "The Muppet Movie" uses meta-references as a source of humor, as characters occasionally break the fourth wall to address the audience or comment on their real-life circumstances: In a particularly meta-fictional plot twist, Kermit and Fozzie actually give the screenplay to Dr. Teeth, who later uses it to find and rescue them after they have been stranded in the desert. Locations. Filming locations included Albuquerque, New Mexico. Effects. To perform Kermit static on a log, Jim Henson squeezed into a specially designed metal container complete with an air hose (to breathe), a rubber sleeve which came out of the top to perform Kermit and a monitor to see his performance, and placed himself under the water, log, and the Kermit puppet. He was also assisted in this operation by Kathryn Mullen and Steve Whitmire. This scene took five days to film. Before this, no movie had a hand puppet act with its entire body appearing onscreen. That is, hand puppets were only seen from the waist up, and it became a major plot point to show Kermit with legs. To have Kermit ride a bicycle in a full-body shot, a Kermit doll with legs was posed onto the seat and his legs and arms were attached to the pedals and handlebars. An overhead crane with a marionette system held the bicycle through strong strings invisible to the camera, guiding the bicycle forward. The crane and system was out of the camera's frame of vision. Other shots required Muppets standing and acting in a full-body shot. Specially-made, remote-controlled dolls were placed on the set and controlled by puppeteers out of the frame. A dancing Kermit and Fozzie Bear were operated by Henson and Oz in front of a blue screen, and were composited onto a separate reel of the stage. Both of these effects and the bicycle effect would be used again, and refined, in the next Muppet films. Prop vehicles. Several classic cars were specially selected by Henson for appearances in the film. The most notable were a pair of 1951 Studebaker Commander Coupes driven by Fozzie Bear in the film. One car was painted but unmodified and driven by a person in the front seat. It was used for long, traveling shots. The second car was driven by a person in the trunk, who viewed the road through a TV set. The television received its image from a camera located in the center nose of the car's front grille. This made it possible for Frank Oz to perform Fozzie Bear in the front seat, and have the character seemingly drive the car in close-up shots. This car is now on display at the Studebaker Museum in South Bend, Indiana. Doc Hopper is chauffeured throughout the movie by Max in a 1959 Cadillac Fleetwood Limousine. The final car driven by the Muppets is a 1946 Ford Woodie station wagon, famous for its wood panel siding and is a valuable collectible. Release. Box office. The film sold over 30.5 million tickets and grossed $76,657,000 domestically (adjusted for inflation, this would equal $242,492,661 in 2012 dollars), making it the seventh highest-grossing picture of 1979 and also, the second highest-grossing Muppet film after the release of "The Muppets" in 2011. The success of the film gave Jim Henson Productions an opportunity to release more Muppet productions theatrically. Critical reception. "The Muppet Movie" received positive reviews. The film holds an 89% approval rating on aggregate review site Rotten Tomatoes with an average score of 7.8/10, based on 44 reviews. The site's consensus says ""The Muppet Movie", the big-screen debut of Jim Henson's plush creations, is smart, lighthearted, and fun for all ages." Roger Ebert of "The Chicago Sun-Times" gave the film three-and-a-half out of four stars. In his favorable review, he was fascinated that ""The Muppet Movie" not only stars the Muppets but, for the first time, shows us their feet." Vincent Canby of "The New York Times" offered equal praise, stating that the film "demonstrates once again that there's always room in movies for unbridled amiability when it's governed by intelligence and wit." In 2009, it was named to the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress for being “culturally, historically or aesthetically” significant and will be preserved for all time. Home media. "The Muppet Movie" was the first film released by ITC Entertainment to be released on home video when Magnetic Video released it in 1980, having bought the video rights to ITC's films. It was reissued a few times more by CBS/Fox before it was released by Jim Henson Home Video in 1993. The film was first released on DVD by Sony Pictures on June 5, 2001. The film was re-released on DVD and rebranded by Walt Disney Pictures on November 29, 2005 as "Kermit's 50th Anniversary Edition". Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment released "The Muppet Movie" as the "Nearly 35th Anniversary Edition" on Blu-ray on August 13, 2013. Music. The film's music was written by Paul Williams and Kenny Ascher. Regarding the music's composition, Williams said; "Jim Henson gave you more freedom than anybody I've ever worked with in my life. I said, 'You want to hear the songs as we're writing them?' He said, 'No. I'll hear them in the studio. I know I'm gonna love them.' You just don't get that kind of freedom on a project these days." "Movin' Right Along", "Never Before, Never Again" and "I Hope That Somethin' Better Comes Along" were shortened in the film, compared to their soundtrack versions, for continuity purposes. The latter, a duet between Rowlf and Kermit, contained references that the studio considered too mature for children. In "Finale: The Magic Store", a line performed by Kermit in the film is sung by Fozzie on the soundtrack recording.
1099444	Karl Pearson FRS (27 March 1857 – 27 April 1936) (originally named Carl) was an influential English mathematician who has been credited with establishing the discipline of mathematical statistics. In 1911 he founded the world's first university statistics department at University College London. He was a proponent of eugenics, and a protégé and biographer of Sir Francis Galton. A sesquicentenary conference was held in London on 23 March 2007, to celebrate the 150th anniversary of his birth. Family. Carl Pearson, later known as Karl Pearson (1857–1936), was born to William Pearson and Fanny Smith, who had three children, Aurthur, Carl (Karl) and Amy. William Pearson also sired an illegitimate son, Frederick Mockett. Pearson's mother, Fanny Pearson née Smith, came from a family of master mariners who sailed their own ships from Hull; his father read law at Edinburgh and was a successful barrister and Queen's Counsel (QC). William Pearson's father's family came from the North Riding of Yorkshire. "Carl Pearson" inadvertently became "Karl Pearson" when he enrolled at the University of Heidelberg in 1879, which changed the spelling. He used both variants of his name until 1884 when he finally adopted Karl. Eventually he became universally known as "KP". He was also an accomplished historian and Germanist. He spent much of the 1880s in Berlin, Heidelberg, Vienna, Saig bei Lenzkirch, and Brixlegg. He wrote on Passion plays, religion, Goethe, Werther, as well as sex-related themes, and was a founder of the Men and Women's Club. In 1890 he married Maria Sharpe, who was related to the Kenrick, Reid, Rogers and Sharpe families, late 18th century and 19th century non-conformists largely associated with north London; they included: Karl and Maria Pearson had two daughters, Sigrid Loetitia Pearson and Helga Sharpe Pearson, and one son, Egon Sharpe Pearson. Egon Pearson became an eminent statistician himself, establishing the Neyman-Pearson lemma. He succeeded his father as head of the Applied Statistics Department at University College. He and his family lived at 7 Well Road in Hampstead, now marked with a blue plaque. Education and early work. Karl Pearson was educated privately at University College School, after which he went to King's College, Cambridge in 1876 to study mathematics, graduating in 1879 as Third Wrangler in the Mathematical Tripos. He then travelled to Germany to study physics at the University of Heidelberg under G H Quincke and metaphysics under Kuno Fischer. He next visited the University of Berlin, where he attended the lectures of the famous physiologist Emil du Bois-Reymond on Darwinism (Emil was a brother of Paul du Bois-Reymond, the mathematician). Other subjects which he studied in Berlin included Roman Law, taught by Bruns and Mommsen, medieval and 16th century German Literature, and Socialism. He was strongly influenced by the courses he attended at this time and he became sufficiently expert on German literature that he was offered a Germanics post at Kings College, Cambridge. On returning to England in 1880, Pearson first went to Cambridge: In his first book, "The New Werther", Pearson gives a clear indication of why he studied so many diverse subjects: Pearson then returned to London to study law so that he might, like his father, be called to the Bar. Quoting Pearson's own account: His next career move was to Inner Temple, where he read law until 1881 (although he never practised). After this, he returned to mathematics, deputizing for the mathematics professor at King's College London in 1881 and for the professor at University College London in 1883. In 1884, he was appointed to the Goldsmid Chair of Applied Mathematics and Mechanics at University College London. Pearson became the editor of "Common Sense of the Exact Sciences" (1885) when William Kingdon Clifford passed on. 1891 saw him also appointed to the professorship of Geometry at Gresham College; here he met Walter Frank Raphael Weldon, a zoologist who had some interesting problems requiring quantitative solutions. The collaboration, in biometry and evolutionary theory, was a fruitful one and lasted until Weldon died in 1906. Weldon introduced Pearson to Charles Darwin's cousin Francis Galton, who was interested in aspects of evolution such as heredity and eugenics. Pearson became Galton's protégé — his "statistical heir" as some have put it — at times to the verge of hero worship. After Galton's death in 1911, Pearson embarked on producing his definitive biography—a three-volume tome of narrative, letters, genealogies, commentaries, and photographs—published in 1914, 1924, and 1930, with much of Pearson's own financing paying for their print runs. The biography, done "to satisfy myself and without regard to traditional standards, to the needs of publishers or to the tastes of the reading public", triumphed Galton's life, work, and personal heredity. He predicted that Galton, rather than Charles Darwin, would be remembered as the most prodigious grandson of Erasmus Darwin. When Galton died, he left the residue of his estate to the University of London for a Chair in Eugenics. Pearson was the first holder of this chair—the "Galton Chair of Eugenics", later the "Galton Chair of Genetics"—in accordance with Galton's wishes. He formed the Department of Applied Statistics (with financial support from the Drapers' Company), into which he incorporated the Biometric and Galton laboratories. He remained with the department until his retirement in 1933, and continued to work until his death in 1936. Einstein and Pearson's work. When the 23 year-old Albert Einstein started a study group, the Olympia Academy, with his two younger friends, Maurice Solovine and Conrad Habicht, he suggested that the first book to be read was Pearson's "The Grammar of Science". This book covered several themes that were later to become part of the theories of Einstein and other scientists. Pearson asserted that the laws of nature are relative to the perceptive ability of the observer. Irreversibility of natural processes, he claimed, is a purely relative conception. An observer who travels at the exact velocity of light would see an eternal now, or an absence of motion. He speculated that an observer who traveled faster than light would see time reversal, similar to a cinema film being run backwards. Pearson also discussed antimatter, the fourth dimension, and wrinkles in time. Pearson's relativity was based on idealism, in the sense of ideas or pictures in a mind. "There are many signs," he wrote, "that a sound idealism is surely replacing, as a basis for natural philosophy, the crude materialism of the older physicists." (Preface to 2nd Ed., "The Grammar of Science") Further, he stated, "...science is in reality a classification and analysis of the contents of the mind..." "In truth, the field of science is much more consciousness than an external world." ("Ibid.", Ch. II, § 6) "Law in the scientific sense is thus essentially a product of the human mind and has no meaning apart from man." ("Ibid.", Ch. III, § 4) Politics and eugenics. A eugenicist who applied his social Darwinism to entire nations, Pearson saw "war" against "inferior races" as a logical implication of his scientific work on human measurement: "My view – and I think it may be called the scientific view of a nation," he wrote, "is that of an organized whole, kept up to a high pitch of internal efficiency by insuring that its numbers are substantially recruited from the better stocks, and kept up to a high pitch of external efficiency by contest, chiefly by way of war with inferior races." He reasoned that, if August Weismann's theory of germ plasm is correct, the nation is wasting money when it tries to improve people who come from poor stock. Weismann claimed that acquired characteristics could not be inherited. Therefore, training benefits only the trained generation. Their children will not exhibit the learned improvements and, in turn, will need to be improved. "No degenerate and feeble stock will ever be converted into healthy and sound stock by the accumulated effects of education, good laws, and sanitary surroundings. Such means may render the individual members of a stock passable if not strong members of society, but the same process will have to be gone through again and again with their offspring, and this in ever-widening circles, if the stock, owing to the conditions in which society has placed it, is able to increase its numbers." (Introduction, "The Grammar of Science"). "History shows me one way, and one way only, in which a high state of civilization has been produced, namely, the struggle of race with race, and the survival of the physically and mentally fitter race. If you want to know whether the lower races of man can evolve a higher type, I fear the only course is to leave them to fight it out among themselves, and even then the struggle for existence between individual and individual, between tribe and tribe, may not be supported by that physical selection due to a particular climate on which probably so much of the Aryan's success depended . . ." Pearson was known in his lifetime as a prominent "freethinker" and socialist. He gave lectures on such issues as "the woman's question" (this was the era of the suffragist movement in the UK) and upon Karl Marx. His commitment to socialism and its ideals led him to refuse the offer of being created an OBE (Officer of the Order of the British Empire) in 1920 and also to refuse a knighthood in 1935. In "The Myth of the Jewish Race" Raphael and Jennifer Patai cite Karl Pearson's 1925 opposition (in the first issue of the journal "Annals of Eugenics" which he founded) to Jewish immigration into Britain. Pearson alleged that these immigrants "will develop into a parasitic race"...taken on the average, and regarding both sexes, this alien Jewish population is somewhat inferior physically and mentally to the native population". Awards from professional bodies. Pearson achieved widespread recognition across a range of disciplines and his membership of, and awards from, various professional bodies reflects this: He was also elected an Honorary Fellow of King's College Cambridge, the Royal Society of Edinburgh, University College London and the Royal Society of Medicine, and a Member of the Actuaries' Club. Contributions to statistics. Pearson's work was all-embracing in the wide application and development of mathematical statistics, and encompassed the fields of biology, epidemiology, anthropometry, medicine and social history. In 1901, with Weldon and Galton, he founded the journal "Biometrika" whose object was the development of statistical theory. He edited this journal until his death. Among those who assisted Pearson in his research were a number of female mathematicians who included Beatrice Mabel Cave-Browne-Cave and Frances Cave-Browne-Cave. He also founded the journal "Annals of Eugenics" (now "Annals of Human Genetics") in 1925. He published the "Drapers' Company Research Memoirs" largely to provide a record of the output of the Department of Applied Statistics not published elsewhere. Pearson's thinking underpins many of the 'classical' statistical methods which are in common use today. Examples of his contributions are: References. Most of the biographical information above is taken from the Karl Pearson page at the Department of Statistical Sciences at University College London, which has been placed in the public domain. The main source for that page was "A list of the papers and correspondence of Karl Pearson (1857–1936)" held in the Manuscripts Room, University College London Library, compiled by M. Merrington, B. Blundell, S. Burrough, J. Golden and J. Hogarth and published by the Publications Office, University College London, 1983. Additional information from entry for Karl Pearson in the Sackler Digital Archive of the Royal Society
1161341	Alfred Langston "Finesse" Mitchell (born June 12, 1972) is an American actor, author and stand-up comedian. From 2003 to 2006, he was a cast member on "Saturday Night Live". Mitchell has also appeared on such television shows as "Showtime at the Apollo", BET's "ComicView", "Comedy Central Presents", Disney's "A.N.T. Farm" and NBC's "Late Friday". Early life. Finesse Mitchell was born in Atlanta. He is a graduate of The University of Miami, where he was a member of the football team and the Iota Chi Chapter of Kappa Alpha Psi fraternity. Career. Mitchell made his first television appearance on BET’s "Comic View" in 1999 where he instantly became a favorite among the show’s loyal followers. Shortly after Comic View, Mitchell moved to both Los Angeles and New York City where he had several appearances on "The Late Late Show with Craig Kilborn" and two on "Late Night with Conan O'Brien." This sparked high demands from universities, corporate events, and concert promoters all over the U.S. and internationally. He was offered his own Comedy Central half hour special and is now headlining various comedy clubs on the circuit. In 2003, Mitchell was asked to be a feature player on "Saturday Night Live." In 2005 he was promoted to cast member. Mitchell was a featured player on "SNL'"s 29th and 30th seasons, and became a full cast member at the start of the 31st. His screen time was drastically reduced after this promotion. On September 20, 2006, "Saturday Night Live" announced that the show was dropping Mitchell, Chris Parnell and Horatio Sanz from the show due to budget cuts. After his stint on "SNL", he has continued performing stand-up comedy and appeared in the films "Who's Your Caddy?" The Comebacks and "Mad Money". From 2008 to 2009 Mitchell made several appearances on The Today Show as a guest correspondent and on Tyra and Chelsea Lately as a guest panelist. In 2010, he appeared in the Comedy Central sketch series "Nick Swardson's Pretend Time". With the help of Quincy Jones’s son, QD3, Mitchell released his stand-up comedy available in DVD form entitled, “Snap Famous.” He is also a writer and offers relationship advice in "Essence" magazine. In addition to his column, he has released a book entitled, “Your Girlfriends Only Know So Much” (Simon & Schuster), that gives dating advice to African-American women. On September 13, 2008, he married Jessica Santos in Atlanta. On May 20, 2011 Mitchell and Santos divorced and Mitchell now resides in Los Angeles. In 2012, he participated in Fox's dating game show "The Choice".
995475	Children Of Glory (), is a 2006 film directed by Krisztina Goda. Synopsis. Children of Glory commemorates Hungary's Revolution of 1956 and the Blood in the Water match. Taking place in Budapest and at the Melbourne Olympic Games in October and November of that year, the film takes viewers into the passion and sadness of one of the most dramatic popular revolts of the twentieth century. In the same year Soviet tanks were violently suppressing the Revolution within Hungary, the Hungarian water polo team was winning over Russia in the Olympic pool in Melbourne, in what is sometimes described as the bloodiest water polo match in history. While telling the story of 1956 in part through fictional lead characters, the film-makers simultaneously recreated many of the key public events of the Revolution, including the huge demonstrations and the fighting in the streets of Budapest.
1163783	Ann Sheridan (February 21, 1915 – January 21, 1967) was an American actress. She worked regularly from 1934 to her death in 1967, first in film and later in television. Notable roles include "Angels With Dirty Faces" (1938), "The Man Who Came to Dinner" (1942), "Kings Row" (1942) and "I Was a Male War Bride" (1949). She is not to be confused with Anne Sheridan (1908–2008), another actress, who performed in silent films of the 1920s. Life and career. Born Clara Lou Sheridan in Denton, Texas on February 21, 1915, she was a student at the University of North Texas when her sister sent a photograph of her to Paramount Pictures. She subsequently entered and won a beauty contest, with part of her prize being a bit part in a Paramount film. She abandoned college to pursue a career in Hollywood.
1163214	Kenan Thompson (born May 10, 1978) is an American actor, voice actor and comedian. He is best known for his work as an original cast member of Nickelodeon's sketch comedy series "All That" in his teenage years and his current work as a cast member of "Saturday Night Live". Thompson is also known for his roles in the sitcom "Kenan & Kel" and the films "Good Burger" and "Fat Albert". In his early career he often collaborated with fellow comedian and "All That" cast member Kel Mitchell. He ranked at #88 on VH1's 100 Greatest Teen Stars. Early life and career. Thompson was born and raised in Atlanta, Georgia, the son of Fletcher and Elizabeth Ann Thompson. He has one sibling, Kerwin Thompson. He began acting at age 15, appearing in the school play "The Gingerbread Duck". One of his earliest roles was as an entertainment reporter for CNN's "Real News for Kids", and he would go on to star in "All That", and "Kenan & Kel". While Kenan attended Tri-Cities High School, a Visual and Performing Arts Magnet School in East Point, Georgia, he began filming his first movie, "". Film and television career. Kenan has starred in several films including "Good Burger", based on the "All That" sketch of the same name, and "Fat Albert", in which he played the title character. He has also had supporting roles in the movies "Heavyweights", ', "Love Don't Cost a Thing", ', "My Boss's Daughter", and "Snakes on a Plane". Kenan had a recurring role on "The Steve Harvey Show" as Junior, with co-star Kel Mitchell. Recently, he returned to Nickelodeon for the show "The Mighty B!" as the voice of Rocky Rhodes. He also guest-starred on iCarly as himself. In 2009, Thompson was a regular voice actor in the Fox cartoon series, "Sit Down, Shut Up", portraying Sue Sezno, who, as evidenced by her last name, always says no. The series premiered on April 19, 2009, but was canceled after only four episodes due to low ratings and less than favorable reviews. Thompson provided the voice for the LeBron James puppet in Nike's MVP "Most Valuable Puppets" commercials, which were produced to be shown throughout the 2009 NBA Playoffs. Thompson also guest starred on the USA Network TV show "Psych", Season 4's "High Top Fade Out" (episode 7). He played an estranged college singing buddy of the character Gus. In 2011 he briefly returned to Nickelodeon, as he guest starred in "iParty with Victorious", a crossover episode of TV sitcoms "iCarly" and "Victorious". Thompson is the current host of TeenNick's 1990's programming block, The '90s Are All That. "Saturday Night Live". Kenan Thompson returned to sketch comedy when he joined the cast of "Saturday Night Live" in 2003, becoming the first "SNL" cast member to be born after "SNL"'s premiere in 1975 and the first "SNL" cast member to have been a cast member on children's shows ("All That" and "Kenan and Kel"). His comedy partner and friend, Kel Mitchell also auditioned to be on "SNL", but only Kenan Thompson made it. Thompson was a feature player until 2005 (spanning the 29th and 30th seasons), and was promoted to repertory player at the beginning of season 31 (the 2005-2006 season). As of September 2013, Kenan has spent 11 years in the cast of "Saturday Night Live", breaking the record for longest running African-American cast member once held by Tim Meadows. With Fred Armisen off the show and Seth Meyers, who will leave after December, Thompson will be the senior cast member for over (about to be) 11 seasons, and the second oldest after Bobby Moynihan (who was born in 1977). Personal life. Thompson married Christina Evangeline on November 11, 2011. SNL characters. Thompson's recurring characters on "Saturday Night Live" include:
586124	Naalu Pennungal ("Four Women", Malayalam: നാല് പെണ്ണുങ്ങള്‍) is a 2007 Malayalam film produced and directed by Adoor Gopalakrishnan based on four short stories written by Thakazhi Sivasankara Pillai. The film stars Padmapriya, Geethu Mohandas, Manju Pillai, and Nandita Das in the major roles, and KPAC Lalitha, Mukesh, Manoj K. Jayan, Sona Nair, Sreejith Ravi, Ravi Vallathol, Nandulal, Remya Nabeeshan, P. Sreekumar, M. R. Gopakumar, and Kavya Madhavan in supporting roles. The movie chronicles a journey of womanhood across assorted backdrops with a classic amalgamation of source matters and techniques that splendidly spans times and frames. The movie has four distinct parts - each adapted from separate short stories by Thakazhi Sivasankara Pillai. Each of the parts narrate the stories of women from different strata of the society. Though the stories are not explicitly connected in narration, a pattern emerges in the flow of the movie - both in the chronological setting and the stature of the women. Adoor Gopalakrishnan won the National Film Award for Best Direction for the film. Plot. "Naalu Pennungal" is the story of four women from Kuttanad in Alappuzha district in Kerala. The stories are set in the years between 1940s to the 1960s. The Prostitute The first story profiled is the story of a street prostitute Kunjipennu (Padmapriya) and Pappukutty (Sreejith Ravi) who decide to start a life as husband and wife. They have bound themselves in matrimony that does not have any legal sanction. When the law catches up with them, they do not have anything that can be an evidence of their commitment towards each other. The story ends in the court scene where the helpless couple are punished for the crime of prostituition. The Virgin Kumari (Geethu Mohandas)- literally, a virgin girl- is a farm worker who shouldered the responsibility of running her household at a very early age. Her father (M. R. Gopakumar), having realized her advancing age, accepts a suitable marriage proposal for her. After the wedding, her husband, Narayanan (Nandulal), behaves strangely, as he evades any kind of contact with her including verbal conversation and sexual activity. The husband's mysterious behaviour is accentuated by his glut. After a few days, the couple make the customary visit to Kumari's house. Narayanan, leaves Kumari in her house after the visit and never returns to take her back. As days pass, rumours spread that she has been abandoned by him because of her infidelity. Her father unable to bear the shame of it, picks up a fight with the neighbour who had brought the marriage proposal. Kumari, who had maintained silence so far, emerges from the house and declares that the marriage never happened. The Housewife Chinnu Amma (Manju Pillai) is a childless housewife. She lives a fairly contented life with her loving husband (Murali). Her husband works in a nearby town and she spends her time alone at home. One day, she is visited by Nara Pillai (Mukesh), a former classmate. Nara Pillai had ran away to Tamil Nadu, long ago and now visits his village rarely. He is said to have made good in Tamil Nadu and speaks Malayalam with a heavy Tamil accent even when he is back in Kerala. Through their conversations we realize that they both had an amorous encounter in their childhood, from which Chinnu Amma escaped narrowly due to her fear of getting pregnant out of wed-lock. Nara Pillai assumes that she is vulnerable and attempts to talk her into bed, promising her a healthy off spring.Chinnu Amma's mind vacillates, but in the end of the movie she boldly declines the offer. The Spinster The last one, is about an upper middleclass girl (Nandita Das). She has a quiet life in a family composed of her widowed mother (Lalitha), an elder brother and two sisters. The story begins with a marriage proposal for her, which fails as the groom (Ravi Vallathol) prefers her younger sister (Kavya Madhavan). She silently witnesses the marriage. As years pass on, her elder brother (Ashokan) also gets married. As she walks towards middle age, her youngest sister (Remya Nambeesan) also gets married. Once the mother passes away, she is forced to move in with her younger sister's family. Things seem to go well initially, with her getting close to her nieces. Her sister's husband apologizes to her, for being the reason for her failed marriage proposal. But, soon problems surface as her sister gets jealous of her and starts imagining a non-existing affair with her husband and her. She goes back home alone, refusing to live with either her brother or the youngest sister. She finally has broken the shackles of others controlling her life and has decided to live on her own. Production. The project to make films on Thakazhi Sivasankara Pillai's stories came when Doordarshan in their Timeless Classics series wanted to compile works of writers in different languages who have produced classic literature. This was the first film in the project and was followed by Oru Pennum Randaanum in the next year. Both the films have a four-chapter-structure based on independent short stories by Thakazhi Sivasankara Pillai. Both the films also share the same geographical and temporal setting. Adoor selected the stories on which the movie is based, from the 300-400 stories that Pillai wrote. They were originally written over a long period of time. Thee director stated that, he chose these particular stories, because of their current relevance. He has claimed that unlike his previous films, this one is less complex. Reception. The film premiered in the masters section of the Toronto International Film Festival in September,2007. The films has so far been screened at more than twenty festivals The Miami International Film Festival selected Adoor Gopalakrishnan's Naalu Pennungal. Besides Adoor, Geethu Mohandas who featured in the story 'Kanyaka' and Martin Sebastian, the co-producer of the film attended the film festival. The film was also screened at the following festivals. Legacy. Noted Marathi filmmaker Sachin Kundalkar said that his third film "Gandha" (Smell), an ensemble of three stories interconnected by the theme of 'smell', was inspired by "Naalu Pennungal".
760791	The Super Fight was a fictional 1970 boxing match between Rocky Marciano and Muhammad Ali. At the time, Ali and Marciano were the only undefeated heavyweight champions in history and fans often debated who would win had they met in their primes. Ali and Marciano were filmed acting out every possible scenario in a fight and the result was then determined using probability formulas entered into a computer. The final fight was only shown once in selected cinemas around the world and later released as a DVD. Concept. In 1967, the radio producer Murray Woroner had the idea of determining the all-time great heavyweight champion of the world in a series of fantasy fights between boxing champions of different eras. Woroner sent out a survey to 250 boxing experts and writers to help determine which boxers would be used in the imaginary fights. Woroner picked the first round of fantasy matches to be: Punch-by-punch details of the boxer's records during their prime were entered into an NCR 315 computer. Also their strengths, weaknesses, fighting styles and patterns and other factors and scenarios that the boxers could go through were converted into formulas. The NCR-315 with 20K of memory was supplied by SPS (Systems Programming Services), an independent service bureau in Miami Fla. The algorithms were supplied by an NCR mathematician, and programming was done in Fortran by an employee of SPS. Hank Meyer, President and salesman with a one other partner in SPS, was instrumental in setting this competition up, and contended at the time that it was his idea. The actual running of the software was done the night before each broadcast round of the 'computer championship' and took approximately 45 minutes to run, the output was a formatted report containing a series of codes describing each punch. This was then written to magnetic tape, the tape was then manually transferred to a Univac 1005 and printed. This early form of "foot-powered" networking was referred to as sneakernet, the reason for doing this was cost, it was cheaper to print on a 1005 than the 315. This took place in early 1968.
1063686	Hustle & Flow is a 2005 American independent drama film written and directed by Craig Brewer and produced by John Singleton and Stephanie Allain. It was released on July 22, 2005. Terrence Howard stars as a Memphis hustler and pimp who faces his aspiration to become a rapper. The movie was dedicated to Sun Records founder Sam Phillips.
1104206	Kenneth Ira Appel (October 8, 1932 – April 19, 2013) was an American mathematician who in 1976, with colleague Wolfgang Haken at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, solved one of the most famous problems in mathematics, the four-color theorem. They proved that any two-dimensional map, with certain limitations, can be filled in with four colors without any adjacent "countries" sharing the same color. Biography. Appel was born in Brooklyn, New York, on October 8, 1932, and he died in Dover, New Hampshire, on April 19, 2013, after contracting esophageal cancer in October 2012. He grew up in Queens, New York, and was the son of Irwin Appel and Lillian Sender Appel. He worked as an actuary for a brief time and then served in the U.S. Army for two years at Fort Benning, Georgia, and in Baumholder, Germany. In 1959, he finished his doctoral program at the University of Michigan, and he also married Carole S. Stein in Philadelphia. After getting married, the couple moved to Princeton, New Jersey, where Kenneth worked for the Institute for Defense Analyses from 1959 to 1961. His main work at the Institute of Defense Analysis was doing research in cryptography. Towards the end of his life, in 2012, he was elected a Fellow of the American Mathematical Society. Kenneth Appel was also the treasurer of the Strafford County Democratic Committee. He played tennis through his early 50s, he was a lifelong stamp collector, a player of the game of Go and a baker of bread. He and Carole had two sons, Andrew W. Appel, a noted computer scientist, and Peter H. Appel, and a daughter, Laurel F. Appel, who died on March 4, 2013. Appel also has five grandchildren named Avi and Joseph Appel, Rebecca and Nathaniel Weir, and Carmen Appel. He was also a member of the Dover school board from 2010 until his death. Schooling and teaching. Kenneth Appel received his bachelor's degree from Queens College in 1953. After serving the army he attended the University of Michigan where he earned his M.A. in 1956, and then later his Ph.D. in 1959. Roger Lyndon was his doctoral advisor and is a mathematician whose main mathematical focus was in group theory. After working for the Institute for Defense Analyses, in 1969 he joined the Mathematics Department faculty at the University of Illinois as an Assistant Professor. While here Kenneth researched on group theory and computability theory. In 1967 he became an Associate Professor and in 1977 obtained the title of Professor. It was while he was at this school that he and Wolfgang Haken proved the four color theorem. From their work and proof of this theorem they were later awarded the Delbert Ray Fulkerson prize, in 1979, by the American Mathematical Society and the Mathematical Programming Society. While at the University of Illinois Kenneth took on five students during their doctoral program. Each student helped contribute to the work on the Mathematics Genealogy Project. In 1993 he moved to New Hampshire where he earned the position of the Chairman of the Mathematics Department at the University of New Hampshire. In 2003 Kenneth Appel's teaching career came to an end as he retired as professor emeritus. During his retirement he would volunteer in mathematics enrichment programs in Dover and southern Maine public schools. His belief was "that students should be afforded the opportunity to study mathematics at the level of their ability, even if it is well above their grade level." Contributions to mathematics. The four color theorem. Kenneth Appel is known for his work in topology, which is the branch of mathematics that explores certain properties of geometric figures. Mainly his biggest accomplishment was proving the four color theorem in 1976 with Wolfgang Haken. The New York Times wrote in 1976, "Now the four-color conjecture has been proved by two University of Illinois mathematicians, Kenneth Appel and Wolfgang Haken. They had an invaluable tool that earlier mathematicians lacked—modern computers. Their present proof rests in part on 1,200 hours of computer calculation during which about ten billion logical decisions had to be made. The proof of the four-color conjecture is unlikely to be of applied significance. Nevertheless, what has been accomplished is a major intellectual feat. It gives us an important new insight into the nature of two-dimensional space and of the ways in which such space can be broken into discrete portions." At first, most mathematicians were against the fact that Appel and Haken were using computers, since this was new at the time, and even Appel said, "Most mathematicians, even as late as the 1970s, had no real interest in learning about computers. It was almost as if those of us who enjoyed playing with computers were doing something nonmathematical or suspect." The actual proof was described in an article as long as a typical book titled "Every Planar Map is Four Colorable", Contemporary Mathematics, vol. 98, American Mathematical Society, 1989. The proof has been one of the most controversial of modern mathematics because of its heavy dependence on computer "number-crunching" to sort through possibilities, which drew criticism from many in the mathematical community for its inelegance: "a good mathematical proof is like a poem—this is a telephone directory!" Appel and Haken agreed in a 1977 interview that it was not "elegant, concise, and completely comprehensible by a human mathematical mind". Nevertheless, the proof was the start of a change in mathematicians' attitudes toward computers—which they had largely disdained as a tool for engineers rather than for theoreticians—leading to the creation of what is sometimes called "experimental mathematics". Group theory. Kenneth Appel also cowrote an article with P.E. Schupp titled "Artin Groups and Infinite Coxeter Groups". In this article Appel and Schupp introduced four theorems that are true about Coxeter groups and then proved them to be true for Artin groups. The proofs of these four theorems used "the results and methods of small cancellation theory."
1015887	Run Papa Run () is a 2008 Hong Kong comedy-drama film directed and co-written by Sylvia Chang, and based on a novel by Benny Li. It was produced by JCE Movies Limited, with Jackie Chan serving as an executive producer. Featuring an ensemble cast, the film stars Louis Koo as Lee Tin-Yun, a Triad boss who struggles to hide his criminal lifestyle when he is faced with raising his daughter. Award nominations. 28th Hong Kong Film Awards
1071967	Plot. Shozo Iwaki (Tak Sakaguchi) is a strong fighter with a strong disregard for his own safety during fights by shrugging off all wounds and damage. He has a falling out with his father, the Boss Yakuza Kenzo Iwaki (Akaji Maro) and spends years in the South American jungle fighting mercenaries. After a battle against opposing soldiers, Shozo is found by Red Tiger and his team, a Japanese special agent who informs him that his father was assassinated.
1058503	Where the Truth Lies is a 2005 drama film, written and directed by Atom Egoyan. It stars Kevin Bacon, Colin Firth, and Alison Lohman, and is based on the 2003 novel of the same name by Rupert Holmes. Plot. The film alternates between 1957, when comedy duo Lanny Morris and Vince Collins are at the height of their success, and 1972, when journalist Karen O'Connor is determined to unravel the mystery of a young woman found dead in their hotel suite 15 years before. In 1957, immediately after hosting a 39-hour-long polio telethon in a Miami television studio, Morris and Collins fly north to open the new showroom of a New Jersey hotel run by mobster Sally San Marco, who has intimidated them into appearing in order to improve his own image. In their New Jersey hotel suite, shortly after their arrival, the nude body of Miami college student Maureen O'Flaherty is found in a bathtub. Maureen, an aspiring journalist working for the summer as a server at the comedy team's Miami hotel (which is also owned by San Marco), had been researching an article for her school newspaper on the comedy team, and had interviewed them in Miami just before she disappeared. Police investigation in no way connects either Morris or Collins to Maureen's death, which is officially attributed to a drug overdose. But soon after her body is discovered, the two men's comedy partnership is dissolved, despite their enormous success and the closeness of their dependence on one another. Meanwhile, many unanswered questions remain for the investigators of Maureen's death; the most confusing aspect is how Maureen's body made it from Miami to New Jersey at the same time the comedians were traveling. 15 years later, Karen, who as a young polio survivor first met the duo at the same telethon portrayed in the movie's opening sequence, accepts a job to ghostwrite Vince Collins' autobiography - a deal from which Collins will earn $1 million, which he badly needs. The project is complicated by the fact that she keeps receiving anonymously-sent chapters from a book about the one-time duo that Lanny Morris himself has written; Karen had some prior knowledge of Morris' book project. Karen, who has idolized the comedians ever since first meeting them, encounters Morris, accompanied by his faithful valet Reuben, by chance in the first-class section of a flight, where she has to share a dinner table with them. Wishing to keep her identity secret, during the meal she introduces herself as "Bonnie Trout", the name of the best friend with whom she has traded apartments. Morris and Karen hit it off and have sex in his hotel. He disappears the next morning, apparently without leaving her a note. Under her own name, Karen begins to work on the Collins autobiography. Complications arise when Collins invites her to an all-day working session at his Los Angeles home and she learns that Morris will be joining them as well. Near-panic ensues; she abruptly invents an excuse to leave, but meets Morris in the driveway, and her masquerade is revealed - Morris discovers she has lied to him about who she is, and Collins discovers that the woman he thought was helping him write his memoirs is having or has had an affair with his ex-partner. He agrees to continue with the book, but creates a situation in which he hopes to be able to blackmail Karen into staying away from the story of Maureen O'Flaherty, which is Karen's consuming interest. Thus, after plying Karen with wine and drugs, Collins manipulates her into having sex with a young aspiring singer named Alice. He photographs the two women in compromising positions and tells Karen that unless she tells the publisher that there is nothing odd or improper surrounding Maureen's death, he will make the pictures public. Karen discovers that Maureen had secretly recorded her interactions with Morris and Collins. Gradually, it becomes clear what really happened that night 15 years before: the three had engaged in a ménage à trois, fueled by drugs and booze, and at some point Collins tried to have sex with Morris, who resisted violently. When Collins retreated to his room, Maureen tried to blackmail Morris to keep this information secret: in 1957, it would have finished Collins professionally and personally if it had come out that he was bisexual. Collins passed out in his room, Morris in his, and Maureen fell asleep on the couch. In the morning, she was dead. Fifteen years later, Collins indeed faces the destruction of his life when Karen begins to uncover the story; Morris is horrified by the effects of what Karen is doing, and Karen discovers more about Morris' "fix-it man", Reuben. While both Morris and Collins were convinced the other murdered Maureen, they smuggled her body in a crate full of lobsters (a gift from San Marco) with Reuben's assistance, and the crate was shipped ahead of them to the New Jersey hotel. The tape recorder was on during the entire night, but the tape was missing all these years. Reuben confessed to Karen that he murdered Maureen to protect his employers' reputations, and produces the tape to confirm his guilt. He asks Karen if her publishing company will pay him, say, $1 million for the tape. Karen puts two and two together and realizes that Reuben was blackmailing Collins, demanding $1 million to keep quiet his bisexuality, proven on the tape, and perhaps his having murdered Maureen. (Collins was so drunk and drugged during that episode that he plainly doesn't remember what happened.) Reuben was demanding a million dollars for a murder he himself committed. At the end of the film, Collins is indeed destroyed, Morris is furious at Karen for all that she has set in motion, and Karen has the answer to her mystery. Also, Karen tells Mrs. O'Flaherty that she will publish the truth only after an innocent bystander has died - referring to Maureen's mother herself, who would have been crushed to learn of her daughter's sexual activities and her attempted foray into blackmail. Production. Rupert Holmes admittedly patterned Vince and Lanny on his childhood idols, Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis, although the plot was pure fiction. Holmes called it a study of "the trust that must exist between any show business team who puts their lives in each other's hands" and "what happens when they no longer trust each other." Shortly after the novel was published, Holmes was asked who he envisioned playing the lead roles in a film adaptation. He suggested Ben Affleck, Matt Damon, and Kate Hudson, or Tom Cruise, Ben Stiller "and any actress in America who's shorter than they are." Tongue-in-cheek, he continued, "Or what about Kukla, Fran and Ollie? This is probably why I'm not a studio head." Scenes in Vince's home were filmed at the Stahl House in Los Angeles, while the Brantford Airport stood in for Newark International Airport. Other exteriors were filmed in Toronto, with interiors shot at Shepperton Studios in Surrey, England. The film's soundtrack includes "Josephine, Please No Lean on the Bell" performed by Louis Prima, "Spinning Wheel" by Blood, Sweat & Tears, "Oye Como Va" by Santana, and "Maggot Brain" by Funkadelic. "White Rabbit", written by Grace Slick and originally recorded by Jefferson Airplane, is featured prominently in one scene, while "You Know, You Know" and "Sanctuary", performed by Mahavishnu Orchestra, appear in the film's most erotic sequence. Rating. The film received an NC-17 rating in the United States due to scenes depicting a threesome and graphic lesbian sex. Egoyan condemned the MPAA decision as "a violent act of censorship", while Bacon stated, "I don't get it, when I see films (that) are extremely violent, extremely objectable sometimes in terms of the roles that women play, slide by with an R, no problem, because the people happen to have more clothes on." Both suggested that homophobia may have played a role in the decision, as the film deals in part with repressed homosexuality. THINKFilm executives opted to release the film unrated in the United States. The rating was later a minor subject of analysis in the documentary "This Film Is Not Yet Rated". Release. Box office. The film premiered at the 2005 Cannes Film Festival and was shown at the Karlovy Vary Film Festival, the Toronto International Film Festival, the Woodstock Film Festival, and Festival do Rio in Brazil, before going into theatrical release in Canada on October 7, 2005 and the United States the following week. It grossed $872,142 in North America and $2,605,536 in other markets, for a total worldwide box office of $3,477,678. The unrated designation hurt the film's financial return, since many theatres would not show it. Critical reception. Manohla Dargis of the "New York Times" observed, "Mr. Egoyan . . . tends to stray from the storytelling straight and narrow, taking a generally metafictional approach to narrative. Here, he seems to want to deconstruct celebrity through the familiar mechanics of a murder mystery. Yet because he also doesn't want to be imprisoned by genre, he tries to shake loose its rules, much as Robert Altman did in 1973 with his laid-back take on Raymond Chandler's "Long Goodbye". It almost works, at least in part . . . In the end, it is Mr. Egoyan's fealty to the novel, its feints and dodges, that proves the film's undoing." She called Kevin Bacon "excellent" but questioned "the calamitous miscasting" of Alison Lohman, "whose ingénue looks and uncontrolled voice are wildly out of sync with the film's other performances and self-consciously lurid atmosphere . . . he has neither the chops nor the core mystery that might have made Mr. Egoyan's pseudo-David Lynch ambitions for his film fly." Roger Ebert of the "Chicago Sun-Times" called it "film noir right down to the plot we can barely track; we're reminded of William Faulkner asking Raymond Chandler who did it in "The Big Sleep" and Chandler saying he wasn't sure . . . Atom Egoyan, no stranger to labyrinthine plots, makes this one into a whodunit puzzle crossed with some faraway echoes of "Sunset Boulevard" . . . I have seen "Where the Truth Lies" twice and enjoyed it more when I understood its secrets." Peter Travers of "Rolling Stone" rated the film one star, calling it a "monumental misfire" and adding, "This movie isn't over-the-top - it doesn't know where the top is. Trash addicts will eat up every graphic minute, even if they prefer to wait for the DVD." Ruthe Stein of the "San Francisco Chronicle" called the film "compulsively watchable even as laughably over-the-top moments start piling up. To be truthful, most of it is high-gloss trash. I'm prepared to recommend "Truth" despite this - or maybe because of it . . . Bacon has the showier role, and he wrings everything he can out of it. But Firth is equally impressive . . . "Truth"'s descent into camp happens mostly during the scenes set in the '70s. Lohman is a big part of the problem . . . she's so shrill and annoying as Karen that you end up wishing she were the one floating in that tub." Todd McCarthy of "Variety" called the film "unconvincing" and "jumbled" and added, "Fractured narrative devices are further encumbered by multiple narration sources, incidental characters who function as mere devices, and uncertain time frames. More bothersome still is the stiff, on-topic nature of most of the film; with Karen in full interrogation mode nearly all the time, scenes and characters are rarely allowed to breathe and develop of their own accord . . . a problem unrelieved by Lohman's performance, which reveals nothing beneath the surface or between the lines. Bacon and Firth both prove more than adept at conveying their characters' seamy sides, which at least lends weight to the distasteful revelations in which the story is rooted, and are reasonably effective overall in cutting the desired profiles of glib entertainers taking full advantage of fame's perks." Peter Bradshaw of "The Guardian" rated the film two out of five stars, saying it had "rich potential for suspense, for drama, for comedy, for tragedy, for historical colour, for just about everything. Yet in the most perplexing way, Egoyan's movie doesn't properly deliver on any of these. It is muddled, over-wrought, and somehow too cerebral and fastidious to tell the story straight . . . There are diverting moments but it adds up to nothing in particular. The question is not so much where the truth lies, but why we should care in the first place." Philip French of "The Observer" called the film "a rich brew that draws on "Citizen Kane" and "Rashomon"" and ultimately "holds the attention and makes us want to know the outcome." Awards and nominations. Egoyan was nominated for the Palme d'Or at the 2005 Cannes Film Festival. The Directors Guild of Canada honored Phillip Barker for Outstanding Production Design in a Feature Film and nominated Egoyan for Outstanding Direction of a Feature Film, Susan Shipton for Outstanding Picture Editing of a Feature Film, and the movie itself for Outstanding Feature Film. Egoyan won the Genie Award for Best Adapted Screenplay, and the film was nominated in the Art Direction/Production Design, Editing, Sound, and Original Score categories. Home media. On February 8, 2006, Sony Pictures released two versions of the film, one rated R and the other unrated, on DVD. Both are in anamorphic widescreen and closed captioned. The unrated version includes an audio track in French. Bonus features on both include "The Making of Where The Truth Lies" (which has neither commentary nor dialogue) and deleted scenes.
585362	Srividya (24 July 1953 – 19 October 2006) was a leading Indian film actress of the 1970s, 1980s, 1990s and early 2000s in the Tamil film Industry, in addition to being a good singer. In the latter part of her career, she concentrated on Malayalam films. Her brilliant portrayals as a mother in many films were highly acclaimed. Srividya's personal life was full of tragedies. She fought against all odds with dedication in her work until she died of breast cancer. Early life. Srividya was born on 24 July 1953 at Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India to Tamil film comedian Krishnamurthy and Carnatic classical singer M. L. Vasanthakumari. She had a brother, Sankararaman. Her mother tongue is Tamil. Her father had to stop acting in the year when she was born because of a disease which affected his facial muscles. Her family fell into financial crisis. Her mother worked long hours to meet the family's financial needs. Srividya once reportedly said that her mother didn't even have time to breastfeed her. Srividya debuted in acting at a very early age. When her parent's marriage faced problems due to financial difficulties, Srividya's youth was blighted. She got a marriage proposal from a scientist based in the U.S., but the marriage did not materialize due to financial problems faced by her family. Acting career. Srividya launched her career as a child artist in the 1966 Tamil film "Thiruvarutchelvar" (1966) alongside legendary actor Sivaji Ganesan. Later she entered Malayalam films with a dance scene in "Kumara Sambhavam" (1969), directed by P.Subramanyan and in Telugu film Tata Manavadu (1972) directed by Dasari Narayana Rao. However, her first major role was that of a college student falling in love with her professor in the 1971 Tamil film "Nootrukku Nooru", directed by K. Balachander. Her first film as heroine was "Delhi to Madras" (1972) in which she was paired opposite Jaishankar. In mid-1970s, she became busy in the Tamil film industry. She acted in films such as "Velli Vizha", "Sollathaan Ninaikkiren" and "Apoorva Raagangal", all directed by K. Balachander. She was Rajinikanth's first heroine in "Apoorva Raagangal" (1975). She played a heroine in the film "Chattambikkavala" opposite Sathyan. She gained public attention in "Chenda", directed by A. Vincent. Actress Lakshmi was her very close friend. Playback singing. Srividya was a good singer as well. She first sang for films in the Tamil film "Amaran" and then for Malayalam film "Ayalathe Sundari". She later sang in several films, such as "Oru Painkilikkadha" and "Nakshathra tharattu". She was an expert classical vocalist as well. She used to sing in functions such as the "Soorya Festival". Personal life. Srividya acted in "Apoorva Raagangal" opposite Kamal Haasan which virtually changed her life. In the film she acted as lover of Kamal Haasan. She fell in love with Kamal Haasan during the making of the film. They had the support of their families, but they broke up. Later she fell in love with George Thomas, an assistant director in her Malayalam film "Teekkanal". She married him on 9 January 1978 despite opposition from her family. As George wished, she was baptised before the marriage. She wanted to stay as a housewife, but had to return to acting, when George forced her to, citing financial issues. She soon realised that she made a wrong decision in marrying him. Her life became miserable and the marriage ended in divorce. It was followed by a prolonged legal battle to settle financial issues between the two. The case went up to the Supreme Court of India, where she won the final decision. After the divorce, she left Chennai and settled in Thiruvananthapuram. Death. In 2003, she underwent a biopsy test following physical problems and was tested positive for breast cancer. She underwent treatment for three years. In October 2006, she underwent chemotherapy, but cancer had already spread throughout her body. She died on 19 October 2006 at 7:55 pm.
1184208	Avril Ramona Lavigne (; ; born 27 September 1984) is a French and Canadian singer-songwriter. She was born in Belleville, Ontario, and spent most of her youth in the town of Napanee. By the age of 15, she had appeared on stage with Shania Twain; by 16, she had signed a two-album recording contract with Arista Records worth more than $2 million. In 2002, when she was 17 years old, Lavigne broke onto the music scene with her debut album "Let Go". Since her professional debut, she has become one of the most successful artists in the world, selling more than 30 million albums and over 50 million singles worldwide. "Let Go" made Lavigne the youngest female soloist to reach number 1 in the UK. As of 2013, it has sold nearly 7 million copies in the United States and over 17 million copies worldwide. Her breakthrough single, "Complicated", peaked at number 1 in many countries around the world, as did the album "Let Go". Her second album, "Under My Skin", was released in 2004 and was her first album to peak at number 1 on the U.S. "Billboard" 200, eventually selling more than 10 million copies worldwide. "The Best Damn Thing", Lavigne’s third album, was released in 2007, becoming her third number 1 album in the UK Albums Chart and featuring her first U.S. "Billboard" Hot 100 number 1 single, "Girlfriend". Lavigne has scored six number-one singles worldwide, including "Complicated", "Sk8er Boi", "I'm with You", "My Happy Ending", "Nobody's Home", and "Girlfriend". Lavigne is one of the top-selling artists releasing albums in the U.S., with over 11 million copies certified by the RIAA. Her fourth studio album, "Goodbye Lullaby", was released in March 2011. "Goodbye Lullaby" gave Lavigne her fourth top 10 album on the U.S. "Billboard" 200 and the UK Albums Chart and her third number 1 album in both Japan and Australia. Three months after the release of "Goodbye Lullaby", Lavigne began work on her eponymous titled fifth studio album, which will be released on Epic Records on 5 November 2013 following her departure from RCA Records. Lavigne branched out from recording music, pursuing careers in feature film acting and designing clothes and perfumes. She voiced a character in the animated film "Over the Hedge" in 2006. That same year, she made her on-screen feature film debut in "Fast Food Nation". In 2008, Lavigne introduced her clothing line, Abbey Dawn, and in 2009, she released her first perfume, Black Star, which was followed by her second perfume, Forbidden Rose, in 2010 and her third perfume, Wild Rose, in 2011. In July 2006, Lavigne married her boyfriend of two years, Deryck Whibley, lead singer and guitarist for Sum 41. The marriage lasted a little over three years, and in October 2009, Lavigne filed for divorce. Whibley and Lavigne continued to work together, with Whibley producing her fourth album, as well as Lavigne's single, "Alice", written for Tim Burton's film "Alice in Wonderland". Lavigne married Nickelback frontman Chad Kroeger, in 2013. Early life. Avril Ramona Lavigne was born in Belleville, Ontario. Her father, Jean-Claude Joseph Lavigne, named her "Avril" after the French word for the month of April. At the age of two, she began singing church songs with her mother, Judith-Rosanne "Judy" (née Loshaw). Judy recognized her two-year-old daughter's talents after hearing her sing "Jesus Loves Me" in church. Lavigne has an older brother, Matthew, and a younger sister, Michelle, both of whom teased her when she sang. "My brother used to knock on the wall because I used to sing myself to sleep and he thought it was really annoying." Her father is of French descent and her mother has English, Scottish, and German ancestry. When Lavigne was five years old, the family moved to Napanee, Ontario, a town with a population of approximately 5,000. Although she has been struggling with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) since she was a child and was sometimes kicked out of class for misbehaving, her parents supported her singing. Her father bought her a microphone, a drum kit, a keyboard, and several guitars, and converted their basement into a studio. When Lavigne was 14, her parents would take her to karaoke sessions. Lavigne also performed at country fairs, singing songs by Garth Brooks, The Dixie Chicks, and Shania Twain. She also began writing her own songs. Her first song was called "Can't Stop Thinking About You", about a teenage crush, which she described as "cheesy cute". In 1999, Lavigne won a radio contest to perform with fellow Canadian singer Shania Twain at the Corel Centre in Ottawa, before an audience of 20,000 people. Twain and Lavigne sang "What Made You Say That", and Lavigne told Twain that she was going to be "a famous singer". During a performance with the Lennox Community Theatre, Lavigne was spotted by local folksinger Stephen Medd. He invited her to contribute vocals on his song, "Touch the Sky", for his 1999 album, "Quinte Spirit". She later sang on "Temple of Life" and "Two Rivers" for his follow-up album, "My Window to You", in 2000. In December 1999, Lavigne was discovered by her first professional manager, Cliff Fabri, while singing country covers at a Chapters bookstore in Kingston, Ontario. Fabri sent out VHS tapes of Lavigne's home performances to several industry prospects, and Lavigne was visited by several executives. Mark Jowett, co-founder of the Canadian management firm Nettwerk, received a copy of Lavigne's karaoke performances recorded in her parents' basement. Jowett arranged for Lavigne to work with Peter Zizzo during the summer of 2000 in New York, where she wrote the song "Why". Lavigne was noticed by Arista Records on a subsequent trip to New York. By 2013, Lavigne would go on to sell more than 50 million singles and 30 million copies of her albums worldwide, becoming one of the top-selling artists releasing albums in the U.S., with over 10.25 million copies certified by the RIAA. In 2009, "Billboard" named Lavigne the number 10 pop artist in the "Best of the 2000s" chart. She was listed as the 28th overall best act of the decade based on album and single chart performance in the U.S. Music career. 2000–03: "Let Go". In November 2000, Ken Krongard, an A&R representative, invited Antonio "L.A." Reid, then head of Arista Records, to producer Peter Zizzo's Manhattan studio to hear Lavigne sing. Her 15-minute audition "so impressed" Reid that he immediately signed her to Arista with a deal worth $1.25 million for two albums and an extra $900,000 for a publishing advance. By this time, Lavigne had found that she fit in naturally with her hometown high school's skater clique, an image that carried through to her first album, but although she enjoyed skateboarding, school left her feeling insecure. Armed with a record deal, she dropped out to focus on her music career, but she still had to inform her parents of her decision. "I wasn't going to turn record deal down. It's been my dream all my life. They knew how much I wanted this and how much I've put into it." Reid gave A&R Joshua Sarubin the responsibility for overseeing Lavigne's development and the recording of her debut album. They spent several months in New York working with different co-writers trying to forge an individual sound for her. Sarubin told HitQuarters that for while they struggled finding her sound and although early collaborations with songwriter-producers including Sabelle Breer, Curt Frasca and Peter Zizzo resulted in some good songs, they didn't match her and her voice. It was only when Lavigne then went to Los Angeles in May 2001 and created two songs with The Matrix production team – including "Complicated" – that the record company felt she had made a major breakthrough. Lavigne then worked further with The Matrix and also with singer-songwriter Cliff Magness. Recording finished in January 2002. Lavigne released her debut album, "Let Go", on 4 June 2002 in the U.S., where it reached number 2 on the "Billboard" 200. It peaked at number 1 on the Australian, Canadian, and UK charts. This made Lavigne, at 17 years old, the youngest female soloist to have a number 1 album in the UK until that time. By the end of 2002, the album was certified four-times platinum by the RIAA, making her the bestselling female artist of 2002 and "Let Go" the top-selling debut of the year. By May 2003, "Let Go" had accumulated over 1,000,000 sales in Canada, receiving a diamond certification from the Canadian Recording Industry Association. As of 2009, the album has sold over 16 million units worldwide, and the RIAA has certified the album six-times platinum, denoting shipments of over six million units in the U.S. Lavigne's debut single and the album's lead single, "Complicated", peaked at number 1 in Australia and number 2 in the U.S. "Complicated" was one of the bestselling Canadian singles of 2002, and it was also featured on the teen television show, "Dawson's Creek". "Complicated" later ranked on the "Hot 100 Singles of the Decade" list at number 83. Subsequent singles, "Sk8er Boi" and "I'm With You" reached the top ten in the U.S. Thanks to the success of her first three singles, Lavigne was the second artist in history to have three number 1 songs from a debut album on the "Billboard" Mainstream Top 40. For the music video to "Complicated", Lavigne was named Best New Artist at the 2002 MTV Video Music Awards. She won four Juno Awards in 2003 out of six nominations, received a World Music Award for "World's Bestselling Canadian Singer", and was nominated for eight Grammy Awards, including Best New Artist and Song of the Year for "Complicated" (2003). In 2002, Lavigne made a cameo appearance in the music video to "Hundred Million" by the pop punk band Treble Charger. In March 2003, Lavigne posed for the cover of "Rolling Stone" magazine and, later in May, performed "Fuel" during MTV's Icon tribute to Metallica. During her first headlining tour, the Try To Shut Me Up Tour, Lavigne covered Green Day's "Basket Case". Lavigne was featured in the 2003 game, "", as a non-playable celebrity. 2004–05: "Under My Skin". Lavigne co-wrote "Breakaway" with Matthew Gerard, which was recorded by Kelly Clarkson for the soundtrack to the 2004 film "". "Breakaway" would later be included on Clarkson's second album and released as the album's lead single. Lavigne covered the Goo Goo Dolls song "Iris", performed with the band's lead singer John Rzeznik at Fashion Rocks, and she posed for the cover of "Maxim" in October 2004. She also recorded the theme song for "The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie". "I made the song a little more edgy", Lavigne said. "There are a lot of loud guitars, and we picked the tempo up a little and sang it with a little more attitude." Lavigne rearranged the song with the help of producer Butch Walker. Lavigne's second studio album, "Under My Skin", was released on 25 May 2004, debuting at number 1 in several countries, including Australia, Mexico, Canada, Japan, the UK, and the U.S. The album has sold more than 10 million copies. Lavigne wrote most of the album's tracks with Canadian singer-songwriter Chantal Kreviazuk. Kreviazuk's husband, Our Lady Peace front man Raine Maida, co-produced the album, along with Butch Walker and Don Gilmore. Lavigne went on the Live and By Surprise twenty-one-city mall tour in the US and Canada to promote the album, accompanied by her guitarist, Evan Taubenfeld. Each performance consisted of a short live acoustic set of songs from the new album. At the end of 2004, Lavigne embarked on her first world tour, the Bonez Tour, which had stopovers in almost every continent and lasted for the entire 2005 year. "Don't Tell Me", the lead single of the album, went to number 1 in Argentina and Mexico and reached the top five in the UK and Canada and the top ten in Australia and Brazil. "My Happy Ending", the album's second single, went to number 1 in Mexico and the top five in the UK and Australia. In the US, it reached the top ten of the "Billboard" Hot 100 and went to number 1 in the Mainstream Top 40, making it her fourth-biggest hit there. The third single, "Nobody's Home", did not make the top 40 in the US, reaching number 1 only in Mexico and Argentina. The fourth single from the album, "He Wasn't", reached top 40 positions in the UK and Australia and was not released in the U.S. Lavigne won two World Music Awards in 2004 for "World's Best Pop/Rock Artist" and "World's Bestselling Canadian Artist". She received five Juno Award nominations in 2005, and picked up three, including "Artist of the Year". She won the award for "Favorite Female Singer" at the eighteenth annual Nickelodeon Kids' Choice Awards and was nominated in every MTV Award show shown around the world. 2006–08: "The Best Damn Thing". On 26 February 2006, Lavigne represented Canada at the closing ceremony of the Torino Olympics, performing her song "Who Knows" during the eight-minute Vancouver 2010 portion. While Lavigne was in the studio for her third studio album, Fox Entertainment Group approached her to write a song for the soundtrack to the 2006 fantasy-adventure film "Eragon". She wrote and recorded two "ballad-type" songs, but only one, "Keep Holding On", was used for the film. Lavigne admitted that writing the song was challenging, making sure it flowed with the film. She emphasized that "Keep Holding On", which later appeared on the album, was not indicative of what the next album would be like. Lavigne's third album, "The Best Damn Thing", was released on 17 April 2007, which Lavigne immediately promoted with a small tour. Its lead single, "Girlfriend", topped the "Billboard" Hot 100 the same week "The Best Damn Thing" debuted at number 1 on the "Billboard" 200 chart. "Girlfriend" was Lavigne's first single to reach this number 1 position. The single was a worldwide hit; it also peaked at number 1 in Australia, Canada, Japan, and Italy and reached number 2 in the UK and France. "Girlfriend" was recorded in Spanish, French, Italian, Portuguese, German, Japanese, and Mandarin. The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry ranked "Girlfriend" as the most-downloaded track worldwide in 2007, selling 7.3 million copies, including the versions recorded in eight different languages. "Girlfriend" ranked on the "Hot 100 Singles of the Decade" list at number 94. "When You're Gone", the second single, went to number 3 in the UK, the top five in Australia and Italy, the top ten in Canada, and was close to reaching the top twenty in the U.S. In December 2007, Lavigne, with annual earnings of $12 million, was ranked number eight in the Forbes "Top 20 Earners Under 25". "Hot" was the third single and has been Lavigne's least successful single in the U.S., charting only at number 95. In Canada, "Hot" made the top ten, and in Australia, the top 20. "The Best Damn Thing" has sold over 6 million copies worldwide. During this era, Lavigne won nearly every award she was nominated for, including two World Music Awards for "World's Bestselling Canadian Artist" and "World's Best Pop/Rock Female Artist". She took her first two MTV Europe Music Awards, received one Teen Choice Awards for "Summer Single", and was nominated for five Juno awards. In mid-2007, Lavigne was featured in a two-volume graphic novel, "Avril Lavigne's Make 5 Wishes". She collaborated with artist Camilla D’Errico and writer Joshua Dysart on the manga, which was about a shy girl named Hana who, upon meeting her hero Avril Lavigne, learned to overcome her fears. Lavigne said, "I know that many of my fans read manga, and I'm really excited to be involved in creating stories that I know they will enjoy." The volumes were released on 10 April (one week prior to the release of "The Best Damn Thing") and in July, respectively. The publication "Young Adult Library Services" nominated the series for "Great Graphic Novels for Teens". In March 2008, Lavigne undertook a world tour named The Best Damn Tour to support the album. In that same month, she also appeared on the cover of "Maxim" for the second time of her career. In mid-August, Malaysia's Islamic opposition party, the Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party, attempted to ban Lavigne's show in Kuala Lumpur, judging her stage moves "too sexy". Her concert on 29 August was considered as promoting wrong values ahead of Malaysia's independence day on 31 August. On 21 August 2008, MTV reported that the concert had been approved by the Malaysian government. 2009–11: "Goodbye Lullaby". Only a month after completing The Best Damn Tour, Lavigne began recording in her home studio in November 2008 with the song "Black Star", written to help promote her first fragrance of the same name. By July 2009, nine tracks had been recorded for the new album, including the songs "Fine", "Everybody Hurts" and "Darlin". Several of the tracks were written in Lavigne's youth. "Darlin" was the second song Lavigne wrote as a 15-year-old while living in Napanee, Ontario. Lavigne described the album as being about "life". She stated, "It's so easy for me to do a boy-bashing pop song, but to sit down and write honestly about something that's really close to me, something I've been through, it's a totally different thing." With the exception of the album's lead single, "What the Hell", Lavigne described the songs on the album as different from her earlier material: "I'm older now, so I think that comes across in my music, it's not as pop-rock". In January 2010, while simultaneously writing and recording for her new album, Lavigne worked with Disney clothing designs inspired by Tim Burton's feature film, "Alice in Wonderland". She asked the executives if she could write a song for the film. The result was the song "Alice", which was played over the end credits and included on the soundtrack, "Almost Alice". On 28 February, Lavigne gave a performance at the concert portion of the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics closing ceremony, performing "My Happy Ending" and "Girlfriend". Lavigne was honoured to perform at the ceremonies, but she regretted not being able to attend the U.S. vs. Canada hockey match. "They had us on lockdown. We weren't allowed to leave our trailers, for security purposes." In September 2010, Lavigne's third single from her debut album, "I'm With You", was sampled by Rihanna on the track "Cheers (Drink to That)", which is featured on Rihanna's fifth studio album, "Loud". In August 2011, she was featured in the music video for Cheers (Drink To That). "It's exciting to me because that was always one of my favorite songs, and for it to come out 10 years ago and so now to have it sampled and back out on the radio is pretty dope." In December 2010, American singer Miranda Cosgrove released "Dancing Crazy", a song written by Lavigne, Max Martin and Shellback. It was also produced by Martin. On 23 September 2011, Lavigne appeared in the Hub network show "Majors & Minors" as a guest mentor, alongside other singers including Adam Lambert and Leona Lewis. About the show, Lavigne stated, "I sang for them, and they performed for me. I was just blown away. I got to talk to them about music and the music industry, and they were all just so excited." The release dates for "Goodbye Lullaby" and its lead single were pushed back several times. In response to these delays, Lavigne said, "I write my own music and, therefore, it takes me longer to put out records 'cause I have to live my life to get inspiration." She also said that she had enough material for two records. In November, Lavigne was featured in "Maxim", where she revealed that "Goodbye Lullaby" took two and a half years to complete, but she cited her record company as the reason for the album's delays, stating that the album had been completed for a year. "Goodbye Lullaby" was released on 8 March. The lead single, "What the Hell", premiered on "Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve" on 31 December. 2012–present: "Avril Lavigne". Three months after the release of "Goodbye Lullaby", Lavigne announced that work on her fifth studio album had already begun, with eight songs written so far. The new album will musically be the opposite of "Goodbye Lullaby", with a release date rumored for sometime in 2012. Lavigne explained, ""Goodbye Lullaby" was more mellow, the next one will be pop and more fun again. I already have a song that I know is going to be a single, I just need to re-record it!" In late 2011, Lavigne confirmed that she had moved to Epic Records, which is now headed by L.A. Reid. In November 2011, Lavigne stated that she entered the studio to start recording new songs for the album. In April 2012, Lavigne confirmed that she had completed the recording process on her fifth album and that she would be taking a short hiatus before releasing it and embarking on " next artistic journey". On 17 August 2012 Lavigne began finalizing work on her fifth album by starting the mixing process and laying down last minute ad-libs and backing vocals, before completely wrapping up production two days later on 19 August. Aside from work on her new album, Lavigne contributed two cover songs to the Japanese animated film ""; "How You Remind Me" by Nickelback and "Bad Reputation" by Joan Jett.
1062947	Edward Thomas "Tom" Hardy (born 15 September 1977) is an English actor. Some of his most notable film roles were in "", "RocknRolla", "Bronson", "Warrior", "Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy", "This Means War", "The Dark Knight Rises", and "Inception", the critically acclaimed film for which he won the BAFTA Rising Star Award. His television roles include the BBC mini-series "The Virgin Queen", ITV's "Wuthering Heights", in which he played Heathcliff, ', for which he garnered a nomination for the BAFTA for Best Actor, and Martina Cole's "The Take". In 2012, he appeared as Bane in Christopher Nolan's film "The Dark Knight Rises", and as Forrest Bondurant in John Hillcoat's crime thriller film "Lawless". In 2014, he will star as Max Rockatansky in ', the fourth installment of the "Mad Max" franchise. Early years. Hardy was born in Hammersmith, London, the only child of Anne (née Barrett) and Edward "Chips" Hardy. He was brought up in East Sheen. His mother is an artist and painter whose family is Irish Catholic, and his father is a writer of comedy and novels. Hardy studied at Reed's School and Tower House School, then at Richmond Drama School, and subsequently at the Drama Centre London. Career. In 1998, Hardy won "The Big Breakfast" "Find Me a Supermodel" competition at age 21 (and with it a brief contract with Models One). Hardy joined Drama Centre London in September 1998, and was taken out early after winning the part of US Army Private John Janovec in the award-winning HBO-BBC miniseries "Band of Brothers". He made his feature film debut in Ridley Scott's 2001 war thriller "Black Hawk Down". In 2003, Hardy appeared in the film "dot the i", and then travelled to North Africa for "Simon: An English Legionnaire", a story of the French Foreign Legion. In the same year, he gained some heavy international exposure as the Reman Praetor Shinzon, a clone of USS Enterprise Captain Jean-Luc Picard in "Star Trek Nemesis". He then returned to England to feature in the 2003 thriller "LD 50 Lethal Dose". Hardy was awarded the 2003 London Evening Standard Theatre Award for Outstanding Newcomer for his performances in "Blood" and "In Arabia We'd All Be Kings" performed at the Royal Court Theatre and Hampstead Theatre. He was also nominated for a 2004 Laurence Olivier Award for Most Promising Newcomer of 2003 in a Society of London Theatre Affiliate for his performance as Skank in the aforementioned production of "In Arabia We'd All Be Kings". Hardy appeared in the 2005 BBC miniseries "The Virgin Queen" as Robert Dudley, a childhood friend of Elizabeth I. The miniseries portrays them as having a platonic, though highly romantic, affair throughout her reign over England during the 16th century. Hardy featured in the BBC Four adaptation of the 1960s sci-fi series "A for Andromeda". In 2007, he appeared in the BBC Two drama based on a true story, "". He played the lead role of Stuart Shorter, a homeless man who had been subjected to years of abuse and whose death was possibly suicide. In February 2008, he played a drug-addicted rapist in the British horror-thriller "WΔZ". In September 2008, he appeared in Guy Ritchie's London gangster film, "RocknRolla". He played the role of gay gangster Handsome Bob. Though a sequel to "RocknRolla" titled the "The Real RocknRolla" has been rumoured to be in production, in which Hardy will reprise the role of Handsome Bob, filming has yet to commence on the project. In early 2009, Hardy starred in the film "Bronson", about the real-life English prisoner Charles Bronson, who has spent most of his adult life in solitary confinement. For the film, he put on three stone (19 kg/42 pounds). In early 2010, Hardy starred in "The Long Red Road" at the Goodman Theatre in Chicago. The play was written by Brett C. Leonard and directed by Philip Seymour Hoffman. Hardy won some good reviews for his portrayal of Sam, an alcoholic trying to drink away his past. In 2010, he starred as Eames in Christopher Nolan's science fiction thriller "Inception" for which he won a BAFTA Rising Star award. In June 2010, Hardy announced on "Friday Night with Jonathan Ross" that he will play the title role in a new version of "Mad Max". Hardy replaced Michael Fassbender in the 2011 adaptation of "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy", released on 5 September 2011 at the 68th edition of the Mostra Internazionale d'Arte Cinematografica in Venice. Hardy starred as Tommy Riordan in the film "Warrior", who is trained by his father to fight in a mixed martial arts tournament against his brother, for which he gained critical acclaim. It was released on 9 September 2011 by Lionsgate Films. Hardy also starred in "This Means War", a 2012 romantic comedy film directed by McG. He played the villain Bane in "The Dark Knight Rises", the final film in Christopher Nolan's "Batman" trilogy, released on 20 July 2012. He played a bootlegger in John Hillcoat's "Lawless" (2012). He stated in January 2012 that he had been watching gangster films in preparation for his role as Al Capone in David Yates' "Cicero" trilogy, which is expected to begin filming in 2013. In March 2010, Hardy signed a first look deal at Warner Bros. Hardy has signed up to play the lead role of Sam Fisher in Ubisoft's upcoming film adaptation of their video game series "Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell". He has also appeared in Riz Mc's music video for the song "Sour Times". Personal life. Hardy married Sarah Ward in 1999; they divorced in 2004. He battled alcoholism and a crack cocaine addiction in his early-to-mid-20s. He entered rehab and has been sober since 2003. In "Now" magazine in 2010, Hardy said: "I've played with everything and everyone. But I'm not into men sexually and I'm done experimenting." Hardy has a son with ex-girlfriend Rachael Speed, Louis Thomas (born 2008). In 2008, he met actress Charlotte Riley while they were working on "The Take" and "Wuthering Heights" together. They started dating and Hardy proposed to Riley in 2010.
589330	Anpadh (Hindi: अन्पढ, Urdu: اَنپد, translation: "illiterate") is a 1962 Hindi film. The film stars Dharmendra, Mala Sinha, Shashi Kala and Balraj Sahni. The music is by Madan Mohan and the lyrics by Raja Mehdi Ali Khan. The film focuses on the importance of education for girls. This movie also has hit songs like the evergreen song "Aap ki nazron nay samjha" sung by Lata Mangeshkar Plot. Chaudhary Shambhunath considers the accumulation of wealth to be more important than education. He condones his sister's inattention at school and consequently she grows up "anpadh" (illiterate). When she finds herself married to a bibliophile her problems really begin. Unable to read the poetry her husband loves and being a rotten cook too, she becomes despised by her husband and her in-laws. Circumstances conspire to leave her homeless, widowed and pregnant. Narrowly escaping from the attentions of a panderer she falls amongst friends and, with the birth of her daughter, she starts on the long road to redemption. An entertaining plea for education in general and for the education of girls in particular.
1103048	Tullio Levi-Civita, FRS (29 March 1873 – 29 December 1941; ) was an Italian mathematician, most famous for his work on absolute differential calculus (tensor calculus) and its applications to the theory of relativity, but who also made significant contributions in other areas. He was a pupil of Gregorio Ricci-Curbastro, the inventor of tensor calculus. His work included foundational papers in both pure and applied mathematics, celestial mechanics (notably on the three-body problem), analytic mechanics (the Levi-Civita separability conditions in the Hamilton–Jacobi equation) and hydrodynamics. Biography. Born into an Italian Jewish family in Padua, Levi-Civita was the son of Giacomo Levi-Civita, a lawyer and former senator. He graduated in 1892 from the University of Padua Faculty of Mathematics. In 1894 he earned a teaching diploma after which he was appointed to the Faculty of Science teacher's college in Pavia. In 1898 he was appointed to the Padua Chair of Rational Mechanics where he met and, in 1914, married Libera Trevisani, one of his pupils. He remained in his position at Padua until 1918, when he was appointed to the Chair of Higher Analysis at the University of Rome; in another two years he was appointed to the Chair of Mechanics there. In 1900 he and Ricci-Curbastro published the theory of tensors in "Méthodes de calcul différentiel absolu et leurs applications", which Albert Einstein used as a resource to master the tensor calculus, a critical tool in the development of the theory of general relativity. Levi-Civita's series of papers on the problem of a static gravitational field were also discussed in his 1915–1917 correspondence with Einstein. The correspondence was initiated by Levi-Civita, as he found mathematical errors in Einstein's use of tensor calculus to explain theory of relativity. Levi-Civita methodically kept all of Einstein's replies to him, and even though Einstein hadn't kept Levi-Civita's, the entire correspondence could be re-constructed from Levi-Civita's archive. It's evident from these letters that, after numerous letters, the two men had grown to respect each other. In one of the letters, regarding Levi-Civita's new work, Einstein wrote "I admire the elegance of your method of computation; it must be nice to ride through these fields upon the horse of true mathematics while the like of us have to make our way laboriously on foot". In 1933 Levi-Civita contributed to Paul Dirac's equations in quantum mechanics as well. His textbook on tensor calculus, "The Absolute Differential Calculus" (originally a set of lecture notes in Italian co-authored with Ricci-Curbastro), remains one of the standard texts more than a century after its first publication, with several translations available.
1043122	Dinah Sheridan (17 September 1920 – 25 November 2012) was an English actress with a career spanning seven decades. She was best known for roles in comedies and appeared in many films starting in the 1930s, including "Genevieve" (1953) and "The Railway Children" (1970). She acted extensively on stage and in television, including appearing in the long-running 1980s sitcom "Don't Wait Up".
520466	Katherine Grace Cosme Abad (born May 17, 1982, Easton, Pennsylvania, USA), better known as Kaye Abad, is an American-born Filipino actress. She is the sister of former child star Sarah Jane Abad-Contreras, who is now married to Kamikazee's lead singer, Jay Contreras. She is a member of ABS-CBN's Star Magic. She was launched as a member of Star Circle (now Star Magic Batch 3) in 1993. Career. Kaye Abad started in Philippine showbiz as part of the children's show "Ang TV OK?". She also starred in numerous teen-oriented films and TV series, notably paired with John Lloyd Cruz. The tandem of Cruz and Abad is best remembered in the television series "Tabing Ilog" which ran from 1999–2003. In 2009, Abad returned to television via Precious Hearts Romances Presents: "Bud Brothers". She took over the role originally intended for Roxanne Guinoo, who was supposed to play the lead role opposite Guji Lorenzana. Lorenzana and Abad were given the lead roles in the third installment of the Precious Hearts romances series. Abad recently played a supporting role in ABS-CBN's ' and its sequel ' on its daily afternoon program.
1163573	Joey Bishop (February 3, 1918 – October 17, 2007), born Joseph Abraham Gottlieb, was an American entertainer who appeared on television as early as 1948 and eventually starred in his own weekly comedy series playing a talk show host, then later hosted a late night talk show. He was a member of the so-called "Rat Pack" with Frank Sinatra, Peter Lawford, Sammy Davis, Jr., and Dean Martin. Personal life. Bishop, youngest of five children, was born in The Bronx, a borough of New York City, the son of Anna (Siegel) and Jacob Gottlieb, Jewish Central European immigrants. His father was a bicycle repairman. Bishop was raised in South Philadelphia. In 1941, Bishop married Sylvia Ruzga, who died in 1999 from lung cancer. They had one son, Larry Bishop, a film director and actor. Drafted into the US Army in World War II, he rose to the rank of Sergeant in the Special Services serving at Fort Sam Houston, Texas. Career. Bishop began his career as part of a standup comedy act with his elder brother, Maury. He guest-hosted on television's "The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson" more times than anyone else, having also frequently appeared on Steve Allen's and Jack Paar's previous versions of "The Tonight Show". He starred in a situation comedy titled "The Joey Bishop Show", which premiered on 20 September 1961 and ran for four seasons, first on NBC and later CBS. Bishop played a talk show host named Joey Barnes. His wife was portrayed by Abby Dalton, who joined the cast in 1962. He later hosted a 90-minute late-night talk show, also titled "The Joey Bishop Show", that was launched by ABC in 1967 as competition to Carson's "Tonight Show" and ran for two years. His sidekick was then-newcomer Regis Philbin.
1761639	26 Years Diary (Japanese: あなたを忘れない "Anata wo Wasurenai"; Korean: 너를 잊지 않을거야 "Neoreul Ijji Nanheulgeoya"; literally "I Won't Forget You") is a biopic that tells the story of Lee Su-hyon's life and death. The film details the 26-year-old Korean student's experiences in Japan, including going to school and his developing romance with a Japanese student (played by Mākii). He died on January 21, 2001, along with a Japanese photographer, Shiro Sekine, while both were trying to save the life of a man who had fallen onto the tracks at the Shin-Ōkubo Station in Tokyo. Plot. The film is based on a true story, Su-hyon (Lee Taesung) travels from Korea to broaden his horizons, studying in Japan he meets Yuri (High and Mighty Color's lead singer, Maakii). Both share similar interests in music and sports as they become closer while dealing with language and racial barriers.
1790624	Daphne Lee Ashbrook (born January 30, 1963) is an American actress. Personal life. Daphne Ashbrook was raised in the San Diego, CA area. Her parents are San Diego theatre actress D'Ann Paton and late actor/Director Buddy Ashbrook. Her siblings are actor Dana Ashbrook and actor/director Taylor Ashbrook. In 1988, Ashbrook had a daughter, Paton (Peyton) Lee Ashbrook, with actor Lorenzo Lamas. Paton is also an actress. Career. Known for both her comic timing and deep emotional portrayals, she has appeared in many television and film roles including "" (as the in "Melora") and the "Doctor Who" telemovie, in which she played the role of Doctor Grace Holloway. Her portrayal as Grace in "Doctor Who" caused consternation among some of that show's fans because she was the first character to romantically kiss the Doctor, setting a precedent for the more sexually charged nature of the new "Doctor Who" series that began in 2005. A 2004 trip to the United Kingdom was filmed for the 2005 documentary "Daphne Ashbrook in the UK". This DVD documentary followed her work with "Doctor Who", including her role as Perfection in the Big Finish Productions audio play "The Next Life". She performed opposite Paul McGann for first time since the 1996 telemovie. In 2006, she played Charlotte Howell in the audio drama "" for the same company. She has been to the UK twice thus far for "Doctor Who" convention events. She was featured in extensive interviews on the "Doctor Who" podcast and "Doctor Who" podcast . Additionally, she featured in other podcasts including "The Happiness Patrol". She was notable as being one of only ten actors—and the only woman—to be credited in both the "Star Trek" and "Doctor Who" franchises until Nana Visitor had a supporting role on in 2011. However, Daphne's roles were 'leads', so she still holds that particular title. Her past TV and film work includes "Cold Case", "CSI", "Crossing Jordan", "JAG", "Murder She Wrote", "Judging Amy", acclaimed mini series "Intruders" with Richard Crenna, "Guardian", a recurring role on "The O.C." and a lead role in the police drama "Family Honor" with Ray Liotta and Eli Wallach. Her recent roles include a part in David Ondaatje's 2009 motion picture "The Lodger" starring Alfred Molina, Shane West, Simon Baker and Hope Davis, and guest starring roles in "NCIS" reuniting with "Charlie Grace" star Mark Harmon, "The Ghost Whisperer", with Jennifer Love Hewitt, and "Without a Trace" with Anthony LaPaglia and Steven Weber. She guest starred as a dancer visiting from (the former) Czechoslovakia in the third season of "Fame". She is currently (2012) starring in the new Nickelodeon night time soap "Hollywood Heights" as Chloe Carter (Melissa Ordway) mom, Jackie. In 2010 she released her first music CD, "Grace Notes" on Dharmapala Records to very positive reviews. The songs range from Roots to Jazz and are mostly covers from some of her favorite singer/songwriters, such as Joni Mitchell and Patty Griffin. The CD was produced by composer/multi-instrumentalist David Vito Gregoli. She has performed music from the CD at various conventions and other events. In 2012 Ashbrook released a memoir "Dead Woman Laughing (An actor's take from both sides of the camera)." It details her life as an actor and her experience growing up in an acting family. The book has received very good reviews and Ashbrook will be promoting it throughout 2013 at various public appearances including conventions.
586543	Khan started his career in 1997 with "Raja Ki Aayegi Baraat", opposite Rani Mukerji. Unlike his father Amjad Khan, he was unsuccessful as an actor. From 1996 to 2008 he starred only in few films, without any notable success. He also appeared in a patriotic film "Bharat Bhagya Vidhata" in 2002 along with Chandrachur Singh. He came back to Bollywood as a director in 2010 as a director in the film "Highway 203". Biography. Shadab wanted to be a director. He was very fond of acting, and he started his acting at a very young age. His classmates were Twinkle Khanna and Meghna Gulzar. He used to share tiffins with Meghna. He was only interested in acting rather than studying. He later quit studies. He is mostly known for role of Altaf Tailor in "Hey Ram" (2000). Shadaab Khan married Rumana Achwa on 15 July 2005 in Mumbai.
631580	The Tortured is a 2010 mystery horror-thriller film directed by Robert Lieberman and written by Marek Posival. Plot. The film tells the story of a couple whose life is broken when a serial killer kidnaps, tortures and kills their only son. The wife blames her husband. In order to obtain revenge, the couple kidnap and torture the serial killer, but then have to deal with the stress of torturing him. Production. The Twisted Pictures film features Erika Christensen, Bill Moseley, and Jesse Metcalfe in the leads. It is based on the screenplay, "Act of Redress", by Czech screenwriter, Marek Posival, and was directed by Rob Lieberman.
1299912	Takayo Fischer (born November 25, 1932) is an American stage, film and TV actress, as well as voice-over actress and singer. Personal life. Fischer was born in Hardwick, California, the daughter of "Issei" (Japanese immigrants) Chukuro and Kinko Tsubouchi. During World War II, as a young child, she and her family were forcibly evacuated from the West Coast and spent time in the Fresno Assembly Center before being relocated to Jerome and Rohwer internment camps. Fischer later lived in Chicago, Illinois, where, as a young adult, she won the crown of "Miss Nisei Queen." She attended Rollins College from 1951-1953. She married Sy Fischer (an entertainment executive) on November 29, 1980 (her second marriage), and has three children. She resides in Los Angeles. Career. Fischer appeared in the stage production of "The World of Suzie Wong" in New York in 1958. She won a Drama-Logue Award for ensemble performance for "Tea" at the Old Globe Theatre in San Diego. She has also appeared in many productions with East West Players in Los Angeles, including "Into The Woods". She toured the U.S. and Europe in "The Peony Pavilion" in 1997. Fischer has appeared in many big-budget films, including
1105376	Alexis Claude de Clairaut (or Clairault) (13 May 1713 – 17 May 1765) was a prominent French mathematician, astronomer, geophysicist, and intellectual. Biography. Childhood. Clairaut was born in Paris, France, where his father taught mathematics. He was a prodigy — at the age of twelve he wrote a memoir on four geometrical curves and under his father's tutelage he made such rapid progress in the subject that in his thirteenth year he read before the Académie française an account of the properties of four curves which he had discovered. When only sixteen he finished a treatise on tortuous curves, "Recherches sur les courbes a double courbure", which, on its publication in 1731, procured his admission into the French Academy of Sciences, although he was below the legal age as he was only eighteen. The shape of the Earth. In 1736, together with Pierre Louis Maupertuis, he took part in the expedition to Lapland, which was undertaken for the purpose of estimating a degree of the meridian arc. After his return he published his treatise "Théorie de la figure de la terre" (1743). In this work he promulgated the theorem, known as Clairaut's theorem, which connects the gravity at points on the surface of a rotating ellipsoid with the compression and the centrifugal force at the equator. This hydrostatic model of the shape of the Earth was founded on a paper by Colin Maclaurin, which had shown that a mass of homogeneous fluid set in rotation about a line through its centre of mass would, under the mutual attraction of its particles, take the form of an ellipsoid. Under the assumption that the Earth was composed of concentric ellipsoidal shells of uniform density, Clairaut's theorem could be applied to it, and allowed the ellipticity of the Earth to be calculated from surface measurements of gravity. In 1849 Stokes showed that Clairaut's result was true whatever the interior constitution or density of the Earth, provided the surface was a spheroid of equilibrium of small ellipticity. Focus on astronomical motion. He obtained an ingenious approximate solution of the problem of the three bodies; in 1750 he gained the prize of the St Petersburg Academy for his essay "Théorie de la lune"; the team made up of Clairaut, Jérome Lalande and Nicole Reine Lepaute successfully computed the date of the 1759 return of Halley's comet. The "Théorie de la lune" is strictly Newtonian in character. This contains the explanation of the motion of the apsis which had previously puzzled astronomers, and which Clairaut had at first deemed so inexplicable that he was on the point of publishing a new hypothesis as to the law of attraction when it occurred to him to carry the approximation to the third order, and he thereupon found that the result was in accordance with the observations. This was followed in 1754 by some lunar tables, which he computed using a form of the discrete Fourier transform. Clairaut subsequently wrote various papers on the orbit of the Moon, and on the motion of comets as affected by the perturbation of the planets, particularly on the path of Halley's comet. Personal life and death. His growing popularity in society hindered his scientific work: "He was focused," says Bossut, "with dining and with evenings, coupled with a lively taste for women, and seeking to make his pleasures into his day to day work, he lost rest, health, and finally life at the age of fifty-two." He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of London in November, 1737. Clairaut died in Paris in 1765.
1297856	Evil Aliens is a British slapstick horror-comedy film directed by Jake West, in the tradition of films such as "Braindead", "House", and "Evil Dead". It was the first full-length British horror film to be filmed using Sony HD (High Definition) cameras, and contains almost 140 digital effects shots and a huge amount of gory conventional special effects. Plot. The film begins with the alien abduction on Scalleum, a remote island off the coast of Wales, of Cat Williams and her boyfriend. Cat's boyfriend is gorily killed, and Cat is (also gorily) implanted with an alien fetus. Cat's story attracts the attention of Michelle "Foxy" Fox (Emily Booth), the bosomy host of the cable TV show "Weird Worlde", who brings a film crew to the island — her cameraman boyfriend Ricky (Sam Butler); Jack the sound man; nerdy UFO expert Gavin Gorman; and actors Bruce Barton and Candy Vixen (the latter, Foxy's producer assures her, "because she's good, not because she's my girlfriend"). The island is accessible via a narrow causeway only at low tide. The "Weird Worlde" crew sets out in their van, but it is dark by the time they reach the Williams family's creepy farmhouse, where they meet Cat and her three hulking and sadistic brothers (who speak only Welsh with English subtitles). The crew (with the exception of Gavin Gorman) initially assume that Cat's story is a hoax, and even go so far as to make a crop circle in a nearby field so they can film it for the show, to Gorman's great disgust. However, it soon turns out that the aliens are all too real and rather malevolent. The film crew teams up with the Welsh Williams brothers to fight off the aliens, with a great deal of blood and gore. One highlight features Ricky running down some aliens in a combine harvester, to the tune of "Combine Harvester (Brand New Key)" by The Wurzels. Eventually, the alien child inside Cat claws its way out; on board the alien ship, Foxy is impregnated with another alien fetus while Gavin loses his virginity to a shapely female alien; Bruce, Candy, and the Welsh brothers meet various horrible demises; Ricky blows up himself and four alien pursuers in a tank of liquid manure; back at the house, the female alien rips Foxy in half; and finally Gavin manages to use his laptop (in a sequence reminiscent of "Independence Day") to overload the ley lines of the nearby stone circle. As Cat's alien child rips his arms off, Gavin manages to press the space bar with his nose, sending the stones shooting into the underside of the alien craft, which crashes into a convenient mountain. Jack the sound man, meanwhile, having been blinded by alien ichor early in the film, swims across the channel to the mainland, only to discover that he's lost the videotape that was the only proof of their extraterrestrial encounter. The film ends with a clip from an alien talk show reminiscent of "Jerry Springer" (and subtitled in English), on which Gavin's female alien is trying to explain how her entire crew was killed by humans and she herself carries the love child of one of those humans. The audience roars with laughter, and the host cuts her mike. Cast. The film features an ensemble cast including TV presenter Emily Booth, Jamie Honeybourne, Christopher Adamson, Norman Lovett, Scott Joseph, model Jodie Shaw, and Jennifer Evans. Production. "Evil Aliens" is the first in a slate of films planned by the British production company Falcon Film Productions PLC, and the second feature film from director Jake West ("Razor Blade Smile"). The film was produced by Tim Dennison ("Lighthouse",
583347	Gulaal () is a 2009 Indian thriller drama film directed by Anurag Kashyap and starring Kay Kay Menon, Raj Singh Chaudhary, Abhimanyu Singh, Deepak Dobriyal, Ayesha Mohan, Jesse Randhawa, Piyush Mishra and Aditya Srivastava. The film explores themes such as pursuit of power, quest for legitimacy, perceived injustices and hypocrisy of the powerful. The film is set in present day Rajasthan, a state in western India. The plot is provided by student politics of the university and a fictitious secessionist movement consisting of former Rajput leaders who have become present day elite. Plot. In the fictional town of Rajpur, Dilip (Raj Singh Chaudhary), a law student who is a Rajput from Bikaner, and his faithful servant, Bhanwar (Mukesh Bhatt), secure housing in an old, run-down British-era pub. Here Dilip meets Rananjay Singh “Ransa” (Abhimanyu Singh), a prince who despises the ideologies of his father and the aristocracy. Ransa's straightforward and fearless personality has quite an effect on the mild-mannered Dilip. Shortly, Dilip visits the university hostel where he is ragged by a gang of university thugs, led by Jadwal (Pankaj Jha). They strip him and lock him in a room with Anuja (Jesse Randhawa), a young lecturer in the same university. Both Dilip and Anuja are released naked. Dilip's brother tells him to ignore the event and that things were the same in his days, effectively stating that the society as a whole hasn’t changed much since his time. But Ransa disagrees and tells Dilip that they should avenge this act. Initially, Dilip is reluctant but finally gives in and goes along with Ransa, after Ransa provokes him to give the thugs a taste of their own medicine. But the tables are turned and both Dilip and Ransa are beaten and are ragged and thrown out of the hostel. Ransa meets Dukey Bana (Kay Kay Menon), a local figure who is trying to gather support for the Rajputana separatist movement, who allows them to proceed with the plan to injure Jadwal. Ransa and Dilip ambush Jadwal, but the other thugs corner them in a cinema hall. Dukey Bana interferes and rescues them. Dukey Bana then convinces Ransa to in the General Secretary Elections at the university. Running against Ransa is his father's out-of-wedlock daughter, Kiran (Ayesha Mohan). Ransa is kidnapped by his father's out-of-wedlock son Karan (Aditya Srivastava), who asks him to withdraw from the elections. Ransa mocks him and Karan kills him. Taking advantage of the situation, Dukey Bana makes Dilip to take Ransa's place in the election. The chances of Dilip winning are minimal, so Dukey Bana bribes the electoral panel to rig the count in Dilip's favour. Dilip wins the election to become the general secretary. Kiran then seduces Dilip and convinces him to allow her to become the cultural secretary. Dukey Bana then starts using the funds for the Rajputana separatist movement. When Dilip finds out about this he goes to confront Dukey Bana about the funds. Bana lets Dilip know about the movement and tells him that the funds are being used for it. Dilip is not convinced and tries to reason with Bana. A frustrated Bana takes him to his country estate where his thugs have killed Jadwal and shows him the body to intimidate him. Anuja, is thrown out of the hostel and moves in with Dilip. Kiran gets pregnant and is angry with Dilip for being careless about it. She gets an abortion and leaves Dilip. Anuja tries to make Dilip understand that Kiran has no interest in leading a married life and leaves him. A frustrated Dilip resigns from his post and Kiran steps in. She then tries to seduce Dukey Bana, but she fails when Bhati (Deepak Dobriyal), Dukey's second-in-command, comes looking for Dukey. In a private meeting, an irate Dukey threatens Karan and Kiran by telling them that the only reason they're alive is because of their links to the local king. Dilip, blinded by his love for Kiran, becomes violent and aggressive. Anuja also decides to leave him. Meanwhile Dilip finds out about Kiran from Bana's mistress, Madhuri (Mahi Gill). He grabs a gun, goes to Bana's house and shoots him. While dying, Bana tells him that Kiran used Dilip to get to him. At the same time, Karan reveals to his group of thugs that once Dukey Bana is out of the way, the Rajputana movement will have no choice but to choose Karan as its new leader and therefore legitimize his royal status. They conclude that to get rid of Dukey, they must first eliminate Bhati. Dilip wants to hear the truth from Kiran, so he tells Bhati to get her on the phone. Kiran refuses to answer, so Bhati goes off to find her and is killed by Karan's thugs. Dilip comes to meet Kiran who tells him that all she wanted to was use him to become general secretary. Dilip rejects her explanation and almost shoots her but gets shot by thugs. Despite his injuries, Dilip walks back to his house and dies there. The film ends with Karan as the head of the Rajputana movement, while Kiran sheds a tear as one of the loyal faithful. Parallel to the plot there is an interesting character of Dukey Bana's brother Prithvi Bana played by Piyush Mishra. He wears bizarre dress and seems as psychic, though talks very satirically and often abused and slapped by Dukey banna for this. It is told in flashback that he was once a guitarist in his young days. Along with him there is a person characterized as Ardhanarishvara, who is killed by Dukey Bana mistakenly when Dukey Bana was outraged with his brother and aims to shoot him and misses. Production. Production on "Gulaal" began in 2001, when Anurag Kashyap was listening to songs from "Pyaasa" and his film "Paanch" was struggling with censors. Inspired by Mohammad Rafi songs from "Pyaasa" ("Yeh duniya agar mil bhi jaaye to kya hai") and "Zeenat", ("Haye re duniya") the film is a dedication to Sahir Ludhianvi, the lyricist of the song and all other poets who had a vision of India. The film was also partially based on a story idea by Raj Singh Chaudhary who eventually played the role of Dilip Singh in the film. The film was delayed for three years for various reasons, but it was released in March 2009. The movie's first trailer was released with the director's other movie "Dev D". Critical reception. "Gulaal" received positive reviews from critics. Anupama Chopra of NDTV gave three stars and referred to Anurag Kashyap as Anti-Yash Chopra. Raja Sen of Rediff.com gave it three stars and said that "fantastically watchable film that scores high on moments." Nikhat Kazmi gave the film three stars and said that "the film scores in having taut performances and a gritty screenplay as well." Noyon Jyoti Parasara of AOL.in gave the film 3.5 stars and said "Anurag scripts every character cleverly providing an identity to even the smallest characters and also a contrast in form of another character – true playwright style. He even has the jesters coming in to bring some comic relief but also more importantly they bring in a message." Tamil writer Charu Nivedita said this film is the "best political film" ever in Hindi and a document of current political history..The film was screened at the 2009 London Film Festival. Box office. Although the critics' reviews were favorable, the movie opened to only 30 percent capacity during its first week in theaters across India. In addition, word of mouth has been poor for this film, which could lead to slowdown at the box office for its subsequent runs in the weeks that followed. Box Office India stated that "Gulaal" netted in its first week, which was below expectations. The opening, at around 30% occupancy, was poor, though marginally better than some other recent films.
1056805	Next Stop Wonderland is a 1998 American romantic comedy film directed by Brad Anderson and written by Anderson and Lyn Vaus. Plot. Two people, living in Boston and unlucky in love – a nurse, Erin, whose activist boyfriend, Sean, has just walked out on their relationship to help a Native American tribe fight off a land development deal, and a plumber, Alan, struggling to pay off family obligations while pursuing a career as a marine biologist – deal with personal and professional problems and stumble through relationships, continually crossing one another's paths without ever truly meeting and realizing how perfect they are for one another. Time and time again one almost catches the other's eye, but circumstances intervene. Finally, after a series of ups and downs, both of their budding relationships with others crash and burn, just in time for a chance meeting on the MBTA train heading to Wonderland station, on the outskirts of Boston. Production. The film's soundtrack is scored by Claudio Ragazzi with various renditions by Vinicius Cantuaria, Arto Lindsay, and Bebel Gilberto. Release. The film, which cost $1 million to make, was an audience favorite at the Sundance Film Festival in 1998. A bidding war among studio distributors resulted in Miramax Films paying $6 million for the film's North American distribution rights. However, the film grossed only $3.3 million during its theatrical release.
1169547	James Joseph Broderick III (March 7, 1927November 1, 1982) was an American actor. He is probably best known for his role as Doug Lawrence in the television series "Family" which ran from 1976 to 1980. Life and career. Broderick was born in Charlestown, New Hampshire, the son of Mary Elizabeth (née Martindale) and James Joseph Broderick II (or Jr.). He was raised Catholic. His father, a highly decorated World War I combat medic, was of Irish descent, and his mother was of English and Irish ancestry. In 1947, after having served in the armed forces in World War II, Broderick, a junior pre-med student, auditioned for a part in the UNH production of George Bernard Shaw's "Arms and the Man". Theater director Joe Batcheller was impressed and gave him the role of Bluntchili, an anti-romantic Swiss soldier. Batcheller said, "You could tell from the beginning that he was an exceptional individual. He displayed an unusual ability to get along with people. He was kind, sensitive, imaginative, and had a good sense of humor. He also had an Irish mug if I ever saw one." Although Batcheller did not often encourage the students to pursue acting as a career, he was so sure of Broderick's talent that he suggested a trip to New York to meet Batcheller's friend Arthur Kennedy, who was well known in the acting field. Broderick took his advice and Kennedy subsequently directed him to the Neighborhood Playhouse, where he gained the necessary experience and training for a successful acting career in both movies and TV.
1057373	The Babe is a 1992 biographical film about the life of famed baseball player Babe Ruth, who is portrayed by John Goodman. Plot. The story begins in 1902 in Baltimore, Maryland, where a seven-year-old Babe Ruth, troubled and not-so disciplined, is sent to the St. Mary's Industrial School for Boys, a reformatory and orphanage. Ruth is sent by his father, George Herman Ruth Sr. (Bob Swan), who cannot handle raising the boy. At the school, Ruth was schooled by Catholic missionaries and was made fun of by other children, because of his large size. Brother Matthias Boutlier (James Cromwell), the Head of Discipline at St. Mary's, first introduced Ruth to the game of baseball. During a session of batting practice, Ruth hit several towering home runs off of Matthias, who was pitching. Brother Matthias and others were stunned by Ruth's amazing power to drive the ball. The film then flashes forward to 1914. A 19-year old Ruth (Goodman) is on St. Mary's baseball team. Ruth continues to excel as a powerful hitter and a great pitcher. Ruth's amazing skills come to the attention of Jack Dunn (J.C. Quinn). Since Ruth is underage, Dunn decides to adopt Ruth and sign him to a contract with the Baltimore Orioles. In the middle of the 1914 baseball season, Ruth is sold to the Boston Red Sox. As a member of the Red Sox, Ruth begins to gain wide attention for his home runs and becomes popular in Boston. However, he angers Red Sox owner Harry Frazee during a party, and following the 1919 season, Ruth demands a raise, and a suite for road games, so Frazee sells him to the New York Yankees to finance his Broadway shows, which had cost him money ($125,000, equal to $ today, the same amount of money that Frazee got for selling Ruth to be exact).
1162604	Sherri Evonne Shepherd (born April 22, 1967) is an American comedienne, actress, and television personality. She is one of five co-hosts on the ABC daytime talkshow "The View", currently hosts the "Newlywed Game", and had a recurring role as Angie Jordan on the NBC series "30 Rock". As an actress, she has starred in the sitcom "Less than Perfect" and her own sitcom "Sherri" on Lifetime. Shepherd previously had a recurring role on the sitcom "Everybody Loves Raymond" as police Sgt. Judy Potterbrother, the partner of officer Robert Barone. Early life. Shepherd was born in Chicago to Lawrence A. Shepherd (born 1943) and LaVerne Shepherd (1941–1991) as the eldest of three sisters. When she was 11, her family moved to Hoffman Estates, a Chicago northwest suburb. She attended Winston Churchill Elementary School and Eisenhower Junior High School of Community Consolidated School District 54 and Hoffman Estates High School of District 211. Career. Acting. Shepherd worked a day job as a legal secretary while doing stand-up comedy at night. Her first TV role was on the show "Cleghorne!", starring former "Saturday Night Live" cast member Ellen Cleghorne. Three years later, Shepherd pursued acting and stand-up comedy full-time, working again as a legal secretary for a day job. She had guest and recurring roles on "Everybody Loves Raymond" and "Living Single" as well as regular roles on "Suddenly Susan" and "The Jamie Foxx Show". Perhaps her most successful role prior to "The View" was playing the main character of Ramona Platt (2002–2006) on the comedy "Less than Perfect". In 2009 she starred for one season in Lifetime Television's "Sherri", a sitcom about Shepherd's life. Shepherd has branched out to film, with roles in "Guess Who", "Beauty Shop", "Cellular", ' and Academy Award-winning film '. Her most recent film role is as Lula in "One for the Money", starring Katherine Heigl. She still performs stand-up comedy at Los Angeles area clubs like the Comedy Store and the Laugh Factory, although she lives in New York. She has also been a frequent and popular guest on Ellen DeGeneres's syndicated daytime talk show, "The Ellen DeGeneres Show", for which she holds a record for being on the show the greatest number of times. She also had a recurring role on "30 Rock" as Angie Jordan, and she has appeared as a special guest host of "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire". Co-host on "The View". In 2006, Sherri Shepherd became a frequent guest co-host on ABC's "The View". She eventually became a permanent co-host on Monday, September 10, 2007. She co-hosted the 35th Daytime Emmy Awards on June 20, 2008. Her fellow co-host was "All My Children" star Cameron Mathison. Shepherd was nominated for her first Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Talk Show Host. On May 14, 2009, she was nominated again for her second Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Talk Show Host, when nominations for 36th Daytime Emmy Awards were announced on the "Today Show". Shepherd won her first Emmy for Outstanding Talk Show Host that year. Criticized statements. Shepherd was criticized heavily after the September 18, 2007, broadcast of "The View", in which she stated that she didn't "believe in evolution. Period." Co-host Whoopi Goldberg asked her, "Is the world flat?" She first responded, "I don't know," and expanded that she "never thought about it". Shepherd continued that it was more important to her that she thought about how she was "going to feed child". Barbara Walters replied by pointing out, "You can do both." However, Shepherd then went on to quote Scripture. Shepherd later referred to her statement as a "brain fart" brought on by nerves and the following exchange between Barbara Walters and Sherri Shepherd occurred after that particularly embarrassing episode: Walters said, "Dear, the Earth is round", and Shepherd responded with: "Barbara, I know that!" Similar criticism erupted after the December 4, 2007, broadcast of "The View" when, during a discussion initiated by Joy Behar about Epicurus, Shepherd attempted to assert that Christians existed in classical Greece, and that the Greeks threw them to the lions. When confronted on this point, she further claimed that "Jesus came first" (before Greeks and Romans) and stated, "I don't think anything predated Christians", to which Joy Behar responded: "The Jews." Shepherd garnered ridicule after admitting to never voting partly due to her upbringing as a strict Jehovah's Witness. She was quoted as saying that she just "never knew the dates or anything"; she stated, "I've never voted for anything in my life." In January 2008, Sherri referred to R&B/gospel singer Shirley Caesar as "the black Patti LaBelle." LaBelle, like Caesar, is black. Book. Shepherd authored the book "Permission Slips: Every Woman's Guide to Giving Herself a Break", published in October 2009. "Dancing with the Stars". In March 2012, Shepherd participated as a celebrity contestant on the fourteenth season of ABC's "Dancing with the Stars". Her professional partner was announced as Val Chmerkovskiy, however the couple were eliminated on the fourth week of competition. Personal life. In 2001, Shepherd married comedian Jeff Tarpley (also referred to as Jeff T. Aware). Their only child, Jeffrey, was born in April 2005. Previously, Shepherd had announced that she was expecting fraternal twins (one boy, one girl), but miscarried her daughter, and instead gave birth three months prematurely. The couple separated in 2006 and divorced in 2009 after she discovered Tarpley was having an affair, an event that inspired her sitcom "Sherri". Shepherd got engaged on December 26, 2010, to TV writer Lamar Sally, whom she had been seeing for over a year. They were wed on August 13, 2011, at the Fairmont Hotel in Chicago, Illinois. Shepherd's eight bridesmaids included "The View" co-host Elisabeth Hasselbeck, comedian Niecy Nash, "Community"'s Yvette Nicole Brown, and comedian, actress Kym Whitley. Shepherd's son Jeffrey walked her down the aisle. A devout Christian, she has stated about the role God has played in her life and career: "If I didn't have God, I would have been dead." She has mentioned on "The View" that she is opposed to same-sex marriage as her faith prohibits such unions. Shepherd has admitted to having "many abortions". She suffers from type 2 diabetes after having had pre-diabetes for years. Awards and nominations. Daytime Emmy Award Screen Actors Guild Awards Washington DC Area Film Critics Association Awards Boston Society of Film Critics Awards Broadcast Film Critics Association Awards Black Reel Awards BET Comedy Awards NAACP Image Awards Gracie Awards Braveheart Awards
1742400	, or Suite Pretty Cure♪, is a Japanese anime series and the eighth "Pretty Cure" installment by Izumi Todo. Produced by Toei Animation, the series is directed by Munehisa Sakai, who directed the One Piece anime series and character designs by Akira Takahashi, who previously worked on Kaidan Restaurant. The series aired on TV Asahi's ANN network from February 6, 2011 to January 29, 2012, replacing "HeartCatch PreCure!" in its initial timeslot, and was succeeded by "Smile PreCure!" A manga adaptation is also being serialised in Kodansha's monthly "Nakayoshi" magazine.
1060401	Claire Bloom, CBE (born 15 February 1931) is an English film and stage actress. Early life. Patricia Claire Bloom was born in the North London suburb of Finchley, the daughter of Elizabeth (née Grew) and Edward Max Blume, who worked in sales. Her paternal grandparents, originally named Blumenthal, as well as her maternal grandparents, originally named Gravitzky, were Jewish immigrants from Byten, in the Grodno region of Russia, now in Belarus, Eastern Europe. Bloom attended secondary school at the independent Badminton School in Bristol. She is the sister of film editor John Bloom. Career. After training at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama and the Central School of Speech and Drama, Bloom made her debut on BBC radio programmes. She made her stage debut in 1946, when she was 15, with the Oxford Repertory Theatre. Her London stage debut was in 1947 in the hit Christopher Fry play "The Lady's Not For Burning", which also featured the young Richard Burton, starred John Gielgud and Pamela Brown and which subsequently was produced, with the aforementioned four, on Broadway in New York. The following year, she received great acclaim for her portrayal of Ophelia in "Hamlet", the first of many works by William Shakespeare in which Bloom would appear. Bloom has appeared in a number of plays and theatrical works in both London and New York. Those works include "Look Back in Anger", "Rashomon", and Bloom's favourite role, that of Blanche in the Tennessee Williams play "A Streetcar Named Desire". Bloom has also performed in a one woman show that included monologues from several of her stage performances. She also starred in the 1976 Broadway revival of "The Innocents". Bloom's first film role was in 1948, for the film "The Blind Goddess". She trained at the Rank Organisation's "charm school", but did not stay with that company for long. She was chosen by Charlie Chaplin in 1952 to appear in his film "Limelight", which catapulted Bloom to stardom, and remains one of her most memorable roles. She was subsequently featured in a number of "costume" roles in films such as "Alexander the Great", "The Brothers Karamazov", "The Buccaneer", and "The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm". Bloom also appeared in Laurence Olivier's film version of "Richard III", where she played Lady Anne, Ibsen's "A Doll's House", "The Outrage" with Paul Newman and Laurence Harvey, as well as the films "The Spy Who Came in from the Cold" and "Look Back in Anger", both with Richard Burton. In the 1960s she began to play more contemporary roles, including an unhinged housewife in "The Chapman Report", a psychologist in the Oscar winning film "Charly", and Theodora in "The Haunting". She also appeared in the Woody Allen films "Crimes and Misdemeanors" (1989) and "Mighty Aphrodite" (1995). She played Hera in Clash of the Titans. Laurence Olivier played Zeus, her husband; in Richard III she had played the wife of Richard, also portrayed by Olivier. Her most recent appearance in a Hollywood film was her portrayal of Queen Mary of Teck in the 2010 film "The King's Speech". Bloom has appeared in numerous roles on television, perhaps the most memorable of which was her portrayal of Lady Marchmain in "Brideshead Revisited" (1981). In 1996, she wrote, "I still find it puzzling when I am told I played a manipulative and heartless woman; that is not how I saw her. Lady Marchmain is deeply religious, and her dilemma includes trying to raise a willful brood of children on her own, while instilling them with her rigid observance of the Catholic code. Sebastian is both an alcoholic and a homosexual, and from her point of view, he lives in a state of mortal sin. She has to fight for his soul by any means in her power, with the knowledge that her efforts may lead to his destruction. A born crusader, the Marchioness confronts her difficult choices head on; her rigidity of purpose, which I don't in any way share, is understandable in context. The aspect that rings most true is her sense of being an outsider, a Catholic in Protestant England. Not such a leap from being a Jew in Protestant England as one would imagine." Other work includes two prominent BBC Television productions for director Rudolph Cartier: co-starring with Sean Connery in "Anna Karenina" (1961), and playing Cathy in "Wuthering Heights" with Keith Michell as Heathcliff (1962). She also appeared as First Lady Edith Wilson in "Backstairs at the White House" (1979); as Joy Gresham, the wife of C.S. Lewis in "Shadowlands" (for which she received the BAFTA Award as Best Actress. (1985); and as the older Sophy in the 1992 mini-series "The Camomile Lawn" on Britain's Channel 4. Her most recent appearance in a mini-series was in the 2006 version of "The Ten Commandments".
1073382	Cody Martin Linley (born November 20, 1989 in Lewisville, Texas) is an American actor and singer. He is best known for his recurring role as Jake Ryan in the television series "Hannah Montana" and for being a contestant on the seventh season of "Dancing With The Stars", in which he was partnered with Julianne Hough. Career. Linley made his acting debut in the 1994 made-for-television film "Still Holding On: The Legend of Cadillac Jack". Subsequently, he had supporting roles in four films released in 2000: "My Dog Skip", "Where the Heart Is", "Walker, Texas Ranger", and "Miss Congeniality". In 2003, Linley was in the independent film "When Zachary Beaver Came to Town" and appeared in the movie "Cheaper by the Dozen". He also played a live-action version of Arnold for a commercial for . Other film roles include "Hannah Montana," "", "Rebound", and "Hoot". He also had a role in an episode of "That's So Raven" as Daryl in the Episode Five Finger Discount the Boy who was friends with Corey Baxter Massey that tricked Corey into stealing a Monkey Key Chain . Most recently, Linley appeared in ten episodes of "Hannah Montana" as Jake Ryan. Linley co-hosted the 2008 Disney Channel Games. In April 2013, rumours surfaced stating that Linley was poised to star as one of the leads in the sequel to the 2013 horror "Texas Chainsaw 3D".
1712240	"Lemora: A Child's Tale of the Supernatural (also called Lemora: The Lady Dracula and The Legendary Curse of Lemora") is a 1975 American horror film written and directed by Richard Blackburn. Blackburn later gained fame as the co-writer of the Paul Bartel film "Eating Raoul". Plot. During the Prohibition era, 13-year-old Lila Lee (Cheryl Smith) is summoned by letter to visit her injured father, a gangster, before he dies. She runs away from the Reverend (Blackburn), who has raised her and in whose church she has become well known as a singer, though her extraordinary beauty is beginning to attract attention as well. She ends up taking a bus to the strange town of Astaroth, where people have the "Astaroth Look." En route, Lila is menaced in a swamp by a band of mindless vampires who haunt the woods and town. She is rescued by a mysterious woman named Lemora (Lesley Gilb), who takes a fancy to her. It seems Lemora is the one who called the girl to her, though whether to protect or to corrupt her remains to be seen. Lemora takes Lila to an old house, where she bathes the girl and tries to soothe her. Exploring, Lila discovers the truth: Lemora is a vampire who feeds upon children and is holding her father captive. She is also the unofficial queen of the Astaroth vampires. While trying to escape, Lila embarks on a nighttime journey through the town of Astaroth, learning in the process that there are two types of vampires there. The one faction is like Lemora herself, relatively human in behavior and appearance, while the others are mutated or perhaps regressed, far more feral in behavior and monstrous in form; and the two groups are at war. Meanwhile, the Reverend, who is seeking Lila, manages to retrace her steps. After a climactic battle which leaves most of the vampires dead, Lila is forced to kill her own father, who has become one of the degenerates. As she weeps over his corpse, Lemora approaches her and offers her comfort by her vampire's kiss. When the Reverend shows up not long after, he finds Lila willing, even eager to kiss him. He resists at first, then he gives in. That is when she drives her fangs into his throat. The film ends showing Lila singing again in church. Whether this was intended to indicate the story was a dream, that it was a "flash forward" or that Lila returned as a vampire to the Church—or perhaps some other explanation—is left ambiguous. Notes. The film had limited distribution during its original release. It was described as anti-Catholic. It may have been either banned or condemned by the Catholic Film Board or the Catholic Legion of Decency. Some reviewers have claimed that in the start, Lila was attempting to flee the sexual advances of the priest. It quickly fell into obscurity except in France, where it became something of a cult film. It was first released on video in the United States (with a mini-documentary on the film) as late as the mid-90s. Today, Lemora still remains a relatively obscure film, but it has developed a strong following in the horror fandom over the years. A DVD of the 85 minutes theatrical version was released in 2004, featuring additional footage and commentary by the director and producer and actress Lesley Gilb. The final confrontation in the Astaroth church features a plot hole in which Lila pulls a stake from the chest of a vampire corpse who turns out to be Lemora, but her demise is not pictured beforehand. In addition, photographs exist of several additional scenes centering around a ceremony in which Lila was presumably meant to be initiated into the ranks of the Astaroth vampires, such as Lila lying in a coffin. A good portion of the deleted footage from the uncut version (113 minutes) must therefore pertain to this said ritual, which is only obscurely hinted at before the climactic confrontation in the original theatrical and DVD release.
1373050	Robert Donald Kilpatrick, Jr. (born August 20, 1949), best known as Patrick Kilpatrick, was born in Orange, Virginia to Robert Donald Kilpatrick, Sr and Ellie Fey Hines Kilpatrick. He is an American character actor with over 85 film and TV appearances to his credit. He made his film debut in 1985 with "The Toxic Avenger". Kilpatrick’s ancestors are Scottish/Irish and English, having come to America as early as 1640, and he has relatives who fought in both the American Revolution and for the Confederacy in the War Between the States. When Kilpatrick was six, his father moved the family to Connecticut from Virginia, where elder Bob began his career as an insurance executive. Twenty-five years later Kilpatrick’s father founded Cigna Corporation, one of the largest insurance companies in the world which his father helmed as CEO, President and Chairman of the Board for more than a decade. Robert Donald Kilpatrick, Sr. died January 27, 1997, at age 72 of complications from bone marrow cancer. Both his father and mother graduated from the University of Richmond and were married in the chapel there – his mother remains active in U of R alumni affairs. Life and career. Personal life. Kilpatrick graduated from University of Richmond in 1972, and then briefly attended New York University in film and video studies. A single father, Kilpatrick has two sons, Ben and Sam with his ex-wife British model Kerrie Linham-Smith. The couple married in 1986, legally separated in 1998 and divorced in 2003. He was previously married to Israeli American socialite Pnina Anza in 1978 for six months only and prior to that to Irish American Marylyn Martin for seven months in 1973. His interests range from politics to fashion, veterans' affairs to solar/wind energy application, gun ownership to Mohandas K. Gandhi. He has traveled to Afghanistan, the United Arab Emirates and Kyrgyzstan with the USO, entertaining troops as part of the Henry Rollins/Patrick Kilpatrick South West Asia Tour and is active with the Coalition to Salute Americas' Heroes, Brooke Army Medical Center (San Antonio, TX) and California Paralyzed Veterans. Kilpatrick, trained in firearms by Navy Seals and the LAPD, is a member of the Sons of The American Revolution but has refused to join the Sons of The Confederacy because of “the flawed cause” of slavery. His father’s actions at the battle of Okinawa in World War II as a member of a Beach Jumper Unit, a predecessor of the Navy SEALS became his inspiration for "Naked Warriors" a film being produced by his company UDF. He has a strong appreciation of linguistics and global ecological development, has been known to utilize dialects while acting and has been a gastronome of organic, elegant food and beverage for 40+ years Kilpatrick teaches and speaks on acting, directing, producing and writing at universities (Hampton Sydney College, University of Wisconsin among them) – and various venues nationally. In his persona as lead actor Kilpatrick has attended global Hollywood events, large and small, from the Golden Globes, to the Grammy’s, to intimate LA dinner parties and vast promotional charity soirées and filmed the occasions. The Patrick Kilpatrick Entertainment Seminars which he personally offers to elementary, secondary institutions, universities, at risk children and professional actors emphasizes tools for becoming: first a working professional in acting, entertainment writing and producing then onward to becoming a powerhouse within the entertainment industry. He has lectured on producing, masculine studies and Star Trek in which he appeared. He is a frequent producing consultant for a wide variety of film and media projects. An outdoorsman and avid competitive shooter/hunter, Kilpatrick frequently attends charity hunts, wild boar helicopter excursions roaring over Texas, unique pistol elk trophy stalks for Outdoor Channel TV shows, Quail Unlimited Celebrity Conservation events, Juvenile Diabetes South Dakota Pheasant Hunts, to The Hollywood Celebrity Sporting Clays Invitational (a large scale charity celeb tactical three ring circus which he hosts and organizes) He has participated LAPD trainings, Active Shooter courses, civilian and military tactical movement championships. Kilpatrick is a Reserve Policeman—home department Lake Arthur, New Mexico. He is also a Certified Aerial Gunner for predator control. Actor. He is best known for his appearances as villains, often alongside Hollywood's leading action stars such as Jean-Claude Van Damme in "Death Warrant", Bruce Willis in "Last Man Standing" and Steven Seagal in ' (1995) where he played a mercenary on a train with Everett McGill. He has appeared alongside Chow Yun-fat in "Replacement Killers" (1998), Arnold Schwarzenegger and James Caan in "Eraser" (1996), and "The Presidio" (1988) opposite Sean Connery and Mark Harmon. He also starred in ' (1997) and more recently in Parasomnia (2008). One of the few films that Kilpatrick played a lead role in was 1994's "Open Fire". In 1995, he co-starred in the episode Initiations, in the 2000 episode and in 1998 episode entitled The Siege Of AR-558. Although he has become well known for his appearances in action films, Kilpatrick has acted in a wide range of genres including westerns, and a theatrical run in the Los Angeles Theater for the Shakespearean "Anthony and Cleopatra". He has appeared in many top television series, including ' (1994), "Walker, Texas Ranger" (1994), "Babylon 5" (1995), "Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman" as Sergeant O'Connor for 9 episodes from 1996 to 1997, "ER" (1997), "The X-Files" (2001), "General Hospital" (2003), ' (2005), "24" (2005), "" (2008) and "Chuck" ("2008"). Kilpatrick's recent movie appearances include "Never Surrender" (2009) and "The Zombinator" (in-production). Producer / director. Kilpatrick is president and CEO of Uncommon Dialogue films, Inc. (UDF) – a full-service event and media service company with a variety of films in active production or post production, including "Active Shooter", "Lady Pirates!", "Naked Warriors", "End of the Onslaught", "Nine Heroes In The Rape Of Nanking" and "Quick".
1044597	The Scarlet Blade (US: "The Crimson Blade") is a 1963 British adventure film directed by John Gilling for Hammer Film Productions. It is a period drama set during the English Civil War. It stars Oliver Reed and Lionel Jeffries. Plot Summary. When King Charles I is captured by Roundhead forces led by the tyrant Colonel Judd and his right-hand man Captain Sylvester, it is up to a band of locals loyal to the King to try and rescue him. They are helped by Judd's daughter Claire who secretly helps them in defiance of her father...
1104011	Johann Heinrich Lambert (26 August 1728 – 25 September 1777) was a Swiss mathematician, physicist, philosopher and astronomer. He is best known for proving the Irrationality of π. Asteroid 187 Lamberta was named in his honour. Biography. Lambert was born in 1728 in the city of Mulhouse (now in Alsace, France), at that time an exclave of Switzerland. Leaving school he continued to study in his free time whilst undertaking a series of jobs. These included assistant to his father (a tailor), a clerk at a nearby iron works, a private tutor, secretary to the editor of "Basler Zeitung" and, at the age of 20, private tutor to the sons of Count Salis in Chur. Travelling Europe with his charges (1756–1758) allowed him to meet established mathematicians in the German states, The Netherlands, France and the Italian states. On his return to Chur he published his first books (on optics and cosmology) and began to seek an academic post. After a few short posts he was rewarded (1764) by an invitation from Euler to a position at the Prussian Academy of Sciences in Berlin, where he gained the sponsorship of Frederick II of Prussia. In this stimulating, and financially stable, environment he worked prodigiously until his death in 1777. Work. Mathematics. Lambert was the first to introduce hyperbolic functions into trigonometry. Also, he made conjectures regarding non-Euclidean space. Lambert is credited with the first proof that π is irrational (although, it is speculated that Aryabhata was the first to hint at that, in 500 CE.) Lambert also devised theorems regarding conic sections that made the calculation of the orbits of comets simpler. Lambert devised a formula for the relationship between the angles and the area of hyperbolic triangles. These are triangles drawn on a concave surface, as on a saddle, instead of the usual flat Euclidean surface. Lambert showed that the angles cannot add up to π (radians), or 180°. The amount of shortfall, called defect, is proportional to the area. The larger the triangle's area, the smaller the sum of the angles and hence the larger the defect CΔ = π — (α + β + γ). That is, the area of a hyperbolic triangle (multiplied by a constant C) is equal to π (in radians), or 180°, minus the sum of the angles α, β, and γ. Here C denotes, in the present sense, the negative of the curvature of the surface (taking the negative is necessary as the curvature of a saddle surface is defined to be negative in the first place). As the triangle gets larger or smaller, the angles change in a way that forbids the existence of similar hyperbolic triangles, as only triangles that have the same angles will have the same area. Hence, instead of expressing the area of the triangle in terms of the lengths of its sides, as in Euclid's geometry, the area of Lambert's hyperbolic triangle can be expressed in terms of its angles. Map projection. Lambert was the first mathematician to address the general properties of map projections. In particular he was the first to discuss the properties of conformality and equal area preservation and to point out that they were mutually exclusive. (Snyder 1993 p77). In 1772, Lambert published seven new map projections under the title "Anmerkungen und Zusätze zur Entwerfung der Land- und Himmelscharten", (translated as "Notes and Comments on the Composition of Terrestrial and Celestial Maps" by Waldo Tobler (1972)). Lambert did not give names to any of his projections but they are now known as: The first three of these are of great importance. Further details may be found at map projections and in several texts. Physics. Lambert invented the first practical hygrometer. In 1760, he published a book on photometry, the "Photometria". From the assumption that light travels in straight lines, he showed that illumination was proportional to the strength of the source, inversely proportional to the square of the distance of the illuminated surface and the sine of the angle of inclination of the light's direction to that of the surface. These results were supported by experiments involving the visual comparison of illuminations and used for the calculation of illumination. In "Photometria" Lambert also formulated the law of light absorption—the Beer–Lambert law) and introduced the term "albedo". He wrote a classic work on perspective and contributed to geometrical optics. The photometric unit lambert is named in recognition of his work in establishing the study of photometry. Lambert was also a pioneer in the development of three-dimensional colour models. Late in life, he published a description of a triangular colour pyramid, which shows a total of 107 colours on six different levels, variously combining red, yellow and blue pigments, and with an increasing amount of white to provide the vertical component. Philosophy. In his main philosophical work, "New Organon" (1764), Lambert studied the rules for distinguishing subjective from objective appearances. This connects with his work in the science of optics. In 1765 he began corresponding with Immanuel Kant who intended to dedicate to him the "Critique of Pure Reason" but the work was delayed, appearing after his death. Astronomy. Lambert also developed a theory of the generation of the universe that was similar to the nebular hypothesis that Thomas Wright and Immanuel Kant had (independently) developed. Wright published his account in "An Original Theory or New Hypothesis of the Universe" (1750), Kant in "Allgemeine Naturgeschichte und Theorie des Himmels", published anonymously in 1755. Shortly afterward, Lambert published his own version of the nebular hypothesis of the origin of the solar system in "Cosmologische Briefe über die Einrichtung des Weltbaues" (1761). Lambert hypothesized that the stars near the sun were part of a group which travelled together through the Milky Way, and that there were many such groupings (star systems) throughout the galaxy. The former was later confirmed by Sir William Herschel. Logic. Johann-Heinrich Lambert is the author of a treatise on logic, which he called Neues Organon, that is to say, the New Organon. The most recent edition of this work named after Aristotle's Organon was issued in 1990 by the Akademie-Verlag of Berlin. To say nothing of the fact that in it one has the first appearance of the term "phenomenology", one can find therein a very pedagogical presentation of the various kinds of syllogism. In "A System of Logic Ratiocinative and Inductive", John-Stuart Mill expresses his admiration for Johann Heinrich Lambert.
1141908	Gwen Welles (March 4, 1951 - October 13, 1993) was an American actress. Biography. Gwen Welles was born in Chattanooga, Tennessee, as Gwen Goldberg. She was the daughter of actress Rebecca Weis Welles (born 1928) and Barton Goldberg; her sisters were Elizabeth (Betsy) Goldberg Welles and Lori Yarum. Gwen graduated from University High School in Los Angeles, California and attended Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, New York. Welles was married to actor Harris Yulin in 1975. Gwen Welles may be best-remembered for her portrayal of talentless singer "Sueleen Gay", in Robert Altman's 1975 film "Nashville", for which she was nominated for a BAFTA Award, for Best Supporting Actress. Welles also appeared in several films directed by Henry Jaglom, including "New Year's Day" (1989) and "Eating" (1990). She died in 1993 from anal cancer, aged 42. Her younger sister, Elizabeth (Betsy Goldberg Welles), died from colon cancer 10 years later. Donna Deitch directed a documentary about Welles' illness in 1992, which appeared at the 1998 Berlin Film Festival.
582262	Once Upon a Time in Mumbaai is a 2010 Indian period gangster film directed by Milan Luthria and produced by Ekta Kapoor. It stars Ajay Devgan, Emraan Hashmi, Prachi Desai, Kangna Ranaut and Randeep Hooda. The film, produced under Balaji Motion Pictures and released on 30 July 2010, received some positive reviews from critics. "Once Upon A Time in Mumbaai" was declared a "Super-Hit" by Box Office India. The film's sequel, "Once Upon ay Time in Mumbai Dobaara!", will feature Akshay Kumar, Sonakshi Sinha, Imran Khan and Sonali Bendre. The filming for the sequel began in August 2012 apparently in Qatar. Film released on 15th August 2013, Independence Day. Plot. The film opens with a suicide attempt by Assistant Commissioner of Police (ACP) Agnel Wilson (Randeep Hooda) on the pretext of the Bombay Bombings in 1993. When questioned by his superior, he breaks down and claims that the recent tragic events are his own fault. Wilson recounts that 18 years ago, when he was posted as the A in the Mumbai crime branch, his inability to take the necessary action led to the rise of Shoaib Khan (Emraan Hashmi), who played a central role in the bombings. Throughout the film, Wilson narrates the story of 1970s Bombay, when it was ruled by smuggler Sultan Mirza (Ajay Devgn), and how Mirza's downfall led to Shoaib's rise to power. After being hit by a flood in his hometown in Madras, a young Mirza arrives in Mumbai, where he lands a job as a coal shoveller. In spite of his meager earnings, the boy never fails to help the poor and needy, which soon gains their respect and admiration. Mirza is given the nickname of "Sultan." As a grown man, Sultan Mirza becomes the kingpin of Mumbai's smuggling underworld. Through his influence, Mirza peacefully divides the city among four gangsters, thus thwarting police efforts to curb illegal activities. Despite being a criminal, Sultan Mirza is portrayed as a man of principle and a godfather-like figure to the people. He even refrains from smuggling contraband, as it is against his Muslim faith. Mirza has a crush on Bollywood actress Rehana (Kangna Ranaut) and eventually the two begin dating. Sultan invests black money in her upcoming films. ACP Wilson moves to stop Rehana's films funded by Sultan. Later, Sultan and Rehana frame Wilson to make it look as if Wilson is accepting a bribe, which damages his credibility. Meanwhile, Shoaib is – even in childhood – a very ambitious person with a dark and daring character. He is frequently involved in petty theft. His father, Hussain Khan (Asif Basra), who is a sub-inspector with the Bombay Police, tries in vain to guide and control his son. Worried, the father turns to Sultan for help. Sultan agrees and helps the young man set up an electronics shop. But Shoaib is unsatisfied, as his only real ambition is to become rich and powerful, like Mirza Sultan.
1748702	The Frankenstein Brothers is a 2010 independent romantic comedy that takes place in Denver, Colorado. The plot is centered around two orphan brothers, recently graduated from college, who inherit the Left Hand Brewing Company. Plot. "The Frankenstein Brothers" is a coming of age romantic comedy centered around the lives of twin brothers Luke and Corey Frankenstein in the pivotal months following college graduation. Orphaned at the age of five, the brothers inherited their family brewery and were left in the care of their uncle, a well-meaning but less than ideal paternal figure. Raised on beer, with the assumption they’re all grown up, Luke and Corey decide it’s time to finish their family beer; a beer their parents started but were never able to finish twenty years ago. But when the idealistic Luke meets a girl whose family shows him the home life he's always wanted, he abandons Corey and their family beer in pursuit of this budding relationship. Corey, however, refuses to go down without a fight, and the ensuing mayhem that follows pits brother against brother and forces the Colorado wild boys to finally grow up and decide what kind of men they really want to be. Production. "The Frankenstein Brothers" began as the brainchild of the sibling writing team Lee Roy and Kane Kunz in 2008. Helmed by Lee Roy Kunz, a writer, actor and director at the USC School of Cinematic Arts, the project evolved through multiple screenplay drafts until it acquired financing in May 2009. The team drew heavily upon its primary financiers’ powerful Denver network to obtain nearly unprecedented access to local shooting locations and resources at free or vastly discounted rates to achieve extraordinarily high production values. In spring 2009, Kunz began recruiting a team of top young filmmakers from the USC and greater Los Angeles communities who together represent the next generation of Hollywood filmmakers. Throughout the pre-production process, the team began to assemble a cast of emerging and established young talent, and fleshed out remaining crew positions with a wide range of experienced industry veterans. Principal photography commenced on September 2, 2009, and wrapped on September 25. Post-production is tentatively scheduled through February 2010.
1065185	Millie Perkins (born May 12, 1938) is an American film and television actress perhaps best known for her debut film role as Anne Frank in "The Diary of Anne Frank" (1959). Early life and career. Born in Passaic, New Jersey, Millie grew up in Fair Lawn, New Jersey. Her father was a merchant marine captain. Perkins was working as a receptionist at a New York City advertising agency when she caught the eye of a visiting photographer with a resultant career as a model; by 1958 Perkins was an international cover girl. In 1958, she was vigorously pursued, and then selected, to appear in her first film, in "The Diary of Anne Frank".
582678	Dil Aashna Hai (translation: "the heart knows the truth") is a Hindustani film which was directed by Hema Malini and released in 1992. It stars Jeetendra, Mithun Chakraborty Dimple Kapadia, Amrita Singh, Sonu Walia, and Kabir Bedi, with Divya Bharti and Shahrukh Khan playing the lead roles. Synopsis. Laila (Divya Bharti), brought up in a brothel, is a cabaret dancer in Digvijay Singh's (Kabir Bedi) five-star hotel. One day, Laila receives a phone call from her mother who is just about to die and tells her a shocking news that she was not her real mother, and that Laila was an adopted child. Karan (Shahrukh Khan) falls in love with Laila. Laila is aided by Karan in the search for her real mother. Her search leads them to Razia (Farida Jalal), who divulges that 18 years ago, there were three naughty girls in her college: Barkha (Dimple Kapadia), Raaj (Amrita Singh) and Salma (Sonu Walia). They were in love with their respective boyfriends: Sunil (Mithun Chakraborty), Prince Arjun (Jeetendra) and Akram (Naseer Abdullah). One day they found out that one of them is pregnant (not mentioned then who). They take a house from Razia and get the baby delivered. Soon when the baby is six months, she is sent to Razia and they promise that whoever from them will be the first to get married will adopt her and they name her Sitara. Karan finds out that Barkha is now the health and wealth minister, Raaj is training horses for polo and has married Arjun, and Salma is the principal of St. Teresa's (the college she studied in) and has married Akram. They are no longer in touch with each other. Karan and Laila invites the three women to a place giving them different reasons for the invition. After a naughty dance show by Laila, when Laila/Sitara confronts them they turn and go away. It is revealed Salma was the first one to marry but was scared to tell her in-laws about Sitara. Digvijay Singh throws Laila out of his hotel, and when she's about to get attacked by a street gang Prince Arjun rescues her and takes her home. During a Diwali party, a person insults Sitara in front of everyone and then Barkha confesses that she is Sitara's mother. While she is about to go and give her resignation letter, Sitara asks her about her father and Barkha tells her that he left to the United States for some kind of military training and never heard from him again. Raaj and Salma come to pay a visit to Sitara while Barkha has gone to give her resignation from her post. Then some paid criminals come and kidnap them. These thugs have been sent by Digvijay and Govardhan Das. Karan goes to rescue them with Barkha and prince while fighting suddenly Sunil comes as a navy officer. One of the goons is about to shoot Karan when Digvijay Singh comes and shoots the goon and accepts Sitara.
36603	Come Early Morning is a 2006 film starring Ashley Judd and Jeffrey Donovan. It marked the directorial debut of Joey Lauren Adams. The movie was shot throughout the metropolitan Little Rock, Arkansas area including Pulaski Heights, and Adams' hometown of North Little Rock. It premiered for wide release in Little Rock on December 14, 2006. Plot summary. Lucy Fowler, a construction firm employee, has a habit of drinking on weekends, having a one-night-stand, and, come early morning, waking up and leaving quickly, checking out and paying for the motel room. Through her grandmother, she finds out that her father, a shy man who has nothing to say to her, is back in town, and eventually she goes to his new church. During a visit to her local bar, called The Forge, she runs into a woman who slept with her father. A brawl begins and she is rescued by Cal Percell, a new guy in town. She attends church with her father on Sunday morning with a beaten up face. Carting around a jukebox she bought from the bar, she has a beer with Cal and gives him an invitation to ask her out. She kisses him sober, but still has demons to confront. She has sex with him that night and tries to leave the next morning without him noticing but he wakes up and gives her a ride. Eventually she apologizes.
1139080	Tom Towles (born March 20, 1950) is an American actor. Towles was born and raised in Chicago and became an actor after a stint in the U.S. Marines, beginning with an uncredited performance in "Dog Day Afternoon" (1975). He has appeared in film and television extensively since the 1980s. He is probably best known for his turn in "" as a character modeled after Ottis Toole, Henry Lee Lucas' reputed accomplice in several murders. He has also appeared in "Night of the Living Dead", "The Rock", "Blood in Blood Out", "House of 1000 Corpses", and its sequel, "The Devil's Rejects". Towles also portrayed a drug trafficking gang leader in the big screen adaptation of "Miami Vice" and had a cameo in one of the faux trailers "Werewolf Women of the SS" in Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez's "Grindhouse".
1236556	Quinn Edmond Julian Lord (born February 19, 1999) is a Canadian teen actor Beginning his professional acting career at the age of five, Lord is perhaps best known for his role as Sam in the 2007 feature film"Trick 'r Treat" and was nominated for the Young Artist Award as Best Leading Young Actor in a Feature Film for his role as Thomas Whitman in the 2012 feature film "Imaginaerum".
602240	Henry Albert "Hank" Azaria ( ; born April 25, 1964) is an American film, television and stage actor, director, voice actor, and comedian. He is noted for being one of the principal voice actors on the animated television series "The Simpsons" (1989–present), on which he performs the voices of Moe Szyslak, Apu Nahasapeemapetilon, Chief Wiggum, Comic Book Guy, Carl Carlson and numerous others. Azaria, who attended Tufts University, joined the show with little voice acting experience, but became a regular in its second season. Many of his performances on the show are based on famous actors and characters; Moe's voice, for example, is based on actor Al Pacino. Alongside his continued voice acting on "The Simpsons", Azaria became more widely known through his live-action appearances in films such as "The Birdcage" (1996) and "Godzilla" (1998). He has continued to star in numerous films including "Mystery Men" (1999), "America's Sweethearts" (2001), "Shattered Glass" (2003), "Along Came Polly" (2004), "Run Fatboy Run" (2007), "" (2009) and "The Smurfs" (2011). He also had recurring roles on the television series "Mad About You" and "Friends", and starred in the drama "Huff" (2004–2006), playing the titular character, as well as appearing in the popular stage musical "Spamalot". Originally primarily a comic actor, in recent years Azaria has taken on more dramatic roles including the TV films "Tuesdays With Morrie" (1999) and "Uprising" (2001). He has won four Emmys and a Screen Actors Guild Award. Azaria was married to actress Helen Hunt from 1999 to 2000. Early life. Azaria was born Henry Albert Azaria on April 25, 1964 in Forest Hills, Queens, New York, the son of Sephardic Jewish parents. His grandparents on both sides hailed from Thessaloniki, Greece, and his family spoke Ladino. Azaria's father, Albert, ran several dress-manufacturing businesses, while his mother raised him and his two older sisters, Stephanie and Elise. Before marrying his father, Azaria's mother had been a publicist for Columbia Pictures, promoting films in Latin American countries, as she was fluent in both English and Spanish. During his childhood, Azaria often "memorizeand mimic[ked" the scripts of the films, shows and stand-up comedy routines that he enjoyed. Azaria attended The Kew-Forest School in Forest Hills. He did not consciously decide to become an actor until he performed in a school play at the age of 16, becoming, at the expense of his academic studies, "obsessed with acting." Both of his parents loved all forms of show business, which further spurred him to become an actor. He studied drama at Tufts University from 1981 until 1985, before training at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. At Tufts he met actor Oliver Platt, with whom he became best friends; Azaria noted that "Oliver was a better actor than I was in college, and he really inspired me." Together they both starred in various college stage productions, including "The Merchant of Venice". Although he did not expect the endeavor to be successful, Azaria decided to become a professional actor, so that later in his life, he would not regret not having tried. Azaria's first acting job was an advertisement for Italian television when he was seventeen years old. He also worked as a busboy. Azaria originally intended to work predominantly as a theatrical actor, and he and Platt set up their own company, named Big Theatre, although Harold Pinter's "The Dumb Waiter" was the only thing they ever performed. He decided that television was a better arena and offered more opportunity so, after being offered work with talent agent Harry Gold, Azaria moved to Los Angeles. Career. Early career (1986–1989). After arriving in Los Angeles in 1986, Azaria met with Harry Gold. The agent was lukewarm about working with him, but a woman Azaria had "worked with in New York got really furious with him because he said he'd work with me and then didn't," so Gold began sending him out for auditions. He made his television debut with a role in the pilot episode of the 1986 ABC comedy-drama series "Joe Bash", with Peter Boyle. His part – a one-line role as the police officer Maldonado – was edited out before the show was broadcast, although the role secured him admission to the Screen Actors Guild. Azaria appeared in the TV film "Nitti: The Enforcer", about the gangster Frank Nitti, and appeared in the failed pilot "Morning Maggie", alongside Matthew Perry, with whom he became good friends. He played Joe in an episode of the sitcom "Family Ties" in 1988, in which he had one line and the following year he played Steve Stevenson in an episode of "Growing Pains". Azaria has described his career progression as being gradual; he did not achieve overnight recognition or fame. In Los Angeles, Azaria was trained by acting coach Roy London. Between acting jobs he performed as a stand-up comedian, and worked as a bartender for a catering firm. "The Simpsons" (1989–present). Azaria became famous for his voice work on the animated television show "The Simpsons", a show that continues to the present. He joined the show having previously performed only one voice over: as the titular animated dog in the failed Fox pilot "Hollywood Dog", a show he described as "sort of Roger Rabbit-esque, where the dog was animated but everybody else was real." The first voice he performed on "The Simpsons" was that of town bartender Moe Szyslak, replacing Christopher Collins who had initially recorded the character's voice. Having known him from "Hollywood Dog", casting director Bonita Pietila called Azaria and asked him to audition for the voice of Moe. At the time he was performing the role of a drug dealer in a play, utilizing a voice based on actor Al Pacino's performance in the film "Dog Day Afternoon". He used the voice in his audition for "The Simpsons" and, at the request of the show's executive producers Matt Groening and Sam Simon, made the voice more "gravelly". Groening and Simon thought the resultant voice was ideal for Moe and took Azaria over to the Fox recording studio. Before he had even seen a script, he recorded several lines of dialogue as Moe for the episode "Some Enchanted Evening", dubbing Collins' voice. Azaria did not expect to hear from the show again, but they continued to call him back, first to perform the voice of Chief Wiggum, and then Apu Nahasapeemapetilon. He felt that, initially, "producers didn't seem too pleased with what I had done...was very exacting...[and was kind of impatiently directing me on the ABCs of comedy. But then, much to my surprise, he would still keep having me back every week. But each week, I thought it was going to be my last week, because I really didn't think I had done that well." Nevertheless, by the show's second season he was performing multiple recurring voices, and so was given a contract and made a permanent member of the main cast. As he joined later than the rest of the cast, Groening still considered Azaria the "new guy". In addition to Moe, Wiggum and Apu, Azaria provides the voices of the Comic Book Guy, Carl Carlson, Cletus Spuckler, Professor Frink, Dr. Nick Riviera, Lou, Snake, Kirk Van Houten, the Sea Captain, Superintendent Chalmers, Disco Stu, Duffman, the Wiseguy and numerous other one-time characters. As Moe's voice is based on Al Pacino's, likewise many of Azaria's other recurring characters are based on existing sources. He took Apu's voice from the many Indian and Pakistani convenience store workers in Los Angeles that he had interacted with when he first moved to the area, and also loosely based it on Peter Sellers' character Hrundi V. Bakshi from the film "The Party". Originally, it was thought that Apu being Indian was too offensive and stereotyped, but after Azaria's reading of the line "Hello, Mr. Homer", which the show's producers thought was hilarious, the character stayed. Azaria, however, disputed this on "LateNet with Ray Ellin", claiming that Apu was always intended to be stereotypical. Chief Wiggum's voice was originally a parody of David Brinkley, but when Azaria was told it was too slow, he switched it to that of Edward G. Robinson. Officer Lou is based on Sylvester Stallone, and Dr. Nick is "a bad Ricky Ricardo impression." The "Wise Guy" voice is "basically Charles Bronson," while Carl is "a silly voice always did." Two of the voices come from his time at college: Snake's is based on Azaria's old college roommate, while Comic Book Guy's voice is based on a student, who lived in the room next door to Azaria, who went by the name "F". Professor Frink is based on Jerry Lewis's performance in the original "The Nutty Professor", and the Sea Captain is based on English actor Robert Newton's portrayal of many pirates. Azaria based his performance for the one-time character Frank Grimes, from the episode "Homer's Enemy", on actor William H. Macy. He counts Grimes as the hardest, most emotional performance he has ever had to give in the history of "The Simpsons". Azaria's work on the show has won him three Emmy Awards for Outstanding Voice-Over Performance, in 1998, 2001 and 2003. He was also nominated for the award in 2009 and 2010, but lost to co-star Dan Castellaneta and guest star Anne Hathaway respectively. He was nominated again in 2012. Azaria, with the rest of the principal cast, reprised all of his voice roles from "The Simpsons", for the 2007 film "The Simpsons Movie". Azaria notes that he spends "an embarrassingly small amount of time working on "The Simpsons"". He works for "an hour on Thursdays when we read through the script, then four hours on Monday when we record it, and I'll pop in again once or twice." He concludes it is "the best job in the world, as far as I'm concerned." Azaria earns around US$300,000 per episode of "The Simpsons". Up until 1998, Azaria was paid $30,000 per episode. Azaria and the five other main "The Simpsons" voice actors were then involved in a pay dispute in which Fox threatened to replace them with new actors, and went as far as preparing for casting of new voices. However, the issue was soon resolved and from 1998 to 2004, they received $125,000 per episode. In 2004, the voice actors intentionally skipped several script read-throughs, demanding they be paid $360,000 per episode. The strike was resolved a month later, with Azaria's pay increasing to something between $250,000 and $360,000 per episode. In 2008, production for the twentieth season was put on hold due to new contract negotiations with the voice actors, who wanted a "healthy bump" in salary. The dispute was later resolved and Azaria and the rest of the cast received their requested pay raise, approximately $400,000 per episode. Three years later, with Fox threatening to cancel the series unless production costs were cut, Azaria and the other cast members accepted a 30 percent pay cut, down to just over $300,000 per episode. His co-star in "The Simpsons" Nancy Cartwright wrote that: "The thing about Hank that I most remember is that he started out so unassuming and then, little by little, his abilities were revealed and his contributions to the show escalated. I realized Hank was going to be our breakaway star." Further career (1991–present). Television series work. With the continuing success of "The Simpsons", Azaria began taking on other, principally live-action, roles. He was a main cast member on the show "Herman's Head" (1991–1994) playing Jay Nichols, alongside "The Simpsons" co-star Yeardley Smith. He regularly recorded for "The Simpsons" and filmed "Herman's Head" during the same day. Following the series' cancellation Azaria unsucessfully auditioned for the role of Joey Tribbiani, one of the lead characters in the sitcom "Friends". He was instead cast in the role of the scientist David, one of Phoebe Buffay's boyfriends in the series. He appeared in the show's tenth episode "The One with the Monkey", before the character left for a research trip in Minsk. He reprised the role in the show's seventh season (2001), before making several appearances in the ninth (2003). This return culminates in David proposing to Phoebe; she rejects him, and David leaves the show for good. From 1995 to 1999, Azaria had a recurring role in the sitcom "Mad About You" as Nat Ostertag, the dog walker. Azaria was nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Comedy Series for his roles in both "Mad About You" (in 1998) and "Friends" (in 2003). Azaria had the lead role in the short-lived sitcom "If Not For You" in 1995, playing record producer Craig Schaeffer. Azaria produced and starred in the sitcom "Imagine That" in 2002, replacing "Emeril" mid-season in the NBC lineup. He played Josh Miller, a comedy writer, who "transformed" each episode into a character Miller has imagined, "provid a humorous outlet for his frustrations at home and work". Production closed after five episodes and it was canceled after just two aired, due to poor critical reaction and ratings. Azaria later commented on the show "I wanted to do something really truthful and interesting and impactful. We had a bunch of executives sitting in the room, all agreeing that "The Larry Sanders Show" was our favorite thing on television, but we couldn't do it on NBC, and nor would we want to from a business standpoint; it simply wouldn't make enough money. By the time it aired, the writing was sort of on the wall, and I don't blame them at all. It was apparent it wasn't working." He starred as psychiatrist Craig "Huff" Huffstodt in the Showtime drama series "Huff", which ran for two seasons between 2004 and 2006, airing 24 episodes. Azaria served as an executive producer on the show and directed an episode of its second season. After reading the pilot script, he sent it to Platt, who took the role of Huff's friend Russell Tupper. Azaria enjoyed working on the show, but struggled with the bleak subject matter and was often in dispute with its creator Bob Lowry, noting that it "was tough to marry our visions all the time, we both cared so much about it that neither of us were willing to let go." Gillian Flynn of "Entertainment Weekly" called Azaria "impressively subtle" in the role, while John Leonard of "New York" said he was a "shrewd bit of casting." The show garnered seven Emmy nominations in 2005, including a nomination for Azaria for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series. Despite the awards, the show continually received low ratings, and Showtime chose not to commission it for a third season. Returning to live-action television in 2011, Azaria starred in the NBC sitcom "Free Agents", a remake of the British series of the same name. He played Alex Taylor, a recently divorced public relations executive "who is missing his kids and trying to keep himself together", and ends up sleeping with a co-worker (Kathryn Hahn). Azaria also served as a producer on the show. He was apprehensive about the project, disliking the lengthy schedule required of a lead actor in a single-camera series, and favoring the "sensibility" of cable shows. However, he liked the script and executive producer John Enbom's previous series "Party Down" and decided to accept the part. Despite Azaria mounting a campaign on Twitter to save it, the series was canceled after four episodes due to low ratings. Film work. Azaria made his film debut in the direct-to-video release "Cool Blue" (1990), as Buzz. His first theatrically released feature film appearance came the same year in "Pretty Woman", as a police detective. His next major film role was as television producer Albert Freedman in the 1994 film "Quiz Show", which was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture. In 1996, Azaria played gay Guatemalan housekeeper Agador Spartacus in the film "The Birdcage". For the role, which Azaria considers to be his "big break", he was nominated for the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Supporting Role, and critically branded "the most hilarious performance in the film," by Alison Macor of "The Austin Chronicle", while "Empire" wrote that he " the show." For the role he used a Guatemalan accent, and made himself sound as effeminate as possible. He had chosen two possible voices, an effeminate one and a tougher one. After advice from a drag queen, he chose the effeminate voice. Three weeks into production, he realized he sounded exactly like his grandmother, which aided his performance. Agador was originally going to be a single scene part, with the larger role of the housekeeper being played by David Alan Grier. With the producers fearing the racial connotations of a black actor in such a part, Azaria inherited the full role. He appeared in numerous other films in the late 1990s, including "Heat" (1995), "Grosse Pointe Blank" (1997), "Celebrity" (1998) and worked opposite Gwyneth Paltrow, as Walter Plane, in the 1998 adaptation of "Great Expectations". He played photographer Victor "Animal" Palotti in "Godzilla" (1998). "Godzilla" was one of Azaria's first starring roles in a blockbuster film. Its five-month shoot was the longest of his career to date, but he considered it a good chance to boost his profile. He noted, "I'm so used to melding into every character I play. Even people in the business think the guy who did "Birdcage", "Quiz Show" and "Great Expectations" are three different actors—which in a way makes me proud, but in another way is very frustrating. It's the curse and blessing of the character actor". The shoot's physical challenges, and the film's critical and commercial failure, led Azaria to later describe it as "tough to make, and very disappointing when it came out. It was one you definitely chalk up and say, 'That was part of paying your dues, better luck next time'." In 1999, he starred in the drama "Mystery, Alaska" as Charles Danner, and the comedy superhero film "Mystery Men", as the faux-British silverware throwing expert The Blue Raja. Other film roles included Hector Gorgonzolas in "America's Sweethearts" (2001), Claude in "Along Came Polly" (2004), and the young Patches O'Houlihan in "" (2004), the latter two with Ben Stiller. For his role of Claude, a French scuba instructor, in "Along Came Polly", Azaria donned a wig and worked out extensively to get into the physical shape the part required. Azaria played composer Marc Blitzstein in Tim Robbins' film "Cradle Will Rock" in 1999. Paul Clinton wrote that Azaria was "brilliant as the tortured (is there any other kind) artist Blitzstein." The same year he appeared as author and journalist Mitch Albom alongside Jack Lemmon in the television film "Tuesdays with Morrie", winning the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Miniseries or a Movie for the role. Azaria described the latter as the "best work has done." These were two of the first dramatic roles Azaria had taken; throughout his career Azaria has primarily worked in comedy, but tries to balance the two. Azaria commented: "all the roles I got were in comedy at first, and I was certainly happy to get those, so I never felt the lack of being considered a dramatic actor because I was so happy to get what I got. And then I became surprised later on when I got dramatic roles. But I never went, 'OK, now it's time to get a dramatic role.'" His next dramatic part was in the television film "Uprising" in 2001. The film was based on the 1943 Warsaw Ghetto Uprising and Azaria played Mordechaj Anielewicz, one of the revolt's leaders. Azaria was confused by his casting in "Uprising" and frequently asked the film's producer and director Jon Avnet why he was selected. "I know liked the fact I was Jewish, and he knew I could do accents well. He cast me and David Schwimmer in ["Uprising", and we were both sort of mystified. He had some instinct that he wanted people who were more known for being funny. He never explained it satisfactorily to me; I don't understand why." His parts in "Tuesdays With Morrie" and "Uprising" affected him, causing a depressive state which he countered with DVDs of the comedy series "Monty Python". Azaria found "Uprising" to be "very difficult very depressing very emotionally challenging" material. In 2003, Azaria played journalist Michael Kelly, the former editor of "The New Republic", in the drama film "Shattered Glass". Kelly died a few months before the film was released and Azaria said the film "has become a weird kind of eulogy to him." Since "Huff"s conclusion in 2006, Azaria has made multiple film appearances. He played the smooth-talking Whit in David Schwimmer's directorial debut "Run Fatboy Run" (2007). During production he became good friends with co-star Simon Pegg, performing "The Simpsons" voices on request, frequently distracting Pegg when he was supposed to be filming. He worked with Stiller again on 2009's "" in which Azaria played the villainous pharaoh Kah Mun Rah, utilizing a Boris Karloff accent. Although the film received mixed reviews, critics praised Azaria's performance. Perry Seibert of "TV Guide" wrote that "thanks to Azaria, a master of comic timing. His grandiose, yet slightly fey bad guy is equally funny when he's chewing out minions as he is when deliberating if Oscar the Grouch and Darth Vader are evil enough to join his team." He appeared as Abraham in "Year One" (2009), Dr. Knight in 2010's "Love and Other Drugs", and played "Deep Throat" director Gerard Damiano in "Lovelace" (2013). Azaria starred as Gargamel in the live-action adaptation of "The Smurfs" in 2011. Azaria wore a prosthetic nose, ears, buck teeth, eyebrows and a wig, as well as shaving his head. He spent approximately 130 hours in the make-up chair over the course of the production. Azaria considered Gargamel's voice to be the most important part of his performance. The producers wanted an "old, failed, Shakespearean actor" voice, but Azaria felt this would lack energy and wanted something more Eastern European. He eventually selected a voice similar to that of Paul Winchell's from the cartoon. Azaria disliked the cartoon when it first aired, and considered Gargamel too one-dimensional a character and "just this straight villain"; he opted to make Gargamel "more sarcastic" than in the cartoon, but "discovered that there's no way to play Gargamel without screaming your head off at certain points – ramping him up and getting him very upset over Smurfs". He interpreted him as "very lonely", adding that "he hates the Smurfs because they're such a happy family. He wants in really badly. I think he wants to be embraced as a Smurf". Azaria worked with the writers to "infuse" the script with some of his ideas about the character, "particularly with the 'married' relationship between Gargamel and cat Azreal " which Azaria conceived. Reviewers from "The San Francisco Chronicle" and "The Boston Globe" commented on Azaria's "overacting" in the role of Gargamel. More positive reaction came from Scott Bowles of "USA Today" called Azaria the "human standout"; Betsy Sharkey of "The Los Angeles Times" felt he suffered the "greatest disservice" of the film's cast due to a poor script. Azaria noted in an interview with "The A.V. Club" that "The Smurfs" and "Night at the Museum" were films he agreed to do primarily for the money, but that "I won’t even do that unless I think it will at least be fun to do...I really try to throw myself into it, figure out the funniest, cleverest way to get the material over, and make it fun to do and fun to watch." Azaria reprised his role in the 2013 sequel "The Smurfs 2". Further voice work. Azaria has performed a number of voice roles in addition to his work on "The Simpsons", although he noted in 2005: "I started doing other voiceovers for cartoons for a couple of years, but I didn't really love it. I was spoiled by "The Simpsons"." He voiced Venom/Eddie Brock in "Spider-Man: The Animated Series" between 1994 and 1996. In the animated feature "Anastasia" (1997), he voiced Bartok the bat and reprised the role in the direct-to-video prequel "Bartok the Magnificent" (1999). For his performance in "Anastasia", Azaria won the Annie Award for Outstanding Individual Achievement for Voice Acting by a Male Performer in an Animated Feature Production. He also voiced Eric in the American dub of the series "Stressed Eric", Harold Zoid in the 2001 "Futurama" episode "That's Lobstertainment!", and Abbie Hoffman and Allen Ginsberg in "Chicago 10" (2007). For the 2011 film "Hop", Azaria voiced Carlos and Phil. The response to the film was mostly negative, but many reviewers praised Azaria's performance. For example, Sandie Chen of "The Washington Post" said "Azaria has been honing his over-the-top Spanish accent since "The Birdcage", so anything he says grabs some laughs", while Emma Simmonds of "Time Out" called him an "unflappable presence, voicing two characters with style". Later in the year he voiced The Mighty Sven in "Happy Feet 2". Once "The Simpsons" was "going steadily" and Azaria had enough money to live on, he stopped working on commercials as he found them "demoralizing", feeling that he sounded sarcastic whenever he read for them. When recording the part of "Jell-O Man" for a Jell-O commercial, he was told to make the voice he offered "more likeable and friendly so that children like him." After pointing out that "Jell-O Man" was a fictional character, he left and pledged to never record for an advertisement again. However, in 2012 he voiced several insects in a commercial for the Chevrolet Sonic. Other work. Azaria wrote and directed the 2004 short film "Nobody's Perfect", which won the Film Discovery Jury Award for Best Short at the US Comedy Arts Festival. In January 2007, he was confirmed to be directing "Outsourced", a film about two American workers who journey to get their jobs back, after their factory is moved to Mexico. In 2009, Azaria told "Empire" he was instead focusing on making a documentary about fatherhood. Two years later he told "The Los Angeles Times" that this project was "half-complete" and is "forever looking for financing to finish it." He has periodically returned to theatrical work, appearing in several productions. In 2003, he appeared as Bernard in a run of David Mamet's play "Sexual Perversity in Chicago", along with Matthew Perry and Minnie Driver, in London's West End. Azaria made his first appearance as Sir Lancelot, the French Taunter, and four other characters in "Spamalot", the musical version of "Monty Python and the Holy Grail", which opened in Chicago in December 2004, before moving to the Shubert Theatre on Broadway. The show met with critical acclaim, receiving fourteen Tony Award nominations in 2005, with Azaria being nominated for Best Performance by a Leading Actor in a Musical. Reuniting with "The Birdcage" director Mike Nichols, and being a huge "Monty Python" fan, he saw it as an opportunity he could not pass up, describing it as "so much fun that I haven't realized how tiring it is", and "the most fun that I've ever had in my entire life". He took a break from the show in June 2005, with Alan Tudyk filling in for him, to work on "Huff", but returned in December 2005. In late 2007 he starred in Aaron Sorkin's "The Farnsworth Invention", playing RCA head David Sarnoff. Azaria starred in and co-wrote the third episode of the Funny or Die web-series "Gamechangers", entitled "A Legend in the Booth". He played Jim Brockmire, a legendary baseball announcer, fired for a profanity-filled breakdown live on air after discovering his wife was having an affair. Azaria based the voice and style of Brockmire on several veteran sportscasters, including Bob Murphy and Phil Rizzuto. He has since appeared as Brockmire on the NFL Network's "The Rich Eisen Podcast" to discuss the National Football League. In November 2012, Azaria sued actor Craig Bierko over the ownership of the Brockmire voice. Acting style and vocal range. Azaria's friends refer to him as "the freakish mimic" due to his ability to copy almost anyone's voice, instantly after he has heard it. As a child he believed that everyone could do this, but later realized that it was not a common talent. Azaria can "remember every voice I hear, famous or otherwise...they kind of remain in the memory banks, so I'm ready to trot them out." Azaria was glad to have found the "ultimate outlet" for this skill, in "The Simpsons". He "didn't realize it he joined the show, but it became like a lab for a character actor. I had to do so many voices." In the early 2000s, Azaria felt he had reached the maximum number of voices he was capable of: "For the first 10 years of "The Simpsons", I would develop a bunch of voices. And then...I hit a point when I was tapped out. Every noise I can make, I have made. Even characters like Gargamel, I've done. Even if it was only two or three lines, at some point I've done something similar on "The Simpsons", at least somewhere along the line." For many of Azaria's characters, much of their humor is derived from a "funny voice", such as "The Birdcage" and "Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian". He stated that "being funny with a funny voice is more my comfort zone, a broader character that I try to humanize, a kind of silly or wacky persona that I try to fill in," although he finds it "much easier to be someone much closer to myself," as it requires "less energy...than playing characters that are so out there and high strung". "The Simpsons" creator Matt Groening has stated that Azaria possesses the ability to turn unfunny lines into some of the best in an episode, while former writer Jay Kogen stated: "Just when I think I know [Azaria's] bag of tricks, he's always got a new thing he does to surprise me." Throughout the run of "The Simpsons", Azaria has had to sing in character several times, a task which he describes as easier than singing normally. "The Smurfs" writer David N. Weiss says Azaria "has a beautiful treasure trove of talent," and "became what you wished you were writing". Playwright Jenelle Riley wrote in 2005 that Azaria was "by far" her favorite actor, praising his "versatility" and "tendency to take small roles that would normally fade into the background and to consistently create characters people care about", noting his roles in "Shattered Glass", "Mystery, Alaska" and especially "Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story". Personal life. In the early 1990s, Azaria was in a relationship with the actress Julie Warner. His relationship with actress Helen Hunt began in 1994; they married in a traditional Jewish ceremony at the couple's home in Southern California on July 17, 1999. The two had appeared together in "Mad About You" and "Dumbbell Indemnity", an episode of "The Simpsons". After a year of marriage, Azaria moved out of the couple's home, and after a six-month separation, Hunt filed for divorce, citing "irreconcilable differences". The divorce was finalized on December 18, 2000. Azaria began dating former actress Katie Wright in 2007, and the two later married. They have a son together, Hal, who was born in 2009. In 2013, the family moved to New York, renting a home on 80th Street, with plans to make a final decision on where to live in two years. They previously lived in a four-bedroom house in Pacific Palisades, which Azaria bought from his "The Simpsons" co-star Dan Castellaneta and his wife Deb Lacusta in 2011. Several weeks earlier, Azaria sold his home in Bel Air. Azaria previously owned the fifth-floor co-op loft at 84 Mercer Street in Manhattan's Soho neighborhood, which he bought in 2005 from photographer Cindy Sherman, before selling it in 2013. Azaria is the godfather of Oliver Platt's son, George. He is also a regular poker player, appearing twice on "Celebrity Poker Showdown" and competing at other events, finishing a few places short of the bubble in the main event of the 2010 World Series of Poker. Politically, Azaria has made contributions that support the Democratic Party, enjoys the music of Elvis Costello, and would be a therapist if he were not an actor. He considers "The Godfather trilogy" to be what inspired him to become an actor, and counts Peter Sellers and Walt Frazier as his heroes. Azaria co-founded the educational support charity Determined to Succeed.
1067071	Creature from the Haunted Sea is a 1961 comedy horror film directed by Roger Corman. Written by Charles B. Griffith, the film is a parody of spy, gangster, and monster movies (mostly "The Creature from the Black Lagoon"), concerning a secret agent, XK150 (played by Robert Towne under the pseudonym "Edward Wain"), who goes under the code name "Sparks Moran" in order to infiltrate a criminal gang led by Renzo Capetto (Antony Carbone), who is trying to transport a colonel, a group of exiled Cuban nationals, and a large portion of the Cuban treasury out of the country.
1163355	Sarah Catharine Paulson (born December 17, 1974) is an American actress. She is best known for her roles in "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip", "Game Change", "Martha Marcy May Marlene", and "American Horror Story". Her work in television has earned her several Emmy and Golden Globe nominations. Career. Paulson was a series regular on the cult television show "American Gothic" and The WB series "Jack & Jill" (1999), playing Elisa Cronkite. She had a minor role in the HBO series "Deadwood" and was a focal character in an episode of the critically acclaimed FX series "Nip/Tuck". She appeared on the short-lived NBC series "Leap of Faith" as the main character. In 2004, she had a supporting role in the ABC series "The D.A.", but that show also ended after a few episodes. Paulson starred in a revival of "The Glass Menagerie" on Broadway and has appeared Off-Broadway in "Killer Joe", "Talking Pictures", and "Colder Than Here". Paulson's movie credits include "Down with Love," "What Women Want", "The Other Sister", "Levitation", and "Serenity". In the 2006-2007 television season, Paulson co-starred in NBC's "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip" playing Harriet Hayes, one of the stars of the show-within-a-show. To date, this is her most notable role, earning her a nomination for Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress – Series, Miniseries or Television Film. In December 2008, Paulson appeared in the screen adaptation of Will Eisner's comic book "The Spirit", playing an updated version of the character Ellen Dolan. On August 25, 2008, ABC ordered her pilot "Cupid" to series. It was a remake of the 1998 series starring Jeremy Piven and Paula Marshall. In the new version, Paulson starred opposite Bobby Cannavale. It debuted in late March 2009 on ABC but was canceled on May 19, 2009, after only 6 episodes aired. In February 2010, Paulson portrayed the circa 1982 mother of main character Meredith Grey, on the hit ABC primetime drama "Grey's Anatomy". She plays Nicolle Wallace in the HBO film "Game Change" (2012) based on events of the 2008 U.S. presidential election campaign. In 2011, Paulson guest starred in 3 episodes of the FX anthology series "American Horror Story", playing a medium, Billie Dean Howard. At the end of the first season, Paulson was asked to return for season two, playing a completely new character. Season two is titled ', in which she plays Lana Winters, a writer who is committed to the asylum for being a lesbian. She will appear in the third season of the series, titled '. Paulson also appeared in the 2012 film, "Mud", and the 2013 film, "Twelve Years a Slave". Paulson has also had a successful theatre career. In 2005 she starred as Laura Wingfield in a revival of Tennessee Williams' play The Glass Menagerie alongside Jessica Lange, Josh Lucas, and Christian Slater. In 2010, Paulson starred in Donald Margulies's Collected Stories alongside Linda Lavin. Paulson is currently starring in a revival of Lanford Wilson's Talley's Folly alongside Danny Burstein. Personal life. Paulson was born in Tampa, Florida, and raised in Brooklyn and Maine. Paulson dated the actress Cherry Jones. In 2007, Paulson and Jones declared their love for each other in an interview with Velvetpark at Women's Event 10 for the LGBT Center of NYC. They broke up in 2009. In an interview with Broadway.com in 2013 during the revival of Talley's Folly, Paulson stated that she only ever dated men before her relationship with Jones, and that she has not been in a relationship since her breakup with Jones, but that she is open to relationships with women and men going forward.
1061204	George Segal (born February 13, 1934) is an American film, stage, and television actor. Early life. George Segal, Jr. was born in 1934 in Great Neck, Long Island, New York, the son of Fannie Blanche (née Bodkin) and George Segal, Sr. His family was Jewish. He was educated at George School, a private Quaker preparatory boarding school near Newtown, Bucks County, Pennsylvania. He also attended Haverford College. He graduated in 1955 from Columbia University. Career. Segal has played both drama and comedy, although he is more often seen in the latter. Originally a stage actor and musician, Segal appeared in several minor films in the early 1960s in addition to the well-known 1962 movie "The Longest Day". He was signed to a Columbia Pictures contract in 1961, making his film debut in "The Young Doctors" and appearing in "The Naked City" produced for television by Columbia's "Screen Gems". He started attracting roles in 1965 as an egocentric painter in "Ship of Fools", as a P.O.W. in "King Rat" in a role originally meant for Frank Sinatra, and as an Algerian paratrooper captured at Dien Bien Phu, who leaves the French army to become a leader of the FLN in "Lost Command". He was loaned to Warner Bros for "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" (as Nick, for which he was nominated for an Oscar), later appearing as a British secret service agent in "The Quiller Memorandum", a Cagneyesque gangster in "The St. Valentine's Day Massacre", a perplexed police detective Mo Brummel in "No Way to Treat a Lady", a bookworm in "The Owl and the Pussycat", a war-weary platoon commander in "The Bridge at Remagen", a man laying waste to his marriage in "Loving", and a hairdresser turned junkie in "Born to Win". In 1967, Segal released his debut LP titled "The Yama Yama Man"; the title track is a ragtime version of "The Yama Yama Man" (1908) with horns and banjos. Segal apparently released the album due to his popularity playing banjo on "The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson". Segal starred with Ruth Gordon in Carl Reiner's 1970 dark comedy "Where's Poppa?" He played Dortmunder, the Donald Westlake-inspired wisecracking burglar in the 1972 comedy "The Hot Rock" with Robert Redford, a comically unfaithful husband in "A Touch of Class" and a midlife crisis victim in "Blume in Love". He co-starred with Jane Fonda as suburbanites-turned-bank-robbers in "Fun with Dick and Jane", and starred as a faux gourmet in "Who Is Killing the Great Chefs of Europe?" Segal was relatively inactive in the 1980s, but bounced back as the sleazy father of Kirstie Alley's baby in "Look Who's Talking", and in the 1993 sequel "Look Who's Talking Now". He played a left-wing comedy writer in "For the Boys" (1991). His first starring role in many years came opposite JoBeth Williams in the 1992 comedy "Me, Myself & I". He also notably starred in the NBC award-winning television sitcom "Just Shoot Me!" (1997–2003) as Jack Gallo, the eccentric but lovable publisher of a New York fashion magazine, alongside Wendy Malick, Laura San Giacomo, Enrico Colantoni, and David Spade. Segal is an accomplished banjo player; he played with a dixieland jazz band while in college at Columbia that had several different names. When he was the one who booked a gig, he would bill the group as "Bruno Lynch and his Imperial Jazzband". Recent engagements in Los Angeles have included guest spots with the award-winning residency Guitarology. The group, which later settled on the name Red Onion Jazz Band, later played at his first wedding. In 1974 he played in "A Touch of Ragtime", an album with his band, the Imperial Jazzband (which, other than its name, may or may not have had any relation to his college band). During the 1970s/80s, Segal made frequent television appearances with the "Beverly Hills Unlisted Jazz Band", whose members included actor Conrad Janis on trombone. Segal's banjo skills were referenced in "The Simpsons" episode, "A Fish Called Selma", while on a date with "Troy McClure" Selma says "I once went on a date with a famous actor and had a wonderful time" to which Troy replies "Really...who was it, George Segal? I hear he plays the banjo." In Martin Scorsese's 1985 black comedy "After Hours", Cheech and Chong play art thieves who steal a valuable sculpture by the artist George Segal, whom Cheech helpfully explains is "that dude who plays the banjo on "The Tonight Show"." Segal portrayed the elderly upright bassist Tony Delgatto in "2012". Most recently, he played the character Murray Berenson in the television series "Entourage". He recently worked as a main cast member in the TV Land sitcom, "Retired at 35" (2011–12). Segal's most current work is for a new ABC sitcom called "The Goldbergs", produced by Adam Sandler's production company, Happy Madison. The series is planned for the small screen in the 2013-14 television season, with Segal working alongside luminaries Adam Goldberg and Jeff Garlin. Works. Filmography Discography
587932	Jayamalini (or Jaya Malini) is a South Indian film actress who is famous for her vamp roles and item numbers.
900818	Laurette Marcia "Laura" Gemser (born October 5, 1950, Surabaya, Indonesia) is a Dutch-based actress of Indo descent, now Italian citizen. She is known for her work with director Joe D'Amato and Bruno Mattei, in particular, for doing a set of exploitation-style and "Black Emanuelle" films. Gemser has also been credited as Moira Chen, most notably in "Love Is Forever" (1983). Gemser left Indonesia in 1955, at the age of four, and moved with her parents to the Netherlands. She grew up in the Dutch city of Utrecht, where she attended the MULO Regentesseschool high school. After that, she attended the Artibus Art School in Utrecht, where she specialized in fashion design. In 1975 she moved to Italy. After modelling in various magazines in the Netherlands and Belgium, Gemser began to take part in some soft erotic films. She became internationally recognised after starring in a number of "Black Emanuelle" films in the 1970s. Her most mainstream and well-received role was as Laotian refugee Keo Sirisomphone in Michael Landon's 1983 American television movie, "Love is Forever", in which she was credited as Moira Chen. Gemser continued to do films: at times, she worked with her actor husband, Gabriele Tinti. In the 1990s, she left the movies to do costume designing for film. In addition, she lost her husband, who died of cancer in 1991. Today she lives in retirement and low profile in Rome.
1221750	A Grande Arte (in English, "High Art"; US title: Exposure), is a 1991 Brazilian movie directed by Walter Salles Jr. and starring Peter Coyote. Loosely based on the book "A Grande Arte" by Brazilian Rubem Fonseca, it is one of the first theatrical works of Salles Jr. The cast includes both Brazilian and international stars such as Coyote, Tchéky Karyo and Miguel Angel Fuentes. This film is considered to mark the "revival" of the Brazilian movie industry, which was until that year in a deep production crisis. Plot. Peter Mandrake (Coyote), an American photographer in Brazil, is preparing an "in loco" essay for his new book, about the "Train Surfers" (groups of boys who court danger "surfing" on the roof of the trains) in the city of Rio de Janeiro. A local call girl he is friends with is murdered, and when the police can make no progress Mandrake decides to investigate himself. Subsequently, two hired thugs break into his apartment demanding a disk, and when he doesn't produce it (because he can't) they rape his girlfriend and stab him, leaving him to die. Vowing revenge, Mandrake enlists the help of Hermes (Karyo), a professional knife fighter who owes Mandrake a debt, to teach him the art of knife fighting. The obsession this develops into causes Mandrake's girlfriend to leave him, wanting the whole thing to simply go away, but Mandrake refuses to let go. The thugs are discovered to be working for an undisclosed Brazilian criminal organization closely tied with the Bolivian cocaine cartel. The head of the organization is attempting to uncover a traitor in his organization, who apparently stole a floppy disk containing important information. Mandrake allies himself with some of the organization's rivals to help them find the disk, in return for discovering who killed the call girl. The disk is ultimately found and Mandrake learns that the organization head murdered the call girl himself, slashing her face in an act of arrogance. Hermes appears suddenly and the head orders him to kill Mandrake, but Hermes tells him to do it himself before leaving. They fight and Mandrake manages to stab his opponent to death. However, the fulfillment of his revenge quest leaves Mandrake feeling empty and without purpose. He wanders for a while before, on a whim, taking a picture of a couple kissing in a window. This reinvigorates his passion for photography, and whereas he previously took pictures of violent and dangerous situations, now his work has a theme of love and simple pleasures. He heads out to the plains to see his girlfriend, who is an archaeologist working on-site. After showing her the pictures he tells her he's been assigned to Africa, but promises to return someday. Knife culture. The film explores the mysterious and hidden world of the "Persevs" (cut-and-thrust) fighters and some famous knifesmiths, such as Rex Applegate and William Fairbairn, Bo Randall (the most famous American knifemaker, whose assault knife "Randall 14" is a key weapon in the film) and Joe Kious. Production. The movie was filmed on location on Rio de Janeiro streets (usually at night) and in the highlands of Bolivia and Pantanal. It was the first feature film directed by Walter Salles Jr., who previously was known primarily for his documentaries. He later directed films such as "Diários de Motocicleta" ("The Motorcycle Diaries") and the horror remake "Dark Water".
1080547	A Dennis the Menace Christmas is a 2007 direct-to-video movie starring Maxwell Perry Cotton and Robert Wagner, based on the comic strip by Hank Ketcham. It is a sequel to "Dennis the Menace" and "Dennis the Menace Strikes Again". The plot is based on Charles Dickens's "A Christmas Carol". Composer Peter Allen was nominated for a Leo Award for his score for the film. Plot. Dennis tries to inject his grinchy neighbor Mr. Wilson with the holiday spirit, with the help of an Angel of Christmas Past, Present, and Future.
1035092	Amanda Barrie (born 14 September 1935, Ashton-under-Lyne) is an English actress. Career. Born Shirley Anne Broadbent in Ashton-under-Lyne, Lancashire, Barrie attended St Anne's College, St Anne's on Sea. She then trained at the Arts Educational School in London and later at Bristol Old Vic Theatre School. She appeared in pantomime as a child and was a dancer before acting in a number of British television and film roles in the 1960s and 1970s, as well as presenting "Hickory House" with former "Coronation Street" star Alan Rothwell between 1973 and 1977. She was also in two of the Carry On films, a long-running series of British comedy films: she had a supporting turn as a cab driver in "Carry On Cabby" (1963) and took the title role in "Carry On Cleo" (1964), which helped her on her way to becoming an international star of stage and screen. In 1975, she played Mrs. B.J. Spence in the Walt Disney film "One of Our Dinosaurs Is Missing". After roles in a string of one-off television plays and series, she appeared in a guest role as a ballet mistress in the popular BBC comedy series "Are You Being Served?" in 1979. She worked for many years as a chorus girl in the West End until her first break as an actress came along. At sixteen she danced at the Windsor Club with Danny La Rue and Barbara Windsor, changing her name before making her West End debut in 1961's 'Babes in the Wood'. Throughout the sixties Amanda worked on many stage productions including 'Cabaret', 'Private Lives', 'Hobson's Choice' and 'Aladdin', and continued to perform on stage until the mid-1980s. She is well known as Alma Sedgewick (later Baldwin), on "Coronation Street". She was a bit-player in the early to mid-1980s before she was offered a contract in 1988, after which she became a very well known character. She continued in the role until her retirement in 2001. In the story, Alma was diagnosed with cervical cancer which later caused her death. Since leaving "Coronation Street", she continued to act, firstly as Margo Phillips in the long-running BBC soap opera "Doctors" for nine episodes, and in the popular ITV1 prison series, "Bad Girls", playing inmate Bev Tull from the fifth series to the last, along with Phyl Oswyn played by Stephanie Beacham. The characters together were known as "The Costa Cons". She also became one of the celebrities who took part in "Hell's Kitchen"; a popular ITV1 "reality TV" series which screened in 2004. While on the show, she became so frustrated with Gordon Ramsay, that she tried to slap him across the face. From November 2006 to January 2007, Amanda took a starring role in the pantomime adaptation of "Jack and the Beanstalk" in Canterbury. From December 2007 to January 2008, she appeared as the Fairy Godmother in the pantomime adaptation of "Cinderella" at the Gordon Craig Theatre in Stevenage, Hertfordshire. From December 2008 to January 2009, she played the Fairy Godmother in "Cinderella" at the Grand Theatre, Blackpool. She again played the role from December 2009 to January 2010 in Rhyl. In December 2010 and January 2011 she played the role in Bournemouth. She played role again from December 2011 to January 2012 in Worthing. On Tuesday 7 August 2012 she appeared in the BBC drama "Holby City" as troubled, sassy, failed actress Annabella Casey. She is scheduled to again play the Fairy Godmother in "Cinderella" at the Marina Theatre in Lowestoft from December 2013 to January 2014. Personal life. In 1967 Barrie married theatre director Robin Hunter, and stayed with him until the mid-1980s; the couple had no children; he died in 2004. She came out as bisexual in her autobiography, "It's Not a Rehearsal"; her current partner is Hilary Bonner.
1163419	Jacqueline Susann (August 20, 1918 – September 21, 1974) was an American novelist. Her most famous work is "Valley of the Dolls" (1966). Early years. Jacqueline Susann was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to Robert Susann, a portrait painter, and Rose Jans, a schoolteacher. In school, Susann was an intelligent but unmotivated student. She scored the highest on her class's IQ test, a 140, prompting her mother to predict that she would some day become a good writer. Susann had other ideas and instead had aspirations of being an actress. Susann's rocky relationship with her hard-to-please mother, as well as her starry-eyed view of her roguish father, would later be woven into her novels. By the time Susann entered high school, she was dabbling in drugs and had earned the reputation of being a party girl. Although her parents hoped she would enter college, Susann left for New York City after graduating from West Philadelphia High School in 1936, to pursue an acting career. Acting career and personal life. After arriving in New York City, Susann landed bit parts in movies, plays (such as "The Women"), and commercials. A year later, she landed a decent theatrical job playing a lingerie model, earning $25.00 a week. While in New York City, Susann met a press agent, Irving Mansfield (né Mandelbaum). The two dated despite the fact that Susann was not sexually attracted to Mansfield. In turn, Mansfield wooed Susann by placing items and photos of her in theater and society sections of New York newspapers. The ploy worked, and the couple married on April 2, 1939, at Har Zion Temple in Philadelphia. After the wedding, Mansfield went on to manage Susann's career. Mansfield made sure Susann was placed in news columns, and she soon was a regular on "The Morey Amsterdam Show". She then got a spot in the Broadway show "A Lady Says Yes", starring Carole Landis and Jack Albertson. The following year, Susann wrote her first play, "Lovely Me", for production on Broadway. It closed after only 37 performances. Despite Mansfield's devotion to Susann, rumors of her infidelities surfaced throughout their marriage. One of Susann's first affairs was with actor/comedian/singer Eddie Cantor. Cantor hired Susann for a role in the touring production of the play, "Banjo Eyes". Cantor dumped Susann after his wife discovered the affair and demanded that he quit the play. In 1942, Susann met comedian Joe E. Lewis and the two began an affair. Susann fell hard for Lewis, which prompted her to write Mansfield a "Dear John" letter shortly after he was drafted by the United States Army in 1943. When Lewis learned that Susann and Mansfield separated and that Susann intended to marry Lewis, he applied for a USO position and was sent to New Guinea. In late 1944, Mansfield and Susann got back together, and in 1946, the couple had a son whom they named Guy. At age three, Guy was diagnosed as autistic. The following year, Guy was committed to an institution, where he remains to this day. Mansfield and Susann told no one of their son's true condition; they told friends Guy was asthmatic and placed in a school in Arizona for the healthy climate. For the rest of her life, Susann was tormented with guilt over institutionalizing her son. Sexuality. For decades, rumors have persisted that Susann was bisexual. The rumors began around 1945, when Susann appeared in "A Lady Says Yes" with Carole Landis. The two reportedly had an affair and some claim that Susann modeled the Jennifer North character in her novel, "Valley of the Dolls", after Landis. According to Susann's biographer, the affair had begun when Landis bought her earrings and a fur coat; Susann later described to her female friends how "sensual it had been when she and Carole had stroked and kissed each other's breasts". However, in 1945, Landis married her third husband, Broadway producer W. Horace Schmidlapp, to whom Susann had introduced her. There are also reports that Susann had an affair with the fashion designer Coco Chanel in 1959, and she repeatedly attempted to start a physical relationship with the Broadway stage and film actress Ethel Merman. These allegations have not been confirmed, and most of Susann's friends and colleagues dismiss them. Writing and TV career. In 1951, Susann hosted a talk show on the DuMont Television Network called "Jacqueline Susann's Open Door", but the show lasted less than two months. In 1955, Susann acquired her poodle Josephine and a contract to be the fashion commentator for "Schiffli Lace" on the "Night Time, New York" program. Susann wrote, starred in, and produced two live commercials every night. She continued to be the "Schiffli Girl" until 1961. In the early 1960s, Susann tried writing a show business and illegal drug exposé that she intended to call "The Pink Dolls". However, she changed her mind and wrote her first successful book, "Every Night, Josephine!", which was based on her life with her poodle, Josephine. She sometimes dressed the dog in outfits to match her own. Although this book was widely viewed as a novelty, it sold well enough for her to write and publish her second book, the novel "Valley of the Dolls" (1966). Around that time, Susann developed breast cancer. She had a mastectomy on December 27, 1962, but she kept the cancer a secret. Despite her illness, Susann had determined that she would become a bestselling author, and she began writing her first novel, "Valley of the Dolls". "Valley of the Dolls" became the number one best-selling novel in the United States for many weeks. Next, she followed up this great success with her best-selling follow-up novels, "The Love Machine", published in 1969, and "Once Is Not Enough", published in 1973, the year before her death. "Valley of the Dolls". "Valley of the Dolls" was initially rejected by some publishers; however, Susann persisted, and when the novel was published on February 10, 1966, it was an immediate hit. The subject matter was considered inappropriate by many people in the general public at that time, and it was a mixture of soap-opera style story-telling with bold, non-traditional characters. The story was a roman à clef of sorts, with characters in the novel reportedly based on real-life celebrities such as Judy Garland and Ethel Merman. "Valley of the Dolls" broke some sales records with approximately 30 million copies sold as a novel. As popular as "Valley of the Dolls" was, many contemporary authors dismissed Susann's writing talents. The novelist Gore Vidal said, "She doesn't write, she types!" Critics attacked her by saying Susann "typed on a cash register." Susann responded to literary critics by saying, "As a writer no one's gonna tell me how to write. I'm gonna write the way I wanna write!" Part of this novel's success stemmed from Susann and Mansfield's tireless effort to promote it. The couple traveled worldwide (especially where English is the predominant language) promoting the novel and her following novels on talk shows and in hundreds of bookstores. Wherever Susann went on her cross-country tours, she signed each copy of her book that was available. She wrote down the name and address of every person she met and reportedly later on sent thank-you cards to everyone. In 1967, the book was adapted into the film of the same name starring Patty Duke, Barbara Parkins, and Sharon Tate. Susann made a cameo appearance in the film as a reporter at the scene of Jennifer North's suicide. "Valley of the Dolls" was a widespread commercial hit, but the film was largely panned by film critics and audiences laughed at some of the dramatic scenes. Susann herself hated the film and walked out of its premiere. Fame. In May and June 1951, Susann hosted "Jacqueline Susann's Open Door" on the DuMont Television Network. The show only lasted for a few episodes. In 1956, Susann became a panelist on an NBC summer series, "This Is Show Business" (formerly a regular program on CBS). The later episodes were produced by her former husband Irving Mansfield. Susann and Mansfield enjoyed the fame that her books garnered. Susann went on to publish several more novels, all in a similar vein to "Valley of the Dolls". She also made frequent appearances on television, particularly as a guest on talk shows. Her pointed repartee added spice to the programs on which she was featured. However, not everyone was a fan. On July 24, 1969, author Truman Capote, himself a talk show regular and a controversial figure, created a media storm when he appeared on "The Tonight Show". Capote stated that Susann looked like "a truck driver in drag." Susann threatened to sue Capote and NBC-TV over that and other comments. In turn, Capote apologized "to truck drivers everywhere." Johnny Carson gave Susann the chance to fire back at Capote, and Carson asked her on the air, "What do you think of Truman?" Susann quipped, "Truman...Truman", "I think history will prove he's one of the best Presidents we've had." Later years and death. After suffering from a persistently bad cough as well as breathing problems for quite some time, Susann checked into Doctors Hospital on January 11, 1973, hoping to resolve the cough before her upcoming book tour which was to begin in March. Susann remained there five days while tests were being run. X-rays revealed a nodular lesion in the right lung area. She was transferred to Mount Sinai, a larger hospital with more extensive facilities, for a bronchoscopy and biopsy. On January 18 Susann was diagnosed with metastatic breast cancer, though there was evidently some debate among the doctors about whether it was an original and separate lung cancer, requiring perhaps more surgery but fewer chemicals. Susann was given only months to live yet persisted to go on a book tour for "Once Is Not Enough". Like her other books, it was a success, in this case being the second best-selling novel of 1973 in the United States. When she was admitted to the hospital for the last time, she remained in a coma for seven weeks before dying at the age of 56. Her last words to Mansfield were, "Hiya, doll. Let's get the hell outta here." Posthumous works. In the late 1970s, Susann's romance/science fiction novel "Yargo" was published. Written in the late 1950s, the novel is a radical and somewhat bizarre departure from her later works. It is likely that it was only published due to the continuing interest in Susann's writings. Those who knew Susann noticed a strong physical resemblance between Yargo and the actor Yul Brynner, with whom Susann had been infatuated during her youth. Susann's last novel, "Dolores", is a thinly-veiled presentation on the life of Jacqueline Kennedy. It was published in 1976. A condensed version of the novel was published in the "Ladies' Home Journal", under the title "Jackie by Jackie." When her severe illness prevented Susann from completing "Dolores", her close friend and fellow writer Rex Reed anonymously took over. In 1987, a biography of Susann by Barbara Seaman, "Lovely Me", was published. The book was, in part, the basis for the year 2000 movie, "Isn't She Great?", which stars Bette Midler as Jacqueline Susann and Nathan Lane as Irving Mansfield. Marlo Thomas played Susann in the play, "Paper Doll", which also starred F. Murray Abraham as Mansfield. Michele Lee and Peter Riegert played Susann and Mansfield in the made-for-TV movie, "Scandalous Me: The Jacqueline Susann Story". Before her death, Susann had planned a direct sequel to "Valley of the Dolls". In 2001, author Rae Lawrence wrote the novel "Shadow of the Dolls", which was based on the notes that Susann left for her intended sequel. In popular culture. Jacqueline Susann and her novel "Valley of the Dolls" (and the subsequent film) are referenced in a plethora of pop cultural settings and mediums. References to "Valley" are more common than direct references to Susann as most within the mainstream are more familiar with "Valley'"s story and setting. The meaning behind the references are usually interchangeable and signify mutual allusions particularly with regard to fame and drug use.
589198	Not related to Taruni Sachdev, a child actress, who died two weeks after this person's death Achala Sachdev (Also spelled: Achla Sachdev) (3 May 1920 – 30 April 2012) was an Indian film actress from Peshawar who started her career as a child actor. She later became known for mother and grandmother roles in Hindi films. Her most memorable roles were as Balraj Sahni's wife in 1965 film "Waqt" and Kajol's grandmother in "Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge" (1995). Early life. Sachdev was born in Peshawar in 1920. Career. Achala Sachdev worked for All India Radio, Lahore before Indian partition and then at Delhi All India Radio. Achala made her film debut with "Fashionable Wife" (1938), and acted in over 130 Hindi films. She has acted in many Yash Raj Films, starting with Yash Chopra's first production "" (1973) and films like "Chandni" (1989) and "Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge" (1995). Her other noted films were "Prem Pujari", "Mera Naam Joker", "Hare Rama Hare Krishna" and "Andaz", apart from acting in English films like the Mark Robson's "Nine Hours to Rama" (1963) and Merchant Ivory's "The Householder" (1963). However her most noted role remained of as Balraj Sahani's wife in the "Waqt" (1965), where in the hit song "Ae Meri Zohra Jabeen" was picturized with her. Personal life. Achala became a resident of Pune after marrying to Clifford Douglas Peters who had a factory in Pune's Bhosari industrial estate named Morris Electronics, producing small electronics parts like diodes. The factory was later sold to Piramal Group. Achala has one child, son Jyotin from her first marriage who lives in the US, two grandchildren and one great grandson. In September 2011, Achala slipped and fell in her kitchen. She sustained a fracture in her leg. After, she was diagnosed with multiple emboli in her brain. This resulted in total paralysis and the loss of her vision. She was survived by son Jytoin, who is in US.
1166320	Thomas "Tom" Cavanagh (born October 26, 1963) is a Canadian actor and co-host of the podcast "Mike and Tom Eat Snacks" on the Nerdist network. Early life. Cavanagh was born in Ottawa, Ontario. He is of Irish descent and was raised in a large Roman Catholic family. Cavanagh moved with his family to Winneba, a small city in Ghana. In his teens, the family moved to Lennoxville, Quebec where he started high school. He attended the Séminaire de Sherbrooke, where he studied in French and played basketball for the Barons. He later studied at Champlain College in Lennoxville at the CEGEP level. While attending Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario, he became interested in theatre and music and played ice hockey and varsity basketball. He graduated with degrees in English and biology. Career. Commercial credits. Cavanagh has been an actor in his native Canada for many years on television dramas such as "Jake and the Kid", and television commercials, appearing for Labatt in the 1990s and more recently for CIBC. Broadway roles. In 1989 he was cast in the Broadway revival of "Shenandoah". Other stage credits include productions of "A Chorus Line", "Cabaret", "Brighton Beach Memoirs", "Urinetown" and "Grease". He appeared in "Some Americans Abroad" at Second Stage Theatre in New York City. Primetime television. After gaining notice for his recurring role as Dog Boy in the NBC television program "Providence", Cavanagh was cast as the protagonist and title character in the NBC program "Ed". Cavanagh received a Golden Globe nomination and a TV Guide Award for his work on "Ed", which ran for four seasons beginning in October 2000 and concluding in February 2004. In 2010, he started a podcast, "Mike and Tom Eat Snacks" with his "Ed" castmate Michael Ian Black. Cavanagh first guest starred on the sitcom "Scrubs" in 2002 ("My Big Brother"). He was hired to play Dan Dorian, the brother of lead character J.D. (Zach Braff), because of his resemblance to Braff. He returned for one episode in 2003 ("My Brother, Where Art Thou?"), for a two-episode arc in 2004 ("My Cake" and "My Common Enemy"), for one episode in April 2006 ("My New Suit") and most recently on November 8, 2007 ("My Inconvenient Truth"). He took the role for one last time in Braff's final episode as a series regular, the eighth season finale ("My Finale"). In 2005, Cavanagh filmed a pilot, "Love Monkey", with Jason Priestley, Judy Greer, and Larenz Tate. The show was selected by CBS as a midseason replacement and debuted on January 17, 2006. "Love Monkey" was given an eight-episode order, but only three aired on CBS before the show was placed on indefinite hiatus due to low ratings. VH1 bought all eight episodes and played them in their entirety in the spring of 2006. In 2009 and 2010, the series was shown on the Universal HD cable network. He starred in the Lifetime Movie Network television miniseries "The Capture Of The Green River Killer" in which he portrayed King County sheriff David Reichert. In March 2006, Cavanagh filmed "My Ex-Life", a comedy pilot for CBS about a divorced couple who remain friends. The pilot featured "Lost" actress Cynthia Watros as his ex-wife. However, CBS did not select the show for its fall 2006 schedule. Cavanagh portrayed the lead role Nick Snowden (the heir to the Santa Claus identity) in the made-for-TV movie "Snow" in 2005, which is now shown annually on the Family Channel. In 2008 Cavanagh appeared in the short-lived ABC series, "Eli Stone", playing the father of the title character. Beginning in January 2009, Cavanagh starred in the new television drama "Trust Me", co-starring Eric McCormack, which aired weekly on TNT until it was canceled. Cavanagh stars in "Stories from the Vaults" on Smithsonian Networks; its second season premiered July 12, 2009. He had a guest appearance in the mid-season premiere of the USA Network show "Royal Pains" as former professional golfer Jack O'Malley. Film. Cavanagh starred in the 2002 film "Bang Bang You're Dead". Prior to "Ed", Cavanagh's film appearances were mainly in supporting roles. After that series ended, he had his first starring role as an escaped convict in the thriller "Heart of the Storm". In 2005, he starred in the romantic comedy "Alchemy", opposite Sarah Chalke; in 2006, he appeared in another romantic comedy, "Gray Matters", opposite Heather Graham, and in a family comedy/drama, "Two Weeks", with Sally Field. In 2006, Cavanagh began filming "Breakfast with Scot", in which he plays a gay retired hockey player who becomes an adoptive father to a young boy. The film, released in 2007, drew attention as the first gay-themed film ever to win approval from a major league sports franchise to use its real name and logo; Cavanagh's character formerly played for the Toronto Maple Leafs. In 2007 he starred in the second installment of the direct-to-DVD "Raw Feed" horror film series from Warner Home Video, "Sublime". He most recently starred as Ranger Smith in the feature film "Yogi Bear" (2010). Personal life. Cavanagh has an older brother who is a Crown Attorney and three sisters. One of his sisters teaches Religious Education (RE) and is a chaplain in Ontario; another is an autism specialist in Toronto, and a third sister is a London-based writer. Cavanagh is married to Maureen Grise, a photo editor for "Sports Illustrated". They married on July 31, 2004, in a Roman Catholic ceremony on Nantucket, Massachusetts. The couple have a daughter and two sons. Cavanagh ran the 2006 New York City Marathon, finishing in 3:29:31. In the summer of 2008 he founded the Cavanagh Classic, an annual celebrity basketball tournament in Rucker Park in Harlem, New York City to raise money and awareness for Nothing But Nets. The charity's goal is to combat malaria by sending mosquito nets to families that need them. Cavanagh traveled to Rwanda on a March 2009 United Nations Foundation trip to distribute the nets and educate the recipients in their use.
1422869	Bo Svenson (born 13 February 1941) is a Swedish-born American actor, known for his roles in American genre films of the 1970s and 1980s. Early life. Svenson was born in Sweden to Lola Iris Viola (née Johansson), a big band leader, actress, and singer, and Birger Ragnar Svenson, a personal driver, athlete, and bodyguard for the King of Sweden. He emigrated to the United States and then, when he was 17, served in the U.S. Marine Corps until his discharge six years later. He also holds a fourth degree (Yondan = 4th Dan) black belt in judo. He was the 1961 Far East Judo Champion in the Heavyweight Division. Career. In the late 1960s, Bo had a recurring role in the hit TV series Here Come the Brides as Lumberjack Olaf "Big Swede" Gustavsen. In the mid-1970s, he took over the role of lawman Buford Pusser from Joe Don Baker in both sequels to the hit 1973 film "Walking Tall", after Pusser himself, who had originally agreed to take over the role, died in an automobile crash. He reprised the role again for the short-lived 1981 television series of the same name. Svenson also played the Soviet agent Ivan in the "Magnum, P.I." episode "Did You See the Sunrise?" (1982). Svenson has a cameo as an American colonel in "Inglourious Basterds", as a tribute to his role in "The Inglorious Bastards".
475392	Riding Giants is a 2004 documentary film directed and narrated by Stacy Peralta, a famous skater/surfer who helped define modern skateboarding. The movie traces the origins of surfing and specifically focuses on the art of big wave riding. Some of the featured surfers are Greg Noll, Laird Hamilton, and Jeff Clark, and surfing pioneers such as Mickey Munoz. Synopsis. The film begins with a historical overview, starting at its Hawaiian beginnings, then moves on to focus on the dangerous lure of big wave surfing (surfing waves that can reach up to 70 feet). The documentary chronicles the evolution of riding at Hawaii's Waimea Bay in the 1950s, the revolution of lighter boards, and tow-in surfing to allow for ""riding giants"". Three surfers who are part of this multi-generational evolution are spotlighted: Greg Noll is shown as a fearless big wave rider during the 1950s and 60s; Jeff Clark who discovered Mavericks in Northern California and surfed there alone for years; and Laird Hamilton, the contemporary surfer who brings tow-in riding to the limelight. Production. Peralta previously directed the acclaimed documentary "Dogtown and Z-Boys", which documented the rise of skateboarding, of which he was an integral part. The French producer Franck Marty, alongside with his partners, chose him to direct a new breed of big wave riding documentary film. He has said that the primary purpose of making a surfing documentary was that he "wanted to see a film like this", and that he hoped it helped to answer the question "why people choose to devote their entire lives to the pursuit of riding waves." "Riding Giants" utilizes stills, archive footage, "re-enacted" footage, home movies, and interviews. Some of the surfers interviewed include Jeff Clark, Laird Hamilton, Dave Kalama, Gerry Lopez, Greg Noll, Kelly Slater and Peter Mel. Soundtrack music. Includes: Basement Jaxx, David Bowie, Link Wray, Dick Dale, Doves, Fila Brazillia, Bill Haley & His Comets, The Hives, Linkin Park, John Mayall, Moby, Pearl Jam, The Ruts, Screamin' Jay Hawkins, Soundgarden, The Stray Cats, Alice in Chains, Érik Satie and The Waterboys. Reception. "Riding Giants" was the first documentary film to open the Sundance Film Festival. It won the 2004 A.C.E. Eddie Award for Best Edited Documentary by editor Paul Crowder. According to Rotten Tomatoes, the film has a 92% fresh rating, having earned mostly positive reviews from critics. Roger Ebert said in his review, "Before seeing "Riding Giants", my ideas about surfing were formed by the "Gidget" movies, "Endless Summer", The Beach Boys, Elvis and lots of TV commercials. "Riding Giants" is about altogether another reality."
1001984	"Love's Kitchen (originally titled No Ordinary Trifle") is a 2011 British romantic comedy film directed by James Hacking and starring Dougray Scott, Claire Forlani, Michelle Ryan, and featured celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay in his first acting role. Hacking also wrote the script for the film, and it was the director's first feature length film. It received a limited theatrical release in the UK, taking £121 on its opening weekend from five screens. It was released direct to DVD in the United States. Film critics gave it mostly negative reviews, and the film received a score of 19% on Rotten Tomatoes. Plot. After his wife is killed in a car accident, chef Rob Haley (Dougray Scott) is left grief-stricken. A bad review causes him to lose customers at his once successful restaurant, so after talking to his friend Gordon Ramsay (himself), Haley relocates to the countryside with his daughter and some loyal members of his staff to turn a local pub into a gastropub. On the opening day of the restaurant, American food critic Kate Templeton (Claire Forlani) arrives, resulting in an argument with Rob, but the two go on to fall in love. Some of the locals are content with the visitors that the restaurant is bringing to the area, whilst others want it closed down. Kate sees to it that Guy Witherspoon (Simon Callow), a renowned food critic, visits the restaurant which results in an excellent report and ongoing success for the restaurant under Haley and Templeton. Production. The film was based on the story of pub owner John Hailey, on whom the character of Rob Haley was based. The character of Kate Templeton was a play on words based on the fact that the pub it was based on was a local for Kate Middleton, later Duchess of Cambridge. The script was written by James Hacking, who went on to direct the film, marking it as his first full length feature. Hacking also provided funding for the film himself. Dougray Scott and Claire Forlani were cast opposite each other, although in real life they were husband and wife. Hacking pursued Gordon Ramsay for a role in the film for some time, but decided not to go through his agents and approached him directly. He wrote a personal letter to Ramsay asking him to be in the film, which was the first letter read by Ramsay when he returned to the UK after spending eight months in the United States, prompting the celebrity chef to agree to be in the film. The film was Ramsay's acting debut, and he agreed to appear at his own expense. Ramsay's name was misspelt in the closing credits as "Ramsey". Scenes from the film were shot on site at Elstree Studios. One scene features Michelle Ryan driving an Alfa Romeo; during one take she pulled away at such a speed in the car that the back swung out, but she managed to keep the car under control due to her experience of driving sports cars at track days. Production on the film was completed in March 2009. Release. "Love's Kitchen" was entered in the 2010 Toronto International Film Festival. It was due to be entered in the 2010 Cannes Film Festival but did not appear. The film made its debut showing in the UK at the Kingussie Food on Film Festival in February 2011 under its original name of "No Ordinary Trifle". The only actor from the film to make an appearance was Lee Boardman. It took £121 on its opening weekend (on 5 screens) in the UK after release on 24 June 2011, comparing poorly with the same weekend's biggest opening film, "Bridesmaids", which took £3.44 million (on 482 screens), including previews of £1.03m. That level of takings was calculated by the "Daily Mail" as meaning that only seventeen people saw it on the opening weekend, with an average of £24 taken at each screen it was shown at. Due to the appearance by Ramsay in the film, the low levels of takings was highlighted by the press who sought to get a response by the chef, but he refused to comment except to state that he wished to have no involvement in the promotion of the film. DVD release in the United States preceded the UK cinema release, with the film going straight to DVD on 7 June. It was also presented at the 2011 Dances With Films independent film festival, where it opened the event, but not entered in the competition. The film was released in the UK on DVD less than three weeks after its cinema release, coming out on 11 July. Critical reception. Following the release of the trailer for the film, critics began to criticise it as they thought they could guess the entire plot straight away, while Digital Spy's Simon Reynolds predicted that it would be a candidate for the worst film of the year. Following release, the film garnered a 19% approval rating from 16 critics on the review-aggregate website Rotten Tomatoes. The film was heavily criticised upon release by the British media. David Edwards for "The Daily Mirror" suggested that people should see it "for a masterclass in how not to make a film. The effect is like smashing plates over your head while suffering from violent diarrhoea." However, the newspaper also listed the film as a "nicely staged British rom-com". "The Guardian"'s Peter Bradshaw described the film as "abysmal", and in particular thought that Gordon Ramsay was "excruciating". Chris Tockey at the "Daily Mail" agreed with that assessment, calling Ramsay "terrifyingly unconvincing" and rating the film as a turkey. Henry Fitzherbert at the "Daily Express" described it as "astonishingly amateur and awful", while Sky Movies critic Tim Evans described it as a "veritable banquet of awfulness". "Empire" gave the film a score of two out of five. "Total Film" thought better of the film, with Emma Dibden describing it as having a "sharp script" while praising both Dougray Scott and Simon Callow, and giving the film a score of four out of five.
586421	Oru Cheru Punchiri (English: "A Slender Smile") is a 2000 Malayalam film written and directed by M.T. Vasudevan Nair. This is his sixth film as a director. The film stars Oduvil Unnikrishnan and Nirmala Sreenivasan in the lead roles. The film is based on Telugu writer Sriramana's short story "Mithunam" from the novel of the same title. Plot. Oru Cheru Punchiri tells the story of a retired estate manager Krishna Kuruppu (Oduvil Unnikrishnan) in his mid seventies and his wife Ammalukutty (Nirmala Sreenivasan) in her mid sixties continuing their married life in a honeymoon mood. This couple wake up to romantic mornings dense with sweet herbal aroma with the melodious music of birds as the background. They spend their time engaged in games of mischief and even some social activities that they could manage. They make it clear that they would never surrender to the plea of their children coated in love, to sell the ancestral property in the village and move to the city with them. They are happy doing agriculture in the land they own. They have some good neighbours in Janu (Roslyn), her daughter Malathi (sindhu) and helper-boy Kannan (Master Vignesh). Krishna Kuruppu was instrumental in Janu getting a sweeper's job in the Urban bank there. He also sponsors for Kannan's education. Krishna Kuruppu helps Bhaskaran (Jayakrishnan) get a job in the estate he worked. He also arranges the marriage of Bhaskaran and Nirmala. He also supports the love affair of his grand-daughter Beena (Lena) with a Muslim youth. The movie ends with Ammalukutty's decision to continue with this celebration of life even after the death of Krishna Kuruppu. Filming. The film was shot on the banks of the Periyar River at Parappuran, Puthiyedam, Chowwara, Sreemoolanagaram, and Aluva in Kochi, India.
1166074	Penn Fraser Jillette (born March 5, 1955) is an American illusionist, comedian, musician, actor, and best-selling author known for his work with fellow magician Teller in the team Penn & Teller. He is also known for his advocacy of atheism, scientific skepticism, libertarianism and free-market capitalism. Early life. Jillette was born in Greenfield, Massachusetts. His mother, Valda R. Jillette (née Parks; 1909 – 2000), was a secretary, and his father, Samuel Herbert Jillette (1912 – 1999), worked at Greenfield's Franklin County Jail. He became an atheist in his early teens after reading the Bible and was subsequently asked to leave the church after asking questions in a youth group that also made skeptics of his peers. Jillette became disenchanted with traditional illusionist acts that presented the craft as authentic magic, such as The Amazing Kreskin on "The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson". At age eighteen, he saw a show by illusionist James Randi, and became enamored of his approach to magic that openly acknowledged deception as entertainment rather than a mysterious supernatural power. Jillette regularly acknowledges Randi as the one person on the planet he loves the most besides members of his family. Jillette worked with high school classmate Michael Moschen in developing and performing a juggling act during the years immediately following their 1973 graduation. In 1974, Jillette graduated from Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Clown College. That same year, he was introduced to Teller by Weir Chrisemer, a mutual friend. The three then formed a three-person act called Asparagus Valley Cultural Society which played in Amherst and San Francisco. In 1981, he and Teller teamed up as Penn & Teller, and went on to do a successful Off Broadway and later Broadway theatre show called "Penn & Teller" that toured nationally. Career and Showtime. In 1994 Jillette purchased a house in Las Vegas and dubbed it "The Slammer". It has been featured in dozens of television shows and articles and was designed by his friend Colin Summers. He currently records music there, and previously conducted his radio show at the studio inside "The Slammer". While the off Broadway hit was running, in 1988 Penn was in a speed mariachi power trio called Bongos, Bass and Bob (Penn played bass; bongos were by Dean J. Seal and guitar was by Rob (Bob) Elk (Running Elk). The last two became the a capella comedy duo Mr. Elk and Mr. Seal after Bongos Bass and Bob broke up due to Penn's movie commitments. They recorded a record with Kramer at Noise New York called "Never Mnd the Sex Pistols, Here's Bongos Bass and Bob (What on Earth Were They Thinking?) which was released to almost no notice outside of a mention in Spin Magazine. but was immortalized with a clay-mation video of the hit single Oral Hygiene. Jillette was also a regular contributor to the now-defunct "PC/Computing" magazine in the early 1990s, having a regular back section column between 1990 and 1994. True to form, the columns were often as much about Uma Thurman as actual PC computing issues. Jillette and "PC Computing" parted ways over a dispute with a new editor. Jillette felt the new editor was trying to tell him how to write his column and what topics he should be covering. Jillette asserts that he is unsure if he was fired or if he actually quit. Jillette was the primary voice announcer for the U.S.-based cable network Comedy Central in the 1990s. Starting in 1996, he had a recurring role on "Sabrina, the Teenage Witch" as Drell, the head of the Witches' Council. He and Teller both appeared in the pilot with Debbie Harry as the third member of the Council. The show was created by Jillette's friend Nell Scovell. Penn and Teller appear as comedians Rebo and Zooty in the 5th season episode of "Babylon 5", "The Day of the Dead", written by Neil Gaiman. For a brief time in 1997, Jillette wrote bi-weekly dispatches for the search engine Excite.com. Each column ended with a pithy comment identifying which of the Penn & Teller duo he was. (For example: "Penn Jillette is the half of Penn & Teller that's detained at airports.") Jillette made a habit of linking many words in his online column to wacky sites that generally had nothing to do with the actual words. The columns are no longer available on the current Excite.com site, but have been republished with permission at PennAndTeller.com. Starting in 2003, Jillette, along with his partner Teller, began producing and hosting the show "" on Showtime. In the show, the two analyze cultural phenomena, debunk myths, criticize people and aspects of society they deem "bullshit". In 2005 with actor Paul Provenza, Jillette co-produced and co-directed "The Aristocrats" (2005), a documentary film tracing the life of a dirty joke known as "The Aristocrats". From January 3, 2006 to March 2, 2007, Jillette hosted, along with fellow atheist, skeptic, and juggler Michael Goudeau, a live, hour-long radio talk show broadcast on the radio station brand known as Free FM. The show, "Penn Radio", broadcast from his Vintage Nudes Studio in Jillette's Las Vegas home. The most notable recurring segment of the show was "Monkey Tuesday" and later "The Pull of the Weasel". On March 2, 2007, Jillette, on Free FM, announced that he would no longer be doing his radio show. He stated that he is a "show biz wimp" and decided to stop doing the show so he could spend more time with his kids Zolten Penn Jillette and Moxie CrimeFighter Jillette. During the 2006–07 television season, Jillette hosted the prime time game show "Identity" on NBC-TV. In 2008, Jillette was a contestant on "Dancing with the Stars", paired with professional dancer Kym Johnson. He was the first celebrity to be eliminated. A reference to his large feet as a sign of another large body part was bleeped in the West Coast airing. In 2009, Jillette did a spoken guest appearance on a song by Pakistani rapper Adil Omar. The song was titled "Spookshow" and produced by DJ Solo of Soul Assassins. The lyrics condemn religious extremism and encourage skepticism. It is set to be featured on a compilation album by Thick Syrup Records alongside artists like Matt Cameron of Soundgarden, Pearl Jam, Half Japanese and more. On May 24, 2010, Jillette began a bi-weekly show on Revision3 called Penn Point. It is currently on hiatus. The last update was posted on October 26, 2011. On August 16, 2011 Jillette's book "God, No! Signs You May Already Be An Atheist and Other Magical Tales" was released and made the New York Times Best Sellers in its first week of publication. An avid upright bassist, Penn frequently accompanies jazz pianist Mike Jones, who opens for the magician's Las Vegas show. Jillette was one of the contestants on The Celebrity Apprentice season 5, beginning on February 19, 2012. He was fired from the show by Donald Trump during the Week 11 episode. In 2013, he returned for the All-Star Celebrity Apprentice season, where he successfully made his way to the finale, raising a total of $663,655 for the charity of his choice Opportunity Village. Also on February 19, 2012, along with Michael Goudeau, he started the podcast "Penn's Sunday School". On April 5, 2013 Penn and Teller were honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in the live performance category. Their star, the 2,494th awarded, is near the star dedicated to Harry Houdini. The following day they were recognized by the Magic Castle with the "Magicians of the Year" award. Business ventures. Jill-Jet. In July 1999, Jillette was granted for the "Jill-Jet", a hot-tub jet specially angled for a woman's pleasure. He has credited Debbie Harry of Blondie for suggesting the idea, as the two of them were once in a hot-tub and Harry made a remark about changing the jets for a woman's pleasure. Jillette liked the idea enough to pursue patent application at the USPTO under the patent title "Hydro-therapeutic stimulator". The abstract of the patent explains that a "discharge nozzle is located within the tub and connected to the outlet, mounted to the seat so that the discharged water from the circulation pump automatically aligns with and is directed to stimulation points (e.g., the clitoris) of the female user when the female user sits in the seat." An article in the June 2006 issue of "Playboy" shed additional light on the invention. Originally, it was to be called the "ClitJet"; however, he stated that "Jill-Jet" was more suitable because it included his name in the title. Also, "jilling off" is a colloquialism for female masturbation. On the "Penn Radio" show, telling the listeners about the photo shoot for the "Playboy" article, Jillette mentioned that he has a Jill-Jet installed in a tub at "The Slammer", and that several of his female friends and friends' spouses enjoy it a lot, but he is not aware of any other installations of a water jet in such a configuration anywhere else. Vintage Nudes Studio. Jillette created a private recording studio in his Las Vegas home. The addition, designed by "Outside The Lines Studio" and built by Crisci Custom Builders between October 2003 and June 2004 as part of his Las Vegas home, was named Vintage Nudes Studios by Jillette for playing cards that he had collected. The cards are displayed in the interior design in a manner which is meaningful to magicians. The studio was home to Free FM's Penn Radio show, and is currently the home of the Penn's Sunday School stream and podcast. Personal life. Jillette is married to Emily Zolten and has a daughter named Moxie CrimeFighter Jillette, and a son, named Zolten Penn Jillette. He says he has never used recreational drugs or alcohol. He is, however, an advocate of the legalization of all drugs and discontinuing the War on Drugs. Jillette is an atheist, libertarian (he has stated that he may consider himself to be an anarcho-capitalist), and skeptic, as well as an adherent to Ayn Rand's Objectivist philosophy, as stated on his "Penn Says" podcast. Jillette is a Fellow at the libertarian think tank, the Cato Institute, and has stated that he "always" votes Libertarian. In January 2007, Jillette took the "Blasphemy Challenge" offered by the Rational Response Squad and publicly denied the existence of a holy spirit. His cars' license plates read "atheist", "nogod", and "godless". "Strangely enough, they wouldn't give me 'Infidel,'" he says. In 2005 he wrote and read an essay for National Public Radio claiming that he was "beyond atheism. Atheism is not believing in God  ... I believe there is no God." His atheism, he has explained, has informed every aspect of his life and thoughts, and as such is as crucial to him as theistic beliefs are to the devout. Jillette welcomes and even encourages open discussion, debate, and proselytizing on the issue of God's existence, believing that the issue is too important for opinions about it to remain private. Jillette does not, however, dismiss all who do believe in God: A 2008 edition of his "Penn Says" podcast expresses his appreciation for a fan who brought him the gift of a pocket Gideon Bible after a performance because he realized that this individual sincerely cared enough about him to try to help him. Jillette has stated that there is not enough information to make an informed decision on global warming, and that it is an emotion versus logic issue. He endorsed Gary Johnson for U.S. President in 2012. Jillette is a collector and connoisseur of song poems. Red fingernail. Speculation arises from Jillette's red fingernail on his left hand. From a FAQ from Penn & Teller's official website, there are three common answers: Although, in several posts on Twitter in direct response to questions about his red fingernail, Penn states "People are asking about my fingernail. Wear my Dad's ring and my Mom's nail polish. Just for remembrance and respect."
1376587	Tony Jay (February 2, 1933 – August 13, 2006) was an English actor, voice actor and singer. A former member of the Royal Shakespeare Company, he was known for his voice work in animation, film and video games. Jay was particularly well-known for his distinctive baritone voice, which often had him cast as villainous characters. He was best known as the voice of Claude Frollo from Disney's "The Hunchback of Notre Dame", Megabyte from "ReBoot", and the Elder God (and the original Mortanius) from the "Legacy of Kain" series. Career. Tony Jay appeared on-screen in several films and on television, including "Love and Death", "Twins", "Night Court", "The Golden Girls" and "Eerie, Indiana". He also developed a career in the theatre, in plays such as "The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby", "Great Expectations", and "The Merchant of Venice". Jay's other non-animation roles included Paracelsus on the 1987 CBS series "Beauty and the Beast"; Minister Campio on '; and Lex Luthor's villainous aide-de-camp Nigel St. John in '. He was also well known for his role as the voice of the virus Megabyte in the animated series "ReBoot", and for his voice-work as Judge Claude Frollo in Disney's "The Hunchback of Notre Dame" and in the Walt Disney World version of the nighttime light and fireworks show "Fantasmic!". He also voiced Monsieur D'Arque, the amoral asylum superintendent, in Disney's "Beauty and the Beast". Jay also in 1995-96 had an animation voice as he voiced a vile alien warlord named Lord Dregg, the new main villain of the original "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" TV series in the show's last two seasons. He is also well-known among "Legacy of Kain" fans for his voicing of the original Mortanius and of the Elder God, alongside several other minor characters. He was also the successor of George Sanders in the role of Shere Khan from Disney's "The Jungle Book". Jay voiced the character in "TaleSpin" and reprised his role of the character for fifteen years after it ended until his death. "The Jungle Book 2" was his final reprisal of the role. Jay was a devotee of classic Broadway, and made several recordings and performances of old-time Broadway lyrics, in spoken-word form. A CD of these readings, "Speaking of Broadway", was released in 2005; a version recorded years earlier of the same collection was titled "Poets on Broadway", as is his website. It features Jay reciting lyrics written by the likes of Noël Coward, Ira Gershwin and Oscar Hammerstein and was composed entirely by him, according to the CD liner notes. Personal life. Jay was born in London in 1933. He attended Pinner County Grammar School. He moved to South Africa in 1955 and was involved with many radio productions on the SABC Commercial Radio Service, Springbok Radio, until 1980. He later moved to the United States, and became a naturalized citizen. He was Jewish. Death. In April 2006, he underwent surgery in Cedars-Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles to remove a non-cancerous tumour from his lungs. He never fully recovered from the operation and was in a critical condition throughout the following months. Jay eventually died on August 13, 2006 at the age of 73. He was survived by his wife Marta and son Adam. He is also survived by his brother Robert and sister in law Lynda and their children Rylan and Natasha Jay who live in Canada. Filmography. Notable characters Tony Jay voiced include: Narration. Notable projects for which Tony Jay provided narration include: Voice-overs. Notable projects for which Tony Jay narrated include: Programmes include: Taxi (starred as Red Kowalski, one of the main leads; he also wrote several episodes);
1068380	Cara Seymour (born 1 January 1964) is an English actress of stage and screen. She has appeared in many ensemble casts for acclaimed films such as "American Psycho", "Adaptation.", "Gangs of New York", "Hotel Rwanda" and "The Savages". She appeared on stage in the New York Shakespeare Festival production of Caryl Churchill's "The Skriker" with Jayne Atkinson, Angie Phillips and "Savages" co-star Philip Seymour Hoffman. Most recently, she played the part of Marjorie Miller, the mother of lead character Jenny, in the critically lauded Sundance film "An Education".
1043169	Hermione Baddeley (13 November 1906 – 19 August 1986) was an English character actress of theatre, film and television. She was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in "Room at the Top" (1959) and a Tony Award for Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a Play for "The Milk Train Doesn't Stop Here Anymore" in 1963. Early life. Ruby Hermione Clinton-Baddeley, was born in Broseley, Shropshire, England. She is a descendent of British American Revolutionary War general Sir Henry Clinton. Her elder sister, Angela, was also an actress. Career. Baddeley was known for standout supporting
633596	Brian Markinson is a Canadian film and television actor. He has appeared as Police Chief Bill Jacobs on "Da Vinci's Inquest" and "Da Vinci's City Hall". He has also appeared on "Traveler", "NCIS", "The L Word", "NYPD Blue", "Psych", "Supernatural", "Touching Evil", "Taken", "Dark Angel", ', "Stargate SG-1", ', ', ', "The X-Files", "Millennium", "Mad Men", and TV-movie "Lucky 7". In 2007, he appeared in the film "Charlie Wilson's War".
583481	"What's Your Raashee?" (Hindi: वॉट्स यॉर राशी?, "What's Your Zodiac Sign?") is a 2009 Indian social comedy film, co-produced and directed by Ashutosh Gowarikar and starring Harman Baweja and Priyanka Chopra. Chopra plays 12 characters, depicting the signs of the zodiac; each character has traits related to her astrological sign. Based on the novel "Kimball Ravenswood" by Madhu Rye, the film depicts the story of a U.S.-based Gujrati NRI in search of his soul mate from twelve girls (all played by Chopra). The actress was considered for "Guinness World Records" as the first actress to play 12 different characters in one film.
1165677	Ray Teal (January 12, 1902April 2, 1976) was an American actor who appeared in more than 250 movies and some 90 television programs in his 37-year career. His longest-running role was as Sheriff Roy Coffee on NBC's western series "Bonanza" (1960–1972). He also played a sheriff in the film "Ace in the Hole" (1951). Early life, education and early career. He was born in Grand Rapids, Michigan. A saxophone player, Teal worked his way through University of California, Los Angeles, located in Los Angeles, California, as a bandleader before becoming an actor. Acting career. He had a recurring role as a police officer in the 1953–1955 ABC sitcom with a variety show theme, "Where's Raymond?", renamed "The Ray Bolger Show". Ray Bolger played Raymond Wallace, a song-and-dance man who was repeatedly barely on time for his performances. Others on the series were Richard Erdman, Allyn Joslyn, Betty Lynn, Sylvia Lewis, Gloria Winters, and Verna Felton. In 1955, Teal portrayed a ruthless cattle baron in the episode "Julesburg" of the ABC/Warner Brothers western series, "Cheyenne", starring Clint Walker in the title role. Altogether, Teal appeared five times on "Cheyenne", the first hour-long western series on a major network.He later appeared in a guest-starring role in another ABC/WB western series, "The Alaskans", starring Roger Moore. From 1957 to 1962, Teal was cast three times in different roles on another long-running western series, "Wagon Train". In 1957, Teal played a lawman, Captain McNelly, in the episode "Sam Bass" of NBC's "Tales of Wells Fargo", with Dale Robertson as agent Jim Hardie and Chuck Connors in the role of the outlaw Sam Bass.Teal was cast as Fenster in "The Bounty Hunters" (1957) on the ABC western series, "Broken Arrow", starring John Lupton and Michael Ansara. In 1958, Teal guest starred with Beverly Washburn in "No Tears for the Dead" on the CBS western series, "The Texan", starring Rory Calhoun. He appeared too in the CBS sitcom, "Dennis the Menace", starring Jay North. In 1958, Teal was cast as Yotts Meyer in the episode "Hangtown" of the NBC western series, "The Californians". Teal appeared twice in another ABC/WB western, "Colt .45", starring Wayde Preston. In the series finale entitled "The Trespassers" (1960), Teal played Mike O'Tara. Others in the guest cast were Pamela Duncan, Lee Van Cleef, Gary Vinson, and Arthur Space, as Belle O'Tara, the Indian Red Feather, Lieutenant Sims, and Colonel Tomkin, respectively. In 1960, he was cast as Sheriff Clay, along with other guest stars Charles Bronson, William Fawcett, and Stella Stevens, in the episode "Zigzag" of Darren McGavin's NBC western series, "Riverboat", with Darren McGavin. In 1962, Teal portrayed Mr. Todd in the episode entitled "The Tall Shadow" of the NBC modern western drama, "Empire", starring Richard Egan as New Mexico rancher Jim Redigo. That same year, he was cast as Sam Thorpe in the episode "Step Forward" of the NBC police drama set in New York City, "87th Precinct". He portrayed in 1962 the character Alvin Greaves in "Unwanted: Dead or Alive" of the syndicated adventure series "The Everglades", starring Ron Hayes. In 1962 and 1963, he was cast four times, three as the character Frank Higgins, on the Earl Holliman western series about the rodeo, "The Wide Country". In 1963, Teal appeared as murder victim Joe Downing in the CBS courtroom drama series "Perry Mason" episode, "The Case of the Shifty Shoebox." Teal was a bit-part player in western films for several years before landing a substantial role in "Northwest Passage" (1940). Another of his roles was as Little John in "The Bandit of Sherwood Forest" (1946). Notable film roles include playing one of the judges in "Judgment at Nuremberg" (1961) with Spencer Tracy and an indulgent bar owner to Marlon Brando's motorcycle gang in "The Wild One" (1953). This was the second of three times that Teal appeared with Brando having done so already as a drunk in Brando's debut in "The Men" (1950) and later in Brando's only directorial effort, "One-Eyed Jacks" (1961), as a bartender. Teal appeared in three episodes of the 1955–1957 anthology series, "Crossroads", a study of clergymen from different denominations. Death. He died of natural causes at age seventy-four in Santa Monica, California.
1055532	Aaron Stanford (born December 27, 1976) is an American actor, best known for his role as Pyro in "X2" and "", and as Doug Bukowski in the 2006 "The Hills Have Eyes" remake. As of 2010 he stars as Birkhoff on "Nikita". Early life. Stanford was born in Westford, Massachusetts, the son of Judith (née Dupras), an English professor, and Don Stanford, who works in publishing. His brother David is a musician. He initially attended the SUNY Purchase, but transferred to Rutgers University Mason Gross School of Arts. He graduated in 2000, magna cum laude. Career. Stanford's first major film role was in the low-budget indie film "Tadpole" (2002), in which he portrays Oscar Grubman, a precocious 15-year-old with a crush on his stepmother, played by Sigourney Weaver. At the time of filming, (2000) he was 23 years old. For this performance he earned a nomination for the Golden Satellite Award. In 2001 and 2002 he appeared multiple times on the television series "Third Watch" as Russian teen Sergei. In the same year he was named as one of "Daily Variety's" "Top Ten Actors to Watch" and included on "Entertainment Weeklys "It List". In 2004 he appeared in Christopher Shinn's play "Where Do We Live" at the Vineyard Theatre. Stanford also starred as Anthony LaPaglia's son in the 2004 film "Winter Solstice".
1489478	Catch My Soul is a 1974 film produced by Jack Good and Richard M. Rosenbloom, and directed by Patrick McGoohan. It was an adaptation of Good's stage musical of the same title, which itself was loosely adapted from William Shakespeare's "Othello". It was not a critical success. Production. Shakespeare's tragedy of revenge and racism had been retitled for the London stage and relocated from Venice to Piccadilly; for the film, the location of the drama was moved to the New Mexico desert; filming took place in Española and Santa Fe. The title comes from Act III, Scene III of Shakespeare's play, in which Othello declares his love for Desdemona, "Perdition "catch my soul", but I do love thee; and when I love thee not, chaos is come again." Although much of the plot remains intact, Othello, the "noble Moor" becomes the pacifist leader of a hippie commune, Iago appears to be the Devil incarnate who "fits all the negative stereotypes of dropouts with his scruffy beard and unwashed look" and Desdemona becomes a "white round-faced girl with granny glasses". Patrick McGoohan had earlier starred in the successful 1962 modernisation of the Othello story, "All Night Long", which had been moved to 1960s London and fuelled by jazz music. AllMovie's reviewer points out that "perhaps he thought lightning would strike twice in moving it to a gospel show in the Southwest. He was terribly wrong." "Catch My Soul" would be the only film to be directed by McGoohan, although he later directed some episodes of "Columbo". In an interview with "Premiere" magazine in 1995, McGoohan gave some insight into why the film had failed:
1339436	Trailer Park of Terror is a 2008 American direct-to-video horror film directed by Steven Goldmann and written by Timothy Dolan. Plot. Based on the Imperium Comics series of the same name, "Trailer Park of Terror" follows six troubled high schoolers and their leader, the optimistic youth ministries pastor, Lewis (Matthew Del Negro). As the group return from an outdoor character building retreat in the mountains they become lost on the backroads after their bus crashes during a raging storm. The luckless group seeks refuge for the night in a seemingly abandoned trailer park down the road, managed by the strange and seductive Norma (Nichole Hiltz). As the night progresses they find that the park is anything but empty as Norma and her undead trailer trash buddies pick them off in imaginative ways.
592533	Omkar Das Manikpuri (born 1970) is an Indian stage and film actor, native of Brindanagar in Bhilai, of Chhattisgarh state, in Central India, who has been a member of folk-theatre doyen Habib Tanvir's, the "Naya Theatre" company for several years. He made his Hindi film debut as a male lead in Aamir Khan productions' "Peepli Live" (2010). Early life. Omkar Das Manikpuri was born and brought up in village near Bhilai in Durg district Chhattisgarh, where he studied till fifth grade in school, when the death of his father, forced him to join a village folk-theatre troupe, "Mandali". He shifted to Brindanagar (Ward No. 20) in Bhilai in 1981. Career. Omkar Das started his career at the age of 17, as a performer in the local form of folk theatre called "Nacha" and joined an itinerant village theatre group. Performing often in makeshift and open air stages he honed his skills as a singer, dancer, mimic and a stand-up comic. Afterwards he joined Naya Theatre as an actor, founded by Habib Tanvir in Bhopal. With them he has performed, in India and abroad, such timeless classics as "Agra Bazaar", "Charandas Chor", and "Kamdev ka Apna Basant Ritu ka Sapna" and Sadak. It was during a performance of the popular play "Charandas Chor" in Bhopal, that he was spotted by Rizvi and Mahmood Farooqui, the co-director of the film, which led to him auditioning for the film in Bhopal. Subsequently, he made his film debut in Bollywood with Aamir Khan productions' "Peepli Live" (2010), where he played the main lead. Initially he had auditioned for a minor role of "Machua", but later he was given the lead of "Natha", which was till then reportedly to be played by Aamir Khan himself. His upcoming projects include two Chhattisgarhi films and a Chhattisgarhi folk music album. His next release is Aalaap which is releasing on 27-Jul-2012. Personal life. His seven-member family including three kids, his mother, brother and three children stay in Bhilai's Brindanagar area (Ward no. 20).
1553171	Dalida (17 January 1933 –1987), birth name Iolanda Cristina Gigliotti, was an Egyptian singer and actress of Italian origins who performed and recorded in more than 10 languages including: Arabic, Italian, Greek, German, English, Japanese, Hebrew, Dutch and Spanish. She was born in Cairo, Egypt, to Italian (Calabrian) parents, and spent her early years in the Italian Egyptian community of the Cairo but she lived most of her adult life in France. She received 55 gold records and was the first singer to receive a diamond disc. A 30-year career (she debuted in 1956 and recorded her last album in 1986, a few months before her death) and her death led to an iconic image as a tragic diva and renowned singer. Worldwide sales of her music are estimated at over 180 million, establishing her as one of the most noteworthy multi-lingual recording artists of the 20th century. Biography. Early life and beginnings. Iolanda Christina Gigliotti was born in Shubra, Cairo, Egypt. Her family was from Serrastretta, Calabria, Italy, but lived in Egypt, where Dalida's father, Pietro Gigliotti, was first violinist ("primo violino") at the Cairo Opera House. Iolanda Gigliotti was the cousin of Attilio Notaro of Tiriolo, a theatre director from Calabria. Attilio, maybe inspired by Iolanda's success started writing. The Associazione Filodrammatica “Attilio Notaro” is today dedicated to him. She was the middle child between two brothers, Orlando and Bruno (who would later in Dalida's career change his name to Orlando like his brother and become her manager). Dalida's early life was spent in the district of Shoubra, where she attended the Scuola Tecnica Commerciale Maria Ausiliatrice, an Italian Catholic school. In 1950, Dalida participated in the Miss Ondine beauty pageant and won the title, and shortly after began working as a model for Donna, a Cairo-based fashion house. In 1954, at the age of 20, Dalida competed in and won the Miss Egypt pageant, and was crowned Miss Egypt. It was then that she was spotted by French director Marc de Gastyne and, much to the reluctance of her parents, she moved to Paris on Christmas Eve of the same year with the intention of pursuing a career in motion pictures. It was about this time she adopted the name Dalila, which was soon changed to the more familiar Dalida. Dalida collected 19 number one hit singles to her name in four languages (French, Italian, German, and Arabic) and has a long list of top 10, and top 20 hits in French, Italian, German, Spanish, and Arabic, and accumulated myriad top selling singles and albums largely, in France, Italy, Germany, Belgium, Spain, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Switzerland, Austria, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Greece, Canada, Russia, Japan, and Israel, spanning over forty years. Four of Dalida's English language recordings ("Alabama Song", "Money Money", "Let Me Dance Tonight", and "Kalimba de Luna"), gained moderate success primarily in France and Germany, without being widely distributed in the UK and US markets.
1059681	Samuel Atkinson "Sam" Waterston (born November 15, 1940) is an American actor, producer and director. Among other roles, he is noted for his Academy Award-nominated portrayal of Sydney Schanberg in "The Killing Fields" (1984), and his Golden Globe-nominated and Screen Actors Guild Award-winning portrayal of Jack McCoy on the NBC television series "Law & Order". He has been nominated for multiple Golden Globe, Screen Actors Guild, BAFTA and Emmy awards, having starred in over eighty film and television productions during his forty-five-year career. Allmovie has characterised Waterston as having "cultivated a loyal following with his quietly charismatic, unfailingly solid performances." In January 2010, he received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Early life and education. Waterston, the third of four siblings (Roberta, George and Ellen), was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts. His mother, Alice Tucker (née Atkinson), a landscape painter, was of English ancestry, and a descendant of Mayflower passengers. His father, George Chychele Waterston, was an immigrant from Leith, Scotland, and a semanticist and language teacher. Waterston attended both the Brooks School, a boarding school in North Andover, Massachusetts, where his father taught; and the Groton School in Groton, Massachusetts. He entered Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, on a scholarship in 1958 and graduated with a bachelor of arts degree in 1962. After graduating from Yale, he attended the Clinton Playhouse for several months. Waterston also attended the Sorbonne in Paris and the American Actors Workshop. Career. The classically trained Waterston has numerous stage credits to his name. For example, he played an award-winning Benedick in Joseph Papp's production of Shakespeare's "Much Ado About Nothing", and played the title role in "Hamlet". He continues live theater work during the summers, often seen acting at places like Long Wharf Theatre and the Yale Repertory Theatre in New Haven. Waterston made his film debut in 1965's "The Plastic Dome of Norma Jean", and came to prominence in "Fitzwilly" in 1967. He starred as Tom with Katharine Hepburn in a 1973 television film adaptation of Tennessee Williams' "The Glass Menagerie". The film also featured Michael Moriarty (as the Gentleman Caller), whom Waterston later replaced as the Executive Assistant District Attorney on "Law & Order". One of his breakout roles was opposite Jeff Bridges in the western comedy "Rancho Deluxe" in 1975. Other films include "Savages" (1972), "The Great Gatsby" (1974), "Journey Into Fear" (1975), "Capricorn One" (1978), "Heaven's Gate", "Hopscotch" (1980), and "The Killing Fields" (1984, nominated Academy Award for Best Actor). In 1985, he co-starred in Robert Preston's final television film with Mary Tyler Moore, "Finnegan Begin Again" Also with Moore, Waterston played the title role in "Lincoln" (1988), a television film adaptation of Gore Vidal's "Lincoln" (1984). Other roles include "Assault at West Point" with Samuel L. Jackson, "Mindwalk" (1990), and "Serial Mom" (1994). Waterston has appeared in several Woody Allen films, including "Interiors" (1978), "Hannah and Her Sisters" (1986, cameo), "September" (1987) and "Crimes and Misdemeanors" (1989). Waterston is a six-time Emmy Award nominee, as well as a winner of the Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild Awards.
1041816	Went the Day Well? is a 1942 British war film adapted from a story by Graham Greene and directed by Alberto Cavalcanti. It was produced by Michael Balcon of Ealing Studios and served as unofficial propaganda for the war effort. It tells of how an English village is taken over by Nazi paratroopers. It reflects the greatest potential nightmare of many Britons of the time, although the threat of German invasion had largely receded by that point. (Germany's planned invasion, Operation Sea Lion, had been indefinitely postponed.) It includes the first major role of Thora Hird, and one of the last of C. V. France. The village location for some scenes was Turville in Buckinghamshire. Plot. One Saturday during the Second World War a group of seemingly authentic British soldiers arrive in the small, fictitious English village of Bramley End. It is the Whitsun weekend so life is even quieter than usual and there is almost no traffic of any kind. At first they are welcomed by the villagers, until doubts begin to grow about their true purpose and identity. After they are revealed to be German soldiers intended to form the vanguard of an invasion of Britain, they round up the residents and hold them captive in the local church. The civilians attempt to escape to warn the local Home Guard, but are betrayed by the village squire, who is revealed to be collaborating with the Germans, who ambush and kill the Home Guards. Several attempts are made to escape or contact the outside world, all of which fail until eventually a young boy succeeds in escaping: despite being badly wounded, he alerts the army. British soldiers arrive, and—aided by some of the villagers, including a group of Land Army girls, who have managed to escape and arm themselves—defeat the Germans after a short battle. The squire is shot dead by the daughter of the vicar, who was murdered by the commander of the German soldiers. The film is set after the war and told in flashback by a villager (Mervyn Johns) sitting in the churchyard where the German soldiers are buried. He speaks directly to the camera, which, during the opening credits, moves towards the village along a road, eventually arriving at the churchyard and being ushered toward a grave monument. The villager explains, "This is the only bit of England they got" (a reference to the Anglo-Saxon King Harold Godwinson's famous words to the invading King Harald Hardrada of Norway). Title quotation. This epitaph was written by the classical scholar John Maxwell Edmonds, and originally appeared in "The Times" on 6 February 1918, page 7, under the heading "Four Epitaphs". "Went the day well" also appeared in an unidentified newspaper cutting in a scrapbook now held in the RAF Museum (AC97/127/50), and in a collection of First World War poems collated by Vivian Noakes. Reception. The film reinforced the message that civilians should be vigilant against Fifth columnists and that "careless talk costs lives". It was based on a short story by the author Graham Greene entitled "The Lieutenant Died Last". By the time the film was released the threat of invasion had subsided somewhat, but it was still seen as an effective piece of propaganda, and its reputation has grown over the years. It has been noted that by opening and closing in a predicted future where not only had the war been won but a (fictitious) full-scale German invasion of Britain defeated, and by presenting a scenario where all echelons of British society unite for the common good (the lady of the manor sacrifices herself without hesitation, for example), the film's message was morale-boosting and positive rather than scaremongering. In 2010 an article in "The Independent" (London) commented, "It subtly captures an immemorial quality of English rural life—the church, the local gossip, the sense of community—and that streak of native 'pluck' that people believed would see off Hitler". In 2005 it was named as one of the "100 Greatest War Films" in a Channel 4 poll in Britain. The 1975 book, and later film, "The Eagle Has Landed" uses some of the same ideas. In July 2010, StudioCanal and the British Film Institute National Archive released a restoration of the "Went the Day Well?" to significant critical acclaim. Tom Huddleston of "Time Out" (London) termed it "jawdroppingly subversive. Cavalcanti establishes, with loving care and the occasional wry wink, the ultimate bucolic English scene, then takes an almost sadistic delight in tearing it to bloody shreds in an orgy of shockingly blunt, matter-of-fact violence." When the restored film opened at Film Forum in New York City in 2011, A.O. Scott of "The New York Times" called it "undeservedly forgotten... ome-front propaganda has rarely seemed so cutthroat or so cunning."
1166655	Sammee Tong (April 21, 1901 — October 27, 1964) was an America film and television character actor. One of Tong's more notable roles was that of Peter Tong on the sitcom "Bachelor Father", which aired on all three national networks from 1957 to 1962. In October 1964, Tong died of a barbiturate overdose at the age of 63. At the time of his death, he was appearing in a supporting role on the ABC sitcom, "Mickey", starring Mickey Rooney. Early life and career. Born in San Francisco, Tong was educated in California and Honolulu. Tong attempted to break into acting on the stage during the depression, but found he could not get parts because he was Chinese. He began working in Chinese nightclubs in New York, Los Angeles, and San Francisco where he sang and performed comedy routines. During his nightclub years, he changed the spelling of his name to "Sammee" because he said it "looked better in print." In 1934, Tong made his film debut in a bit part in the comedy film "The Captain Hates the Sea". Throughout the 1930s and 1940s, he would continue with small, usually uncredited, roles in films. He found more success in the 1950s on television. Tong made his television debut in 1953 in an episode of "You Are There". The following year, he appeared in a recurring role as "George, the cook" in a series of television shorts which aired during "The Mickey Mouse Club" entitled "The Adventures of Spin and Marty". In 1955, he reprised his role as George in the feature length film "Spin and Marty: The Movie". He also had a role the sequel series "The Further Adventures of Spin and Marty". In 1957, he landed a co-starring role in the sitcom "Bachelor Father", starring John Forsythe and Noreen Corcoran. In the series, Tong portrayed "Peter Tong", Bentley Gregg's (Forsythe) live-in houseboy and valet. Although he was playing a servant, Tong enjoyed the role stating, "Houseboys in movies and the theater always bow low, mutter a few sing song words and disappear, but not on this show. I get dialogue and laughs. After "Bachelor Father"'s cancellation in 1962, Tong was cast as Sammy Ling in the ABC sitcom "Mickey", starring Mickey Rooney. Due to low ratings, ABC was considering canceling "Mickey". The network was hesitant to cancel the series due to the popularity of Tong's character who had a solid fanbase thanks to his role in "Bachelor Father". Tong's death effectively ended any chance for the series' survival and ABC canceled "Mickey" in December 1964. His final screen appearance was as Cook in the 1965 film "Fluffy", starring Shirley Jones. The film was released after Tong's death. Death. On October 27, 1964, Tong was found dead in his Palms, Los Angeles apartment by his close friend, Ben Wong. Tong died of an apparent suicide by barbiturate overdose. Police found an empty bottle of sleeping pills by his body and several notes addressed to his landlady, his attorney and police. In the note addressed to police, he gave no reason why he committed suicide only stating, "I have taken my own life. No one is to blame." In his 1991 autobiography, "Life Is Too Short", Mickey Rooney wrote that Tong was upset by the news that "Mickey" faced cancellation. According to Rooney, Tong was a heavy gambler and owed money to the mafia. Faced with the possibility of not being able to pay off his debts, Tong chose to commit suicide. Tong was buried in Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, California.
1103112	Bartel Leendert van der Waerden (; February 2, 1903 – January 12, 1996) was a Dutch mathematician and historian of mathematics. Biography. Education and early career. Van der Waerden learned advanced mathematics at the University of Amsterdam and the University of Göttingen, from 1919 until 1926. He was much influenced by Emmy Noether at Göttingen. Amsterdam awarded him a Ph.D. for a thesis on algebraic geometry, supervised by Hendrick de Vries. Göttingen awarded him the habilitation in 1928. In his 27th year, van der Waerden published his Moderne Algebra, an influential two-volume treatise on abstract algebra, still cited, and perhaps the first treatise to treat the subject as a comprehensive whole. This work systematized an ample body of research by Emmy Noether, David Hilbert, Richard Dedekind, and Emil Artin. In the following year, 1931, he was appointed professor at the University of Leipzig. Nazi Germany. During the rise of the Third Reich and through World War II, van der Waerden remained at Leipzig, and passed up opportunities to leave Nazi Germany for Princeton and Utrecht. However, he was critical of the Nazis and refused to give up his Dutch nationality, both of which led to difficulties for him. Postwar career. Following the war, van der Waerden was repatriated to the Netherlands rather than returning to Leipzig (then under Russian control), but struggled to find a position in the Dutch academic system, in part because his time in Germany made his politics suspect and in part due to Brouwer's opposition to Hilbert's school of mathematics. After a year visiting Johns Hopkins University and two years as a part-time professor, in 1950 van der Waerden filled the chair in mathematics at the University of Amsterdam. In 1951 he moved to the University of Zurich, where he spent the rest of his career, supervising more than 40 Ph.D. students. Contributions. Van der Waerden is mainly remembered for his work on abstract algebra. He also wrote on algebraic geometry, topology, number theory, geometry, combinatorics, analysis, probability and statistics, and quantum mechanics (he and Heisenberg had been colleagues at Leipzig). In his later years, he turned to the history of mathematics and science. His historical writings include "Ontwakende wetenschap" (1950), which was translated into English as "Science Awakening" (1954), "Geometry and Algebra in Ancient Civilizations" (1983), and "A History of Algebra" (1985).
1061130	Romancing the Stone is a 1984 American action-adventure romantic comedy. Directed by Robert Zemeckis, it stars Michael Douglas, Kathleen Turner and Danny DeVito. The film was followed by a 1985 sequel, "The Jewel of the Nile". The film earned over $86,572,238 worldwide in box-office receipts. It also helped launch Turner to stardom, reintroduced Douglas to the public as a capable leading man, and gave Zemeckis his first box-office success. Decades later, it retains critical acclaim, with a 86% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Plot. Joan Wilder (Kathleen Turner) is a lonely romance novelist in New York City who receives a treasure map mailed to her by her recently murdered brother-in-law. Her widowed sister, Elaine (Mary Ellen Trainor), calls Joan and begs her to come to Cartagena, Colombia, because Elaine has been kidnapped by bumbling antiquities smugglers Ira (Zack Norman) and Ralph (Danny DeVito), and the map is to be the ransom. Hastily flying to Colombia, Joan is detoured from the rendezvous with Ralph by Colonel Zolo (Manuel Ojeda), the man who killed Elaine's husband. Joan ends up in the jungle and is almost killed by Zolo, but is saved by the swashbuckling American bird exporter Jack T. Colton (Michael Douglas). For getting her out of the jungle and to a telephone, Joan promises to pay Jack $375. Jack and Joan elude Zolo, who wants the treasure for himself and who chases them with military police, which he commands as a "private army". After spending a night hiding in a crashed marijuana smuggler's C-47 airplane, they encounter a drug lord named Juan (Alfonso Arau), who is a big fan of Joan's novels and who helps them escape from Zolo. After a night of dancing and passion, Jack suggests to Joan that they find the treasure before handing over the map. They follow the clues and find the treasure: an enormous emerald called "El Corazon" ("The Heart"). Unknown to Jack and Joan, their trail has been picked up by Ralph, who tries to take the emerald and taunts Joan that Jack would have done the same. But Ralph flees without the treasure when Zolo appears, and Jack and Joan are chased into a river and go over a waterfall. Jack and Joan end up on opposite sides of the raging river; Joan has the map, but Jack has the emerald. Jack directs Joan to Cartagena, promising that he will meet her there with the emerald, but she is skeptical, owing to Ralph's taunts. In Cartagena, Joan contacts Ira, but cannot find Jack. She meets with Ira and Ralph at their base (an old fortress) and makes the exchange. As Joan and Elaine attempt to leave, they are stopped by Zolo and his men, who have captured Jack. Zolo demands the emerald and threatens Joan with the crocodiles that Ira keeps as pets. To save Joan, Jack surrenders the hidden emerald to Zolo, but a crocodile bites off Zolo's hand and swallows it along with the emerald. As a furious gun battle takes place between Zolo's soldiers and Ira's gang, Joan and Elaine dash for safety, but they are pursued by the enraged Zolo, who eventually catches up to them, attacking Joan with the knife that she initially tossed at him. They engage in a desperate and fierce struggle with the knife. Jack tries to stop the crocodile from escaping but lets it go when he sees that Joan is in grave danger. After out-fighting and out-witting Zolo during the protracted death struggle, Zolo gets up, entirely furious, and charges Joan, who eventually dodges his wild knife slashes, knocking Zolo into the crocodile pit. Ira and his men escape, but Ralph is left behind as the authorities arrive. After a kiss, Jack dives into the water after the crocodile, leaving Joan behind with her sister. Some time later, Joan is back in New York City, delivering a new manuscript based on her adventure, and her publisher, Gloria (Holland Taylor), loves it. Returning home, she finds Jack waiting for her in a sailboat. He caught the crocodile (which he says died from a "fatal case of indigestion") and had it made into a pair of boots, sold the emerald, and bought the boat he had told Joan was his dream. They go off together, planning to sail around the world. Production and release. Filming locations included Veracruz, Mexico (Fort of San Juan de Ulúa); Mazatlán, Mexico; and Manila, Philippines. The scene where Turner and Douglas get separated on opposite banks on a whitewater river, about two-thirds into the movie, was filmed on the Rio Antigua near the town of Jalcomulco, Veracruz. This was the first Zemeckis film to feature an electronic-orchestral music score by composer Alan Silvestri; Silvestri has scored each subsequent film Zemeckis has directed. Although, upon its release, comparisons to "Raiders of the Lost Ark" were inevitable ("Time" magazine called the movie "a distaff "Raiders" rip-off"), the screenplay for "Romancing" had actually been written five years earlier. It was written by a Malibu waitress named Diane Thomas in what would end up being her only screenplay; she died in a car crash shortly after the film's release. Though Thomas received solo writing credit, several uncredited script doctors helped to refine the film's screenplay. Turner later said of the film's production, "I remember terrible arguments Robert Zemeckis doing "Romancing". He's a film-school grad, fascinated by cameras and effects. I never felt that he knew what I was having to do to adjust my acting to some of his damn cameras – sometimes he puts you in ridiculous postures. I'd say, 'This is not helping me! This is not the way I like to work, thank you!'" Despite their difficulties on the film, Zemeckis would go on to work with Turner again, casting her as the voice of Jessica Rabbit in 1988's "Who Framed Roger Rabbit". Studio insiders expected "Romancing the Stone" to flop (to the point that, after viewing a rough cut of the film, the producers of the then under development "Cocoon" fired Zemeckis as director of that film), but the film became a surprise hit. It became 20th Century Fox's "only big hit" of 1984. Zemeckis later stated that the success of "Romancing the Stone" allowed him to make "Back to the Future", which was an even larger success. The film's success also led to an equally successful sequel, 1985's "The Jewel of the Nile", without Zemeckis at the helm but with Douglas, Turner, and DeVito all returning. Another sequel, called "The Crimson Eagle", never made it past the development stage. This planned yet unproduced sequel would have seen Jack Colton and his partner Joan Wilder take their two teenage children to Thailand where they would find themselves blackmailed into stealing a priceless statue. DeVito reunited himself, Douglas and Turner in his 1989 film "The War of the Roses". In 2005 and again in 2008, Michael Douglas was working on a second sequel entitled Racing the Monsoon, although there have been no further developments in recent years. The novelization of this film was credited to Joan Wilder though it (and a novelization of the sequel movie, The Jewel of the Nile) was actually written by Catherine Lanigan. Sylvester Stallone was originally considered for the role of Jack T. Colton. Reception. Critical reaction. The film was well received by critics and is considered by some as one of the best films of 1984. It holds an 86% approval rating on the review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes, based on 43 reviews. Awards. Award wins: Award nominations:
584049	Ullam Ketkumae is a 2005 Tamil romance film directed and co-written by Jeeva, with dialogues by Sujatha. The film features Shaam, Arya,Asin , Pooja and Laila in the lead roles as five college students. The film's score and soundtrack are composed by Harris Jayaraj, while Vairamuthu penned the lyrics for the songs. The story tells the reunion of five friends who were together at college and exploring their relationships during the years. The film released after several delays in 2005 and went on to win critical and commercial success. Plot. "The movie is all about a group of five college friends - Shaam (Shaam), Emaan (Arya), Priya (Asin), Pooja (Laila)and Irene (Pooja) The friends gather for the wedding of Emaan, years after everyone has parted ways. The movie starts with Pooja leaving USA to go to her college friend Emman's wedding. Meanwhile,back in India everyone else is helping Emaan with the preparations for the wedding and meeting all their long lost college friends. The movie goes through series of flashbacks of old memories during their college days. Emaan & Irene meet for the first time in a long time, and the first flashback occurs. They were once in love, however it didn't turn as Emman had expected.
582203	Housefull 2 (also known as Housefull 2: The Dirty Dozen) is a 2012 Indian comedy film directed by Sajid Khan and produced by Sajid Nadiadwala. It is the sequel to the 2010 film, "Housefull" and stars Akshay Kumar, Asin Thottumkal, John Abraham, Ritesh Deshmuk, Jacqueline Fernandez in lead roles, while, Shreyas Talpade, Shazahn Padamsee, Zarine Khan, Randhir Kapoor, Rishi Kapoor, Mithun Chakraborty and Boman Irani play supporting roles. The music is composed by Sajid-Wajid. The storyline is similar to the 1998 Malayalam film "Mattupetti Machan". Upon release, "Housefull 2" received mixed reviews; however, the response was better than its predecessor and it performed well at the box office. It became a major commercial success with a worldwide gross of . Plot. The film opens with two cousins – Heena (Asin Thottumkal) and Bobby (Jacqueline Fernandez), the two daughters of the Kapoor family who hate each other very much – start quarrelling over something relating to their duties of Animals' Law Authority. Their fathers, Chintu (Rishi Kapoor) and Dabboo (Randhir Kapoor), are step-brothers who hate each other to the very core. Even their wives hate each other. Chintu wants the richest son-in law for his daughter, Heena, while Dabboo too wants the same for his daughter, Bobby. Aakhri Pasta (Chunky Pandey), a marriage counsellor, is ordered by both Chintu and Dabboo to find the best son-in-law. Aakhri Pasta brings Mr. Babani (Virendra Saxena) to discuss Babani's son Jay. When Chintu misinterprets one of Aakhri's comments, he verbally abuses Babani while shouting. Babani suffers from a condition that affects his heart when he hears loud noises. Due to Chintu's shouting, Babani suffers a heart attack, landing him in a hospital. Babani's son Jay (Shreyas Talpade) comes to know of this and gets angry, then vows revenge, telling his friend Jolly/Jwala (Ritesh Deshmukh), who is the son of billionaire J.D. (Mithun Chakraborty), to go to Chintu, agree to marry his daughter and then break off the wedding at the last minute. Jolly is busy trying to introduce his girlfriend to his own father and does not want to get involved. He suggests Max (John Abraham), their former college mate and a thief, to do the job. Jay goes with Max as his driver but somehow, they end in the wrong house and go to Dabboo's house. Jay and Max later find out their mistake. Jai, still wanting revenge, doesn't know what to do and Jolly suggests another former sleazy college mate, Sunny (Akshay Kumar). Jolly goes with Sunny as his bodyguard because Max and Sunny are sworn enemies and as Dabboo's house and Chintu's house are right next to each other, their plan may get destroyed. Sunny and Jolly encounter a crocodile and Max and Jay encounter a snake. They manage to survive the attack. While Heena and Bobby are at a cruise, they accidentally end up on an island. Max and Sunny become friends again, While Heena and Bobby become friends also . They find a resort and go home. Dabboo gets Jolly (Max) engaged to Bobby and Chintu gets Jolly (Sunny) engaged to Heena. Jolly calls them at midnight and reveals his father's secret of being Jagga Daaku . He also reveals that his real name is Jwala. After Sunny fools Chintu, Chintu calls Dabboo in excitement and tells him that his daughter, Heena, is getting married to Jolly, the son of J.D. Confused, and believing Max to be Jolly, Dabboo takes Max and Bobby to J.D.'s mansion. Sunny handles the situation well by fooling J.D. by taking the name of his religion and tells him that Max is Jolly's friend and Bobby is Max's fiance (though actually it is true) and Max's father is against his and Bobby's marriage. J.D. then welcomes Bobby, Max and her family to his house and tells them to stay there up to Bobby and Max's marriage. Batuk Patel (Boman Irani) arrives with his daughter Parul (Shazahn Padamsee) to make things worse. Jay and Jwala come to receive them from the airport. But when they see Parul, Jay and Jwala lie that Jay is Jolly. Parul becomes happy hearing this as they secretly love each other. Jelo (Zarine Khan) gives Jwala the ultimatum  — take me to your house or forget me. To help Jwala, Sunny lies to J.D., saying that Jelo is his fiance, and J.D. again agrees to let her live there as Sunny takes the name of his religion. Sunny and Max lie to their respective father-in-laws that the other guy is the son of J.D. and a maid servant in the mansion. This creates a lot of confusion. When Sunny's father as well as Max's 'Guru' tells them never to break anyone's heart, Sunny and Max tell the truth to Heena and Bobby. Enraged, Bobby and Heena slap Max and Sunny respectively and tell them that they never want to see their faces again. But thinking that instead of telling the truth, Sunny and Max could have done more wrong with them, the two sisters pardon the two boys on the very next day. There Jay and Jolly also let off their plan of revenge on Kapoors on Jay's father's advice. Then Henna proposes Sunny in Sunny's style and Bobby proposes Max in Max's style. On the day of the four couples' marriage, J.D. and the other brides' fathers learn the truth about the grooms and that they have been lying all this time. Finally Bobby and Heena convince their fathers to forget their enmity and live together as blood brothers. Chintu and Dabboo join hands and so do their wives. But J.D. was not convinced by them telling the truth, so he turns back into Jagga Daku and starts frightening the families with his gun. He tries to shoot Sunny with his gun as Sunny runs towards J.D. to save him from the falling chandelier and then he understands what was happening. In the end, all the grooms get married to their respective girlfriends. Production. The sequel was confirmed by producer Sajid Nadiadwala on 30 September 2010. The filming started on 9 June 2011 in London and Peterborough. The second schedule started from 1 October 2011 in Filmistan Studios, Mumbai and the last schedule was shot in December in Thailand. Sajid Nadiadwala hired a Hollywood action-set for Akshay Kumar's character. Soundtrack. The full album released on 22 February 2012. The making of the song "Papa Toh Band Bajaye" was leaked to YouTube in early January 2012. Singer Abhijeet Bhattacharya filed a lawsuit against the film's producers, saying that the melody for "Do U Know" had been copied from his 2005 song "Baje Jo Bansi". The lyrics were penned by Sameer, and the music was composed by Sajid-Wajid. Release in India. Though the film was initially expected to release on 1 June 2012, it was announced on 30 September 2011 that the film would be releasing on 5 April 2012. The film had an earlier release in UK on 31 March 2012 due to the Easter holidays. "Housefull 2" got a 2700-screen release, the fourth largest release in the history of Indian cinema, behind "Ra.One", "Bodyguard" and "Don 2" and India's biggest release of 2012. "Housefull 2" was screened in 1,027 UFO digital theatres on first day when it released. Critical reception. Though "Housefull 2"'s response was more positive than its predecessor, it still received mixed reviews by critics. The "Times of India" gave the movie 3.5 out of 5 stars, praising the performance of Akshay Kumar and Asin. Taran Adarsh from Bollywood Hungama gave 3.5 stars and said, "If you are a movie-goer who derives pleasure from loud comedies with over-the-top humor that defy logic at every opportunity, I am sure, you will relish this wacky slapstick. If your idea of watching a comedy is to have a good time at the movies, then "Housefull 2" is especially designed for you." Mrigank Dhaniwala from Koimoi gave the film 3 out of 5 stars. Jaidev from Movie Talkies gave the film 3 out 5 stars and said, "Dirty Dozen Bring Down The 'House'! "Housefull 2" is the kind of film that one watches on a lazy weekend and chuckles on the way out..." Janhavi Patel from FilmiTadka, gave the film 2 out of 5 stars and said, "If you like movies that are both clever and funny, then "Housefull 2" is way below your league and you should wait for good movies to come your way." Kanika Sikka of DNA rated 2 out of 5 stars and wrote, "Go in with a promise that you’ll be entertained, but don’t expect an exhilarating journey." Sonia Chopra of Sify rated 2 out of 5 stars stating, "The physical slapstick comedy is straight out of a kids' movie, but it is charmingly daft. You cannot help let out a laugh or two. It’s accidentally comic when you have a person with a bullet in his arm, but no one thinks of ringing for the ambulance. You see, long-winded, sappy moral science lectures are to be given at the very time." Raja Sen of Rediff gave the film 1 out of 5 stars and commented, ""Housefull 2" is shamefully bad. So bad that Ranjeet—the rapey villain of yore—who appears in one scene, is the most dignified thing about the film." Rajeev Masand from CNN-IBN gave the film 1 out 5 stars and said, ""Housefull 2" is for four-year-olds who don’t know any better. For anyone with taste, or anyone seeking genuine laughs, there’s nothing here." Pre-release revenue. The satellite rights of the film were sold in January 2011 for . The music rights fetched an additional . Box office. India. "Housefull 2" had a good first day as it collected nett. The movie further collected nett in its second day and nett in its third day, taking its weekend collection to . The movie collected nett in its fourth day and nett in its fifth day. The film collected nett i its first week. "Housefull 2" lost around nett over the weekend due to the IPL matches and regional films. Housefull 2 had a big second weekend as it collected around nett. Housefull 2 did extremely well in its second week with business around . The two-week business of the film is around nett. It further collected in its third week and crossed the mark. It was labelled as a "super hit" by Boxofficeindia. The film's all-India distributor share was ."Housefull 2" grossed in India. It was the fourth most successful film of the year. Asin's third most successful film. Overseas. "Housefull 2" grossed in 3 days in overseas and overall in 8 days. It collected overseas on Thursday and Friday. In UK, it collected £112,075 on Friday. In Australia, "Housefull 2" collected A$73,143 on Friday. In New Zealand, the Friday collections were NZ$34,604. In the UAE, collections on Thursday were AED725,000. In North America, it was the second Hindi film to enter the top 10 after "Kites", with $847,132, ranking at No. 9 behind "The Hunger Games", "American Reunion", "Titanic 3D", "Wrath of the Titans", "Mirror Mirror", "21 Jump Street", "The Lorax", and "Salmon Fishing in the Yemen" with a solid $7,001 average in 121 theatres. "Housefull 2" grossed around $5.75 million in 17 days, becoming Akshay Kumar's second biggest grosser overseas after "Singh Is Kinng". It became the highest grossing Hindi film in New Zealand, grossing NZ$ and surpassing "3 Idiots" and "My Name is Khan". Sequel. Producer Sajid Nadiadwala has recently confirmed his ideas on making "Housefull 3". However, director Sajid Khan, who directed the first two instalments, will not be directing the third. Since Khan had a three film deal with producer Nadiadwala which culminated with two Housefull sequels and "Heyy Babyy", the forthcoming instalment will feature a different director, whose name is yet to be announced. Also, the project will retain leads Akshay Kumar and Riteish Deshmukh who had appeared in the first two parts, while Nadiadwala plans to rope in 2 more actors and 3 actresses. "Housefull 3" is expected to start filming early 2014 this film was the remake of telugu film hungama.
1103520	A round-off error, also called rounding error, is the difference between the calculated approximation of a number and its exact mathematical value. Numerical analysis specifically tries to estimate this error when using approximation equations and/or algorithms, especially when using finitely many digits to represent real numbers (which in theory have infinitely many digits). This is a form of quantization error. When a sequence of calculations subject to rounding error is made, errors may accumulate, sometimes dominating the calculation. Cases where significant error accumulates are known as ill-conditioned. Representation error. The error introduced by attempting to represent a number using a finite string of digits is called "representation error". Here are some examples of representation error in decimal representations: Increasing the number of digits allowed in a representation reduces the magnitude of possible round-off errors, but any representation limited to finitely many digits will still cause some degree of round-off error for uncountably many real numbers. Additional digits used for intermediary steps of a calculation are known as guard digits. Rounding multiple times can cause error to accumulate. For example, if 9.945309 is rounded to two decimal places (9.95), then rounded again to one decimal place (10.0), the total error is 0.054691. Rounding 9.945309 to one decimal place (9.9) in a single step introduces less error (0.045309). This commonly occurs when performing arithmetic operations (See Loss of Significance). Standardized Rounding Methods. There are five standard ways of performing the rounding in IEEE standard arithmetic: Breaking ties by rounding towards an even value preserves the expected value of the original number and treats positive and negative numbers symmetrically, and also slightly more often supplies an even number that is less likely than an odd number to cause a rounding decision in later computations if those are similar to the computation that resulted in falling at just that midpoint (e.g., if it is being fed back into an iteration). It is common practice in meteorology to round published temperatures towards an odd value in such situations; this has all the same properties apart from the last.
1163756	Nina Foch (April 20, 1924 – December 5, 2008) was a Dutch-born American actress and leading lady in many 1940s and 1950s films. Personal life. Nina Foch was born Nina Consuelo Maud Fock in Leiden, the Netherlands. Her mother was the American actress and singer Consuelo Flowerton, who returned to the U.S. after her marriage to Foch's father, Dutch classical music conductor Dirk Fock, ended. They divorced when Nina was a toddler. As Foch grew up in New York, her mother encouraged her artistic talents. She played the piano and enjoyed art but was more interested in acting. Foch lived in Beverly Hills, California for 40 years. She married three times. Her first marriage was to James Lipton, the future host of "Inside the Actors Studio". She later married Dennis de Brito, in 1959. The couple had one child before divorcing in 1963. Her final marriage, to Michael Dewell, began in 1967 but ended in divorce in 1993. Foch died December 5, 2008, of complications from the blood disorder myelodysplasia at the Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center. Her only son, Dirk de Brito, told the "Los Angeles Times" that she had become ill while teaching at the University of Southern California's School of Cinematic Arts. Career. Foch's movie career came during the height of the 1940s, when she played cool, aloof, and often foreign women of sophistication. She would ultimately be featured in over 80 films and hundreds of television shows. The actress was a regular in John Houseman's CBS "Playhouse 90" television series. In 1951, she appeared with Gene Kelly in the musical "An American in Paris", which was awarded the Best Picture Oscar. Foch appeared in "Scaramouche" (1952) as Marie Antoinette, and in Cecil B. DeMille's "The Ten Commandments" (1956) as Bithia, Pharaoh's sister who finds the baby Moses in the bullrushes, adopts him as her son, and joins him and the Hebrews in their Exodus from Egypt. Foch received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her role in the boardroom drama "Executive Suite" (1954), starring William Holden. In "Spartacus" (1960), starring Kirk Douglas and Laurence Olivier, she played a woman who chooses gladiators to fight to the death in the ring, simply for her entertainment. In 1961, she guest starred in the NBC series about the family divisions from American Civil War entitled "The Americans". In 1963, she appeared on the NBC game show "Your First Impression". In 1964, she played the title role in the episode "Maggie, Queen of the Jungle" of Craig Stevens's short-lived CBS dram series, "Mr. Broadway". She was cast as Eva Frazier in the "Outer Limits" episode "The Borderland". She appeared in an episode of Gunsmoke as the widowed matriarch of a lawless town. She was also cast as the first murder victim of the "Columbo" mystery series starring Peter Falk, appearing in the pilot movie, "Prescription: Murder" (1968), with Gene Barry as her husband, a homicidal psychiatrist. In the early 1970s, she guest starred on NBC's "The Brian Keith Show". In 1975, she appeared in the film "Mahogany", starring Diana Ross. Later in her career, Foch appeared in "War and Remembrance" (1988) as the seemingly-nice librarian who soon advises Jane Seymour's character that the best place for her and her uncle would be the un-aptly named "Paradise Ghetto". She also appeared as 'Frannie Halcyon' in the TV miniseries "Tales of the City" (1993). Another notable TV role was as the Overseer Commander (or "Kleezantzun") in the first of the "Alien Nation" TV movies, "" (1994). In her final years, she appeared on the television series "Just Shoot Me", "Bull", and "NCIS", the latter portraying Dr. Donald "Ducky" Mallard's elderly mother. Foch taught "Directing the Actor" classes at the USC School of Cinematic Arts, classes she had taught since the 1960s up to her death. She also worked as an independent script-breakdown consultant for many prominent Hollywood directors.
1103156	Marie-Sophie Germain (; April 1, 1776 – June 27, 1831) was a French mathematician, physicist, and philosopher. Despite initial opposition from her parents and difficulties presented by society, she gained education from books in her father's library and from correspondence with famous mathematicians such as Lagrange, Legendre, and Gauss. One of the pioneers of elasticity theory, she won the grand prize from the Paris Academy of Sciences for her essay on the subject. Her work on Fermat's Last Theorem provided a foundation for mathematicians exploring the subject for hundreds of years after. Because of prejudice against her gender, she was unable to make a career out of mathematics, but she worked independently throughout her life. In recognition of her contribution towards advancement of mathematics, an honorary degree was also conferred upon her by University of Göttingen six years after her death. Sophie Germain Prize. The Sophie Germain Prize, awarded annually by the Foundation Sophie Germain is conferred by the Academy of Sciences in Paris. Its purpose is to crown a researcher who has conducted research in fundamental mathematics. This award, in the amount of €8,000 was established in 2003, under the auspices of the Institut de France and its name pays homage to mathematician Sophie Germain. Previous winners have included Early life. Family. Marie-Sophie Germain was born on April 1, 1776, in Paris, France, in a house on Rue Saint-Denis. According to most sources, her father, Ambroise-Franҫois, was a wealthy silk merchant, though some believe he was a goldsmith. In 1789, he was elected as a representative of the bourgeoisie to the États-Généraux, which he saw change into the Constitutional Assembly. It is therefore assumed that Sophie witnessed many discussions between her father and his friends on politics and philosophy. Gray proposes that after his political career, Ambroise-Franҫois became the director of a bank; at least, the family remained well-off enough to support Germain throughout her adult life. Marie-Sophie had one younger sister, named Angélique-Ambroise, and one older sister, named Marie-Madeline. Her mother was also named Marie-Madeline, and this plethora of "Maries" may have been the reason she went by Sophie. Germain's nephew Armand-Jacques Lherbette, Marie-Madeline's son, published some of Germain's work after she died (see Work in Philosophy). Introduction to mathematics. When Germain was 13, the Bastille fell, and the revolutionary atmosphere of the city forced her to stay inside. For entertainment she turned to her father's library. Here she found J. E. Montucla's "L'Histoire des Mathématiques", and his story of the death of Archimedes intrigued her. Germain decided that if geometry, which at that time referred to all of pure mathematics, could hold such fascination for Archimedes, it was a subject worthy of study. So she pored over every book on mathematics in her father's library, even teaching herself Latin and Greek so she could read works like those of Sir Isaac Newton and Leonhard Euler. She also enjoyed "Traité d'Arithmétique" by Étienne Bézout and "Le Calcul Différentiel" by Jacques Antoine-Joseph Cousin. Later, Cousin visited her in her house, encouraging her in her studies. Germain's parents did not at all approve of her sudden fascination with mathematics, which was then thought inappropriate for a woman. When night came, they would deny her warm clothes and a fire for her bedroom to try to keep her from studying, but after they left she would take out candles, wrap herself in quilts and do mathematics. As UC Irvine's Women's Studies professor Lynn Osen describes, when her parents found Sophie “asleep at her desk in the morning, the ink frozen in the ink horn and her slate covered with calculations,” they realized that their daughter was serious and relented. After some time, her mother even secretly supported her. École Polytechnique. In 1794, when Germain was 18, the École Polytechnique opened. As a woman, Germain was barred from attending, but the new system of education made the “lecture notes available to all who asked." The new method also required the students to “submit written observations." Germain obtained the lecture notes and began sending her work to Joseph Louis Lagrange, a faculty member. She used the name of a former student Monsieur Antoine-August Le Blanc, “fearing,” as she later explained to Gauss, “the ridicule attached to a female scientist." When Lagrange saw the intelligence of M. LeBlanc, he requested a meeting, and thus Sophie was forced to disclose her true identity. Fortunately, Lagrange did not mind that Germain was a woman, and he became her mentor. He too visited her in her home, giving her moral support. Early work in number theory. Correspondence with Legendre. Germain first became interested in number theory in 1798 when Adrien-Marie Legendre published "Essai sur la théorie des nombres". After studying the work, she opened correspondence with him on number theory, and later, elasticity. Legendre showed some of Germain's work in the "Supplément" to his second edition of the "Théorie des Nombres", where he calls it "très ingénieuse" ["very ingenious"] (See Best Work on Fermat's Last Theorem). Correspondence with Gauss. Germain's interest in number theory was renewed when she read Carl Friedrich Gauss' monumental work "Disquisitiones Arithmeticae". After three years of working through the exercises and trying her own proofs for some of the theorems, she wrote, again under the pseudonym of M. LeBlanc, to the author himself, who was one year younger than she. The first letter, dated 21 November 1804, discussed Gauss' "Disquisitiones" and presented some of Germain's work on Fermat's Last Theorem. In the letter, Germain claimed to have proved the theorem for "n" = "p" – 1, where "p" is a prime number of the form "p" = 8"k" + 7; however, her proof contained a weak assumption. Gauss' reply did not comment on Germain's proof. Around 1807 (sources differ) the French were occupying the German town of Braunschweig, where Gauss lived. Germain, concerned that he might suffer the fate of Archimedes, wrote to General Pernety, a family friend, requesting that he ensure Gauss' safety. General Pernety sent a chief of a battalion to meet with Gauss personally to see that he was safe. As it turned out, Gauss was fine, but he was confused by the mention of Sophie's name. Three months after the incident, Germain disclosed her true identity to Gauss. He replied, How can I describe my astonishment and admiration on seeing my esteemed correspondent M leBlanc metamorphosed into this celebrated person. . . when a woman, because of her sex, our customs and prejudices, encounters infinitely more obstacles than men in familiarising herself with theory's knotty problems, yet overcomes these fetters and penetrates that which is most hidden, she doubtless has the most noble courage, extraordinary talent, and superior genius. Gauss' letters to Olbers show that his praise for Germain was sincere. In the same 1807 letter, Sophie claimed that if "x""n" + "y""n" is of the form "h"2 + "nf"2, then "x" + "y" is also of that form. Gauss replied with a counterexample: 1511 + 811 can be written as "h"2 + 11"f"2, but 15 + 8 cannot. Although Gauss thought well of Germain, his replies to her letters were often delayed, and he generally did not review her work. Eventually his interests turned away from number theory, and in 1809 the letters ceased. Despite the friendship of Germain and Gauss, they never met. Work in elasticity. Germain's first attempt for the Academy Prize. When Germain's correspondence with Gauss ceased, she took interest in a contest sponsored by the Paris Academy of Sciences concerning Ernst Chladni's experiments with vibrating metal plates. The object of the competition, as stated by the Academy, was “to give the mathematical theory of the vibration of an elastic surface and to compare the theory to experimental evidence." Lagrange's comment that a solution to the problem would require the invention of a new branch of analysis deterred all but two contestants, Denis Poisson and Germain. Then Poisson was elected to the Academy, thus becoming a judge instead of a contestant, and leaving Germain as the only entrant to the competition. In 1809 Germain began work. Legendre assisted by giving her equations, references, and current research. She submitted her paper early in the fall of 1811, and did not win the prize. The judging commission felt that “the true equations of the movement were not established,” even though “the experiments presented ingenious results.” Lagrange was able to use Germain's work to derive an equation that was “correct under special assumptions.” Subsequent attempts for the Prize. The contest was extended by two years, and Germain decided to try again for the prize. At first Legendre continued to offer support, but then he refused all help. Germain's anonymous 1813 submission was still littered with mathematical errors, especially involving double integrals, and it received only an honorable mention because “the fundamental base of the theory elastic surfaces was not established." The contest was extended once more, and Germain began work on her third attempt. This time she consulted with Poisson. In 1814 he published his own work on elasticity, and did not acknowledge Germain's help (although he had worked with her on the subject and, as a judge on the Academy commission, had had access to her work). Germain submitted her third paper, “Recherches sur la théorie des surfaces élastiques” under her own name, and on 8 January 1816 she became the first woman to win a prize from the Paris Academy of Sciences. She did not appear at the ceremony to receive her award. Although Germain had at last been awarded the "prix extraordinaire", the Academy was still not fully satisfied. Sophie had derived the correct differential equation, but her method did not predict experimental results with great accuracy, as she had relied on an incorrect equation from Euler, which led to incorrect boundary conditions. Here is Germain's final equation: where "N"2 is a constant. After winning the Academy contest, she was still not able to attend its sessions because of the Academy's tradition of excluding women other than the wives of members. Seven years later this tradition was broken when she made friends with Joseph Fourier, a secretary of the Academy, who obtained tickets to the sessions for her. Later work in elasticity. Germain published her prize-winning essay at her own expense in 1821, mostly because she wanted to present her work in opposition to that of Poisson. In the essay she pointed out some of the errors in her method. In 1826 she submitted a revised version of her 1821 essay to the Academy. According to Andrea del Centina, a math professor at the University of Ferrara in Italy, the revision included attempts to clarify her work by “introducing certain simplifying hypotheses." This put the Academy in an awkward position, as they felt the paper to be “inadequate and trivial,” but they did not want to “treat her as a professional colleague, as they would any man, by simply rejecting the work.” So Augustin-Louis Cauchy, who had been appointed to review her work, recommended she publish it, and she followed his advice. One further work of Germain's on elasticity was published posthumously in 1831: her “Mémoire sur la courbure des surfaces.” She used the mean curvature in her research (see Honors in Number Theory). Later work in number theory. Renewed interest. Germain's best work was in number theory, and her most significant contribution to number theory dealt with Fermat's Last Theorem. In 1815, after the elasticity contest, the Academy offered a prize for a proof of Fermat's Last Theorem. It reawakened Germain's interest in number theory, and she wrote to Gauss again after ten years of no correspondence. In the letter, Germain said that number theory was her preferred field, and that it was in her mind all the time she was studying elasticity. She outlined a strategy for a general proof of Fermat's Last Theorem, including a proof for a special case (see Best Work on Fermat's Last Theorem). Germain's letter to Gauss contained the first substantial progress toward a proof in 200 years. She asked Gauss if her approach to the theorem was worth pursuing. Gauss never answered. Best work on Fermat's Last Theorem. Fermat's Last Theorem is commonly divided into two cases. Case 1 involves all "p" that do not divide any of "x", "y", or "z". Case 2 includes all "p" that divide at least one of "x", "y", or "z". Germain proposed the following, commonly called “Sophie Germain's Theorem”: Let "p" be an odd prime. If there exists an auxiliary prime "P" = 2"Np" + 1 such that: Then the first case of Fermat's Last Theorem holds true for "p". Germain used this result to prove the first case of Fermat's Last Theorem for all odd primes "p"5 must be numbers “whose size frightens the imagination,” around 40 digits long. Sophie did not publish this work. Her brilliant theorem is known only because of the footnote in Legendre's treatise on number theory, where he used it to prove Fermat's Last Theorem for "p" = 5 (see Correspondence with Legendre). Germain also proved or nearly proved several results that were attributed to Lagrange or were rediscovered years later. Del Centina states that “after almost two hundred years her ideas were still central”, but ultimately her method did not work. Work in philosophy. In addition to mathematics, Germain studied philosophy and psychology. She wanted to classify facts and generalize them into laws that could form a system of psychology and sociology, which were then just coming into existence. Her philosophy was highly praised by Auguste Comte. Two of her philosophical works, "Pensées diverses" and "Considérations générales sur l'état des sciences et des lettres, aux différentes époques de leur culture", were published, both posthumously. This was due in part to the efforts of Lherbette, her nephew, who collected her philosophical writings and published them. "Pensées" is a history of science and mathematics with Sophie's commentary. In "Considérations", the work admired by Comte, Sophie argues that there are no differences between the sciences and the humanities. Final years. In 1829 Germain learned she had breast cancer. Despite the pain, she continued to work. In 1831 "Crelle's Journal" published her paper on the curvature of elastic surfaces and “a note about finding and in formula_2." And American University's Gray records, “She also published in "Annales de chimie et de physique" an examination of principles which led to the discovery of the laws of equilibrium and movement of elastic solids." On June 27 of 1831, she died in the house at 13 rue de Savoie. Despite Germain's intellectual achievements, her death certificate lists her as a “rentière – annuitant” (property holder), not a “mathematicienne." But her work was not unappreciated by everyone. When the matter of honorary degrees came up at the University of Göttingen six years after Germain's death, Gauss lamented, “ proved to the world that even a woman can accomplish something worthwhile in the most rigorous and abstract of the sciences and for that reason would well have deserved an honorary degree." Honors. Memorials. Germain's resting place in the Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris is marked by a crumbling gravestone. At the centennial celebration of her life, a street and a girls' school were named after her, and a plaque was placed at the house where she died. The school houses a bust commissioned by the Paris City Council. Honors in number theory. E. Dubouis defined a "sophien" of a prime to be a prime where , for such that yield such that has no solutions when and are prime to . A Sophie Germain prime is a prime such that is also prime. The "Germain curvature" (also called mean curvature) is formula_3, when and are the maximum and minimum values of the normal curvature. "Sophie Germain's Identity" states that for any }, then, Criticisms. Contemporary praise and criticisms. Vesna Petrovich, a graduate of the University of Michigan, found that the educated world's response to the publication in 1821 of Germain's prize-winning essay “ranged from polite to indifferent". Yet, some critics had high praise for it. Of her essay in 1821, Cauchy said, “ was a work for which the name of its author and the importance of the subject both deserved the attention of mathematicians." H. J. Mozans, whose biography of Germain "is inaccurate and the notes and bibliography are unreliable", but is nevertheless interesting, quotes the mathematician Claude-Louis Navier as saying, "it is a work which few men are able to read and which only one woman was able to write." Germain's contemporaries also had good things to say relating to her work in mathematics. Osen relates that “Baron de Prony called her the Hypatia of the nineteenth century,” and “J.J Biot wrote, in the "Journal de Savants", that she had probably penetrated the science of mathematics more deeply than any other of her sex." Gauss certainly thought highly of her, and he recognized that European culture presented special difficulties to a woman in mathematics (see Correspondence with Gauss). Modern praise and criticisms. The modern view generally acknowledges that although Germain had great talent as a mathematician, her haphazard education had left her without the strong base she needed to truly excel. As explained by Gray, “Germain's work in elasticity suffered generally from an absence of rigor, which might be attributed to her lack of formal training in the rudiments of analysis." Petrovich adds, “This proved to be a major handicap when she could no longer be regarded as a young prodigy to be admired but was judged by her peer mathematicians.” Notwithstanding the problems with Germain's theory of vibrations, Gray states that “Germain's work was fundamental in the development of a general theory of elasticity.” H. J. Mozans writes, however, that when the Eiffel tower was built and the architects inscribed the names of 72 great French scientists, Germain's name was not among them: despite the salience of her work to the towers construction “Was she excluded from this list... because she was a woman? It would seem so." Concerning her early work in number theory, J. H. Sampson, author of “Sophie Germain and the Theory of Numbers,” states, “She was clever with formal algebraic manipulations; but there is little evidence that she really understood the "Disquisitiones", and her work of that period that has come down to us seems to touch only on rather superficial matters." Gray adds that “The inclination of sympathetic mathematicians to praise her work rather than to provide substantive criticism from which she might learn was crippling to her mathematical development." Yet Marilyn Bailey Ogilvie, Curator of the History of Science Collections and Professor of the History of Science at the University of Oklahoma recognizes that “Sophie Germain's creativity manifested itself in pure and applied mathematics... provided imaginative and provocative solutions to several important problems," and, as Petrovich proposes, it may have been her very lack of training that gave her unique insights and approaches. Louis Bucciarelli and Nancy Dworsky, Germain's biographers, summarize as follows: “All the evidence argues that Sophie Germain had a mathematical brilliance that never reached fruition due to a lack of rigorous training available only to men." Germain in popular culture. Germain was referenced and quoted in David Auburn's 2001 play "Proof." The protagonist is a young struggling female mathematician, who found great inspiration in the work of Germain. Germain was also mentioned in John Madden's 2005 movie "Proof" in a conversation between Gwyneth Paltrow and Jake Gyllenhaal's characters. In the fictional work "The Last Theorem" by Arthur C. Clarke and Frederik Pohl, Sophie Germain was credited with inspiring Ranjit Subramanian to solve Fermat's Last Theorem.
1183221	Clifford Smith (born March 2, 1971), better known by his stage name Method Man, is an American rapper, record producer, actor and member of the hip hop collective Wu-Tang Clan. He took his stage name from the 1979 film "The Fearless Young Boxer", also known as "Method Man". He is one half of the rap duo Method Man & Redman. He won a Grammy Award for Best Rap Performance by a Duo or Group for "I'll Be There for You/You're All I Need to Get By" with Mary J. Blige. In 2007, the writers of About.com placed him on their list of the Top 50 MCs of Our Time (1987–2007). In 2012, "The Source" placed him on their list of the Top 50 Lyricists of All Time. He is also the only MC to be featured on Notorious B.I.G.'s debut album "Ready to Die". Method Man appeared in the motion pictures "Belly", "How High", "Garden State" as well as a minor role in "The Wackness", and "Venom". More recently, he appeared as a crewman in George Lucas' film "Red Tails". On television, he and hip-hop collaborator Redman co-starred on the short-lived Fox sitcom "Method & Red", and he had a recurring role on HBO's "Oz" as Tug Daniels and as Calvin "Cheese" Wagstaff on the HBO drama series "The Wire". Early life. Born in Hempstead, Long Island, New York, on March 2, 1971, Clifford Smith divided his childhood between his father's Long Island residence and his mother's home in the Park Hill section of Staten Island (colloquially known as Killa Hill). He has two sisters, Terri and Missy. Rapping career. 1992–96: "Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers)" and "Tical". As Wu-Tang Clan ascended to hip hop stardom, Method Man was always one of the most visible members of the collective. He was one of only two members to get a solo song on the group's debut album "" and he was the first to release a solo album under the Clan's unusual contract which allowed its members to release albums under any record label (Method chose to sign with rap label Def Jam). Method Man's solo debut, "Tical" (1994) was critically acclaimed and well received, entering the American charts at #4 and eventually selling in excess of one million copies. That album featured the hit single "All I Need" which was later remixed featuring Mary J. Blige, which won a Grammy (I'll Be There for You/You're All I Need). During this time Method Man also became close friends with The Notorious B.I.G., and was the only guest rapper featured on his debut album "Ready to Die". He was also featured on Spice 1's album "AmeriKKKa's Nightmare" on the track "Hard 2 Kill". In 1995, he was also featured on "Got the Flava" off Showbiz and A.G.'s album "Goodfellas". In 1996, Method Man appeared on Tupac Shakur's album "All Eyez on Me", on the song "Got My Mind Made Up" alongside his rhyme partner Redman, The Dogg Pound (Daz and Kurupt) and Inspectah Deck, whose verse did not make the released album version (although his nickname "Rebel INS" can be heard as the song fades). He was also featured on Redman's 1996 Album "Muddy Waters" on the track "Do What Ya feel". 1997–98: "Wu-Tang Forever" and "Tical 2000: Judgement Day". On June 3, 1997 the Wu-Tang Clan released their Grammy-nominated multiplatinum double CD "Wu-Tang Forever", the long-awaited follow up to "36 Chambers". The album has sold over 8.3 million copies to date worldwide. His second solo album was "", released in 1998, which was heavily influenced by the apocalypse theories surrounding the forthcoming end of the millennium, and which featured myriad guest appearances from his fellow Wu-Tang MCs. The album was certified double platinum. Other guest appearances include Lisa "Left Eye" Lopes, D'Angelo, Chris Rock, Mobb Deep, Redman, and brief cameos from Russell Simmons, Bishop Don "Magic" Juan, Janet Jackson, and Donald Trump. The album sold better than his first fueled by the party track "Judgment Day" and the D'Angelo collaboration "Break Ups 2 Make Ups", earning Platinum and Gold certifications in the U.S. and Canada respectively. Reviews for the album were mixed and its long runtime and abundance of intermittent comedy skits were widely criticized. Producers on this album included True Master, 4th Disciple and the RZA. 1999–2000: "Blackout!" (with Redman). Method Man was part of the very successful Hard Knock Life Tour with Jay-Z, Redman, Ja Rule, and DMX. During this tour, Method Man & Redman recorded "Blackout!", a light-hearted, bass-heavy, profanity-laced, party record with an EPMD-evoking emphasis on funky beats and the mischievous wit and cool flows and good rhythm of the two MCs. The album reached platinum status quickly, both in the U.S. and Canada, fueled by "Da Rockwilder", "Cereal Killa", "1, 2, 1, 2", "Tear It Off" and "Y.O.U.". This album also featured three previously released tracks on which the two collaborated. Their success would lead the duo on to star in movies and TV shows, become product spokespersons and household names, but also associated them with marijuana use in the media. The most immediate results of their success was their co-starring roles in the major motion picture film "How High", their endorsement deal for "Right Guard", Redman's starring role in "Seed of Chucky" and a short-lived sitcom on Fox Television entitled "Method & Red". 2000–04: "The W", "Iron Flag", and "Tical 0: The Prequel". The Wu-Tang Clan released "The W" on November 21, 2000 and Iron Flag on December 18, 2001. "The W" received both critical and commercial success for the group, while "Iron Flag" did receive some but not to the effect of "The W". The efforts earned two more platinum plaques for the Wu-Tang Clan. In 2004, Meth released his third solo album "", which featured the hit party single "What's Happenin'" with Busta Rhymes. Hip hop critics voiced their displeasure with the album, many agreeing that "Tical 0" felt like generic party rap and featured too many mainstream guests, detracting from his own performances. Regardless, this album sold reasonably well and was certified gold record by the RIAA relatively quickly, but would not see the platinum success of his previous solo releases. There was trouble even before the album's release when Method apparently complained to the press about excessive interference from Def Jam over the album's beats (Meth supposedly desired more input from Wu-Tang leader RZA). On its release, many fans and critics were taken aback by its strong "mainstream" or "commercial" sound, highlighted by the guest appearances of pop-rap stars like Missy Elliott and P. Diddy, two artists that are involved with much different facets of rap music.
1160994	Arthur James "Art" Evans (born March 27, 1942) is an American actor who has made multiple film and television program appearances over the span of three decades. Evans was born in Berkeley, California. His acting career, spanning over 30 years, started with Frank Silvera's Theater of Being in Los Angeles. He took a starring role in "The Amen Corner" which transferred to Broadway in 1965. His first uncredited acting performance in film was "Claudine" in 1974. His first credited role was in "Chico and the Man" as Bubba in the episode "Too Many Crooks" which aired in 1976.
1179676	Kylie Ann Minogue, OBE (; born 28 May 1968), often known simply as Kylie, is an Australian singer, recording artist, songwriter and actress. After beginning her career as a child actress on Australian television, she achieved recognition through her role in the television soap opera "Neighbours", before commencing her career as a recording artist in 1987.
1034493	Yootha Joyce (20 August 1927 – 24 August 1980) was an English actress, best known for playing Mildred Roper in "Man About the House" and "George and Mildred". Early life. Yootha Joyce Needham was born in Wandsworth, London, the only child of musical parents Hurst Needham, a well-known singer, and Jessica Revitt, a concert pianist. Her mother named her "Yootha" after the Maori word for "joy", although it is actually an indigenous Australian Aboriginal name meaning "thirsty". Joyce was evacuated to Hampshire during World War II. She left school at 15, then trained at RADA where Roger Moore was a fellow student and toured with Entertainments National Service Association (ENSA). In 1958, she married the actor Glynn Edwards, best known for playing Dave, landlord of the Winchester Club in "Minder". It was through Edwards that she first came to prominence in the renowned Joan Littlewood Theatre Workshop, appearing at the Theatre Royal, Stratford East in "Fings Ain't Wot They Used T'Be" and going on to make her film debut in "Sparrers Can't Sing" (1963). Joyce and Edwards divorced in 1968 but remained close friends, to the extent that she used to console him after his subsequent relationships broke down. Career. In the 1960s and 1970s, she became a familiar face in many one-off sitcom roles and supporting parts in films, with her first main recurring role being Miss Argyll, frustrated girlfriend of the title star Milo O'Shea in three series of "Me Mammy" (1968–71). Prior to that, she played a cameo role in "The Pumpkin Eater" (1964) as a psychotic young woman opposite Anne Bancroft, delivering a performance that has been called one of the "best screen acting miniatures one could hope to see." Her talent for comedy was also used to good effect in programmes such as "Steptoe and Son" and "On the Buses". She made appearances in the films "Catch Us If You Can", "A Man for All Seasons" (1966) and "Charlie Bubbles", (1967) as well as TV spin-off films "Never Mind the Quality Feel the Width" (1973), "Nearest and Dearest" (1972) and "Steptoe and Son Ride Again" (1973). She also appeared as a customer in the pilot episode of "Open All Hours" (1973) and in "Our Mother's House" (1967), a 'dark' movie about a family of young children which starred Dirk Bogarde. Mildred Roper. It was not until 1973 that she acquired a starring role, when she was cast as man-hungry Mildred Roper, wife of sub-letting landlord George, in the sitcom "Man About the House". This series, which starred Richard O'Sullivan, Paula Wilcox and Sally Thomsett, as well as Brian Murphy, as George Roper, ran until 1976 and found comedy from two young women and a young man sharing the flat above the Ropers. When the series ended, a spin-off was written featuring the Ropers; "George and Mildred" was first broadcast in 1976. The couple were seen moving from the London house in Middleton Terrace in the previous programme and into a newer suburban property in Peacock Crescent, Hampton Wick. Much of the new series centred on Mildred's desire to better herself in her new surroundings, but always being thwarted, usually unwittingly, by her lifeskills-lacking husband's desire for a quiet life. Final years. Yootha Joyce's high-profile roles in the two sitcoms concealed her alcohol problem. A feature film was made of "George and Mildred" in 1980, but this was her last work. Amidst growing concern over her health she was admitted to hospital in the summer of 1980. Yootha Joyce died in hospital of liver failure four days after her 53rd birthday on 24 August 1980. Her good friend Brian Murphy, who played her screen husband George Roper, was at her bedside. She was cremated at Golders Green Crematorium. At the inquest into her death, it was revealed that she had been drinking upwards of half a bottle of brandy a day for ten years, and that she had, in the words of her lawyer Mario Uziell-Hamilton, become a victim of her own success and the thought of being typecast as Mildred Roper. She made her last television appearance, shown after her death, on "Max", Max Bygraves' variety show, on 14 January 1981. She sang the Carpenters' song "For All We Know". At the end of this performance, she told Bygraves, "Thanks, I enjoyed that." The actor/comedian Kenneth Williams recorded in his diary that "...she looked as though she was crying..." He also went on to mention her in a later entry in his diary (9 April 1988) that she was "a lady who made so many people happy and a lady who never complained". In 1986, the Smiths used an image of Joyce on the sleeve of their UK single release "Ask" and the German release of "Some Girls Are Bigger Than Others", thereby adding her to what would become a significant set of musical releases, made iconic by their notable design (other Smiths 'cover stars' included Truman Capote, Terence Stamp, Elvis Presley, Pat Phoenix and Billie Whitelaw). In 2001, a tribute documentary entitled "The Unforgettable Yootha Joyce" was broadcast by ITV, which featured many of her co-stars and friends, including Sally Thomsett, Brian Murphy and Norman Eshley, talking about memories and their relationships with Yootha Joyce. References. Man About The House (1974)
48836	Bobby Di Cicco (born 1954) is an American actor best known for his early roles in the films "I Wanna Hold Your Hand" (1978) by Robert Zemeckis, "1941" (1979) by Steven Spielberg, Samuel Fuller's "The Big Red One" (1980), and the John Carpenter-produced "The Philadelphia Experiment" (1984) in which he co-starred with Michael Pare. Bobby also gets credit for the classic line from the 1982 film "Night Shift" by Ron Howard, "Barney Rubble, what an actor". He is the father of actress Jessica DiCicco and singer Katie Di Cicco.
930428	Moonlight and Mistletoe is a 2008 Christmas television film directed by Karen Arthur. Plot. Holly Crosby is the daughter of Nick Crosby, the owner of Santaville, an amusement park focusing on Christmas, open 365 days a year. Fed up with being the second fiddle of her father, who is devoted to the amusement park with all of his heart and soul, she leaves him in her teenage years. Years later, she is a successful businesswoman in the big city. Although devoted to her work, she does not have a social life. One day, near Christmas, she receives a call from Peter, her father's employee, informing her he was injured in a sleighing accident. Although she is estranged from her father, she immediately packs her bags and heads back to Santaville. There, she does not plan on staying a very long time. Her father, on the other hand, is delighted by her arrival and is enthusiastic about spending Christmas with her. This upsets Peter, who notices the coldness of Holly and her lack of interest in Christmas. Holly soon finds out Peter is a guy she met in her teenage years and that she inspired his interest in "The Nutcracker". She is shocked to discover that her father is near bankruptcy and that he will lose Santaville. She tries to prevent this, and although she has trouble collecting the finance, she softens up in the process, grows closer to Peter, and remembers the true meaning of Christmas. One day, she meets Ben Richards, a seemingly friendly financial adviser who decides to help her save Santaville. This makes Peter jealous, who has secretly fallen in love with Holly. She and Ben help Nick get a silent partner, but Nick is not interested, much to Holly's anger. Upset with him, she decides to confront him with being the second fiddle. He explains that he has trouble dealing with her mother's death and that he has thrown himself on his work so he would not be forced to deal with the grief. They reconcile and he finally allows her to help him. Holly convinces Nick to sign a partnership with Ben, but she finds out that Ben was only interested in Nick's money and that he tried to set him up. When the Crosbys find out they will have to come up with $50,000 to save Santaville, they start a nationwide promotion for the amusement park. Although a lot of people travel to the amusement park, it proves not to be enough to save Santaville. In the end, Peter saves the day by selling his Nutcracker dolls he has made as a hobby for a large sum. Nick kisses Ginny, a devoted employee who always has had a crush on him. In a voice-over, Holly announces that she has married Peter and that she is expecting to have his baby. Production. Candace Cameron Bure stated in an interview that she decided to do the film because of the simplicity of its story and that it, according to the actress, grabbed you by the heart. Filming took place in Chester, Vermont, in June 2008. A lot of fake snow had to be brought in to make it seem like it was winter. Bure said that the cast and crew had fun filming a Christmas film in the summer. According to Bure, the film sparked Tom Arnold's departure from his sarcastic comedy roles. In an interview, she told she enjoyed working with Arnold, calling him a 'comedic genius'.
743985	Julianne Nicholson (born July 1, 1971) is an American actress. She played Det. Megan Wheeler on "", and more recently appeared in the HBO series "Boardwalk Empire". Early life. Nicholson was born and raised in Medford, Massachusetts (outside Boston), and is the eldest of four siblings. After graduating from Arlington Catholic High School, she modeled in New York for six months, quit for a year, then resumed her modeling career in Paris for another six months. After returning to New York, she attended Hunter College as a general studies major for two years. While in New York, Nicholson supported herself by waitressing and eventually left school to study acting and begin her professional career. Career. Film. In her first feature film role, Nicholson starred opposite Michael Caine and James Spader in the Peter Yates film "Curtain Call". Later she won what proved to be both her breakthrough and favorite role as a headstrong young feminist in Peter Chan's "The Love Letter". She has worked with other international directors in films such Alain Berliner's "Passion of Mind", and Nick Hurran's "Little Black Book". She has an uncredited role in Guy Ritchie's British gangster film "Snatch" as the booking agent with the shaved head. Nicholson's domestic drama credits include "William Vincent" (Jay Anania), "Staten Island" (James DeMonaco), "Brief Interviews with Hideous Men" (John Krasinski), "Tully" (Hilary Birmingham), "Kinsey" (Bill Condon). Her domestic comedy credits include "Seeing Other People" (Wally Wolodarsky) and "Puccini For Beginners" (Maria Maggenti). Television. Among Nicholson's television credits are a supporting role in the television miniseries "Storm of the Century" and guest-starring roles in "ER" and "Law & Order". She began to work with some of television's top producers. She was tapped by Steven Spielberg for the lead role in the paranormal drama "The Others". In late 2001, Nicholson became one of the main cast members of the hit show produced by David E. Kelley, "Ally McBeal", portraying the character "Jenny Shaw" for 13 episodes. She worked with John Wells on the medical drama "Presidio Med" and Steven Bochco on the HBO pilot "Marriage". Julianne worked with Dick Wolf in his series on the short-lived NBC television drama, "Conviction" and in what is her best known role, as Megan Wheeler, in the sixth season of "". Nicholson said her favorite "Criminal Intent" episode was "", which she described as "really different from a lot of the ones we've done before and very exciting and current." As of the "Criminal Intent" episode "", Nicholson departed the series and was replaced by actress Saffron Burrows. In 2011, she guest-starred on "Royal Pains" as "Jess", one of Dr. Lawson's patients, suffering from panic attacks. She also appeared on "Boardwalk Empire", as the recurring character of U.S. Assistant Attorney General Esther Randolph, that same year. In 2012, she guest-starred on "The Good Wife" as Callie Simko, an attorney that has an interest in Will Gardner. Theater. Nicholson has been in a number of plays in New York. Her work in theater includes the following New York Performances: Personal life. In 2004, she married British actor Jonathan Cake in Italy; they met playing a couple on an unaired HBO pilot called "Marriage". They have two children. Their son Ignatius was born in September 2007 and she gave birth to daughter Phoebe Margaret on April 30, 2009. One of Nicholson's favorite movies is "Living in Oblivion", by director Tom DiCillo. References. Notes
93434	"Dante's Inferno Animated" is a 2D animation film produced and directed by Boris Acosta. The story is based on the first part of Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy - Inferno. Plot. This film has two versions, narrated in English and recited in Italian. The Italian version is recited in primitive Italian and Dante Alighieri's own words as he wrote the poem. Dante gets lost in a dark wood, his way is blocked and he is threatened by three beast, a lion, a lynx and a she-wolf. Beatrice descends from Heaven into Limbo to ask the poet Virgil to go to Dante's rescue and guide him through Inferno and Purgatorio. The film depicts a chronological descend to the nine circles of hell Dante and Virgil through the exit into Purgatorio.
122242	Thomas L. Saaty (Arabic: توماس ساعاتي) (born 1926, Mosul, Iraq) is Distinguished University Professor at the University of Pittsburgh, where he teaches in the Joseph M. Katz Graduate School of Business. He is the inventor, architect, and primary theoretician of the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP), a decision-making framework used for large-scale, multiparty, multi-criteria decision analysis, and of the Analytic Network Process, its generalization to decisions with dependence and feedback.
582341	Kaal (Hindi: काल, Urdu: کال, translation: "The Time of Doom"; the film is aka "Kaal: The Jungle") is a Bollywood natural horror film directed by Soham Shah, and produced by Karan Johar and Shahrukh Khan. The film stars Ajay Devgan, John Abraham, Vivek Oberoi, Esha Deol and Lara Dutta in lead roles. It released on 29 April 2005. The story is based around a wildlife expert, his wife and a group of friends who battle against supernatural creatures in the fictional Orbit National Park (alluding to the world-famous Jim Corbett National Park of India) for their lives. Plot. Two British Nationals are killed by a ferocious tiger in Orbit Park, a wild jungle. This incident follows several other incidents, and many deaths result, prompting a National Geographic correspondent, Krish Thapar (John Abraham), and his wife, Riya Thapar (Esha Deol), to take a trip to this park and ascertain what really happened. A group of youngsters, consisting of Dev Malhotra (Vivek Oberoi), Ishika (Lara Dutta), Sajid (Kushal Punjabi), and Vishal (Vishal Malhotra), on a thrill and hunting trip also arrive there in the hopes of sighting and shooting some big prey. Both Thapar and Malhotra groups meet with each other, and seek the guidance of a local called Kaali (Ajay Devgan) after he saves them from a tiger attack. Slowly it emerges that the people being killed are not being killed by tigers but a person. Dev looks like the main suspect since he is usually not around when people are being killed. Kaali tells them all about a recent story of how overhunting was destroying the jungle. One local guide got very upset by this and started leading tourists astray and getting them killed by tigers. When this started affecting the tourist trade, other villagers and local guides beat that guide and threw him to the tigers. The local villagers now believe that his ghost is killing everyone who breaks the jungle's rules. Now, the group must work together to find out who out of all of them, is the real vengeful ghost, or whether it was just the dead tour guide. Reception. The film received mostly positive reviews from critics noting it to be a different type of horror film. At the box office it performed moderately well, grossing an approx Rs.19 Crores and was given the final verdict of an above-average grosser. It was also the tenth highest grossing film of the year (Bollywood films of 2005). Soundtrack. The music is composed by Salim-Sulaiman and Anand Raj Anand. The lyrics are penned by Shabbir Ahmed, Anand Raj Anand and Kailash Kher.
1163269	Coy Luther "Luke" Perry III (born October 11, 1966) is an American actor. Perry starred as Dylan McKay on the TV series "Beverly Hills, 90210", a role he played from 1990–1995, and then from 1998–2000. Much publicity was garnered over the fact that even though he was playing a sixteen-year-old when "90210" began, Perry was actually in his mid-twenties at the time. Perry returned to "90210" in 1998 (this time billed as a permanent "Special Guest Star") and remained with the series until its conclusion in 2000. Early life. Perry was born in Mansfield, Ohio and raised in Fredericktown, Ohio, where he was the school mascot, the Fredericktown High School Freddie. His mother, Ann Bennett, was a homemaker, and his father, Coy Luther Perry, Jr., a steelworker. Luke Perry has revealed he likes to go home annually for the Fredericktown Tomato Show, an annual street fair. Perry stated on The B.S. Report Podcast that he moved to Los Angeles shortly after high school to pursue acting as he didn't have any opportunities to do so in Ohio. He worked as a paver and lived in various cities including Huntington Beach, Long Beach, Downey, and Paramount. Acting career. In an interview with Whoopi Goldberg in the 1990s, Perry said he auditioned for 215 acting jobs in New York before finally scoring a TV commercial. After appearing in the music video "Be Chrool To Your Scuel" for the band Twisted Sister alongside Alice Cooper, Perry's earliest roles were in the daytime soap operas "Loving" (1987–1988) and "Another World" (1988–1989). Following this, he then won the role of brooding millionaire's son Dylan McKay on Fox's appealing teen drama, "Beverly Hills, 90210". He had auditioned for the role of Steve Sanders, a role that went to actor Ian Ziering before being cast as Dylan McKay. While starring on "90210", Perry then won a supporting role in the original film version of the Joss Whedon's "Buffy The Vampire Slayer" (1992). Perry had already become a very popular teen idol in the early 1990s. Perry also starred in "Terminal Bliss" in 1992. Perry starred as Lane Frost in "8 Seconds" in 1994. In an attempt to find more mature roles, he decided to leave "Beverly Hills, 90210" in 1995. In the same year, he took a part in the Italian movie "Vacanze di Natale '95", playing himself. Although he announced that "90210" was behind him, his departure would eventually turn out to be for only three years. During that time, Perry starred in the independent film "Normal Life" opposite Ashley Judd, starred in the TV science fiction movie "Invasion" (1997), a Rodney King drama "Riot" (1997) and also had a small role in Luc Besson's science fiction adventure film "The Fifth Element" (1997). Even though Perry had left "90210" in 1995, he returned in 1998 for financial reasons. Perry starred in the 1999 film "Storm". He then went on to star in a 2002 television movie called "The Triangle".
1061272	Titanic is a 1997 American epic romantic disaster film directed, written, co-produced, co-edited and partly financed by James Cameron. A fictionalized account of the sinking of the RMS "Titanic", it stars Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet as members of different social classes who fall in love aboard the ship during its ill-fated maiden voyage. Cameron's inspiration for the film was predicated on his fascination with shipwrecks; he wanted to convey the emotional message of the tragedy and felt that a love story interspersed with the human loss would be essential to achieving this. Production on the film began in 1995, when Cameron shot footage of the actual "Titanic" wreck. The modern scenes were shot on board the "Akademik Mstislav Keldysh", which Cameron had used as a base when filming the wreck. A reconstruction of the "Titanic" was built at Playas de Rosarito in Baja California, scale models, and computer-generated imagery were used to recreate the sinking. The film was partially funded by Paramount Pictures and 20th Century Fox, and, at the time, was the most expensive film ever made, with an estimated budget of $200 million. Upon its release on December 19, 1997, the film achieved critical and commercial success. Nominated for fourteen Academy Awards, it won eleven, including the awards for Best Picture and Best Director, tying "Ben Hur" (1959) for most Oscars won by a single film. With an initial worldwide gross of over $1.84 billion, it was the first film to reach the billion-dollar mark. It remained the highest-grossing film of all time, until Cameron's 2009 film "Avatar" surpassed its gross in 2010. A 3D version of the film, released on April 4, 2012 (often billed as "Titanic 3D") to commemorate the centenary of the sinking of the ship, earned it an additional $343.6 million worldwide, pushing "Titanic's" worldwide total to $2.18 billion. It became the second film to gross more than $2 billion worldwide (after "Avatar"). Plot. In 1996, treasure hunter Brock Lovett and his team aboard the research vessel "Keldysh" search the wreck of RMS "Titanic" for a necklace with a rare diamond, the Heart of the Ocean. They recover a safe and find inside a drawing of a nude woman wearing only the necklace. The drawing is dated April 14, 1912, the day the "Titanic" hit the iceberg. An elderly woman calling herself Rose Dawson Calvert and claiming to be the person in the drawing visits Lovett, and tells of her experiences as a passenger on the "Titanic". In 1912 Southampton, 17-year-old first-class passenger Rose DeWitt Bukater, her fiancé Caledon "Cal" Hockley, and her mother Ruth DeWitt Bukater board the "Titanic". Ruth emphasizes the importance of Rose's engagement; the marriage will resolve the DeWitt Bukaters' secret financial problems. Made distraught by the engagement, Rose considers committing suicide by jumping off the ship's stern; Jack Dawson, a penniless artist, intervenes and convinces her not to jump. Discovered with Jack, Rose tells Cal she was looking over the edge and Jack saved her from falling. Cal is at first indifferent to Jack's actions, but when Rose indicates that some recognition is due, Cal offers Jack a small amount of money. After Rose mocks Cal by asking if saving her life meant so little, he invites Jack to dine with them in first class the following night. Jack and Rose develop a tentative friendship, even though Cal and Ruth are wary of the young third-class passenger. Following the dinner, Rose secretly joins Jack at a party in third-class. Cal and Ruth both disapprove of Rose seeing Jack, so Rose attempts to rebuff Jack's continuing advances. However, she soon realizes that she prefers him to Cal, and goes to meet him during what turns out to be the "Titanic" last moments of daylight ever. They go to Rose's stateroom, where she asks Jack to sketch her nude wearing only the Heart of the Ocean necklace, which was Cal's engagement present to her. Afterward, they evade Cal's bodyguard and make love in an automobile in the ship's cargo hold. Later, the pair go to the ship's forward deck, witness a collision with an iceberg, then overhear the ship's officers and designer discussing its seriousness. Rose and Jack decide to warn her mother and Cal. Cal discovers Jack's sketch of Rose and a mocking note from Rose are in Cal's safe along with the necklace. Furious, he arranges for his bodyguard to slip the necklace into Jack's coat pocket. Accused of stealing it, Jack is arrested, taken to the Master-at-arms' office, and handcuffed to a pipe. Cal puts the necklace in his own coat pocket. Rose evades both Cal and her mother, who has managed to board a lifeboat, then frees Jack. The crew starts to launch flares to attempt to obtain help from nearby ships. Once Jack and Rose reach the top deck, Cal and Jack encourage Rose to board a lifeboat; Cal claims that he has arranged for himself and Jack to get off safely. After she boards, Cal tells Jack the arrangement is only for himself. As Rose's boat lowers away, she realizes she cannot leave Jack and jumps back on board the "Titanic" to reunite with him. Infuriated, Cal takes a pistol and chases them into the flooding first-class dining saloon. After using up all his ammunition, Cal realizes, to his chagrin, that he gave his coat and the diamond to Rose. With the situation now extreme, he returns topside and boards a lifeboat by carrying a lost child in his arms. Jack and Rose return to the top deck. All lifeboats have now departed and passengers are falling to their death as the stern rises out of the water and the ship's power goes out. The ship then breaks in half, and the stern rises 90 degrees into the air. As it sinks, Jack and Rose ride the stern into the ocean. Jack helps Rose onto a wooden panel only buoyant enough to support one person. Holding the edge of the panel, he assures her she will die an old woman, warm in her bed. Jack dies from hypothermia. Fifth Officer Harold Lowe has commandeered a lifeboat to search for survivors. Rose gets Lowe's attention and is saved. Rose and the other survivors are taken by the RMS "Carpathia" to New York, where Rose gives her name as Rose Dawson in memory of Jack. She hides from Cal on "Carpathia" deck as he searches for her. She learns later that he committed suicide after losing everything in the Wall Street Crash of 1929. Rose's story causes Lovett to abandon his search. Rose goes alone to the stern of "Keldysh", takes out the Heart of the Ocean—in her possession all along—and drops it into the sea over the wreck site. When she is seemingly asleep in her bed, the photos on her dresser show she lived a life of freedom and adventure thanks to Jack. A young Rose is then seen reuniting with Jack at the Grand Staircase of the RMS "Titanic", congratulated by those who perished on the ship. Cast. Historical characters. Although not—and not intended to be—an entirely historically accurate depiction of events, the film does include dramatisations of various historical characters: Cameos. Several crew members of the "Akademik Mstislav Keldysh" appear in the film, including Anatoly Sagalevich, creator and pilot of the "MIR" self-propelled Deep Submergence Vehicle. Anders Falk, who filmed a documentary about the film's sets for the "Titanic" Historical Society, makes a cameo appearance in the film as a Swedish immigrant whom Jack Dawson meets when he enters his cabin; Ed and Karen Kamuda, then President and Vice President of the Society, were extras in the film. James Cameron and Barry Dennen cameo as praying men, and Greg Ellis and Oliver Page play cameo parts as a "Carpathia" steward and Steward Barnes, respectively. The boat seen alongside "Titanic" is the "SS Nomadic" (1911), "Titanic" tender ship, which survives to this day. Pre-production. Writing and inspiration. James Cameron had a fascination with shipwrecks, and, for him, the RMS "Titanic" was "the Mount Everest of shipwrecks." He was almost past the point in his life when he felt he could consider an undersea expedition, but said he still had "a mental restlessness" to live the life he had turned away from when he switched from the sciences to the arts in college. So when an IMAX film was made from footage shot of the wreck itself, he decided to seek Hollywood funding to "pay for an expedition and do the same thing." It was "not because I particularly wanted to make the movie," Cameron said. "I wanted to dive to the shipwreck." Cameron wrote a scriptment for a "Titanic" film, met with 20th Century Fox executives including Peter Chernin, and pitched it as "Romeo and Juliet on the "Titanic"". Cameron stated, "They were like, 'Oooooohkaaaaaay – a three-hour romantic epic? Sure, that's just what we want. Is there a little bit of "Terminator" in that? Any Harrier jets, shoot-outs, or car chases?' I said, 'No, no, no. It's not like that.'" The studio was dubious about the idea's commercial prospects, but, hoping for a long term relationship with Cameron, they gave him a greenlight. Cameron convinced Fox to promote the film based on the publicity afforded by shooting the "Titanic" wreck itself, and organized several dives to the site over a period of two years. "My pitch on that had to be a little more detailed," said Cameron. "So I said, 'Look, we've got to do this whole opening where they're exploring the "Titanic" and they find the diamond, so we're going to have all these shots of the ship." Cameron stated, "Now, we can either do them with elaborate models and motion control shots and CG and all that, which will cost X amount of money – or we can spend X plus 30 per cent and actually go shoot it at the real wreck." The crew shot at the real wreck in the Atlantic Ocean eleven times in 1995 and actually spent more time with the ship than its passengers. At that depth, with a water pressure of 6,000 pounds per square inch, "one small flaw in the vessel's superstructure would mean instant death for all on board." Not only were the dives high-risk, but adverse conditions prevented Cameron from getting the high quality footage that he wanted. During one dive, one of the submersibles collided with "Titanic"s hull, damaging both sub and ship and leaving fragments of the submersible's propeller shroud scattered around the superstructure. The external bulkhead of Captain Smith's quarters collapsed, exposing the interior. The area around the entrance to the Grand Staircase was also damaged. Descending to the actual site made both Cameron and crew want "to live up to that level of reality... But there was another level of reaction coming away from the real wreck, which was that it wasn't just a story, it wasn't just a drama," he said. "It was an event that happened to real people who really died. Working around the wreck for so much time, you get such a strong sense of the profound sadness and injustice of it, and the message of it." Cameron stated, "You think, 'There probably aren't going to be many filmmakers who go to "Titanic." There may never be another one – maybe a documentarian." Due to this, he felt "a great mantle of responsibility to convey the emotional message of it – to do that part of it right, too". After filming the underwater shots, Cameron began writing the screenplay. He wanted to honor the people who died during the sinking, so he spent six months researching all of the "Titanic"s crew and passengers. "I read everything I could. I created an extremely detailed timeline of the ship's few days and a very detailed timeline of the last night of its life," he said. "And I worked within that to write the script, and I got some historical experts to analyze what I'd written and comment on it, and I adjusted it." He paid meticulous attention to detail, even including a scene depicting the "Californian"s role in "Titanic" demise, though this was later cut (see below). From the beginning of the shoot, they had "a very clear picture" of what happened on the ship that night. "I had a library that filled one whole wall of my writing office with ""Titanic" stuff," because I wanted it to be right, especially if we were going to dive to the ship," he said. "That set the bar higher in a way – it elevated the movie in a sense. We wanted this to be a definitive visualization of this moment in history as if you'd gone back in a time machine and shot it." Cameron felt the "Titanic" sinking was "like a great novel that really happened", yet the event had become a mere morality tale; the film would give audiences the experience of living the history. The treasure hunter Brock Lovett represented those who never connected with the human element of the tragedy, while the blossoming romance of Jack and Rose, he believed, would be the most engaging part of the story: when their love is finally destroyed, the audience would mourn the loss. "All my films are love stories," Cameron said, "but in "Titanic" I finally got the balance right. It's not a disaster film. It's a love story with a fastidious overlay of real history." Cameron then framed the romance with the elderly Rose to make the intervening years palpable and poignant. For him, the end of the film leaves open the question if the elderly Rose was in a conscious dream or had died in her sleep. Scale modeling. Harland and Wolff, the RMS "Titanic" builders, opened their private archives to the crew, sharing blueprints that were thought lost. For the ship's interiors, production designer Peter Lamont's team looked for artifacts from the era. The newness of the ship meant every prop had to be made from scratch. Fox acquired 40 acres of waterfront south of Playas de Rosarito in Mexico, and began building a new studio on May 31, 1996. A horizon tank of seventeen million gallons was built for the exterior of the reconstructed ship, providing 270 degrees of ocean view. The ship was built to full scale, but Lamont removed redundant sections on the superstructure and forward well deck for the ship to fit in the tank, with the remaining sections filled with digital models. The lifeboats and funnels were shrunk by ten percent. The boat deck and A-deck were working sets, but the rest of the ship was just steel plating. Within was a fifty-foot lifting platform for the ship to tilt during the sinking sequences. Towering above was a tall tower crane on of rail track, acting as a combined construction, lighting, and camera platform. The sets representing the interior rooms of the "Titanic" were reproduced exactly as originally built, using photographs and plans from the "Titanic" builders. "The liner's first class staircase, which figures prominently in the script was constructed out of real wood and actually destroyed in the filming of the sinking." The rooms, the carpeting, design and colors, individual pieces of furniture, decorations, chairs, wall paneling, cutlery and crockery with the White Star Line crest on each piece, completed ceilings, and costumes were among the designs true to the originals. Cameron additionally hired two "Titanic" historians, Don Lynch and Ken Marschall, to authenticate the historical detail in the film. Production. The modern day scenes of the expedition were shot on the "Akademik Mstislav Keldysh" in July 1996. Principal photography for "Titanic" began in September 1996 at the newly-built Fox Baja Studios. The poop deck was built on a hinge which could rise from zero to ninety degrees in a few seconds as the ship's stern rose during the sinking. For the safety of the stuntmen, many props were made of foam rubber. By November 15, the boarding scenes were being shot. Cameron chose to build his RMS "Titanic" on the starboard side as a study of weather data showed prevailing north-to-south wind which blew the funnel smoke aft. This posed a problem for shooting the ship's departure from Southampton, as it was docked on its port side. Any writing on props and costumes had to be reversed, and if someone walked to their right in the script, they had to walk left during shooting. In post-production, the film was flipped to the correct direction. A full-time etiquette coach was hired to instruct the cast on the manners of the upper class gentility in 1912. Despite this, several critics picked up on anachronisms in the film, not least involving the two main stars. Cameron sketched Jack's nude portrait of Rose for a scene which he feels has the backdrop of repression. "You know what it means for her, the freedom she must be feeling. It's kind of exhilarating for that reason," he said. The nude scene was DiCaprio and Winslet's first scene together. "It wasn't by any kind of design, although I couldn't have designed it better. There's a nervousness and an energy and a hesitance in them," Cameron stated. "They had rehearsed together, but they hadn't shot anything together. If I'd had a choice, I probably would have preferred to put it deeper into the body of the shoot." He said he and his crew "were just trying to find things to shoot" because the big set was not yet ready. "It wasn't ready for months, so we were scrambling around trying to fill in anything we could get to shoot." After seeing the scene on film, Cameron felt it worked out considerably well. However, other times on the set were not as smooth. The shoot was an arduous experience that "cemented Cameron's formidable reputation as 'the scariest man in Hollywood'. He became known as an uncompromising, hard-charging perfectionist" and a "300-decibel screamer, a modern-day Captain Bligh with a megaphone and walkie-talkie, swooping down into people's faces on a 162ft crane". Winslet chipped a bone in her elbow during filming, and had been worried that she would drown in the 17m-gallon water tank the ship was to be sunk in. "There were times when I was genuinely frightened of him. Jim has a temper like you wouldn't believe," she said. "'God damn it!' he would yell at some poor crew member, 'that's exactly what I didn't want!'" Her co-star, Bill Paxton, was familiar with Cameron's work ethic from his earlier experience with him. "There were a lot of people on the set. Jim is not one of those guys who has the time to win hearts and minds," he said. The crew felt that Cameron had an evil alter ego, and nicknamed him "Mij" (Jim spelt backwards). In response to the criticism, Cameron stated, "Film-making is war. A great battle between business and aesthetics." During shooting on the "Akademik Mstislav Keldysh", an angry crew member put the dissociative drug PCP into the soup that Cameron and various others ate one night, which sent more than 50 people to the hospital. "There were people just rolling around, completely out of it. Some of them said they were seeing streaks and psychedelics," said actor Lewis Abernathy. Cameron managed to vomit before the drug took a full hold. Abernathy was shocked at the way he looked. "One eye was completely red, like the Terminator eye. A pupil, no iris, beet red. The other eye looked like he'd been sniffing glue since he was four." The person behind the poisoning was never caught. The filming schedule was intended to last 138 days but grew to 160. Many cast members came down with colds, flu, or kidney infections after spending hours in cold water, including Winslet. In the end, she decided she would not work with Cameron again unless she earned "a lot of money". Several others left and three stuntmen broke their bones, but the Screen Actors Guild decided, following an investigation, that nothing was inherently unsafe about the set. Additionally, DiCaprio said there was no point when he felt he was in danger during filming. Cameron believed in a passionate work ethic and never apologized for the way he ran his sets, although he acknowledged:I'm demanding, and I'm demanding on my crew. In terms of being kind of militaresque, I think there's an element of that in dealing with thousands of extras and big logistics and keeping people safe. I think you have to have a fairly strict methodology in dealing with a large number of people. The costs of filming "Titanic" eventually began to mount, and finally reached $200 million. Fox executives panicked, and suggested an hour of specific cuts from the three-hour film. They argued the extended length would mean fewer showings, thus less money even though long epics are more likely to help directors win Oscars. Cameron refused, telling Fox, "You want to cut my movie? You're going to have to fire me! You want to fire me? You're going to have to kill me!" he said. The executives did not want to start over, because it would mean the loss of their entire investment, but they also initially rejected Cameron's offer of forfeiting his share of the profits as an empty gesture; they felt that profits would be unlikely. Cameron explained forfeiting his share as complex. "...the short version is that the film cost proportionally much more than "" and "True Lies." Those films went up seven or eight percent from the initial budget. "Titanic" also had a large budget to begin with, but it went up a lot more," said Cameron. "As the producer and director, I take responsibility for the studio that's writing the checks, so I made it less painful for them. I did that on two different occasions. They didn't force me to do it; they were glad that I did." Post-production. Effects. Cameron wanted to push the boundary of special effects with his film, and enlisted Digital Domain to continue the developments in digital technology which the director pioneered while working on "The Abyss" and "". Many previous films about the RMS "Titanic" shot water in slow motion, which did not look wholly convincing. He encouraged them to shoot their long miniature of the ship as if "we're making a commercial for the White Star Line". Afterwards, digital water and smoke were added, as were extras captured on a motion capture stage. Visual effects supervisor Rob Legato scanned the faces of many actors, including himself and his children, for the digital extras and stuntmen. There was also a long model of the ship's stern that could break in two repeatedly, the only miniature to be used in water. For scenes set in the ship's engines, footage of the SS "Jeremiah O'Brien"s engines were composited with miniature support frames and actors shot against a greenscreen. In order to save money, the first class lounge was a miniature set incorporated into a greenscreen backdrop. An enclosed tank was used for sinking interiors, in which the entire set could be tilted into the water. In order to sink the Grand Staircase, of water were dumped into the set as it was lowered into the tank. Unexpectedly, the waterfall ripped the staircase from its steel-reinforced foundations, although no one was hurt. The long exterior of the RMS "Titanic" had its first half lowered into the tank, but being the heaviest part of the ship meant it acted as a shock absorber against the water; to get the set into the water, Cameron had much of the set emptied and even smashed some of the promenade windows himself. After submerging the dining saloon, three days were spent shooting Lovett's ROV traversing the wreck in the present. The post-sinking scenes in the freezing Atlantic were shot in a tank, where the frozen corpses were created by applying a powder on actors that crystallized when exposed to water, and wax was coated on hair and clothes. The climactic scene, which features the breakup of the ship directly before it sinks, as well as its final plunge to the bottom of the Atlantic, involved a tilting full-sized set, 150 extras and 100 stunt performers. Cameron criticized previous "Titanic" films for depicting the final plunge of the liner as sliding gracefully underwater. He "wanted to depict it as the terrifyingly chaotic event that it really was". When carrying out the sequence, people needed to fall off the increasingly tilting deck, plunging hundreds of feet below and bouncing off of railings and propellers on the way down. A few attempts to film this sequence with stunt people resulted in some minor injuries and Cameron halted the more dangerous stunts. The risks were eventually minimized "by using computer generated people for the dangerous falls". Editing. There was one "crucial historical fact" Cameron chose to omit from the film – the ship that was close to the "Titanic", but had turned off its radio for the night and did not hear their SOS calls. "Yes, the "Californian." That wasn't a compromise to mainstream filmmaking. That was really more about emphasis, creating an emotional truth to the film," stated Cameron. He said there were aspects of retelling the sinking that seemed important in pre and post-production, but turned out to be less important as the film evolved. "The story of the "Californian" was in there; we even shot a scene of them switching off their Marconi radio set," said Cameron. "But I took it out. It was a clean cut, because it focuses you back onto that world. If "Titanic" is powerful as a metaphor, as a microcosm, for the end of the world in a sense, then that world must be self-contained." During the first assembly cut, Cameron altered the planned ending, which had given resolution to Brock Lovett's story. In the original version of the ending, Brock and Lizzy see the elderly Rose at the stern of the boat, and fear she is going to commit suicide. Rose then reveals that she had the "Heart of the Ocean" diamond all along, but never sold it, in order to live on her own without Cal's money. She tells Brock that life is priceless and throws the diamond into the ocean, after allowing him to hold it. After accepting that treasure is worthless, Brock laughs at his stupidity. Rose then goes back to her cabin to sleep, whereupon the film ends in the same way as the final version. In the editing room, Cameron decided that by this point, the audience would no longer be interested in Brock Lovett and cut the resolution to his story, so that Rose is alone when she drops the diamond. He also did not want to disrupt the audience's melancholy after the "Titanic" sinking. The version used for the first test screening featured a fight between Jack and Lovejoy which takes place after Jack and Rose escape into the flooded dining saloon, but the test audiences disliked it. The scene was written to give the film more suspense, and featured Cal (falsely) offering to give Lovejoy, his valet, the "Heart of the Ocean" if he can get it from Jack and Rose. Lovejoy goes after the pair in the sinking first class dining room. Just as they are about to escape him, Lovejoy notices Rose's hand slap the water as it slips off the table behind which she is hiding. In revenge for framing him for the "theft" of the necklace, Jack attacks him and smashes his head against a glass window, which explains the gash on Lovejoy's head that can be seen when he dies in the completed version of the film. In their reactions to the scene, test audiences said it would be unrealistic to risk one's life for wealth, and Cameron cut it for this reason, as well as for timing and pacing reasons. Many other scenes were cut for similar reasons. Music and soundtrack. The soundtrack album for "Titanic" was composed by James Horner. For the vocals heard throughout the film, subsequently described by Earle Hitchner of "The Wall Street Journal" as "evocative", Horner chose Norwegian singer Sissel Kyrkjebø, mononymously known as "Sissel". Horner knew Sissel from her album "Innerst I Sjelen", and he particularly liked how she sang ""Eg veit i himmerik ei borg"" ("I Know in Heaven There Is a Castle"). He had tried twenty-five or thirty singers before he finally chose Sissel as the voice to create specific moods within the film. Horner additionally wrote the song "My Heart Will Go On" in secret with Will Jennings because Cameron did not want any songs with singing in the film. Céline Dion agreed to record a demo with the persuasion of her husband René Angélil. Horner waited until Cameron was in an appropriate mood before presenting him with the song. After playing it several times, Cameron declared his approval, although worried that he would have been criticized for "going commercial at the end of the movie". Cameron also wanted to appease anxious studio executives and "saw that a hit song from his movie could only be a positive factor in guaranteeing its completion". Release. Initial screening. 20th Century Fox and Paramount Pictures co-financed "Titanic", with Paramount handling the North American distribution and Fox handling the international release. They expected Cameron to complete the film for a release on July 2, 1997. The film was to be released on this date "in order to exploit the lucrative summer season ticket sales when blockbuster films usually do better". In April, Cameron said the film's special effects were too complicated and that releasing the film for summer would not be possible. With production delays, Paramount pushed back the release date to December 19, 1997. "This fueled speculation that the film itself was a disaster." However, a preview screening in Minneapolis on July 14 "generated positive reviews" and "on the internet was responsible for more favorable word of mouth about the [film". This eventually led to more positive media coverage. The film premiered on November 1, 1997, at the Tokyo International Film Festival, where reaction was described as "tepid" by "The New York Times". However, positive reviews started to appear back in the United States; the official Hollywood premiere occurred on December 14, 1997, where "the big movie stars who attended the opening were enthusiastically gushing about the film to the world media". Box office. Including revenue from the 2012 reissue, "Titanic" earned $658,672,302 in North America and $1,526,700,000 in other countries, for a worldwide total of $2,185,372,302. It became the highest-grossing film of all time worldwide in 1998, and remained so for twelve years, until "Avatar", also written and directed by Cameron, surpassed it in 2010. On March 1, 1998, it became the first film to earn more than $1 billion worldwide, and on the weekend April 13–15, 2012—a century after the original vessel's foundering—"Titanic" became the second film to cross the $2 billion threshold during its 3D re-release. Box Office Mojo estimates that "Titanic" is the fifth highest-grossing film of all time in North America when adjusting for ticket price inflation. Initial theatrical run. The film received steady attendance after opening in North America on Friday, December 19, 1997. By the end of that same weekend, theaters were beginning to sell out. The film earned $8,658,814 on its opening day and $28,638,131 over the opening weekend from 2,674 theaters, averaging to about $10,710 per venue, and ranking number one at the box office, ahead of the eighteenth James Bond film, "Tomorrow Never Dies". By New Year's Day, "Titanic" had made over $120 million, had increased in popularity and theaters continued to sell out. Its biggest single day took place on Saturday, February 14 (Valentine's Day), 1998, making $13,048,711, more than six weeks after it debuted in North America. It stayed at number one for fifteen consecutive weeks in North America, which remains a record for any film. The film stayed in theaters in North America for almost ten months, before finally closing on Thursday, October 1, 1998 with a final domestic gross of $600,788,188. Outside North America, the film made double its North American gross, generating $1,242,413,080 and accumulating a grand total of $1,843,201,268 worldwide from its initial theatrical run. Commercial analysis. Before its release, various film critics predicted the film would be a significant disappointment at the box office, especially due to it being the most expensive film ever made at the time. When it was shown to the press in autumn of 1997, "it was with massive forebodings" since the "people in charge of the screenings believed they were on the verge of losing their jobs – because of this great albatross of a picture on which, finally, two studios had to combine to share the great load of its making". Cameron also thought he was "headed for disaster" at one point during filming. "We labored the last six months on "Titanic" in the absolute knowledge that the studio would lose $100m. It was a certainty," he stated. As the film neared release, "particular venom was spat at Cameron for what was seen as his hubris and monumental extravagance". A film critic for the "Los Angeles Times" wrote that "Cameron's overweening pride has come close to capsizing this project" and that the film was "a hackneyed, completely derivative copy of old Hollywood romances". When the film became a success, with an unprecedented box office performance, it was credited as "the love story stole the world's hearts". "The first batch of people to see it [were gob smacked by the sheer scale and intimacy of the production. They emerged from the cinema, tear stained and emotionally flabbergasted." The film was playing on 3,200 screens a full ten weeks after it opened, and out of its fifteen straight weeks on top of the charts, jumped 43% in total sales in its ninth week of release. It earned over $20 million a week for ten weeks, and after fourteen weeks into its run, it was still bringing in more than $1m a week. Although teenage girls, as well as young women in general, who would see the film several times and subsequently caused "", were often credited with having primarily propelled the film to its all-time box office record, other reports have attributed the film's success to "ositive word of mouth and repeat viewership" due to the love story combined with the ground-breaking special effects. The film's impact on men has also been especially credited. Now considered one of the films that "make men cry", MSNBC's Ian Hodder stated that men admire Jack's sense of adventure, stowing away on a steamship bound for America. "We cheer as he courts a girl who was out of his league. We admire how he suggests nude modeling as an excuse to get naked. So when tragic ending happens, an uncontrollable flood of tears sinks our composure," he said. "Titanic" ability to make men cry was briefly parodied in the 2009 film "Zombieland", where character Tallahassee (Woody Harrelson), when recalling the death of his young son, states: "I haven't cried like that since "Titanic"." Also addressing the sentimentality of the film, Benjamin Willcock of DVDActive.com said that, as a fourteen-year-old male, he had wanted to see "Starship Troopers" instead, but was overruled by an uncle and friends. "Little did I know that I would be seeing a film that would become the biggest, most successful motion picture event of all time," he stated. "I was also blissfully unaware that it would turn out to be so much more than 'some epic love story'". In 2010, the BBC analyzed the stigma over men crying during "Titanic" and films in general. "Middle-aged men are not 'supposed' to cry during movies," stated Finlo Rohrer of the website, citing the ending of "Titanic" as having generated such tears, adding that "men, if they have felt weepy during film, have often tried to be surreptitious about it." Professor Mary Beth Oliver, of Penn State University, stated, "For many men, there is a great deal of pressure to avoid expression of 'female' emotions like sadness and fear. From a very young age, males are taught that it is inappropriate to cry, and these lessons are often accompanied by a great deal of ridicule when the lessons aren't followed." She said, "Indeed, some men who might sneer at the idea of crying during "Titanic" will readily admit to becoming choked up during "Saving Private Ryan" or "Platoon."" For men in general, "the idea of sacrifice for a 'brother' is a more suitable source of emotion". "Titanic" catchphrase "I'm the king of the world!" became one of the film industry's more popular quotations. According to Richard Harris, a psychology professor at Kansas State University, who studied why people like to cite films in social situations, using film quotations in everyday conversation is similar to telling a joke and a way to form solidarity with others. "People are doing it to feel good about themselves, to make others laugh, to make themselves laugh", he said. Cameron explained the film's success as having significantly benefited from the experience of sharing. "When people have an experience that's very powerful in the movie theatre, they want to go share it. They want to grab their friend and bring them, so that they can enjoy it," he said. "They want to be the person to bring them the news that this is something worth having in their life. That's how "Titanic" worked." Media Awareness Network stated, "The normal repeat viewing rate for a blockbuster theatrical film is about 5%. The repeat rate for "Titanic" was over 20%." The box office receipts "were even more impressive" when factoring in "the film's 3 hour and 14 minute length meant that it could only be shown three times a day compared to a normal movie's four showings". In response to this, "any theatres started midnight showings and were rewarded with full houses until almost 3:30 am". "Titanic" held the record for box office gross for twelve years. Cameron's most recent film, "Avatar", was considered the first film with a genuine chance at surpassing its worldwide gross, and did so in 2010. Various explanations for why the film was able to successfully challenge "Titanic" were given. For one, "Two-thirds of "Titanic" haul was earned overseas, and "Avatar" similarly... "Avatar" opened in 106 markets globally and was no. 1 in all of them" and the markets "such as Russia, where "Titanic" saw modest receipts in 1997 and 1998, are white-hot today" with "more screens and moviegoers" than ever before. Brandon Gray, president of Box Office Mojo, said that while "Avatar" may beat "Titanic" revenue record, the film is unlikely to surpass "Titanic" in attendance. "Ticket prices were about $3 cheaper in the late 1990s." In December 2009, Cameron had stated, "I don't think it's realistic to try to topple "Titanic" off its perch. Some pretty good movies have come out in the last few years. "Titanic" just struck some kind of chord." In a January 2010 interview, he gave a different take on the matter once "Avatar" performance was easier to predict. "It's gonna happen. It's just a matter of time," he said. Critical reception. "Titanic" garnered mostly positive reviews from film critics. On review aggregate website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an overall 88% "Certified Fresh" approval rating based on 169 reviews, with a rating average of 7.8 out of 10. The site's consensus is that the film is " mostly unqualified triumph for Cameron, who offers a dizzying blend of spectacular visuals and old-fashioned melodrama". At Metacritic, which assigns a weighted mean rating out of 0–100 reviews from film critics, the film has a rating score of 74 based on 34 reviews, classified as a generally favorably reviewed film. With regard to the film's overall design, Roger Ebert stated, "It is flawlessly crafted, intelligently constructed, strongly acted, and spellbinding... Movies like this are not merely difficult to make at all, but almost impossible to make well." He credited the "technical difficulties" with being "so daunting that it's a wonder when the filmmakers are also able to bring the drama and history into proportion" and "found convinced by both the story and the sad saga". He named it his ninth best film of 1997. On the television program "Siskel & Ebert", the film received "two thumbs up" and was praised for its accuracy in recreating the ship's sinking; Ebert described the film as "a glorious Hollywood epic, well-crafted and well worth the wait" and Gene Siskel found Leonardo DiCaprio "captivating". James Berardinelli stated, "Meticulous in detail, yet vast in scope and intent, "Titanic" is the kind of epic motion picture event that has become a rarity. You don't just watch "Titanic", you experience it." It was named his second best film of 1997. Almar Haflidason of the BBC wrote that "[the sinking of the great ship is no secret, yet for many exceeded expectations in sheer scale and tragedy" and that "when you consider that film tops a bum-numbing three-hour running time, then you have a truly impressive feat of entertainment achieved by Cameron". Joseph McBride of "Boxoffice Magazine" concluded, "To describe "Titanic" as the greatest disaster movie ever made is to sell it short. James Cameron's recreation of the 1912 sinking of the 'unsinkable' liner is one of the most magnificent pieces of serious popular entertainment ever to emanate from Hollywood." The romantic and emotionally-charged aspects of the film were equally praised. Andrew L. Urban of "Urban Cinefile" said, "You will walk out of "Titanic" not talking about budget or running time, but of its enormous emotive power, big as the engines of the ship itself, determined as its giant propellers to gouge into your heart, and as lasting as the love story that propels it." Owen Gleiberman of "Entertainment Weekly" described the film as, "A lush and terrifying spectacle of romantic doom. Writer-director James Cameron has restaged the defining catastrophe of the early 20th century on a human scale of such purified yearning and dread that he touches the deepest levels of popular moviemaking." Janet Maslin of "The New York Times" commented that "Cameron's magnificent "Titanic" is the first spectacle in decades that honestly invites comparison to "Gone With the Wind"." Richard Corliss of "Time" magazine, on the other hand, wrote a mostly negative review, criticizing the lack of interesting emotional elements. Some reviewers felt that the story and dialogue were weak, while the visuals were spectacular. Kenneth Turan's review in the "Los Angeles Times" was particularly scathing. Dismissing the emotive elements, he stated, "What really brings on the tears is Cameron's insistence that writing this kind of movie is within his abilities. Not only is it not, it is not even close.", and later claimed that the only reason that the film won Oscars was because of its box office total. Barbara Shulgasser of "The San Francisco Examiner" gave "Titanic" one star out of four, citing a friend as saying, "The number of times in this unbelievably badly-written script that the two characters refer to each other by name was an indication of just how dramatically the script lacked anything more interesting for the actors to say." Also, filmmaker Robert Altman called it "the most dreadful piece of work I've ever seen in my entire life". In his 2012 study of the lives of the passengers on the "Titanic", historian Richard Davenport-Hines says "Cameron's film diabolized rich Americans and educated English, anathematizing their emotional restraint, good tailoring, punctilious manners and grammatical training, while it made romantic heroes of the poor Irish and the unlettered". "Titanic" suffered backlash in addition to its success. In 2003, the film topped a poll of "Best Film Endings", and yet it also topped a poll by "The Film programme" as "the worst movie of all time". The British film magazine "Empire" reduced their rating of the film from the maximum five stars and an enthusiastic review, to four stars with a less positive review in a later edition, to accommodate its readers' tastes, who wanted to disassociate themselves from the hype surrounding the film, and the reported activities of its fans, such as those attending multiple screenings. In addition to this, positive and negative parodies and other such spoofs of the film abounded and were circulated on the internet, often inspiring passionate responses from fans of various opinions of the film. Benjamin Willcock of DVDActive.com did not understand the backlash or the passionate hatred for the film. "What really irks me...," he said, "are those who make nasty stabs at those who do love it." Willcock stated, "I obviously don't have anything against those who dislike "Titanic", but those few who make you feel small and pathetic for doing so (and they do exist, trust me) are way beyond my understanding and sympathy." Cameron responded to the backlash, and Kenneth Turan's review in particular. ""Titanic" is not a film that is sucking people in with flashy hype and spitting them out onto the street feeling let down and ripped off," he stated. "They are returning again and again to repeat an experience that is taking a 3-hour and 14-minute chunk out of their lives, and dragging others with them, so they can share the emotion." Cameron emphasized people from all ages (ranging from 8 to 80) and from all backgrounds were "celebrating their own essential humanity" by seeing it. He described the script as earnest and straightforward, and said it intentionally "incorporates universals of human experience and emotion that are timeless – and familiar because they reflect our basic emotional fabric" and that the film was able to succeed in this way by dealing with archetypes. He did not see it as pandering. "Turan mistakes archetype for cliche," he said. "I don't share his view that the best scripts are only the ones that explore the perimeter of human experience, or flashily pirouette their witty and cynical dialogue for our admiration." "Empire" eventually reinstated its original five star rating of the film, commenting, "It should be no surprise then that it became fashionable to bash James Cameron's "Titanic" at approximately the same time it became clear that this was the planet's favourite film. Ever. Them's the facts." Accolades. "Titanic" began its awards sweep starting with the Golden Globes, winning four, namely Best Motion Picture – Drama, Best Director, Best Original Score, and Best Original Song. Kate Winslet and Gloria Stuart were also nominees, but lost. It won the ACE "Eddie" Award, ASC Award, Art Directors Guild Award, Cinema Audio Society Awards, Screen Actors Guild Award (Best Supporting Actress for Gloria Stuart), The Directors Guild of America Award, and Broadcast Film Critics Association Award (Best Director for James Cameron), and The Producer Guild of America Award. It was also nominated for ten BAFTA awards, including Best Film and Best Director; however, it failed to win any. The film garnered fourteen Academy Awards nominations, tying the record set in 1950 by Joseph L. Mankiewicz's "All About Eve" and won eleven: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Art Direction, Best Cinematography, Best Visual Effects, Best Film Editing, Best Costume Design, Best Sound (Gary Rydstrom, Tom Johnson, Gary Summers, Mark Ulano), Best Sound Effects Editing, Best Original Dramatic Score, Best Original Song. Kate Winslet, Gloria Stuart and the make-up artists were the three nominees that did not win. James Cameron's original screenplay and Leonardo DiCaprio were not nominees. It was the second film to win eleven Academy Awards, after "Ben-Hur". "" would also match this record in 2004, with its eleven wins from eleven nominations. "Titanic" won the 1997 Academy Award for Best Original Song, as well as three Grammy Awards for Record of the Year, Song of the Year, and Best Song Written Specifically for a Motion Picture or Television. The film's soundtrack became the best-selling primarily orchestral soundtrack of all time, and became a worldwide success, spending sixteen weeks at number-one in the United States, and was certified diamond for over eleven million copies sold in the United States alone. The soundtrack also became the best-selling album of 1998 in the U.S. "My Heart Will Go On" won the Grammy Awards for Best Song Written Specifically for a Motion Picture or for Television. The film also won Best Male Performance for Leonardo DiCaprio and Best Movie at the MTV Movie Awards, Best Film at the People's Choice Awards, and Favorite Movie at the 1998 Kids' Choice Awards. It won various awards outside the United States, including the Awards of the Japanese Academy as the Best Foreign Film of the Year. "Titanic" eventually won nearly ninety awards and had an additional forty-seven nominations from various award-giving bodies around the world. Additionally, the book about the making of the film was at the top of "The New York Times"' bestseller list for several weeks, "the first time that such a tie-in book had achieved this status". Since its release, "Titanic" has appeared on the American Film Institute's award-winning 100 Years… series. So far, it has ranked on the following six lists: Home media. "Titanic" was released worldwide in widescreen and pan and scan formats on VHS and laserdisc on September 1, 1998. The VHS was also made available in a deluxe boxed gift set with a mounted filmstrip and six lithograph prints from the movie. A DVD version was released on August 31, 1999 in a widescreen-only (non-anamorphic) single-disc edition with no special features other than a theatrical trailer. Cameron stated at the time that he intended to release a special edition with extra features later. This release became the best-selling DVD of 1999 and early 2000, becoming the first DVD ever to sell one million copies. At the time, fewer than 5% of all U.S. homes had a DVD player. "When we released the original "Titanic" DVD, the industry was much smaller, and bonus features were not the standard they are now," said Meagan Burrows, Paramount's president of domestic home entertainment, which made the film's DVD performance even more impressive. "Titanic" was re-released to DVD on October 25, 2005 when a three-disc "Special Collector's Edition" was made available in the United States and Canada. This edition contained a newly restored transfer of the film, as well as various special features. An international two and four-disc set followed on November 7, 2005. The two-disc edition was marketed as the "Special Edition", and featured the first two discs of the three-disc set, only PAL-enabled. A four-disc edition, marketed as the "Deluxe Collector's Edition", was also released on November 7, 2005. Also, available only in the United Kingdom, a limited 5-disc set of the film, under the title "Deluxe Limited Edition", was released with only 10,000 copies manufactured. The fifth disc contains Cameron's documentary "Ghosts of the Abyss", which was distributed by Walt Disney Pictures. Unlike the individual release of "Ghosts of the Abyss", which contained two discs, only the first disc was included in the set. As regards to television broadcasts, the film airs occasionally across the United States on networks such as TNT. To permit the scene where Jack draws the nude portrait of Rose to be shown on network and specialty cable channels, in addition to minor cuts, the sheer, see-through robe worn by Winslet was digitally painted black. Turner Classic Movies also began to show the film, specifically during the days leading up to the 82nd Academy Awards. 3D conversion. A 2012 re-release, also known as "Titanic in 3D," was created by re-mastering the original to 4K resolution and post-converting to stereoscopic 3D format. The "Titanic" 3D version took 60 weeks and $18 million to produce, including the 4K restoration. The 3D conversion was preformed by Stereo D and Sony with Slam Content's Panther Records remastering the soundtrack. Digital 2D and in 2D IMAX versions were also struck from the new 4K master created in the process. For the 3D release, Cameron opened up the Super 35 film and expanded the image of the film into a new aspect ratio, from 2:35:1 to 1:78:1, allowing the viewer to see more image on the top and bottom of the screen. The only scene entirely redone for the re-release was Rose's view of the night sky at sea, on the morning of April 15, 1912. The scene was replaced with an accurate view of the night-sky star pattern, including the Milky Way, adjusted for the location in the North Atlantic Ocean in April 1912. The change was prompted by astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, who had criticized the scene for showing an unrealistic star pattern. He agreed to send film director Cameron a corrected view of the sky, which was the basis of the new scene. The 3D version of "Titanic" premiered at the Royal Albert Hall in London on March 27, 2012, with James Cameron and Kate Winslet in attendance, and entered general release on April 4, 2012, six days shy of the centenary of "RMS Titanic" embarking on her maiden voyage. "Rolling Stone" film critic Peter Travers rated the reissue 3.5 stars out of 4, explaining he found it "pretty damn dazzling". He said, "The 3D intensifies "Titanic". You are there. Caught up like never before in an intimate epic that earns its place in the movie time capsule." Writing for "Entertainment Weekly", Owen Gleiberman gave the film an A grade. He wrote, "For once, the visuals in a 3-D movie don't look darkened or distracting. They look sensationally crisp and alive." However, Richard Corliss of "Time" who was very critical in 1997 remained in the same mood, "I had pretty much the same reaction: fitfully awed, mostly water-logged." In regards to the 3D effects, he noted the "careful conversion to 3D lends volume and impact to certain moments ... in separating the foreground and background of each scene, the converters have carved the visual field into discrete, not organic, levels." Ann Hornaday for "The Washington Post" found herself asking "whether the film's twin values of humanism and spectacle are enhanced by Cameron's 3-D conversion, and the answer to that is: They aren't." She further added that the "3-D conversion creates distance where there should be intimacy, not to mention odd moments in framing and composition." The film grossed an estimated $4.7 million on the first day of its re-release in North America (including midnight preview showings) and went on to make $17.3 million over the weekend, finishing in third place. Outside of North America it earned $35.2 million finishing second, and improved on its performance the following weekend by topping the box office with $98.9 million. China has proven to be its most successful territory where it earned $11.6 million on its opening day, going on to earn a record-breaking $67 million in its opening week and taking more money in the process than it did in the entirety of its original theatrical run. The reissue ultimately earned $343.4 million worldwide, with $145 million coming from China and $57.8 million from Canada and United States.
586086	Sreenath () (August 26, 1956 – April 23, 2010) was a popular Malayalam film and television actor. He acted in many hit films, including "Shalini Ente Koottukari", "Ithu Njangalude Katha", "Oru CBI Diary Kurippu", and "Kireedam". Sreenath was a Shiv Sena candidate from the Attingal Lok Sabha constituency in 2009 Lok Sabha elections. Personal life. At the start of his film career, he worked with actress Shanthi Krishna in a few hit movies and fell in love during the shoot of "Ithu Njangalude Katha". He later married her at Guruvayoor Temple in September 1984. But the marriage didn't work and the two parted ways in September 1995. He wed again to Latha later. The couple has a son named Viswajith. Career. Sreenath began his film career in the 1980s, but slowly shifted his focus to television acting although he continued to act in films occasionally. His popular films include "Shalini Ente Koottukari", "Ithu Njangalude Katha", "Oru CBI Diary Kurippu", "Kireedam", and "Devaasuram". Sreenath's last film was the 2009's "Kerala Cafe", a movie that had 10 short films woven around a common theme. Sreenath was winner of state award for best TV actor twice. Death. Sreenath was found dead in a hotel room in Kothamangalam in Kerala on April 23, 2010. Police have not ruled out the possibility of suicide as his wrist was found slashed. He had been in Kothamangalam for the shooting of Malayalam film "Shikar" starring Mohanlal. Sreenath's younger brother Satyanath held a press meet and said they suspected foul play in his death. Sreenath was shooting for Malayalam film 'Shikar' starring superstar Mohanlal. Satyanath said it was shocking that no one from the sets of 'Shikar' came to attend the funeral and did not even call the actor's family. Meanwhile, reports said the actor was omitted from the film 'Shikar' since he was not a member of the Association of Malayalam Movie Artistes (AMMA). Kerala Home Minister Kodiyeri Balakrishnan said Police have been ordered to probe the death of Sreenath.
674137	Tilman Valentin "Til" Schweiger (; born 19 December 1963) is a German actor, director, and producer. He is one of Germany's most successful filmmakers. Since 1968, when the FFA started counting, no other German actor has drawn more people to the cinemas. He runs his own production company, Barefoot Films, in Berlin. Early life. Schweiger was born in Freiburg, West Germany, to two teachers. He grew up in Heuchelheim near Giessen in Hesse, where he went to school. Later he attended acting lessons at "Der Keller" in Cologne and graduated in 1989. Career. Schweiger's debut as a producer and (uncredited) director came in 1997 with "Knockin' on Heaven's Door". The film remains a cult favourite for audiences worldwide. He also directed and produced "Der Eisbär" ("The Polar Bear") in 1998. Schweiger won a prestigious Bambi Award for "Barfuß" ("Barefoot") in 2005, which he wrote, directed, and starred in. He also won a Bambi for his lead role in "Traumschiff Surprise – Periode 1". In 2007, "Keinohrhasen" (this literally translates to "no ear rabbit" while the English title is "Rabbit Without Ears"), written, produced, and directed by Schweiger, became the most successful film in German theaters with a box office result of USD 62,000,000. The film won a Bambi, a Bavarian Film Award, the German Comedy Award, two DIVA Awards, a Jupiter Award and the Ernst Lubitsch Award. The sequel, "Zweiohrküken" ("Rabbit Without Ears 2", literally "two ear chicks"), was released the following year and was also a huge success with over 4.2 million viewers and a box office of USD 45,000,000. Schweiger then went on to direct, produce and star in "1½ Knights – In Search of the Ravishing Princess Herzelinde", which also proved a huge cinema hit on its release in 2008. The movie "Kokowääh" debuted in German cinemas in February 2011. Schweiger's daughter Emma stars beside him, and the movie is also directed, co-written and produced by him. Schweiger will reprise his role as Henry in its upcoming sequel, "Kokowääh 2", co-starring his daughter Emma Schweiger. The film will be released on February 7, 2013. Onscreen, Schweiger first appeared as an actor in 1989 in the TV series "Lindenstraße". His first film role came in 1991 with "Manta, Manta". Additional TV and film roles followed, including "Der bewegte Mann" ("Maybe, Maybe Not"), "Männerpension" ("Jailbirds"), "Das Mädchen Rosemarie" ("The Girl Rosemarie"), "Bastard" ("Bandyta"), "Bang Boom Bang", "Der große Bagarozy" ("The Devil and Ms. D."), "Was tun, wenn's brennt" ("What to Do in Case of Fire"), "Les Daltons vs. Lucky Luke", "The Red Baron", "Wo ist Fred" ("Where is Fred?"), "Phantomschmerz" ("Phantom Pain"), "Männerherzen", and others. Schweiger has also appeared in a wide range of American films, including "Already Dead", "King Arthur", "In Enemy Hands", "Magicians", "", "Driven", "SLC Punk!", "Investigating Sex", "Joe and Max", and "The Replacement Killers". His latest big screen appearance was as Hugo Stiglitz in Quentin Tarantino's "Inglourious Basterds". Schweiger appeared in the US productions "The Courier" with Mickey Rourke and "This Means War" (2012), with Chris Pine and Reese Witherspoon. Personal life. Schweiger married American model Dana Carlson on 19 June 1995. The couple has four children: Valentin Florian Schweiger (born 17 September 1995), Luna Marie Schweiger (born 11 January 1997), Lilli Camille Schweiger (born 17 July 1998), and Emma Tiger Schweiger (born 26 October 2002). Schweiger and Carlson separated in 2005, but have not divorced.
584138	Gharshana (, ) is an Indian action film directed by Gautham Menon. It was released on July 30, 2004. The movie stars the Indian film actor Daggubati Venkatesh and the Indian film actress Asin Thottumkal playing the lead roles. It is a remake of the 2003 Tamil film success "Kaakha Kaakha". Jyothika was the initial cast instead of Asin. This film is not to be confused with the Maniratnam film Gharshana (1988), starring Prabhu Ganesan and Karthik Muthuraman with music by Ilaiyaraja, which was dubbed into Telugu from the Tamil language original, Agni Natchathiram (1988). Plot. Rama Chandra (played by Daggubati Venkatesh) is the Deputy Commissioner of Police of Hyderabad City. His upbringing as an orphan, and the special nature of his job as a policeman, have left him reluctant to form relationships with women. He doesn't have much faith in the judicial system and seeks to 'eliminate' the criminals in the town through "encounters". Rama Chandra, however, has fallen in love with Maya (played by Asin Thottumkal). She is a school teacher and has fallen in love with him. Initially he shuns her love, fearing that his enemies might cause harm to her. But her love is so deep for him that she is willing to take this risk, and they are married. In one of his "encounters", Rama Chandra kills Das, an Orissa-based leader of a criminal family, and his troubles begin. Das’ brother Panda (played by Salim Baig) resolves to take revenge on Rama Chandra for the death of his brother by targeting Chandra's friends and family members. Maya is kidnapped by these villains and her husband sets out to rescue her and to free Hyderabad City of this criminal menace at the same time. Despite facing growing horror and betrayal at every step, Rama Chandra defeats Panda and his mafia, and also rescuing his wounded wife. The ending scene features Rama Chandra a few months later, calling out to his wife 'Maya' and both leaving in a car. Music. The soundtrack of Kaakha Kaakha was retained in the Telugu remake except "Andagaada" and "Ye Chilipi". All Lyrics are written by Kula Shekar. It consists of 5 songs. Production. Gautham Menon subsequently remade the film in the Telugu language for producer Venkata Raju and went on to claim that the new version was better than the previous version and that his new lead actor Venkatesh was more convincing that Surya in the role. Reviews. Idlebrain wrote: "The second half starts in an interesting style and it loses the steam as the climax approaches. The plus points of this film are music, Venkatesh, photography and stylish taking. The negative points are slow narration, lack of Telugu commercial elements, dry scenes and lack of substance. This film has got more style and less substance". Indiaglitz wrote: "the film redeems itself due to the technical excellence and masterful craft of Gowtham. In that, he has married the best of Ram Gopal Varma and Manirathnam (urban finesse, short, crisp and natural dialogues and getting the best out of his music director)". Fullhyderabad wrote: "The action fans will love this movie. The encounters are sadistically gory. Especially the romantic encounters between Asin and Venky. They make you want to slit their guts! There are standards for boring too, you know! It drags. And that forms half of the movie". Sify wrote: "Speed, style and sparkle are the essence of Gharshana".
1067752	Stomp the Yard is a 2007 drama and dance film produced by Rainforest Films and released through Sony Pictures' Screen Gems division on January 12, 2007. Directed by Sylvain White, "Stomp the Yard" centers around DJ Williams, a college student at a fictional historically Black university who pledges to join a fictional Greek-letter fraternity. The film's central conflict involves DJ's fraternity competing in various stepping competitions against a rival fraternity from the same school. The film's script was written by Robert Adetuyi, working from an original draft by Gregory Ramon Anderson. The film was originally titled "Steppin"', but to avoid confusion over the 2006 film "Step Up", the title was changed. The film stars Columbus Short, Meagan Good, Darrin Henson, Rivah Feseha, Brian White, Laz Alonso, and Valarie Pettiford, with Harry Lennix, and, in their film debuts, R&B singers Ne-Yo & Chris Brown. "Stomp the Yard" was filmed in Atlanta, Georgia, on the campuses of Morris Brown College, Georgia Institute of Technology, Morehouse College, and Clark Atlanta University, and in the MAK Historic District of Decatur, Georgia. Plot. DJ Williams (Columbus Short) is a young man in inner-city Los Angeles. He and his younger brother Duron (Chris Brown) compete in local dance competitions as members of a crew known as the "Goon Squad". During the battle there are backs and forths, but in the end of the battle the Goon Squad win a cash-prize, and the losing home crew responds by ambushing DJ and his crewmates after the show. A fight breaks out, and the leader of the rival crew starts beating up DJ. Duron pushes him away and starts fighting him, leading the rival to pull out a gun, killing Duron. Arrested for assault, DJ is subsequently sent by his mother to live with his aunt Jackie (Valerie Pettiford) and uncle Nate (Harry J. Lennix) in Atlanta, Georgia, where he is to attend historically black Truth University. Nate, the physical plant director at Truth, aims to teach DJ responsibility and puts him to work doing maintenance as part of a work-study program. While waiting in line to register for classes, DJ sees a fellow student, April Palmer (Meagan Good), to whom he is immediately attracted. After registration, he moves into his dorm room, where he meets his new roommate Rich Brown (Ne-Yo). Rich meets DJ at a stepping competition on the green between the Truth chapters of rival fraternities Theta Nu Theta and Mu Gamma Xi. The Mu Gamma Xi crew, seven-time national stepping champions, easily steals the show until DJ sees April across the way and runs right through their step line in an attempt to speak to her. A fight nearly breaks out between the freshman and the Gamma steppers, whose best stepper, Grant (Darrin Henson) is April's boyfriend. That night, Rich and his friends go out to a local club called the Phoenix and invite DJ along. Hoping to impress April and upstage Grant and the Gammas (all of whom are also in attendance), DJ takes to the floor. Despite the animosity between DJ and Grant, the Gammas recognize his skills as a dancer and their chapter president Zeke (Laz Alonso) invites him to pledge for Mu Gamma Xi. DJ turns down both Zeke's offer as well as an offer from the Theta Nu Theta chapter's leader Sylvester (Brian White). After learning that April is a student history tutor, DJ signs himself up for tutoring so that he can spend time with her. The two slowly begin a friendship and DJ takes April out to dinner. During their date, April discusses the importance of black fraternities and sororities with DJ, and tells him to visit Heritage Hall on the campus' Greek Row.
1014054	"That's What I Am" is a comedy and drama film starring Ed Harris and Chase Ellison. The film is directed by Michael Pavone. Its release date was April 29, 2011 in limited release, being released on DVD about four weeks later. Plot. Set in California against the backdrop of the mid-sixties, That's What I Am is a coming-of-age story that follows 12-year-old Andy Nichol (Chase Ellison), a bright student who, like most kids his age, will do anything to avoid conflict for fear of suffering overwhelming ridicule and punishment from his Junior high school peers. Everyone's favorite teacher, Mr. Simon (Ed Harris), pairs Andy with the school's biggest outcast and social pariah, Stanley aka "Big G" (Alexander Walters), on a critical school project. Sporting thick orange hair, a head too big for his body and ears too big for his head, "Big G" has been the object of ridicule since grade school. Before long, Andy will learn that there was truly a method behind Mr. Simon's madness as to why he teamed these two up. After a dramatic incident in the schoolyard, teachers and parents rethink their roles in school and society. Principal Kelner (Amy Madigan) suspends a school bully for brutally beating up a female classmate. The vindictive father of the bully makes Mr. Simon the target of a malicious rumor about his sexuality, causing Mr. Simon to question his calling as an educator and mentor to his students. When Andy is confronted by another bully and watches "Big G" fearlessly stand up for him, a series of events are triggered. Much to Andy's surprise, he learns that "Big G" is a brilliant, kind, tolerant human being, who has more dignity than anyone Andy has ever encountered. Big G personifies Mr. Simon's four word answer on how to obtain world peace. Reception. In its limited theatrical release of 10 theaters, the film grossed about $6,400 for three days.The film holds a 60% rating on Rotten Tomatoes[http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/thats_what_i_am.
775760	We Feed the World is a 2005 documentary in which Austrian filmmaker Erwin Wagenhofer traces the origins of the food we eat and views modern industrial production of food and factory farming in a critical light. His journey takes him to France, Spain, Romania, Switzerland, Brazil and back to Austria. The film features interviews with several people, including one with sociologist and politician Jean Ziegler. The film was the most successful Austrian documentary ever. In German-speaking countries it was seen by about 600,000 cinemagoers.
1100954	The mathematical term well-posed problem stems from a definition given by Jacques Hadamard. He believed that mathematical models of physical phenomena should have the properties that Examples of archetypal well-posed problems include the Dirichlet problem for Laplace's equation, and the heat equation with specified initial conditions. These might be regarded as 'natural' problems in that there are physical processes that solve these problems. By contrast the inverse heat equation, deducing a previous distribution of temperature from final data is not well-posed in that the solution is highly sensitive to changes in the final data. Problems that are not well-posed in the sense of Hadamard are termed ill-posed. Inverse problems are often ill-posed. Such continuum problems must often be discretized in order to obtain a numerical solution. While in terms of functional analysis such problems are typically continuous, they may suffer from numerical instability when solved with finite precision, or with errors in the data. Even if a problem is well-posed, it may still be ill-conditioned, meaning that a small error in the initial data can result in much larger errors in the answers. An ill-conditioned problem is indicated by a large condition number. If the problem is well-posed, then it stands a good chance of solution on a computer using a stable algorithm. If it is not well-posed, it needs to be re-formulated for numerical treatment. Typically this involves including additional assumptions, such as smoothness of solution. This process is known as "regularization". Tikhonov regularization is one of the most commonly used for regularization of linear ill-posed problems.
1104810	Ingrid Daubechies ( ; born 17 August 1954) is a Belgian physicist and mathematician. She was between 2004 and 2011 the William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor in the mathematics and applied mathematics departments at Princeton University. In January 2011 she moved to Duke University as a Professor in mathematics. She is the first woman president of the International Mathematical Union (2011–2014). She is best known for her work with wavelets in image compression. Biography. Daubechies was born in Houthalen, Belgium, as the daughter of Marcel Daubechies (a civil mining engineer) and Simonne Duran (then a homemaker, later a criminologist). Ingrid remembers that when she was a small girl and could not sleep, she did not count numbers, as you would expect from a little child, but started to multiply numbers by two from memory. Thus, as a child, she already familiarized herself with the properties of exponential growth. Her parents found out that mathematical conceptions, like cone and tetrahedron, were familiar to her before she reached the age of 6. She excelled at the primary school, moved up a class after only 3 months. According to her parents she was able to derive the area of an ellipse by means of integral calculation at the age of 11. After completing the Lyceum in Turnhout she entered the Vrije Universiteit Brussel at 17. Daubechies completed her undergraduate studies in physics at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel in 1975. During the next few years, she visited the CNRS Center for Theoretical Physics in Marseille several times, where she collaborated with Alex Grossmann; this work was the basis for her doctorate in quantum mechanics. She obtained her Ph.D. in theoretical physics in 1980, and continued her research career at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel until 1987, rising through the ranks to positions roughly equivalent with research assistant-professor in 1981 and research associate-professor 1985, funded by a fellowship from the NFWO (Nationaal Fonds voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek). In 1985 Daubechies met mathematician Robert Calderbank, then on a 3-month exchange visit from AT&T Bell Laboratories, New Jersey to the Brussels-based mathematics division of Philips Research; they married in 1987, after Daubechies had spent most of 1986 as a guest-researcher at the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences. At Courant she made her best-known discovery: based on quadrature mirror filter-technology she constructed compactly supported continuous wavelets that would require only a finite amount of processing, in this way enabling wavelet theory to enter the realm of digital signal processing.
1064729	Rhoda Griffis (born January 9, 1965) is an American actress, perhaps best known for playing supporting roles both in independent and mainstream films and television. Life and career. Griffis attended the North Carolina School of the Arts, where she earned a BFA. She started acting in theatre at the age of seven. As an adult, she has played the roles of Lady MacBeth and Lady Anne; and appeared in the stage plays "Angels in America", "Proof", "Intimate Apparel", "Collected Stories", "Dinner with Friends" and "Dark at the Top of the Stairs". Griffis' first big screen film role was in the 1992 drama film "Love Field", where she played Jacqueline Kennedy, the former First Lady and widow of the assassinated President John F. Kennedy. Though her first role, her first movie role outside of theater was actually in the television movie "", a biographical film about Elizabeth Morgan. Aside from film, she made numerous appearances on made for TV films and series - including "In the Heat of the Night". Griffis is known for making the roles she is offered both memorable and intriguing. Griffis has been in over 30 feature films, and 33 TV films and series. Griffis is also a notable professional actress on stage. She worked seven seasons with The North Carolina Shakespeare Festival, 5 seasons with Charlotte Rep, as well as appearing at Saint Louise Repertory, Alabama Shakespeare Festival, Theatre by the Sea (Portsmouth, NH), The Alliance Theatre, Theatrical Outfit, and 3 Seasons with Actors Theatre of Atlanta. Griffis is known for her work in "Love Field", "Runaway Jury", "Walk the Line", "Road Trip", and "Year One". In 2000, she appeared in "Songcatcher", as the wife of the coal company boss named Ambrose, Clementine McFarland. Among her most recent roles is the feisty Lenore Baker in Lifetime's hit television drama, "Army Wives". In addition, she made memorable appearances in "American Summer" and the film remake "One Missed Call".
1092400	Edward Witten (born August 26, 1951) is an American theoretical physicist and professor of mathematical physics at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey. Witten is a researcher in string theory, quantum gravity, supersymmetric quantum field theories, and other areas of mathematical physics. In addition to his contributions to physics, Witten's work has significantly impacted pure mathematics. In 1990 he became the first and so far only physicist to be awarded a Fields Medal by the International Mathematical Union. In 2004, "Time" magazine stated that Witten was widely thought to be the world's greatest living theoretical physicist. Birth and education. Witten was born in Baltimore, Maryland. He is the son of Lorraine (Wollach) Witten and Louis Witten, a theoretical physicist specializing in gravitation and general relativity. Witten attended the Park School of Baltimore (class of '68), and received his Bachelor of Arts with a major in history and minor in linguistics from Brandeis University in 1971. He published articles in "The New Republic" and "The Nation". In 1968, Witten published an article in "The Nation" arguing that the New Left had no strategy. He worked briefly for George McGovern's presidential campaign. McGovern lost the 1972 election in a landslide to Richard Nixon. Witten attended the University of Wisconsin–Madison for one semester as an economics graduate student before dropping out. He returned to academia, enrolling in applied mathematics at Princeton University in 1973, then shifting departments and receiving a Ph.D. in physics in 1976 under David Gross, the 2004 Nobel laureate in Physics. He held a fellowship at Harvard University (1976–77), was a junior fellow in the Harvard Society of Fellows (1977–80), and held a MacArthur Foundation fellowship (1982). Research. Fields medal work. Witten was awarded the Fields Medal by the International Mathematical Union in 1990, becoming the first physicist to win the prize. In a written address to the ICM, Michael Atiyah said of Witten, As an example of Witten's impact on pure mathematics, Atiyah cites his application of techniques from quantum field theory to the mathematical subject of low-dimensional topology. In the late 1980s, Witten coined the term "topological quantum field theory" for a certain type of physical theory in which the expectation values of observable quantities encode information about the topology of spacetime. In particular, Witten realized that a physical theory now called Chern-Simons theory could provide a framework for understanding the mathematical theory of knots and 3-manifolds. Although Witten's work was based on the mathematically ill-defined notion of a Feynman path integral and was therefore not mathematically rigorous, mathematicians were able to systematically develop Witten's ideas, leading to the theory of Reshetikhin–Turaev invariants. Another result for which Witten was awarded the Fields Medal was his (nonrigorous) proof in 1981 of the positive energy theorem in general relativity. This theorem asserts that (under appropriate assumptions) the total energy of a gravitating system is always positive and can be zero only if the geometry of spacetime is that of flat Minkowski space. It establishes Minkowski space as a stable ground state of the gravitational field. While the original proof of this result due to Richard Schoen and Shing-Tung Yau used variational methods, Witten's proof used ideas from supergravity theory to simplify the argument. A third area mentioned in Atiyah's address is Witten's work relating supersymmetry and Morse theory, a branch of mathematics that studies the topology of manifolds using the concept of a differentiable function. Witten's work gave a physical proof of a classical result, the Morse inequalities, by interpreting the theory in terms of supersymmetric quantum mechanics. M-theory. By the mid 1990s, physicists working on string theory had developed five different consistent versions of theory with the right properties to unify Einstein's theory of general relativity with the standard model of particle physics. These versions are known as type I, type IIA, type IIB, and the two flavors of heterotic string theory (SO(32) and "E"8×"E"8). The thinking was that out of these five candidate theories, only one was the actual correct theory of everything, and that theory was the one whose low energy limit matched the physics observed in our world today. Speaking at the string theory conference at University of Southern California in 1995, Witten made the surprising suggestion that these five string theories were in fact not distinct theories, but different limits of a single theory which he called M-theory. Witten's proposal was based on the observation that the five string theories can be mapped to one another by certain rules called dualities and are identified by these dualities. Witten's announcement led to a flurry of work now known as the second superstring revolution. Other work. Another of his contributions to physics was to the result of gauge/gravity duality. In 1997, Juan Maldacena formulated a result known as the AdS/CFT correspondence, which establishes a relationship between certain quantum field theories and theories of quantum gravity. Maldacena's discovery has dominated theoretical physics for the past 15 years because of its applications to theoretical problems in quantum gravity and quantum field theory. Witten's foundational work following Maldacena's insight has shed light on this relationship. In collaboration with Nathan Seiberg, Witten established several other highly influential results. In their paper on string theory and noncommutative geometry, Seiberg and Witten studied certain noncommutative quantum field theories that arise as limits of string theory. In another well known paper, they studied aspects of supersymmetric gauge theory. The latter paper, combined with Witten's earlier work on topological quantum field theory, led to revolutionary developments in the topology of smooth 4-manifolds, in particular the notion of Seiberg-Witten invariants. Awards and honors. Witten has been honored with numerous awards including a MacArthur Grant (1982), the Fields Medal (1990), the Nemmers Prize in Mathematics (2000), the National Medal of Science (2002), Pythagoras Award (2005), the Henri Poincaré Prize (2006), the Crafoord Prize (2008), the Lorentz Medal (2010) the Isaac Newton Medal (2010) and the Fundamental Physics Prize (2012). Since 1999, he is a Foreign Member of the Royal Society (London). Pope Benedict XVI appointed Witten as a member of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences (2006). He also appeared in the list of "TIME" magazine's 100 most influential people of 2004. In 2012 he became a fellow of the American Mathematical Society. Personal life. Witten is married to Chiara Nappi, a professor of physics at Princeton University. They have two daughters, Ilana and Daniela, and one son, Rafael, and a granddaughter Nava. Edward Witten serves on the board of directors of Americans for Peace Now.
1060344	James Vincent Russo (born April 23, 1953) is an American film and television actor. He has appeared in over 90 films in three decades. Early life. Russo was born in New York City, New York. A graduate of New York University (NYU), of Italian descent, he wrote and starred in the prize-winning short film, "The Candy Store". Before his first break in acting, he drove for a cab company and was also a gravedigger. He was raised in Flushing, NY and spent his formative years on 156th street . Career. Russo's first role in his acting career was in the 1981 made-for-television movie "Chicago Story". He would then go on to star in many hit films of the 1980s. His big break (but small role) came in the 1982 classic comedy film "Fast Times at Ridgemont High", as a convenience store robber. In 1984, his other big role came in the hit film "Beverly Hills Cop" as Mikey Tandino, the friend of Axel Foley who gets murdered. Also in 1984, he starred in "The Cotton Club", and played small-time hood Bugsy in Sergio Leone's "Once Upon a Time in America". Russo's other big role was as a brutal rapist in the 1986 drama "Extremities", opposite Farrah Fawcett. He also starred in the 1988 drama-suspense-thriller film "Freeway". Russo's film roles in the 1990s include "State of Grace" (1990), "A Kiss Before Dying" (1991) - in which he played a private investigator who is helping Sean Young's character investigate the murder of her twin sister - and "My Own Private Idaho" (also 1991). Russo also had roles in the 1994 movie Western "Bad Girls", the 1997 hit films "The Postman" (as Idaho, the brutal sergeant of the Holnist army), and "Donnie Brasco". In 2009 he had a small role in Michael Mann's "Public Enemies" as a member of John Dillinger's gang. In 2003, Russo was reunited with his co-star from "The Postman", Kevin Costner, in the Western film "Open Range". He has also made guest appearances in many TV dramas and movies, including "The Equalizer", "Miami Vice", ', ' and "Las Vegas". In the summer of 2009, Russo starred in a sort of psychological thriller entitled "7E" along with Brendan Sexton III, John Savage and Natasha Lyonne. The film has yet to be released. Russo had a supporting role in Quentin Tarantino's 2012 film "Django Unchained".
1101748	Saunders Mac Lane (4 August 1909 – 14 April 2005) was an American mathematician who co-founded category theory with Samuel Eilenberg. Early life and education. Mac Lane was born in Norwich, Connecticut, near where his family lived in Taftville. He was christened "Leslie Saunders MacLane", but "Leslie" fell into disuse because his parents, Donald MacLane and Winifred Saunders, came to dislike it. He began inserting a space into his surname because his first wife found it difficult to type the name without a space. He was the oldest of three brothers; one of his brothers, Gerald MacLane, also became a mathematics professor at Rice University and Purdue University. Another sister died as a baby. His father and grandfather were both ministers; his grandfather had been a Presbyterian, but was kicked out of the church for believing in evolution, and his father was a Congregationalist. His mother, née Winifred Saunders, studied at Mount Holyoke College and taught English, Latin, and mathematics. In high school, Mac Lane's favorite subject was chemistry. While in high school, his father died, and he came under his grandfather's care. His half-uncle, a lawyer, determined to send him to Yale University, where many of his relatives had been educated, and paid his way there beginning in 1926. As a freshman, he became disillusioned with chemistry. His mathematics instructor, Lester S. Hill, coached him for a local mathematics competition which he won, setting the direction for his future work. He went on to study mathematics and physics as a double major, taking courses from Jesse Beams, Ernest William Brown, Ernest Lawrence, F. S. C. Northrop, and Øystein Ore, among others. He graduated from Yale with a B.A. in 1930. During this period, he published his first scientific paper, in physics and co-authored with Irving Langmuir. In 1929, at a party of Yale football supporters in Montclair, New Jersey, Mac Lane (there to be presented with a prize for having the best grade point average yet recorded at Yale) had met Robert Maynard Hutchins, the new president of the University of Chicago, who encouraged him to go there for his graduate studies and soon afterwards offered him a scholarship. Mac Lane neglected to actually apply to the program, but showed up and was admitted anyway. At Chicago, the subjects he studied included set theory with E. H. Moore, number theory with Leonard Eugene Dickson, the calculus of variations with Gilbert Ames Bliss, and logic with Mortimer J. Adler. In 1931, having earned his masters degree and feeling restless at Chicago, he earned a fellowship from the Institute of International Education and became one of the last Americans to study at the University of Göttingen prior to its decline under the Nazis. His greatest influences there were Paul Bernays and Hermann Weyl. By the time he finished his doctorate in 1934, Bernays had been forced to leave because he was Jewish, and Weyl became his main examiner. At Göttingen, Mac Lane also studied with Gustav Herglotz and Emmy Noether. Within days of finishing his degree, he married Dorothy Jones, from Chicago, and soon returned to the U.S.. Career. From 1934 through 1938, Mac Lane held short term appointments at Yale University, Harvard University, Cornell University, and the University of Chicago. He then held a tenure track appointment at Harvard from 1938 to 1947. In 1941, while giving a series of visiting lectures at the University of Michigan, he met Samuel Eilenberg and began what would become a fruitful collaboration on the interplay between algebra and topology. In 1944 and 1945, he also directed Columbia University's Applied Mathematics Group, which was involved in the war effort as a contractor for the Applied Mathematics Panel; the mathematics he worked on in this group concerned differential equations for fire-control systems. In 1947, he accepted an offer to return to Chicago, where (in part because of the university's involvement in the Manhattan Project, and in part because of the administrative efforts of Marshall Stone) many other famous mathematicians and physicists had also recently moved. He traveled as a Guggenheim Fellow to ETH Zurich for the 1947–1948 term, where he worked with Heinz Hopf. Mac Lane succeeded Stone as department chair in 1952, and served for six years. Mac Lane was vice president of the National Academy of Sciences and the American Philosophical Society, and president of the American Mathematical Society. While presiding over the Mathematical Association of America in the 1950s, he initiated its activities aimed at improving the teaching of modern mathematics. He was a member of the National Science Board, 1974–1980, advising the American government. In 1976, he led a delegation of mathematicians to China to study the conditions affecting mathematics there. Mac Lane was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1949, and received the National Medal of Science in 1989. Contributions. After a thesis in mathematical logic, his early work was in field theory and valuation theory. He wrote on valuation rings and Witt vectors, and separability in infinite field extensions. He started writing on group extensions in 1942, and in 1943 began his research on what are now called Eilenberg–MacLane spaces K("G","n"), having a single non-trivial homotopy group "G" in dimension "n". This work opened the way to group cohomology in general. After introducing, via the Eilenberg–Steenrod axioms, the abstract approach to homology theory, he and Eilenberg originated category theory in 1945. He is especially known for his work on coherence theorems. A recurring feature of category theory, abstract algebra, and of some other mathematics as well, is the use of diagrams, consisting of arrows (morphisms) linking objects, such as products and coproducts. According to McLarty (2005), this diagrammatic approach to contemporary mathematics largely stems from Mac Lane (1948). Mac Lane had an exemplary devotion to writing approachable texts, starting with his very influential "A Survey of Modern Algebra", coauthored in 1941 with Garrett Birkhoff. From then on, it was possible to teach elementary modern algebra to undergraduates using an English text. His "Categories for the Working Mathematician" remains the definitive introduction to category theory. Mac Lane supervised the Ph.Ds of, among many others, David Eisenbud, William Howard, Irving Kaplansky, Michael Morley, Anil Nerode, Robert Solovay, and John G. Thompson. In addition to reviewing a fair bit of his mathematical output, the obituary articles McLarty (2005, 2007) clarify Mac Lane's contributions to the philosophy of mathematics. Mac Lane (1986) is an approachable introduction to his views on this subject.
1054382	The Gene Generation is a 2007 Biopunk science fiction film about an assassin who battles DNA hackers. The film was directed by Pearry Teo, and stars Bai Ling, Parry Shen, Faye Dunaway, and Alec Newman. Synopsis. In a futuristic world, Michelle lives everyday battling with DNA Hackers who use their skills to hack into people's bodies and kill them. She is an assassin, battling her past demons and trying to keep her younger and extroverted brother, Jackie, out of trouble. When Jackie gets involved in a petty crime of robbery, he propels himself into the world of DNA Hackers, Shylocks (Loan Sharks) and Gang Fights. Wanting the respect that the world has never given to him only makes it harder for Jackie to peel himself away from the underground trades, against the hopes of his sister, Michelle. Michelle always wanted to leave the city and lead a calm and quiet lifestyle. As emotions and gunfire get into the way, Michelle and Jackie soon find themselves battling between their lives and finding out that in an immoral world, love can still survive; and that blood is thicker than water. DVD release. It was released on Region 1 DVD on January 27, 2009, with the Region 2 release following on April 27, 2009. Soundtrack and score. The soundtrack for the film features various tracks by Combichrist, Encephalon and Tribal Machine, while the score was composed by Scott Glasgow with additional music by Ronan Harris of VNV Nation. The score was released on CD by the Varèse Sarabande label in March 2009. The following tracks are listed at the end of the film: Sequel. On February 4, 2010, it was revealed that a sequel, "The Gene Generation: War of the Bloodlines", was in development. Filming was due to begin in March 2010 and be completed by September 2010. However, since this announcement there have been no further details on the status of the production.
1060147	Whale Rider is a 2002 drama film directed by Niki Caro, based on the novel of the same name by Witi Ihimaera. The film stars Keisha Castle-Hughes as Kahu Paikea Apirana, a 12-year-old Maori girl who wants to become the chief of the tribe. Her grandfather Koro believes that this is a role reserved for males only. The film was a co-production between New Zealand and Germany. It was shot on location in Whangara, the setting of the novel. The world premiere was on 9 September 2002, at the Toronto International Film Festival. The film received critical acclaim upon its release. Castle-Hughes was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress. Plot. The film's plot follows the story of Paikea Apirana ("Pai") the book, her name is Kahu, short for Kahutia Te Rangi.The leader should be the first-born grandson – a direct patrilineal descendant of Paikea, aka Kahutia Te Rangi in the book, the Whale Rider – he who rode on top of a whale from Hawaiki. However, Pai is female and technically cannot inherit the leadership. While he does later form an affectionate bond with his granddaughter, carrying her to school every day on his bicycle, he also condemns her and blames her for conflicts happening within the tribe. At one point Paikea decides to leave with her father because her grandfather is mistreating her. However she finds that she cannot bear to leave the sea as the whale seems to be calling her back, she tells her father to turn the car back and returns home. Pai's father refuses to assume traditional leadership; instead he moves to Germany to pursue a career as an artist. Pai herself is interested in the leadership, learning traditional songs and dances, but is given little encouragement by her grandfather. Pai feels that she can become the leader, although there's no precedent for a woman to do so, and is determined to succeed. Koro leads a cultural school for the village boys, hoping to find a new leader. He teaches the boys to use a taiaha (fighting stick). This is traditionally reserved for males. However, Nanny tells Pai that her second son, Pai's uncle, had won a taiaha tournament in his youth while he was still slim, so Pai secretly learns from him. She also secretly follows Koro's lessons. One of the students, Hemi, is also sympathetic towards her, but Koro is enraged when he finds out, particularly when she wins her taiaha fight against Hemi. Koro's relationship with Pai erodes further when none of the boys succeed at the traditional task of recovering the rei puta (whale tooth) that he threw into the ocean – this mission would prove one of them worthy of becoming leader. With the loss of the rei puta, Koro in despair calls out the Ancient ones, the whales. In an attempt to help, Pai from the beach also calls out to them and they hear her call. Pai, in an attempt to bridge the rift that has formed, invites Koro to be her guest of honour at a concert of Māori chants that her school is putting on. Unknown to all, she had won an inter-school speech contest with a touching dedication to Koro and the traditions of the village. However, Koro was late, and as he was walking to the school, he notices that numerous right whales are beached near Pai's home. The entire village attempts to coax and drag them back into the water, but all efforts prove unsuccessful; even a tractor does not help because the rope breaks. Koro sees it as a sign of his failure and despairs further. He admonishes Pai against touching the largest whale because "she has done enough damage" with her presumption. Also, the largest whale traditionally belongs to the legendary Paikea. But when Koro walks away, she climbs onto the back of the largest whale and coaxes it to re-enter the ocean. The whale leads the entire pod back into the sea; Pai nearly drowns in the process. When she goes out to sea, Nanny Flowers shows Koro the whale tooth which Pai had previously recovered. When Pai is found and brought to the hospital, Koro declares her the leader and asks her forgiveness. The film ends with the village, including Pai's father, uncle, and grandparents, celebrating her status as leader, as the finished waka is hauled into the sea for its maiden voyage. Production. The film had budget of NZ$9,235,000. It received $2.5 million from the New Zealand Film Production Fund. Additional financing came from ApolloMedia, Filmstiftung NRW, the New Zealand Film Commission and NZ On Air. Casting director Diana Rowan visited numerous schools to find an actress to play Pai. 10,000 children were auditioned before narrowing it down to 12. Castle-Hughes impressed Caro in the resulting workshop and was cast as Pai. The film was shot in Whangara on the East Coast of New Zealand's North Island and in Auckland. Producer John Barnett said "This novel was set in Whangara and it would almost have been heresy to shoot anywhere else. There are very physical things that are described in the book – the sweep of the bay, the island that looks like a whale, the meeting houses, the number of houses that are present and of course, the people whose legend we were telling. [...] If we'd gone somewhere else and tried to manufacture the surroundings and the ambience, then I think it would have been noticeable in the picture." The whale beaching was depicted using full scale models created by Auckland, New Zealand based "Glasshammer visual effects". The 60-foot waka seen at the end of the film was made in two halves in Auckland before being transported to Whangara. The waka was given to the Whangara community after filming concluded. Critical reception. The film received critical acclaim. Based on 144 reviews collected by Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an overall approval rating from critics of 90%, with an average score of 7.7 as of June 2010. By comparison, Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 top reviews from mainstream critics, calculated an average score of 79, based on 31 reviews. Margaret Pomeranz and David Stratton of "The Movie Show" both gave the film four out of five stars. Pomeranz said "Niki Caro has directed this uplifting story with great sensitivity, eliciting affecting performances from a sterling cast, and a wonderful one from newcomer Keisha Castle- Hughes." Roger Ebert gave the film four out of four stars and said, "The genius of the movie is the way it sidesteps all of the obvious cliches of the underlying story and makes itself fresh, observant, tough and genuinely moving." He said of Castle-Hughes: "This is a movie star." The "Los Angeles Times"s Kenneth Turan praised Caro for her "willingness to let this story tell itself in its own time and the ability to create emotion that is intense without being cloying or dishonest." Claudia Puig of "USA Today" gave the film three-and-a-half out of four stars and praised Castle-Hughes' acting, saying "so effectively does she convey her pained confusion through subtle vocal cues, tentative stance and expressive dark eyes." Awards. The film won a number of international film-festival awards, including: Keisha Castle-Hughes was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance, becoming the youngest actress ever nominated for the award at that time. She was 13 years old at the time. Academy Awards: Chicago Film Critics Association: Image Awards: Independent Spirit Awards: New Zealand Film Awards: Satellite Awards
1055823	That Was Then... This Is Now is a 1985 drama film based on the novel of the same name by S. E. Hinton. The film was directed by Christopher Cain, distributed by Paramount Pictures, and stars Emilio Estevez (who also wrote the screenplay) and Craig Sheffer. This is the only S.E. Hinton adaptation not to feature Matt Dillon. Plot. Mark Jennings' (Emilio Estevez) only link to society is the attachment he feels towards an older brother-figure. When Bryon Douglas (Craig Sheffer) starts spending time with a new girlfriend (Kim Delaney), Mark begins to feel even more alienated, and gets involved with drugs and the police.
1064342	Blades of Glory is a 2007 American comedy film directed by Will Speck and Josh Gordon, and starring Will Ferrell and Jon Heder. The movie was released on March 29, 2007 produced by MTV Films, Red Hour and Smart Entertainment, released by DreamWorks Pictures and distributed by Paramount Pictures. It was released on DVD and HD DVD on August 7, 2007 and released on Blu-ray Disc on May 20, 2008. Plot. At the 2002 World Winter Sport Games, rival men's singles skaters Chazz Michael Michaels (Will Ferrell), a skillful skater but raunchy sex addict, and Jimmy MacElroy (Jon Heder), an equally talented but sheltered and effeminate skater, tie for gold. An argument ensues, which develops into a fight on the awards podium, ending with the World Games mascot being set on fire. As a result they are stripped of their medals and banned for life from men's singles competition. Jimmy's competitive adoptive father, billionaire Darren MacElroy (William Fichtner), immediately disowns him and leaves him stranded on the side of the road. Three and a half years later, Jimmy is working at a winter sporting goods store and gets demoted to sorting stock after he refuses to listen to a child when she tells him her skating boot has been tied too tightly. Chazz has gained a lot of weight and is fired from a children’s skating show for being in a drunken stupor on stage. Jimmy's obsessive stalker, Hector (Nick Swardson), tells him of a loophole in the ban allowing him to compete in pair skating. In hopes of entering the upcoming World Winter Sport Games, Jimmy contacts his old coach, Robert (Craig T. Nelson), but is unable to find a partner. Jimmy's search for a last-minute partner leads him to Chazz, and Robert convinces the two to skate as the first-ever same-sex pairs team, because the regulations fail to state the genders of the pairs. The reigning U.S. national pairs champions, brother and sister Stranz and Fairchild Van Waldenberg (Will Arnett and Amy Poehler), see the new pair as a threat and conspire against them. The pair convince their sister Katie (Jenna Fischer), whom they often take advantage of by reminding her that their parents died taking Katie to skating practice, to spy on the duo. In the process, Katie becomes acquainted with Jimmy and they develop a relationship. Although Chazz and Jimmy are initially disgusted by each other, they eventually develop a friendship. They compete at the United States Figure Skating Championships and earn a chance to compete at the World Winter Sport Games. Chazz and Jimmy’s coach, Robert, informs them that to win, they will need to perform a technique that has never been performed successfully: The "Iron Lotus", an extremely complicated maneuver that Robert developed years ago. However, it is also dangerous: the only attempt of the maneuver was “behind the bamboo curtain” in North Korea, and resulted in the man decapitating the woman with his skate blade. Nonetheless, they decide to attempt it as Robert is convinced that two males would be better suited for the move because of the physics of a same-sex team (this is a parody of skating-themed film "The Cutting Edge", where the conflicting main characters also decide to practice a dangerous skating routine). Fairchild commands Katie to disrupt the duo by having sex with Chazz, threatening to harm Jimmy if Katie does not comply. Katie invites Chazz to her room, and tries to seduce him. Chazz refuses, delighting Katie, but cannot resist grabbing her breasts. Jimmy witnesses this and is outraged at Chazz's and Katie's betrayals. The next day, Chazz and Jimmy are both kidnapped and restrained by Stranz and Fairchild. Katie gets tired of her siblings and accepts that their parents were not properly safe while driving. While handcuffing Jimmy in a bathroom, Fairchild reveals that she and Stranz commanded Katie to have sex with Chazz yet she could not go through with it, due to her love for Jimmy. Chazz escapes but is pursued by Stranz through Montreal on ice and then through streets and stores. He tries to shoot Chazz with a crossbow, but accidentally hits the Winter Sport Games Mascot, Snowflake Jimmy also escapes when a kid in the bathroom knocked down the bin which contains the key for the handcuff, though he had to use his tongue to drag the dirty toilet paper, as the key was on it. Stranz and Fairchild perform their routine, a dramatization of the "Forbidden Romance" of John F. Kennedy and Marilyn Monroe. Both Chazz and Jimmy arrive in the ice rink just in time to compete. Chazz and Jimmy reconcile quickly and begin their routine, which has a science fiction theme. Fairchild, seeing the two doing well, throws pearls onto the ice. Chazz trips over a pearl and breaks his ankle, which renders him unable to perform his role in the Iron Lotus. Jimmy then offers to switch places with him. Although they have never practiced the other's roles, they perform it perfectly, with Jimmy's blade only cutting two small strands of Chazz's facial hair. Jimmy and Chazz win the competition, Jimmy reconciles with Katie, and Stranz and Fairchild are arrested due to the kidnappings and Snowflake‘s shooting. Stranz and Fairchild begin arguing, then inexplicably kiss each other incestuously. Jimmy and Chazz receive the gold medal and fly off into the sky through rockets on their skates. While the credits roll, Hector is seen playing with dolls of himself, Jimmy and Chazz. Production. All of the scenes at the United States Figure Skating Championships and World Wintersport Games were shot at the Los Angeles Memorial Sports Arena. The stadium used for the outside shoots is the unique Montreal Olympic Stadium, built for the 1976 Olympics. The outdoor chase scenes were also shot on-location in Montreal. The building used for athlete housing in Montréal was the unique Habitat 67, built for Expo 67. The film was delayed for a small undetermined period of time when Jon Heder broke his ankle while doing a skating program for the film. Reception. Box office. The movie grossed $33,014,202 on its opening weekend on March 30 — April 1 with 3,372 theaters, averaging $9,790 per screen, beating out Disney's "Meet the Robinsons" to be the number 1 film. It made $22.5 million in its second weekend, losing only 32% of its audience and retaining the Number 1 spot. As of December 3, 2007 the film has made $118,245,842 in America and $26,264,403 in the foreign market place. Its worldwide tally is $145,708,642. Critical response. The film had favorable reviews, scoring 69% "Fresh" in Rotten Tomatoes, and the critics' consensus was that ""Blades of Glory successfully milks its one-joke premise into a feature-length comedy"." "The Monthly" critic Luke Davies accepted the film as a fun romp, comparing it to Will Ferrell's previous movies ' and ' and wrote positively of Ferrell's performance, describing that "there is a parodic exhilaration to everything Ferrell does; there's always the sense that any scene is precariously close to being a blooper reel." However, Davies conceded that, like the other two films, the plot was "formulaic ... an obviousness to the set-ups, a no-nonsense compression, a sometimes clunky transition from one sequence to the next" but that it was the film's ability to "venture to fantastically absurd places – to set aside the rapid and hokey forward movement – and there to idle in neutral, in zones of pure comic exploration" and offer "moments of expansive hilarity ... that made the films worthwhile." Davies concluded that "Blades of Glory remains completely deadpan. Everything is self-knowing, a wink at the audience, and cheap shots are made only at the expense of the characters" and that "the film has warmth, rather than just being a series of high-grade lowbrow sketches and gags" due to "the protagonists [ability to inhabit and fill their world, rather than come up against it, enhanc the comedy." In popular culture. A snippet of the film was used in the 2011 single Niggas in Paris by Jay-Z and Kanye West
1169274	Deon Richmond (born April 2, 1978) is an American actor from New York City; he is best known for his recurring role as Rudy Huxtable's friend Kenny (nicknamed "Bud") on the NBC sitcom "The Cosby Show". Among Richmond's earliest roles was an appearance in the music video for the 1985 Kool & the Gang song "Cherish". In 1986, Richmond first appeared as Kenny on "The Cosby Show", in the episode "Theo's Flight"; he would go on to appear on the show in 32 episodes, until the show ended in 1992. In 1987, Richmond played a young Eddie Murphy in the beginning scenes of the film "Eddie Murphy Raw", and also appeared in the film "Enemy Territory". Richmond appeared in the Kris Kross music video "Warm It Up" in 1992. He played the role of Darren Dixon in the 1993–94 sitcom "Getting By" alongside Merlin Santana as his brother Marcus, they were cast as brothers due to their interaction on "The Cosby Show". In 1997, Richmond began a role as Tamera Campbell's boyfriend, Jordan Bennett, on the fifth season of the hit series "Sister, Sister". He became a regular cast member during the sixth and final season. In later years, Richmond appeared in films such as "Trippin"', "Scream 3", "Not Another Teen Movie", "National Lampoon's Van Wilder", and the independent horror film "Hatchet". He also had a featured role in the short-lived 2006 sitcom "Teachers".
1047071	What Ever Happened to Aunt Alice? is a 1969 American psychological-thriller film directed by Lee H. Katzin with Bernard Girard (uncredited), and starring Geraldine Page, Ruth Gordon, Rosemary Forsyth, Robert Fuller and Mildred Dunnock. The screenplay by Theodore Apstein, based on the novel "The Forbidden Garden" by Ursula Curtiss focuses on an aging Arizona widow who hires elderly female housekeepers and cons them out of their money before murdering them. The music score was by Gerald Fried and the cinematography by Joseph F. Biroc. The film was funded by American Broadcasting Company (ABC), Palomar Pictures Corporation, and The Associates & Aldrich Company, and distributed by Cinerama Releasing Corporation.
1025257	Al Jolson (born Asa Yoelson; May 26, 1886 – October 23, 1950) was an American singer, film actor, and comedian. At the peak of his career, he was dubbed "The World's Greatest Entertainer". His performing style was brash and extroverted, and he popularized a large number of songs that benefited from his "shamelessly sentimental, melodramatic approach". Numerous well-known singers were influenced by his music, including Bing Crosby David Bowie, Bob Dylan and others, Dylan once referred to him as "somebody whose life I can feel". Broadway critic Gilbert Seldes compared him to the Greek god Pan, claiming that Jolson represented "the concentration of our national health and gaiety." In the 1930s, he was America's most famous and highest-paid entertainer. Between 1911 and 1928, Jolson had nine sell-out Winter Garden shows in a row, more than 80 hit records, and 16 national and international tours. Although he's best remembered today as the star of the first 'talking picture', "The Jazz Singer" (1927), he later starred in a series of successful musical films throughout the 1930s. After the attack on Pearl Harbor, Jolson became the first star to entertain troops overseas during World War II. After a period of inactivity, his stardom returned with "The Jolson Story" (1946). Larry Parks played Jolson, with the singer dubbing for Parks. The formula was repeated in the sequel, "Jolson Sings Again" (1949). In 1950 he again became the first star to entertain GIs on active service in the Korean War, performing 42 shows in 16 days. He died just weeks after returning to the U.S., partly owing to the physical exertion of performing. Defense Secretary George Marshall afterward awarded the Medal of Merit to Jolson's family. According to the "St. James Encyclopedia of Popular Culture", "Jolson was to jazz, blues, and ragtime what Elvis Presley was to rock 'n' roll." Being the first popular singer to make a spectacular "event" out of singing a song, he became a “rock star” before the dawn of rock music. His specialty was performing on stage runways extending out into the audience. He would run up and down the runway and across the stage, "teasing, cajoling, and thrilling the audience," often stopping to sing to individual members; all the while the "perspiration would be pouring from his face, and the entire audience would get caught up in the ecstasy of his performance." According to music historian Larry Stempel, "No one had heard anything quite like it before on Broadway." Author Stephen Banfield agreed, writing that Jolson's style was "arguably the single most important factor in defining the modern musical..." He enjoyed performing in blackface makeup, a theatrical convention since the mid 19th century. With his unique and dynamic style of singing black music, such as jazz and blues, he was later credited with single-handedly introducing African-American music to white audiences. As early as 1911 he became known for fighting against anti-black discrimination on Broadway. Early life. Al Jolson was born as Asa Yoelson () in the Jewish village of Srednik () now known as Seredžius, near Kaunas in Lithuania, then part of the Russian Empire. He was the fifth and youngest child of Moses Reuben and Naomi (Cantor) Yoelson; his four siblings were Rose, Etta, another sister who died in infancy, and Hirsch (Harry). Jolson did not know the date of his birth, so he later chose to celebrate it as May 26, 1886. In 1891, his father, who was qualified as a rabbi and cantor, moved to New York to secure a better future for his family. By 1894, Moses Yoelson could afford to pay the fare to bring Naomi and his four children to America. By the time they arrived, he had found work at the Talmud Torah Synagogue in the Southwest Waterfront neighborhood of Washington, D.C., where the family was reunited. Hard times hit the family when his mother, Naomi, died in late 1894. Following his mother's death, young Asa was in a state of withdrawal for seven months. Upon being introduced to show business in 1895 by entertainer Al Reeves, Asa and Hirsch became fascinated by the industry, and by 1897 the brothers were singing for coins on local street corners, using the names "Al" and "Harry.". They would usually use the money to buy tickets to shows at the National Theater. Asa and Hirsch spent most of their days working different jobs as a team. Stage performer. Blackface. In 1904, while playing an engagement at Keeney's Theatre in Brooklyn, Al started performing in blackface, supposedly at the suggestion of veteran blackface comedian James Francis Dooley. Working behind a burnt cork mask gave Al a sense of freedom and spontaneity he had never known before. The act became a surefire laugh-getter, and was soon booked on vaudeville's Orpheum circuit. Burlesque and vaudeville. In the spring of 1902, he accepted a job with Walter L. Main's Circus. Although Main had hired Jolson as an usher, Main was impressed by Jolson's singing voice and gave him a position as a singer during the circus's Indian Medicine Side Show segment. By the end of the year, the circus had folded and Jolson was again out of work. In May 1903, the head producer of the burlesque show "Dainty Duchess Burlesquers" agreed to give Jolson a part in one show. Asa gave a remarkable performance of "Be My Baby Bumble Bee" and the producer agreed to keep him for future shows. Unfortunately, the show closed by the end of the year. Asa was able to avoid financial troubles by forming a vaudeville partnership with his brother Hirsch, now a vaudeville performer known as Harry Yoelson. The brothers worked for the William Morris Agency. Asa and Harry soon formed a team with Joe Palmer. During their time with Palmer, they were able to gain bookings in a nationwide tour. However, live performances were falling in popularity as nickelodeon theaters captured audiences; by 1908, nickelodeon theaters were dominant throughout New York City as well. While performing in a Brooklyn theater in 1904, Al decided on a new approach and began wearing blackface makeup. The conversion to blackface boosted his career, and he began wearing blackface in all of his shows. In the fall of 1905, Harry left the trio following a harsh argument with Al. Harry had refused Al's request to take care of Joe Palmer, who was in a wheelchair, while he was dating. After Harry's departure, Al and Joe Palmer worked as a duo but were not particularly successful. By 1906 the two agreed to separate, and Jolson was on his own. Al became a regular at the Globe and Wigwam Theater in San Francisco, California, and remained successful nationwide as a vaudeville singer. He took up residence in San Francisco, saying the earthquake-devastated people needed someone to cheer them up. In 1908 Jolson, needing money for himself and his new wife, Henrietta, returned to New York. In 1909, Al's singing caught the attention of Lew Dockstader, the producer and star of Dockstader's Minstrels. Al accepted Dockstader's offer and became a regular blackface performer. Broadway playhouses. Winter Garden Theater. According to "Esquire" magazine, "J.J. Shubert, impressed by Jolson’s overpowering display of energy, booked him for "La Belle Paree", a musical comedy that opened at the Winter Garden in 1911. Within a month Jolson was a star. From then until 1926, when he retired from the stage, he could boast an unbroken series of smash hits." On March 20, 1911, Jolson starred in his first musical revue at the Winter Garden Theater in New York City, "La Belle Paree", greatly helping to launch his career as a singer. The opening night drew a huge crowd to the theater, and that evening Jolson gained audience popularity by singing old Stephen Foster songs in blackface. In the wake of that opening night, Jolson was given a position in the show's cast. The show closed after 104 performances, and during its run Jolson's popularity grew greatly. Following "La Belle Paree", Jolson accepted an offer to perform in the musical "Vera Violetta". The show opened on November 20, 1911 and, like La Belle Paree, was a phenomenal success. In the show, Jolson again sang in blackface and managed to become so popular that his weekly salary of $500 (based on his success in La Belle Paree) was increased to $750. After "Vera Violetta" ran its course, Jolson starred in another musical, "The Whirl of Society", propelling his career on Broadway to new heights. During his time at the Winter Garden, Jolson would tell the audience, "You ain't heard nothing yet" before performing additional songs. In the play, Jolson debuted his signature blackface character, "Gus." The play was so successful that Winter Garden owner Lee Shubert agreed to sign Jolson to a seven-year contract with a salary of $1,000 a week. Jolson would reprise his role as "Gus" in future plays and by 1914 achieved so much popularity with the theater audience that his $1,000-a-week salary was doubled to $2,000 a week. In 1916, "Robinson Crusoe, Jr." was the first musical in which he was featured as the star character. In 1918, Jolson's acting career would be pushed even further after he starred in the hit musical "Sinbad". It became the most successful Broadway musical of 1918 and 1919. A new song was later added to the show that would become composer George Gershwin's first hit recording—"Swanee". Jolson also added another song, "My Mammy," to the show. By 1920, Jolson had become the biggest star on Broadway. Jolson's own theater. His next play, "Bombo", would also take his career to new heights and became so successful that it went beyond Broadway and held performances nationwide. It also led Lee Shubert to rename his newly built theater, which was across from Central Park, as Jolson's Fifty-ninth Street Theatre. Aged 35, Jolson became the youngest man in American history to have a theatre named after him. But on the opening night of "Bombo", and the first performance at the new theatre, he suffered from extreme stage fright, walking up and down the streets for hours before showtime. Out of fear, he lost his voice backstage and begged the stagehands not to raise the curtains. But when the curtains went up, he "was standing in the wings trembling and sweating." After being physically shoved onto the stage by his brother Harry, he performed and received an ovation that he would never forget: "For several minutes, the applause continued while Al stood and bowed after the first act." He refused to go back on stage for the second act, but the audience "just stamped its feet and chanted 'Jolson, Jolson', until he came back out." He took thirty-seven curtain calls that night and told the audience, "I'm a happy man tonight." In March 1922, he moved the production to the larger Century Theater for a special benefit performance to aid injured Jewish veterans of World War I. After taking the show on the road for a season, he returned in May 1923, to perform "Bombo" at "his first love", the Winter Garden. The reviewer for "The New York Times" wrote, "He returned like the circus, bigger and brighter and newer than ever. ... Last night's audience was flatteringly unwilling to go home, and when the show proper was over, Jolson reappeared before the curtain and sang more songs, old and new." "I don’t mind going on record as saying that he is one of the few instinctively funny men on our stage," wrote reviewer Charles Darnton in the "New York Evening World". "Everything he touches turns to fun. To watch him is to marvel at his humorous vitality. He is the old-time minstrel man turned to modern account. With a song, a word, or even a suggestion he calls forth spontaneous laughter. And here you have the definition of a born comedian." Performing in blackface. Performing in blackface makeup was a theatrical convention of many entertainers at the beginning of the 20th century, having its origin in the minstrel show. Working behind a blackface mask "gave him a sense of freedom and spontaneity he had never known." According to film historian Eric Lott, for the white minstrel man "to put on the cultural forms of 'blackness' was to engage in a complex affair of manly mimicry... To wear or even enjoy blackface was literally, for a time, to become black, to inherit the cool, virility, humility, abandon, or gaité de coeur that were the prime components of white ideologies of black manhood." As metaphor of mutual suffering. Jazz historians have described Jolson’s blackface and singing style as metaphors for Jewish and black suffering throughout history. Jolson’s first film, "The Jazz Singer", for instance, is described by historian Michael Alexander as an expression of the liturgical music of Jews with the "imagined music of African Americans," noting that "prayer and jazz become metaphors for Jews and blacks." Playwright Samson Raphaelson, after seeing Jolson perform his stage show "Robinson Crusoe", stated that "he had an epiphany: 'My God, this isn’t a jazz singer,' he said. 'This is a cantor!'" The image of the blackfaced cantor remained in Raphaelson’s mind when he conceived of the story which led to "The Jazz Singer". Upon release of the film, the first full-length sound picture, film reviewers saw the symbolism and metaphors portrayed by Jolson in his role as the son of a cantor wanting to become a "jazz singer": According to Alexander, East European Jews were uniquely qualified to understand the music, noting how Jolson himself made the comparison of Jewish and African-American suffering in a new land in his film "Big Boy": In a blackface portrayal of a former slave, he leads a group of recently freed slaves, played by black actors, in verses of the classic slave spiritual "Go Down Moses." One reviewer of the film expressed how Jolson’s blackface added significance to his role: Many in the black community welcomed "The Jazz Singer", and saw it as a vehicle to gain access to the stage. Audiences at Harlem's Lafayette Theater cried during the film, and Harlem's newspaper, "Amsterdam News," called it "one of the greatest pictures ever produced." For Jolson, it wrote: "Every colored performer is proud of him." Relations with African-Americans. Jolson first heard African-American music, such as jazz, blues, and ragtime, played in the back alleys of New Orleans, Louisiana. He enjoyed singing the "new" jazz-style of music. Often performing in blackface, especially in the songs he made popular, such as "Swanee", "My Mammy", and "Rock-A-Bye Your Baby With A Dixie Melody". In most of his movie roles, however, including a singing hobo in "Hallelujah, I'm a Bum" or a jailed convict in "Say It With Songs", he chose to act without using blackface. In the film "The Jazz Singer" (1927), he performed only a few songs, including "My Mammy", in blackface, but the film is concerned in part with the experience of "donning a mask" that the young Jewish singer embraces in performing popular songs onstage. As a Jewish immigrant and America's most famous and highest-paid entertainer, he may have had the incentive and resources to help break down racial attitudes. For instance, the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) during its peak in the early 1920s, included about 15% of the nation's eligible voting population, 4-5 million men. While D. W. Griffith's movie "The Birth of a Nation" glorified white supremacy and the KKK, Jolson chose to star in "The Jazz Singer", which defied racial bigotry by introducing American black music to audiences worldwide. While growing up, Jolson had many black friends, including Bill "Bojangles" Robinson, who later became a prominent tap dancer. As early as 1911, at the age of 25, Jolson was already noted for fighting discrimination on the Broadway stage and later in his movies: Jolson once read in the newspaper that songwriters Eubie Blake and Noble Sissle, neither of whom he had ever heard of, were refused service at a Connecticut restaurant because of their race. He immediately tracked them down and took them out to dinner "insisting he'd punch anyone in the nose who tried to kick us out!" Subsequent to their meeting, according to biographer Al Rose, Jolson and Blake became friends. Rose writes: Film historian Charles Musser notes that "African Americans' embrace of Jolson was not a spontaneous reaction to his appearance in talking pictures. In an era when African Americans did not have to go looking for enemies, Jolson was perceived a friend." Jeni LeGon, a black female tap dance star, recalls her life as a film dancer: "But of course, in those times it was a 'black-and-white world.' You didn't associate too much socially with any of the stars. You saw them at the studio, you know, nice—but they didn't invite. The only ones that ever invited us home for a visit was Al Jolson and Ruby Keeler." Brian Conley, former star of the 1995 British play "Jolson", stated during an interview, "I found out Jolson was actually a hero to the black people of America. At his funeral, black actors lined the way, they really appreciated what he’d done for them." Noble Sissle, then president of the Negro Actors Guild, represented that organization at his funeral. Jolson's physical expressiveness also affected the music styles of some black performers. Music historian Bob Gulla writes that "the most critical influence in Jackie Wilson's young life was Al Jolson." He points out that Wilson's ideas of what a stage performer could do to keep their act an "exciting" and "thrilling performance" was shaped by Jolson's acts, "full of wild writhing and excessive theatrics." Wilson felt that Jolson, along with Louis Jordan, another of his idols, "should be considered the stylistic forefathers of rock and roll." According to the "St. James Encyclopedia of Popular Culture": "Almost single-handedly, Jolson helped to introduce African-American musical innovations like jazz, ragtime, and the blues to white audiences... paved the way for African-American performers like Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Fats Waller, and Ethel Waters... to bridge the cultural gap between black and white America." Jazz historian Amiri Baraka wrote, "the entrance of the white man into jazz...did at least bring him much closer to the Negro." He points out that "the acceptance of jazz by whites marks a crucial moment when an aspect of black culture had become an essential part of American culture." In a recent interview, Clarence 'Frogman' Henry, one of the most popular and respected jazz singers of New Orleans, said: "Jolson? I loved him. I think he did wonders for the blacks and glorified entertainment." Movies. "The Jazz Singer". In the first part of the 20th century, Al Jolson was without question the most popular performer on Broadway and in vaudeville. Show-business historians regard him as a legendary institution. Yet for all his success in live venues, Jolson is possibly best remembered today for his numerous recordings and for starring in "The Jazz Singer" (1927), generally considered the first feature film that included synchronized sound dialogue sequences as well as music and sound effects. Jolson had actually starred in a talking film "before" "The Jazz Singer": a 1926 short subject entitled "A Plantation Act". This simulation of a stage performance by Jolson was originally presented in a program of musical shorts, demonstrating the Vitaphone sound-film process. The soundtrack for "A Plantation Act" was considered lost in 1933, but was found in 1995 and restored by The Vitaphone Project. The short was included in Warner's 80th Anniversary release of "The Jazz Singer" on DVD. Warner Bros. had originally picked George Jessel for the role, as he had starred in the Broadway play. When Sam Warner decided to make "The Jazz Singer" a musical with the Vitaphone, he knew that Jolson was the star he needed to put it over. He told Jessel that he would have to sing in the movie, and Jessel balked, allowing Warner's to replace him with Jolson. Jessel never got over it and often said that Warner's gave the role to Jolson because he agreed to help finance the film. The movie premiere. Harry Warner's daughter, Doris Warner, remembered the opening night, and said that when the picture started she was still crying over the loss of her beloved uncle Sam, who was planning to be there but died suddenly, at the age of 40, the day before. But halfway through the 89-minute movie she began to be overtaken by a sense that something remarkable was happening. Jolson's "Wait a minute, wait a minute, you ain't heard nothin' yet..." provoked shouts of pleasure and applause. After each Jolson song, the audience applauded. Excitement mounted as the film progressed, and when Jolson began his scene with Eugenie Besserer, "the audience became hysterical." According to film historian Scott Eyman, "by the film's end, the Warner brothers had shown an audience something they had never known, moved them in a way they hadn't expected. The tumultuous ovation at curtain proved that Jolson was not merely the right man for the part of Jackie Rabinowitz, alias Jack Robin; he was the right man for the entire transition from silent fantasy to talking realism. The audience, transformed into what one critic called, 'a milling, battling mob' stood, stamped, and cheered 'Jolson, Jolson, Jolson!'" At the end of the film, Jolson rose from his seat and ran down to the stage. "God, I think you're really on the level about it. I feel good" he cried to the audience. Stanley Watkins would always remember Jolson signing autographs after the show, tears streaming down his face. May McAvoy, Jolson's costar remembered that " police were there to control the crowds. It was a very big thing, like "The Birth of a Nation"." Introduction of sound. The film was produced by Warner Bros., using its new Vitaphone sound process. Vitaphone was originally intended for musical renditions, and "The Jazz Singer" follows this principle, with only the musical sequences using live sound recording. The moviegoers were electrified when the silent actions were interrupted periodically for a song sequence with real singing and sound. Jolson's dynamic voice, physical mannerisms, and charisma held the audience spellbound. Costar May McAvoy, according to author A. Scott Berg, could not help sneaking into theaters day after day as the film was being run. "She pinned herself against a wall in the dark and watched the faces in the crowd. In that moment just before 'Toot, Toot, Tootsie,' she remembered, 'A miracle occurred. Moving pictures really came alive. To see the expressions on their faces, when Joley spoke to them ... you'd have thought they were listening to the voice of God.'" "Everybody was mad for the talkies," said movie star Gregory Peck in a "Newsweek" interview. "I remember " 'The Jazz Singer,' " when Al Jolson just burst into song, and there was a little bit of dialogue. And when he came out with 'Mammy,' and went down on his knees to his Mammy, it was just dynamite." This opinion is shared by Mast and Kawin: Jewish meanings. Cultural historian Linda Williams notes that ""The Jazz Singer" represents the triumphs of the assimilating son over the old-world father ... and present impediments to an assimilating show-biz success... when Jakie's father says, 'Stop', the flow of "jazz" music (and spontaneous speech) freezes. But the Jewish mother recognizes the virtue of the old world in the new and the music flows again." According to film historian Robert Carringer, even the father eventually comes to understand that his son's jazz singing is "fundamentally an ancient religious impulse seeking expression in a modern, popular form". Or as the film itself states in its first title card, "perhaps this plaintive, wailing song of jazz is, after all, the misunderstood utterance of a prayer." Film historian Scott Eyman also describes the cultural perspective of the film: Other feature films. With Warner Bros., Al Jolson made his first "all-talking" picture, "The Singing Fool" (1928) — the story of a driven entertainer who insisted upon going on with the show even as his small son lay dying, and its signature tune, "Sonny Boy," became the first American record to sell one million copies. The film was even more popular than "The Jazz Singer", and even though there was still a relatively small number of theaters across the country capable of showing the picture with sound, it held the record for box-office attendance for 11 years, until broken by "Gone With the Wind" a decade later. Jolson continued to make features for Warner Bros., very similar in style to "The Singing Fool", "Say It with Songs" (1929), "Mammy" (1930), and "Big Boy" (1930). A restored version of "Mammy", which includes Jolson in some Technicolor sequences, was first screened in 2002. (Jolson's first Technicolor appearance was in a cameo in the musical "Show Girl in Hollywood" (1930) from First National Pictures, a Warner Bros. subsidiary.) The sameness of the stories, Jolson's large salary, and changing public tastes in musicals contributed to the films' diminishing returns over the next few years. As a result of this, Jolson decided to return to Broadway, and starred in a new show entitled "Wonder Bar", which was not very successful. "Hallelujah, I'm a Bum/Hallelujah, I'm a Tramp". Despite these new troubles, Jolson was able to make a comeback after performing a concert in New Orleans after "Wonderbar" closed in 1931. Warners allowed him to make one film with United Artists, "Hallelujah, I'm a Bum", in 1933 (the film had to be retitled "Hallelujah, I'm a Tramp" in the UK and other English-speaking countries where "bum" means "butt" and where the slang word for a vagrant is "tramp" rather than "bum"). It was directed by Lewis Milestone and written by screenwriter Ben Hecht. Hecht was also active in the promotion of civil rights: "Hecht film stories featuring black characters included "Hallelujah, I'm a Bum", co-starring Edgar Connor as Al Jolson's sidekick, in a politically savvy rhymed dialogue over Richard Rodgers music." A direct response to the Great Depression, it contains messages to his vagabond friends equivalent to "there's more to life than money" and "the best things in life are free". "The New York Times" reviewer wrote, "The picture, some persons may be glad to hear, has no Mammy song. It is Mr. Jolson's best film and well it might be, for that clever director, Lewis Milestone, guided its destiny... a combination of fun, melody and romance, with a dash of satire..." Another review added, "A film to welcome back, especially for what it tries to do for the progress of the American musical..." "Wonder Bar" (1934). In 1934, he starred in a movie version of his earlier stage play, Wonder Bar, and co-starred Kay Francis, Dolores del Río, Ricardo Cortez, and Dick Powell. The movie is a "musical Grand Hotel, set in the Parisian nightclub owned by Al Wonder (Jolson). Wonder entertains and banters with his international clientele." Reviews were generally positive: ""Wonder Bar" has got about everything. Romance, flash, dash, class, color, songs, star-studded talent and almost every known requisite to assure sturdy attention and attendance... It's Jolson's comeback picture in every respect."; and, "Those who like Jolson should see Wonder Bar for it is mainly Jolson; singing the old reliables; cracking jokes which would have impressed Noah as depressingly ancient; and moving about with characteristic energy." Returning to Warners, Jolson bowed to new production ideas, focusing less on the star and more on elaborately cinematic numbers staged by Busby Berkeley and Bobby Connolly. This new approach worked, sustaining Jolson's movie career until the Warner contract lapsed in 1935. Jolson co-starred with his actress-dancer wife, Ruby Keeler, only once, in "Go Into Your Dance". "The Singing Kid" (1936). Jolson's last Warner vehicle was "The Singing Kid" (1936), a parody of Jolson's stage persona (he plays a character named Al Jackson) in which he pokes fun at his stage histrionics and taste for "mammy" songs—the latter via a number by E. Y. Harburg and Harold Arlen titled "I Love to Singa", and a comedy sequence with Jolson doggedly trying to sing "Mammy" while The Yacht Club Boys keep telling him such songs are outdated. According to jazz historian Michael Alexander, Jolson had once griped that "People have been making fun of Mammy songs, and I don't really think that it's right that they should, for after all, Mammy songs are the fundamental songs of our country." In this film, he notes, "Jolson had the confidence to rhyme 'Mammy' with 'Uncle Sammy'", adding "Mammy songs, along with the vocation 'Mammy singer', were inventions of the Jewish Jazz Age." The film also gave a boost to the career of black singer and bandleader Cab Calloway, who performed a number of songs alongside Jolson. In his autobiography, Calloway writes about this episode: "The Singing Kid" was not one of the studio's major attractions (it was released by the First National subsidiary), and Jolson did not even rate star billing. The song "I Love to Singa" later appeared in Tex Avery's cartoon of the same name. The movie also became the first important role for future child star Sybil Jason in a scene directed by Busby Berkeley. Jason remembers that Berkeley worked on the film although he is not credited. "Rose of Washington Square" (1939). His next movie—his first with Twentieth Century-Fox—was "Rose of Washington Square" (1939). It stars Jolson, Alice Faye and Tyrone Power, and included many of Jolson's best known songs, although a several songs were cut to shorten the movie's length, including "April Showers" and "Avalon". Reviewers wrote, "Mr Jolson's singing of "Mammy", California, Here I Come and others is something for the memory book." and "Of the three co-stars this is Jolson's picture ... because it's a pretty good catalog in anybody's hit parade." The movie was released on DVD in October 2008. Twentieth Century-Fox hired him to re-create a scene from "The Jazz Singer" in the Alice Faye-Don Ameche film "Hollywood Cavalcade". Guest appearances in two more Fox films followed that same year, but Jolson never starred in a full-length feature film again. "The Jolson Story". After the success of the George M. Cohan film biography, "Yankee Doodle Dandy" (1942), Hollywood columnist Sidney Skolsky believed that a similar film could be made about Al Jolson—and he knew just where to pitch the project. Harry Cohn, the head of Columbia Pictures, loved the music of Al Jolson. Skolsky pitched the idea of an Al Jolson biopic and Cohn agreed. It was directed by Alfred E. Green, best remembered for the pre-Code "Baby Face" (1933), with musical numbers staged by Joseph H. Lewis. With Jolson providing almost all the vocals, and Columbia contract player Larry Parks playing Jolson, "The Jolson Story" (1946) became one of the biggest box-office hits of the year. Larry Parks wrote, in a personal tribute to Jolson:"Stepping into his shoes was, for me, a matter of endless study, observation, energetic concentration to obtain, perfectly if possible, a simulation of the kind of man he was. It is not surprising, therefore, that while making "The Jolson Story", I spent 107 days before the cameras and lost eighteen pounds in weight."From a review in "Variety":"But the real star of the production is that Jolson voice and that Jolson medley. It was good showmanship to cast this film with lesser people, particularly Larry Parks as the mammy kid... As for Jolson's voice, it has never been better. Thus the magic of science has produced a composite whole to eclipse the original at his most youthful best."Parks received an Oscar nomination for Best Actor. Although Jolson was too old to play himself in the film, he persuaded the studio to let him appear in one musical sequence, "Swanee", shot entirely in long shot, with Jolson in blackface singing and dancing onto the runway leading into the middle of the theater. In the wake of the film's success, Jolson became a top singer among the American public once more. Decca Records signed Jolson and he recorded for Decca until his death. Critical observations. According to film historian Krin Gabbard, "The Jolson Story" goes further than any of the earlier films in exploring the significance of blackface and the relationships that whites have developed with blacks in the area of music. To him, the film seems to imply an inclination of white performers, like Jolson, who are possessed with "the joy of life and enough sensitivity, to appreciate the musical accomplishments of blacks". To support his view he describes a significant part of the movie: "While wandering around New Orleans before a show with Dockstader's Minstrels, he enters a small club where a group of black jazz musicians are performing. Jolson has a revelation, that the staid repertoire of the minstrel troupe can be transformed by actually playing black music in blackface. He tells Dockstader that he wants to sing what he has just experienced: 'I heard some music tonight, something they call jazz. Some fellows just make it up as they go along. They pick it up out of the air.' After Dockstader refuses to accommodate Jolson's revolutionary concept, the narrative chronicles his climb to stardom as he allegedly injects jazz into his blackface performances ... Jolson's success is built on anticipating what Americans really want. Dockstader performs the inevitable function of the guardian of the status quo, whose hidebound commitment to what is about to become obsolete reinforces the audience's sympathy with the forward-looking hero." This has been a theme which was traditionally "dear to the hearts of the men who made the movies." Film historian George Custen describes this "common scenario, in which the hero is vindicated for innovations that are initially greeted with resistance ... he struggle of the heroic protagonist who anticipates changes in cultural attitudes is central to other white jazz biopics such as "The Glenn Miller Story" (1954) and "The Benny Goodman Story" (1955)". "Once we accept a semantic change from singing to playing the clarinet, "The Benny Goodman Story" becomes an almost transparent reworking of "The Jazz Singer" ... and "The Jolson Story"." "Jolson Sings Again" (1949). A sequel, "Jolson Sings Again" (1949), opened at Loew's State Theatre in New York and received positive reviews: "Mr. Jolson's name is up in lights again and Broadway is wreathed in smiles", wrote Thomas Pryor in "The New York Times". "That's as it should be, for "Jolson Sings Again" is an occasion which warrants some lusty cheering...". Jolson did a tour of New York film theaters to plug the movie, traveling with a police convoy to make timetables for all showings, often ad libbing jokes and performing songs for the audience. Extra police were on duty as crowds jammed the streets and sidewalks at each theater Jolson visited. In Chicago, a few weeks later, he sang to 100,000 people at Soldier Field, and later that night appeared at the Oriental Theatre with George Jessel where 10,000 people had to be turned away. In Baltimore, Maryland, he took his wife Erle to see St Mary's Catholic School where he was confined for a while as a boy and treated for tuberculosis. He introduced her to the same priest, Father Benjamin, who watched over him. That night, Jolson took over two hundred of the church's kids to see "Jolson Sings Again" at the Hippodrome Theatre. A few weeks later, the Jolsons were received by President Harry Truman at the White House. Radio shows. Jolson had been a popular guest star on radio since its earliest days, including on NBC's "The Dodge Victory Hour" (January 1928), singing from a New Orleans hotel to an audience of 35 million via 47 radio stations. His own 1930s shows included "Presenting Al Jolson" (1932) and "Shell Chateau" (1935), and he was the host of the "Kraft Music Hall" from 1947 to 1949, with Oscar Levant as a sardonic, piano-playing sidekick. Despite such singers as Frank Sinatra, Bing Crosby and Perry Como being in their primes, Jolson was voted the "Most Popular Male Vocalist" in 1948 by a poll in "Variety". The next year, Jolson was named "Personality of the Year" by the Variety Clubs of America. When Jolson appeared on Bing Crosby's radio show, he attributed his receiving the award to his being the only singer not to make a record of "Mule Train," which had been a widely covered hit of that year (four different versions, one of them by Crosby, had made the top ten on the charts). Jolson even joked that he had tried to sing the hit song "I got the clippetys all right, but I can't clop like I used to." Television work. When Jolson appeared on Steve Allen's KNX Los Angeles radio show in 1949 to promote "Jolson Sings Again", he offered his curt opinion of the burgeoning television industry: "I call it smell-evision." Writer Hal Kanter recalled that Jolson's own idea of his television debut would be a corporate-sponsored, extra-length spectacular that would feature him as the only performer, and would be telecast without interruption. In 1950, it was announced that Jolson agreed to appear on the CBS television network. However, he died before production could be initiated. World War II and Korean War tours. World War II. Japanese bombs on Pearl Harbor shook Jolson out of continuing moods of lethargy due to years of little activity and "... he dedicated himself to a new mission in life... Even before the U.S.O. began to set up a formal program overseas, the excitable Jolson was deluging War and Navy Department brass with phone calls and wires. He demanded permission to go anywhere in the world where there is an American serviceman who wouldn’t mind listening to ‘Sonny Boy’ or ‘Mammy’... early in 1942, Jolson became the first star to perform at a GI base in World War II". From a "New York Times" interview in 1942: "When the war started... felt that it was up to me to do something, and the only thing I know is show business. I went around during the last war and I saw that the boys needed something besides chow and drills. I knew the same was true today, so I told the people in Washington that I would go anywhere and do an act for the Army." Shortly after the war began, he wrote a letter to Steven Early, press secretary to President Franklin D. Roosevelt, volunteering "to head a committee for the entertainment of soldiers and said that he "would work without pay... would gladly assist in the organization to be set up for this purpose". A few weeks later, he received his first tour schedule from the newly formed United Services Organization (USO), "the group his letter to Early had helped create". He did as many as four shows a day in the jungle outposts of Central America and covered the string of U.S. Naval bases. He paid for part of the transportation out of his own pocket. Upon doing his first, and unannounced, show in England in 1942, the reporter for the "Hartford Courant" wrote, "... it was a panic. And pandemonium... when he was done the applause that shook that soldier-packed room was like bombs falling again in Shaftsbury Avenue." From an article in the "New York Times": "He has been to more Army camps and played to more soldiers than any other entertainer. He has crossed the Atlantic by plane to take song and cheer to the troops in Britain and Northern Ireland. He has flown to the cold wastes of Alaska and the steaming forests of Trinidad. He has called at Dutch‑like Curaçao. Nearly every camp in this country has heard him sing and tell funny stories." Some of the unusual hardships of performing to active troops were described in an article he wrote for "Variety," in 1942: "In order to entertain all the boys ... it became necessary for us to give shows in foxholes, gun emplacements, dugouts, to construction groups on military roads; in fact, any place where two or more soldiers were gathered together, it automatically became a Winter Garden for me and I would give a show." After returning from a tour of overseas bases, the Regimental Hostess at one camp wrote to Jolson, "Allow me to say on behalf of all the soldiers of the 33rd Infantry that you coming here is quite the most wonderful thing that has ever happened to us, and we think you're tops, not only as a performer, but as a person. We unanimously elect you Public Morale Lifter No. 1 of the U.S Army." Jolson was officially enlisted in the United Service Organizations (USO), the organization which provided entertainment for American troops who served in combat overseas. While serving in the USO, he received a Specialist rating due to his age, which would permit him to wear a uniform and have the same standing as an officer. During his time entertaining troops he caught malaria and lost a lung. In 1946, during a nationally broadcast testimonial dinner in New York City, given on his behalf, he received a special tribute from the American Veterans Committee in honor of his volunteer services during WWII. And in 1949, the movie "Jolson Sings Again" recreated some scenes showing Jolson during his war tours. Korean War. In 1950, according to Jolson's biographer Michael Freedland, "the United States answered the call of the United Nations Security Council ... and had gone to fight the North Koreans. ... rang the White House again. 'I'm gonna go to Korea,' he told a startled official on the phone. 'No one seems to know anything about the USO, and it's up to President Truman to get me there.' He was promised that President Truman and General MacArthur, who had taken command of the Korean front, would get to hear of his offer. But for four weeks there was nothing. ... Finally, Louis A. Johnson, Secretary of Defense, sent Jolson a telegram. 'Sorry for delay but regret no funds for entertainment-STOP; USO disbanded-STOP.' The message was as much an assault on the Jolson sense of patriotism as the actual crossing of the 38th Parallel had been. 'What are they talkin' about', he thundered. 'Funds? Who needs funds? I got funds! I'll pay myself!'" On September 17, 1950, a dispatch from 8th Army Headquarters, Korea, announced, "Al Jolson, the first top-flight entertainer to reach the war-front, landed here today by plane from Los Angeles..." Jolson traveled to Korea at his own expense. "nd a lean, smiling Jolson drove himself without letup through 42 shows in 16 days." Before returning to the U.S., General Douglas MacArthur, leader of UN forces, gave him a medallion inscribed "To Al Jolson from Special Services in appreciation of entertainment of armed forces personnel ‑ Far East Command”, with his entire itinerary inscribed on the reverse side. A few months later, an important bridge, named the "Al Jolson Bridge", was used to withdraw the bulk of American troops from North Korea. The bridge was the last remaining of three bridges across the Han River and was used to evacuate UN forces. It was demolished by UN forces after the army made it safely across in order to prevent the North Koreans from crossing. Alistair Cooke wrote, "He had one last hour of glory. He offered to fly to Korea and entertain the troops hemmed in on the United Nations precarious August bridgehead. The troops yelled for his appearance. He went down on his knee again and sang 'Mammy', and the troops wept and cheered. When he was asked what Korea was like he warmly answered, 'I am going to get back my income tax returns and see if I paid enough.'" Entertainer Jack Benny, who went to Korea the following year, noted that an amphitheater in Korea where troops were entertained, was named the "Al Jolson Bowl." Just 10 days after he returned from Korea, he had agreed with R.K.O. producers Jerry Wald and Norman Krasna to star in a new movie, "Stars and Stripes for Ever", about a U.S.O. troupe in the South Pacific during World War II. The screenplay was to be written by Herbert Baker, writer of the 1980 version of "The Jazz Singer" starring Neil Diamond. The film was to costar singer Dinah Shore. But just two weeks after the agreement, Jolson died suddenly of a heart attack in San Francisco, due partly to the physical exertions he had made in Korea. He was survived by his wife and their two recently adopted children. A few months after his death, Defense Secretary George Marshall presented the Medal for Merit to Jolson, "to whom this country owes a debt which cannot be repaid". The medal, carrying a citation noting that Jolson's "contribution to the U.N. action in Korea was made at the expense of his life", was presented to Jolson's adopted son as Jolson's widow looked on. Columbia too had been thinking about a third Jolson musical, and this time Jolson would play himself. The project, tentatively entitled "You Ain't Heard Nothin' Yet", was to dramatize Jolson's recent tours of military bases. The film was never made. Personal life. Politics. Jolson was a political and economic conservative, supporting both Warren G. Harding in 1920 and Calvin Coolidge in 1924 for president of the United States. As "one of the biggest stars of his time, worked his magic singing "Harding, You're the Man for Us" to enthralled audiences ... [and was subsequently asked to perform "Keep Cool with Coolidge" four years later. ... Jolson, like the men who ran the studios, was the rare showbiz Republican." He was unlike most other Jewish performers, who supported the losing Democratic candidate, John William Davis. Jolson however did, like some Republicans, publicly campaign for Democrat Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1932. By 1936 he was back to supporting Republican Alf Landon and would not support another Democrat for president during his life. Married life. In 1906, while living in San Francisco, Jolson met dancer Henrietta Keller, and the two engaged in a year-long relationship before marrying in September 1907. In 1918, however, Henrietta—tired of what she reputedly considered his womanizing and refusal to come home after shows—filed for divorce. In 1920, Jolson began a relationship with Broadway actress Alma Osbourne (known professionally as Ethel Delmar); the two were married in August 1922. Alma divorced Jolson in 1928. Ruby Keeler. In the summer of 1928, Jolson met tap dancer, and later successful actress, Ruby Keeler at Texas Guinan's night club and was dazzled by her on sight; at the club, the two danced together. Three weeks later, Jolson saw a production of George M. Cohan's "Rise of Rosie O'Reilly", and noticed she was in the show's cast. Now knowing she was going about her Broadway career, Jolson attended another one of her shows, "Show Girl", and rose from the audience and engaged in her duet of "Liza". After this moment, the show's producer, Florenz Ziegfeld, asked Jolson to join the cast and continue to sing duets with Keeler. Jolson accepted Ziegfeld's offer and during their tour with Ziegfeld, the two started dating and were married on September 21, 1928. In 1935, Al and Ruby adopted a son, whom they named "Al Jolson Jr." In 1939, however—despite a marriage that was considered to be more successful than his previous ones—Keeler left Jolson, and later married John Homer Lowe, with whom she would have four children and remain married until his death in 1969. Erle Galbraith. In 1944, while giving a show at a military hospital in Hot Springs, Arkansas, Jolson met a young X-ray technologist, Erle Galbraith. Jolson became fascinated by her and—over a year after meeting—was able to track her down and hired her as an actress while he served as a producer at Columbia Pictures. After Jolson, whose health was still scarred from his previous battle with malaria, was hospitalized in the winter of 1945, Erle visited him and the two quickly began a relationship. They were married on March 22, 1945. During their marriage, the Jolsons adopted two children, Asa Jr. (born 1948) and Alicia (born 1949), and remained married until his death in 1950. After a year and a half of marriage, his new wife had actually never seen him perform in front of an audience, and the first occasion came unplanned. As told by actor comedian Alan King, it happened during a dinner by the New York Friars' Club at the Waldorf Astoria in 1946, honoring the career of Sophie Tucker. Jolson and his wife were in the audience along with a thousand others, and George Jessel was emcee. He asked Al, privately, to perform at least one song. Jolson replied, "No, I just want to sit here." Then later, without warning, during the middle of the show, Jessel says, "Ladies and gentlemen, this is the easiest introduction I ever had to make. The world's greatest entertainer, Al Jolson." King recalls what happened next: Closeness with his brother Harry. Despite their close relationship growing up, Harry did show some disdain for Al's success over the years. Even during their time with Jack Palmer, Al was rising in popularity while Harry was fading. After separating from Al and Jack, Harry's career in show business, however, sank greatly. On one occasion—which was another factor in his on-off relationship with Al—Harry offered to be Al's agent, but Al rejected the offer, worried about the pressure that he would have faced from his producers for hiring his brother as his agent. Shortly after Harry's wife Lillian died in 1948, Harry and Al became close once again. Death and commemoration. The dust and dirt of the Korean front, from where he had returned a few weeks earlier, had settled in his right lung and he was close to exhaustion. While playing cards in his suite at the St. Francis Hotel at 335 Powell Street in San Francisco, Jolson collapsed and died of a massive heart attack on October 23, 1950. His last words were said to be "Boys, I'm going.". He was 64. After his wife received the news of his death by phone, she went into shock, and required family members to stay with her. At the funeral, police estimated upwards of 20,000 people showed up, despite threatened rain. It became one of the biggest funerals in show business history. Celebrities paid tribute: Bob Hope, speaking from Korea via short wave radio, said the world had lost "not only a great entertainer, but also a great citizen." Larry Parks said that the world had "lost not only its greatest entertainer, but a great American as well. He was a casualty of the war." Scripps-Howard newspapers drew a pair of white gloves on a black background. The caption read, "The Song Is Ended." Newspaper columnist and radio reporter Walter Winchell said, Friend George Jessel said during part of his eulogy, He was interred in the Hillside Memorial Park Cemetery in Culver City, California. According to "Cemetery Guide", Jolson’s widow purchased a plot at Hillside and commissioned his mausoleum to be designed by well-known black architect Paul Williams. The six-pillar marble structure is topped by a dome, next to a three-quarter-size bronze statue of Jolson, eternally resting on one knee, arms outstretched, apparently ready to break into another verse of “Mammy”. The inside of the dome features a huge mosaic of Moses holding the tablets containing the Ten Commandments, and identifies Jolson as “The Sweet Singer of Israel” and “The Man Raised Up High”. On the day he died, Broadway dimmed its lights in Jolson's honor, and radio stations all over the world were paying tributes. Soon after his death, the BBC presented a special program entitled "Jolson Sings On". His death unleashed tributes from all over the world, including a number of eulogies from friends, including George Jessel, Walter Winchell, and Eddie Cantor. He contributed millions to Jewish and other charities in his will. In October, 2008, a new documentary film, "Al Jolson and The Jazz Singer", premiered at the 50th Lübeck Nordic Film Days, Lübeck, Germany, and won 1st Prize at an annual film competition in Kiel a few weeks later. In November, 2007, a similar documentary, "A Look at Al Jolson", was winner at the same festival. Jolson's music remains very popular today both in America and abroad with numerous CDs in print. Jolson has three stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame: In 2000, a Golden Palm Star on the Palm Springs, California, Walk of Stars was dedicated to him. Forty-four years after Jolson's death, the United States Postal Service honored him by issuing a postage stamp. The 29-cent stamp was unveiled by Erle Jolson Krasna, Jolson's fourth wife, at a ceremony in New York City's Lincoln Center on September 1, 1994. This stamp was one of a series honoring popular American singers, which included Bing Crosby, Nat King Cole, Ethel Merman, and Ethel Waters. And in 2006, Jolson had a street in New York named after him with the help of the Al Jolson Society.
673601	The Testament of Dr. Mabuse () is a 1933 German crime film directed by Fritz Lang. The movie is a sequel to Lang's silent film "Dr. Mabuse the Gambler" (1922) and features many cast and crew members from Lang's previous films. The film features Rudolf Klein-Rogge as Dr. Mabuse who is in an insane asylum where he is found frantically writing his crime plans. When Mabuse's criminal plans begin to be implemented, Inspector Lohmann (played by Otto Wernicke) tries to find the solution with clues from gangster Thomas Kent (Gustav Diessl), the institutionalized Hofmeister (Karl Meixner) and Professor Baum (Oscar Beregi Sr.) who becomes obsessed with Dr. Mabuse. "The Testament of Dr. Mabuse" was based on elements of author Norbert Jacques' novel "Mabuse's Colony". It was Lang's second sound film for Nero-Film and was his final collaboration with his wife and screenwriter Thea von Harbou. To promote the film to a foreign market, a French-language version of the film was made by Lang with the same sets but different actors with the title "Le Testament du Dr. Mabuse". When Adolf Hitler rose to power, Joseph Goebbels became Minister of Propaganda and banned the film in Germany, suggesting that the film would decrease the audience's confidence in its statesmen. The French-language and German-language versions of the film were released in Europe while several versions of the film were released in the United States to mixed reception with each re-release. The sequel "The Thousand Eyes of Dr. Mabuse" was released during 1960 and was also directed by Lang. Modern reception of the film is favorable with critics, while the film has influenced filmmakers including Claude Chabrol and Artur Brauner. Plot. In a noisy print shop, a disgraced police detective named Hofmeister (Karl Meixner) escapes from pursuing criminals' attacks. Hofmeister telephones his former superior Inspector Karl Lohmann (Otto Wernicke) and explains frantically that he has discovered a huge criminal conspiracy. Before disclosing the identity of responsible criminal, the lights go out, shots are fired, and Hofmeister becomes mad. Hofmeister vanishes only to be found later singing every time he feels watched, and he is institutionalized at Professor Baum's asylum. Professor Baum (Oscar Beregi, Sr.) introduces the case of Dr. Mabuse (Rudolf Klein-Rogge), the criminal mastermind and hypnotist who ten years earlier went mad. Mabuse spends his days frantically writing detailed plans for crimes while a criminal gang is committing them according to "the plans of the Doctor", with whom they confer only from behind a curtain. When Baum's colleague Dr. Kramm (Theodor Loos) by chance discovers that recent crimes implement Mabuse's writings, Kramm is shot by the gang's execution squad, Hardy and Bredow. A clue scratched in a glass window pane at Hofmeister's crime scene causes Lohmann to suspect Mabuse. On arrival at the asylum, Baum reveals that Mabuse has died. When Lohmann disparagingly talks about "Mabuse the criminal", Baum emphatically speaks about "Mabuse the genius". Baum continues to study Mabuse's writings and seems to confer with the ghostly Dr. Mabuse. The spirit of Mabuse speaks about an "unlimited reign of crime" and merges with the Professor's silhouette. During the same night, a hidden figure confers with sections of his organisation, preparing various crimes such as an attack on a chemical plant, robbing a bank, counterfeiting, poisoning water and destroying harvests. One of the gang members, Thomas Kent (Gustav Diesel), is conflicted between his criminal work, which he needs to do for money, and his affection for a young woman named Lilli (Wera Liessem). Lilli, devoted to Kent, begs him to confide in her. Kent confesses his past and his current situation to her. The two decide to inform the police but are abducted and locked in the strange meeting room with the curtain. The hidden figure announces their death when they discover that the curtained alcove contains only a loudspeaker and that there is a time-bomb. After several escape attempts have failed, they flood the place to lessen the impact of the explosion and break free when the time-bomb goes off. Meanwhile the police are besieging a flat where several gangsters, including Hardy and Bredow, are staying. After a shootout, Hardy commits suicide while the other gangsters surrender. As Bredow testifies that they assassinated Dr. Kramm in the vicinity of the asylum, Lohmann arranges a confrontation between the gangsters and the Professor, which proves inconclusive. On Kent and Lilli's arrival. Baum's shocked reaction to Kent makes Lohmann suspicious. Lohmann and Kent visit the asylum, where they discover that Baum is the mastermind and has planned an attack on a chemical plant that night. Lohmann and Kent go to the exploding plant where they discover Baum watching from afar. Baum flees to the asylum with Lohmann and Kent pursuing. Mabuse's spirit leads Baum to Hofmeister in his cell where he introduces himself as Dr. Mabuse, ending Hofmeister's shock. Baum tries to kill Hofmeister but is stopped by guards, just as Lohmann and Kent arrive. The final scene shows the insane Baum in the cell, tearing Mabuse's writings to shreds. Production. Development. Norbert Jacques wrote the original Dr. Mabuse books in the style of other popular thrillers in Europe at the time, such as Nick Carter, Fantomas, and Fu Manchu. Jacques expanded the traits of these books to include critiques on Weimar Germany. During 1930, Jacques was approached by a film producer to develop a story for a new Dr. Mabuse film with a female villain. This caused Jacques to start writing a new novel called "Mabuse's Colony". In the novel, a character named Frau Kristine obtains a copy of Mabuse's testament which outlines plans for a future world of terrorism and crime that she uses. At this time, Lang and his wife Thea von Harbou were developing the film "M". Von Harbou and Lang were friends with Jacques since creating the first Mabuse film "Dr. Mabuse the Gambler" and went on vacation with each other. Lang asked Jacques for help with the screenplay for "M" and asked for suggestions for a new Mabuse project. Jacques sent Lang his unfinished work for "Mabuse's Colony". Lang used the idea of Mabuse's will from the story and began working on an outline to what would become "The Testament of Dr. Mabuse". Using the outline that Lang proposed, Jacques signed a contract during July 1931 for the movie to be written by von Harbou and directed by Lang based on Lang's own outline. The film was released in tandem with Jacques's book. Jacques' contributions are not mentioned in the film. "The Testament of Dr. Mabuse" is a direct sequel to "Dr. Mabuse the Gambler" and is related to the film "M" which features the Inspector Lohmann character. Preproduction. Many members of the cast and crew worked with Lang previously on his earlier films. Rudolf Klein-Rogge returned to play Dr. Mabuse as he did in "Dr. Mabuse the Gambler". Klein-Rogge acted in Lang's earlier films including "Destiny", "Die Nibelungen", "Metropolis" and "Spies". Otto Wernicke reprises his role as Inspector Lohmann from Lang's "M". Klaus Pohl plays Lohmann's assistant Muller. Pohl acted in Lang's "Woman in the Moon" and in an uncredited role in "M". "The Testament of Dr. Mabuse" was Lang's second film for the company Nero-Film and producer Seymour Nebenzal. The film would be the last film collaboration between Lang and his wife Thea von Harbou, who had worked with Lang on all his directorial efforts since "Destiny". Lang's relationship with von Harbou was ending and two would file divorce papers during 1933. Cinematographer Fritz Arno Wagner returned to work with Lang. Their film credits together include "M", "Spies", and "Destiny". Filming. Lang filmed "The Testament of Dr. Mabuse" at the end of 1932 and the beginning of 1933, desiring to have the film viewed worldwide. In his film, where gun-play, fires, or explosions are needed, Lang often used real weapons. In the opening scene during a power outage, a stunt actor did the gun play. Cinematographer Fritz Arno Wagner stated that he spent most of the production in a state of panic due to the way Lang would endanger his crew. The film is generally filmed in a realistic style with the exception of Mabuse's ghostly appearances throughout the film. Lang admitted later in interviews that if he could re-do the film, he would not have included these supernatural scenes. Wagner filmed the explosion scenes at the factory on location during nighttime. These explosion scenes were the first scenes of the film to be filmed before returning to the studio to film the rest of the film. The film crew had three weeks to prepare for the factory scene by clearing trees and bringing in some artificial trees to match Lang's idea for the scene. The explosion was triggered by Lang himself. During the early years of sound films before dubbing and subtitling, one way to present a film to a foreign audience was to record the film with a translated screenplay with foreign-language cast. As this was a time consuming and expensive procedure, most filmmakers who did this tended to only make one alternative language feature. Producer Seymour Nebenzal felt that creating this alternative version would enhance international sales for "The Testament of Dr. Mabuse". The French-language screenplay was adapted by René Sti. Lang was fluent in French and directed "The Testament of Dr. Mabuse" in both French and German. Actor Karl Meixner played Hofmeister in both versions of the film as he was bilingual. Rudolf Klein-Rogge also features as Mabuse in the French version with his lines being dubbed. The French version, titled "Le Testament du Dr. Mabuse", was edited by Lothar Wolff in France while the film was still in production. Post-production. For the film, Lang commissioned a composer for the first time. Hans Erdmann created the opening theme and the music played during Professor Baum's madness. The soundtrack in the film is deceptive. As in Lang's "M", the film's music and sound are a subtle mix of actual silence with accompanying music and more or less realistic sound effects. Lang worked with his German editor Conrad von Molo directly on the post-production process. Lang was known for making very long films and to suit foreign fashions, editor Lothar Wolff was contracted to shorten the French-language version. This version deletes parts from the romantic sub-plot between Lilli and Kent. Release. The film was scheduled for release on March 24, 1933 at the UFA-Palast am Zoo, the same theater that hosted the original premiere of "Dr. Mabuse the Gambler" during 1922. Adolf Hitler came to power at the end of January 1933 and on March 14, Hitler established the new Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda headed by Joseph Goebbels. Lang had not finished editing the film, and would not have a print for Goebbels to view until March 23. After a screening for Goebbels, he declared that the premiere would be delayed for technical reasons. Goebbels hosted a meeting at his home between himself, Lang and several other German filmmakers on discussions on what films would be permitted by Nazi censorship. Goebbels referred to Lang's films as the style that Hitler wanted for Nazi Germany. By March 30, the Ministry of Propaganda banned "The Testament of Dr. Mabuse" as a menace to public health and safety. Goebbels stated that he would not accept the film as it "showed that an extremely dedicated group of people are perfectly capable of overthrowing any state with violence". During the 1940s, Lang stated that a meeting occurred between Goebbels and himself with Goebbels wanting Lang to work for him to create films for the Nazis. This offer caused Lang to leave Germany to France that very night. Goebbels' diary makes no mention of such a meeting and Lang's passport also shows that he did not leave until June and made repeated trips between France and Germany throughout 1933. The German version of "The Testament of Dr. Mabuse" premiered on April 21, 1933 in Budapest, Hungary with a playing time of 124 minutes. The French-language version was distributed through Europe. A subtitled version of the French version was released during 1943 with the title "The Last Will of Dr. Mabuse" in the United States. During 1951, the German version was released in a 75 minute version with the title "The Crimes of Dr.Mabuse" with featured an English dub. The English subtitles for the 1943 release and the 1952 dub added allusions to Adolf Hitler that were not part of the original script. "The Testament of Dr. Mabuse" was first shown publicly in Germany on August 24, 1961 with a 111-minute running time. During 1973, the unedited German version of the film was released in the United States with the title "The Testament of Dr. Mabuse" with English subtitles. Reception. During 1938, Goebbels wrote that on looking at the film that he was "struck by the dullness of its portrayal, the coarseness of its construction, and the inadequacy of its acting." Despite Goebbels statement, he would present the film uncensored from time to time in private screening rooms for close personal friends. On the French release, "The New York Times" wrote that "It is the French version of Fritz Lang's production, "Le Testament du Dr. Mabuse" ("Dr. Mabuse's Will"). It is a hallucinating and horrifying story, depicted with great power and the extraordinary beauty of photography that Lang has led his admirers to expect." At the Hungarian premiere of the German-language print in 1933, "Variety" wrote that the film "...certainly shows the influence of American mystery pictures. The story is very long-winded and even an ingenious director like Fritz Lang could not prevent its being rather slow-moving in places." Bosley Crowther wrote a negative review in "The New York Times" on the film's 1943 release, stating "it is a good, old film, well played and beautifully directed – but a battered antique, none the less." On the 1973 re-release, the same newspaper wrote a positive review of the film, stating that it "...yields a sensational torrent of images that almost make the early nineteen-seventies seem tame." and "While this "Mabuse" lacks most of the surrealistic effects and the dazzling hallucinations that gave its predecessor such magic, it's rich in the images and the shocks at which Lang excelled." Modern critical reception of the film has been generally positive. Channel 4 gave the film a four stars out of five rating describing the film as a "Sensational crime drama" and "some of the dialogue is clunky, much of the acting...is alien to modern audiences...The final sequence involving the destruction of a huge chemical works and a car chase through eerily lit woods, round hairpin bends and over a closing level crossing is one of the triumphs of early cinema." "TV Guide" gave the film a five out of five star rating terming it "a haunting, suspenseful sequel". Critic Leonard Maltin gave the film three and a half stars out of four and compared it to "Dr. Mabuse The Gambler" stating that it is "less stylized but no less entertaining". The online film database Allmovie rated the film four stars out five, stating that by "mixing several genres including cop drama, mystery, and horror, Lang created a rare hybrid picture full of striking characters and images." Legacy. After the films initial release, producer Seymour Nebenzal used scenes from the car chase in "The Testament of Dr. Mabuse" for his own production of "Le roi des Champs-Élysées" (1934) featuring Buster Keaton. Producer Artur Brauner cited the Dr. Mabuse films as the reason he went into the film industry, noting that he left his parents out in the middle of the night and returned after seeing what he described as "the most exciting film I've ever seen". Brauner later bought the rights to the Dr. Mabuse films and hired Fritz Lang to film a sequel titled "The Thousand Eyes of Dr. Mabuse". The film was released during 1960 and was Lang's final film as a director. During 1962, a remake of "The Testament of Dr.Mabuse" was released by director Werner Klingler. Brauner produced several other Mabuse films after the release of "The Thousand Eyes of Dr. Mabuse". Director Claude Chabrol identified "The Testament of Dr. Mabuse" as his primary inspiration to become a filmmaker. Chabrol made his own Mabuse inspired film that was released during 1990 titled "Dr. M". Home media. A Region 1 DVD of "The Testament of Dr. Mabuse" was released by The Criterion Collection on May 18, 2004. This DVD release consists of two discs and contains both the German-language and French-language versions of the film. film critic Dave Kehr wrote the German print is "the definite version". The German print of the film on the DVD is missing small parts of the film and runs at 121 minutes. A Region 2 DVD of the film was released by Eureka! in a box set titled "The Complete Fritz Lang Box Set". This set included the two other Mabuse films directed by Lang, "Dr. Mabuse the Gambler" and "The Thousand Eyes of Dr. Mabuse". Notes. Version notes:
582693	Khiladiyon Ka Khiladi (English: Player of Players) is a 1996 Bollywood wrestling action thriller starring Rekha in her first villain role, Akshay Kumar, Raveena Tandon and former World Wrestling Federation wrestlers "Crush" and Brian Lee as "The Undertaker". It was one of the highest grossing movie of the year. It was the fourth installment in the Khiladi (film series). Plot. "Khiladiyon Ka Khiladi" is about the deadly game of survival in a ruthless world of crime and sleaze. A criminal don, Maya (Rekha), hosts illegal wrestling matches in Canada (Toronto) and has the full support of the local Police Commissioner. Ajay Malhotra has relocated to Canada and has started his own orchestra with the help of some of his friends. His brother, Akshay (Akshay Kumar), decides to visit him on hearing that he wants to marry his beloved in Canada; on the airplane he meets Priya (Raveena Tandon), and both fall in love. Once in the U.S., Akshay finds out that the police have a warrant for the arrest of Ajay and want to question him. Akshay's attempts to locate Ajay lands him with Maya, who happens to be Priya's sister. Apparently Maya is holding Ajay and will only release him after he hands over incriminating documents. Akshay soon wins Maya's confidence by rescuing her from attempts on her life made by King Don (Gulshan Grover), and Maya begins to like him and trust him. Akshay then proposes to her, to which Maya agrees, much to the disappointment of Priya. Soon Akshay kills Maya's men when they get to know of his true identity. He also organises a fake kidnap drama with Ajay's friends, who kidnap him and demand that Maya come to meet them with Ajay. By now Maya realizes that Akshay is Ajay's brother, and Priya actually loves Akshay. At the end, Maya commits suicide, and before dying she hands over her sister Priya to Akshay. Music. The film soundtrack contains 7 songs composed by Anu Malik.
1268552	Owen Moore (12 December 1886 – 9 June 1939) was an Irish-born actor in American films, appearing in more than 279 movies spanning from 1908 to 1937. Early life and career. Moore was born in Fordstown Crossroads, County Meath, Ireland, and along with his brothers Tom, Matt, and Joe (1895–1926), and sister Mary (1890–1919), he emigrated to the United States as a steerage passenger on board the S.S. "Anchoria" and was inspected on Ellis Island in May 1896. All went on to successful careers in motion pictures in Hollywood, California. While working at D. W. Griffith's Biograph Studios, Moore met a young Canadian actress named Gladys Smith whom he married on January 7, 1911. Their marriage was kept secret at first because of the strong opposition of her mother. However, Gladys Moore would soon overshadow her husband under her stage name, Mary Pickford. In 1912, he signed on with Victor Studios, co-starring in a number of their films with studio owner/actress Florence Lawrence. Mary Pickford left Biograph Studios to join the Independent Moving Pictures (IMP) to replace their major star, Pickford’s Canadian friend, Florence Lawrence. Carl Laemmle, the owner of IMP who soon merged IMP into Universal Studios, agreed to sign her husband as part of the deal. This humiliation, together with his wife's meteoric rise to fame, drastically affected Moore and alcohol became a problem that led to violent behavior and his physically abusing Pickford. In 1916, Pickford met actor Douglas Fairbanks, Pickford filed for a divorce from Moore, and Pickford and Fairbanks married in 1920. Appearing in a number of successful films for Lewis J. Selznick (father of producer David O. Selznick and agent Myron Selznick), in the late teens and early 1920s, Moore was a popular star at Selznick Pictures along with Olive Thomas, Elaine Hammerstein, Eugene O'Brien and Conway Tearle. He also appeared in films for his own production company as well as Goldwyn and Triangle. Moore married a second time to another silent film actress, Katherine Perry, in 1921. With the advent of sound film, Moore's career declined and he became basically a supporting actor for newer stars. He competed, as the third lead, with Cary Grant and Noah Beery, Sr. for the attentions of Mae West in "She Done Him Wrong", Paramount's most lucrative film of 1933. His last film appearance was as a movie director in the 1937 drama "A Star Is Born" starring Janet Gaynor and Fredric March. Death. After years of fighting alcoholism, Owen Moore died in Beverly Hills, California from a heart attack and was interred in the Calvary Cemetery in East Los Angeles, California. For his contribution to the motion picture industry, Owen Moore has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6727 Hollywood Boulevard.
589303	Chirag (Hindi: चिराग; English: Light) is a 1969 Indian Bollywood film directed by Raj Khosla. The film stars Sunil Dutt and Asha Parekh in lead roles. Apart from other plus points, it has the famous song 'teri aankhon ke siwa' sung separately by Mohd. Rafi and Lata Mangeshkar. It also has 'mere bichhade sathi sunta ja' and 'chhayi barakha bahar..' both sung by Lata Mangeshkar. Plot. Ajay Singh (Sunil Dutt) meets Asha Chibber (Asha Parekh), and is led to believe that she belongs to a wealthy family. After a few misunderstandings, he does find out that she is a simple girl living a poor lifestyle. Both do fall in love, and Ajay goes to meet with Asha's brother, Dr. O.P. Chibber (Om Prakash), and his wife, Shanti (Sulochana Latkar). They are pleased to meet him, and Ajay's mother, Gayetridevi (Lalita Pawar) visits them and approves of Asha. Ajay and Asha get married and settle down. After marriage Asha is expected to conceive, but she is unable to do so. After a certain incident she also loses her eyesight and becomes dependent on Ajay. Frustrated Gayetridevi decides to ask Asha to leave the house, and arranges a second marriage for Ajay, an act which will change the lives of everyone in the house. Music. The soundtrack of the film contains 6 songs. The music is composed by Madan Mohan, with lyrics authored by Majrooh Sultanpuri.
1163817	Eleanor Torrey Powell (November 21, 1912 – February 11, 1982) was an American film actress and dancer of the 1930s and 1940s, known for her exuberant solo tap dancing. Early life. Powell was born in Springfield, Massachusetts. A dancer since childhood, she was discovered at the age of 11 by the head of the Vaudeville Kiddie revue, Gus Edwards. When she was 17, she brought her graceful, athletic style to Broadway, where she starred in various revues and musicals. During this time, she was dubbed "the world's greatest tap dancer" due to her machine-gun footwork, and in the early 1930s appeared as a chorus girl in a couple of early, inconsequential musical films. Road to Hollywood. In 1935, the leggy, fresh-faced Powell made the move to Hollywood and did a specialty number in her first major film, "George White's 1935 Scandals" which she later described as a disaster because she was accidentally made up to look like an Egyptian. The experience left her unimpressed with Hollywood and when she was courted by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, she initially refused their offers of a contract. Reportedly, Powell attempted to dissuade the studio by making what she felt were unreasonable salary demands, but MGM agreed to them and she finally accepted. The studio groomed her for stardom, making minimal changes in her makeup and conduct. Film stardom. She was well-received in her first starring role in 1935's "Broadway Melody of 1936" (in which she was supported by Jack Benny and Frances Langford), and delighted 1930s audiences with her endless energy and enthusiasm, not to mention her stunning dancing. According to dancer Ann Miller, quoted in the "making-of" documentary "That's Entertainment! III", MGM was headed for bankruptcy in the late 1930s, but the films of Eleanor Powell, particularly "Broadway Melody of 1936", were so popular they made the company profitable again. Miller also credits Powell for inspiring her own dancing career, which would lead her to become an MGM musical star a decade later. Powell would go on to star opposite many of the decade's top leading men, including James Stewart, Robert Taylor, Fred Astaire, George Murphy, Nelson Eddy, and Robert Young. Among the films she made during the height of her career in the mid-to-late 1930s were "Born to Dance" (1936), "Rosalie" (1937), "Broadway Melody of 1938" (1937), "Honolulu" (1939), and "Broadway Melody of 1940" (1940). All of these movies featured her amazing solo tapping, although her increasingly huge production numbers began to draw criticism. Her characters also sang, but Powell's singing voice was usually (but not always) dubbed. (This would also happen to one of Powell's successors, Cyd Charisse). "Broadway Melody of 1940", in which Powell starred opposite Fred Astaire, featured an acclaimed musical score by Cole Porter. Together, Astaire and Powell danced to Porter's "Begin the Beguine", which is considered by many to be one of the greatest tap sequences in film history. According to accounts of the making of this film, including a documentary included on the DVD release, Astaire was somewhat intimidated by Powell, who was considered the only female dancer ever capable of out-dancing Astaire. In his autobiography "Steps in Time", Astaire remarked, "She 'put 'em down like a man', no ricky-ticky-sissy stuff with Ellie. She really knocked out a tap dance in a class by herself." Decline in popularity. Following "Broadway Melody of 1940" Powell was sidelined for many months following a gall stone operation and things changed somewhat for the worse, at least as far as Powell's movie career was concerned. 1941's "Lady Be Good" gave Powell top billing and a classic dance routine to "Fascinatin' Rhythm", but Robert Young and Ann Sothern were the actual stars of the film. The same happened with Red Skelton in "Ship Ahoy" (1942) and "I Dood It" (1943), although in "Ship Ahoy" her character nonetheless played a central role in the story, and Powell's dance skills were put to practical use when she manages to tap out a morse code message to a secret agent in the middle of a dance routine. She was signed to play opposite Dan Dailey in "For Me and My Gal" in 1942, but the two actors were removed from the picture during rehearsals and replaced by Gene Kelly and Judy Garland. Later, production of a new "Broadway Melody" film that would have paired Powell with Kelly was also cancelled. She parted ways with MGM in 1943 after her next film, "Thousands Cheer", in which she appeared only for a few minutes to perform a specialty number (as part of an all-star cast), and the same year married Canadian-born lead actor Glenn Ford. She danced in a giant pinball machine in "Sensations of 1945" (1944) for United Artists, but this picture was a critical and commercial disappointment. Powell's performance was overshadowed by what was to be the final film appearance of W. C. Fields. Powell retired from the cinema afterwards to concentrate on raising her son, actor Peter Ford, who was born that year (although she did appear in a couple of documentary-style short subjects about celebrities in the late 1940s). Overseas audiences did get to see one additional Powell dance performance in 1946, however, when the compilation "The Great Morgan" was released, which included a number that had been cut from "Honolulu". In 1950, Powell returned to MGM one last time for a cameo in "Duchess of Idaho", starring Esther Williams. Appearing as herself in a nightclub scene, a hesitant Powell is invited to dance by Van Johnson's character, and she begins with a staid, almost balletic performance until she is chided by Johnson for being lazy. She then strips off her skirt, revealing her famous legs, and proceeds to perform a "boogie-woogie"-style specialty number very similar to the one she performed in "Thousands Cheer" seven years earlier. Williams, in her autobiography "The Million Dollar Mermaid", writes of being touched, watching Powell rehearsing until her feet bled, in order to make her brief cameo as perfect as possible. Later career: TV and stage. After "Duchess of Idaho", Powell returned to private life. In May 1952, she emerged as a guest star on an episode of "Four Star Revue" with Danny Thomas and June Havoc. Around this time, she was ordained a minister of the Unity Church and later hosted an Emmy Award-winning Sunday morning TV program for youth entitled "The Faith of Our Children" (1953–1955). Her son, Peter Ford, was a regular on this show and would later find his own success as a rock and roll singer and as an actor. In 1955, Powell made her last-ever film appearance when she appeared in "Have Faith in Our Children", a three-minute short film produced for the Variety Club of Northern California in which Powell asked viewers to donate to the charity. The short, which other than its title had no relation to the TV series, marked the only time Powell appeared on screen with Glenn Ford. Powell divorced Ford in 1959, and that year, encouraged by Peter, launched a highly-publicized nightclub career, including appearances at Lou Walter's Latin Quarter in Boston. She maintained her good figure and looks well into middle age. Her live performances continued well into the 1960s. During the early 1960s she made several guest appearances on variety TV programs, including "The Ed Sullivan Show" and "The Hollywood Palace". She made her final public appearance in 1981 at a televised American Film Institute tribute to Fred Astaire, where she received a standing ovation. Quote. "What we are is God's gift to us, what we become is our gift to God" Death. Eleanor Powell died February 11, 1982 of cancer at the age of 69, and was interred in the Hollywood Forever Cemetery in Hollywood in the Cathedral Mausoleum, Foyer Niche 432, Tier 3. Reintroduction. Powell was reintroduced to audiences in the popular "That's Entertainment!" documentary in 1974, and its sequels "That's Entertainment Part II" (1976) and "That's Entertainment! III" (1994) and the related film "That's Dancing!" (1985) which spotlight her dancing from films such as "Broadway Melody of 1940", "Lady Be Good", and "Born to Dance". She is one of only a few performers to be the subject of spotlight segments (as opposed to being included in a montage with other performers) in all four films. "That's Entertainment! III" is notable for including behind-the-scenes footage of her "Fascinatin' Rhythm" routine from "Lady Be Good". Powell's films continue to be broadcast on television regularly by Turner Classic Movies, with most released in the VHS video format in 1980s and 1990s. North American DVD release of her work has been slower in coming. Aside from clips from her films being included in the aforementioned "That's Entertainment!" trilogy, plus clips that were featured in other releases such as the 2002 special edition DVD release of "Singin' in the Rain", it wasn't until the 2003 DVD release of "Broadway Melody of 1940" that a complete Powell film was released in the format. In February 2007, Warner Home Video announced plans to release a boxed DVD set of Eleanor Powell's musical films by year end. This did not occur; instead, on April 8, 2008 Warner released a third boxed set in the "Classic Musicals from the Dream Factory" series, with nine films, four of which star Powell: "Broadway Melody of 1936", "Born to Dance", "Broadway Melody of 1938", and "Lady Be Good". The films are expected to be released in individual two film sets (the two "Broadway Melody" films in one set, "Born to Dance"/"Lady Be Good" on the other) later in the year. Since 2007 several other Powell films have emerged on DVD, including "Rosalie", "I Dood It" and "Sensations of 1945".
1033758	Sara Sugarman, born 13 October 1962, in Rhyl, Denbighshire, Wales, is a Jewish-Welsh actress and film director whose work includes Disney's "Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen" (2004) and "Very Annie Mary" (2001).[http://www.thejc.com/arts/arts-interviews/103411/the-return-sara-sugarman] She has also appeared in films including "Dealers" (1989) and "Those Glory Glory Days" (1983). Biography. As a young teenager, she had played in a punk outfit called The Fractures, managed by Mike Peters.
959215	John Napier of Merchiston (1550 – 4 April 1617) – also signed as Neper, Nepair – named Marvellous Merchiston, was a Scottish landowner known as a mathematician, physicist, and astronomer. He was the 8th Laird of Merchistoun. John Napier is best known as the inventor of logarithms. He also invented the so-called "Napier's bones" and made common the use of the decimal point in arithmetic and mathematics. Napier's birthplace, Merchiston Tower in Edinburgh, Scotland, is now part of the facilities of Edinburgh Napier University. After his death from the effects of gout, Napier's remains were buried in St Cuthbert's Church, Edinburgh. Early life. Napier's father was Sir Archibald Napier of Merchiston Castle, and his mother was Janet Bothwell, daughter of the politician and judge Francis Bothwell, Lord of Session, and a sister of Adam Bothwell who became the Bishop of Orkney. Archibald Napier was 16 years old when John Napier was born. As was the common practice for members of the nobility at that time, John Napier did not enter schools until he was 13. He did not stay in school very long, however. It is believed that he dropped out of school in Scotland and perhaps travelled in mainland Europe to better continue his studies. Little is known about those years, where, when, or with whom he might have studied, although his uncle Adam Bothwell wrote a letter to John's father on 5 December 1560, saying ""I pray you, sir, to send John to the schools either to France or Flanders, for he can learn no good at home"", and it is believed that this advice was followed. In 1571, Napier, aged 21, returned to Scotland, and bought a castle at Gartness in 1574. On the death of his father in 1608, Napier and his family moved into Merchiston Castle in Edinburgh, where he resided the remaining of his life. Advances in mathematics. His work, "Mirifici Logarithmorum Canonis Descriptio" (1614) contained fifty-seven pages of explanatory matter and ninety pages of tables of numbers related to natural logarithms. The book also has an excellent discussion of theorems in spherical trigonometry, usually known as Napier's Rules of Circular Parts. Modern English translations of both Napier's books on logarithms, and their description can be found on the web, as well as a discussion of Napier's Bones (see below) and Promptuary (another early calculating device). His invention of logarithms was quickly taken up at Gresham College, and prominent English mathematician Henry Briggs visited Napier in 1615. Among the matters they discussed were a re-scaling of Napier's logarithms, in which the presence of the mathematical constant "e" (more accurately, "e" times a large power of 10 rounded to an integer) was a practical difficulty. Napier delegated to Briggs the computation of a revised table. The computational advance available via logarithms, the converse of powered numbers or exponential notation, was such that it made calculations by hand much quicker. The way was opened to later scientific advances, in astronomy, dynamics, and other areas of physics. Napier made further contributions. He improved Simon Stevin's decimal notation. Arab lattice multiplication, used by Fibonacci, was made more convenient by his introduction of Napier's bones, a multiplication tool using a set of numbered rods. Napier may have worked largely in isolation, but he had contact with Tycho Brahe who corresponded with his friend John Craig. Craig certainly announced the discovery of logarithms to Brahe in the 1590s (the name itself came later); there is a story from Anthony à Wood, perhaps not well substantiated, that Napier had a hint from Craig that Longomontanus, a follower of Brahe, was working in a similar direction. It has been shown that Craig had notes on a method of Paul Wittich that used trigonometric identities to reduce a multiplication formula for the sine function to additions. Theology. Napier had an interest in the "Book of Revelation", from his student days at St Salvator's College, St Andrews. Under the influence of the sermons of Christopher Goodman, he developed a strongly anti-papal reading. He further used the "Book of Revelation" for chronography, to predict the Apocalypse, in "A Plaine Discovery of the Whole Revelation of St. John" (1593), which he regarded as his most important work; he also applied the Sibylline Oracles, to calculate the date of the end of the world. Napier believed that would occur in 1688 or 1700. He dated the seventh trumpet to 1541. In his dedication of the "Plaine Discovery" to James VI, dated 29 Jan 1594, Napier urged the king to see "that justice be done against the enemies of God's church," and counselled the King "to reform the universal enormities of his country, and first to begin at his own house, family, and court." The volume includes nine pages of Napier's English verse. It met with success at home and abroad. In 1600 Michiel Panneel produced a Dutch translation, and this reached a second edition in 1607. In 1602 the work appeared at La Rochelle in a French version, by Georges Thomson, revised by Napier, and that also went through several editions (1603, 1605, and 1607). A new edition of the English original was called for in 1611, when it was revised and corrected by the author, and enlarged by the addition of "A Resolution of certain Doubts proponed by well-affected brethren"; this appeared simultaneously at Edinburgh and London. The author stated that he still intended to publish a Latin edition, but it never appeared. A German translation, by Leo de Dromna, of the first part of Napier's work appeared at Gera in 1611, and of the whole by Wolfgang Meyer at Frankfurt-am-Main, in 1615. Among Napier's followers was Matthew Cotterius (Matthieu Cottière). The occult. In addition to his mathematical and religious interests, Napier was often perceived as a magician, and is thought to have dabbled in alchemy and necromancy. It was said that he would travel about with a black spider in a small box, and that his black rooster was his familiar spirit. A contract still exists for a treasure hunt, made between Napier and Robert Logan of Restalrig. Napier was to search Fast Castle for treasure allegedly hidden there, wherein it is stated that Napier should ""...do his utmost diligence to search and seek out, and by all craft and ingine to find out the same, or make it sure that no such thing has been there."" Influence. Among Napier's early followers were the instrument makers Edmund Gunter and John Speidell. The development of logarithms is given credit as the largest single factor in the general adoption of decimal arithmetic. The "Trissotetras" (1645) of Thomas Urquhart builds on Napier's work, in trigonometry. Eponyms. An alternative unit to the decibel used in electrical engineering, the neper, is named after Napier, as is Edinburgh Napier University in Edinburgh, Scotland. The crater Neper on the Moon is named after him. Family. In 1572, Napier married Elizabeth Stirling, daughter of James Stirling, the 4th Laird of Keir and of Cadder. They had two children before Elizabeth died in 1579. Napier then married Agnes Chisholm, with whom he had ten more children. His father-in-law James Chisholm of Cromlix was later mixed up in the Spanish blanks plot, over which Napier with others petitioned the king.
1163580	William "Bill" Maher, Jr. (; born January 20, 1956) is an American stand-up comedian, television host, political commentator, satirist, author, and actor. Before his current role as the host of HBO's "Real Time with Bill Maher", Maher hosted a similar late-night talk show called "Politically Incorrect", originally on Comedy Central and later on ABC. Maher is known for his sarcastic attitude, political satire and sociopolitical commentary, which targets a wide swath of topics including religion, politics, bureaucracies of many kinds, political correctness, the mass media, greed among people and persons in positions of high political and social power, and the lack of intellectual curiosity in the electorate. Maher supports the legalization of marijuana and same-sex marriage. His critical views of religion were the basis for the 2008 documentary film "Religulous". He serves on the board of PETA and is an advisory board member of Project Reason. In 2005, Maher ranked at number 38 on Comedy Central's 100 greatest stand-up comedians of all time. Bill Maher received a Hollywood Walk of Fame star on September 14, 2010. Early life. Maher was born in New York City, the son of William Maher, Sr., a network news editor and radio announcer, and his wife, Julie (Berman), a nurse. He was raised in his Irish American father's Catholic religion, unaware that his Hungarian American mother was Jewish until his early teens. Owing to his disagreement with the Catholic Church's position on birth control, Maher's father stopped taking Maher and his sister to Catholic church services when Maher was thirteen. Maher was raised in River Vale, New Jersey, and graduated from Pascack Hills High School in Montvale in 1974. He received a B.A. in English and history from Cornell University in 1978. Career. Early career. Maher began his career as a stand-up comedian and actor. He was host of the New York City comedy club Catch a Rising Star in 1979. Maher began appearing on Johnny Carson's and David Letterman's shows in 1982. He made limited television appearances including a recurring role in "Sara" (1985), appeared in "Max Headroom" (1987), two separate appearances on "Murder, She Wrote" (1989, 1990), a recurring role in "Charlie Hoover" (1991) and other productions. His feature film debut was in "D.C. Cab" (1983). He later appeared in "Ratboy" (1986), "" (1987),"Cannibal Women in the Avocado Jungle of Death" (1988), and "Pizza Man" (1991), among others. Television career. "Politically Incorrect with Bill Maher". Maher assumed the host role on "Politically Incorrect with Bill Maher", a late-night political talk show that ran on Comedy Central from 1993 to 1997 and on ABC from 1997 to 2002. The show regularly began with a topical monologue by Maher preceding the introduction of four guests, usually a diverse group of individuals from show business, popular culture, political pundits, political consultants, authors, and occasionally news figures. The group would discuss topical issues selected by Maher, who also participated in the discussions. Jerry Seinfeld, a regular guest on the show, stated that "Politically Incorrect" reminded him of talk shows from the 1950s and 60s "when guests interacted with each other as much as with the host." "Politically Incorrect" won an array of awards, including an Emmy Award for Outstanding Technical Direction, two CableACE awards for Best Talk Show Series, and a Genesis Award for Best Television Talk Show. Maher earned numerous award nominations for his producing, writing and hosting of "Politically Incorrect", including ten Emmy nominations, two TV Guide nominations, and two Writers Guild nominations. ABC decided against renewing Maher's contract for "Politically Incorrect" in 2002, after he made a controversial on-air remark shortly after the September 11 attacks. He agreed with his guest, conservative pundit Dinesh D'Souza, that the 9/11 terrorists did not act in a cowardly manner (in rebuttal to President Bush's statement calling 9/11 hijackers cowards). Maher said, "We have been the cowards. Lobbing cruise missiles from two thousand miles away. That's cowardly. Staying in the airplane when it hits the building. Say what you want about it. Not cowardly. You're right." Maher later clarified that his comment was not anti-military in any way whatsoever, referencing his well-documented longstanding support for the American military. After receiving complaints, FedEx and Sears Roebuck pulled their advertisements from the show, costing the show significant revenue. Maher's remarks after 9/11 were not the first time he had sparked controversy on "Politically Incorrect". In the same year, he expressed his deep regrets and apologized after being widely criticized for comparing his dogs to retarded children. The show was canceled on June 16, 2002, and the Sinclair Broadcast Group had dropped the show from its ABC-affiliated stations months prior. On June 22, 2002, just six days after the cancellation of "Politically Incorrect", Maher received the Los Angeles Press Club president's award (for "championing free speech"). Maher was on the board of judges for the 2002 PEN/Newman's Own First Amendment Award. "Real Time with Bill Maher". In 2003, Maher became the host, co-producer and co-writer of "Real Time with Bill Maher", a weekly hour-long political comedy talk show on the cable television network HBO. HBO announced in July 2011 the show had been renewed for its tenth season (2012) and is currently in its 12th. During an interview, Maher told Terry Gross (on NPR's "Fresh Air") that he much prefers having serious and well-informed guests on his program, as opposed to the random celebrities that fleshed out his roundtable discussions on "Politically Incorrect". As with his previous show, "Politically Incorrect", Maher begins "Real Time" with a comic opening monologue based upon current events and other topical issues. He proceeds to a one-on-one interview with a guest, either in-studio or via satellite. Following the interview, Maher sits with three panelists, usually consisting of pundits, authors, activists and journalists, for a discussion of the week's events. In the segment "New Rules" at the end of each show, Maher delivers a humorous editorial on popular culture and American politics. In late May 2005, Alabama Congressman Spencer Bachus sent a letter to Time Warner's board of directors requesting "Real Time" be canceled after remarks Maher made after noting the military had missed its recruiting goals by 42 percent. Bachus said he felt the comments were demeaning to the military and treasonous. Maher stated his highest regard and support for the troops and asked why the congressman criticized him instead of doing something about the recruitment problem. "Real Time" has earned widespread praise. It has been nominated for more than ten Primetime Emmy Awards and six Writer's Guild awards. In 2007, Maher and his co-producers were awarded the Television Producer of the Year Award in Variety Television by the Producers Guild of America. Maher holds the record for the most Emmy nominations without a win, having been nominated on 22 occasions and not winning once. Eleven of the nominations were for "Politically Incorrect", while nine were for "Real Time." The other two were nominations for two of his HBO comedy specials: "Bill Maher: I'm Swiss" and "Bill Maher: The Decider." Christine O'Donnell clip. On September 17, 2010, Maher aired a clip of Delaware Republican Senatorial candidate Christine O'Donnell from the October 29, 1999, episode of his old show "Politically Incorrect" on his current show "Real Time with Bill Maher", where she discussed that she had "dabbled in witchcraft." This was one of the most notable of numerous controversial statements by O'Donnell that made her the most covered candidate in the 2010 mid-term election cycle. Political commentator. Maher is a frequent commentator on various cable news networks, including CNN, MSNBC, FOX News Channel and HLN. Maher has regularly appeared on CNN's "The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer" and has also been a frequent guest on MSNBC's "Hardball with Chris Matthews", "The Rachel Maddow Show", and "Countdown with Keith Olbermann". Maher has also appeared as a guest on HLN's "The Joy Behar Show". Maher hosted the January 13, 2006 edition of "Larry King Live", on which he was a frequent guest. Maher appeared as a special guest on the June 29, 2010 edition of the show, on which CNN anchor Larry King announced his retirement. Maher co-emceed the final show of "Larry King Live" on December 16, 2010 with Ryan Seacrest. Views and beliefs. Politics. Maher eschews political labels, referring to himself as "practical". In the past, he has described himself as a libertarian and has also referred to himself "as a progressive, as a sane person". He has also referred to himself as a "9/11 liberal", noting that his formerly liberal view of Muslims changed as a result of the attacks on September 11, 2001, and he differentiates himself from liberals in his opinion that all religions are not the same. Maher favors ending corporate welfare and federal funding of non-profits as well as the legalization of gambling, prostitution, and marijuana. Maher is a member of the advisory boards for both the NORML and Marijuana Policy Project, organizations which support regulated legalization of marijuana. He describes himself as an environmentalist, and he has spoken in favor of the Kyoto treaty on global warming on his show "Real Time". He often criticizes industry figures involved in environmental pollution. Maher is a board member of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. Before the 2004 U.S. presidential election, Maher became candid in his stated opposition to the re-election of George W. Bush and in his support for John Kerry. Known for protesting against the demonization of the word "liberal", during the campaign Maher criticized Kerry for being ashamed of the word. On his show, the comedian has noted the paradox of people claiming they distrusted "elite" politicians while at the same time wanting elite doctors to treat them and elite lawyers to represent them in court. Maher supports the death penalty. Since the 9/11 attacks, he has endorsed the use of racial profiling at airports. He was originally against the Iraq War, and has summarized his opinion by saying that the United States and the world have had to pay too high a price for the war. He is skeptical of Iraq surviving without civil war. In the 2008 U.S. presidential election, Maher announced his support for Barack Obama. Although Maher welcomed Obama's electoral victory, he has subjected him to criticism since taking office for not acting boldly on health care reform and other progressive issues. On February 23, 2012, after his 'Crazy Stupid Politics' special streamed on Yahoo! Screen, Maher announced that he was contributing $1 million to Priorities USA, the Obama SuperPAC. Maher is a gun owner, and explained in his February 12, 2013 appearance on the late night TV talk show "Conan" that he owns guns for personal home protection. However, he does not identify himself as a "proud" gun owner, commenting that being a proud gun owner is akin to "saying I'm a 'proud remote control owner'". Maher has stated that statistics showing that gun owners are more likely to harm a member of their household are caused by irresponsible gun owners, and believes that tragedies such as school shootings will not lead to fundamental change in gun laws because both Democrats and Republicans favor guns. On June 7, 2013, Bill Maher expressed on his show limited support for the NSA's PRISM intelligence data collection from private phone calls and the Internet, saying that the threat of terrorists obtaining and using nuclear weapons was the tipping point for him. While he stated that he trusted the Obama administration to employ the program responsibly, he described the NSA's access to private data as a "slippery slope", and worried about whether other politicians would be as responsible. Religion. Maher is highly critical of religion and views it as highly destructive. He is described as an agnostic, and refers to himself as one in his feature film "Religulous". As for labels, he has denied being an atheist, saying, "I'm not an atheist. There's a really big difference between an atheist and someone who just doesn't believe in religion. Religion to me is a bureaucracy between man and God that I don't need. But I'm not an atheist, no." Maher has also occasionally referred to himself as an "apatheist", saying "I don't know what happens when you die, and I don't care", adding, "there's atheist and there's agnostic, and I'm okay with us not splitting the difference on those; if you are just not a super-religious person, you are on my team". He has reiterated his stance in subsequent interviews, rejecting both the certitude of the existence, as well as the certitude of nonexistence of deities, concluding, "I'm saying that doubt is the only appropriate response for human beings." He is an advisory board member of author Sam Harris's Project Reason, a foundation that promotes scientific knowledge and secular values within society. Maher and director Larry Charles teamed up to make the movie "Religulous", described by trade publication "Variety" as a documentary "that spoofs religious extremism across the world." It was released on October 3, 2008. Maher is critical towards organized religion as a whole, but believes that "all religions are not alike." Maher says there is something different about Islam, in that "there is no other religion that is asking for the death" of people who dare to criticize it. On October 29, 2010, during a Real Time segment, Maher commented on a news story that reported that the name Mohammed had become the most popular baby name in the United Kingdom. He asked, "Am I a racist to feel alarmed by that? Because I am. And it's not because of the race, it's because of the religion. I don’t have to apologize, do I, for not wanting the Western world to be taken over by Islam in 300 years? Sharia law is being institutionalized in England? Well, then I am right, I should be alarmed." He later defended his comments on CNN, saying, "And when I say Westerner, I mean someone who believes in the values that Western people believe in that a lot of the Muslim world does not. Like separation of church and state. Like equality of the sexes. Like respect for minorities, free elections, free speech, freedom to gather. These things are not just different from cultures that don’t have them...It’s better...I would like to keep those values here." On Fox News in a televised debate with Bill O'Reilly, Maher said that "if Jesus was in charge of the country we’d probably have health care for everybody." Maher received the 2009 Richard Dawkins Award from Atheist Alliance International. Maher was ranked first by MormonVoices, a group associated with Foundation for Apologetic Information & Research, on its Top Ten Anti-Mormon Statements of 2011 list for saying "By any standard, Mormonism is more ridiculous than any other religion". Health care. Maher has stated that the American Medical Association is a powerful lobbying group and one of the primary reasons why the United States had failed to enact health care reform. On August 24, 2009, Maher was a guest on "The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien". On the topic of getting health care reform legislation passed, Maher stated that Obama should forget about trying to get 60 votes for it, "he only needs 51." "Forget getting the sixty votes or sixty percent — sixty percent of people don't believe in evolution in this country — he just needs to drag them to it, like I said, they're stupid; get health care done, with or without them." Maher has expressed the view that most illness is generally the result of poor diet and lack of exercise, and that medicine is often not the best way of addressing illness. In an episode of his show about the 2008 presidential candidates' health plans, Maher stated that poor nutrition is a primary cause of illness, and that "the answer isn't another pill." He also has said:" If you believe you need to take all the pills the pharmaceutical industry says you do, then you're already on drugs!" He has expressed his distaste for the pharmaceutical and health care industries in general, on the grounds that they make their money out of curing people who are made sick by consuming unhealthy food that corporations urge upon the public. He maintains that mass consumption of high-fructose corn syrup is a contributor to the rise in frequency of obesity in the United States. In a discussion with Michael Moore about the film "Sicko", Maher said, "The human body is pretty amazing; it doesn't get sick, usually, for no reason. I mean, there's some genetic stuff that can get to you, but, basically, people are sick in this country because they're poisoned. The environment is a poisoning factor, but also, we gotta say, they poison themselves. They eat shit. People eat shit, and that's, to my way of thinking, about 90 percent of why people are sick, is because they eat shit." On October 9, 2009, on his HBO show, Maher debated the effectiveness of flu vaccinations with Bill Frist and stated, "Why would you let them be the ones to stick a disease into your arm? I would never get a swine flu vaccine or any vaccine. I don’t trust the government, especially with my health." Maher also expressed skepticism about the seriousness of the swine flu and whether completely healthy people could die from it. Maher's comments on medicine have generated criticism from the medical and skeptic communities, and his remarks have been called unscientific and even harmful. Infectious diseases expert Paul Offit has written that misinformation about vaccines from celebrities like Maher have put children at unnecessary risk. Offit notes that celebrities like Maher are seen as "less credible" and would still be considered just "great entertainment" if they weren't joined by the former Director of the National Institutes of Health, Dr. Bernadine Healy and influential pediatrician, Dr. Robert Sears. Oncologist, David Gorski has also criticized Maher's beliefs about vaccines several times in ScienceBlogs, and when Maher received the Richard Dawkins Award in 2009, Gorski wrote it was inappropriate. Skeptics, including mathematician and science writer Martin Gardner, neurologist Steven Novella, and magician Jamy Ian Swiss have also strongly rebuked Maher, characterizing him as anti-science, uninformed and potentially endangering the health of fans who take his "non-medical" advice. Maher responded to the criticism, saying, "What I've read about what they think I'm saying is not what I've said. I'm not a germ theory denier. I believe vaccinations can work. Polio is a good example. Do I think in certain situations that inoculating Third World children against malaria or diphtheria, or whatever, is right? Of course. In a situation like that, the benefits outweigh costs. But to me living in Los Angeles? To get a flu shot? No." Views on 9/11 conspiracy theories. Maher has been a critic of 9/11 conspiracy theories. On October 19, 2007, Maher confronted several 9/11 truthers and had them ejected from his show audience after they interrupted the live show numerous times by calling out from the audience. The incident drew significant media attention and praise from Fox News talk show host and frequent critic John Gibson. Personal life. Maher has never married. Regarding marriage, Maher is quoted on his website as saying, "I'm the last of my guy friends to have never gotten married, and their wives — they don't want them playing with me. I'm like the escaped slave — I bring news of freedom." In 2003, he began dating former Playboy Cyber Girl Coco Johnsen. In November 2004, at the end of their 17-month relationship, she sued him for USD $9 million for "pain and suffering" for alleged "insulting, humiliating and degrading racial comments." Her suit stated that Maher promised to marry her and father her children, support her financially, and purchase a Beverly Hills home. Her suit also alleged that she quit her job as a flight attendant and occasional model to be with him. Maher's lawyers in their response filed on November 23, 2004, in Los Angeles Superior Court said Maher is a "confirmed bachelor, and a very public one at that" who "never promised to marry or to have children with her." Maher's filing stated that, after the relationship had ended, Johnsen "launched a campaign to embarrass, humiliate, and extort ridiculous sums of money from Bill Maher." Johnsen accused another former boyfriend of rape and kidnapping in 1997, and the charges were later dismissed for lack of evidence. The lawsuit was dismissed on May 2, 2005. In 2005, he began dating Karrine Steffans, best-selling author and former hip hop model. When commentators suggested there was a pattern to his dating because both his girlfriend and former girlfriend were black, Maher said, "People say I'm into black women. Robert De Niro is into black women. I'm just into women who are real, and they happen to be black." From 2009 to 2011, Maher dated neuroscientist and science educator Cara Santa Maria. In 2012, Maher purchased a minority ownership interest in the New York Mets.
1067340	Michael Anthony Claudio Wincott (born January 21, 1958) is an actor from Ontario, Canada.
584352	Thamizh is a 2002 released Tamil film. The movie stars Prashanth, Simran Bagga and Nassar. The film is directed by Hari. The film is produced by Amutha Durairaj. The music is by Bharadwaj. This is the first movie directed by Hari. Produced on a budget of 3 crore. Plot. Thamizh (Prashanth) leads a happy life with his mother (Manorama) and sister-in-law (Urvasi). His brother(Livingston) is working in Kuwait and Thamizh too dreams of joining him there. Meenakshi (Simran), their tenant and Thamizh fall in love. When the goons of Periyavar (Ashish Vidyarthi) injure Thamizh's niece, he stops Periyavar's car on the road and questions him. He then beats up one of Periayavar's goons when insulted. This makes him Periyavar's target and though he tries to withdraw from the violence, he is forced to join forces with Rathnam (Nasser), Periyavar's sworn enemy and eventually defeats him. Production. The film marked the debut of director Hari who earlier worked as an assistant director to K. Balachander. Simran was selected as heroine pairing with Prashanth for fourth time after "Kannethire Thondrinal" "Jodi" and "Parthen Rasithen". Shooting commenced in Chennai and proceeded in locations like Mumbai, Kolkata and Delhi. Some scenes are being shot in Sikkim, reportedly the first time a Tamil film is being shot there. A few scenes were picturised on Prashant, Charlie, Vadivelu, and Crane Manohar in Karaikudi. Prashanth had performed a lengthy dialogue in front of Madurai Meenakshi Temple which gained accolades from the onlookers. Soundtrack. The film score and the soundtrack were composed by film composer Bharadwaj. The soundtrack, released in 2002, features 7 tracks .
1058365	Hot Tub Time Machine is a 2010 American science fiction adventure comedy film directed by Steve Pink. It stars John Cusack, Craig Robinson, Clark Duke, Kellee Stewart, Rob Corddry, Crystal Lowe, Lizzy Caplan, and Collette Wolfe. The film also features stars from 1980s films such as Chevy Chase, William Zabka, and Crispin Glover. Plot. In 2010, three friends are dissatisfied with their lives: Adam Yates has been dumped by yet another girlfriend, and his geeky nephew Jacob lives in his basement, playing video games, with no idea who his father is. Lou Dorchen is a party guy way past his prime. Nick Webber has a dead-end job at a dog spa and an unfaithful and controlling wife named Courtney. Lou almost dies from carbon monoxide poisoning in what his friends think is a suicide attempt. Adam and Nick impulsively take him and Jacob to the site of some of their most memorable weekends, the Kodiak Valley Ski Resort. Upon arrival at the resort, they see that Kodiak Valley (K-Val as they call it) has fallen on hard times as well. Everywhere they look, stores and shops are boarded up, the hotel lobby is musty, and has cats running freely around. During a crazy night of drinking in a hot tub, they spill a can of an illegal Russian energy drink called "Chernobly" on the hot tub's controls. The next day, they wake up in 1986. They see each other as their normal age, but in their reflections and to other people, they appear as they did in 1986, except Jacob, who was not yet born. They arrive during "Winterfest '86," the weekend when Poison played to a huge crowd at the then-thriving Kodiak Resort. The film makes a nice nod towards eighties comedy "Better Off Dead" by reference use of a character on a brick mobile phone stating "I won the bet" followed by the line "I want my two dollars". Better Off Dead, an early John Cusack lead, was also in part set around the ski scene.
1055898	Wild Target is a 2010 comedy/thriller film, directed by Jonathan Lynn. It is based on the 1993 French film "Cible Emouvante". Lucinda Coxon wrote the screenplay, and it was produced by Martin Pope and Michael Rose. Production began shooting in London on 16 September 2008, with Bill Nighy, Emily Blunt, Rupert Grint and Eileen Atkins heading the cast. Filming also took place on the Isle of Man. Story. Victor Maynard (Bill Nighy) is an expert and effective assassin living a lonely life in accordance with his family's business. Victor follows a family line of professional assassins, and he completes his assignments quickly and without remorse. One afternoon, after killing one of his targets, he hesitates in killing the pet parrot, Roger, and instead takes him as a gift to his mother, Louisa (Eileen Atkins) a formidable woman who was, until recently, also Victor's housemate. In celebration of his 55th birthday, she gives him a leather bound book with newspaper clippings of each of his kills from his first to his most recent, leaving pages for future hits to be included. She also expresses concern that he might be gay, wondering why he hasn't produced a successor. Rose (Emily Blunt) is a not-so-average girl with a talent for thievery. Her most recent theft involves the sale of a fake Rembrandt painting (painted by her friend in the Restoration Department of the National Gallery) to Ferguson (Rupert Everett), managing to swindle him out of £900,000. Ferguson soon discovers the swap and hires the best hitman, Victor Maynard, to dispose of her. Victor takes the case and immediately tracks Rose down, missing several opportunities to kill her, and accidentally killing a random stall customer in a changing room. He follows her to a balcony opposite her hotel room and tries to shoot her through the window, but is interrupted by the arrival of the front doorman. Victor sets up a microphone and headset to keep her under surveillance, but falls asleep, unable to listen to their noisy lovemaking. He wakes the following morning, just as she is leaving. He has the opportunity to shoot but hesitates. His mother, Louisa, is upset by this missed target (and has apparently killed Roger with a knitting needle) and suggests that Victor apologize to his employer and offer to do the hit for free. He tracks Rose down in a parking garage where he sees another hitman ready to kill her. He takes the preemptive shot, killing the other assassin. He and Rose get into her car, only to be forced out again by Mike (Gregor Fisher), another assassin hiding in the back seat of her Mini. Mike knocks Victor's gun away and lines them up on the wall to be shot and killed, but instead is wounded by Tony (Rupert Grint), an apparently homeless young man who had picked up the dead man's gun. Saying it was his first time handling a firearm, he impresses Victor enough to consider a protégé. But he sends Tony home and Victor and Rose flee. Mike starts firing at them and they nearly run over Tony on his way out of the garage, forcing him to join the ride. Rose offers Victor his price of 30,000 pounds a week for her protection, believing that he is merely a private detective. They travel to a luxury hotel where they can lie low, but by chance get a room on the same floor as Ferguson. Ferguson hires Dixon (Martin Freeman), reputed to be second only to Maynard in proficiency, to kill Rose and Maynard. After several close calls, Mike, who is also Ferguson's bodyguard, discovers their whereabouts when he spots a pair of boots that Rose had stolen from his dead partner. Tony is attacked in the bathroom and nearly drowned in the bathtub by Mike, but he turns the tables and accidentally shoots Mike's ear off before the three of them escape the hotel. Ferguson and Mike pursue them in a high-speed chase through the streets of London until Mike loses control and crashes, sending the pair to the hospital.
775903	Christian Potenza (born December 23, 1972) is a Canadian actor and voice artist born in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. Career. He has been in television since 1997, when he first appeared in the television series "Riverdale" as the character Jimmy. His performances include appearing as Doug in the CBC Television hockey comedy series "The Tournament", as well as CSA Agent Joel in the 2002 Jackie Chan movie "The Tuxedo". Most of Potenza's best-known roles are in television commercials, including a giant yellow toothbrush in the "evil gingivitis" commercials for Listerine, a dog in the Fido commercials "The Office" and "The Promotion", as well as a sunflower in Canadian Kia ads. He performed the voice for Jude Lizowski on "6Teen" other notable cartoon characters include "Trevor Troublemeyer" on the show "Sidekick", he also guest starred in the show "Grojband" as Party Danimal, and performed the voice for Chris ye McLean in the Total Drama series. He also appeared in an episode of "Colin and Justin's Home Heist" in 2007, in which the suburban Oakville home he shares with his daughter Teagan was remodelled. Personal life. His YouTube channel, TheChristianPotenza, largely features videos of his experiences as a voice actor for Teletoon, and has gathered a respectable fan following.
1263832	Vampire in Venice (Original title: Nosferatu a Venezia), also known as Nosferatu in Venice, is a 1988 Italian horror film directed by Augusto Caminito and starring Klaus Kinski, Christopher Plummer, Donald Pleasence and Barbara De Rossi. The film is an in-name-only sequel sequel to Werner Herzog's "Nosferatu the Vampyre", although its almost completely unrelated with Herzog's version of the Nosferatu story only with Kinski returning to reprise his loosely connected role. Donald Pleasence had previously played Dr. John Seward in "Dracula", and Christopher Plummer later went on to play another vampire hunter, Abraham Van Helsing, in the film "Dracula 2000". The film proved unsuccessful at the Italian box-office and enjoyed limited release abroad. Synopsis. Professor Paris Catalano goes to Venice to investigate the last known appearance of Nosferatu during the Carnival of 1786. Catalano seems to think that the vampire is searching for a means to put an end to his torment and actually be dead. He stays with a family who, legend says, has the vampire trapped in a tomb in the basement. After a séance "the vampire" appears and then it becomes a question of how do you put the evil back into the box. Production. Director-producer Caminito had intended to produce a legitimate sequel to Werner Herzog's "Nosferatu the Vampyre", with Kinski reprising his role. However the actor refused to shave his head and don his make-up again. In this film, Kinski sports long blond hair. The vampire character here is simply called "Nosferatu" (and not Dracula). Nosferatu is an almighty and indestructible lord of the undead who wishes his immortal life to end but can only die if a virgin woman grants him her love. Christopher Plummer plays Paris Catalano, an ineffective vampire hunter. The film had a troubled history, with several directors being fired and leaving the project, while Kinski's explosive behavior on set caused many delays in shooting. Producer Caminito decided to direct the film himself when director Mario Caiano resigned after being insulted on the set by Kinski. Kinski claimed in his autobiography, "All I Need Is Love", that he ended up directing himself in certain scenes.
143327	A Family Torn Apart (a.k.a. Sudden Fury) is a 1993 American television film directed by Craig R. Baxley, based on the novel "Sudden Fury: A True Story of Adoption and Murder" by Leslie Walker, which itself is based on a true story. Plot. The film begins with an unknown person hiding an axe covered with blood in the woods. It then focuses on Brian Hannigan, a teenager who contacts the police after the death of his adoptive parents, a double homicide. The investigators immediately see Brian as a suspect, because he was in the house when the murders occurred and because he is too calm considering the circumstances. Chris Hannigan, Brian's 7-year-old brother, tells the police that he saw his other brother, 17-year old Daniel, an aggressive patient at a mental hospital, walking away from the house only seconds after the tragedy. Although Daniel denies having been at the house around the time of the murder, he becomes the prime suspect. Tom Kelley is an attorney who believes in the sons' innocence and starts to collect information himself. Brian tells him that he was adopted at age six, shortly before Daniel was adopted as well. He reveals that although they seemed to be the perfect family, their parents were abusive towards Daniel because he was always getting into trouble. When blood is found on Brian's shoes, the court orders him to be separated from his brothers. He is taken into the Kelley home, much to the fear of Tom's wife Liz. Brian admits that he was always too afraid to speak his mind and describes a conversation between his adoptive mother Maureen and her best friend Barbara, in which Maureen expressed her anger when things do not go the way she wants them to, referring to Daniel's behavior. Brian describes that Daniel came to him later that day, expressing the hatred he feels towards his parents. He was kicked out of the house shortly after and sent back to foster care. Three months later, Daniel was caught while breaking into a house and ended up in a reform school. Although Maureen became very overprotective of him and her recently adopted son Chris, Brian found a way to secretly contact Daniel. Back in present life, Chris tells the police that the guy walking away from the home after the murder wasn't Daniel, but Brian. Criminal attorney, Ken Pierson, also discovered that according to the phone records from the last three months, a dozen calls were made to Daniel including the night of the murders. Investigators start to think that Brian and Daniel were both responsible for their parents' death. Kelley then meets Barbara, who took Brian to church, and tells him that Brian's birth mother abandoned Brian for days until the state took custody of him putting him into a foster care system like Daniel. Barbara then said that Daniel had five different families and Brian had six. When Kelley tells Brian that the police are going to ask him a lot of questions, he finally reveals what really happened that night. On the evening before the murder, Brian arrived home late after going out with Lisa Kensington, a girl who is known at school for being promiscuous. His parents found out and reacted furiously, blaming him for becoming just like Daniel. Brian then calls up Daniel who tells Brian to leave the house, but Brian refuses fearing that Maureen and Joe will do the same thing to Chris. Later that night he overheard his parents agreeing about sending him away too. Upset and enraged, he stabbed both his parents in the basement with a butcher knife. Maureen was almost able to get away, but he followed her in the backyard and killed her with an axe without noticing that Chris was watching him from his window. After his confession, Brian stated he never told Daniel about this and that he never told anyone what was happening in the house because whenever he spoke up when he was little, he would get moved. Brian is then arrested and Kelley returns home disappointed. In the aftertitles, it is stated that Brian served eight years in the Patuxent Institution in Maryland and that Daniel remained having trouble with the law several times and is sent to prison and that Chris got adopted by a loving family.
1165154	Gary Fred Merrill (August 2, 1915 – March 5, 1990) was an American film and television character actor whose credits included more than fifty feature films, a half-dozen mostly short-lived TV series, and dozens of television guest appearances. Merrill starred in "All About Eve" and married his co-star, Bette Davis. Life and career. Born in Hartford, Connecticut, he attended private Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine and began acting in 1944, while still in the United States Army Air Forces, in "Winged Victory". Before entering films, Merrill's deep cultured voice won him a recurring role as Batman in the "Superman" radio series. His film career began promisingly, with roles in films like "Twelve O'Clock High" (1949) and "All About Eve" (1950), but he rarely moved beyond supporting roles in his many Westerns, war movies, and medical dramas. His television career was extensive, if not consistent. He appeared from 1954-1956 as Jason Tyler on the NBC crime drama "Justice", about lawyers of the Legal Aid Society of New York. In that series, he was cast oppostie Dane Clark and then William Prince in the role of Richard Adams.
1130939	John Ingle (May 7, 1928 – September 16, 2012) was an American actor best known for his role as scheming patriarch Edward Quartermaine in the ABC soap opera "General Hospital".
1100091	Gabriel Cramer (; 31 July 1704 – 4 January 1752) was a Swiss mathematician, born in Geneva. He was the son of physician Jean Cramer and Anne Mallet Cramer. Biography. Cramer showed promise in mathematics from an early age. At 18 he received his doctorate and at 20 he was co-chair of mathematics. In 1728 he proposed a solution to the St. Petersburg Paradox that came very close to the concept of expected utility theory given ten years later by Daniel Bernoulli. He published his best-known work in his forties. This was his treatise on algebraic curves (1750). It contains the earliest demonstration that a curve of the "n"-th degree is determined by on it, in general position. He edited the works of the two elder Bernoullis; and wrote on the physical cause of the spheroidal shape of the planets and the motion of their apsides (1730), and on Newton's treatment of cubic curves (1746). He died at Bagnols-sur-Cèze while traveling in southern France to restore his health. He did extensive travel throughout Europe in the late 1730s, which greatly influenced his works in mathematics.
645243	Matthew Cook (born February 7, 1970) is a mathematician and computer scientist who proved Stephen Wolfram's conjecture that the Rule 110 cellular automaton is Turing-complete. Biography. Cook was born in Morgantown, West Virginia and grew up in Evanston, Illinois. His undergraduate studies were at the University of Illinois and the Budapest Semesters in Mathematics program. In the 1980s Cook qualified as a member of the six-person US team to the International Mathematical Olympiad. In 1990, Cook went to work for Wolfram Research, makers of the computer algebra system Mathematica. He did his doctoral work in Computation and Neural Systems at Caltech from 1999 to 2005. He is now at the Institute of Neuroinformatics at Zurich in Switzerland.
695655	Noor Jahan or NoorJahan (Punjabi, ) was the adopted stage name for Allah Wasai (September 21, 1926 – December 23, 2000) who was a legendary singer and actress in British India and Pakistan. Her career spanned seven decades. She was renowned as one of the greatest and most influential singers of her time in South Asia and was given the honorific title of Malika-e-Tarannum (, ). Born in a Punjabi family of musicians, Wasai was pushed by her parents to follow in their musical footsteps and become a singer but she was more interested in acting in films and graced the earliest Pakistani films with her performances. She has recorded about 10,000 songs in various languages of India and Pakistan including Urdu, Hindi, Punjabi and Sindhi languages. Along with Ahmed Rushdi, she holds the highest record of film songs in the history of Pakistani cinema. She is also considered to be the first female Pakistani film director. In 1957, Jahan was awarded the President's Award for her acting and singing capabilities. Early life. Noor Jahan was born into a Muslim family in Kasur, Punjab, British India and was one of the eleven children of professional musicians Madad Ali and Fateh Bibi. Career. Wasai began to sing at the age of five or six years old and showed a keen interest in a range of styles, including traditional folk and popular theatre. Realising her potential for singing, her mother sent her to receive early training in classical singing under Ustad Bade Ghulam Ali Khan who was also a native of Kasur. He instructed her in the traditions of the Patiala Gharana of Hindustani classical music and the classical forms of "thumri", dhrupad, and khyal. At the age of nine, Wasai drew the attention of Punjabi musician Ghulam Ahmed Chishti, who would later introduce her to stage in Lahore. He composed some ghazals, naats and folk songs for her to perform, although she was more keen in breaking into acting or playback singing. Once her vocational training finished, Wasai pursued a career in singing alongside her sisters in Lahore and would usually take part in the live song and dance performances prior to screenings of films in film theatres. The family moved to Calcutta (now Kolkata) in hope of developing the movie careers of Wasai and her sisters. During their stay in Calcutta, the renowned singer Mukhtar Begum, encouraged Wasai and her two older sisters to join film companies and recommended them to various producers. She also recommended them to her husband, Agha Hashar Kashmiri, who owned a "maidan theatre" (a tented theatre to accommodate large audiences). It was here that Wasai received the stage name Baby Noor Jahan. Her older sisters were offered jobs with one of the Seth Sukh Karnani companies, Indira Movietone and they went on to be known as the "Punjab Mail". Wasai would later adopt Mukhtar Begum's way of performance and sari attire. In 1935, K.D. Mehra directed "Pind di Kuri" in which Jahan acted along with her sisters. She next acted in a film called "Missar Ka Sitara" (1936) by the same company and sang in it for music composer, Damodar Sharma. Baby Noor Jahan also played the child role of Heer in the film "Heer-Sayyal" (1937). After a few years in Calcutta, Noor Jahan returned to Lahore in 1938. In 1939, Ghulam Haider composed songs for Jahan which led to her early popularity. She then recorded her first song "Shala Jawaniyan Mane" for Dalsukh M. Pancholi's movie "Gul Bakavli". In 1942, she played the main lead opposite Pran in "Khandaan". It was her first role as an adult, and the film was a major success. "Khandaan"'s success saw her shifting to Bombay, with director Syed Shaukat Hussain Rizvi. She shared melodies with Shanta Apte in "Duhai" (1943). It was in this film that Noor Jahan lent her voice for the second time, to another actress named Husn Bano. She married Rizvi later the same year. In 1945, Jahan played the lead role, alongside Lata Mangeshkar and Asha Bhosle, in the movie "Bari Maa". In 1945, she achieved a milestone, when she sung a Qawwali with Zohrabai Ambalewali and Kalyani which was "Aahen Na Bhareen Shikave Na Kiye". This was the first ever Qawwali recorded in female voices in South Asian films. Noor Jahan's last film in India was "Mirza Sahibaan" (1947) which starred Prithviraj Kapoor's brother Trilok Kapoor. Noor Jahan sang 127 songs in Indian films and the number of talking films she made from 1932 to 1947 was 69. The number of silents was 12. Fifty-five of her films were made in Bombay, eight in Calcutta, five in Lahore and one in Rangoon (now Yangon), Burma. Acting career in Pakistan. After the creation of Pakistan in 1947, Rizvi and Jahan decided to move to Pakistan. They left Bombay and settled in Karachi with their family. Three years after settling in Pakistan, Noor Jahan starred in her first film in Pakistan, "Chan wey" (1951), opposite Santosh Kumar, which was also her first Punjabi film as a heroine. Shaukat and Noor Jahan directed this film together making Noor Jahan Pakistan's first female director. Noor Jahan's second film in Pakistan was "Dopatta" (1952) which was Produced by Aslam Lodhi, Directed by S Fazli and assisted by A H Rana as Production Manager. Dopatta turned out to be an even bigger success than "Chan wey" (1951). From 1953 to 1954, Jahan and Rizvi were divorced due to personal differences. She kept custody of the three children from their marriage. News of several affairs followed, including one with cricketer, Nazar Mohammad. In 1959, she married another actor, Ejaz Durrani, nine years her junior. Durrani pressured her to give up acting, and her penultimate film as an actress/singer was "Mirza Ghalib" (1961). This contributed to the strengthening of her iconic stature. She gained another audience for herself. Her rendition of Faiz Ahmed Faiz's "Mujh se pehli si mohabbat mere mehboob naj maang" is a unique example of "tarranum", reciting poetry as a song. Noor Jahan last acted in "Baaji" in 1963, though not in a leading role. Noor Jahan bade farewell to acting in 1963 after a career of 33 years (1930 to 1963). The pressure of being a mother of six children and the demands of being a wife to another actor forced her to give up her career. Noor Jahan made 14 films in Pakistan, ten in Urdu, four in Punjabi. Noor Jahan as a playback singer. After quitting acting she took up playback singing. She made her debut as a playback singer in 1960 with the film "Salma". Her first initial playback for a Pakistani film was for "Jan-e-Bahar" (1958), in which she sang the song "Kaisa Naseeb Layi Thi", picturised on Musarrat Nazir. She received many awards, including the highest Pakistani honour in entertainment, "Tamgha-e-Imtiaz" ("The Pride of Performance") in 1966, Pakistan's top civil award. She sang a large number of duets with Ahmed Rushdi, Mehdi Hassan, Masood Rana, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan and Mujeeb Aalam. She had a great understanding and friendship with many great singers of Asia, for example with Alam Lohar and many more singers also. In the 1990s, Jahan also sang for then débutante actresses Neeli and Reema. For this very reason, Sabiha Khanum affectionately called her "Sadabahar" (evergreen). Her popularity was further boosted with her patriotic songs during the 1965 war between Pakistan and India. Jahan visited India in 1982 to celebrate the Golden Jubilee of the Indian talkie movies, where she met Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi in New Delhi and was received by Dilip Kumar and Lata Mangeshkar in Mumbai. Patriotic songs. During the 1965 India-Pakistan war. Noor Jahan sung many patriotic songs enthusiastically, which became tremendously popular. Some of these songs are listed below: Besides this she also sang famous patriotic song "Roshan meri aankhon mein" (Written by Poet Late Manzoor Ahmar who died with Poor Life) for PTV in nineties. Last years and death. In 1986, on a tour of North America, Jahan suffered from chest pains and was diagnosed with angina pectoris after which she underwent a surgery to install a pacemaker. In 2000, Jahan was hospitalised in Karachi and suffered a heart attack. On December 23, 2000, Jahan died as a result of heart failure. Her funeral took place at Jamia Masjid Sultan, Karachi and she was buried at the Gizri Graveyard near the Saudi Consulate in Karachi.
1103939	Ulisse Dini (14 November 1845 – 28 October 1918) was an Italian mathematician and politician, born in Pisa. He is known for his contribution to real analysis, partly collected in his book ""Fondamenti per la teorica delle funzioni di variabili reali"". Life and academic career. Dini attended the Scuola Normale Superiore in order to become a teacher. One of his professors was Enrico Betti. In 1865, a scholarship enabled him to visit Paris, where he studied under Charles Hermite as well as Joseph Bertrand, and published several papers. In 1866, he was appointed to the University of Pisa, where he taught algebra and geodesy. In 1871, he succeeded Betti as professor for analysis and geometry. From 1888 until 1890, Dini was "rettore" of the Pisa University, and of the "Scuola Normale Superiore" from 1908 until his death in 1918. He was also active as a politician: in 1871 he was voted into the Pisa city council, and in 1880, he became a member of the Italian parliament. Honors. In he was elected honorary member of the London Mathematical Society. Work. Research activity. Dini worked in the field of mathematical analysis during a time when it was begun to be based on rigorous foundations. In addition to his books, he wrote about sixty papers.
1678484	Dark House is a supernatural horror film directed by Darin Scott and stars Jeffrey Combs, Meghan Ory and Diane Salinger with Matt Cohen, Shelly Cole,
1060762	Emma Rose Roberts (born February 10, 1991) is an American actress, model and singer. She is the daughter of actor Eric Roberts and niece of Julia Roberts. Roberts became known for her role as Addie Singer in the Nickelodeon television series "Unfabulous". She released her debut album, which also served as the show's soundtrack "Unfabulous and More". Roberts then pursued a solo singing career by recording two songs for the soundtracks of "Ice Princess" and "Aquamarine" (in which Roberts starred as one of the leads). Roberts then began to focus on her acting career, the title character in the 2007 film "Nancy Drew", and her voice-over debut in "The Flight Before Christmas". In 2008 and 2009, Roberts was cast in the coming-of-age movies "Wild Child", "Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac" and "Lymelife". Roberts appeared in the 2009 family film "Hotel for Dogs" and "The Winning Season". In 2010, she appeared in "Valentine's Day", which also starred Julia Roberts. Later the same year, she had a leading role in "It's Kind of a Funny Story". In 2010, she played the role of Molly in the Joel Schumacher film "Twelve". In 2011, she starred as one of the leads in the slasher film "Scream 4" and in the romantic comedy film "The Art of Getting By". In 2013, she played one of the lead characters in the comedy film "We're the Millers" and will star in "", the upcoming third season of the horror anthology series "American Horror Story". Early life. Roberts was born in Rhinebeck, Dutchess County, New York. She is the daughter of actor Eric Roberts and Kelly Cunningham. She is the stepdaughter of Eliza Roberts and Kelly Nickels (formerly of L.A. Guns), and the niece of actresses Julia Roberts and Lisa Roberts Gillan. She has a half sister, Grace Nickels. Acting career. 2001–2005: Early career and "Unfabulous". During her childhood, Roberts spent time on the sets of her aunt Julia Roberts' films. These experiences sparked a desire in Emma, from the age of five, to follow her father and aunts into the film industry. Although her mother initially wanted her to have a normal childhood, Roberts made her acting debut at age nine in Ted Demme's 2001 drama "Blow". It was the first film for which she ever auditioned. In the film, she portrayed Kristina Jung, the daughter of Johnny Depp's character, cocaine smuggler George Jung. In 2001, Roberts also had a role in Leif Tilden's 10-minute short "bigLove", and was an uncredited extra in some scenes featuring her aunt Julia Roberts in "America's Sweethearts". She went on to appear in smaller roles in two family films, in 2002's "Grand Champion", as the sister of the main character Buddy (Jacob Fisher); and in 2003's "Spymate", as the kidnapped daughter of former secret agent Mike Muggins (Chris Potter), who tries to rescue her with the help of a spy monkey. "Grand Champion" had a brief theatrical release in August 2004, while "Spymate" was not released until February 2006, when it was given a theatrical run in Canada, followed by its DVD release in April 2006. In August 2003, Roberts was scheduled to shoot an independent film called "Daisy Winters", starring as the title character, alongside Rachel Weisz. However, the film, which would have been Roberts's first leading role, never began shooting due to financial problems. In 2004, Roberts became a teen idol starring as the lead character Addie Singer in the Nickelodeon series "Unfabulous", which debuted in September 2004. Nickelodeon had wanted to cast her for the role from the beginning, and the teen sitcom earned Roberts a Teen Choice Award nomination and several Young Artist Award nominations. The show aired for three seasons from 2004 to 2007 and aired 42 episodes; the third season ended on December 16, 2007. The television series focused on Addie Singer (Roberts) a seventh grader whose life is "unfabulous" and she writes songs about her life. The television series had had various TV movies which include: "The Perfect Moment" which premiered on Nickelodeon on October 6, 2006. In 2004, Roberts guest-starred in an episode of the Nickelodeon series "Drake and Josh", Roberts was in the episode "Honor Council". Because her character on "Unfabulous" writes songs and plays guitar, Nickelodeon soon considered a career in music for Roberts. 2006–present: Theatrical films. In 2006, Roberts returned to the big screen, starring alongside Sara Paxton and singer JoJo in "Aquamarine". Roberts won a 2007 Young Artist Award for Best Supporting Young Actress in a Feature Film for her role in the film. The film "Aquamarine" took No. 5 place at the box office on its opening weekend making $8 million. In early 2006, Roberts finished shooting her title role in "Nancy Drew". The film was released to theaters on June 15, 2007, and grossed over $7 million in its opening weekend, though the film was not well received by critics. In December 2007, Roberts began filming "Hotel for Dogs". In 2008, Roberts had her voiceover debut when she voiced the English version of the character Wilma in the CGI-animated family film "The Flight Before Christmas". In 2009, Roberts starred alongside Jake T. Austin in "Hotel for Dogs", based on the novel by Lois Duncan. The film premiered on January 15, 2009, and was released to theaters on January 16, 2009, and took No.5 place in its opening weekend with over $17 million. The film has to-date grossed over $114 million, and received generally mixed reviews from critics. Roberts starred as the lead in the film "Wild Child", about a rebellious teen from Malibu sent to a boarding school in England. Roberts described her character as "pretty much your typical spoiled-brat Malibu socialite who gets shipped off to British boarding school." Roberts also appeared in the indie film "Lymelife" with Alec Baldwin, which was premiered at the 2008 Toronto International Film Festival. Roberts said that "Lymelife" is “kind of like "American Beauty" meets "The Ice Storm"”, and that her reasoning for doing the film was that, "Some people look at me and think, She's just Julia Roberts's niece. So I wanted to do something smaller and edgier, something that would show I really am an actress." Roberts co-starred as Grace in the hit 2010 film "Valentine's Day" with her aunt Julia Roberts. Roberts is set to reunite with "Nancy Drew" director Andrew Fleming on both "Rodeo Gal" and a "Nancy Drew" sequel, although the latter has been put on hold since 2007. She appeared in the sports comedy "The Winning Season". In 2010, Roberts also appeared in "Twelve" and "It's Kind of a Funny Story". According to BloodyDisgusting.com Roberts will be starring in the horror film, "Grimm", which follows the Quinn family that moves to Marburg, Massachusetts, a town that turns out to be haunted by the most horrific nightmares spawned by the imagination of the Brothers Grimm. She co-starred in the film adaptation of "Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac", as well as "A Great Education". She also starred alongside with Freddie Highmore in 2011's romantic comedy "The Art of Getting By". In May 2010, Roberts received the role of Jill Roberts in the Wes Craven film "Scream 4". The film opened in theaters April 15, 2011. She also appeared on "Take Two With Phineas and Ferb". In February 2012, Roberts began filming a new movie in Syracuse, NY called "Adult World". The film also takes place in Syracuse and will co-star John Cusack. Roberts plays a recent college graduate who works at an adult bookstore to make ends meet. Roberts appears in a supporting role in Dustin Lance Black's "Virginia", which will receive a limited theatrical release in May 2012 after a two and a half year delay. Roberts appeared in the August 2012 film "Celeste and Jesse Forever", parodying pop stars such as Kesha with her performance as Riley Banks, an incurious blonde singer. Roberts said in an interview that her role as Banks tempted her to write an album of songs using her character as an alter ego. On February 7 2013, The Hollywood Reporter confirmed that Roberts was cast to star a pilot for Fox called "Delirium", based on the Lauren Oliver novels. Roberts will be playing Lena Haloway, the protagonist. On may 8 it was reported that Fox has decided not to pick up Delirium. Roberts stated in her Twitter account “Sad about Delirium. Thank you guys so much for your support!!!” On May 22 2013, TV Line announced that Roberts will be joining in the third season of the horror anthology series "". Roberts will play a self-involved party girl named Madison. Roberts starred in the comedy film "We're the Millers" alongside Jennifer Aniston and Jason Sudeikis. It was released on August 7 2013. The film received mixed reviews from critics and was a financial success grossing over $200 million with a budget of $37 million. Music career. In 2005, Roberts had a debut album "Unfabulous and More". The album was released on September 27, 2005, through Columbia Records and Nick Records. It also served as the soundtrack to the television series, "Unfabulous", in which Roberts stars. The album peaked at No. 46 on "Billboards Top Heatseekers chart. In September 2005, two promotional singles were released from the album—"I Wanna Be" and "Dummy." The album includes several original songs (among them "Dummy" and "I Wanna Be," both of which were also released as music videos, "I Have Arrived" and "This Is Me," which was co-written by Roberts), as well as some of Addie's songs from the first season, including "Punch Rocker" and "New Shoes" (both from the episode "The Party"), "94 Weeks (Metal Mouth Freak)" (from "The Bar Mitzvah") and "Mexican Wrestler" (which had previously appeared on Jill Sobule's 2000 album Pink Pearl and in the episode "The 66th Day" from "Unfabulous"). During the same year, Roberts recorded "If I Had It My Way" for the soundtrack of the 2005 Disney film "Ice Princess". In 2006, Roberts covered the song "Island in the Sun", which was originally recorded by Weezer in 2001; she recorded the song for the "Aquamarine's" soundtrack, a film where she starred as one of the leads. Roberts said in a 2007 interview, "Right now I am focusing on movies. I am getting ready to start a new movie this summer so that is taking a lot of my time. I think when I am a little bit older it is definitely something I’d like to pursue." In another interview, she said, "My musical career is indefinitely on hold. I don't like people who become like 'actor slash singer.' I think people should be one or the other because usually you're not going to be great at both. You're going to better at one, so you might as well stick to the one you're good at. I'm going for acting." Spokesmodel. In February 2009, she was named the brand ambassador for Neutrogena, appearing in print and television ads for the company. Roberts has also appeared multiple times as part of "Teen Vogue"’s Best Dressed list, including June 2007, September 2008, December 2008 and February 2009. Personal life. In September 2011, Roberts began attending Sarah Lawrence College. In January 2012, Roberts's publicist announced that Roberts had chosen to "defer her college experience" due to work commitments.
1209423	The Ugly American is a 1958 political novel by Eugene Burdick and William Lederer upon which a 1963 movie starring Marlon Brando was based. The novel became a bestseller, was influential at the time, and is still in print. The book is a quasi-roman à clef; that is, it presents, in a fictionalized guise, the experience of Americans in Southeast Asia (Vietnam) and allegedly portrays several real people who are represented by pseudonyms. 1958 novel. The novel takes place in a fictional nation called Sarkhan (an imaginary country in Southeast Asia that somewhat resembles Burma or Thailand, but which is meant to allude to Vietnam) and includes several real people, most of whose names have been changed. The book describes the United States's losing struggle against Communism—what was later to be called "the battle for hearts and minds" in Southeast Asia—because of innate arrogance and the failure to understand the local culture. The title is actually a double entendre, referring both to the physically unattractive hero, Homer Atkins, and to the ugly behavior of the American government employees.
1236316	Daniel James Roebuck (born March 4, 1963) is an American television film actor, writer and producer, primarily in films, soap operas and television. Life and career. Roebuck was born in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania and graduated from Bethlehem Catholic High School in Bethlehem.
1033514	Ray Burdis (born October 1959 in London) is an English actor, screenwriter, director and film producer. Burdis started acting at eleven years old when he trained at the Anna Scher Theatre in Islington. He appeared in an episode of the classic BBC sitcom "Steptoe and Son" when he was fifteen, but his first major role was at the age of sixteen, in the Thames Television series "You Must Be Joking! ", which he also co-created and wrote. He also starred with Phil Daniels in "Four Idle Hands", at the time having two hit networked television shows running alternately in the same hour. In 1978 Burdis auditioned for a presenting job on the BBC children's programme Blue Peter as a replacement for John Noakes. Richard Marson's book celebrating the show's fiftieth anniversary records this fact and film of the audition was shown at a BAFTA celebration in October 2008. Burdis came to real prominence when he took the part of cowardly inmate Eckersley in the controversial movie "Scum" in 1979. He had played the same role two years earlier in a BBC television version of the story, although this was not transmitted for many years due to its graphic nature, hence the cinematic re-make.
1092512	Leon Max Lederman (born July 15, 1922) is an American experimental physicist who received, along with Martin Lewis Perl, the Wolf Prize in Physics in 1982, for their research on quarks and leptons, and the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1988, along with Melvin Schwartz and Jack Steinberger, for their research on neutrinos. He is Director Emeritus of Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab) in Batavia, Illinois, USA. He founded the Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy, in Aurora, Illinois in 1986, and has served in the capacity of Resident Scholar since 1998. In 2012 he was awarded the Vannevar Bush Award for his extraordinary contributions to understanding the basic forces and particles of nature. Early life and career. Lederman was born in New York City, New York, the son of Minna (née Rosenberg) and Morris Lederman, a laundryman. Lederman graduated from the James Monroe High School in the South Bronx. He received his bachelor's degree from the City College of New York in 1943, and received a Ph.D. from Columbia University in 1951. He then joined the Columbia faculty and eventually became Eugene Higgins Professor of Physics. He took an extended leave of absence from Columbia in 1979 to become director of Fermilab. Resigning from Columbia (and retiring from Fermilab) in 1989 to teach briefly at the University of Chicago, he then moved to the physics department of the Illinois Institute of Technology, where he currently serves as the Pritzker Professor of Science. In 1991, Lederman became President of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Lederman is also one of the main proponents of the "Physics First" movement. Also known as "Right-side Up Science" and "Biology Last," this movement seeks to rearrange the current high school science curriculum so that physics precedes chemistry and biology. A former president of the American Physical Society, Lederman also received the National Medal of Science, the Wolf Prize and the Ernest O. Lawrence Medal. Lederman serves as President of the Board of Sponsors of The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. He also served on the board of trustees for Science Service, now known as Society for Science & the Public, from 1989 to 1992. Among his achievements are the discovery of the muon neutrino in 1962 and the bottom quark in 1977. These helped establish his reputation as among the top particle physicists. In 1977, a group of physicists led by Leon Lederman announced that a particle with a mass of about 6.0 GeV was being produced by the Fermilab particle accelerator. The particle's initial name was the greek letter Upsilon (formula_1). After taking further data, the group discovered that this particle did not actually exist, and the "discovery" was named "Oops-Leon" as a pun on the original name (mispronounced ) and Dr. Lederman's first name. As the director of Fermilab and subsequent Nobel physics prizewinner, Leon Lederman was a very prominent early supporter - some sources say the architect or proposer Lederman later wrote his 1993 popular science book "" - which sought to promote awareness of the significance of such a project - in the context of the project's last years and the changing political climate of the 1990s. The increasingly moribund project was finally shelved that same year after some $2 billion of expenditure. In 1988, Lederman received the Nobel Prize for Physics along with Melvin Schwartz and Jack Steinberger "for the neutrino beam method and the demonstration of the doublet structure of the leptons through the discovery of the muon neutrino". Lederman also received the National Medal of Science (1965), the Elliott Cresson Medal for Physics (1976), the Wolf Prize for Physics (1982) and the Enrico Fermi Award (1992). In 1995, he received the Chicago History Museum "Making History Award" for Distinction in Science Medicine and Technology. Lederman was an early supporter of Science Debate 2008, an initiative to get the then-candidates for president, Barack Obama and John McCain, to debate the nation's top science policy challenges. In October 2010, Lederman participated in the USA Science and Engineering Festival's Lunch with a Laureate program where middle and high school students got to engage in an informal conversation with a Nobel Prize-winning Scientist over a brown bag lunch. Lederman was also a member of the USA Science and Engineering Festival's Advisory Board and CRDF Global. Personal life. Dr. Lederman was born in New York to a family of Jewish immigrants from Russia. His father operated a hand laundry while encouraging Leon to pursue his education. He went to elementary school in New York City, continuing on to college and his doctorate in the city. In his book,"", Lederman writes that, although he was a chemistry major, he became fascinated with physics, because of the clarity of the logic and the unambiguous results from experimentation. His best friend during his college years, Martin Klein, convinced him of "the splendors of physics during a long evening over many beers." After that conversation he became resolute and unwavering regarding his desire to pursue physics. When he joined the Army with a B.S. in Chemistry, he was determined to become a physicist following his service."by Leon Lederman with Dick Teresi" (copyright 1993) Houghton Mifflin Company After three years in the U.S. Army during World War II, he took up physics at Columbia University, and received his Masters in 1948. Lederman began his Ph.D research working with Columbia's Nevis synchro-cyclotron, which was the most powerful particle accelerator in the world at that time."by Leon Lederman with Dick Teresi" (copyright 1993) Houghton Mifflin Company Dwight D. Eisenhower, then the president of Columbia University, and future president of the United States, cut the ribbon dedicating the synchro-cyclotron in June 1950. These atom smashers were just coming of age at this time and created the new discipline of particle physics."by Leon Lederman with Dick Teresi" (copyright 1993) Houghton Mifflin Company After receiving his Ph.D and then becoming a faculty member at Columbia University he was promoted to full professor in 1958."by Leon Lederman with Dick Teresi" (copyright 1993) Houghton Mifflin Company In "The God Particle" he once wrote "The history of atomism is one of reductionism – the effort to reduce all the operations of nature to a small number of laws governing a small number of primordial objects." "by Leon Lederman with Dick Teresi" (copyright 1993) Houghton Mifflin Company And this was the quest he undertook. This book shows that he pursued the quark, and hopes to find the Higgs boson. The top quark, which he and other physicists realized must exist according to the standard model, was, in fact, produced at Fermilab not long after this book was published. He is known for his sense of humor in the physics community. On August 26, 2008 Dr. Lederman was video-recorded by a science focused organization called ScienCentral, on the street in a major U.S. city, answering questions from passersby.http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/cosmicvariance/2008/08/26/street-corner-science-with-leon-lederman He answered questions such as "What is the strong force?" and "What happened before the Big Bang?". He has three children with his first wife, Florence Gordon, and now lives with his second wife, Ellen (Carr), in Batavia, Illinois.
1016258	The Heroic Trio ("Dung fong saam hap", TC: 東方三俠, pinyin: "dōng fāng sān xiá") is a 1992 Hong Kong action film directed by Johnny To, starring Michelle Yeoh, Maggie Cheung, and Anita Mui as the titular trio. Other cast include Damian Lau, Anthony Wong Chau-Sang, Paul Chun, James Pak and Yan Yee Kwan. The main characters of the film are reunited in a sequel, another 1993 film, "Executioners". Synopsis. An invisible woman is kidnapping newborn babies who are destined to be emperors and delivering them to the mysterious subterranean supernatural Evil Master. The police are powerless, and the city must be saved by three very different women who share a terrible past. Anita Mui plays the mild-mannered wife of a police inspector who's also the mask-wearing, sword-slinging and knife-throwing crime fighter, Wonder Woman. Maggie Cheung plays the shotgun-toting, hard-boiled bounty hunter, Thief Catcher. Michelle Yeoh is Invisible Girl, the troubled but determined strong right arm of the Evil Master. Characters. Female Heroes. Wonder Woman. Wonder Woman is intelligent and helpful. Her true identity is Tung, long-time wife of Police Inspector Lau. Wonder Woman has a recurring dream in which she fails to save her sister from falling off a cliff when they were little girls; in the dream, it is unclear whether the sister has survived or not. This worries Tung and she feels that she must find her; at the same time she hears that newborn babies are being kidnapped, and that one baby has been taken by the Thief Catcher. She is played by Anita Mui, in the film. She is referred to as Shadow Fox in the English dub. Ching. Ching is the sister of Tung. In the film, she tells Tung that she is leaving home and not coming back. It is also seen that she has been in contact with a villain named the Evil Master. Though the Thief Catcher is her childhood friend, the two are only reunited as adults. Ching is responsible for the kidnapping of the babies. She uses an invisible robe which is given to her by the Evil Master to carry out the kidnappings. Ching is known to the Evil Master as "San". She is portrayed by actress Michelle Yeoh in the film. Thief Catcher. Thief Catcher is an irresponsible detective who is attracted to the Chief of Police. She takes one of the babies as bait for the kidnapper and heads for a remote cottage. In the ensuing struggle, the baby is accidentally killed. Afterward, she meets with Ching and asks why the Evil Master wants the babies. She later is hired to rescue the Police Chief's baby, but in doing so, she almost gets caught. She teams up with Wonder Woman to rescue the babies and to stop the Evil Master's men attacking the hostages at the train station. She is played by Maggie Cheung.
1038219	Jason Joseph Connery (born 11 January 1963) is a British actor. Early life. Jason Joseph Connery was born on 11 January 1963 in London, England. His parents are both actors, Scottish-born Sean Connery and the late Australian-born Diane Cilento. He attended Millfield School, a co-educational independent school in the village of Street, in Somerset, England, and later the independent Gordonstoun School in Moray, Scotland. He was later accepted into the Bristol Old Vic Theater School. Career. Jason Connery performed many roles in theater and subsequently had parts in several B-films. His film debut was in "The Lords of Discipline" (1983). He appeared in the "Doctor Who" serial "Vengeance on Varos" in 1985; he also portrayed Robin Hood (a role his father had taken on in the film" Robin and Marian") in the final season of the television series "Robin of Sherwood" in 1986. Connery became well known in the UK for this role. Connery also portrayed James Bond creator Ian Fleming in the 1990 television drama "". (Fleming created the James Bond character, which was the role that made his father Sean Connery a star.) In 1997, he shot a fantasy film (originally intended as a pilot episode for a longer series); playing the title role of Merlin in "Merlin: The Quest Begins", directed by David Winning and filmed on location in Peebles, Scotland; he appeared in "Faithful Dealing" (2001) in London, an English Restoration Whodunit, produced by Dominic Madden. In 2003, he toured with a stage production of "The Blue Room". In 2004, he starred as a main character in the children's show "Shoebox Zoo" and returned in the second series in September 2005. He made many Continental European films in the lead with the lead role in the film "Night Skies" (2006), and a lead role in the film "Lightspeed" (2006). He played a vampire hunter in "Brotherhood of Blood" (2007). Directing. In 2008, he made his directorial debut with the film "Pandemic" and in 2009 directed "The Devil's Tomb". Connery directed the 2011 "After Dark Originals" film "51", and "The Philly Kid" (2012) for the "After Dark Action" series. Personal life. The year Jason was born, his father had already starred as James Bond in Dr. No, and his mother received a Best Supporting Actress Oscar nomination for her role in Tom Jones. Jason was married to actress Mia Sara (from Birds of Prey) in 1996, but they divorced in 2002. The couple met during the making of 'Bullet to Beijing' in Russia.
1373497	LisaRaye McCoy (born September 23, 1967 in Chicago, Illinois), commonly known as LisaRaye, is an American actress and fashion designer. She is also the ex-wife of Michael Misick, the first Premier of the Turks and Caicos Islands, making her the First Lady of the Turks and Caicos Islands. She is best known for portraying Diana "Diamond" Armstrong in the film "The Players Club", Neesee James on the CW sitcom "All of Us" from 2003 until 2007 and Keisha Greene in the VH1 romantic comedy series "Single Ladies". Early life. McCoy was born in Chicago, The daughter of David Ray McCoy, a Chicago businessman and Katie McCoy, a former professional model. She is of Native American & African American descent. She is the older half-sister of rap artist Da Brat. McCoy attended Thornridge High School and Kenwood Academy before attending Eastern Illinois University before pursuing an acting career. She has a daughter named Kai Morae Pace (b.December 20, 1989) from a previous relationship. In April 2006, McCoy married Premier Michael Misick. In August 2008, Premier Misick released a statement announcing that he and McCoy were getting a divorce that is now complete. Career. Before acting, McCoy began her career as a model doing fashion shows in churches and high schools in her native home Chicago. She made her acting debut as the lead in "Reasons", an independent film directed by Monty Ross. She also had the lead role in another film as Diamond in "The Players Club", directed and written by Ice Cube; and has film credits in "The Wood", opposite Omar Epps, "Rhapsody", "All About You", and "Go for Broke". In 2003, McCoy starred as Neesee James in the UPN/ CW sitcom "All of Us". She played Robert Sr.'s (Duane Martin) ex-wife and the mother of their 6-year-old son, Bobby, Jr. The series ended in 2007. In 2005, she launched two fashion lines: Luxe & Romance, a lingerie line that was introduced during New York's Fashion Week, and Xraye, a jeans line for women. In addition to acting, McCoy has also appeared in several music videos including Tupac Shakur's "Toss It Up", (Changing Faces's "Same Tempo", Calvin Richardson's "True Love," Sisqó's "Incomplete", Lil Jon and Ice Cube's "Roll Call" Video clip, and Ludacris' "Number 1 Spot." McCoy also recorded the single "Would You?" with rapper Benzino. Also, LisaRaye was in Ginuwine's video, "Last Chance" in May 2009. She is credited as LisaRaye in the beginning of the video. She was also in the videos "I Don't Wanna See" and " I Really Want to Sex Your Body," by Link, "Never Be The Same Again" by Ghostface Killah & Carl Thomas (singer). More videos she has been in are "Ooohhhwwweee" by Master P, "Unpredictable" by Jamie Foxx, "Download" by Lil' Kim, "Slip N' Slide by Danny Boy, & "Are You in the Mood" by Teddy & Dru Down. She also had a cameo in Seven's music video "Girls" & Jaheim's music video "Back Tight Wit You" LisaRaye is currently starring in her own reality show on TV One, "LisaRaye: The Real McCoy" along with her 22-year old daughter Kai. She also stars in a TV show called "Single Ladies" through Queen Latifah's production company. Here’s how VH1 describes the TV show: “Single Ladies is a comedic drama about Raquel, Keisha, and April – three best friends with different philosophies on sex and relationships. Raquel (Denise Vasi) is an ambitious aspiring fashion mogul who wants to find a true partner. Keisha (LisaRaye McCoy), on the other hand, is a former video dancer just looking for a rich man to keep her in style. April Charity Shea has supposedly found the perfect man and the perfect marriage – but is learning that marriage isn’t necessarily a happy ending. Single Ladies is a modern, sexy series set in the world of Atlanta fashion, music, and celebrity that will constantly explore which woman has the right approach to relationships.” The summer of 2011 LisaRaye launched her jean collection "The LisaRaye Collection" in partnership with PZI Jeans. This jean contours the body of a woman with curves, her motto, "For the Curvy Woman in You." That same summer, she launched her hair line, "LisaRaye Glamour" which is 100% Indian hair and comes in weaves, extensions and wigs. In October 2011, LisaRaye was the Ambassador/Grand Marshall for the 70th Magic City Classic parade and football game in Birmingham AL.
1193060	Model Behavior is a 2000 television movie that aired on "The Wonderful World of Disney" on ABC. The film starred Maggie Lawson and was directed by Mark Rosman. The film also stars Justin Timberlake and co-stars Kathie Lee Gifford. It is based on the book by Michael Levin "Janine and Alex, Alex and Janine". Summary. Alex Burroughs is a shy, insecure girl who hopes to become a fashion designer. While helping her father with his catering business at a party, she meets Janine Adams, a famous teenage model. Meanwhile, Janine is fed up with her manager mother making her life nothing but work. Especially after not being home when she has her first book signing, because her little brother Max is going on a publicity tour. Through a strange coincidence the two girls realize they look so much alike that they decide to swap places for a while. Alex gets to date Jason Sharp (Justin Timberlake), a young and gorgeous, but also sweet, model. However, she has to deal with Janine's domineering mother, Deirdre (Kathie Lee Gifford). When they start their new life, they both end up with dates for Saturday. Even though they were supposed to change back Friday, they call each other up and extend the date. Janine warns Alex to stay away from Jason because she believes that he is using her for the attention. Meanwhile, Alex warns Janine to stay away from Eric Singer. Alex's little brother Josh tries to reveal her "Janine" secret. Towards the end when Alex wants to tell Jason that she is not Janine, but she is seen by Eric and he thinks she's cheating on him. Jason walks off on her as well. So Janine and Alex swap back the next morning. Alex is grounded but she goes to the ball and so does Janine, disguising herself as Alex. After both families show up, everyone finds out their secret. The two are able to convince their families to not be so hard on them and Eric leaves the most popular girl in school, Mindy, to be with Janine. Jason shows up having seen Josh's tape which Alex sent to him to show him the truth and dances with her.
1163758	William Scott "Jack" Elam (November 13, 1920 – October 20, 2003) was an American film actor best known for his numerous roles as villains in Western films and, later in his career, comedies (sometimes spoofing his villainous image). His most distinguishing physical quality was the left iris of his eye, which was skewed to the outside, making him look unnaturally "wide eyed" (the opposite of cross eyed). Early life. Elam was born in Miami, Arizona, to Millard Elam and Alice Amelia Kirby. Kirby died in 1924 when Jack was not quite four years old. By 1930, he was once again living with his father, older sister Mildred, and their stepmother, Flossie (Varney). He grew up picking cotton and lost the sight in his left eye during a boyhood accident when he was stabbed with a pencil at a Boy Scout meeting. He was a student of both Miami High School in Gila County and Phoenix Union High School in Maricopa County graduating from there in the late 1930s. Elam attended Santa Monica Junior College in California and subsequently became an accountant in Hollywood; one of his clients was movie mogul Samuel Goldwyn. At one time, he was the manager of the Bel Air Hotel in Los Angeles. Acting career. In 1949, Elam made his debut in "She Shoulda Said No!," an exploitation film where a chorus girl's marijuana smoking ruins her career and drives her brother to suicide. He appeared mostly in westerns and gangster films playing villains. Elam made multiple guest star appearances in many popular Western television series in the 1950's and 1960's, including "Gunsmoke" , "The Rifleman", "Lawman (TV series)", "Bonanza", "Cheyenne", "Have Gun Will Travel", "Zorro", "The Lone Ranger" and "Rawhide". In 1961, Elam played a slightly crazed character in an episode of "The Twilight Zone," "Will the Real Martian Please Stand Up?."
1350220	Sergei Fedorovich Bondarchuk (; ; Ukrainian: Сергі́й Фе́дорович Бондарчу́к, "Serhiy Fedorovych Bondarchuk"; September 25, 1920October 20, 1994) was a Soviet film director, screenwriter, and actor. Biography. Born in Belozerka, in the Kherson Governorate of the Ukrainian SSR, Sergei Bondarchuk spent his childhood in the cities of Yeysk and Taganrog, graduating from the Taganrog School Number 4 in 1938. His first performance as an actor was onstage of the Taganrog Theatre in 1937. He continued studies in the Rostov-on-Don theater school (1938–1942). After his studies, he was conscripted into the Red Army against Nazi Germany and was discharged in 1946. At the age of 32, he became the youngest Soviet actor ever to receive the top dignity of People's Artist of the USSR. In 1955, he starred with future wife Irina Skobtseva in "Othello" and after four years, they married. He was previously married to Inna Makarova, mother to his elder daughter. In 1959 he made his directorial debut with "Destiny of a Man", based on the Mikhail Sholokhov short story of the same name.
1059575	James Hong (; born February 22, 1929) is an American actor, voice actor and director and former president of the Association of Asian/Pacific American Artists (AAPAA). A prolific acting veteran, Hong's career spans more than 50 years and includes more than 350 roles in film, television, and video games. Early life. Hong was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota. His father, Frank W. Hong, immigrated from Hong Kong to Chicago via Canada, where he owned a restaurant. Hong's grandfather was from Taishan, China. For his early education, Hong moved to Hong Kong, and returned to the United States at age ten. He studied civil engineering at the University of Southern California, but later became interested in acting and trained with Jeff Corey. Hong was a road engineer for Los Angeles County for 7½ years, acting during his vacations and sick days. He finally quit engineering for good to devote himself to acting and voice work full-time. Career. James Hong has played in over 500 television and film roles. His career in show business began in the 1950s when he redubbed soundtracks of several Asian films. He dubbed the voices of characters Ogata (Akira Takarada) and Dr. Serizawa (Akihiko Hirata) in the 1956 "Godzilla, King of the Monsters!", as well as the title character in "The Human Vapor".
585184	Aur Ek Prem Kahani is a 1996 Hindi-language Indian feature film directed by famed Cinematographer, Balu Mahendra. The film became the debut of several Southern stars, Ramesh Aravind, Sudhir Ahuja, and Heera Rajgopal. Co-starred the film were Revathi Menon and Akshay Anand. The film is a remake of Balu Mahendra's Kannada debut film Kokila. Story. Aur Ek Prem Kahani has Ranganathan (Sudhir Ahuja), a middle aged engineer who lives in a middle class home in Madras with his wife Kamala (Sushma) and daughter Kokila (Heera Rajgopal), who is a medical student. Manga (Revathy) a maid lives with them and is treated like a member of the family. As Ranganathan travels a lot and his wife is not well, the family decides to keep a paying guest. Sathyamoorthy a bank executive (Arvind Ramesh) comes to live in the Ranganathan household. Kokila and Sathyamoorthy fall in love and plan to get married with her parents consent. Meanwhile one night perchance Sathya and the maid Manga are alone in the house. One thing leads to another and before they realise they end up making love. Kokila remains unaware of this incident even as Manga knows about Kokila's affair with Sathya. Sathya soon forgets the Manga episode and continues his romance with Kokila. One day while Kokila is away on a college tour Satya is informed by Manga that she is pregnant and hopes he will not let her down. Sathya suggests that Manga abort the child. Manga is shattered and leaves the Ranganathan house. Kokila comes back from the college tour and finds Sathya missing. He has vacated the room, says her mother and all attempts by Kokila to trace him remain futile. Kokila and Sathya meet each other accidentally, after few years in a village where she has gone as a doctor. She discovers Satya has married Manga and they have a young daughter whom they have named Kokila. Soundtrack. Music is provided by Maestro Ilaiyaraja. He has recycled his own tunes from "Johnny", Alaigal Oivathillai, Manvasanai, Olangal
1164970	Barbara Billingsley (December 22, 1915 – October 16, 2010) was an American film, television, voice and stage actress. She gained prominence in the 1950s movie "The Careless Years", acting opposite Natalie Trundy, followed by her best–known role, that of June Cleaver on the television series "Leave It to Beaver" (1957–1963) and its sequel "Still the Beaver" (1985–1988, retitled in season two as "The New Leave It to Beaver"). Early life. Billingsley was born Barbara Lillian Combes in 1915 in Los Angeles, California, the youngest child of patrolman Robert Collyer Combes (1891–1950) and his first wife, the former Lillian Agnes McLaughlin. She had one elder sibling, Elizabeth (1911–1992). Her parents divorced sometime before her fourth birthday, and her father, who later became an assistant chief of police, remarried. After her divorce, Lillian Combes went to work as a foreman at a knitting mill. Starting out. After attending Los Angeles Junior College for one year, Billingsley traveled to Broadway, when "Straw Hat", a revue in which she was appearing, attracted enough attention to send it to New York City. When, after five days, the show closed, she took an apartment on 57th Street and went to work as a $60–a–week fashion model. She also landed a contract with MGM Studios in 1945.
584012	Shamshuddin Ibrahim, known professionally as Shaam (born April 4, 1977), is a Tamil film actor and model. Starting his career as a professional model, he soon made his acting debut in the film "Khushi" (2000), appearing in a cameo role. He further appeared in lead roles in critically and commercially successful films such as "12B", "Anbe Anbe", "Iyarkai", "Ullam Ketkumae" and the Telugu film "Kick". In 2006, he made his debut in Kannada film through "Tananam Tananam" with Ramya and Rakshita directed by Kavitha Lankesh. Early life. Shaam was born on 4 April 1977 in Madurai, Tamil Nadu, into a Tamil-speaking Muslim family. He grew up in Bangalore, where he pursued his studies. After completing his B. Com, he did modelling through which he hoped to become an actor. Career. Shaam began his career as a model in Bangalore, modelling for various ads. Keen on pursuing an acting career, he was vainly searching for acting offers for four years. He then, following the recommendation of his model coordinator Biju Jayadevan, got to meet cinematographer Jeeva's, who was planning to make his directorial debut and was on the lookout for a new face for the film's lead role. Shaam was given the role for the film "12B". Shaam recollects that during his first meeting with Jeeva, he handed over his portfolio and introduced himself in English, when Jeeva heard him out, and then said, “Repeat what you just said, in Tamil" and Shaam did, and was subsequently signed on the next day after a meeting with producer Vikram Singh. The promos of the film were critically praised with Shaam signing on to appear on several projects before 12B even released. His second feature film, however, the S. J. Suryah-directed "Khushi", in which he appeared in a cameo role, released first, since "12B" got stuck in production and released in 2001 only. The film, based on the theme of butterfly effect, fetched rave reviews and was seen as a "dream entry" for Shaam., his performance was praised as "apt" His subsequent releases including Vasanth's "Hey! Nee Romba Azhaga Irukke" (2002), "Bala" (2002), "Anbe Anbe" (2003) and Priyadarshan's "Lesa Lesa" (2003), garnered only average or poor box office returns. His final release of 2003 was "Iyarkai" by debutant "S. P. Jananathan", which also failed at the box office due to a delayed release, but opened to high critical acclaim, even winning the National Film Award for Best Feature Film in Tamil. Shaam's first 2005 release, "Ullam Ketkumae", again directed by Jeeva, finally was a commercial success again. In 2006, he acted in a Kannada film directed by Kavitha Lankesh, with Ramya and Rakshita, Tananam Tananam, an average grosser that released to mixed reviews. It fetched his co-star, Ramya, her first Filmfare Award for Best Actress. She had described her role in the film as "little complex" and "challenging." Following several more unsuccessful films, he got a major break in the 2009 Telugu action film "Kick". He reprised the role in the Tamil remake, titled "Thillalangadi". Shaam tried his luck in Hindi with director Faisal Saif in the Hindi-Tamil bilingual titled "Mujhe Maaf Karo". But due to ego clash between the actor and director the film has been put on hold He was also a part of Mani Ratnam's stage show, "Netru, Indru, Naalai". Personal life. Shaam has three brothers and two sisters. He is married to a Punjabi, Kashish, who is his former collegemate. The two have a daughter named Samaira.
1055047	Assassination of a High School President is a 2008 American neo noir comedy film, directed by Brett Simon, written by Tim Calpin and Kevin Jakubowski, and starring Reece Thompson, Bruce Willis, Mischa Barton and Michael Rapaport. It premiered at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival. The film had been scheduled for limited theatrical release on February 27, 2009, but that release was postponed indefinitely following the bankruptcy of its distributor, Yari Film Group's releasing division. It was released on DVD in the United States on October 6, 2009. Plot. Bobby Funke (Reece Thompson) is a less than popular high school sophomore with a dream to get into Northwestern University's summer journalism program. Although Bobby claims he's a great writer, he's never finished an article for St. Donovan's School Newspaper. The editor-in-chief Clara, (Melonie Diaz), assigns Bobby to do an article on Paul Moore, the student body president. Bobby attempts to get an interview, but is unable to get a story out of Paul and is bullied by Paul's friends. Paul is the star of the basketball team and on a game night, Paul takes a fall and injures his knee. The next morning Principal Kirkpatrick (Bruce Willis) discovers the SATs have been stolen from a safe in his office. Kirkpatrick rounds up his "usual suspects" of high school misfits along with Bobby to question them. The group is innocent but Kirkpatrick warns them all to watch their step. When senior Francesca Facchini (Mischa Barton) solicits Bobby's help tracking down the set of stolen SATs, Funke uncovers a story. He sets on a large scale investigation and links Paul Moore to the crime. He writes an article pointing the finger at Paul. Kirkpatrick forces Paul to open his locker and the SATs fall out. As a result of his sleuthing, Funke becomes one of the most popular kids at St. Donovan's. Clara decides to submit Funke's article to Northwestern which earns Bobby a scholarship to the summer program. Funke wins the respect of everyone from Principal Kirkpatrick to the kid that farts on him in Spanish class and Francesca takes Funke to homecoming. As Funke's popularity grows so do his suspicions. Paul confronts Bobby, proclaiming his innocence, stating that he got into Cornell but decided to take the test again to see if he could get a better score. Funke begins to wonder if the president really stole the SATs or if he's just a pawn in a conspiracy. Funke investigates even deeper into the lives of Paul's shady friends, all members of the Student Council. He discovers their involvement with drug dealing. The Student Council had actually stolen the SATs along with other tests throughout the year, modifying the marks of the best students to make them doubt their test-taking abilities and turn to the Student Council for speed-like "study drugs". Funke says that while Paul wasn't a part of the scam, group ringleader Marlon Piazza (Luke Grimes) has Paul framed to avoid being caught. Funke also finds out that Francesca led him along the entire time to keep him from finding out the truth. Francesca and Marlon, step-siblings, are revealed as lovers. Funke confronts the group in the principal's office. Marlon threatens to have Funke thrown out the window and frame it as a suicide, but his threat and confession are heard on the school's intercom system. When Funke entered the room, he secretly turned on the microphone; Funke's friends save him from being thrown out the window and Kirkpatrick rushes into the office, followed by the student body and Francesca. Francesca attempts to gain Funke's trust again, only to be shut down and left to deal with Kirkpatrick's punishment. Inspiration. The fictional St. Donovan's High School was inspired by the Catholic high schools of writers Tim Calpin and Kevin Jakubowski. Calpin attended Scranton Preparatory School in Scranton, Pennsylvania, while Jakubowski attended Fenwick High School in Oak Park, Illinois. The look of the school and style of dress were drawn from these high schools. The school mascot (Friar) and the school emblem (cross of the Dominican Order) was derived from Fenwick. The movie was shot on location at Bayonne High School in Bayonne, New Jersey. Release. The film was scheduled for a February 17 limited theatrical release, followed by a wide release on March 27. The release date was not met as its distributor Yari Film Group's releasing division filed for bankruptcy. This attracted a response in the media urging a theatrical release, and to avoid a direct-to-DVD release by Sony, who own the home video distribution rights. Several journalists advised that the film should at least receive a limited theatrical release, and encouraged fans to support the film on social networking sites such as Facebook. In May 2009, Barton spoke to reporters about the future of the film: "They just can't get the funding to distribute it. The movie is complete and ready to go but there is no release date set and it is not looking likely there will be one." In Russia, the film was not released to theaters but premiered on May 14, 2009 on the Russian free-to-air channel TNT TV. In August 2009, despite fan protests, it was finally stated that due to YFG's bankruptcy the film would not receive a theatrical release, and would instead be released straight-to-DVD on October 6, 2009. In April 2010, the film was released in Portugal, distributed by Ecofilmes. Over the following months, the film was released in various markets, including on June 11, 2010 in Australia. Reception. Critical response. The film holds a 50% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes, indicating a mixed critical reaction. The film was highly praised by MTV, favourably comparing it to "Rushmore", "The Usual Suspects", "Chinatown", "Sixteen Candles" and "Fast Times at Ridgemont High". The network added that "The film's central mystery keeps you guessing intelligently, but brilliantly balances every reference to Nietzsche with a joke about a chocolate swirly." The casting choices were also praised, Willis is "hilariously intense" and Barton "brings the femme fatale back for a new generation." "The Hollywood Reporter" cited the film's lack of "novel insights" but praised the performance of two of its actors, Thompson is "completely convincing" and Barton is "captivating".
1551562	Kisses is a 2008 Irish drama film directed by Lance Daly. The film is a coming of age drama about two ragamuffin preadolescents, next door neighbors each from dysfunctional families living in a poor area in the outskirts of Dublin, Ireland, who run away together one Christmas holiday. Plot. Early in the film we meet Dylan (Shane Curry), approximately 11 years old, sitting on a couch absorbed in a handheld video game and attempting to ignore his father's (Paul Roe) shouts from the kitchen where he is railing at a non-working toaster. We soon learn that rage is his father's natural state; roughly kicked out of the house to "go play", Shane talks to his next door neighbor, Kylie (Kelly O'Neill), of approximately the same age, about what a "prick" his father is, and the wise decision of his brother to run away two years prior, to which Kylie observes that at least Shane's father is not in jail like most fathers in the neighborhood, implying that her father is incarcerated. She tells him about the "Sack Man", who she's heard kills kids, but Shane says that it is just a story, like "Santa and God", used by adults to control kids. Kylie is sent to "walk" her infant sibling in a stroller. When she returns she sees a motorcycle parked in the driveway of her house and her reaction, her hesitation to go into her house, tells us whoever has arrived makes her apprehensive. Inside she is cajoled by her mother to give her uncle a kiss. Her revulsion is evident. When he is leaving and comes to Kylie's bedroom to say goodbye, Kylie hides under her bed. We see there that she has a stash of cash hidden away in a shoe. The view returns to Dylan's house, where his father is screaming at Dylan's mother. When he punches her in the face, Dylan gets involved, slamming his handheld videogame into his father face which leaves a shard of plastic embedded in his father's forehead. Dylan is chased by his father into an upstairs bathroom. With the door being busted in, Kylie comes to the rescue, maneuvering a ladder near the window from Dylan's yard which allows him to just escape his father's clutches. The pair run from the scene. They are next seen by a narrow river, where a dredger is passing; they climb aboard over the protests of the captain (David Bendito), a friendly sort, who gives them a ride to the end of the line, near Dublin and tells them about Bob Dylan—Dylan's namesake. Kylie and Shane seize on the idea that they will attempt to find Dylan's brother, but all they know of his last whereabouts is that he was living in a squat on Gardiner Street. Reaching there, they start knocking on random doors and asking passersby if they know him. Ultimately following a lead to a Gardiner Street flat, a woman there informs them that he was kicked out for fighting six months earlier. Convinced they will not find his brother, Dylan argues that they have little choice but to go home; Kylie vehemently opposes this and runs off. The two are reunited later when Dylan observes Kylie run into an alley, pursued by a worker of the place from which she stole food. He joins her in hiding, and they narrowly avoid detection. She adamantly says that she never wants to go home. Kylie reveals that her uncle sexually assaulted her, forcing her to go along with it and gaining her terrified silence by telling her that no one would believe her. Together they find some boxes to sleep on, but a man drives by and tries to convince Kylie to ride with him. She refuses, and the car drives away, only for the man to return and kidnap her. Dylan gives chase, grabbing hold of the bumper of the car. His Heelys, bought earlier from Kylie's savings, allow him to roll along behind the car despite its speed. He screams for help, and the car soon turns into another alley. As the men in the car try to get rid of him, Kylie breaks free of the car, and they both manage to lose their assailants. Realizing that they have feelings for each other, Kylie and Dylan share a passionate kiss. Laughing, they find boxes to sleep on and spend the night on the street. In the morning, Kylie awakens to find a cold hand beside her, sticking out of the box pile. She reacts with horror, stumbling away and waking Dylan. The remove some boxes to reveal a man, recently dead. The next scene is the two of them in a police car, being returned to their houses. The glamour of living on the streets was obviously lost for them. Their families are waiting outside, concerned. Kylie and Dylan share a moment, staring at each other, and Kylie blows him a kiss before their parents bemusedly yank them away. Critical reception. "Kisses" was met with critical acclaim among critics, receiving an overall 86% rating from all critics and 100% rating from top critics as of July 16, 2010 at the review aggegrator website, Rotten Tomatoes. Rex Reed of "The New York Observer" called it a "poignant little film" and "a serendipitous journey worth taking", while Stephen Holden of "The New York Times" opined that "Kisses" was a "small slice of Irish kitchen-sink realism embellished with fairy-tale fantasy, "Kisses" may strike you as either ingeniously magical or insufferably cute, depending on your taste. But more than the story, which circles back on itself, the natural performances of its young stars, Shane Curry and especially Kelly O'Neill, nonprofessional actors, lend the movie a core of integrity." Praise was not universal however. Kevin Maher of "The Times" wrote that the film was "ndeniably artful but wildly disingenuous... Like arthouse Roddy Doyle it's ambitious and phoney in equal measure." Accolades. "Kisses" was nominated for and won multiple awards from various film organizations and festivals.
1034393	Roy Mitchell Kinnear (8 January 1934 – 20 September 1988) was a British character actor. He was familiar to UK audiences for his appearances in many British television comedy shows, and is also remembered for his film appearances as Veruca Salt's father, Mr. Salt, in "Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory" (1971) and as Planchet in Richard Lester's "The Three Musketeers" and its two sequels. It was during the filming of the latter sequel that Kinnear died as a result of a riding accident. Early life. Kinnear was born in Wigan, Lancashire, the son of Annie Smith (née Durie) and Roy Muir Kinnear. His father was a dual international in rugby union and league, having played for and Great Britain national rugby league team international, making one Lions appearance and three for Other Nationalities, and scoring 81 tries in 184 games for Wigan; he collapsed and died while playing rugby union with the RAF in 1942, at age 38. Scotland Rugby League have named their Student Player of the Year Award after him. Kinnear was educated at George Heriot's School, in Edinburgh. At the age of 17, he enrolled in the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art; however, national service interrupted his studies. Career. In the 1950s Kinnear began a career in repertory theatre, when he appeared in a show at Newquay; and in 1959 he joined Joan Littlewood's Theatre Workshop at the Theatre Royal Stratford East, performing in both the 1960 play and 1963 film of "Sparrows Can't Sing". Prior to joining Joan Littlewood's Theatre, he was a member of the cast of Perth Repertory Theatre. The Cast also included people like Valerie Lush, Jane Cain ( the original voice of the Speaking Clock) and Russell Hunter. He continued to work on stage and radio before gaining national attention as a participant in the television show "That Was The Week That Was". He later appeared in many films and UK TV shows including comedies "Doctor at Large", "Man About the House", "George and Mildred", "The Dick Emery Show" (as the long suffering dad to Emery's gormless bovver boy character, Gaylord) and starred in "Cowboys", a sitcom about builders. His best-known films are those he made with director and close friend Richard Lester: "Help!", "A Funny Thing Happened On the Way to the Forum", "How I Won the War", "The Bed-Sitting Room", and the "Musketeer" series of the 1970s and 1980s. He appeared, along with Christopher Lee in the Hammer Horror film "Taste the Blood of Dracula" (1970). He played the father of spoiled rich girl Veruca Salt in the film "Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory" (1971), an adaptation of Roald Dahl's children's novel "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory". He guest starred in "The Goodies"' episode "Rome Antics", in which he appeared as the Roman Emperor. He narrated and provided voices for the stop-motion children's television show "Bertha". He appeared in two music videos for Mike + The Mechanics ("All I Need Is a Miracle" and "Taken In") as the band's manager, the former of which saw him reunited with his "Help!" co-star Victor Spinetti. He narrated "Towser" and "Bertha", voiced Pipkin in the 1978 film "Watership Down" and voiced Texas Pete's henchman Bulk in "SuperTed" (also with Victor Spinetti who also voiced the evil Texas Pete). Kinnear's name cropped up regularly on the stage; in his later life he appeared in productions such as "The Travails of Sancho Panza" - playing the title role, and in "The Cherry Orchard", in 1985. In 1987 Kinnear starred in the ITV sitcom "Hardwicke House", but the show caused such a storm of protest it was cancelled after just two episodes. His final completed roles were in "A Man for All Seasons" (1988) a made-for-television film directed by and starring Charlton Heston, John Gielgud and Vanessa Redgrave, and as a patient in the BBC1 hospital drama "Casualty". Following his sudden death in September 1988, that episode was postponed. It finally aired in August 1989. Personal life. Kinnear was married to actress Carmel Cryan. They had three children, including TV and theatre actor Rory and casting director Kirsty. Their eldest daughter, Karina, was born with cerebral palsy. Death. On 19 September 1988, Kinnear fell from a horse during the making of "The Return of the Musketeers" in Toledo, Spain, and sustained a broken pelvis. He was taken to hospital in Madrid but died from a heart attack the next day. He was 54 years old. He is buried in East Sheen Cemetery. After his death, Kinnear's family demanded an official investigation into the level of medical care he had received in Spain. Director Richard Lester decided to quit the film business as a direct result of Kinnear's death. Legacy. In 1994 the Roy Kinnear Trust, which was inspired by his daughter Karina, was founded to help improve the life of young adults with physical and mental disabilities.
633530	Robert Picardo (born October 27, 1953) is an American actor. He is best known for his portrayals of Dr. Dick Richards on ABC's "China Beach", the Emergency Medical Hologram (EMH), also known as The Doctor, on UPN's "", The Cowboy in "Innerspace", Coach Cutlip on "The Wonder Years" (where he received an Emmy nomination), Ben Wheeler in "Wagons East", and as Richard Woolsey in the Canadian-American military science fiction television series "Stargate SG-1", "Stargate Atlantis" and "Stargate Universe". Early life. Picardo was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the son of Joe Picardo. Robert is of Italian heritage, with his father's family originating from Montecorvino Rovella, Salerno and his mother's parents originally from Bomba in Abruzzo. Picardo claims that one of the highlights of his life was visiting both ancestral towns with his daughters and his brother Joe in the summer of 2011. He graduated from William Penn Charter School in 1971 and originally entered Yale University as a pre-medical student, but opted to act instead. While he was at Yale University, he was a member of The Society of Orpheus and Bacchus, the second longest running undergraduate a cappella group in the United States. On Broadway, he appeared in "Gemini" (1977) and "Tribute" (1978). During the 1988-1991 television seasons, Picardo was simultaneously seen on the ABC Vietnam series "China Beach" in the role of Dr. Dick Richard, as well as the ABC series "The Wonder Years" in the role of Coach Cutlip, and is among a small group of television actors to achieve notice on two television series at the same time. Career. Picardo made his feature film debut as Eddie Quist, the serial killer werewolf in the Joe Dante film "The Howling" (1981). He also had a recurring role in the sitcom "Alice". He played a number of roles in Dante's family science fiction film "Explorers" (1985), and later appeared in Dante's "The 'Burbs", ', "Matinee", ', "Small Soldiers" and "Innerspace" as the Cowboy. Picardo often plays roles under layers of prosthetic latex, having also played the swamp dwelling Meg Mucklebones in Ridley Scott's film "Legend". He also had a small role as a funeral director in John Landis's "Amazon Women on the Moon". He voices Pfish in two Pfish & Chip shorts as seen on Cartoon Network's "What-A-Cartoon! Show". Picardo also portrays the voice of the robotic Johnny Cab in "Total Recall". He appeared in one episode of "ER" in 1995 as Abraham Zimble (Season 2 - Episode 6 "Days Like This"). In the early 1990s, Picardo had a brief role as Joe "The Meat Man" Morton, a butcher and neighbor to Tim Allen's character on the popular sitcom "Home Improvement". From 1995 to 2001, he played the role of the Emergency Medical Hologram (EMH) and Emergency Command Hologram (ECH) and directed two episodes of the television series '. He also played additional versions of the role of the EMH in the 1996 motion picture ' and the 1997 "" episode "Doctor Bashir, I Presume?". In 2001, he guest starred in "7 Days" episode "Revelation", purporting to be a time traveler from seven years in the future. In 2004, he began playing the recurring role of International Oversight Advisory (IOA) member Richard Woolsey in both "Stargate SG-1" and "Stargate Atlantis", where he became a regular in the fifth season. His first appearance in those series was in the Stargate SG-1 episode "Heroes (Part 2)". In 2007, he played Principal White in "". In 2007, he starred in the independent feature film by director Russ Emanuel, "P.J.", alongside John Heard and Vincent Pastore. He also more recently starred in Russ Emanuel's "Chasing the Green" (2008), alongside William Devane, Jeremy London and Ryan Hurst. In 2007 and 2008, was a multi-city tour with John de Lancie. Picardo and de Lancie narrated around the orchestral performance, explaining the history of the music in "Star Trek". Picardo has also appeared on "Kojak" in a 1977 episode, "E-Ring" as a media rep in The Pentagon, as an enraged father in "Cold Case", and as a police officer in '. He also appeared as a recurring guest star in two episodes of Season 7 of "Smallville". Away from acting, Picardo is a member of the Board of Directors' Advisory Council of The Planetary Society, where he has served since the late 1990s. In 2002, Picardo authored the book "The Hologram's Handbook", published by Pocket Books. Other career highlights include performing in Leonard Bernstein's Mass in D during its European debut tour, performing with the Yale University Society of Orpheus & Bacchus a cappella singing group as an undergraduate, and appearing in dozens of other television and film roles, including the film "Our Last Days as Children". On February 5, 2008, it was announced that Picardo would be joining the regular cast of "Stargate Atlantis" full-time for the series' fifth and final season. He will be taking over the role of mission commander of the Atlantis Expedition. Recently, Picardo performed the voice of Loki in the Xbox 360 video game "Too Human". In 2009, he also appeared in "Pushing Daisies", "Chuck" and "Castle". Also in 2009, he played the lead role in the independent psychological thriller film "Sensored". In 2010, Picardo had a cameo in the final episode of "Persons Unknown", as a member of "the program"'s governing board. Picardo also voices Robert McNamara in ' in campaign and in the 'Zombie mode' after completing campaign on the one map, "FIVE". In 2012, Picardo appeared in a season 4 episode of "The Mentalist" as Jason Cooper, a lieutenant of cult leader Bret Styles. Picardo also appeared on a season 6 episode of "Supernatural" entitled "Clap Your Hands if You Believe" as a leprechaun. Picardo is also appearing in two songs, on an album called BiTrektual, by the singer Voltaire. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-aw67j8hrTA&feature=g-all-u] Personal life. Picardo married Linda Pawlik in 1984. The couple have two daughters, Gina and Nicky. Picardo filed for divorce in July 2012 citing "irreconcilable differences". Picardo serves on the Advisory Council of The Planetary Society and has appeared in voice on "Planetary Radio".
1065046	The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle is a 2000 American live-action adventure comedy film produced by Universal Studios, based on the television cartoon "The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show" by Jay Ward. The animated characters Rocky and Bullwinkle shared the screen with live actors portraying Fearless Leader (Robert De Niro), Boris Badenov (Jason Alexander), Natasha Fatale (Rene Russo), and FBI agent Karen Sympathy (Piper Perabo). June Foray reprised her role as Rocky, whilst Keith Scott voices Bullwinkle and the film's narrator. This film is also notable for its ensemble cast featuring guest appearances by performers including Janeane Garofalo, John Goodman, David Allen Grier, Kenan Thompson, Kel Mitchell, Don Novello, Jon Polito, Carl Reiner, and Jonathan Winters, along with many fourth wall breakages. Released in 2000, "The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle" was the third film in four years to have been a Jay Ward cartoon adaptation ("George of the Jungle" (1997) and "Dudley Do-Right" (1999) having preceded it). Plot. 1964 saw the cancellation of "The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show" and life became rather miserable and melancholy for Rocket "Rocky" J. Squirrel and Bullwinkle J. Moose. Their home, Frostbite Falls, has been destroyed in deforestation, Rocky has lost his ability to fly, and the show's unseen Narrator lives with his mother, spending his time narrating everything that she does. Bullwinkle and Rocky head out to address the President of the United States regarding their situation, but are stopped for six months by red tape. Meanwhile, their enemies, Fearless Leader, Boris Badenov, and Natasha Fatale lose power over Pottsylvania and dig to a Hollywood film studio where they convince an executive, Minnie Mogul, to sign a contract giving her rights to the show, and the villains are transformed from their two-dimensional cel animation origins, and become live-action characters. FBI agent Karen Sympathy and her boss, Cappy von Trapment, inform President Signoff that Fearless Leader intends to make himself the President by brainwashing the American public with his cable television network, "RBTV" or "Really Bad Television", with virtually nothing but mediocre spy film-based programming on the air. Karen is sent to a special lighthouse to bring Rocky and Bullwinkle to the real world. She succeeds, the Narrator being brought along as well but never being physically seen. Fearless Leader is informed of Rocky and Bullwinkle's return and sends Boris and Natasha to destroy them. The two take a laptop with them called the CDI (standing for Computer Degenerating Imagery) which can specifically destroy CGI-animated cartoon characters, and send them to the Internet. Karen manages to steal their truck after they drive her car off a cliff, but she is then arrested by the Oklahoma state police when Natasha claims to be Karen. Natasha and Boris steal a helicopter to pursue Rocky and Bullwinkle. Rocky and Bullwinkle are given a ride by "Martin and Lewis", two students at Bullwinkle's old university, Wossamotta U. Boris and Natasha get there first, and make a large donation to the university in Bullwinkle's name. In return, the head of the university gives Bullwinkle an honorary "Mooster's Degree", and Bullwinkle addresses the student body, whilst Boris attempts to kill him with the CDI upon the water tower which they built in the park. Rocky recovers his lost ability to fly and saves the oblivious Bullwinkle. Martin and Lewis lend the two their car, but Bullwinkle goes on a wild ride through Chicago. Boris and Natasha once again attempt to kill the two but instead destroy their helicopter. Karen escapes prison with help from a love-struck Swedish guard named Ole. Karen, Rocky, and Bullwinkle are reunited but then arrested and put on trial, where Bullwinkle's dimwittedness takes over him and he becomes extremely rude to Karen. However, the presiding Judge Cameo dismisses their case upon recognizing Rocky and Bullwinkle, stating that celebrities are above the law. The three then obtain an old biplane from a man named Old Jeb, and escape Boris and Natasha again. The evil duo consider quitting their evil occupations and getting married, but then Fearless Leader calls on the phone. Afraid to admit they failed, they lie to Fearless Leader that they killed Rocky and Bullwinkle. Meanwhile, the plane the heroes fly in is unable to fly with all three aboard. Rocky flies Karen to New York City to stop Fearless Leader, while Bullwinkle flies the plane to Washington, D.C. and lands at the White House. The villains capture Karen and Rocky, whilst Cappy e-mails Bullwinkle to RBTV's headquarters to free them. A battle follows, with the heroes winning and convincing the American public to vote for whoever they want but to replant Frostbite Falls' trees. Bullwinkle fiddles with the CDI and inadvertently zaps the villains back to their two-dimensional cartoon forms, and ultimately to the internet. At the film's end, RBTV becomes "Rocky and Bullwinkle Television" and Karen dates Ole to see the Rocky and Bullwinkle movie. Returning to Frostbite Falls, the narrator reunites with his mother, the trees are replanted, and Rocky ends the movie by flying through the air. Songs. In the film, there are several songs, including: There was also a soundtrack for the film to be released by New Line Records, but was later canceled. Reception. "Rocky and Bullwinkle" received mixed reviews from critics. Roger Ebert gave the film three stars out of four, saying, "It was a funny movie for kids and it was a funny movie for adults, too, and it has an attitude towards itself and it's in on the joke, and I really was surprised how much I liked it!" However, on $76 million budget the film grossed $35 million worldwide. The critical consensus on Rotten Tomatoes stated "Though the film stays true to the nature of the original cartoon, the script is disappointing and not funny." The film has a rating of 42% from Rotten Tomatoes.[http://www.rottentomatoes.com/celebrity/jonathan_winters/ Alexander issued a public apology for the film and his appearance in it, despite getting more critical acclaim for his performance than Russo; the apology was replayed a number of times on "The Howard Stern Show".
1032313	Made in Britain is a 1983 British television play written by David Leland, and directed by Alan Clarke, about a 16-year-old racist skinhead named Trevor, and his constant confrontations with authority figures. It was originally broadcast on ITV on 10 July 1983 as the fourth in an untitled series of works by Leland (including "Birth of a Nation"), all loosely based around the British educational system, which subsequently acquired the overall title of "Tales Out of School". As with many Alan Clarke works, the director attempts to depict English working-class life, realistically without moralising or complex plots. The play features strong language, violence, racism and an anti-establishment feeling. Cinematographer Chris Menges's use of the Steadicam contributed to the fluid and gritty atmosphere of the play. Plot. The play begins with Trevor being tried in court on charges of throwing a brick through the window of a Pakistani man, Mr. Shahnawaz. He has also been charged with shoplifting from Harrods. Trevor is defiant when questioned by the judge. Trevor's social worker, Harry Parker (Eric Richard) has him sent to Hooper Street Residential Assessment Centre, where his punishment will be determined. The deputy superintendent in the assessment centre, Peter Clive (Bill Stewart), admits Trevor, and he is allocated a room with Errol (Terry Richards). The next day, Trevor leaves the assessment centre, to get a job. Trevor, accompanied by Errol, breaks into a car and drives to the job centre. Near the job centre, he buys Evo-Stik for huffing, and immediately enters the job centre. Trevor breaks the queue, and demands a job from the job centre attendant. When asked to wait, he storms out, and hurls a brick through the job centre window. He makes his escape, and walks with Errol to an abandoned swimming pool where he has hidden some tools. Trevor pockets the tools, and hands Errol a bunch of keys, instructing him to get it into the centre, and hide it. He then breaks into another car, and takes it and drives away. He orders Errol to get out, saying he is visiting some mates. In the next scene, Trevor is seen eating a sandwich in the car. Peter Clive arrives riding a motorcycle, and notices Trevor in the car. Trevor discards the sandwich and walks into the assessment centre. Peter Clive stops him, and tells him to get rid of the car. Trevor agrees to get rid of it. Inside the assessment centre, Trevor refuses to co-operate and give a reasonable answer. He then demands lunch, only to be informed that he is too late. Trevor flies into a rage and tries kicking down the cafeteria door. The chef (Jim Dunk) rushes out to stop him, only to be kicked in the groin by Trevor, who unleashes a vicious attack on him, before being stopped by care worker Barry Giller (Sean Chapman). Trevor is then held down by the chef and Barry, and locked up in a room. The superintendent (Geoffrey Hutchings) arrives, and proceeds to show Trevor an overview of what he has been through and where he is heading - prison. He explains to Trevor that the assessment centre is his last chance to change, before his life becomes a vicious circle of poverty, crime and prison. Uncharacteristically, Trevor is not aggressive and is lost for words. The superintendent is extremely articulate and faces little resistance from Trevor. As soon as the superintendent leaves, Trevor is back to his usual self. Trevor refuses to keep the peace, and eventually Barry and Peter decide to send him to a secure unit. However, while Barry is out making arrangements to send Trevor away, Peter offers to take Trevor banger racing if he promises to behave. Trevor accepts the offer, on the condition that he be allowed to drive. Peter informs Barry about the change of plans, and warns Trevor that he is doing him a favour by giving him another chance, and that if Trevor lets him down, he will team up with the chef and some of the biggest lads in the centre to kill Trevor. They go to the races as planned and Trevor is given a chance to drive, as promised. Trevor seems to be enjoying the experience, but he gets in an accident, after which his car will not restart, and Trevor is unable to complete the race, frustrating him. On the drive back to the assessment centre, Peter informs Trevor that he was up against professional racers, did well. He also tells him that he could join a racing team if he wished, and need not go around stealing cars any longer. Trevor makes no reply, and blankly stares out the window. They reach the assessment centre late and have to be let in by the janitor, since Peter cannot find his keys. After everybody has retired to bed, Trevor wakes up Errol and shows him Peter Clive's keys, which Trevor claims to have picked up after Peter dropped them. Trevor and Errol make their way into the office, where Trevor rummages through the documents until he finds their respective files. Trevor reads through Errol's reports and contract, and finds a report titled 'The Future', which reads ""It seems unlikely for this child to return home, his mother having rejected him for her own lifestyle. Bearing this in mind, future care seems to be the alternative. We would recommend a care order be made, in order to be able to continue our assessment of his needs."" He then proclaims to Errol ""You're in here for life, mate!"". Errol looks confused and dejected and asks ""What'll I do!?"". Trevor is enraged. He drops the files on the floor and tells Errol to ""Piss on it, fuckin' shit on it!"". Errol defecates on his files, and Trevor urinates on his. Trevor and Errol get out of the assessment centre, and drive away in the centre's Ford Transit van. They reach Mr. Shahnawaz's neighbourhood and hurl stones through the windows, and scream racial slurs. They get into the van and drive away. Trevor drives to a police station, and smashes the van into a car. Errol is rendered unconscious by the impact. Trevor exits the van and runs away, leaving Errol to be apprehended by the police. Trevor begins walking to Harry Parker's apartment. On his way, Trevor looks into a shop window displaying a television, clothes, mannequins, and other items. He stares at them and their accompanying price tags, intently. He begins running into a tunnel, and screams ""Bollocks!"" Inside the tunnel, he discards his t-shirt, and screams at a passing vehicle after trying to kick it. Trevor walks past a school, presumably his, pausing to gaze through the iron gates before continuing on his way. It is early morning by the time Trevor reaches Harry Parker's home. Harry is busy packing, and is preparing to leave on a holiday with his family. He is displeased to see Trevor in this state. He tells him to go back to the assessment centre before it is too late. Trevor informs Harry of his misadventures, and tells him that he is turning himself in. Harry, although reluctant at first, makes the necessary calls to the police. Trevor is seen in a jail cell, pressing the buzzer in the room. The police officer orders him to keep his hands off the buzzer. Trevor walks away, but returns and proceeds to press the buzzer with his head. This time, another officer, P.C. Anson (Christopher Fulford) enters, with a truncheon. He orders Trevor to stay quiet, but Trevor continues to provoke him, saying that he is a juvenile offender, and that he must be taken care of and sent back to the assessment centre. Anson orders him to shut up and sit down. He tells Trevor that he would be taken to court in a few days, and this time he will end up in a detention centre or a borstal, not an assessment centre. He threatens to have his fingerprints taken as soon as he leaves the borstal, and use them to convict him of every unsolved taking and driving away in the district, dating back months. Trevor is still unfazed and sarcastically yells ""Sounds great!"" Anson is livid, and brings the truncheon down, hitting Trevor on the kneecap. P.C. Anson smiles and says, 'You think you're fucking hard.' Trevor, for the first time, looks defeated. He slumps in agony and shock, his face reddening. The warder tells Trevor that he is all talk, and decries his protests, saying that he has no choice but to respect authority and obey the rules, like everybody else. The play ends with Trevor recovering from the pain and grinning, as the warders shut the door of his cell. Music. The music in the opening scene, is the song "UK82" by Scottish punk rock band The Exploited.
469675	Heavens Fall is an American film based on the Scottsboro Boys incident of 1931. Plot. In the film, two young white women (portrayed by Leelee Sobieski and Azura Skye) accuse nine black youths of rape in the segregated South. Timothy Hutton stars as criminal defense attorney Samuel Leibowitz. The film begins after the first trial of the nine in the present-day bustling city of Scottsboro, Alabama. Samuel Leibowitz, a successful Jewish lawyer from New York is called down past the Mason-Dixon Line to defend the nine blacks. Production. A train from the Tennessee Valley Railroad Museum was used in the filming. Release. "Heavens Fall" was released on DVD in the USA in 2007.
899062	Juliet of the Spirits () is a 1965 Italian-French fantasy comedy-drama film directed by Federico Fellini and starring Giulietta Masina, Sandra Milo, Mario Pisu, Valentina Cortese, and Valeska Gert. The film is about the visions, memories, and mysticism of a middle-aged woman that help her find the strength to leave her philandering husband. The film uses "caricatural types and dream situations to represent a psychic landscape." It was Fellini's first feature-length color film, but followed his use of color in "The Temptation of Doctor Antonio" in the portmanteau film "Boccaccio '70" (1962). "Juliet of the Spirits" won a Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 1966. Plot. Giulietta explores her subconscious and the odd lifestyle of her sexy neighbor, Suzy, as she attempts to deal with her mundane life and her philandering oppressive husband, Giorgio. As she increasingly taps into her desires (and her demons) she slowly gains greater self-awareness leading to independence. Production. "Juliet of the Spirits" was shot at Cinecittà Studios, Cinecittà, Rome, Lazio, Italy; Fregene, Fiumicino, Rome, Lazio, Italy; and Safa-Palatino, Rome, Lazio, Italy (studio). Criticism. The economist and film critic Murray Rothbard described it as "what may well be the Worst Movie of All Time, the absurdist-nihilist Fellini monstrosity, Juliet of the Spirits", saying that it reeked of "pretension and deliberate boredom".
1165801	Richard Stanford Cox (April 19, 1930 – July 8, 1994), known professionally as Dick Sargent, was an American actor, notable as the second actor to portray Darrin Stephens on the television series "Bewitched". The actor took the name Dick Sargent from a "Saturday Evening Post" illustrator/artist of the same name. Career. Born Richard Stanford Cox in Carmel-by-the-Sea, California, Sargent had appeared in films since his debut in "Prisoner of War" (1954). When Dick York was forced to leave the "Bewitched" series owing to health problems in 1969, Sargent stepped into the role. He had first been offered the role in 1964 after William Asher and Elizabeth Montgomery were involved and chose him but was under contract to Universal Studios and unable to accept it. His efforts were focused on the short-lived sitcom "Broadside" instead. He appeared in "The Great Locomotive Chase" starring Fess Parker, "Operation Petticoat" starring Cary Grant, and "The Ghost and Mr. Chicken" starring Don Knotts. Sargent played Darrin until "Bewitched" ended in 1972. Later in the 1970s, he appeared in "Hardcore" as Jake Van Dorn's straight laced brother in law, Wes DeJong. Sargent continued to work in film and made numerous guest appearances on various television shows, including one episode of "Three's Company", "The Waltons", "Charlie's Angels", "Knots Landing", "Family Ties" and two episodes of "The Dukes of Hazzard". He also portrayed himself in a 1993 "Columbo" episode. In the mid-1980s, he landed the steady role of Richard Preston, the widowed father, in the syndicated sitcom "Down to Earth". He also appeared in the witch-themed movie "Teen Witch" in 1989. Throughout the 1980s, he joined actress Sally Struthers as an advocate for Christian Children's Fund, which brought relief to developing nations' children. Death. Sargent was diagnosed with prostate cancer in 1989. Doctors were initially optimistic that it could be treated; however, the disease continued to spread and by early 1994, he had become seriously ill. Sargent died from the disease on July 8, 1994 at age 64. His remains were cremated. Former "Bewitched" co-star Elizabeth Montgomery commented, "He was a great friend, and I will miss his love, his sense of humor and his remarkable courage." Montgomery herself died of cancer less than a year later. Personal. On National Coming Out Day in 1991, Sargent publicly declared his homosexuality and supported gay rights issues. The high rate of suicide among young homosexuals was the main reason, jokingly referring to himself as a "retroactive role model." Sargent recognized his ill health from prostate cancer may have led people to assume he suffered from AIDS. He lived with his domestic partner, Albert Williams, until his death. In June 1992, Sargent was a Grand Marshal of the Los Angeles Gay Pride parade along with Montgomery.
1061604	Judy Davis (born 23 April 1955) is an Australian actress best known for her roles in "Husbands and Wives", "Barton Fink", "A Passage to India" and in the TV miniseries "". Davis first came to attention for her role as the fiery Sybylla Melvyn in the 1979 film "My Brilliant Career". She has won many acting awards, including two Golden Globe awards, three Emmy awards, two BAFTA awards and seven AFI Awards. She has also been nominated twice for an Academy Award. Personal life. Davis was born in Perth, and had a strict Catholic upbringing. She was educated at Loreto Convent and the Western Australian Institute of Technology, and graduated from the National Institute of Dramatic Art (NIDA) in 1977. She has been married to actor and fellow NIDA graduate Colin Friels since 1984. They have two children, son Jack and daughter Charlotte. Career. First coming to prominence for her role as Sybylla Melvyn in the coming-of-age saga "My Brilliant Career" (1979), for which she won BAFTA Awards for Best Actress and Best Newcomer, Judy Davis also played the lead in the Australian New Wave classics "Winter of Our Dreams" (1981) (as a waif-like heroin addict) and "Heatwave" (1982) (as a radical tenant organizer). Her international film career began in 1981 when she played the younger version of Ingrid Bergman's Golda Meir in the television docudrama "A Woman Called Golda", followed by the role of a terrorist in the British film "Who Dares Wins" (1982). In 1984, she was cast as Adela Quested in David Lean's final film "A Passage to India", an adaptation of E. M. Forster's novel, for which she was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress. She returned to Australian cinema for her next two films, "Kangaroo", as a German-born writer's wife, and "Hightide", as a foot-loose mother who attempts to reunite with her teenage daughter who is being raised by the paternal grandmother. She earned Australian Film Institute Awards for both roles, and a National Society of Film Critics award for "Hightide"'s brief American theatrical run. In 1990, she played a cameo in Woody Allen's "Alice". In 1991, she was featured in Joel Coen's "Barton Fink", which won the "Palme d'Or" at the Cannes Film Festival and in David Cronenberg's adaptation of the hallucinogenic novel "Naked Lunch". She won an Independent Spirit Award for her work as mannish woman author George Sand in "Impromptu" and returned to E. M. Forster territory in "Where Angels Fear to Tread". She portrayed real-life World War II heroine Mary Lindell in the CBS Hallmark Hall of Fame presentation "One Against the Wind." In 1992, she played a major role in Woody Allen's "Husbands and Wives" as one half of a divorcing couple. For this performance she earned both Oscar and Golden Globe nominations for best supporting actress. Other roles have included the mysterious, schizophrenic mother of a teenager in boarding school in "On My Own" (1993), the lifelong Australian Communist Party member reacting to the downfall of the Soviet Union in "Children of the Revolution" (1996), two more Allen films, "Deconstructing Harry" (1997) and "Celebrity" (1998), a highly-strung White House chief of staff in "Absolute Power" (1997), a supportive mother in "Swimming Upstream" (2003) and supporting roles in two 2006 films, "The Break-Up" and "Marie-Antoinette". She co-starred with actor Kevin Spacey in the 1994 comedy film "The Ref", portraying a married couple whose relationship is on the rocks, with actor-comedian Denis Leary as their marriage counsellor. Much of her recent work has been on television, where she has a collection of Emmy Award nominations. She won her first Emmy for portraying the woman who gently coaxes rigid militarywoman Glenn Close out of the closet in "", with subsequent nominations for her repressed Australian outback mother in "The Echo of Thunder" (1998), her portrayal of Lillian Hellman in "Dash and Lilly" (1999), her frigid society matron in "A Cooler Climate" (1999) and her interpretation of Nancy Reagan in the controversial biopic "The Reagans" (2003). She earned a second Emmy for her portrayal of Judy Garland in the 2001 television biographical film "". In July 2006, she received her ninth Emmy nomination for her performance in the television film "A Little Thing Called Murder". Her tenth nomination came in 2007 for Outstanding Supporting Actress in the U.S. miniseries "The Starter Wife" for which she was awarded the Emmy. In August 2007, she appeared opposite Sam Waterston in an episode of ABC's anthology series "Masters of Science Fiction". She appeared on the TV mini-series, "Diamonds" from 2008–2009. In 2011, Davis appeared in a television drama film, "Page Eight", and played Dorothy de Lascabanes in "The Eye of the Storm", an adaptation of Patrick White's novel of the same title, for which, in 2012, she won an Australian Film Institute Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role. She has a major role as Woody Allen's psychiatrist wife in his "To Rome with Love" and she also stars in "The Surrealist" about Salvador Dalí. Stage. Davis's stage work has been limited, and mostly confined to Australia. Early in her career, she played Juliet opposite Mel Gibson's Romeo. In 1978, she appeared in "Visions" by Louis Nowra at the Paris Theatre Company in Sydney. In 1980, she portrayed French chanteuse Edith Piaf in Stephen Barry's production of the Pam Gems play "Piaf" at the Perth Playhouse. She played both Cordelia and the Fool in a 1984 staging of "King Lear" by the Nimrod Theatre Company, and also starred in its productions of Strindberg's "Miss Julie", Chekhov's "The Bear", Louis Nowra's "Inside The Island" and, in 1986, the title role of Ibsen's "Hedda Gabler" for the Sydney Theatre Company In 2004, she starred in and co-directed Howard Barker's play "Victory", as a Puritan woman determined to locate her husband's dismembered corpse. Other stage directorial efforts include Sheridan's "The School For Scandal" and "Barrymore" by William Luce (all three for the Sydney Theatre Company). She created the role of The Actress in Terry Johnson's "Insignificance" at the Royal Court in London and appeared in a brief 1989 Los Angeles production of Tom Stoppard's "Hapgood". In 2011, she portrayed the role of fading actress Irina Arkadina in Anton Chekhov's "The Seagull" at Sydney's Belvoir St Theatre.
1162436	Ike Eisenmann (also spelled Iake Eissinmann; born July 21, 1962) is an American actor, voice actor, producer, and sound-effects specialist who has been active in the entertainment industry since he was a preteen. Early life and career. Eisenmann was born Ike Keith Eisenmann in Houston, Texas, the son of Ruth Ann ("née" Gumney) and Albert Able Eisenmann, who was also an actor, well known in Houston as KTRK channel 13's children's show host "Cadet Don". He first came to prominence opposite Kim Richards as Tony Malone in Walt Disney Productions film "Escape to Witch Mountain" and its sequel "Return from Witch Mountain". He also appeared as engineering cadet Peter Preston in "". In 1983 he played the part of Paul in the critically acclaimed movie "Cross Creek". The 2009 remake film, "Race to Witch Mountain", featured Ike in a cameo along with his original co-star, Kim Richards. Television appearances consisted of roles in "The Fantastic Journey", "T.J. Hooker", "Wonder Woman" and several episodes of "Gunsmoke" and several appearances on the "ABC Afterschool Specials". Eisenmann also starred in the made-for-television 1982 movie "Dreams Don't Die" as New York subway graffiti artist Danny Baker trying to publish his art professionally. Though not a critical success, the film enjoyed cult status during late night rebroadcasts. He also appeared in the 1978 mini-series "Centennial" as the young Jake Lloyd. Eisenmann appeared in Disney's "Tom and Huck" as a townsperson.
1042663	Cyril Chamberlain (8 March 1909 – 5 December 1974) was an English film and television actor. He appeared in a number of the early Carry On, Doctor in the House and St. Trinian's films. He was born on 8 March 1909 in London and died in Builth Wells in Wales on 5 December 1974, aged 65. He appeared in 139 films from 1938 to 1966. His first film appearance was in the 1939 Will Hay comedy film "Ask A Policeman"; his role was uncredited.
1163262	Anna Nicole Smith (born Vickie Lynn Hogan); November 28, 1967 – February 8, 2007), was an American model, actress, and television personality. Smith first gained popularity in "Playboy", becoming the 1993 Playmate of the Year. She modeled for clothing companies, including Guess jeans and Lane Bryant. Smith dropped out of high school at age 15 and was married in 1985. Her highly publicized second marriage to oil business mogul, J. Howard Marshall, 62 years her senior, resulted in speculation that she married the octogenarian for his money, which she denied. Following Marshall's death, Smith began a lengthy legal battle over a share of his estate. Her case, "Marshall v. Marshall", reached the U.S. Supreme Court on a question of federal jurisdiction, and again on a question of bankruptcy court authority (now called "Stern v. Marshall"). Smith died on February 8, 2007 in a Hollywood, Florida hotel room as a result of an overdose of prescription drugs. Within the final six months of her life, Smith was the focus of a renewed press coverage surrounding the death of her son, Daniel, and the paternity and custody battle over her newborn daughter, Dannielynn. Early life. Born Vickie Lynn Hogan in Harris County, Texas, Anna Nicole was the daughter of Donald Eugene Hogan (1947-2009) and Virgie Mae (née Tabers; born July 12, 1951), who married on February 22, 1967 and divorced on November 4, 1969. She had five half siblings including half-sister Donna Hogan. Anna Nicole was raised by her mother and aunt. Virgie subsequently married Donald R. Hart in 1971. After Virgie married Donald, Anna Nicole changed her name from Vickie Hogan to Nikki Hart. Anna Nicole attended Durkee Elementary School and Aldine Senior High School in Houston. When she was in the 9th grade, she was sent to live with her mother's younger sister, Kay Beall, in Mexia, Texas. At Mexia High School, Anna Nicole failed her freshman year and dropped out of school during her sophomore year. While working at Jim's Krispy Fried Chicken in Mexia, Anna Nicole met Billy Wayne Smith, who was a cook at the restaurant; the couple married April 4, 1985 when she was 17 and he was 16. Anna Nicole gave birth to their son, Daniel Wayne Smith, on January 22, 1986. She and Billy separated in 1987, and she moved to Houston with one-year-old Daniel. They were officially divorced February 3, 1993, in Houston. Initially, Anna Nicole found employment at Wal-Mart, then as a waitress at Red Lobster. She then became a stripper, and in 1991, she began taking modeling and voice lessons. In October of that year she saw an ad in the newspaper to audition for "Playboy" magazine. Striptease and modeling career. In 1989, she earned employment at Executive Suites in Houston, where she was billed as Vickie Smith. Initially, Smith reported that she did not know the bar required her to do topless dancing. She was originally an unpopular dancer because of her relatively small breasts. She eventually saved money to get "bowling ball" implants, thus becoming the most-popular stripper at the nightclub. In 1992, she went to a photo session, hoping to become the next face of "Playboy" magazine. Photographers, however, saw her large stature and frame to be difficult to shoot. Nonetheless, magazine creator Hugh Hefner was very fond of Smith and insisted that she be on the cover of the March 1992 issue. She was pictured in a low-cut, black evening gown and listed as Vickie Smith. The centerfold was photographed by Stephen Wayda. The magazine made her an overnight modeling sensation, and she became known for wanting to be "the next Marilyn Monroe". Despite her early success with "Playboy", she was not offered any other modeling jobs. By the time the photos for the pictorial were shot, she had settled on the name Anna Nicole Smith, although she originally showed interest in having a name in memory of Monroe. Smith next secured a contract to replace supermodel Claudia Schiffer in a Guess jeans ad campaign featuring a series of sultry black-and-white photographs. Guess photographers noticed Smith bore a striking resemblance to bombshell Jayne Mansfield, and showcased her in several Mansfield-inspired photo sessions. In 1993 before Christmas, she modeled for the Swedish clothing company Hennes & Mauritz. This led to her being pictured on large billboards in Sweden and Norway. A photograph of Smith was used by "New York" magazine on the cover of its August 22, 1994, issue titled "White Trash Nation". In the photo she appears squatting in a short skirt with cowboy boots as she eats chips. In October 1994, her lawyer initiated a $5 million lawsuit against the magazine claiming unauthorized use of her photo, and that the article damaged her reputation. Her lawyer stated Smith was under the impression that she was being photographed to embody the "all-American girl look", but they instead wanted more sexy photos. He further stated the photo the magazine used was taken during a break just for fun. The lawsuit was reported to be settled. Marriage to Marshall. While performing at Gigi's (later renamed as "Pleasures"), a Houston strip club) in October 1991, Smith met elderly oil tycoon J. Howard Marshall, and they began a relationship. During their two-year affair, he reportedly lavished gifts on her and asked her to marry him several times. She divorced her husband Billy on February 3, 1993, in Houston. On June 27, 1994, twenty-six-year-old Smith and eighty-nine-year-old Marshall were married in Houston. This resulted in a great deal of gossip about her marrying him for his money. She reportedly never lived with him, never made love with him, or kissed him on the mouth more than ten times. Smith, however, maintained that she loved her husband, and age did not matter to her. Thirteen months after his marriage to Smith, Marshall died in Houston at age ninety, on August 4, 1995. Inheritance court cases. Within weeks of J. Howard Marshall's death, one of his sons, E. Pierce Marshall, disputed her claim for half of her late husband's US$1.6 billion estate. She temporarily joined forces with J. Howard's other son, James Howard Marshall III, whom the elder Howard had disowned. Howard III claimed that J. Howard Marshall had orally promised him a portion of the estate; like Smith, Howard III was also left out of J. Howard's will. The case had gone on for more than a decade, producing a highly publicized court battle in Texas and several judicial decisions that have gone both for and against Smith in that time. In 1996, Smith filed for bankruptcy in California as a result of a $850,000 judgment against her for sexual harassment of an employee. As any money potentially due to her from the Marshall estate was part of her potential assets, the bankruptcy court involved itself in the matter. Smith claimed that J. Howard had orally promised her half of his estate if she married him. In September 2000, a Los Angeles bankruptcy judge awarded her $449,754,134. In July 2001, Houston judge Mike Wood affirmed the jury findings in the probate case by ruling that Smith was entitled to nothing. The judge ordered Smith to pay over $1 million in fees and expenses to Pierce's legal team. The conflict between the Texas probate court and California bankruptcy court judgments forced the matter into federal court. In March 2002, a federal judge vacated the California bankruptcy court's ruling and issued a new ruling but reduced the award to $88 million. In December 2004, a three-judge panel of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the March 2002 decision, on the reasoning that the federal courts lacked jurisdiction to overrule this probate court decision. The U.S. Supreme Court decided in September 2005 to hear the appeal of that decision. The Bush administration subsequently directed the Solicitor General to intercede on Smith's behalf out of an interest to expand federal court jurisdiction over state probate disputes. After months of waiting, Smith and her stepson Pierce learned of the Supreme Court's decision on May 1, 2006. The justices unanimously decided in favor of Smith; Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote the majority opinion. The decision did not give Smith a portion of her husband's estate, but affirmed her right to pursue a share of it in federal court. On June 20, 2006, E. Pierce Marshall died at age 67 from an "aggressive infection". Following his death, his widow, Elaine T. Marshall, pursued the case on behalf of his estate. The case was remanded to the 9th Circuit to adjudicate the remaining appellate issues not previously resolved. After Smith's death, the "New York Times" reported that the case over the Marshall fortune "is likely to continue in the name of Ms. Smith’s infant daughter." The current situation is that Anna Nicole Smith's estate will not inherit any of her late husband's estate. Following the decision by the Appeals Court for the Ninth Circuit, lawyers for the estate of Anna Nicole Smith requested the appeal be heard before the entire 9th circuit. However on May 6, 2010 the appeal was denied. On September 28, 2010, the U.S. Supreme Court again agreed to hear the case. On June 23, 2011, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a ruling against the estate of Anna Nicole Smith, holding that a bankruptcy court ruling giving her estate a sum of $475 million was decided without jurisdiction (now called "Stern v. Marshall"). A California bankruptcy court awarded Smith part of the estate, but the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeal said that a bankruptcy court could not make a decision on an issue outside of bankruptcy law. The U.S. Supreme Court agreed with the ruling of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. Film and television career. Despite her success as a model, Smith never found the same recognition or success as an actress. A twenty-six-year-old Smith debuted on the screen in the 1994 screwball comedy, "The Hudsucker Proxy". She appeared as Za-Za, a flirtatious celebrity who flirts with the lead character, played by Tim Robbins, in a barbershop scene. Smith was next given a larger role as Tanya Peters in "" (1994), which was released seven days after her initial film debut. Her role in the film, that of a pivotal contact to a crime, earned her favorable reviews and the film enjoyed box office success. Despite the publicity for her performance in both films, they each did very little to improve her acting career. Smith wanted to be taken more seriously as an actress, but Hollywood studios were reluctant. Her persona of a ditzy dumb blonde was compressed heavily in her film roles, which sought only to market her physical assets. In an attempt to earn acting respect, Smith agreed to appear in "To the Limit" (1995), which would be her first starring role. In the film she played Colette Dubois, a retired spy seeking revenge on the murderer of her late husband. Although the film was highly publicized and boosted a lavish budget and script, Smith's performance drew negative reviews and it was an ultimate box office bomb. It offered Smith's first and only venture in a mainstream Hollywood leading role. By 1996, Smith's acting career had declined considerably. After the failure of her previous motion picture, Hollywood studios began to realize her public popularity did not affect her acting abilities or ticket sales at the box office. She appeared as herself in the 1995 pilot episode of "The Naked Truth". Smith attempted to revitalize her film career with a leading role in "Skyscraper" in 1996. The low-budget, direct-to-video film offered Smith no more than "soft-core exploitation" and her movie career again stalled. In the late 1990s, Smith focused her acting career on television. She appeared on the variety series "Sin City Spectacular" in 1998. That same year, Smith appeared in the tell-all self-promoting film, "Anna Nicole Smith: Exposed", which was based on several photo sessions during her Playboy career. She appeared as Donna, the friend of Veronica Chase played by Kirstie Alley, on the sitcom "Veronica's Closet" in 1999. Smith guest-starred as Myra Jacobs in a 1999 episode of the surreal series, "Ally McBeal". In the early 2000s, Smith had very few acting jobs. As a result of her rising popularity with tabloids and gossip columnists, Smith was given her own reality show on the E! cable network. "The Anna Nicole Show" premiered on August 4, 2002, achieving the highest cable rating ever issued for a reality show. Coincidentally, the day the series premiered was the seventh anniversary of the death of J. Howard Marshall. The series attempted to focus on the private life of Smith, her boyfriend/attorney Howard K. Stern, her son Daniel, her assistant Kimmy, her miniature poodle Sugar Pie, her gay interior decorator Bobby Trendy, her cousin Shelly Cloud, and another short-lived boyfriend Benjy Bronk. Despite the popularity of the show amongst college students and pop culture fanatics, the show declined considerably in viewership at the end of its first season. It was, however, renewed for a second season, before being cancelled on June 1, 2003, after two seasons and twenty-seven episodes. Interestingly, the day the final episode aired was the seventy-seventh birthday of Marilyn Monroe. E! announced to the press that the series ended because of "creative differences" between the network and Smith, although she acknowledged the series ended because the network had lost interest in both her and the show. Smith returned to film acting in 2003 with the comedy film "Wasabi Tuna". In the film she played an over-the-top version of herself, whose miniature poodle Sugar Pie is stolen from her on Halloween by a team of drag queens dressed like her. Neither the film nor her performance drew positive reviews. In 2005, she briefly appeared as a spectator at a basketball game in "Be Cool", starring John Travolta. In late 2006, she agreed to play Lucy in the self-produced independent parody film, "Illegal Aliens", alongside a completely unknown cast. It attempted to parody several popular television shows from the 1970s and 1980s as well as several film franchises. It would be released direct-to-video on May 1, 2007, nearly three months after her death. Smith as spokesperson. In an interview on "Late Night with Conan O'Brien", Smith was asked what her "Playmate diet" consisted of. She instantly replied, "fried chicken". In October 2003, she became a spokesperson for TrimSpa, which helped her lose a reported 69 lb (31 kg). In November 2004, she appeared at the American Music Awards to introduce Kanye West and attracted attention because of her slurred speech and behavior. During her live appearance, she threw her arms up and exclaimed, "Like my body?". Smith murmured other comments and alluded to TrimSpa. The incident became comic material for presenters throughout the rest of the program. The following day, her appearance was featured in the media. Tabloids speculated that Smith was under the influence of pills or some other controlled substance. Her representatives explained that she was in pain due to a series of grueling workouts. In March 2005, at the first MTV Australia Video Music Awards in Sydney's Luna Park, she spoofed Janet Jackson's wardrobe malfunction by pulling down her dress to reveal both breasts, each covered with the MTV logo. Smith was also featured in advertisements for the animal rights group PETA. Spoofing Marilyn Monroe's "Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend" segment in "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes", a 2004 ad states "Gentlemen prefer fur-free blondes." Due to her support of the anti-fur movement, in particular her criticism of Canadian seal hunting, PETA began a petition in memory of Smith to the Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper to end the annual tradition. In another ad the following year, Smith posed with her dogs in a campaign against Iams dog food for their alleged cruelty to animals, as well as the manufacturer Procter and Gamble, and sister company Eukanuba. Personal life. Smith was addicted to prescription medications. Psychiatrist Dr. Natalie Maullin said she met Smith in April 2006 in Cedars-Sinai Medical Centre. Maullin said Smith had borderline personality disorder. Birth of daughter. Smith announced on June 1, 2006, in a video clip posted on her official website that she was pregnant. "Let me stop all the rumors," she said, while floating on an inflatable raft in a swimming pool. "Yes, I am pregnant. I'm happy, I'm very, very happy about it. Everything's goin' really, really good and I'll be checking in and out periodically on the web, and I'll let you see me as I'm growing." Though her announcement did not provide any details, in an interview with Larry King on CNN's "Larry King Live" after her daughter's birth and her son's death, Smith's longtime personal attorney Howard K. Stern said that he and Smith had been in a secret relationship for "a very long time" and that, due to the timing of the pregnancy, he was confident that he was the father of the baby. Entertainment photographer Larry Birkhead, steadfastly maintained that he was the baby's father and filed a lawsuit to establish paternity. Smith's daughter, Dannielynn Hope Marshall Stern, was born September 7, 2006, at Doctors Hospital in Nassau, Bahamas. The Bahamian birth certificate recorded the father as Howard K. Stern. A judge in the United States ordered that DNA tests be performed to determine the biological father of Dannielynn. Following Smith's death, Debra Opri, the lawyer for Larry Birkhead, asked for an emergency DNA sample to be taken from her body. Smith's lawyer, Ron Rale objected strongly to this request. The request was denied by a judge, who instead ordered Smith's body preserved until February 20. According to a story published in the "New York Daily News", Donna Hogan, Smith's younger half-sister, has said that the model froze the sperm of her second husband, Marshall, prior to his death. The newspaper said that Hogan wrote in her unpublished manuscript about her sister, entitled "Train Wreck", that "To her family, she hinted that she had used the old man's frozen sperm, and would be giving birth to Howard Marshall's child". However, the publisher of Hogan's book described the newspaper's claims as a hoax. On February 9, 2007, Zsa Zsa Gabor's husband Frédéric Prinz von Anhalt said that he had had a decade-long affair with Smith and could potentially be the father of her infant girl, Dannielynn. Alexander Denk, a former bodyguard for Anna Nicole Smith, reportedly told the tabloid television program "Extra" that he had had an affair with his former employer, and that it was possible he could be Dannielynn's father. After Smith's death, "TMZ.com" reported that Smith had been given a prescription for methadone under a false name while she was in her eighth month of pregnancy. The Medical Board of California launched a review into the matter; the prescribing doctor, Sandeep Kapoor, said his treatment was "sound and appropriate." On April 10, 2007, a Bahamian judge ruled Larry Birkhead, photographer, as the father of Dannielynn. DNA tests had established Birkhead as the father, with 99.99% certainty. Commenting on the revelation, Birkhead stated, "I hate to be the one to tell you this but, I told you so. I'm the father...My baby's going to be coming home pretty soon." Birkhead subsequently applied for an amended birth certificate listing him as the father, which paved the way for him to obtain a passport for the baby to leave with him for the United States. Howard K. Stern did not contest the DNA results or the ruling. Subsequent to the ruling, Birkhead returned to the United States with the baby. Smith's mother, Virgie Arthur, appealed the ruling but it was later denied and she was ordered to pay costs. Death of son. Smith's 20-year-old son Daniel Smith, died on September 10, 2006, in his mother's hospital room while visiting her and his half sister. After the coroner labeled the death "reserved," Smith hired forensic pathologist Cyril Wecht to perform a second autopsy. His death certificate was issued on September 21, 2006, so that he could be buried. While Smith remained in the Bahamas with Dannielynn and Stern, Daniel's family in the United States, including his father, Billy Smith, gathered with friends on October 7, 2006, in Mexia, Texas, for a memorial service. Daniel was buried at Lake View Cemetery on New Providence, Bahamas, on October 19, 2006, almost six weeks after his death. According to Howard K. Stern, Smith's longtime partner, she was devastated over her son's death. "Anna and Daniel were inseparable. Daniel was without question the most important person in Anna’s life," Stern told Florida Circuit Judge Larry Seidlin during his testimony in Smith's body custody trial: "At Daniel’s funeral, she had them open the coffin and tried to climb inside. She said that 'if Daniel has to be buried, I want to be buried with him,'" Stern testified. "She was ready to go down with him." Howard K. Stern revealed that "Anna saw herself as both mother and father to Daniel. From the time I met her, everything was for Daniel. I would say that physically, she died last week, but in a lot of ways, emotionally she died when Daniel died," he added. Dr. Wecht announced on "Larry King Live" that the autopsy he performed showed that Daniel died from a lethal combination of Zoloft, Lexapro and methadone. Although he explained that methadone is used in the treatment of heroin and morphine addiction, Wecht said he had no information to make any conclusion why Daniel was using the drug. On February 8, 2007, Wecht said on Fox News that he still had no information about how Daniel obtained methadone. Commitment ceremony with Stern. On September 28, 2006, Smith and Howard K. Stern exchanged vows and rings in an informal commitment ceremony aboard the catamaran Margaritaville off the coast of the Bahamas. She wore a white dress and carried a bouquet of red roses, while he wore a black suit with white shirt. Although they pledged their love and made a commitment to be there for one another before a Baptist minister, no marriage certificate was issued and the ceremony was not legally binding. After the ceremony, they landed on the island of Sandy Cay where they had a party and celebrated with champagne and apple cider that had been brought over for the occasion by sailboat. Regarding the questionable timing of the ceremony, Smith's attorney in Nassau, stated, "They needed a little adrenaline boost because things have been so hectic and devastating in their life recently." The photos of their ceremony were sold through Getty Images to "People" magazine for around $1,000,000. Residency in the Bahamas. Smith and Stern were reportedly staying in the Bahamas to avoid paternity testing of her daughter in the United States. In late 2006, Smith was granted permanent resident status in the Bahamas by Immigration Minister Shane Gibson. On February 11, 2007, newspaper photographs were published showing Smith lying clothed in bed in an embrace with Gibson. Opposition politicians in the Bahamas accused the minister of improper behavior. Gibson resigned as a result of the controversy and claimed that the photos, taken by Stern, were innocent. The basis of Smith's permanent residency status was the claim that she owned a $900,000 mansion, which she said was given to her by a former boyfriend, real estate developer G. Ben Thompson of South Carolina. Thompson asserted that he loaned Smith the finances to purchase the property, but that she failed to repay the loan, and was attempting to regain control of the property. Thompson sued to evict Smith from the property in Bahama Court, and received a default judgment against her when she failed to respond to the eviction, or appear in court on November 28, 2006. Ford Shelley, son-in-law of G. Ben Thompson, claimed that methadone was found in Anna's bedroom refrigerator while the mansion was being reclaimed. A photograph provided by TMZ shows a large bottle of methadone along with vials of injectable vitamin B12 (cyanocobalamin) in her refrigerator and diet product Slimfast. Death and funeral. On February 8, 2007, Smith was found dead in room 607 at the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Hollywood, Florida. Tasma Brighthaupt, a friend of Smith who was a trained emergency nurse, performed CPR for 15 minutes until her husband, Maurice "Big Moe" Brighthaupt, Smith's friend and bodyguard, took over CPR. He had driven back to the hotel after being notified by his wife of Smith's condition. According to Seminole Police Chief Charlie Tiger, at 1:38 p.m. (18:38 UTC) Maurice Brighthaupt, who was also a trained paramedic, called the hotel front desk from her sixth-floor room. The front desk in turn called security, who then called 911. At 1:45 p.m. the bodyguard administered CPR until paramedics arrived and Smith was rushed to Memorial Regional Hospital at 2:10 p.m. and pronounced dead on arrival at 2:49 p.m. A phone call was released to the public on February 13, 2007, involving Seminole police and the local 911 operators, saying: After a seven-week investigation led by Broward County Medical Examiner and Forensic Pathologist Dr. Joshua Perper in combination with the Seminole police and several independent forensic pathologists and toxicologists, Dr. Perper announced that Smith died of "combined drug intoxication" with the sleeping medication chloral hydrate as the "major component." No illegal drugs were found in her system. The official report states that her death was not considered to be due to homicide, suicide, or natural causes. The full investigative report has been made public and can be found online. Additionally, an official copy of the autopsy report was publicly released on March 26, 2007, and can be found online. Ultimately her death was ruled a drug overdose of the sedative chloral hydrate that became increasingly lethal when combined with other prescription drugs in her system, specifically four benzodiazepines: Klonopin (Clonazepam), Ativan (Lorazepam), Serax (Oxazepam), and Valium (Diazepam). Furthermore, she had taken Benadryl (Diphenhydramine) and Topamax (Topiramate), an anticonvulsant AMPA/Kainate antagonist, which likely contributed to the sedative effect of chloral hydrate and the benzodiazepines. Although the individual levels of any of the benzodiazepines in her system would not have been sufficient to cause death, their combination with a high dose of chloral hydrate led to her overdose. The autopsy report indicates that chloral hydrate was the "toxic/lethal" drug, but it is difficult to know whether chloral hydrate ingestion alone would have killed her, since Dr. Perper indicated (in the March 26 press conference) that she had built up a tolerance to the drug and took more than the average person. He indicated that she took about three tablespoons, whereas the normal dosage is between one and two teaspoons. Chloral hydrate, first synthesized in 1832, was the first depressant developed for the specific purpose of inducing sleep. The infamous “Mickey Finn” or “knockout drops” was a solution of alcohol and chloral hydrate that was popular in Victorian England and in that era’s literature. When used properly, and without the introduction of alcohol or other depressants, chloral hydrate is effective in easing sleeplessness due to pain or insomnia. But according to Avis (1990), the effective dose and lethal dose of chloral hydrate are so close that the sedative should be considered dangerous. Today, the use of chloral hydrate has declined as other agents, including barbiturates and benzodiazepines, have largely replaced them. Despite rumors of methadone use due to its involvement in Smith's son's death, Dr. Perper found only methadone in her bile, indicating that it could only have been ingested 2–3 days prior to her death and was not a contributing factor. The autopsy report indicates that abscesses on her buttocks (presumably from prior injections of vitamin B12 in the form of cyanocobalamin, as well as human growth hormone), and viral enteritis were contributory causes of death. Tests for influenza A and B were negative. It was reported that 8 of the 11 drugs in Smith's system, including the chloral hydrate, were prescribed to Howard K. Stern, not Smith. Additionally, two of the prescriptions were written for Alex Katz and one was written for Smith's friend and psychiatrist, Dr. Khristine Elaine Eroshevich. Dr. Perper acknowledged that all 11 prescriptions were written by Dr. Eroshevich herself. Before Smith's body was buried, it began decomposing at a faster-than-normal pace. Possible factors in her more rapid decomposition were the drugs found in her body in the autopsy, the fact that the legal battles delayed her embalming until over a week after her death, and the nearly month-long wait for her burial in the warm Bahama weather. This resulted in the family having a closed-casket funeral. Smith's will, drawn up in April 2001, named her son Daniel as the sole beneficiary of her estate, specifically excluded other children, and named Howard K. Stern as the executor. It indicated personal property valued at $10,000 and real property valued at $1.8 million (with a $1.1 million mortgage) at the time of death. A petition to probate Smith's will was filed in Los Angeles County Superior Court. The petition to probate lists Larry Birkhead as a party with interest to Anna's estate. A six-foot-long black granite monument was installed at Smith's grave in the Bahamas, in February 2009.
1057051	Five Dollars a Day (also spelled as $5 a Day) is a drama directed by Nigel Cole, produced by Capitol Films subsidiary ThinkFilm and starring Christopher Walken, Alessandro Nivola, Amanda Peet, and Sharon Stone. The project dates back to 2003 when Nick Cassavetes had signed on to direct, but a year later was replaced by John Curran. Three years later Nigel Cole is sitting in the director's chair. It premiered at the 2008 Toronto International Film Festival. Plot. Ritchie Flynn Parker (Alessandro Nivola) is a seemingly successful man living in Los Angeles, California who has just broken up with his girlfriend Maggie (Amanda Peet). He has also just been fired from his job as a health inspector when he discovers his father Nat (Christopher Walken), a cheap con-man, has a terminal brain tumor and he wants to see Ritchie. Ritchie, believing it's another con, grudgingly goes to Atlantic City to see his father who explains he has been living on five dollars a day, going to extremes to do so, such as constantly calling various radio station contests with different aliases to win things, like concert tickets he can then scalp. Nat shows Ritchie an x-ray of his skull, and asks Ritchie to drive him to New Mexico to seek a potential cure. The father and son hit the road driving a Sweet'n Low car free of charge provided they get gas at Chevron stations along the way. Ritchie calls his girlfriend to tell her about his life and the trip, using one of Nat's many free cell-phones with promotional minutes.
1162073	Charles George Patrick Shaughnessy, 5th Baron Shaughnessy (born 9 February 1955), simply known as Charles Shaughnessy, is a British peer and television, theatre and film actor. He is known for his roles on American television, as Shane Donovan on the soap opera "Days of our Lives" and as Maxwell Sheffield on the sitcom "The Nanny". Along with his brother David Shaughnessy and Ophelia Soumekh he is a partner in 3S Media Solutions Inc. Early life. Shaughnessy was born on 9 February 1955 in London, the son of Alfred Shaughnessy, a television writer who was the scriptwriter for "Upstairs, Downstairs", and the actress Jean Lodge. His brother, David Shaughnessy, is also an actor and a television producer and director. Having been born into a show-business family, he started appearing in plays during primary school. After attending Eton College, he read for a law degree at Magdalene College of University of Cambridge where he wrote a thesis on the House of Lords. While at Cambridge, he joined the Footlights club. After graduating, he decided to return to acting and enrolled in a London drama school, which led to him touring in a repertory company. He moved to the United States to follow actress Susan Fallender, whom he eventually wed. Career. Shaughnessy first became widely known for playing Shane Donovan on the soap opera "Days of Our Lives" from 1984 to 1992. His "Days of our Lives" character’s romance with Patsy Pease's character, Kimberly Brady, made the duo into a soap supercouple and revived interest in "Days" among teenage viewers in the 1980s. In 1986, he appeared with Betty White and Bert Convy on "Super Password", and in January 1993, Shaugnessy appeared in an episode of Murphy Brown as the title character's date to a formal occasion. Shaughnessy is also well known for his portrayal of Maxwell Sheffield opposite Fran Drescher on CBS' "The Nanny" from 1993 to 1999. He and Drescher resumed acting together on Drescher's next sitcom, "Living with Fran", wherein Shaughnessy appeared fairly frequently as her philandering but needy ex-husband, Ted. "Living with Fran" was canceled on 17 May 2006, after two seasons. In 1996, Shaughnessy was reunited with another co-star from "DOOL" - Charlotte Ross, who portrayed Shane's daughter Eve Donovan - for the TV movie "A Kiss So Deadly". This time, Ross portrayed the roommate of Shaughnessy's daughter (Dedee Pfeiffer); Shaughnessy's character, although married, forms an obsessive "Lolita"-esque relationship with Ross. When she tries to break it off, Shaughnessy's character murders Ross'; gradually, his daughter uncovers the truth. Shaughnessy also appeared in the Disney Channel 2002 made-for-TV movie "Get a Clue". He was also seen in the Halloween 2000 made-for-TV movie "Mom's Got A Date With A Vampire" starring opposite Caroline Rhea (she guest-starred on "The Nanny" in 1998 as part of a cross-over with "Hollywood Squares"). That same year, Shaughnessy made two appearances on The WB's "Sabrina" (this show stars Rhea, Melissa Joan Hart, and Beth Broderick) playing two different characters. He played Alec Colson in the 8th-season episode "Covenant" of "Stargate SG-1". He also voiced Dr. Quintaine in the PC game "Freelancer". Shaughnessy appeared on an episode of NBC's "" and is also the voice of Dennis the Goldfish on the Disney Channel cartoon series "Stanley". On 11 May 2002, Shaughnessy won an Emmy Award for Outstanding Performer in an Animated Program for his portrayal of Dennis the Goldfish on "Stanley". On 8 August 2008, Shaughnessy portrayed the murder victim (Samuel, Guru) in "". As of September 2008, his voice was heard in a few television commercials for Range Rover cars. In December 2008, he did the voice of Pietro in "The Tale of Despereaux". He also portrayed the Cockney English accent for "The Boss" in the game "Saints Row 2", and more recently has voiced more commercials for Land Rover. On 5 May 2009, Shaughnessy made a guest appearance in the series "The Mentalist" episode “Miss Red” as the manager of a private club. His voice has been featured in commercials for Land Rover. He also appeared on the popular TV show "Hannah Montana" as a talent show judge modeled after Simon Cowell in the episode "Judge Me Tender". Shaughnessy returned to "Days of Our Lives" in May 2010, in a storyline associated with the funeral of Alice Horton (played by Frances Reid), briefly reuniting him with his former co-star Patsy Pease (Kimberly). This plot development was necessitated by the real-world death of the actress who had long portrayed Mrs. Horton as the producers were aware that the audience would not accept the portrayal of the character by anyone else. In August–September 2010, Shaughnessy appeared as "King Arthur" in "Monty Python's Spamalot!" at The Ogunquit Playhouse in Ogunquit, Maine. In January 2011, he won the Broadway World Boston Theater Award for Best Lead Actor in a Musical (Large Theater). As of September 2010, Shaughnessy took a role in the web soap opera "The Bay". On 6 December 2010, he reunited with Fran Drescher as a guest on her limited-run daytime show, "The Fran Drescher Show." In June 2011, Shaughnessy appeared as Henry Higgins in "My Fair Lady" at the North Shore Music Theatre in Beverly, Massachusetts. He made a guest appearance on the first season finale of Fran Drescher's TV Land sitcom, "Happily Divorced", first airing on 17 August 2011. Shaughnessy returned to "Days of Our Lives" for a limited run in May 2012 as Shane Donovan, in a story line involving his return to the ISA and interacting with Hope and Bo Brady and Stephano DiMera. His co-star, Patsy Pease did not appear as Shane's wife, Kimberly, in this story arc; nor did Charlotte Ross, who had played Shane's daughter, Eve. Personal life. Shaughnessy has been married to Susan Fallender since 21 May 1983. Together they have two daughters: He is an avid supporter of the Chelsea Football Club in the UK. Shaughnessy is active on the Internet. He maintains his own blog on Blogspot and in the midst of the 2008 U.S. Presidential Election he started a video blog on YouTube supporting Barack Obama. Peerage. In December 2007, Shaughnessy became the fifth Baron Shaughnessy, in the Peerage of the United Kingdom, upon the death of his second cousin, Michael James Shaughnessy, 4th Baron Shaughnessy. The heir presumptive to the title is his brother David, and David will remain such while both are living unless Charles subsequently fathers a son. The first baron was their great-grandfather, Thomas George Shaughnessy, the president of Canadian Pacific Railway. Although seldom called such, by his baronial title he is also properly styled as "The Right Honourable The Lord Shaughnessy".
1095589	__notoc__ The fast multipole method (FMM) is a mathematical technique that was developed to speed up the calculation of long-ranged forces in the n-body problem. It does this by expanding the system Green's function using a multipole expansion, which allows one to group sources that lie close together and treat them as if they are a single source. The FMM has also been applied in accelerating the iterative solver in the method of moments (MOM) as applied to computational electromagnetics problems. The FMM was first introduced in this manner by Greengard and Rokhlin and is based on the multipole expansion of the vector Helmholtz equation. By treating the interactions between far-away basis functions using the FMM, the corresponding matrix elements do not need to be explicitly stored, resulting in a significant reduction in required memory. If the FMM is then applied in a hierarchical manner, it can improve the complexity of matrix-vector products in an iterative solver from O("N" 2) to O("N"). This has expanded the area of applicability of the MOM to far greater problems than were previously possible. The FMM, introduced by Rokhlin and Greengard, has been acclaimed as one of the top ten algorithms of the 20th century. The FMM algorithm dramatically reduces the complexity of matrix-vector multiplication involving a certain type of dense matrix which can arise out of many physical systems. The FMM has also been applied for efficiently treating the Coulomb interaction in Hartree–Fock and density functional theory calculations in quantum chemistry.
583028	Kyon Ki (, translation: "Because") is a 2005 Bollywood film directed by Priyadarshan and starring Salman Khan, Kareena Kapoor, Rimi Sen, Jackie Shroff, Om Puri and Sunil Shetty. The film is a remake of the 1986 Malayalam film "Thalavattam" (directed by Priyadarshan himself). The story also draws inspiration from the English novel "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest". Plot. The film tells the story of a young man named Anand (Salman Khan), who was deeply in love with a girl named Maya (Rimi Sen), who was intentionally thrown into a swimming pool by her fiance for the sake of getting back at her pranks. Apparently, she drowned. After Maya's death, Anand's life is completely shattered and he becomes insane. He is brought to Sir Richard's Mental Sanatorium. His brother requests the doctors to admit him immediately. However, they insist on evaluating his mental condition before taking any decision. On being asked a few questions, Anand does not show any signs of insanity, and the doctors conclude that there is nothing wrong with him. They decline to admit him to the hospital. Just then, Anand spots a housefly on the table. He first tries to capture it in his palm, but it evades him. While Anand's elder brother is arguing with doctors to admit him, Anand suddenly becomes very violent, picking up a club and using it to hit everything the fly lands on. He finally manages to kill the fly. This convinces the doctors that he is indeed insane, and they finally agree to admit him. Anand is admitted to Sir Richard's Mental Sanatorium, where he tries to makes friends with other inmates. One of them claims to have bought the Taj Mahal, another claims to have a tree growing sweets, and so on. This sets the scene for the entry of the chief doctor, Dr. Khurana (Om Puri). Dr Khurana is livid that a nurse had come into the operation theatre even though he had forbidden it. He yells at the matron and refuses to accept an explanation for the action of the nurse. At the mental asylum, there are also other two main doctors, Dr. Sunil (Jackie Shroff) and Dr. Tanvi Khurana (Kareena Kapoor), Dr. Khurana's daughter. Sunil turns out to be Anand's close childhood friend. Anand makes a commotion every day and behaves like a child. This upsets Tanvi and she almost removes Anand from the asylum. One day when she finds out about his past, she feels bad for him. She apologizes to him and starts spending time with him. They soon become good friends and she falls in love with him. Tanvi starts to help cure him and one day he is completely cured. He is normal now, and remembers everything. Anand decides to leave the asylum. As soon as Tanvi finds out, she runs to Anand and expresses her love to him. He is surprised, but he appreciates her love and decides to stay. He falls in love with Tanvi too. They both are happy with each other.But there is a problem: Tanvi is engaged to someone by the name of Karan (Sunil Shetty). When Tanvi's father, Dr. Khurana finds out about her love for Anand he is angered. He tells Tanvi to forget about Anand and leave him. Tanvi refuses, and continues to love Anand. At that time Karan comes back to India. At first, Karan is unaware of Tanvi and Anand's love for each other. When Karan finds out, he tells Tanvi to go and live with Anand. Meanwhile, at the asylum Anand explodes into a violent rage against Dr. Khurana, which results in him being lobotomized by Khurana. Sunil and Tanvi arrive at the asylum in order to smuggle Anand out so that he and Tanvi can run away together, but it is too late as Sunil finds out about Anand being lobotomized. Realising that Anand is much better off dead, Sunil kills his neurologically disabled friend by suffocating him with a pillow. A concluding scene is shown in which Tanvi is now a patient at the asylum and has become insane and mentally unbalanced due to the shock of Anand's death. Tanvi is shown wearing the same patient number shirt that Anand was wearing when he was mentally ill. Box office. Salman Khan's performance was honored by the critics. Soundtrack. Lyrics by Sameer
903150	Will Sampson (September 27, 1933 – June 3, 1987) was an American actor and artist. Life and career. Sampson, a Native American Muscogee (Creek), was born in Okmulgee, Oklahoma. Sampson's most notable roles were as "Chief Bromden" in "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" and as "Taylor the Medicine Man" in the horror film "Poltergeist II". He had a recurring role on the TV series "Vega$", as Harlon Twoleaf and starred in the movies "Fish Hawk", "The Outlaw Josey Wales", and "Orca". Sampson appeared in the production of "Black Elk Speaks" with the American Indian Theater Company in Tulsa, Oklahoma, where David Carradine and other Native American actors like Wes Studi and Randolph Mantooth starred in stage productions. Sampson was also an artist. His large painting depicting the Ribbon Dance of his Muscogee people is in the collection of the Creek Council House Museum in Okmulgee, Oklahoma. His artwork is currently displayed online by The Kvskvnv (“kuskuna”) Association. In an interview in TV Ontario's series Film 101, “Hollywood Asylum, Explored or Exploited?”, film actor Brad Dourif (who played Billy Bibbit in "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest") stated that Sampson had been imprisoned for a crime he did not commit. After he was pardoned, after serving ten years, his release came without apology or compensation. Sampson reportedly observed the cast on set and noted, based on behavior, that only he and Dourif truly understood what it meant to be institutionalized.
582880	Shafi Inamdar (Marathi: शफी इनामदार)(23 October 1945 – 13 March 1996) was an Indian actor. He started his film career with the film "Vijeta" and continued it in "Ardh Satya". He acted in a number of television serials including "Yeh Jo Hai Zindagi". Shafi married actress Bhakti Barve. He died on 13 March 1996. His wife died in a road accident on 12 February 2001. Shafi's most notable film roles include the inspector in "Aaj Ki Awaz", the villain in "Awam (film)" and the friend of the hero in films like "Nazrana", "Anokha Rishta" and "Amrit". Some of his other films are "Kudrat Ka Kanoon", "Jurm", "Sadaa Suhagan" and "Love 86", all successful films. Background. Shafi Inamdar received his education at St. Joseph's High School in Umerkhadi (Dongri) in Mumbai, India. He is particularly known for playing the common man's role. He has acted in numerous television shows. One of his memorable performances on television was in "Teri bhi chup Meri bhi chup". He also played the role of an advocate in the Hindi film "Yeshwant", which was released after his death. He got noticed in Ramesh Sippy's film "Saagar". He also directed a film titled "Hum Dono", starring Nana Patekar, Rishi Kapoor and Pooja Bhatt. The film was a hit and he was considered a good director. Brief career. He received his early education at Pangari and joined St Joseph High School from where he passed his S.S.C exam in 1958. He did his B.Sc from K.C College in 1963. Right from his schooling days he was interested in dramas and used to act and direct school plays. He also participated in elocution competition and debates. This continued through his college days and intensified his desire to become a performing artist and a theatre personality. He started his career as an actor –director under the guidance of famous Gujarati theatre personality Pravin Joshi. He directed and acted in about 30 one act plays in Hindi, Gujarati, Marathi and English from 1973 to 1978. Later on he joined Indian National Theatre and Indian Peoples Theatre Association where he came in contact with Balraj Sahni and other stalwarts of Indian Theatre and learned the finer aspects of acting. The turning point in his career was Ismat Chugtai’s play Nila Kamra which he staged as his first commercial production in Hindi. In the late seventies when the Prithvi theatre was started Shafi Inamdar got an opportunity to produce several Hindi plays that paved the way for establishing him as a theatre personality to be reckoned with. He founded his own theatre group Hum Productions in 1982 and directed, produced and acted in various plays. He also staged full fledged comedies and folk theatre based on human drama Naag Mandala. In 1984 came India’s most popular television sitcom Yeh Jo Hai Zindagi, a comedy serial starring Shafi Inamdar in the main lead as the character Ranjeet which became a household name all over the country. He later on did other television serials like Adha Sach, Aadha Jooth, Mirza Ghalib and Teri Bhi Chup meri Bhi Chup. In 1983 he made first appearance on Hindi screen in the Shashi Kapoor produced and Govinda Nihalani directed film Vijeta followed by hard hitting but popular Ardh Satya. He acted in B.R.Chopra films like Aaj ki Awaz, Awaam and Dehleez and became a regular with B.R film camp. He breathed his last on 13 March 1996 of a massive heart attack.
1017475	The Game of Death () is a 1973 film starring Bruce Lee. It was almost the film Bruce Lee had planned to be the demonstration piece of his martial art Jeet Kune Do. Over 100 minutes of footage was shot prior to his death, some of which was later misplaced in the Golden Harvest archives. The remaining footage has been released with Bruce Lee's original English and Cantonese dialogue, with John Little dubbing Bruce Lee's Hai Tien character as part of the documentary entitled "". Most of the footage which was shot is from what was to be the centerpiece of the film, which was to be co-produced (with Raymond Chow), written and directed by Lee. During filming, Lee received an offer to star in "Enter the Dragon", the first kung fu film to be produced by a Hollywood studio (Warner Bros.), and with a budget unprecedented for the genre ($850,000). Lee died of cerebral edema before the film's release. At the time of his death, he had already made plans to resume the filming of "The Game of Death". After Lee's death, "Enter the Dragon" director Robert Clouse was enlisted to direct additional scenes featuring two stand-ins which, when pieced together with the original footage as well as other footage from earlier in Lee's career, would form a new film (also entitled "Game of Death") which was released in 1978, five years after his death, by Golden Harvest. Original plot. The original plot involves Lee playing the role of Hai Tien, a retired champion martial artist who was confronted by the Korean underworld gangs. They tell him the story of a pagoda where guns are prohibited, and under heavy guard by highly skilled martial artists who are protecting something (which is not identified at all in any surviving material) held on its top level. The gang boss wants Hai to be a part of a group whose purpose is to retrieve said item. They would be the second group to try to do so as the first attempt with a previous group had failed. When Hai refuses, his younger sister and brother are kidnapped, forcing him to participate. Hai, as well as four other martial artists (two of which were played by James Tien and Chieh Yuan), then fight their way up a five-level pagoda, encountering a different challenge on each floor. The setting of the pagoda was at Peobjusa temple in Songnisan National Park in South Korea. The pagoda, called Palsang-jon, is the only remaining wooden pagoda in South Korea. At the base of the pagoda they fight 10 people, all black belts in Karate. While inside the pagoda, they encounter a different opponent on each floor, each more challenging than the last. Although his allies try to help out, they are handily defeated, and Hai must face each of the martial artists in one-on-one combat. He defeats Filipino Eskrima master Dan Inosanto, Korean Hapkido master Ji Han Jae, and finally Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, who fights with a free and fluid style mirroring Lee's Jeet Kune Do. Because Abdul-Jabbar's character has great size and strength in addition to a fighting style as potent as Lee's, he can only be defeated once Hai recognizes that an unusually high sensitivity to light is his greatest weakness. Immediately after defeating the giant guardian, Hai turns around and descends the staircase, heading out of the pagoda. Despite all the talk of something awaiting up top of the (now unguarded) flight of stairs, there is no mention of anyone going up to retrieve it. No surviving material explains how this will affect Hai or his captive siblings. Original production. Although the pagoda was supposed to have five floors, complete scenes were only shot for three of the floors: the "Temple of the Tiger," where Lee faced Inosanto; the "Temple of the Dragon", where he fought Ji Han Jae; and the final floor, where he fought Abdul-Jabbar was the "Temple of the Unknown". Hapkido master Hwang In-Shik was slated to play the guardian of the first floor, a master of a kick-oriented style, while Bruce's long time student and good friend Taky Kimura was asked to play the guardian of the second floor, a stylist of praying mantis kung fu. The goal of the film's plot was to showcase Lee's beliefs regarding the principles of martial arts. As each martial artist is defeated (including Lee's allies), the flaws in their fighting style are revealed. Some, like Dan Inosanto's character, rely too much on fixed patterns of offensive and defensive techniques, while others lack economy of motion. Lee defeats his opponents by having a fighting style that involves fluid movement, unpredictability, and an eclectic blend of techniques. His dialogue often includes comments on their weaknesses. "Bruce Lee: A Warrior's Journey". Several years later, Bruce Lee historian John Little released "", a documentary revealing the original footage and storyline of "The Game of Death". The documentary also includes a fairly in-depth biography of Lee and leads into the filming of "The Game of Death". Fans still believe there is more footage to be found. Originally meant to be a documentary in its own right, now it can be found on the second disc of the 2004 Special Edition DVD release of "Enter the Dragon", along with the documentary "Bruce Lee: Curse of the Dragon". "Bruce Lee in G.O.D.: Shibōteki Yūgi". In 2000, the Japanese film "Bruce Lee in G.O.D." 死亡的遊戯 was released on DVD. This film shows Lee's original vision of the film through the existing footage that was shot for the film before he died, interviews, and historical re-enactments of what went on behind the scenes. A "special edition" DVD was released in 2003. "Game of Death" (1978). Game of Death () is a 1978 Hong Kong martial arts action crime thriller film co-written (under the pseudonym "Jan Spears" with Raymond Chow) and directed by Robert Clouse and starring Bruce Lee, Kim Tai-jong, Yuen Biao, Gig Young, Dean Jagger, Colleen Camp, Robert Wall, Hugh O'Brian, Dan Inosanto, Mel Novak, Sammo Hung, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Han-Jae Ji, and Casanova Wong. Plot. The 1978 version uses portions of the original footage married to an entirely new plot involving a new character, Billy Lo,(盧比利) struggling against a racketeering "syndicate" after gaining international success as a martial arts movie star. When Billy refuses to be intimidated by syndicate henchman Steiner (Hugh O'Brian) and his gangs of thugs, syndicate owner Dr. Land (Dean Jagger) orders his assassination to serve as an example to others. Disguised as a stuntman, Land's assassin Stick (Mel Novak) sneaks onto the set of Billy's new film, and shoots Billy during filming. A fragment of the bullet passes through Billy's face, leaving him alive but in need of plastic surgery which alters his facial features. Billy takes the opportunity to fake his death and disguise himself, exacting revenge against those who wronged him one at a time. When the syndicate threatens and kidnaps his fiancée, Ann Morris (Colleen Camp), Billy is forced to come out of hiding in order to save her. In the revised film, Bruce Lee's fight scenes inside the pagoda are assumed to take place in the upper floors of the Red Pepper restaurant, where Dr. Land and his thugs have laid an ambush. In the end Billy survives the ambush, rescues Ann, and destroys each of the main mobsters one-by-one. Production. The revised version of the film uses only 11 minutes and 7 seconds of the footage from the original "The Game of Death", and for the vast majority of the film, the role of Billy Lo was shared by Yuen Biao and taekwondo master Tai Chung Kim and was voiced by Chris Kent. The plot of the film allowed Kim and Biao to spend much of the film in disguises, usually involving false beards and large, dark sunglasses that obscured the fact that they bore little resemblance to Lee. Many scenes, including fight scenes, also included brief close-up bits of stock footage of the real Bruce Lee from his pre-"Enter the Dragon" films, often only lasting a second or two. These clips are easily recognizable due to the difference in film quality between the old and new footage. At one point in the movie, real footage of Bruce Lee's corpse in his open-topped casket is used to show the character Billy Lo faking his death. Several actors associated with previous Lee movies were included in the re-shoot for the final 1978 film. For example, Robert Wall, a villain in both "Way of the Dragon" and "Enter the Dragon", plays a kickboxer named Carl Miller who must battle with Billy Lo. Sammo Hung, who appeared in "Enter the Dragon", served as the fight coordinator for the re-shoot of "Game of Death", and also appears in the scene as a ring opponent for Miller. In order to maintain continuity with the fight footage taken from the original film, Dan Inosanto (renamed Pasqual) and Ji Han Jae (whose character was unnamed and was not shown until near the end of the film) were given small parts as additional enforcers for the syndicate. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar refused to participate in the re-shoot, with another tall African-American stand-in (renamed Hakim) included instead. Although Chuck Norris is credited as starring in the movie, his role is limited to clips from "Way of the Dragon" inserted into the film. The film quality of the Clouse-directed footage was noticeably higher than that of Lee's earlier Hong Kong films, and John Barry provided an original soundtrack. The film also featured performances by experienced actors as well as up-and-coming stars, including two recipients of the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor (Dean Jagger and Gig Young) and several who have been honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, including Dean Jagger, Bruce Lee, Chuck Norris, Hugh O'Brian, and Gig Young. For Chinese-speaking audiences, the film was dubbed into Cantonese and Mandarin, and had significant changes, such as the inclusion of a fight in a green house with Casanova Wong and a different opening and closing credits sequence, featuring a new theme song, plus a couple of minor scenes. Unlike the English version, they use Lee's actual battle sounds. Several scenes were removed, also, including the fight in the opera house dressing room. In the original Hong Kong version, the fight with Ji Han Jae is included (during the middle of the film though), whilst the ending did not show Billy Lo being arrested - instead, both he and Ann share their good-byes to Jim as they appear to depart Hong Kong on a boat. The Singaporean version ended with Billy Lo's arrest, and it did not feature the Ji Han Jae fight - this is the version commonly found in Chinese. Theme song. The American score was composed by John Barry. Reception. The film was successful at the Hong Kong box office grossing HK$3,436,169, but was not well received. Criticism of the revised version included the inclusion of scenes that could be considered in bad taste, such as the incorporation of footage of Lee's actual funeral. Another scene, often pointed out by critics of the film, involved a shot of Kim looking at himself in the mirror, with an obvious cardboard cut-out of Lee's face pasted onto the mirror's surface. The action directed by Sammo Hung for the scenes with the Bruce Lee lookalikes and the footage that Bruce Lee shot for the original footage with the final three fights helped to alleviate the movie's problems. Apart from the cheesy techniques used to disguise the fact that Bruce Lee was being played by stand-ins, the movie enjoyed respectable production values. Bey Logan points out a few logic issues with the 1978 movie. In order for the henchmen to remain low key, they should be wearing more casual clothes instead of the multicolored tracksuits seen at various parts of the film. But as a rationale, this explains why Bruce Lee wears the yellow tracksuit. Also in the fight between Bruce Lee and Kareem Abdul, the scene near the vase in Logan's opinion appears to look choppy along with the short fight with Hugh O' Brian. Perhaps the most important thing on the first half of the English version, Bruce's fight sequence has been taken down to a more realistic level and unlike previous films, he's seen to be beaten down instead of making short work of these henchmen. However despite those major flaws, for the western audiences, the story narrative is easier to follow through compared to his earlier films like "The Big Boss", "Fist of Fury" and "Way of the Dragon". Compare to the Hong Kong films, it has western characters and the story structure is more straightforward than the Hong Kong structure which has action, but the story's humor and drama might not work for the people in the west like the US and the UK. Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reports the film as holding an overall 75% approval rating based on 8 reviews, of these six were fresh and two were rotten. Other "Game of Death" films. After the death of Bruce Lee, several studios exploited the situation by making their own versions of "Game of Death" based on what they had learned of the story from production stills and magazine articles. Some of these films pre-dated Robert Clouse's "official" "Game of Death" (1978). The yellow-and-black tracksuit. The yellow-and-black tracksuit which Lee wore in the film has come to be seen as something of a trademark for the actor, and is paid homage to in numerous other media. In the Clouse-directed remake, the filmmakers rationalized its presence by including a scene where Billy Lo disguises himself as one of Dr. Land's motorcycle-riding thugs, who all wear striped jumpsuits. In the warehouse scene, Billy Lo wears a pair of yellow Adidas shoes with black stripes and white shelltoes. Towards the end of the movie, Billy wears a pair of yellow Onitsuka Tiger shoes, with black stripes. This was due to the fact that the real Bruce Lee wore the latter when he was filming, and the double wore the former in the 1978 version to resemble his shoes. Home media releases. DVD releases. Universe (Hong Kong) Mega Star (Hong Kong) Fortune Star – Bruce Lee Ultimate DVD Collection (Hong Kong) Fox (America) Fox – Bruce Lee Ultimate Collection (America) Hong Kong Legends Platinum Edition (United Kingdom)
572605	Brats is a 1930 Laurel and Hardy comedy short. The film was directed by James Parrott. Laurel and Hardy play dual roles as their own children. It also inspired a helper group for the Michigan tent for The Sons of the Desert, which is composed of all the child members of the tent. Plot. Laurel and Hardy are spending a night in with the kids. The fathers are playing checkers and snooker, but are constantly distracted by their own incompetence and by their children, constantly bullying each other and trying to stay up late. The film begins with Stan and Ollie playing a game of checkers, and Stan Jr. and Ollie Jr. playing a game of hide and seek. They smash a vase and are sent to bed. Ollie Jr. goes into the bath and chases Stan Jr. out (leaving the taps on), but slips on the soap causing part of the ceiling to crash onto the pool table. Stan and Ollie are furious and rush upstairs. When Oliver opens the door the water from the bathroom gushes out. Production. "Brats" had no background music originally except in opening and closing titles. It was one of four Laurel and Hardy sound shorts reissued in 1937. At that time, new background music scores by Leroy Shield that were used in many 1937 Hal Roach films were added. The films reissued that way were "Blotto", "County Hospital" and "Perfect Day". This is one of just two shorts to feature only Stan and Ollie in the cast; the other is the 1928 silent "Early to Bed". It is also the only film in which they play natural fathers. The illusion of Laurel and Hardy as children was achieved using over-sized furniture. Each room of the house was re-created in large scale to achieve the effect of both duos being in the same house. Doors and staircases had to be duplicated to appear as though the "children" were child-size. The mouse that Stan Jr. nearly shoots with a pellet gun was animated.
1253735	Walter Jack Gotell (15 March 1924 – 5 May 1997) was a German-British actor, known for his role as General Gogol, head of the KGB, a Bond ally in the Roger Moore-era of the James Bond film series, (as well as having played the role of Morzeny, a villain, in From Russia With Love). Life and career. Gotell was born in Bonn; his family emigrated to England after the Nazis came to power. A fluent English speaker, he started in films as early as 1943, usually playing German henchmen, such as in "We Dive at Dawn" (1943). He began to have more established roles by the early 1950s, starring in "The African Queen" (1951), "The Red Beret" (1953) for Albert R. Broccoli, "Ice Cold in Alex" (1958), "The Guns of Navarone" (1961), "The Road to Hong Kong" (1962), "55 Days at Peking" (1963), "Lancelot and Guinevere" (1963), "The Spy Who Came In From The Cold" (1965), "Lord Jim" (1965), "Black Sunday" (1977), "The Boys from Brazil" (1978) and "Cuba" (1979). His first role in the James Bond film series was in 1963, when he played the henchman Morzeny in "From Russia with Love". From the late 1970s, he played the recurring role of General Gogol in the series, beginning with "The Spy Who Loved Me" (1977). Gotell gained the role of KGB General Anatol Gogol because of his resemblance to the former head of Soviet secret police Lavrentiy Beria. The character returned in "Moonraker" (1979), "For Your Eyes Only" (1981), "Octopussy" (1983), "A View to a Kill" (1985), "The Living Daylights" (1987) and Sleepaway Camp II: Unhappy Campers(1988). As the Cold War neared its end, the role of leader of the KGB was seen to change attitudes to the West - from direct competitor to collaborator. Gotell is one of a few actors to have played a villain and a Bond ally in the film series (others being Charles Gray, Richard Kiel and Joe Don Baker). Throughout his career, Gotell also made numerous guest appearances in television series including "Danger Man", "Knight Rider", "The A-Team", "Airline", "Airwolf", "The X-Files", "Scarecrow and Mrs. King", "MacGyver", ', "Miami Vice", "Cagney & Lacey", and "The Saint" among others. He played Chief Constable Cullen in ' (1969–75). Gotell was a businessman as well as an actor, and used his acting salaries to fund his business interests. He had one daughter, Carol, born in 1960. He died on 5 May 1997 from his cancer at the age of 73.
1062513	Tropic Thunder is a 2008 American action comedy film co-written, co-produced, directed by, and co-starring Ben Stiller. The film also co-stars Robert Downey, Jr. and Jack Black. The main plot revolves around a group of primo uomo actors who are making a fictional Vietnam War film. When their frustrated director decides to drop them in the middle of a jungle, they are forced to rely on their acting skills in order to survive the real action and danger. Written by Justin Theroux and Etan Cohen, the film was produced by Red Hour Films and distributed by DreamWorks Pictures through Paramount Pictures. Stiller's idea for the film originated while playing a minor role in "Empire of the Sun", and he later enlisted Theroux and Cohen to help complete the script. After the film was green-lighted in 2006, filming took place in 2007 on the Hawaiian island of Kauai over thirteen weeks and was later deemed the largest film production in the island's history. The film had an extensive marketing promotion, including faux websites for the three main characters and their fictional films, airing a fictional television special, and selling the energy drink advertised in the film, "Booty Sweat". The film received generally favorable reviews with critics approving of the film's characters, story, and faux trailers while criticizing its offensive content. The film's soundtrack and score debuted on August 5, 2008, before the film's theatrical release. In its North American opening weekend, the film earned US$26 million and retained the number one position for the first three weekends of release. The film and its cast were nominated for several awards by various groups including the Screen Actors Guild, Broadcast Film Critics Association, and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. The film grossed $180 million in theaters before its release on home video on November 18, 2008. Plot. Hook-handed Vietnam veteran John "Four Leaf" Tayback's (Nick Nolte) memoir, "Tropic Thunder", is being made into a film. With the exception of newcomer supporting actor Kevin Sandusky (Jay Baruchel), the cast—fading action hero Tugg Speedman (Stiller), five-time Academy Award-winning Australian method actor Kirk Lazarus (Downey, Jr.), rapper Alpa Chino (Brandon T. Jackson), and drug-addicted comedian Jeff Portnoy (Jack Black)—behave unreasonably. Rookie director Damien Cockburn (Steve Coogan) cannot control them during filming of a large war scene and production is reported to be one month behind schedule. Cockburn is ordered by studio executive Les Grossman (Tom Cruise) to get filming back on track, or risk its cancellation. Acting on Tayback's advice, Cockburn drops the actors into the middle of the jungle, with hidden cameras and rigged special effects explosions to film "guerrilla-style". The actors have guns that fire blanks, along with a map and scene listing that will lead to a helicopter waiting at the end of the route. Unbeknownst to the actors and production, the group have been dropped in the middle of the Golden Triangle, the home of the heroin-producing Flaming Dragon gang. Shortly after the group set off, the five actors are stunned to see Cockburn blown up by an old land mine. Speedman, believing Cockburn faked his death, persuades the others that Cockburn is alive and that they are still shooting the film. Lazarus is unconvinced, but joins them in their trek through the jungle. When Tayback and pyrotechnics operator Cody Underwood (Danny McBride) attempt to locate the dead director, they are captured by Flaming Dragon, at which point Tayback reveals that he fabricated his memoir and that he has hands. As the actors continue through the jungle, Lazarus and Sandusky discover that Speedman is leading them in the wrong direction. The four actors, tired of walking and hoping to be rescued, leave Speedman, who goes off by himself and is captured by Flaming Dragon. Taken to their heroin factory, Speedman believes it is a POW camp from the script. The gang discovers he is the star of their favorite film, the box office bomb "Simple Jack", and force him to reenact it several times a day. Meanwhile in Los Angeles, Speedman's agent Rick Peck (Matthew McConaughey) is trying to negotiate with Grossman an unfulfilled term in Speedman's contract that entitles him to a TiVo. Flaming Dragon calls the two and demands a ransom for Speedman, but Grossman instead berates the gang. Despite the threats, Grossman expresses no interest in rescuing Speedman and attempts to convince Rick about the benefits of allowing Speedman to die and collecting the insurance. Grossman also offers Rick a Gulfstream V and money in return for his cooperation. Lazarus, Chino, Portnoy, and Sandusky discover Flaming Dragon's heroin factory. After seeing Speedman being tortured, they plan a rescue attempt based on the film's script. Lazarus impersonates a farmer towing a captured Portnoy on the back of a water buffalo, distracting the armed guards so Chino and Sandusky can locate the captives. After the gang notices inconsistencies in Lazarus' story, the actors open fire, temporarily subduing them. When the gang realize they are being guarded by actors, they gather their guns and begin firing. The four actors locate Speedman, Tayback, and Underwood, and cross a bridge rigged to explode to get to their helicopter. Speedman asks to remain behind with the gang which he considers his family, but quickly returns when Flaming Dragon fires in pursuit. Tayback detonates the bridge allowing Speedman to reach safety, but as the helicopter takes off, the gang fires an RPG at the helicopter. Rick unexpectedly stumbles out of the jungle carrying a TiVo box and throws it in the path of the RPG, saving them. The crew return to Hollywood, where footage from the hidden cameras is compiled into a feature film, "Tropic Blunder", which becomes a major critical and box office hit. The film wins Speedman his first Academy Award, which Lazarus presents to him at the ceremony. Cast. Various actors and celebrities portray themselves, including Tobey Maguire, Tyra Banks, Maria Menounos, Martin Lawrence, The Mooney Suzuki, Jason Bateman, Lance Bass, Jennifer Love Hewitt, Alicia Silverstone, and Jon Voight. Christine Taylor, Mini Anden, Anthony Ruivivar, Rachel Avery, and Yvette Nicole Brown have roles as minor characters in the film. Justin Theroux, the writer of the film, appears in two brief roles as a UH-1 Huey gunner and the disc jockey from "Zoolander" (shown in a deleted scene). Production. Script. Stiller developed the premise for "Tropic Thunder" while shooting "Empire of the Sun", in which he played a small part. Stiller wanted to make a film based on the actors he knew who, after taking part in boot camps to prepare for war film roles, became "self-important" and "self-involved" and appeared to believe they had been part of a real military unit. Co-writer Theroux revealed that the initial script concept was to have actors go to a mock boot camp and return with posttraumatic stress disorder. The final script was developed to satirize Vietnam War films such as "Apocalypse Now", "Platoon", "Full Metal Jacket", "Hamburger Hill", and "The Deer Hunter". Theroux pointed out that since viewers had an increased awareness of the inner workings of Hollywood due to celebrity websites and Hollywood news sources, the script was easier to write. Dialogue for unscripted portions of the storyboard was developed on set by the actors or was improvised. Casting. Etan Cohen created the role of Kirk Lazarus as a way of lampooning the great lengths that some method actors go to depict a role. Downey was approached by Stiller about the part while on vacation in Hawaii. Downey said on CBS' "The Early Show" that his first reaction was, "This is the stupidest idea I've ever heard!" and that Stiller responded, "Yeah, I know — isn't it great?" In another interview, Downey said that he accepted the part but, having no idea where or even how to start building the character of Lazarus, eventually settled on a jive-esque speech pattern and a ragged bass voice; he then auditioned Lazarus' voice over the phone to Stiller, who approved the characterization immediately. Downey revealed that he modeled the character on actors Russell Crowe, Colin Farrell, and Daniel Day-Lewis. The initial script was written for Downey's character to be Irish, but was altered after Downey stated he could improvise better as an Australian (he had previously played a similar outlandish Australian character in the film "Natural Born Killers"). Downey's practice of remaining in character between takes and even off the film set was also written into the script for his character to perform. Downey required between one and a half to two hours of make-up application. According to Downey, "One makeup artist would start on one side of my face and a second makeup artist would start on the other side, and then they'd meet in the middle." Downey acknowledged the potential controversy over his role: "At the end of the day, it's always about how well you commit to the character. If I didn't feel it was morally sound, or that it would be easily misinterpreted that I'm just C. Thomas Howell "Soul Man", I would've stayed home." Jackson stated: "When I first read the script, I was like: What? Blackface? But when I saw him he, like, became a black man ... It was just good acting. It was weird on the set because he would keep going with the character. He's a method actor." Stiller commented on Downey's portrayal of a white actor playing a black man: "When people see the movie — in the context of the film, he's playing a method actor who's gone to great lengths to play a black guy. The movie is skewering actors and how they take themselves so seriously." Stiller previewed the film before several black journalists and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, who reacted positively to the character. Cruise was initially set to cameo as Stiller's character's agent, Rick Peck. Instead, Cruise suggested adding a studio head character, and the idea was incorporated into the script. Stiller and Cruise worked together to create the new character, Les Grossman, as a middle-aged businessman. The role required that Cruise don a fatsuit, large prosthetic hands, and a bald cap. It was Cruise's idea to give the character large hands and dance to "Low". Stiller intended to keep Cruise's role a secret until the film's release. In addition, Paramount Pictures refused to release promotional pictures of Cruise's character to the media. In November 2007, images of Cruise wearing a bald headpiece and a fatsuit appeared on "Inside Edition", as well as on the Internet. Cruise's attorneys threatened a lawsuit if photos showing Cruise in costume were published. They approached various sites that were hosting the image and quickly had it removed. A representative for Cruise stated: "Mr. Cruise's appearance was supposed to be a surprise for his fans worldwide. Paparazzi have ruined what should have been a fun discovery for moviegoers." The photography agency INF, who first debuted the image, responded with a statement: "While these pictures were taken without breaking any criminal or civil laws, we've decided to pull them from circulation effective immediately." Serving as a last-minute replacement, Tobey Maguire was only available to be on set for two hours to film his scenes in "Satan's Alley". Downey said he was amazed Maguire would agree to do the film and felt like they were creating a "karmic pay-off" for their scenes together in the 2000 film "Wonder Boys", where Downey's character has a one-night-stand with Maguire's character. After Cruise vacated the role of Rick Peck, Owen Wilson was cast to play the part. Following his suicide attempt in August 2007, Wilson dropped out of the film and was replaced by Matthew McConaughey. Filming. Although Southern California and Mexico were considered for the main unit filming, the Hawaiian island of Kauai (where Stiller has a home) was selected for the majority of the shooting. Kauai was chosen over Mexico because a tax credit for in-state spending was negotiated with the Kauai Film Commission. John Toll, the cinematographer, stated the island was also selected for its similarity to Vietnam, based on its dense foliage, variety of terrains, and weather. Kauai was first scouted as a possible location to film "Tropic Thunder" in 2004. Stiller spent more than 25 hours over 6 weeks exploring the island, using all-terrain vehicles, boats, and helicopters. After the film was greenlit by DreamWorks in 2006, pre-production lasted for six months, most of this time spent on scouting additional locations for filming. Filming for the Los Angeles and interior scenes occurred on sets at Universal Studios in Hollywood. "Tropic Thunder" was the first major studio production on Kauai in five years. After filming was completed, it was deemed the largest production filmed on the island to date, and contributed more than $60 million to the local economy. Tim Ryan, the executive editor of "Hawaii Film & Video Magazine", commented on the filming on the island: "I think "Tropic Thunder" will give Kaua'i much needed and long idled publicity in the production arena ... It should put Kaua'i back on the production consideration radar." Preliminary production crews were on the island starting in December 2006 and principal photography began in July 2007, with filming lasting thirteen weeks over seven separate locations on the island. Much of the filming took place on private land as well as conservation status designated areas. Casting calls on the island sought 500 residents to portray the villagers in the film. Two units shot simultaneously on the island from the ground, and an aerial unit shot from helicopters. Many of the sets and the bridge used for one of the final scenes were built in three months. The island's erratic weather hampered filming with rain and lighting issues. The crew also faced complications in moving the equipment and cast due to the difficult terrain. The film advising company Warriors Inc. was enlisted to ensure the war scenes, including the attire worn by the actors, looked authentic. Former members of the U.S. military taught the actors how to handle, fire, and reload their weapons, as well as perform various tactical movements. The opening war scene was filmed over three weeks and required fifty stuntmen. Animatics were used to map out the necessary camera angles for filming. Effects. Six companies working on different scenes and elements created 500 shots of visual effects in the film. These were at times altered weekly due to the reactions of test audiences in screenings. CIS Visual Effects Group assisted with the "Scorcher VI" faux trailer and twenty additional shots for the home media release. To expand on the comedy in the film, some of the explosions and crashes were embellished to look more destructive. The visual effects supervisor Michael Fink reflected on the exaggerated explosions: "We worked really hard to make the CG crashing helicopter in the hot landing sequence look real. Ben was adamant about that, but at the same time he wanted the explosion to be huge. When you see it hit the ground, it was like it was filled with gasoline! It was the same thing with Ben's sergeant character, who almost intercepts a hand grenade ... Now, I was in the Army for three years and no hand grenade would make an explosion like that ... But it was a big dramatic moment and it looks really cool ... and feels kind of real." Filming the large napalm explosion in the opening scene of the film required a 450-foot (137-meter) row of explosive pots containing 1,100 gallons (4,165 liters) of gasoline and diesel fuel. All the palm trees used in the explosion were moved to the specific location after the crew determined the impact of the lighting and necessary camera angles. Due to the size and cost of the 1.25-second explosion, it was only performed once and was captured by twelve cameras. For the safety of the crew and cast, the detonators were added one hour before the explosion and nobody was allowed to be within during detonation. The explosion was made up of twelve individual explosions and resulted in a mushroom cloud that reached in the air. For the scene in the film, Danny McBride's character, Cody Underwood, was the only actor shown in the shot of the explosion. All the other characters were added digitally. The explosion of the bridge in one of the final scenes used nine cameras to capture the shot, and the crew was required to be away for their safety. Promotion. A trailer for the film was released in April 2008. The "Calgary Herald" gave it a rating of 3/5, commenting: "This could either be good or very, very bad." Gary Susman of "Entertainment Weekly" questioned whether the film would "... turn into precisely the kind of bloated action monstrosity that it's making fun of." The trailer received the "Best Comedy Trailer" award at the 9th annual Golden Trailer Awards. DreamWorks also released a red band trailer, the first of its kind used by the studio to promote one of its films. Stiller, Downey, and Black appeared on the seventh season finale of "American Idol" in a sketch as The Pips performing with Gladys Knight using archival footage of her. The three actors also later performed a sketch at the 2008 MTV Movie Awards which featured the actors attempting to create a successful viral video to promote the film with awkward results. In September 2008, Stiller and Downey attended the San Sebastián International Film Festival to promote the film. A screening was shown, but it was not chosen to compete against the other films at the festival. Between April 2008 and the film's commercial release in August 2008, the film had over 250 promotional screenings. On August 3, 2008 Stiller, Downey, and Black visited Camp Pendleton, a U.S. Marine Corps base in California, to present a screening to over a thousand military members and their families. The screening was on behalf of the United Service Organizations and included the actors heading to the screening by helicopter and Humvees. On August 8, 2008, a special 30-minute fictional "E! True Hollywood Story" aired about the making of "Tropic Thunder". In video games, a themed scavenger hunt was incorporated into "", and Stiller allowed his likeness to be used in the online Facebook application game based on the film. As a tie-in for the film's release, Paramount Pictures announced it would market the energy drink known in the film as "Booty Sweat". Michael Corcoran, Paramount's president of consumer products, commented on the release: "We're very excited, because it has the potential to live for quite a while, well beyond the film." The drink was sold in college bookstores, on Amazon.com, and at other retailers. Faux websites and mockumentary. Several faux websites were created for the main characters and some of their prior film roles. A website for "Simple Jack", a faux film exhibited within the film, was removed by DreamWorks on August 4, due to protests from disability advocates. In addition, other promotional websites were created for "Make Pretty Skin Clinic", the fictional company that performed the surgery of the film's character Kirk Lazarus, along with one for the energy drink "Booty Sweat". In mid-July 2008, a faux trailer for the mockumentary "Rain of Madness" was released. The mockumentary was a parody of "". It follows co-writer Justin Theroux as a fictional documentarian named Jan Jürgen documenting the behind-the-scenes aspects of the film within the film. Marketing for the faux documentary included a movie poster and an official website prior to "Tropic Thunder"s release. The mockumentary was released on the iTunes Store after the film's release and was also included on the home video release. Amy Powell, an advertising executive with Paramount Pictures, reflected on the timing of the release of "Madness": "We always thought that people would be talking about "Tropic Thunder" at the water cooler, and that's why we decided to release "Rain of Madness" two weeks into "Tropic"s run—to keep this positive buzz going." Release. Theatrical release. "Tropic Thunder" premiered on August 11, 2008, at the Mann Village Theatre in Westwood, California, two days before its wide release. Members of several disability groups picketed before the premiere, protesting at the portrayal of mental retardation shown in the film. The groups revealed that it was the first time that they had ever protested together at an event. As a result of the protest, the normally unobstructed views of the red carpet leading to the premiere were blocked off by 10-foot (3-m)-high fences and there was an increase in the number of security personnel present. No protests were held at the United Kingdom's September premiere. The North American release was scheduled for July 11, 2008, but was delayed until August 15, before being brought forward to August 13. As a result of the move from July, 20th Century Fox moved its family comedy "Meet Dave" in the open slot. The August 13 release date was also the opening weekends for the animated family film ' and the horror film "Mirrors". Studios consider the third week of August to be a weaker performing period than earlier in the summer because of students returning to school. Previous R-rated comedies such as "The 40-Year-Old Virgin" and "Superbad" were released in mid-August and performed well at the box office. Reacting to "Tropic Thunders release date, Rob Moore, vice chairman of Paramount Pictures, stated: "For a young person at the end of summer, you want to have some fun and forget about going back to school. What better than a crazy comedy?" Reception. The film received mostly positive reviews by critics. The review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes gives the film a score of 83% a sample of 221 reviews, with an average score of 7.1/10. Metacritic, which assigns a weighted average score out of 100 from reviews by mainstream critics, gave a film rating of 71/100 based on 39 reviews. After attending an industry screening in April 2008 Michael Cieply from "The New York Times" stated that the film was "... shaping up as one of 's best prospects for the summer." Claudia Puig of "USA Today" gave the film a positive review, writing "There are some wildly funny scenes, a few leaden ones and others that are scattershot, with humorous satire undercut by over-the-top grisliness. Still, when it's funny, it's really funny." A review in "Variety" by Todd McCarthy was critical: "Apart from startling, out-there comic turns by Robert Downey Jr. and Tom Cruise, however, the antics here are pretty thin, redundant and one-note." Rick Groen of "The Globe and Mail" gave the film a negative review, calling it "... an assault in the guise of a comedy—watching it is like getting mugged by a clown." J.R. Jones of "Chicago Reader" stated "The rest of the movie never lives up to the hilarity of the opening, partly because the large-scale production smothers the gags but mostly because those gags are so easy to smother." The faux trailers before the film also received mixed reviews. David Ansen of "Newsweek" approved of the trailers, writing ""Tropic Thunder" is the funniest movie of the summer—so funny, in fact, that you start laughing before the film itself has begun." Christy Lemire, writing for the Associated Press, called the trailers "... the best part of the trip." Robert Wilonsky of "The Village Voice" was critical, saying that the trailers' comedy "... resides in the land of the obvious, easy chuckle." The cast received mixed critical reception. Downey was praised by many critics, claiming that he "stole the show", was "... off-the-charts hilarious ...", and would bring viewers "... the fondest memories of work." Scott Feinberg, of the "Los Angeles Times", criticized the concept of Downey's portrayal of an African-American, writing "... I just can't imagine any circumstance under which a blackface performance would be acceptable, any more than than I can imagine any circumstance under which the use of the N-word would be acceptable." Sara Vilkomerson said Cruise did "... an astonishingly funny and surprising supporting performance." Logan Hill of "New York" argued against Cruise's cameo saying that it "... just makes him look a little lost and almost pathetic—shucking and jiving, trying to appeal to the younger moviegoers who are abandoning him." Several critics commented on the controversy over lines in the film talking about the mentally disabled. Duane Dudek of the "Milwaukee Journal Sentinel" wrote that the film "... is just sophomoric enough to offend. And while it is also funny, it is without the empathy or compassion to cause us to wonder why we are laughing." Christian Toto of "The Washington Times" argued against the opposition, ""Tropic Thunder" is drawing fire from special interest groups for ... its frequent use of the word 'retard', but discerning audiences will know where the humor is targeted. And they'll be laughing too hard to take offense." Kurt Loder of MTV contrasted the opposition to the lines with Downey character portrayal of an African American, "The scene in which the derisive Alpa Chino T. Jackson nails Lazarus' recitation of black-uplift homilies as nothing more than the lyrics to the "Jeffersons" theme is funny; but the one in which Lazarus quietly explains to Speedman that his "Simple Jack" character failed because he made the mistake of going 'full retard'—rather than softening his character with cuteness in the manner of "Forrest Gump"—is so on-the-nose accurate, it takes your breath away." Critics' lists. In January 2009, "Entertainment Weekly" included "Tropic Thunder" in its list "25 Great Comedies From the Past 25 Years" for its "spot-on skewering of Hollywood." The film also appeared on several critics' top ten lists of the best films of 2008. Stephen King placed it at the fourth position, calling the film "the funniest, most daring comedy of the year." "The Oregonian"s Marc Mohan, placed it sixth, and several critics placed it seventh: Elizabeth Weitzman of the "New York Daily News", "Premiere" magazine, Mike Russell of "The Oregonian", as well as Peter Hartlaub of the "San Francisco Chronicle". David Ansen of "Newsweek" placed it eighth and Lisa Schwarzbaum of "Entertainment Weekly" included the film in the tenth position. Box office. Stacey Snider, the chief executive of DreamWorks, suggested that the film would earn around $30 million in its opening weekend and go on to be as successful as "Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan", which earned $129 million in the U.S. and Canada and $260 million worldwide. "The Dark Knight" had been the number one film at the box office for the four weeks prior to the release of "Tropic Thunder". Bob Thompson, a writer for the "National Post", speculated that "Tropic Thunder"s opening weekend would outperform "The Dark Knight" for the weekend. In a list compiled prior to the summer's film releases, "Entertainment Weekly" predicted that the film would be the tenth highest grossing film of the summer at the American box office with $142.6 million. "Tropic Thunder" opened in 3,319 theaters and, for its first five days of American and Canadian release, earned $36,845,588. The film placed first in the weekend's box office with $25,812,796, surpassing "" and "Mirrors", which debuted the same weekend. Reacting to the film's opening receipts, DreamWorks spokesman Chip Sullivan stated "We're thrilled, quite frankly. It played out exactly how we hoped." In foreign markets for the film's opening weekend, it was released in 418 Russian and 19 United Arab Emirates locations earning $2.2 million and $319,000, respectively. The film maintained its number one position at the American and Canadian box office for the following two weekends, making it the second film in 2008 (after "The Dark Knight") to hold the number-one position for more than two consecutive weekends. The film's widest release was in 3,473 theaters, placing it in the top 25 widest releases in the U.S. for 2008. For 2008, the film was the fifth-highest-grossing domestic R-rated film. The film's U.S. and Canada gross of over $110 million made "Tropic Thunder" Stiller's most successful film as a director. The film has had gross receipts of $110,515,313 in the U.S. and Canada and $77,557,336 in international markets for a total of $188,072,649 worldwide. Accolades. In October 2008, Paramount Pictures chose to put end-of-year award push funds behind "Tropic Thunder", and began advertising for Downey to receive a nomination by the Academy Awards for Best Supporting Actor. In a November 2008 issue by "Entertainment Weekly", Downey's film role was considered one of the three contenders for Best Supporting Actor. As a way of extending the film-within-a-film "universe" into real life, there have also been at least two online "For Your Consideration" ads touting Downey's character, Kirk Lazarus, for Best Supporting Actor; one of these contains "scenes" from "Satan's Alley" that were not in the trailer as released in theaters. At least one of the ads was produced by Paramount Pictures and intended for early For Your Consideration awareness for Downey's role. On January 22, 2009, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences nominated Downey for Best Supporting Actor. At the 81st Academy Awards, Downey lost to Heath Ledger. With the onset of the annual Hollywood film award season at the end of 2008, "Tropic Thunder" began receiving nominations and awards starting with a win for "Hollywood Comedy of the Year Award" at the 12th annual Hollywood Film Festival on October 27, 2008. The film was nominated for Best Motion Picture, Comedy or Musical, for the Satellite Awards. In addition, Downey was nominated for Best Actor in a Supporting Role. The Broadcast Film Critics Association nominated Downey for Best Supporting Actor and awarded "Tropic Thunder" Best Comedy Movie at the BFCA's Critics' Choice Awards. Both Downey and Cruise received nominations from the Hollywood Foreign Press Association for Golden Globes for Best Supporting Actor. The Boston Society of Film Critics recognized the cast with its Best Ensemble award. Downey was also nominated by both the Screen Actors Guild and the British Academy of Film and Television Arts for Best Supporting Actor awards. Home media. "Tropic Thunder" was released in the U.S. on DVD and Blu-ray on November 18, 2008, three months after its release and a week after the end of its theatrical run in the U.S. and Canada. The film was released on home video on January 26, 2009 in the United Kingdom. Special features include an unrated director's cut of the film, audio commentaries (including one featuring Stiller, Downey, and Black, with Downey providing his commentary as Lincoln Osiris, a nod to a joke in the film that Lazarus never breaks character until he completes the DVD commentary), several featurettes, deleted scenes, an alternate ending, and the "Rain of Madness" mockumentary. For the film's first week of release, "Tropic Thunder" placed on several video charts. It reached second place on the Nielsen VideoScan First Alert sales chart and Nielsen's Blu-ray Disc chart, earning $19,064,959 (not including Blu-ray sales). In rentals, it placed first on the "Home Media Magazine"'s video rental chart. The DVD sales in 2008 totaled $42,271,059, placing it in 28th for DVD sales for the year. By September 2009, 2,963,000 DVD units have been sold, gathering revenue of $49,870,248. Controversy. "Tropic Thunder" was criticized by the disability advocacy community. The website for "Simple Jack" was withdrawn on August 4 amid several groups' concerns over its portrayal of mental retardation. A spokesman for DreamWorks said, "We heard their concerns, and we understand that taken out of context, the site appeared to be insensitive to people with disabilities." A coalition of more than 20 disability advocacy groups, including the Special Olympics and the Arc of the United States, objected to the film's repeated and excessive use of the word "retard". DreamWorks offered to screen the film for the groups on August 8 to determine if it still offended them. The screening was postponed to the same day of the premiere on August 11. After representatives for the groups attended the private screening and were offended by its content, the groups picketed outside the film's premiere. Timothy Shriver, the chairman of the Special Olympics, stated, "This population struggles too much with the basics to have to struggle against Hollywood. We're sending a message that this hate speech is no longer acceptable." Disability advocates and others who previewed the film reported that the offensive treatment of individuals with mental disabilities was woven throughout the film's plot. Disability advocates urged people not to see the film, claiming it is demeaning to individuals with mental disabilities and would encourage bullying. Stiller defended the film, stating "We screened the movie so many times and this didn't come up until very late ... in the context of the film I think it's really clear, they were making fun of the actors and actors who try to use serious subjects to win awards." Co-writer Etan Cohen echoed Stiller's rationale: "Some people have taken this as making fun of handicapped people, but we're really trying to make fun of the actors who use this material as fodder for acclaim." He went on to state that the film lampoons actors who portray mentally retarded/autistic characters such as Dustin Hoffman in "Rain Man", Tom Hanks in "Forrest Gump", Cuba Gooding Jr. in "Radio", and Sean Penn in "I Am Sam". A DreamWorks spokesman did not directly respond to the criticism, claiming that "Tropic Thunder" "... is an R-rated comedy that satirizes Hollywood and its excesses, makes its point by featuring inappropriate and over-the-top characters in ridiculous situations." The film's advertising was altered, but none of the scenes in the film were edited as a result of the opposition. In response to the controversy, the director's cut of the DVD (but not the Blu-ray) includes a public service announcement in the special features that discourages use of the word "retard". Music. "Tropic Thunder"s score and soundtrack were released on August 5, 2008, the week before the film's release in theaters. The score was composed by Theodore Shapiro and performed by the Hollywood Studio Symphony. William Ruhlmann of allmusic gave the score a positive review, stating it is "...an affectionate and knowing satire of the history of Hollywood action movie music, penned by an insider." Thomas Simpson of SoundtrackNet called it "...a mixture of fun, seriousness, rock n' roll and great scoring." Five songs, "Cum On Feel the Noize" by Quiet Riot, "Sympathy for the Devil" by The Rolling Stones, "For What It's Worth" by Buffalo Springfield, "Low" by Flo Rida and T-Pain, and "Get Back" by Ludacris, were not present on the soundtrack, yet did appear in the film. The soundtrack features songs from The Temptations, MC Hammer, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Edwin Starr, and other artists. The single "Name of the Game" by The Crystal Method featuring Ryu has an exclusive remix on the soundtrack. The soundtrack debuted 20th on "Billboard"'s Top Soundtracks list and peaked at 39th on its Top Independent Albums list. James Christopher Monger of allmusic compared the music to other film's soundtracks such as "Platoon", "Full Metal Jacket", and "Forrest Gump" and called it "...a fun but slight listen that plays out like an old late-'70s K-Tel compilation with a few bonus cuts from the future." Spin-off. Tom Cruise reprised his character Les Grossman for the 2010 MTV Movie Awards. On June 9, 2010 it was announced that a spin-off film would be developed centering on Grossman. A script has been written by "Scott Pilgrim vs. the World" and "Project X" screenwriter Michael Bacall. In March 2012 he gave an update on the long-rumoured Les Grossman spin-off movie, revealing that the film will attempt to uncover where Grossman's well-documented anger issues originated.
1161921	Dirk Benedict (born March 1, 1945) is an American movie, television and stage actor who played the characters Lieutenant Templeton "Faceman" Peck in "The A-Team" television series and Lieutenant Starbuck in the original "Battlestar Galactica" film and television series. He is the author of Confessions of a Kamikaze Cowboy. Early life. Benedict was born Dirk Niewoehner in Helena, Montana, the son of Pricilla Mella (née Metzger), an accountant, and George Edward Niewoehner, a lawyer. He grew up in White Sulphur Springs, Montana. He graduated from Whitman College in 1967. Benedict allegedly chose his stage name from a serving of Eggs Benedict he had enjoyed prior to his acting career. Career. Benedict's film debut was in the 1972 film "Georgia, Georgia". When the New York run for "Butterflies Are Free" ended, he received an offer to repeat his performance in Hawaii, opposite Barbara Rush. While there, he appeared as a guest lead on "Hawaii Five-O". The producers of a horror film called "Sssssss" saw Benedict's performance in "Hawaii Five-O" and promptly cast him as the lead in that movie. He next played the psychotic wife-beating husband of Twiggy in her American film debut, "W". Benedict starred in the television series "Chopper One" which aired for one season in 1974. He also made an appearance in "Charlie's Angels". Benedict's career break came in 1978 when he appeared as Lieutenant Starbuck in the movie and television series "Battlestar Galactica". In 1979, Benedict starred in the ensemble movie "Scavenger Hunt". In 1981, Benedict starred alongside Linda Blair in an Action Comedy Movie called Ruckus. In 1982, Dirk gained further popularity as con-man Lieutenant Templeton "Face" Peck in 1980s action television series, "The A-Team". He played "Faceman" from to , although the series didn't air until January 1983, and the final episode wasn't shown until 1987 re-runs. The episode, "Steel," includes a scene at Universal Studios where Face is seen looking bemused as a Cylon walks by him as an in-joke to his previous role in "Battlestar Galactica". The clip is incorporated into the series' opening credit sequence from the third season onward.
1084171	Reb Brown (born Robert Brown; April 29, 1948) is an American actor. Brown is perhaps best known for playing the lead in the television film "Captain America" and the action war film "Uncommon Valor". He is also known for the 1983 cult classic, "Yor, the Hunter from the Future", regarded as a B-Movie classic, as well as the sci-fi film, Space Mutiny, and for the collaborations with director Bruno Mattei in films "Strike Commando" and "Robowar".
1061941	Jennifer Lynn Connelly (born December 12, 1970) is an American film actress, who began her career as a child model. She appeared in magazine, newspaper and television advertising, before making her motion picture debut in the 1984 crime film "Once Upon a Time in America". Connelly continued modeling and acting, starring in films such as the 1986 "Labyrinth" and the 1991 "Career Opportunities". She gained critical acclaim for her work in the 1998 science fiction film "Dark City" and for her portrayal of Marion Silver in the 2000 drama "Requiem for a Dream". In 2002, Connelly won an Academy Award, a Golden Globe Award and a BAFTA Award for her supporting role as Alicia Nash in Ron Howard's 2001 biopic "A Beautiful Mind". Her later credits include the 2003 Marvel superhero film "Hulk" where she played Hulk/Bruce Banner's true love Betty Ross, the 2005 thriller "Dark Water", the 2006 drama "Blood Diamond", the 2008 science fiction remake "The Day the Earth Stood Still", the 2009 romantic comedy "He's Just Not That Into You" and the 2009 biographical drama "Creation". In 2012, she re-teamed with her "Requiem for a Dream" director Darren Aronofsky and "A Beautiful Mind" co-star Russell Crowe for the biblical epic "Noah". Connelly was named Amnesty International Ambassador for Human Rights Education in 2005. She has been the face of Balenciaga fashion advertisements, as well as for Revlon cosmetics. In 2012, she was named the first global face of the Shiseido Company. Magazines including "Time", "Vanity Fair" and "Esquire", as well as the "Los Angeles Times" newspaper have included her on their lists of the world's most beautiful women. Life and career. Early life. Connelly was born in Cairo, New York, in the Catskill Mountains. She is the daughter of Ilene, an antiques dealer, and Gerard Connelly, a clothing manufacturer. Her father was Roman Catholic, of Irish and Norwegian descent. Her mother was Jewish, and had been educated at a yeshiva; Ilene's family had emigrated from Poland and Russia. Connelly was raised primarily in Brooklyn Heights, near the Brooklyn Bridge, where she attended Saint Ann's, a private school focused on the arts. Her father suffered from asthma, so the family moved to Woodstock, New York in 1976 when she was young, to escape the city smog. Four years later, the family returned to Brooklyn Heights, and Connelly returned to Saint Ann's. Child modeling and early film appearances. When Connelly was ten years old, an advertising executive friend of her father suggested she audition as a model. Her parents sent a picture of her to the Ford Modeling Agency, which shortly after added her to its roster. Connelly began modeling for print advertisements before moving on to television commercials. In an interview with "The Guardian", she revealed that, after having done a bit of modeling, she had no aspirations to become an actor. She appeared on the cover of several issues of "Seventeen" in 1986 and 1988. In December 1986, she recorded two pop songs for the Japanese market: "Monologue of Love" and "Message of Love". Connelly sang in phonetic Japanese as she did not speak the language. Her mother started taking her to acting auditions. At one, Connelly was selected for a supporting role as the aspiring dancer and actress Deborah Gelly in Sergio Leone's 1984 gangster epic "Once Upon a Time in America". The role required performing a ballet routine. During the audition, Connelly, who had no ballet training, tried to imitate a ballerina. Her performance, and the similarity of her nose to Elizabeth McGovern's, who played the character as an adult, convinced the director to cast her. Connelly described the movie as "an incredibly idyllic introduction to movie-making". While "Once Upon a Time in America" was being filmed, Connelly made her first television appearance, in the episode "Stranger in Town" of the British series "Tales of the Unexpected". Her first leading role was in Italian giallo-director Dario Argento's 1985 film "Phenomena"; she played a girl who uses her psychic powers to communicate with insects, in order to pursue the serial killer of students of the Swiss school where she has just enrolled. She next had the lead in the coming-of-age movie "Seven Minutes in Heaven", released the same year. Of her early career, she said, "Before I knew it, (acting) became what I did. It was a very peculiar way to grow up, combined with my personality." She described feeling like "a kind of walking puppet" through her adolescence, without having time alone to deal with the attention her career was generating. 1980s–1990s. Connelly gained public recognition with Jim Henson's 1986 fantasy film "Labyrinth", in which she played Sarah, a teenager on a quest to rescue her brother Toby from the world of goblins. Although a disappointment at the box office, the film later became a cult classic. "The New York Times", while noting the importance of her part, panned her portrayal: "Jennifer Connelly as Sarah is unfortunately disappointing. ... She looks right, but she lacks conviction and seems to be reading rehearsed lines that are recited without belief in her goal or real need to accomplish it." Two years later, she starred as a ballet student in the Italian film "Étoile", and portrayed college student Gabby in Michael Hoffman's "Some Girls". Balancing work and school, she studied English for two years at Yale University in 1988 and 1989, before transferring to Stanford University in 1990 to study drama. There, she trained with Roy London, Howard Fine and Harold Guskin. Encouraged by her parents to continue with her film career, Connelly left college and returned to the movie industry the same year. In 1990, Dennis Hopper directed "The Hot Spot", in which Connelly was cast as Gloria Harper, a woman being blackmailed. The movie was a box office failure but Connelly was praised. Stephen Schaefer wrote for "USA Today", "Anyone looking for proof that little girls do grow up fast in the movies should take a gander at curvaceous Jennifer Connelly [...] in The Hot Spot. Not yet 20, Connelly has neatly managed the transition from child actress to ingenue". During an interview with Shaeffer, Connelly commented on her first nude scene: "The nudity was hard for me and something I thought about...but it's not in a sleazy context". The same year, director Garry Marshall considered her for the role of Vivian Ward in "Pretty Woman", but ultimately felt that she was too young for the part. Connelly's next movie was the 1991 romantic comedy "Career Opportunities", starring alongside Frank Whaley. The director was criticized for exploiting Connelly's image. "People" deplored an advertisement that showed Whaley watching Connelly ride a mechanical horse; the caption read "He's about to have the ride of his life". In an interview with "Rolling Stone," Connelly said, "I don't know about anyone else, but that wasn't something I felt all that comfortable about. That sure as hell wasn't a subject that I was trying to learn about from my professor". The big-budget Disney film "The Rocketeer" followed later that year, but failed to ignite her career. She played Jenny Blake, the aspiring actress girlfriend of stunt pilot Cliff, "the Rocketeer". "New York" characterized the movie as "pallid". The review said of her performance, "Connelly is properly cast; she has the moist, full-to-the-cheek bones sensuality of the Hollywood starlets of that period, but she's a little straight". She appeared alongside Jason Priestley in the Roy Orbison music video for "I Drove All Night" the following year. In 1995, director John Singleton cast Connelly as a lesbian college student in "Higher Learning". She next appeared in the 1996 independent film "Far Harbor" as Elie, a prominent person in a Hollywood studio who writes a screenplay based on her traumas. It was followed that year by the neo-noir crime thriller "Mulholland Falls," which featured the murder of Allison Pond (Connelly), mistress of General Timms (John Malkovich), and the investigation by a group of detectives led by Maxwell Hoover (Nick Nolte). "New York" magazine wrote about a clip that reveals the link between Timms and Pond: "This footage is actually dirty. That is, it makes us feel like voyeurs when looking at it, but it's so juicily erotic that we can hardly look away". About nudity in the movie, Connelly said: "It kind of shocked everyone who knows me that I wound up doing this movie, because I had always been so careful about nudity, it was very much a part of this character and I couldn't be coy or guarded or self-conscious--otherwise it wouldn't work. It was sort of a challenge I wanted to take on, I guess". She began to appear in small-budget films which did well with critics, such as 1997's drama "Inventing the Abbotts", set in the late 1950s, in which she played the part of Eleanor, one of three daughters of the town millionaire, Lloyd Abbott. About her performance, director Ron Howard said, "She not only was beautiful and seductive but gave some difficult psychological moments in the film a lot of depth and complexity. She had an extraordinary combination of talent and beauty, and I guess I stored that information in the back of my brain". Her next appearance was in the critically acclaimed 1998 science fiction film "Dark City", where she played alongside Rufus Sewell, William Hurt, Ian Richardson and Kiefer Sutherland. Connelly portrayed "femme fatale" Emma, a torch singer whose husband, John Murdoch (Rufus Sewell), suffers from amnesia. As Murdoch is regaining his memories, Emma is kidnapped by Mr. Hand (Richard O'Brien) and The Strangers, who alter her memories and assign her a new identity. Author Sean McMullen wrote, "Jennifer Connelly is visually splendid as the 1940s femme fatale (Emma)." Early 2000s. In 2001, Ed Harris directed Connelly in the biopic "Pollock" in which she played Ruth Kligman, Jackson Pollock's mistress. In 2000 she appeared in what critics considered her breakthrough film, "Requiem for a Dream", directed by Darren Aronofsky and based on the novel of the same name by Hubert Selby, Jr. Connelly played Marion Silver, Harry's (Jared Leto) girlfriend; the movie also starred Marlon Wayans and Ellen Burstyn. Her character is a middle-class girl from Manhattan Beach who pursues the dream of establishing a dress shop. She becomes addicted and she eventually falls into a degrading life of prostitution. Connelly prepared for the role by renting a separate apartment in the building where the character lived. During her time in the apartment, Connelly isolated herself, painted, listened to music that she considered that her character would, designed clothes, and used the time to reflect about addictions and their origin. Connelly also talked to addicts and attended Narcotics Anonymous meetings with a friend who was in recovery. Critics acclaimed the individual performances for the actors' emotional courage in portraying their characters' physical and mental degradation. Connelly said she became interested in the script for its depiction of the addictions and their effects on the lives and affections of the characters and their relatives. The critic Elvis Mitchell wrote in "The New York Times", "Ms. Connelly, too, whittled herself down to a new weight class, and it's her performance that gives the movie weight, since her fall is the most precipitous. By the end, when she curls into a happy fetal ball with a furtive smile on her face, she has come to love her debasement... Her dank realization is more disturbing than anything in the novel, and Ms. Connelly has never before done anything to prepare us for how good she is here."
1064351	Bright Young Things is a 2003 British drama film written and directed by Stephen Fry. The screenplay, based on the 1930 novel "Vile Bodies" by Evelyn Waugh, provides satirical social commentary about the Bright Young People: young and carefree London aristocrats and bohemians, as well as society in general, in the late 1920s through to the early 1940s. Plot. The primary characters are earnest aspiring novelist Adam Fenwick-Symes and his fiancée Nina Blount. When Adam's novel "Bright Young Things", commissioned by tabloid newspaper magnate Lord Monomark, is confiscated by HM customs officers at the port of Dover for being too racy, he finds himself in a precarious financial situation that may force him to postpone his marriage. In the lounge of the hotel where he lives, he wins £1000 by successfully performing a trick involving sleight of hand, and the Major offers to place the money on the decidedly ill-favored Indian Runner in a forthcoming horserace. Anxious to wed Nina, Adam agrees, and the horse wins at odds of 33–1, but it takes him more than a decade to collect his winnings. Meanwhile, Adam and Nina are part of a young and decadent crowd, whose lives are dedicated to wild parties, alcohol, cocaine, and the latest gossip reported by columnist Simon Balcairn, known to his readers as Mr. Chatterbox. Among them are eccentric Agatha Runcible, whose wild ways eventually lead her to being committed in a mental institution; Miles, who is forced to flee the country to avoid prosecution for his homosexuality; Sneath, a paparazzo who chronicles the wicked ways of the young and reckless; and Ginger Littlejohn, Nina's former beau, who ingratiates himself back into her life, much to Adam's dismay. The pastimes of the young, idle rich are disrupted with the onset of World War II, which eventually overtakes their lives in often devastating ways. Production. The film marked the feature film screenwriting and directorial debut of actor Stephen Fry. Fry also makes a very brief cameo appearance in the film as a chauffeur. The assistant director was Jo Crocker, Stephen Fry's sister who made her debut in television. The film proved to be the last for John Mills, who appears briefly in the non-speaking role of an elderly party guest enthralled by the effects of cocaine. The character of Lord Monomark is based on Lord Beaverbrook, who once employed Evelyn Waugh as a writer for his newspaper, the "Sunday Express". Waugh's original name for his character was "Lord Ottercreek", before his lawyers intervened. Monomark, like Beaverbrook, a Canadian, is played by Dan Aykroyd, a Canadian. Exteriors were shot at various locations in and around London, including the Royal Naval College in Greenwich and Eltham Palace. Interiors were filmed in Pinewood Studios. The soundtrack features several standards of the era, including "Nina," "Twentieth Century Blues," "Dance, Little Lady," and "The Party's Over Now," all performed by Noël Coward, "Mairzy Doats" by The Merry Macs, and "Hear My Song, Violetta" by Victor Silvester and His Orchestra. The film premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in May 2003, and was shown at the Toronto Film Festival before its Royal European Charity Premiere in London on 28 September 2003. It went into theatrical release in the UK on 3 October 2003, the same day it was shown at the Dinard Festival of British Cinema in France. In the US, the film was shown at the 2004 Sundance Film Festival, the Portland International Film Festival, the US Comedy Arts Festival in Aspen, the Cleveland International Film Festival, the Philadelphia International Film Festival, the Newport International Film Festival and the Provincetown International Film Festival before going into limited release on 20 August. It eventually grossed $931,755 in the US and £869,053 in the UK. Critical reception. A.O. Scott of the "New York Times" said, "Mr. Fry revels in the chaos of the plot, and the profusion of arch one-liners and zany set pieces gives the picture a hectic, slightly out-of-control feel. Sometimes you lose track of who is who, and where the various characters are going—but then, so do they. Subplots and tangents wander into view and then fade away, and in the end it all comes together and makes sense, more or less…Period dramas set on the eve of World War II are a dime—or maybe a shilling—a dozen, but what distinguishes this one is its dash and vigor. It does not seem to have been made just for the sake of the costumes and the vintage cars. The camera, rather than composing the action into a presentable pageant, plunges in, capturing the madness of the era in a swirl of colors and jolting close-ups. And Mr. Fry's headlong style helps rescue the movie from the deadly trap of antiquarianism". Roger Ebert of the "Chicago Sun-Times" said the film has "a sweetness and tenderness" and observed that Stephen Fry was "the obvious choice to direct this material." He added, "He has a feel for it; to spend a little time talking with him is to hear inherited echoes from characters just like those in the story. He supplies a roll-call of supporting actors who turn up just long enough to convince us entire movies could be made about their characters". Carla Meyer of the "San Francisco Chronicle" called the film a "witty, energetic adaptation" but thought "Fry, so deft with lighthearted moments, seems uncomfortable with Waugh's moralizing, and more serious scenes fall flat". She added, ""Bright Young Things" is like a party girl on her fourth martini. What had been fun and frothy turns irretrievably maudlin". Peter Travers of "Rolling Stone" felt Fry was "clever" for adapting Waugh's novel "into a movie that would make Paris Hilton feel at home," although "By the time lets darkness encroach on these bright young things…the fizz is gone, and so is any reason to make us give a damn". Derek Elley of "Variety" called the film "a slick, no-nonsense adaptation…an easy-to-digest slice of literate entertainment for upscale and older auds that lacks a significant emotional undertow to make it a truly involving—rather than simply voyeuristic—experience…Fry's script fillets out even the few traces of a darker underside that creep through in the second half of Waugh's original. Modern auds, accustomed to more emotional payback for the characters' earlier excesses, will come away empty-handed. There's basically very little dramatic arc to the whole picture. Still, Fry and his tech team have put together a good-looking, smooth-running movie". Michael Wilmington of the "Chicago Tribune" described it as "a brilliant, giddy satiric romp with a discreetly moralistic viewpoint beneath its high-style wit," "a ball to watch," and "an incredibly entertaining film with a magnificent cast," and called Fry "a splendid director capable of visual dazzle and superb ensemble work". Awards and nominations. Fenella Woolgar was nominated for the London Film Critics Circle Award for British Supporting Actress of the Year, the Empire Award for Best Newcomer, the British Independent Film Award for Most Promising Newcomer, and the Chlotrudis Award for Best Supporting Actress. Stephen Fry was nominated for the Emden Film Award at International Filmfest Emden, and the production was nominated for the Empire Award for Best British Film.
1716328	Antoine Augustin Cournot (28 August 1801 – 31 March 1877) was a French philosopher and mathematician. Antoine Augustin Cournot was born at Gray, Haute-Saône. In 1821 he entered one of the most prestigious Grande École, the École Normale Supérieure, and in 1829 he had earned a doctoral degree in mathematics, with mechanics as his main thesis supplemented by astronomy. After graduating, Cournot held many positions as professor of analysis and mechanics, chief examiner for undergraduate students, and rector of Dijon Academy. Cournot was mainly a mathematician, but did have some influence over economics. His theories on monopolies and duopolies are still famous. In 1838 the book "Researches on the Mathematical Principles of the Theory of Wealth" was published, in which he used the application of the formulas and symbols of mathematics in economic analysis. This book was highly criticized and not very successful during Cournot's lifetime, and he did try to rewrite it twice, but it still has influence in economics today. Today many economists believe this book to be the point of departure for modern economic analysis. Cournot introduced the ideas of functions and probability into economic analysis. He derived the first formula for the rule of supply and demand as a function of price and in fact was the first to draw supply and demand curves on a graph, anticipating the work of Alfred Marshall by roughly thirty years. The Cournot duopoly model developed in his book also introduced the concept of a (pure strategy) Nash equilibrium, the Reaction function and best-response dynamics.
584228	Anjathe () is a Tamil drama film directed by Mysskin; starring Narain The film opened to rave reviews for its technical expertise, avant-garde filmmaking and for the performance of actor Narain. The song, 'Kannadasan karaikkudi','Kattazha kannale kuthatha' has topped the review charts and captured the hearts of many youngsters respectively. Plot. Satya (Narain) and Kiruba (Ajmal Ameer) are close friends living opposite each other in the neighbourhood. Satya is a rowdy, wasting his time drinking merrily and getting involved in fights. Though he and Kiruba passed college with a first class degree, Satya has no interest in joining the police force like his father. Kiruba studies hard to become a Sub-Inspector(SI), challenging Satya to do the same. Just a day before the exam, Satya decides to take up the exam as well, much to his friend's surprise and with little head start, passes the physical, written and interview, with the help of malpractices and influence from his uncle and becomes an SI. However, Kiruba doesn't make it through despite being straight forward; this creates a rift between the two. Kiruba's father lies to Satya that he has gone to Bombay, but Satya finds him in the local bar, having become a drunkard. Parallel is the story of Daya (Prasanna) and Loganathan (Pandiarajan), who extort money from businessmen through kidnappings. Before Satya became a policeman, he beat up Daya for molesting Kiruba's sister, though none including Kiruba know of this. Satya gains fame by holding off knife-wielding men who come to kill an injured man at a hospital, though the man is killed later in the night. As a result Satya is drafted into a special task force to catch the gang members related to the crime. Daya and Loganathan carry out two kidnappings, raping the victims on both occasions, and release them for ransom money. Kiruba is beaten up by the police for a skirmish at the local bar; his father suffers a heart attack after getting his son back from the police station. At this point of time Kiruba is employed by Daya, mainly because the former is distraught and will fall easily to the lure of money and booze. In the third time however, the police are informed, but the kidnappers find out by chance and change the drop off point at the last moment. They give the police the slip, but narrowly avoid capture, with Kiruba providing shelter for them in his house. Kiruba joins along to get money for his father's angioplasty, though he doesn't realize until it's too late that he is doing illegal things and harming young children. Meanwhile Satya identifies Daya from the characteristics, with a background check revealing that Daya was accused of raping his senior's wife in the army. Daya, Logu and their accomplices are again almost caught when the police trace one of the accomplices' family. Daya kills his own man during this raid to avoid information being passed, and hatch a plan to escape to Bihar in a poultry van. Logu is killed by Daya, upon learning that the former had hatched a plan to kill him. However, to escape to the city outskirts to rendezvous with this van, they hijack the Inspector General's car with his two daughters inside. Switching soon to a disguised-dog van to get past checkposts with the two girls, Daya, Kiruba and another accomplice arrive at a sugarcane field. Satya recognizes Kiruba's voice from the ransom call he makes to the IG, and follows his sister from the hospital, who has been instructed to bring a bag full of cash from their home(kept there by Daya), to the sugarcane field. The plot to kidnap the IG's daughters is an elaborate ruse to divert the police force to the south of the city while they escape from the north. The special task force, who are in the south of the city, realize the plot and upon learning that Satya is alone in the north of the city, head in that direction. In the sugarcane fields Kiruba shows compassion towards the two girls, treating them softly. Upon hearing some noise in the field, Daya splits the group, doing so to meet up directly with Kiruba's sister who has the money-bag. He tries to rape her, but Satya intervenes and a fist fight ensures, but the special task force comes upon them, and kill Daya by setting it up as an encounter. The two girls split and escape from the third accomplice, only for one of them to be recaptured by him, but is let off being too tiring to carry. Kiruba and the third accomplice try to run away, with Kiruba's sister behind him. Just as he leaves her to escape, she reveals that she is in love with Satya and uses the situation to handcuff herself to Kiruba to avoid him from escaping. In the end Satya shoots Kiruba in self-defense and to save one of the IG's daughters from being shot.When Kiruba lies on sathya's lap shot, Kiruba finds a ring he once gifted to sathya on sathya's b'day which Kiruba believed thrown away by Sathya drunk while partying at the bar which in tern wets Kiruba's eye and dies. The ending scenes of the movie show that Satya and Kiruba's sister get married and have a son, whom they name Kiruba.
1103801	William Paul Thurston (October 30, 1946 – August 21, 2012) was an American mathematician. He was a pioneer in the field of low-dimensional topology. In 1982, he was awarded the Fields Medal for his contributions to the study of 3-manifolds. From 2003 until his death he was a professor of mathematics and computer science at Cornell University. Mathematical contributions. Foliations. His early work, in the early 1970s, was mainly in foliation theory, where he had a dramatic impact. His more significant results include: In fact, Thurston resolved so many outstanding problems in foliation theory in such a short period of time that it led to a kind of exodus from the field, where advisors counselled students against going into foliation theory because Thurston was "cleaning out the subject" (see "On Proof and Progress in Mathematics", especially section 6 ). The geometrization conjecture. His later work, starting around the mid-1970s, revealed that hyperbolic geometry played a far more important role in the general theory of 3-manifolds than was previously realised. Prior to Thurston, there were only a handful of known examples of hyperbolic 3-manifolds of finite volume, such as the Seifert–Weber space. The independent and distinct approaches of Robert Riley and Troels Jørgensen in the mid-to-late 1970s showed that such examples were less atypical than previously believed; in particular their work showed that the figure eight knot complement was hyperbolic. This was the first example of a hyperbolic knot. Inspired by their work, Thurston took a different, more explicit means of exhibiting the hyperbolic structure of the figure eight knot complement. He showed that the figure eight knot complement could be decomposed as the union of two regular ideal hyperbolic tetrahedra whose hyperbolic structures matched up correctly and gave the hyperbolic structure on the figure eight knot complement. By utilizing Haken's normal surface techniques, he classified the incompressible surfaces in the knot complement. Together with his analysis of deformations of hyperbolic structures, he concluded that all but 10 Dehn surgeries on the figure eight knot resulted in irreducible, non-Haken non-Seifert-fibered 3-manifolds. These were the first such examples; previously it had been believed that except for certain Seifert fiber spaces, all irreducible 3-manifolds were Haken. These examples were actually hyperbolic and motivated his next revolutionary theorem. Thurston proved that in fact most Dehn fillings on a cusped hyperbolic 3-manifold resulted in hyperbolic 3-manifolds. This is his celebrated hyperbolic Dehn surgery theorem.
1179139	Isaac Lee Hayes, Jr. (August 20, 1942 – August 10, 2008) was an American songwriter, musician, singer, actor, and voice actor. Hayes was one of the creative influences behind the southern soul music label Stax Records, where he served both as an in-house songwriter and as a record producer, teaming with his partner David Porter during the mid-1960s. Hayes, Porter, Bill Withers, the Sherman Brothers, Steve Cropper, and John Fogerty were inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2005 in recognition of writing scores of notable songs for themselves, the duo Sam & Dave, Carla Thomas, and others. The hit song "Soul Man", written by Hayes and Porter and first performed by Sam & Dave, has been recognized as one of the most influential songs of the past 50 years by the Grammy Hall of Fame. It was also honored by The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, by "Rolling Stone" magazine, and by the RIAA as one of the Songs of the Century. During the late 1960s, Hayes also began recording music and he had several successful soul albums such as "Hot Buttered Soul" (1969) and "Black Moses" (1971). In addition to his work in popular music, he worked as a composer of musical scores for motion pictures. He is well known for his musical score for the film "Shaft" (1971). For the "Theme from "Shaft"", he was awarded the Academy Award for Best Original Song in 1972. He became the third African-American, after Sidney Poitier and Hattie McDaniel, to win an Academy Award in any competitive field covered by Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. He also won two Grammy Awards for that same year. Later, he was given his third Grammy for his music album "Black Moses". In 1992, in recognition of humanitarian work there, he was crowned the honorary king of the Ada, Ghana region. He also acted in motion pictures and television, such as in the movies "Truck Turner" and "I'm Gonna Git You Sucka", and as Gandolf "Gandy" Fitch in the TV series "The Rockford Files" (1974–1980). From 1997 to 2005, he lent his distinctive, deep voice to the character "Chef" on the animated TV series "South Park". His influences are Percy Mayfield, Big Joe Turner, James Brown, Jerry Butler, Sam Cooke, Fats Domino, Marvin Gaye, Otis Redding, and psychedelic soul groups like The Chambers Brothers and Sly and the Family Stone. Allmusic.com says that Isaac Hayes is responsible for the evolution of disco and rap. On August 5, 2003, Hayes was honored as a BMI Icon at the 2003 BMI Urban Awards for his enduring influence on generations of music makers. Throughout his songwriting career, Hayes received five BMI R&B Awards, two BMI Pop Awards, two BMI Urban Awards and six Million-Air citations. As of 2008, his songs generated more than 12 million performances. Life and career. Early years. Isaac Hayes, Jr. was born in Covington, Tennessee, in Tipton County. He was the second child of Eula (née Wade) and Isaac Hayes, Sr. After his mother died young, and his father abandoned his family, Isaac, Jr., was raised by his maternal grandparents, Mr. and Mrs. Willie Wade, Sr. The child of a poor sharecropper family, he grew up working on farms in Shelby County, Tennessee and in Tipton County. Hayes dropped out of high school, but he was later encouraged by his former high school teachers at Manassas High School in Memphis to complete his high school diploma, which he did at the age of 21. After graduating from high school, Hayes was offered several music scholarships from colleges and universities. Hayes turned down all of them because of his obligations to his immediate family. Hayes next worked at a meat-packing plant in Memphis by day, and he played music at nightclubs and juke joints several evenings a week in Memphis and nearby northern Mississippi. Hayes began singing at the age of five at his local church, and, soon after, he taught himself to play the piano, the Hammond organ, the flute, and the saxophone. His first professional gigs, in the late 1950s, were as a singer at Curry's Club in North Memphis, backed by Ben Branch's houseband. Stax Records and "Shaft". Hayes began his recording career in the early 1960s, as a session player for various acts of the Memphis-based Stax Records. He later wrote a string of hit songs with songwriting partner David Porter, including "You Don't Know Like I Know", "Soul Man", "When Something Is Wrong with My Baby", and "Hold On I'm Comin" for Sam & Dave. Hayes, Porter and Stax studio band Booker T. & the M.G.'s were also the producers for Sam & Dave, Carla Thomas and other Stax artists during the mid-1960s. Hayes-Porter contributed to the Stax sound made famous during this period, and Sam & Dave credited Hayes for helping develop both their sound and style. In 1968, Hayes released his debut album, "Presenting Isaac Hayes", a jazzy, largely improvised effort that was commercially unsuccessful. His next album was "Hot Buttered Soul", which was released in 1969 after Stax had gone through a major upheaval. The label had lost its largest star, Otis Redding, in a plane crash in December 1967. Stax lost all of its back catalog to Atlantic Records in May 1968. As a result, Stax executive vice president Al Bell called for 27 new albums to be completed in mid-1969; "Hot Buttered Soul", was the most successful of these releases. This album is noted for Hayes's image (shaved head, gold jewelry, sunglasses, etc.) and his distinct sound (extended orchestral songs relying heavily on organs, horns, and guitars, deep bass vocals, etc.). Also on the album, Hayes re-interprets "Walk On By" (which had been made famous by Dionne Warwick) into a 12-minute exploration. "By the Time I Get to Phoenix" starts with an eight-minute-long monologue before breaking into song, and the lone original number, the funky "Hyperbolicsyllabicsesquedalymistic" runs nearly ten minutes, a significant break from the standard three-minute soul/pop songs. "Walk On By" would be the first of many times Hayes would take a Burt Bacharach standard, generally made famous as three-minute pop songs by Dionne Warwick or Dusty Springfield, and transform it into a soulful, lengthy and almost gospel number. In 1970, Hayes released two albums, "The Isaac Hayes Movement" and "To Be Continued". The former stuck to the four-song template of his previous album. Jerry Butler's "I Stand Accused" begins with a trademark spoken word monologue, and Bacharach's "I Just Don't Know What to Do with Myself" is re-worked. The latter spawned the classic "The Look Of Love", another Bacharach song transformed into an 11-minute epic of lush orchestral rhythm (mid-way it breaks into a rhythm guitar jam for a couple of minutes before suddenly resuming the slow love song). An edited three-minute version was issued as a single. The album also featured the instrumental "Ike's Mood," which segued into his own version of "You've Lost That Loving Feeling". Hayes released a Christmas single, "The Mistletoe and Me" (with "Winter Snow" as a B-side). In early 1971, Hayes composed music for the soundtrack of the blaxploitation film "Shaft". (in the movie, he also appeared in a cameo role as the bartender of No Name Bar). The title theme, with its wah-wah guitar and multi-layered symphonic arrangement, would become a worldwide hit single, and spent two weeks at number one in the Billboard Hot 100 in November. The remainder of the album was mostly instrumentals covering big beat jazz, bluesy funk, and hard Stax-styled soul. The other two vocal songs, the social commentary "Soulville" and the 19-minute jam "Do Your Thing," would be edited down to hit singles. Hayes won an Academy Award for Best Original Song for the "Theme from "Shaft"", and was nominated for Best Original Dramatic Score for the film's score. Later in the year, Hayes released a double album, "Black Moses", that expanded on his earlier sounds and featured The Jackson 5's song "Never Can Say Goodbye". Another single, "I Can't Help It", was not featured on the album. In 1972, Hayes would record the theme tune for the TV series "The Men" and enjoy a hit single (with "Type Thang" as a B-side). He released several other non-album singles during the year, such as "Feel Like Making Love", "If Loving You Is Wrong (I Don't Want To Be Right)", and "Rolling Down a Mountainside". Atlantic would re-release Hayes's debut album this year with the new title "In The Beginning". Hayes was back in 1973 with an acclaimed live double album, "Live At Sahara Tahoe", and followed it up with the album "Joy", with the eerie beat of the 15-minute title track. He moved away from cover songs with this album. An edited "Joy" would be a hit single. In 1974, Hayes was featured in the blaxploitation films "Three Tough Guys" and "Truck Turner", and he recorded soundtracks for both. "Tough Guys" was almost devoid of vocals and "Truck Turner" yielded a single with the title theme. The soundtrack score was eventually used by filmmaker Quentin Tarantino in the "Kill Bill" film series and has been used for over 30 years as the opening score of Brazilian radio show "Jornal de Esportes" on the Jovem Pan station. Unlike most African-American musicians of the period, Hayes did not sport an Afro and instead chose to shave his head bald. HBS (Hot Buttered Soul Records) and bankruptcy. By 1974, Stax Records was having serious financial problems, stemming from problems with overextension and limited record sales and distribution. Hayes himself was deep in debt to Union Planters Bank, which administered loans for the Stax label and many of its other key employees. In September of that year, Hayes sued Stax for $5.3 million. As Stax was in deep debt and could not pay, the label made an arrangement with Hayes and Union Planters: Stax released Hayes from his recording and production contracts, and Union Planters would collect all of Hayes's income and apply it towards his debts. Hayes formed his own label, Hot Buttered Soul, which released its product through ABC Records. His new album, 1975's "Chocolate Chip" saw Hayes embrace the disco sound with the title track and lead single. "I Can't Turn Around" would prove a popular song as time went on. This would be Hayes's last album to chart top 40 for many years. Later in the year, the all instrumental "Disco Connection" album fully embraced disco. In 1976, the album cover of "Juicy Fruit" featured Hayes in a pool with naked women, and spawned the title track single and the classic "Storm Is Over". Later the same year the "Groove-A-Thon" album featured the singles "Rock Me Easy Baby" and the title track. However, while all these albums were regarded as solid efforts, Hayes was no longer selling large numbers. He and his wife were forced into bankruptcy in 1976, as they owed over $6 million. By the end of the bankruptcy proceedings in 1977, Hayes had lost his home, much of his personal property, and the rights to all future royalties earned from the music he'd written, performed, and produced. Basketball team ownership. On July 17, 1974, Hayes, along with Mike Storen, Avron Fogelman and Kemmons Wilson took over ownership of the American Basketball Association team the Memphis Tams. The prior owner was Charles O. Finley, the owner of the Oakland A's baseball team. Hayes's group renamed the team the Memphis Sounds. Despite a 66% increase in home attendance, hiring well regarded coach Joe Mullaney and, unlike in the prior three seasons, making the 1975 ABA Playoffs (losing to the eventual champion Kentucky Colonels in the Eastern Division semifinals), the team's financial problems continued. The group was given a deadline of June 1, 1975, to sell 4,000 season tickets, obtain new investors and arrange a more favorable lease for the team at the Mid-South Coliseum. The group did not come through and the ABA took over the team, selling it to a group in Maryland that renamed the team the Baltimore Hustlers and then the Baltimore Claws before the club finally folded during preseason play for the 1975-1976 season. Polydor and hiatus, film work, and the Duke of New York. In 1977, Hayes was back with a new deal with Polydor Records, a live album of duets with Dionne Warwick did moderately well, and his comeback studio album "New Horizon" sold better and enjoyed a hit single "Out The Ghetto", and also featured the popular "It's Heaven To Me". 1978's "For The Sake Of Love" saw Hayes record a sequel to "Theme from "Shaft"" ("Shaft II"), but was most famous for the single "Zeke The Freak", a song that would have a shelf life of decades and be a major part of the House movement in the UK. The same year, Fantasy Records, which had bought out Stax Records, released an album of Hayes's non-album singles and archived recordings as a "new" album, "Hotbed", in 1978. In 1979, Hayes returned to the Top 40 with "Don't Let Go" and its disco-styled title track that became a hit single (U.S. #18), and also featured the classic "A Few More Kisses To Go". Later in the year he added vocals and worked on Millie Jackson's album "Royal Rappin's", and a song he co-wrote, "Deja Vu", became a hit for Dionne Warwick and won her a Grammy for best female R&B vocal. Neither 1980s "And Once Again" or 1981's "Lifetime Thing" produced notable songs or big sales, and Hayes chose to take a break from music to pursue acting. In the 1970s, Hayes was featured in the films "Shaft" (1971) and "Truck Turner" (1974); he also had a recurring role in the TV series "The Rockford Files" as an old cellmate of Rockford's, Gandolph Fitch (who always referred to Rockford as "Rockfish" much to his annoyance), including one episode alongside duet-partner Dionne Warwick. In the 1980s and 90s, he appeared in numerous films, notably "Escape from New York" (1981), "I'm Gonna Git You Sucka" (1988), "Prime Target" (1991), and "" (1993), as well as in episodes of "The A-Team" and "Miami Vice". He also attempted a musical comeback, embracing the style of drum machines and synth for 1986s "U-Turn" and 1988s "Love Attack", though neither proved successful. In 1991 he was featured in a duet with fellow soul singer Barry White on White's ballad "Dark and Lovely (You Over There)". Return to fame and stardom. In 1995, Hayes appeared as a Las Vegas minister impersonating Isaac Hayes in the comedy series "The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air". Hayes launched a comeback on the Virgin label in May 1995 with "Branded," an album of new material that earned impressive sales figures as well as positive reviews from critics who proclaimed it a return to form. A companion album released around the same time, "Raw and Refined," featured a collection of previously unreleased instrumentals, both old and new. In a rather unexpected career move shortly thereafter, Hayes charged back into the public consciousness as a founding star of Comedy Central's controversial — and wildly successful — animated TV series, "South Park." Hayes provided the voice for the character of "Chef", the amorous elementary-school lunchroom cook, from the show's debut on August 13, 1997 (one week shy of his 55th birthday), through the end of its ninth season in 2006. The role of Chef drew on Hayes's talents both as an actor and as a singer, thanks to the character's penchant for making conversational points in the form of crudely suggestive soul songs. An album of songs from the series appeared in 1998 with the title ' reflecting Chef's popularity with the show's fans, and the Chef song "Chocolate Salty Balls" became a number-one U.K. hit. However, when "South Park" leaped to the big screen the following year with the smash animated musical ', Hayes/Chef was the only major character who did not perform a showcase song in the film; his lone musical contribution was "Good Love," a track on the soundtrack album which originally appeared on "Black Moses" in 1971 and is not heard in the movie (more on Chef below). In 2000, he came out in the soundtrack of the French movie "The Magnet" on the song "Is It Really Home" written and composed by rapper Akhenaton (IAM) and composer Bruno Coulais. Hayes was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2002. The same year, a documentary highlighting Isaac's career and his impact on many of the Memphis artists in the 1960s onwards was produced, "Only The Strong Survive". In 2004, Hayes appeared in a recurring minor role as the Jaffa Tolok on the television series "Stargate SG-1". The following year, he appeared in the critically acclaimed independent film "Hustle & Flow". He also had a brief recurring role in UPN's "Girlfriends" as Eugene Childs (father of Toni). Scientology activism. Hayes took his first Scientology course in 1993, later contributing endorsement blurbs for many Scientology books over the ensuing years. The frontispiece page for "Scientology: The Fundamentals of Thought" (1997 paperback edition) quotes Hayes as saying "If you "really" want to know about the mind, the spirit and life itself, read "Scientology: The Fundamentals of Thought". It will put you on the right path!" In 1996, Hayes began hosting The Isaac Hayes and Friends Radio Show on WRKS in New York City. While there Hayes became a client of young vegan raw food chef, Elijah Joy and his company Organic Soul, Inc. Hayes also appears in the Scientology film "Orientation". In 1998, Hayes and fellow Scientologist entertainers Anne Archer, Chick Corea and Haywood Nelson attended the 30th anniversary of "Freedom Magazine", the Church of Scientology's investigative news journal, at the National Press Club in Washington DC, to honor 11 human rights activists. In 2001, Hayes and Doug E. Fresh, another Scientologist musician, recorded a Scientology-inspired album called "The Joy Of Creating – The Golden Era Musicians And Friends Play L. Ron Hubbard". Charitable work. The Isaac Hayes Foundation was founded in 1999 by Hayes. In February 2006, Hayes appeared in a Youth for Human Rights International music video called "United". YHRI is a human rights group founded by the Church of Scientology. Hayes was also involved in other human rights related groups such as the One Campaign. Isaac Hayes was crowned a chief in Ghana for his humanitarian work and economic efforts on the country’s behalf.
585551	Pramani is 2010 Malayalam film starring Mammootty, Sneha and Fahadh Faasil in the lead roles. The film is written and directed by B. Unnikrishnan. It also has Siddique, Janardhanan and Lakshmi in supporting roles. Actor Prabhu plays a Cameo role in this film. The shooting started in the end of December and was initially scheduled for 2010 mid-summer release. But as Mammootty's previous release Drona 2010, didn't do well at the Box-Office, its release was preponed to 26 March 2010 and though it opened well on the 1st weekend, got a share of 4.25 crores in 25 days. Later it was dubbed in Tamil as "Bramma" Plot. Viswanatha Paniker (Mammootty) is a corrupted Panchayat president of Thazhe Keezhppadam grama panchayath in Kuttanad for 25 years. He earns a lot of wealth through his corruption and by cornering his village people to hand over their lands to him. But he never acquires in his name, instead he gives them to his relatives. He has also been nicknamed 'America' for his tricky ways to play the big brother and thereby getting control over the issues where he gets involved. Panicker's dealings are done through his cousin brother and confidant, Somasekharan (Siddique). On the other hand Castro Vareeth (Janardhanan) is totally different man from Viswanathasa Paniker. He wants his village people to have a peaceful life. The members of the Panchayat who work under Viswanatha Paniker are also ruthless and they are afraid of the arrival of the new Panchayat Secretary Janaki (Sneha) as they claim that she is very strict. On arrival, she finds out that there are so many illegal transactions and threatens that she will write to the higher authority. But, Panicker never listens to her and continue their illegal works. Somasekharan meets Bobby (Fahadh Faasil) who is on his mission to instruct the people about the activities of Panicker and bring them to light. Soma threatens Bobby but he continues his work. Panicker later learns that Bobby is the grandson of Rosy Teacher (Lakshmi) and son of his old friend Varkichan Joseph(Prabhu) and Panicker never comes across his way. Panicker illegally wants to sign an agreement for Cyber Park Project which needs more land for the construction of the building. Janaki is against it claiming that its an agricultural land. But Panicker-Soma wants the agreement to be signed and Soma house-arrests Janaki along with her ailing mother (K. P. A. C. Lalitha) while Panicker signs the agreement with a secretary for that day in place of Janaki and he controls the other members of Panchayat with the bribe. Later Rosy teacher advices him and asks him to cancel the agreement. She also recites that Panicker has got this job only because of the death of her son, Varkichan and she always wanted Panicker to be honest like her son. Panicker, on the advice of Rosy, plans to cancel the agreement but Soma and the other family members stands against him. They asks him to leave the house if he wants to cancel the agreement. Panicker leaves the house with the Orphan girl, whom he claims that, he saw her in the train on the day of Varkichan's death. Panicker starts living in the Panchayat office and Janaki feels sad for him and starts supporting him on knowing that he had changed. Panicker and Janaki goes to meet the higher authority in Alapuzha to cancel the agreement but the authority says that he had been receiving anonymous letters from the village that there is an illegal relationship between Janaki and Panicker. Janaki insults the authority by saying that he had time to read these letters but never had time to do his job.
1067646	Catch That Kid! is a 2004 American adventure comedy film directed by Bart Freundlich. It is a remake of the Danish blockbuster "Klatretøsen" (2002). The movie's working titles were "Mission Without Permission" (also the film's UK title as well as part of one of the taglines), "Catch That Girl", and "Catch That Kid!" Plot. Madeline Rose "Maddy" Phillips (Kristen Stewart) is a 12-year old girl who loves to climb. Her father Tom (Sam Robards) has climbed Mount Everest so it runs in the family. Several years earlier, Tom fell more than 100 feet during a climb and because her parents Tom and Molly (Jennifer Beals) are afraid she might hurt herself, they have ordered Maddy not to climb. Tom had some internal injuries from that earlier fall which he did not know about and now the injury has paralyzed him from the neck down. There is an experimental operation costing $250,000 which can save him, but insurance will not pay for the operation and the family does not have the money. Harderbach Financial's president Brisbane (Michael Des Barres) refuses to loan the amount and does so by putting loopholes in a contract Molly signed (he is really trying to avoid loaning any money at all). When asked if he has a heart, Brisbane coldy responds, "This is not an emotional issue, Mrs. Phillips. A bank has no heart. Only paper in a vault". That is when Maddy first gets the idea to rob the bank. Maddy steals three go-carts from her father and convinces her two friends Gus (Max Thieriot) and Austin (Corbin Bleu) to help her. They remain hesitant, so she tells both of them that she loves him and does not care for the other and gives half of her friendship necklace to each of them, claiming she has the other half and kissing them both on the cheek. They break into Harderbach Financial (a bank in which Molly had begun to work for, creating a security system). They manage to break in, but with her mother at the hospital visiting their father, she is forced to babysit her younger brother Max (Grant Hayden Scott and Sean Avery Scott). She and Gus progress to a room with thousands of security deposit boxes while Austin keeps the guards away from them. Maddy has to free climb to get to the exit when her hook gets caught in a crack when using the handhelds. She cracks the code (finding it is Madeline) and they flee the room, unintentionally setting off the alarm as they did not type the exit code. While escaping from the guard dogs at which point Austin demonstrates his dog-training skills, the trio is caught by Gus' brother, Chad, who tasers his partner (and then himself, though accidentally) after understanding the situation. However, just before escaping, Gus and Austin find out that Maddy played them after seeing each other's necklaces and leave her, but later come back for her. The three hop into their go carts, trailed by the police, but Austin holds all the cash in his cart, running out of gas. He then leaps into Gus' cart, and they escape to the hospital. They rejoin with Maddy in time to disable police cruisers by popping the tires with jacks. When Mrs. Phillips arrives, Brisbane attempts to pass all the blame on her. But ultimately, he is rejected by a French man named Francois who says Brisbane's irresponsibility of having a party with an untested security system is a knucklehead move. Meanwhile, the kids make it to the hospital. However, they are caught up to by Maddy's mother, the bank security, the police, and the press. Maddy's mother then takes responsibility, saying that this was an authorized test for the bank's security. The following morning, Mrs. Phillips says what Maddy did was wrong, but apologizes as it was her over-protection that started all the trouble in the first place. The press sympathizes with them, allowing them to hold a fundraiser the day after earning enough money for Maddy's father's surgery. Even a friend named Mr. Hartmann (John Carroll Lynch) gives a "consultation fee" of $50,000 (as Brisbane's irresponsibility got him fired, Hartman is now the president of the bank). At the go cart rally after the operation, Gus and Austin make Maddy decide who she loves. She sniffs both of them and causes a debate between them. While they do so, she backs away and they run after her saying who is the better boyfriend and the movie ends. Box office. "Catch That Kid" opened at #6 in the weekend of February 6, 2004 raking in $5,824,860 in its first opening weekend. The film spent two weeks at the U.S. box office top ten. Reception. "Catch That Kid" was panned by critics, garnering an 11% "rotten" approval rating on reviews aggregrating website Rotten Tomatoes. Most reviews took aim at the film's questionable morals and lack of originality, comparing it unfavorably to the Spy Kids trilogy. Despite the negative reviews, Roger Ebert of Ebert & Roeper and the Chicago Sun Times gave "Catch That Kid" "thumbs up", stating that it is as much fun as "Spy Kids", "Kim Possible" and more fun than "Agent Cody Banks". Novelization. A novelization of the story was released in conjunction with the film. The novel was written by American fantasy and science fiction author Suzanne Weyn.
1046656	Edith Madeleine Carroll (26 February 1906 – 2 October 1987) was an English actress, popular both there and in America in the 1930s and 1940s. At the peak of her success she was the highest paid actress in the world, earning a then staggering $250,000 in 1938. Immortalized as the first of director Alfred Hitchcock's icy blonde heroines in The 39 Steps, she is also remembered for abandoning her acting career after the death of her sister Marguerite in the London Blitz to devote herself to helping wounded servicemen and children displaced and maimed by the war. Early life. Carroll was born at 32 Herbert Street (now number 44) in West Bromwich, Staffordshire. She graduated from the University of Birmingham, with a B.A. degree. She once taught in a girls' public school. Acting career. Carroll made her stage debut with a touring company in "The Lash". Widely recognised as one of the most beautiful women in films (she won a film beauty competition to start herself off in the business), Carroll's aristocratic blonde allure and sophisticated style were first glimpsed by film audiences in "The Guns of Loos" in 1928. Rapidly rising to stardom in Britain, she graced such popular films of the early 1930s as "Young Woodley", "Atlantic", "The School for Scandal" and "I Was a Spy". She played the title role in the play "Little Catherine". Abruptly, she announced plans to retire from films to devote herself to a private life with her husband, the first of four. Carroll attracted the attention of Alfred Hitchcock and in 1935 starred as one of the director's earliest prototypical cool, glib, intelligent blondes in "The 39 Steps". Based on the espionage novel by John Buchan, the film became a sensation and with it so did Carroll. Cited by the "New York Times" for a performance that was "charming and skillful", Carroll became very much in demand. Director Hitchcock later maintained he worked very hard with her to bring out the vivacious and sexy qualities she possessed offscreen, but which sometimes vanished when cameras rolled. Of Hitchcock heroines as exemplified by Carroll film critic Roger Ebert wrote: The female characters in his films reflected the same qualities over and over again: They were blonde. They were icy and remote. They were imprisoned in costumes that subtly combined fashion with fetishism. They mesmerised the men, who often had physical or psychological handicaps. Sooner or later, every Hitchcock woman was humiliated. The director wanted to re-team Carroll with her "39 Steps" co-star Robert Donat the following year in "Secret Agent", a spy thriller based on a work by W. Somerset Maugham. However, Donat's recurring health problems intervening, resulting in a Carroll-John Gielgud pairing. Poised for international stardom, Carroll was the first British beauty to be offered a major American film contract. She accepted a lucrative deal with Paramount Pictures and was cast opposite Gary Cooper in the adventure "The General Died at Dawn" and Ronald Colman in the 1937 box-office success "The Prisoner of Zenda". She appeared in a musical "On the Avenue" (1937) opposite Dick Powell, but other efforts, including "One Night in Lisbon" (1941), and "My Favorite Blonde" (1942) with Bob Hope, were less noteworthy. She made her final film for director Otto Preminger, "The Fan", adapted from Oscar Wilde's "Lady Windermere's Fan", in 1949. Legacy. For her contribution to the film industry, Madeleine Carroll has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6707 Hollywood Blvd. A commemorative monument and plaques were unveiled in her birthplace, West Bromwich, to mark the centenary of her birth. Her story is one of rare courage and dedication when at the height of her success she gave up her acting career during World War II to work in the line of fire on troop trains for the Red Cross in Italy after her sister was killed by a German air raid – for which she was awarded the American Medal of Freedom. She was also awarded the Legion of Honour by France for her tireless work in fostering relations postwar amity between France and the United States. Personal life. After her only sister Marguerite was killed in World War II's London Blitz, Carroll made a radical shift from acting to working in field hospitals as a Red Cross nurse. Having become a naturalised U.S. citizen in 1943, she served at the American Army Air Force's 61st Station Hospital in Foggia, Italy in 1944, where wounded airmen flying out of area air bases were hospitalised. During the war Carroll also donated her chateau outside Paris to more than 150 orphans, arranging for groups of young people in California to knit clothing for them. In a RKO-Pathe News bulletin she was filmed at the chateau with children and staff wearing the donated clothes thanking those who contributed. She was awarded the Legion d'Honneur for her efforts by France. After the war, Carroll stayed in Europe where she conducted a radio program fostering French-American friendship and helped in the rehabilitation of concentration camp victims, during which she met her future third husband, French Producer Henri Lavorel. In late 1946 she went briefly to Switzerland to film a minor British soap opera “High Fury” (aka “White Cradle Inn”). Upon her return to Paris she and Lavorel formed a production company and made several two-reel documentaries to “promote better understanding among the peoples of the world”; one, “Childrens’ Republic”, was shown at the Cannes Film Festival. Filmed in a small orphanage in the town of Sèvres, just southwest of Paris, it focused attention on the devastation of children’s lives in Europe caused by war. Strongly shown in Canada, it became a prime source of funds for the manufacture of artificial limbs for wounded children. Carroll died on 2 October 1987 from pancreatic cancer in Marbella, Spain age 81. Initially interred in Fuengirola, Málaga, she was reburied in 1998 in the cemetery of Sant Antoni de Calonge in Catalonia.
1163584	Roseann "Rosie" O'Donnell (born March 21, 1962) is an American comedian, actress, author and television personality. She has also been a magazine editor and continues to be a celebrity blogger, LGBT rights activist, television producer and collaborative partner in the LGBT family vacation company R Family Vacations. O'Donnell started her comedy career while still a teenager and her big break was on the talent show "Star Search" in 1984. A TV sitcom and a series of movies introduced her to a larger national audience and in 1996 she started hosting "The Rosie O'Donnell Show", which won multiple Emmy awards. During her years on "The Rosie O'Donnell Show", she wrote her first book, a memoir called "Find Me" and developed the nickname "Queen Of Nice" as well as a reputation for philanthropic efforts. She used the book's $3 million advance to establish her own For All Kids foundation and promoted other charity projects encouraging other celebrities on her show to also take part. O'Donnell came out, stating "I'm a dyke!" two months before finishing her talk show run, saying that her primary reason was to bring attention to gay adoption issues. O'Donnell is a foster—and adoptive—mother. She was made "Person Of The Year" in her cover-story interview in "The Advocate" with an in-depth interview by the magazine's Editor In Chief, Judy Wieder. Since coming out, she has continued to support many LGBT causes and issues. In 2006, O'Donnell became a moderator on "The View". O'Donnell's strong opinions resulted in several notable controversies including an on-air dispute regarding the Bush administration's policies with the Iraq War, resulting in a mutual agreement to cancel her contract. In 2007, O'Donnell released her second memoir, "Celebrity Detox", which focuses on her struggles with fame and her time at "The View". She continues to do charity work and remains involved with LGBT and family-related issues. From 2009 to 2011, O'Donnell hosted "Rosie Radio" on Sirius XM Radio. In 2011, O'Donnell signed on with the OWN: Oprah Winfrey Network to return to daytime TV with "The Rosie Show". The OWN Network cancelled the show due to low ratings on March 16, 2012, and the last show aired on March 29, 2012. Early life. O'Donnell, the third of five children, was born and raised in Commack, Long Island, New York. She is the daughter of Roseann Teresa (née Murtha), a homemaker, and Edward Joseph O'Donnell, an electrical engineer who worked in the defense industry. O'Donnell's father had immigrated from County Donegal, Ireland during his childhood, and her mother was Irish American; O'Donnell was raised Catholic. Four days before her 11th birthday, on March 17, 1973, O'Donnell's mother died of breast cancer. While she attended Commack High School, O'Donnell was voted homecoming queen, prom queen, senior class president and class clown. It was during high school that she began exploring her interest in comedy, beginning with a skit performed in front of the school in which she imitated Gilda Radner's character Roseanne Rosannadanna. After graduating in 1980, O'Donnell briefly attended Dickinson College, later transferring to Boston University, before ultimately dropping out of college. Career. Early work. O'Donnell toured as a stand-up comedian in clubs from 1979 to 1984. She got her first big break on "Star Search", explaining on "Larry King Live": After this success, she moved on to television sitcoms, making her series debut as Nell Carter's neighbor on "Gimme a Break!" in 1986. In 1988, she joined music video station VH1's lineup of veejays. She started hosting a series for VH1, "Stand-up Spotlight", a showcase for up-and-coming comedians. In 1992 she starred in "Stand By Your Man", a Fox Network sitcom co-starring Melissa Gilbert. The show bombed, just as O'Donnell's movie career took off. O'Donnell made her feature film debut in "A League Of Their Own" alongside Tom Hanks, Geena Davis and Madonna. Throughout her career, she has taken on an eclectic range of roles: she appeared in "Sleepless in Seattle" as Meg Ryan's best friend; as Betty Rubble in the live-action film adaptation of "The Flintstones" with John Goodman, Elizabeth Perkins and Rick Moranis; as one of Timothy Hutton's co-stars in "Beautiful Girls"; as a federal agent comedically paired with Dan Aykroyd in "Exit to Eden"; as the voice of a tomboyish female gorilla named Terk in Disney's "Tarzan"; and as a baseball-loving nun in M. Night Shyamalan's "Wide Awake". "The Rosie O'Donnell Show". In 1996, she began hosting a daytime talk show, "The Rosie O'Donnell Show". The show proved very successful, winning multiple Emmy awards, and earning O'Donnell the title of "The Queen of Nice" for her style of light-hearted banter with her guests and interactions with the audience. As part of her playful banter with her studio audience, O'Donnell often launched koosh balls at the crowd and camera. She also professed an infatuation with Tom Cruise. With New York City as the show's homebase, O'Donnell displayed her love of Broadway musicals and plays by having cast members as guests, encouraging the audience to see shows, premiering production numbers as well as promoting shows with ticket giveaways. After the Columbine shootings, O'Donnell became an outspoken supporter of gun control and a major figure in the Million Mom March. During the April 19, 1999, broadcast of her talk show, she stated, "You are not allowed to own a gun, and if you do own a gun, I think you should go to prison." O'Donnell previously had remarked, "I don't personally own a gun, but if you are qualified, licensed and registered, I have no problem." In May 1999, a month after the Columbine shootings, O'Donnell interviewed Tom Selleck, who was promoting "The Love Letter". O'Donnell confronted him about his recent commercial for the National Rifle Association (NRA) and challenged him about the NRA's position on the use of "assault weapons." She said at the end of the segment the conversation had "not gone the way I had hoped" and added "if you feel insulted by my questions, I apologize, because it was not a personal attack. It was meant to bring up the subject as it is in the consciousness of so many today." Around the same time, the cast from "Annie Get Your Gun" was to appear on the show but refused O'Donnell's request to remove the line "I can shoot a partridge with a single cartridge" from the song "Anything You Can Do" and agreed to perform "My Defenses Are Down" instead. Later in 1999, O'Donnell discontinued her contract with Kmart as their spokeswoman, as gun enthusiasts complained that she shouldn't be the spokesperson for the largest gun retailer. O'Donnell countered that Kmart sells hunting rifles, not handguns or assault weapons and does so legally which she supports. Both Kmart and O'Donnell denied publicly that Kmart had terminated the contract. In May 2000, O'Donnell's bodyguard applied for a concealed firearm permit. O'Donnell stated that the security firm contracted by Warner Brothers requested the gun. O'Donnell stated that because of threats, she and her family need protection, which she attributes to her "tough gun-control rhetoric". After the September 11, 2001 attacks Broadway and tourism in New York City was down and many shows were in danger of closing. O'Donnell was among many in the entertainment field who encouraged viewers to visit and support the performing arts. She announced that she would donate 1 million dollars for aid in the rescue efforts and encouraged other celebrities and citizens alike to "give till it hurts". In 2002, she left her talk show. The show was then replaced by "The Caroline Rhea Show", with comedienne Caroline Rhea and ran for one additional season. On the Friday when Fight Club was released, she appeared on her TV show and revealed that she had seen the film earlier in the week, and had been unable to sleep ever since. She then proceeded to give away the twist ending of the film and urged all of her viewers to avoid the movie at all cost. "The View". In September 2006, O'Donnell replaced Meredith Vieira as a co-host and moderator of the "The View", a daytime women-oriented talkshow. Star Jones, a co-host on the show, quit with some speculating Jones's conservative views would be in constant tension with O'Donnell's more liberal counterpoint. O'Donnell had also disputed Jones's route of rapid weight loss, alluding that it must have been gastric bypass surgery rather than dieting and exercise alone as Star had insisted which also fed speculation about certain tension between the two, Jones later confirmed it was surgery. As a big-name talent O'Donnell drew criticism for her opinions while keeping the show's "buzz factor up". O'Donnell is credited with helping the show be more news-focused while still embracing the "fluff" of daytime TV talkshows (celebrities, fashion and food). Despite the overall downward trend for most daytime broadcast shows, ratings rose by 27%. The show was the fourth most watched in all of daytime in the key demographic of women ages 18–49, and scored record ratings in the total viewer category with an average of 3.4 million viewers—up 15% versus the same time in 2005. O'Donnell adapted to the multi-personality forum in contrast to her anchoring her own talkshows in the past and moderated the opening "Hot Topics" portion of the show where newsworthy items were discussed. Unlike previous years, politics and taboo subjects were readily explored with O'Donnell and fellow-comic Joy Behar often giving strong opinions against former President Bush's domestic and foreign policies including the Iraq war. As a conservative counterpoint, Elisabeth Hasselbeck would support the Bush Administration's issues and the two would get into an adversarial give-and-take. Encouraged by the show to be outspoken, O'Donnell sometimes provoked debate, one time stating "radical Christianity is just as threatening as radical Islam" or criticizing fellow TV personalities. O'Donnell, who was raised Roman Catholic was accused of "serial anti-Catholicism" and called a bigot by the Catholic League's president Bill Donohue for what he claimed were "relentless and profoundly ignorant attacks on the Roman Catholic Church and its teachings." She had compared the Republican Party's cover-up of the Mark Foley congressional page incident, where he sent sexually suggestive messages to teenaged boys who had formerly served as congressional pages, to the cover-up of child sexual abuse by Catholic Church officials who actively concealed perpetrators by moving them from parish to parish as detailed in Amy Berg's "Deliver Us from Evil" about abuse within the Catholic Church (Berg was a guest on the show). O'Donnell's outspokeness and spontaneousness sometimes led to her views being recirculated by other media outlets, often surprising "The View" co-hosts including O'Donnell. Frequently portrayed unfavorably by conservative media outlets and what she deemed as Republican pundits, O'Donnell lamented that they were focusing on her comments instead of more important national and world issues. On December 5, 2006, O'Donnell used a series of "ching chong"s to imitate newscasters in China. She was criticized for her use of the term, and there was disappointment of her perceived insensitivity when she had fought for gay and lesbian rights and spoken out against homophobia. On December 14, O'Donnell apologized to "those who felt hurt" explaining that "Some people have told me it's as bad as the n-word. I was like, really? I didn't know that." O'Donnell warned that "there's a good chance I'll do something like that again, probably in the next week, not on purpose. Only 'cause it's how my brain works." "Time" called it a "pseudo-apology". O'Donnell later wrote in "Celebrity Detox" that "I wish I had been a bit more pure in my public apology." Also in December 2006, O'Donnell criticized billionaire Donald Trump for holding a press conference to reinstate Miss USA Tara Conner, accusing him of using her scandal to "generate publicity for the Miss USA Pageant" (to which he owns the rights) by announcing he was giving her a second chance. O'Donnell commented that due to Trump's multiple marital affairs and questionable business bankruptcies, he was not a moral authority for young people in America. She stated, "Left the first wife, had an affair. Left the second wife, had an affair – but he's the moral compass for 20-year-olds in America!" In response, Trump began a "vicious" mass media blitz in which he appeared on various television shows, either in person or by phone, threatening to sue O'Donnell (he never did). He called her names, threatened to take away her partner Kelli, and claimed that Barbara Walters regretted hiring her. Walters was stuck in the middle as a social acquaintance of Trump's, and said O'Donnell didn't feel like she defended her enough which led to what both women agreed was an unfortunate confrontation in one of the dressing rooms. "I had pain and hurt and rejection," O'Donnell said, "sometimes emotions overwhelm me. Sometimes I get flooded." Walters responded that both Trump and O'Donnell are highly opinionated people and that Trump has never filed for bankruptcy, but several of his casino companies did but are now out of bankruptcy. She also denied that she was unhappy with O'Donnell, saying, "I have never regretted, nor do I now, the hiring of Rosie O'Donnell." O'Donnell condemned many of the Bush administration's policies, especially the war in Iraq and the resulting occupation. She consistently brought up recent military deaths and news about the war, and criticized the U.S. media for its lack of attention to these issues compared to media coverage throughout the world. This led to a series of heated exchanges with co-host Hasselbeck and conservative media recycling unfavorable comments towards O'Donnell as well as "the most-discussed moment of her professional life." On May 17, 2007, O'Donnell rhetorically asked, "655,000 Iraqi civilians dead. Who are the terrorists? ... if you were in Iraq and another country, the United States, the richest in the world, invaded your country and killed 655,000 of your citizens, what would you call us?" Conservative commentators criticized O'Donnell's statements saying that she was comparing American soldiers to terrorists. On May 23, 2007, a heated discussion ensued, in part, because of what O'Donnell perceived as Elisabeth Hasselbeck's unwillingness to defend O'Donnell as not against the troops with O'Donnell asking her "Do you believe I think our troops are terrorists?" Hasselbeck answered in the negative but also stated "Defend your own insinuations." O'Donnell was hurt and felt Hasselbeck had betrayed her friendship, "there's something about somebody being different on TV toward you than they are in the dressing room. It didn't really ring true for me." O'Donnell stated that Republican pundits were mischaracterising her statements and the right-wing media would portray her as a bully attacking "innocent pure Christian Elisabeth" whenever they disagreed. O'Donnell said that she knew her time on the show was over when she saw on the studio monitor that the director had made a decision to cut to a split screen effect showing her and Hasselbeck on either side. The argument was not why she left the show after that day. "I didn't want to argue for a living," she told Oprah Winfrey in an hour-long special, "I didn't come back because the director and the producer did a split screen, and they had to prepare that in advance [...] I felt there was setup egging me into that position. The executive producer and I did not gel. O'Donnell and ABC agreed to cut short her contract agreement on May 25, 2007, as a result of this issue. ABC News reported that her arguments with Hasselbeck brought the show its best ratings ever. On the April 30, 2007, show Walters announced that O'Donnell would be listed by "Time" magazine as one of their 100 most influential people. On May 25, 2007, it was announced by ABC and O'Donnell that she would not stay until the end of her contract (which was supposed to end in June). "producers encouraged me to speak my feelings — and I did. And some of those, at the time I spoke them, were controversial. They seem to have come more into favor." O'Donnell was named "The Most Annoying Celebrity of 2007" by a "PARADE" reader's poll, in response she said, "Frankly, most celebrities are annoying ... and I suppose I am the most annoying, but, whatever." In 2008, "The View" won an Emmy for "Outstanding Special Class Writing" for a specially themed Autism episode she helped create. Janette Barber, O'Donnell's longtime friend and producer/writer of "The Rosie O'Donnell Show", accepted the award on behalf of herself and the other two winners, Christian McKiernan and Andrew Smith. 2007–2011. In March 2007, O'Donnell started a video blog, "Jahero", on her website Rosie.com answering fans questions, giving behind the scenes information and serving as a video diary. Originally featuring only O'Donnell and her hair and make-up artist Helene Macaulay they were soon joined by her writer from "The Rosie O'Donnell Show", Janette Barber. Called "Jahero", which has the initial two letters of each of their first names in it, they occasionally had short cameo appearances by "View" co-hosts Joy Behar, Elisabeth Hasselbeck, and Barbara Walters. Jenny McCarthy appeared once briefly, as has Hasselbeck's mother-in-law and O'Donnell's mother-in-law, her wife Kelli's mother. Kathy Griffin also appeared, where she read some of the questions. It became so popular that O'Donnell and her creative team considered an "on the road" version of the video blog utilizing fan-submitted suggestions. O'Donnell was the front runner for the "best celebrity blogger" category in the 2007 Blogger's Choice Awards which she won. O'Donnell expressed interest in replacing long-time host Bob Barker when he retired from CBS's game show "The Price Is Right". Barker was a frequent guest on her talk show and told reporters that she "would make a fine host." Although it was reported he had "endorsed" her as a "possible successor", Barker said that he had no role in choosing his replacement. In June 2007, she announced on her blog it was not going to happen and noted she was reluctant to uproot her family to move to California. In 2008, O'Donnell starred in and executive produced "America", a Lifetime channel original movie in which she plays the therapist of the title character, a 16-year-old boy aging out of the foster care system. The film is based on the E.R. Frank book of the same name. In October 2009, she appeared in the original cast of "Love, Loss, and What I Wore".
1064816	Morris L. Chestnut (born January 1, 1969) is an American film and television actor. He is known for his roles as teenage father Ricky Baker in the 1991 film "Boyz n the Hood", groom-to-be Lance Sullivan in the 1999 film "The Best Man", Jackson Smith in the 2001 film "The Brothers", Keith Fenton in the 2001 film "Two Can Play That Game", NBA star Tracy Reynolds in the 2002 film "Like Mike", tillerman Tommy Drake in the 2004 film " Ladder 49", Benjamin in the 2007 film "The Perfect Holiday", Dave Johnson in the 2009 film "Not Easily Broken", and James in the 2012 film " Think Like A Man".
1060434	Laura San Giacomo (born November 14, 1962) is an American actress known for playing the role of Maya Gallo on the NBC sitcom "Just Shoot Me!", Kit De Luca in the film "Pretty Woman", and Cynthia in "Sex, Lies, and Videotape" as well as other work on television and in films. She most recently played the role of Holly Hunter's childhood best friend on the TNT crime drama series "Saving Grace". Early life. San Giacomo, an Italian American, was born in West Orange, New Jersey, the daughter of MaryJo and John San Giacomo, a paper mill owner. She grew up in Denville, New Jersey. San Giacomo discovered acting while attending Morris Knolls High School. In 1984, she received a Fine Arts degree, specializing in acting, from Carnegie Mellon School of Drama in Pittsburgh. After graduating, she moved to New York. San Giacomo then went on to appear in several theater productions, including the Garry Marshall-Lowell Ganz production of "Wrong Turn at Lungfish" in Los Angeles, the Princeton/McCarter Theatre production of "Three Sisters" and off-Broadway in "Beirut". She also starred in "Italian American Reconciliation", regional productions of Shakespeare's "The Tempest", "As You Like It" and "Romeo and Juliet", as well as "Crimes of the Heart". Career. Early career. San Giacomo's first television appearances were four episodes on three television series during 1987. Two notable appearances were in "Crime Story" in 1988 for the episode "Protected Witness" (Season 2 / Episode 13) as Theresa Farantino, and in "Miami Vice" in 1989 for the episode, "Leap Of Faith" (Season 5 / Episode 19) as Tania Lewis. The Miami Vice episode also featured a guest appearance by her future husband, actor Cameron Dye, one year before their marriage. Prior to that, she was featured on the daytime soap opera "All My Children" as Louisa Sanchez, the Latina common-law wife of Mitch Beck (Brian Fitzpatrick) whose presence threatened to thwart his relationship with Hillary Martin (Carmen Thomas). However, San Giacomo first drew international attention in Steven Soderbergh's "Sex, Lies, and Videotape" (1989), which also marked her film debut as a credited actor (in the 1988 movie "Miles from Home" her role as "Sandy" was not credited). Her work in the film was nominated for a Golden Globe, and she received a Los Angeles Film Critics Association "New Generation Award". The film was honored with the Cannes Film Festival's prestigious Grand Prize, the Palme d'Or. In 1990, San Giacomo played a supporting role as Julia Roberts' character's wisecracking friend Kit De Luca in "Pretty Woman". The blockbuster film ended up generating $178 million at the box office.
582956	Sainik is an Indian film directed by Sikander Bharti and released in 1993. It stars Akshay Kumar, Ashwini Bhave and Farheen. Plot. This movie is about an army officer named Suraj Dutt (Akshay Kumar ) who is the son of Yashpal Dutt (Anupam Kher). Suraj goes to meet his sister Minnie in at a women's college before he falls in love with Alka (Ashwini Bhave). They get married soon but Suraj is called for a year long mission. While he is away a message arrives that Suraj has been killed. Minni, Alka & Yashpal each learn about this but don't tell each other as they feel the person will die upon hearing this . Meanwhile, Minni is about to wed Vijay, akish man (Ronit Roy) but on the day of her wedding, she is kidnapped. The movie ends, surprising the audience with the reappearance of Suraj, (who was alive all this while!) who comes and saves Mini, and everybody is reunited. Akshaye's acting is appreciated by all in this movie.
954546	1 Day is a 2009 British crime film about gun life in inner city Birmingham. The story follows Flash as he attempts to get £100,000 to his boss Angel in less than 24 hours or face certain death. Plot. Flash (Dylan Duffus) wakes up to a phone call from Angel (Yohance Watson) announcing that he's being released and wants the £500,000 he's left Flash for safekeeping. Flash is £100,000 short of the full amount and is pushed for time, Flash is forced to strike a deal with Evil (Duncan Tobias) who more than lives up to his name. 1 Day follows flash's race against the clock as he's pursued by a rival gang (The Zampa Boys), As Flash is part of OSC (Old Street Crew). He is also pressured by his three irate babymothers and his granny. Reception. The film has received a mixed reception amongst film critics. In Birmingham it was withdrawn from the Odeon Cinemas chain, on the advice of the West Midlands Police. The West Midlands Police say they did not give such a statement.
1789644	Mega Shark Versus Crocosaurus is a monster disaster film by The Asylum, released on December 21, 2010 in the United States. The film stars Jaleel White, Gary Stretch, Robert Picardo, Dylan Vox, Hannah Cowley and Sarah Lieving. The film is a sequel to the 2009 film "Mega Shark Versus Giant Octopus" but contains little of the original cast from that film. Story. Deep in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, an illegal diamond mining operation is interrupted by the presence of a giant 150-foot crocodile. Meanwhile, on the Atlantic Ocean, the US Navy warship "USS Gibson" is attacked and sunk by the Megalodon that ended up surviving suffocation by the octopus in the first film. Lt. Terry McCormick (Jaleel White) who was experimenting with a sonic shark-repelling device, is the sole survivor of the attack. Back in DR Congo, an English hunter named Nigel Putnam (Gary Stretch) successfully captures the giant crocodile when it attempts to eat him and he injects his tranquilizer darts in its mouth. He then has the crocodile delivered to a shipping yard for his friends to load it in a cargo ship. In Los Angeles, California, McCormick is being interrogated by National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Special Agent Hutchinson (Sarah Lieving) for the USS Gibson incident. He feels responsible for the sinking, suggesting that his sonic device lured in the Megalodon. Because of this, he offers to help Hutchinson hunt down the Megalodon with his invention. Meanwhile, a cargo ship is carrying the tranquilized crocodile on the Atlantic Ocean 400 miles south of Florida. It is revealed that the ship is also carrying the crocodile's eggs as well. Then, without warning, the ship is attacked by the "Megalodon", waking up the crocodile from its sleep. Putnam & his partner Jean jumps overboard before the ship is destroyed in the ensuing battle. Aboard the aircraft carrier "USS Lexington", McCormick is introduced to Admiral Calvin (Robert Picardo), who informs him that his elite crew has only one objective: to hunt down and destroy the Megalodon. McCormick is given a room aboard the carrier with the most advanced tracking equipment. Hutchinson is sent to a remote island to meet and interrogate Putnam, who had just washed up ashore following the cargo ship incident. Hutchinson is shocked when Putnam informs her of the crocodile he captured, as her team was only aware of the Megalodon. She then has him handcuffed and brought back to the carrier. Once there, the crew discover the appearance of eggs on another island. Adm. Calvin assigns McCormick to accompany Hutchinson and Putnam and capture an egg. Upon arriving on the island, they discover that the eggs are laid by the shoreline and are about to hatch. When the fin of the Megalodon is seen nearby, Hutchinson orders the "Lexington" to launch a missile strike on the island. As the team leaves the island, the Megalodon swallows the eggs, angering the crocodile while a squadron of F-18 Hornets fire their missiles at a cave holding more eggs. As the crocodile invades Miami and heads toward Orlando, McCormick suggests the use of an arc flash powered by the nearby Turkey Point Nuclear Generating Station to ward it off. The gamble works, as the arc flash sends the crocodile back into the sea. Back aboard the "Lexington", Putnam suggests to dissect a crocodile egg to find its Achilles' heel; the team is informed that one egg is aboard the submarine "USNS Invincible" and two are being transported by Black Hawk helicopters. They also discover that the Megalodon is attracted to the eggs, as it has devoured the "Invincible" and the Black Hawks transporting them. As no cage or trap is big enough to capture both creatures, Putnam suggests to lure both the Megaladon and crocodile into the Panama Canal, much to McCormick's disapproval. The submarine "USS Argonaut" is sent to the wreckage of the cargo ship to retrieve some crocodile eggs. The retrieval mission is a success, and the eggs are dropped into the Panama Canal. Instinctively, both the Megalodon and the crocodile arrive at the canal, where they battle each other while being attacked by the Naval fleet. The fight causes a tidal wave that destroys the entire Panama Canal as both creatures continue to bite each other. It is later on revealed that the crocodile has adapted itself to lay more eggs during the time the Megalodon devoured the earlier batches. Hundreds more eggs have been laid all over the American coastline and are hatching. While crocodile hatchlings are attacking the Santa Monica pier, the nuclear submarine "USS Carter" is in pursuit of the two giant creatures, which are headed toward Hawaii. The "Carter" fires a nuclear torpedo at the creatures, but misses before it is swallowed by the Megalodon. This results in the Megalodon becoming an even bigger threat, as it has a nuclear reactor inside it. As the crocodile invades Hawaii, it causes the helicopter carrying McCormick, Putnam and Hutchinson to crash. With Hutchinson unconscious, McCormick and Putnam leave her and take a raft to drop McCormick's sonic emitter in hopes of triggering an undersea volcanic explosion. The volcano explodes and kills the babies & the mamma's. It send a huge explosion, sending them shooting in the air. (Each creature had the others tail.) McCormick and Putnam are then picked up by Hutchinson, who has recovered and reactivated her helicopter. The trio fly home and have a cup of tea, while the crocodile and shark now completely charred, sink into the volcano, still attached to each other. After the credits, Nigel meets up with Jean on a beach and mentions a giant lizard in Japan (Godzilla reference). He asks him if he's up for it, and his partner says "On one condition - no more boats." They shake hands and head off on another adventure. Production. Connections with other Asylum titles. The film makes numerous references to "Mega Shark Versus Giant Octopus", such as an autographed photo of singer/songwriter/actress Debbie Gibson and the Japanese poster of the first film. In addition, scenes of people panicking are taken from the film "Megafault". Marketing. To promote the film, The Asylum participated in a competition to make the next Doritos commercial for Super Bowl XLV. In the commercial, the Megalodon attacks a naval fleet while Capt. Smalls (Michael Gaglio) asks if anything will satisfy its hunger. Then he hears a crunch and sees the janitor eating a bag of Doritos. In the next scene, a helicopter carries a giant Dorito chip over the ocean. The Megalodon jumps and eats the chip before fleeing from the scene as the whole crew celebrate. Reception. "Dread Central" gave the film a scathing review, giving it a score of "1 Megacraposaurus" out of 5. The review commented that "movies like this always tread a fine line between anything-goes fun and merely insulting your intelligence, and this time The Asylum may have finally jumped the mega shark." Felix Vasquez, Jr. of "Cinema Crazed" gave the film one star, calling it "a tedious and horrific mess that at least gives audiences what it wants: A big croc eating people, a big shark eating people, and two gargantuan stock CGI animals battling it out for the fate of Earth. Or something." Sequel. On Saturday, March 24th, 2012, Dread Central reported that The Asylum was developing a second sequel featuring the titular Mega Shark, titled "Mega Shark Versus Mecha Shark". The announcement came after the company realized the growing popularity of the character, including an online petition for a third chapter in the series. There is also a spin-off "Mega Python vs. Gatoroid".
1101484	Pierre de Fermat (; 17 August 1601 or 1607 – 12 January 1665) was a French lawyer at the "Parlement" of Toulouse, France, and an amateur mathematician who is given credit for early developments that led to infinitesimal calculus, including his technique of adequality. In particular, he is recognized for his discovery of an original method of finding the greatest and the smallest ordinates of curved lines, which is analogous to that of the differential calculus, then unknown, and his research into number theory. He made notable contributions to analytic geometry, probability, and optics. He is best known for Fermat's Last Theorem, which he described in a note at the margin of a copy of Diophantus' "Arithmetica". Life and work. Fermat was born in the first decade of the 17th century in Beaumont-de-Lomagne (present-day Tarn-et-Garonne), France; the late 15th century mansion where Fermat was born is now a museum. He was of Gascogne origin. Fermat's father, Dominique Fermat, was a wealthy merchant in wheat and cattle and was three times for one year one of the four consuls of Beaumont-de-Lomagne. His mother was either Françoise Cazeneuve or Claire de Long. Pierre had a brother and two sisters and was almost certainly brought up in the town of his birth. There is little evidence concerning his school education, but it was probably at the Collège de Navarre in Montauban. He attended the University of Orléans from 1623 and received a bachelor in civil law in 1626, before moving to Bordeaux. In Bordeaux he began his first serious mathematical researches and in 1629 he gave a copy of his restoration of Apollonius's "De Locis Planis" to one of the mathematicians there. Certainly in Bordeaux he was in contact with Beaugrand and during this time he produced important work on maxima and minima which he gave to Étienne d'Espagnet who clearly shared mathematical interests with Fermat. There he became much influenced by the work of François Viète. In 1630 he bought the office of a councillor at the Parlement de Toulouse, one of the High Courts of Judicature in France, and was sworn in by the Grand Chambre in May 1631. He held this office for the rest of his life. Fermat thereby became entitled to change his name from Pierre Fermat to Pierre de Fermat. Fluent in Latin, Occitan, classical Greek, Italian, and Spanish, Fermat was praised for his written verse in several languages, and his advice was eagerly sought regarding the emendation of Greek texts. He communicated most of his work in letters to friends, often with little or no proof of his theorems. This allowed him to preserve his status as an "amateur" while gaining the recognition he desired. This naturally led to priority disputes with contemporaries such as Descartes and Wallis. He developed a close relationship with Blaise Pascal. Anders Hald writes that, "The basis of Fermat's mathematics was the classical Greek treatises combined with Vieta's new algebraic methods." Work. Fermat's pioneering work in analytic geometry was circulated in manuscript form in 1636, predating the publication of Descartes' famous "La géométrie". This manuscript was published posthumously in 1679 in "Varia opera mathematica", as "Ad Locos Planos et Solidos Isagoge", ("Introduction to Plane and Solid Loci"). In "Methodus ad disquirendam maximam et minima" and in "De tangentibus linearum curvarum", Fermat developed a method (adequality) for determining maxima, minima, and tangents to various curves that was equivalent to differentiation. In these works, Fermat obtained a technique for finding the centers of gravity of various plane and solid figures, which led to his further work in quadrature. Fermat was the first person known to have evaluated the integral of general power functions. Using an ingenious trick, he was able to reduce this evaluation to the sum of geometric series. The resulting formula was helpful to Newton, and then Leibniz, when they independently developed the fundamental theorem of calculus. In number theory, Fermat studied Pell's equation, perfect numbers, amicable numbers and what would later become Fermat numbers. It was while researching perfect numbers that he discovered the little theorem. He invented a factorization method—Fermat's factorization method—as well as the proof technique of infinite descent, which he used to prove Fermat's Last Theorem for the case "n" = 4. Fermat developed the two-square theorem, and the polygonal number theorem, which states that each number is a sum of three triangular numbers, four square numbers, five pentagonal numbers, and so on. Although Fermat claimed to have proved all his arithmetic theorems, few records of his proofs have survived. Many mathematicians, including Gauss, doubted several of his claims, especially given the difficulty of some of the problems and the limited mathematical methods available to Fermat. His famous Last Theorem was first discovered by his son in the margin on his father's copy of an edition of Diophantus, and included the statement that the margin was too small to include the proof. He had not bothered to inform even Marin Mersenne of it. It was not proved until 1994 by Sir Andrew Wiles, using techniques unavailable to Fermat. Although he carefully studied, and drew inspiration from Diophantus, Fermat began a different tradition. Diophantus was content to find a single solution to his equations, even if it were an undesired fractional one. Fermat was interested only in integer solutions to his Diophantine equations, and he looked for all possible general solutions. He often proved that certain equations had no solution, which usually baffled his contemporaries. Through his correspondence with Pascal in 1654, Fermat and Pascal helped lay the fundamental groundwork for the theory of probability. From this brief but productive collaboration on the problem of points, they are now regarded as joint founders of probability theory. Fermat is credited with carrying out the first ever rigorous probability calculation. In it, he was asked by a professional gambler why if he bet on rolling at least one six in four throws of a die he won in the long term, whereas betting on throwing at least one double-six in 24 throws of two dice resulted in his losing. Fermat subsequently proved why this was the case mathematically. Fermat's principle of least time (which he used to derive Snell's law in 1657) was the first variational principle enunciated in physics since Hero of Alexandria described a principle of least distance in the first century CE. In this way, Fermat is recognized as a key figure in the historical development of the fundamental principle of least action in physics. The terms Fermat's principle and "Fermat functional" were named in recognition of this role. Death. Pierre de Fermat died at Castres, Tarn. The oldest and most prestigious high school in Toulouse is named after him: the . French sculptor Théophile Barrau made a marble statue named "Hommage à Pierre Fermat" as tribute to Fermat, now at the Capitole of Toulouse. Assessment of his work. Together with René Descartes, Fermat was one of the two leading mathematicians of the first half of the 17th century. According to Peter L. Bernstein, in his book "Against the Gods", Fermat "was a mathematician of rare power. He was an independent inventor of analytic geometry, he contributed to the early development of calculus, he did research on the weight of the earth, and he worked on light refraction and optics. In the course of what turned out to be an extended correspondence with Pascal, he made a significant contribution to the theory of probability. But Fermat's crowning achievement was in the theory of numbers." Regarding Fermat's work in analysis, Isaac Newton wrote that his own early ideas about calculus came directly from "Fermat's way of drawing tangents." Of Fermat's number theoretic work, the 20th-century mathematician André Weil wrote that "... what we possess of his methods for dealing with curves of genus 1 is remarkably coherent; it is still the foundation for the modern theory of such curves. It naturally falls into two parts; the first one ... may conveniently be termed a method of ascent, in contrast with the descent which is rightly regarded as Fermat's own." Regarding Fermat's use of ascent, Weil continued "The novelty consisted in the vastly extended use which Fermat made of it, giving him at least a partial equivalent of what we would obtain by the systematic use of the group theoretical properties of the rational points on a standard cubic." With his gift for number relations and his ability to find proofs for many of his theorems, Fermat essentially created the modern theory of numbers.
1227138	Harum Scarum is a 1965 American musical comedy film starring Elvis Presley which was shot on the original Cecil B. DeMille set from the film "The King of Kings". Some of the film was based on Rudolph Valentino's "The Sheik" released in 1921. The film reached #11 on the "Variety" national weekly box office chart, earned $2 million at the box office, and finished #40 on the year end list of the top-grossing films of 1965. The film is listed in Golden Raspberry Award founder John Wilson's book "The Official Razzie Movie Guide" as one of the The 100 Most Enjoyably Bad Movies Ever Made. The film was released in Europe as "Harem Holiday".
883367	Halley Feiffer (born November 20, 1984) is an American actress and playwright. Education and family. Feiffer graduated from Wesleyan University in 2007. She is the daughter of famed satirist and cartoonist Jules Feiffer, and writer, actor, and comedienne Jenny Allen. Theater. Feiffer's work as a playwright has been produced off-Broadway at the Cherry Lane Theatre, at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe and at the New Ohio Theater. She won the National Young Playwrights' Contest in 2002. She has performed off-Broadway in "subUrbia", "Election Day", "None of the Above", "Still Life", "Some Americans Abroad", "Tigers Be Still", (for which she was nominated for a Drama League Award), and Kenneth Lonergan's "Medieval Play."
1037365	Barbara Ann Windsor, MBE (born Barbara Ann Deeks on 6 August 1937) is an English actress. Her best known roles are the "Carry On" films and as Peggy Mitchell in the BBC soap opera "EastEnders". Background. Born in Shoreditch, London in 1937, the only child of John Deeks, a costermonger, and his wife, formerly Rose Ellis, a dressmaker, Windsor is of English and Irish ancestry. She passed her 11-plus exams gaining a place at Our Lady’s Convent in Stamford Hill. Her mother paid for her to have elocution lessons, and she trained at the Aida Foster School in Golders Green, making her stage debut at 13 and her West End debut in 1952 in the chorus of the musical "Love From Judy". Her first film role was in "The Belles of St Trinian's" in 1954. She joined Joan Littlewood's Theatre Workshop at the Theatre Royal, Stratford East, coming to prominence in their stage production "Fings Ain't Wot They Used to Be" and Littlewood's film "Sparrers Can't Sing" in 1963, achieving a BAFTA nomination for Best British Film Actress. She also appeared in the 1964 film comedy "Crooks in Cloisters", the 1968 film "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang" and in the sitcoms "The Rag Trade" and "Wild, Wild Women". In 1980, Windsor appeared as "Saucy Nancy" in the second series of the ITV children's show Worzel Gummidge, based on the best-selling books by Barbara Euphan Todd. "Carry On" films. Windsor came to real prominence with her portrayals of a 'good time girl' in nine "Carry On" films. Her first was "Carry On Spying" in 1964 and her final "Carry On..." film acting role was in "Carry On Dick" in 1974. She also appeared in several "Carry On..." television and compilation specials between 1964 and 1977. One of her most iconic scenes was in "Carry On Camping" in 1969, where her bikini top flew off during outdoor aerobic exercises. In classic "Carry On" style, exposure is implied but little is in fact seen. From 1973 to 1975 she appeared with several of the "Carry On" team in the West End revue "Carry On London!" During this time she had a well-publicised affair with her co-star, Sid James. She was strongly identified with the "Carry On" films for many years, which restricted the variety of roles she was chosen to play later. Theatre career. She also starred on Broadway in the Theatre Workshop's "Oh, What a Lovely War!" and received a 1965 Tony Award nomination for Best Featured Actress in a Musical. She also appeared in Lionel Bart's musical flop "Twang!" (directed by Joan Littlewood) and in the musical "Come Spy with Me" with Danny La Rue. In 1970 she landed the role of music hall legend Marie Lloyd in the musical-biopic "Sing A Rude Song". In 1972 she appeared in the West End in Tony Richardson's "The Threepenny Opera" with his then wife, Vanessa Redgrave. In 1975, she toured the UK, New Zealand and South Africa in her own show, "Carry On Barbara!", and followed this with the role of Maria in "Twelfth Night" at the Chichester Festival Theatre. In 1981 she played sex-mad landlady Kath in Joe Orton's black comedy "Entertaining Mr Sloane" at the Lyric Hammersmith, directed by her friend Kenneth Williams. She reprised the role for a national tour in 1993. "EastEnders". When the soap began in 1985, the producers said they would only cast unknown actors. The Shoreditch-born Windsor said that she regretted this, as she'd liked to have taken part. By 1994 this policy was relaxed, and Windsor was cast in the series. She took over the role of Peggy Mitchell (previously played by Jo Warne in 1991), for which she received the Best Actress award at the British Soap Awards in 1999 and a Lifetime Achievement award from the same source in 2009. A debilitating case of the Epstein-Barr virus forced a two-year absence from the role between 2003 to 2005., although Windsor was able to make a two episode appearance in 2004. She rejoined the cast in mid-2005, initially on a one-year contract, though this was later extended. The "Doctor Who" episode "Army of Ghosts" broadcast on 1 July 2006 included a specially recorded clip featuring her appearing in character. She was seen telling the ghost of Den Watts to "get outta my pub!" In November 2005, as part of the BBC's Children In Need charity night, a Catherine Tate Show/EastEnders mini episode was broadcast. It featured Windsor as Peggy in the Queen Victoria Public House, being tormented by Catherine Tate's schoolgirl character Lauren Cooper. In October 2009 Windsor announced she was to quit her role as Peggy Mitchell, saying she wanted to spend more time with her husband. On 10 September 2010 her character left Albert Square after a fire at the Queen Victoria pub, of which she was the owner. In July 2013, it was announced that Windsor was to return for one episode, which aired on 20 September 2013. Recent years. Although Windsor recorded the single "Don't Dig Twiggy"/"Swinging London" (arranged by Mark Wirtz in 1967), it wasn't until 1999 that she made her UK Chart debut with fellow "EastEnders" cast member Mike Reid with "The More I See You", which reached number 44. Her debut album "You've Got A Friend" spent two weeks in the UK charts and peaked at number 45. In 2000, she was made an MBE in the Millennium Honours List, was inducted into the first BBC Hall of Fame and had a waxwork of her unveiled at Madame Tussauds. She also published her autobiography, "All of Me". She was the subject of "This Is Your Life" in 1992 when she was surprised by Michael Aspel on stage at the Theatre Royal, Windsor. Windsor examined her family tree in the first episode of the third series of the documentary series "Who Do You Think You Are?", which aired on 6 September 2006, in which she traced her family tree back 11 generations to John Golding, the great-great-grandfather of the painter John Constable, making him Windsor's fourth cousin six times removed. Windsor provided the voice of the Dormouse in Walt Disney's 2010 live action adaptation of Lewis Carroll's "Alice in Wonderland", directed by Tim Burton. The cast of the film also included Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter and Anne Hathaway. Windsor appeared in the pantomime "Dick Whittington" at the Bristol Hippodrome over the Christmas/New Year period of 2010/2011. On 8 September 2010 it was announced that Windsor will be fronting a TV campaign for online bingo site Jackpotjoy as the Queen of Bingo. On 9 October 2010 Windsor appeared on "Piers Morgan's Life Stories" and revealed she has become teetotal to help Mitchell with his "terrible alcohol problem". In November 2010 she was honoured for her outstanding contribution to show business, at the Variety Club Showbiz Awards. Since 2011 she has regularly stood in for Elaine Paige on her BBC Radio 2 show on Sunday afternoons between 1.00pm and 3.00pm. Relationships and personal life. Windsor has married three times: During the 1960s, she also had a brief relationship with footballer George Best. She had a well publicised affair with Sid James. In her autobiography, "All of Me", Windsor talks about her five abortions, the first three of which took place before the age of 21, the last when she was 42. She has said that she never wanted children as a result of her father rejecting her. Over the years Windsor has made her home in a variety of locations. Amongst them, "Sunday Times" photographer Michael Ward's autobiography records her as living in Grand Parade, Harringay, in the early 1960s. In August 2010, Windsor was given the Freedom of the City of London, and in November 2010, she was honoured by the City of Westminster at a tree planting and plaque ceremony. In 2012 Windsor became a patron of the "Amy Winehouse Foundation" As well as being an actress, Windsor and her husband run four pubs: The "Queen Victoria" after the pub in EastEnders, The "Balmoral", as that was the original name of the Queen Vic, The "Dagmar" after a wine bar in EastEnders and The "Plough". Theatre. Barbara Windsor has been active in the following theatre productions: As well as being an actress, Windosr and her husbamd run four pubs: The Queen Victoria, The Balmoral, The Plough and The Dagmar.
1034062	Fenella Fielding (born 17 November 1927) — "England's first lady of the double entendre" — is an English actress, popular in the 1950s and 1960s. She is known for her seductive image and distinctively husky voice. Family. She was born in 1927 as Fenella M. Feldman in London, of Romanian/Russian Jewish descent, the daughter of Tilly (née Katz; 1902–1977) and Philip Feldman. She is the younger sister of Lord Feldman of Frognal. She grew up in Lower Clapton and later Edgware where she attended North London Collegiate School. Her father at one time owned a cinema in Silvertown, east London. She was "not" related to the late actor Marty Feldman, as has been misreported. Fenella Fielding has never married. Career. Fielding began her acting career in 1954, concentrating on stage theatrical productions. She was given her first break by the actor Ron Moody, who had met her in an amateur production at the London School of Economics. Her performance in Sandy Wilson's musical version of "Valmouth" made her a star in the late 1950s. By 1959 she was appearing with Kenneth Williams in the comedy revue "Pieces of Eight", written by Harold Pinter and Peter Cook. She had occasional guest appearances in television programmes such as "The Avengers" (after being passed over as Patrick Macnee's regular partner in favour of Honor Blackman) and in "Danger Man". She appeared in two of the "Carry On" films and three of the Doctor films (e.g. "Doctor in Clover"). She interspersed these with performances in plays by Ibsen, Shakespeare and Henry James, reputedly keeping an edition of Plato's writings by her bed. Fielding was the uncredited Village announcer in "The Prisoner" (1967–68), and co-starred with Tom Poston and Robert Morley in the remake of "The Old Dark House" (1963). In "Dougal and the Blue Cat", based on "The Magic Roundabout", she voiced the character of the Blue Voice — referred to as "Madam" by both Buxton (the blue cat of the title) and Dougal at various stages throughout the film. In the late 1960s, she was approached by Federico Fellini to work on one of his films, but turned it down because she was already booked to perform on stage at the Chichester Festival Theatre. She was a guest on "The Morecambe and Wise Show" on four occasions between 1969 and 1972. In the theatre, she was in, among other things, Alan Ayckbourn's "Absurd Person Singular" at the Criterion Theatre, London, directed by Sam Walters, in 1974, and "Fallen Angels" at Watford, directed by Kim Grant. Fielding appeared from 14 to 19 February 2011 at the Jermyn Street Theatre, London in an English Chamber Theatre presentation of Jane McCulloch's "Dearest Nancy, Darling Evelyn", the dramatised letters of Nancy Mitford and Evelyn Waugh. Fielding worked with writer-performer Graham Roos performing the role of Sandalphon in Roos' verse cabaret "Apocalypse Calypso" at King's Place. and later provided a substantial cameo in his film about Byron - "Darkness". She is a patron of the theatre charity The Music Hall Guild of Great Britain and America. In 2011 she also appeared in the third series of the CBBC children's sitcom "The Legend of Dick and Dom", in an episode called "Land of the Luvvies", where she played Lotte Lawoo, the head of the Luvvies. Fielding wrote the foreword to "Carry On Actors" ("The Complete Who's Who of the Carry On Film Series") by Andrew Ross in 2011. In 2012, Fielding returned to television as Alex Henley's grandmother Miriam, in the sixth series of the Channel 4 teen drama "Skins". In November 2012, Fielding narrated the Channel 4 sketch show "Kookyville". Voice work. She voiced 'MOOD', the quirky supercomputer in the video game in a script written by science fiction author Stephen Marley. Since 2000 she has been recording with "Savoy", a book publishing and recording company. Her work with them includes readings of Colette, J.G. Ballard's "Crash" and T. S. Eliot's "Four Quartets". She made an album of cover songs including Robbie Williams's "Angels", Kylie Minogue's "Can't Get You Out Of My Head", New Order's "Blue Monday" and the White Stripes' "Passive Manipulation". In 2006, she toured Ireland in "The Vagina Monologues". She has also provided the voice to two tracks on the Graham Roos album "Quest". Critical reception. A 2007 article in "The Independent" remarked that it was "one of the mysteries of British life that Fenella Fielding, whose wit and distinctive stage presence captivated figures such as Kenneth Tynan, Noël Coward and Federico Fellini, should have drifted into obscurity rather than being celebrated", and the same article quotes "The Times" as saying that Fielding's performance as Hedda Gabler was "one of the experiences of a lifetime". Year of birth. Most sources formerly cited 1934 as her year of birth, but findmypast.co.uk shows that the birth of Fenella M. Feldman was registered in the first quarter of 1928 and that the actress was in fact born in 1927.
1064010	Jingle All the Way is a 1996 American Christmas comedy film directed by Brian Levant and starring Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sinbad, with Phil Hartman, Rita Wilson, Jake Lloyd, James Belushi and Robert Conrad. The plot focuses on two rival fathers, workaholic Howard Langston (Schwarzenegger) and postal worker Myron Larabee (Sinbad), both desperately trying to retrieve a Turbo-Man action figure for their respective sons on a last minute shopping spree on Christmas Eve. Inspired by real-life Christmas toy sell-outs for products such as the Cabbage Patch Kids and Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, the film was written by Randy Kornfield. Producer Chris Columbus rewrote the script, adding in elements of satire about the commercialization of Christmas, and the project was picked up by 20th Century Fox. Delays on Fox's reboot of "Planet of the Apes" allowed Schwarzenegger to come on board the film, while Columbus opted to cast Sinbad ahead of Joe Pesci as Myron. "Jingle All the Way" was set and filmed in the Twin Cities metropolitan area of Minnesota at a variety of locations, including Bloomington's Mall of America. After five weeks filming, production moved to California where scenes such as the end parade were shot. The film's swift production meant merchandising was limited to a replica of the Turbo-Man action figure used in the film. Although some critics felt the film was good family entertainment, it was met with a broadly negative response. Much criticism was attached to the film's script, its focus on the commercialism of Christmas, Levant's direction and Schwarzenegger's performance. Nevertheless, it proved a success at the box office, generating $129 million worldwide. In 2001, Fox was ordered to pay $19 million to Murray Hill Publishing for stealing the idea for the film; the verdict was overturned three years later. Plot. Howard Langston (Arnold Schwarzenegger) is a workaholic mattress salesman, who does not find time for his wife, Liz (Rita Wilson), and his young son, Jamie (Jake Lloyd) — especially when compared to next door "superdad" divorcee, Ted Maltin (Phil Hartman), who continually puts Howard in a bad light. After missing Jamie's karate class graduation, Howard resolves to redeem himself by fulfilling Jamie's ultimate Christmas wish: getting an action figure of Turbo-Man, a popular children's TV superhero toy that everyone is looking for. Along the way, Howard meets Myron Larabee (Sinbad), a postal worker dad with a rival ambition, and the two soon become bitter competitors in their race for the action figure. During his search, Howard repeatedly runs into Officer Alexander Hummell (Robert Conrad), a traffic cop who had earlier pulled him over for a traffic violation. After several failed attempts to find the toy in a store, Howard attempts to buy a Turbo-Man from a Mall of America Santa (James Belushi) who is actually the leader of a band of counterfeit toy makers. When he accuses the Santa of undermining the values of Christmas, Howard ends up in a brawl with the gang. He narrowly escapes when the police raid their warehouse and gets out by posing as an undercover detective. Later, Howard and Myron cross paths again, and while they are drinking coffee at Mickey's Diner, Myron tells Howard about the time when his father was unable to get him a Johnny Seven OMA toy on Christmas. They hear on the KQRS radio station that the D.J. (Martin Mull) is running a Turbo-Man competition. When they get to the studio they find out they can only win a gift certificate. They are nearly arrested but Myron bluffs the police into backing off by threatening them with a package (which he claims is a mail bomb, unaware that it really is one). Officer Hummell tries to open it and it blows up in his face. After his car is stripped by thieves, Howard is ultimately forced to return home empty-handed. Upon seeing Ted in his house placing the star on his tree, Howard gets angry and attempts to steal the Turbo-Man doll from Ted's house, destined for Ted's son Johnny (E.J. De La Pena), but changes his mind. Before he has a chance to replace the doll, he is caught by Ted and a disappointed Liz. Howard decides to join his family at the city's Wintertainment Parade, as he promised his son he would do. Meanwhile, while Johnny and Jamie attend the parade together, Ted makes a pass at Liz, but she turns him down by hitting him with a thermos of eggnog. On arrival at the parade, Howard runs into Officer Hummell and accidentally drenches him with hot coffee. In the ensuing chase, Howard runs into a preparations room and is mistaken as a live action Turbo-Man stuntman in the parade. As the "real" Turbo-Man, he uses the opportunity to present the coveted limited-edition Turbo-Man doll to his son in the crowd. But before he can recognize his father, Jamie is chased around the parade by Myron, who is dressed as Turbo-Man's arch enemy Dementor (having caught and tied up the real actor (Richard Moll), while Howard does his best to keep up, though with little skill in controlling the Turbo-Man equipment. Jamie is ultimately saved by Howard, who reveals himself to his son. Howard apologizes about everything to Officer Hummell, who looks at Howard with a surprise that Howard was Turbo-Man; meanwhile, Myron is arrested while ranting about how he will explain the situation to his son. Touched by Myron's undying dedication to his own son, Jamie gives the doll to him and tells Howard that he does not need the doll since his father is "the real Turbo-Man". The crowd carries Howard off praising him for his heroic actions, while Myron, Jamie and Liz happily watch. In a post-credits scene, Howard puts the star on his Christmas tree, his tradition, and shares a happy moment with his family before realizing that, with his quest to get a present for Jamie, he forgot to get Liz a Christmas gift. Production. Development. The film draws inspiration from the high demand for Christmas toys such as the Cabbage Patch Kids and Mighty Morphin Power Rangers in the late 1980s and early 1990s, which often led to intense searching and occasional violence amongst shoppers. Randy Kornfield wrote the film's original screenplay after witnessing his in-laws go to a Santa Monica toy store at dawn in order to get his son a Power Ranger. While admitting to missing the clamor for the Cabbage Patch Kids and Power Rangers, producer Chris Columbus experienced a similar situation in 1995 when he attempted to obtain a Buzz Lightyear action figure from the film "Toy Story", released that year. As a result he rewrote Kornfield's script, which was accepted by 20th Century Fox. Columbus was always "attracted to the dark side of the happiest holiday of the year", so wrote elements of the film as a satire of the commercialization of Christmas. Brian Levant was hired to direct the film. Columbus said Levant "underst the humor in the material" and "was very animated and excited, and he had a vision of what he wanted to do". Levant said "The story that was important to me was between the father and son...it's a story about love, and a father's journey to deliver it in the form of a Turbo Man doll. The fact that I got to design a toy line and do the commercials and make pajamas and comic books was fun for me as a filmmaker. But at its root, the movie's about something really sweet. It's about love and building a better family. I think that's consistent with everything I've done." Arnold Schwarzenegger was quickly cast. He became available in February 1996 after Fox's remake of "Planet of the Apes" was held up again; Columbus also exited that project to work on "Jingle All the Way". The film marks Schwarzenegger's fourth appearance as the lead in a comedy film, following "Twins" (1988), "Kindergarten Cop" (1990) and "Junior" (1994). Schwarzenegger was paid a reported $20 million for the role. He enjoyed the film, having experienced last-minute Christmas shopping himself, and was attracted to playing an "ordinary" character in a family film. Columbus initially wanted Joe Pesci to play Myron. Comedian Sinbad was chosen instead, partly due to his similar height and size to Schwarzenegger. Sinbad was suggested for the part by Schwarzenegger's agent, but the producers felt he was unsuited to the role of a villain as it could harm his clean, family-oriented comedy act and reputation, although Sinbad felt the character would generate the audience's sympathy rather than hate. Furthermore, he missed the audition due to his appearance with First Lady Hillary Clinton and musician Sheryl Crow on the USO tour of Bosnia and Herzegovina, but Columbus waited for him to return to allow him to audition and, although Sinbad felt he had "messed" it up, he was given the part. He improvised the majority of his lines in the film; Schwarzenegger also improvised many of his responses in his conversations with Sinbad's character. Filming. Filming took place in Minnesota for five weeks from April 15, 1996; at the time, it was the largest film production to ever take place in the state. "Jingle All the Way" was set and filmed in the Twin Cities metropolitan area of Minnesota at locations such as Bloomington's Mall of America, Mickey's Diner, downtown Minneapolis, Linden Hills, residential areas of Edina and primarily downtown Saint Paul. Unused shops in the Seventh Place Mall area were redecorated to resemble Christmas decorated stores, while the Energy Park Studios were used for much of the filming and the Christmas lights stayed up at Rice Park for use in the film. The Mall of America and the state's "semi-wintry weather" proved attractive for the studio. Although Schwarzenegger stated that the locals were "well-behaved" and "cooperative", Levant often found filming "impossible" due to the scale and noise of the crowds who came to watch production, especially in the Mall of America, but overall found the locals to be "respectful" and "lovely people." Levant spent several months in the area before filming in order to prepare. The film uses artistic license by treating Minneapolis and Saint Paul as one city, as this was logistically easier; the police are labeled "Twin Cities Police" in the film. Additionally, the city's Holidazzle Parade is renamed the Wintertainment Parade and takes place on 2nd Avenue during the day, rather than Nicollet Mall at night. Levant wanted to film the parade at night but was overruled for practical reasons. The parade was filmed at Universal Studios Hollywood in California on the New York Street set, due to safety concerns. The set was designed to resemble 2nd Avenue; the parade was shot from above by helicopters and stitched into matte shots of the real-life street. It took three weeks to film, with 1,500 extras being used in the scene, along with three custom designed floats. Other parts of the film to be shot in Los Angeles, California included store interiors, and the warehouse fight scene between Howard and the criminal Santas, for which a Pasadena furniture warehouse was used. Turbo-Man was created and designed for the film. This meant the commercials and scenes from the "Turbo-Man" TV series were all shot by Levant, while all of the Turbo-Man merchandise, packaging and props shown in the film were custom made one-offs and designed to look "authentic, as if they all sprang from the same well." Along with Columbus and Levant, production designer Leslie McDonald and character designer Tim Flattery crafted Turbo-Man, Booster and Dementor and helped make the full-size Turbo-Man suit for the film's climax. Principal production finished in August; Columbus "fine-tun the picture until the last possible minute," using multiple test audiences "to see where the big laughs actually lie." Soundtrack. TVT Records released the film's soundtrack album on Audio CD on November 26, 1996. It features only two of composer David Newman's pieces from "Jingle All the Way", but features many of the songs by other artists included in the film, as well as other Christmas songs and new tracks by the Brian Setzer Orchestra. Intrada Music Group released a Special Collection limited edition of Newman's full 23-track score on November 3, 2008. Release. As Schwarzenegger only signed on for the film in February and the film was shot so quickly, only six and a half months was available for merchandising, instead of the ideal year. As such, merchandising was limited to a 13.5 inch replica $25 Talking Turbo-Man action figure and the West Coast exclusive Turbo-Man Time Racer vehicle, while no tie-in promotions could be secured. Despite this, several critics wrote that the film was only being made in order to sell the toy. Columbus dismissed this notion, stating that with only roughly 200,000 Turbo-Man toys being made, the merchandising was far less than the year's other releases, such as "Space Jam" and "101 Dalmatians". The world premiere was held on November 16, 1996 at the Mall of America in Bloomington where parts of the film were shot. A day of events was held to celebrate the film's release and Schwarzenegger donated memorabilia from the film to the Mall's Planet Hollywood. Opening in 2,401 theaters on November 22, "Jingle All the Way" made $12.1 million in its first weekend, opening at #4 behind "", "Space Jam" and "Ransom"; it went on to gross $129 million worldwide, recouping its $75 million budget. The film was released on VHS in October 1997, and in November 1998 it was released on DVD. It was rereleased on DVD in December 2004, followed by an extended director's cut in October 2007, known as the "Family Fun Edition". It contained several minutes of extra footage, as well as other DVD extras such as a behind the scenes featurette. In December of the following year, the Family Fun Edition was released on Blu-ray Disc. Reception. The film received mostly negative reviews from critics, garnering a 17% "Rotten" rating at Rotten Tomatoes, with 35 negative reviews out of 42 counted. Emanuel Levy felt the film "highly formulaic" and criticized Levant's direction as little more advanced than a television sitcom. Although he felt Hartman, Wilson and Conrad were not given much opportunity to shine due to the script, he opined that "Schwarzenegger has developed a light comic delivery, punctuated occasionally by an ironic one-liner," while "Sinbad has good moments". Neil Jeffries of "Empire" disagreed, feeling Schwarzenegger to be "wooden" and Sinbad to be "trying desperately to be funnier than his hat" but praised Lloyd as the "saving grace" of the film. "The New York Times" critic Janet Maslin felt the film lacked any real plot, failed in its attempt at satire, should have included Myron's only mentioned son and "mostly wasted" Hartman, while Levant's direction was "listless". Similarly, the BBC's Neil Smith criticized the film's script, its focus on the commercialization of Christmas, as well as Schwarzenegger's performance which shows "the comic timing of a dead moose," but singled out Hartman for praise. "Chicago Tribune" critic Michael Wilmington panned the film, wondering why the characters (primarily Howard) acted so illogically: "Howard Langston is supposed to be a successful mattress manufacturer, but the movie paints him as a hot-tempered buffoon without a sensible idea in his head." Jack Garner of "USA Today" condemned the film, finding it more "cynical" than satirical, stating "this painfully bad movie has been inspired strictly by the potential jingle of cash registers." He wrote of Levant's directorial failure as he "offers no...sense of comic timing," while "pauses in the midst of much of the dialogue are downright painful." Trevor Johnston suggested that the film "seems to mark a point of decline in the Schwarzenegger career arc" and the anti-consumerism message largely failed, with "Jim Belushi's corrupt mall Santa with his stolen-goods warehouse...provid the film's sole flash of dark humour." IGN's Mike Drucker praised its subject matter as "one of the few holiday movies to directly deal with the commercialization of Christmas" although felt the last twenty minutes of the film let it down, as the first hour or so had "some family entertainment" value if taken with a "grain of salt". He concluded the film was "a member of the so-corny-its-good genre," while "Arnold delivers plenty of one-liners ripe for sound board crank callers." Jamie Malanowski of "The New York Times" praised the film's satirical premise but felt it was "full of unrealized potential" because "the filmmakers equate mayhem with humor." Roger Ebert gave the film two-and-a-half stars, writing that he "liked a lot of the movie", which he thought had "energy" and humor which would have mass audience appeal. He was, though, disappointed by "its relentlessly materialistic view of Christmas, and by the choice to go with action and (mild) violence over dialogue and plot." Kevin Carr of 7M Pictures concluded that while the film is not very good, as a form of family entertainment it is "surprisingly fun." Brian Levant was nominated for the Razzie Award for Worst Director, but lost to Andrew Bergman for "Striptease"; Sinbad, however, won the Blockbuster Entertainment Award for Favorite Supporting Actor in a Family film. Lawsuit. In 1998, Murray Hill Publishing sued 20th Century Fox for $150,000, claiming that the idea for the film was stolen from a screenplay they had purchased from high school teacher Brian Webster entitled "Could This Be Christmas?". They said the script had 36 similarities with "Jingle All the Way", including the plot, dialogue and character names. Murray Hill President Bob Laurel bought the script from Webster in 1993, and sent it to Fox and other studios in 1994 but received no response and claimed the idea was copied by Kornfield, who was Fox's script reader. In 2001, Fox were found guilty of stealing the idea and ordered to pay $19 million ($15 million in damages and $4 million in legal costs) to Murray Hill, with Webster to receive a portion. Laurel died a few months after the verdict, before receiving any of the money. On appeal, the damages figure was lowered to $1.5 million, before the verdict itself was quashed in 2004, with a judge deciding the idea was not stolen as Fox had bought Kornfield's screenplay before he or anybody else at Fox had read "Could This Be Christmas?".
1163666	Robert Stack (January 13, 1919 – May 14, 2003) was a multilingual American actor and television host. In addition to acting in more than 40 feature films, he starred in the 1959–63 television series "The Untouchables" and later hosted "Unsolved Mysteries" from 1987 until 2002. Early life. Robert Stack was born Charles Langford Modini Stack in Los Angeles, California, but his first name (selected by his mother) was changed to Robert by his father. He spent his early childhood growing up in Europe. He became fluent in French and Italian at an early age, and did not learn English until returning to Los Angeles. Stack's parents divorced when he was a year old, and he was raised by his mother, Mary Elizabeth (née Wood). His father, James Langford Stack, a wealthy advertising agency owner, died when Stack was nine. He always spoke of his mother with the greatest respect and love. When he collaborated with Mark Evans on his autobiography, "Straight Shooting," he included a picture of himself and his mother. He captioned it, "Me and my best girl." His grandfather was an opera singer named Charles Wood, who went by the name "Modini". By the time he was twenty, Stack had achieved minor fame as a sportsman. He was an avid polo player and shooter. He and his brother won the International Outboard Motor Championships, in Venice, Italy; and, at age 16, he became a member of the All-American Skeet Team. He set two world records in skeet shooting and became National Champion. In 1971, he was inducted into the National Skeet Shooting Hall of Fame. Career. Stack took drama courses at Bridgewater State College. His deep voice and good looks attracted producers in Hollywood. When Stack visited the lot of Universal Studios at age 20, producer Joe Pasternak offered him an opportunity to enter the business. Recalled Stack, "He said, 'How'd you like to be in pictures? We'll make a test with Helen Parrish, a little love scene.' Helen Parrish was a beautiful girl. 'Gee, that sounds keen,' I told him. I got the part." Stack's first film, which teamed him with Deanna Durbin, was "First Love", in 1939; this film was considered controversial at the time. He was the first actor to give Durbin an on-screen kiss. Stack won acclaim for his next role, "The Mortal Storm" (1940) starring Margaret Sullavan and James Stewart. He played a young man who joins the Nazi party. As a youth, Stack mentioned that he had a crush on Carole Lombard and in 1942 he appeared with her in "To Be or Not To Be." He admitted he was terrified going into this role, but he credited Lombard with giving him many tips on acting and with being his mentor. Lombard was killed in a plane crash shortly before the film was released. During World War II, Stack served as gunnery instructor in the United States Navy. He continued his film career with roles in such films as "Fighter Squadron" (1948) with Edmond O'Brien; "A Date with Judy" (1948) starring Wallace Beery and Elizabeth Taylor; and the 1952 adventure epic "Bwana Devil", considered the first color, American 3-D feature film. In 1954, Stack was given his most important movie role. He appeared opposite John Wayne in "The High and the Mighty". Stack played the pilot of an airliner who comes apart under stress after the airliner encounters engine trouble. In 1957, Stack was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for "Written on the Wind". He felt the primary reason he lost the Oscar to Anthony Quinn was that 20th Century Fox, who had loaned him to Universal International, organized block voting against him to prevent one of their contract players from winning an Academy Award while working at another studio. Stack portrayed the crimefighting Eliot Ness in the award-winning ABC television drama series, "The Untouchables" (1959–63). The show portrayed the ongoing battle between gangsters and a special squad of federal agents in prohibition-era Chicago. The show won Stack a Best Actor Emmy Award in 1960. He starred in three other drama series, rotating the lead with Tony Franciosa and Gene Barry in the lavish "The Name of the Game" (1968–1971), "Most Wanted", (1976) and "Strike Force" (1981). In "The Name of the Game", he played a former federal agent turned true-crime journalist, evoking memories of his role as Ness. In both "Most Wanted" and "Strike Force" he played a tough, incorruptible police captain commanding an elite squad of special investigators, also evoking the Ness role. Eventually, he reprised the role in a 1991 television movie, "The Return of Eliot Ness". He parodied his own persona in comedies such as "1941" (1979), "Airplane!" (1980), "Caddyshack II" (1988), "Beavis and Butt-head Do America" (1996) and "BASEketball" (1998). He also provided the voice for the character Ultra Magnus in "" (1986). He appeared in the television mini-series "Hollywood Wives" in 1985, and appeared in several episodes of the primetime soap opera "Falcon Crest" in 1986. Stack's series "Strike Force" was scheduled opposite "Falcon Crest", where it quickly folded.
1484808	Karyn Elizabeth Dwyer, also known as Karen Dwyer or Karyn O'Dwyer, is a Canadian actress. Her best known role is Maggie in the 1999 film "Better Than Chocolate". Early life. Karyn Elizabeth Dwyer was born in Corner Brook, Newfoundland to two school teachers Donald and Elizabeth Dwyer, who were of Scottish and Irish Catholic descent. She is the oldest of five children. Her father died of cancer in 1982 at the age of 38. After his death, her family moved to her mother's hometown of Wabana on Bell Island, Newfoundland and later St. John's. Dwyer studied acting with Youth Theatre. She made her stage debut at the Arts and Culture Center at the age of 10, playing the title role in Theatre Newfoundland and Labrador's production of "Alice in Wonderland" and went on to become an accomplished child stage actress performing in various theatres throughout Newfoundland and Labrador. She also performed in her school productions, won awards for acting, public speaking, singing and instrumental performance and wrote for the school newspaper. She turned down a journalism scholarship from Carleton University and instead moved to Toronto to attend the George Brown Theatre School. Dwyer attended theatre school for one year and then began studying with David Rotenberg's on-camera acting class in Toronto and later John Riven's Meisner. Career. After moving to Toronto, Dwyer landed her first film role acting opposite David Cronenberg in the Canadian cult classic Boozecan. She soon began appearing regularly in film and television roles opposite actors such as Jon Voight, Gary Busey, Jacqueline Bisset and Julian Sands. She wrote and starred in her one woman show "Bad Girls" at the Rivoli in Toronto. In 1994 she played Phoebe in "As You Like It" opposite Seana McKenna and Albert Schultz in the Du Maurier World Stage theatre festival. In 1999 Dwyer starred as 19 year old Maggie in "Better Than Chocolate", winning the role over hundreds of others who auditioned in a cross Canada search. The film won numerous audience choice awards at film festivals around the world, was ranked 31st on the "Hollywood Reporter"'s Top 200 independent films list of 1999 and had one of Canada's highest international box office grosses, earning Dwyer a loyal cult following. Better Than Chocolate opened to rave reviews at both The Berlin Film Festival and the Vancouver International Film Festival. It was hailed by Variety as "a terrifically entertaining romantic comedy." The Hollywood Reporter called Dwyer "the film's heart and soul", Better Than Chocolate ranked 31 on The Hollywood Reporter's list of best independent films. The Chicago Tribune raved, "The highlight of the movie is unquestionably Dwyer's performance as Maggie."
586659	Andha Kanoon (Hindi: अंधा क़ानून; English: "Blind Law") is a 1983 Bollywood film directed by T. Rama Rao, starring Rajnikant, Hema Malini and Reena Roy. Amitabh Bachchan and Madhavi have a special extended guest appearance portraying husband and wife in the film. The film also has a huge supporting cast including Pran, Danny Denzongpa, Amrish Puri, Madan Puri, Prem Chopra and Asrani. Dharmendra also has a guest appearances. It is a remake of 1981 Tamil movie Sattam Oru Iruttarai which starred Vijayakanth in lead role. Plot. Pankaj Sonker works as a Forest Officer, and lives with his wife Zakhiya and his daughter Neelu. One day while on duty he comes across some poachers who were cutting sandal wood trees illegally. When challenged, they retaliate, a struggle ensues, and one of them, Ram Gupta, is killed. Khan is charged with killing him, tried in Court, and sentenced to several years in prison. His shocked and devastated wife kills herself along with their daughter. Years later, an angry and embittered Khan is released from prison. One day he comes across another young man, Vijay Singh, and finds out that he is struggling with taking vengeance against three men who had traumatized and killed some of his family members, and decides to help him. It is then Khan finds out that Gupta is still alive and decides to kill him, quite dramatically in the same courtroom where he was convicted for his murder. Vijay also has sister, Miss Durga Singh who has joined Police department just to take revenge against those three men, but law-fully whereas her brother Vijay has decided to kill them one by one by taking law in his own hands as he like Khan does not believe in law. How he succeeds is the entertaining story of this movie.
581779	Alexx O'Nell (born Alexander Leonard O’Neill on July 26, 1980) is an American born actor and musician who is based in India and has appeared in films and television programs in English and Indian languages. His major feature films include "Cheeni Kum", "Madrasapattinam", "Urumi", "Joker" and "Chittagong". O'Nell began his acting career with community and regional theater in the United States, later working in television advertisements in India and internationally, and finally landing character roles and appearances in films such as the Hindi feature "Cheeni Kum" (2007) and the English feature "Loins of Punjab Presents" (2007). He later gained recognition as a contestant on the hugely popular Indian celebrity dance competition "Nach Baliye" (season 3, 2007).
581870	Deepti Naval (born 3 February 1957) is an Indian American actress who has worked in over 70 Hindi films. She has most often worked in arthouse and independent films, known as parallel cinema in India. She has also acted and directed Television serials. Apart from acting, Naval is also an artist who holds exhibitions of her photographs and paintings. She is best known for her acting in films like "Chashme Baddoor" (1981), "Mirch Masala" (1985), and more recently, "Leela" (2002) and "Freaky Chakra" (2003). She played a cameo role in "B.A. Pass" (2013). Early life. Deepti Naval was born to Uday C Naval and Himadri Naval on 3 February 1957 in Amritsar, Punjab, India. She went to the City University of New York and received her Bachelor's degree in Fine Arts at Hunter College in Manhattan. Career. Naval started her film career by playing a supporting role in 1977 film "Jallian Wala Bagh". She also did a role in Shyam Benegal's 1978 film "Junoon". Later in 1980 she worked in "Ek Baar Phir" as the main lead actress. She is known to be a sensitive actress and was a part of the art films and light films of the 80's. "Saath Saath", "Chashme Buddoor" and "Mirch Masala" are some of her films from the era. She was often cast with "Farooq Shaikh". Though considered as talented as Shabana Azmi and Smita Patil she somehow did not achieve the same stature in terms of awards or memorable casts. Once she moved out of lead roles, she portrayed character roles in mainstream Hindi films but was not satisfied with the roles she got and took a break. Of late she has made a comeback of sorts with films like "Bawandar" and "Freaky Chakra". She starred in Sudhir Mishra's 2013 movie "Inkaar" opposite Arjun Rampal and Chitrangada Singh. The movie is an average grosser at the box office. In April Naval was recognized as the 2007 Tribute Honoree of the Indian Film Festival of Los Angeles. She is directing her first film as a director in "Do Paise Ki Dhoop, Chaar Aane Ki Baarish" which stars Manisha Koirala. She published a collection of her Hindi poems in 1981, entitled 'LAMHA LAMHA'.Her another collection of poems namely "Black Wind" was published by oxford bookstore in a function on 2 nd December 2004 (The statesman,New Delhi 3 December 2004). She also starred in the critically acclaimed Punjabi film "Marhi Da Diva" (1989). She is back in acting with a daily soap Mukti Bandhan on Colors. Personal life. Deepti Naval was at one time married to filmmaker and director Prakash Jha with whom she has an adopted daughter Disha. Naval was also once involved with actor Nana Patekar, and later engaged to Vinod Pandit before he died.
1484724	Hannah Lochner (born July 28, 1993) is a Canadian actress. Career. She has appeared in number of made-for-TV films and in a number of Canadian television series such as "Life with Derek", "Wild Card". But she is perhaps best known for her opening scene as Vivian in the 2004 film, "Dawn of the Dead". She also has a number of films that have not yet come out and that she is currently filming. She attended Etobicoke School of the Arts and graduated in the year 2011.
1163800	Frank Morgan (born Frank Phillip Wuppermann; June 1, 1890 – September 18, 1949) was an American actor. He is best known for playing five separate characters, including the title character, in "The Wizard of Oz" (1939). Early life. Morgan was born Francis Phillip Wuppermann in New York City, the youngest of eleven children (six boys and five girls) born to Josephine Wright (née Hancox) and George Diogracia Wuppermann. His father was born in Venezuela, of German and Spanish descent, and was raised in Hamburg, Germany. His mother was born in the U.S. of English descent. The family earned its wealth distributing Angostura bitters, permitting Frank to attend Cornell University where he joined Phi Kappa Psi Fraternity. He then followed his older brother Ralph Morgan into show business, first on the Broadway stage and then into motion pictures. Career and "The Wizard of Oz". His first film was "The Suspect" in 1916. In 1917 he provided support to his friend John Barrymore in "Raffles, the Amateur Cracksman", an independent film produced in and about New York City. Morgan's career expanded when talkies began, his most stereotypical role being that of a befuddled but good hearted middle-aged man.
1060241	The Passion of the Christ (sometimes referred to as The Passion) is a 2004 American epic drama film directed by Mel Gibson and starring Jim Caviezel as Jesus Christ. It depicts the Passion of Jesus largely according to the New Testament Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. It also draws on other devotional writings, such as those disputedly attributed to Anne Catherine Emmerich. The film covers the final 12 hours of Jesus' life, beginning with the Agony in the Garden and ending with a brief depiction of his resurrection. Flashbacks of Jesus as a child and as a young man with his mother, giving the Sermon on the Mount, teaching the Twelve Apostles, and at the Last Supper are some of the images depicted. The dialogue is entirely in reconstructed Aramaic and Latin with vernacular subtitles. The film has been highly controversial and received mixed reviews, with some critics claiming that the extreme violence in the movie "obscures its message." Catholic sources have questioned the authenticity of the non-biblical material the film drew on. The film, however, was a major commercial hit, grossing in excess of $600 million during its theatrical release, becoming the highest grossing R-rated film in United States and highest grossing Non-English language film of all time. Plot. The film opens in Gethsemane as Jesus prays and is tempted by Satan, while his apostles, Peter, James and John sleep. After receiving thirty pieces of silver, one of Jesus' other apostles, Judas, approaches with the temple guards and betrays Jesus with a kiss on the cheek. As the guards move in to arrest Jesus, Peter cuts off the ear of Malchus, but Jesus heals the ear. As the apostles flee, the temple guards arrest Jesus and beat him during the journey to the Sanhedrin. John tells Mary and Mary Magdalene of the arrest while Peter follows Jesus at a distance. Caiaphas holds trial over the objection of some of the other priests, who are expelled from the court. When questioned by Caiaphas whether he is the son of God, Jesus replies "I am." Caiaphas is horrified and tears his robes and Jesus is condemned to death for blasphemy. Peter, who is secretly watching, is confronted and three times denies knowing Jesus, but then runs away sobbing after remembering that Jesus had foretold that. Meanwhile, the remorseful Judas attempts to return the money to have Jesus freed but is refused by the priests. Tormented by demons, he flees the city and hangs himself with a rope he finds on a dead donkey. Caiaphas brings Jesus before Pontius Pilate to be condemned to death, but after questioning Jesus and finding no fault in him, Pilate sends him instead to the court of Herod, as Jesus is from Herod's ruling town of Nazareth. After Jesus is again found not guilty and returned, Pilate offers the crowd that he will chastise Jesus and then will set him free. He then attempts to have Jesus freed by giving the people an option of freeing Jesus or the violent criminal Barabbas. To his dismay, the crowd demands to have Barabbas freed and Jesus killed. In an attempt to appease the crowd, Pilate has Jesus brutally scourged and mocked with a crown of thorns. However, the crowd continues to demand that Jesus be crucified, and Barabbas released. Pilate washes his hands and reluctantly orders Jesus' crucifixion. As Jesus carries the cross along the Via Dolorosa to Calvary, Veronica wipes Jesus' face with her veil. Simon of Cyrene is unwillingly pressed into carrying the cross with Jesus. Jesus is then crucified. As he hangs from the cross, Jesus prays forgiveness for those who did this to him and redeems a criminal crucified next to him. After Jesus gives up his spirit and dies, a single drop of rain falls from the sky, triggering an earthquake which destroys the Temple and rips the cloth covering the Holy of Holies in two, to the horror of Caiaphas and the other priests. Satan is then shown screaming in defeat. Jesus is taken down from the cross. In the end, Jesus rises from the dead and exits the tomb. Themes. In "The Passion: Photography from the Movie "The Passion of the Christ"", Gibson says: "This is a movie about love, hope, faith and forgiveness. He died for all mankind, suffered for all of us. It's time to get back to that basic message. The world has gone nuts. We could all use a little more love, faith, hope and forgiveness." Source material. New Testament. According to director Mel Gibson, the primary source material for "The Passion of the Christ" is the four Gospel narratives of Christ's passion. The film also draws from other parts of the New Testament. The portion spoken by Jesus in the film, "I make all things new," is found in the Book of Revelation. Hebrew Bible. "The Passion of the Christ" also refers to the Hebrew Bible. The film begins with an epigraph from the Fourth Song of the Suffering Servant from Isaiah. In the opening scene set in the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus crushes a serpent's head in direct visual allusion to Genesis 3:15. Throughout the film, Jesus quotes from the Psalms, beyond the instances recorded in the New Testament. Traditional iconography and stories. Many of the depictions in "The Passion of the Christ" deliberately mirror traditional representations of the Passion in art. For example, the fourteen Stations of the Cross are central to the depiction of the Via Dolorosa in "The Passion of the Christ." All of the stations are portrayed except for the eighth station (Jesus meets the women of Jerusalem, a deleted scene on the DVD) and the fourteenth station (Jesus is laid in the tomb). Gibson was also visually inspired by the representation of Jesus on the Shroud of Turin. At the suggestion of actress Maia Morgenstern, the Passover Seder is quoted early in the film. Mary asks "Why is this night different than other nights?", and Mary Magdalene replies with the traditional response: "Because once we were slaves and we are slaves no longer". The conflation of Mary Magdalene with the adulteress saved from stoning by Jesus has some precedent in tradition but according to the director was done for dramatic reasons. The names of some of the characters in the film are traditional and extra-Scriptural, such as the thieves crucified alongside the Christ, Dismas and Gesmas (also Gestas). Catholic devotional writings. Screenwriters Mel Gibson and Benedict Fitzgerald said that they read many accounts of Christ's Passion for inspiration, including the devotional writings of Roman Catholic mystics. A principal source is "The Dolorous Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ" the reported (yet disputed) visions of the stigmatic German nun Anne Catherine Emmerich (1774–1824), as written by the poet Clemens Brentano. A careful reading of Emmerich's book shows the film's high level of dependence on it. However, Clemens Brentano's attribution of the book "The Dolorous Passion" to Emmerich has been subject to dispute, with allegations that Brentano wrote much of the book himself; a Vatican investigation concluding that: "It is absolutely not certain that she ever wrote this". In his review of the movie in the Catholic publication "America", Jesuit priest John O' Malley used the terms "devout fiction" and "well-intentioned fraud" to refer to the writings of Clemens Brentano. Among the many elements taken from the Dolorous Passion are scenes such as the suspension of Jesus from a bridge after his arrest by the Temple guards, the torment of Judas by demons after he had handed over Jesus to the Sanhedrin, the wiping up of the blood of Jesus after his scourging, and the dislocation of Jesus’ shoulder so that his palm would reach the hole bored for the nail. Differences from traditional Passion story. Certain elements of "The Passion of the Christ" do not have precedent in earlier depictions of the Passion. In the Garden of Gethsemane scene at the beginning of the movie, Satan appears and attempts to distract Jesus while he is praying. Jesus then crushes a serpent beneath his heel (this is a reference to the protoevangelium, Genesis 3:15 – a prophecy of Messiah); this does not occur in any of the gospels. In another example, Judas Iscariot is tormented by demons who appear as children to him. The film gives focus to the fragile relationship of Tiberius Caesar with Pontius Pilate through Pilate's discussion with his wife about imperial orders to avert further Judean revolts. The movie clearly identifies Simon of Cyrene as Jewish, although the Synoptic Gospels provide only his name and place of origin. In the film, a Roman soldier derides Simon (who helps Jesus bear the cross) by derisively calling him "Jew". In contrast, Simon is described as a pagan in "The Dolorous Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ". Other scenes unique to "The Passion of the Christ" include the one in which the crucified thief who taunted Jesus has his eye pecked out by a crow, and the flashback of the carpenter Jesus building an elevated, four-legged table for a Roman. The scene of Satan carrying a demonic baby during Christ’s flogging has been construed as a perversion of traditional depictions of the Madonna and Child. Mel Gibson described this scene as follows: Production. Script and language. Gibson originally announced that he would use two old languages without subtitles and rely on "filmic storytelling." Because the story of the Passion is so well known, Gibson felt the need to avoid vernacular languages in order to surprise audiences: "I think it's almost counterproductive to say some of these things in a modern language. It makes you want to stand up and shout out the next line, like when you hear 'To be or not to be' and you instinctively say to yourself, 'That is the question.'" The script was written in English by Gibson and Benedict Fitzgerald, then translated by William Fulco, S.J., a professor at Loyola Marymount University, into Latin, reconstructed Aramaic, and Hebrew. Gibson chose to use Latin instead of Greek, which was the lingua franca of that particular part of the Roman Empire at the time, so that the audience could easily distinguish between the sound of Italianate Latin and Semitic Aramaic. Fulco sometimes incorporated deliberate errors in pronunciations and word endings when the characters were speaking a language unfamiliar to them, and some of the crude language used by the Roman soldiers was not translated in the subtitles. The pronunciation of Latin in the film is closer to ecclesiastical Latin than to so-called "classical" Latin. (Clear instances of this can be heard when Pontius Pilate says "veritas" and "ecce".) Filming. The film was produced independently and filmed in Italy – primarily at Cinecittà Studios in Rome, and in the old city of Matera, and at Craco (Basilicata). The estimated US$30 million production cost, plus an additional estimated $15 million in marketing costs, were fully borne by Gibson and his company, Icon Productions. It was released on Ash Wednesday, February 25, 2004. It was rated R by the Motion Picture Association of America for "sequences of graphic violence". Icon Entertainment distributed the theatrical version of the film, and 20th Century Fox distributed the VHS/DVD/Blu-ray version of the film. Gibson consulted several theological advisors during filming, including Fr. Jonathan Morris. During filming, assistant director Jan Michelini was struck twice by lightning. Minutes later, Jim Caviezel was also struck. Music. Three CDs were released with Mel Gibson's co-operation: (i) the film soundtrack of John Debney's original orchestral score conducted by Nick Ingman; (ii) "", by producers Mark Joseph and Tim Cook, with original compositions by various artists, and (iii) "The Passion of the Christ: Songs Inspired By". The first two albums each received a 2005 Dove award, and the soundtrack received an Academy Award nomination of Best Music Score. A preliminary score was composed and recorded by Lisa Gerrard and Patrick Cassidy, but was incomplete at film's release. Jack Lenz was the primary musical researcher and one of the composers; several clips of his compositions have been posted online. Post-production. Title change. Although Gibson wanted to call his film "The Passion", on October 16, 2003, his spokesman announced that the title used in the United States would be "The Passion of Christ" because Miramax Films had already registered the title "The Passion" with the MPAA for the 1987 novel by Jeanette Winterson. Later, the title was changed again to "The Passion of the Christ" for all markets. Distribution and marketing. Gibson began production on his film without securing outside funding or distribution. In 2002, he explained why he could not get backing from the Hollywood studios: "This is a film about something that nobody wants to touch, shot in two dead languages. In Los Angeles they think I am insane, and maybe I am." Gibson and his Icon Productions company provided the film's sole backing, spending about $30 million on production costs and an estimated $15 million on marketing. After early accusations of anti-Semitism, it became difficult for Gibson to find an American distribution company. 20th Century Fox had a first-look deal with Icon and passed on the film in response to public protests. In order to avoid the spectacle of other studios turning down the film and to avoid subjecting the distributor to the same intense public criticism he had received, Gibson decided to distribute the movie in the United States himself, with Newmarket Films. Gibson departed from the usual film marketing formula. He employed a small-scale television advertising campaign, and added faith guru Rick Hendrix with no press junkets. Yet "The Passion of the Christ" was heavily promoted by many church groups, both within their organizations and to the general public, often giving away free tickets. Christian support. "The Passion of the Christ" received support and endorsement from most known evangelical leaders and representatives of USA's conservative church organizations: Billy Graham, James Dobson, Mission America Coalition, Salvation Army, Promise Keepers, National Association of Evangelicals, Campus Crusade for Christ, Focus on the Family, Pat Robertson, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Trinity Broadcasting Network, Rick Warren, Southern Baptist Convention, Jerry Falwell, Max Lucado, Young Life, Tim LaHaye, Chuck Colson, Lee Strobel, Northern Baptist Theological Seminary, Mothers of Preschoolers (MOPS), Seventh-day Adventist Church. The United Methodist Church stated that many of its members, like other Christians, felt that the movie was a good way to evangelize non-believers. As a result, many congregations planned to be at the theaters, some of whom set up tables to answer questions and share prayers. An unofficial sequel to "The Passion" is being produced to portray the rest of the story of Jesus as described in the Bible, including him coming out of the tomb and the forty days that lead up to his ascension into Heaven. The film is titled "The Resurrection" and is slated for release on Easter 2015. Release. The film opened in the United States on February 25, 2004 (Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent). It earned $83,848,082 in its opening weekend, ranking it 4th overall in domestic opening weekend earnings for 2004. It went on to earn $370,782,930 overall in the United States. In Malaysia, government censors initially banned it completely, but after Christian leaders protested, the restriction was lifted, but only for Christian audiences, allowing them to view the film in specially designated theatres. In Israel, the film was not banned. However, it never received theatrical distribution because no Israeli distributor sought to market the movie. Despite the various controversies and refusals of certain governments to allow the film to be viewed in wide release, "The Passion of the Christ" earned $611,899,420 worldwide. The movie was also a relative success in certain countries with large Muslim populations, such as in Egypt, where it ranked 20th overall in its box office numbers for 2004. Theatrical re-release. An edited version titled "The Passion Recut" was released on March 11, 2005, with five minutes of the most explicit violence deleted to broaden the audience for the film. Gibson explained his reasoning for the new version of the film: After the initial run in movie theaters, I received numerous letters from people all across the country. Many told me they wanted to share the experience with loved ones but were concerned that the harsher images of the film would be too intense for them to bear. In light of this I decided to re-edit The Passion of the Christ. Despite the attempt to tone down the content, the Motion Picture Association of America deemed the film too violent to rate PG-13, so Gibson released it as unrated. The re-release did not end up being a commercial success, only showing for three weeks before its poor box office results caused it to be pulled from theaters. Home media. On August 31, 2004, the film was released on DVD, VHS, and later D-VHS in North America by 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment. As with the original theatrical release, the film's release on home video formats proved to be very popular. Early reports indicated that over 2.4 million copies of the film were sold by the middle of the day. The film was available on DVD with English and Spanish subtitles, and on VHS tape with English subtitles. On February 17, 2009, the film was released on Blu-ray in North America as a two-disc Definitive Edition set. It was also released on Blu-ray in Australia a week before Easter. Although the original DVD release sold well, it contained no extra materials other than soundtrack language selections. The no-frills edition provoked speculation about when a special edition would be released. On Tuesday, January 30, 2007, a two-disc Definitive Edition of "The Passion of the Christ" was released in the American markets, and March 26 elsewhere. It contains several documentaries, soundtrack commentaries, deleted scenes, outtakes, the 2005 unrated version, and the original 2004 theatrical version. The British version of the two-disc DVD contains two deleted scenes. In the first deleted scene, Jesus meets the women of Jerusalem which is the eighth station of the cross, Jesus falls to the ground as the women wail around him and Simon of Cyrene attempts to hold up the cross and help up Jesus simultaneously. Afterwards, while both are holding up the cross, Jesus says to the women weeping for him, "Do not weep for me, but for yourselves and for your children". In the second scene Pilate washes his hands and turns to Caiaphas and says "Look you to it" (ie: the Pharisees wish to have him crucified). Pilate turns to Abanader and says "Do as they wish". The scene then shows Pilate calling to his servant who is carrying a wooden board on which Pilate writes 'Jesus of Nazareth king of the Jews' in Latin and Hebrew. He then holds the board above his head in full view of Caiaphas, who after reading it challenges Pilate on its content. Pilate replies (...) angrily to Caiaphas in Aramaic (content not translated). The disc contains only two deleted scenes in total. No other scenes from the movie are shown on disc 2. Television broadcast. On April 17, 2011 (Palm Sunday), Trinity Broadcasting Network (TBN) presented a world television premiere of the film at 7:30 pm ET/PT, with multiple showings scheduled. The network has continued to air the film throughout the year, and particularly around Easter. TBN presents the film completely unedited; as a result, it is rated TV-MA (for graphic violence). On March 29, 2013 (Good Friday), as a part of their special Holy Week programming, TV5 presented the Filipino-dubbed version of the film at 2:00 pm (PST, UTC+8) in the Philippines. Its total broadcast ran for two hours, but excluding the advertisements, it would only run up for approximately 1 hour instead of its full run time of 2 hours and 9 minutes.It was ended exactly 3:00 p.m. for it is the time of the Crucifixion of Jesus. TV5 continued to present this reduced content. It has been rated SPG by the MTRCB for themes, language and violence. TV5 is the first broadcast outside of the United States and its translated via the subtitles English to Filipino Language. Reception. Critical reviews. The film received mixed reviews from critics; although the performance of Jim Caviezel as Jesus was praised, it was criticized for its graphic violence. The review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reported that 49% gave the film positive reviews, based on 266 reviews total; with the consensus that "the graphic details of Jesus' torture make the movie tough to sit through and obscure whatever message it is trying to convey." Metacritic reported the film had an average score of 47 out of 100, based on 43 reviews. Roger Ebert gave the film four out of four stars, and called it "the most violent film I have ever seen", also reflecting on how the movie personally impacted him as a former altar boy. "New York Press" film critic Armond White praised Gibson's work, comparing him to Dreyer, for transforming Art into spirituality. However, "Slate" reviewer David Edelstein called it "a two-hour-and-six-minute snuff movie," while Jami Bernard of the "New York Daily News" called it "the most virulently anti-Semitic movie made since the German propaganda films of World War II." "Time" magazine listed it as one of the most violent films of all time. The June 2006 issue of "Entertainment Weekly" named "The Passion of the Christ" the most controversial film of all time, followed by Stanley Kubrick's film "A Clockwork Orange". Independent promotion and discussion. A number of independent websites such as "MyLifeAfter.com" and "Passion-Movie.com" were launched to promote the film and its message and to allow people to discuss the film's effect on their lives. Documentaries such as "Changed Lives: Miracles of the Passion" chronicled stories of miraculous savings, forgiveness, new-found faith, and the story of a man who confessed to murdering his girlfriend after authorities determined her death was due to suicide. Another documentary, "Impact: The Passion of the Christ", chronicled the popular response of the film in the United States, India, and Japan and examined the claims of antisemitism against Mel Gibson and the film. Controversy. Questions of historical and biblical accuracy. Despite criticisms that Gibson deliberately departed from historical accounts of first century Judea and Biblical accounts of Christ's crucifixion, some scholars defend the film as not meaning to be historically accurate. Biblical scholar Mark Goodacre protested that he could not find one documented example of Gibson explicitly claiming the film to be historically accurate. Gibson has been quoted as saying, "I think that my first duty is to be as faithful as possible in telling the story so that it doesn't contradict the Scriptures. Now, so long as it didn't do that, I felt that I had a pretty wide berth for artistic interpretation, and to fill in some of the spaces with logic, with imagination, with various other readings." In the film, Romans use Latin amongst themselves, Jews do the same with Aramaic, and the two groups adopt one or the other of these languages in communicating with each other. The latter is historically improbable, however, as the eastern parts of the Roman empire were extensively Hellenized, and Greek was the lingua franca. When asked about the film's faithfulness to the account given in the New Testament, Father Augustine Di Noia of the Vatican's Doctrinal Congregation replied: "Mel Gibson's film is not a documentary but a work of artistic imagination" and "Gibson's film is entirely faithful to the New Testament." Disputed papal endorsement. In early December 2003, "Passion of the Christ" co-producer Stephen McEveety provided the film to Archbishop Stanislaw Dziwisz, the pope's secretary. Archbishop Dziwisz returned the film to McEveety and said he had watched it with John Paul II. On December 16, "Daily Variety" reported that the pope had seen the film, and on Dec 17, "Wall Street Journal" columnist Peggy Noonan reported that John Paul II had said: "It is as it was," sourcing McEveety, who said he heard it from Dziwisz. "National Catholic Reporter" journalist John Allen published a similar account on the same day, quoting an unnamed senior Vatican official. The following day, Reuters and the Associated Press each independently confirmed the story, citing Vatican sources. On December 24, an anonymous Vatican official told Catholic News Service, "There was no declaration, no judgment from the pope." On January 9, John Allen defended his earlier reporting, saying that his official source was adamant about the veracity of the original story. In a January 18 column, Frank Rich interviewed the Italian translator who quoted Dziwisz as saying that the pope called the film "incredible" and said "it is as it was." Rich attacked the marketing of the film and suggested Dziwisz wielded too much influence over the pope. The next day Archbishop Dziwisz told CNS, "The Holy Father told no one his opinion of this film." This denial resulted in a round of commentators who accused the film producers of fabricating a papal quote to market their movie. However, the Icon Productions spokesman stood by the story, and a source close to the situation said McEveety had asked for and received Vatican officials' permission to repeat the "It is as it was" statement before speaking to Noonan. Journalist Rod Dreher reported that McEveety had received an email from papal spokesman Dr. Joaquin Navarro-Valls on December 28, backing the Noonan account and ending: "I would try to make the words 'It is as it was' the leit motive in any discusion on the film. Repeat the words again and again and again." Peggy Noonan had also received email confirmation of the quote from Navarro-Valls before writing her December 17 column. Complicating the situation, Navarro-Valls told Dreher that the email sent to McEveety was not genuine, suggesting it was fabricated. However, Noonan later verified that all of the Navarro-Valls emails came from the same Vatican IP address. The "Los Angeles Times" reported that they had previously confirmed the accuracy of the quote from Navarro-Valls when the story first broke. On CNN, John Allen reported Vatican sources who claim to have heard Dziwisz on other occasions affirm the accuracy of the quotation. On January 22, Navarro-Valls released the following official statement: "The film is a cinematographic transposition of the historical event of the Passion of Jesus Christ according to the accounts of the Gospel. It is a common practice of the Holy Father not to express public opinions on artistic works, opinions that are always open to different evaluations of aesthetic character." Allegations of antisemitism. Before the film was even released, there were prominent criticisms of perceived antisemitic content in the movie. 20th Century Fox told New York Assemblyman Dov Hikind they had passed on distributing the film in response to a protest outside the News Corp. building. Hikind warned other movie companies that "they should not distribute this film. This is unhealthy for Jews all over the world." A joint committee of the Secretariat for Ecumenical and Inter-religious Affairs of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops and the Department of Inter-religious Affairs of the Anti-Defamation League obtained a version of the script before it was released in theaters. They released a statement, calling it one of the most troublesome texts, relative to anti-Semitic potential, that any of us had seen in twenty-five years. It must be emphasized that the main storyline presented Jesus as having been relentlessly pursued by an evil cabal of Jews, headed by the high priest Caiaphas, who finally blackmailed a weak-kneed Pilate into putting Jesus to death. This is precisely the storyline that fueled centuries of anti-Semitism within Christian societies. This is also a storyline rejected by the Roman Catholic Church at Vatican II in its document "Nostra Aetate", and by nearly all mainline Protestant churches in parallel documents . . . . Unless this basic storyline has been altered by Mr. Gibson, a fringe Catholic who is building his own church in the Los Angeles area and who apparently accepts neither the teachings of Vatican II nor modern biblical scholarship, "The Passion of the Christ" retains a real potential for undermining the repudiation of classical Christian anti-Semitism by the churches in the last forty years. The ADL itself also released a statement about the yet to be released movie: For filmmakers to do justice to the biblical accounts of the passion, they must complement their artistic vision with sound scholarship, which includes knowledge of how the passion accounts have been used historically to disparage and attack Jews and Judaism. Absent such scholarly and theological understanding, productions such as "The Passion" could likely falsify history and fuel the animus of those who hate Jews. Rabbi Daniel Lapin, the head of the Toward Tradition organisation, criticized this statement, and said of Foxman, the head of the ADL, "what he is saying is that the only way to escape the wrath of Foxman is to repudiate your faith." In "The Nation", reviewer Katha Pollitt said, "Gibson has violated just about every precept of the (United States Conference of Catholic Bishops) conference's own 1988 "Criteria" for the portrayal of Jews in dramatizations of the Passion (no bloodthirsty Jews, no rabble, no use of Scripture that reinforces negative stereotypes of Jews, etc.) ... The priests have big noses and gnarly faces, lumpish bodies, yellow teeth; Herod Antipas and his court are a bizarre collection of oily-haired, epicene perverts. The "good Jews" look like Italian movie stars (Italian sex symbol Monica Bellucci is Mary Magdalene); Mary, who would have been around 50 and appeared 70, could pass for a ripe 35." Jesuit priest Fr. William Fulco, S.J., of Loyola Marymount University – and the film's Aramaic dialogue translator – specifically disagreed with that assessment, and disagreed with concerns that the film accused the Jewish community of deicide. When asked about this scene, Gibson said, "I wanted it in. My brother said I was wimping out if I didn't include it. But, man, if I included that in there, they'd be coming after me at my house. They'd come to kill me." In another interview when asked about the scene, he said, "It's one little passage, and I believe it, but I don't and never have believed it refers to Jews, and implicates them in any sort of curse. It's directed at all of us, all men who were there, and all that came after. His blood is on us, and that's what Jesus wanted. But I finally had to admit that one of the reasons I felt strongly about keeping it, aside from the fact it's true, is that I didn't want to let someone else dictate what could or couldn't be said." In the "New Republic", Leon Wieseltier said: "In its representation of its Jewish characters, "The Passion of the Christ" is without any doubt an anti-Semitic movie, and anybody who says otherwise knows nothing, or chooses to know nothing, about the visual history of anti-Semitism, in art and in film. What is so shocking about Gibson's Jews is how unreconstructed they are in their stereotypical appearances and actions. These are not merely anti-Semitic images; these are classically anti-Semitic images." Asked by Bill O'Reilly if his movie would "upset Jews", Gibson responded, "It's not meant to. I think it's meant to just tell the truth. I want to be as truthful as possible." In a "Globe and Mail" newspaper interview, he added, "If anyone has distorted Gospel passages to rationalize cruelty towards Jews or anyone, it's in defiance of repeated Papal condemnation. The Papacy has condemned racism in any form... Jesus died for the sins of all times, and I'll be the first on the line for culpability". Conservative columnist Cal Thomas also disagreed with allegations of anti-Semitism, saying "To those in the Jewish community who worry that the film ... might contain anti-Semitic elements, or encourage people to persecute Jews, fear not. The film does not indict Jews for the death of Jesus." Two Orthodox Jews, Rabbi Daniel Lapin and conservative talk-show host and author Michael Medved, also vocally rejected claims that the film is anti-Semitic. They have noted the film's many sympathetic portrayals of Jews: Simon of Cyrene (who helps Jesus carry the cross), Mary Magdalene, the Virgin Mary, St. Peter, St. John, Veronica (who wipes Jesus' face and offers him water), and several Jewish priests who protest Jesus' arrest during Caiaphas' trial of Jesus. Bob Smithouser of Plugged in Online believed that film was trying to convey the evils and sins of humanity rather than specifically targeting Jews, stating "The anthropomorphic portrayal of Satan as a player in these events brilliantly pulls the proceedings into the supernatural realm – a fact that should have quelled the much-publicized cries of anti-Semitism since it shows a diabolical force at work beyond any political and religious agendas of the Jews and Romans." Moreover, Senior Vatican officer Cardinal Darío Castrillón Hoyos, who has seen the film, addressed the matter so: Anti-Semitism, like all forms of racism, distorts the truth in order to put a whole race of people in a bad light. This film does nothing of the sort. It draws out from the historical objectivity of the Gospel narratives sentiments of forgiveness, mercy, and reconciliation. It captures the subtleties and the horror of sin, as well as the gentle power of love and forgiveness, without making or insinuating blanket condemnations against one group. This film expressed the exact opposite, that learning from the example of Christ, there should never be any more violence against any other human being. "South Park" parodied the controversy in the episodes "Good Times with Weapons", "Up the Down Steroid", and "The Passion of the Jew" all aired just a few weeks after the film's release in March 2004. Allegation of excessive violence. Several critics were troubled by the film's explicitly detailed violence, and especially cautioned parents to avoid taking their children to the cinema. Although only one sentence in three of the Gospels mentions Jesus's flogging, and it is unmentioned in the fourth, "The Passion of the Christ" devotes ten minutes to the portrayal of the flogging. Film critic Roger Ebert, who rated the movie four-out-of-four stars, said in his review: The movie is 126 minutes long, and I would guess that at least 100 of those minutes, maybe more, are concerned specifically and graphically with the details of the torture and death of Jesus. This is the most violent film I have ever seen. Ebert also mentioned that the R-rated film merits the MPAA NC-17 rating in a "Movie Answer Man" response, adding that no level-minded parent should ever allow children to see it. A. O. Scott, in "The New York Times", said, "'The Passion of the Christ' is so relentlessly focused on the savagery of Jesus' final hours that this film seems to arise less from love than from wrath, and to succeed more in assaulting the spirit than in uplifting it." David Edelstein, "Slate"'s film critic, dubbed the film "a two-hour-and-six-minute snuff movie – "The Jesus Chainsaw Massacre" – that thinks it's an act of faith", and further criticized Gibson for focusing on the brutality of Jesus' execution, instead of his religious teachings. During Diane Sawyer's interview of him, Gibson said: I wanted it to be shocking; and I wanted it to be extreme ... So that they see the enormity – the enormity of that sacrifice; to see that someone could endure that and still come back with love and forgiveness, even through extreme pain and suffering and ridicule. The actual crucifixion was more violent than what was shown on the film, but I thought no one would get anything out of it.
1057119	Suburban Commando is a 1991 American science fiction/comedy film, (with some action adventure elements) starring Hulk Hogan, Christopher Lloyd and Shelley Duvall. Burt Kennedy directed the film based on a screenplay by Frank Cappello. It was the veteran director's final film. The film was originally titled "Urban Commando", and was intended for Danny DeVito and Arnold Schwarzenegger. When these two opted to make "Twins" (1988), the script was bought by New Line Cinema as the follow-up to another Hulk Hogan film, "No Holds Barred" (1989). Plot. Interstellar warrior Shep Ramsey (Hulk Hogan) is on a mission to capture intergalactic despot General Suitor (William Ball). The general kidnapped President Hashina, the ruler of an entire planet. Shep boards Suitor's flagship but is unable to rescue Hashina, who is killed by Suitor. The general then turns into a berserk reptilian alien after being wounded. Shep barely escapes, but is able to blow up the ship as he does so. Due to his failure in saving the President, Shep's superior officer (Roy Dotrice) suggests that he is "stressed out" and should take a vacation. Annoyed, Shep accidentally smashes his control systems and is forced to crash land on Earth. He will have to stay until his spaceship repairs itself. He has little knowledge of Earth's customs, and his temper and sense of justice causes problems with everyone he meets, especially a mime artist he frequently runs into and tries to help such as getting him out of his 'invisible box'. Charlie Wilcox (Christopher Lloyd) is a weak-willed architect working for the fawning and hypocritical Adrian Beltz (Larry Miller). His wife Jenny (Shelley Duvall) unsuccessfully encourages him to stand up for himself. In order to help out financially, she rents out Charlie's hobby shed as a vacation cabin, which Shep leases. Shep's appearance and behaviour makes Charlie nervous and he begins to spy on his guest. He soon discovers Shep's advanced equipment. He turns the equipment on, not knowing that the power sources are traceable and it's whereabouts are now being tracked by Suitor's men. They send a pair of intergalactic bounty hunters after Shep. Shep also requires several rare crystals to fix his ship, the closest samples of which can be found in Beltz's office. Charlie helps Shep get into his boss's office during a party, but then the bounty hunters corner them. After winning a furious fight, Shep and Charlie head home to repair the ship. After the bounty hunters' defeat, Suitor, who had escaped the destruction of his ship, comes to Earth. He takes Charlie's family hostage, forcing Charlie to lead him to Shep. Suitor begins torturing Shep, enjoying himself before he kills the warrior. Finding his courage, Charlie injures Suitor, who then turns into his monstrous form. Physically outmatched, Shep is forced to set his ship to self-destruct and he and Charlie manage to escape the ship's explosion, which destroys Suitor for good. Shep leaves Earth using the bounty hunters' ship. He takes Beltz's secretary, Margie, with him, hoping for a quiet family life. Charlie, though, has become bolder from his experiences; he appears in Beltz's office the following morning, yelling at his boss in front of witnesses, and finally quits his thankless job. Later Charlie solves his final problem by using one of Shep's weapons to destroy an annoying set of traffic lights that never changed at the right time and receives cheers from the other motorists. Reception. The movie received mostly negative reviews. To date, the film holds a 20% on Rotten Tomatoes. Box office. The movie had a modest box office run. It opened with $12.5 million, which was followed by $5.5 million the second weekend and closed with $3 million. Overall, the film grossed a total of $21 million in the United States.
1058557	Miss Potter is a 2006 film directed by Chris Noonan. It is a biopic of children's author and illustrator Beatrix Potter, and combines stories from her own life with animated sequences featuring characters from her stories, such as Peter Rabbit. Scripted by Richard Maltby, Jr., the director of the Tony-winning Broadway revue, "Fosse", the film stars Renée Zellweger in the title role; Ewan McGregor as her publisher and fiancé, Norman Warne; and Lloyd Owen as solicitor William Heelis. Emily Watson stars as Warne's sister, Millie. Lucy Boynton also stars as the young Beatrix Potter. It was filmed in Cecil Court, Osterley Park, Covent Garden, the Isle of Man, Scotland and the Lake District. "Miss Potter" was released on 29 December 2006 so that the film could compete for the 2007 Academy Awards. The film was intended to be released generally on 12 January 2007, but Variety.com reported that the Weinstein Company had decided to push a wider release date until after the Academy Awards on February 25, 2007. The date seemed to fluctuate a number of times, but the Weinstein Company website ultimately listed its release date as March 9.
1082958	Female Vampire (originally made as "The Bare Breasted Countess") is a 1973 French-Belgian film directed, written and co-edited by Jesús Franco. The film is set in Europe and stars actress Lina Romay as Irina von Karlstein, a vampire who has sex with both male and female victims. In an unusual variation of the vampire myth, Karlstein performs oral sex on her victims until they die, draining them of their sexual fluids. Three versions of the film were shot --- straight horror, horror mixed with sex and the hardcore pornography version. Franco's original title for the film was "The Bare Breasted Countess", but it was released under many different titles over the years. The film was shown as "The Bare Breasted Countess" at the 2009 Fantastic Fest in the United States. The title was later changed to "Female Vampire" for its DVD release. Plot. The plot revolves around Countess Irina von Karlstein (played by Lina Romay), a mute woman who needs sex like a vampire needs blood in order to stay alive forever. When new victims are found fatally drained of potency, forensic scientist Dr. Roberts consults his colleague, Dr. Orloff, who confirms that a vampire is responsible. Meanwhile, Irina is confronted by a poet who believes he is destined to become her lover and join her among the immortals. Production. In director Jesús Franco's productions from 1972 and onward, his films became more inclined towards themes involving female sex and zoom in shots on female genitalia. After the death of Franco's previous preferred lead actress Soledad Miranda, he cast 18 year old actress Lina Romay as the Countess Irina. Romay was more open about her sexuality than Miranda, which allowed Franco to focus on his more sex-based themes in his films. Franco originally made three different versions of the film. The first was the straight vampire film "La comtesse noire" ("The Black Countess"), a horror-oriented sex film titled "La Comtesse aux seis nus" ("The Bare Breasted Countess"), and the hardcore pornography version "Les avaleuses" ("The Swallowers"). These films ran at 72 minutes, 82 minutes, and 96 minutes respectively. Franco felt that "Female Vampire" was an erotica film opposed to a pornographic film. Franco compared the use of sex in his films to the film "In the Realm of the Senses" by Japanese director Nagisa Oshima whose film contained sex with social and political commentary. Franco compared his film to Oshima's, stating "there are lots of hardcore shots but nobody would say 'Oh, it's a porno film!' No. It's a very important story. I felt in ["Female Vampire"] I did the same thing. There was a need to show it, like you must show how Dracula sucks his blood, you need to show how this Countess sucks the semen." Some scenes with the vampires were filmed twice in a traditional vampire film and another in a more graphic style. The film was edited by Franco and Ramon Ardid edited under combined pseudonym Pierre Querut. Release. Producers added hardcore pornography scenes to the film on some of its releases. The film has been released under several alternative English titles, including "Yacula", "Jacula", "Bare-Breasted Vampire", "The Bare Breasted Countess" and "Naked Vampire". The film was screened under the title "The Bare Breasted Countess" at the 2009 Fantastic Fest with Lina Romay and Franco in attendance. "Female Vampire" was released by Image Entertainment on DVD on August 8, 2000. The film was re-released on DVD and blu-ray disc by Kino International. The Kino release includes both a 72 minute "horror version" and a 104 minute "erotic version". Reception. Author Kim Newman referred to the film as "One of Franco's better films" as well noting that for Franco's fanbase it is "a masterpiece; to everyone else, wearisome tat." The online film database Allmovie gave the film one and a half stars out of five, but opined that the film "benefits from a haunting performance by Romay as the cursed vampire."
1247705	My Little Chickadee (1940) is a Universal comedy/western motion picture starring Mae West and W. C. Fields, with Joseph Calleia, Ruth Donnelly, Margaret Hamilton, Donald Meek, Willard Robertson, Dick Foran, George Moran, William B. Davidson, and Addison Richards. It was directed by Edward F. Cline. The original music was written by Ben Oakland (song "Willie of the Valley") and Frank Skinner. West reportedly wrote the original screenplay, with Fields contributing one extended scene set in a bar. Universal decided to give the stars equal screenplay credit, perhaps to avoid the appearance of favoritism, but the move incensed West, who declined to re-team with Fields afterwards. The stars spoofed themselves and the Western genre, with West providing a series of her trademark double entendres. Plot. The story is set in the American Old West of the 1880s. Miss Flower Belle Lee (Mae West) is a singer from Chicago who is on her way to visit relatives out west. While she is traveling on a stagecoach with three men and a woman named Mrs. Gideon (Margaret Hamilton), the town gossip and busybody, a masked bandit on horseback holds up the stage for its shipment of gold and orders the passengers to step out. The masked bandit immediately takes an interest in the saucy blonde. As he makes his getaway with the gold, he takes her with him. Upon reaching the town of Little Bend, the others report the robbery and kidnapping to the sheriff (William B. Davidson). Flower Belle then walks into town, unharmed, and explains, "I was in a tight spot but I managed to wriggle out of it." Later that evening, at the home of her Aunt Lou (Ruth Donnelly) and Uncle John (Willard Robertson), the masked bandit enters Flower Belle's second floor bedroom and they start kissing. However, his presence and departure is witnessed by Mrs. Gideon. She quickly reports what she has seen and Flower Belle angrily finds herself hauled up before the judge (Addison Richards). Flower Belle is then run out of Little Bend. She boards a train to Greasewood City. It makes an unscheduled stop to pick up con-man Cuthbert J. Twillie (W. C. Fields). When hostile Indians attack, Flower Belle saunters to a window and mows them down with two pistols, while Twillie dodges flying arrows and fights off the Indians with a child's slingshot. Flower Belle has little use for Twillie until she sees a stash of money in his bag. Believing him to be rich, she then plays up to him and they get acquainted. They have an impromptu wedding, officiated over by a passenger, Amos Budge (Donald Meek), a gambler who looks like a minister. As she has only pretended to marry Twillie for "respectability", Flower Belle gets a separate hotel room in Greasewood City. Meanwhile, Twillie is made sheriff by the saloon owner and town boss Jeff Badger (Joseph Calleia), who has an ulterior motive. Flower Belle attracts the attention of Badger, newspaper editor Wayne Carter (Dick Foran), and every other man in town. While keeping her troublesome "husband" out of reach and out of trouble, Flower Belle encounters the masked bandit again. One night, Twillie enters Flower Belle's room disguised as the masked bandit. He is accused of being the masked bandit, and is about to be hanged. With the noose around his neck, he makes his last request to the lynching party. "I'd like to see Paris before I die. Philadelphia will do!" However, Flower Belle saves Twillie. At one point, she and Badger had kissed, and from that, she recognizes that he is the masked bandit.
1038255	Simon Charles Pendered MacCorkindale (12 February 195214 October 2010) was a British actor, film director, writer and producer. MacCorkindale spent much of his childhood moving around due to his father's commission with the Royal Air Force. Poor eyesight prevented him following a similar career in the RAF, so he instead planned to become a theatre director. Training at the Theatre of Arts in London, MacCorkindale started work as an actor, making his West End debut in 1974. He went on to appear in numerous roles in television, including the series "I, Claudius" and "Jesus of Nazareth", before starring as Simon Doyle in the film "Death on the Nile" (1978). This proved to be a breakthrough role and allowed MacCorkindale to move to the United States, where he appeared in a variety of films and TV series including "Quatermass" (1979), "The Riddle of the Sands" (1979), "The Sword and the Sorcerer" (1982) and "Jaws 3-D" (1983). In 1983, MacCorkindale starred in the short-lived series "Manimal" as the lead character, Dr Jonathan Chase, before taking up the longer-running role of lawyer Greg Reardon in "Falcon Crest". Throughout the late 1980s and 1990s he directed and produced many stage, TV and film productions through his company Amy International Artists, such as the film "Stealing Heaven" (1988). Moving to Canada, MacCorkindale starred as Peter Sinclair in the series "Counterstrike" for three years. He returned to the UK in 2002 and joined the cast of the BBC medical drama "Casualty", appearing in the role of Harry Harper for six years until 2008. He married actress Susan George in 1984 and died of colorectal cancer in 2010. Early life. MacCorkindale was born on 12 February 1952 in Ely, Cambridgeshire, England, to Scottish parents Gilliver Mary (née Pendered) and Peter Bernard MacCorkindale OBE, who died in September 2007. He had a brother, Duncan, while his father was an RAF Group Captain station commander. MacCorkindale spent some of his childhood in Edinburgh, where his father was stationed for a period, although Peter MacCorkindale's changing postings necessitated 17 moves to places across Europe. As a result, he became an "independent" child. MacCorkindale attended Haileybury and Imperial Service College in Hertfordshire from 1965–70, where he was Head Boy and a member of the Air Training Corps. Originally intending to enlist in the RAF, he abandoned this plan at the age of 13 when his eyesight began to deteriorate. MacCorkindale considered joining the diplomatic corps to become an ambassador, but instead opted to become a stage director after developing an interest in theatre. MacCorkindale had been a fan of theatre since writing a play at the age of eight, joking that it was "unproduceable" because "it required an enormous cast and a considerable amount of rum drinking." Making his acting debut at the same age, he went on to appear on stage and work behind the scenes of numerous school and theatre group productions throughout his childhood. Persuading his parents that he would find a "sensible job" if a career as a director was not sustaining him financially by the age of 25, MacCorkindale decided not to study at university and instead attended the Studio 68 drama school at the Theatre of Arts in London. In his time at drama school, he took acting classes so that he "could better understand actors and, hopefully, be a more competent director." MacCorkindale opted to continue acting after graduating from the Theatre of Arts; he decided to amass more experience in the role in order to have better confidence as a director. Acting career. Early work (1973-1979). MacCorkindale started his acting career in theatre, touring the UK with a repertory theatre group. His first professional stage performance was in a 1973 run of "A Bequest to the Nation" at the Belgrade Theatre in Coventry. He made his West End theatre debut in a production of "Pygmalion" in 1974, starring alongside Alec McCowen and Diana Rigg in the role of "Sarcastic Bystander". In 1973, the series "Hawkeye, The Pathfinder" had given MacCorkindale his first TV credit. He went on to appear in a number of other TV series, including "Within These Walls", "Sutherland's Law", "I, Claudius" (as Lucius Caesar) and "Jesus of Nazareth". MacCorkindale's film debut came in 1974 with "Juggernaut". He was cast as Simon Doyle in the 1978 film adaptation of Agatha Christie's "Death on the Nile" at the age of 25. He became friends with co-star Bette Davis, reflecting, "There was a feeling of being in awe of these people but I had a certain amount of pioneer courage, so I didn't let it get to me. But there were days when I thought, 'I'm about to do a scene with this cinema legend, am I up to it?' But people were very gracious. I was never the whipping boy because I was less experienced." The role boosted MacCorkindale public profile and he considered it to be his career break. He won the London Evening Standard Film Award for Most Promising Newcomer for this part. MacCorkindale went on to star as sailor Arthur Davies in "The Riddle of the Sands" (1979). MacCorkindale played astronomer Joe Kapp in the fourth episode of Nigel Kneale's "Quatermass" TV serial (1979), starring alongside John Mills. He had previously starred in an episode of Kneale's series "Beasts" and enjoyed appearing in the role of Kapp, finding it a change from the typecast romantic roles that he had become accustomed to playing, while noting that it was "challenging" conveying the character's strong Jewish faith. Kneale later expressed disappointment with MacCorkindale's performance, commenting, "We had him in "Beasts" playing an idiot and he was very good at that". "Manimal", "Falcon Crest" and film roles (1980-1986). Following the success of "Death on the Nile", MacCorkindale moved to the United States in 1980. Although warned that it would limit his chance of finding work, MacCorkindale refused to adopt an American accent when auditioning, believing that his British diction would help fill a "niche". However, for two years he failed at the audition stage for all major parts on account of his nationality. The American Broadcasting Company (ABC) told MacCorkindale that he was not an "eight o'clock actor", which he took to mean that "at that time of night they didn't want viewers watching someone who sounded intellectual or who had an accent that was alien to their ears and, therefore, hard work when it came to listening." During this time he appeared in single-episode roles in series such as "Dynasty", "Fantasy Island", "Hart to Hart", "Matt Houston" and "The Dukes of Hazzard", as well as playing David Clement, an aristocrat, in the mini-series "Manions of America". He was eventually cast in the adventure series "Manimal" for NBC in 1983, in which he played the lead character Professor Jonathan Chase, an Englishman who assists police in the fight against crime with his ability to transform into animals. The role impressed MacCorkindale, who considered Chase to be a "very cerebral individual". He also "found himself in the first wave of UK stars to make it big in America," along with Joan Collins in "Dynasty", which led to a further influx of British actors finding work in the US. Filming on "Manimal" would often run for as much as 14 to 16 hours per day, and MacCorkindale would sometimes be required to work at weekends to be made up with the prosthetics necessary for "Manimal"s transformation sequences. The low ratings that resulted in the cancellation of "Manimal" after one season and eight episodes was in part due to NBC broadcasting the series at the same time as "Dallas" on CBS, "Manimal" losing out to the more popular "soap". Budget cuts also contributed to the series' cancellation as it was the network's most expensive series. "Manimal" has since acquired a global cult following. In 1984, he was cast as Angela Channing's (Jane Wyman) lawyer Greg Reardon in the soap opera "Falcon Crest", without requiring an audition. MacCorkindale asked for the character, originally an American named Brad, to be rewritten as English, and also directed one episode. He rejected a contract extension after appearing in 59 episodes and left the series in 1986 because he "felt that the work I was doing was fun and lucrative but not as stretching as I felt I wanted or needed. I also was finding fault with much of the work, not only "Falcon Crest", but everything. I was actually ready to quit acting and try producing so I could put myself on the line." MacCorkindale appeared in the films "Caboblanco" (1980) and "The Sword and the Sorcerer" (1982, as Prince Mikah), and starred as Philip FitzRoyce in the third part of the "Jaws" film series, "Jaws 3-D" (1983). In the mid-1980s, MacCorkindale was considered for the role of James Bond as a possible successor to actors Sean Connery and Roger Moore, but was not cast. "Jaws 3-D" proved to be his last major film role. "Counterstrike" and other Canadian projects (1990-2000). In the 1990s, MacCorkindale returned to acting after a hiatus in which he had focused on production work. He appeared in a number of projects in Canada, which he felt "could be at the crossroads of international production." From 1990 to 1993, MacCorkindale played former Scotland Yard inspector Peter Sinclair in the Toronto-filmed USA Network series "Counterstrike", alongside Christopher Plummer. He was offered the part by producer Robert Lantos, who wanted to work with MacCorkindale while for his part the actor wished to return to acting after three years running Amy International. With production complete on several episodes, feeling that the show was "too plot-driven rather than character-driven", MacCorkindale thereafter became a writer for the series. He was appointed an executive production consultant that ensured that he "could make quicker [on-set] judgments on behalf of the production." Following "Counterstrike", MacCorkindale appeared in the final episode of the TV drama "E.N.G.", whereafter his "media tycoon" character was planned to be the star of a spin-off alongside actress Sara Botsford, but the project was abandoned. He starred in numerous TV films throughout the 1990s, including a part as the villain in "The Girl Next Door". MacCorkindale was glad to "gradually to villains" as "that's more fun than [playing the straitlaced hero." MacCorkindale also reprised the role of Dr Chase from "Manimal" in an episode of "Night Man" in 1998, which incorporated computer-generated imagery for the transformations as opposed to prosthetic makeup, and also directed an episode of the series. Other appearances included the TV series "" and the 2000 TV film "The Dinosaur Hunter". "Casualty" and final roles (2002-2010). Having rejected an offer to play Captain Jonathan Archer in the American science-fiction TV series "", MacCorkindale returned to the UK in 2002 and joined the cast of the BBC One medical drama "Casualty", in the role of clinical lead consultant Harry Harper. Following his casting, he said in an interview with the "Daily Record" that he was a long-time fan of the series, commenting that it was "great to be joining an established show with a great bunch of people." In contrast, Neil Bonner of the "Liverpool Daily Post" quoted him as stating that he had never seen an episode of the show in its then-16-year history. MacCorkindale was surprised to be offered the role of Harper given the many years that he had spent working in North America, but having settled in Exmoor found Bristol to be an accessible production base. MacCorkindale was "never too comfortable as a young actor" and "always felt that best time in the business would be around [the age of 50." Wanting to return to a TV acting role, he signed on for "Casualty". MacCorkindale commented that he "loved time on "Casualty"," and spent time researching all the medical terminology that his character used to ensure that he understood it. He also appeared as Harper in the "Casualty" spin-off series "Holby City" and "Casualty@Holby City". Many reviewers were disparaging of MacCorkindale's performances in "Casualty": Rupert Smith of "The Guardian" deemed MacCorkindale "fantastically wooden", while fellow "Guardian" journalists Sarah Dempster and Jim Shelley commented on MacCorkindale's "loud" delivery of his lines. Shelley described the character of Harper as a "human Foghorn Leghorn", while according to Dempster, "Casualty" was "above all [... about Simon MacCorkindale, shouting. Then panting, alarmingly, as he peers through some blinds. And then shouting again." In January 2007, MacCorkindale was given a five-month sabbatical from "Casualty" because a plotline required that his character be temporarily removed from the series. He took the opportunity to tour the UK in a revival of the Agatha Christie murder mystery play "The Unexpected Guest". He then returned to "Casualty", but having re-discovered his "taste" for theatre, left the series permanently in 2008 to appear as Andrew Wyke in a UK tour Anthony Shaffer's "Sleuth". By the time that MacCorkindale quit "Casualty", he had appeared in 229 episodes of the series. In August 2008, he replaced Simon Burke as Captain Georg Ludwig von Trapp in the London Palladium production of "The Sound of Music", remaining with the show until its closure in February 2009. After small parts in the films "13 Hrs" and "A Closed Book", he returned to TV as Sir David Bryant in the 2010 series of "New Tricks", in what proved to be his final TV appearance. Production work. MacCorkindale produced, directed and wrote a number of film, television and theatre productions throughout his career. In the 1980s, he directed three performances of the play "Sleuth", starring Douglas Fairbanks Jr., Howard Keel and James Whitmore, and a Los Angeles production of "The Merchant of Venice", and starred in the one-man show "The Importance of Being Oscar" at the Globe Playhouse in 1981. After his departure from "Falcon Crest", MacCorkindale returned to the UK in 1986 to form a production company. The following year, he established Amy International Artists, based at Shepperton Studios, with his wife Susan George, and also Anglo Films International. He subsequently directed, wrote and produced a number of projects for Amy International, including the 1988 film "Stealing Heaven" (concerning the medieval French philosopher Abelard and his passion for Heloise), and the 1989 film "Djavolji Raj" ("That Summer of White Roses"), which stars George and features romantic theme music composed by MacCorkindale. MacCorkindale and George purchased the rights to each project because they wished to "make the pictures that we just totally and literally believe in", regardless of their commercial success. Working in partnership with Chris Bryant, MacCorkindale wrote and directed the TV film "The House That Mary Bought" in 1995, and with Paul Stephens co-produced the 1998 film "Such a Long Journey", for which he was nominated for the Genie Award for Best Motion Picture. MacCorkindale then wrote the screenplay for a biopic of the missing peer Lord Lucan, which he also planned to produce and act in, although financial problems resulted in the cancellation of the project in 1996. He served as co-executive producer for the 2000 syndicated TV series "Queen of Swords", and as co-producer for the 2002 series "Adventure Inc.". MacCorkindale also co-produced the third season of "Relic Hunter" in 2002. Personal life. MacCorkindale was married twice. His first wife was actress Fiona Fullerton; the couple married in 1976 and divorced in 1982. Following his divorce from Fullerton, MacCorkindale began a relationship with actress Susan George, whom he had first met in 1977; they married secretly in Fiji on 5 October 1984, and later held a second ceremony with family and friends in Berkshire, England. They had no children. With George, MacCorkindale lived on and managed an Arabian stud farm based in Exmoor. Death. MacCorkindale was diagnosed with bowel cancer in 2006, and underwent an operation to remove a section of his bowel during a two-week break from filming "Casualty". Although the cancer was excised and MacCorkindale went into remission following the surgery, one year later doctors discovered that the cancer had metastasised to his lungs. MacCorkindale continued to act during his treatment, returning to film his final series of "Casualty" in late 2007; he did not disclose his illness to his colleagues, and found it surreal when scripts required his character to inform patients that they had cancer or another incurable disease. MacCorkindale spent much of his fortune on private cancer treatment in the United States, with limited success. In November 2009, he publicly revealed that the disease was terminal, and died on 14 October 2010 at a clinic in London.
582645	Aashiq Banaya Aapne is a Bollywood film starring Emraan Hashmi, Sonu Sood and Tanushree Dutta. It was released on 2 September 2005. The film marked the debut of actress Tanushree Dutta. The film was shot under the banner Shagun Film Creations. Both the film and the music became a success. Plot. Karan (Sonu Sood) loves Sneha (Tanushree Dutta), but is too much of an introvert to ever express his feelings to her. Although Karan's feelings are evident to many, he is content in just seeing Sneha smile and never gathers the courage to tell her how he feels. On an occasion Karan invites Sneha to a party where she meets the charming and mischievous Vicky. Vicky (Emraan Hashmi) is Karan's childhood friend. The exact opposite of Karan, Vicky is an extrovert and a notorious flirt. All three's lives change, when Vicky joins Karan and Sneha in college, and Sneha begins feeling drawn towards Vicky.
1677407	Leopold Vietoris (; ; 4 June 1891 – 9 April 2002) was an Austrian mathematician and a World War I veteran. He was born in Radkersburg and died in Innsbruck. He was known for his contributions to topology—notably the Mayer-Vietoris sequence—and other fields of mathematics, his interest in mathematical history and for being a keen alpinist. Vietoris attended the University of Vienna, where he earned his Ph.D in 1920. Biography. He studied mathematics and geometry at the Technical University in Vienna. Vietoris was drafted in 1914 in World War I and was wounded in September that same year. On 4 November 1918, one week before the Armistice of Villa Giusti, he became an Italian prisoner of war. In autumn 1928 he married his first wife Klara Riccabona, who later died while giving birth to their sixth daughter. In 1936 he married Klara's sister, Maria Riccabona. With his wife Maria Josefa Vincentia, born von Riccabona zu Reichenfels (18 July 1901 – 24 March 2002), dying at age 100, they became one of the eldest couples of the world, having the seventh-highest aggregate age of a married couple (total combined age). Their combined age at the end of their marriage, 211 years and 177 days, is the second highest on record. Vietoris died two weeks after her death. Vietoris was survived by his six daughters, 17 grandchildren, and 30 great-grandchildren. He lends his name to a few mathematical concepts: Vietoris lived to be 110 years and 309 days old, and became the oldest verified Austrian man ever.
1034152	Bruce Boa (10 July 1930 – 17 April 2004) was a Canadian actor, who found success playing the token North American in British films and television. Biography. Boa's most prominent film role is probably in "", in which he played General Rieekan. He is also remembered as the pogue colonel in "Full Metal Jacket" that chastises Mathew Modine's character over a peace pin on the lapel while having "Born To Kill" written on his combat helmet. Other film credits include: "The Omen", "Superman", "Carry On Emmannuelle", "Silver Dream Racer", "Octopussy", "Return to Oz", and "Screamers".
1300289	My Name Is Modesty is a 2004 American action film that was released direct-to-DVD. The film is based on the early years of the character Modesty Blaise, a former crime boss turned secret agent. This is the third production that brings Peter O'Donnell's character Modesty Blaise to the screen, following the feature film "Modesty Blaise" with Monica Vitti in 1966 and the TV pilot "Modesty Blaise" with Ann Turkel in 1982. Premise. The film stars British actress Alexandra Staden as Modesty and chronicles a crucial event in the character's life some time prior to the start of the comic strip. As such, it omits the key character of Willie Garvin, Modesty's companion throughout the run of the original comic strip and the 30-year series of spin-off novels and short stories published by O'Donnell. Plot. Modesty Blaise is working as a croupier in a casino in Tangier. A group of violent criminals assassinate her employer and enter the casino shooting staff and demanding entry to the casino's safe. Modesty delays her retaliation and retribution as she protects the lives of her staff. When the criminals kill the only person who can open the safe, Modesty arranges for a fellow employee to arrive who has the password for the computer that holds the details of the entry to the vault. As the criminals and their captives await the individual, Modesty takes on the leader of the criminals at the game of roulette. They agree that if she wins twice in a row a captive sworn to not tell what happened is released; when she loses she has to tell the truth about her background to the leader of the criminals who has become fascinated by her. She relates her life story little by little in the manner of Scheherazade.
1303650	Mark Adler (born April 3, 1959) may be best known for his work in the field of data compression. Adler is the author of the Adler-32 checksum function, a co-author of the zlib compression library and gzip, has contributed to Info-ZIP, and has participated in developing the Portable Network Graphics (PNG) image format. Adler was also the Spirit Mission Manager for the Mars Exploration Rover mission. Biography. Adler was born in Miami, Florida, the only child of David and Bertha Adler. Adler earned his Bachelor of Science in mathematics and Master of Science in electrical engineering degrees from the University of Florida in 1981 and 1985, respectively. In 1990, Adler earned his Ph.D. in physics from the California Institute of Technology. Living in La Cañada, California, he lives with Diana St. James, and they have two children, Joshua and Zachary. Diana both works at the California Institute of Technology as well as acts in and directs theatrical performances. Career. Post-doctoral. After his doctorate, Adler worked for Hughes Aircraft in their Space and Communications Group, working on diverse projects including the analysis of the effects of X-ray bursts on satellite cables, development of new error-correcting codes, designing an automobile anti-theft key, and digital image and video compression research (wavelets and MPEG-2). Mars exploration. From 1992 through 1995, Adler was the Lead Mission Engineer on the Cassini–Huygens mission. Afterwards, he became the Mars Exploration Program Architect at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) from 1996 through 1998, which meant that Adler was responsible for planning the Mars exploration missions from 2001 on as well as handling inter-project engineering issues for missions in flight and in development during the time. In 1999 and early 2000, Adler was the Mission and Systems Manager and Chief Engineer for the Mars Sample Return project, which was to launch three missions in 2003 and 2005 to bring Martian samples back to Earth in 2008. The project was canceled after the failure of Mars Polar Lander. Mars Exploration Rover mission. Adler initiated and led a three and a half week study on the concept that was later selected as the Mars Exploration Rover (MER) mission for 2003. He has served as the Deputy Mission System Manager, the Acting Project Engineer, the Deputy Assembly, Test, and Launch Operations Manager, the Landing Site Selection Engineer, and the Spirit Mission Manager. Personal interests. Adler is an instrument-rated private pilot, a certified scuba diver, and an amateur theater actor.
1141798	Evan Olav Næss (born August 26, 1988) is an American actor and musician. He is the son of entertainer Diana Ross. He is the half-brother of actresses Rhonda Ross Kendrick and Tracee Ellis Ross, and of singer Leona Naess. He began acting in the late 2000s, appearing in the films "ATL" and "Pride". Evan released his first single in February 2011, called "Yes Me". Early life. Ross was born Evan Olav Næss on August 26, 1988, in Greenwich, Connecticut, to entertainer Diana Ross and Norwegian businessman and mountaineer, Arne Næss, Jr. He has three-half sisters from his mother (Tracee Ellis Ross, Rhonda Ross Kendrick and Chudney Ross), three half-brothers and two half-sisters from his father (Christoffer, Nicklas, Louis, Leona Næss and Katinka) and only one brother from both (Ross Næss). In 2004, Ross's father was killed in a climbing accident while in South Africa. Acting career. Ross began his career as an actor while in high school where he met his first friend, Prenusia Morgen. His first major role was in the film, "ATL", released in March 2006, in which he co-starred with rappers T.I. and Big Boi. Ross received rave reviews for his role as a troubled teenager in "Life Support", along with Queen Latifah and Tracee Ellis Ross, who portrayed Evan's elder sister in the movie and is his real life sister. Ross later co-starred in the biography, "Pride", in which he portrayed a good natured teen with a speech impediment. He also appeared (uncredited on-screen) in episode 171 of Girlfriends. The episode, titled "What's Black-A-Lackin'?", also had Chrisette Michele as a guest star, and was directed by Tracee Ellis Ross. Ross is involved in several other movies, including Linewatch with Cuba Gooding, Jr. in 2008, and he finished a role in the indie film "Life Is Hot in Cracktown". He starred as the love interest of Hilary Duff's character in the 2009 comedy drama "According to Greta". He also appeared in the Notorious B.I.G. 2005 video Nasty Girl and the Lionel Richie video "Just Go". In 2010, Ross joined the cast of the CW series 90210 in its third season, where he plays Liam Court's (Matt Lanter) half brother and love interest to Annie Wilson played by Shenae Grimes. His next high profile 2011 film is the critically acclaimed film festival winner, "Mooz-lum" that also stars Danny Glover and Nia Long. According to IMDB, he has 21 film projects in various stages of production. He will be starring alongside Brittany Snow in the thriller "96 Minutes". The was released April 27, 2012 in select cities. Evan won the "Breakout Acting" award at SXSW. Evan has been cast to portray music producer, Dallas Austin in the upcoming VH1 biopic, "TLC", about the 1990s girl group. In the upcoming (Parts 1 and 2), scheduled for release in 2014 and 2015, respectively, Ross was cast as Messalla. Music career. In 2007, Ross began recording his debut album, which will encompass R&B and pop. After four years in the studio, Evan released his single "Yes Me" in February 25, 2011 which was produced by Tony DeNiro & written by them together.
1713548	Paagal Premi () is a 2007 Indian Oriya film directed by Hara Patnaik .This is a remake of Telugu hit movie Arya. Plot. Surya (Sabyasachi mishra) and Gitanjali (Arpita) are smart college students. Surya falls in love with Gitanjali at first sight. Ajay (Sukanta) is a spoilt brat and is the son of local M.L.A. Abinash (Pradyumna Lenka).Ajay likes Gitanjali and thus proposes to her. When Gitanjali refuses, Ajay threatens that he will jump from the college roof top. Being a meek girl, Gitanjali accepts the proposal and starts dating Ajay.
584325	Mayandi Kudumbathar () is a 2009 Indian Tamil film written and directed by Rasu Madhuravan, who directed Poomagal Oorvalam and Paandi previously. Starring 10 Tamil film directors, including Manivannan, Seeman, Tarun Gopi and Ponvannan, in lead and supporting roles. The film, scored by Sabesh-Murali and filmed by Balabharani, was released on 5 June 2009, going on to become successful at the box office. Plot. Manivannan (Mayandi) and G M Kumar (Virumandi) are brothers who gets split following a property dispute. The latter and his sons are keen to take revenge on Mayandi and his wards. They often cross swords with each other, but a good samaritan Mayandi prevents the inevitable from happening. Mayandi showers all his love and affection on his younger son (Paraman) and his elder brothers (Pon Vannan, Seeman and Jagan) too care for him a lot. However after Mayandhi's death, life takes a turn and their wives starts to treat Paraman as a dirt. Fearing a catastrophe in the family because of him, Paraman decides to go away. Adding fuel to fire in his life is his girl friend's unexpected wedding with someone else. However he realises his father's dream of completing his higher education and getting employed in a big firm. Now enters the family of Virumandi to settle scores with Paraman and his brothers. Did they succeed form the climax.
1064482	The Cowboys is a 1972 Western motion picture starring John Wayne, Roscoe Lee Browne, Slim Pickens, A Martinez and Bruce Dern. Robert Carradine makes his film debut with fellow child actor Stephen R. Hudis. It was filmed at various locations in New Mexico, Colorado and at Warner Brothers Studio in Burbank, California. Based on the novel by William Dale Jennings, the screenplay was written by Irving Ravetch, Harriet Frank, Jr., and Jennings, and directed by Mark Rydell.
582342	Biwi No.1 is a 1999 Bollywood comedy film directed by David Dhawan. It stars Salman Khan, Karisma Kapoor, Sushmita Sen, Anil Kapoor and Tabu. Saif Ali Khan has a special appearance. It is remake of the 1995 Tamil film "Sathi Leelavathi". "Biwi No.1" was the biggest Bollywood hit of 1999. Plot. Prem (Salman Khan) is a man who is married to Pooja (Karishma Kapoor) with two kids. He gets involved in a roaring affair with an aspiring model, Rupali (Sushmita Sen). He prefers her to his wife because Rupali is modern and wears fashionable clothes. On Karva Chauth, Pooja discovers him at Rupali's house and asks him to choose between his mistress and her. He moves in with Rupali.
585668	Arabikkatha (Malayalam: അറബിക്കഥ, ) is a 2007 Malayalam language film directed by Lal Jose and written by Ikbal Kuttipuram. The film was a critical success and a commercial success in India and the United Arab Emirates. It deals with differences within the Communist movement, and was produced against a background of real-life splits in the ruling Communist Party in Kerala state, India. Plot summary. The film narrates the story of "Cuba" Mukundan (Sreenivasan) . He is a staunch leftist who lives for the movement. Machinations of a corrupt politician Karunan who perceives Mukundan as a threat to his political career force Mukundan to take up a job in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Even in Dubai, he finds that Kunjunny Muthalaly who was in league with Karunan is in Dubai, exploiting the helpless labourers who migrate to the Gulf performing menial jobs and physical labor in order to support their families back home. He has always had a soft corner for People's Republic of China as a result of his leftist leanings and when he meets Zhang Chu Min, a Chinese girl, she quickly finds a special place in his heart as she symbolizes China to him. Later even after realising that she is an anti communists and is there to make money for the treatment of her boyfriend who fought against the Chinese Government, he gives her his earnings saying a communist never keeps money more than his requirements. Mukundan, with the help of his friends Anwar, Maya, and Karim, exposes the machinations of Karunan and Kunjunny Muthalaly. Finally Mukundan returns home to work for the political cause which has been his life and love.
1065788	The Next Three Days is a 2010 vigilante thriller film directed by Paul Haggis and starring Russell Crowe and Elizabeth Banks. It was released in the United States on November 19, 2010 and was filmed on location in Pittsburgh. It is a remake of the 2008 French film "Pour Elle" ("Anything for Her") by Fred Cavayé and Guillaume Lemans. Plot. Lara Brennan (Banks) is convicted of murdering her boss after an altercation at work and is sentenced to life in prison. Following the failure of her appeal, Lara's husband John Brennan (Crowe), a professor at a community college, becomes obsessed with the idea of breaking her out of jail, while their son Luke ceases to acknowledge her during their prison visits. John, intent to break her out, consults Damon Pennington (Neeson), a former convict who successfully escaped from prison seven times and wrote an autobiography about it. Damon, although reluctant, advises John to study the prison where his wife is, saying "every prison has a key". Damon tells John to ask himself if he can "be that guy" who knocks over an old lady or shoots a cop if it's the difference between escape and getting caught. Damon also warns him that the initial escape from the prison will be easy compared with avoiding capture after the escape, and explains what to do: To ensure her escape, he hatches several plans; he obtains a handgun and learns to use it, and obtains false passports and new social security numbers. He also takes a map of Pittsburgh and studies it to find shortcuts and places to escape out of the city under 15, and wide area under 35 minutes. To obtain the money, he robs a drug lord and sets his meth lab on fire before fleeing the scene. He then falsifies and plants blood work results indicating that his wife is in a state of hyperkalaemia, so she is transferred to the hospital. He follows the ambulance and helps her escape although she is doubtful and reluctant, motivated only by the idea of her son being raised without either parent.
688934	Karin Victoria Silvstedt (born 19 September 1974) is a Swedish model, actress, singer, and television personality. Early life. Born in Skelleftehamn, Silvstedt was raised in a family of five in Bollnäs, having one older sister and one younger brother. She was keen on horseback riding and wanted to become a veterinarian. Silvstedt's father was the captain of a local ski team, and she started alpine skiing at the age of five. In 1989, Silvstedt placed fourth at a youth championship in the giant slalom won by Pernilla Wiberg. However, an accident in the middle of a skiing competition where she injured her shoulder ended Silvstedt's competitive skiing career at the age of 16. A few years later, Silvstedt was invited to participate in the Miss Sweden beauty pageant, after her mother and sister had sent some pictures of her to the pageant officials. Career. Modeling. Silvstedt participated in the Miss Sweden beauty pageant, and she was chosen to represent her country in the 1993 Miss World pageant in Sun City, South Africa, eventually making the Top 10. Silvstedt was signed up by a modeling agency in Paris, and she started working for various prestigious fashion houses, including Chanel, Christian Dior, Giorgio Armani, Givenchy, Loris Azzaro, and Valentino, appearing in advertisements and fashion shows. Silvstedt was soon noticed by Hugh Hefner, who invited her to do a photo shoot for "Playboy" magazine in Los Angeles. She became the December 1996 Playmate of the Month, and was then chosen as the 1997 Playmate of the Year. Silvstedt has since appeared in various "Playboy" magazines, including "Playboy Special Editions", as well as "Playboy Videos". In the late 1990s, Silvstedt landed one of the most sought-after modeling contracts in the world, becoming the Guess? spokesmodel, succeeding among others Claudia Schiffer and Anna Nicole Smith. In the 2000s and 2010s, Silvstedt has continued modeling internationally, appearing in numerous magazines, including "FHM", "Glamour", "GQ", "Hello!", "Maxim" and "Vanity Fair", working for various brands such as Lynx, Nike, Renault and Triumph International, and being the cover star for the re-issued Russ Meyer DVDs. She has been featured on over 500 magazine covers. Acting. Silvstedt has worked as an actress since the late 1990s, when she appeared in Hollywood television series such as "Malibu, CA" and "Melrose Place". Since then, Silvstedt has also appeared in a number of Hollywood comedy films, including "BASEketball", "The Independent", "Out Cold", and "Boat Trip". Silvstedt has also appeared as a guest actress on "Ocean Ave.", a Miami-based soap opera, broadcast in Sweden and Florida. Silvstedt has also starred in films and television series in various European countries, especially in Italy. As a leading actress, she has appeared in Italian films such as "La mia vita a stelle e strisce" and "Un maresciallo in gondola", in which she played Kim Novak. She has also had supporting roles in films like "Un'estate al mare" and "Matrimonio alle Bahamas". In 2010, Silvstedt starred in "Just for the Record", a British mockumentary, starring also Steven Berkoff among others (Tagline: "They made the worst film of all time... let the trial begin"). She also had a small role in the French film "Heartbreaker", starring Romain Duris and Vanessa Paradis. As for theatre, Silvstedt has appeared in the Off Broadway production, "Pieces (of Ass)", during its stay in Los Angeles in 2004. Presenting. Silvstedt has been presenting numerous television shows and television specials all around the world since the 1990s. She has hosted entertainment shows such as "Candid Camera" on CBS, "Eurotrash" on Channel 4, and "Wild On!" on E!, and appeared as a presenter in various awards shows, including NRJ and World Music Awards. She has also served as a celebrity judge on "Project Catwalk", the British reality television series focusing on fashion design. In 2006, Silvstedt started working as a hostess of "La Roue de la Fortune" in France and "La Ruota Della Fortuna" in Italy. Both of the shows are based on the popular American game show "Wheel of Fortune", and Silvstedt divided her time between Paris and Rome, filming one of the shows for one month at a time, until 2009, when the Italian version was cancelled. As of 2012, Silvsted is no longer part of the French version either. In 2010, Silvstedt hosted her own television show "Sport by Victoria" on Eurosport during the 2010 Winter Olympics. The light-hearted programme introduced different winter sports, and it was done both in English and French. Since 2011, Silvstedt has also hosted numerous "Le grand bêtisier" television specials on TF1 in France, including the Christmas special "Le grand bêtisier de Noël", which attracted over three million viewers and an audience share of 32.7 percent on Christmas Eve 2011. Singing. Silvstedt released her dance music album "Girl on the Run" through the EMI label in 1999. Three singles, "Hello Hey", "Rocksteady Love", and "Party Line", were also released to support the album sales, and the album went gold in Sweden. In 2010, Silvstedt released her fourth single called "Saturday Night", a Whigfield cover. Silvstedt has said she loves singing, but it is just a hobby, and that she cannot see herself making a full-time career out of it. Designing. Having an interest in fashion design, Silvstedt launched her own lingerie collection Very Victoria Silvstedt at London Fashion Week in 2006. The Very Victoria Silvstedt brand was then officially launched for retail in collaboration with the Marie Meili brand in Paris in 2013. Reality TV. Silvstedt debuted with her own reality television series "Victoria Silvstedt: My Perfect Life" on E! in 2008. The show has since been aired all around the world, including Europe, Asia, Australia, and the Americas. The first season covers Silvstedt's personal and work life, following her to St. Tropez, Monaco, Cannes, Paris, Rome, London, Helsinki, Stockholm, Los Angeles, and New York. Silvstedt also visits her family in Northern Sweden, where she grew up, spending time with her childhood friends, horseback riding et cetera. Autobiography. Silvstedt published her autobiography "Les Secrets de Victoria. Dans la Tête de Victoria Silvstedt" (Jean-Claude Gawsewitch Éditeur), co-written with journalist Christelle Crosnier, in France in 2010. In her book, Silvstedt talks about her childhood, upbringing, training to become a professional alpine skier, and a serious accident that changed her plans for the future. She reminisces her start in the world of modeling after becoming a finalist in the Miss World beauty pageant in South Africa, arriving alone in Paris, without money, trying to make a name for herself. She tells how she made her way to Los Angeles to work with "Playboy", eventually becoming the magazine's Playmate of the Year, before landing even more lucrative modelling job with Guess?. Then, Silvstedt found herself working as an actress in Hollywood television series and movies as well as in various European countries, especially in Italy. She also made a career out of television presenting worldwide, and has released an album and several singles during the years. Personal. Silvstedt met Chris Wragge in 1997, when he interviewed her for "Entertainment Tonight". They were engaged on Christmas Eve 1998, and married in 2000. Silvstedt and Wragge lived in Santa Monica and Houston for several years, before moving to New York's SoHo district in 2004. They separated in 2007 but have not divorced. According to the Finnish broadsheet newspaper "Keskisuomalainen", Silvstedt earns millions of dollars every year for her work in modelling, television presenting, and promoting various brands and products. Silvstedt speaks English, French, and Italian, in addition to her native language Swedish.
586651	Nikita Anand is an Indian model, actress and former beauty queen. Early life. Nikita was born to a Punjabi family in Jalandhar, Punjab. Her father is Brigadier S.S. Anand, a doctor in the Indian Army; his frequent transfers led to Nikita studying in different schools (St. Mary's Pune, Maharashtra; Bishop Westcott Girls' School, Ranchi, Jharkhand; Cathedral and John Connon, Mumbai; and NIFT, Delhi). She also has a brother, Jasneet Anand, who is three years elder to her. Personal life. Anand is a collector of watches. "I love watches but very rarely do I find a piece that appeals to my sensibilities. I am always on the look-out for high-end watches. I would love to add more, but it just doesn’t happen very often," she said. Her favourites in her collection are her IWC and Guess watches. Anand also loves shopping destinations Milan, Kuala Lumpur and Dubai. She is now the member of International Women's Film Forum of AAFT. Career. Anand began participating in beauty pageants at an early stage, and was crowned as Miss Ranchi at the age of 13. She went on a dietary regime when she was in class 10. While being a second-year student of NIFT Delhi, she won the Femina Miss India contest in 2003. Her final question in the contest was whether she thinks that forgiveness is better said than done, to which she answered "To err is human, to forgive divine, and we have to forgive and move on to make life better." She was crowned by preceding winner Neha Dhupia, and given the chance to represent India at the Miss Universe pageant in Panama City, Panama. However, she failed to place, breaking India's 11-year streak of placing in the Top 10 from 1992 to 2002. At the Miss Universe contest, her national costume and ethnic dresses were designed by Ritu Kumar, while Ashley Rebello put together her evening gown and western outfits. She was also helped by Dr. Sandesh Mayekar (dental care), Dr. Jamuna Pai (skin care), Bharat and Doris Godambe (hair and make-up), Dr. Anjali Mukherjee (diet), Finesse Shoes, New Delhi (shoes), Sabira Merchant (speech and diction), and IDEA (Integrated Dance Exercise Academy, physical fitness). After doing stints of modeling for print, walking the ramp, and anchoring shows on fast cars and cricket on television, she debuted in Bollywood in the film "Dil Dosti Etc". Her co-star in the movie was Shreyas Talpade and she played the role of Prerna, an outgoing college student. Although the movie received mixed to negative reviews, her performance was appreciated by Taran Adarsh, who went on to say that she has the trappings of a fine actress. She then signed "Ek Second... Jo Zindagi Badal De?" and Nileish Malhotra's "Monopoly - The Game Of Money" where she worked with Manisha Koirala and Zeenat Aman respectively. While the former was released in 2010, and received negative reviews, the latter has been delayed.
581754	Shenaz Treasurywala () (sometimes spelled Treasuryvala) or Shenaz Treasury (born June 29, 1981) is an Indian model, travel writer, and actress. Discovered by a photographer during her first year in college, her first modelling assignment was for the soft drink Gold Spot. She also did advertising work for Akai and Philips before MTV Networks Asia hired her to work as a VJ on the "MTV's Most Wanted" program.
590232	Rudranil Ghosh (; born 6 January 1973) is an Indian Bengali actor of TV and films. Education. He graduated from the Narasinha Dutt College, of the University of Calcutta. Workshop Productions Pvt. Ltd.. On May 30, 2011 Rudranil became producer along with his colleague Parambrata Chatterjee by launching their on production house Workshop in association with Dipak Raha of Sambandh Group.
593416	Dick Hein de Lint (born 17 July 1950) is a Dutch film and television actor. De Lint was born in The Hague. In 1977, he played the character Alex in the film "Soldier of Orange", directed by Paul Verhoeven. In 1986 he played the role of Anton Steenwijk in "The Assault", which won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 1986. In 2006, De Lint starred in Verhoeven's "Black Book" as Gerben Kuipers. He was a regular on the sci-fi drama "", which ran from 1996 to 1999. In 2012, he starred in the Blender Open Movie "Tears of Steel".
1015968	Leslie Cheung (12 September 1956 – 1 April 2003) was a Hong Kong singer-songwriter, actor, film director, record producer, and screenwriter. Cheung is considered as "one of the founder fathers of Cantopop" by "combining a hugely successful film and music career." He rose to prominence as a teen heartthrob and pop icon of Hong Kong in the 1980s, receiving numerous music awards including both Most Popular Male Artist Awards at the 1988 and 1989 Jade Solid Gold Best Ten Music Awards. In 1989, Cheung announced his retirement from the music industry as a pop singer. Returning to the music scene after a five-year hiatus, Cheung released his chart-topping comeback album (寵愛) which achieved a huge market success. In 1999, he won the Golden Needle Award for his outstanding achievement as a musician at the RTHK Top 10 Gold Songs Awards, and his 1984 hit song "Monica" was voted as Hong Kong's "Song of the Century". He was honoured as "Asia's Biggest Superstar" at the 2000 CCTV-MTV Music Honours. Cheung won the 1991 Hong Kong Film Award ("Days of Being Wild") and the 1994 Hong Kong Film Critics Society Award ("Ashes of Time") for best actor. He had also won the 1994 Japan Film Critics Society Award for best actor for his performance in "Farewell My Concubine" and ten other best actor nominations, five Golden Horse Awards, three Cannes Film Festival Awards, a Asia Pacific Film Festival Award, and a Venice Film Festival Award. Cheung's music and movies not only captured fans in Hong Kong but also other Asian countries including Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia, China, Japan and South Korea. He is the first foreign artist to hold 16 concerts in Japan that has yet to be broken and the record holder as the best-selling C-pop artist in Korea. Cheung was ranked as the favourite actor in the 100 years of Chinese cinema. In 2010, he was voted the third "Most Iconic Musicians of All Time" (after Michael Jackson and The Beatles). CNN considered Cheung as the "Most Beautiful Man from Hong Kong Cinema" and one of "Asia's 25 Greatest Actors of All Time." Childhood. Cheung was born in Kowloon, Hong Kong, the youngest of ten children in a middle-class Hakka family. Cheung Wut Hoi, his father, was a fairly well known tailor, whose customers included American actors William Holden, Marlon Brando, and Cary Grant. His parents divorced when he was quite young. While in Hong Kong, Cheung attended Rosaryhill School at Wanchai on Hong Kong Island. At age 13, he was sent to England as a boarder at Eccles Hall School. After six-month study, he transferred himself to a school in Chelmsford and obtained scholarship. He worked as a bartender at his relatives' restaurant and sang during the weekends. It was around this period that he chose his name, "Leslie". According to Cheung, he chose this name because "I love the film "Gone with the Wind". And I like Leslie Howard." In several interviews, Cheung stated he had had a fairly unhappy childhood. "I didn't have a happy childhood. Arguments, fights and we didn't live together; I was brought up by my granny." "What I would say most affected me as a child, was that my parents were not at home with me. As a young kid, one could not always understand why his parents weren't at home. This made me depressed sometimes." He attended the University of Leeds where he studied textile management. He dropped out of university at the end of his first year when his father fell ill. After his father's recovery, Cheung did not return to England to complete his studies. Career. He donated all the proceeds from the sales of "Salute" to the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts (香港演藝學院), which was named the "Leslie Cheung Memorial Scholarship" after his death. With the popularity of Cheung and Tam, fans of these two stars became increasingly hostile to each other, starting a long-standing conflict that soon put heavy pressure on both singers. In 1988, Alan Tam publicly quit all pop music award ceremonies. In 1989, Cheung announced his intention to retire from his music career as a singer. Cheung then set a record by being the first singer ever in Cantopop history to hold a retirement concert series Final Encounter of the Legend, which ran for 33 consecutive nights (he was 33 at the time) at Hong Kong Coliseum. From 1986 to 1989, Cheung acted in a number of film that are considered as Hong Kong classics by film critics and fans of Asian cinema. Although Cheung quit his career as a pop singer from 1989 to 1995, he continued his music career as a composer. He composed more than ten songs during that time. In 1993, he won "Best Original Movie Song Award" from Golden Horse Film Festival for the theme song "Red Cheek, White Hair" to the movie "The Bride with White Hair" (as a composer). In 1995, he composed all three theme songs for the film "The Phantom Lover". As a composer, Cheung won four nominations for "Best Original Movie Song Award" at the Golden Horse Film Festival and Awards and two nominations for "Best Original Film Song" at the Hong Kong Film Awards. In 1998, he was a member of the jury at the 48th Berlin International Film Festival. In 1995 Cheung signed a contract with Rock Records, returning to music as a singer. At the same year, he released his first post-"retirement" album, "Beloved". "Beloved" achieved large market success with the award of "IFPI Best Selling Album". Personal life. Though Cheung had never publicly declared his sexual orientation, he once said in an interview with "Time" magazine: "It's more appropriate to say I'm bisexual. I've had girlfriends. When I was 22 or so, I asked my girlfriend Teresa Mo (毛舜筠) to marry me." Cheung and Ngai Sze-Pui (倪詩蓓), a Hong Kong model and actress whom he met on the set of "Agency 24", were in a relationship for two years. Charity work. Cheung was a supporter of several charities concerning children's welfare. He was a patron of the Children's Cancer Foundation, a charity provides caring service for young children with cancer and their families. Cheung donated HK$1 million (US$128,000) in 1996 and launched five sets of RED cards to help raise funds for the Children's Cancer Foundation. He was also a patron of the End Child Sexual Abuse Foundation (ECSAF), founded by veteran actress Josephine Siao. In 1999 and 2000, he appeared in TVB charity shows to help raise funds for ECSAF, in which he was appointed a goodwill ambassador in 2002. Citizenship. He moved to Vancouver in 1990 and became a Canadian citizen by naturalisation. He held dual British National (Overseas) and Canadian citizenship. Death and legacy. Cheung committed suicide on 1 April 2003 at 6:43 pm (HKT). He leapt from the 24th floor of the Mandarin Oriental hotel, located in the Central district of Hong Kong Island. He left a suicide note saying that he had been suffering from depression. He was 46 years old. As one of the most popular performers in Asia, Cheung's death broke the hearts of millions of his fans across Asia and shocked the Asian entertainment industry and Chinese community worldwide. The day after Cheung's death, his family confirmed that Cheung suffered from clinical depression and had been seeing psychiatrists for treatment for almost a year. They also revealed that Cheung had previously attempted suicide in 2002. Later at his funeral, Cheung's niece disclosed that her uncle had severe clinical depression and suffered much over the past year (2003). Despite the risk of infection from SARS and the WHO's warning on traveling to Hong Kong, tens of thousands attended Cheung's memorial service, which was held for the public, on 7 April 2003, including celebrities and other fans, many from other parts of the world such as mainland China, Taiwan, Korea, Japan, Southeast Asia, the United States, and Canada. Cheung's funeral was on 8 April 2003. For almost a month, Cheung's death dominated newspaper headlines in Hong Kong and his songs were constantly on the air. His final album, "Everything Follows the Wind" (一切隨風), was released three months after his death. Cheung's suicide note (translation): In a 2012 interview, Cheung's eldest sister, Ophelia, stated Cheung was diagnosed with clinical depression caused by a chemical imbalance in the brain. She said that reporters were frequently found outside of her brother's home which hampered his ability to get to his doctor's facility. Thus, he would come over to her house to consult with his doctor. He would ask his sister, "Why am I depressed? I have money and so many people love me." He was reluctant to take medication for his depression. In 2013, Cheung's former music agent Florence Chan organised two memorial concerts entitled "Miss You Much Leslie" on 31 March and 1 April for the 10th anniversary of Cheung's death. Big names of the Hong Kong entertainment industry such as Jacky Cheung, Tony Leung Chiu-Wai, Andy Hui, Leo Ku, Chilam Cheung, Vivian Chow, Kelly Chen, Joey Yung, Grasshoppers, and others performed at the concert at Hong Kong Coliseum. In addition, in 2013, Cheung's fans from around the world made 2 million origami cranes for the "Guinness World Record" as a tribute to the anniversary. External links. ! colspan="3" style="background: #DAA520;" | Hong Kong Film Awards ! colspan="3" style="background: #DAA520;" | Hong Kong Film Critics Society Awards ! colspan="3" style="background: #DAA520;" | RTHK Top 10 Gold Songs Awards ! colspan="3" style="background: #DAA520;" | Jade Solid Gold Best Ten Music Awards ! colspan="3" style="background: #DAA520;" | Ultimate Song Chart Awards ! colspan="3" style="background: #DAA520;" | Ming Pao Power Academy Awards
1065089	"Look Who's Talking Now" is the third and final installment in the film series that began with "Look Who's Talking" in 1989. Released in 1993, the film finds John Travolta and Kirstie Alley reprising their roles as James and Mollie Ubriacco, respectively, and introducing the newly extended family members to the film. David Gallagher and Tabitha Lupien portray the couple's children, Mikey and Julie, respectively. Unlike the previous films, it does not feature the voice-over talents of Bruce Willis, Roseanne Barr, or Joan Rivers as the children's interior monologues; rather, Danny DeVito and Diane Keaton provide voice-over roles for the couple's newly acquired dogs, Rocks and Daphne, respectively, and the film focuses more on the life of the family pets. Lysette Anthony and Olympia Dukakis costar. George Segal and Charles Barkley have cameo roles. Plot. James and Mollie, after struggling to put their kids, Mikey (now 7) and Julie (now 4) to bed, again have sex in their bedroom. She tries to refuse but her husband charms his way through her resistant behavior. Meanwhile outside, a pair of different breed dogs, having come from a night out are about to part ways. But the male dog, Trooper, instead cons the female dog, Princess, into mating with him after he lies and says that he is going to be fixed the next day. The screen changes for the credits of several of Trooper's canine sperm entering Princess' eggs. The owners of the spaniel discover that she has given birth and decide simply to put the dogs up for adoption. A few days afterwards, a young cross bred puppy is up for sale and we can hear him talking. He sees Mikey passing by him and begs him to take him home. He however has to hurry past in tow of his mother, and two harsh looking individuals buy the puppy. He manages to escape them and starts his life as a stray. James is a private air pilot working for Samantha d'Bonne - who we see has a crush on him and is always trying to extend the trips to spend more time with him. Mikey tells Santa that he wants a dog for Christmas. James feels the time has come to give him the present he has always wished for and tells Samantha about this. In the meantime, Mollie is a top accountant at her firm but because her salary is so high, she is suddenly laid off in order for the firm to save money. Unable to acquire a decent job, Mollie gets one as one of the elves for the mall Santa for the holiday season. During a visit, Mikey discovers to his horror that Santa Claus is a fake and becomes upset with disbelief. One day though the dog gets caught by the animal rescue force and taken to a kennel, where several other dogs are kept. He is about to be put to sleep on the same day that James brings Mikey there to select a dog. Overjoyed, Mikey bumps into the same dog he saw as a puppy, takes an instant liking to him and decides to take him home. Soon James and Mikey get home with the dog which Mikey has named Rocks, only to see that Samantha is at their house and has brought over her dog, Daphne, who is highly trained and she wants James to have her as a present from her. Mollie is angry when she discovers that James has gone and gotten a dog for Mikey without discussing it with her and the two have a brief argument. As Rocks will be put to sleep if he's returned to the kennel and James does not want to offend Samantha by refusing Daphne, the two realize they are stuck with two dogs. James compromises that whichever dog behaves better will stay while the other will be gotten rid of somehow. Mikey and Rocks, along with Julie and Daphne, begin a small series of sibling squabbles that irritate each child and their dog. Rocks, who had been getting threats from Mollie to be back out on the streets for eating her expensive shoes and peeing all over the floor, breaks the line by accidentally destroying Daphne's doghouse while playing fetch with Mikey. Daphne goes into Mollie's room and sets Rocks up by chewing on her shoes. Later that night when Mollie is sleeping, the dogs sneak out and have a night on the town. Daphne begins to stop being so arrogant and learns to enjoy herself and have fun. She also begins to see Rocks in a new light and soon falls in love with him, and he feels the same for her. When Mollie discovers her chewed up shoes she throws a fit screaming "You are out of here!". Mikey hears this and becomes upset. While being shut out on the patio, Daphne later apologizes to Rocks for her actions and it is discovered that he doesn't understand their attempts to train him to sit, lie down, beg, or any of the other standard tricks a dog is taught. As "the world's most over-trained dog", Daphne proceeds to teach him the simple tricks that the family has been trying to teach him. Mollie realizes that Daphne misses Rocks and talks to her about how someone can grow on you and after a while you can't live without them. Meanwhile, James and Samantha go to her partner's home cabin on Christmas Eve during a strong snowstorm. He fails to discover this is an elaborate setup to get them alone and stranded. She sends her driver away keeping James from leaving. She unplugs the phone and fax machine and plants a phony fax sheet clarifying that her partner would not arrive until that night or early the following morning. Realizing he would possibly freeze to death trying to get out, James silently agrees to stay, giving Samantha the satisfaction that her setup was working. Mollie begins to suspect James is having an affair with Samantha when she calls her office and discovers the two are at a cabin in northern New York and her partner was in the Bahamas with his wife and family for the weekend, but is convinced by her mother (Olympia Dukakis) that James loves her and would never cheat on her. She calls back and under the guise of a flower delivery service manages to get the cabin's address. She gathers the children and the gifts to take Christmas to James. The family suffers a car accident when it slides off the snowy, icy roads and into the forest below the highway. a wolf appears and prepares to attack Mollie as she gets out of the car. Rocks rolls down the window and faces the wolf, attacking and scaring him away. He and Daphne decide to split up to get the family help. He sends her to find help while he follows James' scent. After Daphne straightens out the difference between 'sniff' and 'snort' she finds a forest ranger, and calls the squad to the car. While teaching Samantha how to dance in the den under firelight, James looks up and discovers that the phone line has been pulled from the wall. He finally catches on to her ploy, dropping her promptly onto the floor. After she tells James he deserves better than a "frumpy little housewife who doesn't have the ability to find a decent job" Rocks appears at the door. She continues to threaten him, stating that if he walks out the door she will fire him and he won't find another decent job for the rest of his 'pathetic' life. Her voice is cut off though as Rocks urinates all over her feet and the two leave. After discovering that Mollie and the kids are no longer at the car, James and Rocks are confronted by a pack of wolves. Rocks defends James, and as the attack happens off screen there are the sounds of James' beeper and a dog's yelping, presumably Rocks'. Back at the ranger station, Mikey is looking out the window and he thinks he sees Santa hiking up the path to the station. All are surprised when James comes in the door. He explains that he was attacked by wolves and Rocks came to his rescue, leading Mikey and Daphne to believe sadly that he had been killed during this attack. James brings out his beeper, which has been crushed by the attack. Rocks appears and all is well again, apparently the sound of the beeper was what drove the wolves off and neither were hurt. After seeing that Rocks is obeying every command that comes out of James' mouth (though he doesn't realize it) Mollie votes that he stays, and they are one big happy family again. Daphne chooses Rocks as her mate. The ranger chimes in and states he's picking up a weird transmission on his radio. He turns the dial and Santa's voice is made out stating "Ho, ho, ho! Merry Christmas!" much to Mikey's surprise. Production. Unlike the previous films, the children no longer have voiceovers for their inner thoughts since they are now old enough to talk for themselves. Danny DeVito and Diane Keaton portray the Ubriacco family's pets. This also marked the film debuts of Tabitha Lupien, and David Gallagher, best known for his later role as Simon Camden on "7th Heaven". George Segal who portrayed Albert, the first film's antagonist and is Mikey's biological father, reappears briefly.
1061655	Blythe Katherine Danner (born February 3, 1943) is an American actress. She is the mother of actress Gwyneth Paltrow and director Jake Paltrow. Early life. Danner was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the daughter of Katharine (née Kile) and Harry Earl Danner, a bank executive. She has a brother, opera singer/actor Harry Danner, a sister, performer-turned-director Dorothy (Dottie) Danner, and a half-brother, violin maker William Moennig. Danner is of part Pennsylvania Dutch ancestry, and one of her great-grandmothers was born in Barbados (a White Barbadian). Career. A graduate of Bard College, Danner's first roles included the 1967 musical "Mata Hari" (closed out of town), and the 1968 off-Broadway production, "Summertree". Her early Broadway appearances included roles in "Cyrano de Bergerac" (1968) and "The Miser" (1969). She won a Best Supporting Actress Tony playing a free-spirited divorcee in "Butterflies Are Free" (1969). In 1972, Danner portrayed Martha Jefferson opposite Ken Howard's Thomas Jefferson in the movie version of "1776". Also that same year, she played a cuckolded wife opposite Peter Falk and John Cassavetes in the "Columbo" episode "Etude in Black". Her earliest starring film role was opposite Alan Alda in "To Kill a Clown" (1972). Danner appeared in the episode of "M*A*S*H" entitled "The More I See You", playing the love interest of Alda's character Hawkeye. She was lawyer Amanda Bonner in television's "Adam's Rib," also opposite Ken Howard as Adam Bonner. She played the role of Zelda Fitzgerald in "The Last of the Belles" (1974). She was the eponymous heroine in the film "Lovin' Molly" (1974) (directed by Sidney Lumet). She appeared in "Futureworld", playing Tracy Ballard with co-star Peter Fonda (1976). In the 1982 TV movie "Inside the Third Reich", she played the wife of Albert Speer. In the film version of Neil Simon's semi-autobiographical play "Brighton Beach Memoirs" (1986), she portrayed a middle-aged Jewish mother. She has appeared in two films based on the novels of Pat Conroy, "The Great Santini" (1979) and "The Prince of Tides" (1991), as well as two television movies adapted from books by Anne Tyler, "Saint Maybe" and "Back When We Were Grownups", both for the Hallmark Hall of Fame. Danner appeared opposite Robert De Niro in the 2000 comedy hit "Meet the Parents", and its sequels, "Meet the Fockers" and "Little Fockers". From 2001 to 2006, she regularly appeared on "Will & Grace" as Will Truman's mother Marilyn. From 2004 to 2006, she starred in the TV series "Huff". In 2005, she was nominated for three Emmy Awards: for her work on "Will & Grace", "Huff" and "Back When We Were Grownups". Emmy host Ellen DeGeneres poked fun at Blythe Danner during the award ceremony, saying that Danner should not be nervous because she was almost certain to win at least one Emmy, which she did, for "Huff." In July 2006, she won a second consecutive Emmy award for "Huff". For 25 years, she has been a regular performer at the Williamstown Summer Theater Festival, where she also serves on the Board of Directors. In 2006, Danner was awarded an inaugural Katharine Hepburn Medal by Bryn Mawr College's Katharine Houghton Hepburn Center. Environmental activism. Danner has been involved in environmental issues such as recycling and conservation for over 30 years. She has been active with INFORM, Inc., is on the Board of Environmental Advocates of New York and the Board of Directors of the Environmental Media Association, and won the 2002 EMA Board of Directors Ongoing Commitment Award. In 2011, Danner joined Moms Clean Air Force, to help call on parents to join in the fight against toxic air pollution. Health care activism. After the death of her husband Bruce Paltrow from oral cancer, she became involved with the Oral Cancer Foundation, a national 501(c)3 non profit charity. In 2005, she filmed a public service announcement that played on TV stations around the country about the risks associated with oral cancer, and through that shared the personal pain associated with the loss of her husband publicly to further awareness of the disease and the need for early detection. She continues to donate her time to the foundation, and has appeared on morning talk shows, and has done interviews in high profile magazines such as "People" to further public awareness of the disease and its risk factors. Through The Bruce Paltrow Oral Cancer Fund, administered by the Oral Cancer Foundation, she continues to raise awareness and funding for oral cancer issues, particularly those involving communities in which disparities in health care exist. She is now appearing in commercials for Prolia. Personal life. Danner is the widow of producer/director Bruce Paltrow, who died from complications of pneumonia while battling oral cancer in 2002, and the mother of actress Gwyneth Paltrow and director Jake Paltrow. Danner first co-starred with her daughter in 1992 in the TV movie "Cruel Doubt" and then again in the 2003 film "Sylvia" playing Aurelia Plath, mother to Gwyneth Paltrow's title role as Sylvia Plath.
1062948	Timothy Leonard Spall, OBE (born 27 February 1957) is an English character actor and occasional presenter. Some of his more high-profile roles include Peter Pettigrew in the "Harry Potter" film series, Winston Churchill in the "The King's Speech" (2010), Peter Taylor in "The Damned United" (2009), Beadle Bamford in "" (2007) and his own documentary "Timothy Spall: Back at Sea" (2010–2012). He also had a lead role in the Palme d'Or winning, five-time Academy Award nominated 1996 film, "Secrets & Lies", had a supporting role in "The Last Samurai", released in 2003, and played the lead role in "Pierrepoint" which was released in 2005. Early life. Spall, the third of four sons, was born in Battersea, South London. His mother, Sylvia R. (née Leonard), was a hairdresser, and his father, Joseph L. Spall, was a postal worker. He trained at the National Youth Theatre and RADA, where he was awarded the Bancroft Gold Medal as the most promising actor in his year. His brother, Matthew, is studio director of the computer games company Morpheme. Another brother, Richard, is the landlord tenant of the Astolat public house in Guildford. Career. Spall initially made his mark in theatre performing in productions for Birmingham Rep and, later, the Royal Shakespeare Company including "The Merry Wives of Windsor", "Three Sisters", "Nicholas Nickleby" and "The Knight of the Burning Pestle". Following a film debut in "Quadrophenia" and wider TV exposure playing the awkward Barry Taylor in all four series of "Auf Wiedersehen, Pet", Kevin in Outside Edge and as Aubrey the appalling chef in Mike Leigh's "Life is Sweet", Spall has since appeared in films such as "Crusoe", "Secrets & Lies", "Shooting the Past", "Topsy-Turvy", "Vanilla Sky", "Rock Star", "The Last Samurai", "Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events" and "The King's Speech". He gained international recognition as Peter Pettigrew ("Wormtail") in the Harry Potter film series. In 1991 he guest-starred in the series 5 Red Dwarf episode Back to Reality. In 1993, Spall was in Rab C. Nesbitt. On 31 December 1999, he was made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE). Spall performed lead vocals on the song "The Devil is an Englishman" from the Ken Russell film "Gothic" (1986), in which Spall portrayed John William Polidori. Spall played the starring role of Albert Pierrepoint in the 2005 film "Pierrepoint", which was released as "The Last Hangman" in the United States. In the 2006 video game ', Spall voiced Phil Collins' manager, Barry Mickelthwaite. In 2007, he starred as Nathaniel in Disney's "Enchanted" and Beadle Bamford in Tim Burton's production of '. He also starred as Georgie Godwin in a one-off television drama "The Fattest Man in Britain" on ITV 1 which aired on 20 December 2009. The drama also featured Bobby Ball, Frances Barber, Aisling Loftus and Jeremy Kyle. In 2010 he portrayed Winston Churchill in critically acclaimed film "The King's Speech" for which as a member of the ensemble he was jointly awarded the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture. Spall reprised the role at the 2012 Summer Olympics closing ceremony. In 2012, Spall filmed Wasteland, with actors Matthew Lewis and Vanessa Kirby. The Newport Beach Film Festival in Newport Beach, CA, will screen Wasteland on Sunday, April 28, 2013 and Monday April 29, 2013. Personal life. Spall is married to Shane and has three children: Pascale (born 1976), Rafe (born 1983), who is also an actor, and Mercedes (born 1985). He lives in Forest Hill, south-east London. In 1996, Spall was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia, but has since been in remission. He has said of his illness: "I didn't know what made me ill but stress had something to do with it and the point is now to head off stress at the pass. It made me aware of things and become more selective. I am less worried about employment. I really do my homework so I am not getting stressed on the set because I don't know what I'm doing." He is the owner of a Dutch barge that he and his wife have been sailing around the British Isles as part of a BBC Four TV series "".
711131	National Lampoon Presents Dorm Daze is a 2003 American comedy film. Directed by the brothers David and Scott Hillenbrand, it was written by Patrick Casey and Worm Miller. The movie showcases many new and largely then-unknown actors and actresses. In addition to Tatyana Ali the film also features Patrick Renna, Chris Owen, Marie-Noelle Marquis and Danielle Fishel. The film was theatrically released on September 26, 2003 and was only available in limited release areas. The film grossed about sixty thousand dollars at the U.S. box office. It made nearly four hundred thousand dollars at the Russian box office in 2004. "Dorm Daze" was released on DVD August 10, 2004 and debuted at number twelve on the DVD rental charts bringing in 2.13 million dollars its first week. The film was initially panned by critics but has developed a following of adolescent teenagers in the years since its release. In response, an unrated version was eventually released. A sequel entitled "National Lampoon's Dorm Daze 2" was released on DVD September 5, 2006. Several of the principal actors returned for the sequel including Danielle Fishel and Chris Owen. The film was shot on location in California. The four major locations in California used for filming were: Los Angeles, San Diego (including Balboa Park), and Castaic.
578743	Best of the Best 2 is a 1993 martial arts film directed by Robert Radler, and starring Eric Roberts and Phillip Rhee. It is the first sequel to the 1989 film "Best of the Best". The plot follows three of the characters from the original film, and was released on DVD on February 6, 2007. Plot. After returning home from South Korea to great acclaim, three members of the U.S. National Karate Team (Tommy Lee, Alex Grady, and Travis Brickley) set up their own martial arts studio in Las Vegas. Unbeknownst to his friends, however, Travis has been competing at "The Coliseum", a brutal underground fighting arena run by a shady promoter named Weldon (Wayne Newton), whose protégé Brakus (Ralf Möller) is the owner and undefeated champion. Though the rules of the Coliseum state that a challenger must defeat three of its "Gladiators" in order to face Brakus, Travis wastes little time in challenging Brakus outright. Amused by Travis's arrogance, Weldon eagerly grants his wish. ﻿Meanwhile, Alex's eleven-year-old son Walter (Edan Gross) begins testing for his black belt, but ultimately falls short of his goal. When his father makes an impassioned speech praising his son for his maturity, Walter takes it upon himself to cancel his own babysitter. Not about to leave his son home alone all night, Alex insists that Walter accompany Travis to his bowling league. It is only then that Travis finally reveals his secret to Walter, who blackmails Travis into letting him watch the fight with Brakus. It turns out to be a tragic mistake, as Brakus mercilessly pummels Travis and breaks his neck, killing him instantly. Walter runs home and alerts his father and Tommy, and together they proceed to the dance club which serves as a front for the Coliseum. They are intercepted by Weldon, who claims that Travis left the Coliseum on his own. Tommy searches the city to no avail, until the police find Travis's body floating in the river along with his damaged car, the apparent result of an auto accident. Furious, Alex and Tommy return to the club and confront Brakus, who openly admits to killing Travis. In the resulting skirmish, Tommy connects with a punch that sends Brakus face-first into a mirror, scarring his cheek. Brakus then condemns both Alex and his son to death, but orders Weldon's henchmen to bring Tommy back alive.
583033	Pyare Mohan (Hindi: प्यारे मोहन, Urdu: پیارے موہن) is a Bollywood film released in 2006. The film stars Fardeen Khan, Vivek Oberoi, Esha Deol, Amrita Rao and Boman Irani. It is a remake of Tamil film, "Aandipatti Arasampatti" and inspired from the Hollywood movie See No Evil, Hear No Evil. Synopsis. The movie starts with the death of a dreaded don Tony (Boman Irani). Then the movie focuses on Pyare (Fardeen Khan), who is blind and Mohan (Vivek Oberoi) who is deaf after they meet a severe accident (they were actors). Both are friends and seem to be happy with their disability but they crave the love of a girl who will love them for who they are. They eventually come across two sisters Preeti (Esha Deol) and Priya (Amrita Rao). The men fall in love with them and begin to dream of a life with them. Unfortunately, the girls have the opposite feeling and see them only as friends and when they ask for the reason why they don't love them, they learn it is because of their disabilities. And so, burdened by their disabilities the girls leave for Bangkok as they have a show there. On the plane, a nervous passenger feels that the aircraft is about to crash due to the turbulence. He then begins to make a confession to a priest (Firoze Irani) about his escape from India and that he is actually an underworld don who has faked his own death. Audience come to know that he is the same Don Tony who was supposed to be dead at the beginning of the movie. The priest is seated next to Preeti and Piya. As the turbulence clears, Tony feels insecure about telling the priest about his intention but soon the plane is fine and Tony is scared that the priest may reveal his true identity so he kills the priest at Bangkok airport and the blame falls on Preeti and Priya. They are charged for murder and are imprisoned in a Bangkok jail. Even their uncle does not save them. Pyare and Mohan hear about the arrest and quickly go to Bangkok to save them. Soon they escape with the girls but Tony hires his brother Tiny and some henchmen who are after them. As well as the police are after them. After some daring scenes Tony becomes impatient with his brother Tiny, as he is a stupid so he kills him.
1060327	Dennis Franz (born October 28, 1944) is an American actor best known for his role as Andy Sipowicz, a hard-boiled police detective, in the television series "NYPD Blue". He previously appeared as Lt. Norman Buntz on "Hill Street Blues", and earlier played Detective Benedetto on the same show. Early life. Franz was born Dennis Franz Schlachta in Maywood, Illinois, the son of German immigrants Eleanor, a postal worker, and Franz Schlachta, who was a baker and postal worker. Franz is a graduate of Proviso East High School (in Maywood) and Southern Illinois University Carbondale. After graduating from college, Franz was drafted into the United States Army. He served eleven months with the 82nd Airborne Division in Vietnam. Career. Franz began his acting career at Chicago's Organic Theater Company. Although he has in the past performed Shakespeare, his "look" led to his being typecast early in his career as a police officer. (By Franz's own count, the character of Detective Andy Sipowicz was his 27th role as a police officer). He has also guest-starred in shows such as "The A-Team". Other major roles were on the television series "Hill Street Blues" in which he played two characters over the run of that show. Franz first played the role of Detective Sal Benedetto, a corrupt cop in the 1983 season, who later kills himself. Due to his popularity with fans, he returned in 1985 as Lt. Norm Buntz, remaining until the show's end in 1987. He starred in the short-lived "Beverly Hills Buntz" as the morally questionable Norman Buntz. Franz had a small but memorable role as a grouchy movie director in "Body Double" (1984). Franz went on to win four Emmy Awards for his portrayal of Andy Sipowicz on "NYPD Blue". The character of Sipowicz was ranked #23 on Bravo's 100 Greatest TV Characters list. In 1994 Franz made a cameo appearance as himself in "The Simpsons" episode "Homer Badman" - when Homer is accused of sexually harassing a babysitter, the case becomes tabloid fodder, generating an exploitative Fox telemovie, "Homer S.: Portrait of an Ass-Grabber", in which Franz portrays Homer. He starred as "Earl", the abusive husband, in the Dixie Chicks' music video "Goodbye Earl", as the obnoxious Captain Carmine Lorenzo in the 1990 action film "Die Hard 2" and as Nathaniel Messinger in the 1998 film, "City of Angels". Franz has stayed out of the acting spotlight in 2005 to focus on his private life. He has told Access Hollywood he would be interested to return to acting if given the right opportunity.
1110041	Zindagi Tere Naam is a 2012 Hindi-language Indian feature film directed by Ashu Trikha, starring Mithun Chakraborty and Ranjeeta in lead roles and the film is a matured love story. The film was completed in 2008, but released only in 2012 with limited prints. The film is based on the Nicholas Sparks novel The Notebook and also the 2004 movie of the same name. Plot. The fim starts with an old man, named Mr. Singh (Mithun Chakraborty) narrating a story to an old woman as her memory is slipping day by day. Mr. Singh's story is about a young lovers Siddharth and Anjali played by (Aseem Ali Khan) and (Priyanka Mehta) respectively. Anjali is a rich girl, but Siddharth is a poor man's son. Anjali's father (Dalip Tahil) as usual disapproves this affair and takes the daughter away. Dejected Siddharth has no other option, but he starts writing letters to her. He writes 365 letters in that entire year, but surprisinlgy Anjali never receives any of those 365 letters. Years pass and Anjali could not find Siddharth, so she eventually plans to settle down with another man. But destiny had other ideas and the two lovers meet again. As the flash back ends and the film goes back to the elder couple, the old woman realizes that, Mr. Singh was telling the story about their own love story and her memories of the past come rushing back making Mr. Singh a happy man, but ironically her memory stays only for a brief moment and she forgets him all over again like the life of an Alzheimer's patient. Trivia. In Zindagi Tere Naam, Mithun Chakraborty worked again with his 1980s romantic films co-star Ranjeeta almost after 18 years. They appeared together last time in Gunahon Ka Devta and also acted together after a gap of 6 years as their first innings pairing was over in 1984 as they did not appear in films after "Baazi" and "Ghar Ek Mandir". Their previous films included "Tarana", "Suraksha", "Taqdeer Ka Badshah", "Wardat", "Unees-Bees", "Hum Se Badkar Kaun" and "Dhuaan". Soundtrack. As the movie was completed in 2008, the music of the movie was released on 13 June 2008. Soon before the release of movie in 2012. The most anticipated track of the movie was Tu Mujhe Soch Kabhi by KK.
1164910	Edward Cuthbert Platt (February 14, 1916 – March 19, 1974) was an American actor best known for his portrayal of "The Chief" in the 1965-70 NBC/CBS television series "Get Smart". With his deep voice and mature countenance, he played an eclectic mix of characters over the span of his career. Stage, film, and television career. Platt was born in Staten Island, New York and studied at the Juilliard School of Music. He attended Princeton University but left after his freshman year. A powerful bass-baritone, he debuted on Broadway in the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical "Allegro". He landed his first film owing to help from José Ferrer, who performed with him in the Broadway play "The Shrike". Ferrer and Platt played the same parts in the film version in 1955. Also in 1955, he appeared in "Rebel Without a Cause" starring James Dean, Natalie Wood and Sal Mineo. Platt returned to Broadway in 1958 with the musical "Oh, Captain!" playing a romantic role. In 1959, he played Cary Grant's attorney in "North by Northwest". In 1959, Platt starred in the movie "The Rebel Set", which was "riffed" by the television show "Mystery Science Theater 3000". Platt also appeared in episodes of the original "Perry Mason", "State Trooper" (in the episode "Who Killed Doc Robbins"), "Men into Space" (in the episode "From Another World"), "Bonanza", "Rawhide", "The Outer Limits", and "The Twilight Zone".
1219556	Donald Warren "D. W." Moffett (born October 26, 1954) is an American actor known for the recurring role of Joe McCoy on the NBC series "Friday Night Lights" from 2008 to 2011, as Dean Winston on The WB series, "For Your Love", and as John Kennish on the ABC Family series, "Switched at Birth". Early life. Moffett was born in Highland Park, Illinois, and raised in nearby Wilmette. He took the stage name of "D.W." to avoid confusion with British actor Donald Moffat. The Moffetts are able to trace their ancestry to Jean de Mophet. de Mophet was a Norman knight who invaded England with William the Conqueror in 1066 CE. Mophet was anglicized to Moffat and later Moffett. The town of Moffat, Scotland, in the borderlands of Scotland and England is the Moffetts’ ancestral home. In the years 1969-1974, Moffett attended a private secondary school in Germany, (Schule Schloss Neubeuern). After attending Stanford University, where he majored in political science, he found himself back in Chicago working as an investment banker. He was lured by a friend to the St. Nicholas Theater Company on a whim, where he began studying with William H. Macy. Shortly thereafter, he started his own theater company, called Remains Theater. Career. After a long and successful career on stage in Chicago, he went with John Malkovich to perform in "Balm In Gilead" in New York City. He then starred opposite Brad Davis in Larry Kramer's "The Normal Heart", for which he won critical acclaim. He played opposite Matt Dillon in "Boys of Winter", and was most recently seen on stage at the Old Vic theater in London, playing opposite Kevin Spacey in "The Philadelphia Story".
1102703	John Willard Milnor (born February 20, 1931) is an American mathematician known for his work in differential topology, K-theory and dynamical systems. Milnor is a distinguished professor at Stony Brook University and one of the four mathematicians to have won the Fields Medal, the Wolf Prize, and the Abel Prize. Early Life and Career. Milnor was born in Orange, New Jersey. As an undergraduate at Princeton University he was named a Putnam Fellow in 1949 and 1950 and also proved the Fary–Milnor theorem. He continued on to graduate school at Princeton under the direction of Ralph Fox and submitted his dissertation, entitled "Isotopy of Links", which concerned link groups (a generalization of the classical knot group) and their associated link structure, in 1954. Upon completing his doctorate he went on to work at Princeton. His students have included Tadatoshi Akiba, Jon Folkman, John Mather, Laurent C. Siebenmann, and Michael Spivak. His wife, Dusa McDuff, is a professor of mathematics at Barnard College. Research. His most celebrated published work is his proof in 1956 of the existence of 7-dimensional spheres with nonstandard differential structure. Later with Michel Kervaire, he showed that the 7-sphere has 15 differentiable structures (28 if one considers orientation).An "n"-sphere with nonstandard differential structure is called an exotic sphere, a term coined by Milnor. Egbert Brieskorn found simple algebraic equations for 28 complex hypersurfaces in complex 5-space such that their intersection with a small sphere of dimension 9 around a singular point is diffeomorphic to these exotic spheres. Subsequently Milnor worked on the topology of isolated singular points of complex hypersurfaces in general, developing the theory of the Milnor fibration whose fiber has the homotopy type of a bouquet of μ spheres where μ is known as the Milnor number. Milnor's 1968 book on his theory inspired the growth of a huge and rich research area which continues to mature to this day. In 1961 Milnor disproved the Hauptvermutung by illustrating two simplicial complexes which are homeomorphic but combinatorially distinct. Milnor's current interest is dynamics, especially holomorphic dynamics. His work in dynamics is summarized by Peter Makienko in his review of "Topological Methods in Modern Mathematics":- It is evident now that low-dimensional dynamics, to a large extent initiated by Milnor's work, is a fundamental part of general dynamical systems theory. Milnor cast his eye on dynamical systems theory in the mid-1970s. By that time the Smale program in dynamics had been completed. Milnor's approach was to start over from the very beginning, looking at the simplest nontrivial families of maps. The first choice, one-dimensional dynamics, became the subject of his joint paper with Thurston. Even the case of a unimodal map, that is, one with a single critical point, turns out to be extremely rich. This work may be compared with Poincaré's work on circle diffeomorphisms, which 100 years before had inaugurated the qualitative theory of dynamical systems. Milnor's work has opened several new directions in this field, and has given us many basic concepts, challenging problems and nice theorems.
1100873	Michael Jerome Hopkins (born April 18, 1958) is an American mathematician known for work in algebraic topology. Life. He received his Ph.D. from Northwestern University in 1984 under the direction of Mark Mahowald. In 1984 he also received his D.Phil. from the University of Oxford under the supervision of Ioan James. He has been professor of mathematics at Harvard University since 2005, after fifteen years at MIT, a few years of teaching at Princeton University, a one-year position with the University of Chicago, and a visiting lecturer position at Lehigh University. He gave invited addresses at the 1990 Winter Meeting of the American Mathematical Society in Louisville, Kentucky, and at the 1994 International Congress of Mathematicians in Zurich. He presented the 1994 Everett Pitcher Lectures at Lehigh University, the 2000 Namboodiri Lectures at the University of Chicago, the 2000 Marston Morse Memorial Lectures at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, the 2003 Ritt Lectures at Columbia University and the 2010 Bowen Lectures in Berkeley. In 2001 he was awarded the Oswald Veblen Prize in Geometry from the AMS for his work in homotopy theory and 2012 the NAS Award in Mathematics. Work. Hopkins' work concentrates on algebraic topology, especially stable homotopy theory. It can roughly be divided into four parts (while the list of topics below is by no means exhaustive): The Ravenel conjectures. The Ravenel conjectures very roughly say: complex cobordism (and its variants) see more in the stable homotopy category than you might think. For example, the nilpotence conjecture states that some suspension of some iteration of a map between finite CW-complexes is null-homotopic iff it is zero in complex cobordism. This was proven by Devinatz, Hopkins and Jeff Smith (published in 1988). The rest of the Ravenel conjectures (except for the telescope conjecture) were proven by Hopkins and Smith soon after (published in 1998). Another result in this spirit proven by Hopkins and Ravenel is the chromatic convergence theorem, which states that one can recover a finite CW-complex from its localizations with respect to wedges of Morava K-theories. Hopkins–Miller theorem and topological modular forms. This part of work is about refining a homotopy commutative diagram of ring spectra up to homotopy to a strictly commutative diagram of highly structured ring spectra. The first success of this program was the Hopkins–Miller theorem: It is about the action of the Morava stabilizer group on Lubin–Tate spectra (arising out of the deformation theory of formal group laws) and its refinement to formula_1-ring spectra – this allowed to take homotopy fixed points of finite subgroups of the Morava stabilizer groups, which led to higher real K-theories. Together with Paul Goerss, Hopkins later set up a systematic obstruction theory for refinements to formula_2-ring spectra. This was later used in the Hopkins–Miller construction of topological modular forms. Subsequent work of Hopkins on this topic includes papers on the question of the orientability of TMF with respect to string cobordism (joint work with Ando, Strickland and Rezk). The Kervaire invariant problem. On 21 April 2009, Hopkins announced the solution of the Kervaire invariant problem, in joint work with Mike Hill and Douglas Ravenel. This problem is connected to the study of exotic spheres, but got transformed by work of William Browder into a problem in stable homotopy theory. The proof by Hill, Hopkins and Ravenel works purely in the stable homotopy setting and uses equivariant homotopy theory in a crucial way. Work connected to geometry/physics. This includes papers on smooth and twisted K-theory and its relationship to loop groups and also work about (extended) topological field theories, joint with Daniel Freed, Jacob Lurie and Constantin Teleman.
1265919	Warren William (December 2, 1894 – September 24, 1948) was a Broadway and Hollywood actor, popular during the early 1930s, who was later nicknamed the "king of Pre-Code". Life and career. Born Warren William Krech in Aitkin, Minnesota to Freeman and Frances Krech, he attended the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. After moving from Broadway to Hollywood in 1931, he reached his peak as a leading man in early 1930s pre-Production Code films. William began as a contract player at Warner Bros. studio and quickly became a star during what's now known as the "Pre-Code" era, and was known for portraying ruthless, amoral businessmen ("Under 18", "Skyscraper Souls", "The Match King", "Employees Entrance"), lawyers ("The Mouthpiece", "Perry Mason"), and charlatans ("The Mind Reader"). He did play some sympathetic roles, icluding "Dave The Dude" in Frank Capra's "Lady for a Day", as a loving father and husband, cuckolded by Ann Dvorak's character in "Three on a Match" (1932), as Julius Caesar in Cecil B. DeMille's "Cleopatra" (1934; starring Claudette Colbert in the title role), and with Colbert again the same year as her character's love interest in "Imitation of Life" (1934). He played the swashbuckling musketeer d'Artagnan in "The Man in the Iron Mask" (1939). William was the first to portray Erle Stanley Gardner's fictional defense attorney Perry Mason on the big screen and starred in four Perry Mason mysteries. He also played Raffles-like reformed jewel thief The Lone Wolf in eight films for Columbia Pictures beginning with "The Lone Wolf Spy Hunt" (1939), and as Detective Philo Vance in two of the series films (1934's "The Dragon Murder Case" and 1939's comedic "The Gracie Allen Murder Case"). Notable other roles include Mae West's manager in "Go West, Young Man" (1936), a jealous District Attorney in another James Whale film, "Wives Under Suspicion" (1938), copper-magnate Jesse Lewisohn in 1940's "Lillian Russell", the evil Jefferson Carteret in "Arizona" (also 1940), sympathetic Dr. Lloyd in "The Wolf Man" (1941), Brett Curtis in cult director Edgar G. Ulmer's modern day version of Hamlet, 1945's "Strange Illusion", and as Laroche-Mathieu in "The Private Affairs of Bel Ami" (1947), which would be William's last film. Family. In 1923, he married Helen Barbara Nelson, who was 17 years his senior. Warren William died on 24 September 1948 from multiple myeloma, aged 53. For his contribution to the motion picture industry, Warren William has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 1551 Vine Street. A biography from McFarland books, written by John Stangeland, "Warren William: Magnificent Scoundrel of Pre-Code Hollywood", was released in October 2010.
643237	Frederick Phillips Brooks, Jr. (born April 19, 1931) is a software engineer and computer scientist, best known for managing the development of IBM's System/360 family of computers and the OS/360 software support package, then later writing candidly about the process in his seminal book "The Mythical Man-Month". Brooks has received many awards, including the National Medal of Technology in 1985 and the Turing Award in 1999. Education. Born in Durham, North Carolina, he attended Duke University, graduating in 1953 with a Bachelor of Science degree in Physics, and he received a Ph.D. in Applied Mathematics (Computer Science) from Harvard University in 1956, supervised by Howard Aiken. Career. Brooks joined IBM in 1956, working in Poughkeepsie, New York and Yorktown, New York. He worked on the architecture of the IBM 7030 Stretch, a $10m scientific supercomputer of which nine were sold, and the IBM 7950 Harvest computer for the National Security Agency. Subsequently, he became manager for the development of the System/360 family of computers and the OS/360 software package. During this time he coined the term computer architecture. It was in "The Mythical Man-Month" that Brooks made the now-famous statement: "Adding manpower to a late software project makes it later." This has since come to be known as the "Brooks's law". In addition to "The Mythical Man-Month", Brooks is also known for the paper "No Silver Bullet — Essence and Accident in Software Engineering". In 1964, Brooks founded the Department of Computer Science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and chaired it for 20 years. he was still engaged in active research there, primarily in virtual environments and scientific visualization. In a 2010 interview by Kevin Kelly for an article in Wired Magazine, Brooks was asked "What do you consider your greatest technological achievement?" Brooks responded "The most important single decision I ever made was to change the IBM 360 series from a 6-bit byte to an 8-bit byte, thereby enabling the use of lowercase letters. That change propagated everywhere." A "20th anniversary" edition of "The Mythical Man-Month" with four additional chapters was published in 1995. In January 2005 he gave the IEE/BCS annual Turing Lecture in London on the subject of "Collaboration and Telecollaboration in Design". In 1994 he was inducted as a Fellow of the Association for Computing Machinery. As well as "The Mythical Man-Month" Brooks has authored or co-authored many books and peer reviewed papers including "Automatic Data Processing", No Silver Bullet, "Computer Architecture", and "The Design of Design". Personal life. Brooks is an evangelical Christian who is active with InterVarsity Christian Fellowship. Service and memberships. He has served on a number of US national boards and committees. Awards. In chronological order:
521928	Scorpio Nights s a film released in 1985 and is directed by renowned director Peque Gallaga. It is about a love triangle between a young man with a married woman who first got tangled because of their uncontrolled urge to make love. The release of the film became very controversial but played a key role in defining the Filipino erotic films during its decade. Plot. the story of a forbidden love affair between a college student (Daniel Fernando) and an unfaithful housewife (Ana Marie Gutierrez). Synopsis. The film happened in a shabby apartment where a student resides just above the room of a security guard and his wife. Every day, the husband goes home, eats his dinner, washes the dishes, goes straight to bed and makes love with his wife. The student plays peeping tom to the two and every night looks through a hole in his floorboard. Not able to control his urges, he goes to the room of the wife where he does the same things that the girl's husband does to her with no resistance. The two perform the act repeatedly until they fall in love with each other. The security guard husband finds out that his wife is cheating on her when one day he walks in on them while having sex and shoots both. He then shoots himself after. The film is considered one of the most controversial and important films during its time. Not only is the movie provocative but it is also commended for its social relevance. It portrayed the chaotic economy of that year when Ninoy Aquino's assassination was still very much talked about, towards the beginning of the end of the Marcos regime. Remake. Korean film Summertime (2001 film) is based on this movie. An unrelated sequel, Scorpio Nights 2, was made in 1999, produced by Gallaga and directed by Erik Matti. It starred Albert Martinez and Joyce Jimenez the film was also the latest installment after 15 years the film was produced by Viva Films.
705573	Bret Michaels (born Bret Michael Sychak, March 15, 1963) is an American musician, actor, director, screenwriter, producer and reality television personality. He first gained fame as the lead vocalist of the glam metal band Poison who have sold over 30 million records worldwide and 15 million records in the United States alone. The band has also charted ten singles to the Top 40 of the Billboard Hot 100, including six Top 10 singles and the number-one single, "Every Rose Has Its Thorn". Besides his career as lead singer, he has several solo albums to his credit, including a soundtrack album to the movie "A Letter from Death Row" in which Michaels starred, wrote and directed in 1998, and a classic Poison-style rock album, "Songs of Life", in 2003. Michaels has appeared in several movies and TV shows, including as a judge on the talent show "Nashville Star" which led to his country influenced rock album "Freedom of Sound" in 2005. He starred in the hit VH1 reality show "Rock of Love with Bret Michaels" and its sequels, which inspired his successful solo album "Rock My World". He was also the winning contestant on NBC's reality show "Celebrity Apprentice 3" and also featured in his own reality docu-series "", which inspired his highest charting album as a solo artist, "Custom Built", reaching No. 1 on Billboard's Hard Rock list. He is also known for hosting on the Travel Channel. Early life. Michaels was born Bret Michael Sychak, to Wally and Marjorie Sychak, north of Pittsburgh in the city of Butler, Pennsylvania. He has two sisters, Michelle and Nicole. He claims that his parents had originally intended for him to have the middle name "Maverick", after the title character in the popular James Garner TV Western series "Maverick". He is of Carpatho-Rusyn descent. At the age of six he fell ill, and during a three-week stay in the hospital, he was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes. Music career. Michaels began playing the guitar as a teenager. With drummer Rikki Rockett, bass player Bobby Dall and original guitarist and creative force,((David Besselman)),The Lead guitarist who actually introduced Brett to Rikki and Bobby soon left the band for creative differences. The band then hiredSmith (musician)|Matt Smith], he formed the band Paris, in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania in 1983. After playing the Pennsylvania bar circuit, in early 1984 they moved to Los Angeles to seek fame on the Sunset Boulevard scene, eventually changing their name to Poison. That same year he met 16-year-old Tracy Lewis, who would become both his girlfriend, and the muse for one of his most memorable songs. Eventually Matt Smith tired of the band's struggle to find fame, and returned home. He was replaced with C.C. DeVille, who would become both Michaels' friend and a source of conflict. 1980s–1990s. Local publicity about the band eventually led to a record deal with Enigma Records, and their first album, "Look What the Cat Dragged In". It did not see great success until 1987, when Michaels convinced the band to film a video for their song, "Talk Dirty to Me". The album went platinum, and the band became famous. In March of that year, however, Michaels collapsed onstage due to his diabetes. Responding to rumors that he was a drug addict, he announced publicly that he was a diabetic. 1987 also saw the dissolution of his relationship with Lewis, who felt that fame had changed him. Though Michaels contends that Lewis was unfaithful to him, Lewis (now Lewis Crosby) insists that it was Michaels who was unfaithful. Michaels was inspired by the breakup to write "Every Rose Has Its Thorn", explaining that the rose represented his fame and success, whereas the loss of his relationship represented the thorn. The song was released as a power ballad single in December 1988, and is regarded as "the ultimate '80s anthem about heartbreak". Throughout the 1980s and early 1990s Poison became one of the biggest glam metal bands in the world, recording their second album, the multi-platinum selling "Open Up and Say... Ahh!", and their third album, the multi-platinum selling "Flesh & Blood". However, their lives were characterized by the escalating tension between Michaels and DeVille that derived from their mutual drug use, which came to a head during their 1990/91 "Flesh and Blood" world tour. Also cited is the spectacle of DeVille's behavior during the 1991 MTV Video Music Awards. After getting into a fistfight with Michaels, DeVille left the band, and descended further into addiction. Poison went on with new guitarist Richie Kotzen recording the Gold album Native Tongue and then with guitarist Blues Saraceno recording the album Crack a Smile... and More!. In the mid-1990s, after a night of partying, Michaels came close to dying when he crashed his Ferrari into a telephone pole. He incurred serious injury, including broken ribs, a disfigured nose and lost teeth. In 1999, reunited with original guitarist C.C. Deville, Poison went on a successful greatest hits reunion tour. In the next decade Bret Michaels would split his time between Poison and a successful solo career. 2000s. Michaels recorded his first solo album in 1998 titled "A Letter from Death Row" which was the soundtrack to the same-titled movie he directed, wrote, and starred in. In 2000 Michaels released a country demos ep and also released the album "Show Me Your Hits" which featured re-recorded Poison classics, the album featured Michaels performing Poison hits in a new way and also featured other artists with Michaels on selected tracks. In 2001 Michaels released a very unique storytellers CD titled "Ballads, Blues & Stories" which featured Poison and Michaels solo tracks along with recorded stories about each song. In 2003, Michaels released a brand new studio album "Songs of Life" which featured the singles "Raine" (dedicated to his daughter) and "Bittersweet". Michaels also released his first solo music video for the single "Raine" which was directed by award winning director Shane Stanley. The album also featured a music video for "Menace to Society" and featured a 9/11 tribute "One More Day". Michaels served as a judge during the 2005 season of the reality television singing competition "Nashville Star" and released a country rock album in the same year called "Freedom of Sound" which featured the singles "Right Now, Right Here", "Open Road" which Michaels performed live on the show and the hit single "All I Ever Needed" (featuring Jessica Andrews), which also included a music video. Michaels released a best of album called "Rock My World" in June 2008 which featured music from his reality television series "Rock of Love" including the new singles "Go That Far" (Rock of Love theme), "Fallen" and "Start Again", the first two singles also featuring music videos with clips from the series. The album charted at No. 40 on the Billboard 200, No. 4 on the Top Independent Albums, No. 4 on the Top Hard Rock Albums and No. 16 on the Top Rock Albums chart. In December 2008, Michaels released a single version of "Driven" (rock mix) which also featured a music video with preview clips for the third season of Rock of Love, titled "Rock of Love Bus". Michaels also re released the "Fallen" single with acoustic, piano and demo versions included. Michaels released a 30-minute DVD from Time Life in 2008 called "Hard & Heavy Confidential featuring Bret Michaels" which included acoustic versions of "All I Ever Needed", "Driven", "Every Rose Has Its Thorn" and "Something to Believe In", it also included in depth interviews. The DVD was included in the Hard & Heavy CD/DVD collection from (Time Life) advertised on TV by Bret Michaels. The same four acoustic performances were also released on CD titled "Bret Michaels Acoustic Sessions". Recent events (2010–present). In 2010, Michaels released a new single called "Nothing to Lose" from his upcoming new studio album, "Custom Built". The song featured the guest vocals of Miley Cyrus. In April 2010, he released the second single "Lie to Me" and in May 2010 released the third single, "Wasted Time". Michaels performed on the "American Idol" season 9 finale on May 26 against his doctor's recommendation. Michaels also performed a duet of "Every Rose Has Its Thorn" with Miley Cyrus on the June 18, 2010 episode "Good Morning America". On July 6, 2010, Michaels released his new album "Custom Built". The album became Michaels highest charting solo album to date peaking at No. 1 on both the Top Independent Albums and Top Hard Rock Albums chart and also charting at No. 4 on the Top Rock Albums and No. 14 on the Billboard 200. On August 4, 2010, Michaels appeared in the fifth season of "America's Got Talent" and performed "Every Rose Has Its Thorn", accompanying himself on acoustic folk guitar. Despite not being released as a single, a music video was produced for "Riding Against the Wind" a song from Michaels' latest album "Custom Built" that also doubles as the theme song for his new VH1 reality show "". The music video was released on October 7, 2010, exclusively at Billboard's and contains footage from the series, which officially premieres on VH1 on October 18, 2010. Michaels also released a music video for the cover of Sublime's song "What I Got", which is the fourth single from "Custom Built". The music video is a special tribute to his fans and was released on Thanksgiving. In early 2011 Michaels recorded a brand new song "Hit and Roll" for "Top Gear (U.S. TV series)" which also included a music video featured on the series and the promo commercials. On December 31, 2011, Michaels celebrated the new year with a New Year’s Eve concert from the 'Get Your Rock On' Solo tour. The concert took place in Springfield, IL at the Prairie Capital Convention Center. To make the night complete, this New Year's Eve bash will be featured and well documented in the music video for the new single "Get Your Rock On" from Bret's upcoming new album. The single "Get Your Rock On (featuring Phil Collen & Sal Costa)" was released January 9, 2012. In conjunction with his new single Michaels also released an alternate version titled "Get Your Ride On (featuring Phil Collen)" on January 10, 2012. The song will also Serve as Monster Energy AMA Supercross Opener all season on Speed with an exclusive video that premiered on SPEED TV January 7, 2012. The video will be customized for each race throughout the season. Michaels toured with Def Leppard and Lita Ford in 2012. In January, 2013, Michaels released a new single "You Know You Want It (Featuring Peter Keys)" from his upcoming new album titled "Jammin' With Friends". The new album features collaborations with some of the top artists and players in music from a variety of genres and generations. The album was released June 25, 2013 and charted at #13 on the Top Hard Rock Albums chart, #23 on the Top Independent Albums chart, #29 on the Top Rock Albums chart and #80 on The Billboard 200. "Rock of Love". Michaels starred in the reality television dating competition series "Rock of Love with Bret Michaels", the first season of which premiered in July 2007. Jes Rickleff was the winner of Season One. However, she announced during the October 2007 reunion show that she and Michaels were not right for each other and told runner-up Heather he was all hers and that he should have chosen Heather. The first season was released on DVD in early 2008. The show's second season premiered on January 13, 2008. On April 13, 2008, Michaels selected Ambre Lake as his "Rock of Love". After the show the two maintained a relationship, but parted ways after just a few months due to personal commitments, but they remain good friends. A third season, "Rock of Love Bus", premiered on January 4, 2009. which was a series high for VH1, Michaels chose Penthouse Pet Taya Parker as the winner. When asked about a fourth season of "Rock of Love", Michaels said "Now they want me to come back for a fourth 'Rock of Love.' I feel that it should be something that changes up, but I still want that fun element. What you see is what you get with me." Television and film appearances. Michaels and actor Charlie Sheen established a film production company, Sheen/Michaels Entertainment, which produced the movie "A Letter from Death Row" (1998), in which Michaels wrote, directed and starred, and for which he released a soundtrack album. They also produced "No Code of Conduct" that same year, which Michaels also directed and acted in. Their company also produced the feature film "Free Money", starring Marlon Brando and Mira Sorvino, and the surfer movie "In God's Hands" in which Michaels also had a small acting role. Michaels appeared in the CBS sitcom "Yes, Dear", Season 1, Episode 6, titled "Greg's Big Day", first aired November 6, 2000. He also appeared as himself in three episodes of "The Chris Isaak Show" from 2001 to 2004. On May 1, 2008, Michaels appeared on a special celebrity edition of "Don't Forget the Lyrics!", on which he raised $200,000 to donate to charity. Michaels appeared on the 2009 Tony Awards, during which a he was struck in the head by a set piece. He subsequently sued the event's organizers, claiming that the collision led to his 2010 brain hemorrhage. The suit is pending. In 2010, Michaels was the winning contestant on the NBC reality television series "Celebrity Apprentice 3" on NBC. Michaels stars in a series named "", which depicts his life at home with his daughters and their mother. Filming of the series began before Michaels' health troubles, and filming was suspended after his hospitalization. VH1 aired a preview of the series on May 31, 2010, and the series aired in fall 2010. Michaels hosted the Miss Universe 2010 pageant along with Natalie Morales on August 23, 2010. Michaels appeared on 's Gibb's Family Episode that aired on January 6, 2012. In 2013, Michaels reappeared in the "Celebrity Apprentice" series All-Star season. He was fired from the show in the first episode. Starting in May 2013, Michaels began hosting the reality TV show, "Rock My RV" on the U.S. cable network, Travel Channel. In other media. Michaels was portrayed as a guest singer in the video game "", which features him singing "Go That Far" from his solo career, and Poison's "Talk Dirty to Me". Charity work. Michaels and his band visited troops at Al Asad Air Base on October 6, 2007, while on a tour of U.S. bases in Iraq in support of Armed Forces Entertainment. He earned $640,000 for the American Diabetes Association for competing in and ultimately winning the Celebrity Apprentice 3. Personal life. Michaels has two daughters with Kristi Lynn Gibson. Raine Elizabeth Sychak was born in May 2000, and Jorja Bleu Sychak was born in May 2005. They live in Scottsdale, Arizona. Michaels' fear that Raine was "borderline diabetic" was a recurring element during Michaels' tenure on "The Celebrity Apprentice 3", on which he appeared to raise money for the American Diabetes Association. Raine herself appeared on the season finale of that program on May 23, 2010, when her father won that season. While filming the finale of his reality show, "", Michaels proposed to Kristi Gibson, the mother of his two children and his on-again, off-again companion of 16 years. The finale aired December 20, 2010. In July 2012, Michaels announced that he and Gibson had separated. Michaels was involved with Pamela Anderson. After Poison's and Michaels's longtime attorney, Ed McPherson, obtained a Federal Injunction, prohibiting the distribution of an explicit sex tape that the couple had made an abridged version of the sex tape appeared on the Internet in 1998 and was released on DVD on September 7, 2005, by Metro Studios. Michaels is a fan of the Pittsburgh Steelers of the National Football League and the Minnesota Wild of the National Hockey League. He has a personalized guitar bearing the Steelers' logo, and played the national anthem at Three Rivers Stadium. His favorite player was Jack Lambert, and Michaels has been a member of fan club "Lambert's Lunatics". He also likes the Peoria Rivermen of the American Hockey League and performs after home games. Michaels has a line of pet clothing and accessories called Pets Rock, sold at PetSmart. Health. On April 12, 2010, Michaels was rushed to the hospital after suffering intense stomach pains, and an emergency appendectomy was performed. On April 21 or April 22, 2010, (sources differ), Michaels was again rushed to the hospital, this time with an "excruciating" headache. Doctors discovered that he had suffered a massive subarachnoid hemorrhage. He was in critical condition, and while some reports suggested that his condition had stabilized, others later stated that this was premature. On April 28, Michael's representatives reported that he was conscious and speaking, albeit slowly, for the first time since he was hospitalized. In a news conference on May 5, 2010, Dr. Joseph Zabramski said Michaels had been released from the hospital and that "He's just one of those lucky people" and that "he'll make a complete recovery". On May 20, 2010, it was reported on his official website that Michaels has been "readmitted to the hospital this week after suffering numbness on the left side of his body". While conducting diagnostic tests it was found that Michaels has a "patent foramen ovale (PFO), a hole in the heart". It was further reported that his condition is "operable and treatable" and his doctors believe they "have diagnosed the problem that caused the transient ischemic attack (TIA) or warning stroke", but that they "feel it is highly unlikely this is connected to the brain hemorrhage he suffered just a few weeks earlier". On Oct 11, 2011, Michaels commented on his 2010 health scare with the following: “2010 was, without question, a roller coaster year for me. But when you have an amazing family, and you still have a lot music left to make, and you have such incredible and supportive fans behind you, you’re going to fight until the very last breath before you throw in that towel.” Lawsuit with Tony Awards and CBS. Bret Michaels was injured during his opening performance at the 63rd Tony Awards. As he was ending his performance with Poison and exiting to the stage rear, a large portion of the descending set struck him on the head and knocked him down. The initial injuries reported was a broken nose. However the hemorrhage incident in 2010 prompted Michaels to file a lawsuit for unspecified damages against the Tony Award and CBS claiming the incident caused the hemorrhage. On May 14, 2012, the parties announced that they had agreed to settle the lawsuit for an undisclosed amount. Michaels thanked the Barrow Neurological Institute at St. Joseph’s Hospital and Medical Center in Phoenix for saving his life and career.
1054473	Hell Ride is a 2008 American action film written and directed by Larry Bishop and starring Bishop, Michael Madsen, Dennis Hopper, Eric Balfour, Vinnie Jones, Leonor Varela and David Carradine. It was released under the "Quentin Tarantino Presents" banner. The film is a homage to the outlaw biker films of the sixties and seventies. Plot. Larry Bishop stars as biker Pistolero, (named after the original title for Robert Rodriguez’s "Desperado") the leader, or "Pres" of the Victors, a Southern California motorcycle gang. He has two faithful lieutenants, The Gent (Michael Madsen) and Comanche (Eric Balfour). In 1976, Cherokee Kisum (Julia Jones), the girlfriend of Pistolero (then known as Johnny) is viciously murdered by The Deuce (David Carradine) and Billy Wings (Vinnie Jones), leaders of the archrival gang the Six-Six-Six'ers, as a message to the Victors. The Deuce later moves into large scale business efforts, leaving the biker life behind and the Sixers dry up as a gang. Cherokee Kisum has also hidden away a small fortune from under-the-table drug deals she made behind the Deuce's back - the reason for which she is murdered. The stash of money is intended for her young son, who disappears after her death. Years later, after The Deuce returns to the area to close up unfinished business and Billy Wings reforms the Sixers in Los Angeles, the rival gang infiltrates the Victors in an attempt to take over their territory. One member from 1976, St. Louie, is murdered in the same manner as Cherokee Kisum. Bob the Bum, the Victors' treasurer, is similarly killed. Pistolero then begins to make moves to eliminate the Sixers and finally gain his revenge. While loyal bikers are killed by the Sixers, the more treacherous and less faithful Victors try to influence The Gent, Comanche, and Goody Two-Shoes to switch sides - or kill them. Goody Two-Shoes, the Victors' only black member, is eventually killed after being located and chased down by Billy Wings. With the aid of his beautiful "medicine woman" Nada (Leonor Varela) and his old friend and ally Eddie Zero (Dennis Hopper), Pistolero and the remaining Victors try to locate and kill The Deuce, Billy Wings and the Sixers before they themselves are killed. Characters. Vinnie Jones and David Carradine star as members of the satanic biker gang "The 666ers". Dennis Hopper stars as a veteran member of the Victors gang. Leonor Varela plays the mysterious Nada, who prefers to use double entendres and clichés rather than speaking conversationally. Production. Bishop took extra duties on this film by not only starring in it, but wrote, directed and co-produced with Michael Steinberg and Shana Stein producing and Quentin Tarantino taking on the job of executive producer. This is Bishop's modern-day take on those 1960s motorcycle flicks he used to turn out for B-movie masters American International Pictures. It is the project Tarantino inspired Bishop to begin some five and a half years ago, when he told Bishop: "It is your destiny to write, direct and star in a movie". Tarantino also assured Bishop that he would help to produce his film. Release. "Hell Ride" premiered at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival. It had a brief theatrical run via Third Rail Releasing before being released to DVD worldwide.
633161	Avery Franklin Brooks (born October 2, 1948) is an American actor. Brooks is perhaps best known for his television roles as Benjamin Sisko on ', as Hawk on ' and its spinoff "A Man Called Hawk", and as Dr. Robert Sweeney in the Academy Award-nominated film "American History X". Early life. Brooks was born in Evansville, Indiana, the son of Eva Lydia ("née" Crawford), a chorale conductor and music instructor, and Samuel Brooks, a union official and tool and die worker. His maternal grandfather, Samuel Travis Crawford, was also a singer. When he was aged eight, his family later moved to Gary, Indiana, when Samuel Brooks was laid off from International Harvester. Of Gary, Brooks has said: "I was born in Evansville... but it was Gary, Indiana that made me." The Brooks household was filled with music. His mother, who was among the first African-American women to earn a master's degree in music at Northwestern University, taught music wherever the family lived. His father was in the choir Wings Over Jordan on CBS radio from 1937 to 1947, and his maternal uncle Samuel Travis Crawford was a member of the Delta Rhythm Boys. "Music is all around me and in me, as I am in it," Brooks has said. Brooks attended Indiana University and Oberlin College, and later completed his B.A., plus an M.F.A. from Rutgers University in 1976, becoming the first African American to receive an MFA in acting and directing from Rutgers. Television career. "Spenser For Hire": Hawk. In 1985, Brooks landed the role of Hawk on the ABC television detective series "". Hawk became a popular character and, after three seasons, Brooks in 1989 received his own, short-lived spinoff series, "A Man Called Hawk". Brooks said of his role as Hawk: "I never thought of myself as the sidekick... I've never been the side of anything. I just assumed that I was equal." Brooks returned to play Hawk in four "Spenser" television movies: ', ', ' and '. "Star Trek": Benjamin Sisko. Brooks is best known in popular culture for his role as Commander—and later Captain—Benjamin Sisko on the science fiction television series "", which ran for seven seasons from 1993 to 1999. Brooks won the role of Commander Benjamin Sisko by beating 100 other actors from all racial backgrounds to become the first African-American captain to lead a Star Trek series. What appealed to Brooks about the role was the opportunity to give hope to young people. "Today, many of our children, especially black males, do not project that they will live past the age of 19 or 20," he told Michael Logan of TV Guide. ""Star Trek" allows our children the chance to see something they might never otherwise imagine." He directed nine episodes of the series, including "Far Beyond the Stars", an episode focusing on racial injustice. Series producer Ronald D. Moore said of Brooks: "Avery, like his character (Sisko), is a very complex man. He is not a demanding or ego-driven actor, rather he is a thoughtful and intelligent man who sometimes has insights into the character that no one else has thought about. He has also been unfailingly polite and a classy guy in all my dealings with him." Other roles. In 1984, he received critical praise for his featured role in PBS's American Playhouse production of "Half Slave, Half Free: Solomon Northup's Odyssey", directed by Gordon Parks. The story chronicled the life of Solomon Northup, a free man from New York kidnapped and sold into slavery in 1841 and held until 1853, when he regained his freedom. It was adapted from Northrup's memoir, "Twelve Years a Slave," published in 1853.
633342	James Montgomery "Jimmy" Doohan ( ; March 3, 1920 – July 20, 2005) was a Canadian character and voice actor best known for his role as Montgomery "Scotty" Scott in the television and film series "Star Trek". Doohan's characterization of the Scottish Chief Engineer of the Starship "Enterprise" was one of the most recognizable elements in the "Star Trek" franchise, for which he also made several contributions behind the scenes. Many of the characterizations, mannerisms, and expressions that he established for Scotty and other "Star Trek" characters have become entrenched in popular culture. Following his success with "Star Trek", he supplemented his income and showed continued support for his fans by making numerous public appearances. Doohan inspired fans to pursue careers in engineering and other fields, as a result of his portrayal of Scotty. Early life. Doohan was born in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, the youngest of four children of William and Sarah Doohan, who emigrated from Bangor, County Down, Northern Ireland. His father was a pharmacist, veterinarian, and dentist; his mother was a homemaker. Doohan's father reportedly invented an early form of high-octane gasoline in 1923. Doohan's 1996 autobiography recounted his father's serious alcoholism. The family moved to Sarnia, Ontario, and Doohan attended high school at the Sarnia Collegiate Institute and Technical School (SCITS), where he excelled in mathematics and science. He enrolled in the 102nd Royal Canadian Army Cadet Corps in 1938. Military service. At the beginning of the Second World War, Doohan joined the Royal Canadian Artillery. He was commissioned a lieutenant in the 13th Field Artillery Regiment of the 3rd Canadian Infantry Division. Doohan went to England in 1940 for training. His first combat was the invasion of Normandy at Juno Beach on D-Day. Shooting two snipers, Doohan led his men to higher ground through a field of anti-tank mines, where they took defensive positions for the night. Crossing between command posts at 11:30 that night, Doohan was hit by six rounds fired from a Bren gun by a nervous Canadian sentry: four in his leg, one in the chest, and one through his right middle finger. The bullet to his chest was stopped by a silver cigarette case. His right middle finger had to be amputated, something he would conceal during his career as an actor. Doohan trained as a pilot (graduating from Air Observation Pilot Course 40 with 11 other Canadian artillery officers), and flew Taylorcraft Auster Mark V aircraft for 666 (AOP) Squadron, RCAF, as a Royal Canadian Artillery officer in support of 1st Army Group Royal Canadian Artillery. All three Canadian (AOP) RCAF Squadrons were manned by Artillery Officer-pilots and accompanied by non-commissioned RCA and RCAF personnel serving as observers. Although never actually a member of the Royal Canadian Air Force, Doohan was once labelled the "craziest pilot in the Canadian Air Force". A story from his flying years tells of Doohan slaloming a plane—variously cited as a Hurricane or a jet trainer—between mountainside telegraph poles to prove it could be done, which earned him a serious reprimand. (The actual feat was performed in a Mark IV Auster on the Salisbury Plain north of RAF Andover in the late spring of 1945). Early acting career. After the war, Doohan moved to London, Ontario for further technical education. After hearing a radio drama that he knew he could do better, he recorded his voice at the local radio station, and learned about a drama school in Toronto. There he won a two-year scholarship to the Neighborhood Playhouse in New York City, where classmates included Leslie Nielsen, Tony Randall, and Richard Boone. In 1946 he had several roles for CBC radio, starting January 12. For several years Doohan would shuttle between Toronto and New York as work demanded. During this period he estimated over 4,000 radio programs and 450 television programs, and earned a reputation for his versatility.
1060826	Michelle Lynn Monaghan (born March 23, 1976) is an American actress known for her roles in ', ', "Kiss Kiss Bang Bang", "Gone Baby Gone", "Made of Honor", "The Heartbreak Kid", "Eagle Eye", and "Source Code". Early life. Monaghan was born in Winthrop, Iowa. Her German American mother, Sharon (née Hammel), ran a day care center in the family's home, and her father, Robert Monaghan, was a factory worker and part time farmer. She has two older brothers, Bob and John, and her family also brought up twelve foster children over a period of twelve years. Monaghan is of Irish and German descent and was raised as a Catholic. She graduated from East Buchanan High School, Class of 1994, where she was class president and acted in several plays. After graduation, she moved to Chicago to study journalism at Columbia College Chicago. While studying, she began modeling. She worked in the United States, Milan, Singapore, Tokyo and Hong Kong. With one semester remaining in her journalism degree in 1999 she left for New York to pursue an acting career. Before her TV debut she appeared as a model in several magazines and catalogs. Career. Monaghan's first notable appearances, though minor parts, were in episodes of "Young Americans" (in which she appeared twice), and "", came in 2001. She made her big screen debut that year in the small role of "Henrietta" in the movie "Perfume". This was followed by another small role in "Unfaithful" in 2002.
1103395	Manjul Bhargava (मञ्जुल भार्गव) (born August 8, 1974) is a Canadian-American mathematician of Indian origin. He is the R. Brandon Fradd Professor of Mathematics at Princeton University. He is known primarily for his contributions to number theory. Bhargava was also awarded the 2012 Infosys Prize in mathematics for his “extraordinarily original work in algebraic number theory, which has revolutionized the way in which number fields and elliptic curves are counted". Biography. Bhargava's mother, Mira Bhargava, is a mathematician at Hofstra University and his father a chemist. Bhargava grew up in Long Island, New York. Manjul Bhargava completed all of his high school math and computer courses by age 14. He attended Plainedge High School, graduating in 1992 as the class valedictorian. He obtained his B.A. from Harvard University in 1996. For his research as an undergraduate, he was awarded the 1996 Morgan Prize. Bhargava went on to receive his doctorate from Princeton in 2001, supervised by Andrew Wiles. He was a visiting scholar at the Institute for Advanced Study in 2001-02. Princeton hired him at the rank of tenured full professor within only two years of finishing graduate school, which is considered a record in the Ivy League. Bhargava is also an accomplished tabla player, having studied under gurus such as Zakir Hussain. He has also studied Sanskrit. His grandfather Purushottam Lal Bhargava is a well-known scholar of Sanskrit and ancient Indian history. Contributions. His Ph.D. thesis generalized the classical Gauss composition law for quadratic forms to many other situations. One major use of his results is the parametrization of quartic and quintic orders in number fields, thus allowing the study of asymptotic behavior of arithmetic properties of these orders and fields. His research also includes fundamental contributions to the representation theory of quadratic forms, to interpolation problems and p-adic analysis, to the study of ideal class groups of algebraic number fields, and to the arithmetic theory of elliptic curves. A short list of his specific mathematical contributions are: In July 2010 Manjul Bhargava and Arul Shankar proved the Birch and Swinnerton-Dyer conjecture for a positive proportion of elliptic curves. Awards and Honors. Bhargava is the second youngest full professor in Princeton University's history, after Charles Fefferman (professor at Princeton at age 24). Bhargava has won several awards for his research, including the Morgan Prize in 1996, a Clay 5-year Research Fellowship, the Merten M. Hasse Prize from the MAA in 2003, the Clay Research Award in 2005, and the Leonard M. and Eleanor B. Blumenthal Award for the Advancement of Research in Pure Mathematics in 2005. Peter Sarnak of Princeton University has said of Bhargava: He was named one of Popular Science Magazine’s “Brilliant 10” in November 2002. He won the $10,000 SASTRA Ramanujan Prize, shared with Kannan Soundararajan, awarded by SASTRA in 2005 at Tanjavur, India, for his outstanding contributions to number theory. In 2008, Bhargava was awarded the American Mathematical Society's Cole Prize. The citation reads: In 2011, Bhargava was awarded the Fermat Prize for "various generalizations of the Davenport-Heilbronn estimates and for his startling recent results (with Arul Shankar) on the average rank of elliptic curves". Bhargava is also a sought-after speaker, having given numerous public lectures around the world. In 2011, he delivered the prestigious Hedrick lectures of the MAA in Lexington, Kentucky. He was also the 2011 Simons Lecturer at MIT. In 2012, Bhargava was named an inaugural recipient of the Simons Investigator Award, and became a fellow of the American Mathematical Society in its inaugural class of fellows. Bhargava was also awarded the 2012 Infosys Prize in mathematics for his “extraordinarily original work in algebraic number theory, which has revolutionized the way in which number fields and elliptic curves are counted".
394192	Jeon Do-yeon (born February 11, 1973) is a South Korean actress. She has won many awards in her career, including best actress at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival for her portrayal of a broken woman who has lost everything in Lee Chang-dong's "Secret Sunshine". Career. Jeon Do-yeon spent five years starring in television dramas before achieving instant star status with her film debut opposite Han Suk-kyu in "The Contact". She went on to establish a reputation as a "chameleon" who can take on a wide variety of roles, from her performance as a doctor in the hit melodrama "A Promise", to that of a schoolgirl in "The Harmonium in My Memory", then a wife having an adulterous affair in "Happy End". In 1999 and 2000 she received a Best Actress award from both the Blue Dragon Film Awards and the Grand Bell Awards for her role in "The Harmonium in My Memory". In 2001 she skillfully played a very ordinary bank teller in Park Heung-shik's debut "I Wish I Had a Wife". After starring as the tough-talking "Sunglasses" in Ryoo Seung-wan's "No Blood No Tears" (2002), Jeon spent time acting in the TV drama "Shoot for the Stars". In 2003 she found box-office success in E J-yong's "Untold Scandal", an adaptation of the famous French novel "Dangerous Liaisons" set in Joseon. The following year she reunited with director Park Heung-shik in a dual role for the time-bending melodrama "My Mother, the Mermaid". In 2005 Jeon burst back into the limelight playing a prostitute who contracts AIDS in Park Jin-pyo's hard-hitting melodrama "You Are My Sunshine". The performance helped turn the film into a box-office hit (3 million+ admissions), and also won her yet more additions to her collection of local acting awards. She then returned to television in "Lovers in Prague" which depicts the love story between the president's daughter and an ordinary detective; the drama averaged over 27 percent viewership ratings. In Korea, it is rare for a movie and a TV drama with the same leading actor or actress to become major hits at the same time, but Jeon managed to pull both roles off perfectly without causing any confusion in the audience. But it was her role in Lee Chang-dong's "Secret Sunshine" in 2007 that would see her emerge in full glory. Although the film itself, which debuted at the Cannes Film Festival, evoked widely differing assessments from international critics, Jeon's performance was universally praised, and she was presented with a Best Actress award by the Cannes jury -- the first Korean ever to receive an acting award at Cannes.
584011	Thaamirabharani () is a 2007 Indian Tamil-language film written and directed by Hari. The film stars Vishal, newcomer Muktha(Bhanu), Prabhu, Vijayakumar, Nadhiya and Nassar in lead roles. The score and soundtrack are composed by Yuvan Shankar Raja. It was released on 14 January 2007 during Thai Pongal along with Vijay's "Pokkiri" and Ajith's "Aalwar", eventually becoming a commercial success at the box office, running for more than 100 days in theatres. "Thaamirabharani" was later dubbed into Telugu and released as "Bharani". The title is derived from the river of the same name, which flows through Thirunelveli and Thoothukudi, where the film is set. Plot. The story is centred on Bharani (Vishal). This loud, angry young man, who doesn’t mind letting his fist fly furiously, is totally in awe of his uncle Saravanaperumal (Prabhu). Vishal and his mother (Rohini) live with Saravanaperumal and his mother (Manorama). It is a family that is typical of most Tamil movies. The villagers just venerate this big family. Pitted against them is the other big one — PVS family (peopled by Nadhiya, Vijayakumar and Nasser). And then there is Banu, daughter of Nadia and Saravanaperumal (Bhanu). Banu falls in love with Bharani whereas Bharani insults using press, unknowingly. As a revenge for Bharani insulting Banu, Nassar orders Saravanaperumal killed. But Saravanaprumal escapes with a minor cut on the back. Angered, Bharani tries to cut Nassar's hand in a fight. Nassar's youngest brother comes to make a truce and loses his right hand (and his marriage). Bharani comes to know that he has rights to marry Banu as we are told in a fight that Sakunthala (Nadhiya) is the estranged wife of Saravanan. The two had parted ways over Saravanan’s extreme fondness for his sister (Bharani’s mother) and Bharani. The story later is told that they had broken up because of Saravanan's sister's husband who has died, hence she stays with them. Sakunthala did not like this so they were separated. It all builds towards a heightened climax as the two young lovers try to hammer out peace between the two families. Sakunthala's brother tries to envelope her with a bad guy, the villain and here there is a twist. Cast. Before the debutant heroine, Banu, was chosen the producers cast another lead, Udayatara. During the course of shooting the film, Bhanu changed her name from Muktha for numerological reasons. Soundtrack. The music was scored by Yuvan Shankar Raja, who teamed up with director Hari for the first time and with Vishal for third time. The soundtrack was released on 22 December 2006. It features five tracks with lyrics penned by Na. Muthukumar. Tune of "Karuppana Kaiyale" was inspired from an old devotional song "Karpoora Nayagiye" by L. R. Eswari. Box office. The film was super hit. It was subsequently dubbed into Telugu as "Bharani" which was also a hit.
1065381	Lois Cleveland Chiles (born April 15, 1947) is an American actress and former fashion model known for her roles as the Dr. Holly Goodhead in the 1979 James Bond film "Moonraker", and as a hit and run driver in 1987's "Creepshow 2". Early life. Chiles was born in Houston, Texas, the daughter of Barbara Wayne Kirkland and Marion Clay Chiles, who was the brother of oil tycoon and Texas Rangers owner Eddie Chiles. She had two brothers: Clay Kirkland Chiles (now deceased), and William Edmonds Chiles, president and CEO of Bristow Group, Inc.
749169	Born of Hope is a 2009 fantasy-adventure fan film directed by Kate Madison and written by Paula DiSante (as Alex K. Aldridge) that is based on the appendices of J. R. R. Tolkien's "The Lord of the Rings". The film centres on the communities affected by Sauron's war; the story of Arathorn II and his relationship with Gilraen, and the importance of the Dúnedain bloodline. The bulk of the film was shot at the West Stow Anglo-Saxon Village in Suffolk. Scenes were shot in Epping Forest, Snowdonia National Park, Clearwell Caves and the Brecon Beacons. It debuted at Ring*Con 2009 before being streamed on DailyMotion for free, and later on YouTube. Plot. In the late Third Age, Sauron's power is increasing, and he has sent his Orcs to seek out the remnants of the bloodline of Elendil, kept alive in the Dúnedain. Dirhael, his wife Ivorwen and their daughter Gilraen are fleeing from an attack on their village when they are ambushed by Orcs on a forest road, and saved by a group of rangers led by Arathorn. Not having any place safer to go, the refugees go with Arathorn to Taurdal, the village led by his father and Chieftain of the Dúnedain, Arador. While there, Arathorn and Arador ponder the Orcs' motives after finding various pieces of jewelry on their bodies. During her stay in Taurdal, Gilraen falls in love with Arathorn. In light of the attacks on surrounding settlements, Arador leads his forces on a campaign against the Orcs in the area in an attempt to restore peace to the region. Meanwhile, he sends Arathorn separately in an attempt to determine the meaning behind the attacks. Both are successful, and Arathorn discovers the orcs are serving Sauron, who seeks the Ring of Barahir. Arathorn and Gilraen receive Arador's blessing to be wed, but Arathorn cannot summon the courage to ask Dirhael for his daughter's hand. Arador is summoned to Rivendell to seek Elrond's counsel, and the wedding is postponed until his return. Arathorn eventually confronts Dirhael, and receives permission to marry his daughter. Arathorn and Gilraen are married. A year later, Arador is killed by a hill troll in the Coldfells, making Arathorn the chieftain of the Dúnedain. Gilraen becomes pregnant and gives birth to a son, Aragorn. Taurdal knows peace for a while, until Elladan and Elrohir come with news from Rivendell. Elrond has sensed that danger is once again threatening the region, and they request that Gilraen and Aragorn be brought back to Rivendell for safekeeping, as is the tradition with all Dúnedain heirs to the chiefdom. Before Arathorn and Gilraen can come to a decision, orcs attack the village. They are beaten off; however, many Rangers fall, and Arathorn's closest friend, Elgarain, is mortally wounded while defending Gilraen. Arathorn then leads the remaining Rangers in pursuit of the stragglers. They are successful, but Arathorn is mortally wounded in the process. Without a chieftain capable of leading them, the Dúnedain abandon Taurdal and go into hiding in small secret settlements in the forests of Rhudaur, while the Elven twins, Elladan and Elrohir, bring Aragorn with his mother Gilraen to Rivendell, and safety. Production. The idea for the film was born in 2003 when director/producer/actor Kate Madison wanted to submit a film for the Tolkien Fan Film Exhibition. Originally a modest plan, it grew until April 2006 when the first test shoot occurred. Principal photography started in June 2008, and continued through 2009. The goal was to debut at Ring*Con 2009, which it did. It was later streamed for free on various video websites including DailyMotion and YouTube. Madison spent her life savings of £8,000 on the film. An extra £17,000 was generated by posting a trailer online, raising the budget to £25,000. "Born of Hope" was made over a period of six years, using a cast of 400, who would camp in tents so as to be able to shoot early. Christopher Dane (Arathorn) ended up getting very involved in the process of making the film, contributing to the script as well as handling the editing of the final product. Kate Madison, who directed and produced the film, was cast as Elgarain as well. Chris Bouchard of "The Hunt for Gollum" contributed to the production of the film as a camera operator and effects artist. Reception. Wendy Ide, writing for "The Times", gave the film a positive review. She awarded it 4 stars out of 5, calling it a "near note-perfect homage to Jackson’s vision for the Rings". She also noted that the film is "very well cast" and that "practically all the performances have a skill level far above that which is usually evident in low-budget cinema". "The Observer" stated that "Born of Hope" was the most credible adaptation among the many fan films based on "The Lord of the Rings", and noted that in March 2010, the film had reached almost a million hits at online streaming media. Awards. "Born of Hope" won the 2010 London Independent Film Festival in the category "Best Micro-Budget Feature".
1018381	Seychelle Suzanne Gabriel (born March 25, 1991) is an American actress. She is best known for roles in the feature films "The Spirit" (2008) and "The Last Airbender" (2010). She currently co-stars as Lourdes in the TNT series "Falling Skies" and as the voice of Asami Sato in the animated series "The Legend of Korra". Life and career. Gabriel was born in Burbank, California, and is of Mexican, Italian, and French ancestry. She graduated from Burbank High School. Gabriel appeared as Princess Yue in "The Last Airbender" (2010), directed by M. Night Shyamalan. The film was based on "". Gabriel appeared in "Honey 2" (2011), directed by Bille Woodruff, produced by Universal Studios Home Entertainment. Gabriel also appeared in the films "The Spirit" (2008), as Young Sand Saref. She has performed on "The Tonight Show", a late-night talk show, and had a recurring role on the comedy-drama television series "Weeds". She has also appeared in one episode of "Zoey 101". It was announced on March 7, 2011 that Gabriel was to voice the character Asami Sato in the Nickelodeon series "The Legend of Korra". Gabriel currently appears as Lourdes, a series regular on the original TNT sci-fi action/drama series "Falling Skies" produced by Steven Spielberg which began airing in June 2011.
1065523	Clarence Williams III (born August 21, 1939) is the Tony Award-nominated actor who is perhaps best known for his role as "Linc Hayes" on the iconic "hippie" cop show "The Mod Squad" (1968-1973). A stage, film and television actor, who occasionally directs, he is known for having been married to and divorced from the late stage and screen actress Gloria Foster (best known as the Oracle in the movie "The Matrix"). Early life. Born in New York City, New York, Williams was the son of a touring musician and grandson of legendary jazz composer/pianist Clarence Williams and his blues singer wife, Eva Taylor. Raised by his paternal grandmother, he became interested in acting after accidentally walking onto a stage at a theater below a Harlem YMCA. Career. Williams began pursuing an acting career after spending two years in the United States Air Force.He first appeared on Broadway in The Long Dream (1960), and received a Theatre World Award and Tony-nomination for the three-person play "Slow Dance on the Killing Ground" (1964). Continuing his impressive work on stage, he appeared in "Walk in Darkness" (1963), "Sarah and the Sax" (1964), "Doubletalk" (1964), and "King John". He also served as artist-in-residence at Brandeis University in 1966. His break-out role was as undercover cop Linc Hayes on the highly popular counter-culture TV cop series "Mod Squad" (1968). Along with fellow relative unknowns Michael Cole and Peggy Lipton, he became an instant star. Since the series ended in 1973, he has worked in a variety of genres on stage and screen, from comedy ("I'm Gonna Git You Sucka"; "Half-Baked") to sci-fi ("Star Trek: Deep Space Nine") and drama ("Purple Rain"). Spanning over forty years, his enviable career includes a recurring role in the surreal TV series "Twin Peaks" (1990), a good cop in "Deep Cover" (1992), a rioter in the mini-series "Against the Wall" (1994), and Wesley Snipes' chemically dependent Dad in "Sugar Hill" (1993). Other TV roles include "Hill Street Blues", the Canadian cult classic "The Littlest Hobo", "Miami Vice", "The Highwayman", "Burn Notice", "Everybody Hates Chris", "Justified", a recurring role as Philby Cross in the "Mystery Woman" and in movie series on the Hallmark Channel. He can be seen in movies such as "52 Pick-Up", "Life", "The Cool World", "Deep Cover", "Tales from the Hood", "Half-Baked", "Hoodlum", "Frogs for Snakes", "Starstruck", "The General's Daughter", "Reindeer Games", "Impostor", "The Legend of 1900", and "Purple Rain". He also played a supportive role as George Wallace's fictional African-American butler and caretaker in the 1997 TNT TV movie "George Wallace", and as Ellsworth Raymond "Bumpy" Johnson in "American Gangster" in 2007. Uncredited film roles include "Pork Chop Hill" (1959) and "American Gangster" (2007). Personal life. Williams married actress Gloria Foster in 1967, but divorced in 1984.
1060113	Shanghai Knights is a 2003 action-comedy film. It is the sequel to "Shanghai Noon". It was directed by David Dobkin and written by Alfred Gough and Miles Millar. Plot. The film opens in the Forbidden City in 1887, where Chon Lin (Fann Wong) is drinking tea with her father, the Keeper of the Imperial Seal of China. She tells him her brother, Chon Wang (Jackie Chan), is doing well as a sheriff in Carson City, Nevada, United States, but her father replies that her brother is dead to him. At that moment, Lord Nelson Rathbone (Aidan Gillen), leads a band of Boxers into the city, who attack the Keeper. Rathbone stabs him and leaves with the seal. As he lies dying, he gives Lin a puzzle box and a letter to Chon Wang. Back in the Wild West, Chon Wang is doing well as sheriff, having captured an impressive array of fugitives. His deputy is relaxing with a book called ""Roy O'Bannon Vs. The Mummy"", a highly fictionalized account of the events of the first film that now portrays Wang's "Shanghai Kid" as a cowardly sidekick. Wang receives a parcel, which contains the puzzle box and Lin's letter, telling him their father is dead and that she has tracked the murderer to London. Chon Wang travels to New York City to find his old partner Roy O'Bannon (Owen Wilson), needing his share of the gold left over from the first film to buy his ticket. Roy has left his brief stint in law enforcement, broken off his romance with Falling Leaves, spent most of the gold investing in the Zeppelin, and is now a hotel waiter and part-time gigolo. After they attempt prostitution to pay for a trip to England, the Mayor of New York arrives in search of his daughters, Roy's latest clients. Chon Wang fights off a number of New York police officers, and he and Roy ship themselves to London in a crate. On the way, Wang tells Roy about his father, and Roy swears an oath to help reclaim the seal. During a meeting with the British Parliament, Rathbone gives word of trouble going on in China and even presents a gift to the Queen from the Emperor as a Bengal Tiger. The Parliament find this action appalling and insulting. In London, Wang and O'Bannon have their duster and watch stolen, respectively, by a number of street thugs including a young boy named Charlie (Aaron Johnson). After an extensive battle to reclaim these items, they are arrested by the police. In Scotland Yard, Inspector Artie Doyle (Thomas Fisher) thanks the two for defeating the Fleet Street gang and gives Roy his watch that Charlie had stolen. He tells Wang that Lin is also in Scotland Yard, having attempted to kill Lord Rathbone and been dubbed "Looney Lin". Doyle is a reader of the Roy O'Bannon novels, and is enthralled to meet the actual Roy O'Bannon. Roy tries to use this to get Lin released, but it does not work. Meanwhile, Rathbone finds himself not alone in his carriage as Wu Chow (Donnie Yen) sneaks his way on and the two exchange a quick conversation and Rathbone slips him the dagger that killed the Keeper of the Imperial Seal. Sometime later, Roy and Wang wander through London, seeing Buckingham Palace. They encounter Charlie, who lets them into the empty house of a nobleman. Charlie brings it to their attention that the nobleman has an invitation to a gala at the castle. Roy and Wang done disguises: Roy masquerades as Major General "Sherlock Holmes" (a name he derives from the face of a clock), and Wang is the "Maharaja of Nevada". After turning down the offer to try some spotted dick, Wang and Roy follow Lord Rathbone to a private library. Once they enter, they cannot find him; he has slipped through a secret passage, which Wang discovers in a fireplace. As Roy occupies himself with a copy of the "Kama Sutra", Wang enters the secret room, which contains treasures from throughout the British Empire. Rathbone's guards attack Roy, but he is rescued by Lin, who has escaped from Scotland Yard. The three see Rathbone hand the Imperial Seal to Wu Chow, the illegitimate brother of the Emperor of China. Rathbone sees them and sets fire to the building, but young Charlie shows up and makes off with the Seal, Lin escapes through the roof, and Wang and Roy commandeer Rathbone's primitive automobile (one, though, which didn't actually exist in 1887, one of the many anachronisms in the movie) for a wild ride, culminating in them crashing into Stonehenge. While unconscious after the car crash, Roy has a sexual fantasy involving Lin and the "Kama Sutra", and he decides to start pursuing her, much to Wang's dismay. Lin finds them and gives them a ride to Whitechapel, where they stay in a rundown inn. Wang tells Lin about Roy's vices and problems, which Roy overhears. Lin does not flinch, but Roy is devastated at the betrayal. Wang however quickly makes it up to him by convincing several female prostitutes to have a sexy pillow fight with Roy. Lin, surprisingly, walks in on the fiasco and is heartbroken at the sight of Roy taking part in all the shenanigans. They all find themselves surrounded by Rathbone and a squad of boxers who apprehend the three. Taken to a covered pier, tied up and left defenseless, Wang and Roy finally encounter Wu Chow, his second-in-command Liu (Tom Wu) and his Boxers. Wu Chow ties her up to try to locate the Seal, but they do not know where Charlie has taken it. He tells them the grand scheme: Rathbone would kill the bearer of the Seal and return the item to Wu Chow, who would use the Seal to unite the enemies of China and claim the throne. In return, Wu Chow would use a Gatling gun to dispatch the Royal Family, leaving Rathbone, who is tenth in line to the throne, King. Chon Wang and Roy escape and track down Artie Doyle, who has developed an investigative technique called deductive reasoning, which he uses to find that Charlie has been hiding at Madame Tussauds wax museum. They reclaim the Seal, but it is taken by Boxers, and the three are arrested for trespassing. Charlie (who reveals his full name to be Charlie Chaplin, another anachronism because the movie is actually set 2 years prior to Chaplin's birth) breaks them out, and they go to Queen Victoria's Jubilee Ball, where the Royal Family will be. Wang finds Wu Chow and Lin as well on the fireworks barge, kills Liu, unties Lin, and dismantles Wu's plan. However, Wu proves himself to be an accomplished martial artist, surpassing Wang in skill, but Lin arrives in time to kill him with a fireworks rocket and save Wang. Artie and Roy, who have found their way into the Houses of Parliament, confront Rathbone and prevent his escape. Before Artie can arrest him, Rathbone shoots him in the shoulder. Roy and Wang pursue Rathbone up into Big Ben, where they engage him in a sword fight. Rathbone pushes Roy out of the glass front of the clock, but Roy catches himself on one of the clock's hands. Rathbone nearly defeats Wang, but Wang's rage over his dead father and fallen comrade leads him to suicidally grapple with Rathbone, sending both of them flying out the clock face. Luckily, Roy catches Wang, as Rathbone plummets to his death. Roy and Wang decide to jump by gripping hold of a large British Flag drapped over Big Ben and land in the carriage containing Queen Victoria. Roy and Wang are knighted, as is Artie, whose full name is now Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Artie decides to become a writer, his stories revolving around his deductive reasoning technique, and asks Roy if he can use the "Sherlock Holmes" name. Roy proposes that he and Wang go to Hollywood to get in on the ground floor with motion pictures (motion picture, though, was only invented in 1894 and Hollywood only became a center of movie-making thirty years after the movie, another anachronism). They roll off in a buggy, with Charlie stowed away. Wang also manages to open the box his father sent him, finding a message inside reminding him of the importance of family. Butt Te Bhatti. The movie became famous in Pakistan. It was translated and dubbed into Punjabi by the name of "Butt Te Bhatti" and the cast names were also changed. It can be viewed on Pakistani websites and YouTube. It is available on VCD and DVD. In the year 2002-03, it was the most voted for television piece in Pakistan. Up until now, several million copies of the Punjabi version have circulated worldwide. With the success of Shanghai Knights in Punjabi, the creative team dubbed Shanghai Noon as well. It surpassed many expectations and was critically acclaimed. The names of Jackie Chan and Owen Wilson's characters were changed to Bhatti and Butt respectively. Cultural references. There are a lot of references that are hard to miss, such as the fact that the little boy winds up being Charlie Chaplin, the detective is Sir Arthur Conan Doyle who goes on to writing the Sherlock Holmes mysteries and Roy talks about Zeppelins "taking off" and being a successful invention despite what will happen to the Hindenburg in 1937. Reception. The film has received generally positive reviews from critics, and holds a fresh score of 66% at Rotten Tomatoes. It holds a Metacritic score of 58 out of 100. Sequel. A third movie was meant to be produced under the title "Shanghai Dawn". Plans for the movie were posted on Jackie Chan's website, but after some news of casting and production plans, no movie has been produced. While unconfirmed, it is speculated that the project has been halted indefinitely as there is no news nor release dates.
1060055	A History of Violence is a 2005 American crime thriller film directed by David Cronenberg and written by Josh Olson. It is an adaptation of the 1997 graphic novel of the same name by John Wagner and Vince Locke. The film stars Viggo Mortensen as the owner of a diner who is thrust into the spotlight after killing two robbers in self-defense. The film was in the main competition for the 2005 Palme d'Or. The film was put into limited release in the United States on September 23, 2005, and wide-release on September 30, 2005.
1064825	Kimberly Elise (born April 17, 1967) is an American film and television actress. She is best known for her roles in such films as "Set It Off", "Beloved", "John Q", "The Manchurian Candidate", "Woman Thou Art Loosed", "", "Diary of a Mad Black Woman", and "For Colored Girls".
1059282	Alexander "Xander" Harper Berkeley (born December 16, 1955) is an American actor. He is known for roles including George Mason on the political thriller series "24" and Percy on the action thriller series "Nikita". Early life and education. Berkeley was born in Brooklyn, New York on December 16, 1955, but has lived most of his life in New Jersey. He attended Hampshire College and worked in the theaters at the five college system which Hampshire was a part of, including Smith, Mount Holyoke, Amherst, and the University of Massachusetts. Berkeley worked in the Regional and Repertory Theaters in addition to Off Broadway while living in New York. A casting agent saw Berkeley in a play written by Reynolds Price called "Early Dark", and encouraged him to move to Hollywood. Career. Berkeley began playing roles in 1981, with early appearances in "M*A*S*H", "Cagney & Lacey", "Remington Steele", "Miami Vice", "Moonlighting" and "The A-Team". Although not becoming a household name, Berkeley's face was increasingly recognizable into the 1990s. His later television guest roles included "The X-Files", "", "ER", "24" and "Law & Order". On the big screen, Berkeley has appeared in "North Country", "", "Phoenix", "Kick-Ass", "A Few Good Men", "The Rookie", "Candyman", "Apollo 13", "Leaving Las Vegas", "Gattaca", "The Rock" (uncredited), "Air Force One", "Sid and Nancy", "Spawn", "Amistad", "Shanghai Noon", "Barb Wire" and "Timecode". Berkeley has the distinction of appearing in both the made-for-television film "L.A. Takedown" in 1989 and its 1995 critically acclaimed theatrical remake "Heat", both directed by Michael Mann. Several of his earlier roles were in films by director Alex Cox. In 2001, Berkeley became a recurring guest star on "24" as George Mason, the head of the Counter Terrorist Unit. Berkeley has provided voices for animated series such as "Aaahh!!! Real Monsters", "Teen Titans" and "Gargoyles". He voiced Quentin Beck/Mysterio in "The Spectacular Spider-Man" and Captain Atom in the animated movie "". He portrayed the mysterious John Smith on the CBS drama "Jericho". He began portraying the series regular role of Percy on The CW's drama "Nikita" at the start of the 2010–2011 television season. In 2013, Berkeley won a Streamy Award for "Best Male Performance, Drama" his starring role in the acclaimed webseries, "The Booth At The End". Personal life. Berkeley is a painter and a sculptor, as well as a make-up artist. Berkeley met Sarah Clarke on the set of "24" in 2001, and married her the following year. Berkeley and Clarke live with their two daughters in Los Angeles, California, where he works as a painter and sculptor when he is not acting.
1063352	"Charlie Wilson's War" is a 2007 American biographical-drama film, recounting the true story of U.S. Congressman Charlie Wilson who partnered with CIA operative Gust Avrakotos to launch Operation Cyclone, a program to organize and support the Afghan mujahideen during the Soviet war in Afghanistan. The film was directed by Mike Nichols and written by Aaron Sorkin, who adapted George Crile III's 2003 book "Charlie Wilson's War: The Extraordinary Story of the Largest Covert Operation in History". Tom Hanks, Julia Roberts, and Philip Seymour Hoffman starred, with Amy Adams, Ned Beatty, and Emily Blunt in supporting roles. It was nominated for five Golden Globe Awards, including "Best Motion Picture", but did not win in any category. Hoffman was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. Plot. In 1980, U.S. Representative Charlie Wilson (Tom Hanks) is more interested in partying than legislating, frequently throwing huge galas and staffing his congressional office with young, attractive women. His social life eventually brings about a federal investigation into allegations of his cocaine use, conducted by then–U.S. Attorney Rudy Giuliani as part of a larger investigation into congressional misconduct. The investigation results in no charge against Charlie. A friend and romantic interest, Joanne Herring (Julia Roberts), encourages Charlie to do more to help the Afghan people, and persuades Charlie to visit the Pakistani leadership. The Pakistanis complain about the inadequate support of the U.S. to oppose the Soviet Union, and they insist that Charlie visit a major Pakistan-based Afghan refugee camp. Charlie is deeply moved by their misery and determination to fight, but is frustrated by the regional CIA personnel's insistence on a low-key approach against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. Charlie returns home to lead an effort to substantially increase funding to the mujahideen. As part of this effort, Charlie befriends the maverick CIA agent Gust Avrakotos (Philip Seymour Hoffman) and his understaffed Afghanistan group to find a better strategy, especially including a means to counter the Soviets' formidable Mi-24 helicopter gunship. This group was composed in part of members of the CIA's Special Activities Division, including a young paramilitary officer named Michael Vickers (Christopher Denham). As a result, Charlie's deft political bargaining for the necessary funding and Avrakotos' group's careful planning using those resources, such as supplying the guerrillas with FIM-92 Stinger missile launchers, turns the Soviet occupation into a deadly quagmire with their heavy fighting vehicles being destroyed at a crippling rate. The CIA's anti-communism budget evolves from $5 million to over $500 million (with the same amount matched by Saudi Arabia), startling several congressmen. This effort by Charlie ultimately evolves into a major portion of the U.S. foreign policy known as the Reagan Doctrine, under which the U.S. expanded assistance beyond just the mujahideen and began also supporting other anti-communist resistance movements around the world. Charlie states that senior Pentagon official Michael Pillsbury persuaded President Ronald Reagan to provide the Stingers to the Afghans: "Ironically, neither Gust nor Charlie was directly involved in the decision and claims any credit." Charlie follows Gust's guidance to seek support for post-Soviet occupation Afghanistan, but finds almost no enthusiasm in the U.S. government for even the modest measures he proposes. The film ends with Charlie receiving a major commendation for the support of the U.S. clandestine services, but his pride is tempered by his fears of what unintended consequences his secret efforts could yield in the future and the implications of U.S. disengagement from Afghanistan. Release and reception. Box office. The film was originally set for release on December 25, 2007; but on November 30, the timetable was moved up to December 21. In its opening weekend, the film grossed $9.6 million in 2,575 theaters in the United States and Canada, ranking #4 at the box office. It grossed a total of $119 million worldwide—$66.7 million in the United States and Canada and $52.3 million in other territories. Critical reaction. "Charlie Wilson's War" received generally favorable reviews from critics. The review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reported that 81% of critics gave the film positive reviews, based on 192 reviews. Metacritic reported the film had an average score of 69 out of 100, based on 39 reviews. Governmental criticism and praise. Reagan-era officials, including former Under Secretary of Defense Fred Ikle, have criticized some elements of the film. "The Washington Times" reported that some have claimed that the film wrongly promotes the notion that the CIA-led operation funded Osama bin Laden and ultimately produced the September 11 attacks. Other Reagan-era officials, however, have been more supportive of the film. Michael Johns, the former Heritage Foundation foreign policy analyst and White House speechwriter to President George H. W. Bush, praised the film as "the first mass-appeal effort to reflect the most important lesson of America's Cold War victory: that the Reagan-led effort to support freedom fighters resisting Soviet oppression led successfully to the first major military defeat of the Soviet Union... Sending the Red Army packing from Afghanistan proved one of the single most important contributing factors in one of history's most profoundly positive and important developments." Aftermath. The film depicts the concern expressed by Charlie and Gust that Afghanistan was being neglected in the 1990s, following the Soviet withdrawal. In one of the film's final scenes, Gust dampens Charlie's enthusiasm over the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan, saying "I'm about to give you an NIE that shows the crazies are rolling into Kandahar." George Crile III, author of the book on which the film is based, wrote that the mujahideen's victory in Afghanistan ultimately opened a power vacuum for bin Laden: "By the end of 1993, in Afghanistan itself there were no roads, no schools, just a destroyed country—and the United States was washing its hands of any responsibility. It was in this vacuum that the Taliban and Osama bin Laden would emerge as the dominant players. It is ironic that a man who had almost nothing to do with the victory over the Red Army, Osama bin Laden, would come to personify the power of the jihad." While the film depicts Wilson as an immediate advocate for supplying the mujahideen with Stinger missiles, a former Reagan administration official recalls that he and Wilson, while advocates for the mujahideen, were actually initially "lukewarm" on the idea of supplying these missiles. Their opinion changed when they discovered that rebels were successful in downing Soviet gunships with them. As such, they were actually not supplied until the second Reagan administration term, in 1987, and their provision was mostly advocated by Reagan defense officials and influential conservatives. Happy ending. The film's happy ending came about because Tom Hanks, "just can't deal with this 9/11 thing," according to Melissa Roddy, a Los Angeles film maker with inside information from the production. Citing the original screenplay, which was very different to the final product, in Matthew Alford wrote that the film gave up "the chance to produce what at least had the potential to be the Dr. Strangelove of our generation". Russian reception. In February 2008, it was revealed that the film would not play in Russian theaters. The rights for the film were bought by Universal Pictures International (UPI) Russia. It was speculated that the film would not appear because of a certain point of view that depicted the Soviet Union unfavorably. UPI Russia head Yevgeny Beginin denied that, saying, "We simply decided that the film would not make a profit." Reaction from Russian bloggers was also negative. One wrote: "The whole film shows Russians, or rather Soviets, as brutal killers." Home release. The film was released on DVD April 22, 2008; a DVD version and a HD DVD/DVD combo version are available. The extras include a making of featurette and a "Who is Charlie Wilson?" featurette, which profiles the real Charlie Wilson and features interviews with him and with Tom Hanks, Joanne Herring, Aaron Sorkin, and Mike Nichols. The HD DVD/DVD combo version also includes additional exclusive content. Arthur Kent lawsuit. In 2008, Canadian journalist and politician Arthur Kent sued the makers of the film, claiming that they had used material he produced in the 1980s without obtaining the proper authorization. On September 19, 2008, Kent announced that he had reached a settlement with the film's producers and distributors, and that he was "very pleased" with the terms of the settlement, which remain confidential.
1571029	Chief Dan George, OC (July 24, 1899 – September 23, 1981) was a chief of the Tsleil-Waututh Nation, a Coast Salish band located on Burrard Inlet in North Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. He was also an author, poet, and an Academy Award-nominated actor. His best-known written work was "My Heart Soars." Early years. Born as Geswanouth Slahoot in North Vancouver, his English name was originally Dan Slaholt. The surname was changed to George when he entered a residential school at age 5. He worked at a number of different jobs, including as a longshoreman, construction worker, and school bus driver, and was band chief of the Tsleil-Waututh Nation from 1951–63 (then called the Burrard Indian Band). Acting career. In 1960, when he was already 60 years old, he landed his first acting job in a CBC Television series, "Cariboo Country", as the character, Ol' Antoine (pron. "Antwine"). He performed the same role in a Walt Disney Studios movie, "Smith!", adapted from an episode in this series (based on "Breaking Smith's Quarter Horse", a novella by Paul St. Pierre). At age 71, he won several awards for his role in the film "Little Big Man". He received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. He continued to act in other films, such as "Cancel My Reservation", "The Outlaw Josey Wales", "Harry and Tonto", and "Americathon", and on television, including a role in the miniseries "Centennial", based on the book by James A. Michener, as well as appearing in a 1973 episode of the original "Kung Fu" series and in several episodes of "The Beachcombers". He played the role of Rita Joe's father in George Ryga's stage play, "The Ecstasy of Rita Joe", in performances at Vancouver, the National Arts Centre in Ottawa, and Washington, D.C.. During his acting career, he worked to promote better understanding by non-aboriginals of the First Nations people. His soliloquy, "Lament for Confederation", an indictment of the appropriation of native territory by white colonialism, was performed at the City of Vancouver's celebration of the Canadian centennial in 1967. This speech is credited with escalating native political activism in Canada and touching off widespread pro-native sentiment among non-natives. In 1971, George was made an Officer of the Order of Canada. In 2008 Canada Post issued a postage stamp in its "Canadians in Hollywood" series featuring Chief Dan George. He died in Vancouver in 1981 at the age of 82. He was interred at Burrard Cemetery. Musical career. In 1973, George recorded "My Blue Heaven" with Fireweed, with "Indian Prayer" on the reverse. An album, "Chief Dan George & Fireweed - In Circle" was released in 1974 comprising these songs and seven others. Cultural references. He was included on the famous Golden Rule Poster under "Native Spirituality" with the quote: "We are as much alive as we keep the earth alive". Canadian actor Donald Sutherland narrated the following quote from his poem "My Heart Soars" in the opening ceremonies of the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver. Personal life. Dan George's granddaughter Lee Maracle is a poet, author, activist, and professor. His granddaughter Charlene Aleck is an actress who performed for 18 years on "The Beachcombers" on CBC. His
341171	My Own Love Song is a 2010 road movie directed and written by Olivier Dahan and starring Renée Zellweger, Forest Whitaker, Madeline Zima and Nick Nolte. It premiered in Dahan's native France on April 7, 2010 and in the United States at the Tribeca Film Festival between April 21 to May 2, 2010. The soundtrack contains music written by Bob Dylan, including "Life Is Hard" from his 2009 album "Together Through Life". Plot. In Marysville, Kansas, a paralyzed former singer, Jane, argues with her stuttering friend Joey about his belief that he can talk to the invisible world. One day, as she's out for some physiotherapy treatment, he messes up her house while searching for a book about angels that he has lent her but that she has not read. Frightening the neighbors, he is taken by the police to a hospital, where an angry Jane briefly visits. The following night, Joey escapes from his room and comes back to his friend's house in order to tidy it as she sleeps. While he cleans everything up, he finds a letter from her young son inviting her to his upcoming communion in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, where he lives with his adoptive family. Later on, as she has woken up, he asks her if he can spend the night on the couch. In the morning, the police knock on Jane's door and ask her if the escapee is in her house. She hesitates but eventually tells them that he's left. Decided not to go back to the psychiatric hospital nor to prison, Joey then begs Jane to join him on a planned trip to New Orleans, where a celebrated author writing about angels is due to hold a conference. Soon after they start driving, problems begin. Their engine heats up and their car explodes. They buy a new one but this one is stolen. They then board a coach and, while Jane sleeps, Joey meets a young lady called Billie by helping her find her wedding ring on the floor. She tells him her husband has disappeared without giving an address. Later on, the three passengers dine at Billie's sister with her friends. A romantic night follows and ends with fireworks. The next morning, Joey, Jane and Billie are driven to a restaurant by a relative, but Jane forgets her purse in the car. As nobody has enough money for the bill, Joey elaborates a plan to get them to the bus without paying. The plan does not work but they eventually get into the bus, where they argue about what they've just done. The bus driver abandons them on a road in the middle of nowhere. Jane decides to go back home and Joey has to reveal the existence of her son's letter. At night, the three hear music and meet Caldwell, an old musician with whom they share some cake enhanced with drugs. The following day, Caldwell gives them a lift, as Jane reluctantly agrees to replace a singer who was due to sing two songs in a restaurant. In town, shortly before her planned show, Jane argues with Joey about his mothering her. She leaves the group and meets fellow travelers going to Iowa. The woman of the couple is ill and they are going their on their last trip to their children. This inspiring meeting persuades Jane to perform the show she was supposed to be at. She arrives on stage while Joey prays angels for her to come back. She sings "This Land Is Your Land" accompanied by Caldwell on electric guitar, to applause from the public in the club. After the concert, as they drive towards New Orleans, they notice their stolen car on the road and chase the thief. An accident ensues and everybody is arrested and subsequently freed except Caldwell who is taken to prison. Jane manages to give him a song written for him, where she stresses the beauty of birds. In New Orleans, Joey attends the conference about angels but discovers, while in the toilet, that the author is both a racist and a liar. He does not believe in what he writes and hates his Black and Mexican readership. Joey punches him in the face and the three travelers are expelled from the conference. They get to the train station and are bound to Baton Rouge when Billie receives a call. Her husband is on the phone and seems ready to come back home. She leaves Jane and Joey just before their train departs. In Baton Rouge, as they reach Jane's son's communion, she hesitates to get in, afraid that she will not recognize him seven years after her accident and subsequent coma. Joey tells her to sing, so that he will find her. She listens to his advice, and just like Joey had predicted, her son, who was just about to leave the place with his adoptive family, stops in front of her as he hears her sing. The final scene is set later back in Kansas. Joey and Jane are sitting in front of a lake, talking. Her son and his adoptive parents arrive for a visit. Jane and Joey hold their hands as the three approach. Production. Production began in October 2008 in Kansas and Louisiana.
1062266	Dorothy Malone (born January 30, 1925) is an American actress. Her film career began in 1943, and in her early years she played small roles, mainly in B-movies. After a decade in films, she began to acquire a more glamorous image, particularly after her performance in "Written on the Wind" (1956), for which she won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. Her film career reached its peak by the beginning of the 1960s, and she achieved later success with her television role as Constance MacKenzie on "Peyton Place" from 1964 to 1968. Less active in her later years, Malone returned to films in 1992 as the friend of Sharon Stone's character in "Basic Instinct". Early life and career. Malone was born Dorothy Eloise Maloney in Chicago. Her family moved to Dallas, Texas, where she worked as a child model and began acting in school plays at Ursuline Convent and Highland Park High School. While performing at Southern Methodist University, she was spotted by an RKO talent agent and was signed to a studio contract, making her film debut in 1943 in "The Falcon and the Co-Eds". Much of Malone's early career was spent in supporting roles in B-movies, many of them Westerns, although on occasion she played small but memorable roles, such as the brainy, lusty, bespectacled bookstore clerk in "The Big Sleep" (1946) with Humphrey Bogart, and the love interest of Dean Martin in the musical-comedy "Artists and Models" (1955). Transformation. By 1956, Malone transformed herself into a platinum blonde and shed her "good girl" image when she co-starred with Rock Hudson, Lauren Bacall, and Robert Stack in director Douglas Sirk's drama "Written on the Wind". Her portrayal of the dipso-nymphomaniac daughter of a Texas oil baron won her the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. As a result, she was offered more substantial roles in such films as "Too Much, Too Soon", where she portrayed Diana Barrymore, "Man of a Thousand Faces" (with James Cagney), and "Warlock" (with Henry Fonda and Richard Widmark). Additional screen credits include "The Tarnished Angels" (in which she reunited with former co-stars Hudson and Stack and director Sirk), "The Last Voyage" (with Stack) and "The Last Sunset" (with Hudson). Later career. On New Years Day 1956, she appeared with John Ericson in the episode "Mutiny" of CBS's "Appointment with Adventure". She guest-starred on NBC's 1958-1959 western series, "Cimarron City". During the 1963-1964 season, Malone guest starred on ABC's circus drama "The Greatest Show on Earth", starring Jack Palance. From 1964-1968, she played the lead role of Constance MacKenzie on the ABC prime time serial "Peyton Place" except for a brief stretch where she was absent due to surgery. Lola Albright filled in until her return. In 1968, she was written out of the show after complaining that she was given little to do, especially in light of the show's concentration on the love story between young leads Mia Farrow and Ryan O'Neal. Malone sued 20th Century-Fox for $1.6 million for breach of contract; it was settled out of court. She would later return to the role in the TV movies "Murder in Peyton Place" (1977) and "" (1985). Malone had a featured role in the miniseries "Rich Man, Poor Man" (1976). In her last screen appearance, she played a mother convicted of murdering her family in "Basic Instinct" (1992) with Michael Douglas and Sharon Stone. "Dallas" producers approached Malone to step into the role of Miss Ellie Ewing when Barbara Bel Geddes vacated the role in 1984. She declined. Personal life. Malone has been married and divorced three times and has two daughters, Mimi and Diane, from her first marriage to actor Jacques Bergerac. Her star in the Hollywood Walk of Fame is located at 1718 Vine. , Malone is retired and living in Dallas, Texas. Malone is a Methodist.
1063780	Frenzy is a 1972 British crime thriller film produced and directed by Alfred Hitchcock, the penultimate feature film of his extensive career and often considered by critics and scholars to be his last great film before his death. The film is based upon the novel "Goodbye Piccadilly, Farewell Leicester Square" by Arthur La Bern. The novel was adapted for the screen by Anthony Shaffer.
725438	Shemar Franklin Moore (; born April 20, 1970) is an American actor and former fashion model. His notable roles are that of Malcolm Winters on "The Young and the Restless" from 1994 to 2005, Derek Morgan on CBS's "Criminal Minds" from 2005 to present, and as the third permanent host of "Soul Train" from 1999 to 2003. Early life. Moore was born in Oakland, California, the son of Marilyn Wilson, a business consultant, and Sherrod Moore. Moore's father is African American and his mother, who was born in Roxbury, Massachusetts, is of Irish and French-Canadian descent. His mother, who has a degree in mathematics, worked as a teacher in Bahrain and Denmark. Moore moved with her to Denmark as an infant, and then to Bahrain when he was four where he attended a British private school until the age of seven. Moore cites civil unrest, interracial relationships being taboo, and racism in the US in the 1970s as part of the reason his mother moved abroad with him. Returning to California in 1977, the family moved to Chico, California, where his mother worked at a clinic, before later moving to Palo Alto. Shemar Moore graduated from Gunn High School in Palo Alto. He attended Santa Clara University, majoring in communications, and modeled to pay his bills. His mother now lives in Pacifica, California, where he visits from time to time. Career. Moore played the role of Malcolm Winters on "The Young and the Restless" for eight years. In November 2004, he returned to "The Young and the Restless" after originally planning to leave the show, but after a few months he dropped back to recurring status and left in September 2005. In 2007, he said, "My time is done on "Y&R". I did eight solid years as Malcolm." When Susan Lucci won her long-awaited Emmy for outstanding lead actress in a drama series at the 1999 Daytime Emmy Awards, it was Moore who announced it by exclaiming, "The streak is over...Susan Lucci!"
585456	Aparichithan (Malayalam : അപരിചിതന്‍) () is a 2004 suspense thriller Malayalam film directed by Sanjeev Sivan. Mammootty plays the lead role Raghuram. The theme of the film is Ouija board and spiritualism. Music is composed by Suresh Peters, while Peter Hein choreographed the action sequences. It was the directorial debut of Sanjeev Sivan, the youngest of a family of filmmakers that includes his father Sivan and elder brothers Sangeeth Sivan and Santosh Sivan. Made on a budget of less than 1.10 crores, the film was a box office hit and is said to have changed the face of the Kerala film industry with its never-seen-before technique and craft. Within 10 minutes of hearing the story of the film, Mammootty agreed to take up the role of Raghuram. Plot. It is the story of three carefree college friends - Minu (Kavya Madhavan), Simi (Karthika) and Devi (Manya) - who keep landing in trouble. After one such incident where Devi, the leader of the trio, is caught red-handed trying to steal question papers on the eve of exams, they have to go underground to avoid facing their peers and families. They take the help of Chacko (Vineeth Kumar), Simi's fiancee, who arranges their stay with a woman psychiatrist(Urmila Unni) who is also an expert in "tantrik" mysticism and Ouija board, in an isolated house. Fresh trouble begins there. The landlady chases the girls out, saying a wandering soul is following them. The girls were harassed and threatened by their college mate Jithulal. Chacko accepts help of his friend Vinod Varghese (Siraj), who promises to take them to a guesthouse out in the woods. Vinod actually had an agenda to cheat the girls by bringing them to Jithulal. Their bus met with an accident and they are forced to walk along the deserted road through the woods. There they meet a mysterious wildlife photographer and a drunkard, Raghuram (Mammootty). They took shelter at an old bungalow in the forest where they had strange experiences. Ram was a nuisance throughout their journey; however, Minu made a good company with him. Ram told her his stories. He was left only by a younger sister who went missing from Bombay which made him a drunkard and a psycho. After long treatment, Ram returned to his professional life and in one of his forest tours, he happened to visit a girl named kalyani(Mahii Vij ) who looked exactly as if his sister. He offered her to take her to Mumbai and she wholeheartedly agreed. But on the day they planned to left, she too went missing and the aborigines accused Ram for the incident. Ram searched for her throughout the forest but on another side of the jungle she was brutally raped by Jithu Lal. She was burnt alive by Jithulal and his friend Vinod. The spirit of the murdered girl followed the three girls. At sunrise, Chacko and Vinod informed the police inspector (Rajan P. Dev) Ram's missing. They were terrified to discover that Ram died when they met their accident. They returned to the forest house, and Minu once again tried Ouija board. Ram's spirit came to them and they fled the house; they discovered that Vinod was cheating them. The soul of Ram followed Vinod and killed him in a marsh. Soundtrack. All songs composed by Suresh Peters and lyrics by Girish Puthenchery. The song "Masam Masam" was recorded within 20 minutes.
586487	Chhodon Naa Yaar is a 2007 Bollywood drama film directed by Dillip Sood and starring Jimmy Shergill and Kim Sharma. Plot. Ravi (Jimmy Shergill), Shiv (Kabir Sadanand) and Sunny (Farid Amiri), three final year students from a Delhi Mass Com College decided to make their diploma film about a myth which was prevalent in the northern hills of India. But, they did not know that the myth would turn out to be the truth.film is clearly inspired by 1999 American thriller The Blair Witch Project. Ravi planned the trip against the wishes of his girlfriend Rashmi (Kim Sharma) and college professor Saxena (Ahmed Khan) as both of them thought it to be a dangerous trip. However, Sunny eagerly joined the trip considering it as a fun trip. It was surely fun when they began… But as they got deeper into the jungle their courage and beliefs were put to test.
589468	Ganga Ki Saugandh is a 1978 Hindi movie. Produced and directed by Sultan Ahmed this film stars Amitabh Bachchan, Rekha, Amjad Khan, Pran, I. S. Johar, Bindu, and Anju Mahendru. The music is by Kalyanji Anandji. This movie is set in a village setting where Amjad Khan is a tyrant. Amitabh plays a very naiive young man, and becomes a dacoit to avenge the death of his mother. Amitabh is thrown out of the village when he is unable to offer a satisfactory explanation for the death of the cow. He forms a group who work in throwing Amjad Khan off his high throne. Plot. Thakur Jaswant Singh rules over the region with an iron hand. He has no pity or empathy for the poor, all he is interested in is their money, their women, and alcohol. After the passing away of his dad, he assumes total control over the region, and increases the taxes. One day while walking across the hallway, he trips over the wet floor, and falls down. He gets up angrily and assaults the old woman, Ramvati, who was washing the floor. His abuse is interrupted by the arrival of Ramvati's son, Jeeva, who intervenes. Jaswant is ready to shoot him down, but Jaswant's mom prevents him from doing so. Word gets around that Jeeva is in the bad books of the Thakur, and soon a number of people start consipiring against Jeeva. The next day Jeeva is summoned before the village council and asked to explain his involvement in the death of a cow. Jeeva has no satisfactory explanation, and he is asked to leave the village immediately with his mother. Jeeva refuses to do so, and is severely beaten, and thrown out. Shortly thereafter his mother passes away, and Jeeva decides to avenge her death by bringing about the downfall of Jaswant Singh. In order to do this, he becomes a dacait. Jeeva swears on the holy river Ganga to wipe out Jaswant Singh and his men, without knowing his decision will bring him into conflict with the police, and with the honest people from the very community he was exiled from.
1775562	25 Hill is a 2011 drama film written and directed by Corbin Bernsen about the All-American Soap Box Derby, the championships of which are held each August in Akron, OH. It stars Nathan Gamble, Corbin Bernsen, Maureen Flannigan, and Ralph Waite. Plot. 12 year-old Trey Caldwell (Nathan Gamble) is shattered when his soldier father is killed in Afghanistan, leaving a hole in the boy’s life – and an unfinished Soap Box Derby car in the garage. A final gift from his dad, the car is a constant reminder of all that could have been. But when Trey meets Roy Gibbs (Corbin Bernsen), a grizzled Fire Chief devastated by the loss of his firefighter son on 9/11, a new relationship forms and old wounds finally begin to heal. As the unlikely team works to complete the Soap Box car and train for the upcoming Derby, they’ll learn that life isn’t about the starting line or checkered flag – it’s about having the courage to make the incredible journey of faith in between. Production. Filming. Filming started in Akron, Ohio on April 7, 2010 and went into post-production on August 13.
496010	Sympathy for Delicious is a 2010 drama film, and the directorial debut of Mark Ruffalo. Filming took place in Los Angeles. Plot. A newly paralyzed DJ (Thornton) gets more than he bargained for when he seeks out the world of faith healing. Awards. Mark Ruffalo won the Special Jury Prize at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival, and was also nominated for the Grand Jury Prize. Production. Filming took place in Los Angeles, California from 5 January - 28 February 2009.
1169643	Michael Pataki (January 16, 1938 – April 15, 2010) was an American character actor. Early life. Pataki born in Youngstown, Ohio. His father was Hungarian. He attended the University of Southern California with a double major in Political Science and Drama. His career was launched at a summer stock festival in Edinburgh in 1966, with a review that read, "Michael Pataki went beyond the bounds of mere nationality in his tense and moving interpretation of "Jerry" in "Zoo Story". Pataki was so well loved that at a reception for the theatre group acclaimed English actor Laurence Harvey, whom Pataki had never met, said he was magnificent and gave him a kiss on the mouth. Television career. Pataki had appeared in numerous television productions, from the black and white days of "Playhouse 90", "The Twilight Zone", and "My Favorite Martian", to early color shows like "The Flying Nun", "Bonanza", "All in the Family", "Mannix", and "The Green Hornet". Pataki was also a regular on "Paul Sand in Friends and Lovers" and "The Amazing Spider-Man", and had a re-occurring role on "McCloud" as well. One of his most famous roles was as "Korax", the loudmouthed Klingon who started the bar fight in "The Trouble With Tribbles" episode of "".
1062054	Edward Allen "Ed" Harris (born November 28, 1950) is an American actor, writer, and director. He is best known for his performances in "Pollock", "Appaloosa", "The Rock", "The Abyss", "A Beautiful Mind", "A History of Violence", "Enemy at the Gates", "The Right Stuff", "Gone Baby Gone", "Paris Trout", "Jackknife", "Empire Falls", and "Game Change". Harris has also narrated commercials for Home Depot and other companies. He is a three-time nominee of the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performances in "Apollo 13", "The Truman Show", and "The Hours", along with an Academy Award for Best Actor nomination for his role in "Pollock". Early life. Harris was born in Englewood Hospital in Englewood, New Jersey, and was raised in Tenafly, the son of Margaret, a travel agent, and Robert L. Harris, who sang with the Fred Waring chorus and worked at the bookstore of the Art Institute of Chicago. He has an older brother, Robert, and a younger brother, Spencer. His parents were originally from Oklahoma. Harris was raised in a middle-class Presbyterian family. He graduated from Tenafly High School in 1969, where he played on the football team, serving as the team's captain in his senior year. He was a star athlete in high school, and competed in athletics at Columbia University in 1969. Two years later his family moved to New Mexico, and he followed, after having discovered his interest in acting in various theater plays. He enrolled at the University of Oklahoma to study drama. After several successful roles in the local theater, he moved to Los Angeles, and enrolled at the California Institute of the Arts. He spent two years there, and graduated with a BFA. Career. Harris's first important film role was in "Borderline" with Charles Bronson. In "Knightriders" (1981), he played the king of a motorcycle-riding renaissance-fair troupe in a role modeled after King Arthur. In 1983, Harris became well known after playing astronaut John Glenn in "The Right Stuff". Twelve years later, a film with a similar theme led to Harris being nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, for his portrayal of NASA flight director Gene Kranz in "Apollo 13". Further Oscar nominations arrived in 1999, 2001, and 2003, for "The Truman Show", "Pollock", and "The Hours", respectively. Harris also portrayed a German Army sniper, Major Erwin König, in "Enemy at the Gates" (2001). He appeared as a vengeful mobster in David Cronenberg's "A History of Violence" (2005) and as a police officer alongside Casey Affleck and Morgan Freeman, in "Gone Baby Gone" (2007), directed by Ben Affleck. Also in 2007, he appeared in "" as antagonist Mitch Wilkinson. Along with theatrical films, he has starred in television adaptations of "Riders of the Purple Sage" (1996) and "Empire Falls" (2005). Harris made his cinema directing debut in 2000, with "Pollock", in which he starred as the acclaimed American artist Jackson Pollock. He has also portrayed such diverse real-life characters as William Walker, a 19th-century American who appointed himself president of Nicaragua, in the film "Walker", Watergate figure E. Howard Hunt in the Oliver Stone biopic "Nixon", composer Ludwig van Beethoven in the film "Copying Beethoven", and Senator John McCain in HBO's made-for-television drama "Game Change". Harris has directed a number of theater productions as well as having an active stage acting career. Most notably, he starred in the production of Neil LaBute's one-man play "Wrecks" at the Public Theater in New York City and later at the Geffen Theater in Los Angeles. For the LA production, he won the LA Drama Critics Circle Award. "Wrecks" premiered at the Everyman Theater in Cork, Ireland, and then in the US at the Public Theater in New York. Harris and wife Amy Madigan starred together in Ash Adams' indie crime drama "Once Fallen", released in 2010. Personal life. Harris's wife is actress Amy Madigan. The couple married on 21 November 1983, while they were filming "Places in the Heart" in which they played an adulterous couple. They have a daughter, Lily Dolores Harris, born in 1993. On 30 March 2012, the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) and the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (AFTRA) completed a merger of equals to form a new union SAG-AFTRA. Harris, along with Edward Asner, Martin Sheen, Valerie Harper, Michael Bell, and Wendy Schall (to name a few) are adamantly opposed to such a merger and filed a lawsuit against SAG President Ken Howard and several SAG Vice Presidents seeking to have the merger overturned and the two unions separated to their pre-merger organizations. The lawsuit was dismissed on May 22, 2012.
1270729	Phillip Lang Crosby (July 13, 1934 – January 13, 2004) was an American actor and singer. He was one of four sons of Bing Crosby and Dixie Lee, the others were his older brother Gary, his twin brother Dennis, and his younger brother Lindsay. Phillip began his career singing alongside his three brothers and his father, Bing Crosby. Early life and family. Crosby was born in California. He was educated at Bellarmine College Preparatory in San Jose.
1060517	Bowfinger is a 1999 American comedy film directed by Frank Oz. It depicts a down-and-out filmmaker in Hollywood attempting to make a film on a small budget with a star who does not know that he is in the film. It was written by Steve Martin, and stars Martin, Eddie Murphy, and Heather Graham. Critics have described the film as a parody of Hollywood filmmaking. Plot. Z-grade film producer Bobby Bowfinger is extremely eager to direct a film of his own and has saved up for it his entire life — he now has $2,184 to pay for production costs. With a script (""Chubby Rain"") penned by an accountant, Afrim, a camera operator, Dave, with access to studio-owned equipment, and several actors who are hungry for work, he needs access to a studio in order to distribute his masterwork. He manages to extract a promise from a film studio executive, Jerry Renfro, that the executive will distribute the film if it includes currently-hot action star Kit Ramsey. Ramsey — a rather pompous, neurotic, and paranoid actor — refuses, so Bowfinger constructs a plan to covertly film (on an extremely low budget) all of Ramsey's scenes without his knowledge. The actors, told that Ramsey is method acting and will not be interacting with them outside of their scenes, walk up to Ramsey in public and recite their lines while hidden cameras catch Ramsey's confused reactions. The plan goes well at first: Ramsey ends up starring (unknowingly) in the film. However, Ramsey (who is a member of an organization called MindHead) misinterprets the movie's sci-fi dialogue and believes he is being stalked by aliens, damaging his already-precarious mental state. He finally goes into hiding in order to maintain his sanity. This puts a hold on the film production, and leaves Bowfinger wondering what to do next. A desperate Bowfinger resorts to hiring a Ramsey lookalike named Jiff. Jiff is kind, amiable and rather clueless. He even runs a gauntlet of "stunt drivers" racing along a major freeway when asked. Eventually, he becomes depressed about his lack of acting talent, but another cast member assures him that his real talent is being an exact double for Kit Ramsey. Jiff is not sure "how much of a "talent" that is...I mean, I "am" his brother." Using this new knowledge, Bowfinger has Jiff find out Kit Ramsey's movements and the final, pivotal conclusion to the film is readied for shooting. All Bowfinger needs to shoot is the final scene at an observatory, with Ramsey shouting the final line "Gotcha suckers!" During the film scene, Ramsey becomes terrified and thinks that they are real aliens. At this point, Ramsey's mentor at MindHead, Terry Stricter, has discovered evidence that Kit's 'aliens' may not be just in his head. MindHead officials track Bowfinger to the observatory, and shut down production. It seems Bowfinger will never get his film. That is until his camera crew reveals that they were filming B-roll footage of Ramsey off-set, just in case they saw anything they could use. What they got was footage of Ramsey donning a paper bag over his head and exposing himself to an amused Laker Girl Cheerleading Squad. Bowfinger shows the footage to MindHead, and blackmails them, threatening to take the footage public. Knowing that this material could ruin Ramsey's career (he is a major contributor to their operation), MindHead advises the star to finish the project. Bowfinger finally gets to sit at the premiere of a film he himself directed, and is awed. Following the arguable success of the film, Bowfinger receives a rare Fed-Ex envelope—an offer to film a martial arts film called ""Fake Purse Ninjas"" starring Bowfinger and Jiff Ramsey. Cast. Graham described Daisy in an interview with CNN's "Entertainment News". "It's about these losers in Hollywood who want to make a movie, and I'm this naive, innocent girl who wants to be an actress. I'm willing to stop at nothing." Graham stated that she has a "special attachment" to the roles she chooses, and explained "I think it's kind of like you fall in love with the person, like you fall in love with the script." Production. The film was produced by Brian Grazer's company Imagine Entertainment, in conjunction with Universal Studios. The working title for the film was "Bowfinger's Big Thing". The film was initially scheduled for a July 30, 1999 release, but in May 1999 Universal Studios pushed its release back to August 27, 1999. Its final release date was August 13, 1999. The film's costs amounted to USD$44 million. The executives at Universal wanted to cut the freeway scene because they felt it would be too expensive; Martin replied he would not cut the funniest scene in the film. Themes. The fictional organization "MindHead" has been compared by film critics to the Church of Scientology. Paul Clinton wrote in "CNN" online: "'Bowfinger' could just be viewed as an out-there, over-the-top spoof about Hollywood, films, celebrities and even the Church of Scientology. But Martin has written a sweet story about a group of outsiders with impossible dreams." Andrew O'Hehir wrote in "Salon" that "Too much of 'Bowfinger' involves the filmmakers' generically wacky pursuit of the increasingly paranoid Kit, who flees into the clutches of a pseudo-Scientology outfit called MindHead (their slogan: 'Truth Through Strength')." "The Denver Post", the "Daily Record" and the "San Francisco Chronicle" made similar comparisons, and the "Albuquerque Journal" and the "Fort Worth Star-Telegram" called MindHead a "thinly veiled" parody of Scientology. A review in "The New York Times" described actor Terence Stamp's role in the film as "a cult leader for a Scientology-like organization called Mind Head", and "The Dallas Morning News" and the "Houston Chronicle" made similar statements about Stamp's character. Writer Steve Martin told the "New York Daily News" "I view it as a pastiche of things I've seen come and go through the years", and stated "Scientology gets a lot of credit or blame right now, because they're the hottest one." "The Cincinnati Enquirer" noted in its review "For the record, Mr. Martin denies MindHead is based on Scientology." The film spoofs the cult of celebrity and experiences film producers can undergo when attempting to get a movie made in Hollywood. "Time Out Film Guide" called the film a "satire on Hollywood's lunatic fringe." The "Seattle Post-Intelligencer" noted that "it takes swipes at stupid action films" and "the ageism of the industry." The "Seattle Post-Intelligencer" also noted Eddie Murphy's ability to spoof himself in the film, including "kidding his own legendary paranoia, evoking his real-life sex scandal and allowing himself to be the butt of Martin's extended gag." Leonard Schwarz of "Palo Alto Online" described the film as "arch and knowing about the ways of Hollywood", including "producers who want to keep their cars more than their kids when they get divorced." Russell Smith of "The Austin Chronicle" noted the film's satire of "L.A. movie culture, and brain-dead blockbuster films." An article in the "San Francisco Chronicle" by Bob Graham wrote that "Martin the writer plants some wicked barbs in Hollywood's rear end about creative financing of movies and hoarding of profits, the art of the deal, hipper-than-thou attitudes and exploitation." Laurie Scheer writes in "Creative Careers in Hollywood" "Steve Martin's performance as Bobby Bowfinger is one that is not to be missed, especially if you are choosing a career as a producer." Themes within the film have been compared to Mel Brooks' "The Producers"; a critique in the "Denver Rocky Mountain News" wrote that the film has "..the madcap velocity of Mel Brooks' The Producers." Roger Ebert wrote that "Like Mel Brooks' "The Producers", it's about fringe players who strike out boldly for the big time." "The New York Times" wrote that "The title character in the hilarious, good-hearted "Bowfinger" is a tireless schemer who, like Zero Mostel in "The Producers", is part of a great show-biz tradition: being ruthless, delusional and hellbent on turning lemons into lemonade." Jeff Millar of the "Houston Chronicle" compared Steve Martin's character in the film to Edward Wood, Jr., and Kenneth Turan of the "Los Angeles Times" described Bowfinger International Pictures as "a company so threadbare even schlockmeister Ed Wood would've looked down on it." Comparisons were also made to Tim Burton's eponymous film about the director, "Ed Wood". Reception. "Bowfinger" received generally positive reception from critics. The film received an 80% "fresh" rating at the website Rotten Tomatoes, based on 108 aggregated reviews.
965512	Photographing Fairies is 1997 fantasy film based on Steve Szilagyi's 1992 novel "Photographing Fairies". Themes. This film explores some of the themes of folklore, such as: possession, paganism, animism, hallucinogens, parapsychology and fairies. It was inspired by the Cottingley Fairies hoax. Plot. In Switzerland in 1912, photographer Charles Castle (Toby Stephens) and Anna-Marie, his fiancèe, are married in an Alpine church. The following day, they are walking in the mountains when a snowstorm closes in. They are returning to the village when a crevasse opens and Anna-Marie falls into it. Charles tries to pull her out but he loses his grip and she dies. During the Great War, Castle serves as an army photographer in the trenches of France. He is photographing corpses with his assistant Roy (Phil Davis) when a mortar lands close by. Roy returns to the trenches but Castle seems unconcerned and continues photographing. He returns to the trenches just before the mortar explodes.
587688	Golconda High School () is a 2011 Indian Telugu language sports film written and directed by Mohan Krishna Indraganti under the Artbeat Capital banner, which earlier produced the hit film "Ashta Chamma (film)". It stars Sumanth and Swati Reddy in the lead roles. The noted cinematographer, K. K. Senthil, was the DOP for the film, and the music was scored by Kalyani Malik. The movie is based on the book "The Men Within", written by Hari Mohan Paruvu. Released on January 15, 2011. In addition to receiving excellent reviews, it was declared a commercial hit as well. It also received a very high TRP rating on its Television premiere on April 17, 2011. The film is also slated to be dubbed into the English language for an upcoming national/international release. Plot. Golconda High School's Board’s Trustees' member Kireet Das comes up with a proposal of turning the cricket playground into an IIT coaching center. Principal K.Viswanath opposes that proposal vehemently with the support of few trustees. Kireet then tells the principal to show positive results in at least one sport if he wants to hold on to the playground. Viswanath comes up with a proposal that the playground should be retained if GHS’s cricket team manages to win the State level cricket league tournament. He summons his former GHS student, Sampath, an idealist who leads a dejected life. Sampath, after confronting Kireet, joins GHS as the cricket coach and he has three months to convert the disoriented GHS cricket team of 14 students into champions. Led by Siddanth and their lack of discipline, the team initially resists Sampath's training. Despite trying to get under Sampath's skin, they fail to persuade their coach to change his methods. Frustrated, Siddanth challenges Sampath to a students vs. teachers cricket game—the deal being that if the students win, they will not follow Sampath's coaching anymore. Towards the end of the game, the frustrated Siddanth deserts his losing team. Gowtham subsequently takes over captaincy and the students manage to tie the game when Sampath purposely gets bowled out in the last over. The students get very impressed with Sampath's cricketing prowess and decide to follow his coaching despite Siddanth's opposition. Later, after Sampath helps remove a police case against another student, Mikey, they realize his compassionate nature and embrace his coaching entirely. Siddanth too follow suit. The GHS team, after coming to know of the deal between Kireet and Viswanath over the cricket ground, get further motivated and raise their efforts towards winning every match. The team advance to the finals of the championship—the final match being against the very strong Everglades team. Right before the finals, the GHS boys come to know that the Everglades coach Sundar and Sampath share some bad blood from the past. When Sampath refuses to reveal his personal history with Sundar, they start doubting Sampath and lose focus, letting their opponents amass over 190 runs in 20 overs. During the break, Viswanath, coming to know of the misunderstanding between coach and team, tells the boys exactly what had happened between Sampath and Sundar almost 15 years ago—Sundar, also an ex GHS student Sundar purposely got Sampath run out during the final championship match, where latter had played brilliantly. To attain personal glory, Sundar went onto black list Sampath, depriving him of any future in cricket. The team, upon realising the truth, apologise to Sampath for misunderstanding him. Sampath motivates them with a stirring speech subsequently. GHS comes onto field with 10 batsmen as Siddanth suffers an injury during fielding. They virtually chase down the big score and the match is tantalizingly poised in the last over. Siddhanth, to the surprise of everyone, unexpectedly comes back from injury and wins the game for GHS on the last ball. Golconda High School wins the championship for the first time in 15 years, and the cricket ground is saved. Cast. Cricket Team Soundtrack. Kalyani Malik has composed the original score and soundtracks for the film.
1170129	John Putch (born July 27, 1961) is an American actor and filmmaker. He is best known for his recurring role as Bob Morton on the 1980s sitcom "One Day at a Time" and as Sean Brody in the film "Jaws 3-D". Life and career. Putch was born in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania. He began his career as an actor at the age of five in summer theater company, The Totem Pole Playhouse, run by his father William H. Putch (1924–1983). He is the son of actress Jean Stapleton (1923–2013).
69026	George William Hart (born 1955) is a American geometer who expresses himself both artistically and academically. He is also a research professor in the department of computer science at the State University of New York in Stony Brook, New York. His artistic work includes sculpture, computer images, toys (e.g. Zome) and puzzles. His sculptures have been featured in articles in "The New York Times", "Science", "Tiede" (Finnish), "Ars et Mathesis" (Dutch), "Наука и жизнь" (Russian) and other publications around the world. His academic work includes the online publication Encyclopedia of Polyhedra, the text book "Multidimensional Analysis", and the instruction book "Zome Geometry". He has also published over sixty academic articles. Hart is a co-founder of North America's only Museum of Mathematics, MoMath, in New York City. As chief of content, he set the "Math is Cool!" tone of the museum and spent five years designing original exhibits and workshop activities for it.
394195	Secret Sunshine () is a 2007 South Korean drama film directed by acclaimed South Korean director, novelist, and former Minister of Culture Lee Chang-dong. The screenplay based on the short fiction "The Story of a Bug" by Lee Cheong-jun that focuses on a woman as she wrestles with the questions of grief, madness, and faith. The Korean title Miryang (or Milyang) is named after the city that served as the film's setting and filming location, of which "Secret Sunshine" is the literal translation. For her performance in the film, Jeon Do-yeon won the Prix d'interprétation féminine du Festival de Cannes (Best Actress) at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival. The film also won the award for Best Film at the Asian Film Awards and at the Asia Pacific Screen Awards. The film sold 1,710,364 tickets nationwide in South Korea alone. Plot. Lee Shin-ae (Jeon Do-yeon) and her only child move to the small town of Miryang, South Gyeongsang Province. Her husband has recently died and she has decided to start life anew back in the hometown of her deceased husband. While entering Miryang, Shin-ae's car breaks down along a rural highway. She is able to get the local mechanic in Miryang named Kim Jong-chan (Song Kang-ho) to come out to her car and start it once again. Although they come from different social backgrounds, the pair hits it off and seems to find comfort in each other's presence.
585156	Sudesh Berry (born 2 November 1960) is an Indian television and film actor. Sudesh made his debut in 1988 with "Khatron Ke Khiladi". He played the lead roles in "Vansh" (1992) and "Yudhpath" (1992) but these movies proved to be big flops. He has done supporting roles in a number of big, multi-starrers namely "Ghayal" (1990), "Border" (1997), "Refugee" (2000), "LOC Kargil" (2003), "Tango Charlie" (2005) and many more. He appeared in Rajesh Khanna's comeback film "Wafaa" (2008) and "Shaabash! You Can Do It" (2009) directed by Shankar Mondal. Career. Sudesh Berry has appeared in a number of TV serials, the most famous of which are Andaaz, Kashish, and Suraag. He played a dual personality in "Mata Ki Chowk" and then worked in "Agle Janam Mohe Bitiya Hi Kijo" on Zee TV as Loha Singh until it finished in February 2011. Sudesh has also worked in Br Chopra's tv adaptation Mahabharat where he played vichitravirya shantanu's third son. AS
1105137	In numerical analysis, Chebyshev nodes are the roots of the Chebyshev polynomial of the first kind. They are often used as nodes in polynomial interpolation because the resulting interpolation polynomial minimizes the effect of Runge's phenomenon.
1105370	In mathematics and computer science, truncation is the term for limiting the number of digits right of the decimal point, by discarding the least significant ones. For example, consider the real numbers To "truncate" these numbers to 4 decimal digits, we only consider the 4 digits to the right of the decimal point. The result would be: Note that in some cases, truncating would yield the same result as rounding, but truncation does not round up or round down the digits; it merely cuts off at the specified digit. The truncation error can be twice the maximum error in rounding. Truncation and floor function. Truncation of positive real numbers can be done using the floor function. Given a number formula_1 to be truncated and formula_2, the number of elements to be kept behind the decimal point, the truncated value of x is However, for negative numbers truncation does not round in the same direction as the floor function: truncation always rounds toward zero, the floor function rounds towards negative infinity. Causes of truncation. With computers, truncation can occur when a decimal number is typecast as an integer; it is truncated to zero decimal digits because integers cannot store real numbers (that are not themselves integers). In algebra. An analogue of truncation can be applied to polynomials. In this case, the truncation of a polynomial "P" to degree "n" can be defined as the sum of all terms of "P" of degree "n" or less. Polynomial truncations arise in the study of Taylor polynomials, for example.
927281	First on the Moon (, "Pervye na Lune") is a 2005 Russian mockumentary about a fictional 1930s Soviet landing on the Moon. The film, which went on to win many awards, was the debut of the director Aleksei Fedorchenko.
590234	Ananya Chatterjee is a Bengali film actress known for her National Award-winning role in "Abahoman". She started her career as a TV actress. She acted in several TV serials and films, including three directed by Anjan Dutt. Her role as a muse of a married director in "Abahoman", directed by Rituparno Ghosh won her the National Film Award for Best Actress. Early life and education. Born and brought up in Kolkata, did her schooling from G.D.Birla Centre For Education. Chatterjee studied biology at Jogamaya Devi College, an affiliated undergraduate women's college of University of Calcutta, in Kolkata. Career. Chatterjee was a student in Mamata Shankar's dance institution, when she started her acting career on television, with TV series, "Din Pratidin " where she acted opposite Rudranil Ghosh, and went on appear on soaps like "Tithir Atithi", " Aleya", and "Ananya". Despite having no formal training in acting, her work was appreciated and she became a household name; soon she acted in several telefilms as well, and did three telefilms directed by singer-turned-director Anjan Dutt, "John Johnny Janardan", "Ek Din Darjeeling" and "Amar Baba". She has also acted in Anjan Dutt's Byomkesh Bakshi thriller "Adim Ripu". Subsequently she made her feature film debut with Basu Chatterjee's "Tak Jhal Mishti" (2002), which she followed up with Sharan Dutta's thriller "Raat Barota Paanch" (2005). After appearing in the comedy, "Aamra" (2006) by Mainak Bhaumik, her next important film was debutant director Agnidev Chatterjee's, "Probhu Nashto Hoye Jai" (Lord, Let the Devil Steal My Soul), which was premiered at the 13th Kolkata Film Festival. In 2009, appearing opposite veteran Soumitra Chatterjee in Suman Ghosh's "Dwando" she managed to stand her ground and then in Anup Sengupta's "Mama Bhagne" (2009) where again she her performance was reviewed as "stellar". However it was in Rituparno Ghosh's "Abohoman" (2009), released in 2010, that established her as an actress of repute, and she also won the National Film Award for Best Actress, her first. In 2012 Bengali film "Meghe Dhaka Tara" directed by Kamaleswar Mukherjee, Chatterjee played the role of Durga, wife of Nilkantha Bagchi. She performed the lead role in the popular Bengali serial "Subarnolata" on Zee Bangla channel.
1070456	Jessica Hecht (born June 28, 1965) is an American actress and singer, known for numerous Broadway appearances and TV roles. Early life and education. Hecht was born in Princeton, New Jersey, the daughter of Lenore, a psychotherapist, and Richard Hecht, a physicist. Jessica moved with her parents and her sister to Bloomfield, CT, at the age of three. Following the divorce of her parents, her mother remarried when Jessica was twelve and she and her sister Elizabeth, fourteen, were brought up by her mother and her step-father Howard Iger, a psychiatrist, who had custody of his two young children Andrea age five and Russell age 3. The new family grew quite close and Jessica had the support of all three parents as she struggled to become an actress. Hecht graduated in 1987 from the NYU Tisch School of the Arts, earning a Bachelors of Fine Arts in Drama.
1058948	Joanne Whalley (born 25 August 1964) is an English actress. Early life. Whalley was born in Salford, Lancashire but brought up in Stockport, Cheshire where she studied at the Braeside School of Speech and Drama, Marple. Whalley first appeared as a child in "How We Used To Live" and "Juliet Bravo" with bit parts in soap operas, especially "Coronation Street" and "Emmerdale". Her early film roles include a non-speaking part as a groupie in Pink Floyd's "The Wall"; and as a young Beatles fan in "Birth of the Beatles." Music. In the post-punk era, she flirted with the fringes of the Manchester New Wave scene and was briefly a member of a Stockport-based band called the Slowguns but left before the release of their two singles. Later, she was the lead singer of the pop group "Cindy & The Saffrons"; in 1982, at Abbey Road Studios they recorded The Shangri-Las song "Past, Present and Future" and the next year, "Terry" by Twinkle. The group split up soon thereafter. Career. In 1982 she played Ingrid Rothwell in "A Kind of Loving", a well received Granada TV adaptation of Stan Barstow's three Vic Brown novels. Whalley acted in the film "No Surrender" (Dumbarton Films with Film Four) scripted by Alan Bleasdale, released in 1985, but the film was not successful. Whalley came to prominence on British television as Emma Craven in Troy Kennedy Martin's "Edge of Darkness" (1985), quickly followed by Nurse Mills in the Dennis Potter-written serial "The Singing Detective" (1986) both for BBC Television. In 1987 she played Jackie in the TV film "Will You Love Me Tomorrow", she also played a role in "The Good Father" (1985), another Channel 4 backed film. Whalley met the American actor Val Kilmer while filming the fantasy adventure "Willow," and after marriage in 1988 moved to Los Angeles, where she used the professional name Joanne Whalley-Kilmer. She continued filming, making more films in Hollywood than the UK, including the mystery noir "Shattered" and, in 1989, the role of Christine Keeler in "Scandal" alongside stars John Hurt and Sir Ian McKellen. In 1994 she became the second actress to play "Gone with the Wind" heroine Scarlett O'Hara when she appeared in a made-for-TV adaptation of the sequel novel, "Scarlett." She also starred in the 1997 film "The Man Who Knew Too Little". After divorce, Whalley returned to acting through making television films, including the 2000 television film "Jackie Bouvier Kennedy Onassis" in which she played the title character. She collaborated with the pop-punk band Blink-182 to read a letter at the beginning of the song "Stockholm Syndrome". In 2005, she appeared as Queen Mary I in "The Virgin Queen", a BBC serial about the life of Queen Elizabeth I which also starred Anne-Marie Duff and Tara FitzGerald. The same year she also filmed "Played" which also starred her ex-husband Val Kilmer but the two didn't share any scenes. In 2006, she appeared in "Life Line", a two-part drama on BBC1, starring opposite Ray Stevenson. In 2008, she appeared in the ITV mini series "Flood" with Robert Carlyle amongst others. In February 2008, she appeared on stage in Billy Roche's "Poor Beast in the Rain" presented by the Salem K. Theatre Company at the Matrix Theatre, Los Angeles, California. Whalley plays one of the female leads, Vannozza dei Cattanei, mistress of Cardinal Rodrigo Borgia, future Pope Alexander VI, in the Showtime historical drama "The Borgias". She guest-starred as Princess Sophie in season 4 of "Gossip Girl". In 2010 she was reunited with John Hurt in "44 Inch Chest". Personal life. Whalley met the American actor Val Kilmer while filming the fantasy adventure "Willow." The couple married in 1988, and she used the name Joanne Whalley-Kilmer professionally for several years. Whalley took a break from filming to bring up her two children with Kilmer: daughter Mercedes (born 29 October 1991, in Santa Fe, New Mexico), and son Jack (born on 6 June 1995). Shortly after the birth of their son, the pair separated. Whalley filed for divorce on 21 July 1995, citing irreconcilable differences. (Whalley and Kilmer play a bickering couple in Francis Ford Coppola's 2011 film "Twixt (film)".)
1050971	The Blonde with Bare Breasts () is a 2010 French film written and directed by Manuel Pradal. Plot. Julien (Nicolas Duvauchelle), 25 years old, and Louis (Steve le Roi), 14 years old, are brothers. Their father often beat Julien, who defended Louis from also being beaten by him. He is terminally ill now. The brothers do not care much, but try to obtain ownership of his river transport ship, which they already use. A gang offers money for stealing the Édouard Manet painting "La blonde aux seins nus" (The Blonde with Bare Breasts) from the museum. They agree, and Louis actually does it, while the young guard Rosalie (Vahina Giocante) is distracted. Rosalie comes after him, onto the ship, but Louis manages to lock her up. Later she is free to move around on the ship. Although she is sometimes treated rudely, she likes the adventure. The police suspect her of being involved. She helps by hiding the painting and herself, when the ship is searched. Julien and Rosalie have sex. Louis is jealous and pretends to have hung himself by hanging up a life-size doll dressed in his clothes. Julien plans to kill Rosalie, because she knows they stole the painting, Louis tries to protect her by advising her to escape. She returns the painting to her father, who arranges its restoration. The gang that wanted to buy it beats up Julien, out of revenge. Rosalie reunites with the brothers on the ship. In the meantime, the brothers' father died. Louis gets the ship, apparently because only he is his real son. Production. Filming began on 29 July 2008, for a 9 week period near Paris and the Seine, and by spring 2009 was completed. Release. The film was first released in France on 16 January 2010, and was screened at film festivals, including Le Festival du Film de Cabourg and Cannes. The film had its world premiere in June 2010 in the Netherlands under the French title. Reception. Of the film's world premiere in the Netherlands, André Waardenburg of "NRC Handelsblad" wrote "Nederland heeft de wereldpremière. Een dubieuze eer, want de film is niet erg sterk." (The Netherlands has the world premiere. A dubious honor, as the film is not very strong). He expanded on his review by writing "Net zoals het schilderij heeft de film weinig inhoud. Het probeert van de hoofdpersonages sympathieke schelmen te maken die lak hebben aan het establishment. Dat lukt maar half." (Like the painting, the film has little content. It attempts to make the main characters likeable rogues who have disdain for the establishment. That only half succeeds). However he did approve of the locations, writing, "De locaties maken een beetje goed: het bezoek aan het schilderachtige plaatsje dat nog de sfeer van de Impressionisten ademt, levert een paar aardige scènes op." (The locations make up for that somewhat: the visit to the picturesque village that still breathes the atmosphere of the impressionists delivers a few nice scenes).
1299394	Wesley Eure (born August 17, 1951) is an American actor. Eure appeared in two long-running television series in the 1970s, "Days of our Lives" and "Land of the Lost". For several years, he appeared in both shows simultaneously. Eure is also a singer, author, producer, director, charity fundraiser, and lecturer. Early career. Eure grew up in Hattiesburg, Mississippi. He studied acting in the theatre arts department at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas and at summer workshops at Southern Illinois University and Northwestern University. His first break came when he was working part-time at a Las Vegas hotel selling paintings. There he met Robert Goulet, who hired Eure as a production assistant for the Goulet-Carol Lawrence summer tour. The tour terminated in New York City. After a few short months of auditions and odd jobs (including computerized astrology predictions), Eure became a cast member at the American Shakespeare Festival in Stratford, Connecticut. He joined such notables as Jane Alexander and Sada Thompson in "The Tempest", "Mourning Becomes Electra", "Merry Wives of Windsor", and "Twelfth Night", as well as many original works produced by the company. At the Bucks County Playhouse in Pennsylvania, he performed in "West Side Story" and then joined a musical comedy revue and traveled throughout the East Coast resort areas. Wesley and Richard Chamberlain were romantically involved in the early 1970s. Career. Television. After moving to Los Angeles, Eure was hired to star in Kaye Ballard's projected new series, "The Organic Vegetables", created and produced by the team who did "The Monkees". Subsequently, Eure was hired to replace David Cassidy on "The Partridge Family", but the show was canceled before a new season started. For eight years, he was in NBC-TV's Emmy-winning "Days of our Lives", playing the role of Mike Horton. He also appeared as Will Marshall in Sid and Marty Krofft's children's adventure series, "Land of the Lost", which led NBC's Saturday morning line-up for three years. Eure co-produced, wrote and acted in Fox Television's hidden-camera shows "Totally Hidden Video" and "Payback". He also wrote and directed "Spy TV" for NBC. He was the host of Nickelodeon game show "Finders Keepers". He co-created PBS Kids’s Emmy-nominated animated series for preschoolers called "Dragon Tales". It is produced by The Children’s Television Workshop and Sony Pictures. Eure also hosted an educational DVD called "Power Over Poison" to teach kids how to avoid poisons, produced by WQED, the PBS station in Pittsburgh. Eure was a regular on such game shows as "Password" and "Match Game". Channel 9 TV in Australia hired Wesley to be the permanent host of their "Tonight Show", but lost a ten-month immigration battle with Actor's Equity in Australia. Film. Eure appeared in Hanna-Barbera's comedy "C.H.O.M.P.S", which also starred Valerie Bertinelli, Red Buttons, Jim Backus, Hermione Baddeley and Conrad Bain. He appeared as the fiendish murderer in "The Toolbox Murders" and the nasty guy who gets eaten by snakes in "Jennifer". About his time filming "Jennifer", Eure claims he had a difficult time working with the various snakes on set, including the large Boa snake that features during the climax. According to his website and a recent interview, Eure and his "Land of the Lost" co-star, Kathy Coleman will no longer have cameo appearances in the 2009 film, "Land of the Lost" starring Will Ferrell, as they were edited out of the final cut. [http://www.afterelton.com/people/2009/6/wesleyeure] Books. His children's novel "The Red Wings of Christmas", published by Pelican, has been called "the new American classic" by CNN, and was optioned by Disney for a full-length animated feature. The book was illustrated by Ron Palillo who played Arnold Horshack on the 1970s TV series "Welcome Back, Kotter". Eure’s fifth book, "A Fish Out of Water", is his first pre-schooler book. The story of a bird and a fish that fall in love and make it work, it is used by schools to teach racial tolerance. The graduate art students at Meredith College in Raleigh, North Carolina illustrate it. He also wrote "The Whale That Ate the Storm". Knightsbridge Publishing released two of his humor books, "Fun with Fax" and "On-the-Wall Off-the-Wall Office Humor." Other activities and honors. In 2007, a Golden Palm Star on the Palm Springs, California, Walk of Stars was dedicated to him.
1065626	Walton Sanders Goggins, Jr. (born November 10, 1971) is an American actor. In addition to his roles as Shane Vendrell on "The Shield" and Boyd Crowder on "Justified", he is known for his roles in the films "Miracle at St. Anna" and "Predators". Goggins co-produced and starred in the 2001 short film "The Accountant", which won an Academy Award for Best Live Action Short Film. Early life. Goggins was born in Birmingham, Alabama, and raised in Lithia Springs, Georgia. He has lived in Los Angeles since he was 19 years old. Career. Goggins is best known for his portrayal of Detective Shane Vendrell in the FX series "The Shield", a role he played from 2002 to the series' conclusion in 2008. In addition to his acting work, Goggins is also an award winning filmmaker. He has a production company called Ginny Mule Pictures with his partner Ray McKinnon. Together they have made four films: a short, "The Accountant" (won the Academy Award in 2001),
1100023	Andrey (Andrei) Andreyevich Markov (, in older works also spelled Markoff) (14 June 1856 N.S. – 20 July 1922) was a Russian mathematician. He is best known for his work on stochastic processes. A primary subject of his research later became known as Markov chains and Markov processes. Markov and his younger brother Vladimir Andreevich Markov (1871–1897) proved Markov brothers' inequality. His son, another Andrei Andreevich Markov (1903–1979), was also a notable mathematician, making contributions to constructive mathematics and recursive function theory. Biography. Andrey Andreyevich Markov was born in Ryazan as the son of the secretary of the public forest management of Ryazan, Andrey Grigorevich Markov, and his first wife Nadezhda Petrovna Markova. In the beginning of the 1860s Andrey Grigorevich moved to St. Petersburg to become an asset manager of Ekaterina Aleksandrovna Valvatyeva. In 1866, Andrey Andreevich's school life began with his entrance into St. Petersburg's fifth grammar school. Already during his school time Andrey was intensely engaged in higher mathematics. As a 17-year-old grammar school student, he informed Viktor Bunyakovsky, Aleksandr Korkin, and Yegor Ivanovich Zolotarev about an apparently new method to solve linear ordinary differential equations, and he was invited to the so-called Korkin Saturdays, where Korkin's students regularly met. In 1874, he finished the school and began his studies at the physico-mathematical faculty of St. Petersburg University. Among his teachers were Yulian Sokhotski (differential calculus, higher algebra), Konstantin Posse (analytic geometry), Yegor Zolotarev (integral calculus), Pafnuty Chebyshev (number theory and probability theory), Aleksandr Korkin (ordinary and partial differential equations), Mikhail Okatov (mechanism theory), Osip Somov (mechanics), and Nikolai Budaev (descriptive and higher geometry). In 1877, Markov was awarded a gold medal for his outstanding solution of the problem "About Integration of Differential Equations by Continuous Fractions with an Application to the Equation" formula_1. During the following year, he passed the candidate's examinations, and he remained at the university to prepare for a lecturer's position. In April 1880, Markov defended his master's thesis "About Binary Quadratic Forms with Positive Determinant", which was encouraged by Aleksandr Korkin and Yegor Zolotarev. Five years later, in January 1885, there followed his doctoral thesis "About Some Applications of Algebraic Continuous Fractions". His pedagogical work began after the defense of his master's thesis in autumn 1880. As a privatdozent he lectured on differential and integral calculus. Later he lectured alternately on "introduction to analysis", probability theory (succeeding Chebyshev, who had left the university in 1882) and the calculus of differences. From 1895 through 1905 he also lectured in differential calculus. One year after the defense of his doctoral thesis, Markov was appointed extraordinary professor (1886) and in the same year he was elected adjunct to the Academy of Sciences. In 1890, after the death of Viktor Bunyakovsky, Markov became an extraordinary member of the academy. His promotion to an ordinary professor of St. Petersburg University followed in the fall of 1894. In 1896, Markov was elected an ordinary member of the academy as the successor of Chebyshev. In 1905, he was appointed merited professor and was granted the right to retire, which he did immediately. Until 1910, however, he continued to lecture in the calculus of differences. In connection with student riots in 1908, professors and lecturers of St. Petersburg University were ordered to monitor their students. Markov refused to accept this decree, and he wrote an explanation in which he declined to be an "agent of the governance". Markov was removed from further teaching duties at St. Petersburg University, and hence he decided to retire from the university. Markov was an atheist. In 1912 he protested Leo Tolstoy's excommunication from the Russian Orthodox Church by requesting his own excommunication. The Church complied with his request. In 1913, the council of St. Petersburg elected nine scientists honorary members of the university. Markov was among them, but his election was not affirmed by the minister of education. The affirmation only occurred four years later, after the February Revolution in 1917. Markov then resumed his teaching activities and lectured on probability theory and the calculus of differences until his death in 1922.
1165024	Barbara Feldon (born March 12, 1933) is an American character actress who works mostly in the theatre but is primarily known for her roles on television. Her most prominent role was that of Agent 99 on the 1960s sitcom "Get Smart". She also worked as a model. Early life. Feldon was born Barbara Anne Hall in Butler, Pennsylvania, near Pittsburgh. She trained at Pittsburgh Playhouse and graduated from Carnegie Institute of Technology (now Carnegie Mellon University) in 1955, with a Bachelor of Arts in drama. In 1957, she won the grand prize on "The $64,000 Question" in the category of William Shakespeare. Career. Following some work as a model, Feldon's break came in the form of a popular and much parodied television commercial for "Top Brass", a hair pomade for men. Lounging languidly on an animal print rug, she purred at the camera, addressing the male viewers as "tigers". This led to small roles in television series. In the 1960s, she made appearances on "Twelve O'Clock High", Lorne Greene's "Griff", "Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In", "Flipper", and "The Man from U.N.C.L.E." (in "The Never-Never Affair"). In 1964, she appeared with Simon Oakland in the episode "Try to Find a Spy" of CBS's short-lived drama "Mr. Broadway". Then she was cast as "Agent 99" in the spy comedy series "Get Smart" opposite Don Adams. She played the role for the duration of the show's production from 1965 until 1970, and was nominated for an Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series in 1968 and 1969. She appeared in the cult-classic TV-movie thriller "A Vacation In Hell" (1979) with Maureen McCormick and Priscilla Barnes. Feldon's more recent work includes appearances in "Cheers" and "Mad About You" for television. Feldon acted in such feature films as "Fitzwilly" (1967), "Smile" (1975) and "No Deposit, No Return" (1976). She was a commercial voice performer for "The Dinosaurs! Flesh on the Bone" (1993). Feldon reprised her role as "Agent 99" in made-for-television film "Get Smart, Again!" (1989) and a short-lived television series also titled "Get Smart" in 1995. She provided audio commentaries for the DVD release of the original "Get Smart" series in 2006. She appeared as a former TV spy star on a 1993 episode of "Mad About You", as Diane "Spy Girl" Caldwell. Personal life. Feldon has served as the actress's last name since her marriage to Lucien Verdoux-Feldon in 1958. The pair divorced in 1967 and Feldon then embarked on a relationship with "Get Smart" producer Burt Nodella. That union lasted 12 years and upon its ending Feldon moved back to New York City where she resides. She wrote a book, "Living Alone and Loving It", in 2003. Barbara Feldon will still occasionally act in off-Broadway plays, but she is "no longer interested in performing". Feldon is now an avid writer, although she has not published since "Living Alone and Loving It" in 2003.
1063514	Pia Zadora (born May 4, 1954) is an American actress and singer. After working as a child actress on Broadway, in regional theater, and in the film "Santa Claus Conquers the Martians" (1964), she came to national attention in 1981 when, following her starring role in the highly criticized "Butterfly", she won a Golden Globe Award as New Star of the Year. When her film career failed to take off, she became a singer of popular standards and made several successful albums backed by a symphonic orchestra; as a singer she earned a measure of respect from critics who had previously written her off as an actress. Early life. Zadora was born Pia Alfreda Schipani in Hoboken, New Jersey. Her mother, Saturnina "Nina" (née Zadorowski), was a theatrical wardrobe supervisor for Broadway productions, the Metropolitan Opera, and the New York City Opera, and her father, Alphonse Schipani, a violinist. She is of Polish maternal and Italian paternal descent. She adapted part of her mother's maiden name as her stage name. Zadora appeared as a child actress with Tallulah Bankhead in "Midgie Purvis". She played the youngest sister (Bielke) in the Broadway production of "Fiddler on the Roof" (1964–1966). Career. Film. Zadora's first film was in 1964's "Santa Claus Conquers the Martians", as Girmar, a young Martian girl . She also sang "Hooray for Santy Claus" in that movie. Her career made little headway until she met Meshulam Riklis, 32 years her senior, in 1972, while touring with a musical production. The couple married on 18 September 1977. Not long after her marriage, she made her breakthrough as the Dubonnet Girl, appearing in print and television commercials for the apéritif wine, in whose American distributor Riklis was a shareholder. Zadora starred alongside Stacy Keach and Orson Welles in the 1982 film version of James M. Cain's novel "Butterfly," whose plot revolved around father-daughter incest. Her character, Kady Tyler, was described as being the daughter of Keach's character of Jesse Tyler. The musical score featured Zadora singing "It’s Wrong For Me To Love You." She won that year's Golden Globe Award as "Best New Star of the Year", amid charges that her husband had bought the award with a promotional campaign. Zadora's image filled billboards on Sunset Boulevard. Not all critics were enamored of her performance, however; she was also "awarded" "Razzies" as "Worst New Star" and "Worst Actress" in the 1982 Golden Raspberry Awards.
1040007	Kenneth Cranham (born 12 December 1944) is a Scottish film, television, radio and stage actor. Acting career. Cranham starred in the title role in the popular 1980s comedy drama "Shine on Harvey Moon". He also appeared in "Layer Cake", "Gangster No. 1", "Rome", "Oliver!" and many other films. He is probably best known to horror genre fans as the deranged Dr. Philip Channard and his Cenobitic alter-ego from "". His many stage credits include West End productions of "Entertaining Mr Sloane", "Loot", "An Inspector Calls", (both transferring to Broadway), "The Ruffian on the Stair", "The Birthday Party" and "Gaslight" (at the Old Vic). Most recently, he has been heard on BBC Radio 4's "Afternoon Play" series as "DS Max Matthews" in the three-play series "The Interrogation" by Roy Williams. Personal life. Cranham was born in Dunfermline, Fife, Scotland, the son of Lochgelly-born Margaret McKay Cranham (née Ferguson) and Ronald Cranham, an English civil servant. His first wife was actress Diana Quick. He has two daughters: Nancy Cranham with actress Charlotte Cornwell, and Kathleen Cranham with his second wife, actress Fiona Victory.
705731	Beverly Adams (born November 7, 1945) is a Canadian-born actress and author. Early life and career. Adams was born in Edmonton, Alberta to a Canadian mother and a U.S. Air Force father (who once played minor league baseball) and was raised Roman Catholic. As a child, Adams moved to Burbank, California where, as a teen, she competed in and won beauty contests before becoming an actress. During her career, Adams appeared in various guest roles in television series of the 1960s. She also appeared in several films, most notably as the klutzy, redheaded Cassandra in "How to Stuff a Wild Bikini" and the recurring role of Lovey Kravezit in the Matt Helm movies starring Dean Martin.
1598264	Catherine Schell (born Katherina Freiin Schell von Bauschlott, 17 July 1944) is a Hungarian-born actress best known for her work in British television, in particular her portrayal of in the science-fiction series "". Schell came to prominence in various British film and television productions of the 1960s and 1970s. Although she acted under the name "Catherine von Schell" and "Katherina von Schell" ("Schell" is the family name; "von Bauschlott" indicates the region of Germany where the Schell family originated) early in her career, she is better known by the name "Catherine Schell". She is not related to the Austrian-Swiss actor siblings Maximilian and Maria Schell. Early life. Schell's father, Baron Paul Schell von Bauschlott, was a Hungarian diplomat; her mother was Countess Katharina Maria Etelka Georgina Elisabeth Teleki de Szék. At the start of the Second World War, her parents' estates were confiscated by the Nazis. Fleeing Hungary in advance of the Russians and Communism, the family lived in poverty until 1948, finding asylum in Austria: first in Vienna, then in Salzburg. In 1950, the family emigrated to the United States, where Schell's father acquired American citizenship. Schell entered a convent school in the New York City borough of Staten Island. In 1957, her father joined Radio Free Europe and the family moved to Munich, Germany, where Schell developed an interest in acting and attended the Otto Falckenberg School of the Performing Arts. Career. Film. Under the name Katherina von Schell, she made her film debut in 1964 as the title character in the little-known German-language film "" (German: "Lana - Königin der Amazonen"). In 1969, she appeared as Bond girl Nancy in the George Lazenby "James Bond" film "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" (credited as Catherina von Schell), and as Clementine Taplin in the science-fiction thriller "Moon Zero Two". In 1972, she appeared for the first time under the name Catherine Schell in "Madame Sin", an American television film starring Bette Davis. In 1975, she appeared opposite Peter Sellers in the comedy "The Return of the Pink Panther" as Lady Claudine Lytton. It is frequently claimed that her tendency to break into uncontrollable laughter at Sellers' antics as Inspector Clouseau spoiled many takes. The final print of the film repeatedly shows Schell attempting to stifle laughter at Sellers' behaviour, both at the Lytton residence and during the nightclub bar scene. Although these scenes are frequently offered as classic examples of corpsing, it is worth noting that Schell has maintained in interviews that she considered it in character for Lady Lytton to be amused by Clouseau, whom she does not see as a serious threat (made clear during her banter with her on-screen husband at the film's climax in the character's hotel room). Television. Schell's first TV credit was "Till Eulenspiegel" (1967), a West German comedy in which she played Nele and was billed as Katherina von Schell. Schell spent much of her career in British television, appearing in more than 47 series spanning a period of nearly 30 years. She played regular roles in series such as "The Adventurer", "One by One", "Mog" and "Wish Me Luck", in addition to many guest appearances, including "The Persuaders!", "The Troubleshooters", "Arthur of the Britons", "Return of the Saint", "The Sweeney", "The Onedin Line", "The Gentle Touch", "Lovejoy", "Bergerac", "The Bill" and "Howards' Way". Schell appeared in the science-fiction series "" as a robotic servant ("Guardian of Piri", 1975), and returned to the series in its second season as the regular character , a shape-shifting "metamorph" from the planet Psychon. Schell appeared in another British science-fiction series, as Countess Scarlioni in the "Doctor Who" serial "City of Death" (1979). Personal life. Family. Schell's brother, Paul Rudolf (born 1940), now known as Paul von Schell, has acted in a number of German-language productions. A younger brother, Peter (1941–68), died young. Through a German great-grandfather, Schell is related to Louis XIV of France (1638–1715), Philip II, Duke of Orléans (1674–1723), Regent of France and Francis I, Holy Roman Emperor (1708–65). Marriages. While filming "Amsterdam Affair" in 1968, Schell met and married her first husband, British actor William Marlowe (1932–2004), and moved to London. The marriage ended in divorce in 1977. Schell married director Bill Hays (1938–2006) in 1982. In 1984, they worked together for the first time as husband and wife on a TV production of Ivan Turgenev's play "A Month in the Country". Retirement. Schell's career continued into the mid-1990s, after which she retired from acting and opened Chambre d'Hôtes Valentin, a small guesthouse in Bonneval, Haute-Loire, France, which would become a popular destination for fans of "". She reportedly sold the inn after the death of her second husband in 2006. Schell made her first convention appearance MainMission:2000, a celebration of the 25th anniversary of "Space: 1999" held in New York City. To date, she has appeared at only one other convention, mainly due to her second husband's declining health. Schell contributed a foreword to the "Space: 1999" novel "Born for Adversity", written by David McIntee and published by Powys Media in 2010.
583440	Rajat Bedi is an Indian Film actor who acts in Bollywood films. Mostly known for his villainous roles in films such as Koi... Mil Gaya, Partner, . He also played lead roles in some films. Early life. Rajat was born in a Punjabi Sikh family. His father Narender Bedi was a film director, film makers of noted Hindi films like "Khhotte Sikkay" (1974) and "Jawani Diwani" (1972), and son of famous writer Rajinder Singh Bedi. His brother Manek Bedi is also an actor. His sister Ira Bedi is an Writer in television mainstream. His wife Monalisa is sister of actress Tulip Joshi. He started his career as a body double in Hindi films for "Shah Rukh Khan" like "Karan Arjun" 1995 , "Duplicate" 1998 etc. Filmography. 2011 Jaanleva - Sanjeev (filming) 2011 Monopoly - filming 2011 Kab Tak 2011 Gahraee - delayed 2011 Pratigya - filming 2011 - filming 2009 Wafaa 2008 Khushboo 2008 Lakh Pardesi Hoiye - Harry 2007 Partner - Neil Bakshi 2007 The Train... - Special Investigating Officer Asif Ahmed Khan 2007 Life Mein Kabhie Kabhiee - Rohit Kumar 2006 Jaan-E-Mann - Vishal Goel 2006 Rocky - Anthony D'Silva
1086076	The Oh in Ohio is a 2006 comedy film directed by
1032950	Heathcote Williams (born 15 November 1941) is an English poet, actor and award-winning playwright. He is also an intermittent painter, sculptor and long-time conjuror. He is perhaps best known for the book-length polemical poem "Whale Nation", which in 1988 became "the most powerful argument for the newly instigated worldwide ban on whaling." In the early 1970s, his agitational graffiti were a feature on the walls of the then low-rent end of London's Notting Hill district. Early life and career. John Henley Jasper Heathcote-Williams was born in Helsby, Cheshire. After his schooldays at Eton, he changed his name to Heathcote Williams. His father, also named Heathcote Williams, was a lawyer. From his early twenties, Williams has enjoyed a minor cult following. His first book was "The Speakers" (1964), an account of life at Speakers' Corner in London's Hyde Park. In 1974, it was adapted for the stage by the Joint Stock Theatre Company. His first full-length play, "AC/DC" (1970), a critique of the burgeoning mental health industry, includes a thinly veiled attack on his fellow denizen of 1960s alternative society, and doyen of the anti-psychiatry movement, R.D. Laing. Its production at the Royal Court Theatre, did not, however, appear to impede cordial relations between the two in later years. "AC/DC" won the London "Evening Standard"'s Most Promising Play Award. It also received the 1972 John Whiting Award for being "a new and distinctive development in dramatic writing with particular relevance to contemporary society." It was described in the "Times Literary Supplement" in a front-page review by Charles Marowitz as 'the first play of the 21st century.' "AC/DC" was produced in New York in 1971 at the Chelsea Theater Center at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. Other plays include the one-act monologue "Hancock's Last Half Hour", "The Local Stigmatic", "The Immortalist" and the impossible to categorise "Remember The Truth Dentist" — an early effort, again at the Royal Court, directed by fellow-contrarian Ken Campbell. The inaugural issue of the "London Review of Books" included an effusive profile by fellow Etonian Francis Wyndham titled "The Magic of Heathcote Williams". His foremost fans among the famous are the late Harold Pinter and Al Pacino. Poetry. In a 1990 interview Pacino quotes Williams’ assertion that “Fame is the perversion of the human instinct for validation and attention. Without our feedback system breaks down because we don’t know who we are”—the shorter version of which being the more admonitory: "Fame is the first disgrace."
585250	Manjula Vijayakumar (9 September 1953 23 July 2013) was a South Indian actress. She acted in more than 100 films in South Indian languages like Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Malayalam. Personal life. She and actor Vijayakumar married shortly after meeting on the sets of "Unnidam Mayanguhiren". The couple have three daughters, Vanitha, Preetha and Sridevi Vijaykumar. Arun Vijay, Anitha, and Kavitha are her husband's children from a previous marriage. Death. She died in Chennai on 23 July, 2013 due to a stomach injury. Acting career. She first appeared in the film "Shanthi Nilayam" (1969) in a supporting role (as the teenaged girl of Gemini Ganesan's character). Her first lead role was in "Rickshawkaran" (1971). She acted in lead roles in many films till the late seventies. Since the late 80s, she has appeared in supporting roles. Manjula has performed alongside Sivaji Ganesan, Gemini Ganesan, M. G. Ramachandran, Nandamuri Taraka Rama Rao, Akkineni Nageswara Rao, Krishna, Shobhan Babu, Kamal Hassan, Vishnuvardhan and Rajinikanth. She died on 23 July 2013 in SRMC at Chennai after falling down from bed and being admitted to hospital. Her death was caused by renal failure and a blood clot in the stomach .
1166410	Mary-Kate Olsen (born June 13, 1986) is an American actress, fashion designer, producer, author, and businesswoman. She co-founded luxury fashion brands The Row, Elizabeth and James, and the more affordable lines Olsenboye and StyleMint alongside her twin sister Ashley Olsen. Olsen pursued acting independently as an adult until 2012. Birth and family. Olsen was born in Sherman Oaks, California to David "Dave" Olsen and Jarnette "Jarnie" Fuller. Along with her fraternal twin, Ashley, Olsen has an older brother, Trent; a younger sister, Elizabeth, who is also an actress; and two younger half-siblings, Taylor (sister) and Jake (brother), from her father's second marriage to McKenzie. Olsen's parents divorced in 1995. The Olsen twins and their siblings have Norwegian ancestry on their father's side. Career. Along with Ashley, Olsen was cast at the age of nine months to share the role of Michelle Tanner on the ABC sitcom Full House. The Olsen twins portrayed Michelle throughout the series' 1987–95 run. In the early 1990s, she and Ashley established a company, Dualstar, which produced a long string of TV movies and direct-to-video releases featuring the girls. The Olsens continued to release direct-to-video films up to the early 2000s, along with starring in the 1995 feature film "It Takes Two". In 1997, the Olsen twins guest starred in an episode of Sister, Sister, alongside Tia Mowry and Tamera Mowry. After "Full House", the sisters starred in two other sitcoms ("Two of a Kind" and "So Little Time") and an animated series ("Mary-Kate and Ashley in Action!"), each of which lasted only one season while "So Little Time" ran for two seasons. These ventures, combined with an array of licensing deals for their names and likenesses, made Olsen wealthy at a young age. In 2004, Olsen's wealth was estimated at $137 million.
1033681	Scenes of a Sexual Nature is a 2006 British comedy-drama film directed by Ed Blum. It stars Ewan McGregor, among others. Plot. The film is mostly based on a series of seven loosely related stories of couples on Hampstead Heath in north London, featuring an ensemble cast. The scenes appear out of sequence and jump back and forth between one story and another. Husband, Jamie (Andrew Lincoln) and wife, Molly (Holly Aird) are lying on the grass, discussing footballers and multiple orgasms. Molly notices Jamie staring at a pretty girl nearby, Sophie (Eglantine Rembauville). When he is challenged about it, he pretends he was looking at the book the girl was reading, "L'Etranger" by Albert Camus. Immediately seeing through his lies, Molly questions Jamie about the book; Jamie claims it is a western about a man who eventually becomes sheriff. In order to embarrass Jamie and expose him as a liar, she then approaches Sophie to question her about the book as well. Iris (Eileen Atkins) and Eddie (Benjamin Whitrow), an older couple, meet on a park bench, and start talking about London's skyline and wondering about the couple to whom the bench is dedicated. They discover that they both come to the same bench on different days of the week. They are both widowed. In talking about their past, they also discover that, nearly fifty years before, they had met romantically at that spot and that is why they both kept coming back. They walk off to climb to higher ground, bemoaning the difficulty with climbing hills as they get older. They are bemused by the irony of meeting again, and have mixed feelings as they no longer represent an idealized partner in each other's minds. They talk about seeing each other again, but Iris also decides to visit her ex-husband's grave, now appreciating more their time together. Anna (Sophie Okonedo), a disturbed young woman with extreme mood swings, is crying and arguing with her boyfriend Ludo (Nick Sidi), who eventually walks off. She is then approached by a young man, Noel (Tom Hardy) who, in a confused way, asks after her welfare and tries to make her laugh. She asks to be left alone, but he sits next to her and appears to meditate. His weird behaviour interests her and they strike up a conversation, but she becomes annoyed with him. She suddenly orders him to have sex with her right away but subsequently leaves him with his pants around his knees. Noel re-appears in the film several times as he chances upon other characters. Gay life-partners Billy (Ewan McGregor) and Brian (Douglas Hodge) are also lying on the grass, discussing other gay men and "The Good Life". Billy has trouble giving up casual sex with other men, while Brian wants him to be faithful to him. They later talk about adopting children, which Billy wants but Brian doesn't. Billy promises to give up casual sex when the two adopt children, which convinces Brian to think about it. However, seconds later Billy runs off in pursuit of an attractive man who passed them. Peter Brian Maxwell (Adrian Lester) and Sara Louise Williams (Catherine Tate) meet on a different bench. It transpires that they are married and have a seven-year old daughter, Eve (Elle Mckenzie), but are getting divorced from each other. However, they have mixed feelings about this because they still care for each other. Louis (Mark Strong) meets Esther (Polly Walker) and discusses Louis' father's funeral. Louis presents Esther with tickets for a holiday in Barbados. They discuss a variety of issues like a traditional couple, but in the end it transpires that Esther is an escort and is paid for her time with Louis. Gerry (Hugh Bonneville) and Julia (Gina McKee) sit on a rug enjoying some red wine and cheese. They stumble over modern terminology for ethnic minorities and not being, or appearing to be, racist. They talk about former relationships and children and, as they are both in their early forties, Julia worries that she will no longer be able. The two are on a blind date together - Julia's first. They seem to be getting along well until Julia's attention is briefly drawn towards Louis, who passes them. Insulted by this, Gerry decides to leave abruptly. Production. "Scenes of a Sexual Nature" was filmed on a minimal budget (estimated at £260,000), and the actors were offered Equity minimum and a percentage of future profits as their salary. The filmmakers presented the project to investors a mere two weeks before shooting began, at which point the actors had already signed on. In fact, to increase the budget, Ed Blum, the director, re-mortgaged his flat. Reception. "Scenes of a Sexual Nature" received mixed reviews from the critics, with a 40% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. The BBC gave it 3 stars out of 5, saying it had a "beautiful backdrop and pleasant nuances," whereas "Empire" magazine gave it 2 stars, saying it was "good in patches but insubstantial, the only discernible moral is that Hampstead Heath is a nice place to be on a sunny day.". It opened in niche cinemas, earning about US$100,000 in its first weekend.
1789618	Merlin and the War of the Dragons is a 2008 fantasy film produced by The Asylum, based loosely on the legends of King Arthur. It was filmed entirely on location in Wales. Plot. In Pre-England Britain, sometime before the birth of King Arthur, Merlin (Simon Lloyd Roberts) is already active and now serves under King Vortigern (Hefin Wyn). Soon after Vortigern's coronation, a large army of giant, fire-breathing dragons lands in Britain and begins to terrorize the land, setting fire to buildings and feasting on any who are unable to escape. Due to their size and number, the dragons threaten the very existence of Britain itself, and Vortigern instructs Merlin to lead an army against the dragons, ordering his best generals—Hengist (Iago McGuire) and Uther (Dylan Jones)—to aid Merlin in any way possible. With the help of Vortigern and his generals, Merlin begins to think of ways to defeat the dragons, who are growing stronger every day whilst Britain grows weaker. Using magic and knowledge, Merlin devises a plan that will ultimately decide the fate of British history.
1169639	Samuel Lloyd Haynes (October 19, 1934 – January 1, 1987) was an African-American actor and television writer. Haynes was a member of the Bahá'í Faith. Haynes served in the Marines from 1952–1964 and during the Korean War. He was a public-affairs officer for the Naval reserve with the rank of Commander. Following his military career, Haynes studied acting at the Film Industries Workshop and Actors West in Los Angeles. Haynes appeared in a number of films and television series, such as " Batman" and the second "Star Trek" pilot episode "Where No Man Has Gone Before". Haynes was dropped from "Star Trek" because series Producer Gene Roddenberry preferred actress Nichelle Nichols over him. Haynes received the most recognition for his role as schoolteacher Pete Dixon in the ABC situation comedy series "Room 222", with Michael Constantine and Karen Valentine. Haynes and Valentine were both nominated for an Emmy and Golden Globe Award for their roles. He died from lung cancer on January 1, 1987.
456406	The Linguists is an independent 2008 American documentary film produced by Ironbound Films about language extinction and language documentation. It follows two linguists, Greg Anderson of the Living Tongues Institute for Endangered Languages and David Harrison of Swarthmore College, as they travel around the world to collect recordings of some of the last speakers of several moribund (dying) languages: Chulym in Siberia; Chemehuevi in Arizona, U.S.; Sora in Orissa, India; and Kallawaya in Bolivia. Production. Seth Kramer, one of the directors, describes how he first got the idea for "The Linguists" when, in Vilnius, Lithuania, he could not read Yiddish inscriptions on a path in spite of his Jewish heritage. He joined with Daniel A. Miller in 2003 to form Ironbound Films, and received a $520,000 grant from the National Science Foundation to support the film. Later in 2003, the directors chose Anderson and Harrison to be the protagonists of the film. In 2004, director Jeremy Newberger joined the project. It took three years to film "The Linguists", and during this time over 200 hours of film were collected. During this time, the cast and crew travelled to numerous remote areas that one reporter describes as "godforsaken," and coped with physical ailments such as altitude sickness; Newberger has recounted that they coped with altitude sickness in the Andes by drinking "10 cups a day" of tea made from coca leaves, one of the main ingredients in the psychoactive drug cocaine. The film was completed in August 2007. Content. The film begins with the fact that a large proportion of the world's languages (half, out of a total of 7,000, according to the film) are going extinct. The film's two protagonists, Anderson and Harrison, set out both to gather recordings of several endangered languages in order to document these languages later, and to educate viewers about the current rate of language extinction. In the process, they travel to the Andes mountains in South America, to villages in Siberia, to English-Hindi boarding schools in Orissa, India, and to an American Indian reservation in Arizona. The film addresses issues including the spread of major global languages and how they contribute to language extinction; political and social reasons that some languages have been repressed; and reasons that language revitalization and language documentation are important (including both maintaining a scientific record of that language, and preserving unique local knowledge and history that is only carried in the local language). Reception. The film was screened at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival, and later had success on the "indie film circuit." It also received attention among the linguistics community on websites such as Language Log. The film has been lauded as "the talk of the town at Sundance;" "a fascinating journey;" "funny, enlightening and ultimately uplifting;" "a hoot;" and “shaggy and bittersweet.” While it received some minor criticism for choppy, confusing editing, the subject matter has been called "fascinating" and "compelling," and the spirit of the film's protagonists has been compared to Indiana Jones.
1101456	Hermann Günther Grassmann (; April 15, 1809 – September 26, 1877) was a German polymath, renowned in his day as a linguist and now also admired as a mathematician. He was also a physicist, neohumanist, general scholar, and publisher. His mathematical work was little noted until he was in his sixties. Biography. Grassmann was the third of 12 children of Justus Günter Grassmann, an ordained minister who taught mathematics and physics at the Stettin Gymnasium, where Hermann was educated. Hermann often collaborated with his brother Robert. Grassmann was an undistinguished student until he obtained a high mark on the examinations for admission to Prussian universities. Beginning in 1827, he studied theology at the University of Berlin, also taking classes in classical languages, philosophy, and literature. He does not appear to have taken courses in mathematics or physics. Although lacking university training in mathematics, it was the field that most interested him when he returned to Stettin in 1830 after completing his studies in Berlin. After a year of preparation, he sat the examinations needed to teach mathematics in a gymnasium, but achieved a result good enough to allow him to teach only at the lower levels. In the spring of 1832, he was made an assistant at the Stettin Gymnasium. Around this time, he made his first significant mathematical discoveries, ones that led him to the important ideas he set out in his 1844 paper referred to as A1 (see references). In 1834 Grassmann began teaching mathematics at the Gewerbeschule in Berlin. A year later, he returned to Stettin to teach mathematics, physics, German, Latin, and religious studies at a new school, the Otto Schule. This wide range of topics reveals again that he was qualified to teach only at a low level. Over the next four years, Grassmann passed examinations enabling him to teach mathematics, physics, chemistry, and mineralogy at all secondary school levels. Grassmann felt somewhat aggrieved that he was writing innovative mathematics, but taught only in secondary schools. Yet he did rise in rank, even while never leaving Stettin. In 1847, he was made an "Oberlehrer" or head teacher. In 1852, he was appointed to his late father's position at the Stettin Gymnasium, thereby acquiring the title of Professor. In 1847, he asked the Prussian Ministry of Education to be considered for a university position, whereupon that Ministry asked Kummer for his opinion of Grassmann. Kummer wrote back saying that Grassmann's 1846 prize essay (see below) contained "... commendably good material expressed in a deficient form." Kummer's report ended any chance that Grassmann might obtain a university post. This episode proved the norm; time and again, leading figures of Grassmann's day failed to recognize the value of his mathematics. During the political turmoil in Germany, 1848–49, Hermann and Robert Grassmann published a Stettin newspaper calling for German unification under a constitutional monarchy. (This eventuated in 1871.) After writing a series of articles on constitutional law, Hermann parted company with the newspaper, finding himself increasingly at odds with its political direction. Grassmann had eleven children, seven of whom reached adulthood. A son, Hermann Ernst Grassmann, became a professor of mathematics at the University of Giessen. Mathematician. One of the many examinations for which Grassmann sat required that he submit an essay on the theory of the tides. In 1840, he did so, taking the basic theory from Laplace's "Mécanique céleste" and from Lagrange's "Mécanique analytique", but expositing this theory making use of the vector methods he had been mulling over since 1832. This essay, first published in the "Collected Works" of 1894–1911, contains the first known appearance of what are now called linear algebra and the notion of a vector space. He went on to develop those methods in his A1 and A2 (see references). In 1844, Grassmann published his masterpiece, his "Die Lineale Ausdehnungslehre, ein neuer Zweig der Mathematik" Theory of Linear Extension, a New Branch of Mathematics, hereinafter denoted A1 and commonly referred to as the "Ausdehnungslehre," which translates as "theory of extension" or "theory of extensive magnitudes." Since A1 proposed a new foundation for all of mathematics, the work began with quite general definitions of a philosophical nature. Grassmann then showed that once geometry is put into the algebraic form he advocated, the number three has no privileged role as the number of spatial dimensions; the number of possible dimensions is in fact unbounded. Fearnley-Sander (1979) describes Grassmann's foundation of linear algebra as follows: Following an idea of Grassmann's father, A1 also defined the exterior product, also called "combinatorial product" (In German: "äußeres Produkt" or "kombinatorisches Produkt"), the key operation of an algebra now called exterior algebra. (One should keep in mind that in Grassmann's day, the only axiomatic theory was Euclidean geometry, and the general notion of an abstract algebra had yet to be defined.) In 1878, William Kingdon Clifford joined this exterior algebra to William Rowan Hamilton's quaternions by replacing Grassmann's rule "epep" = 0 by the rule "epep" = 1. (For quaternions, we have the rule "i"2 = "j"2 = "k"2 = −1.) For more details, see exterior algebra. A1 was a revolutionary text, too far ahead of its time to be appreciated. Grassmann submitted it as a Ph. D. thesis, but Möbius said he was unable to evaluate it and forwarded it to Ernst Kummer, who rejected it without giving it a careful reading. Over the next 10-odd years, Grassmann wrote a variety of work applying his theory of extension, including his 1845 "Neue Theorie der Elektrodynamik" and several papers on algebraic curves and surfaces, in the hope that these applications would lead others to take his theory seriously. In 1846, Möbius invited Grassmann to enter a competition to solve a problem first proposed by Leibniz: to devise a geometric calculus devoid of coordinates and metric properties (what Leibniz termed "analysis situs"). Grassmann's "Geometrische Analyse geknüpft an die von Leibniz erfundene geometrische Charakteristik", was the winning entry (also the only entry). Moreover, Möbius, as one of the judges, criticized the way Grassmann introduced abstract notions without giving the reader any intuition as to why those notions were of value. In 1853, Grassmann published a theory of how colors mix; it and its three color laws are still taught, as Grassmann's law. Grassmann's work on this subject was inconsistent with that of Helmholtz. Grassmann also wrote on crystallography, electromagnetism, and mechanics. Grassmann (1861) set out the first axiomatic presentation of arithmetic, making free use of the principle of induction. Peano and his followers cited this work freely starting around 1890. Lloyd C. Kannenberg published an English translation of The Ausdehnungslehre and Other works in 1995 (ISBN 0-8126-9275-6. -- ISBN 0-8126-9276-4). In 1862, Grassmann published a thoroughly rewritten second edition of A1, hoping to earn belated recognition for his theory of extension, and containing the definitive exposition of his linear algebra. The result, "Die Ausdehnungslehre: Vollständig und in strenger Form bearbeitet" Theory of Extension, Thoroughly and Rigorously Treated, hereinafter denoted A2, fared no better than A1, even though A2's manner of exposition anticipates the textbooks of the 20th century. Response. One of the first mathematicians to appreciate Grassmann's ideas during his lifetime was Hermann Hankel, whose 1867 "Theorie der complexen Zahlensysteme" In 1872 Victor Schlegel published the first part of his "System der Raumlehre" which used Grassmann's approach to derive ancient and modern results in plane geometry. Felix Klein wrote a negative review of Schlegel's book citing its incompleteness and lack of perspective on Grassmann. Schlegel followed in 1875 with a second part of his "System" according to Grassmann, this time developing higher geometry. Meanwhile Klein was advancing his Erlangen Program which also expanded the scope of geometry. Comprehension of Grassmann awaited the concept of vector spaces which then could express the multilinear algebra of his extension theory. A. N. Whitehead's first monograph, the "Universal Algebra" (1898), included the first systematic exposition in English of the theory of extension and the exterior algebra. With the rise of differential geometry the exterior algebra was applied to differential forms. For an introduction to the role of Grassmann's work in contemporary mathematical physics see "The Road to Reality" by Roger Penrose. Adhémar Jean Claude Barré de Saint-Venant developed a vector calculus similar to that of Grassmann which he published in 1845. He then entered into a dispute with Grassmann about which of the two had thought of the ideas first. Grassmann had published his results in 1844, but Saint-Venant claimed that he had first developed these ideas in 1832. Linguist. Disappointed at the inability of others to recognize the importance of his mathematics, Grassmann turned to historical linguistics. He wrote books on German grammar, collected folk songs, and learned Sanskrit. His dictionary and his translation of the Rigveda (still in print) were recognized among philologists. He devised a sound law of Indo-European languages, named Grassmann's Law in his honor. "By demonstrating that Germanic actually was "older" in one phonological pattern than was Sanskrit, Grassmann undermined the position of Sanskrit as the language which was the earliest attainable in Indo-European linguistics. By this demonstration Grassmann also undermined the notion that language developed from an analytic to a synthetic structure through simple words without changing their form to make new words."--> These philological accomplishments were honored during his lifetime; he was elected to the American Oriental Society and in 1876, he received an honorary doctorate from the University of Tübingen. References and ciations. Extensive online bibliography, revealing substantial contemporary interest in Grassmann's life and work. References each chapter in Schubring.
1059845	Dana James "Jim" Hutton (May 31, 1934 – June 2, 1979) was an American actor in film and television probably best remembered for his role as Ellery Queen in the 1970s TV series of the same name. He was the father of actor Timothy Hutton. Early life and career. Born in Binghamton, New York, Jim Hutton was performing in live theater in Germany while with the United States Army when he was spotted by American film director Douglas Sirk. One of his earliest screen appearances was in an episode of "The Twilight Zone" (1959), in which he co-starred with Rod Taylor. In Hollywood, he gained recognition with teen audiences for his role in the college student film "Where the Boys Are" (1960), where he appeared with Paula Prentiss, an actress he would be teamed with in several of his early films, in part because they were the tallest contract players of their time (Hutton at 6'5" and Prentiss at 5'10"). He appeared with Prentiss in "The Honeymoon Machine" late in 1960, followed by 1961's "Bachelor in Paradise" starring Bob Hope and Lana Turner, and finally "The Horizontal Lieutenant" in 1962. In 1966, Hutton gained a wider audience in "Walk, Don't Run" with Samantha Eggar and Cary Grant (in Grant's last feature-film appearance). Due to his tall, gangly frame and the absent-minded quality of his delivery, Hutton was viewed as a successor to James Stewart.
1055878	The TV Set is a 2006 drama about an idealistic writer attempting to bring his vision for a TV show to fruition on the small screen. Synopsis. Idealistic scriptwriter Mike Klein (Duchovny) tries to navigate his TV pilot through the mine-laden path of casting, production, and the madness of prime-time scheduling — all while trying to stay true to his vision. Along the way he has to juggle the agendas of headstrong network president Lenny (Weaver), volatile young stars, his pregnant wife Natalie (Bateman), and an ever-optimistic personal manager Alice (Greer), while suffering very serious back pain. Production and vision. The film's writer/director Jake Kasdan had originally intended Ben Stiller for the role of Lenny, however Kasdan cast Weaver for the role, which changed his idea of what the character should be. Kasdan does not regard the film as satire, as he sees nothing exaggerated in its depiction of bringing a pilot to production. Releases. The film was first screened on the Tribeca Film Festival on April 28th, 2006. Following almost a year of festival screenings, it was released in cinemas on April 6th, 2007. A DVD edition was released through 20th Century Fox on September 25th, 2007. It features commentary tracks, a "making of" featurette and a deleted scene.
1790134	P.R.O.B.E. is a series of four videos written by Mark Gatiss and produced by BBV Productions. It predates "Torchwood" as the first ongoing spin-off of the "Doctor Who" universe. The series features Caroline John as Liz Shaw, working for the Preternatural Research Bureau. Many former "Doctor Who" actors, including former Doctors Jon Pertwee, Peter Davison, Colin Baker and Sylvester McCoy, appear in the series playing different roles. (Due to licensing restrictions, no overt reference to The Doctor is permitted.) "Doctor Who" alumna Louise Jameson co-stars with Caroline John in all four films, as Patricia Haggard. Originally released on VHS, the series is not widely available on video. When an interviewer commented to series author Mark Gatiss that he had never seen the series, Gatiss replied "No, and you never will. One, they're not available. And two, I forbid it. Christ, for all I knew, they were the only things I would ever get to make. And I learned a frightening amount from working on them." All four films were released on DVD on 3 March 2012 exclusive to Galaxy 4 shop with a 12 rating. "The Zero Imperative" (1994). The Zero Imperative was released direct-to-video in January 1994 by BBV. Synopsis. Former UNIT luminary Liz Shaw and her assistant Bayliss are investigating a series of bizarre murders, all committed near a soon-to-be-closed psychiatric hospital. When the hospital is unexpectedly reprieved by rich Industrialist Peter Russell events seem to move out of Liz's control. Are the incumbent director of the clinic, Doctor Dove and his predecessor Doctor O'Kane harbouring the killer? What is the centuries-old horror hidden in the grounds? And what exactly is the secret of room zero? "The Devil of Winterborne" (1995). The Devil of Winterborne was released direct-to-video in January 1995 by BBV. Synopsis. When P.R.O.B.E. are summoned to investigate the savage murder of retired headmaster Mr. Whittaker and his dog, Liz Shaw is disturbed to find evidence of a satanic ritual near the scene of the crime. The trail leads of deceit and corruption extends to the current occupants of nearby Winterborne School, where it appears that someone is determined to cover up an ancient secret – at any cost. With another animal having bit the dust, the current headteacher accused of murdering a pupil, and one of the school's oldest employees having been stabbed with a knife, Liz finds herself under increasing pressure from all sides to produce results, especially with P.R.O.B.E. under threat from within – and the death toll mounting. However, a shocking revelation from headteacher Gavin Purcell reveals that The Devil of Winterborne is at large – and only Liz can stop it. "Unnatural Selection" (1996). Unnatural Selection was released direct-to-video in October 1996 by BBV. Synopsis. In 1975, the British Government quietly closed down a secret evolutionary project codenamed BEAGLE, ordering the destruction of all research materials. Today, the horrific discovery of several oddly mutated bodies alerts Liz Shaw and P.R.O.B.E. to the fact that something is stalking the original site of project BEAGLE – something which may challenge the very nature of humanity itself! With a crack security team at her disposal, Liz desperately attempts to track down the perverted results of the project. But who or what is hunting whom? "Ghosts of Winterborne" (1996). Ghosts of Winterborne was released direct-to-video in November 1996 by BBV. Synopsis. The Devil of Winterborne has only recently been exorcised by P.R.O.B.E. But when the body of its last victim disappears, and a book of black magic spells is stolen from a local museum, Liz Shaw begins to wonder if the ghosts of the past have really been laid to rest. Forced into an unholy alliance with the school's disgraced headmaster, Liz must fight not only her own warring emotions, but a festering evil that threatens to corrupt the Earth again after 100 years. But how do you fight a shadow from hell? See also. Other creator-authorised "Doctor Who" spin-offs include:
1061561	Sir Reginald Carey "Rex" Harrison (5 March 1908 – 2 June 1990) was an English actor of stage and screen. Harrison began his career on the stage in 1924. He won his first Tony Award for his performance as Henry VIII in "Anne of the Thousand Days" in 1949. He won his second Tony for the role of Professor Henry Higgins in the stage production of "My Fair Lady" in 1957. He reprised the role for the 1964 film version, which earned him a Golden Globe Award and Best Actor Oscar. In addition to his stage career, Harrison also appeared in numerous films, including "Anna and the King of Siam" (1946), "The Ghost and Mrs. Muir" (1947), "Cleopatra" (1963), and "Doctor Dolittle" (1967). In July 1989, Harrison was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II. In 1975, Harrison released his first autobiography. His second, "A Damned Serious Business: My Life in Comedy", was published posthumously in 1991. Harrison was married a total of six times and had two sons: Noel and Carey Harrison. He continued working in stage productions until shortly before his death from pancreatic cancer in June 1990 at the age of 82. Youth and stage career. Harrison was born at Derry House in Huyton, Merseyside, and educated at Liverpool College. After a bout of childhood measles, Harrison lost most of the sight in his left eye, which on one occasion caused some on-stage difficulty. He first appeared on the stage in 1924 in Liverpool. Harrison's acting career was interrupted during World War II while serving in the Royal Air Force, reaching the rank of Flight Lieutenant. He acted in various stage productions until 11 May 1990. He acted in the West End of London when he was young, appearing in the Terence Rattigan play "French Without Tears", which proved to be his breakthrough role. He alternated appearances in London and New York in such plays as "Bell, Book and Candle" (1950), "Venus Observed", "The Cocktail Party", "The Kingfisher" and "The Love of Four Colonels", which he also directed. He won his first Tony Award for his appearance as Henry VIII in "Anne of the Thousand Days" and international superstardom (and a second Tony Award) for his portrayal of Henry Higgins in the musical "My Fair Lady", where he appeared opposite Julie Andrews. Later appearances included Pirandello's "Henry IV", a 1984 appearance at the Haymarket Theatre with Claudette Colbert in Frederick Lonsdale's "Aren't We All?", and one on Broadway at the Brooks Atkinson Theatre presented by Douglas Urbanski, at the Haymarket in J.M. Barrie's "The Admirable Crichton" with Edward Fox. He returned as Henry Higgins in the revival of "My Fair Lady" directed by Patrick Garland in 1981, cementing his association with the plays of George Bernard Shaw, which included a Tony nominated performance as Shotover in "Heartbreak House", Julius Caesar in "Caesar and Cleopatra", and General Burgoyne in a Los Angeles production of "The Devil's Disciple." In film. Harrison's film debut was in "The Great Game" (1930), other notable early films include "The Citadel" (1938), "Night Train to Munich" (1940), "Major Barbara" (1941), "Blithe Spirit" (1945), "Anna and the King of Siam" (1946), "The Ghost and Mrs. Muir" (1947), and "The Foxes of Harrow" (1947). He was best known for his portrayal of Professor Henry Higgins in the 1964 film version of "My Fair Lady" based on the Broadway production of the same name, which was based on George Bernard Shaw's play "Pygmalion") for which Harrison won a Best Actor Oscar. He also starred in 1967's "Doctor Dolittle". At the height of his box office clout after the success of "My Fair Lady", Harrison proved a domineering and demanding force during production, demanding auditions for prospective composers after musical playwright Leslie Bricusse was contracted and demanding to have his singing recorded live during shooting, only to agree to have it rerecorded in post-production. He also disrupted production with incidents with his wife, Rachel Roberts and deliberate misbehaviour, such as when he deliberately moved his yacht in front of cameras during shooting in St. Lucia and refused to move it out of sight due to contract disputes. Harrison was at one point temporarily replaced by Christopher Plummer, until he agreed to be more cooperative. He starred in the 1968 comedy "The Honey Pot", a modern adaptation of Ben Jonson's play "Volpone". Two of his co-stars, Maggie Smith and Cliff Robertson, were to become lifelong friends. Both spoke at his New York City memorial at the Little Church Around the Corner when Harrison died in 1990. Harrison was not by any objective standards a singer (his "talking on pitch" style he used in "My Fair Lady" would be adopted by many other classically trained actors with limited vocal ranges); the music was usually written to allow for long periods of recitative, or "speaking to the music." Nevertheless, "Talk to the Animals", which Harrison performed in "Doctor Dolittle", won the Academy Award for Best Original Song in 1967. Despite excelling in comedy (Noël Coward described him as "The best light comedy actor in the world—except for me.") he attracted favourable notices in dramatic roles such as his portrayal of Julius Caesar in "Cleopatra" (1963) and as Pope Julius II in "The Agony and the Ecstasy" (1965), opposite Charlton Heston as Michelangelo. He also acted in a Hindi film "Shalimar" alongside Indian Bollywood star Dharmendra as well as appearing as an aging homosexual man opposite Richard Burton as his lover in "Staircase" (1969). Personal life. Harrison was married six times. In 1942, he divorced his first wife, Colette Thomas, and married actress Lilli Palmer the next year; the two later appeared together in numerous plays and films, including "The Fourposter". In 1947, while married to Palmer, Harrison began an affair with actress Carole Landis. Landis committed suicide in 1948 after spending the evening with Harrison. Harrison's involvement in the scandal by waiting several hours before calling a doctor and police briefly damaged his career and his contract with Fox was ended by mutual consent. 1957 Harrison married the actress Kay Kendall. Kendall died of Myeloid leukemia in 1959. Terence Rattigan's 1973 play "In Praise of Love" was written about the end of this marriage, with Harrison appearing in the New York production playing the character based on himself. Rattigan was said to be "intensely disappointed and frustrated" by Harrison's performance, as "Harrison refused to play the outwardly boorish parts of the character and instead played him as charming throughout, signalling to the audience from the start that he knew the truth about illness." He was subsequently married to Welsh-born actress Rachel Roberts from 1962 to 1971. After a final attempt to win Harrison back proved futile, Roberts committed suicide in 1980. Harrison then married Elizabeth Rees-Williams, divorcing in 1975, and finally in 1978, Mercia Tinker, who would become his sixth and final wife. Harrison owned properties in London, New York and Portofino, Italy. His villa in Portofino was named "San Genesio" after the patron saint of actors. Later career and death. Having retired from films after the 1982 picture "A Time to Die", Harrison continued to act on Broadway and the West End until the end of his life, despite suffering from glaucoma, painful teeth, and a failing memory. He was nominated for a third Tony Award in 1984 for his performance as Captain Shotover in the revival of George Bernard Shaw's "Heartbreak House." He followed the show up with two successful pairings with Claudette Colbert, "The Kingfisher" in 1985, and "Aren't We All?" in 1986. In 1989, he appeared with Edward Fox in "The Admirable Crichton" in London. In 1989-1990, he appeared on Broadway in "The Circle" by W. Somerset Maugham, opposite Glynis Johns and Stewart Granger. The production actually opened at Duke University for a three-week run followed by performances in Baltimore and Boston before opening 14 November 1989 on Broadway. Harrison died of pancreatic cancer at his home in Manhattan on 2 June 1990 at the age of 82. He had only been diagnosed with the disease for a short time. The stage production in which he was appearing at the time, "The Circle", came to an end upon his death. Harrison's second autobiography, "A Damned Serious Business: My Life in Comedy" (ISBN 0553073419), was published posthumously in 1991. Honours and legacy. On 25 July 1989, Harrison was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II at Buckingham Palace as an orchestra played the music of songs from "My Fair Lady." Rex Harrison has two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, one at 6906 Hollywood Boulevard for his contribution to films, and the other at 6380 Hollywood Boulevard for his contribution to television. Due to his association with the checked wool hat, which he wore both in the Broadway and film versions of "My Fair Lady", that style of headware was officially named "The Rex Harrison." The 1985 teen comedy "Weird Science", would affirm this association when the main character, Lisa, would admonish a party crasher with the line "You ought to know better than to walk into somebody's house and start hitting people with your Rex Harrison hat!" Seth MacFarlane, creator of the animated series "Family Guy", modeled the voice of the character Stewie Griffin after Harrison, after seeing him in the film adaptation of "My Fair Lady".
1033530	David Oyelowo (born 1 April 1976) is an English actor. Early life and training. Oyelowo was born in Oxford, Oxfordshire, England, to Nigerian parents. He first attended a youth theatre after being invited by a girl to whom he was attracted. He then studied theatre studies for A level at City and Islington College and his teacher suggested he should become an actor. After A levels Oyelowo enrolled for a year on an art foundation course, before winning a place and scholarship at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art (LAMDA), finishing his three-year training in 1998. Stage. He began his stage career in 1999 when he was offered a season with the Royal Shakespeare Company playing roles in Ben Jonson's "Volpone", as the title character in "Oroonoko" (which he also performed in the BBC radio adaptation) and Shakespeare's "Antony and Cleopatra" (1999) alongside Guy Henry, Frances de la Tour and Alan Bates. His next theatrical role is his best known one – his performance as King Henry VI in the Royal Shakespeare Company's 2001 productions of Shakespeare's trilogy of plays about the king as a part of its season "". In a major landmark for colour-blind casting, Oyelowo was the first black actor to play an English king in a major production of Shakespeare, and although this casting choice was initially criticised by some in the media, Oyelowo's performance was critically acclaimed and later won the 2001 Ian Charleson Award for best performance by an actor under 30 in a classical play. (A few years later, in comparison, Adrian Lester's casting as "Henry V" drew little comment.) Oyelowo said of this experience: In 2005, he appeared in a production of "Prometheus Bound", which was revived in New York in 2007. In 2006, he made his directorial debut on a production of "The White Devil", produced by his own theatre company in Brighton, Inservice, co-run with fellow Brighton- based actors Priyanga Burford, Israel Aduramo, Penelope Cobbuld, and his wife, Jessica. Television. Oyelowo is best known for playing MI5 officer Danny Hunter in the British TV drama series "Spooks" (known in North America as "MI-5") from 2002 to 2004. He had before that appeared in "Tomorrow La Scala" (2002), "Maisie Raine" (1998) and "Brothers and Sisters" (1998). Soon after the end of his time on "Spooks" Oyelowo made a cameo appearance in the 2005 Christmas special of "As Time Goes By". In 2006 he appeared in the TV film "Born Equal" alongside Nikki Amuka-Bird as a couple fleeing persecution in Nigeria – they also both appeared in "Shoot the Messenger" (2006), and in "The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency" (2008) as a husband and wife. Other cameos have included "Mayo" (guest starring on 30 April 2006) and the TV film "Sweet Nothing in My Ear" (2008, as defense attorney Leonard Grisham), whilst he has played recurring or main characters in "Five Days" (2007) and "The Passion" (2008, as Joseph of Arimathea). In December 2009 he played the leading role of Gilbert in the BBC TV adaptation of Andrea Levy's novel "Small Island". In March 2010 he played the part of Keme Tobodo in the BBC's drama series "Blood and Oil". Radio. He appeared as Olaudah Equiano in "Grace Unshackled – The Olaudah Equiano Story", a radio play adapting Equiano's autobiography. This was first broadcast on BBC 7 on Easter Sunday 8 April 2007, with Jessica as Mrs Equiano. Audiobook. In 2007, Oyelowo was the reader for John le Carré's "The Mission Song". "AudioFile" magazine stated: "Think of David Oyelowo as a single musician playing all the instruments in a symphony. That is essentially what he manages in this inspired performance of John le Carré's suspense novel... Can it really have been only one man in the narrator's recording booth? This virtuoso performance makes that seem impossible." Personal life. He is married to actress Jessica Oyelowo, with whom he has four children. They live in Los Angeles.
581920	Dil To Pagal Hai (translation: "The Heart Is Crazy"), also known as DTPH, is a 1997 Indian musical romance film directed by Yash Chopra. The film depicts the love lives of the dancers in a musical dance troupe. It stars Madhuri Dixit, Shahrukh Khan and Karisma Kapoor, with Akshay Kumar in a supporting role. It was Khan's third collaboration with Chopra after "Darr" and "Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge"- to be precise third as producer and second as director. The soundtrack was composed by Uttam Singh, while the lyrics were penned by Anand Bakshi.
600008	Theodore John "Ted" Kaczynski ( , or ; Polish: "Kaczyński", pronounced ; born May 22, 1942), also known as the "Unabomber", is an American mathematician, social critic, and multiple murderer. Between 1978 and 1995, Kaczynski engaged in a nationwide bombing campaign against people involved with modern technology, planting or mailing numerous home-made bombs, ultimately killing a total of three people and injuring 23 others. Kaczynski was born and raised in Chicago, Illinois. While growing up in Chicago he was a child prodigy, excelling academically from an early age. Kaczynski was accepted into Harvard University at the age of 16, where he earned an undergraduate degree. He subsequently earned a PhD in mathematics from the University of Michigan. He became an assistant professor at the University of California, Berkeley in 1967 at age 25, but resigned two years later. In 1971, he moved to a remote cabin without electricity or running water, in Lincoln, Montana, where he lived as a recluse while learning survival skills in an attempt to become self-sufficient. From 1978 to 1995, Kaczynski sent 16 bombs to targets including universities and airlines, killing three people and injuring 23. Kaczynski sent a letter to "The New York Times" on April 24, 1995 and promised "to desist from terrorism" if the "Times" or the "Washington Post" published his manifesto, "Industrial Society and Its Future" (also called the "Unabomber Manifesto"), in which he argued that his bombings were extreme but necessary to attract attention to the erosion of human freedom necessitated by modern technologies requiring large-scale organization. The Unabomber was the target of one of the Federal Bureau of Investigation's costliest investigations. Before Kaczynski's identity was known, the FBI used the title "UNABOM" (UNiversity & Airline BOMber) to refer to his case, which resulted in the media calling him the Unabomber. The FBI (as well as Attorney General Janet Reno) pushed for the publication of Kaczynski's "Manifesto," which led to his sister-in-law, and then his brother, recognizing Kaczynski's style of writing and beliefs from the manifesto, and tipping off the FBI. Kaczynski tried unsuccessfully to dismiss his court appointed lawyers because they wanted to plead insanity in order to avoid the death penalty, as Kaczynski did not believe he was insane. When it became clear that his pending trial would entail national television exposure for Kaczynski, the court entered a plea agreement, under which he pleaded guilty and was sentenced to life in prison with no possibility of parole. He has been designated a "domestic terrorist" by the FBI. Some anarcho-primitivist authors, such as John Zerzan and John Moore, have come to his defense, while holding some reservations about his actions and ideas. Early life. Kaczynski was born on May 22, 1942, in Evergreen Park, Illinois, to second-generation Polish Americans Wanda (née Dombek) and Theodore Richard Kaczynski. At six months of age, Ted's body was covered in hives. He was placed in isolation in a hospital where visitors were not allowed, as doctors were unsure of the cause of the hives. He was treated several times at the hospital over an eight-month period. His mother wrote in March 1943, "Baby home from hospital and is healthy but quite unresponsive after his experience." From grades one through four, Kaczynski attended Sherman Elementary School in Chicago. He attended grades five through eight at Evergreen Park District 124 Schools. As a result of testing conducted in the fifth grade, which determined he had an IQ of 167, he was allowed to skip the sixth grade and enroll in the seventh grade. Kaczynski described this as a pivotal event in his life. He recalled not fitting in with the older children and being subjected to their bullying. As a child, Kaczynski had a fear of people and buildings, and played beside other children rather than interacting with them. His mother was so worried by his poor social development that she considered entering him in a study for autistic children led by Bruno Bettelheim. He attended high school at Evergreen Park Community High School. Kaczynski excelled academically, but found the mathematics too simple during his sophomore year. Sometimes he would cut classes and write in his journal in his room. During this period of his life, Kaczynski became obsessed with mathematics, spending prolonged hours locked in his room practicing differential equations. Throughout secondary schooling, Kaczynski had far surpassed his classmates, able to solve advanced Laplace transforms before his senior year. He was subsequently placed in a more advanced mathematics class, yet still felt intellectually restricted. Kaczynski soon mastered the material and skipped the eleventh grade. With the help of a summer school course for English, he completed his high school education when he was 15 years old. He was encouraged to apply to Harvard University, and was subsequently accepted as a student beginning in 1958 at the age of 16. While at Harvard, Kaczynski was taught by famed logician Willard Van Orman Quine, scoring at the top of Quine's class with a 98.9% final grade. He also participated in a CIA run behavioral engineering study, known as MKUltra, conducted by Dr. Henry Murray, an expert on stress interviews. Students in Murray's study were told they would be debating personal philosophy with a fellow student. Instead, they were subjected to a "purposely brutalizing psychological experiment" stress test, which was an extremely stressful, personal, and prolonged psychological attack. During the test, students were taken into a room and connected to electrodes that monitored their physiological reactions, while facing bright lights and a one-way mirror. Each student had previously written an essay detailing their personal beliefs and aspirations: the essays were turned over to an anonymous attorney, who would enter the room and individually belittle each student based in part on the disclosures they had made. This was filmed, and students' expressions of impotent rage were played back to them several times later in the study. According to author Alston Chase, Kaczynski's records from that period suggest he was emotionally stable when the study began. Kaczynski's lawyers attributed some of his emotional instability and dislike of mind control to his participation in this study. Indeed, some have suggested that this experience may have been instrumental in Kaczynski's future actions. Career. Kaczynski graduated from Harvard University in 1962, at age 20, and subsequently enrolled at the University of Michigan, where he earned a PhD in mathematics. Kaczynski's specialty was a branch of complex analysis known as geometric function theory. His professors at Michigan were impressed with his intellect and drive. "He was an unusual person. He was not like the other graduate students", said Peter Duren, one of Kaczynski's math professors at Michigan. "He was much more focused about his work. He had a drive to discover mathematical truth." "It is not enough to say he was smart", said George Piranian, another of his Michigan math professors. Kaczynski earned his PhD with his thesis entitled "Boundary Functions" by solving a problem so difficult that Piranian could not figure it out. Maxwell Reade, a retired math professor who served on Kaczynski's dissertation committee, also commented on his thesis by noting, "I would guess that maybe 10 or 12 men in the country understood or appreciated it." In 1967, Kaczynski won the University of Michigan's $100 Sumner B. Myers Prize, which recognized his dissertation as the school's best in mathematics that year. While a graduate student at Michigan, he held a National Science Foundation fellowship and taught undergraduates for three years. He also published two articles related to his dissertation in mathematical journals, and four more after leaving Michigan. In late 1967, Kaczynski became an assistant professor of mathematics at the University of California, Berkeley, where he taught undergraduate courses in geometry and calculus. He was also noted as the youngest professor ever hired by the university, but this position proved short-lived. Kaczynski received numerous complaints and low ratings from the undergraduates he taught. Many students noted that he seemed quite uncomfortable in a teaching environment, often stuttering and mumbling during lectures, becoming excessively nervous in front of a class, and ignoring students during designated office hours. Without explanation, he resigned from his position in 1969, at age 26. The chairman of the mathematics department, J. W. Addison, called this a "sudden and unexpected" resignation, while vice chairman Calvin Moore said that given Kaczynski's "impressive" thesis and record of publications, "He could have advanced up the ranks and been a senior member of the faculty today." Montana. In mid-1969, Kaczynski moved into his parents' small residence in Lombard, Illinois. Two years later, he moved into a remote cabin he built himself just outside Lincoln, Montana where he lived a simple life on very little money, without electricity or running water. Kaczynski worked odd jobs and received financial support from his family, which he used to purchase his land and, without their knowledge, would later use to fund his bombing campaign. In 1978, he worked briefly with his father and brother at a foam-rubber factory, where he was fired by his brother, David, for harassing a female supervisor he had previously dated who had refused him as a boyfriend for not 'sharing much in common'. Kaczynski's original goal was to move out to a secluded place and become self-sufficient so that he could live autonomously. He began to teach himself survival skills such as tracking, edible plant identification, and how to construct primitive technologies such as bow drills. However, he quickly realized that it was not possible for him to live that way, as a result of watching the wild land around him get destroyed by development and industry. He performed isolated acts of sabotage and initially targeted the developments near his cabin. The ultimate catalyst which drove him to begin his campaign of bombings was when he went out for a walk to one of his favorite wild spots, only to find that it had been destroyed and replaced with a road. About this, he said: He began dedicating himself to reading about sociology and books on political philosophy, such as the works of Jacques Ellul, and also stepped up his campaign of sabotage. He soon came to the conclusion that more violent methods would be the only solution to what he saw as the problem of industrial civilization. He says that he lost faith in the idea of reform, and saw violent collapse as the only way to bring down the techno-industrial system. Regarding his switch from being a reformer of the system to developing a means of taking it down, he said: Bombings. Initial bombings. Kaczynski's activities came to the attention of the FBI in 1978 with the explosion of his first, primitive homemade bomb. Over the next 17 years, he mailed or hand-delivered a series of increasingly sophisticated explosive devices that killed three people and injured 23 more. The first mail bomb was sent in late May 1978 to materials engineering professor Buckley Crist at Northwestern University. The package was found in a parking lot at the University of Illinois at Chicago, with Crist's return address. The package was "returned" to Crist, but when Crist received the package, he noticed that it was not addressed in his own handwriting. Suspicious of a package he had not sent, he contacted campus policeman Terry Marker, who opened the package, which exploded immediately. Marker required medical assistance at Evanston Hospital for injuries to his left hand. The bomb was made of metal that could have come from a home workshop. The primary component was a piece of metal pipe, about in diameter and long. The bomb contained smokeless explosive powders, and the box and the plugs that sealed the pipe ends were handcrafted from wood. In comparison, most pipe bombs usually use threaded metal ends sold in many hardware stores. Wooden ends lack the strength to allow significant pressure to build within the pipe, explaining why the bomb did not cause severe damage. The primitive trigger device that the bomb employed was a nail, tensioned by rubber bands designed to slam into six common match heads when the box was opened. The match heads would burst into flame and ignite the explosive powders. When the trigger hit the match heads, only three ignited. A more efficient technique, later employed by Kaczynski, was to use batteries and heat filament wire to ignite the explosives faster and more effectively. The initial 1978 bombing was followed by bombs sent to airline officials, and in 1979 a bomb was placed in the cargo hold of American Airlines Flight 444, a Boeing 727 flying from Chicago to Washington, D.C. The bomb began smoking, forcing the pilot to make an emergency landing. Some passengers were treated for smoke inhalation. Only a faulty timing mechanism prevented the bomb from exploding. Authorities said it had enough power to "obliterate the plane." As bombing an airliner is a federal crime in the United States, the FBI became involved after this incident and derived the code name UNABOM (UNiversity and Airline BOMber). U.S. Postal Inspectors, who initially had the case, called the suspect the Junkyard Bomber because of the material used to make the mail bombs. In 1979, an FBI-led task force that included the ATF and U.S. Postal Inspection Service was formed to investigate the case. The task force grew to more than 150 full-time investigators, analysts, and others. This team made every possible forensic examination of recovered components of the explosives and studied the lives of victims in minute detail. These efforts proved of little use in identifying the suspect, who built his bombs essentially from "scrap" materials available almost anywhere. The victims, investigators later learned, were chosen irregularly from library research. In 1980, chief agent John Douglas, working with agents in the FBI's Behavioral Sciences Unit, issued a psychological profile of the unidentified bomber which described the offender as a man with above-average intelligence with connections to academia. This profile was later refined to characterize the offender as a neo-Luddite holding an academic degree in the hard sciences, but this psychologically based profile was discarded in 1983 in favor of an alternative theory developed by FBI analysts concentrating on the physical evidence in recovered bomb fragments. In this rival profile, the bomber suspect was characterized as a blue-collar airplane mechanic. A 1-800 hotline was set up by the UNABOM Task Force to take any calls related to the Unabomber investigation, with a $1 million reward for anyone who could provide information leading to the Unabomber's capture. Casualties. The first serious injury occurred in 1985, when John Hauser, a graduate student and Captain in the United States Air Force, lost four fingers and vision in one eye. The bomb, like others of Kaczynski's, was handcrafted and made with wooden parts. Hugh Scrutton, a 38-year-old California computer store owner, was killed in 1985 by a nail-and-splinter-loaded bomb placed in the parking lot of his store. A similar attack against a computer store occurred in Salt Lake City, Utah on February 20, 1987. The bomb, which was disguised as a piece of lumber, injured Gary Wright when he attempted to remove it from the store's parking lot. The explosion severed nerves in Wright's left arm and propelled more than 200 pieces of shrapnel into his body. Kaczynski's brother, David—who would play a vital role in Ted's looming capture by alerting federal authorities to the prospect of his brother's being involved in the Unabomber cases— sought out and became friends with Wright after Ted was detained in 1996. David Kaczynski and Wright have remained friends and occasionally speak together publicly about their relationship. After a three-year break, Kaczynski struck again in 1993, mailing a bomb to David Gelernter, a computer science professor at Yale University. Though critically injured, Gelernter eventually recovered. Another bomb mailed in the same weekend was sent to the home of Charles Epstein from the University of California, San Francisco, who lost multiple fingers upon opening it. Kaczynski then called Gelernter's brother, Joel Gelernter, a behavioral geneticist, and told him, "You are next." Geneticist Phillip Sharp at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology also received a threatening letter two years later. Kaczynski wrote a letter to "The New York Times" claiming that his "group", called FC, was responsible for the attacks. In 1994, Burson-Marsteller executive Thomas J. Mosser was killed by a mail bomb sent to his North Caldwell, New Jersey home. In another letter to "The New York Times" Kaczynski claimed that FC "blew up Thomas Mosser because [...] Burston-Marsteller helped Exxon clean up its public image after the Exxon Valdez incident" and, more importantly, because "its business is the development of techniques for manipulating people's attitudes." This was followed by the 1995 murder of Gilbert Murray, president of the timber industry lobbying group California Forestry Association, by a mail bomb addressed to previous president William Dennison, who had retired. In all, 16 bombs—which injured 23 people and killed three—were attributed to Kaczynski. While the devices varied widely through the years, all but the first few contained the initials "FC". Inside his bombs, certain parts carried the inscription "FC", which Kaczynski later asserted stood for "Freedom Club". Latent fingerprints on some of the devices did not match the fingerprints found on letters attributed to Kaczynski. As stated in the FBI affidavit: One of Kaczynski's tactics was leaving false clues in every bomb. He would make them hard to find deliberately to mislead investigators into thinking they had a clue. The first clue was a metal plate stamped with the initials "FC" hidden somewhere (usually in the pipe end cap) in every bomb. One false clue he left was a note in a bomb that did not detonate which reads "Wu—It works! I told you it would—RV". A more obvious clue was the Eugene O'Neill $1 stamps used to send his boxes. One of his bombs was sent embedded in a copy of Sloan Wilson’s novel "Ice Brothers". The FBI theorized that Kaczynski had a theme of nature, trees and wood in his crimes. He often included bits of tree branch and bark in his bombs. Targets selected included Percy Wood, Professor Leroy Wood Bearson and Thomas Mosser. Crime writer Robert Graysmith noted "In the Unabomber's case a large factor was his obsession with wood." "Industrial Society and Its Future". In 1995, Kaczynski mailed several letters, including some to his victims and others to major media outlets, outlining his goals and demanding that his 50-plus page, 35,000-word essay "Industrial Society and Its Future", abbreviated to "Unabomber Manifesto" by the FBI, be printed verbatim by a major newspaper or journal. He stated that if this demand were met, he would then end his bombing campaign. The document was a densely written manifesto that called for a worldwide revolution against the effects of modern society's "industrial-technological system". There was a great deal of controversy as to whether the document should be published. A further letter threatening to kill more people was sent, and the United States Department of Justice, along with FBI Director Louis Freeh and Attorney General Janet Reno, recommended publication out of concern for public safety and in hopes that a reader could identify the author. Bob Guccione of "Penthouse" volunteered to publish it, but Kaczynski replied that, since "Penthouse" was less "respectable" than the other publications, he would in that case "reserve the right to plant one (and only one) bomb intended to kill, after our manuscript has been published." The pamphlet was finally published by "The New York Times" and "The Washington Post" on September 19, 1995. "Penthouse" never published it. Throughout the manuscript, produced on a typewriter without the capacity for italics, Kaczynski capitalizes entire words in order to show emphasis. He always refers to himself as either "we" or "FC" (Freedom Club), though there is no evidence that he worked with others. Donald Foster, who analyzed the writing at the request of Kaczynski's defense, notes that the manuscript contains instances of irregular spelling and hyphenation, as well as other consistent linguistic idiosyncrasies (which led him to conclude that it was indeed Kaczynski who wrote it). "Industrial Society and Its Future" begins with Kaczynski's assertion that "the Industrial Revolution and its consequences have been a disaster for the human race." The first sections of the text are devoted to discussion of the psychology of various groups—primarily leftists (a group he defines, in part as "hatscience and rationality" [paragraph 18 of his manuscript)—and of the psychological consequences for individual life within the "industrial-technological system", which has robbed contemporary humans of their autonomy, diminished their rapport with nature, and forced them "to behave in ways that are increasingly remote from the natural pattern of human behavior." The later sections speculate about the future evolution of this system, arguing that it will inevitably lead to the end of human freedom, call for a "revolution against technology", and attempt to indicate how that might be accomplished. Political and social views. In his opening and closing sections, Kaczynski addresses Leftism as a movement and analyzes the psychology of leftists, arguing that they are "True Believers in Eric Hoffer's sense" who participate in a powerful social movement to compensate for their lack of personal power. He further claims that leftism as a movement is led by a particular minority of leftists whom he calls "oversocialized": He goes on to explain how the nature of leftism is determined by the psychological consequences of "oversocialization". Kaczynski "attribute the social and psychological problems of modern society to the fact that society requires people to live under conditions radically different from those under which the human race evolved and to behave in ways that conflict with the patterns of behavior that the human race developed while living under the earlier conditions." He further specifies the primary cause of a long list of social and psychological problems in modern society as the disruption of the "power process", which he defines as having four elements: Kaczynski goes on to claim that "n modern industrial society natural human drives tend to be pushed into the first and third groups, and the second group tends to consist increasingly of artificially created drives." Among these drives are "surrogate activities", activities "directed toward an artificial goal that people set up for themselves merely in order to have some goal to work toward, or let us say, merely for the sake of the 'fulfillment' that they get from pursuing the goal". He argues that these surrogate activities are not as satisfactory as the attainment of "real goals" for "many, if not most people". He claims that scientific research is a surrogate activity for scientists, and that for this reason "science marches on blindly, without regard to the real welfare of the human race or to any other standard, obedient only to the psychological needs of the scientists and of the government officials and corporation executives who provide the funds for research." Kaczynski developed his philosophical ideas early in life, and up to the moment of the bombings, carried on an extensive on-going debate with his brother David. Ted identified strongly with positivism, meaning that he strongly believed in an objective reality and that through sensory experience and analysis of this, one can obtain authentic knowledge. He was also an atheist. David, on the other hand, embraced more emotional and subjective philosophies, showing an interest in mystical, religious and emotional ideas. The two brothers did however share two beliefs: a fondness for the outdoors; David also lived in the wilderness for some time, and developed animosity toward "the system" (or state). Kaczynski, throughout most of his earlier years (the 1960s, deconstructivism, a distrust of "the system", a desire for revolution) remained "the intellectual outsider" and considered himself more important than others. Perceived control methods. As mentioned above, the result of the "disruption of the power process" is the primary cause of various maladies in society (e.g., crime, depression, etc.). Kaczynski maintains that rather than recognizing that humans currently live in "conditions that make them terribly unhappy," "the system" (i.e., industrial society) develops ways of controlling human responses to the overly stressful environment in which they find themselves. The following are current examples (according to Kaczynski) of this trend: Imagine a society that subjects people to conditions that make them terribly unhappy, then gives them the drugs to take away their unhappiness. Science fiction? It is already happening to some extent in our own society. It is well known that the rate of clinical depression had been greatly increasing in recent decades. We believe that this is due to disruption of the power process... The entertainment industry serves as an important psychological tool of the system, possibly even when it is dishing out large amounts of sex and violence. Entertainment provides modern man with an essential means of escape. While absorbed in television, videos, etc., he can forget stress, anxiety, frustration, dissatisfaction. Historical views and predictions. In the last sections of the manifesto, Kaczynski carefully defines what he means by freedom and provides an argument that it would "be hopelessly difficult [...] to reform the industrial system in such a way as to prevent it from progressively narrowing our sphere of freedom". He says that "in spite of all its technical advances relating to human behavior the system to date has not been impressively successful in controlling human beings" and predicts that "f the system succeeds in acquiring sufficient control over human behavior quickly enough, it will probably survive. Otherwise it will break down" and that "the issue will most likely be resolved within the next several decades, say 40 to 100 years." He gives various dystopian possibilities for the type of society which would evolve in the former case. He claims that revolution, unlike reform, is possible, and calls on sympathetic readers to initiate such revolution using two strategies: to "heighten the social stresses within the system so as to increase the likelihood that it will break down" and to "develop and propagate an ideology that opposes technology". He gives various tactical recommendations, including avoiding the assumption of political power, avoiding all collaboration with leftists, and supporting free trade agreements in order to bind the world economy into a more fragile, unified whole. He concludes by noting that his manifesto has "portrayed leftism in its modern form as a phenomenon peculiar to our time and as a symptom of the disruption of the power process" but that he is "not in a position to assert confidently that no such movements have existed prior to modern leftism" and says that "his is a significant question to which historians ought to give their attention." Related works and influences. As a critique of technological society, the manifesto echoed contemporary critics of technology and industrialization, such as John Zerzan, Herbert Marcuse, Fredy Perlman, Jacques Ellul (whose book "The Technological Society" was referenced in an unnamed Kaczynski essay, written in 1971), Lewis Mumford, and Neil Postman. Its idea of the "disruption of the power process" similarly echoed social critics emphasizing the lack of meaningful work as a primary cause of social problems, including Lewis Mumford, Paul Goodman, and Eric Hoffer (whom Kaczynski explicitly references). The general theme was also addressed by Aldous Huxley in his dystopian novel "Brave New World", which Kaczynski references. The ideas of "oversocialization" and "surrogate activities" recall Freud's "Civilization and Its Discontents" and his theories of rationalization and sublimation (the latter term being used three times in the manifesto, twice in quotes, to describe surrogate activities). In a "Wired" article on the dangers of technology, titled "Why The Future Doesn't Need Us", Bill Joy, cofounder of Sun Microsystems, quoted Ray Kurzweil's "The Age of Spiritual Machines", which quoted a passage by Kaczynski on types of society that might develop if human labor were entirely replaced by artificial intelligence. Joy wrote that, although Kaczynski's actions were "murderous, and, in my view, criminally insane", that, "as difficult as it is for me to acknowledge, I saw some merit in the reasoning in this single passage. I felt compelled to confront it." Anders Behring Breivik, the Norwegian self-admitted perpetrator of the July 22, 2011 bombing and massacre in Norway, published a manifesto in which large chunks of text were copied and pasted from the manifesto of Kaczynski, with certain terms substituted (e.g., replacing "leftists" with "cultural Marxists" and "multiculturalists"). Search. Before the publication of the manifesto, Theodore Kaczynski's brother, David Kaczynski, was encouraged by his wife Linda to follow up on suspicions that Ted was the Unabomber. David Kaczynski was at first dismissive, but progressively began to take the likelihood more seriously after reading the manifesto a week after it was published in September 1995. David Kaczynski browsed through old family papers and found letters dating back to the 1970s written by Ted and sent to newspapers protesting the abuses of technology and which contained phrasing similar to what was found in the Unabomber Manifesto. Prior to the publishing of the manifesto, the FBI held numerous press conferences requesting the help of the public in identifying the Unabomber. They were convinced that the bomber was from the Chicago area (where he began his bombings), had worked or had some connection in Salt Lake City, and by the 1990s was associated with the San Francisco Bay Area. This geographical information, as well as the wording in excerpts from the manifesto that were released prior to the entire manifesto being published, was what had persuaded David Kaczynski's wife, Linda, to urge her husband to read the manifesto. After the manifesto was published, the FBI received over a thousand calls a day for months in response to the offer of a $1 million reward for information leading to the identity of the Unabomber. There were also large numbers of letters mailed to the UNABOM Task Force that purported to be from the Unabomber, and thousands of suspect leads were sifted through. While the FBI was occupied with new leads, David Kaczynski first hired private investigator Susan Swanson in Chicago to investigate Ted's activities discreetly. The Kaczynski brothers had become estranged in 1990, and David had not seen Ted for ten years. David later hired Washington, D.C. attorney Tony Bisceglie to organize evidence acquired by Swanson and make contact with the FBI, given the likely difficulty in attracting the FBI's attention. He wanted to protect his brother from the danger of an FBI raid, like Ruby Ridge or the Waco Siege, since he assumed Ted would not take kindly to being contacted by the FBI and would likely react irrationally or violently. In early 1996, former FBI hostage negotiator and criminal profiler Clinton R. Van Zandt was contacted by an investigator working with Tony Bisceglie. Bisceglie asked Van Zandt to compare the manifesto to typewritten copies of handwritten letters David had received from his brother. Van Zandt's initial analysis determined that there was better than a 60 percent chance that the same person had written the letters as well as the manifesto, which had been in public circulation for half a year. Van Zandt's second analytical team determined an even higher likelihood that the letters and the manifesto were the product of the same author. He recommended that Bisceglie's client immediately contact the FBI. In February 1996, Bisceglie provided a copy of the 1971 essay written by Ted Kaczynski to the FBI. At the UNABOM Task Force headquarters in San Francisco, Supervisory Special Agent Joel Moss immediately recognized similarities in the writings. Linguistic analysis determined that the author of the essay papers and the manifesto were almost certainly the same. When combined with facts gleaned from the bombings and Kaczynski’s life, that analysis provided the basis for a search warrant. David Kaczynski had attempted to remain anonymous at the outset but he was swiftly identified, and within a few days, an FBI agent team was dispatched to interview David and his wife with their attorney in Washington, D.C. At this and subsequent meetings with the team, David provided letters written by his brother in their original envelopes, so the use of postmark dates enabled the enhancement of the timeline of Ted Kaczynski's activities being developed by the Task Force. David developed a respectful relationship with the primary Task Force behavioral analyst, Special Agent Kathleen M. Puckett, with whom he met many times in Washington, D.C., Texas, Chicago, and Schenectady, New York, over the nearly two months before the federal search warrant was served on Theodore Kaczynski's cabin. David Kaczynski had once admired and emulated his older brother, but had later decided to leave the survivalist lifestyle behind. He had received assurances from the FBI that he would remain anonymous and that his brother would not learn who had turned him in, but his identity was leaked to CBS News in early April 1996. CBS anchorman Dan Rather called FBI director Louis Freeh, who requested 24 hours before CBS broke the story on the evening news. The FBI scrambled to finish the search warrant and have it issued by a federal judge in Montana; afterwards, an internal leak investigation was conducted by the FBI, but the source of the leak was never identified. Paragraphs 204 and 205 of the FBI search and arrest warrant for Ted Kaczynski stated that "experts"—many of them academics consulted by the FBI—believed the manifesto had been written by "another individual, not Theodore Kaczynski". As stated in the affidavit, only a handful of people believed Theodore Kaczynski was the Unabomber before the search warrant revealed the cornucopia of evidence in Kaczynski's isolated cabin. The search warrant affidavit written by FBI Inspector Terry D. Turchie reflects this conflict, and is striking evidence of the opposition to Turchie and his small cadre of FBI agents that included Moss and Puckett—who were convinced Theodore Kaczynski was the Unabomber—from the rest of the UNABOM Task Force and the FBI in general: Arrest. FBI officers arrested Theodore Kaczynski on April 3, 1996, at his remote cabin outside Lincoln, Montana, where he was found in an unkempt state. Combing his cabin, the investigators found a wealth of bomb components, 40,000 handwritten journal pages that included bomb-making experiments and descriptions of the Unabomber crimes; and one live bomb, ready for mailing. They also found what appeared to be the original typed manuscript of the manifesto. By this point, the Unabomber had been the target of one of the most expensive investigations in the FBI's history. After his capture, Kaczynski was among the several individuals who had been suspected of being the unidentified Zodiac Killer. Among the links that raised suspicion were the fact that Kaczynski lived in the San Francisco Bay Area from 1967 to 1969 (the same period that most of the Zodiac's confirmed killings occurred in California), both individuals were highly intelligent with an interest in bombs and codes, and both writing letters to newspapers demanding the publication of their words with the threat of continued violence toward others if the demand was not met. However, his whereabouts could not be verified for all of the killings, and the gun and knife murders committed by the Zodiac Killer differ from Kaczynski's bombings, so he was not further pursued as a suspect. Robert Graysmith of San Francisco, author of the 1986 book "Zodiac", said the similarities are "fascinating" but undoubtedly purely coincidental. In 1996, a docudrama was produced titled "Unabomber: The True Story", featuring actors Dean Stockwell as Ben Jeffries, Robert Hays as David Kaczynski and Tobin Bell as Theodore Kaczynski. In this film a determined postal inspector was followed as he tracked down the suspect and also centered on Kaczynski's brother, who played a key role in the investigation. Court proceedings. Kaczynski's lawyers, headed by Montana federal defender Michael Donahoe, attempted to enter an insanity defense to save Kaczynski's life, but Kaczynski rejected this plea. A court-appointed psychiatrist diagnosed Kaczynski as suffering from paranoid schizophrenia, but declared him competent to stand trial. Kaczynski's family said Ted would psychologically "shut down" when pressured. In the book, "Technological Slavery", Kaczynski recalls two prison psychologists, Dr. James Watterson and Dr. Michael Morrison, who visited him almost every day for a period of four years, who told him that they saw no indication that he suffered from any such serious mental illness, and that the diagnosis of his being paranoid schizophrenic was "ridiculous" and a "political diagnosis." Dr. Morrison made remarks to him about psychologists and psychiatrists providing any desired diagnosis if they are well paid for doing so. A federal grand jury indicted Kaczynski in April 1996 on 10 counts of illegally transporting, mailing, and using bombs. He was also charged with killing Scrutton, Mosser, and Murray. Initially, the government prosecution team indicated that it would seek the death penalty for Kaczynski after it was authorized by United States Attorney General Janet Reno. David Kaczynski's attorney asked the former FBI agent who made the match between the Unabomber's manifesto and Kaczynski to ask for leniency—he was horrified to think that turning his brother in might result in his brother's death. Eventually, Kaczynski was able to avoid the death penalty by pleading guilty to all the government's charges, on January 22, 1998. Later, Kaczynski attempted to withdraw his guilty plea, arguing it was involuntary. Judge Garland Ellis Burrell Jr. denied his request. The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit upheld that decision. The early hunt for the Unabomber in the United States portrayed a perpetrator far different from the eventual suspect. The Unabomber Manifesto consistently uses "we" and "our" throughout, and at one point in 1993 investigators sought an individual whose first name was "Nathan", due to a fragment of a note found in one of the bombs. However, when the case was finally presented to the public, authorities denied that there was ever anyone other than Kaczynski involved in the crimes. Explanations were later presented as to why Kaczynski targeted some of the victims he selected. On August 10, 2006, Judge Garland Burrell Jr. ordered that personal items seized in 1996 from Kaczynski's Montana cabin should be sold at a "reasonably advertised Internet auction." Items the government considers to be bomb-making materials, such as writings that contain diagrams and "recipes" for bombs, were excluded from the sale. The auctioneer paid the cost and kept up to 10% of the sale price, and the rest of the proceeds must be applied to the $15 million in restitution that Burrell ordered Kaczynski to pay his victims. Included among Kaczynski's holdings which were auctioned are his original writings, journals, correspondences, and other documents allegedly found in his cabin (for example, a copy of Strunk & White's "The Elements of Style"). The judge ordered that all references in those documents that allude to any of his victims must be removed before they were sold. Kaczynski challenged those ordered redactions in court on First Amendment grounds, arguing that any alteration of his writings is an unconstitutional violation of his freedom of speech. The auction concluded in June, 2011, and raised over $232,000. Prison. Kaczynski is serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole as Federal Bureau of Prisons register number 04475-046 at ADX Florence, the federal Administrative Maximum Facility supermax in Florence, Colorado. When asked if he was afraid of losing his mind in prison, Kaczynski replied: Kaczynski has been an active writer in prison. The Labadie Collection, part of the University of Michigan's Special Collections Library, houses Kaczynski's correspondence from over 400 people since his arrest in April 1996, including carbon copy replies, legal documents, publications, and clippings. The names of most correspondents will be kept sealed until 2049. Kaczynski has also been battling in federal court in Northern California over the auction of his journals and other correspondence. On January 10, 2009, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in San Francisco rejected Kaczynski's arguments that the government's sale of his writings violates his freedom of expression. His writings, books, and other possessions were sold online, and the money raised was sent to several of his victims. Kaczynski's cabin was removed and stored in a warehouse in an undisclosed location. It was to be destroyed, but was eventually given to Scharlette Holdman, an investigator on Kaczynski's defense team. It is on display at the Newseum in Washington, D.C. as of July 2008. In a three-page handwritten letter to the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, Kaczynski objected to the public exhibition of the cabin, claiming it was being exhibited despite victims' objections to being publicly connected with the UNABOM case. In a letter dated October 7, 2005, Kaczynski offered to donate two rare books to the Melville J. Herskovits Library of African Studies at Northwestern University's campus in Evanston, Illinois, the location of the first two attacks. The recipient, David Easterbrook, turned the letter over to the university's archives. Northwestern rejected the offer, noting that the library already owned the volumes in English and did not desire duplicates. David Kaczynski, Theodore's brother, who turned him in to the FBI, has never received a response to the monthly letters he sends to Theodore in prison, as of 2007. In 2010, a collection of his essays and a corrected version of the Manifesto were published by Feral House, under the title "Technological Slavery". On May 24, 2012, Kaczynski submitted his current information to the Harvard University alumni association. He listed his eight life sentences as achievements, his current occupation as prisoner, and his current address as No. 04475-046, US Penitentiary—Max, P.O. Box 8500, Florence, CO 81226-8500.
520184	Dalaw () or Dalaw: First Time sa TV (on its first TV premiere on February 8, 2012) is a 2010 Filipino suspense-horror film starring Kris Aquino and Diether Ocampo. The film was released by Star Cinema. It was an official entry at the 2010 Metro Manila Film Festival. Plot. Cert: 15 Stella (Kris Aquino) decides to marry Anton (Diether Ocampo), 3 years after her husband died. Anton was her great love before she was forced by her parents to marry Danilo (Richard Quan). However, after the wedding, she experiences major hauntings that endanger her life and the people around her. All the clues are pointing to her dead husband. Feeling guilty of her dead husband's death, Stella tries to save her family from the ghost's wrath. Along the way, secrets start to unravel and Stella is now unsure of who's haunting her and why she's being haunted. Reception. The film marks the return of Kris Aquino to the horror genre, in which she was tagged as 'Philippine's Box-office Horror Queen' due to the success of her two previous films, Feng Shui and Sukob. The film was a box-office success, placing in third place at the list of the highest-grossing entries for the 2010 Metro Manila Film Festival.
400913	Meteor Apocalypse is a 2009 American Christian science fiction film directed by Micho Rutare. Plot. A long-period comet's orbit is determined to be crossing directly in the path of Earth's orbit. All of the world's nuclear states fire their missiles at the comet, but pieces of the comet continues to strike the Earth, contaminating the groundwater and causing millions to become sick. The story follows David Dmatti (Joe Lando) as he searches for his wife Kate (Claudia Christian) and sick daughter Allison (Madison McLaughlin). They were initially quarantined in the Las Vegas Valley. David, finds and revives Lynn (Cooper Harris) at a gas station and brings her with him to Las Vegas. When they arrive, they learn most of the city was destroyed and the quarantined were transferred to Los Angeles. David is also able to get an antidote for the mysterious illness. When it is discovered that the largest comet fragment will most likely hit Los Angeles, a panicked evacuation is begun. The problem is the quarantined are left behind. While trying to rescue David's family, Lynn dies, leaving enough antidote for David's daughter. He and his family are soon reunited, just as the final fragment strikes the city. Production. The film is produced and is distributed by The Asylum Films. Release. The release date for the film in North America was February 23, 2010
1062263	Eric Bana ( ; born 9 August 1968) is an Australian film and television actor. He began his career as a comedian in the sketch comedy series "Full Frontal" before gaining critical recognition in the biographical film "Chopper" (2000). After a decade of roles in Australian TV shows and films, Bana gained Hollywood's attention by playing the lead role as Bruce Banner in the Ang Lee directed film "Hulk" (2003). He has since played Hector in the movie "Troy" (2004), the lead in Steven Spielberg's "Munich" (2005), and the villain Nero in the science-fiction film "Star Trek" (2009). An accomplished dramatic actor and comedian, he received Australia's highest film and television awards for his performances in "Chopper", "Full Frontal" and "Romulus, My Father". Bana has performed across a wide spectrum of leading roles in a variety of low-budget and major studio films, ranging from romantic comedies and drama to science fiction and action thrillers. Early life and family. Eric Bana was born Eric Banadinović in Melbourne, Victoria, the younger of two children; he has a brother, Anthony. He is of Croatian ancestry on his father's side. Bana's paternal grandfather, Mate Banadinović, moved to Argentina after the Second World War, and Bana's paternal grandmother emigrated to Germany and then to Australia in the 1950s with her son, Ivan (Bana's father). Bana's father was a logistics manager for Caterpillar, Inc., and Bana's German-born mother, Eleanor, was a hairdresser. Bana grew up in Melbourne's Tullamarine, a suburban area on the northern edge of the city, near the main airport. In a cover story for "The Mail on Sunday", he told author Antonella Gambotto-Burke that his family had suffered from racist taunts, and that it had distressed him. "Wog is such a terrible word," he said. He has stated: "I have always been proud of my origin, which had a big influence on my upbringing. I have always been in the company of people of European origin". Showing acting skill early in life, Bana began doing impressions of family members at the age of six or seven, first mimicking his grandfather's walk, voice and mannerisms. In school, he mimicked his teachers as a means to get out of trouble. As a teen, he watched the Mel Gibson film "Mad Max" (1979), and decided he wanted to become an actor. However, he did not seriously consider a career in the performing arts until 1991 when he was persuaded to try comedy while working as a barman at Melbourne's Castle Hotel. His stand-up gigs in inner-city pubs did not provide him with enough income to support himself, so he continued his work as a barman and waiting tables. Career. Early work. In 1993, Bana made his television debut on Steve Vizard's late night talk show, "Tonight Live". His performance gained the attention of producers from the sketch comedy series, "Full Frontal", who invited him to join the show as a writer and performer. During his four years on the show, Bana wrote much of his own material, and based some of his characters on members of his family. His impressions of Columbo, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sylvester Stallone, and Tom Cruise made Bana popular with the show's audience. This success led him to record the comedy album "Out of Bounds" in 1994 and to host his own television special, titled "Eric", in 1996. The show, a collection of sketches featuring everyday characters, prompted him to launch a sketch comedy series "The Eric Bana Show". The series, written and performed by Bana, featured skits, stand-up and celebrity guests, but failed to attract a substantial audience and was cancelled after only eight episodes due to low ratings. Even so, in 1997, he received a Logie Award for "Most Popular Comedy Personality" for his work on the show. That same year, Bana made his film debut in the Australian film "The Castle", which tells the story of a Melbourne-based family's struggles to keep their home by Melbourne's airport as the airport authority force them to move. He was featured in a supporting role as Con Petropoulous, a kickboxing accountant who is the householder's son-in-law. "The Castle" was a surprise critical and financial success, earning A$10,326,428 at the box office in Australia. 1997–2005. In 1997, in spite of his lack of experience in dramatic roles, Bana was approached by director Andrew Dominik to appear in the film "Chopper" (2000), a biographical film based on the life of infamous Australian criminal Chopper Read. Dominik had been working on the project for five years, but was unable to find an actor to portray Read. Only after Read himself suggested Bana, having seen him perform a skit on television, did Dominik consider him for the part. For the role, Bana shaved his head, gained thirty pounds, and spent two days with Read to perfect his mimicry. During filming he arrived on set at four in the morning and spent five hours being covered in Read's trademark tattoos. In spite of the film's limited release outside of Australia, Bana's performance received positive reviews. American film critic Roger Ebert complimented Bana, stating that "in a comedian named Eric Bana the filmmakers have found, I think, a future star ... He has a quality no acting school can teach you and few actors can match. You cannot look away from him". "Chopper" was a critical and financial success in Australia, and was nominated for Best Film at the Australian Film Institute Awards in 2001. Bana's performance won the Australian Film Institute Award for Best Actor. In 2001, director Ridley Scott cast Bana as an American soldier in the film "Black Hawk Down" (2001). Scott, impressed by Bana's performance in "Chopper", did not require him to audition. In the film, he played Sergeant First Class Norm 'Hoot' Gibson, an elite Delta Force soldier, who fights his way out of a battle in Mogadishu, Somalia after a mission to capture two top lieutenants of a renegade warlord goes awry. Bana shed the weight he had gained for "Chopper" and began an exercise regimen months before filming began. He also trained with Delta Force operators at Fort Bragg, learning to fire weapons and clear rooms. Bana's next project was the low-budget Australian film "The Nugget" (2002). A comedy, the film portrays the effect of instant wealth on three working class men and was released with moderate success in Australia. Bana read the script after filming "Chopper" in 2000 and was drawn to it because it reminded him of his childhood and because he found its characters amusing and likeable. While filming "The Nugget", Bana was offered the lead role of Bruce Banner in the film adaptation of the popular comic book series "The Incredible Hulk". Only after learning of director Ang Lee's involvement in the project did he consider the role. Bana admired Lee for his work on the film "The Ice Storm" and agreed to work on the film before the final script was complete. He said he was drawn to the film because "the character of Bruce Banner had dramatic potential" and was "a fairly non-traditional superhero". "Hulk" (2003) received mixed reviews and a moderate success at the box office, but Bana's performance was praised: Jack Matthews of the "New York Daily News" felt that Bana played the role of Bruce Banner "with great conviction". Bana earned an Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films nomination for "Cinescape Genre Face of the Future" for the film. In 2004, Bana co-starred with Brad Pitt in the big-budget film "Troy". In the film, he played Prince Hector, leader of the Trojan forces battling against the Greek warrior Achilles. Director Wolfgang Petersen offered him a role in the film after meeting with Brad Pitt, a fan of "Chopper". The film was an international success, grossing US$364 million. In North America however, it earned considerably less, grossing less than US$133 million. After "Troy", Bana was rumored to be up for the role of James Bond, as a replacement for Pierce Brosnan, but he denied being in contention. The role ultimately went to Daniel Craig. 2005–present. After the critical disappointment of "Hulk" and "Troy", critics questioned Bana's bankability in big-budget films. He responded in "Empire Magazine": "It's not like it was a flop. When you're on a long shoot it is a long personal investment. If I wasn't happy with the end result I'd be bloody upset, but in every case so far I've been happy. "Troy" could take $50 and I wouldn't regret it." The following year, Bana co-starred with Daniel Craig and Geoffrey Rush in Steven Spielberg's controversial film "Munich". Bana played Avner, a Mossad agent, who is ordered to track down and kill the Black September terrorists thought to be responsible for the massacre of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Summer Olympics. The film was a critical success, and was nominated for five Academy Awards in 2006. The "Los Angeles Times" wrote that Bana as Avner "projects a combination of sensitivity and ruthlessness and ... knows how to present a face for which worry is a new experience." In 2006, Bana was invited to join the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. "Lucky You", a romantic comedy on which Bana worked before filming "Munich", was released in early 2007. In the film, he played Huck Cheever, a professional poker player who must overcome his personal problems to win a high stakes tournament in Las Vegas. His next film was the Australian drama "Romulus, My Father" (2007). The film, based on Raimond Gaita's memoir of the same name, portrays a couple and their struggle in the face of adversity to raise their son. The film was a critical success, and Bana's performance earned him a second Australian Film Institute Award for Best Actor. In 2007, he also returned to his Australian TV roots by appearing in hit comedy Kath and Kim as himself. Bana's next project was the historical drama "The Other Boleyn Girl" (2008). In the film he played Henry VIII of England opposite Scarlett Johansson and Natalie Portman. Bana was surprised to be offered the role and admitted that he "probably would have just passed it on without even opening it" if it had been presented to him under a different title. The following year, he co-starred with Chris Pine and Zachary Quinto in the science fiction film "Star Trek". In the film, Bana played Nero, a Romulan mining ship captain who attempts to exact revenge on Spock, whom he blames for the destruction of his homeworld and its inhabitants. The film was a critical success and grossed over US$380 million worldwide. In August 2009, he appeared as Henry DeTamble in the film adaptation of "The Time Traveler's Wife". Bana also co-starred with Adam Sandler and Seth Rogen in Judd Apatow's third directorial feature, about stand-up comics, titled "Funny People", marking Bana's first appearance in an American mainstream comedy. In 2009, Bana released a self-produced and directed documentary-style film called "Love the Beast". It details his personal relationship with his first car and follows his progression as a car lover. Along the way he seeks guidance and wisdom from the inner sanctum of his three lifelong friends, as well as celebrities Jay Leno, Jeremy Clarkson, and Dr. Phil. In 2011, Bana appeared as Erik Heller in the action thriller film "Hanna", starring alongside Saoirse Ronan & Cate Blanchett. The film would become another success for Bana as the film opened at No. 2 in the US boxoffice. He is set to star in "Elvis & Nixon" as Elvis Presley. Personal life. In 1995, while working on the television series "Full Frontal", Bana began dating Rebecca Gleeson, a publicist with the Seven Network and daughter of then Chief Justice of New South Wales, and later Chief Justice of Australia, Murray Gleeson. They married in 1997, after Bana proposed to her on a trip to the United States, which he won from "Cleo Magazine" after being named their "Bachelor of the Year" in 1996. Bana and Gleeson have two children, a son, Klaus (born August 1999), and a daughter, Sophia (born April 2002). They live in Melbourne. On the official identity documents he still has his birth surname, Banadinović. Bana is a motor racing enthusiast, and participates in various motor racing competitions in Australia. At the age of fourteen, Bana wanted to leave school to focus full-time on becoming a motor mechanic, but his father convinced him to complete school, advising him to avoid making his hobby a job. Bana purchased his first car, a 1974 XB Ford Falcon coupé, at the age of fifteen for A$1100 and driving it, made his motor sport racing debut in 1996's Targa Tasmania, a week-long race around the island state of Tasmania. (Bana has had this car for more than a quarter century. In 2009 he released a documentary named "Love The Beast". The film details the central role that racing and fixing this same car has played in his life and the lives of his friends.) In 2004, Bana purchased a Porsche 944 to compete in Australia's Porsche Challenge. Competing throughout 2004, he often finished in the top ten and in November, finished fourth at the Sandown 500, a personal best. On 21 April 2007 Bana crashed his 1974 XB Falcon Coupe in the Targa Tasmania rally. Neither he nor his co-driver were injured. Bana appeared on the British motoring show "Top Gear" on 15 November 2009 as a guest for its "Star in a Reasonably Priced Car" segment. Bana completed a lap of the "Top Gear" test track in 1-minute and 47.5 seconds on a wet track, the fastest wet lap ever recorded at that time. Bana is a prominent fan of Australian rules football. His love of the sport began at a young age when his godfather took him to games to see the St Kilda Football Club, his favourite team in the Australian Football League. Bana can often be seen at AFL games when he is back in Australia. Bana's love for St Kilda FC resulted in the club being featured in the film "Funny People" and in Bana's promotion of the film in 2009, notably on NBC's "Late Night with Jimmy Fallon". In 2010, Bana was named the "Saints Number One Ticket Holder". Charitable work. Bana is an ambassador for Father Chris Riley's charity for homeless young people, Youth off the Streets. In 2008 he appeared with Father Chris in an advertisement to support the organisation's annual appeal. Bana is also an advocate for the Mental Illness Fellowship, which works to increase the awareness of mental illness in Australia. In 2004, he appeared in several high profile advertisements for the fellowship. Bana is also active in campaigns with the Australian Childhood Foundation and the Bone Marrow Donor Institute. Since 1995, he has participated in the Motorcycle Riders Association Toy Run in Melbourne, which raises money and toys for needy children at Christmas. In 2005, Bana narrated the documentary "Terrors of Tasmania" about the endangered Tasmanian Devil. The film followed the life of a female Tasmanian Devil called Manganinnie and discussed the incurable facial cancer which threatens the survival of the species. He has also worked with the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, donating money to animal shelters in Berlin while filming "Troy" in 2004.
1163723	Edward G. Robinson ( Emanuel Goldenberg; December 12, 1893January 26, 1973) was a Romanian-born American actor. A popular star during Hollywood's Golden Age, he is best remembered for his roles as gangsters, such as Rico in his star-making film "Little Caesar" and as Rocco in "Key Largo". Other memorable roles include insurance investigator Barton Keyes in the film noir "Double Indemnity", Dathan (adversary of Moses) in "The Ten Commandments", and his final performance as Sol Roth in the science-fiction story "Soylent Green". Robinson was selected for an Honorary Academy Award for his work in the film industry, which was posthumously awarded two months after the actor's death in 1973. He was included in the American Film Institute's list of the 25 greatest male stars in American cinema. Early years and education. Robinson was born as Emanuel Goldenberg to a Yiddish-speaking Romanian Jewish family in Bucharest, the son of Sarah (née Guttman) and Morris Goldenberg, a builder. After one of his brothers was attacked by an antisemitic mob, the family decided to emigrate to the United States. Robinson arrived in New York City on February 14, 1903. He grew up on the Lower East Side, had his Bar Mitzvah at First Roumanian-American congregation, and attended Townsend Harris High School and then the City College of New York. An interest in acting led to him winning an American Academy of Dramatic Arts scholarship, after which he changed his name to "Edward G. Robinson" (the G. signifying his original last name). Career. He began his acting career in the Yiddish Theater District in 1913 and made his Broadway debut in 1915. He made his film debut in a minor uncredited role in 1916; in 1923 he made his named debut as "E. G. Robinson" in "The Bright Shawl". He played a snarling gangster in the 1927 Broadway police/crime drama "The Racket" that led to his being cast in similar film roles. One of many actors who saw his career flourish in the new sound film era rather than falter, he made only three films prior to 1930 but left his stage career that year and made 14 films between 1930–1932. Robinson made 101 films in his fifty-year career. An acclaimed performance as the gangster Caesar Enrico "Rico" Bandello in "Little Caesar" (1931) led to him being typecast as a "tough guy" for much of his early career in works such as "Five Star Final" (1931), "Smart Money" (1931; his only movie with James Cagney), "Tiger Shark" (1932), "Kid Galahad" (1937) with Bette Davis and Humphrey Bogart, and "A Slight Case of Murder". Due to age, he could not qualify for military service during World War II. In the 1940s, Robinson demonstrated his ability to succeed in comedic and film noir roles, including Raoul Walsh's "Manpower" (1941) with Marlene Dietrich and George Raft, "Larceny, Inc." (1942) with Jane Wyman and Broderick Crawford, Billy Wilder's "Double Indemnity" (1944) with Fred MacMurray and Barbara Stanwyck, Fritz Lang's "The Woman in the Window" (1944) with Joan Bennett and Raymond Massey, Fritz Lang's "Scarlet Street" (1945) with Joan Bennett and Dan Duryea, and Orson Welles' "The Stranger" (1946) with Orson Welles and Loretta Young. He appeared for director John Huston as gangster Johnny Rocco in "Key Largo" (1948), the last of five films he made with Humphrey Bogart and the only one in which Bogart did not play a supporting role. Robinson was an outspoken critic of fascism and Nazism, and donated more than US$ 250,000 to 850 political and charitable groups between 1939 and 1949. He was host to the "Committee of 56" who gathered at his home on December 9, 1938, signing a "Declaration of Democratic Independence" which called for a boycott of all German Products. He played FBI agent Turrou in "Confessions of a Nazi Spy", the first American film which showed Nazism as a threat to the United States in 1939, and Paul Ehrlich in "Dr. Ehrlich's Magic Bullet" and Paul Julius Reuter in "A Dispatch from Reuter's", both Jewish Biography films of 1940. In 1942, he volunteered for military service and was sent to London. On three occasions in 1950 and 1952, he was called to testify in front of the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) and was threatened with blacklisting. Robinson took steps to clear his name, such as having a representative go through his check stubs to ensure that none had been issued to subversive organizations. He did not give names of Communist sympathizers, but he repudiated the organizations he had belonged to in the 1930s and 1940s and his own name was cleared, but he only received smaller roles and even those less frequently. Robinson "continued his ritual of rehabilitation by humiliation" in October 1952, when he wrote an article titled "How the Reds made a Sucker Out of Me", that was published in the "American Legion Magazine." It is often held by certain modern commentators that, during this time, Edward G. Robinson appeared in numerous "B" movies for American International Pictures in the later 1950s. This is completely incorrect; Robinson never made films for American International Pictures, but his son Edward G. Robinson, Jr. did make one for AIP: "Tank Battalion" (1958). In 1954, Anti-communist director Cecil B. DeMille cast him as Dathan in "The Ten Commandments" released in 1956. After an absence from the screen after the release of "Nightmare" in 1956, Robinson's acting career in films restarted in 1958/59 when he was second-billed after Frank Sinatra in the 1959 release "A Hole in the Head". Robinson's last-filmed scene of his last acting role was a euthanasia sequence in the science fiction cult film "Soylent Green" (1973). Immediately prior to filming the emotional scene, Robinson told his co-star, and longtime friend Charlton Heston that he was dying from cancer and had weeks to live, at best. Robinson died twelve days later. Personal life. Robinson married his first wife, stage actress Gladys Lloyd, in 1927; born Gladys Lloyd Cassell, she was the former wife of Ralph L. Vestervelt and the daughter of Clement C. Cassell, an architect, sculptor, and artist. The couple had one son, Edward G. Robinson, Jr. (a.k.a. Manny Robinson, 1933–1974), as well as a daughter from Gladys Robinson's first marriage. In 1956 he was divorced from his wife. In 1958 he married 38-year-old Jane Bodenheimer, a dress designer known as Jane Arden. Robinson spoke seven languages. He built up a significant art collection and partnered with Vincent Price in running an art gallery. In 1956, he sold his collection to Greek shipping tycoon Stavros Niarchos to raise cash for his divorce settlement with Gladys Robinson; his finances had suffered due to underemployment in the early 1950s. One of his chief pastimes was collecting records of the world's leading concerts. An inveterate cigar smoker, Robinson smoked cigars in many of his movie roles to accentuate his character. A liberal Democrat, he attended the 1960 Democratic Convention in Los Angeles, California. Robinson died of bladder cancer in 1973, and is buried in a crypt in the family mausoleum at Beth-El Cemetery in the Ridgewood area of the borough of Queens in New York City. Legacy. Robinson has been the inspiration for a number of television characters. Firstly, an early version of the gangster character Rocky, featured in the Bugs Bunny cartoon "Racketeer Rabbit", shared his likeness. This version of the character also appears briefly in "Justice League", in the episode "Comfort and Joy", as an alien with Robinson's face and non-human body, who hovers past the screen as a background character. Similar caricatures also appeared in "The CooCooNut Grove", "Thugs with Dirty Mugs" and "Hush My Mouse". Another character based on Robinson's gangster image was The Frog from the cartoon series "Courageous Cat and Minute Mouse". The voice of B.B. Eyes in The Dick Tracy Show was based on Robinson, with Mel Blanc and Jerry Hausner sharing voicing duties. Voice actor Hank Azaria has said that the voice of "Simpsons" character police chief Clancy Wiggum is an impression of Robinson. This has been explicitly joked about in episodes of the show. In "The Day the Violence Died" (1996), a character states that Chief Wiggum is clearly based on Robinson. In 2008's "Treehouse of Horror XIX", Wiggum and Robinson's ghost each accuse the other of being rip-offs. A caricature of Robinson appears in two episodes in season 2 for Clone Wars as the character Lt. Tan Divo. Robinson was never nominated for an Academy Award, but in 1973 he was awarded an honorary Oscar in recognition that he had "achieved greatness as a player, a patron of the arts, and a dedicated citizen ... in sum, a Renaissance man". He had been notified of the honor, but died two months before the award ceremony, thus the award was collected by his widow Jane Robinson.
349099	Vincenzo Riccati (Castelfranco Veneto, 11 January 1707 – Treviso, 17 January 1775) was an Italian mathematician and physicist. He was the brother of Giordano Riccati, and the second son of Jacopo Riccati. Riccati's main research continued the work of his father in mathematical analysis, especially in the fields of the differential equations and physics. The Riccati equation is named after his father.
1059878	Dance Flick is a 2009 American comedy directed by Damien Dante Wayans, written by many of the Wayans Family, and starring Shoshana Bush and Damon Wayans, Jr.. The film is a spoof of the popular dance film genre. It was set for release in North America on February 6, 2009. It was moved, however, to August 2009 and then to May 22, 2009. Plot. Suburban girl Megan (Shoshana Bush) gets into a series of misadventures when she moves to the inner-city and pursues dance. A nerdy street boy named Thomas (Damon Wayans, Jr.) is passionate about street dancing, but he is stuck working for a hungry obese gang lord (David Alan Grier) who only loves food. Megan later befriends Thomas' ghetto sister Charity (Essence Atkins) who has a baby but also poor parenting skills. Charity has her own issues dealing with her dimwitted "baby daddy" (Shawn Wayans) who also is a bad parent. Once Megan and Thomas spend more time together, they become dance partners and begin to fall in love and start dating. Release and reception. Critical. The film's critical reception was generally negative. It received a 17% on Rotten Tomatoes, giving it a "rotten" score. On Metacritic, it got a 40/100 "mixed or average" score, based on 17 critic reviews. Box office. On the opening weekend (May 22–24), the film ranked at No. 5 in the top 10 with $10,643,536 in 2,450 theaters. This movie was a financial failure because it needed to make at least twice its production budget to break even because the studio only get about half the theatrical gross, the other half goes to the theater chains in which the movie was shown.
1105406	__NOTOC__ Albert William Tucker (28 November 1905 – 25 January 1995) was a Canadian mathematician who made important contributions in topology, game theory, and non-linear programming. Albert Tucker was born in Oshawa, Ontario, Canada, and earned his B.A. at the University of Toronto in 1928 and his M.A. at the same institution in 1929. In 1932, he completed his Ph.D. at the Princeton University under the supervision of Solomon Lefschetz, with a thesis entitled "An Abstract Approach to Manifolds". In 1932–33 he was a National Research Fellow at Cambridge, Harvard, and the University of Chicago. He then returned to Princeton to join the faculty in 1933, where he stayed till 1974. He chaired the mathematics department for about twenty years, one of the longest tenures. His extensive relationships within the field made him a great source for oral histories of the mathematics community. His Ph.D. students include Michel Balinski, David Gale, Alan Goldman, John Isbell, Stephen Maurer, Marvin Minsky, Nobel Prize winner John Nash, Torrence Parsons, Nobel Prize winner Lloyd Shapley, Robert Singleton, and Marjorie Stein. Although he wasn't his dissertation advisor, Tucker did advise and collaborated with Harold W. Kuhn on a number of papers and models. In 1950, Albert Tucker gave the name and interpretation "prisoner's dilemma" to Merrill M. Flood and Melvin Dresher's model of cooperation and conflict, resulting in the most well-known game theoretic paradox. He is also well known for the Karush–Kuhn–Tucker conditions, a basic result in non-linear programming, which was published in conference proceedings, rather than in a journal. In the 1960s, he was heavily involved in mathematics education, as chair of the AP Calculus committee for the College Board (1960–1963), through work with the Committee on the Undergraduate Program in Mathematics (CUPM) of the MAA (he was president of the MAA in 1961–1962), and through many NSF summer workshops for high school and college teachers. In the early 1980s, Tucker recruited Princeton history professor Charles Gillispie to help him set up an oral history project to preserve stories about the Princeton mathematical community in the 1930s. With funding from the Sloan Foundation, this project later expanded its scope. Among those who shared their memories of such figures as Einstein, von Neumann, and Gödel were computer pioneer Herman Goldstine and Nobel laureates John Bardeen and Eugene Wigner. Albert Tucker noticed the leadership ability and talent of a young mathematics graduate student named John G. Kemeny, whose hiring Tucker suggested to Dartmouth College. Following Tucker's advice, Dartmouth recruited Kemeny, who became Chair of the Mathematics Department and later College President. Years later, Dartmouth College recognized Albert Tucker with an honorary degree. Tucker died in Hightstown, N.J. in 1995 at age 89.
1544814	Lyle Martin Alzado (April 3, 1949 – May 14, 1992) was a professional American football defensive end of the National Football League famous for his intense and intimidating style of play. He played 15 seasons, splitting his time between the Denver Broncos, the Cleveland Browns, and finally the Los Angeles Raiders, with whom he won a championship in Super Bowl XVIII. Alzado died after a battle with brain cancer in 1992 at the age of 43. Early life. He was born in Brooklyn, New York, to an Italian-Spanish father and a Jewish mother. When he was 10, the family moved to Cedarhurst, Long Island. His father, whom Alzado later described as "a drinker and street fighter," left the family during Alzado's sophomore year at Lawrence High School. He played high school football and was a Vardon Trophy Candidate (defense) in high school for three years. College. Following his failure to receive even a single college scholarship offer, Alzado played for Kilgore College, a junior college. After two years, he was asked to leave the team, he later contended, for befriending a black teammate. From Texas, Alzado moved on to Yankton College in South Dakota, a now-defunct school whose campus is currently the site of a federal prison. Though playing in relative obscurity in the NAIA, Alzado nonetheless gained notice by the NFL when a scout for the Denver Broncos, having been taken off the road by automobile trouble, decided to pass the time by screening a film of Montana Tech, one of Yankton's opponents. Impressed by the unknown player squaring off against Montana's offense, the scout passed back a favorable report to his team. The Broncos ultimately drafted Alzado in the fourth round of the 1971 draft. Alzado went back to Yankton after his rookie season to get his college degree. He received a B.A. in physical education with an emphasis in secondary education. NFL career. Denver Broncos. When the Broncos' starting right defensive end was injured in 1971, Alzado took over the job and never gave it up. Alzado made various All-rookie teams for his contributions of 60 tackles and 8 sacks. The following year, Alzado began to get national attention as he racked up 10½ sacks to go with his 91 tackles. In 1973, Alzado posted excellent numbers as the Broncos had a winning record for the first time in team history with a 7–5–2 mark. In 1974, Alzado gained more notice as one publication named him All-AFC, with his 13 sacks and 80 tackles (eight for a loss) he was being recognized with the NFL's top defensive ends, such as Elvin Bethea, Jack Youngblood, L. C. Greenwood, Claude Humphrey, and Carl Eller. The Denver Broncos posted their second consecutive winning season, going 7–6–1. The 1975 season brought change, as Alzado moved to defensive tackle. He responded with 91 tackles and 7 sacks. Alzado took a step backward as did the Broncos with a 6–8 record. On the first play of the 1976 season, Alzado blew out a knee and missed that campaign. The Broncos were 9–5 but SPORT magazine reported that 12 players, including Alzado, did not think the team could reach the playoffs with coach John Ralston. Ralston was replaced as coach by Red Miller for the 1977 season. The 1977 season was the most successful in franchise history to that point; the Broncos had one of the NFL's best defenses, went 12–2 and then beat Pittsburgh Steelers and Oakland Raiders, the team with which he would later star, in the playoffs to reach Super Bowl XII. In that game, played in New Orleans, they were beaten soundly 27–10 by the Dallas Cowboys. Still, the year was a big success for Alzado, who was voted consensus All-Pro and consensus All-AFC as well as winning the UPI AFC Defensive Player of the Year. He also led the Broncos in sacks with 8, while making 80 tackles. In 1978, the Broncos again went to the AFC playoffs, but lost the rematch in the first round to the eventual champions Steelers. Alzado had 77 tackles and 9 sacks and recorded his first NFL safety. (Alzado would record two more in his career, which ties him in second place all-time). He was 2nd team All-Pro and a consensus All-AFC pick. In 1979 he had a contract dispute, and the Broncos traded him to the Cleveland Browns. Cleveland Browns. Alzado played well with the Browns, making second team All-AFC in 1979 while playing defensive end. He had 80 tackles that year to go with his seven sacks. The following year the Browns won the AFC Central division, losing to the Raiders in the Divisional round. Alzado led the Browns in sacks with nine, and was All-Pro and All-AFC. In 1981 he suffered some injuries, and at times his focus on football was diminished because of problems in his private life. Still, he recorded 83 tackles and led the Browns in sacks with 8½. However, the Browns traded him to the Los Angeles Raiders in 1982. Los Angeles Raiders. Being discarded by the Browns rekindled a fire in Alzado, and he worked out with a vengeance. In 1982 he was voted the NFL Comeback Player of the Year. Although he played a full season in 1981, his play was seemingly so superior in 1982 that he garnered the award. In the strike-shortened 1982 season of 9 games, Alzado recorded 7 sacks and 30 tackles while being voted All-AFC. This was the sixth season out of his first 12 campaigns that he received some sort of post-season honor. He continued to perform well for the Raiders in the 1983 season, helping lead them to a Super Bowl victory that year while recording 50 tackles and 7½ sacks. He also had an outstanding 1984 season with 63 tackles and 6 sacks, but the next year his tackle and sack totals dipped to 31 and 3 following a mid-season injury. Alzado retired at the end of the 1985 season. He attempted a comeback in 1990, but injured a knee during training camp and was released. In 196 career games, he racked up 112.5 sacks, 24 forced fumbles, and nearly 1,000 tackles, while earning Pro Bowl honors in 1977 and 1978. Following his retirement from playing, Alzado worked as a part-time color analyst for NBC's NFL coverage in 1988–89. Style of play. Indeed, the man whom ESPN would later find a "violent, combative player known for his short temper" inspired the league rule against throwing a helmet after having done so himself to an opponent's helmet. Peter Alzado, Lyle's brother, later identified the years of their youth—marked by an absent, alcoholic father and an over-worked mother—as the crucible for Alzado's unremittingly fierce style of play. "That violence that you saw on the field was not real stuff," his brother held. "Lyle used football as a way of expressing his anger at the world and at the way he grew up." Defensive end Greg Townsend, a teammate on the Raiders, contended that the savagery for which Alzado became noted represented only part of a "split personality." "Off the field," remembered Townsend, "he was the gentle giant. So caring, so warm, so giving." Steroid use and death. Alzado was one of the first major US sports figures to admit to using anabolic steroids. In the last years of his life, as he battled against the brain tumor that eventually caused his death, Alzado asserted that his steroid abuse directly led to his fatal illness. According to some reports, Alzado was using natural growth hormone, harvested from human corpses, as opposed to synthetic growth hormones. However, shortly before his death, Alzado recounted his steroid abuse in an article in "Sports Illustrated", The role that anabolic steroids may have played in Alzado's death has been the subject of controversy. The lymphoma of the brain that took his life has not been associated clinically with steroid use. The claim was denounced as a myth in the 2008 documentary "Bigger Stronger, Faster" and by Wisconsin pediatrician and steroid expert Norm Fost. Alzado died at age forty-three. He is buried at River View Cemetery in Portland, Oregon.
1064770	Are We Done Yet? is a 2007 family comedy film starring Ice Cube. The film is both a remake of the classic Cary Grant comedy "Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House" and a sequel to 2005's comedy "Are We There Yet?" The film was directed by Steve Carr from a screenplay by Hank Nelken. It was produced by Revolution Studios and reincarnated RKO Pictures, and distributed by Columbia Pictures. The film was shot on location in Tsawwassen, British Columbia, Canada, but is set in Newberg, Oregon, United States. Plot. Nick Persons (Ice Cube) sold his collectables store and has had Suzanne (Nia Long), Kevin (Philip Daniel Bolden) and Lindsey (Aleisha Allen) move into his apartment after Suzanne and Nick were married. While getting ready for an interview with Magic Johnson, Suzanne tells Nick that she is pregnant and they later find out that Suzanne is pregnant with twins.
630371	Lisa McCune (born 19 February 1971 in Sydney, Australia), is a four-time Gold Logie Award winning Australian actress, best known for her role as Senior Constable Maggie Doyle in "Blue Heelers", and as Lt. Kate McGregor in "Sea Patrol". Early career (1986–1993). McCune first performed on stage at the age of 15 playing Dorothy in "The Wizard of Oz" at the Limelight Theatre in Wanneroo, Western Australia. After graduating from Greenwood Senior High School at age 16, she was immediately accepted into both the classical singing and musical theatre courses at the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts (WAAPA). She embarked on the musical theatre course and graduated with a BA in Music Theatre in 1990, becoming one of WAAPA's youngest ever graduates. Upon graduation, McCune secured an agent, Robyn Gardiner Management (RGM Associates), and took on various jobs in Sydney and Melbourne. In February 1991 she won a twelve-month contract with Coles Supermarkets for a series of print and TV advertisements in which she played Lisa, the girl-next-door checkout-chick. McCune performed in a state-wide tour of Victorian high schools in the educational John Romeril play about work experience, called "Working Out", was in the chorus for a Sydney musical version of "Great Expectations" starring Philip Gould, and starred as the aspiring ballerina postulant, Sister Mary Leo, in the sequel to the Dan Goggin musical "Nunsense". She had a brief appearance in a re-enactment about a possible UFO-sighting in Bass Strait for the American series "Unsolved Mysteries" and a role in the 1993 satirical horror movie "Body Melt" in which her heavily-pregnant character was attacked by a ferocious placenta before dying from an exploding stomach. McCune also sang in a couple of bands, including George Kapiniaris' Flares and Choice. In 1991 she filmed a pilot for a Steve Vizard/Artist Services comedy called "Turn it Up" (aka "Radio Waves"). In 1993, McCune won the lead part of Allie Carter in the pilot of "Newlyweds" before being replaced by Annie Jones for the series. Blue Heelers (1993–2000). McCune shot to fame in September 1993 at age 22 when she debuted as Constable Maggie Doyle in "Blue Heelers", playing the role until the seventh season. During this time she won the Gold Logie Award for Most Popular Television Personality four times. When her character was killed in 2000, the "Who Shot Maggie Doyle?" story arc was the most watched in the series history, and her departure is attributed as one of the major factors in the ratings slump that followed. Throughout her "Blue Heelers" run, she occasionally took time off to appear in other productions. In 1996 McCune appeared opposite Brett Climo who played her brother in "Blue Heelers", in a friend's film "The Inner Sanctuary". In early 1997 she played the role of Anne in the Melbourne Theatre Company's (MTC) production of Sondheim's "A Little Night Music". In 1998, McCune played Cinderella in another Sondheim musical, "Into the Woods". She also did two short seasons of the classic two-hander "Love Letters". In early 1999 she took six weeks off "Blue Heelers" to play one of the leads, Mary Abacus, in the miniseries adaptation of Bryce Courtenay's "The Potato Factory", which earned her a nomination for an AFI award for Best Actress in a TV Drama. In July 1999, a couple of months before finishing on "Blue Heelers", she starred alongside John Wood in "She Loves Me". Later career (2000–present). Immediately after finishing "Blue Heelers", she starred alongside John Waters, Bert Newton, Nikki Webster, Rachel Marley and later Rob Guest in a stage version of "The Sound of Music", as Maria von Trapp. In 2001, while she was pregnant with her first child, her portrait by Shaun Clark was entered in the Archibald Prize. She was off screens for a year to be a stay-at-home-mother. In 2002, her next project was a "comeback" role in the television series "Marshall Law" with Alison Whyte and former "Blue Heelers" cast member William McInnes. Although it rated well in the first week, the series was critically panned and its subsequent low ratings ensured it was cancelled after one season. In 2004, after another year off because of giving birth to her second child, McCune slowly began to return to television. She again was the advertising face of Coles Supermarkets. She also hosted Seven Network shows "The World Around Us" and "Forensic Investigators". McCune also appeared as the love interest opposite Matt Day in the ABC telemovie "Hell Has Harbour Views". In September 2005, McCune guest starred in a four-episode storyline on "MDA" alongside her former "Blue Heelers" co-star Paul Bishop. Also in 2005 she narrated a second season of "Forensic Investigators" and appeared in the Australian film "Little Fish", starring alongside Cate Blanchett and Sam Neill in the early stages of her third pregnancy. In 2006, she played Annabel in "Tripping Over". She has also appeared in a number of musicals and other stage productions around Australia, notably as Sally Bowles in "Cabaret", Hope Cladwell in "Urinetown", and Olive Ostrovsky in "The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee". In 2012/13, she performed opposite Teddy Tahu Rhodes in Opera Australia's production of the Bartlett Sher 2008 New York revival of the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical "South Pacific" at the Sydney Opera House, the Princess Theatre, Melbourne, and the Brisbane Queensland Performing Arts Centre. From 2007 until 2011, McCune was in the ensemble cast for the Nine Network drama series, "Sea Patrol". Her character is the Executive Officer (second in command) Lieutenant Kate McGregor, of HMAS "Hammersley", a fictional Royal Australian Navy patrol boat. There were five seasons of the show, and it was cancelled due to financial issues resulting from the scheduled loss of pertinent government tax credits. On 5 April 2008, she began her role of Sarah Brown in the major stage production "Guys & Dolls", playing for 20 weeks at the Princess Theatre in Melbourne before being revived for a Sydney season at the Capitol Theatre on 12 March 2009. In 2010, she appeared as Jean in the MTC production of Sarah Ruhl's "Dead Man's Cell Phone". McCune also appeared as the celebrity guest in the reasonably priced ute/car in season 3, episode 1 of "Top Gear Australia" in August. She appeared alongside Richard Roxburgh in season 1, episode 2 of the television series "Rake", which aired in November. McCune stars as Dr. Sam Stewart in "Reef Doctors", an Australian television drama series set to premiere on Network Ten in 2013. Awards. McCune has won several television awards. At the Logie Awards, she has won: At the Logie Awards, she has been nominated for:
899751	Marcello Vincenzo Domenico Mastroianni, Knight Grand Cross (; 28 September 1924 – 19 December 1996) was an Italian film actor. His prominent films include "La Dolce Vita"; "8½"; "La Notte"; "Divorce, Italian Style"; "Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow"; "Marriage Italian-Style"; "A Special Day"; and "Ready to Wear". Mastroianni was paired up with Sophia Loren in twelve movies over a period of twenty years, and co-starred in five movies with his real-life former lover Catherine Deneuve. His honours included British Film Academy Awards, Best Actor awards at the Cannes Film Festival and two Golden Globe Awards. Personal life. Mastroianni was born in Fontana Liri, a small village in the Apennines in the province of Frosinone, Lazio, and grew up in Turin and Rome. He was the son of Ida (née Irolle) and Ottone Mastroianni, who ran a carpentry shop, and the nephew of the Italian sculptor Umberto Mastroianni (1910–1998). During World War II, after the division into Axis and Allied Italy, he was interned in a loosely guarded German prison camp, from which he escaped to hide in Venice.
582221	Rimi Sen (born Shubhomitra Sen) is an Indian actress who appears in Bollywood films. Biography. Sen was born as Shubhomitra Sen in Kolkata, West Bengal. She completed her schooling from Bidya Bharati Girls' High School in the year 1998. She completed her graduation in Commerce from University of Calcutta. Career. Since childhood Sen nursed the dream of becoming an actress. After completing her studies, she persuaded her mother to accompany her to Mumbai. She later said that she wasn't encouraged by anyone in her family except for her grandfather. After doing the rounds, she got into ads including one Coca-Cola ad with Aamir Khan. She was instantly noticed and her first offer for films started rolling in. Rimi made her debut as a lead actress in Telugu movie Nee Thodu Kavali. Her debut Hindi film, Vijay Galani's "Hungama", released in 2003. It was a comedy film, in which she co-starred with Akshaye Khanna, Aftab Shivdasani, Paresh Rawal, as well as other actors. She followed it with appearance in big budget movies like "Dhoom" (2004), "Garam Masala" (2005) and "" (2006). She also did a cameo in 2006 film "Dhoom 2", and followed it with "Johnny Gaddaar" alongside newcomer actor Neil Nitin Mukesh. In 2008, she appeared in "De Taali" and in "Sankat City" in 2009. Rimi is currently going by the screen name "Rimmi". She explains the name change as a career move: there are many other Sens working in Bollywood right now, and a single name may help her stand out from the crowd and stay apart from others.
583293	Nilu Phule (died 13 July 2009) was an Indian actor known for his roles in the Marathi language movies and Marathi theatre. Nilu Phule had acted in around 250 Marathi and Hindi movies during his film career. Phule was also a social worker, and was associated with Rashtra Seva Dal. Early life. Nilu Phule was born in 1930 in Pune as Nilkanth Krushnaji Phule to the clan of the great social reformer Mahatma Jyotirao Phule. He is considered one of the greatest actor of Marathi stage/films of all times. He was involved in Freedom movement for India.According to his interview in a serial 'Vastraharan' on a Marathi Channel,he was a freedom fighter from Pune
1062546	Eileen Brennan (September 3, 1932 – July 28, 2013) was an American actress of film, television, and theater. Brennan was best known for her role as Doreen Lewis in "Private Benjamin", for which she received an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress. She reprised the role for the TV adaptation, winning both a Golden Globe and Emmy for her performance. She received Emmy nominations for her guest starring roles on "Newhart", "Thirtysomething", "Taxi" and "Will & Grace". Early life. Brennan was born Verla Eileen Regina Brennen on September 3, 1932 in Los Angeles, California, daughter of Regina "Jeanne" Menehan, a silent film actress, and John Gerald Brennen, a doctor. Of Irish descent, she was raised Roman Catholic. Career. Brennan appeared in plays with the Mask and Bauble Society at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., where she was employed. She starred there in "Arsenic and Old Lace". Her exceptional comic skills and romantic soprano voice propelled her from unknown to star in the title role of Rick Besoyan's off-Broadway tongue-in-cheek musical/operetta "Little Mary Sunshine" (1959), earning Brennan an Obie Award, and its unofficial sequel "The Student Gypsy" (1963). She went on to create the role of Irene Malloy in the original Broadway production of "Hello, Dolly!" (1964). Her feature film debut was in "Divorce American Style" (1967). She soon became one of the most recognizable (if unidentifiable) supporting actresses in film and television. Her roles were usually sympathetic characters, though she played a variety of other character types, including earthy, vulgar and sassy, but occasionally "with a heart of gold." A year after her feature film debut she became a semi-regular on the comedy-variety show "Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In", but stayed for only two months. Brennan received excellent reviews as brothel madam "Billie" in George Roy Hill's Oscar-winning 1973 film "The Sting" as the confidante of con man Henry Gondorf (Paul Newman). Although her name was not often recognized by the general public, she became a favorite of many directors, in particular Peter Bogdanovich. She appeared in Bogdanovich's 1971 classic "The Last Picture Show" (for which she received a BAFTA nomination for best supporting actress) and his 1974 adaptation of the Henry James novella "Daisy Miller". Bogdanovich was the only director who made use of her musical talents (before, she sang in performances off Broadway) when he cast her as Cybill Shepherd's crude, fun-loving maid in his 1975 musical flop "At Long Last Love" (which also starred Madeline Kahn; Brennan and Kahn would work together in two more films: "The Cheap Detective" and "Clue"; where Brennan once more displayed her world-weary acting style to great effect). Brennan also worked with director Robert Moore and writer Neil Simon, appearing in "Murder by Death" as Tess Skeffington (1976); and "The Cheap Detective" (1978). Both of these movies also starred James Coco, James Cromwell and Peter Falk. She had a starring role, playing 'Mutha' in the 1978 movie, "FM", about rock radio. In 1980, Brennan received a best supporting actress Oscar nomination for her role as Goldie Hawn's nasty commanding officer in "Private Benjamin". She reprised the role in the television adaptation (1981–1983), for which she won an Emmy (supporting actress) as well as a Golden Globe (lead actress). She had one additional Golden Globe nomination and six Emmy nominations. After having dinner together one night in 1982, Brennan and Hawn left a restaurant. Brennan was hit by a passing car and was critically injured. She took three years off work to recover, and had to overcome a subsequent addiction to painkillers. It was during this time that her performance as Mrs. Peacock in "Clue" (1985) reached theaters. In the 1990s, she appeared in "Stella" with Bette Midler, Bogdanovich's "Texasville", the sequel to "The Last Picture Show", and "Reckless". She had a recurring role on the sitcom "Blossom" as the neighbor/confidant of the title character. In 2001, she made a brief appearance in the horror movie "Jeepers Creepers" as The Cat Lady. In 2002, she starred in the dark comedy film "Comic Book Villains", with DJ Qualls. In recent years, Brennan had guest-starred in television, including recurring roles as the nosy Mrs. Bink in "7th Heaven" and as gruff acting coach Zandra on "Will & Grace". In 2003 director Shawn Levy cast her in a cameo role of a babysitter to Steve Martin and Bonnie Hunt's children in an updated remake of Cheaper by the Dozen. Levy was inspired to cast Brennan after his personal viewing of Private Benjamin on television. Brennan's cameo was deleted from the actual cut of the movie however. Nonetheless she did receive credit for her role on the Deleted Scenes special feature of the film's DVD. In 2004, she appeared in "The Hollow" as "Joan Van Etten". Television. Brennan received an Emmy nomination for her guest starring role in "Taxi" episode "Thy Boss's Wife" (1981). Brennan guest starred on two "Murder, She Wrote" episodes, "Old Habits Die Hard" (1987) and "Dear Deadly" (1994), and in 1987 she also appeared in the "Magnum, P.I." episode, "The Love That Lies". Brennan was nominated for an Emmy in 2004 for her performance as "Zandra," Jack McFarland's caustic yet endearing drama teacher on "Will and Grace". Personal life. From 1968 to 1974, Brennan was married to David John Lampson, with whom she had two sons: former basketball player turned actor, Patrick and singer Sam. Brennan was a breast cancer survivor, and in addition to the 1985 car crash which crushed her legs and an eye socket, had fallen from the stage in 1989 during a production of "Annie", breaking a leg. Death. Brennan died at her home in Burbank, California on July 28, 2013, of bladder cancer. She was 80. Her "Private Benjamin" co-star Goldie Hawn said she was a "brilliant comedian, a powerful dramatic actress and had the voice of an angel." Co-starring "Clue" actor and writer and director Michael McKean called Brennan "a brilliant actress, a tough and tender woman and a comic angel". She is survived by her sons, Sam and Patrick, and by two grandchildren and her sister, Kathleen Howard.
673222	Der Schuh des Manitu () is a 2001 German parody of western films. Directed by Michael Herbig, it is a film adaptation of the Winnetou sketches from his ProSieben television show "Bullyparade". Background. The film borrows from the parodies of Mel Brooks like ', "Blazing Saddles", and '. Its humor consists largely of blatant anachronisms, scenes such as the character Ranger getting stopped by a sheriff for "fast riding" and being asked for his "riding license", or Santa Maria connecting the dots on a map by using a feather with a marker-tip. Greek character Dimitri owns a mule named Apollo 13 (his twelve brothers—and subsequently, he as well—were killed by speeding trains), and for lack of a hatchet the Shoshones, a Native American tribe, dig out a folding-chair they had buried. The film has several references to the Karl May films of the 1960s and to Herbig's own TV show. It features many puns that are difficult to translate into English. In the German version, Abahachi, Ranger and Winnetouch all speak with a rather strong Bavarian accent that is predominant in the Bullyparade-Show, which is mentioned by the barkeeper at the saloon by ""You must be Ranger, the man with the Southern States accent"". Many scenes have been shot in Almería, Spain, at the same places that can be seen in many movies of Sergio Leone. Most of the Indians in the movie are actually Spanish. The Shoshone chief is played by an East Indian, for humorous effect, and his two advisors are Native Americans. According to Herbig's comments, some Spanish can be heard on the DVD, and he was never entirely sure if the Spanish actors really knew what kind of movie they were participating in. The Mexican Hombre is played by Hilmi Sözer, a Turkish-German actor. Michael Herbig's following movie, the science fiction parody Traumschiff Surprise – Periode 1, features a prequel scene to "Der Schuh des Manitou" due to time travel. Cast. Uncredited Actors Winnetou novels. “Der Schuh des Manitu” parodies a series of wild west adventure novels of the 19th century German author Karl May. The main topic of these novels is the deep friendship of a fictional Apache chief (Winnetou) and his white settler companion and blood-brother, (Old Shatterhand), who are both exemplary virtuous and stand together to keep the peace between Indians and immigrating White settlers. "Der Schuh des Manitu" spoofs the friendship motif in the Winnetou novels and in their 1960s film adaptations (Karl May films) which has largely led to high, but sometimes idealised and cliché ridden admiration of Native Americans in Germany. Many shots of the original Winnetou movies feature Old Shatterhand and Winnetou riding side by side, accompanied by romantic orchestral music (which is also happening in the parody). Winnetou’s main objection against European settlers is their "greed". He dislikes that they want to take "all" the land for themselves and cannot share with the natives. A recurring opponent is the bandit Santer who kills Winnetou's father and sister, probably the namesake of Santa Maria in the parody. There is also a movie called "Winnetou and the Half-Blood Apanatschi" based not on a May novel but using his characters - the name of the movie's main character is probably based on this. Plot. Abahachi (Michael Herbig) and his blood brother Ranger (Christian Tramitz) are an inseparable pair since Ranger saved Abahachi from a speeding train on an unguarded railroad crossing. When they aim to buy a pub with the monetary help of Shoshone chief Stinking Lizard through real estate agent Santa Maria (Sky du Mont), the deal (and pub) collapse, and Stinking Lizard's son, who has delivered the loan, is killed by Santa himself. Upon their return to their Shoshone tribe, they find themselves set up by Santa Maria and are unjustly charged with murder. Once they free themselves, they set about to recover a secret treasure kept inside a large, shoe-shaped rock called Manitou's Shoe (a reference to "Der Schatz im Silbersee"/"Treasure of Silver Lake", another Winnetou novel and movie), in order to reimburse Stinking Lizard. Finding the treasure map includes finding Abahachi's effeminate gay twin brother Winnetouch (also Michael Herbig), Abahachi's Greek friend Dimitri (Rick Kavanian), and Abahachi's former "hough school" honey - and Ranger's fledging love interest - Ursula (Uschi) (a reference to Uschi Glas who played in "Winnetou und das Halbblut Apanatschi" - "Half-Breed"). Unfortunately, Santa and his right hand Hombre have overheard the blood brothers' plans and decide to get the treasure for themselves. In their quest, Abahachi and Ranger are pursued by Stinking Lizard and his braves, but are eventually captured by Santa who retrieves the treasure, a golden necklace with a giant blue diamond. Abahachi, Winnetouch & Co. win back the necklace, only to lose it again in subsequent mishaps. Hombre, however, who has in the meantime bonded with Winnetouch, returns the embezzled gold to Stinking Lizard, ending the hostilities, and Santa ends his life in a mudtrap. Uschi, while pregnant by Ranger, urges him to set off with Abahachi, and both heroes ride into the sunset for new adventures.
586555	Divya Spandana (born 29 November 1982), known by her stage name Ramya, is an Indian film actress and Member of Parliament from Mandya constituency in Karnataka, She predominantly acts in Kannada films and also appears in Tamil and Telugu films. Presently, She is also the youngest Member of Parliament in India. Ramya made her acting debut in the 2003 Kannada-language film "Abhi", opposite Puneet Rajkumar. She subsequently starred in several Kannada films alongside lead actors and, following successive commercial successes, established herself as one of the most sought-after actresses in the Kannada film industry, becoming referred to as the "Golden Girl of Kannada cinema" and 'Sandalwood Queen'. Based on an online poll conducted by The Times Of India, Ramya won the Best Actor Female award for Sanju Weds Geetha. She won Filmfare Best Actress Award twice for her roles in "Thananam Thananam" (2006) and "Sanju Weds Geetha" (2011) films. Early life. Ramya was born in Bangalore, Karnataka on 29 November 1982. Her father is R T Narayan and mother is Ranjitha. Her parents originally hail from Mandya. She studied at St. Hilda's school in Ooty, and in Sacred Heart School (Church Park), Chennai, Tamil Nadu. She pursued her graduation at St. Joseph's College of Commerce, Bangalore, but later discontinued. Career. Ramya has said that the first film offered to her was "Ninagagi" that eventually starred Radhika. She was then supposed to make her debut in Puneet Rajkumar's first film "Appu", for which she, however, was not selected. She made her acting debut in the 2003 Kannada-language film "Abhi", alongside Puneet Rajkumar, which became a commercial success. The same year, she had another release in Kannada with "Excuse Me", which also did well at the box office, and also stepped into Telugu filmdom with the film "Abhimanyu". In 2004, Spandana debuted in the Tamil film industry, also under the name Ramya, with the film "Kuththu" alongside Silambarasan Rajendar, which managed only a mediocre run at the box office as did her next Tamil film "Giri". Her debut film, however, gave her the name 'Kuthu' Ramya, by which she was then popularly known in Tamil Nadu. She had two releases in Kannada as well, "Ranga S. S. L. C." and "Kanti", out of which the latter, a love story set against the backdrop of borders and language issues, was declared a major success. In 2005 she had four releases, all being Kannada films, with the latter three films "Aakash", "Gowramma" and "Amrithadhare" becoming major box-office successes, whilst also garnering critical acclaim for Ramya's performance and establishing her as a leading actress in Karnataka. In 2006 she starred in "Julie", a remake of the same-titled 1975 Hindi-language film. She essayed the role of a single, unwed mother in the film, which failed to attract audiences. After her following release, "Datta" did average business at the box office, her next Kannada release, "Jothe Jotheyali" was a successful venture, in spite of largely unfavorable reviews by critics. Her final 2006 release, Kavitha Lankesh's "Tananam Tananam", an average grosser that released to mixed reviews, fetched Ramya her first Filmfare Award for Best Actress. She had described her role in the film as "little complex" and "challenging." In 2007, Ramya starred in three feature films; the first releasing, "Arasu", co-starring Puneet Rajkumar and Meera Jasmine, was a huge hit. She then appeared as a sex worker in a short film "Prarambha", directed by Santhosh Sivan, which was made in order to create awareness about AIDS and was part of Mira Nair's "AIDS Jaago" project. Her fourth 2007 release was "Polladhavan", where she acted against Dhanush. The film, released during the 2007 Deepavali period, was considered a dark horse success and made possible Ramya's breakthrough in Tamil. Rajinikanth was all praises for the entire crew of Polladhavan. Her first 2008 release, the Kannada film "Mussanjemaatu" with Sudeep, was a big hit, for which she also received a nomination for a Best Actress Award at the 56th Filmfare Awards South. Her next film was the Tamil film "Thoondil". Ramya later stated that she regretted accepting the film. Later that year, she starred in the films "Bombaat" and "Anthu Inthu Preethi Banthu", with the former becoming declared a "super hit" as well. Her final release in 2008 was Gautham Menon's "Vaaranam Aayiram" for which she changed her screen name to her actual name Divya again, which is believed to have brought her more luck. She had also dubbed in her own voice for "Vaaranam Aayiram", which became a high critical as well as commercial success. She did not have any releases in 2009, since both her films "Bhimoos Bang Bang Kids" and "Jothegaara" got delayed heavily due to financial problems. Her first release of 2010 "Just Math Mathalli" which released on January 26, 2010 was a huge success and it also received rave reviews. Her role in the film was also very much appreciated. She had two more releases that year, the long delayed "Jothegaara" eventually, and "Kiccha Huccha". Her next release was the Tamil film "Singam Puli" opposite Jeeva, which released to mixed reviews, following which the romantic drama "Sanju Weds Geetha" released. The film opened to highly positive reviews, with Ramya being unanimously praised by critics for her performance, which was widely considered her best or one of her best in her career. She has completed shooting for "Dandam Dashagunam", a Kannada remake of "Kaakha Kaakha", and "Kadhal 2 Kalyanam" in Tamil, starring alongside a newcomer Sathya, while currently working on the comedy drama "Siddalingu", in which she portrays the role of a school teacher. In August 2013, Ramya announced that she may quit acting if she wins the election, in order to pursue a career in politics. Political career. Ramya Became Member of Parliament from Mandya constituency in Karnataka in Bypoll Result over by 47,622 Votes, declared on 24 August 2013 From Congress Party. She has become the youngest to become an MP in the country. Prior to this Ramya joined the Youth Congress in 2011. Other work. Ramya is the brand ambassador of the cricket franchise team Royal Challengers Bangalore. In April 2011, In 2013, Ramya will be making her debut in the small screen in a tele serial, "Ashwini Nakshatra". Ramya will be seen in the role of a sutradhar in the serial, making an appearance every day in the first week, and she will go on to introduce the main characters of the serial. She also has launched her clothing line 'Spandana'. Personal life. Ramya's foster father is R. T. Narayan and her mother is Ranjitha. She has often been reported to be the granddaughter of politician S. M. Krishna,which she has rejected not to be true.
1043962	The Alphabet Murders is a 1965 British detective film based on the novel "The A.B.C. Murders" by Agatha Christie, starring Tony Randall as Hercule Poirot.
582121	Divya Dutta (born 25 September 1977) is a former model and Indian film actress Known for her works predominantly in Bollywood and Punjabi cinema. Divya Dutta has acted in more than sixty feature films, including, two international productions. She has garnered the Zee Cine Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role – Female for her work in "Veer Zaara" and the IIFA Award for Best Supporting Actress for her role in "Delhi 6". She has also garnered the Star Sabse Favorite Kaun Award for her role in "Welcome to Sajjanpur". Personal Life. She did her schooling from Sacred Heart Convent, Ludhiana. She was engaged to Lt Commander Sandeep Shergill in May 2005. However, the couple did not get married but found so many time together in public places. Modeling Career and cinema. Before venturing into cinema, she has modeled for regional television commercials in the state of Punjab. She was also starred in soap opera's like "Shanno ki shaadi". In 2001 She has modeled in the video of "Romeo" by a regional music duo Basement Jaxx from London, England. She has made her silver screen debut in 1994 with the film "Ishq Mein Jeena Ishq Mein Marna". After featuring in few films, She gained critical acclaim and recognition, for her role as "zainab" in the 1999 film "Shaheed-E-Mohabbat".
1084304	Dr. Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine is a 1965 American International Pictures comedy film directed by Norman Taurog and starring Vincent Price, Frankie Avalon, Dwayne Hickman, Susan Hart and Jack Mullaney and featuring Fred Clark. It is a parody of the then-popular spy film trend, particularly the 1964 James Bond hit "Goldfinger", utilizing actors from AIP's beach party and Edgar Allan Poe films. Despite its low production values, the film has achieved a certain cult status for the appearance of Price and other AIP Beach Party film alumni, its in-jokes and over-the-top sexism, the claymation title sequence designed by Art Clokey, and a title song performed by The Supremes. Plot. Price plays the titular mad scientist who, with the questionable assistance of his resurrected flunky Mullaney, builds a gang of female robots who are then dispatched to seduce and rob wealthy men. (Goldfoot's name reflects his and his robots' choice in footwear.) Avalon and Hickman play the bumbling heroes who attempt to thwart Goldfoot's scheme. The film's climax is an extended chase through the streets of San Francisco. Cast. Cameos Cast notes Production. Louis M. Heyward, who wrote the script, says the original idea came from James H. Nicholson, who was one of the owners of AIP. Heyward claims Nicholson wanted robots in the film to provide a role for his then-girlfriend Susan Hart, whose acting abilities were limited. Heyward later claims he completely rewrote Robert Kaufmann's script. The original title was announced as "Dr Goldfoot and the Sex Machine", and the film was to star Frankie Avalon and Vincent Price under the direction of William Asher. Asher then dropped out for Norman Taurog and Dwayne Hickman joined the cast. Filming began in late summer 1965, with one of AIP's largest ever budgets. Vincent Price stated in a 1987 interview with David Del Valle that the original script was a camp musical, comparing it to "Little Shop of Horrors". Price stated, "It could have been fun, but they cut all the music out", though he is not clear whether the footage was actually shot or the idea was abandoned during production.
1062619	Married to the Mob is a 1988 American comedy film directed by Jonathan Demme, starring Michelle Pfeiffer and Matthew Modine. Michelle Pfeiffer, in something of a departure from her previous roles, gave an acclaimed lead performance as a gangster's widow from Brooklyn, opposite Matthew Modine as the undercover FBI agent assigned the task of investigating her mafia connections.
808419	James Harris "Jim" Simons (born 1938) is an American hedge fund manager, mathematician, and philanthropist. In 1982, Simons founded Renaissance Technologies, a private hedge fund investment company based in New York with over $15 billion under management. Simons retired at the end of 2009, as CEO, of what is one of the world's most successful hedge fund companies. Simons' net worth is estimated to be $10.6 billion. Simons lives with his wife in Manhattan and Long Island, and is the father of five children; two of his children died young under tragic circumstances—a drowning and an auto accident. Simons shuns the limelight and rarely gives interviews, citing Benjamin the Donkey in "Animal Farm" for explanation: "God gave me a tail to keep off the flies. But I'd rather have had no tail and no flies." On October 10, 2009, Simons announced he would retire on January 1, 2010 but remain at Renaissance as nonexecutive chairman. Early life and career. James Harris Simons was born to a Jewish family, the only child of Marcia (née Kantor) and Matthew Simons, and raised in Brookline, Massachusetts. His father owned a shoe factory. He received a Bachelor of Science in mathematics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1958 at the age of 23. Between 1964 and 1968, he was on the research staff of the Communications Research Division of the Institute for Defense Analyses (IDA). Simons taught mathematics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University. In 1968, he was appointed chairman of the math department at Stony Brook University. Simons was asked by IBM in 1973 to attack the block cipher Lucifer, an early but direct precursor to the Data Encryption Standard (DES). In 1976, Simons won the American Mathematical Society's Oswald Veblen Prize in Geometry, for work that involved a recasting of the subject of area minimizing multi-dimensional surfaces and characteristic forms. This resulted in his proof of the Bernstein conjecture up to real dimension 8, and an improvement of a certain "regularity" result of Wendell Fleming on a generalized Plateau's problem. Simons' research involved the discovery and application of certain geometric measurements, and resulted in the Chern-Simons form (also known as Chern–Simons invariants, or Chern–Simons theory). In 1974, his theory was published in "Characteristic Forms and Geometric Invariants", co-authored with the differential geometer Shiing-Shen Chern. The theory is used in theoretical physics, particularly string theory. In 1978, he left academia to venture into the business world. He started his own hedge fund management firm that traded in commodities and financial instruments on a discretionary basis. Business career. For more than two decades, Simons' Renaissance Technologies' hedge funds, which trade in markets around the world, have employed mathematical models to analyze and execute trades, many automated. Renaissance uses computer-based models to predict price changes in easily-traded financial instruments. These models are based on analyzing as much data as can be gathered, then looking for non-random movements to make predictions. Renaissance employs many specialists with non-financial backgrounds, including mathematicians, physicists and statisticians. The firm's latest fund is the Renaissance Institutional Equities Fund (RIEF). RIEF has historically trailed the firm's better-known Medallion fund, a separate fund that only contains the personal money of the firm's executives. In 2006 Simons was named Financial Engineer of the Year by the International Association of Financial Engineers. In 2007 he was estimated to have personally earned $2.8 billion, $1.7 billion in 2006, $1.5 billion in 2005, (the largest compensation among hedge fund managers that year) and $670 million in 2004. Philanthropy. The wealth that Simons has amassed funds his many philanthropic pursuits. Known as the "Quant King,” Simons is a benefactor for the mathematical sciences, supporting research projects, chairs, and conferences in the United States and abroad. Simons and his second wife, Marilyn Hawrys Simons, co-founded the Paul Simons Foundation, a charitable organization that supports projects related to education and health, in addition to scientific research. Marilyn serves as the foundation's President, while Jim serves as its Secretary and Treasurer. In memory of his son Paul, whom he had with his first wife, Barbara Simons, he established Avalon Park, a nature preserve in Stony Brook. In 1996, 34-year-old Paul was killed by a car while riding a bicycle near the Simons home. Another son, Nick Simons, drowned at age 24 while on a trip to Bali in Indonesia in 2003. Nick had worked in Nepal and the Simons have become large donors to Nepalese healthcare through the Nick Simons Institute. Jim Simons also founded Math for America, a non-profit organization with the mission to significantly improve math education in public schools. In early 2006, he led a group of directors of Renaissance Technologies Corporation and of Brookhaven Science Associates in donating $13 million to fund a budget shortfall of the Brookhaven National Laboratory that would have shut down the operations of the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider for 2006. Also in 2006 Simons donated $25 million to Stony Brook University through the Stony Brook Foundation. The gift is intended to benefit the Mathematics and Physics departments at the university. On February 27, 2008, then Gov. Eliot Spitzer announced a $60 million donation by the Simons Foundation to found the Simons Center for Geometry and Physics at Stony Brook, the largest gift to a public university in New York state history. In December 2008 it was reported that the Stony Brook University Foundation, of which Simons is chair emeritus, lost $5.4 million in Bernard Madoff’s Ponzi scheme. On December 14, 2011, James and Marilyn Simons donated an additional $150 million to Stony Brook University. The donation was accepted on behalf of the university by Gov. Andrew Cuomo at a ceremony held on the Stony Brook campus. In return, the state pledged an addition $35 million to the university, and passed legislation giving major SUNY campuses considerably more autonomy and managerial flexibility. These funds have been designated for the construction of a new medical research center, for the endowment of 35 professorial chairs, and for a large number of student scholarships at both the graduate and undergraduate level. On May 1, 2012, UC Berkeley announced that the Paul Simons Foundation donated $60 million in order to establish the Simons Institute for the Theory of Computing at UC Berkeley. Autism research. The family's charitable foundation has committed $38 million to find the causes related to autism in recent years, and plans to spend another $100 million in what is becoming the largest private investment in the field of autism research. Simons personally exerts significant control over where and how his money is spent: Simons has provided DNA from his family for study, and has given assistance in helping solve research problems. When MIT asked for brain research funding, he stipulated that the project focus on autism and include scientists of his choosing. On June 11, 2003, the Simons Foundation hosted its first "Panel on Autism Research" in New York City, a day-long event highlighting research into the causes of autism, the accurate genomic mapping of autism, and in the study of the biochemical mechanisms that occur in autistic people. Attendees included David Amaral, Eric Courchesne, Nathaniel Heintz, Tom Insel, Catherine Lord, Fred Volkmar, and Paul Greengard. The Simons Foundation recently gave $10 million to two researchers at the Yale University Child Study Center to study genetic influences on autism. Boardroom appointments. Simons serves as trustee of Brookhaven National Laboratory, the Institute for Advanced Study, Rockefeller University, and the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute in Berkeley. He is also a member of the Board of the MIT Corporation. Investors. In about 2009, Simons was questioned by investors. Simons and Madoff. Further information about Simons's dealings with Madoff is available. Wealth. Simons earned an estimated $2.5 billion in 2008, and with an estimated net worth of $10.6 billion, he is ranked by "Forbes" as the 74th-richest person in the world and the 27th-richest person in America. He was named by the Financial Times in 2006 as "the world's smartest billionaire". In 2011 he was included in the 50 Most Influential ranking of Bloomberg Markets Magazine. Awards and nominations. Double Helix Medal
1063713	28 Days Later is a 2002 English post-apocalyptic horror film directed by Danny Boyle. The screenplay was written by Alex Garland. The film stars Cillian Murphy, Naomie Harris, Brendan Gleeson, Megan Burns, and Christopher Eccleston. The plot depicts the breakdown of society following the accidental release of a highly contagious virus and focuses upon the struggle of four survivors to cope with the destruction of the life they once knew. Successful both commercially and critically, the film is credited with reinvigorating the zombie sub-genre of horror fiction. The film spawned a 2007 sequel, "28 Weeks Later", a graphic novel titled "", which expands on the timeline of the outbreak, and a 2009 comic book series "28 Days Later". Plot. Cameras in the opening scenes show footage of extremely violent riots taking place in central London. A chimpanzee is then shown surrounded by the cameras and chained to a table. Shortly afterwards, British animal liberation activists break into a laboratory in Cambridge. While trying to free some chimpanzees being used for medical research, they are interrupted by a scientist (David Schneider). Despite his desperate warnings that the chimps are infected with a virus dubbed "Rage", which he claims is highly contagious and only takes one bite to spread, the activists ignore him and open the cages anyway and release the chimpanzees. A chimp attacks an activist and immediately infects her, and she in turn infects the other members of the group, including the chief scientist when he attempts to kill her. 28 days later, a bicycle courier named Jim (Cillian Murphy) awakens from a coma in St Thomas' Hospital in London. He finds the hospital deserted and seemingly empty. He ventures out to discover the city completely deserted with signs of catastrophe everywhere. Jim then wanders into a seemingly abandoned church, only to alert a small group of Rage-Infected people who were hiding there. As he tries to approach a priest who he then realises has also been Infected, the "Infected" spot him and try to attack him, giving chase. At the last minute, he is saved by Selena (Naomie Harris) and Mark (Noah Huntley), who throw Molotov cocktails at Jim's pursuers, resulting in the explosion of a petrol station.
1085957	Brandon Hammond (born February 6, 1984) is an American former child actor who appeared in a string of high-profile projects in the 1990s.
1056706	Repulsion is a 1965 British psychological horror film directed by Roman Polanski, based on a scenario by Gérard Brach and Roman Polanski. It was Polanski's first English language film, and was shot in London, making it his first feature made outside Poland. The cast includes Catherine Deneuve, Ian Hendry, John Fraser and Yvonne Furneaux. Plot. Carol Ledoux (Catherine Deneuve), a Belgian manicurist who bites her nails, lives in Kensington, London, with her older sister Helen (Yvonne Furneaux). Carol practically sleepwalks through her days, and interacts awkwardly with men. A would-be suitor, Colin (John Fraser), is flummoxed by her behaviour and she rebuffs his advances, disgusted by them. She hides her head in her pillow against her sister's cries of sexual pleasure with her married boyfriend, Michael (Ian Hendry). When Helen leaves on a holiday to Italy with Michael, Carol appears even more distracted at work, gets sent home, stays in the apartment, leaves a raw, skinned rabbit out to rot, and begins to hallucinate, first seeing the walls cracking, a man breaking in and molesting her, then hands reaching out to grab and attack her. Colin breaks into her apartment when she refuses to acknowledge his adoration and he apologizes for his transgression. When he says he wants to "be with" her "all the time," she bludgeons him to death with a candlestick, dumps the body into the overflowing bathtub, and nails the broken door shut. Later, the imperious landlord (Patrick Wymark) breaks in, looking for the late rent payment. Carol pays him and sits on the sofa, staring into space. He remarks on the decaying state of the apartment, and attempts to ingratiate himself by bringing her a glass of water as he leers at her in her nightgown. When he first propositions her, then sexually assaults her, she gets away. But he comes at her again and she slashes him to death with a straight razor. When Helen and Michael return, they discover the dead bodies. Michael runs for help. Helen, distraught, finds Carol hiding under the bed in a catatonic state. Neighbors arrive - curious, concerned and shocked. Michael returns and carries Carol out, staring creepily at her wide-open eye, face and body. A family photograph on the mantel shows Carol as a girl, turned towards a male figure in the photograph with a look that could kill. Cast. Roman Polanski makes a cameo appearance in the film as a spoon player among a trio of street buskers. Themes and style. The film is unusual for being a horror movie that features a female killer. It explores the repulsion Carol feels about human sexuality and the repulsion her suitors experience when they pursue her. The movie vaguely suggests that her father may have sexually abused her as a child, which is the basis of her neuroses and breakdown. Other critics have noted Carol's repeated usage of items related to her sister's boyfriend Michael, as well as noting that his presence greatly provokes Carol at the beginning of the film.
1164711	Leo Gratten Carroll (25 October 1892 – 16 October 1972) was an English actor. He was best known for his roles in several Hitchcock films, and in three television series, "Topper", "Going My Way", and "The Man from U.N.C.L.E.". Early life. Carroll was born in Weedon Bec, Northamptonshire, to William and Catherine Carroll. His Roman Catholic parents named him after then Pope Leo XIII. His year of birth has appeared in two ways in different sources: 1892 or incorrectly 1886. In 1897 his family lived in York, where his Irish-born father was a foreman in an ordnance store. In the 1901 Census for West Ham, London, his occupation is listed as "wine trade clerk". In the 1911 census, he is living at the same address and described as a "dramatic agent". Stage career. Carroll made his stage debut in 1912. His acting career was on hold during World War I, when he served in the British Army. He then performed in London and on Broadway in New York City. In 1933, he was a member of the Manhattan Theatre Repertory Company in the inaugural season of the Ogunquit Playhouse in Ogunquit, Maine. During 1933 - 1934 Carroll had the lead in a successful Broadway play, "The Green Bay Tree" (which has no relation besides the shared title to the novel by Louis Bromfield), and in 1941 starred with Vincent Price and Judith Evelyn in Patrick Hamilton's "Angel Street" ("Gas Light"), which ran for three years at the Golden Theatre on 45th Street in New York City. After the production closed, he starred in the title role in J. P. Marquand's "The Late George Apley". Films and television. Carroll, who had moved to Hollywood, made his film debut in "Sadie McKee" (1934). He often played doctors or butlers, but he made notable appearances as Marley's ghost in "A Christmas Carol" (1938) and as Joseph in "Wuthering Heights" (1939). In the original (1950) "Father of the Bride", he played an unctuous wedding caterer. In the 1951 film "" he played a sympathetic Gerd von Rundstedt, presenting him as a tragic, resigned figure completely disillusioned with Hitler. Carroll is perhaps best known for his roles in six Alfred Hitchcock films: "Rebecca" (1940), "Suspicion" (1941), "Spellbound" (1945), "The Paradine Case" (1947), "Strangers on a Train" (1951), and "North by Northwest" (1959). He appeared in more Hitchcock films than anyone other than Clare Greet (1871–1939) (who appeared in seven) and Hitchcock himself, whose cameos were a trademark. As with earlier roles, he was often cast as doctors or other authority figures (such as the spymaster "Professor" in "North by Northwest"). In addition to appearing as Rev. Mosby with actress Hayley Mills in 1961's "The Parent Trap", Carroll is remembered for his role as the frustrated banker haunted by the ghosts of George and Marion Kerby in the television series "Topper" (1953–1956), with costars Anne Jeffreys, Robert Sterling, and Lee Patrick. He appeared as the older Father Fitzgibbon from 1962 to 1963 in ABC's "Going My Way", a series about the Catholic priesthood in New York City and based on a Bing Crosby 1944 film of the same name. Gene Kelly held the lead as Father Chuck O'Malley, with Dick York as Tom Colwell, who operates a neighborhood youth center. Carroll subsequently starred as spymaster Alexander Waverly on "The Man from U.N.C.L.E." (1964–1968), echoing his earlier work for Hitchcock. Several "U.N.C.L.E." films followed, and a spin-off television series, "The Girl from U.N.C.L.E." in 1966. He was one of the first actors to appear in two different television series as the same character. Death and remembrances. In 1972, Carroll died in Hollywood of cancer-induced pneumonia. He is interred at the Grand View Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, California. Carroll is mentioned in the song "Magdalena" from the 1972 Frank Zappa and the Mothers album "Just Another Band from LA". "the stars that say Jon Provost and Leo G. Carroll together" Carroll is also mentioned in the song "Science Fiction/Double Feature" from "Rocky Horror Show" musical and film adaptation. "I knew Leo G. Carroll was over a barrel when "Tarantula" took to the hills."
1059085	Beneath the Planet of the Apes is a 1970 American science fiction film directed by Ted Post and written by Paul Dehn. It is the second of five films in the original "Planet of the Apes" series produced by Arthur P. Jacobs. The film stars James Franciscus, Kim Hunter, and Linda Harrison, and features Charlton Heston in a supporting role. In this sequel, another spacecraft crashes on the planet ruled by apes, carrying astronaut Brent who searches for Taylor and discovers an underground city inhabited by mutated humans with psychic powers. "Beneath the Planet of the Apes" was a success at the box office but met with mixed to negative reviews from critics. It was followed by "Escape from the Planet of the Apes". Plot. Following the events of "Planet of the Apes", time-displaced astronaut Taylor (Charlton Heston) and the mute Nova (Linda Harrison) are riding on horseback through the desert of the Forbidden Zone. Without warning, fire shoots up from the ground and deep chasms open. Confused by the strange phenomenon, Taylor investigates a cliff wall and disappears before Nova's eyes. Elsewhere in the Forbidden Zone, a second spaceship has crash landed after being sent to search for Taylor and his crew. Like Taylor's ship, it has traveled into Earth's distant future. However, surviving astronaut Brent (James Franciscus) believes he has traveled to another planet. He encounters Nova and notices she is wearing Taylor's dog tags. Hoping Taylor is still alive, he rides with her to Ape City, where he is shocked to discover the simian civilization. He observes the gorilla General Ursus (James Gregory) leading a rally calling for the apes to conquer the Forbidden Zone and use it as a potential food source, against the objections of the orangutan Dr. Zaius (Maurice Evans). Brent is wounded by a gorilla soldier and taken by Nova to the home of the chimpanzees Cornelius (David Watson) and Zira (Kim Hunter), who treat his wound and tell him of their time with Taylor. The humans hide when Dr. Zaius arrives and announces that he will accompany Ursus on the invasion of the Forbidden Zone. Attempting to flee the city, Brent and Nova are captured by gorillas. Ursus orders they be used for target practice, but Zira helps them escape. They hide in a cave which Brent soon discovers is the ruins of the Queensboro Plaza station of the New York City Subway, making him realize that he has travelled through time to Earth's post-apocalyptic future. After following a humming sound deeper into the underground tunnels, Brent begins to hear voices telling him to kill Nova. Entering the remains of St. Patrick's Cathedral, he finds a population of telepathic humans who worship an ancient nuclear bomb. Brent and Nova are captured and telepathically interrogated, and Brent reveals the apes are marching on the Forbidden Zone. The telepaths attempt to repel the apes by projecting illusions of fire and other horrors, as they had done to Taylor and Nova. Dr. Zaius sees through the illusions, however, and leads the ape army to the ruined city. With the apes closing in, the telepaths plan to detonate their "Divine Bomb" as a last resort. They hold a religious ceremony, at the height of which they remove their masks to reveal that they have been grotesquely mutated by centuries of exposure to nuclear fallout. Brent is separated from Nova and taken to a cell, where he finds Taylor. The mutant Ongaro (Don Pedro Colley) uses his telepathic powers to force Brent and Taylor to fight each other to the death. Nova escapes her guard and runs to the cell, screaming her first word: "Taylor!" This breaks Ongaro's concentration, freeing Brent and Taylor from his control. They then overpower and kill him. Brent describes the bomb the mutants worship and Taylor recognizes it as a "doomsday bomb", capable of destroying the planet, marked with the Greek letters alpha and omega on its casing. The apes invade the subterranean city, killing Nova and making their way to the cathedral. They are confronted by Méndez (Paul Richards), who raises the bomb into activation position before being gunned down. Brent and Taylor attempt to stop Ursus from accidentally setting off the weapon, but Taylor is shot. Brent manages to kill Ursus before being shot dead by the gorillas. The mortally wounded Taylor pleads with Dr. Zaius for help, but Zaius refuses, saying that man is only capable of destruction. In his last moment, Taylor brings his hand down on the activation switch, triggering the bomb and destroying the Earth. The film ends with a voice-over saying, "In one of the countless billions of galaxies in the universe, lies a medium-sized star, and one of its satellites, a green and insignificant planet, is now dead." Production. Development and writing. Soon after "Planet of the Apes" became a hit, a sequel started being considered on 20th Century Fox. Screenwriter Rod Serling was consulted, but his ideas did not interest the studio. Then the producers turned to the author of the original novel, Pierre Boulle, who wrote a draft for a sequel called "Planet of the Men", where protagonist George Taylor would lead an uprising of the enslaved men to take back control from the apes as the gorilla general Ursus wants to fight humans. Boulle's script was rejected as it was felt that it lacked the "visual shock and the surprise" of the original. Associate producer Mort Abrahams then wrote story elements, and British writer Paul Dehn was hired to develop them into a script, tentatively called "Planet of the Apes Revisited". Dehn implemented his trauma of the 1945 atomic bombings and the fear of nuclear warfare on the story. One of the elements thought up by Abrahams and Dehn was a half-human, half-ape child, but despite even going through make-up tests this was dropped for the bestiality overtones. According to screenwriter Dehn the idea for "Beneath" came about from the end of the first movie which suggested that New York City was buried underground. Despite the fact that Charlton Heston showed little interest in reprising his role as Taylor, studio head Richard Zanuck thought the actor was essential to the sequel. After some disagreement with the actor's agents, Heston agreed to briefly appear with the provision that Taylor be killed and that Heston's pay go to charity. The writers decided to have Taylor disappear at the story's start and only return by the film's ending, and have a new protagonist for the major part of the story. For the new main character, Brent, came actor James Franciscus, who wanted a break from formal roles such as doctors and teachers. Director Franklin J. Schaffner was invited to return to the series, but declined due to a commitment to "Patton". Television director Ted Post was approached, and while objecting to the script for "not making a point at all", the producers asked what he did not like. Post then wrote a letter saying that "the loss of a planet is the loss of all hope". Post tried to get the other writer of the original, Michael Wilson, but a budget cut prevented him from doing so. Post and Franciscus - who wanted to help clarify the actions of and give depth to the character of Brent - spent a week rewriting the script, leading to over fifty pages of notes suggesting story ideas to fix some of the narrative problems in Paul Dehn's script. Roddy McDowall could not return for his role in this sequel, because he was in Scotland directing "Tam Lin". Actor David Watson portrayed Cornelius in this film with McDowall only appearing briefly in clips from "Planet of the Apes" used during the film's pre-title scenes. Orson Welles was offered the role of General Ursus, but he turned it down objecting against spending all his screentime in a mask and make-up. The part ultimately went to James Gregory. When Zanuck was fired as studio president during production, he suggested Post to add an element suggested by Heston, the Alpha Omega doomsday bomb, so as to finish off the series at once. This turned out not to be the case, as even before the film's release the producers were considering ideas for another sequel. Filming. Production began in February 1969. The sequel, now titled "Beneath the Planet of the Apes", had its budget shortened from $5 million to $2.5 million due to Fox suffering through underperforming big-budget films "Star!", "Hello, Dolly!" and "Tora! Tora! Tora!", and still had much pressure to return Fox to profitability. Heston's parts were filmed in just eight days. The sets of the mutant's council chamber and the temple of the bomb were redresses of the Grand Central – 42nd Street station and hotel lobby sets from the film "Hello, Dolly!" Music. The original "Apes" composer, Jerry Goldsmith, was invited to write the score for the sequel, but Schaffner brought Goldsmith along to "Patton". Thus Leonard Rosenman was brought for the music. Rosenman tried to blend Goldsmith's distinctive score with his own style, showcased in productions such as "Fantastic Voyage". An official soundtrack LP was issued on the Amos Records label soon after the film's debut in 1970. For the LP, Rosenman was asked to rearrange his score for a smaller orchestra, adding contemporary elements such as electric guitar and rock percussion. These re-recorded pieces were interspersed with dialogue taken from the film. The soundtrack featured some of the leading Los Angeles studio musicians of the time, including bassist Carol Kaye and moog pioneer Paul Beaver. Novelization. The novelization of the film by Michael Avallone retained the original scripted ending. Brent does not kill General Ursus. Taylor confronts him and Dr. Zaius. As Taylor tries to reason with Zaius, Zaius condemns him and Ursus repeatedly shoots Taylor with his pistol; Brent's rifle empties and the gorillas kill him. Ursus is horrified, telling Zaius that he has emptied the pistol into Taylor; he should be dead, but he still lives. Knowing he is dying, Taylor (after Zaius refuses to help him) decides to stop the violence by detonating the bomb. This he does, destroying the Earth itself. Comic book adaptations. Gold Key Comics produced an adaptation of "Beneath the Planet of the Apes" in 1970. This was the first comics publication in the "Planet of the Apes" franchise. Later, Marvel Comics published a different version in two series (b/w magazine 1974-77, color comic book 1975-76). Malibu Comics reprinted the Marvel adaptations when they had the license in the early 1980s. Reception. "Beneath the Planet of the Apes" grossed $18,999,718 at the box office. The film holds an 41% "Rotten" approval rating on the review aggregate website Rotten Tomatoes, based on 22 reviews.
589234	Dacait is an Indian film directed by Rahul Rawail and released in 1987. The movie stars Sunny Deol, Meenakshi Sheshadri, Raakhee, Raza Murad. It is based on the how a simple living guy transforms into a dacoit after being oppressed by the Zamindars of the area. The plot is based in the Chambal area which is the confluence of 3 states UP MP & Rajasthan and has been ignored for development since independence. The Chambal ravine or 'beehad' (Hindi-बीहड़) in Dholpur has harboured dacoits (bandits) for centuries. In modern times, due to the old legends and rugged terrain, the labyrinthian ravines along the river were hiding places to gangs of bandits led by colourful figures like Man Singh, Daku Madho Singh,Dhanraj singh Rathur(Chhibramau) Paan Singh Tomar and Phoolan Devi. The last notable dacoit, Nirbhay Gujjar was killed in 2005. Today, a tourist lodge and other facilities promote eco-tourism here. This area is also known as the "Veer Bhoomi Chambal".
589077	Mother India is a 1957 Hindi epic melodrama film, directed by Mehboob Khan and starring Nargis, Sunil Dutt, Rajendra Kumar, and Raaj Kumar. A remake of Khan's earlier film "Aurat" (1940), it is the story of a poverty-stricken village woman named Radha (Nargis) who, in the absence of her husband, struggles to raise her sons and survive against a money-lender amidst many troubles. Despite her hardship, she sets a goddess-like moral example of an ideal Indian woman. In the end she kills her son Birju, a criminal, for the greater good. The title of the film was chosen to counter American author Katherine Mayo's 1927 polemical book "Mother India", which vilified Indian culture. Allusions to Hindu mythology are abundant in the film, and its lead character has been seen as a metonymic representation of a Hindu woman who reflects high moral values and the concept of what it means to be a mother to society through self-sacrifice. "Mother India" metaphorically represents India as a nation in the aftermath of independence, and alludes to a strong sense of nationalism and nation-building. While some authors treat Radha as the symbol of women empowerment, others see her cast in female stereotypes. The Oedipal elements between Radha and Birju have also been discussed by authors. The film was shot in Mumbai's Mehboob Studios and in the villages of Maharashtra, Gujarat, and Uttar Pradesh states. The music by Naushad introduced Western classical music and Hollywood-style orchestra to Hindi cinema. The film was the most expensive Hindi cinema (Bollywood) production and earned the highest revenue for any Hindi film at that time. Adjusted for inflation, "Mother India" still ranks among the all-time Indian box office hits. It was released in India amid fanfare in October or November 1957, and had several high-profile screenings, including one at the capital New Delhi attended by the country's president and prime minister. "Mother India" became a definitive cultural classic and is regarded as one of the best films in Indian and world cinema. It was India's first submission for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 1958, where it made the shortlist. The film won the Filmfare Best Film Award for 1957, and Nargis and Khan won the Best Actress and Best Director awards respectively. Plot. The film is set in 1957, the present day at the time of shooting. When construction of an irrigation canal to the village is completed, Radha (Nargis), considered to be the "mother" of the village, is asked to inaugurate the canal. She remembers her past, when she was newly married. The wedding between Radha and Shamu (Raaj Kumar) is paid for by Radha's mother-in-law, who borrows the money from the moneylender Sukhilala. This event starts the spiral of poverty and hardship that Radha endures. The conditions of the loan are disputed, but the village elders decide in favour of the moneylender, after which Shamu and Radha are forced to pay three quarters of their crop as interest on the loan of 500 (valued at about US$105 in 1957). While Shamu works to bring more of their rocky land into use, his arms are crushed by a boulder. Ashamed of his helplessness and humiliated by his fellow villagers, Shamu decides that he is of no use to his family and permanently leaves Radha and their three sons. Soon after, Radha's mother-in-law dies. Radha continues to work in the fields with her two elder sons and gives birth again. Sukhilala offers to help alleviate her poverty if she marries him, but she refuses. A severe storm and the resulting flood destroys houses in the village and ruins the harvest; Radha's youngest son dies. Although the villagers begin initially to evacuate the village, they decide to stay and rebuild it, persuaded by Radha. The film skips forward several years to when Radha's two surviving children, Birju (Sunil Dutt) and Ramu (Rajendra Kumar), are young men. Birju, embittered since childhood by the demands of Sukhilala, takes out his frustrations by pestering the village girls, especially Sukhilala's daughter, Rupa. Ramu, by contrast, has a calmer temperament and is married soon after. Birju's anger finally becomes dangerous and, after being provoked, he attacks Sukhilala and his daughter and steals Radha's "kangan" (marriage bracelets) that were pawned with Sukhilala. He is chased out of the village and becomes a bandit. Radha promises Sukhilala that she will not let Birju cause harm to Sukhilala's family. On Rupa's wedding day, Birju returns with his gang of bandits to enact his revenge. He kills Sukhilala and kidnaps Rupa. When he tries to flee the village on his horse, Radha, his mother, shoots him. He dies in her arms. The film returns to 1957; Radha opens the gate of the canal and its reddish water flows into the fields. Production. Title. The title "Mother India" was inspired by American author Katherine Mayo's 1927 polemical book of the same name, in which she attacked Indian society, religion and culture. Written against the Indian demands for self-rule and independence from British rule, the book pointed to the treatment of India's women, the untouchables, animals, dirt, and the character of its nationalistic politicians. Mayo singled out the rampant and fatally weakening sexuality of its males to be at the core of all problems, leading to masturbation, rape, homosexuality, prostitution, venereal diseases, and, most importantly, premature sexual intercourse and maternity. The book created an outrage across India, and it was burned along with her effigy. It was criticised by Mahatma Gandhi as a "report of a drain inspector sent out with the one purpose of opening and examining the drains of the country to be reported upon". The book prompted over fifty angry books and pamphlets to be published to highlight Mayo's errors and false perception of Indian society, which had become a powerful influence on the American people's view of India. Mehboob Khan had the idea for the film and the title as early as 1952, five years after India's independence; in October that year, he approached the import authorities of the Indian government to seek permission for importing raw stocks for the film. In 1955, the ministries of External Affairs and Information-and-Broadcasting learned of the title of the forthcoming film and demanded that the director send them the script for review, suspicious that it was based on the book and thus a possible threat to national interest. The film team dispatched the script along with a two-page letter on 17 September 1955 saying: Script. Khan was inspired by American author Pearl S. Buck and her books "The Good Earth" (1931) and "The Mother" (1934); he also saw the film "The Good Earth" (1937), directed by Sidney Franklin. "The Mother" chronicled the life of a Chinese woman, including her married life and lonely struggle after being abandoned by her husband. Aspects of "Mother India", such as moneylenders, toiling on land, and rearing children through hardship were part of the story. Khan originally drew upon these influences in making his 1940 film "Aurat", the original version of "Mother India". Khan bought the rights of "Aurat" from the production company National Studios for 35,000 (valued at about US$7,350 in 1957). Stylistic elements of "Mother India" show similarities with Vsevolod Pudovkin's Soviet silent film "Mother" (1926); "Our Daily Bread" (1934), directed by King Vidor; and films of Alexander Dovzhenko. Certain imagery in the film, such as "happy farmers, sickles in their hand, smiling from behind ripening crops", resemble posters by Soviet constructivist artists. The script of "Aurat" was devised by Wajahat Mirza, based upon a story by Babubhai Mehta. For "Mother India", it was reworked by Mirza and the young screenwriter S. Ali Raza. Apart from Mehboob Khan, Mirza and Raza, prominent screenwriters Aghajani Kashmeri, Zia Sarhadi, Akhtar Mirza, music director Naushad, assistant director Chimankant Desai and many others were consulted. The dialogue, reworked by Mirza and Raza, mixed vernacular Hindi with its literary counterpart. The script was intentionally written in a way that promoted the empowerment of women in Indian society (including the power to resist sexual advances) and the maintenance of a sense of moral dignity and purpose as individuals; this was contrary to what Mayo had claimed in her book. These themes, present in "Aurat", were further developed with a strong sense of nationalism and nation-building, utilising characters personifying abstract qualities such as "beauty and goodness, wealth and power, poverty and exploitation, community spirit". Casting. Nargis was the director's first choice for the role of Radha, and despite only being aged 26 at the time, she played the role of the new wife, young single mother and an aged mother of two sons. Nargis—the reigning queen of Hindi cinema at the time—had started her career in a leading role with Khan's "Taqdeer" (1943) and acted under his direction in "Humayun" (1945) and "Andaz" (1949) too. "Mother India" is generally regarded as Nargis's best performance and was her last major film, before retirement after marriage. Khan had wanted to cast Sabu Dastagir, a Hollywood star of Indian origin, as Birju. Dastagir travelled to India from Los Angeles, stayed in a hotel in Mumbai (then known as Bombay) and received a retainer. However, delays and obstacles in beginning shooting and getting a work permit for Dastagir led to his dismissal from the project. Dilip Kumar, an established Bollywood actor, had originally expressed an interest in playing Birju, which Khan found agreeable; Dilip Kumar agreed to play Shamu as well. However, Nargis objected that the public would not accept their casting as mother and son because she had done several romantic films alongside him. Sunil Dutt—with the experience of just one film—was finally cast, after Mukri, a comedian in the film, introduced him to Khan. Sajid Khan, the actor who portrayed the young Birju, was unknown at the time, and was from a poor family from the Mumbai slums. He was later adopted by Mehboob Khan. Subsequently, Raaj Kumar was cast as Shamu and Rajendra Kumar as Ramu. "Mother India" was the first successful film and a turning point in the careers of Dutt, Raaj Kumar and Rajendra Kumar. Before principal photography began, Nargis and Raaj Kumar familiarised themselves with farming practices such as ploughing the fields, reaping and sowing, and cotton picking. The extras in the song and dance sequences of the film were from local dance groups in villages where the shooting took place instead of the usual ones from Mumbai. Filming. The initial filming for "Mother India" began unexpectedly, even before the script and cast were finalised. In 1955, parts of Uttar Pradesh suffered from major flooding. Cinematographer Faredoon Irani travelled to flood-afflicted districts to shoot generic flood scenes. The scheduled principal photography started in 1955 with a budget of 20–25 lakh (approximately US$420,000–525,000 in 1957). However, the budget increased to 35–40 lakh (approximately US$735,000–840,000 in 1957) by the end of the filming because of the outdoor sessions and cast and crew's salaries. This budget, a record at the time, was surpassed by "Mughal-e-Azam" in 1960. Several indoor scenes for the film were shot in 1956 at Mehboob Studios in Bandra, Mumbai. Khan and Irani attempted to shoot frequently on location to make the film as realistic as possible. Locations included various villages in Maharashtra, Gujarat (Maharashtra and Gujarat together formed Bombay State then) and Uttar Pradesh. The film was shot in 35mm. Contemporary cinematographer Anil Mehta has noted the mastery of Irani's cinematic techniques in shooting the film, including his "intricate tracks and pans, the detailed mise en scène patterns Irani conceived, even for brief shots—in the studios as well as on location". The film took about three years to make, from early organisation, planning, and scripting to completion of filming. In a November 1956 interview, Nargis described the film shoot and her role as the most demanding of her career. "Mother India" was shot in Gevacolor, later converted to Technicolor. It was shot mostly using the sync sound technique, which was common at the time; some scenes were dubbed. For shooting the flood scene, a farmer agreed to flood of his land. In the exodus scene following the flood, 300 bullock carts, 200 farmers and many horses, tractors and ploughs were used. Gayatri Chatterjee writes about the popular belief that all these were made available by villagers without reimbursement, in her book. However, account ledgers of the production revealed that the villagers were paid. There was a protracted scene in the film in which Radha runs between burning haystacks in search for her son Birju, a renegade bandit, who was hiding there. The fire scene was shot in Umra, Gujarat, by burning bales of hay. Nargis and Dutt acted in the fire scene without doubles. On 1 March 1957, an accident occurred during the fire scene when the wind direction changed and the fire grew out of control, trapping Nargis. She was saved by Dutt, who quickly grabbed a blanket, plunged inside, and rescued her. Shooting halted temporarily as both had sustained injuries. Dutt was hospitalised for the burns and Nargis helped nurse him. Nargis—a popular actress at the time—fell in love with Dutt, who was in early stages of his film career and played her son in the film; they married on 11 March 1958. Nargis wished to marry soon after the film, but Khan protested that real-life marriage of the onscreen mother-son would be disastrous for the film. Owing to their relationship, Nargis also found it difficult to perform a scene where she beat Dutt with a lathi. Themes. Various authors identify the character of Radha with Hindu mythological goddesses and characters, such as Radha (the lover of the god Krishna, personifying love and romance), Sita (the divine heroine of the Hindu epic "Ramayana", personifying high moral value), Savitri (representing great morality and loyalty to husband), Draupadi (personifying duty and morality), Dharti-mata (earth-mother goddess) and Lakshmi (Hindu goddess of prosperity). Besides these gentle goddesses, the character of Radha has shades of more ferocious warrior goddesses like Durga and Kali. Film scholars have compared the mild-mannered, obedient son Ramu with the god Rama of the epic "Ramayana", and the romantic outlaw Birju—a name of Krishna—with the god Krishna, known for his transgressions. Shamu (another name of Krishna), Radha's husband who leaves her, is also equated with Krishna, who left his lover Radha in mythological accounts. The title "Mother India" and Radha's character are described to be allusions not only to the Hindu Mother Goddess, but also to Bharat Mata (literally "Mother India"), the national personification of India, generally represented as a Hindu goddess. According to professor Nalini Natarajan of the University of Puerto Rico, Nargis's Mother India is a metonymic representation of a Hindu woman, reflecting high Hindu values, with virtuous morality and motherly self-sacrifice. Film scholar Jyotika Virdi wrote that Mother India could also be seen as a metaphor of the trinity of mother, God, and a dynamic nation. Vijay Mishra, in his 2002 book "Bollywood Cinema: Temples of Desire", opined that the Mother India figure is an icon in several respects—being associated with a goddess, her function as a wife, as a lover, and even compromising her femininity at the end of the film by playing the role of Vishnu the Preserver and Shiva the Destroyer, masculine gods. According to Indian film scholars Gokulsing and Dissanayake, while aspiring to traditional Hindu values, the character of Mother India also represents the changing role of the mother in Indian cinema and society in that the mother is not always subservient or dependent on her husband, refining the relationship to the male gender or patriarchal social structures. The "New Internationalist" said in an 1999 review that Radha transforms from a submissive wife to an independent mother, thereby breaking female stereotypes in Hindi film. In contrast, in a 2012 article in the newspaper "The Hindu", author Tarini Sridharan has pointed out tropes such as upholding female chastity, wifely devotion and saintly motherhood that reinforce gender stereotypes. While the action of sacrificing motherhood to uphold a woman's dignity is termed as feminist by some, other authors see it as an attempt of a community woman to protect the patriarchal village structure, that esteems "izzat" (honour) of women. A promotional pamphlet to introduce the social context of the film to western audiences described Indian women as being "an altar in India", and that Indians "measure the virtue of their race by the chastity of their women", and that "Indian mothers are the nucleus around which revolves the tradition and culture of ages." In a 2002 review in "The New York Times", film critic Dave Kehr compares the film with "Stella Dallas" (1937) for the thematic similarity of series of sacrifices made by the female lead, and with "Gone with the Wind" (1939) as an epic mirroring social upheavals. Film critic Mark Cousins and author Tejaswini Ganti agree that the film is the "Gone with the Wind" of Indian cinema. The term "Mother India" has been defined as "a common icon for the emergent Indian nation in the early 20th century in both colonialist and nationalist discourse". Many authors, including Gayatri Chatterjee, author of "Mother India" (2002), interpret the film as an allegory signifying patriotism and the changing situation in the newly independent nation, and how India was functioning without British authority. It echoes the tale of a modern India, liberating itself from "feudal and colonial oppression". The film, an archetypal nationalistic picture, is symbolic in that it demonstrated the euphoria of "Mother India" in a nation that had only been independent for 10 years, and it had a long-lasting cultural impact upon the Indian people. Film scholar Saibal Chatterjee considers "Mother India" a "mirror of independent India", highlighting problems of a nascent nation, including rural exploitation of farmers by money-lenders, in a dramatic fashion understandable to the common viewer. It also represents the agrarian poverty and hardship of the people at the time. The red water that flows from the canal irrigating the green fields at the end of the film is seen by Chatterjee as a metaphor to represent the blood of Indians in the struggle for independence, flowing to nourish a new free India. The canal is described by Virdi to signal the imminent end of the feudal order. However, despite Radha's struggle against feudal oppression depicted in the film, her action of stopping the rebellious Birju and upholding status quo—the feudal and patriarchal order—is seen as "regressive" by various authors. In a study of media and popular culture in South Asia, author Mahasveta Barua draws parallel between the film's metaphorical representation of the mother as nation, and the metonymic identification with India that Indira Gandhi, India's only woman prime minister, sought and tried for during her tenure (1966–77, and 1980–84). In his book "Terrorism, Media, Liberation", John David Slocum argues that like Satyajit Ray's classic masterpiece "Pather Panchali" (1955), Khan's "Mother India" has "vied for alternative definitions of Indianness". However, he emphasises that the film is an overt mythologising and feminising of the nation in which Indian audiences have used their imagination to define it in the nationalistic context, given that in reality the storyline is about a poverty-stricken peasant from northern India, rather than a true ideal of a modernising, powerful nation. The Radha–Birju relationship is described to have "Oedipal elements" by many authors; Virdi has argued that in her chastity, Radha channels her sexual desires into maternal love for her sons who effectively become "substitute erotic subjects". Mishra opines that the crushing of arms of Radha's husband and the mellowness of the older son symbolise castration, which is in contrast with the rebellion of Birju, identified with sexual potency. Birju's obsession with his mother's bracelets is an expression of his oedipal longings, according to Chakravarty. Rachel Dwyer, Professor of Indian Cultures and Cinema at SOAS, describes how "suspiciously smoothly" the Oedipal elements fits into the film and the off-screen romance between Nargis and Dutt, playing mother and son in the film. Radha's actions at the end of the film in shooting her own son was a breaking of traditional mother–son relationship to safeguard morality, according to author William van der Heide. Virdi points out that this brought ambiguity to the mother figure who acts as a sacrificing provider and also as a destroyer, annihilating her own son, something rare in Hindi cinema. She interprets Birju's sexual advances on a village girl (which is incest in north Indian village culture) as being a substitute in the plot for the incestuous mother–son relationship and his death at the end as a punishment for violation of the taboo. Authors such as Eshun and Woods state that Radha and Ramu are the archetypal champions of virtue in battling hardship and injustice, while Birju is a mischievous child who becomes the anarchist whose uncontrollable rebellion destroys order. Mishra has noted that although Radha upholds "Dharma" (the natural law or order) in the film, it is Birju who achieves identification from the spectators; in his rebellion lies the agenda of political action that will usher social change. Mishra notes that due to such conflicting ideas, the film is very much conforming, and yet "defiantly subversive". Film scholar Vijay Mishra has pointed out the presence of "highly syncretic hyphenated Hindu–Muslim nature" of Bollywood in the film. Parama Roy has interpreted that Nargis's legendary status as the titular "Mother India" is due to Hinduisation of the role and her real-life marriage with a Hindu; she is, according to Roy, scripted as a renouncer of Muslim separatism in the film. Mishra has found metacritical value in Salman Rushdie's commentary on the film in his novel "The Moor's Last Sigh" (1995) in which Rushdie describes: Reception. Release. The production team had planned to release "Mother India" to commemorate the tenth anniversary of India's independence on 15 August 1957, but the film was released over two months later. It premiered at the Liberty Cinema in Mumbai on 25 October 1957, during Diwali; it ran continuously at Liberty for over a year. It was released in Kolkata (then called Calcutta) the same day and in Delhi a week later. It had reached all regions in India by the end of November. Government ministers and other officials were invited to the premieres, and a special screening was held in Rashtrapati Bhavan (the presidential quarter) in New Delhi on 23 October 1957; the event was attended by President Rajendra Prasad, Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and his daughter Indira Gandhi. Chief Minister of West Bengal Bidhan Chandra Roy and Governor Padmaja Naidu attended a screening in Kolkata. Impressed with the film's nationalistic message, Chief Minister of Bombay State Morarji Desai granted it exemption from entertainment tax in the state. No reliable data is available on the box office earnings of "Mother India". It was in continuous distribution in theatres in India until the mid-1990s. There was a renewed interest in the film in 1970s causing an upsurge in ticket sales. Film trade websites provide estimates of its business. Boxofficeindia.com gives as its adjusted net gross, as of 2012. According to Chatterjee, it did exceptionally good business in Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat, Karnataka (then called Mysore State) and Maharashtra. The film's success led Khan to name his next film "Son of India". Released in 1962, it was not well received. "Mother India" was dubbed in several European languages including Spanish, French and Russian; it did substantial business in Greece, Spain and Russia and was released in the Eastern Bloc countries. Technicolor arranged one screening of the film in Paris on 30 June 1958, under the name "Les bracelets d'or" ("The Gold Bracelets"). It did minimal business in Paris, but fared better in French colonies. It was successful in the Latin American countries of Peru, Bolivia, and Ecuador. "Mother India" was also acclaimed across the Arab world, in the Middle East, parts of Southeast Asia, and North Africa and continued to be shown in countries such as Algeria at least ten years after its release. It was released in US on 9 July 1959 to lukewarm response, and the UK release in 1961 was also a commercial failure. The initial international version with English subtitles was 40 minutes shorter than the Indian release. As of 2013, "Mother India" is available in DVD in all regions NTSC format, distributed by the Eros Entertainment. Reviews. Baburao Patel of the film magazine "Filmindia" (December 1957) described "Mother India" after its release as "the greatest picture produced in India" and wrote that no other actress would have been able to perform the role as well as Nargis. A review in "Monthly Film Bulletin" in 1958 remarked that audiences in UK should be grateful that the international version was shortened by 40 minutes, and termed it a "rag-bag pantomime". After its US release in 1959, Irene Thirer reviewed the film in the "New York Post" in which she praised its "striking dramatic appeal", but feared it might not be accepted by American audiences due to cultural differences. In a 1976 article in the journal "Studies: An Irish Quarterly Review", author Michael Gallagher found the film "an amazing mixture of political allegory and cheap musical, a cross between the impressiveness of Eisenstein and the banality of "Show Boat"". The "New Internationalist" in 1999 found Nargis's acting "exemplary", and noted "a clever interplay—artistically and politically—between the traditional and the radical" evident in "Mother India". In a 2002 article in "The Village Voice", film critic J. Hoberman described the film as "an outrageous "masala" of apparently discordant elements." He characterised it as a mixture of "indigenous versions of Soviet-style tractor-opera, Italian neo-realism, Hollywood kiddie-cuteness, a dozen Technicolor musical numbers, and, most significantly, a metaphoric overlay of pop Hinduism." Hoberman criticised the acting as "broad", and also wrote about the "vaguely left-wing" nationalist overtone of the film. Author Phill Hall, writing for "Film Threat" in 2002, described the film as exceptionally sluggish and one-dimensional, and lampooned it saying "it takes the strongest of constitutions to endure this film without entertaining notions of matricide." Jonathan Romney in his 2002 report in "The Independent" observed the earth-mother Radha as "India's answer to Anna Magnani" and the film as "an all-out exercise in ideological myth-making." "Women's Feature Service", in a 2007 article, noted "Mother India" as "one of the most outstanding films of the post-Independence era." Awards. "Mother India", its star Nargis, and the director Khan received many awards and nominations. Nargis won the Filmfare Best Actress Award in 1958 and became the first Indian to receive the Best Actress award at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival in present-day Czech Republic. "Mother India" won the Filmfare Award for Best Film and scooped several other Filmfare awards including Best Director for Khan, Best Cinematographer for Faredoon Irani, and Best Sound for R. Kaushik. In 1958, the film became India's first submission for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film and was chosen as one of the five nominations for the category. The international version, 120 minutes long, was sent for Oscars. Additionally, this version had English subtitles, and dropped Mehboob Productions' logo, which featured the Communist hammer and sickle, to appease the Academy. The 120-minute version was later distributed in the US and UK by Columbia Pictures. The film came close to winning the Academy Award but lost to Federico Fellini's "Nights of Cabiria" by a single vote. Khan was utterly disappointed at not winning the award. "He had seen the other films in the fray and believed "Mother India" was far superior to them" recalled Sunil Dutt years later. It also won two awards at the 5th National Film Awards in 1957: an All India Certificate of Merit for Best Feature Film and Certificate of Merit for Best Feature Film in Hindi. Music. The score and soundtrack for "Mother India" was composed by Naushad. Mehboob Khan had worked on eight films with Naushad and developed a rapport with him. The lyrics were by Shakeel Badayuni. The soundtrack consists of 12 songs and features vocals by Mohammed Rafi, Shamshad Begum, Lata Mangeshkar, and Manna Dey. It was not particularly well received upon release, and critics said it did not match the high pitch and quality of the film. However, its later reception has been more positive: the soundtrack made Planet Bollywood's list of "100 Greatest Bollywood Soundtracks Ever", compiled in 2000s. The review gave the album 7.5 stars out of 10. "Mother India" is the earliest example of a Hindi film containing Western classical music and Hollywood-style orchestra. An example is a coda during the scene in which Birju runs away from his mother and rejects her. It features a powerful symphonic orchestra with strings, woodwinds and trumpets. This orchestral music contains extensive chromaticism, diminished sevenths, and augmented scales. It also features violin tremolos. Anne Morcom writes in "Hindi Film Songs and the Cinema" that the piece is unmelodic and "profoundly disturbing". This use of a western-style orchestra in Indian cinema influenced many later films, such as "Mughal-e-Azam" (1960), which features similar dissonant orchestral music to create atmosphere at tense moments. The song "Holi Aayi Re Kanhai", sung by Shamshad Begum, has been cited as a typical Hindi film song which is written for and sung by a female singer, with an emotional charge that appeals to a mass audience. Legacy. "Mother India" has been described as "perhaps India's most revered film", a "cinematic epic", a "flag-bearer of Hindi cinema and a legend in its own right", Mehboob Khan's "magnum opus" and an "all-time blockbuster", which ranks highly among India's most successful films. It was in continuous distribution, being played in theatres, for more than three decades; the record ended in mid-1990s with the advent of satellite television and a change in Indian film-viewing habits. "Mother India" belongs to only a small collection of films, including "Kismet" (1943), "Mughal-e-Azam" (1960), "Sholay" (1975) and "Hum Aapke Hain Koun..!" (1994), which are repeatedly watched throughout India and are viewed as definitive Hindi films with cultural significance. The "Hindustan Times" (in 2007) identifies the "film's pungent social references" which are "too harsh to be sold at a profit today. But this heartrending tale filled Indians with hope and pride then." "Mother India" is ranked No. 80 in "Empire" magazine's "The 100 Best Films of World Cinema" in 2010. It is listed among the only two Hindi films in the "1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die" list (the other being "Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge"). Film critic Anupama Chopra included it in her list of top 100 films in world cinema. In 2005, Indiatimes Movies ranked the movie amongst the "Top 25 Must See Bollywood Films". It was ranked third in the British Film Institute's 2002 poll of "Top 10 Indian Films". It was also included "TIME"'s list of the best Bollywood classics in 2010. Rajeev Masand of CNN-IBN notes that "Mother India" "didn't just put India on the world map, it also defined Hindi cinema for decades that followed." Film critic Dave Kehr agrees that it influenced Indian films for the next 50 years. A 1983 Channel 4 documentary on Hindi cinema describes the film as setting a benchmark in Indian cinema. The shooting stance of Nargis at the end of the film is one of the all-time iconic images of Hindi cinema. Other iconic scenes include Radha pulling the plough through the field (see film poster at the top) and feeding chapatis to her two sons as they pull the plough. The "Hindustan Times" states that Nargis symbolised mothers in "which all the mothers later films had the same clichéd roles to play. Representing both motherhood and Mother Earth, who also nurtures and occasionally punishes, Nargis immortalised the Indian mother on celluloid." The film pioneered the portrayal of two morally opposed brothers personifying good and evil, which became a repeated motif in Hindi films, including "Gunga Jumna" (1961) and "Deewar" (1975). The rebellious Birju also inspired the "angry young man" stock character that arose in 1970s Hindi cinema.
1060000	Jeff Imada (born June 17, 1955) is an American martial artist, stuntman, actor and director. He has performed stunts in over 100 films and television programs and authored one of the first books published in the US about the balisong knife. Life and career. Imada was born in Inglewood, California, USA, where he began studying martial arts at the age of fifteen. At El Camino College and UCLA, he majored in pre-med and minored in music. While in college, he started working as a film "extra", which led to his becoming a member of the Screen Actors Guild, Stunts Unlimited and the Directors Guild of America. Jeff Imada has been the technical advisor on numerous films, including "Dutch" (1991), "Tango & Cash" (1989), "Jumpin' Jack Flash" (1986), "Dreamscape" (1984) and "Streets of Fire" (1984), and such television series as "Magnum, P.I." (1980), "Remington Steele" (1982), "Dynasty" (1981), "Matt Houston" (1982), "Airwolf" (1984), "Stingray" (1986), "Hart to Hart" (1979) and "Tales of the Gold Monkey" (1982). He was a great friend of Norward Vios and sparred with him all the time. He was a close friend to Brandon Lee with whom he studied Jeet Kune Do under the tutelage of Dan Inosanto. He was the primary fight choreographer on Lee's final film, "The Crow". Imada has authored two books on the history and use of the Balisong knife and designed a particular grind known as the "Imada high grind" for Pacific Cutlery that were ground by knifemaker Jody Samson. "The Balisong Manual" was one of the first books published in the US about this unusual knife. Jeff Imada has recently come to further attention by being the chief fight coordinator in the Matt Damon films "The Bourne Supremacy" and "The Bourne Ultimatum" as well as participating as the motion capture artist for the Xbox and PlayStation game "The Bourne Conspiracy".
1034723	Ralph Bates (12 February 1940 – 27 March 1991) was an English film and television actor, known for his role in the British sitcom "Dear John" and for being one of Hammer Horror's best-known actors from the latter period of the company. Bates was born in Bristol, England, of French ancestry (he was the great-great-nephew of French scientist Louis Pasteur) and educated at Trinity College Dublin. He read French there, before winning a scholarship to Yale Drama School. The course completed, Bates returned to Ireland to make his stage debut in Shaw's "You Never Can Tell" at The Gate Theatre, Dublin, in 1963. A career in repertory theatre soon followed and the young actor gained experience in productions ranging from "Hedda Gabler" to raucous comedies. Later, Bates carved a niche in the world of horror films and played important roles or the lead in several Hammer Horror productions, such as "Taste the Blood of Dracula", "The Horror of Frankenstein", "Lust for a Vampire", and "Dr. Jekyll and Sister Hyde", in which he played a deranged doctor who mistakenly transforms himself into a beautiful siren. He portrayed Caligula in the series "The Caesars" and alongside Cyd Hayman in a passionate French tale of murder and mystery - "Crime of Passion" series. After playing Thomas Culpeper in an episode of "The Six Wives of Henry VIII" (1970), he went on to star in the BBC drama series, "Moonbase 3" (1973) and the long-running "Poldark", in which he played villainous George Warleggan. The series ran for 29 episodes, starting in 1975. He also played communist Paul Vercors in the final season of the drama series "Secret Army". Because of his French ancestry and dark looks, he was often chosen to play a Frenchman on television, as for instance in a second series episode of ITV comedy drama "Turtle's Progress". Bates also appeared in the television movie "Minder on the Orient Express", again as a Frenchman. It looked, for some time, as if he might remain typecast in sinister roles, but he was offered a part in a farcical comedy by the writer John Sullivan, which saw Bates as the loveable but loveless central character among a singles group, with each of its members looking for that perfect but ever elusive partner. "Dear John" (1986–87), in which he realistically played the part of a divorcé returning to single life, lasted for two series, and around the same time he appeared in the ITV Yorkshire Television sitcom "Farrington of the F.O." (1986) with Angela Thorne and Joan Sims. Bates became ill and was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, and died in London at age 51 from the disease. He was divorced from the actress Joanna Van Gyseghem, and survived by his second wife, the actress Virginia Wetherell (married 1973-1991). The couple had one daughter, actress Daisy Bates (b. 1974), and a son William Bates (b. 1977), an actor & musician.
1065065	Eating Raoul is a 1982 black comedy film about a married couple living in Hollywood who resort to killing swingers for their money. It was directed by Paul Bartel and written by Bartel and Richard Blackburn. The writers also commissioned a single-issue comic book based on the film for promotion; it was created by underground comics creator Kim Deitch. Plot. Paul and Mary Bland are a wine dealer and a nurse, respectively, who bemoan their low status in life and dream of opening a restaurant. An exceptionally prudish couple, they sleep in separate beds and disapprove of sex, except for "a little hugging and kissing". After Paul is fired from his job at a wine shop, the couple are left relatively penniless and the chances that they will ever realize their dream quickly diminish. Their plight is exacerbated by the fact that they live in an apartment building that is a regular site of swinger parties. After a drunk swinger wanders into their apartment and tries to rape Mary, Paul kills him by hitting him with a heavy frying pan. They take his money and put him in the trash compactor. Later, they kill another swinger in a similar fashion, and realize that they could make money by killing "rich perverts", and proceed to do so, getting advice on infiltrating the swinging lifestyle from one of the building's orgy regulars, Doris the Dominatrix. After finding a flyer on their car touting cheap lock installation, they decide, for the safety of Paul's wine collection, to have the locks on their apartment door changed. The locksmith, Raoul, is a Latino man who moonlights as a cat burglar, robbing the homes and apartments of his clients. He breaks into the Blands' apartment the night after installing their locks, only to stumble across the corpse of the Blands' latest victim, a Nazi fetishist. Paul catches Raoul and the two strike a deal: Not only will Raoul keep the Blands' secret, he tells them that he knows a place where he can "exchange" the corpses for cash. The Blands accept, and Raoul goes to work for them (he sells the corpses to a dog food company), also secretly stealing the victims' cars and selling them.
1036552	Daniel Peacock (born 2 October 1958 in London) is an English actor, writer and director best known for his work with the team of "The Comic Strip Presents...". He is also known as Danny Peacock. Started out as a blue coat for a Pontins Holiday camp in Selsey, West Sussex in 1978. Early life. He attended Ashmole School in Southgate, London. Acting. He attended the Central School of Speech & Drama before leaving early to pursue a career as a comedian in an act called the 'Diamond Brothers'. Soon after this he moved into acting and writing and his credits as an actor include the following television series: "The Young Ones", "Little Armadillos", "Only Fools and Horses", "Robin of Sherwood", "The Bill", "Doctor Who", "Casualty" and "One Foot in the Grave". Daniel Peacock has also starred in the second series of "Coming of Age" as DK's estranged father who has just left prison. Film appearances include: "The Supergrass", "Porridge", "Quadrophenia", "Gandhi", "I Bought a Vampire Motorcycle", "Party Party", "Whoops Apocalypse", "" and "Carry On Columbus". He also played young Jacques Clouseau in "Trail of the Pink Panther" and he appeared in "The Jewel of the Nile" as the special effects maestro. He was one of the regular cast in Nick Hyde and Glen Cardno's "Valentine Park" for ATV Network starring Ken Jones, David Thewlis and Liz Smith (which was filmed in Nottingham), and wrote "Men of the World" (starring John Simm and David Threlfall), "Cavegirl", "Harry and Cosh", "Mud (TV series)", "Very Big Very Soon" for Central TV starring Paul Shane, Sheila White, Shaun Curry and Tim Wilton, as well as adapting "Teenage Health Freak" for TV. He appeared in a series of musical adverts in the 1980s for the Do It All chain of DIY stores along with another "Comic Strip" actor, Ron Tarr, and the Birds Eye Steakhouse advertisement featuring the song "We Hope It's Chips", sung to the tune of "Que Sera Sera". His credits as a director include the metaseries "Harry and Cosh", "Morris 2274", "" and "Cavegirl". Personal life. He is the son of actor Trevor Peacock (who plays 'Jim Trott' in "The Vicar of Dibley" ). In 2010 he attended the annual "Only Fools and Horses" convention, then at the Bunyan Sport Centre, Bedford.
586472	Azhagan is a 1991 Indian Tamil language film directed by K. Balachander, produced by Kovai Chezhiyan, starring Mammootty, Bhanupriya, Geetha, Babloo Prithviraj and Madhoo. Plot. Azhagappan (Mammootty) a successful hotelier and father of four small children has lost his wife (whose face is not shown in the photo) in an accident. College student Swapna (Madhoo) play pranks on him and also falls in love with him but Azhagappan refuses her love considering the age difference between him. Though illiterate Azhagappan studies in a tutorial centre where his teacher Kanmani (Geetha) is smitten by him. Classical dancer Priya Ranjan (Bhanupriya) is in love with him but Azhagappan is not interested in her. After egos and differences crop up between them, Driver Santhanam blurts out the truth that the four children are the orphans adopted by him. In the end, Swapna understands the situation and would love to call him as "Daddy". With the help of Kanmani and Swapna, four children devises a plan and plays a mediator between Azhagan and Priya by making them speak on the phone. In the end, both reveal their love through the phone and get united in the end. Soundtrack. The music was scored by Maragadha Mani . One particular song was filmed throughout the night. The lyrics were written by Pulamaipithan.
1163171	Louis Harold "Lou" Jacobi (December 28, 1913October 23, 2009) was a Canadian character actor. Life and career. Jacobi was born Louis Harold Jacobovitch in Toronto, Ontario, to Joseph and Fay Jacobivitch. His family was Jewish. Jacobi began acting as a boy, making his stage debut in 1924 at a Toronto theater, playing a violin prodigy in "The Rabbi and the Priest." After working as the drama director of the Toronto Y.M.H.A., the social director at a summer resort, a stand-up comic in Canada’s equivalent of the Borscht Belt, and the entertainment at various weddings and bachelor parties, Jacobi moved to London to work on the stage, appearing in "Guys and Dolls" and "Pal Joey". Jacobi made his Broadway debut in 1955 in "The Diary of Anne Frank" as Hans van Daan, a role he reprised in the 1959 film version. Other Broadway performances included Paddy Chayefsky’s "The Tenth Man" (1959); Woody Allen’s "Don’t Drink the Water" (1966); and Neil Simon’s debut play "Come Blow Your Horn" (1961). Jacobi made his film debut in the 1953 British comedy "Is Your Honeymoon Really Necessary?", alongside Diana Dors. Other notable film roles include Uncle Morty in "My Favorite Year"; Moustache in "Irma La Douce"; Ducky in "Penelope"; a transvestite husband in Woody Allen's "Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex (But Were Afraid to Ask)"; Barry Levinson's "Avalon"; and "Amazon Women on the Moon". His final film role was in 1994's "I.Q.", playing philosopher/mathematician Kurt Gödel.
584364	Maheswari is a South Indian film actress, who has appeared in Telugu, Tamil films. She is probably best known for her performances in "Gulabi", "Ullasam" and "Karuththamma". She won the Nandi Award for Best Actress for her performance in the film "Nee Kosam". She is the cousin of popular actress, Sridevi. She recently got married to Software Engineer, Jayakrishnan Television career. She at first acted in the horror serial "Kaathiravan" in 2003 which also featured her alongside Kalpana. In 2012, she started acting in Zee TV's "My Name is Manga Tayaru."
582222	Roadside Romeo is a 2008 Hindi computer animated musical comedy film written and directed by Jugal Hansraj and co-produced by Aditya Chopra and Yash Chopra of Yash Raj Films and distributed by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures. It was released on 24 October 2008 in the United States and India. This was the second Bollywood movie to receive a North American release by a Hollywood studio, following Sony Pictures' "Saawariya" (2007). The title character is a dog living in Mumbai, as voiced by Saif Ali Khan; his girlfriend, Laila, is voiced by Kareena Kapoor. This was the first voiceover in an animated production for both actors. "Roadside Romeo" was also Hansraj's first animated directorial debut. Plot. Romeo is a dog who once lived in luxurious surroundings. One day his owners decide to migrate to London and he is left at the mercy of the servant of the house, who dumps him on the street. Left to fend for himself, he is soon cornered by the local gang – Guru, Interval, Hero English and a dog-wannabe-cat, Mini, who tell him that this is their domain. Romeo does not know the street lingo and is at a loss for words at first, but he manages to win the gang over with the idea of setting up a business. Together, they set up a successful dog-grooming business until Chhainu (voiced by Sanjai Mishra), the right-hand of gangster-dog Charlie Anna (Javed Jaffrey), arrives to collect "hafta" (weekly protection money) in the form of bones. Romeo throws Chhainu out, and the others, terrified, go to Charlie to plead their case. Charlie threatens them with his trio of ninja dogs, whom he calls his Angels, but Romeo tricks Charlie into allowing his friends to leave unhurt. Romeo then meets Laila, who is singing from a rooftop, they dance and he falls in love. To win her over, Laila tells Romeo he must dance with her in front of everyone at the "Moonlight Club" where she performs. Romeo says yes, unaware that Charlie has long wanted her, and anyone who dares go near her is punished. However, Romeo braves the odds and dances with Laila to win her heart. As love blossoms between the two, Charlie, in a fit of rage, captures and terrorises Romeo. Romeo then promises that he would make Laila fall in love with Charlie. Romeo does not intend to lose Laila, but plans to deflate Charlie's ego by having a disguised Mini pretend to be Laila and make it clear she's not interested. This only ends up exacerbating Charlie's ire, forcing Romeo to promise him a second meeting with Laila. The night of the appointment, however, Chhainu catches Romeo kissing Laila, who then shouts at Romeo telling Laila of Romeo's deal with Charlie and she angrily says she never wants to see him again. Charlie's Angels are then wooed by Guru, Interval and Hero English, and Charlie is chased and caught by the city dog catchers. But just before Charlie is caught with a net, Romeo pushes him under the dog-catchers van to escape while Romeo goes, Charlie then convinces Guru, Hero English, Interval and Mini to create a distraction to get the guard away from the van, they succeed and Charlie jumps on the van and says he will free Romeo using a pin in his chain to pick to lock, but the van begins to drive and he falls off, after which Charlie races after the van, losing the pin in the progress, but they improvise with one of Charlie's ear hairs. They escape but Romeo feels there no point staying as Laila said she never wanted to see him again. The next morning, Romeo throws his sack onto an open train boxcar about to leave the station but Charlie arrives with Laila and the others. Charlie tells Romeo that he is a fool for leaving Laila when she still loves him, that he explained everything to her and says she is Romeo's and no one elses. He lets go of her hand and Laila begins to run after the train, while Romeo holds his hand out for her, Charlie remarks "where have I seen this before?". She reaches for his hand and grabs it but the handle Romeo was holding had lost its top screws, making him fall off with Laila, after which they raise their heads to each other and say "I love you" in sync. It then goes to the "Moonlight Club" where everyone is back singing a remix version of "Main Hoon Romeo". Production. Development. As a fan of animation, Jugal Hansraj teamed up with Aditya Chopra to write their first cartoon. Nothing came of the collaboration, the writer/director recalls, "till this one day, I was waiting at the traffic signal and saw these dogs playing in the dirt...uncared for, scruffy looking gang, totally "mast" in a garbage pile, and I instantly knew the characters of my story." The alliance by producer Yash Chopra and Disney chairman Dick Cook is a first in the field of animation. This also is the first mainstream CGI feature film to come out of India. Animation. Visual Computing Labs (VCL), a division of Tata Elxsi Ltd. was involved with everything from visual conceptualisation, character design to animation and final output. Production commenced in January 2007, continuing for two and a half years and involved 150 crew members; twenty-one months were spent on the animation. It also benefited from the use of Tata Elxsi's EKA, one of the world's fastest supercomputers. Though the company did not publicly release the film's budget, Britain's "Guardian" reported it to be about US$7 million. Promotion. The first trailer, shown on 12 October 2007 with the release of the film "Laaga Chunari Mein Daag", shows the film's crew holding an audition for Romeo; another trailer was later shown with Laila's audition . Though the release was originally scheduled for the summer of 2008, the release was put off to Diwali. The costumes for the lead characters were made at Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida for the film's Indian promotion. Yash Raj Films worked with "Hot Muggs" for producing licensed merchandise for the film. Hot Muggs integrated an inaugural concept of incorporating one-liners from the movie like "Tension Not," "Stay Cool" and "I'm Good Na" on coffee mugs. Though many Bollywood actors promoted the film, the two main stars of "Romeo", Saif Ali Khan and Kareena Kapoor did not do much promotion. Kapoor told the producers she would be busy promoting her other Diwali release, "Golmaal Returns". Khan simply made himself inaccessible. Release. Box office. Yash Raj Films, for the first time ever, held a pre-release screening for film exhibitors on 18 October 2008. It was then released exclusively across local multiplexes on 24 October 2008. During the weekend of its release, the film faced competition from "Heroes", hence it opened to a poor response of 20–25%, which improved two days later to 30–40%. Its first-week gross of Rs. 45 million (US$912,316) made it an Indian record for a Disney production. In the United States and Canada, the film debuted in as many as 40 theatres on the same day. On the first weekend, it made US$41,770 (Rs. 2080,000) and placed 49th. The following week, its gross income came to US$55,202. The film opened with similar results in 23 British theatres, grossing £31,576 (Rs. 2470,000). The movie fared poorly in Australia with an income of only US$13,233 (Rs. 652,000) from 9 venues; and in New Zealand it brought in US$604 (Rs. 29,792) from 2 venues. In Kuwait, the film opened on 23 October 2008 and grossed US$14,549 in the first week. Critical reception. "Roadside Romeo" received mainly negative reviews. While some critics praised the film's animation, others criticised its poor script, predictable plot and weak storyline. Taran Adarsh gave the film three stars out of five, citing its borrowing from the masala films of 1980s and a predictable story. Another factor he said went against the film was its lack of good music. Though the title track and ""Chhoo Le Na"" were publicised, they lacked impact. Though the film was targeted at children, he said Charlie Anna's south Indian accent was hard to decipher and comprehend even for adults. Despite the drawbacks, he cited the animation's good quality which could even be compared to international standards. "The New York Times" criticised the movie saying, "The animated dogs in "Romeo" aren’t particularly appealing. They mostly walk on two legs and, unlike Disney characters, don’t wear anything beyond neck gear. They look oddly naked and move awkwardly, which flattens the dance sequences and keeps the film earthbound." Music. The film's soundtrack was released on 1 October 2008 by director Jugal Hansraj and actor Jaaved Jaffrey at "The Club" in Andheri, Mumbai. The music was composed by Salim-Sulaiman, and lyrics have been penned by Jaideep Sahni. Joginder Tuteja from "indiaFM" gave the film's soundtrack 2 out of 5 stars and noted, "The songs in themselves are no great shakes and, except for a track or two, the remaining just passes muster. Delayed release of the album would take a further toll on the sales of "Roadside Romeo". Overall, "Roadside Romeo" is a barely an okay album where one's hope only rests on the state of art animation (as promised by the makers)."
774756	Radiant City is a 2006 Canadian film written and directed by Gary Burns and Jim Brown. It is about the suburban sprawl and the Moss family's life in the suburbs. The film is openly critical towards suburban sprawl and its negative effects, being ironic and amusing at the same time. It was revealed to be a mockumentary at the end of the film. The fictional part is about the five members of the Moss family who have just moved from the city into a new suburban development of "Evergreen" (part of Evergreen) in Calgary, Alberta. The family discuss and portray the life in the suburbs and the various flaws and advantages of a modern suburban life, with a considerably greater emphasis on the flaws. While the characters and instances in the movie are fictional, the actors that play them all live in real suburban areas. Interspersed with this narrative, experts speak about their views of the suburbs. These include Ken Greenberg, Joseph Heath, Mark Kingwell, James Howard Kunstler, Marc Boutin, Andrés Duany and Beverly Sandalack. These portions are filmed in different suburban areas of North America, including Oakville, Ontario. Plot. The Moss family decides to move from the inner city of Calgary to a suburban area called Evergreen to satisfy Ann Moss's desire of living in a new house. Her husband, Evan Moss, is still keeping his job downtown, which forces him to consume two hours of commuting time. Even if apparently the area offers everything that is needed by a family in walking distance, one is isolated due to constructions, buildings, distance and the area layout and is constantly forced to rely on the car for every little need. The family carries on its ordinary life with Ann having a positive opinion of their new life and Evan and the kids can see more clearly on the flaws and disadvantages of this lifestyle. However, they go along with it, constantly trying to find their way to justify their choice. Soundtrack. The soundtrack features songs from Joey Santiago of The Pixies. Release and reception. "Radiant City" was presented at the 2006 Toronto International Film Festival with a very warm reception. It was also premiered at several film festivals, including Vancouver and Calgary International Film Festivals, the Buenos Aires International Independent Film Festival and the São Paulo It’s All True Documentary International Film Festival, San Francisco Documentary Film Festival, Miami International Film Festival and the True/False Film Festival in Columbia, Missouri. Critical response. "Radiant City" has received generally favorable reviews. The film currently holds a 93% "Certified Fresh" rating on the review aggregate website Rotten Tomatoes, an average rating of 6.8/10 from 15 critics with no consensus yet. Metacritic, another review aggregator, assigned the film a weighted average score of 60 (out of 100) based on 6 reviews from mainstream critics, considered to be "mixed or average reviews". Awards and nominations. The film won the Genie Award of Best Documentary at the 28th Genie Awards, and the Special Jury Prize at the 2006 Vancouver International Film Festival. It was also the runner up for best Canadian film on the 2007 Toronto Film Critic’s List. Home media. The movie has also been released in DVD on March 4, 2008. The DVD includes the original English version of the film and the English version with French subtitles.
601739	Seth Woodbury MacFarlane (; born October 26, 1973) is an American actor, voice actor, animator, screenwriter, comedian, producer, director, and singer. He is the creator of the show "Family Guy" (1999–2002, 2005–present) and co-creator of "American Dad!" (2005–present) and "The Cleveland Show" (2009–2013), for which he also voices many of the shows' various characters. A native of Kent, Connecticut, MacFarlane is a graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design where he studied animation, earning a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree. Recruited to Hollywood during the senior film festival by development executive Ellen Cockrill and President Fred Seibert, he was an animator and writer for Hanna-Barbera for several television shows, including "Johnny Bravo", "Cow and Chicken", "Dexter's Laboratory" and "I Am Weasel" and his own "Family Guy" sort-of 'prequel', "Larry and Steve". MacFarlane created his own series for 20th Century Fox called "Family Guy" in 1999. MacFarlane went on to co-create "American Dad!" in 2005 along with Mike Barker and Matt Weitzman for the "Animation Domination" lineup on Fox. Also for the same network lineup, he co-created "The Cleveland Show" in 2009. He later served as executive producer on the Fox sitcom "The Winner". As an actor, he has made guest appearances on shows such as "Gilmore Girls", "The War at Home" and "FlashForward". MacFarlane's interest in science fiction and fantasy has led to cameo and guest appearances on ' and voicing the character of Johann Kraus in Guillermo del Toro's '. In 2008, he created his own YouTube series entitled "Seth MacFarlane's Cavalcade of Cartoon Comedy". As a singer MacFarlane has performed at several venues, including Carnegie Hall and the Royal Albert Hall. MacFarlane has won several awards for his work on "Family Guy", including two Primetime Emmy Awards and an Annie Award. In 2009 he won the Webby Award for Film & Video Person of the Year. He occasionally speaks at universities and colleges throughout the United States, and he is a supporter of gay rights. On an episode of "Conan" that aired on February 10, 2011, MacFarlane announced that he was directing his first feature-length comedy film, "Ted". The film stars Mark Wahlberg as an adult who, as a kid, wished his teddy bear would come to life. MacFarlane voiced and provided motion capture for the bear. It was released on June 29, 2012, and went on to become the highest-grossing original R-rated comedy of all time. In September 2011, MacFarlane released a debut album of American standards, "Music Is Better Than Words". Also in 2011 he began a revival of Hanna-Barbera's "The Flintstones" for the Fox network. The first episode was due to air in the U.S. in 2013, but production has been indefinitely delayed due to MacFarlane's schedule. Early life and education. Seth Woodbury MacFarlane was born in Kent, Connecticut. His parents, Ann Perry (née Sager, 1947-2010) and Ronald Milton MacFarlane (1946- ), were born in Newburyport, Massachusetts. He has a younger sister, Rachael MacFarlane. Some of his recent ancestors emigrated from New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Quebec, Canada, and London, England; MacFarlane also descends from Mayflower passenger William Brewster. MacFarlane's parents met in 1970, when they both lived and worked in Boston, Massachusetts, and married later that year. The couple moved to Kent in 1972, where Ann Perry began working in the Admissions Office at South Kent School. She later worked in the College Guidance and Admissions Offices at the Kent School, a selective college preparatory school where Ronald also was a teacher. During his childhood, MacFarlane developed an interest in illustration and began drawing cartoon characters Fred Flintstone and Woody Woodpecker, as early as two years old. By the age of five, MacFarlane knew that he would want to pursue a career in animation, and began by creating flip books, after his parents found a book on the subject. Four years later, aged nine, MacFarlane began publishing a weekly comic strip entitled "Walter Crouton" for "The Kent Good Times Dispatch", the local newspaper in Kent, Connecticut, which paid him five dollars per week. In one anecdote from the time, MacFarlane said in a 2011 interview he was "always like just weirdly fascinated by the Communion ceremony I did a strip that had a guy kneeling at the altar taking Communion and saying 'Can I have fries with that?' And to my 11-year-old brain that was comedy ..." The paper printed it and he got "an angry letter from our local priest ... It created sort of a little mini-controversy in our little town." MacFarlane received his high school diploma in 1991 from the Kent School. While there, he continued experimenting with animation, and was given an 8 mm camera by his parents. MacFarlane went on to study film, video and animation at the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), where he earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree. As a student, he had originally intended to work for Disney, but changed his mind upon graduating. At RISD MacFarlane created a series of independent films, eventually meeting future "Family Guy" cast member Mike Henry, whose brother Patrick was MacFarlane's classmate. In his senior year at RISD MacFarlane created a thesis film entitled "The Life of Larry", which eventually would become the inspiration for "Family Guy". MacFarlane's professor submitted his film to the animation studio Hanna-Barbera, where he was later hired. Film career. Hanna-Barbera years. After college MacFarlane was hired at Hanna-Barbera (then Hanna-Barbera Cartoons) based on the writing content of "The Life of Larry", rather than on cartooning ability. He was one of only a few people hired by the company solely based on writing talent. He worked as an animator and writer for Cartoon Network's "Cartoon Cartoons" series. He described the atmosphere at Hanna-Barbera as resembling an "old-fashioned Hollywood structure, where you move from one show to another or you jump from a writing job on one show to a storyboard job on another". MacFarlane worked on four television series during his tenure at the studio: "Dexter's Laboratory", "Cow and Chicken", "I Am Weasel" and "Johnny Bravo". Working as both a writer and storyboard artist, MacFarlane spent the most time on "Johnny Bravo". He found it easier to develop his own style at "Johnny Bravo" through the show's process of scriptwriting, which "Dexter's Laboratory", "Cow and Chicken" and "I Am Weasel" did not use. As a part of the "Johnny Bravo" crew, MacFarlane met actors and voiceover artists such as Adam West and Jack Sheldon of "Schoolhouse Rock!" fame. Meeting these individuals later became significant to the production and success of his "Family Guy" series. He also did freelance work for Walt Disney Television Animation, writing for "Jungle Cubs", and for Nelvana, where he wrote for "". Through strict observation of writing elements such as story progression, character stakes and plot points, MacFarlane found the work for Disney was, from a writing standpoint, very valuable in preparation for his career (particularly on "Ace Ventura"). MacFarlane also created and wrote a short titled "Zoomates" for Frederator Studios' "Oh Yeah! Cartoons" on Nickelodeon. In 1996, MacFarlane created a sequel to "The Life of Larry" entitled "Larry and Steve", which features a middle-aged character named Larry and an intellectual dog, Steve. The short was broadcast as one of Cartoon Network's "World Premiere Toons". Executives at Fox saw both "Larry" shorts and negotiations soon began for a prime-time animated series. "Family Guy". Although MacFarlane enjoyed working at Hanna-Barbera, he felt his real calling was for prime-time animation, which would allow a much edgier style of humor. He first pitched "Family Guy" to Fox during his tenure at Hanna-Barbera. A development executive for Hanna-Barbera, who was trying to get back into the prime-time business at the time, introduced MacFarlane to Leslie Collins and Mike Darnell, heads of the alternative comedy department at Fox. After the success of "King of the Hill" in 1997, MacFarlane called Collins once more to ask about a possible second pitch for the series. The company offered the young writer a strange deal: Fox gave him a budget of $50,000 to produce a pilot that could lead to a series (most episodes of animated prime-time productions cost at least $1 million). Recalling the experience in an interview with "The New York Times", MacFarlane stated, "I spent about six months with no sleep and no life, just drawing like crazy in my kitchen and doing this pilot". After six months, MacFarlane returned to Fox with a "very, very simply, crudely animated film – with just enough to get the tone of the show across" to present to the executives, who loved the pilot and ordered the series immediately. In July 1998, the Fox Broadcast Company announced the purchase of "Family Guy" for a January 1999 debut. "Family Guy" was originally intended to be a series of shorts on "MADtv", much in the same way "The Simpsons" had begun on "The Tracey Ullman Show" a decade earlier. Negotiations for the show's "MADtv" connection fell through early on as a result of budgetary concerns. At age 24, MacFarlane was television's youngest executive producer. "Family Guy" first aired January 31, 1999. MacFarlane's work in animating "Family Guy" has been influenced by Jackie Gleason and Hanna-Barbera along with examples from "The Simpsons" and "All in the Family". In addition to writing three episodes, "Death Has a Shadow", "Family Guy Viewer Mail 1" and "North by North Quahog", MacFarlane voices "Family Guy"'s main characters – Peter Griffin, Stewie Griffin, Brian Griffin and Glenn Quagmire as well as Tom Tucker, his son Jake and additional characters. Bolstered by high DVD sales and established fan loyalty, "Family Guy" developed into a $1-billion franchise. On May 4, 2008, after approximately two and a half years of negotiations, MacFarlane reached a $100-million agreement with Fox to keep "Family Guy" and "American Dad" until 2012. The agreement makes him the world's highest paid television writer. MacFarlane's success with "Family Guy" has opened doors to other ventures relating to the show. On April 26, 2005, he and composer Walter Murphy created "". The soundtrack features a Broadway show tune theme, and MacFarlane voiced Stewie in the track "Stewie's Sexy Party". A fan of Broadway musicals, MacFarlane comments on using musicals as a component to "Family Guy": In addition, a "Family Guy" video game was released in 2006. Two years later, in August 2007, he closed a digital content production deal with AdSense. MacFarlane takes cast members on the road to voice characters in front of live audiences. "Family Guy Live" provides fans with the opportunity to hear future scripts. In mid-2007 Chicago fans had the opportunity to hear the then upcoming sixth season premiere "Blue Harvest". Shows have been played in Montreal, New York City, Chicago, and Los Angeles. On July 22, 2007, in an interview with "The Hollywood Reporter", MacFarlane announced that he may start working on a feature film, although "nothing's official". In September 2007, Ricky Blitt gave TV.com an interview confirming that he had already started working on the script. Then in "TV Week" on July 18, 2008, MacFarlane confirmed plans to produce a theatrically released "Family Guy" feature film sometime "within the next year". He came up with an idea for the story, "something that you could not do on the show, which him is the only reason to do a movie". He later went on to say he imagines the film to be "an old-style musical with dialogue" similar to "The Sound of Music", saying that he would "really be trying to capture, musically, that feel". Despite its popularity, "Family Guy" has not been immune to criticism. The Parents Television Council frequently criticizes the show for its content, once organized a letter-writing campaign aimed at removing it from FOX's lineup, and has filed complaints with the Federal Communications Commission alleging that some episodes of the show contained indecent content. MacFarlane has responded to the PTC's criticism by saying, among other things, "That's like getting hate mail from Hitler. They're literally terrible human beings." "Family Guy" has been cancelled twice, although strong fan support and DVD sales have caused Fox to reconsider. MacFarlane mentioned how these cancellations affected the lineup of writers each time Fox approved the show. "One of the positive aspects of 'Family Guy' constantly being pulled off air is that we were always having to restaff writers". During the sixth season, episodes of "Family Guy" and "American Dad!" were delayed from regular broadcast due to the 2007–2008 Writers Guild of America strike (which MacFarlane participated in to support the writers while FOX aired three "Family Guy" episodes without MacFarlane's permission). On February 12, 2008, the strike ended, and the series resumed airing regularly, beginning with "Back to the Woods". "American Dad!". MacFarlane has a second long-running, successful adult animated series in "American Dad!" which has been in production since early 2005. To date, "American Dad!" is MacFarlane's only animated series never to have suffered a cancellation. Though "American Dad!" will undergo a network relocation from Fox to TBS in late 2014, following the show's current 10th season (2013–14). As announced on July 16, 2013, TBS has picked up the adult animation for a 15-episode 11th season. MacFarlane co-created the series along with Mike Barker and Matt Weitzman. While he regularly does extensive voice acting work for the program, MacFarlane has left much of the show's creative direction up to Weitzman and Barker. MacFarlane has credited this move with helping to give the series its own distinct voice and identity. "American Dad!" was first shown after Super Bowl XXXIX, debuting with the episode "Pilot." Somewhat of an early sneak preview, the series premiere aired on February 6, 2005. However, the program wouldn't begin airing regularly as part of the "Animation Domination" lineup on Fox until May 1, 2005. Because of atypical scheduling of the show's first 7 episodes, "American Dad!" has a controversial season number discrepancy in which many are divided as to how many seasons the program has had. Beyond division between media journalists and fans, there has been conflicting reports as to what season the show is in even between "American Dad!" creators and the show's official website from Fox. At Comic-Con 2013 on July 20, "American Dad!" co-creator Mike Barker hinted that an "American Dad!" movie—centering on the Roger character and set from his birth planet—is in the works and partially written. MacFarlane has described the initial seasons of "American Dad!" as being similar to "All in the Family", likening title character Stan Smith's originally bigoted persona to Archie Bunker. MacFarlane has also stated that his inspiration to create "American Dad!" derived from his and Weitzman's exasperation with George W. Bush's policies as former United States President. After the early couple of seasons however, the series discontinued using these elements of political satire and began to serve up its own very distinguished brand of entertainment and humor. MacFarlane was described as having difficulty understanding the series in its early going; however, he heavily warmed up to the series after its early seasons once he felt the show truly came into its own. His fellow co-creators have sensed this through MacFarlane's greatly increased attention to the series after its early seasons. MacFarlane has also revealed to being a huge "American Dad!" fan himself. He has taken note of the increasing fondness and excitement over the "Roger" character from fans via his Twitter. The show focuses on the Smith family: Stan Smith, the insanely drastic, endangering, dog-eat-dog, rash and inconsiderate head of the household. He has an exaggeratedly large chin and masculine manner about him. As the family's breadwinner, he works as a CIA officer and was initially portrayed in the series as an old-fashioned conservative bigot but has since grown out of these traits (the show known for its story arc elements and other distinguishing plot techniques); Stan's paradoxically moralistic yet simultaneously inappropriate, corrupt wife, Francine; and their two children, new-age hippie daughter Hayley and nerdy son Steve. Accompanied with the Smith family are three additional main characters, two of which are non-human species: zany, shocking, blithely cruel and rascally alien Roger, who's full of disguises/alter egos and has few if any limits on his behaviors. He was rescued by Stan from Area 51; Klaus, the man-in-a-fish-body pet. Klaus's unenviable situation came about from a brain of an East German Olympic skier being shrunk and transplanted into a fish body; and Jeff Fischer, Hayley's boyfriend turned "whipped" husband, known for his infatuation with Hayley's mom, Francine. Together, the Smiths and their three housemates run what is only at a first glance the typical middle-class American lifestyle, but is anything but. Seth MacFarlane provides the voices of Stan and Roger, basing Roger's voice on Paul Lynde (who played Uncle Arthur in "Bewitched"). His sister Rachael MacFarlane provides the voice of Hayley. "The Cleveland Show". MacFarlane developed the now cancelled "Family Guy" spin-off called "The Cleveland Show", which focuses on the character of Cleveland Brown and his family. The idea for the show originated from a suggestion by "Family Guy" writer and voice of Cleveland, Mike Henry. Fox ordered 22 episodes and the series first aired on September 27, 2009. The show, which was picked up to air a first season consisting of 22 episodes, was picked up by Fox for a second season, consisting of 13 episodes, bringing the total number to 35 episodes. The announcement was made on May 3, 2009 before the first season even premiered. Due to strong ratings, Fox picked up the back nine episodes of season 2, making a 22-episode season and bringing the total episode count of the show to 44. This is also the only series created by MacFarlane that does not have him voicing the main character. "The Winner". MacFarlane was the executive producer of a live-action sitcom starring Rob Corddry called "The Winner". The show premiered on Fox on March 4, 2007. The plot has a man named Glen discussing the time he matured at 32 and has him pursuing his only love after she moves in next door. Glen meets her son and both become good friends. After six episodes, the show was officially cancelled on May 16, 2007. However, at "Family Guy Live" in Montreal on July 21, 2007, Seth MacFarlane stated, "It is looking like there could be a future life for "The Winner"". After MacFarlane's statement, neither Fox nor MacFarlane has released any details of plans for the show to return. The show was mentioned in the "Family Guy" episode "Family Gay", where all of the horses at a racing track are named after failed Fox shows, "The Winner" being one of them. "Dads". In 2013, MacFarlane announced that he will be working on a live-action sitcom called "Dads". The series, which has been given the go-ahead for a six-episode season, revolves around Eli, played by Seth Green and Warner, played by Giovanni Ribisi, two successful guys in their 30's whose world is turned upside down when their dads move in with them. MacFarlane, Alec Sulkin and Wellesley Wild are executive producing the series, with Sulkin and Wild writing. "Cavalcade of Cartoon Comedy". On September 10, 2008, MacFarlane released a series of webisodes known as "Seth MacFarlane's Cavalcade of Cartoon Comedy" with its animated shorts sponsored by Burger King and released weekly. "Ted". MacFarlane made his directorial live-action film debut with the release of "Ted" in 2012. Along with directing the film, he also wrote the screenplay, served as producer and starred as the titular character. The film tells the story of John (Mark Wahlberg) and his talking teddy bear (MacFarlane) who keeps John and his girlfriend Lori (Mila Kunis) from moving on with their lives. It received generally favorable reviews from both critics and audiences, and was a box office success, opening with the highest weekend gross of all time for an original R-rated comedy. The movie is currently the highest-grossing R-rated comedy of all time, beating "The Hangover Part II". "A Million Ways to Die in the West". It has been announced that he is planning on co-writing and starring in his second film, called "A Million Ways to Die in the West". Alec Sulkin and Wellesley Wild are also co-writers for the film. The movie follows a cowardly sheep farmer (MacFarlane) who chickens out of a gunfight and sees his girlfriend leave him for another man. When a mysterious woman rides into town, she helps him find his courage. But when her outlaw husband arrives seeking revenge, the farmer must put his newfound courage to the test. Other work. MacFarlane usually participates as one of the "roasters" in the annual Comedy Central Roasts. In May 2011, it was reported that MacFarlane had signed a deal to reboot "The Flintstones" for airing in 2013. He said that he would lend his voice to Barney.
1101257	Lars Valerian Ahlfors (18 April 1907 – 11 October 1996) was a Finnish mathematician, remembered for his work in the field of Riemann surfaces and his text on complex analysis. Background. Ahlfors was born in Helsinki, Finland. His mother, Sievä Helander, died at his birth. His father, Axel Ahlfors, was a Professor of Engineering at the Helsinki University of Technology. The Ahlfors family was Swedish-speaking, so he first attended a private school where all classes were taught in Swedish. Ahlfors studied at University of Helsinki from 1924, graduating in 1928 having studied under Ernst Lindelöf and Rolf Nevanlinna. He assisted Nevanlinna in 1929 with his work on Denjoy's conjecture on the number of asymptotic values of an entire function. He completed his doctorate from the University of Helsinki in 1930. Career. Ahlfors worked as an associate professor at the University of Helsinki from 1933 to 1936. In 1936 he was one of the first two people to be awarded the Fields Medal. In 1935 Ahlfors visited Harvard University. He returned to Finland in 1938 to take up a professorship at the University of Helsinki. The outbreak of war led to problems although Ahlfors was unfit for military service. He was offered a post at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology at Zurich in 1944 and finally managed to travel there in March 1945. He did not enjoy his time in Switzerland, so in 1946 he jumped at a chance to leave, returning to work at Harvard where he remained until he retired in 1977; he was William Caspar Graustein Professor of Mathematics from 1964. Ahlfors was a visiting scholar at the Institute for Advanced Study in 1962 and again in 1966. He was awarded the Wihuri Prize in 1968 and the Wolf Prize in Mathematics in 1981. His book "Complex Analysis" (1953) is the classic text on the subject and is almost certainly referenced in any more recent text which makes heavy use of complex analysis. Ahlfors wrote several other significant books, including "Riemann surfaces" (1960) and "Conformal invariants" (1973). He made decisive contributions to meromorphic curves, value distribution theory, Riemann surfaces, conformal geometry, quasiconformal mappings and other areas during his career. Personal life. In 1933, he married Erna Lehnert, an Austrian who with her parents had first settled in Sweden and then in Finland. The couple had three daughters.
583832	Idhaya Thirudan is a Tamil film directed by Saran, starring Jayam Ravi and Kamna Jethmalani. This film was Jayam Ravi’s fifth film but was labelled his worst of the five. The soundtrack was composed by Bharadwaj. It was released in February 9, 2006. The heroine debutant, Kamna Jethmalani is the granddaughter of a businessman Late. Mr. Shyam Jethmalani . Scenes were shot in Turkey and Northern Cyprus. Plot. Deepika (Kamna) can't bear with the control her mother (Vani Viswanath)imposes on her life by . In order to make her mother angry, she uploads some hot pictures of herself and emails them to a fictitious name, "T.Mahesh". However, there seems to exist a T.Mahesh (Ravi) who is a catering student. The more Deepika and Mahesh run into each other, the more Mayilravanan (Prakash Raj), a policeman who wants to marry Deepika, gets angry. In hopes of creating a distance between Deepika and Mahesh, Mayilravanan seeks a relationship with Deepika's mother. The relationship between Deepika and Mahesh grow into love as they both try to separate Mayilravanan and Deepika's mother in hopes of setting life to how it originally was. Box Office. This film received negative reviews from the audience as it was later considered a flop.
1034039	David Battley (5 November 1935 – 20 January 2003) was a British actor specialising in laconic, lugubrious comedy roles. Early life. David Battley, eldest son of a postwar Labour MP, was born in Battersea, London. Born with a hole in the heart, he was initially taught at home before attending a special school. He later enrolled at Camberwell Art School but left before completing the course. He earned a living working for the family printing firm, Battley Brothers, before applying to Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. Career. Battley was known for his dry, ironic delivery on television and in films. He found steady work as a character actor and comic stooge. Battley's TV work ranged from the satire show "BBC 3" and the military police drama "Redcap" in the 1960s through Eric Sykes' BBC sitcom and the 1977 Christmas Special of "The Good Life", and later "The Bill", "Lovejoy" and "Mr Bean". Battley also appears as the Executioner in Alice in Wonderland (1966 TV play). His best known work in the mid-1970s was as comic foil to Monty Python team member Eric Idle in the BBC series "Rutland Weekend Television" "(RWT)". Idle praised Battley's dry, poker-faced style on the show. Battley played the Paul McCartney role in the original "RWT" sketch of The Rutles, a parody of The Beatles, but did not appear in the American TV film "All You Need Is Cash", based on the sketch. Battley also made many films, including "Hotel Paradiso" (1966), "Crossplot" (1969), "That's Your Funeral" (1972) and "Rentadick" (1972). Best-known work. His best-known film roles are as schoolteacher Mr. Turkentine in "Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory" (1971), and Ergo the Magnificent in "Krull" (1983). One of his last roles was a golf course employee in the episode "Tee Off, Mr. Bean" (1995) of the comedy series "Mr. Bean". Death. Battley died on January 20, 2003 after a heart attack at age sixty-seven.
584608	Pagal Nilavu (; English: "Moon at Noon") (1985) is a Tamil film directed by Mani Ratnam. It is about a carefree youth caught between his loyalty to a mafia don and his love for a cop's sister. The film's score and soundtrack were composed by Ilaiyaraaja. The cinematography of the film was handled by Ramachandra Babu.This film marked Mani Ratnam's entry into Tamil cinema. Pagal Nilavu failed at the box office. Plot. Pagal Nilavu is in essence the story of Selvam(Murali) an aimless youth in Muttam(Kanyakumari Dist) who out of a sense of deep gratitude ends up joining the gang of Devaraj aka Periyavar(Sathyaraj) and the complications which arise when he falls in love with Jyothi(Revathi), the sister of Robert Manohar(Sarat Babu) an honest and committed police inspector who is newly posted to the town. Periyavar pretty much runs the town and though he helps people in need, he is a diabolical kingpin who will not compromise on his hold of the town for anything. He wins Selvam’s undying loyalty when he helps him with money and power at a critical juncture to save his mother. In this backdrop Robert takes charge and moves into the town with his sister and daughter. Being uncompromising in his morals, Robert is automatically drawn into a game of oneupmanship with Periyavar and his gang. He also consequentially cannot stand Periyavar’s chief henchman Selvam, and is consequentially drawn into continuous verbal and physical duels with him. Selvam meanwhile falls hook line and sinker to Jyothi(Revathi) and tries every trick in the book to woo her and eventually wins.
1065574	Becky Ann Baker (born February 17, 1953) is an American actress who is perhaps best known for her portrayal of Jean Weir on NBC's Emmy Award-winning "Freaks and Geeks". Early life. Baker was born Becky Gelke in Fort Knox, Kentucky. She grew up as an "army brat," moving from base to base with her parents. Career. Baker's film credits include "Blue Steel", "Jacob's Ladder", "Lorenzo's Oil", "Unstrung Heroes", "Sabrina", Ridley Scott's "White Squall", "Men in Black", "In & Out", Woody Allen's "Celebrity", Sam Raimi's "A Simple Plan" (for which she received a Blockbuster Entertainment Award nomination), "Two Weeks Notice", Steven Spielberg's "War of the Worlds", "Stay", "The Night Listener", "Death of a President", and "Spider-Man 3". In addition to "Freaks & Geeks", Baker's television credits include Stephen King's "Storm of the Century" and guest spots on "L.A. Law", "Frasier", ', "Sex & the City", ', "Oz" and "All My Children". An accomplished stage performer, Baker made her Broadway debut in the 1981 production of "The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas", and received a Drama-Logue Award in 1994 for her work in "Night and Her Stars". She is a founding member of New York-based theatre company The Drama Dept. In 2009, she appeared in the NBC series "Kings", playing the minor role of Jessie Shepherd, mother of protagonist David Shepherd. Her real-life husband, Dylan Baker, played antagonist William Cross in the series. Personal life. Baker used her birth name, Becky Gelke, as her professional name until she married actor Dylan Baker in 1990. They have one daughter (Willa, born 1993) and reside in New York City.
696649	Jihne Mera Dil Luteya (Punjabi: ਜੀਹਨੇ ਮੇਰਾ ਦਿਲ ਲੁੱਟਿਆ) is a 2011 Punjabi Film directed by Mandeep Kumar with story and screenplay by Dheeraj Rattan, produced by Batra Showbiz Pvt. Ltd. and starring Diljit Dosanjh, Gippy Grewal, Neeru Bajwa, Binnu Dhillon. Reception. Jihne Mera Dil Luteya saw the biggest opening day, weekend and week ever for a Punjabi movie at the time of release. It had an opening week of Rs 2.65 crores in Punjab. Plot. Life is carefree and filled with series of mischievous events for dashing and happy-go-lucky Yuvraj and rocking rebel Gurnoor at Patiala University. Until they are bedazzled by the charming and sexy Noor, who's Dad is very wealthy. Both,Yuvraj and Gurnoor's Dad tell the boys to make her become their girlfriends. After a while Noor's Dad becomes bankrupt. Both Yuvraj's and Gurnoor's Dad tell them not to go after her and focus on their education. But both have fallen for Noor who has swept them off their feet the moment she landed in their lives. The comedy unfolds
1431984	Peter S. Jacobson (born March 24, 1965) is an American film and television actor. Early life and education. Jacobson was born in Chicago, Illinois, the son of Lynn Straus and Chicago news anchor Walter Jacobson. His family is Jewish. He is a 1987 graduate of Brown University. Jacobson also graduated from the Juilliard School, where he was a member of the drama division's "Group 20" (1987–1991). Career. In 1997, Jacobson and Lisa Edelstein, his future co-star on "House M.D.", appeared as a couple eating at a restaurant in the film "As Good as It Gets" that is assailed by an anti-Semitic tirade from Jack Nicholson's misanthropic character. He has played a recurring role on "Law & Order" as Randy Dworkin, a jovial crusading defense attorney attached to various causes. In 2005, Jacobson played "Jimmy" in the Academy Award-nominated film, "Good Night, and Good Luck". He has appeared on "Scrubs", "", "The Lost Room", "The Starter Wife", "Transformers" and "The Midnight Meat Train". He joined the cast of "House" as Chris Taub, a plastic surgeon hoping to make Gregory House's diagnostics team. In October 2007, he was confirmed as a regular on the show. He made a guest appearance on an episode of the USA Network's "Royal Pains" as Alan, the nebbishy husband of Rachel, played by Brooklyn Decker.
1028604	Megan Marie Park (born July 24, 1986) is a Canadian actress and singer. She is best known for her roles in "Charlie Bartlett" and the television series "The Secret Life of the American Teenager" as Grace Bowman. Life and career. Born in Lindsay, Ontario, Park began her acting career with small parts starting at age 6. She attended Oakridge Secondary School, in London, Ontario. She was also a part of the Original Kids Theatre program. Her first major roles came with a guest spot on the Lifetime series "Angela's Eyes" and a minor role in the indie movie "Charlie Bartlett". She started dating singer and actor Tyler Hilton after meeting him on the set of "Charlie Bartlett". Park completed a guest starring role on the popular Disney channel Family show "Life with Derek" as Amy, a love interest of Derek and head cheerleader ex-girlfriend to Max. Her largest role to date has been in the ABC Family series "The Secret Life of the American Teenager", where she plays one of the main characters, Grace Bowman, a conservative Christian teen and cheerleader who, along with her boyfriend, struggle with her purity vow until marriage. Park created a band with singer Codi Caraco called Frank and Derol, in which she formerly sang and played bass guitar. The girl-band also includes pop star Miley Cyrus's older half-sister, Brandi Cyrus. As of 2010, Park has left the band to focus on her acting career in the TV series "The Secret Life of the American Teenager". Park also appeared in a music video called "(Kissed You) Good Night" recorded by the American country music group Gloriana.
1044136	Sex comedy or more broadly sexual comedy is a genre in which comedy is motivated by sexual situations and love affairs. Although "sex comedy" is primarily a description of dramatic forms such as theatre and film, literary works such as those of Ovid and Chaucer may be considered sex comedies. Sex comedy was popular in 17th century English Restoration theatre. In the 1970s the genre experienced a resurgence with the Carry On series of movies in the United Kingdom. An American example is "A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy", the Woody Allen adaptation of Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream". The British films range from comic softcore pornographic films like the "Confessions" series to relatively innocent comedies that include jokes about sex and other sexual related humour, like the "Carry On" films. Antiquity. Although the ancient Greek theatre genre of the satyr play contained farcical sex, perhaps the best-known ancient comedy motivated by sexual gamesmanship is Aristophanes' "Lysistrata" (411 BC), in which the title character persuades the women of Greece to protest the Peloponnesian War by withholding sex. The "boy-meets-girl" plot that is distinctive of Western sexual comedy can be traced to Menander (343–291 BC), who differs from Aristophanes in focusing on the courtship and marital dilemmas of the middle classes rather than social and political satire. His successor Plautus, the Roman playwright whose comedies inspired "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum", regularly bases his plots on sexual situations. The popularity of Plautus's comedies was a major influence on the creation of situation sex comedy. Restoration sex comedy. During the decade 1672–82, sex comedy such as "The Country Wife" (1675) flourished as part of the revival of theatre in England resulting from the Restoration. Forerunners of the craze were John Dryden's "An Evening's Love" (1668) and Thomas Betterton's "The Amorous Widow" (ca. 1670). Sexual content was favored by the presence of female performers, in contrast to the drag performances of the Elizabethan stage. The main character was often a self-important rake or libertine, posturing heroically. Adultery was a major theme, and the couple is sometimes found "in flagrante delicto", represented by the stage direction "in disorder." The plays are often characterized by sexually charged banter, "swaggering masculine energy," and a superficially innocent heroine who is nonetheless alluring. This theatrical milieu produced the first woman of the Western tradition who made her living as playwright, Aphra Behn ("The Rover)." Sex comedy embraces a realm of drama in which women can be contenders. The war is fought with glances and flirtations, wit and beauty, manipulation and desire. And in this battle, women often win—even if the victory is sometimes equivocal. Presenting seduction and adultery as funny eased moral anxieties that might otherwise have attached to these themes. It is an open question as to whether the plays portraying libertinism endorse the lifestyle, or hold it up to satire and criticism. After the main vogue of Restoration sex comedy, William Congreve revived and reinvented the form, and bawdy comedy remained popular into the 18th century. British sex comedy. According to David McGillivray in his history of the British sex film, "Doing Rude Things", "Mary Had a Little..." (1961) was the first British sex comedy. Bridging the gap between documentary nudist films and the later sex comedies was the film "The Naked World of Harrison Marks" (1965). George Harrison Marks' love of music hall and slapstick found its way into this spoof documentary biopic. The precursor to British sex comedies was Norman Wisdom's last starring role, "What's Good for the Goose" (1969), by Tony Tenser. He specialised in producing exploitation films and founded his own production company Tigon British Film Productions in 1966. In the movie, he leaves his wife and kids to go off on a business trip and has an affair with a young girl, played by Sally Geeson There apparently are two versions of the film: the 98-minute cut version was released in the UK, while the uncensored version (105 minutes) which shows nudity from Sally Geeson, was released in continental Europe. "Percy" was directed by Ralph Thomas and starred Hywel Bennett, Denholm Elliott, Elke Sommer, and Britt Ekland. The film is about a successful penis transplant. An innocent and shy young man (Bennett) whose penis is mutilated in an accident and has to be amputated wakes up after an operation to find out that it has been replaced by a womanizer's, which is very large. The rest of the movie is about its new owner following in his predecessor's footsteps and meeting all the women who are able to recognize it. There was a sequel, "Percy's Progress", released in 1974. To move with the times, the "Carry On" series added nudity to its saucy seaside postcard innuendo. Series producer Peter Rogers saw the George Segal movie "Loving" and added his two favourite words to the title, making "Carry On Loving" the twentieth in the series. Starring "countess of cleavage" Imogen Hassall, the story of a dating agency service is still very innocent stuff. It was followed by "Carry On Girls", based around a Miss World-style beauty contest. Next in the series was "Carry On Dick", with more risque humour and Sid James and Barbara Windsor's on- and off-screen lovemaking. The "Confessions" series. The "Confessions" series consisted of four sex comedy films released during the 1970s starring Robin Askwith. The films in the "Confessions" series—"Confessions of a Window Cleaner", "Confessions of a Driving Instructor", "Confessions of a Pop Performer", and "Confessions from a Holiday Camp"—concern the erotic adventures of Timothy Lea and are based on the novels of Christopher Wood, writing as Timothy Lea. Soon came "Adventures of...", directed by Stanley Long, including "Adventures of a Taxi Driver", starring sitcom star Barry Evans. Long began his career as a photographer before producing striptease shorts (or "glamour home movies", as they were sometimes known), for the 8 mm market. Beginning in the late fifties, Long's feature film career would span the entire history of the British sex film, and as such exemplifies its differing trends and attitudes. His work ranges from coy nudist films ("Nudist Memories" 1959), to moralizing documentary ("The Wife Swappers", 1969) to a more relaxed attitude to permissive material ("Naughty", 1971) to out and out comedies at the end of the 1970s. He did not like sex scenes and was dismissive of pornography, saying it didn't turn him on and he turned his back when such scenes were being filmed. Carry Ons become sexy. British sex comedy films became mainstream with the release in 1976 of "Carry On England", starring Judy Geeson, Patrick Mower, and Diane Langton, in which an experimental mixed-sex anti-aircraft battery in wartime is enjoying making love not war! However, the arrival of the new Captain S. Melly brings an end to their cosy life and causes terror in the ranks... In "Carry On Emmannuelle", the beautiful Emmannuelle Prevert just cannot get her own husband into bed. A spoof of Emmanuelle, the film revolves around the eponymous heroine (Suzanne Danielle) and her unsuccessful attempts to make love to her husband, Emile (Kenneth Williams), a French ambassador. Emile grants Emmannuelle permission to sleep with anyone she likes, and her promiscuity turns her into a celebrity and a frequent talk show guest. Meanwhile, Theodore Valentine is besotted by her and wants them to get married. But Emmannuelle is obsessed with arousing her husband's sexual desire at almost any cost. This was the last of the original Carry Ons and the spirit of the carry on is only just visible. Sleaze and sexploitation. Producer/director Kenneth F. Rowles made a copycat cash-in with his "The Ups and Downs of a Handyman". His next movie, "Take an Easy Ride", purports to be a public information film warning of the dangers of hitchhiking but is actually sexploitation film showing young girls being sexually assaulted and murdered (although Rowles says he had to add those scenes on request of the movie's distributor). Films like "Dreams of Thirteen", "The Younger the Better", "Geilermanns Töchter - Wenn Mädchen mündig werden", and "Come Play With Me" played in Soho and elsewhere, but with the arrival of the Margaret Thatcher government in 1979 the Eady Levy was abolished in 1985, killing off the genre. Further reading. "Keeping the British End Up: Four Decades of Saucy Cinema" by Simon Sheridan (Titan Books) (4th edition) (published 2011)
687429	Adam Keefe Horovitz (born October 31, 1966), better known as Ad-Rock or King Ad-Rock, is an American musician, guitarist, rapper, producer, and actor. He is best known as a member of the pioneering hip hop group the Beastie Boys. Early life. Horovitz was born to Doris Horovitz (née Keefe) and playwright Israel Horovitz and raised in Manhattan, New York. He was reportedly born in South Orange, New Jersey, but he has denied this in interviews His sister is producer Rachael Horovitz. His father is Jewish, and his mother, who was of Irish descent, was Catholic. Career. Horovitz began his music career with a stint in the punk rock band the Young and the Useless, who would often perform with the Beastie Boys. In 1982, Beastie Boys guitarist John Berry quit and Horovitz replaced him. He was only 16 at the time. After Horovitz joined the band, the Beastie Boys changed their sound, evolving from a hardcore punk band to a more hip-hop oriented group. The band was signed to Def Jam, and released their debut album "Licensed to Ill" in 1986. The album was a huge commercial success, and spawned six hit singles. Seven further albums followed, and by 2010 the Beastie Boys had sold 22 million records in the United States alone, and 40 million worldwide. In 2012, the Beastie Boys were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. In addition to his work with the Beastie Boys, Horovitz also remixes numerous tracks for other artists under the alias 41 Small Stars. Horovitz has also acted in several motion pictures and television shows. Some of his roles include Tim 'Chino' Doolan in "Lost Angels" (1989), Sam in "Roadside Prophets" (1992), and Repulski in "Godspeed" (2007). Personal life. Horovitz was married to actress Ione Skye from 1992-1999. Since 1997 he has been involved with riot grrrl artist Kathleen Hanna; they married in 2006. He wore a medical alert bracelet after having a grand mal seizure. Horovitz is featured prominently in "The Punk Singer", a 2013 documentary film about Hanna's life and career; he even shot a scene himself to show Hanna's distressed reaction to the medication she was taking against Lyme disease.
1209158	Kevin Peter Farley (born June 8, 1965) is an American actor, production designer, singer, dancer, occasional composer and stand-up comic. Early life. Farley was born in Madison, Wisconsin, the son of Mary Anne (née Crosby), a homemaker, and Thomas Farley, who owned an oil company, Farley Oil. He is the younger brother of late comedian and actor Chris Farley and older brother of actor John P. Farley. Like his brother Chris, Kevin Farley attended and graduated from Marquette University. Career. Farley is best known for portraying "Doug Linus" in the fictional boy band 2ge+her. The Farley brothers do routines together and receive roles from many of Chris Farley's "Saturday Night Live" castmates, such as David Spade and Adam Sandler, appearing in "The Waterboy" and "Dirty Work". In 2005, Farley appeared in the Lifehouse video for the band's single "Blind." He portrayed a neglective father who brings different women home where he lives with his daughter, played by Tina Majorino. Farley appeared on the HBO series, "Curb Your Enthusiasm" as an exterminator in the episode, "The Rat Dog." Farley was also in a Dairy Queen commercial advertising the Kit-Kat Blizzard, commercials for Hertz Rent-A-Car, and portrayed Felix the limo driver on Disney's "That's So Raven". He also starred in the parody movie "An American Carol" in 2008. Farley appeared on "The View" (September 30, 2008) to promote the movie. In 2007, Farley was featured in the web serial, "Two Guys Drinking at a Bar". Farley appeared at the 2008 Republican National Convention, and during an interview with 97.1 FM Talk's Jamie Allman he identified his politics as mostly conservative.
1165884	Michele Ann Marie "Shelley" Fabares (born January 19, 1944) is an American actress and singer. Fabares is known for her roles as Donna Reed's oldest child Mary Stone on "The Donna Reed Show" (1958–1963), and as Hayden Fox's love interest (and eventual wife) Christine Armstrong on the sitcom "Coach" (1989–1997). She was Elvis Presley's co-star in three films. In 1962 Fabares' recording of "Johnny Angel" reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100. Early life and career. Born Michele Ann Marie Fabares in Santa Monica, California, she is the niece of actress Nanette Fabray. Fabares began acting at age three, and at age 10 made her television debut in an episode of "Letter to Loretta". After guest-starring on various television series, Fabares landed the role of "Mary Stone" in the long-running family sitcom "The Donna Reed Show". Her national popularity led to a recording contract and two "Top 40" hits, including "Johnny Angel," which went to No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 in April 1962 and peaked at #41 in the UK. It sold over one million copies and was awarded a gold disc. Fabares left "The Donna Reed Show" in 1963 (she would return periodically until its end in 1966) to pursue a film career. She appeared in a number of motion pictures, including three Elvis Presley movies: "Girl Happy" (1965), "Spinout" (1966) and "Clambake" (1967). During the 1970s Fabares appeared on several television series, including "Love, American Style", "The Rockford Files", "The Interns", "Mannix" and "Fantasy Island". In 1971 she starred as "Joy Piccolo", opposite Billy Dee Williams and James Caan in the successful TV movie "Brian's Song", the true story of terminally ill Chicago Bears running back Brian Piccolo (played by Caan). In 1981 she played "Francine Webster" on "One Day at a Time", a role she reprised throughout the series' run. In 1989 she won the role of "Christine Armstrong Fox" on the ABC sitcom "Coach". For her work, Fabares was nominated twice for a Primetime Emmy Award, and in 1994, she was honored by the Young Artist Foundation with its Former Child Star "Lifetime Achievement" Award for her role as "Mary Stone" on "The Donna Reed Show". After "Coach" ended in 1997, Fabares voiced the role of Martha "Ma" Kent in '. She reprised the role twice; once for a 2003 episode of "Justice League" and again for the 2006 direct-to-video film '. Personal life. Fabares was a lifelong friend of Annette Funicello whom she met in catechism class in the seventh grade. She also is the niece of singer-actress Nanette Fabray. Fabares married record & movie producer Lou Adler, in June 1964, separating in 1966 and divorcing in 1980. In 1984 Fabares married actor Mike Farrell, and is stepmother to his two children, Erin and Michael. In October 2000 she received a life-saving liver transplant after being diagnosed with autoimmune hepatitis.
1017652	Last Hero in China is a 1993 Hong Kong film written and directed by Wong Jing. It is a derivative of the "Once Upon a Time in China" film series, and unlike other imitations, it can be considered a spin-off or parody to some extent. It was released after the first three films in the "Once Upon a Time in China" franchise. The film starred Jet Li as Chinese folk hero Wong Fei-hung and the action choreography was done by Yuen Woo-ping. However "Last Hero in China" differs greatly in tone from the "Once Upon a Time in China" films as it contains stronger elements of violence and broader, more slapstick, comedy. Plot. Wong Fei-Hung has now his own school of Kung fu, but the latter becomes too small for his numerous student. Two of his followers succeed in finding an agreement with the owner of an idle house. The school thus changes location... Unfortunately, the school of Fei-Hung is next to a "love hotel", what is for him unacceptable. Furthermore, a new general wants absolutely his loss, and it is true to give free rein to his traffics...
1246558	Tim Holt (February 5, 1919 – February 15, 1973) was an American film actor best known for his youthful leading roles in Western films and his co-starring role opposite Humphrey Bogart in the 1948 film "The Treasure of the Sierra Madre". Early life. Charles John Holt III was born February 5, 1919 in Beverly Hills, California, the son of actor Jack Holt and Margaret Woods. During his early years, he accompanied his father on location, even appearing in an early silent film. Holt was educated at Culver Military Academy in Culver, Indiana, graduating in 1936. Immediately afterward, he went to work in the Hollywood film business. Acting career. Holt was signed to a contract by Walter Wanger in January 1937. Wanger gave him a small role in "I Met My Love Again" and was going to use him in "Blockade", but that film was postponed. In between he portrayed Anne Shirley's suitor in "Stella Dallas" (1937) for Sam Goldwyn, attracting the attention of RKO. They cast him in the Western "The Renegade Ranger" supporting George O'Brien, who was their leading star of B-westerns. RKO tried him again in "The Law West of Tombstone". Wanger then used Holt in the role of young Lieutenant Blanchard in the 1939 classic "Stagecoach", then his contract expired. However RKO signed Holt to a seven year contract in December 1938. RKO. Holt soon became a favorite with RKO management, starring opposite Ginger Rogers and playing important roles in films such as "The Girl and the Gambler" and "Swiss Family Robinson". Although he initially appeared in a number of different genres, he was particularly effective in Westerns and RKO decided to star him in a series of low budget B-westerns. These proved highly popular and Holt wound up making 46 of them for the studio in all. Holt usually played a cowboy who had one or two friends, who occasionally sang. His most frequent director was Lesley Selander. Holt would occasionally make other movies. His best known one was the lead in Orson Welles's "The Magnificent Ambersons" (1942). He also starred as a Nazi in "Hitler's Children" (1943), which was one of RKO's most profitable films during the war. Holt became a decorated combat veteran of World War II, flying in the Pacific Theatre with the United States Army Air Forces as a B-29 bombardier. He was wounded over Tokyo on the last day of the war and was awarded a purple heart. Postwar. Following the war, Holt returned to films, appearing as Virgil Earp to Henry Fonda's Wyatt Earp in the John Ford western "My Darling Clementine" (1946). Holt was next cast in the role that he is probably best remembered for (in a film in which his father also appeared in a small part)—that of Bob Curtin to Humphrey Bogart's Fred C. Dobbs in John Huston's "The Treasure of the Sierra Madre" (1948). Before the film was released, Holt did another four westerns and afterward made two dozen more up until 1952, when television eroded the B-western market. Later career. Holt was then absent from the screen for five years until he starred in a less-than-successful horror film, "The Monster That Challenged the World", in 1957. Over the next 16 years, he appeared in only two more motion pictures. However he kept busy managing theatres and making personal appearances. He worked as a builder, produced rodeos, staged and performed Western music jamborees, and worked as an advertising manager for a radio station. Personal life. Holt was married twice and had four children: three sons (one to his first marriage), and a daughter. Death. Tim Holt died from bone cancer on February 15, 1973 in Shawnee, Oklahoma, where he had been managing a radio station. He was interred in the Memory Lane Cemetery in Harrah, Oklahoma. Tim Holt Drive in Harrah, where he and his wife had lived, was subsequently named in his honor. Legacy. Robert Mott of the "Washington Post" later said of Holt: Holt was the hero, strong and silent and always more comfortable in the presence of boots and saddles, horses and he-men, than with the heroine – though he almost invariably ended up marrying her... Like many sons of famous entertainers, Tim Holt never achieved the stature of his father, and projected a bland image in contrast with the elder Holt's strong characterisation. In 1991, Tim Holt was inducted posthumously into the Western Performers Hall of Fame at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.
1169684	Leslie Parrish (born March 13, 1935) is an American actress. She worked under her birth name, Marjorie Hellen, until she changed it in 1959. Education. Parrish was born in Melrose, Massachusetts. She later lived in Upper Black Eddy, Pennsylvania, and was a promising piano student at the Philadelphia Conservatory of Music. She discovered that by modeling she could earn more money than as a concert pianist. She came to New York City in November 1953. Before modeling she worked as a waitress in a diner.
1061027	Cillian Murphy (born 25 May 1976) is an Irish film and theatre actor. He is often noted by critics for his chameleonic performances in diverse roles and his distinctive blue eyes. A native of Cork, Murphy began his performing career as a rock musician. After turning down a record deal, he made his professional acting debut in the play "Disco Pigs", in 1996. He went on to star in Irish and British film and stage productions throughout the late 1990s and early 2000s, first coming to international attention in 2003 as the hero in Danny Boyle's post-apocalyptic film "28 Days Later". Murphy's best-known roles are his collaborations with director Christopher Nolan: the Scarecrow in the 2005 superhero film "Batman Begins" (a role he shortly reprised in its sequels "The Dark Knight" and "The Dark Knight Rises"), and the 2010 blockbuster "Inception". He also worked once again with Boyle in his 2007 science fiction film "Sunshine." A resident of London since 2001, Murphy often works in or near the city and has expressed no desire to move to Hollywood. Uncomfortable on the celebrity circuit, he customarily gives interviews about his work, but does not publicly discuss details of his private life and did not appear on a television talk show until 2010. Early life, education, and music. Murphy was born in Douglas and raised in Ballintemple, two suburbs of Cork. His father, Brendan, works for the Irish Department of Education, and his mother is a French teacher. Not only are his parents educators, but his aunts and uncles are also teachers, as was his grandfather. Musicianship also runs in the family, and Murphy started playing music and writing songs at age ten. Murphy was raised Roman Catholic and attended the Catholic school Presentation Brothers College, where he did well academically but got into trouble often, sometimes getting suspended, until he decided in his fourth year that misbehaving was not worth the hassle. Not keen on sport, a major part of life at PBC, Murphy found that creative pursuits were not fully nurtured at the school. Still, it was there that he got his first taste of performing, when he participated in a drama module presented by Pat Kiernan, the director of the Corcadorca Theatre Company. Murphy later described the experience as a "huge high" and a "fully alive" feeling that he set out to chase. His English teacher, the poet and novelist William Wall, encouraged him to pursue acting, but, at this stage, to Murphy, performing meant dreams of becoming a rock star. In his late teens and early twenties, Murphy worked toward a career as a rock musician, playing guitar in several bands alongside his brother Páidi. The Beatles-obsessed pair named their most successful band "The Sons of Mr. Greengenes", after a 1969 song by another idol, Frank Zappa. Murphy sang and played guitar in the band, which he has said "specialised in wacky lyrics and endless guitar solos". In 1996, The Sons of Mr. Greengenes were offered a five-album record deal by Acid Jazz Records, but they did not sign the contract. Because Murphy's brother was still in secondary school, their parents disapproved. Additionally, the contract offered little money and would have ceded the rights to Murphy's compositions to the record label. Also in 1996, Murphy began studying law at University College Cork (UCC), but he failed his first year exams because, as he put it, he had "no ambitions to do it". Not only was he busy with his band, but he has admitted that he knew within days after starting at UCC that law was the wrong fit for him. Furthermore, after seeing Corcadorca's stage production of "A Clockwork Orange", directed by Kiernan, acting had begun to pique his interest. His first major role was in the UCC Drama Society's amateur production of "Observe the Sons of Ulster Marching Towards the Somme", also starring Irish American comedian, Des Bishop. Murphy also played the lead in a UCC Drama production of "Little Shop of Horrors", which was performed in the Cork Opera House. However, according to Murphy, his primary motivation then was to party and meet women, not to begin an acting career. Nonetheless, he began to transition away from working as a rock musician, about which he later remarked, "I think there's such a thing as a performance gene. If it's in your DNA it needs to come out. For me it originally came out through music, then segued into acting and came out through there. I always needed to get up and perform." Acting career. Early work. Murphy hounded Pat Kiernan until he got an audition at Corcadorca, and in September 1996, he made his professional acting debut on the stage, originating the part of a volatile Cork teenager in Enda Walsh's "Disco Pigs". He later observed, "I was unbelievably cocky and had nothing to lose, and it suited the part, I suppose." Originally slated to run for three weeks in Cork, "Disco Pigs" ended up touring throughout Europe, Canada and Australia for two years, and Murphy left both university and his band. Though he had intended to go back to playing music, he secured representation after his first agent caught a performance of "Disco Pigs", and his acting career began to take off. From 1997 to 2003, Murphy starred in independent films, such as John Carney's "On the Edge", in short films, including the Irish/English language short "Filleann an Feall", and in the BBC television miniseries adaptation of "The Way We Live Now". In addition to "Disco Pigs", he starred in many other plays, including Shakespeare's "Much Ado About Nothing", Neil LaBute's "The Shape of Things", and Chekhov's "The Seagull"; Murphy considers this stage work to have been his "training ground." Murphy also reprised his "Disco Pigs" role for the 2001 indie film version by Kirsten Sheridan, performing his original song "So New" over the closing credits and singing The Kinks' "You Really Got Me" in a pub karaoke scene. During this period, he moved from Cork, relocating first to Dublin for a few years, then to London in 2001. Murphy's onscreen performance in "Disco Pigs" caught the eye of director Danny Boyle when casting the lead for "28 Days Later". Released in the UK in late 2002, by the following July "28 Days Later" had become a sleeper hit in America and a major success worldwide, putting Murphy before a mass audience for the first time. His performance as pandemic survivor Jim earned him nominations for Best Newcomer at the 8th Empire Awards and Breakthrough Male Performance at the 2004 MTV Movie Awards. "ComingSoon.net"'s review of the film said, "Cillian Murphy is a superb find... and he gives a break-out performance as a man torn apart by the new world into which he's awakened." In late 2003, Murphy starred as a lovelorn, hapless supermarket stocker who plots a bank heist with Colin Farrell in "Intermission", which became the highest-grossing Irish independent film in Irish box office history (until "The Wind That Shakes the Barley" broke the record in 2006). Murphy also appeared in supporting roles in his first Hollywood films, "Cold Mountain" and "Girl with a Pearl Earring". For the latter film, he learned to chop meat in an abattoir to prepare for his role as a butcher, even though he is a vegetarian. In 2004, he toured Ireland in the titular role of "The Playboy of the Western World", a Druid Theatre Company production under the direction of Garry Hynes, who had previously directed Murphy in Seán O'Casey's "Juno and the Paycock" and John Murphy's "The Country Boy", also for Druid. Critical success. 2005 was the year that Cillian Murphy won wider recognition, first for two high-profile villain roles: Dr. Jonathan Crane in "Batman Begins", and Jackson Rippner in the thriller "Red Eye". Originally asked to audition for the role of Bruce Wayne/Batman in "Batman Begins", Murphy never saw himself as having the right physique for the superhero, but leapt at the chance to connect with director Christopher Nolan. Though the lead went to Christian Bale, Nolan was so impressed with Murphy that he gave him the supporting role of Dr. Crane, whose alter ego is supervillain Scarecrow. Nolan told "Spin", "He has the most extraordinary eyes, and I kept trying to invent excuses for him to take his glasses off in close-ups." In Wes Craven's "Red Eye", Murphy starred as an operative in an assassination plot who terrorises Rachel McAdams on an overnight flight. "New York Times" film critic Manohla Dargis asserted that Murphy made "a picture-perfect villain" and that his "baby blues look cold enough to freeze water and his wolfish leer suggests its own terrors." Murphy received several awards nominations for his 2005 bad guy turns, among them a nomination as Best Villain at the 2006 MTV Movie Awards for "Batman Begins". "Entertainment Weekly" ranked him among its 2005 "Summer MVPs", a cover story list of ten entertainers with outstanding breakthrough performances. "The New Yorker"'s David Denby wrote, "Cillian Murphy, who has angelic looks that can turn sinister, is one of the most elegantly seductive monsters in recent movies." In late 2005 (early 2006 in Europe), Murphy starred as Patrick/"Kitten" Braden, a transgender Irish foundling in search of her mother, in Neil Jordan's dramedy "Breakfast on Pluto", based on the novel of the same title by Patrick McCabe. Murphy had auditioned for the role in 2001, and though Jordan liked him for the part, "The Crying Game" director was hesitant to revisit transgender and I.R.A. issues. For several years, Murphy lobbied Jordan to make the film before the actor became too old to play the part. In 2004, Murphy prepared for the role by meeting with a transvestite who dressed him and took him clubbing with other transvestites. Taking notice of the group's quick wit, Murphy attributed it to their constantly having to respond to insults from prejudiced people around them. Against "Breakfast on Pluto"’s kaleidoscopic backdrop of 1970s glitter rock fashion, magic shows, red light districts and I.R.A. violence, Murphy transforms from androgynous teen to high drag blond bombshell. "The San Francisco Chronicle"'s Ruthe Stein said of his performance, "Murphy projects enormous energy onscreen, as he's already shown in "28 Days Later..." and "Red Eye". He's supremely well cast as the androgynous Kitten ... smoothly makes the transition from broad comedy to drama. He delivers Kitten's favourite line, 'Oh serious, serious, serious!' with the full implications of its dual meaning." While even lukewarm reviews of "Breakfast on Pluto" still tended to praise Murphy's performance highly, a few critics dissented: "The Village Voice", which panned the film, found him "unconvincing" and overly cute. Murphy was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in a Musical or Comedy for "Breakfast on Pluto" and won the Irish Film and Television Academy Best Actor Award. "Premiere" cited his performance as Kitten in their "The 24 Finest Performances of 2005" feature. All three of his 2005 performances were honoured by "Entertainment Weekly", when they included him in their "Great Performances of 2005" year-end issue. A late 2005 "Back Stage" feature labelled Murphy "a chameleonic performer, a character actor trapped in a leading man's bone structure." In 2006 (2007 in North America), he starred in Ken Loach's film about the Irish War of Independence and Civil War, "The Wind That Shakes the Barley", which won the Palme d'Or at the 2006 Cannes Film Festival and became the most successful Irish independent film at the Irish box office. Loach, a social realist who shoots films in sequence, is strict about casting actors from the areas where his films are set, rarely casting well-known faces. Because the film was set in Cork, Murphy was given a chance at the role of Damien O'Donovan, a young doctor turned revolutionary, but he had to audition six times before winning the part. Murphy's family goes back in Cork for many generations; during the time period in which "The Wind That Shakes the Barley" is set, his grandfather was shot at by British soldiers for playing Irish music. Critic Denby described Murphy's approach to the part of Damien: "Murphy is normally very quiet in movies; he has attained his mystique as an actor by staring at people with baby-blue eyes. In this film, too, he has, at times, a deep stillness, but he has idiosyncratic moments as well, such as when Damien has to execute a teen-ager who has ratted on the I.R.A. Murphy, writhing, shoots the boy and stumbles away, nausea struggling against duty." Kenneth Turan of the "Los Angeles Times" wrote, "Murphy is especially good at playing the zealotry as well as the soul-searching and the regret, at showing us a man who is eaten up alive because he's forced to act in ways that are contrary to his background and his training." "Scotland on Sunday" commented, "Cillian Murphy ... exudes a doe-eyed sensitivity that is central to our emotional involvement in the character's development. He is not a macho figure itching for a fight, but a man of peace, reluctantly drawn to the use of force. When he makes a commitment to Irish independence, it is unyielding and entirely believable." "GQ UK" presented Murphy with their 2006 Actor of the Year award for his work in "The Wind That Shakes the Barley". 2006-2010. Murphy returned to the stage from November 2006 to February 2007 in the lead role of John Kolvenbach's play "Love Song", opposite Neve Campbell, in London's West End. In April 2007 (July in North America), he starred onscreen as a physicist-astronaut charged with re-igniting the sun in the science fiction movie "Sunshine", which re-teamed him with director Danny Boyle. Murphy appeared opposite Lucy Liu in Paul Soter's romantic comedy "Watching the Detectives"; the indie film premiered at the 2007 Tribeca Film Festival and was then released straight to DVD. In 2008, Murphy made a brief reappearance as the Scarecrow in "The Dark Knight", the sequel to "Batman Begins". He also starred in "The Edge of Love", a love quadrangle/biographical film with Keira Knightley, Sienna Miller and Matthew Rhys, as William Killick. Murphy also made a debut appearance in another medium—on a postage stamp: in July 2008, the Irish Post Office, An Post, released a series of four stamps paying homage to the creativity of films recently produced in Ireland, including one featuring Murphy in a still from "The Wind That Shakes the Barley". In 2009, Murphy starred in "The Water", directed by rock musician Kevin Drew of Broken Social Scene, also starring rock musician Feist and actor David Fox, which was released online in April. The 15-minute Canadian short film is nearly silent until the Feist song of the same title plays close to the end. Murphy also starred in "Perrier's Bounty", a crime dramedy from the makers of "Intermission", in which he portrayed a petty criminal on the run from a gangster played by Brendan Gleeson. "Perrier's Bounty" premiered at the 2009 Toronto International Film Festival in September 2009, and had a limited release in 2010. In "Peacock", a psychological thriller, Murphy starred as a man with a split personality who fools people into believing he is also his own wife, alongside Ellen Page, Susan Sarandon and Bill Pullman. "Peacock" was released straight to DVD in early 2010. The several years' delayed biopic "Hippie Hippie Shake", shot in 2007, stars Murphy (again alongside Sienna Miller) as Richard Neville, editor of the psychedelic radical underground magazine "Oz", which, in 1971, was at the center of what was then the longest obscenity trial in British history. In a sign of trouble, the director and screenwriter walked off the production in mid-2009. In contrast to his delayed projects, Murphy was a part of the acclaimed ensemble cast of Christopher Nolan's blockbuster "Inception", with Leonardo DiCaprio, Ellen Page and Joseph Gordon-Levitt; the film was released in July 2010. He also made an uncredited cameo appearance in "", released in December 2010, as programmer Edward Dillinger Jr, son of original "Tron" antagonist Ed Dillinger (David Warner). The same year he also made a return to theatre in "From Galway to Broadway and back again", which was a stage show that celebrated the Druid Theatre Company's thirty-fifth birthday. 2011–present. In 2011, Murphy performed in the monodrama, "Misterman", written and directed by Enda Walsh, who Murphy previously worked with on "Disco Pigs". Murphy's performance earned him critical acclaim, an Irish Times Theatre Award and a Drama Desk Award. He also played the role of Martin in "Retreat", the directional debut of Carl Tibbits. Murphy then starred in the science fiction film "In Time", where he played Raymond Leon, a "Timekeeper". The film also starred Justin Timberlake and Amanda Seyfried. The following year, Murphy starred in "Red Lights" with Robert De Niro and Sigourney Weaver. He played Tom Buckley, the assistant to Weaver's character who is a paranormal investigator. The film was panned by critics and did not make its budget back at the box office. He then went on to reprise his role as the Scarecrow for the third time in "The Dark Knight Rises". Murphy also had a supporting role as Mike, who is the favourite teacher of the main character Skunk, in the British independent film "Broken". His performance earned him a British Independent Film Award for Best Supporting Actor nomination. In 2013, Murphy played the lead role in the BBC television miniseries, "Peaky Blinders", about a criminal gang in post-WW1 Birmingham. The same year, Murphy made his directorial debut with a music video for the band Money's single "Hold Me Forever". The video features dancers from the English National Ballet and was filmed at The Old Vic Theatre in London. Murphy's upcoming projects include "Cry/Fly", in which he will star alongside Jennifer Connelly; he will be directed by Wally Pfister in the film "Transcendence" which will also star Johnny Depp and Rebecca Hall, having previously worked with Pfister, who was cinematographer on many Christopher Nolan films; and he will star in Ron Howard's latest film, "The Heart of the Sea", which will also feature Benjamin Walker and Chris Hemsworth. Personal life. In mid-2004, Murphy married his long-time live-in girlfriend, Yvonne McGuinness, an artist whom he met in 1996 at one of his rock band's shows. The couple live in North West London with their two sons, Malachy (born in 2005) and Carrick (born in 2007). Murphy is known for being reluctant to speak about his personal life. He frequently gives interviews about his work but did not appear on any live TV chat shows until 2010, when he was a guest on "The Late Late Show" on Ireland's RTÉ to promote "Perrier's Bounty" yet still remained politely reserved. He does not have a stylist or a personal publicist, travels without an entourage, and often attends premieres alone. Shy and private, Murphy professes a lack of interest in the celebrity scene, finding the red carpet experience "a challenge... and not one I want to overcome". He intentionally practices a lifestyle that will not interest the tabloids: "I haven't created any controversy, I don't sleep around, I don't go and fall down drunk". Murphy is friends with fellow Irish actors Colin Farrell and Liam Neeson, looking up to the latter like a "surrogate movie dad." But primarily, Murphy's close friendships are those he made before becoming a star. Music is still an important part of Murphy's life. In 2004, he said, "The only extravagant thing about my lifestyle is my stereo system, buying music and going to gigs". He no longer plays in a rock band, but regularly plays music with friends and on his own, and still writes songs. Murphy does not plan to start another band: "Even if I was good, the very notion of being an actor with a rock band on the side would mean I'd never be taken seriously". Murphy is also a dedicated runner. Murphy, previously an agnostic, became an atheist after researching his role as a nuclear physicist/astronaut in the science fiction film "Sunshine". He is a longtime vegetarian, not due to any moral objection to the killing of animals, but because of qualms about unhealthy agribusiness practices. Murphy participated in the 2007 Rock the Vote Ireland campaign targeting young voters for the general election. He has also campaigned for the rights of the homeless with the organisation Focus Ireland. In February 2012, Murphy wrote a message of support to the former Vita Cortex workers involved in a sit-in at their plant, congratulating them for "highlighting is hugely important to us all as a nation".
1103395	Manjul Bhargava (मञ्जुल भार्गव) (born August 8, 1974) is a Canadian-American mathematician of Indian origin. He is the R. Brandon Fradd Professor of Mathematics at Princeton University. He is known primarily for his contributions to number theory. Bhargava was also awarded the 2012 Infosys Prize in mathematics for his “extraordinarily original work in algebraic number theory, which has revolutionized the way in which number fields and elliptic curves are counted". Biography. Bhargava's mother, Mira Bhargava, is a mathematician at Hofstra University and his father a chemist. Bhargava grew up in Long Island, New York. Manjul Bhargava completed all of his high school math and computer courses by age 14. He attended Plainedge High School, graduating in 1992 as the class valedictorian. He obtained his B.A. from Harvard University in 1996. For his research as an undergraduate, he was awarded the 1996 Morgan Prize. Bhargava went on to receive his doctorate from Princeton in 2001, supervised by Andrew Wiles. He was a visiting scholar at the Institute for Advanced Study in 2001-02. Princeton hired him at the rank of tenured full professor within only two years of finishing graduate school, which is considered a record in the Ivy League. Bhargava is also an accomplished tabla player, having studied under gurus such as Zakir Hussain. He has also studied Sanskrit. His grandfather Purushottam Lal Bhargava is a well-known scholar of Sanskrit and ancient Indian history. Contributions. His Ph.D. thesis generalized the classical Gauss composition law for quadratic forms to many other situations. One major use of his results is the parametrization of quartic and quintic orders in number fields, thus allowing the study of asymptotic behavior of arithmetic properties of these orders and fields. His research also includes fundamental contributions to the representation theory of quadratic forms, to interpolation problems and p-adic analysis, to the study of ideal class groups of algebraic number fields, and to the arithmetic theory of elliptic curves. A short list of his specific mathematical contributions are: In July 2010 Manjul Bhargava and Arul Shankar proved the Birch and Swinnerton-Dyer conjecture for a positive proportion of elliptic curves. Awards and Honors. Bhargava is the second youngest full professor in Princeton University's history, after Charles Fefferman (professor at Princeton at age 24). Bhargava has won several awards for his research, including the Morgan Prize in 1996, a Clay 5-year Research Fellowship, the Merten M. Hasse Prize from the MAA in 2003, the Clay Research Award in 2005, and the Leonard M. and Eleanor B. Blumenthal Award for the Advancement of Research in Pure Mathematics in 2005. Peter Sarnak of Princeton University has said of Bhargava: He was named one of Popular Science Magazine’s “Brilliant 10” in November 2002. He won the $10,000 SASTRA Ramanujan Prize, shared with Kannan Soundararajan, awarded by SASTRA in 2005 at Tanjavur, India, for his outstanding contributions to number theory. In 2008, Bhargava was awarded the American Mathematical Society's Cole Prize. The citation reads: In 2011, Bhargava was awarded the Fermat Prize for "various generalizations of the Davenport-Heilbronn estimates and for his startling recent results (with Arul Shankar) on the average rank of elliptic curves". Bhargava is also a sought-after speaker, having given numerous public lectures around the world. In 2011, he delivered the prestigious Hedrick lectures of the MAA in Lexington, Kentucky. He was also the 2011 Simons Lecturer at MIT. In 2012, Bhargava was named an inaugural recipient of the Simons Investigator Award, and became a fellow of the American Mathematical Society in its inaugural class of fellows. Bhargava was also awarded the 2012 Infosys Prize in mathematics for his “extraordinarily original work in algebraic number theory, which has revolutionized the way in which number fields and elliptic curves are counted".
1063977	Kathy Ann Najimy (born February 6, 1957) is an American actress and comedian, best known as Olive Massery on the television series "Veronica's Closet", Sister Mary Patrick in "Sister Act" and the voice of Peggy Hill on the animated television series "King of the Hill". Prior to her film work, she was best known for two Off Broadway shows with Mo Gaffney working as the duo Kathy and Mo. One of the shows became an HBO comedy special and garnered Najimy her first nationwide fan base. Early life. Najimy was born in San Diego, California, the daughter of Lebanese American parents Samia (née Massery) and Fred Najimy, a postal worker. She was raised Catholic and attended Crawford High School. Najimy's film career began in the early 1990s, with a number of off-beat minor roles, but her first major role was in the 1992 comedy "Sister Act", in the role of Sister Mary Patrick. She reprised this role in 1993 in "Sister Act 2". She also starred in "Hocus Pocus" with Bette Midler and Sarah Jessica Parker as the Sanderson sisters. In 1997, she lent her voice to Warner Bros. Family Entertainment as Tilly the Hippo in the film "Cats Don't Dance", alongside actors Scott Bakula, Jasmine Guy, John Rhys-Davies and Don Knotts, and has also played a role on the "Nightmare Ned" video game. In 1998, she made a cameo in "Bride of Chucky" as the maid who discovers Diane and Russ' bodies. In 1999, she played the Stepmother in "CinderElmo" a primetime special for Sesame Street. In 2001, she co-starred in the hit comedy film "Rat Race" alongside John Cleese, Rowan Atkinson, Cuba Gooding, Jr., Whoopi Goldberg, Jon Lovitz and Seth Green. She guest starred in "That's So Raven". She has done four movies with Goldberg, ("Soapdish", "Sister Act" 1 and 2, and "Rat Race"). From film, Najimy expanded into television roles, including a dramatic recurring role on "Chicago Hope." Najimy was part of the cast of "Veronica's Closet" from 1997 to 2000. She co-created and starred in the hit Off Broadway show and HBO specials "Kathy & Mo", with friend and actress Mo Gaffney. She appeared as Mae West in the Broadway hit "Dirty Blonde". She also portrayed Dr. Mildred Finch on "Numb3rs". Najimy also provided the voice of the drama teacher, Miss Thespius, in the 1998 Disney show "". In 2003, Najimy provided the voice of Margalo in "", taking over from Melanie Griffith. She is the co-creator and director of the musical revue "Back to Bacharach and David", which ran in New York City in 1992 and 1993, and which she directed again in Los Angeles in April 2009. She also appeared in "Drop Dead Diva". In October 2009, Najimy played a police officer investigating an attack on Wisteria Lane on an episode of "Desperate Housewives". In March 2010, she appeared in the "Ugly Betty" episode "Million Dollar Smile", portraying Betty's new orthodontist, Dr. Frankel. In July 2011, Najimy appeared in TNT's "Franklin and Bash" episode "Bangover", playing a judge. Other work. Najimy, an outspoken feminist, is also noted as an activist for human rights and gay rights. She uses her celebrity status to donate money to charities by appearing on game shows. She appeared as a contestant on a celebrity version of "The Weakest Link" where she won $50,000 (beating Anthony Anderson) for The Feminist Majority Foundation's Campaign to Stop Gender Apartheid in Afghanistan. She has appeared three times on "Celebrity Poker Showdown" and won the season six tournament, donating the $100,000 to V-Day, an organization that helps stop violence against women and girls. She was also crowned Grand Champion on CBS' "Gameshow Marathon" in 2006, donating the $100,000 winnings to Girls Best Friend, a charity that helps empower girls. She's also worked with PETA on a number of animal welfare issues and posed with Todd Oldham for the "I'd Rather Go Naked Than Wear Fur" campaign. In 2013, she was a contestant on on Team Rachael where she was playing for PETA, cooking only vegetarian food. She was eliminated on the Feb. 3 episode, reaching third place. In 1981, she was a contestant on "Family Feud," which was used as the finale in "Gameshow Marathon." Najimy and her family were winners on both shows. In the 1981 "Feud" episode they won by 230 points, and in the "Marathon" version they scored 202 points to give Najimy the win. Najimy is also very vocal about issues regarding weight and body imaging among females. In August 2006 Najimy voiced her opinions over a remark made by Heidi Klum on the television series "Project Runway" after Klum said one model's outfit made her look plus sized. In 2005, she was chosen by "Ms. Magazine" as Woman of the Year. She signed the "We Had Abortions" petition which appears in the October 2006 issue of the magazine. The petition contains signatures of over 5,000 women declaring that they had had an abortion and were "unashamed of the choice they made." Najimy, having determined that she was not in a position to be an adequate parent at the time, had had her own abortion in 1975, at the age of 18, when she had discovered that she was pregnant after she had broken up with the father. Personal life. Najimy married comedic actor/singer Dan Finnerty on August 8, 1995, and together they have one daughter named Samia born in 1996.
1165890	Nita Talbot (born Anita Sokol; August 8, 1930) is an American actress. Talbot was a leading lady who spent the first decade or so of her career playing "slick chicks" and sharp-witted career girls, but is perhaps best known for her role as Marya, the "White Russian" spy in the 1960s sitcom "Hogan's Heroes", as well as Sheila Fine in the sitcom "Soap". Talbot received an Emmy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series for the 1967–1968 season of "Hogan's Heroes". Life and career. Born in New York City, Talbot began her acting career appearing as a model in the 1949 film "It's a Great Feeling". She was afforded a wealth of varied screen roles from the love-starved switchboard operator in "A Very Special Favor" (1965), to the brassy Madame Esther in "Buck and the Preacher" (1972). She also appeared in such films as "Bright Leaf" (1950), "This Could Be the Night" (1957), "I Married a Woman" (1958), "Who's Got the Action?" (1962), "Girl Happy" (1965), "The Day of the Locust" (1975), "Serial" (1980), "Chained Heat" (1983), "Fraternity Vacation" (1985), and "Puppet Master II" (1991).
695551	Radhanath Sikdar (; 1813 – 17 May 1870) was an Indian mathematician who, among many other things, calculated the height of Peak XV in the Himalaya and showed it to be the tallest mountain above sea level. Peak XV was later named Mount Everest. Early life. Radhanath was born as youngest child of Tituram, a resident of Jorasanko in Calcutta. Radhanath Sikdar was educated at "Phiringi" Kamal Bose's School and Hindu School in Calcutta, India. Alone among the great Derozians he took to science as his life's mainstay. He worked for the Surveyor General of India, a division of the British Raj in India. He joined the Great Trigonometric Survey in 1831. Great Trigonometric Survey. When in 1831 George Everest was searching for a brilliant young mathematician with particular proficiency in spherical trigonometry, the Hindu College maths teacher Dr. John Tytler superlatively recommended his pupil Radhanath, then only 19. Radhanath joined the Great Trigonometric Survey in 1831 December as a "computor" at a salary of thirty rupees per month. Soon he was sent to Sironj near Dehra Dun where he excelled in geodetic surveying. Apart from mastering the usual geodetic processes, he invented quite a few of his own. Everest was extremely impressed by his performance, so much so that when Sikdar wanted to leave GTS and be a Deputy Collector, Everest intervened, proclaiming that no government officer can change over to another department without the approval of his boss. Everest retired in 1843 and Col. Waugh became the Director. After 20 years in the North, Sikdar was transferred to Calcutta in 1851 as the Chief Computor. Here apart from his duties of the GTS, he also served as the Superintendent of the Meteorological department. Here he introduced quite a few innovations that were to remain standard procedure for many decades to come.The most notable was the formula for conversion of barometric readings taken at different temperatures to 32 degrees Fahrenheit. At the order of Col. Waugh he started measuring the snow capped mountains near Darjeeling. Compiling data about Peak XV from six different observations, he eventually came to the conclusion the Peak XV was the tallest in the world. He gave a full report to Waugh who was cautious enough not to announce this discovery before checking with other data. When after some years, he was convinced, only then did he publicly announce the same. The norm, strictly followed by Everest himself, was that while naming a peak, the local name should be preferred. But in this case, Waugh made an exception. He paid a tribute to his ex-boss by proposing that the peak be named after Everest. Everest agreed, and Sikdar was conveniently forgotten. Other. It appears that while Everest and Waugh both extolled him for his exceptional mathematical abilities, his relations with the colonial administration were far from cordial. Two specific instances are on record. In 1851 a voluminous Survey Manual (Eds. Capt. H. L. Thullier and Capt. F. Smyth) was published by the Survey Department. The preface to the Manual clearly and specifically mentioned that the more technical and mathematical chapters of the Manual were written by Babu Radhanath Sikdar. The Manual proved to be immensely useful to surveyors. However, the third edition, published in 1875 (i.e., after Sikdar's death) did not contain that preface, so that Sikdar's memorable contribution was de-recognized. The incident was condemned by a section of British surveyors. The paper Friend of India in 1876 called it 'robbery of the dead'.
1162697	Nicholas "Nick" Zano (born March 8, 1978) is an American actor and producer. He is best known for having played Vince in The WB sitcom "What I Like About You". He got his big break on MTV, where he hosted that network's former infotainment program about the film industry, "Movie House", and briefly worked as an MTV News correspondent before he began an acting career. His recurring roles on television include Drew Pragin on "Melrose Place", Josh on "Cougar Town", Pete on "Happy Endings", P.J. Hillingsbrook on "90210", and Johnny on "2 Broke Girls". Early life. Zano was born in Nutley, New Jersey of Italian/Sicilian and Irish descent. He lived in Florida as a child. While attending Wellington High School he was active in the drama and television departments. Throughout his junior and senior years, he and his fellow classmates produced a weekly off-beat skit comedy show that aired on the school's television station. While working on the show, Zano also wrote, starred in and directed student films that made their way to the JVC Universal Film Competition, a festival in which over 800 local high schools participate. Career. Shortly after graduating from high school, Zano moved to Hanover, Pennsylvania and landed a job developing films and television projects for a small production company. During that time, he also was the associate producer for Living Position, a World AIDS Day television special hosted by Lou Diamond Phillips. While selling shoes in a trendy Los Angeles boutique, a customer went back to her office and told her supervisors she'd just met a man who would be a wonderful on-air personality. The woman was an employee at MTV, which led to Zano's hosting job of MTV's "Movie House". In 2003, he won the role of Vince in the The WB sitcom "What I Like About You", starring Amanda Bynes and Jennie Garth. Zano made his first appearance in the second season and remained until the fourth and final season that ended April 24, 2006. Afterwards, he went on to host and executive produce his MTV reality show "Why Can't I Be You?". The following year, Zano appeared alongside Haylie Duff and Frankie Muniz in the independent romantic comedy "My Sexiest Year". The film, which received mixed reviews, had its world premiere at the 2007 Hamptons International Film Festival. In 2008 he appeared in a supporting role opposite Drake Bell in MGM's teen comedy film "College". Zano also appeared in "Beverly Hills Chihuahua" and "" later that year. In 2009, Zano co-starred in "The Final Destination", the fourth installment of the "Final Destination" film series. He also guest starred on the ABC sitcom "Cougar Town", starring Courteney Cox. In 2010, he had a recurring role on The CW's "Melrose Place". In 2011 he started a recurring role on "2 Broke Girls" as Johnny, a graffiti artist who regularly flirts with Max (Dennings). In 2011 he also co-starred in romantic comedy "Scents and Sensibility" as Brandon. In 2012, Zano scored a recurring role on a different show on The CW, 90210, in which he plays a billionaire who goes into business with Annie (Grimes). Beginning in December 2012, Zano began a recurring role in season three of the ABC comedy series "Happy Endings" as Pete, Penny's new love interest. Personal life. Zano split with girlfriend of three years Haylie Duff in October 2011. In December 2011, Zano began dating "2 Broke Girls" co-star Kat Dennings.
1055010	Max Perlich (born March 28, 1968) is an American film and television actor. Life and career. He was born in Cleveland, Ohio. His mother was a teacher and his father, Martin Perlich, a writer and radio programming director and announcer, worked for a time with the Cleveland Orchestra. The Perlich family moved to Los Angeles, California when Max was four. He is left-handed. Perlich's career began with a small part in "Ferris Bueller's Day Off", which came after he had dropped out of high school in the 10th grade. Thus began his appearances in a series of bit parts on television and in teen films such as "Can't Buy Me Love" (1987), "Plain Clothes" (1988) and "Lost Angels" (1989). He was also in the films "Rush" (1991), "Beautiful Girls" (1996) and "Blow" (2001). He has had recurring roles in television shows such as ' (1997), "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" (1998), "My Name Is Earl" (2006), and ' (2008). He is also featured in the music videos "No Excuses" by Alice In Chains and "Naked Eye" by Luscious Jackson.
1054815	Better Luck Tomorrow is a 2002 crime-drama film directed by Justin Lin. The movie is about Asian American overachievers who become bored with their lives and enter a world of petty crime and material excess. "Better Luck Tomorrow" introduced Karin Anna Cheung to film audiences and a cast including Parry Shen, Sung Kang, Jason Tobin, Roger Fan, and John Cho. The film was based loosely on the murder of Stuart Tay, a teenager from Orange County, California, by four Sunny Hills High School honor students on December 31, 1992. In its first ever film acquisition, MTV Films eventually acquired "Better Luck Tomorrow" after it debuted at The Sundance Film Festival. After meeting at the National Association of Broadcasters convention in Las Vegas, Nevada in April 2001, MC Hammer (credited as a producer) provided the much needed funding to the filmmaker Justin Lin for this film. The director said, "Out of desperation, I called up MC Hammer because he had read the script and liked it. Two hours later, he wired the money we needed into a bank account and saved us." Plot. Ben Manibag (Parry Shen) and his friend Virgil Hu (Jason Tobin) are lying in the sun discussing college admissions, but hearing a cell-phone ringing, begin digging in the dirt and soon uncover a human hand. Ben and Virgil are the stereotypical highly intelligent overachieving Asian Americans whose only goal is to gain acceptance into the highly prestigious Ivy League universities. In fact, Ben learns a new SAT vocabulary word every night through rote memorization and recitation. These words act as the dividers between different chapters of Ben's life. In reality, Ben reveals that he in fact uses his perfectionism in order to act out in other ways, such as toilet papering houses with Virgil and other petty crimes. Part of these activities include the purchase and return of computer equipment with Virgil, and Virgil's cousin Han Lue (Sung Kang) to earn easy money.
1036239	Matthew Richard "Matt" Lucas (born 5 March 1974) is an English comedian, screenwriter, singer and actor, best known for his work with David Walliams in the television show "Little Britain"; as well as for his portrayals of the scorekeeping baby George Dawes in the comedy panel game "Shooting Stars" and Tweedledee and Tweedledum in "Alice in Wonderland". In May 2007, he was placed seventh in the list of the UK's 100 most influential gay men and women, by British newspaper "The Independent". Early life. Lucas was born in Paddington, London, the son of Diana (née Williams) and John Stanley Lucas (1944–1996), who ran a chauffeuring business. Some of Lucas' mother's family fled from Germany during the second world war. Lucas grew up in a Reform Jewish household. in Stanmore, Middlesex; he has an older brother, Howard. He has had alopecia since his childhood, which in interviews he has inconsistently attributed to various events, including a delayed reaction to a car accident at the age of four. He lost all of his hair when he was six years old. Lucas' father died of a heart attack aged 52, in Brent, Greater London. Lucas was educated at Haberdashers' Aske's Boys' School in Borehamwood, Hertfordshire, the same school attended by comic actors David Baddiel and Sacha Baron Cohen. He went on to study drama in the Faculty of Arts at the University of Bristol between 1993 and 1995. He also spent time with the National Youth Theatre where he first met future writing partner David Walliams. Career. Early career. Lucas' association with Vic Reeves and Bob Mortimer began in 1992. In 1995, Lucas appeared in "The Smell of Reeves and Mortimer". He went on to star with them in "Shooting Stars". He quickly rose to fame as George Dawes, the giant baby, who would deliver a string of meaningless gags (often in character) and insults before delivering the score, while sitting at and playing a drum kit. He also appeared on occasion as Marjorie Dawes, George's mother, who also appears in "Little Britain". He appeared with Reeves & Mortimer again, in the BBC series "Randall & Hopkirk (Deceased)", and "Catterick" in a variety of roles. In 1999, Lucas paired up with David Walliams, with whom he had already worked with in both "Mash and Peas" and "Sir Bernard's Stately Homes", to create "Rock Profile", a comedy show that spoofed famous musicians and musical personalities. It is notable for being one of their first comedic collaborations, which fuelled their inspiration to then create the well-known show, "Little Britain". Lucas has also written for actor Sacha Baron Cohen. His music video appearances include; the Damien Hirst-directed video for Blur's "Country House", "Jesusland" by Ben Folds in 2005, "I'm with Stupid" by the Pet Shop Boys and "Vindaloo" and "Naughty Christmas" by Fat Les. Lucas ventured into the world of stage musicals in 2002, when he took one of the main roles in Boy George's musical "Taboo", at The Venue, London. He played the part of performance artist Leigh Bowery. "Little Britain". "Little Britain" is commercially Lucas' most successful work. Originally a radio show on BBC Radio 4, it later became a TV series. Among the many characters he plays in the series, which he writes and acts in along with David Walliams, are apparently disabled Andy Pipkin, teenage Bristol chav Vicky Pollard, homophobic homosexual Daffyd Thomas and insensitive slimming club organiser Marjorie Dawes. After "Little Britain". In 2005, he took his first role in a television drama, a supporting part as a Venetian duke in the BBC historical serial "Casanova", written by Russell T Davies. Also in 2005, he did voice work in the ITV children's program, "King Arthur's Disasters". Since 2006, Lucas has been the voice of the radio and television character Digit Al, devised as part of a public information campaign on digital switchover. On 26 November 2006 he appeared on the BBC Radio 4 programme "Desert Island Discs". He made a cameo appearance in "Shaun of the Dead" as Tom; the cousin of Shaun's friend Yvonne. In 2007, he released "I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles)", originally by The Proclaimers, with Peter Kay as a charity single for Comic Relief. He performed the single as "Little Britain" character Andy Pipkin, along with Kay playing as Brian Potter. After being available for less than 48 hours on iTunes alone, the track entered the UK Top 40 at number 3. On 25 March, it went to number one, where it stayed for three weeks, selling over 400,000 copies. He also starred as Mr. Toad in "The Wind in the Willows", a 2006 television adaptation of the Kenneth Grahame novel. He has made appearances in "Kath & Kim" and "Neighbours" (the latter alongside David Walliams as "Little Britain" characters Lou and Andy), as well as a cameo role, playing 'Chris' or 'Jammy' at the wedding fayre, in the BBC Three sitcom "Gavin & Stacey". Lucas has co written (with Walliams) and performed in a new series of "Little Britain USA" for HBO. Lucas was the first celebrity to make an appearance in 2008's "Big Brother Celebrity Hijack" on E4. On 9 April 2009, the series "Kröd Mändoon and the Flaming Sword of Fire", featuring Matt Lucas as a regular performer, premièred on Comedy Central, the first major comedy series Lucas had worked on since "Little Britain". In 2010, Lucas played Tweedledee and Tweedledum in Tim Burton's "Alice in Wonderland". Starting in February 2010, Lucas began hosting his own radio show, "And The Winner Is", in which he handed out a fictional series of awards based on nominations by his guests. On 3 October 2010, Matt played Thénardier in the 25th Anniversary Concerts of ""Les Misérables", at the O2 Arena in London. A year later, from 23 June to 10 September 2011, he reprised the role at The Queen's Theatre, in the West End. He has since collaborated with Alfie Boe, who played Jean Valjean, to record a duet of "The Impossible Dream" on Boe's debut album. Also in 2011, Lucas lent his voice to the CGI film "Gnomeo and Juliet", as well as playing a small role as the roommate of Kristen Wiig in the comedy ""Bridesmaids". On Christmas Day 2010, the BBC began showing Matt Lucas and David Walliams' new series, ""Come Fly with Me". The show followed the familiar style of Walliams and Lucas each playing multiple characters, but unlike "Little Britain", it focused entirely on the working environment of the airline industry. In an interview shown on BBC 3 on 9 February 2011, it was stated that the creators considered bringing travel agent character Carol Beer from Little Britain to the new series, but decided against it, as they didn't want viewers to see the new show as merely a spinoff. Instead, all new characters were introduced. On 28 March 2012, Lucas appeared as the "Generation X" guest on the Australian game show "Talkin' 'Bout Your Generation". On 10 April 2012, Lucas' own BBC One show "The Matt Lucas Awards" began. This can be understood as a send-up of awards programmes in general, inviting a number of panelists (generally speaking, comedians) to give their nominations for awards for a series of prizes concerning trivial topics. Lucas also starred in the dark comedy "Small Apartments" released in February 2013 alongside James Caan, Billy Crystal, Johnny Knoxville, Juno Temple with other cameo performances by notable actors. On 21 February 2013 Lucas appeared in a guest role on the NBC series "Community" as Toby, an English friend of Abed Nadir. Personal life. Lucas is a patron of the Karen Morris Memorial Trust, a UK charity for leukaemia patients and their families. In April 2004, he appeared on "Celebrity Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?" and won £62,500 for the charity. He lives with Australian actress Rebel Wilson and is an avid supporter of Arsenal F.C. Lucas admitted, when a guest on The Rob Brydon Show, that he does not drive because of his tendency to daydream. Lucas is openly homosexual and has said he first had an inkling as such at the age of seven. In December 2006, Lucas entered into a civil partnership with Kevin McGee, in a lavish ceremony in Central London. In attendance were various celebrities, including Barbara Windsor, Neil Tennant, Elton John and Courtney Love. After six years together, their civil partnership was dissolved through the High Court in 2008, becoming the first high-profile civil partnership dissolution in Britain. McGee committed suicide in October 2009. Biography. Official Unofficial
1060950	Gerard James Butler (born 13 November 1969) is a Scottish actor who has appeared on film, stage, and television. A trained lawyer, Butler turned to acting in the mid-1990s with small roles in productions such as the James Bond film "Tomorrow Never Dies" (1997), which he followed with steady work on television, most notably in the American miniseries "Attila" (2001). In 2003, he played André Marek in the adaptation of Michael Crichton's "Timeline". He garnered critical acclaim for his work as the lead in Joel Schumacher's 2004 film adaptation of the musical "The Phantom of the Opera". In 2007, Butler gained recognition through his portrayal of King Leonidas in the film "300". Since then, he has appeared in projects including "P.S. I Love You" (2007), "Nim's Island" (2008), "RocknRolla" (2008), "The Ugly Truth" (2009), "Gamer" (2009), "Law Abiding Citizen" (2009), "The Bounty Hunter" (2010), and "Olympus Has Fallen" (2013). He also voiced Stoick in "How to Train Your Dragon" (2010). Early life. Butler was born in Paisley in Renfrewshire, Scotland, the youngest of three children of Margaret and Edward Butler, a bookmaker. Of Irish descent, he was brought up in a strict Roman Catholic family. Butler spent most of the first year of his life in Montreal, Quebec. His mother returned to Scotland with him, from Quebec, when her marriage broke down, when Gerard was aged 18 months. He attended High School in Paisley, rose to position of Prefect (and later Head Boy) at St Mirin's & St Margaret's High School and achieved respectable grades – good enough to win a place at Glasgow University to study law. He also attended Scottish Youth Theatre while a teenager. He did not see his father again until he was 16 years old, when Edward Butler called to meet him at a Glasgow restaurant. After this meeting, Butler cried for hours, and recalled of it later: "That emotion showed me how much pain can sit in this body of yours; pain and sorrow that you don’t know you have until it is unleashed." Butler became close to his father after this reunion. Around the same time, he also accepted Glasgow University's offer to study law. During his time as a student, he became the President of the Law Society and sang in a rock band called Speed. While a 22 year old student, his father was diagnosed with cancer and died. This caused Butler's lifestyle to spiral out of control. He would say of this period in his life: "I had gone from a 16-year-old who couldn’t wait to grasp life to a 22-year-old who didn’t care if he died in his sleep." Upon graduation, he won a position as a trainee lawyer at an Edinburgh law firm. However, his lifestyle remained unrestrained and he frequently missed work due to his partying antics. One week before he qualified as a lawyer, he was fired. At the age of 25, and an unqualified lawyer, Butler moved to London to pursue his dream of becoming famous. He admitted: "When I started out, I'm not sure I was actually in it for the right reasons. I wanted very much to be famous." Unable to win any acting roles immediately, he was forced to accept blue collar jobs, which included being a waiter, a telemarketer and a demonstrator of how toys work at fairs. Whilst in London, he met an old friend from his teenage days in the Scottish Youth Theatre, who was now a London casting agent. At that time, he was her boyfriend and her assistant. She took him to an audition for Steven Berkoff's play of "Coriolanus". The director said of Butler's audition: "When he read, he had such vigour and enthusiasm – so much that it made the other actors seem limp – that I decided to cast him in the ensemble." Now aged 27, Butler had his first professional acting job. Less than a year later, he won a part in a theater adaptation of "Trainspotting", which he performed at the Edinburgh Festival. By age 30, Butler decided to move to Los Angeles to make it in the big league; there he won parts in "Dracula 2000", "", "Dear Frankie", and "Phantom of the Opera". The director Vadim Jean said: "I have never seen anybody work so hard to make their career happen." Despite the early yearnings for fame, Butler would tell London's "Daily Telegraph" in a 2009 interview, when aged 39: "I did expect to succeed and I did have faith that I would. In reality, though, it has turned out to be something very different to what I wanted. It’s the work and not the adulation that has proved to be the most fulfilling." Career. In London, Butler held a series of odd jobs until being cast by actor and director Steven Berkoff (who later appeared alongside him in "Attila" (2001)) in a stage production of "Coriolanus". He was cast as Ewan McGregor's character Renton in the stage adaptation of "Trainspotting", the same play that had inspired him to become an actor. His film debut was as Billy Connolly's character's younger brother in "Mrs. Brown" (1997). His film career continued with small roles, first in the James Bond film "Tomorrow Never Dies" (1997) and then Russell Mulcahy's "Tale of the Mummy" (1998). In 2000, Butler was cast in two breakthrough roles, the first being Attila the Hun in the American TV miniseries "Attila" (2001). The film's producers wanted a known actor to play the part but kept coming back to Butler's screen tests and decided he was their man. He was cast as Dracula in "Dracula 2000" (2000). He then appeared in "Reign of Fire" (2002) as Creedy and "" (2003) as Terry Sheridan, alongside Angelina Jolie. In the role of Andre Marek in the big-screen adaptation of Michael Crichton's novel "Timeline" (2003), Butler played an archaeologist who was sent back in time with a team of students to rescue a colleague. In 2003, director Joel Schumacher was deciding on the principal casting for the film "The Phantom of the Opera", a film adaptation of the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical of the same name, and thought of Butler, whom he had seen earlier in the film "Dracula 2000", to play the title character. Butler, who had had no musical experience other than singing in a rock band while he was studying to be a lawyer, was surprised at the interest, but immediately began taking singing lessons with a vocal coach. He then did an acting audition with Schumacher, and a singing audition with Lloyd Webber, both of whom were impressed by his performance. Despite the film receiving mixed reviews, Butler was praised for his performance. Other projects that followed include "Dear Frankie" (2005), "The Game of Their Lives" (2005) and "Beowulf & Grendel" (2005). In 2007, he starred as Spartan King Leonidas in the Warner Bros. production "300", which is often described as his breakthrough role. Butler, who said he "wanted to look really strong" in the film, trained with a high-intensity workout for four months prior to the film's shooting. In 2007, he also appeared in "Butterfly on a Wheel" co-starring Pierce Brosnan and Maria Bello, which aired on network TV under the title "Shattered", and in the romantic comedy "P.S. I Love You" with Hilary Swank. In 2008, he appeared in "Nim's Island" and "RocknRolla". In 2009, he starred in the Mark Neveldine/Brian Taylor film "Gamer", "The Ugly Truth" and "Law Abiding Citizen", which he also co-produced. In 2010 he starred in the action/comedy "The Bounty Hunter" with Jennifer Aniston, and did a voice-over in the 2010 animated film "How to Train Your Dragon" as Stoick the Vast. On 15 and 16 October 2010, thanks to the popularity of his role as Spartan King Leonidas and the use of his lines during athletic events at Michigan State University, he was a guest at their Midnight Madness and homecoming football game, respectively. On 18 December 2011, while filming "Chasing Mavericks", Butler was hospitalized after he was pulled under big waves. A safety patrolman spotted Butler and quickly rushed to his aid. He was taken to Stanford University Medical Center where he was observed and then later released. On 19 August 2011, "NME" reported that while filming "Playing for Keeps", Butler was writing songs and in the process of recording an album. Marilyn Manson, Jack Black, and Johnny Depp were said to be advising him on becoming a rock star. However, in a 2013 interview with Parade, when asked if he had spoken with Manson or Depp about Rock music, Butler stated that "I've never had conversations with Marilyn Manson or Johnny Depp. Though any conversation with either of them would be awesome!" Butler starred in the action thriller "Olympus Has Fallen", which was released in 2013 and co-stars Aaron Eckhart and Morgan Freeman. While filming "Olympus Has Fallen", Butler says he broke two bones in his neck, but did not realise until he had an MRI scan done. Personal life. Butler has been open in interviews about struggling with alcoholism. In February 2012, Butler's publicist announced that Butler had completed a course of treatment for substance abuse of pain killers at a rehab-centre. This was after Butler was concerned he was too reliant on prescribed pain relief medication which escalated when he was involved in a surfing incident before Christmas 2011. A fan of the Glasgow football club Celtic and having played a charity match with them in 2011, Butler regularly attended Celtic Park as a supporter, but has found that moving to Hollywood can be a problem when trying to keep up with the results due to the time difference between Los Angeles and Glasgow. In August 2013, Butler bought an equity stake in the Jamaica Tallawahs Cricket team, which forms part of the Limacol Cricket Premiere League (CPL).
582872	Pyaar Ka Mandir is an Indian Bollywood family-drama film directed by K. Bapaiah released on 1 April 1988. The film stars Mithun Chakraborty, Madhavi, Nirupa Roy, Raj Kiran, Shoma Anand, Kader Khan and Aruna Irani. Synopsis. Laxmi Kumar (Nirupa Roy), a widowed school teacher, lives with her three sons, Sanjay, Vijay and Ajay, and daughter, Meena in their family home they call "House of Love". The talented Vijay secretly does manual labor to augment his mom's income, so that his brothers can study IAS and law respectively.
581923	Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge (), also known as DDLJ, is a 1995 Indian romantic comedy musical film. It was written and directed by debutante director Aditya Chopra, produced by his father Yash Chopra, and stars Shahrukh Khan and Kajol. The film tells the story of a young couple who fall in love on a European vacation, and relates how the boy tries to win over the girl's parents so that she can marry him rather than the boy that her father has chosen for her. It was filmed in India, London, and Switzerland. Earning over in India and overseas, the film was declared an "All-time Blockbuster" and became the biggest Bollywood hit of the year, as well as one of the biggest Bollywood hits ever. During the 1996 awards season, the film won 10 Filmfare Awards, the most ever for a single film at that time, as well as the National Film Award for Best Popular Film Providing Wholesome Entertainment. "Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge" was ranked by "Indiatimes Movies" among the "25 Must See Bollywood Films". It was one of two Hindi films in the "1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die" list along with "Mother India". It was also placed twelfth on the British Film Institute's list of the top Indian films of all time. The film was declared an all-time blockbuster and it remains as the longest-running film in the history of Indian cinema. , it is still playing at the Maratha Mandir theatre in Mumbai, completing 900 weeks on 11 January 2013. Plot. The story is of two NRIs (Non Resident Indians) living in London, named Raj Malhotra (Shahrukh Khan) and Simran (Kajol). Raj and Simran both value their Indian roots but the two have experienced different parenting styles. Simran has been raised by her conservative father Baldev (Amrish Puri) while Raj's father (Anupam Kher) is more liberal. Simran has always dreamt of a boy she describes as Prince Charming, believing he is the one for her. Her mother Lajjo (Farida Jalal) warns her against this, saying these dreams will never come true. Her father Baldev soon receives a letter from his friend Ajit (Satish Shah) who lives in Punjab. Ajit wants to keep a promise he and Baldev made to each other 20 years ago — to have Simran marry his son Kuljeet (Parmeet Sethi). Simran is disappointed by this news — she does not want to marry somebody whom she has never met before. Meanwhile, Raj has failed his degree which surprisingly makes his father proud of him. Raj asks his father if he can go on a Eurail trip with his friends around Europe. His father agrees. Later, Raj enters Baldev's shop and steals some beer which infuriates him, making him call Raj a disgrace to Indians. Simran is also invited by her friends to go on the Eurail trip. Simran tells her father that she thinks she should be allowed to go because it will be her last chance to see the world before she marries a complete stranger. Baldev lets her go but tells her not to betray his trust. On the Eurail, Raj and Simran meet. Raj constantly flirts with Simran, much to her irritation. Then, the two miss their train to Zurich and are separated from their friends. They start to travel with one another to catch back up and become friends in the process. Raj falls in love with Simran on the journey and when they both part ways back in London, Simran also realises that she is in love with him, too. Simran tells her mother about Raj — Baldev overhears the conversation and becomes furious with Simran. He says that the family will leave for India the next day for good. Meanwhile, Raj tells his father about Simran and that she is getting married soon. When Raj says he believes Simran loves him too, his father encourages him to go after her. Raj arrives at her house in London, only to find that she has already left for India. She left a souvenir they had bought together on their trip on her front porch however, which encourages Raj to keep chasing her. In India, Baldev is delighted to be reunited with his friend Ajit as well as all his relatives. Simran and her younger sister, Chutki, meet Kuljeet, Simran's fiance, and instantly dislike him due to his arrogance. Simran still cannot forget Raj and is miserable about having to marry Kuljeet. Her mother tells her to forget Raj because she knows that Baldev will never accept it. Baldev vows that Simran will regret it if she does not forget Raj. The next morning, Simran hears a familiar sound and runs out to the fields to find Raj there. She begs him to take her and run away because she knows her father will never let them be together. Raj refuses and says he will only marry Simran with her father's consent. Raj befriends Kuljeet and gets quickly accepted by his and Simran's family, all with the exception of Baldev who is still angry about Raj stealing from his shop. Soon Raj's father arrives in India and also becomes good friends with everyone. Raj and Simran hatch a number of plans in order to avoid her wedding to Kuljeet. Firstly, they make it look as though Simran cut her finger so she does not have to wear an engagement ring. Secondly, Simran pretends to faint during her Karva Chauth fast so that Raj can be the first one to feed her, not Kuljeet. Eventually Lajjo and Chutki realise that Raj is the one Simran fell in love with in Europe. Lajjo tells Raj and Simran to run away, but Raj still refuses. Baldev and Raj become good friends until Baldev discovers a photograph of Raj and Simran in Europe and realises that Raj is the boy Simran had told them about. He openly insults Raj and tells him to leave the house and never come back. Raj arrives at the station. Kuljeet and his friends arrive and start to attack Raj. Raj's father soon comes to his defence and is also attacked. Eventually Baldev and Ajit arrive at the station and stop Raj, who then boards the departing train with his father. Simran soon arrives with her mother and sister. She tries to join Raj on the train but Baldev stops her. Simran begs him to let her go, saying she cannot live without Raj. Baldev finally comes to his senses and realises that nobody can love his daughter more than Raj does. He lets her go to join Raj, which she does happily, while the train takes off. Production. Development. Yash Chopra decided to launch his son Aditya, who had been working with him as an assistant director and producer, as a director with "Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge". Aditya had total editorial control, and made the film according to his own tastes and sensibilities. Yash did not see major portions of the film until it was nearly complete. The film was among the first films to be produced with the large and rich South Asian diaspora in the West as its target. Some films that later followed this trend include "Pardes" (1997), "Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham" (2001), "Kal Ho Na Ho" (2003), and "Salaam Namaste" (2005); the diaspora market is seen as a safer financial investment than the desi market. Director Aditya Chopra originally wanted to cast Tom Cruise for the role of Raj, as he wanted it to be an Indo-American affair, but was dissuaded by his father/producer Yash, who did not want a foreign star. They decided to go with a theme of non-resident Indians (NRIs). Chopra then asked Saif Ali Khan to play the lead role. But he declined, prompting Chopra to approach Shahrukh Khan for the same, who initially was not really interested because of the romantic nature of the film. Chopra eventually convinced him to do it, and Khan has since then expressed his gratitude to Chopra for making him a star. Chopra then cast Kajol to star opposite Shahrukh Khan. The two actors had previous worked together in "Baazigar" (1993) and "Karan Arjun" (1995). The first sequence filmed was of Kajol for the "Ho Gaya" song. Filming of the European trip scenes was done mainly in Switzerland, including Saanen for the train station and bridge scenes, Montbovon for the churches, and Gstaad for a song sequence. Numerous scenes were shot in England and India. Saroj Khan was the choreographer, but after several disputes with Chopra, she was replaced by Farah Khan near the end of the shoot. Farah choreographed "Ruk Ja O Dil Deewane." Manish Malhotra was in charge of costume design, with help from Karan Johar. Sharmishta Roy was the art director. The film's title was suggested by one of the actors Kirron Kher, and was taken from the song "Le Jayenge Le Jayenge" from the 1974 film "Chor Machaye Shor". The character of Raj sings small parts of this song throughout the course of the film, and it recurs at the end. "DDLJ" is believed to be the only film with a "Title suggested by" credit. After filming was complete, Chopra decided to make a Hollywood-style documentary of the filmmaking process, which had never been done before in India. Karan Johar and Chopra's brother Uday were put in change. On 18 October, "The Making of DDLJ" was aired on Doordarshan, two days before the film's premiere. The film was the second Bollywood production and the first Yash Raj Film to be mixed in Dolby sound. It released in India with Dolby SR and a very limited release with Dolby Digital 5.1 which was brand new in India at the time. Themes. Yash Raj Films was previously known for using foreign (non-Indian) locations for item numbers in their films. "Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge" started the trend for films designed to appeal to the Indian diaspora, which have foreign locations as integral parts of the story. The characters are themselves diaspora, and tend to be able to move around with ease between India and the West. This film repeats the usual conservative agenda of family, courtship and marriage, but it proposes that Indian family values are portable assets that can be upheld regardless of country of residence. In fact, Raj (who was brought up in London) is the "good guy" of the story, whereas Kuljeet (raised in India) is seen as the "bad guy". This is a reversal from typical Indian films, which usually portray Indians as being morally superior to Westerners. The story also aims to capture the struggle between traditional family values and the modern value of individualism. Though Raj and Simran want to be together regardless of her father's plans for her, Raj tries to win over the father rather than simply eloping. In this and other Indian stories, family values are ultimately considered more important than the romantic plot. Individual desires have to take a back seat to moral values and rules of conduct. The film implies that "Indianness" can be defined by the importance of family life: whether at home or abroad, it is the Indian family system that is recognized as the social institution that most defines being Indian. Also there are themes of the purity/sanctity of women being related to the purity/sanctity of the nation. In the scene after Raj and Simran spend the night together and Simran is concerned that something happened, Raj tells her: "You think I am beyond values, but I am a Hindustani, and I know what a Hindustani girl’s izzat is worth. Trust me, nothing happened last night." This speaks to the Indian diaspora and their need to try and sustain their value system. Reception. "Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge" opened to full houses and good reviews all over the world. It was a hit among both Indians and NRIs, and became the first Hindi film blockbuster to feature NRIs as main characters. Earning over in India and overseas, the film became the biggest Bollywood hit of the year, and second highest grossing of the 1990s behind "Hum Aapke Hain Koun..!", becoming the second Bollywood film to gross over 100 crore worldwide. It eventually became one of the biggest Bollywood hits of all time. Adjusted for inflation, "Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge" is believed to be among the top five highest grossing Hindi films. Its adjusted gross is approximately . Tom Vick reviewed the film for Allmovie and said, "An immensely likeable movie, "Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge" performs the rarely achieved feat of stretching a predictable plot over three hours and making every minute enjoyable." When "DDLJ" toured the United States in 2004 as part of the Cinema India showcase, "The Changing Face of Indian Cinema", Charles Taylor reviewed the film for Salon.com and said: "It's a flawed, contradictory movie—aggressive and tender, stiff and graceful, clichéd and fresh, sophisticated and naive, traditional and modern. It's also, I think, a classic." Avinash Ramchandani of Planet Bollywood gave the film a 9/10 rating and stated, "Comedy and story, this movie has both, following in the Yash Raj lineage of delivering memorable films." He remarked, "Aditya Chopra has balanced his film well and delivered a memorable film that will probably be watched for years to come. Anupama Chopra included the film in her list of "The 20 Best Hindi Films Ever Made", writing, "Perhaps the innocence of Raj and Simran’s romance in which they can spend the night together without sex because Raj, the bratish NRI understands the importance of an Indian woman’s honor. Perhaps it’s the way in which the film artfully reaffirms the patriarchal status quo and works for all constituencies—the NRI and the local viewer. Or perhaps it’s the magic of Shah Rukh Khan and Kajol who created a template for modern love, which was hip and cool but resolutely Indian." She also calls the film a milestone that shaped Hindi cinema through the 1990s. In 2004, Meor Shariman of "The Malay Mail" called the film a "must watch" for Bollywood fans, and also for those seeking an introduction to Bollywood. "Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge" was ranked amongst "Indiatimes Movies" list of the "25 Must See Bollywood Films". It was one of the two Hindi films in the "1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die" list (the other being "Mother India" from 1957). It was placed twelfth on the British Film Institute's list of top Indian films of all time. It is one of the films on Box Office India's list of "Biggest Blockbusters Ever in Hindi Cinema". The film did very well on the awards season of its release. It won the National Film Award for Best Popular Film Providing Wholesome Entertainment, and swept the Filmfare Awards with 10 wins, a record number at the time. Legacy. In 2001, "Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge" overtook "Sholay" (1975) as the longest-running film in Indian cinema. In February 2009, the film set a record by completing 700 weeks of continuous play in a Mumbai theatre. On 20 October 2012 the movie completed 17 years of non-stop running. , it is still playing at the Maratha Mandir theatre in Mumbai. Producer Yash Chopra decided to organise a celebration in February 2011, when the film completed 800 weeks of running, and theatre owner Manoj Desai said he has no plans to discontinue the screening of the film. There are often people in the audience that have seen the film 50 times or more, but still clap, cheer, mouth the dialogues, and sing along with the songs, raising comparisons with Hollywood's longest running film "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" (1975). People keep coming back not just to see the film, but also to be a part of an experience. In early 2011, a theatre strike threatened the film's uninterrupted showing streak. Producer Yash Chopra contacted theatre owners to try and ensure that the film would continue. He wants the film to go for at least 1000 weeks. Audiences appreciated the duo of Shahrukh Khan and Kajol so much that they went on to work together in several other successful films including "Kuch Kuch Hota Hai" (1998), "Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham..." (2001), and "My Name Is Khan" (2010), and are often referred to as Indian cinema's most loved on-screen couple. Khan himself credits this film with making him a star, and says that the film "changed the entire scene for romantic movies of the 90s". Some newer films have paid homage to classic scenes from the film. For example, "Jab We Met" (2007), "Bodyguard" (2011) and "Chennai Express" (2013) included scenes very similar to the train scene in "DDLJ", wherein a girl is running to catch a moving train and is helped aboard by a boy with his outstretched arm. The Western-made film Slumdog Millionaire also contains a scene where a young girl and young boy replace the adults usually seen in the "train scene". Also unlike the original, the scene does not end happily; the boy pulls his hand away and the girl is left behind. The film's popularity has also led to numerous other references in contemporary films. The British Film Institute (BFI) commissioned a book about "Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge". It was the first Hindi film chosen for a series of studies on international films, called "BFI Modern Classics". The author was Anupama Chopra, and the book was released in 2002. After an unexpectedly long delay, the film was released on DVD by Yash Raj Films on 7 January 2002. The release included the making-of documentary, and highlights from the film's premiere, and from the 1996 Filmfare Awards ceremony. In 2006, members of the film team were honoured at a dinner event on the occasion of the film's 500 week anniversary. It was hosted by the Consulate General of Switzerland in Mumbai and by Switzerland Tourism. In 2010, Yash Raj Films signed an agreement with Indian and Swiss tour companies to provide a tour package called "YRF Enchanted Journey". It will allow people visiting Switzerland to view sites and filming locations from famous Yash Raj films including "DDLJ". Soundtrack. The soundtrack features 7 songs composed by Jatin Lalit, with lyrics by Anand Bakshi and voice rendered by Lata Mangeshkar, Asha Bhosle, Kumar Sanu, Abhijeet, and Udit Narayan. Anand Bakshi won his third Filmfare Best Lyricist award after 14 years. Bhasker Gupta wrote for All Music that the soundtrack was the best of Jatin Lalit's career, and calls it the beginning of the fifth wave in Indian cinema soundtracks. The soundtrack became the best selling Bollywood soundtrack of the year. It was listed by Planet Bollywood as number 6 on their list of 100 Greatest Bollywood Soundtracks, and in 2005 was judged the top Hindi soundtrack of all time by on-line voters on the BBC Asian Network. The wedding song "Mehndi Laga Ke Rakhna" from the film became an all-time hit, and is played in weddings across the South Asian diaspora to this day. Awards. Filmfare Awards. "Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge" is tied for second place with "Devdas" (2002) for the most number of Filmfare awards going to a single film with ten. Only "Black" (2005) has more, with eleven. This was also the second film to win the four major awards (Best Movie, Best Director, Best Actor and Best Actress), after "Guide" in 1966.
584540	Periyanna is a 1999 Tamil film directed by S. A. Chandrasekhar featuring Suriya and Vijaykanth in the lead roles. Meena and Manasa play other supporting roles, the soundtrack for this film composed by debutant music director S. Bharani. The film released on 14 April 1999 to negative reviews and performed poor commercially. Plot. Suriya, the main character, killed the villains who murdered his family and has been sent to jail. During his time in jail, a well-respected collector celebrates his daughter's birthday in prison. The collector's daughter is impressed by Surya's talent in singing and convinces her father to grant her special permission to learn music from him. During this time, they fall in love with each other and opposition grows from both the girl's parents and the police department they elope. They come to a remote town where they witness the murder of a collector in the railway station during broad daylight, but no one seems to care. They then see that the man who murdered the collector is the chief of the village, so they try to oppose him. In their time at the village, they learn about his past and change their mind about him. He promises them to get them married. The movie then moves towards the climax as whether the village chief will be successful in getting those two lovers married or the girl's father will be successful in separating them using the legal system against them. Production. S. A. Chandrasekhar had initially planned to make the film with Vijayakanth and Vijay in the lead roles, but the project failed to materialize. The film re-emerged in 1998 with Vijay's busy schedules prompting Chandrasekhar to select Suriya to appear in a lead role alongside Vijayakanth. Roja was initially approached to play a leading role in the film, though the role was later handed to Meena after she demanded less remuneration. Another leading female role was handed to Manasa, sister of actress Easwari Rao, with the director changing her stage name to Manasa from Ganga as she was known in "Kaakai Chiraginile". The film was launched in late 1998 with Vijayakanth, Suriya, director S. A. Chandrasekhar and veteran producers A. L. Azhagappan and Ibrahim Rowther in attendance. Release. The film became a commercial failure at the box office.
580561	Ah Long Pte Ltd () is a 2008 comedy film directed by Singaporean film director Jack Neo, starring Fann Wong and Mark Lee. Co-produced by MediaCorp Raintree Pictures, Scorpio East Pictures and Double Vision (Malaysia), the film was mostly shot in Malaysia, in the city of Kuala Lumpur, with a budget of S$1.2 million. This film is also the seventh collaboration between MediaCorp Raintree Pictures and Jack Neo. "Ah Long Pte Ltd" was released in Singapore on 7 February 2008, and in Malaysia on 13 March. Its languages consist of Mandarin (in a heavily Johor-accented version as spoken by Mark Lee), Hokkien and Cantonese. Plot. Chen Jun is the leader of Shao He Triad, which has a number of illegal businesses operating in Malaysia and Singapore. He is retiring from the Triad and money-lending business. He is succeeded by a young lady, Wang Lihua, who tries to restructure the "Ah Long (loan shark) system" with as little use of violence as possible while making debtors pay back. Lihua and several of her subordinates start implementing a series of creative methods to attract people to borrow money. They also practice hilarious methods to pressure debtors to repay in a way that is anti-violent. However, this restructuring is met with opposition from the majority of the "elders" in both her own and rival triad (the Qinglongs). Lihua was pressured by her mother to get married. Lihua decides to force Mr Fang, an effeminate dance instructor, to marry her. Mr Fang agrees to the proposal, wanting to prove his masculinity. Subsequently, Mr Fang offers to help Lihua out by introducing creative ways to reduce violent methods of debt collection. Chen Jun is opposed to these less-violent ways of debt collection, but appears to have a change of heart. However, Lihua and her gang members get embroiled with a fight with a rival triad, whose head, it is later revealed, is acting under Chen Jun's instigation. Lihua and Fang go on the run with the Malaysian police and three gang members on their heels. Chen Jun, Lihua and Fang get caught by a number of street urchins, who turned out to be children of debtors who were killed after failing to pay back Chen Jun's gang their loan money. Finally, the Malaysian police nab Chen Jun, Lihua and her company for their illegal dealings. They are sentenced to jail terms (except Chen Jun, who was sentenced to death). Mr Fang fetches Lihua on the day of her release, and surprises her by bringing her to an office dealing in legal business, run by former members of the Shao He Triad (whom some of them once had terms of 8–10 years). Lihua finds the drive to lead again after being in jail for 10 years. Production. Jack Neo feels that most people think that loan sharks are "heartless and evil", however after research, he has found out that there are "kind and caring" loan sharks as well. He was sure that the film would be well received by Singaporeans. The scriptwriting took 6 months to complete, while the film is shot in 35 days. Neo went against the social norm by using a woman as a loan shark ("ah-longs" were generally male gangsters) and having her propose marriage (which is against traditional Chinese custom). Reception. A series of roadshows were held at Ang Mo Kio Hub on 19 January 2008. "Ah Long Pte Ltd"'s commercial success was evident despite mixed reviews from the press. "The Straits Times" reported on 13 February that over the Chinese New Year weekend, the film reaped a box-office takings of S$1.47 million, coming in second behind Stephen Chow's "CJ7" ($2 million), while beating Jay Chou's "Kung Fu Dunk" ($1.41 million). All three films were released in Singapore on 7 February 2008. "Ah Long Lte Ltd" broke the previous record for biggest opening weekend for local productions, a record it held until it was broken in 2012 by another Jack Neo film "Ah Boys To Men: Part One", which earned S$1.509 million on its opening weekend.
584584	Aadhi () is a 2006 Tamil movie. Starring (Vijay) and Trisha in the lead roles. It is a remake of the Telugu film Athanokkade. This film was directed by Ramana and was produced by S.A.Chandrasekar. Plot. The opening scene shows Anjali (Trisha Krishnan) in white, like an angel, sitting on a white bench feeding a white pigeon by a calm ocean and a police officer (Devan) coming and sitting by her side and exchanging pleasantries and suddenly she whips out a knife and kills him saying that she has been waiting for this moment for many years. After that, the movie moves to Aadhi (Vijay) who lives with his foster parents (Manivannan & Seetha) in New Delhi. He takes up a course in a Chennai college against his parents' wishes, while he is actually on mission to eliminate the people behind the murder of his blood family. Similarly Anjali studying in the same college has her own agenda to seek revenge on her parents' killers, and she is assisted by her uncle (Nassar). Soon Aadhi falls in love with Anjali, as she brings back memories of his childhood sweetheart and cousin who loved to dance in the rain. In a shocking flashback, it is revealed that Anjali and Aadhi were from the same family. Aathi's biological father (Prakash Raj) was an honest cop who arrested one of the henchmen of a local gangster, RDX (Sai Kumar). To strike back at Aadhi's father who refuses to release his henchmen, he pays them a visit with some of his henchmen and the police officer Anjali murdered earlier in the film and murders their whole extended family. Only Anjali, her uncle and Aadhi survived the blast that annihilated their family. Together, they combine forces to get revenge on RDX. The climax shows a battle between Aadhi and RDX, in which Aadhi kills RDX. Reception & Box Office. The film received mixed reviews but was average grosser at box office.. Sify stated that "It is only Vijay's strong screen presence that makes Aathi, somewhat credible. At best, this hit-and-run revenge flick adds up to a action feast for the festival audience". Nowrunning rated 3 out of 5 stars and called the film "Though not bracingly pleasurable, the movie is worth for its well etched out dialogues, racy action sequences and Vijay's brisk acting" Soundtrack. The film has five songs composed by Vidyasagar with lyrics by Palani Barathi, Pa. Vijay & Yuga Barathi. The film includes two more songs not included in the audio soundtrack which are:
1064139	Agnes Bruckner (born August 16, 1985) is an American actress. She began acting on television in the late 1990s and has since appeared in several films, including "The Woods", "Blue Car" and "Murder By Numbers". Early life. Bruckner was born in Hollywood, California, to a Hungarian father and a Russian mother who have since divorced; her paternal grandfather was German. Her parents met in Hungary and immigrated to the U.S. in 1984 through a refugee camp in Italy. She has two sisters and a brother. Bruckner speaks some Russian and is fluent in Hungarian, having grown up speaking the language. She has been involved in dance, ballet, and tap since the age of five and initially wanted to pursue a career as a dancer. At the age of eight, Bruckner worked as a child model at the suggestion of her mother and also appeared in a beauty pageant. Bruckner grew up in the Los Feliz section of Los Angeles, California, until age five and then lived in Portland, Oregon, until age ten. She returned with her family to Los Angeles to pursue an acting career, moving to Burbank, California. Career. Bruckner began her career at age 11. She appeared in commercials, in a few television pilots, and on the daytime soap opera "The Bold and the Beautiful" in 1999. At the age of 15, Bruckner got her first lead role in the independent film "Blue Car" (2002), in which she played a high school student involved in an affair with her teacher, played by David Strathairn. Film critic Roger Ebert wrote that Bruckner "negotiates this difficult script with complete conviction." Bruckner received an Independent Spirit Award nomination for "Best Female Lead" for the role. In the 2000s, other minor roles in television and film followed, including roles in "The Glass House" (2001) and the thriller "Murder by Numbers" (2002), starring Sandra Bullock. Bruckner has appeared in episodes of the television series "24" and "Alias". She starred in the horror films "Venom" (2005) and "The Woods" (2006). Also in 2006, she appeared in the drama "Peaceful Warrior" opposite Scott Mechlowicz and received a ShoWest Female Star of Tomorrow Award and played the lead role in "Dreamland". In 2007, Bruckner appeared in the horror/romance film "Blood and Chocolate" and later "Say Hello to Stan Talmadge" (2008), "Kill Theory" (2008), "" (2009), and "The Craigslist Killer" (2011). On October 3, 2012, Bruckner was cast to play Anna Nicole Smith in a Lifetime original movie The Anna Nicole Story. Personal life. Bruckner enjoys hip-hop and R&B as well as The Killers and The Fray. Bruckner has stated that she does not participate in "the Hollywood part of Hollywood" and travels or lives at home with her family during her free time.
1102715	Alain Connes (; born 1 April 1947) is a French mathematician, currently Professor at the Collège de France, IHÉS, The Ohio State University and Vanderbilt University. Work. Alain Connes studies operator algebras. In his early work on von Neumann algebras in the 1970s, he succeeded in obtaining the almost complete classification of injective factors. Following this he made contributions in operator K-theory and index theory, which culminated in the
1062235	Touch of Evil is a 1958 American crime thriller film, written, directed by, and co-starring Orson Welles. The screenplay was loosely based on the novel "Badge of Evil" by Whit Masterson. Along with Welles, the cast includes Charlton Heston, Janet Leigh, Joseph Calleia, Akim Tamiroff, and Marlene Dietrich. "Touch of Evil" is one of the last examples of film noir in the genre's classic era (from the early 1940s until the late 1950s). Plot. The film opens with a three-minute, twenty-second tracking shot widely considered by critics as one of the greatest long takes in cinematic history. On the U.S.-Mexico border, a man plants a time bomb in a car. A man and woman enter the vehicle and make a slow journey through town to the U.S. border. Newlyweds Miguel "Mike" Vargas (Charlton Heston) and Susie (Janet Leigh) pass the car several times on foot. The car crosses the border, then explodes, killing the occupants. Miguel Vargas is a drug enforcement official in the Mexican government. Realizing the implications of a Mexican bomb exploding on American soil, he takes an interest in the investigation. Police Chief Pete Gould (Harry Shannon) and District Attorney Adair (Ray Collins) arrive on the scene, followed by police Captain Hank Quinlan (Orson Welles) and Quinlan's longtime partner, Pete Menzies (Joseph Calleia). Quinlan and Menzies' prime suspect is Sanchez, a young Mexican secretly married to the victim's daughter. They interrogate him in his apartment with Vargas present. Vargas visits the bathroom and accidentally knocks over an empty shoebox. Moments later, Menzies announces that two sticks of dynamite were found in the same, empty, shoebox in the bathroom. Vargas suspects Quinlan may have been planting evidence for years to help win convictions. Quinlan dismisses Vargas' claim saying he is just biased in favor of fellow Mexicans. With assistance from District Attorney's Assistant Al Schwartz (Mort Mills), Vargas studies the public records on Quinlan's previous cases, revealing his findings to Gould and Adair. Quinlan arrives on the scene in time to overhear the discussion and angrily threatens to resign. Susie moved from her Mexican hotel to an American motel to escape the unwanted attention of Grandi (Akim Tamiroff), brother of a man Vargas has been investigating. She finds the motel, which Menzies recommended to her, has no other guests and is staffed only by a mentally challenged night manager (Dennis Weaver). Grandi family members take over the motel. Vargas becomes concerned when his attempts to telephone Susie at the motel are sabotaged. Quinlan conspires with Grandi; they arrange for Susie to be kidnapped by the gang, injected with drugs, and taken to Grandi’s other motel in town. There, Quinlan strangles Grandi and frames Susie for the murder in order to discredit Vargas. Vargas confronts Menzies about the history of evidence "discovered" by Menzies or Quinlan. Menzies dismisses the claim. Vargas goes to Susie's motel but discovers her - and the gun he left with her - missing. Learning the motel is owned by Grandi, Vargas travels to Grandi's other motel in search of Susie, and confronts the gang members who attacked her; when the gang members refuse to answer him, Vargas violently beats them down. Al informs Vargas that Susie has been arrested for murder; at the lockup Vargas finds her barely conscious. Menzies reveals to Vargas he discovered Quinlan's cane at the murder scene. Vargas fits Menzies with a wire. Menzies confronts Quinlan at an oil field and they discuss Quinlan's activities while being tracked on foot by Vargas recording the conversation. Quinlan states to Menzies that he planted evidence on people, but they were nevertheless "guilty, guilty". Quinlan hears the feedback; Quinlan says his "game leg" informs him of Menzies' wire. Quinlan demands Vargas show himself; when he does, Quinlan shoots Menzies with Vargas' gun. Quinlan prepares to shoot Vargas, but is shot by the dying Menzies. It is revealed Sanchez has confessed and really did commit the crime. Vargas leaves town with Susie. History. There are two stories as to how Welles ended up directing "Touch of Evil". Charlton Heston recalled that Welles was originally hired to act in the film only, not to direct or write. Universal was keen to secure Heston for the lead, but he wanted the studio to confirm the director before he signed on. After learning that Welles was in the cast, Heston expressed his greater interest in starring if Welles were directing. The other story is that Welles had recently worked with producer Albert Zugsmith, known as the "King of the Bs", on a film called "Man in the Shadow" and was interested in directing something for him. Zugsmith offered him a pile of scripts, of which Welles asked for the worst to prove he could make a great film out of a bad script. At the time, the script was called "Badge of Evil", after a Whit Masterson novel on which it was based. Welles did a rewrite and took it into production. After a decade in Europe during which he completed only a few films, Welles was eager to direct for Hollywood again, so he agreed to take only an acting fee for the role of Quinlan. A number of notable actors pop up in minor roles. Dennis Weaver plays a mentally unbalanced night clerk at an isolated motel. Welles liked Weaver as Chester on TV's "Gunsmoke" and worked closely with him on his part, which was shot on a three-day hiatus from the TV show. Zsa Zsa Gabor, who appears briefly as the impresario of a strip club, was a friend of the producer. Welles's old friend Joseph Calleia portrays Quinlan's betrayed partner. Many of the actors worked for lower wages just to make a film with Welles. Marlene Dietrich's role was a surprise to the producers and they raised her fee so they could advertise her involvement. Welles' friend and Mercury Theater colleague, Joseph Cotten, appears uncredited as a police officer. Janet Leigh recalled how Welles asked for input from the actors in the cast: "It started with rehearsals. We rehearsed two weeks prior to shooting, which was unusual. We rewrote most of the dialogue, all of us, which was also unusual, and Mr. Welles always wanted our input. It was a collective effort, and there was such a surge of participation, of creativity, of energy. You could feel the pulse growing as we rehearsed. You felt you were inventing something as you went along. Mr. Welles wanted to seize every moment. He didn't want one bland moment. He made you feel you were involved in a wonderful event that was happening before your eyes." Welles wrapped production on time, delivered a rough cut to Universal, and was convinced that his Hollywood career was back on the rails. However, the film was then re-edited (and in part re-shot) by Universal International pictures. The editing process was protracted and disputed, and the version eventually released was not the film Universal or Welles had hoped for. It was released as a B-movie, the lower half of a double feature. The A-movie was "The Female Animal", starring Hedy Lamarr, produced by Albert Zugsmith and directed by Harry Keller, whom the studio had hired to direct the re-shot material in "Touch of Evil". The two films even had the same cameraman, Russell Metty. Welles's film was given little publicity despite the many stars in the cast. Though it had little commercial success in the US, (Welles himself claims the movie turned a good profit but other records dispute his claim.) it was well received in Europe, particularly by critics like future filmmaker François Truffaut. Differing versions. Three versions of the film have been released: Welles's rough cut as submitted to Universal no longer exists. That cut was worked on and trimmed down by Universal staff, and in late 1957 Universal decided to perform some reshoots. Welles claimed these were done without his knowledge, but Universal claimed that Welles ignored the studio's requests to return and undertake further work. It was at this point that Keller came aboard: some of his material was entirely new, others replaced Welles scenes. Welles screened the new cut and wrote a 58-page memo to Universal's head of production, Edward Muhl, detailing what he thought needed to be done to make the film work. However, many of his suggestions went unheeded and "Touch of Evil" was eventually released in a version running 93 minutes. In the mid-1970s, Universal discovered that it held a 108-minute print of "Touch of Evil" in its archives. Aware that there was a growing audience of cineastes with a strong interest in Welles' work, the studio released this version to cinemas in 1976 and later issued it on video, billing it as "complete, uncut and restored." In fact, this print was not a restoration at all, but a preview version which post-dated the Welles memo but pre-dated the release version. While it did feature some vital Welles scenes that Universal cut from the release version, the preview version also featured more of Keller's material than the release version. In 1998, Walter Murch, working from all available material, re-edited the film based on the Welles memo, with Bob O'Neil, Universal's director of film restoration, and Bill Varney, Universal's Vice President of Sound Operations, participating in the restoration. As Welles's rough cut no longer exists, no true "director's cut" is possible, but Murch was able to assemble a version incorporating most of the existing material, omitting some of the Keller scenes (though some were retained, either because they had replaced Welles scenes which no longer existed and were necessary to the plot, or because Welles had approved of their inclusion). In addition, some of Welles's complaints concerned subtle sound and editing choices, and Murch re-edited the material accordingly. Notable changes include the removal of the credits and music from the three-minute opening shot, crosscutting between the main story and Janet Leigh's subplot, and the removal of Harry Keller's hotel lobby scene. Rick Schmidlin produced the 1998 edit, which had a limited but successful theatrical release (again by Universal) and was subsequently made available on DVD. The DVD includes a reproduction of the 58-page memo. Originally scheduled to be premiered at the 1998 Cannes Film Festival with Janet Leigh, Walter Murch and Rick Schmidlin attending, the screening was canceled in the eleventh-hour after threats of litigation from Welles' daughter, Beatrice Welles, who has in the past issued similar threats against some parties who try to show or alter her father's work (such as the completion of Welles' last film "The Other Side of the Wind"). The reason given for the litigation was that Beatrice Welles was not consulted for the restoration. Legacy. In 1993, "Touch of Evil" was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". The film was placed #64 on American Film Institute's 100 Years, 100 Thrills. The opening scene is replicated midway through Brian De Palma's 1974 camp musical film "Phantom of the Paradise". De Palma's version involves a prop car on a theatrical stage being pushed out of the wings with a time-bomb in the trunk and an increasingly panicky blonde passenger. The novel approach here is that De Palma's take was shot in split-screen with Paul Williams's Swan character and the Phantom alternately observing the histrionics from the balcony and proscenium, respectively. The film is also jokingly referred to in the Tim Burton film "Ed Wood". In a scene near the end of the film, Ed Wood (Johnny Depp) is complaining to Orson Welles (Vincent D'Onofrio) about how producers always want the wrong actors to play certain parts in their movies. Welles says, "Tell me about it. I'm supposed to direct a thriller for Universal. They want Charlton Heston to play a Mexican!" A similar line is used in "Get Shorty", where movie fan Chili Palmer invites another character to see a screening of "Touch of Evil", saying, "You wanna go check it out? Watch Charlton Heston play a Mexican?" We later see Palmer watching the final scene of the movie, mouthing the words together with the characters on screen. Part of Mancini's score was used as the love theme between Chili and aging starlet Karen Flores, as well. "Touch of Evil" is being watched by a security guard at the beginning of "Sneakers". Vargas's comments foreshadow the final scenes of "Sneakers". In James Robert Baker's novel, "Boy Wonder", fictional movie producer Shark Trager makes it his goal to surpass "Touch of Evil"'s three minute opening tracking shot when filming a movie of his own. Tana's line, "He was some kind of a man. What does it matter what you say about people?" was also quoted extensively in the book. In the opening scenes of Jeffery Deaver's novel Manhattan Is My Beat, a character, under guard in a hotel, is watching the film. He also comments on Charlton Heston playing a Mexican.
1066396	"Dave Chappelle's Block Party, also known as Block Party", is a 2005 documentary film hosted and written by comedian Dave Chappelle, and directed by Michel Gondry. Its format is inspired by the documentary "Wattstax". The film and its soundtrack are dedicated to the memory of music producer J Dilla who died from lupus one month before the film's release. The film was officially released at the 2005 Toronto International Film Festival. The film grossed $12.1 million in the box office and debuted at #6 in its opening weekend, grossing $6 million in 1,200 theaters.
1055465	"It's a Wonderful Afterlife" is a 2010 British comedy film directed by Gurinder Chadha. The screenplay centres on an Indian mother whose obsession with marrying off her daughter leads her into the realm of serial murder. It was filmed primarily in English, with some Hindi and Punjabi dialogue. The title is a reference to Chadha's personal attachment to Frank Capra's film "It's a Wonderful Life." Chadha also co-produced the film, and co-wrote the screenplay with her husband and producing partner, Paul Mayeda Berges. The lead role is played by newcomer Goldy Notay, joining Shabana Azmi, Shaheen Khan, Sendhil Ramamurthy and Sally Hawkins in the cast. Plot. Mrs. Sethi (Shabana Azmi) is a widow living in Southall who wants to marry off her only daughter, for she is alone and unhappy. Her daughter, Roopi, (Goldy Notay) is a little plump and opinionated. Mrs. Sethi finds that all her matchmaking efforts are rudely rejected. She avenges this behaviour toward her daughter by murdering the failed dates using her culinary skills. A police hunt begins for a serial murderer using a killer curry. Mrs. Sethi does not feel guilty until the spirits of her victims come back to haunt her. They are unable to reincarnate until their murderer dies. Mrs. Sethi must kill herself to free the spirits, but vows to get her daughter married first. The spirits realise that helping Roopi find a suitable husband before the police catch Mrs. Sethi is in their best interests, and everyone begins to work together. Meanwhile, Roopi catches the eye of the young Sergeant investigating the case. Production. The film is a comedy which uses satirical and Ealing-style humour. Depicting life amongst the Asian community in Britain, it is set in the London suburb of Southall. Development. Chadha conceived the film while watching 'The 100 Greatest Family Films' on Channel 4 when narrator Bob Hoskins introduced a wedding scene from her earlier film "Bend It Like Beckham" at position 71. “It was the Indian wedding scene and the party, which was inter-cut with the football,” says Chadha, “and immediately I remembered how much fun we'd had shooting that scene. The wedding is so integral to our culture that I suddenly thought ‘How can I do another wedding scene without repeating myself?’ So I thought maybe I could do it with a horror spin, where everything goes awry. Much like the prom scene at the end of "Carrie".” Working with long-time collaborator and screenwriter Berges, Chadha spent two and half years writing the script. “I started seeing this crazy film, set in Ealing, in the world of "Bend It Like Beckham" and yet in a completely different genre,” continues Chadha. “We worked on the script, came up with the idea of the mum, the plump daughter and these spirits that return.” Starting with the working title "My Bloody Wedding", Chadha and Berges created the character of Roopi, a young British Indian woman, and Mrs Sethi, her meddling mother. “Really it's an Ealing comedy about an Indian mum who lives with her daughter. The daughter is a little bit overweight, not exactly beautiful and has a broken engagement behind her,” explained Chadha. “People in the community have been really mean about this girl and the mother has had enough. So she devises all kinds of ways of killing people off, using Indian cooking methods. And of course, being Indian, we believe in reincarnation. The people she kills come back as spirits and these spirits can’t work out why they’ve not been reincarnated.” Goldy Notay gained weight to play the role of Roopi, which she then promptly had to shed for her part in "Sex and the City 2". Funding. "It's a Wonderful Afterlife" was co-produced by the AIM-listed The Indian Film Company (TIFC) and Bend It Films in association with Viacom 18 Motion Pictures. HanWay Films is handling worldwide sales and distribution, and pitched the film as "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" meets "Shaun of the Dead". Icon Film Distribution is the UK distributor. Filming. Principal photography began in London on 28 March 2009. Most of the filming took place in the Southall area in London and at Ealing Studios. Chadha and Berges took inspiration for the horror elements from Ridley Scott’s sci-fi classic "Aliens," Brian De Palma’s adaptation of Stephen King's "Carrie", and John Landis’ 1981 horror classic "An American Werewolf in London". Several scenes required SFX to create the effect of ghosts and supernatural phenomena. Music and sound. The soundtrack features a mix of licensed tracks, remixed tracks and original compositions, including mainstream music such as disco and hip-hop with the Desi dhol and Bhangra. It includes songs by popular British-Asian and Bhangra artists such as Panjabi MC and Taz of Stereo Nation. It has 14 tracks in total, including Rahat Fateh Ali Khan, Neeraj Shridhar of Bombay Vikings, a makeover of a disco track by the Bee Gees, "Stayin Alive", re-composed by noted British-Asian DJ and music producer Bally Sagoo. Bally developed the track "Staying Alive Desified" by fusing traditional Bhangra beats with a performance from the Bee Gees tribute band Stayin' Alive UK. In a nod to the film's title, "Wonderful Life" by the British band Black features in its original form on the soundtrack. Promotional music videos feat. stereo nation are choreographed by Rohit Chawla. Reception. The film received overwhelmingly negative reviews, with "The Scotsman" calling it an "exceptionally lazy effort, which, like the similarly weak "Bride and Prejudice", is more of a pun in search of a story than an actual fully-fledged idea". "The Radio Times" suggested, "The gags are brash, the plot is messy and there's an element of mild horror (culminating in a send-up of "Carrie") that feels totally random." It was described as "the worst British film of the year" by The Express. Noyon Jyoti Parasara of AOL India stated "Every filmmaker has their bad days. And after watching ‘It's a Wonderful Afterlife’ I am confident that Gurinder Chadha is in one of hers."
581800	Milind Gunaji is an Indian actor, model, television show host, and author, most known for his roles in Marathi and Hindi cinema. He made his first film appearance in 1993's "Papeeha" and has since performed in over 60 films and acted as the host of the Zee Marathi channel travel show "Bhatkanti". Gunaji has served as the Government of Maharashtra's brand ambassador for forest and wildlife. In 2009 he was named the brand ambassador for the Novel Institute Group's NIBR College of Hotel Management. Currently Milind is seen in "Hum Ne Li Hai- Shapath" on Life OK, which airs Saturday and Sunday at 9pm. He has made a brief appearance in South Indian cinema playing important roles in movies like "Aalavandhan" (Tamil) and "Krishnam Vande Jagadgurum" (Telugu). Career. Gunaji initially began acting in the 1993 film "Papeeha" and first gained widespread notice in the 1996's "Fareb" in the role of inspector Indrajeet Saxena. The role gained him a Filmfare Award nomination for Best Performance in a Negative Role.
1039399	Ron Cook (born 1948) is an English actor who has been active in the theatre, film and television since the 1970s. He is from South Shields, County Durham, England and is a graduate of Rose Bruford College. Stage appearances. On stage, he appeared in the original 1988 production of Timberlake Wertenbaker's play "Our Country's Good". He was nominated for a Laurence Olivier Award in the category of Best Supporting Actor in 2000 for his role in "Juno and the Paycock" at the Donmar Warehouse. He also appeared in a new play by Conor McPherson, "The Seafarer", at the Royal National Theatre. In 2008-2009, he took part in the Donmar's West End season at Wyndham's Theatre, playing Sir Toby Belch in "Twelfth Night" and Polonius in "Hamlet". In 2011, he played The Fool in "King Lear" starring Derek Jacobi at the Donmar and on an 8-week tour. Television appearances. He has performed in a large number of television productions, including guest roles in episodes of series such as "The Black Adder" where he played "Sean the Irish bastard" (1983), "Bergerac" (1988), "Sharpe" (1994) and "Doctor Who": "The Idiot's Lantern" (2006). He has also had major roles in more highbrow one-off productions and serials, including several instalments of the BBC's "The Complete Dramatic Works of William Shakespeare" (1982–83), most notably as Richard, Duke of Gloucester, later Richard III of England in Jane Howell's repertory treatment of the Henry VI plays and Richard III. He appeared as one of the unnamed "mysterious men" haunting the imagination of Michael Gambon's hospitalised writer in Dennis Potter's acclaimed 1986 serial "The Singing Detective", Jack Rosenthal British television play Day To Remember and has featured in several costume dramas, including Stephen Poliakoff's "The Lost Prince" (2002, as David Lloyd George), an adaptation of "The Hound of the Baskervilles" (2002, as Barrymore), a TV adaptation of "The Other Boleyn Girl", (2003 as Thomas Cromwell), Anthony Trollope's adaptation "He Knew He Was Right" (2004, as Bozzel), and Russell T. Davies's "Casanova" (2005, as the prisoner in the cell next to Casanova's). In 2003, he played the part of captain's steward in the "Hornblower" episode, "Duty". In 2006, Cook appeared as Kenneth Williams' agent Peter Eade in the BBC biopic "". In 2003, he was honoured to be asked to portray his life-long hero, Victorian engineer Isambard Kingdom Brunel in the BBC's "Seven Wonders of the Industrial World". In 2008, he played Mr Chivery in the TV serial "Little Dorrit", based on the novel by Charles Dickens. He has also appeared in the children's TV series "Summerhill", as an inspector. He played the role of an orthodox Jewish rabbi (Noach Marowski) in a 2008 edition of "Silent Witness". He played the role of Hermann van Daan in the 2009 BBC drama, The Diary of Anne Frank, as well as the part of David Cockram in the ITV drama Whatever It Takes, aired in the same year. In late 2012 Cook played the role of Peter in the ITV series "Mrs Biggs", a retired train driver, Ronnie Biggs befriends, employed by the gang to drive the hijacked train away during the Great Train Robbery. An accountant, Mr Crabb, was acted by Cook in the 2013 series Mr Selfridge. Film appearances. He has played Napoleon Bonaparte twice, in his 1994 guest appearance in "Sharpe" and again in the 2000 feature film "Quills". Other film roles have included parts in "The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover" (1989, as Mews), "Secrets & Lies" (1996), "Topsy-Turvy" (1999, as Richard D'Oyly Carte), "Chocolat" (2000), "Charlotte Gray" (2001), "24 Hour Party People" (2002, as Derek Ryder), "Thunderbirds" (2004, as Parker), "102 Dalmatians", "Hot Fuzz" (2007, as George Merchant). Cook also appeared in "Feeling Good", a short film written by Dexter Fletcher and directed by Dalia Ibelhauptaite. Cook has also acted in radio drama. In 2007 he played the part of confidence trickster Captain Wragge in a BBC Radio 4 adaption of the Wilkie Collins novel "No Name". In July 2007, he played the part of Kris Kelvin, the protagonist psychologist on the BBC Radio 4 adaptation of "Solaris", Stanislaw Lem's novel.
432338	Sufiah Yusof (born 1984) is a British mathematics prodigy originally from Malaysia.
1725366	The Truth About Cats & Dogs is a 1996 American romantic comedy film, starring Janeane Garofalo, Uma Thurman, Ben Chaplin, and Jamie Foxx. It was directed by Michael Lehmann and written by Audrey Wells. The original music score was composed by Howard Shore. Plot summary. Abby Barnes (Garofalo) is a veterinarian and host of a radio show called "The Truth About Cats and Dogs". When she makes a blind date with Brian (Chaplin), a caller to her show, her insecurity about her appearance leads her to persuade her more conventionally attractive (though less intellectual) friend Noelle (Thurman) to pretend to be Abby on their date. Both women develop feelings for Brian, leading to a series of comic misunderstandings. Brian's persistence in pursuing Noelle in person is thwarted as Noelle tries to maneuver him toward the real Abby. After Abby behaves jealously while drunk and embarrasses herself at a photo shoot, she leaves and it appears to her that Brian and Noelle sleep together. However, Noelle actually leaves too, and Brian, distressed by Noelle's changing attitude, corners Abby in her apartment where he finds evidence of her real identity as the radio host he fell for through her voice. As Abby and Noelle attempt to explain, Brian decides he has been the victim of a practical joke and leaves in disgust. Abby later approaches Brian at his regular bar and explains what happened, and although initially dismissive, he eventually meets with Abby and he has fallen for the real Abby and was only attracted to Noelle because of their deception. He suggests they start again, and Abby happily agrees. Themes. Many movie reviewers found a similarity to the play "Cyrano de Bergerac" by Edmond Rostand, with Abby as the talented but "ugly" Cyrano, Noelle as Christian (Noel is another name for Christmas), and Brian as Roxane. Uma Thurman said about the ugly-versus-beautiful theme, "We probably keep going back to that idea because there's a whole industry that needs to sell a lot of products that wants us to think that the outside is the important part. There's a war going on. The inside's not as commercial as the outside. People are so affected by how they're received in the world, and some of all of our first experiences are based on how we're externally judged. The conflict between the inner and the outer is a constant battle everybody experiences on lots of levels." Notes. Although the film was a decent commercial success, Garofalo was not proud of the film, calling it "corny" and unrealistic. Several years later, Garofalo became a radio talk show host for real (something she'd maintained for years in interviews that she wanted to do), when she co-hosted "The Majority Report" on Air America Radio. Reception. The film received positive reviews from critics. It has an 84% "fresh" rating at Rotten Tomatoes. The reviewer for "The State Journal-Register" (of Springfield, Illinois) wrote that the film "is a modern-day fantasy, to be sure -- a movie based almost entirely on one long, not particularly credible misunderstanding. But don't think too hard, or you'll underestimate this fragile little movie's bite, which is considerable... The stubby, feisty and, of course, not at all unattractive Garofalo and gangly, not-as-dumb-as-she-seems Thuman make for very appealing odd fellows as they inhabit the sunny Santa Monica landscapes and chic apartment settings... "Cats & Dogs" gets a little goofy, but stays within its limits. For actress Garofalo, who confidently spits out words like misogynist and biosphere, it should be nothing short of a launching pad. When the skeptical, challenging Abby confronts one of those laminated, condescending, jargon-spouting cosmetics saleswomen, we see a star in the making. Holly Hunter, watch your back. And short, smart and just-regular-looking girls everywhere, rejoice." The "Boston Herald" reviewer named the film "the romantic comedy of the season." "The Fresno Bee" called it "an offbeat charmer." The "Hartford Courant" said, "This movie asks all kinds of questions about the defenses people put up and what they really have hiding inside." As many movie reviewers remarked, it is hard to believe that Garofalo is supposed to be ugly in this film, as she has rarely looked more beautiful. Box Office. The movie recouped its budget. It grossed about $34,073,143 in the United States by 11 August 1996, and a bit more overseas.
1065187	Norman Mark Reedus (born January 6, 1969) is an American actor, known for his portrayal of Murphy McManus in the 1999 film "The Boondock Saints" and its , released 10 years later. Norman also portrays Daryl Dixon in the television series "The Walking Dead" and has also directed several videos and modelled for various fashion designers. Early life and career. Reedus was born in Hollywood, Florida and raised in Los Angeles, California. He also spent some time living in Japan, the United Kingdom, and Spain. In Los Angeles, he worked at a Harley Davidson shop in Venice and contributed artwork to various shows as a painter, photographer, sculptor, and video artist. He got his first taste of acting in the play "Maps for Drowners" at the Tiffany Theater on Sunset Boulevard. He was first discovered at a party in Los Angeles where he started screaming with giant sunglasses on until someone asked if he wanted to be in a play. Film and television. His first film was in 1997 the Guillermo del Toro horror thriller film "Mimic", where he played the character Jeremy. He has also played roles in the films "Floating", "Six Ways to Sunday", "Deuces Wild", "Blade II", "Gossip", "8mm", "American Gangster", "Hero Wanted" and "Moscow Chill". In 2005 he had a bit-part in the Christian Alvart German film "Antibodies" as a German Polizist (policeman). In 2008 he starred in the film "Red Canyon". Reedus played the role of Murphy MacManus in the 1999 movie "The Boondock Saints" opposite Sean Patrick Flanery and Willem Dafoe. He also starred opposite Flanery in the sequel 2009 "". Reedus guest starred on "Charmed" as Paige's (Rose McGowan) boyfriend. In 2010, Reedus took on the role of Daryl Dixon in the AMC television series "The Walking Dead". The character was not originally in the comic book series of the same name, but was created specifically for Reedus after his audition for the character of Merle Dixon. The Walking Dead comic creator Robert Kirkman has stated he feels "absolutely blessed has honored the show with his presence, and the way he has come in and taken over that role and defined Daryl Dixon. A lot of Norman's portrayal of the character in the first season inspired all the writers to do what we did with him in the second season. We love writing him and end up doing cool stuff with him." Reedus was nominated for a Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actor for his work as Daryl Dixon in 2012. He starred in the film Hello Herman directed by Michelle Danner, which opened nationwide and On-Demand on June 7, 2013. Modeling, music videos, and art. Reedus has modeled for Prada, Alessandro Dell'Acqua, Durban, Levi's, Lexus and most recently Morgenthal Fredrics. He has appeared in nine music videos: Flat Top by Goo Goo Dolls, Cats In The Cradle by Ugly Kid Joe, "Mean To Me" by Tonic, Strange Currencies by R.E.M., Fake Plastic Trees by Radiohead, Violently Happy by Björk, "Wicked as it Seems" by Keith Richards, Gypsy Woman by Hilary Duff, and Judas by Lady Gaga (as Judas). He is also a painter, sculptor, and photographer who currently shows his artwork in galleries in New York, Berlin, and Frankfurt. He is also releasing a book for photography that is available for pre-sale and is going to be released on October 31st, 2013. Personal life. Reedus was in a long term relationship with supermodel Helena Christensen from 1998 until 2003, although the two were never married, despite rumors and misreporting to the contrary. Together they have a son, Mingus Lucien Reedus, born on October 13, 1999. Reedus and Christensen have remained friends and share joint custody of their son. In 2005, while in Berlin, Germany, Reedus was in a car accident. He had to have surgery and his left eye has a titanium eye socket and 4 screws in his nose.
1034376	Prunella Scales, CBE (born Prunella Margaret Rumney Illingworth, 22 June 1932) is an English actress best known for her role as Basil Fawlty's wife Sybil in the British comedy "Fawlty Towers" and her BAFTA award-nominated role as Queen Elizabeth II in "A Question of Attribution" ("Screen One", BBC 1991) by Alan Bennett. Early life. Scales was born in Sutton Abinger, Surrey, the daughter of Catherine (née Scales), an actress, and John Richardson Illingworth, a cotton salesman. She attended Moira House Girls School, Eastbourne. Career. Throughout her long career, Scales has often been cast in comic roles. Her early work included the second UK adaptation of "Pride and Prejudice" (1952), "Hobson's Choice" (1954) and "Room at the Top" (1959). Her career break came with the early 1960s sitcom "Marriage Lines" starring opposite Richard Briers. In addition to "Fawlty Towers", she has had roles in BBC Radio 4 sitcoms, notably "After Henry", "Smelling of Roses" and "Ladies of Letters"; on television she starred in the London Weekend Television/Channel 4 series "Mapp & Lucia" based on the novels by E. F. Benson. She played Queen Elizabeth II in Alan Bennett's "A Question of Attribution". In 1973, Scales teamed with Ronnie Barker in the (original) one-off "Meat", which aired as "One Man's Meat" as part of a series called "Seven of One", also for the BBC. Her film appearances also include "The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne" (1987), "Stiff Upper Lips" (1997), "Howards End" (1992), and BBC "Theatre Night" in Joe Orton's farce "What the Butler Saw" (1987) playing Mrs Prentice, where the cast included husband Timothy West with Dinsdale Landen and Tessa Peake-Jones, as well as a cameo in "The Boys From Brazil" (1978). For ten years, Prunella appeared with Jane Horrocks in advertisements for UK supermarket chain Tesco. In 1997, Scales starred in Chris Barfoot's science-fiction movie short "Phoenix" which was first aired in 1999 by NBC Universal's Sci Fi Channel. Scales played 'The Client', an evil government minister funding inter-genetic time travel experiments. In 2003, she appeared as Hilda, "she who must be obeyed", wife of Horace Rumpole in four BBC Radio 4 plays, with Timothy West, her real-life husband playing her fictional husband. Prunella Scales and Timothy West toured Australia at the same time in different productions. Scales appeared in a one-woman show called ""An Evening with Queen Victoria"", which also featured the tenor Ian Partridge singing songs written by Prince Albert. Also in 2003, she went to the opera and voiced the role of Magpie, the eponymous thief in a recording of Gioachino Rossini's opera semi-seria in two acts, "La gazza ladra" ("The Thieving Magpie") in which a servant girl is condemned to death for the theft of a silver spoon snatched by a magpie presumably decorating its nest to lure a mate. Scales’ part in the melodrama is tiny but delightful. She neither sang nor spoke; she merely cawed. The rarely staged opera was performed in English for the Peter Moores Foundation series of opera in English, recorded by Chandos Records Ltd., and released on a 2-disc set of CDs under the catalog number CHAN 3097(2). Numerous fine vocal soloists and the Geoffrey Mitchell Choir joined Scales and the Philharmonia Orchestra under the baton of maestro David Parry in a romp of this work of which only the overture ever appears in the concert house, the rest of the opera being largely neglected. In 2006, she appeared alongside Academy Award winners Vanessa Redgrave and Maximilian Schell in the mini-series "The Shell Seekers". On 16 November 2007, Scales appeared in "Children in Need", reprising her role as Sybil Fawlty, the new manager who wants to take over Hotel Babylon. She appeared in the audio play "The Youth of Old Age", produced in 2008 by the Wireless Theatre Company, and available to download free of charge on their website. She appeared in a production of "Carrie's War", the Nina Bawden novel, at the Apollo Theatre in 2009. John Cleese said in an 8 May 2009 interview that the role of Sybil Fawlty was originally offered to Bridget Turner, who turned down the part, claiming "it wasn't right for her". She starred in the 2011 British live-action 3D family comedy film "" as the titular character's Great Aunt Greta. Prunella Scales has a new short audio story, 'Dandruff Hits The Turtleneck', written by John Mayfield and available for download at www.audible.com. She starred in a Virgin Short "Stranger Danger" alongside Roderick Cowie. She most recently made a guest appearance in the popular BBC radio show Cabin Pressure as Wendy Crieff, the mother of Captain Martin Crieff. Other activities. Scales appeared on a Labour party political broadcast during the 2005 and 2010 UK general election campaign. She also supports the SOS Children's Villages charity. Her biography, "Prunella", written by Teresa Ransom, was published by John Murray in 2005. She is a patron of the Lace Market Theatre in Nottingham. In 2005, she named the P&O cruise ship, "Artemis". Scales is an ambassador of SOS Children's Villages, an international orphan charity providing homes and mothers for orphaned and abandoned children. She supports the charity's annual World Orphan Week campaign, which takes place each February. Prunella is married to Timothy West, and has two sons; the elder is actor and director Samuel West. She also has a stepdaughter, Juliet. She speaks French.
1059889	Edward Davis "Ed" Wood, Jr. (October 10, 1924 — December 10, 1978) was an American screenwriter, director, producer, actor, author and film editor. In the 1950s, Wood made a number of low-budget science fiction, horror and cowboy genre films, intercutting stock footage. In the 1960s and 1970s, he made sexploitation movies and wrote over 80 pulp crime, horror and sex novels. In 1980, he was posthumously awarded a Golden Turkey Award as Worst Director of All Time, renewing public interest in his work. Wood's unsuccessful career and camp approach has earned him and his films a cult following. Following the publication of Rudolph Grey's biography "Nightmare of Ecstasy: The Life and Art of Edward D. Wood, Jr." (1992), Wood's life and work have undergone a public rehabilitation of sorts, leading up to director Tim Burton's biopic of Wood's life, "Ed Wood" (1994), a critically acclaimed film which earned two Academy Awards. Early years. Wood's father, Edward Sr., worked for the U.S. Postal Service as a custodian, and his family relocated numerous times around the United States. Eventually, they settled in Poughkeepsie, New York, where Ed Wood, Jr. was born. According to Wood's second wife, Kathy O'Hara, Wood's mother Lillian would dress him in girl's clothing when he was a child because she had always wanted a daughter. For the rest of his life, Wood was a heterosexual crossdresser. During his childhood, Wood was interested in the performing arts and pulp fiction. He collected comics and pulp magazines, and adored movies, most notably Westerns and anything involving the occult. He would often skip school in favor of watching pictures at the local movie theater, where stills from the day's movie would often be thrown in the trash by theater staff, allowing Wood to salvage them to add to his extensive collection. In 1936, Wood received his first movie camera, a Kodak "Cine Special", on his 12th birthday. One of his first pieces of footage, and one that imbued him with pride, was the airship "Hindenburg" passing over the Hudson River at Poughkeepsie, shortly before its famous fiery demise at Lakehurst, New Jersey. One of Wood's first paid jobs was as a cinema usher, and he also sang and played drums in a band. He later fronted a singing quartet called "Eddie Wood's Little Splinters", having learned to play a variety of string instruments. Military service. In 1942, Wood enlisted in the United States Marine Corps, just months after the Attack on Pearl Harbor. Assigned to the 6th and 7th Defense Battalions, he reached the rank of Corporal before he was discharged. He was involved in the Battle of Tarawa, among others, and during the war, he lost his two front teeth to a Japanese soldier's rifle butt and was shot several times in the leg by a machine gunner. Wood later claimed that he feared being wounded in battle because he wore a women's bra and panties under his uniform. In 1946, Wood was discharged from the military and joined a carnival. His several missing teeth and disfigured leg (wounds suffered while in combat) combined with personal fetishes and acting skills made him a perfect candidate for the freak show. Wood played, among others, the geek and the bearded lady. As the bearded lady, he donned women's clothing and created his own prosthetic breasts by inflating his nipples with air. Carnivals would be frequently depicted in Wood's works, most notably the semi-autobiographical novel "Killer in Drag". Career. Directing and screenwriting. In 1947, Wood moved to Hollywood, California. He wrote scripts and directed television pilots, commercials and several forgotten micro-budget westerns with names such as "Crossroads of Laredo" and "Crossroad Avenger: The Legend of the Tucson Kid". In 1948, Wood wrote, produced, directed, and starred in "Casual Company", a play from his unpublished novel which was based on his service in the United States Marine Corps. It opened at the Village Playhouse to negative reviews on October 25. In 1952, Wood was introduced to actor Bela Lugosi by friend and fellow writer-producer Alex Gordon, Ed's roommate at the time, who went on to help create American International Pictures. Contrary to the Tim Burton film's events, Wood did not meet Lugosi in a coffin store, nor was Lugosi ever known to use foul language when referring to rival actor Boris Karloff. Lugosi's son, Bela Lugosi, Jr., has been among those who felt Wood exploited the senior Lugosi's stardom, taking advantage of the fading actor when he could not refuse any work, while most documents and interviews with other Wood associates in "Nightmare of Ecstasy" suggest that Wood and Lugosi were genuine friends and that Wood helped Lugosi through the worst days of his depression and addiction. Lugosi had become dependent on painkillers as a way of controlling his debilitating sciatica over the years. "Glen or Glenda". In 1953, Wood wrote and directed the exploitative semi-documentary "Glen or Glenda" (originally titled "I Changed My Sex!") with producer George Weiss, which starred Wood (under the alias "Daniel Davis"), his girlfriend Dolores Fuller and Lugosi as a god-like narrator. The film was loosely based on transsexual Christine Jorgensen. While panned by critics then and now, though many praise the camp qualities, the film is notable for having a somewhat sympathetic portrayal of LGBT related issues at a time when most media was deeply hostile, making it groundbreaking. "Jail Bait". In 1954, Wood directed and produced a crime film, "Jail Bait" (originally titled "The Hidden Face"), along with co-writer Alex Gordon, which starred Lyle Talbot and Steve Reeves. Bela Lugosi was supposed to play the lead role of the plastic surgeon, but was busy when filming started and had to bow out. "Bride of the Monster". In 1955, Wood produced and directed the horror film "Bride of the Monster" (originally titled "Bride of the Atom"), based on an original story idea by Alex Gordon which he entitled "The Atomic Monster". It starred Bela Lugosi, Swedish wrestler Tor Johnson and Loretta King. Following the making of this film, Lugosi turned himself in to the state hospital for treatment for his drug addiction. "Plan 9 from Outer Space". In 1956, Wood produced, wrote and directed the science-fiction film "Plan 9 from Outer Space" (originally titled "Grave Robbers from Outer Space"), which starred Lugosi (in his final film), Tor Johnson, Vampira (Maila Nurmi), Tom Mason (who doubled for Lugosi in several scenes) and Criswell as the narrator. The film was premiered at a small screening in 1957, and was only released theatrically in 1959. In 1961, it was sold to late night television, greatly expanding its audience. "The Violent Years". In 1956, Wood wrote and produced the exploitation film "The Violent Years" (originally titled "Teenage Girl Gang") with director William M. Morgan, starring "Playboy" model Jean Moorhead. "Night of the Ghouls". In 1958, Wood wrote, produced and directed "Night of the Ghouls" (originally titled "Revenge of the Dead"), starring Tor Johnson, Criswell, Valda Hansen and Kenne Duncan. The film was only released (marginally) in March 1959, and then promptly vanished from sight for nearly three decades, when it was resurrected on home video. "The Sinister Urge". In 1960, Wood wrote and directed the exploitation film "The Sinister Urge" (originally titled "Racket Queen"), starring Kenne Duncan, Duke Moore and Carl Anthony. Filmed in five days, this is the last mainstream film Wood directed, although it has grindhouse elements. Ironically, his career would soon spiral downward into a blur of "smut racket" nudie flicks, softcore pornography and end with X-rated novels and films. The scenes of teenagers at a pizza place were shot in 1956 for the unfinished juvenile delinquency film "Rock and Roll Hell" (a.k.a. "Hellborn"). This includes a fight scene performed by Ed Wood himself (uncredited) and Conrad Brooks. "Orgy of the Dead". In 1963, Wood wrote the screenplay for "Shotgun Wedding", an exploitation film about hillbillies marrying child brides, and Wood's transitional film, once again combining two genres, horror and grindhouse skin-flick, was 1965's "Orgy of the Dead", originally titled "Nudie Ghoulies". Wood handled various production details while Stephen C. Apostolof directed under the pseudonym A. C. Stephen. The film begins with a re-creation of the opening scene from the then-unreleased "Night of the Ghouls". Criswell, wearing one of Lugosi's old capes, rises from his coffin to deliver an introduction taken almost word-for-word from the previous film. Set in a misty graveyard, the Lord of the Dead (Criswell) and his sexy consort, the Black Ghoul (a Vampira look-alike), preside over a series of macabre performances by topless dancers from beyond the grave (recruited by Wood from local strip clubs). Together, Wood and Apostolof went on to make a string of sexploitation flims up to 1977. Wood co-wrote the screenplays and occasionally acted. "Venus Flytrap" (1970), a US/Japan horror film, was based on an unproduced Wood screenplay from the 1950s. Books and novels. Beginning in the early 1960s, Wood wrote at least eighty lurid crime and sex novels in addition to hundreds of short stories and non-fiction pieces for magazines. Titles include "Black Lace Drag" (1963) (reissued in 1965 as "Killer in Drag"), "Orgy of the Dead" (1965), "Devil Girls" (1967), "Death of a Transvestite" (1967), "The Sexecutives" (1968), "The Photographer" (1969), "Take It Out in Trade" (1970), "The Only House in Town" (1970), with Uschi Digard, "Necromania" (1971), "The Undergraduate" (1972), "A Study of Fetishes and Fantasies" (1973) and "Fugitive Girls" (1974). (In "Nightmare of Ecstasy", Maila Nurmi declined Wood's offer to do a nude scene sitting up in a coffin for "Necromania".) In 1965, Wood wrote the quasi-memoir "Hollywood Rat Race", which was eventually published in 1998. In it, Wood advises new writers to "just keep on writing. Even if your story gets worse, you'll get better", and also recounts tales of dubious authenticity, such as how he and Bela Lugosi entered the world of nightclub cabaret. In a December 2010 published article at Mondo Film & Video Guide, indie print publisher Feral House, who in the last few years had re-printed dozens of Wood's novels, ended sales on all Wood titles when Wood's estate requested a cease and desist due to uncertainty about whether Wood wrote all the novels published under his name or not. Personal life. Relationships and marriages. Wood had a long-term relationship with actress and songwriter Dolores Fuller, whom he met in late 1952. The two lived together for time and Wood cast Fuller in three of his films: "Glen or Glenda", "Jail Bait" and "Bride of the Monster". Fuller later said she initially had no idea that Wood was a crossdresser and was mortified when she saw Wood dressed as a woman in "Glen or Glenda". The couple broke up in 1955 after Wood cast another actress in the lead role of "Bride of the Monster" (Wood originally wrote the part for Fuller) and because of Wood's excessive drinking. While making "Bride of the Monster" in 1955, Wood married Norma McCarty. McCarty appeared as Edie, a stewardess in "Plan 9 from Outer Space". The marriage was later annulled when McCarty discovered that Wood was a crossdresser. Wood married his second wife, Kathy O'Hara, in 1959. They remained married until Wood's death in 1978. Cross-dressing. In Wood's 1992 biography "Nightmare of Ecstasy: The Life and Art of Edward D. Wood, Jr.", Wood's wife Kathy recalls that Wood told her his mother dressed him in girl's clothing as a child. Kathy stated that Wood's transvestism was not a sexual inclination, but rather a neomaternal comfort derived mainly from angora fabric (angora is featured in many of Wood's films, and "Ann Gora" also happened to be one of Wood's pen names) . Even in his later years, Wood was not shy about going out in public dressed in drag as Shirley, his alter ego—female character (who also appeared in many of his screenplays and stories). Later career. In 1969, Wood appeared in "Love Feast" (also known as "Pretty Models All in a Row"), the first of two films produced by a Marine buddy, Joseph F. Robertson, portraying a photographer using his position to engage in sexual antics with models. He had a smaller role in Robertson's second film, "Mrs. Stone's Thing", as a transvestite who spends his time at a party trying on lingerie in a bedroom. In 1970, Wood made his own pornographic film, "Take It Out in Trade", a softcore take on Philip Marlowe detective films, and "Necromania" the following year. In the 1970s, Wood worked with friend Stephen C. Apostolof, usually co-writing scripts, but also serving as an assistant director and associate producer. His last known on-screen appearance was in Apostolof's "Fugitive Girls" (aka "Five Loose Women"), where he played both a gas station attendant called "Pops" and a sheriff on the women's trail. Death. By 1978, Wood's depression had worsened, and with it a serious drinking problem. He and Kathy were evicted from their Hollywood apartment on Yucca Street on Thursday December 7, 1978. The couple moved into the North Hollywood apartment of their friend actor Peter Coe. Wood spent the weekend drinking vodka. Around noon on December 10, Wood felt ill and went to lie down in Coe's bedroom. He asked Kathy to bring him a drink which she refused to do. He then yelled out, "Kathy, I can't breathe!", a plea Kathy ignored as she later said she was tired of Wood bossing her around. After hearing no movement from the bedroom, Kathy sent a friend to check on Wood who discovered him dead. Wood had suffered a fatal heart attack. Kathy later said, "I still remember when I went into that room that afternoon and he was dead, his eyes were wide open. I'll never forget the look in his eyes. He clutched at the sheets. It looked like he'd seen hell." Wood was cremated, and his ashes were scattered at sea. Wood's wife Kathy died on June 26, 2006, having never remarried. Legacy. In 1986, in an essay paying homage to Wood in "Incredibly Strange Films", Jim Morton writes: "Eccentric and individualistic, Edward D. Wood, Jr. was a man born to film. Lesser men, if forced to make movies under the conditions Wood faced, would have thrown up their hands in defeat." In 1994, director Tim Burton released the biopic "Ed Wood", starring Johnny Depp in the title role and Martin Landau, who won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his portrayal of Bela Lugosi. It also won an Academy Award for Best Makeup for Rick Baker. The film received mass critical acclaim, but did poorly at the box office. It has since developed a cult following. In 1996, Reverend Steve Galindo of Seminole, Oklahoma, created a legally recognized religion with Wood as its official savior. Originally founded as a joke, the Church of Ed Wood now boasts over 3,500 baptized followers. Woodites, as Steve's followers are called, celebrate Woodmas on October 10, which is Ed's birthday. Numerous parties and concerts are held worldwide to celebrate Woodmas. On October 4–5, 2003, horror host Mr. Lobo was canonized as the "Patron Saint of late night movie hosts and insomniacs" in the Church of Ed Wood. In 1997, the University of Southern California began holding an annual "Ed Wood Film Festival", in which student teams are challenged to write, film and edit an Ed Wood-inspired short film based on a preassigned theme. Past themes have included "Rebel Without a Bra" (2004), "What's That in Your Pocket?" (2005), "Slippery When Wet" (2006). In popular culture. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, three of Wood's films ("Bride of the Monster", "The Violent Years", and "The Sinister Urge") were featured on the television series "Mystery Science Theater 3000", which gave those works wider exposure. Producers of "MST3K" considered including "Plan 9", but found it had too much dialogue for the show's format. In 1998, Wood's previously unfilmed script "I Woke Up Early the Day I Died" was finally produced, starring Billy Zane and Christina Ricci. Outside of a brief New York theatrical engagement, the film did not receive a commercial release in the United States, and was only available on video in Germany due to contractual difficulties. In 2001, horror film director and heavy metal musician Rob Zombie released "The Sinister Urge", which is named after Wood's film. In 2005, the "Plan 9" cast were lampooned in an episode of the television series, "Deadly Cinema"; the following year, clips of this episode were featured in the documentary, "Vampira: The Movie". In 2006, "MST3K" head writer and host Michael J. Nelson recorded an audio commentary track for a DVD release of a colorized version of "Plan 9 from Outer Space". In 2009, Nelson and fellow "MST3K" alums Kevin Murphy and Bill Corbett mocked "Plan 9" again in their very first "RiffTrax Live" event, coinciding with the film's 50th anniversary. In 2012, director John Johnson announced plans to film a remake of "Plan 9 From Outer Space". Lost films. Wood's 1972 film "The Undergraduate" is considered to be a lost film, along with his 1970 film "Take It Out in Trade", which exists only in outtakes without sound (released by Something Weird Video). Wood's 1971 film "Necromania" was believed lost for years until an edited version resurfaced at a yard sale in 1992, followed by a complete unedited print in 2001. A complete print of the previously lost Wood pornographic film "The Young Marrieds" was discovered in 2004.
655206	Shanna Lynn Moakler (born March 28, 1975) is an American model, actress, reality television star and a former beauty queen. She was the winner of the Miss New York USA pageant in 1995 and was originally the first runner-up at Miss USA 1995. She was later crowned Miss USA after Chelsi Smith won Miss Universe. Moakler began modeling at age 15 and was later chosen as a Playmate of the Month for "Playboy" magazine in December 2001. She hosted E!'s "Bridalplasty" during its two-month run in 2010/2011. Moakler eventually branched out into an acting career, appearing as a regular for two seasons on the USA Network television series "Pacific Blue" in 1998, and in 2005 she starred as herself on the reality television series "Meet the Barkers" with her then-husband Travis Barker, drummer in the rock band Blink-182. The series aired for two seasons on MTV. Moakler's private life has been much discussed in the media, including her relationship with rock singer Billy Idol, as well as her relationships with Olympic champion boxer Oscar de la Hoya and Hollywood actor Dennis Quaid. Currently, Moakler serves as the executive producer of the Miss Nevada USA state pageant. Early life. Moakler, who is of German, Portuguese, and Irish descent, was born to John W. Moakler III, a dentist, and Gail Moakler in Providence, Rhode Island. She has two older brothers, Kirk and John W. IV, and an older sister. As a child, Moakler enjoyed weekend visits to her grandfather's farm, where she could "play outdoors and be a tomboy." Moakler was a competitive roller skater for twelve years (participating in roller skating competitions analogous to ice skating competitions). She attended Barrington High School, where she claims to have been, "the biggest dork." According to Moakler, she was 4-foot-11 and 75 pounds until she finally hit puberty at age 17. By the time she graduated, however, Moakler had dated the captain of the football team and was voted as best dressed. She moved to Miami after high school to pursue a modeling career. Moakler later moved to New York City and then to Los Angeles. Career. Pageants. Shanna Moakler, at the age of 17, represented Rhode Island in the Miss Teen USA pageant in 1992. She placed third in the preliminaries, sixth in the interview segment, and fifth in the swimsuit competition (scoring 9.115, 9.279 and 9.087 respectively). Moakler made it to the semi-finals and finished seventh overall. In 1995, Moakler was named Miss New York USA and represented New York in the Miss USA pageant, held that year in South Padre Island, Texas. Moakler finished second (to Miss Texas USA) in the preliminaries and in each of the interview and swimsuit divisions, with scores of 9.06, 9.62 and 9.61 respectively, and first in the evening gown competition, with a score of 9.86. Overall, Moakler was the first runner-up in the Miss USA Pageant. In May 1995, at the age of 20, Moakler received the 1995 Miss USA crown when the winner, Chelsi Smith, became Miss Universe. Moakler enjoyed some aspects of her reign as Miss USA, such as celebrity pool tournaments. However, she has complained that the experience required her to "sign autographs at places like Bob’s Home Furnishing Rentals." She was also forced to live with a pageant chaperone, who made sure she dressed and acted appropriately. Moakler responded to the 2009 Miss USA gay marriage controversy by appearing in a public service announcement supporting efforts to overturn the result of California's Proposition 8. Following allegations that reigning Miss California USA Carrie Prejean had posed for risqué photos and violated terms of her contract, Donald Trump decided that there had been no breach and therefore declined to strip Prejean of her crown. Moakler then resigned as co-director for the pageant on May 13, 2009, stating "I cannot with a clear conscience move forward supporting and promoting the Miss Universe Organization when I no longer believe in it, or the contracts I signed committing myself as a youth." However, on November 13, 2009, it was announced that Moakler returned to the Miss California USA organization, around the same time Carrie Prejean was dethroned. Moakler recently posed nude for a PETA anti-fur ad campaign, and she stated that as long as she is the director of Miss Nevada, fur coats would not be given as prizes. Moakler currently can be followed on the USB Forum on Voy and posts under the handle "S_xoxo". Modeling. Moakler began her modeling career at the age of fifteen. She appeared in various publications, including such magazines as "Cosmopolitan" and "Brentwood". She signed a contract with "Playboy" and in December 2001, was named Playmate of the Month. She has admitted that posing nude was "a little scary at first." Moakler's Playmate data sheet listed her measurements as: 34" bust, 24" waist, 34" hips, tall and 117 pounds. She later appeared in a campaign for Cutty Sark that was photographed by David LaChapelle. Television. Moakler started her television career in 1996 with appearances on "" and "Due South". Moakler then played Lisa in "Friends 'Til the End", a 1997 NBC movie of the week starring Shannen Doherty. In 1998 she appeared on an episode of "Timecop" in the role of Allison Kendall. Beginning in 1998, Moakler was a regular on the television drama "Pacific Blue". The USA Network series featured a team of police officers who patrolled the beaches of Santa Monica, California on bicycles. In seasons four and five Moakler played Officer Monica Harper, described as the trouble-maker rookie. Moakler has admitted that, even equipped with a $5,000 Trek bike, she was somewhat accident-prone on the set, saying that when the cast had to "ride really close together for the camera" they would often "crash into each other like idiots and end up in a big ball of arms and legs." Moakler was a celebrity contestant on "Search Party", a game show on the E! network. The show filmed at exotic beach resort locations and required contestants to team up for competitions such as athletic events and scavenger hunts. Moakler appeared on three episodes in 1999 to 2000. In 2003, Moakler appeared on "Punk'd" to help Ashton Kutcher and his crew set up her then-boyfriend Travis Barker. They punk'd Barker by having a waiter flirt excessively with Moakler while the couple were on a romantic date at a local restaurant. The episode originally aired on November 30, 2003. In 2005, Moakler made a guest appearance as Mariska on the television program "Joey", starring Matt LeBlanc and also made an appearance as Josie on the show "Jake in Progress", featuring John Stamos. That same year, Moakler and her husband Barker starred in "Meet the Barkers", a reality series for MTV that premiered April 6, 2005. The series followed the couple throughout their daily activities. It covered the couple's wedding and their life as a family. The show continued for two seasons until February 2006. Moakler and Barker appeared together in an episode of ' entitled "Poppin' Tags", which originally aired on April 13, 2006. She played a character named J-Lady, while Barker played a rapper involved in conflict with a rival rap artist. Method Man also guest starred on the same episode. Later that year, Moakler was featured on the third season of ABC's "Dancing with the Stars", which premiered on September 12, 2006. She was eliminated in week two. She guest starred on several more shows, such as HBO's "Entourage", Telemundo's "Mas Vale Tarde" and as hostess for The CW's '. This particular show centered on mother and daughter pairs who competed for $100,000. On the 120th episode of NBC's "Minute to Win It (aka The Last Beauty Standing)" which aired just before the 2010 Miss Universe contest on August 23, 2010, Moakler was the Last Beauty Standing among 10 contestants and was the top winner with $100,000 for her charity. Film. In 1997, Moakler played Jaime in "". The following year she appeared in the role of Cheryl Tangeray in "Telling You". Moakler was then cast as an air-flight hostess during the final scene of the 1998 movie "The Wedding Singer". In 1999, she appeared as Tawny in the film "Love Stinks". She also had roles in "Critical Mass" in 2000 and "Pauly Shore Is Dead" in 2003. Other film appearances included "Seeing Other People" in 2004 as Kasey and the part of Petra in "Big Momma's House 2" which was released in 2006. She appeared as herself on VH1's "I Love the New Millennium". Relationships. Moakler had a relationship with rock star Billy Idol in 1997. The couple appeared together in a scene of "The Wedding Singer". Moakler has described Idol as a gentleman, but "not too sweet and sensitive." She also praised his intelligence and flair for history and philosophy. Moakler started dating boxer Oscar de la Hoya in October 1997 and they moved in together in early 1998. Moakler and de la Hoya became engaged prior to the 1999 birth of their daughter, Atiana Cecilia de la Hoya (born March 29, 1999). Moakler has said "it wasn’t a planned pregnancy, but it was understood if it happened it was beautiful and if it didn’t that was fine too." In September 2000, the relationship abruptly ended when Moakler, who was at home watching the Latin Grammy Awards on television, saw de la Hoya escorting another woman to the show. In December 2000, Moakler filed a $62.5 million palimony suit against her ex-fiancé, claiming he was an alcoholic, abusive to her and to their daughter, and that he used them "as props to promote his public image." The case was settled out of court in 2001 for an undisclosed amount. After the time of de la Hoya's split from Moakler, he had little contact with his daughter, although he continued to provide financial support. Moakler began dating actor Dennis Quaid in 2001. They were together when she was approached by "Playboy" and they discussed it before she posed nude in the magazine. The relationship lasted for eight months. Travis Barker. Marriage. Travis Barker, drummer for the bands Blink-182, +44, and Box Car Racer and formerly of The Transplants and The Aquabats, proposed to Moakler in the elevator entrance to the Haunted Mansion ride at Disneyland. Barker paid off one of the ride operators so that the couple could have the space to themselves for a few minutes and then got down on one knee and proposed. Moakler said yes, but she later surprised Barker with her own down-on-one-knee proposal and engagement ring for him. On October 30, 2004, they were married and have had two children together: a son Landon (born October 9, 2003) and a daughter Alabama (born December 24, 2005). Separation. Barker filed for divorce from Moakler on August 8, 2006. Moakler commented on her MySpace page, that she was devastated by the demise of her marriage. Less than a week after filing for divorce, Barker posted negative comments about his estranged wife on his MySpace page. Barker later explained that he was "still absolutely in love" with Moakler, but that he posted the blog about her after "hearing things in the press that Shanna was saying." Both Moakler and Barker quickly removed the blogs from their pages and remained relatively quiet as to their impending divorce. Eventually reports began to be circulated that Barker was seeing Paris Hilton. Tensions between Hilton and Moakler led to a confrontation at a Los Angeles nightclub (Hyde Lounge) in early October. Hilton and Moakler each accused the other of battery in separate complaints filed with the Los Angeles Police Department. Hilton claimed Moakler had punched her in the jaw and shouted at her, while Moakler said that Stavros Niarchos (Hilton's ex-boyfriend) bent her wrists, poured a drink on her and shoved her down stairs. Ultimately, no charges came out of the altercation. In November 2006, Moakler threw herself a "divorce party" in Las Vegas, complete with a divorce cake featuring a bloody groom and a blonde, knife-wielding bride. In response, Barker again posted a blog on his MySpace page, this time criticizing Moakler for throwing the party. On-again, off-again relationship. Despite Moakler and Barker's pending divorce, by early December 2006 they were seen out and about with their children and having romantic dinners together. Reports surfaced that the couple were quietly trying to give their relationship another chance, after the couple spent a day together (and were seen holding hands) at Disneyland. Moakler, on her MySpace page, denied the rumors of a reconciliation and explained that she and Barker were "working on being good friends and even better parents." Moakler and Barker spent Valentine's Day together in Las Vegas, where Barker surprised Moakler with three dozen red roses and a bottle of Dom Perignon. Photos of Moakler with Barker prompted speculation that the couple was expecting another child. Moakler denied that she was pregnant, telling a reporter that she was not expecting a child. In March 2007, Moakler revealed that she was still "madly in love" with her husband and that they had reunited. This admission came after the couple was publicly affectionate at a surprise birthday Barker threw for his wife in Miami. In April 2007, Barker told "People" that they were back together, that they had pulled out of the separation, and that they were doing what was best for themselves and their children—making them happy. The couple showed up at a party, holding hands, kissing and wearing their wedding rings. On July 23, 2007, after months of reconciliation, Moakler revealed that her relationship with Barker had ended. Less than two weeks later, on August 2, 2007, the couple were seen together at the Rockstar Energy Drink X Games Kickoff at new club Opera in Hollywood. Not long after this, both Moakler and Barker made an appearance at MTV's 2007 VMA's (Video Music Awards) on September 9. Still, Moakler's Myspace page cited her marital status as "single". The issue of the couple's status was officially put to rest on February 11, 2008, when Barker told "People" magazine "No, I'm no longer with her" over the weekend at the 5th annual Roots Jam benefiting Rock the Vote at West Hollywood's Key Club. "We were actually divorced a few days ago." However, the couple was again seen together wearing wedding bands on November 23, 2008 at a Miss California USA event. On September 19, 2008, Barker was injured when the Learjet 60 in which he was a passenger crashed outside of Columbia, South Carolina. He was transported to the Joseph M. Still Burn Center in Augusta, Georgia, where he was listed in critical condition. Shanna Moakler reported to "US Weekly" magazine that she was supposed to fly with Barker but had a "bad feeling" warning her not to. On February 5, 2009, MTV.com posted an article stating that Moakler and Barker were getting back together. Two months later, the couple confirmed that they had split again amid reports that police had been called to their home after a fight; no charges were filed against either party. References. 57. ^ http://www.missnevadausa.com/producers.html
1166163	Gillian Vigman (born January 28, 1972) is an American comic actress. Vigman is most recognizable for her role as "Jack's Wife" in many Jack in the Box commercials but is also notable for her membership in the recurring cast of comedians on sketch comedy series "MADtv". She also starred in the ABC comedy "Sons & Daughters". Vigman plays a supporting role on "The Defenders". Life and career. Vigman was born in Holmdel, New Jersey. She started her professional comedy career in Chicago working for The Second City. Prior to joining the cast of "MADtv", Vigman toured with The Second City National Touring Company in 2000, to launch its 20th anniversary S season. Vigman first appeared on "MADtv" in the eighth episode of the Eighth Season in a sketch called "The Real Bachelor." She is only the second cast member to appear in an earlier season before joining the regular recurring cast. Only Daniele Gaither, who appeared in a sketch in Season Two before joining the cast in Season Nine, has obtained such a distinction. Vigman officially joined the cast of "MADtv" in 2003, as a feature performer, for the ninth season. Vigman's tenure on "MADtv" was limited to only one season. At the end of Season Nine, in 2004, her contract was not renewed. Vigman starred in the ABC comedy "Sons & Daughters", playing the role of Liz Walker. She currently appears on the TV comedy series Suburgatory. Before starring in "Sons & Daughters", Vigman made appearances on several television shows like "I Love the '90s", "Scrubs", "World Cup Comedy" and "Cupid". Her film credits include "The 40-Year-Old Virgin", "After the Sunset", "Dragonfly" and "Love 101". In addition, she has been in various commercials, including Hanes, Jack in the Box, Chase, Swiffer, Splenda, Esurance 1-800 Contacts, DirectTV, United Airlines, Rooms to Go, Buick and recently Real California Milk. Her appearances in advertising have been collected into a long image entitled This Woman is in Every Damn Commercial.
1063176	Rachel Getting Married is a 2008 drama film directed by Jonathan Demme, and starring Anne Hathaway, Rosemarie DeWitt, Bill Irwin and Debra Winger. The film was released in the U.S. to select theaters on October 3, 2008. The film opened the 65th Venice International Film Festival. The film also opened in Canada's Toronto Film Festival on September 6, 2008. Hathaway received an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress for her performance in the film. Plot. Kym (Anne Hathaway) is released from drug rehab for a few days so she can go home to attend the wedding of her sister Rachel (Rosemarie DeWitt). At home, the atmosphere is strained between Kym and her family members as they struggle to reconcile themselves with her past and present. Kym's father (Bill Irwin) shows intense concern for her well-being and whereabouts, which Kym interprets as mistrust. She also resents her sister's choice of her best friend Emma (Anisa George), rather than Kym, to be her maid of honor. Rachel, for her part, resents the attention her sister's drug addiction is drawing away from her wedding, a resentment that comes to a head at the rehearsal dinner, where Kym, amid toasts from friends and family, takes the microphone to offer an apology for her past actions, as part of her twelve-step program. Underlying the family's dynamic is a tragedy that occurred years previously, which Kym retells at a Narcotics Anonymous meeting. As a teenager, Kym was responsible for the death of her young brother Ethan, who was left in her care one day; driving home from a nearby park, an intoxicated Kym had lost control of the car, driving over a bridge and into a lake, where her brother drowned. The day before the wedding, as Rachel, Kym, and the other bridesmaids are getting their hair done, Kym is approached by a man whom she knew from an earlier stint in rehab. He thanks her for the strength she gave him through a story about having been molested by an uncle and having cared for her sister, who was anorexic. Rachel, hearing this, storms out of the hair salon. The story, it turns out, was all a lie â an apparent attempt by Kym to evade responsibility for her addiction. The tension between the sisters comes to a head later that night at their father's house, when Kym comes home. Rachel reveals she has never forgiven Kym for their brother's death, and now makes the point that Kym's rehab has been a hoax since she has been lying about the cause of her problems. Kym finally admits responsibility for Ethan's death and reveals that she had been relapsing in order to cope. She gets into her father's car and leaves. Kym heads to the home of their mother Abby (Debra Winger), hoping to find solace with her. However, a fight breaks out between them, when Kym asks Abby why she left Ethan in her care on the night of his death despite knowing that she was often on drugs. She makes the point on how better off it would've been if she had left him in Rachel's care. Abby tells Kym she left Ethan with her because "you were good with him" and that she thinks her sister is a hypocrite for her accusations. When Kym makes it clear she thinks her mother's decision was in part responsible for Ethan's death, Abby becomes furious and punches Kym in the face. Kym hits her mother back and drives off in her father's car. While driving away, Kym begins sobbing uncontrollably because Abby has not accepted responsibility for her actions. She drives the car off the road and crashes into a boulder. Rather than summon help, she spends the night in the car while everyone at home worries about what has become of her. The next morning, the day of the wedding, Kym is spotted in the car by passing joggers, who call police. The police awaken her and give her a sobriety test, which she passes. She gets a ride home with the driver of the tow truck who is towing the wrecked car. She makes her way to Rachel's room, as Rachel prepares for the wedding. Seeing Kym's bruised face from a fight she had with their mother prompts her anger of the previous night to vanish, and Rachel tenderly bathes and dresses her sister. Amid a festive Indian theme, Rachel and her fiancee are wed. Kym is the maid of honor, and is overcome with emotion as the couple exchanges their vows. Kym tries to enjoy herself throughout the wedding reception but continues to feel out of place and is nagged by the unresolved dispute with her mother. Ultimately, her mother leaves the party early, despite Rachel's effort to bring the two together, and the gulf between Kym and Abby is left unreconciled - suggesting Abby's emotional distance and unwillingness is the root cause of the family's problems. The next morning, Kym must return to rehab. As she is leaving, Rachel runs out of the house to hug her. Production. The screenplay was written by Jenny Lumet, the daughter of director Sidney Lumet and granddaughter of Lena Horne. Lumet, a junior high school drama teacher, has written four earlier screenplays, but this was the first to be produced. The film is directed by Jonathan Demme, and was shot in Stamford, Connecticut in a naturalistic style. The working title for the film was originally "Dancing with Shiva". Sidney Lumet himself approached Demme about his daughter Jenny's script. Demme has commented that he loved Jenny's flagrant disregard for the rules of formula, her lack of concern for making her characters likable in the conventional sense, and for what he considered to be her bold approach to truth, pain, and humor. Filming took 33 days and occurred in late 2007. Cast. Casting. Demme had wanted to work with Anne Hathaway ever since he spotted her in a crowd at a screening five years earlier. He immediately took her in consideration for the lead role. Hathaway later said of her first reading Lumet's script: "I was in my old apartment in the West Village Manhattan, just pacing back and forth between the kitchen table and the couch. I somehow wound up on the floor sobbing by the last page." Rosemarie DeWitt was considered by the film's casting directors. Demme and the rest of the crew were impressed and immediately wanted her to play Rachel. Bill Irwin is a personal friend of Demme's. Tunde Adebimpe's role, Sidney, was originally offered to American film director Paul Thomas Anderson while he was working on the post-production of the movie "There Will Be Blood". Demme was concerned about Debra Winger's interest in doing the film, but he pumped up his courage to ask her because they had met several times before at the Jacob Burns Center, a film center close to their homes. Winger later accepted the role of Abby. Reception. Critical response. The film received critical acclaim and appeared on many "Best Film of 2008" lists. Michael Phillips of the "Chicago Tribune" called the film "a triumph of ambience," and that Hathaway, DeWitt, Irwin and especially Winger are working at a very high level. Roger Ebert's four-star rating added, "apart from the story, which is interesting enough, 'Rachel Getting Married' is like the theme music for an evolving new age." Other critics praised Jonathan Demme. Andrew Sarris noted in the "New York Observer" "his career of cinematic good works" and Owen Gleiberman of "Entertainment Weekly" observed "a fight scene that's as raw as Ingmar Bergman and as operatic as Mildred Pierce" . . . and "Demme's finest work since "The Silence of the Lambs". Peter Travers of "Rolling Stone" noted that "Rachel Getting Married" is "a home runâŚ goes deep into the joy and pain of being human." A.O. Scott of "The New York Times" said that the film "has an undeniable and authentic vitality, an exuberance of spirit, that feels welcome and rare". Many reviewers praised the film for its organic feel; "Salon" reviewer Stephanie Zacharek noted that "with 'Rachel Getting Married,' Demme has once again scaled back, making a picture that has some of the ease and warmth of his earlier movies, although it also feels stripped down and direct in a way that's new for Demme." "USA Today" proclaimed: "After a foray in documentary films, director Jonathan Demme has returned to narrative storytelling, assuming a decidedly cinĂŠma vĂŠritĂŠ style that has echoes of Robert Altman. The film's greatest asset is the sense of cringing realism in portraying dinner parties and interpersonal encounters that can throw family members off-kilter." The "Los Angeles Times" noted: Anne Hathaway won raves for her work as Kym. "USA Today" found her wonderful in the role and wrote "Her nervous laughter, edginess and quick temper blend convincingly with her need for attention and vulnerability." "Newsweek" commented: "Kym is a major pain in the ass, and Hathaway's raw, spiky performance makes no attempt to ingratiate. Yet she makes Kym's inner torment so palpable you can't help but feel for her, however insufferable she may be. It's a terrific performanceâŚ". "Empire" felt that "Kym is a peach of a roleâshe sleeps with the best man, fights with the maid of honor, quips, 'You're so thin, it's like you're Asian'âand Hathaway squeezes it for all the juice it's worth, making this raw-nerved, narcissistic Tasmanian Devil not just believable, but somehow likable."
1166294	June Haver (June 10, 1926 – July 4, 2005) was an American film actress. She is best remembered as a popular alternative to the musical film stars Betty Grable and Alice Faye in several musicals in the 1940s. Haver's second husband was the actor Fred MacMurray, whom she married after she retired from show business. Early life. Born June Stovenour, Haver was born in Rock Island, Illinois. She later took the last name of her stepfather Bert Haver. After the family moved to Ohio, seven-year-old Haver entered and won a contest of the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music. At age 10, she moved back to Rock Island, where she began performing for Rudy Vallee. Her mother being an actress and her father being a musician, Haver often doubted who she - careerwise - wanted to follow. At age eight, she won a film test by imitating famous actresses including Greta Garbo, Katharine Hepburn and Helen Hayes. Haver's mother, however, prohibited her daughter from becoming a child actress in the film industry, feeling she was too young. Working regularly as a band singer by her teens, she performed with the Ted Fio Rito Orchestra for $75 a week. Other bandleaders she worked for were Dick Jurgens and Freddy Martin. Furthermore, she became a well-known child star on the radio. Career. In the summer of 1942, Haver moved to Hollywood, where she finished high school. She acted in plays in her spare time and during a performance as a southern belle, she was discovered by a scout from 20th Century Fox. In 1943, Haver signed a $3,500 a week contract with the studio and made her film debut playing an uncredited role in "The Gang's All Here". She was dropped shortly after, because the studio executives felt that she looked too young, but was later re-signed, after her costume and hairstyle were changed.
520408	Marvic "Vic" Castelo Sotto (born April 28, 1954), is a Filipino actor, television show host, comedian, and film producer working for GMA Network and stars on noon-time variety show "Eat Bulaga!". He won three consecutive titles for Philippine Box Office King (2004, 2005, and 2006).
1165354	Chester Conlan Carter (born October 3, 1934) is a former film and television actor best known for the role of "Doc", featured in sixty-six episodes of the Rick Jason and Vic Morrow ABC World War II television series "Combat!" (1962–1967). In 1964, Carter was nominated for an Emmy Award for "Outstanding Performance in a Supporting Role by an Actor" on the "Combat!" episode "The Hostages". From 1960-1962, Carter appeared as C.E. Carruthers, the assistant to the attorney Abraham Lincoln Jones, portrayed by James Whitmore (1921–2009), in ABC's legal drama, "The Law and Mr. Jones".
1057870	Withnail and I is a 1987 black comedy film produced by George Harrison's HandMade Films. It was written and directed by Bruce Robinson and is based on his life in London in the late 1960s. The main plot follows two unemployed young actors, Withnail and “I” (portrayed by Richard E. Grant and Paul McGann) who live in a squalid flat in Camden Town in 1969 while waiting for their careers to take off. Needing a holiday, they obtain the key to the country cottage in the Lake District belonging to Withnail’s flamboyantly gay uncle Monty and drive there. The holiday is less recuperative than they expected. The role of Withnail was Grant's first film and launched him into a successful career. The film also featured performances by Richard Griffiths as Withnail's Uncle Monty and Ralph Brown as Danny the drug dealer. The film has tragic and comic elements (particularly farce) and is notable for its period music and many quotable lines. It has been described as "one of Britain's biggest cult films". Plot. The film depicts the lives and misadventures of two "resting" (struggling and unemployed) young actor friends in 1969 London. They are the flamboyant alcoholic Withnail and "I" (named "Marwood" in the published screenplay but not in the credits) as his more level-headed, anxiety-prone friend and the film's narrator. Withnail is filled with indignation over life's injustices, despite his privileged background. He rages against the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune all the more because he blames others for the adverse consequences of his exuberant arrogance and habitual lying. Withnail sets the tone for the friendship, with Marwood going along with whatever Withnail wants to do. They live in a filthy Georgian flat in Camden Town. While they wait for a part, daily life revolves around getting coins to use in the meters that provide gas or electricity, going to collect benefits, and waiting for the pubs to open so they can drink and be somewhere with heating. The film begins with Marwood smoking in the darkened flat. When he has finished he goes to a café and reads disturbing articles in a newspaper. Needing a change of scene, Withnail and Marwood decide to take a recuperative holiday in the countryside. Withnail secures the loan of the country cottage belonging to his eccentric gay uncle, Monty. Monty is an old boy of Harrow School, and it is suggested that Withnail is one too. Monty is told that Marwood went to "the other place". Monty is an aesthete, nostalgic for a by-gone age of beauty and poetic friendship among young men, and, fancying himself an actor, is fond of quoting Charles Baudelaire and reciting passages from "Hamlet". His only companion in the large luxurious Chelsea house in which he resides is a pet cat with which he is seen constantly arguing. Withnail and Marwood get into Marwood's battered Jaguar Mark 2, which is parked next to a scene of demolition of some old houses (significant for the time period) and set off north along the motorway. The holiday doesn't quite go according to plan: although the countryside is beautiful, the weather is cold and often inclement, the cottage is run-down and dusty, they have little food or supplies and the locals are surly and unwelcoming – in particular a threatening poacher, Jake, whom Withnail offends. Then an intruder breaks into the cottage in the middle of the night. Withnail and Marwood are terrified, believing that the intruder is Jake. Comically, the intruder turns out to be Monty, who has been stranded for "an aeon" with a punctured tyre. They greet Monty with mixed emotions. Monty brings them ample supplies of food and wine, but it soon becomes clear that – having been falsely told by Withnail that Marwood is gay – he has designs on Marwood and will not be deterred by politeness. In a farcical scene of bedroom-switching, Monty eventually corners Marwood, bursting into his room and proclaiming his desire to "have even if it must be burglary." Terrified, Marwood manages to stave off Monty's overtures with the excuse that he has a permanent relationship with Withnail that he is afraid to reveal. Monty, who believes in love and loyalty, accepts this excuse as the whole truth and apologises for coming between them. Rebuffed, Monty leaves the cottage in the night for London. The next morning, Marwood finds Monty's gracious note of apology and reads it aloud, feeling sympathy for him. Withnail, who is eagerly drinking Monty's fine wine, takes no responsibility for the chaos he has caused, and Marwood begins to distance himself from his friend. Marwood receives a telegram that confirms that he has an audition for a part, and he insists that they go back to London immediately. After Withnail (who has no driving licence and is still drunk) tries to "make time" by driving the car while Marwood sleeps, and swerving all over the road, they encounter a police van and eventually pull over for it. Withnail is arrested for driving while intoxicated, and attempts to give them someone else's urine sample from a Fairy Liquid bottle attached by a tube to his penis. The pair return to the flat, to find a man lying in their bath. Danny, who is squatting at the flat, opines that the oncoming end of the 1960s is the end of the "greatest decade in the history of mankind" and that "there are going to be a lot of refugees." The three, and Danny's friend Presuming Ed (the man in the bath), get high smoking a "Camberwell carrot" (cannabis joint). Marwood calls his agent and discovers that the production company now want him to play the lead part in the play. He gets his curly hair cut short, packs his bags, and prepares to leave for the station for what he hopes is a new and more mature phase of his life. He wants to leave by himself, but Withnail insists upon accompanying him at least part of the way, while drinking from a bottle of Monty's wine; "'53 Margaux, best of the century." Marwood leaves Withnail in the rain in Regent's Park. There, for the first time, Withnail sincerely reveals himself, declaiming "What a piece of work is a man!" from of "Hamlet" to an uncomprehending pack of wolves behind a fence in the adjoining London Zoo. Then, the camera remains still as he turns and walks further and further away into the distance, swinging the bottle, as the credits start to roll. Production. The film is an adaptation of an unpublished novel written by Robinson in late 1969. Actor friend Don Hawkins passed a copy of the manuscript to his friend, the wealthy oil heir Moderick Schreiber in 1980. Schreiber, looking to break into the movie industry, paid Robinson a few thousand pounds to adapt it into a screenplay, which Robinson did in the early 1980s. On completing the script, producer Paul Heller urged Robinson to direct it and found funding for half the film. The script was then passed to Handmade Films. After he read it, George Harrison agreed to fund the remainder of the film. Robinson's script is largely autobiographical. "Marwood" is Robinson; "Withnail" is based on Vivian MacKerrell, a friend with whom he shared a Camden house; and "Uncle Monty" is loosely based on Franco Zeffirelli from whom Robinson received unwanted amorous attentions when he was a young actor. He lived in the impoverished conditions seen in the film and wore plastic bags as Wellington boots. Robinson threw four or five years of his life into the script, condensing them into two weeks. The narrative is told in the first person by the character played by Paul McGann, named just once in passing in the film (see below) as Marwood, and only credited as "I". Early in the film, Withnail reads from an article headlined "Boy Lands Plum Role For Top Italian Director" and then goes on to imply that the director is sexually abusing the boy. This is a reference to the sexual harassment that Robinson alleges he suffered at the hands of Italian director Franco Zeffirelli when, as a young man, he won the role of Benvolio in "Romeo and Juliet". The end of the novel saw Withnail committing suicide by pouring a bottle of wine into the barrel of Monty's gun and then pulling the trigger as he drank from it. Robinson changed the ending, as he believed it was "too dark." Denis O'Brien, who oversaw the filming on behalf of HandMade Films, nearly shut the film down three days into the shoot. He thought that the film had no "discernible jokes" and was badly lit. The film cost £ 1.1 million to make. Robinson received £80,000 to direct, £30,000 of which he reinvested into the film to shoot additional scenes such as the journeys to and from Penrith, which HandMade Films would not fund. He was never reimbursed his money after the film's success. Casting. Paul McGann was Robinson's first choice for "I", but he was fired during rehearsals because Robinson decided McGann's Liverpool accent was wrong for the character. Several other actors read for the role, but McGann eventually persuaded Robinson to re-audition him, promising to affect a Home Counties accent. He quickly won back the part. Actors who were considered for the part of "Withnail" included Daniel Day-Lewis, Bill Nighy and Kenneth Branagh. Robinson claims that he told Richard E. Grant that "half of you has got to go", and put him on a diet in order to play the part although Grant denies this in the 1999 documentary "Withnail and Us". The role of Withnail was Grant's first in film and launched him into a successful career. Though playing a raging alcoholic, Grant himself is a teetotaller with a health condition preventing him from properly processing alcohol. He had therefore never been drunk prior to making the film. Robinson decided that it would be impossible for Grant to play the character without having ever experienced inebriation and a hangover, and thus "forced" the actor on a drinking binge. Grant has stated that he was "violently sick" after each drink, and found the experience on a whole deeply unpleasant. During the filming of the scene in which the lighter fluid is consumed, Robinson changed the contents of the can, which had been filled with water, to vinegar. While the vomiting is scripted, the facial expression is totally natural. Filming. The film was not shot entirely on location. There was no filming in the real Penrith, the locations used were in and around nearby Shap and Bampton. Monty's cottage, "Crow Crag", is actually Sleddale Hall, located near the Wet Sleddale Reservoir just outside Shap, although the lake that "Crow Crag" apparently overlooks is actually Haweswater Reservoir. Sleddale Hall was offered for sale in January 2009; a trust has been created by fans who wish to collectively purchase the building for its preservation as a piece of British film history. It was sold at auction for £265,000 on 16 February 2009. The starting price was £145,000. It was bought by Sebastian Hindley, who owns the Mardale Inn in the nearby village of Bampton, which did not feature in the film. Hindley was unable to raise the necessary finances and in August 2009 the property was resold for an undisclosed sum to Tim Ellis, an architect from Kent, whose original bid failed at the auction. The bridge where Withnail and Marwood go fishing is located at the bottom of the hill below Sleddale Hall, a quarter of a mile away. The telephone box where Withnail calls his agent is beside the main road in Bampton. Although exterior and ground floor interior shots of Crow Crag were shot at Sleddale Hall, Stockers Farm in Rickmansworth was used for the bedroom and stair scenes. Stockers Farm was also the location for the "Crow and Crown" pub. The "King Henry" pub and the "Penrith Tea Rooms" scenes were filmed in the Market Square in Stony Stratford, Milton Keynes at what is now the "Crown Inn" and Cox & Robinsons Chemists. "The Mother Black Cap" pub in the film was in reality the "The Frog and Firkin" pub situated in Tavistock Crescent, Westbourne Green. For some time after the film, it was officially called "The Mother Black Cap". It has since been demolished. Withnail and Marwood's flat was located at 57 Chepstow Place in Bayswater (W2). The shot of them leaving for Penrith as they turn left from the building being demolished was shot on Freston road (W11). The cafe where Marwood has breakfast at the beginning of the film is located at the corner of Ladbroke Grove and Lancaster Road. The scene where Withnail and Marwood are ordered to "get in the back of the van" was filmed on the flyover near John Aird Court, Paddington. The final scene was shot in Regents Park. Uncle Monty's Chelsea town house is actually Glebe House, Glebe Place, in Chelsea (SW3). Police Station interior was shot at the studios. "I" 's name. Although the first name of 'I' is not stated anywhere in the film, it is widely believed that it is 'Peter'. This myth arose as a result of a line of misheard dialogue. In the scene where Monty meets the two actors, Withnail asks him if he would like a drink. In his reply, Monty both accepts his offer and says "...you must tell me all the news, I haven't seen you since you finished your last film". While pouring another drink, and downing his own, Withnail replies that he has been "Rather busy uncle. TV and stuff". Then pointing at Marwood he says "He's just had an audition for rep". Some fans hear this line as ""Peter"'s had an audition for rep", although the original shooting script and all commercially published versions of the script read "he's". The "I" character's name is given as 'Marwood' in the original screenplay. It has been suggested that it is possible that 'Marwood' can be heard near the beginning of the film: As the characters escape from the Irishman in the Mother Black Cap, Withnail shouts "Get out of my way!". Some hear this line as "Out of the way, Marwood!", although the script reads simply "Get out of my way!". There is, however, one occasion in the film where the name 'Marwood' is given, though not stated. Toward the end of the film a telegram arrives at Crow Crag and as Withnail reads the note, the name 'Marwood' appears to be visible, upside-down, on the envelope. 'I' is now widely accepted as 'Marwood', as this was the name that was used in the script of 'Withnail and I', but due to the fact that the story is told from Marwood's point of view, he is considered as 'I'. In the end credits and most media relating to the film, McGann's character is referenced solely as "...& I." However, in the supplemental material packaged with the Special Edition DVD in the UK, McGann's character is referred to as Peter Marwood in the cast credits. Reception. The film had a UK gross of £565,112 and a US gross of $1,544,889. DVD and VHS sales have been quite strong throughout the years, and the film has gained cult status with a number of websites dedicated to the film itself. In 2000, readers of "Total Film" voted "Withnail and I" the third greatest comedy film of all time. In 2004 the same magazine named it the 13th greatest British film of all time. "Withnail & I" was 38th in Channel 4's 100 Greatest Films poll. The film holds a 93% "fresh" rating, and an average rating of 8.3 out of 10 from critic website Rotten Tomatoes. In August 2009 "The Observer" polled 60 eminent British film filmmakers and film critics who voted it the second best British film of the last 25 years. The film was also ranked number 118 in Empire's 500 Greatest Films of all Time list. In 2007, a digitally remastered version of the film was released by the UK Film Council. It was shown at over fifty cinemas around the UK on 11 September, as part of the final week of the BBC's "Summer of British Film" season. Legacy. There is a drinking game associated with "Withnail and I". The game consists of keeping up, drink for drink, with each alcoholic substance consumed by Withnail over the course of the film. All told, Withnail is shown drinking roughly nine and a half glasses of red wine, half a pint of cider, one shot of lighter fluid (vinegar or overproof rum are common substitutes), two and a half shots of gin, six glasses of sherry, thirteen glasses of whisky and half a pint of ale. Home media. The film has been released in several countries world wide. A Region-4 DVD was released by Umbrella Entertainment in Australia in 2009 in the form of a 2-disc special edition featuring extras including two audio commentaries and two documentaries "Withnail & Us" and "Postcards from Penrith". The film ran for 107 minutes and was a 16:9 widescreen version. The same firm released the film on Blu-ray in 2010 as well as a cheaper single-disc DVD 'Vanilla' edition (featuring the film but with no extras) in 2012. The first DVD edition of the film was a pan-and-scan version released in Canada by Seville Pictures. The film ran to 104 minutes. Although the sleeve claimed that the original cinema trailer was included as an extra, it was omitted from the disc. At the time the sleeve was printed, Seville believed they had access to the trailer but later discovered it was not in their library. The second DVD release of the film was in North America as part of the Criterion Collection. This was the first widescreen release of the film and was remastered under the supervision of the film's Director of Photography, Peter Hannan. Although widescreen, the film was actually presented letterboxed in a 4:3 raster rather than anamorphic. The first UK release was by Anchor Bay Entertainment in 2001. It included a number of extras, such as the original trailer, the Channel 4 documentary "Withnail and Us", a commentary by Paul McGann and Ralph Brown, and a new Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack. The main feature was converted from the North American release and exhibited some picture and compression artefacts as a result. Like the North American release, it was also letterboxed. This edition was later re-released by Anchor Bay in February 2007. The second UK release was a budget edition by Anchor Bay in 2005, under their Bay View label. It featured an un-remastered version of the film, identical to the original cinema release in 1987 (later editions of film had several minutes of cut footage reinstated). No extras were included. The third UK release, again from Anchor Bay, came in 2006 to coincide with the film's 20th Anniversary. For this three-disc release the film was remastered in high definition and released for the first time in anamorphic format. It included all the extra features from the first UK edition, plus an additional commentary by Bruce Robinson, a featurette on the Drinking Game, a brand new interview with Bruce Robinson and a locations featurette called "Postcards from Penrith". A bonus CD was also included, featuring all of the music specially composed for the film, because the soundtrack was no longer in print and had become rare. A DVD of the film was given away with the "Sunday Times" newspaper on 14 June 2009 to celebrate 40 years since Robinson first conceived the idea. The Blu-ray trailer was also included. One of very few releases (if not the only) of the film outside anglophone countries. The DVD features besides the original English audio track a German dubbed one (stemming from a TV screening from the mid 80s) and several extras from the UK releases, such as the audio commentary by Bruce Robinson. On 31 July 2007 Channel 4 put the entire film up online as part of their 4oD video-on-demand service. It was available to download free of charge from 4oD until 12 August 2007 after which a fee was chargeable. Soundtrack. The film also features a rare appearance of a recording by The Beatles, whose song "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" briefly plays as Marwood and Withnail return to London and find Presuming Ed in the bath. Although the surviving members of the group rarely licensed the use of their original recordings for feature films (cover versions were often substituted, as in the case of "The Royal Tenenbaums" and "I Am Sam"), George Harrison was one of the film's producers, and allowed its inclusion in "Withnail & I".
629525	Hammers Over the Anvil is a 1991 Australian drama film starring Russell Crowe and Charlotte Rampling, directed by Ann Turner. The screenplay by Peter Hepworth and Ann Turner is based on the novel by Alan Marshall. The original music score is composed by Not Drowning, Waving. Plot summary. Based on the novel of the same name by Alan Marshall, the film is set in the early 1900s in the Outback, centering around a young Alan Marshall and the people in his town. Crippled by polio, Alan tries to make sense of his place in a world where a man's physical prowess gains the admiration of women and the envy of his peers, as demonstrated by the horsebreaker East Driscoll, portrayed by Russell Crowe. Charlotte Rampling also stars as an English lady, Grace McAlister, who has moved to the area with her husband. Complications arise as an attraction develops between East and Grace and young Alan deals with the complexities of growing up. Production. The project had been around for a number of years. The script was originally written by Peter Hepworth then rewritten by Ann Turner.
1054789	Arthur Christmas is a 2011 British/American 3-D computer animated Christmas comedy film, produced by Aardman Animations and Sony Pictures Animation as their first collaborative project. The film was released on November 11, 2011, in the UK, and on November 23, 2011, in the USA. Directed by Sarah Smith, it features voices of James McAvoy, Hugh Laurie, Bill Nighy, Jim Broadbent, Imelda Staunton, Ashley Jensen, Marc Wootton, Laura Linney, Eva Longoria, Ramona Marquez and Michael Palin. Set on Christmas night, the film tells a story about the Santa Claus' clumsy son Arthur Christmas who discovers that the Santas' high-tech ship has failed to deliver one girl's present, goes on a mission to save her Christmas, accompanied only by his aging grandfather, a rebellious yet enthusiastic young Christmas Elf obsessed with wrapping gifts for children, and a team of eight strong, magical yet untrained reindeer. "Arthur Christmas" was very well received by critics, who praised its animation and humorous, smart and heart-warming story. The film was slightly less successful at the box office, earning only $147 million on a $100 million budget. Plot. Set on Christmas Eve, the film opens with hundreds of elves helming the command centre of Santa's mile-wide, ultra–high-tech sleigh-esque craft, the S-1. Santa and the elves deliver presents to every child in the world using advanced equipment and military precision. These complex operations are micromanaged by Santa's oldest son Steve and his obsequious elfin assistant Peter (among thousands of more elves) at mission control underneath the North Pole, while Steve's clumsy and panophobic younger brother Arthur answers the letters to Santa. During a delivery operation, when a child wakes up and almost sees Santa, an elf back in the S-1 inadvertently presses a button, causing a present to fall off a conveyor and go unnoticed. Having completed his 70th mission, Santa is portrayed as far past his prime and whose role in field operations now is largely symbolic. Nonetheless, he is held in high esteem, and delivers a congratulatory speech to the enraptured elves. Much to Steve's frustration, who has long anticipated succeeding his father, Santa announces he looks forward to his 71st. During their family Christmas dinner, Arthur's suggestion for the family to play a board game degenerates into a petty quarrel between Santa and Steve, while Grand-Santa, bored by retirement, resentfully criticizes their over-modernization. Distraught, the various family members leave the dinner table. When Arthur humbly compliments Steve that he believes he will be a great Santa Claus, Steve rudely dismisses Arthur's overture; later, their father shares with Mrs. Claus his grave doubts about his self-identity should he retire. Meanwhile, an elf named Bryony finds the missed present—a wrapped bicycle that has yet to be delivered—and alerts Steve and his elf-assistant to the problem. Arthur is alarmed when he recognizes the present as a gift for Gwen, a little girl whose letter he had personally replied to. Arthur alerts his father, who is at a loss as to how to handle the situation; Steve argues that one missed present out of billions is an acceptable error whose correction can wait a few days. Grand-Santa on the other hand, apparently learning of the dire situation, proposes delivering the gift using Evie, his old wooden sleigh, and the great-great-grandchildren of the original eight reindeer, forcefully whisking away a reluctant Arthur and a stowaway Bryony. They get lost, lose several of their reindeer, and land in danger several times, ultimately being mistaken for aliens and causing an international military incident. Through all this, Arthur eventually learns to his compounding disappointment that Grand-Santa's true motive is to fulfill his ego, that Steve refuses to help them out of petty resentment and possibility of his brother being made hero overshadowing his work, and that his own father has gone to bed, apparently content even though a present was not delivered.
1786878	The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes is a 1970 film directed and produced by Billy Wilder; he also shared writing credit with his longtime collaborator I. A. L. Diamond. It starred Robert Stephens as Sherlock Holmes and Colin Blakely as Dr. Watson. The film offers an affectionate, slightly parodic look at the man behind the public façade, and draws a distinction between the "real" Holmes and the character portrayed by Watson in his stories for "The Strand" magazine. The film was originally intended as a roadshow attraction, touring major cities only on its initial run. However, it was heavily edited on its original release, and significant sections of the film are now missing. Plot. The film is divided into two separate, unequal stories. In the shorter of the two, Holmes is approached by a famous Russian ballerina, Madame Petrova (Tamara Toumanova), who proposes that they conceive a child together, one who she hopes will inherit her physique and his intellect. Holmes manages to extricate himself by claiming that Watson is his lover, much to the doctor's embarrassment. (In the canonical stories, Holmes is not known to have had any relations with women, whereas Watson has, having been married.) This part of the story was clearly inspired by the meeting between playwright George Bernard Shaw and the dancer Isadora Duncan. She is reported to have said, "You are the greatest brain in the world and I have the most beautiful body, so we ought to produce the most perfect child.", to which he replied, "What if the child inherits my beauty and your brains?"
1040136	Maria Penelope Katharine Aitken (born 12 September 1945) is an English theatre director, teacher, actress and writer. Aitken was born in Dublin, the daughter of Sir William Aitken, a Conservative MP, and Penelope Aitken, whose father was John Maffey, 1st Baron Rugby. She is a great-niece of newspaper magnate and war-time minister Lord Beaverbrook. She attended Sherborne School for Girls in Dorset and St Anne's College, Oxford, where she graduated with an M.A. in English Language and Literature. She has directed several plays in the West End and on Broadway. Her production of THE 39 STEPS, which is still running in London after 5 years, played 3 years on Broadway and won Olivier and Tony Awards. In 2011 she directed Frank Langella in MAN AND BOY on Broadway. She is a Visiting Lecturer at Yale, NYU and Juilliard drama schools. Her extensive acting career includes leading roles at the Royal National Theatre, the Royal Shakespeare Company and in the West End. She has played more Noel Coward leads than any actress. She was nominated for a BAFTA award for her performance in "A Fish Called Wanda". Aitken is married to the novelist Patrick McGrath and they live together in New York and London. She is the mother of actor Jack Davenport. She is the author of A Girdle Round the Earth, a story of some of the more remarkable women travellers of the last 200 years, and Style: Acting in High Comedy, published in 1996, which contends that "High comedies are not bloodless, refined, wordy plays—their themes are sex, money and social advancement. They contain a splendid contradiction: wit and elegance at the service of man's basest drives." She has been a patron of the British Thyroid Foundation since 1992. She was appointed a Trustee of the Noel Coward Foundation in 2012.
1063831	The Matrix Reloaded is a 2003 American–Australian science fiction action film and the second installment in "The Matrix" trilogy, written and directed by The Wachowski Brothers. It premiered on May 7, 2003, in Westwood, Los Angeles, California, and went on general release by Warner Bros. in North American theaters on May 15, 2003, and around the world during the latter half of that month. It was also screened out of competition at the 2003 Cannes Film Festival. The video game "Enter the Matrix", which was released on May 15, and a collection of nine animated shorts, "The Animatrix", which was released on June 3, supported and expanded the storyline of the movie. "The Matrix Revolutions", which completes the story, was released six months after "Reloaded", in November 2003. Plot. Six months after the events of the first film, Neo and Trinity are now lovers. Morpheus receives a message from Captain Niobe of the "Logos" calling an emergency meeting of all of Zion's ships. Zion has confirmed the last transmission of the "Osiris": an army of Sentinels is tunneling towards Zion and will reach it within 72 hours. Commander Lock orders all ships to return to Zion to prepare for the onslaught. Morpheus asks a ship to remain in order to contact the Oracle, in defiance of the order. The "Caduceus" receives a message from the Oracle, and the "Nebuchadnezzar" ventures out so Neo can contact her. One of the "Caduceus" crew, Bane, encounters Agent Smith, who takes over Bane's avatar. Smith then uses this avatar to leave the Matrix, gaining control of Bane's real body. In Zion, Morpheus announces the news of the advancing machines to the people. Neo receives a message from the Oracle and returns to the Matrix to her bodyguard Seraph, who then leads them to her. After realizing that the Oracle is part of the Matrix, Neo asks how he can trust her; she replies that it is his decision. The Oracle instructs Neo to reach the Source of the Matrix by finding the Keymaker, a prisoner of the Merovingian. As the Oracle departs, Smith appears, telling Neo that after being defeated, he refused to be deleted, and is now a rogue program. He demonstrates his ability to clone himself using other people in the Matrix, including other Agents, as hosts. He then tries to absorb Neo as a host, but fails, prompting a battle between Smith's clones and Neo. Neo manages to defend himself, but is forced to retreat from the increasingly overwhelming numbers. Neo, Morpheus and Trinity visit the Merovingian and ask for the Keymaker, but the Merovingian refuses. His wife Persephone, tired of her husband's pompous attitude and infidelity, betrays him and leads the trio to the Keymaker. The Merovingian soon arrives with his men. Morpheus, Trinity and the Keymaker escape, while Neo holds off the Merovingian's servants. Morpheus and Trinity try to escape with the Keymaker on the highway, facing several Agents and The Twins. Morpheus defeats The Twins; Trinity escapes, and Neo flies in to save Morpheus and the Keymaker. In the real world, Zion's remaining ships prepare to battle the machines. Within the Matrix, the crews of the "Nebuchadnezzar", "Vigilant" and "Logos" help the Keymaker and Neo reach the door to the Source.
1060837	Logan Wade Lerman (born January 19, 1992) is an American actor, known for playing the title role in the fantasy-adventure "Percy Jackson" films. He appeared in commercials in the mid-1990s, before starring in the series "Jack & Bobby" (2004–2005) and the movies "The Butterfly Effect" (2004) and "Hoot" (2006). Lerman gained further recognition for his roles in the western "", the thriller "The Number 23", the comedy "Meet Bill", and 2009's "Gamer" and "My One and Only". He played d'Artagnan in 2011's "The Three Musketeers", starred in the teen drama "The Perks of Being a Wallflower" (2012), and will co-star in the 2014 films "Noah" and "Fury". Family background and early life. Lerman was born in Beverly Hills, California. His mother, Lisa (née Goldman), works as his manager, and his father, Larry Lerman, is a businessman and orthotist. He has two siblings, Lindsey and Lucas, both older. Logan is Jewish. His grandparents were born in four different countries. Logan's paternal grandfather, Max Lerman, was born in Berlin, Germany, in 1927, to a Polish Jewish family; they left Germany in the 1930s, because of the Nazi regime, and had lived in Shanghai, China until the end of World War II. Logan's paternal grandmother, Mina (Schwartz), was born in Mexico City, Mexico, to Russian Jewish parents. Logan's maternal grandfather was a Polish Jewish immigrant, and Logan's maternal grandmother was born in Los Angeles, also to a Jewish immigrant family. On his mother's side, he is a relative of twin singers Evan and Jaron Lowenstein. Lerman has stated that he is a "black sheep" in his household because he is an actor, while most of his relatives work in the medical profession. His family owns and operates the orthotics and prosthetics company "Lerman & Son", which had been founded by his great-grandfather, Jacob Lerman, in 1915. Lerman is a self-described "film geek", and has said that he is "shaped by movies", and that he is a "creative person". He has expressed an interest in being involved in "everything that goes into making a film", including wanting to write, produce, and direct. His favorite directors include Paul Thomas Anderson, Stanley Kubrick, David Fincher and Peter Bogdanovich, and he has cited "American Beauty", "Defending Your Life" and "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" as being among his favorite films. Lerman has described himself as "reserved and quiet", "a homebody", and "not a big fan of sports". He graduated from Beverly Hills High School. In 2010, he applied to study creative writing at New York University, but has postponed his attendance. Acting career. Early work. Lerman had a passion for movies from a young age, though he started acting "just for fun" and "to do something to get out of school". He began auditioning for roles in the late 1990s, and first appeared in commercials. He made his film debut in 2000's "The Patriot", playing William Martin, one of the children of Mel Gibson's character. The same year, he appeared in another Mel Gibson film, "What Women Want", playing Gibson's character as a child. In 2001's "Riding in Cars with Boys", he played the son of Drew Barrymore's character. Lerman has stated that while appearing in his earliest roles as a child, he did not have "any conscious awareness of what I was doing or what was going on" and "didn’t have a good experience". In 2003, Lerman played nine-year-old Luke Chandler in the CBS made-for-television film "A Painted House", based on the early life of author John Grisham and set in Black Oak, Arkansas in the early 1950s. "A Painted House" was filmed in Lepanto and Clarksdale, Mississippi, in 2002. A review in the "Boston Globe" described Lerman as a "promising newcomer", with the "Telegraph-Herald" commenting on the character having been "quietly and effectively played". For the role, he was nominated for the Young Artist Award for Best Performance by a Leading Young Actor in a television production, and tied with Calum Worthy for the win. He next appeared in the 2004 thriller film "The Butterfly Effect", portraying a seven year-old version of Ashton Kutcher's character, Evan Treborn. digitallyOBSESSED's reviewer described Lerman as "definitely a child actor to watch". Lerman had quit acting for a "year or so" in the early 2000s, when he was ten. He made a "conscious decision" to embrace acting as a profession when he was twelve, having developed an interest in the film making process. In 2004, he was cast in the television series "Jack & Bobby", playing one of the title roles, Robert "Bobby" McCallister, a 12 year-old "extremely bright social misfit" in Missouri who was destined to become President of the United States as an adult. The show ran on The WB Television Network during the 2004–2005 season, receiving some positive positive reviews but low ratings, and was subsequently canceled. Lerman was nominated for another Young Artist Award for his performance, tying with Jack DeSena for the win. Lerman has stated that he "started taking things seriously" about his career after appearing on the show. The "Boston Herald"s reviewer mentioned that Lerman's performance had a "blend of vulnerability and strength," while "Entertainment Weekly"'s reviewer had noted that "Lerman lends Bobby a bedraggled optimism". Continuing his film work, Lerman had his first starring role in a motion picture, playing Roy Eberhardt in the children's adventure "Hoot"; his character moves to Florida from Montana and attempts to save endangered burrowing owls. Lerman stated that the film's message is "that you can be any age and make a difference". "Hoot" began filming in July 2005 in South Florida, opened on May 5, 2006, and won him a third Young Artist Award, this time for Best Performance in a Feature Film - Leading Young Actor (2007). The Washington Post's reviewer commented that "Lerman shows some life as Roy", though his role was "an anomaly in a sea of insipidity", while the "San Francisco Chronicle"'s reviewer disliked Lerman's performance. In 2007, Lerman appeared in the thriller "The Number 23", in which he played the son of Robin Sparrow (Jim Carrey), a man who becomes obsessed with conspiracy theories. That year, he also appeared in the critically acclaimed western remake "", playing William Evans, a teenager who looks up to criminal Ben Wade (Russell Crowe) while shunning his father (Christian Bale's character); Lerman's character did not exist in the original version of the story. Lerman received positive reviews for his work, and was again nominated for the Young Artist Award - Best Performance in a Feature Film - Leading Young Actor (2008). It was the second consecutive year he received a nomination in that category, although this time he did not win. "USA Today" stated that he was among the film's "best supporting players", while "Rolling Stone" gave Lerman a "shout-out" and "Newsday" stated that he delivers a "credibly explicit note". In 2008, Lerman co-starred in the comedy "Meet Bill", as a teenager mentored by Bill (Aaron Eckhart). "Meet Bill" was filmed in 2006, premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2007, and received a theatrical release on April 4, 2008. Hollywood.com stated that, though the film was uneven, Lerman "displays a supreme confidence". In 2009, he appeared in the science fiction film "Gamer", as Simon, a teenage gamer who controls one of the characters in a video game played with live human subjects ("Gamer" was filmed in November 2007). Also that year, Lerman had a leading role in the Renée Zellweger comedy feature "My One and Only", playing a teenage character based on actor George Hamilton - depicted as an aspiring writer who, after his parents split, accompanies his mother and brother on a cross-country trip, eventually arriving in Hollywood. Bloomberg's reviewer described Lerman as appealing, with the "Los Angeles Times"' Betsy Sharkey stating that the character "captures the ease with which an angry teen will use a growing vocabulary to wound a parent". "Percy Jackson"–present. In spring 2009, Lerman was cast in the lead role, Percy Jackson, in the film '. The movie was filmed in 2009 in Vancouver, British Columbia, and was released in February 2010. Lerman has stated that he was not familiar with the book series when he received the script. During his teenage years, Lerman and his family had viewed his acting work as just a "hobby" before college; his parents had only become more comfortable with acting as a career in 2010, the year of "Percy Jacksons release. In August 2010, Lerman appeared in "Change the Odds", a public service announcement video for the Stand Up to Cancer charity; the video also featured Dakota Fanning, Zac Efron, Andrew Garfield and other actors. Lerman's next role was d'Artagnan, in director Paul W. S. Anderson's 3D film version of "The Three Musketeers", which was released in the U.S. on October 21, 2011. Lerman was cast in the role without having to audition. He took the part because "The Three Musketeers" was one of the only books his paternal grandfather had taken with him when he "had to leave his home... as a young kid", in the 1930s. Lerman trained in sword fighting for three months and wore hair extensions to portray d'Artagnan, whom he has described as "the most different character to me that I've ever played". The film received negative reviews, with Michael Phillips of the "Chicago Tribune" writing that "Lerman already has done solid work... but he's a blank slate here". Lerman starred in a film adaptation of Stephen Chbosky's novel "The Perks of Being a Wallflower", playing the lead role, Charlie; filming took place in 2011, and the movie was released in September 2012. Lerman has described the film as a "life epic", and stated that he had been "torturing for... a few months in order to get inside Charlie's head". The movie received positive reviews, as did Lerman's performance. Leonard Maltin wrote that Lerman and his co-stars are "soulful", and "lift this film above the norm for coming-of-age stories", while Christy Lemire of the Associated Press wrote that, by the film's end, Lerman "bust[s out, showsome range and reveal[s he can really, truly act". For his performance, Lerman was nominated for several awards, including Best Young Actor/Actress by the Broadcast Film Critics Association, and won a Teen Choice Award for Choice Movie Actor: Drama. Lerman played Lou in the independent drama film "Stuck in Love", starring alongside Lily Collins; the film received a limited U.S. release in 2013. Lerman had initially been signed to appear in three "Percy Jackson" films. The second film in the series, subtitled "", was filmed in 2012 and 2013, and released in August 2013. Lerman will play Ham, the son of prophet Noah, in the Biblical epic "Noah", directed by Darren Aronofsky. Filming took place in 2012, in New York and Iceland, and "Noah" has a release set for March 28, 2014. Lerman will also co-star with Brad Pitt and Shia LaBeouf in David Ayer's World War II-set film, "Fury"; in "Fury", Lerman's character is an American soldier fighting Nazi forces. Filming began in September 2013, for a November 2014 release date. Lerman is represented by the Creative Artists Agency. Other work. Lerman is a friend of actor Dean Collins, who played his best friend on "Jack & Bobby"; they remained close after the series' cancellation, and worked together again on "Hoot", where Collins had a supporting role. In their spare time, the two collaborated on comedic short films. As well as acting, they wrote, directed, and shot the videos, often enlisting the help of family and friends. The shorts were uploaded to YouTube under the joint account name of "monkeynuts1069". In 2006, Dean Collins and Lerman formed a band, Indigo, along with musician Daniel Pashman; Collins sang lead vocals, Lerman played keyboard and guitar, and Pashman played the drums. In 2011, Lerman stated that Indigo is "not a serious band right now", and that music is his biggest passion after film. He plays the piano and is a fan of movie music compositions. Lerman also writes and creates loglines for stories. "BlackBook" magazine wrote that Lerman "aspires to be the head of a studio one day".
586830	Tejaswini Kolhapure is an Indian film actress, daughter of renowned classic singer Pandharinath Kolhapure, and the sister of popular Bollywood actress Padmini Kolhapure. She is married to Pankaj Saraswat (director, writer, actor, and producer) famous for directing "The Great Indian Laughter Challenge" on Star. Career. She started her career as a ramp model and went about doing more than 210 fashion shows in a career spanning over 10 years with top designers, such as Rohit Bal, Rina Dhaka, Tarun Tahiliani, JJ Vallaya, Hemant Trivedi, and Manish Malhotra. Besides doing fashion shows, Tejaswini has worked in ad films, such as "Vimal Sarees", "HMT Watches", and "Sony Television".
586908	Kushal Punjabi is an Indian film and television actor, who won the TV reality game show, "", the Indian version of internationally popular "Wipeout" in February 2011, taking home the prize of 5 million. A true artist in all spectrums of performance – Kushal Punjabi has explored and toured the world of entertainment industry for over a decade with utmost poise and exuberance.
583689	Minsara Kanavu (Tamil:மின்சார கனவு; "Electrifying Dreams") is a 1997 Tamil romance film written and directed by Rajiv Menon. The film features Arvind Swamy, Prabhu Deva and Kajol in the lead roles, with Girish Karnad, S. P. Balasubrahmanyam, V. K. Ramasamy and Nassar in other pivotal roles. The soundtrack and background score for the film was composed by A. R. Rahman, while Venu handled the cinematography. The film was shot in Lawrence School, Lovedale Ooty, St. Andrews Church and Apollo Hospitals in Chennai. Kajol plays a young woman who wishes to become a nun, whilst at the same time being torn between two competing suitors, played by the two lead actors. The film opened in January 1997 to positive review from film critics and performed very well at the box office. The film garnered four National Film Awards, three Tamil Nadu State Film Awards and a Filmfare Award. Plot. Priya Amal Raj (Kajol) loses her mother at a very young age. She is friendly, outspoken, sensitive, yet precocious. Priya is brought up by her dad, Amal Raj (Girish Karnad) who is a clothing industrialist. Since her childhood, Priya is interested in singing, music and church. Thomas Thanga Durai (Arvind Swamy), a polite, well mannered NRI business man, returns to India from America to look after his father's James Thanga Durai's (S. P. Balasubrahmanyam) business. Thanga Durai is a former associate in Amal Raj's business, and now establishes his own business empire in the same vicinity, opposite to Amal Raj's factory. He boasts of his sons achievements. However, Amal Raj dislikes Thanga Durai's ill mannered, clumsy and bizarre antics though Thomas and Priya have known each other in their child hood. Thomas, happens to meet Priya at her school when he goes to a woman's hostel to see his aunt, mother superior (Arundhati Nag) a nun in that school church. Thomas takes Priya's help in surprising his aunt with a gift on her birthday. In the process, Thomas falls in love with priya but is unable to confess his love for her. Priya has been brought up in a convent school and wants to become a nun, much to the horror of Thomas and Priyas father. Mean while, Amal Raj tries to pull Priya into wedlock through setting up match making with some suitors like Jaipal (Prakash Raj), David etc, but he fails to fix an alliance for his daughter. In the midst of this, Thomas's friend Shiva takes him to hairstylist Deva (Prabhu Deva) who is notorious at changing women's minds. Deva befriends Priya to change her mind about being a nun. At one instance, Priya performs singing at a Gala along with Deva's troupe, which puts the troupe into the limelight of a recording theatre owner. Deva requests Priya to join his aspiring music troop as a singer and help them achieve the group's aspiration for a film audition and Priya agrees to it. Deva with his musical troupe (Nassar and his group) play tricks to make Priya fall in love with Thomas, but fails to turn Priya's mind towards Thomas. Instead, Deva himself falls in love with Priya and she reciprocates. Complications arise when Priya falls in love with Deva instead, and at the same juncture, Thomas confesses his love to Priya and reveals the shocking truth behind Deva's association with Priya. Torn between the two men, a broken-hearted Priya decides to vow for Nun trainee and fails to fulfill her promise for the group's music audition. Thomas realises this at the end and sacrifices his love. Thomas and his Aunt convince Priya out of celibacy and marry Deva. Thomas becomes a priest as he naturally leads a life of service to the poor, sacrifice and mental chastity. Production. AVM Productions wanted to make a film to commemorate its 50th anniversary in 1997 and signed on Prabhu Deva to play a lead role and A. R. Rahman to score the music for this unplanned project, but Rahman was initially reluctant as he had scored music for three of Prabhu Deva's films in the recent past. The producers revealed that they were looking for a new director and Rahman suggested the name of cinematographer, Rajiv Menon to make his directorial debut, after the pair had previously collaborated in jingles for many ad films. Menon thought about the offer for two months and was ultimately convinced by Rahman and Mani Ratnam, who he had been working with in "Bombay" (1995), to sign the project. Arvind Swamy was then signed up for a role as was Hindi actress Kajol, to make her debut in Tamil films. Kajol revealed that she found dancing alongside Prabhu Deva difficult and took up to twenty retakes and thirty rehearsals for a particular song. Nassar, often seen in intense roles, was signed to play a bubbly character in the film and described the shoot as a "delightful experience". Veteran actors Girish Karnad and V. K. Ramasamy were also added to the cast as was singer S. P. Balasubrahmanyam, who had previously appeared in father roles in "Kaadhalan" and "Kadhal Desam". Actress Arundhati Nag and Prakash Raj also formed part of the cast, while then-assistant director Gautham Menon appears in a cameo role. It was dubbed in Telugu as Merupu Kalalu. The film was shot in 1996 with two songs and the climax being shot at Lawrence School Chapel, Lovedale. Prabhu Deva suffered a throat infection during post-production works and Vikram, then a struggling actor, dubbed for his character while Revathi dubbed for the non-Tamil speaking Kajol. Release. The film was released on 14 January 1997 coinciding with the Tamil festival of Thai Pongal alongside Mani Ratnam's political drama film "Iruvar", and though both films initially opened to a lukewarm response, "Minsara Kanavu" eventually emerged triumphant at the Tamil Nadu box office, and a dubbed Telugu version (Merupu Kalalu) had a good opening in Andhra Pradesh. After audiences were initially unhappy with the sad climax of the film, distributors reverted and used an alternate ending which had also been shot for the film. A critic from Indolink.com gave the film a positive review, stating that ""Minsara Kanavu" is again a triangular love story with a little difference. It has good entertainment value, awesome cinematography and execellent songs and choreographed dances." The film was dubbed and released by ABC Films on 26 October 1997 in Hindi as "Sapnay" to capitulate on Kajol's popularity in Northern India, earning above average reviews from critics. However the version failed commercially with reports suggesting that "bad dubbing" was the reason of failure and Rajiv Menon subsequently opted against dubbing his next film, "Kandukondain Kandukondain" (2000) in Hindi. "Minsara Kanavu" went on to win four National Film Awards, three Tamil Nadu State Film Awards and a Filmfare Award mostly for the film's soundtrack. The soundtrack earned A. R. Rahman the National Film Award for Best Music Direction for the second time, while he also secured his fourth Tamil Nadu State Award and his sixth consecutive Filmfare Award for his work. K. S. Chitra and S. P. Balasubrahmanyam won the National Film Award for Best Female Playback Singer and Best Male Playback Singer for the tracks "Ooh La La La" and "Thanga Thamarai" respectively. Sujatha and Unni Menon won the Tamil Nadu State Film Award for Best Female Playback and Best Male Playback for two different tracks, "Poo Pookkum Oosai" and "Ooh La La La" respectively. Meanwhile Prabhu Deva won the National Film Award for Best Choreography for his work in the song, "Vennilave". Awards. 1996 National Film Awards (India) 1996 Tamil Nadu State Film Awards 1996 Filmfare Awards South Soundtrack. The soundtrack features 6 songs composed by A. R. Rahman, with lyrics by Vairamuthu. The Hindi version of the soundtrack was titled "Sapnay" and had lyrics penned by Javed Akhtar, with a new song titled "Teri Meri Baat" was added to this version. The song "Ooh La La La" was re-edited by A. R. Rahman and featured on the hit international musical production "Bombay Dreams", which ran in Europe and North America from 2002 to 2005. The track "Vennilavae (Part 2)" was a sad version of the song "Vennilave" and was sung by Shankar Mahadevan and Kavita Paudwal and this track was featured in the movie only. S. P. Balasubrahmanyam recalls the recording session of "Thanga Thamarai", mentioning that "it required a tone that reflected the feelings of someone totally smitten and intoxicated by love. The character singing the song in the film is on a high after finding his girl. I only tried my best to imitate Rahman, who sang it for me. The imitation fetched me a national award." Playback singer Kay Kay was introduced by Rahman through the song "Strawberry Kannae".
583354	Padmashree Laloo Prasad Yadav is a Bollywood Comedy film directed and starring by Mahesh Manjrekar. The film also stars Sunil Shetty and Johnny Lever in important supporting roles. The title, which comprises the names of the four lead characters, is meant to be a pun on Laloo Prasad Yadav, an Indian Politician.Its an Unofficial copy of the 1988 Hollywood movie A Fish Called Wanda. Synopsis. Its an Unofficial copy of the 1988 Hollywood movie A Fish Called Wanda.Laloo (Suniel Shetty) suffers from 'shesightophrenia', a psychological disorder wherein he goes out of control when he sees a good-looking girl. Laloo is a playboy - he can't keep his pants up, and just in case they are, he can't keep the zipper closed that's what he is by nature. Padma (Masumeh Makhija), his girl friend, is quite fed up of his regular cheating on her. After one such incident she takes a flight to Cape Town to recover some jewels, which are rightfully hers, since her father's partner wrongfully stole them. Padma lands in Cape Town to discover Laloo already there to receive her-after endless bouts of asking for her forgiveness. Laloo is finally pardoned for the nth time. Laloo tries to help out Padma in her mission but ends up messing things miserably. To get out of the mess Laloo takes help of a local thug in Cape Town called Johnny, a club owner, and his sidekick called Yadav (Johnny Lever) who help them to rob the bank where the jewels are. The four rob the bank, recover the stolen jewels and split outside the bank. While escaping from the bank, Yadav nearly runs over an old lady (Shashikala) with three dogs who becomes a witness to the robbery. Now that the jewels are out from the bank, Padma has no qualms about giving a 'neat boot' to the three. And the game of double cross starts! Padma calls the cops and informs them of Johnny having robbed the bank. The cops pick up Johnny. But Johny has shifted the booty somewhere else! Padma now switches her charms on Prasad (Mahesh Manjrekar), the lawyer who is fighting for Johnny. She plays love games with Prasad in trying to extract the information out of him as to where the jewels have been hidden by Johnny. Laloo gets jealous of Prasad and wants to teach him a lesson. But he has not reckoned with Yadav who is also a victim of Padma's charm! So if Laloo has to get even with Padma, it's going to be only over Yadav's dead body. So the game of one-upmanship keeps happening, till finally the jewels do land in Padma's lap - but she has three men now who love her dearly - Laloo, Prasad and Yadav. And two of them have to lose out to the third!! Guess as to, who will be nursing broken hearts?
146725	Richard Jude Ciccolella (born November 30, 1947), better known as Jude Ciccolella, is an American character actor. Biography. Ciccolella graduated from Brown University, class of 1969 where he acted in student productions. He studied at Temple University with a Master of Fine Arts degree in theatre. His film roles include parts in "The Shawshank Redemption" as Mert, "Boys on the Side" as Jerry, "Night Falls on Manhattan" as Lieutenant Wilson, "Star Trek Nemesis" as Romulan Commander Suran, "Down With Love" as the private eye, "The Terminal" as Karl Iverson, the 2004 Director's Cut DVD of "Daredevil", the 2004 remake of "The Manchurian Candidate" as David Donovan, and the 2005 "Sin City" movie adaptation as Liebowitz. After guest starring roles in "Law & Order", "NYPD Blue", "" and "ER", Ciccolella took a recurring guest role on "24". During the show's first and second seasons (2001–2003), he played Mike Novick, Chief of Staff to President David Palmer (Dennis Haysbert). He has also guest starred as Principal Raymond on "Everybody Hates Chris"; however, he was replaced upon reprising his role as Mike Novick in the last eight episodes of Season 4 of "24". He appeared in the 1992 James Foley and David Mamet film "Glengarry Glen Ross" as the Detective. He appeared in the scene where Al Pacino was having an argument with Kevin Spacey about the "six-thousand dollars" owed to him. Ciccolella was also seen in the episode of Nickelodeon's "The Adventures of Pete & Pete" titled "Tool and Die," where he plays the shop class teacher Mr Slurm, whose missing left hand stirred nothing but hearsay and rumors. Mr. Ciccolella did not reprise his role as Mr. Slurm in the season 3 episode, "Road Warrior." In "24's" fourth season (2005), Ciccolella returned for the last 8 episodes. Mike had become an advisor to Acting President Charles Logan (Gregory Itzin), who had taken over after the downing of Air Force One critically injured President John Keeler (Geoff Pierson). He had continued this role in the show's fifth season (2006). However, he did not appear in the sixth season. In 2007, he guest-starred on NBC freshman drama "Life". He also appeared in the 2007 film, "The Wager". In 2008, he portrayed Phillip Davenport, a fictional Secretary of the Navy on the 6th season of the CBS show "NCIS". Two years later, he appeared one more time for the last episode of the 8th season. In the "Supporting Players" featurette on the "24" season 5 DVD, actress Jean Smart reveals that Ciccolella is a folk singer.
1105141	Successive parabolic interpolation is a technique for finding the extremum (minimum or maximum) of a continuous unimodal function by successively fitting parabolas (polynomials of degree two) to the function at three unique points, and at each iteration replacing the "oldest" point with the extremum of the fitted parabola.
583826	Samiksha Jug (Born October 8) is an Indian actress, mostly appearing in Telugu and Tamil films. Early life. Born in Rajpura near Chandigarh, Sameksha is an Electronic Engineer and she made her debut in movies with Telugu film 143 directed by one of the top notch Telugu movie directors, Puri Jaggannath. Sameksha came into spotlight after her first film in Tamil Arinthum Ariyamalum by renowned Tamil film director Vishnu Vardhan, which was a block buster hit. Samiksha won several awards for the movie Arinthum Ariyalmalum including the award for the best Debut Actress in Tamil industry. After making her debut in Tamil and Telugu movies she finished more than 15 movies in Tamil and Telugu. Career. Her first film 143 in Telugu did not perform particularly well. Her first film in Tamil "Arinthum Ariyamalum" was popular in Tamil where she starred opposite Navdeep and Arya. Her next release was "Mercury Pookkal" opposite Srikanth and Meera Jasmine. She then starred in the film, "Manathodu Mazhaikalam", opposite Shaam. She was also on the show "Zaara Pyaar Ki Saugat" which was airing on the channel Sahara One. She appeared as a model for univercell mobile. She appeared as a model for many print commercials for reputed brands like Kit-Kat, Monte Carlo, American Express Card, Amway, World Gold Council, Mother Dairy, Havell’s switch and T.V commercial’s like Johnson baby prickly heat powder, Hyundai Xing, Sunsilk and Metro tyres, Univercell mobile. Samiksha made her debut in small screen with the T.V soap Zaara where she played the lead role as Sonia Kapoor on Sahara One. Samiksha was also seen playing the role of Nilanjana Roy in the popular daily soap Yahan Main Ghar Ghar Kheli on Zee TV. She also played the role of the much loved dead wife of the male protogonist ACP Arjun Suryakanth Raute(Shaleen Malhotra), Roshni in Action crime series Arjun (TV series) airing on Star Plus.
1058808	Clerks, sometimes known as Clerks., is a 1994 American black-and-white comedy film written and directed by Kevin Smith, who also appears in the film as Silent Bob. Starring Brian O'Halloran as Dante Hicks and Jeff Anderson as Randal Graves, it presents a day in the lives of two store clerks and their acquaintances. Shot entirely in black and white, "Clerks" is the first of Smith's View Askewniverse films, and introduces several recurring characters, notably Jay and Silent Bob. "Clerks" was shot for $27,575 in the convenience and video stores where director Kevin Smith worked in real life. Upon its theatrical release, the film grossed over $3 million in theaters, launching Smith's career. Plot. Dante Hicks, a 22-year-old retail clerk at a local Quick Stop convenience store in Leonardo, New Jersey, is called into work on his day off by his boss to cover a few hours for another employee who is sick. Arriving at the store, he finds that the locks to the security shutters are jammed closed with chewing gum, so he hangs a sheet over them with a message written in shoe polish: "I ASSURE YOU; WE'RE OPEN." Dante's day is spent in the purgatory of serving a succession of customers while bemoaning the fact that he is "not even supposed to be here today." Interspersed with the demands of his job, Dante passes time in wide-ranging conversations with his friend, Randal Graves. Randal works at the neighboring video store, RST Video, although he spends almost the entire day at the Quick Stop. They converse about many things to pass time, such as whether the contractors working on the second Death Star when it was destroyed at the end of "" were innocent victims or not. Other events of the day include the discovery that Dante's high school girlfriend, Caitlin Bree, whom he has been having early morning phone conversations with, is engaged to be married. Dante's current girlfriend, Veronica Loughran, also stops in and the two talk about Dante's current disposition—in a rut with no motivation to change.
1059263	Mekhi Thira Phifer (; born December 29, 1974) is an American actor. He portrayed Dr. Greg Pratt on NBC's long-running medical drama "ER" and had a co-starring role opposite Eminem in the feature film "8 Mile". He was a regular on the Fox crime show "Lie to Me" in the role of Ben Reynolds, before season 3, and also starred as CIA agent Rex Matheson in "". Early life. Phifer was born in Harlem, New York City, the son of Rhoda Phifer, a high school teacher. He grew up in a single-parent household with his mother. Career. In 1994, Phifer attended an open casting call for director Spike Lee’s "Clockers", beating over a thousand others to get the lead role as a narcotics dealer embroiled in a murder cover-up. He followed that role with another in the comedy spoof feature "High School High" (which also starred his former wife Malinda Williams) and continued by co-starring in the fright flick "I Still Know What You Did Last Summer", starring Jennifer Love Hewitt and Freddie Prinze, Jr. He portrayed Dr. Gregory Pratt on the medical drama "ER", which he started in April 2002. Phifer left the show in September 2008, in the first episode of Season 15. His character died during the conclusion of the season 14 finale cliffhanger involving an ambulance explosion that was rigged to kill an injured FBI informant (Steve Buscemi). During his 6 years in the show, he was nominated twice for an NAACP Award.
1456264	Cocaine Wars is a 1985 Argentine-American action drama film directed by Héctor Olivera and written by Olivera with Steven M. Krauzer and David Viñas. It stars John Schneider, Royal Dano and Federico Luppi. The associate producer of the film was Fernando Ayala. The film premiered in Argentina on August 1, 1985. Synopsis. Miami DEA undercover agent Cliff Adams goes to South America to work for Gonzalo Reyes, a drug dealer who has become the biggest cocaine exporter of the region. The assignment becomes personal after the kingpin behind the drug ring murders Cliff's partner. Adams' own life is eventually jeopardized after he refuses to perform a hit for the drug lord. Cliff decides to strike back before it's too late.
1044065	Leslie Samuel Phillips, CBE (born 20 April 1924) is an English actor with a highly recognisable upper class accent. Originally known for his work as a comedy actor, Phillips subsequently made the transition to character roles. Early life. Contrary to the impression given by his public persona, Phillips came from a background of poverty. He was born in Tottenham, North London, England, the son of Cecelia Margaret (née Newlove) and Frederick Samuel Phillips, who worked at Glover and Main, manufacturers of cookers in Edmonton; the "filthy, sulphurous" air of the factory gave him a weak heart and edema, leading to his death at the age of 44. In 1931, the family moved to Chingford, London where Phillips attended Larkswood Primary School. It was his mother who decided that Phillips should be sent to the Italia Conti Academy to receive elocution lessons in order to lose his natural cockney accent. At that time a strong regional accent from any city was a major impediment to an aspiring actor. It proved to be an astute move and by the age of 14 Phillips was the family's main breadwinner, saving his mother from squalor. Career. Phillips made his first film appearances as a child in the 1930s. He is the only actor still alive who performed at Pinewood Studios in its first week of opening in 1936. He also understudied for Binkie Beaumont and H.M. Tennent in the West End. In 1938, 14-year-old Leslie Phillips appeared with Graeme Muir in the West End play "Dear Octopus" where Muir was the juvenile lead. During the Second World War shows were frequently interrupted by air-raid sirens and Phillips recalls in his autobiography that "audiences would evaporate and head for cellars or Underground stations". At 16, Phillips played an uncredited market street urchin in 1940's "The Thief of Bagdad". Due to his acquired upper class accent, Phillips was selected for officer training at Catterick and duly commissioned as a Second Lieutenant in the Royal Artillery in 1943. He was transferred to the Durham Light Infantry in 1944 but was later declared unfit for service after being diagnosed with a neurological condition that caused partial paralysis. He was initially sent to a psychiatric hospital in error but was then sent to the correct facility for treatment. Demobbed as a lieutenant in December 1944, Phillips' acting career initially took in "the murkiest rat-infested old playhouses and music halls in the North of England". It was during the 1950s that he became known for playing amusing English stereotypes. His seductive voice is his trademark as well as his catchphrases, "I say, Ding Dong" (originally the catchphrase of Phillips' character Jack Bell in "Carry On Nurse"), "Hello" and "Lumme!", which were partly, if not wholly, based on those of fellow cad actor Terry-Thomas. He appeared in three of the early "Carry On" films ("Carry On Nurse", "Carry On Teacher" and "Carry On Constable"). After "Constable" he told producer Peter Rogers that he did not wish to do any more Carry Ons, though he did return for "Carry On Columbus" in 1992. In the 1960s he took over from Dirk Bogarde in several of the 'Doctor' film comedies. Between 1959 and 1977 Phillips became familiar on radio with a leading role in "The Navy Lark". After his marriage to Angela Scoular in 1982 Phillips decided to move away from the kind of lecherous twits with suave chat-up lines which had characterised much of his previous work. Phillips has remained busy in both stage and television productions, along with character roles in films like "Empire of the Sun" (1987) directed by Steven Spielberg and "" (2001). Phillips also provided the voice for the Sorting Hat in the Harry Potter films appearing in "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone" (2001) and "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets" (2002) as well as reprising his role in the final film, "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2" (2011). He has also appeared in British television sitcoms including "Honey for Tea" with Felicity Kendal and appeared in cameo roles in the popular series such as "The Bill". In 2006 he appeared in Hanif Kureishi's film "Venus" alongside Peter O'Toole and was nominated for a BAFTA for Best Supporting Actor in 2007 for his role as the veteran actor, Ian. He was in this film with Vanessa Redgrave, and in the DVD 'extras' he mentions that he had previously worked with both of her daughters and her father Michael Redgrave (in 1938), likely making him the only still-living person to have done so. Phillips' autobiography, "Hello" was published by Orion in 2006. ISBN 0-7528-8178-7. He was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 1998 Queen's Birthday Honours and was promoted to Commander (CBE) in the 2008 New Year Honours. Personal life. Phillips married his first wife, actress Penelope Bartley, on 30 May 1948. They had four children, Caroline, Claudia, Andrew and Roger. In 1962 Phillips started a romantic relationship with actress Caroline Mortimer, daughter of writer Penelope Mortimer and stepdaughter of John Mortimer, who was an understudy in a stage play in which Phillips starred. Phillips and Bartley separated at that point and were divorced in 1965. After his relationship with Mortimer ended, Phillips embarked on a relationship with actress Vicki Luke, with whom he lived for approximately three years, after which he started a relationship with Angela Scoular, a former Bond girl. While on tour in Australia in 1981 he was notified that Penelope Bartley had died in a fire. Phillips elected to continue in the production and not attend her funeral. He has acknowledged that his family has never forgiven him for not coming back to attend the funeral. In 1982 Phillips and Scoular, 22 years his junior, were married, and remained together until her death in April 2011. Scoular was suffering from bowel cancer and took her own life. Phillips was too ill to attend the inquest into Scoular's death three months later. He is a long-term fan of Tottenham Hotspur, and made an appearance on the pitch as part of the half-time entertainment during the team's home match against Swansea City on 1 April 2012. Filmography. Audio books. Phillips voiced the full unabridged audio book edition of the legal thriller, "Chequered Justice", ISBN 9780956910493, due to be released in November 2013. Video games. Phillips provided his voice for the character of Gex in the UK and European release of "".
1044575	The Vampire Lovers is a 1970 English gothic horror film directed by Roy Ward Baker and starring Peter Cushing, Ingrid Pitt, Madeline Smith, Kate O'Mara and Jon Finch. It was produced by Hammer Film Productions. It is based on the J. Sheridan Le Fanu novella "Carmilla" and is part of the so-called Karnstein Trilogy of films, the other films being "Lust for a Vampire" (1971) and "Twins of Evil" (1972). The three films were somewhat daring for the time in explicitly depicting lesbian vampire themes. Plot. In early 19th century Styria, a beautiful blonde (Kirsten Lindholm) in a diaphanous gown materialises from a misty graveyard. Encountering the Baron Hartog (Douglas Wilmer), a vampire hunter out to avenge the death of his sister, the girl is revealed as a vampire when her breast is seared by his crucifix. Baring her fangs to attack the Baron, she is swiftly decapitated. Many years later, a sultry dark-haired lady leaves her daughter Marcilla (Ingrid Pitt) in the care of General von Spielsdorf (Peter Cushing) and his family at their Styrian mansion. Marcilla quickly befriends the General's niece, Laura (Pippa Steel). Laura suffers nightmares that she is being attacked, and her health deteriorates until she dies. Marcilla vanishes from the General's home. Faking a carriage break-down, Marcilla's mother leaves her (now using the alias Carmilla) at the residence of a Mr Morton. Here, Carmilla befriends and seduces Morton's daughter Emma (Madeline Smith) but her need to feed overcomes her emotional attachment and Emma too begins to fade. Emma has nightmares of being pierced over the heart, and her breast shows tiny wounds. Emma's governess, Mme. Perrodot (Kate O'Mara) also falls victim to Carmilla's erotic blandishments and becomes her willing tool. Some in the household, the butler and a doctor, suspect what might be happening, especially in the wake of several local girls suddenly dying, but Carmilla kills each one. All the while, a mysterious man in black (clearly also a vampire) watches events from a distance, smiling (his presence is never explained). After Carmilla kills the butler, having convinced him that Mme. Perrodot is a vampire then persuaded him (with her womanly charms) to remove the garlic protecting Emma, Carmilla goes to Emma's bedroom. She says she must go away, but is taking Emma with her. A desperate and sick Madame begs Carmilla to take her with her. Carmilla kills her, in front of a horrified Emma. Emma is barely rescued by a young man named Carl (Jon Finch) who fashions a makeshift cross from his dagger. Carmilla flees to her nearby ancestral castle, now a ruin. All this coincides with the arrival of the General, who brings with him a now-aged Baron Hartog. They find Carmilla's grave, where she sleeps. The General lifts a stake—and back in her bedchamber Emma screams "No!"—then drives it into Carmilla's heart. He then cuts off her head. Carmilla's portrait on the wall decays, showing now a fanged skeleton instead of a beautiful young woman. Production. Before production, the script of "The Vampire Lovers" was sent to the chief censor John Trevelyan, who warned the studio about depictions of lesbianism, pointing out that a previous lesbian film, "The Killing of Sister George", had had five minutes excised by his office. In response, Hammer replied that the lesbianism was not of their doing but was present in the original story by Le Fanu. Trevelyan backed down. Production of "The Vampire Lovers" began at Elstree Studios on 19 January 1970 and used locations in the grounds of Moor Park Mansion, Hertfordshire (standing in for Styria, Central Europe). Produced on a relatively low budget of £165,227, it was the final Hammer film to be financed with American money—most of the later films were backed by Rank or EMI. Critical reception. "The Vampire Lovers" has received a generally negative reception from critics. On review-aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes the film has an approval rating of 43% percent, based on seven reviews, and is certified "rotten". "Variety"'s review of the film was mixed, claiming the story was not great and it had "fairly flat dialog," but the script had "all the needed ingredients." Allmovie wrote, "This Hammer Films production isn't their finest moment but its easy to understand why it has become an enduring cult favorite with horror fans: "The Vampire Lovers" pushes the "bloodshed & bosoms" formula of the Hammer hits to its limit". Dave Kehr wrote a favourable review for "Chicago Reader", writing that the film "resulted from the last significant surge of creative energy at Britain's Hammer Films, which thereafter descended into abject self-parody." Film critic Leonard Maltin gave the film a passing grade of two-and-a-half stars, calling it a "rather erotic Hammer chiller". Home media. "The Vampire Lovers" was released on 26 August 2003 on DVD by MGM Home Video (Fox Video) as a two-sided "Midnite Movies Double Feature" DVD consisting of both "The Vampire Lovers" and "Countess Dracula" (1971). Scream Factory released the film on Blu-ray on 30 April 2013.
589374	Om Prakash (19 December 1919 – 21 February 1998) was an Indian character actor. He was born in Jammu as Om Prakash Chibber. He used to play the role of Kamla in the stage play by the famous Dewan Mandir Natak Samaj Koliwada. Starting his career in 1942, he was a popular supporting actor from the 1950s until the 1980s. He was one of the elite of the film industry. Some of his performances were so memorable that the lead actor in the film attributed the success of the film to him. Om Prakash played the leading man in films like "Dus Lakh", "Annadata" and "Charandas "'Sadhu aur Shaitan'. His pivotal roles in the films "Dil Daulat Duniya", "Chupke Chupke", "Julie", "Joroo Ka Ghulam", "Aa Gale Lag Jaa", "Pyar Kiye Jaa" and "Buddha Mil Gaya" are considered to be among his best along with Daddu in "Namak Halaal" and De Silva in "Zanjeer". His roles in 'Sharabi', 'Bharosa', 'Tere Ghar Ke Samne', 'Mere Humdum Mere Dost', 'Loafar', 'Dil Tera Diwana' were also appreciated. He is known for his roles in comedy films. One of his best performances in his later years were "Naukar Biwi Ka", "Sharaabi" (1984) and "Chameli Ki Shaadi", where he played a role that was pivotal for the movie. Early life and education. Om Prakash Chibber was born in Jammu on 19 December 1919. He was fascinated by theatre, music and films. He started taking lessons in classical music when he was just twelve and was recognised as a master in no time. Career. He joined All India Radio in 1937 on a monthly salary of Rs 25. He was known as “Fateh Din”, a radio personality and his programmes made him popular all over Lahore and Punjab. He was regaling people at a wedding one day when the well-known film-maker Dalsukh Pancholi spotted him and asked to see him in his Lahore office. Pancholi gave Prakash his first break as an actor in a film called "Daasi". He was paid only Rs 80 but the film earned him the kind of recognition that would give him a means of livelihood for a lifetime. It was his first major role; he had played a bit role in "Sharif Badmash", a silent film. He followed his good work in "Daasi" with Pancholi’s "Dhamki" and "Aayee Bahar" and became a force to reckon with. Soon after the Partition he came to Delhi and then to Bombay (now Mumbai). Baldev Raj Chopra noticed his talent when he was a film journalist and critic; he urged Prakash to carry on with his acting career. He was sure Om Prakash had the talent to prove himself as a versatile actor. The actor had to face some struggle initially. He got his first big break in Bombay as a villain in a film called "Lakhpati". It won him acclaim and got him roles in films like "Lahore", "Char Din" and "Raat Ki Rani". It was during this phase in his career that he did "Azaad" with Dilip Kumar, "Sargam" with Raj Kapoor and "Miss Mary", "Bahar", "Pehli Jhalak", "Asha" and "Manmauji" with Kishore Kumar followed by "Howrah Bridge" with Ashok Kumar and then "Tere Ghar Ke Samne" with Dev Anand. He was marked out for his performance in both films in spite of the presence of powerful star personas like Dilip Kumar, Raj Kapoor, Ashok Kumar, Kishore Kumar and Dev Anand. He had developed a style of his own, a style which was going to take him places, make him a big name in the world of film entertainment for the next forty years. Om Prakash soon became a household name. He was good in almost every character he played. He was the comedian, the family man burdened with problems, the munshi, the alcoholic fallen on bad days because of the evil designs of the villain, the nagged husband, the old man in love, the wily politician and the big brother with a heart of gold. He played an assortment of characters with the same ease and had some of the best directors opting for him every time they had a role which they felt only he could play. Om Prakash was versatile actor with 307 films to his credit. One can never forget his comic performances in Howrah Bridge, Dus Lakh (he won his first major award for this performance), Pyar Kiye Jaa, Padosan, Sadhu Aur Shaitaan, Dil Daulat Duniya, Chupke Chupke, Namak Halaal, Gol Maal and Chameli Ki Shaadi. His performance as Dilip Kumar’s elder brother in Gopi gave his career a new impetus. He proved that he could play mature roles with the same ease, the same depth: Films like Chacha Zindabad, Khandan, Haryali Aur Raasta, Dil Apna Aur Preet Parai, Pati Patni, Neend Hamari Khwab Tumhare, Mere Hamdam Mere Dost, Annadata, Ek Shriman Ek Shrimati, Doli, Chirag, Amar Prem, Aankh Micholi, Ek Hasina Do Diwane, Anuraag, Zanjeer, Sagina, Aa Gale Lag Jaa, Loafer, Roti, Julie, Khushboo, Lawaaris, Bandish, Sharaabi and Chameli Ki Shaadi. Om Prakash had special rapport with Amitabh Bachchan and both worked in many successful fims spanning from Zanjeer to Sharaabi. Om Prakash has produced may films Sanjog(1961) Actor -Pradeep Kumar, Anita Guha Jahanara (1965) actor :Bharat Bhusan, Mala Sinha and Gate way of India (1958) : actor :Bharat bhusan, Kanhiya(1958) actor raj kapoor, nutan. He was director and writer of this film Later years. He lived in Union Park, Chembur, a suburb of Mumbai. The actor who was always so full of life was still full of life till just two days before his death. He knew he was not well. He knew he was suffering from complications but he never gave up his zest for life till his heart betrayed him. He kept calling friends to play a game of rummy or just chat. He had an office at the Roop Tara Studios which was only used for “rummy sessions” and “chat sessions”. Then, some years ago, he shifted his office to the suburbs to make it more convenient for his friends. Family. His wife Prabha predeceased him. He had no biological children. He lived with his younger brother Bakshi Ram Prakash Chibber (Pachhi) who had five children and treated them as his children. Illness and death. He attended his office regularly till his health started failing. He was confined to his bungalow, where he suffered a heart attack. He was taken to the Lilavati Hospital, Mumbai, suffered a second heart attack and went into a coma from which he did not recover. He died on 21 February, aged 78.
1255054	4.3.2.1 is a 2010 British crime thriller film directed by Noel Clarke and Mark Davis, released 2 June 2010. It stars, Ophelia Lovibond, Emma Roberts, Shanika-Warren Markland, Tamsin Egerton, Adam Deacon, Ashley 'Bashy' Thomas, Gregg Chillin and Noel Clarke. Noel Clarke wrote, co – directed and co – produced it. Plot. The story focuses mainly upon 4 friends, Jo (Emma Roberts), Shannon (Ophelia Lovibond), Kerrys (Shanika Warren-Markland) and Cassandra (Tamsin Egerton). They all meet one other at a Diner, where they also see Dillon (Adam Deacon) and Smoothy (Ashley Thomas) getting chased by the police while drug-dealing. As Dillon is running past, he drops a stolen diamond (out of 15) in Cassandra's bag. He is unaware that Shannon has a big crush on Dillon as he always ignores her. The four then walk out and go home. Firstly, the story focuses upon Shannon: as she walks into her home, she sees that her mother has left for good and her dad is sitting in the living room all alone. She loses her temper, gets a packet of "Pringles", two cans of spray-paint and runs away. She then runs over to Joanne's home, who has to rush to work, telling her she does not have time to talk. Later on, she is called over to Jo's work place by Jo; where she is told to leave. When she refuses, Dillon kisses Jo upsetting Shannon, so she grabs a Pringles box from the shop and runs. She is taken in by a woman who saved her from getting raped, but Shannon seems to find that the woman is looking for the Pringles box. This is later confirmed when she finds out that she is searching for "15 diamonds". One is already in Cassandra's bag, whilst the rest are in the Pringles can which had fallen out of Shannon's bag earlier. She escapes by knocking the woman out with the bathroom door. She finds the diamonds by going back to the bench where she was almost attacked. Her story ends with her holding the diamonds above a bridge, suggesting she is about to jump and commit suicide. Secondly, the story moves onto Cassandra, who visits New York to meet up with a man called "Brett" she has met on the internet. The meeting ends with her having sex with him. She suddenly feels light headed and falls asleep, and in the morning uses an epipen to pull herself together. She discovers all her possessions gone except for her handbag containing a diamond. She also finds the letter that Shannon has been looking for, which was written by her mother. She later goes to "Brett's" house to later find that "Brett" is a stalker who hacks into Cassandra's computer taking videos of her. When the fake Brett comes, she knocks him out but later escapes chasing her down the street where she is rescued by a black woman who does not take kindly to racist stereotypical views. She gets her cousins to beat and tattoo the fake Brett with the words chosen by Cassandra. She forces her way into an audition for a new tutor and gets it before then leaving for London. Thirdly the story of Kerrys is explored. Kerrys and her girlfriend break into Cassandra's beachhouse and stay there. Her brother upon discovering them inside, locks them in the panic room and throws a party. While, Dillon and Smoothy visit his house, they ask him to keep the diamonds, now only 14 left, at his house. When the two girls escape from the panic room, they lock her brother in there and run away. Fourthly, Jo, who works at a 24-hour supermarket with Angelo (Jacob Anderson) finds that her new manager "Tee" (Noel Clarke) is in town. Tee has been working with Dillon and Smoothy to deliver the diamonds, but one is missing. Tee asks Dillon and Smoothy to come over to the supermarket; Dillon and Smoothy open the safe with the key, which Tee had given to them earlier, they remove the money and drop off the diamonds, which are 14, but Tee thinks there is 15. Dillon and Smoothy come to get the money, when they find Tee has betrayed them, and they rob the store and leave Tee with the 14 diamonds. Tee, however has hidden them in a Pringles box, which is then seen in flashback to show that the box is the very same one that Shannon has. Whilst Tee is about to be shot by the same woman who rescued Shannon earlier, Jo rescues him, but when he tries to run, Angelo attacks him. He is arrested by the police for illegal selling. Cassandra returns with the last diamond and the letter; the three, Cassandra, Jo, and Kerrys, then go to meet Shannon. They put the fourteen diamonds together and give it into the police and fly to New York. Whilst on the plane it is revealed that the same mysterious woman who had rescued Shannon is on the plane. Critical reception. The film has received mixed reviews from critics. On film review website Rotten Tomatoes, the film has garnered nine fresh reviews and sixteen negative reviews, giving the film an overall rotten 36% rating from critics. The film did receive some excellent reviews, however, holding a four star rating in Empire magazine. Cath Clarke from "Time Out" gave the film a positive review, saying that "These girls are brilliantly un-victimy and always come out fighting. If only they weren’t incessantly paraded about in their underwear for the viewing pleasure of men". However, Peter Bradshaw from British newspaper "The Guardian" and Wendy Idle from "The Times" both gave the film a negative review. Bradshaw said the film is "all over the place", also deeming that the acting is on the "torpid side", and Idle believed the film "might just claim back a small corner of the multiplex audience from the relentless onslaught of cynical Hollywood garbage" and described the film as "mostly" bad.
1064642	Driving Lessons is a 2006 British dramedy film written and directed by Jeremy Brock. The plot focuses on the relationship between a shy teenaged boy and an ageing eccentric actress. Plot. Seventeen-year-old Ben Marshall is the sensitive, poetry-writing son of complacent and emasculated Robert, a vicar obsessed with ornithology, and domineering overbearing mother Laura, whose strong religious beliefs lead her to perform numerous charitable acts while ignoring the emotional needs of her own family, such as forcing Ben to deliver meals on wheels despite his having no car. Her faith does not, however, hinder her from engaging in an affair with Peter, a young curate portraying Jesus Christ in the church pageant she is directing.
995874	Mysteries of Lisbon () is a 2010 Portuguese costume drama film directed by Raúl Ruiz. The film has won 9 awards and has been nominated 8 times. Plot. The film is based on a novel by Camilo Castelo Branco, "Mistérios de Lisboa" (1854). The plot concerns the story of an orphan in search of his paternity, Pedro Da Silva, intern at a religious college, and Father Dinis, a priest, formerly an aristocratic libertine, who raises the student Pedro as his son. Reception. Rottentomatoes.com gave the film a 84%, with a rating of 7.6/10. Metacritic gave the film an 86/100, with critics giving it mostly a positive review.
139670	Denis George Mahan (born June 15, 1950), better known as Deney Terrio, is an American choreographer, former film actor and one-time host of the television musical variety series "Dance Fever" from 1979 to 1985. In 1991, he sued Merv Griffin, the show's producer, for sexual harassment; the US$11.3 million case was later dismissed. Terrio achieved fame as the dance coach and choreographer for John Travolta in the movie "Saturday Night Fever". During his heyday with "Dance Fever", he appeared in a number of films, including "The Idolmaker", "", "A Night in Heaven" and "Knights of the City" and guest starred on popular television series of the time including "The Love Boat". Throughout the 1990s, he toured nightclubs, performing with Motion and judging dance contests. Terrio was referred to in the popular Steve Martin movie "Dirty Rotten Scoundrels", in which Martin's character, a "minor league" con-man and hustler named Freddy Benson, poses as a crippled veteran as part of a plan to extract money from a rich woman. In order to induce her pity, Benson claims that he lost use of his legs after he found his girlfriend having sex with Terrio. In recent years, he has appeared on several VH1 specials and co-hosted the 2004 PBS special "" which featured many popular disco artists from the 1970s and actress Karen Lynn Gorney. During the show, Terrio and Gorney danced to Tavares’ live performance of “More Than a Woman”, as Gorney had with John Travolta in "Saturday Night Fever". Currently Deney is hosting his own disco radio show on the Sirius satellite radio network and is a choreographer and competitor at regional "Dancing with the Stars" competitions.
1078170	Tony n’ Tina’s Wedding is an "environmental theatre" event based on a traditional Italian-American wedding and reception, with warm and intrusive stereotypes exaggerated for comic effect. Audience members are treated as guests at the wedding by the interactive, improvisational comedy cast. The piece was first performed in an American Legion Hall in 1985. It opened Off-off-Broadway on February 6, 1988 with the wedding held at the Washington Square United Methodist Church in Greenwich Village and the reception at a reception hall at 150 East 14th Street. It continued to play at St. John's Lutheran Church on Christopher Street before moving to midtown Manhattan to a long run at St. Luke's Theatre, then to the Edison Hotel and finally at Sweet Caroline's before ending its 22-year run on July 25, 2010. It has been staged in over 100 locations worldwide, including cities in Canada, Japan, Germany, United Kingdom, and Australia. "Tony n’ Tina’s Wedding" shares some similarities with a 1969 Australian play called "Dimboola", written by Jack Hibberd. History. The interactive, environmental comedy "Tony n’ Tina’s Wedding" is the creation of the Artificial Intelligence comedy troupe. Thirteen original cast members also share copyrighted authorship: Kevin Alexander, Tom Allen, James Altuner, Elizabeth Dennehy, Mark Campbell, Nancy Cassaro, Chris Fracchiolla, Jack Fris, Mark Nassar, Patricia Cregan Navarra, Larry Pellegrini, Susan Varon, and Moira Wilson. The show was first performed in an American Legion Hall on West 14th Street on November 11, 1985. The Off-off-Broadway production opened on February 6, 1988 with its first wedding held at the Washington Square United Methodist Church in Greenwich Village and the reception at another location, Carmelita's, a reception hall at 150 East 14th Street. It then played at St. John's Lutheran Church on Christopher Street before moving to a long run at St. Luke's Theatre then at the Edison Hotel and finally at Sweet Caroline's before ending its 22-year continuous New York run on July 25, 2010. The original cast included the above 13 actors and also Joe Corcoran, Eli Ganias, Jacob Harran, Jennifer Heftler, Elizabeth Herring, Monica Horan, Denise Moses, Phil Rosenthal, Kevin A. Leonidas, Joanna Cocca, Mickey Abbate, Tom Hogan, Vincent Floriani, Michael Winther, Kia Colton, Charlie Terrat and Towner Gallaher. It was originally produced by Joe and Dan Corcoran, two Hofstra alums who were just starting out on Wall Street.
1163322	Guadalupe "Lupe" Ontiveros (September 17, 1942 – July 26, 2012) was an American film and television actress. Ontiveros acted in numerous films like "Selena" and television shows, often playing a maid or, more recently, an all-knowing grandmother. She was nominated for an Emmy Award for her work on "Desperate Housewives" and received critical acclaim for her role in "Chuck and Buck", for which she won the National Board of Review award for Best Supporting Actress, and was also nominated for an Independent Spirit Award. Early life. Ontiveros was born Guadalupe Moreno in El Paso, Texas, the daughter of Luz "Lucita" Castañón and Juan Moreno, middle-class Mexican immigrants who overcame a lack of formal education and were owners of a tortilla factory and two restaurants in El Paso. She graduated from El Paso High School and went on to study at Texas Woman's University in Denton, Texas, where she received a bachelor's degree in social work. She was raised Roman Catholic.
1044076	Bernard Bresslaw (25 February 1934 – 11 June 1993) was an English actor. He is best remembered for his comedy work, especially as a member of the "Carry On" team. Biography. Bernard Bresslaw was born into a Jewish family in Stepney, London, on 25 February 1934. He attended the Coopers' Company's School in Tredegar Square, Bow, London E3. His father was a tailor's cutter and he became interested in acting after visits to the Hackney Empire. London County Council awarded him a scholarship to train at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art where he won the Emile Littler Award as the most promising actor. After "Educating Archie" on radio and "The Army Game" on television, more television, film and Shakespearean theatre roles followed, until his big break when he was cast in "Carry on Cowboy" in 1965. He featured as Varga, the lead villain in the 1968 "Doctor Who" story "The Ice Warriors". Even though all the actors playing the aliens were over six feet tall, Bresslaw towered over them. Sonny Caldinez, who played an Ice Warrior in the story, stated in a 2004 interview that Bresslaw "was the only man that could make me feel small." Although officially starring in 14 "Carry On" films, Bresslaw did appear in one other: "Carry On Nurse". The legs of Terence Longdon were deemed to be too thin and scrawny looking, so Bresslaw's were used as stand-ins for the scene where Joan Sims gives him a bath. Bresslaw's catchphrase, in his strong Cockney accent, was "I only arsked" (sic), first used in "The Army Game", and later revived in "Carry On Camping" (1969). In his fleeting appearance as an angry lorry driver in the 1970 film "Spring and Port Wine" (set in Bolton), his character was dubbed.
1165769	Scott Brady (born Gerard Kenneth Tierney; September 13, 1924 – April 16, 1985) was an American film and television actor best known for his roles on network anthology series in the 1950s and 1960s. Background. Born in Brooklyn, New York to Lawrence and Maria Tierney, and nicknamed "Jerry", Brady's father was chief of the New York aqueduct police force and later became a printer. His older and younger brothers were fellow actors Lawrence and Edward Tierney, respectively. Edward subsequently left acting to become a building contractor, and Scott financed some of his projects. Brady was reared in suburban Westchester County, New York. He attended Roosevelt and St. Michael's high schools where he and his brother were all-round high school athletes. Brady lettered in basketball, football, and track. He aspired to become a football coach or a radio announcer but instead enlisted in the United States Navy before his graduation from high school. During World War II, he was a naval aviation mechanic overseas and even earned a boxing medal.
1059686	Danielle Nicole Panabaker (born September 19, 1987) is an American actress. She is best known to younger audiences for her roles in the Disney Channel films "Stuck in the Suburbs" (2004) and "Read It and Weep" (2006), along with her younger sister Kay Panabaker. She came to prominence as a cast member alongside James Woods in the CBS legal drama series "Shark" (2006–2008) and is also noted as a Scream Queen, having starred in the horror films "Friday the 13th" (2009), "The Crazies" and John Carpenter's "The Ward" (both 2010) and "Piranha 3DD" (2012). Her other films include "Sky High" (2005) and "Mr. Brooks" (2007). Early life. Panabaker was born in Augusta, Georgia, to Donna (née Mayock) and Harold Panabaker. Her younger sister, Kay Panabaker, is also an actress. Panabaker moved for a short time to Orange, Texas, around her kindergarten year. She took a theater class at a summer camp and discovered her enjoyment in acting, so she started acting in community theaters at the age of 12, later auditioning for commercials. After moving to Naperville, Illinois, Panabaker went to Crone Middle School and later Neuqua Valley High School in Naperville and participated in the speech team. She graduated from high school as valedictorian when she was only 14 years old. Later, feeling it was the only way to land acting roles regularly, Panabaker relocated to Los Angeles, California in order to pursue an acting career, attending Glendale Community College to study acting. In 2005, she earned her associate degree and appeared on the National Dean's List. In the fall of 2006, she began her senior year at the University of California, Los Angeles, from which she graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in June 2007, again appearing on the Dean's List. Career. Panabaker followed her initial appearances in commercials with roles in television, including a part in the series, "The Guardian" (for which she won a Young Artist Award), as well as other television series including "Malcolm in the Middle", "", "Medium", "Summerland", and the Disney Channel Original Movie "Stuck in the Suburbs" as well as a creepy inhabitant of the "White Room" as an ancient being in the series " Angel". She also appeared in the Lifetime Television productions "Sex and the Single Mom" and "Mom at Sixteen", as well as the well-reviewed miniseries "Empire Falls". In addition, Panabaker appeared in stage productions with roles in musical theater, including "West Side Story", "Pippin", "Once Upon A Time", and "Beauty Lou and the Country Beast". In 2005, Panabaker co-starred in two widely released theatrical films, "Sky High" and "Yours, Mine and Ours". Her next role was in the film "Home of the Giants" (2008), opposite Ryan Merriman and Haley Joel Osment. She also had a supporting role in the film "Mr. Brooks" opposite Kevin Costner. In the Disney Channel original movie "Read It and Weep", she plays "Is", an alternate version of Jamie, who was played by her real-life sister Kay.
590353	Iti Mrinalini ( ; ) is a 2010 Indian drama film directed by acclaimed Bengali filmmaker Aparna Sen. The director collaborates with debutant screenwriter Ranjan Ghosh to pen the story and the screenplay, a major first for her. The film has been produced by Shrikant Mohta and Mahendra Soni of Shree Venkatesh Films Pvt Ltd. It is also the first film by Sen to be nationally released in Hindi simultaneously with the Bengali version for her Bengal audience. Many critics consider it among her best work along with "Mr. and Mrs. Iyer" and "36 Chowringhee Lane". Aparna Sen returns to make a Bengali film after more than a decade. Her last was "Paromitar Ek Din", in 2000. "Iti Mrinalini" is supposedly the director's first mainstream venture in which she experiments with the popular genre. The much-touted film is on the life and times of a Bengali star-actress of mainstream cinema of yesteryear, who looks back at her life. Aparna Sen plays the older Mrinalini while her daughter Konkona Sen Sharma portrays the younger version. Sen directs her daughter Konkona Sen Sharma and also acts with her in the same film, another first for the mother-daughter duo that plays the same character. Featuring Sen and her daughter in the lead role, the film also stars Rajat Kapoor, Priyanshu Chatterjee, Kaushik Sen, Locket Chatterjee and German actor Suzanne Bernert in supporting roles. The entire cast, except Konkona, work in an Aparna Sen film for the first time. Theme. The film examines the randomness of life. Nothing is under our control and at times, we should just let go - just let it be what it will. The film explores different forms of love - one that happens in early youth, one that's more domestic, one that falls somewhere between "friendship" and "love", and one resulting out of loneliness and seclusion. Plot. Mrinalini, an ageing actress, writes a suicide note. As a performer, the first lesson she had learnt was timing – the perfect moment for making an entrance or an exit on stage. On the stage of life, her entrance had been outside her control; but she wants to choose the moment of her exit at least. However, before taking the pills that will put her to sleep forever, she decides to destroy all her memorabilia – letters, photographs, newspaper cuttings, knick-knacks pertaining to the past – lest they fall into the hands of the press. She has been a victim of media attention all her life and wishes to be spared that at her death. As she looks through the old box that contains relics from her past, memories flood the night... Incidents that she had forgotten or had relinquished to the furthest corners of her mind now return to haunt her and, through these memories, an entire life is revealed – a life of loves lost and gained, friendships and betrayals, successes and failures, accidents and awards, agonies and ecstasies. Mrinalini relives her past, as night gradually turns to dawn. An "azaan" (Islamic call to prayer) starts up somewhere. Slowly early morning light fills the room. The moment has passed and the death she had wished for so intensely no longer seems a priority. Her German Shepherd comes and rubs its head on its mistress’s feet and squeaks to be let out. Mrinalini smiles, tears up the suicide note and takes her dog out for a walk. On the street, she meets morning walkers, old and young, joggers, a group of school children.
1163260	Christine Taylor-Stiller (born Christine Joan Taylor; July 30, 1971) is an American actress and comedian. Early life. Taylor was born in 1971, in Allentown, Pennsylvania, the daughter of Joan, a homemaker, and Albert E. "Skip" Taylor III, who owns a security company. She grew up in neighboring Wescosville, Pennsylvania. Taylor has a brother, Brian, and attended Allentown Central Catholic High School. Career. Taylor began her acting career in 1989 at the age of 18 on the Nickelodeon children's television series "Hey Dude" where she played the lifeguard Melody Hanson. She continued in that role through 1991 while making various guest appearances on other programs. In 1995, Taylor was cast as Marcia Brady in "The Brady Bunch Movie" and later in "A Very Brady Sequel". Following "The Brady Bunch", Taylor's career advanced, highlighted by several comedic guest appearances on "Ellen", landing the lead role in the television series "Party Girl", based on the 1995 film of the same name, and more guest appearances on "Seinfeld" and "Friends". She also played Drew Barrymore's cousin, Holly Sullivan, in the 1998 comedy "The Wedding Singer". Later TV appearances include a guest star in 2005 in two episodes of the cult favorite "Arrested Development" as "Sally Sitwell" and in 2006 in an episode of NBC's "My Name Is Earl". In July 2006, husband Ben Stiller announced plans to direct a CBS comedy series starring Taylor, but the series never aired. She has co-starred with Mandy Moore in both "Dedication" and "License To Wed". Taylor has since appeared opposite Stiller in three films: "Zoolander" (2001), "" (2004), and "Tropic Thunder" (2008). In 2010, Taylor guest starred on "Hannah Montana Forever". In 2013, Taylor reprised her role as "Sally Sitwell" in two episodes of the revived "Arrested Development." Personal life. Taylor married actor, screenwriter, and director Ben Stiller on May 13, 2000. They met while making the TV show "Heat Vision and Jack".
657083	Death Trance is a 2005 Japanese action/fantasy film based on the manga of the same name by Kana Takeuchi. It stars Tak Sakaguchi of "Versus" fame, alongside Kentaro Seagal (son of actor Steven Seagal) and Takamasa Suga. The film is the directorial debut of Yuji Shimomura, best known for his work as an action director, stuntman, and frequent collaborator of Ryuhei Kitamura. The film's soundtrack features several tracks by the rock band Dir en grey. Synopsis. In an unknown place at an unknown time, a swordsman named Grave (Sakaguchi) yearns for the ultimate battle. Legend tells of a black coffin kept at the Tougan Temple which has the power to grant any man's deepest desire. Hoping to utilize the coffin's ability to fulfill his wish, Grave infiltrates the temple and steals it. Accompanied by a mysterious young girl (Asada), Grave travels across the land towards a desert oasis, a place the tales indicate as being linked to the coffin's power.
589133	Sadhna (; ; translation: "Realize", also transliterated as Sadhana) is a 1958 Black-and-white Social guidance Hindi film produced and directed by B. R. Chopra. The film stars Vyjayanthimala and Sunil Dutt in the lead with Leela Chitnis, Radhakrishan, Manmohan Krishna, Uma Dutt, Ravikant forms an ensemble cast. The story, screenplay and dialogue was penned by Mukhram Sharma. The film revolves around Rajini (Vyjayanthimala), a prostitute's love affair with a professor (Sunil Dutt).
1062722	Bridget Jane Fonda (born January 27, 1964) is a former American actress. She is known for her roles in such films as "The Godfather Part III", "Single White Female", "Point of No Return", "It Could Happen to You", and "Jackie Brown". She also provides the voice for Jenna in the 1995 animated feature film "Balto". She is the daughter of Peter Fonda, niece of Jane Fonda and granddaughter of Henry Fonda. Personal life. Fonda was born in Los Angeles, California into a family of actors, including her grandfather Henry Fonda, father Peter Fonda, and her aunt Jane Fonda. Her mother, Susan Jane Brewer, is an artist. She is named after actress Margaret Sullavan's daughter Bridget Hayward who committed suicide at the age of 21. Sullavan was Henry Fonda's first wife. Bridget's parents divorced and Peter remarried Portia Rebecca Crockett (former wife of author Thomas McGuane). Peter and Portia raised Bridget, her brother Justin, and older stepbrother Thomas McGuane Jr (born circa 1962) in the Coldwater Canyon section of Los Angeles and south of Livingston, Montana, where both brothers attended high school. Fonda attended Westlake School for Girls in Los Angeles. In 1986, Bridget met Eric Stoltz and, in 1990, they began dating. The relationship ended eight years later. On November 29, 2003, she married the film composer and former Oingo Boingo frontman Danny Elfman. They have a son named Oliver. Career. Fonda became involved with the theatre when she was cast in a school production of "Harvey". She studied method acting at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts and the Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute and graduated from NYU in 1986. refused to solicit acting tips and advice from her famous relatives.
1065801	The Wendell Baker Story is a 2005 American film. It is the first film directed by Luke Wilson and his eldest brother Andrew Wilson. It premiered at the 2005 South by Southwest Film Festival in Austin, Texas, in March 2005. The film stars Luke Wilson, who also wrote the screenplay. Plot. Luke Wilson appears as an ex-con working in a retirement home, with Luke's other brother, Owen Wilson, as the home's head nurse. Eva Mendes co-stars as Luke Wilson's character's love-interest. The film also features Eddie Griffin, Kris Kristofferson, Harry Dean Stanton, Seymour Cassel and Will Ferrell. Production notes. The film has been developed through Mobius Entertainment and produced by Mark Johnson of CBS. It was filmed in Austin, Texas and was released on DVD for rental in a number of European countries, and was distributed theatrically by ThinkFilm starting on May 18, 2007. It was released on DVD in the United States on October 30, 2007.
1502283	Liza with a "Z": A Concert for Television is a 1972 concert film, made for television and starring Liza Minnelli. The film was produced by Fred Ebb and Bob Fosse. As well as producing, Fosse also directed and choreographed the concert, and Ebb wrote and arranged the music with his song-writing partner John Kander. All four had previously worked on the successful film adaptation of "Cabaret" earlier in the same year. According to Minnelli, it was "the first filmed concert on television". Singer sponsored the production, although the producers did their best to keep any of the sponsors from seeing the rehearsals for fear of them pulling out due to Minnelli's short skirts. Filmed on May 31 at the Lyceum Theatre in New York, after only eight weeks of rehearsals, the concert was shot with eight 16mm film cameras at the insistence of Fosse, in contrast to other television specials of the time which were all shot on videotape. Throughout the concert Minnelli sings and dances to a variety of popular songs and standards, music from "Cabaret", and songs specifically written for her by Kander and Ebb — most notably the title song. Minnelli is accompanied on stage in many of the songs by dancers and backing singers, and — in three numbers — two guitarists, a keyboardist and a drummer. The costumes were designed by Halston, who was also a friend of Minnelli. Marvin Hamlisch was selected by Kander and Ebb to be the music coordinator. The film was first broadcast on NBC on September 10, 1972. Kay Gardella of the "New York Daily News" reviewed the film as being ""sensational with an 'S'"" and it went on to win four Emmys and a Peabody Award. However, after the initial broadcast, NBC re-ran the concert only twice more and did not screen it again after 1973. The film was not seen for over thirty years and was thought lost until 1999, when Michael Arick discovered that Minnelli owned the copyright and the two set about restoring the negatives. Re-master and DVD release. After the initial broadcasts in 1972 and 1973, the negatives were stored in the vaults of NBC, only occasionally being brought out for Minnelli's own personal use. In the 1980s, the original negatives were lost and feared destroyed. Michael Arick and Minnelli eventually tracked down the original negatives in 1999, in Los Angeles and New York. In 2005, Minnelli revealed to Craig Zadan and Neil Meron, producers and friends of hers (who had produced the film of "Chicago" — another Fosse and Kander & Ebb collaboration), that she owned the rights to the film and that she had been restoring it with Arick. They introduced her to Robert Greenblatt, the President of Entertainment for Showtime, who then agreed to finance the restoration, broadcast the film, and release the DVD. The re-mastered film was accepted into both the Toronto International Film Festival and the Hamptons Film Festival for 2005 and premiered on September 9, 2005 at the Elgin and Winter Garden Theatres in Toronto. The television premiere was on Showtime on April 1, 2006. As well as a restored picture, the DVD also offers the viewer the option of a 5.1 surround sound soundtrack. This was made possible due to a new mix being created from reels of sound recordings Minnelli had personally archived after the original production in 1972. The DVD also includes a commentary track recorded by Minnelli, a performance of "Mein Herr" (cut from the original film), an interview with Kander recorded by Minnelli, a recording of Minnelli and the restoration producers discussing the film at the Toronto Film Festival, and a separate performance by Minnelli at the GLAAD Awards in 2005. Awards. The production won four Emmy Awards: "Outstanding Achievement in Choreography" (Bob Fosse, choreographer), "Outstanding Achievement in Music, Lyrics and Special Material" (Fred Ebb and John Kander, composers), "Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Comedy, Variety or Music" (Bob Fosse) and "Outstanding Single Program - Variety and Popular Music" (Bob Fosse and Fred Ebb, producers, and Liza Minnelli, star). It was nominated for a further three Emmy's in film editing, music composition and writing. The film also won a 1972 Peabody Award and a Directors Guild of America Award. Fosse's Emmy win meant that he had won an Oscar, Tony, and Emmy all within the same year. The DVD release was nominated for a 2006 Satellite Award for "Best DVD Release of a TV Show". Soundtrack. The original film soundtrack was recorded to 1/4" tape, and mixed down into a mono track for the 16mm film. An LP of the soundtrack was released in 1972 and followed in the success of the film by becoming a best seller and being certified gold. In total it spent twenty-three weeks in the Top 40 charts, and has never been out of print. A CD of the soundtrack was simultaneously released when the film was released on DVD in 2006. The reissue was presented in stereo. Some editions of the DVD came with the soundtrack CD as a bonus disc. The soundtrack is now also available as a download from iTunes. Track listing. The following is the track listing from the 2006 reissue. There are two differences between the 1972 original and the reissue — the first is that "Son of a Preacher Man" and "Ring Them Bells" were placed in the correct performance order for the reissue. The original release had the two songs in reverse order. The second difference is that the original had a twelfth track, entitled "Bows". For the reissue, this track was mixed into the end of the previous track.
1067695	Andre William Gregory (born May 11, 1934) is an American theatre director, writer and actor. Life and career. Gregory was born in Paris, France, to Russian Jewish parents. Gregory studied at Harvard University, where he was affiliated with Adams House. During the 1960s and 1970s, Gregory directed a number of avant-garde productions developed through ensemble collaboration, the most famous of which was "Alice In Wonderland" (1970), based on Lewis Carroll's two classic Alice books. In the course of these experiments, he founded his own theatrical company, The Manhattan Project (1968). In 1975 he directed "Our Late Night", the first produced play by Wallace Shawn, which began a long working relationship between the two. Shortly afterward, Gregory's growing misgivings about the role of theatre in modern life, and what he felt was a trend toward fascism in the United States, led him to abandon theatre abruptly and leave the country. As described in "My Dinner with Andre", he traveled to Poland on an invitation from Jerzy Grotowski, developed a number of experimental theatrical events for private audiences, and then spent several years in a variety of esoteric spiritual communities (such as Findhorn) developing an interest in what could be described as New Age beliefs. Although he left the theatre in 1975, Gregory has returned several times to direct small productions, usually for invited audiences. These included a long-running workshop of "Uncle Vanya" (adapted by David Mamet) which was developed from 1990 to 1994 and featured Wallace Shawn and Julianne Moore. Though never publicly performed, it was released as the film "Vanya on 42nd Street" by Gregory and Louis Malle. Gregory also directed a radio production of Shawn's play "The Designated Mourner" in 2002. He has had occasional film roles as a character actor, including John the Baptist in "The Last Temptation of Christ" and Reverend Spellgood in "The Mosquito Coast". But his best-known film appearance was as the title character in "My Dinner with Andre", directed by Louis Malle, in which he and Wallace Shawn, playing characters based on themselves, discussed Gregory's spiritual sojourn in Europe and his doubts about the future of theatre and of Western civilization in general. Gregory also appeared as himself in Malle's film "Vanya on 42nd Street", which documented his "Uncle Vanya" production. In 1988 he played the father in "Some Girls" with Jennifer Connelly and Patrick Dempsey. In 1993, he also performed in the movie "Demolition Man" with Sylvester Stallone, as well as with Goldie Hawn in "Protocol", released in 1984.
629362	Jacqueline Ruth "Jacki" Weaver (born 25 May 1947) is an Australian theatre, film, and television actress. She is known internationally for her performances in "Animal Kingdom" and "Silver Linings Playbook", for which she was nominated for the 2011 and 2013 Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. Weaver is a symbol for the Australian New Wave that began in the 1970s through her work in the films such as "Caddie", for which she tied for the very first AFI Award for Best Supporting Actress, "Petersen", and "Stork", for which she won the second ever AFI Award for Best Lead Actress. Weaver also won a Logie Award (Australia's Emmy Award) for her work in the 1976 television movie "Do I Have to Kill My Child?" Early life. Weaver was born in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. Her mother, Edith (née Simpson), was a migrant from northern England, and her father, Arthur Weaver, was a Sydney solicitor. She attended Hornsby Girls' High School. Career. Weaver has been working in Australian film, stage and television since the 1960s. The turning point in her career came in 1965 just before she was about to go to university and was cast in the Australian TV series "Wandjina!". Singing. In 1964 at the Palace Theatre in Sydney, Weaver and a number of other Australian singers such as The Delltones and her then-boyfriend Bryan Davies performed a satire on the Gidget movies, in which Weaver performed as "Gadget." In the mid-1960s, she appeared on the Australian music show "Bandstand". In one appearance, she sang a 1920s-style pastiche, the novelty song "I Love Onions." Film. Weaver's film debut came with 1971's "Stork" for which she won her first Australian Film Institute Award. In the 1970s, Weaver gained a sex-symbol reputation thanks to her performances in the likes of "Alvin Purple" (1973). Other notable films during this time include a small role in Peter Weir's "Picnic at Hanging Rock" (1975), and a more substantive appearance in "Caddie" (1976) for which she won her second Australian Film Institute Award. In the 1990s and early 2000s, Weaver found it increasingly hard to find roles on screen or television and devoted much of her energy to the Australian stage, starring in plays including "A Streetcar Named Desire", "Last of the Red Hot Lovers", "Death of a Salesman", Reg Cribb's "Last Cab to Darwin", and Chekhov's "Uncle Vanya" alongside Cate Blanchett and Richard Roxburgh in 2010-11. In 2010, Weaver also starred in the Melbourne-set crime thriller "Animal Kingdom" playing a gang family matriarch. Her performance was praised and earned her an Academy Award nomination as well as winning the Australian Film Institute Award, the National Board of Review, Los Angeles Film Critics Association Award and a Satellite Award. Weaver made her Hollywood debut with the comedy "The Five-Year Engagement", alongside Emily Blunt and Jason Segel, and starred in Park Chan-Wook's English-language debut, "Stoker", alongside fellow Australian actors Nicole Kidman and Mia Wasikowska, and British actor Matthew Goode. On 10 January 2013, Weaver was again nominated for an Academy Award for her role opposite Robert De Niro in the film "Silver Linings Playbook". In April the same year, she was cast in the adaptation of Richard Alfieri's play "6 Dance Lessons in 6 Weeks" opposite Gena Rowlands.
744188	Three Can Play That Game is a 2007 romantic comedy film directed by Samad Davis. The film stars Jason George, Jazsmin Lewis, and Vivica A. Fox, and is a sequel to the 2001 film "Two Can Play That Game". Plot. When Byron (George) hits the big time, no one is happier than his girlfriend Tiffany (Lewis) - that is, until she catches him flirting with his sly new project manager Carla (Kellita Smith). While contemplating whether to break it off with Byron, Tiffany's best friend tells her about a specialist for women whose men can not control their primitive urges. Enter Ms. Shanté Smith (Fox). Using her knowledge of the male psyche and her new Five Step program, Shanté gives Tiffany the necessary tools she needs to "train" Byron and teach him a lesson for his behavior. However, Byron also has expert advice in his corner, courtesy of his best friend Gizzard (Tony Rock). Once again, the battle for the title of the superior sex is on.
584043	Chandramukhi is a 2005 Indian comedy-horror film directed by P. Vasu and produced by Ramkumar Ganesan. It's a remake of the Kannada film "Apthamithra", starring Dr. Vishnuvardhan. The soundtrack and background score, which became successful enough to be released as a separate album, was composed by Vidyasagar. The film was distributed by Sivaji Productions. Rajnikanth saw the movie in Bengaluru and was very much impressed with the way his long time friend Vishnuvardhan had portrayed. He decided to play the character in the Tamil version of the movie. It starred Rajinikanth, making "Chandramukhi" his "come back" film after the box office failure of "Baba" (2002). The title role was played by Jyothika while Prabhu Ganesan and Nayantara were also given lead roles. Vadivelu, Nassar, K. R. Vijaya, Vijayakumar, Vinaya Prasad, Sonu Sood, Vineeth and Malavika were given supporting roles. It was released on 14 April 2005 (India), coinciding with Tamil New Year. It was Rajini's third all-time blockbuster and completed 450-day run at the box office. About 20 million tickets were reportedly sold worldwide. This was the first Tamil film to beat the record set by "Padayappa". However, this new record was beaten two years later by "Sivaji". Jyothika won many awards for her excellent performance in the title including a Tamil Nadu State Film Award for Best Actress, a nomination for Filmfare Best Actress among several other awards. Plot. The movie opens with Saravanan (Rajinikanth), an Indian-American psychiatrist coming to India on vacation. He meets up with his dearest friend and foster brother, Senthilnathan (Prabhu Ganesan), and his wife, Ganga (Jyothika). Senthil's mother (Saravanan's adoptive mother), Kasturi (K. R. Vijaya), had wanted Senthil to get married to Priya (Malavika), daughter of his father's cousin Kandaswamy (Nasser), to reunite the two branches of the family after 30 years of separation. They had separated because Senthilnathan's father chose to marry Kasturi instead of the intimidating Akhilandeshwari (Sheela), Kandaswamy's sister and the bachelorette head of her late parents' family. Saravanan learns that Senthil's family have bought the Vettayyapuram Palace, despite a fear of the place and attempts by the elders to dissuade them. Saravanan moves in with them. Akhilandeshwari is jealous of Saravanan and tries to destroy him, with the help of her assistant (Sonu Sood). When they go to a temple, a priest reveals why everyone is frightened. When King Vettayan lived in the palace, he took a trip to Vijayanagaram in Andhra Pradesh and met the dancer Chandramukhi, instantly falling in love with her beauty. However, she would not return his love because her heart was already set on the dancer Gunasekaran. Vettayan kidnapped her and brought her back to his palace. Chandramukhi, without letting the king know, had Gunasekaran stay in a nearby house. When the king found out, he killed Gunasekaran on Durgashtami and burned Chandramukhi alive. Chandramukhi's spirit continued to remain in the palace to take revenge on the king. Legend had it that her soul was locked up in the southern room with a king cobra. Shortly after this revelation, Saravanan helps Priya in her love affair with their neighbour, dance professor Viswanathan (Vineeth), and persuades her parents and aunt to arrange their marriage. When Ganga learns of Chandramukhi's story, she wants to go to her room because she thinks that this story was made up to scare thieves from stealing costly treasures which she believes are in the room. She gets the key and opens the door. Subsequently, strange things begin happening in the household: a ghost is scaring the people in the house, things are inexplicably breaking, and Ganga's sari catches fire. Suspicion turns towards Durga (Nayantara), the gardener's granddaughter. Senthil calls Saravanan for help with the mysterious events. The night Saravanan returns, a mysterious being makes an attempt to kill Priya. Someone tries to kill Senthil, once with poison, and another time by pushing a fish tank. A mysterious voice sings in the middle of the night, and Saravanan tries to figure out what's happening. The night of Priya and Viswanathan's wedding reception, Ganga mysteriously disappears from the canopy. When Saravanan notices, he goes to look for her. But he ends up almost getting killed by the goon sent by Akhilandeshwari. He knocks the goon out and, with Senthil's help, finds Ganga, supposedly being sexually harassed by Viswanathan. Saravanan informs Senthil and Viswanathan that Ganga has a split personality of Ganga and Chandramukhi. The reason she tried to kill Priya and Senthil, and frame Viswanathan for sexual harassment, was because in Chandramukhi's eyes, Viswanathan is her lover Gunasekaran. The only way to stop it is to make her believe Saravanan is dead. This is because Chandramukhi was killed by King Vettayan, who looked just like Saravanan. Saravanan says that he will act as the king and let Chandramukhi kill him and get the dancer's spirit out of Ganga's body, with the help of world-renown exorcist Ramachandra Acharya. He will sacrifice his life because he looks just like the king, and he went up to Chandramukhi's room and she saw him. Akhilandeshwari hears his idea, realising that she was wrong to try to destroy Saravanan, and begs him for forgiveness. Later, in the dance hall, the family and Ramachandra Acharya do what Saravanan has asked them to do. They let Chandramukhi pour oil on him so she can burn him alive. When she lights the match, Ramachandra Acharya blows the smoke and ash in her face. Then Senthil opens a trapdoor to let Saravanan fall down and a cardboard figure of him gets burnt. Chandramukhi thinks that the king is dead and leaves Ganga's body. Ganga is cured. After 30 years of separation, the two families are reunited. Saravanan and Durga fall in love and are united. And finally, Swarna and Murugesh (Vadivelu), become parents after 8 years of marriage. Production. Yesteryear actress Sheela was signed up for a significant role in the film and was asked by the producers not to divulge the role to the media. In November 2004, Simran left the project as her role required a lot of dancing and it would be risky for the pregnant actress to play it on screen. After reports that Sadha or Reemma Sen were being considered as replacements, Jyothika was signed on and immediately gave 50 days of her schedule for the film. Filming began on 24 October 2004 at Annai Illam, the residence of late Sivaji Ganesan, like most other films by Sivaji Productions. Producer Ramkumar Ganesan claimed that the film would be entirely wrapped up by 15 February, giving them two months to complete the post-production work, including special effects. The schedules began two days later with a fight scene filmed at Ramavaram in Chennai with over 20 vehicles. Shooting ceased in February 2005 in Hyderabad with a song being shot and Vasu revealing that the film had only taken 78 days to complete instead of the planned 120 days. After the audio launch, Rajinikanth and Nayantara shot a song in Turkey, making the production the first Tamil film to be done so. The song "Athinthom" was shot at a Mysore palace. Soundtrack. The soundtrack consists of six songs composed by Vidyasagar. Remakes. The original Malayalam film "Manichithrathazhu" was subsequently remade or dubbed in several other languages and found success in the respective regional cinemas. "Chandramukhi" is the second remake of "Manichithrathazhu" after the Kannada version, "Aaptamitra", which was also directed by P. Vasu. The Tamil version was dubbed into Telugu with the same title. "Rajmohol" (2005) in Bengali. Later, it became the first Tamil film to be dubbed into German and it was released in several German-speaking countries as "Der Geisterjäger" (lit. "The Ghost Hunters"). On 29 February 2008, producer A. M. Rathnam dubbed and released the film in Hindi, despite "Bhool Bhulaiyaa", the Bollywood remake of "Manichithrathazhu", having been released on 12 October 2007. The film was also dubbed in Bhojpuri with the title "Chandramukhi Ke Hunkaar". Below is a character map of the lead characters in the story of "Manichithrathazhu" and its remakes. Controversy. Though the movie was a remake, the story did not credit Madhu Muttam, who wrote the story for "Manichithrathazhu". Instead, the story was credited to the director P. Vasu. The same controversy happened in Vasu's "Apthamitra". Vasu, however stated that the script was revised and was different from the original, though very slightly. The script was also said to have partially inspired from another Malayalam flick "Aaraam Thampuran". Sequel. A sequel to "Chandramukhi", tentatively titled "Chandramukhi 2" in Tamil, is currently being made by P. Vasu, who directed the sequel to "Apthamitra", titled "Aptharakshaka". In 2008, Vasu proposed the script of the film to Rajinikanth, who initially expressed desire to take up a dual role as Dr. Saravanan and Vettaiyan. In 2010, it was reported that Rajinikanth suggested Ajith Kumar for the dual lead role. Sameera Reddy was also rumoured to have been approached for a role. A sequel to "Chandramukhi" in Telugu is made in the same language as "Nagavalli" by P. Vasu starring Venkatesh Daggubati in the lead along with Anushka Shetty, Richa Gangopadhyay, Shraddha Das, Poonam Kaur, and Kamalinee Mukherjee. Release. The film was released on 14 April 2005, on the eve of Tamil New Year, alongside Kamal's "Mumbai Xpress". Satellite rights were acquired by Sun TV. "Sify" wrote, "First thing first. Rajnikanth’s Chandramukhi is far better than his last film Baba, yet it leaves you with somewhat mixed feeling. Undoubtedly the plot is nothing but Fazil’s Manichitrathazhu from Malayalam. But Chandramukhi is a remake of P. Vasu’s Apathamitra from Kannada with some additional songs, fights and comedy scenes thrown in to further boost the superstar’s image". "Rediff" stated that the film would become "a certain blockbuster". The original negative was damaged due to poor care and ill-treatment. AP International and Shahran Sunny Audit started a restoration project which scanned the film frame-by-frame, in a 2K workflow. They were able to remove all wear and tear, and retain the natural film grain. This version has been released on Blu-ray in July 2012.
1463216	Pingala (Devanagari: पिङ्गल "") is the traditional name of the author of the ' (also '), the earliest known Sanskrit treatise on prosody. Little is known about Piṅgala himself. In Indian literary tradition, he is variously identified either as the younger brother of Pāṇini (4th century BCE), or as Patañjali, the author of the Mahabhashya (2nd century BCE). The is a work of eight chapters in the late Sūtra style, not fully comprehensible without a commentary. It has been dated to either the final centuries BCE or the early centuries CE, at the transition between Vedic meter and the classical meter of the Sanskrit epics. This would place it close to the beginning of the Common Era, likely post-dating Mauryan times. The 10th century mathematician Halayudha wrote a commentary on the and expanded it. Combinatorics. The presents the first known description of a binary numeral system in connection with the systematic enumeration of meters with fixed patterns of short and long syllables. The discussion of the combinatorics of meter corresponds to the binomial theorem. Halāyudha's commentary includes a presentation of the Pascal's triangle (called '). Pingala's work also contains the Fibonacci number, called ', and now known as the Gopala–Hemachandra number. Use of zero is sometimes mistakenly ascribed to Pingala due to his discussion of binary numbers, usually represented using 0 and 1 in modern discussion, while Pingala used short and long syllables. As Pingala's system ranks binary patterns starting at one (four short syllables—binary "0000"—is the first pattern), the nth pattern corresponds to the binary representation of n-1, written backwards. Positional use of zero dates from later centuries and would have been known to Halāyudha but not to Pingala.
568437	Men Behind the Sun (, literally meaning "Black Sun: 731") is a 1988 Hong Kong historical drama horror film directed by T.F. Mous.
1059826	The Texas Chain Saw Massacre is a 1974 American slasher film, directed and produced by Tobe Hooper, who cowrote it with Kim Henkel. It stars Marilyn Burns, Paul A. Partain, Edwin Neal, Jim Siedow and Gunnar Hansen, who respectively portray Sally Hardesty, Franklin Hardesty, the hitchhiker, the proprietor and Leatherface, the main antagonist. The film follows a group of friends who fall victim to a family of cannibals while on their way to visit an old homestead. Although it was marketed as a true story to attract a wider audience and as a subtle commentary on the era's political climate, its plot is entirely fictional; however the character of Leatherface and minor plot details were inspired by the crimes of real-life murderer Ed Gein. Hooper produced the film for less than $300,000 and used a cast of relatively unknown actors drawn mainly from central Texas, where the film was shot. The limited budget forced Hooper to film for long hours seven days a week, so that he could finish as quickly as possible and reduce equipment rental costs. Due to the film's violent content, Hooper struggled to find a distributor. Louis Perano of Bryanston Pictures eventually purchased the distribution rights. Hooper limited the quantity of onscreen gore in hopes of securing a 'PG' rating, but the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) rated it 'R'. The film faced similar difficulties internationally. Upon its October 1974 release, "The Texas Chain Saw Massacre" was banned outright in several countries, and numerous theaters later stopped showing the film in response to complaints about its violence. While it initially drew a mixed reception from critics, it was enormously profitable, grossing over $30 million at the domestic box office. It has since gained a reputation as one of the best horror films in cinema history. It is credited with originating several elements common in the slasher genre, including the use of power tools as murder weapons and the characterization of the killer as a large, hulking, faceless figure. The popularity of the film led to a franchise that continued the story of Leatherface and his family through sequels, remakes, one prequel, comic books and video games. Plot. Sally Hardesty (Marilyn Burns) and her paraplegic brother, Franklin (Paul A. Partain), travel with three friends, Jerry (Allen Danziger), Kirk (William Vail), and Pam (Teri McMinn), to visit the grave of the Hardestys' grandfather to investigate reports of vandalism and grave robbing. Afterwards they decide to visit the old Hardesty family homestead. Along the way they pick up a hitchhiker (Edwin Neal) who talks about his family who worked at the old slaughterhouse. He takes a Polaroid picture and demands money for it. When they refuse to pay, he burns the photo and slashes himself and Franklin with a straight razor. The group forces him out of the van and drive on. They stop at a gas station to refuel, but the proprietor (Jim Siedow) tells them that the pumps are empty.
589505	Jalal Agha (died 5 March 1995) was an Indian actor and director in Bollywood films. Son of the popular comedian Agha, Jalal studied acting at the Film and Television Institute of India, Pune. Career. He made his debut as a child actor playing the young version of Jehangir (who was played by Dilip Kumar as an adult) in the historical epic "Mughal-E-Azam" which released in 1960. He made his debut in an adult role in K.A. Abbas's "Bambai Raat Ki Bahon Mein" (1967), and went to appear in over 60 Bollywood films from the late 1960s through to the early 1990s mostly playing supporting roles. His most famous role was in the blockbuster hit "Sholay" where he played the banjo player in the popular song "Mehbooba O' Mehbooba". He also made appearances in English-language films such as "Bombay Talkie" (1970), "Gandhi" (1982), "Kim" (1984) and "The Deceivers" (1988). He also wrote and directed a Bollywood film titled "Goonj" which released in 1989. He died of a heart attack in 1995. Survived by his son Saleem Christopher Agha Bee and daughter Vanessa Feuerstein.
71354	El Topo (The Mole) is a 1970 American-Mexican western film written and directed by and starring Alejandro Jodorowsky. Characterized by its bizarre characters and occurrences, use of maimed and dwarf performers, and heavy doses of Christian symbolism and Eastern philosophy, the film is about the eponymous character – a violent, black-clad gunfighter – and his quest for enlightenment. Plot. The film takes place in two parts. The first half resembles a western; albeit a surreal one. The second is a love story of redemption and rebirth. Part 1. The first half opens with El Topo (played by Jodorowsky himself) traveling through a desert on horseback with his naked young son. They come across a town whose inhabitants have been slaughtered, and El Topo hunts down and kills the perpetrators and their leader, a fat balding Colonel. El Topo abandons his son to the monks of the settlement's mission and rides off with a woman whom the Colonel had kept as a slave. El Topo names the woman Mara, and she convinces him to defeat four great gun masters to become the greatest gunman in the land. Each gun master represents a particular religion or philosophy, and El Topo learns from each of them before instigating a duel. El Topo is victorious each time, not through superior skill but through trickery or luck.
1064820	Derek Luke (born April 24, 1974) is an American actor. He won the Independent Spirit Award for his big-screen debut performance in the 2002 film "Antwone Fisher", directed and produced by Denzel Washington. Early life. Luke was born in Jersey City, New Jersey, the son of Marjorie Dixon, a pianist, and Maurice Luke, a former actor. His father is from Georgetown, Guyana. He attended freshman year at Linden High School and graduated from Snyder High School in 1993. Career. Luke played one of the four male leads in Spike Lee's 2008 war film "Miracle at St. Anna", replacing Wesley Snipes, who had to leave the film due to his highly-publicized tax problems. Luke played a small part as a nurse in the 1999 episode "White Collar" of the sitcom "The King of Queens", and appeared on on the NBC show "Trauma". He played one of the group members of Mayhem in the "Moesha" episode "Mayhem at the Jam Esp' (March 19, 2001). He plays Alicia Keys' love interest in her music video for "Teenage Love Affair". He played singer Monica's love interest in the her music video for "So Gone". Luke played Sean 'Puffy' Combs in the 2009 film "Notorious", and James 'Boobie' Miles in the 2004 film "Friday Night Lights". Luke was cast to play Gabe Jones, a member of the Howling Commandos in "", released in July 2011. In June 2011, Luke also began starring in the TNT original medical drama series "HawthoRNe" as Miles Bourdet, an assistant surgeon from Chicago. From February to April 2013, Luke played the character of "Gregory" in the F/X series The Americans.
582484	Prateik Babbar (, ; born 28 November 1986) is an Indian actor. He is the son of late actress Smita Patil and actor turned politician Raj Babbar. Career. Earlier Prateik assisted advertisement filmmaker Prahlad Kakkar for a year as a production assistant. During this time Prateik was cast in advertisement films for several companies, including KitKat. Prateik made his acting debut in the Aamir Khan production, "Jaane Tu Ya Jaane Na", alongside Genelia D'Souza. His portrayal of Genelia's brother, Amit, won him several awards and nominations. The film went on to become a major commercial success. He next appeared in Kiran Rao's Dhobi Ghaat, which opened to positive reviews at film festivals worldwide. He featured in the action-thriller "Dum Maro Dum" alongside Abhishek Bachchan and Rana Daggubati. He has been seen alongside Amitabh Bachchan, Saif Ali Khan, Deepika Padukone and Manoj Bajpai in the Prakash Jha film "Aarakshan", released in August 2011. Personal life. Prateik Babbar was born on November 28, 1986 and he is the son of late actress Smita Patil and actor-politician Raj Babbar. His mother died due to post partum complications after Prateik was born. He dated Amy Jackson (co-star Ekk Deewana Tha), with whom he has a tattoo, but has now separated.
353957	The Remez algorithm or Remez exchange algorithm, published by Evgeny Yakovlevich Remez in 1934, is an iterative algorithm used to find simple approximations to functions, specifically, approximations by functions in a Chebyshev space that are the best in the uniform norm "L"∞ sense. A typical example of a Chebyshev space is the subspace of Chebyshev polynomials of order "n" in the space of real continuous functions on an interval, "C"["a", "b"]. The polynomial of best approximation within a given subspace is defined to be the one that minimizes the maximum absolute difference between the polynomial and the function. In this case, the form of the solution is precised by the equioscillation theorem. Procedure. The Remez algorithm starts with the function "f" to be approximated and a set "X" of formula_1 sample points formula_2 in the approximation interval, usually the Chebyshev nodes linearly mapped to the interval. The steps are: The result is called the polynomial of best approximation, the Chebyshev approximation, or the minimax approximation. A review of technicalities in implementing the Remez algorithm is given by W. Fraser. On the choice of initialization. The Chebyshev nodes are a common choice for the initial approximation because of their role in the theory of polynomial interpolation. For the initialization of the optimization problem for function "f" by the Lagrange interpolant "L"n("f"), it can be shown that this initial approximation is bounded by with the norm or Lebesgue constant of the Lagrange interpolation operator "L""n" of the nodes ("t"1, ..., "t""n" + 1) being "T" being the zeros of the Chebyshev polynomials, and the Lebesgue functions being Theodore A. Kilgore, Carl de Boor, and Allan Pinkus proved that there exists a unique "t""i" for each "L""n", although not known explicitly for (ordinary) polynomials. Similarly, formula_14, and the optimality of a choice of nodes can be expressed as formula_15 For Chebyshev nodes, which provides a suboptimal, but analytically explicit choice, the asymptotic behavior is known as ("γ" being the Euler-Mascheroni constant) with and upper bound Lev Brutman obtained the bound for formula_20, and formula_21 being the zeros of the expanded Chebyshev polynomials: Rüdiger Günttner obtained from a sharper estimate for formula_23 Variants. Sometimes more than one sample point is replaced at the same time with the locations of nearby maximum absolute differences. Sometimes relative error is used to measure the difference between the approximation and the function, especially if the approximation will be used to compute the function on a computer which uses floating point arithmetic.
501271	Aida Turturro (born September 25, 1962) is an American actress best known for playing Janice Soprano, sister of New Jersey mob boss Tony Soprano, on the HBO TV series "The Sopranos" (1999-2007). Personal life. Aida Turturro was born in Brooklyn, New York, daughter of a Sicilian mother Dorothy, a homemaker, and an Italian-American father Domenick Turturro, an artist. Actors John Turturro, Nicholas Turturro, and Natalie Turturro are her cousins. Turturro has worked to raise public awareness of rheumatoid arthritis. Film career. Turturro appeared in her first film in 1989. She has also acted in films such as "What About Bob?", "Jersey Girl", "Illuminata". Turturro also had a small part in the 1996 Drama Film "Sleepers" and in "Deep Blue Sea". She appears also in the 2005 movie "Romance & Cigarettes", directed by her cousin John. Turturro appeared in the eighth season episode "Car Periscope," of "Curb Your Enthusiasm". Television career. Turturro's most notable performance was as Janice Soprano in "The Sopranos". She appeared in 73 episodes from 2000-2007.
1759366	Three Monkeys () a 2008 Turkish film directed by Nuri Bilge Ceylan. The film was Turkey's official submission for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film at the 81st Academy Awards, and it made the January short-list but was not nominated. Plot. A family is dislocated when small failings become extravagant lies. The film opens as a wealthy businessman, Servet, running a campaign for the upcoming election, is driving in his car alone and sleepy, struggling to keep his eyes open. Seconds later he hits and kills a pedestrian in the middle of the road. Servet panics when another car with a couple inside approaches. He sneaks away.
582930	Deewaanapan (English: "Insanity") is a Bollywood movie, released on 16 November 2001. It stars Arjun Rampal and Dia Mirza and is directed by Ashu Trikha. Om Puri and Vinod Khanna have supporting roles. Synopsis. Suraj Saxena (Arjun Rampal) lives in a remote hill station in India with his dad (Om Puri), mom (Smita Jaykar), and sister, Asha (Amita Nangia). One day he meets with Kiran Choudhary (Dia Mirza), who has come on holiday trip with a group of girls. He offers to show her around and they fall in love with each other. Suraj is unable to see her home by the train as his dad has chest pains and has to be rushed to hospital. But Suraj is unable to get Kiran out of his mind and heart. After his sister gets married, the family decide to relocate to Bombay, where Suraj enlists in College and makes several new friends, as well as becomes a popular football player. He eventually meets Kiran and both renew their romance. Ranvir Choudhary (Vinod Khanna) does not appreciate the attentions of a poor man like Suraj on his daughter, and has Suraj brought up before him and introduced to his many friends, which include prominent lawyers, politicians, high ranking civil and municipal employees, the police commissioner as well as the state chief minister. Suraj is warned of dire consequences if he and his family do not leave town immediately. Suraj does not leave town, and hell descends on his family and himself. His mother is unable to purchase food and is publicly humiliated; his father is followed around by Ranvir's goons, harassed, and robbed, and then faces the ultimate humiliation of being publicly arrested, handcuffed, and imprisoned on charges of conspiring against the country and loses his job; and some of Suraj's friends exile him. With so much pressure, will Suraj relent and leave the city, or will he let his dad rot in prison? Ranvir has sworn to kill Suraj, and if he does so, what will happen to Suraj's mom? Awards and nominations. Star Screen Awards. Won Nominated Zee Cine Awards. Nominated
581905	Laaga Chunari Mein Daag - Journey Of A Woman (, , English: "My Veil is Stained") is a 2007 Bollywood film directed by Pradeep Sarkar and starring Rani Mukerji, Jaya Bachchan, Konkona Sen Sharma, Kunal Kapoor and Anupam Kher with special appearances by Abhishek Bachchan and Hema Malini. Produced by Aditya Chopra it premiered on 12 October 2007. The film was the first directed by Sarkar under the Yash Raj Films banner. Plot. Vibhavari, affectionately called Badki (Rani Mukerji), and Shubhavari, affectionately called Chutki (Konkona Sen Sharma) are the daughters of Shivshankar Sahay (Anupam Kher) and Sabitri (Jaya Bachchan). They live together on the banks of the Ganges in Banaras. Life is full of happiness and joy for the two, though the family is relatively poor. Badki especially is protective of her family and is determined to ensure Chutki completes her education.
68193	Alan David Sokal (; born 1955) is a professor of mathematics at University College London and professor of physics at New York University. He works in statistical mechanics and combinatorics. He is best known for his criticism of postmodernism, resulting in the Sokal affair in 1996 when his deliberately nonsensical paper was published by Duke University's "Social Text". Academic career. Sokal received his B.A. from Harvard College in 1976 and his Ph.D. from Princeton University in 1981. He was advised by Arthur Wightman. In the summers of 1986-1988, Sokal taught mathematics at the National Autonomous University of Nicaragua, when the Sandinistas were heading the elected government. Research interests. Sokal’s research lies in mathematical physics and combinatorics. In particular, he studies the interplay between these fields based on questions arising in statistical mechanics and quantum field theory. This includes work on the chromatic polynomial and the Tutte polynomial, which appear both in algebraic graph theory and in the study of phase transitions in statistical mechanics. His interests include computational physics and algorithms, such as Markov chain Monte Carlo algorithms for problems in statistical physics. He also co-authored a book on quantum triviality. Sokal affair. Sokal is best known to the general public for the Sokal Affair of 1996. Curious to see whether the then-non-peer-reviewed postmodern cultural studies journal "Social Text" (published by Duke University Press) would publish a submission which "flattered the editors' ideological preconceptions," Sokal submitted a grand-sounding but completely nonsensical paper entitled "Transgressing the Boundaries: Toward a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity." The journal did in fact publish it, and soon thereafter Sokal then revealed that the article was a hoax in the journal "Lingua Franca", arguing that the left and social science would be better served by intellectual underpinnings based on reason. He replied to leftist and postmodernist criticism of the deception by saying that his motivation had been to "defend the Left from a trendy segment of itself." The affair, together with Paul R. Gross and Norman Levitt's book "Higher Superstition", can be considered to be a part of the so-called Science wars. Sokal followed up by co-authoring the book "Impostures Intellectuelles" with Jean Bricmont in 1997 (published in English, a year later, as "Fashionable Nonsense"). The book accuses other academics of using scientific and mathematical terms incorrectly and criticizes proponents of the strong program for denying the value of truth. The book had mixed reviews, with some lauding the effort, some more reserved, and others pointing out alleged inconsistencies and criticizing the authors for ignorance of the fields under attack and taking passages out of context. In 2008, Sokal revisited the Sokal affair and its implications in "Beyond the Hoax".
1056652	The Apparition is a 2012 American supernatural thriller film written and directed by Todd Lincoln and starring Ashley Greene, Sebastian Stan, Tom Felton, Julianna Guill and Luke Pasqualino. Plot. On May 21, 1973, six people conduct The Charles Experiment, a parapsychological experiment, in which they stare at a drawing of a deceased man, Charles Reamer, hoping to summon his spirit. Years later, four college students, Patrick (Tom Felton), Lydia (Julianna Guill), Greg (Luke Pasqualino), and Ben (Sebastian Stan) attempt to recreate the Charles Experiment on a larger scale by using modern technology. During the experiment, something attacks the students and pulls Lydia into the wall. Some time later, Ben and his girlfriend Kelly (Ashley Greene) are living together. One evening, they discover strange burn marks on their counters. Kelly finds both doors wide open, even though they had locked them. They decide to change the locks and install surveillance cameras. Later, Kelly finds a large amount of mold and spores on the laundry room floor while Ben finds even more in a crawlspace. Ben gets 36 "urgent" emails from Patrick that first inform him of a new attempt at the Charles Experiment, followed by a warning that "containment failed" and finally "you are in danger". After witnessing the apparition, the couple go to a hotel, but they're attacked there as well. As they flee, they receive a call from Patrick and meet him. Patrick explains that the initial experiment enabled a malevolent spirit entity to enter their world, but that he has built a room surrounded by a negative current that he believes protects him from the spirit. They return to Kelly and Ben's house to try a new experiment to contain the entity. During the experiment, the house begins to shake and break apart, then abruptly stops. While Kelly and Ben are outside, Patrick is pulled into the darkness and vanishes. Unable to find Patrick, they leave to get to the safety chamber in Patrick's house.
1017473	Enter the Dragon is a 1973 martial arts action film directed by Robert Clouse; starring Bruce Lee, John Saxon and Jim Kelly. This was Bruce Lee's final film appearance before his death on July 20, 1973. The film was released on July 26, 1973, six days after Lee's death, in Hong Kong. In 2004, "Enter the Dragon" was deemed "culturally significant" in the United States and selected for preservation in the National Film Registry. "Enter the Dragon" was the first Chinese martial arts film to have been produced by a major Hollywood studio – Warner Bros. and was produced in association with Golden Harvest and Lee's Concord Production Company. The film is largely set in Hong Kong. Among the stuntmen for the film were members of the Seven Little Fortunes, including Jackie Chan, Sammo Hung and Bolo Yeung. This was arguably instrumental in Chan and Hung's further association with Golden Harvest studios, which later launched their careers. The portly Hung is shown fighting Lee in the opening sequence of the movie and Chan shows up as a henchman when Lee is discovered inside Han's underground lair. The finished version of the film was not significantly different from the original screenplay. Bruce Lee did not revise the script. Bruce Lee directed the film's opening Shaolin Monastery fight sequence. Lee wanted to use the film as a vehicle for expressing what he saw as the beauty of his Chinese culture, rather than it being just another action film. The original script contained most of the dialogue in the movie.
1110387	Kellita Smith (born July 11, 1969) is an American actress and model. She is best known
583349	Tujhe Meri Kasam (Hindi: तुझे मेरी क़सम, English translation: "My Promise to You") is a 2003 Hindi movie starring Ritesh Deshmukh, Genelia D'Souza, Shriya Saran. It was directed by K. Vijaya Bhaskar and produced by Ramoji Rao, with Viju Shah as music director. This film marked the debut of Ritesh Deshmukh and Genelia D'Souza. This movie was a remake of Malayalam blockbuster Niram directed by Kamal. "Tujhe Meri Kasam" was a below average in Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Orissa and some part of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar; however, it was a hit movie throughout India. Plot. Rishi (Ritesh Deshmukh) and Anju (Genelia D'Souza) are childhood best buddies. They were born on the same day, in the same hospital. Even their parents are best friends from their college years and are now neighbours. Rishi and Anju are inseparable, so much so that they study in the same college in the same class. Akash a very talented singer, develops feelings towards Anju when she spontaneously sings along with him at a college function. He, Anju and others leave for Bangalore for a week to participate in a few inter-college competitions. As they are apart for the first time in their lives, Rishi starts missing Anju very badly, but does not understand his feelings. His maid Sarro (Supriya Pilgaonkar), who often teases him and Anju, starts teasing him that he is missing her because he loves her. Slowly, with the maids words, Rishi begins to realise that indeed, he loves her. He buys a gift and greeting card to express himself when she returns. But meanwhile he sees a girl from his college slapping his friend because he said he loves her. She in a distressed mood says that such guys are a shame towards friendship as they pretend to be friends but really have other intentions. She wishes that every guy could be like Rishi so that a girl and guy could be best friends without any worries. Rishi then feels that he should not tell Anju about his feelings lest she too react in the same way. He feels that he can bear not to tell her about his love but cannot imagine losing her friendship. Anju returns from Bangalore and tells Rishi that Akash proposed to her during their stay there. She comes to his room to ask him what to reply and by mistake half opens the drawer in which he kept his greeting card and gift. He hurriedly closes it and asks her not to open that and tells her to agree to the proposal if she likes Akash. She finally agrees to his proposal but later things start to get a little rough as Akash doesn't like the intimacy Rishi and Anju enjoy. For example, when Akash and Anju are having a conversation and Rishi joins them, Akash asks him to leave as they need some privacy. Such actions greatly distress Anju and she warns him not to do it again but Rishi explains that what Akash is doing is justifiable. Soon Akash's grandmother comes to Anju's house to arrange their marriage. Her parents agree and marriage preparations are well underway. It is decided that after marriage, Anju will leave with Akash to USA where his whole family is settled. It is then that she realises this marriage means breaking her relationship with Rishi and leaving forever. She suddenly dislikes getting married and tries to talk to Rishi about it, but he casually says that it is all part of life and inevitable. She asks how can he talk so cold heartedly. She says she wishes she did not have to leave and wonders why did she have to love Akash. She scolds him why he did not get the idea to love her in the first place. At this point Rishi ruled by emotions hugs Anju and cries and runs away from her. Anju grows suspicious of his actions and remembers the drawer which he did not let her open. She goes to his room and is shocked to find the card and gift. She says that she does not want to marry Akash and will tell everyone about them. Rishi firmly refuses saying that their parents have given them unlimited freedom and it would be very cruel, selfish and irresponsible of them to break their trust. At his insistence she goes through the engagement ceremony. Later, after the engagement, Rishi says that he has to go to a basketball match out of the state and will not be there for the marriage. The parents try to convince him but he doesn't listen. Anju gives him a ride to the station and on the way they remember their entire childhood. At the station as Rishi is climbing aboard Anju weeps and holds him. He is unable to leave. At the house, the maid tells their parents everything and they come to the station. They find Anju and Rishi on the platform stairs and say that what they feel is not wrong and it is the way of the world. They say that they shall cancel the marriage and ask them to come home. Controversy. Vilasrao Deshmukh's son, Ritesh, was making a Bollywood debut and the minister with his Mantralaya officials was doing his bit to make Tujhe Meri Kasam rock at the box office. From CM's public relations officials to his Congressmen, from party activists to police inspectors and ward officers all were reportedly roped in for the star studded premiere at the IMAX dome in Wadala, Mumbai. While Cable TV operators were warned against showing pirated versions of the movie, television promos and the many billboards in the city made sure that the movie does not go unnoticed. Most say, that all these hoardings were not funded for by the film's producer. If this wasn't enough, the chief minister, with his powerful influence got the who's who to attend the grand premiere of the movie that was held at Imax Adlabs, Mumbai. It was then that Deshmukh was asked to resign citing reason that he employed political machinery for such an affair. References. Smrity Sharma, 'Riteish behind CM-dad's resignation?', "India Times Movies" 2 December 2008.
1185074	Jessica Ann Simpson (born July 10, 1980) is an American recording artist, actress, television personality and fashion designer who made her debut in 1999. Since that time, Simpson has made many recordings, starred in several television shows, movies and commercials, launched a line of hair and beauty products and designed fragrances, shoes and handbags for women. She has devoted time to philanthropic efforts including Operation Smile and a USO-hosted tour for troops stationed overseas. She started the Jessica Simpson Collection in 2009. Simpson rose to fame with the release of her debut single, "I Wanna Love You Forever", which peaked inside the Top 5 of the "Billboard" Hot 100. Subsequently, her debut album "Sweet Kisses" went on to be certified 2x Platinum in the United States, and sold over four million copies worldwide. Her 2001 single "Irresistible" became her second Top 20 hit, while the album of the same name became her first to enter the Top 10 of the "Billboard" 200, and went on to receive a Gold certification from the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). Her third studio album, "In This Skin", went on to become her best selling album worldwide, receiving a 3x Platinum certification from the RIAA and peaking at number 2 on the "Billboard" 200, her highest charting album to date. Following the release of a Christmas album, Simpson released "A Public Affair" in 2006, and the album became her third Top 10 hit on the "Billboard" 200. She ventured into the country music market in 2008 and released "Do You Know". In October 2010, she released her first compilation album and last album under the label of Epic Records, with the name "". A month later she released her second Christmas album "Happy Christmas" under the label eleveneleven and Primary Wave Records (owned by EMI) . She has achieved seven "Billboard" Top 40 hits, three gold and two multi-platinum RIAA certified studio albums, four of which have reached the top 10 on the US "Billboard" 200. Simpson has sold over 30 million albums worldwide. In 2013 VH1 ranked Simpson #32 on their "100 Sexiest Artists of All Time" list. Starting in 2003, Simpson starred with her then-husband Nick Lachey in the MTV reality show '. The show aired from 2003 to 2005. After her divorce from Lachey, Simpson appeared in films including "The Dukes of Hazzard" (2005), "Employee of the Month" (2006), and ' (2008). Simpson was featured on "The Oprah Winfrey Show", "The Ellen DeGeneres Show", "The View", "The Price of Beauty", and "The Early Show". Her appearances on "The Price of Beauty" gained generally positive reception, pulling in 1 million viewers on its premiere. The show was also nominated for a Teen Choice Award. She also recorded the show's theme song, "Who We Are". Life and career. 1980–1998: Early life and career beginnings. Jessica Simpson was born in Abilene, Texas. She is the daughter of Tina Ann (née Drew), a homemaker, and Joseph Truett "Joe" Simpson, a minister and psychologist. She has a younger sister, Ashlee, who is also a singer. Simpson's father gave her a purity ring at the age of 12, and Simpson has often stated she remained a virgin until marriage. Her parents were married in 1978 and filed for divorce in 2012. Their divorce was finalized in 2013. Simpson has stated that she grew up in Dallas, but her parents now live in McGregor, Texas. Simpson began singing at a local Baptist church, where her father also worked as the congregation's youth minister. At age twelve, she unsuccessfully auditioned for "The Mickey Mouse Club". Simpson has stated that they were put in groups and had acting and vocal coaches to help them. According to Jessica, Justin Timberlake was in a group with her. She explained that she had frozen after getting on stage to sing, and later commented that she had felt "intimidated" by the other performers. The following year, Simpson attended a church camp, where she sang Whitney Houston's "I Will Always Love You" and an arrangement of "Amazing Grace". At camp, she was introduced to the founder of Proclaim Records, a minor Gospel music record label. She recorded an album, "Jessica", but she was dismissed from the label when it went bankrupt. "Jessica" was never officially released except for a small pressing funded by her grandmother. When Simpson was sixteen years old, Columbia Records executive Tommy Mottola heard "Jessica". Mottola was impressed with Simpson’s musical talent and skill. Simpson was immediately signed to the label. She dropped out of J. J. Pearce High School but later earned her GED. 1999–2001: "Sweet Kisses" and "Irresistible". Simpson began working with producers such as Louis Biancaniello, Robbie Nevil, Evan Rogers, and Cory Rooney. Biancaniello worked with Simpson on three of the albums eleven tracks, including "I Wanna Love You Forever", "Where You Are", and "Heart of Innocence". Rooney produced the track 'I Think I'm in Love with You', which was later released as the album's third single. During this time, Simpson began dating Nick Lachey. Simpson and Lachey recorded a duet, "Where You Are", which later became the album's second single. She also worked with Destiny's Child. Simpson also collaborated with Sam Watters for the album. Watters produced the singles 'I Wanna Love You Forever' and Where You Are', as well as 'Heart of Innocence'. Watters also co-wrote the track 'I Wanna Love You Forever', along with Louis Biancaniello. Carl Sturken and Evan Rogers also produced the tracks 'I've Got My Eyes On You' and 'Betcha She Don't Love You' together, though neither tracks were released as singles. Simpson's label wanted 'Sweet Kisses' to be different than that of Aguilera's and Spears' debut albums, in that they were sexually risque, especially the lead singles from both albums. For 'Sweet Kisses', the label decided they wanted Simpson to be the "anti-sex appeal", to which Simpson would sing about love and romance rather than sexual themes. Simpson's "virgin" image was thought as a great idea by the label, who felt that it would draw in listeners by making a girl whom they could relate to. Simpson also announced in an interview that she would be abstinent until marriage, which helped listeners give her the appearance the label was hoping for. Simpson's debut single, "I Wanna Love You Forever", was released on September 28, 1999. The single entered the Top 10 of the "Billboard" Hot 100, where it peaked at number 3. "I Wanna Love You Forever" went on to be certified Platinum by the RIAA less than three months after its release. Outside of the United States, the single was successful, as it peaked within the top ten in most European nations and Australia, which reached the Top-ten in Norway, Sweden, UK, Switzerland, Belgium, Canada and Australia. During the recording of her debut album, Simpson became involved with Nick Lachey. Simpson's debut album, "Sweet Kisses" was released on November 23, 1999. The album debuted at number 4 on the "Billboard" 200, selling 65,000 copies in its first week, significantly lower than expected by Columbia Records. To boost record sales, the label released the second single "Where You Are", but could not reach the success of its predecessor "I Wanna Love You Forever". While "Sweet Kisses" was kept in the top 60 for several weeks, the label decided to make one last attempt to launch the third single from the album. "I Think I'm in Love with You" was released in May 2000, peaking at No. 25 in August 2000. In total, the album stayed on the chart for 62 weeks. The album was certified 2× Platinum by the RIAA. The album has sold about 1.9 million copies in the US, and over 4 million copies worldwide. In 2000, Simpson started recording the follow-up to "Sweet Kisses", with what Columbia considered more radio-friendly, up-tempo tracks. The commercial performance of her debut album led Simpson to reevaluate her career and although she was enjoying some success, she felt she could improve on this. Feeling her more "innocent" image would halt her career from developing further, Simpson adopted a sexier image and newer sound, at the suggestion of the Columbia executives She moved into the teen-pop genre, as she felt that restyling herself to match the image of Spears and Aguilera would help remake her career. She separated from her then-boyfriend Nick Lachey, in March 2001, feeling the need to concentrate on her career. Her new image was promoted through appearances on many events, where Simpson wore revealing outfits. The development of this image coincided with the production and release of her second studio effort, "Irresistible". Simpson said that she wanted to portray a "sexier, more mature style". "I recorded ["Sweet Kisses"] when I was 17 years old and I'm 21 month so there is four years of growth involved," Simpson said in an interview with "Coventry Newspapers" in July 2001. In an interview with "Cosmopolitan" in June 2001, she explained, "This record is about who I am now. The music is edgier, and I'm all grown up." According to Terri Doughtery, author of "People in the News: Jessica Simpson and Nick Lachey", Simpson hoped her new image would bring more attention to the power of her voice. "It's not just me singing about being in love. I also have heartbreak songs and girls telling off guys songs. It's going to take me a while to recoup this album, because we spent a lot of money on it," Simpson said to "Entertainment Weekly". The lead single from the album, "Irresistible", was released on April 12, 2001, as a CD single. The song received generally negative reviews from music critics. They criticized the sexuality of its lyrics and the over-usage of digital sound manipulators, with Associated Press calling it "unimaginative". In 2003, the song won a Broadcast Music Incorporated (BMI) "Pop Music Award". "Irresistible" became a moderate commercial success, peaking within the top twenty hit in the United States and in eleven countries. The song was certified gold by the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA). The accompanying music video was directed by Simon Brand, and features Simpson dressed as a spy, trying to compromise some evidence in a laboratory. Record producer Jermaine Dupri of So So Def Recordings remixed the song within a Hip-Hop—tinged genre style which featured rap artist Lil Bow Wow. Released on May 25, 2001 "Irresistible" debuted at number 6 in June 2001 on the "Billboard" 200 chart, with 127,000 copies sold in its first week. It was later certified Gold by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) for selling or shipments of 500,000 copies or more. At the date, the album has sold 3 million copies worldwide. She toured with Destiny's Child, Nelly, and Eve on MTV's first "Total Request Live" (TRL) Tour, which spanned thirty dates in the US. Simpson later embarked on her first headlining tour, "The DreamChaser Tour". The tour began in August, but due to the September 11, 2001 attacks could not complete the planned dates. 2002–2005: Marriage, "In this Skin", film career and divorce. Despite the pair splitting up when Jessica began recording "Irresistible", she later began dating Nick Lachey once again. Simpson married Nick Lachey on October 26, 2002. She famously announced she had remained a virgin until her marriage. Following the announcement of their wedding, it was confirmed Simpson and Lachey would star in the reality show "", which began airing on MTV. The show was originally intended for Michael Jackson and Lisa Marie Presley, but the couple decided not to continue with the project after the start of pre-production. It was shelved until 2002, when Jessica's father and manager, Joe Simpson, contacted MTV about producing a show starring his daughter and her new husband. "Newlyweds" quickly became a pop culture phenomenon and is credited with making her a household name. "I never knew that just doing the show would give me that pedestal to step on," Simpson told "Blender" magazine. On February 1, 2004, Simpson opened the Super Bowl XXXVIII halftime show. On July 22, Simpson released the lead single from her upcoming third studio album. The single, "Sweetest Sin", dealt with the topic of Simpson losing her virginity to then husband Nick Lachey. The recording process of "Sweetest Sin" was documented in an episode of Simpson's reality series, "Newlyweds: Nick and Jessica". Simpson originally recorded "Sweetest Sin" confidentially in a slightly remixed form and announced she was pleased with its progress. However, her superiors at Columbia Records told her that she had made the song too "challenging"; in essence, they felt that potential listeners of the song would be alienated by singing they would not be able to duplicate. Simpson was filmed breaking into tears when she received the news. Later, she re-recorded her vocals with the assistance of Nick Lachey, whom she brought along because she felt he was a good vocal producer. On August 9, 2003, the song debuted at number forty on "Billboard" Pop Songs, reaching number thirty-seven two weeks later. "Sweetest Sin" failed to make into the Hot 100 chart, peaking at number twenty-four on Bubbling Under Hot 100. Simpson's third studio album, "In This Skin", was released on August 19, 2003 to coincide with the series premiere of "Newlyweds". "In This Skin", debuted at number ten on the "Billboard" 200, with sales of 64,000 in its first week. The album quickly declined down the charts, failing to match the success of Simpson's previous efforts. By January 2004, the album had sold just 565,000 copies. "With You" was released as the album's second single, largely in hopes that the song would revive "In This Skin" on the charts. In the United States, the song debuted at number sixty-five on the "Billboard" Hot 100, on the issue dated December 27, 2003. In March 20, 2004, the single reached its peak position of number fourteen and stayed on the chart for twenty-three weeks. "With You" became Simpson's fourth top-forty single in the US and her second highest peak on the chart since "I Wanna Love You Forever" (1999). The song also peaked at number one on "Billboard Pop Songs" chart and was her first number one on the chart. Due the strong sales, the single was certified Gold by RIAA for selling 500,000 copies. In 2004, Columbia Records decided to re-release "In This Skin" with several new tracks in order to utilize the success of the singer. With "With You" on the top of the radio charts in February 2004, Simpson released her third single, "Take My Breath Away", as the first single from the new re-release. The re-release worked as "In This Skin" jumped to number two on the Billboard charts, selling over 157,000 copies that week. The album stayed in the top ten for eight non-consecutive weeks and stayed in the Top 100 for sixty-one weeks. The album spent a total of 75 weeks on the "Billboard" 200. In December 2004, "In This Skin" was certified 3x Multi Platinum by the RIAA for sales more than 3 million copies only in U.S. The album ranked the No. 14 in "Billboard" Year End Charts Albums 2004. According to Simpson's biography, the album has sold 4 million copies in US, to date. Simpson and Lachey starred in the television special "The Nick and Jessica Variety Hour" which aired in 2004 and was compared to "The Sonny & Cher Show". In late 2004, Simpson released her first Christmas album, "". It includes a duet with her sister, Ashlee Simpson, on the song "Little Drummer Boy". Additionally, it also includes a duet with Nick Lachey, Simpson's husband at the time, on "Baby, It's Cold Outside". The cover of Amy Grant's "Breath of Heaven (Mary's Song)" is notable, as Simpson has said that Grant is one of her favorite recording artists and her role model. "Rejoyce" was certified gold by the RIAA in January 2005. Its singles are "Let It Snow, Let It Snow, Let It Snow" and "What Christmas Means To Me" (although no accompanying video was produced); the song "O Holy Night has a video. In 2005, "Newlyweds" won a People's Choice Award for Favorite Reality Show before wrapping shortly after. In the summer of 2005, Simpson made her first appearance in a motion picture as Daisy Duke in the movie version of the television series "The Dukes of Hazzard". The film was No. 1 at the box office its opening weekend, and grossed $30.7 million on 3,785 screens. It also had an adjusted-dollar rank of No. 14 all-time for August releases. The film eventually collected $110.5 million worldwide, although it was much less financially successful outside the U.S. Simpson appeared on "The Dukes of Hazzard" soundtrack, releasing "These Boots Are Made for Walkin'", a cover of the 1966 Nancy Sinatra. The song peaked at number fourteen on the "Billboard" Hot 100 and won a People's Choice Award for Favorite Song from a Movie, in 2006. The song's video featured Simpson as Daisy Duke. It contains scenes of her flirting and singing in a bar and then later washing the "General Lee" car, wearing a skin-tight, revealing pink bikini. In some countries the video was banned for its overtly sexual content. Simpson received criticism from a Christian group calling itself "The Resistance", for the sexualized image she used in the music video for "These Boots Are Made for Walkin'". In response, Simpson stated, "It didn't really surprise me because I grew up with a lot of that backlash. That's why I didn't end up going into the Christian music industry. I think that if they're really good Christians the judgment wouldn't be there." In November 2005, Simpson and Lachey announced they were separating. Simpson filed for divorce on December 16, 2005, citing "irreconcilable differences." Their divorce was finalized on June 30, 2006. 2006–2007: "A Public Affair" and "Employee of the Month". In 2005, MTV reported that Simpson had begun working on her fifth studio album. It was also reported that Simpson had parted ways with Columbia, and would release future albums through Epic Records. The album's lead single, "A Public Affair", was released on June 29, 2006, the day before her divorce from Nick Lachey was finalized. The Yahoo! Music download of the song gained media attention because it was made available in MP3 format, without Digital Rights Management, which is normally used to restrict copying of commercially released singles. However, the price to download the song was US$1.99, higher than the $0.99 norm for most DRM-restricted tracks. The increased price was rationalized not by the DRM-free format, but by offering users the ability to "personalize" the song with a specific name. The single was released in United States, Canada and Australia in 2006. Later the song was released in Europe in February 2007. The single debuted at number thirty-nine on the U.S. "Billboard" Hot 100 chart, Simpson's second highest debut after "These Boots Are Made for Walkin'". It had previously debuted at number twenty on "Billboard"'s Bubbling Under Hot 100 Singles chart, which represents the twenty-five singles below the Hot 100's number 100 position that have not yet appeared on the Hot 100. Digital download sales were moderate until the release of the single's music video. In late July "A Public Affair" joined Ashlee Simpson's song "Invisible" in the top ten on the U.S. iTunes Store's list of most popular songs, the first time in iTunes history that two siblings had different songs in the top ten. The song peaked in its fifth week on the Hot 100. In October 2006 the song peaked at number 1 on Hot Dance Club Play. "A Public Affair" was certified Gold in US for obtaining more than 500,000 downloads. On August 29, 2006, Simpson released her fifth studio album "A Public Affair" under Epic Records. The album debuted at number 5 on the "Billboard" 200, selling over 101,000 copies in its first week, the highest first week sales of Simpson's albums. "A Public Affair" shipped 500,000 units in the US and was certified Gold by the RIAA. In Canada the album debuted at number 6, marking Simpson's highest position on the albums chart in Canada and was later certified Gold for 50,000 copies sold. "A Public Affair" also made the Top 40 in Japan, Ireland and Australia, in the latter country peaking lower than "In This Skin" which reached number 13 and was certified Platinum. Despite the title track becoming an international hit, the album has sold just 1 million copies to date, and is considered by and large a commercial failure compared to Simpson's previous work. Simpson's second film, "Employee of the Month", was released October 6, 2006. With poor reviews, the film took in $11.8 million in its opening weekend, debuting at number 4 just behind "Open Season". In December 2006, while performing a tribute to Dolly Parton at the Kennedy Center Awards, she botched the lyrics, getting flustered in front of a crowd that included prominent persons such as Steven Spielberg, Shania Twain, and President Bush. Though Simpson was given the chance to redo the song for cameras, her portion was edited out of the CBS broadcast. In December 2007, Simpson co-starred with Luke Wilson in her third film, "Blonde Ambition". The film opened in eight theaters in Texas (the home state of both Simpson and Wilson), and earned US $6,422. It was released on DVD in January 2008. "Blonde Ambition" fared better overseas, where it grossed $253,008 in Ukraine its opening weekend. In November 2007, Simpson began dating Dallas Cowboys quarterback Tony Romo. The relationship was controversial among some Dallas Cowboys fans, and she was blamed for Romo's poor performances. Some of the Cowboys' fans gave her the nickname "Yoko Romo" in reference to Yoko Ono, who many Beatles fans blamed for "ruining" John Lennon. Even then-President George W. Bush jokingly endorsed the "Jessica jinx" after the Giants went on to win the Super Bowl in 2008. During the traditional White House reception for the winning team, President Bush was quoted as saying: "We're going to send Jessica Simpson to the Democrat National Convention".
629230	Dating The Enemy (1996) is an Australian comedy about a boyfriend and girlfriend who swap bodies and have to live as each other. Plot. One Valentine's evening a group of single, dateless friends get together to play Trivial Pursuit. Brett (Guy Pearce), a friend of the host from Melbourne, has just landed a job as presenter of a TV gossip show. He is brash and self-confident. Tash (Claudia Karvan) is a science journalist for a national newspaper, studious, intense and self-conscious. They have nothing in common, so naturally they get it together. A year later and Brett's career is going well, there is the possibility of a job in New York and popularity has gone to his head. Tash is still trying to write serious scientific articles for a paper more interested in gossip and sex and struggling to prevent her articles being buried on page 12. Their relationship is on the rocks. That night during a Valentine's boat trip on Sydney Harbour, an argument ensues and Brett decides he has had enough. Tash tells him: 'I wish you could be me, so you could see how I feel for once. I wish I could be you, so I could show you what an idiot you've become!'. That night is a full moon and fate decides to lend a hand. They wake to find that each is in the other's body. A month of each pretending to be the other ensues and they have to learn what it's really like to be in the other person's shoes. Tash has to try to keep Brett's high-profile career on track. Brett is so bored by Tash's job he ends up trying to make science sexy. Each learns to appreciate the other as only together can they make this enforced predicament work out. Reception. One review described "Dating the Enemy" as: "A fast and funny look at relationships in the 90s, the smash-hit romantic comedy 'Dating the Enemy' brings a whole new meaning to the battle of the sexes." Soundtrack. The soundtrack includes the OMC song "Right On". The original video for "Right On" features clips from the movie. Box Office. " Dating The Enemy " grossed $2,620,325 at the box office in Australia, which is equivalent to $3,668,455 in 2009 AS dollars.
68944	John Horton Conway (born 26 December 1937) is a British mathematician active in the theory of finite groups, knot theory, number theory, combinatorial game theory and coding theory. He has also contributed to many branches of recreational mathematics, notably the invention of the cellular automaton called the Game of Life. Conway is currently Professor of Mathematics and John Von Neumann Professor in Applied and Computational Mathematics at Princeton University. He has also begun lecturing a class on Number Theory at CUNY's Queens College. He studied at Cambridge, where he started research under Harold Davenport. He received the Berwick Prize (1971), was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (1981), was the first recipient of the Pólya Prize (LMS) (1987), won the Nemmers Prize in Mathematics (1998) and received the Leroy P. Steele Prize for Mathematical Exposition (2000) of the American Mathematical Society. He has an Erdős number of one. Biography. Conway's parents were Agnes Boyce and Cyril Horton Conway. He was born in Liverpool. He became interested in mathematics at a very early age and his mother recalled that he could recite the powers of two when he was four years old. At the age of eleven his ambition was to become a mathematician. After leaving secondary school, Conway entered Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge to study mathematics. He was awarded his BA in 1959 and began to undertake research in number theory supervised by Harold Davenport. Having solved the open problem posed by Davenport on writing numbers as the sums of fifth powers, Conway began to become interested in infinite ordinals. It appears that his interest in games began during his years studying at Cambridge, where he became an avid backgammon player, spending hours playing the game in the common room. He was awarded his doctorate in 1964 and was appointed as College Fellow and Lecturer in Mathematics at the University of Cambridge. He left Cambridge in 1986 to take up the appointment to the John von Neumann Chair of Mathematics at Princeton University. Conway resides in Princeton, New Jersey. He has seven children by various marriages, three grandchildren and four great-grand children. He has been married three times; his first wife was Eileen, and his second wife was Larissa. He has been married to his third wife, Diana, since 2001. Achievements. Combinatorial game theory. Among amateur mathematicians, he is perhaps most widely known for his contributions to combinatorial game theory (CGT), a theory of partisan games. This he developed with Elwyn Berlekamp and Richard Guy, and with them also co-authored the book "Winning Ways for your Mathematical Plays". He also wrote the book "On Numbers and Games" ("ONAG") which lays out the mathematical foundations of CGT. He is also one of the inventors of sprouts, as well as philosopher's football. He developed detailed analyses of many other games and puzzles, such as the Soma cube, peg solitaire, and Conway's soldiers. He came up with the angel problem, which was solved in 2006. He invented a new system of numbers, the surreal numbers, which are closely related to certain games and have been the subject of a mathematical novel by Donald Knuth. He also invented a nomenclature for exceedingly large numbers, the Conway chained arrow notation. Much of this is discussed in the 0th part of "ONAG". He is also known for the invention of the Game of Life, one of the early and still celebrated examples of a cellular automaton. His early experiments in that field were done with pen and paper, long before personal computers existed. Geometry. In the mid-1960s with Michael Guy, son of Richard Guy, he established that there are sixty-four convex uniform polychora excluding two infinite sets of prismatic forms. They discovered the grand antiprism in the process, the only non-Wythoffian uniform polychoron. Conway has also suggested a system of notation dedicated to describing polyhedra called Conway polyhedron notation. He extensively investigated lattices in higher dimensions, and determined the symmetry group of the Leech lattice. Geometric topology. Conway's approach to computing the Alexander polynomial of knot theory involved skein relations, by a variant now called the Alexander-Conway polynomial. After lying dormant for more than a decade, this concept became central to work in the 1980s on the novel knot polynomials. Conway further developed tangle theory and invented a system of notation for tabulating knots, nowadays known as Conway notation, while completing the knot tables up to 10 crossings. Group theory. He worked on the classification of finite simple groups and discovered the Conway groups. He was the primary author of the "ATLAS of Finite Groups" giving properties of many finite simple groups. He, along with collaborators, constructed the first concrete representations of some of the sporadic groups. More specifically, he discovered three sporadic groups based on the symmetry of the Leech lattice, which have been designated the Conway groups. With Simon P. Norton he formulated the complex of conjectures relating the monster group with modular functions, which was named monstrous moonshine by them. He introduced the Mathieu groupoid, an extension of the Mathieu group M12 to 13 points. Number theory. As a graduate student, he proved the conjecture by Edward Waring that every integer could be written as the sum of 37 numbers, each raised to the fifth power, though Chen Jingrun solved the problem independently before the work could be published. Algebra. He has also done work in algebra, particularly with quaternions. Together with Neil James Alexander Sloane, he invented the system of icosian. Algorithmics. For calculating the day of the week, he invented the Doomsday algorithm. The algorithm is simple enough for anyone with basic arithmetic ability to do the calculations mentally. Conway can usually give the correct answer in under two seconds. To improve his speed, he practices his calendrical calculations on his computer, which is programmed to quiz him with random dates every time he logs on. One of his early books was on finite state machines. Theoretical physics. In 2004, Conway and Simon B. Kochen, another Princeton mathematician, proved the Free will theorem, a startling version of the No Hidden Variables principle of Quantum Mechanics. It states that given certain conditions, if an experimenter can freely decide what quantities to measure in a particular experiment, then elementary particles must be free to choose their spins in order to make the measurements consistent with physical law. In Conway's provocative wording: "if experimenters have free will, then so do elementary particles." Books. He has (co-)written several books including the "ATLAS of Finite Groups", "Regular Algebra and Finite Machines", "Sphere Packings, Lattices and Groups", "The Sensual (Quadratic) Form", "On Numbers and Games", "Winning Ways for your Mathematical Plays", "The Book of Numbers", and "On Quaternions and Octonions". He is currently finishing "The Triangle Book" written with Steve Sigur, math teacher at Paideia School in Atlanta, Georgia, and in summer 2008 published "The Symmetries of Things" with Chaim Goodman-Strauss and Heidi Burgiel.
1054184	Sans Soleil (, "Sunless") is a 1983 French film directed by Chris Marker. The title is from the song cycle "Sunless" by Modest Mussorgsky. "Sans Soleil" is a meditation on the nature of human memory, showing the inability to recall the context and nuances of memory and how, as a result, the perception of personal and global histories are affected. Description. Stretching the genre of documentary, this experimental essay-film is a composition of thoughts, images and scenes, mainly from Japan and Guinea-Bissau, "two extreme poles of survival". Some other scenes were filmed in Iceland, Paris, and San Francisco. A female narrator reads from letters supposedly sent to her by the (fictitious) cameraman Sandor Krasna.
1058152	Rumer Glenn Willis (born August 16, 1988) is an American actress, the oldest daughter of Bruce Willis and Demi Moore and the stepdaughter of Emma Heming. Early life. She was born in Paducah, Kentucky while her father, Bruce Willis, was filming "In Country". She was named after British author Rumer Godden. Her mother, actress Demi Moore, hired a cameraman to videotape her birth. She has two younger sisters, Scout LaRue Willis (born July 20, 1991) and Tallulah Belle Willis (born February 3, 1994) and a younger paternal half-sister Mabel Ray Willis (born April 1, 2012). Raised in Hailey, Idaho, Willis enrolled as a freshman at the Interlochen Arts Academy in Interlochen, Michigan. In January 2004, she enrolled as a sophomore at Wildwood Secondary School in Los Angeles, California. She attended the University of Southern California for one semester before dropping out. Career. In 1995, Willis made her film debut alongside her mother in "Now and Then". The following year she appeared in "Striptease" (1996). She has worked with her father twice in "The Whole Nine Yards" in 2000 and "Hostage" in 2005.
696582	Kahaani (; "Story") is a 2012 Indian thriller film directed and co-produced by Sujoy Ghosh. It stars Vidya Balan as Vidya Bagchi, a pregnant woman searching for her missing husband in Kolkata during the festival of Durga Puja, assisted by Satyaki "Rana" Sinha (Parambrata Chatterjee) and Khan (Nawazuddin Siddiqui). Made on a "shoestring budget" of , "Kahaani" was conceived and developed by Ghosh, who co-wrote the film with Advaita Kala. Shot in Kolkata, the crew often employed guerrilla-filmmaking techniques on the city's streets to avoid attracting attention. The film was noted for its deft portrayal of the city and for making use of many local crew and cast members. "Kahaani" explores themes of feminism and motherhood in male-dominated Indian society. The film also makes several allusions to Satyajit Ray's films such as "Charulata" (1964) and "Aranyer Dinratri" (1970). "Kahaani" was released worldwide on 9 March 2012. Critics praised the screenplay, the cinematography and the performances of the lead actors. Due to critical acclaim and word-of-mouth publicity, the film became a sleeper hit, earning worldwide in 50 days. At the end of its theatrical run the film won several awards, including three National Film Awards and five Filmfare Awards. The latter included trophies for Best Director (Ghosh) and Best Actress (Balan). Plot. The film opens with a poison-gas attack on a Kolkata Metro Rail compartment, killing the passengers on board. Two years later Vidya Bagchi (Vidya Balan), a pregnant software engineer, arrives in Kolkata from London during the Durga Puja festivities in search of her missing husband, Arnab Bagchi. A police officer, Satyaki "Rana" Sinha (Parambrata Chatterjee), offers to help. Although Vidya claims that Arnab went to Kolkata on an assignment for the National Data Center (NDC), initial investigations suggest that no such person was employed by the NDC. Agnes D'mello, the NDC's head of human resources, suggests to Vidya that her husband resembled former employee Milan Damji (Indraneil Sengupta), whose file is probably kept in the old NDC office. Before Agnes can provide any further help she is killed by Bob Biswas (Saswata Chatterjee), an assassin working undercover as a life insurance agent. Vidya and Rana break into the NDC office and find Damji's file, barely escaping an encounter with Bob, who is searching for the same information. Meanwhile, the attempts to obtain Damji's records have attracted the attention of two Intelligence Bureau (IB) officials in Delhi – the chief Bhaskaran K. (Dhritiman Chatterjee) and his deputy Khan (Nawazuddin Siddiqui). Khan arrives in Kolkata and reveals that Damji was a rogue IB agent responsible for the poison-gas attack. In spite of Khan's warnings, Vidya continues her search, fearing that Arnab's resemblance to Damji may have led him into trouble. The address on Damji's record leads Vidya and Rana to a dilapidated flat. An errand boy from the neighbourhood tea stall identifies R. Sridhar, an NDC officer, as a frequent visitor to Damji's flat. Bob attempts to kill Vidya, but fails, and is run over by a Tempo during a chase. Examination of Bob's mobile phone leads Vidya and Rana to an IP address sending instructions to kill her. They break into Sridhar's office to verify his IP address, but he is alerted electronically and returns to his office. Vidya accidentally shoots Sridhar dead during a scuffle, which upsets Khan, who had wanted him alive. Sridhar's computer data reveals a code, which when deciphered reveals Bhaskaran's phone number. Vidya calls Bhaskaran to tell him that she has retrieved sensitive documents from Sridhar's office. She asks Bhaskaran to help find her husband in exchange for the documents, but Bhaskaran tells her to contact the local police. Vidya soon gets a call from an unknown number however, warning her that she should hand over the documents to the caller if she wishes to see her husband alive. Khan thinks the caller is Milan Damji. Vidya goes to meet Damji, followed by Rana and Khan. Damji cuts the meeting short when Vidya expresses her doubt that he will be able to return her husband in exchange for the sensitive file, and he attempts to leave. Vidya tries to stop him, and in the ensuing struggle Damji draws a gun on her. Vidya disarms him using the prosthetic belly she has been using to fake her pregnancy, before shooting him with his own gun. She flees into the crowd before the police arrive, leaving a thank-you note for Rana and a pen drive containing data from Sridhar's computer, which leads to Bhaskaran's arrest. Rana concludes that no Vidya or Arnab Bagchi ever existed, and that Vidya had been using the police and the IB to achieve her own ends. Vidya is revealed to be the widow of Arup Basu (Abir Chatterjee), an IB officer and Damji's colleague, who was killed in the poison-gas attack. In her mission to avenge his death, Vidya was helped by retired IB officer Pratap Bajpayee (Darshan Jariwala), who suspected the involvement of a top IB official. Production. Development. Sujoy Ghosh approached novelist and script-writer Advaita Kala with the idea for the film. Kala took inspiration from her experience in Kolkata, where she had followed her boyfriend in 1999, akin to the protagonist in the film. She reported that despite facing a language barrier and the chaos and poverty of the metropolis, she was charmed by the warmth of the people, which was reflected in the film. Kala started writing in 2009 and finished the 185-page script by February 2010. Her research included reading the books "Open Secrets: India's Intelligence Unveiled" by Maloy Krishna Dhar and "India's External Intelligence: Secrets of Research and Analysis Wing (RAW)" by V. K. Singh. Ghosh, who co-wrote the story and the screenplay, began to plan the film while awaiting the release of his previous film "Aladin" (2009), but the dismal response to "Aladin" was a setback. He had to approach several producers to finance him for "Kahaani", but was refused and discouraged from making the film owing to three factors: a pregnant woman as the lead star, a bunch of unknown Bengali actors as the supporting cast and Kolkata as a backdrop. Yashraj Films were willing to produce the film, but wanted Ghosh to sign a three-film deal, which he declined because he did not want that much commitment. Bengali film actor Prosenjit Chatterjee encouraged Ghosh to shoot in Kolkata. Ghosh finally selected Kolkata for several reasons: the director's acquaintance with the city, its mix of modernity and old-world charm, and budget constraints. Kolkata is a cheaper location than Mumbai or Delhi, where most Bollywood films are shot. Ghosh admitted in an interview that after his two preceding directorial ventures – "Aladin" and "Home Delivery" (2005) – performed miserably at the box office, "Kahaani" was his last chance to create a niche as a director. He added that the film's plot twist came somewhat accidentally. Having described the skeleton of the story to a friend during its development, the friend called him back a few days later to enquire about his film. The friend had mistakenly imagined sequences which he assumed to be parts of the plot, from which the twist ending was derived. Casting. Vidya Balan was the first choice of both writer Advaita Kala and director Sujoy Ghosh. Ghosh had planned for a long time to work with Balan and approached her in 2010. Unimpressed with the plot outline, Balan refused, only changing her mind after having read the completed script. Ghosh chose mostly Bengali actors as he wanted to make the characters as authentic as possible. The role of the Inspector Satyaki "Rana" Sinha was first offered to Chandan Roy Sanyal, but he could not take the part due to other commitments. Parambrata Chatterjee, a Bengali actor whose acting in the film "The Bong Connection" (2006) had impressed Ghosh at the Mumbai Academy of the Moving Image festival, was later offered the role in "Kahaani". Chatterjee had earlier worked with Balan in her début film "Bhalo Theko" (2003). The casting director Roshmi Banerjee suggested Nawazuddin Siddiqui for the role of Khan. Siddiqui, who had only had minor roles in Bollywood up to that time, was surprised that for the first time he would not have to portray a beggar. Saswata Chatterjee, another Bengali actor, was surprised as well when he was offered the role of the contract killer Bob Biswas. He thought there were suitable actors in Hindi film industry for the role. He said that Ghosh had known him since childhood and was impressed with his acting, so he wanted him as Bob Biswas. Ghosh went against the expectations of casting a popular actor from Bollywood. He signed Bengali actor Abir Chatterjee to play Balan's husband. According to Ghosh, popular Bollywood actors were not willing to work with him after his two previous flops. He also believed that audience might expect more screen-time from a better-known actor. Several other Bengali film and television actors, such as Indraneil Sengupta and Kharaj Mukherjee, were cast in supporting roles. Characters. Before the shooting of the film began, Balan started to use a prosthetic belly to look as close to authentically pregnant as possible. According to news reports, she met doctors and pregnant women to learn about the typical lifestyle and nuances of a pregnant woman, and also made lists of rules and superstitions followed by pregnant women. Balan said that during her college days she often used to imitate pregnant ladies during stand-up acting among friends, an experience that helped her during the shooting. While briefing Saswata Chatterjee about his character, the cold-blooded killer Bob Biswas, Ghosh used the phrase ""Binito Bob"" (meaning polite Bob), which crystallised the notion of Bob's manners. Further discussions led to the inclusion of paunch and a bald patch. Chatterjee devised the mannerism of rubbing his nails together as some Indians believe doing that helps prevent hair loss. The mannerism was well- noted and praised by the viewers. Ghosh was surprised at how Bob Biswas was greeted by fans as a cult figure. He emphasised that the deliberate ordinariness of Bob Biswas was portrayed so convincingly by Chatterjee that the viewers can expect Bob to be around them at any time and any place. Parambrata Chatterjee said in an interview that he did not identify with the Rana character, owing to the difference between his own urban upbringing and Rana's rural background. Chatterjee visited police stations and did some research "on their work, mindset and other relevant things" to prepare for the role. The character Khan was envisaged as a ruthless, arrogant, expletive-spewing officer who cares nothing about the emotional or social consequences of his behaviour. Siddiqui said that he was surprised on being offered the role, and wondered how he could portray the arrogance needed for the character. Ghosh built Khan as a character with lean physical build but full of mental strength, loyalty and patriotism. Khan smokes a relatively cheap brand of cigarette (Gold Flake) despite his high official post; Siddiqui had smoked that brand of cigarette throughout his struggling days in Bollywood and thereafter. Filming. Filming took place on the streets of Kolkata, where Ghosh often employed the art of guerrilla filmmaking (shooting in real locations without any previous knowledge given to onlookers) to avoid unwanted attention. The cinematographer Setu, who had assisted others in the past to shoot documentaries in Kolkata, said that unlike majority of Indian films, "Kahaani" was shot mostly without artificial light. The film was shot in 64 days, during which the Durga Puja festival of 2010 took place. Shooting locations in Kolkata included Kalighat Metro station, Nonapukur tram depot, Kumartuli, Howrah Bridge, Victoria Memorial, old houses of North Kolkata and others. The climax, which takes place on the night of Vijayadashami (the last day of Durga Puja), was shot on the night of Vijayadashami in the premises of a "Barowari" (publicly organised) Durga Puja celebration in the Ballygunge neighbourhood of Kolkata. Most of the crowd in the climax were not actors. Some actors mingled with the crowd engaged in "Sindoor khela"—their job was to appreciate the camera angles and accordingly apply "sindoor" (vermilion) on Balan's face so that accidental exposure of her eyes to "sindoor" could be avoided.
1245194	Autism Every Day is a 2006 documentary film sponsored by Autism Speaks, and produced by Lauren Thierry, Jim Watkins and Eric Solomon. It follows mothers with autistic children which consists mainly of interviews with the mothers. A 13 minute version of "Autism Every Day" debuted at a fundraiser named "A New Decade for Autism" in New York City on May 9, 2006, and made its mainstream debut on Don Imus show on MSNBC the following day. It was selected by the Sundance Institute as a special screening film at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival. A 7-minute version of the film can be found on Autism Speak's Youtube Channel. "The New York Times" said, "While the filmmakers capture hope, love and determination, the documentary also reveals the unrelenting stress and occasional despair in rearing children with autism." "The New York Observer" said the film was a
1063901	Christopher John "Topher" Grace (; born July 12, 1978) is an American actor. He is known for his portrayal of Eric Forman on the Fox sitcom "That '70s Show", Eddie Brock/Venom in the Sam Raimi film "Spider-Man 3", Carter Duryea in the film "In Good Company" and Edwin in the 2010 film "Predators". Early life. Grace was born in New York City, New York, the son of Pat, an assistant to the schoolmaster of the New Canaan Country School, and John Grace, a Madison Avenue executive. Grace grew up in Darien, Connecticut, where he knew actress Kate Bosworth, as well as "Opie & Anthony" producer Nathaniel Bryan; the actress Chloë Sevigny - who later appeared with him in high school stage plays - was sometimes his babysitter. Grace chose to use the name Topher because he did not want his full name abbreviated to Chris at school. Career. Grace was cast as Eric Forman on Fox's "That '70s Show", which debuted in 1998. He played the role until the seventh season. His character was written out and was replaced with a new character named Randy Pearson who was portrayed by Josh Meyers. Grace made a brief guest appearance in the final episode. Grace plays a prep school student who uses cocaine and introduces his girlfriend to freebasing in director Steven Soderbergh's 2000 film "Traffic", as well as having uncredited cameos as himself in Soderbergh's "Ocean's Eleven", and its 2004 sequel, "Ocean's Twelve". "The joke is that you're supposed to play the worst version of yourself and I don't think too many people are comfortable with that. I never thought for a second that people were really going to think that's what I was like. I think that people will know that I was faking it in those movies," he told "Flaunt" magazine in 2007. He planned to cameo in "Ocean's Thirteen" but due to his filming of "Spider-Man 3" he had to abandon these plans. As Grace said, "I was doing reshoots on ["Spider-Man 3"]. I was bummed. I actually talked to Steven Soderbergh about that and we had a thing and then I couldn’t do it." He also appeared in director Mike Newell's 2003 film "Mona Lisa Smile". In 2004, Grace played the leading roles in the Robert Luketic-directed "Win a Date with Tad Hamilton!" and the Paul Weitz dramedy, "In Good Company", in which he played an ambitious but troubled corporate executive. That same year, Grace also starred in the film "P.S.", which received only a limited theatrical release. Grace won the National Board of Review's 2004 award for Breakthrough Performance Actor for his work in "In Good Company" and "P.S." On January 15, 2005, Grace hosted "Saturday Night Live". In 2007, Grace portrayed Eddie Brock/Venom in "Spider-Man 3", directed by Sam Raimi. Grace himself was a fan of the comics, and read the Venom stories as a kid.
585518	Ee Parakkum Thalika is a 2001 Malayalam comedy film starring Dileep, Nithya Das and Harisree Asokan. It was directed by Thaha and written by V. R. Gopalakrishnan. The film was one of the highest grossing Malayalam films of 2001. The film was also the debut film of actress Nithya Das. The story follows bus owner Unnikrishnan (Dileep) and his assistant Sundareshan (Harisree Asokan) who live and sleep in their bus. Their lives take a turn with the appearance of a mysterious tribal girl (Nithya Das).
1742995	Plot. Set during the Sengoku-era in Japan, a young boy named Kotarou flees into the wilderness with his dog, Tobimaru, and the monk, Shouan, after their temple home is attacked and set ablaze. Shouan leaves Kotarou to check on the conditions of the other monks but tells him to head to the Mangaku Temple in Shirato for safety. Before departing, Shouan gives Kotarou a small gem, which he tells him to sell for one sen. Meanwhile, in the providence of Akaike, a group of Ming foreigners, under the command of Lord Byakuran, are led through a mountain passage, where they are ambushed by rogue Akaike swordsmen. The swordsmen are quickly overwhelmed, however, by Luo Lang, the sole Westerner of the Ming group. In Akaike, Kotarou survives by stealing food and water from the local villagers. He leads Tobimaru into an abandoned temple, where they plan to sleep for the night . Much to Kotarou’s surprise, however, the temple is already occupied by the ronin , Nanashi. Kotarou vehemently claims the temple as his home and demands Nanashi to leave, but the samurai light-heartedly wards off the young boy’s complaints. Kotarou is annoyed by Nanashi’s presence, but Tobimaru takes a liking to the ronin.
1060576	Peter Weller (born June 24, 1947) is an American film and stage actor, director and history lecturer. He is best known for his roles as the title character in the first two "RoboCop" films, the title character in the cult classic "The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension" as well as "Naked Lunch". He received an Academy Award nomination for his direction of the 1993 short "Partners," in which he also acted. In television, he hosted the show "Engineering an Empire" on the History Channel. He also played in the fifth season of "24" and Stan Liddy in the fifth season of the Showtime original series "Dexter". Early life. Weller was born in Stevens Point, Wisconsin, the son of Dorothy Jean (née Davidson), a homemaker, and Frederick Bradford Weller, a lawyer, federal judge, and career helicopter pilot for the United States Army. Weller had a "middle-class Catholic" upbringing. As a result of his father's army work, Weller spent many years abroad during his childhood. His family lived in Germany for several years before eventually moving to Texas, where he attended Alamo Heights High School in San Antonio. While enrolled at North Texas State University (now the University of North Texas), he played trumpet in one of the campus bands. He graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Theatre in 1969, and began his acting career after graduating from the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. Career. Weller's stage career began in the 1970s with appearances on Broadway in "Full Circle", directed by Otto Preminger, and "Summer Brave", William Inge's rewrite of his play "Picnic". About this time, he became a member of the famed Actors Studio. Weller was in the 1984 film "Firstborn" with Corey Haim, where he played the abusive boyfriend of Haim's mother (played by Teri Garr).
1060612	Antonino Giovanni Ribisi (born December 17, 1974) is an American film and television actor. Personal life. Ribisi was born in Los Angeles, California. His mother, Gay (née Landrum), is a manager of actors and writers, and his father, Albert Anthony Ribisi, is a musician who had been the keyboard player in People! (a band whose cover version of "I Love You" reached No. 14 on "Billboard"'s Hot 100, in spring 1968). Ribisi is the twin brother of actress Marissa Ribisi, and the brother of Gina Ribisi, a voice actress. Ribisi is of Italian (from his paternal grandfather), German, and English descent. He married actress Mariah O'Brien in 1997 and they have a daughter, Lucia Santina (born August 6, 1997), They divorced in 2001. Before Ribisi married his second wife, British model Agyness Deyn on June 16, 2012, he was in a relationship with indie rock singer-songwriter Chan Marshall (Cat Power) in 2006. Ribisi is an active Scientologist, and participated in the gala opening of Scientology's in . His twin sister, Marissa is married to musician Beck, both are also Scientologists. Ribisi's daughter Lucia was featured on Beck's album "The Information" and two of Sia's albums, "Some People Have Real Problems" and "We Are Born". Career. Ribisi began his career in network television with recurring and guest roles on a number of shows, including "The New Leave It to Beaver", "Married... with Children", "The Wonder Years" and "My Two Dads". He entered the public eye with a prominent performance in "The X-Files" episode "D.P.O." (an episode that also starred Jack Black), as well as with his recurring role as Frank Jr., the brother of Phoebe Buffay (Lisa Kudrow) on "Friends", but also appeared as an extra earlier on in season 2 "The One with the Baby on the Bus". Between 2005-2008, he has appeared in multiple episodes of "My Name Is Earl" as the recurring character Ralph, earning a 2007 Emmy nomination for his performance on the series. Ribisi has appeared on the video of British band Keane's single "Crystal Ball", which was released worldwide on , 2006. He appeared with Winona Ryder and John C. Reilly in Jon Spencer Blues Explosion's music video "Talk About the Blues". In , he appeared twice on the HBO comedy series "Entourage". In 2012, Ribisi was featured in a small article in the magazine, "Man of the World".
1056180	In the Mood for Love is a 2000 Hong Kong film directed by Wong Kar-wai, starring Maggie Cheung and Tony Leung. The film premiered on 20 May 2000, at the 2000 Cannes Film Festival, where it was nominated for the Palme d'Or. The film's original Chinese title, meaning "the age of blossoms" or "the flowery years" – Chinese metaphor for the fleeting time of youth, beauty and love – derives from a song of the same name by Zhou Xuan from a 1946 film. The English title derives from the song, "I'm in the Mood for Love". Wong had planned to name the film "Secrets", until listening to the song late in post-production. The film forms the second part of an informal trilogy, together with the first part "Days of Being Wild" (released in 1991) and the last part "2046" (released in 2004). Plot. The film takes place in Hong Kong, 1962. Chow Mo-wan (Tony Leung), a journalist, rents a room in an apartment of a building on the same day as Su Li-zhen (Maggie Cheung), a secretary from a shipping company. They become next-door neighbours. Each has a spouse who works and often leaves them alone on overtime shifts. Despite the presence of a friendly Shanghainese landlady, Mrs. Suen, and bustling, mahjong-playing neighbours, Chow and Su often find themselves alone in their rooms. Their lives continue to intersect in everyday situations: a recurring motif in this film is the loneliness of eating alone, and the film documents the leads' chance encounters, each making their individual trek to the street noodle stall. Chow and Su each nurse suspicions about their own spouse's fidelity; each comes to the conclusion that their spouses have been seeing each other. Su wonders aloud how their spouses' affair might have begun, and together, Su and Chow re-enact what they imagine might have happened. Chow soon invites Su to help him write a martial arts serial for the papers. As their relationship develops, their neighbours begin to take notice. In the context of a socially conservative 1960s' Hong Kong, friendships between men and women bear scrutiny. Chow rents a hotel room away from the apartment where he and Su can work together without attracting attention. The relationship between Chow and Su is platonic, as there is the suggestion that they would be degraded if they stooped to the level of their spouses. As time passes, however, they acknowledge that they have developed feelings for each other. Chow leaves Hong Kong for a job in Singapore. He asks Su to go with him; Chow waits for her at the hotel room for a time, and then leaves. She can be seen rushing down the stairs of her apartment, only to arrive at the empty hotel room, too late to join Chow. The next year, Su goes to Singapore and visits Chow's apartment where she calls Chow, who is working for a Singaporean newspaper, but she remains silent on the phone when Chow picks up. Later, Chow realises she has visited his apartment after seeing a lipstick-stained cigarette butt in his ashtray. While dining with a friend, Chow relays a story about how in older times, when a person had a secret that could not be shared, he would instead go atop a mountain, make a hollow in a tree, whisper the secret into that hollow and cover it with mud.
899866	Luigina "Gina" Lollobrigida (; born 4 July 1927) is an Italian actress, photojournalist and sculptor. She was one of the most popular European actresses of the 1950s and early 1960s, when she was also considered an iconic sex symbol. More than a pretty face, she received numerous awards and nominations for her performances in Italian and American films, working with many stars of Hollywood. As her film career slowed, she established second careers as a photojournalist and sculptor. In the 1970s, she scooped the press by gaining an exclusive interview with Fidel Castro, the revolutionary Communist leader of Cuba. She has continued as an active supporter of Italian and Italian American causes, particularly the National Italian American Foundation (NIAF). In 2008, she received the NIAF Lifetime Achievement Award at the Foundation's Anniversary Gala. In 2013, she sold her jewelry collection, and donated the nearly $5 million from the sale to benefit stem cell therapy research. Youth. Born Luigina Lollobrigida in Subiaco, Italy, she was one of four daughters of a furniture manufacturer and his wife. Her sisters are Giuliana (b. 1924), Maria (b. 1929) and Fernanda (1930–2011). She grew up in a picturesque mountain village. In her youth, Gina did some modelling, and from that, she participated successfully in several beauty contests. At around this time, she began appearing in Italian language films. In 1945, at age 18, she played a part in the comedy "Santarellina" by Eduardo Scarpetta at the Teatro della Concordia of Monte Castello di Vibio. (It is the smallest theatre "all'italiana" in the world.) In 1947, Gina entered the Miss Italia pageant and came in 3rd place. It gave her national exposure. The contest was won by Lucia Bosé and second place by Gianna Maria Canale; they also became actresses but neither could approach Lollobrigida's success. Career. Films. In 1950, Howard Hughes invited Lollobrigida to make Hollywood films, but she refused, preferring to work in Europe. Her performances in Italian films such as "Bread, Love and Dreams" (for which she received a BAFTA nomination and won a Nastro d'Argento award) and "Woman of Rome"; and in French films such as "Fanfan la Tulipe" and "Beauties of the Night", brought her to the attention of Hollywood. She made her first American film, "Beat the Devil", in 1953 with Humphrey Bogart and Jennifer Jones, directed by John Huston. After that, she was featured in numerous American films. In 1955, Lollobrigida appeared in "The World's Most Beautiful Woman", for which she received the first David di Donatello for Best Actress award. She appeared in the circus drama "Trapeze" directed by Carol Reed with Burt Lancaster and Tony Curtis in 1956. The same year she starred in "The Hunchback of Notre Dame", directed by Jean Delannoy with Anthony Quinn. In 1959, she co-starred with Frank Sinatra in "Never So Few" and with Yul Brynner in "Solomon and Sheba". The latter was notable as the last film directed by King Vidor; and for an orgy scene unusual in Hollywood motion pictures of that era. In 1961, Lollobrigida was featured in the romantic comedy "Come September", with Rock Hudson, Sandra Dee and Bobby Darin, for which she won a Golden Globe Award. The same year, she appeared with Ernest Borgnine and Anthony Franciosa in the drama "Go Naked in the World". In 1962, she was directed again by Jean Delannoy in "Venere Imperiale" and received Nastro d'Argento and David di Donatello awards. In 1964, she co-starred with Sean Connery in the thriller "Woman of Straw". She co-starred with Rock Hudson again in "Strange Bedfellows" (1965) and appeared with Alec Guinness in "Hotel Paradiso" (1966). In 1968, she starred in "Buona Sera, Mrs. Campbell" with Shelley Winters, Phil Silvers, and Telly Savalas. (This plot was later adapted for the stage musical "Mamma Mia!" ) For this role, she was nominated for a Golden Globe Award and won a third David di Donatello award. Lollobrigida co-starred with Bob Hope in the comedy "The Private Navy of Sgt. O'Farrell" and also accompanied Hope on his visits to military troops overseas. By the 1970s, her film career had slowed down. She appeared in only a few poorly received productions in the early part of the decade. In the mid-1980s, she starred in the television series "Falcon Crest" as Francesca Gioberti, a role originally written for Sophia Loren, who had turned it down. For that role she received a third Golden Globe nomination. She also had a supporting role in the 1985 television miniseries "Deceptions", co-starring with Stefanie Powers. In 1986, she was invited to head the jury at the 36th Berlin International Film Festival, which awarded the Golden Bear to Reinhard Hauff's film "Stammheim." She said the decision was made for political reasons. In 1973, she was a member of the jury at the 8th Moscow International Film Festival. In the 1990s, she made a few minor French film appearances and continued to participate and attend international film festivals. Photojournalism. By the end of the 1970s, Lollobrigida had embarked on what she developed as a successful second career as a photographic journalist. She photographed, among others, Paul Newman, Salvador Dalí, Henry Kissinger, David Cassidy, Audrey Hepburn, Ella Fitzgerald and the German national football team. She scooped the world's press by obtaining an exclusive interview with Fidel Castro, leader of Communist Cuba. In 1973, a collection of her work was published under the title "Italia Mia". Other interests. She has focused on other interests such as sculpting. She has shown her sculptures in Italy, France, Spain, Russia, United States, Qatar, China. Lollobrigida became a corporate executive for fashion and cosmetics companies. Political activism. In 1999, she ran unsuccessfully for one of Italy's 87 seats in the elections for European Parliament with the center-left party The Democrats. Personal life. In August 1947, she married a Slovenian physician, Milko Skofic. They had one child, Milko Skofic, Jr., born on July 28, 1957. Skofic gave up the practice of medicine to become her manager. They were divorced in 1971. In 1969, she was engaged for a short time to George Kaufman, a New York real estate heir. During the 1960s, she also had an affair with Christiaan Barnard, a South African doctor and pioneer in heart transplant surgery. In October 2006, at age 79, she announced to Spain's "¡Hola!" magazine her engagement to a 45-year-old Spanish businessman, Javier Rigau y Rafols. They had met at a party in Monte Carlo in 1984 and had since become companions. The engagement was called off on 6 December 2006, reportedly because of the strain of intense media interest.
1060419	The Pride of the Yankees is a 1942 American film directed by Sam Wood and starring Gary Cooper, Teresa Wright, and Walter Brennan. It is a tribute to the legendary New York Yankees first baseman Lou Gehrig, who died only one year before its release, at age 37, from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, which later became known to the lay public as "Lou Gehrig's disease". Though subtitled "The Life of Lou Gehrig", the film is less a sports biography than an homage to a heroic and widely loved sports figure whose tragic and premature death touched the entire nation. It emphasizes Gehrig's relationship with his parents (particularly his strong-willed mother), his friendships with players and journalists, and his storybook romance with the woman who became his "companion for life," Eleanor. Details of his baseball career—which were still fresh in most fans' minds in 1942—are limited to montages of ballparks, pennants, and Cooper swinging bats and running bases, though Gehrig's best-known major league record—2,130 consecutive games played—is prominently cited. Yankee teammates Babe Ruth, Bob Meusel, Mark Koenig, and Bill Dickey play themselves, as does sportscaster Bill Stern. The film was adapted by Herman J. Mankiewicz, Jo Swerling, and an uncredited Casey Robinson from a story by Paul Gallico, and received 11 Academy Award nominations. Its climax is a re-enactment of Gehrig's poignant 1939 farewell speech at Yankee Stadium. The film's iconic closing line—"Today, I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the Earth"—was voted 38th on the American Film Institute's list of 100 greatest movie quotes. Synopsis. Lou Gehrig (Cooper) is a young Columbia University student whose old-fashioned mother (Elsa Janssen) wants him to study hard and become an engineer. But the young man has a gift for baseball. A sportswriter (Brennan) befriends Gehrig and persuades a scout to come see him play. Before long Gehrig signs with the team he has always revered, the New York Yankees. With the help of his father (Ludwig Stössel), he endeavors to keep his career change a secret from his mother. Gehrig works his way up through the minor leagues and joins the Yankees. His hero, Babe Ruth, is at first condescending and dismissive of the rookie, but his strong, consistent play wins over Ruth and the rest of the team. Gehrig is soon joining teammates in playing pranks on Ruth on the team train. During a game, Gehrig trips over a stack of bats and is teased by a spectator, Eleanor (Wright), who laughingly calls him "tanglefoot". They are properly introduced later, a relationship grows, and soon Lou pops the question. Gehrig's mother, who still hasn't accepted the fact that her son will not be an engineer, does not take the news of his pending marriage well; Lou finally stands up to her, and marries Ellie. The Yankees become the most dominant team in baseball, and Gehrig becomes a fan favorite. His father and fully converted mother attend games and cheer for him. In a re-creation of a famous (and possibly apocryphal) story, Gehrig visits a crippled boy named Billy (Gene Collins) in a hospital. He promises to hit two home runs in a single World Series game in the boy's honor—then fulfills his promise. Gehrig is now the "Iron Horse", a national hero at the peak of his career with multitudes of fans, many loyal friends, and an adoring wife. Then he begins to notice, with growing alarm, that his strength is slowly ebbing away. Though he continues to play, and extends his consecutive-game streak to a seemingly insurmountable record, his physical condition continues its inexorable decline. One day, in Detroit, he tells Yankees manager Joe McCarthy (Harry Harvey) that he has become a detriment to the team and benches himself. After an examination, a doctor gives him the awful news: Gehrig has a rare, incurable disease, and only a short time to live. A year later, at Lou Gehrig Day at Yankee Stadium, an older Billy (David Holt) finds Gehrig and shows him that he has made a full recovery, inspired by his hero's example and the two-homer fulfilled promise. Then, as Eleanor weeps softly in the stands, Gehrig addresses the fans: "People all say that I've had a bad break. But today ... today, I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the Earth." Release. Gehrig died on June 2, 1941. The film premiered on July 14, 1942 in New York City at the Astor Theatre, and was shown for one night only at "forty neighborhood theatres." Preceding the film was the premiere of an animated short called "How to Play Baseball," produced by Walt Disney Animation Studios at Samuel Goldwyn's request. Reception. "Variety" magazine called the film a "stirring epitaph" and a "sentimental, romantic saga ... well worth seeing."
1701394	Dolemite is a 1975 blaxploitation feature film, and is also the name of its principal character, played by Rudy Ray Moore, who co-wrote the film and its soundtrack. Moore, who started his career as a stand-up comedian in the late 1960s, heard around that time a rhymed toast by a local homeless man about an urban hero named Dolemite, and decided to adopt the persona of Dolemite as an alter-ego in his act. He included the character on his 1970 debut album, "Eat Out More Often", which reached the top 25 on the Billboard charts. He released several more comedy albums using this persona. In 1975, Moore decided to create a film about Dolemite, using many of his friends and fellow comedians as cast and crew. The film was directed by D'Urville Martin, who appears as the villain Willie Green. Plot. Dolemite is a pimp who was set up by Willie Greene and the cops, who have planted drugs, stolen furs, and guns in his trunk and got him sentenced to 20 years in jail. One day, Queen B and a warden planned to get him out of Jail and get Willie Green and Mitchell busted for what they did to him. However, Dolemite is no stupid man and has a lot of warriors backing him, such as his call girls, who are Karate Experts—and lots more... Follow-ups. A sequel, "The Human Tornado", was released in 1976. A second sequel "The Return of Dolemite" was released in 2002 and was later renamed "The Dolemite Explosion" for DVD release. A quasi-sequel "Shaolin Dolemite" starring Rudy Ray Moore as "Monk Ru-Dee" was released in 1999.
1064868	Mars Needs Moms is a 2011 American 3-D motion capture animated science fiction comedy film co-written and directed by Simon Wells, and based on the Berkeley Breathed book of the same title. The film is centered around Milo, a nine-year-old boy who finally comes to understand the importance of family, and has to rescue his mother after she is abducted by Martians. It was released on March 11, 2011 by Walt Disney Pictures. The film stars both Seth Green (performance capture) and newcomer Seth Dusky (voice) as Milo.
1055255	Mary and Max is a 2009 Australian clay-animated black comedy-drama film written and directed by Adam Elliot and produced by Melanie Coombs. The voice cast included Philip Seymour Hoffman, Toni Collette, Eric Bana, Bethany Whitmore, with narration by Barry Humphries. The film premiered on the opening night of the 2009 Sundance Film Festival. The film won the Annecy Cristal in June 2009 from the Annecy International Animated Film Festival, and Best Animated Feature Film at the Asia Pacific Screen Awards in November 2009. The film was given a PG-13 rating by the Motion Picture Association of America. Plot. It is 1976, and 8-year-old Mary Daisy Dinkle (Bethany Whitmore) is a lonely little girl living in Mount Waverley, Australia. Her relatively poor family cannot afford to buy her toys or nice clothing and she is teased by children at her school due to an unfortunate birthmark on her forehead. Her father is distant and her alcoholic, kleptomaniac mother provides no support. The closest thing she has to a friend is the man for whom Mary collects mail, Len Hislop, a World War II veteran who lost his legs as a prisoner of war and has developed agoraphobia. One day, she decides to write a letter to someone living in New York City: by pure chance she chooses Max Jerry Horowitz (Philip Seymour Hoffman) from a telephone directory. Max turns out to be a morbidly obese 44-year-old whose various mental problems (including anxiety attacks and overeating) have left him unable to form close bonds with other people. Max decides to write back to Mary and the two become friends. Over time, Mary's increasingly sensitive questions about the adult world give Max progressively worse anxiety attacks and he is ultimately institutionalized. During his time there, Max is diagnosed with depression and Asperger syndrome. Now aware of why he has difficulty relating to other people, Max finds a new lease on life and resumes his correspondence with Mary. The two remain friends for the next two decades, keeping one another updated on various events in their lives. Mary (Toni Colette), inspired by her friendship with Max, becomes a psychologist and marries her childhood crush, a young Greek Australian man named Damien Popodopoulos (Eric Bana) who enjoys sewing and is at first uncomfortable with Mary's sexual advances. Max wins the New York lottery, using his winnings to buy a (literal) lifetime supply of chocolate and then giving the rest away to his elderly neighbour, who uses most of it to pamper herself before dying and leaving the remainder to a cat shelter, only to have the owner of the shelter take it all for himself. After earning her degree, Mary writes a psychological book detailing her communication with Max, in an attempt to dissect Asperger's syndrome. Max is infuriated, having told Mary that he has come to terms with his illness and sees it as an integral part of his personality, not something that needs to be diagnosed and cured. Max ends his communication with Mary, by breaking the "M" typebar from his typewriter and sending it to her. When Mary receives it, she is heartbroken and has the entire run of the book pulped, effectively ending her budding career. In her despair, Mary takes up her mother's affection for sherry. Chronically depressed and drunk all of the time, one day Mary receives a note from Damien informing her that he has left her: he has fallen in love with his own pen pal, Desmond, a sheep farmer in New Zealand. In the meantime, Max has decided to forgive Mary and has sent her a gift as a token of his continuing friendship. Mary is so unmanned by her depression and drunkenness, though, that she is unaware of the package that has been sitting on her doorstep for several days. Ultimately, Mary discovers some Valium that had belonged to her mother and, not knowing that she is pregnant, decides to take her own life. Just as Mary is about to kill herself, her neighbour Len knocks on her door, having conquered his agoraphobia to alert her of the package on her porch. Opening it, Mary finds Max's reconciliation gift along with an accompanying letter detailing the reasons why he forgives her, how much their friendship means to him, and his hope that one day their lives will intersect and they will meet in person. It is enough to jar Mary from her depression and she decides to start her life over again. One year later, Mary travels to America with her infant son to finally visit Max. Entering his apartment, Mary discovers the now elderly Max, sitting on his couch, gazing upward, having passed away peacefully earlier that morning. Seeing this, Mary returns the "M" typebar to Max's typewriter and sits down next to him with her son. Looking around the apartment, Mary discovers that Max has kept many of the mementos she sent and has organized the entire ceiling into a detailed scrapbook of his friendship with Mary, composed of all of her letters from over the years, which is what he was looking at when he died. Seeing how much Max valued their friendship and how happy it made him, Mary is moved to tears of joy as the film closes. Themes. The film deals with themes including childhood neglect, friendship, the obscurity of life, teasing, loneliness, autism (Asperger syndrome in particular), obesity, depression and anxiety. Production. According to the opening credits, the film is based on a true story. In an interview given in April 2009, writer-director Elliot clarified that the character of Max was inspired by "a pen-friend in New York who I've been writing to for over twenty years." Principal photography lasted over 57 weeks, using 133 separate sets, 212 puppets, and 475 miniature props, "including a fully functioning Underwood typewriter which apparently took 9 weeks to design and build." Music. The music in the film features Simon Jeffes and the Penguin Cafe Orchestra's "Perpetuum Mobile" (the opening theme) and "Prelude and Yodel", as well as "Russian Rag" by Elena Kats-Chernin. The closing-credits music is "A Swingin' Safari" by Bert Kaempfert and his Orchestra.
1177941	Bobby Darin (born Walden Robert Cassotto; May 14, 1936 – December 20, 1973) was an American singer, songwriter, and actor of film and television. He performed in a range of music genres, including pop, rock, jazz, folk, and country. He started as a songwriter for Connie Francis, and recorded his own first million-seller "Splish Splash" in 1958. This was followed by "Dream Lover", "Mack the Knife", and "Beyond the Sea", which brought him world fame. In 1962, he won a Golden Globe for his first film "Come September", co-starring his first wife, Sandra Dee (m. 1960–1967). Throughout the 1960s, he became more politically active and worked on Robert Kennedy's Democratic presidential campaign. He was present on the night of June 4/5, 1968, at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles at the time of Kennedy's assassination. The same year, he discovered that he had been brought up by his grandparents, not his parents, and that the girl he thought was his sister was actually his mother. These events deeply affected Darin and sent him into a long period of seclusion. Although he made a successful television comeback, his health was beginning to fail, as he had always expected, following bouts of rheumatic fever in childhood. This knowledge of his vulnerability had always spurred him on to exploit his musical talent while still young. He died at 37, following a heart operation in Los Angeles. Early years. Darin was born in the Bronx borough of New York City. He was reared by his grandparents, whom he thought were his parents. Darin’s mother became pregnant at age 16 and presumably because of the scandalous nature of such in that era the family hatched a plan to pass the baby off as his maternal grandparents’ child. Darin’s mother never revealed who the father of her child was, not even to Darin who was reportedly devastated at learning the true circumstances of his birth. His maternal grandfather, Saverio Antonio Cassotto, was of Italian descent. His maternal grandmother, Vivian Fern (Walden), was of Colonial English and Danish ancestry and a vaudeville singer. His mother, Giovannina Cassotto, was presented as his elder sister. He only learned of their actual relationship in 1968, when he was 32. By the time he was a teenager he could play several instruments, including piano, drums, and guitar. He later added harmonica and xylophone. Darin graduated from the prestigious Bronx High School of Science. He matriculated at Hunter College, but soon dropped out in order to play nightclubs around the city with a musical combo. Music career. Darin's career took off with a songwriting partnership, formed in 1955 with fellow Bronx High School of Science student, Don Kirshner, and in 1956 his agent negotiated a contract with Decca Records. The songs recorded at Decca had very little success. A member of the Brill Building gang of struggling songwriters, Darin was introduced to singer Connie Francis, for whom he helped write several songs. They developed a romantic interest of which her father did not approve, and the couple soon split up. Francis has said that not marrying Darin was the biggest mistake of her life. Darin left Decca to sign with Atlantic Records' Atco subsidiary, where he wrote and arranged music for himself and others. Songs he recorded, such as Harry Warren's "I Found a Million Dollar Baby", were sung in an Elvis style, which did not suit his personality. Guided by Atlantic's star-maker Ahmet Ertegun, Darin's career finally took off in 1958 when he recorded "Splish Splash." He co-wrote the song with radio D.J. Murray Kaufman after a phone call from his mother, Jean, a frustrated songwriter. Her latest song idea was: "Splish, Splash, Take a Bath." Both Kaufman and Darin felt ugh at that title, but Darin, grasping at straws, said "I could write a song with that title." Within one hour, Darin had written "Splish Splash". The single sold more than a million copies. In 1959, Darin recorded the self-penned, "Dream Lover", a ballad that became a multi-million seller. With it came financial success and the ability to demand more creative control of his career. His next single, "Mack the Knife", the standard from Kurt Weill's "Threepenny Opera", was given a vamping jazz-pop interpretation. Although Darin initially was opposed to releasing it as a single, the song went to No. 1 on the charts for nine weeks, sold two million copies, and won the Grammy Award for Record of the Year in 1960. Darin was also voted the Grammy Award for Best New Artist that year, and "Mack The Knife" has since been honored with a Grammy Hall of Fame Award. Darin followed "Mack" with "Beyond the Sea," a jazzy English-language version of Charles Trenet's French hit song "La Mer". Both tracks were produced by Atlantic founders Ahmet and Nesuhi Ertegün with staff producer Jerry Wexler and they featured arrangements by Richard Wess. This late-1950s success included Darin setting the all-time attendance record at the Copacabana nightclub in Manhattan and headlining at the major casinos in Las Vegas. In the 1960s, Darin owned and operated -- with Terry Melcher, Doris Day's son -- a music publishing and production company (TM Music/Trio). He signed Wayne Newton and gave him the song "Danke Schoen" that became Newton's breakout hit. Darin also was a mentor to Roger McGuinn, who worked for him at TM Music and played the 12-string guitar in Darin's nightclub band before forming The Byrds. Additionally, Darin produced Rosey Grier's 1964 LP, "Soul City", and "Made in the Shade" for Jimmy Boyd. In 1962, Darin began to write and sing country music, with hit songs including "Things" (US #3/UK #2) (1962), "You're the Reason I'm Living" (US #3), and "18 Yellow Roses" (US #10). The latter two were recorded by Capitol Records, which he joined in 1962, before returning to Atlantic four years later. In 1966, he had his final UK hit single, with a version of Tim Hardin's "If I Were A Carpenter", which peaked at # 9. He performed the opening and closing songs on the soundtrack of the 1965 Walt Disney film "That Darn Cat!". "Things" was sung by Dean Martin in the 1967 TV special "Movin' With Nancy", starring Nancy Sinatra. Bobby Darin is not related to James Darren. This confusion sometimes arises because their names are pronounced similarly, they are the same age, they both started their careers as teen idols with similarly styled songs, both later sang some of the same standard pop/jazz ballads, and they are both associated with Gidget. James Darren starred in "Gidget" films as Gidget's (Sandra Dee) love interest. In real life, Bobby was the love interest: he married Sandra Dee. Acting career. In the fall of 1959, Darin played "Honeyboy Jones" in an early episode of Jackie Cooper's CBS military sitcom/drama, "Hennesey" set in San Diego, California. In 1960, he appeared twice as himself in NBC's short-lived crime drama "Dan Raven", starring Skip Homeier and set on the Sunset Strip of West Hollywood. In the same year, he was the only actor ever to have been signed to five major Hollywood film studios. He wrote music for several films in which he appeared. His first major film, "Come September" (1960), was a teenager-oriented romantic comedy with 18-year old actress Sandra Dee. They first met during the production of the film, fell in love, and got married soon afterwards. Dee gave birth to a son Dodd Mitchell Darin (also known as Morgan Mitchell) the following year, 1961, but the couple divorced in 1967. Dee and Darin made a few films together with moderate success. In 1962, Darin won the Golden Globe Award for "New Star Of The Year - Actor" for his role in "Come September". The following year he was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for "Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture - Drama" (Best actor) in "Pressure Point". In 1963, he was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role as a shell-shocked soldier in "Captain Newman, M.D.". At the Cannes Film Festival he won the French Film Critics Award for best actor. In October 1964, he appeared as a wounded ex-convict who is befriended by an orphan girl in "The John Gillman Story" episode of NBC's "Wagon Train" western television series. Later years. Darin's musical output became more "folksy" as the 1960s progressed, and he became more politically active. In 1966, he had a hit with folksinger Tim Hardin's "If I Were a Carpenter," securing a return to the Top 10 after a two-year absence. Darin traveled with Robert Kennedy and worked on the politician's 1968 presidential campaign. He was with Kennedy the day he traveled to Los Angeles on June 4, 1968, for the California primary, and was at the Ambassador Hotel later that night when Kennedy was assassinated. This event, combined with learning about his true parentage, had a deep effect on Darin, who spent most of the next year living in seclusion in a trailer near Big Sur. Returning to Los Angeles in 1969, Darin started Direction Records, putting out folk and protest music. He wrote "Simple Song of Freedom" in 1969, which was recorded by Tim Hardin, who sang only three of the song's four verses. Of his first Direction album, Darin said that, "The purpose of Direction Records is to seek out statement-makers. The album is solely of compositions designed to reflect my thoughts on the turbulent aspects of modern society." In 1972, he starred in his own television variety show on NBC, "The Bobby Darin Amusement Company", which ran until his death in 1973. Darin married Andrea Yeager (secretary)" in June 1973, made television guest appearances, and remained a top draw in Las Vegas. Other interests. Darin was an enthusiastic chess player. His television show included an occasional segment in which he would explain a chess move. He arranged with the United States Chess Federation to sponsor a grandmaster tournament, with the largest prize fund in history, but the event was canceled after his death. Health. Darin was frail as an infant and beginning at age eight was stricken with recurring bouts of rheumatic fever that left him with a seriously weakened heart. In January 1971, he underwent his first heart surgery in an attempt to correct some of the heart damage he had lived with since childhood. He spent most of that year recovering from the surgery. At the end of his career, he often was administered oxygen after his performances. Death. In 1973, after failing to take antibiotics to protect his heart before a dental visit, Darin developed an overwhelming systemic infection (sepsis). This further weakened his body and affected one of his heart valves. On December 11, he entered Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles for surgery to repair two artificial heart valves he had received in January 1971. On the evening of December 19, a surgical team worked for over six hours to repair his damaged heart. Darin died in the recovery room on December 20, 1973, at the age of 37, without regaining consciousness. There were no funeral arrangements; Darin's last wish in his will was that his body be donated to science for medical research. His remains were transferred to UCLA Medical Center shortly after his death. Legacy. In 1990, singer Paul Anka made the speech inducting Darin into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. The Righteous Brothers refer to Darin in their song "Rock and Roll Heaven", a tribute to dead musicians released months after Darin's death. In 1998, PBS aired the documentary, "Bobby Darin: Beyond the Song", produced by Henry Astor and Jason Cilo. In 1999, he was voted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame. In a 2003 episode of the NBC television series, "American Dreams", Duncan Sheik portrays Darin and performs "Beyond the Sea" on "American Bandstand". Brittany Snow's character, Meg Pryor, is assigned as Darin's liaison during the show. On Monday, May 14, 2007, Darin was awarded a star on the Las Vegas Walk of Stars to honor his contribution to making Las Vegas the "Entertainment Capital of the World", and to acknowledge his reputation as one of the greatest entertainers of the twentieth century. The sponsorship fee for his star was raised entirely by fan donations. He also has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Darin had a custom car built called the "Dream Car", designed by Andy DiDia, which is on display at the St. Louis Museum of Transportation. On December 13, 2009, the Recording Academy announced that Darin would receive a posthumous Lifetime Achievement Award at the 2010 Grammy Awards ceremony. Biopic. In 1986, director Barry Levinson intended to direct a film based on Darin's life, and had begun preproduction on the project by early 1997. He abandoned the project, the rights to which were subsequently bought by actor Kevin Spacey, along with Darin's son, Dodd. The resultant biopic, "Beyond the Sea", starred Spacey as Darin, with the actor using his own singing voice for the musical numbers. The film covers much of Darin's life and career, including his marriage to Sandra Dee, portrayed by Kate Bosworth. With the consent of the Darin estate, former Darin manager, Steve Blauner, and archivist, Jimmy Scalia, "Beyond the Sea" opened at the 2004 Toronto International Film Festival. Although Dodd Darin, Sandra Dee, and Blauner responded enthusiastically to Spacey's work and the film was strongly promoted by the studio, "Beyond the Sea" received mixed-to-poor reviews upon wide release, and box office results were disappointing. Some critics praised Spacey's performance, largely owing to his decision to use his own singing voice. Spacey was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor—Motion Picture Musical or Comedy, but the award that year went to Jamie Foxx for his portrayal of Darin's musical contemporary Ray Charles.
1099779	Persi Warren Diaconis (born January 31, 1945) is an American mathematician and former professional magician. He is the Mary V. Sunseri Professor of Statistics and Mathematics at Stanford University. He is particularly known for tackling mathematical problems involving randomness and randomization, such as coin flipping and shuffling playing cards. Card shuffling. Professor Diaconis received a MacArthur Fellowship in 1982, and in 1992 published (with Dave Bayer) a paper entitled ""Trailing the Dovetail Shuffle to Its Lair"" (a term coined by magician Charles Jordan in the early 1900s) which established rigorous results on how many times a deck of playing cards must be riffle shuffled before it can be considered random according to the mathematical measure total variation distance. Diaconis is often cited for the simplified proposition that it takes seven shuffles to randomize a deck. More precisely, Diaconis showed that, in the Gilbert–Shannon–Reeds model of how likely it is that a riffle results in a particular riffle shuffle permutation, it takes 5 riffles before the total variation distance of a 52-card deck begins to drop significantly from the maximum value of 1.0, and 7 riffles before it drops below 0.5 very quickly (a threshold phenomenon), after which it is reduced by a factor of 2 every shuffle. Interestingly, when entropy is viewed as the probabilistic distance, riffle shuffling seems to take less time to mix, and the threshold phenomenon goes away (because the entropy function is subadditive.). Diaconis has coauthored several more recent papers expanding on his 1992 results and relating the problem of shuffling cards to other problems in mathematics. Among other things, they showed that the separation distance of an ordered blackjack deck (that is, aces on top, followed by 2's, followed by 3's, etc.) drops below .5 after 7 shuffles. Separation distance is an upper bound for variation distance. Biography. Diaconis left home at 14 to travel with sleight-of-hand legend Dai Vernon, and dropped out of high school, promising himself that he would return one day so that he could learn all of the math necessary to read William Feller's famous two-volume treatise on probability theory, "An Introduction to Probability Theory and Its Applications". He returned to school (City College of New York for his undergraduate work graduating in 1971 and then a Ph.D. in Mathematical Statistics from Harvard University in 1974), learned to read Feller, and became a mathematical probabilist.
587705	Nuvvu Nenu is a 2001 hit Telugu film directed by Teja with a love storyline of a rich boy and a poor girl. Uday Kiran and Anita played the lead roles. The supporting roles were done by Sunil, Benarjee, Tanikella Bharani, Dharmavarapu Subramanyam, Telangana Shakuntala etc. The film and its audio became successful upon release.This film won 4 Filmfare Awards South & 5 Nandi Awards. Plot. Ravi, played by Uday Kiran, is the son of a multimillionaire in Hyderabad. Vasundhara (Anita), is the daughter of a milk supplier. Ravi and Vasundhara both study in same college. The film starts with Vasundhara showing hatred towards Ravi, as he is a sportsman who is not good in his studies. Over a period of time, her hatred turns into love. Finally, they both fall in love, but their parents do not agree for their marriage. Parents plan to avoid the marriage by giving the couple a clause that they should not meet each other for one year. If their love remains even after one year then their parents would agree to let them marry. Father of Ravi puts him under house arrest in Mumbai. While Vasundhara's Father takes her to his hometown and arranges a forced marriage. However both Ravi and vasundara manage to escape. The rest of the story is about how the pair unites against all odds. Remakes. This movie because of its huge success in Telugu has been remade into Hindi as "Yeh Dil" (2003), in Tamil as "Madurai Veeran" (2007) and in Bengali as "Dujone" (2009). While the box office performances of hindi and bengali as poor, the later got blockbuster success. Anita Hassanandani reprised her role in the Hindi version.
1016098	Young and Dangerous 5 () is a 1998 Hong Kong triad film. It is the fourth and final sequel to the "Young and Dangerous" film series. Plot. Chicken did not return for this film and Chan Ho Nam is on his own. He finds a beautiful new love interest, (Shu Qi) and has to deal with some young "Tung Sing" triad members trying to make something of themselves. Young and Dangerous 5 happens during the transfer of Hong Kong sovereignty to China. We see a transition of the "boys" becoming "men" as they develop maturity and go into more business-like dealings.
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589301	Priya Rajvansh (1937 – 27 March 2000), born Vera Sunder Singh, was an Indian film actress, who is known her performance in films like, "Heer Raanjha" (1970) and "Hanste Zakhm" (1973), amongst a handful of films she did during her career. Early life and education. Priya Rajvansh was born as Vera Sunder Singh in Shimla in a Sikh family. Her father Sunder Singh was a Conservator in the Forest Department. She grew up in Shimla along with her brothers, Kamaljit Singh (Gulu) and Padamjit Singh. She studied at Auckland House, where she was school captain, and Convent of Jesus and Mary, Shimla. She passed intermediate from St. Bede’s College, Shimla in 1953, and joined Bhargava Municipal College (BMC), during this period, she acted in several English plays at Shimla's noted Gaiety Theatre.
1102637	William Vallance Douglas Hodge FRS (17 June 1903 – 7 July 1975) was a Scottish mathematician, specifically a geometer. His discovery of far-reaching topological relations between algebraic geometry and differential geometry—an area now called Hodge theory and pertaining more generally to Kähler manifolds—has been a major influence on subsequent work in geometry. Life and career. He was born in Edinburgh, attended George Watson's College, and studied at Edinburgh University, graduating in 1923. With help from E. T. Whittaker, whose son J. M. Whittaker was a college friend, he then took the Cambridge Mathematical Tripos. At Cambridge he fell under the influence of the geometer H. F. Baker. In 1926 he took up a teaching position at the University of Bristol, and began work on the interface between the Italian school of algebraic geometry, particularly problems posed by Francesco Severi, and the topological methods of Solomon Lefschetz. This made his reputation, but led to some initial scepticism on the part of Lefschetz. According to Atiyah's memoir, Lefschetz and Hodge in 1931 had a meeting in Max Newman's rooms in Cambridge, to try to resolve issues. In the end Lefschetz was convinced. In 1930 Hodge was awarded a Research Fellowship at St. John's College, Cambridge. He spent a year 1931–2 at Princeton University, where Lefschetz was, visiting also Oscar Zariski at Johns Hopkins University. At this time he was also assimilating de Rham's theorem, and defining the Hodge star operation. It would allow him to define harmonic forms and so refine the de Rham theory. On his return to Cambridge, he was offered a University Lecturer position in 1933. He became the Lowndean Professor of Astronomy and Geometry at Cambridge, a position he held from 1936 to 1970. He was the first head of DPMMS. He was the Master of Pembroke College, Cambridge from 1958 to 1970, and vice-president of the Royal Society from 1959 to 1965. He was knighted in 1959. Amongst other honours, he received the Adams Prize in 1937 and the Copley Medal of the Royal Society in 1974. Work. The Hodge index theorem was a result on the intersection number theory for curves on an algebraic surface: it determines the signature of the corresponding quadratic form. This result was sought by the Italian school of algebraic geometry, but was proved by the topological methods of Lefschetz. "The Theory and Applications of Harmonic Integrals" summed up Hodge's development during the 1930s of his general theory. This starts with the existence for any Kähler metric of a theory of Laplacians — it applies to an algebraic variety V (assumed complex, projective and non-singular) because projective space itself carries such a metric. In de Rham cohomology terms, a cohomology class of degree "k" is represented by a "k"-form α on V(C). There is no unique representative; but by introducing the idea of "harmonic form" (Hodge still called them 'integrals'), which are solutions of Laplace's equation, one can get unique α. This has the important, immediate consequence of splitting up
1103863	Maxim Lvovich Kontsevich (; born 25 August 1964) is a Russian and French mathematician. He holds both Russian and French citizenship. He is a professor at the Institut des Hautes Études Scientifiques and a distinguished professor at the University of Miami. He received the Henri Poincaré Prize in 1997, the Fields Medal in 1998, the Crafoord Prize in 2008 and the Shaw Prize and Fundamental Physics Prize in 2012. Biography. Born into the family of Lev Rafailovich Kontsevich – Soviet orientalist and author of the Kontsevich system. After ranking second in the All-Union Mathematics Olympiads, he attended Moscow State University but left without a degree in 1985 to become a researcher at the Institute for Problems of Information Transmission in Moscow [http://www.berkeley.edu/news/berkeleyan/1994/1012/math.html]. In 1992 he received his Ph.D. at the University of Bonn under Don Bernard Zagier. His thesis proves a conjecture by Edward Witten that two quantum gravitational models are equivalent. His work concentrates on geometric aspects of mathematical physics, most notably on knot theory, quantization, and mirror symmetry. His most famous result is a formal deformation quantization that holds for any Poisson manifold. He also introduced knot invariants defined by complicated integrals analogous to Feynman integrals. In topological field theory, he introduced the moduli space of stable maps, which may be considered a mathematically rigorous formulation of the Feynman integral for topological string theory. These results are a part of his "contributions to four problems of geometry" for which he was awarded the Fields Medal in 1998. Honors and Awards. In July 2012, he was an inaugural awardee of the Fundamental Physics Prize, the creation of physicist and internet entrepreneur, Yuri Milner.
1508928	Kill the Irishman is a crime drama film directed by Jonathan Hensleigh and starring Ray Stevenson, Vincent D'Onofrio, Christopher Walken and Val Kilmer. The film is based on the story of Irish American mobster Danny Greene, and is adapted from the book "To Kill the Irishman: The War That Crippled the Mafia" (1998) by Rick Porrello. Plot. The film is a biopic of the Irish-American mob boss and FBI informant Danny Greene, who shot his way to the top of Cleveland's criminal underworld during the late 1970s.
1164707	Thomas B. Kin "Tommy" Chong (born May 24, 1938) is a Canadian-American comedian, actor, writer, director, activist, and musician. He is well known for his marijuana-themed Cheech & Chong comedy movies with Cheech Marin, as well as playing the character Leo on Fox's "That '70s Show". Early life. Chong was born as Thomas B. Kin Chong at University Hospital in Edmonton, Alberta. His mother was Lorna Jean (nĂŠe Gilchrist), a waitress of Scots-Irish and French ancestry, and his father was Stanley Chong, a Chinese truck driver who emigrated to Canada from China in the 1920s, where he first lived with his aunt in Vancouver. While he was still young, Chong's family moved to Calgary, Alberta to a conservative neighbourhood Chong refers to as the "Dog Patch". He says that his father had "been wounded in World War II, and there was a veterans' hospital in Calgary. He bought a five-hundred dollar house in Dog Patch, and raised his family on fifty dollars a week." He later dropped out of Crescent Heights High School in Calgary, Alberta. âI dropped out of Crescent Heights High School when I was 16 but probably just before they were going to throw me out anyway,â Chong laughs as he reminisces about his early years. âI played guitar to make money. I was about 16 when I discovered that music could get you laid, even if you were a scrawny, long-haired, geeky-looking guy like me.â Early career. Entertainment. By the early 1960s, Chong was playing guitar for a Calgary soul group called The Shades. The Shades moved to Vancouver, British Columbia, where the band's name changed to "Little Daddy & The Bachelors". They recorded a single, "Too Much Monkey Business" / "Junior's Jerk". Together with bandmember Bobby Taylor, Chong opened a Vancouver nightclub in 1963. Formerly the Alma Theatre, they called it "Blue Balls". They brought in the Ike & Tina Turner Revue, which had never been to Vancouver before. Although Little Daddy & The Bachelors built up a small following, things soured when they went with Chong's suggestion and had themselves billed as "Four Niggers and a Chink". (or, bowing to pressure, "Four N's and a C") before taking on the moniker Bobby Taylor & the Vancouvers. In 1965, the Vancouvers signed with Gordy Records (a subsidiary of Detroit, Michigan's Motown Records) and recorded its debut album, an eponymous release, and their debut single, the Tommy Chong co-composition "Does Your Mama Know About Me," peaked at number 29 on the Billboard Hot 100. While on tour in Chicago for a short time, the band followed opening act The Jackson 5. Chong later referred to the young Michael Jackson as a "cute little guy". After the band released two further singles, Tommy Chong and Wes Henderson were fired by Clark and Motown producer Johnny Bristol for missing a gig to apply for Green cards. The group broke up shortly afterwards, when Chong attempted to have the Vancouvers' contract halved, so that he, Taylor, and Henderson would constitute the group, while other members would simply be regarded as sidemen and session artists. Cheech & Chong. Chong directed four of their films, while co-writing and starring in all seven with Cheech Marin. Later career. Cheech & Chong, while a very successful comedy act, experienced creative differences and split in 1985. This was devastating to Chong. To him, Cheech Marin was "closer than a wife. The only thing we didn't do was have sex." Of their split, he says, "It was like a death in the family. I don't know if I'll ever get over it". Chong was a recurring character and later a regular character as the hippie "Leo" (similar to his Chong character) during the second, third, fourth, seventh, and eighth seasons of "That '70s Show". He also played a role as a hippie in "Dharma and Greg". In a 2001 episode of "That '70s Show", "Canadian Road Trip", Chong gave tribute to his home country by joining in a spirited rendition of "O Canada" along with the teenage cast and two Canadian border patrol guards (Joe Flaherty and Dave Thomas).
586587	Aayudham () () is a 2005 Tamil action film directed by Murugesh. It stars Prashanth and Sneha in the lead roles, while Subbaraju plays a supporting role. The film released in January 2005 to average reviews. Production. The film was directed by Murugesh, whose debut venture "Indrumudhal" failed at the box-office, the film saw Prashanth and Sneha paired for second time after "Virumbugiren". A major portion of the film was shot at Chennai Trade Center at Nandambakkam near Chennai, while songs were filmed in London. 50 girls from the musical, "Bombay Dreams", were selected to feature in Sungadi saris during a song shoot at Trafalgar Square. The first schedule of the film commenced in Chennai. A dance number was shot at a lavish set costing about Rs 40 lakh, at the AVM Studios, where Prashanth and 50 dancers took part. The second schedule of 40 days was at locations in Madurai, Thoothukudi, Tirunelveli, Kanyakumari and Nagercoil. At the harbour, a fight scene and a dance number were picturised on Prashanth. The third schedule was at London, where Prashanth rescues Sneha from some rowdy elements. A song was also picturised around the Thames River. Dance choreographer Dinesh choreographed two dance numbers - one in which Prashanth and Mumbai's Minal took part, the other where he danced with Rasna, a Mumbai model. Soundtrack. The film score and the soundtrack were composed by film composer Dhina. The soundtrack, released in 2005, features 5 tracks .
1041990	The Edge of the World (1937) was the first major project by British filmmaker Michael Powell. The title is a reference to the phrase Ultima Thule, coined by Virgil ("Georgics" 1:30). Plot. The film is the story of the de-population of one of the isolated, outer islands of Scotland as, one by one, the younger generation leaves for the greater opportunities offered by the mainland, making it harder to follow the old ways of life there. Robbie Manson (Eric Berry) wants to leave the island and explore the wider world. Robbie's friend Andrew Gray (Niall MacGinnis) and his sister, Ruth Manson (Belle Chrystall) are sweethearts and are quite willing to stay. Of their fathers, Peter Manson (John Laurie) is determined to stay while James Gray (Finlay Currie) suspects that their way of life cannot last much longer. But if Robbie leaves, that will make it harder for the others because there will be one less young man to help with the fishing and the crofting. Production. Powell had been making studio based 'quota quickies' for some years but wanted to make a film about the depopulation of the Scottish islands ever since seeing a newspaper article about the evacuation of St Kilda some years before. He wasn't allowed to film on St Kilda but found another suitable island in Foula in the Shetland Islands to the north of Scotland. Powell gathered together a cast and crew who were willing to take part in an expedition to what, before the air service that now exists, was a very isolated part of the UK. They had to stay there for quite a few months and finished up with a film which not only told the story he wanted but also captured the raw natural beauty of the location. Literature. Powell wrote a book about his experience making the film: raising the initial funding, trying and failing to make the film on St Kilda, then realising that Foula could be used instead. He detailed how the cast and crew were selected and how they lived and worked on the island at a time when there were no flights there, only occasional radio communication. They even had to build their own accommodations. The book was initially titled "200,000 Feet on Foula". This is a reference to the amount of film used, not the height of the cliffs. It was published in America as "200,000 Feet – The Edge of the World" and was reprinted as "Edge of the World: The making of a film" in a paperback edition in 1990. "Return to the Edge of the World". In 1978, director Michael Powell and some of the surviving cast and crew went back to Foula to re-visit the island where they had made the film that changed their lives. This was made for BBC TV to act as "colour bookends" to the 1937 film and is called "Return to the Edge of the World". In the first part, Powell drives in to Pinewood Studios and tells how the film came to be made. Then he, John Laurie, Sydney Streeter, Grant Sutherland and others return to Foula. In the second part, they talk to some of the islanders who were there in 1937 and remember those who couldn't make the reunion. "Return to the Edge of the World" was available as an extra on both the VHS and DVD releases of the original film by the BFI.
1163872	Thomas Gordon "Tom" Poston (October 17, 1921 – April 30, 2007) was an American television and film actor. He starred on television in a career that began in 1950. He appeared as a comic actor, game show panelist, comedy/variety show host, film actor, television actor, and Broadway performer. According to USA Today Life editor Dennis Moore, Poston appeared in more sitcoms than any other actor. Early life. Poston was born in Columbus, Ohio, the son of George and Margaret Poston; his father was a liquor salesman and dairy chemist. After completing high school, Tom Poston attended Bethany College in West Virginia, but did not graduate. While there, he joined Sigma Nu Fraternity. Instead, he joined the United States Army Air Forces in 1941. Accepted to officer candidate school and then graduating from flight training, Poston served as a pilot in the European Theater in World War II; his aircraft dropped paratroopers for the Normandy invasion. Poston served in North Africa, Italy, France, and England. After his discharge, he began studying acting in New York City graduating from the American Academy for Dramatic Arts. Career. In the 1950s, Poston gained recognition as a comedic "Man in the Street" (along with his colleagues Louie Nye, Dayton Allen and Don Knotts) on "The Steve Allen Show". For these performances, Poston won the 1959 Emmy Award for Best Supporting Actor (Continuing Character) in a Comedy Series. Following that, he appeared frequently on Broadway and as a television game show panelist, including regular appearances on "To Tell the Truth" and "What's My Line?". While Poston's film career was limited to quirky comedies (such as William Castle's "Zotz!" and "The Old Dark House" in the 1960s), his television career was expansive, covering the better part of five decades, and saw him contributing his comedic talents in virtually every corner of the medium, from made-for-TV movies to variety shows to situation comedies to talk shows and even to voice-overs for cartoons. When Mel Brooks submitted his idea for the television show "Get Smart" to the ABC network, ABC wanted Poston for the lead role of Maxwell Smart. When ABC passed on the show, the lead went to Don Adams. Poston, however, would make a guest appearance on the show during its run on NBC. Poston was a recurring guest star on "The Bob Newhart Show" in the 1970s. He later played the role of Franklin Delano Bickley on "Mork & Mindy". A longtime friend of Bob Newhart, Poston played George Utley, bumbling country handyman of the Stratford Inn, on "Newhart" and appeared with Newhart in "Cold Turkey" (1971) as the town drunk, Edgar Stopworth. He was nominated for an Emmy Award three times for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series for his performance on "Newhart" in 1984, 1986, and 1987. He had a third role with Newhart in the short-lived "Bob". Poston also had regular roles on many other television series: "Family Matters", "Murphy Brown", "Home Improvement", "Cosby", "Malcolm & Eddie", "ER", "Grace Under Fire", "That '70s Show" (as Kitty Forman's father, Burt Sigurdson), "Will & Grace", and guest starred in an episode of "The Simpsons" as the Capital City Goofball. He also played dentist/jeweler, Art Hibke, on ABC's "Coach", for which he was nominated for an Emmy for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Comedy Series in 1991. He also guest-starred on Home Improvement as a surly airport clerk in El Pino, Michigan when Tim and Al get stuck there during a snowstorm on Christmas Eve. In the summer of 1968, Poston played the role of the Scarecrow, at The Municipal Opera Association of St. Louis, production of "The Wizard of Oz". Lana Cantrell played Dorothy Gale, and Betty Low played the Sorceress of the North, aka Glinda. In 2001, Poston married for the fourth time, to actress Suzanne Pleshette, who played the wife of Newhart's character Bob Hartley on "The Bob Newhart Show". Poston continued to appear in supporting roles in films, including 2003's "Beethoven's 5th" and two released in 2004, "Christmas with the Kranks" and "", and on several television programs. In 2005, he played the character "Clown" on the brief-lived NBC series "Committed". The band They Might Be Giants mentioned Poston as a writer for "The New York Times" in their song "Critic Intro". In 2005 Poston guest starred on "8 Simple Rules" as Rory's unlawful friend Jake in the episode "Good Moms Gone Wild". In 2001, Poston appeared in The Lone Gunmen episode episode "The Cap'n Toby Show". Tom Poston also appeared in the (Thriller) show (Masquerade) season 2 episode 6 1961 with Elizabeth Montgomery In 2006 Poston guest-starred on an episode of "The Suite Life of Zack & Cody" in the episode "Ah! Wilderness" as Merle, which was his final role. Death. After a brief illness, Poston died of respiratory failure on April 30, 2007 in Los Angeles, California at the age of 85.
586445	Aditya Srivastava (born on July 21, 1968 in Allahabad, India) is an Indian film and television actor. He is best known for his role as Senior Inspector Abhijeet in India's longest-running television police procedural "C.I.D.". He has also portrayed pivotal roles in the Bollywood films "Satya", "Gulaal", "Paanch", "Black Friday" and "Dil Se..". Personal Life and Status in Media. Aditya Srivastava was born in Allahabad ,(Uttar Pradesh, India) on 21st July, 1968. Very little is known about his personal life.He has been very particular about his and his family's privacy ( some fan visits and journalists' accounts state he has avoided answering questions related to his personal life.) Some sources state that he is married to a lady named Mansi and is a father to two daughters. This is,however, never confirmed by the actor himself nor has he released any media statement regarding the same till date.In an interview to Joginder Tanuja,he stated he initially lived in Andheri when he came to Mumbai and later shifted to his current residence in Goregaon. Due to the cult popularity of his character 'Sr.Insp.Abhijeet' in the TV series 'CID',he is informally addressed as Abhijeet by the masses. Career. After studying in Allahabad University, Aditya Srivastav moved to Delhi in 1989 and was involved in mostly theatre work at Sri Ram Center Of Performing Arts. Spotted by Shekhar Kapoor, he got his first break in the movie "Bandit Queen", where he played Puttilal. After this he moved to Mumbai in 1995. He did many voice overs for promos and advertisements. He also played episodic roles in Byomkesh Bakshi. He took a break from television in 1997 to do films. He was later offered "C.I.D." in 1999, after B.P. Singh noticing him in Satya for playing Sr.Insp. Khandilkar, after Ashutosh Gowariker left to pursue direction, although he played as a criminal in "C.I.D." episode "The Case of the Stolen Gun". Initially reluctant, he signed in for just 26 episodes, which however extended later. He, along with Shivaji Satam and Dayanand Shetty, are the pillars of the show. His character in the show is shown to be serious. Meanwhile he also did many shows like Rishtey (TV series), Naya Daur among others and films. He played Murgi, a guitarist in Anurag Kashyap's Paanch, which was shot in 2001, never released.He was offered to play the male lead in Hansal Mehta's Dil Pe Mat Le Yaar.The role was later given to Manoj Bajpayee,leaving him to play another character in the same movie named Tito.He still provided finance for the making of this movie.His first film as in playing the single male protagonist, "Dil se Pooch Kidhar Jaana Hai", though it was a commercial failure,fetched him appreciation by critics for his performance. He suffered from a shoulder injury in a bus accident whilst the shoots of Kaalo. Internationally, he is more known for his work in films like Dil Se, Satya, Matrubhoomi, Black Friday and Gulaal, all of which ran successfully across the International Film Festivals Circuit.
1058523	Claire Antonia Forlani (born 1 July 1972) is an English actress. She is best known for her roles in films such as "Mallrats", "Basquiat" and "Meet Joe Black". Early life. Claire Forlani was born in 1972 in Twickenham, London, the daughter of Barbara (née Dickinson), who was English, and Pier Luigi Forlani, a music manager from Ferrara, Italy. At the age of 11, Forlani entered the Arts Educational School in London, where she began to study acting. During her six years at the school, she also studied dance, which led to performances on stage in "The Nutcracker" and "Orpheus in the Underworld". Career. Forlani's parents moved to San Francisco in 1993, in order to allow for wider casting opportunities in Hollywood films. Subsequently, Forlani was cast in the television mini-series "J.F.K.: Reckless Youth" and the film '. In 1995, she played the supporting role of Brandi Svenning in "Mallrats". In 1996, Forlani appeared in a supporting role as Sean Connery's daughter in the film "The Rock". She continued to appear in both widely released and smaller-budget films. In 1998, she starred with Anthony Hopkins and Brad Pitt in "Meet Joe Black". She then appeared in "Antitrust", a thriller released in January 2001. Forlani was the new face of L'Oréal in 2001. She has been ranked no. 51 (2000) and no. 89 (2001) in "Stuff" magazine's "100 Sexiest Women", no. 85 (2001) in "FHM" magazine's "100 Sexiest Women" and was slotted in "Loadeds "Hot 100 Babes". In 2003, she co-starred with Jackie Chan in "The Medallion".
1061471	Mervyn LeRoy (October 15, 1900 – September 13, 1987) was an American film director, film producer and sometime actor. Early life. LeRoy was born in San Francisco, to Jewish parents Edna (née Armer) and Harry LeRoy. His family was financially ruined by the 1906 earthquake. (His paternal grandfather owned a successful San Francisco department store that was destroyed in the quake; the store was heavily insured, but the insurance company went bankrupt in the aftermath of the earthquake.) To make money, young Mervyn sold newspapers and entered talent shows as a singer. Through this he worked his way into vaudeville. When his act broke up, he and his cousin, Jesse Lasky, went to Hollywood. Career. LeRoy worked in costumes, processing labs and as a camera assistant until he became a gag writer and actor in silent films. His first directing job was in 1927's "No Place to Go". When his movies made lots of money without costing too much, he became well received in the movie business. In 1931 he directed two key films which launched Edward G. Robinson into major stardom, the Oscar-nominated critique of tabloid journalism "Five Star Final", and the classic gangster epic "Little Caesar". From that point forward, LeRoy would be responsible for a diverse variety of films as a director and producer. In 1938 he was chosen as head of production at MGM, where he was responsible for the decision to make "The Wizard of Oz". He was responsible for discovering Clark Gable, Loretta Young, Robert Mitchum and Lana Turner. In the 1950s LeRoy directed such musicals as "Lovely to Look At", "Million Dollar Mermaid", "Latin Lovers" and "Rose Marie". He moved to Warner Brothers, where he was responsible for such famous films as "Mister Roberts", "The Bad Seed", "No Time for Sergeants", "The FBI Story" and "Gypsy". He was nominated in 1943 for Best Director for "Random Harvest". and also in 1940 as the producer of "The Wizard of Oz". In addition, he received an honorary Oscar in 1946 for "The House I Live In", "for tolerance short subject", and the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award in 1976. A total of eight movies Mervyn LeRoy directed or co-directed were nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars, one of the highest numbers among all directors. Later life. LeRoy retired in 1965 and wrote his autobiography, "Take One", in 1974. He died from Alzheimer's disease in Beverly Hills, California at age 86 and was interred in the Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, California. He has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 1560 Vine Street. A fan of thoroughbred horse racing, Mervyn LeRoy was a founding investor in Hollywood Park Racetrack and a member of the track's Board of Directors from 1941 until his death in 1986. In partnership with father-in-law, Harry Warner, he operated a racing stable, W-L Ranch Co., during the 1940s/50s.
499911	The Californians is a 2005 independent drama film from Hart Sharp Films starring Noah Wyle. Plot. A battle between real estate moguls and environmental activists takes an unexpected turn into affairs of the heart in this satiric update of Henry James' The Bostonians. Gavin Ransom (Noah Wyle) is a successful real estate developer who has made a tidy fortune putting up gated communities filled with expensive suburban homes all over California. Ransom intends to put up another such development in the as-yet-untouched hillsides of Northern California's Marin County, and, just as he's expected, a number of folks living nearby are objecting to the project, including his sister Olive (Illeana Douglas), an environmental activist who has sided with longtime resident Eileen Boatwright (Cloris Leachman) and progressive lawyer Sybil (Jane Lynch) against the development. Olive and her compatriots get some unexpected support when Zoe Tripp (Kate Mara), a modern folk singer and the daughter of old-school Marin County hippies (Keith Carradine and Valerie Perrine), takes an interest in their protests and begins singing out against Gavin's proposal with guitar in hand. Gavin unexpectedly finds himself growing powerfully infatuated with Zoe, and Olive, a long-closeted lesbian, is equally taken with her; consequently, as the siblings battle against building several dozen cookie-cutter mansions, they also wage a private war for the affections of the young songstress.
1103646	Elias Menachem Stein (born January 13, 1931) is a mathematician and a leading figure in the field of harmonic analysis. He is a professor emeritus of Mathematics at Princeton University. Biography. Stein was born to Elkan Stein and Chana Goldman, Ashkenazi Jews from Belgium. After the German invasion in 1940, the Stein family fled to the United States, first arriving in New York. He graduated from Stuyvesant High School in 1949, where he was classmates with future Fields Medalist Paul Cohen, before moving on to the University of Chicago for college. In 1955, Stein earned a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago under the direction of Antoni Zygmund. He began teaching in MIT in 1955, moved to the University of Chicago in 1958 as an assistant professor, and in 1963 became a full professor at Princeton, the position he currently holds. Stein has worked primarily in the field of harmonic analysis, and has made major contributions in both extending and clarifying Calderón–Zygmund theory. These include "Stein interpolation" (a variable-parameter version of complex interpolation), the "Stein maximal principle" (showing that under many circumstances, almost everywhere convergence is equivalent to the boundedness of a maximal function), "Stein complementary series representations", "Nikishin–Pisier–Stein factorization" in operator theory, the "Tomas–Stein restriction theorem" in Fourier analysis, the "Kunze–Stein phenomenon" in convolution on semisimple groups, the Cotlar–Stein lemma concerning the sum of almost orthogonal operators, and the Fefferman–Stein theory of the Hardy space formula_1 and the space formula_2 of functions of bounded mean oscillation. He has written numerous books on harmonic analysis (see e.g. which are often cited as the standard references on the subject. His Princeton Lectures in Analysis series [6,7,8,9 were penned for his sequence of undergraduate courses on analysis at Princeton. Stein is also noted as having trained a high number of graduate students (he has had at least 45 students, according to the Mathematics Genealogy Project), so shaping modern Fourier analysis. They include two Fields medalists, Charles Fefferman and Terence Tao. Stein has two children, Karen and Jeremy (professor of financial economics at Harvard, formerly in Washington D.C. advising Tim Geithner and Laurence Summers), as well as three grandchildren. His honors include the Steele Prize (1984 and 2002), the Schock Prize in Mathematics (1993), the Wolf Prize in Mathematics (1999), and the National Medal of Science (2002). In addition, he has fellowships to National Science Foundation, Sloan Foundation, Guggenheim, and National Academy of Sciences. In 2005, Stein was awarded the Stefan Bergman prize in recognition of his contributions in real, complex, and harmonic analysis. In 2012 he became a fellow of the American Mathematical Society.
1067726	Julio Oscar Mechoso (born May 31, 1955) is an American actor. He is occasionally credited as Julio Mechoso. Mechoso is a character actor in both television and film. He has appeared in several high-profile films, such as "Grindhouse", "Bad Boys" and the controversial "Ken Park". His television credits include "Miami Vice", "Coach", "Seinfeld", and "Greetings from Tucson". He has appeared in two Martin Lawrence films, "Bad Boys" and "Blue Streak". He played a Police Detective in both. Mechoso is a Cuban American.
1030090	Angel-A, directed by Luc Besson, is a 2005 French fantasy and romantic drama film featuring Jamel Debbouze and Rie Rasmussen. The film was premiered in the United States at the Sundance Film Festival of 2007. Plot. Andre (Debbouze) has just returned to Paris in the hope of making some easy money, give up his life of petty crime, and start his life over as an honest man in America. In Paris for only a few hours, Andre finds himself dangling high over the edge of the Eiffel Tower, begging for his life from a man he hoped never to see again. With his underworld dealing catching him up, Andre is given 24 hours to find 20,000 Euro to pay off his debts and save his life. Frantically trying to find ways to avoid certain death, Andre turns to the police begging them to place him safely behind bars for a couple of nights. They laugh at his pathetic attempt and throw him to the streets. Andre is left with nowhere to turn and with his deadline fast approaching, he despairingly climbs onto the ledge of a bridge and gathers the resolve to jump into the river. But, he is not alone. Beside him, a beautiful and mysterious woman (Rasmussen) is a moment away from throwing herself into the Seine. Despite Andre’s attempts to persuade the woman to climb back over the railing, she lets go and jumps into the water. A split second later, he too jumps into the water.
582853	Robin Bhatt is known as one of the most successful writers in Bollywood. He is well known for his skills in penning screenplay. He is the brother of Mahesh Bhatt. He has written many films and was nominated 3 times and won award for Baazigar. His debut film as writer was Aashiqui, which proved to be a hit film. He has written many films for Bhatt Productions. Beside writing, he has also worked as an actor and an assistant director. Career. In his 20 year long career he has written about 66 films and also acted in more than 10 Hindi Films like Chalte Chalte , Golmaal Returns, U Me Aur Hum etc. He has worked some greatest filmmakers in his career. Many of his films have gone on to become high grossers at the box office like , Sadak, Aashiqui and many more. He was nominated for Omkara, Koi Mil Gaya and Krrish and won award for Baazigar as best screenplay.
1167260	Pamela Mason (10 March 1916 – 29 June 1996) was a British actress, author, and screenwriter who appeared in a number of British films. Early life and career. Born Pamela Ostrer in Westgate-on-Sea, Mason was the daughter of Isidore and Helen Ostrer. Isidore Ostrer was the president of the Gaumont British Picture Corporation. Pamela left school at age 9 and age 16, married Roy Kellino. She began acting in 1934, and in 1939 she and Kellino made their first film together "I Met a Murderer" (1939).
1062279	Walk the Line is a 2005 American biographical drama film directed by James Mangold and based on the early life and career of country music artist Johnny Cash. The film stars Joaquin Phoenix, Reese Witherspoon, Ginnifer Goodwin, and Robert Patrick. The film focuses on Cash's early life, his romance with June Carter, and his ascent to the country music scene, with material taken from his autobiographies. The film's production budget is estimated to have been US$28,000,000. "Walk the Line" previewed at the Telluride Film Festival on September 4, 2005, and went into wide release on November 18. The film was nominated for five Academy Awards including Best Actor (Joaquin Phoenix), Best Actress (Reese Witherspoon, which she won), and Best Costume Design (Arianne Phillips). The film grossed a total of $186,438,883 worldwide. Plot. In 1968, an audience of inmates at Folsom State Prison cheer for Johnny Cash's band as he waits backstage near a table saw, reminding him of his early life. In 1944, Johnny, then known as J.R., grows up the son of a share cropper on a cotton farm in Dyess, Arkansas, and is adept with hymnals, while his brother Jack is training himself to become a pastor. While Jack is sawing wood for a neighbor, J.R. goes fishing while he finishes. However, Jack injures himself with the saw, and dies of his injuries. Cash's strained relationship with his father Ray, becomes much more difficult after Jack's death. In 1950, J.R. enlists in the United States Air Force as Johnny Cash, and is posted in West Germany. One day in 1952, he finds solace in playing a guitar he bought and writing songs—one of which will become "Folsom Prison Blues". Cash is eventually discharged, and marries his girlfriend Vivian Liberto. The couple move to Memphis, Tennessee, where Cash works as a door-to-door salesman to support his growing family. He walks past a recording studio, which inspires him to organize a band to play gospel music. Cash's band auditions for Sam Phillips, the owner of Sun Records. Phillips interrupts the audition and asks Cash to play a song that he really "feels", prompting them to play "Folsom Prison Blues". The band is contracted by Sun Records. The band begins touring as Johnny Cash and the Tennessee Two. He meets many different artists on tour, including June Carter, with whom Cash soon falls in love. Cash begins spending more time with June, who divorces her first husband, Carl Smith. After an attempt by Cash to woo June backfires, he begins to take drugs and alcohol. After his behavior peaks during a performance with June, they go their separate ways. Over Vivian's objections, Johnny persuades June to come out of semi-retirement at an awards show and tour with him. The tour is a success, but backstage, Vivian is critical of June's influence. After one Las Vegas performance, Cash and June sleep together in her hotel room. The next morning, she notices Cash taking several pills and begins to doubt her choices. At that evening's concert, Cash, upset by Carter's apparent rejection, behaves erratically and eventually passes out. June disposes of Cash's drugs and begins to write "Ring of Fire", describing her feelings for Cash and her pain at watching him descend into addiction. On his way home, Cash travels to Mexico to purchase more drugs and is arrested. Cash's marriage to Vivian begins to crumble and after a final violent dispute, the pair eventually divorce and Cash moves to Nashville in 1966. In an attempt to reconcile with June, Cash buys a large house near a lake in Hendersonville. His parents, and the extended Carter family, arrive for Thanksgiving, at which time Ray dismisses his son's achievements and behavior. After eating, June's mother—aware of her daughter's true feelings toward Cash—encourages her to help him. After a long detoxification period, Cash wakes up with June by his side. June says she, and God, have given Cash a second chance. Although not formally a couple, the two begin to spend most of their time with each other. Cash discovers that most of his fan mail comes from prisoners, impressed with the outlaw image that Cash has cultivated. Cash visits his recording company he signed with in 1958, Columbia Records, and proposes that he record an album live inside Folsom Prison. Despite Columbia's doubts, Cash says that he will perform regardless and the label can use the tapes if they wish. At the Folsom Prison concert, Cash tells how he always admired prisoners, explaining that his arrest for drug possession helped him to relate to them. The concert is a great success, and Cash embarks on a tour with June and his band. While on a tour bus, Cash goes to see June in the back of the bus. Waking up June, he proposes to her, but she turns him down. At the next concert, June tells him that he is only allowed to speak with her on stage. There, Cash persuades June to join him in a duet. In the middle of the song, Cash stops playing, explaining that he cannot sing "Jackson" any more unless June agrees to marry him. June eventually accepts and they share a passionate embrace on stage. Release. Box office. "Walk the Line" was released on November 18, 2005 in 2,961 theaters, grossing USD$22.3 million on its opening weekend. It went on to earn $119.5 million in North America and $66.9 million in the rest of the world for a total of $186.4 million, well above its $28 million budget making it a box office success. Reception. Critics generally responded with positive reviews, garnering an 82% on Rotten Tomatoes. Phoenix's performance inspired film critic Roger Ebert to write, "Knowing Johnny Cash's albums more or less by heart, I closed my eyes to focus on the soundtrack and decided that, yes, that was the voice of Johnny Cash I was listening to. The closing credits make it clear it's Joaquin Phoenix doing the singing, and I was gob-smacked". In her review for the "Los Angeles Times", Carina Chocano wrote, "Joaquin Phoenix and Reese Witherspoon do first-rate work — they sing, they twang, they play new-to-them instruments, they crackle with wit and charisma, and they give off so much sexual heat it's a wonder they don't burst into flames". A. O. Scott, in his review for "The New York Times", had problems with Phoenix's performance: "Even though his singing voice doesn't match the original - how could it? - he is most convincing in concert, when his shoulders tighten and he cocks his head to one side. Otherwise, he seems stuck in the kind of off-the-rack psychological straitjacket in which Hollywood likes to confine troubled geniuses". In his review for "Time", Richard Corliss wrote, "A lot of credit for Phoenix's performance has to go to Mangold, who has always been good at finding the bleak melodrama in taciturn souls ... If Mangold's new movie has a problem, it's that he and co-screenwriter Gill Dennis sometimes walk the lines of the inspirational biography too rigorously". Andrew Sarris, in his review for "The New York Observer" praised Witherspoon for her "spine-tingling feistiness", and wrote, "This feat has belatedly placed it (in my mind, at least) among a mere handful of more-than-Oscar-worthy performances this year". "Entertainment Weekly" gave the film a "B+" rating and Owen Gleiberman wrote, "while Witherspoon, a fine singer herself, makes Carter immensely likable, a fountain of warmth and cheer, given how sweetly she meshes with Phoenix her romantic reticence isn't really filled in". "Baltimore Sun" reviewer Michael Sragow wrote, "What Phoenix and Witherspoon accomplish in this movie is transcendent. They act with every bone and inch of flesh and facial plane, and each tone and waver of their voice. They do their own singing with a startling mastery of country music's narrative musicianship". In his review for "Sight and Sound", Mark Kermode wrote, "Standing ovations, too, for Witherspoon, who has perhaps the tougher task of lending depth and darkness to the role of June, whose frighteningly chipper stage act - a musical-comedy hybrid - constantly courts (but never marries) mockery". However, some critics found the film too constrained by Hollywood plot formulas of love and loss, ignoring the last twenty years of Cash's life and other more socio-politically controversial reasons he was considered "the man in black." Rosanne Cash was quite critical of the film. She saw a rough edit and described the experience like "having a root canal without anaesthetic." Her brother was instrumental in having the filmmakers remove two scenes that were not flattering to her mother. Furthermore, she said, "The movie was painful. The three of them the film were not recognizable to me as my parents in any way. But the scenes were recognizable, and the storyline, so the whole thing was fraught with sadness because they all had just died, and I had this resistance to seeing the screen version of my childhood". Accolades. Witherspoon's performance was repeatedly recognized, including an Academy Award for Best Actress and other awards such as: Film critic Andrew Sarris ranked "Walk the Line" number seven in top films of 2005 and cited Reese Witherspoon as the best female performance of the year. Witherspoon was also voted Favorite Leading Lady at the 2006 People's Choice Awards. David Ansen of "Newsweek" ranked Witherspoon as one of the five best actresses of 2005. Home media. On February 28, 2006, a single-disc DVD and a two-disc collector edition DVD were released; these editions sold three million copies on their first day of release. On March 25, 2008 a two-disc 'extended cut' DVD was released for region one. The feature on disc one is 17 minutes longer than the theatrical release, and disc two features eight extended musical sequences with introductions and documentaries about the making of the film. The film has been released on Blu-ray Disc in France and Sweden in the form of its extended cut. The American Blu-ray features the shorter theatrical cut.
1068291	The Grass Is Greener is a 1960 comedy film directed by Stanley Donen and starring Cary Grant, Deborah Kerr, Robert Mitchum, and Jean Simmons. The film was adapted by Hugh Williams and Margaret Vyner from the play of the same name which they had written and found success with in London's West End. Plot. The Earl and Countess of Rhyall (Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr) are facing financial troubles and are therefore forced to permit guided tours of their stately home. A suave, somewhat obnoxious American oil tycoon, Charles Delacro (Robert Mitchum), barges into the lady of the manor's private quarters, either deliberately or by mistake. He introduces himself, explaining the family name was originally "Delacroix" but his grandfather tired of Americans pronouncing the "X" in the name. Delacro's attentions to the Countess turn her head. Rather than behave jealously, the Earl invites the American to come visit, along with an equally grating ex-girlfriend of Lord Rhyall's, the American heiress Hattie Durant (Jean Simmons). A love triangle (or quadrangle) soon develops, kicking off a tale of love and jealousy. Set design. British interior decorator Felix Harbord served as the film's special consultant for settings. Reception. While the film was a moderate success at the U.K. box office, it fared much worse in the United States. Reviews of the film were mostly lukewarm. Despite its initial failure, the film has since developed a following and has been a staple of American cable television. At the time of its release, Jean Simmons's performance as a madcap heiress earned some praise and a Laurel Award nomination.
1096319	Antoine Arnauld (February 6, 1612 – August 8, 1694) — "le Grand" as contemporaries called him, to distinguish him from his father — was a French Roman Catholic theologian, philosopher, and mathematician. He was one of the leading intellectuals of the Jansenist group of Port-Royal and had a very thorough knowledge of patristics. Biography. Antoine Arnauld was born in Paris to the Arnauld family. The twentieth and youngest child of the original Antoine Arnauld, he was originally intended for the bar, but decided instead to study theology at the Sorbonne. Here he was brilliantly successful, and his career was flourishing when he came under the influence of Jean du Vergier de Hauranne, the spiritual director and leader of the convent of Port-Royal, and was drawn in the direction of Jansenism. His book, "De la fréquente Communion" (1643), was an important step in making the aims and ideals of this movement intelligible to the general public. Its appearance attracted controversy. Furthermore, in the frame of the controversy around Jansenius' "Augustinus", during which the Jesuits attacked the Jansenists claiming they were heretics similar to Calvinists, Arnauld wrote in defense the "Théologie morale des Jésuites" (Moral Theology of Jesuits), which would put the base of most of the arguments later used by Pascal in his "Provincial Letters" denouncing the "relaxed moral" of Jesuit casuistry. Pascal was assisted in this task by Arnauld's nephew Antoine Le Maistre. The Jesuit Nicolas Caussin, former penitentiary to Louis XIII, was charged by his order of writing a defense against Arnauld's book, titled "Réponse au libelle intitulé La Théologie morale des Jésuites" (1644). Other libels published against Arnauld's "Moral Theology of Jesuits" included the one written by the Jesuit polemist François Pinthereau (1605–1664), under the pseudonym of the abbé de Boisic, titled "Les Impostures et les ignorances du libelle intitulé: La Théologie Morale des Jésuites" (1644), who was also the author of a critical history of Jansenism titled "La Naissance du Jansénisme découverte à Monsieur le Chancelier" (The Birth of Jansenism Revealed to Sir the Chancellor, Leuven, 1654). During the formulary controversy which opposed Jesuits to Jansenists concerning the orthodoxy of Jansenius' propositions, Arnauld was forced to go into hiding. In 1655 two very outspoken "Lettres à un duc et pair" on Jesuit methods in the confessional brought a motion of censorship voted against him in the Sorbonne, in quite an irregular manner. This motion prompted Pascal to anonymously write the "Provincial Letters". For more than twenty years Arnauld dared not appear publicly in Paris, hiding in religious retreat. Pascal, however, failed to save his friend, and in February 1656 Arnauld was ceremonially degraded. Twelve years later the so-called "peace" of Pope Clement IX put an end to his troubles; he was graciously received by Louis XIV, and treated almost as a popular hero. He now set to work with Pierre Nicole on a great work against the Calvinist Protestants: "La perpétuité de la foi de l'Église catholique touchant l'eucharistie". Ten years later, however, persecution resumed. Arnauld was compelled to leave France for the Netherlands, finally settling down at Brussels. Here the last sixteen years of his life were spent in incessant controversy with Jesuits, Calvinists and heretics of all kinds. Arnauld gradually evolved away from the rigorous Augustinism professed by Port-Royal and closer to Thomism, which also postulated the centrality of the "efficacious grace," under the influence of Nicole. His inexhaustible energy is best expressed by his famous reply to Nicole, who complained of feeling tired. "Tired!" echoed Arnauld, "when you have all eternity to rest in?" His energy was not exhausted by purely theological questions. He was one of the first to adopt the philosophy of René Descartes, though with certain orthodox reservations; and between 1683 and 1685 he had a long battle with Nicolas Malebranche on the relation of theology to metaphysics. On the whole, public opinion leant to Arnauld's side. When Malebranche complained that his adversary had misunderstood him, Boileau silenced him with the question: "My dear sir, whom do you expect to understand you, if M. Arnauld does not?" Next Arnauld was engaged in an extensive correspondence with Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, regarding the latter's views detailed in his "Discourse on Metaphysics" (1686). Arnauld died, aged 82, in Brussels. Popular record for Arnauld's penetration was much increased in his "L'Art de penser", commonly known as the "Port-Royal Logic", which kept its place as an elementary text-book until the 20th century and is considered a paradigmatical work of term logic. Arnauld came to be regarded as important among the mathematicians of his time; one critic described him as the Euclid of the 17th century. After his death, his reputation began to wane. Contemporaries admired him as a master of intricate reasoning; on this, Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet, the greatest theologian of the age, agreed with Henri François d'Aguesseau, the greatest lawyer. However, his eagerness to win every argument endeared him to no one. "In spite of myself," Arnauld once said regretfully, "my books are seldom very short." . Despite Arnauld's achievements in various fields, his name is mostly known because of Pascal's acclaimed writings, which were more fit for the general public than Arnauld's technical essays. Boileau wrote for him a famous epitaph, consecrating his memory as "Au pied de cet autel de structure grossière Antoine Arnauld's complete works (thirty-seven volumes in forty-two parts) were published in Paris, 1775-1781. There is a study of his philosophy in Francisque Bouillier, "Histoire de la philosophie cartésienne" (Paris, 1868); and his mathematical achievements are discussed by Franz Bopp in the 14th volume of the "Abhandlung zur Geschichte der mathematischen Wissenschaften" (Leipzig, 1902). Principal works. The links are to the Gallica version.
724724	Benjamin McKenzie Schenkkan (born September 12, 1978), known professionally as Benjamin McKenzie or Ben McKenzie, is an American actor and producer. He is known for playing Ryan Atwood in the television series "The O.C." and for playing Ben Sherman in "Southland". He appeared in the films "Junebug" and "88 Minutes" which earned him a Sarasota Film Festival nomination. His first starring role in a feature film was in the 2008 indie release "Johnny Got His Gun" which garnered excellent reviews for his solo performance. Early life. McKenzie was born Benjamin McKenzie Schenkkan, in Austin, Texas, to Mary Frances (Victory), a prize-winning poet, and Pieter Meade Schenkkan. He is a nephew of Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Robert Schenkkan, and a second cousin of actress Sarah Drew. His younger brother Nate is a Yale graduate working in avant-garde theater in New York. His youngest brother Zack is the current Editor-in-Chief of the UCLA Law Review. McKenzie's paternal grandfather had Dutch Jewish ancestry; he was the son of Flora and Joseph Schenkkan, who were immigrants from Amsterdam. The rest of McKenzie's ancestry includes English and Scottish. He changed his name for screen-credit purposes because there is an actor named Ben Schenkken registered with the Screen Actors Guild.
1060377	Apocalypto is a 2006 American epic adventure film directed and produced by Mel Gibson. It was written by Gibson and Farhad Safinia. Set in Peten, Guatemala, during the declining period of the Maya civilization, "Apocalypto" depicts the journey of a Mesoamerican tribesman who must escape human sacrifice and rescue his family after the capture and destruction of his village. The film features a cast of Mayas, and some other people of Native American descent. As the dialogue is in the Yucatec Maya language, it is accompanied by English subtitles. Although the film was a financial success, its depictions of indigenous cultures sparked controversy. Plot. While hunting tapir in the Mesoamerican jungle, Jaguar Paw (Rudy Youngblood), his father Flint Sky (Morris Birdyellowhead), and their fellow tribesmen encounter a procession of refugees fleeing warfare. The group's leader explains that their lands were ravaged, and asks for permission to pass through the jungle. When Jaguar Paw and his tribesmen return home, Flint Sky tells his son not to let the refugees' fear infect him.
587397	Kadhalil Vizhunthen (English:" I Fell in Love") is a 2008 Indian Tamil film directed by P. V. Prasad starring Nakul and Sunaina. The film has music by Vijay Antony, cinematography by S.D. Vijay Milton and editing by V.T Vijayan. The shooting for the film started in August 2007 and the film was released in September 2008. The film was distributed by Kalanithi Maran, the managing director of Sun Network and the son of politician (late) Murasoli Maran and released on September 2008. The song "Nakka Mukka", a kuthu (folk) song and "Thozhiya..", a melodious romantic song were very successful hits composed by young music director Vijay Antony and was one of the main reasons of the film's success. Nakka Mukka was played in the opening ceremony of the Cricket World Cup 2011 held at Mirpur, Bangladesh. It also featured among a medley of tamil songs performed by Shah Rukh Khan and Shriya Saran in the inaugural of the fourth edition of the Indian Premier League 2011 held at Chennai, India. These sensational music scores by Vijay Antony also made him popular. The use of Rihanna's "Unfaithful" with Tamil lyrics as "Unakkena Naan Yenakkena Nee" displeased many of the film's audience. The film was remade in Oriya as "Diwana". Plot. The story focuses on the life of Sabha (Nakul). He is the football crazy son of an alcoholic and lives in the slums. However, he lives a comfortable life and plays football with his mates as he completes his college career. He meets Meera (Sunaina) after an accident and later develops a liking for her. He slowly starts to love her but is afraid to express his love since she is rich and would react hastily. However, he later does confirm his love to her and she accepts. When Sabha leaves for a football match with his college, he promises that he will propose to her as soon as he gets back. Sabha returns from his match to only find out that Meera has died. Sabha is shocked and he slips into a psychotic depression, travelling around with Meera's dead body, still believing she is alive. To make matters even worse, the police are also after him. The film ends as he commits suicide after he kills Meera's uncle (suresh), who murdered her in the first place in order to gain her wealth. Production. Nakul, who was one of the heroes in "Boys" made his comeback through this film and he has reduced over 20 kilograms to play the lead role in the film. A stunt sequence was shot in Mettupalayam and Nakul performed it without any dupe. The film was shot at locations in Chennai, Ooty, Thalakkonam, Muthumalai and Kodaikanal. The film marked the foray of the Sun Network into film distribution through their newly founded production company Sun Pictures. Soundtrack. The soundtrack has nine tracks, composed by Vijay Antony. The lyrics were written by Thamarai, P.V.Prasad, Nepolian and Priyan. The song "Nakka Mukka" met with tremendous response from the youth and was on everyone's lips. The soundtrack met with critical acclaim and made Vijay Antony famous. Tracklist Release. The film was lying in the cans for one year and Sun Pictures bought the film making it their first film. The film opened alongside "Sakkarakatti" at the box office on September 26, 2008 with the media hyping that it was a battle of two films with debutants and successful soundtracks. The success of the film led Nakul and Sunaina reunite again in "Maasilamani" which too was promoted by Sun Pictures and became successful. PV Prasad started another project "Eppadi Manasukkul Vanthai" for he was held in cheating case and the film was finally released in 2012. Critical reception. Indiaglitz wrote: "It is a feel-good movie with strong portrayals". Sify wrote: "obsessive love story that turns out to be dreary and long drawn out". Rediff wrote: "Kadhalil Vizhundhen achieves at least in part, what other love-stories fail to do -- to bring a genuine lump in your throat at times".
1163905	Jack Albertson (June 16, 1907 – November 25, 1981) was an American character actor who also performed in vaudeville. A comedian, dancer, singer, and musician, Albertson is perhaps best known for his roles as Manny Rosen in "The Poseidon Adventure" (1972), Grandpa Joe in "Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory" (1971), Amos Slade from "The Fox and the Hound" (1981) and as Ed Brown in the 1974–1978 television sitcom "Chico and the Man". For his contributions to the television industry, Jack Albertson was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6253 Hollywood Boulevard. Early life. Albertson was born in Malden, Massachusetts, the son of Russian-born Jewish immigrants Flora (née Craft) and Leopold Albertson. His sister was actress Mabel Albertson. Albertson's mother, a stock actress, supported the family by working in a shoe factory. Albertson dropped out of high school and traveled to New York City in an attempt to make it big in show business. He was too poor to get a room in a flophouse, so in the winter he would sleep on the IRT subway; he would catch the train for a nickel, and hide out when the transit workers would clear out the train at the end of the line. In the summer he slept in Central Park. Albertson's first real job in show business was with a vaudeville road troupe, the Dancing Verselle Sisters. Career. Broadway. Albertson worked in burlesque as a hoofer (soft shoe dancer) and straight man to Phil Silvers on the "Minsky's Burlesque Circuit". Besides vaudeville and burlesque, he appeared on the stage in many Broadway plays and musicals, including "High Button Shoes", "Top Banana", "The Cradle Will Rock", "Make Mine Manhattan", "Show Boat", "Boy Meets Girl", "Girl Crazy", "Meet the People", "The Sunshine Boys" (for which he received a Tony Award nomination for Best Actor), and "The Subject Was Roses" (for which he won a Tony for Best Supporting Actor). He was also known for two radio programs, "Just Plain Bill" and "The Jack Albertson Comedy Show". Film. Albertson appeared in more than thirty films. He had an early minor role in "Miracle on 34th Street" as a postal worker who redirects dead letters addressed to "Santa Claus" to the courthouse where Kris Kringle is on trial. He won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role in the 1968 film "The Subject Was Roses". He later apologized to Jack Wild for winning the award; Wild was also nominated and Albertson expected Wild to win. Albertson appeared as Charlie Bucket's Grandpa Joe in "Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory" (1971), and in "The Poseidon Adventure" (1972), where he played Manny Rosen, husband to Belle (played by Shelley Winters). Albertson said that his one regret was that he was not asked to reprise his role in the movie version of "The Sunshine Boys". Radio. Albertson was a radio performer and for a time a regular on the Milton Berle program in the late 1940s. Television. Throughout his career, Albertson appeared in many television series, such as CBS's "Hey, Jeannie!" with Jeannie Carson; the syndicated western series "Frontier Doctor" with Rex Allen; Rod Cameron's syndicated crime drama, "State Trooper"; and ABC's 1961-1962 drama series, "Bus Stop". He guest starred on the David Janssen crime drama series, "Richard Diamond, Private Detective". From 1960 to 1961, Albertson was cast in three episodes of the CBS sitcom, "Pete and Gladys", with Harry Morgan and Cara Williams. On January 2, 1961, Albertson was cast as Sampson J. Binton, with DeForest Kelley as Alex Jeffords, in the series finale, "Listen to the Nightingale" of the NBC western series, "Riverboat", starring Darren McGavin. Albertson had a recurring role as the neighbor Walter Burton in eight episodes of the 1962 ABC sitcom, "Room for One More", with Andrew Duggan and Peggy McCay. He had recurring roles in Dean Jones's NBC military sitcom, "Ensign O'Toole" (1962–1963), and Jack Sheldon's CBS sitcom, "Run, Buddy, Run" (1966). Other 1960s series on which Albertson appeared were NBC's sitcom, "Happy" starring Ronnie Burns, and CBS's sitcom/drama "Glynis," starring Glynis Johns and Keith Andes, which aired for thirteen weeks in the fall of 1963. Albertson also appeared in an episode of Rod Serling's "The Twilight Zone" entitled "The Shelter" as Jerry Harlowe, the neighbor and best friend of physician Bill Stockton. In a 1967 episode of CBS's "The Andy Griffith Show", he played the n'er-do-well, cousin Bradford J. Taylor, of series character Aunt Bee (Frances Bavier). Albertson co-starred as "The Man" Ed Brown in NBC's "Chico and the Man", with Freddie Prinze, for which he won an Emmy. Albertson is one of the few entertainers to have won the triple crown of visual entertainment (a Tony, an Oscar, and an Emmy). Personal life and death. He resided for years in West Hollywood, California. In 1978, he was diagnosed with colorectal cancer, but kept this information private and continued to act. Two of his last roles were in the television movies, "My Body, My Child" (1982) and "Grandpa, Will You Run With Me?" (1983), both filmed in 1981 several months before his death, both of which were released posthumously. Albertson died on 25 November 1981, aged 74, after a three-year illness. He and sister Mabel Albertson, who died ten months later, were cremated and their ashes were scattered in the Pacific Ocean.
1034063	Suzanne Danielle (born 14 January 1957 as Suzanne Morris.) is an English film and television actress, the wife of the golfer Sam Torrance. Career. Danielle trained as a dancer at the Bush Davies School of Theatre Arts in Romford, Essex, which was her home town, and also went to the Bedfords Park Community School in Straight Road, Harold Hill. At the age of 16, she appeared in the West End musical "Billy" (1974), starring Michael Crawford. As a result of that, she was invited to appear as a dancer on a Bruce Forsyth show called "Bruce and More Girls". An admirer of Cyd Charisse, after leaving school Danielle joined a dance group called "The Younger Generation". Screen. Danielle's first screen role as an actress was as "Pretty Girl" in an episode of "The Professionals" ("Killer With A Long Arm"), broadcast in January 1978. Her first film role was in "The Wild Geese" (1978), but her first credited part, in the same year, was for "Carry On Emmannuelle", the last film in the original "Carry On..." series. One reviewer commented "Many of the stalwarts are featured but, apart from Kenneth Williams, they are reduced to support for the eponymous heroine in the athletic and long-legged person of Suzanne Danielle". In "Arabian Adventure" (1979) she plays a dancer and does a belly dance for Christopher Lee's Caliph. Her last film was "The Trouble with Spies" (1987) but filmed in 1984, in which she played opposite Donald Sutherland and Michael Hordern. Television. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Danielle was reported to have "the monopoly on attractive, promiscuous good-time girls". Between 1979 and 1983, she was a regular team member on the TV game show "Give Us a Clue". On television, she appeared in "Doctor Who" (Destiny of the Daleks), "Morecambe and Wise" and "Tales of the Unexpected" and became a frequent contributor to the Mike Yarwood series on ITV during the early 1980s, portraying Diana, Princess of Wales, opposite Yarwood's impersonation of Prince Charles. Theatre. In 1982, she took to the theatre, in a touring production of John Murray's two person comedy "The Monkey Walk", opposite Patrick Mower. This travelled as far afield as Singapore and New Zealand. In 1983, she starred in an exercise instruction album on vinyl and cassette, in the Shape Up and Dance series. In 1985, Danielle played the lead in a Christmas pantomime of "Jack and the Beanstalk" at Richmond, Surrey, supported by Jimmy Edwards, Kenneth Connor and Joan Sims. Private life. For seven years, Danielle was the girlfriend of the actor Patrick Mower. In 1986, she met the golfer Sam Torrance, who proposed to her in 1987 on a Concorde flight on the way to play in the Ryder Cup in Columbus, Ohio, but they did not get married until several years later when, in 1995, a surprise marriage was arranged at Skibo Castle. With Torrance, she has four children, Daniel, Dale, Anouska and Phoebe.
1170160	William Ray "Bill" Engvall, Jr. (born July 27, 1957) is an American comedian and actor best known for his work as a stand-up comic, his signature "Here's Your Sign" bit, and as a member of the Blue Collar Comedy group. Early life. Bill Engvall was born in Galveston, Texas. Following graduation from Richardson High School in Richardson, Texas, Engvall attended Southwestern University in Georgetown, Texas, intending to earn a Bachelor's degree and become a teacher. While at Southwestern he was a member of Xi Chapter of the Kappa Alpha Order. Engvall left college prior to earning his degree and worked a series of jobs, including tour guide at Inner Space Caverns, and disc jockey in a Dallas, Texas nightclub. It was while working as club DJ he first ventured into standup comedy at amateur and open mic nights around Dallas. Career. In 1990 Bill Engvall moved to southern California to dedicate full-time to his comedy. Early notoriety came from hosting the cable show "A Pair of Jokers" with Rosie O'Donnell and an appearance on the "The Golden Palace" where he played Blanche's son Matthew, a stockbroker turned aspiring comic. Other early appearances included hosting A&E Networks "An Evening at The Improv" as well as stand-up routines on "The Tonight Show" and the "Late Show with David Letterman. A career breakthrough happened in 1992 when Engvall was named Best Male Standup at the American Comedy Awards. His first role as a series regular came soon after when he was cast in the ABC series "Delta", starring Delta Burke. The show only lasted one season however, and Engvall returned to making the rounds of comedy clubs and the occasional television appearance until 1996 when he was cast with fellow comic and best friend Jeff Foxworthy in the NBC version of "The Jeff Foxworthy Show". Signed by Warner Bros. Records in 1996, Engvall released the first of a series of highly successful comedy albums, "Here's Your Sign", based on his signature stage bit. The album was certified Platinum and peaked at #5 on the Billboard Country album chart, thanks in part to the single and video of the same title on which he collaborated with Country star Travis Tritt. Eight more comedy albums followed including "Dorkfish" in 1998, and the most recent, 2009's "Aged and Confused". In 2011, He also attended the NASCAR After The Lap event in Las Vegas. In 2013, he was announced as a contestant on the 17th season of "Dancing with the Stars" paired with professional dancer Emma Slater. Blue Collar Comedy Tour. Jeff Foxworthy and Engvall launched the first of six Blue Collar Comedy Tours in 2000. The tours also featured comedians Ron White and Larry the Cable Guy and were largely responsible for their breakout success. Each of the six years of the tour were very successful and spawned three movies, a satellite radio show, and a television show, "Blue Collar TV" on The WB Network. Game show host. On June 6, 2011, Bill Engvall began a new chapter in his career as he took over as host of the re-launched "Lingo" on GSN. According to an interview in "American Profile" magazine, Engvall said he jumped at the chance to host the show, citing the fun his friend Foxworthy had hosting "Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?". Engvall had been a fan of "Lingo" when it aired a few years previously before ending in 2007, admitting that his wife always beat him to the answers. When asked if there were any plans to have buddies Foxworthy or Larry The Cable Guy appear on "Lingo", he replied "You never know! I would love to have them on the show because it would be a blast. I would really dig that."
1759303	Once Upon a Time in Anatolia () is a 2011 Turkish drama film, co-written and directed by Nuri Bilge Ceylan based on the true experience of one of the film's writers, telling the story of a group of men who search for a dead body on the Anatolian steppe. The film, which went on nationwide general release across Turkey on , premiered at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival where it was a co-winner of the Grand Prix. Plot. Through the night, three cars carry a small group of menpolice officers, a doctor, a prosecutor, grave diggers, gendarmerie forces, and two brothers, homicide suspectsaround in the rural surroundings of the Anatolian town Keskin, in search of a buried body. Kenan, one of the suspects, leads them from one water fountain to another; at the time of the crime he was drunk and he cannot recall where he and his mentally challenged brother buried the body. The darkness and visual indistinctness of the landscape do not help; each spot looks the same as the others. Meanwhile the men discuss a variety of topics, such as yoghurt, lamb chops, urination, family, spouses, ex-wives, death, suicide, hierarchy, bureaucracy, ethics, and their jobs. Philosophy is also discussed, with one apparently central and particular idea/theme mentioned a couple of times throughout the film—the idea that children invariably pay for their parents' mistakes.
1164980	Marion Lorne (August 12, 1883 – May 9, 1968) was an American actress of stage, film, and television. After a career in theatre in New York City and London, Lorne made her first film in 1951, and for the remainder of her life, played small roles in films and television. Her recurring role, between 1964 and her death in 1968, as Aunt Clara in the comedy series, "Bewitched" (1964–1972) brought her widespread recognition, and for which she was posthumously awarded an Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series. Early life and education. She was born Marion Lorne MacDougall in West Pittston, Pennsylvania, a small mining town halfway between Wilkes-Barre and Scranton, of Scottish and English immigrant parents. While her year of birth is listed as 1885 on her tombstone, it was usually listed as 1888 when she was alive and the Social Security Death Index lists it as 1883. She studied at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York City. Career. Lorne debuted on Broadway in 1905; she also acted in London theaters, enjoying a flourishing stage career on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean. After appearing in a couple Vitaphone shorts, "Success" (1931) starring Jack Haley and "A Peach of a Pair" (1934) starring Shemp Howard and Daphne Pollard, she made her feature film debut in her late 60s in "Strangers on a Train" (1951), directed by Alfred Hitchcock. The role was typical of the befuddled, nervous, and somewhat aristocratic matrons that she usually portrayed. From 1952-55, Lorne was seen as perpetually confused junior high school English teacher Mrs. Gurney on "Mr. Peepers". From 1957–58, she co-starred with Joan Caulfield in the NBC sitcom "Sally" in the role of an elderly widow who happens to be the co-owner of a department store. Although afraid of live television, declaring "I'm a coward when it comes to a live show", she was persuaded to appear a few times to promote the film "The Girl Rush" with Rosalind Russell in the mid-1950s. Between 1958–64, she made regular appearances on "The Garry Moore Show" (1958–64). Her last role, as Aunt Clara in "Bewitched", brought Lorne her widest fame as a lovable, forgetful witch who is losing her powers due to old age and whose spells usually end in disaster. Aunt Clara is obsessed with doorknobs, often bringing her collection with her on visits. Lorne had an extensive collection of doorknobs in real life, some of which she used as props in the series. Death. She appeared in twenty-eight episodes and was not replaced after she died of a heart attack in New York City just prior to the start of production of the show's fifth season, at the age of 84. Posthumous. The producers of "Bewitched" recognized that Lorne's performance as Aunt Clara could not be replicated by another actress. Comedic actress Alice Ghostley was recruited to fill the gap as "Esmeralda", a different type of befuddled witch with wobbly magic whose spells often went astray. Coincidentally, Lorne and Ghostley had appeared side-by-side as partygoers in the iconic comedy-drama film "The Graduate", made the year before Lorne's death. She received a posthumous Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series for her work on "Bewitched". The statue was accepted by "Bewitched" star Elizabeth Montgomery. Personal life. She was married to playwright Walter Hackett, who died in 1944. Lorne is buried at Ferncliff Cemetery in Greenburgh, New York.
1073075	Synopsis. Noriko, a young widow, lives with her senile father-in-law, Shukichi. In order to convince Shukichi that his favorite cow is not dead, Noriko rises before dawn, poses as the cow and allows Shukichi to milk her instead. Conflict arises when Shukichi's daughter tries to put an end to this relationship. Production and critical reception. Director Daisuke Gotō cites Yasujirō Ozu's "Late Spring" (1949) and Bernardo Bertolucci's "1900" (1976) as influences on "A Lonely Cow Weeps at Dawn". The film was screened at the 2004 New School of Pink-Movies, a showcase for the younger generation of "pink film" makers. Though Gotō's career extends to the days of Nikkatsu's "Roman porno" films-- he has the distinction of filming the last entry in that long-running series-- he was a relative unknown at the time. The film was chosen as the fifth best "pink film" release for 2003 at the annual Pink Grand Prix ceremony. American audiences first saw "A Lonely Cow Weeps at Dawn" at the Fantastic Fest in Austin, Texas in September 2008. In his "Behind the Pink Curtain: The Complete History of Japanese Sex Cinema" (2008), "pink film" authority Jasper Sharp writes "A Lonely Cow Weeps at Dawn" is, "pink film at its most inventive, albeit frankly bewildering." The British site, DVDTimes, writes that "A Lonely Cow Weeps at Dawn" is "a film of bittersweet sentiments, which credibly deals with loneliness, greed and the coming to terms with old age." The site judges Hajime Oba’s musical soundtrack as "beautifully poignant", and the cinematography, "keeps things visually alluring, with the Japanese countryside providing a pleasant change of pace." Availability. "A Lonely Cow Weeps at Dawn" was released theatrically on April 8, 2003. The U.S. company Pinkeiga released the film on Region 0 DVD on February 23, 2009.
1163548	Barbara Bel Geddes (October 31, 1922 – August 8, 2005) was an American actress, artist and children's author, whose career spanned six decades. She was best known for her female starring role in the television drama series "Dallas" as matriarch Miss Ellie Ewing. Bel Geddes also starred in the original Broadway production of "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" in the role of Maggie. Her notable films included Alfred Hitchcock's "Vertigo" (1958) and "I Remember Mama" (1948). She was the recipient of several acting awards and nominations throughout her career. Personal life. Bel Geddes was born in New York City, the daughter of Helen Belle (née Schneider) and stage and industrial designer Norman Bel Geddes. She married theatrical manager Carl Sawyer (aka Carl Schreuer) in 1944; they had one daughter, Susan. They divorced in 1951. Later that year, she married stage director Windsor Lewis with whom she had a daughter, Betsy. When Lewis became ill in 1967, Bel Geddes suspended her career to care for him until his death in 1972. Career. Broadway. Bel Geddes came to prominence in the 1946 Broadway production of "Deep Are The Roots." The performance garnered her the Clarence Derwent Award, and the Donaldson Award (forerunner of the Tony Awards) presented to her by Laurette Taylor, for "Outstanding Achievement in The Theatre." From 1951 to 1953, Bel Geddes played 924 performances of the Otto Preminger hit comedy "The Moon Is Blue". In 1956, she created the role of Maggie "The Cat" in Elia Kazan's original Broadway production of Tennessee Williams' "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof", and in 1961 created the title role in the Jean Kerr comedy "Mary, Mary" which became Broadway's longest-running show with over 1,500 performances. Both roles earned her Tony Award nominations. Other highlights include John Steinbeck's "Burning Bright", Edward Albee's "Everything in the Garden" and "Silent Night, Lonely Night" with Henry Fonda.
1059538	Mary Eileen McDonnell (born April 28, 1952) is an American film, stage, and television actress. She received Academy Award nominations for her roles as Stands With A Fist in "Dances with Wolves" and May-Alice Culhane in "Passion Fish". McDonnell is well known for her performances as President Laura Roslin in "Battlestar Galactica", the First Lady in "Independence Day", and a starring role in "Donnie Darko" as the title character's mother. McDonnell is currently starring in "Major Crimes" as Captain Sharon Raydor. Personal life. McDonnell was born in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, and was raised in Ithaca, New York. After graduating from the State University of New York at Fredonia, she attended drama school and joined the East Coast's prestigious Long Wharf Theatre Company, with which she worked for over 20 years. McDonnell is married to Randle Mell (born 1951), who is also an actor. McDonnell and Mell currently reside in Pacific Palisades, California. They have two children: Olivia (born 1987) and Michael (born 1993). Career. McDonnell won an Obie in 1980 for her work in the play "Still Life". On Broadway, she has performed in productions of "Execution of Justice", "The Heidi Chronicles", and "Summer and Smoke". After more than 21 years of theater and television work, McDonnell made her film breakthrough in 1990 as Stands With A Fist, the daughter of American settlers raised by Sioux Indians, in Kevin Costner's "Dances with Wolves". Portraying the adopted daughter of Graham Greene's character Kicking Bird, McDonnell, then 37, was actually two months older than Greene and less than two years younger than Tantoo Cardinal, who played Black Shawl, her adoptive mother. McDonnell was extremely nervous about shooting her sex scene with Kevin Costner, requesting it to be toned down from what was scripted. She was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for the role.
521975	The Claws of Light (Filipino: Maynila... sa mga Kuko ng Liwanag; literal English: Manila at the Claw of Brightness; practical translation: Manila at the Verge of Dawn) is a 1975 Filipino drama film directed by Lino Brocka based on the novel "In the Claws of Brightness" by Edgardo M. Reyes. It is considered as one of the classics of Filipino cinema. It stars Hilda Koronel, Lou Salvador, Jr., Tommy Abuel, and in his film debut, Bembol Roco (credited as Rafael Roco, Jr.). The cinematography is by Miguel de Leon, who would later become a renowned director himself. Plot. Julio Madiaga is a "probinciano" or a simple country boy who arrives in Manila. From time to time, Julio would pass by the corner of Ongpin and Misericordia as he stares at a peculiar building from a distance. While pursuing his quest, he has to work in order to survive the conditions of the urban jungle. At first, Julio lands a job as a construction worker. Being not used to such labor, he at one point falls unnconscious due to fatigue. In the site, he befriends Atong, a fellow construction worker who has been employed for five weeks prior. A co-worker advises Julio that city life is quite difficult unless one has the income to enjoy living off the comforts of the city. Julio begins to slowly observe the harsh reality of the society, even witnessing the accidental death of one of the workers. One day, while Julio and Atong are shopping for clothes in the marketplace, a fat lady dressed in black and wearing sunglasses catches Julio's attention. Julio immediately runs to the crowd and attempts to follow this woman. He successfully locates the woman and approaches her. However, before he could even say anything, the lady yells in distress. Julio instantly flees in order to prevent a scene to be made. Julio runs back to Atong and both of them leave the area, much to Atong's chagrin. Eventually, the construction of the building is nearing completion. In order to lessen the number of expenses, it is natural that a handful of workers are laid off from work. Julio is one of them. As his time in Manila becomes much longer, Julio gets slowly overwhelmed by the system. For instance, while having coffee at an eatery, Julio sees a waitress being abused and berated by her employer. This leaves Julio all somber. In between each scenario, Julio would often reminisce of his simple life in the province. Julio once again visits the street corner he would frequent, staring at that building right across him. He then catches a glimpse of a young woman's silhouette by the lit window. Julio cannot believe what he saw and immediately calls out to the figure, addressing her as "Ligaya". But his call was not heard and he can see that the room is already dark. The scene then abruptly cuts to Julio having a conversation with a friend. His friend asks Julio why he is looking for a certain Ligaya Paraiso, something he heard from Atong. Then, in place of the brief flashbacks previously shown, Julio finally tells his story in full narrative. Both Julio and his girlfriend Ligaya shared a happy life together in the province. However, the idyllic moments have been interrupted when a fat lady wearing sunglasses (the same one Julio encountered in the market), arrives on their shore. The fat lady is Mrs. Cruz, whom Julio describes as "obese like a pig". Cruz handles a brothel in Manila and happens to look for young women to recruit. She takes a keen interest in getting Ligaya, who is referred to by Julio as the most beautiful woman in their community, to work for her. Cruz asks the consent of Ligaya's mother for Ligaya to work in Manila, promising a great opportunity for her and a very high salary, as well. Ligaya, who is reluctant to go, accepts the offer in order to help her family live a better life by bringing home whatever fee she earns. As Ligaya is ready to board the boat that will take her offshore to a place that will be new to her, the community bid her farwell. Julio, on the other hand, does not join the others and instead distants himself from a far vantage. Ligaya sees Julio, and likewise; but the latter is deeply hurt to even approach her. She then gets on the boat with Cruz. That is the last time that Julio will ever see Ligaya. Regretting the actions he did, Julio travels to Manila in order to search for Ligaya. As soon as Julio arrived, he was looking everywhere for Ligaya. Then one day, Julio happened to glance at Mrs. Cruz walking by some street. Julio followed her until she stopped at a certain building parallel to Ongpin and Misericordia. Julio seemed curious, so he entered the building one time. He wounds up in the third floor of the building and stumbles upon a large unit there. He checks to see if people are on the other end of the door. An old woman responds and asks who is he looking for, to which Julio tells the woman that he is looking for someone named Ligaya Paraiso. The old woman claims of not knowing her and asks the other person guarding the place, an old man, if he knows Ligaya. The old man becomes hostile to Julio and denies that he even knows of a Ligaya Paraiso and slams the door. Hence, this is the reason why Julio poses by the street corner, to keep a look out for Ligaya, if ever she leaves the building. Julio has encountered a lot of misfortune while in Manila, having been prone to being victimized by the city’s scum. To make matters worse, he finds out that his best friend, Atong, had been arrested because of a mere squabble and has died in jail. Atong’s sister, Perla, later goes missing after their father dies in a fire that consumed their house. Julio continues looking for Perla and learns from Imo, who now has generated good income after landing a job in advertising, that the girl is now in Makati. In one of his searches for his lost love, Julio gets robbed of most of his belongings including his most treasured diary. Slowly, Julio develops a cynical demeanor as he gradually loses hope of ever finding Ligaya. One day, however, Julio finally reunites with Ligaya after many years of being away from each other. They both spend the night together. Julio learns from Ligaya that she had been tricked by Mrs. Cruz, ending up as a recruit in a prostitution ring under the authority of Ah Tek, a corrupt Chinese businessman. Ligaya further explains that she is now the mother of Ah Tek’s child and how she has become disillusioned with how her life is going. Julio, feeling the same sentiment, proposes to Ligaya that they are to meet at the Arranque market by midnight and leave Manila together. Ligaya is initially reluctant for fear that Ah Tek might find out, but Julio promises her that he will wait three more hours for her. Ligaya then agrees to it. Later at Arranque, Julio patiently waits for Ligaya until the wee hours of the morning, only for the latter not to show up. Thinking that Ligaya broke her promise, this saddens Julio, and he returns to Pol's home to sleep it off. Pol, being aware of how depressed his friend is, tries to sport a cheerful mood and wakes Julio up for an outing. Julio complies half-heartedly. Later as the two are dining at an eatery, Pol tries to lighten the mood but fails to do so as Julio is still quite depressed. Pol gives up and reluctantly breaks the news to Julio that Ligaya is dead. Julio does not want to believe it, but Pol hands him a copy of a newspaper article declaring it to be true. Julio learns from Pol that Ligaya died after being thrown off a flight of stairs right after being strangled. The two later visit the funeral parlor where Ligaya’s wake is being held and pay their respects. Julio, dealing with so many frustrations, transforms from a meek and kind-hearted boy into a bitter and vengeful man. A few days after, Julio and Pol view Ligaya’s burial from afar. Only a few people, including Mrs. Cruz, are in attendance for the last rites. Julio spots a peculiar Chinese man standing next to Mrs. Cruz. Julio assumes this to be Ah Tek. Pol consoles Julio, advising him to let the matter go and leave the burial peaceful. One night, Julio, who is bent with rage, approaches the brothel in Misericordia with the intention of killing Ah Tek. The moment he arrives, Julio successfully stabs Ah Tek to death. A mob quickly gathers and runs after Julio. Eventually, Julio is cornered in a dark alley and the mob is ready to beat him up. The screen freezes to a close-up of Julio’s terrified face. Production. The film is based on a story written by Edgardo Reyes and serialized in "Liwayway" magazine from 1966 to 1967. For each episode or installment, Reyes provides enough incidents — bringing the end of the installment to enough of a conclusion — to satisfy readers, at the same time keeping enough elements unresolved to entice them back for more. After twenty or more installments full of subplots and side characters exiting or dying or having climactic fits, the reader notices several advantages and disadvantages. The adaptation into film originally started out life as a writing exercise. In 1970, Clodualdo del Mundo, Jr., who had just graduated from the Ateneo de Manila two years prior, took a tutorial course. There, he wrote "Pepot Artista" (a screenplay he would later revisit in the 2000s). Del Mundo finished the screenplay for "Pepot Artista" by the middle of the semester, so he was requested to make another screenplay. Seeing the Edgardo Reyes novel as a perfect candidate, he proceeded with the task of adapting it, having no intention of the finished screenplay being filmed. The result was a spec script. Del Mundo eventually completed his course and relocated to the United States to continue his studies at the University of Kansas in Lawrence, Kansas. Mike de Leon, grandson to Narcisa de Leon of LVN Pictures, had directed one short film and intended to expand his role in the film industry, namely as a producer. By chance, in 1974, De Leon stumbled upon the spec script (being recommended through a third party) and was enthusiastic that it would make a great feature to debut from his new production company, Cinema Artists. Having been friends with Del Mundo since their days at Ateneo, De Leon contacted the latter, who just happened to return from his four-year course in Kansas, that he had just read the script and thought about adapting it. Del Mundo gave De Leon his blessing and proceeded to polish the script further. Del Mundo would later recall, "It was the right time." Lino Brocka, who had just received acclaim for his previous work "Weighed But Found Wanting", was approached by De Leon to direct the adaptation. Brocka took this as an opportunity to create a scathing commentary about the urban poverty amidst the Marcos administration and never hesitated to include his trademark homosexual themes in the story. Brocka also requested Del Mundo to rework on a few scenes. “Brocka understood the popular audience well," Del Mundo says. "He suggested additions to the screenplay of Maynila to make it more commercial. It was fun working with him. Although he was quite emotional.”
592679	Jai Bolo Telangana is a Telugu-language film on the history of Telangana and its struggle for statehood. It was directed by N.Shankar and the lead character was played by Jagapathi Babu. The film has won five Andhra Pradesh state Nandi Awards, including the Sarojini Devi Award for a Film on National Integration Plot. Beginning with the 1948 movement against the Nizam of Hyderabad, and the circumstances that arose since then, the movie covered the significant events until the tumultuous days at Osmania University in 2009. Songs. Music was composed by music director Chakri. The song, "Garadi Chestundru" was written by K. Chandrashekar Rao.
589045	Ashok Kumar () (13 October 1911–10 December 2001), also fondly called Dadamoni in Bengali, was an Indian film actor. Born Kumudlal Ganguly in Bhagalpur, Bengal Presidency, he attained iconic status in Indian cinema. The Government of India honoured him with the Dadasaheb Phalke Award in 1988 and the Padma Bhushan in 1998 for his contributions to Indian cinema. Family. His father Ganguly was a lawyer and his mother Gouri Devi came from a wealthy Bengali Kulin Brahmin family. The "Ganguly family" was based in Khandwa, Madhya Pradesh. His brothers Anoop Kumar and Kishore Kumar also acted in films. The three brothers worked together in the comedies "Chalti Ka Naam Gaadi" and "Badhti Ka Naam Dadhi". Ashok, though the eldest of the three by quite a margin, survived them both. In fact, he stopped celebrating his birthday after the youngest brother, Kishore, died on that day in 1987. His sister, Sati Devi, was married to Sashadhar Mukherjee of the Mukherjee-Samarth family. Ashok Kumar married Shobha. They had a troubled marriage due to his wife being an alcoholic. His daughter, Preeti Ganguly, acted in numerous Hindi films during the 1970s; later she started the 'Ashok Kumar's Academy of Dramatic Arts', Mumbai in 1993. His other daughter Rupa Ganguly and son Arun Ganguly never joined films. Rupa is married to actor Deven Verma. Early career. Reverently called "Dadamoni" (affectionate term for elder brother), he was born in Bhagalpur and educated at Presidency College of the University of Calcutta, Kolkata. He started his career in Bombay (Mumbai), albeit accidentally, with the Bombay Talkies production "Jeevan Naiya" in 1936. The male lead, Najam-ul-Hussain, went absconding with the heroine Devika Rani, the director's wife who returned later on. The director and studio head, Himanshu Rai, in retaliation dismissed the hero and called upon his laboratory assistant Ashok Kumar to take the part and thus began a six-decade-long acting career. However, it was his subsequent venture with Devika Rani in Achhut Kanya in the same year that set him up for the big league. The movie itself stands out as one of the heralding social dramas of pre-independence Indian film. It was the story of a Brahmin boy falling in love with a girl from the so-called untouchables in Indian society. It was a big hit and started the trend of socially committed films. Devika Rani and Ashok Kumar did a string of films after this including "Izzat" (1937), "Savitri" (1937) and 'Nirmala' (1938). But she was the bigger star and Ashok Kumar was definitely in her shadow. He came into his own with three films opposite Leela Chitnis: "Kangan" (1939), "Bandhan" (1940), "Jhoola" (1941), singing his own songs as was the custom then. He came away with several hits including most famously "Main Ban ka Panchhi". He was one of the first anti-heroes of Indian Cinema with his role in "Kismet" in 1943. This movie went on to create a record for the highest grossing film in India at the time of its release. He produced several films for Bombay Talkies during the final years of the company including the famous "Mahal" in 1949 in which he co-starred with Madhubala. In the 1950s, he played the suave cigarette-smoking criminal or police officer in several films of what was the Indian film-noir movement. In the late 1960s he switched to character roles playing the parent, grandparent, dirty old man and suave criminal, being careful never to be typecast. He paired up 20 times with the 'queen of tragedy' "Meena Kumari", in films such as "Parineeta", "Bahu Begum", "Pakeezah", "Ek Hi Raasta", "Bandish" and "Aarti" and "Chitralekha" (1964). In the 1960s, Kumar played many older roles from fathers to lawyers and elder husbands in films such as "Kanoon" (1960), "Dharamputra" (1961), "Rakhi" (1962), "Gumraah" (1963), "Bandini" (1963), "Chitralekha" (1964), "Aashirwad" (1968), "Intaquam" (1969). He received the Filmfare Award for Best Actor in 1962 and 1968 for "Rakhi" and "Aashirwad". In "Aashirwad", he played a father who journeys through life to find his daughter and reunite with her. Later career and death. He acted in fewer films in the 1980s and 1990s and occasionally appeared on television, most famously anchoring the first Indian soap opera "Hum Log" and appearing as the title character in the unforgettable Bahadur Shah Zafar. His last film role was in "Aankhon Mein Tum Ho" in 1997. Besides acting, he was an avid painter and a practitioner of homeopathy. Altogether, he starred in over 275 films. He has done more than 30 Bengali dramas in Dhakuria. Ashok Kumar died at the age of 90 in Mumbai on 10 December 2001 of heart failure at his residence in Chembur. The then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee described him as "an inspiration... for many generations of aspiring actors." Filmography. Some of his most remembered films include:
1164116	William David Daniels (born March 31, 1927) is an American actor and former president of the Screen Actors Guild (1999 to 2001). He is known for his performance as Dustin Hoffman's father in "The Graduate" (1967), as Howard in "Two for the Road", as John Adams in "1776", as Carter Nash in "Captain Nice", as Mr. George Feeny in ABC's "Boy Meets World", as the voice of KITT in "Knight Rider", and as Dr. Mark Craig in "St. Elsewhere", for which he won two Emmy Awards.
1130532	Ashley Peldon (born April 2, 1984) is an American television and film actress. Life and career. Peldon was born in New York City, New York. Along with her sister Courtney, she worked as a child actor. Although she was featured in a number of roles as a child and teenager, Peldon is perhaps best known for her role on the daytime soap opera "Guiding Light". She was cast in 1988, at the age of 4, as Marah Lewis, the daughter of popular couple Josh and Reva Lewis. Because of the positive audience response, she became the youngest entertainer to be put under contract on the show. Peldon received an Emmy Award nomination at 6 years of age, for her three years as Marah Lewis on "Guiding Light". Peldon went on to appear in motion pictures such as "The Lemon Sisters" opposite Diane Keaton, "Stella" opposite Bette Midler, "Deceived" opposite Goldie Hawn, and the cult favorite, "Drop Dead Fred" opposite Phoebe Cates. More currently, she also appeared in Arthur Miller's "The Crucible" opposite Winona Ryder and Daniel Day-Lewis and in "Ghost World" with Scarlett Johansson, among many other films. She completed the horror film "Dimples", Sony Pictures' sci-fi drama "Night Skies", and the coming of age comedy "Float". The native New Yorker also has numerous commercials, voice-overs, television series, and television films on her resume.For two years Peldon appeared on the NBC television series "The Mommies" and has had key recurring roles on such television series as "That 70s Show" and "The Pretender". Peldon starred as "spoiled actress Amy King" in MTV's comedy series "Connected". She is also set to lead in the horror/comedy film "2001 Maniacs: Beverly Hellbillys" also starring her sister, actress Courtney Peldon, and Robert Englund. Current activities. In January 2007, Peldon graduated from college with a bachelor's degree in Child Psychology and Film from Skidmore College in New York. Her interest in child psychology originated from her dramatic role as the sexually abused youngster in CBS TV's "Child of Rage" when she was 7 years old. In February 2008, Peldon directed an Allan Heinberg play for "TV Takes the Stage". The play starred Bonnie Somerville and Melissa Sagemiller. Awards and nominations. She was nominated in 1991 for a Daytime Emmy at the Daytime Emmy Awards for Outstanding Younger Actress in a Drama Series for "The Guiding Light" (1952). She is a multiple and a six and three years consecutive nominee and award winner of a Young Artist Award at the Young Artist Awards:
1063033	Fourteen Hours is a 1951 drama film directed by Henry Hathaway, which tells the story of a New York police officer trying to stop a despondent man from jumping to his death from the fifteenth floor of a hotel. This won critical acclaim for Richard Basehart, who portrayed the mentally disturbed man on the building ledge. Paul Douglas played the officer, and a large supporting cast included Barbara Bel Geddes, Agnes Moorehead, Robert Keith, Debra Paget and Howard Da Silva. It was the screen debut of Grace Kelly and Jeffrey Hunter, who appeared in small roles. The screenplay was written by John Paxton, based on an article by Joel Sayre in "The New Yorker". Sayre's article described the 1938 incident upon which the film was based. Plot. Early one morning, a room service waiter at a New York City hotel is horrified to discover that the young man to whom he has just delivered breakfast (Richard Basehart) is standing on the narrow ledge outside his room on the fifteenth floor. Charlie Dunnigan (Paul Douglas), a policeman on traffic duty in the street below, tries to talk him off the ledge to no avail. He is ordered back to traffic patrol by police emergency services deputy chief Moksar (Howard Da Silva). But he is ordered to return when the man on the ledge will not speak to psychiatrists summoned to the scene. Coached by a psychiatrist (Martin Gabel), Dunnigan tries to relate to the man on the ledge as one human to another. The police identify the man as Robert Cosick and locate his mother (Agnes Moorehead), but her overwrought, hysterical behavior only upsets Cosick and seems to drive him toward jumping. His father (Robert Keith), whom he despises, arrives. The divorced father and mother clash over old family issues, and the conflict is played out in front of the police. Dunnigan seeks to reconcile Robert with his father, whom Cosick has been brought up to hate by his mother. Dunnigan forces Mrs. Cosick to reveal the identity of a "Virginia" mentioned by Robert, and she turns out to be his estranged fiancee. While this is happening, a crowd is gathering below. Cab drivers are wagering on when he will jump. A young stock room clerk named Danny (Jeffrey Hunter) is wooing a fellow office worker, Ruth (Debra Paget), whom he meets by chance on the street. A woman (Grace Kelly) is seen at a nearby law office, where she is about to sign the final papers for her divorce. Amid legal formalities, she watches the drama unfold. Moved by the tragic events, she decides to reconcile with her husband. After a while, Dunnigan convinces Cosick everyone will leave the hotel room so that he can rest. As Cosick steps in, a crazy evangelist sneaks into the room and Cosick goes back to the ledge. This damages his trust in Dunnigan, as does an effort by police to drop down from the roof and grab him. As night falls, Virginia (Barbara Bel Geddes) is brought to the room, and she pleads with Robert to come off the ledge, to no avail. All the while, the police, under the command of Moksar, are working to grab Robert and put a net below him. Dunnigan seems to make a connection with Cosick when he talks about the good things in life, and he promises to take Cosick fishing for "floppers" (flounder) on Sheepshead Bay. Cosick is about to come inside when a boy on the street accidentally turns on a spotlight that blinds Robert, and he falls from the ledge. But he manages to grab a net that the police had stealthily put below him, and he is hauled into the hotel. Dunnigan is greeted by his wife and son, and Danny and Ruth walk the street hand in hand. Cast notes. Richard Basehart's performance impressed Federico Fellini, who subsequently cast him in his 1954 film "La Strada". Basehart's wife, costume designer Stephanie Klein, was diagnosed with a brain tumor during filming of "Fourteen Hours" in May and June 1950, and died following brain surgery during production of the film that July. Grace Kelly made her film debut in "Fourteen Hours", beating out Anne Bancroft for the role. Kelly was noticed during a visit to the set by Gary Cooper, who subsequently starred with her in "High Noon". Cooper was charmed by Kelly and said that she was "different from all these sexballs we've been seeing so much of." However, her performance in "Fourteen Hours" was not noticed by critics, and did not lead to her receiving other film acting roles. She returned to television and stage work after her performance in the film. A nonprofessional performer named Richard Lacovara doubled for Basehart in long shots on the ledge, which had been enlarged to minimize risk of falling. Lacovara was protected by a canvas life belt hidden under his costume, connected to a lifeline, Even with the double, Basehart still had to endure over 300 hours of standing on the ledge with little movement during the fifty days of shooting in New York, even though he had a sprained ankle and his legs were ravaged by poison oak contracted on the grounds of his Coldwater Canyon home. Barbara Bel Geddes, who played Basehart's love interest, did not appear in another film until "Vertigo", seven years later in 1958. Hathaway hired over 300 actors to play bit parts and extras in the film, much of which was filmed on lower Broadway in Manhattan. Among actors performing in uncredited roles were Ossie Davis and Harvey Lembeck, playing taxi drivers, as well as Joyce Van Patten, Brad Dexter, who subsequently appeared in "The Magnificent Seven" (1960), John Cassavetes and Robert Keith's 20-year-old son Brian Keith. Other uncredited and bit players included Richard Beymer, who played the lead in "West Side Story" a few years later, Radio's Throckmorton P. Gildersleeve, Willard Waterman as a hotel clerk, future Broadway star Janice Rule, and character actors Leif Erickson and John Randolph. Production notes. Factual basis. Although the onscreen credits contain a statement saying that the film and characters depicted were "entirely fictional," the movie was based on the suicide of John William Warde, a twenty-six-year-old man who jumped from the seventeenth floor of the Gotham Hotel in New York City on July 26, 1938, after eleven hours on a ledge. The character of Charlie Dunnigan was based on Charles V. Glasco, a New York City policeman who tried to convince Warde to come off the ledge. Glasco pretended to be a bellhop at the hotel, and tried to persuade Warde that he would be fired if he did not come off the ledge. Warde, who had made previous suicide attempts, also heard pleas from his sister. But the efforts to persuade him were to no avail, and he eventually jumped. Police had tried to rig a net below him, but the net could not be extended sufficiently from the hotel to block his fall. During his eleven hours on the ledge, traffic was stopped for blocks around the hotel, which was located on 55th Street and Fifth Avenue in Manhattan, and thousands watched the drama unfold. Pre-production and filming. Writer Joel Sayre wrote about the Warde suicide in "The New Yorker", in an article entitled "That Was New York: The Man on the Ledge", which was published on April 16, 1949. The story was purchased by Twentieth Century Fox. Sayre's story was originally purchased as a vehicle for Richard Widmark, who was to play the man on the ledge, with Robert Wagner to play the role of Danny, but was replaced by Jeffrey Hunter. Twentieth Century Fox changed the title from "The Man on the Ledge" to "Fourteen Hours" at the request of Warde's mother, so that the picture would not be as closely identified with her son. Studio chief Darryl F. Zanuck considered changing the setting of the movie to another city for the same reason. But it was ultimately filmed in New York. Howard Hawks refused to direct this movie because of its subject matter. Henry Hathaway, a director noted for his realistic films "The House on 92nd Street" (1945), "Kiss of Death" (1947) and "Call Northside 777" (1948), was assigned to the project. The film was made in just six weeks with a modest budget. The New York exteriors were filmed at the Guaranty Trust Company building, located at 128 Broadway in lower Manhattan. The building has since been demolished. Hathaway avoided stasis by cutting between the film ledge and the reaction of the crowd below, and by adroit use of camera angles. It is considered to be his finest film. Post-production. The film originally ended with Robert falling to his death. Both endings were shot, and Hathaway preferred the realistic ending that showed Robert falling to the ground, as occurred in the Warde incident. However, on the same day the film was previewed, the daughter of Fox president Spyros Skouras jumped to her death. Skouras wanted the film shelved, but instead released "Fourteen Hours" six months later with the ending that showed Robert surviving his fall. Reception. Critical response. "The New Yorker" singled out Basehart's performance for praise, saying that he "succeeds in conveying the notion that he is indeed sorely beset." "The New York Times" film critic, Bosley Crowther, praised the "gripping suspense, absorbing drama and stinging social comment in this film." Crowther said: "Fitly directed by Henry Hathaway in a crisp journalistic style and played to the hilt down to its 'bit' parts, it makes a show of accelerating power." Crowther praised Basehart's "startling and poignant" performance, and said that Douglas "takes the honors as the good-natured cop who finds all his modest resources of intelligence and patience taxed by this queer case." He also praised Da Silva, Moorehead, and the other supporting players for bringing "personality and credibility to this superior American film." "Time Out Film Guide" said that this "vertiginous melodrama recounts the event in professional low-key journalistic fashion." Comparing the movie to the film noir "Ace in the Hole", "Time Out" observed that "the emphasis is as much on the reaction of bystanders as on the plight of the would-be suicide." Accolades. The film was nominated an Academy Award for Best Art Direction (Lyle R. Wheeler, Leland Fuller, Thomas Little, Fred J. Rode). "Fourteen Hours" was listed as among the top ten motion pictures of 1951 by the National Board of Review of Motion Pictures. For his performance in the movie, Basehart won the 1951 award for best actor by the board. The film also was nominated for the BAFTA award for best film from any source. Hathaway was nominated for the Golden Lion Award at the Venice Film Festival, and Paxton was nominated for a Writers Guild of America award for his screenplay. Legacy. Despite good reviews and a strong push by the studio to publicize the movie, with Paul Douglas appearing on the cover of "Life" magazine, "Fourteen Hours" faded into obscurity. When the film was shown in revival at a Los Angeles Theater in 2003, only one print survived. However, the title was included in Twentieth Century Fox's “Fox Film Noir” DVD series in 2006. Contemporary critics view "Fourteen Hours" as a prime example of film noir. Writing in "Dark City: The Lost World of Film Noir", author Eddie Muller wrote: "It's a tense depiction of one man's personal despair, amid the teeming concrete indifference of the modern city." In 1955, it was remade as "Man on the Ledge", starring Cameron Mitchell, as an episode of "The 20th Century Fox Hour". In 2012, another remake was released as " Man on a Ledge ", starring Sam Worthington and Elizabeth Banks in the lead roles.
1105273	The approximation error in some data is the discrepancy between an exact value and some approximation to it. An approximation error can occur because In the mathematical field of numerical analysis, the numerical stability of an algorithm in numerical analysis indicates how the error is propagated by the algorithm. Overview. One commonly distinguishes between the relative error and the absolute error. The absolute error is the magnitude of the difference between the exact value and the approximation. The relative error is the absolute error divided by the magnitude of the exact value. The percent error is the relative error expressed in terms of per 100.
392175	Soul of the Game is a 1996 made-for-television movie about Negro league baseball.
39402	Mark Povinelli is an American stage, television, and movie actor who also does occasional stunt work. He stands 3’ 9½” and weighs 75 pounds (115 cm, 34 kg) as a consequence of spondyloepiphyseal dysplasia congenita (SEDc), a skeletal dysplasia caused by a mutation in the COL2A1 (type II collagen) gene. Life and career. Povinelli was born in Elyria, Ohio, and is the youngest of four children. His parents and siblings are average-size. He is of Italian descent. Povinelli graduated from Our Lady of Good Counsel High School in Wheaton, Maryland in 1989, and then graduated in 1993 from Miami University (as a member of Kappa Alpha Order) with a degree in Mass Communications and a minor in Theatre Acting. His repertory encompasses drama, comedy, and fantasy. He has appeared in a wide range of productions, from stage plays by William Shakespeare and Ben Jonson to roles in television series such as "Modern Family" and "Boardwalk Empire", as well as in popular movies including "The Polar Express" (2004, directed by Robert Zemeckis). Onstage in 2003 in Lee Breuer's production of Henrik Ibsen's "A Doll's House", retitled "Mabou Mines DollHouse", Povinelli drew praise from "The New York Times": "The men embody small-minded convention and stunted possibilities...Mr. Povinelli makes us feel Torvald's repressive sexual virility at every turn." He has characterized his approach to acting for "The Village Voice": ""Being so tremendously different provides you with an analytical depth ... Like any actor, I try to bring as much of myself to the role I'm playing as possible. Every day I go out I'm made aware of my size. Why should I deny myself the richness of that experience when I go onstage?"" Povinelli starred opposite Robert Pattinson and Oscar winners Reese Witherspoon and Christoph Waltz in the Fox 2011 film, "Water for Elephants", playing the iconic role of Kinko. The film was adapted from the NY Times bestseller by Sara Gruen and premiered April 2011.
1712239	Red Sun aka Soleil rouge is a Western film, with an international cast. It stars U.S.-born actor Charles Bronson, Japanese actor Toshirō Mifune, French actor Alain Delon and Swiss actress Ursula Andress. It was filmed in Spain by the British director Terence Young. It was released in Europe in 1971 and in the U.S. in 1972. Plot. Link Stuart (Bronson) is a ruthless outlaw, and co-leader along with Gauche (Delon) of a gang of bandits. Link and Gauche lead their gang on a successful train robbery, and discover that one of its cars carries a Japanese ambassador, who is bringing a ceremonial katana (sword) as a gift for President Ulysses S. Grant. Gauche takes the sword, and kills one of the two samurai guards, while members of his gang attempt to murder Link by throwing dynamite into the train car he occupies, then leaving him for dead.
1056130	In This World is a 2002 British docudrama directed by Michael Winterbottom. The film follows two young Afghan refugees, Jamal Udin Torabi and Enayatullah, as they leave a refugee camp in Pakistan for a better life in London. Since their journey is illegal, it is fraught with danger, and they must use back-channels, bribes, and smugglers to achieve their goal. The film won the Golden Bear prize at the 2003 Berlin International Film Festival.
582505	Banda Yeh Bindaas Hai is an upcoming Bollywood comedy film directed by Ravi Chopra, starring Govinda, Salman Khan, Tabu, Lara Dutta, and Boman Irani. Plagiarism charge. The director was served with a legal notice in 2009 by 20th Century Fox, which charged that the movie blatantly plagiarized the 1992 comedy "My Cousin Vinny". Chopra and the production company, Mumbai-based BR Films, denied the charges in court in May 2009; the movie's release was to be delayed until June 2009 by order of the Bombay High Court. Fox sought damages of $1.4 million; this was the first time a Bollywood filmmaker was taken to court by a Hollywood company over the remaking of a film. Fox had given Chopra permission "to make a film loosely based on the Oscar winning movie" but concluded the final product was a "substantial reproduction" of the original. When BR Films’ Ravi Chopra began filming his Govinda-Lara Dutta comedy "Banda Yeh Bindaas Hai", he was clear that he’d completely overhauled and re-written an Indianised version of "My Cousin Vinny". Apparently, when he began the film, Ravi had sought the remaking rights but was assured that since he was taking only an idea and he’d written a totally fresh screenplay, there was no need to buy the rights. He said that he’d even got written permission from the makers of "My Cousin Vinny" to go ahead with his Hindi film. But between the starting of the film and its completion, the market changed colours. BR Films and BIG, the Reliance wing that had the distribution rights, soon locked horns over the price — the latter wanted BR to re-negotiate terms but the former felt it was now being offered peanuts. With the film ready to hit the theaters but BIG in no mood to do the needful at an unaffordable price, "Banda Yeh Bindaas Hai" languished in the cans until the Chopras ended the deal and released it themselves. A lawsuit was filed on BR Films by Twentieth Century Fox for copying their film without buying the rights. B R Films, which was accused of plagiarism by Hollywood studio 20th Century Fox, settled the case out-of-court for an undisclosed amount. The "Kolkata Telegraph", listing a number of other Bollywood movies "inspired" by Hollywood blockbusters, noted that the case would "decide whether Indian filmmakers can continue to get their 'inspiration' with impunity, or buy rights the legal way."
1034036	Kenneth Colley (born 7 December 1937) is an English actor. A long-time character actor, he came to wider prominence through his role as Admiral Piett in ' and '. Unlike the other ill-fated officers who appeared alongside him in "The Empire Strikes Back", Colley was the only actor to play an Imperial officer in more than one Star Wars film. Colley reprised his role as Piett in the Cartoon Network animated special "Lego Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Out" in September 2012. Colley was born in Manchester, Lancashire. He played Jesus (very briefly indeed) in "The Life of Brian", having also appeared in the earlier Monty Python-related production "Ripping Yarns" episode "The Testing of Eric Olthwaite" alongside Michael Palin. As a Shakespearean actor he played the Duke of Vienna in the BBC Television Shakespeare production of "Measure for Measure" in 1979. Colley also held an important role in the Clint Eastwood film "Firefox", where he played a Soviet Colonel tasked with the protection of the Firefox and its secrets. Colley went on to play SS-"Standartenführer" Paul Blobel in the World War II drama "War and Remembrance". His character was charged with hiding the evidence of the Holocaust, and putting dead victims through "Economic Processing". He has directed one film to date: "Greetings", a 2007 horror film starring Kirsty Cox, Henry Dunn and Ben Shockley. He also directed a short film entitled "Alligator" (featuring fellow Star Wars alum Richard LeParmentier) in the same year. He has also recently starred in BBC's HolbyBlue as a drunk and violent father, grandfather and father-in-law. According to comments which Terry Gilliam (who directed him in "Jabberwocky" and co-starred with him in "Life of Brian") made in the DVD audio commentaries for both films, Colley is a terrible stammerer in real life. When he had a role in a film, however, he could recite the lines perfectly. Stuttering is a character trait, however, in his role as the "Accordion Man" in the 1978 BBC television drama, "Pennies from Heaven". He currently lives at Hythe in Kent.
945859	"Gunnin' For That #1 Spot" is a 2008 documentary directed by Adam Yauch, founding member of the Beastie Boys. The movie premiered at the Tribeca/ESPN Sports Film Festival in April 2008 and opened in theaters June 27, 2008. Plot. The film follows 8 of the top high school basketball players in the US at the time of filming, in 2006. The plot centers around the first annual Boost Mobile Elite 24 Hoops Classic at the legendary Rucker Park in Harlem. By 2009, six of the eight players had joined NBA teams. By 2011, all eight players were on NBA teams, with Kyle Singler being the last one drafted and the only one to win an NCAA Championship, which he won while playing for Duke University in 2010.
1163810	Swoosie Kurtz (, ; born September 6, 1944) is an American actress. She began her career in theater during the 1970s and shortly thereafter began a career in television, garnering ten nominations and winning one Emmy Award. Her most famous television project was her role on the 1990s NBC drama "Sisters". She has also appeared somewhat sporadically in films from the late 1970s up until today, including prominent roles in such films as "Dangerous Liaisons", "Citizen Ruth", and "Liar Liar" among others. Throughout her career she has remained active in theater, earning five Tony Award nominations and winning two over the last three decades. Kurtz currently portrays Joyce Flynn on the hit CBS sitcom "Mike & Molly". Early life. Kurtz was born in Omaha, Nebraska, the only child of author Margaret "Margo" (née Rogers) and Air Force Colonel Frank Allen Kurtz, Jr., a much-decorated WWII American bomber pilot. during World War II. As a military brat, Kurtz moved frequently. Kurtz attended the University of Southern California where she majored in drama. She then attended the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art. Career. Kurtz's first television appearance at age seventeen was on "The Donna Reed Show" 4th season episode "The Golden Trap" (February, 1962). She also appeared on "To Tell the Truth" at eighteen, identifying her father from two impostors. Kurtz began her career in theater, making her Broadway debut in the 1975 revival of "Ah, Wilderness!". She first gained wide recognition in 1978 for two theatrical productions, "Uncommon Women and Others", the breakthrough play by Wendy Wasserstein in which she appeared in a 1977 workshop at the Eugene O'Neill Theater Center and then Off-Broadway, and the musical "A History of the American Film" for which she won a Drama Desk Award. Kurtz was soon awarded Broadway's "triple crown" (the Tony, Drama Desk, and Outer Critics Circle awards) for her portrayal of Gwen in Lanford Wilson's "Fifth of July". She won a second Tony for her performance as Bananas in a 1986 revival of "The House of Blue Leaves" by John Guare. She starred as playwright Lillian Hellman in the 2002 Nora Ephron play "Imaginary Friends".
585189	Kaakki Sattai () is a 1985 Tamil-language Indian feature film directed by Rajasekhar, starring Kamal Haasan, Ambika, Madhavi, Sathyaraj, Rajeev and Thengai Srinivasan. The film was a blockbuster and completed 126-day run at the box office. The film has Kamal Haasan playing an undercover cop, like old M. G. Ramachandran in Kaavalkaran (1967) and Idhayakkani (1975). A famous dialogue thagadu, thagadu delivered by the villain Sathyaraj went viral during that period. Plot. Kaakki Sattai has Murali (Kamal Haasan), a young man who trains very hard to become a police officer. Uma (Ambika) is his neighbour and they fall in love with each other while Uma supports Murali to achieve his goal but he is rejected after the physical test.
439235	Samia "Sam" Doumit (born April 24, 1975) is an American actress.
1072846	Background. In a very successful effort to avoid bankruptcy, Nikkatsu, Japan's oldest major film studio, had entered the pink film, or soft-core pornography, genre three years earlier, in 1971, with its popular and critically praised "Roman Porno" series. However 1974 was proving to be another difficult year for the studio, with no real box-office hits.
439322	Morning Walk () is a Bollywood Hindi movie directed by Arup Dutta featuring Anupam Kher as protagonist. It was released in India on July 10, 2009. Synopsis. One morning walk in Joymohan's life changes it all. After suffering a heart-attack one morning, on his birthday, Joymohan (Anupam Kher) realizes that he needs to spend more time with his family - son (Rajit Kapoor), daughter-in-law (Divya Dutta) and grand-daughter Avika Gor and mend broken bridges of the past. It is during his "Morning Walk" that his life changes forever. He meets his once-upon-a-time-student and friend Neelima (Sharmila Tagore), now a mother of two, who carries with her a strange but surreal truth. Neelima's bright and beautiful daughter, Anjali (Nargis Bagheri), dreams of pursuing her doctorate from the USA, and is encouraged by her doting mother and boyfriend Ajay (Shayan Munshi), an upcoming singer who will go to any lengths to put a smile on her face. A beautiful and heart-tugging tale of two families who are so different from one another, yet connected through a special bond. Critical reception. "Morning Walk" was released on July 10, 2009 and received generally negative reviews by critics in India. It was slammed as "too slow and boring to be watched in theatres" and "a dull and dreary experience."
421202	Ultimate Avengers (also known as Ultimate Avengers: The Movie) is a direct-to-DVD animated film loosely based on the Marvel Comics limited series "The Ultimates", and released by Lionsgate Home Entertainment as part of the Marvel Animated Features series. The DVD was released on February 21, 2006 in America, and in Europe on October 2, 2006. The film made its television debut on April 22, 2006 on Cartoon Network's Toonami block with a TV-PG-V rating. The film features Captain America, Iron Man, Giant Man, Wasp, Thor and Black Widow as they form the team The Avengers to foil an invasion by extraterrestrials known as the Chitauri. Plot. In the last days of World War II in Europe, Captain America, due to enhancement by a "Super-Soldier Serum", prevents the Nazis from launching an intercontinental missile. They are also soon revealed to be shape-shifting extraterrestrials led by one acting as SS officer Herr Kleiser. The exploding missile knocks the Captain out and he falls into the icy waters of the North Atlantic, presumed dead. 60 years later, Captain America is found and revived by a S.H.I.E.L.D. team led by General Nick Fury. Bruce Banner and Betty Ross lead a team of scientists working to recreate the Super-Soldier Serum in order to try and stop the real power that backed the Nazis - the alien Chitauri. Banner thinks the Super-Soldier Serum is the key to him controlling the Hulk, and he secretly uses his blood to try to create a cure, instead of using candidates that had been selected for the rebirth procedure. As Captain America reunites with his old friend James "Bucky" Barnes, he also learns that his past lover Peggy Carter, is married to him and has lived a happy life. Despite happy for his friends and everyone that he loved, Captain America still feels lost in the present world he is in, unable to find happiness like he wants to. The Chitauri destroy a S.H.I.E.L.D. satellite designed to track the alien ships. So Fury is forced by superiors to order the implementation of "Project Avenger", to gather together a team of superhumans. Fury tries to recruit - with mixed success - Ant Man (a scientist recently redacted from S.H.I.E.L.D), Wasp (Ant Man's wife), Iron Man/Tony Stark (an industrialist playboy), Thor (the Norse God of Thunder) and Black Widow, a S.H.I.E.L.D. assassin. After several setbacks, including a botched mission that led to almost the entire team quitting, the heroes unite to fight the Chitauri. Although successful, the team must then fight an out of control Hulk. Banner wanted to try his new serum against the attacking aliens, releasing his alter ego for the battle and ended up losing control in the process. The team managed to eventually distract the Hulk long enough for Betty to calm him, and Banner is then incarcerated. In the aftermath of the battle, Captain America is visited by Peggy in the hospital and the two reunite after 60 years. Assuring him that she has lived a full life, Peggy tells him that she wants him to be happy and that he should find happiness as well. The movie ends as Captain America joins his fellow Avengers to celebrate their victory. Voice cast. Additional voices by Dee Bradley Baker, Steven Blum, Keith Ferguson, Quinton Flynn, Kerrigan Mahan, Aileen Sandler, Fred Tatasciore, and James Arnold Taylor. Jamie Simone served as the voice director. Reception. Overall reception for Ultimate Avengers was positive with critics often praising the animation and voice acting of the film, however David Cornelius from eFilmCritic.com stated that "It's too violent for younger viewers, but not mature enough for older ones. It's a movie trapped in between target audiences." but Marc Kandel stated that it was still "More satisfying than live-action cousins Daredevil, Elektra, Punisher…".
1063908	Joshua Carter Jackson (born June 11, 1978) is a Canadian-American actor. He has appeared in primetime television and in over 32 film roles. His well known roles include Pacey Witter in "Dawson's Creek", Charlie Conway in "The Mighty Ducks" film series and Peter Bishop in "Fringe". Early life. Jackson was born in Vancouver, British Columbia to John Carter Jackson and his wife, Fiona. His mother is a casting director. Jackson's father is from Texas and his mother is a native of Ballyfermot, Dublin, Ireland, having immigrated to North America in the late 1960s. He has a younger sister, Aisleagh (born 1983). He was raised Catholic.
519942	Richard Kristian Rama-Gutiérrez, popularly known as Richard Gutiérrez (born January 21, 1984 in Beverly Hills, California), is a television actor and commercial model who works in Filipino productions. He is of Filipino, Spanish and Anglo descent. Biography. Gutiérrez is the son of actor Eduardo P. Gutiérrez and Annabelle Rama, a talent manager. Anabelle Rama is a Filipina born in the Visayan islands of Cebu. He has a twin brother, Raymond, and four other full siblings: sister Ruffa Gutiérrez, brother Rocky Gutiérrez, brother Elvis Gutiérrez, and brother Ritchie Paul Gutiérrez. In addition he has two half-brothers from his father's previous relationships, Tontón Gutiérrez, and Ramón Christopher, both of whom are also actors. Gutiérrez began acting as a child with his twin brother. He has worked in many movies with his father and his brothers. He appeared on the GMA-7 show "Click" and primetime series Habang Kapiling Ka with Angelika dela Cruz. He starred in the TV fantasy series "Mulawin" which aired from August 2, 2004 until March 18, 2005, where he played the lead character Aguiluz. The series led to a feature-length film of the same name (). Since then he has played lead roles in other GMA-7 shows including Sugo, Kamandag, , Zorro, Lupin, Full House, and Captain Barbell. In 2012 Gutiérrez headlined GMA Network's upcoming Heavy Drama & Action Series entitled "Makapiling Kang Muli". He is the host of the 2012 documentary show, "Pinoy Adventure". In 2009 Gutiérrez was charged with reckless imprudence, arising from the death of his production assistant, Norman Pardo, who died in a car accident in May 2009. Gutiérrez and Pardo were driving to Manila from Silang, Cavite. Gutiérrez was injured, and Pardo, seated in the passenger seat, died on the spot. In August 2012 the Court of Appeals reinstated the charge of reckless imprudence resulting in homicide. The appellate court granted the petition filed by Pardo's widow seeking the nullification of the two resolutions that had been issued by former justice secretaries Agnes Devanadera and Alberto Agra, respectively. The appellate court stated, “To the mind of this court, if indeed private respondent was not driving fast, it would have been easy for him to stop his car and thwart any untoward incident.” On August 7, 2013, it was reported by Philippine Entertainment Portal that Guiterrez had fathered a child with actress Sarah Lahbati. The couple welcomed a boy whom they named Zion back in April 2013. Awards & Nominations. Golden Screen TV Awards UPLB Gandingan Awards PMPC Star Awards for Television FAMAS Awards German Moreno Youth Achievement Award 40th Box-Office Entertainment Awards
1036011	Susan Johnston (née Wright), OBE (born 7 December 1943) is a BAFTA nominated English actress known for playing Sheila Grant in the soap opera "Brookside" (1982–90), Grace Foley in "Waking the Dead" (2000–11), Barbara Royle in the BBC comedy "The Royle Family" (1998–) and Gloria Price in "Coronation Street" (2012–). In December 2011, she played Eileen Lewis in the BBC one-off episode "Lapland", a role which she is currently playing for a series, "Being Eileen". Early life. Johnston was born in Warrington, Lancashire, (now Cheshire) and grew up in Prescot, Lancashire (now Merseyside). She was educated at Whiston Infants School, Eccleston Park Junior School and Prescot and Huyton Grammar School for Girls which she left aged 17 after one year of her A-level course, having decided to become an actress. After working as a Higher Grade tax inspector, when her boyfriend was one of the pop group the Swinging Blue Jeans, she worked for Brian Epstein. From the age of 21, Johnston attended the Webber Douglas Academy of Dramatic Art in London. Acting career. Johnston made her television debut, aged 38, with a minor recurring role on "Coronation Street" in the summer of 1982. She played the role of Mrs. Chadwick, the wife of a bookmaker. From 1982 to 1990, she appeared as Sheila Grant in the soap opera "Brookside". She appeared in the show's first ever episode on 2 November 1982 – aired on the day that Channel 4 went on air – and her last episode was aired in September 1990, when the character was written out of the series following her divorce from Bobby Grant (Ricky Tomlinson) and re-marriage to Billy Corkhill (John McArdle). Since then she has appeared in many drama series and films, including "Inspector Morse", "Hetty Wainthropp Investigates", "Brassed Off", and "My Uncle Silas". In 1992 Johnston gave a "tour de force" performance in the three-part award winning drama "Goodbye Cruel World", in which she portrayed a woman coming to terms with a muscle-wasting illness. She was supported by Alun Armstrong as her husband and Jonny Lee Miller. Johnston is also well known for her role as Barbara Royle in the comedy series "The Royle Family", appearing with her former on-screen husband in "Brookside", Ricky Tomlinson, from the show's inception in September 1998 until it ended just over two years later. She also appeared in a one-off special which aired in October 2006. From 2000 to 2011 Johnston starred in the television series "Waking the Dead", in which she played the role of psychological profiler Grace Foley, alongside Trevor Eve. In 2004, she appeared in one episode of the series, "Who Do You Think You Are?", in which she traced her family tree. She starred in Jennifer Saunders's comedy drama "Jam & Jerusalem" on BBC One, alongside Joanna Lumley, Maggie Steed and David Mitchell. The first series aired in 2006, the second series began on 1 January 2008 and the third in August 2009. In late 2008, she played Affery Flintwinch in the BBC adaptation of "Little Dorrit". In May 2008 it was confirmed Johnston would return as Barbara Royle for another episode of "The Royle Family", which aired on Christmas Day 2008, on BBC One. The show returned for further Christmas specials in 2009, 2010 and 2012. Johnston shared a role with Billie Piper in the TV adaptation of "A Passionate Woman" which aired on BBC One on 11 April 2010. On 2 April 2012, "Coronation Street" series producer Phil Collinson announced Johnston had joined the soap opera as Gloria, the mother of Stella Price (played by Michelle Collins). She made her first screen appearance on 5 September 2012. It was announced in June 2013 that Johnston will leave the series in 2014 to pursue other acting roles. Personal life. Johnston has campaigned on behalf of the Labour Party and has been a long-time gay rights campaigner. She is a supporter of Liverpool F.C. and Warrington RLFC. Despite playing the role of heavy smoker Barbara in "The Royle Family", Johnston gave up in 1978, but had to smoke low-tar cigarettes whilst playing the role; however, she is now completely anti-smoking. Johnston was appointed OBE in the 2009 Birthday Honours. In November 2010, she was awarded an honorary doctorate by University of Chester at Chester Cathedral. She has one son Joel, from her previous marriage to David Pammenter. She has one grandchild. In 1989 Johnston, assisted by Lesley Thomson, published her first book, a memoir titled "Hold on to the Messy Times". In 2011, she published another memoir titled "Things I Couldn't Tell My Mother". In 1970, Johnston was sexually attacked at the age of 27 which led to her storyline in Brookside as Sheila Grant where she was raped. In 1967, after her marriage to first husband Neil, she became pregnant at the age of 24. She suffered a miscarriage shortly after. In her autobiography, Things I Couldn't Tell My Mother, she was originally going to be called Margaret Jane Wright, after her mother and grandmother, but her father thought that it would be best to call her Susan. She takes the surname Johnston, from her first marriage to Neil.
1104055	Peter Williston Shor (born August 14, 1959) is an American professor of applied mathematics at MIT, most famous for his work on quantum computation, in particular for devising Shor's algorithm, a quantum algorithm for factoring exponentially faster than the best currently-known algorithm running on a classical computer. Education. While attending Tamalpais High School, in Mill Valley, California, he placed third in the 1977 USA Mathematical Olympiad. After graduating that year, he won a silver medal at the International Math Olympiad in Yugoslavia (the U.S. team achieved the most points per country that year). He received his B.S. in Mathematics in 1981 for undergraduate work at Caltech, and was a Putnam Fellow in 1978. He earned his Ph.D. in Applied Mathematics from MIT in 1985. His doctoral advisor was Tom Leighton, and his thesis was on probabilistic analysis of bin-packing algorithms. Career. After graduating, he spent one year in a post-doctoral position at the University of California at Berkeley, and then accepted a position at Bell Laboratories. It was there he developed Shor's algorithm, for which he was awarded the Rolf Nevanlinna Prize at the 23rd International Congress of Mathematicians in 1998. Shor always refers to Shor's Algorithm as "the Factoring Algorithm." Shor began his MIT position in 2003. Currently the Henry Adams Morss and Henry Adams Morss, Jr. Professor of Applied Mathematics in the Department of Mathematics at MIT, he also is affiliated with CSAIL and the Center for Theoretical Physics (CTP). He received a Distinguished Alumni Award from Caltech in 2007. On October 1, 2011, he was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Personal life. Shor is married to Jennifer S. Collins Shor, and they have two daughters. They live in Wellesley, Massachusetts. External links. Lectures and panels
136604	Kate Lauren French (born September 23, 1984) is an American actress and model. She is perhaps best known for her role as Niki Stevens on "The L Word". Early life. Kate Lauren French was born in Flemington, New Jersey. Her mother, Joan Gocha, was a model with Ford modeling agency. Her father, William Robinson "Rob" French, was also a model. French spent her childhood years in South Kingstown, Rhode Island and Lambertville, New Jersey. Her family then moved to New York where they settled in Quogue on Long Island. Her mother later married fashion photographer Jim Reiher, who has represented the United States in aerobatics. French attended Westhampton Beach High School where she was a member of the track and field team. She has a younger brother, Scott, as well as a younger half-brother, Hunter, from her mother's remarriage. Career. Following in her parents' footsteps, French pursued a career in modeling up until her senior year of high school but always had a passion for acting. She first appeared on the big screen in 2006 with a small cameo role in the film "Accepted". French's first appearance on the small screen screen was in 2006, when French starred alongside Tatum O'Neal in the prime-time telenova soap opera "Wicked Wicked Games". In 2007 she landed her breakout role when she joined the cast of "The L Word" playing closeted lesbian actress, and girlfriend of Jenny Schecter, Niki Stevens, appearing in seasons 5 and 6. French also had a role in the teen drama series "South of Nowhere" as Sasha Miller, a love interest of Aiden Dennison. French then appeared in two episodes of the teen drama "Gossip Girl" as Elle, a mysterious nanny. In 2010 French had a recurring role as Renee on "One Tree Hill" and later had a recurring guest role as Riley Westlake in the Hawaii-set teen drama "Beyond The Break". In 2009 French played a supporting role in the independent horror film "Sutures" and then had a leading role in the independent romantic comedy "Language of a Broken Heart", which was selected for the Hollywood Film Festival in 2011. French featured in the rock musical film "", which is due to be released in 2012. In 2011, French starred alongside Jason Ritter in the short film, "Atlantis", a romance film centered around two strangers who fall in love in the lead up to the final launch of the NASA space shuttle "Atlantis". and had a leading role in the independent thriller "The Red House". French also had a guest role on the television series "Up All Night". In 2012, it was announced that French had a supporting role in the independent thriller "Channeling". French had a minor role in the indie feminist film "Farah Goes Bang" directed by Meera Menon. French is attached to the psychological thriller "Liquorice". Other work. In 2010, French appeared in television advertisements for "Bud Light" and "7 Up". In 2011, she appeared in advertisements for sunglasses brand "Raen Optics". In 2012, French featured in a television commercial for car company GMC. Personal life. In 2009, French graduated from New York University's Tisch School of the Arts with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree majoring in Drama. French had previously studied at the University of California, Santa Barbara but dropped out to start an acting career. She is currently working on her first young-adult fiction novel. After dropping out of college, French lived in San Diego briefly before moving to Los Angeles to start her acting career. French is good friends with writers Angela Robinson and Alex Kondracke. In her spare time, French enjoys surfing, water skiing and hiking with her pet dogs. French supports the Surfrider Foundation. In 2008, she appeared alongside comedienne Kathy Griffin in a pro same-sex marriage ad urging California voters to vote against Proposition 8. On September 25, 2010, French married her longtime partner, photographer Jon Johnson, at her parents' estate in Quogue. She is sometimes featured in his work. They live in Los Angeles. In July 2012, French announced on Twitter that she was pregnant with their first child. On January 12, 2013, she gave birth to a son named Henry William Johnson.
1167207	Janet Julian (born July 10, 1959), also credited under her birth name Janet Louise Johnson, is an American actress who has starred in film and television. Biography. Julian was born in Evanston, Illinois. She got her big break when she won the role of Nancy Drew in the 1970s television series "The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries" when Pamela Sue Martin left the show in 1978. Her other well-known TV role came a year later on the Cult TV series "B. J. and the Bear" as Tommy. She was credited as Janet Louise Johnson in these early roles. She also starred on the evening soap opera "Falcon Crest" in 1989 as Cookie Nash. Janet's first film role was in the 1978 movie "Big Wednesday"; her most well-known film role was in the 1990 cult film "King of New York". She has made guest appearances on some TV shows, among them "Battlestar Galactica", "The Fall Guy", "Knight Rider", "Fudge", "Columbo", " Swamp Thing", "240 Robert", "Murder, She Wrote", and "". Janet quit acting in 1994 to raise her three children with husband Michael Lansbury, and she later became a parent educator. Janet (now Lansbury) has served on the Board of Directors of Resources for Infant Educarers (RIE) since 1995 and teaches RIE Parent/Infant Guidance Classes. In 2009, Janet began a parent education blog (http://www.janetlansbury.com).
1266583	Jeanne Eagels (June 26, 1890 – October 3, 1929) was an American actress on Broadway and in several motion pictures. She was a former Ziegfeld Follies Girl who went on to greater fame on Broadway and in the emerging medium of sound films.
581821	Dina Pathak or Deena Pathak (4 March 1922 – 11 October 2002) was a veteran actor and director of Gujarati theatre and also a film actor. She was also a woman activist and remained the President of the 'National Federation of Indian Women' (NIFW). A doyen of Hindi and Gujarati films as well as theatre, Dina Pathak acted in over 120 films in a career spanning over six decades; her production "Mena Gurjari" in Bhavai folk theatre style, ran successfully for many years, and is now a part of its repertoire.
1505794	Murder in Three Acts is a 1986 British-American television film produced by Warner Bros. Television, featuring Peter Ustinov as Agatha Christie's Belgian detective Hercule Poirot. Directed by Gary Nelson, it co-starred Jonathan Cecil as Hastings, Tony Curtis, and Emma Samms. The film is based on Christie's book "Three Act Tragedy" (1934). Synopsis. Poirot joins his assistant Hastings in Acapulco, Mexico, where Hastings is staying. They go to a party at which the other guests include the writer Janet Crisp, the American actor Charles Cartwright, a clergyman called Babbington, Daisy Eastman and her daughter Egg, Dr Strange, and Ricardo Montoya. Babbington dies of poisoning, and then Strange is poisoned, too. Poirot hunts the murderer. Changes to the original story. The main change is the relocation of the action from London to Acapulco. In the book, Poirot's assistant is Satterthwaite, replacing Hastings, but in the film Hastings is reinstated in his usual role. Christie's English theatrical actor Sir Charles Cartwright turns into Charles Cartwright, an American movie star. A 2010 version made for television starring David Suchet as Poirot restored the title "Three Act Tragedy" as well as again making Sir Charles Cartwright (played by Martin Shaw) a stage actor from Britain.
774029	"Fortune and Men's Eyes" is a 1967 play and 1971 film by John Herbert about a young man's experience in prison, exploring themes of homosexuality and sexual slavery. The title comes from William Shakespeare's Sonnet 29 which begins with the line "When in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes". It has been translated into forty languages and produced in over a hundred countries. It is the most published Canadian play, and won the Floyd S. Chalmers Canadian Play Award. In 1967 it premiered off-Broadway at the Actors Playhouse from 23 February 1967 to January 1968. Reviews were initially mixed, and many reviewers were shocked by the subject matter. Reviewer Herbert Whittaker wrote in "The Globe and Mail" that the play was "the art of washing our dirty linen in the neighbor's yard." In 1969 the play was produced and directed by Sal Mineo at the Coronet Theatre in Los Angeles. Don Johnson played the lead role of Smitty, a young man sentenced to six months in prison for marijuana possession, who eventually becomes the sexual subordinate of another inmate, Rocky. Michael Greer played the role of Queenie, Smitty's cellmate. This production garnered more critical approval. In the 1971 film, directed by Harvey Hart, Wendell Burton played Smitty, Michael Greer reprised his role as Queenie, and Zooey Hall played Rocky. It was filmed in Quebec, Canada.
1059292	Edward K. "Ted" Demme (October 26, 1963 – January 13, 2002) was an American film director and producer. Biography. Early life and career. Born in New York City, Demme grew up in Rockville Centre on Long Island, New York and attended South Side Senior High School. He graduated from SUNY-Cortland in 1985. His media career likely began with a radio show at WSUC-FM (SUNY-Cortland) in Cortland, NY. His show was a mix of comedy and talk radio with the usual sidekick, as well as some music and was widely listened to on and off campus. He was the nephew of movie producer and director Jonathan Demme. His career had modest beginnings — starting as a production assistant at MTV, he later became a producer in the On-Air Promotions Department and created the cable network's seminal hip-hop show "Yo! MTV Raps" and directed other projects for them, including the infamous black-and-white rants starring then-unknown chain-smoking comedian Denis Leary.
1396073	Jennifer Bini Taylor (born April 19, 1972) is an American actress, best known for her role as Chelsea Melini on CBS sitcom "Two and a Half Men", and earlier, for three other female roles on the show. She appeared in the 1998 erotic thriller "Wild Things" alongside Neve Campbell and Denise Richards. One of her earliest roles as a female lead was in a television series in the role of the character Laura in the short-lived television drama, "Miami Sands". Early life. Taylor, born in Hoboken, New Jersey, grew up in Coral Springs, Florida, and was first runner-up in the Miss Florida USA pageants in 1995 and 1996. Personal Life. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband, Paul Taylor, a songwriter, and their two children Jake and Samantha. She also just graduated with her BA in Social Sciences. According to an interview, she grows much of her family's food in her own garden.
1177582	Petula Sally Olwen Clark, CBE (born 15 November 1932) is an English singer, actress, and composer whose career has spanned seven decades. Clark's professional career began as an entertainer on BBC Radio during World War II. During the 1950s she started recording in French and having international success in both French and English, with such songs as "The Little Shoemaker", "Baby Lover", "With All My Heart", and ""Prends Mon Cœur"". During the 1960s she became known globally for her popular upbeat hits, including "Downtown", "I Know a Place", "My Love", "Colour My World", "A Sign of the Times", and "Don't Sleep in the Subway". She has sold more than 68 million records throughout her career. Biography. Clark was born to English father Leslie Norman Clark (1909-1977) and Welsh mother Doris (née Phillips), both nurses at Long Grove Hospital, in Epsom, Surrey, England. Her father Leslie coined her first name, and joked that it was a combination of the names of two former girlfriends, Pet and Ulla. As a child, Clark sang in the chapel choir and showed a talent for mimicry, frequently impersonating Vera Lynn, Carmen Miranda and Sophie Tucker for the amusement of family and friends. Her father introduced her to theatre when he took her to see Flora Robson in a 1938 production of "Mary Tudor"; she later recalled that after the performance "I made up my mind then and there I was going to be an actress ... I wanted to be Ingrid Bergman more than anything else in the world." However, her first public performances were as a singer, performing with an orchestra in the entrance hall of Bentall's Department Store in Kingston upon Thames for a tin of toffee and a gold wristwatch, in 1939. Career start. From a chance beginning as a nine-year-old, Clark would appear on radio, film, print, television and recordings by the time she turned seventeen. In October 1942, nine-year-old Clark made her radio debut while attending a BBC broadcast with her father. Attending in the hope of sending a message to an uncle stationed overseas, the broadcast was delayed by an air raid. During the bombing, the producer requested that someone perform to settle the jittery theatre audience, and she volunteered a rendering of "Mighty Lak' a Rose" to an enthusiastic response. She then repeated her performance for the broadcast audience, launching a series of some 500 appearances in programmes designed to entertain the troops. In addition to radio work, Clark frequently toured the United Kingdom with fellow child performer Julie Andrews. The "Singing Sweetheart" heard by George VI, Winston Churchill and Bernard Montgomery. Clark became known as "Britain's Shirley Temple," and she was considered a mascot by the British Army, whose troops plastered her photos on their tanks for good luck as they advanced into battle. In 1944, while performing at London's Royal Albert Hall, Clark was discovered by film director Maurice Elvey, who cast her as precocious orphaned waif Irma in his weepy war drama "Medal for the General". In quick succession, she starred in "Strawberry Roan," "I Know Where I'm Going!," "London Town," and "Here Come the Huggetts," the first in a series of Huggett Family films based on a British radio series. Although some of the films she made in the UK during the 1940s and 1950s were B-films, she worked with Anthony Newley in "Vice Versa" (directed by Peter Ustinov) and Alec Guinness in "The Card" as well as the aforementioned "I Know Where I'm Going!" which is a Powell and Pressburger feature film now generally regarded as a masterpiece (Clark's part was small). In 1945, Clark was featured in the comic strip "Radio Fun", in which she was billed as "Radio's Merry Mimic". In 1946, Clark launched her television career with an appearance on a BBC variety show, "Cabaret Cartoons", which led to her being signed to host her own afternoon series, titled simply "Petula Clark". A second, "Pet's Parlour", followed in 1949. In 1947, Clark met Joe "Mr Piano" Henderson at the Maurice Publishing Company. The two collaborated musically, and were linked romantically over the coming decade. In 1949, Henderson introduced Clark to Alan A. Freeman, who, together with her father Leslie, formed Polygon Records, for which she recorded her earliest hits. Clark had recorded her first release that year, "Put Your Shoes On, Lucy," for EMI. Because neither EMI nor Decca, for whom she also had recorded, were keen to sign her to a long-term contract, her father, whose own theatrical ambitions had been thwarted by his parents, teamed with Freeman to form the Polygon record label in order to better control and facilitate her singing career.. This project was financed with Clark's earnings. She scored a number of major hits in the UK during the 1950s, including "The Little Shoemaker" (1954), "Majorca" (1955), "Suddenly There's a Valley" (1955) and "With All My Heart" (1956).'The Little Shoemaker' was an international hit reaching the coveted No 1 position in Australia, giving her the first of many No 1 records in her career. Although Clark released singles in the United States as early as 1951 (the first was "Tell Me Truly" b/w "Song Of The Mermaid" on the Coral label), it would take thirteen years before the American record-buying public would discover her. Near the end of 1955, Polygon Records was sold to Nixa Records, then part of Pye Records, which led to the establishment of Pye Nixa Records (subsequently simply Pye). This turn of events effectively signed Clark to the Pye label in the UK, for whom she would record for the remainder of the 1950s, throughout the 1960s, and early into the 1970s. During this period, Clark showed a keen interest for encouraging new talent. She suggested Henderson be allowed to record his own music, and he enjoyed five chart hits on Polygon/Pye between 1955 and 1960. European fame. In 1957, Clark was invited to appear at the Paris Olympia where, despite her misgivings and a bad cold, she was received with acclaim. The following day she was invited to the office of Vogue Records to discuss a contract. It was there that she met her longtime publicist, collaborator, and her future husband, Claude Wolff. Clark was attracted immediately, and when she was told that she would work with him if she signed up with the Vogue label, she agreed. While Clark focused on her new career in France, she continued to achieve hit records in the UK into the early 1960s, developing a parallel career on both sides of the Channel. Her 1961 recording of "Sailor" became her first No.1 hit in the U.K., while such follow-up recordings as "Romeo" and "My Friend the Sea" landed her in the British Top Ten later that year. In France, "Ya Ya Twist" (a French language cover of the Lee Dorsey rhythm and blues song "Ya Ya" and the only successful recording of a twist song by a female) and "Chariot" (the original version of "I Will Follow Him") became smash hits in 1962, while German and Italian versions of her English and French recordings charted as well. Her recordings of several Serge Gainsbourg songs also were big sellers. She also at this time was made a present of 'Un Enfant' by Jacques Brel, with whom she toured. Clark is one of only a handful of performers to be given a song by Brel. A live recording of this song charted in Canada. In 1964, Clark wrote the soundtrack for the French crime film "A Couteaux Tirés" (aka "Daggers Drawn") and made a cameo appearance as herself in the film. Although it was only a mild success, it added a new dimension — that of film composer — to her career. Additional film scores she composed include "Animato" (1969), "La bande à Bebel" (1966), and "Pétain" (1989). Six themes from the last were released on the CD "In Her Own Write" in 2007. She was the subject of "This Is Your Life" in February 1964, and would be honoured on a further two occasions - in April 1975 and March 1996 - becoming the only person to receive the television tribute three times. International Fame - the ""Downtown"" era. By 1964, Clark's British recording career was foundering. The composer-arranger Tony Hatch, who had been assisting her with her work for Vogue Records in France and Pye Records in the UK, flew to her home in Paris with new song material he hoped would interest her, but she found none of it appealing. Desperate, he played for her a few chords of an incomplete song that had been inspired by his recent first trip to New York City, which he suggested might be offered to the Drifters. Upon hearing the melody, Clark told him that if he could write lyrics as good as the melody, she wanted to record the tune as her next single. Thus "Downtown" came into being. Neither Clark, who was performing in Canada when the song first received major air-play, nor Hatch realised the impact the song would have on their respective careers. Released in four different languages in late 1964, "Downtown" was a success in the UK, France (in both the English and the French versions), the Netherlands, Germany, Australia, Italy and also Rhodesia, Japan and India. During a visit to London, Warner Bros. executive Joe Smith heard it and acquired the rights for the United States. "Downtown" went to No. 1 on the American charts in January 1965, and three million copies were sold in America. "Downtown" was the first of fifteen consecutive Top 40 hits Clark achieved in the United States, including "I Know a Place", "My Love", "A Sign of the Times", "I Couldn't Live Without Your Love", "This Is My Song" (from the Charles Chaplin film "A Countess from Hong Kong"), and "Don't Sleep in the Subway." The American recording industry honoured her with Grammy Awards for "Best Rock & Roll Recording of 1964" for "Downtown" and for "Best Contemporary (R&R) Vocal Performance of 1965 - Female" for "I Know a Place". In 2004, her recording of "Downtown" was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame. 's recording successes led to frequent appearances on American variety programmes hosted by Ed Sullivan and Dean Martin, guest shots on "Hullabaloo", "Shindig!", "The Kraft Music Hall" and "The Hollywood Palace", and inclusion in musical specials such as "The Best on Record" and "Rodgers and Hart Today." In 1968, NBC-TV invited Clark to host her own special in the U.S., and in doing so she inadvertently made television history. While singing a duet of "On the Path of Glory," an anti-war song that she had composed, with guest Harry Belafonte, she took hold of his arm, to the dismay of a representative from the Chrysler Corporation, the show's sponsor, who feared that the moment would incur the racist bigotry of Southern viewers. When he insisted that they substitute a different take, with Clark and Belafonte standing well away from each other, Clark and the executive producer of the show — her husband, Wolff — refused, destroyed all other takes of the song and delivered the finished programme to NBC with the touch intact. The programme aired on 8 April 1968, with high ratings and critical acclaim. (To commemorate the 40th anniversary of the original telecast, Clark and Wolff appeared at the Paley Center for Media in Manhattan on 22 September 2008, to discuss the broadcast and its impact, following a broadcast of the programme.) Clark later was the hostess of two more specials, another one for NBC and one for ABC - one which served as a pilot for a projected weekly series. Clark declined the offer in order to please her children, who disliked living in Los Angeles. Clark starred in the television series "This is Petula Clark", which aired from mid-1966 though early 1968. Clark revived her film career in the late 1960s, starring in two big musical films. In "Finian's Rainbow" (1968), she starred opposite Fred Astaire and she was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress - Motion Picture Musical or Comedy for her performance. With her role, she again made history by becoming Astaire's final on-screen dance partner. The following year she was cast with Peter O'Toole in "Goodbye, Mr. Chips" (1969), a musical adaptation of the classic James Hilton novella. Throughout the late 1960s, Clark toured in concerts in the States, and she often appeared in supper clubs such as the Copacabana in New York City, the Ambassador Hotel's Cocoanut Grove in Los Angeles, and the Empire Room at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, where she consistently broke house attendance records. During this period, Clark continued her interest in encouraging new talent. These efforts also supported the launch of Herb Alpert and his A&M record label. In 1968, she brought French composer/arranger Michel Colombier to the States to work as her musical director and introduced him to Alpert. Colombier went on to co-write "Purple Rain" with Prince, composed the acclaimed pop symphony "Wings" and a number of soundtracks for American films. Richard Carpenter credited Clark with bringing him and his sister Karen to Alpert's attention when they performed at a premiere party for Clark's 1969 film "Goodbye, Mr. Chips". 1970- 2000. During the early 1970s, Clark had chart singles on both sides of the Atlantic with: "Melody Man" (1970); "The Song Of My Life" (1971); "I Don't Know How To Love Him" (1972), "The Wedding Song (There Is Love)" (1972) and "Loving Arms" (1974). In Canada 'Je voudrais Qu'il Soit Malheureux' was a major hit. Clark continued touring during the 1970s, performing in clubs in the US and Europe. During this period, Clark also appeared in print and radio ads for the Coca Cola Corp., television commercials for Plymouth automobiles, print and TV spots for Burlington Industries, television and print ads for Chrysler Sunbeam, and print ads for Sanderson Wallpaper in the UK. By the mid-1970s, Clark scaled back her career in order to devote more time to her family. On 31 December 1976, she performed her hit song "Downtown" on BBC1's A Jubilee Of Music, celebrating British pop music for Queen Elizabeth II's impending Silver Jubilee. She also hosted the television series "The Sound of Petula" (1973–74), and through the 70s made numerous guest appearances on variety, comedy and game show television. In 1980 Clark made her last film appearance, in the British production "Never Never Land". Her last television appearance was acting in the 1981 French mini-series "Sans Famille" (An Orphan's Tale). As Clark moved away from film and television, she moved back to the stage. In 1954, Clark had starred in a stage production of "The Constant Nymph," but it wasn't until 1981, at the urging of her children, that she returned to legitimate theatre, starring as Maria von Trapp in "The Sound of Music" in London's West End. Opening to rave reviews and what was then the largest advance sale in British theatre history, Clark - proclaimed by Maria Von Trapp herself as "the best Maria ever" — extended her initial six-month run to thirteen to accommodate the huge demand for tickets. In 1983, she took on the title role in George Bernard Shaw's "Candida." Later stage work includes "Someone Like You" in 1989 and 1990, for which she composed the score; "Blood Brothers", in which she made her Broadway debut in 1993 at the Music Box Theatre, followed by the American tour; and Andrew Lloyd Webber's "Sunset Boulevard", appearing in both the West End and American touring productions from 1995 through 2000. In 2004, she repeated her performance of Norma Desmond in a production at the Opera House in Cork, Ireland, which was later broadcast by the BBC. With more than 2,500 performances, she has played the role more often than any other actress. A new disco re-mix of Downtown called "Downtown '88" was released in 1988 registering Clark's first UK Singles Chart success since 1972, making the Top Ten in the UK in December 1988. A live vocal performance of this version was performed on the BBC show, "Top of the Pops". Clark recorded new material regularly throughout the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s, and in 1992 released "Oxygen", a single produced by Andy Richards and written by Nik Kershaw. In 1998, Clark was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth II. In 2012, Petula was installed with the Médaille du Commandeur de l'ordre des Arts et des Lettres de France by the Republic of France's Culture Minister. (www.petulaclark.net) 2000-present. In both 1998 and 2002, Clark toured extensively throughout the UK. In 2000, she presented a self-written one-woman show, highlighting her life and career, to large critical and audience acclaim at the St. Denis Theatre in Montreal. A 2003 concert appearance at the Olympia in Paris has been issued in both DVD and compact disc formats. In 2004, she toured Australia and New Zealand, appeared at the Hilton in Atlantic City, New Jersey, the Hummingbird Centre in Toronto, Ontario, Humphrey's in San Diego and the Mohegan Sun Casino in Uncasville, Connecticut, and participated in a multi-performer tribute to the late Peggy Lee at the Hollywood Bowl. Following another British concert tour in early spring 2005, she appeared with Andy Williams in his Moon River Theatre in Branson, Missouri, for several months, and she returned for another engagement in autumn of 2006, following scattered concert dates throughout North America. In November 2006, Clark was the subject of a BBC Four documentary entitled "Petula Clark: Blue Lady" and appeared with Michael Ball and Tony Hatch in a concert at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane broadcast by BBC Radio the following month. In December that year she made her first appearance in Iceland. "Duets", a compilation including Dusty Springfield, Peggy Lee, Dean Martin, Bobby Darin and the Everly Brothers, among others, was released in February 2007, and "Solitude and Sunshine", a studio recording of all new material by composer Rod McKuen, was released in July of that year. She was the host of the March 2007 PBS fundraising special "My Music: The British Beat", an overview of the musical British invasion of the United States during the 1960s, followed by a number of concert dates throughout the U.S., the U.K., Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. She can be heard on the soundtrack of the 2007 independent film "". "Une Baladine" (in English, a wandering minstrel), an authorised pictorial biography by Françoise Piazza, was published in France and Switzerland in October 2007, and the following month Clark promoted it in bookshops and at book fairs. In 2007, Clark took part in the BBC Wales programme "Coming Home", about her Welsh family history. Clark was presented with the 2007 Film & TV Music Award for Best Use of a Song in a Television Programme for "Downtown" in the ABC series "Lost". She completed a concert tour of England and Wales in summer 2008, followed by concerts in Switzerland and the Philippines. "", a compilation of greatest hits and several new Clark compositions, entered the UK Albums Chart in June 2008 and won Clark her first silver disc for an album. "Open Your Heart: A Love Song Collection", a compilation of previously unreleased material and new and remixed recordings, was released in January 2009. Additionally, her 1969 NBC special "Portrait of Petula", already released on DVD for Region 2 viewers, is also being produced for Region 1. A collection of holiday songs titled "This Is Christmas", which includes some new Clark compositions in addition to previously released material, was released in November 2009. At the Montreux Jazz Festival on 14 July 2008, Clark joined with Paulo Nutini to perform "Goin' To Chicago Blues" in celebration of Quincy Jones' 75th birthday. In 2010, Clark became the President of the Hastings Musical Festival; she toured Australia, New Zealand and Quebec to sell out crowds, and appeared on the "Vivement Dimanche" show on French television, where she promised a return to Paris in the new year. Her triple album, "Une Baladine" included 10 new tracks and one new studio recording; "SOS Mozart", a writing collaboration of Gilbert Bécaud and Pierre Delanoë. Both her album set and the new recording of "SOS Mozart" were produced by David Hadzis at the Arthanor Productions studio in Geneva and appeared on the French charts. She was patron of 2011 Dinard British Film Festival. Early in 2011, the Lark Street Business Improvement District in a section of the downtown area of Albany, New York, needed a name for its logo/mascot, a graphic image of a blue lark. An internet poll was held and the winner was 'Petula Lark', clearly a reference to the singer of the adopted anthem of New York City's urban area, "Downtown". In November 2011, aged 78, Clark performed at the Casino de Paris, a Parisian music hall. Clark entertained for more than 90 minutes and introduced five new songs, one of which she had recently written with friend Charles Aznavour. A French album of all new material is to be released on 7 February 2012 on the Sony label, Clark's first in that language since the late 1970s.[http://www.petula-clark.com/] On 11 December 2011, the Saw Doctors released their version of "Downtown", featuring Clark. She appeared in the video for the song, which they recorded in Galway, and she in Paris. On 22 December 2011, the record made No 2 on the Irish chart. In February 2012 Clark completed her first New York City show since 1975. Her show featured a parody of "Downtown", an idea that came from her musical director Grant Sturiale. After the end of her season, which had to be extended due to the demand for tickets, she returned to Paris to promote her new album, before flying to Australia for a tour.[http://www.petulaclark.net] Appeared as guest on Radio 4 'The Reunion' August 2012. She appeared in Jools Holland's New Year count down at 1am on the 1st January 2013; she performed the song: "Crazy"; earlier on the show she performed: "Downtown" and her 1966 #6 hit "I Couldn't Live Without Your Love". She released a new album entitled "Lost In You" in January 2013. The album contains new music and some covers. She remakes her famous "Downtown," as well as performing a cover of Gnarls Barkley's "Crazy". She also performs a new song called "Cut Copy Me," which had a 14 week run in the Belgium chart . The album got rave reviews and entered the UK national album chart at No 24 on Sunday 3 March 2013. Personal life. In 1955, Clark became linked romantically with Joe "Mr Piano" Henderson. Speculation that the couple planned to marry became rife. However, with the increasing glare of being in the public spotlight, and Clark's growing fame — her career in France was just beginning — Henderson, reportedly not wanting to end up as "Mr. Petula Clark", decided to end the relationship. Their professional relationship continued for a couple of years, culminating in the BBC Radio series "Pet and Mr. Piano", the last time they worked together, although they remained on friendly terms. In 1962, he penned a ballad about their break-up, called "There's Nothing More To Say", for Clark's LP "In Other Words". In October 1957, Clark was invited to appear at the Paris Olympia for the Europe N°1 live radio show Musicorama. The following day she was invited to the office of Vogue Records' chairman Léon Cabat to discuss about recording in French and working in France. It was there that she met the publicist Claude Wolff, to whom she was attracted immediately, and when she was told that he would work with her if she recorded in French, she agreed. In June 1961, Clark married Wolff, first in a civil ceremony in Paris, then a religious one in her native England. Wanting to escape the restrictions of child stardom imposed upon her by the British public, and eager to escape the influence of her father, she moved to France, where she and Wolff had two daughters, Barbara Michelle and Catherine Nathalie, in quick succession. Then their son Patrick was born in 1972.
1275071	How to Die in Oregon is a 2011 documentary film produced and directed by Peter Richardson. The film is set in the state of Oregon and covers the state's Death with Dignity Act that allows terminally ill patients to end their own life with medication prescribed by their physician (a form of assisted suicide). Synopsis. Through a 1994 ballot measure (Measure 16) named the Oregon Death with Dignity Act, Oregon became the first U.S. state and one of the first jurisdictions in the world to allow physician-assisted suicide. The film covers the background of the Oregon law and the life of a few patients who have chosen to take their life under it. It also features some information about the neighboring state of Washington's attempt to legalize physician-assisted suicide in 2008 through a law (Washington Death with Dignity Act) modeled after Oregon's. Release. The film was released in January 2011 at the 27th Sundance Film Festival and began airing on HBO later in the year. Peter Richardson, a native Oregonian, got the idea to produce the film as the state's law was upheld by the Supreme Court of the United States in the 2006 case Gonzales v. Oregon. Critical reception. The film was well received by critics and won the Grand Jury Prize for Documentaries at the 27th Sundance Film Festival.
1068449	The Gypsy Moths is a 1969 American drama film directed by John Frankenheimer and starring Burt Lancaster and Deborah Kerr, based on the novel of the same name by James Drought. It is the story of three barnstorming skydivers and their effect on a midwestern American town. At the time, the sport of skydiving was in its infancy, yet the movie featured an extreme variation of the sport known as wingsuit flying. Influenced by this movie, wingsuits gained a prominent resurgence in the 21st century. Todd Higley, a prominent skydiver in the Seattle area today, is said to have been the main technical advisor and stunt double for Mr. Lancaster, and today is well known for having invented wingsuit BASE jumping. The movie also features Gene Hackman (fresh from his role in "Bonnie and Clyde"). Deborah Kerr was renewing her association with Lancaster from their previous work in "From Here to Eternity" and "Separate Tables". The movie focuses on the differences in values between the town folk and the hard living skydivers and features Deborah Kerr's only nude love scene in her movie career. The director, John Frankenheimer, expressed his anguish and disappointment at the critical reception of this piece and subsequent narrow release in the United States. The film was widely seen in Australia and the local skydiving fraternity there was quick to seize the opportunity to promote their sport. Elmer Bernstein composed the score. Plot. A skydiving team called the Gypsy Moths visits a small town in Kansas to put on a show: the leader is Mike Rettig (Lancaster), accompanied by his partners, Joe Browdy (Hackman) and Malcolm Webson (Scott Wilson). The skydivers stay at the home of Malcolm's uncle and aunt, John and Elizabeth Brandon (William Windom, Deborah Kerr). The distractions begin almost immediately. Mike becomes romantically involved with Elizabeth, whose husband overhears her making love with Mike in their home. Malcolm falls for local student Annie Burke (Bonnie Bedelia), a boarder in the Brandon house. Joe takes an interest in a topless dancer. Mike eventually asks Elizabeth to leave town with him, but she declines. During the next skydiving exhibition, Mike intends to do a spectacular "cape jump" stunt but his rip cord fails to open. Before the team leaves for good, Malcolm is determined to try the cape jump himself. Location. The remarkable aerial sequences were filmed at Benton, Kansas, and a Howard DGA-15 was used as the jump ship. Hackman (as Joe Browdy) has a great line in discussing the plane; after correctly decoding the "DGA" designation, he opines that "You're much better off jumping out of it, than taking a chance on landing it." This line was probably unscripted, but attributable to the Howard's pilot, David Llorente. Carl Boenish did the aerial photography. Reception. The film ran in limited release in the U.S. and saw few theaters taking it in for extended showings. Soon as it appeared, it disappeared, not getting an audience and it did not run until it came to TV years later. Director John Frankenheimer was depressed. He felt the film did not get enough attention as his thrillers, like "Seconds" and "The Manchurian Candidate". Despite this, he would call this his favorite film.
1036548	Janine Duvitski (born Christine Janine Drzewicki; June 1952) is an English actress, known for her roles as Jane Edwards in "Waiting for God", Pippa Trench in "One Foot in the Grave" and Jacqueline Stewart in "Benidorm". She also played the role of Angela in Mike Leigh's play "Abigail's Party". Personal life. Duvitski was born in Lancaster, Lancashire. Her father was Polish. She trained at the East 15 Acting School in London. She has four children, John, Albert and Edith plus actress Ruby Bentall with her actor husband Paul Bentall. Her youngest daughter Edith is in the band 'The Frets'. Career. Television. Duvitski's principal television credits include the series "Waiting for God" (1990-1994), "One Foot in the Grave" (1990-2000), and "Benidorm" (2007-). She has also appeared in the one-off production of "Blue Remembered Hills" by Dennis Potter, as well as in episodes of Foyle's War (Fifty Ships), "Brush Strokes", "Minder", "Midsomer Murders", "My Family", "Man About the House", "The Georgian House", " The Black Stuff (TV play)" by Alan Bleasdale, "The Knowledge", "Z-Cars", "The Worst Week of My Life", "Little Dorrit" and, in 2013, as Emily Scuttlebutt in the CBeebies show "Old Jack's Boat". Films. Duvitski had a small role opposite Laurence Olivier and Donald Pleasence in "Dracula" (1979), and appeared in the 1980 punk rock film "Breaking Glass". She was also in the 1994 film "The Madness of King George", and in 2005 in the film "The New World". Theatre. Duvitski first came to national attention in "Abigail's Party", written and directed in 1977 by Mike Leigh. The play opened in April 1977 at the Hampstead Theatre, returning after its initial run in the summer of 1977, with a total of 104 performances. A suburban situation comedy of manners, the play is a satire on the aspirations and tastes of the new middle class that had emerged in Britain in the 1970s. In November 1977 an abridged version of the play, lasting 104 minutes, was recorded at the BBC as a Play for Today. Duvitski plays Angela, nurse and wife of Tony Cooper, appearing meek and somewhat childlike, unintelligent and tactless. She comes into her own only when host Laurence Moss suffers his fatal heart attack at the climax of the play.
633575	Lee Arenberg (born July 18, 1962) is an American actor, best known for his role as Pintel, one of Captain Barbossa's crew of miscreants, in the "Pirates of the Caribbean" film series. He currently has a recurring role as the dwarf Grumpy in the television series "Once Upon a Time". Career. He has guest starred on all the "Star Trek" spin-offs ", , ", and "". Coincidentally, in two of his appearances, ("The Nagus" and "United"), he played a character named Gral, one a Ferengi and the other a Tellarite. In 1992 Lee appeared on the TV series "Night Court". Arenberg also played the recurring role of bookie Mike Moffit in two episodes of "Seinfeld". In "The Parking Space", he and George Costanza had a parking dispute, while in "The Susie" his thumbs were accidentally broken while trying to repair Jerry Seinfeld's car trunk. He also guest starred in the fifth season of "Friends" in an episode titled "The One with the Inappropriate Sister". He guest starred on an episode of "Brotherly Love" entitled "Motherly Love". He had a bit part as a bumbling Hold-up Man in "RoboCop 3". Lee also played Dr. Moyer in the "Scrubs" episode "My Own American Girl". He also starred as the dwarf Elwood Gutworthy in "Dungeons and Dragons" (2000), and the pirate Pintel in the "Pirates of the Caribbean" trilogy. He guest starred as "Hair Plugs" in "Grounded For Life" (2001). A graduate of Santa Monica High in 1980, He is currently starring as the regular character "Grumpy/Leroy" on the hit ABC television series "Once Upon a Time (TV series)". As he confirmed when speaking at the Farpoint Star Trek Convention in Timonium, Maryland, Arenberg's character Pintel did not return in the .
1072410	, is a 1971 Japanese science fiction kaiju film produced by Toho. Directed by Yoshimitsu Banno and featuring special effects by Teruyoshi Nakano, the film starred Akira Yamauchi, Toshie Kimura, and Hiroyuki Kawase. The 11th film in the Godzilla series, the film had a strong anti-pollution message with director Banno being inspired after visiting a polluted beach near Yokkaichi.
1165720	Darryl Gerard Hickman (born July 28, 1931) is an American film and television actor, former television executive, and child star of the 1930s and 1940s. Early life. Hickman gained attention as a child actor during the late 1930s and 1940s, appearing in "The Grapes of Wrath", "Men of Boys Town", "The Human Comedy" and "Leave Her to Heaven", among others. He made a featured appearance in the 1942 "Our Gang" comedy "Going to Press". In 1944, he played the antagonist to Jimmy Lydon's Henry Aldrich character in the film "Henry Aldrich, Boy Scout". In 1946, he played young Sam Masterson in the Barbara Stanwyck vehicle "The Strange Love of Martha Ivers". By age twenty-one, Hickman had appeared in more than one hundred motion pictures. Career. After spending his childhood as an actor, Hickman retired from entertainment to enter a monastery in 1951, returning to Hollywood just over a year later. He continued acting, but in fewer roles than in the peak of his career. He was cast in 1952 in the episode "Fight Town" of the syndicated western television series, "The Range Rider". In 1954, he appeared as Chet Sterling in the "Annie Gets Her Man" episode of syndicated western series, "Annie Oakley", with Gail Davis. In 1957, Hickman appeared in the episode "Copper Wire" of the syndicated western-themed crime drama "Sheriff of Cochise". Later that year he appeared as murderer Steve Harris in the second "Perry Mason" episode, "The Case of the Sleepwalker's Niece." Hickman appeared four times in the 1957-1958 syndicated drama series, "Men of Annapolis", about midshipmen at the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland. He also guest starred in Kenneth Tobey's adventure drama, "Whirlybirds".
633754	Erick Avari (born April 13, 1952) is an Indian American television, film and theater actor known for his roles in various science-fiction serial productions. Early life. Erick Avari was born Nariman Eruch Avari in Darjeeling, West Bengal, India, into an old Parsi-Zoroastrian family of that town in the Himalayan foothills. His father Eruch Avari ran two movie theatres (the "Capitol" and the "Rink") there. His early education was at the prestigious North Point School (the school division of the St. Joseph's College), which he attended as a day-scholar. He studied at the College of Charleston, in South Carolina. Erick is a member of the Avari-Madan family of Darjeeling and Calcutta. His great-grandfather was Jamshedji Framji Madan, one of the pioneers of Indian cinema. Career. Avari is known for his roles in films such as "Stargate", ', "The Mummy", "Daredevil", "Home Alone 4", "Planet of the Apes" and "Mr. Deeds". Along with Alexis Cruz, he is the only other actor to appear in both the original "Stargate" movie and the spin-off series "Stargate SG-1" (3 episodes). However, before arriving in Los Angeles in 1991, his extensive work onstage has garnered him much praise from theater critics across America, most notably as Vasquez, in Tis Pity She's a Whore" with Val Kilmer at the Joseph Papp Public Theater and as Sir Richard at The Guthrie Theater's memorable production of "The Screens". He has also made guest appearances on "Castle", "The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air", "Heroes", "Hope & Faith", "Law & Order", "Lie to me","Party Down" ', "seaQuest DSV", ', ', "The West Wing", "The X-Files", "Dharma & Greg", "Babylon 5", "Alias", "The O.C.", "The Sarah Silverman Program", "Leverage", "Lois and Clark The New Adventures of Superman", Covert Affairs and "Human Target". He played cameo roles in "JAG"; "Living People"; "NYPD Blue"; "Cheers"; "Murder, She Wrote"; "Roseanne"; "Judging Amy"; "NCIS" and "Everwood". In the video game Zork Grand Inquisitor, he played Grand Inquisitor Mir Yannick, a ruthless dictator who serves as the game's main villain. He acted in '. Beginning in the autumn of 2006, a photograph of Avari and a recording of his voice have been used in the role of Chandra Suresh in "Heroes". The actor did not appear on screen until the episode Seven Minutes to Midnight, as his character is one of the backstory and had died before the events of the pilot. When the character does appear it is only in flashbacks until Six Months Ago, when the story moves back to six months before the events of the pilot episode. In this episode, Suresh is seen as he moves to New York and contacts people on "the list" he generated of those he believes to have special genetic aberrations. In the course of his career, Avari has portrayed representatives of more than 24 different nationalities. As of November 2006, Avari has appeared in 33 feature films and over 70 television episodes. Avari has appeared with Brent Spiner in four different productions: "" (1987), "Independence Day" (1996), "The Master of Disguise", and "Home Alone 4" (2002). Avari also acted opposite Richard Gere in a drama film based on a true story: , in which he played Jasjeet, an Indian hot dog vendor. Avari was scheduled to reappear in his role as Kasuf in the "Stargate SG-1" season six finale "Full Circle", but failed to do so due to his commitment to "Dragnet" (2003). In October 2009, he was cast as Omar on "Days of our Lives". In January 2009, he was cast as the cell phone salesman in "".
1165103	Russell David Johnson (born November 10, 1924) is an American television and film actor best known as "The Professor" on the CBS television sitcom "Gilligan's Island". He is one of three remaining cast members from that series, the last surviving male. Early life. Born in Ashley in Luzerne County in eastern Pennsylvania, Johnson is a graduate of Girard College, a private boarding school for needy children in Philadelphia. Military career. After high school, in the midst of World War II, Johnson joined the United States Army Air Forces as an aviation cadet and was commissioned as a second lieutenant. He flew 44 combat missions as a bombardier in B-25 bombers. While flying as a navigator in a B-25 with the 100th Bombardment Squadron, 42nd Bombardment Group, 13th Air Force, his plane and two other B-25s were shot down in the Philippines in March 1945 during a low level bombing and strafing run against Japanese targets. The planes were hit by intense flak and had to ditch in the waters off the port of Zamboanga. During the ditching, he broke both his ankles and the radioman next to him was killed. Johnson earned a Purple Heart for this mission. He was also awarded the Air Medal, the Good Conduct Medal, the Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal with three service stars, the Philippine Liberation Ribbon with one service star, and the World War II Victory Medal. He was honorably discharged with the rank of first lieutenant on November 22, 1945. He then joined the Army Reserve and used the GI Bill to fund his acting studies at the Actors Lab in Hollywood. At acting school he met actress Kay Levey, and they married on July 23, 1949. Movie and television career. He became a close friend of Audie Murphy and later appeared with him in three of his films, "Column South" and "Tumbleweed" in 1953 and "Ride Clear of Diablo" in 1954. Johnson's Hollywood career began in 1952, with the college fraternity hazing exposé "For Men Only", and with "Loan Shark", also released in 1952 and starring George Raft. His early roles were primarily in westerns and science fiction such as "It Came from Outer Space" (1953), "This Island Earth" (1955), "Attack of the Crab Monsters" (1956), and "The Space Children" (1958). He also appeared in a Ma and Pa Kettle vehicle, "Ma and Pa Kettle at Waikiki" (1955). During the 1950s, he guest starred on Rod Cameron's syndicated crime drama, "City Detective". He played the head of a gang of crooks in Episode 17 of season 1 of The Adventures of Superman (January, 1953). He was cast on the religion anthology series, "Crossroads". He played "The Sundown Kid" in an episode of the 1958 NBC western series, "Jefferson Drum". He guest starred too in another NBC western series, "The Californians". Late in 1958, Johnson and Joe Flynn were cast in the episode "The Bells of Fear" of the syndicated adventure series, "Rescue 8", starring Jim Davis and Lang Jeffries. In the story line, an elderly clockmaker trying to repair the chimes in a church clock is trapped inside the instrument just before Christmas Eve. Johnson was cast in the role of Darius in the 1959 episode, "The Unwilling", of the NBC western series, "Riverboat", starring Darren McGavin and Burt Reynolds. In the story line, businessman Dan Simpson, played by Eddie Albert, attempts to open a general store in the American West despite a raid from Mississippi River pirates who stole from him $20,000 in merchandise. Debra Paget is cast in this episode as Lela Russell; John M. Pickard, uncredited, as a river pirate. Johnson appeared three times on the syndicated military drama "The Silent Service", based on actual stories of the submarine section of the United States Navy. Johnson was cast as Hugh Grafton and as Tom Richards in two 1960 episodes, "Intermission" and "The Desperate Challenge", both with June Allyson on her CBS anthology series, "The DuPont Show with June Allyson". Johnson was cast as John T. Metcalf in the 1962 episode "Mile-Long Shot to Kill" of CBS's anthology series, "GE True", hosted by Jack Webb. In 1963, he was cast in an episode of the short-lived ABC/Warner Brothers western series, "The Dakota". Later in that same year, he was cast in the series premiere of the ABC medical drama "Breaking Point" starring Paul Richards and Eduard Franz.
1044577	Countess Dracula is a 1971 Hammer horror film based on the legends surrounding the "Blood Countess" Elizabeth Báthory. It is in many ways atypical of Hammer's canon, attempting to broaden Hammer's output from "Dracula" and "Frankenstein" sequels.
587482	Thoondil is a romantic drama Tamil film starring Shaam and Sandhya directed by Adhiyaman. The film opened to poor reviews. Plot. The film tries to work on the old saying "hell hath no fury like a woman scorned". Divya (Divya Spandana) is an upcoming model in London who meets Sriram (Shaam) an IT guy and falls in love. They sleep together but Sriram leaves her when Divya's boss tells him to stay out of her life if he wants to see her make it big. Divya feels betrayed when she finds out but does not know that her boss is the reason behind the split.Divya does achieve her dream and becomes a top model but is on a revenge romp to wreak havoc in Sriram’s happily married life to Anjali (Sandhya). Sandhya, is a cheerful girl whose only sorrow in life is that she doesn't have a child. And when she finally has a baby after 4 years of marriage to Sriram, Divya comes into her life and takes the baby away, saying that that is her baby. What happens after that forms the climax of the movie.
1062473	Sideways is a 2004 comedy-drama film written by Jim Taylor and Alexander Payne and directed by Payne. Adapted from Rex Pickett's 2004 novel of the same name, "Sideways" follows men in their forties, portrayed by Paul Giamatti and Thomas Haden Church, who take a week-long road trip to Santa Barbara County Wine Country. Payne and Taylor won multiple awards for their screenplay. Giamatti and Church, as well as actresses Virginia Madsen and Sandra Oh, playing local women who become romantically involved with the men, all received accolades for their performances. "Sideways" won the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay, and was nominated for four other awards. Plot. Miles Raymond is an unsuccessful writer, a wine-aficionado, and a divorced, depressed, and borderline alcoholic middle-aged English teacher living in San Diego, who takes his soon-to-be-married actor friend and college roommate, Jack Cole, on a road trip through Santa Ynez Valley wine country. Years ago Jack starred in a popular TV series but is doing voice-overs now. Miles wants to relax and live well. However, Jack wants one last sexual fling. In the wine country, the men encounter Maya, a waitress at Miles' favorite restaurant, The Hitching Post, and her friend, Stephanie, an employee at a local winery. They arrange a double date. Jack has an affair with Stephanie while Miles and Maya connect. Miles lets it slip that Jack is to be married. Disgusted with the dishonesty, Maya dumps Miles and tells Stephanie, who breaks Jack's nose using her motorcycle helmet. Upon finding out his manuscript has been rejected again, Miles tries to drink from the spit bucket at a wine tasting room, and Jack hooks up with another waitress named Cammi. Jack gets into deeper trouble when Cammi's husband comes home unexpectedly and Jack has to flee without his clothes and wallet (which contains the wedding rings). Miles sneaks into Cammi's house and barely escapes with Jack's wallet. To explain the broken nose to his fiancée, Jack runs Miles' car into a ditch to make it look like they had been in an accident.
1225680	The Fastest Gun Alive is a 1956 western film starring Glenn Ford, Jeanne Crain and Broderick Crawford. Plot. Son of notorious fast drawing Sherrif, George Kelby Jr. (Ford) and his wife Dora (Crain) settle down in the peaceful town of Cross Creek under assumed identities to avoid having to continually face men out to become famous for shooting down the "fastest gun alive." Now known as George Temple, he becomes a mild-mannered teetotal shopkeeper, little respected by the other townsfolk. One day comes news that outlaw Vinnie Harold (Broderick Crawford) has gunned down Clint Fallon, reputedly the "fastest draw in the west." George listens to the townsmen talk about Wyatt Earp, Wes Hardin, and other so-called "fast guns". They are also laughing at George, seeing him as nothing but a "ribbon clerk."
583341	Chura Liyaa Hai Tumne ("Captured by You") is an Indian Bollywood film which is directed by Sangeeth Sivan and released on 21 March 2003. Zayed Khan, the son of actor and director Sanjay Khan made his film debut with this film.This film is inspired by 1963 Hollywood film "Charade". Synopsis. Tina Khanna (Esha Deol) and her brother Coco (Master Parth Dave) are orphans brought up by a man named Tony. When Tina learns that Tony is dead, she also learns a bitter truth - her uncle was a conman involved in a bank heist. She also learns that he duped his own partners and scooted off with all the money. Meanwhile, the partners - namely Om (Gulshan Grover), Chingar (Vijay Raaz) and Sheena(Rakhi Sawant) are behind her, thinking that she knows the whereabouts of the money. Tina meets a stranger (Zayed Khan), who succeeds in both charming and irritating her by his antics. Unknown to her, this stranger is in league with the partners. The only person who is offering her some useful guidance is an officer in Indian Embassy, Deepak Chopra (Salil Ankola). Tina is more than anxious to find the money and end this nightmare. But is the situation more complicated than it already seems to be? Plot. Tina Khanna (Esha Deol) learns that her uncle Tony, as she fondly used to call him, is dead. But the situation turns out to be worse than expected when CBI and other investigative agencies start pestering her. She learns that her uncle was a conman and a master thief wanted in connection with a bank heist where RBI lost gold worth Rs.25 lakh to her uncle and his cronies. Tina tries to convince them that she knows nothing about it, but it does not help her in any way. Meanwhile, she is contacted by Deepak Chopra (Salil Ankola), an officer in Indian Embassy. He gives her more details about the case. He tells that other than her uncle, 3 more people are suspected to be involved in the heist - Om (Gulshan Grover), Chingar (Vijay Raaz) and Sheena (Rakhi Sawant), all of whom had met & given her warnings. Deepak tells her that her uncle conned them & stored the money in some secret location. Since she is his only living relative, they think that she knows where the money is. Tina still denies knowing its whereabouts, which Deepak accepts & tells her to contact him anytime she gets a clue. Tina soon realizes that the trio are stalking her. While trying to know their whereabouts & next plans, she is surprised to bump into Vijay (Zayed Khan), whom she had met in Goa. Vijay claims that he was trying to find her since she disappeared almost suddenly. She buys Vijay's excuse, as he had been hitting on her since the day they met. Tina explains the situation to him, upon which he safely escorts her to her room. Shortly after meeting her, he meets the trio, signifying that he is in league with them. In front of Tina, he pretends that he is getting on good terms with the trio, while behind her back, he tries to find evidence. Soon, Chingaar & Sheena are killed. Tina has every evidence pointing towards Vijay. She confronts him, suspicious that he is also the trio's partner. Vijay stuns her by telling her that he is not Vijay, but Mahesh Yogi & has infiltrated the gang for his own purpose. Tina who had started loving him, decides to give him a chance. Tina meets Deepak and tells him about this. Deepak reveals her the remaining part of the story - the gang had one more member, Mahesh Yogi. Mahesh got shot in the crossfire between the gang & the police. Instead of helping him, the gang shot him. His bullet ridden body was recovered from the sea & his wallet gave the identities of the gang members. Tina confronts Vijay/Mahesh, who tells her that he is in fact Prakash Yogi, younger brother of Mahesh Yogi, who infiltrated the gang under a fake name to get revenge. But when Deepak tells Tina that Mahesh had no kin, she is unable to trust anyone except Deepak anymore. But Om escapes from the hotel & warns Vijay & Tina simultaneously, as he thinks that one of them is the killer. Tina & Vijay stumble into an antique shop, where she sees coins being sold. She remembers seeing a similar coin in her uncles possessions. She retrieves his photo & one shopkeeper immediately remembers selling him a coin for Rs.25 lakh. Tina runs back to her hotel to get the coin, only to be accosted by Om. Before she can do anything, Om falls down, revealing a butcher's knife stabbed in his back. Before dying, he takes the name of Mahesh Yogi. Tina thinks that Vijay is indeed Mahesh Yogi & behind all the murders. She takes the coin & calls Deepak, telling him everything. Deepak tells her to immediately meet him at a certain place along with the coin. Tina is accosted by Vijay/Prakash, who tries to chase her. Tina frantically calls Deepak, but he does not answer. Tina keeps running helter skelter until she manages to slip off to the rendezvous point. Here, it is revealed that Deepak Chopra is somebody else. Vijay tries to stop Tina from giving the coin to Deepak, but Deepak drops his act, revealing that he is the real Mahesh Yogi. He also confesses to all the murders, including that of her uncle. Vijay manages to get the coin. In a scuffle between Vijay & Mahesh, the latter falls down the bridge and is killed by a speeding car. Some days later, Tina goes to CBI to return the coin. She is surprised to see Vijay in that place, who reveals that his real name is Vishal Malhotra, a special officer sent to investigate this case. She forgives him and the two make up.
1059280	Dennis Dexter Haysbert (born June 2, 1954), commonly referred to as The Allstate Guy, is an American film and television actor. He is known for portraying baseball player Pedro Cerrano in the "Major League" film trilogy, President David Palmer on the American television series "24", and Sergeant Major Jonas Blane on the drama series "The Unit", as well as his work in commercials for Allstate Insurance. Personal life. Dennis Dexter Haysbert was born in San Mateo, California, the son of Gladys (née Minor), a homemaker and house cleaner, and Charles Whitney Haysbert, Sr., a deputy sheriff and airline security guard. He is the eighth of nine children, having two sisters and six brothers. His parents were from Louisiana. Haysbert was raised Baptist. He graduated from San Mateo High School in 1972. After high school, measuring tall, he was offered various athletic scholarships, but instead chose to study acting at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. Haysbert is a divorced father of two. He announced in April 2009 that he was starting a TV, film, and documentary production company. His first project was to be a documentary for HBO about an up-and-coming boxer. During the 2010 California elections, Haysbert supported Democratic Senatorial Incumbent Barbara Boxer by appearing with her at campaign events as well as recording radio commercials. Career. Television. Haysbert has been acting in film and television since 1979, starting with a guest role in "The White Shadow". His television guest starring roles include "Lou Grant", "Growing Pains", "Laverne & Shirley", "The A-Team", "Night Court", "Dallas", "The Incredible Hulk", "Magnum, P.I." and "Buck Rogers in the 25th Century", in which Haysbert appears in the first season episode "A Dream of Jennifer" in a one-time role as a spaceport guard. In the second season, Haysbert becomes a crew member of the science starship "Searcher". Haysbert played "the helmsman" in the "The Guardians" (season 2, episode 3) which is currently available online at Hulu.. He has the most lines in "The Hand of the Goral" (season 2, episode 9), wherein he is named Lt. Parsons. and "Duckman". In 1993, he had a featured role in "Return to Lonesome Dove" as outlaw Cherokee Jack Jackson. In 1999, Haysbert starred with Eric Close in "Now and Again", which was cancelled after its first season. In 2001, Haysbert became better known when he was cast in "24" as U.S. Senator David Palmer, who served as America's first African American President (in the context of the show) during the second and third seasons. He also returned as a guest star in the last six episodes of season 4 and the first episode of season 5. He was nominated for a Golden Globe and for a Golden Satellite Award in 2002 for this role. Haysbert stated in an interview for the show that the three men he admires most—Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton and Colin Powell—collectively embody his idea of what a President should be. Haysbert believes that his playing of David Palmer on "24" helped Barack Obama—whom Haysbert supported—to win the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination. Haysbert was the first actor to portray DC Comics character Kilowog, a member of the Green Lantern Corps, in a medium outside of comics. He provided the voice of Kilowog on various episodes of "Justice League" and "Justice League Unlimited". On March 4, 2006, Haysbert guest starred on the "Saturday Night Live" episode hosted by Natalie Portman as the host of a live action/animated "TV Funhouse" cartoon called "Belated Black History Moment". In his role, Haysbert paid homage to fictional short-lived Saturday morning cartoons featuring black characters, such as Ladysmith Black Mambazo in Outer Space. He also portrayed Nelson Mandela in "Goodbye Bafana" (also released under the name "The Color of Freedom"). Haysbert portrayed the lead character Jonas Blane in the CBS action-drama "The Unit", which ended after its fourth season on May 10, 2009. Haysbert hosted and narrated the Military History Channel presentation of "Secrets of Pearl Harbor", which documented his scuba dives with a film team on World War II era Japanese and American warships in the Pacific Theater of action. In March 2013, Haysbert narrated the documentary "The World According to Dick Cheney" on the Showtime television channel Film. In 1989, Haysbert got his first major film role portraying Pedro Cerrano, a voodoo-practicing Cuban refugee baseball player, in the movie "Major League". In it, he uttered the memorable line: "Is very bad to steal Jobu's rum; is very bad". Haysbert followed that up with a role in 1990's "Navy SEALs", which also starred Charlie Sheen and Michael Biehn, before moving on to another baseball movie, "Mr. Baseball" with Tom Selleck. In 1991, he also starred in 'K-9000', where he played a police officer named Nick Sanrio. In 1992, he co-starred with Michelle Pfeiffer in "Love Field", a film about a series of events occurring contemporaneously with the assassination and funeral of President John F. Kennedy. In 1994, Haysbert reprised his role as Cerrano in "Major League II". This was followed by low key appearances in "Waiting to Exhale", "Heat", and "Absolute Power". In 1998, Haysbert made another appearance as Cerrano in "". In 1999, Haysbert played a police detective in three different films: "The Minus Man", "The Thirteenth Floor", and "Random Hearts". In 2000, Haysbert played the role of Zeke McCall in "Love & Basketball". In 2002, Haysbert played the role of gardener Raymond Deagan in "Far From Heaven". He won three awards (Satellite Award, Black Reel Award, and Washington DC Area Film Critics Association Award) for Best Supporting Actor for that role. In 2005, he had a supporting role in Sam Mendes's film, "Jarhead". In 2007, Haysbert returned to the big screen to portray Nelson Mandela in "Goodbye Bafana" and an FBI agent in "Breach". On December 5, 2012, "The Hollywood Reporter" reported that Haysbert will replace the recently deceased Michael Clark Duncan as Manute in "". Commercials. Haysbert is the official spokesman for the Allstate Insurance Company. His commercials typically end with one of the two Allstate Corporation official slogans, either "Are you in good hands?" or "That's Allstate's stand." More recently however his commercials have combined the two with "That's Allstate's stand. Are you in good hands?". In 2009–2010 Allstate used the Neil Sedaka song "Breaking Up Is Hard to Do" in television commercials to promote Allstate's car insurance. Breaking up is hard to do, the ads averred, unless one has an Allstate agent to undertake the deed for the customer (switching from another insurer to Allstate). The viewer learned that "breaking up is "easy" to do" as reassured on the screen by Haysbert. In his role as spokesman for Allstate, Haysbert officiated the coin toss prior to the 2007 Sugar Bowl between LSU and Notre Dame. In 2008, Haysbert was featured in national television ads to raise public awareness about lending discrimination. The ads were commissioned by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development's Office of Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity. In one of these ads, Haysbert warns consumers about lenders' targeting minorities for inferior loan products.
1068143	Isabelle Fuhrman (born February 25, 1997) is an American actress. She is known for playing Esther in the 2009 horror film "Orphan", and Clove in "The Hunger Games". Personal life. Isabelle Fuhrman was born in Washington D.C., on February 25, 1997, but grew up in Atlanta, Georgia. Her mother, Elina Fuhrman (née Kozmits), is a journalist who emigrated from Soviet Russia and has worked for CNN. Her father, Nick Fuhrman, is a former political candidate and business consultant. She has an older sister, Madeline Fuhrman, who is a singer and songwriter. Fuhrman resides with her family in Los Angeles, California. Career. Fuhrman's acting career began at the age of seven, when a casting director from Cartoon Network spotted her waiting for her older sister Madeline Fuhrman and cast her for one of the shows, "Cartoon Fridays". Fuhrman made her big screen debut just a few years later in the 2007 drama "Hounddog". The same year, Fuhrman was chosen to star in the movie "Orphan" alongside Vera Farmiga and Peter Sarsgaard. Fuhrman was cast through an exhaustive nationwide search of young actresses to portray the lead in the Warner Bros. collaboration between Leonardo DiCaprio's Appian Way and Joel Silver's Dark Castle Entertainment.
1066869	City Heat is a 1984 American action-comedy film starring Clint Eastwood and Burt Reynolds, and directed by Richard Benjamin. The film received its North American release in December 1984. The pairing of Eastwood and Reynolds was thought to have the potential to be a major hit. However, the film earned only $38.3 million at the box office, a profit on its $25 million budget. Plot. In an unnamed U.S. city near the end of Prohibition, a police lieutenant known by his last name, Speer (Eastwood), is acquainted with a former cop turned private eye named Mike Murphy (Reynolds). Speer and Murphy were once good friends, which changed after Murphy left the force. On a rainy night, Speer comes to a diner for coffee. Two goons arrive, looking for Murphy. They pounce the minute Murphy arrives, starting a fistfight. Speer, no fan of Murphy's, ignores the fight until a goon causes him to spill his coffee. Both goons are thrown through the front door. Murphy sarcastically thanks Speer for saving his life. The two rivals have eyes for Murphy's secretary Addy (Jane Alexander). She loves both and proves it when, after tenderly kissing Murphy goodbye, goes on a date with Speer. Murphy does have a new romantic interest, a rich socialite named Caroline Howley (Madeline Kahn), but finds himself unable to commit. Speer and Addy go to a boxing match at which the mob boss Primo Pitt (Rip Torn) is present. Murphy's partner Dehl Swift (Richard Roundtree) is also there, and seems to be in cahoots with Pitt and his gang. Swift is in possession of a briefcase whose contents, secret accounting records of rival gang boss Leon Coll's operations, are the target of both Pitt's and Coll's gangs. Swift, tailed by Speer and Addy, is confronted by Pitt's thugs at his apartment and is shot to death. A thug opens the briefcase but there's nothing inside. He picks up Swift's body and throws it out the window, where it lands on the roof of Speer's parked car (which is occupied by the horrified Addy, who waits after Speer goes to investigate in the apartment). Murphy vows revenge on Pitt for killing his partner. He asks Speer for assistance and they form a reluctant alliance. A witness to the murder is Swift's girlfriend, nightclub singer Ginny Lee (Irene Cara). After meeting with Murphy at a movie, Ginny is confronted by Pitt's thugs outside the theatre. As she tries to escape, she is hit by a car and seriously injured. Murphy and Speer vow to avenge her and also to rescue Caroline, who has been kidnapped by Pitt's gang to force Murphy to hand over the missing records. A final showdown with Pitt and his gang occurs in a warehouse (where Speer continuously and humorously keeps pulling out weapons larger than Murphy's) and in a bordello (where Murphy shows up in costume to rescue Caroline). As what's left of Pitt's gang are hauled off by police, Coll shows up holding Addy at gunpoint and demanding his records. Murphy and Speer hand over the briefcase in exchange for Addy, but the case is booby-trapped. Coll's car is blown up with Coll in it. In the end, the rivals have become friends again, at least until a casual remark leads to another all-out fight in a nightclub and ends with Speer and Murphy stepping outside and bickering, face to face. Production. Blake Edwards co-wrote the script, which was initially entitled "Kansas City Blues". Edwards was the original director of the film but was fired early on and replaced with Richard Benjamin. He retained co-writing credit under the pseudonym Sam O. Brown (The initials S.O.B. being a reference to his earlier film). Eastwood was cast as the lead, and received a $4 million salary. Filming began in February 1984, and on the first day, Reynolds was accidentally hit in the face with a metal chair during the filming of a fight scene. His jaw was broken and he was restricted to a liquid diet, causing him to lose over 30 pounds by the time filming wrapped. His condition made headlines in the tabloids, who suspected he had AIDS. Soundtrack. Clint Eastwood is one of the pianists heard on the film's jazz-oriented soundtrack. Eastwood is a real-life jazz aficionado. Release and reception. "City Heat" was released in United States theaters in December 1984. It grossed $38.3 million at the North American box office. The film was nominated for a Razzie Awards including Worst Actor for Reynolds. Critically, the film received lackluster reviews, with disappointment being expressed with the script and the pairing of the two iconic actors. No consensus exists at review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, though 10 of the 13 reviewers cited at the site gave the film a "rotten" review. On Roger Ebert's 0–4 scale, he gave it (half a star), asking "How do travesties like this get made?": Janet Maslin was more positive, saying "overdressed and overplotted as it is, "City Heat" benefits greatly from the sardonic teamwork of Clint Eastwood and Burt Reynolds. Without them the film would be eminently forgettable, but their bantering gives it an enjoyable edge." According to Maslin: he film ... manages to be both cumbersome and slight. As he did in "My Favorite Year" and, to some extent, in "Racing with the Moon", Richard Benjamin has settled on an evocative time period and a top-notch cast and more or less left things at that. "City Heat" devotes much more energy to props, sets and outfits than to the dramatic streamlining it so badly needed. The screenplay, which is part "Sting", part Sam Spade and part kitchen sink, is either a hopelessly convoluted genre piece or a much too subtle take-off on the same.
1102144	Niels Henrik Abel (5 August 1802 – 6 April 1829) was a Norwegian mathematician who, despite living in poor conditions and dying at the age of 26, made major contributions to mathematics. Abel was an innovator in the field of elliptic functions, discoverer of Abelian functions and a pioneer in the development of several branches of modern mathematics. Most of his work was done in six or seven years of his working life. Regarding Abel, the French mathematician Charles Hermite said: "Abel has left mathematicians enough to keep them busy for five hundred years." Another French mathematician, Adrien-Marie Legendre, said: ""quelle tête celle du jeune Norvégien!"" ("what a head the young Norwegian has!"). When asked how he developed his mathematical abilities so rapidly, he replied "by studying the masters, not their pupils." Life. Early life. Niels Henrik Abel was born in Nedstrand, Norway, as the second child of Søren Georg Abel and Anne Marie Simonsen. When he was born, the family was living at a rectory on Finnøy. Much suggests that Niels Henrik was born in the neighboring parish, as his parents were guests of the bailiff in Nedstrand in July / August of his year of birth. "Source: Skadberg, Gunnar A.: Ætt og heim 2004, chapter 5, Sogneprest Søren Georg Abel – Matematikerens far. ISBN 82-90087-65-9" Morten Kiærulf was appointed pastor for Nedstrand in 1829. He wrote in a letter in 1880 to professor Bjerknes in Valle, that he was told by locals that one of Abel's sons was born at former bailiff Marstrand's house in Nedstrand. "Source: Myhre, Sigmar: Ætt og heim 2009, chapter 6, Niels Henrik Abel – fødestaden. ISBN 978-82-90087-72-7"
480215	Mariah Waterfall O'Brien (born 1971) is an American film and television actress. Career. O'Brien is perhaps best known for her portrayal of "Beth" in the 1995 horror sequel "". Her feature film debut was a small role in the 1992 drama "Gas, Food Lodging", which starred Brooke Adams, Fairuza Balk and Ione Skye. She appeared in the highly acclaimed comedy drama "Being John Malkovich". She has had small roles in films including "Diamonds", "Ticker", and "The Mod Squad", which stars her then husband Giovanni Ribisi and Claire Danes. Larger roles include "Puzzled", in which she had the lead role, and the thriller "Ordinary Madness". She also appeared with Ribisi in the 1998 film "Some Girl" and the 2000 film "Pussykat". Her television credits includes the supernatural drama series "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" and "Charmed". Others include, "The Nanny", "Once and Again" and the short-lived sitcom "Courting Alex". Personal life. O'Brien was married to actor Giovanni Ribisi from March 18, 1997 to November 3, 2001; they have a daughter together, Lucia Santina (born August 6, 1997). Her mother is actress Jackie O'Brien, with whom she appeared in the film "Together & Alone".
589257	Mere Sanam (English: "My Lover" ) was a Hindi film released in 1965 starring Asha Parekh, Biswajeet, Pran, Rajendra Nath and Mumtaz. The film was a hit at the box office, especially because of the musical score by Majrooh Sultanpuri, O.P. Nayyar and Asha Bhonsle-Mohammed Rafi combination. The Songs 'Jaaiye Aap kahan jayenge', 'Yeh Hai Reshmi Zulfon Ka Andhera', 'Pukarta Chala Hoon Main' and 'Humdum Mere Maan Bhi Jao' are milestones in Hindi film music. This film is unofficial hindi remake of Come September is a 1961 romantic comedy film directed by Robert Mulligan, and starring Rock Hudson, Gina Lollobrigida, Sandra Dee and Bobby Darin. Plot. Neena (Asha Parekh) is travelling to a remote holiday spot in the company of her mother and several female friends. During their journey they decide to stay overnight at a lodge. Another lodger, Kumar (Biswajeet), finds their presence undesirable and asks the caretaker to get the surprised group to leave. The caretaker explains that Kumar is mentally unstable and under the impression that he is the owner of the lodge. After several misunderstandings Kumar and Neena fall in love and express their desire to get married. But subsequently Neena and her mother discover some intimate photographs of Kumar and a young woman named Kamo alias Kamini.
1099676	Thomas Bayes (; c. 1701 7 April 1761) was an English mathematician and Presbyterian minister, known for having formulated a specific case of the theorem that bears his name: Bayes's theorem. Bayes never published what would eventually become his most famous accomplishment; his notes were edited and published after his death by Richard Price. Biography. Thomas Bayes was the son of London Presbyterian minister Joshua Bayes and was possibly born in Hertfordshire. He came from a prominent nonconformist family from Sheffield. In 1719, he enrolled at the University of Edinburgh to study logic and theology. On his return around 1722, he assisted his father at the latter's chapel in London before moving to Tunbridge Wells, Kent around 1734. There he became minister of the Mount Sion chapel, until 1752. He is known to have published two works in his lifetime, one theological and one mathematical: It is speculated that Bayes was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1742 on the strength of the "Introduction to the Doctrine of Fluxions", as he is not known to have published any other mathematical works during his lifetime. In his later years he took a deep interest in probability. Stephen Stigler feels that he became interested in the subject while reviewing a work written in 1755 by Thomas Simpson, but George Alfred Barnard thinks he learned mathematics and probability from a book by de Moivre. His work and findings on probability theory were passed in manuscript form to his friend Richard Price after his death. By 1755 he was ill and in 1761 had died in Tunbridge. He was buried in Bunhill Fields Cemetery in Moorgate, London where many Nonconformists lie. Bayes's theorem. Bayes's solution to a problem of "inverse probability" was presented in "An Essay towards solving a Problem in the Doctrine of Chances" which was read to the Royal Society in 1763 after Bayes's death. Richard Price shepherded the work through this presentation and its publication in the "Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London" the following year. This was an argument for using a uniform prior distribution for a binomial parameter and not merely a general postulate. This essay contains a statement of a special case of Bayes's theorem. In the first decades of the eighteenth century, many problems concerning the probability of certain events, given specified conditions, were solved. For example, given a specified number of white and black balls in an urn, what is the probability of drawing a black ball? Attention soon turned to the converse of such a problem: given that one or more balls has been drawn, what can be said about the number of white and black balls in the urn? These are sometimes called "inverse probability" problems. The "Essay" of Bayes contains his solution to a similar problem, posed by Abraham de Moivre, author of "The Doctrine of Chances" (1718). In addition to the "Essay Towards Solving a Problem", a paper on asymptotic series was published posthumously. Bayes and Bayesianism. Bayesian probability is the name given to several related interpretations of probability, which have in common the notion of probability as something like a partial belief, rather than a frequency. This allows the application of probability to all sorts of propositions rather than just ones that come with a reference class. "Bayesian" has been used in this sense since about 1950. Since its rebirth in the 1950s, advancements in computing technology have allowed scientists from many disciplines to pair traditional Bayesian statistics with random walk techniques. The use of the Bayes theorem has been extended in science and in other fields. Bayes himself might not have embraced the broad interpretation now called Bayesian. It is difficult to assess Bayes's philosophical views on probability, since his essay does not go into questions of interpretation. There Bayes defines "probability" as follows (Definition 5). In modern utility theory, expected utility can (with qualifications, because buying risk for small amounts or buying security for big amounts also happen) be taken as the probability of an event times the payoff received in case of that event. Rearranging that to solve for the probability, Bayes's definition results. As Stigler points out, this is a subjective definition, and does not require repeated events; however, it does require that the event in question be observable, for otherwise it could never be said to have "happened". Stigler argues that Bayes intended his results in a more limited way than modern Bayesians; given Bayes's definition of probability, his result concerning the parameter of a binomial distribution makes sense only to the extent that one can bet on its observable consequences.
963821	Twist of Faith is a 2004 American documentary film directed by Kirby Dick about a man who confronts the Catholic Church about the abuse he suffered as a teenager. The film was produced for the cable network HBO and screened at the 2005 Sundance Film Festival. It received an Academy Award nomination for Best Documentary Feature. Content. The film focuses on Tony Comes, a firefighter from Toledo, Ohio, who was first sexually abused by a Catholic priest when he was a fourteen-year-old student at a Catholic high school. Feeling ashamed, Comes kept his secret for nearly 20 years but was forced to confront his past after discovering that the priest, Dennis Gray, was living on the same street as Comes, his wife, and their two young children. Comes decided to go public and bring a lawsuit against the priest and Church leaders who had neglected to take action after reading a series of investigative stories in the "Toledo Blade" revealing sweeping patterns of abuse and cover up in the diocese—including interviews with other Gray victims.
589442	Paying Guest is a 1957 Bollywood film directed by Subodh Mukherjee. The film stars Dev Anand and Nutan along with Shobha Khote. The soundtrack, composed by Sachin Dev Burman received a degree of popularity and made a lasting impression . The lyrics were written by Majrooh Sultanpuri. "Paying Guest" was the second hit film of the team of Mukherjee, Hussain, Dev Anand and S. D. Burman, who had combined two years earlier to make the successful "Munimji".
584615	Aalavandhan (English: "Ruler to-be") is a 2001 Indian Tamil action-thriller film directed by Suresh Krishna, starring Kamal Haasan in dual roles, with Raveena Tandon, Manisha Koirala, Vallabh Vyas, and Milind Gunaji in supporting roles. The film's soundtrack was composed by Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy and the background score by late Mahesh Mahadevan.
744176	John Sharian is an American actor whose film credits include "The Machinist" and "Saving Private Ryan" and whose television credits include "" and "Spooks". Education. Born in Connecticut, John Sharian attended the Taft School in Watertown, Connecticut and later the Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio, which he left in 1984. Career. Sharian graduated from the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School in 1991 and began television acting shortly thereafter, appearing in the British sci-fi comedy series Red Dwarf in 1992. Sharian's film career began in 1994 with his role as one of the leads in "Death Machine" and later in the American movies "Lost in Space" and "Saving Private Ryan". He also appeared in "The Machinist" alongside Christian Bale.
1163303	Leigh Taylor-Young (born January 25, 1945) is an American actress who has appeared on stage, screen, and television. Early life. Leigh Taylor-Young was born on January 25, 1945, in Washington, D.C. Her last name is an amalgamation of the last names of her father, a diplomat, and her stepfather, a successful Detroit executive. Her younger siblings are actress and sculptor Dey Young and writer/director Lance Young. Taylor-Young was raised in Oakland County, Michigan, and graduated from Groves High School in Beverly Hills, Michigan, in 1963. Before attending Northwestern University as an economics major, she spent a summer shifting scenery and sweeping up at a Detroit little theater. However, she left before graduating to pursue a full-time acting career, making her professional debut on Broadway in "Three Bags Full". About dropping out of college, the actress explained: Career. 1960s. Taylor-Young got her first big break in 1966, when she was cast as Rachel Welles in the prime time soap opera "Peyton Place". Her character was written in the show as a replacement for the character of Allison MacKenzie, previously played by Mia Farrow. The show's producer, Everett Chambers, cast her because of her "great warmth and sweet angelic qualities not unlike Mia". At the time she received the role, Taylor-Young had been in California for only a few days. She initially went there in April 1966 to recuperate from an attack of pneumonia. She impressed the head producer of "Peyton Place", Paul Monash, with a performance from "The Glass Menagerie" and was immediately signed a seven-year television and multiple motion picture contract. Shortly after, she told the press: "I'd have preferred to stay in New York to establish myself as an actress before coming to Hollywood." It was on this series that she met Ryan O'Neal, whom she later married. Taylor-Young had difficulty working on the show, explaining in an April 1967 interview: Despite the huge amount of publicity she received while working on "Peyton Place", Taylor-Young left the soap opera in 1967 due to her pregnancy. Following this, she pursued a career in films, landing a lucrative seven-year contract with a major studio. Her first film role came opposite Peter Sellers in the 1968 comedy, "I Love You, Alice B. Toklas". The film was commercially successful, and she received a Golden Globe Award nomination for Most Promising Female Newcomer. This was followed by her appearance with husband Ryan O'Neal in "The Big Bounce" in 1969. 1970s. For the next several years, her pictures tended to be high budget films, such as "The Adventurers" and "The Horsemen". She is perhaps best known for her performance as Shirl, the "furniture" girl, in the 1973 science fiction classic "Soylent Green". For almost ten years after her appearance in "Soylent Green", however, her career went into an extended hiatus as she concentrated on raising her son Patrick O'Neal. 1980s. The 1980s saw Leigh Taylor-Young return to both film and television, where her looks and voice often led to casting in roles of an aristocratic bent. In 1981, she appeared in the high tech Michael Crichton production "Looker". In 1985, she was cast as Virginia Howell in "Jagged Edge", and appeared in the romantic comedy film "Secret Admirer". In addition to her film work, Taylor-Young guest-starred on such television series as "McCloud", "Fantasy Island", "The Love Boat", "Hart to Hart", "Hotel" and "". She returned to her soap opera roots in 1983, appearing in the short-lived primetime series "The Hamptons". From 1987 to 1989, she played Kimberly Cryder, a recurring character on "Dallas", her first role in a major prime time soap since "Peyton Place". Despite being best known for her film and television work, she has stated a preference for live theatre where her career began. A favorite of Samuel Beckett, she starred opposite Donald Davis in the Irish playwright’s one act play "Catastrophe" (included in a trilogy of one-act plays billed as "The Beckett Plays") at the Edinburgh International Festival in 1984. "Catastrophe" with Taylor-Young also toured Los Angeles, New York City, and London. 1990s and 2000s. Taylor-Young's recent film credits have included minor roles in "Honeymoon Academy" (1990), "Bliss" (1997), and "Slackers" (2002), as well as direct-to-video films "Addams Family Reunion" (1998) and "Klepto" (2003). Perhaps her best-known television work was on the CBS series "Picket Fences", in which she played mercurial mayor Rachel Harris from 1993 through 1995. She won an Emmy Award for the role in 1994, for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series, as well as a Golden Globe nomination the following year. From 2004 through 2007, she played Katherine Barrett Crane on the soap opera "Passions". In addition to her roles on "Picket Fences" and "Passions", Taylor-Young has also appeared on series such as "The Young Riders", "Murder, She Wrote", "Sunset Beach", "Malibu Shores", "7th Heaven" and "Life". She also had recurring roles on "Beverly Hills, 90210", "The Pretender", and UPN's "The Sentinel". Taylor-Young has also appeared in a handful of television films, including "Perry Mason: The Case of the Sinister Spirit" (1987), "Who Gets the Friends?", and "Stranger in My Home" (1997). Personal life. Leigh Taylor-Young married Ryan O'Neal, her "Peyton Place" co-star, in 1967. Their wedding was a spontaneous one: While in Hawaii for a promotion for "Peyton Place", an ABC manager offered the couple to marry at his home. The marriage produced a son, Patrick O'Neal, but Leigh and O'Neal divorced in 1973. Taylor-Young is an ordained minister in the Movement of Spiritual Inner Awareness, which was co-founded by her partner, John Morton. Leigh and John Morton married on January 1, 2013.
1016698	72 Tenants of Prosperity (72家租客) is a 2010 Hong Kong comedy film produced by the Shaw Brothers Studio, Television Broadcasts Limited, United Filmmakers Organization, Sil-Metropole Organisation and Sun Wah Media Group. It was directed by Eric Tsang and starred Tsang himself and various other actors. It was released in Hong Kong, Malaysia, Australia, and New Zealand on 11 February 2010. This film used the 1973 film "The House of 72 Tenants" as a blueprint. However, this story is a new creation, of which only some roles identical. This is the first film to introduce the new 2010 Shaw opening theme with a shortened version of the original fanfare. The film spoofs other movies such as "Ip Man" and "Murderer", and makes references to Hong Kong culture and events that were figured in the media that year, such as the death of Michael Jackson and the Mong Kok acid attacks. Plot. In 1970s Hong Kong, rapacious landlords try to evict 72 tenants but sworn brothers Ha Kung and Shek Kin help the group of 72 defeat the landlord and landlady and coincidentally rescue Pinky from a planned forced marriage. When both sworn brothers fall for Pinky and propose to her, she flips a coin heads or tails, they both cheated during the toss but Ha wins her hand in marriage.
395795	Kim Hee-chul (, born 10 July 1983), mononymously credited as Heechul, is a South Korean singer, actor, and presenter. He is a member of South Korean boy band Super Junior and its subgroup, Super Junior-T. On 1 September 2011, Heechul enlisted for his mandatory military service. He is serving as a public service worker for 23 months, after undergoing four weeks of basic training at the Nonsan military camp in Chungcheongnam-do Province. He completed his military service on August 30, 2013. Biography. Pre-debut. Kim was discovered at Starlight Casting System October 2002 where he auditioned with his friends. Initially, he was placed in a four-member project group called, "Four Seasons". This group included members Jaejoong, Yunho, and Kangin. They never debuted as Jaejoong and Yunho joined boy band TVXQ, who debuted in December 2003. Kim and Kangin joined ten other trainees and formed the group Super Junior 05, being the first generation of the rotational boy band Super Junior. Other activities before his debut include modeling, acting, and VJing. He made his first appearance on TV starring in the teen drama "Banolim 2". Like bandmate Kibum, Kim made his first television appearance as an actor before the debut of Super Junior. He starred in the 2005 teen drama, "Sharp 2," in which he acted alongside Kibum. Not long afterwards, Kim appeared in an episode of "Loveholic" as a chef trainee. He was a regular MC for the cable music show "Show! Music Tank". 2005-2006: Debut with Super Junior. Kim Heechul officially debut as part of 12-member project group "Super Junior 05" on 6 November 2005 on SBS's music programme "Popular Songs", performing their first single, "TWINS (Knock Out)". Their debut album "SuperJunior05 (Twins)" was released a month later on 5 December 2005 and debuted at #3 on the monthly MIAK K-pop album charts. In March 2006, SM Entertainment began to recruit new members for the next Super Junior generation. However, plans changed and the company declared a halt in forming future Super Junior generations. Following the addition of thirteenth member Kyuhyun, the group dropped the suffix "05" and became officially credited as Super Junior. The re-polished group's first CD single "U" was released on 7 June 2006, which was their most successful single until the release of "Sorry, Sorry" in March 2009. After the debut of Super Junior, he teamed with Kibum again to star in the sixth season of "Nonstop", alternatively known as "Rainbow Romance". In 2006, he starred as supporting character Gong Min in "Bad Family". In 2007, he starred in family drama "Golden Bride" as Kim Young-soo. Kim also appeared on variety shows such as "Vitamin", "Sponge", "Xman" and "Love Letter", as well as radio DJ on "SBS Power FM Youngstreet" with Park Heebon, till mid-2006. 2007-2008: Sub-group and MC. In 2007, Kim became part of a Super Junior sub-group, Super Junior-T, which debuted on 23 February with the Trot single "Rokuko!!!". Kim participated in Super Junior's second album "Don't Don", the band's "Super Show" tour, and filmed Super Junior's first movie "Attack on the Pin-Up Boys". He substituted for Andy of Shinhwa on SBS music programme "Inkigayo" on numerous occasions and became permanent host. He hosted the programme with Ku Hye Sun from 23 April 2006 to 18 February 2007, and with Jang Keun-suk from 25 February to 7 October 2007, then with Song Ji-hyo between 11 November 2007 and 4 May 2008. In 2008, Kim debut as musical actor starring as Sonny, rotating with Kangin in "Xanadu". It played from 9 September to 23 November 2008 at Doosan Art Center, Yeonji-dong in Seoul. Auditions and casting were done via a reality television programme, "To Be Kangin and Heechul", which also served to promote the musical. Kim was on a TV show called "Joahseo" or "Good Daddy", where he and three other celebrities, including Lee HongKi from FT Island, learned to be good fathers by caring for a "daughter". He was also in "Band of Brothers" with benad mate Kangin, and label mates Jungmo and Jay of "TRAX". Where the band paid tribute to different groups during their showcase at the end of the program. 2009-2010. Kim co-MC the "2009 Dream Concert" with Song Ji-hyo, which was held at the Seoul World Cup Stadium on 10 October. After the 55-episode drama "Loving You Ten Million Times" ended in early 2010, from where he released his first solo single, "First Star" (초별, Chobyul) from the drama's OST on 6 November 2009. Heechul returned to SBS radio as DJ to host radio program, "HeeChul's Young Street". The show went on-air on 29 March 2010 and mark his first comeback as a DJ in four years, but left mid-2011. In May 2010, he joined as a regular cast member on "Family Outing 2", however the show was cancalled two months later due to low ratings. On October 9, 2010, he created a personal Facebook, which collected 5,000 friend requests within 5 minutes. He was also a worldwide trending topic on Twitter for four days (from 9 Oct 2010 to 12 Oct 2010). 2011-present: M&D and military enlistment. Kim formed a project group, M&D, with label mate, Kim Jungmo of TRAX in 2011. M&D stands for "midnight and dawn", and also the hometowns of Jungmo and Heechul, "Miari and Dangae-dong". The music video of their debut track, "Close Ur Mouth", directed by Heechul, was released on 23 June 2011. Heechul wrote the lyrics while Jungmo wrote and played all the instruments for the song. They performed their debut stage at Mnet’s summer awards ceremony, "20’s Choice" on 7 July 2011. He was one of the four MCs on the "Radio Star" segment of "Golden Fishery" on MBC and band mate Kyuhyun took over for him when he enlisted. and "Secret" of "Saturday Freedom" on KBS. On 1 September 2011, Kim enlisted for his mandatory military service. He is serving as a public service worker for 23 months, after undergoing four weeks of basic training at the Nonsan military camp in Chungcheongnam-do Province.He completed his military service on August 30, 2013. On 27 September 2011, the single "Breakups are So Like Me" by Kim Jang-hoon was released, which featured Heechul, who also starred in the music video. It was completed the day before his enlistment, hence his parts during the performance on Music Bank and Show! Music Core, was filled in by bandmates, Yesung, Eunhyuk and Shindong, who performed with Kim Jang Hoon. Car accident. On 10 August 2006, Heechul was involved in a car accident while heading back to Seoul from Mokpo after attending the funeral of fellow Super Junior member Donghae’s father. The tires malfunctioned while his car attempted to switch lanes. Heechul fractured his left leg in five places, including his femur, knee, and ankle, requiring him to be in surgery for six hours. He also sustained other injuries, including a tear in his tongue which required stitches.
589521	Bhagwan Dada (1 August 1913 – 4 February 2002) also credited as Bhagwan was an Indian actor and film director who work in Hindi cinema. He is best known for his social film "Albela" (1951) and the song "Shola Jo Bhadke". Early life. Bhagwan Dada was born in 1913 as Bhagwan Abhaji Palav. He was the son of a textile mill worker but was obsessed with films. He worked as a labourer but dreamt of films. He got his break with bit roles in silent films and got totally involved with the studios. He learnt film making and at one stage used to make low-budget films "(in which he arranged for everything including the design of costumes and arranging meals for the cast)" for Rs65000 "(at that time US$ = Rs.5-6 so roughly $10000 to 11000 - that's 1US$ = Rs.50 as per today's conversion)". Films. Bhagwan Abhaji Palav, popularly known as Bhagwan dada, mainly due to his love for wrestling, made his debut in silent era with the film "Criminal". He co-directed his first film Bahadur Kisan with Pawar in 1938. From 1938 to 1949 he directed a string of low budget stunt and action films that were popular with the working classes. He usually played a naive simpleton. One of the notable films that he made during this period was the Tamil film "Vana Mohini" (1941) that starred M. K. Radha and Sri Lankan actress Thavamani Devi. In 1942, as part of a scene, he had to slap actress Lalita Pawar hard. He accidentally slapped her very hard, which resulted in facial paralysis and a burst left eye vein. Three years of treatment later Pawar was left with a defective left eye. He turned producer in 1942 with Jagruti Pictures and owned Jagriti Studios in Chembur in 1947. On advice from Raj Kapoor he turned to making a social film called "Albela" starring Bhagwan and Geeta Bali, and featuring music by his friend Chitalkar, or C. Ramchandra. The songs of the film, in particular "Shola jo bhadke" are still remembered. Albela was a huge hit. After Albela, C Ramchandra and Geeta Bali got together again in Jhamela and La'Bela but they both flopped. 1956 - Lyricists Anand Bakshi got his first break in films when Actor Producer Bhagwan Dada signed him for four songs for Brij Mohan’s film, “Bhala Aadmi”, in 1956, a stunt film. later when Bakshi saw his name in the films credits, he cried in happiness. He was also paid (Rs.150/- ) for his first 4 songs. His first recorded song was – "Dharti Ke Laal Na Kar Itna Malaal, Dharti tere Liye Tu Dharti Ke Liye." (Anand Bakshi once again began his struggle when he arrived in Bombay to find work in films the 2nd time – in October 1956, meeting people, hopping from one studio to another. To make matters worse, his money ran out in three months, "I was at the end of my tether," he grins today, "I didn't know what to do. I thought I should return home. But I was embarrassed. What would my family say?" Then Bakshi heard that Bhagwan Dada was launching a film, "Bhala Aadmi". "I went to his office at Dadar", Bakshi flashbacks. "I told him I was a song-writer. Right away he asked me to write four songs. I was paid Rs150 for those songs. It was a whopping sum those days. Recorded 1st song on 9.11.1956." - Anand Bakshi said in a press print interview.) After the success of “Jab Jab Phool Khile”, Bhagwan dada met Anand Bakshi in a big film party, and advised him, “Bakshi saheb, Khushi Ki Baat hai, Aap ka naam ho gaya hai. Magar ek baat yaad rakhna, ke yahan film industry mein aadmi ko naam se zyada uss ka kaam zinda rakhta hai.” Bakshi never ever forgot that golden advice. Anand Bakshi went on to write almost 3500 Hindi film lyrics for almost 650 Hindi films from 1956 to 2008 and beyond. Poverty and later life. After that Bhagwan did not have any more hits and eventually had to give up producing and directing films, sell his bungalow and cars and move to a chawl. He took whatever roles he could get, but apart from "Jhanak Jhanak Payal Baje" and "Chori Chori", none were roles of note, and he eventually took on bit parts in which he did his famous dance (made even more famous by Amitabh Bachchan using it as his default dance step). Most of Bhagwan's associates left him in his time of need, apart from C. Ramchandra, Om Prakash and lyricist Rajinder Krishan, who continued to meet him even in his chawl. Bhagwan died of a massive heart attack at his residence in Dadar in 2002 at age 89. All his friends died long before him.
900625	Romanzo criminale (, "Criminal Novel") is an Italian-language film released in 2005, directed by Michele Placido, a criminal drama, it was highly acclaimed and won 15 awards. It is based on Giancarlo De Cataldo's 2002 novel, which is in turn inspired by the Banda della Magliana true story. The Magliana gang was one of the most powerful Italian criminal associations, dominating Rome's drug, gambling and other kinds of crime activities from the early 1970s to 1992 (death of Enrico De Pedis). The gang's affiliates start their career kidnapping rich people, drug dealing (hashish, cocaine, heroin, etc.) from the 1970s they started working with the Italian secret service, fascists, terrorists, the Sicilian Mafia, Camorra and many more. Some gang members are still alive, as inmates of an Italian prison, or justice collaborators. In 2008 a spin-off TV series commenced broadcasting ("Romanzo criminale – La serie"). Plot. In 1960s Rome, four young delinquents, nicknamed Ice, Lebanese, Dandy and Grand steal a car. Crashing through a police road block, the driver, Grand is crushed by the steering column. Back at their hideout, a small disused caravan near a beach, they are discovered by the police. Ice, Lebanese and Dandy run away, but are captured. Grand, who is mortally wounded, dies in the caravan. Roll opening credits. Some years later, in the 1970s, Ice is released from prison, and met by Lebanese, who tells him he has come up with a plan to kidnap and hold to ransom Baron Rossellini, a wealthy aristocrat whom Lebanese's parents worked for. He has formed a gang with Dandy - they are Black, Bright Eye, Ricotta, Bufalo, Rat and Ciro and Aldo Buffoni. After negotiating the ransom of 3 billion lire, whilst trying to get the Baron to pose for a proof of life, Lebanese shoots him. Nonetheless, they fake the proof of life, and get the 3 billion lire. However, the local Police Commissioner Nicola Scialoja manages to record the serial numbers of the ransom money before the gang receive it, setting out to capture the gang. As the gang divide up the money, Lebanese proposes to split 500 million lire between them, and use the remaining 2.5 billion to build a foothold in the criminal underworld of Rome, starting with drug dealing. However, the drugs racket is owned by the dealer Terrible, and so the gang wipe his gang out apart from Gemito, who Lebanese bribes to help them. After his home is raided and his body guards killed, Terrible wakes to find Ice, Lebanese and Dandy in his bedroom. Cornered, he reluctantly agrees to let give control of the racket to the gang.
1224152	Terry Kinney (born January 29, 1954) is an American actor and theatre director, and is a founding member of the Steppenwolf Theatre Company, with Gary Sinise and Jeff Perry. Kinney is best known for his role as Emerald City creator Tim McManus on HBO's prison drama "Oz" Early life. Kinney was born in Lincoln, Illinois, the son of Elizabeth L. (née Eimer), a telephone operator, and Kenneth C. Kinney, a tractor company supervisor. He attended Illinois State University, in Normal, Illinois, where he became friends with Jeff Perry, who took him to see a performance of "Grease" featuring Gary Sinise, bringing the three Steppenwolf Theatre Company co-founders together for the first time. Career. Theatre. Kinney has been involved in theatre since 1974, when he, Gary Sinise and Jeff Perry founded the Steppenwolf Theatre Company. In describing the company's radical usage of cinematic techniques such as accelerated time, substantial soundtracks and the rough equivalent of dissolves and bleeds, Kinney had said:We’ve always been more influenced by cinematic techniques than stage techniques because stage techniques have been around long enough to become really boring and cliché. Our earliest influences were the films of Cassavetes, not any plays we’d seen. We always tend to score our pieces and we always tend to manipulate the audience to look where we want them to look and the way to do that is to get very tight on certain situations.He has directed several plays (see below) and performed in several. In 1985 he performed in the Drama Desk Award winning play "Balm in Gilead" by Lanford Wilson. In 1996 Kinney played Tilden in the Sam Shepard play "Buried Child" directed by Gary Sinise in New York City. During a performance of "Buried Child" Kinney had a "terrible, horrible, screaming panic attack" and stayed offstage for several years, only returning in 2002 in a performance with Kurt Elling called "Petty Delusions and Grand Obsessions". He directed Richard Greenberg's play "Well Appointed Room" in 2006 and Neil Labute's "reasons to be pretty" in 2009. In 2010 he directed another Lanford Wilson play, "Fifth of July" for Bay Street Theatre (July) and for the Williamstown Theatre Festival (August). In October–November 2012 Kinney directs "Checkers" a new play by Douglas McGrath at the Vineyard Theatre, New York City. He's slated to direct Lyle Kessler's new play "Collision" in January 2013 at Rattlestick Playwrights Theater. Film and TV. Besides his theatrical work Kinney has done much acting, mainly for TV, starting in 1985 with an appearance in "Miami Vice". In 1987, he starred as Pastor Tom Bird in the CBS miniseries "Murder Ordained" opposite JoBeth Williams. He is perhaps best known for his portrayal of the idealistic unit manager Tim McManus on HBO's prison drama "Oz". In 1995, Kinney co-starred with Tommy Lee Jones in an adaptation of an Elmer Kelton western novel titled "The Good Old Boys". Tommy Lee Jones directed this made for TV movie which also co-starred Sissy Spacek, Matthew Damon, Sam Shepard, Wilford Brimley and retired Texas Ranger H. Joaquin Jackson. Kinney also directed two episodes of "Oz", "Cruel and Unusual Punishments" in 1999 and "Wheel of Fortune" in 2002. Explaining the experience, he said, "it was great training for shooting on a limited budget, on a time crunch." His film work includes a role in the 1988 film "Miles from Home", which featured many cast members of Steppenwolf and was directed by Sinise. In 1995, he played mayoral candidate Todd Carter in Carl Franklin's film "Devil in a Blue Dress". 1999 saw the release of the indie film, "The Young Girl and the Monsoon", about Hank, a 39-year-old photo-journalist dealing with a demanding job and a growing daughter, and Kinney played the lead. In 2001, he played the estranged father of the protagonist, Sara Johnson (Julia Stiles), in the film "Save the Last Dance". In 2006 Kinney directed a short film (18 minutes) called "Kubuku Rides (This Is It)", which portrays the effects of drug addiction of a mother as seen by her young son. The film is based on the short story by Larry Brown. It is the first film produced by Steppenwolf Films. In 2008, he directed "Diminished Capacity", a feature film with a big Steppenwolf presence, based on the Sherwood Kiraly novel of that name. For TV, in 2008, Kinney was Deputy Attorney General Zach Williams in "Canterbury's Law", a short-lived Fox series. In 2009, he played Sergeant Harvey Brown in the ABC series, "The Unusuals", and in the same year he had a recurring role as Special Agent Sam Bosco on the hit CBS series, "The Mentalist". 2010 saw a pilot for a CBS drama called "The Line", starring Dylan Walsh as ATF Agent Donovan with Kinney as a complex criminal, Alex Gunderson, that Donovan is hunting. The series was to be based on a novel by Robert Gregory Browne called ""Kiss Her Goodbye"". (Browne said that the show was tentatively called ""ATF"".) In 2011 Kinney had a recurring role in the North American adaptation of "Being Human" as Heggemann, an 1,100 year old Dutch vampire. In April 2012 he starred in the CBS police procedural drama "NYC 22" as Field Training Officer Daniel "Yoda" Dean. However after four episodes "NYC 22" was axed. Kinney also guest starred as Salvatore Amato, a member of a Chicago crime family, in the new Fox drama "The Mob Doctor" premiering in September 2012. Kinney was cast as series regular on ABC drama series "The Black Box" opposite Kelly Reilly and Vanessa Redgrave, set to air on ABC in 2014. Private life. Kinney was married to Elizabeth Perkins from 1984 to 1988. From 1993 to 2005, he was married to his "Oz" costar Kathryn Erbe, with whom he has a daughter, Maeve (b. 1995), and a son, Carson (b. 2003).
1502399	Catherine Elizabeth âCadyâ Huffman (born February 2, 1965) is a Tony Award-winning American actress. Biography. Early life. Huffman was born in Santa Barbara, California to Lorayne, a pre-school assistant director turned realtor, and Clifford Huffman, an attorney. She is the younger sister of actor Linus Huffman and automotive writer John Pearley Huffman whose work often appears in "Car and Driver" magazine and The New York Times. She attended public schools in Santa Barbara (skipping the fourth grade) and graduated from the local San Marcos High School in June 1982. Huffman started performing in Santa Barbara's very active local theater community well before her teenage years. She also studied ballet at The Goleta School of Ballet and performed numerous classical ballets with the school's company. The Santa Barbara theater also produced such notable actors as Eric Stoltz, Anthony Edwards, Randolph Mantooth, Howard McGillin, and Kathleen Wilhoite. Career. Huffman first came to Broadway as a replacement cast member in the hit musical "La Cage aux Folles" (1985), and was quickly cast in Bob Fosse's "Big Deal," to be followed by a Tony-Award nomination for her performance in "The Will Rogers Follies" (1991). In 2001, she played the role of Ulla in the original cast of the Broadway musical "The Producers", by Mel Brooks. Huffman received the Tony Award for Best Performance by a Featured Actress in a Musical for the role. She made her film debut in the 1992 film "Hero" which stars Dustin Hoffman, Geena Davis, and Andy GarcĂ­a. She has since appeared in "Space Marines", "Romance & Cigarettes", and "The Nanny Diaries". She also appeared in the 2010 film "The Company Men" alongside Ben Affleck, Kevin Costner, Tommy Lee Jones, and Chris Cooper. During 2003 and 2004, she produced, starred in and acted as production designer for the independent film "Sunday On The Rocks" directed by Joe Morton.
1790434	Karen Sheila Gillan (born 28 November 1987) is a Scottish actress and former model, best known for her portrayal of Amy Pond in the British science fiction series "Doctor Who". Personal life and education. Karen Gillan was born and raised in Inverness, Scotland, UK. She is the only child of John Gillan (full name Raymond John Gillan), a Day Care Officer, and mother, Marie Gillan (née Paterson), who live in Kinmylies. She learned to play the piano when she was seven. At a young age, she developed a love for acting, joining several local youth theatre groups and taking part in a wide range of productions at her school, Charleston Academy. When she turned 16, Gillan moved to Edinburgh and completed an HNC Acting and Performance course at Telford College. She then moved to London at 18 to study at the Italia Conti Academy of Theatre Arts drama school in the BA (Hons) Acting degree course. In 2011, Gillan helped promote "Fashion Targets Breast Cancer (FTBC)" and the opening of "Squirrel Ward" in Great Ormond Street Hospital. During an interview with Craig Ferguson on " The Late Late Show", she confirmed she now lives in Los Angeles. Career. Modeling. While studying at Italia Conti Gillan was scouted by a modeling agency. Gillan worked as a model in 2007's London Fashion Week for designer Allegra Hicks' autumn/winter catwalk show and the launch party of Nicola Roberts' Dainty Doll Make-Up Range. This was shown in Roberts' episode of the documentary, "The Passions of Girls Aloud" which premiered on 4 April 2008. Gillan has said she would not give up her acting career to return to modeling. She stated that she enjoyed modeling but acting was always her main interest and goal. Acting. Gillan's early television acting career included guest appearances on several drama series, with her first ongoing role being a two-year stint as a member of the ensemble cast of the sketch comedy series "The Kevin Bishop Show" in which she played multiple characters, as well as celebrities such as Katy Perry and Angelina Jolie. She appeared in Channel 4's "Stacked"; she had the part of Ginny. Gillan also appeared on TV in a leading role in a horror project entitled "The Well", which was broadcast as a series of episodic short films on BBC Two, and then later also as a web series on BBC.co.uk. Part of the BBC's multimedia "switch" programming, the short episodes interconnect with online games that further explore the environments presented in the series. She was cast for the role of the Eleventh Doctor's first companion, Amy Pond, on the British sci-fi series "Doctor Who" in May 2009. She made her first on-screen appearance as Amy Pond in "The Eleventh Hour" with her cousin Caitlin Blackwood portraying a young Amelia (Amy) Pond. She was confirmed in Issue 420 of the "Doctor Who Magazine" to be appearing in the 2011 series. Gillan had appeared in "Doctor Who" once before in the 2008 episode "The Fires of Pompeii" in the role of a Soothsayer. Gillan made her first theatre appearance playing the role of Shirley in John Osborne's play "Inadmissible Evidence" along with Douglas Hodge. The play debuted at the Donmar Warehouse on 16 October 2011. During an interview at the 2011 San Diego Comic-Con, Gillan revealed she would be returning to "Doctor Who" for its seventh series. On 15 December 2011, it was announced Gillan and Arthur Darvill (Rory Williams) would be leaving "Doctor Who" during the seventh series in 2012. On 26 January 2012, Karen Gillan played the part of supermodel Jean Shrimpton in the BBC Four film "We'll Take Manhattan", which told the story of Shrimpton's relationship with the photographer David Bailey. In August 2011, it was announced Gillan would star in an indie Scottish rom-com called "Not Another Happy Ending" alongside Emun Elliott. She was picked by director John McKay because he came to know her during the production of "We'll Take Manhattan", which he also directed, as "a very bubbly, vibrant, energetic, funny, slightly clumsy person" who was a perfect fit for the character. Filming took place in July 2012, though Elliott was replaced by Stanley Weber. Gillan told journalists that she was happy to be involved in a Scottish production that "isn't about drug use or fighting the English". The film is set to premiere at the Edinburgh International Film Festival in June 2013. . Gillan is to star in a supernatural horror pic called "Oculus" cast in the lead role and filmed in Alabama. She revealed that she has been cast in comedian Charlie Brooker's TV series A "Touch of Cloth". Gillan has also been cast in a film titled ' The List ' which began filming in Los Angeles in May 2013. "FHM" magazine ranked Gillan #42 in FHM's 100 Sexiest Women 2011. In 2012 they also ranked her #36. Gillan has also voiced adverts for eHarmony and The Royal Bank of Scotland. In May 2013, Gillan was cast as Nebula in the superhero science fiction film "Guardians of the Galaxy", scheduled for release in 2014. Gillan revealed that she shaved her head to play Nebula to a stunned audience during the 2013 San Diego Comic-Con International on July 20. Gillan joined the regular cast of Adult Swim's "" for the show's third season in 2013. References. Notes
1787230	Melanie Blatt (born 25 March 1975) is an English singer-songwriter and actress turned television presenter. She rose to fame in 1997 as a member of the BRIT Award-winning girl group All Saints. The group have gained five number one singles, two multi-platinum albums, two BRIT Awards and have sold over 10 million records worldwide making them one of the best-selling girl groups of all time, and the second best-selling girl group in the UK. Melanie Blatt began recording a solo album in 2003, working with numerous producers including Xenomania and released her debut solo single "Do Me Wrong" in 2003. Blatt was later dropped by her record label, and her solo album was cancelled. In 2005, she made a return to music with her single "See Me", and began recording another album independently which was later shelved and cancelled in favour of the All Saints reunion. As of 2013, she is a judge on the first season of "The X Factor NZ". Early life. Blatt was born at University College Hospital in the London Borough of Camden and is named after Melanie Safka. She has a French-Jewish mother and an English father of Jewish descent whose ancestors were from Poland and Russia and a younger sister named Jasmine. She was brought up in both the UK and France. In 1986, Blatt was diagnosed as having scoliosis. Since her parents were not satisfied with the treatment for the condition in the United Kingdom they decided to move to France, where a specialist inserted three metal rods in her back. Blatt went to Fitzjohn's Primary School where her musical talent was immediately noticed by the music teacher David Joyner, who encouraged her parents to send her to a stage school. In 1986, she attended the Sylvia Young Theatre School where she met Nicole Appleton. The two girls became best friends. During this period, Blatt also played young Eponine in "Les Misérables" for six months, and was the understudy for Cosette together with fellow Sylvia Young student Denise van Outen. Career. 1993–2001: All Saints. In 1993, Blatt sang under the name Melanie Guillaume in the band Drive with Julienne Davis. They released one single, "Curfew", together. She also did backing vocals for Dreadzone with Denise van Outen. Later that year, Blatt met Shaznay Lewis at the Metamorphosis recording studio in All Saints Road, London. Together, with Simone Rainford, they formed the group All Saints 1.9.7.5 which was later renamed to All Saints when Rainford left and Nicole and Natalie Appleton joined Blatt and Lewis.
582071	Amrita Rao (born 7 June 1981) is an Indian actress and model. Amrita made her acting debut with "Ab Ke Baras" (2002). She was then noticed in romance "Ishq Vishk" (2003) which was followed by commercial successes like "" and "Main Hoon Na" (both 2004). Her biggest commercial success was the blockbuster romance "Vivah" (2006). Her other successful films include comedies "Welcome to Sajjanpur" (2008) and "Jolly LLB" (2013). She has won and been nominated for several awards including two nominations of Filmfare in Best Debut and Best Supporting Actress categories. Personal life. Amrita belongs to Mumbai, India. Her father owns an advertising company in Mumbai and also turned author in 2008. She speaks Hindi, English, Marathi, besides her mother tongue, Konkani. She studied in Sophia College to pursue a degree in Psychology. Her younger sister, Preetika Rao, is a model and well-known film journalist and columnist. Career. Modeling. While studying in Sophia College, Amrita auditioned for an advertisement for Fairever Face Cream. She filmed many commercials and did numerous photo shoots. Her appearance in Cadbury’s Perk Karwa Chaut ad and the Bru Coffee advertisement helped her receive offers from film directors in Bollywood. She also appeared in numerous music videos by artists such as Alisha Chinoy. Even after becoming a well-known actress in Bollywood, she continues do model and walk ramps for designers, as a celebrity guest. Acting. 2002–2006. Amrita made her acting debut in "Ab Ke Baras" (2002) alongside Arya Babbar. She went on to star with Shahid Kapoor in his debut film, "Ishq Vishk" (2003) and became an overnight star after the success that film for her portrayal of Payal. She followed this up in 2004 with "", "Main Hoon Na" with Shahrukh Khan and Zayed Khan, and "Deewaar". The year 2005 saw her performing as Priya in "Vaah! Life Ho Toh Aisi!" and Madhvi in "Shikhar". In 2006, she starred in "Pyare Mohan" alongside Vivek Oberoi, and Sooraj R. Barjatya's blockbuster "Vivah" opposite Shahid Kapoor. 2007–Present. Her first role in 2007 was a special appearance for the song "Heyy Babyy" in the eponymous film, "Heyy Babyy". She then made her debut in the Telugu film industry with "Athidhi" opposite Mahesh Babu. Amrita's movies in 2008 include "My Name Is Anthony Gonsalves" with Nikhil Dwivedi and "Welcome to Sajjanpur" with Shreyas Talpade. The following year, she portrayed Nandini in "Victory" and Mansi in "" opposite Arshad Warsi. Amrita was signed for ABCL Corp's "The Legend of Kunal" and for a Tip's Film with Neil Nitin Mukesh to be directed by Ken Ghosh, but both the movies did not take-off and her only release in 2011 was Rajshree Production's "Love U...Mr. Kalakaar!", produced by Sooraj Barjatia in which she played Ritu, the main role, alongside Tusshar Kapoor. She acted in "Hook Yaa Crook", which is awaiting release. She kick started 2013 with Fox Star's Hit Film "Jolly LLB" starring Arshad Warsi and Boman Irani for which she received largely negative reviews. Anupama Chopra of Hindustan Times wrote "Amrita Rao, playing the girlfriend, stumbles badly in the key scene in which she questions Jolly's motives" . Amrita Rao is currently working on two major big-budget films scheduled to be released in 2013: Anil Sharma's "Singh Sahab the Great" opposite Sunny Deol, and Prakash Jha's "Satyagraha".
1084314	Joel Dee McCrea, known as Jody McCrea (September 6, 1934 – April 4, 2009), was an American film and television actor; son of veteran film actors Joel McCrea and Frances Dee. The eldest of three brothers and a half sister, his surviving siblings are David McCrea and Peter McCrea. He was married to Dusty Ironwing McCrea in 1976, until her death in 1996. He is also survived by the stepchildren he raised, David Ironwing and Jaquet Ironwing.
1265053	Ben Turpin (September 19, 1869 – July 1, 1940) was a cross-eyed American comedian and actor, best remembered for his work in silent films. Personal life. Turpin was born Bernard Turpin in New Orleans, Louisiana on September 19, 1869, the son of a candy store owner. Turpin and his first wife, Carrie Le Mieux, an actress, were married in Chicago in 1907. In 1923, Mrs. Turpin became ill with influenza, which caused the loss of her hearing. Heartbroken, Turpin brought his seriously ill wife to the Basilica of Sainte-Anne-de-Beaupré in Quebec, hoping she would be healed. She eventually became an invalid, with Turpin placing his career on hold to care for her. Carrie died on October 2, 1925. He was a Roman Catholic, and a member of the Good Shepherd Parish and the Catholic Motion Picture Guild in Beverly Hills, California. Vaudeville. He worked in vaudeville, burlesque, and circuses. Turpin had a distinctive appearance, with a small wiry frame, a brush mustache, and crossed eyes. Turpin's famous eyes, he said, only crossed as a young adult after he suffered an accident. Turpin was convinced that the crossed eyes were essential to his comic career; his co-workers recalled that after he received any blow to the head he made a point of looking himself in the mirror to assure himself that they had not become uncrossed. Turpin was a devout Catholic, and his workmates would occasionally goad him by threatening to pray that Turpin's eyes would uncross, thus depriving him of his livelihood. Turpin famously bought a $25,000 insurance policy with Lloyd's of London, payable if his eyes ever uncrossed. (How serious this was is open to question; such publicity stunts centered around a performer's "trademark" were common at the time.) He developed a vigorous style of physical comedy, including an ability to stage comic pratfalls that impressed even his fellow workers in the rough-and-tumble world of silent comedy. One of his specialties was a forward tumble he called the "hundred an' eight'" (probably a corruption of "one hundred and eighty," referring to a 180-degree somersault). It was basically an interrupted forward somersault initiated by kicking one leg up turning over 180 degrees to land flat on the back or in a seated position. Film. Ben Turpin first appeared on film in 1907 for Essanay Studios in Chicago in various small parts and comic bits; in addition to his on-screen work, Turpin worked as a janitor for Essanay. In the 1909 film "Mr. Flip", Turpin receives what is believed to have been the first pie-in-the-face. By 1912 he was an established if not major screen personality, giving interviews and writing articles for the new fan magazines (the first of which had started the year before).
585166	Aval oru thodharkadai () அவள் ஒரு தொடா்கதை is a Tamil film is directed by K. Balachander. This is Sujatha's first starring role and is considered to be one of her best films. Kamal Haasan plays a key role. This film was shot in black-and white. Plot. Kavitha (Sujatha) is a working woman in a middle class family. She works hard to support her widowed sister, unmarried sister, her blind younger brother, her mother, her drunkard brother Murthy (Jaiganesh) and his family. Her father abandons the family and becomes a saint. Her brother not only does not take responsibilities, but also creates additional problems for her. She has a longtime boyfriend,Tilak (Vijayakumar) who wants to marry her, but she doesn't because of her commitment to her family. His eyes now wander to Kavitha's widowed younger sister (Sripriya) who reciprocates his feelings. Kavitha, after reading her boyfriend's love letter to her sister, arranges for them to get married, thus giving up her chance of having a life with him. Meanwhile Prasad (Kamalahasan) loves Sripriya Kavitha's sister but when he comes to know that she loves Tilak (Vijayakumar) he sacrifies his love for her and he marries Kavitha's distressed friend Phataphat Jayalakshmi. Kavitha eventually accepts a marriage proposal of her boss (Gokulnath), when she realizes that her brother has become responsible enough to take care of her family. She decides to resign from hard work, but could not as the result of turning point in a typical Balachandar style climax. Original and Remakes. Aval oru Thodhar Kathai was remade in Telugu as "Anthuleni Katha", also directed by K. Balachander. It was also shot in black and white. Jayaprada played the role of Sujatha, Rajnikanth did the role of Jaiganesh and Kamal Haasan did the role of Jayaprada's boss. Same tunes were used in both the languages. Sripriya, Phataphat Jayalaxmi and rest of the cast are same in both the versions. The Tamil film was later dubbed into Malayalam as "Aval Oru Thudar Katha" in 1975. In 1977, Mala Sinha starred in the Bengali remake titled "Kabita" playing the lead role. Kamal Haasan made his Bengali film debut with this film by acting in the same role that he played in the Tamil original. Bharat Shamsher directed the black-and-white film. The film was again remade in Hindi as "Jeevan Dhaara" in 1982 by director T. Rama Rao. Rekha did the role of Jayaprada, Rakesh Roshan did the role of Kamal Haasan, Amol Palekar did the role of Narayana Rao. Kanwaljit did the conductor role, Simple Kapadia (sister of Dimple Kapadia) did Phataphat Jayalaxmi's role. The film was shot in color. The film was a decent hit. In 1983, Balachander produced the Kannada remake titled "Benkiyalli Aralida Hoovu" starring Suhasini, whose real-life uncle Kamal Haasan played the guest role of a bus conductor in this remake. Chandulal Jain directed the film, which was shot in color. Crew. Asssitant Directors: Ananthu, S.A. John Art: A. Ramaswamy Story: M.S. Perumal Music: M. S. Viswanathan Assistant Music Director: Joseph Krishnamurthy Lyrics: Kannadasan Producer: Rama Aranangannal Story, Screenplay, Direction: K. Balachander Sound track.
582619	Rohit Roy is an Indian television star, known for his role in Hindi television serials such as "Des Mein Niklla Hoga Chand" and "Swabhimaan". Besides working in television series, Rohit has also acted in Bollywood movies such as "Ek Khiladi Ek Haseena" and "Plan", among others. In his movies, his characters were appreciated by the audience. He recently starred in the movie "Shootout at Lokhandwala" in which he portrayed the character Fattu, one of the gang members. Rohit Roy has also directed a short film named "Rice Plate” - as a part of the anthology film "Dus Kahaniyan." Personal life. He is married to Manasi Joshi, sister of Bollywood actor Sharman Joshi, who was also the leading actress in Saaya. They together have a daughter. Rohit has an older brother, Ronit Roy, who is one of the most popular actor in the TV industry.
583023	Zamaanat is a long-delayed Indian Hindi film, directed by S. Ramanathan. He wanted to start the movie as early as 1989, but it was shelved for "unknown reasons". Ten years later it was decided to work on the movie again. The film was launched in the mid - 1999 year, and completed by around 2006 - 07 but has never been released; though it came close to release in 2009 and 2010. The working title of this movie was "Aaryaman", but during production was changed to "Zamaanat". It's the first time that both Actress Vijayshanti, known as "Lady Amitabh Bachchan" and Amitabh Bachchan would credit alongside each other. it is the first time in his illustrious career Amitabh Bachchan portrays a crusading lawyer. Though Bachchan donned the robes in Shootout at Lokhandwala - the portrayal of the lawyer in that movie was sedate when compared to Zamanant. It is hoped that this movie would be released eventually. Story. An advocate named Shiv Shankar (Amitabh Bachchan) leaves his practice, after he loses his eyesight and becomes blind. Years later, a young girl named Kajol (Karisma Kapoor) approaches him to fight the case of her lover Suraj (Arshad Warsi), who is falsely implicated in her mother's murder case. Refusing at first, the advocate returns to the court after many years to fight the case, and help the young couple unite and bring justice.
1018406	Finishing the Game is a 2007 mockumentary which focuses on Bruce Lee's final movie "Game of Death". Lee died prior to finishing that movie, having shot only a few of the final fight scenes. However, the rest of the film was finished using a Bruce Lee double and a new script. "Finishing the Game" is a comedy which satirizes the production of Lee's final film while dealing with racial stereotypes on the Asian community. It was shot in a mere 18 days. The film was directed and produced by Justin Lin, the director of the films "Better Luck Tomorrow", "Annapolis", and "". "Finishing the Game" stars Roger Fan, Sung Kang, Dustin Nguyen, McCaleb Burnett, James Franco, MC Hammer, Ron Jeremy and Parry Shen. Its world premiere took place at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival, where it was an Official Selection. It was also selected as the opening night film at the 25th San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival, the 23rd VC FilmFest aka Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival in Los Angeles, the 30th Asian American International Film Festival in New York, the DisOrient Film Festival of Oregon, the Asian Film Festival of Dallas, the 2007 DC Asian Pacific American Film Festival, and the 11th Annual Vancouver Asian Film Festival. Reception. Reviews were mixed to negative. The film currently holds a "Rotten" rating of 35% on Rotten Tomatoes.
520535	Zsa Zsa Padilla (born May 28, 1964) is a Filipina singer and actress. She is currently part of ABS-CBN contract actresses. Biography. Padilla was born as Esperanza Padilla in 1964, the daughter of actor and sportsman Carlos “Sonny” Padilla, Jr. who served as the referee in the Ali-Frazier world heavyweight boxing match. She is a singer who has performed in various concerts in the Philippines and overseas. She has also acted in movies, television and on the stage. Padilla is also a songwriter, commercial model, product endorser, businesswoman, and music producer. Padilla started as a member of the Manila Sound band, Hotdog, in the mid-70s and then in 1982 went solo. In 1987, her first TV role was as the wife of a gay man in the series "Lovingly Yours Helen". In the same, her first movie role was in the film "Mga Anak Ni Facifica Falayfay" with Filipino comedian Dolphy, her partner of more than 20 years. She is the mother of Filipina singer and actress Karylle and singer Zia Quizon. She is also the cousin of a fellow singer Gino Padilla. On August 2012, she confirmed that she has Stage 1 Kidney Cancer, but lately after her operation it was confirmed a benign tumor. Singles. 2012 2010 2009 2002
1712348	David Warbeck (born David Mitchell; 17 November 1941 – 23 July 1997) was a New Zealand actor best known for his film roles in Europe. Career and move into Italian cinema. Having been awarded a scholarship to RADA, Warbeck arrived in Britain in 1965 and became a photographic model. He made his film debut as the title character in "", a low-budget film adaptation of the adventures of Robin Hood. Warbeck next landed a small but important role in Sergio Leone's "A Fistful of Dynamite". This would be his first foray into Italian cinema, which he would make his home within a few years. His good looks got him starring roles in horror films such as "Trog" and "Twins of Evil". He also starred in a long-running series of Milk Tray adverts that included the slogan, "And all because the lady loves ... Milk Tray". Lucio Fulci. Warbeck is perhaps best known for his violent horror film roles in the 1980s. The most noted of these is Lucio Fulci's "The Beyond", which propelled Warbeck to cult stardom among genre fans. However, Warbeck never made the transition to mainstream film following this success. Antonio Margheriti. Warbeck's most common work during the 1980s was with director Antonio Margheriti. The exploitation film director produced a series of films which played on the success of mainstream releases such as "Raiders of the Lost Ark" and "The Deer Hunter". Margheriti was best known for his action films, and some of his noted efforts featuring Warbeck were "Hunters of the Golden Cobra" (shot back-to-back with "Ark of the Sun God") and the Vietnam war film "The Last Hunter". James Bond. Thanks to these appearances, Warbeck was being seriously considered as the next James Bond, but the role was taken by Roger Moore. Warbeck claimed that for many years he was paid an amount to be a substitute or back-up Bond on the conditions that he not tell anyone and that he be ready for filming at a moment's notice in the case of Moore leaving or threatening to leave the role. One day he read about Timothy Dalton being chosen and was told by the producers that he was now "too old for the role". Later life and death. In the 1990s Warbeck appeared in several low-budget films. He also concentrated on fan conventions in the United Kingdom and United States, where he was popular due to his work with Fulci. In 1997, a few weeks before his death, Warbeck recorded an audio commentary for the laserdisc release of "The Beyond" with actress Catriona MacColl. Warbeck died of cancer in London, England on 23 July 1997.
1034047	Francis George ("Frank") Middlemass (28 May 1919 8 September 2006) was an English actor, who even in his early career played older roles. He is best remembered for his television roles as Rocky Hardcastle in "As Time Goes By", Algy Herries in "To Serve Them All My Days" and Dr. Alex Ferrenby in "Heartbeat". Middlemass was also active in the Royal Shakespeare Company and was the fourth and final actor to play Dan Archer in "The Archers". Early life. Born to Thomas Middlemass and Mary Elizabeth Hoggett, Frank Middlemass was the youngest of four children after sisters Dorothy Mary (born 1907), Margery Elizabeth (born 1909) and Jean Theresa (born 1916). Grandfather Thomas is shown in 1891 census to have been born in Whitsome, Berwickshire around 1835. Middlemass was born in Eaglescliffe, on the North Riding of Yorkshire-County Durham border, the son of a shipping company director. He was brought up in Newcastle upon Tyne, and educated in Stockton-on-Tees. He entered the Army at the age of 19 and was wounded in the Dunkirk retreat He left the Army when he was 30 and was by then a Lieutenant Colonel. Middlemass started his acting career in rep in Penzance, Cornwall and then went on to join the Old Vic Company. While with them he toured North and South America, Australia, New Zealand, Israel, Lebanon, Russia, Poland and the Far East., and performed in "Twelfth Night" opposite Vivien Leigh. During the 1960s, he toured with Ian McKellen's Actors' Company and performed at the Nottingham Playhouse. He performed opposite Peter O'Toole in "Waiting for Godot". His first television role was in 1958, in "Dixon of Dock Green". His other early television appearances included "Z-Cars", "Softly, Softly", "The Avengers" and "Jackanory". During the 1970s and 1980s he appeared in "Doctor at Large", "War and Peace" (a memorable performance as Mikhail Kutuzov), "Crown Court", "Last of the Summer Wine", "Ripping Yarns" (Murder at Moorstone's Manor), "Upstairs, Downstairs", "Poldark" (1975), "The Sweeney" and "Emmerdale Farm". He played Sir Charles Lyndon in Stanley Kubrick's 'Barry Lyndon' (1975). Television. Middlemass played the philandering butcher Mr. Lyon in the final episode of the third season of the British series "Upstairs, Downstairs" in 1973, but it was not until 1980, when he appeared in the post-World War I drama "To Serve Them All My Days", that he first took a leading role in a television series. He followed this up with a notable performance as The Fool to Michael Hordern's "King Lear", and also played Brezhnev in Tom Stoppard's "Squaring the Circle". He went on to play minor characters in "Yes Minister", "" (as Lord Derby), "Juliet Bravo", "Only When I Laugh", "All in Good Faith", "Yes, Prime Minister", "Oliver Twist" (as Mr. Brownlow), and "Miss Marple", in the 1989 episode "A Caribbean Mystery" (as Major Palgrave). From 1992 to 1993, he appeared in 20 episodes of the police drama "Heartbeat" as Dr. Alex Ferrenby. Following that in 1993, Middlemass first appeared in the sitcom "As Time Goes By" as Rocky Hardcastle, a role that continued until 2002. He has appeared in both British TV adaptations of "The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes", "The Blue Carbuncle" playing Peterson in the BBC adaptation and Henry Baker on the Granada TV series. Other work. Middlemass also appeared on radio, most notably playing patriarch Dan Archer, the fourth actor to play the role, in the long-running radio soap opera "The Archers". He played this role from 1982 until 1986, when the character was killed off. Other voice work includes the albums and radioplays: Carol and the Advent Calendar, "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" and "Hordes of the Things". He joined the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1984 and his Shakespearean roles included Friar Lawrence in "Romeo and Juliet", Quince in "A Midsummer Night's Dream" and Holofernes in "Love's Labour's Lost". Middlemass also appeared widely in classic plays such as "Rosmersholm", "Heartbreak House" and "You Never Can Tell". Frank also made the BBC radio appeal for Headway, the National Head injuries Association and raised a substantial amount of money. Letters from admirers came along with some of the cheques. Later years. Even in his eighties, Frank Middlemass was still performing on stage, notably in "The Importance of Being Earnest" and toured with a one-man show called "Frankly Speaking". In his final years, he made appearances in "Kavanagh QC", "Casualty", "The 10th Kingdom", "Doctors" and "Midsomer Murders". In 2005, "As Time Goes By" returned for two reunion specials, aired in Christmas that year, and this was his final television appearance. Middlemass never married, and for 40 years he had a room in the house of his friend, actor Geoffrey Toone, who died in 2005. Middlemass died, aged 87, in Northwood, Middlesex.
400705	Nick Offerman (born June 26, 1970) is an American actor, writer, and carpenter who is best known for his breakout role as Ron Swanson in the acclaimed NBC sitcom "Parks and Recreation". Early life. Offerman was born and grew up in Minooka, Illinois. He is the son of Cathy (née Roberts), a nurse, and Ric Offerman, who taught social studies at a junior high school in nearby Channahon. Offerman was raised Catholic and received a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1993. That year, he and a group of fellow students co-founded the Defiant Theatre, a Chicago-based theatre company. Career. Offerman lived in Chicago in the mid-1990s, where he participated with theatre companies such as Steppenwolf, Goodman, and Wisdom Bridge. At Steppenwolf, he also worked as a fight choreographer and master carpenter. During this time, Offerman became acquainted with Amy Poehler, who was heavily involved with the Chicago improv comedy scene. Offerman has appeared in films such as "November" (2004), "Cursed" (2005), ' (2005), "Sin City" (2005), "The Men Who Stare at Goats" (2009), and "The Kings of Summer" (2013). In 2003, he married to "Will & Grace" actress Megan Mullally. Offerman guest-starred on "Will & Grace" during its fourth season as a plumber on the Thanksgiving episode and on "King of Queens" as a hobo. He has also appeared on his wife's talk show, "The Megan Mullally Show". In 2003, he appeared in three episodes of "24" and has guest-starred in an episode of "The West Wing". He can be currently seen on the TV series "Parks and Recreation" on NBC as Ron Swanson. Prior to this, his most prominent role was as Randy McGee on "George Lopez". He was one of the workers in the factory and the love interest of Benny Lopez. In 2003 he appeared in "Gilmore Girls" in the episode "The Festival of Living Art", and once again in 2005 in the episode "Always a Godmother, Never a God". Offerman was featured in an early episode of the HBO series "Deadwood" in which he played Tom Mason, attempted assassin of Wild Bill Hickok. Offerman appeared in episode 15 of "Monks third season, "Mr. Monk and the Election", as a helper for the campaign of Natalie Teeger. He also appeared in the 2006 film as a cop who attempts to arrest Shannyn Sossamon's character; Mikal. In 2007, Offerman co-starred in the Comedy Central series "American Body Shop". In 2009, "Office" producers Michael Schur and Greg Daniels offered Offerman a regular supporting role in their NBC sitcom "Parks and Recreation". Offerman accepted the role of Ron Swanson, the deadpan, government-hating head of a parks department and boss of Leslie Knope, the protagonist played by Offerman's old acquaintance, Amy Poehler. "Slate" magazine declared Offerman ""Parks and Recreation'"s secret weapon", and said he regularly stole scenes and "has a gift for understated physical comedy". Offerman has also been featured in the Adult Swim series "Childrens Hospital" with Rob Corddry and Rob Huebel. He has said that supporting parts such as that of "Parks and Recreation" are his ideal roles, and that he draws particular inspiration from Reverend Jim Ignatowski, the character played by Christopher Lloyd in the sitcom "Taxi". He appeared in the 2012 films "21 Jump Street" as Captain Hardy and "Casa de Mi Padre" as DEA Agent Parker, and will appear in "The Lego Movie" as Metalbeard. Offerman is the voice Axe Cop in the animated series of the same name, premiered on July 27, 2013. In the same year, Offerman portrayed Johnny Cool in the "Boston" episode of Derek Waters' "Drunk History" on Comedy Central. He appeared in the 2013 comedy "We're the Millers", which starred Jason Sudeikis and Jennifer Aniston. Carpentry. In addition to acting, Offerman is also a professional boat builder and has a side business as a wood craftsman. Offerman makes furniture and other wooden structures such as canoes and boats at his woodshop. He also released an instructional DVD in 2008 entitled "Fine Woodstrip Canoe Building with Nick Offerman", shot by Jimmy Diresta. Diresta's pay for shooting the DVD was a canoe, the second one Offerman has built. The writers of "Parks and Recreation" added a fondness for woodworking to Offerman's character. Personal life. Offerman's wife, actress Megan Mullally, has a recurring role on "Parks and Recreation" as his character's second ex-wife Tammy. He is good friends with actor Rainn Wilson; the two became friends while auditioning for the same roles early in their careers and remained in touch, with Offerman even building Wilson's kitchen table. Offerman is a fan of the Chicago Cubs and Chicago Bears, and has been featured with fellow actor and Chicago White Sox fan Craig Robinson in a series of commercials for New Era Cap Company.
583940	Nayantara (born 18 November 1984 as Diana Mariam Kurian) is an Indian film actress, who appears in South Indian films. She made her acting debut in the 2003 Malayalam film "Manassinakkare" and followed with the successful "Vismayathumbathu" (2004) before foraying into Tamil and Telugu cinema. She made her debut into Tamil cinema with "Ayya" (2005), and went on to appear in the commercially successful "Ghajini" (2005), while "Chandramukhi" (2005) and "Billa" (2007), in particular, were the most successful Tamil films making Nayantara one among the most sought after actresses in Tamil cinema. She debuted in Telugu with "Lakshmi" (2006) and featured in the successful ventures "Tulasi" (2007), "Adurs" (2010) and "Simha" (2010) and later in 2010, made her Kannada film debut through the blockbuster "Super". Her portrayal of Sita in "Sri Rama Rajyam" (2011) earned her Filmfare Award for Best Telugu Actress and Nandi Award for Best Actress. Early life. Nayantara was born in Thiruvalla, Kerala to Kurian Kodiyattu and Omana Kurian. Her brother, Leno, who is nine years elder to her, lives in Dubai. As her father was an Indian Air Force official, she studied in various parts of India, mainly in North India. She did her schooling in Chennai, Jamnagar, Gujarat and Delhi. Following his retirement, they settled in Kerala, where she continued her college studies, at the Kendriya Vidyalaya schools in Kerala. In Tiruvalla, she studied at Balikamadom Girls Higher Secondary School and then attended Marthoma College for her bachelor's degree in English Literature. She has said that she would have become a chartered accountant if not an actress. Career. Debut in Malayalam cinema and breakthrough (2003–04). While studying at college, Nayantara was working as a part-time model. She was spotted by director Sathyan Anthikkad, who had seen some of her modelling assignments and approached her to play a pivotal role opposite Jayaram in his film "Manassinakkare" (2003). Although she turned down the offer initially, as she was not interested in films, she gave in eventually and agreed to do "just that one movie". "Manassinakkare" went on to become a high financial success and she continued to receive acting offers. Her both releases in 2004, "Natturajavu" by Shaji Kailas and Fazil's psychological thriller "Vismayathumbathu" saw her co-starring alongside Mohanlal; while she played the protagonist's adopted sister in the former, she portrayed a ghost in the latter. Her performance in "Vismayathumbathu", in particular, was lauded, with critics claiming that she had "stolen the thunder with her author-backed role", and was "the revelation of the film". She also acted opposite Mammootty in "Thaskara Veeran" and "Rappakal". Success in Tamil and Telugu cinema (2005–09). She subsequently started appearing in Tamil and Telugu films. In 2005, she was cast opposite Sarath Kumar in Hari's "Ayya", debuting in the Tamil film industry. The family drama film opened to positive critical response, fetching Nayantara positive feedback as well. Behindwoods.com claimed that she had made a "sensational debut in Tamil", while a reviewer from Nowrunning.com said that her "presence with her beautiful smile is crowd winning". While still shooting for "Ayya", she was selected to portray the love interest of Rajinikanth in the comedy horror film "Chandramukhi", after its director P. Vasu's wife had seen "Manassinakkare" and recommended her. The film became one of the most successful Tamil films in history, running for over 800 days in theatres, eventually turning Nayantara into one of the most-sought after actresses in Tamil. Later that year her third Tamil film, A. R. Murugadoss' "Ghajini", in which she played a secondary female character, again was a commercially highly successful venture. However, she later told that appearing in "Ghajini" was a big mistake and the "worst decision" she ever took. Nayantara then accepted to appear in an item number as herself in the Perarasu-directed masala film "Sivakasi" starring Vijay. Her first release in 2006 was "Kalvanin Kadhali". Indiaglitz.com termed her performance as the "strength of the movie". She next made her debut in Telugu, starring in the film "Lakshmi", following which she performed in "Boss, I Love You", alongside Venkatesh and Nagarjuna respectively. Three Tamil films in which she enacted the lead female characters – "Vallavan", "Thalaimagan" and "E" – were released simultaneously during Diwali 2006. All three films opened to mixed reviews; Nayantara mostly won praise for her performances. In "Vallavan", she portrayed a lecturer who falls in love with a student younger than her. Sify wrote: "Nayanthara virtually walks away with the film and has never looked so beautiful. She looks gorgeous especially in songs and does justice to her well-etched out role". The science fiction thriller "E" featured Nayantara in the role of a bar dancer. Reviewers claimed that she made an impact, was "very adequate and impressive in a slightly complicated role", and that she had "come up with a good performance". In "Thalaimagan", she played a news reporter, with critics agreeing that she did not have much to do in the film. She regained her star billing in Kollywood acting opposite Ajith Kumar in the Vishnuvardhan-directed gangster film "Billa" (2007). A remake of the same-titled 1980 Tamil film, it went on to become a blockbuster success at the box office, while Nayantara received many accolades for her performance as Sasha in her new glamour look. Sify heaped praise on her, describing her as a "show stopper". The reviewer further wrote: "Nayanthara has [...] gofull throttle to look her sexiest best [... She has a beautiful body which she flaunts daringly [...] and is also able to bring out the cold aloofness and bitterness of her character. Similarly a critic from Nowrunning.com noted that she looked "great in mini skirts, jacket, dark glasses and tall boots". In 2008 she had five releases, four of which were in Tamil. Her first release, the family entertainer "Yaaradi Nee Mohini" was critically acclaimed and one of the highest grossing Tamil films of the year. Nayantara's portrayal of Keerthi was appreciated by critics. Behindwoods.com wrote: "Nayan dispels her bombshell act and proves that she can more than just that. She breaks into tears when needed, shows vicious contempt when rubbed the wrong way in the name of love, and looks endearing in songs". Nowrunning.com cited that she "exhibits her acting skills in full measure gives a moving performance in emotional scenes", while Sify's critic wrote that she looked "sensational and has done a great job in perhaps the meatiest role she has done so far". She won the Vijay Award for Favourite Heroine for second consecutive year, as well as a nomination for the Best Actress prize at the 56th Filmfare Awards South. Her subsequent releases, however, "Kuselan" opposite Rajnikanth, "Sathyam" opposite Vishal and "Villu" opposite Vijay, were all unsuccessful, while "Aegan" became an average grosser. Her only successful release in 2009 was "Aadhavan" with Suriya which released in October of that year. Stardom and success in south (2010-2011). In 2010, all her releases, which featured her as the female lead, turned out to be commercial successes. She delivered five super hit films in the four Southern languages – "Bodyguard" (Malayalam), "Adurs" and "Simha" (Telugu), "Boss Engira Bhaskaran" (Tamil) and "Super" (Kannada). She won the Asianet Award for Best Actress for her performance in "Bodyguard". The latter three, in particular, were exceptionally successful, with "Simha" becoming one of the highest-grossing Telugu films of the year and "Boss Engira Bhaskaran" releasing to highly positive reviews, and becoming a blockbuster. Upendra's "Super", which marked her debut into the Kannada film industry opened to rave reviews, while her performance was also praised by critics. Her performances in "Simha", "Boss Engira Bhaskaran" and "Super" eventually fetched her nominations for the Filmfare Best Actress Award in the respective languages. She also starred in Shyamaprasad's critically acclaimed Malayalam film "Elektra". Her performance was well appreciated by critics when it was screened at the International Film Festival of India. The film was also screened at the Dubai International Film Festival. Her only release in 2011 was the mythological film "Sri Rama Rajyam" by Bapu, in which she played the role of Sita. She received critical acclaim for her performance in the film with Rediff.com noting that "Nayanthara is the surprise package of the film. As Sita, she too has played the role of her lifetime. She gave a fine understated performance conveying a kaleidoscope of emotions", while Sify commented "Nayanthara gave a fitting answer to all, unleashing grace and accomplishing the assignment with absolute perfection." Subsequently, she was awarded the Nandi Award for Best Actress and the Filmfare Award for Best Telugu Actress. The film was dubbed in the media as her swan song and considered to be her last release before her marriage as she was reported to quit acting thereafter. Comeback in 2012 and upcoming project. However, after her break-up with Prabhu Deva, she made a comeback; she began shooting for Krish's "Krishnam Vande Jagadgurum" with Rana Daggubati in March 2012, after an 11-months sabbatical. She portrayed the role of a journalist in this movie and her performance was also praised, with a reviewer from Sify citing that "Nayanthara does not play the normal commercial glam-doll for a change and she is good. As a reporter, she looks good and her chemistry with Rana is perfect". Her first release in 2013 was "Greeku Veerudu" alongside Akkineni Nagarjuna. Her performance was also praised, with a reviewer from Sify citing that "Nayanthara looks beautiful in trendy costumes as well as in designer sarees. Her chemistry with Nagarjuna is equally nice and perfect. After a long Nagarjuna found his best pair. She is also acting in Aarambam opposite Ajith Kumar under direction of Vishnuvardhan, Raja Rani opposite Arya and "Idhu Kathirvelan Kadhal" opposite Udhayanidhi Stalin which is directed by S. R. Prabhakaran and Anamika directed by Shekhar Kammula. In 2013, she sign a movie opposite Jayam Ravi direct by Jayam Raja and Aruva opposite Karthi directed by Hari. Personal life. Relationships & controversies. While shooting for her Tamil film "Vallavan", she was romantically linked with the film's director and co-actor Silambarasan Rajendar. She initially denied the reports. In November 2006, however, she confirmed that she and Silambarasan had broken up, going on to add that she will not work with him again. During the making, in 2008, and after the release of her film "Villu", reports suggested that she was in a relationship with its director Prabhu Deva, with some sources even claiming that both had married secretly in June 2009. She had tattooed his name on her wrist, and began appearing with him in public, while keeping silence and refusing to comment about the issue, neither denying nor confirming the relationship. In September 2010 then, Prabhu Deva openly confessed his love for Nayantara and further stated that he would marry her soon. In 2012, Nayantara confirmed that she had ended her relationship with Prabhu Deva. Beliefs. On 7 August 2011, she converted to Hinduism at the Arya Samaj Temple in Chennai. She went through "Shuddhi Karma", a procedure involving a Vedic purification and a "Homam" where Nayan chanted the hymns from Veda and "Gayatri Mantra" under the guidance of the priest. After the purification ceremony, a "Certificate of Conversion" to Hinduism was issued to her and her stage name, Nayantara, became her official name.
1039721	Trevor Peacock (born 19 May 1931) is an English stage and television character actor, and a former songwriter. He was born in Tottenham, London, the son of Alexandria and Victor Edward Peacock. Television and film career. His many television roles include Jim Trott in "The Vicar of Dibley", Rouault in "Madame Bovary" (opposite Keith Barron), Quilp in "The Old Curiosity Shop" and Old Bailey in "Neverwhere". He has also appeared in diverse programmes such as "EastEnders" (playing Sid, a war veteran Alfie Moon met in France), LWT's "Wish Me Luck" (in which he played resistance leader Renard), "Jonathan Creek" and "Between The Lines". He had starring roles in several of the BBC Shakespeare series, including the title role in "Titus Andronicus", Feste in "Twelfth Night, or What You Will", Lord Talbot in "Henry VI, Part 1" and Jack Cade in "Henry VI, Part 2". He was the Gravedigger in Franco Zeffirelli's 1990 film version of "Hamlet", and the Innkeeper in the 2000 made-for-television film version of "Don Quixote", starring John Lithgow and Bob Hoskins. He played the father of Father Christmas in the 2007 film "Fred Claus" co-starring Vince Vaughn and Paul Giamatti. In July 2009 he also had a bit part in the TV drama "Hotel Babylon". He has also appeared as "Captain Zero" in BBC TV series, "Last of The Summer Wine". Peacock is also a noted songwriter. He wrote the 1960s pop classic "Mrs. Brown, You've Got a Lovely Daughter", which was recorded by Herman's Hermits. Other hit songs to his credit include "Mystery Girl" (recorded by Jess Conrad), "Made You" (Adam Faith), "Gossip Calypso" (Bernard Cribbins), "Stick Around" (Billy Fury), "That's What Love Will Do" and "Nature's Time For Love" (both recorded by Joe Brown). He wrote the lyrics for a number of hits by The Vernons Girls. The songs include "Be Nice To Him Mama", "You Know What I Mean", "Funny All Over" and "We Love The Beatles". He wrote the lyrics for the musical show, "Passion Flower Hotel" (music by John Barry), and for a musical based on the popular newspaper cartoon strip, "Andy Capp" (music by Alan Price). Before his acting career took off, he compered "Drumbeat" for the BBC and wrote scripts for "Oh Boy!" and "Six-Five Special". He starred in the 1991 fantasy BBC radio play "Heart of Hark'un". In 2002 he filmed an episode of "Dinotopia" in Budapest; playing the mysterious sage Lok in "Night of the Wartosa". In 2010, he guest appeared in "The Old Guys" and "I, Claudius". Theatre career. Peacock has acted in the theatre throughout his career and has been particularly associated with the Royal Exchange, Manchester. In addition to performing in many productions since the theatre opened in 1976, he has also written a number of shows for the company. These include: Acting credits. His acting credits include: Personal life. He is a keen supporter of Yeovil Town F.C. and is considered a talismanic figure by fellow fans. He is also the father of British actors Daniel and Harry Peacock.
1166554	Lark Voorhies (born Lark Holloway, March 25, 1974) is an American actress who rose to fame playing Lisa Turtle in "Saved by the Bell", for which she was nominated for the Young Artist Award four times, winning in 1990 and 1993. She also portrayed the role as a regular on "Good Morning, Miss Bliss". In May 2001, Voorhies started the Beverly Hills-based production company, You Soy Productions, which is developing Voorhies' film entitled, "The Hope for Pandora's Box" as of 2012. Early life. Lark Voorhies was born Lark Holloway in Nashville, Tennessee, and later adopted "Voorhies" as a stage name. Her mother, Tricia, named her "Lark" after the character in the 1972 film "Cool Breeze", played by Margaret Avery. By the time Voorhies was two years old, the family had moved to Pasadena, California. At this time, her mother took her to a talent agent, because "she was a natural-born ham." However, her first audition did not go well—she froze. Voorhies' career took off at the age of 12, when she appeared in a national television commercial for Universal Studios Tour to advertise its upcoming King Kong attraction: "I was on this tram screaming with all these other people. I had such a great time doing that." Entertainment career. Acting. Voorhies made her acting debut at the age of two. Though photogenic, she was shy, and her mother put Voorhies' acting career on hold until she was more comfortable in front of the cameras. Later, at the age of fourteen, Voorhies reappeared on an episode of "Small Wonder" in 1988. In June of that same year, she landed the recurring role of Lisa Turtle in "Good Morning, Miss Bliss" and appeared in thirteen episodes from 1988 to 1989. She remained as the same character, as did Zack, Screech, and Mr. Belding, after Disney dropped the series and it was picked-up and re-tooled by NBC and renamed "Saved by the Bell". The characters Miss Bliss, Mylo, Mikey, and Nicky were dropped. During its first season on NBC 1989-1990, the characters Kelly Kapowski, A.C. Slater, and Jessie Spano were added. The setting was also changed from John F. Kennedy Junior High in Indianapolis to Bayside High School in Los Angeles. Voorhies has since appeared in several television sitcoms and soap operas. She played the role of single mom Wendy Reardon on "Days of Our Lives" from 1993 to 1994. On "The Bold and the Beautiful" Voorhies played the role of amiable intern fashion-designer, Jasmine Malone beginning in January 1995. She was released from her contract in November 1996 when her role required her to act in sex scenes, which the actress refused to do citing her religious beliefs as a Jehovah's Witness. She returned in April 2004 when Jasmine Malone returns to L.A when Eric and Stephiane hire her to work as a designer in the basement at Forrester Creations. She decided to renew her contract when the show offered to sign her to a one-year deal and departed the show again in July 2004 when her character Jasmine took a job at Forrester International in Europe, courtesy of Eric Forrester. In 1995, Voorhies guest-starred in the "" episode "Life Support". During the same year, Voorhies guest-starred in the season 6 episode of "Family Matters", entitled "Home Sweet Home," as Eddie's upstairs dream girl. She has continued to act in various roles since then, such as "In the House", in which she played the girlfriend-turned-wife of Alfonso Ribeiro’s character, Dr. Max Stanton. Previously, she played Ribeiro's love interest twice on "The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air". Besides sitcoms, Voorhies also appeared in movies and direct-to-video films. In 2001, Voorhies played a major role in the film "How High" as Lauren, a Harvard student. She was involved in a 1990 movie adaptation of the book "The Black Man's Guide to Understanding Black Women", and played Ana Smith in the 2008 movie entitled "The Next Hit". Modeling. As a model, she endorsed Head & Shoulders shampoo and Oxy10. Music. Voorhies has appeared in notable music video roles. She played Kenny Lattimore's love interest in his debut video "Never Too Busy", from his 1996 self-titled debut album, and Wanya's girlfriend in Boyz II Men's music video "On Bended Knee". She was also featured in Montell Jordan's "Somethin' for the Honeyz", and Dru Hill's "These Are the Times".
1063040	The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension!, often shortened to Buckaroo Banzai, is a 1984 science fiction film. It was directed and produced by W. D. Richter, and concerns the efforts of the multi-talented Dr. Buckaroo Banzai, a physicist, neurosurgeon, test pilot, and rock musician, to save the world by defeating a band of inter-dimensional aliens called Red Lectroids from Planet 10. The film is a cross between the action/adventure and sci-fi film genres, and also includes elements of comedy, satire, and romance. Plot. Banzai prepares to test his Jet Car, a modified Ford F-350 pickup truck powered by a jet engine, and capable of exceeding Mach 1. The car is also equipped with a secret device called an "oscillation overthruster," which Banzai and his associates hope will allow it to drive through solid matter. The test is a success; Banzai stuns onlookers by driving the Jet Car directly through a mountain. Emerging on the other side, Banzai finds that an alien organism has attached itself to the undercarriage. Hearing of Banzai's success, physicist Dr. Emilio Lizardo breaks out of the Trenton Home for the Criminally Insane, after being held there for 50 years. A flashback shows Banzai's mentor, Dr. Hikita, was present at Lizardo's failed overthruster experiment in 1938. Crashing half through the target wall, Lizardo had been briefly trapped in the 8th dimension where his mind was taken over by Lord John Whorfin. Whorfin is the leader of the Red Lectroids, a race of alien reptiles who wage war against Planet 10. After being defeated by the less aggressive Black Lectroids, Whorfin and his group were banished into the 8th dimension. Lizardo's failed experiment accidentally released Whorfin, and he soon brings many of the Red Lectroids to Earth in an incident that was reported in 1938 by Orson Welles in his radio broadcast "The War of the Worlds," only to have it retracted as fiction. The Red Lectroids now pose as employees of the defense contracting company named Yoyodyne Propulsion Systems. They have been working on building a large spacecraft under the guise of a US Air Force program, the Truncheon bomber. They intend to rescue the remaining 8th dimension exiles and take over Planet 10. They were unable to produce a working overthruster like Banzai's, so Whorfin plans to steal it. Banzai's team, the Hong Kong Cavaliers, finds out about Yoyodyne and hacks into their computer. They discover that everyone there has the first name John, with various last names such as Yaya, Smallberries, and Bigbooté. At first they believe it to be a joke, but then they notice all the Yoyodyne employees applied for Social Security cards on November 1, 1938 and all in the same town: Grover's Mill, New Jersey. In the meantime, a Black Lectroid spacecraft orbiting Earth contacts Banzai, giving him an electric shock that enables him to see through Lectroids' camouflage. (Black Lectroids appear to be Rastafarian Jamaicans, while Red Lectroids are caucasians) The ship also sends a "thermo-pod" to Earth, with a holographic message from the Black Lectroids' leader, John Emdall, explaining Lord Whorfin's motives and giving an ultimatum: stop Whorfin and his army or the Black Lectroids will protect themselves by staging a fake nuclear attack, causing the start of World War III. With help from the Black Lectroid messenger John Parker, Banzai and the Hong Kong Cavaliers, a collection of civilian volunteers named "The Blue Blaze Irregulars", and a young woman named Penny Priddy (a long-lost twin sister of Buckaroo's late wife), Buckaroo succeeds in his mission, destroying the Red Lectroids and saving Earth. The end credits announce an unproduced sequel "Buckaroo Banzai Against the World Crime League". Cast. The Hong Kong Cavaliers. The Hong Kong Cavaliers are the main assistants of Banzai in the film, and bear some similarity to Doc Savage's Fabulous Five. They reside at the Banzai Institute, a think-tank located in Holland Township, New Jersey. In addition to being multidisciplinary scientific experts in a variety of fields, they are also Buckaroo's rock and roll band. They are all referred to by code names or nicknames and, except for New Jersey, their actual names remain secret. In addition to the Hong Kong Cavaliers, Banzai is assisted by a multi-talented network of supporters and fans. The Radar Rangers are an amateur radio enthusiast group that helps Buckaroo track major threats. The Blue Blaze Irregulars are people of all ages and from all walks of life who help in various ways. The organization includes assault teams in its structure. The Rug Suckers are a team of armed civilians who operate a rug cleaning company, but are available to help Banzai when called upon. Production. Development. In 1974, W. D. Richter's wife read a review of "Dirty Pictures from the Prom", the debut novel from Dartmouth College graduate and writer Earl Mac Rauch. Richter, also an alumnus from the college, read the book, loved it and wrote Mac Rauch a letter. The two men began corresponding and when the writer told him about his interest in becoming a screenwriter, Richter offered him an open-ended invitation to visit him in Los Angeles where he was attending the University of Southern California and working as a script analyst for Warner Brothers. Screenplay. Years passed and Richter became a successful screenwriter. Mac Rauch took Richter up on his offer and arrived in L.A. Richter proceeded to introduce the writer to producer/director Irwin Winkler who gave Mac Rauch rent money for the next six months. Over several dinners, Mac Rauch told Richter and his wife about a character named Buckaroo Bandy that he was thinking of writing a screenplay about. Richter and his wife liked the idea and paid Mac Rauch $1,500 to develop and write it. According to MacRauch, his script was inspired by "all those out-and-out, press-the-accelerator-to-the-floor, non-stop kung fu movies of the early '70s". Richter remembers that Mac Rauch wrote several "Banzai" stories and that he "would get thirty or forty pages into a script, abandon its storyline and write a new one". Mac Rauch recalled, "It's so easy to start something and then - since you're really not as serious about it as you should be - end up writing half of it ... You shove the hundred pages in a drawer and try to forget about it. Over the years, I started a dozen "Buckaroo" scripts that ended that way". Mac Rauch's original 30-page treatment was entitled, "Find the Jetcar, Said the President - A Buckaroo Banzai Thriller". Early on, one of the revisions Mac Rauch made was changing Buckaroo's surname from Bandy to Banzai but he wasn't crazy about it. However, Richter convinced him to keep the name. The Hong Kong Cavaliers also appeared in these early drafts, but, according to Richter, "it never really went to a completed script. Mac wrote and wrote but never wrote the end". Another early draft was entitled, "The Strange Case of Mr. Cigars", about a huge robot and a box of Hitler's cigars. Mac Rauch shelved his work for a few years while he wrote "New York, New York" for Martin Scorsese and other un-produced screenplays. In 1980, Richter talked with producers Frank Marshall and Neil Canton about filming one of his screenplays. Out of this meeting, Canton and Richter formed their own production company and decided that "Buckaroo Banzai" would be the first film. Under their supervision, Mac Rauch wrote a 60-page treatment entitled, "Lepers from Saturn". They shopped Mac Rauch's treatment around to production executives who were their peers but no one wanted to take on such unusual subject matter by two first-time producers and a first-time director. Canton and Richter contacted veteran producer Sidney Beckerman at MGM/United Artists who Canton had worked with before. Beckerman liked it and introduced Richter and Canton to studio chief David Begelmen. Within 24 hours they had a development deal with the studio. It took Mac Rauch a year and a half to write the final screenplay and during this time, the Lepers from the treatment became Lizards and then Lectroids from Planet 10. Much of the film's detailed character histories were taken from Mac Rauch's unfinished "Banzai" scripts. However, a Writers Guild of America strike forced the project to languish in development for more than a year. Begelmen left MGM because several of his projects had performed poorly at the box office. This put all of his future projects, "Buckaroo Banzai" included, in jeopardy. Begelmen formed Sherwood Productions and exercised a buy-out option with MGM for the "Banzai" script. He took it to 20th Century Fox who agreed to make it with a $12 million budget. Mac Rauch ended up writing three more drafts before they had a shooting script. Casting. To cast the role of Buckaroo Banzai, Richter wanted an actor who "could both look heroic with grease all over his face, and project the kind of intelligence you would associate with a neurosurgeon and inventor". The studio wanted a recognizable movie star, but Richter and Canton wanted to cast a relatively unknown actor. Richter looked in New York City because he assumed that an actor with experience on stage and small films "would be able to "completely" interact with props". He had been impressed by Peter Weller's performance in "Shoot the Moon" and met with him. The actor was hesitant, at first, to take the role because he was unclear on the overall tone of the movie. "Would it be campy? Would it be a cartoon? Or would it be the sort of wacky, realistic film that would catch people sideways - and not be a cartoon", Weller remembers thinking. Richter told him Banzai's story and convinced Weller to do the film. The actor says that he based his character on Elia Kazan, Jacques Cousteau, Albert Einstein, Leonardo da Vinci, and Adam Ant. For the role of Dr. Emilio Lizardo, the studio wanted to cast an unknown actor, but Mac Rauch had written the role with John Lithgow in mind. Like Weller, he was not sure about the character, but Richter convinced him by "claiming what a real feast for an actor this wonderful Jekyll and Hyde character was", the actor said. Lithgow told an interviewer, "I have had roles where I came very close to going over the top. In "" I almost went over the top several times. But this role is completely over the top. It makes the role in "Twilight Zone" seem like a model of restraint. I do it in a wild, red fright wig and rotten false teeth with a thick Italian accent. It's wild." For Lizardo's accent, Lithgow spent time with an Italian tailor at MGM and recorded his voice. He changed his walk to that of an "old crab, and because my alien metabolism is supposed to be messed up". Lithgow said of his character, "playing Lizardo felt like playing the madman in "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari"". Ellen Barkin, who played the romantic interest "Penny Priddy", describes the film as "if Terry Southern had written "Star Wars". None of the characters are quite what they should be - just my kind of thing." Richter's only choice to play John Bigbooté was Christopher Lloyd. Richter first met Jeff Goldblum on "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" and wanted him to play New Jersey. The actor admired his writing and was eager to work with the cast the director had assembled. Lewis Smith was asked to dye his hair blond. It took eight hours, and he saw it go from red to orange to fluorescent yellow to white. Clancy Brown said that his character is "very common sensical. He's the everyman of the film". Robert Ito was so determined to get the role of Dr. Hikita, that he disguised himself as an old man, designing his own makeup job to age himself 30 years. Pre-production. Production designer Michael Riva had worked with Richter before and spent two years working on the look for "Banzai" before pre-production. He and Richter studied all kinds of art and literature for the film's look, including medical journals, African magazines, and Russian history. The inspiration for the look of the Lectroid masks came from Riva sporting a lobster on his nose. Richter based the Lectroids' alien form on a Canadian anthropologist's extrapolation of what dinosaurs might have evolved into if they had survived, but modified the concept because it would have required prosthetics that would have immobilized the actors. Their makeup consisted of 12 separate pieces of latex appliances per alien. Each actor's makeup was unique, with casts taken of their faces. Their outfits were influenced by contemporary Russian lifestyles and they went with greens, blues and yellows because, according to Riva, they are "sick and anemic." Richter wanted the Black Lectroids to have a "warrior-like demeanor, but in an elegant, not fierce fashion". Their costumes came from African tribal markings. For the Red Lectroids, Riva consulted Russian history to give them a "baggy-suited, Moscow bureaucrat sort of image". For Buckaroo's look, the costume designer had him wear a Gianni Versace sports jacket and a Perry Ellis suit and tie. He also wears a recut Giorgio Armani fabric suit. Principal photography. By the time of filming, Richter had a 300-page book called "The Essential Buckaroo" that consisted of notes and had every incomplete script Mac Rauch wrote over the years. Principal photography began during the second week of September 1983 on locations in and around South Gate, an industrial suburb of L.A. Buckaroo's neurosurgery scene with New Jersey was shot at the Lakeview Medical Center in the San Fernando Valley. The jet car sequences were shot in October on a dry lake north of the San Bernardino Mountains. The vehicle was designed and built by Riva, art director Stephen Dane and Thrust Racing owners Jerry Segal and George Haddebeck. Segal started with a Ford F-350 truck, reinforced the frame assembly, added the front end from a Grand National stock car, borrowed air scoops from a DC-3, and a one-man cockpit modeled after a Messerschmitt fighter plane. Under the hood, Segal modified the Ford engine with an oversized carburetor and nitrous oxide injectors. The Oscillation Overthruster was created by Riva and visual effects supervisor Michael Fink out of a gyroscope to which a metal frame, wires, circuits, and tiny strobe lights were added. The prop itself would ultimately be reused a number of times on various "Star Trek" episodes. Cinematographer Jordan Cronenweth was initially hired as the film's director of photography but, halfway through, production producers replaced him with Fred J. Koenekamp. The Banzai Institute exteriors were shot in Rustic Canyon, Los Angeles, with the interiors filmed in an Art Deco house designed in 1931 by MGM art director Cedric Gibbons for his wife, Dolores del Río. Deserted rooms at Brentwood's V.A. hospital were used for Dr. Lizardo's room at the Trenton Home for the Criminally Insane. Lizardo's 1938 laboratory was filmed at a deserted industrial site, Alpha Tubing. The set decorators rented a collection of 1930s electrical props originally used in the original Boris Karloff Frankenstein films. The interiors of Yoyodyne Propulsion Systems were shot in the abandoned Firestone tire factory. The production rented warhead nosecones from Modern Props and had televisions going all the time on the set. Wilmington's Department of Water and Power provided the location for Dr. Lizardo's shock tower and served as the Yoyodyne exterior. Weller remembers that during the scene where his character is tortured by Dr. Lizardo, "I never laughed so hard in my life! They had to stop takes over and over on that segment because I was laughing at the banter between Lloyd and [John Lithgow." The Armco Steel Plant in Torrance housed the Lectroid launch hangar. Finally, 12 weeks of filming were done on the backlot and soundstages at MGM. Richter and Riva did not want metal spaceships and opted for a more organic look like a deep sea oyster shell. Gregory Jein, Inc. and Stetson Visual Concepts built the spaceship models and worked off sketches by production illustrator Tom Cranham and used seashells as guides. Richter purposely gave the film an unpolished look because the "real world appears ramshackle - because people constantly repair whatever's around them". Soundtrack. The film's music coordinator and sound designer Bones Howe worked with musician Michael Boddicker, who wrote and performed the score, on the theme music and sound effects. Howe selected the source music for the club scene and put together a special arrangement of "Since I Don't Have You" that Buckaroo sings to Penny Priddy. Weller, an accomplished musician, played the guitar and pocket trumpet, did his own vocals, and learned to mime piano playing. Howe and the filmmakers decided not to go with a rock music score and opted for an electronic one instead. He wanted to "integrate music and sound effects so that everything would merge on the soundtrack with no distinction between music and sound". Boddicker was Howe's first choice for composer. They had worked together on the soundtrack for "Get Crazy". Boddicker had just won a Grammy for his song, "Imagination", on the "Flashdance" soundtrack. In addition to composing the score, he also produced alien sound effects while Alan Howarth was hired to create the sounds of the 8th Dimension. Reaction. Fox hired Terry Erdmann (Blue Blaze code name "Silver Fox") and a team of publicists including Blake Mitchell and Jim Ferguson to promote the film at "Star Trek" conventions with a few film clips and free Banzai headbands, which have since become highly-sought-after collector's items by fans of the film. The studio made no attempts to sell the film to a mainstream audience with traditional promotion, although there was some magazine advertising (primarily in Marvel Comics) and related licensing which served as viral advertising in limited venues. Studio publicist Rosemary LaSalmandra said, "Nobody knew what to do with "Buckaroo Banzai". There was no simple way to tell anyone what it was about — I'm not sure anybody knew". Lithgow said, "I've tried to explain the story line to people and it takes about an hour. I mean it; it's that complicated. But it's terrific. Every time I tell people about it, I get so excited that I end it by saying, "Buckaroo Banzai", remember where you heard it first!" "Buckaroo Banzai" was originally scheduled to be released on June 8, 1984 but was pushed back to August 15. It opened on 236 screens and faced stiff competition against the likes of "" (also featuring "Banzai" co-star Christopher Lloyd), "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom" and "Ghostbusters". It made USD $620,279 on its opening weekend before finally grossing $6.2 million in North America. Critical reception. The film was given mixed to positive reviews and based on reviews from 34 critics has a 71% "fresh" rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Bill Cosford of "The Miami Herald" praised it as "an unusual film": "Its comedy springs from that odd combination of self-effacement and self-absorption that characterized some of the "Saturday Night Live" characters and continues to provide Bill Murray with work. And though "Buckaroo Banzai" is basically a comic strip, it's also relentlessly hip, hipper even than it is goofy." Cosford added, "There are inside jokes and 'quotations' from movies, television and pop music, and there's lots of weird activity on the edges of the film, so much that I suspect "Banzai" might even be rewarding the second time around. First or second, the film defies easy explanation. But it's anarchic comedy for the 1980s, closest in spirit to the Marx Brothers as they might have been if they grown up on themselves, and had had the benefit of post-"Star Wars" special effects. It's also adventure in the Buck Rogers mold, the aliens employing a wide array of weaponry, including Arachnids From Space, the good guys fighting back from a mobile command post aboard the Cavaliers' doubledecker tour bus. The pace of both jokes and action is that of "Airplane!", and to say much more is only to spoil the fun." Dave Kehr, in the "Chicago Reader", wrote, "Richter seems to have invented an elaborate mythology for his hero ... but he never bothers to explicate it; the film gives you the mildly annoying sensation of being left out of a not very good private joke". In his review for the "New York Times", Vincent Canby wrote that "Buckaroo Banzai" "may well turn out to be a pilot film for other theatrical features, though this one would be hard to top for pure, nutty fun". Richard Corliss, in his review for "Time", wrote, "its creators, Earl Mac Rauch and W.D. Richter, propel their film with such pace and farfetched style that anyone without Ph.D.s in astrophysics and pop culture is likely to get lost in the ganglion of story strands. One wonders if the movie is too ambitious, facetious and hip for its own box-office good". Film critic Pauline Kael wrote, "I didn't find it hard to accept the uninflected, deadpan tone, and to enjoy "Buckaroo Banzai" for its inventiveness and the gags that bounce off other adventure movies, other comedies. The picture's sense of fun carried me along". Danny Bowes, writing a retrospective in 2011 for Tor.com, said that the film "is paradoxically decades ahead of its time and yet completely "of" its time; it's profoundly a movie by, for, and of geeks and nerds at a time before geek/nerd culture was mainstreamed, and a movie whose pre-CG special effects and pre-Computer Age production design were an essential part of its good-natured enthusiasm. What at the time was a hip, modern take on classic SF is now, almost thirty years later, almost indistinguishable from the SF cinema that inspired it in terms of the appeal to modern viewers: the charmingly old-fashioned special effects, and the comparatively innocent earnestness of its tone." Home media. "Buckaroo Banzai" was released on DVD on January 4, 2002. "Entertainment Weekly" gave the release a "B+" rating and wrote, "Fans will drool over the extras, including some illuminating deleted scenes (of particular note is an alternate opening detailing Buckaroo's tragic childhood, featuring Jamie Lee Curtis as Banzai's mother) and director Richter's commentary, which reveals some colorful behind-the-scenes battles with studio execs". IGN gave the DVD their highest rating and was "thrilled by the special edition treatment that this landmark cult film has received at the hands of MGM. The video is great, the sound is great, there are tons of extras ... Bottom line, if you're a Buckaroo fan, this is the home video version you have been waiting for". Legacy. "Buckaroo Banzai" has since attracted a loyal cult following and has been quite popular on home video. Richter said, "It has had the most dramatic reactions of anything I've worked on. Some loathe it and others are willing to die for it". The director feels that the film failed commercially because the narrative was too complex. He would like to have had more coverage for certain scenes. He could have edited the film better and there were too many master shots and two-shots that left little for the editor to work with. "Wired Magazine", in 2009, celebrated "the 25th anniversary of the release of a film near and dear to many geeks who came of age in the '80s. "The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension" was a great, adventurous, geeky movie, with enough silly science fiction and great characters to fill any three lousy summer blockbusters these days... And it gave us so many great, geeky lines to quote." Cosford of "The Miami Herald" said in his review, "I suspect that Buckaroo's odd musings, particularly the one about being there no matter where you go, are about to enter the popular argot on the scale of "Where's the beef?" — and his prediction has been proved right. (There is a page at CafePress for Buckaroo Banzai Quotes Gifts, for example.) "Entertainment Weekly" ranked "Buckaroo Banzai" as #43 in their Top 50 Cult Movies. The film was also ranked #21 on the magazine's "The Cult 25: The Essential Left-Field Movie Hits Since '83" list. "The Guardian" has also cited "Buckaroo Banzai" as one of their "1,000 films to see before you die". Other versions. A substantially longer print was shown in test screening in Texas and in Washington State before general release, but the "restored" DVD print is still missing much of the test print material. The DVD restores a deleted opening scene consisting of a "home movie" from Banzai's childhood, narrated by Clancy Brown, who plays the character Rawhide. The scene depicts an early test of a precursor to the Jet Car, built by Buckaroo's parents and Dr. Hikita. The test ends in disaster, as the Jet Car has been sabotaged by the evil Hanoi Xan, leader of the World Crime League. The "home movie" ends, and dissolves to the present-day opening scene of the film depicting Buckaroo's test run of the latter-day Jet Car. Jamie Lee Curtis plays Buckaroo Banzai's mother, Sandra Banzai. The novelization by Mac Rauch is told through fake documents written and compiled by Reno Nevada, and further expands on the backstory of the film, including the murder of Peggy Banzai (her twin sister Penny plays a role in the movie) by the minions of Asian crime lord Hanoi Xan, the deaths of Buckaroo's parents in an early Jet Car accident, and at least two other fictitious novels. The 102-minute version released on DVD in January 2002 has a subtitle track with director's commentary-style information and a fake documents feature. The packaging and literature with the DVD maintain a mythos that Buckaroo Banzai is a real person, that the Banzai Institute exists, and that the movie is in fact a docu-drama of the real adventures of Buckaroo Banzai. The producers make claims such as having had brief tours of the Banzai Institute, and having met and interviewed several members of the Hong Kong Cavaliers, and that the script required approval from the Institute. Proposed sequels. "Buckaroo Banzai Against the World Crime League". The credits mention a sequel, "Buckaroo Banzai Against the World Crime League", which was never produced; the film would have focused on the League and its leader, Hanoi Xan. MGM now owns the rights to the Banzai franchise (after being passed on from now-defunct Sherwood Productions and its successors), so any sequel or remake is at their discretion. TV series. In late 1998, the Fox Network tried to develop a "Buckaroo Banzai" TV series, entitled "Buckaroo Banzai: Ancient Secrets and New Mysteries", but nothing ever came of it. The special edition DVD contains a short computer animated sequence; done by Foundation Imaging,that was made as a test reel for the series. Among other things,the clip depicts a Space Shuttle trying to land with broken landing gear. Dr. Banzai maneuvers his Jet Car under the Shuttle and uses it to take the place of the broken gear. Other media. Buckaroo Banzai books. The novelization of the first film was reprinted to coincide with the release of the movie on DVD. In the foreword, Mac Rauch mentions that the Buckaroo Banzai series would be continued in a series of novels. The first of these graphic novels, "Buckaroo Banzai: Return of the Screw", was published on September 15, 2007. Marvel Comics. Marvel Comics published a comic book adaptation of the film by writer Bill Mantlo and artists Mark Texeira and Armando Gil in "Marvel Super Special" #33. The adaptation was also released as a two-issue limited series. Moonstone Books. In 2006, Moonstone Books began publishing comic books depicting earlier and further adventures of Buckaroo Banzai and the Hong Kong Cavaliers. The first story, "Return of the Screw", was written by Buckaroo Banzai's creator, Earl Mac Rauch. The black-and-white preview edition of the comic was released in February 2006, featuring a behind-the-scenes article by Dan Berger regarding the transformation of the rejected Buckaroo Banzai television pilot script "Supersize those Fries" into the present comic book miniseries. The three issues of this comic have been collected into a trade paperback. In December 2007, Moonstone released a new Banzai comic story "A Christmas Corrall" in the "Moonstone Holiday Super Spectacular" compilation, also written by Earl Mac Rauch and drawn by Ken Wolak. A two-issue prequel to the movie was released in early 2008 called "Of Hunan Bondage". It was written by Earl Mac Rauch with art by "Superman Returns" storyboard artist Chewie. In early 2009, Moonstone released "Big Size", a special oversize one-shot comic, written by Earl Mac Rauch with art by Paul Hanley. Adamant Entertainment. In 2011, Adamant Entertainment announced a licensing deal to publish a tabletop role-playing game under the title "The Buckaroo Banzai Adventure Game". The initial press release (http://www.adamantentertainment.com/2011/07/18/buckaroo-banzai-is-back/) stated that the game will be published in Spring 2012 (though delays have pushed that back, and there is no current release date) and will be presented as a training manual for Blue Blaze Irregulars, "in order to prepare BBI recruits for the sorts of situations in which they may find themselves while aiding Buckaroo. The training manual will feature guidelines for taking on the roles of either your own Blue Blaze Irregular Strike Team, or the roles of Dr. Buckaroo Banzai and the Hong Kong Cavaliers themselves." The game's cover art is by Dave Dorman, and the game is being designed by Gareth-Michael Skarka. As of November 22, 2012, Adamant is awaiting approval from the licensor before releasing the product. Video game. "The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai" is an interactive fiction video game based on the franchise. It was written in 1984 by Scott Adams and published by Adventure International.
711867	Nora Angela Zehetner (born February 5, 1981) is an American film and television actress. Early life. Zehetner was born in El Paso, Texas, the daughter of Nancy Lynne (née Nelson) and John Carol Zehetner. She attended elementary school in Richardson, Texas, a suburb of Dallas, before moving back to El Paso. When she was 14 she moved to Dallas where she attended McKinney High School for several years. For one year she also attended the Texas Academy of Mathematics and Science, an early college entrance program at the University of North Texas for students interested in mathematics or science. Acting career. At the age of 18 Zehetner started an acting career, something she had been interested in since she was 8, and moved to Los Angeles. She appeared in "Tart" (2001), "American Pie 2" (2001), "R.S.V.P." (2002), "May" (2002), and "The Song of Rose" (2003), as well as in other films and several TV series and commercials. Zehetner is best known for her role as Laynie Hart on the WB's show "Everwood". In "Brick", which won the Special Jury Prize for Originality of Vision at the 2005 Sundance Film Festival, Zehetner plays the rich femme fatale Laura. The soundtrack CD of this film, released by Lakeshore Records on March 21, 2006, features a full unedited performance by Zehetner of "". In the thriller-horror film "Beneath", Zehetner appears in the leading role of Christy. Zehetner also starred in NBC's "Heroes" as Eden McCain. Zap2It.com proclaimed Zehetner one of "The Underrated of 2006" for her role. Together with the actors and comedians Tom Arnold and Dax Shepard, Zehetner embarked in 2007 on a USO/Armed Forces Entertainment tour to the Persian Gulf region to meet with service members and sign autographs. In 2007, Zehetner appeared with Marisa Berenson in the short movie "Jalouse: Elegante, famous, beautiful, jolie" which was produced by the French fashion magazine "Jalouse" to celebrate their 10th anniversary. From late 2009 to mid 2010, she portrayed the recurring role of Dr. Reed Adamson in the popular television series "Grey's Anatomy".
1074986	Dustin Nguyen (born September 17, 1962) is a Vietnamese-American actor, director, writer and martial artist. He is best known for his roles as Harry Truman Ioki on "21 Jump Street" and as Johnny Loh on "V.I.P." Early life. Born as Nguyễn Xuân Trí in Saigon, South Vietnam, his mother My Le was an actress and dancer and his father, Xuan Phat, was an actor, writer and producer in South Vietnam. The family left Vietnam in April 1975 as it fell to Communist Viet Cong and North Vietnamese Army forces. They arrived in Guam, then the family was moved to a refugee camp in Fort Chaffee, Arkansas, and finally with the assistance of a Methodist church they relocated to Des Peres, Missouri, a suburb of St. Louis. After Nguyen graduated from Garden Grove High School in Garden Grove, CA, he attended Orange Coast College and majored in communications. Nguyen practices several martial arts including Muay Thai, Tae Kwon Do, Eskrima, and Jeet Kune Do. Personal life. After a car accident on September 3, 2001 that left his wife, Angela Rockwood-Nguyen, a paraplegic, Nguyen and his wife became active in The Christopher and Dana Reeve Paralysis Resource Center. That accident also claimed the life of Vietnamese-American actress Thuy Trang, a member of the original cast of "Mighty Morphin Power Rangers". He separated from his wife in 2011. Filmography. He made his acting debut on "Magnum, P.I.", portraying a Cambodian freedom fighter in the episode "Crouching." He was a cast member on both "21 Jump Street" and "V.I.P.", and has guest-starred on a number of other series, including "General Hospital", , and most notably "seaQuest DSV", playing the role of Chief William Shan. Moreover, he played a cameo role in "Charlie's Angels". Nguyen also auditioned for the role of Liu Kang in "Mortal Kombat", but lost out to Robin Shou. In 1993 he played a Vietnamese man sent off to fight with the Viet Cong, in the film "Heaven & Earth". In 2005, Nguyen starred as a former heroin addict opposite Academy Award-winner Cate Blanchett in the critically acclaimed "Little Fish". He most recently starred in the 2007 films "The Rebel" and "Saigon Eclipse". In 2008 he starred in the Vietnamese martial art film "Huyen Thoai Bat Tu" (The Legend Is Alive, The Immortal Legend) where he plays a mentally disabled martial artist. Nguyen screened in 2009 the Thriller The Gauntlet under the Direction from Matt Eskandari and stars alongside Chinese actress star Bai Ling. Awards. In March 2009, he won the Vietnamese Cánh Diều Vàng (Golden Kite Award) for best actor, for his starring role in the Phuoc Sang Films vehicle "Huyền Thoại Bất Tử" (The Legend Is Alive).
629381	John Jarratt (born 5 August 1952) is an Australian actor. Early life. Jarratt was born and grew up in Wongawilli, a small rural town near Wollongong, New South Wales and later in the Snowy Mountains area. Jarratt's father was a coal miner and later a concreter, who worked on the Snowy Mountains hydroelectric scheme. His 5x great-grandfather, George Jarratt, born 1833, came from Croxton in Cambridgeshire, England; his son, John, married a Mary Kelly from Ireland. While in high school, Jarratt directed and acted in a school play which was a great success and led to his school principal recommending him for an acting career. Career. Early work. Jarratt graduated from the National Institute of Dramatic Art (NIDA) in 1973. His screen debut was in "The Great Macarthy". He also appeared in Peter Weir's "Picnic at Hanging Rock" in 1975 and "Summer City" in 1977 with Mel Gibson. Jarratt had the lead role in the mini series "The Last Outlaw" playing Ned Kelly in 1979. He played a major supporting role as a young Australian soldier in Vietnam war movie "The Odd Angry Shot", 1980. In the late 1980s, Jarrat recognised he had a problem with binge drinking and related violence and joined Alcoholics Anonymous, an organisation in which he continues to be active. Television. In the 1990s, he was a presenter on the lifestyle show "Better Homes and Gardens" with then-wife Noni Hazlehurst. He had guest roles in "Inspector Morse", "Police Rescue", "Blue Murder", "Water Rats" and "Blue Heelers" in the 1990s and 2000s. He joined the cast of "McLeod's Daughters" in 2001, and left the show in 2006. In 2010, Jarratt appeared in a commercial for Husqvarna. In May 2013, Jarratt filmed a guest star role in the third instalment of the ABC telemovie series, "Jack Irish: Dead Point." Return to cinema. In 2005, he had a major role in the Australian film "Wolf Creek", playing the villain Mick Taylor. In 2007, he appeared in two films, "Rogue" and "The Final Winter". Jarratt also had a small role in the 2008 film, "Australia", as a soldier. In 2008, Jarratt launched his own film production company, Winnah Films. Winnah's first feature film, "Savages Crossing" (originally carrying the working title "Flood") went into principal photography outside Ipswich, Queensland in February. In 2009, he appears as the father of a teenage girl via phone in Telstra's "Next G" commercials. In 2010, Jarratt starred in the ensemble exploitation extravaganza, "Bad Behaviour", written and directed by Joseph Sims. In the same year, Jarrat also has a role in the supernatural horror movie "Needle". He made a cameo in Quentin Tarantino's "Django Unchained" in 2012, appearing as an employee of the Le Quint Dickie Mining Company alongside Tarantino himself, both appearing with Australian accents. In February 2013, Jarratt reprised his role as Mick Taylor, filming the "Wolf Creek" sequel, "Wolf Creek 2," with Matt Hearn producing and Greg McLean directing. The film is expected to be released on February 20, 2014 Personal life. Jarratt has been married three times. With his first wife, Rosa, he had two children, Zadia and Ebony. He was married to actress Noni Hazlehurst, with whom he had two more children, Charlie and William. Most recently, he married Cody Jarrett, whom he met as a producer on "Better Homes and Gardens", and had a further two boys, Jackson and Riley. Cody and John separated in late 2011/early 2012. John Jarratt is now living in Doonan on the Sunshine Coast, Queensland, after living in the Blue Mountains, New South Wales.
1042535	Jack Hedley (born 28 October 1930 as Jack Hawkins, name changed to avoid confusion with his namesake) is an English actor, best known for his performances on television. Born in London, his screen career began in 1950 with a 13-minute drama-documentary about polio called "A Life to be Lived". In the 1950s he starred in a number of films and TV appearances, such as "Left Right and Centre", "Fair Game", and the Alun Owen-scripted "No Trams to Lime Street" with Billie Whitelaw. He became a TV star in the Francis Durbridge-scripted BBC series "The World of Tim Frazer" (transmitted from November 1960 to March 1961), the 18 instalments of which comprised three separate serials of six episodes each. He also played Corrigan Blake in Alun Owen's 1962 BBC play "You Can't Win 'Em All", the role being taken over by John Turner in the series "Corrigan Blake" that resulted the following year. He was also in Alun Owen's 'A Little Winter Love'. He appeared in a number of British films of the 1960s, notably "Lawrence of Arabia" (1962), "The Scarlet Blade" (1963), "Witchcraft" (1964), "Of Human Bondage" (1964), "The Secret of Blood Island" (1964) and "The Anniversary" (1968). He also had a lead role as Lt Colonel Preston in "Colditz" (1972–74). Hedley later appeared in the James Bond film "For Your Eyes Only" as Sir Timothy Havelock, also voicing Havelock's parrot. Soon after this, in the autumn of 1981 he played the lead role (cynical investigative cop Fred Williams) in Lucio Fulci's "The New York Ripper" ("Lo squartatore di New York"), in which his voice was dubbed. He also starred with Stanley Baker and Jean Seberg in the film of Irwin Shaw's "In The French Style". Other TV appearances include: "The Saint", "Gideon's Way" (The Alibi Man), "Softly, Softly", "Dixon of Dock Green", "The Buccaneers", the ex-serviceman Alan Haldane in "Who Pays the Ferryman?" (1977), "Return of the Saint", "One by One", "Remington Steele", "Only Fools and Horses (A Royal Flush"), "'Allo 'Allo", "Dalziel and Pascoe", and the television film version of "Brief Encounter".
585996	Bhama (; Rekhita born on 23 May 1989) is an Indian film actress, who has mainly appeared in Malayalam and Kannada language films. She debuted in 2007 through "Nivedyam" directed by A. K. Lohithadas. Personal life. Bhama is from Manarcadu near Kottayam. She is the daughter of late Rajendra Kurup. She has two sisters, both older than her. Her mother is a housewife. Career. Before her entry into the film industry, she was the host of a show on Kairali TV titled "Thaali". She has also acted in a Christian devotional album. Director Lohithadas, whom she considers her Mentor/Guru cast her in "Nivedyam", her first movie. Her second film was "Hareendran Oru Nishkalankan" directed by Vinayan, in which she was cast opposite Manikuttan. She paired with Vineeth Sreenivasan in "Cycle" directed by Johny Antony.Bhama Presently very busy with other language movies especially in Tamil and Kannada.Her last released Malayalam movie 101 weddings. Bhama said that until 2011, she was getting the same kind of roles in Malayalam. She started taking up Kannada film offers, after which she started getting fresh and interesting characters in Malayalam. She is acting in Sohanlal's "Kadhaveedu", where she plays the heroine in M. T. Vasudevan Nair's segment and her character is that of a modern girl, a media person, who is smart and energetic. In Rakesh Gopan's "100 Degree Celsius", she plays a Christian housewife, for the first time. She also has a small but significant role in Vinod Vijayan's segment of "D Company", "Day of Judgement", featuring Fahadh Faasil where she plays a psycho and wears no make-up. Playback singing. Bhama has occasionally worked as a playback singer as well. She had reportedly sung the song "Kannil Kannil", composed by Rahulraj for a film titled "Bike"; however the film was cancelled and the song remains unreleased. She lent her voice for the devotional album "Maaya Madhavam" (2009), and has crooned the title song for the upcoming children’s film "Meow Meow Karimppoocha".
1129868	Timber Falls is a 2007 horror-thriller film with elements of a slasher film directed by Tony Giglio, it stars Josh Randall and Brianna Brown. It's rated R for strong bloody horror violence, torture, language and some sexuality. Plot. A couple is seen being tortured. After "Sarah" escapes from her bondings, her boyfriend tells her to run and is killed. Sarah runs from a figure in a black trench coat and a modified sickle. When Sarah is trapped on the edge of a cliff, she jumps off the cliff and is killed when she hits the ground.
438607	Flashbacks of a Fool is a 2008 British drama film about a Hollywood actor who, following the death of his childhood best friend, reflects upon his life and what might have been, had he stayed in England. The film was directed by Baillie Walsh, and stars Daniel Craig, Harry Eden, Claire Forlani, Felicity Jones, Emilia Fox, Eve, Jodhi May, Helen McCrory and Miriam Karlin. Plot. Joe (Daniel Craig) is a has-been actor who seemed to have had great success at one time but who now just spends his time drinking, doing drugs and sleeping with random women. The only person he has in his life is his personal assistant Ophelia, and even she is getting tired of him. He receives a call from his mother to say his childhood best friend, Boots, whom he has not seen in years, has died. He attends a disastrous meeting with his agent, who has lost interest in Joe and his career, and an up-and-coming director. Joe learns he will not get the part he had hoped would restore his flagging career. His agent tells him that he is washed up, no one wants to work with him, and quits. This upsets Joe, who goes for a walk along the beach, and walks into the waves. Floating in the sea, he remembers his teenage life. The film flashes back 25 years to a 16-year-old Joe (Harry Eden) and his best friend Boots (Max Deacon). We find out that Boots has epilepsy and has recently had an attack in the cinema. Joe’s next-door neighbour, a bored housewife named Evelyn (Jodhi May), comes on to him and invites him over that evening, where they are almost caught in sexual activity by her unsuspecting husband. The next day Joe meets up with a popular but quirky girl his own age from town, Ruth (Felicity Jones). She invites him back to her house which he accepts, leaving Boots alone and angry, after seeing Ruth's home, Joe is delighted. Ruth applies make up to Joe's face, making him resemble a star. Both of them dance and indicate their interest in each other. Next day Evelyn watches Joe in the bathroom seducing him to come to her home on the way to his date, Evelyn coaxes Joe to stop with her and they end up having sex. Joe arrives late to meet Ruth, who has been kept company by Boots. Ruth sees love bites from Evelyn on his neck and storms off. Boots questions Joe if he had sex with Evelyn, which Joe declines calmly. Boots questions him again, this time more loudly making Joe angry. In his frustration, Joe has a fight with Boots. The next day, Evelyn comes on to Joe again, asking him about his date. Joe replies saying it was terrible due to love bites visible on his neck. She responds saying she really liked how he touched her, then inviting him to her house, if he wants to repeat it. This time Joe is more excited than Evelyn. She proceeds to force her little girl, Jane (Jodie Tomlinson), who was watching TV, out to play so they can have the house to themselves. While Joe and Evelyn are in bed, Jane finds a washed up mine, climbs on it and detonates it, and is killed instantly. Joe blames himself, runs away on the day of the little girl's funeral, and doesn't return. Joe left as a boy but returns as a middle-aged man. We are now in the present. Joe returns to England to attend Boots' funeral, but is too late and has missed it. His mother and Aunt tell him that Boots died of an aneurysm and left behind his wife Ruth (Claire Forlani), four young children, and a lot of debt. Joe goes to the graveyard to meet Ruth, who tells him how much she loved Boots and what a wonderful person he was, but how she cannot cry even though it is the saddest moment of her life. His sister tells him that Evelyn also died a few years ago. Evelyn's marriage had broken up after Jane died and she married a cruel fellow (shown briefly at a fishing scene in Act), who beat her. When Evelyn finally found the courage to leave the guy, she was struck and killed by a truck. Her head was never found at the crash site; officials suggested it was taken by a fox. Joe goes back home to the grand house he purchased for his family when his career was going well. He listens to the same music he and Ruth listened to the night they danced, and decides to write her a cheque to help her out. He encloses with the cheque a letter which has a special phrase written in it from a song they shared the night they met. When Joe's sister gives it to her, Ruth instantly breaks down crying. Chastised by all that has occurred, Joe heads back to Los Angeles and is met by his personal assistant, with whom he starts talking about his possibilities as an actor in the future. Production. The film was mainly shot in Cape Town in South Africa, and England. "Flashbacks of a Fool" is director Baillie Walsh's first feature film. Walsh has directed music videos for, among others, Massive Attack, Oasis and INXS. The cinematography for the film was done by John Mathieson, who has shot for films such as "Gladiator", "Matchstick Men" and "Kingdom of Heaven". Music. The song when Joe, dressed as Bryan Ferry, dances with Ruth is "If There Is Something", performed by Roxy Music, from their eponymous first album. The film misses out the first minute and forty seconds of the song. The original song is over six minutes long. There is also music in the Film performed by David Bowie, Scott Walker, War Zone, and Harry Eden. The film's soundtrack plays a vital role for the plot. Director Baillie Walsh had only directed music videos previous to directing "Flashbacks of a Fool". Reception. Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reported that 38% of critics gave positive based on 20 reviews. Critics called the script undeveloped, although Craig's performance was praised.
1164667	Riley Smith (born April 12, 1978 in Cedar Rapids, Iowa) is an American film and television actor and singer for the band The Life of Riley. Background. Smith's parents are Russ and Roxanne Smith. He was born in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and raised in Marion, Iowa on his parents’ horse ranch. He became an accomplished rider, competing in a horse show for the first time when he was 9 years old. When he was 15, he placed 4th in 3-Year-Old Mares division at the American Quarter Horse Youth World Championship, and at 16 won the American Quarter Horse Youth World Championship. When he was 17, he became president of the 50,000-member youth association, becoming the youngest person to serve as corresponding vice president of American Quarter Horse Youth Association. He graduated from Alburnett Junior-Senior High School in 1997, and his original intention was to earn a college degree to cover his horse racing, but he was "discovered" at the Westdale Mall in Cedar Rapids by a local talent scout and flew to New York City to compete at the International Modeling and Talent Association (IMTA) Convention. There he was signed to a Tommy Hilfiger modeling campaign. He used the money he earned to pay for acting classes. Career. Three months after the Hilfiger campaign, Smith flew to Los Angeles to do a screen test for the 1998 WB pilot "Minor Threat", but the pilot was not picked up. Subsequently, he went on to do eight prime time network pilots, more than a dozen guest-starring roles, and recurring character roles in three television series. Film. Smith has appeared in the film "Eight Legged Freaks", "Not Another Teen Movie", "Radio", "New York Minute" and the Sundance Film Festival Grand Jury nominee "Weapons".
1034280	Herbert Kwouk OBE (; born 18 July 1930) is an English actor of Chinese descent, known for many television appearances and for his role as Cato in the "Pink Panther" films. Career. Kwouk was born in Warrington, Lancashire (confirmed by Burt Kwouk on Whodunnit Series 3 appearance), but was brought up in Shanghai until he was about 17 years old. He graduated from Bowdoin College in the USA in 1953. One of Kwouk's earliest film roles was in "The Inn of the Sixth Happiness" (1958) where he played the leader of a prison revolt who later aids the main character in heroically leading orphans to safety. He has appeared in numerous films and television programmes. He may be most famous for playing Cato Fong, Inspector Clouseau's man-servant. The running gag was that Cato was ordered to attack Clouseau when he least expected it to keep him alert, usually resulting in Clouseau's flat being wrecked. Amid the chaos, the phone would ring and Cato would calmly answer it with "Inspector Clouseau's residence," before dutifully handing the phone to his employer. He was a stalwart of the ITC television film series when an oriental character was required. He co-starred in 12/13 episodes of "The Sentimental Agent" (1963). Kwouk has appeared in three James Bond films. In "Goldfinger" (1964) he played Mr. Ling, a Red Chinese expert in nuclear fission; in the spoof "Casino Royale" (1967) he played a general and in "You Only Live Twice" (1967) Kwouk played the part of a Japanese operative of Blofeld credited as Spectre 3. In 1968 he appeared in "The Shoes of the Fisherman" opposite Laurence Olivier and Anthony Quinn. Kwouk also appeared as the honourable but misguided Major Yamauchi in the 1980s World War II television drama "Tenko". A reference to his appearances in several films with Peter Sellers is found in the opening scene of "The Fiendish Plot of Dr. Fu Manchu" where Sellers says to him "your face is familiar." Kwouk featured in many UK television productions that called for a man of Oriental appearance. As a result, he became a familiar face in the United Kingdom and appeared as himself in the "Harry Hill Show" as well as several of Hill's live tours. In 2000 he appeared in an episode of the syndicated western TV series "Queen of Swords" playing Master Kiyomasa an aged Japanese warrior priest starring with Sung-Hi Lee who played his female pupil Kami. Filmed at Texas Hollywood, Almeria, Spain. From 2001 to 2004 he provided voice-overs on the spoof Japanese betting show "Banzai" and subsequently appeared in adverts for the betting company, "Bet365". From 2002 to the show's end in 2010, he had a regular role in the long-running series "Last of the Summer Wine", as Entwistle (2002–2010). His later work also includes voice acting in the audio theatre and video game genres. In 2010, he provided the voice of the CGI character Shen, a Chinese water dragon, for the groundbreaking BBC TV fantasy drama series Spirit Warriors. He was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2011 New Year Honours for services to drama.
1166573	Paula Raymond (November 23, 1924 – December 31, 2003) was an American model and actress. Biography. Paula Ramona Wright was born in 1924, in San Francisco, California. Her first acting role was playing Bettina Bowman in "Keep Smiling" (1938), credited as Paula Rae Wright. In 1950, she was put under contract by MGM, where she played opposite such leading men as Cary Grant and Dick Powell. Earlier in her career, Raymond acted in film noir thrillers such as "City That Never Sleeps" (with Gig Young and Marie Windsor), but later in her career she developed a horror film reputation.
1056746	55 Days at Peking is a 1963 historical epic film starring Charlton Heston, Ava Gardner, and David Niven, made by Samuel Bronston Productions, and released by Allied Artists. The movie was produced by Samuel Bronston and directed by Nicholas Ray, Andrew Marton (credited as second unit director), and Guy Green (uncredited). The screenplay was written by Philip Yordan, Bernard Gordon, Ben Barzman, and Robert Hamer, the music score was written by Dimitri Tiomkin, and the cinematographer was Jack Hildyard. In addition to directing, Nicholas Ray plays the minor role of the head of the American diplomatic mission in China. This film is also the first known appearance of future martial arts film star Yuen Siu Tien. Japanese film director Juzo Itami, credited in the film as ""Ichizo Itami"", appears as Colonel Goro Shiba. Plot. "55 Days at Peking" is a dramatization of the siege of the foreign legations' compounds in Peking (now Beijing) during the Boxer Rebellion which took place in 1900 China. It is based on the book by Noel Gerson. Fed up with foreign encroachment, the Dowager Empress Tzu-Hsi uses the Boxer secret societies to attack foreigners within China, leading to the siege and subsequent direct intervention by foreign expeditionary forces which were dispatched to put down the rebellion. The film concentrates on the defense of the legations from the point of view of the foreign powers, and the title refers to the length of the defense by the colonial powers of the legations district of Peking. The foreign embassies in Peking are being held in a grip of terror as the Boxers set about killing Christians in an anti-Christian nationalistic fever. United States Marine Corps Major Matt Lewis heads a contingent of multinational soldiers and Marines defending the foreign compound in Peking. Inside the besieged compound, the British ambassador gathers the beleaguered ambassadors into a defensive formation. Included in the group of high-level dignitaries is the sultry Russian Baroness Natalie Ivanoff, who begins a romantic liaison with Lewis. As the group conserves food and water while trying to save hungry children, it awaits reinforcements, but Empress Tzu Hsi is plotting with the Boxers to break the siege at the compound with the aid of Chinese troops. Eventually, the forces of the Eight-Nation Alliance arrive to put down the rebellion and relieve the siege of the foreign compounds following the Battle of Peking. These events foreshadowed the coming demise of the Qing Dynasty which had ruled China for two and a half centuries. Depictions of historical persons and events. The historical events which this film concerns were, and remain politically charged. The film depicts attitudes on race-relations, colonialism and nationalism as they existed at the beginning of the 20th century, and reflects the 1960s attitudes to these issues belonging to the period in which the film was shot. Chinese, Japanese and European nationalism is addressed. Most of the starring Chinese roles, including the Empress Dowager and her Prime Minister are played by white performers. The Japanese in the foreign legation are played by Asian actors, but have relatively minor roles. Chinese view of "foreign powers". The film opens with cacophonous displays of nationalism inside the Foreign Legation quarter, with each nation raising its flag and playing a signature national tune. The camera pans to two old Pekingers eating a meal in a crowded Chinese street: The resentment of the Chinese Imperial Qing Dynasty Court at having to accept the presence of foreign powers in China is given its sharpest voice in the character of Prince Tuan (played by Australian ballet dancer Robert Helpmann) who counsels the Dowager Empress to support the rebel Boxer "patriots" in seeking to wipe out the foreigners from Peking. Opposing this aggressive stance is General Jung-Lu (British actor Leo Genn). The General warns the Empress that the Boxer rebels will be unable to match the modern armies of the foreigners. The Empress grows in sympathy for the Boxers and in a later scene she orders her General to turn back the foreign armies and declares: When the siege has ended in defeat for the Boxers, the Empress is seen at the Dragon throne, in distress and without her robes of state: "The dynasty is finished", she repeats to herself. Reception. Box office performance. "55 Days at Peking" was a commercial disaster. Produced on an enormous budget of $17 million, the film grossed $10 million, earning only $5 million in theatrical rentals. It was the 20th highest grossing film of 1963. Academy Award nominations. The film received two Academy Award nominations for Dimitri Tiomkin (Best Song and Original Music Score). Home media. DVD release came on February 28, 2001, nearly thirty-eight years after the film's premiere.
585592	Balram vs. Tharadas is a 2006 Malayalam crime thriller directed by I.V. Sasi, written by T. Damodaran and S. N. Swamy, and starring Mammootty and Katrina Kaif. Mammootty plays double role in the film, both as the protagonist, Inspector Balram, as well as the antagonist, underworld don Tharadas. Mammootty reprises his roles from the 1991 blockbuster "Inspector Balram" and the 1984 blockbuster "Athirathram". It was I. V. Sasi's 144th film, and a record 35th with Mammootty. The film was subsequently dubbed into Telugu as "Monica and the Don"It became supper hit and Hindi as "Basha: The Boss". Plot. The movie is set into motion when a large cache of arms is discovered in the land belonging to the local businessman Hussein Sahib (Rizabawa). On investigation, Inspector Varma (Mukesh) finds that Hussein Sahib has no idea about this, but the land was used by someone called Anali Bhaskaran. The Inspector, along with his colleagues Sudhakaran (Jagadeesh) go to arrest Bhaskaran, but they are given a good fight. As the police are being beaten, the screen alternates between a police jeep appearing on the scene and Anali Bhaskaran trying to knife people. Suddenly a hand appears in the scene and beats Bhaskaran. He is still the same no-nonsense, arrogant person who follows his heterodox ways of investigation. Anali Bhaskaran reveals under interrogation that Hussein Sahib's son Salim is involved in this. Hussein Sahib says that his son left the house sometime back and he has no idea where he is. Then at this point it starts raining characters as if it is the start of monsoon season. In a span of few minutes we get three villains, MLA Rani (Vani Viswanath), a DGP, Balram's boss (Devan), DYSP George (Siddique), Policewoman Dakshayani (Kalpana), a Chief Minister, a minister called Mustafa, Srini (Srinivasan), the editor of a yellow journal, and a policeman called Ummar (Augustine). Balram concludes that Tharadas was behind all this and the scene switches to Dubai. After beating his associate, Tharadas meets the minister Mustafa and does some business. He also wants a favor from the minister. He wants a ring to be passed to his girlfriend Supriya (Katrina Kaif) who is an actress. Once the people and linkages are established, the game is set in motion in an even faster pace. Balram concludes that the only way to trap Tharadas is to arrest Supriya. As expected Tharadas lands in Kerala and takes on Balram and it drives rest of the story.
1245048	Marwencol is a 2010 American documentary film that explores the life and work of artist and photographer Mark Hogancamp. It is the debut feature of director-editor Jeff Malmberg. Plot. On April 8, 2000, Mark Hogancamp was attacked outside of a bar by five men who beat him nearly to death. After nine days in a coma and forty days in the hospital, Mark was discharged with brain damage that left him little memory of his previous life. Unable to afford therapy, Mark creates his own by building a 1/6-scale World War II-era Belgian town in his yard and populating it with dolls representing himself, his friends, and even his attackers. He calls that town "Marwencol," a portmanteau of the names "Mark," "Wendy" and "Colleen." He rehabilitates his physical wounds by manipulating the small dolls and props — and his mental ones by having the figures act out various battles and stories. When Mark begins documenting his miniature dramas with his camera, his photos are discovered and published by "Esopus" magazine and even shown in a New York art gallery. But having the label of "art" applied to his intensely personal work forces Mark to make a choice between the safety of his fictional town and the real world he's avoided since his attack. Production. The film was shot in New York State in the United States between 2006 and 2010, using a combination of DVCAM video and Super-8 film formats. Reception. The film received widespread critical acclaim, holding a 98% approval rating on review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes. The site awarded the film their "Golden Tomato" Award for the best-reviewed documentary of the year. The Los Angeles Times called the film “an exhilarating, utterly unique experience” while the Village Voice said that it's “exactly the sort of mysterious and almost holy experience you hope to get from documentaries and rarely do.” The film was in the year-end top ten lists of the "Boston Globe", "The Globe and Mail", "Slate", New York Magazine, "The Oregonian", National Public Radio, and many others. The film was included in "Entertainment Weekly"'s July 6, 2012 article "50 Best Movies You've Never Seen". In the 2012 "Slate" article and online poll, "The Golden Age of Documentaries: What's the Best Doc of the Last 5 Years?", Marwencol was ranked #1 in the poll. In the 2012 PBS/POV online poll, "The 100 Greatest Documentaries of All Time", Marwencol was ranked #91 in the poll. In the April 22, 2013 "New York" article, "How Documentary Became the Most Exciting Kind of Filmmaking", Marwencol was among the films in the accompanying list, "The 20 Essential Documentaries of the Century".
1061747	William James "Bill" Pullman (born December 17, 1953) is an American actor. Pullman made his film debut in the supporting role of Earl Mott in the 1986 film "Ruthless People". He has since gone on to star in other films, including "Spaceballs" (1987), "Independence Day" (1996), "While You Were Sleeping" (1995), "Casper" (1995) and "Lost Highway" (1997). He has starred in a number of plays and is also a Jury Member for Filmaka. Early life. Pullman was born in Hornell, New York, the son of James Pullman, a physician, and his wife Johanna (née Blaas), a nurse. His father's family descends from England, and his maternal grandparents immigrated from the Netherlands. After graduating from Hornell High School in 1971, he attended the State University of New York at Delhi (SUNY Delhi) and the State University of New York at Oneonta in the 1970s. He eventually received his Masters of Fine Arts from the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Pullman taught theater at SUNY Delhi and Montana State University's School of Film and Photography, where he was convinced by his students to attempt film. Career. During the 1980s, he primarily worked with theatre companies around New York and Los Angeles. His first prominent movie role was in the film "Ruthless People" (which starred Danny DeVito and Bette Midler). Other notable films included the lead in "Spaceballs" (1987), " The Serpent and the Rainbow" (opposite Zakes Mokae), and "While You Were Sleeping" (1995). In 1996 he played the president of the United States in the commercially successful movie "Independence Day". A year later he had a major role in "Lost Highway" (1997). Pullman continues to act in both theatre and in movies, independent and big budget. His more recent films have been "The Grudge" and "Scary Movie 4" (the latter heavily spoofing "The Grudge" though Pullman's role spoofed "The Village"). From February 2001 until February 2002, Pullman starred with Mercedes Ruehl, in Edward Albee's play "The Goat, or Who is Sylvia?" on Broadway. The play won several awards: 2002 Tony Award for Best Play; 2002 Drama Desk Award Outstanding New Play; 2003 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. Pullman was nominated for the 2002 Drama Desk Award Outstanding Actor in a Play. He starred as Dr. Richard Massey in the End of Days miniseries, "Revelations". Pullman starred in "Edward Albee's Peter and Jerry", at Off-Broadway's Second Stage Theatre in New York. Pullman received a second Drama Desk Award nomination for Outstanding Actor in a Play for Peter and Jerry in 2008. In addition to acting, Pullman is a creative writer. His first play, "Expedition 6", is about the International Space Station mission Expedition 6 that was in orbit at the time that the Space Shuttle Columbia was destroyed on reentry, grounding the U.S. space shuttle program, which was to provide the vehicle for the crew's return to earth. The play opened at San Francisco's Magic Theater in September 2007. He also appeared in the Broadway production of David Mamet's "Oleanna", co-starring Julia Stiles. The production opened at the John Golden Theatre October 11, 2009, and closed on December 6, 2009, playing 65 performances. He is also a Jury Member for the digital studio Filmaka, a platform for undiscovered filmmakers to show their work to industry professionals. Pullman played murderer and paedophile Oswald Danes in "", the fourth series of the BBC/Starz Entertainment television show "Torchwood", which began airing in July 2011. For his performance as Danes, Pullman has received a Saturn Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor In Television. In 2012-13, Pullman starred in the role of a U.S. president in the television comedy series "1600 Penn". Pullman is also shown in the 2012 documentary "The Fruit Hunters" attempting to get a community garden established near his Hollywood home. In the film, Pullman discusses his passion for fruit and discloses that he has lost his sense of smell.
159760	Pope Sylvester II or Silvester II (c. 946 – 12 May 1003) was the head of the Catholic Church from 2 April 999 to his death in 1003. Born Gerbert d'Aurillac (Gerbert of Aurillac), he was a prolific scholar and teacher. He endorsed and promoted study of Arab/Greco-Roman arithmetic, mathematics, and astronomy, reintroducing to Europe the abacus and armillary sphere, which had been lost to Europe since the end of the Greco-Roman era. He is said to be the first to introduce in Europe the decimal numeral system using the Arabic numerals after his studies at the University of al-Karaouine in Morocco. He was the first French Pope. Life. Gerbert was born about 946 in the town of Belliac, near the present-day commune of Saint-Simon, Cantal, France. Around 963, he entered the monastery of St. Gerald of Aurillac. In 967, Borrell II of Barcelona (947–992) visited the monastery, and the abbot asked the Count to take Gerbert with him so that the lad could study mathematics in Spain and acquire there some knowledge of Arabic learning. In the following years, Gerbert studied under the direction of Atto, Bishop of Vic, some 60 km north of Barcelona, and probably also at the nearby Monastery of Santa Maria de Ripoll. Borrell II of Barcelona was facing major defeat from the Andalusian powers so he sent a delegation to Córdoba to request a truce. Bishop Atto was part of the delegation that met with Al-Hakam II of Cordoba, who received him with honor. Atto was mesmerized by the Arabic palaces in Cordoba and returned with great respect for the Arabs. Gerbert insisted that Atto teach him more about these Arabic princes who seemed to him more interested in the sciences and literature than warfare. Gerbert was fascinated by the stories of the Christian Bishops and judges who dressed and talked like the Arabs, well-versed in mathematics and natural sciences like the great teachers of the Islamic madrasahs. This sparked Gerbert's veneration for the Arabs and his passion for mathematics and astronomy. In 969, Count Borrell II made a pilgrimage to Rome, taking Gerbert with him. There Gerbert met Pope John XIII (965–972) and the Emperor Otto I, surnamed the Great (936–973). The Pope persuaded Otto I to employ Gerbert as a tutor for his young son, the future Emperor Otto II (973–983). Some years later, Otto I gave Gerbert leave to study at the cathedral school of Rheims where he was soon appointed a teacher by Archbishop Adalberon. When Otto II became Holy Roman Emperor in 973 (he was co-emperor with Otto I from 967), he appointed Gerbert the abbot of the monastery of Bobbio and also appointed him as count of the district, but the abbey had been ruined by previous abbots, and Gerbert soon returned to Rheims. After the death of Otto II in 983, Gerbert became involved in the politics of his time. In 985, with the support of his archbishop, he opposed Lothair of France's (954–986) attempt to take the Lorraine from Emperor Otto III (983–1002) by supporting Hugh Capet (987–996). Capet became King of France, ending the Carolingian line of Kings in 987. Adalberon died on 23 January 989. Gerbert was a natural candidate for his succession, but Hugh Capet appointed Arnulf, an illegitimate son of Lothair instead. Arnulf was deposed in 991 for alleged treason against the King, and Gerbert was elected his successor. There was so much opposition to Gerbert's elevation to the See of Rheims, however, that Pope John XV (985–996) sent a legate to France who temporarily suspended Gerbert from his episcopal office. Gerbert sought to show that this decree was unlawful, but a further synod in 995 declared Arnulf's deposition invalid. Gerbert now became the teacher of Otto III, and Pope Gregory V (996–999), Otto III's cousin, appointed him Archbishop of Ravenna in 998. With the Emperor's support, he was elected to succeed Gregory V as Pope in 999. Gerbert took the name of Sylvester II, alluding to Pope Sylvester I (314–335), the advisor to Emperor Constantine I (324–337). Soon after he was elected Pope, Sylvester II confirmed the position of his former rival Arnulf as archbishop of Rheims. As Pope, he took energetic measures against the widespread practices of simony and concubinage among the clergy, maintaining that only capable men of spotless lives should be allowed to become bishops. In 1001, the Roman populace revolted against the Emperor, forcing Otto III and Sylvester II to flee to Ravenna. Otto III led two unsuccessful expeditions to regain control of the city, and died on a third expedition in 1002. Sylvester II returned to Rome soon after the Emperor's death, although the rebellious nobility remained in power, and died a little later. Sylvester is buried in St. John Lateran. Works and teaching. Gerbert was said to be one of the most noted scientists of his time. Gerbert wrote a series of works dealing with matters of the quadrivium (arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, music), which he taught using the basis of the trivium (grammar, logic, and rhetoric). Walid Amine Salhab asserts that Gerbert's reintroduction of the emphasis on these liberal arts in Europe was inspired by the educational institution of Cordoba in Islamic Spain. In Rheims, he constructed a hydraulic-powered organ with brass pipes that excelled all previously known instruments, where the air had to be pumped manually. In a letter of 984, Gerbert asks Lupitus of Barcelona for a book on astrology and astronomy, two terms historian S. Jim Tester says Gerbert used synonymously. Gerbert may have been the author of a description of the astrolabe that was edited by Hermannus Contractus some 50 years later. Besides these, as Sylvester II he wrote a dogmatic treatise, "De corpore et sanguine Domini"—On the Body and Blood of the Lord. Abacus and Hindu–Arabic numerals. Gerbert learned of Hindu–Arabic digits and applied this knowledge to the abacus, but according to Charles Seife without the numeral of zero. According to William of Malmesbury (c. 1080–c. 1143), Gerbert got the idea of the computing device of the abacus from a Spanish Arab. The abacus that Gerbert reintroduced into Europe had its length divided into 27 parts with 9 number symbols (this would exclude zero, which was represented by an empty column) and 1,000 characters in all, crafted out of animal horn by a shieldmaker of Rheims. According to his pupil Richer, Gerbert could perform speedy calculations with his abacus that were extremely difficult for people in his day to think through in using only Roman numerals. Due to Gerbert's reintroduction, the abacus became widely used in Europe once again during the 11th century. Armillary sphere and sighting tube. Although lost to Europe since the terminus of the Greco-Roman era, Gerbert reintroduced the astronomical armillary sphere to Latin Europe via Al-Andalus in the late 10th century. The details of Gerbert's armillary sphere are revealed in letters from Gerbert to his former student and monk Remi of Trèves and to his colleague Constantine, the abbot of Micy, as well as the accounts of his former student and French nobleman Richer, who served as a monk in Rheims. Richer stated that Gerbert discovered that stars coursed in an oblique direction across the night sky. Richer described Gerbert's use of the armillary sphere as a visual aid for teaching mathematics and astronomy in the classroom, as well as how Gerbert organized the rings and markings on his device: First demonstrated the form of the world by a plain wooden sphere... thus expressing a very big thing by a little model. Slanting this sphere by its two poles on the horizon, he showed the northern constellations toward the upper pole and the southern toward the lower pole. He kept this position straight using a circle that the Greeks called "horizon", the Latins "limitans", because it divides visible stars from those that are not visible. On this horizon line, placed so as to demonstrate practically and plausibly... the rising and setting of the stars, he traced natural outlines to give a greater appearance of reality to the constellations... He divided a sphere in half, letting the tube represent the diameter, the one end representing the north pole, the other the south pole. Then he divided the semicircle from one pole to the other into thirty parts. Six lines drawn from the pole he drew a heavy ring to represent the arctic polar circle. Five divisions below this he placed another line to represent the tropic of Cancer. Four parts lower he drew a line for the equinoctial circle [the equator. The remaining distance to the south pole is divided by the same dimensions. Given this account, historian Oscar G. Darlington asserts that Gerbert's division by 60 degrees instead of 360 allowed the lateral lines of his sphere to equal to six degrees. By this account, the polar circle on Gerbert's sphere was located at 26 degrees, just several degrees off from the actual 23° 28'. Furthermore, this account illustrates that his positioning of the Tropic of Cancer was nearly exact, while his positioning of the equator was exactly correct. Richer also revealed how Gerbert made the planets more easily observable in his armillary sphere: He succeeded equally in showing the paths of the planets when they come near or withdraw from the earth. He fashioned first an armillary sphere. He joined the two circles called by the Greeks "coluri" and by the Latins "incidentes" because they fell upon each other, and at their extremities he placed the poles. He drew with great art and accuracy, across the "colures", five other circles called parallels, which, from one pole to the other, divided the half of the sphere into thirty parts. He put six of these thirty parts of the half-sphere between the pole and the first circle; five between the first and the second; from the second to the third, four; from the third to the fourth, four again; five from the fourth to the fifth; and from the fifth to the pole, six. On these five circles he placed obliquely the circles that the Greeks call "loxos" or "zoe", the Latins "obliques" or "vitalis" (the zodiac) because it contained the figures of the animals ascribed to the planets. On the inside of this oblique circle he figured with an extraordinary art the orbits traversed by the planets, whose paths and heights he demonstrated perfectly to his pupils, as well as their respective distances. Richer wrote about another of Gerbert's last armillary spheres, which had sighting tubes fixed on the axis of the hollow sphere that could observe the constellations, the forms of which he hung on iron and copper wires. This armillary sphere was also described by Gerbert in a letter to his colleague Constantine. Gerbert instructed Constantine that, if doubtful of the position of the pole star, he should fix the sighting tube of the armillary sphere into position to view the star he suspected was it, and if the star did not move out of sight, it was thus the pole star. Furthermore, Gerbert instructed Constantine that the north pole could be measured with the upper and lower sighting tubes, the Arctic Circle through another tube, the Tropic of Cancer through another tube, the equator through another tube, and the Tropic of Capricorn through another tube. Gerbert in legend. Gerbert was supposed to be in possession of a book of spells stolen from an Arab philosopher in Spain. Gerbert fled, pursued by the victim, who could trace the thief by the stars, but Gerbert was aware of the pursuit, and hid hanging from a wooden bridge, where, suspended between heaven and earth, he was invisible to the magician. Gerbert was supposed to have built a brazen head. This "robotic" head would answer his questions with "yes" or "no". He was also reputed to have had a pact with a female demon called "Meridiana", who had appeared after he had been rejected by his earthly love, and with whose help he managed to ascend to the papal throne (another legend tells that he won the papacy playing dice with the Devil). According to the legend, Meridiana (or the bronze head) told Gerbert that if he should ever read a mass in Jerusalem, the Devil would come for him. Gerbert then cancelled a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, but when he read mass in the church Santa Croce in Gerusalemme ("Holy Cross of Jerusalem") in Rome, he became sick soon afterwards and, dying, he asked his cardinals to cut up his body and scatter it across the city. In another version, he was even attacked by the Devil while he was reading the Mass, and the Devil mutilated him and gave his gouged-out eyes to demons to play with in the Church. Repenting, Sylvester II then cut off his hand and his tongue. The inscription on Gerbert's tomb reads in part "Iste locus Silvestris membra sepulti venturo Domino conferet ad sonitum" ("This place, at the advent of the Lord, will yield to the sound the last trumpet the buried members of Sylvester II", mis-read as "will make a sound") and has given rise to the curious legend that his bones will rattle in that tomb just before the death of a Pope. The alleged story of the crown and papal legate authority given to Stephen I of Hungary by Sylvester in the year 1000 (hence the title 'Apostolic King') is noted by the 19th-century historian Lewis L. Kropf as a possible forgery of the 17th century. Likewise, the 20th-century historian Zoltan J. Kosztolnyik states that "it seems more than unlikely that Rome would have acted in fulfilling Stephen's request for a crown without the support and approval of the Emperor." Bibliography. Gerbert's writings were printed in volume 139 of the Patrologia Latina. Darlington notes that Gerbert's preservation of his letters might have been an effort of his to compile them into a textbook for his pupils that would illustrate proper letter writing. His books on mathematics and astronomy were not research-oriented; his texts were primarily educational guides for his students.
1130326	Kimberly Anne McCullough (born March 5, 1978) is an American actress, singer and dancer. She is best known for her longtime role as Robin Scorpio on the soap opera "General Hospital", a role which she originated at the age of 7, playing the character on and off from 1985 to 2001 with a stint in 2004. McCullough later returned to the show in 2005 as a doctor and departed in 2012. She has made sporadic guest appearances since July 2012. However, in August 2013, McCullough signed a contract to return to the serial full time. McCullough has also played the character in one episode of the "GH" spin-off "Port Charles", and in a few episodes of "All My Children". In Summer 2007, again as Robin, she played one of the leads in the primetime "GH" spin-off, "". Biography. Personal life. McCullough was born in Bellflower, California. She has two older brothers. Her mother is a dance teacher, who took her to rehearsals, and got her involved with acting. McCullough's first appearance was as a 7-month-old baby in a diaper commercial, co-starring with actress Juliet Mills. She started doing gymnastics at the age of 4, and performed as part of a group called the "Gym Dandies." At the age of 6, she auditioned for choreographer Debbie Allen. Allen was eventually won over and cast McCullough in the television series "Fame". McCullough followed this up with a dancing part in "". McCullough was involved in a long term relationship with Freddie Prinze Jr. Career. In 1985, after failing to land a role on the TV sitcom "Webster", McCullough auditioned for the role of Robin Scorpio, the 6-year old daughter of Robert Scorpio (Tristan Rogers) and Anna Devane (director/actress Finola Hughes). The producers made her audition 12 times but eventually gave her the part and her role became a popular success. In 1989 at the age of 11, McCullough won her first Daytime Emmy Award, for "Outstanding Juvenile Female in a Drama Series". One of her most memorable storylines began in 1995, when her teenage character contracted HIV after having unprotected sex with her boyfriend Stone, who was unknowingly infected with the virus and later died of AIDS. She won a second Daytime Emmy in 1996 for this storyline, once again for "Outstanding Younger Leading Actress in a Drama Series". In 1996, she took a short break from playing the character when she went off to college for a brief stint at New York University Tisch School of the Arts from 1996 to 1997, although she never graduated or received a degree from the university. On "General Hospital", Robin Scorpio was also written out for the same reason, except the character was attending Yale University to study medicine. In 1998, she returned to the show, but then left once again to pursue other acting opportunities, which included co-starring in the primetime drama series "Once and Again" and "Joan of Arcadia". She also wrote and directed the mockumentary "Lil Star" about girls in childhood beauty pageants, a story which allowed McCullough to draw on her own experiences. In 2001 she appeared in the movie "Legally Blonde" as Amy, one of Elle Woods' sororiety sisters. After brief returns to "General Hospital" in 2000 and 2004, she finally returned to "General Hospital" on a permanent basis in October 2005, with her character Robin Scorpio now a doctor, having graduated from medical school. In November 2011, McCullough announced her plans to leave "General Hospital" once again in order to pursue a career as a director, and her character was believed to have died on February 21, 2012. However, scenes airing on March 27, 2012 showed Robin to be alive and held captive in an undisclosed location, leaving the door open for her to return in the future. Since July 2012, McCullough has made several guest appearances on "General Hospital". In 2013 it was confirmed by producer Frank Valentini that Kimberly McCullough will be returning as Dr Robin Scorpio this Fall in a "it won't be a blink-and-you-miss it visit. McCullough has signed a contract".
583858	Anuja Iyer is an Indian actress and model who works in the Tamil film industry. She made her acting debut in the low budget horror flick "Sivi" (2007) and became noted for her performances in "Ninaithale Inikkum" (2009) and "Unnaipol Oruvan" (2009). Since April 2010, she is working as a columnist for the popular entertainment website "Behindwoods". Early life. Anuja was born as Sandhya into a Tamil Brahmin family in Chennai, Tamil Nadu. She did her schooling at Rosary Matriculation Higher Secondary School, Santhome, Chennai and went on to pursue a B.Com (Honours) degree at Shri Ram College of Commerce in Delhi. She then studied under the Sanwa Bank scholarship programme, and further finished her Master's degree in Advertising and Public Relations in Indian Institute of Mass Communication (IIMC), Delhi, graduating with a PRSI (Public Relations Society of India) Award. Career. Her first film was the horror flick, "Sivi" (2007), in which she played a ghost. She was praised for her performance. Her second film, "Mudhal Mudhal Mudhal Varai" (2008), termed as Tamil cinema's first "urban centric film" received critical acclaim, winning awards at international film festivals for its innovative approach to film making. Her role was one again lauded by critics and audiences. In 2009, she appeared in the college drama "Ninaithale Inikkum", a remake of the 2006 Malayalam film "Classmates". Anuja essayed the character of a reserved Muslim college student Shalini who attempts to take revenge on the murderer of her lover. Later that year, she starred in "Unnaipol Oruvan" and its Telugu version "Eeenadu" alongside veteran actors Kamal Haasan, Mohanlal and Venkatesh. Her portrayal of Natasha Rajkumar, a television journalist, was appreciated by critics and fetched her a nomination for the Best Supporting Actress Award at the 56th Filmfare Awards South.
583790	Pandhayam (; ) is a Tamil film directed by S. A. Chandrasekhar starring Nithin Sathya, Sindhu Tolani. Vijay did a guest role as himself. Plot. The story- A local thug and criminal who kills people like mosquitoes Masanam (Prakash Raj) slowly rises up the ranks to be a Minister. We have Shakthivel (Nithin Sathya) a die-hard fan of actor Vijay who studies in a city college. He falls in love with the wicked minister's sister Thulasi (Sindhu Tolani) and challenges him (he has a reason for that) and a cat and mouse game ensues. What follows is a series of incidents between the two that leads to a melodramatic climax. Cast. Special Appearances : Soundtrack. The soundtrack consists of 5 songs composed by Vijay Antony.
590783	Thodi Kodallu (Telugu: తోడికోడళ్ళు) is a 1957 Telugu film directed by Adurthi Subba Rao and produced by D. Madhusudhana Rao of Annapoorna Pictures. "Kaarulo Shikarukelle" and "Aadutu Paadutu Panichestunte" songs are hits. The film won the Certificate of merit for Best Feature Film in Telugu. Plot. The movie revolves around a Joint family with its many problems and advantages and explicitly show how some people take advantage of the situation to create confusion. But Unity is Strength is the principle motivating factor. Kutumba Rao (SV Rangarao) and his wife Kamala (Kannamba) played the role of the eldest members of the family. Satyam (ANR) and his wife, Suseela (Savitri), imposes strict rules on the family and takes care of the well being of everybody in it. Ramanayya's wife, Anasuya (Suryakantham) grows jealous of Suseela. Her distant relative Vaikuntam (Jaggaiah) starts spreading his evil influence over the family. Satyam fights for the family and brings about the evil-doings of Vaikuntam to the notice of Kutumba Rao. The family reunites to live together at the end.
725378	Eric Braeden (born Hans JĂśrg Gudegast; April 3, 1941) is a German-American film and television actor, best known for his role as Victor Newman on the soap opera "The Young and the Restless", as Hans Dietrich in the 1960s TV series "The Rat Patrol", and as John Jacob Astor IV in the 1997 film "Titanic". Braeden won a Daytime Emmy Award in 1998 for Lead Actor in a Drama Series for the role of Victor Newman. Early life. Braeden was born Hans JĂśrg Gudegast in Bredenbek, Germany (near Kiel), where his father was once mayor. He immigrated to the USA in 1959. In the United States, Braeden attended The University of Montana in Missoula. Career. Braeden accumulated many TV and film credits during his first two decades in America. In 1966 he guest-starred (credited as Hans Gudegast) as Luftwaffe Major Bentz in episode 28, "Day of Reckoning", of season two of the TV series "Twelve O'Clock High", very loosely based on the classic 1949 war film with the same name. He is most notably known for his role as the German Hauptmann (Captain) Hans Dietrich on the TV series "The Rat Patrol" (1966â1968), as well as a starring role in the movie "" (1970), in which he first took the stage name of Eric Braeden. Lew Wasserman of Universal Pictures told him that no one would be allowed to star in an American film if they had a German name. After much thought he took the name Braeden from his hometown of Bredenbek. In the 1970s he took a supporting role in the 1971 film "Escape from the Planet of the Apes". Throughout the 1970s, he guest-starred in a variety of television shows including "The Six Million Dollar Man", "Wonder Woman", and "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" and also appeared in several episodes of the long-running CBS western series "Gunsmoke". In 1977 he appeared in Walt Disney's "Herbie Goes to Monte Carlo" as the arrogant but formidable race car driver, Bruno von Stickle. He also appeared, uncredited, as Bradford Dillman's "de facto" stunt double in the 1978 film "Piranha"âBraeden had originally been cast to play Dillman's character, Paul Grogan, and had shot some underwater swimming footage before the role was recast; Braeden's stunt footage ended up in the finished film anyway. In 1980, he was offered the role of self-made magnate Victor Newman on the daytime soap opera "The Young and the Restless" for a 26-week run. His character imprisoned his wife's lover, and became so popular the character became a "love-to-hate" villain, and his contract was renewed. Still on the show today, Braeden won a Daytime Emmy for his work in 1998. In late December 1991, Braeden and actor Peter Bergman had a physical altercation backstage. According to press reports, after exchanging bitter words on the set, Braeden showed up at Bergman's dressing room door to further discuss the matter and violence ensued. Y&R's creator and senior executive producer William J. Bell threatened to fire them both if it ever happened again. Since then, the actors have resolved their differences and now have a cordial relationship. In 1997, he played Colonel John Jacob Astor IV in the blockbuster film "Titanic", cast because he strongly resembled the powerful millionaire.. Braeden told Cindy Elavsky that the scene in which his character drowned "was one of the scariest moments in this business for me." In 2008, Braeden starred in "The Man Who Came Back", an independent Western film, which was written and directed by Louisiana's Glen Pitre. Also in 2008, Braeden guest-starred in an episode of "How I Met Your Mother" as Robin Sr., Robin's father, trying to make his daughter act like the son he never had. Braeden announced on October 18, 2009, in an article by Dan J. Kroll that after almost 30 years on "The Young and the Restless", he was leaving the show. "We reached an impasse in the negotiations", Braeden said in an exclusive interview with celebrity news website EW.com. Braeden's last airdate was scheduled to be November 2; however, on October 23, 2009, CBS announced that Braeden had inked a new three-year deal and would remain with the soap, even agreeing to take a pay cut, which was the original issue. On December 17, 2010, Neil Patrick Harris announced via Twitter that Braeden would not be reprising his role on "How I Met Your Mother." In his tweet, Harris called Braeden a "D-Bag" for deciding on very short notice not to film a scheduled cameo for the program. Harris claimed that Braeden said the role was not substantial enough for Braeden to appear. The part was recast with Ray Wise. Personal life. Braeden is regarded as a very good tennis player. He and his wife, Dale Gudegast, were witnesses at the wedding of Bob Crane and Sigrid Valdis while on the set of " Hogan's Heroes". Their son, Christian Gudegast, is a screenwriter who co-wrote the film "A Man Apart", which starred Vin Diesel and was nominated for a "Teen Choice Award" in 2003. Actor Clarence Williams III and former boxer Ken Norton are two of his best friends. Awards, honors and nominations. Braeden won Distinguished German-American of the Year, in 1990. On July 20, 2007, he received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Braeden received the Gilmore Award from the Pacific Pioneers, a radio and television industry group, in 2007. He received the 2009 Friend of German Award from the American Association of Teachers of German.
1043420	Allan Cuthbertson (7 April 1920 – 8 February 1988) was a naturalised Anglo-Australian actor. He was best known for playing stern-faced military officers in British films of the 1950s and 1960s. Early life. Born Allan Darling Cuthbertson in Perth, Western Australia, son of Ernest and Isobel Ferguson (Darling) Cuthbertson, he performed on stage and radio from an early age. During World War II, he served as a Flight Lieutenant with the RAAF from 6 December 1941 to 1 July 1947, based with 111 Squadron Air Sea Rescue Flight. Career. Cuthbertson arrived in England in 1947, and appeared shortly thereafter as Romeo in "Romeo and Juliet" at the Boltons. In London's West End, he appeared as Laertes in "Hamlet", Aimwell in "The Beaux Stratagem", and Octavius Robinson in "Man & Superman", among many other roles. He was often cast in military roles which was quite common in actors of his generation, especially those with a military air about them. He was Captain Eric Simpson in "Tunes of Glory" (1960) as well as being cast as more stuffy regimental types in such films as "The Guns of Navarone" (1961) and "Carrington V.C." (1955), which also starred David Niven. He also made a brief appearance as a harassed staff officer, who then gets blown up, at the beginning of "Ice Cold in Alex" (1958). In 1962 he played a school teacher in "Term of Trial" with Laurence Olivier. He appeared four times in the television series The Avengers. Perhaps surprisingly Cuthbertson also had a talent for playing comedy, which led to his best known role, although again playing a mustachioed military character, as Colonel Hall in the "Gourmet Night" episode of the hit sitcom "Fawlty Towers" in 1975. He also appeared in many roles on British television, including with Tommy Cooper, Dick Emery and Frankie Howerd, and in "All Gas and Gaiters", "Danger Man" and "Terry and June", where he played annoying neighbour Tarquin Spry. He was also a regular guest on "The Morecambe and Wise Show" from 1973 to 1976. One of his last TV appearances was in Michael Palin's "East of Ipswich" in 1987. One of his last stage roles was in "The Corn is Green" by Emlyn Williams at the Old Vic in 1985. Personal life. Cuthbertson was long married to Dr Gertrude Willner, a refugee from Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia, who had been a lawyer originally, but became a teacher in England. They had an adopted son.
1103087	Michael Hartley Freedman (born 21 April 1951) is an American mathematician, at Microsoft Station Q, a research group at the University of California, Santa Barbara. In 1986, he was awarded a Fields Medal for his work on the Poincaré conjecture. Freedman and Robion Kirby showed that an exotic R4 manifold exists. Life and career. Freedman was born in Los Angeles, California, U.S. His father, Benedict Freedman, was an aeronautical engineer, musician, writer, and mathematician. His mother, Nancy Mars Freedman, performed as an actress and also trained as an artist. His parents cowrote a series of novels together. He entered the University of California, Berkeley, in 1968, and continued his studies at Princeton University where he received Ph.D. degree in 1973 for his doctoral dissertation titled "Codimension-Two Surgery", written under the supervision of William Browder. After graduating, Freedman was appointed a lecturer in the Department of Mathematics at the University of California, Berkeley. He held this post from 1973 until 1975, when he became a member of the Institute for Advanced Study (IAS) at Princeton. In 1976 he was appointed assistant professor in the Department of Mathematics at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD). He spent the year 1980/81 at IAS, returning to UCSD, where in 1982 he was promoted to professor. He was appointed the Charles Lee Powell chair of mathematics at UCSD in 1985. Freedman has received numerous other awards and honors including Sloan and Guggenheim Fellowships, a MacArthur Fellowship and the National Medal of Science. He is an elected member of the National Academy of Sciences, and a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and of the American Mathematical Society. He currently works at Microsoft Station Q at the University of California, Santa Barbara, where his team is involved in the development of the topological quantum computer.
711467	Ty Hodges (born Eric Tyrone Hodges II; May 26, 1981) is an American television and film actor, singer and rapper. He was born in Washington, D.C. As a teenager, he attended the New World School of the Arts in Miami, Florida. Hodges appeared in the Disney Channel Original Movie "Don't Look Under The Bed" and in a recurring role as Larry Beale on the Disney Channel series "Even Stevens", and in "The Even Stevens Movie". He starred in MTV's show "twentyfourseven". Other television credits include "Boston Public", "Felicity", and "NYPD Blue". In 1998, Hodges appeared as the main character in Janet Jackson's "Go Deep" music video. Hodges appeared alongside Hilary Duff and Haylie Duff in the feature film "Material Girls". Other film credits include "Holes", "The United States of Leland". He has toured Japan with Voices United. He is also good friends with actress and model Meagan Good.
1058602	Pier Angeli (19 June 193210 September 1971) was an Italian-born television and film actress. Her American cinematographic debut was in the starring role of the 1951 film "Teresa", for which she won a Golden Globe Award. Twenty years later, she had been chosen to play a part in "The Godfather", but died before filming began. She had romantic relationships with actors Kirk Douglas and James Dean before going on to marry Vic Damone. Early life and career. Born Anna Maria Pierangeli in Cagliari, Sardinia, Italy. Her twin sister is the actress Marisa Pavan. Angeli made her film debut with Vittorio De Sica in "Domani è troppo tardi" (1950), after being spotted by director Léonide Moguy and De Sica. She was discovered by Hollywood, and MGM launched her in her first American film, "Teresa" (1951). Directed by Fred Zinnemann, this film also saw the joint debuts of Rod Steiger and John Ericson. Reviews for her performance in the film compared her to Greta Garbo, and she won the Golden Globe Award for New Star Of The Year – Actress. Under contract with MGM throughout the 1950s, she appeared in a series of films, including "The Light Touch" with Stewart Granger. Plans for a film of "Romeo and Juliet" with her and Marlon Brando fell through when a British-Italian production was announced. Her next few films were respectable but unexciting: "The Story of Three Loves" (1953) with Kirk Douglas; "Sombrero", in which she replaced an indisposed Ava Gardner; and "Flame and the Flesh" (1954), in which she lost her man to Lana Turner. After discovering Leslie Caron, another continental ingénue, MGM lent Angeli out to other studios. She went to Warner Bros. for "The Silver Chalice", which marked the debut of Paul Newman, and she made "Mam'zelle Nitouche" with the French comic actor Fernandel. For Paramount, she should have had the role of Anna Magnani's daughter in "The Rose Tattoo", but because motherhood interfered, the role went to her twin sister, Marisa Pavan, who was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for the role. Angeli was lent out again, to Columbia, for "Port Afrique" (1956). She returned to MGM for "Somebody Up There Likes Me" as Paul Newman's long-suffering wife (James Dean had originally been expected to play the starring role, which went to Newman after Dean's death). She then appeared in "The Vintage" (1957) with Mel Ferrer and John Kerr, and finished her contract in "Merry Andrew", starring Danny Kaye. During the 1960s and until 1970, Angeli returned to live and work in Britain and Europe. Few of her films during that period were notable, despite a strong performance opposite Richard Attenborough in "The Angry Silence" (1960). She was reunited with Stewart Granger for "Sodom and Gomorrah" (1963), in which she played Lot's wife. She had a brief role in the war epic "Battle of the Bulge" (1965). 1968 found Angeli in Israel, top billed in "Every Bastard a King", about events during that nation's recent war, but steady work was eluding her. It seemed as if her acting career might revive when she was picked to play a role in "The Godfather", but she died soon before filming. Personal life and death. According to Kirk Douglas' autobiography, he and Angeli were engaged in the 1950s after meeting on the set of the film "The Story of Three Loves" (1953).
1376966	The Fox and the Hound 2 is a 2006 direct-to-video DVD midquel to the 1981 Disney animated film "The Fox and the Hound". It was produced by DisneyToon Studios, directed by Jim Kammerud, and features the voice talents of Patrick Swayze and Reba McEntire. The story of the film takes place during the youth of Tod and Copper, in which Copper is tempted to join a band of singing stray dogs. Plot. Best friends Tod, a fox cub, (Jonah Bobo) and Copper, a hound puppy, (Harrison Fahn) visit a country fair when they see a band of dogs called "The Singin' Strays". The band has five members: Dixie (Reba McEntire), Cash (Patrick Swayze), Granny Rose (Vicki Lawrence), and twin brothers Waylon and Floyd (both Jim Cummings). It is important that they perform well because a talent scout from the Grand Ole Opry will be at the fair.
400578	Jay Johnston (born October 22, 1968) is an American actor and comedian best known for his work as a writer and cast member on the HBO sketch comedy series "Mr. Show" and for playing the role of Officer Jay McPherson on "The Sarah Silverman Program". Biography. Johnston was born and raised in Chicago and attended Columbia College Chicago, where he studied acting and comedy alongside other future "Mr. Show" alumni such as Dino Stamatopoulos, Scott Adsit and Eric Hoffman. After graduating college, Johnston later joined the Chicago Second City's touring comedy for a number of years and also performed in stage shows at the Annoyance Theater in Chicago. Jay Johnston's contribution to "Mr. Show" were generally of the "evergreen" variety, dealing with more or less universal themes as opposed to the more political/socially satirical material that his fellow writers/performers contributed to the series. As such, Jay was responsible for many of the show's memorable sketches and characters. Johnston often incorporated physical comedy into the show, most notably in the "The Story of Everest" sketch, which features Johnston performing an astounding number of comical pratfalls. Since the conclusion of "Mr. Show", Johnston has made guest appearances in a number of television programs such as "Arrested Development", "Curb Your Enthusiasm", and "Parks and Recreation", as well as appearing in films such as "" and Tenacious D in The Pick of Destiny.
1084831	Eat the Document is a documentary of Bob Dylan's 1966 tour of the United Kingdom with the Hawks. It was shot under Dylan's direction by D. A. Pennebaker, whose groundbreaking documentary "Dont Look Back" chronicled Dylan's 1965 British tour. The film was originally commissioned for the ABC television series "Stage '66". Though shooting had completed for the film, Dylan's July 1966 motorcycle accident delayed the editing process. Once well enough to work again, Dylan edited the film himself. ABC rejected the film as incomprehensible for a mainstream audience. It has never been released on home video and prints are rarely screened in theaters. Some footage from "Eat the Document" was used in Martin Scorsese's 2005 documentary on Bob Dylan, "No Direction Home." Plot. "Eat the Document" includes footage from the infamous Manchester Free Trade Hall concert, wherein an audience member shouted "Judas!" during the electric half of Dylan's set. Dylan's band during these shows were The Hawks (later to become The Band). Songs from various shows throughout the tour featured in the film include "Tell Me, Momma", "I Don't Believe You (She Acts Like We Never Have Met)", "Ballad of a Thin Man", and "One Too Many Mornings." Other scenes include Dylan and Robbie Robertson in hotel rooms writing and working through new songs, most of which remain unreleased and unpublished. Among these songs are "I Can't Leave Her Behind", which was later covered by Stephen Malkmus for the "I'm Not There" soundtrack. The film also includes a piano duet with Johnny Cash performing Cash's "I Still Miss Someone". John Lennon scene. Some bootleg versions of "Eat the Document" include a long scene featuring a possibly alcohol- or drug-impaired Dylan in a limousine with John Lennon on 27 May 1966. As Dylan shows signs of fatigue, Lennon urges him to get a grip on himself: "Do you suffer from sore eyes, groovy forehead, or curly hair? Take Zimdawn!...Come, come, boy, it's only a film. Pull yourself together." Lennon would later recall in an interview with "Rolling Stone" that he and Dylan were "both in shades, and both on fucking junk, and all these freaks around us... I was nervous as shit. I was on his territory, that's why I was so nervous." Background and production. According to Howard Sounes's biography, "Down the Highway: The Life of Bob Dylan", after his motorbike accident in July 1966, Dylan viewed a cut of the material edited by Pennebaker and Bob Neuwirth and thought it was too similar to "Dont Look Back". Despite having no filmmaking training, Dylan decided to re-edit the film himself, assisted by longtime associate Howard Alk and with (uncredited) assistant editor Gordon Quinn, co-founder of Kartemquin Films. Pennebaker stated: "It's not something you learn parking cars in a garage. You gotta know some of the rules and he didn't know any of the rules." Dylan and Alk's cut was eventually shown to ABC television, who promptly rejected it as incomprehensible to a mainstream audience. Bootleg releases. "Eat The Document" was never given a theatrical release or made commercially available on VHS or DVD, but unauthorized bootleg copies circulate among Dylan collectors. Legacy. Some of the concert footage shot for "Eat the Document" - including the "Judas" incident in Manchester's Free Trade Hall - was used in Martin Scorsese's Dylan documentary, "No Direction Home". Todd Haynes's film 2008 "I'm Not There" features a nod to the cab ride with Lennon, featuring Cate Blanchett as Bob Dylan.
1061092	Paula Prentiss (born Paula Ragusa; March 4, 1938) is an American actress best-known for her film roles in "Where the Boys Are", "Man's Favorite Sport?", "The Stepford Wives", "What's New Pussycat?", "The Black Marble", and "The Parallax View". Early life. Prentiss was born Paula Ragusa in San Antonio, Texas, the daughter of Paulene (née Gardner) and Thomas J. Ragusa, a Social Sciences professor at San Antonio's University of the Incarnate Word, who was of Sicilian descent.
774543	Seducing Doctor Lewis (French: La grande séduction) is a 2003 Québécois comedy film and the first film directed by Jean-François Pouliot. The script was written by Ken Scott. It won the Audience Award at 2004 Sundance Film Festival. Starring in the movie are Raymond Bouchard, Benoit Brière, David Boutin and Lucie Laurier. Plot. The tiny fishing village Ste-Marie-la-Mauderne on the north coast of Quebec is in decline. Every resident collects welfare. To lure a company into building a plastic container factory nearby, they need double their population of 120, a resident doctor, and a $50,000 bribe for the company owner. Montreal plastic surgeon Dr Christopher Lewis (David Boutin) gets pulled over for speeding by an officer originally from Ste-Marie-la-Mauderne. The officer will not arrest him for drug possession, if Dr Lewis will visit Ste-Marie-la-Mauderne for one month. In a deleted scene, Dr Lewis sells cocaine to his patients.
1099702	Abraham de Moivre (26 May 1667 in Vitry-le-François, Champagne, France — 27 November 1754 in London, England; ) was a French mathematician known for de Moivre's formula, one of those that link complex numbers and trigonometry, and for his work on the normal distribution and probability theory. He was a friend of Isaac Newton, Edmund Halley, and James Stirling. Among his fellow Huguenot exiles in England, he was a colleague of the editor and translator Pierre des Maizeaux. De Moivre wrote a book on probability theory, "The Doctrine of Chances", said to have been prized by gamblers. De Moivre first discovered Binet's formula, the closed-form expression for Fibonacci numbers linking the "n"th power of the golden ratio "φ" to the "n"th Fibonacci number. Life. Early years. Abraham de Moivre was born in Vitry in Champagne on May 26, 1667. His father, Daniel de Moivre, was a surgeon who, though middle class, believed in the value of education. Though Abraham de Moivre's parents were Protestant, he first attended Christian Brothers' Catholic school in Vitry, which was unusually tolerant given religious tensions in France at the time. When he was eleven, his parents sent him to the Protestant Academy at Sedan, where he spent four years studying Greek under Jacques du Rondel. The Protestant Academy of Sedan had been founded in 1579 at the initiative of Françoise de Bourbon, the widow of Henri-Robert de la Marck.
1103184	Lev Semenovich Pontryagin (Russian: Лев Семёнович Понтря́гин) (3 September 1908 – 3 May 1988) was a Soviet mathematician. He was born in Moscow and lost his eyesight due to a primus stove explosion when he was 14. Despite his blindness he was able to become one of the greatest mathematicians of the 20th century, partially with the help of his mother Tatyana Andreevna who read mathematical books and papers (notably those of Heinz Hopf, J. H. C. Whitehead and Hassler Whitney) to him. He made major discoveries in a number of fields of mathematics, including algebraic topology and differential topology. Work. Pontryagin worked on duality theory for homology while still a student. He went on to lay foundations for the abstract theory of the Fourier transform, now called Pontryagin duality. In topology, he posed the basic problem of cobordism theory. This led to the introduction around 1940 of a theory of certain characteristic classes, now called Pontryagin classes, designed to vanish on a manifold that is a boundary. In 1942 he introduced the cohomology operations now called Pontryagin squares. Moreover, in operator theory there are specific instances of Krein spaces called Pontryagin spaces. Later in his career he worked in optimal control theory. His maximum principle is fundamental to the modern theory of optimization. He also introduced there the idea of a bang-bang principle, to describe situations where either the maximum 'steer' should be applied to a system, or none. Pontryagin authored several influential monographs as well as popular textbooks in mathematics. The fact that Pontraygin was legally blind since the age of 14, further underscores his scientific achievements.
584536	Nizhalgal Ravi (Tamil: நிழல்கள் ரவி "Niḻalkaḷ Ravi", born: April 16, 1953) is an Indian actor who has performed in Tamil, Malayalam and Telugu films. He mostly uses Tamil as his major mother tongue language. He started his career in 1980 with the film "Nizhalgal". He has completed acting in 500 films Career. Nizhalgal Ravi, an actor in South Indian film industry, started his career under the baton of veteran director Bharathiraja in the Tamil film Nizhalgal which fetched him his sobriquet Nizhalgal. He played the role of an aspiring hero who falls in love, a performance which took him to the pinnacle of glory, but has not been blessed with a good break as a top hero. He has had many character roles including films Vedam Puthithu, Nayakan, Chinna Thambi Periya Thambi, Annamalai, Marupadiyam, Aasai, and more. He portrayed his roles with as a kind hearted father, a ruthless villain, or a ditcher. He dubbed for Amitabh Bachchan for the program "Kaun Banega Crorepati" in Tamil. He acted in more than 25 movies in Malayalam during the 80s. He was born as Ravichandran to Shyamanna and D. Rajammal in an orthodox family. He did his B.A. in Economics in P.S.G. Arts, Coimbatore. He acted in director K. Balachander's telefilm "Rayil Sneham", which became a hit in the late 80s and early 90s. He also acted in Nayagan, which became one of the best Tamil movie of all time. Television. His performance in the TV serial "Jannal" was one in which he played the character of a normal middle age business man who has more negative pages in his personal life. The last climax episode of this serial is a master piece of his performance, as well as director Mr.K.Balachander's distinct directorial feat. As dubbing artist. In Tamil speaking community, the program "KBC" got huge reception, due to the dubbing voice performed by Nizhalgal Ravi. The voice exactly matched Mr. Amithab Bachan's stiff and rigid voice. When asked about how he could deliver such a suitable voice in the program, in an interview for a Tamil weekly, he replied, "I was delighted when i got a call for dubbing opportunity for Amitabhji.. but when i saw the original program... i thought of how to match his voice familiarity...then i found out that, during early morning when i wake up, my voice used to be little bit above normal vocal.. so i decided to do the dubbing by early morning 5.00 am in the studio...for which i wake up at 4.00 and get ready and go.. and this is how it has happened". Personal life. He is married to Vishnupriya and has one son, Rahul.
1092249	Sir Joseph Larmor FRS (11 July 1857 – 19 May 1942) was a physicist and mathematician who made innovations in the understanding of electricity, dynamics, thermodynamics, and the electron theory of matter. His most influential work was "Aether and Matter", a theoretical physics book published in 1900. Biography. He grew up in Belfast, the son of a shopkeeper. He was a student at Royal Belfast Academical Institution, Queen's University Belfast, and St John's College, Cambridge where he was Senior Wrangler. After teaching physics for a few years at Queen's College, Galway, he accepted a lectureship in mathematics at Cambridge in 1885. In 1903 he was appointed Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge, a post he retained until his retirement in 1932. He never married. Larmor proposed that the aether could be represented as a homogeneous fluid medium which was perfectly incompressible and elastic. Larmor believed the aether was separate from matter. He united Lord Kelvin's model of spinning gyrostats (see Vortex theory of the atom) with this theory. Parallel to the development of Lorentz ether theory, Larmor published the Lorentz transformations in the "Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society" in 1897 some two years before Hendrik Lorentz (1899, 1904) and eight years before Albert Einstein (1905). Larmor however did not possess the correct velocity transformations, which include the addition of velocities law, which were later discovered by Henri Poincaré. Larmor predicted the phenomenon of time dilation, at least for orbiting electrons, and verified that the FitzGerald-Lorentz contraction (length contraction) should occur for bodies whose atoms were held together by electromagnetic forces. In his book "Aether and Matter" (1900), he again presented the Lorentz transformations, time dilation and length contraction (treating these as dynamic rather than kinematic effects). Larmor opposed Albert Einstein's theory of relativity (though he supported it for a short time). Larmor rejected both the curvature of space and the special theory of relativity, to the extent that he claimed that an absolute time was essential to astronomy (Larmor 1924, 1927). Larmor held that matter consisted of particles moving in the aether. Larmor believed the source of electric charge was a ""particle"" (which as early as 1894 he was referring to as the electron). Thus, in what was apparently the first specific prediction of time dilation, he wrote "... individual electrons describe corresponding parts of their orbits in times shorter for the system in the ratio (1 – v2/c2)1/2" (Larmor 1897). Larmor held that the flow of charged particles constitutes the current of conduction (but was not part of the atom). Larmor calculated the rate of energy radiation from an accelerating electron. Larmor explained the splitting of the spectral lines in a magnetic field by the oscillation of electrons. In 1919, Larmor proposed sunspots are self-regenerative dynamo action on the Sun's surface. Motivated by his strong opposition to Home Rule for Ireland, in February 1911 Larmor ran for and was elected as Member of Parliament for Cambridge University (UK Parliament constituency) with the Liberal Unionist party. He remained in parliament until the 1922 general election, at which point the Irish question had been settled. Upon his retirement from Cambridge in 1932 Larmor moved back to County Down in Northern Ireland. He received the honorary Doctor of Laws (LL.D) from the University of Glasgow in June 1901. Publications. Larmor edited the collected works of George Stokes, James Thomson and William Thomson.
1092064	Freeman John Dyson FRS (born December 15, 1923) is a British-American theoretical physicist and mathematician, famous for his work in quantum electrodynamics, solid-state physics, astronomy and nuclear engineering. Dyson is a member of the Board of Sponsors of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. Dyson has lived in Princeton, New Jersey, for over fifty years. Biography. Early life. Born at Crowthorne in Berkshire, Dyson was the son of the English composer George Dyson, who was later knighted. His mother had a law degree, but after Dyson was born she worked as a social worker. Although not known to be related to the early 20th century astronomer Frank Watson Dyson, as a small boy Dyson was aware of him and has credited the popularity of an astronomer sharing his surname as having helped to spark his own interest in science. From 1936 to 1941, Dyson was a Scholar at Winchester College, a leading boys' boarding school in Hampshire where his father was a schoolmaster teaching music. On 4 May 2011 he was received as one of twenty distinguished Old Wykehamists at the "Ad Portas" celebration, the highest honour that the College bestows. After Winchester he joined the operational research section of RAF Bomber Command, where he remained for the rest of the Second World War. He then proceeded to the University of Cambridge, where he obtained a Bachelor of Arts degree in mathematics. From 1946 to 1949 he was a Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, occupying rooms just below those of the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein, who would resign his professorship in 1947. Career in the United States. In 1947 Dyson moved to the US, as Commonwealth Fellow at Cornell University (1947-1948) and Institute for Advanced Study (1948–1949). Between 1949 and 1951, he was a teaching fellow at the University of Birmingham.
583769	Not to be confused with a South Indian Film Actress of the same name. Jyothi Krishna is a Tamil film actor and director. Career. Jyothi Krishna at 17 was credited with the story of his father, A.M.Ratnam's production, "Natpukaaga" starring Sarath Kumar. He was also story writer for the Chiranjeevi's film Sneham Kosam. He went on to make his directorial debut in the A. R. Rahman musical "Enakku 20 Unakku 18" starring Tarun, Trisha Krishnan and Shriya Saran in the lead roles. His next, "Kedi" featured his brother Ravi Krishna in the lead role, whilst Ileana D'Cruz and Tamannaah Bhatia were also in the cast. In 2010, Jyothi Krishna began work on his acting debut with "Ooh La La La", scheduled for release in 2011.
1071977	, better known by his stage name , is a Japanese actor. He is known for his roles as Dragon Eye Morrison in "Electric Dragon 80.000 V", Kakihara in "Ichi the Killer", Mamoru Arita in "Bright Future", Hattori Genosuke in "Zatoichi", Kenji in "Last Life in the Universe", Aman in "Survive Style 5+", Ayano in "The Taste of Tea", Temudjin in "Mongol", and Hogun in the film "Thor", based on the Marvel Comics character. Early life. Asano was born in the Honmoku area of Yokohama to artist and mother Junko (順子) whose father was Jim Owen, a U.S. citizen, whom Asano never met. Asano has an older brother Kujun Sato, born in 1971, who's a musician and a partner of Anore Inc., a talent agency Asano and their father Yukihisa Sato founded. Career. His father, an actors' agent, suggested he take on his first acting role in the TV show Kinpachi Sensei at the age of 16. His film debut was in the 1990 "Swimming Upstream" ("Bataashi Kingyo"), though his first major critical success was in Shunji Iwai's "Fried Dragon Fish" (1993). His first critical success internationally was Hirokazu Koreeda's "Maboroshi no Hikari" (1995), in which he played a man who inexplicably throws himself in front of a train, widowing his wife and orphaning his infant son. He also worked with Koreeda in the pseudo-documentary "Distance" in 2001. His best known works internationally are the samurai films "Taboo" (1999) and "Zatoichi" (2003), as well as the critically acclaimed film "Bright Future". He acted in Katsuhito Ishii's 2003 film "The Taste of Tea", which premiered at the 2004 Cannes Film Festival. He appeared as the lead actor in "Last Life in the Universe" (2003) by Thai director Pen-Ek Ratanaruang and starred in a follow-up film by Pen-Ek, "Invisible Waves," in 2006. In 2007 he starred as the young Genghis Khan in Sergei Bodrov's Oscar-nominated film "Mongol.". In "Villon's Wife" (2009), he played the part of an alcoholic writer, though he has since stated that since he doesn't actually drink alcohol, he based his performance on people he knows, a lot of whom drink. In 2011 he starred in the Marvel Studios film "Thor" as the Asgardian warrior Hogun, a member of the Warriors Three and companion to Thor. He is set to reprise the role in 2013's "". In addition to his acting career, Asano directed commercial TV spots for his then-wife, Chara. He is a musician; he formed the band MACH-1.67 with director Sogo Ishii in 1996 and, from time to time, plays in the bands Peace Pill and Safari. He is an artist and a model, most notably for Japanese fashion designers Jun Takahashi and Takeo Kikuchi, for whom he filmed a series of commercial spots directed by Wong Kar-wai: one released under the name ""wkw/tk/1996@7'55"hk.net"". Asano and his father run the actor's agency Anore Inc. which represents Japanese actors like Ryō Kase and Rinko Kikuchi. Personal life. Asano met J-Pop idol Chara on the set of Iwai's "Picnic" (1994). They were married in March 1995 and Chara became pregnant with their first child, Sumire, who was born on July 4. In 1999, they also had a son. In July 2009, Chara announced on her website that the two would be getting an amicable divorce. She received custody of both their children. Awards. He won the Most Popular Performer award at the 1997 Japanese Academy Awards for "Acri" and was nominated in the Best Supporting Actor category in 2004 for his performance in "Zatôichi." He also received the Upstream Prize for Best Actor at the 2003 Venice Film Festival for his role in "Last Life in the Universe".
139786	Vivian Alferetta Dandridge (April 22, 1921 – October 26, 1991) was a singer and actress. She is best known as the sister of actress Dorothy Dandridge and the daughter of character actress Ruby Dandridge. She was a member of the Dandridge Sisters musical group, along with Etta Jones and Dorothy Dandridge. Birth. Vivian was born in Cleveland, Ohio to Cyril Dandridge (October 25, 1895 - July 9, 1989), and the former Ruby Jean Butler, an aspiring entertainer. Dandridge's parents separated shortly before the birth of her sister Dorothy. Singer and actress. Vivian Dandridge reached the peak of her fame with sister Dorothy and friend Etta Jones in the vocal group the Dandridge Sisters, which was formed in 1934. Initially, Ruby Dandridge put her two girls to work performing acrobatics, songs, and skits. She billed them as the "Wonder Children." Realizing the potential success of her girls (and acknowledging her chance of stardom in the entertainment industry was at best, limited), Ruby and her lesbian lover Geneva Williams decided to have her daughters embark on a tour of the United States. Under Neva's tutelage, the Wonder Children earned $400–$500 per appearance during the late 1920s, touring through Tennessee, South Carolina, Georgia and many other states. Neva accompanied the girls on piano as well as acted as their manager and was a particularly aggressive disciplinarian. Both Dorothy and Vivian suffered from her angry outbursts, which were frequent and severe. Because their income was more important to the family than their education, Dorothy and Vivian did not attend regular classes at school until the 8th grade, instead relying on tutors (since they were the primary breadwinners of the family). After the Stock Market Crash in 1929, the Wonder Children were added to the long list of the unemployed. Ruby Dandridge, still clinging to the hopes of a film career for herself and her daughters, bought 4 bus tickets and moved the family to Los Angeles. After immersing herself into the professional community of black Hollywood, Ruby found limited opportunities for herself or her girls. After Clarence Muse, a working black actor in Hollywood (who befriended the family) told Ruby that her daughters were unlikely to meet with success in California, she enrolled them in a dancing school run by Laurette Butler. Here, the Dandridge daughters befriended another girl, Etta Jones, and began to sing together. After Jones' father heard them sing, Ruby Dandridge decided that the three should form a singing group. Thus, the Dandridge Sisters were born. While Neva and Ruby gained bit parts in films (Neva appeared as a maid in the Shirley Temple vehicle The Little Colonel), the Dandridge Sisters began appearing in musical sequences of films and toured over the United States, sharing bills with the likes of Nat King Cole, Mantan Moreland, and dancer Marie Bryant. The female trio was a sort of black Andrews Sisters, singing songs in three part harmony. They eventually became headliners at the Cotton Club in Harlem, New York. They even appeared in a short-run Broadway musical revue, Swingin' The Dream, in 1939, at the Centre Theater. The Dandridge Sisters also toured in London and Hawaii, and recorded four tracks with well-known big band leader Jimmie Lunceford and his orchestra: "You Ain't Nowhere," Minnie the Moocher Is Dead," "I Ain't Gonna Study War No More," and a minor hit, "That's Your Red Wagon." After touring for a year and a half, however, the Dandridge Sisters group abruptly disbanded, after Dorothy Dandridge was determined to become an actress, unsatisfied with just appearances in occasional soundies or bit parts in Hollywood films. She detested life on the road and was certain she could find bigger success as a dramatic actress. This left Vivian in a desperate financial situation. She attempted to find work in clubs, but many were not interested. She did, however, find employment as an occasional actress in minor film roles but did not achieve the same level of success as her sister Dorothy. Marriage & Children. Vivian was married five times: Jack Montgomery (1942-43), Warren Bracken (?-?), Ralph Bledsoe (1946-47), Forace Stead (1951-53) and Gustav Friedrich (1958-?). All of her marriages ended in divorce. She was also romantically linked to actor Emmett Wallace (known as "Babe Wallace") with whom she had a son, Michael Emmett Wallace (born November 7, 1943). Life in Dorothy & Ruby's shadow. Vivian appeared in some minor film roles: she co-starred with Frances Dee as native girl Melisse in the 1943 classic I Walked With a Zombie and in 1953's Bright Road, starring Dorothy Dandridge, in which she played the small role of schoolteacher Ms. Nelson (she received no credit on either film). She also acted as Dorothy's hairdresser on the film. She appeared with the Dandridge Sisters in musical sequences of the films "The Big Broadcast of 1936" (with George Burns and Gracie Allen), "A Day at the Races" (with the Marx Brothers), "It Can't Last Forever" (with Ralph Bellamy and Betty Furness), "Irene" (with Ray Milland, Anna Neagle, and Billie Burke) and Going Places (with Louis Armstrong and Maxine Sullivan). She also appeared in the soundie "Snow Gets in Your Eyes" as a member of the Dandridge Sisters and as the voice of "So White" in the controversial cartoon "Coal Black and de Sebben Dwarfs" opposite her mother Ruby Dandridge. In the summer of 1955, she replaced Thelma Carpenter in the Broadway play "Anchors Aweigh". She moved to the Alvin Hotel in New York City, but after this engagement she largely disappeared from show business. She attended the Academy Awards in 1955 with Dorothy Dandridge when Dorothy was nominated for Best Actress for her role in "Carmen Jones". She appeared as an uncredited extra in 1943's Stormy Weather. Disappearance of Vivian. By 1956, friends and family members were concerned for the welfare of Vivian, as she moved away and went into seclusion. Dorothy Dandridge hired a private detective to find her missing sister, but to no avail; Dorothy later found out that her sister was in the south of France trying to find work. Later, she found out that her sister was residing in New York City. At this point, Dorothy and Vivian did not remain in contact, though Dorothy sometimes provided financial assistance to Vivian and her son Michael Wallace. Other than the occasional telegram, Dorothy and Vivian remained estranged. Death of Sister. Vivian Dandridge did not attend the funeral of her sister, admitting that it was just too painful to return. She said, "I grieved in my own way, in my privacy. Dottie knew that I loved her." Vivian later rekindled a relationship with her mother (albeit an adversarial one) until her mother died penniless in a Los Angeles nursing home of a massive heart attack in 1987. Solo Recording. In 1968, Vivian signed with Jubilee Records and recorded a jazz LP, "The Look of Love" that same year. The album was produced by Bob Stephens and conducted by Charles Coleman. The album included such tracks as "Love is Blue", "Try to Remember", "Sunny", "Strange Fruit", and "Lover Man". On the cover, Vivian is lying on the sofa with a snifter of brandy in her hand, hovering pensively above a burning cigarette in an ashtray next to a lamp on the side table. The album was not successful. Death. Vivian, under the alias "Marina Rozell," later settled in Seattle, Washington, where she lived for the rest of her life. Author Donald Bogle did an interview with Vivian discussing her sister and mother in 1991; later that year when Bogle returned, he found that Vivian Dandridge had died of a massive stroke. Granddaughter Nayo Wallace. Vivian Dandridge's granddaughter, Nayo Wallace, is forging an up-and-coming career in Hollywood. she has appeared on the television programs "The Steve Harvey Show" in 1997, "Passions" in 2000, "The District" in 2004 and in the theatrical film "Speed Racer" in 2008. She also portrayed the character of Sarabi in the "The Lion King" on Broadway.
1169698	Barry Gordon (born December 21, 1948) is an American film, television and voice actor and political talk show host and producer. He was the longest-serving president of the Screen Actors Guild, having served from 1988 to 1995. Biography. Gordon was born in Brookline, Massachusetts. His stepfather Bob Manning was a crooner in the 40s and 50s of popular love songs, most known for his rendition of Hoagie Carmichael's "The Nearness of You". He began his professional life at age three; in his TV debut, he won second place on Ted Mack's "Amateur Hour" singing Johnnie Ray's "Cry". At six, Gordon recorded "Nuttin' for Christmas", still one of the top-selling Christmas recordings of all time. It sold over one million copies, and was awarded a gold disc. He was the youngest performer ever to hit a pre-Hot 100 Billboard chart, when that song hit #6 in 1955. As a child star, Gordon also appeared on "The Jackie Gleason Show," "The Jack Benny Program," "Richard Diamond, Private Detective", "Alfred Hitchcock Presents" and "Star Time" with Benny Goodman. Gordon was cast as Humberto in an episode of the NBC sitcom "Sally", starring Joan Caulfield, and as Chopper in ABC's "Leave It to Beaver" Episode 119: "Beaver's House Guest". Gordon guest starred on two CBS sitcoms, "The Ann Sothern Show" and "Dennis the Menace", starring child actor Jay North. When he was thirteen, Gordon debuted on Broadway, as Nick in Herb Gardner's "A Thousand Clowns", a role that earned him a Tony Award nomination. He later reprised this role in the film version opposite Jason Robards and Martin Balsam in 1965. The film gave him "introducing" billing but he had actually been in several films prior, most notably his actual film debut in 1956's "The Girl Can't Help It" as a newspaper boy in which he uttered the classic line after seeing Jayne Mansfield, "If that's a girl, I don't know what my sister is." Primarily as a character actor, Gordon became a familiar face in numerous feature films and television series. As a teen, Gordon starred alongside Sid Caesar and Vera Miles in the 1967 comedy-horror film, "The Spirit is Willing." In the 1970s, Gordon appeared in the "Barney Miller" spin-off "Fish", starring Abe Vigoda. In the last two seasons of the sitcom "All in the Family", then known as "Archie Bunker's Place", Gordon had the recurring role of Gary Rabinowitz, Archie's Jewish accountant. Gordon also had notable guest-starring roles on "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine" as Nava, a Ferengi businessman, and on "" as Ardon Broht, an alien publisher. More recently Gordon has appeared as the Rabbi in Larry David's "Curb Your Enthusiasm." Gordon is also a voice actor. His most notable voice roles were Donatello and Bebop in "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles", and as Razor/Jake Clawson in ' (1993). Gordon's voice was also featured in other animated series, such as "Jabberjaw," "The Kid Superpower Hour with Shazam!," "Mighty Orbots," "The Snorks", "The Jetsons", "Gravedale High", "Darkwing Duck", "A Pup Named Scooby-Doo", ', "Pac-Man", "Tom & Jerry Kids", "The Smurfs", "Droopy, Master Detective", "Fantastic Max", "Pole Position", "The Pirates of Dark Water", "Meatballs & Spaghetti", and "The Adventures of the American Rabbit". Gordon also provided the voice of the Quik Bunny / NesQuik Bunny character in television commercials for Nestlé Quik/NesQuik. In his mid-thirties, Gordon returned to school; he graduated "summa cum laude" as a political science major from California State University, Los Angeles; and he went on to Loyola Law School, receiving his J.D. in 1991. Gordon became the longest-serving president of the Screen Actors Guild, holding the office for seven years (one year longer than either Charlton Heston or Ronald Reagan). In 1998, Gordon was the Democratic Party nominee for the United States Congress from the Pasadena, California, area. He surprised political pundits, of both parties, by coming within three points of unseating the Republican Party incumbent, James Rogan. In 2004, when the local Air America Radio affiliate in Los Angeles went off the air, for a then-unspecified period of time, Gordon started a live, call-in progressive political talk show on Pasadena's Public-access television cable TV channel 56. It continues to be cablecast and webcast live, with Adobe Flash video available on demand. In 2005, Gordon hosted a weekly talk show heard on KRLA Radio in Los Angeles, California. In 2006 and early 2007, Gordon hosted "Barry Gordon From Left Field", a weekly talk show broadcast throughout the 25th largest U.S. radio market—the San Bernardino/Riverside region of Southern California—on KCAA Radio, in Loma Linda, California. With live streams and podcast archives, the show was especially notable for featuring nationally known guests, including senators, congressmen, bestselling authors, and entertainment figures. In 2008, Gordon debuted his daily Internet talk show, "Left Talk," on BlogTalkRadio. Since 2007, Gordon has taught courses in politics and the media at the California State University, Los Angeles. In May 2009, Gordon played the Cocker Spaniel in the Webkinz Pet of the Month Music Video for May 2009.
1164525	Loletha Elayne "Lola" Falana (born September 11, 1942 in Camden, New Jersey) is an American singer, dancer, and actress.
1067409	Justin Garrett Whalin (born September 6, 1974) is an American actor best known for his roles as the teenage Andy Barclay in "Child's Play 3" and Jimmy Olsen in the American television series "". Early life. Whalin, an only child, was born in the Sunset District of San Francisco, California. His mother, Terry Villanueva, is a teacher and school administrator who owns and operates two L.A. area schools: The Learning Castle and La Cañada Preparatory. His father, Craig Whalin, is a real estate appraiser. His parents divorced when he was seven years old, both would remarry. He has a younger half brother, Danny Quiros. He has an older stepbrother, Michael Galo-Rothman, and an older stepsister, Michele Dahlberg. Whalin studied acting at the esteemed American Conservatory Theatre (A.C.T.) in San Francisco, and attended Lowell High School. After years of commuting between Los Angeles and San Francisco, he and his mother eventually relocated to L.A. permanently when he was fifteen years old. He completed his high school education through U.C. Berkeley's home schooling program. Career. Whalin is known for his appearances in such films as John Waters' cult classic "Serial Mom" with Kathleen Turner, "Child's Play 3", The Disney Channel's "Susie Q" (1996) (TV), and as the young Daily Planet photographer Jimmy Olsen in the TV series "" (seasons 2-4). Whalin has been working as an actor since the age of eleven, when he debuted in the title role of the play "The Little Prince" at San Francisco's Victoria Theatre. He starred in the 1993 CBS Schoolbreak Special production "Other Mothers" for which he won a Daytime Emmy for his portrayal of a son with lesbian parents. He went on to star in "Miracle at Midnight" opposite Mia Farrow and Sam Waterston. He auditioned to play Billy Loomis in "Scream" (1996).
583491	Sanam Bewafa is an Indian Bollywood film directed and produced by Saawan Kumar Tak, starring Salman Khan, Chandni, Pran and Danny Denzongpa. The film released on 11 January 1991. Synopsis. The film is a story of two Pathan families who were at daggers drawn for many generations.
1064476	Adolph Caesar (December 5, 1933 – March 6, 1986) was an American actor. Biography. Born in Harlem, Manhattan, New York City, New York, he appeared in director Norman Jewison's film, "A Soldier's Story" for which he received a nomination for "Best Actor in a Supporting Role" from both the Academy Awards and the Golden Globes. He also played the role of "Old Mister" in the Steven Spielberg film, "The Color Purple" and appeared in "Fist of Fear, Touch of Death". In addition to his film career, Caesar did much voice-over work for television and radio commercials, including theatrical previews and radio commercials for many blaxploitation films such as "Cleopatra Jones, "Superfly, " Truck Turner" and "The Spook Who Sat by the Door". Caesar also lent his voice to the popular 80s cartoon "Silverhawks". He played Hotwing, a magician and skilled illusionist. Caesar's last completed film was "Club Paradise" released posthumously. Caesar was working on the Los Angeles set of the 1986 film, "Tough Guys" (with Burt Lancaster and Kirk Douglas) when he suffered a heart attack and died a short time later. He was interred in the Ferncliff Cemetery in Hartsdale, New York. Caesar was survived by his wife, two daughters, and a son.
1151268	Namrata Singh Gujral (born February 26, 1976) is an American actress of Indian and Tibetan descent. A Sikh by faith, she was born in Dharamshala, Himachal Pradesh and graduated in 1998 from the University of West Florida. Gujral was diagnosed with early stage breast cancer in 2008. She is featured in UniGlobe Entertainment's breast cancer docu-drama titled "1 a Minute" released in 600 theaters. This is the largest release to date for a cancer-related film in cinema history. The docudrama is directed and produced by Gujral and also stars breast cancer survivors Olivia Newton-John, Diahann Carroll, Melissa Etheridge, Mumtaz and Jaclyn Smith. This marked Gujral's directorial debut.
1373109	Leslie-Anne Huff is an American actress. She is best known for her portrayal of Penelope on the Disney Channel sitcom "Sonny with a Chance". Early life. Huff was born and raised in the San Fernando Valley. She was born to an American father of English descent and a Filipino mother. Career. Her career began in 2006 with a role in the television series "". She has made guest appearances in several television series, including roles in "NCIS", "Bones", "Days of our Lives", "Chuck", "Greek" and "The Suite Life on Deck". In 2008, she was cast to star in the film "Strawberry Cliff", opposite Hong Kong singer Eason Chan. In 2009, she starred in Disney Channel first original web series, "Mackenzie Falls", a stand-alone spin-off of "Sonny with a Chance". In 2011, she was cast in the film "Cowgirls n' Angels", starring James Cromwell, Bailee Madison, Jackson Rathbone, Madison Burge, and Kathleen Rose Perkins. In 2013, she was cast in Dakota's Summer the sequel to "Cowgirls n' Angels", opposite Keith Carradine, Emily Bett Rickards, and Spencer Boldman. Philanthropy. In 2005, Huff co-founded the non-profit Kamay at Puso (which means "Hand and Heart" in Tagalog).
711132	"National Lampoon's Dorm Daze 2" (2006) is the mystery/farce sequel to the 2003 comedy "National Lampoon Presents Dorm Daze". Chris Owen and Danielle Fishel reprised their roles from the original along with Tony Denman, James DeBello, Patrick Cavanaugh, Marieh Delfino, Jennifer Lyons and Gable Carr. Added to the ensemble are Vida Guerra, Charles Shaughnessy, Richard Riehle, Jasmin St. Claire, and Oren Skoog with Justin Whalin as "Foosball." The film was directed by the brothers David and Scott Hillenbrand and written by Patrick Casey and Worm Miller. "Dorm Daze 2" had its premiere screening at the Directors Guild of America Building in Hollywood on June 14, 2006. The film was released on DVD September 5, 2006. It debuted at number 28 on the U.S. rental box office charts bringing in $790,000 in its first five days. The film was shot on location in California. The primary location for the shoot being the Queen Mary docked in the harbor off Long Beach. The music of UK Swing Band Dominic Halpin and the Honey B's is featured in this film along with the score composed by David Hillenbrand. Synopsis. "Dorm Daze 2" unfolds during a Semester-at-Sea-type cruise in the Caribbean. The class from Billingsly University are trying to put on a play to win a contest. Sexy and scheming Gerri (Marieh Delfino) and stoner Pete (Patrick Cavanaugh) are competing for a scholarship. Newmar (Tony Denman) is trying to have sex with his Christian girlfriend (Vida Guerra). Rusty (Oren Skoog) is just trying to have sex with anything he can. The creepy Dante (Nicolas Shake) runs around planning all sorts of nefarious schemes. Meanwhile a priceless stolen jewel is loose on the boat and everyone is after it.
1062164	George Harris Kennedy, Jr. (born February 18, 1925) is an American actor who has appeared in more than two hundred film and television productions. He is perhaps best known for three of his roles: as the convict "Dragline" in "Cool Hand Luke", for which he won an Academy Award; as airline mechanic Joe Patroni in all four of the 1970s "Airport" disaster films; and as Captain Ed Hocken in the "Naked Gun" series of comedy films. Early life. Kennedy was born in New York City, into a show business family. His father, George Harris Kennedy, a musician and orchestra leader, died when Kennedy was four years old. He was raised by his mother, Helen A. (née Kieselbach), a ballet dancer. His maternal grandfather was a German immigrant; his ancestry also includes Irish and English. Kennedy made his stage debut at the age of two, later becoming a radio performer. Kennedy put aside show business during World War II and served in the United States Army for sixteen years, having seen combat and working in the Armed Forces radio. He was involved with the opening of the first Army Information Office, which provided technical assistance to films and television shows. After retiring from the military (reportedly because of a back injury), Kennedy found his way back to the entertainment industry. Career. Kennedy became a technical adviser for the television series "Sergeant Bilko", where his acting career began with a few one-line parts. After a very brief appearance in the 1960 blockbuster "Spartacus", his film career began in 1961 in "The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come". He then appeared in several prominent Hollywood movies, including "Charade" (1963) opposite Cary Grant, Audrey Hepburn, Walter Matthau, and James Coburn; "Strait-Jacket" (1964) opposite Joan Crawford and Diane Baker, 1964's "Hush… Hush, Sweet Charlotte," opposite Bette Davis, and in such popular 1965 films as the crash-survivor drama "The Flight of the Phoenix" with James Stewart and the war story "In Harm's Way" with John Wayne. He made numerous television appearances on such programs as "The Andy Griffith Show", "Peter Gunn", "Bonanza", "McHale's Navy" and "Gunsmoke". Kennedy played George Spangler in the 1963 "Perry Mason" episode, "The Case of the Greek Goddess." He portrayed the character "Blodgett" in a 1966 episode "Return to Lawrence" of the ABC western series "The Legend of Jesse James", starring Christopher Jones in the title role. He also appeared on "The Match Game" as one of the panelists. Then came a career-changing performance as Kennedy won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for "Cool Hand Luke" (1967). He played "Dragline", a chain-gang convict who at first resents the new prisoner in camp played by Paul Newman, then comes to idolize the rebellious Luke. He followed with films such as "The Dirty Dozen", "Bandolero!" and "The Boston Strangler". In 1970, he appeared in the Academy Award-winning disaster story "Airport" in which he played one of its key characters, airline troubleshooter Joe Patroni. He reprised this role in "Airport 1975" and in two sequels. Continuing to work with some of the biggest names in the business, Kennedy co-starred with Clint Eastwood in a pair of films, "Thunderbolt and Lightfoot" and "The Eiger Sanction" and with an ensemble cast including Charlton Heston and Ava Gardner in the disaster film "Earthquake". He was part of an all-star cast in the Agatha Christie mystery "Death on the Nile" in 1978, joining the likes of David Niven, Peter Ustinov, Angela Lansbury and Bette Davis. In 1984, Kennedy starred opposite Bo Derek in the box-office bomb "Bolero". He made other minor films including "Savage Dawn", "The Delta Force", and "Creepshow 2" before connecting in the comedy hit "" in 1988, playing Captain Ed Hocken opposite Leslie Nielsen's comical cop Frank Drebin. There were two sequels in which Kennedy co-starred. On television, Kennedy starred as Carter McKay in the CBS prime time serial "Dallas" (1978–1991), appearing from 1988-1991. In the late 1990s, he promoted Breathasure tablets in television commercials with the quote, "I never go anywhere without my Breathasure." Around this time, he reprised his role as McKay in the television films ' and '. In 1996, he played himself on "Wings". He was asked to reprise his role from "Airport" (much to his annoyance) by Brian Hackett (Steven Weber). In 1998, he voiced Brick Bazooka for the film "Small Soldiers." He then made several independent films before making a 2003 comeback to television in the soap opera "The Young and the Restless", playing the character Albert Miller, the biological father to legendary character Victor Newman. In 2005, he made a cameo appearance in the small film "Don't Come Knocking", playing the director of an ill-fated western. Honors. Kennedy received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for his contributions to motion pictures, located at 6352 Hollywood Blvd. Writing career. Kennedy has written three books. In 1983, he wrote the murder mystery "Murder On Location", set on a film shoot. A second novel, "Murder on High", was released in 1984. In 2011, he wrote his autobiography, "Trust Me". Personal life. Kennedy resides in Eagle in Ada County in southwestern Idaho. He is married to Joan McCarthy and has a daughter, Shaunna. The couple adopted their granddaughter, Taylor, after the incarceration of the child's mother.
146761	Michael Massee (born August 16, 1955) is an American actor who has worked in film and television. Career. He has provided the voice for the villain Spellbinder in "The Batman", as well as appearing on the television series "24" as the villain Ira Gaines. He provided the voice of Bruce Banner for the "Ultimate Avengers" animated film, as well as the sequel "Ultimate Avengers 2". He appeared in the film "Seven" alongside Brad Pitt and Morgan Freeman. He appeared in David Lynch's "Lost Highway" as Andy. He also played the physical manifestation of Management (a.k.a. Lucius Belyakovin), on HBO's "Carnivàle". He guest starred in episodes of "The X-Files". He also appeared in the 2005 NBC TV miniseries "Revelations" as the main antagonist. In 2006, he guest-starred in "Criminal Minds" as a serial killer on death row. He also guest starred in the "" episode "Reunion" as a rock star. He appeared in the American TV show "FlashForward" as villain Dyson Frost. He appeared as a hunter on the series "Supernatural" in 2007. More recently, Massee portrayed imprisoned serial killer Charles Hoyt in the first two seasons of the TV series "Rizzoli & Isles" and played the role of the "Man in the Shadows" in 2012's "The Amazing Spider-Man". "The Crow". In 1993, Massee portrayed the character Fun Boy in the movie "The Crow", starring Brandon Lee. Massee was the actor who fired the shot that accidentally killed Lee on the set in 1993, due to an improperly prepared prop gun. In an interview in 2005, 12 years after the incident, Massee revealed that he still had nightmares about it, going on to say, "I don't think you ever get over something like that." Personal life. Massee was born in Kansas City, Missouri. Massee and his wife, Ellen, own a clothing boutique in Los Angeles. He grew up in France after his parents moved there in 1954; he is fluent in French. His parents still live there.
1060969	Manoj Shyamalan (; born 6 August 1970), known professionally as M. Night Shyamalan, is an Indian-American screenwriter, film director, and producer known for making movies with contemporary supernatural plots including "The Sixth Sense" (1999), "Unbreakable" (2000), "Signs" (2002), "The Village" (2004) and "The Happening" (2008). He is also known for filming and setting his movies in and around Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where he was raised. Most of Shyamalan's commercially successful films were co-produced and released by the Walt Disney Studios' Touchstone and Hollywood film imprints. In 2008, Shyamalan was awarded the Padma Shri by the government of India. Early life. Shyamalan was born in a Hindu household in Mahé, Puducherry, India. His father, Nelliate C. Shyamalan, is a traditional physician (Vaidyar) from Mahé. His mother, Jayalakshmi, is Tamil and is an obstetrician and gynecologist by profession. In the 1960s, after medical school (at the Jawaharlal Institute of Postgraduate Medical Education & Research in Pondicherry) and the birth of their first child, Veena, his parents moved to the United States. His mother returned to India to spend the last five months of her pregnancy at her parents’ home in Chennai. Shyamalan spent his first six weeks in Puducherry, and then was raised in Penn Valley, Pennsylvania, an affluent suburb of Philadelphia. Although Hindu, he attended the private Roman Catholic grammar school Waldron Mercy Academy, followed by the Episcopal Academy, a private Episcopal high school located at the time in Merion, Pennsylvania. Shyamalan earned the New York University Merit Scholarship in 1988. Shyamalan is an alumnus of New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, in Manhattan, graduating in 1992. It was while studying there that he adopted Night as his second name. Shyamalan had an early desire to be a filmmaker when he was given a Super-8 camera at a young age. Though his father wanted him to follow in the family practice of medicine, his mother encouraged him to follow his passion. By the time he was seventeen the Steven Spielberg fan had made forty-five home movies. On each DVD release of his films (beginning with "The Sixth Sense" and with the exception of "Lady in the Water"), he has included a scene from one of these childhood movies which he feels represents his first attempt at the same kind of film. Career. Shyamalan made his first film, the semi-autobiographical drama "Praying with Anger", while still a student at NYU, using money borrowed from family and friends. It was screened at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 12, 1992, and played commercially at one theater for a week in rural Woodstock, Illinois. Shyamalan wrote and directed his second movie, "Wide Awake", in 1995, though it was not released until 1998. His parents were the film's associate producers. The drama dealt with a ten-year-old Catholic schoolboy (Joseph Cross) who, after the death of his grandfather (Robert Loggia), searches for God. The film's supporting cast included Dana Delany and Denis Leary as the boy's parents, as well as Julia Stiles and Camryn Manheim. "Wide Awake" was filmed in a school Shyamalan attended as a child and earned 1999 Young Artist Award nominations for Best Drama, and, for Cross, Best Performance. Only in limited release, the film grossed $305,704 in theaters, against a $6 million budget. That same year Shyamalan co-wrote the screenplay for "Stuart Little" with Greg Brooker. In 2013, he revealed he was the ghost writer for the 1999 film "She's All That", a teen comedy starring Freddie Prinze Jr and Rachel Leigh Cook. Shyamalan gained international recognition when he wrote and directed 1999's "The Sixth Sense", which was a commercial success and later nominated for six Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director and Best Original Screenplay. In July 2000, on "The Howard Stern Show", Shyamalan said he had met with Steven Spielberg and was in early talks to write the script for the fourth Indiana Jones film. This would have given Shyamalan a chance to work with his longtime idol, Steven Spielberg. After the film fell through, Shyamalan later said it was too "tricky" to arrange and "not the right thing" for him to do. Shyamalan followed "The Sixth Sense" by writing and directing "Unbreakable", released in 2000, which received positive reviews. Shyamalan's name was linked with the 2001 film "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone", but it conflicted with the production of "Unbreakable". In July 2006, while doing press tours for "Lady in the Water", Shyamalan had said he was still interested in directing one of the last two "Harry Potter" films. "The themes that run through it...the empowering of children, a positive outlook...you name it, it falls in line with my beliefs", Shyamalan said. "I enjoy the humor in it. When I read the first "Harry Potter" and was thinking about making it, I had a whole different vibe in my head of it". His 2002 film "Signs", where he also played Ray Reddy, gained both critical and financial success. His next movie "The Village" (2004) received mixed reviews from the critics, but turned out to be a financial success. After the release of "The Village" in 2004, Shyamalan had been planning a film adaptation of Yann Martel's novel "Life of Pi" with 20th Century Fox, but later backed out so that he could make "Lady in the Water". "I love that book. I mean, it's basically story of a kid born in the same city as me India — it almost felt predestined", Shyamalan said. "But I was hesitant because the book has kind of a twist ending. And I was concerned that as soon as you put my name on it, everybody would have a different experience. Whereas if someone else did it, it would be much more satisfying, I think. Expectations, you've got to be aware of them. I'm wishing them all great luck. I hope they make a beautiful movie". Released in 2006, "Lady in the Water" performed worse critically and financially. The film "The Happening" (2008) was a financial success but also received negative reviews. In 2010, he directed "The Last Airbender", based on the Nickelodeon TV show "". It received extremely negative reviews in the United States and won five Razzie Awards, but it made nearly $320 million internationally at the box office. In July 2008, it was announced that Shyamalan had partnered with Media Rights Capital to form a production company called Night Chronicles. Shyamalan would produce, but not direct, one film a year for three years. The first of the three films was "Devil", a supernatural thriller directed by siblings John and Drew Dowdle. The script was written by Brian Nelson, based on an original idea from Shyamalan. The movie was about a group of people stuck in an elevator with the devil, and starred Chris Messina. The film was not previewed by critics before its release, eventually receiving mixed reviews. "Devil" was not a blockbuster hit, but has become a commercial success relative to its budget. The next film in the Night Chronicles series will be called "Reincarnate". It will be scripted by Chris Sparling and directed by Daniel Stamm. Shyamalan currently has three television projects in production and varied stages of development. The first, titled "Proof", has been sold to the Sci-Fi channel, the second is being developed with NBC reportedly titled "Lost Horizon" and the third is an off-beat thriller titled "Wayward Pines", adapted from the novel of the same name and will be made for FOX. Sci-Fi Channel hoax. In 2004, Shyamalan was involved in a media hoax with Sci-Fi Channel, which was eventually uncovered by the press. Sci-Fi claimed in its "documentary" special—"The Buried Secret of M. Night Shyamalan", shot on the set of "The Village"—that Shyamalan was dead for nearly a half-hour while drowned in a frozen pond in a childhood accident, and that upon being rescued he had experiences of communicating with spirits, fueling an obsession with the supernatural. The Sci-Fi Channel also claimed that Shyamalan had grown "sour" when the "documentary" filmmakers' questions got too personal, and had therefore withdrawn from participating and threatened to sue the filmmakers. In truth, Shyamalan developed the hoax with Sci-Fi, going so far as having Sci-Fi staffers sign non disclosure agreements with a $5-million fine attached and requiring Shyamalan's office to formally approve each step. Neither the childhood accident nor the supposed rift with the filmmakers ever occurred. The hoax included a non-existent Sci-Fi publicist, "David Westover", whose name appeared on press releases regarding the special. Sci-Fi also fed false news stories to the Associated Press and Zap2It, among others. A "New York Post" news item, based on a Sci Fi press release, referred to Shyamalan's attorneys threatening to sue the filmmakers; the attorneys named were non-existent. After an AP reporter confronted Sci-Fi Channel president Bonnie Hammer at a press conference, Hammer admitted the hoax, saying it was part of a guerrilla marketing campaign to generate pre-release publicity for "The Village". This prompted Sci-Fi's parent company, NBC Universal, to state that the undertaking was "not consistent with our policy at NBC. We would never intend to offend the public or the press and we value our relationship with both." Personal life. In 1993, Shyamalan married psychologist Bhavna Vaswani, a fellow student whom he met at NYU and with whom he has three daughters. His family resides in Willistown, Pennsylvania, near Shyamalan's usual shooting site, Philadelphia. His production company, Blinding Edge Pictures, is located in Berwyn, Pennsylvania. Shyamalan founded Blinding Edge Pictures, a film production company based in Berwyn, Pennsylvania. It has produced "The Happening", "Lady in the Water", "The Village", "Signs", "Unbreakable" and "The Last Airbender". It is run by Night and Jose L. Rodriguez. In 2012 the company started production on "After Earth" with Will Smith and Jaden Smith. Criticism and controversy. Shyamalan twists. With the exception of "The Sixth Sense", a common criticism of Shyamalan's works is that they feature better direction than screenwriting. He has also been labeled a "one-trick pony" for his continuous use of the "twist" element in his screenplays. After the release of "The Village", "Slate"'s Michael Agger noted that Shyamalan was following "an uncomfortable pattern" of "making fragile, sealed-off movies that fell apart when exposed to outside logic." On a May 31, 2008, interview with the London "Independent," Shyamalan offered this answer to the question about his "one-trick" movies: "common misperception of me is that all my movies have twist endings, or that they're all scary. All my movies are spiritual and all have an emotional perspective." Plagiarism accusations. Robert McIlhinney, a Pennsylvania screenwriter, sued Shyamalan in 2003, alleging similarity of "Signs" to his unpublished script "Lord of the Barrens: The Jersey Devil". In 2004, Margaret Peterson Haddix noted that "The Village" has numerous similarities to her young adult's novel "Running Out of Time", prompting discussions with publisher Simon & Schuster about filing a lawsuit. In response to both allegations, Disney and Shyamalan's production company, "Blinding Edge", issued statements calling the claims "meritless".
1192558	Dinner for One, also known as The 90th Birthday, or by its corresponding German alternative title, Der 90. Geburtstag, is a two-hander comedy sketch written by British author Lauri Wylie for the theatre in the 1920s.
589831	Saat Hindustani (Devanagari: सात हिन्दुस्तानी, Urdu: , translation: "Seven Indians") is a 1969 film written and directed by Khwaja Ahmad Abbas. The film portrays the heroic story of seven Indians who attempt to liberate Goa from the Portuguese colonial rule. The cast included Utpal Dutt, Madhu, A. K. Hangal and Amitabh Bachchan who made his debut with this film. Bachchan played one of the Indians captured by the Portuguese opponent as POW. He played the role of a Muslim poet. Overview. Saat Hindustani portrays the heroic story of seven Indians who attempt to liberate Goa from the Portuguese colonial rule. Synopsis. A Muslim poet Anwar Ali (Amitabh Bachchan) hails from Bihar and five other men, all belonging from different religions and different parts of India join their seventh comrade Maria (Shehnaz), a native of Portuguese-occupied Goa, to raise nationalist sentiments in that state by hoisting Indian flag on Portuguese forts and buildings. Cast. Amitabh Bachchan made his debut with this film, playing one of the Indians captured by Portugal as a POW.
1557997	Shemp Howard (March 11, 1895 – November 22, 1955) was an American actor and comedian. Born Samuel Horwitz, he was called "Shemp" because "Sam" came out that way in his mother's thick Litvak accent. He is best known today for his role as the third stooge in The Three Stooges, a role he held twice: once at the beginning of the act in the early 1930s while the act was still associated with Ted Healy, and another from 1946 until his death. Between those times, Shemp had a successful film career as a solo comedian. Early life. Shemp was born in Manhattan, New York. He was the third of five Horwitz brothers, and of Lithuanian Jewish ancestry. Moe Howard and Curly Howard were his brothers. Career. Show business. Moe Howard entered show business as a youngster, on stage and in films. Eventually, he and older brother Shemp tried their hands as minstrel-show-style "blackface" comedians with an act they called "Howard and Howard—A Study In Black", and even worked for a rival vaudeville circuit at the same time by appearing without makeup. By the 1920s Moe had teamed up with boyhood-friend-turned-vaudeville star Ted Healy in a "roughhouse" act. One day Moe spotted his brother Shemp in the audience, and yelled at him from the stage. Quick-witted Shemp yelled right back, and walked onto the stage. From then on he was part of the act, usually known as "Ted Healy and His Stooges". On stage, Healy would sing and tell jokes while his three noisy stooges would get in his way. He would retaliate with physical and verbal abuse. His original stooges were the Howard brothers and Larry Fine. Shemp played a bumbling fireman in the Stooges' first film, "Soup to Nuts", the only film in which he plays one of Healy's gang. Healy was always the main attraction of the act, and his stooges were in constant disagreement with him over billing, money and management. Tired of what he considered Healy's domineering handling of the Stooges' career, Shemp left Healy's act in 1932 to pursue a solo film career and was immediately replaced by his and Moe's younger brother, Jerry (Curly). Solo years. Shemp Howard, like many New York-based performers, found work at the Vitaphone studio in Brooklyn. Originally playing bit roles in Vitaphone's Roscoe Arbuckle comedies, showing off his goofy appearance, he was entrusted with speaking roles and supporting parts almost immediately. He was featured with Vitaphone comics Jack Haley, Ben Blue and Gus Shy, then co-starred with Harry Gribbon, Daphne Pollard and Johnnie Berkes, and finally starred in his own two-reel comedies. A Gribbon-Howard short, "Art Trouble" (1934), also featured the then unknown James Stewart in his first film role. Shemp would seldom stick to the script, and would liven up a scene with ad-libbed incidental dialogue or wisecracks. This became a trademark of his performances. In late 1935, Vitaphone was licensed to produce short comedies based on the "Joe Palooka" comic strip. Shemp was cast as "Knobby Walsh," and though only a supporting character became the comic focus of the series, with Johnny Berkes and Lee Weber as his foils. He costarred in the first seven shorts, released during 1936 and 1937; nine were produced altogether, with the last two done after Shemp's departure from Vitaphone for greener pastures on the West Coast. Away from Vitaphone he attempted, unsuccessfully, to lead his own group of "stooges" in the Van Beuren musical comedy short "The Knife of the Party". But Shemp's solo career was very successful otherwise. He followed his brothers' lead, moved to the West Coast in 1937 and landed supporting-actor roles at several studios, predominantly at Columbia Pictures and Universal Studios. He performed with such comic greats as W. C. Fields, with whom he played the bartender in the 1940 film "The Bank Dick"; and with duo-comedians Abbott and Costello, who would reportedly trim his scene-stealing material. He also lent comic relief to Charlie Chan and The Thin Man murder mysteries, and was in several Universal B-musicals of the early 1940s, among them "Strictly in the Groove", "How's About It?", "Moonlight and Cactus" and "San Antonio Rose", in which he is paired with Lon Chaney, Jr. as a faux Abbott and Costello. Most of these took great advantage of his improvisational skills. He was briefly teamed with comedians Billy Gilbert and Maxie Rosenbloom for three B-comedy features in 1944–45. He also played a few serious parts, such as his supporting role in "Pittsburgh" (1942), starring Marlene Dietrich and John Wayne. The Three Stooges: 1946–1955. From 1939 onwards, Shemp appeared frequently in Columbia's two-reel comedies, co-starring with Columbia regulars Andy Clyde, The Glove Slingers, El Brendel and Tom Kennedy. He was given his own starring series in 1944; he was working for Columbia in this capacity when his brother Curly was felled by a debilitating stroke on May 6, 1946. Shemp reluctantly replaced Curly in Columbia's popular Stooge shorts, knowing that Moe and Larry would be out of work if he refused. He rejoined the Stooges at first on only a temporary basis until Curly recovered, but as Curly's condition worsened it became apparent that Shemp's association with the Stooges would be permanent. (Before replacing Curly on film, Shemp had substituted for his brother in some personal appearances in the early 1940s.) Shemp's role as the third Stooge was much different from Curly's. While he could still roll with the punches in response to Moe's slapstick abuse, he was more of a laid-back dimwit as opposed to Curly's energetic man-child persona. And unlike Curly, who had many distinct mannerisms, Shemp's most notable characteristic as a Stooge was a high-pitched "bee-bee-bee-bee-bee-bee!" sound, a sort of soft screech done by inhaling. Also, whenever he laughed (whether it came from reading comics or being tickled), he would sound like Moe in a more comical high-pitched voice. This was rather multi-purpose, since Shemp emitted this sound when scared, sleeping (done as a form of snoring), overtly happy or dazed. Shemp appeared with Moe and Larry in 73 short subjects and the feature film "Gold Raiders". He suffered a mild stroke in November 1952, although he recovered from it within weeks and without noticeable effect on his remaining films with the Stooges (largely remakes of earlier films that used recycled footage to reduce costs). Personal life. In September 1925, Shemp (at 30) married Gertrude Frank (at 28), a fellow New Yorker. They had one child, Morton (1926–1972). U.S. Representative Barney Frank (D-MA) is the son of Gertrude's cousin Sam Frank. Shemp used his somewhat homely appearance for comic effect, often mugging grotesquely or allowing his hair to fall in disarray. He even played along with a publicity stunt that named him "The Ugliest Man in Hollywood". ("I'm hideous," he explained to reporters.) Notoriously phobic, his fears included airplanes, automobiles, dogs and water.
1039918	Nigel Lindsay, (born on 17 January 1969), is a British actor. He was nominated for Best British Comedy Performance in Film at the 2011 British Comedy Awards for his performance as Barry, the Muslim convert in Chris Morris's BAFTA winning "Four Lions" and won the 2011 Whatsonstage Award for Best Supporting Actor as Dr Harry Hyman in Arthur Miller's "Broken Glass" at the Tricycle Theatre. On 27 February 2012, he finished playing the title role in the original West End production of "Shrek the Musical", which opened at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane on 14 June 2011 and for which he was nominated for 2012 Laurence Olivier and Whatsonstage.com Awards for Best Actor in a Musical. Early life and education. Lindsay was born in St John's Wood in London. He attended Merchant Taylors’ School, Northwood and the University of Birmingham, where he read English and French. After university, he worked for three years as a financial analyst specialising in French and Belgian equities at stockbrokers Savory Milln and Swiss Bank SBC. After performing in a friend’s charity production of Robert Bolt’s "The Thwarting of Baron Bolligrew", he gave up the City to take a two-year course at the Webber Douglas Academy, where he won the Amherst Webber scholarship. His finals show, "Charley’s Aunt", was directed by Michael Fry, who gave him his first professional job with his Lincolnshire touring company Great Eastern Stage. Career. Lindsay's early work was mainly in theatre. One of his first London stage roles saw him play the King of France in "King Lear" at the Royal Court Theatre, with Tom Wilkinson as Lear and Andy Serkis as the Fool. At a weekly Monday night poker game organised by the actor Samuel West, Lindsay was asked by Patrick Marber to attend a week’s improvisational workshop of a play he was devising about poker. This became "Dealer's Choice", which premiered at the National Theatre in February 1995 with Lindsay as Mugsy and Ray Winstone and Phil Daniels among the original cast. The play transferred to the Vaudeville Theatre, and won that year’s Evening Standard award for Best Comedy and Writers' Guild Award for Best Play. Other theatre work includes: Max in "The Real Thing" by Tom Stoppard which won three Tonys on Broadway in 2000; Ariel in the 2004 Olivier award-winning National Theatre production of Martin McDonagh’s "The Pillowman", with Jim Broadbent and David Tennant; Nathan Detroit in Michael Grandage’s "Guys and Dolls" at the Piccadilly Theatre in 2005, and Charlie Maggs in "Sucker Punch" by Roy Williams at the Royal Court in 2010. Lindsay has appeared in five plays at the Almeida Theatre, including as Lenny in Harold Pinter’s "The Homecoming" with Ken Cranham and Danny Dyer in 2009 and as Moe Axelrod alongside Stockard Channing and Jodie Whittaker in "Awake and Sing" by Clifford Odets, for which he was nominated for Best Supporting Actor in the 2008 Whatsonstage Awards. In film and television. Lindsay has appeared in many regular series including: "Spooks", "Silent Witness", "Waking the Dead", "Midsomer Murders", "New Tricks" and "Between the Lines". He played Odo Stevens in the 1997 Channel 4 adaptation of "A Dance to the Music of Time"; Ewan McGregor’s boss Ron Baker in the film "Rogue Trader"; the Jewish terrorist Levi in "Rome"; Sheriff Johnny Behan in the BBC’s Gunfight at the O.K. Corral; Lt Col Mervyn Gonin in the BAFTA nominated "Relief of Belsen" with Iain Glen; and opposite Jack Dee in Simon Nye’s fairground comedy Tunnel of Love. He has worked with some of the UK’s best loved comedy stars, including twice with Steve Coogan on Alan Partridge, with Armando Iannucci on the Armando Iannucci Shows, Jennifer Saunders in two series of Jam and Jerusalem, and again with Chris Morris on "Brass Eye".
1056855	Junior Bonner is a film released in 1972 directed by Sam Peckinpah and starring Steve McQueen, Joe Don Baker, Robert Preston and Ida Lupino. The film focuses on a veteran rodeo rider as he returns to his hometown of Prescott, Arizona to participate in an annual rodeo competition and reunite with his brother and estranged parents. Many critics consider it to be the warmest and most gentle of Sam Peckinpah's films. Plot. Junior "JR" Bonner is a rodeo rider who is slightly "over the hill". Junior is first seen taping up his injuries after an unsuccessful ride on an ornery bull named Sunshine. He returns home to Prescott, Arizona for the Independence Day parade and rodeo. When he arrives, the Bonner family home is being bulldozed by his younger brother Curly, an entrepreneur and real-estate developer, in order to build ranch homes. Junior's womanizing, good-for-nothing father Ace and down-to-earth, long-suffering mother Elvira are estranged. (Note: both Preston and Lupino were born in 1918, making them just twelve years older than McQueen.) Ace dreams of emigrating to Australia to rear sheep and mine gold, but he fails to obtain financing from Junior, who is broke, and refuses to ask Curly for it. After flooring his arrogant brother with a punch, Junior bribes rodeo owner Buck Roan to let him ride Sunshine again, promising him half the prize money. Buck thinks he must be crazy but Junior actually manages to pull it off this time, going the full eight seconds on the bull. Junior walks into a travel agent's office and buys his father a one-way, first-class ticket to Australia. The film's final shot shows JR leaving his hometown, his successful ride on Sunshine continuing to put off the inevitable end of his career. Themes. The story explores one of Sam Peckinpah's favorite themes - the end of a traditional form of honor and the arrival of modern capitalism on the western frontier. In a memorable scene, Ace and Junior escape from the rodeo parade on Junior's horse, ending up at a deserted railway station where they drink and despair at the state of the world and their indigency. The film has enjoyed a resurgence of popularity in the mid-2000s because of retrospectives and revival screenings of Sam Peckinpah's work and the screenplay's predictions regarding capitalist development. Production. In May 1971, weeks after completing "Straw Dogs" in England, Sam Peckinpah returned to the United States to begin immediate work on "Junior Bonner". The lyrical screenplay by Jeb Rosebrook, depicting the changing times of society and binding family ties, appealed to Peckinpah's tastes. He accepted the project, concerned with being typed as a director of violent action (at the time, "The Wild Bunch" was his most renowned film and "Straw Dogs" was in preparation to be released to theaters). "Junior Bonner" would be his final attempt to make a low-key, dramatic work in the vein of "Noon Wine" (1966) and "The Ballad of Cable Hogue" (1970). Filmed on location in Prescott, Arizona, Peckinpah utilized many colorful locales and residents as extras in the movie. Reception. Due to a glut of rodeo-themed films released at that time, including "The Honkers" (1972), "J.W. Coop" (1972) and "When the Legends Die" (1972), "Junior Bonner" fell through the cracks and performed poorly at the box office. It earned rentals of $1.9 million in North America and $900,000 in other countries, recording an overall loss of $2,820,000. The film was unwisely promoted as a typical Steve McQueen action vehicle and critical reviews were mixed. Peckinpah would remark, "I made a film where nobody got shot and nobody went to see it." Stinging from the failure of "Junior Bonner" but eager to work with Peckinpah again, McQueen presented him Walter Hill's screenplay to "The Getaway", which they would film months after completing "Junior Bonner". The second collaboration proved to be a financially successful one, as the action film would become one of the biggest box office successes of their careers.
1063532	All About Steve is a 2009 American comedy film directed by Phil Traill that stars Sandra Bullock, Thomas Haden Church, and Bradley Cooper as the titular Steve. The film was almost universally panned by critics with a 6% on Rotten Tomatoes and is the winner of two Golden Raspberry Awards. Plot. Mary Horowitz, a crossword puzzle writer for the "Sacramento Herald", is socially awkward and considers her pet hamster her only true friend. Her parents decide to set her up on a blind date. Mary's expectations are low, as she tells her hamster. However, she is extremely surprised when her date turns out to be handsome and charming Steve Miller, a cameraman for the television news network CCN. However, her feelings for Steve are not reciprocated. After an attempt at an intimate moment fails, in part because of her awkwardness and inability to stop talking about vocabulary, Steve fakes a phone call about covering the news out of town. Trying to get Mary out of his truck, he tells her he wishes she could be there. Mary believes him and decides to pursue him. Mary's obsession gets her fired when she creates a crossword titled "All About Steve". Following her termination, Mary decides to tail Steve around the country in the hopes of winning his affection. She is encouraged by CCN news reporter Hartman Hughes, who hopes to use Mary's encyclopedic knowledge in his reports to help himself get a promotion to become an anchor. On the road, Mary annoys some bus passengers so much, the driver abandons her. She hitchhikes with a trucker named Norm, then meets and travels with a pair of protesters, Elizabeth, a ditzy but sweet and likeable girl, and Howard, who sells apples he carves into celebrities. She gradually grows close to the two. Steve and crew end up covering a breaking news story: an old mine collapsed with several deaf children stuck inside. Initially, it appears that the children are rescued. Mary, who arrives on the scene, accidentally falls into the mine shaft while making a beeline for Steve. It turns out that not all the children have been rescued, and Mary is trapped with the one left behind. Steve begins to realize that Mary, in her own unique way, is a beautiful person. Just as Mary figures a way out, the two are joined by Hartman, who is made to feel guilty by Elizabeth and Howard for getting Mary into this predicament. Mary's rescue plan works, but she lets Hartman take the credit. Mary finally realizes she does not need Steve to be happy. She states, "If you love someone, set him free; if you have to stalk him, he probably wasn't yours in the first place." After the end credits, a competitive TV reporter, in despair that Hartman got popularity by falling into the mine while trying to save Mary, also jumps into the mine. Production. Production began in July 2007. Parts of the film were shot at Mayfield Senior School in Pasadena, California. Scenes featuring the collapsed mine and sink hole were filmed at The Walt Disney Company's Golden Oak Ranch in Canyon Country, California. Originally scheduled for release on March 6, 2009, the film was not released until September 4, 2009. Reception. The film received negative reviews from critics. Rotten Tomatoes ranked the film 96th in the 100 worst reviewed films of the 2000s, with a rating of 7% based on 126 reviews and the consensus: ""All About Steve" is an oddly creepy, sour film, featuring a heroine so desperate and peculiar that audiences may be more likely to pity than root for her." According to another review aggregator, Metacritic, the film has received an average score of 17%, based on 25 reviews, indicating "Overwhelming dislike". "Time" named it one of the top ten worst chick flicks. Box office. "All About Steve" opened at #3 behind the previous two weeks' #1 openers, "The Final Destination" and "Inglourious Basterds" with $11.2 million. The film ultimately grossed $33.8 million domestically, making a profit at the box office. Awards and nominations. The film was nominated for five Golden Raspberry Awards, including Worst Picture, Worst Director (Phil Traill), Worst Actress (Sandra Bullock), Worst Screenplay (Kim Barker), and Worst Screen Couple (Sandra Bullock and Bradley Cooper). "All About Steve" ultimately won Worst Actress and Worst Screen Couple. Sandra Bullock accepted the Razzie for Worst Actress, giving out a copy of "All About Steve" to each member of the audience, promising to attend next year if they all watched to consider if it was "Truly the worst performance."
1060910	Miracle on 34th Street (in the United Kingdom first released as The Big Heart) is a 1947 Christmas film written and directed by George Seaton and based on a story by Valentine Davies. It stars Maureen O'Hara, John Payne, Natalie Wood and Edmund Gwenn. The story takes place between Thanksgiving Day and Christmas Day in New York City, and focuses on the impact of a department store Santa Claus who claims to be the real Santa. The film has become a perennial Christmas favorite. The film won Academy Awards for Best Actor in a Supporting Role (Edmund Gwenn), Best Writing, Original Story (Valentine Davies) and Best Writing, Screenplay. It was also nominated for Best Picture, losing to "Gentleman's Agreement". Davies also penned a short novella version of the tale, which was published by Harcourt Brace simultaneously with the film's release. Plot. Kris Kringle (Edmund Gwenn) is indignant to find that the person assigned to play Santa in the annual Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade (Percy Helton) is intoxicated. When he complains to event director Doris Walker (Maureen O'Hara), she persuades Kris to take his place. He does such a fine job that he is hired as the Santa for Macy's flagship New York City store on 34th Street.
1069656	Gloria Jean (born April 14, 1926) is an American actress and singer who starred or co-starred in 26 feature films between 1939 and 1959, as well as making numerous radio, television, stage, and nightclub appearances. Career. Gloria Jean was born Gloria Jean Schoonover in Buffalo, New York. Her family moved to Scranton, Pennsylvania, where she sang on radio with Paul Whiteman's band. She was being trained as a coloratura soprano, when her voice teacher, Leah Russel, took her to an audition held by Universal Pictures movie producer Joe Pasternak in 1938. Pasternak had guided Deanna Durbin to stardom, and with Durbin now advancing to "ingénue" roles, Pasternak wanted a younger singer to make the same kind of musicals. Up against hundreds of others, Gloria Jean won the audition. Under contract to Universal, she was given the leading role in the feature "The Under-Pup" (1939), and became instantly popular with moviegoers. Universal's publicity department initially claimed the singer was 11 years old instead of 13; her actual age was not well known for many decades. For her next two vehicles, she co-starred with Bing Crosby in "If I Had My Way" (1940) and starred in the well-received "A Little Bit of Heaven" (also 1940), which reunited her with many from the "Under-Pup" cast. Her best-known picture is her fourth, "Never Give a Sucker an Even Break" (1941), in which she co-starred with W. C. Fields. Universal recognized the need for musical entertainment during wartime, and Gloria Jean appeared in a series of musicals during those years. She became one of Universal's most prolific performers; during the war years she made 14 feature films. Most were "hepcat" musicals, which were geared to the teenage market of the day, and Universal often used them to introduce new talent, including Donald O'Connor, Peggy Ryan, Mel Tormé, and Marshall Thompson. Gloria Jean made a successful transition to young adult roles. Her dramatic tour de force, as a blind girl being menaced by an escaped killer, was filmed as one of four vignettes for Julien Duvivier's "Flesh and Fantasy" (1943). Her performance won raves at the film's advance preview, and her segment was the best-received of the four. However, Universal removed the half-hour sequence and shelved it until 1944, when it was expanded into a feature-length melodrama, "Destiny". She co-starred with Olsen and Johnson in the big-budget "Ghost Catchers" (1944), and in her last two Universal features, released in 1945, she was teamed with singer-actor Kirby Grant.
1065566	Steve Oedekerk (born November 27, 1961) is an American comedian, director, editor, producer, screenwriter and actor. Oedekerk is best known for his collaborations with actor Jim Carrey and director Tom Shadyac (particularly the "Ace Ventura" franchise), his series of "Thumbmation" shorts and his film "" (2002). Life and career. Oedekerk was born in Los Angeles, California, and currently lives in San Juan Capistrano with his wife and two children. Throughout his career, Oedekerk has appeared in and created several television specials for NBC, ABC, and UPN. He also contributed his writing talents to FOX during the late 1980s and through the early 1990s. It was during this time that Oedekerk befriended fellow comic/actor Jim Carrey while working on the television series "In Living Color" during its 1990-1994 run; this was the first of numerous collaborations between the two. Prior to his successful contributions to several unknown episodes in the "Color" TV series, he wrote and starred in his first independent/directorial film, "Smart Alex" (1987). It wasn't until 1991 that Oedekerk was attached not only as a writer, but also as the main protagonist, as Thane Furrows in the film "High Strung". Jim Carrey also starred opposite him in the role of Death, although he went uncredited. Shortly afterward, Oedekerk again worked alongside Carrey as the project consultant for Tom Shadyac's first film ' (1994). The film began a break-out success and he was given the opportunity to both direct and write its sequel, ' (1995). This time Oedekerk directed and wrote the movie after Shadyac left before filming. The sequel proved to be more successful, surpassing the box office gross of the original. Following the "Ace Ventura" franchise, Oedekerk co-wrote "The Nutty Professor" (1996) was also directed by Shadyac for Universal Pictures and it became one of the highest-grossing films of that year. He soon wrote, directed and also had a cameo appearance in "Nothing to Lose" (1997), starring Tim Robbins and Martin Lawrence. Oedekerk would take a hiatus from directing major films productions for the rest of the 1990s, but continued to write screenplays, including "Patch Adams" (1998), ' (2000), ' (2001), "" (2002) (which he directed, wrote and filled the starring role), "Bruce Almighty" (2003) and "Barnyard" (2006). In 2007, Oedekerk produced the screenplay and story for the "Bruce Almighty" sequel, "Evan Almighty". And again Shadyac directing both movies. He has also been commissioned to write the screenplay for the "Ripley's Believe It or Not!" film adaptation; Jim Carrey has since been cast in the title role. In February 2009, Universal Pictures announced that Steve Oedekerk would be penning a film adaptation of the Stretch Armstrong superhero doll. Animation. In 1990, he founded the entertainment company O Entertainment. He is also executive producer of the computer animated cartoon series "" on Nickelodeon. He wrote, produced, and directed the animated feature film "Barnyard". In 2007, he began production on his own animated TV series for Nickelodeon, "Back at the Barnyard", based on the film. It premiered on Nickelodeon on September 29, 2007, and finished airing its second season on September 18, 2010. with 6 unaired episodes airing on Nickelodeon's sister channel Nicktoons on September 12, 2011, and ended on November 12, 2011. Oedekerk also gained popularity with his series of "Thumbmation" shorts: "Thumb Wars, Bat Thumb, The Godthumb, Frankenthumb, The Blair Thumb" and "Thumbtanic".
1032885	Michael Brandon (born Michael Feldman; April 20, 1945) is an American actor who resides in London and Los Angeles. Life and career. Brandon was born Michael Feldman in Brooklyn, New York to Miriam (née Tumen) and Sol Feldman. At age nine, he and his family (brother Elliot and sister Debra Lynne) moved to Valley Stream, New York where he attended Memorial Junior High and then Valley Stream Central High School. Brandon starred in the TV series "Dempsey and Makepeace" and "Dinotopia", the movies "Quattro mosche di velluto grigio" (1971), "F.M." (1978), "A Vacation In Hell" (1979) and "A Change of Seasons" (1980), and the plays "Does a Tiger Wear a Necktie?" and "Jerry Springer - The Opera".
1057834	"White Men Can't Jump" is a 1992 American comedy drama sports film starring Woody Harrelson and Wesley Snipes as streetball hustlers, co-starring Rosie Pérez. The film was written and directed by Ron Shelton and released in theaters on March 27, 1992 by 20th Century Fox. Plot. Sidney Deane (Wesley Snipes) and a group of streetballers are playing a pickup basketball game. When one of the players on the other team is injured, Sidney picks Billy Hoyle (Woody Harrelson), a white bystander, to take the injured man's place, figuring he cannot play well because of his race. Billy proves to be better than Sidney, leading his team to beat Sidney's and later beats Sidney in a "Best out of five/top of the key" game.
1018126	Sex and Zen II (玉蒲團二之玉女心經) is a 1996 Hong Kong film directed by Chin Man Kei. The film is a sequel to "Sex and Zen" (1991), and it was followed by "Sex and Zen III" (1998). Synopsis. Sai Moon-Kin (Elvis Tsui Kam Kong) is a rich man who idolizes Lawrence Ng's character in the original "Sex and Zen", and works hard to please as many women as he possibly can. When marrying off his retarded son, he finds his son's new wife (Shu Qi) pretty hot, so he takes her for his own, not knowing that she is the evil Mirage Woman, who knows "sucking" magic that's pretty nasty. Tsui's daughter (Loletta Lee), who dresses like a man and wears chastity belt for the main part of the film, and the righteous Iron Man (Ben Ng) try to stop Mirage Woman before it's too late, which means that she'll have free rein to "suck" anyone she wishes.
67631	Jean-Baptiste le Rond d'Alembert (; 16 November 1717 – 29 October 1783) was a French mathematician, mechanician, physicist, philosopher, and music theorist. Until 1759 he was also co-editor with Denis Diderot of the "Encyclopédie". D'Alembert's formula for obtaining solutions to the wave equation is named after him. The wave equation is sometimes referred to as D'Alembert's equation. Early years. Born in Paris, d'Alembert was the illegitimate child of the writer Claudine Guérin de Tencin and the chevalier Louis-Camus Destouches, an artillery officer. Destouches was abroad at the time of d'Alembert's birth, and a couple of days after birth his mother left him on the steps of the Saint-Jean-le-Rond de Paris church. According to custom, he was named after the patron saint of the church. D'Alembert was placed in an orphanage for found children, but was soon adopted by the wife of a glazier. Destouches secretly paid for the education of Jean le Rond, but did not want his paternity officially recognized. Studies and adult life. D'Alembert first attended a private school. The chevalier Destouches left d'Alembert an annuity of 1200 livres on his death in 1726. Under the influence of the Destouches family, at the age of twelve d'Alembert entered the Jansenist Collège des Quatre-Nations (the institution was also known under the name "Collège Mazarin"). Here he studied philosophy, law, and the arts, graduating as "baccalauréat en arts" in 1735. In his later life, D'Alembert scorned the Cartesian principles he had been taught by the Jansenists: "physical promotion, innate ideas and the vortices". The Jansenists steered D'Alembert toward an ecclesiastical career, attempting to deter him from pursuits such as poetry and mathematics. Theology was, however, "rather unsubstantial fodder" for d'Alembert. He entered law school for two years, and was nominated "avocat" in 1738. He was also interested in medicine and mathematics. Jean was first registered under the name "Daremberg", but later changed it to "d'Alembert". The name "d'Alembert" was proposed by Johann Heinrich Lambert for a suspected (but non-existent) moon of Venus.
584232	Mugamoodi (English: "The Mask") is a 2012 Indian Tamil Superhero film Comedy -Masala Film, written and directed by Mysskin that features Jiiva, Pooja Hegde and Narain in lead roles. It is the first Tamil super-hero movie. The film was a average, grossing around Rs 55 crores on a budget of Rs 20 crores, with additional revenues from music and TV sales. The film is about a man who cannot tolerate injustice and corruption and hence turns into a vigilante to fight against it for a better society. This film was dedicated to Bruce Lee. With mixed critical response the film was released on 31 August 2012, along with its dubbed Telugu version titled "Mask". It has also been dubbed in Hindi as "Mahabali Ek Super Hero". Plot. Bruce Lee (Jiiva) is a martial arts specialist but unluckily he is unable to use those skills to make a living. Instead, he falls in love with Police Deputy Commissioner Gaurav's (Nassar) daughter Shakthi (Pooja Hegde), and tries to impress her and her elder sister's kids with his martial art skills. To make it more fun for them he pretends to be a superhero by wearing on a costume each time he visits. On his way back on one such visit, Lee finds himself caught in between cops and robbers chase in the city. He decides to assist the police and manages to nab one robber from the gang and hands him over to the police. Lee doesn't realize that by doing so he has asked upon himself the revenge of Dragon (Narain) who heads the same gang. As the police were involved too, Dragon eyes to take revenge on Police Commissioner Gaurav also. Dragon then connives a plan that eventually frames Lee as a robber and the attempted to kill the Police Commissioner. What lies ahead for Lee now is to prove his innocence to the Police, win his love back Shakthi and more importantly bring Dragon and his gang to justice. Production. In September 2008, UTV Motion Pictures agreed to produce Myshkin's superhero script, "Mugamoodi" (Mask), and subsequently signed on leading actor Suriya to play the role of the protagonist. Pre-production work for the film began in late 2008, with the film also being referred to by the media as "Agni Puthran". The film was reported to be made at a cost of 450 million with A. R. Rahman as music composer and Surya portraying a Karate fighter in the film. However in July 2009, Surya opted out and unsuccessful discussions were held with Vishal to replace him, forcing Myshkin to stall the project. As the project remained dormant, Myshkin temporarily shelved the project and moved on to script a horror film. In October 2010, Arya signed on for the film with N. Linguswamy's Thirupathi Brothers production house replacing UTV as producers. However within months Arya had pulled out as had Linguswamy. In June 2011, a new Mumbai based company had taken the production reins whilst Jiiva, after the commercial success of his political thriller "Ko", had signed on to portray the lead role. Later that month, it was announced that Narain, who had worked with Myshkin in both "Chithiram Pesuthadi" and "Anjathe", would portray the role of the lead antagonist with reports suggesting that the role would be reminiscent of The Joker from the 2008 English film, "The Dark Knight", Narain claimed that that his villainy in the film would be totally brutal. His character in the movie has no shades and is absolutely negative. In early July 2011, sources reported that Amala Paul had been signed up to portray the lead female character in the film, which the actress dismissed, with Dhananjayan of UTV also confirming that Amala was not approached for the role. Pooja Hegde, second runner up of the 2011 Miss Universe India beauty pageant was eventually finalized as the female lead. K, who had scored for Mysskin's "Yuddham Sei" (2010) previously, was selected as the film composer over two other music directors, while Madhan Karky would pen the lyrics, associating for the first time with Mysskin. Veteran Telugu actor Akkineni Nageswara Rao was added to the cast in November 2011 which proved false and he was replaced by Girish Karnad, while Prakash Raj was also reported to be playing an important role. The following month, Nassar was selected to portray a police officer. Pooja Hegde will appear as Jiiva's lover in the film. Reports further claimed that both Jiiva and Narain would undergo special training in martial arts with experts from the Shaolin Temple in China being flown in. A large group of young aspiring artists were roped in to be part of the fight sequences which are touted be the highlight of the movie. The artists were trained for over 6 months at YMCA, Nandanam, Chennnai rigorously. High-end gadgets to be used in the film were reportedly designed by the Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT), while teams from the National Institute of Fashion Technology (NIFT) were roped in to create the costumes and looks of the characters. Furthermore, a Los Angeles-based firm would handle special effects, while action sequences are planned to be choreographed by stuntmen from Hong Kong. Costumes are designed by Gabriella Wilkins and it is said that Jiiva's superhero outfit weighs more than 10 kg. Shooting of the film started officially on 12 December 2011 with the opening scene of Kung Fu as that was so spoken about. The film is expected to be released during Summer 2012. The film was being canned in the nights in and around Triplicane in Chennai where the fight scene of Jiiva and Narain was shot in terrace. Mysskin is planning a 20 day schedule to shoot the climax at Karaikal.The shoot concluded at Karaikal where daredevil stunts were performed by the lead actor at an altitude of 180 feet high where in the Karaikal port`s conveyor belt passes over. Many scenes were also filmed at AVM studio where huge hospital set was erected and also at Victoria hall, Deaf and Dumb school.; Tony Leung Siu Hung, a stunt coordinator from Hong Kong, has joined the climax shoot of the film that's being canned in a massive scale at Karaikal. Soundtrack. "Mugamoodi"'s score and soundtrack were composed by K, who had worked on Mysskin's previous venture "Yuddham Sei" as well. The soundtrack features eleven tracks including a number of instrumentals. The lyrics were written by Madhan Karky and Kabilan. The soundtrack album was released on 20 July 2012 at Sathyam Cinemas; it was presented by Vijay and received by Kannada lead actor Puneet Rajkumar. Rediff wrote: ""Mugamoodi"'s numbers grab your attention and carry you with them". Milliblog wrote: "Tepid soundtrack from K". Behindwoods wrote: "On the whole, the music has provided a good platform for the superhero to soar". Release. The film was certified "U" by Censor Board. This film was released worldwide screens on 31 August 2012 and it would be the 100th film to be released in 2012. Also, it is to be noted that the director has planned for upcoming sequels of Mugamoodi. Therefore, the director has planned to release a sequel every year. The first look and trailer of Jiiva's 'Mugamoodi' took place in a grand scale on 29 June 2012 at Sathyam Cinemas. The trailer was launched by Suriya and received by director Lingusamy while the first look was released by Suriya and Gautham Vasudev Menon. "Mugamoodi" released in over 500 screens in Tamil Nadu, and also opened in neighbouring states in good number of screens as well as in northern parts of India including Delhi and Mumbai. The film released simultaneously in Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Singapore, UK, Canada, US and other parts of the world. Critical reception. "Mugamoodi" opened to negative reviews. IBN reviewed the film positive and cited that it had a "different flavour" further adding: "For those who loves the West and East's action films, "Mugamoodi"' combines both to give some pleasure". Behindwoods Review Board rated it 3 out of 5 stating that it had a "pacy first half, slow second half but [was compensated by the overall performance and effort of the cast & crew". Malathi Rangarajan from "The Hindu" noted that it "travels on a terrain that’s new to Tamil cinema" and lauded Mysskin, saying that his "effort to make Mugamoodi appear as authentic as possible deserves to be commended". Prakash Upadhyaya of oneindia.in recommended the film with a 3.5 out 5 rating. However, Sify termed the film average and a "one-time watch", calling it "good in parts" and claiming that it had "very good music and background score by K, but lacks a proper script and a racy presentation". Pavithra Srinivasan of Rediff gave it 2 out of 5 stars, writing that it had "all the makings of a successful film but ends up disappointing", particularly criticizing Mysskin's screenplay that "fails him spectacularly". Rohit Ramachandran of Nowrunning.com rated it 1.5 out of 5 stating that the film was "heavily flawed and utterly boring". Vivek Ramz of in.com rated it 1.5 out of 5 and sayed that ""Mugamoodi" is no Batman, just Kanthaswamy revisited!"
1065313	Kenneth John "Kenny" Ortega (born April 18, 1950) is an American film and television producer, director, and choreographer, best known for directing "Hocus Pocus", the "High School Musical" trilogy and Michael Jackson's "This Is It" concerts. Life and career. Ortega was born in Palo Alto, California. He is the son of Madeline, a waitress, and Octavio "Tibby" Ortega, a factory worker from Redwood City. His grandparents were from Spain. Initially known for working with dancer and choreographer Gene Kelly on the film "Xanadu", Ortega went on to choreographing the dance for the Menudo video "Hold Me", as well as the 1987 film "Dirty Dancing", and has won awards for choreography in music videos, such as Madonna's "Material Girl". He also worked with The Tubes on their stage shows and directed the video for She's a Beauty. Ortega directed Billy Squier's "Rock Me Tonite" video, which is often cited as the worst music promo clip ever made and has been blamed by Squier for killing his career. Together with Michael Jackson, he created and designed the Dangerous World Tour 1992-1993 and the HIStory World Tour 1996-1997. He has also choreographed events ranging from Super Bowl XXX, the 72nd Academy Awards, the 1996 Summer Olympics (Atlanta) and the 2002 Winter Olympics (Salt Lake City).
1724863	Herman Heine Goldstine (September 13, 1913 – June 16, 2004) was a mathematician and computer scientist, who was one of the original developers of ENIAC, the first of the modern electronic digital computers. Personal life. Herman Heine Goldstine was born in Chicago in 1913. He attended the University of Chicago, graduating Phi Beta Kappa with a degree Mathematics in 1933, a master's degree in 1934 and a PhD. in 1936. For three years he was a research assistant under Gilbert Ames Bliss, an authority on the mathematical theory of exterior ballistics. In 1939 Goldstine began a teaching career at the University of Michigan, until the United States' entry into World War II when he joined the Army. In 1941 he married Adele Katz who was an ENIAC programmer and wrote the technical description for ENIAC. He had a daughter and a son with Adele who died in 1964. Two years later he married Ellen Watson. In retirement Goldstine became executive director of the American Philosophical Society in Philadelphia between 1985 and 1997 where he was able to attract many prestigious visitors and speakers.
1074124	How to Be is a 2008 independent comedy-drama film written and directed by Oliver Irving. It is about a young man named Art, played by Robert Pattinson, who is going through a quarter-life crisis. Pattinson received the Strasbourg International Film Festival's 'Best Actor in a Feature' award for his portrayal of Art. Plot. Art (Robert Pattinson) is not talented, but aspires to be a musician. He has a dead-end job at a supermarket, despite having a degree (which he doesn't seem to value much). His girlfriend ends their relationship. Art is then forced to move back home with his cold and neglectful parents (played by Rebecca Pidgeon and Michael Irving). Art buys a book titled, "It's Not Your Fault." Upon reading it, he tries to follow the self-help book's advice. He decides to use inheritance money to first buy a car, and then pay for a Canadian therapist, Dr. Levi Ellington (Powell Jones), the book's author, to come to his home in England and help Art get his life on track, about which his parents are less than thrilled. Despite his unsupportive parents, Art attempts with his new life coach and two slightly unbalanced friends Nikki (Mike Pearce) and Ronnie (Johnny White) to find a balance in his life, true happiness, and a good relationship with his parents. The film also stars Jeremy Hardy as Art's superior at the care centre at which he volunteers. Distribution. "How to Be" was released in the United States by IFC Festival Direct on 29 April 2009. Leading up to the release, the director, Oliver Irving, took the film on a United States screening tour. The DVD was released first in the United Kingdom on 18 May 2009 and was released in the United States on 17 November 2009. Soundtrack. The "How to Be" soundtrack was released by Dreamboat Records on April 28. The 23-track collection features three original songs performed by Robert Pattinson, the original score by composer Joe Hastings and electronic music by musician-actor Johnny White, who plays Ronny in the film. It also features "Old Man" by Love, "Clear Spot" by Captain Beefheart and "Hammond Song" by The Roches. Reception. Film festivals. "How to Be" had its world premiere at the 2008 Slamdance Film Festival, where it won the Grand Jury Honorable Mention. It has since been chosen to appear at:
1042727	Bryan Forbes, CBE (22 July 1926 – 8 May 2013) was an English film director, screenwriter, film producer, actor and novelist, described as a "Renaissance man" and "one of the most important figures in the British film industry". Best known as the director of the film "The Stepford Wives" (1975), he wrote and directed several other critically acclaimed films, including "Whistle Down the Wind" (1961), "Séance on a Wet Afternoon" (1964), and "King Rat" (1965). He also scripted several films directed by others "The League of Gentlemen" (1959), "The Angry Silence" (1960) and "Only Two Can Play" (1962). Early life. Forbes was born John Theobald Clarke in Stratford, London, on 22 July 1926 in Queen Mary's Hospital, Stratford, West Ham, Essex. His father was a salesman and he grew up at 43 Cranmer Road, Forest Gate, West Ham, where he attended West Ham Secondary School and Horncastle Grammar School after he was evacuated during World War II to Lincolnshire. A schoolfriend at West Ham was artist Albert Herbert. Lionel Gamlin of the BBC took him on as the host of "Junior Brains Trust", and invented Clarke's pseudonym of Bryan Forbes. Career. Actor and screenwriter. Forbes trained as an actor at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art from age 17, but completed only three terms. He did four years of military service in the Intelligence Corps and Combined Forces Entertainment Unit, during which time he started to write short stories. After completing his military service in 1948, following British Equity rules, he was obliged to change his name to avoid confusion with actor John Clark. Forbes began to act, appearing on stage and playing numerous supporting roles in British films, in particular "An Inspector Calls" (1954) and "The Colditz Story" (1955). He published a short story collection in the early 1950s, which induced producer "Cubby" Broccoli to offer him screenwriting work on "The Black Knight" (1954). He received his first credit for Second World War film "The Cockleshell Heroes" (1955), while other early screenplays include "I Was Monty's Double" (1958), and "The League of Gentlemen" (1959), his breakthrough. Directed by Basil Dearden, Forbes also starred. The film recounted a bank heist carried out by ex-army officers, and gained critical success, including his first BAFTA nomination. In 1959, he formed a production company, Beaver Films, with his frequent collaborator Richard Attenborough. Beaver Films made "The Angry Silence" (1960), a controversial screenplay by Forbes in which Attenborough took the lead role, and the two men shared production responsibilities. Early work as a director and executive. Forbes's directorial debut came with "Whistle Down the Wind" (1961), again produced by Attenborough, a critically acclaimed film about three northern children who conceal a criminal in their barn, believing him to be a reincarnated Jesus Christ. It starred child actor Hayley Mills and Alan Bates, in one of his earliest film roles. The film was nominated for four BAFTA awards, including Best Film from any Source. It was the basis for a 1996 musical by Andrew Lloyd Webber. "The L-Shaped Room" (1962), his next film as director, with Leslie Caron in the female lead, led to her gaining a nomination for an Oscar, and winning the BAFTA (Best British Actress) and Golden Globe awards. Comments Phil Wickham: "It feels like half a new wave film – a mid-point between the innovation of the Woodfall Films and the mainstream of the British film industry." Forbes wrote and directed "Séance on a Wet Afternoon" (1964), and the same year he wrote the third screen adaptation of the Somerset Maugham novel "Of Human Bondage". In 1965, he went to Hollywood to make "King Rat", a successful prisoner-of-war story. He followed this with "The Wrong Box" (1966) and "The Whisperers" (1967), the latter featuring Edith Evans. A caper film, "Deadfall" (1968), starred Michael Caine. In 1969, Forbes was appointed chief of production and managing director of the film studio Associated British (soon to become EMI Films). Dennis Barker, in his obituary of Forbes for "The Guardian", states that "This amounted virtually to an attempt to revive the ailing British film industry by instituting a traditional studio system with a whole slate of films in play." Under Forbes's leadership, the studio produced "The Railway Children" (1970), "The Tales of Beatrix Potter" (1971) and "The Go-Between" (1971), all successful films. His tenure though, was short-lived and marked by financial problems and failed projects. Forbes resigned in 1971. Coinciding with his time with EMI Films, he resumed directorial work with "The Raging Moon" (1971), starring Malcolm McDowell and Nanette Newman, Forbes's wife. Later career. From the early 1970s, Forbes divided his energies between cinema, television, theatre and writing. In 1972, Forbes started work on the documentary, "Elton John and Bernie Taupin Say Goodbye Norma Jean and Other Things" (1973), which chronicled the life of the young Elton John and Bernie Taupin. The project took Forbes a full year to complete, and provided a behind-the-scenes look at the writing and recording of "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road", including interviews with John, Taupin and band members, including Nigel Olsson and Dee Murray, as well as John's mother, Sheila, DJM label head Dick James and son Stephen, and footage of John's Hollywood Bowl concert in 1973. (Some of the footage was licensed for the Eagle Vision Classic Albums series "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road" documentary.) During the filming, Forbes formed a close friendship with John and Taupin, which led him to do other work with them, including photography on the "Don't Shoot Me I'm Only the Piano Player" and "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road" album sleeves. ITV transmitted the documentary in the UK on 4 December 1973 (in the US, ABC screened it) shortly after completion, and was later briefly issued on VHS. Forbes returned to Hollywood to direct "The Stepford Wives" (1975), based on Ira Levin's novel of the same name. The horror classic again featured Newman and was to become his best-known film. His subsequent films as a director were less successful: "The Slipper and the Rose" (1976), with David Frost as executive producer; "International Velvet" (1978), intended as a continuation of "National Velvet" (1944), with Newman in the same role as Elizabeth Taylor in the earlier film; "Better Late than Never" (1983); and "The Naked Face" (1984). His final film as a screenwriter was "Chaplin" (1992), which he co-scripted for Attenborough. He served as president of the National Youth Theatre, Writers' Guild of Great Britain and the Beatrix Potter Society. Author. Forbes wrote two volumes of autobiography and several successful novels, the last of which, "The Soldier's Story", was published in 2012. He was a regular contributor to "The Spectator" magazine. Awards and honours. Forbes's 1960 screenplay, "The Angry Silence", won a BAFTA award, and was nominated for an Oscar. "Only Two Can Play" won Best British Comedy Screenplay of the Writers Guild of Great Britain in 1962. "Séance on a Wet Afternoon" won a 1965 Edgar Award from the Mystery Writers of America for Best Foreign Film and also the 1964 Best British Dramatic Screenplay of the Writers Guild of Great Britain. "Hopscotch" won the Best Comedy Adapted from Another Medium of the Writers Guild of America in 1980. Forbes's directorial debut, "Whistle Down the Wind", was nominated for several BAFTA awards, including Best Film from any Source and Best British Film in 1962. Four of his other films were also nominated for BAFTA awards, "The League of Gentlemen" (1959), "Only Two Can Play" (1962), "Séance on a Wet Afternoon" (1964) and "King Rat" (1965). In 2004, Forbes was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire for his services to the arts. In 2006, he received the Dilys Powell Award for outstanding contribution to cinema of the London Film Critics' Circle Awards. In May 2007, he was the recipient of a BAFTA tribute, celebrating his "outstanding achievement in filmmaking." Personal life. In 1951 he married Irish actress Constance Smith, and the couple travelled to Hollywood in the early 1950s. Forbes soon returned to the UK; he and Smith divorced in 1955. Forbes went on to marry actress Nanette Newman the same year. It was popularly believed that Roger Moore was their best man, but Newman denied this on the "Alan Titchmarsh Show" in 2011. The couple had two daughters: journalist Sarah Standing, who is married to actor John Standing, and television presenter Emma Forbes. Forbes was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 1975, while working on "The Slipper and the Rose"; he remained in remission which he attributed to cutting out gluten and taking vitamins and oil of primrose, together with Newman's care. However, he revealed in a 2012 interview that it had been a misdiagnosis. He continued his acting, directing and screenwriting career into the early 1990s, and was still publishing novels in the 2010s. Forbes died at his home in Virginia Water, Surrey, on 8 May 2013 at the age of 86, following a long illness. Journalist and former "Spectator" editor, Matthew D'Ancona, a friend of the Forbes family, said: "Bryan Forbes was a titan of cinema, known and loved by people around the world in the film and theatre industries, and known in other fields, including politics. He is simply irreplaceable and it is wholly apt that he died surrounded by his family." Film critic Mark Kermode wrote: "Once had the fan-boyish pleasure of telling Bryan Forbes how much I loved " Stepford Wives". He was charming and self-effacing. A great loss."
641925	In mathematics, differential algebraic equations (DAEs) are a general form of (systems of) differential equations for vector–valued functions "x" in one independent variable "t",
795533	Carmine Dominick Giovinazzo (born August 24, 1973) is an American actor and singer known for his role as Detective Danny Messer in "". Early life. Giovinazzo was born and raised in Staten Island, New York, the son of Nancy and Dominick Giovinazzo. He comes from a family of policemen and has Italian, English, Native American, and Norwegian ancestry. Growing up on Staten Island, Giovinazzo was an avid athlete; though he played many different sports, baseball and roller hockey were his preferences. He graduated from Port Richmond High School in 1991 and attended Wagner College. He had hoped to become a professional baseball player, but a serious back injury dashed his career plans, so, with the support of his family, he turned to acting. As a child, Giovinazzo participated in making short films, but remembers no particular time when he had the idea to start acting. Career. In 1997, Giovinazzo moved to Los Angeles, California, Not long after, he successfully landed his first Hollywood role in the "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" pilot, in which his character was the show's first on-screen victim. Afterwards, he appeared in numerous guest-starring roles on television and in film, including "Billy's Hollywood Screen Kiss", "For Love of the Game", "The Big Brass Ring", and "Black Hawk Down". He was also cast as one of the stars of the short-lived UPN sitcom "Shasta McNasty". Other films in which he had starring roles include "In Enemy Hands" with William H. Macy, and "Players" with Freddy Rodriguez and Peter Dobson. He played Tony Galper, the victim in "Columbo Likes the Nightlife", the final episode of the TV series "Columbo". Giovinazzo was cast as forensic scientist Danny Messer on the hit TV series '. Giovinazzo is the first actor to appear in all three "CSI" series; his "CSI: NY" character was introduced in the ' episode "MIA/NYC NonStop" (along with the other cast members of "CSI: NY") and he guest-starred in the third season of the original Las Vegas-based "" as a street racer named Thumpy G in the episode "Revenge is Best Served Cold", though it is never specified that this guest spot was in any way related to his character on "CSI: NY". Giovinazzo penned the sixth season vampire-themed episode "", joining series leads Melina Kanakaredes and Gary Sinise, who have also written episodes for the series. Personal life. Giovinazzo plays the guitar, writes songs and poems, and updates his own Wikipedia page in his spare time. He is also a painter, mostly in oils, and one of his paintings appeared in the "" episode of "CSI: NY". He is currently a lead vocalist in his band "Ceesau". They
774774	Picture Claire is a 2001 thriller film directed by Bruce McDonald of a screenplay by Semi Chellas. The film stars Juliette Lewis, Gina Gershon, Callum Keith Rennie, Kelly Harms, Camilla Rutherford, Peter Stebbings, and Mickey Rourke. The film premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival, and also appeared at Cinéfest in Sudbury, where the film received Best Ontario Feature Award.
711711	Chandra K. West (born December 31, 1970) is a Canadian actress. Career. 1990s. West's career began in 1991 when she played a small part in the television series "True Confections", a 1950s conservative drama about a woman with an ahead-of-her-time awareness. It was not until two years later that West followed her screen debut with a smaller role in the more-recognised series "The Secret of Lake Success".
1065827	Following is a 1998 British neo-noir drama thriller film written and directed by Christopher Nolan. It tells the story of a young man who follows strangers around the streets of London and is drawn into a criminal underworld when he fails to keep his distance. As Christopher Nolan's debut feature, it was designed to be as inexpensive as possible to make: scenes were heavily rehearsed so that just one or two takes were needed, thus economising on 16 mm film stock, the production's greatest expense, and for which Nolan was paying from his salary. Without expensive professional lighting equipment, Nolan mostly used available light. Apart from providing the script and direction, Nolan also did the photography, editing and production himself. Synopsis. A struggling, unemployed young writer (credited as "The Young Man") takes to following strangers around the streets of London, ostensibly to find inspiration for his first novel. Initially, he sets strict rules for himself regarding whom he should follow and for how long, but he soon discards them as he focuses on a well-groomed, handsome man in a dark suit. The man in the suit, having noticed he is being followed, quickly confronts the Young Man and introduces himself as "Cobb". Cobb reveals that he is a serial burglar and invites the Young Man (who tells Cobb his name is "Bill") to accompany him on various burglaries. The material gains from these crimes seem to be of secondary importance to Cobb. He takes pleasure in rifling through the personal items in his targets' flats and drinking their wine. He explains that his true passion is using the shock of robbery and violation of property to make his victims re-examine their lives. He sums up his attitude thus: "You take it away, and show them what they had." The Young Man is thrilled by Cobb's lifestyle. He attempts break-ins of his own, as Cobb encourages and guides him. At Cobb's suggestion, he alters his appearance, cutting his hair short and wearing a dark suit. He assumes the name "Daniel Lloyd" based on the credit card Cobb gives to him and begins to pursue a relationship with a blonde woman whose flat he and Cobb burgled. The Blonde turns out to be the girlfriend of a small-time gangster (known only as the "Bald Guy") whom she broke up with after he murdered a man in her flat. Soon, the Blonde confides that the Bald Guy is blackmailing her with incriminating photographs. The Young Man breaks into the Bald Guy's safe, but is caught in the act by an unidentified man. He then bludgeons the man with a claw hammer and flees with the Bald Guy's money and photos. Upon returning to his flat, he finds that the photos are innocuous modeling shots. Confronting the Blonde, the Young Man learns that she and Cobb have been working together to manipulate him into mimicking Cobb's burglary methods. She tells him that Cobb had recently discovered a murdered woman's body during one of his burglaries and is attempting to deflect suspicion from himself by making it appear as though multiple burglars share his MO. The Young Man leaves to turn himself in to the police. The Blonde reports her success to Cobb, who then reveals that he actually works for the Bald Guy. The story about the murdered woman was part of a plot to deceive both the Blonde and the Young Man: The Blonde has been blackmailing the Bald Guy with evidence from the murder he committed in her flat, and he wants her murdered in such a way that it cannot be connected to him. Cobb bludgeons the Blonde to death with the same claw hammer that the Young Man used during the burglary of the Bald Guy's safe and leaves it at the scene. The police, checking out the Young Man's story, find the Blonde murdered and the claw hammer with his fingerprints on it. The Young Man is thus implicated for the murder of the blonde woman. Cobb, meanwhile, vanishes into a crowd. Production. "Following" was written, directed, filmed, and co-produced by Christopher Nolan. It was filmed in London, on black-and-white 16mm film stock. Nolan used a non-linear plot structure for the film, a device he again used in "Memento", "Batman Begins" and "The Prestige". This type of storytelling, he says, reflected the audience's inherent uncertainty about characters in film noir: "Following" was written and planned to be as inexpensive to produce as possible, but Nolan has described the production of "Following" as "extreme", even for a low-budget shoot. With little money, limited equipment, and a cast and crew who were all in full-time employment on weekdays, the production took a full year to complete. To conserve expensive film stock, every scene in the film was rehearsed extensively to ensure that the first or second take could be used in the final edit. Filming took place on Saturdays for three or four months, Nolan shot about fifteen minutes of footage each day. This time frame also moderated the cost of film-stock and allowed him to pay for it out of his salary. For the most part, Nolan filmed without professional film lighting equipment, largely employing available light. This was made easier by the decision to use 16 mm black and white film. He also used the homes of his friends and family as locations. Reception. "Following" received generally positive reviews. Its aggregate review score from Rotten Tomatoes is 79%. "Los Angeles Times" reviewer Kevin Thomas was particularly impressed with the film, saying that it was a "taut and ingenious neo-noir" and that "as a psychological mystery it plays persuasively if not profoundly. Nolan relishes the sheer nastiness he keeps stirred up, unabated for 70 minutes." The New Yorker wrote that "Following" echoed Hitchcock classics, but was "leaner and meaner"."TV Guide" called it "short, sharp and tough as nails", praising its fast-paced storytelling and 'tricky, triple-tiered flashback structure'. David Thompson of "Sight and Sound" commented that "Nolan shows a natural talent for a fluent handheld aesthetic." However, Tony Rayns felt that the film's climax was uninspired, saying that "the generic pay off is a little disappointing after the edgy, character based scenes of exposition". "Empire"'s Trevor Lewis questioned the skill of the film's inexperienced cast, saying that they "lack the dramatic ballast to compensate for [Nolan's] erratic plot elisions." In contrast, David Thompson was of the opinion that the "unfamiliar cast acquit themselves well in a simple naturalistic style." "Following" has since been recognized as one of the most notable no-budget films of its time. Accolades. "Following" won several awards during its festival run, including the Tiger Award at the Rotterdam International Film Festival and the "Best First Feature" prize at the San Francisco International Film Festival, among others. Release. A Blu-ray restoration of the film with a new 5.1 sound mix was released by Criterion on December 11, 2012.
1066368	The Disappearance of Alice Creed is a 2009 British thriller film about the kidnapping of a young woman by two ex-convicts. The film is written and directed by J Blakeson and stars Gemma Arterton as the captured Alice Creed, with Martin Compston and Eddie Marsan as Danny and Vic, the kidnappers. Plot. Vic, a gay man, and Danny, who is bisexual and in a relationship with Vic, kidnap Alice, the daughter of a rich man, for a two million pound ransom. Alice is taken to a soundproofed room, and forcibly attached to a bed by her wrists and ankles with handcuffs and rope. Every article of her clothing is removed, and a ballgag is buckled into place. Once she is naked, she is photographed. Unknown to Vic, Danny and Alice are in a relationship and Danny plans to keep all the ransom money for Alice and himself. Alice hates her father for cutting her out of her inheritance. Therefore, Danny assumes that she will be happy with his plan, though she is not informed about the plan as she has to be genuinely frightened, otherwise Vic would become suspicious. While Vic is away, sending the photos and demanding the ransom, Danny is guarding the imprisoned Alice. She uses a ploy of going to the toilet to get Danny to turn his back, and she manages to grab his pistol, which she fires into the wall. When she points the gun at Danny, he is forced to reveal his identity to her, and explain the plan. She is angry, but eventually agrees to play along, for fear of Vic killing them both. Vic returns, and Danny finds the empty shell casing on the floor just in the nick of time, and has to swallow it to hide it from Vic. Later, while Vic is away again sending Alice's father a video message wherein Alice pleads for her life and for her father to 'just give them the money', Danny and Alice are about to share an intimate moment. However, Alice exploits the situation to handcuff Danny naked to the bed and pick up the gun, which Danny eventually manages to take off her. Vic returns and, while Danny is out, finds a mobile phone on Alice's person showing that she has managed to call the police. He also finds the bullet in the wall and he forces Alice to tell him about Danny's plan. Vic is shocked that Danny has deceived him, even more so because the two of them are lovers, observing that Danny could not have faked his arousal. They transport Alice to a warehouse and lock her up there. Then, while in a nearby forest where the ransom was supposed to be 'dropped' (buried beneath a tree), Vic confronts and shoots Danny, who is wounded and escapes. Vic then retrieves the ransom and goes to Alice. He tries to give her a fatal injection but the wounded Danny returns and overcomes him and then shoots him with the pistol, taking the ransom money and leaving Alice alive but still locked up and alone. Before Vic dies, he gives some keys to Alice, who then manages to escape. As she walks down the road, she finds Danny in the escape car, also dead from his prior wound, and, after several reflective moments and tears, drives off with the money. Cast. The three are the entire cast. One trailer for the film includes a (partial) scene with the voice of a fourth person speaking over the telephone; that scene, however, is not in the actual film. Release. The film was screened at the 2009 London Film Festival, the 2009 Toronto International Film Festival, and the Tribeca Film Festival in 2010. After a well publicised Facebook campaign to choose a Cinema to host the World Premiere of the film, Southampton University Student's Union won the event, which took place on 20 April 2010. Critical reception. Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reports that 81% of critics have given the film a positive review based on 84 reviews. It has received a number of four star ratings in the UK press. Peter Bradshaw at The Guardian made the following comment about the much discussed plot twists: "There's twist and counter-twist, cross and double-cross, and with each narrative reveal comes a firework display of Big Acting". It was well received at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF). Cameron Bailey, Co-Director of TIFF, praises J Blakeson's directorial style, claiming that "Not since "Reservoir Dogs" has a hostage standoff been handled with such intelligence". The film was nominated for the Raindance Award at the 2009 British Independent Film Awards. Home media. The film was released on DVD in the UK on 4 October 2010.
712189	Stephen Moyer (born Stephen John Emery; 11 October 1969) is an English film and television actor and director who is best known as vampire Bill Compton in the HBO series "True Blood" since 2008. Moyer's first television role was in 1993 as Philip Masefield in the TV adaptation of the play "Conjugal Rites", written by actor/playwright Roger Hall. In 1997 Moyer made his big-screen debut landing the lead role in the film adaptation of the long running comic strip "Prince Valiant" by Hal Foster, working alongside Ron Perlman and Katherine Heigl. Early life and career. Moyer was born in Brentwood, Essex. He attended St Martin's School, a comprehensive school in Hutton, Essex, and graduated from the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art (LAMDA). He became Brentwood Theatre's first patron in October 2007, especially supporting their "Reaching Out, Building On" campaign to help fund the 2008 completion of backstage facilities. After graduating from LAMDA, Moyer worked in theatre for five years. He worked with the National Theatre Wales, the Royal Shakespeare Company and the Oxford Stage Company, work which included going on tour and playing Romeo in productions of "Romeo and Juliet". He then made the transition to television and film. Personal life. In August 2009, Moyer announced his engagement to actress Anna Paquin, who plays his character's love interest in the HBO series "True Blood". They had been dating since filming the series pilot in 2007. The couple married on 21 August 2010 at a private residence in Malibu, California. Moyer and Paquin have a son, Charlie, and a daughter, Poppy, who are fraternal twins born in September 2012. The family resides in Venice, Los Angeles. Moyer also has a son, Billy, born in 2000, and a daughter, Lilac, born in 2002, from previous relationships.
1057513	A Night in Heaven is a 1983 American romance film directed by John G. Avildsen, starring Christopher Atkins as a college student and Lesley Ann Warren as his professor. The screenplay is written by Joan Tewkesbury. Film critics widely panned the film. Plot. Christopher Atkins plays Rick Monroe, a jock and a popular guy in college in Titusville, Florida; he is outspoken and overconfident. Lesley Ann Warren plays Faye Hanlon, Rick's speech professor; she is prim and proper. At the end of his final report for his class, Rick cracks a joke and Faye is not amused. She decides to fail him and make him take the course over again. Faye is going through a slump in her marriage to Whitney (Robert Logan), a rocket scientist who has just lost his job. Faye's free-spirited sister Patsy, visiting from Chicago, takes her to a strip club to cheer her up. The show features a performer called "Ricky the Rocket," who is none other than Faye's student Rick. When he notices Faye in the crowd, he gives her a very special lap dance. The next day, Faye and Rick run into each other at a school function. Initially, Rick is interested only in convincing Faye to allow him another chance at his final and is rebuffed. He realizes that she is attracted to him and begins flirting. Faye arranges to meet Patsy near her hotel, only to discover that she has been tricked into seeing another performance by "Ricky the Rocket". Patsy must return home a day early, so she turns over use of her hotel room to Faye, who calls Whitney and lies that she and Patsy are staying at Patsy's hotel together. Coincidentally, Rick's mother works in the same hotel, and while visiting his mother, Rick runs into Faye again; they return to Faye's room and have sex. Faye must leave and in her absence, Rick invites his girlfriend Slick to the room where they have sex. Faye catches them in the shower and, humiliated, flees; she realizes that she's been had. Whitney, returning home from an unsuccessful job interview, discovers that Patsy has gone home. Whitney travels to the hotel and catches Rick as he's exiting. Whitney kidnaps Rick at gunpoint; he takes Rick to a boat at a small dock and forces him to strip. Rick, sobbing, complies. Whitney threatens Rick repeatedly but in the end only shoots holes in the boat, leaving a naked Rick aboard as it sinks. Faye returns home to find Whitney waiting for her; she apologizes and he forgives her. At the end, the couple talk about their problems and resolve them. Soundtrack. The original music score is composed by Jan Hammer, and the soundtrack features two songs that would later be huge pop hits. "Heaven," co-written and performed by Bryan Adams, would become Adams' first American number one song when it was re-released in 1985. An early version of the song "Obsession," performed on the soundtrack by its co-writers, Holly Knight and Michael Des Barres, would be re-recorded and released as a single by the band Animotion, scoring the band their biggest hit on the pop charts when the song reached number six in 1985. The film also featured the song "Dirty Creature" by New Zealand/Australian group Split Enz. Reception. Critical response. Roger Ebert found it a "very confusing movie" that "introduces several themes and relationships, and asks some big questions", but "doesn't pay off on any of them." Vincent Canby of "The New York Times" dismissed the film, writing, "all boredom breaks loose." Box office. The film was a box office bomb grossing only near $6 million on a $12 million budget. Accolades. Atkins won the 1983 Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Actor.
1054957	Amanda Crew (born June 5, 1986) is a Canadian television and film actress. She is best known for her role on the television series "15/Love" and "Whistler", and in the feature-length films "Final Destination 3", "She's The Man", "Sex Drive", "The Haunting in Connecticut", and "Charlie St. Cloud". She has also made cameos in shows like "Life as We Know It", "Suits" and "Smallville". Early life. Crew was born in Langley, British Columbia. Her mother is a legal secretary and her father is a telecom worker. Crew attended Brookswood Secondary School in Langley. She began her acting career when she was cast in the musical "Dragon Tales" during her fourth grade in elementary school. Three agents contacted her, and she has been acting ever since. She did a Coca-Cola commercial and acted in stage plays like "Stalling", "Cordstons Courts", and "Langley, the Musical". Crew attended the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. Career. Television. Crew got her big break at age 18 for playing Tanis McTaggart on the YTV teen dramedy series "15/Love". After leaving the show in 2005, she guest starred on the television series "Life as We Know It" and "Smallville". From 2006 to 2008, she played Carrie Miller on the CTV drama series "Whistler", for which she won Best Lead Performance by a Female in a Dramatic Series at the Vancouver-based Leo Awards. Film. Crew got her Hollywood break when she landed a role in the 2006 horror film "Final Destination 3", which went on to international success, grossing $19,173,094 in its opening weekend and eventually grossing $112,798,051 worldwide. She then continued to star in several successful Hollywood productions including "She's the Man" and "Sex Drive". In 2009, Crew starred in the horror film "The Haunting in Connecticut". The film opened at #2 at the box office and ultimately grossed $55,325,526 in the United States and Canada alone, making her highest grossing picture to date and went on to make $72,742,856 worldwide. In 2009, Crew was cast alongside Zac Efron and Kim Basinger in "Charlie St. Cloud", which was released on July 30, 2010. She also starred in the thriller film "Repeaters". Personal life. Since filming the movie "Final Destination 3", Crew has been close friends with actor Dustin Milligan, and has worked with him throughout the years in several other projects. Crew is an aunt to her sister's son, Austin.
1478782	Queen to Play (original title "Joueuse", literally the feminine form of “player”) is a 2009 French-German film directed by Caroline Bottaro. The film is distributed in the U.S. by Zeitgeist Films. Synopsis. The film stars Sandrine Bonnaire as a French chambermaid on the island of Corsica. She develops an interest in chess. She has been cleaning the house of an American doctor (played by Kevin Kline in his first French-speaking role), and he begins helping her practice and improve. She must deal with her growing fascination with the game and with her husband and teenaged daughter. Release. The film had its world premiere on April 25, 2009 in both New York City and Los Angeles, at the Tribeca Film Festival respectively. The film had a national release in France on August 5, 2009 and was set for release in Germany on January 7, 2010. The film was released in the United States beginning April 1, 2011.
247470	Gavan O'Herlihy (born April 29, 1954) is an Irish actor. O'Herlihy was born in Dublin, the son of Elsa Bennett and Irish actor Dan O'Herlihy. In his youth, he was an avid tennis player, and even became Irish National Tennis Champion. He has over thirty screen credits to his name, most of them having cast him in villainous or antagonistic roles such as "Death Wish 3", "Never Say Never Again", "Superman III", and "Tales From The Crypt". His role as Airk Thaughbaer in the 1988 fantasy "Willow" is one of the few heroic roles the burly, fair-haired Gavan has managed to get, as well as the dashing British officer from Virginia Captain Leroy in "Sharpe's Eagle". He also appeared in "The Last Outlaw". He was cast as the jock son Chuck Cunningham on "Happy Days", but it was not a very big part and he was eventually written out by being sent to college and then disappeared with no mention. He did not want to get stuck in television, preferring the film medium. Gavan appeared in the pilot episode of "" entitled "Caretaker" as the Kazon First Maje, Jabin. He has a son named Rogan and a daughter named Misty.
1034109	Jacqueline Pearce (born 20 December 1943) is a British film and television actress. Her roles have included horror and comedy and she is perhaps best known as the villain Servalan in the British science fiction TV series "Blake's 7". Career. Jacqueline Pearce was born in Woking, Surrey. She trained at the British stage school RADA and at Lee Strasberg's Actors Studio in Los Angeles. Despite having appeared in dozens of films and TV shows, she remains best known for her role as Servalan in the British science fiction TV series "Blake's 7" (1978–1981). It has been suggested that the character of Romana in "Doctor Who" was originally modelled on Servalan's image, which in turn was partly modelled on the up-and-coming Margaret Thatcher. Filmography. Jacqueline Pearce starred in two Hammer horror films, "The Plague of the Zombies" and "The Reptile", which were filmed simultaneously on the same location with largely the same cast and both released in 1966. Other film roles include: "White Mischief", "How to Get Ahead in Advertising", "Princess Caraboo" and "Don't Raise the Bridge, Lower the River". TV appearances. As well as appearing in the BBC children's programmes "Dark Season" and "Moondial", Jacqueline Pearce has appeared in the "Doctor Who" serial "The Two Doctors" as Chessene, a bloodthirsty alien. She has more recently been associated with "Doctor Who" through her appearance in "The Fearmonger" as Sherilyn Harper, an audio drama by Big Finish Productions, and as Admiral Mettna in the webcast story "Death Comes to Time". She made a memorable appearance playing the role of Rosa Dartle in the 1974 BBC series of Charles Dickens's "David Copperfield". Pearce has also made frequent guest appearances in TV series such as: "Danger Man", "The Avengers", "Man in a Suitcase", "Public Eye", "Callan", "Dead of Night", "Special Branch", "The Zoo Gang", "Spy Trap" and "The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles". Personal life. In February 2012, Pearce was diagnosed with breast cancer for the second time. In May 2012, she began a course of chemotherapy. She is now healthy and happy living in Africa.
588477	Sila Nerangalil Sila Manithargal () is a 1975 Tamil film directed by A. Bhimsingh, based on the same-titled novel by Jayakanthan, starring Lakshmi, Sreekanth and Nagesh. It became the first Tamil film to feature a Best Actress National Award winning performance, won by Lakshmi for her portrayal of the lead character Ganga. Plot. Ganga, a college student from an 'orthodox' Tamil Brahmin family, has a sexual encounter with a stranger who offers her lift on a rainy day. Ganga is uncertain about her participation in the event. She, overcome by guilt and self-loathing, construes the event as rape. Her disillusioned face forces out a 'confession' to her mother about what happened earlier. Overhearing this, Ganga's brother, who's the 'bread' winner of the family, disowns and evicts her from the house (in Sri Rangam). She then moves in with her uncle—mother's elder brother in Madras—who assures full support in continuing her education. After successful graduation she gets employed in a private firm and grows to take the top managerial position. Ganga until then lives a single life resisting the pressure to lie about the 'incident' (which, presumably, would ruin her life with another man). Her assumed status as a 'spoilt' woman also implicitly encourages her lecherous uncle to make sexual advances. It is during this time she chances up on the 'stranger', Prabhu. She musters up the courage to introduce herself as who 'she really is' and get Prabhu to discuss about 'that' fateful evening. She then realizes that she probably showed as much interest in the sex as did Prabhu. The revelation brings Ganga closer to Prabhu as friends. They find their characteristics agreeable and the friendship matures into love. But unable to transcend the society's norms, Prabhu advices her to get married to someone else. When all attempts to convince Prabhu fails, Ganga is forced to part ways with him. The film ends with a note appreciation for her 'purity' and self-induced monogamous relationship with Prabhu.
1100410	Ernst Friedrich Ferdinand Zermelo (; 1871–1953) was a German logician and mathematician, whose work has major implications for the foundations of mathematics. He is known for his role in developing Zermelo–Fraenkel axiomatic set theory and his proof of the well-ordering theorem. Life. He graduated from Berlin's "Luisenstädtisches Gymnasium" in 1889. He then studied mathematics, physics and philosophy at the universities of Berlin, Halle and Freiburg. He finished his doctorate in 1894 at the University of Berlin, awarded for a dissertation on the calculus of variations ("Untersuchungen zur Variationsrechnung"). Zermelo remained at the University of Berlin, where he was appointed assistant to Planck, under whose guidance he began to study hydrodynamics. In 1897, Zermelo went to Göttingen, at that time the leading centre for mathematical research in the world, where he completed his habilitation thesis in 1899. In 1910, Zermelo left Göttingen upon being appointed to the chair of mathematics at Zurich University, which he resigned in 1916. He was appointed to an honorary chair at Freiburg im Breisgau in 1926, which he resigned in 1935 because he disapproved of Hitler's regime. At the end of World War II and at his request, Zermelo was reinstated to his honorary position in Freiburg. Research in set theory. In 1900, in the Paris conference of the International Congress of Mathematicians, David Hilbert challenged the mathematical community with his famous Hilbert's problems, a list of 23 unsolved fundamental questions which mathematicians should attack during the coming century. The first of these, a problem of set theory, was the continuum hypothesis introduced by Cantor in 1878, and in the course of its statement Hilbert mentioned also the need to prove the well-ordering theorem. Zermelo began to work on the problems of set theory under Hilbert's influence and in 1902 published his first work concerning the addition of transfinite cardinals. By that time he had also discovered the so-called Russell paradox. In 1904, he succeeded in taking the first step suggested by Hilbert towards the continuum hypothesis when he proved the well-ordering theorem ("every set can be well ordered"). This result brought fame to Zermelo, who was appointed Professor in Göttingen, in 1905. His proof of the well-ordering theorem, based on the powerset axiom and the axiom of choice, was not accepted by all mathematicians, mostly because the axiom of choice was a paradigm of non-constructive mathematics. In 1908, Zermelo succeeded in producing an improved proof making use of Dedekind's notion of the "chain" of a set, which became more widely-accepted; this was mainly because that same year he also offered an axiomatization of set theory. Zermelo began to axiomatize set theory in 1905; in 1908, he published his results despite his failure to prove the consistency of his axiomatic system. See the article on Zermelo set theory for an outline of this paper, together with the original axioms, with the original numbering. In 1922, Adolf Fraenkel and Thoralf Skolem independently improved Zermelo's axiom system. The resulting 10 axiom system, now called Zermelo-Fraenkel axioms (ZF), is now the most commonly used system for axiomatic set theory. Zermelo's navigation problem. Proposed in 1931, the Zermelo's navigation problem is a classic optimal control problem. The problems deals with a boat navigating on a body of water, originating from a point O to a destination point D. The boat is capable of a certain maximum speed, and we want to derive the best possible control to reach D in the least possible time. Without considering external forces such as current and wind, the optimal control is to follow a straight line segment from O to D. With consideration of current and wind, the shortest path from O to D is in fact, not the optimal solution. Bibliography. Primary literature in English translation:
1166004	Marjorie Lord (born Marjorie F. Wollenberg; July 26, 1918) is an American television and film actress. She played Kathy "Clancy" Williams opposite Danny Thomas on "Make Room for Daddy" and later "Make Room for Granddaddy". Life and career. Lord was born in San Francisco, California, the daughter of Lillian Rosalie (née Edgar) and George Charles Wollenberg. Her paternal grandparents were German, as were two of her maternal great-grandparents. In 1934, at the age of sixteen, Lord made her Broadway debut in "The Old Maid" with Judith Anderson. The following year, she was signed with RKO Radio Pictures. While appearing in "Springtime for Henry" with Edward Everett Horton, director Henry Koster approached her and signed her to a contract with Universal Studios. She appeared in six feature films for Universal. Her film work includes a number of wartime pictures, including the 1943 mystery "Sherlock Holmes in Washington", starring Basil Rathbone in the title role. She appeared on the 1951 episode "The Return of Trigger Dawson" of Bill Williams's syndicated western television series "The Adventures of Kit Carson". In 1956, while she was appearing in "Anniversary Waltz", Lord caught the attention of Danny Thomas, who asked her to replace Jean Hagen as his television wife on "Make Room for Daddy". Hagen had played Thomas' wife since the series' inception, but she was written out of the script in 1956. Lord accepted, and played the role until the show was cancelled in 1964.
582124	Maachis () is a 1996 Indian Hindi film directed by Gulzar and produced by R. V. Pandit. The film stars Om Puri, Tabu, Chandrachur Singh and Jimmy Shergill in the lead roles. The title of the film is used as a metaphor that conveys that the youth of any nation are matchsticks that could get ignited due to the deficiencies in the political and policing systems. The film portrays the circumstances surrounding the rise of the Sikh insurgency in Punjab in the 1980s and traces the transformation of a youth from a boy next door to a dreaded terrorist bent on wreaking vengeance. "Maachis" tasted critical and commercial success. Gulzar's direction and the music of Vishal Bhardwaj were strong points. To this day, many songs from the film, particularly "Chappa Chappa Charkha Chale" and "Chhod Aaye Hum Vo Galiyaan" can be heard playing on FM radio or TV channels. Bhardwaj went on to become a movie director and has directed movies such as "Maqbool" as well as the highly lauded " Omkara". "Chhod Aaye Hum" was the first Hindi film song sung by the now famous Indian singer KK. "Maachis" is a film about what atrocities can drive an ordinary human to do. It looks back at the Punjab problem and tries to figure out some of the root causes. It also warns that, in the future, there could be many more Punjabs burning and suffering for years. Plot. The film is set in mid-to-late 1980s in the Indian state of Punjab, which has been wracked by a violent insurgency in the aftermath of Operation Blue Star, the assassination of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi and the subsequent 1984 Anti-Sikh riots. The story is relayed by a series of flashbacks. Jaswant Singh Randhawa (Raj Zutshi) and his sister Veerendar "Veeran" (Tabu) live with their elderly mother Biji in a Punjab village. Kripal Singh (Chandrachur Singh) is Jaswant's childhood friend and Veeran's fiance, and lives close by with his grandfather. Their peaceful lives are interrupted by police led by Assistant Commissioner of Police Khurana and Inspector Vohra, who were searching for a Jimmy, who allegedly attempted to murder Kedar Nath, a member of the Indian Parliament. Jaswant mockingly leads the police to his dog, who was named Jimmy. Angered by his insolence, Khurana and Vohra take Jaswant for questioning, but he fails to return for days. Kripal struggles to locate Jaswant, visiting various police stations in the area, while taking care of Jaswant's family. When Jaswant finally returns after 15 days, he has been badly beaten up by police, which enrages Kripal. Unable to obtain help by any legal means to fight police brutality, Kripal sets off to locate his cousin Jeetay, who had ties with militant groups. Unable to locate Jeetay, Kripal instead encounters a man named Sanathan (Om Puri), who he observes planting a time bomb on a bus. Running into him again at a "dhabha", Kripal asks a wary Sanathan to listen to him for maybe he could help him. Sanathan agrees to let Kripal travel with him on his truck, being driven by the "Commander" (Kulbhushan Kharbanda) and carrying sacks of native-made bombs and two militants. Upon arriving at their hideout, Kripal explains his predicament and finds out that Jeetay was killed by the Commander himself for being a police informer. Fully aware of Kripal Singh's background, family and his predicament, the Commander rebukes Kripal for coming to them as if they were professional killers, and tells him to go kill Khurana himself, but that the group would protect him. Kripal slowly earns the respect of the rest of the group and Sanathan, who explains that he is not fighting for a nationalist or religious cause, but for his basic civil rights and self-respect. Sanathan says that he is fighting against a system that victimizes innocents and devalues ordinary people. It is later learned that Sanathan is a survivor of the communal violence that occurred with the Partition of India in 1947, and lost most of his family in the 1984 anti-Sikh riots. Sanathan claims that it is the ruling class that is trying to divide society by religion for political gain.
1067707	Hero at Large is a 1980 comedy film starring John Ritter and Anne Archer. The film was written by former Disney screenwriter, AJ Carothers and directed by Martin Davidson. The original music score was composed by Patrick Williams. Plot. Steve Nichols is a struggling actor in New York City who takes the job posing as comic-book hero Captain Avenger at comics stores and conventions. He finds his life unexpectedly complicated when he stops a robbery while wearing the costume of Captain Avenger. The costume is for a film he is hired to promote, but Nichols decides to continue being a superhero and discovers that the superhero life is more complex than he initially thought. Nichols is hired by the mayor's staff, who hope that Captain Avenger's tie-in will help the mayor win an upcoming election. The plan is discovered and revealed by the media, and Captain Avenger finds himself on the outs with the public. Prodded by his girlfriend Jolene to be himself and not rely on a costume and mask to gain adulation, Nichols becomes a bonafide hero when he rescues a young child from a fire at an apartment building.
400698	Pamela Reed (born April 2, 1949) is an American actress. She is known for playing Ruth Powers in various episodes of TV's "The Simpsons", as Arnold Schwarzenegger's hypoglycemic partner in the 1990 movie "Kindergarten Cop" and as the matriarch Gail Green in "Jericho". She currently appears in a recurring role as Marlene Griggs-Knope on the NBC sitcom "Parks and Recreation". Personal life. Reed was born in Tacoma, Washington, the daughter of Vernie Reed. She received her B.F.A. at the University of Washington. Reed has been married to Sandy Smolan since 1988. Since 2004, she has resided in Hancock Park, California, with her husband and two children, Reed and Lily, both adopted. Career. Reed earned a Drama Desk Award for the off-Broadway play "Getting Out" and an Obie award for "sustaining excellence in performance in theater". She had minor film and television work in the 1980s. She won a Cable Ace Award for Best Actress for the HBO series "Tanner '88" (1988). Her notable film roles include "The Long Riders" (1980), "The Right Stuff" (1983), "Kindergarten Cop" (1990), "Junior" (1994), "Bean" (1997), and "Proof of Life" (2001). Reed played Janice Pasetti in the quirky NBC sitcom "Grand", and then played a judge and single mother in the short-lived NBC sitcom "The Home Court". She had also guest-voiced in an episode of the 1994-1995 animated series "The Critic". She played a main role in "Jericho" and appeared as Leslie Knope's (Amy Poehler) mother on "Parks and Recreation". In 2005 Reed portrayed Executive Producer Esther Shapiro in "", a fictionalized television movie based on the creation and behind the scenes production of the 1980s prime time soap opera "Dynasty". Reed has also worked for Storyline Online, reading Stellaluna. Filmography. Greys Anatomy 2010 Valentines Massacre Mrs.Banks
583449	Sharbani Mukherjee (alternate name: Sharbani Mukherji) is an Indian actress working in Bollywood. Biography. She is the daughter of Rono Mukerji. Her paternal uncles are Joy Mukherjee and Deb Mukherjee. Her paternal grandfather, Sashadhar Mukherjee, was a filmmaker. His wife Satirani Devi was the sister of Ashok Kumar, Anoop Kumar and Kishore Kumar. Her cousins are actresses Rani Mukerji, Kajol and Tanisha and director Ayan Mukerji. Her brother Samrat Mukerji is also a Bollywood and Bengali actor. Career. Sharbani made her debut with the hit film Border. She was featured opposite Samir Soni in the song "Ghar Aaja Sonia" sung by Shazia Mansoor. She has also acted in various ads.
1059559	Black Dynamite is a 2009 American blaxploitation spoof action/comedy film starring Michael Jai White, Salli Richardson, Arsenio Hall, Kevin Chapman and Tommy Davidson. The film was directed by Scott Sanders and co-written by White, Sanders and Byron Minns, who also co-stars.
519975	Regina Alatiit also known as Gina Alajar was born on (June 28, 1959) in Manila, she is a FAMAS and Gaward Urian Award winning Filipino film actress and television director. Career. After long time staying in GMA Network she temporarily cut her contract and decided to be a Freelancer director and actress. She confirmed also that she did not convince her son Geoff Eigenman to leave ABS-CBN and fuse to GMA-7.Her last project seen on GMA-7 is the remake of Una Kang Naging Akin with co-star Angelika dela Cruz, Maxene Magalona, and Alfred Vargas. In 2009 she was invited with the ABS-CBN to join the cast of the Kambal sa Uma remake as the antagonist alongside with co-veteran actress Rio Locsin. Filmography. Television. Television
589029	Ameeta was a well known film actress in the 1950s and 1960s, appearing in Hindi films. Mainly a supporting actress and B grade leading lady, she had a brief period of A grade stardom in the late 1950s and early 1960s after playing prominent roles in successful films such as "Tumsa Nahin Dekha" (1957), "Goonj Uthi Shehnai" (1959) and "Mere Mehboob" (1963). Beginnings. After her debut in the film "Anmol Sahara" (1952), in a small part, Ameeta spent the next few years playing various supporting roles in films such as "Shri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu" (1953) and "Aab E Hayat" (1955). Her strikingly pretty looks and fresh-faced appeal, combined with some confident performances, meant that she quickly graduated as second lead to prominent heroines like Nalini Jaywant and Madhubala in films such as "Munimji" (1955) and "Shirin Farhad" (1956). Around this period Ameeta made a questionable choice in her fledgling career. She was approached by the legendary film maker, Mehboob Khan, to play a role in his much anticipated production, "Mother India" (1957). The film had high expectations and had a stellar cast which included Nargis, Sunil Dutt, Rajendra Kumar and Raaj Kumar. It was being produced in Technicolor, a rarity in India then. The role Ameeta was approached for was as Rajendra Kumar's sweetheart. It had already been rejected by Mala Sinha and Ameeta too backed out, feeling that in a film starring the celebrated and charismatic Nargis, she would be overlooked. However being associated with such a prestigious film as a relatively new and unknown actress could have raised her profile greatly and given her career a much needed boost. The part Ameeta rejected was eventually played by the actress Kumkum and "Mother India" went on to be one of the most successful films in the history of Indian cinema. Breakthrough and stardom. Recognising her star potential, she soon became the protégé of Filmistan Studios' owner Tolaram Jalan, who relaunched her with "Tumsa Nahin Dekha" (1957). The film was primarily produced as a vehicle for promoting Ameeta as a new star. Great care was taken with her make-up, wardrobe and lighting, to present Ameeta in the most flattering and adventagous way possible. Furthermore, much of the film's extensive publicity also centred around the actress. Ironically, the film's huge success at the box office made the then struggling Shammi Kapoor an overnight sensation instead.
588766	Dariya Dil is a 1988 Hindi family drama film directed by K. Ravi Shankar and starring Govinda, Kimi Katkar, Roshni and Raj Kiran. The film was released on 8 January 1988 in India. The film has gained renewed interest as one of its song and dance sequences, in which Govinda's character Ravi appears dressed as Superman and Kimi Katkar's character Radha appears dressed as Spiderwoman, has become a widely seen video on YouTube with almost 10 million views as of March 2013. DARIYA DIL was a box office hit and it remains for it's family drama story and superb acting of Kader Khan.
1068129	Lymelife is a 2008 independent comedy-drama film written by brothers Derick Martini and Steven Martini, and directed by Derick Martini, depicting aspects of their life in 1970s Long Island from the perspective of a teenager. The film stars Alec Baldwin, Rory Culkin, and Emma Roberts. Martin Scorsese served as an executive producer. The film debuted at the 2008 Toronto International Film Festival, in September 2008 and won the International Federation of Film Critics Award (FIPRESCI). After its theatrical release in 2009, writer director Derick Martini was nominated for a Gotham Award for Breakthrough Director. Plot. Set in 1979 Syosset, Long Island, New York, "Lymelife" follows two families, the Bartletts and the Braggs, who crumble when tangled relationships, real estate problems, and Lyme disease converge in the heart of suburbia. 15-year-old Scott Bartlett is a gentle boy, radically different from his blustery father Mickey and mother Brenda. An outbreak of Lyme disease, as well as the accompanying paranoia, hits their community hard. When the Bartlett's neighbor, Charlie Bragg, is diagnosed with the illness, Charlie is unable to work and his wife Melissa must keep the income flowing herself. She is hired by Mickey, a friendly favor motivated by lust. Mickey's history of philandering is one of the many things upsetting Brenda. Scott has been in love with the Braggs' one year-older daughter Adrianna for all his life; she is starting to return his interest. Charlie spends days hiding in his basement, while his wife believes he is in Manhattan on job interviews. He is obsessed with hunting deer. Scott and Charlie have a good relationship, one of the only ones Charlie is able to maintain throughout his illness. Things heat up when Jimmy, Scott's older brother, comes home from the army on their mom's birthday. Brenda leaves early from Jimmy's going-away party when it is clear that there is a relationship between Mickey and Melissa. Jimmy and Mickey have a confrontation. Scott learns of the affair and confronts his mother. Adrianna helps him through this, but shuns him after a rumor spread from a lie he tells a friend. Brenda kicks Mickey out of the house and is once again able to act the role of an effective parent. Charlie also confronts Mickey after he inadvertently witnesses the affair; when his wife finds out that he has been letting her earn the family's keep, she packs to leave. Scott and Adrianna reconnect and lose their virginity to each other. Brenda and Mickey also reconcile that night. The movie ends with a gunshot, revealing that Charlie shot Mickey. Production. Development. The story of "Lymelife" is based on Steven and Derick's childhood in the New York suburbs of Long Island. After the incidents of the film, Steven moved from Long Island back into his birthplace of New York City, where he attended the Professional Children's School with the Culkin brothers Macaulay and Kieran, with Kieran and his younger brother Rory Culkin going on to portray the Martini brothers in this film. It was during this period that Steven met his first true love, Adrianna, whose father had Lyme disease. This relationship is the basis of the love story between Rory Culkin and Emma Roberts in the film. Budget. In early 2005, the film was plagued with insufficient funds and was shut down on the eve of principal photography. The funds to make the film were not raised until 2008. Despite the 3-year hiatus, nearly the entire original cast made time in their schedules to participate in the film. The total budget for the film was $1.5 million. The shooting schedule was a scant 22 days, made only more difficult to complete due to the director's insistence on using older, larger and heavier anamorphic lenses. Casting. The role of Mickey Bartlett was written specifically for Alec Baldwin, despite the fact that neither of the Martini brothers had any connection to Baldwin. Martini is frequently quoted as having seen a younger Baldwin's portrayal of Stanley Kowalski on Broadway in "A Streetcar Named Desire", and it being an "eye opening" experience for him. Jill Hennessey was offered the role of Brenda Bartlett after Jennifer Jason Leigh left the film and her replacement, Anne Heche, insisted on wearing a wig. Martini chose to circumvent the conventional casting process, specifically "cold readings", and instead cast the actors based on viewing their previous work. Emma Roberts was the only main actor who wanted to audition for the director despite not having to. Shooting locations. Portions of the film were shot at Montclair High School in Montclair, New Jersey. Other locations were nearby, also in New Jersey. Release. Critical reception. The film premiered at the 2008 Toronto International Film Festival and won the International Federation of Film Critics award (FIPRESCI). It landed on several of 2009's critic's "Top Ten Lists" and was praised for its performances and directorial style, but criticized for its story's familiarity. The film received a 63% "fresh" rating on Rotten Tomatoes; the consensus states: ""Lymelife" features sharp performances, but the story lacks the emotional depth or focus worthy of its talented cast." Box office. The film began its North American theatrical release in April 2009. Initially, "Lymelife" was only shown on screens in New York and Los Angeles, but eventually expanded to screens in almost every major and minor U.S city. Foreign release was more fruitful, opening on screens in nearly every major foreign territory, which is rare for a smaller American independent. The film grossed $421,307 in the United States and an additional $1,104,938 internationally for a total worldwide gross of $1,526,245. DVD, VOD and Cable sales brought the film's gross up to $4,526,245, more than doubling its production budget
1120313	Jee Ayan Nu (Gurmukhi: ਜੀ ਆਇਆਂ ਨੂੰ, Shahmukhi: جی آیاں نوں, ) is a Punjabi feature film, released in 2002. It stars Harbhajan Mann in the lead role with Priya Gill. It was directed by Manmohan Singh. It is one of the most successful movie in Punjabi cinema. The movie's songs are quite popular and were sung by Harbhajan Mann, Alka Yagnik and others. "Jee Aayan Nu" is the first film in the history of Punjabi cinema to be made on such a lavish scale and with renowned technicians who have contributed their best efforts and dedication. Plot. Grewal (Kanwaljeet), a business tycoon of the media industry, is a Punjabi settled in Vancouver, Canada with his wife and daughter. Simar (Priya Gill), the elder daughter, was three years old when she was brought to Canada from her birthplace, Punjab. Living a luxurious life in Canada, both daughters are highly influenced by the local culture. Grewal, with his family, returns to Punjab after many years to attend a college function. Grewal meets Inder (Harbhajan Mann) who happens to be Grewal's childhood friend's son. Grewal asks Inder to take Simar around and show her the beauty of Punjab. While sightseeing Inder makes Simar realize how loving and good-natured Punjabis are and how it is beautifully blended with their culture. Though Simar is impressed, her mother (Navnit Nishan) is not comfortable in her own country and its lifestyle. Inder and Simar soon fall in love, and the families decide to get them married. However, at their engagement, Inder realizes that Simar's family expects Inder to settle in Canada with them after their marriage. Inder refuse to leave Punjab. Annoyed at Inder, the Grewal family returns to Canada. Time passes and soon Inder's parents, seeing his pain without Simar, insist that he should go to Canada and get his lost love back. Inder leaves and is determined to get Simar back.
1469077	The Pumaman ("L'uomo puma", in Italian) is an Italian-produced English-language movie about a superhero of the same name, released in 1980. It was mocked in a 1998 episode of "Mystery Science Theater 3000." Plot. The villainous Dr. Kobras (Donald Pleasence) has found a golden Aztec mask which he plans to use to control the minds of world leaders, starting with the Dutch ambassador's blond daughter Jane Dobson (Sydne Rome), who had translated the instructions on it for him. However, he fears the interference of the Pumaman, a legendary "man-god" sired by aliens and the protector of the mask whom he believes to be living in nearby London. After somehow learning that the Pumaman is an American male living in London, Kobras' henchmen begin to test people matching these criteria by throwing them from high windows as only the Pumaman will be able to survive such a fall. Not only is Kobras looking for the Pumaman but so is a large, muscular and mysterious Indian named Vadinho (Miguel Angel Fuentes). The Pumaman turns out to be mild-mannered young professor Tony Farms (Walter George Alton), an American paleontologist working at the Natural History Museum. Vadinho, who turns out to be a mystic Aztec priest who knew Tony's physician father, confirms Tony’s status as the latest in a line of Pumamen by throwing him out a window. Vadinho then gives Tony a magical golden belt that when worn gives him super powers. The Pumaman's superpowers include: Pumaman ultimately defeats Kobras by crashing the helicopter in which the evil doctor is attempting to flee. Tony then decides to marry the no longer brainwashed Jane while Vadinho returns with the mask to his hidden temple in the Andes in an alien spacecraft.
771262	William George Horner (1786 – 22 September 1837) was a British mathematician; he was a schoolmaster, headmaster and schoolkeeper, proficient in classics as well as mathematics, who wrote extensively on functional equations, number theory and approximation theory, but also on optics. His contribution to approximation theory is honoured in the designation Horner's method, in particular respect of a paper in "Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London" for 1819. The modern invention of the zoetrope, under the name "Daedaleum" in 1834, has been attributed to him. Horner died comparatively young, before the establishment of specialist, regular scientific periodicals. So, the way others have written about him has tended to diverge, sometimes markedly, from his own prolific, if dispersed, record of publications and the contemporary reception of them. Family life. The eldest son of the Rev. William Horner, a Wesleyan minister, was born in Bristol. He was educated at Kingswood School, a Wesleyan foundation near Bristol, and at the age of sixteen became an assistant master there. In four years he rose to be head master (1806), but left in 1809, setting up his own school, The Classical Seminary, at Grosvenor Place, Bath, which he kept until he died there 22 September 1837. He and his wife Sarah (1787?–1864) had six daughters and two sons. One of the sons, another William Horner, continued to run the school. He, too, had a large family; the youngest were twins, Charles and Francis John Horner (1852–1887). Francis Horner matriculated at St. John's College, Cambridge in 1872, taking out a BA in 1876 and an MA in 1883. He became a lecturer in mathematics at the University in Sydney, where he died after only a few years - he had been advised to try a change of climate on account of tuberculosis. A longer association with Australia comes through the issue of Horner's daughter Mary, which retained the name `Horner' through several generations. Mary's son Joseph Horner Fletcher, was a Methodist school headmaster in New Zealand and then Australia. Neville Horner Fletcher (1930- ), FTSE, FAA, is a physicist at the Australian National University. On Horner's death in 1837, Sarah Horner lived with another daughter, Charlotte Augusta (1819?--1863; m. 1849)), and son-in-law, John La[u?]mble Harrison (1820?--1877)), and their daughters, Charlotte Sarah (b. 1852) and Elizabeth Caroline (b. 1856), at 33, Grovesnor Place, Bath. Horner's youngest brother, Joseph Horner, was also an assistant master at Kingswood School, but in 1834 matriculated as a mature student at Clare College, Cambridge, standing twelfth Wrangler in the Mathematical Tripos in 1838 (the same year, John Thompson Exley, the son of W. G. Horner's associate Thomas Exley, stood twenty-third). Joseph Horner was a Fellow of Clare College and then vicar of Everton with Tetsworth from 1839 until his death in 1875. He, too, published in mathematics. Other brothers were Thomas Horner, who died young; John Horner, a Wesleyan minister in India; and James Horner, cabinet maker of Bath. According to Horner, John Horner was the first missionary to come out of Kingswood School: he translated "Bel and the Dragon" into Marathi and his son, Horner's nephew, again John Horner, was tutor to the children of servants in the Sovereign's Household. Physical sciences, optics. Although Horner's article on the Daedelum (zoetrope) appeared in "Philosophical Magazine" only in January, 1834, he had published on Camera lucida as early as August, 1815. Mathematics. Horner's name first appears in the list of solvers of the mathematical problems in The Ladies' Diary: or, Woman's Almanack for 1811, continuing in the successive annual issues until that for 1817. Up until the issue for 1816, he is listed as solving all but a few of the fifteen problems each year; several of his answers were printed, along with two problems he proposed. He also contributed to other departments of the Diary, not without distinction, reflecting the fact that he was known to be an all-rounder, competent in the classics as well as in mathematics. Horner was ever vigilant in his reading, as shown by his characteristic return to the Diary for 1821 in a discussion of the Prize Problem, where he reminds readers of an item in (Thomson's) "Annals of Philosophy" for 1817; several other problems in the Diary that year were solved by his youngest brother, Joseph.
1060257	Christine Jane Baranski (born May 2, 1952) is an American stage and screen actress, and is known for her Emmy Award-winning portrayal as Maryanne Thorpe in the sitcom "Cybill", Dr. Beverly Hofstadter (Leonard Hofstadter's mother) in "The Big Bang Theory" and her Emmy-nominated portrayal of Diane Lockhart in "The Good Wife". Prior to her appearances in film and television, Baranski rose to prominence as a Broadway actress, winning two Tony Awards, and has continued to work in the theatre alongside her screen appearances. Early life and education. Baranski was born in Buffalo, New York, the daughter of Virginia (née Mazurowski) and Lucien Baranski, who edited a Polish-language newspaper. She is of Polish descent and her grandparents were actors in the Polish theater. Baranski attended high school at the Villa Maria Academy in Cheektowaga, a suburb of Buffalo. She then studied at New York City's Juilliard School (Drama Division "Group 3": 1970–1974) where she graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1974. Career. Stage. Baranski made her Off-Broadway debut in "Coming Attractions" at Playwrights Horizons in 1980, and has appeared in several Off Broadway productions at the Manhattan Theatre Club, starting with "Sally and Marsha" in 1982. Baranski made her Broadway debut in "Hide & Seek" in 1980. For her next Broadway performance, in Tom Stoppard's "The Real Thing", she won the 1984 Tony Award Best Featured Actress in a Play. Other Broadway credits include: "Hurlyburly", "The House of Blue Leaves", "Rumors", Regrets Only, "Nick & Nora", and the Encores! concert staging of "Follies". At the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., Baranski starred as Mrs. Lovett in "Sweeney Todd" in 2002 (for which she won the 2003 Helen Hayes Award for Outstanding Actress in a Musical) and as the titular "Mame" in 2006. In her first Broadway production since 1991, she was featured as the maid "Berthe" in the 2008 revival of "Boeing Boeing". The show garnered two Tony Awards, one for Best Revival of a Play and the other for Best Actor (Mark Rylance). The original cast was Bradley Whitford (Bernard), Kathryn Hahn (Gloria), Christine Baranski (Berthe), Gina Gershon (Gabriella), and Mary McCormack (Gretchen). The show closed on January 4, 2009. She also appeared in a one night only concert benefit performance of Stephen Sondheim's "A Little Night Music" for Roundabout Theatre Company as Countess Charlotte Malcolm on January 12, 2009. The cast included Vanessa Redgrave, Natasha Richardson, Victor Garber, and Marc Kudisch, among others. She has won both the Tony and Drama Desk Awards twice. Film. Baranski has also starred in various roles in films and television. In film, some of her better known roles are as Katherine Archer in "The Birdcage", Mary Sunshine in the musical "Chicago", Martha May Whovier in "How the Grinch Stole Christmas", Connie Chasseur in "The Ref" and as Tanya Chisham-Leigh in the hit musical "Mamma Mia!" She will also play Cinderella's Stepmother in the film adaptation of the musical, "Into the Woods". Television work. Though widely reported to have worked as a child actress under the name "Chris Charney," Baranski denies ever having appeared on "The Brady Bunch", adamant that "the first real TV show" that she worked on was "Cybill". Baranski was featured as Cybill Shepherd's hard-drinking friend Maryanne Thorpe in the CBS sitcom "Cybill", which ran from 1995 until 1998, during which time she hosted "Saturday Night Live" and won an Emmy Award as best supporting actress in a comedy series along with three other nominations. The next year, Baranski received an Emmy nomination for a guest starring role as an intimidating radio psychiatrist on an episode of the NBC series "Frasier". She had an uncredited role in the series "Now and Again" as the voice of Roger's overbearing wife Ruth, who was never seen by viewers. She later appeared in the 2000–2001 sitcom "Welcome to New York" and, with John Laroquette, in the 2003–2004 NBC sitcom "Happy Family". She co-starred with Bernadette Peters in a pilot for an ABC sitcom, "Adopted", in 2005, which was not picked up. She also played Faith Clancy, the mother of Jim Clancy in "Ghost Whisperer". Around the same time, she also portrayed a librarian named Sonja Umdahl in the episode "Dick and the Single Girl" of the series "3rd Rock from the Sun" and guest starred in "The Big Bang Theory" as Dr. Beverly Hofstadter, an unemotional expert in psychiatry and neuroscience who is the mother of one of the protagonists, Leonard Hofstadter. She appeared in the second season episode entitled , for which she received an Emmy nomination. Due to the popularity of her first appearance, Baranski returned in the third season for the Christmas episode, receiving another Emmy nomination. Since 2009, she has played the role of Diane Lockhart, a top litigator and senior partner of a Chicago law firm on "The Good Wife". She was nominated for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series in 2010, 2011 and 2012. Besides her work on "The Good Wife" and the aforementioned guest appearance on "The Big Bang Theory", other recent appearances include "Ugly Betty" in 2009 as Victoria Hartley, the haughty mother of Betty's new boyfriend. Personal life. Baranski married actor Matthew Cowles in October 1983. They have two daughters, Isabel (born 1984) and Lily (born 1987).
1164166	John Edgar Bernard Larroquette III (born November 25, 1947) is an American film, television and stage actor. His roles include Dan Fielding on the 1984-1992 sitcom "Night Court" (winning a then-unprecedented four consecutive Emmy Awards for his role), Mike McBride in the Hallmark Channel series "McBride", John Hemingway on "The John Larroquette Show", Lionel Tribbey on "The West Wing" and Carl Sack in "Boston Legal". Personal life. Larroquette was born in New Orleans, Louisiana, the son of Berthalla Oramous (née Helmstetter), a department store clerk, and John Edgar Bernard Junior. He grew up in the Ninth Ward of New Orleans not far from the French Quarter. He played clarinet and saxophone through childhood but quit when he discovered acting after seeing some actors rehearse the Tennessee Williams play "Vieux Carré" in 1973. He moved to Hollywood in 1973 after working in radio and the record business. Larroquette met his wife Elizabeth Ann Cookson in 1974 while working in the play "Enter Laughing". They have three children; one of his sons, Jonathan Larroquette, co-hosts a popular comedy podcast called Uhh Yeah Dude. In the 70s and 80s, Larroquette battled alcoholism. On "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno" on March 10, 2007, he joked, "I was known to have a cocktail or 60." He stopped drinking in February 1982. Hobbies and interests. Larroquette enjoys collecting rare books. Authors whose works he has focused on include Samuel Beckett, Charles Bukowski, Anthony Burgess, William Burroughs and Robinson Jeffers. Career. Early career. His first 'job' in Hollywood was providing the opening voiceover narration for "The Texas Chain Saw Massacre" (1974). Larroquette did this as a favor for the film's director Tobe Hooper. His most memorable non-comedy role was in the 1970s NBC program "Baa Baa Black Sheep" where he portrayed a WWII United States Marine Corps fighter pilot named 2nd Lt. Bob Anderson. Larroquette first broke into television on the soap opera "Doctors' Hospital". In a 1975 appearance on "Sanford and Son", Larroquette plays Lamont's counterpart in a fictitious sitcom based on Fred and Lamont called "Steinberg and Son". During the filming of "Stripes" (1981), his nose was nearly cut off in an accident. He ran down a hall into a door that was supposed to open but didn't, and his head went through the window in the door. "Night Court" (1984-1992). Larroquette is perhaps best known for his role as boorish, sex-obsessed attorney Dan Fielding on "Night Court"; the character was initially rather conservative but changed after the show's creator Reinhold Weege came to learn more about Larroquette's sense of humor. The role won him Emmy Awards in 1985, 1986, 1987, and 1988. In 1989, he asked not to be considered for an Emmy. His four consecutive wins were, at the time, a record. "Night Court" ran on NBC from 1984 until 1992. Only Larroquette, Harry Anderson (as Judge Harry Stone), and Richard Moll (as Bull Shannon) appeared in every episode of the series. There was talk of spinning Dan Fielding off into his own show, but Larroquette said no to the idea. "The John Larroquette Show". Instead of a spinoff, Larroquette and Don Reo developed a show revolving around some of Larroquette's own personal demons; particularly alcoholism. "The John Larroquette Show", named by the insistence of NBC, starred Larroquette as the character John Hemingway. The show was lauded by critics and enjoyed a loyal cult following, though it lasted less than half that of "Night Court", and struggled with ratings until its cancellation. Other roles. In 1998, he guest-starred on three episodes of the legal drama "The Practice". His portrayal of Joey Heric, a wealthy, wisecracking, narcissistic psychopath with a habit of stabbing his gay lovers to death, won him his fifth Emmy Award. He reprised the role for one episode in 2002, for which he was once again Emmy Award-nominated. He also appeared in an episode of "The West Wing" as Lionel Tribbey, White House Counsel. His starring roles include the 1989 film "Second Sight" with Bronson Pinchot, and "Madhouse" with Kirstie Alley. Other films Larroquette had significant roles in include: "Blind Date", "Stripes", "Meatballs Part II", "Summer Rental", "", "JFK" and "Richie Rich". "McBride", "Boston Legal" and other roles. In 2003, Larroquette reprised his narration for the remake of "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre". From 2004 to 2006, he played the title role in the "McBride" series of American television films. In 2007, he joined the cast of "Boston Legal" playing Carl Sack, a serious, ethical lawyer (the polar opposite of his more famous lawyer character, Dan Fielding). He also guest starred in the drama "House" where he played a previously catatonic father awakened to try to save his son, and on "Chuck" as veteran spy Roan Montgomery. He has also made two voice roles in Phineas and Ferb for Bob Weber, for a lifeguard as well as a man to marry his wife and the boy's aunt Tiana Weber in another episode. Most recently, Larroquette has been seen on "" as Chief Carver, making his first appearance on November 12, 2010. Theatre. Larroquette made his musical stage debut in the Los Angeles production of "How the Grinch Stole Christmas!" as Old Max in 2009. He made his Broadway debut in the 2011 revival of "How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying" as J. B. Biggley alongside Daniel Radcliffe. He won the Tony Award for Best Featured Actor in a Musical and the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Featured Actor in a Musical for his performance in the show.
1002745	Secrets of the Tribe is a documentary film by director José Padilha premiered at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival, where it was nominated for a Grand Jury Prize. This documentary explores the allegations, first brought to light in the book "Darkness in El Dorado", written by Patrick Tierney, that anthropologists studying the Yanomami Indians in the 1960s and '70s engaged in bizarre and inappropriate interactions with the tribe, including sexual and medical violations. Scientists accused in this film are among others James Neel, Napoleon Chagnon, Kenneth Good and Jacques Lizot. It features interviews with Yanomami, as well as with scientists who have studied them. One anthropologist featured in the film said the film showed "the social responsibility associated with working with human subjects – especially the unique vulnerabilities of indigenous peoples – and the ease in which such responsibilities can be and have been ignored, discarded, abused." Alice Dreger, an historian of medicine and science, and an outsider to the debate, concluded in a peer-reviewed publication that most of Tierney's claims (the movie is based on claims originally made by Tierney) were "baseless and sensationalistic charges". A detailed investigation of these charges by a panel set up by the University of Michigan found the most serious charges to have no foundation and others to have been exaggerated. Almost all of the lengthy allegations made in "Darkness in El Dorado" were publicly rejected by the Provost's office of the University of Michigan in November 2000. Sponsel and Turner, the two scientists who originally touted the book's claims, admitted that their charge against Neel "remains an inference in the present state of our knowledge: there is no 'smoking gun' in the form of a written text or recorded speech by Neel." The American Anthropological Association has since rescinded its support of the book and acknowledged fraudulent and improper and unethical conduct by Tierney. The association admitted that "in the course of its investigation, in its publications, in the venues of its national meetings and its web site, condoned a culture of accusation and allowed serious but unevaluated charges to be posted on its website and expressed in its newsletter and annual meetings" and that its "report has damaged the reputations of its targets, distracted public attention from the real sources of the Yanomami tragedy and misleadingly suggested that anthropologists are responsible for Yanomami suffering". Stephen Broomer points out that, "Tierney wrote a polemical, unscientiﬁc book that invoked a scandal. Padilha’s ﬁlm is more evenhanded than this, no doubt because it includes that scandal as a subject, allowing Chagnon an opportunity to defend himself".
1065044	Paul Le Mat (born September 22, 1945) is an American actor who first came to prominence in the 1973 film "American Graffiti", which won him the Golden Globe Award for New Star Of The Year - Actor. Personal life. Le Mat was born to Matthew (1914–1963) and Paula Le Mat (1912–1990). He is of French, Scottish, English, Cuban, and Irish descent. He graduated from Newport Harbor High School in 1963, and, although he never received a degree, he attended various colleges in California. Le Mat served in the Vietnam War with the U.S. Navy. He is married to Suzanne de Passe and they have three daughters. Career. Le Mat starred in the pilot episode of "Firehouse" in 1973. In 1972, he appeared in "American Graffiti" (released in 1973), a coming of age film about a group of friends in Modesto, California in the early 1960s. He played John Milner - a role that would earn him his first Golden Globe Award. The film went on to receive universal acclaim, and was a box office hit. Le Mat also starred in Floyd Mutrux's 1975 crime spree film "Aloha, Bobby and Rose". In 1977, he starred in Jonathan Demme's acclaimed comedy, "Handle with Care", which was later re-titled "Citizens Band", which saw him reunite with his "American Graffiti" co-star Candy Clark. Le Mat would reunite with Demme for 1980's "Melvin and Howard", in which he played the titular role of Melvin Dummar. The film was based upon the true story of a gas station attendant who claimed to be an heir of eccentric billionaire Howard Hughes, and won two Academy Awards. It was met with rave reviews from Pauline Kael and other top film critics, and Le Mat was nominated for a Golden Globe Award. In 1979, Le Mat reprised his role of John Milner in "More American Graffiti". In 1982, Le Mat played the Donald E. Westlake character John Dortmunder in "Jimmy the Kid", opposite Gary Coleman in the role of Jimmy. He also provided the voice of Omar in the American release of the animated film "Rock & Rule". Le Mat starred in the made-for-TV movie "The Burning Bed" opposite Farrah Fawcett. The film was based on the true story of an abusive husband who drives his wife to drastic measures with his aggressive ways. Le Mat was awarded the second Golden Globe Award of his career for his role in the film. He would go on to star in other television films such as "The Night They Saved Christmas", "Into the Homeland" and "Secret Witness". He appeared in the TV miniseries "On Wings of Eagles", and in the film "Puppet Master". In the 1990s, Le Mat would continue to work on independent films and TV movies. He played Josiah Peale in "Lonesome Dove: The Series", and in the follow-up "Lonesome Dove: The Outlaw Years". He had a small role in the 1998 film "American History X". More recently, Le Mat starred in the film "Stateside". Trivia. To date Le Mat is the only multiple-time Golden Globe winner (for performances in film) who has never been nominated for an Academy Award.
628969	Claudia Karvan (born 19 May 1972) is an Australian actress popular for her roles in the television series "The Secret Life of Us" and "Love My Way". She is also a producer and writer on "Love My Way". She currently stars in the drama series "Spirited". Karvan was inducted into the Australian Film Walk of Fame in 2007 in acknowledgment of her contributions to the Australian film and television industry. Career. Film. Karvan began screen acting in 1983 when she appeared in the film "Molly". In 1987, she went on to appear in Phillip Noyce's "Echoes of Paradise" and appeared alongside Judy Davis in Gillian Armstrong's "High Tide" that same year. In 1993, Karvan won an Australian Film Critic's Circle award for Best Actress for her role in "The Heartbreak Kid". Karvan has starred alongside many of Australia's leading men, including Guy Pearce in "Flynn" (1991) (playing the young fiancee of Errol Flynn) and "Dating the Enemy" (1996), Ben Mendelsohn in "The Big Steal" (1990) and Hugh Jackman in "Paperback Hero" (1999). She was nominated for an AFI Award for Best Supporting Actress in the 1999 film "Passion". In 2006, she had a role in "Footy Legends", a film about rugby league. She also played the role of Hailey's (Joanna Levesque) mother in the American film "Aquamarine". Karvan appeared in ' as Sola Naberrie, the older sister of Padmé Amidala. She also filmed scenes for ', but her scenes were cut and appear only on the DVD release. She also co-starred with Jim Caviezel in "Nature's Grave", directed by Jamie Blanks in 2008. In 2009, she voiced in the film "$9.99". She appeared in the 2009 film "Daybreakers", a vampire thriller co-starring Ethan Hawke and Sam Neill and filmed on the Gold Goast. She also starred in "33 Postcards", released in 2011 and Long Weekend. Television. 1996 saw Karvan awarded her first Australian Film Institute award for Best Actress in a Leading Role in a Television Drama for the "GP" episode titled "Sing Me a Lullaby". She won the award again in 2005 and 2007 for her role as Frankie Paige in the television series "Love My Way". As a producer of "Love My Way", Karvan received further AFI awards in 2005, 2006 and 2007 for Best Television Drama Series. Karvan has won Logie Award for Most Outstanding Actress three times. First in 2003 for The Secret Life of Us, then in 2006 for Love My Way, and again in 2010 for Saved. In August 2010, a new Australian series starring Karvan was launched, "Spirited". Karvan is a co-creator and producer of the series. She plays the dentist, Suzy Darling, who has left her husband and moved into a flat in a building which she discovers is haunted by the ghost of a 1980s British rock musician, Henry (Matt King). Karvan was cast in the first eight-part season of "Puberty Blues", a television series shown on Channel Ten in Australia. It is an updated version of the 1981 film "Puberty Blues". In 2013, Karvan starred in the ABC miniseries The Time Of Our Lives as Caroline. Stage. Karvan has also appeared on stage in a production of Summer of the Seventeenth Doll. Personal life. She was born in Sydney, Australia and attended SCEGGS Darlinghurst. When she was 8 she lived in Bali for a year with her mother and brothers. After returning from Bali, Karvan's family moved to King's Cross where her father owned the nightspot Arthur's. Karvan's partner is Jeremy Sparks. Together they have two children, a daughter Audrey (born in 2001), and a son Albie (born on 18 May 2006). She is also stepmother to Holiday Sidewinder (lead singer from the indie band Bridezilla), Sparks' nineteen-year-old daughter from a previous relationship with Australian actress Loene Carmen.
1030301	Alive in Joburg is a 2006 science fiction short film directed by Neill Blomkamp, produced by Simon Hansen and Sharlto Copley in Canada, and released by Spy Films. It runs approximately six minutes long and was filmed in Johannesburg, South Africa with soundtrack featuring composer sound designer Drazen Bosnjak's "Harmonic Code". The film explores themes of apartheid and is noted for its visual effects as well as its documentary-style imagery. Blomkamp's 2009 feature film "District 9", starring Copley, expands themes and elements from this short film. Plot and themes. In 1990, Johannesburg is home to a number of extraterrestrial refugees, whose large spaceships (estimated to be nearly one kilometre in length) can be seen hovering above the city. When the visitors arrived, the human population was enamored with, among other aspects, the aliens' advanced "bio-suits", and supposedly welcomed them with open arms. However, later, the aliens began moving into other areas of the city, committing crimes in order to survive, and frequently clashing with the police. Playing as a documentary, the film continues, complete with interviews and footage taken from handheld cameras, highlighting the growing tension between the civilian population and the visitors, especially once the ships began to steal electricity and other resources from the city. According to individuals "interviewed" in the film, the aliens were captive labor (slaves or indentured servants), forced to live in "conditions that were not good" and had escaped to Earth. Because the film takes place in 1990, while apartheid was still in effect in South Africa, the aliens were forced to live amongst the already-oppressed black population, causing conflict with them as well as the non-white and white populations. All of the interview statements which do not explicitly mention extraterrestrials were taken from authentic interviews with many South Africans who had been asked their opinions of Zimbabwean refugees. The aliens. The alien species in "Alive in Joburg" are never named, speak in an undefined language, and are frequently referred to simply as "them" or "the aliens". One citizen referred to them as "the poleepkwa". In their biosuits, they resembled bipedal, humanoid robots. Outside of their suits, their most obvious non-human features are a lack of hair and ears, and protruding tentacles where a human's mouth would be. In the film, the area where one would expect eyes to be is pixelated, though in a later scene an alien with unpixelated eyes is shown. One scene early in the film, shown as television news footage, shows an alien wearing a mecha-suit fending off an attack by two police officers by throwing vehicles at them. Adaptation. On August 14, 2009, Sony Pictures released a film adaptation entitled "District 9" directed by Neill Blomkamp with executive production by Peter Jackson, and featuring Sharlto Copley and Jason Cope, who also were involved in "Alive in Joburg". "District 9" was nominated for four Academy Awards, including Best Picture.
1068258	Vampyr (, "Vampire: the Dream of Allan Grey"; ) is a 1932 French-German horror film directed by Danish director Carl Theodor Dreyer. The film was written by Dreyer and Christen Jul based on elements from J. Sheridan Le Fanu's collection of supernatural stories "In a Glass Darkly". "Vampyr" was funded by Nicolas de Gunzburg who starred in the film under the name of Julian West among a mostly non-professional cast. Gunzburg plays the role of Allan Grey, a student of the occult who enters the village of Courtempierre, which is under the curse of a vampire.
585193	Avargal (English: Those People; ) is a 1977 Tamil film made by K. Balachander starring Sujatha, Kamal Hassan and Rajinikanth. The film had a reputation of being one of most sensitive movies on women’s lib. The same director later remade it into the Telugu film "Idi Katha Kaadu" (1979) with Jayasudha, Kamal Hassan, Chiranjeevi and Sarath Babu. Kamal is supposed to have learnt the art of ventriloquism for this movie in order to portray his character perfectly. This is Rajinikanth's first Tamil film which had songs sung by S.P. Balasubramaniam (SPB had earlier sung for "Anthuleni Katha", a Telugu Rajini-starrer) who continued singing for Rajinikanth's later films for over 3 decades. Plot. The movie revolves around the trials and tribulations of Anu (Sujatha). Anu is a happy-go-lucky girl head-over-heels in love with her boyfriend. Her life changes when her father gets transferred to Mumbai (then Bombay). Her love life falls apart as her boy friend doesn’t respond to any of her letters. In addition, her father becomes seriously ill. Her father’s office colleague, Ramanathan (Rajnikanth), becomes a great source of strength for her in these tough times. Soon, he asks for her hand in marriage. She accepts gratefully, and confesses that she had a boyfriend, who has seemingly forgotten her. However, she soon realizes the truth about Ramanathan. He is a sadistic and jealous husband, who tortures her no end and, not unsurprisingly, she opts for a divorce. As a divorced woman, with an infant in her hands, she lands in Chennai (Madras) to take up a new job and start a new life. Her life takes a turn for the better in Chennai as she has a very supportive friend-group in her office, particularly a widower, Janardhan (Kamal Hassan). Janardhan, or Johnnie as he is popularly called, is a talented ventriloquist who “talks” through his puppet, Junior. He falls in love with Anu, but is unable to muster up the courage to tell her about it. In an interesting cinematic twist, her ex-husband’s mother discovers her presence in the city and takes up a job as a maid in her house. Anu also stumbles upon her old lover in Chennai and discovers that her letters to him never reached as they were intercepted by his mentally-challenged sister. Soon, Anu renews her relationship with her old love and life seems to be looking up for her. But the ghosts of the past continue to haunt her. Ramanathan comes to Chennai in the role of her boss – a contrite and repentant Ramanathan, who now wants to re-marry Anu and redress the wrongs he had done. The situation becomes piquant with 3 men vying for Anu – her ex-love, her ex-husband and a silent lover lurking on the sidelines. Soundtrack. K. Balachander once again shows his ability to use music as a narrative technique and the songs tuned by M. S. Viswanathan were all big hits, particularly “Kaatrukkenna Veli”, “Junior” and “Angum Ingum”.
1054380	Cynthia Rhodes (born November 21, 1956) is an American actress, singer and dancer most noted for her roles in "Dirty Dancing", "Flashdance" and "Staying Alive". Career. Born in Nashville, Tennessee, Rhodes began her career working at Opryland USA as a singer and dancer while attending Glencliff High School in Nashville, Tennessee, during the 1970s. Born and raised in a Baptist family, Rhodes tried to maintain a clean-cut image in her acting roles and in the media. During her brief career, she turned down scripts that required nudity and refused offers to pose for pictorials in "Playboy" magazine. Sylvester Stallone, the director of "Staying Alive", reinforced these facts by stating that Rhodes "would sooner quit the business before doing anything to embarrass her parents."
1044397	John Joseph "Jack" MacGowran (October 13, 1918 – January 31, 1973) was an Irish character actor, probably best known for his work with Samuel Beckett. His last film role was as the alcoholic director Burke Dennings in "The Exorcist". Stage career. MacGowran was born on October 13, 1918 in Dublin. He established his professional reputation as a member of the Abbey Players in Dublin, while he achieved stage renown for his knowing interpretations of the works of Samuel Beckett. He appeared as Lucky in "Waiting For Godot" at the Royal Court Theatre, and with the Royal Shakespeare Company in "Endgame" at the Aldwych Theatre. He released an LP record, "MacGowran Speaking Beckett", to coincide with Samuel Beckett's 60th birthday in 1966, and won the 1970-71 Obie for Best Performance By an Actor in the off-Broadway play "MacGowran in the works of Beckett". He also specialised in the work of Sean O'Casey, creating the role of "Joxer" in the Broadway musical "Juno" in 1959, based on O'Casey's 1924 play about The Troubles, "Juno and the Paycock". Fittingly, he played O'Casey's brother Archie in "Young Cassidy" (1965), one of John Ford's last films (which the director had to abandon due to ill health). In 1954 he moved to London, where he became a member of The Royal Shakespeare Company. There he struck up a lasting friendship with Peter O'Toole, whom he later appeared alongside with in Richard Brooks' "Lord Jim" (1965). However he apparently had a somewhat fractious relationship with Royal Shakespeare Director Peter Hall. He was Old Gobbo in "The Merchant of Venice" and when the set arrived Hall called all the cast into the theatre to view it. MacGowran was not there, still in his dressing room. An assistant was sent to fetch him. He returned alone: "Mr MacGowran says, Mr. Hall, that if you had read the play you would know that Old Gobbo was blind." Jack MacGowran played the title role of "Gandhi" in the Broadway play written by Gurney Campbell in 1971, directed by Jose Quintero. Film career. MacGowran's film career started in Ireland with the film "No Resting Place" (1951), and many of his earlier films were set in Ireland. Notably "The Quiet Man" (1952), "The Gentle Gunman" (1952), "Rooney" (1958) and "Darby O'Gill and the Little People" (1959). In 1966 Roman Polanski cast him as the gangster Albie in "Cul-de-sac", before creating Professor Abronsius in "The Fearless Vampire Killers" (1967) especially for him. Other notable film appearances include the Ealing comedy "The Titfield Thunderbolt" (1953), Tony Richardson's "Tom Jones" (1963), David Lean's "Doctor Zhivago" (1965), Richard Lester's "How I Won the War" (1967), Peter Brook's "King Lear" and the leading role of Professor Collins in "Wonderwall" (1968). Also appeared in "The Happening", an episode of "The Champions". His last film was "The Exorcist" (1973). Private life. In 1963, he married Aileen Gloria Nugent, daughter of the Irish MP for South Westmeath and Senator of the Irish Free State, Sir Walter Nugent, Bt. Shortly after completing work on "The Exorcist", while in New York City appearing as Fluther in Seán O'Casey's "The Plough and the Stars", MacGowran died of complications resulting from the recent London flu epidemic. He was 54 years old. His daughter is actress Tara MacGowran.
1163706	Claire Trevor (March 8, 1910 – April 8, 2000) was an American film actress. She was nicknamed the "Queen of Film Noir" because of her many appearances in "bad girl" roles in film noir and other black-and-white thrillers. She appeared in over 60 films. She won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her role as the hopelessly alcoholic gangster moll in "Key Largo" and was nominated for her roles in "The High and the Mighty" and "Dead End". Early life. Trevor was born as Claire Wemlinger in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, New York in 1910, the only child of Noel Wemlinger, a Fifth Avenue merchant tailor, and his wife, Benjamina ("Betty"), and grew up in Larchmont, New York. For many years her year of birth was misreported as 1909, rare instance of an actress actually being younger than her given age, which is why her age at death was initially given as 91, not 90. Her family was of German, Irish and French descent. Career. According to her biography on the website of Claire Trevor School of the Arts, "Trevor's acting career spanned more than seven decades and included successes in stage, radio, television and film. . . . often played the hard-boiled blonde, and every conceivable type of 'bad girl' role."
1377580	Miriam Flynn (born June 18, 1951) is an American voice actress and character actress. She is best known as Cousin Catherine in the "National Lampoon's Vacation" franchise. She has acted in other films and in several television series, the latter including a recurring role as Sister Helen on the Fox/WB sitcom "Grounded for Life". Second City. Before breaking into television, Flynn was a member of The Second City improv troupe in 1975. She appeared on stage alongside Shelley Long, George Wendt, Andrea Martin, Catherine O'Hara, and James Belushi. Television and film work. Flynn was a regular cast member in "The Tim Conway Show", a comedy-variety show that aired on CBS from March 1980 through summer 1981, acting in sketch comedy in each episode. She then starred in her own sitcom, "Maggie", on ABC, but the show was short-lived, airing in October and November 1981 and in April–May 1982 before being cancelled. She appeared in an episode of the classic television show Cheers entitled "Love Thy Neighbor" (Season 4, Episode 8, air date November 21, 1985) in which she played Phyllis Henshaw, Norm & Vera Peterson's next-door neighbor. In fall 1988, she co-starred in the short-lived CBS sitcom "Raising Miranda".
582814	Thakshak (Hindi: तक्षक) is a 1999 action-drama Hindi film written and directed by Govind Nihalani. Touted as Nihalani's attempt at popular cinema, this film starred Ajay Devgan, Tabu and Rahul Bose in the lead roles. The soundtrack was composed by A. R. Rahman. Plot summary. A poetic romance between Ishaan (Ajay Devgan) and Suman (Tabu), set against the concrete Mumbai cityscape, opens the film. Ishaan, the only son of an affluent business family, and his contemporary peer, Sunny (Rahul Bose), the grandson of the head of the business house, are being groomed to take over the business. They share a strong male bonding, Ishaan's controlled and silent strength acting as an anchor to Sunny's flamboyance and recklessly violent streak. The business, a construction empire built by Ishaan's father, Nahar Singh (Amrish Puri) and Sunny's grandfather, is rooted in violent and unlawful activities. Ishaan, sheltered in comfort and security, begins to question his environment as his relationship with Suman, an idealistic young woman, opens a new world to him. As his love for her grows, so does his fear of losing her. Ishaan is caught between a life steeped in violence and his love for Suman who abhors violence. Torn by his desire to leave the world of crime, and his sense of loyalty to his father and his friend, Ishaan unwillingly gets drawn deeper into violence, and finds himself a participant in an act of gruesome cold-blooded massacre. The image of a young girl disabled by this violent act haunts his conscience. His quiet, but firm resolve, to withdraw from the business clashes with Nahar Singh's pragmatism (to build power at any cost and to legalise crime with that power), and with Sunny's refusal to release him from his oath of loyalty. The events escalate with Ishaan's arrest, and with Nahar Singh's murder. Ishaan is finally forced to make a choice between personal loyalty and a larger allegiance to society and truth. The story is parallel to Mario Puzo's The Last Don. Soundtrack. The music was composed by A. R. Rahman and lyrics penned by Mehboob and Sukhwinder Singh. Coming close on the heels of the soundtrack of "Taal", this soundtrack from Rahman received positive reviews and was claimed the highlight of the movie. The composition of the song "Jumbalika" was reused from A. R. Rahman's earlier work for a Tamil film "En Swasa Kaatre". For the soundtrack to the 2001 Tamil movie "Star", Rahman reused most of his compositions from "Thakshak". The popular song "Rang De" from the album was featured in a Hollywood film "The Accidental Husband". Reception. This movie was touted as Govind Nihalani's attempt at making popular cinema. The film was not well received both by critics and audiences. The lack of gripping screenplay and predictable storyline were claimed to be some of the weak points of the movie. The performance by the lead actors was appreciated. According to critics, Rahul Bose's depiction of a violent, reckless mafia heir bonding with Ajay Devgan's portrayal of a strong, silent man was one of the highlights of the movie.
1083966	"The Slammin' Salmon" is a 2009 comedy film by Broken Lizard. The film is about the owner of a restaurant initiating a contest to see which of his waiters can earn the most money in a single night, with a prize of $10,000. The loser receives a "beat down" by the owner, Cleon Salmon, a former heavyweight boxer (played by Michael Clarke Duncan). Kevin Heffernan directed the film; it was his first time directing a Broken Lizard film. "Salmon" was filmed in 25 days at the beginning of 2008. Plot. "Slammin" Cleon Salmon (Michael Clarke Duncan) is a former world heavyweight boxing champion who retired to open a sports-themed restaurant in Miami. His antics lead him to believe that he owes $20,000 to the head of the Japanese Yakuza. Needing to come up with the money in one night, he challenges the wait staff to sell more food than they have ever sold, with the top waiter receiving $10,000 in cash and the lowest waiter getting a "broken ribs sandwich" courtesy of the champ. Zany hijinks ensue as the staff try to one-up each other and win the prize while avoiding a beating. In the end, Cleon realizes that he only owed 20,000 Yen to the Japanese Yakuza (which works out to be $170) and shares the takings with the wait staff. But before he goes to give the Japanese Yakuza the money, he beats up Guy since he was the lowest selling waiter. Cast. Staff Customers Release. The film premiered at the Slamdance Film Festival on January 17, 2009. It was released to limited theaters in the US on December 11, 2009. On April 13, 2010, the film was released on DVD and Blu-ray. Reception. The film has received mostly negative reviews. Rotten Tomatoes reports that 36% of critics gave the film a positive review, based upon a sample of 25, with an average score of 4.9 out of 10. Neil Genzlinger of the New York Times praised Duncan's performance, but noted that many of the jokes in the movie are tired and old. Michael O'Sullivan, writing for the Washington Post, noted that the film engages in "lowbrow insults and slapsticky shenanigans" and that its humor "hovers around crotch level."
50653	The Shakshuka System () is a 2008 Israeli documentary film created by the Israeli investigative journalist Mickey Rosenthal and the Israeli director Ilan Abudi. The film focuses on the connection between private capital and government in Israel and suggests that a system exists whereby the State of Israel sells its limited resources, cheaply, to a handful of wealthy families. The film shows this by specifically focusing on the business relationship between the political leadership in Israel and one of the wealthiest families in the Israeli economy – the Ofer family. The film won the Ophir Award for Best Documentary film in 2009. While the film was being produced, the Ofer Brothers Group filed a lawsuit against the creators of the film and no Israeli TV channel would show it. Initially the film was screened in Cinematheques, different events, and in the Knesset. A year after the premiere, it was broadcast on Channel 1, followed by a film produced by the Ofer Brothers in response. In February 2010 the lawsuit was dismissed. Overview. The film explores the sale of state assets, such as the Dead Sea Works, Zim and the Oil Refineries Ltd, to the Ofer Brothers Group. Government officials who carried out these transactions on behalf of the State of Israel became senior employees of the Ofer group after retiring from the public sector. The film tracks the interaction between seniors in the public sector, the media and the Ofer group, claiming the Ofer Brothers managed to avoid scrutiny due to their ties with key people in the media such as Rafi Ginat. A central part of the film deals with a donation attempt by Sammy Ofer to the Tel Aviv Museum of Art in exchange for the renaming of the museum after him and his wife, and for provisions which would entitle him, according to the film, to ownership rights to the structure of the museum. The film presents a report of the Ministry of Environment which claims that the factories of the Ofer Brothers Group, such as the Oil Refineries, are polluting the environment and shows the negative effects which their pollution causes. In the film Mickey Rosenthal also confronted a senior in the Israeli Cancer Association after the association gave a certificate to Sammy Ofer for his contribution. The film's name is a culinary metaphor which refers to the alleged deal made which resulted in Ofer Brothers Group acquisition of Zim, the national shipping company, for a seemingly very low price. The metaphor made during the film by the Israeli lawyer Ram Caspi, whom represented the Israel Corporation (controlled by the Ofer Brothers Group) in the negotiations over the acquisition of the government shares in Zim. In the film Caspi claims that the Ofer Brothers Group, which were the only company to participate in the auction over Zim's shares, closed the deal after the sides agreed on a final price which was much lower than the real worth of the shipping company. According to the film, a few months after the sale, Zim was appraised at three or maybe four times the price at which the state sold its interest. Controversy. While the film was being made, a libel lawsuit was filed against Rosenthal and his wife by Ariel Shemer, the lawyer of the Ofer family. Rosenthal also received several death threats. Rosenthal was not deterred but the Yes company, which helped finance the film, later withdrew its finance backing and refused to broadcast it. According to Yes, this decision was made because of scenes relating to people suffering from Cancer as a result of pollution, which Rosenthal added to the film contrary to the agreement the company made with him. According to the filmmakers, they agreed to cut out several parts from the film so that Yes would approve the broadcasting of the film, yet it was eventually decided that the film would not be broadcast. The banning of the film created a public uproar. Among others, a number of filmmakers unions organized and held a press conference about the censorship made due to pressure from the wealthiest people in Israel's economy. Eventually the film was approved for screening at the Cinematheque in Tel Aviv, despite cease and desist letters sent by the lawyers of the Ofer family. Later on the film was screened at the Jerusalem Cinematheque. Channel 10 and Channel 1 expressed interest in the film, but were also pressured not to broadcast it. As a result, the Association for Civil Rights in Israel contacted the management of the Israel Broadcasting Authority claiming concern for the freedom of expression and democracy in Israel. Channel 1 announced that the film would be broadcast with a few corrections but decided to show it in full, followed by a response movie produced by the Ofer family. In July 2009, both films were shown on Channel 1 in a special broadcast hosted by Oded Shachar. A compromise agreement was reached in September 2009 between Rosenthal and the Ofer family, in which the family agreed to pay Rosenthal NIS 40,000 for court costs. Reactions. The attempts to prevent the screening of the film led to a substantial media interest. "This is the film that nobody wants you to see. Now everyone should see it" wrote Yaron Ten-Brink, a television critic of "Yediot Aharonot". "Drop everything and go see this movie. You would get a more detailed accurate explanation of how the state steals from us and transfers the gains to the Ofer brothers," wrote the Israeli journalist Guy Meroz in "Maariv". Haredi journalist Koby Arieli urged readers to "Go see The Shakshouka System. Do not miss it."
1067135	The Virgin Spring () is a 1960 Swedish film directed by Ingmar Bergman. Set in medieval Sweden, it is a revenge tale about a father's merciless response to the rape and murder of his young daughter. The story was adapted by screenwriter Ulla Isaksson from a 13th-century Swedish ballad, "Töres döttrar i Wänge" ("Töre's daughters in Vänge"). The film contains a number of themes that question morals, justice, and religious beliefs, and was considered controversial when first released due to its infamous rape scene. It won for Best Foreign Language Film at the 1961 Academy Awards, and was also the basis for the 1972 exploitation horror film "The Last House on the Left". Plot. "The Virgin Spring" tells the story, set in medieval Sweden, of a prosperous Christian whose daughter, Karin (Birgitta Pettersson) is appointed to take candles to the church. Karin is accompanied by her pregnant maid servant, Ingeri (Gunnel Lindblom), who secretly worships the Norse deity Odin. Along their way through the forest on horseback, the two part, and Karin sets out on her own. Ingeri encounters a one-eyed man at a stream-side mill, converses briefly with him, and then flees in terror. Karin meets three herdsmen (two men and a boy), and invites them to eat her lunch with her. Eventually, the two older men rape and murder Karin (while Ingeri watches, hidden, from a distance). The two older men then leave the scene with Karin's clothing. The younger (a boy) is left with the body and to watch the sheep. He takes the situation poorly and quickly becomes sick with guilt. The herders then, unknowingly, seek shelter at the home of the murdered girl. Her parents, played by Max von Sydow and Birgitta Valberg, discover that the goat herders murdered their daughter when the goat herders offer to sell Karin's clothes to her mother. After they fall asleep, she locks the trio in the chamber. In a rage, the father then kills them. The next day, the parents set out to find their daughter's body, with the help of Ingeri. Her father vows that, although he cannot understand why God would allow such a thing to happen, he will build a church at the site of his daughter's death. As her parents lift her head from the ground, a spring begins to flow from where she was lying. Ingeri then begins to wash herself with the water, and Karin's parents clean their daughter's muddied face. Awards and nominations. "The Virgin Spring" won the following awards: It was also nominated for the following categories: Themes. "The Virgin Spring" contains a variety of themes (many of them focusing on the religious aspects of the film), including Christianity, Paganism, Norse mythology, vengeance, the occult, questioning of religious faith, sexual innocence, justice, and the nature of evil. The film poses many moral questions to its audience, primarily concerning the revenge enacted by the parents of Karin, and if it was justified. Threads of nihilism also run within the film, primarily displayed in the lack of human sympathy that is found in the herdsmen, and their unashamed rape, abuse, and ultimate murder of an innocent young girl. The story of "The Three Living and the Three Dead", to which the film is indebted, was very common in the Middle Ages, and formed the basis for many texts and images, including the Dance of Death, and Geoffrey Chaucer's 'Pardoner's Tale'. The film is based on the 13th-century Swedish ballad, "Töres döttrar i Wänge". In the ballad, it is not one but three daughters that are slain by the herdsmen, and the springs gush as they're beheaded at the very end. The three herdsmen are all adults, and the last one is left alive by the father. "Karin" is the mother's name rather than the daughter's, and Ingeri's character has no dialogue. The ending of the film focuses on redemption within the story, in which Karin's father, Töre, pleads to God for forgiveness for his vengeful actions, subsequently proclaiming he will build a church on the site of his daughter's murder. He also remarks his confusion toward God for the events that have unfolded over the past day, and asks why God would allow such horrendous things to happen to his people. Controversy. Fort Worth, Texas, banned showings of the film because of the rape scene, "Janus Films v. City of Fort Worth", 354 S.W.2d 597 (1962), and the Texas Supreme Court upheld that ban, 358 S.W.2d 589 (Tex. 1962). Home media. "The Virgin Spring" was released in the Criterion Collection on 26 January 2006, and was the 321st entry into the Criterion series. The film was completely re-mastered with a high definition transfer that was approved by director Ingmar Bergman.
1067186	Monroe Jackson Rathbone V (born December 14, 1984) is an American actor and musician. He is perhaps best known for his role as Jasper Hale in "The Twilight Saga" and for playing Sokka in "The Last Airbender". Early life. Rathbone was born in Singapore, the son of American parents Randee Lynn (née Brauner) and Monroe Jackson Rathbone IV. His great-grandfather, Monroe Jackson Rathbone II, was the chairman of Standard Oil of New Jersey, which later became Exxon; Rathbone is also distantly related to Civil War general Stonewall Jackson and famous British actor Basil Rathbone. Because of his father's job at Mobil Oil, Rathbone has lived in places ranging from Indonesia to Midland, Texas. He started out in local theater in Midland with the youth actors program "The Pickwick Players", initially doing musical theatre. For his junior and senior years of high school, Rathbone attended the Interlochen Arts Academy, a private school for the arts in Michigan, where he majored in acting. After graduation, he had planned to go to the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama, but went instead to Los Angeles to experiment with film acting. Career. After being in Los Angeles for a short time, Rathbone was cast in "Disney 411", where he interviewed up-and-coming personalities like Hilary Duff and the sister duo Aly & AJ. He has also had guest roles on "The O.C." and "Close to Home". His film roles include work in "Molding Clay", "Pray for Morning", and "Travis and Henry". In 2005, he scored the role of Nicholas Fiske in ABC Family's original series "Beautiful People". In a 2008 interview, he stated it was his first leading man role and was his most difficult role to fit into. In 2008, he played Jasper Hale in the film "Twilight", based on the best-selling novel by Stephenie Meyer. He reprised his role in the sequels to "Twilight", ', ' and "". In 2009, Rathbone played Jeremy in "S. Darko". In addition to that role, he won kudos for his performance as a serial killer on "Criminal Minds". Rathbone played the role of Sokka in "The Last Airbender", a 2010 film based on "The Last Airbender" has caused controversy because of the casting of white actors like Rathbone to play characters that were clearly depicted as Asian or Inuit in the animated series. Rathbone stated, "I think it's one of those things where I pull my hair up, shave the sides, and I definitely need a tan. It's one of those things where, hopefully, the audience will suspend disbelief a little bit." Rathbone appeared in an episode of "No Ordinary Family" on November 9, 2010. In November 2010, it was reported he had been cast in the Warner Premiere and Dolphin Entertainment action webseries "Aim High" alongside Aimee Teegarden. The show in which he portrays Nick Green, a high school junior who's just starting a new school year as one of the country's 64 highly trained teenage operatives, premiered on October 18, 2011 on Facebook being the first "social series" ever created. In May 2011, Rathbone began shooting "Live at the Foxes Den", a film in which he plays the lead role of lawyer Bobby Kelly. Rathbone has a production company, PatchMo Entertainment, and a record company, Happy Jack Records. Personal life. Rathbone enjoys music, writing, singing and producing. He formerly performed in a band called 100 Monkeys with two friends whom he met in high school at Interlochen Arts Academy, Ben Graupner and Ben Johnson, as well as close friends Jerad Anderson and M. Lawrence Abrams ("Uncle Larry"). The band released three albums in 2009. In December 2009, 100 Monkeys began a 100-city tour that took them to nearly every state in the US by mid-2010. The band continued to tour into 2011 to coincide with the release of their new album, Liquid Zoo, which was released in June. The band headed overseas for their first international dates in winter 2011. Rathbone resides in Los Angeles. Rathbone and his girlfriend, Sheila Hafsadi, had a son, Monroe Jackson Rathbone VI, on July 5, 2012. Close friend and "Twilight" co-star Nikki Reed is the Godmother.
584410	Vedham is a South Indian Tamil film released in 2001. The film has Arjun and Sakshi in the lead roles with Vineeth, Divya Unni, Goundamani and Senthil playing important roles. Arjun is the director of the movie.The film was a moderately successful venture. Sakshi was recognized for her unconventional looks and received various offers in Tamil. This movie is about how Arjun travels to a new location and fixes a marriage in tatters. Divya Unni and Vinit are on the verge of breaking the marriage when Arjun narrates his love story and makes them fond of each other. However, at the end of the movie, Arjun's story was partially fiction as his wife Sakshi is now dead.
1163958	Larry Martin Hagman (September 21, 1931 November 23, 2012) was an American film and television actor best known for playing ruthless oil baron J. R. Ewing in the 1980s prime time television soap opera "Dallas", and befuddled astronaut Major Anthony "Tony" Nelson in the 1960s sitcom "I Dream of Jeannie".
632715	Corin "Corky" Nemec (born Joseph Charles Nemec IV; November 5, 1971) is an American actor. Nemec is known for playing the title character on "Parker Lewis Can't Lose", Jonas Quinn on "Stargate SG-1", and Harold Lauder in the ABC miniseries "The Stand". Personal life. Nemec's mother was a graphic artist as well as a painter, writer and poet. His father, Joseph Charles Nemec, works in the film industry as a set designer and production designer. His older sister Anastacia C. Nemec works also as an assistant director. His grandmother, Nancy Reed, nicknamed him "Corky". He is close friends with actor David Faustino of "Married... with Children", with whom he has a production company and is costarring in "Star-ving", a webseries spoofing HBO's "Entourage" and airing on Crackle. He enjoys reading non-fiction and listening to instrumental East Indian music. Career. Nemec was inspired to become an actor after watching the children's film "The Goonies" at the age of 13, for which his father had done the art direction. He also cites his parents' artistic professions as a major influence, and that acting "seemed the right thing to do". Nemec began training with the Centre Stage LA theatre company and signed on with an agent after performing in one of their talent showcases. He was booked for several commercials such as Suzuki and eventually landed a guest-spot on the TV show "Sidekicks" starring Ernie Reyes, Jr., with whom Nemec is still friends today. His first major film role was "" in 1988. He appeared in several TV shows, earning an Emmy nomination for his portrayal of Steven Stayner in the television film "I Know My First Name Is Steven". He starred alongside with legendary actors Jack Palance, Peter Boyle and Charlton Heston in the 1990 feature film "Solar Crisis". Nemec played the lead in the TV series "Parker Lewis Can't Lose" from 1990 to 1993. Also, in 1993, Nemec was cast in a TV adaptation of Stephen King's "The Stand". In 1997, he played a notable role in the movie "Goodbye, America". He also starred in the TV movies "My Brother's Keeper" alongside Jeanne Tripplehorn and "Blackout" with Jane Seymour. Nemec has made appearances on several TV shows, including "Tales from the Crypt", "Smallville", ', ', "Supernatural", and "Ghost Whisperer". He also portrayed the serial killers Richard Speck and Ted Bundy. He played leading parts in some original Sci Fi Channel (United States) made TV-movies as Sea Beast, Mansquito, SS Doomtrooper, and "Dragon Wasps". During the 1990s, Nemec had a brief foray into hip-hop, recording an entire album with the group Starship of Foolz (one of the members was Shane Mooney, the son of comedian Paul Mooney), developed by Matt Robinson and Dedra Tate, and produced by actor Balthazar Getty. He produced a new comic series starring Paul Mooney (comedian) as the president of the United States. He also appeared in the music video Beer for My Horses by Willie Nelson. From 2002 to 2004, he appeared as Jonas Quinn on "Stargate SG-1", temporarily replacing Michael Shanks (Daniel Jackson) in the line-up of the SG-1 team. In January 2013, while working on the film "Poseidon Rex", Nemec was involved in a boating accident in which, while being transported to set, the Belizean Coast Guard ran into a semi-submerged barge. His leg was shattered and he required multiple blood transfusions to save his life. External links. Corin Nemec´s official twitter
589144	Vasanth Kumar Shivashankar Padukone (9 July 1925 – 10 October 1964), popularly known as Guru Dutt, was an Indian film director, producer and actor. He made 1950s and 1960s classics such as "Pyaasa" ("Thirsty"), "Kaagaz Ke Phool" ("Paper Flowers"), "Sahib Bibi Aur Ghulam" ("The King, the Queen and the Jack") and "Chaudhvin Ka Chand" ("The Fourteenth Day Moon" in Muslim calendar but actually means full moon, a metaphor for beauty). In particular, "Pyaasa" and "Kaagaz Ke Phool" are now included among the greatest films of all time, both by Time magazine's "All-TIME" 100 best movies and by the "Sight & Sound" critics' and directors' poll, where Dutt himself is included among the greatest film directors of all time. He is sometimes referred to as "India's Orson Welles". In 2010, he was included among CNN's "top 25 Asian actors of all time". He is most famous for making lyrical and artistic films within the context of popular Hindi cinema of the 1950s, and expanding its commercial conventions, starting with his 1957 film, "Pyaasa". Several of his later works have a cult following. His movies go full house when re-released; especially in Germany, France and Japan. The latest book on him is "Ten Years with Guru Dutt: Abrar Alvi's Journey" by Sathya Saran based on the recollections of his chief scriptwriter and friend. Early life and background. Guru Dutt was born on 9 July 1925, at Bangalore to Shivashanker Rao Padukone and Vasanthi Padukone in a Konkani Chitrapur Saraswat Brahmin family. His parents were originally settled at Panambur, Mangalore in South Kanara district (present day Dakshina Kannada) of Karnataka. His father was initially a headmaster, and then a bank employee. His mother Vasanthi, while initially a housewife, later taught in a school, gave private tuition and also wrote short stories and translated Bengali novels into Kannada. Vasanthi was only 16 when Guru Dutt was born. Guru Dutt had a tough childhood with financial difficulties, and was also affected by the fact that the relationship between his parents was strained. As a child he had some bad experiences; the hostility from his maternal uncle's family, a frightening encounter with his insane adopted maternal uncle, and the death of his seven-month old brother (Shashidhar).
1057789	The Friends of Eddie Coyle is a 1973 crime film directed by Peter Yates and starring Robert Mitchum and Peter Boyle. The screenplay by Paul Monash was adapted from the novel of the same name by George V. Higgins. It was released on DVD for the first time, as part of The Criterion Collection, on May 19, 2009. Plot. Eddie Coyle (a.k.a. "Eddie Fingers") is an aging, low-level gunrunner for a crime organization in Boston, Massachusetts. He is facing several years in prison for a truck hijacking in New Hampshire set up by Dillon, who owns a local bar. Coyle's last chance is a sentencing recommendation from an ATF agent, Dave Foley, who demands that Coyle become an informer in return. Dillon also is an informer for Foley.
1159270	Massacre in Rome () is a 1973 film directed by George Pan Cosmatos about the Ardeatine massacre which occurred at the Ardeatine caves in Rome, 24 March 1944, committed by the Germans as a reprisal for a partisan attack against the SS Police Regiment Bozen. Summary. The film stars Richard Burton as the Rome Gestapo chief Herbert Kappler, who carries out the killings of 330 mostly randomly and hurriedly selected victims in revenge for partisans killing 33 Germans: using a ratio of ten Italian victims for every German. Meanwhile, the Vatican stands by and issues no condemnation. A Tagline summized the complete story: "Hitler ordered it. The Vatican wouldn't stop it. The world would not forgive it".
1055339	Casino Jack is a 2010 biographical political satire film starring Kevin Spacey and directed by George Hickenlooper. The film focuses on the career of Washington, D.C. lobbyist and businessman Jack Abramoff, who was involved in a massive corruption scandal that led to his conviction as well as the conviction of two White House officials, Rep. Bob Ney, and nine other lobbyists and congressional staffers. Abramoff was convicted of fraud, conspiracy and tax evasion in 2006, and of trading expensive gifts, meals and sports trips in exchange for political favors.
587556	Thakita Thakita is a 2010 Telugu film directed by Sreehari Nanu and starring Harsh Vardhan Rane, Trinetrudu, Karthik Sabesh, Haripriya and Nagarjuna Akkineni, with music by Bobo Shashi. It marks the production debut of Telugu actress Bhumika Chawla. The plot is a coming of age story which centres around a group of friends finishing college. "Thakita Thakita" released on 3 September 2010. The film was dubbed in Tamil as "Thulli Ezhunthathu Kadhal". References. Cinegoer review Rediff review Supergood Movies review Bharat Student review
458178	George Brinton Thomas, Jr. (January 11, 1914 – October 31, 2006) was a professor of mathematics at MIT. He is best known for being the author of a widely-used calculus textbook. Early life. Born in Boise, Idaho, Thomas' early years were difficult. His father, George Brinton Thomas Sr., was a bank employee, and his mother, Georgia Fay Thomas (née Goin), died in the 1919 Influenza Epidemic, just eight days before his fifth birthday. His father remarried shortly thereafter, to Lena Steward. They lived in a tent with a wooden floor and a coal stove. After his stepmother Lena died from complications due to childbirth, the father and son moved to the Spokane Valley in Washington State, where they both attended Spokane University. George Thomas Sr. married again, to Mary Gertrude Johnson. Thomas began attending Washington State College (now Washington State University), after Spokane University went bankrupt. There, he earned a B.A. in 1934 and an M.A. in 1936, both in mathematics and mathematics education. On August 15, 1936, Thomas married Jane Heath at her family's home in South Bend, Washington. The couple lived in Pullman, Washington for a year; Thomas worked at a local shoe store to save money for further graduate education. In 1937, Thomas was accepted into the graduate mathematics program at Cornell University. At Cornell, Thomas worked as an instructor while pursuing his research in number theory. Academic career. Thomas finished his doctoral work in 1940 and was immediately hired by MIT for a one-year teaching appointment. He was well liked at MIT, and was invited to join the faculty after his teaching fellowship ended. During the Second World War, Thomas was involved in early computation systems and programmed the differential analyzer to calculate firing tables for the Navy. In 1952, George and Jane Thomas moved into the Conantum community in Concord, Massachusetts, where many younger Harvard and MIT faculty members lived. "Calculus and Analytical Geometry". In 1951, Addison-Wesley was then a new publishing company specializing in textbooks and technical literature. The management was unhappy with the calculus textbook they were then publishing, so they approached Thomas, asking if he could revise the book. Instead, he went ahead with an entirely new book. The first edition came out in 1952; "Calculus and Analytical Geometry" is now in its twelfth edition and is in use worldwide. Commitment to education. Thomas became involved with math and science education in America's primary and secondary schools some years before the Soviet Union launched Sputnik. From 1955 to 1957, he served on the board of governors of the Mathematical Association of America and was the group's first vice president from 1958 to 1959. From 1956 to 1959, he served on the executive committee of the mathematics division of the American Society for Engineering Education. He also served on the Commission on Mathematics of the College Entrance Examination Board. Thomas used the positions to speak out on mathematics education reform in high schools and universities. In the late 1950s, Thomas went to India with a grant from the Ford Foundation to train mathematics instructors. Later life. Jane Thomas died in 1975 from breast cancer. In 1980, Thomas married Thais Erving; she died in 1983, also from breast cancer. In 1978, Thomas retired from full-time teaching. He became interested in religion, attending the Unity Church and later taking up Christian Science. Thomas died in Foxdale Village in State College, Pennsylvania, a retirement community centered around the needs of retired academics.
1518137	Boy Eats Girl is a 2005 horror film directed by Stephen Bradley and starring Samantha Mumba, produced and shot in Ireland. The plot tells of a teenage boy who comes back to life as a zombie, similar to the plot of the American film "My Boyfriend's Back". Plot. While working in the church, Grace (Deirdre O'kane) finds a hidden crypt. While exploring she discovers a voodoo book, however she is soon sent away by Father Cornelius (Lalor Roddy). Grace's son, Nathan (David Leon) attends the local high school, with his friends Henry (Laurence Kinlan) and Diggs (Tadhg Murphy). Nathan likes his long-time friend Jessica (Samantha Mumba) however is too scared to ask her out, in case he is rejected. Also in the school are popular girls Charlotte (Sarah Burke), Glenda (Jane Valentine) and Cheryl (Sara James). Cheryl pursues Nathan, despite already having a boyfriend, Samson (Mark Huberman), who confronts Nathan along with his womanising friend Kenneth (Conor Ryan) after seeing Cheryl talking to Nathan. Meanwhile, Henry and Diggs, fed up with Nathan not asking out Jessica, force the pair to meet after school.
1265407	Constance Campbell Bennett (October 22, 1904 – July 24, 1965) was an American actress. Early life. She was born in New York City, the daughter of actor Richard Bennett and actress Adrienne Morrison, whose father was the stage actor Lewis Morrison (Morris W. Morris), a performer of English, Spanish, Jewish, and African ancestry. Constance's other sister was actress/dancer Barbara Bennett. Career. She started off with a spell in a convent but decided to go into the family business. Independent, cultured, ironic and outspoken, Constance, the first Bennett sister to enter motion pictures, appeared in New York-produced silent movies before a meeting with Samuel Goldwyn led to her Hollywood debut in "Cytherea" (1924). She abandoned a burgeoning career in silents for marriage to Philip Plant in 1925; She resumed her film career after divorce, with the advent of talking pictures (1929), and with her delicate blonde features and glamorous fashion style, quickly became a popular film star.
1169750	Lynn Carlin (born Mary Lynn Reynolds; January 31, 1938, Los Angeles, California) is an American actress. She was nominated for Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her role in the movie "Faces". Her father, Larry Reynolds, was a Hollywood business manager in the 1930s. Carlin made her stage debut in Clare Booth Luce's "The Women" at the Laguna Beach Playhouse. Career. Carlin, a secretary-turned-actress, earned her only Academy Award nomination in 1968 for her first feature role, as John Marley's suicidal wife, Maria, in John Cassavetes' 'Faces' (1968). She subsequently played wives and mothers before retiring in 1987. She next appeared "...tick...tick...tick..." (1970), as George Kennedy's ambitious, henpecking wife, and returned to the offbeat as Buck Henry's wife, searching for her missing daughter amid the hippies and drug culture of 1970s New York in Miloš Forman's "Taking Off" (1971).
1028956	Kimberly Jayne "Kim" Raver (born March 15, 1969) is an American actress. She is best known for television roles as Kim Zambrano on "Third Watch", Audrey Raines on "24" and Teddy Altman on "Grey's Anatomy". Career. Raver got her start as a child star in 1975 appearing on "Sesame Street" at age 6. She remained on the show for three years. She initially acted in commercials for Visa and Jeep when her adult career began. Her first prominent role was her Broadway debut in 1995 in the Philip Barry play "Holiday" in which she co-starred with Laura Linney and Tony Goldwyn. She also appeared in the feature film "City Hall" with Al Pacino. She also co-starred with John Spencer (of NBC's "The West Wing") and David Schwimmer in "The Glimmer Brothers", a production of the Williamstown Theatre Festival, written by Warren Leight. After her time on "Third Watch", she was cast as Audrey Raines in the popular television series 24, and was a series regular for two seasons. During the Fall 2006 television season, Raver starred in the ABC television series "The Nine". Although the show received outstanding critical reviews, it did not take off in the Nielsen ratings, and was therefore cancelled. She reprised her role in "24"'s season 6 as Audrey Raines. The character was in a catatonic state at the end of the season. The 1997 TV movie "Soul Mates", starring Raver, is shown by market researchers at Television Preview. Raver joined Season 6 of "Grey's Anatomy" in a recurring role as Dr. Teddy Altman, a cardiothoracic surgeon brought in by Dr. Owen Hunt, who served with her in Iraq. She made her on-screen debut on November 12. It was announced on January 4, 2010 that Raver had become a series regular on the show. On May 18, 2012, "Grey's Anatomy" creator, Shonda Rhimes, announced that Raver had decided to leave "Grey's Anatomy" after three seasons, "I know this season’s finale had some surprises for viewers and the exit of Kim Raver was one of the big ones. But Kim’s series option was up and she was ready to give Teddy Altman a much-needed vacation. It’s been a pleasure working with someone as talented and funny and kind as Kim; everyone is going to miss her terribly. I like to imagine that Teddy is still out there in the Grey’s Anatomy universe, running Army Medical Command and building a new life." When the news of her departure was released, Raver wrote on her Twitter, "I've had one of the best times of my creative career working on Grey's with Shonda, Betsy and the best cast on Television," she wrote, adding: "I feel fortunate and grateful to have worked with such an amazing team at GA Anatomy. am going to miss everyone!! And to the GA [Grey's Anatomy fans, you guys rock! I am sure S9 nine will be great! Personal. Raver was raised in New York City by her mother, Tina Raver, and her stepfather, Chris Meltesen. She has a sister, Cybele Raver, as well as three half sisters, Nadja Raver, Grace Raver, Aimée Raver, and two half brothers, Jacob Raver, and William Raver. A fine arts graduate of Boston University, Raver continues to study theater in New York with teacher and mentor Wynn Handman. She is fluent in French and German, a language that she learned as a child from her German-born mother. Together with her husband Manuel Boyer she has two sons, Luke West Boyer (b. 2002) and Leo Kipling Boyer (b. October 9, 2007). Leo Kipling was born in New York City where Raver was performing in "Lipstick Jungle". Raver returned to work on the show only a few weeks after giving birth.
1056771	The 7th Voyage of Sinbad is a 1958 fantasy film released by Columbia Pictures, directed by Nathan H. Juran and produced by Charles H. Schneer. It was the first of three Sinbad films made by Columbia which were conceptualized and animated by Ray Harryhausen and which used a special stop-motion technique called Dynamation (the others being "The Golden Voyage of Sinbad" and "Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger"). While similarly named, the film does not follow the plot of the tale "The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad the Sailor" but instead has more in common with "The Second Voyage of Sinbad the Sailor", which featured the giant roc bird.
1059754	Richard Schiff (born May 27, 1955) is an American actor. He played Toby Ziegler on the NBC television drama "The West Wing", a role for which he received an Emmy Award. Schiff made his directorial debut with "The West Wing", directing an episode entitled "Talking Points." Early life. Schiff was born in Bethesda, Maryland, the second of three sons of Charlotte, a television and publishing executive, and Edward Schiff, a real estate lawyer. He dropped out of high school, but later obtained an equivalency diploma. In 1973, he studied briefly at The City College of New York (CCNY) but did not graduate. He moved to Colorado where he found employment cutting firewood. Returning to New York in 1975, he began to study acting at CCNY and was accepted into their theater program. Career. Schiff initially studied directing. He directed several off-Broadway plays, including "Antigone" in 1983 with a just-graduated Angela Bassett. In the mid-1980s Schiff decided to try his hand at acting and landed several TV roles. He was seen by Steven Spielberg in an episode of the TV drama "High Incident" and was cast in "" (1997). His career began an upward climb that led to his co-starring role as White House Communications Director Toby Ziegler on Aaron Sorkin's award winning television series "The West Wing". Schiff became known for his introverted and intense approach to his craft as well as his low-key delivery style. 1995 saw Schiff playing the lawyer to Kevin Spacey's "John Doe" in the hit "Se7en". In 1996, Schiff guest starred on the TV series "ER" (Season 2 - Episode 17), and appeared in "NYPD Blue" the following year. In 1996 he played a corrupt probation officer in "City Hall" along with Al Pacino and John Cusack. Schiff played a doctor alongside Eddie Murphy in the 1998 "Dr. Dolittle" remake. He also played Col./Brig. Gen. Robert Laurel Smith in the 1998 HBO TV movie "The Pentagon Wars", based on the real-life development of the US Army's Bradley Infantry Fighting Vehicle. That same year, Schiff appeared in the movie "Deep Impact", in which he played Don Beiderman. Schiff appeared in one episode of "Becker" during its first season. In 2001, he acted in the movie "What's the Worst That Could Happen?" starring Martin Lawrence and Danny DeVito. He played the part of the tough Mr. Turner in "I Am Sam" opposite Sean Penn and Michelle Pfeiffer and co-starred in "People I Know" with Al Pacino. Schiff appeared in the 2004 film "Ray" as Ray Charles's producer, Jerry Wexler, shaving his beard for the role. After working on "The West Wing" for six seasons, Schiff chose to leave the series, fulfilling his contractual obligations by appearing in half of the following season's episodes. When NBC chose to end the series, Schiff continued his appearances until the end of the show's run in May 2006, though he appeared only briefly in the series finale. That same year he starred along with Peter Krause in the thriller "Civic Duty". Schiff played Charles Fischer in ' in the Season 2 episode "Complications". The character was a collaborator of Skynet and a traitor to the resistance. He was sent back in time to the present as a reward for his service to Skynet. He played an Orthodox rabbi on an episode of "In Plain Sight" with former "The West Wing" co-star Mary McCormack. In 2009, he co-starred in the movies "Imagine That", with Eddie Murphy, and "Solitary Man", with Michael Douglas and Susan Sarandon. Later in 2009, he went back to London to shoot two other movies: "The Infidel", in which he starred opposite Omid Djalili, and "Made in Dagenham", with Sally Hawkins and Bob Hoskins. Schiff also appeared as a hypnotist in one episode of "Monks seventh season. He starred in Fox's short-lived 2010 series "Past Life". He also had a recurring role in CBS´s spinoff-series "" as FBI Director Jack Fickler, the boss of Forest Whitaker´s character. Schiff also had a recurring role in the NBC series "The Cape". He also has guest starred on "Any Human Heart" with Jim Broadbent playing the role of a psychiatrist and on "White Collar'"s second season episode 15. He also played the role of an ex-CIA agent in a terrorist organization in "Johnny English Reborn". In April 2011, Schiff returned to the London West End in the play "Smash!". He played opposite Rob Lowe in the drama "Knife Fight", and starred opposite Josh Duhamel, Rosario Dawson and Bruce Willis in "Fire with Fire". Schiff played an important plot character in three episodes of CBS's "NCIS", bridging seasons 9 and 10, as Harper Dearing, the replacement of Osama bin Laden on the Most Wanted Wall "for attacks against the United States Navy". Schiff has been cast to star in the new Showtime series "House of Lies", starring Kristen Bell and Don Cheadle. He also stars in the TV movie "Innocent" with Bill Pullman. He has an recurring guest role in the TV series "Once Upon A Time" and has joined Helen Hunt and former "West Wing" star Bradley Whitford in the movie Decoding Annie Parker.
1044074	Sid James (born Solomon Joel Cohen; 8 May 191326 April 1976) was a South African born English-based actor and comedian. Appearing in British films from 1947, he was cast in numerous small and supporting roles into the 1960s. His profile was raised as Tony Hancock's co-star in "Hancock's Half Hour", which ran on television from 1956 until 1960, and then he became known as a regular performer in the "Carry On films". Meanwhile, his starring roles in television sitcoms continued for the rest of his life. Remembered for a lascivious persona, he became known for his amiability in his later television work. Bruce Forsyth described him as "a natural at being natural." Early life. James was born Solomon Joel Cohen, on 8 May 1913, to Jewish parents, in South Africa, later changing his name to Sidney Joel Cohen, and then Sidney James. His family lived on Hancock Street in Hillbrow, Johannesburg. Upon moving to Britain later in life, he claimed various previous occupations, including diamond cutter, dance tutor and boxer; in reality, he had trained and worked as a hairdresser. It was at a hairdressing salon in Kroonstad, Orange Free State that he met his first wife. He married Berthe Sadie Delmont, known as Toots, on 12 August 1936, and her father Joseph Delmont, a Johannesburg businessman, bought a salon for James. Within a year James announced that he wanted to become an actor and joined Johannesburg Repertory Players. Through this he gained work with the South African Broadcasting Corporation. During the Second World War, he became a lieutenant in the South African Army in an entertainment unit, and subsequently took up acting as a career. He came to Britain immediately after the war, financed by his service gratuity. Initially he worked in repertory before being spotted by the nascent British post-war film industry. From 1947 to 1964. James made his first appearances in "Night Beat" and "Black Memory" (1947), both crime dramas. He played the alcoholic hero's barman in Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger's "The Small Back Room" (1949). His first major comedy role was in "The Lavender Hill Mob" (1951): with Alfie Bass he made up the bullion robbery gang headed by Alec Guinness and Stanley Holloway. In the same year he also appeared in "Lady Godiva Rides Again" and "The Galloping Major". In 1953 he appeared as Harry Hawkins in The Titfield Thunderbolt. In 1956 he had a non-comic supporting role as a journalist in the science-fiction film "Quatermass 2" and appeared in "Trapeze", a circus film which was one of the most successful films of its year. He also had a supporting part as a TV advertisement producer in Charlie Chaplin's "A King in New York" (1957) and played Master Henry in Outlaw Money an episode of "The Adventures of Robin Hood" and performed in "Hell Drivers" (also 1957), a film with Stanley Baker. The next year, James starred with Miriam Karlin in "East End, West End" by Wolf Mankowitz, a half-hour comedy series for the ITV company Associated Rediffusion. Set within the Jewish community of London's East End, the series of six episodes was transmitted in February and March 1958, but plans for further episodes were abandoned after a disappointing response. For a moment though, it had looked as if his commitment elsewhere might end his work with Tony Hancock, one of the most popular television comedians of the time. In 1954, he had begun working with Tony Hancock in his BBC Radio series "Hancock's Half Hour". Having seen him in "The Lavender Hill Mob", it was the idea of Hancock's writers, Ray Galton and Alan Simpson, to cast James. He played a character with his own name (but having the invented middle name Balmoral), who was a petty criminal who would usually managed to con Hancock, although the character eventually ceased to be Hancock's adversary. With the exception of James, the other regular cast members of the radio series were dropped when the series made the transition to television. His part in the show now greatly increased, many viewers considered Hancock and James to be a double act. Feeling the format had become exhausted, Hancock decided to end his professional relationship with James at the end of the sixth television series in 1960. Although the two men remained friends, James was upset at his colleague's decision. Galton and Simpson continued to write for both men for a while, and the Sidney Balmoral James character resurfaced in the "Citizen James" (1960–62) series. Sid James was now consistently taking the lead role in his television work. "Taxi!" (1963–64) was his next series. A comedy-drama rather than a sitcom, it was created by Ted Willis, but although running to two series, the programme was not particularly successful. The "Carry On" films. James became a leading member of the "Carry On films" team, originally to replace Ted Ray who had appeared in "Carry On Teacher" (1959). It was intended that Ray would become a recurring presence in the "Carry On" series, but he had been dropped after just one film because of contractual problems. James ultimately made 19 "Carry On" films, receiving top-billing in 17, making him one of the most featured performers of the regular cast. The characters he portrayed in the films were usually very similar to the wise-cracking, sly, lecherous Cockney he was famed for playing on television, and in six cases bore the name Sid or Sidney, including Sir Sidney Ruff-Diamond in "Carry On... Up the Khyber" (1968) and elsewhere in his credits. His trademark "dirty laugh" was often used and became, along with a world-weary "Cor, blimey!", his catchphrase. His laugh can be heard here. There were "Carry On" films in which James played characters who were not called Sid or Sidney, namely, "Carry On Henry" (1971, a parody of "The Six Wives of Henry VIII" TV series) and "Carry On Dick" (a parody of legendary highwayman Dick Turpin), in both of which he played the title roles, and "Carry On Cleo", in which he played Mark Antony. In "Carry On Cowboy", he even adopted an American accent for his part as 'The Rumpo Kid'. According to Adrian Rigelsford:The cast make valiant attempts to maintain American accents, with the most convincing belonging to—surprisingly—Sid James, who made no attempt to disguise his accent in any other film, either before or after this one. Later career. In 1967, James was intending to play Sergeant Nocker in "Follow That Camel", but was already committed to recording the TV series "George and the Dragon" (1966–68) for ATV, then one of the ITV contractors. James was replaced in "Follow That Camel" by the American comic actor Phil Silvers. On 13 May 1967, two weeks after the filming began of what eventually became an entry in the Carry On series, James suffered a heart attack. In the same year in "Carry On Doctor" James was shown mainly lying in a hospital bed, owing to his real-life health problems. Meanwhile his success in TV situation comedy continued with the series "Two in Clover" (1969–70), and "Bless This House" (1971-76) as Sid Abbott, a successful enough series in its day to spawn its own film version in 1972. On 26 April 1976, while on a revival tour of "The Mating Season", a 1969 farce by the Irish playwright Sam Cree, James suffered a heart attack on stage at the Sunderland Empire Theatre. The technical manager (Melvyn James) called for the curtain to close and requested a doctor, while the audience (unaware of what was happening) laughed, believing the events to be part of the show. He was taken to hospital by ambulance, but died about an hour later. James, aged 62, was cremated and his ashes were scattered at Golders Green Crematorium. Personal life. James married three times. He and his first wife divorced in 1940, mainly as a result of James's many relationships with other women; it was a pattern which continued throughout his life. In 1943, he married a dancer, Meg Sergei, née Williams (born 1913). Five years later they had a daughter, Reina, before divorcing on 17 August 1952. On 21 August 1952, James married Valerie Elizabeth Patsy Assan (born 1928), an actress who used Ashton as her stage name. During the latter part of their marriage they lived in a house partly designed by James himself, called Delaford Park, situated in Iver, Buckinghamshire, a location close enough to Pinewood Studios to allow him to return home for lunch whilst filming. During his marriage to Valerie he had a well-publicised affair with "Carry On" co-star Barbara Windsor lasting more than 10 years. The affair was dramatised in the 1998 stage-play "Cleo, Camping, Emmanuelle and Dick" and its 2000 television adaptation "Cor, Blimey!". James's obsession with Windsor was such that it was said he returned to his home one day to find that all of the furniture had been rearranged and, on another occasion, that Windsor's then husband, Ronnie Knight, had put an axe in James's floor. Close friends of the time, including Vince Powell and William G. Stewart, have dismissed the suggestions. James was an inveterate and largely unsuccessful gambler, losing tens of thousands of pounds over his lifetime. His gambling addiction was such that he had an agreement with his agent, Michael Sullivan, whereby his wife did not know how much he was being paid, with a portion set aside for gambling.
1065488	From Justin to Kelly is a 2003 American romantic comedy musical film starring Kelly Clarkson and Justin Guarini, the winner and runner-up, respectively, of the first season of "American Idol". It won the Golden Raspberry Award for Worst 'Musical' of Our First 25 Years in 2005. This film is considered one of the worst films ever made. Plot. The film is set during spring break in Fort Lauderdale, Florida; Texan singing waitress Kelly Taylor (Kelly Clarkson) meets Pennsylvanian college student Justin Bell (Justin Guarini), and they fall for each other, and various romantic complications ensue. Kelly's friend Kaya (Anika Noni Rose) falls in love with charming busboy Carlos (Jason Yribar); Kelly's other friend, Alexa (Katherine Bailess), schemes to keep Justin and Kelly from meeting; Justin's friend Brandon (Greg Siff) is always getting on the wrong side of a sexy beach patrolwoman (Theresa San-Nicholas); and Justin's other friend, Eddie (Brian Dietzen), tries to hook up with a cyberpal. Reception. In its opening weekend, the film grossed $2,715,848 in 2,001 theaters in the United States and Canada, ranking #11 at the box office. By the end of its run, "From Justin to Kelly" grossed $4,928,883 domestically, was a box office bomb, and received a 7% rating out of 59 reviews at Rotten Tomatoes. "Entertainment Weekly" film critic Owen Gleiberman wrote in his review, "How bad is "From Justin to Kelly?" Set in Miami during spring break, it's like "Grease: The Next Generation" acted out by the food-court staff at SeaWorld." Some theater chains threatened not to screen the movie at all when distributor 20th Century Fox announced plans to rush it to VHS and DVD a mere six weeks after its opening weekend, but Fox ultimately relented and pushed the release date back a number of months. After the opening-weekend flop, Fox reinstated the original release schedule. The film is listed in Golden Raspberry Award founder John Wilson's book The Official Razzie Movie Guide as one of the The 100 Most Enjoyably Bad Movies Ever Made. The choreography was considered so bad that a special Golden Raspberry "Governor's Award" was created as an excuse to present the film with a Razzie. However, the movie was better received by the Teen Choice Awards, as it was nominated for two Choice Movie Breakout Stars (for Guarini and Clarkson) and Choice Chemistry. Home media. When "From Justin to Kelly" was released on DVD, an extended version of 90 minutes was released as well. This extended version includes two new musical numbers "From Me to You" and "Brighter Star", additional lyrics and more sensual choreography to "Wish Upon a Star", and a scene involving a "Dare to Be Bare" contest. Soundtrack. A commercial soundtrack was created with studio tracks but never released, due to the poor reception and income of the film. However, a version of the song "Timeless", sung by Clarkson and Guarini, and recorded prior to the film, was included on Guarini's self-titled debut album. The tracks of the unreleased studio soundtrack can be found on various Clarkson fansites. Two songs, "From Me to You" and "Brighter Star", did not appear in the theatrical release, but were added to the extended version DVD release. Clarkson also performed "The Bounce (The Luv)", and "Timeless" during her shared (with Clay Aiken) "Independent Tour" in 2003 with her male backup singer performing the male vocals on "Timeless". Songs used in the film and soundtrack (in order of appearance):
578506	Rahtree Reborn () (also known as Buppah Rahtree 3.1) is a 2009 Thai comedy-horror film written and directed by Yuthlert Sippapak. It is a sequel to the 2005 film, "". Plot. Ten years passing by, Buppha is reincarnated as a young girl named Pla who is abandoned by her mother, leaving her with her barber stepfather, who often beats her in his anger. As a result, she becomes a problem child who is bullied by her classmates at school. One day, she takes a razor from her stepfather's barbershop and starts attacking people at school, after which she leaves and goes to Buppha's apartment, where she unexpectedly encounters a man who is masturbating. Pla is murdered by him and becomes a ghost which also haunts Buppha's apartment, and she awakes Buppha’s ghost and uses her to take her revenge against all men. After word gets out that the apartment block is haunted, the unoccupied flats become an illegal casino, and the good-looking Rung, who has a sixth sense which enables him to see ghosts, moves in after his girlfriend breaks up with him. The death toll in the apartment block rises, and Rung and his friends are also chased by the girl’s ghost, but one day, Rung meets Buppha, who used to be his tutor when he was a kid, in the communal space in the building. Soon, he falls in love with her. However, Rang isn't aware that his crush indeed is the haunting and dangerous spirit that he needs to avoid. But he is too late and his sweet dream turns to nightmare as Buppha is now on the hunt again.
1016338	Elvis Tsui Kam-kong (born 13 October 1961) is a Hong Kong-based Chinese actor. Biography. Tsui graduated from the Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts with a degree in arts. He was also a student of the artist Guan Shanyue. In 1982, Tsui went to Hong Kong to expand his career as an artist, photographer, model and nightclub singer. In 1987, Tsui met film director Johnny Mak, who invited him to act in "Long Arm of the Law II". Tsui was often cast as the antagonist or villain in most of the films and television series he acted in, because of his fierce looks. Tsui has also acted in Hong Kong erotic films (Category III), such as the "Sex and Zen" series and "Viva Erotica" (1996), which earned him a Best Support Actor nomination at the 16th Hong Kong Film Awards. Tsui has ventured into the Chinese mainland film industry in recent times and currently works with film director Wong Jing.
587756	Lakshmi Narasimha is a super hit Telugu film which stars Balakrishna, Asin, Prakash Raj, and K. Viswanath. Jayant Paranji (of "Premante Idera" fame) directed this film. It is a remake of the 2003 Tamil Mega hit movie "Saamy" starred Vikram and Trisha. The film was remade into Telugu language, even though the original Tamil version Saamy was dubbed into Telugu as "Saamy IPS". The film was released on January 14, 2004 to positive reviews. Plot. Lakshmi Narasimha (Balakrishna) is a strict police officer who does not mind making his own rules to bring justice to the public. Once, he was indirectly affected by the goon Dharma Bhiksham (Prakash Rai) which costs him his sister and lots of properties of his native village. But Dharma Bhiksham does not know that it was Lakshmi Narasimha who got affected by him. After a few months, Lakshmi Narasimha is transferred to Vijayawada. Dharma Bhiksham rules the mafia world from Vijayawada. Though, a strict police officer - he compromises with Dharma Bhiksham and takes bribes to the tune of one and half crores. He takes the bribes and then invests all the money into rehabilitating his native village affected by Dharma Bhiksham. Dharma Bhiksham comes to know about it and rebels against Lakshmi Narasimha. The rest of the story is all about how Lakshmi Narasimha puts an end to the life of Dharma Bhiksham using illegal methods. Reception. Local review site Idlebrain rated the film three and half stars and noted "Bala Krishna's terrific performance is the biggest strength of the film. First half of the film is entertaining. Second half is OK." Sify movies stated "Lakshmi Narasimha, the police story is being appreciated for its story, presentation and heroism of Balakrishna, the hero. It has taken a fantastic opening all over and is expected to be a long distance winner". This movie collected 25 crores at Box Office and Lakshmi Narasimha was the first Telugu Movie released in Netherlands. Controversy. Balakrishna was involved in a shooting controversy. The incident took place on June 3, 2004 around 20:50 hrs at his residence in Jubilee Hills, Hyderabad. The actor has fired shots at the producer B.Suresh and his associate, Satyanarayana Chowdhary. Later both the wounded were admitted into Apollo hospital. The circumstances under which the case was handled led to much controversy as purported by the Human Right Forum (HRF). The HRF has questioned the authenticity of people who handled the case, and the circumstances under which the actor was shielded from police by giving refuge in the CARE Hospital with out any justifiable cause. The two victims have given statements before the magistrate alleging that actor has fired shots at them during their treatment in the hospital but soon they were retracted and made volte-face of their earlier statements. The actor was arrested later on June 6 at around 3:30 AM and produced before fifth Metropolitan Magistrate. A show cause notice was also served on Bala Krishna's wife Smt. Vasundhara Devi (married: 1982) as the weapon used was licensed under her name and she could not give sufficient protection to her licensed weapon. But later the actor was granted bail. Balakrishna had lodged a complaint in February, 2011 with the Central Crime Station (CCS) police alleging that he was being defamed publicly on a website, www.ihatebalayya.com
1056044	Shadowboxer is a 2005 crime thriller directed by Lee Daniels that stars Academy Award winners Cuba Gooding, Jr., Helen Mirren, and Mo'Nique. It opened in limited release in six cities: New York, Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., Baltimore, Philadelphia, and Richmond, Virginia. Plot. Mikey (Cuba Gooding Jr.) and his stepmother/girlfriend, Rose (Helen Mirren) are contract killers. The two continue with their line of work despite the fact that Rose is suffering from cancer. Mafia kingpin, Clayton, (Stephen Dorff) suspects that his pregnant wife Vicki (Vanessa Ferlito) may have been unfaithful, so he hires Mikey and Rose to kill her. Upon entering Clayton's mansion, Rose heads for Vicki's bedroom while Vicki is on the phone with her best friend Neisha, (Macy Gray). But as Rose enters Vicki's bedroom, Vicki's water breaks and she goes into labor. Taking pity on Vicki, Rose uses her prior medical training to deliver Vicki's baby, a boy she later names Anthony. Afterward, Mikey and Rose drive Vicki and her infant son to a local motel.
1059343	Joshua Aaron "Josh" Charles (born September 15, 1971) is an American stage, film and television actor. He is best known for the roles of Daniel "Dan" Rydell on "Sports Night", Will Gardner on "The Good Wife", and his early work as Knox Overstreet in "Dead Poets Society". Personal life. Charles was born in Baltimore, Maryland, the son of Laura (née Heckscher), a gossip columnist for "The Baltimore Sun" newspaper, and Allen Charles, an advertising executive. He began his career performing comedy at the age of nine. As a teenager, he spent several summers at Stagedoor Manor Performing Arts Center in New York, and attended the Baltimore School for the Arts. Charles dropped out of high school, never receiving a diploma. He is a fan of the Baltimore Orioles (baseball) and Baltimore Ravens (American football). In September 2013, he married ballet dancer and author Sophie Flack. Charles is Jewish. Career. Charles's film debut was in fellow Baltimore native John Waters's "Hairspray" in 1988. The following year, he starred alongside Robin Williams and Ethan Hawke in the Oscar-winning "Dead Poets Society". Subsequent film roles have included "Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead", "Threesome", "Pie in the Sky", "Muppets from Space", "S.W.A.T", "Four Brothers", "After.Life", "Crossing the Bridge", and "Brief Interviews with Hideous Men". On television, Charles played sports anchor Dan Rydell in Aaron Sorkin's Emmy Award-winning "Sports Night", which ran for two years (1998–2000) on ABC and earned Charles a Screen Actors Guild nomination. In 2008, Charles played the role of Jake in Season 1 of HBO's "In Treatment". In 2009, he returned to network television in CBS's "The Good Wife", which stars Julianna Margulies, Chris Noth, and Christine Baranski. He was nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series in 2011. In 1986, Charles headlined a production of Jonathan Marc Sherman's "Confrontation". In 2004, he appeared on stage in New York in a revival of Neil LaBute's "The Distance From Here", which received a Drama Desk Award for Best Ensemble Cast. In January 2006 he appeared in the world premiere of Richard Greenberg's "The Well-Appointed Room" for the Steppenwolf Theatre Company in Chicago, and followed this with a run at the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco, portraying the cloned brothers in Caryl Churchill's "A Number". In 2007, he appeared in Adam Bock's "The Receptionist" at the Manhattan Theatre Club. In 2011, Charles was the narrator for NFL Network's "A Football Life"'s debut episode on New England Patriots head coach Bill Belichick.
1224766	Summer and Smoke is a two-part, thirteen-scene 1948 play by Tennessee Williams, originally titled "Chart of Anatomy" when Williams began work on it in 1945. The phrase "summer and smoke" probably comes from the Hart Crane poem "Emblems of Conduct" in the 1926 collection "White Buildings". In 1964, Williams revised the play as "The Eccentricities of a Nightingale".
1062416	Alfred Molina (born Alfredo Molina; 24 May 1953) is a British actor known for his roles in "Raiders of the Lost Ark", "Prick Up Your Ears", "The Man Who Knew Too Little", "Spider-Man 2", "Maverick", "Species", "Not Without My Daughter", "Chocolat", "Frida", "Steamboy", "The Hoax", ', 'The Da Vinci Code"", "The Little Traitor", "An Education" and "The Sorcerer's Apprentice". He has recently starred as Detective on the NBC police/courtroom drama "" and as Roger opposite Dawn French in the BBC television sitcom "Roger & Val Have Just Got In". Early life. Molina was born in Paddington, London. His mother, Giovanna (née Bonelli), was an Italian house-keeper who cleaned rooms in a hotel and worked as a cook. His father, Esteban Molina, was a Spanish immigrant from Madrid who worked as a waiter and chauffeur. Molina grew up in a working class district in Notting Hill that was inhabited by many other immigrant families. He decided to become an actor after seeing "Spartacus" at the age of nine, and attended the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. Career. In 1978, Molina starred with Leonard Rossiter in the sitcom "The Losers". Molina made his film debut with a minor role in the 1981 film "Raiders of the Lost Ark" as Indiana Jones' ill-fated guide, Satipo, during its iconic opening sequence. However, his big break came with "Letter to Brezhnev" in 1985, which he followed up with a starring role in "Prick Up Your Ears" in 1987, playing Joe Orton's lover (and eventual murderer) Kenneth Halliwell. He was originally cast as Arnold Rimmer in the TV sitcom "Red Dwarf", but he was replaced by Chris Barrie. Molina was a ubiquitous presence on British television in the early 1990s, with his most high profile role being the lead in the first two series of "El C.I.D." Subsequent film roles included "Species", "Dudley Do-Right", "Chocolat", "Not Without My Daughter" and "Enchanted April". With a mid-western American accent, Molina starred alongside Betty White in the US television series "Ladies Man", which ran from 1999–2001. He has worked twice with Paul Thomas Anderson, first in "Boogie Nights" and then "Magnolia". In 2002, Molina gained wide recognition for his portrayal of Diego Rivera alongside Salma Hayek in the biopic "Frida", a role which garnered him BAFTA and SAG award nominations. In 2003, he played himself alongside Steve Coogan in "Coffee and Cigarettes". In 2004, Molina gained further commercial recognition when he was cast as the villain Doctor Octopus in "Spider-Man 2", which went on to become one of the highest-grossing films of that year. He later reprised his role of Doctor Octopus in the video game adaption of "Spider-Man 2" and archive footage of Molina as Doctor Octopus is seen in the opening of "Spider-Man 3". In 2006, Molina portrayed Touchstone in Kenneth Branagh's film version of Shakespeare's "As You Like It" and appeared in Ron Howard's adaptation of "The Da Vinci Code". Molina provided the voice of the villain Ares in the 2009 animated film "Wonder Woman". Molina's stage work has included two major Royal National Theatre productions, Tennessee Williams' "The Night of the Iguana" (as Shannon) and David Mamet's "Speed-the-Plow" (as Fox). In his Broadway debut, Molina performed in Yasmina Reza's Tony Award-winning play Art, for which he received a Tony nomination in 1998. In 2004, Molina returned to the stage, starring as Tevye in the Broadway production of "Fiddler on the Roof". For his performance he once again received a Tony Award nomination, this time for Best Actor in a Musical. Molina received his third Tony Award nomination for "Red" in 2010, for Best Performance by a Leading Actor in a Play. In 2007, Molina narrated a 17-part original audiobook for Audible.com called "The Chopin Manuscript". This serialized novel was written by a team of 15 best-selling thriller writers, including Jeffery Deaver, Lee Child, Joseph Finder and Lisa Scottoline. The novel won the 2008 Audiobook Of The Year Award form Audio Publishers Association. On 1 April 2010, he opened at Broadway's John Golden Theatre in the role of artist Mark Rothko in John Logan's drama "Red" opposite Eddie Redmayne for a limited engagement through 27 June. He had played the role to much critical success at the Donmar Warehouse in London in December 2009. In 2010 he starred opposite Dawn French in the six-part BBC sitcom "Roger & Val Have Just Got In", with a second series in 2012. He is the only actor to have three Lego Minifigures modelled after him, with them being Doctor Octopus from "Spider-Man 2", Satipo from "Raiders of the Lost Ark" and Sheik Amar from "". In July 2010, it was announced that Molina had joined the cast of ' as Deputy District Attorney Morales. He previously guest-starred in a two-part crossover in 2005 in two other "Law & Order" franchise shows, ' and "". Molina is a patron of the performing arts group Theatretrain. Molina is also a longtime member of the Los Angeles theatre company The New American Theatre, formerly known as Circus Theatricals, where he often teaches Shakespeare and Scene Study along with the company's artistic director Jack Stehlin. Personal life. Molina resides in Los Angeles, California, and announced in 2004 that he had become a U.S. citizen. He is fluent in Italian and Spanish. He married actress Jill Gascoine in 1986 in Tower Hamlets, London. He has a daughter, Rachel (born 1980), from a previous relationship, and two stepsons (Adam and Sean), from Gascoine's first marriage. He is also a grandfather to Alfie (born November 2003) and Layla (born May 2006). In addition to acting, Molina is an Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) advocate. Not only does he donate towards AIDS research, but he also participates in the Los Angeles AIDS Walk and recently played a role in Joseph Kibler's (a 21 year-old AIDS survivor's) documentary Walk On.
520869	Edgardo José Martin Santiago Valenciano (born 6 August 1964), better known as Gary Valenciano or Gary V., is a Filipino musician. Also known as Mr. Pure Energy, Valenciano has released 26 albums, and won the Awit Awards for "Best Male Performer" eleven times. In 1998, he became UNICEF Philippines first National Ambassador. His most notable songs include ""Di Bale Na Lang"" ("Never mind"), ""Eto Na Naman"" ("Here we go again"), ""Sana Maulit Muli"" ("i wish it could happen again"), ""Natutulog Ba Ang Diyos?"" ("Does God sleep"), ""Gaya ng Dati"" ("Just like before"), ""Pasko Na, Sinta Ko"" ("It's already christmas my love"), and ""Narito"" ("Here"). He is currently part of ABS-CBN contract actors, and is frequently tapped to sing theme songs for the network's soap operas and films. Gary Valenciano was given the ASAP Elite Platinum Circle Award for 2008 for his extraordinary achievements in the local music industry. In his 25 years in the music industry, Gary has been awarded five Platinum albums, four double Platinum albums, three triple Platinum albums, and two sextuple Platinum albums.
63941	Nicole Oresme (pronounced ) (c. 1320–1325 – July 11, 1382), also known as Nicolas Oresme, Nicholas Oresme, or Nicolas d'Oresme, was a significant philosopher of the later Middle Ages. He wrote influential works on economics, mathematics, physics, astrology and astronomy, philosophy, and theology; was Bishop of Lisieux, a translator, a counselor of King Charles V of France, and probably one of the most original thinkers of the 14th century. Oresme's life. Nicole Oresme was born c. 1320-1325 in the village of Allemagne (today's Fleury-sur-Orne) in the vicinity of Caen, Normandy, in the diocese of Bayeux. Practically nothing is known concerning his family. The fact that Oresme attended the royally sponsored and subsidized College of Navarre, an institution for students too poor to pay their expenses while studying at the University of Paris, makes it probable that he came from a peasant family. Oresme studied the "artes" in Paris, together with Jean Buridan (the so-called founder of the French school of natural philosophy), Albert of Saxony and perhaps Marsilius of Inghen, and there received the Magister Artium. He was already a regent master in arts by 1342, during the crisis over William of Ockham's natural philosophy. In 1348, he was a student of theology in Paris, in 1356, he received his doctorate and in the same year he became grand master ("grand-maître") of the College of Navarre. In 1364 he was appointed dean of the Cathedral of Rouen. Around 1369 he began a series of translations of Aristotelian works at the request of Charles V, who granted him a pension in 1371 and, with royal support, was appointed bishop of Lisieux in 1377. It was in this city that he died in 1382. Oresme's scientific work. Cosmology. In his "Livre du ciel et du monde" Oresme discussed a range of evidence for and against the daily rotation of the Earth on its axis. From astronomical considerations, he maintained that if the Earth were moving and not the celestial spheres, all the movements that we see in the heavens that are computed by the astronomers would appear exactly the same as if the spheres were rotating around the Earth. He rejected the physical argument that if the Earth were moving the air would be left behind causing a great wind from east to west. In his view the Earth, Water, and Air would all share the same motion. As to the scriptural passage that speaks of the motion of the sun, he concludes that "this passage conforms to the customary usage of popular speech" and is not to be taken literally. He also noted that it would be more economical for the small Earth to rotate on its axis than the immense sphere of the stars. Nonetheless, he concluded that none of these arguments were conclusive and "everyone maintains, and I think myself, that the heavens do move and not the Earth." Critiques of astrology. In his mathematical work, Oresme developed the notion of incommensurate fractions, fractions that could not be expressed as powers of one another, and made probabilistic, statistical arguments as to their relative frequency. From this, he argued that it was very probable that the length of the day and the year were incommensurate (irrational), as indeed were the periods of the motions of the moon and the planets. From this, he noted that planetary conjunctions and oppositions would never recur in quite exactly the same way. Oresme maintained that this disproves the claims of astrologers who, thinking "they know with punctual exactness the motions, aspects, conjunctions and oppositions… rashly and erroneously about future events." Oresme's critique of astrology in his "Livre de divinacions" treats it as having six parts. The first, essentially astronomy, the movements of heavenly bodies, he considers good science but not precisely knowable. The second part deals with the influences of the heavenly bodies on earthly events at all scales. Oresme does not deny such influence, but states, in line with a commonly held opinion, that it could either be that arrangements of heavenly bodies signify events, purely symbolically, or that they actually cause such events, deterministically. Mediaevalist Chauncey Wood remarks that this major elision "makes it very difficult to determine who believed what about astrology." The third part concerns predictiveness, covering events at three different scales: great events such as plagues, famines, floods and wars; weather, winds and storms; and medicine, with influences on the humours, the four Aristotelian fluids of the body. Oresme criticizes all of these as misdirected, though he accepts that prediction is a legitimate area of study, and argues that the effect on the weather is less well known than the effect on great events. He observes that sailors and farmers are better at predicting weather than astrologers, and specifically attacks the astrological basis of prediction, noting correctly that the zodiac has moved relative to the fixed stars (because of precession of the equinoxes) since the zodiac was first described in ancient times. These first three parts are what Oresme considers the physical influences of the stars and planets (including sun and moon) on the earth, and while he offers critiques of them, he accepts that effects exist. The last three parts are what Oresme considers to concern (good or bad) fortune. They are interrogations, meaning asking the stars when to do things such as business deals; elections, meaning choosing the best time to do things such as getting married or fighting a war; and nativities, meaning the natal astrology with birth charts that forms much of modern astrological practice. Oresme classifies interrogations and elections as "totally false" arts, but his critique of nativities is more measured. He denies that any path is predetermined by the heavenly bodies, because humans have free will, but he accepts that the heavenly bodies can influence behaviour and habitual mood, via the combination of humours in each person. Overall, Oresme's skepticism is strongly shaped by his understanding of the scope of astrology. He accepts things a modern skeptic would reject, and rejects some things — such as the knowability of planetary movements, and effects on weather — that are accepted by modern science. Sense perception. In discussing the propagation of light and sound, Oresme adopted the common medieval doctrine of the multiplication of species, as it had been developed by optical writers such as Alhacen, Robert Grosseteste, Roger Bacon, John Pecham, and Witelo. Oresme maintained that these species were immaterial, but corporeal (i.e., three-dimensional), entities. Translations. Like most of his scholarly contemporaries, Oresme wrote primarily in Latin, but at the urging of King Charles V, he also wrote in French, providing French versions of his own works and of selected works by Aristotle. Mathematics. Oresme's most important contributions to mathematics are contained in "Tractatus de configurationibus qualitatum et motuum". In a quality, or accidental form, such as heat, he distinguished the "intensio" (the degree of heat at each point) and the "extensio" (as the length of the heated rod). These two terms were often replaced by "latitudo" and "longitudo". For the sake of clarity, Oresme conceived the idea of visualizing these concepts by plane figures, approaching what we would now call rectangular co-ordinates. The intensity of the quality was represented by a length or "latitudo" proportional to the intensity erected perpendicular to the base at a given point on the base line, which represents the "longitudo". Oresme proposed that the geometrical form of such a figure could be regarded as corresponding to a characteristics of the quality itself. Oresme defined a uniform quality as that which is represented by a line parallel to the longitude, and any other quality as difform. Uniformly varying qualities are represented by a straight line inclined to the axis of the longitude, while he described many cases of nonuniformly varying qualities. Oresme extended this doctrine to figures of three dimensions. He considered this analysis applicable to many different qualities such as hotness, whiteness, and sweetness. Significantly for later developments, Oresme applied this concept to the analysis of local motion where the "latitudo" or intensity represented the speed, the "longitudo" represented the time, and the area of the figure represented the distance travelled. He shows that his method of figuring the latitude of forms is applicable to the movement of a point, on condition that the time is taken as longitude and the speed as latitude; quantity is, then, the space covered in a given time. In virtue of this transposition, the theorem of the "latitudo uniformiter difformis" became the law of the space traversed in case of uniformly varied motion; thus Oresme manages to anticipate Galileo´s discovery. Significantly, Oresme developed the first (if somewhat obscure) proof of the divergence of the harmonic series, something that was only replicated in later centuries by the Bernoulli brothers. His proof, an alternative to other "standard" tests for divergence (for example, the integral test), elegantly stated that for any value of 1/"n", the closest "n" that is a member of the sequence 2"n", the preceding "n"/2 terms must be greater than 1/2. Thus, using the comparison test and the squeeze theorem, the series must be greater than the series 1 + 1/2 + 1/2 + 1/2 + ... + 1/2 (which is obviously divergent), which means the harmonic series whose terms are 1/"n" must be divergent. Oresme was the first mathematician to prove this fact, and held that honor for the next few centuries. He also worked on fractional powers, and the notion of probability over infinite sequences, ideas which would not be further developed for the next three and five centuries, respectively. Economics. With his "Treatise on the origin, nature, law, and alterations of money", one of the earliest manuscripts devoted to an economic matter, Oresme brings an interesting insight on the medieval conception of money.
1502387	Ben Vereen (born October 10, 1946) is an American actor, dancer, and singer who has appeared in numerous Broadway theatre shows. Vereen graduated from Manhattan's High School of Performing Arts. Early years. Vereen was born Benjamin Augustus Middleton on October 10, 1946, in Miami, Florida. While still an infant, Vereen and his family relocated to the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood in Brooklyn, New York. He was adopted by James Vereen, a paint-factory worker and his wife, Pauline, who worked as a maid. He discovered he was adopted when he applied for a passport to join Sammy Davis, Jr. on a tour of "Golden Boy" to London when he was 25. During his pre-teen years, he exhibited an innate talent for drama and dance and often performed in local variety shows. At the age of 14, Vereen enrolled at the High School of Performing Arts, where he studied under world-renowned choreographers Martha Graham, George Balanchine, and Jerome Robbins. Upon his graduation, he struggled to find suitable stage work and was often forced to take odd jobs to supplement his income.
674635	Alexandra Maria Lara (born Alexandra Maria Plătăreanu; 12 November 1978) is a German actress best known for her roles in "Downfall" (2004), "Control" (2007), "Youth Without Youth" (2007), "The Reader" (2008), and "Rush" (2013). Early life. Born in Bucharest, Lara is the only child of Valentin Plătăreanu, a Bucharest actor, and his wife, Doina, a homemaker. When she was four (in 1983) her family decided to flee to West Germany to escape Nicolae Ceauşescu's regime in Communist Romania. Although the family had originally planned to emigrate to Canada, they settled down in Freiburg im Breisgau, Baden-Württemberg, before eventually moving to Berlin. After graduating at the Französisches Gymnasium Berlin in 1997, Lara went on studying acting under the management of her father, co-founder of the Theaterwerkstatt Charlottenburg, until 2000. Career. By sixteen, she was already playing lead roles in various television dramas; since then her career has developed and she has become a respected film actress. Her most famous role to date, which has resulted in international recognition, is as Traudl Junge, Adolf Hitler's secretary, in the Oscar-nominated 2004 film "Der Untergang (Downfall)"; following this, Francis Ford Coppola wrote her a letter and gave her a leading role in "Youth Without Youth" (2007). Personal life. In August 2009, she married English actor Sam Riley, with whom she acted in the film "Control".
1125906	Giovonnie Lavette Samuels (born November 10, 1985) is an American actress best known for her role as Nia Moseby in "The Suite Life of Zack & Cody" and for being a series regular on "All That". Life and career. Samuels was born in San Diego, California. She began appearing on "All That" during 2001, quickly becoming one of the most regularly featured actresses on the show, alongside Jamie Lynn Spears and others. Samuels also appeared in episodes of "That's So Raven" as Raven's cousin, Betty Jane. She also appeared on "Boston Public". Samuels does voiceover work for Bill Cosby's animated show, "Fatherhood", on Nick at Nite. In 2006, she appeared in the movie "", the third "Bring It On" movie. She has also appeared an as extra in Raven-Symoné's "Backflip" video and in the 2007 film "Freedom Writers". In addition, Samuels has appeared in the movie "Christmas At Water's Edge". In July 2007, she began appearing as a recurring character on "The Suite Life of Zack & Cody" as Nia Moseby, niece of Marion Moseby (Samuels was the replacement of Ashley Tisdale, who was absent due to filming "High School Musical 2"). She currently has a recurring role as Camille in the series "Mr. Box Office".
626919	James "Jamie" Thomas Denton, Jr. (born January 20, 1963) is an American film and television actor, best known for playing Mike Delfino in the television series "Desperate Housewives". Early life. Denton was born in Nashville, Tennessee, and grew up in nearby Goodlettsville, the second of three children. His father, J.T. Denton (1930–1993), was a dentist who had served in the military. His mother, Mary Jean Woolslair Denton, died from breast cancer in 2002.
584979	Lakshyam (Telugu: లక్ష్యం, English translation: "Target") is a 2007 Telugu film which stars Gopichand, Anushka, and Jagapati Babu. This film marked the debut of Srivas as director. It was produced by Nallamalupu Srinivas (Bujji) under Sri Lakshmi Narasimha Productions banner. It was remade in Tamil as ""Maanja Velu"", it was remade in Bengali as "Fighter". It is was remade in Kannada as "Varadhanayaka" starring Sudeep and Sameera Reddy. The movie was dubbed in Hindi as "Bhai - The Lion". Plot. The film starts with a flashback. ACP Bose (Jagapati Babu) is a sincere police officer happily married and lives with his parents and younger brother Chandu (Gopichand). Chandu is a college student and he falls in love with his classmate Indu (Anushka). Enter Section Shankar (Yashpal Sharma), the villain who is notorious for settlements and land deals. He kills anyone who comes in his way and does not leave any evidence or witness behind. He takes a loan of 100 crores from a private bank with the help of a conniving DGP and a politician. He kills the bank’s chairman in order to avoid repayment and puts the blame on Bose. Bose tries to stop Section Shankar. Chandu also gets into disputes with Section Shankar.
1166215	Reginald VelJohnson (born August 16, 1952) is an American actor of film, stage and television known for his role as Carl Winslow on the sitcom "Family Matters". He was the only cast member to appear in every single episode.
1064616	Friends with Money is a 2006 film written and directed by Nicole Holofcener. It opened the 2006 Sundance Film Festival on January 19, 2006 and went into limited release in North America on April 7, 2006.
1043441	Donald Daniel Houston (6 November 1923 – 13 October 1991) was a Welsh actor whose first two films – "The Blue Lagoon" (1949) with Jean Simmons, and "A Run for Your Money" (1949) with Sir Alec Guinness – were highly successful. Later in his career he was cast in military roles and in comedies such as the "Doctor" and "Carry On" series. Houston was born in Tonypandy, Glamorgan, and was the elder brother of actor Glyn Houston. He would sometimes indulge his Welsh accent as well as conceal it behind an English public school veneer. He had a successful career as a character actor in British film and television, with prominent parts in several well-known films, including "Yangtse Incident" (1957), "633 Squadron" (1964), "The Longest Day" (1962) (in which he appeared alongside Richard Burton), "Where Eagles Dare" (1968) (again with Burton) and "The Sea Wolves" (1981). His forte tended to be authority figures, often military, such as the brilliant but tough David Caulder, the head of "Moonbase 3" or as Dr. Francis in "Thirteen to Centaurus" (from the anthology series "Out of the Unknown)". He could also handle comedy, as he proved with "Doctor in the House" (1954) and the later "Doctor in Distress" (1963), both significant successes in Europe, and "Carry on Jack" (1963). Though preferring quality parts, he was not above journeyman work in films such as "Tales That Witness Madness" (1973) and "Maniac" (1963). On October 13, 1991, Donald Houston died in Coimbra, Portugal at the age of 67.
1156607	Kirk Alyn (October 8, 1910 – March 14, 1999) was an American actor, best known for being the first actor to play Superman on screen, in the 1948 film serial "Superman", and its 1950 sequel "Atom Man Vs. Superman". Early life. Kirk Alyn was born John Feggo, Jr. in Oxford, New Jersey on October 8, 1910 to Hungarian immigrant parents. In his youth he lived in Wharton, New Jersey. A plaque commemorating his life in the borough is hung in the municipal building. Career. Alyn started out as a chorus boy on Broadway, appearing in notable musicals such as "Girl Crazy", "Of Thee I Sing", and "Hellzapoppin"' in the 1930s. He also worked as a singer and dancer in vaudeville before moving to Hollywood in the early 1940s to make feature films, where he was successful only in gaining bit parts in low-budget films before landing the role of Superman in 1948. Alyn also starred in movie serials, including "Federal Agents Vs. Underworld Inc." (1948), "Radar Patrol Vs. Spy King" (1950) and "Blackhawk" (1952). Alyn recalls the day producer Sam Katzman asked him to play Superman: I thought it was a publicity stunt. I didn't think you could ever put Superman on film. They brought the people from D.C. Comics over and they said, 'Hey, he looks just like Clark Kent.' They said take off your shirt, so I did and flexed my muscles. Then the guy said, 'Take off your pants' and I said, 'Wait a minute.' I was 37 when I played Superman. I picked up that girl and ran up that flight of stairs like it was nothing." Alyn appeared as Superman in the first live-action "Superman" movie serial, released in 1948. The serial consisted of 15 episodes which recounted Superman’s arrival on Earth, getting a job as a reporter at the Daily Planet newspaper, and meeting Lois Lane and Jimmy Olsen. The main plot consisted of Superman’s battle against the arch criminal the Spider Lady. Two years later, "Atom Man vs. Superman" was released, featuring Lyle Talbot as Superman’s arch-villain Lex Luthor. This serial also included a sequence involving an eerie alternate dimension, not unlike the Phantom Zone, which would not appear in the comics for another 11 years. Alyn gave the "Man of Steel" a different portrayal to Clark Kent, adding to the element of disguise. This was in the tradition of radio's Superman, Bud Collyer. By contrast, his successor George Reeves played the dual roles more alike, as pointed out in Gary Grossman's book, "Superman: Serial to Cereal". The character's flight would be effected by having Alyn jump up, at which point he turns into an animated character by way of rotoscoping, and flew off. Alyn had tried "flying" while suspended by hidden wires for the first serial but the wires turned out to be clearly visible after all and that footage was scrapped. After playing Superman, he again suffered casting problems. Apart from starring in some similar comic book-type serials, he landed few roles in TV series and movies, some even uncredited, until he retired. When Superman moved to television in 1951, Alyn was reportedly offered the part, but turned it down. In 1971, he published an autobiography entitled "A Job for Superman". Alyn shared a very short cameo with his serial co-star, Noel Neill, as the parents of the young Lois Lane in the 1978 feature film, "Superman". In a brief on-set interview, he explains his method of portraying Superman and Clark Kent, contained in a documentary narrated by Ernie Anderson, "The Making of Superman: The Movie" (1978). In 1981, Alyn appeared as "Pa Cant" in the parody film ""Superbman: The Other Movie"", a role that lasted only seconds, as Cant dies from a heart attack immediately after discovering the strange visitor from the planet Krapton. Alyn made his final film in 1983, "Scalps". In 1988 he participated in the 1988 TV special "Superman 50th Anniversary Special" as himself. Personal life. When he first went to Hollywood, Alyn met another dancer/actress, Virginia O'Brien. They were married in 1942, and had one son and two daughters. They were divorced in 1955. Alyn died on March 14, 1999 in The Woodlands, Texas, at the age of 88. He was survived by three children he had with O'Brien: daughters Terri O'Brien and Elizabeth Watkins, and son John Feggo. Honors. Alyn was the Grand Marshal of the Metropolis, Illinois Christmas parade and Annual Superman Celebrations several times. In 1985, DC Comics named Alyn as one of the honorees in the company's 50th anniversary publication "Fifty Who Made DC Great".
1175035	Rachel Sweet (born July 28, 1962, Akron, Ohio, United States) is an American singer, television writer and actress. Biography. After beginning her singing career at the age of three, when she won an electric garage door opener in a singing contest, she began recording commercials at the age of six, toured with Mickey Rooney, and performed in Las Vegas as the opening act for Bill Cosby at the age of twelve. She began recording country music in 1974, but with little success beyond one minor Country Chart hit. Switching to rock and roll, she signed to Stiff Records label and released her first album, "Fool Around", in 1978, dropping out of high school to concentrate on her career, although she was still required to devote time to her studies. Sweet was backed by The Records on the Stiff Records tour in 1978. The album was a critical success, but sales were poor, although she did have some success with the single "B-A-B-Y" (a cover of the 1966 Carla Thomas song), which was a top-40 hit in the UK. She also generated some controversy for her Lolita-like image. Her follow-up album, "Protect the Innocent", produced by Martin Rushent and Alan Winstanley, was largely ignored by the public and the music media, although it was popular with her fans as well as a much anticipated 1980 North American tour with her band The Toys. She then signed to Columbia Records in 1981, releasing "... And Then He Kissed Me", which launched the hit single, "Everlasting Love", a duet with Rex Smith.
1449158	Monty Python Live at the Hollywood Bowl is a 1982 concert film in which the Monty Python team perform many of their greatest sketches at the Hollywood Bowl. The show also included filmed inserts which were mostly taken from two Monty Python specials, "Monty Python's Fliegender Zirkus", which had been broadcast on German television in 1972. The performance was recorded on videotape in September 1980 and transferred to film. In the wake of the worldwide success of "Monty Python's Life of Brian", the Pythons originally planned to release a film consisting of the two German shows redubbed and re-edited, but this proved impractical, and so "Hollywood Bowl" was released instead. The film stars all six Monty Python members, with Carol Cleveland in numerous supporting roles and Neil Innes performing songs. Also present for the shows and participating as an 'extra' was Python superfan Kim 'Howard' Johnson. Although it mostly contains sketches from the TV show, the scripts and performers are not identical to those seen on television. The line-up also includes some sketches that predated "Monty Python's Flying Circus", including the "Four Yorkshiremen sketch", which dated from 1967's "At Last the 1948 Show". Sketches and songs. The "Silly Olympics" sketch is from the first "Monty Python's Fliegender Zirkus" episode, dubbed into English. Box office. A film version of the Hollywood Bowl performances, with direction credited to Terry Hughes, was given a limited theatrical release in North America beginning on 25 June 1982. It grossed a total of US$327,958 during its theatrical run. DVD availability. In the United Kingdom the film is available as a standalone DVD. In North America it is available as part of a two-disc set titled "Monty Python Live", which includes the 1998 "Monty Python Live at Aspen" retrospective and the first episode of "Monty Python's Fliegender Zirkus". It was also released as part of "The Complete Monty Python's Flying Circus 16-Ton Megaset" and as part of "Almost Everything Ever in One Gloriously Fabulous Ludicrously Definitive Outrageously Luxurious Monty Python Boxset". References. Notes
757070	Terrence "Terry" Funk (born June 30, 1944) is a semi-retired American professional wrestler and former actor known chiefly for the hardcore wrestling style he adopted in the latter part of his career that inspired many younger wrestlers, including Mick Foley. Funk has appeared in the NWA, AWA, WWF/E, WCW, ECW, ROH, and TNA. Funk is a five-time World Champion, having held the NWA World Heavyweight Championship once and ECW World Heavyweight Championship twice (ECW awarded him the honorary lifetime title of ECW Champion due to his contributions to the promotion) and IWA World Heavyweight Championship twice . He is the only man to have been inducted into the WWE, WCW, Professional Wrestling, NWA, Hardcore, Wrestling Observer, and St. Louis Wrestling Halls of Fame. Funk was a primary subject of the documentary film "Beyond the Mat", and is often noted for the longevity of his career, which has included multiple "retirement" matches. Professional wrestling career. Early career (1960s–1980s). Funk started out his career in 1965, working in his father Dory Funk, Sr.'s National Wrestling Alliance (NWA) promotion in Amarillo, Texas. He and his brother, Dory Funk, Jr., quickly rose up the ranks and became big money wrestlers by the end of the decade. In 1975, Terry defeated Jack Brisco for the NWA World Heavyweight Championship. He began a fourteen-month title reign which ended in Toronto when he was defeated by "Handsome" Harley Race, who won the title for the second time. Terry took some time off after his world title reign but he and his brother traveled around the country (mostly in Texas, Florida, and Detroit). Terry and Dory, Jr. also made a name for themselves in Japan. He made a name for himself with his over the top mannerisms and sometimes colorful get-ups as well as his brawling ability. World Wrestling Federation (1985-1986). Terry Funk made his World Wrestling Federation (WWF) debut in 1985. In his televised debut on "Championship Wrestling", he not only beat Aldo Marino, but he also beat up a ring attendant named Mel Phillips who was also, at the time, one of the WWF ring announcers. Funk also had the gimmick at the time of carrying a branding iron with him to ringside and using it to "brand" his fallen opponents. In the mid-1980s, Funk teamed with Dory (calling himself "Hoss" Funk) and Jimmy Jack Funk (Jesse Barr), a storyline "brother." They were managed by Jimmy Hart. At the time, he had a heated rivalry with the Junkyard Dog which led to a match between Terry Funk and Hoss Funk and the team of Tito Santana and Junkyard Dog at WrestleMania 2. Return to the National Wrestling Alliance. In 1989, Funk returned to the NWA and joined the J-Tex Corporation. He began feuding with Ric Flair, who had defeated Ricky Steamboat at WrestleWar for the NWA World Heavyweight Championship. Funk, who was one of three judges for the main event, challenged Flair to a title match. Flair refused, saying that Funk was "spending time in Hollywood" instead of focusing on wrestling. Funk then attacked, piledriving Flair on a ringside table. This put the champion, Flair, out of action until the Great American Bash where he faced Funk. Flair won the match by reversing a small package into one of his own, but shortly after was attacked by Gary Hart and The Great Muta. Sting came to aid Flair and the two brawled with Funk and Muta to close the show. Funk got injured but returned to continue feuding with Ric Flair. The two then had an "I Quit" match at ', which Funk lost after yelling "Yes, I quit!" after Flair put on the Figure four leglock. This match received a 5-star rating from Dave Meltzer. A notable part of the feud occurred when Funk used an actual plastic shopping bag to suffocate Flair on television after Flair and Sting defeated Muta and Dick Slater at '. After losing a "Clash of Champions" match against Flair, he shook Flair's hand, and was attacked by Gary Hart's stable. Soon after he became a color commentator and the host of his own segment "Funk's Grill" where a tuxedo clad Funk would amiably interview the top stars of WCW, both face and heel. This did not last long and he left soon after. World Championship Wrestling (1994). In 1994, Funk reappeared in World Championship Wrestling as part of Colonel Robert Parker's Stud Stable. Along with Bunkhouse Buck, Arn Anderson and Meng, the stable would focus their energies on Dusty and Dustin Rhodes, as well as The Nasty Boys, culminating in a War Games match at Fall Brawl. Extreme Championship Wrestling (1994–1997). Later in Funk's career, his style changed from wrestling traditional southern style wrestling matches to the more violent style of hardcore wrestling. In 1994, after a special appearance against Tully Blanchard at World Championship Wrestling (WCW) Slamboree, Funk promised to help the fledgling Eastern Championship Wrestling (later renamed Extreme Championship Wrestling or ECW) by lending his talent and notoriety to the promotion, which had just split from the NWA. On July 16, Terry and Dory Funk lost a barbed wire match against The Public Enemy. Funk maintained a regular schedule of wrestling for ECW in its early days while also competing in Japan. He had many feuds and wrestled programs with wrestlers such as Cactus Jack, "The Franchise" Shane Douglas, The Sandman, Sabu, and Terry's own protege, Tommy Dreamer. On August 20, 1995, IWA Japan held a King of the Death Match tournament in Kawasaki, Japan. In this tournament, Funk endured three extreme-style matches involving ladders, thumbtacks, and barbed wire. In the final match of the tournament, he lost to Mick Foley (as Cactus Jack), in an exploding ring, C4 explosive, barbed wire match. Funk further elevated ECW by headlining their first pay-per-view, Barely Legal on April 13, 1997, winning the ECW Championship from Raven. Earlier in the night, he defeated The Sandman and Stevie Richards in a Triple Threat match, thus earning him the match with Raven. He was later defeated for the title by Sabu in a barbed wire match at Born to Be Wired, in which the ropes of the ring were taken down and replaced with barbed wire. Both men had to be cut out of the wires at the end of the match. Sabu had his biceps visibly torn open by the barbed wire - as a result, the wound was taped up and the match continued. In September of that same year, a show was held in Funk's hometown of Amarillo. It was called "WrestleFest - 50 Years of Funk" and was both his own show and a celebration of the careers of Terry, his father, and his brother. Terry lost to then WWF World Heavyweight Champion Bret Hart in the main event, a non-title match. However, before the match, ECW owner Paul Heyman presented Terry with a belt, paid for through a collection taken up by wrestlers on the ECW roster, that declared him the "Lifetime ECW World Heavyweight Champion". World Wrestling Federation (1998). Funk's retirement lasted just three months before he started taking independent bookings again. Soon after, he was signed by the WWF and debuted as Chainsaw Charlie, a character loosely based on Leatherface. Funk had a match with Foley on "Raw", and the New Age Outlaws came and threw both in a dumpster, and pushed them off of the stage. This led to a match between The Outlaws and Funk/Foley at WrestleMania XIV, for the title in a Dumpster match when Funk/Foley beat the New Age Outlaws. The title was held up and put on the line in a Steel Cage match the next night on "Raw" due to a technicality: the wrong dumpsters had been used in the match. The Outlaws regained the title. He then had a Falls Count Anywhere match with Foley on "Raw" in 1998, where Foley defeated him. He left the WWF in the summer as Foley resumed his solo career as Mankind in a feud with The Undertaker. Upon leaving the WWF, Funk officially retired again, but only for a short time. His last match in the WWF at that time was in a tag team match at Fully Loaded, where he teamed up with Bradshaw to go against Scorpio and Faarooq. Return to ECW and WCW (1998–2000). At ECW November to Remember, Funk was believed to have been a mystery partner against Justin Credible and Jack Victory. However, the mystery partner turned out to be Jake Roberts. An enraged Funk attacked Dreamer at every opportunity in late 1998 and early 1999. Funk, however, came down ill before they could have a match, and Funk "retired" yet again in mid-1999. Funk wrestled for World Championship Wrestling in 2000, winning the WCW Hardcore Championship three times (which stands as the company's record) and the WCW United States Heavyweight Championship for the second time (the first time was under the NWA banner). He was also the WCW Commissioner at one time and the leader of the short-lived Old Age Outlaws that feuded with the nWo. World Wrestling Entertainment and Part Time Appearances (2006-Present). Funk was set to wrestle at the ECW One Night Stand pay-per-view on June 11, 2006. As part of the buildup to the event, Funk appeared on the May 15 episode of "Raw", where he confronted Mick Foley over the attack of Tommy Dreamer the previous week. At One Night Stand, Funk, Tommy Dreamer, and Beulah were defeated by the team of Foley, Edge and Lita. Midway through the match, Foley injured Funk's left eye with barbed wire, and Funk was taken backstage. He later returned to the match (with a bloody cloth tied over his eye) to hit Foley with a flaming 2x4 wrapped in barbed wire. On the February 16, 2009 edition of "Raw", it was announced that Terry along with his brother Dory would be inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame Class of 2009 by Dusty Rhodes. On April 6, 2013, Funk inducted long-time friend and protege Mick Foley into the 2013 class of the WWE Hall of Fame. Terry Funk also appears as a playable wrestler in "WWE SmackDown vs. Raw 2008", "WWE SmackDown vs. Raw 2011" and as downloadable content in "WWE '13" (as Chainsaw Charlie). Independent circuit (2002–Present). From 2002 to 2004, Funk was a regular top star for Ring of Honor wrestling and Major League Wrestling (MLW) company based out of New York and Florida. Funk had several battles with the likes of CM Punk, the Extreme Horsemen (Steve Corino, C.W. Anderson, Justin Credible and Simon Diamond) in specialty matches such as an Exploding Barbed Wire Death match, Barbed Wire match, and a 5 on 5 WarGames match. On the last MLW show, Funk was attacked by his former manager Gary Hart and his syndicate. In November 2004, Funk competed in the UK wrestling company FWA's main annual show British Uprising. He teamed with Paul Burchill and Paul Travell to face The Triad in a 6-Man Tag Team match. Funk's team emerged victorious in front of a crowd of 2,000 people in the Coventry Skydome. In 2005, Funk was offered a contract by World Wrestling Entertainment to appear at the ECW reunion show One Night Stand, but turned it down in favor of working the ECW nostalgia show "Hardcore Homecoming" that was being put together by Shane Douglas. At "Hardcore Homecoming", Funk lost a three-way barbed wire match to Sabu. After the one-off appearance at ECW One Night Stand, Funk then returned to the independent circuit and made appearances in Japan. He claimed to be semi-retired after wrestling in his last match in September 2006 against Jerry "The King" Lawler in an Extreme Rules match at The Great Plains Coliseum in Lawton, Oklahoma for the promotion Impact Zone Wrestling. Funk was also the special guest referee during the Raven and Johnny Webb vs. Khan Kussion and Homeless Jimmy match at "Cold Day in Hell" on May 24. On May 23, 2009, Funk made an unannounced appearance at a house show for Total Nonstop Action Wrestling. At the show, Terry joined longtime friend, Mick Foley, as special guest enforcers for a match between Scott Steiner and Samoa Joe. On August 8, Terry made a surprise appearance for Insane Clown Posse's Juggalo Championship Wrestling at the 10th Annual Gathering of the Juggalos. He served as special guest referee for a match between Viscera and 2 Tuff Tony. Funk also appeared at the annual NJPW January 4 Dome Show in 2010, teaming with Manabu Nakanishi, Masahiro Chono and Riki Chōshū to defeat Abdullah the Butcher, Takashi Iizuka, Tomohiro Ishii and Toru Yano. Funk was scheduled to be the special guest referee in a match between Kevin Nash and Hannibal for a Great North Wrestling event in May 2010. During the press conference to announce his involvement, an altercation involving Funk and Hannibal damaged and possibly broke his eardrum. On September 11, 2010, at Ring of Honor's Glory By Honor IX, Funk worked as the ringside enforcer for the ROH World Championship match between Tyler Black and Roderick Strong. Funk appeared at the fifth WrestleReunion event at the LAX Hilton in Los Angeles, California from January 28 to 30, 2011. On the second day of the event, he competed in a Legends Battle Royale on the Pro Wrestling Guerrilla show. He lasted until the end where he was eliminated by Roddy Piper. On June 5, 67-year old Funk seemed to capture the 2CW Heavyweight Championship by defeating Slyck Wagner Brown. However the pin-fall was not counted by a referee, but by the wrestler Jay Freddie. Funk first thought he had won the championship until 2CW management informed him differently. Funk wrestled Jerry Lawler unsuccessfully in a "No holds barred" for Northeast Wrestling on October 1, 2011. On October 15, 2011, Funk unsuccessfully faced his long-time friend and protégé Tommy Dreamer at the AWE "Night Of Legends" event. In a shoot interview conducted the next day featuring himself and Dreamer, Funk stated that he believes that will be his last match. On January 12, 2013, Funk confirmed that he is officially retired from professional wrestling at age 68. However, it would seem that Funk is once again out of retirement as on August 2 and August 4, 2013, he's booked to face Mil Mascaras for Harley Race's World Wrestling League in what is dubbed a dream match. Other media. In 1999, Funk was featured in director Barry Blaustein's wrestling documentary, "Beyond the Mat". His legendary toughness was attested to in the wrestling documentary when cameramen followed him to a medical appointment where he was told, by the doctor, that he should not even be able to walk without intense pain. He has also appeared in other movies such as "Road House", "Paradise Alley", "The Ringer", and "Over the Top". He released an autobiography, "Terry Funk: More Than Just Hardcore", in 2005. On May 11, 2010, Funk appeared on "Right After Wrestling" with Arda Ocal on SIRIUS Satellite Radio to discuss his possible retirement, to which he replied "I never really truly will retire". This was also the interview with the infamous quote, "I dislike Vince (McMahon). I'm jealous of Vince." In 1985, Terry Funk appeared in the short-lived western "Wildside". Only six episodes were aired. Personal life. Funk married wife Vicki Ann Weaver on August 14, 1965. Their first of two daughters, Stacy, was born on September 10, 1967, followed by Brandee on September 30, 1971. His youngest daughter Brandee was married on August 14, 1993 to Larry Paul Backus. They later divorced, with Brandee remarrying Jason M. Dungan (born 1975). Funk's oldest daughter Stacy was married on June 23, 1997 to Kelly Don Clenney (born 1969). Their wedding was featured briefly on Barry Blaustein's wrestling documentary, "Beyond the Mat". Championships and accomplishments. 1Funk was named the Honorary Lifetime ECW World Heavyweight Champion by Paul Heyman in 1997 due to Funk's contributions to both ECW and Professional Wrestling in general" 2Terry Funk's first reign occurred while the promotion was an NWA affiliate named Eastern Championship Wrestling, and was prior to the promotion becoming Extreme Championship Wrestling and the title being declared a world title by ECW. Terry Funk held the title again after these events.
1067345	Lust in the Dust is a 1985 Western comedy film starring Divine, Tab Hunter, Cesar Romero, and Lainie Kazan, and directed by Paul Bartel. It takes its title from a longstanding nickname given to the 1946 Western "Duel in the Sun". This was Divine's first film with no connection to John Waters. Plot. Dance-hall girl Rosie Velez (Divine), lost in the desert, is helped to safety by gunman Abel Wood (Tab Hunter). In the town of Chili Verde, at the saloon of Marguerita Ventura (Lainie Kazan), word of a treasure in gold brings Abel into conflict with outlaw Hard Case Williams (Geoffrey Lewis) and his gang. Music. Reception: The film was positively reviewed and was a modest box office success.
154447	Where the Money Is is a 2000 film directed by Marek Kanievska, written by E. Max Frye, and starring Paul Newman, Linda Fiorentino, and Dermot Mulroney. Plot. Legendary bank robber Henry Manning pushes his luck too far and ends up in prison, where he suffers a massive stroke. He is transferred to a nursing home, in the care of Carol Ann McKay, a high school prom queen who married her boyfriend Wayne, the star of her school's football team, and whose glamour days are well behind her. Carol Ann starts to suspect that Henry isn't as sick as he seems, and she and Wayne are soon working with Henry to plan his last and greatest score.
146880	Andrew Alan "Drew" Fuller (born on May 19, 1980) is an American actor and former male model. He is best known for his portrayal of Chris Halliwell in the television series "Charmed" and for playing soldier Trevor LeBlanc on Lifetime's "Army Wives". Early life. Fuller was born in Atherton, California and grew up in Newport Beach; he has a younger sister, Hilary. He has Russian, Scottish and English ancestry. Career. Fuller was discovered by an agent when he was 12 years old, after a family friend put him on the cover of UCLA Magazine. Deciding to wait a few years, Fuller eventually entered the modeling world at age sixteen and quickly became a top model for such companies as Prada, Club Med, and Tommy Hilfiger. He has appeared in many commercials including J.Crew, Subway, Toyota and Pepsi opposite Britney Spears.
584734	Azhagar Malai is a 2009 Tamil language film. It stars RK and Bhanu in the lead roles. Plot. The film is set in a village near Madurai. Pughazhendi (RK) spends all his time drinking and is ridiculed by villagers. In contrast, his elder brother Pandithurai (Nepolean) is respected and admired by everyone. Pandithurai showers love and affection on Pughazh. He even tries to arrange for his wedding hoping that he would reform. But knowing about Pughazh and his habits, nobody comes forward to give their daughter to him. Pughazh who spends all his time with his maternal uncle Kaththamuthu (Vadivelu) comes across Janani (Bhanu). It’s love at first sight for him. Meanwhile, the family of Rathnavelu (Lal), another powerful man in the village, is hellbent on revenging Pandithurai and his family due to previous enmity. They hatch a conspiracy and try to halt the wedding of Pughazh and Janani. Cut to flashback and the reason for ill-feeling between two families is revealed. It is now up to Pughazh to bump off Rathnavelu and restore peace in his family.
584630	Modhi Vilayadu is a Tamil language film released on 24 July 2009. It stars Vinay Rai and Kajal Aggarwal in the lead roles. The film opened to mixed reviews with Indiaglitz.com rating it highly while Behindwoods said "The game lacks excitement". The film was rated with mixed reviews and fared poorly at the box office The Film's plot involving heroine is based on the korean movie 100 Days with Mr. Arrogant. Plot. Rajan Vasudev (Kalabhavan Mani) is an intolerable tycoon who runs the OPM Group of companies spread across the globe. Uday (Vinay Rai) is his only son, a spoilt kid who drives a Ferrari and hangs out with his constant companion Madan (Yuva) and Kaduku (Santhanam) along with a bodyguard (Alse Ram). Uday meets Eashwari (Kajal Aggarwal) a student and in a funny turn of events makes her his maid servant. Soon Madan falls in love with Eashwari who has fallen for Uday. An assassin is hired by rivals of Rajan Vasudev to knock off Uday the only heir to the business empire. But in a bizarre twist, the killer accidentally kills Madan, and Rajan is heartbroken as we find that it was actually Madan who was his real son, while Uday was just a ‘Benami’. A heart broken Rajan abandons Uday who is left in the streets overnight as he is not needed any longer. The rest of the plot is how Uday with the help of Chanakyan (VMC Haneefa), turns the table on his foster dad and gets back his wealth. Music. The film has music of Hariharan - Leslie for the first time in Tamil. The audio launch of this movie held on April 28.
434839	Multiphysics treats simulations that involve multiple physical models or multiple simultaneous physical phenomena. For example, combining chemical kinetics and fluid mechanics or combining finite elements with molecular dynamics. Multiphysics typically involves solving coupled systems of partial differential equations. Many physical simulations involve coupled systems, such as electric and magnetic fields for electromagnetism, pressure and velocity for sound, or the real and the imaginary part of the quantum mechanical wave function. Another case is the mean field approximation for the electronic structure of atoms, where the electric field and the electron wave functions are coupled. Single Discretization Method. Abaqus, ADINA, ANSYS Multiphysics, MSC-NASTRAN, Code_Aster, CFD-ACE+, CFD-FASTRAN, COMSOL Multiphysics, FlexPDE, LS-DYNA, NEi Nastran, CheFEM, Elmer and OOFELIE are some examples of commercially available software packages for simulating multiphysics models. These software packages mainly rely on the Finite Element Method or similar commonplace numerical methods for simulating coupled physics: thermal stress, electromechanical interaction, fluid structure interaction (FSI), fluid flow with heat transport and chemical reactions, electromagnetic fluids (magnetohydrodynamics or plasma), electromagnetically induced heating. In many cases, to get accurate results, it is important to include mutual dependencies where the material properties significant for one field (such as the electric field) vary with the value of another field (such as temperature) and vice versa. Multiple Discretization Methods. There are cases where each subset of partial differential equations has different mathematical behavior, for example when compressible fluid flow is coupled with structural analysis or heat transfer. To perform an optimal simulation in those cases, a different discretization procedure must be applied to each subset. For example, the compressible flow is discretized with a finite volume method and the conjugate heat transfer with a finite element analysis. fluidyn-MP is one of the example of commercially available software package for simulating Multiphysics engineering problems using Multiple Discretization Methods.
583959	Vaaranam Aayiram () is a 2008 Tamil romantic drama written and directed by Gautham Menon. Suriya plays dual lead roles, with Simran , Divya Spandana, and Sameera Reddy . The film had been under production since late 2006, and was released worldwide on November 14, 2008. It was dubbed and released in Telugu as "Surya s/o Krishnan". The film illustrates the theme of how a father often came across his son's life as a hero and inspiration, whose death was deeply mourned in the end. As a tribute to the father of the director, the film opened in several countries with critical acclaim. The film was produced by Venu Ravichandran and has musical score by Harris Jayaraj, making "Vaaranam Aayiram" his final project with Gautham Menon before the formal break-up of their partnership. It won many awards including the National Film Award for Best Feature Film in Tamil. The film was also a commercial success, eventually becoming a blockbuster in Suriya's career. Plot. The film begins with elderly Krishnan (Suriya) returning home after a haircut. Once he reaches home he vomits a profuse amounts of blood and is kept to bed rest. After the doctor checks him, he is reported dead after a few moments of grief with his wife Malini (Simran), daughter Shreya, and daughter-in-law Priya (Divya Spandana). This news is informed to his son Surya (Suriya) who is in Kashmir on a military mission traveling in a helicopter, to rescue a kidnapped journalist from terrorists . He begins to shed tears and starts thinking about his memorable moments with his father and the story of how his parents loved each other during their college days. Krishnan is a student in the same college where Malini studies. They fall in love and get married. They soon have a son, Surya. He grows up as a friend to his father. He joins an engineering college near Tiruchi and parts from his family. There he takes part in cultural activities and develops his guitar skills. When he is on a train back home after completion of college, he meets Meghna (Sameera Reddy) who is doing Engineering in Regional College of Engineering,Tiruchirapalli. He soon proposes to her. She rejects him, saying that they have known each other for a very short period and it's not possible to fall in love without taking time to understand him. Surya then tells her that wherever she goes, he will find her. Surya is disturbed constantly by Meghna's thoughts and consequently ends up going to her house. There she reveals him that she is going to University of California, Berkeley in a week to pursue higher education, Surya bids adieu to her. After that Krishnan, Surya's father, gets his first mild heart attack and is admitted to a hospital. Then on, an inspired and Surya obtains projects, and finally builds a house for his parents. After that, he goes to the United States, with the acceptance of his father, and meets Meghna in San Francisco. She gets astonished and starts liking Surya.They have the time of their lives there. Meghna is convinced that he is the right person and that he will be accepted by her father. Their happiness does not last long when she goes to Oklahoma City for a project. Surya joins her later traveling by the Greyhound bus. When he reaches there, he witnesses the Oklahoma City bombing and realizes that Meghna is amongst those injured. She dies on her way to the hospital. He meets Shankar Menon at the airport who tries to console him with words and offers him encouragement.A heartbroken Surya returns to India.
65163	Bernhard Placidus Johann Nepomuk Bolzano or Bernard Bolzano in English, (October 5, 1781 – December 18, 1848), was a Bohemian mathematician, logician, philosopher, theologian and Catholic priest. He is also known for his antimilitarist views. Bolzano is an author of German expression, which was his mother tongue. His work came to prominence posthumously for its major part. Family. Bolzano was the son of two pious Catholics. His father, Bernard Pompeius Bolzano, was born in northern Italy and moved to Prague, where he married Maria Cecilia Maurer, the German-speaking daughter of a Prague merchant. Only two of their twelve children lived to adulthood. Career. Bolzano entered the University of Prague in 1796 and studied mathematics, philosophy and physics. Starting in 1800, he also began studying theology, becoming a Catholic priest in 1804. He was appointed to the then newly created chair of philosophy of religion in 1805. He proved to be a popular lecturer not just in religion but also in philosophy, and was elected head of the philosophy department in 1818. Bolzano alienated many faculty and church leaders with his teachings of the social waste of militarism and the needlessness of war. He urged a total reform of the educational, social, and economic systems that would direct the nation's interests toward peace rather than toward armed conflict between nations. Upon his refusal to recant his beliefs, Bolzano was dismissed from the university in 1819. His political convictions (which he was inclined to share with others with some frequency) eventually proved to be too liberal for the Austrian authorities. He was exiled to the countryside and at that point devoted his energies to his writings on social, religious, philosophical, and mathematical matters. Although forbidden to publish in mainstream journals as a condition of his exile, Bolzano continued to develop his ideas and publish them either on his own or in obscure Eastern European journals. In 1842 he moved back to Prague, where he died in 1848. Works. Bolzano's posthumously published work "Paradoxien des Unendlichen (The Paradoxes of the Infinite)" was greatly admired by many of the eminent logicians who came after him, including Charles Sanders Peirce, Georg Cantor, and Richard Dedekind. Bolzano's main claim to fame, however, is his 1837 "Wissenschaftslehre" ("Theory of Science"), a work in four volumes that covered not only philosophy of science in the modern sense but also logic, epistemology and scientific pedagogy. The logical theory that Bolzano developed in this work has come to be acknowledged as ground-breaking. Other works are a four-volume "Lehrbuch der Religionswissenschaft" ("Textbook of the science of religion") and the metaphysical work "Athanasia", a defense of the immortality of the soul. Bolzano also did valuable work in mathematics, which remained virtually unknown until Otto Stolz rediscovered many of his lost journal articles and republished them in 1881. "Wissenschaftslehre" ("Theory of Science"). In his 1837 "Wissenschaftslehre" Bolzano attempted to provide logical foundations for all sciences, building on abstractions like part-relation, abstract objects, attributes, sentence-shapes, ideas and propositions in themselves, sums and sets, collections, substances, adherences, subjective ideas, judgments, and sentence-occurrences. These attempts were basically an extension of his earlier thoughts in the philosophy of mathematics, for example his 1810 "Beiträge" where he emphasized the distinction between the objective relationship between logical consequences and our subjective recognition of these connections. For Bolzano, it was not enough that we merely have "confirmation" of natural or mathematical truths, but rather it was the proper role of the sciences (both pure and applied) to seek out "justification" in terms of the fundamental truths that may or may not appear to be obvious to our intuitions. Introduction to "Wissenschaftslehre". Bolzano begins his work by explaining what he means by "theory of science", and the relation between our knowledge, truths and sciences. Human knowledge, he states, is made of all truths (or true propositions) that men know or have known. This is, however, only a very small fraction of all the truths that are out there, although still too much for one human being to comprehend. Therefore, our knowledge is divided into more accessible parts. Such a collection of truths is what Bolzano calls a science ("Wissenschaft"). It is important to note that not all true propositions of a science have to be known to men; hence, this is how we can make discoveries in a science. To better understand and comprehend the truths of a science, men have created textbooks ("Lehrbuch"), which of course only contain the true propositions of the science known to men. But how to know where to divide our knowledge, that is, which truths belong together? Bolzano explains that we will ultimately know this through some reflection, but that the resulting rules of how to divide our knowledge into sciences will be a science in itself. This science, that tells us which truths belong together and should be explained in a textbook, is the "Theory of Science" ("Wissenschaftslehre"). Metaphysics. In the "Wissenschaftslehre", Bolzano is mainly concerned with three realms: (1) The realm of language, consisting in words and sentences.
1067864	The Tillman Story is a 2010 documentary film directed by Amir Bar-Lev. The film is about the 2004 death of U.S. Army Ranger Pat Tillman in the war in Afghanistan, the cover-up of the true circumstances of his death, and his family's struggle to unearth the truth. It was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival. The film is narrated by Josh Brolin. Reception. French journalist Marjolaine Gout gave the film 4 stars out of 5. She wrote about it as a “stunning” documentary exposing the social practice in the United States using history and media to federate a nation. She explains that the movie shows the manipulation of the mass with a constant staging of their life. She talks also about the concept of heroism present in this film. She makes a link between Daniel Boone and Patrick Tillman in the use of their identity as legend and symbol. The film currently has a 93% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 82 reviews.
587548	Krishna more commonly known as Krishnudu is an actor in the Telugu film industry. He has mostly done supporting roles until Vinayakudu (2008), where he was the male lead. Background. Krishnudu was born and brought up in a family of landlords in Chintalapalli, Razole, East Godavari District, Andhra Pradesh, India. His great grandfather was Alluri Varha Venkata Suryanarayana Raju Zamindar of Chinchinada. He is known for his comedy. Social Networking. He has joined twitter but not using that now. He is currently getting connected to his friend and fans by Facebook.
1485565	Samantha Bee (born October 25, 1969) is a Canadian comedic actress and author best known as a cast member on "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart". Bee surpassed Stephen Colbert in 2012 as The Daily Show's longest-serving regular correspondent (both active and all-time). Early life. Bee was born in Toronto, Ontario. Bee said of her family, "Dating from well before the turn of the 20th century, if there has ever been a successful, happy marriage in my family lineage, I've yet to hear about it." Education and early career. She studied theatre at the University of Ottawa, McGill University in Montreal and George Brown Theatre School in Toronto. She was one of the four founding members of Toronto-based sketch comedy troupe The Atomic Fireballs, with whom she performed before being hired by the "Daily Show" in 2003. Career. Bee has been a correspondent for "The Daily Show" since July 10, 2003. On that program, Bee has demonstrated an ability to coax people into caricaturing themselves—particularly in segments like "Kill Drill", on hunters and fossil fuel executives claiming to be environmentalists; "They So Horny" on the dearth of Asian men in U.S. pornography; "Tropical Repression," on Ed Heeney, a Florida politician running his campaign based on opposition to gay rights; "The Undecided", an over-the-top look at the infamous undecided voters leading up to the 2004 U.S. presidential elections; and "Samantha Bee's So You Want To Bee A..." report series, which humorously caricatures the way in which one can easily obtain a certain job, like becoming a 527 group, and a segment entitled "NILFs" ("News I'd Like to F#@k"), discussing the sexiness of news anchors: "CNN has the wholesome girl-next-door NILFs, the kind you can bring home to meet your mother. MSNBC has the dirty-over-30 NILFs. Fox has the filthy NILFs who will report anything. They're the "Hustler" of NILFs." Bee played the title role in a live action production of "Sailor Moon" at the Canadian National Exhibition and has had guest appearances on several television shows. She had her first starring role in a feature film in 2004 with the Canadian independent film "Ham & Cheese", alongside veteran Canadian comics Scott Thompson and Dave Foley. In December 2005, on "The O'Reilly Factor", Bill O'Reilly used a clip of Bee from "The Daily Show" as an example of "The War on Christmas", presenting it as having aired recently. The satirical clip featured Bee mentioning how Christmas was the only religious holiday that's also a federal holiday in the United States, with O'Reilly talking about "Secular Central...excuse me, Comedy Central". Jon Stewart discussed this on the air, claiming he could not recall doing that piece. Stewart invited Bee out, and unlike in the clip that aired on "Factor", Bee was visibly eight months pregnant. Though the two were coy insofar as explicitly mentioning her pregnancy, Bee joked it was obvious that the footage O'Reilly showed was a year old (it originally aired in 2004) because she had slightly different highlights in her hair, before stating that her water had just broken. Bee was the sole female correspondent on "The Daily Show" from 2006 until the debut of Kristen Schaal in March 2008. She was "The Daily Show"'s first non-U.S. citizen correspondent. Bee was recognized with a 2005 Canadian Comedy Award for Best Female TV Performance for her work on "The Daily Show". In 2009, she appeared in the original cast of "Love, Loss, and What I Wore". That same year, she had a cameo role in the comedy "Whatever Works", written and directed by Woody Allen. Bee authored the book "I Know I Am, But What Are You?", which was published in 2010. She is currently developing a sitcom about a celebrity chef with her husband Jason Jones. In 2012, she appeared in Ken Finkleman's series "Good God" as Shandy Sommers, a devoutly Christian cable news host, She now plays a role in the cartoon series Bounty Hunter. Guest appearances. On January 20, 2008, Bee finished as the highest scoring celebrity in the CBC game show "Test The Nation". She had a minor role in Episode 15, , of "Little Mosque on the Prairie". Bee also appeared in the 12th episode of Season 20 of "Law & Order" ("Blackmail", episode 445), which aired on January 15, 2010. She played a minor role on an episode of the HBO series "Bored to Death". Bee appeared as herself on the "Madame President" episode of "The Electric Company" in which she moderated a debate between two candidates Lisa Heffenbacher and Francine Carruthers running for president of a book club. Later in the show, she appeared as a newscaster announcing the election results finally choosing Lisa to be the winner. Samantha also did a guest voice role of a talk show hostess named Pam in the Season 2 finale of "Bob's Burgers" as well as providing the voice for Lyla Lolliberry in the episode "Sidetracked" in Season 4 of "Phineas and Ferb". Personal life. Married to actor and fellow "Daily Show" cast member Jason Jones since 2001, Bee lives in Manhattan, New York. In late 2005, Jones became a freelance "Daily Show" correspondent while Bee reduced her workload due to her pregnancy. In January 2006, the couple welcomed their first child, Piper Bee-Jones. Bee returned to "The Daily Show" in March 2006. On January 24, 2008, Bee announced a second pregnancy on air during a bit about the media's coverage of the 2008 presidential campaign. On June 20, 2008, their second child, Fletcher Bee-Jones, was born. In an interview with Kate Fillion in "Maclean's" magazine (June 7, 2010), Samantha said, "I'm pregnant with my third child." She had previously told the "Globe and Mail" on May 14, 2010, that she and Jones were, "...just procreating like we're farmers". This was then referenced on the June 3, 2010 episode of the "Daily Show," where they made a point of humorously pointing out Bee's third pregnancy in two years. During Olivia Munn's first report she referred to Bee as the "always pregnant lady" and Bee and Jones joked about attempting to conceive a fourth child even before the third was born. Their third child, a daughter named Ripley, was born in late 2010 and Bee was scheduled to return to television in November.
1067627	"Let's Go to Prison" is an American comedy that was released in theatres November 17, 2006, starring Dax Shepard, Will Arnett and Chi McBride, and directed by Bob Odenkirk. The movie was loosely based on the non-fiction book, "You Are Going to Prison" by Jim Hogshire. Filming took place at the defunct Joliet Prison in Joliet, Illinois. The same prison is featured in the beginning of "The Blues Brothers" and the first season of the Fox show "Prison Break". Plot. The movie takes the perspective of John Lyshitski (Dax Shepard) who has spent most of his life in prison, serving three different sentences (starting when he was eight, when he stole the Publisher's Clearing House van). Each of his three trials were before Judge Nelson Biederman III, who seemed to show no mercy passing down indiscriminately harsh sentences. After being released from his third sentence, John decides to take revenge on Biederman. After trying to determine when Biederman would be presiding over his next case, he discovers (much to his dissatisfaction) that he had died three days prior to his release. He turns his attention to the judge's brash son, Nelson Biederman IV (Will Arnett). At a dedication ceremony for Nelson III, John sneaks into Nelson's BMW, where he steals his change, spits in his coffee, and exhausts his emergency inhaler. After the ceremony, Nelson IV yells at his attorney (who has the speakerphone on in the fully occupied board room) clearly upset about having to go through such an ordeal, demanding that they leave him be and have a Fresca ready for him upon his arrival. He drives down the road and, finding his inhaler empty, immediately panics and hyperventilates. He stops at a pharmacy and scrambles through the shelves, desperately seeking some kind of replacement for the inhaler he lost. The pharmacy owners think he's another junkie, seeking some kind of fix. After finding and using an inhaler, he hides behind a counter and holds up the inhaler. The storeowner, however, mistakes the inhaler for a tiny pistol which leads the owners to call the police.
330389	Richard Wesley Hamming (February 11, 1915 – January 7, 1998) was an American mathematician whose work had many implications for computer science and telecommunications. His contributions include the Hamming code (which makes use of a Hamming matrix), the Hamming window (described in Section 5.8 of his book "Digital Filters"), Hamming numbers, sphere-packing (or hamming bound) and the Hamming distance. Biography. He received his bachelor's degree from the University of Chicago in 1937, a master's degree from the University of Nebraska in 1939, and finally a Ph.D. from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1942. He was a professor at the University of Louisville during World War II, and left to work on the Manhattan Project in 1945, programming one of the earliest electronic digital computers to calculate the solution to equations provided by the project's physicists. The objective of the program was to discover if the detonation of an atomic bomb would ignite the atmosphere. The result of the computation was that this would not occur, and so the United States used the bomb, first in a test in New Mexico, and then twice against Japan. Later, from 1946 to 1976, he worked at the Bell Telephone Laboratories, where he collaborated with Claude E. Shannon. During this period, he was an Adjunct Professor at the City College of New York, School of Engineering. On July 23, 1976 he moved to the Naval Postgraduate School, where he worked as an Adjunct Professor until 1997, when he became Professor Emeritus. He died a year later in 1998. He was a founder and president of the Association for Computing Machinery. His philosophy on scientific computing appears as preface to his 1962 book on numerical methods: "The purpose of computing is insight, not numbers." Awards and professional recognition. The IEEE Richard W. Hamming Medal, named after him, is an award given annually by Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), for "exceptional contributions to information sciences, systems and technology", and he was the first recipient of this medal.
1505773	Helen Hanft (April 4, 1934 - May 30, 2013) was an American actress. Life and career. Hanft was born in The Bronx, the eldest of three daughters born to Esther and Benjamin Hanft. Her father was a prominent public relations executive for several national Jewish organizations. Hanft was persuaded by her father to audition for the High School of Performing Arts, now part of Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts, and she won admission. Hanft started her theatrical career in the early 1960s during the Golden Age of experimental theater at such venues as La MaMa E.T.C. and Caffe Cino, and in a few years she became known as "the Ethel Merman of off-off Broadway" for her comedic talent. She often played eccentric, flamboyant, raunchy characters in many successful plays like Tom Eyen's "Why Hanna's Skirt Won't Stay Down", "The White Whore and the Bit Player" (she also appeared in the Cannon Films version of the play), "Areatha in the Ice Palace", "My Next Husband Will Be a Beauty", "Give My Regards to Off Off Broadway", "Women Behind Bars", "Italian American Reconciliation", and "The Neon Woman" (the last co-starring Divine). She had great success in the David Rabe play "In the Boom Boom Room" at Joseph Papp's Public Theater. She appeared in many Off-Off Broadway plays by Tom Eyen. and Stephen Holt. She appeared in "The Dirty Little Girl with the Paper Flower in Her Hair Is Demented", "Who Killed My Bald Sister Sophie", "Reety in Hell", "The Kitty Glitter Story", "Stoop", "Bambi Levine, Please Shut Up!", and as Judy Garland dying in her bathroom in "London Loo". She appeared as herself in two documentary features, "Beautiful Darling" about Candy Darlng, and "I Am Divine", about the life of the performer Divine. In the middle 1970s Hanft began appearing in movies, sometimes in cameo roles, including "Manhattan", "Stardust Memories", "The Purple Rose of Cairo", "New York Stories", 1989). She was also a favorite of Paul Mazursky, who cast her in "Next Stop, Greenwich Village", "Willie & Phil", "Arthur", "License To Drive", "Honky Tonk Freeway", "Moonstruck", and "Used People". In the late 1990s she began appearaning on episodes of "Law & Order", while continuing to make the occasional stage appearance in New York City.
1724694	Undiscovered is a 2005 film directed by Meiert Avis. The plot is about a group of aspiring entertainers who intend to establish their careers in Los Angeles. Released on August 26, 2005, the film received a largely negative reception - as of January 8, 2008 the film had a 7% rating at Rotten Tomatoes. The web site Box Office Mojo ranks it as the film with the largest percentage drop-off in ticket sales from its opening weekend to its second weekend in theatrical release: 86.4%. The film was originally called "Wannabe", but was retitled prior to release. "Undiscovered" was the first significant film role for Ashlee Simpson, who had previously acted on the television series "7th Heaven" before launching a singing career. "Undiscovered" is also the name of one of Simpson's songs, the closing track from her debut album "Autobiography", the song is included in the film. The DVD of the film was released on December 26, 2005. Plot. An aspiring New York model, Brier (Pell James) falls in love at first sight with a struggling musician, Luke (Steven Strait) when they cross paths on a subway train. Having achieved success as a model, she decides to move to L.A. to launch an acting career. She wanted to become a dancer but it didn't work out. With the support of her agent and sometimes surrogate mom, Carrie (Carrie Fisher), she lands a spot in an acting class where she befriends another would-be actress, Clea (Ashlee Simpson). While out on the town, Brier crosses paths with Luke once again in a club called 'The Mint'. The two girls realize that he is actually a good musician, and they then decide to help him and set out to create some L.A. style hype to get him noticed by a record company. As his profile rises, so do the demands of his budding new career and they both discover that the price of fame may be higher than anyone expected. Awards and nominations. One nomination at the 2005 Golden Raspberry Awards:
1071916	Life and career. Sanada was born in Tokyo. Originally aiming to be an action star, starting with Shorinji Kempo, he eventually took up Kyokushin kaikan. Sanada began training at age 11 with actor and martial arts star Sonny Chiba's Japan Action Club where he developed good all-round martial arts ability, and soon became Chiba's protégé. Sanada's martial arts film career led him in contact with Michelle Yeoh, whom he later starred with in Danny Boyle's "Sunshine". He also has a long-standing friendship with Jackie Chan, although he did not star in a film with him before "Rush Hour 3" in 2007. Sanada has often been credited, in his younger days, as either Henry, Harry or Duke Sanada. Sanada has established himself as a character actor who is adept at playing a variety of roles. Sanada was first noticed as a serious actor in the movie "Mahjong Hourouki" directed by Makoto Wada. Wada and Sanada's relationship may be similar to that of John Huston and Humphrey Bogart. Since "Mahjong Hourouki," Sanada has acted in every one of Wada's movies, works filled with humor and a nostalgic attachment for classic movies.
1291686	"The Black Waters of Echo's Pond" is a 2009 fantasy horror film directed by Italo-American filmmaker Gabriel Bologna and stars Robert Patrick, Danielle Harris and James Duval. Plot. Party animal Rick (James Duval), wild child Veronique (Mircea Monroe), uptight Robert (M.D. Walton) and six other friends vacation in a plush mansion, where they find a mysterious board game. But the game proves dangerous when it draws out the nastiest qualities in all of its players. As buried fears, resentments, greed and attractions quickly and unsettlingly emerge, the game's goal becomes crystal clear: stay alive. Production. The film was shot in the United States in Hollywood, Los Angeles, Malibou Lake, Agoura, Topanga Canyon, California and finally in Turkey. On 20 March 2010 Parallel Media released the Official six minute Theatrical TV spot. The film is based on a screenplay from Bloody Disgusting author Sean Clark, Michael Berenson and the director himself Gabriel Bologna. Bologna cast in the lead roles Robert Patrick, Danielle Harris, James Duval, Nick Mennell, Electra and Elise Avellan. Release. It premiered on October 11, 2009 as part of the Freak Show Horror Film Festival at the yearly Spooky Empire horror convention. and the limited theatrical release was on April 9, 2010. The film's DVD release was long-delayed, with some thinking it would never come to fruition. In January 2011, the filmmakers announced there were actively seeking a distribution deal and promised fans that a DVD would be released. The film will be released on DVD & Blu-Ray on September 10, 2013, four years after its original theatrical run. Reception. "The Black Waters of Echo's Pond" has received negative reviews, earning a 22% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Soundtrack. The score was composed by Italo-American jazz-soloist and film composer Harry Manfredini.
1102315	Euclid ( ; "Eukleidēs"), fl. 300 BC, also known as Euclid of Alexandria, was a Greek mathematician, often referred to as the "Father of Geometry". He was active in Alexandria during the reign of Ptolemy I (323–283 BC). His "Elements" is one of the most influential works in the history of mathematics, serving as the main textbook for teaching mathematics (especially geometry) from the time of its publication until the late 19th or early 20th century. In the "Elements", Euclid deduced the principles of what is now called Euclidean geometry from a small set of axioms. Euclid also wrote works on perspective, conic sections, spherical geometry, number theory and rigor. "Euclid" is the anglicized version of the Greek name , meaning "Good Glory". Life. Little is known about Euclid's life, as there are only a handful of references to him. The date and place of Euclid's birth and the date and circumstances of his death are unknown, and only roughly estimated in proximity to contemporary figures mentioned in references. The few historical references to Euclid were written centuries after he lived, by Proclus and Pappus of Alexandria. Although the purported citation of Euclid by Archimedes has been judged to be an interpolation by later editors of his works, it is still believed that Euclid wrote his works before those of Archimedes. In addition, the "royal road" anecdote is questionable since it is similar to a story told about Menaechmus and Alexander the Great. In the only other key reference to Euclid, Pappus briefly mentioned in the fourth century that Apollonius "spent a very long time with the pupils of Euclid at Alexandria, and it was thus that he acquired such a scientific habit of thought." "Elements". Although many of the results in "Elements" originated with earlier mathematicians, one of Euclid's accomplishments was to present them in a single, logically coherent framework, making it easy to use and easy to reference, including a system of rigorous mathematical proofs that remains the basis of mathematics 23 centuries later. There is no mention of Euclid in the earliest remaining copies of the "Elements", and most of the copies say they are "from the edition of Theon" or the "lectures of Theon", while the text considered to be primary, held by the Vatican, mentions no author. The only reference that historians rely on of Euclid having written the "Elements" was from Proclus, who briefly in his "Commentary on the Elements" ascribes Euclid as its author. Although best known for its geometric results, the "Elements" also includes number theory. It considers the connection between perfect numbers and Mersenne primes, the infinitude of prime numbers, Euclid's lemma on factorization (which leads to the fundamental theorem of arithmetic on uniqueness of prime factorizations), and the Euclidean algorithm for finding the greatest common divisor of two numbers. The geometrical system described in the "Elements" was long known simply as "geometry", and was considered to be the only geometry possible. Today, however, that system is often referred to as "Euclidean geometry" to distinguish it from other so-called "non-Euclidean geometries" that mathematicians discovered in the 19th century. Other works. In addition to the "Elements", at least five works of Euclid have survived to the present day. They follow the same logical structure as "Elements", with definitions and proved propositions. Other works are credibly attributed to Euclid, but have been lost.
1350135	Seventeen Moments of Spring (, trans. "Semnadtsat mgnoveniy vesny") is a 1973 Soviet twelve-part television miniseries, directed by Tatyana Lioznova and based on the novel of the same title by Yulian Semyonov. The series portrays the exploits of Maxim Isaev, a Soviet spy operating in Nazi Germany under the name Max Otto von Stierlitz, depicted by Vyacheslav Tikhonov. Stierlitz is tasked with disrupting the negotiations between Karl Wolff and Allen Dulles taking place in Switzerland, aimed at forging a separate peace between Germany and the Western Allies.
1245575	Marjoe is a 1972 American documentary film produced and directed by Howard Smith and Sarah Kernochan about the life of evangelist Marjoe Gortner. It won the 1972 Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature. Story. Marjoe was a precocious child preacher with extraordinary talents, who was immensely popular in the American South. His parents earned large sums of money off him up until the point he outgrew his novelty. Marjoe rejoined the ministry as a young adult solely as a means of earning a living, and not as a believer; he spent the next several years using his fame and status as an evangelist to defraud a small fortune out of individuals both through tent revivals and televangelism. Eventually, Gortner suffered a crisis of conscience and decided to renounce his ways, offering the documentary film crew unrestricted access to him during his final revival tour. The film contains scenes from genuine revival meetings showing Gortner preaching and praying for people, interspersed with footage of Gortner admitting on camera that he was a non-believer and revealing the tactics used by himself and other evangelists to manipulate people. Release. At the time of the film's release he generated considerable press, but the movie was not shown widely in theaters in the Southern United States, based on the fears of the distributor over the outrage it would cause in the Bible Belt. Soundtrack. A soundtrack was released by Warner Bros. Records, consisting of sermons and spoken word segments by Marjoe (from age 4), intermixed with songs. "Save All My Brothers", the film's theme song, was written by Sarah Kernochan and Joseph Brooks (who also arranged), and sung by Jerry Keller. Rediscovery and re-release. Although released on VHS, the film had long been out of print and had deteriorated. In 2002 the negative and other elements were found in a vault in New York City. Once the rights were secured, the film was restored with funds provided by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. On November 15, 2005, in New York City, the IFC Center showed "Marjoe" as the closing film in a series of documentaries called "Stranger Than Fiction". In their program they called it "a lost gem." The restored film has since been released on DVD. Awards. The film won the 1972 Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature.
1065841	Baby the Rain Must Fall is a 1965 American drama film starring Lee Remick and Steve McQueen, directed by Robert Mulligan. Dramatist Horton Foote, who wrote the screenplay, based it on his play "The Travelling Lady." Plot. Georgette Thomas and her six-year-old daughter Margaret Rose travel to a small southern Texas town to meet her irresponsible rockabilly singer/guitarist husband, Henry Thomas, when he is released from prison after serving time for stabbing a man during a drunken brawl. He tries to make a home for his family, but Kate Dawson, the aging spinster who raised him after his parents died, remains a formidable presence in his life and tries to sabotage his efforts, threatening to have him returned to prison if he fails to acquiesce to her demands. When the woman finally dies, Henry drunkenly destroys her possessions and desecrates her gravesite. He is returned to prison, and Georgette and Margaret Rose leave town with local sheriff Slim. Production. The film was shot on location in the Texas cities of Bay City, Columbus, Lockhart, and Wharton, and a scene where Lee Remick works at a hamburger joint was filmed at the 31 Flavors ice cream store in Tarzana, California-- The title song, with music composed by Elmer Bernstein and lyrics written by Ernie Sheldon, was performed by Glenn Yarbrough during the opening credits. Yarborough's recording reached #12 on the Billboard Hot 100 and #2 on the Easy Listening chart. As a side note, in one scene where McQueen sings at a bar with his rockabilly band, one of his bandmates is singer-song writer Glen Campbell, who is uncredited in the film. Critical reception. Bosley Crowther, film critic for the "New York Times," observed, "As honest and humble as is the effort to make the viewer sense a woman's baffled love for a shifty and mixed-up fellow in "Baby, the Rain Must Fall," there is a major and totally neglected weakness in this film from a Horton Foote play that troubles one's mind throughout the picture and leaves one sadly let-down at the end. It is the failure of the screenwriter--Mr. Foote himself--to clarify why the object of the woman's deep affection is as badly mixed-up as he is and why the woman, who seems a sensible person, doesn't make a single move to straighten him out...Granting that the wife is astonished and distressingly mystified at the neurotic behavior of her husband, this doesn't mean that the viewer is satisfied to be kept in the dark as to the reasons for the stark and macabre goings-on...As it is, we only see that these two people are frustrated and heart-broken by something that's bigger than the both of them. But we don't know what it is."
588824	Puru Raajkumar is an Indian film actor. He is the son of veteran actor Raaj Kumar. He was also arrested in a hit and run accident in which several sleeping pavement dwellers were killed, although he was never convicted for the same. Career. He made his film debut with the 1996 film "Bal Bramhachari" which was released only a few months after the death of his father. The film failed to do well at the box office. After a three year hiatus, Puru returned with a negative role in the film "Hamara Dil Aapke Paas Hai" (2000) which was a hit at the box office. He also had a cameo in "Mission Kashmir" which released that same year. After acting in a string of B-grade films, he appeared in the huge multi-starrer film "LOC Kargil" (2003) as a Gurkha soldier and recently appeared in "Umrao Jaan" (2006) and "Veer" (2010).
1062559	Days of Heaven is a 1978 U.S. romantic drama film written and directed by Terrence Malick and starring Richard Gere, Brooke Adams, Sam Shepard and Linda Manz. Set in 1916, it tells the story of two poor lovers, Bill and Abby, as they travel to the Texas Panhandle to harvest crops for a wealthy farmer. Bill encourages Abby to claim the fortune of the dying farmer by tricking him into a false marriage. This results in an unstable love triangle and a series of unfortunate events.
586685	Muqaddar Ka Sikandar (English: "Conqueror of Destiny") is a 1978 Indian Hindi drama film. Produced and directed by Prakash Mehra, it stars Amitabh Bachchan in his fifth of nine films with Prakash Mehra to date. The films also stars Vinod Khanna, Raakhee, Rekha and Amjad Khan. The film was the top grossing hit of 1978. The film was the third biggest hit of the decade after Sholay and Bobby. The film was such a huge hit, that people used to stand in queues, waiting endlessly, to buy the film's tickets. Sometimes the crowds slept in front of the cinema halls overnight in their wait for the tickets. Although, it was nominated for several major Filmfare Awards, including Best Film, it failed to win in any category. It was remade into the Telugu film "Prema Tarangalu" (1980). Plot. Orphaned and abused at a very young age, a young boy faces the harsh side of life as he struggles to make a living by slaving day and night working in the house of a wealthy man named Ramnath. Ramnath does not like him: it is later revealed that another orphan had taken advantage of his kindness in the past, hence his animosity. Ramnath's daughter Kaamna, however, empathizes with the boy and they form a friendship. Eventually he is adopted by a Muslim woman who also works for Ramnath, Fatima, who decides to name him Sikandar. On the occasion of Kaamna's birthday Sikandar, who had promised to replace one of her dolls which he'd broken, steals an expensive doll from a shop to give as a gift. However, Ramnath refuses to let the boy attend the party, and when Sikandar breaks into Kaamna's room to deliver the doll he is caught and accused of trying to rob the house. He and his mother are banished from Ramnath's home. Shortly thereafter, Fatima dies, leaving young Sikandar with the responsibility of looking after her daughter, Mehroo. As Sikandar is crying in the graveyard, a fakir comes to him and asks him to embrace the woes of life and find happiness in sadness, for then he would become the conqueror of fate. The sequence cuts to a grown up Sikandar (Amitabh Bachchan) zooming on his motorbike singing his favourite tune. It is then revealed that Sikandar has amassed a fortune by turning in smuggled goods to the police and receiving the reward payouts. With all his wealth he has managed to build an impressive house for himself along with setting up a profitable business. Sikandar still has not forgotten Kaamna (Raakhee) from his childhood. She and her father have fallen on hard times, and Sikandar is anonymously supporting them. Eventually he gets up the nerve to try to talk to Kaamna, but she still believes that he betrayed her family, and she snubs him. Sikandar is upset by the refusal and becomes a heavy drinker. He also visits Zohra Begam's (Rekha) kotha on a regular basis. One night in the bar Sikandar meets up with Advocate Vishal (Vinod Khanna) and a friendship is formed between them when Vishal risks his own life to save Sikandar from a bomb blast. Sikandar introduces Vishal to Ramnath and the two begin to work together. Zohra Begam eventually falls in love with Sikandar, and this in turn angers Dilawar (Amjad Khan) a hard core criminal who loves Zohra and will kill any one who lays an eye on her. Upon finding that Sikandar is frequently visiting Zohra, Dilawar confronts Sikandar and in the ensuing fight is thrashed by him. He swears to kill Sikandar. Kaamna discovers Sikandar's kindness to her family and goes to thank him. Encouraged, Sikandar tries to profess his love to Kaamna through a love letter. Because Sikandar himself is illiterate, Vishal transcribes the letter for him, but the plan backfires when Kaamna mistakes the letter as actually being from Vishal. Vishal, unaware that Kaamna is the girl Sikandar loves, reciprocates her love, and the two begin to date. Sikandar, upon learning this, struggles with his emotions but decides he must sacrifice his love for the sake of his friendship with Vishal. Vishal and Kaamna plan to marry. Sikandar's visits to Zohra Begum have hampered his reputation, and his sister Mehroo's upcoming marriage is at risk of being cancelled because of this habit. Vishal then visits Zohra and offers to pay her for the rest of his life if she will leave Sikandar alone. Zohra, upon learning the reason, promises Vishal that she would sooner die than let Sikandar visit her again. Later, Sikandar arrives at Zohra's and she refuses to let him in. Sikandar demands entry, and when Zohra is unable to stop him she kills herself by swallowing a diamond, and dies in his arms. Dilawar in the meanwhile has formed an alliance with Sikandar's arch enemy, JD, and upon learning of Zohra's death hatches a plan to destroy Sikandar and his family. Kaamna and Mehroo are both preparing for their weddings; JD and his henchmen kidnap Sikandar's sister Mehroo but Vishal follows them and rescues her. Dilawar kidnaps Kaamna, but Sikandar follows him. He rescues Kaamna and sends her home while he battles Dilawar. In the final battle both Dilawar and Sikandar are mortally wounded, and Sikandar tells Dilawar that he never loved Zohra. A dying Sikandar reaches the wedding of Kaamna and Vishal. Just as the wedding ceremony is completed, Sikandar collapses. His dying words inadvertently reveal his love for Kaamna, and Vishal sings him his favourite song, "Life is going to betray you someday...Death is your true love as it'll take you along..." Sikandar's entire life flashes before him and he dies in Vishal's arms just as the song is completed. Soundtrack. The Soundtrack was composed by the duo of the brothers Kalyanji Anandji, with the lyrics by Anjaan. Boxoffice. Made on a budget of the film grossed over in India, the film was the highest grossing film of the year and Boxofficeindia.com declared it a Blockbuster.
1092277	Sir Roger Penrose (born 8 August 1931), is an English mathematical physicist, recreational mathematician and philosopher. He is the Emeritus Rouse Ball Professor of Mathematics at the Mathematical Institute of the University of Oxford, as well as an Emeritus Fellow of Wadham College. Penrose is internationally renowned for his scientific work in mathematical physics, in particular for his contributions to general relativity and cosmology. He has received a number of prizes and awards, including the 1988 Wolf Prize for physics, which he shared with Stephen Hawking for their contribution to our understanding of the universe. Early life and academia. Born in Colchester, Essex, England, Roger Penrose is a son of Lionel S. Penrose and Margaret Leathes, and the grandson of the physiologist John Beresford Leathes. Penrose is the brother of mathematician Oliver Penrose and of chess Grandmaster Jonathan Penrose. Penrose attended University College School and University College, London, where he graduated with a first class degree in mathematics. In 1955, while still a student, Penrose reintroduced the E. H. Moore generalized matrix inverse, also known as the Moore–Penrose inverse, after it had been reinvented by Arne Bjerhammar (1951). Penrose earned his Ph.D. at Cambridge (St John's College) in 1958, writing a thesis on "tensor methods in algebraic geometry" under algebraist and geometer John A. Todd. He devised and popularised the Penrose triangle in the 1950s, describing it as "impossibility in its purest form" and exchanged material with the artist M. C. Escher, whose earlier depictions of impossible objects partly inspired it. Escher's Waterfall, and Ascending and Descending were in turn inspired by Penrose. As reviewer Manjit Kumar puts it: In 1965, at Cambridge, Penrose proved that singularities (such as black holes) could be formed from the gravitational collapse of immense, dying stars. This work was extended by Hawking to prove the Penrose–Hawking singularity theorems. In 1967, Penrose invented the twistor theory which maps geometric objects in Minkowski space into the 4-dimensional complex space with the metric signature (2,2). In 1969, he conjectured the cosmic censorship hypothesis. This proposes (rather informally) that the universe protects us from the inherent unpredictability of singularities (such as the one in the centre of a black hole) by hiding them from our view behind an event horizon. This form is now known as the "weak censorship hypothesis"; in 1979, Penrose formulated a stronger version called the "strong censorship hypothesis". Together with the BKL conjecture and issues of nonlinear stability, settling the censorship conjectures is one of the most important outstanding problems in general relativity. Also from 1979 dates Penrose's influential Weyl curvature hypothesis on the initial conditions of the observable part of the Universe and the origin of the second law of thermodynamics. Penrose and James Terrell independently realized that objects travelling near the speed of light will appear to undergo a peculiar skewing or rotation. This effect has come to be called the Terrell rotation or Penrose–Terrell rotation. Penrose is well known for his 1974 discovery of Penrose tilings, which are formed from two tiles that can only tile the plane nonperiodically, and are the first tilings to exhibit fivefold rotational symmetry. Penrose developed these ideas based on the article "Deux types fondamentaux de distribution statistique" (1938; an English translation "Two Basic Types of Statistical Distribution") by Czech geographer, demographer and statistician Jaromír Korčák. In 1984, such patterns were observed in the arrangement of atoms in quasicrystals. Another noteworthy contribution is his 1971 invention of spin networks, which later came to form the geometry of spacetime in loop quantum gravity. He was influential in popularizing what are commonly known as Penrose diagrams (causal diagrams). In 2004 Penrose released "", a 1,099-page book aimed at giving a comprehensive guide to the laws of physics. He has proposed a novel interpretation of quantum mechanics. In 2010, Penrose reported possible evidence, based on concentric circles found in WMAP data of the CMB sky, of an earlier universe existing before the Big Bang of our own present universe. Penrose is the Francis and Helen Pentz Distinguished (visiting) Professor of Physics and Mathematics at Pennsylvania State University. He is also a member of the "Astronomical Review" Editorial Board. Penrose is married to Vanessa Thomas, head of mathematics at Abingdon School, with whom he has one son. He has three sons from a previous marriage to American Joan Isabel Wedge, whom he married in 1959. Physics and consciousness. Penrose has written books on the connection between fundamental physics and human (or animal) consciousness. In "The Emperor's New Mind" (1989), he argues that known laws of physics are inadequate to explain the phenomenon of consciousness. Penrose proposes the characteristics this new physics may have and specifies the requirements for a bridge between classical and quantum mechanics (what he calls "correct quantum gravity"). Penrose uses a variant of Turing's halting theorem to demonstrate that a system can be deterministic without being algorithmic. (E.g., imagine a system with only two states, ON and OFF. If the system's state is ON if a given Turing machine halts, and OFF if the Turing machine does not halt, then the system's state is completely determined by the Turing machine, however there is no algorithmic way to determine whether the Turing machine stops.) Penrose believes that such deterministic yet non-algorithmic processes may come into play in the quantum mechanical wave function reduction, and may be harnessed by the brain. He argues that the present computer is unable to have intelligence because it is an algorithmically deterministic system. He argues against the viewpoint that the rational processes of the mind are completely algorithmic and can thus be duplicated by a sufficiently complex computer. This contrasts with supporters of strong artificial intelligence, who contend that thought can be simulated algorithmically. He bases this on claims that consciousness transcends formal logic because things such as the insolubility of the halting problem and Gödel's incompleteness theorem prevent an algorithmically based system of logic from reproducing such traits of human intelligence as mathematical insight. These claims were originally espoused by the philosopher John Lucas of Merton College, Oxford. The Penrose/Lucas argument about the implications of Gödel's incompleteness theorem for computational theories of human intelligence has been widely criticized by mathematicians, computer scientists and philosophers, and the consensus among experts in these fields seems to be that the argument fails, though different authors may choose different aspects of the argument to attack. Marvin Minsky, a leading proponent of artificial intelligence, was particularly critical, stating that Penrose "tries to show, in chapter after chapter, that human thought cannot be based on any known scientific principle." Minsky's position is exactly the opposite - he believes that humans are, in fact, machines, whose functioning, although complex, is fully explainable by current physics. Minsky maintains that "one can carry that quest scientific explanation too far by only seeking new basic principles instead of attacking the real detail. This is what I see in Penrose's quest for a new basic principle of physics that will account for consciousness." Penrose responded to criticism of "The Emperor's New Mind" with his follow up 1994 book "Shadows of the Mind", and in 1997 with "The Large, the Small and the Human Mind". In those works, he also combined his observations with that of anesthesiologist Stuart Hameroff. Penrose and Hameroff have argued that consciousness is the result of quantum gravity effects in microtubules, which they dubbed Orch-OR (orchestrated objective reduction). Max Tegmark, in a paper in "Physical Review E", calculated that the time scale of neuron firing and excitations in microtubules is slower than the decoherence time by a factor of at least 10,000,000,000. The reception of the paper is summed up by this statement in Tegmark's support: "Physicists outside the fray, such as IBM's John A. Smolin, say the calculations confirm what they had suspected all along. 'We're not working with a brain that's near absolute zero. It's reasonably unlikely that the brain evolved quantum behavior'". Tegmark's paper has been widely cited by critics of the Penrose–Hameroff position. In their reply to Tegmark's paper, also published in "Physical Review E", the physicists Scott Hagan, Jack Tuszynski and Hameroff claimed that Tegmark did not address the Orch-OR model, but instead a model of his own construction. This involved superpositions of quanta separated by 24 nm rather than the much smaller separations stipulated for Orch-OR. As a result, Hameroff's group claimed a decoherence time seven orders of magnitude greater than Tegmark's, but still well short of the 25 ms required if the quantum processing in the theory was to be linked to the 40 Hz gamma synchrony, as Orch-OR suggested. To bridge this gap, the group made a series of proposals. It was supposed that the interiors of neurons could alternate between liquid and gel states. In the gel state, it was further hypothesized that the water electrical dipoles are oriented in the same direction, along the outer edge of the microtubule tubulin subunits. Hameroff et al. proposed that this ordered water could screen any quantum coherence within the tubulin of the microtubules from the environment of the rest of the brain. Each tubulin also has a tail extending out from the microtubules, which is negatively charged, and therefore attracts positively charged ions. It is suggested that this could provide further screening. Further to this, there was a suggestion that the microtubules could be pumped into a coherent state by biochemical energy.
592129	Krishnan Love Story () is a 2010 Kannada film directed by Shashank and starring Ajay Rao, Radhika Pandit, Umashri, Achuth Kumar, Sharan, Pradeep, Harsha, Chandra. The music of this film is composed by Sridhar V Sambhram.
1039623	David Threlfall (born 12 October 1953) is an English stage, film and television actor and director best known for playing Frank Gallagher in Channel 4's series "Shameless". He has also directed several episodes of the show. Early life. The son of a plumber, Tommy Threlfall and his wife, he was born in Burnage, Manchester, Lancashire. His introduction to drama came from school and two English teachers, at Wilbraham High School, where he was a contemporary of the younger Lorraine Ashbourne. Encouragement from those teachers led to him playing the male lead in a four performance school production of Ann Jellicoe's "Rising Generation" in 1971. December that year saw him playing John Proctor in a school production of "The Crucible" and then to his getting involved with Manchester Youth Theatre. He went to art college in Sheffield (now Sheffield Hallam University), but only stayed for a year. A few months of labouring and thinking followed. Then, having consulted a magazine in a public library which listed drama colleges, Threlfall successfully applied to Manchester Polytechnic School of Drama. By graduation, he had an audition with Mike Leigh. Threlfall has been a keen supporter of Manchester City since childhood. Career. Threlfall graduated from the Manchester Metropolitan School of Theatre. He has notched up a wide range of film and television credits since his 1977 acting debut in the Play for Today version of the film "Scum" as the eloquent Archer. Television appearances include Trevor in Mike Leigh's 1977 made-for-TV film "Kiss of Death", Leslie Titmuss in "Paradise Postponed", Edgar in the 1984 Granada Television production of "King Lear" opposite Laurence Olivier in the title role. He also had regular roles in the situation comedies "Nightingales" and "Men of the World", and guest appearances in dramas such as "Cutting It", "The Knock", "" and "Spooks". He played Prince Charles in "Diana: Her True Story" in 1993 and his father Prince Philip in the 2005 drama "The Queen's Sister". David played the key character of Frank Gallagher in Paul Abbott's "Shameless", shown on Channel 4 for 11 series between 2004 and 2013. He also played the role of Friedrich Kritzinger in the BBC/HBO drama "Conspiracy", a dramatisation of the infamous Wannsee Conference. In 2006, he played the domineering husband of wartime diarist Nella Last, in the TV drama "Housewife, 49". Film credits include John le Carré's "The Russia House", "Patriot Games", ', ', alongside Cate Blanchett, and "Nowhere Boy" in which he took the part of John Lennon's Uncle George. He also had a small role in the 2006 film "Alien Autopsy" and played the character Martin Blower in the 2007 film "Hot Fuzz", acting alongside Simon Pegg and Nick Frost. He starred in an episode of "The Whistle Blowers". He starred as the lead role in the fifth episode of the BBC docu-drama series "" as the Emperor Constantine I. Threlfall voiced the part of Iago in "Othello" for the Arcangel audio production of same. He also voiced the detective Paolo Baldi in BBC Radio 4's "Baldi". He also read Joseph Conrad's "Heart of Darkness" for a radio adaptation. In 1980, he played Smike in the eight-hour stage version of "The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby" for the Royal Shakespeare Company in both London and New York. Other notable stage performances include "Riddley Walker", "Oedipus", "Macbeth, Your Home In The West" and "Peer Gynt" at the Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester, Bolingbroke in "Richard II" and Orgon in "Tartuffe" at the National Theatre in London. Threlfall played Jack in "When the Whales Came" (1989), opposite Paul Scofield and Helen Mirren. In 2010, he appeared as a guest on "Have I Got News for You". Threlfall was awarded an honorary doctorate from Manchester Metropolitan University on 15 July 2013. In 2013, he played Len Harper in "What Remains". Theatre. His roles include Personal life. Threlfall has been married to Bosnian actress Brana Bajic since 1995. They met in 1994, whilst working on "The Count of Monte Cristo" at the Royal Exchange Theatre in Manchester. David admits that despite his "Shameless" character being a chain smoker, in real life he is a non-smoker who has a dislike for nicotine.
1084346	Hells Angels on Wheels is a 1967 American biker film directed by Richard Rush, and starring Adam Roarke, Jack Nicholson, and Sabrina Scharf. The film tells the story of a gas-station attendant with a bad attitude who finds life more exciting after he is allowed to hang out with a chapter of the Hells Angels outlaw motorcycle club. Plot. The Angels first take note of "Poet" (Jack Nicholson) after one of them inadvertently damages his motorcycle and breaks its headlight. Poet, with far more guts than brains, challenges the Angel that hit his motorcycle. This is an act that would traditionally result in every Angel present participating in a group beating of the attacker. "When a non-Angel hits an Angel, all Angels retaliate." But the leader of the Angels, Buddy (Adam Roarke), intervenes and tells Poet that the Angels will replace the headlight. In the meantime, he's welcome to ride with them while they take care of business—which turns out to be going to a bar and beating up the members of another club who previously beat an Angel. Poet is told to wait outside, but ends up helping the Angels. Later that night, the Angels return the favor by hunting down and beating four sailors who beat Poet four-against-one after he parted company with the group. Poet accidentally bumps into one of the sailors and speaks rudely to him before he realizes that the sailor has three other sailors with him. The four sailors then refuse to accept his apology—but the Angels only know that four sailors beat up Poet, and he doesn't tell them how the earlier fight started. One of the sailors pulls a knife on the Angels and is then killed accidentally in the fight that follows.
1104618	William Oughtred (5 March 1575 – 30 June 1660) was an English mathematician. After John Napier invented logarithms, and Edmund Gunter created the logarithmic scales (lines, or rules) upon which slide rules are based, it was Oughtred who first used two such scales sliding by one another to perform direct multiplication and division; and he is credited as the inventor of the slide rule in 1622. Oughtred also introduced the "×" symbol for multiplication as well as the abbreviations "sin" and "cos" for the sine and cosine functions. Life. Oughtred was born at Eton in Buckinghamshire (now part of Berkshire), and educated there and at King's College, Cambridge, of which he became fellow. Being admitted to holy orders, he left the University of Cambridge about 1603, for a living at Shalford; he was presented in 1610 to the rectory of Albury, near Guildford in Surrey, where he settled. He married Christsgift Caryll, (niece) of the Caryll family of Tangley Hall at Wonersh, of which Lady Elizabeth Aungier (daughter of Sir Francis), wife of Simon Caryll 1607-1619, was matriarch and then dowager until her death c.1650.
1064077	Ronald Joseph "Ron" Livingston (born June 5, 1967) is an American film and television actor. His roles include disaffected corporate employee Peter Gibbons in the film "Office Space", sardonic writer Jack Berger in a short-term relationship with Carrie Bradshaw in the TV show "Sex and the City", and Captain Lewis Nixon in the miniseries "Band of Brothers". In 2006, he starred as FBI negotiator Matt Flannery in the Fox series "Standoff", co-starring Rosemarie DeWitt, and he was an ad spokesman for Sprint Nextel. In 2009 he portrayed flight engineer Maddux Donner in the series "Defying Gravity", which was cancelled after a single season. Early life. Livingston was born in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, the son of Linda (née Rinas), a Lutheran pastor, and Kurt Livingston, an aerospace/electronics engineer. His younger brother John is also an actor; sister Jennifer Livingston and brother-in-law Mike Thompson are both TV news personalities at WKBT in La Crosse, Wisconsin. He graduated from Marion High School in Marion, Iowa and attended Yale University, where he received B.A. degrees in Theater and English. Livingston had his first acting experience at Theatre Cedar Rapids after being introduced to the group during a school job shadowing. Livingston relocated to Chicago and became involved in the local theater scene. Career. Livingston's first film role was in 1992, in Dolly Parton's "Straight Talk". He moved to Los Angeles and was cast in supporting roles in "Some Folks Call it a Sling Blade" and "The Low Life". Livingston landed his first role in a major film in 1996's "Swingers". He played the male lead in "Office Space", which co-starred Jennifer Aniston and was written and directed by Mike Judge. He also appeared in HBO's "Band of Brothers" as Captain Lewis Nixon opposite Donnie Wahlberg and Damian Lewis. Going beyond nice-guy roles, Livingston played a Hollywood agent in "Adaptation" (2002); a weaselly Ivy League upstart to Alec Baldwin's casino boss in "The Cooler" (2003); and teachers in "Winter Solstice" and "Pretty Persuasion" (both 2005). He also appeared as Jack Berger, Carrie's boyfriend in the sixth season of "Sex and the City", as well as in the episode "TB or Not TB" of "House". On November 9, 2007, the indie film "Holly" premiered, starring Ron Livingston in his first turn to film drama. It tells the story of a Vietnamese girl trafficked into the sex trade in Cambodia. Ron plays Patrick, a shady card shark who becomes determined to save Holly from her ill-destined fate. Summer 2007 saw Livingston on the off-Broadway stage in the world premiere of Neil LaBute's "In A Dark Dark House", produced by "MCC Theater", alongside Frederick Weller and Louisa Krause. The show ran May 16 through July 27, 2007, at the Lucille Lortel Theatre in New York City. In 2010, Livingston co-starred in the Jay Roach comedy "Dinner for Schmucks". On February 26th 2013, Entertainment Weekly confirmed that he would be joining the cast of HBO's "Boardwalk Empire" for the fourth season.
583359	Kal Kissne Dekha (, translation: "Who knows what will happen tomorrow?", lit. "Who has seen tomorrow?") is an Bollywood sci-fi romance film directed by Vivek Sharma, who earlier directed "Bhootnath". The film introduces debutantes Jackky Bhagnani and Vaishali Desai. It has been reported to have similarities with the 2007 Hollywood film "Next", starring Nicolas Cage. "Kal Kissne Dekha" released on 12 June 2009 and was an box office flop. Plot. Nihal Singh (Jackky Bhagnani) is a teen from Chandigarh who loves to build complicated gadgets to learn what it is behind science. He has a brilliant mind and dreams of studying at an elite science institute. When he is accepted into his dream college in Mumbai, he discovers college is a whole new world, new people and new challenges. At school Nihal is attracted to Meesha (Vaishali Desai), a proud, rude brat. She cannot accept that Nihal is managing to charm everyone his way including Professor Siddarth Verma (Rishi Kapoor), the professor of the college. Nihal starts to get visions of Meesha being in danger. He saves her life and his secret is revealed that he can see the future. After this incident, love blossoms between Nihal and Nisha. Meanwhile, media exposure results in attention from anti-social elements, including an explosion at a mall. Nihal sees the explosion before it takes place and manages to rescue most people. It turns out one of Nihal's friend is behind the attack. Despite seeing the bomber, he keeps quiet and doesn't tell the police department. He strengthens up and decides to fight the attacker himself. Production. The film commenced shooting on 18 June 2008 in the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa. Durban, Cape Town, Stellenbosch (a town near Cape Town) and the University of Stellenbosch were the other locations. The prominent oaks in Stellenbosch can be clearly seen in many of the scenes. One of the dance numbers was shot in the university's library.
1690105	Collette Wolfe is an American actress. She made her film debut with "The Foot Fist Way" in 2006, and later starred as Nell in "Observe and Report" (2009). In September 2009, Wolfe was cast as series regular Jill in the NBC situation comedy "100 Questions". She had a recurring role as Kirsten in the ABC series "Cougar Town". In 2011, Wolfe signed up for NBC's pilot "Lovelives", replacing Amanda Loncar's character, who was previously cast in the project. Wolfe co-starred in four produced (but never aired) episodes of the cancelled 2012 NBC comedy "Next Caller" alongside Dane Cook and Jeffrey Tambor. Wolfe appeared on "The Office" in February 2013.
1593588	Jerry Reed Hubbard (March 20, 1937 – September 1, 2008), known professionally as Jerry Reed, was an American country music singer, guitarist, and songwriter, as well as an actor who appeared in more than a dozen films. His signature songs included "Guitar Man," "U.S. Male", "A Thing Called Love," "Alabama Wild Man," "Amos Moses", "When You're Hot, You're Hot" (which garnered a Grammy Award for Best Male Country Vocal Performance), "Ko-Ko Joe", "Lord, Mr. Ford", "East Bound and Down" (the theme song for the 1977 blockbuster "Smokey and the Bandit", in which Reed co-starred), "The Bird," and "She Got the Goldmine (I Got the Shaft)". Early life. Reed was born in Atlanta, Georgia, the second child of Robert and Cynthia Hubbard. Reed's grandparents lived in Rockmart and he would visit them from time to time. He was quoted as saying as a small child, while running around strumming his guitar, "I am gonna be a star. I'm gonna go to Nashville and be a star." Reed's parents separated four months after his birth, and he and his sister spent seven years in foster homes or orphanages. Reed was reunited with his mother and stepfather in 1944. Music and impromptu performances helped ease the stressful times the new family was under. By high school, Reed was already writing and singing music, having picked up the guitar as a child. At age 18, he was signed by publisher and record producer Bill Lowery to cut his first record, "If the Good Lord's Willing and the Creek Don't Rise." At Capitol Records, he recorded both country and rockabilly singles to little notice, until label mate Gene Vincent covered his "Crazy Legs" in 1958. By 1958, Lowery signed Reed to his National Recording Corporation, and he recorded for NRC as both artist and as a member of the staff band, which included other NRC artists Joe South and Ray Stevens. Reed married Priscilla "Prissy" Mitchell in 1959. They had two daughters, Charlotte Elaine "Lottie" Reed Stewart, and Seidina Ann Reed Hinesley, born April 2, 1960. Priscilla Mitchell was a member of folk group the Appalachians ("Bony Moronie," 1963), and was co-credited with Roy Drusky on the 1965 Country No. 1 "Yes Mr. Peters." Career. In 1959, Reed hit the Billboard "Bubbling Under The Top 100" and Cashbox Country chart with the single "Soldier's Joy." After serving two years in the military, Reed moved to Nashville in 1961 to continue his songwriting career, which had continued to gather steam while he was in the armed forces, thanks to Brenda Lee's 1960 cover of his "That's All You Got to Do." He also became a popular session and tour guitarist. In 1962, he scored some success with two singles "Goodnight Irene" (as by Jerry Reed & the Hully Girlies, featuring a female vocal group) and "Hully Gully Guitar," which found their way to Chet Atkins at RCA Victor, who produced Reed's 1965 "If I Don't Live Up to It." "Guitar Man". In July 1967, Reed had his best showing so far on the country charts (#53) with his self-penned "Guitar Man," which Elvis Presley soon covered. Reed's next single was "Tupelo Mississippi Flash," a comic tribute to Presley. Recorded on September 1, the song became his first Top 20 hit, going to No. 15 on the chart. In a remarkable twist of fate, Elvis came to Nashville to record nine days later on September 10, 1967, and one of the songs he became especially excited about was "Guitar Man." Reed recalled how he was tracked down to play on the Elvis session: "I was out on the Cumberland River fishing, and I got a call from Felton Jarvis (then Presley's producer at RCA). He said, 'Elvis is down here. We've been trying to cut 'Guitar Man' all day long. He wants it to sound like it sounded on your album.' I finally told him, 'Well, if you want it to sound like that, you're going have to get me in there to play guitar, because these guys (you're using in the studio) are straight pickers. I pick with my fingers and tune that guitar up all weird kind of ways.'" Jarvis hired Reed to play on the session. "I hit that intro, and face lit up and here we went. Then after he got through that, he cut [my "U.S. Male" at the same session. I was toppin' cotton, son." Reed also played the guitar for Elvis Presley's "Big Boss Man" (1967), recorded in the same session. Bass singer Ray Walker of The Jordanaires remembered that memorable session more vividly, remarking that Reed flubbed the intro to "Guitar Man" repeatedly as a result of being extremely nervous. Walker also remembered the guitarist telling Presley, "God, you're handsome!" On January 15 and 16, 1968, Reed worked on a second Presley session, during which he played guitar on a cover of Chuck Berry's "Too Much Monkey Business", "Stay Away" and "Goin' Home" (two songs revolving around Elvis' film "Stay Away, Joe"),as well as another Reed composition, "U.S. Male" (Reed's quoted recollection of "U.S. Male" being recorded at the same session as "Guitar Man" being incorrect). Elvis also recorded two other Reed compositions: "A Thing Called Love" in May 1971 for his "He Touched Me" album, and "Talk About The Good Times" in December 1973, for a total of four. Johnny Cash would also release "A Thing Called Love" as a single in 1971, which would reach No. 2 on the Billboard Country Singles Chart for North America. It was also successful in Europe. It would become the title track for a studio album that he released the following spring. 1970s. After releasing the 1970 crossover hit "Amos Moses", a hybrid of rock, country, funk, and Cajun styles, which reached No. 8 on the U.S. pop charts, Reed teamed with Atkins for the duet LP "Me & Jerry". During the 1970 television season, he was a regular on "The Glen Campbell Goodtime Hour", and in 1971 he issued his biggest hit, the chart-topper "When You're Hot, You're Hot", which is a story song, with the majority of the lyrics being talked out rather than sung. The song concerns the singer's near success shooting dice, a police raid and a judge who is supposedly a fishing buddy of the singer, but who nevertheless sends him down for gambling. "When You're Hot, You're Hot" was the title track of Jerry's first solo album, reaching No. 9 Pop and No. 6 on Billboard's Easy Listening charts. The singles from the album, "Amos Moses" and "When You're Hot, You're Hot" sold over one million copies, and were awarded gold discs by the R.I.A.A. The album also features songs such as Reed's version of "Ruby, Don't Take Your Love To Town", and John D Loudermilk's free wheeling song, "Big Daddy (Alabami Bound)". A second collaboration with Atkins, "Me & Chet", followed in 1972, as did a series of Top 40 singles, which alternated between frenetic, straightforward country offerings and more pop-flavored, countrypolitan material. A year later, he scored his second number one single with "Lord, Mr. Ford" (written by Dick Feller), from the album of the same name. Atkins, who frequently produced Reed's music, remarked that he had to encourage Reed to put instrumental numbers on his own albums, as Reed always considered himself more of a songwriter than a player. Atkins, however, thought Reed was a better fingerstyle player than he himself was; Reed, according to Atkins, helped him work out the fingerpicking for one of Atkins' biggest hits, "Yakety Axe." Reed, one of only four people to have the title of "Certified Guitar Player" (an award only bestowed to those who have completely mastered guitar), was given this title by Chet Atkins. Reed was featured in animated form in a December 9, 1972 episode of Hanna-Barbera's "The New Scooby-Doo Movies", "The Phantom of the Country Music Hall" (prod. No. 61-10). He sang and played the song "Pretty Mary Sunlight." The song is played throughout the episode as Scooby and the gang search for Reed's missing guitar. In the mid-1970s, Reed's recording career began to take a back seat to his acting aspirations. In 1974, he co-starred with his close friend Burt Reynolds in the film "W.W. and the Dixie Dancekings". While he continued to record throughout the decade, his greatest visibility was as a motion picture star, almost always in tandem with headliner Reynolds; after 1976's "Gator", Reed appeared in 1978's "High Ballin" and 1979's "Hot Stuff". He also co-starred in all three of the "Smokey and the Bandit" films; the first, which premiered in 1977, landed Reed a Number 2 hit with the soundtrack's "East Bound and Down." Reed also took a stab at hosting a TV variety show, filming two episodes of "The Jerry Reed Show" in 1976. The show featured music performances and interview segments, but did not contain the comedy skits that usually were a part of variety shows of the '70s. Guests included Tammy Wynette, Ray Stevens, and Burt Reynolds. Scottish rockers The Sensational Alex Harvey Band released a version of "Amos Moses" in 1976. In 1978, he appeared as himself in the television show "Alice". In 1979, he released a record comprising both vocal and instrumental selections titled, appropriately enough, "Half & Half". It was followed one year later by "Jerry Reed Sings Jim Croce", a tribute to the late singer/songwriter. He also starred in a TV movie in that year entitled "Concrete Cowboys". 1980s and 1990s. In January 1980, Reed began work on the "Guitar Man" re-recording being produced by Elvis' producer Felvin Jarvis. With a new 'hopped-up' guitar line, Reed and the band gave the song an adrenaline punch that shot it straight to #1 on the Country Charts. In 1982, Reed's career as a singles artist was revitalized by the chart-topping hit "She Got the Goldmine (I Got the Shaft)," followed by "The Bird," which peaked at Number 2. His last chart hit, "I'm a Slave," appeared in 1983. That same year, he co-starred with Robin Williams and Walter Matthau in the Michael Ritchie comedy "The Survivors". Reed guest-starred in the October 13, 1983 episode of "Mama's Family", "The Return of Leonard Oates" (Episode 13, Season 2), as Naomi Harper's ex-husband. After an unsuccessful 1986 LP, "Lookin' at You", Reed focused on touring until 1992, when he and Atkins reunited for the album "Sneakin' Around" before he again returned to the road. In the meantime, Reed appeared in several interviews and commercial spots for Mid-South Wrestling. Reed had a role as a Commander/Huey Pilot for Danny Glover's character in the 1988 movie "Bat*21" starring Gene Hackman. He also acted as executive producer and screenwriter on this film. Reed starred in the 1998 Adam Sandler film, "The Waterboy", as Red Beaulieu, the movie's chief antagonist and the head coach for the University of Louisiana Cougars football team. He teamed up with country superstars Waylon Jennings, Mel Tillis, and Bobby Bare in the group Old Dogs. They recorded one album, in 1998, entitled "Old Dogs", with songs written by Shel Silverstein. (Reed sang lead on "Young Man's Job" and "Elvis Has Left The Building," the latter possibly in deference to Elvis' helping launch his career.) In 1998, the American rock band Primus covered the Reed song "Amos Moses" on the EP entitled Rhinoplasty. 2000s. In October 2004, "Amos Moses" was featured on the , playing on fictional radio station K-ROSE. In 2007, UK band Alabama 3 (Known as A3 in the USA) covered his hit "Amos Moses" on their album M.O.R. In June 2005, American guitarist Eric Johnson released his album Bloom, which contained a track entitled "Tribute To Jerry Reed" in commemoration of his works. Reed has appeared as a guest on the fishing television series "Bill Dance Outdoors". In one memorable appearance, Reed caught a particularly big largemouth bass and planned to have it preserved and mounted by a taxidermist. Host Bill Dance objected to this plan, and freed the fish when Jerry wasn't looking. Reed became enraged when he discovered what had happened, and chased Dance off the boat and to shore. This incident was also mentioned in one of Jeff Foxworthy's standup comedy routines. "She Got The Goldmine" was used in the 2010 film, "The Bounty Hunter" during the scene where Milo (Gerard Butler) searches Nicole's (Jennifer Aniston) apartment. Death. Reed died in Nashville, Tennessee, on September 1, 2008, of complications from emphysema. The Associated Press wire service and CNN, however, reported the date of his death as August 31. One week later, during their debut at the Grand Ole Opry, Canadian Country Rockers "The Roadhammers" performed "East Bound And Down" as a tribute. In a tribute in "Vintage Guitar Magazine", Rich Kienzle wrote that "Reed set a standard that inspires fingerstyle players the way Merle and Chet inspired him. Reed died on Conway Twitty's birthday."
1058471	Joseph G. "Joe" Grifasi (born June 14, 1944) is an American character actor of film, stage and television. Grifasi was born in Buffalo, New York, the son of Patricia (née Gaglione) and Joseph J. Grifasi, a skilled laborer. Grifasi graduated from Bishop Fallon High School, a now defunct Catholic high school in Buffalo. He played football and acted in many of the school's plays. Grifasi briefly attended Canisius College in Buffalo before joining the United States Army. He went on to study at the Yale School of Drama. While at the Yale School of Drama, he met his future wife, the jazz soprano saxophonist Jane Ira Bloom. Grifasi has played two separate members of the Baseball Hall of Fame who played for the New York Yankees. In "61*", set in 1961, he played Phil Rizzuto; in "The Bronx Is Burning", set in 1977, he played Yogi Berra. Paul Borghese played Berra in "61*", while actual 1977 broadcast recordings of Rizzuto were used in "The Bronx Is Burning".
1060024	Paul Michael Glaser (born March 25, 1943) is an American actor and director, perhaps best known for his role as Detective David Starsky on the 1970s television series "Starsky and Hutch"; he also appeared as Captain Jack Steeper on the 1999 to 2005 NBC series "Third Watch". Biography. Early life. Glaser, the youngest of three children, was born Paul Manfred Glaser in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the son of Dorothy and Samuel Glaser, who was an architect. Glaser attended the Buckingham Browne & Nichols School. He then transferred to the Cambridge School of Weston, and went to Tulane University, where he was roommates with film director Bruce Paltrow, and earned a Master's degree in English and theater in 1966. He was a member of the Sigma Alpha Mu fraternity. He earned a second master's degree from Boston University in acting and directing in 1967. Career. After appearing in several Broadway productions, Glaser appeared in his first feature film in 1971, playing Perchik in the film version of "Fiddler on the Roof". He first gained notice on television playing Dr. Peter Chernak on the daytime series "Love is a Many Splendored Thing", and made guest appearances on shows such as "The Waltons", "The Streets of San Francisco" and "The Rockford Files", but found fame playing Detective David Starsky opposite David Soul in the television show "Starsky and Hutch", of which he directed several episodes. It ran for four seasons (1975–1979) on ABC. After the series, Glaser continued to act on television and in films, and directed the 1987 movie "The Running Man" starring Arnold Schwarzenegger as well as the 1992 movie "The Cutting Edge". He also directed episodes of several well-known TV series, including "Miami Vice", "Robbery Homicide Division" and "Judging Amy". Glaser returned to the big screen in 2003 in "Something's Gotta Give", as Diane Keaton's ex-husband, and with a brief cameo in the 2004 film version of "Starsky & Hutch", where his old role was reprised by Ben Stiller. He also directed the children's film "Kazaam" starring Shaquille O'Neal. On November 30, 2007, Glaser starred as Captain Hook in a pantomime version of "Peter Pan, or The Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up" at the Churchill Theatre in Bromley, Kent, England. He took the lead role in the 2008 pantomime season at Sunderland's Empire Theatre. He guest starred in CBS's "The Mentalist" on Thursday, Oct 1, 2009; episode "The Scarlet Letter." In 2013, Glaser revisited "Fiddler on the Roof" in a UK stage production on national tour, this time playing the lead character Tevye. In addition to television, film, and theater, Glaser is an avid photographer, writes poetry and is currently working on several children's novels. He has been on several radio programs interviewing about his latest book, for the children in all of us, "Chrystallia and the Source of Light" and recently featured on Get Focused Radio with Kate Hennessy. Personal life. Glaser has been married twice. He married his first wife, Elizabeth (Meyer) Glaser, in 1980. In August 1981, Elizabeth contracted HIV through a blood transfusion while giving birth to the couple's first child, Ariel. Elizabeth did not find out about the virus until four years later, at which time both Ariel and son Jake (born October 1984) were also found to be HIV positive. Ariel Glaser died in August 1988; Elizabeth Glaser died in 1994, after founding the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation. After Elizabeth's death, Glaser served as chairman of the foundation until 2002 and remains Honorary Chairman, roles in which he has testified before the United States Congress and met with national leaders, as well as headlining annual fundraisers for the organization. Glaser married producer Tracy Barone in 1996; the couple had a daughter, Zoe, on 7 October 1997. Glaser filed for divorce in June 2007, citing "irreconcilable differences" as the reason for ending his 10-year marriage. He was seeking joint legal and physical custody of their daughter.
1086022	Frederick Douglass and the White Negro is a documentary film originally released in 2008 (Irish language version entitled "Frederick Douglass agus na Negroes Bána"). Synopsis. "Frederick Douglass and the White Negro" is a documentary telling the story of ex-slave, abolitionist, writer and politician Frederick Douglass and his escape to Ireland from America in the 1840s. The film follows Douglass' life from slavery as a young man through to his time in Ireland where he befriended Daniel O'Connell, toured the country spreading the message of abolition and was treated as a human being for the first time by white people. His arrival in Ireland coincided with the Great Famine and he witnessed white people in what he considered to be a worse state than his fellow African Americans back in the US. The film follows Douglass back to America where he buys his freedom with funds raised in Ireland and Britain. Fellow passengers on his return journey include the Irish escaping the famine who arrive in their millions and would go on to play a major role in the New York Draft Riot of 1863 which Douglass could only despair over. The film examines (with contributions from the author of "How The Irish Became White" Noel Ignatiev amongst others) the turbulent relationship between African Americans and Irish Americans during the American Civil War, what drew them together and what drove them apart and how this would shape the America of the twentieth century and beyond.
1267041	Julian Eltinge (May 14, 1881 – March 7, 1941), born William Julian Dalton, was an American stage and screen actor and female impersonator. After appearing in the Boston Cadets Revue at the age of ten in feminine garb, Eltinge garnered notice from other producers and made his first appearance on Broadway in 1904. As his star began to rise, he appeared in vaudeville and toured Europe and the United States, even giving a command performance before King Edward VII. Eltinge appeared in a series of musical comedies written specifically for his talents starting in 1910 with "The Fascinating Widow", returning to vaudeville in 1918. His popularity soon earned him the moniker "Mr. Lillian Russell" for the equally popular beauty and musical comedy star. Hollywood beckoned Eltinge and in 1917 he appeared in his first feature film, "The Countess Charming". This would lead to other films including 1918s "The Isle of Love" with Rudolph Valentino and Virginia Rappe. By the time Eltinge arrived in Hollywood, he was considered one of the highest paid actors on the American stage; but with the arrival of the Great Depression and the death of vaudeville, Eltinge’s star began to fade. He continued his show in nightclubs but found little success. He died in 1941 following a show at a New York nightclub. He leaves a legacy as one of the greatest female impersonators of the 20th century. Early years. Though the details of his professional life are widely known, Eltinge's personal life is shrouded in mystery; mystery partly due to the passage of time, but really more likely to Eltinge's own hand. Eltinge was born in Newtonville, Massachusetts. It is believed that his father was a mining engineer and that early in his life he traveled out west with his father, ending up in Butte, Montana. His start in show business, like his early life, is also shrouded in myth. Most sources cite his first female role being at the age of ten with the Boston Cadets Review at the Tremont Theater in Boston. He is reported to have played the role so well that the next year the revue was written around him which led to minor roles elsewhere. But as to how he came to perform as a female with the Boston Cadets, sources differ. In some versions he was taking cakewalk lessons from a Mrs. Wyman's dance studio when he impressed upon his teacher an incredible ability to emulate females. It is said to be Mrs. Wyman who encouraged young William to study the art of female impersonation. Boys often play female roles in all male theater groups. Broadway and vaudeville. Eltinge's first appearance on Broadway was in the musical comedy "Mr. Wix of Wickham" which opened September 19, 1904 at the Bijou Theatre in New York City. The show was produced by E. E. Rice and included music by Jerome Kern among others. The show was a flop but it helped to establish Eltinge's rising star.
393705	Love in Magic () is a 2005 South Korean romantic comedy film. Plot. The movie tells of a womanizing performing magician Woo Ji-hoon who one day discovers a hidden camera film on the Internet that shows him having sex with one of his former girlfriends, Koo Hee-won in a motel. Ji-hoon first tracks down Hee-won, who is working as a teacher at a local school. They decide that instead of going to the police, they'd be better off trying to track the film's makers themselves and get the film taken offline without making a fuss, since both of their careers could suffer. Ji-hoon and Hee-won start spending their evenings going through all the motels they visited while going out, and slowly rediscover their feelings for each other.
585784	Meleparambil Aanveedu (Malayalam: മേലേപ്പറമ്പിൽ ആൺവീട്, English: "The All-Male House Of Meleparambil") is a 1993 Malayalam musical-romantic comedy film starring Jayaram and Shobana in the lead roles. It also stars Narendra Prasad, Meena, Jagathy Sreekumar, Janardanan, Vijayaraghavan, Oduvil Unnikrishnan, and Vinu Chakravarthy in other pivotal roles. Its story was conceived by lyricist Gireesh Puthenchery and the screenplay was written by Raghunath Paleri. The film was directed by Rajasenan, produced by Mani C. Kappan in the banner of Okay Productions and distributed by Okay Release. It was one of the highest grossing Malayalam films of the early 1990s. It made the list of "14 Greatest Malayalam Movies Ever" as compiled by "Manorama News". The title comes from the fact that all three sons, Jayakrishnan (Jagathy Sreekumar), Gopikrishnan (Vijayaraghavan), and Harikrishnan (Jayaram), of Thrivikraman Pillai (Narendra Prasad) and Bhanumathi (Meena) of the Meleparambil family are bachelors. Along with that includes Kannappan (Janardanan), Bhanumathi's brother who is also a bachelor. Plot. Harikrishan (Jayaram) is the youngest son of Thrivikram Muthallali. His brothers Jayakrishnan and Gopikrishan are not as handsome as him. He wants to earn a good living and so sets forth to a Tamil village as manager of a courier company. Hari sees a young Tamil woman named Pavizham (Shobana) who is being forced by her father to get married against her will. The two fall in love and elope.
586361	Akale is a 2004 Malayalam film by Shyamaprasad, inspired by the American classic play "The Glass Menagerie" by Tennessee Williams. The movie stars Prithviraj Sukumaran, Sheela and Geetu Mohandas in lead roles. Plot. The film is the story about an Anglo-Indian family who lives in Kerala. Neil (Prithviraj Sukumaran) is a disturbed youth working as a clerk in a factory for low wages. His intention is to become a writer. He lives with his mother (Sheela) and sister (Geetu Mohandas). His father was a Portuguese sailor who he left the family when the children were very young. Rose, his sister is slightly handicapped and because of this, she is always in the shell. She is very much interested in glass figurines. Margret, Neil's mother hates his care-free attitude towards life and his late-night movies. She is a very possessive mother and she is always worried about the future of her daughter. One day Neil invites his co-worker Freddy for a dinner at his home. Neil's mother and daughter thinks that Freddy will get interested in Rose and they can marry her off but their dreams get crushed when they comes to know that Freddie is already engaged and Rose passes away years later. AWARDS. Kerala state film awards Mathrubhumi, Medimix film awards Filmfare south
1015444	Hannah Takes the Stairs is a 2007 American independent mumblecore film by Joe Swanberg. Synopsis. The movie tells the story of Hannah, a recent college graduate living in Chicago who works as an intern at a production office, as she begins to develop crushes on Matt and Paul, two scriptwriters she works with. Coasting from relationship to relationship, Hannah attempts to find a direction for her life. Release. The movie was screened within such festivals as Maryland Film Festival and was released on DVD on April 22, 2008. In popular culture. The movie is referenced in the song ""Hannah" by Freelance Whales.
1039574	Frances Barber (born on 13 May 1958 in Wolverhampton, Staffordshire, England) is an Olivier Award-nominated English actress with a long and distinguished stage career. She has also appeared in numerous television productions. Personal life. Barber studied drama at Bangor University, in Wales where she was a contemporary of director Danny Boyle, who became her boyfriend. One of her closest friends is the actor Ian McKellen, who funded a library in her name in India. In 2006, she received an Honorary Fellowship from the University of Wolverhampton. Recent career. Stage. With Pet Shop Boys, she starred in their musical "Closer to Heaven" in 2001 as well as guest singer for the song "Friendly Fire" on their 2006 live concert at the Mermaid Theatre. She also appeared alongside Ian McKellen and Roger Allam in the Old Vic's pantomime production of "Aladdin" over the 2005–06 Christmas season. She again starred with Ian McKellen in 2007 playing Goneril in Trevor Nunn's production of "King Lear" and as Arkadina in Chekhov's "The Seagull" with the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford-upon-Avon followed by a world tour throughout the year. They again performed the two plays in repertory at the New London Theatre on Drury Lane, opening in November 2007 and closing mid-January 2008. She appeared in "Madame de Sade" opposite Judi Dench and Rosamund Pike at the Wyndham's Theatre, and will soon be appearing opposite Niall Buggy in Brian Friel's "Afterplay", in a celebration of the author's work. Television. Barber is a regular face on British television; she guest starred in the spring 2007 season of the BBCs "Hustle", reprised her role as Goneril in the 2008 TV film of "King Lear". In 2008, she appeared as Mrs Prentice in the BBC sitcom "Beautiful People" and Nancy in "Casualty". In 2011, she guest-starred in the "Doctor Who" episodes "A Good Man Goes to War" and "The Wedding of River Song" as Madame Kovarian. Her character appeared in various cameos throughout the sixth series, featuring briefly in "Day of the Moon", "The Curse of the Black Spot", "The Rebel Flesh", "The Almost People", and "Closing Time". She starred in the episode 'Polymorph' in series 3 of the British sci-fi comedy show "Red Dwarf". In 2012, Barber went on to join the cast of the popular BBC One drama, "Silk".
1163342	Sandra Kay "Sandy" Duncan (born February 20, 1946) is an American singer, dancer, comedienne and actress of stage and television, recognized through a blonde, pixie cut hairstyle and perky demeanor. She is best known for her performances in the Broadway revival of "Peter Pan" and in the sitcom "The Hogan Family". Early life. She was born in Henderson, Texas (the seat of Rusk County), and grew up in nearby Tyler. Her parents were Mancil Ray and Sylvia Duncan. Mancil was the son of mule team operator William Joseph Duncan. Career. She started her entertainment career at age 12, working in a local production of "The King and I" for $150 a week. In the mid-1960s, Duncan was an unknown actress in Los Angeles when she was selected for a part in a TV commercial for United California Bank (later to become part of First Interstate Bank), portraying a bank teller who finds it impossible to pronounce the name of customer "Nicholas H. Janopoporopolus", despite several tries. (She apologetically asks, "Do you mind if I just call you 'Nick'?") In 1968, she spent a brief time acting in the soap opera "Search for Tomorrow". In 1970, she was named one of the "most promising faces of tomorrow" by "Time" magazine. Also that year, she starred in the Broadway revival of "The Boy Friend", where she received excellent reviews. Duncan made her feature film debut co-starring opposite Dean Jones in the Walt Disney family comedy "The Million Dollar Duck". She was then cast as "Amy Cooper" in the Paramount film version of "Star Spangled Girl", based on the Broadway play by Neil Simon. Both movies performed poorly at the box office. In the fall of 1971, Duncan starred as "Sandy Stockton" in the CBS sitcom "Funny Face". The program was put on the Saturday night primetime schedule between "All in the Family" and "The New Dick Van Dyke Show". Although critics dismissed the show, they praised Duncan, especially "TV Guide" columnist Cleveland Amory, who described her as "a wonderful comedienne". Meanwhile, shortly after the premiere, Duncan underwent surgery on her left eye to remove a benign tumor. As a result, she lost vision in the eye (It was not replaced with a prosthetic eye, as some urban myths claim). Though Duncan's recovery from the operation was rapid, CBS suspended production on the show until the following year, after the 12th installment had been filmed; the original series pilot served as the 13th (and final) episode. At first, Nielsen ratings for "Funny Face" were low, ranking in the lower 50s; eventually, they climbed up to #17, and it was deemed the best liked new show of that TV season. For all her efforts, Duncan received an Emmy Award nomination for "Outstanding Continued Performance By An Actress In A Leading Role In A Comedy Series". In September 1972, the program returned as "The Sandy Duncan Show", now with a revised format and new writers; it also had a new timeslot of Sunday nights at 8:30 P.M. Critical reaction to the show was similar to that for "Funny Face", but without the strong Saturday night lead-in of "All in the Family", the ratings sank. After 13 episodes, CBS cancelled the series. In 1976, Duncan played the title role in a TV musical adaptation of "Pinocchio", which featured Danny Kaye as "Mister Geppetto" and Flip Wilson as "the Fox". She also guest-starred in a first season episode of "The Muppet Show" where, contrary to common misconception, she was not the first to be karate-chopped by Miss Piggy, but she did share a raucous moment recollecting "The Banana Sketch" with Fozzie Bear. Next, for her performance as "Missy Anne Reynolds" in the miniseries "Roots", she earned another Emmy nomination. It was then that she went back to Broadway for many years. In 1979, her run as the title role in "Peter Pan" won her many accolades. She also had replacement roles in "My One and Only" and "Chicago". Duncan has been nominated for a Tony Award three times: in 1969, as "Featured Actress (Musical)" in "Canterbury Tales"; in 1971, as "Best Actress (Musical)" in "The Boy Friend"; and in 1980, as "Best Actress (Musical)" in "Peter Pan". In 1972, an animated version of Duncan (who contributed her own voice) appeared in "Sandy Duncan's Jekyll and Hyde", an episode of the CBS Saturday morning cartoon "The New Scooby-Doo Movies". In 1976, she guest-starred in the Six-Million Dollar Man and the Bionic Woman playing the role of Gillian, in "The Return of Bigfoot" episodes. In 1978, she starred in Disney's "The Cat from Outer Space" alongside Ken Berry, Harry Morgan and Roddy McDowall. During the 1980s, Duncan was the commercial spokesperson for the introduction of Nabisco's Wheat Thins crackers. In 1981, she lent her voice to Vixey in Disney's The Fox and the Hound. In 1984, she starred in a song and dance review called "5-6-7-8...Dance!" at Radio City Music Hall. Also in 1984, she provided voice work for the My Little Pony movie Rescue at Midnight Castle as Firefly and Applejack. From 1986 to 1987, she reprised her role as Firefly in the My Little Pony 'n Friends TV series. In 1987, she joined the cast of NBC's "Valerie's Family" (previously known as "Valerie", later to be retitled "The Hogan Family") after Valerie Harper was dismissed from the sitcom. Duncan starred as the matriarch's sister-in-law, Sandy Hogan, who moved in with her brother Mike (Josh Taylor) and his three sons to help raise the family after Valerie Hogan's death. Duncan remained with the series through its cancellation in 1991 (the final season of which aired on CBS). In addition, she worked on the first three "Barney and the Backyard Gang" children's videos for the releases. Thinking the videos were not going to be popular , she eventually departed from the production; subsequently, when they were reworked into the hit PBS show "Barney & Friends", she was surprised by their success. In 1991, she provided the voice for Peepers the mouse in the movie "Rock-a-Doodle". In 2003, she appeared in the rotating cast of the Off-Broadway staged reading of "Wit & Wisdom". In May 2008, she performed one of the lead roles in the musical "No, No, Nanette"; a production of the City Center's annual "Encores!" series in New York City. In April 2009, she performed the lead role in the play "Driving Miss Daisy" at Casa Mañana Theatre in Fort Worth, Texas. In September 2009, she played the lead role in Tennessee Williams' play "The Glass Menagerie" at the Mountain Playhouse in Jennerstown, Pennsylvania. She has also been in many travelling stage productions, including " The King and I". Personal life. She met singer-actor Bruce Scott during the Off-Broadway production of "Your Own Thing", and from 1968-72 (some sources report 1969-71), they were married. Her second marriage was to Dr. Thomas Calcaterra on January 10, 1973; it lasted until 1979. Calcaterra is a head/neck oncologist who practices at UCLA Medical Center Division of Head and Neck Surgery and teaches surgery at UCLA Medical School.
1042519	Lucky Jim is a novel by Kingsley Amis, published in 1954 by Victor Gollancz. It was Amis' first novel, and won the Somerset Maugham Award for fiction. Set sometime around 1950, "Lucky Jim" follows the exploits of the eponymous James (Jim) Dixon, a reluctant medieval history lecturer at an unnamed provincial English university (based in part on the University of Leicester). The tone is often truculent and plain-spoken, but diction and style are wide-ranging and finely modulated. The novel pioneers the characteristic subject-matter of the time: a young man making his way in a post-war world that combines new and moribund attitudes.
1166039	Warren Berlinger (born August 31, 1937) is an American character actor, with Broadway runs, movie and television credits, and much work in commercials. Personal life. Berlinger was born in Brooklyn, New York, of Jewish heritage, the son of Frieda (née Shapkin) and Elias Berlinger, a building contractor. His family owned Berlinger's Glass Store on Avenue D. He and his late wife, actress Betty Lou Keim (1938–2010) had four children. He is the nephew of Milton Berle. Career. Berlinger performed in the original 1946 Broadway production of "Annie Get Your Gun", with Ethel Merman and Ray Middleton. He guest-starred on the original "Howdy Doody" television show, with roles following on "Kraft Television Theatre" and other programs. He also guest-starred on John Cassavetes's detective series, NBC's "Johnny Staccato". Berlinger appeared in both the Broadway stage and Hollywood movie productions of "Blue Denim" (winning a Theatre World Award for the stage version), and also "Happy Time", "Anniversary Waltz" (later adapted as the movie "Happy Anniversary"), and "Come Blow Your Horn" in 1961. He also performed in the 1963 London stage production of "How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying" at the Shaftesbury Theatre, His career as a character actor began in 1956 with the film "Teenage Rebel". Then in the movies "Billie" (1965), "Teenage Rebel", "Thunder Alley" and "Because They're Young". In 1965, Berlinger was the star of "Kilroy", a segment of Walt Disney's "Wonderful World of Color". Later appearances included episodes of "Charlie's Angels", "Happy Days" (including a hilarious episode as "tough-as-nails" United States Army recruiter, Sergeant Bechler), "Love, American Style", "Operation Petticoat", "Friends", "Columbo", "Murder, She Wrote", and the movies "", "The Cannonball Run", "The Shaggy D.A.", "That Thing You Do!", and
584783	Brinda Parekh is an Indian film actress and model. She has acted in South Indian films and has also done item numbers in Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Hindi films. She is a Gujarati. She has acted in 4 movies in Tamil, in addition to 2 movies in Kannada. She is from Mumbai, and started her career from modeling in television commercials like Vimal Suitings, Microsoft Windows XP, Royal Challenge beer, Thums Up cola, etc. and hundreds of other brands in print media as well.
1036253	Ruth Jones (born 22 September 1966) is a Welsh TV actress and writer. She co-starred in and co-wrote the award-winning British TV comedy "Gavin & Stacey" (2007-2010), and has appeared in many television comedies and dramas, such as Jimmy McGovern's "The Street" with Timothy Spall (2009), and starring as Hattie Jacques in "Hattie" for BBC4 (2011). She is currently filming series 3 of Stella for Sky One in which she takes the lead role. This comedy drama is produced by Tidy. She co-founded the production company Tidy in 2008 with her husband David Peet, who is Managing Director. Early life. Ruth Jones was born on 22 September 1966 in Bridgend in South Wales. Ruth went to Porthcawl Comprehensive School. Her father was a legal executive for British Steel, Port Talbot, and her mother was a child psychiatrist. She has two older brothers and a younger sister. Jones was brought up in Porthcawl where she attended the same school as Rob Brydon. After graduating from Warwick University with a degree in English and Theatre, she spent a year at the Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama in Cardiff. After graduation Jones found it difficult to get acting work, and considered training as a solicitor. However she then received her first professional role in pantomime in Cardiff. She was also helped by Rob Brydon, who invited her to join an improv group in Bath; the group also included Julia Davis, with whom Jones would later appear in "Nighty Night". Career. She first worked in TV and radio comedy for BBC Wales in 1991. Theatre roles with the RSC and The National Theatre were followed by her performance in the hit British movie, "East Is East". After this Jones appeared on television as Kelly in four series of ITV's comedy "Fat Friends", where she met future "Gavin and Stacey" co-writer James Corden. She also appeared in several BBC comedies, playing Myfanwy in "Little Britain", Magz in "Saxondale", and Linda in "Nighty Night". Jones achieved prominence in 2008 with the BBC sitcom "Gavin and Stacey", which she co-wrote with James Corden. and in which she took a lead role as Nessa Jenkins. The programme became a hit for BBC 3 and moved to BBC 1. Jones has said of it, "It wasn't as deliberate as us saying, 'Right, we're going to react against cynical comedy'. We just wrote what we wanted. And it just so happens that the show does generate a lot of warmth. People seem to like that, especially when things aren't terribly jolly. It's nice to have your cockles warmed." The series won a number of awards, including two BAFTAs and four British Comedy Awards. Jones and co-star Rob Brydon recorded "Islands in the Stream" (a song performed by their characters in the programme) as a single for Comic Relief in 2009; the song reached No. 1 in the chart. In 2008 Jones also featured in the two BBC One television period costume dramas, "Tess of the d'Urbervilles" and "Little Dorrit", as well as in two episodes of "The Street". In December 2009 Jones starred in "A Child's Christmases In Wales". In 2010 she starred in BBC Four comedy "The Great Outdoors" alongside Mark Heap, and in December presented a one-off chat show on BBC Two, "Ruth Jones' Christmas Cracker". In January 2011 she starred as Carry On actor Hattie Jacques in BBC Four drama "Hattie", which tells the story of Jacques' affair with her young driver John Schofield while she was married to "Dad's Army" actor John Le Mesurier. In 2008, Jones co-founded Tidy Productions with producer David Peet. The company produced the series Jones presented on BBC Radio Wales in 2008-9, "Ruth Jones' Sunday Brunch". In 2010, the company had comedy and light entertainment production credits with BBC Two and BBC Three. It has made two 90-minute comedy dramas for S4C and light entertainment shows for BBC Wales. Jones's company has also produced a ten-hour comedy drama "Stella" for Sky TV, which aired in 2012. It was Jones' first major comedy project since "Gavin and Stacey": as well as producing, Jones created the series, stars, and wrote four episodes. Jones has stated that she was worried about comparisons to "Gavin and Stacey" when setting a second programme in Wales, leading to the decision to set "Stella" in the Valleys rather than the South Wales coast: 'I know people from the Valleys and it is just a joyously colourful place and full of characters. My sister is actually a GP up there and the stories are fantastic.' A second series of "Stella" was filmed in summer 2012 and aired in early 2013. She lives in Cardiff with her producer husband David Peet, whom she met while working on a comedy pilot in the early 1990s. She has three grown-up step-children, Fiona, Louise and Alex. Recognition and awards. Winner of "Best Female Comedy Newcomer" at the 2007 British Comedy Awards, Jones was also nominated for "Best Television Comedy Actress". Winner of "Ultimate Funny Woman" at the annual Cosmopolitan 'Ultimate Women Of The Year Awards' November 2009. Charity work. In 2010, Jones took part in "Channel 4's Comedy Gala", a benefit show held in aid of Great Ormond Street Children's Hospital, filmed live at the O2 Arena in London on 30 March.
1376891	Air Buddies is a 2006 straight-to-DVD comedy film. It is the sixth film in the "Air Bud" series and the first in the direct-to-video spin-off series "Air Buddies", which follows the life of a lonely teenager and his dog who has the uncanny ability to play every sport. This movie changes the primary focus of the series from Buddy, an adult golden retriever, to his puppies. It also radically alters the character of the series by making all of the animals speak. "Air Buddies" was released on December 12, 2006. This is Don Knotts' and Patrick Cranshaw's final film, released after their deaths. Plot. The narrator, Sniffer (voiced by Don Knotts), introduces the Air Buddies, Rosebud, Buddha, Budderball, Mudbud, and B-Dawg and explains their sport talents and personalities. After that, Noah and Henry and their parents leave to go to a basketball game with Buddy and Molly. The pups refuse to be left alone and bored, grab their toys, only to be blocked by their babysitter, Mrs. Niggles and get baths instead. Afterwards, Mrs. Niggles tells them to take naps. B-Dawg decrees that no one shall tell him to take a nap, and leads the pups out to watch the babysitter. Buddha notices the babysitter is 'finding her inner peace' and as she naps, the pups play their favorite sports with their toys and Mrs. Niggles's yarn. After all the victory, Budderball climbs up the counter to claim his prize; Mrs. Niggles's blueberry pie. After throwing it onto the ground, Mrs. Niggles wakes up, but she's tied up by her yarn. Then the pups hear their parents coming home, and because everything is a mess, Mrs. Framm thinks it's time to find the Buddies new homes. Meanwhile, Selkirk Tander tries to impress Mr. Livingston's son, Bartleby Livingston by showing him a female tiger for his birthday, but Bartleby wanted an animal he can play with. He wants Air Bud (Buddy) because Buddy can play sports. Mr. Livingston offers $500,000 if Selkirk can get Buddy. Selkirk then sends his nephew Grim and assistant Denning to capture Buddy. At school, Noah and Henry collect every kid's profile sheets and photos, and after looking at girls and boys who would make good owners, the family decides to call the new owners tomorrow. Grim and Denning arrive at Buddy's home, only to see Buddy and Molly at the same time, thinking there are two air buds or they are mates. The next morning, the pups decide to run away. Grim and Denning follow them, and manage to catch Budderball by luring him with a doughnut. The other Buddies go and find Budderball but they are captured as well and used as bait to catch Buddy and Molly. Buddy manages to free the Buddies but Denning traps him with a net. Molly tries to save Buddy but is captured too. Denning and Grim put Buddy and Molly in the truck, while the buddies chase after them. When it is too late, and the truck had gone, the Buddies go wake Sniffer. The Buddies ask Sniffer for his help and where Buddy and Molly were taken to. Sniffer explains that Buddy and Molly were taken to wine country, and refuses to help because he has lost his sense of smell. In wine country, Selkirk is pleased that Denning and Grim captured both Buddy and Molly so he can have them breed puppies and sell them for money. When Grim explain that Buddy and Molly already had puppies and Denning let them get away, Selkirk tells them to lock the dogs in the wine cellar and go and capture the puppies and threatens that if they don't catch the puppies, they will be fed to the tiger. Selkirk also replaces Grim as the leader of the mission to capture the Buddies. Grim and Denning go back to Buddy's home to capture the Buddies but no luck. The Buddies have sniffed their way to the outside cinema, where Grim and Denning are watching 101 Dalmatians. The Buddies find their way to the projection room and walk right in front of the projector, their shadows attracting Denning and Grim's attention. The Buddies then find a snack bar and start eating. Grim opens the projector, temporarily blinding himself. A female customer orders a box cup of popcorn, and Budderball tumbles out of the box -- her scream is heard by Denning and Grim who then slip on a wet floor. Next, the Buddies run into a motor bike gang. Still blind, Grim knocks the motor bikes over, while Denning also collides with the motorcycles, furiously calling the Buddies and the man at the movie projection booth double-crossing bottle-suckers and various other nasty names related to double-crossing. Grim and Denning knocking over the motorcycles with their clumsiness infuriates the gang, who then tie Grim and Denning in front of the cinema screen and begin throwing soda, candy, and popcorn at them. Grim and Denning catch up to the Buddies, chasing them to a farm. The Buddies meet Billy the Goat and Belinda the Pig, who help the Buddies escape from Grim and Denning. The Buddies lure Grim and Denning into a stable and escape through a small hole as Billy locks Grim and Denning in. The Buddies go through the forest then meet the Wolf who leads them to wine country. A skunk's spray enables Sniffer to smell again, so he calls Noah and Henry and they go off to find the Buddies. Buddy and Molly manage to escape to find the Buddies. Budderball falls into a hole, which Buddy and Molly dug, forcing the Buddies to help. Noah and Henry are led by Sniffer through the same farm that the Buddies went through. Noah and Henry are ecstatic and overjoyed at finding Grim and Denning being held prisoners by Billy the goat, and immediately depart to report them and turn them in to the authorities over Grim and Denning's protests. Bartleby and his father come to collect the dogs but instead finds the Buddies. Bartleby and his father then put the Buddies in a limousine, when Noah, Henry, Buddy and Molly come to rescue the Buddies. Budderball falls into one of the wine containers and gets drunk. Bartleby catches Budderball but is caught by Sniffer. Noah, Henry, and the dogs release barrels towards Selkirk and Mr. Livingston; the barrels break the wine container. Selkirk and Mr. Livingston fall in, as the container cracks open. Washing out of the container, Sheriff Bob arrives to arrest Selkirk, Denning, and Grim. The Buddies apologize to Buddy and Molly; they understand and say they're ready for their new owners. Budderball decides to stay with Bartleby because he needs a friend. Miscellaneous. Patrick Cranshaw died on December 28, 2005, but he had already finished filming all of his scenes for the movie. Don Knotts died on February 24, 2006, but he finished all his voice work on this, his final film. The movie is dedicated to them both. The next movie of the series is Snow Buddies.
1456016	Assassination Tango is a 2002 crime film written, produced, directed by, and starring Robert Duvall. It is a thriller about an assassin's discovery of Argentine tango. Other actors include Rubén Blades, Kathy Baker and Duvall's wife, Luciana Pedraza. Francis Ford Coppola was one of the executive producers; the majority of the film was shot in Argentina. Some scenes at the beginning and end of the story were filmed in Coney Island, Brooklyn. Plot. Anderson (Duvall) is a successful American hitman whose employer sends him to do a job in Argentina. His contacts inform him that his target is a former general. Things are not as easy as they seem. A paranoid Anderson simultaneously rents a room in two different hotels. From the safety but close proximity of one hotel room, he witnesses police converge on the other hotel. Anderson will fulfill his obligation to do the job despite the obvious reality that there is a leak. We witness the conspirator Miguel (Rueben Blades) being harshly interrogated by Buenos Aires police. Miguel can eventually breathe a sigh of relief when his conspirator within the Argentinian federal authorities shows up. Anderson (Duvall) eventually makes it out of Argentina safely. The character of Jo-Jo is a small supporting role played by Frank Cassavetes, a son of the late director John Cassavetes and actress Gena Rowlands.
582609	Kuch Naa Kaho (Hindi: कुछ ना कहो, Urdu: کچھ نہ کہو, translation: "Don't Say Anything") is a 2003 Bollywood romantic drama film, directed by Rohan Sippy, starring Abhishek Bachchan, Aishwarya Rai and Arbaaz Khan. It was released on 5 September 2003. Plot. Happy American bachelor Raj (Abhishek Bachchan) reluctantly attends his cousin's wedding in Mumbai where he finds himself pushed towards marriage by his overzealous uncle (Satish Shah). His uncle's employee, Namrata (Aishwarya Rai), begrudgingly chaperones Raj on a series of set-ups that he deliberately sabotages. Eventually on one of these dates, Raj watches Namrata dancing and realises he loves her. He finally gets the strength to tell her, but to his surprise he discovers she has a son, Aditya, and is already married. Raj is confused, but forms a strong fatherly relationship with her son anyway. His uncle informs him that Namrata's husband disappeared right before Aditya's birth; although Namrata is still technically married, Raj takes heart. Soon enough, however, she finds out about Raj's feelings. In turmoil, she attempts to distance herself from him, knowing they can never be together. Nevertheless, Raj follows her to Aditya's boarding school, having promised the boy to pose as his father. While Raj drives Namrata home, he sarcastically comments that her circumstances must have been her fault. Upset, she tells Raj that her husband was the one that left her for another woman whilst she was pregnant. Eventually Namrata comes round and they both get together. Raj is about to introduce Namrata to his mother, but just as she is about to leave for the party her husband Sanjeev (Arbaaz Khan) walks back into her life to begin where they left off. She does not want anything to do with him, but she grudgingly takes him back even though she is now in love with Raj. After a chance meeting with Sanjeev, Raj invites Sanjeev to his cousin's wedding. Adi also comes and goes straight to Raj and calls him "Dad." Sanjeev, jealous and angry, insults Raj and his family and creates a scene at the wedding. Namrata, finally gets the courage to tell Sanjeev that she is no longer his wife and that she is in love with Raj. Raj and Namrata get married, have a child and live happily ever after. Soundtrack. The music is composed by Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy. Lyrics are penned by Javed Akhtar. Box office. Kuch Naa Kaho had an awful opening. It collected
1030465	Dr. Dolittle 3 is a 2006 American family comedy film. It is the third overall but the first of the remake series that does not star Eddie Murphy and Raven-Symoné. It stars Kyla Pratt, the original daughter in the remake series, as Maya. Along with, Kristen Wilson as Lisa Dolittle and Norm Macdonald as the voice of Lucky the Dog. Despite his absence, Eddie Murphy's character was mentioned several times throughout the film. It is implied that he is away on business. Plot. Maya has evolved considerably from the first film. Though she was then an antisocial individual more interested in her science projects, Maya has transformed into the typical teenager. Like her sister Charisse, she inherits their father John's capacity for communicating with fauna (she is a part-time veterinary assistant), her life is turned upside down on all fronts. She routinely lands in trouble with her parents, while her friends think she's gone crazy. With John away on animal expeditions, Maya's mother Lisa sends her (with Lucky following along) to a ranch named 'Durango', so she can find herself. The ranch is owned by Jud (John Amos), and his son Bo (Walker Howard). While there, Maya, who desperately tried to keep it under wraps so as not to arouse suspicion, uses her talent to "talk to the animals" in order to save Durango from being taken over by a neighboring ranch. Maya is at first reluctant to reveal her ability, fearing rejection from her friends, but eventually does so. With her help, the Durango ranch enters a rodeo competition with a $50,000 award, and wins it. Also, she shares her first kiss with Bo and finally wins his heart. Releases. This film was released direct-to-video in 2006; on April 25 for Region 1 and May 1 for Region 2. Reception. Although a relative success in sales, the film was a major failure among critics and fans. Of the two reviews given at Rotten Tomatoes, both were very negative: one critic, Scott Weinberg, said "Cheap-looking, atrociously written, and delivered with all the energy of a breach-birth bovine, Dr. Dolittle 3 is all kinds of terrible." David Cornelius of efilmcritic.com described the film as "not so much poorly made as it is lazy and cheap."
1064865	Wilbert "Bill" Cobbs (born June 16, 1934) is an American film and television actor. He has starred in over 120 television programs and movies. Early life. Bill Cobbs was born in Cleveland, Ohio, to a mother who was a domestic worker and a father who worked in construction.
1055160	Aparajito (; ) is a 1956 Indian Bengali drama film directed by Satyajit Ray, and is the second part of "The Apu Trilogy". It is adapted from the last one-fifth of Bibhutibhushan Bannerjee's novel "Pather Panchali" and the first one-third of its sequel "Aparajito". It focuses on the life of Apu from childhood to college. The film won eleven international awards, including the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival. It is followed by the third part of the trilogy, "The World of Apu". Plot. The film begins with Apu's family getting settled in an apartment close to a "ghat" in Benares. Here Apu (Pinaki Sengupta) makes new friends. While his mother Sarbajaya (Karuna Banerjee) stays at home, his father Harihar (Kanu Banerjee) works as a priest. On a Diwali day, Harihar develops a fever and rests, as his wife comforts him. The next day, he leaves for his work as usual towards the "ghat", ignoring Sarbajaya's advice to rest. While coming back to home, he collapses on the stairs of the "ghat", and dies soon afterwards. In Harihar's absence, it becomes Sarbajaya's responsibility to earn money for the family. She starts working as a maid. A relative invites them to return to their ancestral village in Dewanpur (in Rajshahi Division, modern-day Bangladesh). They settle in a village called "Mansapota". Apu asks his mother to send him to a school. Apu studies diligently and receives a scholarship to go to Calcutta (now Kolkata). Sarbajaya does not want to let her son leave. She gives in and helps him prepare to leave. Apu (Smaran Ghosal) starts working at a printing press after school. Sarbajaya expects visits from him, but Apu manages to visit only a few times and feels out of place in "Mansapota". Sarbajaya becomes seriously ill, but does not disclose her illness to Apu. One day while waiting for him, she hears his voice at the doorstep and goes to see him, but finds only the noise of monkeys in the trees and a pond of fireflies as she begins fainting. When Apu finally comes to know about her poor health, he leaves for the village and finds that she has already died. A relative requests him to stay back there and to work as a priest. Apu rejects the idea. He returns to Calcutta and performs the last rites for his mother there. Production. Subrata Mitra, the cinematographer for "The Apu Trilogy", made his first technical innovation with this film: the introduction of bounce lighting. According to the Internet Encyclopedia of Cinematographers: Reception. "Aparajito" won the Golden Lion at the 1957 Venice Film Festival, and to date remains the only film sequel to ever win the grand prize at the prestigious Venice, Berlin or Cannes Film Festivals. Ray also won the Golden Gate awards for Best Picture and Best Director at the San Francisco International Film Festival in 1958 for this film. The film also won the Bodil Award for Best Non-European Film of the Year at Denmark in 1967. Film critic James Berardinelli wrote: Legacy. In 1992, "Sight & Sound" (the British Film Institute's film magazine) ranked "The Apu Trilogy" at #88 in its Critics' Poll of all-time greatest films, while "Aparajito" itself was ranked separately at #127 on the same list. In 2002, a combined list of "Sight & Sound" critics' and directors' poll results included "Aparajito" in its top 160. In 1998, the Asian film magazine "Cinemaya"'s critics' poll of all-time greatest films ranked "The Apu Trilogy" at #7 on the list. In 1999, "The Village Voice" ranked "The Apu Trilogy" at #54 in its Top 250 "Best Films of the Century" list, based on a poll of critics. In 2001, film critic Roger Ebert included "The Apu Trilogy" in his list of "100 Great Movies" of all time. In 2005, "The Apu Trilogy" was included in "Time" magazine's All-Time 100 greatest movies list. At Rotten Tomatoes, "Aparajito " has a 93% fresh rating based on an aggregate of 14 reviews. Smaran Ghosal who played the role of adolescent "Apu", at the age of 14, did only one more film, documentary "Rabindranath Tagore" (1961), also made by Ray, where he played young Rabindranath Tagore. Smaran died in 2008 in Kolkata, at the age of 64. Influence. According to Michael Sragow of "The Atlantic Monthly" in 1994: Across the world, filmmakers such as Martin Scorsese, James Ivory, Abbas Kiarostami, Elia Kazan and Wes Anderson have been influenced by "The Apu Trilogy", with many others such as Akira Kurosawa praising the work. In Gregory Nava's 1995 film "My Family", the final scene is duplicated from the final scene of "Apur Sansar". Similar references to the trilogy are found, for example, in recent works such as "Sacred Evil", the "Elements trilogy" of Deepa Mehta and even in films of Jean-Luc Godard. The technique of bounce lighting developed by the cinematographer Subrata Mitra for "Aparajito" has also had a profound influence on the development of cinematography.
1151535	Katharine Houghton (born Katharine Houghton Grant; March 10, 1945) is an American actress. She is best known for her role as Joanna "Joey" Drayton, a white American woman who brings home her black American fiancé to meet her parents, in the 1967 film "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner". Katharine Hepburn, who played the mother of Houghton's character in the film, was in real life Houghton's aunt. Early life. Houghton was born in Hartford, Connecticut, the second child of Marion Hepburn and Ellsworth Grant. She attended Sarah Lawrence College and majored in philosophy and art. Houghton was named after her maternal grandmother, Katharine Martha Houghton Hepburn. Her aunt, Katharine Hepburn, was instrumental in helping Houghton launch her career. The acting torch was further passed along in the family to actress Schuyler Grant, Houghton's niece. Career. Acting. Houghton has played leading roles in over sixty productions on Broadway, off-Broadway and in regional theatres across America. She won the Theatre World Award for her performance in "A Scent of Flowers" off Broadway in 1969. Eleven of her plays have been produced. Her play "Buddha" was published in Best Short Plays of 1988. Her musical, "Bookends," premiered at NJ Rep Co. summer of 2007, received rave notices and garnered the theatre the highest box office sales in their eleven-year history. Since then it has twice been part of The York Theatre’s Developmental Reading Series. Houghton has presented lectures at venues across the country including the 2001 Fall Concert & Lectures Series at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and at The Cosmopolitan Club. She lectured at MOMA again in June, 2008, presenting "Saucy Gamine, Reluctant Penitent, and Glorious Victor," a review of her aunt's roller coaster ride in Hollywood as reflected in three of her films. She has appeared in ten films, most recently "The Last Airbender", directed by M. Night Shyamalan, in 2010. Writing. Houghton is also a playwright and has translated the works of others for the stage, as well as writing her own plays. In 1975, Houghton wrote for her husband, actor/writer Ken Jenkins, a children's story, "The Wizard's Daughter," which is collected in the book, "Two Beastly Tales", illustrated by Joan Patchen, her husband's first wife. Personal life. Houghton has been married to fellow actor Ken Jenkins since 1970. Houghton is the stepmother of Jenkins' three sons from his first marriage to actress and painter Joan Patchen.
593504	Spetters is a Dutch film released in 1980 directed by Paul Verhoeven. "Spetters" led to protests about the manner in which Verhoeven portrayed gays, Christians, the police, and the press. Although Verhoeven made one more film in the Netherlands, the response to "Spetters" led him to leave for Hollywood. Despite the large amount of controversy surrounding it, the film proved to be popular with 1,124,162 admissions in the Netherlands alone. From a financial perspective the film proved to be a disappointment, given the fact that the production ran seriously behind schedule and over budget. The careers of Maarten Spanjer and Renee Soutendijk were launched by this film, but it did not do much for the other young lead actors. Hans van Tongeren committed suicide in 1982. The film was a small success in the United States but it did help the launching of the careers of Verhoeven and the actors Jeroen Krabbé, Rutger Hauer and Soutendijk in Hollywood. Plot. The film, which is violent and sexually graphic, is a high-speed coming of age story which centers on three young men dreaming of an escape from their provincial surroundings by means of a motocross career: young motocross racing champion Rien (Hans van Tongeren), another racer who thinks he has the goods, Hans (), and the son of a Bible thumping Calvinist, the mechanic Eef (). Their only escapes are alcohol, drugs, and weekend visits to a local disco nightclub. When they run into a young seductress (Renee Soutendijk), her homosexual brother, national motocross champion Witkamp (Rutger Hauer) and the national press that follows in his wake, their futures change drastically. Title. The word ""spetter"" (plural: ""spetters"") is a (now outdated) word with the same meaning as the English word "hunk". It also means "splatters" and thereby refers to the chips stall where Soutendijk's character works, when she lowers the chips into the frying pan.
1063584	Thunderbolt and Lightfoot is a 1974 American crime film written and directed by Michael Cimino and starring Clint Eastwood, Jeff Bridges, George Kennedy, and Geoffrey Lewis. Plot. As a young ne'er-do-well named Lightfoot (Jeff Bridges) steals a car, an assassin attempts to shoot a minister delivering a sermon at his pulpit. The preacher escapes on foot. Lightfoot, who happens to be driving by, inadvertently rescues him by running over his pursuer and giving the preacher a lift. Lightfoot eventually learns that the "minister" is really a notorious bank robber known as "The Thunderbolt" (Clint Eastwood) for his use of a 20 millimeter cannon to break into a safe. Hiding out in the guise of a clergyman following the robbery of a Montana bank, Thunderbolt is the only member of his old gang who knows where the loot is hidden. After escaping another attempt on his life by two other men, Thunderbolt tells Lightfoot that the ones trying to kill him are members of his gang who mistakenly thought Thunderbolt had double-crossed them. He and Lightfoot journey to Warsaw, Montana to retrieve the money hidden in an old one-room schoolhouse. They discover the schoolhouse has been replaced by a brand-new school standing in its place. Thunderbolt and Lightfoot are abducted by the men who were shooting at them—the vicious Red Leary (George Kennedy) and the gentle Eddie Goody (Geoffrey Lewis) -- and driven to a remote location where Thunderbolt and Red fight each other, after which Thunderbolt explains how he never betrayed the gang. Lightfoot proposes another heist — robbing the same company as before — with a variation on the original plan, since Lightfoot inadvertently killed their electronics expert, Dunlap, in his rescue of the fleeing preacher. In the city where the bank is located, the men find jobs to raise money for needed equipment while they plan the heist. The robbery begins as Thunderbolt and Red gain access to the building. Lightfoot, dressed as a woman, distracts the Western Union office's security guard, deactivates the ensuing alarm, and is picked up by Goody. Using an anti-tank cannon to breach the vault's wall, as they did in the first heist, the gang escapes with the loot. They flee in the car, with Red and Goody in the trunk, to a nearby drive-in movie in progress. Upon seeing a shirt tail protruding from the car's trunk lid, the suspicious theater manager calls the police and a chase ensues. Goody is shot and Red throws him out of the trunk onto a dirt road, where he dies. Red then forces Thunderbolt and Lightfoot to stop the car. He pistol-whips them both, knocking them unconscious, and kicks Lightfoot violently in the head. Red takes off with the loot in the getaway car but is again pursued by police, who shoot Red several times, causing him to lose control of the car and crash through the window of a department store, where he is attacked and killed by the store's vicious watchdog. Escaping on foot, Thunderbolt and Lightfoot hitch a ride the next morning and are dropped off near Warsaw, Montana, where they stumble upon the one-room schoolhouse - now an historical monument on the side of a highway - moved there from its original location in Warsaw after the first heist. As the two men retrieve the stolen money, Lightfoot's behavior becomes erratic as a result of the beating. Thunderbolt buys a new Cadillac convertible with cash, something Lightfoot said he had always wanted to do, and picks up his waiting partner, who is gradually losing control of the left side of his body. As they drive away celebrating their success with cigars, Lightfoot, in obvious distress, tells Thunderbolt in a slurred voice how proud he is of their 'accomplishments', and slumps over dead. Thunderbolt snaps his cigar in half (as there no longer is a celebration), and with his dead partner beside him, he drives off down the highway into the distance. Production. Development & Screenplay. Stan Kamen of the William Morris Agency came up with the initial idea for "Thunderbolt and Lightfoot", but gave it to Michael Cimino to write on speculation with Eastwood in mind. Due to the great financial success of Dennis Hopper's "Easy Rider", road pictures were a popular genre in Hollywood. Eastwood himself wanted to do a road movie. Agent Leonard Hirshan brought the script to Eastwood from fellow agent Kamen. Reading it, Eastwood liked it so much that he originally intended to direct it himself. However, on meeting Cimino, he decided to give him the directing job instead, giving Cimino his big break and feature-film directorial debut. Cimino later said that if it was not for Eastwood, he never would have had a career in film. Cimino patterned "Thunderbolt" after one of his favorite '50s films, "Captain Lightfoot". Shooting. Although Eastwood generally refused to spend much time in scouting for locations, particularly unfamiliar ones, Cimino and Eastwood's producer Robert Daley traveled extensively around the Big Sky Country in Montana for thousands of miles and eventually decided on the Great Falls area and to shoot the film in the towns of Ulm, Hobson, Fort Benton, Augusta and Choteau and surrounding mountainous countryside. The film was shot in 47 days from July to September 1973. It was filmed in Fort Benton, Wolf Creek, Great Falls, and Hobson. "St. John's Lutheran Church" in Hobson was used for the opening scene. Eastwood did not like to do any more than three takes on any given shot, according to co-star Bridges. "I would always go to Mike and say 'I think I can do one more. I got an idea.' And Mike would say 'I gotta ask Clint.' Clint would say, 'Give the kid a shot.'" Charles Okun, first assistant director on "Thunderbolt", added, "Clint was the only guy that ever said 'no'. Michael said 'OK, let's go for another take.' It was take four, Clint would say 'No we got enough. We got it.' [...] And if took too long to get it ready, [Clint would say, 'It's good, let's go.'" Release. "Thunderbolt" was released on May 23, 1974. The film grossed $9 million on its initial theatrical release and eventually grossed $25 million overall. The film did respectable box office business, and the studio profited, but Clint Eastwood vowed never to work with the movie's distributor United Artists again due to what he felt was bad promotion of it. According to author Marc Eliot, Eastwood perceived himself as being upstaged by Bridges. Given that for Eastwood this was an offbeat film, Franks Wells of Warner Brothers refused to back Malpaso in the production, leaving him to turn to United Artists and producer Bob Daley. Eastwood was unhappy with the way that United Artists had produced the film and swore "he would never work for United Artists again", and the scheduled two film deal between Malpaso and UA was cancelled. Reception. Jay Cocks of "Time" called the film "one of the most ebullient and eccentric diversions around." Leonard Maltin gave the film three out of four stars, describing it as "Colorful, tough melodrama-comedy with good characterizations; Lewis is particularly fine, but Bridges steals the picture." "Thunderbolt" has an 86% "Fresh" rating on Rotten Tomatoes. The RT consensus is "This likable buddy/road picture deftly mixes action and comedy, and features excellent work from stars Clint Eastwood and Jeff Bridges and first-time director Michael Cimino." "Thunderbolt" has since become a cult film.
591619	Red Swastik is a 2007 Bollywood film directed by Vinod Pande. Plot. Sarika (Deepshika) is a single mother who lives in Mumbai with her physically challenged daughter and works as an editor for a magazine. One day she gets a phone call from a female reader who is upset because her submission was not printed. The caller seems threatening so she notifies her friend, D.C.P. Chaudhary, who meets with her, but is unable to provide any assistance. Then late one night Sarika gets a visit from him and Crime Branch Inspector Sunil Ranade informing her that a businessman had been brutally knifed to death with a blood-smeared 'swastika' mark on his forehead. They inform her that they re-dialed the last number from the victim's phone number and found that it was her work number. They also informed her that they suspect that the killer is a woman who has killed another male in Delhi in a similar fashion and her modus operandi appears to be to kill married males who are unfaithful to their respective spouses. They provide her with a recording machine just in case the killer calls again. The female does call again and attempts to befriend Sarika, but gets upset and evasive when questioned about her identity and whereabouts. Shortly thereafter the Police find another dead male victim and a hunt begins for this elusive, seemingly untraceable killer, who never leaves any clues.
1164661	Thomas Francis Wilson Jr. (born April 15, 1959) is an American actor, writer, musician, painter, voice-over artist, stand-up comedian, and podcaster. He is best known for playing Biff Tannen (and his grandson Griff Tannen and great-grandfather Buford "Mad Dog" Tannen) in the "Back to the Future" trilogy and Coach Ben Fredricks on NBC's "Freaks and Geeks". Early life. Wilson was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and raised in nearby Wayne, Pennsylvania. While attending Radnor High School, he was involved in dramatic arts, was president of the debate team where his partner was future NY Times columnist David Brooks, and played tuba in the high school band and was drum major of his marching band. He studied international politics at Arizona State University. Wilson's first 'real' stage experience was as a stand-up comedian while studying at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. He is a contributor to "The Bob & Tom Show" and is part of their comedy tour. 1980s. Wilson had a small role in an episode of NBC's "Knight Rider" in 1984. His breakthrough role was as a bully named Biff Tannen in the movie "Back to the Future". Wilson's talents as a comedian and an actor combined made Biff a character people loved to hate. When "Back to the Future" became a trilogy, he was asked to perform in these sequels again as Biff's grandson Griff and Biff's great-grandfather Buford "Mad Dog" Tannen. His famous catchphrases include "Hello! Hello! Anybody home?", "What are you looking at, Butthead?", "Say hi to your mom for me", "Why don't you make like a tree and get out of here". In every "Back to the Future" film, he always ended up in a pile of manure (in reality, a pile of decayed sphagnum and other plant matters) —in each instance, Wilson's Tannen characters were always trying to kill or hurt Michael J. Fox's character Marty McFly. He reprised his role as Biff and voiced various Tannen relatives in the franchise's animated series. Wilson also played the role of a Detroit police officer in "Action Jackson". 1990s. In 1992, he voiced gangster Tony Zucco in ' and police detective Matt Bluestone in the animated series "Gargoyles". He later went to co-star in ', a video game with Mark Hamill. It was the third chapter in the "Wing Commander" series, but the first to feature live action and was extremely popular at the time. The character played by Wilson was Major Todd "Maniac" Marshall, a fellow starfighter pilot of Hamill's character. Wilson also starred in the sequels ' (1995) and ' (1997) and contributed his voice to the animated series "Wing Commander Academy" (1996) in the same role. He also guest starred in an episode of in 1997. Wilson played McKinley High School's Coach Ben Fredricks in the 1999-2000 NBC comedy-drama "Freaks and Geeks". Coach Fredricks dated Bill Haverchuck's mother. Wilson was briefly reunited with his "Back to the Future" co-star Christopher Lloyd in the 1994 film "Camp Nowhere". Wilson also played as Simon, Hilda's dream date made out of dough in "Sabrina the Teenage Witch" in 1996. 2000s. In 2003, Wilson appeared on the screen in a mockumentary movie called "Trial and Error: The Making of Sequestered". Wilson has often lent his voice to animated productions such as ' (1993), "The New Batman Adventures" (1998), Disney's ' (2003), and "The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie" (2004). As well as the animated roles, he has continued to voice characters in computer and video games. His latest roles are supporting characters in the film "" and on the TV drama "Ghost Whisperer". In 2004, Wilson played the role of Noah Curry in the Pasadena Playhouse production of the musical "110 in the Shade", also starring Marin Mazzie and Jason Danieley. In 2005, Wilson released his comedy album, "Tom Wilson Is Funny!". In 2007, Wilson appeared in the episode "Whatever It Takes" of the Fox drama, "House M.D.", as "Lou", the father of Dr. House's patient. In 2008, Wilson appeared in the episode "The Baby in the Bough" of another Fox drama, "Bones". He played Chip Barnett, owner of a tire recycling plant. Wilson appeared in an episode of the ABC drama "Boston Legal" (Season 4, Episode 7), "Attack of the Xenophobes", as a former police officer who is charged with murder. Wilson performed "Sleigh Ride" with Relient K on "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno", playing acoustic guitar. The members of Relient K are big fans of Wilson and invited him to perform on the show with them. In March 2009, he appeared as himself, busking, in "Vidiotic", a comedy pilot on the British channel BBC Three.
586839	Sunil Pal was born in Chandrapur (Maharastra, India). He is a popular Indian comedian, actor and voice actor, and the 2005 winner of "The Great Indian Laughter Challenge" on STAR One. Lately he has been seen acting in many Bollywood flicks doing minor comic roles. In 2010, he wrote and directed a comedy film, "Bhavnao Ko Samjho", which featured a record 51 stand-up comedians. Early life. Sunil Pal came to Mumbai in 1995 when his father (who then used to work with Indian Railways) got transferred. He studied in Janata Vidyalaya city branch Ballarpur school. He joined the Junior College.There he used to mimic his professors and famous actors. After college, he struggled for three years. Early career. During one of his interviews, he says that "I was working at a tea stall in Santacruz as waiter. Those days I'd sleep on the footpath. And I used to use the telephones of a nearby shop to keep in touch with my contacts in film industry."
1066859	The Dead Pool is a 1988 American crime thriller directed by Buddy Van Horn, written by Steve Sharon and starring Clint Eastwood as Inspector "Dirty" Harry Callahan. It is the fifth and final film in the "Dirty Harry" series, set in San Francisco, California. The story concerns the manipulation of a dead pool game by a serial killer, whose efforts are confronted by the hardened detective Callahan. It co-stars Liam Neeson, Patricia Clarkson and Jim Carrey, each of whom eventually went on to greater film fame. At 91 minutes, it is the shortest of the five "Dirty Harry" films. It was also Jim Carrey's first non-comedy related movie. Plot. Fame finally catches up with Harry Callahan. His testimony against crime kingpin Lou Janero puts the mobster in prison and Callahan on the cover of a San Francisco magazine as the city's ace crime fighter. Callahan is attacked by Janero's men at a turnoff near the San Francisco – Oakland Bay Bridge while driving. He knocks down one with his car and shoots the remaining men dead. Callahan discovers he has been assigned a partner: Asian-American, martial arts-skilled partner Al Quan (Evan Kim). Unimpressed, he advises Quan to get a bulletproof vest (as his partners often get killed working with him). They are then assigned to investigate the death of rock singer Johnny Squares (Jim Carrey), killed in his trailer outside a meatpacking plant during filming of a slasher film directed by Peter Swan (Liam Neeson).
1790520	Matthew Waterhouse (born 19 December 1961) is an English actor and writer best known for his role as Adric in the BBC science fiction television series "Doctor Who". Early life. Waterhouse was born in Hertford, Hertfordshire but brought up in Haywards Heath, Sussex. The son of a solicitor, he was educated at St. Wilfrid’s Primary School, West Sussex and Shoreham Grammar School. Waterhouse was a great fan of "Doctor Who" in his younger days, claiming that he was "obsessed" with the show. Doctor Who. Adric was a companion of Tom Baker and Peter Davison's Doctors from 1980 to 1982. Waterhouse was the youngest actor to play a companion (Sarah Sutton was the youngest female actor and second youngest to play a companion; several companions since the series' 2005 revival have been portrayed in their youths actors younger than Waterhouse, notably 10-year-old Caitlin Blackwood who originated the role of Amy Pond before it was taken over by her adult cousin, Karen Gillan), and had only appeared in one television drama prior to being appointed in the role. He played the schoolboy Briarley in the BBC2 adaptation of "To Serve Them All My Days" with John Duttine, and it was only shortly before he filmed his appearance on the miniseries that he found out he had secured the role of Adric. Waterhouse returned to the sphere of "Doctor Who" and took part in the audio commentaries for the DVD releases of "Earthshock" and "The Visitation" released in 2003 and 2004 respectively. He also provided commentary for "The Keeper of Traken", released in 2007 as part of the "New Beginnings" box set. Though released separately, all commentaries were recorded in the same week, as noted by Waterhouse in his commentary for "The Keeper of Traken". More recently, in late 2008, he made an audio commentary, jointly with Peter Davison, Janet Fielding and Sarah Sutton for the DVD releases of "Four to Doomsday" and "Black Orchid". He also talks about his complete tenure on the show in the featurette "The Boy With the Golden Star" dedicated to Adric on the Warriors' Gate DVD. On 31 July 2013, Big Finish Productions announced via their Facebook page that Waterhouse would be returning to play the role of Adric in a series of Fifth Doctor audio plays beginning in 2014. Other work. Waterhouse guested on a number of shows after it was announced that he would be playing Adric. This included "Saturday Night At The Mill" (BBC Pebble Mill, 1980) and Top of the Pops (BBC, 1980) with Dave Lee Travis. He also guested on Peter Davison's "This Is Your Life (UK TV series)" (Thames TV, 1982) and Children in Need (BBC, 1985) with a range of Doctor Who actors. Waterhouse's only film appearance was in the 1986 sci-fi thriller, "The Killing Edge", directed by Lindsay Shonteff. Waterhouse, in a minor role, played a knife man. In 1996 he made the science fiction pilot drama "Ghostlands" for MJTV Productions, and played the character Tom, alongside actors Sylvester McCoy and Jacqueline Pearce. Waterhouse has appeared in a wide range of theatre productions in the UK, and has appeared in the Shakespeare productions "A Midsummer Night's Dream" (as Puck), "Twelfth Night" (as Fabian), "Macbeth" (as Fleance) and "Hamlet" (as the title role). He also appeared in theatre productions of "I Am David", "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe", "Brighton Beach Memoirs" (West Yorkshire Playhouse), "Peter Pan" (directed by actor Clive Swift) and "Torch Song Trilogy". In August 2006, Waterhouse self-published his debut novel, "Fates, Flowers: A Comedy of New York" (ThisPress). The book was republished in June 2010 by Hirst Books, along with two other books released later that year -- "Vanitas: A Comedy of New York" and the memoir "Blue Box Boy". Waterhouse also wrote and appeared in his own one-man show "Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" (Chipping Norton and UK Tour) which was directed by actor Murray Melvin (Bilis Manger in the "Doctor Who" spin-off drama "Torchwood" in 2007). In February 2011, it was announced that he was guest-starring in the "Dark Shadows" audio drama "The Creeping Fog" as John Cunningham. It was released on 30 June that year. Personal life. Waterhouse has lived in Connecticut in the United States since July 1998, but occasionally returns to the UK for conventions, signings, performances and recording audio commentary for the Doctor Who DVDs. As mentioned in his memoir "Blue Box Boy" he is gay. He lives with his American partner. Trivia. Waterhouse's name was used by comedians Matt Lucas and David Walliams for a character in their sketch show "Little Britain". Waterhouse in the programme is an unsuccessful inventor of bizarre and ridiculous new versions of things such as board games and breakfast cereals. "Little Britain" has also featured two other characters named after "Doctor Who" companion actors, Michael Craze and Mark Strickson, while the programme is narrated by Waterhouse's Doctor Who colleague, Tom Baker.
632729	Richard Dean Anderson (born January 23, 1950) is an American television and film actor, television producer and composer. He began his television career in 1976 as Dr. Jeff Webber in the American soap opera series "General Hospital", then rose to prominence as the lead actor in the television series "MacGyver" (1985–1992). Anderson later appeared in films, including "Through the Eyes of a Killer" (1992), "Pandora's Clock" (1996) and "Firehouse" (1997). In 1997, Anderson returned to television as the lead actor of the series "Stargate SG-1", a spin-off of the 1994 film "Stargate". He played the lead from 1997–2005 and had a recurring role from 2005–07. Since 1997, the only film Anderson has starred in is ' released in 2008 as a spin-off film after "Stargate SG-1" Series finale in 2007. He appears in the follow-up Stargate series ' and "" (as Lieutenant General Jack O'Neill). Early life. Anderson was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota to Stuart Jay Anderson and Jocelyn Rhae Carter, and was the oldest of four brothers. He is of Scottish, Swedish, Norwegian and Native American descent. He grew up in Roseville, Minnesota and attended Ramsey High School. As a child, Anderson's dream of becoming a professional hockey player ended when he broke both his arms. Anderson developed an early interest in music, art and acting. For a short time he tried to become a jazz musician. Career. Anderson studied to become an actor at St. Cloud State University in Minnesota and then at Ohio University in Athens, Ohio, but later dropped out before he received his degree because he felt "listless". Right after his junior year in college, Anderson participated with friends in a cross-country bike ride from Minnesota to Alaska. He then moved to North Hollywood along with his friend Ricky V. and girlfriend Dianne, then to New York, then moved permanently to Los Angeles. At the start he worked as a whale handler in a marine mammal show, a musician in medieval dinner theater, and as a street mime and juggler. Anderson has stated that this period was "the happiest of my life" and has expressed an interest in teaching juggling, clowning and other circus arts to disadvantaged youths. Anderson's first role was in the American soap opera, "General Hospital" as Dr. Jeff Webber from 1976 to 1981. In 1982–1983 He starred as Adam in the CBS television series "Seven Brides for Seven Brothers" (based very loosely on the movie of the same name). In the 1983–1984 season, he played Lieutenant Simon Adams on the 22-week Dennis Weaver series "Emerald Point N.A.S." on CBS, stealing away Celia Warren (Susan Dey), the wife of naval lawyer Jack Warren (Charles Frank). Anderson then played Tony Kaiser in the acclaimed TV movie "Ordinary Heroes", which aired in 1986. "MacGyver". Anderson came to fame in the lead role of Angus MacGyver in the hit television series "MacGyver," which lasted from 1985 to 1992 and was highly successful throughout its 7-year run. The character Angus MacGyver, known as just MacGyver or Mac until the final season, is the highly intelligent, optimistic action hero that was notable as having not a firearm but the Swiss Army knife as a favorite weapon and tool. Anderson would go on to produce two follow-up movies to "MacGyver," in 1994.. After the cancellation of "MacGyver", Anderson stated ""MacGyver" was seven years of being in virtually every frame that was shot and having absolutely no life at all." Later career. In 1995 he co-starred with John de Lancie in "Legend", a comic series of only twelve episodes about a dime novel writer within the Wild West who against his will has to play the role of his own fictional character. Originally written as a TV movie, with the decision to make "Legend" a series, the original teleplay became the two-hour pilot episode. Anderson was applauded for his roles as Ernest Pratt and Nicodemus Legend by many critics, most notably John O'Connor from "The New York Times". From 1997 to 2005, Anderson starred as Jack O'Neill in "Stargate SG-1", based on the movie "Stargate" starring Kurt Russell and James Spader. John Symes president of Metro–Goldwyn–Mayer (MGM) called Anderson himself and asked him if he wanted a part in the series. Anderson watched the "Stargate" film over and over again and came to the conclusion that the film had "great potential" and signed a contract with the "Stargate" producers. Anderson agreed to become involved with the project if his character was allowed significantly more comedic leeway than Kurt Russell's character in the feature film. He also requested "Stargate SG-1" to be more of an ensemble show, so that he would not be carrying the plot alone as on "MacGyver". In season eight, he chose to have his character "promoted" to base commander on Don S. Davis's advice. This enabled the late Davis to retire from acting due to his ailing health, and Anderson to take over the smaller role which involved far less on-location shooting so that he could spend more time with his young daughter. The following season, Anderson terminated his status as star and producer of "Stargate SG-1" opting to make several guest appearances per season instead, allowing his sizable role to be filled by veteran actors Ben Browder (replacing Anderson as field commander), Claudia Black (replacing Anderson as the comic relief) and Emmy nominee Beau Bridges (replacing Anderson as Base commander). At the Air Force Association's 57th Annual Air Force Anniversary Dinner in Washington, D.C., on September 14, 2004, then-Air Force Chief-of-Staff, General John P. Jumper, presented Anderson with an award because of his role as star and executive producer of "Stargate SG-1", a series which portrayed the Air Force in a positive light from its premiere. Anderson was also made an honorary Air Force brigadier general. A great fan of the television show "The Simpsons", which he had continually referenced during his time on "SG-1", Anderson was invited in 2005 to guest star on the show. He voiced himself in the episode "Kiss Kiss Bang Bangalore" in which the actor was kidnapped by Selma and Patty Bouvier, Marge Simpson's sisters, his MacGyver character having been their longstanding heartthrob. Dan Castellaneta, the voice actor who portrays Homer Simpson (among other characters), made a guest appearance on "Stargate SG-1" ("Citizen Joe") and, in describing his unnatural ability to see the life events of Jack O'Neill, made reference to O'Neill's fondness for "The Simpsons". Anderson briefly reprised his role as Angus MacGyver in 2006 when he appeared in a MasterCard commercial during Super Bowl XL. While the plot follows the "MacGyver Formula", it is somewhat satirical of the series, showing unlikely if not impossible solutions to the obstacles faced by Anderson's character (in one shot, he cuts through a thick rope with a pine-scented air freshener). The official MasterCard website for the commercial refers to it as "the Return of MacGyver". Lee David Zlotoff the creator of "MacGyver", announced on May 3, 2008, that a "MacGyver" film was in production. Anderson has expressed interest in revisiting his role; however, there is no word on who will be playing the role of "MacGyver" in the film. Anderson cameoed as MacGyver in what seemed to be a "Saturday Night Live" advertisement parody featuring the show's recurring character MacGruber (portrayed by Will Forte), but was rather a real commercial for both "Saturday Night Live" and Pepsi, in which the titular character becomes obsessed with the soft drink. This aired three times during the January 31, 2009 "SNL" broadcast, and the second part aired again during Super Bowl XLIII on the following day. Anderson has also played the role of General Jack O'Neill in "Stargate Atlantis" and "Stargate Universe" which first aired in October 2009. Anderson joined the cast of "Fairly Legal" on USA Network in Fall 2010 in the recurring role of David Smith, appearing in three episodes. Producer and composer career. Anderson has served as an executive producer in six shows in which he has acted himself: "MacGyver: Lost Treasure of Atlantis", "MacGyver: Trail to Doomsday", "Legend", "Stargate SG-1", "Firehouse" and "From Stargate to Atlantis: Sci Fi Lowdown". Anderson composed the song "Eau d'Leo" for the "MacGyver" episode "The Negotiator". Together with Michael Greenburg, Anderson created the Gekko Film Corporation. The company was involved with "Stargate SG-1", producing every episode from 1997–2007 with the exception of 2006. The company itself has served as Anderson's backing agency. Personal life. Anderson has divided his time among Vancouver, Los Angeles, and northern Minnesota. Never married, Anderson has one child with Apryl Prose, who gave birth to their daughter Wylie Quinn Annarose Anderson, on August 2, 1998. (He and Prose later split in 2002, sharing custody of Wylie) Anderson left "Stargate SG-1" because he wanted to spend more time with his daughter: Anderson has supported "Waterkeeper Alliance", an organization trying to stop water pollution. Anderson is a member of the Board of Trustees for "Challengers Boys and Girls Club", a youth organization established in 1968 with the help of "MacGyver" producer Stephen Downing, and featured in an episode from season 4 of the show. He received the 1995 Celebrity Award from the "Make-a-Wish Foundation" because of his commitment to the foundation. He is also a supporter for various "Sclerosis Society" non-profit organizations and has done several public service announcements to show his support for the various organizations. Anderson is an avid supporter of the Special Olympics and was one of many speakers at the 1991 opening ceremonies. In recent years, he has helped several environmental organizations around the world. He is a member of Board of Advisors of the "Sea Shepherd Conservation Society" has worked with the members of "Earth Rivers Expeditions to Produce River Project".
589344	Sachaa Jhutha (, English: "Honest Liar") is a 1970 Indian Hindi film directed by Manmohan Desai. The movie was a box-office blockbuster. The movie stars Rajesh Khanna as a simple villager, who has a look alike who is a crook. It also stars Mumtaz and Vinod Khanna. The music is by Kalyanji Anandji. Plot. Bhola (Rajesh Khanna) is an innocent band musician who lives with his physically challenged sister Belu in a village. He needs more money for his sister's marriage and he sets off to Bombay to earn. To make his sister not to feel for his departure he sings a song on the way towards railway station. On the other hand Bombay city Police department is shocked by series of diamond thefts which lead no clue. But Inspector Pradhan(Vinod Khanna) suspects the thief to be Ranjith (Rajesh Khanna) who is actually a wealthy diamond businessman on the accounts that whenever a theft occurs he is present there. But he has no evidence and searches for that. He creates a plan with Rita (Mumtaz) to attract Ranjith to know his secret plans. Bhola arrives the city and he is called as Ranjith in a party. Ranjith who arrives the party surprised to see Bhola as he looks identical as him. He immediately plots for a plan. He takes Bhola to his place and reveals himself. He convinces Bhola to act like Ranjith in front of the society as he is suffering from cancer and requires a treatment. Until his return from treatment Bhola has to make believe everybody that he is Ranjith. Actually he makes him as Ranjith so that he can continue with his diamond smuggling meanwhile there will not be any evidence as Bhola is going to be Ranjith everywhere. But he did not reveal the reason to him. He also promises that he would give money for his sister's marriage. Innocent Bhola believes him and agrees to the plan . Ranjith's girlfriend Ruby trains Bhola to be like Ranjith and he acts like him. Bhola finally learns every mannerisms of Ranjith and at an instance he behaves like Ranjith to Ranjith. He acts as Ranjith in the city and real Ranjith continues his underground work. And Inspector Pradhan cannot come to conclusion. Rita moves intimately with Bhola thinking him as Ranjith but Bhola falls in love with her. In the village due to heavy floods Belu loses everything and comes in search of her brother to Bombay with her dog Mothy. Bhola watches a marriage ceremony on the road and he imagines the bride to be his sister and sings the same song which he sang in the village. Belu who hears that runs after him but Bhola already left the place. Pradhan meets Belu and helps her to reach the place. Belu is misguided by some men regarding the whereabouts of her brother and try to exploit her but Pradhan saves her from them and takes her to his home. Ruby who follows Belu to Pradhan's house informs Ranjith about her. Ranjith posing like her brother goes to Pradhan's home and takes her with him. Bhola finds Ranjith is actually a thief and plans for a grand diamond loot. Bhola resists against the plan but Ranjith blackmails him with his sister. Unwillingly he accepts for the plan. Ranjith steals huge amount of diamond but Bhola replaces him by attacking and leaves the place. One of the stolen diamond piece has a transmitter and police follow the jewels with the help of it. Belu is confused who is her brother among them. After several fights both Bhola and Ranjith are arrested. Both of them claim themself as Bhola and confuse everyone. Belu suggests that her brother sings a song which cannot be sung by anyone. But both sing the song. Finally Bhola-Belu's dog Mothy identifies the real Bhola and Ranjith is arrested and sent to prison. Belu finally marries Inspector Pradhan and Bhola marries Rita. Other languages. It was remade in Tamil as Ninaithadhai Mudippavan (Finishes everything he thinks) with M. G. Ramachandran reprising Rajesh Khanna's roles and M. N. Nambiar reprising Vinod Khanna's role which was released in 1975. Tamil Film had some few scenes different from original movie like The film was remade in Kannada as "Mutthanna" starring Shiva Rajkumar.
1059783	Aria Asia Maria Vittoria Rossa Argento (born 20 September 1975) is an Italian actress, singer, model, and director. Family and early life. Her mother is actress Daria Nicolodi and her father is Dario Argento, an Italian film director, producer and screenwriter, well known for his work in the Italian giallo genre and for his influence on modern horror and slasher movies. Her maternal great-grandfather was composer Alfredo Casella. When Asia Argento was born in Rome, the city registry office refused to acknowledge "Asia" as an appropriate name, and instead officially inscribed her as Aria Argento. She nonetheless uses the name Asia Argento professionally. Argento has said that as a child she was lonely and depressed, owing in part to her parents' work. Her father used to read her his scripts as bedtime stories. At age eight, Argento published a book of poems. At the age of 14, she ran away from home. She was an introvert and read to make up for having no friends. In an interview with "Filmmaker" magazine she stated that she was agoraphobic while she was writing "Scarlet Diva" and that she could not leave her apartment for months. She said: "I was afraid to go out of my apartment for a long time, I could only go out to work." Argento has mentioned in interviews that she does not have a close relationship with her father. She has mentioned that he was absent when she was a child. She has also mentioned that she did not have a happy childhood. Regarding her relationship with her father and her reason for acting, she has stated that: Career. Asia Argento started acting at the age of nine, playing a small part in a film by Sergio Citti. She also had a small part in "Demons 2", a 1986 film written and produced by her father, at the age of 10, as well as its unofficial sequel, "La Chiesa (The Church)", when she was 14, and "Trauma" (1993), when she was 18. She received the David di Donatello (Italy's version of the Academy Award) for Best Actress in 1994 for her performance in "Perdiamoci di vista!", and again in 1996 for "Compagna di viaggio", which also earned her a Grolla d'oro award. In 1998, Argento began appearing in English-language movies, such as "B. Monkey" and "New Rose Hotel". Argento has proven her ability to work in multiple languages, adding French, with a role as Charlotte de Sauve in 1994's "La Reine Margot". That same year, she made her first foray into directing, calling the shots behind the short films "Prospettive" and "A ritroso". In 1996, she directed a documentary on her father, and in 1998 a second one on Abel Ferrara, which won her the Rome Film Festival Award. Argento directed and wrote her first movie, "Scarlet Diva" (2000), which her father co-produced. Four years later she directed her second movie, "The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things" (2004), based on a book by JT LeRoy, the pen name of Laura Albert, this time in the United States. According to a "Paris Review" interview with Laura Albert, Argento and Savannah Knoop, who played the role of JT's public persona, became lovers. In addition to her cinematic accomplishments, Argento has written a number of stories for magazines such as "Dynamo" and "L'Espresso", while her first novel, titled "I Love You Kirk", was published in Italy in 1999. She has modeled for and endorses the brand "Miss Sixty". She became a fan of the band Hondo Maclean when they wrote a track named after her. She liked the track so much she sent them pictures which they used as the cover of their 2003 EP "Plans for a better day". From 17 to 25 October 2006, Argento contributed a video diary to Nick Knight's website, SHOWstudio. The title of the 54 entries/episodes was "Don't Bother To Knock" and detailed Argento's daily life with three entries (noon, 6 pm and midnight) posted every day. The content of the entries were partially controlled by a discussion forum and together formed a cohesive whole, a sort of "mini-movie" anyone could view for free. In the clips Argento discusses topics such as freaks, her father, Federico Fellini and her sexuality; she also journals a pregnancy, a new love interest and her unraveling psyche. The last visual of the diary is a digitally manipulated portrait of Argento taken by Knight, slowly burning away. She appeared in Placebo's music video for "This Picture", and appeared on Placebo frontman Brian Molko's cover version of "Je t'aime... moi non plus". Argento has also starred in Catherine Breillat's period drama, "The Last Mistress". She dubbed the Italian version of the video game "Mirror's Edge" in the role of the runner Faith Connors. Argento has been part of the Legendary Tiger Man's project "Femina", which was released on 14 September 2009. She is featured on the song "Life Ain't Enough for You", which was released as a single along with the B-side "My stomach is the most violent of all Italy," in which she also contributes vocals. In May 2013 Argento released her first L.P., entitled "Total Entropy" (Nuun Music). She's been performing works from the album at various venues in Germany, France and England. She is working on a number of film projects. Personal life. Besides Italian, she also speaks fluent English and can also speak French, which she learned for her role in "Les Morsures de L’Aube". Her first child, Anna Lou, was born on 20 June 2001. Italian rock and roll musician Marco Castoldi (lead singer of Bluvertigo), also known as Morgan, is the father. She named her daughter after her half-sister Anna Ceroli, who died in a motorcycle accident. She and her daughter live in Rome. Asia married film director Michele Civetta on 27 August 2008 in Arezzo. Her second child, Nicola Giovanni, was born on 15 September 2008 in Rome.
588932	Dil Ne Phir Yaad Kiya is a 1966 Bollywood film. It stars Dharmendra, Nutan, Rehman and Jeevan. The music is by Sonik Omi. Theme. The story of the eternal friendship between two men, 'Dil Ne Phir Yaad Kiya' is a musical classic. Ashok (Dharmendra) and Amjad (Rehman) are thick friends. This movie showcases their immense loyalty and selfless friendship. Plot. City-based Ashok, who works as a Salesman in a Toy Store, has always dreamed of marrying village-based Ashoo. He is a close friend with his co-worker, Amjad, whose marriage is being finalized with Shabnam. Ashok goes to the village to meet and get Ashoo to marry him but finds she has been abducted by his brother, Bhagat, who had earlier killed her brother, Bhagwan. Ashok manages to rescue her, and they flee Bhagat and his goons in order to try and reach Amjad's wedding ceremony. Amjad is ready to even postpone the wedding in order to give Ashok enough time to make it - but nothing will prepare him for the shock when he gets the news that the train Ashok and Ashoo were traveling in had met with an accident - with very few survivors.
589815	Shriman Shrimati is a 1982 Hindi film produced by B. Nagi Reddy and directed by Vijay Reddy. The film stars Sanjeev Kumar, Raakhee, A. K. Hangal, Amol Palekar, Deepti Naval, Rakesh Roshan, Sarika and Lalita Pawar. Rajesh Roshan is the music director of the film. Plot. A rich and wealthy couple, Shankarlal and Parvati (Sanjeev Kumar & Raakhee) are appalled at the problems of the world, especially in households, so they decide to try to make things right - one household at a time. They first go the household of alcoholic Rajesh (Rakesh Roshan); his domineering mom (Lalita Pawar); and uneducated wife, Veena (Deepti Naval). Their second task takes them to the household of Vishwanath Gupta(A. K. Hangal); his son, Madhu (Amol Palekar) who has taken to drinking; and his attractive, outgoing, and wealthy wife, Aruna (Sarika). The couple go to work on these families to turn them around and improve and better their relations with each other.
587481	Shabri is 2011 Indian film directed by Lalit Marathe and produced by Ram Gopal Varma. It is about a woman, played by Ishaa Koppikar, who becomes the first female crime lady in Mumbai. This is a "clean" film - there are no songs ! The film starts with accidental death of "Kisnya" (younger brother of the villain), who insists that Shabri be handed over to Police for the murder of Inspector Khare, which Murad ( a friendly neighbor of Shabri family who is a bookie ) forcefully opposes. Shabri is guilty of murder of a wicked police inspector (Khare) who tried to rape her in police station in front of her younger brother who is already tortured enough by Khare ( the film shows perhaps the most dreadful third-degree sequence ever ! )
583043	Krishna Cottage is a 2004 Bollywood Horror film directed by the debuting director Santram Varma. It was produced by the mother-daughter team of Ekta Kapoor and Shobha Kapoor, better known for producing Indian television soap operas. It starred Sohail Khan, Anita Hassanandani, and Ishaa Koppikar in the leading roles. Plot. The film opens at a function celebrating the launch of a book by Professor Siddharth Das (Rajendranath Zutshi). The professor explains that the book has nine and a half love stories; the last story is unfinished because the professor was never able to think of an ending. The professor donates a copy of the book to JC College. The college principal removes the book from the library and places it in an abandoned storeroom. A group of close college friends all attend JC College: Manav (Sohail Khan); Shanti (Natassha), her fiancee; Kabir; Akshay (Hiten Tejwani); Nupur; and Talli(Vrajesh Hirjee). Things change however, when Disha (Isha Koppikar) arrives to the college. Disha is a stunning beauty, and catches Manav's eye. Although Manav is engaged to Shanti, he finds himself strangely drawn to Disha. Disha gradually gets close to Manav, which perturbs Shanti. Manav explains that he feels strangely "protective" of Disha but that his real love is Shanti. Stranges, telekinetic events transpire at Manav and Shanti's engagement, one of which nearly kills Disha. When the group drives Disha home, their car breaks down and they are forced to spend the night at an old halfway house, "Krishna Cottage". The peculiar events intensify at Krishna Cottage, and two of the friends are nearly killed. Disha explains that the spirit of her dead boyfriend, Amar Khanna, is the one causing these supernatural occurrences. One day, Talli picks up Professor Siddharth Das's book and gives it to Nupur, who reads it that evening. She discovers that the book exposes something about Amar Khanna, and calls Talli in fright, but is murdered by a mysterious force.
629811	Leah Purcell (born 14 August 1970, Murgon, Queensland) is an Australian actor, director and writer. Biography. She is a film, television and theatre actress, singer, director and playwright. She is the youngest of seven children of Aboriginal and white Australian descent. Her father was a butcher and a boxing trainer. After a difficult adolescence, looking after her sick mother who died while Leah was in her late teens, problems with alcohol and teenage motherhood, Purcell left Murgon and moved to Brisbane and became involved with community theatre. In 1996 she moved to Sydney to become presenter on a music video cable television station, RED Music Channel. This was followed by roles in the ABC television series "Police Rescue" and "Fallen Angels". She co-wrote and acted in a play called "Box the Pony", which played at Sydney's Belvoir Street Theatre, the Sydney Opera House, the 1999 Edinburgh Festival and in 2000 at the Barbican Theatre in London. She then wrote and directed the documentary "Black Chicks Talking", which won a 2002 Inside Film award. She appeared in the acclaimed Australian film "Lantana" starring Anthony LaPaglia and Geoffrey Rush and in the theatre in "The Vagina Monologues". She went on to feature in 2004 films "Somersault", "The Proposition" (starring Guy Pearce and Emily Watson and written by Nick Cave) and "Jindabyne" (starring Gabriel Byrne) as well as playing the role of Condoleezza Rice in David Hare's play, "Stuff Happens" in Sydney and Melbourne.
1724851	Augusta Ada King, Countess of Lovelace (10 December 1815 – 27 November 1852), born Augusta Ada Byron and now commonly known as Ada Lovelace, was an English mathematician and writer chiefly known for her work on Charles Babbage's early mechanical general-purpose computer, the Analytical Engine. Her notes on the engine include what is recognised as the first algorithm intended to be processed by a machine. Because of this, she is often described as the world's first computer programmer. Lovelace was born 10 December 1815 as the only legitimate child of the poet Lord Byron and his wife Anne Isabella Byron. All Byron's other children were born out of wedlock. Byron separated from his wife a month after Ada was born and left England forever four months later, eventually dying of disease in the Greek War of Independence when Ada was eight years old. Ada's mother remained bitter at Lord Byron and promoted Ada's interest in mathematics and logic in an effort to prevent her from developing what she saw as the insanity seen in her father, but Ada remained interested in him despite this (and was, upon her eventual death, buried next to him at her request). She referred to herself as a "poetical scientist" and "an Analyst (& Metaphysician)". As a young adult, her mathematical talents led her to an ongoing working relationship and friendship with fellow British mathematician Charles Babbage, and in particular Babbage's work on the analytical engine. Between 1842 and 1843, she translated an article by Italian military engineer Luigi Menabrea on the engine, which she supplemented with an elaborate set of notes of her own, simply called "Notes". These notes contain what is considered the first computer program—that is, an algorithm encoded for processing by a machine. Lovelace's notes are important in the early history of computers. She also developed a vision on the capability of computers to go beyond mere calculating or number-crunching while others, including Babbage himself, focused only on those capabilities. Biography. Childhood. Ada Lovelace was born Augusta Ada Byron on 10 December 1815, the child of the poet George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron, and Anne Isabella "Annabella" Milbanke, Baroness Byron. George Byron expected his baby to be "the glorious boy" and was disappointed that his wife gave birth to a girl. Augusta was named after Byron's half-sister, Augusta Leigh, and was called "Ada" by Byron himself. On 16 January 1816, Annabella, at George's behest, left for her parents' home at Kirkby Mallory taking one-month-old Ada with her. Although English law gave fathers full custody of their children in cases of separation, Byron made no attempt to claim his parental rights but did request that his sister keep him informed of Ada’s welfare. On 21 April, Byron signed the Deed of Separation, although very reluctantly, and left England for good a few days later. Aside from an acrimonious divorce, Annabella continually throughout her life made allegations about Byron's immoral behavior. This set of events made Ada famous in Victorian society. Byron did not have a relationship with his daughter, and never saw her again. He died in 1824 when she was eight years old. Her mother was the only significant parental figure in her life. Ada was not allowed to view any portrait of her father until her twentieth birthday. Her mother became Baroness Wentworth in her own right in 1856. Annabella did not have a close relationship with the young Ada, and often left her in the care of her own mother Judith, Hon. Lady Milbanke, who doted on her grandchild. However, due to societal attitudes of the time—which favored the husband in any separation, with the welfare of any child acting as mitigation—Annabella had to present herself as a loving mother to the rest of society. This included writing anxious letters to Lady Milbanke about Ada’s welfare, with a cover note saying to retain the letters in case she had to use them to show maternal concern. In one letter to Lady Milbanke, she referred to Ada as "it": "I talk to it for your satisfaction, not my own, and shall be very glad when you have it under your own." In her teenaged years, several of her mother's close friends watched Ada for any sign of moral deviation. Ada dubbed these observers the "Furies", and later complained that they exaggerated and invented stories about her. Ada was often ill, beginning in early childhood. At the age of eight, she experienced headaches that obscured her vision. In June 1829, she was paralyzed after a bout of measles. She was subjected to continuous bed rest for nearly a year, which may have extended her period of disability. By 1831, she was able to walk with crutches. In early 1833, Ada had an affair with a tutor and, after being caught, tried to elope with him. The tutor’s relatives recognized her and contacted her mother. Annabella and her friends cover the incident up to prevent a public scandal. Ada never met her younger half-sister, Allegra Byron, daughter of Lord Byron and Claire Clairmont, who died in 1822 at the age of five. She did, however, have some contact with Elizabeth Medora Leigh, the daughter of Byron's half-sister Augusta Leigh. Augusta Leigh purposely avoided Ada as much as possible when she was introduced at Court. Adult years. Lovelace developed a strong relationship with her tutor Mary Somerville. She had a strong respect and affection for Somerville. and the two of them corresponded for many years. Other acquaintances included Andrew Crosse, Sir David Brewster, Charles Wheatstone, Charles Dickens and Michael Faraday. By 1834, Ada was a regular at Court and started attending various events. She danced often and was able to charm many people, and was described by most people as being dainty. However, John Hobhouse, Lord Byron's friend, was the exception and he described her as, "...a large, coarse-skinned young woman but with something of my friend's features, particularly the mouth." This description followed their meeting on 24 February 1834 in which Ada made it clear to Hobhouse that she did not like him, probably due to the influence of her mother, which led her to dislike all of her father's friends. This first impression was not to last, and they later became friends. On 8 July 1835 she married William King, 8th Baron King, becoming Baroness King. Their residence was a large estate at Ockham Park, in Ockham, Surrey, along with another estate on Loch Torridon and a home in London. They spent their honeymoon at Worthy Manor in Ashley Combe near Porlock Weir, Somerset. The Manor had been built as a hunting lodge in 1799 and was improved by King in preparation for their honeymoon. It later became their summer retreat and was further improved during this time. The house was built on a small plateau in woodland overlooking the Bristol Channel and surrounded by terraced gardens in the Italianate style. They had three children: Byron born 12 May 1836, Anne Isabella (called Annabella, later Lady Anne Blunt) born 22 September 1837 and Ralph Gordon born 2 July 1839. Immediately after the birth of Annabella, Lady King experienced "...a tedious and suffering illness, which took months to cure." In 1838, her husband became Earl of Lovelace. Thus, she was styled "The Right Honourable the Countess of Lovelace" for most of her married life. In 1843-4, her mother, Anabella, assigned William Benjamin Carpenter to teach Ada's children, and to act as a ‘moral’ instructor for Ada. He quickly fell for her, and encouraged her to express any frustrated affections, claiming that his marriage meant he’d never act in an "unbecoming" manner. When it became clear that Carpenter was trying to start an affair, Ada cut it off. In 1841, Lovelace and Medora Leigh (daughter of Lord Byron's half-sister Augusta Leigh) were told by Ada's mother that her father was also Medora's father. On 27 February 1841, Ada wrote to her mother: "I am not in the least "astonished". In fact you merely "confirm" what I have for "years and years" felt scarcely a doubt about, but should have considered it most improper in me to hint to you that I in any way suspected." Ada did not blame the incestuous relationship on Byron, but instead blamed Augusta Leigh: "I fear "she" is "more inherently" wicked than "he" ever was." This did not prevent Ada's mother from attempting to destroy her daughter's image of her father, but instead drove her to attack Byron's image with greater intensity. In the 1840s, Ada flirted with scandals: firstly from a relaxed relationship with men who were not her husband, which led to rumours of affairs—and secondly, her love of gambling. The gambling led to her forming a syndicate with male friends, and an ambitious attempt in 1851 to create a mathematical model for successful large bets. This went disastrously wrong, leaving her thousands of pounds in debt and being blackmailed by one of the syndicate, forcing her to admit the mess to her husband. Ada also had a shadowy, possibly illicit relationship with Andrew Crosse’s son John from 1844 onwards. Few hard facts are known about this because Crosse destroyed most of their correspondence after her death as part of a legal agreement. However, the relationship was strong enough that she bequeathed him the only heirlooms her father had personally left to her. During her final illness, Ada would panic at the idea of John Crosse being kept from visiting her. Death. Ada Lovelace died at the age of thirty-six, on 27 November 1852, from uterine cancer probably exacerbated by bloodletting by her physicians. The illness lasted several months, in which time Annabella took command over whom Ada saw, and excluded all of her friends and confidants. Under her mother’s influence, she had a religious transformation (after previously being a materialist) and was coaxed into repenting of her previous conduct and making Annabella her executor. She lost dontact with her husband after she confessed something to him on 30 August that caused him to abandon her bedside. What she told him is unknown, but may have been a confession of adultery. She was buried, at her request, next to her father at the Church of St. Mary Magdalene in Hucknall, Nottingham. Education. Throughout her illnesses, she continued her education. Her mother's obsession with rooting out any of the insanity of which she accused Lord Byron was one of the reasons that Ada was taught mathematics from an early age. She was privately schooled in mathematics and science by William Frend, William King and Mary Somerville, noted researcher and scientific author of the 19th century. Somerville introduced Lovelace to Charles Babbage on 5 June 1833. One of her later tutors was the noted mathematician and logician Augustus De Morgan. From 1832, when she was seventeen, her remarkable mathematical abilities began to emerge, and her interest in mathematics dominated the majority of her adult life. In a letter to Lady Byron, De Morgan suggested that her daughter's skill in mathematics could lead her to become "an original mathematical investigator, perhaps of first-rate eminence." Work. Throughout her life, Ada was strongly interested in scientific developments and fads of the day, including phrenology and mesmerism. Even after her famous work with Babbage, Ada continued to work on other projects. In 1844, she commented to a friend Woronzow Greig about her desire to create a mathematical model for how the brain gives rise to thoughts and nerves to feelings ("a calculus of the nervous system").
900266	Barbara Steele (born 29 December 1937) is an English film actress. She is best known for starring in Italian gothic horror films of the 1960s. Her breakthrough role came in Italian director Mario Bava's "Black Sunday" (1960), now hailed as a classic. Steele starred in a string of horror films, including "The Horrible Dr. Hichcock" (1962), "The Ghost" directed by Riccardo Freda, and Roger Corman's 1961 adaptation of Edgar Allan Poe's short story "The Pit and the Pendulum", among others. She guest starred on various British television shows including the spy drama, "Danger Man" starring Patrick McGoohan. She made her American television debut in 1960 as Dolores in the "Daughter of Illusion" episode of the ABC series, "Adventures in Paradise", starring Gardner McKay. In 1961, she appeared as Phyllis in the "Beta Delta Gamma" episode of CBS's "Alfred Hitchcock Presents". Stelle was cast as Julia Hoffman in the 1991 remake of the 1960s ABC television series, "Dark Shadows". In 2010, she was a guest star in the "Dark Shadows" audio drama, "The Night Whispers". In 2010, actor-writer Mark Gatiss interviewed Steele about her role in "Black Sunday" (1960) for his BBC documentary series "A History of Horror".
724766	Donald Joseph "D.J." Cotrona (born May 23, 1980) is an American actor, known for his role in the film "" (2013). Early life. Cotrona was born in New Haven, Connecticut. His mother, Sheree, is a teacher, and his father, Donald, works for a recycling company. Cotrona is of three eighths Italian descent; his other ancestry includes Polish, German, Hungarian, Austrian, and English. He was studying to be a lawyer at Northeastern University in Boston; however, after doing a summer internship at a law firm, he realized he did not like working with lawyers. In his sophomore year, he switched to acting; during his spring break, he went to visit a friend in Los Angeles and never returned to college. Career. After a few guest starring roles Cotrona was being considered for the role of Ryan Atwood on the television series "The O.C." but that role went to Benjamin McKenzie. Shortly thereafter Cotrona was cast as the male lead in another of Fox's new dramas of 2003, the Jerry Bruckheimer produced "Skin". Cotrona played Adam Roam, the son of the Los Angeles District Attorney. His character becomes involved with Jewel Goldman (Olivia Wilde), whose father runs a pornography company. With their fathers' feud looming over them they pursue their "Romeo and Juliet" relationship. "Skin" was cancelled after three episodes aired due to poor ratings and the controversial story lines. The eight episodes of the series were shown on SOAPnet in 2005. Cotrona appeared in the 2005 horror film "Venom", which was directed by Jim Gillespie. He also starred in the 2006 Slamdance Film Festival film "Love is the Drug". In 2005 Cotrona again landed a lead role in a TV series, playing Sean Mathers, a flower shop worker with a dark past who is part of a group of lottery winners, in the NBC series "Windfall". The series would end up being shown in the summer of 2006 rather than as a mid-season replacement for the 2005-06 TV season. Cotrona was cast in the role of Superman for Warner Bros.' planned film ; however, after issues resulting from the 2007–2008 Writers Guild of America strike and other production concerns, the film remains unmade. In 2010, Cotrona appeared in the film "Dear John". In February he was cast as Detective John Stone in the ABC pilot "187 Detroit", which also stars Michael Imperioli, Shaun Majumder, and Erin Cummings among others. When ABC ordered the series it was renamed "Detroit 1-8-7". His character was killed in "Stone Cold", the sixteenth episode of the series. Cotrona played Flint, one of the leading roles, in the sequel "" (2013).
1044354	William Lindon-Travers (3 January 1922 – 29 March 1994) was an English actor, screenwriter, director and animal rights activist, known professionally as Bill Travers. Biography. Travers was born in Newcastle upon Tyne, Northumberland, the son of Florence (née Wheatley) and William Halton Lindon-Travers. He and his sister Linden (1913–2001) both became actors.
1103887	Louis Nirenberg (born 28 February 1925) is a Canadian-born American mathematician, considered one of the outstanding analysts of the twentieth century. He has made fundamental contributions to linear and nonlinear partial differential equations and their application to complex analysis and geometry. He was born in Hamilton, Ontario and attended Baron Byng High School. He studied as an undergraduate at McGill University, and obtained his doctorate from New York University in 1949 under the direction of James Stoker. He became a professor at the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences at New York University. He was also conferred the degree of Doctor of Science, honoris causa, at the University of British Columbia in 2010. He has received many honours and awards, including the Crafoord Prize, the Bôcher Memorial Prize, the Jeffery-Williams Prize, the Steele Prize, the National Medal of Science, and the Chern Medal. He is a fellow of the American Mathematical Society.
589089	Bawarchi (Devnagari: बावर्ची, Nastaliq: باورچی, translation: "The Chef") is a 1972 Indian film directed by Hrishikesh Mukherjee starring Rajesh Khanna and Jaya Badhuri with Asrani, A.K. Hangal, Usha Kiran and Durga Khote in supporting roles. In Mukherjee's classic style, the film contains no violence or obscenities, and focuses on spreading family values and morals through clean comedy. Synopsis. The movie is inspired by the Bengali Film Galpa Holeo Satyi (1966) by Tapan Sinha. The story is centered around the squabbling Sharma family, headed by their eccentric Daduji (Harindranath Chattopadhyay), which has a dubious reputation the inability to retain a cook for more than a few months due to their ill treatment of their servants. The family's disrepute spreads to such an extent that no person wants to be employed as a cook in their home, ironically named Shanti Niwas (abode of peace). Then one day a young man named Raghu (Rajesh Khanna) offers to work as a cook, and is hired. Raghu, however, lives up to this challenge & becomes the apple of the eye for every resident of Shanti Niwas. He even defuses the internal squabbles & re-unites the family. But is Raghu's slate clean, or is there more to his character? Plot. The film starts by introduction of Shanti Niwas & its residents by Amitabh Bachchan, who is the narrator here. He points out that Shanti Niwas is a pot of ironies: Even though its name means "Home of Peace", there is no peace here. The home, which houses the Sharma family, has members who hate each other for reasons unknown. Even a servant cannot withstand the Sharma's for more than a month. After every month, the search for a new servant has to start. Then, suddenly a servant named Raghu comes in. Even though nobody remembers asking for some Raghu, they hire him. But Raghu has his own surprises in store for him. Gradually, the whole home comes to know that Raghu is not only an accomplished chef, but also a singer & expert in dancing. Raghu tells his masters that he worked for reputed veterans of given fields, who taught him something or the other. Gradually, many aces start falling out of his sleeves, causing the Sharma's to develop an attraction to him. Even Daduji, the disgruntled patriarch of the family, develops love for Raghu. The family puts so much trust in Raghu that they even unwittingly show him the box containing the family jewels. Krishna(Jaya Bhaduri) is the recluse daughter of Daduji's dead son & daughter-in-law. On learning this, Raghu tutors her & brings her talents to the fore. He also helps in clearing up the misunderstandings & calling truces between the family members. Daduji cannot help but think that Raghu is actually a saviour sent by god. Meanwhile, nobody notices that Raghu is suspiciously eyeing the jewel box the whole time. Meanwhile, Raghu learns that Krishna loves a boy, but the Sharma's are strictly against the union of Krishna with him. The boy also loves Krishna, but is helpless before Krishna's relatives as well. Between all the tangle, Raghu suddenly disappears. The Sharma's are also aghast to know that the box is missing as well. It does not take the Sharma's to put two & two together. At the same time, Krishna's love interest shows up. The people are already angered at the turn of events & the boys arrival, but they receive a shock when he shows them the jewelry box. He explains that he saw Raghu in a suspicious condition with the box. When he asked Raghu about the box, Raghu tried to run away. He tried to stop Raghu, even beat him up(the boy is a wrestler), but Raghu somehow managed to escape. Stunned by this unexpected turn of events, the attitude of Sharma's towards the boy changes & they agree to get him married with Krishna out of gratitude. Krishna, however, refuses to buy the story. When Sharma's start abusing Raghu, Krishna's lover cannot take it anymore and tells them what really happened. He tells them that he met Raghu at his own wrestling ground. He had a little friendly match with Raghu, where he suffered minor injuries from Raghu. He saw the box & asked Raghu about it. Raghu said that the box was the real reason he came there. Raghu had asked him to take the box to the Sharma's and tell them that Raghu had stolen it so that Krishna's lover can get back his place in the house.
520411	Maricel Soriano (born Maria Cecilia Dador Soriano on February 25, 1965), also known as The Diamond Star, is a critically acclaimed Filipina film and television actress. She has starred in many films covering different genres including comedy, fantasy ("Inday" series), horror, suspense, action, romance and drama. She has appeared in hundreds of films and has scored a number of blockbuster hits. In addition to being an actress, Soriano is also a singer and has recorded several songs including the theme song of her movie "Oh My Mama" in 1981. In 1987, she performed a sold out concert at the Araneta Coliseum; the show titled "Hello, Hello Maricel". Biography. Dubbed the 'Diamond Star' in the Philippine entertainment industry, she is the third most awarded Philippine film actress of all time and more successful than Sharon Cuneta with 46 movie and television awards (including Best Child Actress, Best Supporting Actress, Achiever Award as actress/producer, Best Performer and Best Actress) from various award-giving bodies such as FAMAS, PMPC, Empress, FAP, YCC, Pasado, GMMSFP, MMFF, Manila, Iloilo and Cinemanila Film Festivals. She was also known as 'Taray Queen' for her feisty roles in movies.
1039906	Jemima Rebecca Redgrave (born 14 January 1965) is a fourth-generation English actress of the Redgrave family. Early life and family. Born in London, she is the daughter of the actor Corin Redgrave and his first wife Deirdre Hamilton-Hill, a former fashion model. They divorced when Jemma was nine. She has a brother Luke Redgrave, who is an assistant cameraman, and two half-brothers, Arden and Harvey Redgrave. Her mother died of breast cancer in 1997 and her father died of cancer in 2010. She is the niece of actresses Vanessa Redgrave and Lynn Redgrave and cousin of Joely Richardson, Carlo Nero and Natasha Richardson. Career. Education. Jemma Redgrave was admitted to the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art at the age of 18. Stage. After graduation she landed acting roles in the 1988 stage production of Strindberg's "Easter", in "Lady Windermere's Fan" in Belfast, Northern Ireland, as Emily in Thornton Wilder's "Our Town", Irina in a 1990 revival of Anton Chekhov's "The Three Sisters" in London's West End with her aunts Vanessa Redgrave and Lynn Redgrave, in 1993 with Colin Firth in Alexander Griboyedov's Chatsky at the Almeida Theatre, London and in "A Midsummer Night's Dream" in 2001 at the Albery Theatre, London. In 2010 she appeared in New York's Public Theater in "The Great Game: Afghanistan" which featured seven hours of on-stage acting. Redgrave appeared in four of the twelve plays. In April 2011, she pulled out of Liverpool Everyman's production of "MacBeth." Redgrave was to have played Lady Macbeth opposite David Morrissey's Macbeth. Television. She has appeared in many roles on British television and is best known for her portrayals as Eve Granger in "Cold Blood", Dr. Eleanor Bramwell in "Bramwell", Eleanor in "The Buddha of Suburbia", Francesca Rochester in "Judge John Deed", and Dee Stanton in "Like Father, Like Son". In 2007, she portrayed the indolent Lady Bertram in "Mansfield Park," and Sophie Wall in "Waking the Dead." She appeared as Kate Stewart, the daughter of The Brigadier (Lethbridge-Stewart) in "The Power of Three" which was the fourth of the autumn episodes of Series 7 of "Doctor Who" on 22 September 2012, and will be seen in the series again (in the same role) in the 50th anniversary episode in November 2013. In 2013 she appeared as Doctor Zoe Evans in the BBC One drama series "Frankie". Film. Her film roles include Evie Wilcox in "Howards End", Diana Markham in "Dream Demon" and Daisie in "Lassie" in 2005. Personal life. Jemma Redgrave lives in London and was married to Tim Owen, a barrister, in 1992. The couple separated in 1997 and reunited in 1998. They have two children, Gabriel and Alfie. She is an established player of the Irish fiddle and also takes a great interest in calligraphy. Redgrave is a celebrity supporter of the British Red Cross where she is particularly interested in working with refugees and diplomatic asylum seekers. She was an active member of the Don't Attack Iraq movement in 2002 and 2003.
688219	Camp Cuddly Pines Powertool Massacre is an adult comedy-horror film released by Wicked Pictures. The film, originally released in 2005, is the first adult film to be released on the HD DVD format. Plot. The film is a comedic parody of horror films of its time, with a cross between "The Texas Chain Saw Massacre" and "Friday the 13th" with Kristen (Stormy) and Megan (Jessica Drake) playing college students planning to attend a concert. After they hit a homeless man with their car, the girls and their friends are systematically murdered. Production. According to the writers, the film had the "Scary Movie" series in mind when creating the film, stating that they "took all these little famous parts from all of these horror movies blended it with comedy and wrapped it with great sex." The film is Wicked Pictures' biggest release. The DVD release of the film comes on three high definition discs, which includes 5.1 surround sound, a commentary track, a documentary film about the production, and a cartoon with the voice acting of Stormy. In the commentary for the film "Hatchet", the director mentions that they shared a set with this film at the Sable Ranch location. "Hatchet" was a night shoot, and this film would shoot during the day as the Hatchet crew slept. Some features of the set (like the Spanish moss) were put in place for "Hatchet" and kept for this film. Reception. A horror movie critic wrote:
1100713	Stanislaw Marcin Ulam (, pronounced ) (13 April 1909 – 13 May 1984), was a renowned Polish mathematician. He participated in America's Manhattan Project, originated the Teller–Ulam design of thermonuclear weapons, invented the Monte Carlo method of computation, and suggested nuclear pulse propulsion. In pure and applied mathematics, he produced many results, proved many theorems, and proposed several conjectures. Born into a wealthy Polish Jewish family, Ulam studied mathematics at the Lwów Polytechnic Institute, where he earned his D.Sc. in 1933 under the supervision of Kazimierz Kuratowski. In 1935, John von Neumann, whom Ulam had met in Warsaw, invited him to come to the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey, for a few months. From 1936 to 1939, he spent summers in Poland and academic years at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he worked to establish important results regarding ergodic theory. On 20 August 1939, he sailed for America for the last time with his 17 year old brother Adam Ulam. He became an assistant professor at the University of Wisconsin–Madison in 1940, and a United States citizen in 1941. In October 1943, he received an invitation from Hans Bethe to join the Manhattan Project at the secret Los Alamos Laboratory in New Mexico. There, he worked on the hydrodynamic calculations to predict the behavior of the explosive lenses that were needed by an implosion-type weapon. He was assigned to Edward Teller's group, where he worked on Teller's "Super" bomb for Teller and Enrico Fermi. After the war he left to become an associate professor at the University of Southern California, but returned to Los Alamos in 1946 to work on thermonuclear weapons. With the aid of a cadre of female "computers", including his wife Françoise Ulam, he found that Teller's "Super" design was unworkable. In January 1951, Ulam and Teller came up with the Teller–Ulam design, which is the basis for all thermonuclear weapons. Ulam considered the problem of nuclear propulsion of rockets, which was pursued by Project Rover, and proposed, as an alternative to Rover's nuclear thermal rocket, to harness small nuclear explosions for propulsion, which became Project Orion. With Fermi and John Pasta, Ulam studied the Fermi–Pasta–Ulam problem, which became the inspiration for the vast field of Nonlinear Science. He is probably best known for realising that electronic computers made it practical to apply statistical methods to functions without known solutions, and as computers have developed, the Monte Carlo method has become a ubiquitous and standard approach to many problems. Poland. Ulam was born in Lemberg, Galicia, on 13 April 1909. At this time, Galicia was in the Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, known to Poles as the Austrian partition. In 1918, it became part of the newly restored Poland, the Second Polish Republic, and the city took its Polish name again, Lwów. The Ulams were a wealthy Polish Jewish family of bankers, industrialists, and other professionals. Ulam's immediate family was "well-to-do but hardly rich". His father, Józef Ulam, was born in Lwów and was a lawyer, and his mother, Anna (née Auerbach), was born in Stryj. His uncle, Michał Ulam, was an architect, building contractor, and lumber industrialist. From 1916 until 1918, Józef's family lived temporarily in Vienna. After they returned, Lwów became the epicenter of the Polish–Ukrainian War, during which the city experienced a Ukrainian siege. In 1919, Ulam entered Lwów Gymnasium Nr. VII, from which he graduated in 1927. He then studied mathematics at the Lwów Polytechnic Institute. Under the supervision of Kazimierz Kuratowski, he received his Master of Arts degree in 1932, and became a Doctor of Science in 1933. At the age of 18, in 1929, he published his first paper "Concerning Function of Sets" in the journal "Fundamenta Mathematicae". From 1931 until 1935, he traveled to and studied in Wilno (Vilnius), Vienna, Zurich, Paris, and Cambridge, England, where he met G. H. Hardy and Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar. Along with Stanisław Mazur, Mark Kac, Włodzimierz Stożek, Kuratowski, and others, Ulam was a member of the Lwów School of Mathematics. Its founders were Hugo Steinhaus and Stefan Banach, who were professors at the University of Lwów. Mathematicians of this "school" met for long hours at the Scottish Café, where the problems they discussed were collected in the Scottish Book, a thick notebook provided by Banach's wife. Ulam was a major contributor to the book. Of the 193 problems recorded between 1935 and 1941, he contributed 40 problems as a single author, another 11 with Banach and Mazur, and an additional 15 with others. In 1957, he received from Steinhaus a copy of the book, which had survived the war, and translated it into English. In 1981, Ulam's friend R. Daniel Maudlin published an expanded and annotated version. Coming to America. In 1935, John von Neumann, whom Ulam had met in Warsaw, invited him to come to the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey, for a few months. In December of that year, Ulam sailed to America. At Princeton, he went to lectures and seminars, where he heard Oswald Veblen, James Alexander, and Albert Einstein. During a tea party at von Neumann's house, he encountered G. D. Birkhoff, who suggested that he apply for a position with the Harvard Society of Fellows. Following up on Birkhoff's suggestion, Ulam spent summers in Poland and academic years at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts from 1936 to 1939, where he worked with John C. Oxtoby to establish results regarding ergodic theory. These appeared in Annals of Mathematics in 1941. On 20 August 1939, in Gdynia, Józef Ulam, along with his brother Szymon, put his two sons, Stanislaw and 17 year old Adam, on a ship headed for America. Within two weeks, the . Within two months, the Germans completed their occupation of western Poland, and the Soviets and occupied eastern Poland. Within two years, Józef Ulam and the rest of his family were victims of the Holocaust, Steinhaus was in hiding, Kuratowski was lecturing at the underground university in Warsaw, Stożek and his two sons had been killed in the massacre of Lwów professors, and the last problem had been recorded in the Scottish Book. Banach survived the Nazi occupation by feeding lice at Rudolf Weigl's typhus research institute. In 1963, Adam Ulam, who had become an eminent kremlinologist at Harvard, received a letter from George Volsky, who hid in Józef Ulam's house after deserting from the Polish army. This reminiscence gave a chilling account of Lwów's chaotic scenes in late 1939. In later life Ulam described himself as "an agnostic. Sometimes I muse deeply on the forces that are for me invisible. When I am almost close to the idea of God, I feel immediately estranged by the horrors of this world, which he seems to tolerate". In 1940, after being recommended by Birkhoff, Ulam became an assistant professor at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Here, he became an United States citizen in 1941. That year, he married Françoise Aron. She had been a French exchange student at Mount Holyoke College, whom he met in Cambridge. They had one daughter, Claire. In Madison, Ulam met his friend and colleague C. J. Everett, with whom he would collaborate on a number of papers. Manhattan Project. In early 1943, Ulam asked von Neumann to find him a war job. In October, he received an invitation to join an unidentified project near Santa Fe, New Mexico. The letter was signed by Hans Bethe, who had been appointed as leader of the theoretical division of Los Alamos National Laboratory by Robert Oppenheimer, its scientific director. Knowing nothing of the area, he borrowed a New Mexico guide book. On the checkout card, he found the names of his Wisconsin colleagues, Joan Hinton, David Frisch, and Joseph McKibben, all of whom had mysteriously disappeared. This was Ulam's introduction to the Manhattan Project, which was America's wartime effort to create the atomic bomb. Hydrodynamical calculations of implosion. A few weeks after Ulam reached Los Alamos in February 1944, the project experienced a crisis. In April, Emilio Segrè discovered that plutonium made in reactors would not work in a gun-type plutonium weapon like the "Thin Man", which was being developed in parallel with a uranium weapon, the "Little Boy" that was dropped on Hiroshima. This problem threatened to waste an enormous investment in new reactors at the Hanford site and to make slow separation of uranium isotopes the only way to prepare fissile material suitable for use in bombs. To respond, Oppenheimer implemented, in August, a sweeping reorganization of the laboratory to focus on development of an implosion-type weapon and appointed George Kistiakowsky head of the implosion department. He was a professor at Harvard and an expert on precise use of explosives. The basic concept of implosion is to use chemical explosives to crush a chunk of fissile material into a critical mass, where neutron multiplication leads to a nuclear chain reaction, releasing a large amount of energy. Cylindrical implosive configurations had been studied by Seth Neddermeyer, but von Neumann, who had experience with shaped charges used in armor piercing ammunition, was a vocal advocate of spherical implosion driven by explosive lenses. He realized that the symmetry and speed with which implosion compressed the plutonium were critical issues, and enlisted Ulam to help design lens configurations that would provide nearly spherical implosion. Within an implosion, because of enormous pressures and high temperatures, solid materials behave much like fluids. This meant that hydrodynamical calculations were needed to predict and minimize asymmetries that would spoil a nuclear detonation. Of these calculations, Ulam said: Nevertheless, with the primitive facilities available at the time, Ulam and von Neumann did carry out numerical computations that led to a satisfactory design. This motivated their advocacy of a powerful computational capability at Los Alamos, which began during the war years, continued through the cold war, and still exists. Otto Frisch remembered Ulam as "a brilliant Polish topologist with a charming French wife. At once he told me that he was a pure mathematician who had sunk so low that his latest paper actually contained numbers with decimal points!" Statistics of branching and multiplicative processes. Even the inherent statistical fluctuations of neutron multiplication within a chain reaction have implications with regard to implosion speed and symmetry. In November 1944, David Hawkins and Ulam addressed this problem in a report entitled "Theory of Multiplicative Processes". This report, which invokes probability-generating functions, is also an early entry in the extensive literature on statistics of branching and multiplicative processes. In 1948, its scope was extended by Ulam and Everett. Early in the Manhattan project, Enrico Fermi's attention was focused on the use of reactors to produce plutonium. In September 1944, he arrived at Los Alamos, shortly after breathing life into the first Hanford reactor, which had been poisoned by a xenon isotope. Soon after Fermi's arrival, Teller's "Super" bomb group, of which Ulam was a part, was transferred to a new division headed by Fermi. Fermi and Ulam formed a relationship that became very fruitful after the war. Post war Los Alamos. In September 1945, Ulam left Los Alamos to become an associate professor at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. In January 1946, he suffered an acute attack of encephalitis, which put his life in danger, but which was alleviated by emergency brain surgery. During his recuperation, many friends visited, including Nicholas Metropolis from Los Alamos and the famous mathematician Paul Erdős, who remarked: "Stan, you are just like before." This was encouraging, because Ulam was concerned about the state of his mental faculties, for he had lost the ability to speak during the crisis. Another friend, Gian-Carlo Rota, asserted in a 1987 article that the attack changed Ulam's personality; afterwards, he turned from rigorous pure mathematics to more speculative conjectures concerning the application of mathematics to physics and biology. This assertion was not accepted by Françoise Ulam. By late April 1946, Ulam had recovered enough to attend a secret conference at Los Alamos to discuss thermonuclear weapons. Those in attendance included Ulam, von Neumann, Metropolis, Teller, Stan Frankel, and others. Throughout his participation in the Manhattan Project, Teller's efforts had been directed toward the development of a "super" weapon based on nuclear fusion, rather than toward development of a practical fission bomb. After extensive discussion, the participants reached a consensus that his ideas were worthy of further exploration. A few weeks later, Ulam received an offer of a position at Los Alamos from Metropolis and Robert D. Richtmyer, the new head of its theoretical division, at a higher salary, and the Ulams returned to Los Alamos. Monte Carlo method. Late in the war, under the sponsorship of von Neumann, Frankel and Metropolis began to carry out calculations on the first general-purpose electronic computer, the ENIAC. Shortly after returning to Los Alamos, Ulam participated in a review of results from these calculations. Earlier, while playing solitaire during his recovery from surgery, Ulam had thought about playing hundreds of games to estimate statistically the probability of a successful outcome. With ENIAC in mind, he realized that the availability of computers made such statistical methods very practical. John von Neumann immediately saw the significance of this insight. In March 1947 he proposed a statistical approach to the problem of neutron diffusion in fissionable material. Because Ulam had often mentioned his uncle, Michał Ulam, "who just had to go to Monte Carlo" to gamble, Metropolis dubbed the statistical approach "The Monte Carlo method". Metropolis and Ulam published the first unclassified paper on the Monte Carlo method in 1949. Fermi, learning of Ulam's breakthrough, devised an analog computer known as the Monte Carlo trolley, later dubbed the FERMIAC. The device performed a mechanical simulation of random diffusion of neutrons. As computers improved in speed and programmability, these methods became more useful. In particular, many Monte Carlo calculations carried out on modern massively parallel supercomputers are embarrassingly parallel applications, whose results can be very accurate. Teller–Ulam design. On 29 August 1949, the Soviet Union tested its first fission bomb, the RDS-1. Created under the supervision of Lavrentiy Beria, who sought to duplicate the American effort, this weapon was nearly identical to Fat Man, for its design was based on information provided by spies Klaus Fuchs, Theodore Hall, and David Greenglass. In response, on 31 January 1950, President Harry S. Truman announced a crash program to develop a fusion bomb. To advocate an aggressive development program, Ernest Lawrence and Luis Alvarez came to Los Alamos, where they conferred with Norris Bradbury, the laboratory director, and with George Gamow, Edward Teller, and Ulam. Soon, these three became members of a short-lived committee appointed by Bradbury to study the problem, with Teller as chairman. At this time, research on the use of a fission weapon to create a fusion reaction had been ongoing since 1942, but the design was still essentially the one originally proposed by Teller. His concept was to put tritium and/or deuterium in close proximity to a fission bomb, with the hope that the heat and intense flux of neutrons released when the bomb exploded, would ignite a self-sustaining fusion reaction. Reactions of these isotopes of hydrogen are of interest because the energy per unit mass of fuel released by their fusion is much larger than that from fission of heavy nuclei. Because the results of calculations based on Teller's concept were discouraging, many scientists believed it could not lead to a successful weapon, while others had moral and economic grounds for not proceeding. Consequently, several senior people of the Manhattan Project opposed development, including Bethe and Oppenheimer. To clarify the situation, Ulam and von Neumann resolved to do new calculations to determine whether Teller's approach was feasible. To carry out these studies, von Neumann decided to use electronic computers: ENIAC at Aberdeen, a new computer, MANIAC, at Princeton, and its twin, which was under construction at Los Alamos. Ulam enlisted Everett to follow a completely different approach, one guided by physical intuition. Françoise Ulam was one of a cadre of women "computers" who carried out laborious and extensive computations of thermonuclear scenarios on mechanical calculators, supplemented and confirmed by Everett's slide rule. Ulam and Fermi collaborated on further analysis of these scenarios. The results showed that, in workable configurations, a thermonuclear reaction would not ignite, and if ignited, it would not be self-sustaining. Ulam had used his expertise in Combinatorics to analyze the chain reaction in deuterium, which was much more complicated than the ones in uranium and plutonium, and he concluded that no self sustaining chain reaction would take place at the (low) densities that Teller was considering. In late 1950, these conclusions were confirmed by von Neumann's results. In January 1951, Ulam had another idea: to channel the mechanical shock of a nuclear explosion so as to compress the fusion fuel. On the recommendation of his wife, Ulam discussed this idea with Bradbury and Mark before he told Teller about it. Almost immediately, Teller saw its merit, but noted that soft X-rays from the fission bomb would compress the thermonuclear fuel more strongly than mechanical shock and suggested ways to enhance this effect. On 9 March 1951, Teller and Ulam submitted a joint report describing these innovations. A few weeks later, Teller suggested placing a fissile rod or cylinder at the center of the fusion fuel. The detonation of this "spark plug" would help to initiate and enhance the fusion reaction. The design based on these ideas, called staged radiation implosion, has become the standard way to build thermonuclear weapons. It is often described as the "Teller–Ulam design". In September 1951, after a series of differences with Bradbury and other scientists, Teller resigned from Los Alamos, and returned to the University of Chicago. At about the same time, Ulam went on leave as a visiting professor at Harvard for a semester. Although Teller and Ulam submitted a joint report on their design and jointly applied for a patent on it, they soon became involved in a dispute over who deserved credit. After the war, Bethe returned to Cornell University, but he was deeply involved in the development of thermonuclear weapons as a consultant. In 1954, he wrote an article on the history of the H-bomb, which presents his opinion that both men contributed very significantly to the breakthrough. This balanced view is shared by others who were involved, including Mark and Fermi, but Teller persistently attempted to downplay Ulam's role. "After the H-bomb was made," Bethe recalled, "reporters started to call Teller the father of the H-bomb. For the sake of history, I think it is more precise to say that Ulam is the father, because he provided the seed, and Teller is the mother, because he remained with the child. As for me, I guess I am the midwife." With the basic fusion reactions confirmed, and with a feasible design in hand, there was nothing to prevent Los Alamos from testing a thermonuclear device. On 1 November 1952, the first thermonuclear explosion occurred when Ivy Mike was detonated on Enewetak Atoll, within the US Pacific Proving Grounds. This device, which used liquid deuterium as its fusion fuel, was immense and utterly unusable as a weapon. Nevertheless, its success validated the Teller–Ulam design, and stimulated intensive development of practical weapons. Fermi–Pasta–Ulam problem. When Ulam returned to Los Alamos, his attention turned away from weapon design and toward the use of computers to investigate problems in physics and mathematics. With John Pasta, who helped Metropolis to bring MANIAC on line in March 1952, he explored these ideas in a report "Heuristic Studies in Problems of Mathematical Physics on High Speed Computing Machines", which was submitted on 9 June 1953. It treated several problems that cannot be addressed within the framework of traditional analytic methods: billowing of fluids, rotational motion in gravitating systems, magnetic lines of force, and hydrodynamic instabilities. Soon, Pasta and Ulam became experienced with electronic computation on MANIAC, and by this time, Enrico Fermi had settled into a routine of spending academic years at the University of Chicago and summers at Los Alamos. During these summer visits, Pasta and Ulam joined him to study a variation of the classic problem of a string of masses held together by springs that exert forces linearly proportional to their displacement from equilibrium. Fermi proposed to add to this force a nonlinear component, which could be chosen to be proportional to either the square or cube of the displacement, or to a more complicated "broken linear" function. This addition is the key element of the Fermi–Pasta–Ulam problem, which is often designated by the abbreviation FPU. A classical spring system can be described in terms of vibrational modes, which are analogous to the harmonics that occur on a stretched violin string. If the system starts in a particular mode, vibrations in other modes do not develop. With the nonlinear component, Fermi expected energy in one mode to transfer gradually to other modes, and eventually, to be distributed equally among all modes. This is roughly what began to happen shortly after the system was initialized with all its energy in the lowest mode, but much later, essentially all the energy periodically reappeared in the lowest mode. This behavior is very different from the expected equipartition of energy. It remained mysterious until 1965, when Kruskal and Zabusky showed that, after appropriate mathematical transformations, the system can be described by the Korteweg–de Vries equation, which is the prototype of nonlinear partial differential equations that have soliton solutions. This means that FPU behavior can be understood in terms of solitons. Nuclear propulsion. Starting in 1955, Ulam and Frederick Reines considered nuclear propulsion of aircraft and rockets. This is an attractive possibility, because the nuclear energy per unit mass of fuel is a million times greater than that available from chemicals. From 1955 to 1972, their ideas were pursued during Project Rover, which explored the use of nuclear reactors to power rockets. In response to a question by Senator John O. Pastore at a congressional committee hearing on "Outer Space Propulsion by Nuclear Energy", on January 22, 1958, Ulam replied that "the future as a whole of mankind is to some extent involved inexorably now with going outside the globe." Ulam and C. J. Everett also proposed, in contrast to Rover's continuous heating of rocket exhaust, to harness small nuclear explosions for propulsion. Project Orion was a study of this idea. It began in 1958 and ended in 1965, after the Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty of 1963 banned nuclear weapons tests in the atmosphere and in space. Work on this project was spearheaded by physicist Freeman Dyson, who commented on the decision to end Orion in his article, "Death of a Project". Bradbury appointed Ulam and John H. Manley as research advisors to the laboratory director in 1957. These newly created positions were on the same administrative level as division leaders, and Ulam held his until he retired from Los Alamos. In this capacity, he was able to influence and guide programs in many divisions: theoretical, physics, chemistry, metallurgy, weapons, health, Rover, and others. In addition to these activities, Ulam continued to publish technical reports and research papers. One of these introduced the Fermi–Ulam model, an extension of Fermi's theory of the acceleration of cosmic rays. Another, with Paul Stein and Mary Tsingou, titled "Quadratic Transformations", was an early investigation of chaos theory and is considered the first published use of the phrase "chaotic behavior". Return to academia. During his years at Los Alamos, Ulam was a visiting professor at Harvard from 1951 to 1952, MIT from 1956 to 1957, the University of California, San Diego, in 1963, and the University of Colorado at Boulder from 1961 to 1962 and 1965 to 1967. In 1967, the last of these positions became permanent, when Ulam was appointed as professor and Chairman of the Department of Mathematics at Boulder, Colorado. He kept a residence in Santa Fe, New Mexico, which made it convenient to spend summers at Los Alamos as a consultant. In Colorado, where he rejoined his friends Gamow, Richtmyer, and Hawkins, Ulam's research interests turned toward biology. In 1968, recognizing this emphasis, the University of Colorado School of Medicine appointed Ulam as Professor of Biomathematics, and he held this position until his death. With his Los Alamos colleague Robert Schrandt he published a report, "Some Elementary Attempts at Numerical Modeling of Problems Concerning Rates of Evolutionary Processes", which applied his earlier ideas on branching processes to biological inheritance. Another, report, with William Beyer, Temple F. Smith, and M. L. Stein, titled "Metrics in Biology", introduced new ideas about biometric distances. When he retired from Colorado in 1975, Ulam had begun to spend winter semesters at the University of Florida, where he was a graduate research professor. Except for sabbaticals at the University of California, Davis from 1982 to 1983, and at Rockefeller University from 1980 to 1984, this pattern of spending summers in Colorado and Los Alamos and winters in Florida continued until Ulam died of an apparent heart attack in Santa Fe on 13 May 1984. Paul Erdős noted that "he died suddenly of heart failure, without fear or pain, while he could still prove and conjecture." In 1987, Françoise Ulam deposited his papers with the American Philosophical Society Library in Philadelphia. She continued to live in Santa Fe until she died on 30 April 2011, at the age of 93. Both Françoise and her husband are buried with her French family in Montmartre Cemetery in Paris. Impact and legacy. From the publication of his first paper as a student in 1929 until his death, Ulam was constantly writing on mathematics. The list of Ulam's publications includes more than 150 papers. Topics represented by a significant number of papers are: set theory (including measurable cardinals and abstract measures), topology, transformation theory, ergodic theory, group theory, projective algebra, number theory, combinatorics, and graph theory. In March 2009, the Mathematical Reviews database contained 697 papers with the name "Ulam". Notable results of this work are: With his pivotal role in the development of thermonuclear weapons, Stanislaw Ulam changed the world. According to Françoise Ulam: "Stan would reassure me that, barring accidents, the H-bomb rendered nuclear war impossible." In 1980, Ulam and his wife appeared in the television documentary "The Day After Trinity". The Monte Carlo method has become a ubiquitous and standard approach to computation, and the method has been applied to a vast number of scientific problems. In addition to problems in physics and mathematics, the method has been applied to finance, social science, environmental risk assessment, linguistics, radiation therapy, and sports. The Fermi–Pasta–Ulam problem is credited not only as "the birth of experimental mathematics", but also as inspiration for the vast field of Nonlinear Science. In his Lilienfeld Prize lecture, Donald Campbell noted this relationship and described how FPU gave rise to ideas in chaos, solitons, and dynamical systems. In 1980, Donald Kerr, laboratory director at Los Alamos, with the strong support of Ulam and Mark Kac, founded the Center for Nonlinear Studies (CNLS). In 1985, CNLS initiated the "Stanislaw M. Ulam Distinguished Scholar" program, which provides an annual award that enables a noted scientist to spend a year carrying out research at Los Alamos. The fiftieth anniversary of the original FPU paper was the subject of the March 2005 issue of the journal Chaos, and the topic of the 25th Annual International Conference of CNLS. The University of Southern Mississippi and the University of Florida supported the "Ulam Quarterly", which was active from 1992 to 1996, and which was one of the first online mathematical journals. Florida's Department of Mathematics has sponsored, since 1998, the annual "Ulam Colloquium Lecture", and in March 2009, the "Ulam Centennial Conference". Ulam's work on non-Euclidean distance metrics in the context of molecular biology made a significant contribution to sequence analysis and his contributions in theoretical biology are considered watersheds in the development of cellular automata theory, population biology, pattern recognition, and biometrics generally. Colleagues noted that some of his greatest contributions were in clearly identifying problems to be solved and general techniques for solving them. In 1987, Los Alamos issued a special issue of its "Science" publication, which summarized his accomplishments, and which appeared, in 1989, as the book "From Cardinals to Chaos". Similarly, in 1990, the University of California Press issued a compilation of mathematical reports by Ulam and his Los Alamos collaborators: "Analogies Between Analogies". During his career, Ulam was awarded honorary degrees by the Universities of New Mexico, Wisconsin, and Pittsburgh.
636693	The Other Side of the Mountain is a 1975 American film based on a true story of ski racing champion Jill Kinmont.
1165976	Carol Wayne (September 6, 1942 – January 13, 1985) was an American television and film actress. She was best known for her many appearances on "The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson" as the Matinée Lady. Early life. Born in Chicago, Illinois, Wayne began her show business career as a teenage figure skater in the Ice Capades along with her younger sister Nina Wayne. The Wayne Sisters later became showgirls of the Folies Bergère at the Tropicana Resort & Casino in Las Vegas. Carol followed Nina to Hollywood in the mid 1960s and the sisters began appearing in TV shows of the era. Career. While Wayne did television guest shots on "I Spy" (as the title character in the episode "Trouble With Temple"), "Bewitched", "I Dream of Jeannie" (as dim-witted starlet "Bootsie Nightingale"), "Love American Style", "Emergency! " and "The Fall Guy", she also appeared in many sketches on "The Red Skelton Show". She gained her greatest fame for 100-plus appearances (1971–1982) as the buxom Matinée Lady on "The Tonight Show" in Johnny Carson's popular "Art Fern's Tea Time Movie" sketches. After her death, Carson kept the Art Fern character off the air for most of the next year. He eventually hired Danuta Wesley and later Teresa Ganzel to be his new Matinée Lady. Wayne made appearances on several game shows including "Mantrap" and "Hollywood Squares". She was a regular panelist on "Celebrity Sweepstakes". She landed roles in several films, including "Gunn", "The Party" (both directed by Blake Edwards), "Scavenger Hunt", "Savannah Smiles" and "Surf II". Her final onscreen appearance came in the 1984 drama "Heartbreakers". In 1984, Wayne appeared in a nude pictorial for "Playboy" magazine. That same year, she filed for bankruptcy. Personal life. Wayne was married three times. Her first husband was Loreto (Larry) Cera, her second husband was rock and roll photographer Barry Feinstein (the father of her only son, Alex), and her third husband was television and film producer Burt Sugarman, who served as producer on "Celebrity Sweepstakes". Wayne told Johnny Carson in a 1974 interview that she enjoyed gardening and growing bonsai trees. Death. In January 1985, Wayne and her companion Edward Durston were vacationing at the Las Hadas Resort in Manzanillo, Colima, Mexico. After an argument with Durston, Wayne reportedly left to take a walk on the beach. Three days later a local fisherman found Wayne's body in the shallow bay. Authorities later discovered Durston had checked out of the resort the day the couple argued. He had left Wayne's luggage at the airport. Later, an autopsy performed in Mexico revealed no signs of drugs or alcohol in Wayne's body. Her death was eventually ruled as "accidental".
1635560	Au Revoir Taipei () is a 2010 Taiwanese romantic comedy film set in Taipei. "Au Revoir Taipei" is called "One Page Taipei" in Chinese which means one night or one page in Taipei. "Au Revoir Taipei" is Arvin Chen's feature directorial debut. It won the "Network for the Promotion of Asian Cinema" (NETPAC Prize) at the Berlin International Film Festival 2010 and was considered a box office success in Taiwan. Plot. Kai, a lovesick young man, wants to leave Taipei in hopes of getting to Paris to be with his girlfriend. Kai spends long nights in a bookstore studying French, where Susie, a girl who works there, begins to take an interest in him. After one extra ordinary night, Kai finds the excitement and romance he was longing for are already right there in Taipei. Awards. "Au Revoir Taipei" won the Network for the Promotion of Asian Cinema (NETPAC) Prize at the Berlin International Film Festival 2010, the Jury Award at the Deauville Asian Film Festival in France, the Audience Award at the 2010 San Francisco Asian American International Film Festival, the Golden Durian (Best Film) Award at the 2010 Barcelona Asian Film Festival, and Best Narrative Feature at the Asian Film Festival of Dallas. Kuo was awarded "Best New Actor" at the 12th Taipei Film Festival in 2010 for her role as Susie.
1504645	Kurt Kasznar (born Kurt Servischer; August 12, 1913August 6, 1979) was a stage, film, and television actor who played memorable roles on Broadway, appearing in the original productions of "Waiting for Godot", "The Sound of Music" and "Barefoot in the Park" and had many notable parts in television and feature films. "A big, glib, dapper man who spoke with an accent, he was almost always cast as some sort of a Continental gentleman," reported "The New York Times". As a soldier in World War II Kasznar was among the first U.S. Army photographers to film the ruins of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Early life. Kurt Kasznar was born Kurt Servischer on August 12, 1913, in Vienna, Austria-Hungary (today: Austria). His father left the family when Kurt was very young. After his mother married Hungarian restaurateur Ferdinand Kasznar, Kurt assumed his surname. While working as an apprentice waiter at his stepfather's restaurant, Kasznar met director Max Reinhardt and enrolled in his seminars. "There I learned to act, write, build sets and live," Kasznar said later. At age 11 Kasznar appeared in "Der Zirkuskönig" ("The King of the Circus", 1924), the last movie made by Max Linder, which was filmed in Vienna. Kasznar began working on the stage in 1931, in a performance of "Everyman" at the Salzburg Festival. Career. In 1936 Kasznar left Austria for the United States, with Max Reinhardt's theater company. He appeared in Reinhardt's production of "The Eternal Road", playing the role of Zebulon in the premiere performance July 7, 1937, and performing at least a dozen roles during the three-month Broadway run of the epic production. In 1941 Kasznar produced a two-act Broadway musical revue, "Crazy With the Heat", which ended as a financial failure. Later that year he was drafted into the United States Army. He was trained as a cinematographer and later served in the Pacific. Assigned to an army photographic unit, he filmed landings on New Guinea and in the Philippines, and the signing of the Japanese surrender aboard the USS Missouri. Kasznar was also one of the first Army photographers to film the aftermath of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. While in service, Corporal Kurt S. Kasznar wrote and performed in his only play, "First Cousins", which he dedicated "to the thousands of foreign-born American soldiers." Kasznar's play was one of five that won a contest for soldier-playwrights and were published in the 1943 book "The Army Play by Play". The one-act plays were performed on Broadway for the benefit of the Sailors and Soldiers Club, and were later staged at Hyde Park for President Franklin D. Roosevelt. In his 2004 study, "Staging the War: American Drama and World War II", Albert Wertheim calls "First Cousins" — which tied for fourth place in the competition — "by far the most effective play in "The Army Play by Play" collection." Kasznar's first major Broadway appearance was in the 1950 production of Samuel A. Taylor's play, "The Happy Time". He recreated his role, that of Uncle Louie, for the 1952 film version and earned a Golden Globe nomination for his performance. Kasznar also appeared on Broadway as the director in Pirandello's "Six Characters in Search of an Author" (1955–56), and he played Pozzo in the original Broadway production of "Waiting for Godot" (1956). While performing on stage in Noel Coward's "Look After Lulu!" in March 1959, Kasznar was also playing detective Nero Wolfe in what would have been television's first series based on Rex Stout's characters. Co-starring William Shatner as Archie Goodwin and initially slated to air on CBS in September 1959, the "Nero Wolfe" series was aborted after a pilot and a few episodes were filmed. Kasznar created the role of Max Detweiler in the original Broadway production of "The Sound of Music" (1959–63), for which he received a Tony Award nomination. "When that musical had marked its 1,000th performance, Mr. Kasznar was the only actor who had never missed a show," reported "The New York Times". He was discussed as a possibility to re-create his stage role in the film vesion of "The Sound of Music", but the role went to Richard Haydn. Kasznar also created the role of Victor Velasco in Neil Simon's "Barefoot in the Park" (1963–67).
212574	Erik Per Sullivan (born July 12, 1991) is an American actor best known for his role as Dewey, the younger brother to middle child Malcolm, on the Fox series, "Malcolm in the Middle" which was on air for 6 years. Personal life. Sullivan was born in Worcester, Massachusetts. His father, Fred Sullivan, owns a Mexican restaurant in Milford, Massachusetts called The Alamo. His mother, Ann, was born in Sweden, and was naturalized as a US citizen in 2007. He speaks a little Swedish, and his family visits Sweden almost every year. At a young age he began studying piano and the alto saxophone. Sullivan attended Mount Saint Charles Academy in Woonsocket, Rhode Island before transferring to Phillips Exeter Academy his junior year. He attended the University of Southern California from 2009 to 2010. Career. One of his early roles includes playing the main character, a child, in the 2001 horror film "Wendigo". Sullivan also played the only child in the 2002 film "Unfaithful" and played the orphaned child Fuzzy Stone, who suffered from weak lungs in "The Cider House Rules". He was also in the 2004 comedy film "Christmas with the Kranks", playing the character of Spike. He played young Joe Dirt in the film of the same name. In the 2003 animated film "Finding Nemo", he voiced Sheldon the Seahorse. He starred as the title role in the independent film "Mo". In 2005, he joined "Malcolm in the Middle" co-star Jane Kaczmarek in writing the afterword to a children's book called "Together", which shows the importance of livestock in the world, and was inspired by the mission of the nonprofit charitable organization Heifer International. Toward the end of June 2006, he was seen in a specially made advertisement for the airing of the last episode of "Malcolm in the Middle" on Sky One in the UK. It was then announced after the airing on July 2 that a special program called "Dewey's Therapy Sessions" would be showing on July 9, featuring Sullivan.
589949	Karuna Banerjee () (December 25, 1919 – November 13, 2001) was a Bengali actress immortalized by her roles in Satyajit Ray's "The Apu Trilogy" (1955–1959) as the long suffering mother, Sarbajaya. She was nominated for Best Actress at the 1959 BAFTA Awards for her performance in "Aparajito" (1956), the second part of "The Apu Trilogy". She appeared in a number of other films after that, including Ray's "Devi" (1960) and "Kanchenjungha" (1962). Early life. She graduated from the Jogamaya Devi College, an affiliated women's college of the University of Calcutta. Acting career. Karuna Banerjee (aka Karuna Bandhyopadhyay) had an acting career of more than two decades in Bengali cinema and theatre. She is best known for her memorable performance as Sarbajaya, the mother in the first two parts of Satyajit Ray's "The Apu Trilogy": "Pather Panchali" (1955) and "Aparajito" (1956). Her performance in the latter earned her a Best Actress nomination at the 1959 BAFTA Awards. She went on to act in a few more films, including two more by Ray, one by Mrinal Sen, and one by Ritwik Ghatak that was never officially released.
1044524	The House That Dripped Blood is a 1970 British horror anthology film directed by Peter Duffell and distributed by Amicus Productions. It stars Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing, Nyree Dawn Porter, Denholm Elliott, and Jon Pertwee. The film is a collection of four short stories, all originally written and subsequently scripted by Robert Bloch, linked by the protagonist of each story's association with the eponymous building. The film carries the tagline "TERROR waits for you in every room in "The House That Dripped Blood"." Plot. Shortly after renting an old country house, film star Paul Henderson mysteriously disappears and Inspector Holloway from Scotland Yard is called to investigate. Inquiring at the local police station, Holloway is told some of the house's history. He then contacts the estate agent renting the house, who elaborates further by telling Holloway about its previous tenants. Segments. "Method For Murder". A hack writer of horror stories (Denholm Elliot) moves into the house with his wife (Joanna Dunham) and is haunted by visions of Dominic (Tom Adams), the murderous, psychopathic central character of his latest novel. "Waxworks". Two friends (Peter Cushing and Joss Ackland) become fixated with a macabre waxwork museum that appears to contain a model of a lady they both knew. "Sweets to the Sweet". A private teacher (Nyree Dawn Porter) is perturbed by the cold and severe way a widower (Christopher Lee) treats his young daughter (Chloe Franks), even forbidding her to have a doll. "The Cloak". Temperamental horror film actor Paul Henderson (Jon Pertwee) moves into the house while starring in a vampire film being shot nearby. He buys a black cloak from a peculiar shopkeeper (Geoffrey Bayldon) to use as his film character's costume. The cloak seems to instill in its wearer strange powers, something Paul's co-star (Ingrid Pitt) quickly discovers. Cast (by segment). "Framework" "Method For Murder" "Waxworks" "Sweets to the Sweet" "The Cloak" Production. Vincent Price was first offered the part of Paul Henderson. He liked the script but was unable to accept because American International Pictures held an exclusive contract with him for horror films. Originally, director Peter Duffell wanted to have the title "Death and the Maiden". Producer Milton Subotsky decided on the more dramatic "The House That Dripped Blood". Not one drop of blood appears in the actual film. When Peter Duffell was engaged the participation of actors Lee, Cushing and Pitt had already been decided by the producers. All other actors were cast by Duffell. Critical reception. Allmovie's review of the film was positive, calling it "a solid example of the Amicus horror anthology." "Halliwell's Film Guide" described the film as "neatly made and generally pleasing despite a low level of originality in the writing."
1059264	Thomas "Tom" Everett Scott (born September 7, 1970) is an American film, theatre and television actor. His film work includes a starring role as drummer Guy Patterson in the film "That Thing You Do!" (1996) and as detective Russell Clarke in "Southland" for the first three seasons of the show. Life and career. Scott was born in East Bridgewater, Massachusetts, the son of Cindy and Bill Scott. His first notable role was appearing as Matthew on the television situation comedy "Grace Under Fire" (1995–1997). He played the title character's out-of-wedlock son, whom she had placed for adoption. After several seasons on the show in a recurring role, Scott landed the role of Guy Patterson in "That Thing You Do!". He was almost passed over because of his resemblance to the film's director, actor Tom Hanks, but Hanks's wife, Rita Wilson, encouraged Hanks to cast Scott in the role. Scott had several other notable roles; he was the lead in the film "An American Werewolf in Paris" (1997) as well as "Dead Man on Campus" (1998), and co-starred with Kate Capshaw and Tom Selleck in "The Love Letter" (1999). Scott also had a recurring role on the television series "ER" (2002–2003), and has played numerous minor parts in other films and television shows. He starred in "Saved" (2006), a medical-drama series on the TNT cable channel. He appeared as one of Mandy Moore's boyfriends in the comedy "Because I Said So" (2007). He appeared in a Broadway-theatre production as the closeted film star Mitchell Green in the comedy "The Little Dog Laughed", written by Douglas Carter Beane. He also appeared as Zip in an Off-Broadway production of "The Country Club", also written by Beane. He starred as Jack Cutting on the ABC television network's brief comedy-drama series "Cashmere Mafia" (2008). In 2009, he appeared in four episodes of "Law & Order" playing the fictional Governor of New York, Don Shalvoy. He also played Detective Russell Clarke in the seven episodes of the first season of "Southland", which was dropped by NBC and subsequently picked up by TNT. At the start of second season, he became a recurring character appearing in three of six episodes. In the third season of the series, he has continued to appear in selected episodes.
903989	Novella Nelson (born December 17, 1939) is an American actress and singer. Nelson was born in Brooklyn, New York, the daughter of Evelyn Hines and James Nelson. She established her career as a singer, both on the off-Broadway and Broadway stage and in cabaret-style locales. Nelson was a featured performer on Broadway in 1970 in the musical, "Purlie", in which she sang DOWN HOME with Cleavon Little and HE CAN DO IT with Melba Moore. In 1975, Nelson directed the play "Le Femme Noir" at the Joseph Papp Public Theater. Her career in films did not begin until she was approaching middle age, with a small part in 1978's "An Unmarried Woman". Over the next thirty years, she continued to play small roles in movies Nelson works as an instructor for voice-over actors. In June, 2009, she appeared in a Boston production of "Oedipus".
1042125	Hugh Williams (born 6 March 1904, Bexhill-on-Sea, Sussex - died 7 December 1969, London) was an English actor and dramatist of Welsh descent. Personal life. Born as Hugh Anthony Glanmor Williams, his nickname was "Tam". He was a popular film and stage actor, who became a major film star in the British cinema of the 1930s. In 1930 he toured America in the cast of the R.C. Sheriff play "Journey's End" and appeared in his first film "Charley's Aunt" during a spell in Hollywood. He then returned to Britain and became a mainstay of the British film industry. He made 57 film appearances as an actor between 1930 and 1967. He collaborated with his second wife on several plays, such as "The Grass is Greener" and the screenplay for the subsequent film The Grass is Greener. He died from throat cancer, aged 65. He was married twice: and his grandchildren included:
584654	Devathayai Kanden (Tamil: தேவதையை கண்டேன்; English: "I Saw an Angel") is a 2005 Indian Tamil film starring Dhanush and Sridevi Vijaykumar. The film borrows its name from a hit song from another Dhanush-starrer "Kadhal Kondein".The movie went on to become a critically acclaimed commercial success. Plot. In this movie, Dhanush plays a struggling youngster who makes a living out of selling milk tea, carrying the business on his bicycle. He falls in love with a college girl played by Sridevi Vijaykumar. Gradually, the girl also reciprocates the boy's feelings and things go smoothly for a while. The girl's parents find her a groom who is well educated and earns handsomely. The girl is in a dilemma on whom to choose as her life partner. She thinks of her future if she chooses the poor guy where she visualizes herself giving birth to a child in a government hospital, her husband unable to raise required money for her medical expenses and overall a very difficult life. Contrast this with a life where she is pampered by everyone, her every need taken care of almost instantly if she chooses to marry the groom selected by her parents. While the poor lover guy is on a religious trip to Sabarimala, the girl decides to marry the groom (Kunal) so that she can continue to lead a comfortable life. The lover is devastated when he hears this and heartbroken when the girl goes to the extent of slapping him when he accuses her parents of changing her mind. In a unique way, the poor guy files a case against the girl for not holding the promise made to him of sharing a life together for a good 50 years. Though strange, the case soon gathers momentum and has the public discussing it everywhere. As the case progresses, several sacrifices made by the guy for the sake of the girl come into light through revelations made by people known to him and by his close friends. The girl has a change of heart and on the final day of the hearing, decides to re unite with the guy. In a final twist, when the girl offers a rose to him, the hero refuses to accept her saying that the case was filed not to win her back but to teach a lesson not only her but to every girl with an attitude identical to her. He justifies further by saying that yesterday she hated him because of his status but today she loves him and tomorrow she may again find him unattractive. Feeling light at heart, he leaves the court complex much to the surprise of the visibly embarrassed rich girl. Production. Dhanush signed the film, then titled "Ennai Mattum Kadhal Pannu", soon after the success of "Thulluvadho Ilamai" and the venture was initially set to star Sherin, who appeared alongside him in that film. Since then, the title and the heroine went through a couple pof changes, briefly being referred to as "Kadhal Sughamanathu" and then finally as "Devathayai Kanden", after the popular song of Dhanush-starrer "Kadhal Kondein". Sridevi Vijayakumar replaced Sherin as heroine in the film.
922918	In Hell is a 2003 American action film directed by Ringo Lam, and starring Jean-Claude Van Damme and Lawrence Taylor. It is the third collaboration between Van Damme and Hong Kong filmmaker Ringo Lam. Plot. Kyle LeBlanc (Van Damme) is an American working overseas in Russia. When he hears his wife being attacked over the phone, Kyle rushes home to find that he is too late. The man who has killed his wife is found not guilty on lack of evidence, so Kyle takes the law into his own hands and kills the man to avenge his wife's death. For his crime he is sentenced to life in prison without parole. He soon befriends inmate Billy Cooper, a 21-year-old who is subjected to constant rape and beatings by prison inmates (they are actually helped by the guards who lock him in cells with these prisoners during the night) and also Malakai, a wheelchair-bound prisoner who claims to know the ins and outs of prison life. After getting into a brawl with an inmate who provoked him in a way similar to his wife's murderer, Kyle is put in solitary confinement. Then he is transferred to a cell with Inmate 451 (Lawrence Taylor) who has the reputation of killing inmates, and the sadistic head of the guards believes he will do the same to Kyle. However, over time they begin to trust one another. The majority of the film focuses on organized fights the warden holds among his prisoners, and he amuses himself by betting on these fights to fill his pockets. After savagely killing another prisoner in his first fight, Kyle is continuously forced into more because the warden and guards know he is a sure thing, and slowly he begins to lose his sanity. At one point 451 even asks him "Do you even know you are? Probably not." Meanwhile, Billy attempts multiple times to escape the prison, first by running during outside work detail, and then again by sneaking off during the Russian Independence Day celebration (the latter of which fails as he is betrayed by Malakai, who informed the guards because his need of special medicine). 451 discovers his betrayal, and in retaliation, pours lighter fluid on him and sets him on fire. After Billy is locked in a cell with prison fighter Valya overnight, Billy is beaten to within an inch of his life after he spits in Valya's face. Billy later succumbs to his injuries, but before he dies, he whispers to Kyle "Don't let them make you become something you're not." With this advice, Kyle now knows he must fight another battle; the fight for inner peace, as it is the only way he can become the man he once was. Kyle refuses to fight in the next match, and as a result, is hung by his arms outside for all to see as a consequence his actions. However, seeing Kyle's courage and his ability to stay strong during his punishment, the other inmates begin to follow suit by refusing to fight. Kyle is released soon from his restraints, and is forced into a fight with Miloc, a gargantuan prisoner kept separate from the general population who Kyle kept hearing through the walls from his time in solitary confinement. During the fight, Kyle manages to knock on a door repeatedly, making Miloc recognize him (as this was his only form of communication, and he embraces him as a friend.) The two then turn on the guards, and ignite a full-scale riot, during which Miloc is killed by gunfire. Soon, 451 gives Kyle the evidence of all the murders that have happened in this prison for the past 20 something years that he had planned to expose to the US government. While the guards are getting the prisoners under control, 451 shows Kyle a secret passage to the prison garage for their next move. Kyle participates in one final fight, to which he wins, but the guards have indicated they will kill him afterward. When two guards take Kyle to the garage, 451 launches an attack and kills one of them while Kyle holds the other at gunpoint and pins him down to the ground. After taking the key to free himself, Kyle takes one of the guards uniforms to disguise himself and drives off in one of their cars while 451 stays behind to assassinate the warden for his misdeeds. His fate is unknown, but Kyle is able to return to the US and expose the prison's actions. Three months later, the prison was shut down.
1064811	Beauty Shop is a 2005 American comedy film directed by Bille Woodruff. The film serves as both a third installment and a spin-off of the "Barbershop" film franchise, and stars Queen Latifah as Gina, a character first introduced in the 2004 film "". This film also stars Alicia Silverstone, Andie MacDowell, Mena Suvari, Kevin Bacon and Djimon Hounsou. Plot. Gina Norris is a widowed hairstylist who has moved from Chicago to Atlanta so her daughter, Vanessa, can attend a private music school. She's made a name for herself as a stylist, but after her self-centered boss, Jorge, criticizes her decisions, she leaves and sets up her own shop, purchasing a run-down salon by the skin of her teeth by helping out a loan officer. Upon buying the salon, she runs into instant barriers: loudmouthed young stylists, older clients who are set in their ways, people wary of her ability as a hairdresser and the constant trouble her rebellious sister-in-law, Darnelle, finds herself in. In a short time, the previous owner's clients become her own and many of her former customers find their way from Jorge's to her salon. When electrical issues arise, she finds that the upstairs renter, Joe is a handsome electrician from Africa who eventually bonds with Vanessa due to his skills on the piano. Because Jorge is jealous that his shop is losing clients to Gina's, he pays a health inspector named Crawford, to find various ways to shut down Gina's business. Over time, neighborhood regulars frequent the shop and the varied stylists become close to Gina, as does Joe. One of her former clients from Jorge's even uses her connections to set up a meeting with Cover Girl for Gina's homemade miracle conditioner, affectionately called "hair crack".
582913	Dhaai Akshar Prem Ke (English: "Two and half letters of Love") is a 2000 Bollywood romantic drama film. It was the first of seven films in which currently married couple Abhishek Bachchan and Aishwarya Rai starred together. The film is a remake of the 1995 Hollywood film "A Walk in the Clouds". Plot. Sahiba is an intelligent, shy, and sensitive girl attending college a long way from home. She belongs to a typical Rajput family in which tradition requires that a girl give her consent to marry the man chosen by her family. Being a girl of contemporary times, Sahiba refuses to submit to age-old traditions. To avoid an arranged marriage, she lies that she is already married, which angers her father Yogi Grewal. The fake husband is a handsome army captain, Karan. The two meet after Karan saves Sahiba from a group of men who are trying to kill her; Sahiba explains that she witnessed a murder, and the murderer sent his men after her. Karan decides to escort her safely home. Once home, the family mistakes Karan for Sahiba's presumed husband, and Karan and Sahiba try but fail to tell the truth. Sahiba's family take a great liking to Karan. Sahiba's father, however, does not. At first, Karan is anxious to leave and go meet his friend Nisha, who he has fallen in love with but has not seen for a year. However, being an orphan, Karan soon gets carried away by the love and affection Sahiba's family showers him with. Meanwhile, Sahiba falls in love with Karan. Following a misunderstanding in which the family celebrates Sahiba's and Karan's pregnancy (which did not occur), Karan decides that he should walk out. Before he can, a distressed Sahiba tells Karan that she loves him and begs him not to leave. He leaves anyway. Upon meeting Nisha, he discovers that she has already married and had never taken him for more than a friend. Yogi, who had finally taken a liking to Karan after learning of the "pregnancy," is angry that Karan left and even more angry when Sahiba tells him that she and Karan were never married. Karan is overcome with grief and guilt for having left Sahiba for Nisha when Nisha did not love him. In his shock, Karan also discovers that he has fallen in love with Sahiba but had been too focused on Nisha to realize it. He decides to go back to Sahiba's house and apologize. Upon entering, Yogi berates him and after revealing that he has arranged Sahiba's engagement to another man, tells Karan to never come back. Sahiba is horrified to find out that the man she is engaged to had murdered a girl at Sahiba's college - the very murder she had witnessed. She explains this to her father, but he does not believe her; the young man in question, Vicky, happens to be the son of a family friend, Rai Singhal. Rai reveals his true colors when Yogi overhears him telling his son that they will use Sahiba to inherit her father's money, then get rid of her. Karan, who had been reunited with Sahiba by her uncle Raunaq, and had been told who Vicky was, arrives at the scene and a brutal fight begins. It ends with Yogi and Karan being captured and trapped in Singhal's warehouse, which Singhal and his henchmen have set on fire in order to ensure that Vicky and Sahiba's wedding will not be disrupted. Karan and Yogi struggle to escape the fire. The wedding takes place. Sahiba is so overcome with sorrow and stress that she swallows poison. Before the wedding is complete, Yogi and Karan arrive and beat down Singhal, Vicky, and their henchmen. Before everyone can celebrate, though, Sahiba collapses. They rush her to the hospital; Karan refuses to leave her bedside while she's unconscious. Soon she wakes up, and the doctors inform the family that she will live. Yogi declares that Karan and Sahiba are meant for each other. The last scene shows the family ushering a pregnant Sahiba out of the house and into a car. Karan quiets everyone down, shouts that it's going to be a girl, and lifts Sahiba up and carries her away.
585724	Ee Puzhayum Kadannu(Malayalam : ഈ പുഴയും കടന്ന്) is a 1996 Malayalam film directed by Kamal and starring Dileep and Manju Warrier. The film was a box office hit. Plot. Anjali (Manju Warrier) is the third daughter of a music teacher. She lives with her sisters (Mohini and Chippy) and grandmother (Lakshmi Krishnamurthy). Her life changes when Gopi (Dileep) moves to his brother's (N. F. Varghese) house as her neighbor. At first they dislike each other, but eventually they fall in love. However, she has a problem with their marriage since she has two elder unmarried sisters. Gopi finds a groom for Anjali's mute sister (Mohini), but the marriage does not work out. Gopi's friend (Biju Menon) admits that he loves Anjali's sister, and so Gopi helps him marry her.
1068755	Haunted Honeymoon is a 1986 comedy movie starring Gene Wilder, Gilda Radner, Dom DeLuise, and Jonathan Pryce. Wilder also served as the film's writer and director. The film also marked Radner's final appearance prior to her death of ovarian cancer in 1989. Plot. Larry Abbot (Wilder) and Vickie Pearle (Radner) are performers on radio's "Manhattan Mystery Theater" who decide to get married. Larry has been plagued with on-air panic attacks and speech impediments since proposing marriage. Vickie thinks it's just pre-wedding jitters, but his affliction could get them both fired. Larry's uncle, Dr. Paul Abbot, decides that Larry needs to be cured. Paul decides to treat him with a form of shock therapy to "scare him to death" in much the same way someone might try to startle someone out of hiccups. Larry chooses a castle-like mansion in which he grew up as the site for their wedding. Vickie gets to meet Larry's eccentric family: great-aunt Kate (DeLuise), who plans to leave all her money to Larry; his uncle, Francis; and Larry's cousins, Charles, Nora, Susan, and the cross-dressing Francis Jr. Also present are the butler Pfister and wife Rachel, the maid; Larry's old girlfriend Sylvia, who is now married to Charles; and Susan's magician husband, Montego the Magnificent. Paul begins his "treatment" of Larry and lets others in on the plan. Unfortunately for all, something more sinister and unexpected is lurking at the Abbot Estates mansion. The pre-wedding party becomes a real-life version of Larry and Vickie's radio murder mysteries, werewolves and all. Cast. Box office. The movie was a financial flop, grossing only $8,000,000 in America, entering the box office at number 8, then slipping to 14 the following week. While Gilda Radner was struggling with cancer, she wrote the following about the film: "On July 26 , "Haunted Honeymoon" opened nationwide. It was a bomb. One month of publicity and the movie was only in the theaters for a week – a box-office disaster."
586698	Dastak (The Knock) is a classic Hindi film made in 1970, it was written and directed by Rajinder Singh Bedi, and was his directorial debut.
581578	Aryan Vaid (born 4 July 1976) is an Indian male model who won the Graviera Mr. India modelling pageant in the year 2000. He also went on to win the Mister International Award 2000. Career. Vaid is a qualified chef and a lifestyle columnist with The Hindustan Times. He has been actively involved with theatre and has done a few street plays at the Prithvi theatre in Mumbai. It was during one of these plays that he was offered a role in the television serial, "Campus". He has acted in a number of Bollywood movies. Starting out his career in a small budget movie "MARKET" that went on to become a big hit at the box-office. Subsequently he had a series of small budget movies that did extremely well at the box-office. It was this that got him his first big budget movie Apne. Even though the movie had an average run, Aryan did notch up decent reviews for his acting and physique. However just when it looked like he would hit the big time, he moved to the USA. He was a housemate on "Bigg Boss", the Indian version of "Celebrity Big Brother", produced by Endemol India for Sony Entertainment Television. Vaid is currently on Zee TV'S new show, "Rab se Sonha Ishq" as Harry, a cab driver in London. Personal life. In 2008 Aryan Vaid married Alexandra Copley, a photographer, professor of photography and well-known yoga and health instructor.
1058332	Wings of Desire ("Der Himmel über Berlin", translated literally as "The Heavens over Berlin") is a 1987 Franco-German romantic fantasy film directed by Wim Wenders. The film is about invisible, immortal angels who populate Berlin and listen to the thoughts of the human inhabitants and comfort those who are in distress. Even though the city is densely populated, many of the people are isolated and estranged from their loved ones. One of the angels, played by Bruno Ganz, falls in love with a beautiful, lonely trapeze artist. The angel chooses to become human so that he can experience the human sensory pleasures, ranging from enjoying food to touching a loved one, and so that he can experience human love with the trapeze artist. The film is shot in both a rich, sepia-toned black-and-white and color, with the former being used to represent the world as experienced by the angels. The film was followed by a sequel, "Faraway, So Close!", in 1993. "City of Angels", an American remake, was released in 1998. Plot. Set in contemporary West Berlin (at the time still enclosed by the Berlin Wall), "Wings of Desire" follows two angels, Damiel and Cassiel, as they roam the city, unseen and unheard by its human inhabitants, observing and listening to the diverse thoughts of Berliners: a pregnant woman in an ambulance on the way to the hospital, a painter struggling to find inspiration, a broken man who thinks his girlfriend no longer loves him. Their raison d'être is, as Cassiel says, to "assemble, testify, preserve" reality. In addition to the story of two angels, the film is also a meditation on Berlin's past, present, and future. Damiel and Cassiel have always existed as angels; they existed in Berlin before it was a city, and before there were even any humans. Among the Berliners they encounter in their wanderings is an old man named Homer, who, unlike the Greek poet Homer, dreams of an "epic of peace." Cassiel follows the old man as he looks for the then-demolished Potsdamer Platz in an open field, and finds only the graffiti-covered Berlin Wall. Although Damiel and Cassiel are pure observers, visible only to children, and incapable of any physical interaction with our world, Damiel begins to fall in love with a profoundly lonely circus trapeze artist named Marion. She lives by herself in a caravan, dances alone to the music of Crime & the City Solution, and drifts through the city. A subplot follows Peter Falk, who has arrived in Berlin to make a film about Berlin's Nazi past. As the film progresses, it emerges that Peter Falk was once an angel, who, having grown tired of always observing and never experiencing, renounced his immortality to become a participant in the world. While Damiel is omniscient and lives in eternity, Marion is mortal and lives the human aspiration to be immortal and perfect by wearing a pair of white wings (which in frustration, at one point, she calls "chicken feathers"), climbing a rope, swinging from a bar in a cheap circus, toying with death, as there is no net, and with her human clumsiness reaches upward to the grace expressed in the idea of an angel. Her aspiration is both absurd and divine. As one can take only so much of infinity, Damiel's longing is in the opposite direction, for the genuineness and limitedness of human existence in the world, perhaps a reference to "Dasein", or "Existenz". When he sheds his immortal existence, he experiences life for the first time: he bleeds, sees colors for the first time (the movie up to this point is filmed in a sepia-toned monochrome, except for brief moments when the angels are not present or looking), tastes food and drinks coffee. Meanwhile, Cassiel inadvertently taps into the mind of a young man just about to commit suicide by jumping off a building. Cassiel tries to save the young man but is unable to do so, and is left haunted and tormented by the experience. Eventually, Damiel meets the trapeze artist Marion at a bar (during a concert by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds), and they greet each other with familiarity as if they had long known each other. In the end, Damiel is united with the woman he has desired for so long. The film ends with the message: "To be continued." The story is concluded in Wenders' 1993 sequel, "In weiter Ferne, so nah!" ("Faraway, So Close!"). Production. Screenplay and improvisation. Rainer Maria Rilke's poetry partially inspired the movie; Wenders claimed angels seemed to dwell in Rilke's poetry. The director also employed Peter Handke, who wrote much of the dialogue, the poetic narrations, and the film's recurring poem "Song of Childhood." The movie was made with a minimalist script; it is a mood piece exploring people, the city, and a concept: a longing for and love of life, existence, reality. Peter Falk wasn't meant to be a sketch artist until Wenders discovered Falk's talent. Bruno Ganz and Otto Sander were cast because they were old friends, who had known each other for decades. Solveig Dommartin was Wenders' actress girlfriend; although the circus part required extensive and risky acrobatics, she was able to learn the trapeze and rope moves in only eight weeks, and did all the work herself, without a net. Cinematography. The film was shot by the 77-year-old cinematographer Henri Alekan, who had worked on Jean Cocteau's "La Belle et la Bête". It represents the angels' point of view in monochrome and switches to color to show the human point of view. During filming, Alekan used a very old and fragile silk stocking that had belonged to his grandmother as a filter for the monochromatic sequences. The shift from monochrome to color, to distinguish the angels' reality from that of the mortals, was first used in "A Matter of Life and Death" by Powell and Pressburger in 1946. Deleted scenes. As revealed in the DVD, "Wings of Desire" could have turned out to be a far less serious film. Cut scenes from the beginning of the film had Cassiel humorously mimicking the humans' actions. Other cut scenes were experiments of how to show the angel's invisibility/lack of physical form using double exposure. There was also a female angel who was cut from the movie, appearing only during a pan-shot in the library scene. The end was much different from the final cut—it was originally to have Cassiel turn human as well, and finding Damiel and Marion at the bar where they engage in a pie fight. Dedication. In the closing titles it says: "Dedicated to all the former angels, but especially to Yasujiro, François and Andrej." This is a reference to fellow filmmakers Yasujirō Ozu, François Truffaut, and Andrei Tarkovsky. Reception. "Wings of Desire" received "Two Thumbs Up" from Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert on "Siskel & Ebert & The Movies". Leslie James of 680 News Toronto claims it is one of the best movies of all time. It was ranked #64 in "Empire" magazine's "The 100 Best Films Of World Cinema" in 2010. The review aggregator "Rotten Tomatoes" records that 98% of its cited critics gave the film a positive review. Awards. The film won the award for Best Director at the 1987 Cannes Film Festival. In 1988, it won the prestigious Grand Prix of the Belgian Film Critics Association. Remake. In 1998, an American remake called "City of Angels" was released. The setting was Los Angeles and starred Meg Ryan and Nicolas Cage. Apart from the premise of angels watching humans, the opening scene also taking place in a landmark library, a secondary love story arc, and specific parts of the script, City of Angels is different in many aspects to Wenders' original film. Theatrical adaptation. The first theatrical adaptation of Wings of Desire was created by the Northern Stage theatre company in Newcastle upon Tyne, UK in 2003. This particular adaptation, which used film footage of the city and stories from the community, was adapted and directed by Alan Lyddiard who then re-created it at Betty Nansen Theatre in Copenhagen in 2005. In 2006, the American Repertory Theater in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and Toneelgroep Amsterdam presented another stage adaptation of the movie, created by Gideon Lester and Dirkje Houtman and directed by Ola Mafaalani. Popular culture references. The movie was a direct influence to the videoclip of Guardian by Canadian-American recording artist Alanis Morissette, released as the lead single from her eighth studio album, "Havoc and Bright Lights".
1067317	Monet Happy Mazur (born April 17, 1976) is an American actress.
1162448	Kirby Grant (November 24, 1911 - October 30, 1985), born Kirby Grant Hoon, Jr., was a long-time B movie and television actor, mostly remembered for having played the title role in the Western-themed adventure television series "Sky King". Early life and career. Grant was born in Butte in Silver Bow County in southwestern Montana. He was a child prodigy violinist. He continued to study music and became a professional singer and bandleader. Movie career. In 1939 the "Gateway to Hollywood" talent-search contest awarded him a movie contract. These "Gateway" contracts were already prepared with fictitious screen names (thus Josephine Cottle became "Gale Storm" and Ralph Bowman became "John Archer"; Grant won with Dorothy Howe, who became "Virginia Vale"). Grant's contract was made out to "Robert Stanton," and Grant used the pseudonym in his earliest films before adopting his first and middle names professionally. "Robert Stanton" and "Virginia Vale" were introduced in the RKO Radio Pictures feature "Three Sons", with Edward Ellis and William Gargan. For the next few years Grant freelanced among various studios; his most familiar picture from this period (as Kirby Grant) is probably "Blondie Goes Latin", a 1941 film with Penny Singleton and Arthur Lake. In 1943, Grant signed with Universal Pictures, where he played romantic leads in B musicals, and in Abbott and Costello and Olsen and Johnson comedies. His smooth baritone voice got him teamed with Universal's singing star Gloria Jean for two features in 1944, and then Universal selected him to replace Rod Cameron (who had just been promoted to more important roles) as the studio's B-Western series star in 1945.
725508	Vanessa Lee Evigan (born on March 18, 1981) is an American actress. She is the daughter of actor Greg Evigan and model–actress Pamela C. Serpe. Biography. Born and raised in Los Angeles, California, Evigan got her start on the small screen at only eight years old when she was an extra on the television show "My Two Dads", which starred her father, Greg Evigan. Evigan knew then she wanted to be an actress but it wasn't until she was eleven that her parents allowed her to get into the business. She is the oldest of three children; her brother Jason Evigan is the singer of the band After Midnight Project, and her sister is actress Briana Evigan, who starred in the movie "". At the age of twelve, Evigan got her first job guest-starring on the TV show "Jack's Place". Shortly after, she landed the role of Jenny Clemens on the critically acclaimed NBC series "Against The Grain" which also starred Ben Affleck. At fifteen, Evigan was cast as Sara Valentine on UPN's TV series "Social Studies". She then obtained a recurring role as Brittany Hodges on "The Young and the Restless". Evigan has guest-starred on many shows, such as "Boy Meets World", "The Tom Arnold Show", "Norm", "Less Than Perfect", "Emily's Reason Why Not", and "How I Met Your Mother". She has also starred in several independent movies and made-for-TV movies. In December 2007, Evigan starred in ABC Family's holiday show "Holiday in Handcuffs". Along with acting, Evigan's other two passions in life are singing and finding a cure for muscular dystrophy. After losing a friend to muscular dystrophy in high school, she began raising awareness of the condition. She has been involved with the Muscular Dystrophy Association for the last three years, and started a benefit two years ago called "Night Of Spirits". In 2001, Evigan appeared in the vocal group Nuance from the video game "". The group consisted of Evigan, Brianna Hayes, and Rachel Riggs playing the characters of Cela, Chilly and Trill. They were described as "an up-and-coming unsigned R&B/pop group". Their vocal coach was Seth Riggs and they were managed by Larry Rudolph. Evigan dated Linkin Park drummer Rob Bourdon for seven years.
1059747	Office Space is a 1999 American comedy film satirizing work life in a typical 1990s software company. Written and directed by Mike Judge, it focuses on a handful of individuals fed up with their jobs portrayed by Ron Livingston, Jennifer Aniston, Gary Cole, David Herman, Ajay Naidu, and Diedrich Bader. The film's sympathetic depiction of ordinary IT workers garnered a cult following within that field, but also addresses themes familiar to white collar employees in general. Shot in Las Colinas and Austin, Texas, "Office Space" is based on Judge's "Milton" cartoon series. It was his first foray into live action film and second full-length motion picture release. While not a box office success, the film sold well on DVD and VHS, and has become recognized as a cult classic. Plot. Peter Gibbons, a disgruntled programmer at Initech, spends his days "staring at his desk" instead of actually working. His co-workers include Samir Nagheenanajar, who is annoyed by the fact that nobody can pronounce his last name correctly; Michael Bolton, who loathes having the same name as the famous singer, whom he hates; and Milton Waddams, a meek, fixated collator who constantly mumbles to himself. Milton had actually been laid off years earlier, though he was never informed and, due to a payroll computer glitch, continues to receive regular paychecks. All four are repeatedly mistreated by management, especially Initech's smarmy, callous vice president, Bill Lumbergh. The staff are further agitated by the arrival of two consultants, Bob Slydell and Bob Porter, who are brought in to help the company through downsizing and outsourcing. Peter's girlfriend Anne convinces him to attend an 'occupational hypnotherapy' session, but the therapist, Dr. Swanson, dies of a heart attack right after hypnotizing Peter. The newly relaxed Peter wakes up the next morning and ignores continued calls from Anne (who angrily leaves him and admits she's been cheating, confirming his friends' suspicions) and Lumbergh (who was expecting Peter to work over the weekend). The following work day, Peter decides to play hooky and asks Joanna, a waitress at Chotchkie's (a parody of T.G.I. Friday's), out to lunch. Joanna shares Peter's loathing of idiotic management and love of the television program "Kung Fu". When Peter finally shows up at work, he disregards Initech's dress code, takes Lumbergh's reserved parking spot, and refuses to follow Lumbergh's directions. He also removes items that annoy him, such as a door handle that repeatedly shocked him and a cubicle wall that blocks his view out the window. The consultants, however, decide to promote him because of the positive impression he makes on them with his bluntness about the office's problems. Peter then learns that Michael and Samir's jobs will be eliminated, and the trio decide to get even by infecting Initech's accounting system with a computer virus designed to divert fractions of pennies into a bank account they control. They believe the scheme will succeed because the amounts are too small for Initech to notice, while over time they will receive a substantial amount of money. On Michael and Samir's last day at Initech, Peter takes one last item: a frequently-malfunctioning printer, which the three beat to pieces in a field. To his horror, Peter discovers that a misplaced decimal point caused the virus to steal $305,326.13 in the first few days, a far more conspicuous loss to Initech. Haunted by the result, he admits to Joanna – who has finally worked up the courage to stand up to her boss and quit Chotchkie's – that the scheme was a bad idea and that he plans to accept the blame for the crime. He writes a letter confessing everything, then slips an envelope containing the letter and the money (in unsigned traveler's checks) under the door of Lumbergh's office late at night. The next morning, Milton – having been deprived of his cherished red Swingline stapler by Lumbergh, forced to move to the cockroach-infested basement, and having had his paychecks finally cut off – enters Lumbergh's office to reclaim his stapler.
1163668	John Garfield (March 4, 1913 – May 21, 1952) was an American actor adept at playing brooding, rebellious, working-class characters. He grew up in poverty in Depression-era New York City and in the early 1930s became an important member of the Group Theater. In 1937, he moved to Hollywood, eventually becoming one of Warner Bros.' major stars. Called to testify before the U.S. Congressional House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC), he denied Communist affiliation and refused to "name names," effectively ending his film career. Some have claimed that the stress of this incident led to his premature death at 39 from a heart attack. Garfield is acknowledged as a predecessor of such Method actors as Montgomery Clift, Marlon Brando, and James Dean. Youth. Garfield was born Jacob Garfinkle in a small apartment on Rivington Street in Manhattan's Lower East Side, to David and Hannah Garfinkle, Russian Jewish immigrants, and grew up in the heart of the Yiddish Theater District. In early infancy a middle name—Julius—was added, and for the rest of his life those who knew him well called him Julie. His father, a clothes presser and part-time cantor, struggled to make a living and to provide even marginal comfort for his small family. When Garfield was five, his brother Max was born and their mother never fully recovered from what was described as a "difficult" pregnancy. She died two years later and the young boys were sent to live with various relatives, all poor, scattered across the boroughs of Brooklyn, Queens and the Bronx. Several of these relatives lived in tenements in a section of East Brooklyn called Brownsville and there Garfield lived in one house and slept in another. At school he was judged a poor reader and speller, deficits that were aggravated by irregular attendance. He would later say of his time on the streets there, that he learned "all the meanness, all the toughness it's possible for kids to acquire." His father remarried and moved to the West Bronx where Garfield joined a series of gangs. Much later he would recall: "Every street had its own gang. That's the way it was in poor sections... the old safety in numbers." He soon become gang leader. At this time people started to notice his ability to mimic well-known performers, both bodily and facially. He also began to hang out and eventually spar at a boxing gym on Jerome Avenue. At some point he contracted scarlet fever, (it was diagnosed later in adulthood) causing permanent damage to his heart and causing him to miss a lot of school. After being expelled three times and expressing a wish to quit school altogether, his parents sent him to P.S. 45, a school for difficult children. It was under the guidance of the school's principal—the noted educator Angelo Patri—that he was introduced to acting. Noticing Garfield's tendency to stammer, Patri assigned him to a speech therapy class taught by a charismatic teacher named Margaret O'Ryan. She gave him acting exercises and made him memorize and deliver speeches in front of the class and, as he progressed, in front of school assemblies. O'Ryan thought he had natural talent and cast him in school plays. She encouraged him to sign up for a city-wide debating competition sponsored by the New York Times. To his own surprise, he took second prize. With Patri and O'Ryan's encouragement he began to take acting lessons at a drama school that was part of The Heckscher Foundation and began to appear in their productions. At one of the latter he received back-stage congratulations and an offer of support from the Yiddish actor Jacob Ben-Ami who recommended him to the American Laboratory Theater. Funded by the Theatre Guild, "the Lab" had contracted with Richard Boleslavski to stage its experimental productions and with Russian actress and expatriate Maria Ouspenskaya to supervise classes in acting. Former members of the Moscow Art Theater, they were the first proponents of Stanislavsky's "system" in the United States. Garfield took morning classes and began volunteering time at the Lab after hours, auditing rehearsals, building and painting scenery, and doing crew work. He would later view this time as beginning his apprenticeship in the theater. Among the people becoming disenchanted with the Guild and turning to the Lab for a more radical, challenging environment were Stella Adler, Lee Strasberg, Franchot Tone, Cheryl Crawford and Harold Clurman. In varying degrees, all would become influential in Garfield's later career. After a stint with Eva Le Gallienne's Civic Repertory Theater and a short period of vagrancy involving hitchhiking, freight hopping, picking fruit, and logging in the Pacific Northwest (Preston Sturges conceived the film Sullivan's Travels after hearing Garfield tell of his hobo adventures) Garfield made his Broadway debut in 1932, in a play called "Lost Boy". It ran for only two weeks but gave Garfield something critically important for an actor struggling to break into the theater: a credit. New York theater and The Group. Garfield received feature billing in his next role, that of Henry the office boy, in Elmer Rice's play "Counsellor-at-Law" starring Paul Muni. The play ran for three months, made an eastern tour and returned for an unprecedented second return engagement, only closing when Muni was contractually compelled to return to Hollywood to make a film for Warners. At this point the Warner company expressed an interest in Garfield and sought to arrange a screen test. He turned them down. Garfield's former colleagues Crawford, Clurman and Strasburg had begun a new theater collective, calling it simply "the Group," and Garfield lobbied his friends hard to get in. After months of rejection he began frequenting the inside steps of the Broadhurst Theater where the Group had its offices. Cheryl Crawford noticed him one day and greeted him warmly. Feeling encouraged, he made his request for apprenticeship. Something intangible impressed her and she recommended him to the other directors. They made no dissent. Clifford Odets had been a close friend of Garfield from the early days in the Bronx. After Odets' one-act play "Waiting for Lefty" became a surprise hit, the Group announced it would mount a production of his full length drama "Awake and Sing". At the playwright's insistence, Garfield was cast as Ralph, the sensitive young son who pled for "a chance to get to first base." The play opened in February 1935 and Garfield was singled out by critic Brooks Atkinson for having a "splendid sense of character development." Garfield's apprenticeship was officially over; he was voted full membership by the company. Odets was the man of the moment and he claimed to the press that Garfield was his "find"; that he would soon write a play just for him. That play would turn out to be "Golden Boy" and when Luther Adler was cast in the lead role instead, a disillusioned Garfield began to take a second look at the overtures being made by Hollywood. Warner Bros.. Garfield had been approached by Hollywood studios before—both Paramount and Warners offering screen tests—but talks had always stalled over a clause he wanted inserted in his contract, one that would allow him time off for stage work. Now Warner Bros. acceded to his demand and Garfield signed a standard feature-player agreement—seven years with options—in Warner's New York office. Many in the Group were livid over what they considered his betrayal. Elia Kazan's reaction was different, suggesting that the Group did not so much fear that Garfield would fail, but that he would succeed. Jack Warner's first order of business was a change of name to John Garfield. After many false starts he was finally cast in a supporting, yet crucial role as a tragic young composer in a Michael Curtiz film titled "Four Daughters". After the picture's release in 1938, he received wide critical acclaim and a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. The studio quickly revised Garfield's contract—designating him a star player rather than a featured one—for seven years without options. They also created a name-above-the-title vehicle for him titled: "They Made Me a Criminal". Before the breakout success of "Daughters" Garfield had made a B movie feature called "Blackwell's Island". Not wanting their new star to appear in a low-budget film, Warners ordered an A movie upgrade by adding an additional $100,000 to its budget and recalling its director Michael Curtiz to shoot newly scripted scenes. Garfield's debut had a cinematic impact difficult to conceive in retrospect. As biographer Lawrence Swindell put it:
586714	Dinesh Thakur (1947 – September 20, 2012) was a noted Indian theatre director, actor in theatre, television and Hindi film, where most notably he appeared as one of the leads in "Rajnigandha" 1974 and directed by Basu Chatterjee, which won both Filmfare Best Movie Award and the Filmfare Critics Award for Best Movie. He was the founder-director of ANK productions, a Mumbai-based theatre company, established in 1976. Though he mainly appeared as character roles in Hindi films, as a screenwriter and story writer, he is known for writing the story and screenplay of "Ghar" (1978), which won him the 1979 Filmfare Best Story Award. He died on September 20, 2012 due to kidney failure. Career. Dinesh Thakur did his graduation from Kirori Mal College (KMC), Delhi University, where was also part of the KMC dramatic society. He made his film debut in 1971, with "Mere Apne", written and directed by Gulzar, and followed it up with Basu Bhattacharya's "Anubhav" (1971), opening film of his trilogy of marital discord in urban settings, there after he also appeared the third film, "Griha Pravesh" (1979). 1974 saw him appearing in Basu Chatterjee's landmark in middle cinema, "Rajnigandha" (1974), alongside Amol Palekar and Vidya Sinha, which won the Filmfare Best Film Award, and went on appear in several films with both the directors in the coming years. He established 'Ank Theatre Group' in 1976, dedicated solely to Hindi theatre in Mumbai; though it started flourishing in a big way with the advent on Jennifer Kapoor's Prithvi Theatre in 1978.
1083380	Apartment 1303 is a Japanese horror film, directed by Ataru Oikawa, that revolves around a woman who investigates a series of suicides in her late sister's apartment. Based on "Ju-on" horror author Kei Oishi's original novel.
1039576	Dame Agnes Sybil Thorndike CH DBE (24 October 18829 June 1976) was a British actress who toured internationally in Shakespearean productions, often appearing with her husband Lewis Casson. Bernard Shaw wrote "Saint Joan" specially for her, and she starred in it with great success. She was made Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1931, and Companion of Honour in 1970. Early life. Thorndike was born in Gainsborough, Lincolnshire, to Arthur Thorndike and Agnes Macdonald. Her father was a Canon of Rochester Cathedral. She was educated at Rochester Grammar School for Girls, and first trained as a classical pianist, making weekly visits to London for music lessons at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama.
1236382	Jeffrey David "Jeff" Fahey (born November 29, 1952) is an American film and television actor. He has portrayed Captain Frank Lapidus on the ABC series "Lost" and the title role of Deputy Marshal Winston MacBride on "The Marshal". Early life. Fahey was born in Olean, New York, the sixth of 13 siblings in an Irish American family. His mother, Jane, was a homemaker, and his father, Frank Fahey, worked at a clothing store. Fahey was raised in Buffalo, New York, from the age of ten and attended Father Baker's High School there. Fahey left home at the age of 17, subsequently hitchhiking to Alaska. He later backpacked through Europe, and worked on an Israeli kibbutz. Career. Fahey started performing when he won a full scholarship to dance at the Joffrey Ballet School at the age of 25. He performed in theaters across the United States and on Broadway. He landed his first major role in television playing Gary Corelli on the soap opera "One Life to Live".
1162107	John George O'Hurley (born October 9, 1954) is an American actor, voice actor, author and television personality. He is known for the role of J. Peterman on the NBC sitcom "Seinfeld" and was a host of the game show "Family Feud" from 2006 to 2010. Early life. O'Hurley was born in Kittery, Maine, the son of Jean, a housewife, and John O'Hurley, an ear, nose, and throat surgeon. O'Hurley attended Kingswood-Oxford School in West Hartford, Connecticut and graduated from Providence College in 1976 with a BA in Theatre. His older sister Carol died in 1970 at the age of 17 due to epileptic seizures, and so John works on behalf of the Epilepsy Foundation to find a cure. He has two brothers who are twins. Bruce O'Hurley of Capitol Hill Services Inc. and Neal O'Hurley. Career. "Seinfeld". On "Seinfeld" O'Hurley played a fictionalized version of the catalog-company entrepreneur, John Peterman, from 1995 to 1998. In 2001 O'Hurley financed the relaunch of The J. Peterman Company, and thus became a part-owner. "Dancing With the Stars". He was a contestant on the first season of the television show "Dancing with the Stars" which aired during the summer of 2005. O'Hurley and his dance partner Charlotte Jørgensen made it to the final competition, which he lost to ABC soap opera star Kelly Monaco. After fans alleged that Monaco's victory was a set-up, the network announced that O'Hurley, Monaco and their professional dancing partners would face off in a special "grudge match" episode broadcast September 20, 2005. Unlike the first episode, viewer vote determined the winner instead of the three professional ballroom-dance judges. O'Hurley and Jørgensen emerged as the winners. The rematch earned $126,000 for Golfers Against Cancer charity. Afterward the duo produced a dance instruction video called, "Learn to Dance with John and Charlotte". Other roles. In 1995, he co-starred on the short-lived sitcom "A Whole New Ballgame".
400593	Joshua Charles "Josh" Pence (born June 8, 1982) is an American actor, best known for playing Tyler Winklevoss in the 2010 film "The Social Network". Early life. Pence was born in Santa Monica, California. His father is a real estate agent and his mother is an elementary school teacher. He attended Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire where he was a member of Psi Upsilon Fraternity. He moved to Los Angeles, California in 2007. Career. Pence first appeared in the 2006 film "The Good Shepherd" in an uncredited role as Bonesman. Pence appeared in the 2010 film "The Social Network" as Tyler Winklevoss, alongside Armie Hammer. Pence played the part of Tyler Winklevoss during filming--he also played Cameron in certain scenes, for particular setups--and Hammer's face was grafted onto Pence's body in post-production to create the illusion of identical twins. Split-screen photography was also used. Pence also appears in a another role.
147506	How to Murder Your Wife is a 1965 American comedy film starring Jack Lemmon and Virna Lisi. It was directed by Richard Quine, who also directed Lemmon in "My Sister Eileen", "It Happened to Jane", "Operation Mad Ball" and "Bell, Book and Candle". Plot summary. Stanley Ford (Jack Lemmon) is a successful, happily unmarried cartoonist enjoying the comforts of a well-to-do existence in an urban townhouse, including the services of his loyal and attentive valet, Charles Firbank (Terry-Thomas). Stanley's comic strip, "Bash Brannigan", is a secret-agent thriller characterized by a high level of realism: no matter how outrageous the plot may seem, Stanley will not allow Brannigan to do anything physically impossible or use gadgets that don't exist. He hires actors and sets up elaborate enactments of storylines, playing Brannigan himself, while Charles takes photographs Stanley will use as models. While attending a bachelor party for his friend Tobey Rawlins (Max Showalter), Stanley becomes very drunk and proposes to a beautiful Italian girl (Lisi) who steps out of a large cake wearing a bikini. An equally drunken judge (Sidney Blackmer) performs an impromptu wedding ceremony. The next morning, Stanley wakes up with the girl, now his wife, lying naked in bed next to him. He asks his lawyer Harold Lampson (Eddie Mayehoff) to arrange a divorce, but Lampson informs him that this is impossible without legal justification.
1504258	Anthony Deane Rapp (born October 26, 1971) is an American stage and film actor and singer best known for originating the role of Mark Cohen in the Broadway production of "Rent" in 1996 and later for reprising the role in the film version and the Broadway Tour of "Rent" in 2009. He also performed the role of Charlie Brown in the 1999 Broadway revival of "You're A Good Man, Charlie Brown". Early life. Rapp was born in Joliet, Illinois, the son of Mary Lee (née Baird) and Douglas Rapp. After his parents' divorce, he was raised by his mother, a trained nurse. Rapp attended high school at Joliet West High School in Joliet, Illinois and theatre camp at Interlochen Arts Camp. In junior high school, Rapp won numerous awards for his singing. His brother is playwright, novelist, and filmmaker Adam Rapp. Career. Rapp first performed on Broadway in 1981 in the flop "The Little Prince and the Aviator", a musical based on Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's novel "The Little Prince". The show closed during previews. He also appeared in the 1987 movie "Adventures in Babysitting", which was directed by Chris Columbus. Columbus would later direct Rapp in the film version of "Rent". He has appeared in several movies and Broadway shows, most notably as intellectuals. His notable work includes such films as "Dazed and Confused", "A Beautiful Mind", "School Ties", "Road Trip", "Six Degrees of Separation" (stage and film versions), "An American Family", "" and "You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown". Rapp is probably best known for playing Mark Cohen in the off-Broadway and original Broadway casts of Jonathan Larson's musical "Rent". For his audition for the musical, Rapp sang R.E.M.'s "Losing My Religion", and received his callback in September 1994. He reprised that role in the film adaptation, which was released on November 23, 2005. In 2000, Rapp released a solo CD, entitled "Look Around". He returned to "Rent" on July 30, 2007, for a six-week run, along with original cast member Adam Pascal. Rapp and Adam Pascal continued in their return to Broadway's Rent through October 7 at the Nederlander Theatre. Rapp and Pascal, along with fellow original cast member Gwen Stewart, reprised their roles of Mark and Roger in a national tour of "Rent" beginning January 6, 2009.
1063916	Tommy Boy is a 1995 American road comedy film directed by Peter Segal, written by Bonnie and Terry Turner, produced by Lorne Michaels, and starring former "Saturday Night Live" castmates and close friends Chris Farley and David Spade. The film tells the story of a socially and emotionally immature man (Farley) who learns lessons about friendship and self-worth following the sudden death of his industrialist father. The film did well commercially but received mixed reviews from critics. The film was shot primarily in Toronto and Los Angeles. Plot. After seven years at college, Thomas R. "Tommy" Callahan III (Chris Farley) barely graduates from Marquette University and returns to his hometown of Sandusky, Ohio. His father, industrialist, and widower, Thomas R. "Big Tom" Callahan, Jr. (Brian Dennehy), gives him an executive job at the family's auto parts plant, Callahan Auto. In addition to the new job and office, Big Tom reveals that he plans to marry Beverly Barrish-Burns (Bo Derek), a woman he had met at a fat farm, and that her son, Paul (Rob Lowe), will become Tommy's new stepbrother. However, Big Tom suddenly dies from a sudden heart attack during the wedding reception. After the funeral, doubting the future of the company without Big Tom, the bank reneges on promises of a loan for a new brake pad division and seeks immediate payment of Callahan Auto's debts. Tommy suggests a deal: he will let the bank hold his few inherited shares and house in exchange for the bank giving time to sell enough brake pads to prove the new division's viability. If enough brake pads are sold by the deadline, the bank will grant the loan. Tommy sets out on a cross-country sales trip with his father's sycophantic assistant, Richard Hayden (David Spade), a childhood acquaintance who is annoyed over Tommy's ability to be lazy and yet be rewarded. Meanwhile, Beverly and Paul are shown kissing romantically. They are not mother and son, but rather married con artists with criminal records. Instead of eventually suing for divorce and taking half of Big Tom's estate, Beverly has inherited controlling interest in the company. To turn that into cash, she seeks a quick sale to self-described "auto parts king" Ray Zalinsky (Dan Aykroyd). On the road, Tommy's social anxiety and hyperactivity alienate several potential buyers. The lack of any progress leads to tension between Tommy and Richard. When all seems lost, Tommy persuades a surly waitress to serve him after the kitchen has closed and his confidence is restored. The two mend their friendship and quickly make their sales goal. However, Paul sabotages the company's computers, causing sales posted by sales manager Michelle Brock (Julie Warner) to be lost or rerouted. With half of the sales now canceled, the bank, backed by Beverly and Paul, decides to sell Callahan Auto to Zalinsky. Hoping that they can persuade Zalinsky to reconsider, Tommy and Richard travel to Chicago boarding a plane as flight attendants. In Chicago, they get a brief meeting with Zalinsky, but he tells them he wants only the reputation connected with the Callahan brand and will close down the company and lay off its workers. Tommy and Richard are denied entrance to the Zalinsky board room since Tommy has no standing. After briefly wallowing on the curb in self-pity, Michelle arrives with Paul and Beverly's police records. Tommy devises 'a plan': dressed as a suicide bomber by using road flares, he attracts the attention of a live television news crew and then, along with Michelle and Richard, forces his way back into the board room. Back in Sandusky, Callahan workers watch the drama on a television. In a final move of pure persuasion, Tommy quotes Zalinsky's own advertising slogan, that he is on the side of the "American working man." As the TV audience watches, Zalinsky signs Tommy's purchase order for "half-a-million" brake pads. Although Zalinsky says that the purchase order is meaningless as he will soon own Callahan Auto, Michelle shows her police records, which includes Paul's outstanding warrants for fraud. Since Beverly is still married to Paul, her marriage to Big Tom was bigamous and therefore never legal. Thus, all of Big Tom's controlling shares actually belong to Tommy, the rightful heir. Since Tommy does not want to sell the shares, the deal with Zalinsky is off and since Tommy still holds Zalinsky's purchase order, the company is saved. Paul attempts to escape, but is arrested. Zalinsky admits that Tommy outplayed him and invites Beverly to dinner. The film ends when Tommy starts his romance with Michelle and is made the president of Callahan Auto. Reception. "Tommy Boy" opened as the No. 1 movie in the United States on March 31, 1995, eventually falling out of the Top 20 within seven weeks. Total U.S. box office gross was $32,648,673. Despite being popular with audiences, the film received mixed reviews from critics upon its initial release. Kevin Thomas of the Los Angeles Daily News gave "Tommy Boy" a positive review, calling it "sweet natured..." and a "good belly laugh of a movie". Brian Webster of the Online Film Critics Society also received the film positively saying that the film would please Farley fans. Dan Marcucci and Nancy Serougi of Broomfield Enterprise said the film was "Farley at his best", and Scott Weinberg of DVDTalk.com said that it was "pretty damn funny". Among the negative reviews, "Chicago Sun-Times" film critic Roger Ebert wrote: "'Tommy Boy' is one of those movies that plays like an explosion down at the screenplay factory. You can almost picture a bewildered office boy, his face smudged with soot, wandering through the ruins and rescuing pages at random. Too bad they didn't mail them to the insurance company instead of filming them." The film is on Ebert's "Most Hated" list. Caryn James of "The New York Times" wrote that the film was "the very poor cousin of a dopey Jim Carrey movie". Owen Gleiberman graded the film a "C" on an "A+ to F" scale, and Ken Hanke of Mountain Xpress said that it was "nothing great." Bo Derek was nominated for a Razzie Award for Worst Supporting Actress. Rotten Tomatoes rates the film at 45%. Since its release, some critics have suggested the film is a "cult classic."
578746	16 Years of Alcohol is a 2003 drama film written and directed by Richard Jobson, based on his 1987 novel. The film is Jobson's first directorial effort, following a career as a television presenter on BSkyB and VH-1, and as the vocalist for the 1970s punk rock band The Skids. The cover of the DVD describes it as influenced by "A Clockwork Orange" and "Trainspotting". The soundtrack features 1960s ska and skinhead reggae acts such as Desmond Dekker and Claudette and the Corporation, and 1970s rock bands such as Roxy Music, Velvet Underground, Iggy & The Stooges and The Skids. At the 2003 British Independent Film Awards, the film was nominated for best independent film, and Susan Lynch won the best supporting actor/actress category. Kevin McKidd plays the central character "Frankie", a violent alcoholic who is partially based on Jobson's brother and on Jobson himself. The movie was set and filmed in Edinburgh and Aberdour. Plot. The opening scene shows Frankie being beaten by a small group of men, and the rest of the film is shown as a flashback leading up to that point. The film is split into three sections: Frankie's troubled childhood, his violent adolescence as a ska-loving skinhead who commands a small gang, and a period of change, in which Frankie tries to believe in hope and love. He starts a relationship with Helen (Laura Fraser), a girl who studies art and works in a record store. When the differences between them became too obvious, Helen breaks up with Frankie, and he joins Alcoholics Anonymous (or a similar program) and a theatre group along with Mary (Susan Lynch), a good-hearted alcoholic. This allows Frankie to exorcise some of his demons, and he loses the desire to fight. A situation in a pub while out with the group makes Frankie believe that Mary is cheating on him with the director. This reignites doubts created by his parents a long time ago. Feeling deceived, Frankie rejects Mary without a valid reason. When he's preparing to drink a glass of scotch, he begins to muse how the past has destroyed his life up to this point and decides to stay sober and call Mary to apologise. The events merge with the beginning of the film, and Frankie's former comrades chase and beat him up. Whether Frankie dies or not is left open to the viewer.
688751	Beneath the Valley of the Ultra-Vixens (1979) is a satirical sexploitation film starring Kitten Natividad and Ann Marie with a cameo by Uschi Digard. It was directed by American motion picture director Russ Meyer, and written by Roger Ebert and Meyer. Plot. The movie starts with introductions to the people of Small Town, USA. Among them are the huge breasted evangelical radio preacher Eufaula Roop (Ann Marie) who mounts Martin Bormann inside a coffin; a salesman who gives oral pleasure to a large breasted housewife (Candy Samples); and the very large African American Junkyard Sal (June Mack) who sleeps with her working class employees. Finally, there is Lamar, who anally rapes his large breasted wife Lavonia (Kitten Natividad) after she tries having vaginal sex. Afterwards, she kicks him in the groin. While Lamar heads off to his junkyard work, Lavonia spots a young man skinny dipping in a lake. She sneaks off and undresses, then jumps the boy from behind and proceeds to mount and rape him. The young man soon escapes, but she dives down, catches him underwater by giving him oral sex and then overpowers him. After he succumbs to her, she learns his name is Rhett and that he is fourteen. Later on, the aforementioned salesman comes to her home and she ends up having sex with him, too. Meanwhile, Lamar, who previously turned down Junkyard Sal's invitation for sex, gets called to her office where she meets him in her underwear. She locks him inside and threatens to fire him if he does not succumb to her. Lamar, who we are told needs money for correspondent school, lies down on her bed. She forces herself on him in numerous sexual positions. After a while, she lets Lamar have anal sex with her and gives in when a suddenly enthusiastic Lamar stops her from continuing into other positions. Lamar then spots fellow employees peeping from the window. He breaks open the door and beats them up. Junkyard Sal then fires the peepers and Lamar for being "perverts". Lamar goes to a bar, where Lavonia masks herself as Mexican stripper Lola Langusta and drugs his drink. In a motel room, Lavonia rapes the unconscious Lamar — by first triggering an erection via oral sex and then by finally having vaginal sex with him using a sock as protection. She frees him to test if she changed his ways, but he runs away. Back home, Lavonia has sex with a truck driver. As she checks the clock smiling, Lamar returns. A fight ensues and Lavonia helps Lamar by burning the truck driver's scrotum with a light bulb. Lamar takes Lavonia and himself into dentist/marriage counselor Asa Lavender (Robert Pearson). After the dentist takes Lavonia to the dental room, his nurse kisses Lamar. As the dentist hurts Lavonia's teeth and she counters by grabbing his crotch painfully, Lamar anally rapes the nurse. The doctor then switches places with the nurse. When seeing Lamar still has his pants down, the doctor tries to rape him, but Lamar hides in the closet. While the nurse and Lavonia have sex using the nurse's double-ended dildo, the doctor uses various weapons to force Lamar out of the closet. Lamar eventually beats the doctor up and interrupts Lavonia and the nurse. An arrangement of "Prince Igor" is played in the background throughout the dentist scene. Lamar decides his cure lies in faith. After dropping him off at the radio station (a power station), Lavonia goes home and has sex once again with the truck driver. Lamar takes his pants off in front of Eufaula Roop's booth and reveals an erection. She immediately goes off the air. When Lamar tells her he wants to be saved, she sends him to her cleansing room (a bathroom) while she changes clothes. Lamar lies inside a water filled bathtub as a robe wearing Eufaula Roop stands above him and baptizes (and almost drowns) him. Suddenly she takes her robe off, sits down on him and rapes him, all the while preaching to her listeners about his salvation. Lamar heads off home, punches the truck driver and has vaginal sex with Lavonia. After Eufaula Roop leans back on her chair and moans, the teenager Rhett climbs from under her desk and she takes him to the bathtub. The narrator heads off to his own home, where the teenager Rhett, his son, has anal sex with the narrator's huge breasted younger Austrian wife, SuperSoul (Uschi Digard).
899789	Giulietta Masina (22 February 1921 – 23 March 1994) was an Italian film and stage actress. She starred in "La Strada" and "Nights of Cabiria", both winners of the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, in 1956 and 1957, respectively. Masina won the Best Actress award at the 1957 Cannes Film Festival for the later film. She was the wife and muse of the Italian film director Federico Fellini, in whom she found an artistic equal and collaborator. Owing to her intense performances of naïve characters dealing with cruel circumstances, Masina is often called the "female Chaplin". Early life. Giulia Anna Masina was born in San Giorgio di Piano, Bologna. Her parents were Gaetano Masina, a violinist and a music teacher, and Anna Flavia Pasqualini, a schoolteacher. Nonetheless, she spent most of her childhood and adolescence in Rome at the home of a widowed aunt. Masina had three elder siblings: Eugenia, and twins Mario and Maria. She attended the Ursuline sisters' school where she took lessons in voice, piano and dance but not acting, although she did perform on stage. She graduated in Literature from the Sapienza University of Rome. Career. Masina turned to acting at university, particularly after 1941. She participated in numerous plays that included singing and dancing as well as acting, all in the "Ateneo Theater" of her university. In 1942, she joined the "Compagnia del Teatro Comico Musicale" and played various roles on stage. She was cast by Fellini, who picked her after seeing her photographs, in the radio plays he was writing at the time.
1063604	Disaster Movie is a 2008 American parody film written and directed by Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer, and stars Matt Lanter, Vanessa Minnillo, Gary "G Thang" Johnson, Crista Flanagan, Ike Barinholtz, Carmen Electra, Tony Cox, and Kim Kardashian in her feature film acting debut. The film was critically panned and received six nominations for the 29th Golden Raspberry Awards. It is considered by many to be one of the worst films of all time. Plot. In the year 10,001 B.C., a caveman runs away from a predator through a plain and immediately gets into a fight with Wolf. After defeating him, the caveman then encounters the predator: a saber-toothed, gasoline-drinking Amy Winehouse, who after checking her Facebook account, informs him that the world will end on August 29, 2008 (the film's release date) revealing that their fate lies in a crystal skull. The film flash-forwards to the present, treating the first scene as a dream sequence of Will. He then finds out that his girlfriend Amy is having an affair with Flavor Flav, and she breaks up with Will because he is not admitting his true feelings for her. Later that day, Will has a "Super Duper Sweet Sixteen" party at his house, despite the fact he is 25. The guests include Juney, Dr. Phil, Will's best friend Calvin, and Anton Chigurh, among others. Seth and McLover are trying to steal the alcohol from the party, and Calvin's girlfriend Lisa requests Calvin to kill them, but he realizes the distance is not clean. Then the Beautiful Assassin suggests him to attempt to curve a bullet around the room to stop them, but he accidentally kills Dr. Phil, Chigurh and the Beautiful Assassin in the process. By then, Amy arrives with her new boyfriend, a Calvin Klein underwear model, and the musical number "Friends Forever" is performed by high school kids, an off-key Jessica Simpson, and J. T.. However, the party comes to a halt when a strong movement shakes the room and lights go out. A bulletin on the radio claims there is a meteor shower and it is the end of the world. Will, Juney, Calvin, and Lisa go outside during the shower and find Hannah Montana crushed by a meteor. Even when she is caught between life and death, she is still promoting her merchandise until her wig falls off, revealing her as Miley Cyrus before she finally dies. While this is occurring, a kid wakes up Hancock and mouths at him to go save the world, only to be knocked away as Hancock tries to escape from the city, but hits his head on a streetlight and knocks himself out. Soon after, the city starts to freeze over, and the group retreats to a garage for shelter. They meet the "Sex and the City" gals, who comment they are willing to fight for the place. Then, Juney and Carrie Bradshaw start a combat, where Juney wins. When she mentions that the calamities are caused by global warming, Will replies to her that his dream about Amy Winehouse is maybe related. Lisa says that she is getting cold and Calvin suggests they should take their clothes off, but only the girls take them off, and the guys stare in awe until Juney's water breaks. Later, Will has a dream where he confesses to Amy he is a jumper, but when she tells him that she loves him she escapes, but accidentally impales himself on (Barinholtz) sword, and Caspian identifies him as "the guy who ruined "Star Wars"". After Will's dream ends, the group chide with him because he does not commit his relationship with Amy. The gang leaves the garage and Will gets a call from Amy, where he admits his feelings for her before the call is dropped. He decides to go to rescue Amy to her job, but Lisa is killed by a meteor. While the others comfort a distraught Calvin, the Enchanted Princess climbs out of a manhole and gets hit by a taxi, with Calvin catching her as they immediately fall in love with each other. Juney guesses that she is a Princess thrown out of her kingdom by an evil witch, but the Princess explains that she is a "demented homeless chick who lives in the sewers" due to consuming "lots and lots and lots of mind-altering, enchanting drugs". Prince Edwin challenges Calvin to a dance fight alá for the love of the Princess, but then a tornado appears and Prince Edwin escapes. Iron Man, Hellboy, and the Hulk attempts to fight the natural disaster but all are knocked down by cows that the twister sends. When the group finds shelter, Calvin gets a call on his shoe phone from Lisa's mother, who is informed about Lisa's death and how Calvin has found someone hotter than Lisa. Afterward, they encounter rabid knockoffs of Alvin and the Chipmunks, who start attacking the gang and eat Juney's flesh until she dies. The Chipmunks then go after Will and Calvin and they trap them in a trash can, fatally suffocating them as they attempt to escape. On their way to the museum to save Amy, who called to tell Will she is trapped under a statue, they run into Batman, who informs them that they must get to the evacuation buses by 9 pm (it is now 5:30 pm) and mentions that there will be no chance of survival if they go to save Amy. Learning that it is closer to nine than he thought, Batman throws a rope, which accidentally lands on a car that drags him away. With time against them, the Princess kills Speed Racer so they can hijack his Mach 5 and drive to the museum. But before departing, they hear someone giggling in the trunk and as they look inside they find Michael Jackson cuddled up with Spritle and Chim-Chim. After Jackson closes the trunk, they drive to the museum and they save Amy who reveals the Crystal Skull from Will's dream to be the only thing that can stop the end of the world. As Will and Amy make their way to the altar, Calvin and the Princess find that the museum doors are closed and all the artifacts have come alive, including Kung Fu Panda, who fights Calvin. When Calvin makes out with the Princess after beating Kung Fu Panda, he accidentally removes her wig and discovers that the Princess is actually a transvestite. While this happens, Kung Fu Panda takes out a katana and kills Calvin and the Enchanted Princess. Meanwhile, Will and Amy run into a nude Beowulf, who fights with Will. After Beowulf is defeated, Will and Amy encounter Indiana Jones, who accept to be Will's father. Indiana tries to put the crystal skull on the altar, but he has an accident; Will does it instead, and he averts further destruction. The film ends with a wedding ceremony for Will and Amy being performed by The Guru Shitka. Then all the characters start to sing the "Dating song" ("Fucking song" on the unrated version), a song about dating each other, which sets off a chain, ending with the Chipmunks. Release. Critical reception. Reviews were almost entirely negative; Rotten Tomatoes ranked the film 22nd in the 100 worst reviewed films of the 2000s, with a rating of 1%. Metacritic gave the film a metascore of 15%, based on 12 reviews. The only positive review posted on Rotten Tomatoes was by Jim Schembri from Australian newspaper "The Age". Schembri called it "dumb but also undeniably funny in more spots than a right-thinking mature person feels comfortable admitting", the film was given 3½ stars out of five. The most positive major critic review listed on either Metacritic or Rotten Tomatoes (though it was still erroneously listed as "rotten" on the latter) was by Owen Gleiberman of "Entertainment Weekly", who gave the film a C+ and remarked: "The movie is merciless sending up "Juno"s self-satisfied hipster gobbledygook, and it's quite funny to see "Hannah Montana" still promoting her tie-in products as she lies crushed and dying under a meteor." Gleiberman previously contributed the only positive review listed on either site (out of 17 at Metacritic and 57 at Rotten Tomatoes) of Friedberg and Seltzer's earlier effort "Epic Movie". "The Times" newspaper named the film the worst of 2008. Box office performance. On its domestic theatrical debut, "Disaster Movie" grossed $2,023,130 on its opening day, $5,836,973 over the three-day weekend, and $6,945,535 over the four-day weekend (including Labor Day). It ranked #7 for both the three- and four-day weekends. The film's takings for the weekend fell far short of the $17 million predicted by the "Dallas Morning News". The film was not as commercially successful as previous Friedberg/Seltzer releases. On a $20 million budget, it grossed $14,190,901 domestically and $17,492,474 overseas for a worldwide total of $31,683,375, less than half the gross of "Meet the Spartans". Home media. The DVD and Blu-ray was released on January 6, 2009. They both included an Unrated "Cataclysmic" Edition and a theatrical version, both with the same extras. About 410,934 DVD units were sold, bringing in $8,447,690 in revenue (updated October 2009). Accolades. On January 21, 2009, the film received six nominations for the 29th Golden Raspberry Awards: The nominations were for Worst Picture, Worst Supporting Actress (Electra), Worst Supporting Actress (Kardashian), Worst Director, Worst Screenplay, and Worst Prequel, Remake, Rip-Off, or Sequel. Kardashian acknowledged her nomination on her blog, where she graciously commented, "It's an honor just being nominated!"
1064088	Bruce Travis McGill (born July 11, 1950) is an American actor who has an extensive list of credits in film and television. He is perhaps best known for his role as Jack Dalton on the television series "MacGyver" and as Daniel Simpson "D-Day" Day in "National Lampoon's Animal House". Early life. McGill was born in San Antonio, Texas, the son of Adriel Rose (née Jacobs), an artist, and Woodrow Wilson McGill, a real estate and insurance agent. He graduated from Douglas MacArthur High School in the northeastern part of San Antonio and from The University of Texas at Austin with a degree in drama. He is related to former Texas State Senator A.R. Schwartz. Film work. McGill has starred in many films, perhaps his most well-known role being "D-Day" in the 1978 comedy classic "National Lampoon's Animal House", a role McGill was desperate to take at the time, recalling his days as a young unemployed actor sitting in a New York City casting office. In "Animal House", he played the "William Tell Overture" by drumming his fingers on his windpipe. He duplicated this talent in "MacGyver", playing "Rock-A-Bye Baby" to lull a child in his care to sleep.
1628593	Louis Gabriel Basso III (born 1994) is an American film and television actor, who has been appearing in film and television roles since 2007. Life and career. Basso was born in St. Louis, Missouri, the son of Marcia and Louis J. Basso. He booked minor roles in two feature films in early 2007, in St. Louis: "Meet Bill", alongside Aaron Eckhart, and "Alice Upside Down", starring Alyson Stoner, along with Basso's older sister Alexandria. He later moved with his mother and sisters, Alexandria and Annalise Basso, to Los Angeles. He found representation his first week there, receiving a small role in the series "Bedside Manor" and a lead role in the pilot "Ghost Town". Basso has also had several television guest roles in shows like Nickelodeon's "iCarly", ABC's "The Middle" and a regular role on the Showtime series "The Big C", playing Adam, the son of the lead role played by Laura Linney. His role as Hal in the independent family film "Alabama Moon" (2009), starring John Goodman and Clint Howard, directed by Tim McCanlies, and based on the best-selling novel by Watt Key, is considered his break-out role. More recently, Basso appeared in the J.J. Abrams film "Super 8" (2011), for which he was submitted for consideration for a BAFTA Award for Best Supporting Actor, and "The Kings of Summer" (2013), which had its premiere at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival to rave reviews.
589918	Distant Thunder (; translit. Oshoni Shongket) is a 1973 Bengali film by the renowned Indian director Satyajit Ray, based on the novel by the same name by Bibhutibhushan Bandopadhyay.
583400	Bekhudi is a 1992 Bollywood film starring Kajol, Kamal Sadanah, Ajay Mankotia, Tanuja, Vijayendra Ghatge and Kulbhushan Kharbanda.This was the debut film of one of India's most successful actresses Kajol. It is produced by Maharukh Jokhi, and Rita Rawail, and directed by Rahul Rawail. Music is composed by Nadeem-Shravan. Summary. The parents (Tanuja) and (Vijayendra Ghatge) of Radhika (Kajol) have arranged her marriage to Vicky (Ajay Mankotia) in Canada. She insists on going there to meet him in person in order to know him better, to which they agree. Once in Canada, she meets with Vicky and initially approves of him. She then meets with Rohit (Kamal Sadanah) and slowly both fall in love with each other. When her parents find out, they are outraged, and so is Vicky. All three get together and plan to force Radhika to marry Vicky. Vicky holds Rohit hostage, in order to force Radhika to consent to marry him. No avenue of escape appears to be in sight.
1082823	Even the Rain () is a 2010 Spanish drama film directed by Icíar Bollaín about Mexican director Sebastián (Gael García Bernal) and executive producer Costa (Luis Tosar) who travel to Bolivia to shoot a film depicting Christopher Columbus’s conquest. Sebastián and Costa unexpectedly land themselves in a moral crisis when they and their crew arrive at Cochabamba, Bolivia, during the intensifying 2000 Cochabamba protests, which their key native actor Daniel (Juan Carlos Aduviri) persistently leads. The film was directed by Icíar Bollaín, based on a screenplay by Paul Laverty. The film received nominations and won awards internationally, including an Ariel Award for Best Ibero-American Film and three Goya Awards, one of which was Best Original Score for the work of Alberto Iglesias. Additionally, the film was nominated as Spain’s entry for the 2011 Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. Plot. Mexican filmmaker Sebastián (Gael García Bernal) and his executive producer Costa (Luis Tosar) arrive in Cochabamba, Bolivia, accompanied by a cast and crew, prepared to create a film depicting Columbus's first voyage to the New World, the imposition of Columbus’ will upon the natives, and the subsequent indigenous rebellion. Cognizant of his limited budget, producer Costa (Luis Tosar) elects to film in Bolivia, the poorest country in South America. There, impoverished locals are thrilled to earn just two dollars a day as extras in the film, and willingly engage in physical labor for set preparation. Costa saves many thousands of dollars by having underpaid extras perform tasks meant to be completed by experienced engineers. Sebastián casts a local man named Daniel (Juan Carlos Aduviri) in the role of Atuey, the Taíno chief who led a rebellion against the Europeans; and Daniel's daughter Belén in a crucial role as well. At that time, although their first encounter with Daniel smelled like trouble to Costa, enough to oppose his casting, Sebastián is unaware that Daniel leads impassioned demonstrations against the water privatization that the Bolivian government had agreed to. Filming begins smoothly despite the alcoholism of actor Antón, (Karra Elejalde) cast as Colón (Columbus), but when Costa observes Daniel’s revolutionary involvement, he grows uneasy. Daniel pretends to acquiesce to Costa's insistence that he stop protesting, but heedlessly continues and sustains facial wounds in a clash with the police. At this point, Costa bribes Daniel with thousands of dollars to wait for filming to conclude before participating in the rebellion again. Daniel agrees, accepting the money, but remains active in the protests, eventually becoming bloodied and imprisoned. Sebastián experiences moral conflict and begins to doubt the likelihood of the film’s completion, but is reassured by Costa who bribes the police for Daniel’s temporary release in order to film a key movie scene. Upon this scene’s completion, police arrive in the Bolivian jungle to once again detain Daniel but are besieged by the film’s extras and Daniel escapes. That night when starring actors Juan and Alberto see the latest news reports showing war-like violence in Cochabamba, they become worried to the extent that they demand to leave. Sebastián begs that they stay and they hesitantly agree. The next day, as the cast and crew prepare to depart for filming, Costa is met by Daniel’s wife, Teresa, who desperately implores him to assist her in finding her daughter Belén, who has disappeared into the protests and is reportedly wounded and needing hospitalization. Teresa’s persistence wins over Costa’s conscience, despite Sebastián's equally impassioned insistence he leave for the airport and safety with the rest of the cast and crew. After Costa and Teresa's obstacle-laden drive through riotous Cochabamba, Belén’s life is preserved, but her leg does not fully heal. Meanwhile, the rest of the crew is stopped by a military blockade and all except Antón leave Sebastián to journey home. The revolution ends shortly thereafter with the departure of the multinational water company, but Cochabamba is left in ruin from the conflict. Costa expresses hope that the film will be finished after all, and Daniel emotionally presents him with a vial of Bolivian water in appreciation for his life-saving efforts. Release. The film premiered on September 16, 2010, at the Toronto International Film Festival, then debuted during October of the same year in the USA (Los Angeles, California); Britain (London Film Festival); and Spain (Valladolid Film Festival). It made its French debut at the Les Arcs International Film Festival in December 2010. It was screened in the Main Programme of the Panorama section at the 61st Berlin International Film Festival and additionally during the 2011 Sydney Film Festival. After special screenings in Cochabamba's Southern Zone and for the Bolivian press, it opened in Bolivia on twelve screens on March 17, 2011. Reception. Awards. Academy Award Entry. The film was selected in September 2010 over Daniel Monzón’s Cell 211 which also stars Luis Tosar, as the Spanish entry for the Best Foreign Language Film category at the 83rd Academy Awards. In January 2011, it landed a spot on the list of the top nine films in its category. However, it was not selected to be among the final five films nominated for the Oscar. Critical Response. The film received generally positive reviews, earning an 88% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, but some critics pointed out potential hypocrisy as a shortcoming. Roger Ebert admires the filmmakers’ courage in choosing the Bolivian water crisis as subject matter, but notes potential hypocrisy, writing, “…at the end I looked in vain for a credit saying, ‘No extras were underpaid in the making of this film.’” New York Times writer Stephen Holden also raises this concern, asserting, “You can’t help but wonder to what degree its makers exploited the extras recruited to play 16th-century Indians.” Also, Holden addresses Costa’s transformation, writing, “Mr. Tosar goes as far as he can to make the character’s change of heart believable, but he can’t accomplish the impossible.” Contrarily, Marshall Fine of the Huffington Post views Tosar’s efforts as praiseworthy, calling him “perfect as the producer: bull-headed, charming, conniving and wheedling when he needs to be – but a man with a vision, who ultimately gets his mind changed. Tosar makes his conflict not only credible but palpable.” Praising the film overall, Ann Hornaday of the Washington Post calls "Even the Rain" “a story in which personal connections can transcend even the most crushing structures of history and politics.” Bolivian water crisis. History. From the 1950s through the 1980s, Bolivia attempted unsuccessfully to curb poverty through “structuralist” measures: Government regulation and nationalisation. As a result, the nation acquired a reputation for ineffective self-management and, accordingly, the World Bank and International Monetary Fund encouraged the Bolivian government to privatise some industries. Thus, the Bolivian government privatised some of its water utilities. The sole bidder for the Cochabamba water agency, Aguas del Tunari, a subsidiary of San Francisco-based Bechtel Corporation, agreed to a forty-year contract with the Bolivian government in October 1999; but it was compelled to fund the mayor's pet project, an expensive dam, so prices increased. This was followed by widespread protests.
1059957	Mission to Mars (2000) is a science fiction film directed by Brian De Palma from an original screenplay written by Jim Thomas, John Thomas, and Graham Yost. In 2020, a manned Mars exploration mission goes awry. American astronaut Jim McConnell (Gary Sinise) coordinates a rescue mission for a colleague. Principal support actors were Tim Robbins, Don Cheadle, Connie Nielsen, Jerry O'Connell, and Kim Delaney. Film inspiration was partly from the Disney attraction of the same name, to be the second Disney film based on a theme park attraction, following the 1997 made-for-TV movie "Tower of Terror". Plot details. In 2020, the first manned mission to Mars is launched. The "Mars I" spacecraft is commanded by Luke Graham with fellow astronauts Nicholas Willis, Sergei Kirov, and Renée Coté. Upon arrival, the team discovers a crystalline formation within a mountain in the Cydonia region. The team suspects the formation could be an extrusion from a subsurface geothermal column of water, which would be the key to permanent human colonization. After transmitting their finding back to the World Space Station orbiting Earth, they head for the site to do further analysis. They hear a strange sound on their communications system, which they assume to be interference from their planetary rover. While they scan the formation with radar, a large whirlwind springs up and kills Nicholas, Sergei and Renée. Luke survives after being buried alive in the rocky debris. After the vortex subsides, a large humanoid face is exposed within the mountain. Luke uploads an emergency transmission to the REMO (REsupply MOdule) orbiting the planet. After receiving Luke's garbled message, a second ship is readied for a rescue mission. The crew of the "Mars II" recovery craft includes Commander Woody Blake, Co-Commander Jim McConnell, and mission specialists Terri Fisher and Phil Ohlmyer. They are sent to investigate the tragedy and rescue Luke. As the ship enters Mars orbit, a swarm of meteors collides with it, breaching the hull. The crew works quickly to repair the damage, but the external fuel tanks are overlooked, causing a large leak and later, an explosion. They quickly put on pressure suits and maneuver their way to the REMO orbiting the planet. Woody concludes that the only hope of a successful rendezvous with the REMO is for him to launch himself directly at it using the remainder of his jet pack fuel, carrying a tether from the others. He attaches the cord to the REMO, but is unable to properly land on it, floating toward the planet. Terri tries to rescue Woody, but knowing she would run out of fuel before reaching him, Woody removes his helmet, killing himself to save her. When the remaining group arrives on the surface from the REMO, they find Luke alive. He has built a greenhouse and is living on its produce. He tells the rescuers about his crew's find, and that the crystalline structure looks humanoid. He has discovered that the noise they recorded represents a map of human DNA in XYZ coordinates, but missing a pair of chromosomes. Jim suspects that the signal must be a test, inviting them to add the missing nucleotide sequence.
1054993	Kippur (×××¤××¨) is a 2000 Israeli drama war film directed by Amos Gitai. The storyline was conceived from a screenplay written by Gitai and Marie-Jose Sanselme; based on Gitai's own experiences as a member of a helicopter rescue crew during the 1973 Yom Kippur War. The film stars actors Liron Levo, Tomer Russo and Uri Klauzner in principal roles.
1557725	The Babe Ruth Story is a 1948 baseball film biography of Babe Ruth, the famed New York Yankees slugger. It stars William Bendix (New York Yankee batboy in the 1920's) as the ballplayer and Claire Trevor as his wife. It was rush released while Ruth himself was still alive. It makes no mention whatsoever of Ruth's first wife, Helen. Critical reception. Reviews were, for the most part, negative. Citing the film's moments of heavy handedness including a rather contrived reenactment of Babe Ruth's famous World Series home run against the Chicago Cubs, some critics have even gone so far as to call it one of the worst sports biopics of all time.
1053354	The Last Rites of Ransom Pride is a 2010 action-western film starring Lizzy Caplan and Scott Speedman in the title role.
1055244	Mad Max is a 1979 Australian dystopian action film directed by George Miller, written by Miller and Byron Kennedy over the original script by James McCausland, starring Mel Gibson.
581797	Sikander Kher is an Indian actor. Son of Kirron Kher and step-son of Anupam Kher, he began his filming career with "Woodstock Villa" (2008). His foray into Bollywood has been met with hope and promise by the media, and received several positive reviews. As a multi-faceted person, he assisted Sanjay Leela Bhansali in directing the Bollywood film, "Devdas" (2002). Prior to his debut film, Kher was the first to have been offered the role played by Saif Ali Khan in "Dil Chahta Hai" (2001). Biography. Early life. Sikandar was born to Kirron Kher and Gautam Berry in 1981. Taking Sikander along, Kirron left Gautam for Anupam Kher in 1985. Kirron said in an interview that Sikander had no problems adjusting with Anupam because they were more like friends. Having been brought up in a family deeply involved with films, Sikander's upbringing was influenced by acting. As a child, he loved to enact fictitious scenes created by his father. After schooling, his first step into the film industry was assisting Yash Chopra in filming "Dil To Pagal Hai" (1997). On similar lines, while Kirron was acting in Sanjay Leela Bhansali's "Devdas" (2002), Bhansali acceded to Sikander's request to assist him in film making. Subsequently, he attended his father's acting workshop along with Uday Chopra and other celebrity children such as Abhishek Bachchan and Hrithik Roshan. Thereafter, he could only join the short-term 6-month National School of Drama course because he did not hold a Bachelor's degree. He is also a member of the International Film And Television Club of Asian Academy Of Film & Television, noida. Breakthrough. Sikander was the first to have been offered the role of Sameer in "Dil Chahta Hai" (2001). Due to reasons unknown, he could not take up the role. Although with his lineage in cinema, he could have chosen to have a prominent production house introducing him to Bollywood, he chose to try by himself, and soon he got an offer from producer Sanjay Gupta. After liking the story told to him, he accepted the offer to act in the film, Woodstock Villa. The film's review by "Hindustan Times" said that even though Sikander had potential, it was limited by the film's screenplay and direction. On the other hand, "Times of India" said that he had a great screen presence. CNN-IBN's Rajeev Masand, who was highly critical about the movie, said that Sikander had an "engaging presence and impressive dialogue delivery." The media had an overall positive outlook to his debut and said that he was of promise to the film industry. He lately acted in the Abbas-Mustan directed thriller Players.
1225752	Relative Strangers is a 2006 American comedy film. Plot. Thirty-four-year-old psychologist, Richard Clayton's (Ron Livingston) parents reveal to him that he was adopted. He then sets out to find out who his biological parents are, but disaster ensues when it turns out that his parents, Frank (Danny DeVito) and Agnes Menure (Kathy Bates), are crude, lower class carnies. After that, they follow him home and cause chaos to his normal life. There are frequent references to the movie "Mother, Jugs & Speed" used by the characters in the film.
589698	Mera Gaon Mera Desh () is a 1971 Indian film made by Raj Khosla, starring Dharmendra in the lead role and also Vinod Khanna as the villain. Havaldar Major Jaswant Singh (Jayant) makes a citizen's arrest of petty thief Ajit (Dharmendra) and hands him over to the police, and after due process of law he is sentenced to six months in jail. After completing his sentence, the jailer asks him to approach Jaswant Singh for employment, and he does so. Jaswant asks him to help him with his farming work. Ajit meets Anju (Asha Parekh) and both fall in love. Ajit comes to know of Jabbar Singh (Vinod Khanna) a dacait who is terrozing the surrounding community, and Ajit decides to take on Jabbar. In retaliation, Jabbar abducts Anju, and instructs Ajit to come unarmed. Ajit decides to follow these instructions, however, as soon as he reaches Jabbar's hideout, he too is captured, and at the mercy of Jabbar and his woman (Laxmi Chhaya), who has been scorned by Ajit, and it is now up to her to decide Ajit's fate Awards and nominations. Dharmendra received a Filmfare nomination for Best Actor, the only one for the film.
1038087	Roger Lloyd-Pack (born 8 February 1944) is an English actor known for his roles in the TV shows "The Vicar of Dibley", "Only Fools and Horses" as Trigger and "The Old Guys", as well as his role in the film "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire". He is occasionally credited without the hyphen in his surname. Background. Lloyd-Pack attended Bedales School in Hampshire, where he achieved three A Level passes in English, French and Latin and trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art where he worked with actors Kenneth Cranham and Richard Wilson. Career. On British television he is best known for portraying Colin "Trigger" Ball in the BBC sitcom "Only Fools and Horses", and for his role in "The Vicar of Dibley" as Owen Newitt. To international audiences his greatest fame is as Barty Crouch, Sr. in "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire". In 2005 he appeared in series 2 of the ITV series "Doc Martin" as a farmer who held a grudge against Doctor Ellingham for what he believed was the malpractice-related death of his wife. In 2006 he played John Lumic and provided the voice of the Cyber-Controller in two episodes of "Doctor Who", "Rise of the Cybermen" and "The Age of Steel", opposite David Tennant, who had played his son in the same "Harry Potter" film. Personal life. Lloyd-Pack was born in Islington, London, the son of Ulrike Elizabeth ("née" Pulay), a travel agent, and Charles Lloyd-Pack, who was also an actor. He has been married twice; his first wife was Sheila Ball whom he divorced in 1972, and his second is poet and dramatist Jehane Markham (daughter of the late David Markham), whom he married in 2000. He has one daughter, actress Emily Lloyd, and three sons: Spencer, Hartley and Louis. As of 2012, he currently resides in Kentish Town, North London. He supports Tottenham Hotspur. In June 2008 he appeared as a guest on "The Politics Show" (BBC2), arguing the case for better-integrated public transport—specifically railways. He is an honorary patron of the London children's charity Scene & Heard. He is a supporter of the Labour Party and campaigned for Ken Livingstone for the London mayoral election, 2012. However in 2013 he signed a letter in the Guardian which stated he had withdrawn his support for the Labour Party in favour of a new party of the left. In a 2008 interview, when asked what profession he would have chosen aside from acting, he said "psychiatrist or a psychoanalyst or something in the psycho world because I’ve always been interested in that...Or I might have been a photographer...I also would have loved to have been a musician". In that same interview, he listed his favourite directors as Peter Gill, Harold Pinter, Richard Eyre, Thea Sharrock and Tina Packer and also listed actor Paul Scofield as both a favourite and influence. In January 2012, he and fellow actor Sarah Parish supported a campaign to raise £1million for an Islington school, The Bridge.
1025927	Ruggiero Eugenio di Rodolpho Colombo (January 14, 1908 – September 2, 1934), known as Russ Columbo, was an American singer, violinist and actor, most famous for his signature tune "You Call It Madness, But I Call It Love", his compositions "Prisoner of Love" and "Too Beautiful For Words", and the legend surrounding his early death. Early life. Columbo was born in Camden, New Jersey, the twelfth child of Italian immigrant parents, Nicola and Giulia (Julia) Colombo. He started playing the violin at a very young age and debuted professionally at the age of 13. He left high school at 17 to travel with various bands around the country. He sang and played violin in numerous nightclubs. Career. Films. By 1928, at the age of 20, Columbo began to participate in motion pictures, including a Vitaphone short in which Columbo appeared as a member of Gus Arnheim and His Orchestra. Eventually, he did obtain some feature work in front of the camera, but he slowed down his activities in cinema to pursue other interests. At the time of his death, Columbo had just completed work on the film "Wake Up and Dream"; he was on his way to stardom when his life was cut short. Some of Columbo's other films are: "Woman to Woman" (with Betty Compton), "Wolf Song" (with Lupe Vélez), "The Texan" (with Gary Cooper), and "Broadway Thru a Keyhole". Singer and composer. Columbo performed seven vocals while with Arnheim as a member of the string section, six for Okeh Records and only one for Victor ("A Peach Of Pair" on June 18, 1930, a few months before Bing Crosby joined the band, along with Al Rinker and Harry Barris as "The Rhythm Boys"). Columbo ran a nightclub for a while, The Club Pyramid, but gave it up when his manager told him he had star potential. In 1931, he traveled to New York with his manager, songwriter Con Conrad. Conrad secured a late-night radio slot with NBC. This led to numerous engagements, a recording contract with RCA Victor records, and tremendous popularity with legions of mostly female fans. Not long after arriving in New York, Columbo met actress Dorothy Dell at an audition for the Ziegfeld Follies and began seeing her. Conrad did his best to break the relationship up with a series of publicity-created "ruse romances" involving Columbo and actresses such as Greta Garbo and Pola Negri; it succeeded. (Dorothy Dell died in an auto accident in June 1934—just months before Columbo's own fatal accident.) The type of singing that was popularized by the likes of Columbo, Rudy Vallee, and Bing Crosby is called crooning. Columbo disliked the label, but it caught on with the general public. It gained popular credence, despite its initial use as a term of derision for the singers employing their low, soothing voices in romantic songs. Columbo composed the songs "Prisoner of Love", "You Call It Madness (But I Call It Love)" with Con Conrad, Gladys Du Bois, and Paul Gregory, "Too Beautiful For Words", recorded by the Teddy Joyce Orchestra in 1935, "When You're in Love", "My Love", "Let's Pretend There's a Moon", recorded by Fats Waller and Tab Hunter, and "Hello Sister". "Prisoner of Love" is a standard that has been recorded by Frank Sinatra, Jo Stafford, Art Tatum, Perry Como, the Ink Spots, Mildred Bailey, Teddy Wilson with Lena Horne on vocals, Bing Crosby, Billy Eckstine, and James Brown. Perry Como had a no.1 hit on Billboard with his recording. James Brown had a Top 20 pop hit and performed the song on "The Ed Sullivan Show" and in the concert movie "The T.A.M.I. Show" (1964). Death. On September 2, 1934, Columbo was shot under peculiar circumstances by his longtime friend, photographer Lansing Brown, while Columbo was visiting him at home. Brown had a collection of firearms and the two men were examining various pieces. Quoting Brown's description of the accident: I was absent-mindedly fooling around with one of the guns. It was of a dueling design and works with a cap and trigger. I was pulling back the trigger and clicking it time after time. I had a match in my hand and when I clicked, apparently the match caught in between the hammer and the firing pin. There was an explosion. Russ slid to the side of his chair. The ball ricocheted off a nearby table and hit Columbo above the left eye. Surgeons at Good Samaritan Hospital made an unsuccessful attempt to remove the ball from Columbo's brain; he died less than six hours after the shooting. Columbo's death was ruled an accident, and Brown exonerated from blame. His funeral mass was attended by numerous Hollywood luminaries, including Bing Crosby and Carole Lombard, who was to have had dinner with Columbo the evening of the accident and who was romantically involved with him. Columbo's mother was hospitalized in serious condition from a heart attack at the time of the accident; the news was withheld from her by his brothers and sisters for the remaining ten years of her life. Due to her previous heart condition, it was feared that the news would prove fatal to her (she died in 1944). They used all manner of subterfuges to give the impression that Colombo was still alive, including faked letters from him and records used to simulate his radio program. Columbo is interred in Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, California. In popular culture. In 1958, singer Jerry Vale recorded a tribute album, "I Remember Russ". In 1995, 61 years after Columbo's death, singer Tiny Tim released an album in tribute to Columbo, titled "Prisoner of Love (A Tribute to Russ Columbo)", which he recorded with the group Clang. Columbo is one of the historical figures named in the Neil Diamond composition "Done Too Soon".
588002	Aan Paavam is a 1985 Tamil comedy film directed by Pandiarajan. It was the second movie directed by Pandiarajan and was his debut as actor. This blockbuster movie of 1985 turned as the best comedy movie in the career of actor-director Pandiarajan. The film was remade into Telugu as "Naku Pellam Kavali" (1987) starring Chandra Mohan and Rajendra Prasad. The film was remade in Kannada as "Ramakrishna" with Ravichandran and Jaggesh. Plot. Pandian and Pandiarajan are two notorious sons of the village cinema owner V. K. Ramasamy. Pandian goes to a neighbouring village to see a girl as arranged by his father towards his marriage and ends up in the wrong house. Cinematically, those in the wrong house were also expecting a lad to see their daughter on the same-time and the same-day. Contrary to real time arranged marriages pandian goes to see the girl totally un-aided by parents, relatives & friends. Nevertheless, he takes a liking to the girl, Seetha and decides to marry her. Seetha likes the lad and decides to accept the proposal. Meanwhile, Seetha's marriage broker shows up and clarifies that Pandian was supposed to have gone to see some other girl but ended up in the wrong house. Hearing this, Pandian, Seetha as well as Seetha's parents seem disappointed. While Pandian's father fixes dates for Pandian's marriage to the girl originally chosen for him - Revathi, a school teacher's daughter. Pandian's adamance to marry Seetha causes a strange turn of events. Pandiyarajan, the younger brother, finally marries Revathi while Pandian ties the knot with this love Seetha. Music and songs. The film's background score was composed by Ilayaraja. Songs:
1600788	Britta Phillips (born June 11, 1963, Boyne City, Michigan) is an American musician, songwriter, actress and voice actor.
583515	Rog (, , translation: malady), is a 2005 Hindi-language Bollywood thriller film directed by Himanshu Brahmbhatt, written by Mahesh Bhatt and produced by Pooja Bhatt. The film stars Irrfan Khan and former model, Ilene Hamann in the lead roles. Its plot is based on the 1944 Hollywood suspense thriller, "Laura". Plot. Uday Singh Rathod (Irrfan Khan) is a law-abiding police officer, famous for his extraordinary investigations, but is experiencing insomnia. When Maya Solomon (Ilene Hamann), a famous model is murdered, Rathod is given the custody of the case and he is asked to solve it within a week. Three people are shortlisted as prime suspects; Harsh (Suhel Seth), a famous journalist, Ali (Himanshu Malik), a millionaire and Shyamoli (Shyamoli Verma), his partner. When investigation begins, Harsh offers his help to Rathod in hunting down the murderer, while drawing his attention to the fact that Maya was about to get married to Ali, but because Ali was a womanizer, he couldn't keep up with one woman. So he, together with Shyamoli, killed Maya. Rathod theorizes on these lines and goes to Ali's house with Harsh. He questions Ali and reaches Maya's house to gather further evidences on the case. While leading the investigations and running through the past of Maya, Rathod starts to fall in love with the image of the dead woman. To his shock, as he is gathering evidences, Maya appears in the house. This leaves Rathod confused as to whose dead body was found in the house and who is the killer. All this while, Maya's simplicity and subtle beauty keeps drawing Rathod towards her. He finally makes up his mind and arrests Maya. In the interrogation room, he reveals that before the night of murder, Maya left for two days on a holiday. Ali meanwhile brought another girl in her house to have some fun. That girl was killed, but Ali wasn't involved in the killing. He tells Maya that for the lack of evidences, all suspicions go on her and that she would be prosecuted for the crime. Rathod calms for a second and tells Maya that regardless of everyone's opinion, he thinks that she is innocent. He advises her to flee, saying that he can make all arrangements. Maya seeing this helping hand and faith in the heart of an unknown person, starts falling in love with Rathod. They both get out of the interrogation room and spend the night together. In the morning, Rathod visits Maya's house one last time to recover the weapon used in the killing, believing that if it is found, things would get clear. He is able to find the weapon and then he suddenly realizes, who is the actual murderer. He goes back to the house, only to find Harsh already there trying to kill Maya. After some resistance, Rathod gets hold of Harsh. Later it is revealed that Maya was afraid of her beauty because everyone used to insanely approach her. She was looking for trust and faith. When she met Harsh, he offered her his riches, but couldn't offer faith. She got destitute and started having an affair with Ali, who in turn was also unfaithful. Things kept on going and she was about to get married to Ali, when Harsh got into their plans and tried killing Maya, but ended up killing the other girl who was with Ali that night. At the end, Rathod is being shown congratulated by fellow policemen, as he gazes into the eyes of Maya. Soundtrack. The film's soundtrack is composed by M. M. Kreem with lyrics penned by Neelesh Misra and Sayeed Quadri. M.M.Kreem reused tune of 'Vellipothe Ila' from his telugu movie 'Okariki Okaru' for 'Guzar Naa Jaaye". Tracklist. The Music of the film is composed by National Award Winning Composer M M Kreem. Lyrics are penned by Neelesh Mishra & Sayeed Quadri. Songs like Maine Dil Se Kaha & Khoobsoorat were popular while Tere is jahan mein was a hit. Songs are as follows :-
141077	Pearl Jam Twenty (also known as PJ20) is a 2011 American rockumentary directed by Cameron Crowe about the band Pearl Jam. Preliminary footage was being shot as of June 2010. Crowe completed filming in April 2011, after using 12,000 hours of footage of the band for the documentary. The film premiered at the 2011 Toronto International Film Festival and also had an accompanying book and soundtrack. The documentary charts the history of the band, from the demise of Mother Love Bone, their battle against Ticketmaster and the tragedy of the Roskilde Festival in 2000. The film was presented theatrically at select cinemas in the US during the month of September 2011, and premiered on October 21, 2011 on PBS' "American Masters." It was released on DVD and Blu-ray on October 24, 2011. Soundtrack. The film soundtrack includes live recordings from 1990 through 2010.
1058553	Aaron Benjamin Sorkin (born June 9, 1961) is an Academy and Emmy-award winning American screenwriter, producer, and playwright, whose works include "A Few Good Men", "The American President", "The West Wing", "Sports Night", "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip", "Charlie Wilson's War", "The Social Network", "Moneyball" and "The Newsroom". In television, Sorkin is known as a controlling writer, who rarely shares the credit of penning screenplays. His writing staff are more likely to do research and come up with stories for him to tell. His trademark rapid-fire dialogue and extended monologues are complemented, in television, by frequent collaborator Thomas Schlamme's characteristic directing technique called the "walk and talk". These sequences consist of single tracking shots of long duration involving multiple characters engaging in conversation as they move through the set; characters enter and exit the conversation as the shot continues without any cuts. Early years. Sorkin was born in Manhattan and raised in the wealthy suburb of Scarsdale, New York. His mother was a school teacher and his father a copyright lawyer who had fought in WWII and put himself through college on the G.I. Bill; both his older sister and brother went on to become lawyers. His paternal grandfather was one of the founders of the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union (ILGWU). Sorkin took an early interest in acting. Before he reached his teenage years, his parents were taking him to the theatre to see shows such as "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" and "That Championship Season". Sorkin attended Scarsdale High School where he became involved in the drama and theatre club. In eighth grade he played General Bullmoose in the musical "Li'l Abner". In Scarsdale High's senior class production of "Once Upon a Mattress", Sorkin played Sir Harry. In 1979, Sorkin attended Syracuse University. In his freshman year he failed a class that was a core requirement. It was a devastating setback because he wanted to be an actor, and the drama department did not allow students to take the stage until they completed all the core freshman classes. He returned in his sophomore year determined to do better, and graduated in 1983. Recalling the influence on him at college of drama teacher Arthur Storch, Sorkin recalled, after Storch's death in March 2013, that "Arthur's reputation as a director, and as a disciple of Lee Strasberg, was a big reason why a lot of us went to . "You have the capacity to be so much better than you are", he started saying to me in September of my senior year. He was still saying it in May. On the last day of classes, he said it again, and I said, "How?", and he answered, "Dare to fail". I've been coming through on his admonition ever since". Unemployed actor, promising playwright. After graduating from Syracuse University with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Musical Theatre in 1983, Sorkin moved to New York City where he spent much of the 1980s as a struggling, sporadically employed actor who also worked odd jobs, such as delivering singing telegrams, driving a limousine, touring Alabama with the children's theatre company Traveling Playhouse, handing out fliers promoting a hunting-and-fishing show, and bartending at Broadway's Palace Theatre. One weekend, while housesitting at a friend's place he found an IBM Selectric typewriter, started typing, and "felt a phenomenal confidence and a kind of joy that had never experienced before in [his life." He continued writing and eventually put together his first play, "Removing All Doubt," which he sent to his old Syracuse theatre teacher, Arthur Storch, who was impressed. In 1984, "Removing All Doubt" was staged for drama students at his alma mater, Syracuse University. After that, he wrote "Hidden in This Picture" which debuted off-off-Broadway at Steve Olsen's West Bank Cafe Downstairs Theatre Bar in New York City in 1988. The contents of his first two plays got him a theatrical agent. Producer John A. McQuiggan saw the production of "Hidden in This Picture" and commissioned Sorkin to turn the one-act into a full-length play called "Making Movies". His reputation as a playwright was quickly gaining stature in the New York theatre scene. "A Few Good Men". Sorkin got the inspiration to write his next play, a courtroom drama called "A Few Good Men", from a phone conversation with his sister Deborah (who had graduated from Boston University Law School and signed up for a three-year stint with the U.S. Navy Judge Advocate General's Corps). Deborah told Sorkin that she was going to Guantanamo Bay to defend a group of Marines who came close to killing a fellow Marine in a hazing ordered by a superior officer. Sorkin took that information and wrote much of his story on cocktail napkins while bartending at the Palace Theatre. He and his roommates had purchased a Macintosh 512K so when he returned home he would empty his pockets of the cocktail napkins and type them into the computer, forming a basis from which he wrote many drafts for "A Few Good Men". In 1988 Sorkin sold the film rights for "A Few Good Men" to producer David Brown before it premiered, in a deal that was reportedly "well into six figures". Brown had read an article in "The New York Times" about Sorkin's one-act play "Hidden in This Picture" and found out Sorkin also had a play called "A Few Good Men" that was having Off Broadway readings. Brown produced "A Few Good Men" on Broadway at the Music Box Theatre. It starred Tom Hulce and was directed by Don Scardino. After opening in late 1989, it ran for 497 performances. Sorkin continued writing "Making Movies" and in 1990 it debuted Off-Broadway at the Promenade Theatre, produced by John A. McQuiggan, and again directed by Don Scardino. Meanwhile, David Brown was producing a few projects at TriStar Pictures and tried to interest them in making "A Few Good Men" into a film but his proposal was declined due to the lack of star actor involvement. Brown later got a call from Alan Horn at Castle Rock Entertainment who was anxious to make the film. Rob Reiner, a Castle Rock producing partner, opted to direct it. Screenwriting career (1991–98). Working under contract for Castle Rock Entertainment. In the early 1990s, Sorkin worked under contract for Castle Rock Entertainment, Inc. He wrote the scripts for "A Few Good Men", "Malice" and "The American President": The three films grossed about US$400 million worldwide. While writing for Castle Rock he became friends with colleagues such as William Goldman and Rob Reiner and met his future wife Julia Bingham, who was one of Castle Rock's business affairs lawyers. Sorkin wrote several drafts of the script for "Few Good Men" in his Manhattan apartment, learning the craft from a book about screenplay format. He then spent several months at the Los Angeles offices of Castle Rock, working on the script with director Rob Reiner. William Goldman (who regularly worked under contract at Castle Rock) became his mentor and helped him to adapt his stageplay into a screenplay. The movie was directed by Reiner, starred Tom Cruise, Jack Nicholson, Demi Moore, and Kevin Bacon, and was produced by Brown. "A Few Good Men" was released in 1992 and was a box office success. Goldman also approached Sorkin with a story premise, which Sorkin developed into the script for "Malice". Goldman oversaw the project as creative consultant while Sorkin wrote the first two drafts. However, he had to leave the project to finish up the script for "Few Good Men", so screenwriter Scott Frank stepped in and wrote two drafts of the "Malice" screenplay. When production on "Few Good Men" wrapped up, Sorkin took over and resumed working on the "Malice" right through the final shooting script. Harold Becker directed the film, a medical thriller released in 1993, which starred Nicole Kidman and Alec Baldwin. "Malice" had mixed reviews. Vincent Canby in "The New York Times" described the film as "deviously entertaining from its start through its finish". Roger Ebert gave it 2 out of 4 stars, and Peter Travers in a 2000 "Rolling Stone" review summarized it as having "suspense but no staying power". Sorkin's last produced screenplay for Castle Rock was "The American President" and once again he worked with William Goldman, who served as a creative consultant. It took Sorkin a few years to write the screenplay for "The American President", which started off as a massive 385-page screenplay; it was eventually whittled down to a standard shooting script of around 120 pages. Rob Reiner directed. The film was critically acclaimed. Kenneth Turan in the "Los Angeles Times" described the film as "genial and entertaining if not notably inspired", and believed its most interesting aspects were the "pipe dreams about the American political system and where it could theoretically be headed". Script doctor for hire. Sorkin did uncredited script doctor work on several films in the 1990s. He wrote some quips for Sean Connery and Nicolas Cage in "The Rock". He worked on "Excess Baggage", a comedy about a girl who stages her own kidnapping to get her father's attention, and rewrote some of Will Smith's scenes in "Enemy of the State". Sorkin collaborated with Warren Beatty on a couple of scripts, one of which was "Bulworth". Beatty, known for occasionally personally financing his film projects through pre-production, also hired Sorkin to rewrite a script titled "Ocean of Storms" which never went into production. At one point Sorkin sued Beatty for proper compensation for his work on the "Ocean of Storms" script; however, he eventually continued working on the script once the matter was settled. Writing for television (1998–2007). "Sports Night". Sorkin came up with the idea to write about the behind-the-scenes happenings on a sports show while he was living in a room in the Four Seasons Hotel in Los Angeles writing the screenplay for "The American President". He would work late, with the TV tuned into ESPN, watching continuous replays of "SportsCenter". The show inspired him to try to write a feature film about a sports show but he was unable to structure the story for film, so instead he turned his idea into a TV comedy series. "Sports Night" was produced by Disney and debuted on the Disney-owned ABC network in the fall of 1998. Sorkin fought with the ABC network during the first season over the use of a laugh track and a live studio audience. The laugh track was widely decried by critics as jarring, with Joyce Millman of Salon.com describing it as "the most unconvincing laugh track you've ever heard". Sorkin commented that: "Once you do shoot in front of a live audience, you have no choice but to use the laugh track. Oftentimes the laughs is the right thing to do. Sometimes you do need a cymbal crash. Other times, it alienates me." The laugh track was gradually dialed down and was gone by the end of the first season. Sorkin was triumphant in the second season when ABC agreed to his demands, unburdening the crew of the difficulties of staging a scene for a live audience and leaving the cast with more time to rehearse. Although "Sports Night" was critically acclaimed, ABC canceled the show after two seasons due to its low ratings. Sorkin entertained offers to continue the show on other television channels but declined all the offers as they were mainly contingent on his involvement which would have been a difficult prospect given that he was simultaneously writing "The West Wing" at that point. "The West Wing". Sorkin conceived the political TV drama "The West Wing" in 1997 when he went unprepared to a lunch with producer John Wells and in a panic pitched to Wells a show centered on the senior staff of the White House, using leftover ideas from his script for "The American President". He told Wells about his visits to the White House while doing research for "The American President", and they found themselves discussing public service and the passion of the people who serve. Wells took the concept and pitched it to the NBC network, but was told to wait because the facts behind the Lewinsky scandal were breaking and there was concern that an audience would not be able to take a show about the White House seriously. When a year later some other networks started showing interest in "The West Wing", NBC decided to greenlight the series despite their previous reluctance. The pilot debuted in the fall of 1999 and was produced by Warner Bros. TV. "The West Wing" was honored with nine Emmy Awards for its debut season, making the show a record holder for most Emmys won by a series in a single season. Following the awards ceremony, a fiasco ensued, centered on the Emmy for writing "The West Wing" episode "In Excelsis Deo" which was awarded to Sorkin and Rick Cleveland, when it was reported in a "The New York Times" article that Cleveland had been ushered off the stage by Sorkin without being given a chance to say a few words. The story behind "The West Wing" episode is based on Cleveland's father, a Korean war veteran who spent the last years of his life on the street, as Cleveland explains in his FreshYarn.com essay titled "I Was the Dumb Looking Guy with the Wire-Rimmed Glasses". A back and forth took place between Sorkin and Cleveland in a public web forum at Mighty Big TV where Sorkin explained that he gives his writers "Story By" credit on a rotating basis "by way of a gratuity" and that he had thrown out Cleveland's script and started from scratch. In the end, Sorkin apologized to Cleveland. Cleveland and Sorkin also won the Writers Guild of America Award for best episodic drama at the February 2001 ceremony for "In Excelsis Deo". In 2001, after wrapping up the second season of "The West Wing", Sorkin had a drug relapse, only two months after receiving a Phoenix Rising Award for drug recovery; this became public knowledge when he was arrested at Burbank Airport for possession of hallucinogenic mushrooms, marijuana, and crack cocaine. He was ordered by a judge to attend a drug diversion program. His drug addiction was highly publicized, most notably when "Saturday Night Live" did a parody called "The West Wing", though he did recover. In 2002, Sorkin criticized NBC news anchor Tom Brokaw's TV special about a day in the life of a president, "The Bush White House: Inside the Real West Wing", comparing it to the act of sending a valentine to President George W. Bush instead of real news reporting. Sorkin's TV series "The West Wing" aired on the same network, and so at the request of NBC's Entertainment President Jeff Zucker he apologized, but would later say "there should be a difference between what NBC News does and what "The West Wing" TV series does." Sorkin wrote 87 screenplays in all, which amounts to nearly every episode during the show's first four Emmy-winning seasons. Sorkin describes his role in the creative process as "not so much of a showrunner or a producer. I'm really a writer." He admits that this approach can have its drawbacks, saying "Out of 88 Wing episodes that I did we were on time and on budget never, not once." In 2003, at the end of the fourth season, Sorkin and fellow executive producer Thomas Schlamme left the show due to internal conflicts at Warner Bros. TV not involving the NBC network, thrusting producer John Wells into an expanded role as showrunner. Sorkin never watched any episodes beyond his writing tenure apart from 60 seconds of the fifth season's first episode, describing the experience as "like watching somebody make out with my girlfriend." Sorkin would later return in the final episode in a cameo appearance as a member of President Bartlet's staff. "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip". In 2003 Sorkin divulged to the American television interviewer Charlie Rose on "The Charlie Rose Show" that he was developing a TV series based on a late-night sketch comedy show like "Saturday Night Live". In early October 2005 a pilot script dubbed "Studio 7 on the Sunset Strip" for a new TV series, written by him and with Tommy Schlamme attached as producer, started circulating around Hollywood and generating interest on the web. A week later, NBC bought from Warner Bros. TV the right to show the TV series on their network for a near-record license fee in a bidding war with CBS. The show's name was later changed to "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip". Sorkin described the show as having "autobiographical elements" to it and "characters that are based on actual people" but said that it departs from those beginnings to look at the backstage maneuverings at a late night sketch comedy show. In September 2006, the pilot for "Studio 60" aired on NBC, directed by Schlamme. The pilot was critically acclaimed and viewed by over 12 million people, but "Studio 60" experienced a significant drop in audience by mid-season. The seething anticipation that preceded the début was followed up by a large amount of thoughtful and scrupulous criticism in the press, as well as largely negative analysis in the blogosphere. In January 2007, Sorkin spoke out against the press for focusing too heavily on the ratings slide and for using blogs and unemployed comedy writers as sources. After two months on hiatus, "Studio 60" resumed to air the last episodes of season one, which would be its only season. 2004–present. Return to the theatre. In 2003, Sorkin was writing a screenplay on spec about the story of inventor and television pioneer Philo Farnsworth, a topic he had first become familiar with back in the early 1990s when producer Fred Zollo approached him with the idea of adapting a memoir by Elma Farnsworth into a biopic. The next year he completed the screenplay under the title "The Farnsworth Invention", and it was picked up by New Line Cinema with Thomas Schlamme signed on to direct. The story is about the patent battle between inventor Philo Farnsworth and RCA tycoon David Sarnoff for the technology that allowed the first television transmissions in the US. At the same time, Sorkin was contacted by Jocelyn Clarke, the commissions manager of the Abbey Theatre in Dublin, requesting he write a play for them, a commission which he accepted. In time Sorkin decided to tackle his commission by rewriting "The Farnsworth Invention" as a play. He delivered a first draft of the play to the Abbey Theatre in early 2005, and a production was purportedly planned for 2007 with La Jolla Playhouse in California deciding to stage a workshop production of the play in collaboration with the Abbey Theatre. But in 2006 the Abbey Theatre's new management pulled out of all involvement with "The Farnsworth Invention". Despite the setback, La Jolla Playhouse pushed on, with Steven Spielberg lending his talents as producer. The production opened under La Jolla's signature Page To Stage program which allowed Sorkin and director Des McAnuff to develop the play from show to show according to audience reactions and feedback; the play ran at La Jolla Playhouse from February 20, 2007 through March 25, 2007. A production followed on Broadway, beginning in previews at the Music Box Theatre and scheduled to open on November 14, 2007; however, the play was delayed by the 2007 Broadway stagehand strike. "The Farnsworth Invention" eventually opened at the Music Box Theatre on December 3, 2007 following the end of the strike; it closed on March 2, 2008. In 2005, Sorkin revised his play "A Few Good Men" for a revival at the London West End theatre, the Haymarket. The play opened at the Theatre Royal Haymarket in the fall of the same year and was directed by David Esbjornson, with Rob Lowe of "The West Wing" in the lead role. Return to film. Sorkin's next jaunt back into film occurred when he was commissioned by Universal Pictures to adapt "60 Minutes" producer George Crile's nonfiction book "Charlie Wilson's War" for Tom Hanks' production company Playtone. "Charlie Wilson's War" is about the colorful Texas congressman Charlie Wilson who funded the CIA's secret war against the former Soviet Union in Afghanistan. Sorkin completed the screenplay and the film was released in 2007 starring Tom Hanks, Julia Roberts, and Philip Seymour Hoffman, directed by Mike Nichols. In August 2008, Sorkin announced that he had agreed to write a script for Sony and producer Scott Rudin about how Facebook was founded. The film, "The Social Network", based on Ben Mezrich's novel "The Accidental Billionaires", was released on October 1, 2010. Sorkin won the Academy, BAFTA and Golden Globe Awards for "The Social Network". One year later, Sorkin received nominations for the same awards for co-writing the screenplay to the film "Moneyball". Return to television. Sorkin returned to television in 2011 with two HBO projects. He is teaming with "The Office" star John Krasinski to develop a miniseries about the Chateau Marmont Hotel based on "Life at the Marmont", a book by the hotel's co-owner Raymond R. Sarlot and Fred Basten. He also developed "The Newsroom", a series about the behind the scenes workings of a cable news network. On September 8, 2011, HBO ordered ten episodes of "The Newsroom", which debuted on June 24, 2012. The show was renewed for a second season, premiering on July 14, 2013. Lead actor Jeff Daniels announced via Twitter that the show had been renewed for a third season on September 4, 2013. Future projects. In March 2007, it was reported that Sorkin had signed on to write a musical adaptation of the hit 2002 record "Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots" by psychedelic-rock band The Flaming Lips, collaborating with director Des McAnuff who has been developing the project. On July 12, 2007, "Variety" reported that Sorkin had signed a deal with DreamWorks to write three scripts. The first script is titled "The Trial of the Chicago 7", which Sorkin was already developing with Steven Spielberg and producers Walter Parkes and Laurie MacDonald. In March 2010, Sorkin's agent, Ari Emanuel, was reported as saying that the project was proving "tough to get together". In August 2008, Des McAnuff announced that Sorkin had been commissioned by the Stratford Shakespeare Festival to write an adaptation of Chekhov's "The Cherry Orchard". In 2010, Sorkin reportedly obtained the film rights to Andrew Young's book, "The Politician" (about Sen. John Edwards), and announced that he would make his debut as a film director while also adapting the book for the screen. In November 2010, it was reported that Sorkin would be writing a musical based on the life of Houdini, with music by Danny Elfman. In January 2012, Stephen Schwartz was reported to be writing the music and lyrics, with Sorkin making his debut as a librettist. The musical is expected to come out in 2013-14, with Sorkin saying "The chance to collaborate with Stephen Schwartz, (the director) Jack O'Brien, and Hugh Jackman on a new Broadway musical is a huge gift." In January 2013, he dropped out of the project, citing film and TV commitments. In May 2012, Sony announced that Sorkin would write a movie based on Walter Isaacson's biography of Steve Jobs. Sorkin was a guest at the D10 conference in May 2012 and explained his thoughts at the time on the adaptation of Isaacson's biography: To be honest, one of the hesitations I had in taking on the movie is that it was a little like writing about the Beatles—that there are so many people out there who know so much about him and who revere him that I just saw a minefield of disappointment. Frankly, that I was going to do something and that people who ... hopefully, when I'm done with my research, I'll be in the same ball park of knowledge about Steve Jobs that so many people in this room are. Writing process and style. Sorkin has written for the theatre, film and television, and in each medium his level of collaboration with other creators has varied. He began in theatre which involved a largely solitary writing process, then moved into film where he collaborated with director Rob Reiner and screenwriter William Goldman, and eventually worked in television where he collaborated very closely with director Thomas Schlamme for nearly a decade on the shows "Sports Night", "The West Wing", and "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip"; he now moves between all three media. He has a habit of chain smoking while he spends countless hours cooped up in his office plotting out his next scripts. He describes his writing process as physical because he will often stand up and speak the dialogue he is developing. A "New York Times" article by Peter De Jonge explained that ""The West Wing" is never plotted out for more than a few weeks ahead and has no major story lines", which De Jonge believed was because "with characters who have no flaws, it is impossible to give them significant arcs". Sorkin has stated: "I seldom plan ahead, not because I don't think it's good to plan ahead, there just isn't time." Sorkin has also said, "As a writer, I don't like to answer questions until the very moment that I have to." The "Seattle Post-Intelligencer"'s TV critic John Levesque has commented that Sorkin's writing process "can make for ill-advised plot developments". Further complicating the matter, in television, Sorkin will have a hand in writing every episode, rarely letting other writers earn full credit on a script. Peter De Jonge has reported that ex-writers of "The West Wing" have claimed that "even by the spotlight-hogging standards of Hollywood, Sorkin has been exceptionally ungenerous in his sharing of writing credit". In a comment to "GQ" magazine in 2008, Sorkin said, "I'm helped by a staff of people who have great ideas, but the scripts aren't written by committee." Sorkin's nearly decade-long collaboration in television with director Thomas Schlamme began in early 1998 when they found they shared common creative ground on the soon to be produced "Sports Night". Their successful partnership in television is one in which Sorkin focuses on writing the scripts while Schlamme executive produces and occasionally directs; they have worked together on "Sports Night", "The West Wing", and "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip". Schlamme will create the look of the shows, work with the other directors, discuss the scripts with Sorkin as soon as they are turned in, make design and casting decisions, and attend the budget meetings; Sorkin tends to stick strictly to writing. In response to what he perceived as unfair criticism of "The Newsroom", Jacob Drum of "Digital Americana" wrote, "The essential truth that the critics miss is that "The Newsroom" is Sorkin being Sorkin as he always has been and always will be: one part pioneer; one part self-conscious romantic; two parts actual Lewis & Clark-style pioneer, trapping his way across an old, old idea of an America that can always stand to raise its game—but most importantly, spinning a good yarn while he does so." Sorkin is known for writing memorable lines and fast-paced dialogue, such as the "You can't handle the truth!" piece from "A Few Good Men" and the partly Latin tirade against God in "The West Wing" episode "Two Cathedrals". For television, one hallmark of Sorkin's writer's voice is the repartee that his characters engage in as they small talk and banter about whimsical events taking place within an episode, and interject obscure popular culture references into conversation. Although his scripts are lauded for being literate, Sorkin has been criticized for often turning in scripts that are overwrought. His mentor William Goldman has commented that normally in visual media speeches are avoided, but that Sorkin has a talent for dialogue and gets away with breaking this rule. Personal life. Sorkin married Julia Bingham in 1996, but they divorced in 2005, with his workaholic habits and drug abuse reported to be a partial cause. Sorkin and Bingham have one daughter, Roxy. Sorkin was a dependent cocaine user for many years and, after a highly publicized arrest in 2001, he received treatment in a drug diversion program. For several years, he dated Kristin Chenoweth, who played Annabeth Schott on "The West Wing" (though after Sorkin had left the show). He has also reportedly dated columnist Maureen Dowd and is now in a relationship with Kristin Davis. A consistent supporter of the Democratic Party, Sorkin has made substantial political campaign contributions to candidates between 1999 and 2011, according to CampaignMoney.com. During the 2004 US presidential election campaign, the liberal advocacy group MoveOn's political action committee enlisted Sorkin and Rob Reiner to create one of their anti-Bush campaign advertisements. In August 2008, Sorkin was involved in a Generation Obama event at the Fine Arts Theater in Beverly Hills, California, participating in a panel discussion subsequent to a screening of Frank Capra's "Mr Smith Goes to Washington". Despite this Sorkin does not consider himself a political activist noting " I've met political activists, and they're for real. I've never marched anyplace or done anything that takes more effort than writing a check in terms of activism"
1060182	Son of the Mask is a 2005 American fantasy family-comedy film directed by Lawrence Guterman and starring Jamie Kennedy as Tim Avery, an aspiring cartoonist from Fringe City who has just had his first child born with the powers of the Mask. It is the stand-alone sequel to the successful 1994 film "The Mask", an adaptation of Dark Horse Comics which starred Jim Carrey. It also stars Alan Cumming as the god of mischief, Loki, whom Odin has ordered to find the Mask. It co-stars Traylor Howard, Kal Penn, Steven Wright, and Bob Hoskins as Odin. Ben Stein makes a brief reappearance within the first few minutes of the film as Dr. Arthur Neuman from "The Mask" to reestablish the relationship with the mask and Loki. The film received extremely negative reviews and won the Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Remake or Sequel. Unlike the previous film which was more adult oriented, this film is family-friendly as the tone is much lighter and more comical than the first one. The film was widely considered to be a front runner for the Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Picture, but lost to "Dirty Love".
1103515	William Gilbert Strang (born November 27, 1934 in Chicago), usually known as simply Gilbert Strang or Gil Strang, is an American mathematician, with contributions to finite element theory, the calculus of variations, wavelet analysis and linear algebra. He has made many contributions to mathematics education, including publishing seven mathematics textbooks and one monograph. Strang is the MathWorks Professor of Mathematics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He teaches Introduction to Linear Algebra and Computational Science and Engineering and his lectures are freely available through MIT OpenCourseWare.
581632	Saugandh () is an Indian film directed by Raj Sippy and released in 1991. It stars Akshay Kumar in his film debut alongside Raakhee and Shantipriya. Plot. Chowdry Sarang is a proud man and arrogant powerful zamindar (landlord) who refuses to let people garland him as he believes that a man should never bow his head. He adores his little sister Chand and she falls in love with Shiva. Shiva is from an agricultural background family and has a loving family—dad, mom, sister, brother and most importantly his sister-in-law Ganga (Rakhi Gulzar) who adores him. Sarang comes to know about the romance and kills Shiva, Chand and everyone in Shiva's family. However, Ganga, who was pregnant at the time, had just fainted. She makes an oath /saugandh that she will make Sarang bow his head. She challenges Sarang that she will have a son and Sarang will have a daughter and that her son will become Sarang's son-in-law and will make him bow his head. Sarang accepts the challenge and declares that he will kill her son when that day comes. Her son is named Shiva (Akshay Kumar) and Sarang names his daughter Chand (Shanti Priya). Chand is brought up as a ruthless guy rather than a girl. Shiva and Chand meet. Chand hates Shiva initially and they fall in love soon enough. Ranbir Singh (Pankaj Dheer) also wants to marry Chand to punish her for insulting him. After a lot of drama, Chand gets married to Shiva but Sarang, being the proud man he is, refuses to bow his head and shoots himself. Trivia. Akshay Kumar was first signed by Pramod Chakravarti for "Deedar", but his first release was "Saugandh". This is also the first Hindi release of "Shantipriya". External links.
1064996	Mr. Brooks is a 2007 American psychological thriller film directed by Bruce A. Evans starring Kevin Costner, Demi Moore, Dane Cook, and William Hurt. It was released on June 1, 2007. The film follows the eponymous character, a celebrated Portland businessman and serial killer who is forced to take on a protégé (Cook) after being blackmailed, and has to contend with his bloodthirsty alter ego (Hurt) who convinces him to indulge his "habit". His life grows even more complicated when a driven police officer (Moore) reopens the investigation into his murders. The film was commercially successful and has inspired a modest cult following. Plot. Earl Brooks (Kevin Costner) is a wealthy, successful businessman recently honored by the Portland, Oregon Chamber of Commerce as "Man of the Year." In his secret life, Brooks is a serial killer, known as the "Thumbprint Killer." Brooks has abstained from murder for the past two years by attending meetings for addicts to cope with his killing addiction. He feels the compulsion to kill rising again, however, as his alter ego, Marshall (William Hurt) becomes more insistent. Brooks, to satisfy his addiction, kills a couple while they are having sex in their apartment and, as part of his pathosis, leaves each of the victims' bloody thumbprints on a lampshade. Brooks follows his meticulous "modus operandi", including fastidious preparation and cleaning up the crime scene, even locking the doors before departing. Marshall then notices that the couple's curtains were open.
1065412	Nancy Ann Olson (born July 14, 1928) is an American actress.
583966	Yaaradi Nee Mohini is a 2008 Tamil drama film directed by Mithran Jawahar. The film, remake of the 2007 Telugu hit film "Aadavari Matalaku Ardhalu Verule", directed by Selvaraghavan that starred Venkatesh and Trisha Krishnan, stars Dhanush, Selvaraghavan's brother, and Nayantara in lead roles, whilst Karthik Kumar, Raghuvaran, K. Vishwanath, Karunas and Saranya Mohan play supporting roles. The music for the film was scored by Yuvan Shankar Raja. The title of the film is derived from a song from the 1958 Sivaji Ganesan-Padmini starrer "Uthama Puthiran". It was Raghuvaran's last film before his death on 19 March 2008. "Yaaradi Nee Mohini" was remade in Bengali as "100% Love" starring Jeet and Koel Mallick in lead roles directed by Ravi Kinnagi .
1064555	My Bodyguard is a 1980 drama film released by 20th Century Fox, directed by Tony Bill (his directorial debut), and written by Alan Ormsby. The film stars Chris Makepeace, Adam Baldwin, Matt Dillon, Martin Mull, and Ruth Gordon. The film was the début of both Baldwin and an uncredited Jennifer Beals, and was Joan Cusack's first major film. Plot. Clifford Peache (Chris Makepeace) lives in an upscale Chicago luxury hotel with his father (Martin Mull), who manages the hotel, and his eccentric but loving grandmother (Ruth Gordon). Clifford spends his nights with his family relaxing on the rooftop patio and spying on the neighbors through a telescope. He is the new kid at Lake View High School, where he arrives in a hotel limousine. Clifford becomes a target of abuse from a bully, Melvin Moody (Matt Dillon). Moody and his gang of thugs, Dubrow (Richard Bradley), Koontz (Tim Reyna), and Hightower (Dean R. Miller), regularly terrorize and extort lunch money from other smaller, timid students, allegedly to protect them from a school outcast, the large, sullen Ricky Linderman (Adam Baldwin). According to school legend, Ricky has killed several people, including his own little brother. A teacher (Kathryn Grody) tells Clifford that the only violence she's aware of from Ricky's past occurred when his younger brother died accidentally while playing with a gun. Clifford works up the nerve to approach Ricky and asks him to be his bodyguard. Ricky refuses, but the boys do become friends after Ricky saves Clifford from a beating by Moody and his gang. Ricky has emotional issues over the death of his 9-year-old brother a year earlier, and is slow to come out of his shell, but has been rebuilding a motorcycle that he cherishes. The friendship between the two boys is strengthened as Clifford successfully helps Ricky search junkyards for a hard-to-find cylinder for the motorcycle's engine. As Clifford, Ricky, and a few friends from school, including fellow victims, Carson (Paul Quandt), Shelley (Joan Cusack), and an unnamed girl (Jennifer Beals in an uncredited role), eat lunch in Lincoln Park, Moody and his gang approach. Moody has enlisted the help of an older bodybuilder named Mike (Hank Salas), someone he announces is "his" bodyguard. Mike intimidates and physically abuses the younger Ricky, and vandalizes his motorcycle before Moody pushes it into the lagoon. Ricky runs away. He later comes to Clifford to ask for money, ostensibly to pay for pulling the motorcycle out of the lagoon. Feeling used, Clifford follows him and the two argue before Ricky reveals to Clifford that he accidentally shot his brother while babysitting him at home. He is overwhelmed with guilt and remorse, and not the tough guy he seems. Moody and Mike later return to the park to further bully the other children. Unbeknownst to them, Ricky is also there retrieving his motorcycle. As Ricky attempts to leave with the bike, Moody notices and announces that the motorcycle now belongs to him. Ricky refuses the demand, so Moody summons Mike and the two begin to fight. Ricky gains the upper hand before Moody jumps on his back. Seeing his friend in trouble, Clifford manages to pull Moody off. Ricky beats Mike, knocks him unconscious, and then turns his attention to Moody. But instead of fighting Clifford's battle for him, he urges Clifford to fight Moody himself while coaching him. Clifford is afraid, but when he finally lands a solid punch and breaks Moody's nose, winning the fight, he finally realizes that Moody the bully is weak and cowardly. Ricky takes his bike back and as the children all leave together, he jokingly asks Clifford to be "his" bodyguard. Release and reception. "My Bodyguard" opened on July 11, 1980, in limited release, and wide release on August 15, 1980. In its limited weekend, the film opened at #3 with $178,641 and went on to gross $22,482,953 in the United States. The film ranked #45 on "Entertainment Weekly"s list of the 50 Best High School Movies. The film received generally positive reviews, garnering an 85% 'fresh' rating and the consensus "T. Bill debuts as an affectionate director, keenly aware of growing pains," on review aggregate website Rotten Tomatoes.
1046586	Number Seventeen is a 1932 film directed by Alfred Hitchcock, based on a stage play by J. Jefferson Farjeon, and starring John Stuart, Anne Grey and Leon M. Lion. The film is about a group of criminals who committed a jewel robbery and put their money in an old house over a railway leading to the English Channel, the film's title being derived from the house's street number. An outsider stumbles onto this plot and intervenes with the help of a neighbour, a police officer's daughter. After being available only in poor-quality prints for decades, the film was released in high quality by French media company Canal+ in 2005. Plot. Detective Barton is searching for a necklace stolen by a gang of thieves. In the beginning, the gang is in a house in London, before going on the run. The film starts off with Detective Barton (John Stuart) arriving at a house marked for sale or rent. The door is unlocked and he wanders in. An unknown person with a candle is wandering about and a dead body is found. When confronted the mysterious person claims innocence of the murdered person. Barton (introduces himself as Forsythe) asks the stranger what he has in his pockets (handkerchief, string, sausage, picture of a child, half a cigarette), before the shadow of a hand is shown reaching for a doorknob. The stranger (later introduces himself as Ben) searches the body of the dead person and finds handcuffs and a gun which he takes. The detective returns from investigating the weird sound and finds the handcuffs which the stranger left on the ground. A person is seen to be crawling on the roof through shadows, who then falls through the roof. This is a woman called Miss Akroyd Ann Casson who is revived and cries out for her father. She explains that her father went onto the roof and that they are next door in number 15. The bell tolls half past midnight and the dead body has disappeared. Three people arrive at the windswept house, Mr. Ackroyd (Henry Caine), Nora (Anne Grey) (who is deaf and dumb) and a third person. Ben draws out the gun. Ben accidentally shoots the governor. Mr. Ackroyd draws out a gun and asks him to search the gentlemen, Ben and Miss Ackroyd. The telegram is revealed to Mr. Ackroyd. Sheldrake (Garry Marsh) gets the diamond necklace, which he has hidden in the upper portion of a toilet. Ben causes a commotion and is locked away with Sheldrake. The two hands of Sheldrake reach out and appear to strangle Ben who is only pretending to be knocked out. More members of the gang arrive. They suggest tying up Miss Akroyd and 'Forsythe'. The three thieves all have to catch a train. However, one of the "thieves" is Miss Akroyd's father--a police officer--who locks away two of the thieves and frees Miss Akroyd and Doyle. He opens the door where Ben is locked away with Sheldrake and gets into a fist fight with Sheldrake. The other man reveals himself as Sheldrake (the supposed 'corpse' from earlier) and frees the others. Miss Akroyd and 'Forsythe' are tied up again. Nora reveals herself to be able to speak and says "I'm coming back". She comes back and frees Miss Akroyd and Doyle. Miss Akroyd faints but recovers. Nora returns to the basement to allay the suspicions of the other thieves and buy time for the rest to get away. They free Ben and Miss Akroyd's father. The thieves arrive at the train yard, and board a freight train that is departing. The train says Deutsch-Englischer Fahrverkehr Ferry Service between Germany-Great Britain. The train departs with Ben aboard and he stumbles onto crates of wine. The thieves, after dispatching the conductor, go to the front of the train, shoot the fireman, and catch the Driver as he faints. 'Forsythe' failed to get on the train before it departed and commandeers a bus. Ben is revealed to have the necklace. Sheldrake discovers he doesn't have the diamond and the thieves fight each other. Sheldrake claims that 'Barton' a detective posing as a thief. A chase scene occurs on the train as the thieves go after Barton. Barton escapes and handcuffs Nora. The bus that 'Forsythe' is on races after the train. The thieves, realising the train is accelerating, try and find the brakes. They turn dials helplessly and notice the bus that 'Forsythe' is on. Pushing levers and turning dials does nothing, indeed, it only makes the train go faster, leaving the thieves unable to escape. At the dock, the ferry pulls up. As 'Forsythe' watches, the train hurtles through the dock, crashes into the train currently on the ferry, and pushes it out to sea, dragging the remaining cars into the ocean. People are rescued from the water. Henry Doyle is posing as Detective Barton he tells Forsythe. But actually Forsythe is Detective Barton! Who says to Barton, you can't be Barton because I am. All of the thieves are apprehended by the police who are on the scene. Nora asks Barton, "What are you going to do about it?" Barton replied "You better come along with me." Nora says "Where?" "To breakfast." Barton says, and they laugh. Ben then reveals he has the diamond necklace. Production. Hitchcock returned to England from a trip to the Caribbean with a new idea for a film. He told John Maxwell about it but said that Mycroft had a different film for him to do, a filmed version of Joseph Farjeon's play "Number Seventeen". Hitchcock was unhappy with this as he considered the story to be too full of cliches and he wanted to do a version of John Van Druten's "London Wall". The director who eventually got to do "London Wall" at the time, wanted to direct "Number Seventeen". Hitchcock was assigned writer Rodney Ackland for the film, and decided to take the film as a comedy-oriented thriller. The film makes extensive use of miniature sets, and a model train, bus, and ferry. Though the opening credits confirm the picture's title is "Number Seventeen", much of the promotional material (as per graphic above) and many databases refer to "Number 17". In the book Hitchcock/Truffaut (Simon and Schuster, 1967), Hitchcock called the film "A disaster". Reception. On its initial release, audiences reacted to "Number Seventeen" with confusion and disappointment. The film is not often seen nowadays, but continues with generally negative reviews with critics from Rotten Tomatoes noting the film as, "highly entertaining but practically incomprehensible" and as an "unsatisfactory early tongue-in-cheek comedy/suspense yarn". In the Hitchcock/Truffaut book (see above), Francois Truffaut has a similar verdict, telling Hitchcock he had found the film "quite funny, but the story was rather confusing".
585008	Naa Alludu (Telugu: నా అల్లుడు, English translation: "My son-in-law") is a 2005 Telugu film written and directed by Vara Mullapudi. The films stars Jr. NTR, Shriya Saran, Genelia D'Souza, and Ramya Krishnan. Despite the huge cast, the film was the biggest flop of 2005 in Tollywood. It was Also Dubbed in Hindi Under the title "Main Hoon Gambler". Plot. Karthik (NTR Jr.) challenges a level headed industrialist Bhanumati (Ramya Krishnan) that he would marry either of her daughters, to take revenge on her for insulting him in his interview to get a job in her company. Meghana (Shriya Saran) falls for the young man, just for the one accidental kiss he gives her. The younger one Gagana (Genelia D'Souza) too follows suit, and now Karthik has a grip over both of Bhanumati’s daughter. Competiting with him is Bhanumati’s nephew (Rajiv Kanakala), whose father (Charan Raj) too encourages him to chase his cousins, and marry either of them to inherit their property. It is revealed in the flashback, that Bhanumati leaves her husband Suman, and Karthik is her nephew. How the responsible son-in-law sets his mom-in-law right and eliminates the villains from the game, is what the story is about. Trivia. Dubbed into Tamil as Madurai Mappilai
629416	One Perfect Day is an Australian film released in 2004. Plot. The central character of the film is Tommy Matisse; his name combines the title of The Who's 1969 rock opera "Tommy" and the last name of twentieth century French painter Henri Matisse. Tommy is a Melbourne boy studying at the Royal Academy of Music in London. He is a violinist and composer who hears music in unusual sources such as the ambient noises of a train in the London Underground or the chirping of crickets. He is a rebel against the traditions of classical music and displays this by bringing a homeless woman living in the Underground on stage for a concert. A sympathetic professor decides that he is the type of innovative artist needed to revive a dying opera artform. Having shocked opera's establishment, he returns home to Melbourne on the death of his younger sister Emma, who suffers a fatal overdose after experimenting with drugs at a rave dance party. He discovers a CD of her own mixes and decides to enter the genre of electronic music to follow the path she was pursuing in the hopes of discovering more about his sister and how she became involved in this dance world. Emma's death acts as a catalyst that drives Tommy and his girlfriend Alysse apart. In despair, Alysse falls prey to a sleazy entrepreneur named Hector Lee who owns a club called Trance-Zen-Dance and who is also a drug dealer. Hector Lee has a young assistant called Trig who is a VJ, and is always getting new footage and talent. Soundtrack. The soundtrack was released on 15 February 2004 by Universal Music, and debuted at number forty-six on the Australian album charts in the week beginning 23 February 2004 and manage to reach to number twenty-two. The title track, sung by Lydia Denker, debuted at number thirty-five on the Australian single charts. There are two versions of the soundtrack: Box Office. "One Perfect Day" grossed $1,152,011 at the box office in Australia.
1712312	The Great Silence ("Il grande silenzio", 1968), or The Big Silence, is an Italian spaghetti western. The movie features a score by Ennio Morricone and stars Jean-Louis Trintignant as Silence, a mute gunfighter with a grudge against bounty hunters, assisting a group of outlawed Mormons and a woman trying to avenge her husband (one of the outlaws). They are set against a group of ruthless bounty hunters, led by Loco (Klaus Kinski). It is one of Corbucci's better known movies. Unlike most conventional and spaghetti westerns, "The Great Silence" takes place in the snow-filled landscapes of Utah during the Great Blizzard of 1899.
356423	Time of the Gypsies (, literally "Home for Hanging Laundry") is a 1988 Yugoslav film by Serbian director Emir Kusturica. Filmed in Romani and Serbian, "Time of the Gypsies" tells the story of a young Romani man with magical powers who is tricked into engaging in petty crime. It is widely considered to be one of Kusturica's best films.
1753231	The Missiles of October is a 1974 docudrama made-for-television play about the Cuban missile crisis. The title evokes the book "The Guns of August" by Barbara Tuchman about the missteps among the great powers and the failed chances to give an opponent a graceful way out, which led to the First World War. The teleplay introduced William Devane as John F. Kennedy and cast Martin Sheen as United States Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy. The script is based on Robert Kennedy's book "Thirteen Days: A Memoir of the Cuban Missile Crisis". Production notes. Staged as a two and a half hour television play, the production eschews physical action and detailed sets and wardrobes, in favor of emphasis on dialogue and emotions. It depicts how the world came close to the brink of, and eventually stepped away from global thermonuclear war, highlighting the roles of President John F Kennedy, Attorney General Robert F Kennedy, Premier Nikita Khrushchev, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Adlai Stevenson, and former Secretary of State Dean Acheson in the crisis. "The Missiles of October" gave the US general public its first look behind the scenes at the inner workings, disagreements, and ultimate consensus of Kennedy's administration to blockade Cuba, rather than attempt to invade to dislodge the just-discovered, only partially completed Soviet nuclear missile emplacements in Cuba. It details US attempts to give the Soviets room to negotiate without appearing to capitulate, and also periodically depicts Khrushchev reporting progress of the events to his Communist Party cohorts. The play was directed by Anthony Page with writing credits given to Stanley R. Greenberg and Robert Kennedy. Awards. Technical Director Ernie Buttelman won the 1975 Emmy Award for outstanding achievement. There were several other Emmy nominations, including outstanding drama or comedy special; outstanding supporting actor in a comedy or drama special for Belamy; and outstanding writing in an original teleplay for Greenberg. That same year Greenberg won the Humanitas Prize in the 90-minute category. In 1997 the play won a Producers Guild of America Hall of Fame award.
1067840	Were the World Mine is a 2008 romantic musical fantasy film directed by Tom Gustafson and written by Gustafson and Cory James Krueckeberg. "Were the World Mine" is a story of gay empowerment, inspired by Shakespeare’s "A Midsummer Night’s Dream". "Were the World Mine" stars Tanner Cohen, Wendy Robie, Judy McLane, Jill Larson, Zelda Williams, Nathaniel David Becker, and Ricky Goldman. Plot. Timothy (Tanner Cohen) is an openly gay student at a private boy's school. Although now in his senior year, he is still persecuted by the aggressive rugby team, on whose captain, Jonathon (Nathaniel David Becker), he has a crush. Timothy lives with his mother, Donna (Judy McLane), who is struggling with her son's sexuality and with getting a job, and his father who is not a part of his life. Timothy is cast as Puck in the senior production of "A Midsummer Night's Dream". While reviewing his lines, he discovers the recipe for creating the flower love-in-idleness. Timothy uses the flower to have the homophobic town take a "walk in his shoes". The entire town is thrown into chaos as previously heterosexual community members fall in love with their same-sex friends, bosses, and co-workers: whomever they first saw after being sprayed by the flower. The school drama teacher, Ms. Tebbit (Wendy Robie), guides Timothy towards the question of whether his actions have caused more harm than good. Production. The film is a feature-length version of director Gustafson's 2003 short film, "Fairies", which also stars Wendy Robie. The film was executive produced by Gill Holland, in association with The Group Entertainment. Release. Film festivals. "Were the World Mine" has played or was scheduled to play many film festivals in prominent slots in 2008. Awards already won include: Audience Award for Best Narrative Feature at the Florida Film Festival; Best Music in a Narrative Film at the Nashville Film Festival; Best LGBT Feature Film at the Nashville Film Festival; and the Audience Award for Best Narrative Feature at the Turin Gay and Lesbian Film Festival. "Were the World Mine" screened at the Frameline Film Festival in San Francisco on June 27, 2008, and at the Tokyo International Lesbian & Gay Film Festival on July 11, 2008. The film opened the Gay & Lesbian Film Festival in Albuquerque, New Mexico on September 26, 2008 and closed the Reel Affirmations festival in Washington, DC on October 26, 2008. It was presented in November 2008 at the Gay/Lesbian Film Festival QUEERSICHT in Berne and Switzerland. The film was screened as the opening night gala at the 2009 Melbourne Queer Film Festival. Theatrical. "Were the World Mine" had a limited release in North American theaters on November 21, 2008. Reception. The film currently holds a 67% 'Fresh' rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Soundtrack. The "Were the World Mine" original soundtrack album was released on CD on November 11, 2008 by PS Classics. The movie also features several songs used prominently in the film that were not included on the PS Classics soundtrack release, including "Relax, Take It Easy" by Mika, "The Magic Position" by Patrick Wolf and "Cock Star" by The Guts – sung by Tanner Cohen. Home media. "Were the World Mine" was released on DVD in Europe on May 18, and in North America on June 9, 2008.
1170097	Nancy Valen (born December 16, 1965) is an American actress and television producer. She is best known for portraying Captain Samantha Thomas on "Baywatch". Early life. Nancy Valen was born in Brooklyn, New York and raised in Hallandale, Florida, on the beach of the southern Atlantic coast. By the time she was 12 years old, she was spending summers modeling in New York City and studied acting at Uta Hagen's HB Studios. After graduating from a performing arts high school in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, Valen won a theatrical scholarship to the University of Florida. She ultimately declined the scholarship in favor of continuing her professional career in Miami. Meanwhile, she attended Broward Community College, where she studied theatre and paid for her tuition by modeling and acting, appearing in two episodes of "Miami Vice". After one year of college, Valen went to New York to pursue a theatrical career. Within one month of being in New York, she landed a series regular role on the daytime drama "Ryan's Hope". Valen stayed with "Ryan's Hope" for two years before moving to Los Angeles to pursue other interests. Career. Acting. Valen made her film debut in the 1985 comedy film "Porky's Revenge", followed by a role in "The Heavenly Kid" with Richard Mulligan and Jane Kaczmarek. In 1989, Valen co-starred alongside Patrick Dempsey in the film, "Loverboy". She also had a small role opposite Kirk Cameron in the film "Listen to Me". Her other film appearances include "Seven Sundays" alongside Molly Ringwald; directed by Academy Award-winning director, Jean-Charles Tacchella. In addition to films, Valen has also appeared in various television series. In 1990, she guest starred in an episode of "Saved by the Bell" as the brand new school nurse at Bayside High, Jennifer. That same year, she co-starred in NBC's short-lived musical series "Hull High" under the direction of Kenny Ortega. After the series premiere, "TV Guide" proclaimed her "the most agreeably watchable new star on TV". Valen has also guest starred on 23 series including "Hardball", "", "Friends", "Spin City", "Boy Meets World", "Miami Vice", and "Murder She Wrote". Valen has also hosted several infomercials for the Bun and Thigh Roller, Slam man, Thin 'n Sexy Body Wrap, Kevin Trudeau's Debt Cures "They" Don't Want You To Know About, Time Life The Heart of Classic Rock, and the Instyler. Valen has appeared as a guest on "Leno", "The Oprah Winfrey Show", "Good Day L.A." and on the covers and pages of magazines and newspapers including "American Women", "FHM," Cosmopolitan, Entertainment Weekly, and The "Los Angeles Times" Calendar. Producing. Valen, alongside Craig J. Nevius, formed Windmill Entertainment. Among the television programs she has produced include "Living in TV Land", "Chasing Farrah", "William Shatner in Concert", and "Let's Kill Scott Baio". As an Executive Producer /reality series creator, Valen has partnered with a wide variety of companies including Whoop Inc., Renegade83, 44 Blue, Target, and Intuitive Entertainment. Currently Nancy is partnered with Authentic Entertainment on the series "WHEN STAMIE MET TRACY". The series follows two former "L Word" stars as they raise their three children with their extended modern family. In addition, Valen works with Jarrett Creative Group in partnership with the Biography Channel for the networks’ highest rated series, "Celebrity Ghost Stories" and the hit series, "Celebrity Close Calls".
581550	De Dhakka (Marathi: दे धक्का) is a Marathi film released in India in 2008 inspired by the Hollywood film "Little Miss Sunshine" (2006). Arati Ankalikar-Tikekar, the play back singer of this film, received Maharashtra State Award, V Shantaram Award and Maharashtra Times award in the category of 'Best Play back singer'. Plot. The story revolves around the Jadhav family. Makarand(Makarand Anaspure) after spending all his wealth has invented an auto part which he claims will drastically lower the fuel consumption of vehicles. But being from a rural background and having no formal education he is never taken seriously. Subhanrav(Shivaji Satam) makarand's father leaves no opportunity to blame his son for selling all his land on failed pursuits. Sumi (Medha) is makarand's humble 2nd wife. While the family is going through an economic crisis, a golden opportunity is presented when makarand's daughter is selected for the final round of a dance competition with a huge prize money. The family scrapes their last resources and leaves on a life changing journey to reach the competition venue.
581127	Bandh Darwaza is a 1990 Bollywood horror movie starring Kunika, Manjeet Kullar, Aruna Irani, Anirudh Agarwal and the Afghan actor Hashmat Khan. The film soundtrack was composed by the Anand-Milind brothers. Plot. The film opens in the ruins of Kali Pahari (Black Hills, a decrepit complex of caves), and introduces the vampire Neola. Neola, a Dracula-like vampire, sleeps in a coffin by day, and transforms into a bat at night to hunt humans from the neighboring villages. He craves a steady supply of human blood, and a supply of fresh young women (so he may seduce them and spread his evil seed). Neola is assisted by a ragtag bunch of servants who lure innocent humans (mostly women) to Kali Pahari so Neola may easily prey on them. His servants include Mahua (a witch-woman), Mahaguru (an evil priest), a "tantrik" (evil wizard) and various other henchmen that provide muscle for his evil deeds. Mahua is employed as a maid in the household of a righteous Thakur (baron) Pratap. The Thakur spots her speaking with Baku one evening. Knowing of Baku's association with the evils of Kali Pahari, the Thakur threatens to fire Mahua if she is ever caught with any of the gang again. Mahua, however, is under orders to source a new maiden for Neola. The upright Thakur is wealthy, well liked and happy, except for the fact that his wife Lajo is unable to have children. The local temple priest reassures her, but she is deeply perturbed when the Thakur's "mausi" (aunt) arrives and urges him, citing the necessity of progeny, to consider marrying again. Mahua moves in. She promises Lajo will bear children if Lajo will agree to come to Kali Pahari (and permit Neola to bed her), on the condition that the first child will be handed over to Mahua. Lajo refuses at first, but Mahua prevails over Lajo's vulnerability and Lajo accepts the deal. Accordingly, she goes to Kali Pahari, is bedded by Neola, and immediately thereafter gives birth to a daughter Kamia. But when Mahua claims the child, Lajo naturally refuses point-blank and drives her away. Mahua poisons Lajo. The Thakur fires her immediately, but Lajo succumbs to the poison. Enraged, the Thakur enters Kali Pahari and, after a long fight, is able to drive a magic stake through Neola to put him down. Gravely wounded, Neola staggers back to his coffin deep within the caves (behind a "bandh darwaza" or closed doorway) and lays within it to rest and recover. Some twenty years later, Kamia grows up to be a beautiful girl. She has her heart set on Kumar, her childhood chum, but he wards off her advances as childish tomfoolery. Things get interesting when Kumar meets Sapna (the sister of his friend Anand) at a party and begins to develop affections for her. Shaken by this, Kamia makes a direct move, but Kumar bluntly snubs her, and an angry Kamia leaves the party. She swerves to avoid a strange woman (of the Kali Pahari gang), crashes her car, and is taken by the gang to the altar of Neola. Neola, asleep all these years, is revived with blood. He recognizes Kamia and bites her, and she is hypnotized by the "tantrik" to serve Neola forever. Now Kamia gets orders to source more women for Neola. She approaches Bhanu (Anand's wife) and lures her to Kali Pahari, but Kumar, Anand and some of his friends arrive there in time to rescue Bhanu before Neola can seduce her. Kamia's next target is Sapna. Sapna, too, is rescued in the nick of time, but Kumar and Anand discover that Kamia is behind all this. They report back to the Thakur, and he decides to finish Neola once and for all. Entering Kali Pahari, the Thakur finds Mahua, who informs him with evil glee of the bargain behind the birth of Kamia, and that Kamia is now entirely in Neola's power. Furious, the Thakur beheads Mahua. But Neola is unstoppable. He beckons Bhanu once again, and this time, he succeeds in biting her. Neola attacks Sapna yet again, and follows her to the Thakur's home. After a prolonged chase, Neola kills both Bhanu and Anand and nearly gets Sapna, but is thwarted in the nick of time by the Thakur. The Thakur reveals the tale of Kamia's birth to Kumar and Sapna. The three of them enter Kali Pahari to recover Kamia. They finally find her, barely conscious, deep within the catacombs. They are immediately set upon by the gang, various henchmen, and Neola himself. They fight their way out and wound Neola once again, but are somehow unable to kill him. The evil woman and the "tantrik" carry away Neola in a brougham. Kumar gives chase, and captures the "tantrik", and threatens to kill him unless he discloses Neola's Achilles heel. The "tantrik" reveals that Neola's soul is trapped within a statue at Kali Pahari. Kumar and the Thakur devise a two phase plan to finish Neola. Kumar and Sapna follow the brougham away from Kali Pahari, and round up the townsfolk to engage Neola. Neola attacks them in a frenzy. Just as he gets within reach of Sapna, he is involuntarily seized with pain and bursts into flames (as the Thakur sets the evil statue afire). The film ends with Kumar, Sapna and the Thakur looking on as Neola is destroyed forever.
585118	Nenu Meeku Telusa...? is a 2008 Telugu thriller film movie starring Manoj Manchu, Sneha Ullal and Riya Sen in lead roles. Supporting roles are done by Nassar and Brahmanandam. This movie is produced by Manoj's sister Lakshmi Manchu. The movie was released in Tamil as "Ennai Theriyuma... ?" which marks his entry in kollywood and Songs composed by Achu (famous music director A.R. Rahman's assistant) & Dharan and Background Scores are done by Santhosh Narayanan & Shakti. Sunil K. Reddy was the cinematographer for this movie. Inspired from movie Clean Slate. Plot. Aditya (Manoj Manchu) suffers from recurring amnesia, which is the result of an accident in which he loses his father. His memories each day are wiped out by sleep at the end of that day. He recollects the previous day by listening to a tape that was recorded at the end of the previous day; only his uncle and his family doctor are aware of his disorder. Madhu (Riya Sen) convinces Aditya that she is his girlfriend, but what she really wants is his money. Madhu kills Aditya's uncle and aditya is framed for that murder. To solve the case, special police officer Anjali (Sneha Ullal) is appointed. It is revealed that Anjali was Aditya's lover in the past, which he forgot after the accident. Anjali solves the case and Aditya marries Anjali. The film ends by Aditya waking up one morning confused and Anjali telling him about who he is and that she is his wife. Soundtrack. The soundtrack has music composed by Achu & Dharan. The music was released on 29 August 2008. Background Scores are done by Santhosh Narayanan & Shakti.
400830	Joey "CoCo" Diaz is a Cuban-American stand-up comedian and actor known for his recurring role as Joey on the TV series "My Name is Earl", as well as in movies such as "The Longest Yard" and "Taxi". Early life. Joey "Coco" Diaz was born in Cuba, and raised in North Bergen, New Jersey. He lost his parents at age 15, and was taken in by a series of North Bergen families, including two police officers named Robert Bender and Carmine Balzano, but frequent run-ins with the law, including his involvement in fights, kept him moving among a total of four families. Diaz says a total of 20 Italian and Irish families attempted to assist him, such as local funeral home owner Anthony Vanieri. Diaz explains that their sense of humor greatly influenced his own career, which had its earliest beginnings as a student in North Bergen High School. Career. Diaz left North Bergen for the University of Colorado at Boulder on June 1, 1985, but his academic life was interrupted when he was arrested for kidnapping and aggravated robbery, for which he served time in prison. His standup comedy career began in prison, where he gained popularity by improvising material in front of Thursday night Movie Night audiences after the projector malfunctioned. After he was released from prison, Diaz moved to Los Angeles, where he began performing in front of open mic audiences. After his career spread to other venues, he accepted an offer from a CBS talent scout to work on a television pilot. Although the series was not purchased, the visibility it gave him helped his career, garnering him appearances on the television show "Law & Order" and in films including "Spider-Man 2" and the 2004 film "Taxi". His most visible role was in the 2005 film "The Longest Yard" and as a prison convict named Joey the Candy Bar Criminal, a part he played in four 2007 episodes of "My Name is Earl", and which he obtained on the basis of his own past in prison. That same year he also appeared as "Joey Karate", doing humorous promotions for the Ultimate Fighting Championship in California, clips of which can be found on YouTube.
581954	Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna (English: "Never Say Good Bye"), also known as KANK, is a 2006 Indian romantic drama musical film directed by Karan Johar and produced under the Dharma Productions banner. Released on 11 August 2006 in India and North America, it stars Shah Rukh Khan and Rani Mukerji in the lead roles, while Abhishek Bachchan, Preity Zinta, Amitabh Bachchan, and Kirron Kher play pivotal supporting roles. Arjun Rampal also makes a special appearance in the film. Set and mostly taking place in New York City, "Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna" explores themes of adultery and extramarital affairs. It was a success internationally especially in the United States. It became the highest grossing Indian film of all time overseas, beating "Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham"'s five-year-old record. The film was screened in over 1,200 cinemas worldwide, grossing a worldwide total of . It was shown at the Tokyo International Film Festival. The script received recognition by a number of critics and was invited to be included in the library of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Plot. Dev Saran (Shah Rukh Khan) is a successful soccer player in the United States. He lives in New York with his wife Rhea (Preity Zinta), a fashion designer, his young son Arjun, and his mother Kamaljeet (Kirron Kher). Maya (Rani Mukerji) is an orphan who is to marry her closest childhood friend Rishi Talwar (Abhishek Bachchan). The two have been raised by Rishi's fun-loving father Samarjit a.k.a. Sam (Amitabh Bachchan). Dev encounters Maya moments before she is to marry Rishi, and the two have a deep conversation. Although Dev and Maya are strangers, they connect instantly. When Dev bids Maya goodbye, she tells him they should never say goodbye because they may meet again. Moments after they part, Dev is hit by a car and permanently injures his leg; as a result, he is no longer able to play football. Four years later:
1069382	The Warring States is a 2011 Chinese film directed by Chen Jin. The story takes place during the Warring States period, but is only very loosely based on the actual history. The plot focuses on the rivalry between military generals Pang Juan and Sun Bin, both disciples of Guiguzi. Production. Production for "The Warring States" began in March 2010. Reception. Critical reception. "The Warring States" has been described as "sweeping" and "melodramatic". It has received mixed reviews from critics, with Rotten Tomatoes giving the movie a 40% rating (with an average score of 5.9/10), based on reviews from 5 critics. Mike Hale of "The New York Times" found it difficult to follow the "compressed, chaotic narrative" without a "familiarity with the byzantine history of China". Hale noted that the film included "huge numbers of arrows, soldiers, dead bodies and palace steps". Robert Abele of the "Los Angeles Times" described the film as "mildly confusing" and "unremarkable" overall, though he praised the "nifty fight sequences, clever bits of wartime subterfuge, scenic outdoor photography and Honglei's quirky charm". Similarly, Brent Simon of "Screen International" said the "historical epic" displayed "impressive costume design and much natural scenic beauty", but called it not "particularly persuasive or enrapturing". Nick Schager of "The Village Voice" described the film's opening as "invigorating", but overall "tedious" and "a morass of melodramatic romance, torture, and suicide". Schager praised Sun Honglei's performance as the "film's only truly epic element". Avi Offer of "NYC Movie Guru" gave "The Warring States" a very positive review. Offer praised the "thrilling war film" for its "exhilarating action sequences", "compelling dramatic scenes", and "exquisite set design, cinematography, musical score and costume design". Box office. "The Warring States" earned $11.8 million worldwide. After six days of release, the film reached first place in China's box office chart.
96149	Jeremiah Horrocks (1618 – 3 January 1641), sometimes given as Jeremiah Horrox (the Latinised version that he used on the Emmanuel College register and in his Latin manuscripts), was an English astronomer. He was the first person to demonstrate that the Moon moved around the Earth in an elliptical orbit and was the only person to predict the transit of Venus of 1639, an event which he and his friend William Crabtree were the only two people to observe and record. His treatise on the transit, "Venus in sole visa", was almost lost to science due to his early death and the chaos brought about by the English civil war, but for this and his other work he has since been hailed as the father of British astronomy. Early life and education. Jeremiah Horrocks was born at Lower Lodge farm, in Toxteth Park, a former royal deer park, near Liverpool. His father, James, was a watchmaker who had moved to Toxteth Park to be apprenticed to Thomas Aspinwall and subsequently married his master's daughter, Mary. Both families were well educated Puritans; the Horrocks' sent their younger sons to the University of Cambridge and the Aspinwalls favoured Oxford. The unorthodox beliefs of the Puritans excluded them from public office and pushed them towards trade and industry and thus, by 1600 the Aspinwalls had become a successful family of watchmakers. As a boy, Jeremiah had an early introduction to astronomy as one of his chores was to measure the local noon in order to set the watches accurately, and his Puritan upbringing gave him an inbuilt suspicion of witchcraft, magic and astrology. Horrocks joined Emmanuel College on 11 May 1632 and matriculated as a member of the University of Cambridge on 5 July 1632 as a sizar. At Cambridge, he made friends with John Wallis and John Worthington. He was the only person at Cambridge to believe the revolutionary heliocentric theory of Copernicus and, in his spare time, used the college libraries to study the works of Johannes Kepler, Tycho Brahe and others. In 1635 he left without formally graduating, for reasons which are not clear. Marston (2007) has suggested that he may have wished to defer the cost of graduation until he had secured employment, whilst Aughton (2004) has speculated that he may have failed his exams due to concentrating too much on his own interests or that he didn't want to take Anglican orders and so a degree was of limited use to him. Astronomical observations. Now committed to the study of astronomy, Horrocks began to build up a collection of astronomical books and equipment. In 1638 he bought the best telescope he could find, having found the cheap toy one he had bought some years earlier no longer practical. As nearby Liverpool was a seafaring town, navigational instruments such as the astrolabe and cross staff were relatively easy to obtain. There was, at this time, no market for more specialised astronomical instruments and so his only option was to make his own. As luck would have it, he was well placed to do this as his father and uncles were watchmakers with the tools and expertise in producing accurate instruments. It seems likely that he would have helped with the family business during the daylight hours and, in return, the watchmakers in his family advised and assisted him with the design and construction of instruments to study the stars at night. He obtained a three foot radius astronomicus (a development of the cross staff with two movable sights on the cross piece) which he used to measure the angle between two stars, but by January 1637 he had come up against the limitations of this instrument and had built himself a larger version, eleven feet in length, in order to measure the angles more accurately. He read most of the astronomical treatises of his day, found the weaknesses in them and was suggesting new lines of research by the age of seventeen. The traditional view is that, when he left home, he supported himself financially by holding a curacy in Much Hoole, near Preston in Lancashire, but there is little evidence for this and it is more likely he was a tutor to the Stones' children. According to local tradition in Much Hoole, he lived at Carr House, within the Bank Hall Estate, Bretherton. Carr House was a substantial property owned by the Stones family who were prosperous farmers and merchants, and Horrocks was probably a tutor for the Stones' children. Lunar research. Horrocks was the first to demonstrate that the Moon moved in an elliptical path around the Earth. He also claimed that comets followed elliptical orbits and supported his theory by analogy with the conical pendulum. He noted that if the bob was drawn back and released then it followed an elliptical path, and that the major axis rotated in the direction of revolution exactly as did the apsides of the moon's orbit. He anticipated Isaac Newton in suggesting an influence on the orbit from the Sun as well as the Earth and in the "Principia" Newton acknowledged Horrocks's work in relation to the theory of the Moon. In the final months of his life he also made detailed study of tides, in an attempt to explain the nature of lunar causation of tidal movements. Transit of Venus. Horrocks was convinced that Lansberg's tables were inaccurate when Kepler predicted that a near-miss of a transit of Venus would occur in 1639. Horrocks believed that the transit would indeed occur, having made his own observations of Venus for years. Horrocks made himself a simple helioscope by focusing the image of the Sun through a telescope onto a piece of paper, where the image could be safely observed. From his location in Much Hoole, he calculated that the transit was to begin at approximately 3:00 pm on 24 November 1639 (Julian calendar, or 4 December in the Gregorian calendar). The weather was cloudy, but he first observed the tiny black shadow of Venus crossing the Sun on the paper at about 3:15 pm, and observed for half an hour until sunset. The 1639 transit was also observed by his friend and correspondent, William Crabtree, from his home in Broughton, near Manchester. Horrocks' observations allowed him to make a well-informed guess as to the size of Venus (previously thought to be larger and closer to Earth), as well as to make an estimate of the distance between the Earth and the Sun, now known as the astronomical unit (AU). His figure of 95 million kilometres (59 million miles, 0.63 AU) was far from the 150 million kilometers (93 million miles) that it is known to be today but it was a more accurate figure than any suggested up to that time. A treatise by Horrocks, "Venus in sole visa" ("Venus seen on the Sun") was published by Johannes Hevelius at his own expense in 1662. This paper, which caused great excitement when revealed to members of the Royal Society 20 years after it was written, contained much evidence of Horrocks' enthusiastic and romantic nature, including humorous comments and passages of original poetry. When speaking of the century separating Venusian transits, he rhapsodised, At a time of great uncertainty in astronomy, when the world's astronomers couldn't agree amongst themselves and theologians argued over contradictory Scriptural passages, Horrocks, although a pious man, came down firmly on the side of scientific determinism. It is wrong to hold the most noble Science of the Stars guilty of uncertainty on account of some people's uncertain observations. Through no fault of its own it suffers these complaints which arise from the uncertainty and error not of the celestial motions but of human observations...I do not consider that any imperfections in the motions of the stars have so far been detected, nor do I believe that they are ever to be found. Far be it from me to allow that God has created the heavenly bodies more imperfectly than man has observed them. - Jeremiah Horrocks Death and remembrance. Horrocks returned to Toxteth Park sometime in mid-1640 and died suddenly and from unknown causes on 3 January 1641, aged 22. As expressed by Crabtree, "What an incalculable loss!" He has been described as a bridge which connected Newton with Copernicus, Galileo, Brahe and Kepler. Horrocks is remembered on a plaque in Westminster Abbey and the lunar crater Horrocks is named after him. In 1859 a marble tablet and stained-glass windows commemorating him were installed in The Parish Church of St Michael, Much Hoole. In 1927, the Jeremiah Horrocks Observatory was built at Moor Park, Preston. The 2012 Transit of Venus was marked by a celebration held in the church at Much Hoole, which was streamed live worldwide on the NASA website. Jeremiah Horrocks Institute. The Jeremiah Horrocks Institute for Astrophysics and Supercomputing was established in 1993 at the University of Central Lancashire. In 2012 it was renamed the Jeremiah Horrocks Institute for Mathematics, Physics, and Astronomy.
1062147	Martin Patterson "Pat" Hingle (July 19, 1924 – January 3, 2009) was an American actor. Early life. Hingle was born Martin Patterson Hingle in Miami, Florida (some sources say Denver, Colorado), the son of Marvin Louise (née Patterson), a schoolteacher and musician, and Clarence Martin Hingle, a building contractor. Hingle enlisted in the U.S. Navy in December 1941, dropping out of the University of Texas. He served on the destroyer USS "Marshall" during World War II. He returned to the University of Texas after the war and earned a degree in radio broadcasting. Acting career. Hingle began acting in college, and after graduating he moved to New York and studied at the American Theater Wing. In 1952 he became a member of the Actors Studio. That led to his first Broadway show, "End as a Man". On Broadway, he originated the role of Gooper in the original Broadway production of Tennessee Williams' "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" (1955). He played the title role in the award winning Broadway play J.B. by Archibald MacLeish(1958). He appeared in the 1963 Actors Studio production of "Strange Interlude", directed by Jose Quintero, and "That Championship Season" (1972). He won a Tony Award nomination for his performance in "Dark at the Top of the Stairs" (1957). Hingle's first film role was an uncredited part as a bartender in "On the Waterfront" (1954). Later in his career he was known for playing judges, police officers, and other authority figures. He was a guest star on the early NBC legal drama "Justice", based on case histories of the Legal Aid Society of New York, which aired in the 1950s.
1236390	Nestor Gastón Carbonell (; born December 1, 1967) is an American actor, known for portraying Richard Alpert in ABC's drama "Lost" and Mayor Anthony Garcia in the films "The Dark Knight" and "The Dark Knight Rises". He is also known for his role on the sitcom "Suddenly Susan" and his performance as the character Batmanuel on the live-action sitcom "The Tick". Early life. Carbonell was born in New York City. He is of Cuban and Spanish descent. He was raised Catholic. His family moved to Caracas, Venezuela, where he attended The British School Caracas. Later on, he moved back to the United States, where he attended Deerfield Academy (with future "Lost" co-star Matthew Fox). He earned a B.A. in English at Harvard University in the late 1980s.
1163404	Early life. West was born William West Anderson in Seattle, Washington, in 1928, to Otto West Anderson (January 25, 1903 – October 9, 1984) and Audrey V. Speer (1906–1969). His paternal grandparents were Swedish. The family moved to Walla Walla after his younger brother John was born. He attended Walla Walla High School during his freshman and sophomore years, and later enrolled in Lakeside School in Seattle. He graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Literature and a minor in Psychology from Whitman College in Walla Walla where he was a member of the Beta Theta Pi fraternity and participated on the speech and debate team. Career. Early roles. Later, while living in Hawaii, West picked a role as the sidekick on a children's show called "El Kini Popo Show", which featured a chimp. West later took over as star of the show. In 1959, West moved to Hollywood and took the stage name Adam West. In his autobiography "Back to the Batcave" he explains that he chose 'Adam' simply because he liked the way it looked and sounded with 'West', his mother's maiden name. His close friends and family still call him "Bill". He appeared in the film "The Young Philadelphians" including Paul Newman, and guest-starred in a number of television Westerns. On three Warner Brothers westerns aired on ABC, "Sugarfoot", "Colt .45", and "Lawman", West played the role of Doc Holliday, the frontier dentist and gunfighter. He portrayed Wild Bill Hickok in the episode "Westbound Stage" of the 1960 NBC western series "Overland Trail", with William Bendix and Doug McClure. He guest starred on Edmond O'Brien's syndicated crime drama "Johnny Midnight" and soon snagged a supporting role as police sergeant Steve Nelson in the crime drama, "The Detectives Starring Robert Taylor". He made a few guest appearances on "Perry Mason" in the early 1960s and appeared once on Walter Brennan's sitcom, "The Real McCoys".
1265876	Betty Compson (March 19, 1897 – April 18, 1974) was an American actress. Born Eleanor Luicime Compson in Beaver, Utah, she had an extensive film career. Her father died when she was young, and she was forced to drop out of school and earn a living for herself and her mother. She obtained employment as a violinist at a theater in Salt Lake City, Utah. Silent films. Compson made 25 films in 1916 alone, although most of them were shorts for Al Christie. She completed "The Miracle Man" (1919) for George Loane Tucker. Compson's rise as a star in motion pictures began with her portrayal of "Rose" in this production.
1132620	A Virgin Among the Living Dead is a 1971 European horror film made before the height of the first zombie craze. Released in France in 1973 as "Christina, Princess of Eroticism" / "Christina, princesse de l'érotisme", or "The Erotic Dreams of Christine". Jess Franco has said that the original shooting title of the film was "The Night of the Shooting Stars" / "La nuit des étoiles foilantes".
581126	Anirudh Agarwal (born 1 December 1949) is an Indian actor known for his work in Bollywood, especially for portraying evil or demonic characters. Agarwal stands at a height of , and is well known for his appearances in horror films such as "Purana Mandir", "Bandh Darwaza", and "Saamri" as well as "Zee Horror Show" in the episode "Taveez".
1635411	Jay Chou (born 18 January 1979) is a Taiwanese musician, singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and actor. In 1998 he was discovered in a talent contest where he displayed his piano and song-writing skills. Over the next two years, he was hired to compose for popular Mandarin singers. Although he was trained in classical music, Chou combines Chinese and Western music styles to produce songs that fuse R&B, rock and pop genres. He composes all his own songs, as well as songs for other singers. In 2000, Chou released his first album, titled "Jay" (2000), under the record company Alfa Music. Since then he has released one album per year except in 2009, His music has gained recognition throughout Asia, most notably in regions such as Taiwan, Mainland China, and in overseas Asian communities. Chou debuted his acting career and made his film debut in "Initial D" (2005), for which he won Best Newcomer Actor in both the Hong Kong Film Awards and the Golden Horse Awards, and was nominated for Best Supporting Actor by Hong Kong Film Awards for his role in "Curse of the Golden Flower" (2006). He produced the theme song for the film "Ocean Heaven" (2010), starring Jet Li. His career now extends into directing and running his own record company JVR Music. As of 2010, Chou has sold more than 28 million albums worldwide. Career. Jay Chou grew up in Linkou, Taipei County in Taiwan. Both his parents were secondary school teachers: his mother, Yeh Hui-Mei (), taught fine arts, while his father, Chou Yao-Chung (), was a biomedical researcher. His mother noticed his sensitivity to music and took him to piano lessons at the age of four. During his childhood, he was fascinated with capturing sounds and songs with his tape recorder, which he carried everywhere with him. In the third grade, he became interested in music theory and also started cello lessons. He is an only child and loved to play piano, imitate TV actors, and perform magic tricks. His favorite composer was, and still is to this day, Chopin. His parents divorced when he was 13, which caused him to become reclusive and introverted. Although he had friends, he often preferred to be alone, listening to music, contemplating and daydreaming. At Tamkang Senior High School, he majored in piano and minored in cello. He showed talent for improvisation, became fond of pop music and began to write songs. Chou graduated from high school with inadequate grades for university, so he prepared for mandatory military service. However, a sports injury triggered by an unexplainable and severe back pain eventually led to the diagnosis of ankylosing spondylitis, a hereditary spine inflammation disease; as a result, he was exempted from conscription. Meanwhile, he found himself a job as a waiter. Without his knowing, his friend had entered both their names in a talent show called "Super New Talent King". Chou played the piano accompaniment for his friend, whose singing was described as "lousy". Although they did not win, the show's host Jacky Wu—an influential character in Taiwan's entertainment business—happened to glance at Chou's music score and was impressed with its complexity. Wu hired him as a contract composer and paired him with the novice lyricist Vincent Fang. Over the next two years he wrote songs for Mandarin pop artists, and also learned recording and sound mixing; his dedication was apparent as he even slept in the music studio. Wu's music studio was later sold to Alfa Music, and the new manager Yang Jun Rong asked him to release his own album. Chou already had an arsenal of songs he wrote for others but had been rejected, so among those he chose 10 for his debut CD "Jay" that was released in 2000. The album established his reputation as a musically gifted singer-songwriter whose style is a fusion of R&B, rap, classical music, and yet distinctly Chinese. His fame spread quickly in Chinese-speaking regions including countries throughout Southeast Asia. Since 2000, Chou has released one album per year, except the year 2009, each selling several million copies, and has been recognized with hundreds of awards. In 2003, he was the cover story of "Time" magazine (Asia version), acknowledging his influence on popular culture. He has held four world tours, "The One" (2002), "Incomparable" (2004), "Jay Chou The World Tours" (2007–2008) and "The Era" (2010–2011) performing in cities such as Taipei, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Beijing, Singapore, Las Vegas, Toronto and Vancouver. Unlike most singers, Chou has an enormous amount of creative control over his music. He is not only the songwriter but also the producer on all of his albums; since 2005 he is also the music director and also directs his own music videos. Music. Musical style. Chou's compositions are loosely categorized as pop music. While many of his works fall into contemporary R&B, rap, and rock genres, the term "Chou Style" () has been popularized to describe his trademark cross-cultural music and his insistence on singing with slurred enunciation. "Taipei Times" once described the meaning of "Chou Style": "In what has become the archetypal Chou style, Taiwan's favorite son blends pop, rap, blues and a smorgasbord of esthetic elements of world music to create his dream-like never-never land ..." He regularly fuses traditional Chinese instruments and styles with R&B or rock to form a new genre called "Zhongguo feng" (), which literally means "Chinese Style Music", some of which are written in the Pentatonic Scale as opposed to the more common seven-note scale (Diatonic Scale) to accentuate an oriental style. Besides his own culture, he also incorporated Spanish guitar in "Red Imitation" (), American techno/electronica in "Herbalist's Manual" (), rap with subtle classical music undertones in "Reverse Scales" (), Blues style in "Free Tutorial Video" () and Bossanova style in "Rosemary" (), to name a few. Sound effects from everyday life are frequently woven into his music, such as bouncing ping pong balls, touch tone phone dialing, helicopter blades, dripping rain, and radio static noise (Musique Concrète). His formal musical training is evident by the use of classical textures in his compositions. For example, counterpoint was used in "Perfection" () and "Sorry" (), while polyphony can be found in "The Wound That Ends War" () and "Twilight's Chapter Seven" (). Chou's albums have been noted for the lack of change compared to his earlier works, yet he firmly stated that he will not alter his style: "They say I've been standing still ... but this is the music I want, and I don't see what I want by moving ahead." To demonstrate his point, he named his 2006 album "Still Fantasy" after his 2001 album "Fantasy". His use of relaxed enunciation has been criticized as "mumbling" which he also insisted will not change; however, recently he has adopted clearer pronunciation for certain songs, particularly more traditional Chinese style songs, such as "Faraway" () which features Fei Yu-ching and "Chrysanthemum Terrace" (). Lyrics. Chou is more often a singer-composer than a lyricist. Several "regulars" write the lyrics for most of his music, but the content and style is unified with his own personality and image, covering a diverse range of topics and ideas. Vincent Fang accounts for more than half of the lyrics in his albums, helping to establish an important element in Chou's music: the use of meaningful, imagery- and emotionally rich lyrics, sometimes written in the form of ancient Chinese poetry with reference to Chinese history or folklore. In addition to writing romantic hits, he also touches on war, the Bible, sports, and martial arts. Vivian Hsu is a singer herself and has helped with Chou's earlier hits, while Huang Jun Lang () is noted for his work surrounding unusual themes (such as a detective story and chess game). Chou himself has written lyrics for many ballads, but has also discussed societal ills such as drug addiction in "Coward" () and loss of the rural countryside to urbanization in "Terrace fields" (). Domestic violence discussed in "Dad, I am back" () received a great deal of commotion since he was the first to bring up this taboo subject in Sanscript music, which helped solidify his status as a pioneer and a unique pop singer capable of approaching serious issues. In the songs "Maternal grandmother" () and "Listen to Mother" (), he voiced his high regard for family values. He addressed personal issues about his failure to enter university in "Split" (), his resentment towards the paparazzi in "Besieged From All Sides" (), "Rice Fragrance" (), a song from his 9th album Capricorn encourages people not to give up their dreams even when facing difficulties in life, the sadness of becoming a clown in "Uncle Joker"() and highlighted the importance of individuality in "Popular Imitation" (). Chinese cultural elements. Chou leads a new trend of music which combines western musical elements and Chinese literature terms. Because of this unique combination, he makes distinction between himself and other musicians by leading a "China Wind" in Asian music history. The success of his Western-Chinese musical combination is built on his marketing strategies and the musical elements involved in his works. In early 21st century, the People's Republic of China was in an economic transition model. The new generation was looking for a consumption pop culture which would reflect individual uniqueness in the social circumstance. The traditional Chinese cultural elements involved in Chou's music contribute to his status in Asian popular music culture. The blowing "China Wind" in his music leads a new trend of Chinese pop music which involves a vast amount of traditional Chinese components, rather than simply following Western music format. Chou's China Wind is highlighted in his lyrics and the use of traditional musical instruments in his music. Lyricist Vincent Fang has worked with Jay Chou since 2000. Fang's work is featured by addressing Chinese traditional elements, such as poetry and Confucianism. His representative work "Chrysanthemum Terrace" (Chinese:菊花台, pinyin: juhua tai), released in 2006, shows a vast amount of cultural elements. In this work, Fang puts images which indicate certain traditional ideas to build the an ancient monarchy setting. He uses chrysanthemum as a metaphor of love. In the line "Chrysanthemums broken, scattered across the floor, your smile has faded" (Chinese: 菊花残 满地烧 你的笑容已泛黄）). Chou also uses traditional musical instruments, combining traditional Chinese elements of music with Western pop. Collaborations. Chou began as a songwriter for other singers and continued this area of work even after he debuted his own career in singing. He has composed frequently for Jolin Tsai, Landy Wen, and occasionally for other Taiwanese singers such as Coco Lee, S.H.E, Vivian Hsu, Leehom Wang, Will Liu, Valen Hsu, and Hong Kong pop stars Edmond Leung, Gigi Leung, Jordan Chan, Edison Chen, Karen Mok, Leo Ku, Eason Chan, and Joey Yung, as well as a one-time collaboration with Howard Su. He has also written for singers outside of his generation—over one dozen songs for his mentor Jacky Wu, later also for Taiwanese singer Jody Chiang, and Hong Kong singers Jacky Cheung, Andy Lau, Aaron Kwok, and Kenny Bee. He initiated the band Nan Quan Mama in 2004, selecting band members and overseeing their album production. The group has been noted for sounding too similar to their mentor; as a result, Chou has reduced his involvement in the band, but continues to help increase their exposure to mass audiences by inviting them as guests performers for his own concerts and music videos. He has performed live duets with Landy Wen, Jolin Tsai, and former girlfriend news anchor Patty Hou, but only two studio recordings of duets have been formally placed in his own albums: "Coral Sea" () in 2005 with Lara Veronin (of Nan Quan Mama) and "Faraway" () in 2006 features Fei Yu-Ching, who began his career in the 1970s. Besides working with singers, Chou's longest-running collaboration is with lyricist Vincent Fang, as they both started their careers in the music field in 1998. The compilation album "Partners" () featured 12 songs, each consisting of Chou's musical and Fang's lyrical compositions. Fang has written the words to more than 40 of Chou's songs, was the chief editor of Chou's book "Grandeur de D Major" (), and is now Chou's business partner (together with Chou's manager JR Yang) for the record company JVR Music. Jay Chou was also featured in Cindy Yen's (袁詠琳) song "Sand Painting" (畫沙) released in October 2009. Jay Chou collaborated with Kobe Bryant on "The Heaven and Earth Challenge"(天地一鬥) in order to "promote youth creativity, as well as an upcoming slam-dunk competition in China." The song was released at a press conference before the NBA All-Star Game on 20 February 2011. World tours. Jay held his first series of five solo concerts, titled "Fantasy Concert" (范特西演唱會), with the first stop on 11 January 2001 at Taoyuan Arena, Taiwan. Followed by two shows at the Hong Kong Coliseum, one in Malaysia and ended in Singapore on 10 February 2002. His second concert tour, "The One Concert" (The One 演唱會) commenced on 28 September 2002 at Taipei Municipal Stadium, followed by 11 stops and ended at Shenzhen Stadium, China on 3 January 2004. Two more series of world tours followed: "Incomparable Concert" (無與倫比演唱會) in 2004 and "Jay Chou 2007 World Tours" (2007世界巡迴演唱會), with stops in cities such as Taipei, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Beijing, Kuala Lumpur, Singapore, Las Vegas, Toronto and Vancouver. In 2010, to celebrate Jay's 10 year career in the entertainment industry, he embarked on his fifth series of concert tour titled, "New Era World Tour" (超時代演唱會), with the first stop of three concerts from 11 to 13 June 2010 at Taipei Arena, followed by 24 stops ending in Malaysia on 5 March 2011. He will be kicking off his next round of World Tour, "Opus Jay World Tour" in 2013. So far, Singapore and Bei Jing concert have been confirmed. Noticeably, due to popular demand, a Thursday show will be added to the Singapore leg of his world tour. Other works. Movie career. Chou formally entered the film industry in 2005 with the release of the movie "Initial D" (頭文字Ｄ). He has since acted in three other movies, directed one film and more than a dozen music videos. Chou, who once said "I live because of music", ventured into movies because he felt the need for a new challenge. As fans have grown concerned that movies will compromise his music career, Chou has repeatedly reassured that movies are a source of inspiration and not a distraction; at the same time, he realizes the need to balance both careers and maintain his place in the music field to garner the continued support of fans. Acting. Entry into acting was an unexpected move for Chou. His high school English teacher thought he was capable of very few facial expressions, and the director of "Hidden Track" (2003, a movie in which Chou had a cameo role) said that his strong individualistic personality will not make him a good actor. In 2005, Chou's first role as the lead actor in "Initial D" served two purposes: to launch his acting debut, and to increase his exposure to Japanese audiences. This film is based on the Japanese comic "Initial D", where Chou played Takumi Fujiwara, a gifted touge racer who is quiet and rarely shows expression. Some reviewers criticized his bland acting while others felt he performed naturally, but only because the character's personality closely mirrored his own. His performance in "Initial D" won him Best Newcomer Actor in Golden Horse Awards and Hong Kong Film Awards. Chou's second film was "Curse of the Golden Flower" (2006). As a supporting character, he drew much of the attention of Chinese reporters; Chou's involvement in this movie was announced in its own press conference, separate from the meeting held for Chow Yun-fat, Gong Li, and the other actors. Chou portrayed Prince Jai, the ambitious second eldest prince and general of the Imperial army whose personality epitomizes Xiao (孝), the Chinese virtue of filial piety. In this internationally released film, North American audiences saw Chou for the first time. According to Chinese movie critics, comments about his acting ranged from "lacks complexity" to "acceptable," but was critically praised by Western reviewers. His performance in "Curse of the Golden Flower" was nominated Best Supporting Actor in the Hong Kong Film Awards. In the 2008 film "Kung Fu Dunk", Chou portrayed a kung fu student and dunking prodigy, and the film earned over ¥100 million (US$14.7 million). Chou portrayed Kato in "The Green Hornet", directed by Michel Gondry and released in January 2011, after Hong Kong actor Stephen Chow withdrew from the project; the film grossed over $228 million worldwide. MTV Networks' NextMovie.com named him one of the 'Breakout Stars to Watch for in 2011'. In May 2011, Chou started filming for a new movie, "The Viral Factor" directed by Dante Lam and starred various well known artistes such as Nicholas Tse. The movie was released in theatres over Asia on 17 January 2012. With most of the scenes shot in the Middle Eastern and Southeast Asian countries, earlier filming process has been slightly disrupted due to political conflicts in the Middle East. In 2012, Jay Chou announced that he has started the filming process to the sequel of his directorial debut "不能说的秘密" (Secret/A Secret That Cannot Be Told), collaborating with his lifelong friend, 刘畊宏/Will Liu. It has been tentatively being named as "不能说的秘密2" (Secret 2/A Secret That Cannot Be Told 2) and is expected to be released in 2013. Directing. Chou acquired his first directing experience in 2004 through music videos. He initially experimented with a song by the group Nan Quan Mama titled "Home" () where he was involved throughout the entire process from research to editing. After learning the difficulties of being a director, he refused to direct again even at the request of his record company. However, his interest resurfaced again as he directed music videos for 4 of the 12 songs in own album "November's Chopin" in 2005, and later television advertisements. By 2006, he had taken responsibility for the storyboard, directing, and editing of music videos for all his songs. It is unclear how the public appraises his work, since music videos are rarely the subject of critical review; however, director Zhang Yimou said that Chou's directing abilities may surpass his own in the future, after viewing several of Chou's music videos. In February 2007, Chou finally directed his first movie "Secret". The story he wrote is based loosely on his relationship with a high school girlfriend, with a plot focused on music, love, and family. He stars as the lead actor of the film with Gwei Lun-Mei as the female lead, and Hong Kong veteran actor Anthony Wong as Chou's father. Despite previous experience in filming music videos, Chou admits that movies are more challenging due to storyline and time constraints. This movie was released in July 2007. In 2005, Jay Chou played the male lead in "Initial D", and according to reports, he will be back to direct the sequel, while Andrew Lau, who was a co-director of the first Initial D, will take on the role of the producer. Book: "Grandeur de D Major". Chou published his first book titled "Grandeur de D Major" () on 25 November 2004. This 200-page book features a prologue written by his family, friends, and co-workers; the main section is a compilation of his personal attitudes, philosophies, and recollections of childhood experiences along with pictures from his music videos, many of which have never been released; and lastly, a list of the artist's major awards, musical and lyrical compositions, and discography. For the usually low-profile singer, this book revealed his personality and convictions that has served as the basis of his musical and public image. He demonstrated a strong appreciation of family values with an especially deep connection with his mother and maternal grandmother. His confidence and dedication towards music is evident as he dedicated 2 out of 7 chapters to music: the current state of the industry, his composition methodology, and the importance of individualism to his success in music. This pride is contrasted against his modesty and self-assessed naïveté about many aspects in life, particularly regarding relationships and marriage. Endorsements. Chou has been a spokesperson for popular brands such as Pepsi (2002–2007), Panasonic (2001–2005), Motorola (since 2006), M-Zone/China Mobile (since 2003), Levi's (2004–2005), Deerhui (sporting goods, since 2003), Metersbonwe Group (casual wear, since 2003), Colgate (2004–2005), popular computer game "" (2002), and science and nature magazine "National Geographic" (2005). To maximize the celebrity branding effect, advertisements are nearly always linked to his music and TV commercials are occasionally directed by him. He acted as the tourism ambassador for Malaysia in 2003. In April 2008, Jay signed with Sprite and collaborated with artistes such as Angela Chang and JJ Lin in commercials. He also did a Sprite commercial with Kobe Bryant and specially wrote a song named "天地一斗 (Battle of the Incomparable)" featuring Kobe Bryant for the commercial. In June 2011, Jay expanded his area of endorsement into the field of technology, becoming the designer and spokesperson of the "N43SL Jay Chou Edition" laptop of ASUS Computers. The laptop is most notable for its lid design, sound system, start-up and shut-down tones, and a unique 'J' font for its key. All of which, except for the sound system, are designed and composed by Jay himself. Accolades. From the launch of his music career in 2000, singer-songwriter, and producer awards in Asia. The highly coveted Golden Melody Awards in Taiwan awarded "Best Album" for his debut CD "Jay" (2000) in 2001, and five awards (including "Best Album", "Best Composer", and "Best Producer") in the following year for the album "Fantasy" (2001). However, failure to win "Best Album" for three consecutive years has left him disheartened with award ceremonies. Although he continues to win more than 20 awards per year from various organizations in Asia, Chou has stated he will rely more on album sales as an indicator of his music's quality and popularity. In 2004, 2006, 2007 and 2008, he was awarded Best-Selling Artist in Taiwan by World Music Awards for the albums "Common Jasmin Orange", "Still Fantasy" and "On the Run. Media and public relations. Public image. Despite living under continual media scrutiny, Chou's public image has changed little over the years as he emphasizes individuality as his "personal philosophy". In his music, this is also evident as he fuses Chinese and Western styles and explores topics unconventional for a pop singer, which have been described as "authentic" and "revolutionary". The media describes a hard-working perfectionist with clear self-direction who is occasionally regarded as competitive and a "control freak". There is a misunderstanding about his nickname "Chairman Chou" (), used by both the press and fans to underscore his domineering personality and impact on Asian music, but also points at his musical talent. Yet the origin of this nickname emerges from his fever of collecting antiques as the word "董" comes from "antique" in Chinese (古董). Outside of music, Chou is reported as shy, quiet, modest, and views filial piety as ""the most important thing"". In-line with his aim to present a positive image, he is a non-smoker, non-drinker, and does not go to nightclubs. Government officials and educators in Asia have awarded him for his exemplary behaviour, designated him a spokesperson in the youth-empowerment project "Young Voice" in 2005 and an anti-depression campaign in 2007, His lyrics for two songs has been incorporated into the school syllabus to inspire motivational and filial attitudes. In November 2007, Chou was criticized for attending the funeral of Taiwanese gang leader Chen Chi-li to console Chen's son Baron Chen, whom Chou met while filming "Kung Fu Dunk". In 2011 Chou performed on the New Year's Gala program on China's Central Television. Response to the news media and paparazzi. As with other stars, Chou has expressed a strong dislike of the paparazzi. In the early years of his career, unwanted attention by the media was usually dealt with by avoidance. In-line with his quiet nature, he frequently wore baseball caps and hoods while lowering his head and evading eye contact during interviews. In recent years however, he has been less passive about the invasion of his privacy. To discourage the paparazzi from taking unsolicited pictures, Chou is known to photograph the paparazzi that follow him. He openly calls the paparazzi "dogs" and tabloids "dog magazines", as shown in his lyrics for "Besieged From All Sides" (). The media have also accused Chou of evading compulsory military service by feigning to suffer from ankylosing spondylitis. Later that year he was acquitted after providing the relevant medical records and letters from the army confirming a lawful exemption from draft dated before the start of his music career. Despite constant harassment and stalking by the media, he does acknowledge that not all media attention is unwelcome. Coverage by international journals and news agencies such as "Time", "The Guardian", and Reuters help ascertain his influence on mainstream culture. An editorial written by Kerry Brown of Chatham House named Chou as one of the 50 most influential figures in China, one of only three singers on a list dominated by politicians and corporate owners. At the end of 2009, he was included on JWT's annual list of 100 Things to Watch in 2010. Fanbase. It is difficult to estimate the size and global spread of Chou's fanbase. Jay's fanbase originated from Taiwan and grew extensively to other mandarin-speaking regions. The Chinese-speaking populations of China, Hong Kong, Macau, Singapore, and Malaysia make up a significant percentage of Chou's fans. Despite rampant piracy issues in this region of Asia, particularly in China, every album Chou has released so far has surpassed 2 million sales. According to Baidu, the most popular internet search engine in China, Chou is the number one searched male artist in 2002, 05, 06 and 07. Currently, Chou remains largely unknown outside of Asia, except in cities with large Chinese speaking immigrant populations such as Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco, Seattle, Vancouver, Toronto, Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide and Brisbane. He has held concerts in major venues such as the Acer Arena (Sydney – 3 July 2009), HP Pavilion at San Jose (San Jose – 31 December 2010), Los Angeles Memorial Sports Arena (Los Angeles – 8 January 2011), MGM Grand (Las Vegas—25 December 2002), Rogers Arena (Vancouver – 23 December 2010), Shrine Auditorium (Los Angeles—18 December 2004), Galen Center (Los Angeles—24 December 2007) and the Air Canada Centre (Toronto – 18 December 2008). His intention to increase his prominence in the Western world beyond Chinese audiences is clear. In 2006, Chou composed and sang the theme song for "Fearless", a movie released in major theatres in most English-speaking countries, though the impact to his fame has been minimal. His role in "Curse of the Golden Flower" (limited release) marks his acting debut in North America. Despite having a supporting but important role in the story's plot, the North American version of the official posters only featured a view of his back, greatly contrasting the Asian versions where his face and name were clear and placed between the leading actor and actress. Although Chou is still far from being well known to English audiences, this movie has brought him international exposure. Chou gained further exposure to western audiences in his starring role as crimefighter Kato in January 2011's "The Green Hornet". Chou has won the Favorite Male Artist of the 20th Golden Melody Awards in Taiwan. He did not attend the event to collect the award because he was on tour in China at the time.
1422361	Gilbert R. "Gil" Hill (born November 5, 1931) is a former President of the Detroit City Council. He was also a Detroit police officer and part-time actor, gaining recognition in the "Beverly Hills Cop" movie franchise. Born in Birmingham, Alabama, Hill is a former police detective in the City of Detroit. He also appeared in the "Beverly Hills Cop" films, playing the role of Inspector Todd, the boss of Eddie Murphy's character Axel Foley. Hill was elected to the Detroit City Council in 1989, eventually becoming president of the council. He ran unsuccessfully for Mayor of Detroit against Kwame Kilpatrick in the 2001 election. He was initially considered to be the leading candidate, and had support from many people connected with incumbent mayor Dennis Archer. Quotes. "The only difference between Inspector Todd and my real life is that I don't curse as much in real life..." [http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0384280/bio]
589463	Jeevan Mrityu is a 1970 Hindi crime thriller film produced by Tarachand Barjatya for Rajshri Productions. The film starred Dharmendra, Raakhee, Ajit, Rajindernath and Leela Chitnis. The film was a remake of a Bengali film with the same name starring Uttam Kumar and Supriya Devi in lead roles. The film's music was composed by Laxmikant Pyarelal while Anand Bakshi penned the lyrics. The film is considered one of Dharmendra's best works, although it was a relatively low profile movie of his. This film showcased Dharmendra's versatility as an actor. The film went on to become a big hit on box office including the song "Jhilmil sitaron ka aangan hoga". The film was Raakhee's debut in Hindi movies. Plot Summary. Ashok Tandon (Dharmendra) is a bank manager, and is in love with Deepa (Raakhee), and both are to be married soon. However, Ashok is arrested for theft from the bank. He asks Deepa to look after his mom (Leela Chitnis), which she agrees to do. He is sentenced to prison for several years. After his release he finds out that his mother has died; Deepa is married and has re-located; and he was framed by his colleagues at the bank. Devastated but still honest, he is befriended by Raja Ranbir Singh, who gives him a job, as well a new identity. Ashok now becomes Bikram Singh, and he must seek out Deepa, and his shrewd and calculating colleagues at the bank to extract vengeance. Songs. This movie has one of the best songs filmed on Dharmendra, Jhilmil Sitaron ka Aangan hoga.
582563	Parallel Cinema is a film movement which opposes to mainstream cinema. Inspired by the Soviet Parallel Cinema, it culminates with the French New Wave. The "Indian New Wave", commonly known in India as "Art Cinema" or "Parallel Cinema" as an alternative to the mainstream commercial cinema, is a specific movement in Indian cinema, known for its serious content, realism and naturalism, with a keen eye on the sociopolitical climate of the times. This movement is distinct from mainstream Bollywood cinema and began around the same time as the French New Wave and Japanese New Wave. The movement was initially led by Bengali cinema (which has produced internationally acclaimed filmmakers such as Satyajit Ray, Mrinal Sen, Ritwik Ghatak, Tapan Sinha and others) and then gained prominence in the other film industries of India. History. Origins. Realism in Indian cinema dates back to the 1920s and 1930s. One of the earliest examples was V. Shantaram's 1925 silent film classic "Sawkari Pash" ("Indian Shylock"), about a poor peasant (portrayed by Shantaram) who "loses his land to a greedy moneylender and is forced to migrate to the city to become a mill worker. Acclaimed as a realistic breakthrough, its shot of a howling dog near a hut, has become a milestone in the march of Indian cinema." The 1937 Shantaram film "Duniya Na Mane" ("The Unaccepted") also critiqued the treatment of women in Indian society. Early years. The Parallel Cinema movement began to take shape from the late 1940s to the 1960s, by pioneers such as Satyajit Ray, Ritwik Ghatak, Bimal Roy, Mrinal Sen, Tapan Sinha, Khwaja Ahmad Abbas, Chetan Anand, Guru Dutt and V. Shantaram. This period is considered part of the 'Golden Age' of Indian cinema. This cinema borrowed heavily from the Indian literature of the times, hence became an important study of the contemporary Indian society, and is now used by scholars and historians alike to map the changing demographics and socio-economic as well as political temperament of the Indian populace. Right from its inception, Indian cinema has had people who wanted to and did use the medium for more than entertainment. They used it to highlight prevalent issues and sometimes to throw open new issues for the public. An early example was Chetan Anand's "Neecha Nagar" (1946), a social realist film that won the Grand Prize at the first Cannes Film Festival. Since then, Indian independent films were frequently in competition for the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival throughout the 1950s and early 1960s, with some of them winning major prizes at the festival. During the 1950s and the 1960s, intellectual filmmakers and story writers became frustrated with musical films. To counter this, they created a genre of films which depicted reality from an artful perspective. Most films made during this period were funded by state governments to promote an authentic art genre from the Indian film fraternity. The most famous Indian "neo-realist" was the Bengali film director Satyajit Ray, followed by Shyam Benegal, Mrinal Sen, Adoor Gopalakrishnan, G. Aravindan and Girish Kasaravalli. Ray's most famous films were "Pather Panchali" (1955), "Aparajito" (1956) and "The World of Apu" (1959), which formed "The Apu Trilogy". Produced on a shoestring budget of Rs. 150,000 ($3000), the three films won major prizes at the Cannes, Berlin and Venice Film Festivals, and are today frequently listed among the greatest films of all time. Certain art films have also garnered commercial success, in an industry known for its surrealism or 'fantastical' movies, and successfully combined features of both art and commercial cinema. An early example of this was Bimal Roy's "Do Bigha Zamin" (1953), which was both a commercial and critical success. The film won the International Prize at the 1954 Cannes Film Festival and paved the way for the Indian New Wave. Hrishikesh Mukherjee, one of Hindi cinema's most successful filmmakers, was named the pioneer of 'middle cinema', and was renowned for making films that reflected the changing middle-class ethos. According to Encyclopædia Britannica, Mukherjee "carved a middle path between the extravagance of mainstream cinema and the stark realism of art cinema". Renowned Filmmaker Basu Chatterjee also built his plots on middle-class lives and directed films like Piya Ka Ghar, Rajnigandha and Ek Ruka Hua Faisla. Another filmmaker to integrate art and commercial cinema was Guru Dutt, whose film "Pyaasa" (1957) featured in Time magazine's "All-TIME" 100 best movies list. In the 1960s, the Indian government began financing independent art films based on Indian themes. Many of the directors were graduates of the Film and Television Institute of India (FTII), in Pune. The Bengali film director Ritwik Ghatak was a professor at the institute and a well-known director. Unlike Ray, however, Ghatak did not gain international fame during his lifetime. For example, Ghatak's "Nagarik" (1952) was perhaps the earliest example of a Bengali art film, preceding Ray's "Pather Panchali" by three years, but was not released until after his death in 1977. His first commercial release "Ajantrik" (1958) was also one of the earliest films to portray an inanimate object, in this case an automobile, as a character in the story, many years before the Herbie films. The protagonist of "Ajantrik", Bimal, can also be seen as an influence on the cynical cab driver Narasingh (played by Soumitra Chatterjee) in Satyajit Ray's "Abhijan" (1962). Growth. During the 1970s and the 1980s, parallel cinema entered into the limelight of Hindi cinema to a much wider extent. This was led by such directors as Gulzar, Shyam Benegal, Mani Kaul, Rajinder Singh Bedi, Kantilal Rathod and Saeed Akhtar Mirza, and later on Mahesh Bhatt and Govind Nihalani, becoming the main directors of this period's Indian art cinema. Benegal's directorial debut, "Ankur" (Seeding, 1974) was a major critical success, and was followed by numerous works that created another field in the movement. These filmmakers tried to promote realism in their own different styles, though many of them often accepted certain conventions of popular cinema. Parallel cinema of this time gave careers to a whole new breed of young actors, including Shabana Azmi, Smita Patil, Amol Palekar, Om Puri, Naseeruddin Shah, Kulbhushan Kharbanda, Pankaj Kapoor, Deepti Naval, Farooq Shaikh, and even actors from commercial cinema like Rekha and Hema Malini ventured into art cinema. Adoor Gopalakrishnan extended the Indian New Wave to Malayalam cinema with his film "Swayamvaram" in 1972. Long after the Golden Age of Indian cinema, Malayalam cinema experienced its own 'Golden Age' in the 1980s and early 1990s. Some of the most acclaimed Indian filmmakers at the time were from the Malayalam industry, including Adoor Gopalakrishnan, G. Aravindan, John Abraham, Padmarajan, Bharathan, T. V. Chandran and Shaji N. Karun. Gopalakrishnan, who is often considered to be Satyajit Ray's spiritual heir, directed some of his most acclaimed films during this period, including "Elippathayam" (1981) which won the Sutherland Trophy at the London Film Festival, as well as "Mathilukal" (1989) which won major prizes at the Venice Film Festival. Shaji N. Karun's debut film "Piravi" (1989) won the Camera d'Or at the 1989 Cannes Film Festival, while his second film "Swaham" (1994) was in competition for the Palme d'Or at the 1994 Cannes Film Festival. His third film "Vanaprastham" (1999) was also selected to Cannes Film Festival, making him the only Indian film maker who could take consecutively three films to Cannes. During the domination of commercial cinema in Telugu, Pattabhirami Reddy, K. N. T. Sastry, B. Narsing Rao, and Akkineni Kutumba Rao pioneered Telugu Parallel cinema to international recognition. Girish Kasaravalli, Girish Karnad and B. V. Karanth led the way for parallel cinema in the Kannada film industry, Dr. Bhabendra Nath Saikia and Jahnu Barua did it for Assamese Cinema, while K. Balachander, P. Bharathiraja, Balu Mahendra, Mani Ratnam and Bala have done the same for Tamil cinema and Aribam Syam Sharma pioneered Parallel Movies in Manipuri Cinema. Decline. By the early 1990s, the rising costs involved in film production and the commercialisation of the films had a negative impact on the art films. The fact that investment returns cannot be guaranteed made art films less popular amongst filmmakers. Underworld financing, political and economic turmoil, television and piracy proved to be fatal threat to parallel cinema, as it declined. Other major reasons for decline. One of the major reasons for the decline of the parallel cinema in India is that the F.F.C. or the National Film Development Corporation of India did not seriously look into the distribution or exhibition of these films. The mainstream exhibition system did not pick up these films because these films did not have the so-called 'entertainment value' that they were looking for. There was a talk of building small theatres for such film, but there was no serious attempt made to realise this alternative mode of exhibition. Thus, it left to a few Film Societies to screen these film; that too on a single screening basis. The advent of television and its popularity saw the film society movement decline. Gradually, the government reduced the patronage of such films, for they had only unseen films to be shown on their balance sheets. Resurgence. The term "parallel cinema" has started being applied to off-beat films produced in Bollywood, where art films have begun experiencing a resurgence. This led to the emergence of a distinct genre known as "Mumbai noir", urban films reflecting social problems in the city of Mumbai. The introduction of Mumbai noir was marked by Ram Gopal Varma's "Satya" (1998), widely considered to be the best Hindi crime film ever produced. Other modern examples of art films produced in Bollywood which are classified as part of the parallel cinema genre include Mani Ratnam's "Yuva" (2004), Nagesh Kukunoor's "3 Deewarein" (2003), Manish Jha's "Matrubhoomi" (2004) and "Dor" (2006), Sudhir Mishra's "Hazaaron Khwaishein Aisi" (2005), Jahnu Barua's "Maine Gandhi Ko Nahin Mara" (2005), Pan Nalin's "Valley of Flowers" (2006), Onir's "My Brother… Nikhil" (2005) and "Bas Ek Pal" (2006), Anurag Kashyap's "Black Friday "(2007), Vikramaditya Motwane's "Udaan" (2009), Kiran Rao's "Dhobi Ghat" (2010), Amit Dutta's "Sonchidi "(2011), and the latest sensation Anand Gandhi's "Ship of Theseus "(2013). Independent films spoken in Indian English are also occasionally produced; examples include Revathi's "Mitr, My Friend" (2002), Aparna Sen's "Mr. and Mrs. Iyer" (2002) and "15 Park Avenue" (2006), Homi Adajania's "Being Cyrus" (2006), Rituparno Ghosh's "The Last Lear" (2007), and Sooni Taraporevala's "Little Zizou" (2009). Other Indian art film directors active today include Mrinal Sen, Buddhadeb Dasgupta, Aparna Sen, Gautam Ghose, Sandip Ray (Satyajit Ray's son) and Rituparno Ghosh in Bengali cinema; Adoor Gopalakrishnan, Shaji N. Karun, T. V. Chandran and Dr. Biju in Malayalam cinema; Kumar Shahani, Ketan Mehta, Govind Nihalani, Shyam Benegal, Amit Dutta, Manish Jha, Ashim Ahluwalia, Anand Gandhi, and Deepa Mehta in Hindi Cinema; Mani Ratnam in Tamil, Rajnesh Domalpalli and Narasimha Nandi in Telugu cinema, Jahnu Barua in Hindi cinema and Assamese Cinema, Amol Palekar and Umesh Vinayak Kulkarni in Marathi Cinema and Bala in Tamil cinema. Global discourse. During the formative period of Indian parallel cinema in the 1940s and 1950s, the movement was influenced by Italian cinema and French cinema, particularly by Italian neorealism as well as French poetic realism. Satyajit Ray particularly cited Italian filmmaker Vittorio De Sica's "Bicycle Thieves" (1948) and French filmmaker Jean Renoir's "The River" (1951), which he assisted, as influences on his debut film "Pather Panchali" (1955), alongside influences from Bengali literature and classical Indian theatre. Bimal Roy's "Do Bigha Zamin" (1953) was also influenced by De Sica's "Bicycle Thieves". The Indian New Wave also began around the same time as the French New Wave and the Japanese New Wave. Ever since Chetan Anand's "Neecha Nagar" won the Grand Prize at the inaugural Cannes Film Festival in 1946, Indian parallel cinema films frequently appeared in international fora and film festivals for the next several decades. This allowed Indian independent filmmakers to reach a global audience. The most influential among them was Satyajit Ray, whose films became successful among European, American and Asian audiences. His work subsequently had a worldwide impact, with filmmakers such as Martin Scorsese, James Ivory, Abbas Kiarostami, Elia Kazan, François Truffaut, Carlos Saura, Isao Takahata and Wes Anderson being influenced by his cinematic style, and many others such as Akira Kurosawa praising his work. The "youthful coming-of-age dramas that have flooded art houses since the mid-fifties owe a tremendous debt to the Apu trilogy" (1955–1959). Ray's film "Kanchenjungha" (1962) introduced a narrative structure that resembles later hyperlink cinema. Ray's 1967 script for a film to be called "The Alien", which was eventually cancelled, is widely believed to have been the inspiration for Steven Spielberg's "E.T." (1982). Ira Sachs' "Forty Shades of Blue" (2005) was a loose remake of "Charulata", and in Gregory Nava's "My Family" (1995), the final scene is duplicated from the final scene of "The World of Apu" (1959). Similar references to Ray films are found in recent works such as "Sacred Evil" (2006), the "Elements trilogy" of Deepa Mehta, and in films of Jean-Luc Godard. Another prominent filmmaker is Mrinal Sen, whose films have been well known for their Marxist views. During his career, Mrinal Sen’s film have received awards from almost all major film festivals, including Cannes, Berlin, Venice, Moscow, Karlovy Vary, Montreal, Chicago, and Cairo. Retrospectives of his films have been shown in almost all major cities of the world. Another Bengali independent filmmaker, Ritwik Ghatak, began reaching a global audience long after his death; beginning in the 1990s, a project to restore Ghatak's films was undertaken, and international exhibitions (and subsequent DVD releases) have belatedly generated an increasingly global audience. Alongside Ray's films, Ghatak's films have also appeared in several all-time greatest film polls. A number of Satyajit Ray films appeared in the "Sight & Sound" Critics' Poll, including "The Apu Trilogy" (ranked No. 4 in 1992 if votes are combined), "The Music Room" (ranked No. 27 in 1992), "Charulata" (ranked No. 41 in 1992) and "Days and Nights in the Forest" (ranked No. 81 in 1982). The 2002 "Sight & Sound" critics' and directors' poll also included the Guru Dutt films "Pyaasa" and "Kaagaz Ke Phool" (both tied at #160), and the Ritwik Ghatak films "Meghe Dhaka Tara" (ranked #231) and "Komal Gandhar" (ranked #346). In 1998, the critics' poll conducted by the Asian film magazine "Cinemaya" included "The Apu Trilogy" (ranked No. 1 if votes are combined), Ray's "Charulata" and "The Music Room" (both tied at #11), and Ghatak's "Subarnarekha" (also tied at #11). In 1999, "The Village Voice" top 250 "Best Film of the Century" critics' poll also included "The Apu Trilogy" (ranked No. 5 if votes are combined). "The Apu Trilogy", "Pyaasa" and Mani Ratnam's "Nayagan" were also included in Time magazine's "All-TIME" 100 best movies list in 2005. In 1992, the "Sight & Sound" Critics' Poll ranked Ray at No. 7 in its list of "Top 10 Directors" of all time, while Dutt was ranked No. 73 in the 2002 "Sight & Sound" greatest directors poll. The cinematographer Subrata Mitra, who made his debut with Ray's "The Apu Trilogy", also had an importance influence on cinematography across the world. One of his most important techniques was bounce lighting, to recreate the effect of daylight on sets. He pioneered the technique while filming "Aparajito" (1956), the second part of "The Apu Trilogy". Some of the experimental techniques which Satyajit Ray pioneered include photo-negative flashbacks and X-ray digressions while filming "Pratidwandi" (1972).
1163118	Henry Watterson Hull (October 3, 1890 – March 8, 1977) was an American character actor with a unique voice, best remembered for playing the lead in Universal Pictures's "Werewolf of London" (1935). Life and career. Hull was born in Louisville, Kentucky, the son of William Madison Hull and Elinor Bond Vaughn. Early in his career, Hull appeared frequently on Broadway; he created the role of Jeeter Lester in the long-running play "Tobacco Road" (1933), based on the novel by Erskine Caldwell. Hull appeared in 74 films between 1917 and 1966, often playing supporting characters like the uncle of Tyrone Power's love interest Nancy Kelly in "Jesse James" (1939). He appeared as Charles Rittenhouse, a wealthy industrialist in Alfred Hitchcock's "Lifeboat" (1944). Two other notable roles were as Abel Magwitch in the 1934 version of "Great Expectations" and in the last film of veteran director Tod Browning, "Miracles for Sale" (1939). He also appeared in the "Werewolf of London" in 1935. In 1955, Hull appeared as a college professor forced to retire at sixty-five in an episode of CBS's sitcom, "Meet Mr. McNutley", later renamed "The Ray Milland Show". He guest starred on CBS's "Appointment with Adventure", John Payne's NBC western series, "The Restless Gun", and the syndicated crime drama, "U.S. Marshal".
1055143	The Last Remake of Beau Geste is a 1977 American historical comedy film. It starred and was also directed and co-written by Marty Feldman. It is a satire loosely based on the novel "Beau Geste", a frequently-filmed story of brothers and their adventures in the French Foreign Legion. The humor is based heavily upon wordplay and absurdity. Feldman plays Digby Geste, the awkward and clumsy "identical twin" brother of Michael York's Beau, the dignified, aristocratic swashbuckler. Plot. Spoofing the classic Beau Geste and a number of other desert motion pictures, the film's plotline revolves around the heroic Beau Geste and his brother Digby's misadventures in the French Foreign legion out in the Sahara, and the disappearance of the family sapphire, sought after by their money-hungry stepmother. Cast and locations. The cast features Ann-Margret as the brothers' adoptive mother, Peter Ustinov as the brutal Sergeant Markov and Sinéad Cusack as sister Isabel Geste, with Spike Milligan (Crumble the Butler), Burt Kwouk (Father Shapiro), James Earl Jones (Arab Chief), Avery Schreiber (Arab Chieftain / Used Camel Salesman), Terry-Thomas (Warden), Trevor Howard (Sir Hector), Henry Gibson (General Pecheur), Roy Kinnear (Corporal Boldini) and Ed McMahon (Arab Horseman) in supporting roles. The film was shot on location in Madrid and in Ireland at Ardmore Studios in Bray and on location at Kilmainham Gaol in Dublin and Adare Manor near Limerick. Reception. The film received mixed reviews, with a 33% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, and a 5.8 on The Internet Movie Database. Release. Marty Feldman was disappointed with the print distributed in theaters because the studio edited its own version. Attempts have been made to have the director's cut restored, but so far these have proved fruitless. According to Michael York, "Marty's version was much funnier." The film was released in America on DVD on January 11, 2010 as part of the Universal Vault Series of DVD-on-Demand titles, sold on Amazon.com, in the UK, the film was released through Second Sight Films on January 24, 2011.
584157	Chikku Bhukku () is a 2010 Tamil romance film written and directed by Manikandan, starring Arya, Shriya Saran and debutante Preetika in the lead roles, with Santhanam and Anoop Kumar in supporting roles. The film was released on 3 December 2010. Plot. Arjun (Arya), a London-based disc jockey, leads a happy life. Also there is Anu (Shriya Saran), who completes her MBA in a London university. One day, Arjun is forced to come to his native village in Karaikudi to ensure that his ancestral property is not sold. Also Anu too is forced to come to Madurai to meet her father who is injured in an accident. The two strangers meet in a train. There begins their journey towards their respective destinations. Meanwhile, a diary of Arjun's father pops out from his bag. He browses through it to understand his dad's love life. In flashback, the movie goes back to 1985. It is revealed that Sekar (Arya) returns to his village after getting selected as a Police. He falls in love with Meena (Preetika). But when their romance is revealed, Sekar's family resists the relationship due to class differences. A dejected Sekar leaves to begin training as a police officer. There he becomes acquainted with Ammaiappan (Anoop), a young colleague. He comes to know that Ammayappan is in love with his uncle's daughter. A sequence of events reveals that both men love the same girl Meena. Returning to the film's contemporary setting, we find that Arjun and Anu after crossing several hurdles in their journey reach their respective houses. They then realise that they have fallen for each other. Meanwhile the film employs a Deus Ex Machina, in the form of Anu’s father, to ensure all story arcs are resolved. When Anu's father Ammaiappan realiases that Anu is in love with Sekar's son he immediately approves of their relationship. It is implied that Anu and Arjun are then to stay together.However it is unknown whether Meena is Anu's mother or not. Production. Development. Following the success of Mediaone's previous venture, "Dhaam Dhoom", the production house opted to invest in another Tamil language production. They associated their interest with director Manikandan, who had worked in completing "Dhaam Dhoom" after the original director Jeeva had suffered a heart attack and died during the shooting in 2007. Manikandan along with Aneez Jeeva, the late director's wife, completed the film under the production of Metro Films. "Chikku Bukku" was announced to the general public on February 10, 2009. Casting. With the initial announcement, the cast was revealed. Arya, who had enjoyed critical and commercial success with his role of an aghori in "Naan Kadavul", was signed up for his second successive love story after completing his shoot for "Sarvam". Vidya Balan was earlier being considered to play the main female lead in the film but she was unavailable due to earlier commitments. hence Preetika, the younger sister of Hindi actress Amrita Rao, was chosen in her place. Preetika who has been a model and a journalist-columnist will make her film industry debut in Chikku Bhukku. Toutued to be a triangular love subject, Genelia D'Souza was considered for a third lead role in the film as well, however, a week after the announcement of the film, it was revealed that Shriya Saran had replaced Genelia in the film, due to the latter's insistence for a relatively high salary. Manikandan was announced as the director of the film, continuing his collaboration with Mediaone, following their work in "Dhaam Dhoom". R. B. Gurudhev was selected as cinematographer, while Hariharan and Leslie Lewis operated as the music directors for their second film, following "Modhi Vilayadu". Filming. Filming bagan in February 2009, with a 22-day schedule in Karaikudi being completed immediately after with Arya and Preetika. Shriya Saran began her shoot in April 2009. Other filming sites included the South Indian hill resort Ooty, London, and Tiruchirapalli International Airport. Release. "Chikku Bukku" sold 2 million tickets worldwide. On November 16, 2010, the film was granted a U certificate by the Central Board of Film Certification. The release date was confirmed as 3 December 2010, following several postponements. It was released in 300 theatres worldwide. The film gained average reviews from critics, with a reviewer from Rediff stating "Chikku Bukku could have been a neat romantic tale, but the journey breaks down too much to ever hold your attention for long", concluding it as "tedious". Behindwoods offered a similar review, though stated "On the dot, if there is one perfect reason to get you intact with the show, the brilliant visuals stand out as a substantial ingredient." The Hindu stated "Chikku Bukku is a neat film that moves on parallel tracks, before the lines meet and culminate in a joyous climax. And though guessable, the narration sustains your interest. A feel-good romance!"
939999	Wallace Vincent "Wally" Boag (September 13, 1920 – June 3, 2011) was an American performer known for his starring role in Disney's long-running stage show the "Golden Horseshoe Revue". Biography. Boag was born in Portland, Oregon, in 1920 to Wallace B. and Evelyn G. Boag. He joined a professional dance team at age nine, later established his own dance school, and by the age of 19 had turned to comedy. He toured the world's stages in hotels, theaters and nightclubs. While appearing at the London Hippodrome in "Starlight Roof", he brought a young 12-year-old girl on stage to help with his balloon act. The girl, a young Julie Andrews, astonished the audience with her voice and was kept in the show. In 1945, Boag signed a contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and appeared in films such as "Without Love" and "Thrill of a Romance", in uncredited roles. In the early 1950s, while appearing in revues in Australia, he met tenor Donald Novis. It was Novis who got Walt Disney to audition Boag for the "Golden Horseshoe Revue", a 45-minute stage show which was written by its first pianist Charles LaVere and lyricist Tom Adair. Novis was the show's first tenor and was replaced by Fulton Burley when he retired in 1962. Both Boag and The "Golden Horseshoe Revue" were cited in "The Guinness Book of World Records" for having the greatest number of performances of any theatrical presentation. The show was often incorrectly introduced before a performance as the record holder of the longest running revue in the history of show business. The 10,000th performance of the Golden Horseshoe Revue was featured on NBC's "The Wonderful World of Disney". Boag's Pecos Bill/Traveling Salesman character was a fast-paced comedy routine featuring slapstick humor, squirt guns, a seemingly endless supply of broken teeth which he would spit out throughout the routine, and his signature balloon animals (Boagaloons). In 1963, Julie Andrews once again performed with Boag on the Golden Horseshoe stage along with the Dapper Dans, at a special press-only event to promote the following year's release of "Mary Poppins". Together, Andrews and Boag recreated their act of long ago and sang "By the Light of the Silvery Moon." While Walt Disney was alive, he did everything he could to further Boag's career. Boag voiced Jose in "Walt Disney's Enchanted Tiki Room" and also wrote much of the script for the attraction, participating also in the development of "Haunted Mansion" in Disneyland. Disney had small roles written for Boag in "The Absent-Minded Professor" and "Son of Flubber". It was Disney's intention to use Boag as the voice of Tigger in "Winnie the Pooh". While at a story meeting for "Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day," Disney felt that Boag would be perfect for the role of Tigger. However, while watching out for him, Disney died from lung cancer in December 1966. When Boag auditioned for Tigger, he was told that his interpretation of the character was "too zany" for a children's movie. The role ultimately went to Paul Winchell. Except for a cameo appearance in "The Love Bug", Boag did not appear in any more Disney films. In 1971, Boag took his Pecos Bill character to the newly opened Walt Disney World and re-crafted the saloon show into a faster, funnier "Diamond Horseshoe Revue". Three years later he returned to Disneyland and finished his career there, entertaining adoring crowds at the Golden Horseshoe, retiring in 1982. (He had in the meantime performed his act as the human guest on the fifth season of "The Muppet Show".) The "Golden Horseshoe Revue" closed in 1986. In 1995, Boag was inducted into the ranks of the Disney Legends and has his own window on Main Street in Disneyland above the Carnation Company. The inscription reads "Theatrical Agency - Golden Vaudeville Routines - Wally Boag, Prop." Boag's performances have influenced many later performers and comedians, most notable of whom is Steve Martin, who studied Boag's humor and timing while working at Disneyland as a teenager. Boag's performance appears on Week One of the "Mickey Mouse Club" DVD collection, and the soundtrack of the "Golden Horseshoe Revue" has been released on CD. Boag lived in California with his wife, Ellen Morgan Boag. His autobiography, entitled "Wally Boag, Clown Prince of Disneyland," was published in August 2009 and is available for purchase at wallyboag.com. On June 3, 2011, it was announced by Steve Martin on Twitter "My hero, the first comedian I ever saw live, my influence, a man to whom I aspired, has passed on. Wally Boag." The following day, June 4, 2011, Boag's longtime partner at the Golden Horseshoe Revue, Betty Taylor, also died.
583061	Koochie Koochie Hota Hai is a delayed Computer-animated Bollywood film directed by Vishal Sonawane & Tarun Mansukhani and co-produced by Dharma Productions and Prana Studios. The voice-over for the lead anthropomorphic characters has been given by Shahrukh Khan, Kajol, Rani Mukerji, Sanjay Dutt and Ritesh Deshmukh. The film is an animated remake of the hit 1998 Hindi film, "Kuch Kuch Hota Hai". Production of the film started in 2010. Karan Johar, producer of the film, quoted in his blog "The core love story is between three dogs, and the supporting cast has roosters, bears, pigs, cats, and many others from the barn". The film was set for a 2011 release, but was bumped back for a theatrical release sometime in 2012 instead. It is now put on hold.
1044435	The Raging Moon is a British film from 1971 based on the book by British novelist Peter Marshall and starring Malcolm McDowell and Nanette Newman. The movie was released as "Long Ago, Tomorrow" in the United States. Adapted and directed by Bryan Forbes (Newman's husband in real life), this 'romance in wheelchairs' was considered unusual in its time owing to the sexual nature of the relationship between McDowell and Newman, who play disabled people. It may have been the first film in which a person in a wheelchair is shown having sex. The film received two Golden Globe nominations, for Best Foreign Film (English Language), and Best Song, "Long Ago Tomorrow". Plot. Bruce Pritchard is a 24-year-old working-class man and amateur soccer player with a passion for life. All this changes when he suddenly finds himself struck down by an incurable degenerative disease and confined for the rest of his life to a wheelchair. He makes a self-imposed exile to a church-run home for the disabled, believing that it is best for his immediate family to forget about him the way he is now, and his bitterness at his fate and his dislike of the rules and regulations of the place only serve to make him more withdrawn and angry at his enforced imprisonment. Then he gets to know a fellow patient, Jill Mathews, a 31-year-old woman from a wealthy family, also confined to a wheelchair through polio. Bruce begins to harbor romantic affections for Jill but before he can make his feelings known in a letter, she leaves the institution to return home and marry long-time fiancé Geoffrey. But Jill quickly realizes the relationship is half-hearted on Geoffrey's part, and after breaking off the engagement she returns to the institution. Gradually she is able to get through Bruce’s shell of cynicism and lack of respect for authority, bringing back life to his existence. In the process, the two begin to fall in love and admit their feelings for each other, consummating a relationship. But their sexual encounter is physically dangerous for Jill, who dies the day after the couple makes love for the first time. Production. Bryan Forbes was in the unusual position of being able to green light his own film as he was head of EMI Films at the time this was made. He says he was highly criticised in some quarters for directing a film while running the studio, even though he did not take any extra salary as director. Once the film was made some executives at EMI did not want it released but Forbes held a successful test screening which secured company support. However the movie was not a major success at the box office.
1162975	Nicole Avery "Nikki" Cox (born June 2, 1978) is an American actress known mostly for her roles on the television series "Unhappily Ever After", "Las Vegas", and "Nikki". Early life. Cox was born in Los Angeles, California. Nikki's father is Meredith Avery Cox and her mother is Terry Kay Cox, who was her personal manager. She has one younger brother, Matthew Cox, who is also an actor. Career. Cox began her career at the age of four when she appeared as a dancer in several ballet productions and TV specials. She began acting at the age of ten, making appearances in several movies and guest starring on shows such as "Baywatch", "Star Trek: The Next Generation", "Mama's Family", "Eerie Indiana", and "Blossom". She also starred in "General Hospital" from 1993 to 1995 and had a recurring role on the Saturday morning program "California Dreams". Her appearances on various TV shows led to her first prime-time role as Tiffany Malloy on the sitcom "Unhappily Ever After", which ran on the WB 1995–1999. Her brother Matthew guest-starred on a handful of episodes, including one where he wore a "Ghostface" mask (the type of mask featured in "Scream"). When "Unhappily" was canceled after taping 100 episodes, Cox went on to portray former prostitute Taylor Clayton on the sitcom "The Norm Show" and star as Nikki White in "Nikki", a sitcom vehicle that lasted for less than two seasons (2000–2002). She played Mary Connell on the TV drama "Las Vegas" from 2003-2007. On May 20 and May 23, 2005, her "Las Vegas" character crossed over to NBC's soap opera "Passions" to coincide with the arrival of two new characters introduced on "Las Vegas". In 2006, she became the spokesmodel for the online gaming website, Sportsbook.com. In 2009, she provided the voice of Jenna in "". That same year, she also appeared in "Lonely Street", a comedy starring Robert Patrick, Jay Mohr, Ernie Hudson and Lindsay Price. Personal life. After being romantically linked to Kevin Connolly, who played her brother on "Unhappily Ever After", Cox was engaged in 1997 to Bobcat Goldthwait. On December 29, 2006, she married comedian/actor Jay Mohr in Los Angeles. The two met on the set of "Las Vegas". In December 2008, Mohr petitioned a Los Angeles court to allow him to legally add her last name to his, changing his name to Jay Ferguson Cox Mohr. Cox and Mohr's son, Meredith Daniel Mohr, was born on May 5, 2011.
1376103	Hot Wheels World Race is a computer-animated, feature-length made-for-TV movie based on the Hot Wheels television show and toy line made by Mattel. The film was distributed on DVD by Family Home Entertainment and distributed on TV by Warner Bros. Television. The video game "Hot Wheels World Race" was based on the television series film. It premiered on Cartoon Network on July 12, 2003 and was released on VHS and DVD on December 2, 2003. Plot. After attaining his drivers licence on his 16th birthday, naive-teenager Vert Wheeler discovers the Deora II Hot Wheels car. The door on the front of the car opens, and a monitor shows a recording of a mysterious man named Dr. Peter Tezla, inviting him to a competition called the World Race: a contest between seasoned professionals and talented drivers. Driving to a secret location in the Californian desert, the drivers are informed of the race along an interdimensional racetrack called "Highway 35", created by extraterrestrial beings called Accelerons. At the end of the race is the Wheel of Power. Tezla himself tried to retrieve it himself remotely with little success. His plan is to use the drivers, with their unique driving abilities, to retrieve the wheel on his behalf. To enter the Highway, each driver must be doing 300mph (with the help of an enhanced Nitrous system called Nitrox2)at specific points around the world. During the start, Vert immediately starts a rivalry with Taro Kitano, leader of the Scorchers team; and Lani Tam, a driver of another Wave Rippers car like Vert's. During the first leg, the drivers are given a test of the type of track Highway 35 is, and the abilities of their cars. One such stunt is a mile-high loop followed by a jump over a lava river. Further on, in a volcano, a mysterious black racer, known as Zed-36, detonates a rigged bottle of Nitrox2 which causes lava to flow over the road. Vert and Taro make it through, but Lani gets caught in the flow and is forced to jump onto a nearby boulder. Taro immediately drives back to help her, eventually followed by Vert. All drivers finish the leg last, with the leader of the Street Breed team, Kurt Wylde, being victorious. Before the second leg, each leader must make up five teams of seven: the Wave Rippers, Scorchers, Street Breed, Dune Ratz and Roadbeasts. Vert recruits his best friend, Alec Wood, and Kurt's little brother, Markie, after watching him joyride in Kurt's car. During the next leg, a mountainous stage, the leader of the Roadbeasts, Banjee Castillo, discovers a possible shortcut through a jungle valley. The Wave Rippers, curious of the Roadbeasts' decision, follow suit. Things seem to go well for the Roadbeasts until they come across a large wheel obsticle, which they'll need to cross. Whilst crossing it with the Wave Rippers, Zed-36 had a slingshot weapon ready to fire at the wheel, but hesitates after seeing Markie race towards it. After clipping the wheels as he crosses, which causes one of his Nitrox to detact and deonate, the wheels speeds up forcing Vert and Banjee to jump at speed. Meanwhile, both Taro and the leader of the Dune Ratz, Brian Kadeem, reach the portal first, causing a tie. In the third leg, in a desert, Kadeem spots a disc on top of a pyramid. Believing it to be the Wheel of Power, he takes it, with Zed-36 taking chase. After a minor scuffle, Zed-36's helmet is knocked off and he's revealed to be Kurt Wylde. When he reaches the portal to head back to earth, the disc disintegrated, disappointing Kadeem. Revealing to Vert, he had hoped that he would win the race so he would use the prize money to aid his war-torn people in Africa. Meanwhile, as Kurt scarpers from the race, he is found by his employers CLYP, lead by a mysterious woman named Gelorum. As the drivers are about to start the fourth leg of the race, Kurt, with several CLYp racers, make a break for the portal, enticing the other racers to follow. Throughout the ice leg, the CLYP racers try and sabotage the race by blocking the track and dropping mines. When Markie, who was leading detonates a mine which sees himself unconscious naging over a cliff, Kurt betrays the CLYP drivers, revealed to be drones, to help Markie. However, he continues to race Markie, then Vert, to retrieve the Wheel of Power for Gelorum. He is defeated by Vert, who contunies out of the ice and into a mysterious city, with the Wheel of Power perched ontop of a spire in the city's center. Vert and the Wave Rippers are named the winners and are awarded $5 million prize money. However, wanting to race on Highway 35 again, storm into Tezla's lab where Tezla had been researching the Wheel. After the Wheel's powers short-circuits the facility's power, Tezla admits the Wheel is too powerful and asked the racers to return it. Meanwhile, Gelorum and her drones surround the facility demanding the wheel. The racers managed to subdue the drones, even bringing Gelorum's chopper down as well, revealing she is a robot as well. Racing back into the city, the racers, including a defecting Kurt after realizing what Gelorum was, hold off the drones long enough for Vert to replace the Wheel ontop of the spire, lighting up the city. In reflection, the racers name the city "Hot Wheels City". Afterwards, Vert gives his prize money to Kadeem, knowing that the money may not solve their issues, but it helps. Once returned to Earth, Vert is surprised to see his father at Tezla's facility, and while given him a drive in Deora II, accidentally activates the Nitrox, accelerating the car to 300mph, and activating the portal to Highway 35. Tracks. There are different tracks that are seen in this movie that the characters race on:
1017486	The Big Brawl, () also known as Battle Creek Brawl, is a 1980 martial arts film which marked Jackie Chan's first attempt to break into the American movie market. It was directed by Robert Clouse and featured much of the crew from "Enter the Dragon". The film is set primarily in Chicago, Illinois in the 1930s (although it was shot in Texas) and follows Chan's character, a Chinese American martial artist, as he single handedly takes on the Mafia. "The Big Brawl" was a flop and led to Chan being advised to try supporting roles such as the Japanese racing car driver in "Cannonball Run". Chan later made another attempt to break into the American market with 1985's "The Protector", which suffered the same fate as this film. It wasn't until 1995 with "Rumble in the Bronx" that Chan was able to bring his signature humor mixed with impressive stunt-work to American audiences.
1179049	Courtney Michelle Love (born Courtney Michelle Harrison; July 9, 1964) is an American musician, singer-songwriter, actress, artist, and author. Love rose to prominence as the lead vocalist and rhythm guitarist of alternative rock band Hole, which she formed in 1989. Her unpredictable stage presence and confrontational lyrics made her a fixture in alternative music media in the 1990s, and her personal life and battles with drug addiction have been widely publicized. Hole received praise from indie rock critics for their debut album "Pretty on the Inside" (1991), produced by Kim Gordon, and their second release, "Live Through This" (1994), went certified platinum and received wide critical acclaim. After the release of their third album, "Celebrity Skin" (1998), Love and bandmate Eric Erlandson retired Hole, and she released her first solo album, "America's Sweetheart" in 2004 to underwhelming sales. In 2009, she re-formed Hole with new members and released "Nobody's Daughter" (2010), which received mixed-positive reviews. In December 2012, Love stated that she was abandoning the Hole moniker and returning to performing as a solo artist, and was recording material for an upcoming album titled "Died Blonde". In addition to music, Love had an intermittent acting career, starring in Alex Cox's cult films "Sid and Nancy" (1986) and "Straight to Hell" (1987), and later returning to acting with a lead role in Miloš Forman's "The People vs. Larry Flynt" (1996), which earned her a Golden Globe nomination for her portrayal of Althea Flynt. Love has also had endeavors in art, fashion, and writing. Love is the daughter of psychotherapist Linda Carroll, and writer and ex-Grateful Dead manager Hank Harrison. She was married to Kurt Cobain, frontman of the grunge band Nirvana, who committed suicide in 1994. She has one daughter with Cobain, Frances Bean Cobain. Early life. Love was born Courtney Michelle Harrison in San Francisco, California to psychotherapist Linda Carroll and Hank Harrison, publisher and brief manager of the Grateful Dead. Love's parents divorced in 1969 and her father's custody was withdrawn after her mother alleged that he had fed LSD to Love. Her mother moved the family to the rural community of Marcola, Oregon, where they lived on a commune. Love struggled in school and was diagnosed as mildly autistic. Love has two younger half-sisters, two half-brothers, and one adopted brother; another male half-sibling had died in infancy of a heart defect when Love was ten. In 1972, Love's mother moved the family to New Zealand, but Love was sent back to live in Oregon with her former stepfather and numerous family friends. She auditioned for the Mickey Mouse Club in Seattle at age twelve, but was rejected after reading a Sylvia Plath poem for her audition. At age fourteen, she was arrested for shoplifting a t-shirt and was sent to Hillcrest Correctional Facility. She spent the following several years in and out of foster homes before becoming legally emancipated at age sixteen. She moved to Portland, Oregon, and supported herself by working illegally as an erotic dancer, a DJ, and various odd jobs, and intermittently took classes at Portland State University studying English and philosophy. Love has said that she "didn't have a lot of social skills", and that she learned them while frequenting gay clubs in Portland. In 1981, Love was granted a small trust fund through her adoptive grandparents, which she used to travel to Ireland; there, she was accepted into Trinity College due to high test scores, and studied theology for two semesters. In the United Kingdom, she became acquainted with musician Julian Cope in Liverpool and moved into his house briefly before returning to the United States. Love continued to relocate between Oregon and California, enrolling at San Francisco State University and the San Francisco Art Institute, where she studied under George Kuchar. She later took stint jobs doing erotic dancing in Japan. In 1986, Love landed roles in two Alex Cox films (see "Acting career"), and then quit acting and retreated to Anchorage, Alaska for several months where she returned to stripping to support herself. Music career. 1981-1988: Early projects. Love initially began several music projects in the 1980s, first forming Sugar Babydoll, and then having a brief stint as a singer in Faith No More; according to Roddy Bottum, the group wanted a "male energy", and Love was kicked out of the band, though she and Bottum maintained a friendship in the years after. Love later formed the Pagan Babies with friend Kat Bjelland, Jennifer Finch and Janis Tanaka in 1985, recording one 4-track demo before disbanding. Love briefly played bass in Bjelland's group Babes In Toyland in 1987 before being ejected from the band. 1989-2002: Hole. In 1989, Love taught herself to play guitar and relocated to Los Angeles, where she placed an ad in a local music zine, reading: "I want to start a band. My influences are Big Black, Sonic Youth, and Fleetwood Mac" to which guitarist Eric Erlandson replied. Love recruited Erlandson as lead guitarist, Lisa Roberts, her neighbor, as bassist, and drummer Caroline Rue. Hole played their first show in November 1989 at Raji's after three months of rehearsal. The band's debut single, "Retard Girl", was issued in April 1990 through the Long Beach indie label Sympathy for the Record Industry, and was given air-time by Rodney Bingenheimer's local station, KROQ. The following year, the band released their second single, "Dicknail" through Sub Pop Records. Influenced by no wave and noise rock bands, Hole's first studio album, "Pretty on the Inside", was released in August 1991 on Caroline Records, produced by Kim Gordon of Sonic Youth, with assistant production from Gumball's Don Fleming. The album received generally positive critical reception, and was labeled one of the 20 best albums of the year by "Spin Magazine". It also gained a following in the United Kingdom, charting at 59 on the UK Albums Chart, as well as its lead single, "Teenage Whore" entering the country's indie chart at number one. In support of the record, the band toured in Europe headlining with Mudhoney, and extensively in the United States opening for The Smashing Pumpkins, including shows at the Whisky A Go Go and CBGB. Hole recorded their second album, titled "Live Through This", in October 1993 in Atlanta, Georgia. The album featured a new lineup, with bassist Kristen Pfaff and drummer Patty Schemel. "Live Through This" was released on Geffen's subsidiary DGC label in April 1994, four days after Love's husband, Kurt Cobain, was found dead of a self-inflicted shotgun wound in their home. Two months later, in June 1994, bassist Kristen Pfaff died of a heroin overdose, and Love was forced to recruit Melissa Auf der Maur for the band's impending tour. Throughout the months preceding the tour, Love was rarely seen in public, spending her time at her Seattle home, or visiting the Namgyal Buddhist Monastery in New York. "Live Through This" was an immense commercial and critical success, receiving rave reviews from major music periodicals and going certified platinum. Beginning in August 1994, the band embarked on a worldwide tour in support of the record. The tour became a media spectacle due to Love's fraught emotional state, which led her to provoke fans, throw guitars into the audience, destroy equipment, cry, and break into screaming fits onstage. In retrospect, Love openly admitted to having been "completely high" for the majority of the band's 1994 and 1995 performances. BBC's John Peel wrote a periodical on the band's controversial performance at the 1994 Reading Festival, summarizing the reckless tone that pervaded the tour, noting:Courtney's first appearance backstage certainly caught the attention. Swaying wildly and with lipstick smeared on her face, hands and, I think, her back, as well as on the collar of her dress, the singer would have drawn whistles of astonishment in Bedlam. After a brief word with supporters at the foot of the stage, she reeled away, knocking over a wastebin, and disappeared. Minutes later she was onstage giving a performance which verged on the heroic ... Love steered her band through a set which dared you to pity either her recent history or that of the band ... the band teetered on the edge of chaos, generating a tension which I cannot remember having felt before from any stage. In February 1995, Hole performed an acoustic set on "MTV Unplugged" at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, and continued to tour late into the year, concluding their world tour with an appearance at the 1995 "MTV Video Music Awards", in which they performed "Violet", and were nominated for Best Music Video for "Doll Parts". In 1997, the band released a compilation album, "My Body, The Hand Grenade", and, in September 1998, released their third studio album, "Celebrity Skin", which marked something of a transformation for Love, featuring a stark power pop sound as opposed to the group's earlier punk rock influences. Love divulged her ambition of making an album where "art meets commerce ... there are no compromises made, it has commercial appeal, and it sticks to the original vision." She claimed to have been influenced by Neil Young, Fleetwood Mac, and My Bloody Valentine when writing the album. "Celebrity Skin" was well received by critics; "Rolling Stone" called the album "accessible, fiery and intimate—often at the same time ... a basic guitar record that's anything but basic." "Celebrity Skin" went on to go multi-platinum, and topped "Best of Year" lists at "Spin", the "Village Voice", and other periodicals. The album garnered the band their first and only No. 1 hit single on the Modern Rock Tracks chart with the title track "Celebrity Skin". Prior to the release and promotion of "Celebrity Skin", Love and Fender designed a low-priced Squier brand guitar, called Vista Venus. The instrument featured a shape inspired by Mercury, Stratocaster, and Rickenbacker's solidbodies and had a single-coil and a humbucker pickup, and was available in 6-string and 12-string versions. In an early 1999 interview, Love said about the Venus: "I wanted a guitar that sounded really warm and pop, but which required just one box to go dirty (... ) And something that could also be your first band guitar. I didn't want it all teched out. I wanted it real simple, with just one pickup switch." After touring for "Celebrity Skin" finished, Auf der Maur left the band to tour with The Smashing Pumpkins; Hole's touring drummer Samantha Maloney left soon after. Love and Erlandson continued to pursue with the band, and released the single "Be A Man"— an outtake from the "Celebrity Skin" sessions— for the soundtrack of the Oliver Stone film "Any Given Sunday" (1999). The group became dormant in the following two years, and on May 24, 2002, officially announced their breakup amid continuing litigation with Universal Music Group over their record contract. 2003-2012: Solo career, Hole reformation. With Hole in disarray, Love began a "punk rock femme supergroup" called Bastard during autumn 2001, enlisting Schemel, Veruca Salt co-frontwoman Louise Post, and bassist Gina Crosley. Though a demo was completed, the project never reached fruition. In 2002, Love began composing an album with Linda Perry, titled "America's Sweetheart". Love signed with Virgin Records to release it, and initially recorded it in France, but was forced by the label to re-record the entire album in the summer of 2003. "America's Sweetheart" was released in February 2004, and was embraced by critics with mixed reviews. "Spin" called it a "jaw-dropping act of artistic will and a fiery, proper follow-up to 1994's "Live Through This"" and awarded it eight out of ten stars, while "Rolling Stone" suggested that, "for people who enjoy watching celebrities fall apart, "America's Sweetheart" should be more fun than an Osbournes marathon." The album sold 86,000 copies in its first three months, with the singles "Mono" and "Hold on to Me", both of which earned competent spots on album charts. Love has publicly expressed her regret over the record several times, calling it "a crap record" and reasoning that her drug issues at the time were to blame. Shortly after the record was released, Love told Kurt Loder on TRL: "I cannot exist as a solo artist. It's a joke." In 2006, Love started recording what was going to be her second solo album, "How Dirty Girls Get Clean", collaborating again with Perry and Billy Corgan in the writing and recording. Love had written several songs, including an anti-cocaine song titled "Loser Dust", during her time in rehab in 2005. Some tracks and demos from the album (initially planned for release in 2008) were leaked on the internet in 2006, and a documentary entitled "The Return of Courtney Love", detailing the making of the album, aired on the British television network in the fall of that year. A rough acoustic version of "Never Go Hungry Again", recorded during an interview for "The Times" in November, was also released. Incomplete audio clips of the song "Samantha", originating from an interview with NPR, were also distributed on the internet in 2007. On June 17, 2009, "NME" reported that Hole would be reuniting. Former Hole guitarist Erlandson stated in "Spin" magazine that contractually no reunion can take place without his involvement; therefore "Nobody's Daughter" would remain Love's solo record, as opposed to a "Hole" record. Love responded to Erlandson's comments in a Twitter post, claiming "he's out of his mind, Hole is my band, my name, and my Trademark". "Nobody's Daughter" was released worldwide as a Hole album on April 27, 2010. For the new line-up, Love recruited guitarist Micko Larkin, Shawn Dailey (bass guitar), and Stu Fisher (drums, percussion). "Nobody's Daughter" featured a great deal of material written and recorded for Love's aborted solo album, "How Dirty Girls Get Clean", including "Pacific Coast Highway", "Letter to God", "Samantha", and "Never Go Hungry", although they were re-produced with Larkin. The first single from "Nobody's Daughter" was "Skinny Little Bitch", which became a hit on alternative rock radio in early March 2010. The album received mixed reviews. "Rolling Stone" gave the album three out of five stars, saying that Love "worked hard on these songs, instead of just babbling a bunch of druggy bullshit and assuming people would buy it, the way she did on her 2004 flop, "America's Sweetheart"." "Slant Magazine" also gave the album three out of five stars, saying "It's Marianne Faithfull's substance-ravaged voice that comes to mind most often while listening to songs like "Honey" and "For Once in Your Life." The latter track is, in fact, one of Love's most raw and vulnerable vocal performances to date. Co-penned by Linda Perry, the song offers a rare glimpse into the mind of a woman who, for the last 15 years, has been as famous for being a rock star as she's been for being a victim." The album's subject matter was largely centered on Love's tumultuous life between 2003 and 2007, and featured a polished folk-rock sound with much more acoustic work than previous Hole albums. Love stated that she remained celibate for nearly five years in the process of working on the album: "I needed to put all of my energy into this record. Like, all of it, and and love can be really distracting", she said. Love and the band toured internationally from 2010 into late 2012 promoting the record. 2013-present: Return to solo career. In October 2012, Love told "Rolling Stone" that she was dropping the Hole moniker and returning to a solo career. She also stated she had just recorded a new track, titled "This Is War", produced by James Iha. Love also completed studio work on "Rio Grande", a duet with Michael Stipe, as well as contributing guest vocals on Fall Out Boy's album, "Save Rock and Roll" (2013). On December 29, 2012, Love performed a surprise solo acoustic set at the Electric Room in New York City, where she performed "Miss World". In January 2013, Love performed at the Star Bar in Park City, Utah for the Sundance Film Festival, with a set that included an acoustic cover of Jay-Z's "99 Problems". On May 10, 2013 it was announced that Love had booked an eighteen-date tour of North America in the summer. Initially, the tour had been conceived to promote Love's new album, but was consequently dubbed a "greatest hits" tour due to the impending release of the record; according to Love, it will be released in December 2013, followed by a more extensive world tour beginning thereafter. She stated that she will refrain from performing any of the new material until it is officially released. Love told "Billboard" that she had recorded eight songs for the upcoming album, which is under the working title "Died Blonde", and also planned to release a double single with the tracks "California" and "Wedding Day". "songs are not my usual (style)," Love said. "I don't have any Fleetwood Mac references on it. Usually I always have a Fleetwood Mac reference as well as having, like, Big Black references. These are very unique songs that sort of magically happened." Influences. Love was exposed to the music of Patti Smith and the Pretenders in juvenile hall, which she was greatly influenced by: "You had these two iconic women, and I realized that you could do something that was completely subversive that didn't involve violence felonies," said Love. "I stopped making trouble. I stopped." As a teenager, Love named Flipper, Kate Bush, Soft Cell, Lou Reed, and Dead Kennedys among her favorite artists. Most prominently, Love was influenced by a multitude of new wave and post-punk bands, such as Echo and the Bunnymen, The Smiths, The Teardrop Explodes, and Joy Division. While in Ireland at age fifteen, she saw the The Virgin Prunes perform live in Dublin, and said the experience "framed her career". Her varying genre interests were illustrated in a 1991 interview with "Flipside", in which she stated: "There's a part of me that wants to have a grindcore band and another that wants to have a Raspberries-type pop band", also citing her admiration for Neil Young. Conversely, Love also embraced the influence of experimental and punk rock groups, including Sonic Youth, Swans, Big Black, The Germs, and The Stooges. Love has also expressed great admiration for Fleetwood Mac, with Hole covering their track "Gold Dust Woman" in 1996, as well as using sampling from "Rhiannon" on their noise track "Starbelly" from "Pretty on the Inside". Artistry. Musically, Love has been consistently noted by critics for her layering of harsh and abrasive riffs which often bury more sophisticated musical arrangements. Hole's incorporation of both punk rock and power pop sounds illustrates the band's often divergent musical style, which drew influence from contradictory genres. In 1998, Love stated: "has always been a pop band. We always had a subtext of pop. I always talked about it, if you go back... what'll sound like some weird Sonic Youth tuning back then to you was sounding like the Raspberries to me, in my demented pop framework." Love possesses a contralto vocal range. She has been oft noted by critics for her unique husky vocals, and was, in Hole's earliest years, noted for her screaming abilities and punk singing. Her vocals have been compared to those of Johnny Rotten, and "Rolling Stone" described them as "lung-busting" and "a corrosive, lunatic wail". Upon the release of Hole's 2010 album, "Nobody's Daughter", critics compared Love's raspy, unpolished vocals to those of Bob Dylan. Love's song lyrics are predominantly told from a female's point of view, and her earlier work, particularly on Hole's first two albums, was noted for being notably aggressive and critical toward cultural definitions of women. Her lyrics have been noted by scholars for "articulating a third-wave feminist consciousness." Common themes present in Love's lyrics from her early career included body image, rape, suicide, misogyny, conformity, elitism, pregnancy, prostitution, and death. In a 1991 interview with Everett True, Love said: "I try to place imagery next to fucked up imagery, because that's how I view things ... I sometimes feel that no one's taken the time to write about certain things in rock, that there's a certain female point of view that's never been given space." Charles Cross has referred to her lyrics on "Live Through This" as being "true extensions of her diary," and she has admitted that a great deal of the lyrics from "Pretty on the Inside" were excisions from her journals. Her later work was more lyrically introspective; Hole's "Celebrity Skin" and Love's solo album, "America's Sweetheart", focused more on celebrity life, Hollywood, and drug addiction, while also carrying on past themes of vanity and body image, and "Nobody's Daughter" was lyrically reflective of Love's past relationships and her struggle to sobriety, with the majority of its lyrics having been written while she was in rehab in 2006. Live performances. Over the years Love gained considerable notoriety for her unpredictable live performances, distinguished by confrontational behavior and verbose interaction with audiences. In the mid-1990s, Love was known to stage dive frequently, wearing dresses and slips which would often be torn off of her by the crowd, and resulted in her losing teeth and sustaining other injuries. Love's fraught state during Hole's 1994 and 1995 tours drew significant media attention from MTV and other music outlets due to her erratic behavior, which included throwing instruments and equipment, breaking into screaming fits, and provoking audience members. During sets, it was not unusual for Love to go on monologist rants between songs, or to bring fans onstage and give impromptu guitar lessons. Nina Gordon of Veruca Salt, who toured with Hole in 1995, recalled Love's erratic behavior onstage, saying "She would just go off and rest of the band would just kind of stand there." On the opening date of Lollapalooza in 1995, Love notoriously got into a physical fight backstage with Kathleen Hanna and punched her in the face. In retrospect of those tours, Love said: "I was completely high on dope— I cannot remember much about it." Love's aesthetic image, particularly in the 1990s, often consisted of "thrift shop" babydoll dresses, and her face adorned with smeared makeup; MTV reporter Kurt Loder described her as looking like "a debauched rag doll" onstage. The style, widely popularized by Love, was later dubbed the title "kinderwhore", and has been noted as an extension of Love's participation in third-wave feminism through its occupation of a female archetype in an intentionally subversive manner. Non-musical endeavors. Acting career. Love made her first foray into acting in a 1984 student short film titled "Club Vatican" directed by George Kuchar, whom she was a student of at the time while attending the San Francisco Art Institute. In 1985, she submitted an audition tape for the role of Nancy Spungen in the Sid Vicious biopic "Sid and Nancy" (1986), and was given a minor supporting role by director Alex Cox. Cox then cast her in a leading role in his following film, "Straight to Hell" (1987), which caught the attention of artist Andy Warhol. That year, Love appeared in an episode of "Andy Warhol's Fifteen Minutes" with Robbie Nevil in a segment titled "C'est la Vie". She also had a part in the 1988 Ramones music video for "I Wanna Be Sedated", appearing as a bride among dozens of party guests. In 1989, Love abandoned her career as an actress to pursue music. In 1996, Love began obtaining small acting parts again in "Basquiat" and "Feeling Minnesota" (1996), before landing the co-starring role of Larry Flynt's wife, Althea, in Miloš Forman's 1996 film "The People vs. Larry Flynt", against Columbia Pictures' reluctance due to her low profile and "troubled" past. Love received critical acclaim, a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actress, and a New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Supporting Actress, for what film critic Roger Ebert called "quite a performance; Love proves she is not a rock star pretending to act, but a true actress". She won several other awards from various film critic associations for the performance. Other roles include: starring opposite Jim Carrey in the Andy Kaufman biopic "Man on the Moon" (1999); as Joan Vollmer in "Beat" (2000) alongside Kiefer Sutherland; and a leading role in "Julie Johnson" (2001) as Lili Taylor's lesbian lover, for which she won an Outstanding Actress award at L.A.'s Outfest. She followed with another leading part in the thriller film "Trapped" (2002), alongside Kevin Bacon and Charlize Theron. Art and writing. In 2004, Love collaborated with illustrators Misaho Kujiradou and Ai Yazawa to create a manga comic, "Princess Ai". The story is based in part on Love's life, and involves the main character's search for her place in the world; it was written by Stu Levy under the name D.J. Milky, and released by his publishing company Tokyopop. In 2006, Love published a memoir titled "", consisting of diary entries, poems, letters, drawings, personal photos, and lyric compositions spanning from Love's childhood up until the year 2006, shortly after her release from a six-month rehab sentence. The book was generally well reviewed by critics, and Love did book readings in promotion for it. In May 2012, Love debuted an art show at Fred Torres Collaborations in New York titled ""And She's Not Even Pretty"", which contained over forty drawings and paintings by Love composed in ink, colored pencil, pastels, and watercolors. The works feature various women in different emotional states, some accompanied by poems and song lyrics. In 2013, Love announced that she was almost finished with an autobiography, which she plans to release in December 2013. Personal life. Love has been a practicing Buddhist since 1989, and has studied and practiced both Tibetan and Nichiren Buddhism. She is a member of Sōka Gakkai, an international lay Buddhist organization. Love is a Democrat. In 2000, she gave a speech at the Million Mom March to advocate stricter gun control laws in the United States, and has advocated for LGBT rights since the early 1990s. Love is a self-identified feminist, and has been noted throughout her career for her subversive feminism and "self-conscious parody of female sex roles". Substance abuse and health issues. Love has struggled with substance abuse problems for a great deal of her life. She experimented with numerous opiates in her early adult years, and tried cocaine at age 19. In 1992, "Vanity Fair" published an article by journalist Lynn Hirschberg which alluded that Love was addicted to heroin during her pregnancy. Love claimed she was misquoted, and asserted that she immediately quit using the drug during her first trimester after she discovered she was pregnant. Nonetheless, the publication of the article led to a lengthy battle with the Los Angeles County Court in which custody of newborn Frances was taken away from Love and Cobain and placed with Love's sister, Jamie, for several months. After Cobain committed suicide in 1994, Love began using heroin again regularly, but quit in 1996 at the insistence of director Miloš Forman when she landed a leading role in "The People vs. Larry Flynt". Love was ordered to take multiple urine tests under the supervision of Columbia Pictures while filming the movie, and passed all of them. On July 9, 2004, Love's 40th birthday, she attempted to commit suicide at her Manhattan apartment and was taken to Bellevue Hospital, allegedly incoherent, and put on a 72-hour watch. According to police, she was believed to be a potential "danger to herself", but was deemed mentally sound and released to a rehab facility two days later. In 2005 and 2006, after making several public appearances clearly intoxicated (namely on the "Late Show with David Letterman" and the "Comedy Central Roast" of Pamela Anderson) and suffering drug-related arrests and probation violations, Love was sentenced to six months in lock down rehab due to struggles with prescription drugs and cocaine. She made a public statement after her release, saying: "I would just like to thank the court for allowing me these 90 days ... helped me deal with a very gnarly drug problem, which is behind me ... I've been really inspired and have remained inspired." Love claimed to have been sober as of 2007, and in May 2011, insisted her sobriety, saying: "That's not the way I live anymore. I try to work a good program. I don't do smack. I don't do crack anymore." Relationships. Love was briefly married to James Moreland (vocalist of The Leaving Trains) in 1989 for several months, but has said that Moreland was a transvestite and that their marriage was "a joke", ending in an annulment filed by Love. After forming Hole in 1989, Love and bandmate Eric Erlandson had a romantic relationship for over a year. In 1988, Love encountered Kurt Cobain at a Dharma Bums show where she was doing a spoken word performance, and Erlandson stated that both he and Love were formally introduced to Cobain in a parking lot after a Butthole Surfers concert at the Hollywood Palladium in 1991. They later became reacquainted through Jennifer Finch, one of Love's longtime friends and former bandmates. Love and Cobain officially began dating in the fall of 1991, and were married on Waikiki Beach in Honolulu, Hawaii, on February 24, 1992. Love wore a satin and lace dress once owned by actress Frances Farmer, and Cobain wore green pajamas. Six months later, on August 18, the couple's only child, a daughter named Frances Bean Cobain, was born. In April 1994, Cobain committed suicide in their Seattle home while Love was in rehab in Los Angeles. In 1996, Love began a relationship with actor Edward Norton, to whom she was at one point engaged, but they eventually separated in 1999. Love was also romantically linked to British comedian Steve Coogan in 2005, and also had dated Billy Corgan in early 1991, with whom she has maintained a volatile friendship over the years.
1161806	Dawnn Lewis (born August 13, 1961 in Brooklyn, New York) is an American actress and singer, perhaps best known for her roles on sitcoms such as "A Different World" and in the first season of "Hangin' with Mr. Cooper". Career. She co-wrote the theme song to "A Different World". In "A Different World", Lewis appeared for the first five of the six-season run as "Jaleesa Vinson-Taylor" (1987–92). Although her character was married to one of the main characters on "A Different World", her character disappeared from "A Different World" without explanation, like Chuck Cunningham of "Happy Days". Lewis appeared in a special week-long segment of "A Different World" called the "Hillman College Reunion" airing on Nick At Nite, along with Lisa Bonet, Jasmine Guy, Kadeem Hardison, Darryl M. Bell, Cree Summer, and Sinbad. In "Super Password", she only appeared with "Dallas" star Ken Kercheval and Bert Convy back in 1988. In "Hangin' with Mr. Cooper" Lewis appeared in the first of the five seasons as "Robin Dumars" (1992). She did not appear on the two shows concurrently - she left "A Different World" to star in "Hangin' with Mr. Cooper". She and Holly Robinson Peete, along with R&B quartet En Vogue, performed the theme song for Season 1 of "Mr. Cooper". Since then, Lewis has appeared in numerous TV series (including "Futurama" as LaBarbara), sitcoms, and has done voice-over work. In 2000 Lewis played Blabberwort the Troll in the miniseries "The 10th Kingdom". Lewis portrayed Deloris Van Cartier in Peter Schneider's "Sister Act the Musical", which opened at the Pasadena Playhouse on October 24, 2006. She has voiced Storm in three games, most recently '. She can currently be seen as Melba Early in the film adaptation of "Dreamgirls". She also voiced Granny Grim on "The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy", voiced the female Shokan (Sheeva) in ', and co-starred as Gail DeBarge in the Disney Channel Original Movie "Let It Shine". Lewis is also playing a minor role as Lauren's mother in "The Secret Life of the American Teenager". In 2009, she played a role as Dennis Fields on One Tree Hill. Current. In 2006, Lewis released her debut CD, entitled "Worth Waiting For". She most recently played Addaperle in "The Wiz" with New York City Center "Encores!" She appears as Dr. Knapp on "Days of our Lives". Personal. Lewis was born in Brooklyn, New York, the daughter of Joyce and Carl Lewis. She was briefly married to former NBA player Johnny Newman. They divorced due to irreconcilable differences.
587520	Ganesh is a 2009 Telugu-language film directed by Saravanan. Ram plays the lead role, with Kajal Aggarwal. The film, which began in December 2008, released in 24 September 2009. Audio released on 10 September. This films also features 26 kids and comedian Brahmanandam. It was dubbed in Hindi as "Kshatriya - The Warrior". Plot. Ganesh (Ram) is an orphan who always pitches in to help needy people. In one such strange situation, he is forced to act with Divya (Kajal Agarwal) that he loves her. But later on, she comes to know that he is loving her to fulfill some other ambition and his love is an act of fabrication. By then, Ganesh genuinely falls in love with her. The rest of the story is all about how he convinces her about his true love. Soundtrack. The soundtrack of the film was released on 10 September 2009. It had music scored by composer, Mickey J Meyer. Lyrics have been written by Ramajogaiah Sastri. The music was launched on the night of 10 September 2009 at Rama Naidu studios by Jr. NTR.
743934	Puccini for Beginners is a 2006 American romantic comedy film written and directed by Maria Maggenti. The film debuted at the 2006 Sundance Film Festival. The film was released to DVD in the United States on July 3, 2007. Plot. The story begins with Samantha (Julianne Nicholson) breaking up with Allegra (Elizabeth Reaser), a lesbian author who has had relationship problems in the past. Allegra meets a man named Philip (Justin Kirk) at a party, with whom she feels a connection. The next day, she meets Grace (Gretchen Mol), Philip's ex-girlfriend, although Allegra does not know about it. Allegra and Philip begin seeing each other, and Philip leaves Grace for good. Allegra sees Grace outside of a movie theater and Grace cries about her boyfriend leaving her. Allegra goes on a date with Philip, but she leaves after thoughts in her mind tell her it's wrong to be with a guy. Allegra goes back and forth on dates with Philip and Grace. After several more dates, Grace shows Allegra a picture of her ex-boyfriend, and she learns that Philip and Grace were together. Philip and Grace go out for dinner, where they reveal to each other that they're seeing someone else. Meanwhile, Allegra caters at a party, which turns out to be Samantha's engagement party. Philip and Grace show up at the party, and they both discover that they have been seeing the same woman. In the end, Allegra is back with Samantha and never sees Philip and Grace again.
573118	Harold Clayton Lloyd, Sr. (April 20, 1893 – March 8, 1971) was an American film actor and producer, most famous for his silent comedies. Harold Lloyd ranks alongside Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton as one of the most popular and influential film comedians of the silent film era. Lloyd made nearly 200 comedy films, both silent and "talkies", between 1914 and 1947. He is best known for his "Glasses" character, a resourceful, success-seeking go-getter who was perfectly in tune with 1920s era America. His films frequently contained "thrill sequences" of extended chase scenes and daredevil physical feats, for which he is best remembered today. Lloyd hanging from the hands of a clock high above the street in "Safety Last!" (1923) is one of the most enduring images in all of cinema. Lloyd did many of these dangerous stunts himself, despite having injured himself in August 1919 while doing publicity pictures for the Roach studio. An accident with a bomb mistaken as a prop resulted in the loss of the thumb and index finger of his right hand (the injury was disguised on future films with the use of a special prosthetic glove, though the glove often did not go unnoticed). Although Lloyd's individual films were not as commercially successful as Charlie Chaplin's on average, he was far more prolific (releasing twelve feature films in the 1920s while Chaplin released just four), and made more money overall ($15.7 million to Chaplin's $10.5 million). Early life and early roles. Lloyd was born in Burchard, Nebraska, to James Darsie Lloyd (1865–1947) and Elizabeth Fraser (1869–1941); Harold's paternal great-grandparents were both from Wales. Young Harold was named for his paternal grandfather. Harold had an older brother, Gaylord (1888-1943), five years his senior. Like his younger brother, Gaylord acted in motion pictures, but his career was nowhere near as renowned as Harold's. Among other roles, he acted in 1921's "Disraeli" starring the famous George Arliss. With Harold's help, there were even efforts to turn him into a comedy star. He eventually went on to become a film executive. When Harold was a child, his parents divorced and Lloyd chose to stay with his father. Despite this, he and his brother always remained close to their mother. Harold's father was always dreaming up grand get-rich-quick schemes that ended in disasters. They eventually ended up in Omaha where Lloyd had his first acting experience in a local stock company. He attended East High School and San Diego High School and received his stage training at the School of Dramatic Art (San Diego). In 1912, his father J. Darsie "Foxy" Lloyd was awarded the then-massive sum of $6,000 in a personal injury judgment (although this was split evenly between Lloyd and his lawyer) after being run over by an Omaha beer truck. Reportedly, on the toss of a coin ("Heads is New York or Nashville or where I decide!, tails is San Diego"), he and Lloyd moved west. Lloyd had acted in various Vaudeville acts in theaters since boyhood, and started acting in one-reel film comedies shortly after moving to California. He soon began working with Thomas Edison's motion picture company, and eventually formed a partnership with fellow struggling actor and director Hal Roach, who had formed his own studio in 1913. The hard-working Lloyd became the most successful of Roach's comic actors between 1915 and 1919. Lloyd hired Bebe Daniels as a supporting actress in 1914; the two of them were involved romantically and were known as "The Boy" and "The Girl." In 1919, she left Lloyd to pursue her dramatic aspirations. Lloyd replaced Daniels with Mildred Davis in 1919. Lloyd was tipped off by Hal Roach to watch Davis in a movie. Reportedly, the more Lloyd watched Davis the more he liked her. Lloyd's first reaction in seeing her was that "she looked like a big French doll!" Davis retired from acting in 1923, the year she and Lloyd were married, and Jobyna Ralston became Lloyd's co-star. From 1915 to 1917, Lloyd and Roach created more than 60 one-reel comedies. Silent shorts and features. By 1918, Lloyd and Roach had begun to develop his character beyond an imitation of his contemporaries. Harold Lloyd would move away from tragicomic personas, and portray an everyman with unwavering confidence and optimism. The "Glasses" character (often named "Harold" in the silent films) was a much more mature comedy character with greater potential for sympathy and emotional depth, and was easy for audiences of the time to identify with. The "Glasses" character is said to have been created after Roach suggested that Harold was too handsome to do comedy, without some sort of disguise; previously, he had worn a fake mustache as the Chaplinesque "Lonesome Luke". Unlike most silent comedy personae, "Harold" was never typecast to a social class, but he was always striving for success and recognition. Within the first few years of the character's debut, he had portrayed social ranks ranging from a starving vagrant in "From Hand to Mouth" to a wealthy socialite in "Captain Kidd's Kids". Lloyd's career was not all laughs, however. In August 1919, while posing for some promotional still photographs in the Los Angeles Witzel Photography Studio, he was seriously injured while holding a prop bomb thought merely to be a smoke pot. It exploded and mangled his hand, causing him to lose a thumb and forefinger. The blast was severe enough that the cameraman and prop director nearby were also seriously injured. Lloyd was in the act of lighting a cigarette from the fuse of the bomb when it exploded, also badly burning his face and chest and injuring his eye. Despite the proximity of the blast to his face, he retained his sight. Beginning in 1921, Roach and Lloyd moved from shorts to feature length comedies. These included the acclaimed "Grandma's Boy", which (along with Chaplin's "The Kid") pioneered the combination of complex character development and film comedy, the highly popular "Safety Last!" (1923), which cemented Lloyd's stardom (and is the oldest film on the American Film Institute's List of 100 Most Thrilling Movies), and "Why Worry?" (1923). Lloyd and Roach parted ways in 1924, and Lloyd became the independent producer of his own films. These included his most accomplished mature features "Girl Shy", "The Freshman" (his highest-grossing silent feature), "The Kid Brother", and "Speedy", his final silent film. "Welcome Danger" (1929) was originally a silent film but Lloyd decided late in the production to remake it with dialogue. All of these films were enormously successful and profitable, and Lloyd would eventually become the highest paid film performer of the 1920s. They were also highly influential and still find many fans among modern audiences, a testament to the originality and film-making skill of Lloyd and his collaborators. From this success he became one of the wealthiest and most influential figures in early Hollywood. Talkies and transition. In 1924, Lloyd formed his own independent film production company, the Harold Lloyd Film Corporation, with his films distributed by Pathé and later Paramount and Twentieth Century-Fox. Lloyd was a founding member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Released a few weeks before the start of the Great Depression, "Welcome Danger" was a huge financial success, with audiences eager to hear Lloyd's voice on film. Lloyd's rate of film releases, which had been one or two a year in the 1920s, slowed to about one every two years until 1938. The films released during this period were: "Feet First", with a similar scenario to "Safety Last" which found him clinging to a skyscraper at the climax; "Movie Crazy" with Constance Cummings; "The Cat's-Paw", which was a dark political comedy and a big departure for Lloyd; and "The Milky Way", which was Lloyd's only attempt at the fashionable genre of the screwball comedy film. To this point the films had been produced by Lloyd's company. However, his go-getting screen character was out of touch with Great Depression movie audiences of the 1930s. As the length of time between his film releases increased, his popularity declined, as did the fortunes of his production company. His final film of the decade, "Professor Beware", was made by the Paramount staff, with Lloyd functioning only as actor and partial financier. On March 23, 1937, Lloyd sold the land of his studio, Harold Lloyd Motion Picture Company, to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The location is now the site of the Los Angeles California Temple. Lloyd produced a few comedies for RKO Radio Pictures in the early 1940s but otherwise retired from the screen until 1947. He returned for an additional starring appearance in "The Sin of Harold Diddlebock", an ill-fated homage to Lloyd's career, directed by Preston Sturges and financed by Howard Hughes. This film had the inspired idea of following Harold's Jazz Age, optimistic character from "The Freshman" into the Great Depression years. "Diddlebock" opened with footage from "The Freshman" (for which Lloyd was paid a royalty of $50,000, matching his actor's fee) and Lloyd was sufficiently youthful-looking to match the older scenes quite well. Lloyd and Sturges had different conceptions of the material and fought frequently during the shoot; Lloyd was particularly concerned that while Sturges had spent three to four months on the script of the first third of the film, "the last two thirds of it he wrote in a week or less". The finished film was released briefly in 1947, then shelved by producer Hughes. Hughes issued a recut version of the film in 1951 through RKO under the title "Mad Wednesday". Such was Lloyd's disdain that he sued Howard Hughes, the California Corporation and RKO for damages to his reputation "as an outstanding motion picture star and personality", eventually accepting a $30,000 settlement. Personal life. Lloyd married his leading lady, Mildred Davis on Saturday, February 10, 1923. Together, they had two children: Gloria Lloyd and Harold Clayton Lloyd, Jr.. They also adopted Gloria Freeman (1924–1986) in September 1930, whom they renamed Marjorie Elizabeth Lloyd, but who was known as "Peggy" for most of her life. Lloyd, for a time, discouraged Davis from continuing her acting career. He later relented, but by that time her career momentum was lost. Davis died from a heart attack in 1969, two years before Lloyd's death. Though her real age was a guarded secret, a family spokesperson at the time indicated she was 66 years old. Lloyd's son was gay, and according to Annette D'Agostino Lloyd (no relation) in the book "Harold Lloyd: Master Comedian", Harold Sr. took this in good spirit. Harold Jr. died from complications of a stroke three months to the day after his father. In 1925, at the height of his movie career, Lloyd entered into Freemasonry at the Alexander Hamilton Lodge No. 535 of Hollywood, advancing quickly through both the York Rite and Scottish Rite taking the degrees of the Royal Arch with his father, becoming a 32nd degree Mason. He was vested with the Rank and Decoration of Knight Commander Court of Honor (KCCH) and eventually with the Inspector General Honorary, 33rd degree. Over the years as his movie work declined, he increased his activity within Freemasonry, being the first actor to become Imperial Potentate within the Shrine of North America. At the installation ceremony for this position on July 25, 1949, 90,000 people were present at Soldier Field, including then sitting U.S. President Harry S Truman, also a 33˚ Master Mason. Lloyd's Beverly Hills home, "Greenacres", was built in 1926–1929, with 44 rooms, 26 bathrooms, 12 fountains, 12 gardens, and a nine hole golf course. In August 1943, much of Lloyd's personal inventory of silent films (then estimated to be worth $2 million) was destroyed when his film vault caught fire. Seven firemen were overcome while inhaling chlorine gas from the blaze. Lloyd himself was saved by his wife, who dragged him to safety outdoors after he collapsed at the door of the film vault. The fire spared the main house and outbuildings. The estate left the possession of the Lloyd family in 1975, after a failed attempt to maintain it as a public museum. The grounds were subsequently subdivided, but the main house and the estate's principal gardens remain and are frequently used for civic fundraising events and as a filming location, appearing in films like "Westworld" and "The Loved One". It is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Radio and retirement. In October 1944, Lloyd emerged as the director and host of "The Old Gold Comedy Theater", an NBC radio anthology series, after Preston Sturges, who had turned the job down, recommended him for it. The show presented half-hour radio adaptations of recently successful film comedies, beginning with "Palm Beach Story" with Claudette Colbert and Robert Young. Some saw "The Old Gold Comedy Theater" as being a lighter version of "Lux Radio Theater", and it featured some of the best-known film and radio personalities of the day, including Fred Allen, June Allyson, Lucille Ball, Ralph Bellamy, Linda Darnell, Susan Hayward, Herbert Marshall, Dick Powell, Edward G. Robinson, Jane Wyman, and Alan Young, among others. But the show's half-hour format—which meant the material might have been truncated too severely—and Lloyd's sounding somewhat ill at ease on the air for much of the season (though he spent weeks training himself to speak on radio prior to the show's premiere, and seemed more relaxed toward the end of the series run) may have worked against it. "The Old Gold Comedy Theater" ended in June 1945 with an adaptation of "Tom, Dick and Harry", featuring June Allyson and Reginald Gardiner and was not renewed for the following season. Many years later, acetate discs of 29 of the shows were discovered in Lloyd's home, and they now circulate among old-time radio collectors. Lloyd remained involved in a number of other interests, including civic and charity work. Inspired by having overcome his own serious injuries and burns, he was very active as a Freemason and Shriner with the Shriners Hospital for Crippled Children. He was a Past Potentate of Al-Malaikah Shrine in Los Angeles, and was eventually selected as Imperial Potentate of the Shriners of North America for the year 1949–50. He was initiated in Alexander Hamilton Lodge No. 535 of Hollywood in 1925 at the height of his movie career. After his Third Degree, with his usual thoroughness and energy, he proceeded through both the York and Scottish Rites, and then joined Al Malaikah Shrine in Los Angeles. He took his Royal Arch Degree with his father. In 1926, he became a 32° Scottish Rite Mason in the Valley of Los Angeles, California. In recognition of his services to the nation and Freemasonry, Bro. Lloyd was invested with the Rank and Decoration of Knight Commander Court of Honour in 1955 and coroneted an Inspector General Honorary, 33°, in 1965. As his movie work began to decline, he replaced it with ever-increasing activity in Masonry, especially the Shrine, becoming Potentate of the Los Angeles Temple in 1939. By the time he had stopped making movies altogether in 1949, he had become Imperial Potentate of the Shrine in North America, the first actor ever to be so recognized. He was installed into this prestigious position at Soldier Field in Chicago in the presence of a crowd of 90,000 including the then-President of the United States and fellow Shriner, Ill. Harry S. Truman, 33°. He appeared as himself on several television shows during his retirement, first on Ed Sullivan's variety show "Toast of the Town" June 5, 1949 and again on July 6, 1958. He appeared as the Mystery Guest on "What's My Line?" on April 26, 1953, and twice on "This Is Your Life": on March 10, 1954 for Mack Sennett, and again on December 14, 1955 on his own episode. During both appearances, Lloyd's hand injury can clearly be seen. Lloyd studied colors, microscopy, and was very involved with photography, including 3D photography and color film experiments. Some of the earliest 2-color Technicolor tests were shot at his Beverly Hills home (These are included as extra material in the "Harold Lloyd Comedy Collection" DVD Box Set). He became known for his nude photographs of models, such as Bettie Page and stripper Dixie Evans, for a number of men's magazines. He also took photos of Marilyn Monroe lounging at his pool in a bathing suit, which were published after their deaths. In 2004, his granddaughter Suzanne produced a book of selections from his photographs, "Harold Lloyd's Hollywood Nudes in 3D!" (ISBN 1-57912-394-5). Lloyd also provided encouragement and support for a number of younger actors, such as Debbie Reynolds, Robert Wagner, and particularly Jack Lemmon, whom Harold declared as his own choice to play him in a movie of his life and work. Renewed interest. Lloyd kept copyright control of most of his films and re-released them infrequently after his retirement. Lloyd did not grant cinematic release because in the main most theaters could not accommodate an organist, and Lloyd did not wish his work to be accompanied by a pianist: "I just don't like pictures played with pianos. We never intended them to be played with pianos". Similarly, his features were never shown on television as Lloyd's price was high: "I want $300,000 per picture for two showings. That's a high price, but if I don't get it, I'm not going to show it. They've come close to it, but they haven't come all the way up". As a consequence, his reputation and public recognition suffered in comparison with Chaplin and Keaton, whose work has generally been more available. Also, Lloyd's film character was so intimately associated with the 1920s era that attempts at revivals in 1940s and 1950s were poorly received, when audiences viewed the 1920s (and silent film in particular) as old-fashioned. In the early 1960s, Lloyd produced two compilation films, featuring scenes from his old comedies, "Harold Lloyd's World of Comedy" and "The Funny Side of Life". The first film was premiered at the 1962 Cannes Film Festival, where Lloyd was feted as a major rediscovery. The renewed interest in Lloyd helped restore his status among film historians. Throughout his later years he screened his films for audiences at special charity and educational events, to great acclaim, and found a particularly receptive audience among college audiences: "Their whole response was tremendous because they didn't miss a gag; anything that was even a little subtle, they got it right away". Following his death, and after extensive negotiations, most of his feature films were leased to Time-Life Films in 1974. As Tom Dardis confirms: "Time-Life prepared horrendously edited musical-sound-track versions of the silent films, which are intended to be shown on TV at sound speed frames per second, and which represent everything that Harold feared would happen to his best films". Through the efforts of Kevin Brownlow and David Gill and the support of granddaughter Suzanne Lloyd Hayes, the British Thames Silents series re-released some of the feature films in the early 1990s on home video, at corrected projection speeds and with new orchestral scores by Carl Davis. More recently, the remainder of Lloyd's great silent features and many shorts were fully restored, with new orchestral scores by Robert Israel. These are now frequently shown on the Turner Classic Movies (TCM) cable channel. An acclaimed 1990 documentary ("Harold Lloyd: The Third Genius") by Brownlow and Gill, which was shown as part of the PBS series "American Masters", also created a renewed interest in Lloyd's work in the early 1990s. A DVD Collection of restored versions of most of his feature films (and his more important shorts) was released by New Line Cinema in partnership with the Harold Lloyd Trust in November 2005, along with limited theatrical screenings in New York and other cities in the US, Canada, and Europe. Silent film historian Annette Lloyd (no relation to Harold) has also said that if there is a large-enough show of support by fans, a second collection may be released in the future. Academy Award. In 1953, Lloyd received a special Academy Award for being a "master comedian and good citizen". The second citation was a snub to Chaplin, who at that point had fallen foul of McCarthyism and who had had his entry visa to the United States revoked. Regardless of the political overtones, Lloyd accepted the award in good spirit. Death. Lloyd died at age 77 from prostate cancer on March 8, 1971, in Beverly Hills, California. He was interred in a crypt in the Great Mausoleum at Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, California. Walk of Fame. Harold Lloyd has two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. In 1927 his was only the fourth ceremony preserving his handprints, footprints, autograph, and outline of his famed glasses (which were actually a pair of sunglasses with the lenses removed), at Grauman's Chinese Theatre, directly in front of the Hollywood Masonic Temple, of which he was a member. In 1994, he was honored with his image on a United States postage stamp designed by caricaturist Al Hirschfeld.
1130710	Rosalind Cash (December 31, 1938October 31, 1995) was an American singer and actress. Her best known film role is as Charlton Heston's character's love interest Lisa, in the 1971 science fiction cult classic, "The Omega Man". To soap opera audiences, she is probably best remembered as Mary Mae Ward on "General Hospital" from 1994 to 1995. Early life and education. Cash was the second of four children. Her siblings were John (1936–1998), Robert, and Helen. All were born and raised in Atlantic City, New Jersey. Her older brother, Col. John A. Cash, enjoyed a long illustrious career with the United States Army, serving in the Defense Intelligence Agency. He died in 1998 and is buried in Arlington National Cemetery. Cash graduated with honours from Atlantic City High School in 1956. She attended City College of New York. Career. Cash was an original member of the Negro Ensemble Company founded in 1968. Her career extended to stage, screen, and television. Her films included "Klute" (1971), "The New Centurions" (1972) with George C. Scott, "Uptown Saturday Night" (1974) with Sydney Poitier, and "Wrong Is Right" (1982). In 1995, she appeared in "Tales from the Hood" which marks her last film appearance. Cash was nominated for an Emmy Award for her work on the Public Broadcasting Service production of "Go Tell it on the Mountain". In 1973 she performed as Goneril in "King Lear" at the New York Shakespeare Festival alongside James Earl Jones's Lear. She was also in the 1962 revival of "Fiorello!". In 1996, she was posthumously nominated for an Emmy Award, Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series, for her role on "General Hospital". Death. Rosalind Cash died of cancer on October 31, 1995, at the age of 56 at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles.
774600	The Trotsky is a 2009 Canadian comedy film directed by Jacob Tierney. Plot. Montreal West high school student Leon Bronstein (Jay Baruchel) believes that he is the reborn incarnation of Marxist/Bolshevik leader Leon Trotsky. Shortly after he starts to work in his family's clothing factory, he attempts to unionize the workplace with such actions as a hunger strike. He is pulled from his upper-class private school by his father (Saul Rubinek) and sent to the public school system. There, he continues his quest to live out Trotsky's activism, as he is pitted against the strong-willed principal Mr. Berkhoff (Colm Feore). Meanwhile, he seeks romance with older graduate student Alexandra (Emily Hampshire). Production. Shooting for the film began in Montreal on 27 August 2008 at Lakeside Academy. Release. The film was first previewed at the Toronto International Film Festival 11 September 2009. In the United States, it was screened at the 2010 Tribeca Film Festival. Its general Canadian release was on 14 May 2010. Reception. "The Toronto Star" gave "The Trotsky" a positive review, particularly of the cast. Another positive review from Montreal's "The Gazette" noted the "inspired, often-dangerously-funny screenplay" of the "too-talented" Tierney, likening the film to "Ferris Bueller's Day Off". Web review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes assessed the film at 82% on its Tomatometer with an average rating of 7/10, based on 11 reviews.
1164191	Lori Anne Loughlin (born July 28, 1964) is an American actress. She is best known for her role as Rebecca Donaldson-Katsopolis on the ABC sitcom "Full House", appearing in the series from 1988 to 1995. From 2008 to 2011, she portrayed the role of Debbie Wilson on the The CW series "90210" (2008–2011, 2012), a spin-off of "Beverly Hills, 90210". She is also known for portraying the role of Ava Gregory on the The WB series "Summerland" (2004–2005), which she also co-created and produced. Early life and education. Loughlin was born in Queens, New York and moved with her family to Long Island. She lived in Oceanside, New York, where she attended Oaks Public Elementary School #3 and then moved to Hauppauge, New York, where she attended Hauppauge High School. She is of Irish descent. Career. She began her career at age twelve as a print model. During her early teen years she appeared in television commercials and was frequently seen in national print advertisements. At the age of fifteen, Loughlin was cast in the ABC soap opera "The Edge of Night", playing the part of Jody Travis, an aspiring dancer, appearing in the series from 1980 to 1983. From 1983 to 1988, Loughlin appeared a number of feature films and television guest spots.
1163778	Richard Bernard "Red" Skelton (July 18, 1913September 17, 1997) was an American entertainer best known for being a national radio and television comedian between 1937 and 1971. Skelton, who has stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, began his show business career in his teens as a circus clown and continued on vaudeville and Broadway and in films, radio, TV, nightclubs, and casinos, all while he pursued an entirely separate career as an artist. Life and career. Early years. Born in Vincennes, Indiana, Richard Skelton was the fourth son of Ida Mae (née Fields) and Joseph E. Skelton (1878–1913). Joseph, a grocer, died two months before his last child was born; he had once been a clown with the Hagenbeck-Wallace Circus. In Skelton's lifetime there was some dispute about the year of his birth. Author Wesley Hyatt suggests that since Skelton began working at such an early age, he may have had to say he was older than he actually was in order to work. Because of the loss of his father, young Richard went to work at the age of seven, selling newspapers to help his family. He quickly learned the newsboy's patter and would keep it up until a prospective buyer bought a copy of the paper just to quiet young Skelton. In 1923, a man came up to the young newsboy, purchased every paper he had and asked him if he wanted to see the show in town, giving him a ticket. The man, comedian Ed Wynn, was part of the show and later took young Skelton backstage. It was then that he realized what he wanted to do with his life. (Skelton also told another version of this story, with Raymond Hitchcock as the actor.) Skelton learned when young that he could make people laugh. When Skelton was ten, he auditioned to be part of a medicine show. When he accidentally fell from the stage, breaking bottles of medicine as he fell, people laughed. The young boy realized he could earn a living with his ability. By age 14, he had left school and was already a veteran performer, working in local vaudeville and on a showboat, "The Cotton Blossom", that traveled the Ohio and Missouri rivers. Young Skelton was interested in all forms of acting. He won a dramatic role with a stock theater company, but was unable to deliver his lines in a serious manner; the audience laughed instead. Ida Skelton, who held two jobs to support her family after the death of her husband, never said that her youngest son had run away from home, but that "his destiny had caught up with him at an early age". At age 15, he was on the vaudeville circuit. The next year he spent some time with the same circus with which his father had also been a clown. Skelton later copied his father's makeup for his television character, "Freddie the Freeloader". While performing in Kansas City in 1931, Skelton married his first wife, Edna Stillwell, who was an usher at the theater. Skelton and his wife put together an act and began to get bookings for it at some of the smaller vaudeville theaters. They somehow made their way to the Lido Club in Montreal. Despite the language barrier, the act was a success, and brought the couple theater dates throughout Canada. While in Montreal, Skelton and Edna devised the well-known "Doughnut Dunkers" routine, with Skelton's visual impressions of how different people ate doughnuts. The problem with doing this type of act was that Skelton had to eat nine doughnuts at every performance. He was performing five times a day and eating 45 doughnuts. Skelton gained almost 35 pounds rapidly and had to shelve the routine for a while until he lost the weight. Film. Skelton's first contact with Hollywood came in the form of a failed 1932 screen test. In 1937 he made his film debut for RKO Radio Pictures in the supporting role of a camp counselor in "Having Wonderful Time". Two short subjects made for Vitaphone were released in 1939: "Seeing Red" and "The Bashful Buckaroo". After screen star Mickey Rooney had seen Skelton perform his "Doughnut Dunkers" act, Rooney contacted Skelton, urging him to try for work in films. Rooney also spoke favorably about Skelton to his film employer, MGM. Skelton was hired by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer to lend comic relief to its "Dr. Kildare" medical dramas, but soon he was starring in comedy features (as inept radio detective "The Fox") and in Technicolor musicals. When Skelton renegotiated his 1940 long-term contract with MGM, he wanted a clause that permitted him to remain working in radio and to be able to work on television (which was in its infancy). Skelton's previous contract called for MGM's approval prior to his radio shows and other appearances. Skelton did not receive the desired television clause and was not able to begin working in the medium until his MGM contract completed in 1951. Skelton asked MGM once more for rights to pursue television when his contract was over. This time the studio was willing to grant them, making Skelton the only major MGM personality with the privilege. During the last portion of Skelton's contract with the studio, he was working in radio and on television in addition to films. In a 1956 interview, Skelton said he decided he would never work simultaneously in all three again. Radio. The "Doughnut Dunkers" routine also led to Skelton's first appearance on "The Rudy Vallee Show" on August 12, 1937. The program had a talent show segment and those who were searching for stardom were eager to be heard on it. The show received enough fan mail after Skelton's performance to invite the comedian back two weeks after his initial appearance and again in November of that year. On October 1, 1938, Skelton replaced Red Foley as the host of "Avalon Time" on NBC; Edna also joined the show's cast. Skelton continued as the show's host until late 1939, when he went on to begin his MGM movie career. Skelton's success in films meant a regular radio show offer. He went on the air with his own program, "The Raleigh Cigarettes Program", on October 7, 1941. The bandleader for the show was Ozzie Nelson; his wife, Harriet, who worked under her maiden name of Hilliard, was the show's vocalist and also worked with Skelton in skits. Skelton introduced the first two of his many characters during the show's first season. Clem Kadiddlehopper was based on a Vincennes neighbor named Carl Hopper, who was hard of hearing. Skelton's voice pattern for Clem was very much like that of the later cartoon character, Bullwinkle. They were sufficiently similar to cause Skelton to contemplate filing a lawsuit against Bill Scott, who voiced the cartoon moose. The Mean Widdle Kid, or "Junior", was a young boy full of mischief, who typically did things he was told not to do. "Junior" would say things like, "If I dood it, I gets a whipping.", followed moments later by the statement, "I dood it!" Skelton performed the character at home with Edna giving him the nickname "Junior" long before it was heard by a radio audience. While the phrase was Skelton's, the idea to try using the character on the radio show was Edna's. Skelton starred in a 1942 movie of the same name, but did not play "Junior" in the film. When MGM decided to use the phrase for the movie, they did so without the permission of either Skelton or his Raleigh cigarettes sponsor; Skelton asked for $25,000 from the studio in damages. The phrase was such a part of national culture at the time, when General Doolittle conducted the bombing of Tokyo in 1942, many newspapers used the phrase, "Doolittle Dood It" as a headline. In 1943, after a talk with President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Skelton used his radio show to collect funds for a Douglas A-20 Havoc to be given to the Soviet Army to help fight World War II. Asking children to send in their spare change, Skelton raised enough money for the plane in two weeks. He named the bomber "We Dood It!" In 1993, the pilot of the plane was able to meet Skelton and thank him for the bomber. Skelton also added a routine he had been performing since 1928. Originally called "Mellow Cigars" by Skelton, the skit entailed an announcer who became ill as he smoked his sponsor's product. Brown and Williamson, the makers of cigarettes, asked Skelton to change some aspects of the skit; Skelton renamed the routine "Guzzler's Gin", where the announcer became inebriated while sampling and touting the imaginary sponsor's wares. While the traditional radio program called for its cast to do an audience warm-up in preparation for the broadcast, Skelton did just the opposite. After the regular radio program had ended, the studio audience was treated to a post-program performance. Skelton would then perform his "Guzzler's Gin" or any of more than 350 routines for those who had come to the radio show. Skelton updated and revised his post-show routines as diligently as those for his radio program. As a result, studio audience tickets for the Skelton radio show were in high demand; there were times where up to 300 people needed to be turned away for lack of seats. The Skelton divorce in 1943 meant that Red had lost his married man's deferment; he was once again classified as 1-A for service. He was drafted into the Army in early 1944. Both MGM and his radio sponsor tried to obtain a deferment for the comedian, but to no avail. Skelton's last Raleigh radio show was on June 6, 1944, the day before he was formally inducted. Without its star, the program was discontinued, and the opportunity presented itself for the Nelsons to begin a radio show of their own, "The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet". Skelton suffered a nervous breakdown while in the Army and was discharged on September 18, 1945. His sponsor was eager to have him back on the air, and Skelton's program began anew on NBC on December 4, 1945. Skelton brought with him many new characters that were added to his repertoire: Bolivar Shagnasty, described as a "loudmouthed braggard", Cauliflower McPugg, a boxer who had hit the canvas too often, Deadeye, a cowboy who could not get anything right, Willie Lump-Lump, a fellow who had a few too many drinks, and San Fernando Red, who never met a scam he did not like and also had political aspirations. By 1947, Skelton's musical conductor was David Rose, who would go on to television with him. Skelton had worked with Rose during his time in the Army and wanted Rose to join him on the radio show when it went back on the air in December 1945. On April 22, 1947, Red was censored by NBC two minutes into his radio show. Red and his announcer Rod O'Connor began to talk about Fred Allen being censored during Allen's NBC show the previous week; they were silenced for 15 seconds. Comedian Bob Hope was also given the same treatment once he began referring to the censoring of Allen. Skelton forged on with his lines for his studio audience's benefit. The material Skelton insisted on using had been edited from the script by the network before the broadcast. Skelton's words after he was back on the air were, "Well, we have now joined the parade of stars." Skelton had been briefly censored the previous month for the use of the word "diaper". After the April incidents, NBC indicated it would no longer pull the plug for similar reasons. Skelton changed sponsors in 1948; Brown and Williamson, owners of Raleigh cigarettes, withdrew due to program production costs. Skelton's new sponsor was Procter & Gamble's Tide laundry detergent. He changed networks the next year, going from NBC to CBS. The that offered stars significant tax savings if they incorporated, then sold their shows to CBS, covered radio shows only. Skelton's radio show was on CBS until May 1953. After Skelton's network radio contract was over, he signed with Ziv Radio for three years for a syndicated radio program in 1954. He was inducted into the Radio Hall of Fame in 1994. Television. Skelton was unable to work in television until the end of his 1951 MGM movie contract; a renegotiation to extend the pact provided permission after that point. He was signed to a contract for television on NBC with Procter and Gamble as his sponsor on May 4, 1951. Skelton indicated he would be performing the same characters on television as he had been doing on radio. The MGM agreement with Skelton for television performances did not allow him to go on the air before September 30, 1951. When he began his NBC television show on the first day he was able to legally do so, at the end of his opening monologue, two men backstage grabbed his ankles from behind the set curtain, hauling him offstage face first. The comedic hard knocks took their toll; before Skelton had reached the age of 40, he needed leg braces and a cane for the cartilage that was destroyed in both of his knees. A ritual was established at the end of every program, with Skelton's words of, "Good night and may God bless." A 1943 hit instrumental for Rose, called "Holiday for Strings", was used as Skelton's TV theme song. His now-famous "Freddie the Freeloader" clown was introduced on the program in 1952. During the 1951–52 season, Skelton broadcast live from a converted NBC radio studio. The first year of Skelton's television show was done live; problems set in because there was not enough time for costume changes and also because of Skelton's being on camera for most of the half-hour. Skelton was delivering an intense performance live each week, and the strain showed in physical illness. NBC agreed to film his shows in the 1952–53 season at Eagle Lion Studios, next to the Sam Goldwyn Studio, on Santa Monica Boulevard in Hollywood. Later the show was moved to the new NBC television studios in Burbank. Procter & Gamble remained unhappy with the filming of the television show, and insisted that Skelton return to live broadcasts. The situation caused him to think about leaving television at that point. Declining ratings prompted sponsor Procter & Gamble to cancel his show in the spring of 1953, with Skelton announcing that any future television shows of his would be variety shows, where he would not have the almost constant burden of performing. Beginning with the 1953–54 season, Skelton switched to CBS, where he remained until 1970. When Skelton initially moved to CBS, he had no sponsor. The network gambled by taking the Skelton show on a sustaining basis; CBS was covering all expenses. Skelton's first CBS sponsor was Geritol. He curtailed his drinking and his ratings at CBS began to improve, especially after he began appearing on Tuesday nights for co-sponsors Johnson's Wax and Pet Milk Company. By 1959, Skelton was the only comedian with a regularly scheduled weekly television show. Skelton's comedic sketches became legendary. Sometimes during sketches, Skelton would break up or cause his guest stars to laugh, not only on the live telecasts but on taped programs as well. Actress Theona Bryant, a regular to the show remarked, "When you can recite Juliet's Romeo dialogue in southern belle drawl into the laughing face of Red Skelton, you're ready to be a star." By 1955, Skelton was broadcasting his weekly programs in color. Between 1955 and 1960 the program was broadcast in color approximately 100 times. He tried to encourage CBS to do other shows in color at the facility, although most emanated in black-and-white from Television City near the Farmers Market in Los Angeles. However, CBS mostly avoided color broadcasting after the network's television set manufacturing division, CBS-Columbia sold few color sets and the public's general lack of interest did not warrant the additional cost. Although CBS occasionally would use NBC facilities or its own small color studio for specials, the network avoided color programming—except for sporadic telecasts of specials "The Wizard of Oz" and Rodgers and Hammerstein's "Cinderella"—until the fall of 1965, when the three broadcast networks (ABC, NBC and CBS) began televising most of their primetime programs in color. In early 1960, Skelton purchased the old Charlie Chaplin Studios and updated it for videotape recording. Along with a purchase of a three-truck mobile color television unit, Skelton recorded (and CBS continued to broadcast) a number of his series episodes and specials in color. Even with Skelton's color facilities CBS discontinued color broadcasts on a regular basis and Skelton shortly sold the studio to CBS and the mobile unit to local station, KTLA. Prior to this, he had been filming at Desilu Productions. By that time, Skelton had abandoned his own studio and moved back to the network's Television City facilities, where he resumed programs until he left the network. In the fall of 1962, CBS expanded his program to a full hour, retitling it "The Red Skelton Hour". While a staple of his radio programs, Skelton did not perform his "Mean Widdle Kid" or "Junior" character on television until 1962, after extending the length of his program. At the height of Skelton's popularity, his son was diagnosed with leukemia. In 1957, this was a virtual death sentence for any child. Skelton returned to his television show on January 15, 1957, with guest star Mickey Rooney helping to lift his spirits. The illness and subsequent death of Richard Skelton at the age of nine left his father devastated and unable to perform for much of the 1957–58 television season. Skelton himself was beset by a serious illness and by a household accident which kept him off the air. CBS management was exceptionally understanding of Red's situation, and no talk of cancellation was ever entertained by Paley. Skelton's season premiere for the 1960–61 television season was a tribute to the United Nations. Six hundred people from the organization, including diplomats, were invited to be part of the audience for the show. Skelton's program was entirely done in pantomime. UN representatives from 39 nations were in the studio audience. In 1965, Skelton did another show in complete pantomime. This time he was joined by Marcel Marceau; the two artists alternated performances for the hour-long program, sharing the stage to perform Pinocchio. The only person who spoke during the hour was Maurice Chevalier, who served as the show's narrator. Skelton frequently employed the art of pantomime for his characters, using few props. A particularly poignant one is that of the old man watching the parade. The sketch had its origins in a question Skelton's terminally ill son, Richard, asked his father about what happens when people die. Skelton told his son, "They join a parade and start marching." In 1969, Skelton performed a self-written monologue about the Pledge of Allegiance. In the speech, he commented on the meaning of each phrase of the Pledge. CBS received 200,000 requests for copies; the company subsequently released the monologue as a single recording by Columbia Records. In "Groucho and Me", Groucho Marx called Skelton "the most unacclaimed clown in show business", and "the logical successor to Chaplin", largely because of his ability to play a multitude of characters with minimal use of dialogue and props. "With one prop, a soft battered hat," Groucho wrote, describing a performance he had witnessed, "he successfully converted himself into an idiot boy, a peevish old lady, a teetering-tottering drunk, an overstuffed clubwoman, a tramp, and any other character that seemed to suit his fancy. No grotesque make-up, no funny clothes, just Red." He added that Skelton also "plays a dramatic scene about as effectively as any of the dramatic actors." Skelton was quoted as saying, "I just want to be known as a clown, because to me that's the height of my profession. It means you can do everything—sing, dance and above all, make people laugh." Since he believed this was his mission in life, Skelton was able to share his gift of laughter under surprising circumstances. He and Father Edward J. Carney were on a plane from Rome carrying 24 children from an assortment of countries when the plane lost two of its three engines and seemed destined to lose the third. When it appeared that the plane would crash over Mont Blanc, the priest readied himself to administer Last Rites. As he did so, he told Skelton, "You take care of your department, Red, and I'll take care of mine." Skelton diverted the attention of the children with pantomimes while Father Carney prayed; they were somehow able to land at a small airstrip in Lyon, France. Many of Skelton's television shows have survived due to kinescopes, films and videotapes and have been featured in recent years on Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) stations. In addition, a number of excerpts from Skelton's programs have been released in VHS and DVD formats. In 1980, Skelton was taken to court by 13 of his former writers over a story that his will called for the destruction of recordings of all his old television shows upon his death. Skelton contended his remarks were made at a time when he was very unhappy with the television industry and were taken out of context. Skelton said at the time, "Would you burn the only monument you've built in over 20 years?" As the owner of the television shows, Skelton steadfastly refused to allow them to be syndicated as reruns during his lifetime. One of the last known on-camera interviews with Skelton was conducted by Steven F. Zambo. A small portion of this interview can be seen in the 2005 PBS special, "The Pioneers of Primetime". Off the air. As the '70s began, the networks began a major campaign to discontinue long-running shows that were seen as stale or lacking youth appeal. Despite Red Skelton's continued strong ratings, CBS saw his show as fitting into this category and gave it the axe along with other comedy shows hosted by veterans such as Jackie Gleason and Ed Sullivan. In addition, inflation resulted in mounting production costs. (see "rural purge" for more information on this topic). CBS continued with Carol Burnett's highly popular show until 1978, and aired variety programs hosted by younger entertainers such as Sonny and Cher. Years later, Burnett told reporters that network variety shows had become too expensive to bring back. Performing in Las Vegas when he got the news of his CBS cancellation, Skelton said, "My heart has been broken." Skelton moved to NBC in 1970 in a half-hour Monday night version of his former show. Its cancellation after one season ended his long television career. Skelton returned to live performances after he was no longer on television. In an apparent effort to prove the networks wrong, he gave many of these at colleges and did prove quite popular with the youth. In 1984, Skelton gave a Royal Command Performance for the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds which was later shown in the US on HBO. In addition, Skelton made several other specials for HBO including "Freddie the Freeloader's Christmas Dinner" (1981) and the "Funny Faces" series of specials. Skelton was said to be bitter about CBS's cancellation for many years afterwards. Believing the demographic and salary issues to be irrelevant, he bitterly accused CBS of caving in to the anti-establishment, anti-war faction at the height of the Vietnam War, saying his conservative political and social views caused them to turn against him. Skelton invited prominent Republicans, including Vice President Spiro T. Agnew and Senate Republican Leader Everett Dirksen to appear on his program. When he was presented with the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences' Governor's Award in 1986, Skelton received a standing ovation. "I want to thank you for sitting down," Skelton said when the ovation subsided. "I thought you were pulling a CBS and walking out on me." Skelton had previously received Emmys for Best Comedy Program and Best Comedian in 1952 and for Best Comedy Writing in 1961. Skelton was inducted into the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences' Television Hall of Fame in 1989. Clown and circus art. Skelton began producing artwork in 1943, but kept his works private for many years. He said he was inspired to try his hand at painting after visiting a large Chicago department store that had various paintings on display. Inquiring as to the price of one which Skelton described as "a bunch of blotches", he was told, "Ten thousand wouldn't buy that one." Skelton said he told the clerk he was one of the ten thousand who would not buy the painting, instead buying his own art materials. His wife, Georgia, a former art student, persuaded Skelton to have his first public showing of his work in 1964 at the Las Vegas hotel where he was entertaining at the time. Skelton originals are priced at $80,000 and upward; Skelton once estimated the sale of his lithographs earned him $2.5 million per year. In Death Valley Junction, California, Skelton found a kindred spirit when he saw the artwork and pantomime performances of Marta Becket. Today, circus performers painted by Marta Becket decorate the Red Skelton Room in the Amargosa Hotel, where Skelton stayed four times in Room 22. The room is dedicated to Skelton, as explained by John Mulvihill in his essay, "Lost Highway Hotel": Marta Becket is the magic behind the Amargosa Hotel. For the past 32 years, it has provided both a home and a venue for her lifetime ambition: to perform her dance and pantomime works to paying audiences. Since 1968, she's been doing just that, twice a week, audiences or no. The hotel guest’s first encounter with Marta is through her paintings in the lobby and dining area. Once she and her husband had upgraded the structure of the hotel and theatre, she made them unique by painting their walls with shimmering frescoes (not real frescoes but the effect is the same) in a style uniquely hers. Some of the paintings are deceptively three-dimensional, like the guitar leaning against a wall that you don’t realize is a painting until you reach to pick it up. Some are evocative of carnival art from the early part of this century. All are vibrant, whimsical. If you’re lucky, your room will be graced with similar wall paintings. Room 22 is where Red Skelton used to stay. He visited once to catch Marta’s show and, like so many others, fell victim to the Amargosa’s enchantment and returned again and again. He asked Marta to illustrate his room with circus performers and though he died shortly thereafter, she did so anyway. Staying in this room, with acrobats scaling the walls and trapeze artists flying from the ceiling, is a singularly evocative experience, one I wouldn’t trade for a suite at the Waldorf-Astoria. Other interests. Skelton was a prolific writer of both short stories and music. After sleeping only four or five hours a night, he would get up at 5 AM and begin writing stories, composing music, and painting pictures. He wrote at least one short story a week and had composed over 8,000 songs and symphonies at his death. Skelton was also interested in photography; when attending Hollywood parties, he would take photos and give the films to newspaper reporters waiting outside. Skelton kept a photographic record of each of his oil paintings. He was also an avid gardener who created his own Japanese garden and bonsai trees at his home in Palm Springs, California. Personal life. On June 1, 1931, Skelton married Edna Marie Stillwell (1915–1982), a joke writer, business manager, and former usher at Kansas City's old Pantages Theater. Skelton was one month away from his 18th birthday, and Edna was 16. The two met when she approached Skelton after a show and told him she didn't like his material; Skelton asked her if she could do better. They married a short time later, with Edna taking on the tasks of managing her husband and writing for him, as well as becoming part of his act. At first, Skelton considered his wife to be interfering after she saw the boss when his salary was about to be cut. When she came away with not only a raise for her husband but additional considerations as well, Skelton no longer minded Edna's intervention. Since Skelton had left school at an early age, his wife bought textbooks and taught Skelton what he had missed. With Edna's help, Skelton received a high school equivalency degree. She was also part of the cast for Skelton's "Avalon Time" radio program under her maiden name of Edna Stillwell. Edna developed a system for working with the show's writers; she would select material from them, add her own and file the unused bits and lines for future use. In 1942, Edna announced that she was leaving the Skelton home but would continue to manage Skelton's career and write material for him. Skelton did not realize she was serious until Edna issued a statement about the impending divorce through NBC, Skelton's radio employer. They divorced in 1943, leaving the courtroom arm in arm. After their marriage ended, Stillwell remained an advisor on his career until 1952, receiving a generous weekly salary for life for her efforts. By 1944, Skelton was engaged to actress Muriel Morris, who was also known as Muriel Chase; the couple had obtained a marriage license and told the press they intended to marry within a few days. At the last minute, the actress decided not to marry Skelton, initially saying she intended to marry a wealthy businessman in Mexico City. She later recanted the story about marrying the businessman, but continued to say that her relationship with Skelton was over. The actress further denied that the reason for the breakup was Skelton's former wife's continuing to manage her ex-husband's career. Edna Skelton stated that she had no intention of either getting in the middle of the relationship or reconciling with her ex-husband. Skelton, who was drafted in early 1944 and joined the Army on May 25 of that year, was on furlough for throat discomfort when he married Georgia Maurine Davis in Beverly Hills, California on March 9, 1945. In later years, Skelton, on his television show, referred to her as "Little Red." He entered the hospital later that day to have his tonsils removed. As part of the entertainment corps, Skelton performed before troops in both the United States and in Europe, as many as ten to twelve shows per day. The pressure of his workload caused him to suffer exhaustion and a nervous breakdown; he was released from his Army duties in September 1945. Georgia and Red had two children, Valentina Marie Skelton (b. 1947) and Richard Skelton, Jr. (1948–1958). In January 1957, Skelton's son, Richard, was diagnosed with leukemia; initially he was given a year at most to live. After Richard's diagnosis, Skelton took his family on an extended trip, so the boy could see as much of the world as possible. When they arrived in London, there were press accusations that Skelton's trip was more about publicity than his seriously ill son. There were also newspaper reports about young Richard's illness being fatal which were seen by the young boy. The devastated father cut the family's trip short and returned to the United States after the British press stories. Skelton suffered a life-threatening asthma attack on December 30, 1957. He was taken to St. John's Hospital in Santa Monica, where his doctors said that "if there were ten steps to death, Red Skelton had taken nine of them by the time he had arrived". Initially hospitalized for an indeterminate length of time, Skelton later said he was working on some notes for television and the next thing he remembered, he was in a hospital bed. He did not know how serious his illness was until he read about himself in the newspapers. Skelton's illness and recovery kept him off the air for a full month. Richard Skelton Jr.'s death on May 10, 1958, just 10 days before his 10th birthday, was a major blow to the entire family. The day the young boy was buried, Skelton was scheduled to do his weekly television show. Though there were some recordings of some older Skelton shows available which the network could have run, Skelton asked that guest performers be used instead. Skelton's friends in the television, film and music industry, calling themselves The Friends of Red Skelton, organized a variety show which they performed to replace the Skelton show for that week. Richard Jr.'s death profoundly affected Red and Georgia. By the early 1960s, the Skelton family had moved to Palm Springs while Red used the Bel Air mansion only on the two days when he was in Los Angeles for his television show taping. In 1966, Georgia Skelton wounded herself in an accidental shooting at the Sands Hotel in Las Vegas while her husband was performing in the main showroom. The couple's daughter, Valentina, heard the gunshot and found her mother who was both surprised and confused about what had happened. The Skeltons kept handguns in both of their California homes because of prowlers. Georgia did not feel safe without a gun and the couple brought it to Las Vegas with them. The gun was kept loaded on a bedside table and Mrs. Skelton may have accidentally brushed against it there while reaching for something else. The Clark County Sheriff declared the shooting to be accidental. In 1971, Red and Georgia divorced. Skelton, now 60, married a secretary 25 years his junior, Lothian Toland, daughter of famed film cinematographer Gregg Toland. They were married on October 7, 1973, in San Francisco, and remained married until Red Skelton's death in 1997. On May 10, 1976, Skelton's ex-wife Georgia committed suicide by gunshot on the 18th anniversary of her son's death. She was 54 and had been in poor health for some time. Skelton was deeply affected by the loss of his ex-wife. Death. After retirement, he had homes in Palm Springs and Anza, California. Skelton died on September 17, 1997 at the Eisenhower Medical Center, in Rancho Mirage, California, aged 84, and was interred in the Skelton Family tomb in The Great Mausoleum's Sanctuary of Benediction, private room, at Forest Lawn Memorial Park, in Glendale, California. He rests with his son Richard Jr., who died in 1958. Skelton was survived by his widow, Lothian Toland-Skelton, his daughter, Valentina Marie Skelton-Alonso, and granddaughter Sabrina Maureen Alonso. Fraternity and honors. Red Skelton was a Freemason, a member of Vincennes Lodge No. 1, in Indiana. He also was a member of both the Scottish and York Rite. He was the recipient of the Gold Medal of the General Grand Chapter, Royal Arch Masons, for Distinguished Service in the Arts and Sciences. On September 24, 1969, he received the honorary 33° in the Scottish Rite and was a Gourgas Medal recipient in 1995. Skelton was also a Shriner in Los Angeles, California. Skelton became interested in Masonry as a small boy selling newspapers in Vincennes, when a man bought a paper from him with a five dollar bill and told him to keep the change. The young Skelton asked his benefactor why he had given him so much money; the man explained that he was a Mason and Masons are taught to give. Skelton decided to become one also when he was grown. Skelton was made an honorary brother of Phi Sigma Kappa at Truman State University. In 1961 Skelton was made an honorary brother of the Phi Alpha Tau Fraternity of Emerson College when he was awarded the Joseph E. Connor Award for excellence in the field of communications. He also received an honorary degree from the college. Skelton received an honorary high school diploma from Vincennes High School. He was also an honorary member of Kappa Kappa Psi National Honorary Band Fraternity. In 1986, Skelton received an honorary degree from Ball State University. The Red Skelton Memorial Bridge spans the Wabash River and provides the highway link between Illinois and Indiana on U.S. Route 50 near Skelton's hometown of Vincennes, Indiana. At the end of bridge's dedication in 1963, Red exclaimed, "Okay everybody, now off my bridge!" Skelton received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Screen Actors Guild in 1987; he was also one of the International Clown Hall of Fame's first inductees in 1989. Legacy. The Red Skelton Performing Arts Center was dedicated on Friday, February 24, 2006 on the campus of Vincennes University at a cost of $16.8 million. The building includes an 850-seat theater, classrooms, rehearsal rooms, and dressing rooms. Its grand foyer is a gallery for Red Skelton's paintings, statues, and film posters. The theater hosts Vincennes University theatrical and musical productions, special events, convocations and conventions. Work was underway as of 2009 on the Red Skelton Gallery and Education Center that will house Skelton memorabilia donated by the comedian's family. In September 2010, the museum and the Indiana Historical Society entered into a partnership for a permanent archive of Skelton's material. The museum received a one million dollar donation in November 2010. The Red Skelton Foundation also assists needy children in Vincennes with new clothing. "The Red Skelton Festival", June 14, 2008, in Vincennes, featured the "Parade of a Thousand Clowns," an "Evening of Music", with Crystal Gayle, and clown seminars. Restoration is also underway for the historic Vincennes Pantheon Theatre, where Skelton performed during his youth. His great-nephew, John Skelton, is a currently a quarterback for the Cincinnati Bengals.
1098939	Vladimir Naumovich Vapnik () is one of the main developers of Vapnik–Chervonenkis theory. He was born in the Soviet Union. He received his master's degree in mathematics at the Uzbek State University, Samarkand, Uzbek SSR in 1958 and Ph.D in statistics at the Institute of Control Sciences, Moscow in 1964. He worked at this institute from 1961 to 1990 and became Head of the Computer Science Research Department. At the end of 1990, he moved to the USA and joined the Adaptive Systems Research Department at AT&T Bell Labs in Holmdel, New Jersey. The group later became the Image Processing Research Department of AT&T Laboratories when AT&T spun off Lucent Technologies in 1996. Vapnik Left AT&T in 2002 and joined NEC Laboratories in Princeton, New Jersey, where he currently works in the Machine Learning group. He also holds a Professor of Computer Science and Statistics position at Royal Holloway, University of London since 1995, as well as a position as Professor of Computer Science at Columbia University, New York City since 2003. He was inducted into the U.S. National Academy of Engineering in 2006. He received the 2005 Gabor Award, the 2008 Paris Kanellakis Award, the 2010 Neural Networks Pioneer Award, the 2012 IEEE Frank Rosenblatt Award, and the 2012 Benjamin Franklin Medal in Computer and Cognitive Science from the Franklin Institute. While at AT&T, Vapnik and his colleagues developed the theory of the support vector machine. They demonstrated its performance on a number of problems of interest to the machine learning community, including handwriting recognition.
1102697	Garrett Birkhoff (January 19, 1911 – November 22, 1996) was an American mathematician. He is best known for his work in lattice theory. The mathematician George Birkhoff (1884–1944) was his father. Life. The son of the mathematician George David Birkhoff, Garrett began the Harvard University BA course in 1928 after less than seven years of prior formal education. Upon completing his Harvard BA in 1932, he went to Cambridge University in England to study mathematical physics but switched to studying abstract algebra under Philip Hall. While visiting the University of Munich, he met Carathéodory who pointed him towards two important texts, Van der Waerden on abstract algebra and Speiser on group theory. Birkhoff held no Ph.D., a qualification British higher education did not emphasize at that time, and did not even bother obtaining an M.A. Nevertheless, after being a member of Harvard's Society of Fellows, 1933–36, he spent the rest of his career teaching at Harvard. From these facts can be inferred the number and quality of Birkhoff's papers published by his 25th year. During the 1930s, Birkhoff, along with his Harvard colleagues Marshall Stone and Saunders Mac Lane, substantially advanced American teaching and research in abstract algebra. In 1941 he and Mac Lane published "A Survey of Modern Algebra", the second undergraduate textbook in English on the subject (Cyrus Colton MacDuffee's "An Introduction to Abstract Algebra" was published in 1940). Mac Lane and Birkhoff's "Algebra" (1967) is a more advanced text on abstract algebra. A number of papers he wrote in the 1930s, culminating in his monograph, "Lattice Theory" (1940; the third edition remains in print), turned lattice theory into a major branch of abstract algebra. His 1935 paper, "On the Structure of Abstract Algebras" founded a new branch of mathematics, universal algebra. Birkhoff's approach to this development of universal algebra and lattice theory acknowledged prior ideas of Charles Sanders Peirce, Ernst Schröder, and Alfred North Whitehead; in fact, Whitehead had written a 1898 monograph entitled "Universal Algebra". During and after World War II, Birkhoff's interests gravitated towards what he called "engineering" mathematics. During the war, he worked on radar aiming and ballistics, including the bazooka. In the development of weapons, mathematical questions arose, some of which had not yet been addressed by the literature on fluid dynamics. Birkhoff's research was presented in his texts on fluid dynamics, "Hydrodynamics" (1950) and "Jets, Wakes and Cavities" (1957). Birkhoff, a friend of John von Neumann, took a close interest in the rise of the electronic computer. Birkhoff supervised the Ph.D. thesis of David M. Young on the numerical solution of the partial differential equation of Poisson, in which Young proposed the successive over-relaxation (SOR) method. Birkhoff then worked with Richard S. Varga, a former student, who was employed at Bettis Atomic Power Laboratory of the Westinghouse Electronic Corporation in Pittsburgh and was helping to design nuclear reactors. Extending the results of Young, the Birkhoff-Varga collaboration led to many publications on positive operators and iterative methods for "p"-cylic matrices. Birkhoff's research and consulting work (notably for General Motors) developed computational methods besides numerical linear algebra, notably the representation of smooth curves via cubic splines. Birkhoff published more than 200 papers and supervised more than 50 Ph.D.s. He was a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
1164881	Anne-Marie Johnson (born July 18, 1960) is an American actress and impressionist who has starred in film and on television. Johnson is perhaps best known for her role as high school educator Althea Tibbs on the NBC/CBS television drama "In the Heat of the Night". She is also known for her role as Nadine Hudson Thomas on the syndicated sitcom "What's Happening Now!!". Anne-Marie is the former First Vice-President of the Screen Actor's Guild. She ran for president of the actors' union in 2009 on the Membership First ticket, but lost to eventual winner Ken Howard. Biography. Johnson was born in Los Angeles, California. She graduated from UCLA with a degree in Acting and Theater. Her first role was as Aileen Lewis in on the 1984 NBC comedy series "Double Trouble". After the 1985 syndicated series "What's Happening Now!!" (as Raj's wife Nadine Hudson Thomas), she became well known for portraying Althea Tibbs on the NBC/CBS television series "In the Heat of the Night" from 1988–1993. While appearing on "In the Heat of the Night," she recorded the song "Little Drummer Boy" for the 1991 cast Christmas CD "Christmas Time's A Comin'." Providing vocals behind her were country gospel legends The Marksmen Quartet and Nashville drummer Monty Hall. The song was produced by co-stars Randall Franks and Alan Autry. Career. She joined the cast of the Fox Network sketch comedy series "In Living Color" in its last season (1993–1994); afterwards she portrayed Alycia Barnett in one season of the Fox series "Melrose Place" (1995–1996). She had a recurring role on the CBS television series "JAG" as Representative Bobbi Latham. She has made guest appearances on other television series, from "Diff'rent Strokes", "Hill Street Blues", "Hunter", "Babylon 5", "Living Single", "That's So Raven", "Girlfriends", "The Parkers" and "Rock Me Baby". Most recent parts include playing fashion designer Donna Cabonna on "That's So Raven" and television reporter Janet King on "I'm in the Band". She appeared on the game show "Card Sharks", where her name was listed as "Anne Johnson". She later appeared on the game show "Child's Play" under her full name. Johnson was elected First National Vice President of the Screen Actors Guild in 2005. In 2010, she was succeeded by Ned Vaughn. Johnson has been married to Martin Grey since 1996.
1164231	Rider King Strong (born December 11, 1979) is an American actor, director, producer and screenwriter. He is best known for his role as Shawn Hunter on the 1990s sitcom "Boy Meets World". Biography. Early life. Rider King Strong was born in San Francisco, California, the son of Lin (née Warner), a teacher and nutritionist, and King Strong, a firefighter. He graduated from high school in Sebastopol, California in 1997. His brother is Shiloh Strong, an actor and still photographer. Career. Strong began his acting career at the young age of nine, when he starred as Gavroche in the San Francisco production of "Les Misérables". After the stage production, he appeared in small screen roles on television. In 1992, he received his first regular television series role as Julie Andrews's son on "Julie". When the series was canceled, Strong made his debut on film as Amy Irving's son in "Benefit of the Doubt." It was not until he was chosen for the role of Shawn Hunter in the ABC series "Boy Meets World" that he received widespread recognition. During the seven year run he was nominated twice for the Young Artist Award and nominated for a "Hollywood Reporter" YoungStar Award. When the series ended, Strong returned to the big screen to star as Paul in the indie horror film "Cabin Fever", directed by Eli Roth. In 2006, he returned to television for a regular series role in "Pepper Dennis" on the WB. The show was short-lived and was not chosen as one of the transferring shows to The CW Television Network. He has a brief cameo appearance in "", the sequel to "Cabin Fever". It was released in 2009. Along with his brother, Shiloh Strong, he wrote and directed the short film, "Irish Twins", which premiered at the 2008 Tribeca Film Festival. It went on to win both the Jury Award and Audience Award at the Woods Hole Film Festival, a Special Jury Prize in the Action/Cut Short Film Competition and Best First-Time Director at DC Shorts. Speaking to Pure Movies in 2010 he expressed that he wanted to expand his writing and directing career: 'Acting is always there and I enjoy it but it’s kind of got a little unfulfilling lately. You know, I’m in the low budget horror world… I have a whole lot of other stuff I want to do.' In April 2008, Strong co-created (with his brother and his girlfriend, actress Alexandra Barreto) a 30-second television ad in support of Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, titled "It Could Happen to You." The ad, submitted to MoveOn.org, became one of 15 finalists from a pool of over 1,100 submitted ads, and was chosen as the funniest ad in May 2008. In August, MoveOn raised $200,000 to air the ad on MTV and Comedy Central; it was the first political commercial to ever appear on Comedy Central. In early 2009, Strong narrated the audiobook of "The Obama Revolution" by Alan Kennedy-Shaffer. In 2010, Strong starred in the science fiction-thriller film "The Darkening Sky" alongside Ezra Buzzington, Charley Rossman, Sally Berman, Daniel Kirschner and LaShan Anderson under the direction of Victor Bornia. In late 2012, Strong declined an offer to reprise his role as Shawn Hunter in the upcoming spinoff, "Girl Meets World" however during production of the pilot in March 2013, Strong along with other cast members, who were also unconfirmed to return, appeared on the set sparking rumors of a cameo or return to the new series. Creator Michael Jacobs stated "I think there’s more than a chance, I think there's a strong chance" when commenting on Strong and other original series cast members returning. Other current cast members commented on Strong's return indicating that his return might be a secret not ready to be revealed. In June 2013, a "Boy Meets World" reunion was held with Strong attending along with many of his former cast members. Personal life. In 2004, Strong graduated "magna cum laude" from Columbia University as an English major. While a student at Columbia, he wrote the foreword for fellow Columbian Steve Hofstetter's "Student Body Shots". Before Columbia, Strong attended Occidental College. He completed his Master of Fine Arts degree in June 2009 at Bennington College. Strong became engaged to his girlfriend, actress Alexandra Barreto, on December 23, 2012. The two met while filming the television series "Pepper Dennis".
592284	I Am Sorry Mathe Banni Preethsona is a 2011 Kannada film in the romance genre starring Prem Kumar and Karishma Tanna in the lead roles. The film is directed by Ravindra H P Das. Anoop Seelin is the music director of the film. Vinay Narkar has jointly produced the film with Ravindra. The film released on 17 June 2011. Ravindra H.P. Das got the Best Screenplay Award from Karnataka state awards for Matthe Banni Preetsona
1303650	Mark Adler (born April 3, 1959) may be best known for his work in the field of data compression. Adler is the author of the Adler-32 checksum function, a co-author of the zlib compression library and gzip, has contributed to Info-ZIP, and has participated in developing the Portable Network Graphics (PNG) image format. Adler was also the Spirit Mission Manager for the Mars Exploration Rover mission. Biography. Adler was born in Miami, Florida, the only child of David and Bertha Adler. Adler earned his Bachelor of Science in mathematics and Master of Science in electrical engineering degrees from the University of Florida in 1981 and 1985, respectively. In 1990, Adler earned his Ph.D. in physics from the California Institute of Technology. Living in La Cañada, California, he lives with Diana St. James, and they have two children, Joshua and Zachary. Diana both works at the California Institute of Technology as well as acts in and directs theatrical performances. Career. Post-doctoral. After his doctorate, Adler worked for Hughes Aircraft in their Space and Communications Group, working on diverse projects including the analysis of the effects of X-ray bursts on satellite cables, development of new error-correcting codes, designing an automobile anti-theft key, and digital image and video compression research (wavelets and MPEG-2). Mars exploration. From 1992 through 1995, Adler was the Lead Mission Engineer on the Cassini–Huygens mission. Afterwards, he became the Mars Exploration Program Architect at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) from 1996 through 1998, which meant that Adler was responsible for planning the Mars exploration missions from 2001 on as well as handling inter-project engineering issues for missions in flight and in development during the time. In 1999 and early 2000, Adler was the Mission and Systems Manager and Chief Engineer for the Mars Sample Return project, which was to launch three missions in 2003 and 2005 to bring Martian samples back to Earth in 2008. The project was canceled after the failure of Mars Polar Lander. Mars Exploration Rover mission. Adler initiated and led a three and a half week study on the concept that was later selected as the Mars Exploration Rover (MER) mission for 2003. He has served as the Deputy Mission System Manager, the Acting Project Engineer, the Deputy Assembly, Test, and Launch Operations Manager, the Landing Site Selection Engineer, and the Spirit Mission Manager. Personal interests. Adler is an instrument-rated private pilot, a certified scuba diver, and an amateur theater actor.
591904	Jennifer Dinshaw Kotwal is a Parsi model and actress from Mumbai, India. She went to school at Villa Teresa High School in Mumbai, and completed her studies with a degree in Economics at HR College, also in Mumbai. She started her acting career with Hindi television serials such as "Just Mohabbat". She has modelled for Lakme, Fanta, Close-up and Cadbury, among others. She then enacted smaller roles in Hindi films such as Subhash Ghai's "Yaadein" before landing the lead in the 2005 Kannada movie "Jogi" opposite Shivarajkumar, which set box office records,thus establishing herself as a leading contemporary actress of Kannada cinema Shooting for the sequel to "Jogi" commenced in June 2009. She appeared as Abhishek Bachchan's sister in "Bas Itna Sa Khwaab Hai". In 2009 she made her Bollywood debut as a lead heroine in "Mudh Mudh Ke Na Dekkh Mudh Mudh Ke", opposite Himesh Reshammiya.
1065615	Keisha Castle-Hughes (born 24 March 1990) is a New Zealand actress who rose to prominence for playing Paikea "Pai" Apirana in the film "Whale Rider". The film was nominated for many awards, including an Academy Award for Best Actress for which she was at the time the youngest person nominated in the Best Actress category and an award at the Broadcast Film Critics Association Awards for Best Young Actor/Actress, which she won in 2004. Since she made her film debut, Castle-Hughes has appeared in various films including "Hey, Hey, It's Esther Blueburger", "Piece of My Heart" and "". She also played the main role of the Virgin Mary in the 2006 film "The Nativity Story". Early life. Castle-Hughes was born on 24 March 1990 in Donnybrook, Western Australia, to a Māori mother, Desrae Hughes, and Tim Castle, an English-Australian father. Her parents, who were never married, later separated. She was 18 months old when her family moved to New Zealand in 1991. She became one of its citizens in 2001. Castle-Hughes has four younger siblings, brothers Rhys (born 21 February 1992), Liam (born 1996) and Quade (born July 2006), and sister Maddisyn (born 2001). Castle-Hughes attended Waiuku Primary School, Bailey Road School, Penrose High School, and Rosehill College, all in Auckland. Career. In 2003, Castle-Hughes made her debut in the film "Whale Rider", in which she played the main role of Paikea Apirana (Pai). Due to not having any previous acting experience, she went directly from her Auckland school classroom to the film set when the shoot began in New Zealand in late 2001. Castle-Hughes received widespread critical acclaim for her performance and the film turned her into an international celebrity. In 2004, she received an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress at the 76th Academy Awards. Although she did not win the Best Actress award, she became the youngest person nominated in this category at the time and the second Polynesian actress, after Jocelyne LaGarde, to be nominated for an Oscar. She soon followed the role by appearing in Prince's controversial "Cinnamon Girl" music video and with a shoot in "Vanity Fair" magazine. In 2004, Castle-Hughes was invited to join the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. In 2005, Castle-Hughes had a small part as Queen Apailana in "". In 2006, she portrayed the starring role as the Virgin Mary in "The Nativity Story". "New York Times" critic, A. O. Scott, said that she "seemed entirely unfazed by the demands of playing Mary. She had the poise and intelligence to play the character not as an icon of maternity, but rather as a headstrong, thoughtful adolescent transformed by an unimaginable responsibility." The Christian-themed film earned only $8 million during its opening week, but its box office surged during the week of Christmas. Overall, it made approximately $44.3 million USD. One critic later speculated: "It may have been harmed by the fact that its leading lady, Keisha Castle-Hughes, was found to be unwed and pregnant just as the movie's publicity campaign began." In 2008 Castle-Hughes appeared in an Australian comedy-drama film "Hey, Hey, It's Esther Blueburger", which was filmed in late 2006. She reunited with New Zealand director Niki Caro for the film adaption of "The Vintner's Luck", which had its international premiere in September 2009. She will also have a starring role in "Mona's Dream", the story of Mona Mahmudnizhad. In March 2010, Castle-Hughes guest-starred as the Creator in the American weekly series, "Legend of the Seeker". She starred in the Japanese horror film Vampire, and she also played a recurring role as Axl's flatmate in "The Almighty Johnsons" which premiered in 2011. In 2011 Castle-Hughes also played a minor part in the film "Red Dog" as Rosa the veterinary assistant and wife of Vanno. Personal life. In October 2006, it was announced that Castle-Hughes and boyfriend Bradley Hull were expecting a child together. Their daughter, Felicity-Amore Hull, was born on 25 April 2007, one month after Castle-Hughes's 17th birthday. Castle-Hughes and Hull broke up in 2010 after seven years together. In February 2012, Castle-Hughes's then-boyfriend Michael Graves was arrested and charged with assaulting her as they were driving home from an Oscars party at the Pullman Hotel in Auckland. The charge against Graves was dropped in April due to inconsistent witness accounts. Later in 2012, Castle-Hughes began dating DJ Jonathan Morrison. After six weeks together, the couple became engaged in August 2012. Their marriage took place on Valentines Day 2013. Castle-Hughes campaigned for Greenpeace as part of the SignOn.org.nz climate campaign in 2009. New Zealand Prime Minister John Key initially admonished her to "stick to acting", but offered a week later to discuss the issues with her over tea after she maintained she knew more about them than he gave her credit for. In early 2013 she moved with her husband to Los Angeles in the United States to pursue a bigger acting career.
1102719	Hassler Whitney (23 March 1907 – 10 May 1989) was an American mathematician. He was one of the founders of singularity theory, and did foundational work in manifolds, embeddings, immersions, and characteristic classes, as well as in geometric integration theory. Biography. Life. Hassler Whitney was born on March 23, 1907, in New York City, where his father Edward Baldwin Whitney was the First District New York Supreme Court judge. His mother, Josepha (Newcomb) Whitney, was an artist and active in politics. His paternal grandfather was William Dwight Whitney, professor of Ancient Languages at Yale University, linguist, and Sanskrit scholar. Whitney was the great grandson of Connecticut Governor and US Senator Roger Sherman Baldwin, and the great-great-grandson of American founding father Roger Sherman. His maternal grandparents were astronomer and mathematician Simon Newcomb (1835-1909) and Mary Hassler Newcomb (the granddaughter of the first superintendent of the Coast Survey Ferdinand Hassler). His great uncle was the first to survey Mount Whitney. Throughout his life he pursued two particular hobbies with excitement: music and mountain-climbing. An accomplished player of the violin and the viola, Whitney played with the Princeton Musical Amateurs. He would run outside, 6 to 12 miles every other day. As an undergraduate, with his cousin Bradley Gilman, Whitney made the first ascent of the Whitney Gilman ridge on Cannon Mountain, New Hampshire in 1929. It was the hardest and most famous rock climb in the East. He was a member of the Swiss Alpine Society and climbed most of the mountain peaks in Switzerland. He married Margaret R. Howell, May 30, 1930; children: James Newcomb, Carol, Marian; married Mary Barnett Garfield, January 16, 1955; children: Sarah Newcomb, Emily Baldwin; and married Barbara Floyd Osterman, February 8, 1986. Death. Whitney divorced his second wife he married Barbara Floyd Osterman on 8 February 1986. He was nearly 79 years old at the time of his third marriage. Three years later on May 10, 1989, Whitney died, after suffering a stroke, in Mount Dents Blanches, Switzerland: his ashes were placed on the top of that mountain by Oscar Burlet, another mathematician and member of the Swiss Alpine Club. Academic career. Whitney attended Yale University where he received a baccalaureate degree in physics in 1928 and in music in 1929. He earned a Ph.D. in mathematics at Harvard University in 1932. His doctorate was awarded for a dissertation "The Coloring of Graphs" written under the supervision of George David Birkhoff. He was Instructor of Mathematics at Harvard University, 1930–31, 1933–35; NRC Fellow, Mathematics, 1931–33; Assistant Professor, 1935–40; Associate Professor, 1940–46, Professor, 1946–52; Professor Instructor, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton University, 1952–77; Professor Emeritus, 1977–89; Chairman of the Mathematics Panel, National Science Foundation, 1953–56; Exchange Professor, Collège de France, 1957; Memorial Committee, Support of Research in Mathematical Sciences, National Research Council, 1966–67; President, International Commission of Mathematical Instruction, 1979–82; Research Mathematicians, National Defense Research Committee, 1943–45; Construction of the School of Mathematics. He was a member of the National Academy of Science; Colloquium Lecturer, American Mathematical Society, 1946; Vice President, 1948–50 and Editor, American Journal of Mathematics, 1944–49; Editor, Mathematical Reviews, 1949–54; Chairman of the Committee vis. lectureship, 1946–51; Committee Summer Instructor, 1953–54;, American Mathematical Society; American National Council Teachers of Mathematics, London Mathematical Society (Honorary), Swiss Mathematics Society (Honorary), Académie des Sciences de Paris (Foreign Associate); New York Academy of Sciences. Honors. In 1969 he was awarded the Lester R. Ford Award for the paper in two parts ""The mathematics of Phisical quantities"" (1968a, 1968b). In 1976 he was awarded the National Medal of Science. In 1980 he was elected honorary member of the London Mathematical Society. In 1983 he received the Wolf Prize from the Wolf Foundation, and finally, in 1985, he was awarded the Steele Prize from the American Mathematical Society. Work. Research. Whitney's earliest work, from 1930 to 1933, was on graph theory. Many of his contributions were to the graph-coloring, and the ultimate computer-assisted solution to the four-color problem relied on some of his results. His work in graph theory culminated in a 1933 paper, where he laid the foundations for matroids, a fundamental notion in modern combinatorics and representation theory independently introduced by him and B. L. van der Waerden in the mid 1930s. In this paper Whitney proved several theorems about the matroid of a graph : one such theorem, now called Whitney's 2-Isomorphism Theorem, states: Given and are graphs with no isolated vertices. Then and are isomorphic if and only if and are 2-isomorphic. Whitney's lifelong interest in geometric properties of functions also began around this time. His earliest work in this subject was on the possibility of extending a function defined on a closed subset of ℝ"n" to a function on all of ℝ"n" with certain smoothness properties. A complete solution to this problem was found only in 2005 by Charles Fefferman. In a 1936 paper, Whitney gave a definition of a smooth manifold of class "" "r", and proved that, for high enough values of "r", a smooth manifold of dimension "n" may be embedded in ℝ2"n"+1, and immersed in ℝ2"n". (In 1944 he managed to reduce the dimension of the ambient space by 1, provided that "n" > 2, by a technique that has come to be known as the "Whitney trick".) This basic result shows that manifolds may be treated intrinsically or extrinsically, as we wish. The intrinsic definition had been published only a few years earlier in the work of Oswald Veblen and J.H.C. Whitehead. These theorems opened the way for much more refined studies: of embedding, immersion and also of smoothing: that is, the possibility of having various smooth structures on a given topological manifold. He was one of the major developers of cohomology theory, and characteristic classes, as these concepts emerged in the late 1930s, and his work on algebaic topology continued into the 40s. He also returned to the study of functions in the 1940s, continuing his work on the extension problems formulated a decade earlier, and answering a question of Laurent Schwartz in a 1948 paper "On Ideals of Differentiable Functions". Whitney had, throughout the 1950s, an almost unique interest in the topology of singular spaces and in singularities of smooth maps. An old idea, implicit even in the notion of a simplicial complex, was to study a singular space by decomposing it into smooth pieces (nowadays called "strata"). Whitney was the first to see any subtlety in this definition, and pointed out that a good "stratification" should satisfy conditions he termed "A" and "B". The work of René Thom and John Mather in the 1960s showed that these conditions give a very robust definition of stratified space. The singularities in low dimension of smooth mappings, later to come to prominence in the work of René Thom, were also first studied by Whitney. In his book "Geometric Integration Theory" he gives a theoretical basis for Stokes' theorem applied with singularities on the boundary: later, his work on such topics inspired the researches of Jenny Harrison. These aspects of Whitney's work have looked more unified, in retrospect and with the general development of singularity theory. Whitney's purely topological work (Stiefel–Whitney class, basic results on vector bundles) entered the mainstream more quickly. Teaching activity. Teaching the Youth. In 1967, he became involved full-time in educational problems, especially at the elementary school level. He spent many years in classrooms, both teaching mathematics and observing how it is taught. He spent four months teaching pre-algebra mathematics to a classroom of seventh graders and conducted summer courses for teachers. He traveled widely to lecture on the subject in the United States and abroad. He worked toward removing the "mathematics anxiety," which he felt leads young pupils to avoid mathematics. Whitney spread the ideas of teaching mathematics to students in ways that relate the content to their own lives as opposed to teaching them rote memorization. Selected publications. Hassler Whitney published 82 works: all his published articles, included the ones listed in this section and the preface of the book , are collected in the two volumes and .
1102707	David Bryant Mumford (born 11 June 1937) is an American mathematician known for distinguished work in algebraic geometry, and then for research into vision and pattern theory. He won the Fields Medal and was a MacArthur Fellow. In 2010 he was awarded the National Medal of Science. He is currently a University Professor Emeritus in the Division of Applied Mathematics at Brown University. Early life. Mumford was born in Worth, West Sussex in England, of an English father and American mother. His father William started an experimental school in Tanzania and worked for the then newly created United Nations. In high school, he was a finalist in the prestigious Westinghouse Science Talent Search. After attending the Phillips Exeter Academy, Mumford went to Harvard, where he became a student of Oscar Zariski. At Harvard, he became a Putnam fellow in 1955 and 1956. He completed his Ph.D. in 1961, with a thesis entitled "Existence of the moduli scheme for curves of any genus".
962166	The Onion Movie is a comedy film written by "The Onion" writers Robert D. Siegel and Todd Hanson along with the Chicago-based writing staff of the paper. It was filmed in 2003 and released on June 3, 2008 direct-to-video. Plot. The plot revolves around a fictitious "Onion" television news anchorman, Norm Archer (Len Cariou), who is forced to face the inevitability of a corporate takeover by the "Onion"s perennial fictitious multinational, Global Tetrahedron. "Onion" news is described as "fair and balanced" in the context of the film. The plot serves as a springboard for various comedy sketches featuring "The Onion"'s satirical humor. Vignettes include parodies of music videos reminiscent of Britney Spears' work, and Steven Seagal appearing as a parody of the type of action hero he normally portrays. The film is interrupted (fictitiously) by film reviewers and commentators weighing in on the progress of the film, with one commentator preparing to stage an immediate walkout of all African American audience members unless a positive portrayal of an African American is inserted into the film. Production. In 2003, New Regency Productions and Fox Searchlight Pictures were on board to produce and release a movie written by "The Onion" staff. Tentatively titled "The Untitled Onion Movie", it was to be directed by music video director Tom Kuntz and Mike Maguire and written by then "Onion" editor Robert Siegel and writer Todd Hanson with the rest of the Onion staff. After delays and previews to test audiences, the film was shelved and eventually dropped by Fox. New Regency Productions continued on with project. In a March 15, 2007 interview, Scott Aukerman said that the Onion movie was at a "dead standstill". Within two weeks, the listing for "The Untitled Onion Movie" had disappeared. Additionally, "Onion, Inc." President at the time, Sean Mills, indicated "The Onion" was no longer associated with the film project. In August 2007, the IMDb listing was restored. In November 2007, then-President Sean Mills told "Wikinews" that the movie was a dead project. Although Fox Searchlight had an option to release it on DVD, there was no immediate announcement of plans to do so. Eventually, the trailer appeared on the DVD for "The Darjeeling Limited". The trailer also appeared on the "Hitman", "Charlie Bartlett" and "" DVDs. 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment released "The Onion Movie" DVD on June 3, 2008. The UK release's packaging styles the film "News Movie, aka The Onion Movie". Critical reception. The film has received mixed reviews from critics. IMDb currently gives the film a rating of 6.2/10, while "Rotten Tomatoes" gives the film a rating of 46%.
584250	Aalwar () is a 2007 Tamil film directed by Chella and produced by Mohan Natarajan. The film featured Ajith Kumar and Asin in the lead roles with Lal and Aditya Srivastava appearing in other pivotal roles. The film's score and soundtrack is by Srikanth Deva while the cinematography was by Ramesh Gee. The film released on 12 January 2007 to negative reviews. Plot. Aalwar is a traditional priest. He is devoted to his mother and sister. But the villainous elements Lal, Vincent Asokan, kill the sister and mother. Aalwar, with revenge ringing in his mind, ends up as Shiva the killer, even while working as a ward boy in a hospital. Shiva is out to make a statement against the venal forces. He sees himself as some kind of avatar — in fact, he bumps off the baddies under the get-up's of Lord Rama and Lord Krishna. In climax, Shiva turns up as Lord Narasimha and bumps off the last villain by placing him on his thighs and ripping apart his bowels and chest with his sharp claws. Production. Following the success of "Paramasivan" and "Thirupathi", Ajith teamed up with a debutant Chella for a film to be produced by Mohan Natarajan. Chella had previously worked as an associate to S. J. Suryah, who Ajith had worked with in the 1999 film, "Vaali". The film held its photo session on July 20, 2006 with Asin, Ajith's pair in "Varalaru", being selected once again while Ramesh G of "Naalai" was chosen as cinematographer. The film began at the Ramoji Rao Studios in Hyderabad in August 2006. A couple of songs were filmed in Switzerland as the film geared up for a Pongal release. Shalini, Ajith's wife, was the costume designer for him in the film. Release. The film opened to negative reviews with Sify.com labelling it a "built on a predictable premise" and described that Ajith's looks were the only positive. The producers later dubbed and released the film in Telugu as "Avatharudu" and Hindi as "Mera Farz". A Kannada remake was planned by Rajkumar but later dropped because the film was a very big debacle. The film released with the Vijay starrer Pokkiri which went on to be one of the biggest blockbuster of the year. Alwar runs successively 25 days in most of the theaters in Tamil Nadu. Soundtrack. "Solli Tharava" - Sadhana Sargam, Muhamad Salamad
587702	Raja Kumarudu () is a 1999 Telugu movie directed by K. Raghavendra Rao. It stars Mahesh Babu and Preity Zinta. In the movie Krishna made a guest appearance as the father of Mahesh Babu. "Raja Kumarudu" received positive reviews and was commercially successful. Synopsis. Raj Kumar (Mahesh Babu) goes on holiday in Khandala and stays with his uncle Dhanunjay (Prakash Raj). He comes across Rani (Preity Zinta) and falls for her. However, he ends up teasing her and she begins to despise him. She is determined to avoid him, but he won't leave her alone. Raj Kumar saves Rani from some thugs, and she is impressed by his heroism. After spending some time together she begins to like him and eventually love him. Unfortunately his uncle has made other plans for him: He reveals the past of the hero's parents and his family. He mentions the challenge that he made with his in-laws to get the hero married to his daughter. Complying to this, the hero informs the heroine that their relationship needs to end there. Going with his uncle to the village for his uncle's daughter, to his joy he sees that it's none other than Rani. The rest of the movie revolves around the plot that is woven by him and his uncle to gain the heroine's hand and re-uniting the uncle with his family. This is done in a fun, comical way. Release. "Raja Kumarudu" released with 78 prints in 116 screens. Box-office. The film had a 50-day run in 69 centres and a 100-day run in 44 centres "Raja Kumarudu" collected a share of 10.51 Crores from Andhra Pradesh. It was dubbed in Hindi as "Prince No. 1" and in Tamil as "Kaadhal Vennila".
1104618	William Oughtred (5 March 1575 – 30 June 1660) was an English mathematician. After John Napier invented logarithms, and Edmund Gunter created the logarithmic scales (lines, or rules) upon which slide rules are based, it was Oughtred who first used two such scales sliding by one another to perform direct multiplication and division; and he is credited as the inventor of the slide rule in 1622. Oughtred also introduced the "×" symbol for multiplication as well as the abbreviations "sin" and "cos" for the sine and cosine functions. Life. Oughtred was born at Eton in Buckinghamshire (now part of Berkshire), and educated there and at King's College, Cambridge, of which he became fellow. Being admitted to holy orders, he left the University of Cambridge about 1603, for a living at Shalford; he was presented in 1610 to the rectory of Albury, near Guildford in Surrey, where he settled. He married Christsgift Caryll, (niece) of the Caryll family of Tangley Hall at Wonersh, of which Lady Elizabeth Aungier (daughter of Sir Francis), wife of Simon Caryll 1607-1619, was matriarch and then dowager until her death c.1650.
1062193	Woodrow Wilson Woolwine "Woody" Strode (July 25, 1914December 31, 1994) (pronounced "strowd", as in "crowd") was a decathlete and football star who went on to become a pioneering African American film actor. He was nominated for a Golden Globe award for Best Supporting Actor for his role in "Spartacus" in 1960. He served in the US Army during World War II. Early life and athletic career. Strode was born in Los Angeles, California. He attended college at UCLA, where he was a member of Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity. His world-class decathlon capabilities were spearheaded by a plus shot put (when the world record was ) and a high jump (the world record at time was ). Strode posed for a nude portrait, part of Hubert Stowitts's acclaimed exhibition of athletic portraits shown at the 1936 Berlin Olympics (although the inclusion of black and Jewish athletes caused the Nazis to close the exhibit). Strode, Kenny Washington and Jackie Robinson starred on the 1939 UCLA Bruins football team, in which they made up three of the four backfield players. Along with Ray Bartlett, there were four African-Americans playing for the Bruins, when only a few dozen at all played on other college football teams. They played eventual conference and national champion USC to a 0–0 tie with the 1940 Rose Bowl on the line. It was the first UCLA–USC rivalry football game with national implications. Strode and fellow UCLA alumnus Kenny Washington were two of the first African-Americans to play in major college programs and later the modern National Football League, playing for the Los Angeles Rams in 1946. No blacks had played in the NFL from 1933 to 1946. UCLA teammate Jackie Robinson would go on to break the color barrier in Major League baseball (in fact, all three had played in the semi-professional Pacific Coast Professional Football League earlier in the decade). He played two seasons with the Calgary Stampeders of the Western Interprovincial Football Union in Canada where he was a member of Calgary's 1948 Grey Cup Championship team before retiring due to injury in 1949. Professional wrestling career. In 1941, Strode had dabbled for several months in professional wrestling. Following the end of his football career in 1949, he returned to wrestling part-time between acting jobs until 1962, wrestling the likes of Gorgeous George. In 1952, Strode wrestled almost every week from August 12, 1952–December 10, 1952 in different cities in California. He was billed as the Pacific Coast Heavyweight Wresting Champion and the Pacific Coast Negro Heavyweight Wresting Champion in 1962. He later teamed up with both Bobo Brazil and Bearcat Wright. Acting career. As an actor, the 6' 4" (1.93 m) Strode was noted for film roles that contrasted with the stereotypes of the time. He is probably best remembered for his brief Golden Globe-nominated role in "Spartacus" (1960) as the Ethiopian gladiator Draba, in which he fights Kirk Douglas to the death.
1162883	Ellen Ware Geer (born August 29, 1941) is an American actress, professor, screenwriter, film director, and theatre director. Personal life. Geer was born in New York City, New York, the daughter of actors Herta Ware and Will Geer. She is currently married to children's musician Peter Alsop, and was previously married to actor Ed Flanders. Her daughters are Megan and Willow; her son is Ian Flanders. Career. Geer has enjoyed a long, distinguished career in theatre, film and television. She began her film career appearing as a nun in the 1968 Richard Lester drama "Petulia". Already, in 1963, she had joined the Minnesota Theatre Company for the opening seasons of the original Tyrone Guthrie Theatre in Minneapolis, where, among other roles, she played the lead in Guthrie's production of Bernard Shaw's Saint Joan. She followed this with an appearance in 1969's "The Reivers" with her father, Will Geer. In 1971, Geer played the deceased wife of the lead character in "Kotch", appearing throughout the movie in flashbacks. That same year, she became a regular on "The Jimmy Stewart Show" (which aired until the following year) and had a supporting role in the acclaimed comedy "Harold and Maude". In 1974, she starred in two films which she also wrote: "Silence" and "Memory of Us". Both featured her father. The remainder of Geer's 1970s career consisted primarily of guest appearances and made-for-television movies. Television series on which she appeared during this time included "Police Story", "The Streets of San Francisco", "Baretta", "Barnaby Jones", "Charlie's Angels", "CHiPs" and two episodes of "Fantasy Island".
501377	Edoardo Ballerini is an actor, writer, director and film producer. He is best known for his work on screen as junkie Corky Caporale in "The Sopranos" (2006–2007), a hotheaded chef in the indie hit "Dinner Rush" (2001), and an NFL businessman in the blockbuster "Romeo Must Die" (2000). He has appeared in numerous films and television series, from "I Shot Andy Warhol" (1996) to the upcoming "Omphalos" (2013). His directorial debut, "Good Night Valentino", premiered at the 2003 Sundance Film Festival. Ballerini starred in the film as silent film idol Rudolph Valentino. Career. Early roles. Edoardo Ballerini's first professional role was as an autistic teenager on "Law & Order" (1995). Two years later, he starred in the John Leguizamo comedy "The Pest" (1997) and, after that, appeared in Whit Stillman's "The Last Days of Disco" (1998) and Amos Kollek's "Sue" (1998). Major roles. Ballerini was cast as the "star chef" in Bob Giraldi's "Dinner Rush" (2001) opposite Danny Aiello. The film grossed only $638,227 but received largely positive reviews. Internationally, the film did much better and broke into the top ten in box office receipts in Japan in 2003. Valentino. The same year, Ballerini wrote, directed and starred in a short film about 1920's film icon Rudolph Valentino. The film premiered at the 2003 Sundance Film Festival and was entered into the permanent archive at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in Los Angeles. The film was also presented at the National Museum of Cinema in Turin, Italy in 2009 as part of a Valentino retrospective. wrote that Ballerini "infuses his with exactly the right mix of pride, elegance, grace and anguish... on screen, Ballerini's resemblance to Valentino is uncanny." Ballerini was also cast as another famous 1920's Italian, the anarchist and labor leader Carlo Tresca, in "No God, No Master" (2011). Theater. Ballerini made his first professional appearance on stage as a child in 1980 at Theater for the New City, New York, in Mario Prosperi's "Uncle Mario." He subsequently joined the Italian Commedia dell'Arte troupe for several performances. Stage credits as an adult include Stefanie Zadravec's "Honey Brown Eyes" (Theater Row), John Jesurun's "Chang in a Void Moon" (The Kitchen), "The End of Cinematics" (St. Ann's Space), "Crossroads" (The Henry Street Settlement), and several pieces in "The Eugene O'Neill Project" (The Actors Studio, The Eugene O'Neill Center). Audiobooks. Ballerini is also a frequent and Award-winning narrator of audiobooks. He received an "Earphones" Awards from Audiofile Magazine (subscription required) for his recordings of Stephen Greenblatt's National Book Award Winning "The Swerve," Paul Farmer's "Haiti: After the Earthquake" (with Meryl Streep and Eric Conger), and Kristopher Jansma's The Unchangeable Spots of Leopards. Other titles include Nobel Prize Winner Kenzaburo Oe's "Nip the Buds, Shoot the Kids," Jonathan Carroll's "The Land of Laughs", Jonathan Evison's "West of Here", and the first four novels in Robert McCammon's "Matthew Corbett" series. Upcoming. Future projects include Gabriel Judet-Weinshel's "Omphalos," with Emmanuelle Chriqui and Austin Pendleton, which Ballerini also produced, "Hellbenders" with Clifton Collins, Jr, and "Run," with William Mosely and Adrian Pasdar. Personal life. Edoardo Ballerini was born to an Italian father, the poet Luigi Ballerini, and an American mother. He grew up between New York City and Milan, Italy. He is a dual citizen, and bilingual. His early schooling took place in New York, at P.S. 41 and later Friends Seminary, before he left home at age 14 for boarding school. From there, he attended Wesleyan University. The summer following his graduation with Honors, Ballerini was given a scholarship to study Latin in Rome. In Italy, he discovered a group of ex-pat actors who were forming a theater company. He joined the troupe. The following fall he attended regular acting classes in New York at HB Studios and The Lee Strasberg Theater Institute. He later became an observer at The Actor's Studio. After living for several years in New York, Ballerini moved to Los Angeles in 2000 before eventually returning to New York, where he continues his career.
588214	Zabardast is an Indian film directed by Nasir Hussain and produced by Mushir-Riaz released in 1985. The movie stars Sanjeev Kumar, Jayapradha, Sunny Deol, Rajiv Kapoor, Rati Agnihotri and Amrish Puri. Plot. Ratan Kumar lives a middle-class existence with his wife, Pushpa and son, Sunder. When he is asked to commit a crime for Balram Singh, he does so, but decides to keep a suitcase full of diamonds for himself. An enraged Balram sets fire to his house. Believing his wife to be dead, Ratan flees, is rescued by Dr. Saigal, taken to the palace of a distraught Maharani Maanwati, who has just lost her son and husband, but is placated after being told that Sunder is her son. For years, Ratan, who now calls himself Ramesh, works for the Maharani, and when Sunder grows up, the Maharani comes to know of Ramesh's existence, finds that he closely resembles her husband, and marries him. Shortly thereafter, Pushpa re-surfaces, an enraged Maharani attempts to kill Ramesh, but ends up killing herself, before dying she asks Sunder to avenge her death. Fleeing from Sunder and the Police's wrath, Ramesh is apprehended by the Police, tried in Court, and sentenced to several years in jail. When he returns, he becomes an underworld don, with a sole motive of bringing an end to Balram, little knowing that Sunder, who now calls himself Shyam, is also on the lookout for him, and has befriended Ravi, Ramesh's second son, who was born during his tenure in prison. When Balram finds this out, he plots to use Shyam to bring an end to Ramesh and his entire family - once and for all.
1065568	The Last Movie is a 1971 drama film from Universal Pictures. It was written and directed by Dennis Hopper, who also played a horse wrangler named after the state of Kansas. It also starred Peter Fonda, Henry Jaglom and Michelle Phillips. Production of the movie, which cost $1 million, took place in the film's major setting, Peru. Plot. Kansas (Hopper) is a stunt coordinator in charge of horses on a western being shot in a small Peruvian village. Following a tragic incident on the set where an actor is killed in a stunt, Kansas decides to quit the movie business and stay in Peru with a local woman. Kansas thinks he has found paradise, but is soon called in to help in a bizarre incident: the Peruvian natives are "filming" their own movie with "cameras" made of sticks, and acting out real western movie violence, as they don't understand movie fakery. The film touches on the ideas of fiction versus reality, especially in regards to cinema. The movie is presented in a way that challenges the viewer's traditional cinematic understanding of storytelling, by presenting the story in a non-chronological fashion, and by including several devices typically only seen behind the scenes of filmmaking (rough edits and "scene missing" cards), and the use of jarring jump cuts. History. "The Last Movie" was a long-time pet project of Hopper and writer Stewart Stern. (Stern had written "Rebel Without a Cause", in which Hopper played a small role.) After developing the script in the early 1960s, Hopper tried for years to secure financing for the film, intending it to be his directorial debut. Due to the artistically challenging nature of the film, no studios were interested until Hopper's actual first film as a director, "Easy Rider", became a massive hit in 1969.
774191	Jane McGregor (born 1983) is a Canadian actress, best known for her roles in "Slap Her... She's French", "Flower & Garnet", and "That Beautiful Somewhere", as well as her recurring role on the television series "Robson Arms". Personal life. McGregor was born in 1983, and still resides in her native Vancouver. She has a sister. McGregor would like to work with Christopher Guest and considers Lucille Ball her favourite comedian. She enjoys interviews, but hates auditioning. Career. McGregor's career began with classes at the Vancouver Youth Theatre at the age of eight, which were followed by toy commercials. Her first television appearance was a guest role on two episodes of the Canadian television series "The Odyssey", as 'Linda'. Following this she appeared in a string of made-for-television movies. In 1999, McGregor appeared in an episode of the Disney series "So Weird" as Gabe Crawford, the girlfriend of a lead character. In 2002 she starred as the popular Texas cheerleader Starla Grady in "Slap Her... She's French" with Piper Perabo, and followed the American comedy with Canadian independent film "Flower & Garnet", where she plays an isolated, pregnant teenager. In 2005 she appeared in an episode of "Supernatural" as a preacher's daughter, and had a small part playing Keri Russell's sister in the Hallmark Hall of Fame drama "The Magic of Ordinary Days". In 2006 she portrayed Catherine Nyland, an archaeologist suffering from debilitating migraines in "That Beautiful Somewhere", opposite Roy Dupuis. From 2005 to 2008 she had a recurring role as Alicia Plecas in the Canadian series "Robson Arms", and in 2007 she appeared as Jenna Lane, a competitive ice skater hovering on the brink of a mental breakdown due to her controlling mother (portrayed by Rebecca De Mornay). In 2002 she won the Women In Film And Video Vancouver Artistic Merit Award for "Flower & Garnet" and "Bitten". McGregor has taught acting at Biz Studio in Vancouver, and has been employed with Nannies on Call since January 2011; she was chosen as "Nanny of the Month" in July 2011.
1032432	Until Death is a 2007 action thriller/drama film starring Jean-Claude Van Damme, who plays a dirty cop hooked on heroin whom everybody hates. After being shot in a gunfight he falls into a coma. Months later he recovers and decides to use his second chance at life. Plot. New Orleans narcotics detective Anthony Stowe (Jean-Claude Van Damme) is a heroin addict who is teetering on the edge of oblivion, and he could not care less. At the moment, he is trying to bring down his former partner Gabriel Callahan (Stephen Rea), who has become a drug kingpin. Callahan is trying to, and slowly succeeding at, taking over the New Orleans underworld. Stowe botches a sting operation against Callahan, resulting in the death of fellow cop Maria Ronson (Rachel Grant), whose fiancee, fellow cop Van Huffel (Adam Leese), nearly comes to blows with him over it. Chief Mac Baylor (Gary Beadle) has a very blunt chat with Stowe, who is dismissive. Stowe is approached by fellow cop Walter Curry (Trevor Cooper) to help his nephew beat a drug-dealing charge; he instead turns Curry over to Baylor, who fires him. After barricading himself in the station bathroom, Walter confronts an unrepentant Stowe and condemns him for betraying his fellow officers. That night Stowe meets with his estranged wife Valerie (Selina Giles), who tells him that she's pregnant, but that he's not the father. Valerie, whose marriage with Stowe is close to collapse, has been seeing a man named Mark Rossini (Mark Dymond), the gym teacher at the school she is principal of. But he may not be the father either. Stowe brashly accuses Valerie of being impregnated by Callahan, and she tells him she never wants to see him again. The only thing keeping Stowe from total collapse is his dogged pursuit of Callahan. But he drunkenly stumbles into an ambush masterminded by Callahan, and is shot in the head by Callahan's right-hand man Jimmy (Stephen Lord). Stowe undergoes emergency surgery, and ends up in a coma. Months later, he recovers to the point that he opens his eyes, and is transported to his and Valerie's house to recover properly. Seven months later, Stowe is slowly learning to walk and speak again. He manages to survive an attempt on his life by someone who appears to be a cop. He attempts to get his job back, but Chief Baylor refuses, in light of discovering his heroin addiction. The coma has led to his decision to become a better man, and to right some wrongs. He reconciles with his wife, although awkwardly, and gives Walter a significant portion of insurance money that compensated his time in a coma. Finally, he visits the grave of fellow police officer Serge (William Ash), who once saved Stowe's life but has been killed by an unknown attacker following another failed sting operation. Valerie packs up to move out of the house so she can live with Mark, but after realizing the change that Stowe has undergone, she later decides to leave Mark and come home. Stowe is convinced by his friend Chad Mansen (Wes Robinson) not to let his wife go, and goes after her. They miss each other by a few minutes.
1061077	Joseph Leonard Gordon-Levitt (; born February 17, 1981) is an American actor, director, producer, and writer. As a child star, he appeared in the films "A River Runs Through It", "Angels in the Outfield", "Beethoven", and "10 Things I Hate About You", and as Tommy Solomon in the TV series "3rd Rock from the Sun". He took a break from acting to study at Columbia University, but dropped out in 2004 to pursue acting again. He has since starred in "(500) Days of Summer", "Inception", "50/50", "Premium Rush", "The Dark Knight Rises", "Brick", and "Looper", and also appeared in "The Lookout", "Manic", "Lincoln", "Mysterious Skin", and '. In 2013, he wrote, directed and starred in the comedy film "Don Jon", and will appear in the sequel ' as Johnny. He founded the online production company hitRECord in 2004. Early life. Gordon-Levitt was born in Los Angeles, California, and was raised in its Sherman Oaks neighborhood. He is Jewish, though his family is "not strictly religious"; his parents were among the founders of the Progressive Jewish Alliance. His father, Dennis Levitt, was once the news director for the Pacifica Radio station, KPFK-FM. His mother, Jane Gordon, ran for the United States Congress in California during the 1970s for the Peace and Freedom Party; she met Dennis Levitt while she was working as the program guide editor for KPFK-FM. Gordon-Levitt's maternal grandfather, Michael Gordon, was a Hollywood film director between the 1940s and 1970s, who directed the 1959 Doris Day/Rock Hudson film "Pillow Talk". Gordon-Levitt had an older brother, Dan (1974–2010), a photographer and fire spinner. Career. Early acting work. Gordon-Levitt joined a musical theater group at the age of four and played the Scarecrow in a production of "The Wizard of Oz". Subsequently, he was approached by an agent and began appearing on television and in commercials for Sunny Jim peanut butter, Cocoa Puffs, Pop-Tarts, and Kinney Shoes. By age six, he was appearing in several made-for-television films. In 1991, he played both David Collins and Daniel Collins in the "Dark Shadows" television series. During 1992–93, he played in "The Powers That Be", a sitcom starring John Forsythe, as a clever young boy named Pierce Van Horne. Also in 1992, he portrayed Gregory Kingsley in the made-for-TV film "Switching Parents", based on Kingsley's real life case of "divorcing" his parents. In 1994 he appeared in the Disney film "Angels in the Outfield" as an orphan who sees angels. In 1996 he began playing Tommy Solomon on the sitcom "3rd Rock from the Sun". The "San Francisco Chronicle" noted that Gordon-Levitt was a "Jewish kid playing an extraterrestrial pretending to be a Jewish kid". Gordon-Levitt was attending Van Nuys High School while acting on the show. During the 1990s, he was frequently featured in teenage magazines, something he resented. He has also said that during this time period, he did not enjoy being recognized in public, saying that he "hates celebrity". Gordon-Levitt starred in the 1999 film "10 Things I Hate About You", a modern-day adaptation of Shakespeare's "The Taming of the Shrew", and voiced Jim Hawkins in "Treasure Planet" (2002), a Disney adaption of the novel "Treasure Island". In 2000, he began attending Columbia University School of General Studies. He studied history, literature, and French poetry. He became an avid Francophile and a French speaker. He said that moving to New York City from his hometown forced him to grow as a person. He dropped out in 2004 to concentrate on acting again. Later acting work. Gordon-Levitt has said that he made a conscious decision to "be in good movies" after returning to acting. His films include 2001's drama "Manic", which was set in a mental institution, "Mysterious Skin" (2004), in which he played a gay prostitute and child sexual abuse victim, and "Brick" (2005), a modern-day film noir set at a high school, in which he had the lead role of Brendan Frye, a teen who becomes involved in an underground drug ring while investigating a murder. "Brick" received positive reviews, with "The Minnesota Daily"'s critic commenting that Gordon-Levitt played the character "beautifully", "true to film's style", "unfeeling but not disenchanted", and "sexy in the most ambiguous way." Another reviewer described the performance as "astounding". He also starred opposite Steve Sandvoss as a young judgmental missionary in "Latter Days" (2003), a film that centers on a sexually repressed Mormon missionary (Sandvoss) who falls for his gay neighbor. He had roles in "Havoc" and "Shadowboxer". His next role was in 2007's "The Lookout", in which he played Chris Pratt, a janitor involved in a bank heist. In reviewing the film, "The Philadelphia Inquirer" described Gordon-Levitt as a "surprisingly formidable, and formidably surprising, leading man", while "New York" magazine stated that he is a "major tabula rasa actor ... a minimalist", and that his character worked because he "doesn't seize the space ... by what he takes away from the character." The "San Francisco Chronicle" specified that he "embodies, more than performs, a character's inner life." His 2008 films include "Killshot", in which he played a hoodlum partnered with a hired killer played by Mickey Rourke, and "Stop-Loss", directed by Kimberly Peirce and revolving around American soldiers returning from the Iraq War. Gordon-Levitt played a lead role opposite Zooey Deschanel in "(500) Days of Summer", a well-received 2009 release about the deconstruction of a relationship. His performance, described as "the real key" to what makes the film work, credits him with using "his usual spell in subtle gradations." "Variety"s Todd McCarthy praised his performance, saying he "expressively alternates between enthusiasm and forlorn disappointment in the manner Jack Lemmon could". Peter Travers of "Rolling Stone" said the movie "hits you like a blast of pure romantic oxygen" and credited both lead actors for playing "it for real, with a grasp of subtlety and feeling that goes beyond the call of breezy duty." He was subsequently nominated for a Golden Globe Award. He later played villain Cobra Commander in "". On November 21, 2009, he hosted "Saturday Night Live". In 2010, he replaced James Franco to star alongside Leonardo DiCaprio in Christopher Nolan's science fiction thriller "Inception", which received favorable reviews. In 2011, Gordon-Levitt began filming Christopher Nolan's "The Dark Knight Rises", in which he played John Blake, a beat police officer who emerges as a key ally of Batman. Also released in 2012, he played the starring role of a bicycle messenger in the action film "Premium Rush"; the younger version of the lead role, shared with Bruce Willis, in the time-travel thriller "Looper"; and the supporting role of Robert Todd Lincoln in Steven Spielberg's biopic "Lincoln". On January 7, 2013, it was confirmed that Joseph Gordon-Levitt was cast as new character Johnny in "", described as "a cocky gambler who disguises a darker mission to destroy his most foul enemy at his best game." Directing and producing. Gordon-Levitt's first film as director, the 24 minute-long "Sparks", an adaptation of a short story by Elmore Leonard starring Carla Gugino and Eric Stoltz, was selected for the 2009 Sundance Film Festival as part of a new program for short films. In 2010, he directed another short film, "Morgan and Destiny's Eleventeenth Date: The Zeppelin Zoo". It premiered at two houses during the South by Southwest festival in Austin, Texas. He was one of the many producers of the Broadway show "Slava's Snowshow". hitRECord. HitRecord (stylized as hitRECord) is an online collaborative production company founded and owned by actor and director Joseph Gordon-Levitt. The production company uses video, music, literature, photography, performance, spoken word, screenwriting, graphic art, etc. from different artists around the world to make various projects and workings including short films, books, music and videos.
589669	Prema Narayan (born 4 April 1955) is a Bollywood actress-dancer. She was the Miss India first runner-up in 1971 and represented India at Miss World 1971. Early life. Prema Narayan was born in Andhra Pradesh. Career. Prema Narayan was an English teacher in a convent school. She also did modeling part-time. Acting career. She chose Bollywood after offers started coming her way after winning the First runner-up crown. Her performance in films such as "Manzilein Aur Bhi Hain" (1973) and "Maa Bahen Aur Biwi" (1973) were noticed. She did not restrict herself as a leading lady as she was mostly considered for dancer/vamp or supporting roles. She got more recognition after being nominated in Filmfare Best Supporting Actress category for her performance as a sensuous village belle "Dhanno" in the Uttam Kumar-Sharmila Tagore film "Amanush" (1975). This role was a total deviation from her modern sex-symbol well-educated western image. Besides being noticed for her acting prowess she was also appreciated for her western-style dance numbers. She was also a regular feature in lower-grade horror films including "Hotel", "Mangalsutra", "Saat Saal Baad" and "Ghabrahat". Her last appearance was in "Mera Damad" (1995).
1043713	Zeta One is a 1970 British comedy science fiction film directed by Michael Cort and starring James Robertson Justice, Charles Hawtrey and Robin Hawdon. It was made for a budget of £60,000. Production. "Zeta One" was the first film shot at Camden Studios, which formally a wallpaper factory in North London. The plot of the film was based off a short story in the magazine "Zeta". Release. "Zeta One" was released in the United Kingdom in 1970. The film was not a commercial success on its release. Reception. The film received negative reviews on its initial release. In the "Monthly Film Bulletin", David McGillivray described the film's themes as "quite preposterous in illogicality and silliness".
586168	Adaminte Makan Abu ("Abu, Son of Adam") is a 2011 Indian drama film written, directed and co-produced by Salim Ahamed; it is his debut. It stars Salim Kumar and Zarina Wahab in the lead roles with Mukesh, Kalabhavan Mani, Suraj Venjarammoodu, and Nedumudi Venu in supporting roles. The cinematography was handled by Madhu Ambat and it was edited by Vijay Shankar. The film features songs composed by Ramesh Narayan, and the score is by Isaac Thomas Kottukapally. The film tells the story of a poor "attar" (a kind of perfume) seller Abu (Salim Kumar) whose only remaining wish in life is the Hajj pilgrimage, which he strives hard to fulfill. Development on "Adaminte Makan Abu" began roughly a decade before it was released. It was shot digitally over one month beginning on 7 November 2010. Thrissur and Kozhikode in Kerala, India were the major filming locales. Distributed by Laughing Villa, a company owned by Salim Kumar and Allens Media, "Adaminte Makan Abu" was released in theatres on 24 June 2011. It received wide critical acclaim, with much praise for its story, direction, cast, cinematography, and score. It received honours for its music, cinematography and writing, as well as for Salim Kumar's performance. The film garnered four National Film Awards: Best Film, Best Actor, Best Cinematography and Best Background Score, at the 58th National Film Awards. It performed similarly at the 2010 Kerala State Film Awards, where it won the awards for Best Film, Best Actor, Best Screenplay and Best Background Music. It was sent as India's official entry for the Best Foreign Language Film for the Academy Awards in 2011 but was not nominated. Plot. Abu (Salim Kumar) and Aishumma (Zarina Wahab) are an elderly Moplah Muslim couple living in Kerala's Malabar region. Their aspiration is to go for Hajj, the pilgrimage to Mecca, and they sacrifice to achieve this aim. Their son Sattar has migrated to the Middle East (as a part of the Kerala Gulf boom) with his family and has virtually discarded his parents. Now in their late 70s, the couple decide to go for Hajj that year. Abu sells "attar" (a perfume obtained from flowers), religious books and Unani medicines that nobody seems to want. Aishumma breeds cattle and chickens, helping her husband realise their shared dream. Abu feels as outdated and discarded by a fast-changing world as the traditional products that he sells.
1105343	Solomon Wolf Golomb (born May 30, 1932) is an American mathematician, engineer and a professor of electrical engineering at the University of Southern California, best known for his works on mathematical games. Most notably he invented Cheskers in 1948 and coined the name, and fully described, polyominoes and pentominoes in 1953. Polyominoes are the inspiration for the computer game "Tetris". He has specialized in problems of combinatorial analysis, number theory, coding theory and communications.
1166152	Carlos Mencia (born October 22, 1967), born Ned Arnel Mencia, is a Honduran-born American comedian, writer, and actor. His style of comedy is often political and involves issues of race, culture, criminal justice, and social class. He is best known as the host of the Comedy Central show, "Mind of Mencia". Early life. Mencía was born in San Pedro Sula, Honduras, the seventeenth of eighteen children. His mother, Magdelena Mencía, was Mexican, and his father, Roberto Holness, was a Honduran whose distant ancestors included immigrants from Germany, England, and the Cayman Islands. At the time of his birth, Mencía's mother was engaged in a domestic dispute with his father, and declined to give her son his biological father's last name. The name appearing on his birth certificate is "Ned Arnel Mencía", although Mencia has said that out of respect for his biological father he went by the Holness name anyway, and was known as "Ned Holness" until he was eighteen years old.
1056841	Electra Glide in Blue is a 1973 film starring Robert Blake as a motorcycle cop in Arizona and Billy "Green" Bush as his partner. The name stems from the Harley-Davidson Electra Glide motorcycle issued to traffic cops. Plot. John Wintergreen (played by Blake) is a motorcycle cop who patrols the rural Arizona highways with his partner "Zipper" (Bush). Wintergreen is a rookie looking to be transferred to homicide. When he is informed by Crazy Willie (Elisha Cook, Jr.) of an apparent suicide via shotgun, Wintergreen believes the case is actually a murder. Detective Harve Poole (Mitchell Ryan) agrees after a .22 bullet is found in the man's skull, as well as a missing $5,000, and arranges for Wintergreen to be transferred to homicide to help with the case. Wintergreen gets his wish, but his joy is short-lived. He begins increasingly to identify with the hippies whom the other officers, including Detective Poole, are endlessly harassing. Workplace politics cause him to be quickly demoted back to Traffic Enforcement. The final straw comes when Poole discovers that Wintergreen has been sleeping with his girlfriend Jolene (Jeannine Riley). Despite being demoted, Wintergreen is able to solve the murder. The killer turns out to be Willie, who confesses while Wintergreen goads him into talking about it. Wintergreen surmises Willie did it because he was jealous of the old man he killed, who frequently had young people over to his house to buy drugs. Shortly after, it turns out that Zipper stole the $5,000, which he used to buy an Electra Glide motorcycle. Wintergreen is forced to shoot Zipper after he becomes belligerent and begins shooting innocent bystanders.
584899	Sneham Kosam() is a 1999 Telugu film produced by A. M. Ratnam under the Sri Surya Movies banner. Directed by K. S. Ravikumar, the film stars Chiranjeevi in the dual roles of father and son. The film was released on 1 January 1999. Meena played the female lead role in the movie. The movie was a remake of Tamil hit "Natpukkaga" directed by K.S. Ravikumar himself which starred Sarath Kumar and Simran Bagga in the lead roles.
585743	Vineeth Sreenivasan is an Indian playback singer, film actor, director, and screenwriter. He is the son of actor and screenwriter Sreenivasan. He started off his film career as a playback singer for musicals, as well as music albums such as "Coffee @ Mg Road. "Vineeth made his acting debut in "Cycle" (2008). His well known films include "Makante Achan "(2009) and "Chappa Kurish "(2011). In 2010, Vineeth made his directional debut with "Malarvadi Arts Club". His second film was the blockbuster "Thattathin Marayathu "(2012).
1161233	Matthew Letscher (born June 26, 1970) is an American actor and playwright. Personal. Letscher was born in Grosse Pointe, Michigan, older brother to actor Brian Letscher. He attended college at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, MI where he was a member of the Sigma Nu fraternity and a drama major. He's married with two children. Acting. Letscher got his first professional acting job with a role in Jeff Daniels' The Tropic Pickle, during the second season of Jeff Daniels' Purple Rose Theatre Company in Chelsea, Michigan. Letscher impressed Daniels enough that the veteran arranged a meeting for Letscher with Ron Maxwell, the director of "Gettysburg". After appearing in a small role, Letscher took advice from Jeff Daniels and moved to Los Angeles. He quickly found work in guest roles on television. In 1995, Letscher was cast as the naive television writer in the Nancy Travis sitcom "Almost Perfect", which lasted for a season and a half. He went on to appear as series regular in "Living in Captivity" in 1998. The same year, he appeared in the film "The Mask of Zorro" as Capt. Harrison Love. He appeared in the miniseries "King of Texas", ', and ' and TV movies "When Billie Beat Bobbie" and "Stolen Innocence". He also reunited with Daniels in "Gods and Generals" (the prequel of Gettysburg) and Daniels' directorial effort "Super Sucker". Letscher also returned to The Purple Rose Theater in the world premiere of Landford Wilson's play "Rain Dance". In 2002, the comedy pilot "Good Morning, Miami" was picked up by NBC as part of Must See TV Thursday comedy block, but Burke Moses was replaced by Letscher and a second pilot had to be filmed. The romantic comedy sitcom featured Letscher as a smarmy former network anchor who was the primary romantic rival to main character Jake Silver (Mark Feuerstein) for the affection of Dylan (Ashley Williams). Despite the series receiving negative reviews, Letscher and Constance Zimmer were standouts in the series and eventually paired up as the combative couple in the second season. The show was canceled midway though its second season due to low ratings. His performance in "Good Morning Miami" led to him being cast in the lead in the film "Straight-Jacket", opposite Carrie Preston, about a gay Hollywood actor forced to marry a beard in the 1950s. His flare for classical farce also led to him being cast in the leading role of Capt. Jack Absolute in the Lincoln Center theater production of Richard Brinsley Sheridan's The Rivals. Letscher was raised for his spirited performance and his costar Robert Easton referred to Letscher as "a perfect classical actor." Letscher joined the cast of "Joey", recurring role on "The New Adventures of Old Christine", and numerous guest starring roles. After appearing as a kind neighbor in Alan Ball's "Towelhead", Letscher was cast in "Eli Stone", as the kindhearted older brother of a prophet, Nathan Stone. Despite low ratings, the dramedy series had loyal fans and critical acclaim, earning it a second season which included a larger role for Letscher. His work on Greg Berlanti's Eli Stone lead to his arc on Berlanti's "Brothers & Sisters" as a love-interest for the married Kitty Walker . In 2012 Letscher starred in the series "Bent" and "Scandal" and was cast in the series "The Carrie Diaries", as Carrie Bradshaw's widowed father Tom, which premiered in 2013. He will appear in the 2013 film releases of Atom Egoyan's movie "The Devil's Knot" (about The West Memphis Three) and Spike Jonze's comedy "Her", opposite Amy Adams. Writing. In June 2007, Jeff Daniels' Purple Rose Theatre Company in Chelsea, Michigan, staged the world premiere of Letscher's original play "Sea of Fools", a farce set in Joseph McCarthy-era Hollywood. Film director (and infamous HUAC name-giver) Elia Kazan is a character in the play. Jeff Daniels initially planned to direct the play but pulled out, allowing Letscher to also direct the play. In 2009, his play “Gaps in the Fossil Record," staged at the Pacific Resident Theater. In 2010, he cowrote (with Nipper Knapp and Andrew Newberg) and starred in the comedy pilot Gentrification, which won best writing at the Comedy Central New York Television Festival.
1063287	Diane Carol Baker (born February 25, 1938) is an American actress and producer who has appeared in motion pictures and on television since 1959. Early life. Baker was born and raised in Hollywood, California. She is the daughter of Dorothy Helen Harrington, who had appeared in several early Marx Brothers movies, and Clyde L. Baker. Baker has two younger sisters, Patti and Sheri. At the age of 18, Baker moved to New York to study acting with Charles Conrad and ballet with Nina Fonaroff. Career. After securing a contract with 20th Century Fox, Baker made her film debut when she was chosen by director George Stevens to play "Margot Frank" in the 1959 motion picture "The Diary of Anne Frank". In the same year, she starred in "Journey to the Center of the Earth" with James Mason and in "The Best of Everything" with Hope Lange and Joan Crawford.
1067019	There Was a Crooked Man... is a 1970 western starring Kirk Douglas and Henry Fonda and directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz. It was written by David Newman and Robert Benton, their first script to be produced after "Bonnie and Clyde. This was the only western made by Mankiewicz, director of such notable films as "All About Eve", "Guys and Dolls" and "Cleopatra". The cast includes Warren Oates, Hume Cronyn, Burgess Meredith, Alan Hale, Jr., Victor French, Bert Freed, John Randolph, Michael Blodgett, Arthur O'Connell, Gene Evans, Barbara Rhoades and Lee Grant. Plot. Paris Pitman has pulled off a $500,000 robbery and is the only one who knows where the money is hidden. In a bordello, he is captured by Sheriff Woodward Lopeman, tried, convicted and sentenced to an Arizona penitentiary. A corrupt warden, LeGoff, is willing to cut the prisoner a deal. He will let Pitman break out of jail for an even split of the half-million dollars. Pitman agrees, but the plan goes awry when LeGoff is murdered by a Chinese convict, Ah-Ping. Lopeman becomes the new warden. Although they are enemies, he and Pitman work together to improve conditions at the prison. On a day the governor visits, Pitman makes his move. He manages to escape, but not before three inmates are killed, whereupon Pitman himself does away with two more, Ah-Ping being one of them. The money has been buried near a nest of rattlesnakes. Pitman heads for it, with Lopeman in hot pursuit. The money is his again when Pitman is suddenly bitten by a snake. By the time Lopeman comes across him, Pitman is dead. Lopeman collects the money, as well as Pitman's body, and rides back to the prison. However, upon his arrival, he abruptly decides to leave the body and gallop off, absconding to Mexico with the money.
1244063	Alex Kendrick is an associate pastor at Sherwood Baptist Church, in Albany, Georgia, since 1999. He oversees the movie outreach of the church, which includes Sherwood Pictures, the movie-creating entity that produced "Flywheel" (2003), "Facing the Giants" (2006), "Fireproof" (2008), and "Courageous" (2011). His, and brother Stephen Kendrick's book "The Love Dare" appeared for 131 weeks on "The New York Times" Paperback Advice & Misc. Best Seller list. Kendrick is married to Christina Kendrick, and they have six children together. Film career. Upon reading a survey that stated films have become more influential than churches, Kendrick set out to change the perception of movies in mainstream America. He co-wrote (with brother Stephen Kendrick), directed and acted in all four movies Sherwood Pictures has produced. His second film, "Facing the Giants", grossed over $10 million. The football feature became the best selling Christian DVD of 2007. His third film, "Fireproof", grossed $33.5 million, making it the highest-grossing independent film of 2008. The project went on to win Best Feature at the 2009 San Antonio Independent Christian Film Festival, as well as the Epiphany Prize at the Movieguide Awards in Los Angeles. The fourth feature film by Sherwood Pictures, "Courageous", distributed by TriStar, was released in theaters in September 2011 and grossed $34.5 million The film won Best Feature Film and Jubilee Award at the 2012 San Antonio Independent Christian Film Festival as well as the Epiphany Prize at the 2012 Movieguide Awards. The DVD was released January 17, 2012. Kendrick also appeared in the film "The Lost Medallion", to be released in theaters in March 2013. Book career. In addition to filmmaking, Kendrick has written four novels from his films with his brother, Stephen. The first three were with novelist Eric Wilson, and the fourth with Randy Alcorn. His fourth book "The Love Dare" made "The New York Times" Paperback Advice & Misc. bestseller list for 131 weeks, reaching number-one twice. "The Love Dare" has sold over 5 million copies, with at least six million copies in print. In October 2011, the novel for Courageous was listed on "The New York Times" Best Seller list, along with his book "The Resolution for Men", which was written with his brother, Stephen.
724793	Edward "Ed" Westwick (born 27 June 1987) is an English actor and musician who is best known for his role as Chuck Bass on The CW television drama "Gossip Girl". He has also appeared in films such as "S. Darko", "Chalet Girl", and "J. Edgar".
582545	Ek Ajnabee – A Man Apart (Hindi: एक अजनबी, translation: "A Stranger") is Bollywood action-thriller film, remake of Tony Scott's 2004 film "Man on Fire", a film based on a novel; this novel was adapted into another film in 1987. The film "Ek Ajnabee" is directed by Apoorva Lakhia, with Amitabh Bachchan playing Denzel Washington's role. Co-starring are Arjun Rampal and Perizaad Zorabian. Plot. Suryaveer "Surya" Singh (Amitabh Bachchan) is a bitter man and ex-Army officer, hired by his friend Shekhar Verma (Arjun Rampal) to protect a little girl, Anamika R. Rathore (Rucha Vaidya), who resides in Bangkok, Thailand with her Non-resident Indian (NRI) family. He drinks alcohol frequently, and is not interested in befriending the girl. Eventually, she wins his heart and he helps her to prepare for a swim meet. One day Anamika gets kidnapped and Surya receives serious injuries in his attempt to prevent the kidnapping. Her father is not able to pay the sum in order to release his daughter. So Suryaveer uses all his skills to save the life of the child, only to find out about the conspiracy that is behind the little girl's kidnapping. Surya learns that Chang, Shekhar's lawyer, is behind some of this. The real mastermind behind this is Chang's brother. Surya holds Chang hostage, while Chang's brother holds Anamika hostage. When they come to exchange the people, Chang's brother reveals a great secret to Surya. Surya learns that Shekhar was all behind this. Surya kills Chang's brother's men. A great fight between Shekhar and Surya starts. Shekhar is killed, and Surya spends the rest of his life with Anamika and her mother. In the end, Anamika gets a new bodyguard and the film shows her during her swimming practice, with Surya and her new bodyguard 15 years later. Production. Apoorva Lakhia said that the script was written with the lead actor, Amitabh Bachchan, in mind. Lakhia explained that "Man On Fire has been made into four films in five different languages. So this is the Indian version. It has all the necessarily ingredients required for a movie to come out of India." Vikram Chatwal, who plays Ravi Rathore in the film, said "People talk a lot about cross cultural films. These films don't necessarily have to be like Monsoon Wedding or Bend It Like Beckham. This is not another Hindi film. This is not a remake of Man on Fire. If you see the way it is shot, edited and directed, it is setting new standards. Mr Bachchan is reinventing himself. So please don't turn this film into another Bollywood film." The film was shot on location in Bangkok, Thailand, for 35 days. Lakhia said that he and Bunty Walia, a producer, chose Bangkok because "we wanted our characters to stand out. When they are walking on the street they will look different. Both my heroes are over six feet and Thai men are not as tall. So it was really important to be in a place where they could stand out." Release and distribution. EROS International released the film on 16 December 2005. It had been selected for the Bangkok Film Festival. Soundtrack. The music has been composed by Vishal-Shekhar and Amar Mohile. Lyrics are penned by Sameer, Vishal Dadlani, Jaideep Sahni, and Lalit Tiwari. Vipin Vijayan of Rediff.com said "The film's music is funky and may soon rock discotheques." Reception. Manish Gajjar of BBC Shropshire Bollywood said "Overall, this thriller is a must-see if you are an Amitabh fan." Vipin Vijayan of "Rediff.com" said that the film "reinvents Vijay Dinanath Chauhan (Bachchan's very popular character in Agneepath)," and that the film has "a racy first" act but that it "loses steam in the second half." Bunty Walia, the producer, said that there had been accusations that the film had been plagiarized. He said "To our credit, [ Apoorva Lakhia ] and I never hid the fact that Ek Ajnabee was adapted from Man On Fire. Quite unlike some others who borrow blindly and presume others are blind to their intentions." In 2006 the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences stated an interest in acquiring a copy of the "Ek Ajnabee" screenplay for its collection. Walia said that this was an "honour" after the plagiarism accusations. Subhash K. Jha of the "Hindustan Times" said "Isn't it ironical that the Americans want a copy of a script, which is straightaway inspired by the Hollywood film "Man On Fire"?" Box office. In the United Kingdom, the film was screened in 20 cinemas during its opening weekend, making £35,058, with an average of £1,757 per showing. Manish Gajjar of BBC Shropshire Bollywood said "It has not done so well in the UK cinemas."
1057644	Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? is a 1957 American satiric comedy film starring Jayne Mansfield and Tony Randall, with Betsy Drake, Joan Blondell, John Williams, Henry Jones, Lili Gentle, Mickey Hargitay, and a cameo by Groucho Marx. The film is a satire on popular fan culture, Hollywood hype and the ad industry, which was making millions of dollars off the growing revenue from television ads. The film also takes aim at television and the damage it was doing to movie attendance in the 1950s. It was produced and directed by Frank Tashlin, who also wrote the largely original screenplay, utilizing little more than the title and the character of Rita Marlowe from the successful Broadway play "Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?" by George Axelrod. The play had run from 1955 to 1956 and also starred Mansfield as Rita. Plot. In lieu of a theme song and opening of the movie, Tashlin instead over laid traditional opening credits to faux television commercials for products that failed to deliver what they promise. From this comedic segue, the film opens on a writer for television advertising, Rockwell P. Hunter (Tony Randall), who is low on the ladder at the La Salle agency, the company where he works. With the agency set to lose its biggest account – Stay-Put Lipstick – he hatches an idea to get the perfect model and spokesperson for Stay-Put's new line of lipstick, the famous actress with the "oh-so-kissable lips", Rita Marlowe (Jayne Mansfield).
1062432	There Will Be Blood is a 2007 American drama film written, co-produced, and directed by Paul Thomas Anderson. The film is loosely based on Upton Sinclair's 1927 novel "Oil!". It tells the story of a gold miner-turned-oilman on a ruthless quest for wealth during Southern California's oil boom of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It stars Daniel Day-Lewis and Paul Dano. The film received significant critical praise and numerous award nominations and victories. It premiered at the Berlin International Film Festival where it won the Silver Lion Award for Best Director and a Special Artistic Contribution Award to Johnny Greenwood's score. It appeared on many critics' "top ten" lists for the year, notably the American Film Institute, the National Society of Film Critics, the , and the Los Angeles Film Critics Association. Day-Lewis won Oscar, BAFTA, Golden Globe, Screen Actors Guild, NYFCC and IFTA Best Actor awards for his performance. The film was nominated for eight Academy Awards including Best Picture, winning Best Actor for Day-Lewis and Best Cinematography for Robert Elswit. In late 2009, it was chosen by Lisa Schwarzbaum of "Entertainment Weekly", Peter Bradshaw of "The Guardian", Peter Travers of "Rolling Stone" and Michael Phillips of the "Chicago Tribune" and "At the Movies" as the best film of the first decade of the 21st century. In 2012, in the British Sight & Sound poll of Critics for the Best Films Ever Made, There Will Be Blood ranked 202 (making it the sixth film on that list which had been released since the year 2000). Plot. In 1902, Daniel Plainview (Day-Lewis), a mineral prospector, discovers oil and establishes a small drilling company. Following the death of one of his workers in an accident, Plainview adopts the man's orphaned son. The boy, named H.W. (Freasier), becomes his nominal business "partner". Nine years later, Plainview is approached by Paul Sunday (Dano), who tells him about the oil deposit under his family's property in Little Boston, California. Plainview attempts to buy the farm at a bargain price but Paul's twin brother Eli (also Dano), wise to Plainview's plan, holds out for $5,000, wanting the money to fund the local church, of which he is the pastor. Plainview has Eli's father agree to the bargain price instead, and goes on to acquire the available land in the area, except for one holdout, William Bandy (Howes). Oil production begins. Later, an on-site accident kills a worker, and later still, a huge explosion robs H.W. of his hearing. Eli blames the disasters on the fact that the well was never properly blessed. When he confronts Plainview and demands the family's payment, Plainview beats and humiliates him, smearing him with oily mud. Eli later berates and attacks his father at the dinner table, blaming him and his son (Eli's twin) for having brought this upon them.
1030418	Pusher 3 (also known as "Pusher III: I'm the Angel of Death") is a 2005 Danish crime film written and directed by Nicolas Winding Refn. It is the final film of the Pusher trilogy and released in August 2005. Plot. Milo, an aging Serbian drug lord, attends a meeting of Narcotics Anonymous. The five-days-sober Milo admits that he is worried that the stress of cooking for his daughter's 25th birthday celebration will cause him to relapse into using. Milo departs the meeting to pick up a drug shipment with his henchman Branko. Though he requested heroin, the shipment turns out to be 10,000 ecstasy pills. Seeking an explanation, Milo meets with his Albanian supplier Luan. The Albanians agree to send a new shipment of heroin and allow Milo to try to sell the ecstasy as well.
1161958	Mary Ann Mobley (born February 17, 1939) is a former Miss America, actress, and television personality. Career. After serving her reign as Miss America 1959, Mobley embarked on a career in both film and television. She made her first five television appearances on "Burke's Law" from 1963-1965. She made two appearances on "Perry Mason" in 1964 and 1966. In the latter episode she played murderer and title character Sharon Carmody in "The Case of the Misguided Model." Between 1969-1973 she made five appearances on "Love, American Style", and eight appearances on "Fantasy Island" from 1978-1984. She had a recurring role as Maggie McKinney Drummond on "Diff'rent Strokes" in the series final season, having taken over the role from Dixie Carter. (She would later guest star as Karen Delaporte, a snide head of a historical society who crossed swords with Dixie's character, Julia Sugarbaker, in Ms. Carter's later series, "Designing Women") She also made appearances on "Match Game '76" as one of the celebrity panelists. She ended her television career in 1994 with an appearance on "Hardball". She has been active in many charitable causes and was awarded the Outstanding Young Woman of the Year Award in 1966 by Lady Bird Johnson. Miss America. Mobley was crowned Miss America 1959, the first Mississippian to achieve this honor, winning the national talent award.
1090736	Lucio Russo (born 22 November 1944) is an Italian physicist, mathematician and historian of science. Born in Venice, he teaches at the Mathematics Department of the Science College in the University of Rome Tor Vergata. In the history of science, he has reconstructed some contributions of the Hellenistic astronomer Hipparchus, through the analysis of his surviving works, reconstructed the proof of heliocentrism attributed by Plutarch to Seleucus of Seleucia and studied the history of theories of tides, from the Hellenistic to modern age. "The Forgotten Revolution". Theory. In "The Forgotten Revolution: How Science Was Born in 300 BC and Why It Had to Be Reborn" (Italian: "La rivoluzione dimenticata"), Russo stresses the well-established fact that Hellenistic science reached heights not achieved by the Classical age science, and proposes that it went further than ordinarily thought. These results were lost with the Roman conquest and during the Middle Ages, because the scholars of that period did not have the capability to understand them. The legacy of Hellenistic science was one of the bases of the scientific revolution of the 16th century, as ancient texts started once again to be available in Europe. According to Russo, Hellenistic scientists were not simply forerunners, but actually achieved scientific results of high importance, in the fields of "mathematics, solid and fluid mechanics, optics, astronomy, anatomy, physiology, scientific medicine", even psychological analysis. They may have even discovered the inverse square law of gravitation (Russo's argument on this point hinges on well-established, but seldom discussed, evidence). Hellenistic scientists, among whom Euclid, Archimedes, Eratosthenes, developed an axiomatic and deductive way of argumentation. When this way of argumentation was dropped, the ability to understand the results went lost as well. Thus Russo conjectures that the definitions of elementary geometric objects were introduced in Euclid's "Elements" by Heron of Alexandria, 400 years after the work was completed. More concretely, Russo shows how the theory of tides must have been well-developed in Antiquity, because several pre-Newtonian sources relay various complementary parts of the theory without grasping their import or justification (getting the empirical facts wrong but the theory right). A second contribution of Russo's is the conclusion that "the post-Renaissance scientific revolution of the seventeenth century was basically due to the conscious recovery of the Hellenistic science (not even to its full extent, reached only in the second half of the nineteenth century with Richard Dedekind's and Karl Weierstrass's isolation of the real number concept directly out of Euclid's definition of proportion)."
1061511	Evelyn Louise Keyes (November 20, 1916 – July 4, 2008) was an American film actress. She is best known for her role as Suellen O'Hara in the 1939 film "Gone with the Wind". Early life. Evelyn Keyes was born in Port Arthur, Texas, to Omar Dow Keyes and Maude Ollive Keyes, the daughter of a Methodist minister. After Omar Keyes died when she was three years old, Keyes moved with her mother to Atlanta, Georgia, where they lived with her grandparents. As a teenager, Keyes took dancing lessons and performed for local clubs such as the Daughters of the Confederacy. Film career. A chorus girl by age 18, Keyes was put under contract by Cecil B. DeMille. After a handful of B movies at Paramount Pictures, she landed her most notable role, that of Scarlett O'Hara's sister Suellen in "Gone with the Wind" (1939). Columbia Pictures signed her to a contract. In 1941, she played an ingenue in "Here Comes Mr. Jordan". She spent most of the early 1940s playing leads in many of Columbia's B dramas and mysteries. She appeared as the female lead opposite Larry Parks in Columbia's blockbuster hit "The Jolson Story" (1946). She appeared in 1949 role as Kathy Flannigan in "Mrs. Mike". Keyes' last major film role was a small part as Tom Ewell's vacationing wife in "The Seven Year Itch" (1955), which starred Marilyn Monroe. Keyes officially retired in 1956, but continued to act. Personal life. She was married to Barton Oliver Bainbridge Sr. from 1938 until his death from suicide in 1940. Later, she married and divorced director Charles Vidor (1943–1945), actor/director John Huston (23 July 1946 – February 1950), and bandleader Artie Shaw (1957–1985). Keyes said of her many relationships, "I always took up with the man of the moment and there were many such moments." While married to Huston, the couple adopted a Mexican child, Pablo, whom Huston had discovered while on the set of "The Treasure of the Sierra Madre". Her autobiography, "Scarlett O'Hara's Younger Sister: My Lively Life In and Out of Hollywood", was published in 1977. Keyes expressed her opinion that "Mrs. Mike" was her best film. She also wrote of the personal cost she paid by having an abortion just before "Gone with the Wind" was to begin filming, as the experience left her unable to have children. Among the many Hollywood affairs she recounted in "Scarlett O'Hara's Younger Sister" were those with producer Michael Todd (who left Evelyn for Elizabeth Taylor), Glenn Ford, Sterling Hayden, Dick Powell, Anthony Quinn, David Niven and Kirk Douglas. She had to fend off Harry Cohn's advances during her career in Columbia.
643136	John Warner Backus (December 3, 1924 – March 17, 2007) was an American computer scientist. He directed the team that invented the first widely used high-level programming language (FORTRAN) and was the inventor of the Backus-Naur form (BNF), a widely used notation to define formal language syntax. He also did research in function-level programming and helped to popularize it. The IEEE awarded Backus the W.W. McDowell Award in 1967 for the development of FORTRAN. He received the National Medal of Science in 1975, and the 1977 ACM Turing Award “for profound, influential, and lasting contributions to the design of practical high-level programming systems, notably through his work on FORTRAN, and for publication of formal procedures for the specification of programming languages.” Life and career. Backus was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and grew up in nearby Wilmington, Delaware. He studied at the The Hill School in Pottstown, Pennsylvania, and was apparently not a diligent student. After entering the University of Virginia to study chemistry, he quit and was conscripted into the U.S. Army. He began medical training at Haverford College and, during an internship at a hospital, he was diagnosed with a cranial bone tumor, which was successfully removed; a plate was installed in his head, and he ended medical training after nine months and a subsequent operation to replace the plate with one of his own design. After moving to New York City he trained initially as a radio technician and became interested in mathematics. He graduated from Columbia University with a Master's degree in mathematics in 1949, and joined IBM in 1950. During his first three years, he worked on the Selective Sequence Electronic Calculator (SSEC); his first major project was to write a program to calculate positions of the Moon. In 1953 Backus developed the language Speedcoding, the first high-level language created for an IBM computer. Programming was very difficult at this time, and in 1954 Backus assembled a team to define and develop Fortran for the IBM 704 computer. Fortran was the first high-level programming language to be put to broad use. Backus made another, critical contribution to early computer science: during the latter part of the 1950s Backus served on the international committees that developed ALGOL 58 and the very influential ALGOL 60, which quickly became the "de facto" worldwide standard for publishing algorithms. Backus developed the Backus-Naur Form (BNF), in the UNESCO report on ALGOL 58. It was a formal notation able to describe any context-free programming language, and was important in the development of compilers. This contribution helped Backus win the Turing Award. He later worked on a "function-level" programming language known as FP which was described in his Turing Award lecture "Can Programming be Liberated from the von Neumann Style?". Sometimes viewed as Backus's apology for creating FORTRAN, this paper did less to garner interest in the FP language than to spark research into functional programming in general. An FP interpreter was distributed with the 4.2BSD Unix operating system. FP was strongly inspired by Kenneth E. Iverson’s APL, even using a non-standard character set. Backus spent the latter part of his career developing FL (from "Function Level"), a successor to FP. FL was an internal IBM research project, and development of the language essentially stopped when the project was finished (only a few papers documenting it remain), but many of the language's innovative, arguably important ideas have now been implemented in versions of the J programming language. Backus was named an IBM Fellow in 1963, and was awarded a degree honoris causa from the Henri Poincaré University in Nancy (France) in 1989 and a Draper Prize in 1993. He retired in 1991 and died at his home in Ashland, Oregon on March 17, 2007.
1039596	Simon Phillip Hugh Callow, CBE (born 15 June 1949) is an English actor, musician, writer and theatre director. Early years. Callow was born in Streatham, London, England, UK, the son of Yvonne Mary (née Guise), a secretary, and Neil Francis Callow, a businessman. His father was of English and French descent and his mother was of Danish and German ancestry. He was brought up Roman Catholic. Callow attended the London Oratory School and then went on to study at Queen's University Belfast ('Queen's') in Northern Ireland where he was active in the Northern Ireland civil-rights movement (1960s), before giving up his degree course to go into acting at the Drama Centre London. Career. Callow's immersion in the theatre began after he wrote a fan letter to Sir Laurence Olivier, the Artistic Director of the National Theatre, and received a response suggesting he join their box office staff. It was while watching actors rehearse that he realised he wanted to act. Callow made his stage debut in 1973, appearing in "The Thrie Estates" at the Assembly Rooms Theatre, Edinburgh. In the early 1970s he joined the Gay Sweatshop theatre company and performed in Martin Sherman's critically acclaimed "Passing By". In 1977 he took various parts in the Joint Stock Theatre Company's production of "Epsom Downs" and in 1979 he starred in Snoo Wilson's "The Soul of the White Ant" at the Soho Poly. He made his first film appearance, as Schikaneder, in "Amadeus" in 1984 (having played Mozart in the original stage production at the Royal National Theatre in 1979). His first television role was in "Carry On Laughing" episode "Orgy and Bess", in 1975, but it was apparently cut from the final print. He starred in several series of the Channel 4 situation comedy, "Chance in a Million", as Tom Chance, an eccentric individual to whom coincidences happened regularly. Roles like this and his part in "Four Weddings and a Funeral" brought him a wider audience than his many critically acclaimed stage appearances. At the same time, Callow was successful both as a director and as a writer. His "Being An Actor" (1984) was a critique of 'director dominated' theatre, in addition to containing autobiographical sections relating to his early career as an actor. At a time when subsidised theatre in the United Kingdom was under severe pressure from the Thatcher government, the work's original appearance caused a minor controversy. In 1992, he directed the play "Shades" by Sharman MacDonald and the musical "My Fair Lady" featuring costumes designed by Jasper Conran. In 1995 he directed a stage version of the classic French film "Les Enfants du Paradis" for the RSC. The production was not a success. Callow has also directed opera productions. One of Callow's best-known books is "Love Is Where It Falls", a poignant analysis of his eleven-year relationship with Peggy Ramsay (1980–91), a prominent British theatrical agent from the 1960s to the 1980s. He has also written extensively about Charles Dickens, whom he has played in a one-man show, "The Mystery of Charles Dickens" by Peter Ackroyd, in the films ' and ', and on television several times including "An Audience with Charles Dickens" (BBC, 1996) and in "The Unquiet Dead", a 2005 episode of the BBC science-fiction series "Doctor Who". He returned to Doctor Who for the 2011 season finale, again taking the role of Dickens. Callow appeared with Saeed Jaffrey in 1994 British television series "Little Napoleons". In 1996 Callow directed Cantabile in three musical pieces ("Commuting", "The Waiter's Revenge", "Ricercare No. 4") composed by his friend Stephen Oliver. Ricercare No. 4 was commissioned by Callow especially for Cantabile. He voice-acted the sly and traitorous Wolfgang in "Shoebox Zoo". In 2004, he appeared on a Comic Relief episode of "Little Britain" for charity causes. In 2006, he wrote a piece for the BBC1 programme "This Week" bemoaning the lack of characters in modern politics. He has starred as Count Fosco, the villain of Wilkie Collins's novel "The Woman in White", in film (1997) and on stage (2005, in the Andrew Lloyd Webber "musical" in the West End). In December 2004, he hosted the London Gay Men's Chorus Christmas Show, "Make the Yuletide Gay" at the Barbican Centre in London. He is currently one of the patrons of the Michael Chekhov Studio London. Callow narrated the audio book of Robert Fagles' 2006 translation of Virgil's "The Aeneid". In July 2006, the London Oratory School Schola announced Callow as one of their new patrons. In November 2007 he threatened to resign the post over controversy surrounding the Terrence Higgins Trust (an AIDS charity of which Callow is also a patron). Other patrons of the Catholic choir are Princess Michael of Kent and the leading Scottish composer James MacMillan. He reprised his role as Wolfgang in "Shoebox Zoo" and voice-acted the wild and action-seeking Hunter as well. From 11 July to 3 August 2008, Callow appeared at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival in Canada in "There Reigns Love", a performance of the sonnets of William Shakespeare and also in 2008, he appeared at the Edinburgh Festival performing "Dr Marigold" and "Mr Chops" by Charles Dickens, adapted and directed by Patrick Garland; repeating them from December 2009 to January 2010 at the Riverside Studios and on tour in 2011. In February 2008, he played the psychiatrist in Chichester Festival Theatre's production of Peter Shaffer's "Equus". Between March and August 2009, he starred as Pozzo in Sean Mathias's production of "Waiting for Godot" by Samuel Beckett opposite Sir Ian McKellen (Estragon), Sir Patrick Stewart (Vladimir) and also Ronald Pickup (Lucky). The tour opened in Malvern before travelling to Milton Keynes, Brighton, Bath, Norwich, Edinburgh and Newcastle; its run at the Theatre Royal, Haymarket was extended due to demand. From June to November 2010, he appeared in a national tour of a new one-man play, "Shakespeare: the Man from Stratford", written by Jonathan Bate, directed by Tom Cairns and produced by the Ambassador Theatre Group. The play was renamed Being Shakespeare for its West End debut at the Trafalgar Studios where it opened on 15 June 2011. It was revived at the same theatre in March 2012, prior to a run in New York and Chicago. Callow has also written biographies of Oscar Wilde, Charles Laughton and Orson Welles. He is currently at work on the third volume of his life of Welles. He has also written an anthology of Shakespeare passages, "Shakespeare On Love", and contributed to Cambridge's "Actors on Shakespeare" series. Callow was also the reader of "The Twits" and "The Witches" in the Puffin Roald Dahl Audio Books Collection (ISBN 978-0-140-92255-4) and has done audio versions of several abridged P.G. Wodehouse books that feature, among others, the fictional character Jeeves. They include "Very Good, Jeeves" and "Aunts Aren't Gentlemen". A devotee of classical music, he has contributed articles to "Gramophone" magazine. Personal life. Callow is one of the most prominent gay actors in Britain, listed 28th in the "Independent'"s 2007 listing of the most influential gay men and women in the UK. In 1999 he was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) for his services to acting. For some time Callow lived with director Daniel Kramer. They shared a house in Camden, North London, but have now ended their relationship. He was one of the first actors publicly to declare his homosexuality, doing so in his 1984 book "Being An Actor". (In another he revealed his platonic relationship with the theatrical agent Peggy Ramsay who was 40 years his senior.)
1102266	Marie Ennemond Camille Jordan (5 January 1838 – 22 January 1922) was a French mathematician, known both for his foundational work in group theory and for his influential "Cours d'analyse". He was born in Lyon and educated at the École polytechnique. He was an engineer by profession; later in life he taught at the École polytechnique and the Collège de France, where he had a reputation for eccentric choices of notation. He is remembered now by name in a number of foundational results: Jordan's work did much to bring Galois theory into the mainstream. He also investigated the Mathieu groups, the first examples of sporadic groups. His "Traité des substitutions", on permutation groups, was published in 1870; this treatise won for Jordan the 1870 "prix Poncelet". The asteroid 25593 Camillejordan and Institute of Camille Jordan are named in his honour. Camille Jordan is not to be confused with the geodesist Wilhelm Jordan (Gauss-Jordan elimination) or the physicist Pascual Jordan (Jordan algebras).
70012	Rajeev Motwani (; March 26, 1962 – June 5, 2009) was a professor of Computer Science at Stanford University whose research focused on theoretical computer science. He was an early advisor and supporter of companies including Google and PayPal, and a special advisor to Sequoia Capital. He was a winner of the Gödel Prize in 2001. Education. Rajeev Motwani was born in Jammu to a Hindu Sindhi family. He grew up in New Delhi. His father was in the Indian Army. He has two brothers. As a child, inspired by luminaries like Gauss, he wanted to become a mathematician. Motwani went to St Columba's School, New Delhi. He completed his B.Tech in Computer Science from the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur in 1983 and got his Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of California, Berkeley in 1988 under the supervision of Richard M. Karp. Career. Motwani joined Stanford soon after U.C. Berkeley.
1078593	Sweet Movie is a 1974 avant-garde art house comedy-drama film by the Yugoslavian director Dušan Makavejev. The film follows two women: a Canadian beauty queen, who represents a modern commodity culture, and a captain aboard a ship laden with candy and sugar, who is a failed communist revolutionary. Director of photography is Pierre Lhomme. The film's music is composed by Greek composer Manos Hadjidakis. Plot. One narrative follows Miss Monde 1984/Miss Canada (Carole Laure), who wins a contest of the "most virgin"; her prize is the marriage to a milk industry tycoon (John Vernon). However, following his degrading puritanical introduction to intercourse, she vents her intention to leave to her mother-in-law who, at that point, nearly has her killed. The family bodyguard (bodybuilder Roy Callender) takes her away, further humiliates her, and finally packs her in a trunk bound for Paris. She finds herself on the Eiffel Tower, where she absently meets and has intercourse with a Latin singer, El Macho (Sami Frey). The sexual act is interrupted by touring nuns who frighten the lovers into penis captivus. In her post-coital shocked state, she is adopted into an artist community led by Otto Muehl, where she finds affectionate care. The commune practices some liberating sessions, where a member, with the assistance of the others, goes through a (re)birth experience, cries, urinates and defecates like a baby, while the others are cleaning and pampering him. Later she is seen acting for an obscene advertisement, in which she is naked, covered in liquid chocolate. The second narrative involves a woman, Anna Planeta (Anna Prucnal) piloting a candy-filled boat down a river, with a large papier-mache head of Karl Marx on the prow. She picks up the hitchhiking sailor Potemkin (Pierre Clémenti), though she warns him that if he falls in love, she will kill him. He ignores her many suggestions for him to leave and their relationship evolves. Eventually, in the state of love making, she stabs him to death in their nidus of sugar. She also seduces children into her world of sweets and revolution. She is eventually apprehended and arrested by the police who lay down plastic sacks containing the children's bodies on the riverside, implying they too have been killed by Planeta. The film ends with the children, unseen by the others, being reborn from their plastic cocoons. Production. The film was originally intended to focus solely on the experiences of Miss Canada. However, the actress portraying the character, Carole Laure, left the production after becoming increasingly disgusted over the actions required for her performance; she decided to quit after shooting a scene in which she fondled a man's penis on-screen. After Laure's departure, Makavejev re-wrote the script to include the second narrative, starring Anna Prucnal. Reception. The film created a storm of controversy upon its release, with simulated (and unsimulated) scenes of coprophilia, emetophilia, fondling, and footage of remains of the Polish Katyn Massacre victims. The film was banned in many countries, or severely cut; it is still banned in many countries to this day. Polish authorities banned Prucnal from using her passport over the movie, which effectively banned her from entering her native country for a number of years. The film was nearly impossible to find since its initial release in 1974, but Criterion released the film on DVD in a region 1 DVD on June 19, 2007. "Meaning". The film is a classic montage form, as seen in other of Makavejev's films, which intermixes his themes of the degradation of pure communism, the injection of Western values into it, and the effects of sexual repression on the personal, economic, and political lives of all people (as well as the current brand of communism's sexual repression, too). Miss Monde is the virginal sacrifice of what should be natural sexuality to a captain of industry, the embodiment of sexual repression and mis-use. Upon Laure's departure from the film, a segue was invented to carry Miss Monde rapidly into the Anna Planeta character as a liberated sexual force, sailing on to cure the world of its sexual repressions. Ironically, the scenes of scream therapy, infant regression, and Planeta's murderous proclivities undercut her role as a liberator. Instead, she kills the sweetness of love (in the sugar bed) and the sexual innocence of children (even though the children are resurrected magically by an unknown factor). The elements of anarchy (sexual, political, and economic) as a creative and as a destructive force are intermixed and remain unresolved.
589361	Naukar Biwi Ka is a 1983 Hindi movie starring Dharmendra, Anita Raj, Reena Roy, Vinod Mehra, Raj Babbar and Om Prakash. It was directed by Rajkumar Kohli. The film became a box office hit.[http://boxofficeindia.com/showProd.php?itemCat=189&catName=MTk4Mw==] It was copy of the hit Pakistani Punjabi movie "Naukar Wohti Da". Plot. Inspector Amar Nath apprehends and arrests a notorious gangster who goes by different aliases (Deshbandhu Jagannath, Pinto, Abdul Karim), and gets him sentenced to prison for several years. Amar, who comes from a wealthy family, defies his father, Jagirdar Bishamber Nath, and marries a poor but pretty woman, Sheela Sharma. He is asked to leave the family home. Amar and Sheela settle elsewhere and soon are the proud parents of a daughter, Jyoti. They meet with the parents of young Deepak Kumar and arrange a child-marriage of their daughter with Deepak. Pinto escapes from prison, hunts down Amar and Sheela, and kills them. Luckily, a loyal employee and chauffeur, Abdul, saves their daughter's life. He takes her to Jagirdar, who accepts her with tears in his eyes. Years later, Deepak and Jyoti have grown up. While Jyoti still lives with her wealthy grandpa, Deepak's dad has died, leaving his widow destitute. When she goes to confirm their marriage, Jyoti shuns and humiliates her. This enrages Deepak and he vows to make Jyoti apologize to his mother, as well as confirm their marriage. But Jyoti is already in love with wealthy Raman, and Deepak meets a famous Bollywood actress, Sandhya, who falls in love with him. What will happen to the promise he made to his mother ? The story has similarities with "Manchali" and deals with an arrogant spoiled girl hiring a person to act as her husband, so that she can get her grandfather to back off. Subsequently it is about how the hired husband makes the girl come around to falling in love with him. Guest appearances were made by Rishi Kapoor and Danny Denzongpa.
1017162	An Empress and the Warriors is a 2008 Chinese historical drama film directed by Ching Siu-tung and starring Donnie Yen, Kelly Chen, Leon Lai and Kou Zhenhai. Plot. The film is set in ancient China, probably during the period of the Sixteen Kingdoms, when China was divided into a number of rival kingdoms. The state of Yan, founded by the Murong tribe of the Xianbei nation, has long been a target of attacks by the Zhao. Princess Fei'er of Yan becomes the new ruler after her father is killed in battle, with general Murong Xuehu assisting her in defending their kingdom from invasion. Yan Huba, nephew of the deceased king and a treacherous minister in Yan, schemes to take the throne and he sends his men to assassinate the princess. Fei'er survives the attempt on her life but is seriously injured. She is rescued later by a mysterious hermit named Duan Lanquan and lives with him for a period of time until she recovers. The two of them develop romantic feelings for each other during that period of time. However, she ultimately must decide whether to fulfill her duty to her kingdom or follow her heart. Fei'er chooses to returns to Yan later and succeeds in resolving the conflict between Yan and Zhao. However, Huba is still plotting to take the throne and he leads his men to kill Duan Lanquan and Murong Xuehu. On the verge of danger, Fei'er manages to kill Huba personally and puts an end to Huba's evil plans, while restoring peace by maintaining good relations with the other kingdoms.
586519	Ek Tha Tiger (English: "Once There was a Tiger") is a 2012 Indian action romance film, directed by Kabir Khan and produced by Aditya Chopra of Yash Raj Films. It stars Salman Khan and Katrina Kaif, and features Ranvir Shorey, Girish Karnad, Roshan Seth and Gavie Chahal in supporting roles. The film was the third collaboration of Kabir Khan with Yash Raj Films after "Kabul Express" (2006) and "New York" (2009). The plot centers around an Indian spy code-named "Tiger" who falls in love with a Pakistani spy during an investigation and how Tiger's ideology and principles change over time. Pre-production of "Ek Tha Tiger" started in the second half of 2010 after the script had been completed. Principal photography commenced on September 2011 and ended in June 2012. The film was shot in five countries. Initially scheduled for a release on June 2012, the film's release was delayed and it opened on 15 August 2012, coinciding with India's Independence Day holiday. Critics gave "Ek Tha Tiger" positive to mixed reviews. The film opened to extremely strong box office collections and "Box Office India" declared it a "Blockbuster". It was the most successful of Yash Raj Films' releases and was the second Bollywood film to gross over worldwide with a gross of , and became the third highest-grossing Bollywood film of all time, exceeded by "Chennai Express and 3 Idiots". Plot. An agent code-named "Tiger" (Salman Khan)India's top spy and an officer of the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW)is conducting a mission in northern Iraq. Tiger is forced to kill one of his own men who has defected to Pakistan's spy agency Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI). He subsequently kills many ISI agents in his escape. Tiger returns to India and reports to his boss, Shenoy (Girish Karnad), in New Delhi. He is immediately sent on a mission to Dublin to observe a scientist of Indian origin, Professor Anwar Jamaal Kidwai (Roshan Seth), who teaches at Trinity College and is suspected of sharing his findings with the Pakistan defence establishment. Fellow RAW agent Gopi (Ranvir Shorey) accompanies Tiger on this mission. Tiger meets the scientist but fails to spend enough time for his observance, and instead begins to spend time with scientist's caretaker Zoya (Katrina Kaif), who is studying at a local dance academy. He tries to befriend Zoya to extract information, and he begins to discover his human side as he grows closer to her. Tiger is attacked and robbed at his residence by a person suspected to be an ISI agent. Gopi repeatedly warns Tiger not to fall in love with Zoya, but he does. Before telling her his feelings, during a visit to dance academy, Tiger discovers that Zoya is an ISI Agent and refuses to commit treason on Pakistan when he asks. Instead of killing Zoya, Tiger lets her go. Some time later, Tiger and Zoya meet again at a UN Foreign Minister's Meet in Istanbul when Zoya signals him to come using a cryptic message. They decide to leave everything for their love and fool their respective agencies by taking a flight to Brazil, having told their agencies that they are in Kazakhstan. Some years later, their agencies trace Zoya and Tiger to Cuba, and the ISI agents catch Zoya. Tiger meets Gopi, who is searching for him for RAW, and having lied to Gopi that both Tiger and Zoya intend to return to India and cooperate with RAW, convinces Gopi to save Zoya from the ISI agents. Instead of returning to India, the pair escapes aboarding an aeroplane. Tiger calls Shenoy, who tells him that RAW will find both spies. Tiger tells Shenoy that they will return when Pakistan and India no longer need ISI and RAW. In the epilogue, several images of Tiger and Zoya in cities including Cape Town, Zurich and London are shown, where sightings of them have been reported. But none could catch them. Production. Casting. Initially, Kabir Khan was announced to be the director, but after finalising the story, Kabir approached Salman Khan with the script. Khan liked it but did not initially sign a contract because of salary issues. The film's script had been completed by November 2010, and underwent changes in February 2012. In May 2011, reports said that Salman Khan and Katrina Kaif would work together on a film titled "Ek Tha Tiger". It was Khan's first venture with Yash Raj Films and his fourth opposite Kaif. Before starting the film, Khan postponed a project titled "Sher Khan" by his brother Sohail Khan. His fee for the venture was . The film was also one of Katrina's first in the action genre. Ranvir Shorey was signed for a supporting role. On 3 May, a photograph shoot was held with the lead actors. Later, Punjabi actor Gavie Chahal signed to play a character named Abrar in "Ek Tha Tiger"; his Bollywood debut. Filming. Initial reports said that principal photography would start by 5 July 2011, but Yash Raj Films’ spokesperson Rafiq Gangjee said that the film had been delayed because of production requirements.The first scheduled shooting began on 10 August in Dublin. After a postponement when Khan went to the US for surgery for Trigeminal neuralgia, shooting resumed on 10 September 2011. Filming took place at Dublin's Trinity College. Stunt directors of The Bourne Identity were hired for the action sequences. Some action sequences were also shot in the city. During filming in Dublin, the Irish film crew held a demonstration about filming conditions and payment, which halted the shooting temporarily . The second round on filming took place in Istanbul and lasted two months. In February 2012, the film's cast and crew went to Havana to shoot for a month. There, Khan shot a cameo scene for a local tourism company. The sets used in the film were featured in the advertisement. Problems with the script caused the postponement of the film's planned shoot in Hong Kong. Afterwards, a three-day filming schedule was completed in Delhi. Filming ended in June 2012 after the last schedule was shot in Bangkok. Khan had to undergo a fitness program titled 'Dirty Running' over 30 days for his action sequences. Kaif played her role without makeup. Marketing. The first-look poster was released in August 2011, and the first teaser was released on 10 May 2012 along with the film "Ishaqzaade". The theatrical trailer received more than 1 million views within 2 days of its release, making it the most-viewed trailer for a Bollywood film. Promotional tours visited New Delhi, Ahmedabad, and Lucknow. The makers secured a marketing deal with soft drink company Thumbs up and engaged in a consumer promotion in New Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad, Lucknow, Kanpur, Allahabad, Agra, Meerut and Ghaziabad. As part of the promotion, a series of comic books based on the film, and also using characters from the film "Hum Tum", were launched in July 2012 and continued until the Diwali festival. The first book was titled 'Ek Tha Tiger – Mahasagar Ki Suraksha'. Post release, the comics failed to generate a positive word-of-mouth. Joginder Tuteja of Bollywood Hungama commended the comics' design but said that the main story failed to meet his expectations of a deeper plot, exciting narrative and a tighter script. Release. "Ek Tha Tiger" was released worldwide on 15 August 2012Indian Independence day. It was screened in 3300 screens nationally, which at that time was the most ever for a Bollywood film until Dabangg 2 was released in 3700 screens. Ek Tha Tiger was released in 550 screens overseas. Around 60 percent of the first weekend's sales had been booked in advance before the release. Some multiplexes increased their ticket prices for the film. "Ek Tha Tiger" was not released in Pakistana major market for Bollywood filmsbecause the Pakistani censors decided that it shows the country in negative light. Director Kabir Khan had earlier said that it was not an anti-Pakistan film. After its worldwide success, the film was released in Japan on 7 March 2013 by Japan's Nikkatsu Corporation, with a grand premiere in Tokyo. 30 prints were released in Japan, which will increase to 70, making it the widest Japanese release for a Hindi film. Critical reception. India. "Ek Tha Tiger" received positive to mixed reviews from Indian critics.Taran Adarsh of "Bollywood Hungama" rated the film 4.5 stars out of 5, called it a "high octane thriller that works big time", and wrote, "This one has style and substance, both, besides dazzling action, stunning international locales and stylish execution. Most importantly, it has Salman Khan, the trump card of this enterprise."Saibal Chatterjee of "NDTV" gave it 3.5 out of 5 stars and said the film is " smartly scripted, crisply edited and stylishly mounted love story ... ". He wrote that the screenplay is "sharply focused", and praised the visuals and the performances of the cast. He also wrote that the lead character's conflict between his head and his heart slowed down the film a little, that it could not be termed "great cinema", but that it has "has enough zing, visual and otherwise" to entertain audiences for two and a half hours. Aniruddha Guha of the "Daily News and Analysis" gave the film 3.5 stars and wrote that it "is probably Hindi cinema’s best action film yet", and that the action sequence filmed in Havana was alone worth the ticket price. He also said the film is well-cast and "smart and stylish". Gaurav Malani of "The Times of India" praised the film, saying "irector Kabir Khan commendably balances the love story and the spy drama ... Chopra's story is credibly crafted into a riveting screenplay by Neelesh Misra and Kabir Khan. Salman Khan carries an urbane charm and looks uber-cool dressed in formals. He is resourcefully restrained sans his customary buffoonery. ... Ek Tha Tiger, by far, is Salman Khan's most entertaining and accomplished works in recent times." Blessy Chettiar, also of the "Daily News and Analysis", gave it 3 stars out of 5 and called it an "action lover's paradise". He said, " ... Kabir Khan ensures he exploits Salman's screen presence, while also adding substance to all that jazz around. The twists in the tale are enough to keep you from snoozing due to an overdose of action." Giving the film 3 stars out of 5, Sukanya Verma of "Rediff.com" wrote, ""Ek Tha Tiger" has a lot going for it with its two certified stars no one will contract an eyesore looking at and a supporting cast (Ranvir Shorey, Girish Karnad) that never lets you down along with plush production values typical to a Yash Raj product." Rubina A Khan of "The First Post" wrote, "The director ... has a firm grip on the story and the screen play, without compromising on the entertainment value of the film at all. There's everything and more in Ek Tha Tiger that you'd want to see in a film – good looking lead cast, story, glamour, an endearing romance, some laughs, picturesque locations, thrilling and exquisite action, patriotism and most importantly, a good time at the movies!" Anupama Chopra of "Hindustan Times" also gave it 3 stars out of 5 and said that the film was Khan's best since "Dabangg" and had more of a story and greater coherence and emotion than both "Ready" and "Bodyguard" together. She wrote, "places, "Ek Tha Tiger" becomes downright silly. So the "modus operandi" might be to think of it as a fairy tale with spies and guns". Roshni Devi of "koimoi.com" gave it 3 stars out of 5, praised the cinematography, action and music but criticised the stretched plot. Rajeev Masand of "CNN-IBN" gave the film 2.5 stars out of 5, and wrote, "[despite its obvious flaws, 'Ek Tha Tiger' is far from unwatchable. At best, it's a satisfying watch. Just don't go in with high expectations." Jahanavi Samant of "Mid Day" gave the film 2.5 stars out of 5 and said, ""Ek Tha Tiger" is unable to decide whether it is a spy action film or a soppy love saga." The film received some negative reviews. Kunal Guha of "Yahoo!" movies gave it 1 star out of 5 and said, "f you thought "Agent Vinod" made a Ronald McDonald out of the genre, "Ek Tha Tiger" takes a mousey tail and sticks it up his nose for Salman to swing from ear to ear." Pritam Dutta of "The Telegraph" gave 4/10, 5/10 and 5/10 stars for the film's script, acting and direction respectively. Mohammed Kamran Jawaid of "Dawn" called the movie un-lively and said, "Khan's powerhouse charisma is enough to tug the movie to worldwide "financial" success. Critical success? Not so much." Overseas. Outside India, the film received a positive to mixed reception. Ronnie Scheib of "Variety" wrote, "Kaif displays some impressive moves in her action-heroine debut, while Salman Khan's thinking-on-his-feet immediacy adds depth to his usual macho muscle. Local will no doubt derive a special thrill from the onscreen reunion of stars Khan and Kaif, once an offscreen item. Slickly produced 'Tiger' profits greatly from Aseem Mishra's gorgeous location lensing." Tuhin of Gulf News said, "The camerawork is outright bad, with the body doubles' faces very visible during the action scenes. Kaif, who has tried her hand at the stunts, is, however, fairly convincing. Though the pace could have been faster, it is a delight to watch Khan and Kaif together, resulting in a great Eid offering for [Salman Khan fans". "The New York Times" gave a mixed review, praising the action scenes but criticising the characters' romance, saying, "Tiger and Zoya both make good kung fu street fighters, but as spies they’re unconvincing, and as lovers they’re cookie-cutter bland. Their loyalty to each other is never really in question and only tepidly tested, so the theme of my enemy, myself, remains unexplored." According to French journalist Marjolaine Gout, the movie is "a roaring fairy tale where the damsel in distress fights back with fists and thighs" and called it a "visual and comic feast". She gave it 3.5 stars out of 5. Box office. Box Office India declared the film a blockbuster in India and overseas, and it became the highest grossing Bollywood film of 2012 and the second highest of all time. Yash Raj Films called the film a "historic blockbuster". Domestic. "Ek Tha Tiger" opened with 100% occupancy at multiplexes and single-screen cinemas and it broke records with capacity audiences, the widest release ever. It collected around behind Chennai Express, on its first day of release; a 40% increase on the previous record, which was nett approx set by "Bodyguard" (2011). On its second day in the single screens across India it collected around . and on its third day it collected around , taking its total collections in its first three days to , a new record for the weekend. The film's collections grew on Saturday and Sunday, and it collected in its extended five-day weekend. "Ek Tha Tiger" collected in its extended first week of nine days, and nett in its second week to make a 16-day total of . During its third week, the film collected , in its fourth week and in fifth to make a total of in eight weeks. Its final distributor share of is the highest ever in Bollywood as of 29 November 2012. Overseas. "Ek Tha Tiger" had strong collections in overseas markets despite not being released in Pakistan. The movie collected around in five days. It has collected around US$10.15 million near the end of its run overseas. Ek Tha Tiger is one of the highest-grossing Bollywood films in overseas markets, and Box Office India.declared it a 'blockbuster' overseas. Records. After its release, "Ek Tha Tiger" broke several records. After its box office opening it collected in the first day and became the highest opening collection in the history of Indian cinema and the biggest single-day collection ever. The film also broke the record for opening weekend net gross (first 3 days of release), opening week net gross (first 7 days of release) and entered the '100 Crore Club; the fastest in 6 days of release, breaking Salman Khan's own record set by "Bodyguard" in 7 Days. After collecting worldwide, the film became the third highest-grossing Bollywood film of all time and the second Bollywood film to gross over worldwide, exceeded only by "3 Idiots". Soundtrack. Initially, Pritam was signed to compose a score for "Ek Tha Tiger" and the film's first digital poster credited him as such. However, he opted out of the film because of date clashes with another Yash Raj project, "Dhoom 3". Neelesh Misra wrote the lyrics. A song titled "Jaaniyan", which had vocals by Pakistani singer Asif Nawaz, was reported to have been leaked from the film's soundtrack. Yash Raj Films officials denied the news, and said that the album was in no danger of being leaked. "Mashallah", sung by Wajid Ali and Shreya Ghoshal, was released as a single on 12 July 2012. Critical reception of the soundtrack. The soundtrack album of "Ek Tha Tiger" received unanimously positive reviews. Satyajit of Glamsham gave the album 4/5, saying, ""Ek Tha Tiger" roars with multi-cultured international musical feel, a musician delight that primarily targets classy listeners. Unlike massy tracks of Dabangg, Wanted, Ready or Bodyguard, it has more classy appeal attached to it and all credits goes to composer's skillfulness in catching every aura, genre and format." Indo-Asian News Service posting on CNN-IBN gave the album 4/5 and said that it "offers the listener the romantic and action flavour of the movie. This one's definitely an entertaining affair with an array of sounds for music lovers." Purva Desai of The Times of India also gave the album 4/5 and said that it was "good effort by Sohail Sen and Sajid-Wajid because the album is fresh and sounds new, where the music composers have made an attempt to incorporate world sounds. The music is so different from Kabir Khan's earlier films like Kabul Express and New York which makes the music of Ek Tha Tiger a welcome surprise!" Devesh Sharma of Filmfare gave the soundtrack 4/5, stating that "[we are used to pulsating music in Salman Khan starrers, so this album is a tad disappointing in that sense." and also that "The songs have a situational feel and let's hope they look better on screen than they sound." Joginder Tuteja of Bollywood Hungama gave the album 3.5/5 and wrote, "he music of Ek Tha Tiger is good though one expected it to have gone all the way further up." and that "In case of Ek Tha Tiger, there isn't any composition that puts you off. In fact what is noticeable is the fact that the overall sound of the album remains more or less consistent." Home media. "Ek Tha Tiger" was released on DVD in all regions on 25 September 2012, and on Blu-ray Discwhich features Dolby TrueHD 96k upsampling and Dolby Surround 7.1 with English and Arabic subtitles on 9 October 2012. The film's director Kabir Khan said, "Ek Tha Tiger is the first movie to be mastered with Dolby's advanced 96k upsampling technology on a Blu-ray disc".
1130626	Florencia Lozano (born December 16, 1969) is an American actress. She has starred as character Téa Delgado on the daytime series "One Life to Live", often receiving praise for the portrayal, as the character emerged as one of the genre's most prominent heroines. Lozano has guest-starred in several prime time television shows, as well as film. Early life. Florencia Lozano was born in Princeton, New Jersey, to Eduardo, an architect, and Elizabeth, a Spanish teacher from Argentina. She grew up in Newton Centre, Massachusetts, and received her B.A. from Brown University, before moving to New York City to earn her M.F.A. degree at New York University's Graduate Acting Program at the Tisch School of the Arts. Lozano's regional theater credits include "Yerma", "Antigone", "Hamlet", "Caucasian Chalk Circle", among others. Career. Lozano landed the role of tough-as-nails attorney Téa Delgado in December 1996 on the daytime drama "One Life to Live", and first aired on January 27, 1997. The character became one of soap opera's most popular creations, and earned Lozano a loyal following. In 2002, almost two years after her departure from the series, Lozano was still receiving a significant amount of fan mail for her portrayal of the character. "I so appreciate that love coming at me," she said. "The response to Téa still overwhelms me." She further relayed, "I left because I wanted to try other things. I really want to do more theater, film and television other than the soap. When you're doing a soap, it is really hard to do other things. It just takes so much of your time." During her tenure on "One Life to Live", Lozano was in an Off Broadway play called "Lick" in June 1999; from August to September 2000, she appeared in "Love’s Labor Lost", a Shakespearean play produced out of Berkeley in Orinda, CA. In addition to her popularity with soap opera fans, Lozano was named one of "Daytime's Hardest Working Women" by About.com, and titled one of soap opera's "Most Beautiful Women" by magazine "Soap Opera Update". After leaving daytime, Lozano moved on to prime time television and film; some of her television credits include ', ', "Gossip Girl" and "Lipstick Jungle". Of her prime time transition to film, Lozano stated, "I’m playing homicide detectives a lot," referring to her roles in "Perfect Stranger" and "The Ministers". "I don’t know why," she added, "but I love it!" To prepare for the roles, Lozano – who had lived in Manhattan for 15 years – visited the homicide division of her local police precinct. "I’ve been hanging out with cops, and they’ve been so wonderful," she said. "One of them, Irma Rivera, and I have become friends. She introduced me to a firearms instructor who showed me how to shoot a machine gun, and she took me up to the NYPD training village." Prepared, Lozano portrayed Lieutenant Karen Tejada in the April 13, 2007 release of "Perfect Stranger". "I interrogate Halle Berry and I end up arresting Bruce Willis," Lozano relayed. The storyline centers around Berry’s character going undercover to solve a friend’s murder, but gets caught up in the world of obsessive on-line life. "It’s very mysterious and full of intrigue," stated Lozano. Acting with prominent film stars was a "rewarding experience" for Lozano. "Halle is so gorgeous," she stated, "and she has a very beautiful energy about her. She was fun to play with, open to ideas, and willing to try new stuff and really excited." Lozano said, "Bruce was fun, too, in a different way. He let me push him around and manhandle him. I was surprised." When Lozano acquired the lead role in "The Ministers", opposite John Leguizamo and Harvey Keitel, she was again prepared. Filmed in February 2007, the crime thriller is about a female NYPD detective (Lozano) who tries to avenge the murder of her police officer father by what she presumed to be a cult. But unwittingly, she falls for one of the killers (Leguizamo) in the process. "Harvey plays my partner – he used to be my father’s partner," Lozano stated. A fan of Leguizamo, Lozano was excited to work with him. "He was cracking jokes, and we were always busting on each other," said Lozano. "I felt really comfortable with him." The opportunity to carry a film was a longtime goal for Lozano, who enjoyed the experience. "It’s really a great feeling when your dreams come true. It may sound cheesy but I was like, ‘Wow, I got what I wanted!’" she stated. "My training in theater and daytime really paid off – I have never appreciated being on a soap as much as I do now, because we moved very fast on this movie." Lozano still looks to do more theater and is also pursuing television opportunities. Queried on whether she would ever reprise her role of Téa on "One Life to Live", she stated, "I will never close any door, especially not a door that has been so wonderful for me to walk through." In September 2008, "Soap Opera Weekly" reported Lozano's return to "One Life to Live"; she reprised her role as Téa in December 2008 and would play the character until the shows finale in January 2012. In the meantime, she guest starred on "Ugly Betty", portraying Penelope Del Rios in the episode "Filing for the Enemy". In March 2012, "Soap Opera Digest" reported that Lozano would be bringing her "One Life to Live" character to "General Hospital" the week of May 7, 2012. Her debut aired May 9, and she last appeared on December 3. Personal life. Lozano is a trained dancer, whose talents range from ballet to jazz, modern and flamenco. She became romantically involved with Christopher Welch in 1997, who was later featured in the 2002 Broadway revival of "The Crucible". While New York theater plays kept Lozano and Welch busy, Lozano planned to stay on the East Coast. "I went to California, and I realized that while I could work out there, I could never live there," she stated. "There's just something that feels like home about New York. And there is something about theater that just feels so satisfying. is really what I love to do."
1164258	William Wayne McMillan Rogers III (born April 7, 1933) is an American film and television actor, best known for playing the role of "Trapper John" McIntyre in the CBS television series, "M*A*S*H". He is a regular panel member on the Fox News Channel stock investment television program "Cashin' In", as a result of having built a highly successful and lucrative second career as an investor, investment strategist and advisor, and money manager. Life and career. Rogers was born in Birmingham, Alabama. He attended Ramsay High School in Birmingham and is a graduate of The Webb School in Bell Buckle, Tennessee. In 1954, he graduated from Princeton University with a history degree and was a member of the Princeton Triangle Club and the Eating Club Tiger Inn. Rogers served in the United States Navy before he became an actor. Prior to the role of Trapper John, Rogers appeared on television in various roles in both dramas and sitcoms such as "The Invaders", "The F.B.I.", "Gunsmoke", "Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C.", "The Fugitive", and had a small supporting role in the 1967 movie "Cool Hand Luke". In 1959, he played Slim Davis on the soap opera "Search for Tomorrow". Rogers also played a role in "Odds Against Tomorrow" which was nominated for a Golden Globe Award in 1960 as Best Film Promoting International Understanding. He guest starred on an episode of the CBS western, "Johnny Ringo". Rogers co-starred with Robert Bray and Richard Eyer in the western series "Stagecoach West", on ABC from 1960 to 1961. "M*A*S*H" (1972–1975). When Rogers was approached for "M*A*S*H", he planned to audition as Hawkeye Pierce. However, he found the character too cynical and asked to screen test as Trapper John, whose outlook was brighter. Rogers was told that Trapper and Hawkeye would have equal importance as characters. This changed after Alan Alda, whose acting career and résumé up to that point had outshone that of Rogers, was cast as Hawkeye, and proved to be more popular with the audience. Rogers did, however, still enjoy working with Alda and the rest of the cast as a whole (Alda and Rogers quickly became close friends), but eventually chafed that the writers were devoting the show's best humorous and dramatic moments to Alda. When the writers took the liberty of making Hawkeye a thoracic surgeon in the episode "Dear Dad" (December 17, 1972) even though Trapper was the unit's only thoracic surgeon in the movie and the novel, Rogers felt Trapper was stripped of his credentials. On the "M*A*S*H* 30th Anniversary Reunion Television Special" aired by Fox-TV in 2002, Rogers once spoke on the differences between the Hawkeye and Trapper characters, "Alan (Alda) and I both used to discuss ways on how to distinguish the differences between the two characters as to where there would be a variance... my character (Trapper John McIntyre) was a little more impulsive (than Hawkeye)". Rogers considerably reduced his Alabama accent for the character of Trapper. He succeeded Elliott Gould, who had played the character in the Robert Altman movie "MASH", and was himself succeeded by Pernell Roberts on the "M*A*S*H" spin-off "Trapper John, M.D.". Departure from "M*A*S*H". After three seasons, Rogers grew weary of the Trapper character being treated as more of a sidekick than an equal to Hawkeye, and decided to leave the show (as had McLean Stevenson, who had played Lt. Colonel Blake). "House Calls" (1979–1982) and other roles. Later he appeared as a Federal agent in the critically acclaimed 1975 NBC-TV movie "", and as civil rights attorney Morris Dees in 1996's "Ghosts of Mississippi". He also starred in the short-lived but critically lauded 1976 period detective series "City of Angels" and the 1979–1982 CBS series "House Calls", first with Lynn Redgrave, and then later with actress Sharon Gless, who went on to co-star in the CBS-TV crime drama series "Cagney and Lacey" with actress Tyne Daly (coincidentally, one of the "House Calls" co-stars was Roger Bowen who played the original Colonel Henry Blake in the "MASH" movie). Rogers also appeared in the 1980s miniseries "Chiefs". Rogers then guest-starred five times on CBS's "Murder, She Wrote". He has served as an executive producer and producer in both television and film, and as a screenwriter, and a director. In addition, he has achieved some recognition as an investor, appearing frequently on Fox News Channel business shows. He also starred in "Race Against the Harvest." He also starred in the movie "The Gig" (1985), alongside Cleavon Little, as a jazz musician-hobbyist whose group has an opportunity to play a Catskills resort and must confront failure. Also in 1985, he starred opposite Barbara Eden in the televised reunion movie "I Dream of Jeannie... Fifteen Years Later" based on the 1960s situation comedy "I Dream of Jeannie". Rogers took on the role of Major Tony Nelson which was originally portrayed by Larry Hagman (of the CBS-TV soap opera "Dallas" fame) in the television series when Hagman was unavailable to reprise the character he had originated. In 1986, Rogers hosted the short-lived CBS television series "High Risk". Fox News' "Cashin' In". Rogers, who began to test the stock and real estate markets during his tenure as a "M*A*S*H" cast member, appears regularly as a panel member on the Fox Business Network cable TV stocks investment/stocks news program "Cashin' In", hosted by Fox News anchor Eric Bolling. In August 2006, Rogers was elected to the Board of Directors of Vishay Intertechnology, Inc., a Fortune 1000 manufacturer of semiconductors and electronic components. He is also the head of Wayne Rogers & Co., a stock trading investment corporation. Later developments. On April 23, 2012 Wayne Rogers signed on as the new spokesman for Senior Home Loans, a direct reverse mortgage lender headquartered on Long Island, New York. The national campaign is headed by industry veteran Jason Levy, CEO. Levy’s past experience includes managing the Robert Wagner reverse mortgage campaign. Awards. Rogers received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2005. Personal life. As a young actor, Rogers met actress Mitzi McWhorter in New York City in the late 1950s. They married in 1960 and divorced in 1983, producing two children from the relationship. They had been separated for almost four years prior to the divorce. In 1986, Rogers fathered a child, a boy named Luigi Calabrese, with then-girlfriend, Melinda Naud. Rogers has been married to his second wife, the former Amy Hirsh, since 1988. His two children are Laura Rogers, and William (Bill) Rogers IV. Both reside in California. Wayne's grandchildren include Laura's children: Xander and Daniel Bienstock, and Bill's children: William V and Anaïs.
110375	Alexzandra Spencer "Alexz" Johnson (born November 4, 1986) is a Canadian singer-songwriter, record producer, actress and philanthropist. Her debut album "Voodoo" was independently released in 2010, followed by the demo release of "The Basement Recordings" in 2011, with its sequel, "The Basement Recordings II", and EP "Skipping Stone" in 2012. She is best known for her roles as Jude Harrison in the CTV series "Instant Star", as Annie Thelen in the Disney Channel series "So Weird", and as Erin Ulmer in the 2006 horror film "Final Destination 3". She was nominated three times for a Gemini Award for Best Performance in a Children's or Youth Program or Series ("Instant Star"), winning the award in 2008. Early life. Johnson was born in New Westminster, British Columbia and raised in nearby Coquitlam. The sixth of ten children Johnson says her family embraced the arts and being creative. One brother is an actor and screenwriter, a sister is a stage actress, and her brother Brendan is a singer-songwriter and music producer with whom she often collaborates. From age three, Johnson often sang for her large extended family. By age seven, she was receiving vocal training, participating in festivals with her local youth choir, and giving solo performances at school and community functions. She entered talent contests and festivals, winning a National Anthem Contest at the age of 11, with her rendition of the Canadian National Anthem, "O Canada", heard on national television. This resulted in radio and television interviews, as well as interest from management. That year, she was voted Best Anthem singer of the season by the "Vancouver Sun". Locally, Johnson was often referred to as the "West Coast Celine" and sang the Canadian National Anthem at games for the NHL's Vancouver Canucks and the NBA's Vancouver Grizzlies. She performed at charity events and fairs around the province, in addition to the BC Summer Games. She opened the Variety Club show singing a duet with Bob McGrath, sang the first set of songs at the Molson Indy (a major car race), and entertained on New Year's Eve at Planet Hollywood at the age of 12. Career. 1999–2003: Beginnings and "So Weird". Although Johnson was only focused on a music career at the time, she decided to pursue a career in acting at the age of 11, where she "walked into an acting agency and told them wanted to sing". She landed auditions for commercials and a television pilot entitled "Most Talented Kids". Johnson auditioned for the Disney Channel original series "So Weird", which was looking for a lead actress who could also sing for the final season of the show. At the age of 13, Johnson replaced the lead character in the Disney Channel series "So Weird" for the show's final season. Johnson portrayed the lead role of Annie Thelen, which combined her acting and musical talents. The role featured her singing alongside Mackenzie Phillips. She showed an interest in songwriting, co-writing one of the songs for the show. In 2000, a song performed by Johnson titled “Everything (Feels Like New)” was featured in the Disney Channel Original Movie "The Other Me", starring Andrew Lawrence. A full studio version of the song was never released. After the cancellation of the show, Johnson continued her interest in songwriting, co-writing with her brother. Several labels offered her contracts, but she held off, wanting more creative control and a hand in the songwriting. In 2001 Johnson teamed up with the production/songwriting team of Johnny Elkins and CJ Vanston. Her work with Vanston and Elkins featured a more bubblegum pop sound than what she preferred and ended around 2003. Johnson continued to work with her brother on demos. These were the types of songs included on the demo CD she sent to the executives of "Instant Star" with her audition tape. In 2002, Johnson shared the stage with David Foster, Michael Bublé, and Ed McMahon at a David Foster Foundation fundraiser. 2004–2007: "Instant Star" and Acting Roles. Throughout 2004, Johnson made various appearances on Canadian television series including "The Chris Isaak Show", "The Collector", "Cold Squad" and "Doc (TV series)". In 2005 she made guest appearances in television shows and made-for-TV films including "Reefer Madness: The Movie Musical", "Falcon Beach", "", as well as the role of Angel in the Lifetime original movie "Selling Innocence". In 2004 Johnson sent in an audition tape to the producers of "" for their upcoming show "Instant Star". They were specifically looking for a Canadian teen actress/vocalist to play the lead role, Jude Harrison. The first audition tape Executive Producer Stephen Stohn received was Johnson's, and he was convinced she was perfect for the role. After its first season, "Instant Star" was nominated for three Gemini Awards (the Canadian equivalent of the American Emmy Award) in the category of Best Children's or Youth Fiction Program or Series, including a nomination for Best Performance (Alexz Johnson). On August 28, 2007, the show received three more Gemini Award nominations, in the category of Best Children's or Youth Program or Series, including another for Best Performance (Alexz Johnson, in the episode, "I Fought the Law"). Johnson sang all of the songs that her character Jude, on "Instant Star" performed on the show. She recorded soundtracks for each of the four seasons of "Instant Star": "Songs from Instant Star", "Songs from Instant Star Two", "Songs from Instant Star Three", and "Songs From Instant Star Four". She wrote or co-wrote five of the songs on the first season's soundtrack, including "24 Hours", "Let Me Fall", "Criminal, "Skin", and "That Girl", which Johnson had written before when she was fourteen. Most of the original recordings for the originally planned debut album were written by Johnson in early 2005, but she had yet to find a major label to help create and release the songs. In early 2006, Johnson announced she was leaving the indie Canadian label Orange Records that released the first two soundtracks to "Instant Star", in search of something to showcase her as an artist and not her fictional counterpart, Jude Harrison. Johnson auditioned for the role of Julie Christenson in the thriller "Final Destination 3". She showed up at the audition in an all-black, punk rockish outfit, later claiming that she was in a bad mood. The casting directors concluded she was a better fit for the role of Erin Ulmer, a character with a bad attitude. Her performance attracted praise from some critics, including one (writing for "The Philadelphia Inquirer") who said: "The characters are so loathsome, you're glad to see them go. Except for two: the goth couple Ian (Kris Lemche) and Erin (Alexz Johnson). He's a cynical know-it-all, like Dennis Miller with black fingernails; she's like Parker Posey with raccoon mascara.." In 2007, Johnson starred in the Lifetime movie, "Devil's Diary", for which she received a Leo Award nomination, in the category of Best Lead Performance by a Female in a Feature-Length Drama. 2008–09: Starting her music career. On August 26, 2008, Johnson was nominated a third time for a Gemini award. On October 21, 2008, she won the Gemini Award for Best Performance in a Children's or Youth Program or Series, for the "Instant Star" episode "Let It Be." Johnson continued with "Instant Star" for four seasons, and expected to return for a fifth. This was interrupted when CTV and The N both pulled funding following the fourth season, which led to the cancellation of the series. This allowed Johnson to go back to focusing on her music. After a showcase in New York City, Johnson met with several labels and producers and chose Capitol Records, which allowed her to work with Paul Buckmaster, though her brother was the main producer of the material at the time. In writing songs for the album, she worked with UK writers Martin Terefe and Sacha Skarbek as well as producer/songwriter Brio Taliaferro. On June 25, 2007, Johnson appeared on MTV Canada. She confirmed that all of her songs had been written and recorded. She planned on shopping for a label over the next few months and hoped to release the album in the winter. On February 15, 2008, she announced in her MySpace blog that she had signed a record deal with label Epic Records (part of the Sony BMG group), expecting the album to be released in the fall. Having heard the first six songs, Stephen Stohn, in his MySpace blog of February 16, 2008, commented that, "they are just incredibly good — very different from the songs you've come to know through "Instant Star", much more rhythmic, with almost a world beat." In an interview in 2008, she described her upcoming album as "pop with eclectic world rhythms and influences", citing influences from "older artists" such as Paul Simon, Kate Bush, and Annie Lennox, and saying that she was "trying to find a way to make those great older songs younger." The producer for the album became Greg Wells after Johnson was introduced to him through his brother Rob Wells, one of the songwriters for "Instant Star". The new arrangement with Epic Records also affected the line-up of artists for the "Instant Star" 4 soundtrack, as the record label allowed her a maximum of four songs on "Instant Star" 4. In her MySpace blog of February 15, 2008, Johnson indicated that she was planning an extensive tour around her new album, saying of her songs that, "I can't wait to perform them live! Looking forward to seeing all of your faces!" Johnson also began working with multi instrumentalist Luis Conte and legendary strings expert Paul Buckmaster. Five songs were posted on her MySpace page by her record company on June 11, 2008. These songs were supposed to appear in her upcoming album and were entitled: "Easy", "Swallowed", "Chicago", "Golden", and "Running With the Devil". Johnson appeared in the hit CW series "Smallville" episode "Legion", as the super heroine Saturn Girl. The episode aired on January 15, 2009. She was the second actress from Instant Star to appear in the show, the first one being Laura Vandervoort. She also appeared in the TV-movie version of the Lois Duncan novel "Stranger with My Face", in which she plays twin sisters who were separated at birth. She stated that the filming—which included a dramatic scene in which her two characters conflict through astral projection, leading to a fall off a cliff and into a waterfall—was so mentally and physically demanding, that she felt like she could never take on another role like it again. It premiered on Lifetime Movie network on August 29, 2009. The director of "Stranger with My Face", Jeff Renfroe, greatly praised what he saw when working with Johnson and her costar Andrew Francis. "They're both young actors who came from the school of working from the gut and not trying to intellectualize everything." In a February 2009 interview with the "Times-Colonist", a newspaper in Victoria, British Columbia, Johnson said that her album was completely finished, noting that she was simply waiting for changes to be finalized with the new head of her label, Amanda Ghost, who had worked with Johnson on the album. She hoped to have the album out by September 2009, followed by tours through parts of Europe and North America. Before the album's release date, Epic Records removed Johnson from their Artist Lists. Johnson later gave clarification on her website that launched August 11, 2009, saying "Epic has released over a third of their artists from their contracts and, la dee da... I'm one of those artists..." She also later clarified in an interview that the "head of the label who signed ended up shifting to a different company. It led a lot of artists on Epic astray." She confirmed that due to losing her deal with Epic, she would be releasing a different album independently with her brother Brendan producing. She said she hopes that her unreleased debut album with Epic would see the light one day, noting that for now, the songs are still tied up in the arrangement with Epic. 2009–11: "Voodoo", "Reloaded" and internet promotion. The independent release will be by the company which also runs her website — Laydee Spencer Music, Inc. On August 27, 2009, Johnson released a list of songs that are going to be on her album in alphabetical order, and later requested fans to go through the clips of five upcoming songs on her site, and to recommend which should be the lead-off single. The tracks posted were: "L.A. Made Me", "Hurricane Girl", "Voodoo", "A Little Bit", and "Trip Around the World". On December 1, 2009 it was announced that her debut album "Voodoo" would be released on March 30, 2010. The debut single, Trip Around The World, was released on February 2, 2010 along with a music video shot by Michael Maxxis. Johnson shared in an interview that her favourite songs of "Voodoo" are "Look At Those Eyes", "Voodoo", and "Gonna Get It". Later in 2010, Johnson informed her fans through her Twitter account and her official website that all the songs from "Voodoo" would be remixed by The Demolition Crew due to lack of airplay. The Demolition Crew undertook to make the songs more radio-friendly. "Reloaded", as the remix album's name is, was released on April 26, 2011. The first single, "Boogie Love (The Demolition Crew Remix)" was released on January 11, 2011 while the second one, "Look At Those Eyes (The Demolition Crew Remix)", was released on March 29, 2011. While awaiting the release of "Reloaded", Johnson became a trending topic on Twitter for four days. This was due to the ABC Family television series "Pretty Little Liars", playing "Time to Be Your 21", a song performed by Johnson in the series Instant Star, in the season finale. While trending on Twitter, she garnered attention from Demi Lovato and Nelly Furtado. Lovato has spoken several times about Johnson being her inspiration to start a career in music, while Furtado spoke about her single "Look At Those Eyes" calling it "an event". With the help of the Twitter trend, Johnson made the homepage of several online sites, including L.A. Times Ministry of Gossip Blog. Johnson created a YouTube account where she posts videos of herself performing along with her brother Brendan James Johnson, and Jimmy Robbins. On June 22, 2011 Johnson held two live concerts on Stage It for fans around the world. The concerts were performed online via webcam along with her band "The Bed". On June 24, 2011 it was announced that Johnson was the new voice of television series "" Season 11 new opening theme song. The idea came naturally as Demacio "Demo" Castellón was producing the track and asked her if she could contribute to it. 2011–13: "The Basement Recordings", "Skipping Stone "and "Live From The Skipping Stone Tour". Johnson has revealed that she is writing for her next album and hoping to enter the studio by the end of the Summer to start recording. Johnson and her brother, Brendan Johnson, released a digital album of demos entitled, "The Basement Recordings", on August 26, 2011. In October, via Twitter, Johnson announced her plans to release an EP featuring new material, and confirmed on October 29, that she was in New York filming the music video for her new single "Skipping Stone". Johnson confirmed that her EP, "Skipping Stone" would be out on January 24, 2012. She also confirmed that it would originally be a digital release, and following her Kickstarters Campaign, a physical release would follow. The video for "Skipping Stone" was released in December. Beginning on January 24, 2012, Johnson launched a Kickstarter Campaign in order to raise funds for her upcoming U.S tour. She set her goal for $30,000 in 60 days. For different money denominations, Johnson is offering prizes. Examples include, digital downloads of her upcoming EP, Skipping Stone, signed t-shirts and CDs, signed scripts and clothing from Instant Star, concert tickets, personalized emails and phone calls, live performances, dinner and a broadway show, etc. Johnson unexpectedly reached her goal within 24 hours, confirming her ability to tour during the summer of 2012. Johnson reached $50,000 on day three, allowing her the opportunity to expand the tour and travel overseas. All money donated goes toward touring, recording, merchandise, and anything music related. The sequel to the 2011 demo album "The Basement Recordings", named "The Basement Recordings II" was released on 1 May 2012. On February 22, 2013, Johnson released the third installament of the series, "The Basement Recordings III." On October 26, 2012, Johnson released a trailer for "The Skipping Stone Tour Documentary" which chronicles her summer on tour. Johnson released the documentary, a live album, "Live From The Skipping Stone Tour", and a photo book containing photos from "The Skipping Stone Tour" on 4 December 2012. 2013: "Alexz Johnson Spring Tour "and Sophomore album. On July 5, 2012, Johnson hinted via her official Twitter that she was beginning official work on her sophomore studio album. She initially planned to release it in the first three months of 2013. On 22 August 2012 Johnson posted a video from a recording session for the upcoming album. It was said that the album would be produced by David Kahne. Alexz has also worked with Bleu (musician), Boots Ottestad, Wax Ltd, Jamie Hartman, Theo Katzman, and her brother Brendan James Johnson, who produced her debut album "Voodoo", on writing for the upcoming album. Johnson launched a North American joint tour with Charlene Kaye in the spring of 2013. Misty Boyce and Jay Stolar also joined Johnson and Kaye. However Johnson later announced that she would ask for her fans to fund her next studio project through pledgemusic.com. According to the site, Johnson managed to gather 123% of the money needed for the release of her sophomore album. People who pledged money on the album will receive digital copies of the album (as well as multiple gifts depending to the amount they paid) on 4 October 2013. She will launch a European tour in support of the album in early 2014. The album's title, tracklisting as well as producers' names have not yet been revealed. Influences and Musical Style. In an interview Johnson said, “I love pop music, but kind of eclectic, creative pop.” She has said her influences include Kate Bush, Peter Gabriel, Paul Simon, and Annie Lennox. She has also given respects to Jason Mraz, The Civil Wars, and Sara Bareilles. Philanthropy. During 2001, Johnson worked with World Vision, and had a section on her official site where fans could order shirts with a design done by Johnson and featuring her autograph. There were production problems and the shirts were never sent out. Johnson made an apology on her site and provided refunds to everyone who ordered one. In 2002, she performed as the opening act at Wayne Gretzky's celebrity dinner and auction, held in Edmonton, Alberta, to raise funds for the Ronald McDonald children's charity. During the peak of her run on "So Weird", Johnson ended up performing and visiting the Nashville Kids Fair where she also hosted the event. During her time in Nashville, Johnson visited ill children in a local hospital. The trip was made as a part of an outreach by Disney Channel, and Johnson visited the children with the dog who starred in the Disney original film "Air Bud". During 2002 and 2003, Johnson focused on her music, and decided to perform with several charitable organizations. She worked with David Foster, opening for his charity events for the David Foster Foundation. After the season premiere of the second season of "Instant Star" on The N she also did a public service announcement for Second Harvest, which had been assisting victims of Hurricane Katrina. On November 21, 2008, Johnson was a special guest performer for a Women In Leadership (a Vancouver organization promoting women's role in the media) foundation called SuperWomen & Friends—A Red Carpet Gala.
146739	Kathleen Gati (born 13 August 1957) is a Canadian TV and movie actress. She is the daughter of Hungarian immigrants in Canada, a symphony conductor and an opera singer. She has been an actress since the early 80s to present day. She has appeared in many productions, including "All My Children", "The Practice", "NYPD Blue", "ER", "Meet the Fockers", "Desperate Housewives", and "Las Vegas". She also played Russian First Lady Anya Suvarov on "24" (season 6). She also starred in the 2008 film, "The House Bunny". She currently plays the recurring role of Dr. Liesl Obrecht on "General Hospital".
585247	Pillai Nilla is a 1985 Tamil horror film directed by Manobala. The film stars Jaishankar, Mohan, Nalini and Radhika. Plot. Dollie is the daughter of a widowed rich man. She falls in love with a married man. However, he rejects her because his wife is pregnant. Her obsession causes her to commit suicide in front of him at the hospital at the same time as his wife is giving birth. Their daughter is imbued with Dollie's evil sprit as Dollie takes revenge.
1718156	In mathematics and numerical analysis, the Ricker wavelet is the negative normalized second derivative of a Gaussian function, i.e., up to scale and normalization, the second Hermite function. It is a special case of the family of continuous wavelets (wavelets used in a continuous wavelet transform) known as Hermitian wavelets. It is usually only referred to as the "Mexican hat" in the Americas, due to cultural association; see "sombrero". The Ricker Wavelet is frequently employed to model seismic data, and as a broad spectrum source term in computational electrodynamics. The multidimensional generalization of this wavelet is called the "Laplacian of Gaussian" function. In practice, this wavelet is sometimes approximated by the "difference of Gaussians" function, because it is separable and can therefore save considerable computation time in two or more dimensions. The scale normalised Laplacian (in formula_2-norm) is frequently used as a blob detector and for automatic scale selection in computer vision applications; see Laplacian of Gaussian and scale space. The Mexican hat wavelet can also be approximated by derivatives of Cardinal B-Splines
1016235	Flirting Scholar (, Cantonese: "Tong4 Baak3foo2 dim2 chau2heung1" ) is a 1993 Hong Kong comedy film directed by Lee Lik-Chi and starring Stephen Chow.
592049	Manasaare () is a 2009 released romantic Kannada movie directed by Yograj Bhat. Produced by Rockline Venkatesh, the film stars Diganth and Aindrita Ray in the lead roles. The film soundtrack and score is by Mano Murthy. The film was declared a musical hit upon its release.
1056237	I Never Sang for My Father is a 1970 American film, based on a play by the same name, which tells the story of a college professor who wants to get out from under the thumb of his aging father yet still has regrets about his plan to leave him behind when he marries a younger woman and moves to California. It stars Melvyn Douglas, Gene Hackman, Dorothy Stickney, Estelle Parsons, Elizabeth Hubbard, Lovelady Powell and Conrad Bain. The movie was adapted by Robert Anderson from his play and directed by Gilbert Cates. It was nominated for Academy Awards for Best Actor in a Leading Role (Melvyn Douglas), Best Actor in a Supporting Role (Gene Hackman) and Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium. Plot summary. The film tells of Gene Garrison (Gene Hackman): he has met a young woman he wants to marry and has dreams of leaving New York for California, where he wants to reside to teach. All seems well, but he soon learns that his mother is dead, and worse, his father (Douglas) is starting to get sick. A few doctors give him
643283	Leslie Lamport (born February 7, 1941 in New York City) is an American computer scientist. Lamport is best known for his seminal work in distributed systems and as the initial developer of the document preparation system LaTeX. Early life and education. A graduate of the Bronx High School of Science, he received a B.S. in mathematics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1960, and M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in mathematics from Brandeis University, respectively in 1963 and 1972. His dissertation was about singularities in analytic partial differential equations. Career. Professionally, Lamport worked as a computer scientist at Massachusetts Computer Associates from 1970 to 1977, SRI International from 1977 to 1985, and Digital Equipment Corporation and Compaq from 1985 to 2001. In 2001 he joined Microsoft Research in Mountain View, California. Lamport’s research contributions have laid the foundations of the theory of distributed systems. Among his most notable papers are These papers relate to such concepts as logical clocks (and the "happened-before" relationship) and Byzantine failures. They are among the most cited papers in the field of computer science and describe algorithms to solve many fundamental problems in distributed systems, including: Lamport is also known for his work on temporal logic, where he introduced the temporal logic of actions (TLA). Among his more recent contributions is TLA+, a logic for specifying and reasoning about concurrent and reactive systems, that he describes in the book “Specifying Systems: The TLA+ Language and Tools for Hardware and Software Engineers” and defines as a “quixotic attempt to overcome engineers' antipathy towards mathematics”. Awards and memberships. Lamport received five honorary doctorates from European universities: University of Rennes and Christian Albrechts University of Kiel in 2003, EPFL in 2004, University of Lugano in 2006, and Nancy-Université in 2007. In 2004, he received the IEEE Emanuel R. Piore Award. In 2005, the paper “Reaching Agreement in the Presence of Faults” received the Dijkstra Prize. In honor of Lamport's sixtieth birthday, a lecture series was organised at the 20th Symposium on Principles of Distributed Computing (PODC 2001). In 2008, he received the IEEE John von Neumann Medal. In 2011, he was elected to the United States National Academy of Sciences.
1162614	Georg Stanford Brown (born June 24, 1943 in Havana, Cuba) is a Cuban-American actor and director, perhaps best known as one of the stars of the ABC police television series "The Rookies" from 1972–76. On the show, Brown played the character of Officer Terry Webster. During the 1960s, Brown had a variety of roles in television and film, including a portrayal of Henri Philipot in 1967's "The Comedians," and playing Dr. Willard in 1968's "Bullitt." In 1972, Brown starred in "Wild in the Sky," co-starring Brandon deWilde, as anti-war, anti-establishment guerrillas, who devise a scheme to destroy Fort Knox with an atomic bomb. Brown later played Tom Harvey (son of Chicken George, great-grandson of Kunta Kinte, and great-grandfather of Alex Haley) in the 1977 television miniseries "Roots," and 1979's "." In 1980, he starred in the highly successful "Stir Crazy" opposite Gene Wilder and Richard Pryor. He then went on to a supporting role in yet another miniseries "North & South" in 1985 as a character named Grady. Brown co-starred in the Showtime television show "Linc's" from 1998 thru 2000. Brown also directed several second-season episodes of the television series "Hill Street Blues." More recently, Brown had a recurring role on the FX drama series "Nip/Tuck." Personal life. Brown was married to actress Tyne Daly for 24 years, from 1966 to 1990. They have three daughters.
1474016	Perfect Sense, formerly known as "The Last Word", is a 2011 drama film directed by David Mackenzie and written by Kim Fupz Aakeson, starring Eva Green and Ewan McGregor. Scenes were shot in various locations around Glasgow. The film premiered at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival.
1090998	Sir Joseph John "J. J." Thomson, OM, FRS (18 December 1856 – 30 August 1940) was a British physicist. In 1897, Thomson showed that cathode rays were composed of a previously unknown negatively charged particle, and thus is credited with the discovery and identification of the electron. Thomson is also credited with finding the first evidence for isotopes of a stable (non-radioactive) element in 1913 as part of his exploration into the composition of canal rays (positive ions) and with the invention of the mass spectrometer. Thomson was awarded the 1906 Nobel Prize in Physics for the discovery of the electron and for his work on the conduction of electricity in gases. Biography. Joseph John Thomson was born in 1856 in Cheetham Hill, Manchester, England. His mother, Emma Swindells, came from a local textile family. His father, Joseph James Thomson, ran an antiquarian bookshop founded by a great-grandfather. He had a brother two years younger than him, Frederick Vernon Thomson. His early education was in small private schools where he demonstrated great talent and interest in science. In 1870 he was admitted to Owens College at the unusually young age of 14. His parents planned to enroll him as an apprentice engineer to Sharp-Stewart & Co, a locomotive manufacturer, but these plans were cut short when his father died in 1873. He moved on to Trinity College, Cambridge in 1876. In 1880, he obtained his BA in mathematics (Second Wrangler and 2nd Smith's Prize) and MA (with Adams Prize) in 1883. In 1884 he became Cavendish Professor of Physics. One of his students was Ernest Rutherford, who later succeeded him in the post. In 1890 he married Rose Elisabeth Paget, daughter of Sir George Edward Paget, KCB, a physician and then Regius Professor of Physic at Cambridge. He had one son, George Paget Thomson, and one daughter, Joan Paget Thomson, with her. One of Thomson's greatest contributions to modern science was in his role as a highly gifted teacher: seven of his research assistants and his son won Nobel Prizes in physics. His son won the Nobel Prize in 1937 for proving the wavelike properties of electrons. He was awarded a Nobel Prize in 1906, "in recognition of the great merits of his theoretical and experimental investigations on the conduction of electricity by gases." He was knighted in 1908 and appointed to the Order of Merit in 1912. In 1914 he gave the Romanes Lecture in Oxford on "The atomic theory". In 1918 he became Master of Trinity College, Cambridge, where he remained until his death. He died on August 30, 1940 and was buried in Westminster Abbey, close to Sir Isaac Newton. Thomson was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society on 12 June 1884 and was President of the Royal Society from 1915 to 1920. Career. Discovery of the electron. Several scientists, such as William Prout and Norman Lockyer, had suggested that atoms were built up from a more fundamental unit, but they envisioned this unit to be the size of the smallest atom, hydrogen. Thomson, in 1897, was the first to suggest that the fundamental unit was over 1000 times smaller than an atom, suggesting the subatomic particles now known as electrons. Thomson discovered this through his explorations on the properties of cathode rays. Thomson made his suggestion on 30 April 1897 following his discovery that Lenard rays could travel much further through air than expected for an atom-sized particle. He estimated the mass of cathode rays by measuring the heat generated when the rays hit a thermal junction and comparing this with the magnetic deflection of the rays. His experiments suggested not only that cathode rays were over 1000 times lighter than the hydrogen atom, but also that their mass was the same whatever type of atom they came from. He concluded that the rays were composed of very light, negatively charged particles which were a universal building block of atoms. He called the particles "corpuscles", but later scientists preferred the name electron which had been suggested by George Johnstone Stoney in 1891, prior to Thomson's actual discovery. In April 1897 Thomson had only early indications that the cathode rays could be deflected electrically (previous investigators such as Heinrich Hertz had thought they could not be). A month after Thomson's announcement of the corpuscle he found that he could reliably deflect the rays by an electric field if he evacuated the discharge tube to a very low pressure. By comparing the deflection of a beam of cathode rays by electric and magnetic fields he obtained more robust measurements of the mass to charge ratio that confirmed his previous estimates. This became the classic means of measuring the charge and mass of the electron. Thomson believed that the corpuscles emerged from the atoms of the trace gas inside his cathode ray tubes. He thus concluded that atoms were divisible, and that the corpuscles were their building blocks. To explain the overall neutral charge of the atom, he proposed that the corpuscles were distributed in a uniform sea of positive charge; this was the "plum pudding" model—the electrons were embedded in the positive charge like plums in a plum pudding (although in Thomson's model they were not stationary, but orbiting rapidly). Isotopes and mass spectrometry. In 1912, as part of his exploration into the composition of canal rays, Thomson and his research assistant F. W. Aston channelled a stream of neon ions through a magnetic and an electric field and measured its deflection by placing a photographic plate in its path. They observed two patches of light on the photographic plate (see image on left), which suggested two different parabolas of deflection, and concluded that neon is composed of atoms of two different atomic masses (neon-20 and neon-22), that is to say of two isotopes. This was the first evidence for isotopes of a stable element; Frederick Soddy had previously proposed the existence of isotopes to explain the decay of certain radioactive elements. JJ Thomson's separation of neon isotopes by their mass was the first example of mass spectrometry, which was subsequently improved and developed into a general method by F. W. Aston and by A. J. Dempster. Other work. In 1905 Thomson discovered the natural radioactivity of potassium. In 1906 Thomson demonstrated that hydrogen had only a single electron per atom. Previous theories allowed various numbers of electrons. Experiments with cathode rays. Earlier, physicists debated whether cathode rays were immaterial like light ("some process in the aether") or had mass and were composed of particles. The aetherial hypothesis was vague, but the particle hypothesis was definite enough for Thomson to test. Experiments on the magnetic deflection of cathode rays. Thomson first investigated the magnetic deflection of cathode rays. Cathode rays were produced in the side tube on the left of the apparatus and passed through the anode into the main bell-jar, where they were deflected by a magnet. Thomson detected their path by the fluorescence on a squared screen in the jar. He found that whatever the material of the anode and the gas in the jar, the deflection of the rays was the same, suggesting that the rays were of the same form whatever their origin. Experiment to show that cathode rays were electrically charged. While supporters of the aetherial theory accepted the possibility that negatively charged particles are produced in Crookes tubes, they believed that they are a mere byproduct and that the cathode rays themselves are immaterial. Thomson set out to investigate whether or not he could actually separate the charge from the rays. Thomson constructed a Crookes tube with an electrometer set to one side, out of the direct path of the cathode rays. Thomson could trace the path of the ray by observing the phosphorescent patch it created where it hit the surface of the tube. Thomson observed that the electrometer registered a charge only when he deflected the cathode ray to it with a magnet. He concluded that the negative charge and the rays were one and the same. Experiment to show that cathode rays could be deflected electrically. In May–June 1897 Thomson investigated whether or not the rays could be deflected by an electric field. Previous experimenters had failed to observe this, but Thomson believed their experiments were flawed because their tubes contained too much gas. Thomson constructed a Crookes tube with a near-perfect vacuum. At the start of the tube was the cathode from which the rays projected. The rays were sharpened to a beam by two metal slits – the first of these slits doubled as the anode, the second was connected to the earth. The beam then passed between two parallel aluminium plates, which produced an electric field between them when they were connected to a battery. The end of the tube was a large sphere where the beam would impact on the glass, created a glowing patch. Thomson pasted a scale to the surface of this sphere to measure the deflection of the beam. When the upper plate was connected to the negative pole of the battery and the lower plate to the positive pole, the glowing patch moved downwards, and when the polarity was reversed, the patch moved upwards. Experiment to measure the mass to charge ratio of cathode rays. In his classic experiment, Thomson measured the mass-to-charge ratio of the cathode rays by measuring how much they were deflected by a magnetic field and comparing this with the electric deflection. He used the same apparatus as in his previous experiment, but placed the discharge tube between the poles of a large electromagnet. He found that the mass to charge ratio was over a thousand times "lower" than that of a hydrogen ion (H+), suggesting either that the particles were very light and/or very highly charged. Thomson's calculations can be summarized as follows (notice that we reproduce here Thomson's original notations, using F instead of E for the Electric field and H instead of B for the magnetic field): The electric deflection is given by Θ = Fel/mv2 where Θ is the angular electric deflection, F is applied electric intensity, e is the charge of the cathode ray particles, l is the length of the electric plates, m is the mass of the cathode ray particles and v is the velocity of the cathode ray particles. The magnetic deflection is given by φ = Hel/mv where φ is the angular magnetic deflection and H is the applied magnetic field intensity. The magnetic field was varied until the magnetic and electric deflections were the same, when Θ = φ and Fel/mv2= Hel/mv. This can be simplified to give m/e = H2l/FΘ. The electric deflection was measured separately to give Θ and H, F and l were known, so m/e could be calculated. Conclusions. As to the source of these particles, Thomson believed they emerged from the molecules of gas in the vicinity of the cathode. Thomson imagined the atom as being made up of these corpuscles orbiting in a sea of positive charge; this was his plum pudding model. This model was later proved incorrect when his student Ernest Rutherford showed that the positive charge is concentrated in the nucleus of the atom. Awards and recognition. In 1991 the thomson (symbol: Th) was proposed as a unit to measure mass-to-charge ratio in mass spectrometry in his honour.
675235	Even Dwarfs Started Small () is a 1970 West German horror comedy-drama film written, produced, and directed by German director Werner Herzog. Plot. A group of dwarfs confined in an institution on a remote island rebel against the guards and director (all dwarfs as well) in a display of mayhem. The dwarfs gleefully break windows and dishes, abandon a running truck to drive itself in circles, engineer food fights and cock fights, set fire to pots of flowers, kill a large pig, torment some blind dwarfs, and crucify a monkey. Production. The film was shot on the Canary Islands, at Lanzarote. The film was produced during the same time period as Herzog's "Fata Morgana" and "The Flying Doctors of East Africa", and there are visual and thematic connections between the three works. Notably, the goggles worn by the blind dwarfs are the same goggles which appear repeatedly in "Fata Morgana". During the filming, Herzog gave some strange direction to elicit particular performances from the actors. In directing one dwarf who continually struggles not to laugh, Herzog repeatedly told the actor that he must not laugh, but then made funny faces at him as soon as he started filming. While filming the scene where a van drove in circles with no one at the wheel, one of the actors was run over, but immediately stood up uninjured. During the flower burning scene, the same actor caught fire and Werner Herzog raced over and beat the fire out. The actor only had minor injuries from the fire. After these two accidents, Herzog promised the actors that if they made it through the rest of filming without any more injuries he would jump into a cactus patch and allow the actors to film him doing so. The film was finished without any further injuries and the director made good his promise and dived into the cacti. Herzog has said, "Getting out was a lot more difficult than jumping in.". The scene was inspired by an incident that occurred when Herzog worked as a steward at the Munich Oktoberfest as a young man. Part of his duty was ensuring that drunk patrons did not attempt to drive their cars home, so when a drunk man insisted that he was capable of driving, Herzog got into his car with him, placed the steering wheel on full lock, then got out of his car. The man passed out and the car continued to drive in a circle until it ran out of petrol.
774930	Iron Eagle on the Attack, also known as Iron Eagle IV, is a 1995 direct-to-video action film directed by Sidney J. Furie and is the fourth installment in the "Iron Eagle" series. It stars Louis Gossett, Jr. reprising his role once again as retired Gen. Charles "Chappy" Sinclair. Doug Masters, the main protagonist of the first film, returns, but is played by Jason Cadieux instead of Jason Gedrick. The film's opening scene is an alternate take on that of "Iron Eagle II", wherein Doug survived after being shot down. The film was shot in Oshawa, Ontario, Canada. Plot. While on a routine patrol on United States airspace west of Alaska, Doug Masters and his wingman test the g-forces of their F-16C planes. Their antics get them carried away, as they stray over Soviet airspace. As they are being escorted back into U.S. airspace, one of the Soviet planes has Doug on missile-lock. Doug requests to break formation and engage the Soviet aircraft, but is denied by flight control. He is immediately shot down, but safely ejects and lands on Soviet land, where he is promptly captured by nearby soldiers. Several years have passed since that incident and Doug is still haunted by his days as a prisoner. He works as a crop duster, but is shortly recruited by retired Gen. Charles "Chappy" Sinclair to be an instructor at his flight school. Chappy needs Doug's help, as his school is overrun by juvenile delinquents who fly his T-6 Texans with no regard for safety. These students were taken in by Chappy as a means of rehabilitating them. Doug is not happy to be an instructor to the delinquents, but Chappy assures him that he will see results from them in a week. Still, he shows no interest in training them. During an exhibition show where the delinquents face off children from the Air Force, Wheeler, one of the female delinquents, cons a drug dealer out of $2,000 by handing him a bag of sugar disguised as cocaine. She attempts to take her training plane and fly out to Mexico, but Doug pursues her and tells her to land on an abandoned Air Force base and stay there until further orders. Upon landing the plane, Wheeler and her co-pilot Rudy Marlowe encounter a platoon that is ordered to kill them. Doug intervenes, allowing the teens to leave the air base. Chappy is told of the incident, and he and Maj. Gen. Brad Kettle head to the base that night to investigate on that platoon's activity on a storage bunker. After they are escorted out of the base by Air Force Intelligence, Doug describes to Chappy his eyewitness account of the soldiers carrying marked canisters, which are revealed to be chemical weapons. Doug leaves the school, frustrated that his life came apart when he was imprisoned and Chappy was not there to save him that time. Chappy is given a notice by the State Patrol that his flight program is terminated immediately and his students are returned to juvenile hall. Wheeler, however, avoids capture and steals a trainer plane, creating a diversion that allows the students to hijack the bus and head back to the school. Chappy and the students relocate their planes to Doug's former job site; Doug meets up with them afterward. Chappy then organizes the students to infiltrate the airbase and acquire enough resources for their operation to stop the convoy carrying the chemical weapons. Upon entering the airbase, Kitty Shaw uses her computer hacking skills to gain access to classified data. She and Chappy discover Operation Pandora, in which the chemical weapons are to be used on countries with regimes deemed hostile. They print out the data before leaving the premises and handing it to Kettle. Meanwhile, Dana Osborne and Rudy attempt to stop the convoy, but are shot down. As they attempt to escape on foot, Rudy is shot, but Doug and the others arrive at the scene and capture one of the soldiers. Chappy and his team accompany Kettle to Craig Air Force Base, only to realize that Kettle is part of the entire operation. Using a swarm of wasps as a means of psychological interrogation, Doug gets the captured soldier to reveal the location of the convoy. He then phones Chappy, but discovers that his team has been apprehended by Kettle. At one of the chemical weapon chambers, Chappy is told by Kettle that the first target of Operation Pandora is Cuba. After Kettle leaves the chamber, Kitty hacks the computer to set off the fire extinguishing units, giving Chappy's team time to escape. A stray shot from one of the soldiers ruptures the canister, contaminating the chamber and killing Dr. Francis Gully and everyone inside. As Kitty and Peter sneak into the cargo plane carrying the chemical weapon, Chappy sends a radio message, warning everyone of a hostile aircraft heading to Cuba. Shortly after recapturing Chappy, Kettle orders his fighter squadron to shoot down the trainer planes. The squadron of two fighters attacks the trainers, only to be confronted by Doug, who has commandeered a fighter plane. Doug and the students shoot down the attackers promptly. He then plays the cassette tape Chappy recorded for him before killing ace pilot Maj. Miles Pierce in a dogfight. The students approach the cargo plane and attack it. Inside, Peter creates a diversion by opening the cargo door, causing the soldiers aboard to fall out. This leads to a fist fight between Peter and the plane's captain, who is ejected when Kitty assumes the controls. Peter then jettisons all of the canisters into the ocean. Seeing his mission as a failure, Kettle prepares to kill Chappy when Doug suddenly attacks the airbase, giving Chappy time to escape. As police arrive at the scene, Kettle enters the contaminated chamber - his fate unknown. Days later, Wheeler tells Doug she is heading to Mexico for a new start, but he convinces her to stay. The Iron Eagle Flight School then prepares for a new batch of students fresh out of juvenile hall.
1065302	U2 3D is a 2008 American-produced 3D concert film featuring rock band U2 performing during the Vertigo Tour in 2006. The film contains performances of 14 songs, including tracks from "How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb" (2004), the album supported by the tour. The concert footage includes political and social statements made during the shows. It is the band's second feature film, following their 1988 rockumentary "Rattle and Hum". Among several cinematic firsts, "U2 3D" was the first live-action digital 3D film. The project was created to experiment with a new type of 3D film technology pioneered by producer Steve Schklair. After considering shooting American football games in 3D, Schklair's company 3ality Digital decided to create a concert film with U2. The band were hesitant to participate, but agreed to the project mainly as a technological experiment rather than a profit-making venture. Although set in Buenos Aires, "U2 3D" was shot at seven concerts across Latin America, and two in Australia. The film's complex setup involved shooting with up to 18 3D cameras simultaneously and capturing the footage digitally. After a preview screening at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival, "U2 3D" premiered at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival and had its limited theatrical release in late January 2008, followed by its wide release the following month. The film was distributed by National Geographic Entertainment and was only released in IMAX 3D and digital 3D theaters. It peaked at number 19 at the United States box office, and earned over $26 million internationally, ranking as one of the highest-grossing concert films. It received mostly positive reviews, with many critics praising the 3D technology and innovation. Some went as far as saying that viewing the film's 3D effects was better than attending a concert. "U2 3D" won several awards, and its reception convinced some of the creators that the project marked a paradigm shift in filmmaking. Synopsis. "U2 3D" depicts a U2 concert in Buenos Aires during the band's Vertigo Tour. In the beginning of the film, a voice is heard chanting "everyone" in a crowd-filled stadium, followed by fans running through the venue. U2 begin the concert with "Vertigo", followed by ten more songs in the main set. Images are shown throughout the concert on the stage's LED display. Political and social statements are made during some songs, including "Sunday Bloody Sunday"—during which the word "coexista" is spelled out on-screen through various religious symbols—and "Miss Sarajevo", during which an excerpt from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is read aloud by a narrator. The main set ends with "One", after which the group leave the stage. They return for an encore and perform "The Fly", during which a succession of words and phrases appear on the stage's LED display and are superimposed into the film. U2 end the show with "With or Without You" and leave the stage for the final time. As the closing credits begin, a live performance of "Yahweh" is heard as animations from the stage's LED display are shown. U2 reappear on stage in a post-credits scene performing the end of the song. Production. Background. In 2001, producers Jon and Peter Shapiro created a 2D IMAX concert film titled "All Access", which featured live performances of several musicians. Due to the difficulty of using conventional IMAX film stock that had to be replaced every three minutes of shooting, the Shapiros wanted to use digital technology for their next project, which could easily be upscaled to the IMAX format without loss of quality. Noting how 3D films out-performed 2D films, they also wanted their next project to be in the IMAX 3D format. While looking for a new digital 3D technology medium, the Shapiros met producer Steve Schklair, founder of Cobalt Entertainment in 2000. Schklair had recently developed a digital 3D filming technique known as "active depth cut", which allowed for smooth cuts between shots that would normally not line up when filmed in 3D. This was done using motion control photography and real-time image processing to create a realistic 3D experience without subjecting the viewer to excessive motion sickness or eye strain. It was intended to be an inexpensive and effective way to shoot live events such as concerts or sports. With the help of John and David Modell, former owners of the Baltimore Ravens American football team, the digital 3D technology was tested at several National Football League (NFL) games in 2003, including Super Bowl XXXVIII. Cobalt showed the footage to the NFL, hoping to create an NFL-based 3D IMAX film. While waiting for a response, the Shapiros proposed the idea of creating a 3D concert film for IMAX theaters. Although "All Access" had showcased several artists, the Shapiros now wanted to focus on a single act, and being U2 fans, suggested the band as a potential subject. Schklair felt U2 would be a good choice for the film due to their large concert setups and their constant movement while performing, both of which would provide good depth of field for 3D effects. The Modells' collaboration with U2 for the film was facilitated by their involvement with the band in researching LED display technology in 1997 for use at Ravens Stadium at Camden Yards. At the time, the only giant LED display in existence was being used by U2 on their PopMart Tour. To learn about the technology, David Modell toured with U2 on-and-off for a period of six months. During that time, he befriended Catherine Owens, who served as the group's art director since their 1992 Zoo TV Tour. Unable to contact U2 manager Paul McGuinness, Peter Shapiro instead proposed the idea to Owens. The latter was researching art content for the upcoming Vertigo Tour and thought the concept could be used to show 3D video as part of U2's concerts. Shapiro explained that the technology was not that developed and simply wanted to document the tour itself in 3D, but Owens was not interested in making a film of the band, fearing it would interfere with the tour, so she declined the offer. After Shapiro showed Owens the 3D footage of the NFL games, Owens expressed interest in directing the proposed film, despite having no previous experience. According to bassist Adam Clayton, U2 were not interested in making another concert film, but Owens "pushed it down throats". Once the band viewed the test shots, frontman Bono expressed interest in the project and convinced his band-mates to commit. Since U2 had already experimented with video technology in the past, they were interested in the project mainly as a technological experiment rather than a means to make profit. They wanted to create the film to share the live experience with fans who could not afford concert tickets. Pre-production for "U2 3D" officially started in early 2004, and the production was handled by 3ality Digital, a company formed from Schklair's Colbalt Entertainment and his partnership with the Modells and the Shapiros. Midway through the year, Bono agreed to let the 3ality Digital crew record test footage, which was accomplished using a single 3D camera at one of U2's Vertigo Tour concerts in Anaheim, California in March 2005. U2 were dissatisfied with their 1988 rockumentary feature film, "Rattle and Hum", which mixed backstage footage and interviews with concert performances. The filmmakers decided that "U2 3D" would only have concert footage. The producers originally wanted to shoot in Los Angeles where all the filming equipment was located, but Owens and the band decided they needed a more enthusiastic audience. U2 ultimately chose to film in five cities in Latin America from February to March 2006, believing their absence from the region for eight years would foster an energetic atmosphere. The only one of the eight Latin American shows that was not shot was the first in Monterrey, Mexico. The project enabled U2 to share the outdoor stadium concerts with audiences in the US, where the band only performed at indoor arenas on the Vertigo Tour. Filming. Principal photography began in February 2006; two shows were filmed in Mexico City to capture medium shots during a practice run for the crew to learn the choreography of U2's performances. The crew captured additional medium shots using two camera setups at the two São Paulo concerts, and captured overhead footage of drummer Larry Mullen, Jr. using a single camera setup at the show in Santiago. During preparations for the Buenos Aires concerts, U2 performed a 10-song set without an audience, so that the crew could capture close-up footage using a wide-angle lens; doing so in-concert would have interfered with the show. Owens dubbed the session the "phantom shoot". During the Buenos Aires shows, all nine camera setups were used, capturing shots of U2 from the B-stages. The Buenos Aires shoot was the largest of the project, requiring a crew of 140 people. In March 2006, the remaining Vertigo Tour concerts were postponed when the daughter of guitarist The Edge fell ill. During the interim, footage from the seven filmed shows was edited together, but the crew realized that several shots still needed to be filmed—including the stage's LED display and the audience. When the tour on its fifth leg in November 2006, an additional two shows were filmed in Melbourne to capture the necessary footage, including close-up shots. At the time, the songs appearing in the final cut of the film had already been selected and therefore only specific songs from the concerts were filmed. "U2 3D" production featured the first 3D multiple-camera setup and was shot using every digital 3D camera and recording deck in existence. The crew had two days to set up the filming equipment before each concert, which required running fiber optic cables and hooking up an electrical generator to supply power at each venue. The 3D filming equipment consisted of nine custom-built digital movie camera rigs. The project's large scale prompted 3ality Digital to work with director James Cameron—their chief competitor at the time. 3ality used their own 3flex TS1 camera rigs for filming, in addition to five Fusion 3D rigs, designed by Cameron and camera operator Vincent Pace. A total of 18 Sony CineAlta HDC-F950 cameras were used for filming, with two cameras on each rig. The cameras were fitted with Zeiss digital zoom lenses, making "U2 3D" the first 3D film shot using a zoom lens. One of the Fusion 3D camera rigs was used as a spidercam and became the first 3D aerial camera. The cameras on each rig were spaced eye-distance apart to create a 3D effect in post-production. Using a beam splitter mounted to the camera rig, one camera shot through a 50/50 mirror, while the other shot the image reflected from that mirror. Each rig weighed an average of . All of the concert footage was shot with twin-camera setups, except for the two Melbourne shoots, where a single CineAlta camera with a steadicam was also used to capture close-ups. The cameras captured high-definition video onto HDCAM SR recording decks, which enabled the crew to capture an entire concert. Five crew members were required to work on each rig simultaneously to ensure that the focus on both cameras were synchronized. After one camera was destroyed when a concert security guard tossed buckets of water onto the audience, the crew waterproofed the remaining cameras. Due to Owens' limited directing experience prior to production, some of the filming in South America was directed by Mark Pellington, who previously worked with U2 on the "One" music video. Pellington was not involved in post-production, leaving Owens responsible for the remaining aspects of the project, including creative direction and editing. The concerts were filmed in a style which Owens described as "very unorthodox"; no storyboards or shooting scripts were used to ensure footage of U2's performances was improvised. Instead of being directed, U2 performed each of their concerts as usual, with the filming crew capturing footage in real time for the full -hour concerts. The shoots were planned such that the band's performance and the audience's view was uninterrupted. To avoid capturing other camera rigs in the footage, the crew would either film from the back of the stage, or alternate each night between shooting left-to-right and right-to-left. Several shows were edited together to create one performance; therefore, U2 were required to wear the same clothes every night to maintain continuity. Additional spotlights were focused on the audience during filming, and the lighting was dimmed on the stage's LED display. 110 microphones were used to record the concert audio, which included microphones placed on the main stage and around the two B-stages to record the band, and microphones placed throughout the venue to record the audience. Editing. Post-production began in February 2006 and occurred concurrently with ongoing principal photography. Editor Olivier Wicki led post-production, working closely with Owens; the two had previously collaborated on the "Original of the Species" music video. Over 100 hours of footage were filmed, featuring performances of 26 different songs. To appeal to a mainstream audience, 14 tracks were chosen for the final cut, including 12 of U2's singles and two non-singles from "How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb", the album that the Vertigo Tour supported. When selecting songs for the project, the crew had to ensure that the performances of each track fit with one another. U2 wanted to include "Mysterious Ways" and "Until the End of the World", but they were left out since Owens felt that those songs were out of place with the rest of the film. She stated that the main focus of the film was based upon U2's relationship with one another and with their audience, and the challenge of selecting the songs was to create a narrative within the band's performance. Although "City of Blinding Lights" opened most shows on the tour, "Vertigo" was selected as the opening song of "U2 3D". Other tracks that were performed at most of the filmed concerts that did not make the final cut include "Elevation", "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For", "Original of the Species", and "Zoo Station". "With or Without You" was chosen as the last song before the closing credits, although it closed only one concert on the tour. After the songs were selected, the footage was edited in 2D for eight months in New York City. Video post-production continued in Burbank, California at 3ality Digital's 3D production facility, which opened prior to the completion of shooting. Wicki worked with 3ality Digital to create the 3D and computer-generated effects. Footage from the nine filmed concerts, mostly from the Buenos Aires shows, was edited together with the footage from the "phantom shoot". Although the Mexico City shows were practice runs, footage from those concerts was used, including a scene where Bono reaches out to the camera during "Sunday Bloody Sunday". Most of the footage from the Melbourne concerts was not used except for some close-ups of Mullen. Creating the 3D effect involved taking the edited 2D footage for the right eye and matching it up with footage for the left eye. Editing the Melbourne footage that used only a single camera involved a separate process to create 3D effects, known as "virtual second eye perspective". Several software programs were used to convert footage from 2D to 3D. The primary editing software, 3action, was developed at 3ality Digital during principal photography. It allowed the post-production team to change convergence points in each shot, and to create multiple convergence points. Left-eye and right-eye footage was assembled on separate layers, then edited together with color grading added, and eventually output in a 3D stereoscopic format for review. U2 developed a style of editing in their previous concert films that involved fast cutting between shots, which Owens wanted to retain in "U2 3D". Because fast cutting in 3D would lead to motion sickness or eye strain, the film was edited to incorporate dissolves of at least four frames between shots. Many of the transitions were created by layering several frames of footage on top of one another into composite images. Each of the layered frames featured a different depth of field to enhance the 3D effects, and up to five images were layered together in a single shot. This made "U2 3D" the first 3D film to feature composite images with more than two layers, and the first to be edited specifically to prevent the viewer from experiencing motion sickness or eye strain. Software did not exist at the time to layer the 3D images, so new software had to be developed. Because the project was captured in high-definition video, each frame used nearly 20 megabytes of data on 3ality Digital's servers, and the entire film used almost a petabyte (1015 bytes). The 3D editing process took longer than Owens expected, and consequently, the project went over budget, costing $15 million to produce. Video editing took 17 months, and the final film was cut to a length of 85 minutes—seven shorter than originally announced. Audio editor Carl Glanville worked on the soundtrack, mixing the audio into a 5.1 surround sound mix with audio engineer Robbie Adams in New York City. Video footage was compiled into files by Wicki, which were given to Glanville for compiling the soundtrack. Glanville and Adams said the audio editing was difficult mainly because the selection of video footage was limited, as only one to two cameras angles were captured at most of the shows. Further, the lyrics and music from the song performances differed slightly each night. To avoid lip sync and instrumental sync issues, the editors had to use the exact audio that was recorded during each shot. Mixing the vocals required that Glanville layer the audio recorded from the stage microphones with that from the audience microphones and to add a short delay between the two to compensate for any echos or delay that occurred in the venue. The sound from the subwoofer channel was mixed inside two IMAX theaters in Los Angeles to ensure the volume of low-end frequencies was consistent with the rest of the soundtrack. The edited video footage featured 10- to 20-second-long shots, in contrast to the shorter shots usually found in concert films. Extended gaps were added between songs to slightly slow down the pace of the film. All audio and video footage used was recorded live in concert, with no added overdubs. Following post-production, "U2 3D" became the first live-action film to be shot, posted, and exhibited entirely in 3D, the first live-action digital 3D film, and the first 3D concert film. Distribution. Marketing. The trailer for the film was released and first screened at the ShoWest trade show in March 2007, along with footage of "Sunday Bloody Sunday". Clips from the "Vertigo" and "The Fly" performances were featured in the trailer, which was edited by creative director John Leamy, who also designed the wordmark logo and title sequence for "U2 3D". The film poster, which featured a collage of images from the film, won Leamy an award for best poster art at the Giant Screen Cinema Association's annual international conference in 2008. The trailer was shown in 3D theaters before "Meet the Robinsons", the only 3D film released in theaters in early 2007. Originally scheduled for the third quarter of 2007, the film's release was delayed when a distributor could not be found. In October 2007, National Geographic Cinema Ventures (NGCV), the entertainment division of the National Geographic Society, announced that "U2 3D" would be the division's first major international release. Two days after the announcement, NGCV was combined into the newly created National Geographic Entertainment, a new unit within the society featuring various entertainment divisions. National Geographic CEO John M. Fahey, Jr. stated that "U2 3D" was chosen as the new unit's first release because they felt that U2 is "a band of the world" and "world music is something the Geographic as an institution is really interested in". National Geographic chose Best Buy as the film's American sponsor, and offered passes to select members of the retailer's loyalty program to view "U2 3D" before its wide release. "U2 3D" was promoted through the internet, print, radio, television, on a JumboTron in Times Square, and as a sponsor on NASCAR's #19 Best Buy Dodge stock car driven by Elliott Sadler. Initial screenings. U2 were committed to preserving the film's 3D format and decided to only release it in digital 3D. To help promote this film format, "U2 3D" was first screened at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival on May 19, 2007. It was one of nine films to be screened out-of-competition at the 2007 festival, and was the first live-action 3D film shown at Cannes. Following a brief song performance by U2 at the festival, the film was screened at midnight inside the Palais des Festivals et des Congrès. At the time, the 3D post-production process was incomplete; therefore, a shortened, 56-minute version of the title was screened, featuring nine of the completed version's 14 songs. The completed version premiered at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival on January 19, 2008 at the Ellen Eccles Theatre. The theater incorporated a customized sound system designed especially for the premiere with new Dolby 3D technology, which John Modell referred to "the most high tech film screening that's ever been done in history." Releases and box office. "U2 3D" was slated to be screened only in IMAX theaters, but the large increase in the number of digital 3D theaters following post-production prompted the filmmakers to expand the release to include those cinemas. Two different types of polarized 3D glasses were used for the IMAX 3D and digital 3D showings. The IMAX 3D version of the film used glasses with one lens polarized horizontally and one polarized vertically, while the digital 3D version used glasses with two circularly polarized lenses. John Modell described the IMAX version as a "more immersive experience", and stated that the digital 3D version features more vivid colors. Owens said that there are plans to release the film to a 3D home video format in the future, where the viewers would still wear 3D glasses to watch. U2 control the ancillary rights to "U2 3D" along with their record label Universal Music Group, and they have stated that additional rights such as those for a home video release will not be optioned until home video technology can meet the same digital 3D standards as cinema. On January 23, 2008, "U2 3D" was released into IMAX theaters in the United States for its initial limited release. It grossed over $960,000 during its opening weekend after playing in 61 theaters, and ranked at number 20 at the box office. The IMAX release took place much earlier than the film's wide release, as many IMAX theaters had booked "The Spiderwick Chronicles", which was released on February 15. "U2 3D" was U2's second feature film, following 1988's "Rattle and Hum", and the third concert film from the Vertigo Tour, following the direct-to-video concert films ' and '. The wide release was originally scheduled for February 15, 2008, but the date was pushed back one week when Walt Disney Pictures decided to extend its release of the 3D concert film "", which was initially scheduled to be in theaters for only one week. Instead, on February 15, "U2 3D" had a second limited release in select theaters in the US with RealD Cinema technology. The film's European premiere took place on February 20 at the Jameson Dublin International Film Festival, and on February 22, it had its wide release in the US, the United Kingdom, and Ireland. The first week of the wide release was the highest-grossing week of its theatrical run, grossing over $1 million at 686 theaters in the US and ranking at number 19 at the box office. , the wide release is ranked at website Box Office Mojo in the top 100 for worst openings. Comparing the box office performance of "Hannah Montana & Miley Cyrus", "The Spokesman Review"s online magazine "7" said "U2 3D" was "failing miserably". Three weeks into its wide release, "U2 3D" was playing in less than 100 theaters throughout the US. At the time, it had grossed less than $6.6 million, while "Hannah Montana & Miley Cyrus"—still playing in many theaters since its February 1 release—had brought in over $60 million. Prior to its Japan premiere in February 2009, "U2 3D" grossed $20 million in box office revenue. A re-release in the US took place in March 2009 to coincide with the release of U2's studio album, "No Line on the Horizon", and another re-release took place in Brazil for three days in March 2011 prior to U2's concerts in the country during the U2 360° Tour. "U2 3D" grossed over $360,000 during the Brazil re-release, which made the total worldwide gross over $23 million, and became the highest-grossing week since 2008. In addition to re-releases, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame celebrated the opening of its new theater in October 2009 by showing "U2 3D" at its museum, and has continually featured daily showings of the film . The film's box office run in the US ended August 26, 2010, bringing its total domestic gross to $10,363,341, after showing for 947 days. The latest international box office report, from July 2012, gives "U2 3D" a total worldwide gross of $26,170,402. The film's distributors stated there was no predetermined limit to the length of the title's run, and the overall length would be determined by box office sales. For its genre, "U2 3D" was successful and set several box office records. The film became the highest grossing documentary to be eligible for an Oscar nomination at the 81st Academy Awards. "U2 3D" set a record in Ireland for the highest screen average of any film playing during its opening weekend, and it took in almost €90,000 at eight theaters during its first three days. In February 2011, "Forbes" ranked "U2 3D" as the fifth-highest-grossing concert film, earning $14 million more than "Rattle and Hum", which was ranked as the seventh-highest. Reception. Critical response. Based on 88 reviews by critics, "Rotten Tomatoes" gave "U2 3D" a 92% approval rating. The website assigned it an average score of 7.5/10, with a consensus that "U2 3D" was "an exhilarating musical experience at the price of a movie ticket". At "Metacritic"—which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics—the film received an average score of 83, based on 19 reviews, which translates to "universal acclaim" on the website's rating scale. The film received positive reviews from "Toronto Star" and "Variety" following its 56-minute premiere at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival when the final 85-minute cut was months away from completion. Critics from publications such as the "Irish Independent", "The New Zealand Herald", "Reno News & Review", "Toronto Star", and "USA Today" said that the film's 3D experience was "even better than the real thing"—a reference to U2's song of the same name. Reviews by "Rolling Stone" and "Total Film" stated the film seemed to appeal to fans and non-fans of U2 alike, just as the filmmakers had intended. "U2 3D" was praised by "Variety" for its straightforward concert footage, compared to the interviews and behind-the-scenes footage included in "Rattle and Hum". In an episode of the TV series "At the Movies with Ebert & Roeper", Michael Phillips called the film "a genuine eye-fill" and Richard Roeper described it as "spectacular". "The New York Times" designated "U2 3D" as a "Critics' Pick" and stated in the review that the film was "the first IMAX movie that deserves to be called a work of art". "U2 3D" appeared on many critics' lists of the top ten films released in 2008 including "The Austin Chronicle", "OhmyNews International", "Seattle Post-Intelligencer", "The Sydney Morning Herald", and "River Cities' Reader". The film was also ranked by "Complex" and "Empire" as one of the best 3D films. Bono was satisfied with the outcome of the film and said his favorite sequence was the performance of "Miss Sarajevo". When interviewed about the PopMart Tour in 2009, Bono said that the "" video was the best project U2 had done from an audio and visual perspective, and was "clipsed only by "U2 3D"". The Edge was pleased that the footage did not show any of the distress he felt from his daughter's illness during filming. However, the film received more critical reviews. "The A.V. Club" graded it a B− and stated that U2's performance was less thrilling than the 3D effects. Online magazine "FilmSlash" criticized "The New York Times" statement about "U2 3D" being the first IMAX art film, stating that some of the first IMAX titles were "experimental works of art". Music critic Joel Selvin wrote in the "San Francisco Chronicle" that seeing U2 on the big screen was "more distracting than illuminating", and "Time Out London" criticized Bono's political statements, stating he "should refrain from ramming his preachy political meanderings down our throats and let the music do the talking". "The Daily Telegraph" favored "Rattle and Hum" over "U2 3D" and called U2's performance "unexciting", criticizing how "the cameras, not the band, are doing all the work". "The Guardian", which gave a rating of one out of five stars, claimed that U2 appeared to be "four conceited billionaires who are further up themselves than ever". Recognition and legacy. "U2 3D" was recognized favorably after its release, earning several awards. In 2008, it earned three awards, including "Best Film Produced Non-Exclusively for the Giant Screen" at the Giant Screen Cinema Association's 2008 Achievement Awards, "Best Musical Film" at Los Premios MTV Latinoamérica 2008, and the Pioneer Award for Film & Television at the 2008 3D Film and Interactive Film Festival. In February 2009, "U2 3D" received an award for "Outstanding Visual Effects in a Special Venue Project" from the Visual Effects Society (VES) at the 7th Annual VES Awards. The extensive use of technology during production was featured as the cover story in the December 2007 issue of the high-definition video magazine "HDVideoPro", a month before the premiere of "U2 3D". Its usage of evolutionary technology led to Catherine Owens being selected as a featured guest speaker at the SIGGRAPH 2008 conference, which took place several months after the film's release. After "U2 3D" received praise from fans, critics, and the film industry, several of the filmmakers stated that they felt it helped create a paradigm shift in cinema history, due to the technological advancements used in the production. Following the success of "U2 3D", 3ality Digital continued to pioneer 3D projects. After previously experimenting with filming American football games in 3D, 3ality Digital successfully broadcast the first live 3D NFL game in December 2008. In 2009, 3ality Digital aired the first live 3D sports broadcast available to consumers, the first 3D television advertisement, and the first 3D episode of a scripted television program. U2 show director Willie Williams recruited "U2 3D" director of photography Tom Krueger to design the photography and video coverage for the band's 2009–2011 U2 360° Tour. Krueger directed their subsequent concert film, "U2 360° at the Rose Bowl", which was released in 2010. Setlist. All titles written by U2, except "Miss Sarajevo" (co-written with Brian Eno).
1163938	Scott Richard Wolf (born June 4, 1968) is an American actor, known for his roles on the television series "Party of Five", as Bailey Salinger, "Everwood", as Dr. Jake Hartman and in the Sci-Fi series "V" as the morally ambiguous journalist Chad Decker. Early life. Wolf was born in Boston, Massachusetts. His mother, Susan (née Levy), is a drug abuse counselor, and his father, Steven Wolf, is a health care executive. Wolf was raised in a Reform Jewish family. He grew up in West Orange, New Jersey, and graduated in 1986 from West Orange High School. He attended The George Washington University and received a Bachelor of Arts degree in finance. He also became a Brother of the Alpha Epsilon Pi Fraternity. His cousin is comedian and "Chelsea Lately" regular Josh Wolf. Career. Wolf is known for his role as Bailey Salinger on "Party of Five". On both "Everwood" and the short-lived "The Nine", he portrayed a doctor. His own maternal grandfather was an anesthesiologist. He also made guest appearances as himself on "Action" and "Kids Inc." His sole Broadway theatre credit to date is "Side Man". Personal life. Wolf was engaged to Alyssa Milano in 1993, but were separated after a year and a half. In 2002, he began dating Kelley Marie Limp, an alumna of MTV's "", after meeting through mutual friend Joel Goldman in New York City. They married on May 29, 2004, and planned to make their home in Santa Monica, California. Their son, Jackson Kayse, was born in 2009. On May 19, 2012, Wolf announced on Twitter that he and his wife were expecting their second child. Miller William was born on Saturday, November 10, 2012. Scott and his wife Kelley now make Park City, Utah, their family home and have a house in Santa Monica, California.
1758789	Mercenary for Justice is an action film starring Steven Seagal, and also starring Luke Goss and Roger Guenveur Smith. It was released direct-to-video on April 18, 2006. Principal photography was on location in Cape Town, South Africa. Plot. CIA dirty deeds man John Dresham (Luke Goss) and Black Ops organiser Anthony Chapel (Roger Guenveur Smith) hire John Seeger (Steven Seagal) and his crew for a mission in the French-controlled Galmoral Island in Southern Africa. They tell them they are helping the locals when in reality they just want to get rich on petrol and diamonds. John gets steamed when the mission goes wrong. Some of his soldiers take the French Ambassador (Rudiger Eberle) and his family hostage for leverage and later blow them all up. The French close in on them, his best friend Radio Jones (Zaa Nkweta) is killed, and Maxine Barnol his spy posing as a journalist suggests CIA involvement. John heads back to the U.S.A. and goes to the home of Radio's wife Shondra (Faye Peters), tells her the news, and then promises her that he'll take care of her and her young son Eddie (Tumi Mogoje). While there he kills two of Dresden's men sent to kill him and discovers Dresden's implication. Chapel again hires the team of mercenaries, kidnapping Shondra and Eddie to force John into cooperating. The mission involves rescuing Kamal Dasan, the son of prominent gun runner Ahmet Dasan (Peter Butler), who has been arrested and thrown into the Randveld Prison outside of Cape Town, South Africa, and is due to be transferred to the States. Dresden discovers the job but not its object and when he bumps into Maxine he forces her to work for him instead of Chapel. Maxine leads him to believe that the target is the safe of the bank of South Africa and Dresden uses his CIA influence to be shown round the security installation. Maxine listens attentively and takes photos. John leads Dresden in circles but when the mercenaries break into the prison Kamal isn't there any more and the bad elements of the team get killed. Next stop the bank. In the safe John persuades the Greeks to arrest Kamal's father, then escapes making sure Dresden will be arrested too. Finally, with a few faithful members of his team, John rescues Shondra and Eddie and kills Chapel and his guards.
1062032	Jeremy John Irons (born 19 September 1948) is an English actor. After receiving classical training at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School, Irons began his acting career on stage in 1969, and has since appeared in many London theatre productions including "The Winter's Tale", "Macbeth", "Much Ado About Nothing", "The Taming of the Shrew", "Godspell", "Richard II" and "Embers". In 1984, he made his Broadway debut in Tom Stoppard's "The Real Thing" and received a Tony Award for Best Actor. Irons's first major film role came in the 1981 romantic drama "The French Lieutenant's Woman", for which he received a BAFTA nomination for Best Actor. After starring in such films as "Moonlighting" (1982), "Betrayal" (1983) and "The Mission" (1986), he gained critical acclaim for portraying twin gynaecologists in David Cronenberg's psychological thriller "Dead Ringers" (1988). In 1990, Irons played accused murderer Claus von Bulow in "Reversal of Fortune", and took home multiple awards including an Academy Award for Best Actor. Other notable films have included "Kafka" (1991), "The House of the Spirits" (1993), "The Lion King" (1994), "Die Hard with a Vengeance" (1995), "Lolita" (1997), "The Man in the Iron Mask" (1998), "The Merchant of Venice" (2004), "Being Julia" (2004), "Kingdom of Heaven" (2005), "Eragon" (2006), "Appaloosa" (2008), and "Margin Call" (2011). Irons has also made several notable appearances on TV. He earned his first Golden Globe Award nomination for his breakout role in the ITV series "Brideshead Revisited" (1981). In 2006, Irons starred opposite Helen Mirren in the historical miniseries "Elizabeth I", for which he received a Golden Globe Award and an Emmy Award for Best Supporting Actor. Since 2011, he has been starring in the Showtime historical series "The Borgias". In October 2011, he was nominated Goodwill Ambassador of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. Early life. Irons was born in Cowes, Isle of Wight, the son of Barbara Anne Brereton Brymer (née Sharpe; 1914–1999), a housewife, and Paul Dugan Irons (1913–1983), an accountant. His Dundee-born, paternal great-great-grandfather was one of the first Metropolitan Policemen, and later a Chartist; one of his mother's ancestors had been from County Cork, Ireland, where Irons lives as of at least February 2011. Irons has a brother, Christopher (born 1943), and a sister, Felicity Anne (born 1944). He was educated at the independent Sherborne School in Dorset, (c. 1962–66). He was the drummer and harmonica player (including a rendition of "Stairway to Heaven" on harmonica) in a four-man school band called the Four Pillars of Wisdom. They performed, in a classroom normally used as a physics lab, for the entertainment of boys compulsorily exiled from their houses for two hours on Sunday afternoons. He was also known within Abbey House as half of a comic duo performing skits on Halloween and at end-of-term house suppers. Acting career. Early work. Irons trained as an actor at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School and later became president of its fundraising appeal. He performed a number of plays, and busked on the streets of Bristol, before appearing on the London stage as John the Baptist and Judas opposite David Essex in "Godspell", which opened at the Roundhouse on 17 November 1971 before transferring to Wyndham's Theatre playing a total of 1,128 performances. Television. He made several appearances on British television, including the children's television series "Play Away" and as Franz Liszt in the BBC 1974 series "Notorious Woman". More significantly he starred in the 13-part adaptation of H.E. Bates' novel "Love for Lydia" for London Weekend Television (1977), and attracted attention for his key role as the pipe-smoking German student, a romantic pairing with Judi Dench in Harold Pinter's screenplay adaptation of Aidan Higgins' novel "Langrishe, Go Down" for BBC television (1978). The role which brought him fame was that of Charles Ryder in the television adaptation of Evelyn Waugh's "Brideshead Revisited" (1981). "Brideshead" reunited him with Anthony Andrews, with whom he had appeared in "The Pallisers" seven years earlier. In the same year he starred in the film "The French Lieutenant's Woman" opposite Meryl Streep. Almost as a 'lap of honour' after these major successes, in 1982 he played the leading role of an exiled Polish building contractor, working in the Twickenham area of South West London, in Jerzy Skolimowski's independent film "Moonlighting", widely seen on television, a performance which extended his acting range. In 2005, Irons won both an Emmy award and a Golden Globe award for his supporting role in the TV mini-series, "Elizabeth I". A year later Irons was one of the participants in the third series of the BBC documentary series "Who Do You Think You Are?" In 2008 he played Lord Vetinari in "Terry Pratchett's The Colour of Magic", an adaptation for Sky One. On 6 November 2008, "TV Guide" reported he would star as photographer Alfred Stieglitz with Joan Allen as painter Georgia O'Keeffe, in a Lifetime Television biopic, "Georgia O'Keeffe" (2009). Irons also appeared in the documentary for Irish television channel TG4, "Faoi Lan Cheoil" in which he learned to play the fiddle. On 12 January 2011, Irons was a guest-star in an episode of "" called "Mask". He played Dr. Cap Jackson, a sex therapist. He reprised the role on an episode titled "Totem" that ran on 30 March 2011. Irons stars in the 2011 U.S. premium cable network Showtime's series "The Borgias", a highly fictionalised account of the Renaissance dynasty of that name. Irons portrays patriarch Rodrigo Borgia, better known to history as Pope Alexander VI. Film. Irons made his film debut in "Nijinsky" in 1980. He appeared sporadically in films during the 1980s, including the Cannes Palme d'Or winner "The Mission" in 1986, and in the dual role of twin gynecologists in David Cronenberg's "Dead Ringers" in 1988. Other films include "Danny the Champion of the World" (1989), "Reversal of Fortune" (1990), for which he won the Academy Award for Best Actor, "Kafka" (1991), "Damage" (1993), "M. Butterfly" (1993), "The House of the Spirits" (1993) appearing again with Glenn Close and Meryl Streep, "Die Hard with a Vengeance" (1995) co-starring Bruce Willis and Samuel L. Jackson, Bernardo Bertolucci's "Stealing Beauty" (1996), the 1997 remake of "Lolita", and as the musketeer Aramis opposite Leonardo DiCaprio in the 1998 film version of "The Man in the Iron Mask". Other roles include the evil wizard Profion in the film "Dungeons and Dragons" (2000) and Rupert Gould in "Longitude" (2000). He played the Über-Morlock from the film "The Time Machine" (2002). In 2004, Irons played Severus Snape in Comic Relief's "Harry Potter" parody, "Harry Potter and the Secret Chamberpot of Azerbaijan". In 2005, he appeared in the films "Casanova" opposite Heath Ledger, and Ridley Scott's "Kingdom of Heaven". He has co-starred with John Malkovich in two films; "The Man in the Iron Mask" (1998) and "Eragon" (2006), though they did not have any scenes together in "Eragon". In 2008, Irons co-starred with Ed Harris and Viggo Mortensen in "Appaloosa", directed by Harris. In 2011, Irons appeared alongside Kevin Spacey in the thriller "Margin Call". In 2013, it was announced that Irons would appear in "A Magnificent Death From a Shattered Hand". Theatre. Irons has worked with the Royal Shakespeare Company three times in 1976, 1986–87 and 2010. In 1984, Irons made his New York debut and won a Tony Award for his Broadway performance opposite Glenn Close in "The Real Thing". After an absence from the London stage for 18 years, in 2006 he co-starred with Patrick Malahide in Christopher Hampton's stage adaptation of Sándor Márai's novel "Embers" at the Duke of York's Theatre. He made his National Theatre debut playing Harold Macmillan in "Never So Good", a new play by Howard Brenton which opened at the Lyttelton on 19 March 2008. In 2009, Irons appeared on Broadway opposite Joan Allen in the play "Impressionism". The play ran through 10 May 2009 at the Gerald Schoenfeld Theater. Other ventures. Audio. Irons read the audio book recording of Evelyn Waugh's "Brideshead Revisited", Paulo Coelho's 'The Alchemist', the audio book recording of Vladimir Nabokov's "Lolita" (he had also appeared in the 1997 film version of the novel), and the audio book "James and the Giant Peach" by Roald Dahl. One of his best known film roles has turned out to be lending his distinctive voice to Scar in "The Lion King" (1994) serving as the main antagonist of the film. Irons has since provided voiceovers for three Disney World attractions. He narrated the "Spaceship Earth" ride, housed in the large geodesic globe at Epcot, from October 1994 to July 2007. He was also the English narrator for the at the Walt Disney Studios Park at Disneyland Paris. He also voiced H.G. Wells in the English version of the former Disney attraction The Timekeeper. He also reprised his role as Scar in "Fantasmic". He is also one of the readers in the 4x CD boxed set of "The Fairy Tales of Oscar Wilde", produced by Marc Sinden and sold in aid of the Royal Theatrical Fund. He was originally to star as the Phantom in a 2006 French musical adaptation of Gaston Leroux's novel "The Phantom of the Opera", though the project was cancelled. He will be the narrator for Val Kilmer and Bill Pullman's brand-new Lewis and Clark film from Revolution Studios. He serves as the English language version of the audio guide for Westminster Abbey in London. Irons has served as voice-over in two big cat documentary films by National Geographic: "Eye of the Leopard", which was released in 2006, and "The Last Lions", which is a 2011 motion-picture, released on 18 February. He also currently narrates the French-produced documentary series about volcanoes, Life on Fire. The series premiered in the United States on 2 January 2013 on PBS, though the six episodes were previously released in France from 2009 to 2012 with a different, French-speaking narrator. Music. In 1985, Irons directed a music video for Carly Simon and her heavily promoted single, "Tired of Being Blonde". In 1994, he had a cameo role in the video for Elastica's hit single "Connection". Irons has contributed to other musical performances, recording William Walton's "Façade" with Dame Peggy Ashcroft, Stravinsky's The Soldier's Tale conducted by the composer, and in 1987 the songs from Lerner and Loewe's "My Fair Lady" with Dame Kiri Te Kanawa, released on the Decca label. Irons sang segments of "Be Prepared" in the film "The Lion King". After his voice gave out during toward the end of that musical number, Jim Cummings (who voiced Ed the Hyena) took over as Scar's singing voice. He sang a selection of Noël Coward at the 1999 Last Night of the Proms in celebration of the 100th anniversary of Coward's birth. In 2003 he played Fredrik Egerman in a New York revival of Stephen Sondheim's "A Little Night Music", and two years later appeared as King Arthur in Lerner and Loewe's "Camelot" at the Hollywood Bowl. He performed the Bob Dylan song "Make You Feel My Love" on the 2006 charity album "Unexpected Dreams – Songs From the Stars". In 2009, Irons appeared on the Touchstone album "Wintercoast", recording a narrative introduction to the album. Recording took place in New York City, New York in February 2009 during rehearsals for his Broadway play "Impressionism". Personal life. Irons married Julie Hallam in 1969 and subsequently divorced. He married Irish actress Sinéad Cusack on 28 March 1978. They have two sons, Sam (b. 1978), who works as a photographer, and Maximilian Paul Diarmuid Irons (b. 1985), also an actor. Both of Irons' sons have appeared in films with their father – Sam as the eponymous hero in "Danny, Champion of the World" and Max in "Being Julia". Irons' wife and children are Catholic; of himself, he has stated, "I don’t go to church much because I don’t like belonging to a club, and I don’t go to confession or anything like that, I don’t believe in it. But I try to be aware of where I fail and I occasionally go to services. I would hate to be a person who didn’t have a spiritual side because there’s nothing to nourish you in life apart from retail therapy." Irons owns Kilcoe Castle (which he had painted a rusty pink) in County Cork, Ireland, and has become involved in local politics there. He also has another Irish residence in the Liberties, Dublin. Irons is a patron of the Chiltern Shakespeare Company. Irons was bestowed an Honorary-Life Membership by the University College Dublin Law Society in September 2008, in honour of his contribution to television, film, audio, music and theatre. Also in 2008, Irons was awarded an Honorary Doctorate by Southampton Solent University. Activism. Charity work. At the 1991 Tony Awards, Irons was one of the few celebrities to wear the recently created red ribbon to support the fight against AIDS, and he was the first celebrity to wear it onscreen. He supports a number of other charities, including the Prison Phoenix Trust and Evidence for Development, for both of which he is an active patron. In 2010, Irons starred in a promotional video for "The 1billionhungry project" – a worldwide drive to attract at least one million signatures to a petition calling on international leaders to move hunger to the top of the political agenda. He also provided the narration of the documentary "Sahaya Going Beyond"", about the work of the charity Sahaya International. Politics. In 1998, Irons and his wife were named in the list of the biggest private financial donors to the Labour Party, a year after their return to government after 18 years in opposition. In 2004, he publicly declared his support for the Countryside Alliance, referring to the hunting ban as an "outrageous assault on civil liberties" and "one of the two most devastating parliamentary votes in the last century". Same-sex marriage. In April 2013, Irons was asked by Huffpost Live host Josh Zepps his opinion on the fight for same-sex marriage in the United States. Irons responded, "Could a father not marry his son?" Zepps responded with an argument that laws against incest prevent such a union. Irons argued that "it's not incest between men. Incest is there to protect us from inbreeding, but men don't breed," and wondered whether same-sex marriage might allow fathers to bequeath their estates to their sons to avoid taxation. On the issue of advocates calling for same-sex marriage as opposed to civil unions, he said, "It seems to me that now they're fighting for the name," and, "I worry that it means somehow we debase, or we change, what marriage is. I just worry about that." He later clarified his comments, saying he was providing an example of a situation that could cause a "legal quagmire" under the laws that allow same-sex marriage, and that he had been misinterpreted. He added that some gay relationships are "healthier" than their straight counterparts. Alternative medicine. He has been criticised in the "British Medical Journal" for his fundraising activities in support of "The College of Medicine", an alternative medicine lobby group in the UK linked to Prince Charles. Work. Theatre. Following training at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre school Irons initially stayed with the company:
1062049	Joan Mary Cusack (born October 11, 1962) is an American film, stage and television actress. Cusack has appeared in films, television and stage productions, receiving Academy Award nominations for Best Supporting Actress for her roles in the movies "Working Girl" and "In & Out", as well as one Golden Globe nomination. She has appeared in other films such as "Addams Family Values", "Broadcast News", "Stars and Bars", "Married to the Mob", "Say Anything...", "Arlington Road", "Runaway Bride", "School of Rock", "Toy Story 2" and "Toy Story 3". She was a cast member on the sketch comedy TV show "Saturday Night Live" in 1985–86. Cusack currently stars on the Showtime hit drama/comedy "Shameless", as Sheila Jackson for which she has received three Emmy Award nominations. Early life and education. Cusack, the second of five children, was born in New York City, New York, and raised in Evanston, Illinois. Her mother, Ann Paula "Nancy" (née Carolan), is a former mathematics teacher and political activist. Her late father, Richard John "Dick" Cusack, as well as her siblings Ann, Bill, John, and Susie, have also been or are actors. Her family is Irish American and Catholic. Cusack is an alumna of the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Career. Cusack has twice been nominated for Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, for her work in "Working Girl" and "In & Out". She appeared with her brother John in the movies "Sixteen Candles", "Grandview, U.S.A.", "Class", "High Fidelity", "Grosse Pointe Blank", "Say Anything...", "Cradle Will Rock", "Martian Child", and most recently, "War, Inc." In the film "Addams Family Values" she played serial divorcee and murderer 'Debbie Jellinsky'. She also starred in the short-lived ABC sitcom "What About Joan?" in 2001–02 and the hit film "Arlington Road". For many years, Cusack was also the commercial spokeswoman for U.S. Cellular. She's very well known as the head-teacher of Horace Green Elementary School as 'Rosalie 'Roz' Mullins in "School of Rock". She also voiced Jessie in "Toy Story 2" and "Toy Story 3", and played Dr. Burton, the therapist of Charlie (Logan Lerman), in the teen film "The Perks of Being a Wallflower" (2012). Cusack was a cast member on the NBC sketch show, "Saturday Night Live", from 1985 to 1986. Her recurring characters on "Saturday Night Live" included, "Salena," a socially inept girl who tries to ask out her boyfriend, "Biff" (played by Jon Lovitz), who is also socially inept. In addition, she did celebrity impersonations of Brooke Shields, Jane Fonda and Queen Elizabeth II. She has been nominated four times for the American Comedy Award, in the category of "Funniest Supporting Actress in a Motion Picture" and has won three times, for "Runaway Bride", (1999), "In & Out" (1997) and "Working Girl" (1988). She has also won the New York Film Critics Circle Award and the Broadcast Film Critics Association Award for "Best Supporting Actress" for "In & Out". In 2003, both Joan and her brother John signed the "Not in My Name" resolution (along with people such as Noam Chomsky and Susan Sarandon) opposing the invasion of Iraq. Cusack narrates the public TV animated series "Peep and the Big Wide World". In September 2010, Cusack guest starred on NBC's "". "Shameless". In 2010, Cusack joined the Showtime drama/comedy "Shameless", as Sheila Jackson, the mother of Karen Jackson (Laura Slade Wiggins). The first season premiered on January 9, 2011, and had its first finale March 27, 2011. Cusack replaced actress Allison Janney, who originally portrayed the role in the first edit of the pilot episode, but was forced to drop out of the part due to her series regular commitment on the ABC comedy "Mr. Sunshine". Janney took the role understanding the character would be less prominent on the show, but when producers decided to increase the characters screen presence, she was forced to pull out of the part. Cusack has received critical acclaim for her performance, receiving Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Drama Series nominations in 2011, 2012, and 2013.
1163632	Nancy Kelly (March 25, 1921 – January 2, 1995) was an American actress, who was a movie leading lady in the late 1930s, making 36 movies between 1926 and 1977, including portraying Tyrone Power's love interest in the classic "Jesse James" (1939), which also featured Henry Fonda, and playing opposite Spencer Tracy in "Stanley and Livingstone" later that same year. Career. Born in Lowell, Massachusetts, she was the older sister of actor Jack Kelly, who played "Bart Maverick" alongside James Garner and Roger Moore in the 1957 television series "Maverick". Kelly began her career as a child actress, whose image had appeared in so many different advertisements by the time she was nine years old that "Film Daily" called her "the most photographed child in America due to commercial posing." She also played Dorothy Gale in a 1933 to 1934 radio show based on the "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz". As an adult, she was a leading lady in twenty-seven movies in the 1930s and '40s, including director John Ford's "Submarine Patrol", the comedy "He Married His Wife" with Joel McCrea, "Frontier Marshal" with Randolph Scott as Wyatt Earp, and "Tarzan's Desert Mystery" with Johnny Weismuller. Kelly was subsequently a two-time winner of the Sarah Siddons Award for her work in Chicago theatre as well as a Tony Award winner for her performance in "The Bad Seed", which she followed up by starring in the film version in 1956 and receiving a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actress. She also starred on television, including leading roles in "The Storm" (1961) episode of "Thriller" and "The Lonely Hour" (1963) episode of "The Alfred Hitchcock Hour". In 1957, Kelly was nominated at the 9th Primetime Emmy Awards#Best Single Performance by an Actress for an Emmy Award for Best Single Performance by an Actress for TV episode "The Pilot" in "Studio One". Death. On her death in 1995 from complications of diabetes, Nancy Kelly was interred in the Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery in Los Angeles. For her contribution to the motion picture industry, Nancy Kelly has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 7021 Hollywood Blvd.
1178590	Donald Clark "Donny" Osmond (born December 9, 1957) is an American singer, musician, actor, dancer, radio personality, and former teen idol. Osmond has also been a talk and game show host, record producer and author. In the mid-1960s, he and four of his elder brothers gained fame as The Osmonds, on the long-running variety program, "The Andy Williams Show". Donny went solo in the early 1970s, covering such hits as "Go Away Little Girl" and "Puppy Love". For over thirty-five years, he and younger sister Marie have gained fame as Donny & Marie, partly due to the success of their 1976–79 self-titled variety series, which aired on ABC. The duo also did a 1998–2000 talk show and have been headlining in Las Vegas since 2008. Between a highly successful teen career in the 1970s, and his rebirth in the 1990s, Osmond's career was stymied during the 1980s by what some have perceived as his "boy scout" image. Osmond stated on the May 1, 2009 "Larry King Live" show that longtime friend Michael Jackson suggested he change his name to boost his image. Osmond's agent even suggested that spreading false rumors about drug arrest charges might recharge his career. Osmond felt such allegations would have familial ramifications, and could not reconcile how lying to create a nefarious drug image could be explained to his children, nieces and nephews. In 1989, Osmond had two big-selling recordings, the first of which, "Soldier of Love", was initially credited to a "mystery artist" by some radio stations. Starting in July 1992, Osmond played Joseph in the Elgin Theatre's Toronto production of "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat". The musical then toured North America until 1998. Creator Andrew Lloyd Webber, impressed by Osmond's talents and the show's successful six-year run, chose him for the 1999 film version. In 2009, Osmond won the ninth season of "Dancing with the Stars". Early life. Osmond was born in Ogden, Utah, the seventh son of Olive May Osmond (née Davis) and George Virl Osmond. He is the brother of Alan, Jay, Jimmy, Merrill, Wayne, Marie, Tom, and Virl Osmond. Alan, Jay, Merrill, Wayne, and Donny were members of the popular singing group The Osmonds (also known as The Osmond Brothers which later included tracks with youngest brother Jimmy as well). Donny was raised as a Mormon in Utah along with his siblings. Osmond later traced his family ancestry back to Merthyr Tydfil in Wales; his journey was documented in a BBC Wales program, "Donny Osmond Coming Home". On the BBC's "The One Show", a plaque was unveiled in the town to commemorate 'the ancestors of Donny Osmond'. Music career. Teen idol: 1971–1978. The father of Andy Williams, Jay, saw the Osmond Brothers (Alan, Wayne, Merrill and Jay) perform on a Disneyland televised special as a barbershop quartet. In short order, the group was invited to audition for "The Andy Williams Show". Williams initially had reservations about featuring children on the program, however, encouraged by his father to try them out, they proved in a short period of time to become an asset to the program, and soon became regulars on the show and gained popularity quickly. Donny made his debut on the show at the age of 5 singing "You Are My Sunshine". The brothers continued to perform on the show throughout the 1960s along with a visit from their sister Marie. In the early 1970s, the Osmonds, via recording and virtually constant touring, sold over 80 million records in a single 12-month period, making them the most successful, and fatigued, of the early Seventies touring groups. Donny became a teen idol in the early 1970s as a solo singer, while continuing to sing with his older brothers. He, Bobby Sherman, and David Cassidy were the biggest "Cover Boy" pop stars for "Tiger Beat" magazine in the early 1970s. His first solo hit was a cover of Roy Orbison's 1958 recording of "Sweet and Innocent", which peaked at No. 7 in the U.S. in 1971. Donny's follow-ups "Go Away Little Girl" (1971) (U.S. #1), "Puppy Love" (U.S. #3), and "Hey Girl/I Knew You When" (U.S. #9) (1972) vaulted him into international fame, further advanced by his 20 November 1972 appearance on the "Here's Lucy" show, where he sang "Too Young" to Lucille Ball's niece, played by Eve Plumb, and sang with Lucie Arnaz ("I'll Never Fall in Love Again"). Comeback: 1989–1990. In the 1980s, Osmond re-invented himself as a solo vocal artist and abandoned the earlier television show image crafted to appeal to young viewers. He made an unlikely appearance as one of several celebrities and unknowns auditioning to sing for guitarist Jeff Beck in the video for Beck's 1985 single "Ambitious", followed in 1986 by an equally unlikely cameo in the animated Luis Cardenas music video "Runaway". He spent several years as a performer, before hiring the services of music and entertainment guru Steven Machat, who got Osmond together with Peter Gabriel to see whether Machat and Gabriel could turn the TV Osmond's image into a contemporary young pop act. They succeeded, returning Osmond to the US charts in 1989 with the Billboard Hot 100 No. 2 song "Soldier of Love" and its top twenty follow-up "Sacred Emotion". The campaign to market "Soldier Of Love" received considerable airplay with the singer being presented as a "mystery artist" before his identity was later revealed. Launching an extensive tour in support of the Eyes Don't Lie record, he enlisted Earth Wind & Fire and Kenny Loggins guitarist Dick Smith along with keyboardist Marc Jackson. Donny was often reluctant to perform his earliest songs, in particular "Go Away Little Girl", but was convinced to sing the song live for KLOS-FM's "Mark & Brian Christmas Show" on December 21, 1990. Now he embraces his initial recording period with fondness, and recognizes that his many fans around the world are always excited and appreciative to hear his earliest chart successes. Current music career: 1991–2010. Osmond was the guest vocalist on Dweezil Zappa's star-studded version of the Bee Gees' "Stayin' Alive" which appeared on Zappa's 1991 album "Confessions". The song also included guitar solos from Zakk Wylde, Steve Lukather, Warren DeMartini, Nuno Bettencourt, and Tim Pierce. Osmond sang "No One Has To Be Alone", but the song was heard at the end of the film "". He also sang "I'll Make a Man Out of You" for Disney's "Mulan". In the 2000s, he released a Christmas album, an album of his favorite Broadway songs, and a compilation of popular love songs. In 2004, he returned to the UK Top 10 for the first time as a solo artist since 1973, with the George Benson-sampling "Breeze On By", co-written with former teen idol Gary Barlow, from the 1990s UK boy band Take That, reaching number 8. Donny & Marie in Las Vegas. Following Marie's stint on Dancing with the Stars in 2007, the pair teamed up for a limited engagement in Las Vegas at the MGM Grand Las Vegas. Beginning September 2008, Donny and Marie began playing the 750-seat showroom at the Flamingo Hotel. "Donny & Marie" is a 90-minute show. The singing siblings are backed by eight dancers and a nine piece band. Donny and Marie sing together at the beginning and end of the show, and have solo segments in between. Donny and the show earned three of the Las Vegas Review-Journal's Best of Las Vegas Awards in 2012 including "Best Show", "Best All-Around Performer" (Donny & Marie), and "Best Singer". Donny earned "Best Singer" for a second time in the Las Vegas Review-Journal's Best of Las Vegas Awards in 2013. Film, radio and television. Hosting. Donny & Marie. In the mid-1970s, he and Marie co-hosted "The Mike Douglas Show" for a week, and were later offered a show of their own, "The Donny & Marie Show", a television variety series which aired on ABC between 1976 and 1979. Donny felt that their program should have been continued for at least another television season, and has expressed regret that the show was cancelled, as opposed to them deciding when to bring the show to conclusion. Donny and Marie also co-hosted a talk show together 20 years later. Though ratings were high and they were nominated for an Emmy award for best talk show, the series was ultimately canceled. In a 1999 episode featuring Jefferson Starship promoting their album "Windows of Heaven", the hosts performed a rendition of "Volunteers" live with the band. Other hosting opportunities. Osmond went on to host "Pyramid", a syndicated version of the Dick Clark-hosted television game show that ran two seasons in the US from 2002 to 2004, and a British version of "Pyramid" on Challenge in 2007. Osmond returned to ABC as host of "The Great American Dream Vote", a prime-time reality/game show that debuted in March 2007. After earning lackluster ratings in its first two episodes, the program was cancelled. Osmond hosted the British version of the game show "Identity" on BBC Two during the daytime. On April 11, 2008, Osmond also hosted the 2008 Miss USA pageant along with his sister Marie from Las Vegas. Osmond appeared on "Entertainment Tonight" as a commentator covering the ABC show "Dancing with the Stars" during his sister Marie's run as a contestant on the 5th season of the American version of the popular show in Fall of 2007. He was seen at week 7 of the competition in tears in the audience watching Marie do a rumba after his and Marie's father died. Radio. In January 2010 it was announced that Osmond would host his own syndicated radio show in a deal with McVay Syndication and Citadel Media. Versions of "The Donny Osmond Show" now air across America, Canada, Australia and the UK. The show is already rating No. 1 in numerous markets and is currently one of the fastest growing radio propositions. The UK edition of the show is co-produced by London-based radio production & syndication company Blue Revolution. Through this partnership the first UK network to carry "The Donny Osmond Show" is Celador-owned The Breeze, which has outlets in Portsmouth, Southampton, Isle of Wight, Winchester, Bridgwater & West Somerset, Bristol, Bath and Warminster. As of January 2012, "The Donny Osmond Show" is no longer broadcasting on The Breeze. From April 2012 Smooth Radio carried "The Donny Osmond Show" on Sunday evenings. It aired until April 2013 when Donny Osmand decided to leave the station. Music. Osmond's name was used in the lyrics of Alice Cooper's song "Department of Youth" near the end. Cooper asks the kids doing the background vocals "who gave them the power", where the kids reply "Donny Osmond". Cooper then responds with an outraged "What?" Musical theater. His first foray into Broadway musical theater was the lead role in a revival of the 1904 George M. Cohan show "Little Johnny Jones". Osmond replaced another former teen idol, David Cassidy, who left the show while it was on its pre-Broadway tour. After 29 previews and only 1 performance, the show closed on March 21, 1982. Osmond found success in musical theater through much of the 1990s when he starred in "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat" for over 2,000 performances. During his performances for the musical, he suffered from social anxiety disorder, which caused him to feel light-headed and extremely nervous during his performances. In 1997, Osmond left his starring role in the tour to participate with his family in the cast of the Hill Cumorah Pageant. He returned to Broadway on September 19, 2006, in the role of Gaston in Disney's "Beauty and the Beast". He was scheduled to perform for nine weeks, but due to popular demand he extended his run through December 24. Liz Smith of the "New York Post" wrote, "I am here to tell you he is charmingly campy, good-looking and grand as the villain 'Gaston', patterned after our old friend Elvis", and noting "Donny is divine". On July 29, 2007, Osmond played Gaston again for the final performance of "Beauty and the Beast". Donny and his sister Marie starred in a holiday production called "Donny & Marie – A Broadway Christmas", which was originally scheduled to play on Broadway at the Marquis Theatre from December 9–19, 2010. The show was then extended till December 30, 2010 and again till January 2, 2011. "Donny & Marie – Christmas in Chicago" played the Ford Center for the Performing Arts Oriental Theatre in Chicago from December 6–24, 2011. It was similar to the 2010 Broadway show. Film. In the animated television series "Johnny Bravo", Osmond voiced himself as a recurring character. He has also done guest spots on numerous other television shows such as "Friends", "", and Hannah Montana. He also appeared in a Pepsi Twist commercial during the Super Bowl with his sister, Marie, and Ozzy and Sharon Osbourne. In 1982, he co-starred with Priscilla Barnes and Joan Collins in the television movie "The Wild Women of Chastity Gulch" for Aaron Spelling. In 1998, Donny Osmond was chosen to be the singing voice of Shang in Walt Disney's "Mulan". He sang "I'll Make a Man Out of You". Also in 1999, he starred in the movie version of "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat" by Andrew Lloyd Webber's request who said, "to me there is no better selection". In addition to playing the role of Joseph. In 2002 he sang 'No One Has To Be Alone' for the end credits of . Osmond remarked in an interview recently that with his movie appearance on "College Road Trip" and upcoming appearances on two Disney Channel shows that he would coming about full circle since he and his family were discovered by Walt Disney. Osmond appears in the music video of "Weird Al" Yankovic's song "White & Nerdy". The song is a parody of Chamillionaire's "Ridin'"; Osmond's role is analogous to that of Krayzie Bone's role in the original video. Yankovic asked Osmond to appear because "if you have to have a white and nerdy icon in your video, like who else do you go for?" Dancing with the Stars. Osmond and professional Kym Johnson were paired for the ninth season of Dancing with the Stars; he participated in the show to prove he was a better dancer than his sister. It was very difficult for him to manage to get to rehearsals and host his show in Las Vegas with sister Marie. For the first week, the two were assigned to dance a Foxtrot and a 30-second Salsa. His Foxtrot was said to be "too theatrical" and was scored 20/30 from the judges. He however managed to maintain a good score when his Salsa scored 10 points and was safe that week. He danced a Jive the following week which was guest judged by Baz Luhrman. He scored 25 and was scored 2nd place, called first to be safe. That following week he danced a Rumba and scored 21. After his comments, he "attacked" openly homosexual judge Bruno Tonioli, first kissing him, before embracing him and tipping him back in a mock-passionate move after Bruno called Donny's dance "a bit airy fairy". The following week introduced 4 new dances including the Charleston which he danced and scored 24. That following week, the two danced an Argentine Tango which scored 29/30, the highest scored dance to date until it was beaten by then leader topping scorer and future runner-up Mýa and her 70s-themed Samba. He had also received that week's encore.
1062090	Javier Ángel Encinas Bardem (; born 1 March 1969) is a Spanish actor. In 2007, he won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role as psychopathic assassin Anton Chigurh in "No Country for Old Men". He has also garnered critical acclaim for roles in films such as "Jamón, jamón", "Carne trémula", "Boca a boca", "Los Lunes al sol" and "Mar adentro". He portrayed the main antagonist Raoul Silva in the 2012 "James Bond" movie "Skyfall", for which he received both a BAFTA and a SAG nomination for Best Supporting Actor. Bardem has also won a Golden Globe, a Screen Actors Guild Award, a BAFTA, five Goya Awards, two European Film Awards, a Prize for Best Actor at Cannes and two Coppa Volpis at Venice for his work. He is the first Spaniard to be nominated for an Oscar (Best Actor, 2000, for "Before Night Falls"), as well as the first Spanish actor to win an Academy Award. He received his third Academy Award nomination, and second Best Actor nomination, for the film "Biutiful". Early life. Bardem was born in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, in the Canary Islands, Spain. His mother, Pilar Bardem (born María del Pilar Bardem Muñoz), is an actress, and his father, José Carlos Encinas Doussinague (1931–1995), was a businessman involved in environmental work. The two separated shortly after his birth. His mother raised him alone. Bardem comes from a long line of filmmakers and actors dating back to the earliest days of Spanish cinema; he is a grandson of actors Rafael Bardem and Matilde Muñoz Sampedro, and nephew of screenwriter and director Juan Antonio Bardem. Both his older brother and sister, Carlos and Mónica, are actors. He also comes from a very political background, in which his uncle Juan Antonio was imprisoned by Franco for his anti-fascist films. Bardem was brought up in the Roman Catholic faith by his grandmother. As a child, he spent time at theatres and on film sets. At age six, he made his first film appearance, in Fernando Fernán Gómez's "El Pícaro" ("The Scoundrel"). He also played rugby for the underage Spanish National Team. Though he grew up in a family full of actors, Bardem did not see himself going into the family business. Actually, painting was his first love. He went on to study painting for four years at Madrid's Escuela de Artes y Oficios. In need of money he took acting jobs to support his painting, but he also says he was a bad painter and eventually abandoned that career pursuit. In 1989, for the Spanish comedy show "El Día Por Delante" ("The Day Ahead"), he had to wear a Superman costume for a comedic sketch, a job that made him question whether he wanted to be an actor at all. Bardem has confessed to having worked as a stripper (for one day only) during his struggling acting career. Career. Bardem starred in his first major motion picture, "The Ages of Lulu", when he was 20. He was propelled to fame, in 1992, by his role as a potential underwear model and would-be bullfighter in "Jamón, jamón", which also starred a teenaged Penélope Cruz. Bardem's talent did not go unnoticed in the English-speaking world. In 1997, John Malkovich was the first to approach him, then a 27-year-old, for a role in English, but the Spanish actor turned down the offer because his English was still poor. His first English-speaking role came that same year, in with director Alex de la Iglesia's "Perdita Durango", playing a santería-practicing bank robber. After starring in about two dozen films in his native country, he gained international recognition in Julian Schnabel's "Before Night Falls" in 2000, portraying Cuban poet Reinaldo Arenas. He received praise from his idol Al Pacino; the message Pacino left on Bardem's answering machine was something he considers one of the most beautiful gifts he's ever received. For that role, he received an Academy Award for Best Actor nomination, the first for a Spaniard. Immediately after, he turned down the role of "Witwer" in "Minority Report" which eventually went to Colin Farrell. Instead, in 2002, Bardem starred in John Malkovich's directorial debut, "The Dancer Upstairs". Malkovich originally had the Spanish actor in mind for the role of the detective's assistant, but the movie took so long to obtain financing it gave Bardem time to learn English and take on the lead role of the detective. "I will always be grateful to him because he really gave me my very first chance to work in English," Bardem has said of Malkovich. Bardem won Best Actor at the Venice Film Festival for his role in "Mar Adentro" (2004), released in the United States as "The Sea Inside", in which he portrayed the quadriplegic turned assisted suicide activist Ramón Sampedro. He made his Hollywood debut in a brief appearance as a crime lord who summons Tom Cruise's hitman to do the dirty work of dispatching witnesses in the crime drama "Collateral". He stars in Miloš Forman's 2006 film "Goya's Ghosts" opposite Natalie Portman, where he plays a twisted monk during the Spanish Inquisition. In 2007, Bardem acted in two film adaptations: the Coen Brothers' "No Country for Old Men", and the adaptation of the Colombian novel "Love in the Time of Cholera" with Giovanna Mezzogiorno by Gabriel García Márquez. In "No Country for Old Men," he played a sociopathic assassin, Anton Chigurh. For that role, he became the first Spanish actor and Spaniard to win an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. He also won a Golden Globe Award and Screen Actors Guild (SAG) Award for Best Supporting Actor, the Critics' Choice Award for Best Supporting Actor, and the 2008 British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) Award for Best Supporting Actor. Bardem's rendition of Chigurh's trademark phrase, "Call it, friendo", was named Top HollyWORDIE of 2007 in the annual survey by the Global Language Monitor. Chigurh was named No. 26 in "Entertainment Weekly" magazine's 2008 "50 Most Vile Villains in Movie History" list. Bardem's life's work was honored at the 2007 Gotham Awards, produced by Independent Feature Project. Francis Ford Coppola singled out Bardem as an heir to, and even improvement on, Al Pacino, Jack Nicholson and Robert De Niro, referring to Bardem as ambitious, hungry, unwilling to rest on his laurels and always "excited to do something good." Bardem was attached to play the role of Tetro's mentor in Coppola's film "Tetro", but the director felt the character should be female, so he was replaced by fellow Spaniard Carmen Maura. Bardem was originally cast to play fictional filmmaker Guido Contini in the film adaptation of the Broadway musical "Nine", but dropped out due to exhaustion. The part eventually went to Daniel Day-Lewis. He went on to star alongside Penélope Cruz and Scarlett Johansson in Woody Allen's "Vicky Cristina Barcelona" (2008). In 2010, he was awarded Best Actor at the Cannes Film Festival for his performance in "Biutiful" directed by Alejandro González Iñárritu, who specifically wrote the film with Bardem in mind. After being overlooked by the Globes and SAG, Bardem was the unexpected Oscar nominee on 25 January 2011, becoming the first all Spanish-language Best Actor nominee ever. He won his 5th Goya Award, this time for Best Actor in "Biutiful", dedicating the win to his wife, Penélope Cruz, and newborn son. Around this same time he was offered the lead role of "Gunslinger" Roland Deschain in Ron Howard's adaptation of Stephen King's Dark Tower novels. If he had signed, he would have starred in the TV series as well. Then Eon Productions offered him a role in the James Bond film, "Skyfall". With Universal deciding not to go forward with the ultra-ambitious adaptation of the Stephen King 7-novel series, and to end months of speculation, Bardem officially confirmed his role in "Skyfall" during an interview with Christiane Amanpour for ABC's "Nightline". Bardem received the 2,484th star of the Hollywood Walk of Fame on 8 November 2012. The star is located outside the El Capitan Theatre. With his movie "Sons of the Clouds: The Last Colony" he showed up the suffering of the Sahrawi people in refugee camps. He publicly denounced the UN as unwilling to definitively resolve that human crisis. Personal life. Bardem is now fluent in English. He is also a stated fan of heavy metal music, with a particular penchant for the band AC/DC. Bardem cannot drive, only getting behind the wheel for film roles, and he consistently refers to himself as a "worker", and not an actor. Bardem was raised a Catholic, but is now an atheist. Following the legalization of same-sex marriage in Spain in 2005, Bardem incited controversy when he stated that if he were gay, he would get married "right tomorrow, just to screw with the Church" ("mañana mismo, sólo para joder a la Iglesia"). In May 2011 Bardem teamed up with The Enough Project's co-founder John Prendergast to raise awareness about conflict minerals in eastern Congo. In 2007, Bardem began dating Penélope Cruz, his co-star in "Vicky Cristina Barcelona". Bardem and Cruz have maintained a low public profile. They are famously private and will not talk about their personal lives. The couple married in July 2010 in The Bahamas. They have two children. One son, named Leo Encinas Cruz (in keeping with Spanish naming custom), born in January 22, 2011, and one daughter, named Luna Encinas Cruz, born July 22, 2013, in Madrid.
1054768	Moon over Parador is a 1988 romantic comedy film, starring Richard Dreyfuss, Raúl Juliá and Sonia Braga. It is a remake of the 1939 film "The Magnificent Fraud", based on the unpublished short story entitled "Caviar for His Excellency" by Charles G. Booth. Plot. The film follows the exploits of film actor Jack Noah (Dreyfuss), who is filming in the small, fictional South American country of Parador when the Paradorian President for Life suddenly dies of a heart attack. Not wanting to lose his position in power, the president's right-hand man, Roberto Strausmann (Juliá) forces Jack to take the 'role of a lifetime' - that of the dead president, as the two men look so much alike. Jack accepts, eventually winning over the people and even the dead president's mistress, Madonna (Braga). However, when paradise proves to be too boring, Jack needs to find a way to get out while keeping Roberto out of the loop. The movie attempts to generate suspense by establishing that Jack Noah is in physical jeopardy so long as he remains in Parador. However, the film is told in flashback, with an opening scene establishing that Jack has returned to New York City. Production-related information. In the beginning, while both the President and Jack are in the scene, the President is played by Dreyfuss' older brother Lorin. During a scene where Jack has to address the crowd as the Paradorian President, he ad-libs his lines and uses the text for the song "The Impossible Dream" from "Man of La Mancha". Sammy Davis Jr.'s rendition of Parador's national anthem is sung against the music for "Bésame Mucho". The previous Paradorian National Anthem ("O Parador") is sung to the tune of "O Christmas Tree".
582300	Namrata Shirodkar (born 22 January 1972 in Mumbai, India) is a former model and Indian film actress, known for her works in Bollywood and Telugu cinema. She was awarded the Femina Miss India in 1993. Biography. Namrata Shirodkar was born in a moderate Maharashtrian family of Goan origin. She used to live in Khar, a suburb in Mumbai. Her elder sister is the actress Shilpa Shirodkar. She is the granddaughter of famous Marathi actress Meenakshi Shirodkar, who starred in "Brahmachari" (1938), and stunned the audience by wearing a swimsuit. She married Tollywood actor Mahesh Babu Ghattamaneni on 10 February 2005. Modelling career. Namrata worked as a model, and was crowned Miss India in the year 1993. She represented India in the Miss Universe pageant and came in fifth place. The same year, she also represented India in the Miss Asia Pacific contest and was chosen first runner-up. Acting career. She made her debut with a small role in super hit film "Jab Pyaar Kisise Hota Hai" (1998), along with Salman Khan and Twinkle Khanna. She then went on to star in the hit "Vaastav". Her performance was appreciated and she became a known name in Bollywood. She has played mainly supporting roles in films. Films like "Pukar", "Hera Pheri" and "Astitva" went on to do well. She was nominated for the IIFA Best Supporting Actress Award for her performance in "Pukar". Since then her films have not done well at the box office. In 1999, she starred opposite Mammootty in the Malayalam film "Ezhupunna Tharakan". In 2004, she starred opposite Chiranjeevi in a Telugu Movie "Anji". In the same year, she was back into the spotlight when she played the role of Jaya Bakshi in "Bride and Prejudice". She played Aishwarya Rai's elder sister in the film. The film was a hit overseas particularly in the UK but failed to do well in India. She left the industry after her marriage. Personal life. She began dating Tollywood actor Mahesh Babu in 2000 after the filming of "Vamsi". They married on 10 February 2005. Shirodkar now lives in Hyderabad with her husband. Their first child, a boy named Gautam Krishna Gattamaneni was born on 31 August 2006. Their second child, a daughter Sitara was born on 20 July 2012.
357242	The Framed Cat is a 1950 one-reel animated cartoon and is the 53rd "Tom and Jerry" short directed by William Hanna and Joseph Barbera and produced by Fred Quimby. It was animated by Ed Barge, Kenneth Muse, Irven Spence and Ray Patterson. Plot. Tom knocks down some crockery while secretly tucking into some chicken. Mammy-Two-Shoes hears this so he plants the evidence on Jerry, effectively framing the mouse. He then proceeds to dispose of Jerry in front of Mammy Two Shoes. She orders him to get rid of this 'chicken-stealing mouse'. Tom acting like a 'hero' to the maid chases Jerry out in the yard, looks around, throws the mouse and eats the chicken away and takes a nap. Jerry, thinking of a way to get his own back on Tom sees Spike cuddling with his bone and also takes a nap. Jerry quietly takes the bone away from Spike and places it Tom's chest. Spike gets awakened after noticing his bone has disappeared and screams in the voice of a man to see Tom with his bone. He warns him stay away from his bone angrily. Tom is thrown back into the tree as Spike storms off. The cat sticks out his tongue and gets whacked again, biting it. He then spots Jerry laughing himself silly. Jerry stops in front of Spike and spins his bone into the air. Tom can't think of anything to do but catch it (which is the wrong thing to do) Tom tricks Spike into standing up and puts Spike's bone on top of his nose. Spike is incensed at being made to look like a "jackass", but can only go down to sleep, as the cat is nowhere to be seen. Spike drops his bone into a hole that he just dug, but Jerry steals it while Spike isn't looking. Satisfied that Tom won't get to the bone, Spike goes to sleep. Jerry sneaks behind Tom, who is keeping watch behind an automated trash can, ties the bone to Tom's tail, and slams the lid into Tom's face. Jerry makes sure to take the chase past Spike, who is astounded that someone got to his bone. While Tom keeps up the chase, Spike bites on the bone attached to Tom's tail, but gets tangled up in a tree with the cat. Tom ends up in possession of the bone, and when Spike growls, Tom puts it in Spike's mouth, but then winds it up and blows Spike away as if he were a model airplane. Spike decides to go to sleep by his house. Meanwhile, Jerry screws a piece of magnetic iron into Spike's bone, then places a magnet in a sleeping Tom's mouth, causing the bone to end up being attracted to Tom, no matter how many times or how hard Spike tries to retain his grip on the bone and Tom tries to rid himself of it. Tom throws the bone out into the street where Spike chases it, only to miss it twice, in midair then off the fence, which he bites through. He finally does get a hold of it, only to lose it running into the fork of a tree, managing to grab it once more with his tongue before losing it once more. Tom winds up running off down the street with the bone following him (this time, developing a mind of its own and running on its own accord), pursued by Spike, with the magnetic bone remaining close to Tom. Jerry, in a tin can, cheers for his victory and the tin can is dragged along in the pursuit. In the final scene, Tom runs off as Spike dashes after him and Jerry is dragged from the tin can by the magnet (himself thus thinking his plan backfired at him) during the chase down the roadside. Censorship. The scene were Spike is a jackass was once cut because viewers found it inappropriate.
959215	John Napier of Merchiston (1550 – 4 April 1617) – also signed as Neper, Nepair – named Marvellous Merchiston, was a Scottish landowner known as a mathematician, physicist, and astronomer. He was the 8th Laird of Merchistoun. John Napier is best known as the inventor of logarithms. He also invented the so-called "Napier's bones" and made common the use of the decimal point in arithmetic and mathematics. Napier's birthplace, Merchiston Tower in Edinburgh, Scotland, is now part of the facilities of Edinburgh Napier University. After his death from the effects of gout, Napier's remains were buried in St Cuthbert's Church, Edinburgh. Early life. Napier's father was Sir Archibald Napier of Merchiston Castle, and his mother was Janet Bothwell, daughter of the politician and judge Francis Bothwell, Lord of Session, and a sister of Adam Bothwell who became the Bishop of Orkney. Archibald Napier was 16 years old when John Napier was born. As was the common practice for members of the nobility at that time, John Napier did not enter schools until he was 13. He did not stay in school very long, however. It is believed that he dropped out of school in Scotland and perhaps travelled in mainland Europe to better continue his studies. Little is known about those years, where, when, or with whom he might have studied, although his uncle Adam Bothwell wrote a letter to John's father on 5 December 1560, saying ""I pray you, sir, to send John to the schools either to France or Flanders, for he can learn no good at home"", and it is believed that this advice was followed. In 1571, Napier, aged 21, returned to Scotland, and bought a castle at Gartness in 1574. On the death of his father in 1608, Napier and his family moved into Merchiston Castle in Edinburgh, where he resided the remaining of his life. Advances in mathematics. His work, "Mirifici Logarithmorum Canonis Descriptio" (1614) contained fifty-seven pages of explanatory matter and ninety pages of tables of numbers related to natural logarithms. The book also has an excellent discussion of theorems in spherical trigonometry, usually known as Napier's Rules of Circular Parts. Modern English translations of both Napier's books on logarithms, and their description can be found on the web, as well as a discussion of Napier's Bones (see below) and Promptuary (another early calculating device). His invention of logarithms was quickly taken up at Gresham College, and prominent English mathematician Henry Briggs visited Napier in 1615. Among the matters they discussed were a re-scaling of Napier's logarithms, in which the presence of the mathematical constant "e" (more accurately, "e" times a large power of 10 rounded to an integer) was a practical difficulty. Napier delegated to Briggs the computation of a revised table. The computational advance available via logarithms, the converse of powered numbers or exponential notation, was such that it made calculations by hand much quicker. The way was opened to later scientific advances, in astronomy, dynamics, and other areas of physics. Napier made further contributions. He improved Simon Stevin's decimal notation. Arab lattice multiplication, used by Fibonacci, was made more convenient by his introduction of Napier's bones, a multiplication tool using a set of numbered rods. Napier may have worked largely in isolation, but he had contact with Tycho Brahe who corresponded with his friend John Craig. Craig certainly announced the discovery of logarithms to Brahe in the 1590s (the name itself came later); there is a story from Anthony à Wood, perhaps not well substantiated, that Napier had a hint from Craig that Longomontanus, a follower of Brahe, was working in a similar direction. It has been shown that Craig had notes on a method of Paul Wittich that used trigonometric identities to reduce a multiplication formula for the sine function to additions. Theology. Napier had an interest in the "Book of Revelation", from his student days at St Salvator's College, St Andrews. Under the influence of the sermons of Christopher Goodman, he developed a strongly anti-papal reading. He further used the "Book of Revelation" for chronography, to predict the Apocalypse, in "A Plaine Discovery of the Whole Revelation of St. John" (1593), which he regarded as his most important work; he also applied the Sibylline Oracles, to calculate the date of the end of the world. Napier believed that would occur in 1688 or 1700. He dated the seventh trumpet to 1541. In his dedication of the "Plaine Discovery" to James VI, dated 29 Jan 1594, Napier urged the king to see "that justice be done against the enemies of God's church," and counselled the King "to reform the universal enormities of his country, and first to begin at his own house, family, and court." The volume includes nine pages of Napier's English verse. It met with success at home and abroad. In 1600 Michiel Panneel produced a Dutch translation, and this reached a second edition in 1607. In 1602 the work appeared at La Rochelle in a French version, by Georges Thomson, revised by Napier, and that also went through several editions (1603, 1605, and 1607). A new edition of the English original was called for in 1611, when it was revised and corrected by the author, and enlarged by the addition of "A Resolution of certain Doubts proponed by well-affected brethren"; this appeared simultaneously at Edinburgh and London. The author stated that he still intended to publish a Latin edition, but it never appeared. A German translation, by Leo de Dromna, of the first part of Napier's work appeared at Gera in 1611, and of the whole by Wolfgang Meyer at Frankfurt-am-Main, in 1615. Among Napier's followers was Matthew Cotterius (Matthieu Cottière). The occult. In addition to his mathematical and religious interests, Napier was often perceived as a magician, and is thought to have dabbled in alchemy and necromancy. It was said that he would travel about with a black spider in a small box, and that his black rooster was his familiar spirit. A contract still exists for a treasure hunt, made between Napier and Robert Logan of Restalrig. Napier was to search Fast Castle for treasure allegedly hidden there, wherein it is stated that Napier should ""...do his utmost diligence to search and seek out, and by all craft and ingine to find out the same, or make it sure that no such thing has been there."" Influence. Among Napier's early followers were the instrument makers Edmund Gunter and John Speidell. The development of logarithms is given credit as the largest single factor in the general adoption of decimal arithmetic. The "Trissotetras" (1645) of Thomas Urquhart builds on Napier's work, in trigonometry. Eponyms. An alternative unit to the decibel used in electrical engineering, the neper, is named after Napier, as is Edinburgh Napier University in Edinburgh, Scotland. The crater Neper on the Moon is named after him. Family. In 1572, Napier married Elizabeth Stirling, daughter of James Stirling, the 4th Laird of Keir and of Cadder. They had two children before Elizabeth died in 1579. Napier then married Agnes Chisholm, with whom he had ten more children. His father-in-law James Chisholm of Cromlix was later mixed up in the Spanish blanks plot, over which Napier with others petitioned the king.
96149	Jeremiah Horrocks (1618 – 3 January 1641), sometimes given as Jeremiah Horrox (the Latinised version that he used on the Emmanuel College register and in his Latin manuscripts), was an English astronomer. He was the first person to demonstrate that the Moon moved around the Earth in an elliptical orbit and was the only person to predict the transit of Venus of 1639, an event which he and his friend William Crabtree were the only two people to observe and record. His treatise on the transit, "Venus in sole visa", was almost lost to science due to his early death and the chaos brought about by the English civil war, but for this and his other work he has since been hailed as the father of British astronomy. Early life and education. Jeremiah Horrocks was born at Lower Lodge farm, in Toxteth Park, a former royal deer park, near Liverpool. His father, James, was a watchmaker who had moved to Toxteth Park to be apprenticed to Thomas Aspinwall and subsequently married his master's daughter, Mary. Both families were well educated Puritans; the Horrocks' sent their younger sons to the University of Cambridge and the Aspinwalls favoured Oxford. The unorthodox beliefs of the Puritans excluded them from public office and pushed them towards trade and industry and thus, by 1600 the Aspinwalls had become a successful family of watchmakers. As a boy, Jeremiah had an early introduction to astronomy as one of his chores was to measure the local noon in order to set the watches accurately, and his Puritan upbringing gave him an inbuilt suspicion of witchcraft, magic and astrology. Horrocks joined Emmanuel College on 11 May 1632 and matriculated as a member of the University of Cambridge on 5 July 1632 as a sizar. At Cambridge, he made friends with John Wallis and John Worthington. He was the only person at Cambridge to believe the revolutionary heliocentric theory of Copernicus and, in his spare time, used the college libraries to study the works of Johannes Kepler, Tycho Brahe and others. In 1635 he left without formally graduating, for reasons which are not clear. Marston (2007) has suggested that he may have wished to defer the cost of graduation until he had secured employment, whilst Aughton (2004) has speculated that he may have failed his exams due to concentrating too much on his own interests or that he didn't want to take Anglican orders and so a degree was of limited use to him. Astronomical observations. Now committed to the study of astronomy, Horrocks began to build up a collection of astronomical books and equipment. In 1638 he bought the best telescope he could find, having found the cheap toy one he had bought some years earlier no longer practical. As nearby Liverpool was a seafaring town, navigational instruments such as the astrolabe and cross staff were relatively easy to obtain. There was, at this time, no market for more specialised astronomical instruments and so his only option was to make his own. As luck would have it, he was well placed to do this as his father and uncles were watchmakers with the tools and expertise in producing accurate instruments. It seems likely that he would have helped with the family business during the daylight hours and, in return, the watchmakers in his family advised and assisted him with the design and construction of instruments to study the stars at night. He obtained a three foot radius astronomicus (a development of the cross staff with two movable sights on the cross piece) which he used to measure the angle between two stars, but by January 1637 he had come up against the limitations of this instrument and had built himself a larger version, eleven feet in length, in order to measure the angles more accurately. He read most of the astronomical treatises of his day, found the weaknesses in them and was suggesting new lines of research by the age of seventeen. The traditional view is that, when he left home, he supported himself financially by holding a curacy in Much Hoole, near Preston in Lancashire, but there is little evidence for this and it is more likely he was a tutor to the Stones' children. According to local tradition in Much Hoole, he lived at Carr House, within the Bank Hall Estate, Bretherton. Carr House was a substantial property owned by the Stones family who were prosperous farmers and merchants, and Horrocks was probably a tutor for the Stones' children. Lunar research. Horrocks was the first to demonstrate that the Moon moved in an elliptical path around the Earth. He also claimed that comets followed elliptical orbits and supported his theory by analogy with the conical pendulum. He noted that if the bob was drawn back and released then it followed an elliptical path, and that the major axis rotated in the direction of revolution exactly as did the apsides of the moon's orbit. He anticipated Isaac Newton in suggesting an influence on the orbit from the Sun as well as the Earth and in the "Principia" Newton acknowledged Horrocks's work in relation to the theory of the Moon. In the final months of his life he also made detailed study of tides, in an attempt to explain the nature of lunar causation of tidal movements. Transit of Venus. Horrocks was convinced that Lansberg's tables were inaccurate when Kepler predicted that a near-miss of a transit of Venus would occur in 1639. Horrocks believed that the transit would indeed occur, having made his own observations of Venus for years. Horrocks made himself a simple helioscope by focusing the image of the Sun through a telescope onto a piece of paper, where the image could be safely observed. From his location in Much Hoole, he calculated that the transit was to begin at approximately 3:00 pm on 24 November 1639 (Julian calendar, or 4 December in the Gregorian calendar). The weather was cloudy, but he first observed the tiny black shadow of Venus crossing the Sun on the paper at about 3:15 pm, and observed for half an hour until sunset. The 1639 transit was also observed by his friend and correspondent, William Crabtree, from his home in Broughton, near Manchester. Horrocks' observations allowed him to make a well-informed guess as to the size of Venus (previously thought to be larger and closer to Earth), as well as to make an estimate of the distance between the Earth and the Sun, now known as the astronomical unit (AU). His figure of 95 million kilometres (59 million miles, 0.63 AU) was far from the 150 million kilometers (93 million miles) that it is known to be today but it was a more accurate figure than any suggested up to that time. A treatise by Horrocks, "Venus in sole visa" ("Venus seen on the Sun") was published by Johannes Hevelius at his own expense in 1662. This paper, which caused great excitement when revealed to members of the Royal Society 20 years after it was written, contained much evidence of Horrocks' enthusiastic and romantic nature, including humorous comments and passages of original poetry. When speaking of the century separating Venusian transits, he rhapsodised, At a time of great uncertainty in astronomy, when the world's astronomers couldn't agree amongst themselves and theologians argued over contradictory Scriptural passages, Horrocks, although a pious man, came down firmly on the side of scientific determinism. It is wrong to hold the most noble Science of the Stars guilty of uncertainty on account of some people's uncertain observations. Through no fault of its own it suffers these complaints which arise from the uncertainty and error not of the celestial motions but of human observations...I do not consider that any imperfections in the motions of the stars have so far been detected, nor do I believe that they are ever to be found. Far be it from me to allow that God has created the heavenly bodies more imperfectly than man has observed them. - Jeremiah Horrocks Death and remembrance. Horrocks returned to Toxteth Park sometime in mid-1640 and died suddenly and from unknown causes on 3 January 1641, aged 22. As expressed by Crabtree, "What an incalculable loss!" He has been described as a bridge which connected Newton with Copernicus, Galileo, Brahe and Kepler. Horrocks is remembered on a plaque in Westminster Abbey and the lunar crater Horrocks is named after him. In 1859 a marble tablet and stained-glass windows commemorating him were installed in The Parish Church of St Michael, Much Hoole. In 1927, the Jeremiah Horrocks Observatory was built at Moor Park, Preston. The 2012 Transit of Venus was marked by a celebration held in the church at Much Hoole, which was streamed live worldwide on the NASA website. Jeremiah Horrocks Institute. The Jeremiah Horrocks Institute for Astrophysics and Supercomputing was established in 1993 at the University of Central Lancashire. In 2012 it was renamed the Jeremiah Horrocks Institute for Mathematics, Physics, and Astronomy.
1063056	The Great Ziegfeld is a 1936 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer musical film directed by Robert Z. Leonard and produced by Hunt Stromberg. It stars William Powell as the theatrical impresario Florenz "Flo" Ziegfeld, Jr., Luise Rainer as Anna Held, and Myrna Loy as Billie Burke.
1067425	Starcrash (original Italian title "Scontri stellari oltre la terza dimensione", literally "stellar clashes beyond the third dimension") is an Italian 1978 science fiction film, which was also released under the English title of "The Adventures of Stella Star" (in the US). The screenplay was written by Luigi Cozzi (pen name Lewis Coates) and Nat Wachsberger, and Cozzi also directed the film. The cast included Marjoe Gortner, Caroline Munro, Judd Hamilton, Christopher Plummer, David Hasselhoff, Joe Spinell and Robert Tessier The original music score was by Oscar winning composer John Barry ("Midnight Cowboy", "Goldfinger", "Somewhere in Time", "Dances with Wolves").
601526	Flight from Death (2003) is a documentary film that investigates the relationship of human violence to fear of death, as related to subconscious influences. The film describes death anxiety as a possible root cause of many human behaviors on a psychological, spiritual, and cultural level. It was directed by Patrick Shen and produced by Greg Bennick. The film's narration was done by Gabriel Byrne. "Flight from Death" is a seven-time Best Documentary award-winning film.
1067666	Flicka is a 2006 film loosely based on the 1941 children's novel "My Friend Flicka" by Mary O'Hara. The film is directed by Michael Mayer. The novel has previously been made into a film in 1943, and served as the inspiration for a 39-episode TV series in 1956–1957. In this version, set in the 21st century, the protagonist isn't a boy, but a girl, played by Alison Lohman. The movie also features Maria Bello, Ryan Kwanten and country singer Tim McGraw, who also served as executive producer of the soundtrack album. This USD$15 million-budgeted film grossed $21 million in the United States theaters, and then it went on to become a surprise hit in DVD market in the United States; it made more than $48 million on DVD sales and more than $19 million on DVD/Home Video rental. Plot. Katherine "Katy" McLaughlin (Alison Lohman) has big dreams of administering her father's Wyoming horse ranch one day, but her father, Rob (Tim McGraw), has other plans. He is currently grooming her older brother, Howard (Ryan Kwanten), to take over the ranch and sends Katy away to an exclusive private school where she constantly feels like a misfit. Being a similar, independent spirit to Katy, Rob has a hard time understanding his daughter as she continually defies his authority to follow her own path. When she comes home for the summer, Katy is met with her father's disapproval because she did not finish a writing assignment at school, but is happily greeted by her mother, Nell (Maria Bello), and Howard. As much as Katy wants to run the ranch, Howard does not, and instead longs to attend college. One day while out riding, Katy finds a wild mustang, and feels an instant connection with the horse. She sets off to tame the mare, which she names "Flicka", despite Rob's protests that he does not want a mustang near his horses. Later on, Flicka is captured during a roundup. Rob still does not want a wild horse running amongst the saddle horses and asks Katy not to go near Flicka. Determined to prove she can run the ranch just as well as Howard, Katy defies Rob and starts training the mare at night. Flicka slowly warms to Katy and the two developed a close bond. When Rob finds out, he sells Flicka to the rodeo, leaving Katy devastated. Both Nell and Howard are furious at Rob about making the decision without including them. Seeing his sister heartbroken over losing her beloved horse, Howard finally stands up to his father and says that he does not want the ranch. The family becomes even more divided when Rob refuses to take Flicka back. Howard and Nell refuse to help Rob with the ranch, which he is now considering selling since Howard does not want it. Meanwhile, isolated in her room, Katy starts writing about Flicka to try and escape her pain. At the rodeo, Howard and Katy (disguised as a cowboy) enter the competition that Flicka is being used in, hoping to get the horse back. Not realizing who she is at first, the frightened mare runs from Katy until the girl calls her name. Rob, however, catches onto his daughter's plan and tries to intervene. Katy freezes at the sight of her father, but Howard boosts his sister onto the mare's back and lets the two escape. Riding Flicka, Katy becomes lost in the mountains, and allows Flicka, who knows the terrain, to make her way towards the ranch. Back at the rodeo, the family reconciles and begins searching for Katy as a fierce thunderstorm moves in. As they near the ranch, Katy and Flicka are attacked by a mountain lion. The mare bolts, throwing Katy to the ground and the cat goes to attack her. Flicka protects Katy, but is badly wounded. The girl binds the mare's wounds and refuses to leave her. Already cold and wet, Katy quickly develops a high fever. After hours of searching, Rob finds the two and brings a delirious Katy back to the house. As her fever spikes dangerously high, Katy calls for Flicka as Nell tends to her. Rob thinks Flicka is mortally wounded and believes she should be put down, though fellow ranchers disagree. Overhearing the argument, a dazed Katy stumbles into the room and gives her father permission to "shoot us now." Heartbroken by her words, Rob goes outside and begins to cry as he finally understands his daughter's feelings and her pain. Later, a gunshot is heard and Katy bursts into tears, thinking Flicka is dead. The next morning, Nell finds Rob walking back to the house, supporting the injured Flicka. She runs outside to help and finds out that the gunshot was him shooting at the mountain lion. Both are stunned that the mare is still alive and decide not to put her down. Katy's fever breaks and over the next couple of days, she begins to recover. As he watches over his daughter, Rob finds the story that Katy had been writing about Flicka and begins reading it, eventually typing the story and sending it to the school so that Katy can pass for the year. When Katy wakes from the fever, she and Rob reconcile and he takes her to see Flicka, whom Katy is shocked to see is alive. Rob also apologizes to Howard and gives his son his blessing. Thrilled, Howard begins preparing for college. As a family, they decide to not sell the ranch, making it both a working ranch and a refuge for wild mustangs. Animal deaths. Two horses died during the production of this movie. The first death occurred at Big Sky Ranch in Simi Valley, California, on April 11, 2005 during a running scene. According to the American Humane Association (AHA), the horse broke its leg after a misstep and suffered a very rare injury requiring the animal to be euthanized. The AHA's report concluded that the "death was accidental and could not have been predicted or prevented." The second horse died two weeks later on April 25, 2005, at the Hansen Dam Equestrian Center in San Fernando Valley. Reports from both the AHA and the Los Angeles Animal Services Department concluded that during the shooting of a scene involving four horses, one of them got loose from the cowboy who was holding its lead rope, and after having been running loose for some 20 seconds, the horse changed direction and tripped on the regulation length 13-foot lead rope and fell to the ground, breaking its neck and dying instantly. As the accident would not have happened if the horse had not come loose, the Los Angeles Animal Services Department concluded that the accident had been preventable. However, after an investigation, the AHA declared that the deaths were not the fault of the filmmakers. Sequel. A sequel to "Flicka", "Flicka 2" was released direct to DVD on May 4, 2010. Pre-production cinematography started in April 2009. The sequel bears an entirely new cast and character list and is not a direct follow-up to "Flicka". "Flicka 2" features Patrick Warburton, Tammin Sursok and Clint Black. The movie was directed by Michael Damian. Another sequel, "", was released on May 1, 2012. With Damien returning as director, it also features Clint Black, along with Kacey Rohl, Black's wife Lisa Hartman-Black, Max Lloyd-Jones, Siobhan Williams, Laura Solties and Alexander Calvert.
1062414	Vera Ann Farmiga (; born August 6, 1973) is an American actress and film director. Farmiga made her film debut in the 1998 drama thriller "Return to Paradise". This was followed by supporting roles in the 2000 romantic film "Autumn in New York" and the 2001 television series "". She was also cast in the 2001 thriller "15 Minutes". Her other film appearances and roles include the 2003 comedy "Dummy", the 2004 drama "Down to the Bone", the 2006 crime thriller "The Departed", the 2007 horror "Joshua", and the 2008 historical drama "The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas". She made her directorial debut in the 2011 drama film "Higher Ground".
1061924	William Hall Macy, Jr. (born March 13, 1950) is an American actor, screenwriter, teacher and director in theater, film and television. His film career has been built mostly on his appearances in small, independent films, though he has appeared in summer action films as well. Macy has described himself as "sort of a Middle American, WASPy, Lutheran kind of guy... Everyman". Macy was nominated for an Academy Award for his role as Jerry Lundegaard in "Fargo". He has won two Emmy Awards and a Screen Actors Guild Award, and has been nominated for nine Emmy Awards and seven Screen Actors Guild Awards in total. He is also a three-time Golden Globe Award nominee. Since 2010 he has played the main protagonist in the Showtime television series "Shameless". Macy and actress Felicity Huffman have been married since 1997. Early life. Macy was born in Miami, Florida, and grew up in Georgia and Maryland. His father, William Hall Macy, Sr., was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross and an Air Medal for flying a B-17 Flying Fortress bomber in World War II; he later ran a construction company in Atlanta, Georgia, and worked for Dun & Bradstreet, before taking over a Cumberland, Maryland-based insurance agency, when Macy was nine years old. His mother, Lois (née Overstreet), was a war widow who met Macy's father after her first husband died in 1943; Macy has described her as a "Southern belle". Macy graduated in 1968 from Allegany High School in Cumberland, Maryland. Afterwards, he studied veterinary medicine at Bethany College in West Virginia. By his own admission a "wretched student," he transferred to Goddard College and became involved in theatre, where he performed in ensemble productions of "The Three Penny Opera", "A Midsummer Night's Dream" and a wide variety of contemporary and improvisational pieces. At Goddard, he first met playwright David Mamet. Career. After graduating from Goddard in 1971, Macy moved to Chicago, Illinois, working as a bartender to pay the rent. Within a year, he and David Mamet, among others, founded St. Nicholas Theater Company, where Macy originated roles in a number of Mamet's plays, such as "American Buffalo" and "The Water Engine". Macy spent time in Los Angeles, California, before moving to New York City, New York in 1980. While living there, he had roles in over 50 Off Broadway and Broadway plays. One of his early on-screen roles was as a turtle named Socrates in the direct-to-video film "The Boy Who Loved Trolls" (1984), under the name W. H. Macy (so as not to be confused with the actor Bill Macy). He also had a minor role as a hospital orderly on the sitcom "Kate & Allie" in the fourth season episode "General Hospital" (also as W. H. Macy). He has appeared in numerous films that Mamet wrote and/or directed, including "House of Games", "Things Change", "Homicide", "Oleanna" (reprising the role he originated in the play of the same name), "Wag the Dog", "State and Main", and "Spartan". Macy may be best known for his lead role in "Fargo", for which he was nominated for an Academy Award. The role helped boost his career and recognizability, though at the expense of nearly confining him to a narrow typecast of a worried man down on his luck. Other Macy roles of the 1990s and 2000s included "Benny & Joon", "Above Suspicion", "Mr. Holland's Opus", "Ghosts of Mississippi", "Air Force One", "Boogie Nights", "Pleasantville", Gus Van Sant's remake of "Psycho", "Happy, Texas", "Mystery Men", "Magnolia", "Jurassic Park III", "Focus", "Panic", "Welcome to Collinwood", "Seabiscuit", "The Cooler", and "Sahara". Macy has also had a number of roles on television, including a guest appearance on "The Unit", as the President of the United States. In 2003, he won two Emmy Awards, one for starring in the lead role, and one as co-writer, of the made-for-TNT film "Door to Door". "Door to Door" is a drama based on the true story of Bill Porter, a door-to-door salesman in Portland, Oregon, born with cerebral palsy. The film is composed of several stories, each taking up a whole period between commercials. His work on "ER" and "Sports Night" has also been recognized with Emmy nominations. His character in "ER", David Morgenstern, is responsible for a sage piece of advice that has been handed down throughout the series. In the pilot episode, when Julianna Margulies' character, nurse Carol Hathaway, is brought to the hospital with a drug overdose, Morgenstern tells Dr. Greene (Anthony Edwards) that he needs to "set the tone" to get the unit through the difficulty of treating one of its own. "You set the tone" is repeated several times in the series. In a November 2003 interview with "USA Today", Macy stated that he wanted to star in a big-budget action movie "for the money, for the security of a franchise like that". He serves as director-in-residence at the Atlantic Theater Company in New York, where he teaches a technique called Practical Aesthetics. A book describing the technique, "A Practical Handbook for the Actor" (ISBN 0-394-74412-8), is dedicated to Macy and Mamet. In 2007, Macy starred in "Wild Hogs", a film about middle-aged men reliving their youthful days by taking to the open road on their Harley-Davidson motorcycles from Cincinnati to the Pacific Coast. Despite being critically panned with a 14% "rotten" rating from Rotten Tomatoes, it was a financial success, grossing over $168 million. In 2009, Macy completed filming on "The Maiden Heist", a comedy that co-starred Morgan Freeman and Christopher Walken. On June 23, 2008, the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce announced Macy and his wife, Felicity Huffman, would each receive a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in the upcoming year. On January 13, 2009, Macy replaced Jeremy Piven in David Mamet's "Speed-the-Plow" on Broadway. Piven suddenly and unexpectedly dropped out of the play in December 2008 after he experienced health problems; Norbert Leo Butz covered the role from December 23, 2008, until Macy took over the part. "Dirty Girl", which starred Macy along with Juno Temple, Milla Jovovich, Mary Steenburgen and Tim McGraw, premiered September 12, 2010 at the Toronto International Film Festival. In the 2012 film "The Sessions", Macy played a priest who helps a man with a severe disability find personal fulfillment through a sex surrogate. The role is a 180-degree turn from his substance abusing anti-hero on the Showtime television series "Shameless". "Shameless". In summer 2010, Macy joined the Showtime pilot "Shameless", as the main protagonist Frank Gallagher. The project ultimately went to series, with its first season premiering January 9, 2011. Macy has received high critical acclaim for his performance. After the show's ratings improved, Showtime renewed it for a second and third season, and on January 29, 2013, for a fourth season to premiere in early 2014. Personal life. Macy and actress Felicity Huffman have been married since September 6, 1997; they have two daughters and one son, Sophia Grace (born August 1, 2000) and Georgia Grace (born March 14, 2002) and William H Macy III (born January 10 1999). Macy and Huffman appeared at a rally for John Kerry in 2004. Macy also plays the ukulele and is an avid woodturner; he has appeared on the cover of the specialist magazine "Fine Woodworking". He is a national ambassador for the United Cerebral Palsy Association. Since shooting "Wild Hogs", Macy has picked up a strong interest in riding motorcycles.
1163449	Cesar Julio Romero, Jr. (February 15, 1907 – January 1, 1994) was an American actor who was active in film, radio, and television for almost sixty years. His wide range of screen roles included Latin lovers, historical figures in costume dramas, characters in light domestic comedies, and as the Joker in the "Batman" television series, which was included in "TV Guide's "2013 list of The 60 Nastiest Villains of All Time. Early life. Romero was born in New York City, the son of Maria Mantilla and Cesar Julio Romero, Sr. His father, a native of Italy, was an importer-exporter of sugar refining machinery, and his mother was a Cuban concert singer. That lifestyle, however, changed dramatically when his parents lost their sugar import business and suffered losses in the Stock Market Crash of 1929. Romero's Hollywood earnings allowed him to support his large family, all of whom followed him to the American West Coast years later. Romero lived on and off with various family members, especially his sister, for the rest of his life. In October 1942, he voluntarily enlisted in the U.S. Coast Guard and served in the Pacific Theater of Operations. He reported aboard the Coast Guard-manned assault transport in November, 1943. According to a press release from the period he saw action during the invasions of Tinian and Saipan. The same article mentioned that he preferred to be a regular part of the crew and was eventually promoted to the rate of Chief Boatswain's Mate. Career. Romero played "Latin lovers" in films from the 1930s until the 1950s, usually in supporting roles. He starred as The Cisco Kid in six westerns made between 1939 and 1941. Romero danced and performed comedy in the 20th Century Fox films he starred in opposite Carmen Miranda and Betty Grable, such as "Week-End in Havana" and "Springtime in the Rockies", in the 1940s. He also played a minor role as Sinjin, a piano player in Glenn Miller's band, in the 1942 20th Century Fox musical, Orchestra Wives. In "The Thin Man" (1934), Romero played a villainous supporting role opposite the film's main star William Powell. Many of Romero's films from this early period saw him cast in small character parts, such as Italian gangsters and East Indian princes. He also appeared in a comic turn as a subversive opponent to Frank Sinatra and his crew in "Ocean's 11". Romero was also a romantic if aggressive leading man in films such as Allan Dwan's "15 Maiden Lane" (1936) opposite Claire Trevor, in which he spins Trevor around in a dance sequence, and played the key role of the Doc Holliday character (with name changed to "Doc Halliday") in Dwan's Wyatt Earp saga "Frontier Marshal" three years later. 20th Century Fox, along with mogul Darryl Zanuck, personally selected Romero to co-star with Tyrone Power in the Technicolor historical epic "Captain from Castile" (1947), directed by Henry King. While Power played a fictionalized character, Romero played Hernán Cortés, a historical conquistador in Spain's conquest of the Americas. Television. Among many television credits, Romero appeared several times on NBC's "The Martha Raye Show" in the middle 1950s. He played the role of Don Diego de la Vega's uncle in a number of Season Two "Zorro" episodes on ABC.
1165381	Andrew Duggan (December 28, 1923 – May 15, 1988) was an American character actor of both film and television. Viewers may have recognized his face on screen much better than his name. Background. Duggan was born in Franklin in Johnson County in central Indiana, which is also the birthplace of the actor Forrest Tucker. During World War II, he was in the 40th Special Services Company, led by actor Melvyn Douglas in the China Burma India Theater of World War II. His contact with Douglas later led to his performing with Lucille Ball in the play "Dreamgirl". Duggan developed a friendship with Broadway director Daniel Mann on a troopship when returning from the war. Duggan appeared on Broadway in "The Rose Tattoo", "Gently Does It"," Anniversary Waltz", "Fragile Fox", "The Third Best Sport". Duggan appeared in some 70 films, including "The Incredible Mr. Limpet" with Don Knotts, and in more than 140 television programs between 1949 and 1987. He was the main character in the Disney theme parks' "Carousel of Progress" and the singer of the accompanying song, "The Best Time of Your Life", subsequently updated with new voices and songs in 1993. In 1957, Duggan played a villain in the first episode of NBC's "Wagon Train", starring Ward Bond. That same year, Duggan was cast with Peter Brown and Bob Steele in the guest cast of the first episode of the ABC/Warner Brothers series, "Colt .45", starring Wayde Preston as Christopher Colt, an undercover agent and pistol salesman in the Old West. In the opening episode, "The Peacemaker" or "Judgment Day", Duggan plays Jim Rexford; Brown is cast as Dave, and Steele as Sergeant Granger. Duggan had a recurring role as General Ed Britt in the second and third seasons of the ABC war series, "Twelve O'Clock High". He appeared on the NBC westerns "Jefferson Drum" and "Bonanza" and was also in the pilot episodes of both NBC's "The Restless Gun" and CBS's "Hawaii Five-O", as a former prisoner and an intelligence agent, respectively. Bourbon Street Beat. In 1959, Duggan was contracted to Warner Bros. where he was cast in ABC's "Bourbon Street Beat", in which he portrayed Cal Calhoun, the head of a New Orleans detective agency. When "Bourbon Street Beat" was canceled after a single season, the two other detectives in the series were transferred to other Warner Bros. detective series: Van Williams as Kenny Madison remained in the same time slot with a new series "Surfside 6". Richard Long as Rex Randolph assumed ailing Roger Smith's position on the hit series "77 Sunset Strip". In 1962, Duggan starred in the 26-week ABC situation comedy, "Room for One More", with co-stars Peggy McCay, Ronnie Dapo, and Tim Rooney, a son of Mickey Rooney. The series is about a couple with two children who adopt two others. During this time Duggan guest starred in several Warner Bros. Television series and appeared in several Warner Bros. films, including "The Chapman Report" and "Merrill's Marauders" and the television pilot "FBI Code 98". He also provide narration for several Warner Bros. film trailers. 1960s. Duggan guest starred in numerous television series in the 1960s, including the series "Tombstone Territory" in the episode "The Epitaph". He appeared as an incorrigible criminal trying to gain amnesty in the 1962 episode "Sunday" of the ABC/WB series, "Lawman", starring John Russell. In 1963, he guest starred on the short-lived ABC/WB western series, "The Dakotas". Duggan was cast on Jack Palance's ABC circus drama, "The Greatest Show on Earth" and the NBC medical drama about psychiatry, "The Eleventh Hour" in the role of Carl Quincy in the 1963 episode entitled "Four Feet in the Morning". He played the over-protective Police Chief Dixon in the 1963 spring break film "Palm Springs Weekend", tying to prevent his daughter (Bunny Dixon played by Stefanie Powers) from seeing student Jim Munroe (Troy Donahue). In 1965, he appeared on David Janssen's ABC series, "The Fugitive". Duggan had recurring roles on CBS's 90-minute western, "Cimarron Strip", and on ABC's "The Great Adventure". He had roles in the 1964 film, "Seven Days in May", and played the U.S. President and an imposter in the 1967 film, "In Like Flint" "Lancer" series (1968). Duggan portrayed the patriarch in a 1968–1970 series inspired by "Bonanza" called "Lancer", in which he portrayed a darker and more complex counterpart of Lorne Greene's Ben Cartwright named "Murdoch Lancer", while James Stacy portrayed Lancer's gunfighter son, Johnny Madrid, son of Maria, Murdoch's second wife. Wayne Maunder portrayed the older son, Scott Lancer, who had been educated in Boston. Ironically, in real life Maunder had been reared in nearby Bangor, Maine. Unlike "Bonanza", "Lancer" lasted for only fifty-one episodes, but critics cited the scripts and performances as excellent. Paul Brinegar co-starred as Jelly Hoskins, having played a similar role of "Wishbone" on CBS's earlier western series "Rawhide", with Eric Fleming and Clint Eastwood. Later Film and Television Work. Duggan played John Walton in the original 1971 "The Waltons" television special "". The part was played by Ralph Waite in the subsequent series. In 1973, Duggan had a cameo appearance in the blaxploitation film "Black Caesar", starring Fred Williamson. During the very beginning of the film, he plays the man who is shot to death while getting his shoes shined on the sidewalk. In 1980, Duggan appeared as Sam Wiggins in the ABC television movie "The Long Days of Summer", and later that same year guest-starred in an episode of the CBS series "M*A*S*H*" as Col. Alvin 'Howitzer Al' Houlihan, the legendary father of Margaret Houlihan, played by Loretta Swit, in the episode "Father's Day".
589003	Insaaf Ka Tarazu is a 1980 Hindi film produced and directed by B. R. Chopra, based on the 1976 drama film Lipstick. The film stars Raj Babbar, Deepak Parashar, Zeenat Aman, Padmini Kohlapure, Iftekhar, Simi Garewal, Shreeram Lagoo and Dharmendra in a guest appearance. The music of the film was composed by Ravindra Jain. The film was remade later in Telugu as "Edi Nyayam Edi Dharmam" in 1982. The film became a box office hit.[http://boxofficeindia.com/showProd.php?itemCat=186&catName=MTk4MA==]
586694	Ram Sethi (Also known as Pyare-laal) is an Indian actor. Biography. Ram Sethi (Pyarelal) entered the Indian film industry in 1969, and started off his career as an assistant to Ravi Tandon (the father of Raveena Tandon). After doing some free-lance work, he joined Prakash Mehra, and was employed as his right-hand man for over 20 years. Here he did many projects with actors like Amitabh Bachchan, Jeetendra,Shashi Kapoor, Vinod Khanna, Raaj Kumar, Anil Kapoor, Sanjay Dutt, Sridevi, Smita Patil, Parveen Babi, Pran, Amjad Khan and many other new actors. He has worked as an actor/writer/director for many movies in the last 40 years. Along with these skills, he also worked as an assistant director, screenplay writer, dialogue writer & independently directed "Ghungroo", starring Shashi Kapoor, Smita Patil, and Waheeda Rehman. He appeared in comical roles with Amitabh Bachchan in several films(Sethi's most notable appearances along with Bachchan includes Namak Halaal, Zanjeer and Kaalia). He currently resides in Versova, Mumbai and is working as an actor, screenplay writer, consulting director and advisor for film-making.
583506	Paathshaala (; "School") is a 2010 Bollywood film that stars Shahid Kapoor, Ayesha Takia, Ali Haji and Nana Patekar and is directed by Milind Ukey. The story revolves around children on a school campus. It comments on the Indian education system and its shortcomings. Kapoor plays an English and music teacher. It is inspired by the Marathi film "Shaala", also directed by Milind Ukey. "Paathshaala" opened on 16 April 2010 to mixed reviews. Plot. The story begins with a new English teacher Rahul Udyavar (Shahid Kapoor) joining Saraswati Vidya Mandir school, in the Mirpurkhas suburbs. He strikes instant rapport with students and teachers alike.
1061552	William Wyler (July 1, 1902 – July 27, 1981) was an American film director, producer and screenwriter. Notable works included "Ben-Hur" (1959), "The Best Years of Our Lives" (1946), and "Mrs. Miniver" (1942), all of which won Wyler Academy Awards for Best Director, as well as Best Picture in their respective years. Wyler won his first Oscar nomination for directing "Dodsworth" in 1936, starring Walter Huston, Ruth Chatterton and Mary Astor, "sparking a 20-year run of almost unbroken greatness." Film historian Ian Freer calls Wyler a "bona fide perfectionist", whose penchant for retakes and an attempt to hone every last nuance, "became the stuff of legend." His ability to direct a string of classic literary adaptations into huge box-office and critical successes made him one of "Hollywood's most bankable moviemakers" during the 1930s and 1940s. Other popular Wyler films include "Funny Girl" (1968), "How to Steal a Million" (1966), "The Children's Hour" (1961), "The Big Country" (1958), "Roman Holiday" (1953), "The Heiress" (1949), "The Letter" (1940), "The Westerner" (1940), "Wuthering Heights" (1939), "Jezebel" (1938), "Dodsworth" (1936), and "Hell's Heroes" (1930). Early life. Wyler was born Willy Wyler to a Jewish family in Mulhouse, Alsace (part of the then-German Empire). His Swiss father, Leopold, started as a traveling salesman which he later turned into a thriving haberdashery business. His mother, Melanie (died February 13, 1955, Los Angeles, California, aged 77), was German, and a cousin of Carl Laemmle, founder of Universal Pictures. During Wyler's childhood, he attended a number of schools and developed a reputation as "something of a hellraiser", being expelled more than once for misbehavior. His mother often took him and his older brother Robert to concerts, opera, and the theatre, as well as the early cinema. Sometimes at home his family and their friends would stage amateur theatricals for personal enjoyment. After realizing that Willy was not interested in the family business, and having suffered through a terrible year financially after World War I, his mother contacted her distant cousin about opportunities for him. Laemmle was in the habit of coming to Europe each year and finding promising young men who would work in America. In 1921, Wyler, traveling as a Swiss citizen (his father's status automatically conferred Swiss citizenship to his sons), found himself and a young Czech man, Paul Kohner (later the independent agent), aboard the same ship en route to New York. Their enjoyment of the first class trip was short-lived as they found they had to pay back the cost of the passage out of their $25 weekly income as messengers to Universal Pictures in New York. After working in New York for several years, and even serving in the New York National Guard for a year, Wyler decided he wanted to go to Hollywood and be a director. Film career. Around 1923, Wyler arrived in Los Angeles and began work on the Universal Studios lot in the swing gang, cleaning the stages and moving the sets. His break came when he was hired as a 2nd assistant editor. His work ethic was uneven with Irving Thalberg nicknaming him "Worthless Willy". After some ups and downs (including getting fired), he focused on becoming a director. He started as a third assistant director and by 1925 he became the youngest director on the Universal lot directing the Westerns that Universal was famed at turning out. In 1928, he became a naturalized United States citizen. He directed his first non-Western, the lost "Anybody Here Seen Kelly?", in 1928. These were followed by his first part-talkie films, "The Shakedown" and "The Love Trap". He proved himself an able craftsman, and in the early 1930s began directing such films as "Hell's Heroes", "Tom Brown of Culver", and "The Good Fairy". He became well known for his insistence on multiple retakes, resulting in often award-winning and critically acclaimed performances from his actors. After leaving Universal he began a long collaboration with Samuel Goldwyn for whom he directed such classics as "Dodsworth" (1936), "These Three" (1936), "Dead End" (1937), "Wuthering Heights" (1939), "The Westerner" (1940), "The Little Foxes" (1941) and "The Best Years of Our Lives" (1946).
1758790	Today You Die is a 2005 American action film directed by Don E. Fauntleroy, and also produced by Steven Seagal, and starring Seagal. The film was released direct-to-video on September 13, 2005. Plot. Harlan Banks (Steven Seagal) is a Robin Hood kind of thief who has always picked his own jobs and tried to pull heists that would leave him room to help out others. The work keeps getting riskier, and at the urging of his girlfriend Jada (Mari Morrow), Banks has decided to pull one final job, going in with some men who are planning a $20 million robbery. After the heist goes bad, Banks heads to Las Vegas, where Jada wants him to get a real job. On the way to town, Banks and Jada passed a children's hospital displaying a going-out-of-business sign. Banks gets a job driving an armored car for a man, Max (Kevin Tighe). The job is not exactly legitimate, and Bruno (Robert Miano), Banks's partner for the job, shoots a security guard, resulting in a chase through the Vegas strip in the armored van. Banks is stopped and sent to prison, where he befriends an inmate known as Ice Cool (Treach). With Ice's help, Banks escapes, determined to hunt Max down. Along the way, Banks meets a federal agent named Saunders (Nick Mancuso), and it turns out that Saunders, who is in league with Max, is the man behind the setup. Banks sets out to take down both Saunders and Max with a job. Legal troubles. The producers of "Today You Die" filed lawsuits against Seagal because of experiences during the filming. Producers at Nu-Image and Kill Master Productions alleged that Seagal, while filming this and "Mercenary for Justice", arrived at the set late, left early, and re-wrote scripts without their permission, among other things. Seagal disputed the suit, and he countersued against producers, claiming fraud and breach of contract. As of January 2006, it appeared the legal issues have not yet been resolved.
582206	London Dreams is a 2009 Bollywood musical drama film directed by Vipul Shah. The film features Salman Khan and Ajay Devgn in lead roles with Asin as the female lead. It released on 30 October 2009, and turned out to be an average grosser. The music was by the trio of Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy with lyrics by Prasoon Joshi. Plot. The story revolves around two childhood friends Arjun (played by Ajay Devgn) and Mannu (played by Salman Khan). Arjun wants to become a music star, so he inadvertently asks God for his father's death. When he and his uncle move to London, Arjun runs away. Arjun creates a fledgling band with Zoheb and Wasim (Rannvijay Singh and Aditya Roy Kapoor respectively), two brothers who duped their relatives in Pakistan to travel to London in pursuit of their musical aspirations. He also brings aboard Priya (played by Asin), a music enthusiast from a conservative South Indian family. Back in India, Mannu seduces married women and finds himself in debt with the locals. After paying Mannu's debt, Mannu goes to London to join Arjun's band, but becomes more popular with the crowds. Mannu also flirts with Priya, who is earlier shown to have been flirting with Arjun. The band embarks on a three-city tour spanning Paris, Rome and Amsterdam where Arjun deceives a naive Mannu into a rollercoaster ride of promiscuous sex and illicit drugs. He tricks him, gets him addicted to drugs, and then gets him arrested in a car full of them. While pretending to help Mannu, Arjun leaks the drug story to the press. As the three-city tour concludes, the band heads to London to perform at Wembley Stadium in front of an audience estimated at 90,000 (which is of significance since, earlier in the movie, the viewer is told that Arjun's grandfather had failed before a similar audience). Knowing how important this is for Arjun, Mannu tries to give up drugs. But Arjun decides that his success and Mannu's total failure are related. He pays a girl to pretend to have oral sex with Mannu, which makes Priya break up with Mannu. In this fragile state, Zoheb pushes Mannu toward drugs again so that he can't come on stage. In the moments leading up to the stage entrance, Mannu comes to senses and chooses the righteous path and runs to support his mate. But Arjun, who has become incensed with the crowd chanting Mannu's name, confesses his envy of Mannu's talent and what he did to finish Mannu off. The audience boos Arjun, the band breaks up and a sad Mannu goes back to his village. Arjun's uncle (Om Puri), advises him to apologize to Mannu. Then it is revealed that after knowing the truth Priya and Mannu reconcile. Also, she marries Mannu and lives with him in his village. In the village, however, Mannu tells him not to apologize saying that it was his fault that he didn't see Arjun's sorrow and Priya also pardons Arjun for his wrong deeds. They get back together and London Dreams becomes a successful band again. Reception. Critical response. "London Dreams" received mixed to negative reviews from critics. Taran Adarsh praised the performance of the principal cast, while criticizing the climax. Rajeev Masand gave a scathing review of the movie, describing it as a "frustratingly foolish film about foolish people." Chandrima Pal of Rediff criticized the background music of the movie, while praising the dialogues, as well as Ajay Devgan's performance. Noyon Jyoti Parasara of AOL said "The last twenty minutes of ‘London Dreams’ take away half its spirit." Soundtrack. The song style is generally rock inspired to match the motifs in the movie.
1163689	Veronica Lake (November 14, 1922 – July 7, 1973) was an American film actress. Lake won both popular and critical acclaim, most notably for her role in "Sullivan's Travels" and for her femme fatale roles in film noir with Alan Ladd, during the 1940s. She was also well known for her peek-a-boo hairstyle. By the late 1940s, Lake's career had begun to decline in part due to her struggles with mental illness and alcoholism. She made only one film in the 1950s but appeared in several guest-starring roles on television. She returned to the screen in 1966 with a role in the film "Footsteps In the Snow", but the role failed to revitalize her career. Lake released her memoirs, "Veronica: The Autobiography of Veronica Lake", in 1970. She used the money she made from the book to finance a low-budget horror film "Flesh Feast". It was her final onscreen role. Lake died in July 1973 from hepatitis and acute renal failure at the age of 50. Early life. Lake was born Constance Frances Marie Ockelman in Brooklyn, New York. Her father, Harry E. Ockelman, of German-Danish descent, worked for an oil company aboard a ship. Her father died in an industrial explosion in Philadelphia in 1932 when she was ten. Her mother, Constance Charlotta (née Trimble; 1902–1992), of Irish descent, married Anthony Keane, a newspaper staff artist, also of Irish descent, in 1933, and Lake began using his last name. Lake lived in Saranac Lake, New York, and went to St. Bernard's School for a time. She was sent to Villa Maria, an all-girls Catholic boarding school in Montreal, Canada, from which she was expelled. The Keane family later moved to Miami, Florida. Lake attended Miami High School, where she was known for her beauty. She had a troubled childhood and was diagnosed as schizophrenic, according to her mother. Career. In 1938 Lake moved with her mother and stepfather to Beverly Hills, where her mother enrolled her in the Bliss-Hayden School of Acting. Her first appearance on screen was for RKO, playing a small role among several coeds in the 1939 film, "Sorority House". Similar roles followed, including "All Women Have Secrets" and "Dancing Co-Ed". During the making of "Sorority House", director John Farrow first noticed how her hair always covered her right eye, creating an air of mystery about her and enhancing her natural beauty. She was then introduced, while still a teenager, to the Paramount producer Arthur Hornblow, Jr. He changed her name to Veronica Lake because the surname suited her blue eyes. RKO subsequently dropped her contract. A small role in the comedy "Forty Little Mothers" brought unexpected attention. In 1941 she was signed to a long-term contract with Paramount Pictures. 1940s icon. Her breakthrough film was "I Wanted Wings" in 1941, a major hit in which Lake played the second female lead and was said to have stolen scene after scene from the rest of the cast. She had starring roles in more popular movies, including "Sullivan's Travels", "This Gun for Hire", "I Married a Witch", "The Glass Key", and "So Proudly We Hail!". René Clair, the director of "I Married a Witch", said of Lake "She was a very gifted girl, but she didn't believe she was gifted." For a short time during the early 1940s, Lake was considered one of the most reliable box office draws in Hollywood. She became known for onscreen pairings with actor Alan Ladd. At first, the couple was teamed together merely out of physical necessity: Ladd was just tall and the only actress then on the Paramount lot short enough to pair with him was Lake, who stood just . They made four films together. A stray lock of her shoulder-length, blonde hair during a publicity photo shoot led to her iconic "peekaboo" hairstyle, which was widely imitated. During World War II, Lake changed her trademark image to encourage women working in war industry factories to adopt more practical, safer hairstyles, although doing so may have damaged her career. She was popular with the public, earning $4,500 a week at one stage, and raising a reported $12 million in war bonds in various tours. Lake had a complex personality and acquired a reputation for being difficult to work with. Eddie Bracken, her co-star in "Star Spangled Rhythm", was quoted as saying, "She was known as 'The Bitch' and she deserved the title." In that movie, Lake took part in a song lampooning her hair style, "A Sweater, A Sarong and a Peekaboo Bang", performed with Paulette Goddard and Dorothy Lamour. Joel McCrea, her co-star in "Sullivan's Travels", reportedly turned down the co-starring role in "I Married a Witch", saying, "Life's too short for two films with Veronica Lake." Decline. Lake's career stumbled with her unsympathetic role as Nazi spy Dora Bruckman in 1944's "The Hour Before the Dawn". Scathing reviews of "The Hour Before the Dawn" included criticism of her unconvincing German accent. She had begun drinking more heavily during this period and people began refusing to work with her. Paramount tried Lake in a series of comedies. Few were successful but she was in the popular thriller "The Blue Dahlia" (1946), in which she again co-starred with Ladd. During filming, screenplay writer Raymond Chandler referred to her as "Moronica Lake". Paramount decided not to renew her contract in 1948. Looking back at her career years later, Lake remarked, "I never did cheesecake; I just used my hair." After a single film for 20th Century Fox, "Slattery's Hurricane" (1949), her career collapsed. By the end of 1951 she had appeared in one last film "Stronghold" (which she later described as "a dog"). Lake and her second husband, Andre De Toth, filed for bankruptcy that same year. The IRS later seized their home for unpaid taxes. Lake turned to television and stage work. Personal life. Lake earned her pilot's license in 1946 and later flew solo between Los Angeles and New York. In 1955 she collapsed in Detroit where she had been appearing on stage. Marriages and children. Lake's first marriage was to art director John S. Detlie, in 1940. They had a daughter, Elaine (born in 1941), and a son Anthony (born July 8, 1943). Anthony was born prematurely a week after Lake fell over a cable while filming. Anthony died on July 15, 1943. Lake and Detile separated in August 1943 and divorced in December 1943. Her former husband blamed the marriage breakdown on Lake's constant absences on war bond raising tours. He also claimed she was an unfit mother. However, Lake was awarded custody of their child. She married film director Andre De Toth in 1944 with whom she had a son, Andre Anthony Michael III (known as Michael De Toth), and a daughter, Diana (born October 1948). Days before Diana's birth, Lake's mother sued her for support payments. Lake and De Toth divorced in 1952. In September 1955, she married songwriter Joseph Allan McCarthy. They were divorced in 1959. Lake's fourth and final marriage was to Royal Navy captain Robert Carleton-Munro in June 1972. Lake divorced Carleton-Munro after one year. Later years. After her third divorce, Lake drifted between cheap hotels in New York City, and was arrested several times for public drunkenness and disorderly conduct. A "New York Post" reporter found her working as a barmaid at the all-women's Martha Washington Hotel in Manhattan. "I'm sick and tired of people asking me about that," said Lake later. "I was paying $190 a month rent and that's a long way from being broke." However, the reporter's widely distributed story led to some television and stage appearances, most notably in the off-Broadway revival of the musical "Best Foot Forward". (Her contract overlapped with the departing Liza Minnelli and the two briefly co-starred together.) In 1966, she had a brief stint as a TV hostess in Baltimore, Maryland, along with a largely ignored film role in "Footsteps in the Snow". Her memoirs, "Veronica: The Autobiography of Veronica Lake", were released in the United Kingdom in 1969, and in the United States the following year. In the book, Lake discusses her career, her failed marriages, her alcoholism, and her guilt over not spending enough time with her children. With the proceeds from her autobiography, she co-produced and starred in her last film, "Flesh Feast" (1970), a very low-budget horror movie with a Nazi-myth storyline. Lake then moved to Ipswich, England, where she met and married Royal Navy captain Robert Carleton-Munro, in June 1972. The marriage lasted just one year and Lake returned to the United States in June 1973. She went to the Virgin Islands awaiting a divorce when she fell ill. Death. Lake died on July 7, 1973, of hepatitis and acute renal failure (complications of her alcoholism) in Burlington, Vermont's Fletcher Allen Hospital. Her son, Michael, claimed her body. Lake's memorial service was held at the Universal Chapel in New York City on July 11. Lake was cremated and, according to her wishes, her ashes were scattered off the coast of the Virgin Islands. In 2004, some of Lake's ashes were reportedly found in a New York antique store. For her contribution to the motion picture industry, Veronica Lake has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6918 Hollywood Boulevard. In popular culture. Lake was one of the models for the animated character of Jessica Rabbit in the 1988 film "Who Framed Roger Rabbit", especially for her hairstyle. In the 1997 film "L.A. Confidential" (based on James Ellroy's 1990 novel), Kim Basinger won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her portrayal of a prostitute who is a Veronica Lake look-alike, and who is complimented by a police officer who tells her, "You look better than Veronica Lake".
589760	Haath Ki Safai (English: 'Skill of Hand', here it means skill in pickpocketing) " is a 1974 Hindi film produced by I.A Nadiadwala. Directed by Prakash Mehra, the film features Vinod Khanna, who won the Filmfare Best Supporting Actor Award, the only nomination and win for the film. The rest of the cast include Hema Malini, Randhir Kapoor, Simi Garewal, Ranjeet and Satyen Kappu. The music is by Kalyanji Anandji. The film became a "semi-hit" at the box office. The film was later remade in Telugu as "Manushulu Chesina Dongalu" (1976). Story. Two brothers get separated, when fleeing from their village and reach Mumbai. Raju Randhir Kapoor is led to a crook and becomes a Pick pocket under his tutelage. The elder one Shankar Vinod Khanna becomes a Crime-Boss. Shankar is popularly know as Kumar in his circle and is married to Roma Simi Gerwal, who is pregnant with their child. Roma is unaware of his criminal activities. His runs a hotel as a cover for his criminal activities and mostly involved in smuggling gold and diamond.
1130956	Ice Spiders is a 2007 horror/Sci-fi movie that premiered on June 9, 2007 on the Sci Fi Channel. "Ice Spiders" stars Patrick Muldoon, Vanessa A. Williams, Noah Bastian, K. Danor Gerald and Matt Whittaker and was released on DVD in 2007. It is also quite famous for being one one of the worst movies 2007 ever produced. Plot. Dan "Dash" Dashiell (Patrick Muldoon) is a retired Olympic skier who works at a ski resort in the mountains of Utah. On a restricted side of the mountain, Dr. April Sommers (Vanessa A. Williams) is working on creating a new breed of spider with several others. When a group of teen skiers arrives at the mountain, Chad (Noah Bastian) challenges Dash to a race. The two show some impressive moves as the others look on. When Dash reaches a large rocky slope, he turns back and goes down another way rather than risk a leg injury like the one that ruined his career. As Dash makes it to the bottom, He meets Dr. Sommers. While they talk for a while, Frank (Stephen J. Cannell) takes the teens inside the resort. After a brief discussion, Dr. Sommers returns to the lab, where she finds dead scientists everywhere. She finds the sole survivor cocooned in a spider web. He warns Dr. Sommers about the spiders escaping and then slowly dies. When she turns to leave, the last spider remaining at the lab, a mutated Black Widow, attacks her and forces her into a locked office. She finds an alarm and engages it, which alerts Professor Marks (David Millbern) and Army Captain Baker (Thomas Calabro) who are elsewhere on the mountain, to her location. Meanwhile, back at the lodge, Dash meets up with Ranger Rick (a pun on the children's nature magazine) who asks Dash to assist him in finding two hunters who did not return to their homes. When they find the hunters' truck parked, they dismount their snowmobiles and take a look around. Dash finds a mutilated Elk and thinks it was killed by a bear. He shoots a flare to summon Rick. When Rick arrives, they find the body of one of the hunters. When they reach a huge spider web, they find the other hunter, cocooned in the web. As they turn to run, Rick is snagged by a web and is dragged to a spider that kills him as Dash watches in horror. Dash makes it back to the hunters' truck and hot-wires it to get away. Back at the lab, Professor Marks, Captain Baker, and a squad of soldiers enter the compound and find Dr. Sommers, who tries to warn them of the danger. Inside the lab, the spider attacks and kills a soldier. Dr. Sommers steals records of the experiment and realizes Professor Marks deliberately accelerated the spiders' growth, which makes them larger, faster, and stronger. She drives back to the lodge. When Dr. Sommers meets up with Frank and Johnny, a man comes in and screams for help. Frank and Dr. Sommers watch as the spiders kill several guests, including the teens' ski coach. Frank sees the teens hiding in a shed, leads them to a bus and gets them safely inside. Chad gets the keys and drives off, crashing the bus into a snow bank and causing it to fly off of the road. Dash returns to the hotel and helps secure it. When he and Dr. Sommers search the basement, a spider gets in and almost attacks them, but they stun it with a fire extinguisher and lock it in the basement. Back in the lobby, a spider crawls in through the chimney and kills two guests before Dash impales it with the antlers of a mounted deer head. Meanwhile, on the crashed bus, after checking the area, Frank makes sure the kids are okay. However, one of them is unconscious and injured. They think of a way to get out as the black widow tries to get in. Eventually, Franks traps the spider and the kids escape. Frank is almost killed but is rescued thanks to the timely arrival of Captain Baker and his squad. Back at the lodge, Dash devises a plan with Captain Baker over a radio to trap the spiders. He takes his skis and leads the spiders to a snowboard half-pipe, which Baker and his men are blocking off. Johnny heads toward an avalanche cannon ands waits for Dash's signal. At the half-pipe, the spiders are captured and Dash signals Johnny, who blows the spiders up. Professor Marks, who had been opposed to killing the spiders, charges at Dash and tries to kill him. Marks falls down the side of the half-pipe to the last spider, which kills him as Baker shoots the beast. A government agent then arrived with a group of military soldiers that begins erasing all traces of evidence. The agent demands that the survivors keep quiet about recent events and explains the cover up, being a spill of hallucinogenic chemicals. Home Media. Ice Spiders was released to DVD on October 16, 2007
1265348	Ann Harding (August 7, 1902 – September 1, 1981) was an American theatre, motion picture, radio, and television actress. Early years. Born Dorothy Walton Gatley at Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio, Texas, to George G. Gatley and Elizabeth "Bessie" Crabb. The daughter of a career army officer, she traveled often during her early life. Her father was born in Maine and served in the American Expeditionary Force in World War I. He died in San Francisco, California in 1931. The family finally settled in New York; Harding attended Bryn Mawr College in Bryn Mawr, PA, on the Pennsylvania Main Line outside Philadelphia. Career. Following school, she found employment as a script reader. She began acting and made her Broadway debut in 1921. She soon became a leading lady, who kept in shape by using the services of Sylvia of Hollywood. She was a prominent actress in Pittsburgh theatre for a time, performing with the Sharp Company and later starting the Nixon Players with Harry Bannister. In 1929, she made her film debut in "Paris Bound", opposite Fredric March. In 1931, she was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress for "Holiday". First under contract to Pathé, which was subsequently absorbed by RKO studio, Harding (who was promoted as the studio's 'answer' to MGM's superstar Norma Shearer), co-starred with Ronald Colman, Myrna Loy, Herbert Marshall, Leslie Howard, Richard Dix, and Gary Cooper, often on loan out to other studios, such as MGM and Paramount. At RKO, Harding, along with Helen Twelvetrees and Constance Bennett, comprised a trio who specialized in the "women's pictures" genre. Her performances were often heralded by the critics, who cited her diction and stage experience as assets to the then-new medium of "talking pictures". Harding's second film was "Her Private Affair", in which she portrayed a wife of questionable morality. The film was an enormous commercial success. During this period, she was generally considered to be one of cinema's most beautiful women, with her long waist-length blonde hair as one of her most noted physical attributes. Her films during her peak include "The Animal Kingdom", "Peter Ibbetson", "When Ladies Meet", "The Flame Within", and "Biography of a Bachelor Girl." Harding, however, eventually became stereotyped as the innocent, self-sacrificing young woman. Following lukewarm responses by both her critics and the public to several of her later 1930s films, she eventually quit making movies when she married the conductor Werner Janssen in 1937. However, she returned in 1942 to make "Eyes in the Night" and to take secondary roles in other movies. In 1956, she again starred with Fredric March, this time in "The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit". The 1960s marked her return to Broadway after an absence of decades — she had last appeared there in 1927. In 1962, she starred in "General Seeger", directed by and co-starring George C. Scott, and in 1964 she appeared in "Abraham Cochrane". Both productions had brief runs, with the former play lasting a mere three performances (including previews). Harding made her last acting appearance in 1965 in an episode of "Ben Casey" before retiring from acting. Personal life. Harding married actor Harry Bannister in 1926. They had one child together before divorcing in 1932. Their daughter Jane was born in 1928 and died in December 2005. In 1937, Harding married Werner Janssen, the famous conductor. Janssen and Harding enjoyed life in a number of cities, before settling down in California to work more closely with Hollywood. The couple divorced in 1962. Her death certificate states that she had an adoptive daughter Grace Kaye Harding. Death. On September 1, 1981, Harding died at the age of 79 in Sherman Oaks, California. After cremation, her urn was placed in the Court of Remembrance wall at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Hollywood Hills, California. For her contributions to the motion picture and television industries, Harding has two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame located at 6201 (motion picture) and 6840 Hollywood Boulevard (television).
629057	Ian Bliss is an Australian actor, best known for his role as Bane in "The Matrix Reloaded" and "The Matrix Revolutions", for which he was chosen by the Wachowski Brothers because of his accurate impersonation of Hugo Weaving (Agent Smith), and also his partial resemblance to Weaving. After his appearance in the "Matrix" sequels, Bliss took minor roles in the feature films "Stealth" and "Superman Returns". He also played the Peacekeeper scientist Drillic in the "Farscape" episode "Losing Time". He has also appeared in several Australian television drama series including "Heartbreak High", "Underbelly", "Blue Murder" and "Canal Road". He appeared on the episode 8 of the 2010 HBO miniseries "The Pacific" as Capt. "Le Francois".
591911	Shivaraj Kumar or Shivarajkumar (born Putta Swamy on 12 July 1962) is an Indian film actor, producer, playback singer, philanthropist and television presenter best known for his work in Kannada cinema He is the oldest son of the Kannada thespian Dr. Rajkumar. During his career spanning more than three decades, Kumar has acted in more than 100 films .
1044085	Carry On Camping is a 1969 comedy film and the seventeenth in the series of "Carry On" films to be made. It features series regulars Sid James, Kenneth Williams, Charles Hawtrey, Joan Sims, Terry Scott, Hattie Jacques, Barbara Windsor, Bernard Bresslaw and Peter Butterworth. Plot. Sid Boggle (Sid James) and his friend Bernie Lugg (Bernard Bresslaw) are partners in a plumbing business. They take their girlfriends, the prudish Joan Fussey (Joan Sims) and meek Anthea Meeks (Dilys Laye), to the cinema to see the film "Paradise" about a nudist camp. Sid has the idea of the foursome holidaying there, reasoning that in the environment their heretofore chaste girlfriends will relax their strict moral standards. Sid easily gains Bernie's co-operation in the scheme, which they bravely attempt to keep secret from the girls. They travel to the campsite named "Paradise". After paying the fees to the owner, money-grabbing farmer Josh Fiddler (Peter Butterworth), Sid realises it is not the camp of the film but a standard family campsite. Furthermore, it not a paradise but a damp field with the only facilities being a basic ablutions block. They reluctantly agree to stay after Fiddler refuses a refund and the girls approve of the place. There is further disappointment when the girls won't share a tent with the boys. Sid and Bernie soon set their sights on a bunch of young ladies on holiday from the "Chayste Place" finishing school. The ringleader of the girls is blonde and bouncy Babs (Barbara Windsor). In charge of the girls is Dr Soaper (Kenneth Williams), who is fervently pursued by his lovelorn colleague, the school's matron, Miss Haggard (Hattie Jacques). During an outdoor aerobics session led by Dr Soaper, Babs' bikini top flies off and is caught by Soaper. (The effect was achieved with a fishing rod and line attached to the garment.) Other campers are Peter Potter (Terry Scott), who hates camping but must endure a jolly yet domineering wife Harriet (Betty Marsden), who has a hideous braying cackle. Naive first-time camper Charlie Muggins (Charles Hawtrey), completes the mismatched trio. Chaos ensues when a group of hippies arrive in the next field for a noisy all-night rave – a live concert by band "The Flowerbuds". The campers club together and successfully drive the ravers away, but all the girls leave with them. However, there is a happy ending for Bernie and Sid when their girlfriends finally agree to sleep with them. Their joy is short-lived when Joan's mother turns up but Anthea lets a goat loose which chases Joan's mother away. Filming and locations. Interiors: Exteriors:
584479	Sendhoorapandi is a Tamil film, released in 1993 directed by S. A. Chandrasekhar. The cast for the film include Vijay, Vijaykanth, Gouthami Tadimalla, Manorama and Yuvarani. Plot. The story is about Vijay is a college student who comes back after finished his studies. He meets village headman's daughter Yuvarani, both of them in love with each other. Yuvarani's brother Ponnambalam opposes to their marriage. Vijaykanth is the elder brother of Vijay who returns from jail. The story carries a flashback of Vijaykanth where Gouthami is his lover. Finally what happens? Is Vijay and Yuvarani wins in their love forms the rest of the story. Soundtrack. There are 5 songs composed by Deva.
1164305	Maury Sterling (born Charles Maury Wallace Sterling; September 1, 1971) is an American actor. He is best known for playing Rafferty in the comedy film "Beverly Hills Chihuahua" and Lester Tremor in the action film "Smokin' Aces". Life and career. Sterling was born in Mill Valley, California. He has guest starred on numerous television series, including "Judging Amy", "ER", ', "24" and ' to name a few. His only TV series regular was in the sitcom "Alright Already", whiched lasted only one season from 1997-98. It originally aired on the now-defunct WB Television Network. Sterling has also appeared in a number of films, mostly in supporting roles. His prominent role came in the 2006 action film "Smokin' Aces" where he played Lester Tremor of the psychotic neo-Nazi Tremor Brothers (opposite Chris Pine and Kevin Durand). His role required shaving his head, and shaving his eyebrows off. Sterling's other prominent role came in the 2008 comedy film "Beverly Hills Chihuahua" where he played Rafferty, one of the villains in the movie where he dognaps Chloe, the chihuahua voiced by Drew Barrymore. He will co-star on the upcoming ABC drama series "Gilded Lillys" created and produced by Shonda Rhimes.
1069269	Riding Alone for Thousands of Miles (, Japanese: 単騎, 千里を走る) is a 2005 drama film directed by Zhang Yimou and starring Ken Takakura. It premiered at the Tokyo International Film Festival on 22 October 2005 and was released in China on 22 December 2005. Written by Zou Jingzhi, the film tells the story of Gouichi Takata (Takakura), an aged Japanese father who, ever since his wife died, has not been in good terms with his son. When he learns that his son has been diagnosed as having liver cancer, he decides to travel to the Yunnan province in China in his son's place to film "Riding Alone for Thousands of Miles", a traditional item in the local "nuo" opera (傩戏), of which his son is a leading scholar. The father hopes that by doing so, he might finally gain the forgiveness of his son. The title of the film is an allusion to the fabled story of Guan Yu's perilous solo journey to reunite with his sworn brother and lord Liu Bei, as told in the "Romance of the Three Kingdoms". It is a story about brotherly love and loyalty much told in Chinese folklore and operas. The film draws the parallel between the folk tale and Takata's quest to fulfill his son's wish. Plot. Gouichi Takata (played by Ken Takakura) is an aged Japanese father who has not been in good terms with his son Kenichi (Kiichi Nakai) ever since his wife died many years ago. When he learns that his son has been hospitalised, Gouichi travels to Tokyo but Kenichi, still angry that his father left him for a remote fishing town in Japan's northern Akita province to escape the reality of his mother's death, refuses to see Gouichi. Kenichi's wife Rie (Shinobu Terajima) then gives her father-in-law a video tape made by Kenichi so that Gouichi may learn more about his son. The tape contains a footage of Li Jiamin, a Nuo opera artiste from a village in Yunnan province of China. In the recording, Li promised Kenichi to perform "Riding Alone for Thousands of Miles" for him if he returns the next year. Gouichi then decides to go to China in his sick son's place to film Li's performance. Gouichi arrives in Li Village (李家村), near the city of Lijiang, only to learn that Li has been imprisoned for assaulting someone who insulted his illegitimate son. His translator Jiang Wen (known as "Jasmine" in the translated script) and the local guide Qiu Lin (known as "Lingo" in the translated script) suggest that he films someone else, but Gouichi insists on Li. After much trouble attaining clearances from the authorities, Gouichi gains entry to the prison facility. However, Li breaks down in tears on stage and is unable to perform as he misses his son badly. Gouichi decides to travel to Stone Village (石头村) to fetch Li's eight-year-old son, Yang Yang (Yang Zhenbo). While in the village, Gouichi receives a call from Rie, who tells him that Kenichi has been touched by his efforts in China and requests he comes home. Gouchi wonders if the message ultimately comes from Rie or Kenichi; he continues with his plan to unite Li and Yang Yang. On the way back from Stone Village, the vehicle breaks down. Yang Yang takes the chance to run away as he does not want to meet a father he has never seen. As Gouichi chases after the boy, both become lost in the limestone hills. They have no choice but to spend the night in a cave awaiting rescue. Yang Yang, initially hostile towards Gouichi, gradually warms up to him. The next morning, they are found by a combined effort of villagers and the police. Gouichi feels that Yang Yang's opinion should be respected and decides not to force him to meet with his father. At this time, Gouichi receives another call from Rie, who informs him that Kenichi has died, leaving behind a letter announcing the long-awaited forgiveness. Gouichi returns to the prison with many photographs of Yang Yang. The much moved Li promises to put up his best performance. Supported by a band of musicians and co-performers, all inmates of the prison as well, Li performs "Riding Alone for Thousands of Miles". With his own solo journey in a foreign country to seek forgiveness from his son finally concluded, Gouichi returns to his fishing town. DVD release. "Riding Alone for Thousands of Miles" was released on DVD on 6 February 2007 and distributed in the United States by Sony Pictures Classics. The DVD features the original Chinese / Japanese audio track, as well as dubbings in French and Portuguese, with English, Spanish, French and Portuguese subtitles. The DVD also contains "The Making of Riding Alone for Thousands of Miles" as a special feature.
1062209	Tatum Beatrice O'Neal (born November 5, 1963) is an American actress and author. She is the youngest person ever to win a competitive Academy Award, which she won at age 10 for her performance as Addie Loggins in "Paper Moon" (1973) opposite her father, Ryan O'Neal. She then starred in "The Bad News Bears" in 1976, followed by "Nickelodeon", and "Little Darlings". O'Neal married professional tennis player John McEnroe in 1986, with whom she had three children. The couple separated in 1992 and were divorced in 1994. Family background. O'Neal was born in Los Angeles, California, to actors Ryan O'Neal (1941-) and Joanna Moore (1934-1997), who had appeared in various motion pictures and television shows. Her brother, Griffin, was born in 1964. In 1967, her parents divorced and her father quickly remarried. Her father's marriage to actress Leigh Taylor-Young produced Tatum's half-brother, Patrick, but the union ended in divorce in 1973. Tatum has another half-brother, Redmond, from Ryan O'Neal's relationship with actress Farrah Fawcett. O'Neal's mother died of lung cancer in 1997 at age 63, after a career in which she appeared in such movies as "Walk on the Wild Side" and "Follow That Dream". Career. Child actress. In 1974 at age 10, Tatum O'Neal won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress and the Golden Globe Award for New Star Of The Year - Actress for her performance in "Paper Moon," released in May 1973. The youngest ever to win a competitive Academy Award, she turned 9 years old during filming in autumn 1972. O'Neal played the role of Addie Loggins, a child con artist being tutored by a Depression-era grifter played by her father, Ryan. Beginning in 1934, the Academy Juvenile Award, also known as the Juvenile Oscar, was a Special Honorary Academy Award bestowed at the discretion of the Board of Governors of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to specifically recognize juvenile performers under the age of eighteen for their "outstanding contributions to screen entertainment". The Award continued to be presented intermittently over the next 25 years until 1961, when 12-year-old Hayley Mills became the last recipient to be awarded the child-size statuette for her role in "Pollyanna". After 1961, juvenile performers were placed in competitive categories with their adult peers. O'Neal also starred in notable films such as "The Bad News Bears" (1976) with Walter Matthau, "International Velvet" (1978) with Christopher Plummer and Anthony Hopkins, and "Little Darlings" (1980) with Kristy McNichol. She also appeared in the less-successful film "Nickelodeon" (1976) with her father Ryan, and in "Circle of Two" (1980) with Richard Burton. She appeared as the title character in the "Faerie Tale Theatre" episode "Goldilocks and the Three Bears" (1984). Adult career. O'Neal's relationship with John McEnroe began in 1984 when she moved into his Central Park West condo in New York City. She appeared in only five films during the next 15 years. One notable role was her portrayal of Cynthia Kruger in "Basquiat" (1996). In the early 2000s, O'Neal began acting again and made guest appearances on "Sex and the City", "8 Simple Rules for Dating My Teenage Daughter", and "". In 2005, O'Neal began a recurring role as Maggie Gavin on the firehouse drama series "Rescue Me", portraying the unbalanced and lively sister of Tommy Gavin, played by Denis Leary. In January 2006, she participated in the second season of ABC's reality series "Dancing with the Stars" with professional partner Nick Kosovich. They were eliminated in the second round. She went on to do commentary for the series on "Entertainment Tonight". From 2006 to 2007, she portrayed the vindictive and psychotic Blythe Hunter in the My Network TV drama "Wicked Wicked Games". She appears opposite Nashawn Kearse and Vanessa L. Williams in the film "My Brother" (2007). In 2011, Tatum and her father, Ryan began to restore their broken father/daughter relationship after 25 years. Their reunion and reconciliation process was captured in the short-lived Oprah Winfrey Network series, "". Personal life. Family and relationships. One of O'Neal's first public boyfriends was pop star Michael Jackson, whom she dated in the late 1970s. Jackson described O'Neal as his first love, and in a 2002 interview with Martin Bashir said that O'Neal tried to seduce him, but he was terrified by the idea of sex. O'Neal adamantly denied all of Jackson's claims in her 2004 autobiography. In 1986, O'Neal married tennis player John McEnroe. She invited no one from her family to the ceremony. The couple have three children: Kevin (born 1986), Sean (born 1987) and Emily (born 1991). They separated in November 1992 and were officially divorced in 1994. Following the divorce, O'Neal's drug problems re-emerged and she developed an addiction to heroin. As a result of her drug problems, McEnroe obtained custody of the children in 1998. O'Neal has been estranged from her father for over 25 years. A reconciliation process was begun in 2011 in the television series, "". Arrest. On June 1, 2008, she was arrested for buying crack cocaine near her Manhattan apartment building. When police searched her, they found two bags of drugs — one of crack cocaine, one of powder cocaine — and an unused crack pipe. She was charged with a misdemeanor criminal possession of a controlled substance. Authorities released her without bail. On July 2, 2008, O'Neal pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct in connection with the arrest and agreed to spend two half-day sessions in a drug treatment program. Autobiography claims. In her autobiography, "A Paper Life", O'Neal alleged that she was molested by her father's drug dealer when she was 12. She also alleges physical and emotional abuse from her father, much of which she attributed to drug use. She also detailed her own heroin addiction and its effects on her relationship with her children. Her father, Ryan, denied these allegations. In a prepared statement, Ryan O'Neal said: "It is a sad day when malicious lies are told in order to become a 'best-seller'." In 2011, O'Neal wrote a new collections of memoirs titled "Found: A Daughter's Journey Home", which dealt with her tempestuous relationship with her father, tempestuous marriage to John McEnroe, and her recent drug arrest.
1227320	Tickle Me is a 1965 American musical comedy film starring Elvis Presley as a champion rodeo bull-rider and bronco-buster. Presley won a 1966 Golden Laurel Award as best male actor in a musical film for this role. It is the only Elvis film released by Allied Artists Pictures and saved the studio from financial collapse, "Tickle Me" helping to avert bankruptcy thanks to a song from its recycled soundtrack, "(Such an) Easy Question", which was a Top 40 hit in the United States, peaking at #11 on the "Billboard" Hot 100 and reaching #1 on the "Billboard" Easy Listening chart in
1017545	Dragons Forever (飛龍猛將; Fei lung maang jeung, Brave Dragons) is a 1988 Hong Kong martial arts action comedy film directed by Sammo Hung. The film stars Hung, Jackie Chan and Yuen Biao. The three actors, known colloquially as the "Three Brothers", had attended the famous China Drama Academy together, and became members of the Seven Little Fortunes. This is the last film to date that all three have appeared in together. It was directed by Sammo Hung and another former member of the Seven Little Fortunes, Corey Yuen (aka Yuen Kwai). Yet another classmate, Yuen Wah, plays the film's main villain, while legendary kickboxer Benny Urquidez plays his right hand man. "Dragons Forever" was filmed between September and November 1987. Synopsis. A fishery is seeking court action against a local chemical factory for polluting the water. The mysterious chemical company hires lawyer Jackie Lung (Jackie Chan) to find information that will discredit the fishery. He employs his arms dealer friend, Wong (Sammo Hung) to woo the fishery owner, Miss Yip (Deannie Yip), to try to convince her to settle out of court.
940341	The Slipper and the Rose is a 1976 British musical film retelling the classic fairy tale of Cinderella. This film was chosen as the Royal Command Performance motion picture selection for 1976. Directed by Bryan Forbes, the film stars Gemma Craven as the heroine, Richard Chamberlain as the Prince, and a supporting cast led by Michael Hordern, Kenneth More, Edith Evans and Annette Crosbie. Academy Award nominated songs are written by Richard M. Sherman and Robert B. Sherman, who also shared scripting duties with Forbes and, reportedly, the film's executive producer, broadcaster David Frost. Plot. This is a musical twist on the classic love story of Cinderella and Prince Charming. Prince Edward of Euphrania returns home after being sent to meet the princess Selena, whom his parents have arranged for him to marry. However, The Prince reveals he did not propose to the princess he was visiting, and angrily denounces arranged marriages ("Why Can't I Be Two People?"). Edward decides to tell his parents that he wants to marry for love. They, however, are more interested in the political side, ("What Has Love Got To Do With Being Married?"). They fail to sway the prince, however. Meanwhile, Cinderella, on the same day that her father was buried, is banished to the cellar and made to work as a servant to her cold-hearted Stepmother and her two vindictive daughters, Isobella and Palatine who treat her harshly and cruelly. Cinderella finds some comfort in remembering happier times ("Once I Was Loved"). Whilst putting flowers by her parents' grave, she inadvertently stumbles upon the prince, and his friend John, who are visiting the crypt. The Prince sardonically talks about his dead ancestors, with whom he will one day be buried, ("What A Comforting Thing To Know"). Back at the castle, the King of Euphrania is advised that a marriage between Edward and a Princess from one of Euphrania's neighbouring countries (and thus potential enemies) would help prevent war. A ball is seen as the perfect way to help Edward choose his bride, ("Protocolligorically Correct"). The Prince hates the idea, though his cousin Montague is delighted, ("Bride-Finding Ball"). When news arrives that the country which is home to the princess Edward has declined to marry intends to make war on Euphrania, Edward has no choice but to accept. However, less than half the princesses accept the invitation, so the local nobility, including Cinderella's Stepmother and Stepsisters, are invited. The Stepmother and Stepsisters demand that Cinderella sew all three of them elegant gowns for the ball from the fabric of their old dresses. Cinderella has no idea what to do. As luck would have it a fairy godmother, who has a talent for sensing the wishes of those who are pure in heart, arrives and while Cinderella rests, creates three beautiful gowns. That night, the Stepmother and Stepsisters depart for the ball leaving Cinderella alone. Cinderella's Fairy Godmother returns and informs Cinderella that she too can go to the ball. A coach and horses are magically prepared and Cinderella is sent off to the ball with a warning that the magic can only last until midnight, ("Suddenly It Happens"). It is love at first sight when Cinderella and Edward meet at the ball, ("Secret Kingdom"). As the clock strikes midnight, Cinderella races away, leaving only behind her glass slipper, ("When He / She Danced With Me"). Edward sends his servants out far and wide in search of the woman who fits the glass slipper. The search turns out empty-handed. Edward builds a monument for the slipper and hopes that one day his lost love will turn up. John is also suffering as a result of love- he is in love with a noblewoman, but his position forbids them to be together, ("Position and Positioning"). Finally, frustrated by his fruitless search, Edward breaks the monument, tossing the slipper into the woods where Cinderella finds it. Cinderella and Edward meet again and head back to the castle. They are greeted by the Stepmother and Stepsisters. Edward asks the permission of the Stepmother to marry Cinderella and she gives full permission, if only to get Cinderella off her hands. Cinderella tells her Stepmother and Stepsisters that she forgives them for their abuse. In the Throne Room, Edward and Cinderella go before the King and Queen. Whilst the King and Queen find Cinderella to be charming, something seems to be troubling the King. He takes the Lord Chamberlain aside and tells him that there is no way his son and Cinderella, a non-royal, can be married. The Lord Chamberlain conveys this to Cinderella, explaining also that a military alliance through marriage must be established with one of the neighbouring kingdoms to protect against war and to secure the safety and future existence of Euphrania. Along with this disheartening news it is also explained that she will have to be exiled that very night. Brokenhearted, Cinderella asks the Lord Chamberlain to tell Edward that she never loved him, because she knows that Edward will try and find her because of his love for her, ("Tell Him"). Edward, knowing he's fighting a losing battle, agrees to marry whomever the King and Queen choose, but says that his marital duties will go no further than the altar. Cinderella, living peacefully in exile, still thinks of Edward, ("I Can't Forget The Melody"). Her Fairy Godmother arrives and asks Cinderella why she isn't at the castle as Edward is getting married that day. Cinderella, surprised, asks who Edward is marrying. The Fairy Godmother doesn't know but plans to set things right. Back at the Castle, as the wedding is taking place, everyone is surprised when Cinderella shows up in a wedding gown. The King interrupts the wedding and he and his council meet in private. The fairy godmother joins the discussion and convinces the king to change the law, so that Edward can marry the girl of his choice. In a surprising twist, brought about by the Fairy Godmother's magic, Edward's cousin and his chosen bride fall in love at first sight, and marry, thus fulfilling the alliance after all. Cinderella and Edward live happily ever after. Songs. In its initial US release by Universal Pictures, the songs "What Has Love Got To Do With Being Married" and "I Can't Forget the Melody" were cut. They were also cut from the soundtrack LP, released in the US (MCA 2097). Award nominations. The Sherman Brothers were nominated for the following awards for "The Slipper and the Rose": Reception. At the 24 March 1976 Royal Command Performance of the "The Slipper and the Rose" the Queen Mother commented to the songwriters, "The waltz you wrote for the ballroom scene is the most beautiful song I've ever heard." Writing in "The New York Times", critic Vincent Canby called the film "harmless", adding that the writers "stretched the fable without mercy, largely to accommodate a whole bunch of forgettable songs by the Shermans", and that, as the Prince and Cinderella, "Mr. Chamberlain and Miss Craven have impossible roles that are less like characters in a fairy tale than pictures on a jar of peanut butter." In other media. In the 2006 London play, "Frost/Nixon", playwright Peter Morgan makes reference to Executive Producer, David Frost's involvement in "The Slipper and the Rose" suggesting that Frost is more "entertainer" than serious journalist. Productions. "See main article: The Slipper and the Rose (musical)" United Kingdom. The 1984 musical production has been run often on the British stage. North America. United States. It made its US premiere in February 2004 at the Hale Center Theater in Salt Lake City, Utah. A production was also put on in November -December 2008 at the Tacoma Musical Playhouse in Tacoma, Washington. Canada. "The Slipper and the Rose" had its Canadian premiere on Saturday 28 May 2011 at the Beaubois Theatre in Montreal, Quebec. Home video. In 2000, this film was released in the USA on DVD by Image Entertainment, in its original full-length British version, with audio commentary by director Bryan Forbes. Its extras included a video interview with the Sherman Brothers and a promotional featurette. This DVD is currently out of print.
1437138	Tommy Flanagan (born 3 July 1965) is a Scottish film and television actor from Glasgow, Scotland. Flanagan is the third of five children. His first television roles were in "Screen One", 1992 and "Taggart" in 1993. Flanagan worked in Robert Carlyle's Raindog Theatre for three years before being cast in "Braveheart" (1995). He has had roles in "Face/Off", "The Game", "Sunset Strip", "Gladiator", "Alien vs. Predator", "Sin City", "Smokin' Aces", "", "When a Stranger Calls", "All About the Benjamins", "The Last Drop" and the mini-series "Attila." Flanagan also portrayed arms dealer Gabriel Schecter in the first episode of 24's seventh season. Career. In October 2010, Flanagan was revealed as the spokesperson for the Scottish soft drink Irn-Bru. Flanagan appeared in the episode "Headlock" of "Lie To Me", aired in the U.S. on Monday, 2 August 2010. He is currently a regular cast member on "Sons of Anarchy", in which he plays outlaw biker Chibs Telford. Personal life. Born in Glasgow, Scotland, Flanagan's distinctive facial scars (Glasgow smile) are the result of a knife attack outside a nightclub where he had been working as a DJ. He and wife Dina Livingston welcomed a baby girl in early 2012, they named her Aunjanue Elizabeth Flanagan.
1059467	Dale Adam Dye (born October 8, 1944) is an American author, actor, presenter, businessman, and retired United States Marine Corps captain who served in combat during the Vietnam War. In military parlance, Dye is a Marine Corps Limited Duty Officer (LDO), also known as a mustang, i.e., someone who began as an enlisted service member and earned their commission after enlistment, in Dye's case rising all the way from Private to Captain. Early life and Marine service. Dye was born in Cape Girardeau, Missouri, the son of Della Grace (née Koehler) and Dale Adam Dye. Fellow Marine correspondent Gustav Hasford dubbed him "Daddy D.A" (as he was among the oldest of the correspondents) and included him as a character in his first semi-autobiographical Vietnam novel, "The Short-Timers", and more extensively in his second, "The Phantom Blooper". The movie based on Hasford's first novel, "Full Metal Jacket", included the "Daddy D.A" character (played by Keith Hodiak), though neither the character nor Dye's name is explicitly mentioned in the dialogue. In his book "Dispatches", journalist Michael Herr provides a vivid picture of Dye during the chaos of the Tet Offensive and the Battle of Huế: ""And there was a Marine correspondent, Sergeant Dale Dye, who sat with a tall yellow flower sticking out of his helmet cover, a really outstanding target. He was rolling his eyes around and saying, 'Oh yes, oh yes, Charlie's got his shit together here, this will be bad,' and smiling happily. It was the same smile I saw a week later when a sniper's bullet tore up a wall two inches above his head, odd cause for amusement in anyone but a grunt."" Writing career. Dye has written a number of novels, including "Run Between The Raindrops" (1985, also published as "Citadel") and "Conduct Unbecoming" (1992.) In addition he wrote the novelisation of the film "Platoon". Founding "Warriors, Inc." and other work. After his retirement in 1984 from the United States Marines, Dye founded Warriors, Inc., a California company that specializes in training actors for realistic military portrayals, for movies of the war genre. In the 1986 movie "Platoon," he played Captain Harris and served as military technical advisor. He also wrote the novelization based on Oliver Stone's screenplay. Dye has also appeared in some of the films of which his company has served. He played a role in the movie "Casualties of War" and also played Colonel Robert F. Sink in the HBO miniseries "Band of Brothers", on which his company also worked, and is now beginning a directing career. He appeared in "Outbreak" portraying Lieutenant Colonel Briggs, a US Army officer. He plays Theodore Roosevelt's superior officer, Colonel Leonard Wood, in the TNT miniseries "Rough Riders". He has a small role in "Saving Private Ryan" as an aide to General George Catlett Marshall as well as a role playing the Admiral's aide, Captain Garza, in "Under Siege" and "Under Siege 2". He has another small role in "Spy Game" as Commander Wiley during the rescue sequence, in "Mission Impossible" as Frank Barnes of CIA, in "JFK" as General Y, and in "Starship Troopers" as a high-ranking officer in the aftermath of the Brain Bug capture. Dye played himself in "Entourage", teaching Vince to scuba dive in preparation for his role in "Aquaman". He appeared in the 2011 Tom Hanks film "Larry Crowne". Additionally, Dye used to host a Sunday evening radio show on KFI AM 640, Los Angeles. He occasionally does fill-in. Dye has also been involved in the "Medal of Honor" series of video games as a consultant. He was featured in two tracks on Hoobastank's CD "Every Man for Himself". He hosted The History Channel's documentary series "The Conquerors". He consulted for Lucas Art 2008 scheduled "Fracture" video game as well as appearing in a cameo role as Col. Robert Sink (Commander of the 101st Airborne Division's 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment) in a video game "". He was the technical adviser for the 1994 Oliver Stone movie "Natural Born Killers." Dye has also worked on the HBO companion piece to "Band of Brothers", the ten-part mini-series "The Pacific", which was shot in Australia. Dye currently plays Col. Porter in the TNT science fiction series "Falling Skies". Dye, along with wife Julia and comic book artist Gerry Kissell created one of 2011's critically acclaimed and best selling graphic novels, "", for publisher IDW Publishing, that tells the story of the Navy SEAL raid on Osama bin Laden's compound. Military awards. Dye's military decorations include:
1165874	Norman Fell (March 24, 1924 – December 14, 1998), born Norman Noah Feld, was an American actor of film and television, most famous for his role as landlord Mr. Roper on the sitcom "Three's Company" and its spin-off, "The Ropers". Early life. Fell was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to a Jewish family, and went to Central High School of Philadelphia. In college he studied drama at Temple University after serving as a tail gunner in the United States Army Air Forces during World War II. Later, Fell honed his craft at The Actors Studio. Career. Although Fell is best known for his television work, he also played minor character roles in several motion pictures including the original "Ocean's 11", "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World", "PT 109", "The Graduate", "Bullitt", and "Catch-22" as Sergeant Towser. He appeared alongside Ronald Reagan in Reagan's last film, "The Killers".
1066303	Shadow Conspiracy is a 1997 political thriller film starring Charlie Sheen, Donald Sutherland and Linda Hamilton. Sam Waterston, famous for his role as a district attorney in "Law & Order", appears in the film as the president of the United States. It is the final film directed by George P. Cosmatos, who died of lung cancer in 2005. Plot. Set in Washington D.C., this film documents an attempted power grab by White House Chief of Staff Jacob Conrad (Donald Sutherland). Bobby Bishop (Charlie Sheen) is a special aide to the president, and finds out about a plot to assassinate the president from a former professor. Bobby's old professor is quickly murdered, and he is left to try to uncover the conspiracy on his own. He recruits his journalist friend Amanda Givens (Linda Hamilton) to help him uncover the mystery and stop the assassination. Reception. The film received extremely negative reviews from critics with Rotten Tomatoes giving this a film a rare 0% rating based on 28 reviews. "Shadow Conspiracy" was a gigantic flop at the box office, grossing less than $2 million domestically and was soon pulled from theaters due to lack of publicity. Marine One. When the US Secret Service would not allow the filmmakers to land their UH-1 Huey on the South Lawn, they used stock footage of the President's helicopter, Marine One, landing instead.
1033390	Jackboots on Whitehall is a 2010 British satirical film portraying an alternate history of the Second World War, in which Nazi Germany has seized London, causing the British to band together at Hadrian's Wall if they are to thwart the German invasion. This is the first film of its kind to feature animatronic puppets and the voices of well-known British actors including Ewan McGregor, Rosamund Pike, Richard E. Grant, Timothy Spall, Richard O'Brien and Richard Griffiths. The film was executive produced by Frank Mannion. The film was released in the United Kingdom on 8 October 2010. Plot. In 1940, the Nazi enemy invades Great Britain by drilling under the English Channel and up through the cobblestones on Whitehall. In London, from his bunker under Downing Street, Prime Minister Winston Churchill (Timothy Spall) issues a call to arms for all of Britain to band together to resist the invaders. In a small village, Chris (Ewan McGregor), a young farm worker rallies the residents to fight back. Joining forces with Churchill's small group of soldiers, the resistance movement retreats to Hadrian's Wall where the unlikely saviours of the country come from the Scottish highlands. Cast. As appearing in "Jackboots on Whitehall", (main speaking roles and screen credits identified): Cast notes. In using real-life characters to embody a more accurate portrayal, some characters are easily recognizable. The character of Fiske, for example, was obviously patterned after Battle of Britain hero, U.S. pilot Billy Fiske but embodies the characteristics of screen legend Clark Gable.
1066743	Son in Law is a 1993 American comedy film starring Pauly Shore, Carla Gugino, Lane Smith, Cindy Pickett, Tiffani Thiessen, Patrick Renna, Dan Gauthier and Dennis Burkley. Plot. Rebecca "Becca" Warner (Carla Gugino) is a small town South Dakota farm girl who has given up the small town life in favor of college at the University of Los Angeles. After arriving, she encounters a massive culture shock in both the city and her own dormis seriously considering returning home — until she meets Crawl (Pauly Shore), her dorm residential advisor who has been attending college for several years. He persuades her to stay in California and begins to introduce her to the lifestyles and customs that she had been so afraid of. She begins to enjoy her time there, and gives herself a makeover, cutting and dying her hair and even getting a tattoo of a butterfly on her ankle. When it comes time for the Thanksgiving holiday break, an impending almost-definite proposal from Becca's at-home boyfriend Travis fills her with mixed feelings. Discovering that Crawl has no family to visit during this time, she impulsively invites him to come spend Thanksgiving with her family. Upon her return home, Becca's parents Walter (Lane Smith), Connie (Cindy Pickett), her teenage brother Zack (Patrick Renna), her grandfather Walter Sr. (Mason Adams) and Travis (Dan Gauthier) are shocked by her SoCal style and changes. Their normally conservative lifestyle is intruded upon by Crawl, who initially got on Walter's wrong foot when Walter was moving Becca into the dorms. Their objections are kept relatively mild until they go to dinner, when Becca prompts Crawl to intervene with Travis's proposal. Improvising, Crawl says that he had already proposed. The announcement prompts Travis to punch Crawl in the face, causing Crawl's nose to bleed and making a big scene even worse. Walter is appalled at the idea of his daughter marrying Crawl, especially when Crawl claims his interest in someday inheriting the Warner dairy farm. Walter's farmhand Theo (Dennis Burkley) helps to send Crawl through the pratfalls and often failures of adjusting to farm life. Incredibly, Crawl rebounds, slowly earning Walter's grudging respect along the way. Crawl also makes friends with one of Becca's high school friends, Tracy (Tiffani Thiessen) and he adjusts to the life of a country boy. Slowly but surely, Crawl's distinctive and outgoing nature begins to win over the Warners. Crawl attempts to save Walter Sr.'s life through CPR when Walter has a spell without his heart medication. Instead he ends up terrifying Walter, but he gains a little of Jr's respect. Crawl's abundant knowledge of computers and youthful attitude endear him to Zack, who starts to think of Crawl as a big brother. Connie is brought out of her shell through Crawl's praise of her hidden good looks. Soon everyone starts to see Crawl in a new light—except for Travis, and Theo, whose job has been made much harder due to circumstances brought about by Crawl's buffoonery. Travis sets up a bachelor party to welcome Crawl into their lives and sets up Tracy to sing and dance for him. The next morning Crawl and Tracy awaken in the barn, having apparently slept together, but neither of them can remember what happened. This upsets Becca, who immediately calls off the engagement. Crawl, ashamed, leaves to hitchhike back to Los Angeles. Tracy discovers a bottle of pills in her car, and that the driver's seat has mysteriously been pushed far back. She picks Crawl up from the road and they confront Theo and Travis, who take responsibility for setting them up. Theo is praised for his honesty, but fired by Walter on the spot. Travis tries to confront Becca about the incident, but Crawl knocks him to the floor, revealing that he had majored in karate for two of his semesters. Tracy is then welcomed to the table, and just as Becca is about to reveal that the proposal was a hoax, Crawl interrupts her, advising that they should wait a while before actually getting married, suggesting he plans a legitimate proposal to Becca, and finally earning Walter's full respect. Production. After "Encino Man", Disney had the option of two more films with Shore. Shore was considering a film "Totally London" with New Line Cinema, but was persuaded by Katzenberg to stay with Disney and make "Son in Law". Promotions. The promotional poster for the film is a parody of the painting "American Gothic". The opening title sequence and graduation ceremony scene were filmed at Sierra Vista High School, located in Baldwin Park, California at the old football stadium. To promote the film, MTV ran a contest to marry Pauly Shore in Las Vegas. Tanya Cinotti of Salisbury, Massachusetts, won the honor and the wedding was set for July 2, 1993. Though there was a ceremony, no marriage certificates were signed. Reception. Rotten Tomatoes gives the film a score of 22% based on reviews from 18 critics. The "Los Angeles Times" suggests the film is trying to be a comedy version of "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner" although the lead character is genuinely a destructive jerk. The film is given some small praise for its "bright surface, brisk direction and even a few funny performances" but the reviewer bemoans "laborious innuendoes and slick double-entendres".
1712224	Boss Nigger is a 1974 film directed by Jack Arnold. It stars former football player Fred Williamson, who both wrote and co-produced the film. "Boss Nigger" is the first film for which Williamson was credited as screenwriter or producer. Plot. Upon finding a wagon under attack by bandits, two black bounty hunters, Boss and Amos (Fred Williamson and D'Urville Martin, respectively) intervene and save Clara Mae, a black woman (Carmen Hayworth). Upon inspecting the bodies, the bounty hunters find several have rewards to their name and one holds a letter from the mayor of the nearby town San Miguel inviting him to become sheriff on the recommendation of fugitive Jed Clayton (William Smith). The pair take Clara Mae to safety in San Miguel and meet mayor Griffin (R.G. Armstrong). Knowing that there is no sheriff and holding proof that the mayor intended to give it to a gang member, Boss is able to outsmart the mayor and intimidate other members of the town council into giving him the position. As sheriff, Boss and Amos keep the peace and enforce several "Black Laws" such as issuing fines or periods in jail for calling either of them a "nigger" in public. In his duties Boss meets Miss Pruit (Barbara Leigh), a white schoolteacher, who initially offends Boss by talking of the fond memories she has of her family's black slaves, but earns his forgiveness and develops a romantic interest in him. When a gang of Jed Clayton's men meet the mayor in the town saloon to extort supplies from the town (an arrangement that the mayor allows on the understanding that the gang will do no harm to the town or its citizens), Boss and Amos kill one gang member and arrest two more - with one prisoner being killed as he attempts to escape town assisted by the mayor.
629241	The Hard Word (released in some regions as "The Australian Job") is a 2002 Australian crime film about three bank-robbing brothers who are offered a role in a bold heist while serving time in prison. The film was written and directed by Scott Roberts, and stars Guy Pearce and Rachel Griffiths. The film is not well known, but for some is a major success for Australian cinema. The plot centers around three brothers, sophisticated armed robbers led by the shrewd Dale (Pearce) who work with their long-time lawyer, Frank and corrupt police to pull off the biggest heist in Australian history. Matters become complicated when Dale begins to realize that while he's been in jail his wife, Carol (Griffiths) has been sleeping with Frank, who has schemes of his own. The major heist is a reworking of the 1976 "Great Bookie Robbery", with a number of variations, including the murders of several people. Box Office. "The Hard Word" grossed $2,957,456 at the box office in Australia.
396005	Cha Tae-hyun (born March 25, 1976) is a South Korean actor and singer. Internationally he is best known for his lead roles in the comedies "My Sassy Girl" and "Speedy Scandal". Career. Cha Tae-hyun started his career as a silver medalist in a 1995 KBS Talent Contest. Over the next several years he would star in a large number of TV dramas such as "Sunflower" and "Happy Together", while also appearing in numerous TV commercials. He was the radio DJ for KBS Cool FM's "FM Popular Music with Cha Tae-hyun" from 1999-2000, and made a minor film debut in the comedy "Hallelujah".
1039414	Patricia Ann Hodge (born on 29 September 1946 in Cleethorpes, Lincolnshire) is an English actress. Early life. The daughter of the "Royal Hotel" owner/manager Eric and his wife Marion (née Phillips), Hodge attended Wintringham Girls' Grammar School on Weelsby Avenue in Grimsby and then St. Helen's School, Northwood, Middlesex; before attending Maria Grey College (became West London Institute of Higher Education in 1976 then the Twickenham campus of Brunel University from 1995–2005), Twickenham to train as a teacher. She taught English and drama at in Chorleywood, Hertfordshire, whilst also applying to London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art. She started at LAMDA when she was 22, being awarded on graduation the Eveline Evans Award for Best Actress. Career. After graduation, she concentrated on theatre work and 18 months later worked with Bob Fosse on "Pippin." However, she found when applying for television work she had become classed as a theatre actress. Having made the break-through in the role of Phyllida (Trant) Erskine-Brown in "Rumpole of the Bailey", she found when trying to make the occasional return to theatre work that she had been classed as a television actress. Finding the need to have a flexible career to care for her young children, Hodge made the decision to focus her career on the stage, and hence is mainly seen on television in focus parts and singular roles in-between chosen different theatre roles. She has appeared in roles as diverse as in "The Naked Civil Servant" opposite John Hurt,as Myra Arundel in the 1984 BBC version of Noel Coward's "Hay Fever", as Margaret Thatcher in "The Falklands Play," and in 2007 as Betty, the wife of tycoon Robert Maxwell, in the BBC TV drama "Maxwell" opposite David Suchet. She took the female lead in the 1983 film, "Betrayal" (based on Harold Pinter's play "Betrayal"), a roman à clef derived from the playwright's affair with broadcaster Joan Bakewell. She co-starred with Dame Judi Dench in the 1995 London revival of Stephen Sondheim's "A Little Night Music" as Countess Charlotte Malcom. She was nominated for a BAFTA for her role in a television adaptation of Anita Brookner's "Hotel du Lac" in 1987, and was awarded the Laurence Olivier Theatre Award in 2000 for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in the production of "Money" at the Royal National Theatre. Hodge is an Honorary Graduate (DLitt) of Brunel University and one of the founder members of the Brunel Club. Since 2009, she has played a comedy role in the BBC sitcom "Miranda", as the mother of the eponymous main character. She is joint President of Grimsby's Caxton Theatre. Personal life. Hodge married music publisher Peter Douglas Owen on 31 July 1976 in Tonbridge. The couple have two children: Alexander Richard Charles (born March 1989); and Edward Frederick James (born January 1992).
1449187	Carol Cleveland (born 13 January 1942, London) is a British actress and comedienne, most notable for her appearances as the only significant female performer on "Monty Python's Flying Circus". Early life. Born in East Sheen, London, she moved to the United States with her mother and U.S. Air Force stepfather at an early age. She was brought up in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Lubbock, Texas; and later Pasadena, California where she attended John Marshall Junior High School and Pasadena High School. She is a former Miss California Navy and appeared as Miss Teen Queen in "MAD Magazine" at age 15. Cleveland returned with her family to London in 1960, and studied at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. Career. A stage actress and model who had appeared as an extra in "The Persuaders!", a secretary in "The Saint", and other TV shows and films, she started to appear as an extra in BBC comedy productions, including "The Two Ronnies", "Morecambe and Wise" and "Spike Milligan". This brought her to the attention of the production team of "Monty Python's Flying Circus." She appeared in 30 of the 45 episodes in the series. Sometimes referred to as the "other Python" or "the seventh Python" or even "The Female Python", though she thinks this is too much (the Pythons themselves performed "and" wrote their own material). She played an archetypal blonde bombshell. Stage directions for her first sketch described her as "a blonde buxom wench in the full bloom of womanhood". Privately called "Carol Cleavage" by the other Pythons, she called herself the "glamour stooge". Cleveland starred in all four of the "Monty Python" films, including the dual roles of Zoot and Dingo, twin leaders of the maidens in the Castle Anthrax, in "Monty Python and the Holy Grail." Her mother, Pat Cleveland, appeared in "Monty Python" on several occasions, once as a mental patient with an axe embedded in her head. Cleveland was voted number three in "Splendor" magazine's "100 Most Beautiful Entertainers" list in 1972. In 1986, Cleveland played an American television journalist in the "Only Fools and Horses" episode "The Miracle of Peckham". In 1995, Cleveland had a small cameo in a "Fist of Fun" sketch, a BBC comedy show featuring Stewart Lee and Richard Herring. During a radio interview in Birmingham to promote a British tour of Tom Stoppard's play "Dirty Linen" in the early 1980s, Cleveland confided an embarrassing incident in dress rehearsal. One scene called for her to climb onto a table and pull off her skirt. It was only when her fellow cast members went suddenly silent that Cleveland realised she'd forgotten to put on any underwear that morning. Cleveland now performs in a one-woman show, "Carol Cleveland Reveals All". In 2010 she appeared in an advert for Pimm's. Personal life. Cleveland was married to Peter Brett from 1971 to 1983.
1055411	The Young Black Stallion is a 2003 made-for-IMAX family film from Walt Disney Pictures. Directed by Simon Wincer, the film is based on the 1989 novel of the same name by "Black Stallion" creator Walter Farley and his son Steven Farley. Noted for its beautiful scenery and wide-angle shots, the 49-minute movie was filmed on-location in the deserts of Namibia and South Africa. The film stars Biana G. Tamimi as Neera, a young girl who befriends a young black stallion, and Patrick Elyas as Aden, although his voice was dubbed by Eric Grucza, who, for his uncredited performance was nominated in 2004 for the Young Artist Award for Best Performance in a Voice-Over Role. The film is Disney’s first production made specifically for IMAX theaters, and a prequel to the 1979 film "The Black Stallion". The original film won an Academy Award for Best Sound Editing and received nominations for Film Editing and Supporting Actor Mickey Rooney, but it doesn’t appear Disney has such lofty expectations for "The Young Black Stallion." According to reports, the film was originally scheduled for release in fall 2002, then was postponed until September 2003, and then debuted in select IMAX theaters in the United States on December 25, 2003. Plot. The film follows the adventures of Shetan, a young black Arabian colt. After a band of robbers separates a young Arabian girl named Neera (Biana Tamini) from her father, she finds herself alone in the desert. Before too long, a mysterious black colt comes to her rescue. The two quickly form a special bond, and the horse returns Neera to her grandfather. Once Neera is back home, the stallion disappears. Neera greets her grandfather Ben Ishak (Richard Romanus) and her cousin Aden (Patrick Elyas) eagerly, but is disappointed and upset when she find out that her grandfather's horse breeding days are over. Ben Ishak informs Neera that because of the shootings in the desert, his fields are ruined, and he can no longer afford to keep any of his horses. He kept an old plow-horse, Abha, and set his most precious mare Jinah free. We find out later that Jinah was Shetan's mother. A year passes, but the black stallion does not return. Neera’s grandfather tells her that the horse was probably nothing more than a product of her imagination. But Neera knows better. She thinks the stallion is the lost horse of the desert, a legend born of the sands and sired by the night sky. Then, one night, the colt appears again. In an attempt to help her grandfather start a breeding farm again, Neera joins a grueling cross-country race against the finest horses of Arabia for a purse of the most exceptional Arabian mares. Shetan, the black stallion, is trained, and Neera rides him in the competition to restore her grandfather's money and respect. In the end, Neera wins, and Shetan is reunited with his mother. Critical reception. Most of the critics didn't find the story to be as good as the first two movies; some found it to be entertaining but thought the script needed more effort. C.W. Nevius of the San Francisco Chronicle states that the movie is a tired rehash, while Gene Seymour of Newsday says, "The new giant screen contribution to the stallion's legend is a 45-minute story, which, at best, plays as if it could have barely passed muster as an installment of the old 1960s Disney TV series, The Wonderful World of Color." Megan Lehmann of the New York Post stated, "A visual treat diminished by lifeless dialogue and self-conscious acting."
586553	Nikita Thukral (born July 6, 1981) is an Indian film actress and model, who has acted in Telugu, Tamil, Kannada and Malayalam films. She is best known for her item number "Kodana Kodi" in Tamil film "Saroja". Early life. Thukral was born into a Punjabi family and was raised in Mumbai. She completed her M.A in Economics from Kishinchand Chellaram College. She was spotted by producer D. Ramanaidu while dining at a hotel in Juhu. He offered her a role in his upcoming film "Hai" (2002). Career. After appearing in "Hai", Thukral starred opposite Fahad Fazil (Fazil's son, who then known as Shanu) in his film debut "Kaiyethum Doorath". The Malayalam film was not a box office success, but she was able to find additional roles in Tamil and Telugu films like "Kurumbu" and "Sambaram". In 2005, she entered Kannada cinema with S S Niwas's "Maharaja". Thukral then returned to star in a Tamil film and featured in Venkat Prabhu's multistarrer "Saroja" as Kalyani, the muse of a gangster portrayed by Sampath Raj, and won critical acclaim for her performance. Her appearance in the song "Kodana Kodi" was appreciated as the song became popular, while her role in the film also led to her winning the ITFA Best Supporting Actress Award. The success led her to sign on to appear in a big film production, Gautham Menon's "Chennaiyil Oru Mazhaikaalam" in a role alongside Trisha Krishnan, but the film was shelved after two schedules. In addition to acting, Thukral has also done modelling work for designer Roopa Vohra. In 2011, she has appeared in the Tamil thriller film "Muran" as Indhu, alongside actors Cheran and Prasanna. Controversy. Nikita Thukral was reportedly banned from Kannada films for three years starting from 10 September 2011 by the Kannada Film Producers' Association (KFPA) for an alleged illicit relationship with actor Darshan. The ban was implemented after Darshan's wife accused that he had assaulted her and in her complaint, she suggested that Thukral had been responsible for his violence. Consequently, Nikita denied the claims calling it "ridiculous" and asked for proof, announcing a voluntary break from Kannada films for trying to slur her image. Since the announcement of her ban, fellow film personalities have rallied in support of Thukral, who had been in hospital at the time due to low blood pressure and stress. Subsequently, the ban was revoked after five days of extensive campaigning against the KFPA's original decision.
582304	Alag (Devanagari: अलग, Nastaliq: الگ; ) is a 2006 Bollywood film starring Akshay Kapoor and Dia Mirza and directed by Ashu Trikha and produced by Subi Samuel. The film is also known as Alag: He Is Different... He Is Alone... He Is A Swimmer Against The Current... in some other sites, for example IMDB. The film takes its premise and some plot elements from the American film "Powder" starring Sean Patrick Flanery, although the plots of the two films diverge significantly. Synopsis. Widower Hemant Rastogi lives in scenic Mahabaleshwar, seemingly alone. One night he has a heart attack and passes away. When the Police search his residence they find Tejas, Hemant's only son, in the basement of the house. Tejas has spent his entire life in the basement and as a result of this is extremely sensitive to sunlight. The Police ask Purva Rana, head of P.R. Institute (an institute for the rehabilitation of young criminals) to look after Tejas, whose only experience of other people up until this point has been with his father and the books he provided for him. Tejas starts showing signs of Telekenesis, and is shunned by the other boys in the institute, resulting in the near fatal accident of a security guard and the death of a fellow student. Tenzin redeems himself in the eyes of Purva's wealthy father, Pushkar, when he is able to wake his wife, Gayetri Rana, from a coma-like condition. It looks like Tejas has been accepted into the Rana household, but he is subsequently harassed by doctors and scientists wishing to perform experiments on him. When Tejas and Pushkar both refuse to be part of these experiments, Tejas is abducted and held in a glass chamber by Dr. Richard Dyer, who wants to control his mind for his own benefit. Purva realises that Tejas has been abducted, and is fatally injured by Dr. Dyer in a rescue attempt. At the sight of this, Tejas' anger causes his powers to surge, shattering the glass cage and killing Dr. Dyer Purva dies by the power surge . The film ends with Tejas trying to bring Purva back to life again but it was not accomplished. Soundtrack. The film features music by Aadesh Shrivastava and Megadeth. Kunal Ganjawala lends his voice in two songs. The song "Sabse Alag", sung by Kunal Ganjawala, Shaan, Hemachandra (singer), Nihira Joshi and Gayatri Ganjawala features many actors from the industry, as seen from the list above.
1063364	Happy Feet is a 2006 Australian-American computer-animated musical family film, directed and co-written by George Miller. It was produced at Sydney-based visual effects and animation studio "Animal Logic" for Warner Bros., Village Roadshow Pictures and Kingdom Feature Productions and was released in North American theaters on November 17, 2006. It is the first animated film produced by Kennedy Miller in association with visual effects/design company Animal Logic. Though primarily an animated film, "Happy Feet" does incorporate motion capture of live action humans in certain scenes. The film was simultaneously released in both conventional theatres and in IMAX 2D format. The studio had hinted that a future IMAX 3D release was a possibility. However, Warner Bros., the film’s production company, was on too tight a budget to release Happy Feet in IMAX digital 3D. "Happy Feet" won the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature and the BAFTA Award for Best Animated Film, and was nominated for the Annie Award for Best Animated Feature and the Saturn Award for Best Animated Film. The film was dedicated in memory of Nick Enright, Michael Jonson, Robby McNeilly Green, and Steve Irwin. A sequel, "Happy Feet Two", was released into theatres November 18, 2011 and received mixed reviews. Plot. Every Emperor Penguin sings a unique song called a "heartsong" to attract a mate. If the male penguin's heartsong matches the female's song, the two penguins mate. Norma Jean, a female penguin, falls for Memphis, a male penguin and they become mates. They lay an egg, which is left in Memphis' care, while Norma Jean leaves with the other females to fish. While the males struggle through the harsh winter, Memphis briefly drops the egg. The resulting chick, Mumble, has no vocal talent, but can tap dance. Nevertheless, he is enamored with Gloria, a female penguin who is regarded as the most talented of his age. One day, Mumble encounters a group of hostile Skua, with a leader who is tagged with a yellow band, which he claims to have been from an alien abduction. Mumble narrowly escapes the hungry birds by falling into a crevice. Years later, an adult Mumble is now an outcast who is frowned upon by his elders. After being shunned during the graduates' song, he is attacked by a leopard seal. After escaping, he befriends a group of Adelie Penguins called "the Amigos", who embrace Mumble's dance moves and assimilate him into their group. After seeing a hidden human excavator in an avalanche, they opt to ask Lovelace, a Rockhopper Penguin, about its origin. Lovelace has the plastic rings of a six pack entangled around his neck, which he claims to have been bestowed upon him by mystic beings. For the emperor penguins, it is mating season and Gloria is the center of attention. Ramon tries to help Mumble win her affection by singing a Spanish version of "My Way", with Mumble lip syncing. When Gloria sees Ramon behind Mumble's back, she becomes angry and turns away. As a last resort, Mumble begins tap dancing in synch with her song. She falls for him and all the youthful penguins join in for singing and dancing to "Boogie Wonderland". The elders are appalled by Mumble's conduct, which they see as the reason for their lean fishing season. Memphis begs Mumble to stop dancing, for his own sake, but when Mumble refuses, he is banished. Mumble and the Amigos return to Lovelace, only to find him being choked by the plastic rings. Lovelace confesses they were snagged on him while swimming off the forbidden shores, beyond the land of the elephant seals. Not long into their journey, they are met by Gloria, who wishes to join with Mumble as his mate. Fearing for his safety, he ostracizes her, driving her away. At the forbidden shore, the group finds a fishing boat. Mumble pursues it solo to the brink of exhaustion. He is eventually washed up on the shore of Australia, where he is rescued and kept at Marine World with Magellanic Penguins. After a long and secluded confinement, he nearly succumbs to madness. When a girl attempts to interact with Mumble by tapping the glass, he starts dancing, which attracts a large crowd. He is released back into the wild, with a tracking device attached to his back. He returns to his colony and challenges the will of the elders. Memphis reconciles with him, just as a research team arrives, proving the aliens to be true. The whole of the colony engages in dance. The research team returns their expedition footage, prompting a worldwide debate. The governments realize they are overfishing, leading to the banning of all Antarctic fishing. At this, the Emperor Penguins and the Amigos celebrate. In the final scene, a baby penguin is seen dancing next to Mumble and Gloria, revealed to be their son Erik in "Happy Feet Two". Production. Miller cites as an initial inspiration for the film an encounter with a grizzled old camera-man, whose father was Frank Hurley of the Shackleton expeditions, during the shooting of Mad Max 2: "We were sitting in this bar, having a milkshake, and he looked across at me and said, ‘Antarctica.’ He’d shot a documentary there. He said, ‘You’ve got to make a film in Antarctica. It’s just like out here, in the wasteland. It’s spectacular.’ And that always stuck in my head.” "Happy Feet" was also partially inspired by earlier documentaries such as the BBC's "Life in the Freezer". In 2001, during an otherwise non-sequiter meeting, Doug Mitchell impulsively presented Warner Bros., studio president Alan Horn with an early rough draft of the film's screenplay, and asked them to read it while he and Miller flew back to Australia. By the time they'd landed, Warner Bros. had decided to provide funding on the film. Production was slated to begin sometime after the completion of the fourth Mad Max film, Fury Road, but geo-political complications pushed "Happy Feet" to the forefront in early 2003. An earlier cut of the film seems to have included a large subplot regarding aliens in the extraterrestrial sense, whose presence was made gradually more and more known throughout, and who were planning to siphon off the planet's resources gradually, placing the humans in the same light as the penguins. At the end, through the plight of the main character, their hand is stayed and, instead, first contact is made. This was chopped out during the last year of production, and has yet to see the light of day in a finished form, although concept art from these sequences were showcased at the Siggraph 2007 demonstration, and are available online, as well. The animation in "Happy Feet" invested heavily in motion capture technology, with the dance scenes acted out by human dancers. The tap-dancing for Mumble in particular was provided by Savion Glover who was also co-choreographer for the dance sequences. The dancers went through "Penguin School" to learn how to move like a penguin, and also wore head apparatus to mimic a penguin's beak. "Happy Feet" needed an enormous group of computers, and Animal Logic worked with IBM to build a server farm with sufficient processing potential. The film took four years to make. Ben Gunsberger, Lighting Supervisor and VFX Department Supervisor, says this was partly because they needed to build new infrastructure and tools. The server farm used IBM BladeCenter framework and BladeCenter HS20 blade servers, which are extremely dense separate computer units each with two Intel Xeon processors. Rendering took up 17 million CPU hours over a nine-month period. Environmental message. As things progress, there is increasing emphasis on environmental problems in the Antarctic. The film's denouement shows a group of researchers taking video of the colony of dancing emperor penguins, and the footage is broadcast globally. After many heated arguments this publicity generates considerable pressure to stop commercial overfishing of the Antarctic. According to the director, George Miller, the environmental message was not a major part of the original script, but "In Australia, we're very, very aware of the ozone hole," he said, "and Antarctica is literally the canary in the coal mine for this stuff. So it sort of had to go in that direction." This influence led to a film with a more environmental tone. Miller said, "You can't tell a story about Antarctica and the penguins without giving that dimension." Music. "Happy Feet" is a jukebox musical, taking previously recorded songs and working them into the film's soundtrack to fit with the mood of the scene or character. Two soundtrack albums were released for the film; one containing songs from and inspired by the film, and another featuring John Powell's instrumental score. They were released on October 31, 2006 and December 19, 2006, respectively. Reception. Box office. The film opened at #1 in the United States on its first weekend of release (November 17–19) grossing $41.6 million and beating "Casino Royale" for the top spot. It remained #1 for the Thanksgiving weekend, making $51.6 million over the five-day period. In total, the film was the top grosser for three weeks, a 2006 box office feat matched only by '. As of June 8, 2008, "Happy Feet" has grossed $198.0 million in the U.S. and $186.3 million overseas, making about $384.3 million worldwide. "Happy Feet" was the third highest grossing animated film in the U.S., behind "Cars" and '. The film has been released in about 35 international territories at the close of 2006. The production budget was $100 million. Critical reception. "Happy Feet" received generally positive reviews. Review aggregation site Rotten Tomatoes reported that the film has a 75% fresh rating. Analysis. The film has also garnered, since its release, quite a bit of analysis and dissection from various places. Film critic Yar Habnegnal has written an essay, published in "Forum on Contemporary Art and Society", that examines the themes of encroachment presented throughout the film, as well as various other subtexts and themes, such as religious hierarchy and interracial tensions. And, Vadim Rizov of the Independent Film Channel sees Mumble as just the latest in a long line of cinematic religious mavericks. On a technical or formal level, the film has also been lauded in some corners for its innovative introduction of Miller's roving style of subjective cinematography into contemporary animation, among other things. Home media. "Happy Feet" was released on home media on March 27, 2007 in the United States in three formats; DVD (in separate widescreen and pan and scan editions), Blu-ray Disc, and an HD DVD/DVD combo disc. Among the DVD's special features is a scene that was cut from the film where Mumble meets a blue whale and an albatross. The albatross was Steve Irwin's first voice role in the film before he voiced the elephant seal in the final cut. The scene was finished and included on the DVD in memory of Steve Irwin. This scene is done in Steve's classic documentary style, with the albatross telling the viewer all about the other characters in the scene, and the impact people are having on their environment. Accolades. Wins. Academy Awards 60th British Academy Film Awards Golden Globes American Film Institute Awards 2006 Los Angeles Film Critics Association Awards New York Film Critics Circle Awards Golden Trailer Awards Heartland Awards Kids' Choice Awards British Academy of Film and Television Arts — Children's Awards Nominations. Golden Globe Award Annie Awards Satellite Awards Grammy Awards American Film Institute Saturn Awards Top ten lists. The film appeared on numerous critics' top ten lists of the best films of 2006, including AFI's Annual list, which is listed above. AFI's jury said: ""HAPPY FEET" is a one-of-a-kind motion picture experience. George Miller continues to paint outside the lines of traditional filmmaking, and his genius expands upon the animated art form to illuminate a world where penguins embrace dance and differences to survive and thrive. But that is just the tip of the iceberg, as the environment, religion and the chasm between generations enrich this sweet and subtle tale – one that is fun and funny, brilliant and beautiful, groundbreaking and global in its message." Video games. A video game based on the film was developed by A2M and published by Midway Games. It has the same main cast as the film. It was released for the PC, PlayStation 2, GameCube, GBA, NDS, and Wii. Artificial Life, Inc. has also developed a Happy Feet mobile game for the Japan market. Sequels. "Happy Feet Two" was produced at Dr. D Studios and released on November 18, 2011. Wood and Williams reprised their roles for the sequel. Brittany Murphy, was set to reprise her role and begin recording sometime in 2010, but died from pneumonia on December 20, 2009. Matt Damon and Brad Pitt signed on as Bill the Krill and Will the Krill respectively. In an interview with Collider.com, director George Miller mentioned the small possibility of "Happy Feet Three", stating that if he came up with an idea for a third film, that he and his studio would produce it if they both agreed the idea was better than the first two. As of now, however, he has yet to mention if he has any ideas for a third film since the interview. Happy Feet 4-D Experience. "Happy Feet 4-D Experience" is a 12-minute 4D film shown at various 4D theatres over the world. It retells the condensed story of "Happy Feet" with the help of 3D projection and sensory effects, including moving seats, wind, mist and scents. Produced by SimEx-Iwerks, the 4D experience premiered in March 2010 at the Drayton Manor Theme Park. Other locations included Sea World (2010–2011), Shedd Aquarium (2010–2012), Moody Gardens (2010–2011), Nickelodeon Suites Resort, and Adventure Aquarium.
582708	Sadashiv Amrapurkar is an Indian actor who is well known for his performances in Marathi and Hindi films in the 1980s and 90s. He received the Filmfare Award for Best Performance in a Negative Role in 1991 for "Sadak" — the first time the award was instituted. In addition to negative roles, he has done supporting roles and, more recently, comic roles. Early life. His birth name was Ganesh Kumar Narwode and he was born to an auto driver in Nasik in 1956. He adopted the name Sadashiv after going on stage in 1974. He was a trained singer but was advised that his highly nasal voice would prevent him from achieving fame — so at the age of 21 in 1971, Sadashiv migrated to theatre and the stage. In 1976, he found his first role in the Marathi film "Aamras". He began to act in minor roles in Marathi cinema until in 1979 when he found his first major break in film playing Bal Gangadhar Tilak. Sadashiv continued to work in Marathi cinema as an actor and producer under the banner of Anjana Arts (Anjana being his wife). In 1981-82, Amrapurkar acted in a Marathi stage play "Hands-Up!" alongside stage actors Avinash Masurekar and Bhakti Barve-Inamdar. This play was a super-hit and Amrapurkar was noticed by director Govind Nihalani who was searching for an artiste to play the central negative character in his movie "Ardh Satya". The movie went on to be a hit and Amrapurkar's acting was appreciated. His style of dialog delivery was considered unique as compared to the popular Hindi movie villains in those days. After "Ardh Satya", Amrapurkar starred in small roles in films such as "Purana Mandir", "Nasoor", "Muddat", "Veeru Dada", "Jawani", and "Farishtay". In 1987, he starred as the main villain in Dharamendra starrer "Hukumat" which went on to be a blockbuster that grossed even more than "Mr. India". Amarapurkar became the "lucky mascot" for Dharamendra and thereafter they both starred in several movies. In 1991 he appeared as a eunuch in "Sadak". He won a Filmfare award for his performance. In the mid-1990s he migrated towards supporting roles and comic roles such as in "Aankhen", "Ishq", "Coolie No. 1", "", "Aunty No. 1", "Jai Hind" and "Master". He played the role of Dr. Khanna in the 1996 film "Chhote Sarkar". Since the 2000s, Amrapurkar has been rarely seen in Hindi movies. In March 2013, he was severely beaten while he was protesting against water wastage during Holi festival near his residence in Mumbai.
402730	Diora Lynn Baird (born April 6, 1983) is an American actress and former model for Guess? who has appeared in films such as "Wedding Crashers" (2005) and "" (2006). Early life. Baird was born in Miami, Miami-Dade County, Florida. Her mother was also a model. She got into acting when her mother enrolled her in an acting class to help her overcome introversion. Later, she became vice president of her school's Thespian Society. At the age of 17, she moved to Los Angeles in hope of pursuing an acting career. To earn money while auditioning, she worked at The Gap as well as a clown at children's parties, caterer, waitress and pre-school teacher until breaking in to the modeling industry, most notably with "Guess?". Her exposure increased considerably with an appearance on the cover of the August 2005 issue of "Playboy" magazine. She is signed to Elite Model Management in Miami. Career. In 2004, Baird also started earning acting roles, such as a guest appearance on the "Drew Carey Show" and in the low-budget film "Brain Blockers". Her breakthrough appearance in a major film was in "Wedding Crashers" in 2005, which she followed up with roles in "Accepted" and "Hot Tamale". In 2006, she appeared in four films, most notably a major role in the horror prequel "". In 2009, Baird portrayed an Orion Starfleet officer in "Star Trek" directed by J. J. Abrams but was cut from the final version of the film. She can be seen in the deleted scenes of the home video release. Baird had featured photo spreads in several magazines including "Playboy", "FHM", "Stuff", "Maxim" (in which she was ranked #76 on the Maxim magazine Hot 100 of 2007 list, #64 on the Maxim magazine Hot 100 of 2008 list, #76 on the Maxim Magazine Hot 100 of 2011 list, as well as scoring the #17 spot on FHM's top 100 2010, and the #40 spot in 2011), "Toro" and "Esquire (UK)". She lent her voice to the as one of Tony Montana's possible girlfriends. Baird has also guest-starred in episodes of "Big Day", "Shark", "The Loop", and "Two and a Half Men" (the 2009 episode "She'll Still Be Dead At Halftime"). She starred in the movie "", directed by Ben Ketai, which is produced by Columbia Pictures and Ghost House Pictures. Baird stars also in the FEARnet webseries Tea Party Massacre, which is part of the series Women in Horror Month. She also starred in the 2009 comedy Stan Helsing. She starred in a couple of videos for the Funny or Die website, including one with Garfunkel and Oates called "Go Running with Chicken" and "Sexy Dark Ages" with Robert Englund. She starred in another web video with the comedic duo called "This Party Took a Turn for the Douche". In 2010, she appeared in "Night of the Demons". In February 2011, she starred in a short musical film called Howlin' for You for the band The Black Keys. Her latest film "Transit" was released in January 2012. She co-starred in the 2012 Canadian film "Concrete Blondes".
520574	Raelene Elaine Ebaler Villania (born 29 June 1986 in Camperdown, Australia), better known as Iya Villania, is a Filipino actress and television host. She has been a co-host of shows such as "ASAP Mania", "Us Girls" and as a VJ for the music channel Myx. Early life. Villania was born in Camperdown, Australia, but raised in Sydney. Her parents, Ray and Elena Villania, are of Filipino descent. The youngest of three siblings, she has two older sisters named Rhoda and Sheila. The influence of her father was by singing in karaoke, awakening her interest in music. She returned to the country of origin of her parents together with her mother, though immigration was hard for her especially with the language and getting around Philippine citizenship. After settling in the Philippines, Villania continued her secondary education at the Colegio San Agustin in Makati and graduated from the same school in March 2004. She continued her education with an exercise of AB Psychology at De La Salle University-Manila. Even with her busy schedule, she graduated in February 2009.
582316	Maine Pyaar Kyun Kiya? (Hindi: मैंने प्यार क्यों किया? English: "Why did I fall in love?") is a 2005 Bollywood comedy film directed by David Dhawan. It stars Salman Khan, Katrina Kaif, Sushmita Sen and Sohail Khan in the main role. Also starring Arshad Warsi, Ishaa Koppikar, Beena Kak, Rajpal Yadav and Dolly Bindra. Arbaaz Khan made a guest appearance in the movie. The film is about the relationships of a womanizing doctor who gets ultimately stuck between two women: a patient with suicidal tendencies and his nurse. Like the 2011 Hollywood movie "Just Go with It," this film was based on the 1969 film "Cactus Flower". Plot. Samir (Salman Khan) is a very successful doctor: He not only looks after his patient's maladies, he also looks after his female patients' hearts. Most women fall for him and his irresistible charms. The only person who has not fallen for him is his dutiful nurse Naina (Sushmita Sen). Whenever a girl gets too close to Samir and starts talking about marriage, he sends her off by telling her he is already married. However, one day, he meets Sonia (Katrina Kaif), a beautiful young woman and Samir is smitten. He lies to her about having a wife, but the marriage is failing. When she learns of his 'wife', she wants to meet her. Samir introduces Naina, as well as her niece and nephew, as his wife and children. Samir then arranges a fake divorce from his fake wife with the help of his best friend, lawyer Vicky (Arshad Warsi) who, despite having a steady girlfriend (Ishaa Koppikar), frequently flirts with Naina. To complicate things further, Samir's mother (Beena Kak) suddenly appears and doesn't want her son get divorced from Naina (when he isn't married to her in the first place). And then, there is Sonia's neighbour Pyare (Sohail Khan), who does not want Sonia to marry Samir: He wants Sonia for his own and she seems to like him, too. The web of lies around everyone grows thicker and thicker, but finally, Samir is able to persuade Sonia to marry him. But before the altar, she makes him realize that she isn't the right wife for him; he is in love with Naina who has proved her love since she played along, pretending to be his wife. Samir agrees and rushes to the airport, because Naina wants to escape to Canada, while Sonia gets married to Pyare. At the airport, Samir arrives in time: He convinces Naina to stay and she agrees. Box office. The film grossed Rs.27 Crores. It also emerged as the fifth highest grossing film of the year. Soundtrack. The soundtrack consists of 7 original tracks and 4 remixes.
793220	Half Light is a 2006 Mystery/Horror Film starring Demi Moore and Hans Matheson. It was directed by Craig Rosenberg, who also penned the screenplay. The score was composed by Craig's brother, Brett Rosenberg. Plot. Rachel Carlson (Moore) is a successful American murder mystery author living in London with her five-year-old son, Thomas (Balawi) and her second husband, Brian (Cusick), a successful book editor that has been unable to get any of his own works published. His mother being too busy working on her latest novel to play with him, Thomas goes outside to play outside their canalside home, only to accidentally drown, devastating Rachel and putting a tailspin on her marriage and her ability to finish her latest novel. Several months later, Rachel still blames herself for the death of her son, and is not only unable to finish her book but is also a simple signature away from formally being divorced from her husband. In an effort to finish her novel and find some emotional peace, Rachel moves away to a remote cottage on the Scottish coast. However, she soon starts to see the ghost of her late son, who at one point drags her into the waters and at another point moves a set of magnets on the refrigerator. A local town psychic informs Rachel that the spirit of her son is trying to tell her something, but the rest of the locals warn Rachel that the psychic is just a troubled woman. Troubled by the possibility that her son has returned from the grave, Rachel shares her troubles with a young and handsome lighthouse keeper named Angus (Matheson) and the two spark a romance that suddenly goes awry when she learns that Angus died seven years ago by committing suicide after murdering his wife and her lover in the lighthouse. Rachel fears that she may be going insane and her efforts to prove otherwise, and learn more about the suicide-murder of Angus, falter when the news articles about the tragedy have gone missing from the local library, and Sharon Winton, her best friend and writer for a British tabloid journal, goes missing after Rachel saw her killed by Angus in the lighthouse. It eventually comes to light that her soon to be ex-husband has been having an affair with her best friend, and that they paid a man, Patrick, to pose as Angus in order to cause an already emotionally unstable Rachel to act crazy enough in public that, when they make her murder look like a suicide, no one will suspect foul play. Just as Rachel is about to leave town, convinced that her dead son is trying to warn her that her life is in danger, she is drugged and dumped into the sea, only to be saved when the keys to the chains she has been put into suddenly fall into the water and thus allow her to free herself and make her way to the lighthouse in an effort to seek some revenge. (It was previously written on a slate, "don't forget, look behind you" and Rachel heard her son repeating those lines in water).
1790413	Patrick George Troughton (, 25 March 1920 – 28 March 1987) was an English actor most widely known for his roles in fantasy, science fiction and horror films, particularly in his role as the second incarnation of the Doctor in the long-running British science-fiction television series "Doctor Who", which he played from 1966 to 1969, reappearing in 1973, 1983 and 1985. He was also the first actor to play Robin Hood on television. Early life. Troughton was born on 25 March 1920 in Mill Hill, Middlesex, England to Alec George Troughton, a solicitor, and Dorothy Evelyn Offord, who married in 1914 in Edmonton, and had an elder brother, Alec Robert (1915–1994), and a younger sister, Mary Edith (1923–2005). Troughton attended Mill Hill School and continued to live in Mill Hill for most of his life. While at Mill Hill School, he acted in a production of J.B. Priestley's "Bees on the Boat Deck" in March 1937. His brother A.R. ('Robin') Troughton shared the 1933 Walter Knox Prize for Chemistry with the future Nobel Prize winner Francis Crick, who also attended Mill Hill School. Troughton later attended the Embassy School of Acting at Swiss Cottage, studying under Eileen Thorndike. After his time at the Embassy School of Acting, Troughton won a scholarship to the Leighton Rallius Studios at the John Drew Memorial Theatre on Long Island in New York, US. When the Second World War broke out, he returned to Britain on a Belgian ship. The ship hit a mine and sank off the coast of Britain; Troughton escaped in a lifeboat. Troughton had joined the Tonbridge Repertory Company in 1939 and in 1940 joined the Royal Navy. He was a Lieutenant, R.N.V.R. on East Coast Convoy duty from February to August 1941, and Coastal Forces (M.G.B.'s) based at Great Yarmouth from November 1942 to 1945, and was Mentioned in Dispatches. He was concerned in an "E" boat action, when one was successfully destroyed by ramming, and his ship and another destroyed two others by gunfire. His decorations included the 1939-45 Star, and Atlantic Star. He used to wear a tea cosy on his head in cold weather in the North Sea. Acting career. Before "Doctor Who". After the war, Troughton returned to the theatre in 1945. He worked with the Amersham Repertory Company, the Bristol Old Vic Company and the Pilgrim Players at the Mercury Theatre, Notting Hill Gate. He made his television debut in 1947. In 1948, Troughton made his cinema debut with small roles in Olivier's "Hamlet", the Joseph L. Mankiewicz directed "Escape" (one of the stars of which was William Hartnell), and a minor role as a pirate in "Treasure Island" (1950) appearing only during the attack on the heroes' hut. Television though, was his favourite medium. In 1953 he became the first actor to play the folk hero Robin Hood on television, starring in six half-hour episodes broadcast from 17 March to 21 April on the BBC, and titled simply "Robin Hood". His grandson Sam Troughton played one of Robin's colleagues in the 2006 BBC TV series of the same name, and Patrick himself would make an appearance in "The Adventures of Robin Hood" starring Richard Greene. He appeared as the murderer Tyrrell in Olivier's film of "Richard III" (1955). Troughton's other notable film and television roles included Kettle in "Chance of a Lifetime" (1950), Sir Andrew Ffoulkes in "The Scarlet Pimpernel" (1955), Vickers in the episode entittled Strange Partners in "The Invisible Man" (1958, the series also featured one of his future "Doctor Who" co-stars, Deborah Watling, as Sally), Phineus in "Jason and the Argonauts" (1963), Quilp in "The Old Curiosity Shop" (1962), "Paul of Tarsus" (BBC 1960, title role), "Dr. Finlay's Casebook" (BBC 1962, semi-regular). He voiced Winston Smith in a 1965 BBC Home Service radio adaptation of "Nineteen Eighty-Four". Prior to "Doctor Who" he appeared in numerous TV shows including, "The Count of Monte Cristo", "Ivanhoe", "Dial 999", "Danger Man", "Maigret", "Compact", "The Third Man", "Crane", "Detective", "Sherlock Holmes", "No Hiding Place", "The Saint", "Armchair Theatre", "The Wednesday Play", "Z-Cars", "Adam Adamant Lives!" and "Softly, Softly". "Doctor Who" (1966–1969, and returns). In 1966, "Doctor Who" producer Innes Lloyd replaced William Hartnell in the series' lead role. The continued survival of the show depended on audiences accepting another actor in the role, despite the bold decision that the replacement would not be a Hartnell lookalike or soundalike. Lloyd later stated that Hartnell had approved of the choice, saying, "There's only one man in England who can take over, and that's Patrick Troughton". Lloyd chose Troughton because of his extensive and versatile experience as a character actor. After he was cast, Troughton considered various ways to approach the role, to differentiate his portrayal from Hartnell's amiable-yet-tetchy patriarch. Troughton's early thoughts about how he might play the Doctor included a "tough sea captain", and a piratical figure in blackface and turban. "Doctor Who" creator Sydney Newman suggested that the Doctor could be a "cosmic hobo" in the mould of Charlie Chaplin, and this was the interpretation eventually chosen. Troughton was the first Doctor to have his face appear in the opening titles of the show. In the episode, "The Enemy of the World", Troughton played two parts as both the protagonist (The Doctor) and the antagonist (Salamander). During his time on the series, Troughton tended to shun publicity and rarely gave interviews. He told one interviewer, "I think acting is magic. If I tell you all about myself it will spoil it". Years later, he told another interviewer that his greatest concern was that too much publicity would limit his opportunities as a character actor after he left the role. A rare interview with Ernest Thompson from "Radio Times" reveals that Troughton "always liked dressing up, and would have been happy as a school teacher as children keeps one young". Troughton gave away the secret of what Jamie (Frazer Hines) wore underneath his kilt – "khaki shorts". Troughton was popular with both the production team and his co-stars. Producer Lloyd credited Troughton with a "leading actor's temperament. He was a father figure to the whole company and hence could embrace it and sweep it along with him". Troughton also gained a reputation on set as a practical joker. Many of the early episodes in which Troughton appeared were among those wiped by the BBC (a full list of "Doctor Who" episodes missing from the BBC Archives is available here). Troughton found "Doctor Who"'s schedule (at the time, 40 to 44 episodes per year) gruelling, and decided to leave the series in 1969, after three years in the role. This decision was also motivated in part by fear of being typecast. Troughton's decision would eventually become something of an unwritten law (the "Troughton Rule") among actors, to prevent one from becoming typecast in a particular role in a potentially long-running television programme. Patrick Troughton was succeeded in the role by Jon Pertwee. Troughton returned to "Doctor Who" three times after formally leaving the programme, returning to the character more than any other actor who ended his regular connection with the series. The first of these occasions was in "The Three Doctors", a 1973 serial celebrating the programme's 10th anniversary. Ten years later, Troughton overcame some reluctance to reprise his role and agreed to appear in the 20th anniversary special "The Five Doctors" at the request of series producer John Nathan-Turner. He also agreed to attend "Doctor Who" conventions including the show's 20th anniversary celebrations at Longleat in 1983. He also appeared around the world with Nathan-Turner. Troughton enjoyed the return to the programme so much that he readily agreed to appear one more time as the Second Doctor, with Colin Baker's Sixth Doctor in "The Two Doctors" (1985). Reportedly, he also advised the Fifth Doctor, actor Peter Davison, to limit his time in the role to three seasons to avoid typecasting and the younger actor followed this advice. In 2013, the BBC commissioned a docudrama about the early days of "Doctor Who", as part of the programme's fiftieth anniversary celebrations. Troughton will appear as a character in the production, called "An Adventure in Space and Time", portrayed by actor Reece Shearsmith. After "Doctor Who". After Troughton left Doctor Who in 1969, he appeared in various films and television roles. Film roles included Klove in "Scars of Dracula" (1970), a bodysnatcher in "Frankenstein and the Monster from Hell" (1973), Father Brennan in "The Omen" (1976) and Melanthius in "Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger" (1977). Television roles included the recurring role of Thomas Howard, 3rd Duke of Norfolk in five of the six episodes of "The Six Wives of Henry VIII" (1970) (for which he commenced rehearsals just one week after completing his final studio recording on "Doctor Who"), the villainous Nasca in Thames Television's Aztec-themed drama "The Feathered Serpent" (1976–78), a guest starring spot in the comedy series "The Goodies" in the episode "The Baddies", as well as episodes of "Paul Temple", "Dr. Finlay's Casebook", "Doomwatch", "The Persuaders!", "A Family at War", "Coronation Street", ', "Colditz", "Play for Today", "Z-Cars", "Special Branch", "Sutherland's Law", "The Sweeney", "Jason King", "Survivors", "Crown Court", "Angels", "Warship", "Van der Valk", ', "The Onedin Line", "All Creatures Great and Small", "Only When I Laugh" (Series 2 Episode #9), "Nanny" and "Minder" (in a March 1984 episode entitled "Windows", Season 4 Episode 9). He also portrayed Cole Hawlings in a BBC Television dramatisation of the John Masefield children's book "The Box of Delights" (1984). In the same year he also appeared in a "Two Ronnies" Christmas Special playing a judge. Troughton's health was never entirely robust and later in his life he refused to accept his doctor's advice that he had developed a serious heart condition through overwork and stress. He suffered two major heart attacks, one in 1979 and the other in 1984, both of which prevented him from working for several months afterwards. Following each of these attacks, his doctor's warnings were again ignored as Troughton committed himself to a heavy TV and film schedule. He featured in the 1974 11-part radio adaptation of Evelyn Waugh's "Sword of Honour". In 1986, he was a regular in the 1st series of the LWT sitcom "The Two of Us", and guested in an episode of "Super Gran" in May 1987, which was the last role he filmed. His final television appearance was in the autumn of the same year in "Knights of God", which had actually been filmed two years earlier. Troughton also appeared in the very first episode of Granada's "Inspector Morse", an episode entitled "The Dead of Jericho", which was originally transmitted on ITV on 6 January 1987. Death. On Friday, 27 March 1987, two days after his 67th birthday, Troughton was a guest at the Magnum Opus Con II science fiction convention in Columbus, Georgia, USA. Although he had been warned by his doctors before leaving the UK not to exert himself because of his heart condition, Troughton appeared to be in good spirits and participated vigorously in the day's panels, and was looking forward to a belated birthday celebration, which was planned for the Saturday evening, as well as a screening of the "Doctor Who" story "The Dominators", which Troughton had requested personally, on the Saturday afternoon. Troughton suffered a third and final heart attack at 7:25 a.m. the next day (28 March 1987) just after he had ordered his breakfast from the hotel staff. According to the paramedics who were called, Troughton died instantly. Family life. Troughton was married three times and he is survived by his second partner Ethel Margaret 'Bunny' Troughton. He had two daughters, four sons, one stepdaughter and stepson. Troughton's grandchildren include:
1103876	Peter Clive Sarnak (born 18 December 1953) is a mathematician. He has been Eugene Higgins Professor of Mathematics at Princeton University since 2002, succeeding Andrew Wiles, and is an editor of the Annals of Mathematics. Sarnak is also on the permanent faculty at the School of Mathematics of the Institute for Advanced Study. He also sits on the Board of Adjudicators and the selection committee for the Mathematics award, given under the auspices of the Shaw Prize. Education. Sarnak graduated University of the Witwatersrand (B.Sc. 1975) and Stanford University (Ph.D. 1980), under the direction of Paul Cohen. Awards and honors. Sarnak was awarded the Polya Prize of Society of Industrial & Applied Mathematics in 1998, the Ostrowski Prize in 2001, the Levi L. Conant Prize in 2003 and the Frank Nelson Cole Prize in Number Theory in 2005. He was also elected as member of the National Academy of Sciences (USA) and Fellow of the Royal Society (UK) in 2002. He was awarded an honorary doctorate by the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 2010.
578421	Art of the Devil ( or Khon len khong) is a 2004 Thai horror film directed by Tanit Jitnukul. It has two titular sequels, "Art of the Devil 2" (2005) and "Art of the Devil 3" (2008), but these films feature a different story with new characters. Plot. "Art of the Devil" tells the story of Boom (Supaksorn Chaimongkol), a young Thai girl who meets a married man named Prathan (Tin Settachoke) at a country club. The two soon begin an affair, and Boom finds herself pregnant. When she breaks the news to Prathan, he appears to settle for giving her a sum of money in exchange for her silence, reassuring her that he won't leave her. However, he then wakes her up in the middle of the night, informing her that for that large an amount of money, he had the right to share her. While Prathan wields a video camera, his friends chase a terrified and screaming Boom out of the room and onto the beach, where they apparently gang-rape her.
585753	Chronic Bachelor is a 2003 Malayalam romantic comedy drama film about the life of Sathyaprathapan (known as SP), a bachelor as mentioned in the title. The film was written and directed by Siddique. It features Mammootty, Mukesh, Rambha, Bhavana, Indraja, Innocent and others. The movie was produced by Malayalam director Fazil. It was later remade in Tamil as "Engal Anna" starring Vijaykanth, Prabhu Deva, Namitha and Vadivelu. Plot. The film opens with a flashback showing the family feud between families of Sathyaprathapan (Mammootty) and Bhavani (Indraja). Sathyaprathapan's sister and Bhavani's cousin are in love. The murder of Bhavani's cousin Vishnu, is wrongly accused on Balagangadharan (Lalu Alex), father of Sathyaprathapan. Sathyaprathapan's sisters commits suicide and Sathyaprathapan turns against his father. He starts to help Bhavani's family and mortgages his own house to finance her factory. A love develops between Sathyaprathapan and Bhavani. But Bhavani's greedy father wants to destroy Sathyaprathapan's family and tries to take their home. That is when Parameshwara Maman shows up, Sathyaprathapan's mom requests Maman to prove Balagangadharan's innocence. Parameshwara Mama and Sathyaprathapan finds Kuruvilla who witnessed the murder being committed by Bhavani's father goons. Meanwhile we see that Sathyaprathapan's mom faints and dies in the hospital. While in the hospital, his mom tells how Balagangadharan had a different wife and he should ask them forgiveness. He storms into Bhavani's house and accuses her dad, also trying to make her understand the truth but she doesn't believe him and stands by her father. Then Sathyaprathapan says he doesn't love her any more and vows that he will never trust a woman by remaining a chronic bachelor forever. Then film comes to the present time showing a legal battle between Sathyaprathapan (now called SP) and Bhavani. Bhavani becomes furious when SP wins the legal battle to get back his house. She threatens to destroy SP. From here, the story moves to the day to day life of SP and falls into a comic track throughout the first half. SP is now a successful businessman. SP has a stepsister, Sandhya (Bhavana), who is his father's daughter from the other wife. He now lives for her. But she doesn't know that SP is her brother, although she stays next door to him. Kuruvilla (Innocent) is SP's aide and he too is a bachelor. Bhama (Rambha) comes to stay in the hostel where Sandhya stays and tries to win the heart of SP. But SP considers her a nuisance. SP agrees to take care of Srikumar (Mukesh). He is the son of Parameshwaran Mama (Janardhanan), who had helped SP to become a successful businessman. Srikumar is a flirt and womanizer. He is now after Sandhya and agrees to stay with SP, when he comes to know Sandhya stays next door to SP. Comical scenes recur throughout the movie, where Kuruvila, who doesn't like Srikumar and his friend Ugran (Harisree Ashokan) staying with them, tries to get them out of the house. Bhama comes to know SP is sponsoring Sandhya's studies and confronts him. SP tells her that Sandhya is his sister. Bhama then asks Sandhya to call SP for her birthday party. But SP gets upset and confronts Bhama. Bhama then reveals that her sponsor was SP all the while. During the birthday party, Bhavani comes and takes Bhama away. Then it becomes clear that Bhama is Bhavani's sister. Rivalry arises between Bhama and Bhavani and Bhama runs away from home and promises to help SP, but he tells her he has no hatred at all. Then Bhama's family members come to take her forcefully, but is stopped by Srikumar and SP. That's when SP asks Sandhya to move to his house. Srikumar and Ugran is moved to the guest house. Sandhya finally shows affection to Srikumar. One day SP and Kuruvilla catch Srikumar trying to reach Sandhya through the balcony. That is where SP knows that both of them love each other. And he tells that he knew it all the while and he arranged for everything. He fixes the marriage of Sandhya and Srikumar. He transfers everything he has to Sandhya's name because Srikumar's family thought Sandhya was an orphan. SP tells everything to Parameshwaran Mama's family which is overheard by Sandhya who runs home crying. SP upset runs to comfort her, where he explains how he will live his life as an apology to her mother's curses. But Sandhya tells that her mother loved him and told her to ask forgiveness if she sees him. Now Sandhay and SP re-unite as siblings. During the marriage festivities, Bhavani and her brother Hareendhran (Biju Menon) come to prevent the celebrations. Along with them comes the elder brother of Sandhya, Shekarankutty (Lalu Alex). He challenges SP, saying that he has more right over Sandhya as he is her brother, while SP is just a stepbrother. Shekarankutty then claims all of SP's property, which SP is willing to give, provided Sandhya lives happily and marries Srikumar. Bhavani's household members uses Shekarankutty to take advantage of SP; first by trying to snatch his company then trying to snatch his home. In the brawl, SP vows that Sandhya will marry Srikumar and he will wipe off everyone who stands in the way. Bhavani then tells SP that Sandhya will be married off to Hareendhran. Shekarankutty supports in the name of revenge. Sandhya, torn between two brothers, comes running when the brothers fight among themselves on the account of who Sandhya will marry. She says she would marry anyone that her brothers tell ber too because she cares about both of them. SP then says he know what needs to be done to end the family feud, which should have been long ago. He then marches to Bhavani's house and starts hitting Bhavani's dad thinking of killing him. In the end, SP points at Kuruvilla and says he is the witness of Vishnu's murder. Bhavani's father finally admits that he killed Vishnu and framed it on SP's father. Then SP pours kerosene on Bhavani's dad and as he approach Bhavani, he is stopped by Hareendharan who begs for his sisters life. Bhavani realizes her mistakes and goes to SP's house to apologize. But she tells SP that only thing she can now offer is the marriage proposal of her sister Bhama to SP. SP initially refuses when Srikumar tells that he'll also remain bachelor if SP doesn't marry. SP finally agrees and tells him to go inside with Bhama. Reception. The film was released as a Vishu release in 2003. It became a blockbuster hit and ran for more than 150 days. It acted as a career boost for Mammootty, whose previous movies in 2001 Dubai was a big flop and 2002 movie" Phantom" was a moderate success.. Director Siddique kept his history of never delivering a flop. Controversy. Siddique later claimed that the movie's collections were affected by pirated CDs and decided against directing another movie in Malayalam until piracy is controlled.He has since done many movies regardless of piracy.
1058960	Balls of Fury is a 2007 American sports comedy film starring Dan Fogler, George Lopez, and Christopher Walken. It was directed by Ben Garant and was released on August 29, 2007. Plot. As a child, Randy Daytona (Brett Delbuono) plays for the United States in the 1988 Summer Olympics table tennis finals. His anxiety increases when his father says that he bet on him, despite his original promise not to do so. During his first play between his opponent Karl Wolfschtagg (Thomas Lennon) from the German Democratic Republic, Daytona runs back too far and hits his head on the floor. Unable to continue, he loses the match. His father is murdered by the loan sharks, agents of the criminal mastermind Feng (Christopher Walken). Daytona leaves competitive ping-pong. Nineteen years later, as an adult, Daytona (Dan Fogler) works at the Peppermill Casino in Reno, Nevada, doing table tennis routines. After being evicted from the casino, Daytona meets FBI agent Ernie Rodriguez (George Lopez), who requests his assistance in arresting Feng for running guns. Feng's hidden jungle hideout is the site of a black-market Ping-Pong tournament, and Randy's invitation is a way for the FBI to infiltrate the master criminal's organization. Daytona agrees to help capture the man responsible for his father's death. Rodriguez informs him that he needs to win some championships in order to be noticed by Feng's ping-pong scouts. After losing at a local tournament, Daytona is brought to a Chinatown noodle shop to be apprenticed under a blind man named Wong (James Hong), who was Feng's former mentor, and who recognizes Daytona's talent. Daytona also meets Wong's niece, Maggie (Maggie Q). When Chinatown locals vandalize Master Wong's house for violating their edict against teaching white people ping pong, Daytona is forced to play against "The Dragon", a young girl, in exchange for Wong's right to remain in Chinatown and Orange County. After Daytona beats the Dragon, Feng's men take notice of his win and bring Daytona, Rodriguez and Wong to Feng's facility. Daytona handily beats his first opponent Freddy "Fingers" Wilson (Terry Crews), though he is unnerved to learn that the tournament is literally sudden death—the loser is killed by a poisoned dart delivered by Feng's majordomo, Mahogany (Aisha Tyler). After Daytona attempts unsuccessfully to escape, Feng invites him to join his side, and reveals that he only finished half of Wong's training. He says it would be the ultimate satisfaction to win Daytona away from Wong. Feng also shows Daytona his specially modified ping-pong table. It is wired to special vests that give increasingly powerful and fatal electrical shocks for failure. Daytona informs Rodriguez of a hidden cache of illegal guns that are sufficient to put Feng in jail. While Rodriguez investigates the hidden facilities, Daytona defeats numerous opponents for his very life. Upon learning that Wolfschtagg is his last opponent, Daytona tells Rodriguez that he wants to get out as the FBI has not yet responded to Rodriguez's homing beacon. They then come up with a plan to brutally injure Randy, so that he has to quit. However Randy changes his mind, and he goes to tell so. When Rodriguez hides out in a bathroom, Daytona visits him in the bathroom to let him know of his desire to play against Wolfschtagg. However, he surprises Rodriguez, who breaks Daytona's arm, unaware of Daytona's change of heart. Feng discovers Rodriguez's attempts to contact the FBI and forces Daytona to face Wolfschtagg. Feng decides to have Maggie take Wolfschtagg's place, killing Wolfschtagg when he protests. Daytona plays one-handed and tries to stall for time. Maggie tries to lose on purpose to sacrifice herself to save Daytona. However, Daytona uses his ping-pong expertise to hit Maggie with the ball, and she unsuccessfully tries to dodge Daytona's hits. While this goes on, they both decide to try to escape together. Enraged, Feng orders them both executed. Mahogany shoots the poisonous dart at Daytona, but Maggie successfully defends him with the ping-pong paddle. Daytona then throws the paddle with the dart stuck in it at Mahogany, killing her. The FBI swarms the place, during which the heroes attempt to escape. Daytona's attempts to rescue Feng's sex slaves leads to the villain's forces capturing the heroes. Feng decides to play Daytona to determine which of Wong's students is the superior ping pong player. During the game, the facility's self-destruct sequence is activated, and Feng reveals there is no off-switch. He also states that he changed the rules so that the ball can now be bounced off any surface once and still be in play. The self-destruct sequence countdown progresses, the game moves through several buildings and finally onto a bridge over a nearby river. After Wong informs Daytona that Feng has a weak backhand, Feng is electrocuted and falls into the water. Daytona and his friends, along with Feng's slaves, escape in Wong's boat. Two months later, the major characters are reunited for the reopening of Master Wong's rebuilt Mushu shop. Reception and box office. As of May 19, 2008, the film had a score of 38 out of 100 on Metacritic based on 27 reviews. On Rotten Tomatoes, 23% of critics gave the film positive reviews, based on 125 reviews (29 "fresh", 96 "rotten"). The film opened well with a U.S. take (opening weekend) of $14,312,850. Final gross (November 4, 2007) ended up being $32,844,290. Video game. Two video games based on "Balls of Fury" were released for Wii and Nintendo DS by Black Lantern. The storyline involves an underground ping-pong competition, based on the film. They were released on September 9, 2007 (DS) and September 25, 2007 (Wii). Both received very poor critical reviews.
1162698	Bill Macy (born Wolf Martin Garber; May 18, 1922) is an American television, film and stage actor, born in Revere, Massachusetts, to Mollie (née Friedopfer) and Michael Garber, a manufacturer.
1055241	Disturbing Behavior is a 1998 thriller science fiction film starring James Marsden, Katie Holmes, and Nick Stahl. The film was released on 24 July 1998. The plot follows a group of high school outcasts who are horrified by their "Blue Ribbon" classmates. Director David Nutter was a director and producer of "The X-Files" as well as a director and co-executive producer of "Millennium". Plot. Steve Clark (James Marsden) is a high school senior whose family moves to Cradle Bay, a picturesque coastal town in Washington state. Steve soon befriends three outcast students, Gavin Strick (Nick Stahl), U.V. (Chad E. Donella), and Rachel Wagner (Katie Holmes). Gavin tries to tell Steve that he believes there is something evil about the "Blue Ribbons"— a clique of students taking part in a "special program" led by the school psychologist, Dr. Caldicott (Bruce Greenwood). Steve is understandably skeptical. The following day at lunch, Gavin walks in looking like a Blue Ribbon. When Steve tries to confront Gavin, he gets punched in the stomach for his impertinence. Now Steve and Rachel must find the source of the Blue Ribbons as well as try and save the rest of the school before it's too late. They find a DVD-rom disc that Gavin hid for them in the boiler room, before his "transformation," which tells them about the club and about the history that he learned about Dr. Caldicott. During this, Steve also befriends Dorian (William Sadler), the school janitor, who appears to be mentally handicapped and hunts rats for the city for some extra cash. Dorian demonstrates a device called an E-Rat-icator which emits a soft, high pitched whine that is supposed to be innocuous but annoying to rats, which is an abysmal failure. Steve discovers that Dorian is actually highly intelligent, and carries classical literature pieces with him, and that he's hiding because he wishes to be left alone and does not trust society. Dorian also tells Steve that he suspects that the entire community of Cradle Bay is part of a massive conspiracy made up of nearly all of the parents, as well as the local police chief and the school principal, who hired Dr. Caldicott to "re-program" their own children to become the perfect people that they want them to be and not free thinkers. A little later, during an encounter where a Blue Ribbon assaults Rachel, the E-Rat-icator goes off, and immediately sends the student into a psychotic fit, driving him away. During their personal investigation, Steve and Rachel try to find out what has been happening to these Blue Ribbon kids, which leads them to a mental hospital called Bishop Flats following a lead on the DVD that Gavin left behind. Here, they find out that mind control is being used to make depressed, awkward and unruly teens become perfect so they can function properly in life, but the programming has some glitches that lead to momentary relapses which cause violent fits. Also at Bishop Flats, they find Caldicott's daughter, Betty (Julie Patzwald), a failed project who spends her time repeating the same phrase: "Meet the musical little creatures that hide among the flowers".
583398	Mere Baap Pehle Aap (translation: "My father, You first") is a 2008 Bollywood comedy film directed by Priyadarshan. The film stars Akshaye Khanna, Genelia D'Souza, Paresh Rawal, Om Puri, Shobana and Rajpal Yadav. The story is adapted from the 2001 Malayalam film "Ishtam" directed by Sibi Malayil. It was released on 13 June 2008. Synopsis. Janaradhan Wishvanbhar Rane is a widower has spent his life bringing up his two kids, Chirag and Gaurav. Janaradhan has done everything to bring them up in the best possible manner, ever since they were toddlers.
137144	Erica Gavin, (born Donna Graff, July 22, 1947) is an American film actress best known for playing the title role in Russ Meyer's 1968 film "Vixen!" Early years. Gavin was born in Los Angeles, California. At age 19, she worked as a topless dancer in Hollywood with two other future Russ Meyer stars, Haji and Tura Satana. While waiting in a dentist's office she saw an advertisement in "Variety" for girls to audition for the new Russ Meyer movie. She auditioned and won the role which launched her to B movie stardom. Career. Following "Vixen", Gavin appeared in one more Russ Meyer film - "Beyond the Valley of the Dolls". She also appeared in Jonathan Demme's women-in-prison film "Caged Heat". Personal life. Gavin currently resides in Los Angeles, California, where she works as a stylist and occasionally makes appearances at movie memorabilia conventions. She has said in an interview that she is bisexual.
1068644	Sam Huntington (born April 1, 1982) is an American actor. He is perhaps best known for his starring role as werewolf Josh Levinson in the Syfy series "Being Human".
1100530	Gerhard Karl Erich Gentzen (November 24, 1909 – August 4, 1945) was a German mathematician and logician. He made major contributions to the foundations of mathematics, proof theory, especially on natural deduction and sequent calculus. He died in 1945 after the Second World War, because he was deprived of food after being arrested in Prague. Life and career. Gentzen was a student of Paul Bernays at the University of Göttingen. Bernays was fired as "non-Aryan" in April 1933 and therefore Hermann Weyl formally acted as his supervisor. Gentzen joined the Sturmabteilung in November 1933 although he was by no means compelled to do so. Nevertheless he kept in contact with Bernays until the beginning of the Second World War. In 1935, he corresponded with Abraham Fraenkel from Jerusalem and was implicated by the Nazi teachers' union as one who "keeps contacts to the Chosen People." In 1935 and 1936, Hermann Weyl, head of the Göttingen mathematics department in 1933 until his resignation under Nazi pressure, made strong efforts to bring him to the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. Between November 1935 and 1939 he was an assistant of David Hilbert in Göttingen. Gentzen joined the NSDAP in 1937. In April 1939 Gentzen swore the oath of loyalty to Adolf Hitler as part of his academic appointment. From 1943 he was a teacher at the University of Prague. Under a contract from the SS Gentzen evidently worked for the V-2 project. After the war he starved to death in Prague, after being arrested like all other Germans in Prague on May 7, 1945 and deprived of food. Work. Gentzen's main work was on the foundations of mathematics, in proof theory, specifically natural deduction and the sequent calculus. His cut-elimination theorem is the cornerstone of proof-theoretic semantics, and some philosophical remarks in his "Investigations into Logical Deduction", together with Ludwig Wittgenstein's aphorism that "meaning is use", constitute the starting point for inferential role semantics. One of Gentzen's papers had a second publication in the ideological "Deutsche Mathematik" that was founded by Ludwig Bieberbach who promoted "Aryan" mathematics. Gentzen proved the consistency of the Peano axioms in a paper published in 1936. In his Habilitationsschrift, finished in 1939, he determined the proof-theoretical strength of Peano arithmetic. This was done by a direct proof of the unprovability of the principle of transfinite induction, used in his 1936 proof of consistency, within Peano arithmetic. The principle can, however, be expressed in arithmetic, so that a direct proof of Gödel's incompleteness theorem followed. Gödel used a coding procedure to construct an unprovable formula of arithmetic. Gentzen's proof was published in 1943 and marked the beginning of ordinal proof theory.
1333225	Vincent Van Patten (born October 17, 1957) is an American actor and former tour professional tennis player. Personal life. Van Patten was born in Bellerose, New York. He is the youngest son of actor Dick Van Patten and his wife, Pat, née Poole, a former June Taylor dancer. He is of Dutch and Italian descent on his father's side. Van Patten was first urged into show business at age nine by his father’s agent. A commercial for Colgate toothpaste was followed by more than thirty other commercials before his father was cast in the TV series, "Arnie", and moved his family from Long Island to Los Angeles. From his first marriage to Betsy Russell he has two sons: Richard and Vince. His second marriage, on April 15, 2003, was to former "The Young and the Restless" actress Eileen Davidson; they have one child.
629324	"Muriel's Wedding" is a 1994 Australian romantic comedy-drama film written and directed by P. J. Hogan. The film, which stars actors Toni Collette, Rachel Griffiths, Jeanie Drynan, Sophie Lee, and Bill Hunter, focuses on the socially awkward Muriel whose ambition is to have a glamorous wedding and improve her personal life by moving from her dead-end home town, the fictional Porpoise Spit, to Sydney.
629308	The Year My Voice Broke is a 1987 coming of age drama film written and directed by John Duigan and starring Noah Taylor, Loene Carmen, and Ben Mendelsohn. Set in 1962 in the rural Southern Tablelands of New South Wales, it was the first in a projected trilogy of films centred around the experiences of an awkward Australian boy, based on the childhood of writer/director John Duigan. Although the trilogy never came to fruition, it was followed by a sequel, "Flirting". It was the recipient of the 1987 Australian Film Institute Award for Best Film. Plot. In the 1960s, Danny (Noah Taylor), a thin, socially awkward adolescent, falls in love with his best friend Freya (Loene Carmen) in rural New South Wales, Australia. Unfortunately, she is attracted to Trevor (Ben Mendelsohn), a high school rugby star, larrikin and petty criminal who helps Danny with the school bullies. Shortly after sleeping with Freya at the abandoned house, Trevor steals a car for a joyride and is arrested and sent to juvenile detention; it is while he is away that Freya reveals to Danny that she is pregnant. Danny offers to marry her and claim that the child is his, but Freya refuses, saying that she does not want to marry anyone. Meanwhile, intrigued by a locket left to Freya by an elderly friend of theirs who recently died -engraved "SEA"- Danny begins to investigate the town's past, and discovers a lone cross in the cemetery bearing those initials, belonging to a "Sara Elizabeth Amery," who died days after Freya was born. Through inquiries with his parents, Danny learns that Sara was something of the town prostitute years ago, and that she was Freya's biological mother, who died trying to give birth by herself at the abandoned house. Meanwhile, Trevor breaks out of detention, steals another car, and severely wounds a store clerk during an armed robbery. Trevor returns to town long enough to reunite with Freya at the abandoned house, and learn that she is pregnant. The police arrive at Trevor's hiding place, but Danny warns him, and Trevor is able to escape, but the police run his car off the road during the course of the pursuit, and Trevor dies the next day. Freya disappears, and later suffers a miscarriage and hypothermia until Danny finds her (at the abandoned house) and takes her to the hospital. Hesitantly, Danny reveals the identity of Freya's mother to her. Realising the stigma now hanging over her, Freya decides to leave on the night train for the city. At the station, Danny gives her his life's savings to support herself and sees her off - promising their friendship to one another and to keep in touch. Later Danny travels to their favourite hangout spot and carves Freya's, Trevor's, and his name into a rock, as his adult self informs the audience that he never saw Freya again. The film is a series of interconnected segments narrated by Danny who recollects how he and Freya grew apart over the course of one year.
585163	Jigyaasa, released on 10 March 2006, was directed by Faisal Saif. It was called the year's most controversial feature film, and was based on the life of Indian sex goddess Mallika Sherawat. This film marked a big change in Hrishitaa Bhatt's career, as it was her first title role. Though Indian critics did not appreciate the film, it commanded a decent share at the box office. Synopsis. Based on actual events, the film tells the story of an innocent girl named Jigyaasa Mathur (Hrishitaa Bhatt) who comes from a middle-class family, the daughter of a schoolteacher named Malini Mathur (Varsha Usgaonkar). Malini is a woman with principles and emotions. Jigyaasa wants to become a film actress and her mother has no objections about it. But Jigyaasa has some other plans. Jigyaasa will go to any limits to reach her goal. Within a timespan of five years, Jigyaasa reaches the top and becomes India's highest paid superstar.
582640	Kya Love Story Hai () is a 2007 Bollywood film starring Ayesha Takia and Tusshar Kapoor in the lead roles. It is directed by debutant Lovely Singh and produced by Adlabs Films Ltd and V R Entertainers. The film was shot in Cape Town, South Africa. The tagline of the movie is "What if... Simplicity is all you need"
1064744	Vampires Suck is a 2010 vampire spoof film based on the "Twilight" film series and directed by Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer. It stars Jenn Proske, Matt Lanter, Christopher N. Riggi, Ken Jeong, Anneliese van der Pol, and Arielle Kebbel. Plot. Becca Crane (Jenn Proske) moves to Sporks to live with her clueless father, Sheriff Frank (Diedrich Bader), after her mother starts an affair with Tiger Woods. Meanwhile, killings have been happening to random people and the number one suspects are the Canadians. It is in fact a group of vampires, who are (apparently) commonly confused with the Black Eyed Peas. Becca is quickly befriended by many students at her new high school, (which is odd, considering the welcome she was given) including Jennifer (Anneliese van der Pol) but she is intrigued by the mysterious and aloof Edward Sullen (Matt Lanter), who perplexes her during their time in the biology class, despite thinking she smells of tuna. Later, Becca is nearly struck by a van in the school parking lot. Edward inexplicably moves from several feet away and stops the vehicle by thrusting another student in its path without any harm to himself or Becca (the other student is very badly injured). He later refuses to explain this act to Becca and warns her against befriending him. After much research, she tells Edward that she knows what he is, but reaches the wrong conclusion that he is a Jonas Brother. Edward corrects her, saying he is a vampire but that he only consumes animal blood (and the Real Housewives of Atlanta), and shows her the shiny bling he wears under his clothes. He also states he is a killer, and shoots Alice (from Alice in Wonderland) The pair fall in love, and he introduces Becca to his vampire family on her birthday. While unwrapping a gift, Becca gets a paper cut, after which one of the newer vampires (Jeremiah) runs at her. Edward flings her back, and then does the same to Jeremiah. She then starts to bleed from her arm, and the blood falls in a pyramid-shape of champagne glasses. After locking his dad and brother in tanning beds, he notices Becca has a nose bleed. Realizing the danger that he and his family pose to Becca, Edward rides a Segway PT out to the woods. He then proceeds to break up with Becca, who throws a temper tantrum after he leaves. After the fit, the three vampires that killed the fisherman appears. Becca begins to be eaten, but Edward shows up. After Jack retrieves his fangs from Becca's arm and leaps at Edward, Edward dispatches him by knocking his head off with a baseball bat. Jack's head flies through Sheriff Frank's car window, and he blames the Kardashians. Edward's departure leaves Becca heartbroken for months. She discovers that thrill-seeking activities and attempted suicides evoke Edward's preserved image. She is also comforted by her deepening friendship with Jacob White (Christopher N. Riggi), the cheerful childhood friend who eases her pain over losing Edward. When Becca is accosted in the woods by the last of the nomadic vampires (the third not appearing, as she was recast), Jacob transforms into a Chihuahua as his werewolf pack arrives to save her. Meanwhile, Edward has moved to Rio de Janeiro and is now dating Lady Gaga to get over losing Becca. When his sister arrives and tells him that, with her gift of prophecy, she has seen Becca kill herself. Edward becomes depressed and decides to provoke the "Zolturi", a powerful vampire coven, by exposing himself in the sunlight at 'St. Salvatore's day' school prom and forcing them to kill him for revealing that vampires exist. His sister has another vision of Becca's survival as he leaves, but she is unable to warn him. Edward's sister arrives at Becca's house in her Porsche 911, and tells her she has to save Edward by showing him she is still alive. Jacob appears and demands that Becca choose between him and Edward, but just before she announces her decision he is distracted by a cat and runs off to chase it. Upon arriving at the prom, Becca is caught between the warring factions of Edward fangirls and Jacob fangirls. She is unable to reach Edward before he exposes himself, figuratively and literally. However, twilight occurs (followed by a new moon and an eclipse), concealing Edward's vampire nature as Becca gets him to safety. But after a fight between him and the Zolturi leader, Daro (Ken Jeong), Edward is forced to make Becca into a vampire or else he will be killed horribly. He agrees to do so only on the condition that she marry him, which she accepts. The film concludes with Edward taking a blow to the head from the head Jacob fangirl, who shouts "Team Jacob, bitch!" Edward survives the blow, and the girl is attacked by the newly-vampirized Becca. Release date. "Vampires Suck" was released on August 18, 2010, in the United States, Canada and Russia, August 26 in Australia and was released on October 15 in Britain. 20th Century Fox did not provide advance screenings of the film for critics. Release. Critical reception. "Vampires Suck" received almost universally negative reviews from critics and an approval rating of 4% on Rotten Tomatoes, with the consensus being "Witlessly broad and utterly devoid of laughs, "Vampires Suck" represents a slight step forward for the Friedberg-Seltzer team." And on "The Rotten Tomatoes Show", comedian Ron Babcock said that it's "scary that this movie made two million dollars more in its opening weekend than "Scott Pilgrim vs the World"." He then proceeded to say "America, can you guys get your shit together?" Another review aggregator, Metacritic, calculated an average score of 18 based on 16 critics, the worst score for a wide release in 2010. Jenn Proske's performance received some praise.
1091787	Johannes Kepler (; December 27, 1571 – November 15, 1630) was a German mathematician, astronomer and astrologer. A key figure in the 17th century scientific revolution, he is best known for his eponymous laws of planetary motion, codified by later astronomers, based on his works "Astronomia nova", "Harmonices Mundi", and "Epitome of Copernican Astronomy". These works also provided one of the foundations for Isaac Newton's theory of universal gravitation. During his career, Kepler was a mathematics teacher at a seminary school in Graz, Austria, where he became an associate of Prince Hans Ulrich von Eggenberg. Later he became an assistant to astronomer Tycho Brahe, and eventually the imperial mathematician to Emperor Rudolf II and his two successors Matthias and Ferdinand II. He was also a mathematics teacher in Linz, Austria, and an adviser to General Wallenstein. Additionally, he did fundamental work in the field of optics, invented an improved version of the refracting telescope (the Keplerian Telescope), and mentioned the telescopic discoveries of his contemporary Galileo Galilei. Kepler lived in an era when there was no clear distinction between astronomy and astrology, but there was a strong division between astronomy (a branch of mathematics within the liberal arts) and physics (a branch of natural philosophy). Kepler also incorporated religious arguments and reasoning into his work, motivated by the religious conviction and belief that God had created the world according to an intelligible plan that is accessible through the natural light of reason. Kepler described his new astronomy as "celestial physics", as "an excursion into Aristotle's "Metaphysics"", and as "a supplement to Aristotle's "On the Heavens"", transforming the ancient tradition of physical cosmology by treating astronomy as part of a universal mathematical physics. Early years. Johannes Kepler was born on December 27, the feast day of St. John the Evangelist, 1571, at the Free Imperial City of Weil der Stadt (now part of the Stuttgart Region in the German state of Baden-Württemberg, 30 km west of Stuttgart's center). His grandfather, Sebald Kepler, had been Lord Mayor of that town but, by the time Johannes was born, he had two brothers and one sister and the Kepler family fortune was in decline. His father, Heinrich Kepler, earned a precarious living as a mercenary, and he left the family when Johannes was five years old. He was believed to have died in the Eighty Years' War in the Netherlands. His mother Katharina Guldenmann, an inn-keeper's daughter, was a healer and herbalist who was later tried for witchcraft. Born prematurely, Johannes claimed to have been weak and sickly as a child. Nevertheless, he often impressed travelers at his grandfather's inn with his phenomenal mathematical faculty.
1067115	Smokey and the Bandit Part 3 is the (1983) sequel to "Smokey and the Bandit" and "Smokey and the Bandit II" starring Jackie Gleason, Jerry Reed, Paul Williams, Pat McCormick, Mike Henry and Colleen Camp. The film also includes a very brief cameo near the film's end by the original Bandit, Burt Reynolds. With a budget of a television movie, many action and comedic scenes are rehashes of scenes from the previous two "Smokey and the Bandit" films. Plot. As is the case with the two preceding "Smokey and the Bandit" films, "Smokey and the Bandit Part 3" begins with Big Enos (McCormick) and Little Enos (Williams) offering a sizeable wager on one's ability to transport a shipment a large distance in a short period of time. Offering a slight twist, however, the offer is this time made to a retiring Sheriff Buford T. Justice (Gleason), betting $250,000 against his badge on his ability to transport a large stuffed fish from an eatery in Florida to Texas. Unlike the two earlier films, Big and Little Enos this time seem to be quite active in their desire to see Buford fail in his goal. After Buford dodges their many traps (especially after he destroys their milk truck, which drenches them and disables their engine), they then go so far as to actually attempt to hire the Bandit (as a distraction) to stop him. Deciding that the Bandit is too egotistical and hard to manage, they hire Cledus "Snowman" Snow (Reed) as his replacement. Accepting the offer, Cledus parks his Peterbilt 359 and climbs behind the wheel of a black and gold 1983 Pontiac Trans Am. He later picks up Dusty, who quits her job as a "bookkeeper" for a used car dealership, but not before attempting to wreck her boss' business (a seedy used car dealership) by badmouthing him in the middle of broadcasting a live TV commercial. The scene of Cledus picking up Dusty in the middle of the road is almost an exact repeat of how Bo picked up Frog in the 1977 film. Cledus manages to catch up with Buford on an interstate, where he then lassoes Buford's fish off of the Justices' police cruiser; Buford needs the fish to retrieve his $250,000. Buford then begins a hot pursuit of Cledus, with another local officer who attempts to take charge of the situation. Not long after the local officer is disabled, Buford becomes disabled as well when sand is dumped on his squad car. The pursuit quickly resumes as Buford catches up to the duo after Cledus and Dusty stop at a redneck bar to pick up some food. The chase resumes as they enter a local town, where mass chaos comes with their entry. Cledus escapes when an 18 wheeler blocks the alleyway Cledus ran through. While trying to get the truck out, Buford's car is hitched to a tow-truck. After unsuccessfully pleading with the traffic officer to release his car, he sends Junior out to unhook it. Unable to wait, he angrily reverses the car and escapes. The tow truck operator chases him in pursuit, with Junior dangling on the hook, spinning freely. Eventually, Buford manages to make the truck flip over, sending the truck and Junior flying. A number of cars continue to crash into the pile-up. The next scene comes sudden as the Bandit and Justice are in the Mississippi fairgrounds. Buford continues to pursue on two wheels after driving on an incline with Cledus letting the fame get to his head. Cledus and Dusty decide to stop at a hotel for the night, where there are people who are involved in "sexual" acts, several of which are quite deviant. Buford finds the Bandit's Trans Am and decides to make a search of the building to find the fish, which he eventually does. While searching in the steamroom, Buford handcuffs himself to a muscular nymphomaniac woman who will not take no for an answer. The next final scenes show Buford getting his tires blown by the "Enos Devil Darts." Cledus quickly arrives and retakes the fish. Cledus and Justice then start a final pursuit with Buford on two tires, first through a bunch of cattle, then to boats, then finally through a field where the Enoses set off a series of explosives, one of which destroys all of the bodywork, leaving the engine, seats, and police light bar (being held by Junior above his head). Cledus decides to surrender the fish to let Buford win. Just after cashing in on the $250,000, Buford finds Cledus and begins to apprehend him, but Buford then imagines Cledus to be the "Real" Bandit (in a cameo appearance by Burt Reynolds) who sweet talks him to letting him go and starting a new pursuit. Similar to the ending of the 1977 movie, Buford is again chasing the Bandit in the hulk of his police cruiser (the muscular woman has taken Junior's place riding shotgun this time), while Junior chases after "Daddy" for miles on end, dropping the reward money as he goes. Original version. The film was originally entitled "Smokey IS the Bandit", and did not include Jerry Reed in the cast. Contemporary newspapers refer to original plans to feature Gleason as both "smokey" and "bandit", In a teaser trailer for the film (billed as "Smokey is the Bandit"), Gleason appears in character as Justice, explaining to the audience that to defeat the Bandit he would adopt the attributes of his prey, "becoming [my own worst enemy". A publicity still of Gleason apparently shows him in costume as the Bandit.
69150	Vincenzo Viviani (April 5, 1622 – September 22, 1703) was an Italian mathematician and scientist. He was a pupil of Torricelli and a disciple of Galileo. Biography. Born and raised in Florence, Viviani studied at a Jesuit school. There, Grand Duke Ferdinando II de' Medici furnished him a scholarship to purchase mathematical books. He became a pupil of Evangelista Torricelli and worked on physics and geometry. In 1639, at the age of 17, he was an assistant of Galileo Galilei in Arcetri. He remained a disciple until Galileo's death in 1642. From 1655 to 1656, Viviani edited the first edition of Galileo's collected works. After Torricelli's 1647 death, Viviani was appointed to fill his position at the Accademia dell'Arte del Disegno in Florence. Viviani was also one of the first members of the Grand Duke's experimental academy, the Accademia del Cimento, when it was created a decade later. In 1660, Viviani and Giovanni Alfonso Borelli conducted an experiment to determine the speed of sound. Timing the difference between the seeing the flash and hearing the sound of a cannon shot at a distance, they calculated a value of 350 meters per second (m/s), considerably better than the previous value of 478 m/s obtained by Pierre Gassendi. The currently accepted value is 331.29 m/s at 0 °C or 340.29 m/s at sea level. It has also been claimed that in 1661 he experimented with the rotation of pendulums, 190 years before the famous demonstration by Foucault. By 1666, Viviani started to receive many job offers as his reputation as a mathematician grew. That same year, Louis XIV of France offered him a position at the Académie Royale and John II Casimir of Poland offered Viviani a post as his astronomer. Fearful of losing Viviani, the Grand Duke appointed him court mathematician. Viviani accepted this post and turned down his other offers. In 1687, he published a book on engineering, "Discorso intorno al difendersi da' riempimenti e dalle corrosione de' fiumi". Upon his death, Viviani left an almost completed work on the resistance of solids, which was subsequently completed and published by Luigi Guido Grandi. In 1737, the Church finally allowed Galileo to be reburied in a grave with an elaborate monument. The monument that was created in the church of Santa Croce was constructed with the help of funds left by Viviani for that specific purpose. Viviani's own remains were moved to Galileo's new grave as well. The lunar crater Viviani is named after him. Curious facts. In Florence, Viviani had Galileo's life and achievements written in Latin on the façade of his palace, on huge stone scrolls. The palace was then renamed Palazzo dei Cartelloni.
1060784	Valerie Ritchie Perrine (born September 3, 1943) is an American actress and model. Life and career. Perrine was born in Galveston, Texas, the daughter of Winifred "Renee" (née McGinley), a dancer who appeared in "Earl Carroll's Vanities", and Kenneth Perrine, a Lieutenant Colonel in the US Army. Owing to her father's career, Perrine lived in many locations as the family moved to different posts. She began her career as a Las Vegas showgirl. Some believe she made her motion picture debut with an uncredited part in "Diamonds Are Forever" (1971) but this is not true. She played soft-core porn actress Montana Wildhack in the film of Kurt Vonnegut's "Slaughterhouse-Five" (1972). Perrine was photographed as a model for a pictorial layout in the May 1972 issue of "Playboy" magazine, later appearing on the cover in August 1981. She then became the first actress to purposely display herself nude on American television by completely baring her breasts during the May 4, 1973, Public Broadcasting Service broadcast of Bruce Jay Friedman's "Steambath" on "Hollywood Television Theater." (She was seen taking a shower from the side totally undressed.) Only a few PBS stations nationwide were adventurous enough to carry the program. In 1975, Perrine was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress and the Golden Globe for Best Motion Picture Actress (Drama) and won the Best Actress Award at the Cannes Film Festival for her role as comedian Lenny Bruce's wife, stripper Honey Bruce, in Bob Fosse's "Lenny" (1974). She was Carlotta Monti in the biopic "W.C. Fields and Me" (1976) and one of her best remembered movie roles came as Miss Eve Teschmacher, moll of criminal mastermind Lex Luthor, in "Superman" (1978). For this role she was nominated for the 1979 Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actress. She reprised her role as Miss Teschmacher in "Superman II" (1980). Perrine played Charlotta Steele, ex-wife of a rodeo champion played by Robert Redford, in "The Electric Horseman" (1979). Her career grew uneven after an appearance in "Can't Stop the Music" (1980), for which she was nominated for a Razzie Award for Worst Actress. This film has since become a cult classic. In 1982, she played the role of Marcy, the wife of a corrupt police officer, in "The Border" with Jack Nicholson. In the years since then, Perrine has worked in lower-profile projects, although she did have a small supporting role in the 2000 Mel Gibson film "What Women Want". In 1995, Perrine made a guest appearance on the series "", playing an ex-wife of Richard Belzer's Detective John Munch.
1064521	Philip Anthony Mair Heald, known professionally as Anthony Heald (born August 25, 1944), is an American actor known for portraying Hannibal Lecter's jail nemesis, Dr. Frederick Chilton, in "The Silence of the Lambs" and "Red Dragon", and for playing assistant principal Scott Guber in David E. Kelley's "Boston Public". Heald also had a recurring role as Judge Cooper on Kelley's "The Practice" and "Boston Legal". Career. Heald has worked extensively on Broadway and has been twice nominated for the Tony Award for his work in "Anything Goes" (1988) and Terrence McNally's "Love! Valour! Compassion!" (1995). He also appeared in McNally's "The Lisbon Traviata" (1989) with Nathan Lane, "Deep Rising" (1998) and "Lips Together, Teeth Apart" (1991) with Lane, Christine Baranski, and Swoosie Kurtz. In addition to his work on stage, screen and film, Heald has recorded over 60 audio books/books on tape, including works as varied as "Where the Red Fern Grows", "New York Times" bestsellers such as "The Pelican Brief" (in the film adaptation of which he also played a villainous lawyer), "Jurassic Park" and "Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil", several works by science fiction writer Philip K. Dick, as well as a sizable number of titles in the "Star Wars" audio book library. Heald also had brief appearances in the second season of "Miami Vice" ("The Prodigal Son"), the 2006 film "", and the "Cheers" final episode, "One for the Road". He later appeared in the "Cheers" spin-off "Frasier" as the outgoing "Corkmaster" of Frasier and Niles' wine club. Heald also appeared in "Unaccompanied Minors" as a distressed, Christmas-hating airport employee. Personal life. Heald was born in New Rochelle, New York, the son of an editor. He attended Michigan State University, from which he graduated in 1971. Heald lives in Ashland, Oregon, where he regularly performs in productions of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, and lives with his wife Robin and daughter, Zoe. During the 2010 season, Heald, who is Jewish (having converted to Judaism), played Shylock in Shakespeare's "The Merchant of Venice".
1063285	Melanie Jayne Lynskey (born 16 May 1977) is a New Zealand actress, best known for playing Rose on "Two and a Half Men" and for films "Hello I Must Be Going", "The Informant!", "Ever After" and "Heavenly Creatures". She has also played a range of characters in films such as "Win Win", "Up in the Air", "Away We Go", "Flags of Our Fathers", "Shattered Glass" and "Sweet Home Alabama". Early life. Lynskey was born in New Plymouth, New Zealand. She attended New Plymouth Girls' High School, graduating in 1996. She then studied English literature at Victoria University of Wellington. Career. 1993–2002. At the age of 15, Lynskey won her first professional acting role as Pauline Parker in the Peter Jackson film "Heavenly Creatures", based on the 1954 Parker–Hulme murder case, opposite Kate Winslet. The film was released to critical acclaim in 1994 with Richard Corliss of "TIME" magazine describing her performance as "perfect, fearless in embodying teenage hysteria". "Heavenly Creatures" won Jackson and partner Fran Walsh a nomination for an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay and is now considered a cult film. Lynskey was named Best Actress at the New Zealand Film and TV Awards in 1995 for her performance. After release of the film, Lynskey completed high school and began studying at the Victoria University of Wellington. During that time she made a brief appearance as a police deputy in Jackson's next film, "The Frighteners". Her next major film appearance was as Jacqueline de Ghent in the 20th Century Fox production "Ever After", opposite Drew Barrymore and Anjelica Huston, which was followed by roles in "Detroit Rock City", "But I'm a Cheerleader", "The Cherry Orchard" (an adaptation of the Anton Chekhov play) and the Jerry Bruckheimer produced "Coyote Ugly", where she took on a New Jersey accent. In 2002, she played her first television role in the Stephen King mini series "Rose Red". She then appeared alongside Katie Holmes in "Abandon" and Reese Witherspoon in "Sweet Home Alabama", and guest starred twice on "The Shield". 2003–present. In "Shattered Glass", a 2003 drama revolving around political journalism, Lynskey played a writer for "The New Republic". Based on a true story, the film depicted the downfall of fraudulent Washington, D. C. journalist Stephen Glass (Hayden Christensen) and received extremely positive reviews, with A. O. Scott of "The New York Times" referring to it as "a serious, well-observed examination of the practice of journalism", and "an astute and surprisingly gripping drama". Also in 2003, she landed the part of Rose, Charlie Sheen's sweet and zany stalker neighbor on the Emmy Award-winning "Two and a Half Men", which frequently appears in the top 10 of the most-watched television shows in America. Although she left her regular slot on the show in 2005 to appear on "Drive", she returned after "Drive" had been cancelled. In 2006, she had a small but substantial role in Clint Eastwood's Oscar-nominated World War II drama "Flags of Our Fathers" and returned to New Zealand in late 2007 to a starring role in "Show of Hands", which premiered at the Montreal Film Festival in 2008, and earned her a nomination for Best Actress at the Qantas Television Awards.
1757994	Kayla Noelle Ewell (born August 27, 1985) is an American actress known for her roles on television as Caitlin Ramirez on CBS's long-running soap opera, "The Bold and the Beautiful", as Maureen Sampson on NBC's acclaimed "Freaks and Geeks", and as Vicki Donovan on The CW's "The Vampire Diaries". Early life. Ewell was born in Long Beach, California and raised in Seal Beach. She studied dance, singing, and acting at the Orange County Song & Dance Company in Westminster. Ewell was spotted by a talent agent while taking an acting class around 1999, and asked to go on an audition. She graduated from Los Alamitos High School in 2003. Career. Ewell first appeared on the television series "Freaks and Geeks" in 2000, playing Maureen Sampson in the episode "Carded and Discarded", directed by Judd Apatow. She starred on the soap opera "The Bold and the Beautiful" from 2004–2005, and has guest-starred on the TV series "The O.C.", "Boston Public", "Veronica Mars", "Close to Home" and "Entourage". She had a role in the film "Just My Luck", starring Lindsay Lohan, and in "Material Girls", starring Hilary and Haylie Duff, in 2006. She had a starring role in the film "Senior Skip Day". Ewell co-starred in The CW television series "The Vampire Diaries" for the first seven episodes in 2009. Ewell described her character, Vicki Donovan, to "Star" magazine as "a really slutty high school student", and "a troublemaker". Vicki was the first human on the series turned into a vampire. Ewell was killed off the show when her character was staked in the heart by Stefan (Paul Wesley) in order to save Elena (Nina Dobrev) in the Halloween-themed episode "Haunted". Ewell hinted in November 2009 that she was still under contract for the role and might return to the show, but series creator, Kevin Williamson, stated that there were no plans to bring her back. Her character did return however in the finale of the second season, and at the start of season 3. Ewell played a children's fashion designer in the 2011 Hallmark Channel TV movie, "Keeping Up With The Randalls", alongside Thad Luckinbill, Roma Downey, Marion Ross and McKenna Jones. She next appeared on the A&E television series, "The Glades", that year, as a waitress suspected of murder in the episode "Beached". In 2012, she guest starred alongside Gabrielle Dennis on the TNT drama, "Franklin & Bash", playing a Navy sailor facing a court-martial. Ewell starred opposite Austin Stowell and Danny Glover in the 2013 Hallmark Movie Channel film, "Shuffelton’s Barbershop", as Norma, a country music singer and songwriter. The film was named after a 1950s Norman Rockwell painting that featured bluegrass musicians playing in a barbershop. Ewell starred in the 2013 horror film, "The Demented", with Sarah Butler and Michael Welch. Personal life. As of 2009, Ewell lives in Los Angeles, California. She stated to "Sophisticate" magazine in 2005 that she enjoys painting, rock climbing, and rappelling in her free time. She also includes dancing and whitewater rafting among her hobbies. She was on her high school's surfing team. Ewell was arrested for disorderly conduct on August 22, 2009 in Smarr, Georgia for loitering on a bridge during a photo shoot with Candice Accola, Sara Canning, Nina Dobrev and photographer Tyler Shields. The charges were later dismissed.
940648	Hayes MacArthur (born April 16, 1977) is an American stand-up comedian, actor and writer. Early life. MacArthur was born in Chicago, Illinois. He attended Deerfield Academy and received a B.A. in Government from Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine. He has studied at the Groundlings Theater Company and Atlantic Theater Company.
501378	Jack Alexander Huston (born 7 December 1982) is an English actor. Huston is best known for his role as Richard Harrow, on "Boardwalk Empire". Early life. Huston was born in London, the son of Lady Margot Lavinia Cholmondeley and Walter Anthony (Tony) Huston. He decided to become an actor at the age of six, after playing the title role in a school production of Peter Pan. He later attended the famed dramatic institute Hurtwood House. Career. Huston started his film career with a small screen adaptation of "Spartacus", where he played Flavius. He then went on to having more prominent roles in such films as "Factory Girl", playing the American poet Gerard Malanga, the horror film "Shrooms", "Outlander" and "Shrink". In 2010, he had a small role in "" as Royce King. Huston also appears in HBO's "Boardwalk Empire" as Richard Harrow, a severely disfigured World War I marksman turned gangster. On 16 December 2010, it was announced Huston would be made a series regular after appearing in five episodes of the first season. After this he went on to be directed by Al Pacino in the 2011 film, "Wilde Salome" and to having a starring roles in "Not Fade Away" and "Night Train to Lisbon". In 2013, Huston was cast in David O. Russell's upcoming "American Hustle". Personal life. His mother is English and his father is American. His paternal grandparents were director John Huston and Enrica (Soma), and his maternal grandparents were Hugh Cholmondeley, 6th Marquess of Cholmondeley and Lavinia Margaret (Leslie). Huston is the nephew of actors Anjelica Huston and Danny Huston, as well as David Cholmondeley, 7th Marquess of Cholmondeley. On his father's side, he is a great-grandson of actor Walter Huston. Through his maternal grandfather, Huston is descended from Robert Walpole, the first Prime Minister of Great Britain, David Sassoon, the Treasurer of Baghdad, and Mayer Amschel Rothschild, who founded the Rothschild family international banking dynasty. Huston began dating American model Shannan Click in 2011. Huston and Click have one daughter, Sage Lavinia Huston, born on 6 April 2013 in New York City.
1101119	Benjamin Peirce (; April 4, 1809 – October 6, 1880) was an American mathematician who taught at Harvard University for approximately 50 years. He made contributions to celestial mechanics, statistics, number theory, algebra, and the philosophy of mathematics. He was the son of Benjamin Peirce (1778–1831), later librarian of Harvard, and Lydia Ropes Nichols Peirce (1781–1868). After graduating from Harvard, he remained as a tutor (1829), and was subsequently appointed professor of mathematics in 1831. He added astronomy to his portfolio in 1842, and remained as Harvard professor until his death. In addition, he was instrumental in the development of Harvard's science curriculum, served as the college librarian, and was director of the U.S. Coast Survey from 1867 to 1874. Research. Benjamin Peirce is often regarded as the earliest American scientist whose research was recognized as world class. Mathematics. In number theory, he proved there is no odd perfect number with fewer than four prime factors. In algebra, he was notable for the study of associative algebras. He first introduced the terms idempotent and nilpotent in 1870 to describe elements of these algebras, and he also introduced the Peirce decomposition. Definition of mathematics. In the philosophy of mathematics, he became known for the statement that "Mathematics is the science that draws necessary conclusions". Peirce's definition of mathematics was credited by Charles Sanders Peirce as helping to initiate the consequentialist philosophy of pragmatism. Like George Boole, Peirce believed that mathematics could be used to study logic. These ideas were developed by Charles Sanders Peirce, who noted that logic also includes the study of faulty reasoning. In contrast, the later logicist program of Gottlob Frege and Bertrand Russell attempted to base mathematics on logic. Statistics. Peirce proposed what came to be known as Peirce's Criterion for the statistical treatment of outliers, that is, of apparently extreme observations. His ideas were developed by Charles Sanders Peirce. Peirce was an expert witness in the Howland will forgery trial, where he was assisted by his son Charles Sanders Peirce. Their analysis of the questioned signature showed that it resembled another particular handwriting example so closely that the chances of such a match were statistically extremely remote. Private life. He was devoutly religious, though he seldom published his theological thoughts. Peirce credited God as shaping nature in ways that account for the efficacy of pure mathematics in describing empirical phenomena. Peirce viewed "mathematics as study of God's work by God's creatures", according to an encyclopedia. He married Sarah Hunt Mills, the daughter of U.S. Senator Elijah Hunt Mills. Peirce and his wife had four sons and one daughter: Eponyms. The lunar crater Peirce is named for Peirce. Post-doctoral positions in Harvard University's mathematics department are named in his honors as Benjamin Peirce Fellows and Lecturers.
1265418	Gloria May Josephine Swanson (; March 27, 1899 – April 4, 1983) was an American actress, singer and producer, who is best known for her role as Norma Desmond, a faded silent film star, in the critically acclaimed film "Sunset Boulevard" (1950). She was one of the most prominent stars during the silent film era as both an actress and a fashion icon, especially under the direction of Cecil B. DeMille, making dozens of silent films and being nominated for the first Academy Award in the Best Actress category. She also produced her own films like "Sadie Thompson" and "The Love of Sunya." In 1929, Swanson transitioned to talkies with "The Trespasser." However, personal problems and changing tastes saw her popularity wane during the 1930s when she moved into theater and television. Early life. Gloria May Josephine Swanson was born in a small house in Chicago in 1899 to Adelaide (née Klanowski) and Joseph Theodore Swanson, a soldier. She attended Hawthorne Scholastic Academy. Her father was from a strict Lutheran Swedish American family, and her mother was of German, French, and Polish ancestry. Born in Chicago, but because of her father's attachment to the Army, the family moved frequently and Swanson ended up spending most of her childhood in Puerto Rico, where she learned Spanish. She also spent time in Key West, Florida. It was not her intention to enter show business, but on a whim one of her aunts took her to a small film company in Chicago called Essanay Studios for a visit and Swanson was asked to come back to work as an extra. After a few months as an extra working with others like Charlie Chaplin, and making $13.50 a week, Swanson left school to work full-time at the studio. Her parents would soon separate and she and her mother moved to California. Career. Early years. Swanson made her film debut in 1914 as an extra in "The Song of Soul" for Essanay. She reportedly asked to be in the movie just for fun. Essanay hired her to feature in several movies, including "His New Job", directed by and starring Charlie Chaplin. Swanson auditioned for the leading female role in "His New Job," but Chaplin did not view her as leading lady material and cast Swanson in the brief role of a stenographer. Swanson moved to California in 1916 to appear in Mack Sennett's Keystone comedies opposite Bobby Vernon, and in 1919 she signed with Paramount Pictures and worked often with Cecil B. DeMille, who turned her into a romantic lead in such films as "Don't Change Your Husband" (1919), "Male and Female" (1919) with the famous scene posing as "the Lion's Bride" with a real lion, "Why Change Your Wife?" (1920), "Something to Think About" (1920), and "The Affairs of Anatol" (1921). In the space of two years, Swanson rocketed to stardom and was one of the most sought-after actresses in Hollywood. She later appeared in a series of films directed by Sam Wood. She starred in "Beyond the Rocks" (1922) with her long-time friend Rudolph Valentino. (Long believed to be a lost film, "Beyond the Rocks" was rediscovered in 2004 in a private collection in The Netherlands and is now available on DVD.) Swanson continued to make costume drama films for the next few years. So successful were her films for Paramount that the studio was afraid of losing her and gave in to many of her whims and wishes. During her heyday, audiences went to her films not only for her performances, but also to see her wardrobe. Frequently, ornamented with beads, jewels, peacock and ostrich feathers, and other extravagant pieces "haute couture" of the day, one would hardly believe Swanson was barely five feet (1.52 m) tall. Her fashion, hair styles, and jewels were copied around the world. She was the screen's first clothes horse and was becoming one of the most famous and photographed women in the world. In 1925, she starred in the French-American "Madame Sans-Gêne", directed by Léonce Perret. Filming was allowed for the first time at many of the historic sites relating to Napoleon. While it was well received at the time, no prints are known to exist, and it is unfortunately considered to be a lost film. During the production of "Madame Sans-Gêne," Swanson met her third husband Henri, Marquis de la Falaise, who had been hired to be her translator during the film's production. After a four months residency in France she returned to the United States as European nobility, now known as the Marquise. She got a huge welcome home with parades in both New York and Los Angeles. Swanson appeared in a 1925 short produced by Lee DeForest in his Phonofilm sound-on-film process. She made a number of films for Paramount, among them "The Coast of Folly," "Stage Struck" and "Fine Manners."
150012	New Low is a 2010 independent American romantic comedy film written, directed, produced, and edited by Adam Bowers, who also stars in the film along with Jayme Ratzer, Valerie Jones, and YouTube personality Toby Turner. It premiered January 23, 2010 at the Sundance Film Festival. Plot. Wendell, a neurotic, aimless twentysomething, struggles to figure out which girl he really belongs with: Joanna, the best girl he's ever known, or Vicky, the worst. His friend, Dave, helps him sort through his thoughts as Wendell discovers not only who he should be with, but who he truly is under all that neuroses. Reception. New Low has received mostly positive reception. Variety called the film "hilarious" and said it "smells like a cult hit." The Orlando Sentinel rated it, "3.5 out of 4 stars."
1068500	The Alibi is a 2006 American film written by Noah Hawley and directed by Matt Checkowski and Kurt Mattila. The film was released to DVD on December 5, 2006 under the title Lies and Alibis. Plot. A man (Steve Coogan) who runs an alibi agency, a service for adulterous husbands and wives that provides airtight alibis, runs into trouble with his latest client. In order to remedy the problem, he has to rely on a very enticing woman (Rebecca Romijn), his assistant/partner. The plot thickens when he switches identities with one of his clients (James Marsden) for a weekend, and the client's girlfriend dies in an accident. With the police, an assassin, and a jealous ex-boyfriend to run from, he discovers that he will need all the ingenuity he can muster to survive.
1059614	Margot at the Wedding is a 2007 tragicomedy written and directed by Noah Baumbach. The film premiered August 31, 2007 at the 34th Telluride Film Festival. Plot. Margot (Nicole Kidman) is a successful but neurotic writer who brings her 11-year-old son Claude (Zane Pais) to spend a weekend visiting her free-spirited sister Pauline (Jennifer Jason Leigh) on the eve of her wedding to Malcolm (Jack Black) at Pauline & Malcom's home on Long Island. Margot disapproves of Pauline's choice of fiancé, which will become one of several sources of tension between the two sisters. Malcom is also free-spirited, but also unsuccessful, unmotivated, socially inappropriate and "completely unattractive. Because much of Malcom's time is spent dabbling in painting, playing music and writing letters to magazines, Margot feels that Pauline could do better. While in town, Margot will also be interviewed in a local bookstore by Dick Koosman (Ciarán Hinds), a successful author with whom Margot is collaborating on a screenplay. Dick's teenage daughter Maisie (Halley Feiffer) also visits the house. Although Pauline is happy that Margot showed up, the two share a wellspring of tension. Margot disapproves of Pauline's life-choices - besides marrying Malcom, Pauline is pregnant, a fact that she hasn't shared with Malcom or her pre-teenage daughter Ingrid. Pauline resents how her life experiences have been used in Margot's writing. She is also incensed when Margot shares secrets told to her in confidence - including her pregnancy. Each of the sisters feels unfairly picked on by the other. Rather than take their frustrations out on each other, the sisters target those around them. Pauline twits her fiancee's sense of inadequacy. Margot skewers her son's burgeoning physical and emotional awkwardness. As he grows up, Claude becomes more of a legitimate target of her merciless powers of observation. Tensions come to a head twice. Margot's interview goes disastrously wrong when Dick's questions become personal. While Pauline interrogates him about emails he received from one of her 20 year old students, Malcom admits he kissed Maisie. Returning to the house, Pauline finds Maisie inside. Though Pauline says nothing, it's obvious to Maisie that Pauline knows the truth. Learning of Malcom's inappropriate behavior with Maisie, Dick angrily beats Malcom while Pauline and Ingrid escape Malcom and the house with Margot and Claude.
1222215	Marc Pickering (born 5 June 1985) is an English stage, film and television actor who appeared in "Sleepy Hollow" and "Calendar Girls". Life and career. Pickering was born in Hull, East Riding of Yorkshire. He was first attracted to acting aged 8 when he saw an audition sign for "The Sound of Music" and said to his father "I wouldn't mind doing that." Although he did not get the part, he was keen to get involved, and joined the National Youth Music Theatre. When he was 12, one of the theatre's directors, Jeremy James Taylor put him forward for the part of Young Masbath in "Sleepy Hollow", directed by Tim Burton. Pickering also performed in Bugsy Malone, as the Artful Dodger in "Oliver Twist", in "The Long, Short and the Tall" on various London stages, before starring opposite Helen Mirren and Julie Walters in "Calendar Girls" in 2003, before returning to the stage as Joseph Merrick in "The Elephant Man". The production did not use prosthetics, to encourage the audience to see Merrick's struggle and emotions. Pickering's most significant television role was in Peter Kay's 2008 talent show parody "Britain's Got the Pop Factor...", in which he played R Wayne, a role that involved singing and dancing. Additionally, Pickering plays Montparnasse in Tom Hooper's 2012 reimagining of the celebrated musical Les Misérables. He attended South Hunsley Secondary School.
1132041	A Carol Christmas is a TV movie starring Tori Spelling, Dinah Manoff, William Shatner and Gary Coleman. It premiered on the Hallmark Channel in 2003. The film is an adaptation of the Charles Dickens story of a similar name. Plot. Spelling plays Carol Cartman, a conceited sensationalist talk show host. She is cynical, selfish, and generally treats her employees with cold contempt. She has been molded this way by her late Aunt Marla (Dinah Manoff). On Christmas Eve, she is haunted by her Aunt who warns her of the mistake she made and the terrible fate awaiting her if she doesn't change. In the tradition of the original story, she is visited by the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Future. She is shown how she will die alone and unloved if she doesn't change. At the end, she becomes a warm, caring person vowing to make amends. She goes on to her television show and makes a touching speech to her audience about the importance of Christmas and giving. At the very end, the three Christmas Spirits reappear outside Carol's sister's house, where Carol decided to go after all for the holidays, and comment on their work at transforming Carol Cartman, a twist not seen in any adaptation of "A Christmas Carol" up to then, and which would be repeated three years later, at the end of "Bah, Humduck! A Looney Tunes Christmas".
1165728	Tim McIntire (July 19, 1944 – April 15, 1986) was an American character actor, probably most famous for his portrayal of disc jockey Alan Freed in the film "American Hot Wax" (1978). He portrayed country music singer George Jones in the 1981 television movie "Stand By Your Man", which was based on the best-selling autobiography by country music singer Tammy Wynette. He co-starred in the 1968 pilot "Justice For All" (which later became "All In The Family") as Dickie. After it became a series with Carroll O'Connor as Archie Bunker, the part of the son-in-law was renamed Mike and played by Rob Reiner. McIntire starred in "The Sterile Cuckoo" (1969), "Aloha, Bobby and Rose" (1975), "The Gumball Rally" (1976), "The Choirboys" (1977), "Brubaker" (1980), "Fast-Walking" (1982) with James Woods and "Sacred Ground" (1983).
1101314	Carl Gustav Jacob Jacobi (10 December 1804 – 18 February 1851) was a German mathematician, who made fundamental contributions to elliptic functions, dynamics, differential equations, and number theory. His name is occasionally written as Carolus Gustavus Iacobus Iacobi in his Latin books, and his first name is sometimes given as Karl. Jacobi was the first Jewish mathematician to be appointed professor at a German university. Biography. Jacobi was born of Ashkenazi Jewish parentage in Potsdam. From 1816 to 1821 Jacobi went to the Victoria-Gymnasium, where he went to the senior classes right from the beginning, but still had to stay for several years. He studied at Berlin University, where he obtained the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in 1825, his thesis being an analytical discussion of the theory of fractions. In 1827 he became a professor and in 1829, a tenured professor of mathematics at Königsberg University, and held the chair until 1842. Jacobi suffered a breakdown from overwork in 1843. He then visited Italy for a few months to regain his health. On his return he moved to Berlin, where he lived as a royal pensioner until his death. During the Revolution of 1848 Jacobi was politically involved and unsuccessfully presented his parliamentary candidature on behalf of a Liberal club. This led, after the suppression of the revolution, to his royal grant being cut off – but his fame and reputation were such that it was soon resumed. In 1836, he had been elected a foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. Jacobi's grave is preserved at a cemetery in the Kreuzberg section of Berlin, the Friedhof I der Dreifaltigkeits-Kirchengemeinde (61 Baruther Street). His grave is close to that of Johann Encke, the astronomer. The crater Jacobi on the Moon is named after him. Scientific contributions. One of Jacobi's greatest accomplishments was his theory of elliptic functions and their relation to the elliptic theta function. This was developed in his great treatise "Fundamenta nova theoriae functionum ellipticarum" (1829), and in later papers in Crelle's Journal. Theta functions are of great importance in mathematical physics because of their role in the inverse problem for periodic and quasi-periodic flows. The equations of motion are integrable in terms of Jacobi's elliptic functions in the well-known cases of the pendulum, the Euler top, the symmetric Lagrange top in a gravitational field and the Kepler problem (planetary motion in a central gravitational field). He also made fundamental contributions in the study of differential equations and to rational mechanics, notably the Hamilton–Jacobi theory. It was in algebraic development that Jacobi’s peculiar power mainly lay, and he made important contributions of this kind to many areas of mathematics, as shown by his long list of papers in Crelle’s Journal and elsewhere from 1826 onwards. One of his maxims was: 'Invert, always invert' ('man muss immer umkehren'), expressing his belief that the solution of many hard problems can be clarified by re-expressing them in inverse form. In his 1835 paper, Jacobi proved the following basic result classifying periodic (including elliptic) functions: "If a univariate single-value function is multiply periodic, then such a function cannot have more than two periods, and the ratio of the periods cannot be a real number. " He discovered many of the fundamental properties of theta functions, including the functional equation and the Jacobi triple product formula, as well as many other results on q-series and hypergeometric series. The solution of the Jacobi inversion problem for the hyperelliptic Abel map by Weierstrass in 1854 required the introduction of the hyperelliptic theta function and later the general Riemann theta function for algebraic curves of arbitrary genus. The complex torus associated to a genus formula_1 algebraic curve, obtained by quotienting formula_2 by the lattice of periods is referred to as the Jacobian variety. This method of inversion, and its subsequent extension by Weierstrass and Riemann to arbitrary algebraic curves, may be seen as a higher genus generalization of the relation between elliptic integrals and the Jacobi, or Weierstrass elliptic functions Jacobi was the first to apply elliptic functions to number theory, for example proving of Fermat's two-square theorem and Lagrange's four-square theorem, and similar results for 6 and 8 squares. His other work in number theory continued the work of C. F. Gauss: new proofs of quadratic reciprocity and introduction of the Jacobi symbol; contributions to higher reciprocity laws, investigations of continued fractions, and the invention of Jacobi sums. He was also one of the early founders of the theory of determinants; in particular, he invented the Jacobian determinant formed from the "n"² differential coefficients of "n" given functions of "n" independent variables, and which has played an important part in many analytical investigations. In 1841 he reintroduced the partial derivative ∂ notation of Legendre, which was to become standard. Students of vector fields and Lie theory often encounter the Jacobi identity, the analog of associativity for the Lie bracket operation. Planetary theory and other particular dynamical problems likewise occupied his attention from time to time. While contributing to celestial mechanics, he introduced the Jacobi integral (1836) for a sidereal coordinate system. His theory of the "last multiplier" is treated in "Vorlesungen über Dynamik", edited by Alfred Clebsch (1866). He left many manuscripts, portions of which have been published at intervals in Crelle's Journal. His other works include "Commentatio de transformatione integralis duplicis indefiniti in formam simpliciorem" (1832), "Canon arithmeticus" (1839), and "Opuscula mathematica" (1846–1857). His "Gesammelte Werke" (1881–1891) were published by the Berlin Academy. Family. He was a brother of the German engineer and physicist Moritz Hermann von Jacobi.
1377779	Lal Dupatta Malmal Ka is a Hindi made-for-television movie released in 1989. Although, it was just a telefilm and not released on big screen, it was a huge success. The movie is known for its popular songs. The music for the songs was provided by Anand-Milind. It starred Sahil Chaddha and Veverly in leading roles. A sequel titled "Phir Lehraya Lal Dupatta Malmal Ka" was made later that year with Sahil and Veverly reprising their roles. Plot. This is a romantic drama movie.
1162799	Laura Leighton (born July 24, 1968) is an American actress. She is best known for the role of Sydney Andrews, introduced in the 1990s television series "Melrose Place". She reprised the role in the 2009 series of the same name. In 2010, she joined the cast of the television series "Pretty Little Liars", playing Ashley Marin. Career. In the early 1990s, she took her first major acting role as Sydney Andrews in the prime time soap opera "Melrose Place". The part was originally intended for only two episodes in season 1, but was developed into a full-time role for the subsequent seasons 2 to 5 (1993–97). During breaks on filming of "Melrose Place", Leighton starred in television films, including "In the Name of Love: A Texas Tragedy" as Laurette Wilder, a woman from the wrong side of the tracks who falls for a rich boy, much to the disgust of his grandparents. She also hosted an episode of "Saturday Night Live" in 1995 with musical guest Rancid. Leighton left "Melrose Place" in 1997 at the end of her contract, and later appeared on "Beverly Hills, 90210". Aaron Spelling created the role of wannabe actress Sophie Burns for her, and she received a six-figure salary per episode.
1101616	Henri Léon Lebesgue ForMemRS (; June 28, 1875 – July 26, 1941) was a French mathematician most famous for his theory of integration, which was a generalization of the 17th century concept of integration—summing the area between an axis and the curve of a function defined for that axis. His theory was published originally in his dissertation "Intégrale, longueur, aire" ("Integral, length, area") at the University of Nancy during 1902. Personal life. Henri Lebesgue was born on 28 June 1875 in Beauvais, Oise. Lebesgue's father was a typesetter and his mother was a school teacher. His parents assembled at home a library that the young Henri was able to use. Unfortunately his father died of tuberculosis when Lebesgue was still very young and his mother had to support him by herself. As he showed a remarkable talent for mathematics in primary school, one of his instructors arranged for community support to continue his education at the Collège de Beauvais and then at Lycée Saint-Louis and Lycée Louis-le-Grand in Paris. In 1894 Lebesgue was accepted at the École Normale Supérieure, where he continued to focus his energy on the study of mathematics, graduating in 1897. After graduation he remained at the École Normale Supérieure for two years, working in the library, where he became aware of the research on discontinuity done at that time by René-Louis Baire, a recent graduate of the school. At the same time he started his graduate studies at the Sorbonne, where he learned about Émile Borel's work on the incipient measure theory and Camille Jordan's work on the Jordan measure. In 1899 he moved to a teaching position at the Lycée Central in Nancy, while continuing work on his doctorate. In 1902 he earned his Ph.D. from the Sorbonne with the seminal thesis on "Integral, Length, Area", submitted with Borel, four years older, as advisor. Lebesgue married the sister of one of his fellow students, and he and his wife had two children, Suzanne and Jacques. After publishing his thesis, Lebesgue was offered in 1902 a position at the University of Rennes, lecturing there until 1906, when he moved to the Faculty of Sciences of the University of Poitiers. In 1910 Lebesgue moved to the Sorbonne as a maître de conférences, being promoted to professor starting with 1919. In 1921 he left the Sorbonne to become professor of mathematics at the Collège de France, where he lectured and did research for the rest of his life. In 1922 he was elected a member of the Académie française. Henri Lebesgue died on 26 July 1941 in Paris. Mathematical career. Lebesgue's first paper was published in 1898 and was titled "Sur l'approximation des fonctions". It dealt with Weierstrass' theorem on approximation to continuous functions by polynomials. Between March 1899 and April 1901 Lebesgue published six notes in "Comptes Rendus." The first of these, unrelated to his development of Lebesgue integration, dealt with the extension of Baire's theorem to functions of two variables. The next five dealt with surfaces applicable to a plane, the area of skew polygons, surface integrals of minimum area with a given bound, and the final note gave the definition of Lebesgue integration for some function f(x). Lebesgue's great thesis, "Intégrale, longueur, aire", with the full account of this work, appeared in the Annali di Matematica in 1902. The first chapter develops the theory of measure (see Borel measure). In the second chapter he defines the integral both geometrically and analytically. The next chapters expand the "Comptes Rendus" notes dealing with length, area and applicable surfaces. The final chapter deals mainly with Plateau's problem. This dissertation is considered to be one of the finest ever written by a mathematician. His lectures from 1902 to 1903 were collected into a "Borel tract" "Leçons sur l'intégration et la recherche des fonctions primitives". The problem of integration regarded as the search for a primitive function is the keynote of the book. Lebesgue presents the problem of integration in its historical context, addressing Augustin-Louis Cauchy, Peter Gustav Lejeune Dirichlet, and Bernhard Riemann. Lebesgue presents six conditions which it is desirable that the integral should satisfy, the last of which is "If the sequence fn(x) increases to the limit f(x), the integral of fn(x) tends to the integral of f(x)." Lebesgue shows that his conditions lead to the theory of measure and measurable functions and the analytical and geometrical definitions of the integral. He turned next to trigonometric functions with his 1903 paper "Sur les séries trigonométriques". He presented three major theorems in this work: that a trigonometrical series representing a bounded function is a Fourier series, that the nth Fourier coefficient tends to zero (the Riemann–Lebesgue lemma), and that a Fourier series is integrable term by term. In 1904-1905 Lebesgue lectured once again at the Collège de France, this time on trigonometrical series and he went on to publish his lectures in another of the "Borel tracts". In this tract he once again treats the subject in its historical context. He expounds on Fourier series, Cantor-Riemann theory, the Poisson integral and the Dirichlet problem. In a 1910 paper, "Représentation trigonométrique approchée des fonctions satisfaisant a une condition de Lipschitz" deals with the Fourier series of functions satisfying a Lipschitz condition, with an evaluation of the order of magnitude of the remainder term. He also proves that the Riemann–Lebesgue lemma is a best possible result for continuous functions, and gives some treatment to Lebesgue constants. Lebesgue once wrote, "Réduites à des théories générales, les mathématiques seraient une belle forme sans contenu." ("Reduced to general theories, mathematics would be a beautiful form without content.") In measure-theoretic analysis and related branches of mathematics, the Lebesgue–Stieltjes integral generalizes Riemann–Stieltjes and Lebesgue integration, preserving the many advantages of the latter in a more general measure-theoretic framework. During the course of his career, Lebesgue also made forays into the realms of complex analysis and topology. He also had a disagreement with Borel (called "teilweise heftig") with regards to effective calculation. However, these minor forays pale in comparison to his contributions to real analysis; his contributions to this field had a tremendous impact on the shape of the field today and his methods have become an essential part of modern analysis. Additionally, he is claimed to be the last of the mathematicians to consider one to be a prime number. Lebesgue's theory of integration. This is a non-technical treatment from a historical point of view; see the article "Lebesgue integration" for a technical treatment from a mathematical point of view. Integration is a mathematical operation that corresponds to the informal idea of finding the area under the graph of a function. The first theory of integration was developed by Archimedes in the 3rd century BC with his method of quadratures, but this could be applied only in limited circumstances with a high degree of geometric symmetry. In the 17th century, Isaac Newton and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz discovered the idea that integration was intrinsically linked to differentiation, the latter being a way of measuring how quickly a function changed at any given point on the graph. This surprising relationship between two major geometric operations in calculus, differentiation and integration, is now known as the Fundamental Theorem of Calculus. It has allowed mathematicians to calculate a broad class of integrals for the first time. However, unlike Archimedes' method, which was based on Euclidean geometry, mathematicians felt that Newton's and Leibniz's integral calculus did not have a rigorous foundation. In the 19th century, Augustin Cauchy developed epsilon-delta limits, and Bernhard Riemann followed up on this by formalizing what is now called the Riemann integral. To define this integral, one fills the area under the graph with smaller and smaller rectangles and takes the limit of the sums of the areas of the rectangles at each stage. For some functions, however, the total area of these rectangles does not approach a single number. As such, they have no Riemann integral. Lebesgue invented a new method of integration to solve this problem. Instead of using the areas of rectangles, which put the focus on the domain of the function, Lebesgue looked at the codomain of the function for his fundamental unit of area. Lebesgue's idea was to first define measure, for both sets and functions on those sets. He then proceeded to build the integral for what he called simple functions; measurable functions that take only finitely many values. Then he defined it for more complicated functions as the least upper bound of all the integrals of simple functions smaller than the function in question. Lebesgue integration has the property that every function defined over a bounded interval with a Riemann integral also has a Lebesgue integral, and for those functions the two integrals agree. Furthermore, every bounded function on a closed bounded interval has a Lebesgue integral and there are many functions with a Lebesgue integral that have no Riemann integral. As part of the development of Lebesgue integration, Lebesgue invented the concept of measure, which extends the idea of length from intervals to a very large class of sets, called measurable sets (so, more precisely, simple functions are functions that take a finite number of values, and each value is taken on a measurable set). Lebesgue's technique for turning a measure into an integral generalises easily to many other situations, leading to the modern field of measure theory. The Lebesgue integral is deficient in one respect. The Riemann integral generalises to the improper Riemann integral to measure functions whose domain of definition is not a closed interval. The Lebesgue integral integrates many of these functions (always reproducing the same answer when it did), but not all of them. For functions on the real line, the Henstock integral is an even more general notion of integral (based on Riemann's theory rather than Lebesgue's) that subsumes both Lebesgue integration and improper Riemann integration. However, the Henstock integral depends on specific ordering features of the real line and so does not generalise to allow integration in more general spaces (say, manifolds), while the Lebesgue integral extends to such spaces quite naturally.
586457	Aarya Babbar born May 24, 1984 is an Indian actor who appears in Bollywood and Punjabi films. Personal life. Arya Babbar is the son of actor turned politician Raj Babbar and famous theatre personality Nadira Babbar, he is the younger brother of actress Juhi Babbar, and half-brother of Prateek Babbar. Career. Arya Babbar started his film career with Raj Kanwar's Ab Ke Baras alongside Amrita Rao but that flopped at the box office. He has worked with stalwarts like Mani Ratnam, Madhur Bhandarkar and Vikram Bhatt. Also he appeared in films such as Yaar Annmulle , Matru Ki Bijlee Ka Mandola and Salman Khan starrer film Ready . Arya Babbar acted in film called 'Paapi' in 2012 starring opposite Prosanjit,Pooja Bharti, Sayantika. He has also written a comic book named Pushpak Viman. Awards and nominations. Babbar won the National Award of the Journalist Association for Upcoming Actor in Action. He was nominated at the Star Screen Awards in Most Promising Newcomer - Male category for his film "Ab Ke Baras".
1062359	James "Jim" Broadbent (born 24 May 1949) is an English theatre, film, and television actor. He is known for his roles in "Iris" (2001, for which he won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor), "Moulin Rouge!" (2001, for which he won the BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role), "Topsy-Turvy" (1999), "Bridget Jones' Diary" (2001), "Hot Fuzz" (2007), "The Iron Lady" (2011), and "Cloud Atlas" (2012). He also appears in the later "Harry Potter" films as Horace Slughorn. Broadbent has also starred in the drama television film "Longford" (2006), receiving the British Academy Television Award for Best Actor and Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Miniseries or Television Film. Early life. Broadbent was born in Holton cum Beckering, in Lincolnshire, the son of Doreen "Dee" Broadbent (née Findlay), a sculptor, and Roy Laverick Broadbent, an artist, sculptor, interior designer, and furniture maker who turned a former church into a theatre named after him. Broadbent's parents were both amateur actors who co-founded the Holton Players acting troupe at Holton cum Beckering; the two have been described by the BBC as conscientious objectors who "worked the land" rather than participate in World War II. He had a twin sister who died at birth. Broadbent was educated at Leighton Park School, a Quaker school in Reading, and briefly attended art college before transferring to the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art from which he graduated in 1972. Career. Broadbent's early stagework included a number of productions for The National Theatre of Brent, as the downtrodden assistant Wallace to Patrick Barlow's self-important actor/manager character Desmond Olivier Dingle. Broadbent and Barlow played many male and female character roles in comically less-than-epic tellings of historical and religious stories such as "The Messiah", "The Complete Guide to Sex", "The Greatest Story Ever Told", "Revolution!!", and "All The World's A Globe". These were hits at the Edinburgh Fringe, in London, and on tour. Later stage work included the original productions of "Kafka's Dick" (1986) and "Our Country's Good" (1988) at the Royal Court Theatre and work for the Royal National Theatre including "The Government Inspector". Work on the stage with Mike Leigh includes "Goosepimples" and "Ecstasy". Broadbent had worked with Stephen Frears (for television and in "The Hit" (1984)) and Terry Gilliam (in "Time Bandits" (1981) and "Brazil" (1985)) before establishing himself in Mike Leigh's "Life Is Sweet" (1990). He proved his ability as a character actor in films including "The Crying Game" (1992), "Enchanted April" (1992), "Bullets Over Broadway" (1994), "The Borrowers" (1997), and "Little Voice" (1998) before taking a leading role in another Mike Leigh film, "Topsy-Turvy" (1999), playing dramatist Sir William S. Gilbert. He played "The Shy Doctor" in the 1999 Comic Relief parody "Doctor Who" sketch, "Doctor Who and the Curse of Fatal Death". In 2001, Broadbent starred in three of the year's most successful films: "Bridget Jones's Diary"; "Moulin Rouge!", for which he won a BAFTA; and "Iris", for which he won an Oscar for his portrayal of John Bayley. Broadbent voiced Madame Gasket from the 2005 film "Robots". Broadbent also appeared as DCI Roy Slater, an associate character in the enormously popular sitcom "Only Fools and Horses". The character appeared in three episodes over an eight-year period. He had originally been offered the lead role of Del Trotter in the series, but he turned it down due to other commitments. He has also played a role in the Inspector Morse series. Other comic roles include the lead role in the sitcom "The Peter Principle" and occasional guest appearances in "Not The Nine O'Clock News", Only Fools and Horses, and "Victoria Wood As Seen On TV". He played Don Speekingleesh in "The Queen of Spain's Beard" in the first series of "The Black Adder" in 1983. He also played the role of Prince Albert in "Blackadder's Christmas Carol", first broadcast in 1988. He joined Rowan Atkinson in his "Spider-Man" spoof "Spider-Plant Man", as a disgruntled "Batman", jealous of Spider-Plant Man's success. Broadbent played the title role in the Channel 4 drama "Longford" in October 2006, earning a BAFTA TV Award, a Golden Globe, and a 2007 Emmy nomination for his performance as Frank Pakenham (1905–2001), Earl of Longford, which was centred on the late Lord's ultimately unsuccessful campaign for the parole of Myra Hindley from her life imprisonment for the Moors Murders. Broadbent appeared as Inspector Frank Butterman in "Hot Fuzz" in 2007. He appeared in the original radio production of "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy", playing the character Vroomfondel. He was also a regular in Stephen Fry's radio comedy show "Saturday Night Fry", which aired on BBC Radio 4 in 1988. Broadbent played Dean Charles Stanforth in the fourth film in the Indiana Jones series, "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull"; King William IV in "The Young Victoria"; and Horace Slughorn in the sixth Harry Potter movie, "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince", as well as the final movie in the series. In 2008, he starred as pro-Newtonian physicist Sir Oliver Lodge in the fact-based single drama "Einstein and Eddington", for the BBC. In 2009, he portrayed Sam Longson, chairman of Derby County football club in the 1960s and 1970s, in the film "The Damned United"; the starring character in the film was football manager Brian Clough, played by Michael Sheen. In 2010, he provides the voice for the character "Major Mouse" in a series of radio adverts and one produced for television for energy company; E.ON for their 'eonenergyfit.com' website campaign. He also starred as the older Logan Mountstuart in the TV adaptation of William Boyd's novel "Any Human Heart". He had a lead role in "Exile", a BBC One drama, starring John Simm and written by Danny Brocklehurst. Personal life. Broadbent is married to painter and former theatre designer, Anastasia Lewis. He is an atheist. Filmography and awards. Other awards and honours. Broadbent was offered an OBE in 2002 however declined stating there were more deserving recipients than actors and the British Empire was not something he wanted to "celebrate".
583725	Kadhal Virus is 2002 Tamil romantic film directed and produced by Kathir. The film featured Richard and Sridevi Vijayakumar making their acting debuts in the lead role with Abbas in a supporting role. A. R. Rahman composed the music for the film, while Arjun Jena was the cinematographer for the project. The film tells the story of a young director, trying to pursue his dream by overcoming all hurdles. After much delay, the film opened in December 2002 but was ultimately panned by critics and fared poorly at the box office. Plot. Deepak is a budding filmmaker trying to get his first production out. He meets and falls in love with Geetha, and decides to take his relationship with her further once his first film is made. Misunderstandings lead to their separation, and her eventual marriage to Rajiv, a struggling actor who is looking for a role in Deepak's next film. Cast. A sequence in the film features guest appearances from: Production. Through the 1990s, Kathir developed a reputation of producing successful romantic films with critically acclaimed soundtracks by A. R. Rahman and his work in "Kadhal Desam" (1996) and "Kadhalar Dhinam" won commercial and critical acclaim. In January 2001, Kathir announced that his next film would also be a love story titled "Kadhal Virus". Richard, the brother of actresses Shalini and Shamili, was selected to make his debut in the leading role. Abbas, who Kathir introduced with "Kadhal Desam", was also signed on to make a special appearance in the film. Early reports suggested that Bhumika Chawla would star in the film but this proved to be untrue. Her role was later handed to Sridevi Vijayakumar, daughter of veteran actor couple Vijayakumar and Manjula, who would make her debut as a leading heroine with the film. Release. Malathi Rangarajan of The Hindu mentioned that "the screenplay is incoherent in parts" and that "he dialogue and expressions are sometimes too cliched". The critic blamed the film's production delay revealing that "initially the film did kindle a lot of interest — what with A. R. Rahman as composer and a fresh lead pair to boot, but because it has been in the making for too long, the euphoria first triggered did wane a little". Another critic from AllIndianSite.com mentioned that "Richard looks good and als performs well while Sridevi acts with ease and looks beautiful". The film became a box office failure and despite a high-profile launch, actor Richard has since struggled to get a meaningful breakthrough. The director of the film, Kathir, also went into a hiatus and has yet to make a film since the failure of "Kadhal Virus". Debutant cinematographer Arjun Jena won the Tamil Nadu State Film Award for Best Cinematographer for his work in the film. Soundtrack. The soundtrack consists of 6 songs composed by A.R. Rahman with lyrics penned by Vaali and Pa. Vijay.
1056601	Boarding Gate is a 2007 French thriller film about the sophisticated power plays between a debt-ridden underworld entrepreneur, his provocative and ambitious ex-associate and a manipulative young couple who employ her. Written and directed by Olivier Assayas, the film features an international cast comprising Asia Argento, Michael Madsen, Carl Ng and Kelly Lin. Kim Gordon, of the band "Sonic Youth", also plays a supporting role as an enigmatic businesswoman forced to intervene as events unfold in Hong Kong. The film premiered 18 May at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival and later opened in France on 22 August 2007. Plot. Paris. After discussing his plans for retiring by selling on the shares in his security company to his debtors with his partner, André, aging underworld entrepreneur Miles Rennberg is paid a surprise visit at his Paris office by aggressive underworld moll Sandra. Brazenly taunting him with her sexuality, she bluntly dissects their prior relationship - a nightmarish web of masochism, money, manipulation and dependency, pimping her out to dangerous clients in order to gain both a business advantage and perverse personal thrills. She outlines her newest ambition, since their estrangement, of raising the necessary capital to run a nightclub in Beijing. Miles makes no pretense of the fact that he is less interested in the proposal than the woman, and encourages her to visit him at his apartment. Without making any promises, Sandra leaves for her job at an import business, run by a young married couple: Lester and Sue Wong. Sandra's own import sideline, drug running, is facilitated by her close bond of loyalty with low-ranking employee Lisa. Acting as her driver and lookout, Lisa escorts Sandra to the site of a drug deal that quickly goes sour when her buyer is revealed to be a Narcotics officer. Suspicious after Sandra's cool response to his earlier queries about a missing container in a recent shipment, Lester follows Sandra to the deal and accosts Lisa as she waits in the car. He sends Lisa away on his motorcycle and takes her place in the car. After Sandra emerges, Lester drives her away from the scene. Expressing disappointment in her deceit, he takes her back to her apartment where it becomes clear that the two are romantically involved. After their sexual encounter, Lester receives a call from his wife and leaves. Sandra appears to relent and arranges to visit Miles at his apartment. Goading him with recollections of their misdeeds, she reveals a deep-seated bitterness; she recalls, in particular, an incident where a group of Japanese clients she was entertaining drugged and raped her, and Miles' arousal at hearing the episode recounted in front of his girlfriend. They both drink and end up on the balcony. Sandra undresses and tries to instigate a violent sexual game, apparently of the genre they used to practice, by pinning Miles to the floor of the balcony and choking him with his own belt. Miles warns her off and leads her back inside to show her a pair of handcuffs, which he intends to use on her later in the evening. She expresses reluctance which he nonchalantly waves aside. When she tries to leave, he locks the door and pockets the keys. After he takes a business call, she playfully restrains him with the handcuffs, then brutally shoots him in the head. She quickly retraces her steps through the house, destroying evidence of her presence, and makes a swift exit with Miles' keys. Lester picks her up, gives her a modest sum of cash and the name of a contact in Hong Kong who will arrange her new life, promising to join her soon. Lisa first drives her to a club to establish an alibi, where the oppressive atmosphere and the noise provoke an aggressively traumatic and regretful response to her act. Hong Kong. Hours behind Lisa, Sandra arrives in Hong Kong. She makes her way to the address of Lester's contact, who in turn sends her to a nondescript office somewhere else in the city. She is told that her contact is waiting for her in an adjacent room, but as soon as she enters the door is locked behind her. In the labyrinthine mess of the locked office she eventually discovers the bound and murdered body of Lisa in a chair facing the back wall. A manifestly wealthy, middle-aged Western woman arrives at the office and orders the men to bring Sandra out, chastising them for Lisa's death. Eventually, one of the men in the office is sent in after Sandra. Having switched clothes and positions with the corpse of Lisa, she manages to ambush the henchman and escape onto the streets. Whilst crossing on a ferry she cries over her last souvenir of her relationship with Miles, his keys, before dropping them into the water. With little money and no recourse to her credit cards or passport, due to risk of capture and extradition for Miles' murder, Sandra resorts to repeatedly calling Lester. She eventually manages to contact his wife, Sue, who maintains that Lester is unavailable but agrees to meet Sandra in a karaoke club. Sue is evasive and aggressive, revealing that whilst she knew of Sandra's affair with Lester, Sandra was not her husband's first infidelity and he never really planned to leave his wife to join her. The whole venture was an attempt to raise the investment capital for the Beijing club, an enterprise in which Sue was fully complicit. Whilst she attempts to take everything in, Sue spikes Sandra's drink with a sedative. In a back room, Sandra threatens Sue with a gun and demands more information; Sue pleads her innocence until she manages to talk Sandra into succumbing to the drug's sedative effects. She leaves Sandra unconscious on the floor. Sandra wakes in the home of the wealthy Western woman whom she escaped in the offices earlier. The woman explains that she owes someone a favour and sets Sandra up with papers and well-paid employment in Shanghai. Nonetheless, Sandra eschews the easy escape and tracks Lester down in a Hong Kong shopping mall. She follows him up the staircase with an unsheathed knife, but as she prepares to stab him she is interrupted by a group of women coming the other way. Lester enters an expensive restaurant, meets with Miles' business partner, André, and leaves with a sports bag full of cash - possibly a payment for Miles' murder, which ensured that his shares did not pass to his unscrupulous creditors. Sandra follows Lester down to the doorway out to the car park, where he hesitates at the threshold as if aware of her presence. At the last moment, however, she finds herself unwilling to either kill or confront him. He drives away with the money. Production. Origins and title. Writer-director Olivier Assayas cites the inspiration of the film's driving themes as a news story relating the murder of financier Édouard Stern during an S&M play session at the hands of his long-term lover, prostitute Cecile Brossard. The incident evoked the tone of his previous work on corporate deviancy, ""Demonlover"", and he determined to use it as the pivotal event for a new script. The title "Boarding Gate" was the director's second choice for the film. His first, "departed" - a reference to the passport stamp applied by Hong Kong border officials upon leaving the country - had to be scrapped during filming upon the 2006 release of Martin Scorsese's "The Departed". The final title was selected since it evokes the many easy conduits in the film, "the idea of a passage between two worlds." Budget. The film's style, described as "Eurotrash," is - according to Assayas - an experiment in "constructing a project around B-movie economics". Assayas decided to embark on the "B-movie" concept after frustrating financial complications interminably delayed production of another of his projects, intended to be "a very French film focusing on provincial life;" similar circumstances led to making of his previous film with Maggie Cheung, "Irma Vep". The total cost of the film was under €2 million. Filming. The film was shot over six weeks in just two locations: Paris and Hong Kong. The Hong Kong crew was entirely local, with the exception of the cinematographer, the sound engineer, the assistant, the script supervisor, the line producer and the director himself. Most of the filming was done with hand-held cameras, and Assayas admits to having obtained some of his shots illegally due to the restrictive nature of local permits. These "guerrilla shots" were conducted with a skeleton crew of only four members, who quickly fled the scene afterwards. The local team was also of such an unwieldy size that Assayas frequently invented projects or errands simply to clear the set. Casting. Lead actress Asia Argento was considered by the director to be "inseparable from the narrative"; protagonist Michael Madsen was cast later via a mutual association with Nick Nolte, as Assayas conducted a search for an actor suited to the physical properties of the role. The scenes documenting their relationship, from the reunion after their long and awkward estrangement to the murder in his apartment, were shot in chronological order. Their first meeting was on camera, during the shoot of the reunion scene. Assayas remarks on Madsen's unpredictability as an actor, contributing his own small touches to his scenes. The choreography in the scene of violent sex play on Miles' balcony involving strangulation with a belt, for example, was vastly expanded by Madsen's suggestions. Kelly Lin and Carl Ng, playing the ambitious Wong couple, were selected as good examples of the "new generation" of actors working in the Hong Kong film industry. Kim Gordon, whose acting roles had been considerably undemanding before "Boarding Gate", had worked with Assayas previously with the music for "Irma Vep" and "Demonlover". Based on her experience of living in Hong Kong in her youth and on her desire to further her acting career, Assayas cast her in a supporting role. Themes and significance. Wayne State University professor of English Steven Shaviro, author of "The Cinematic Body", has composed a lengthy essay on the themes of conduits and interchangeability in the world of global capitalism as they are explored and visualized in "Boarding Gate". Reception. The film has garnered mixed to negative reviews. Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reported that 26% of critics gave the film positive reviews, based on 39 reviews. Metacritic reported the film had an average score of 47 out of 100, based on 15 reviews. Marketed as an "erotic noir-thriller", the film incited some tough criticism for its more explicit content, which explores earning it the title of "a limp, sleazy inanity" with "a whiff of voyeuristic self-indulgence" in "Variety's" review of the film. Even the more positive pieces comment on this, such as "Slant Magazine's" review by David Pratt-Robinson that remarks that lead actress Asia Argento "looks ready to rape anything in sight". The film's acting inspired a wide range of critical opinion, although the view that Asia Argento is one of the most appealing aspects of "Boarding Gate" is nearly universal. The "Village Voices J. Hoberman takes this common remark to its extreme, when juxtaposed with a scathing review of the film - "There's basically only one reason to see Olivier Assayas's self-consciously hypermodern, meta-sleazy, English-French-Chinese-language globo-thriller "Boarding Gate", and her name is Asia Argento." Several reviews go as far as to imply that it is the inevitable product of the actress' own provocative attitude rather than simply a performance. Manohla Dargis, praising Argento's performance as striking, notes that her "on-screen ferocity" only nearly rivals her prominent tattoos and "the ease with which she sheds her clothes, which explains why I can describe those tattoos with confidence." Describing her as "aggressively carnal", New York Magazine's David Edelstein makes the wry remark that he "can’t help thinking there was a mix-up at the hospital and her dad was Klaus Kinski." David Pratt-Robinson had a positive take on the character: "so fierce and so fragile... a global misfit, a citizen of the world who can't quite find her place...yet, somehow, she makes the idea of being in transit feel like home." Whilst criticizing her general approach to acting as "bluffing her way through", The New Yorker's David Denby similarly describes Sandra as "lewd and hungry, but she’s not boring — the character keeps changing, and you can see Argento’s mind working behind all the viperish moves." Little attention is generally given to other performances, summarized by Variety in the phrase "cast, whether native English speakers or not, woodenly recite their lines." However, Kim Gordon's "god-awful cameo" as businesswoman Kay is frequently singled out for criticism. She "gives one of the worst musician-turned-actor turns in recent memory," according to Joe Neumaier of the "New York Daily News". "Boarding Gate" was placed at 83 on Slant Magazine's best films of the 2000s.
1163134	Audrey Totter (born December 20, 1917) is a retired American actress and former Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer contract star. Family. Audrey (some sources indicate "Audra") Mary Totter was born and raised in Joliet, Illinois. Her parents were John (born Yugoslavia) and Ida Mae Totter. Her father was of Austro-Slovenian descent and her mother was Swedish American. Career. Comenzo Su carrera Como el actor en la radio A los finales de 1930, y, en Tras el Éxito en Chicago y Nueva York, Firmo sin Contrato de la Película de siete Jahr con MGM. Ella Hizo Su debut cinematográfico en la calle principal de After Dark (1945) y sí establecio Como Una Protagonista femenina muy populares en la Década de 1940. Aunque ella Apareció en Varios géneros Cinematográficos, sí se convirtio MAS CONOCIDO Para El Público de Cine en producciones de cine noir.
592029	Shrimathi is an Indian Kannada-language romantic drama film written and directed by Ravi kumar, which stars Upendra, Priyanka Trivedi and Celina Jaitly in the lead roles, along with Prem Chopra, Sayaji Shinde and Rekha Das in the supporting roles. A remake of 2004 Bollywood film "Aitraaz", it is produced by Shankare Gowda and features the original soundtrack and film score by Gurukiran. Box Office. "Shrimathi" was a below average grosser at the box office.
1169759	Phill Lewis (born September 4, 1968) is an American film and television actor, television director and comedian, often seen in comedic roles. He is best known for his role as Mr. Moseby on Disney Channel's "The Suite Life of Zack & Cody" and its spin-off, "The Suite Life on Deck". He also played T.C. on "The Wayans Bros.", Hooch on Scrubs and had a recurring role as Roy on "Yes, Dear" and has played small parts in more than a dozen films. He also appeared in episodes of "Lizzie McGuire", as Principal Tweedy and in Friends as Chandler's boss. Career. Lewis was cast in the title role of the short-lived 1991 situation comedy, "Teech". The show was cancelled after only four episodes. He appeared in guest parts on various television series including "Pacific Blue", "JAG", "Ally McBeal", "Joan of Arcadia", "Brothers & Sisters", "8 Simple Rules", "Buffy The Vampire Slayer", "Friends" and "How I Met Your Mother". Lewis has also had recurring roles on "A Different World", "The Wayans Bros.", "Lizzie McGuire", "Yes, Dear", "Scrubs", and "Raising Hope". Lewis co-starred in the Disney Channel original series "The Suite Life of Zack & Cody" as Mr. Moseby. Since 2008, he has reprised the role on a spin-off "The Suite Life on Deck," where he plays the manager of The S.S. Tipton. He has appeared as a guest star on Disney Channel's "That's So Raven" and "Phineas and Ferb" and also in one of the channel's original films, "Dadnapped". On the children's show "Special Agent Oso" he has a recurring role as the voice of Agent Wolfie. As a television director, he directed several episodes of "The Suite Life on Deck", first making his directorial debut in "The Suite Life of Zack & Cody" episode "I Want My Mummy" (2007). He has since gone on to direct episodes of the Disney Channel sitcoms "A.N.T. Farm", "Austin & Ally", "Good Luck Charlie" and "Jessie" starring his former "Suite Life on Deck" co-star Debby Ryan. In addition to his television work, Lewis has appeared in several films. He made his film debut as Dennis in the 1989 dark comedy "Heathers". He has appeared in smaller roles in more than a dozen films, including "City Slickers" (1991), "Bowfinger" (1999), "I Spy" (2002), "Surviving Christmas" (2004), "Kicking & Screaming" (2005), and "Beverly Hills Chihuahua 2" (2011). Personal life. Lewis is the son of former Chesapeake and Potomac Telephone executive and former U.S. Ambassador Delano Lewis. He was born in Uganda, East Africa during his father's stint as Peace Corps' associate director and country director for Nigeria and Uganda. 1991 car crash. In late December 1991, Lewis was arrested after a car he was driving collided head on with another car driven by 21 year-old Isabel Duarte in the Washington, D.C. suburb of Potomac, Maryland. Lewis crossed the center line in his 1985 Buick Century and hit Duarte's Honda CRX head-on. Duarte, a resident of nearby Bethesda, Maryland, would eventually die from her injuries. Lewis was charged with drunk driving. He apologized, saying "I am extremely and sincerely sorry for my disorderly actions." Lewis was convicted of manslaughter with a motor vehicle and driving while intoxicated and sentenced by Montgomery County, Maryland Circuit Court Judge William Millerto to five years in prison, two years of probation and 350 hours of community service. However, Judge Miller suspended four years of the prison term, citing Lewis's work after his arrest with a prison-based theater troupe which performed in jails, schools and churches to highlight the consequences of drug abuse. After these legal troubles, Lewis resumed his acting career, appearing mostly in supporting roles on situation comedies.
469931	Shikshanacha Aaicha Gho is a 2010 Indian Marathi film directed by Mahesh Manjrekar starring Sachin Khedekar, Bharat Jadhav, Saksham Kulkarni, Gauri Vaidya, Siddharth Jadhav and Kranti Redkar. The film was released on 15 January 2010. Films music composed by trio Ajit-Atul-Sameer. After Astitva with 9 years long gap Mahesh Manjrekar directed Marathi film.This film was later remade in Tamil & Telugu as "Dhoni" and in Bengali as "Cholo Paltaai" starring Prosenjit Chatterjee. Synopsis. Shrinivas Rane, is an average student, born with average academic intelligence, but when it comes to cricket he is a born genius. His extraordinary talent was lost on his father who like millions of other parents believed that a child's intellect is only reflected in their mark sheet, which eventually will give them a “secure future”. So he begins his quest to make his son the brightest and best student in the world. But Shree can’t handle this pressure and it reflects on his psyche deteriorating the relation between father and son, upon which the father in a fit of anger does something which makes him repent later.
588822	Jaago (English: "Please Wake Up") is a 2004 Bollywood crime drama film. It stars Sanjay Kapoor, Raveena Tandon, Manoj Bajpai and Hansika Motwani. The plot deals with the rape and death of a ten-year-old schoolgirl and the dramatic quest for justice by a lone but determined police inspector. Plot. After a long day in school, ten-year-old Shruti Varma is accidentally locked in the school house, and by the time she is found and released, it is already night time. She boards a commuter train home, with an elderly couple and their daughter being her only company in the compartment. Then a trio of three young men, drug-hazed and violent, enter the wagon, notice the young girl and brutally gang-rape her. The other passengers are too timid to intervene; only after the culprits have left the train do they call the police. Shruti is taken to a hospital, but the trauma of the rape proves too much for her to bear, and she eventually dies from a massive shock in front of her anguished parents, Shrikant and Shradha Varma. Kripa Shankar Thakur, an honest and upright inspector of the Indian police, is entrusted with the case. He begins to sympathise with the parents, especially after coming face to face with the indifference and selfishness of the authorities (even within the police force itself) and everyone who is – even indirectly – responsible for Shruti's rape and death. In addition, the culprits turn out to be the sons of wealthy and influential citizens, making it highly difficult for justice to be dealt out in the regular way. After tracking down the identities of the witnesses, Shankar sets a trap to catch the offenders in the act: Dressed provocatively, Shradha acts as bait by boarding the same train her daughter has taken. Indeed, the three culprits appear and attempt to rape her as well. In her rage over her daughter's suffering at the hands of these men, Shradha wrests a knife from one of them and viciously stabs her attacker to death; consequently, she is arrested and detained for manslaughter. More determined than ever, Inspector Shankar continues his pursuit for justice, even with the weight of corruption rising to obstruct him; he meets threats with counter-threats and attempts at bribery with the arrest of the perpetrators, and even gains popular support from influential people in the law enforcement. But this is not enough for Shrikant: with his desperation having become unbearable, he bursts into the courthouse where the offenders are on preliminary trial, and shoots one of them. Just when the cause seems lost for the surviving rapist, his lawyer Satwani resorts to vicious methods: he manages to buy off Shankar’s friend Sawant, who is to kill the witnesses before they can testify in court. But Shankar proves to be too resilient; he kidnaps Sawant’s wife and son, forcing the latter to release the witnesses. With the family’s testimony and the moving pleas of Shrikant and Shradha for more justice, and Shankar’s own accusation of the corruption in India’s political system, the presiding judge acquits the Varmas and sentences the last of the culprits to be executed, by the hands of those directly involved in the case. Following the execution, the film ends with the judge walking towards a sunset beach, saying by voiceover: “After delivering the verdict, I handed in my resignation. I don’t know how those who know the law will react to my decision. What I do know, however, is that I have done justice to my soul. I have truly awakened,” and then turning to the audience with the reminder: “It’s time you awakened too.” Box office. Jaago opened to a measly 30 per cent collection. Finally it grossed .
1485616	Russell Dominic Peters (born September 29, 1970) is a Canadian comedian and actor. He began performing in Toronto in 1989 and won a Gemini Award in 2008. Early life. Russell Peters was born in Toronto, Ontario to Eric and Maureen Peters, and from the age of four, he was raised in nearby Brampton, Ontario. He has an older brother, Clayton, who currently serves as his manager. His family is of Anglo-Indian ancestry and is Catholic. His late father was born in Bombay, India, and worked as a federal meat inspector; he is regularly mentioned and featured in his comedy work. Peters attended Chinguacousy Secondary School for grades 9–10, and North Peel Secondary School in Bramalea, for grades 11–12. In school, he was regularly bullied because of his ethnicity, and eventually began boxing, which enabled him to counteract the bullying. Peters also became a hip hop "junkie" in his youth, and by the 1990s, he was a well-connected DJ in the Toronto scene. Career. Peters began performing in Toronto in 1989. His popularity extends to several countries, as he has since also performed in the United Kingdom, United States, Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, Afghanistan, Sweden, South Africa, India, the Caribbean, Philippines, Vietnam, mainland China, Hong Kong, Sri Lanka, Singapore, United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Jordan, Norway, Lebanon, Oman, and Malaysia, among other places. In 1992, Peters met comedian George Carlin, one of his biggest influences, who advised him to get on stage whenever and wherever possible. He said he "took that advice to heart, and I think that's the reason I am where I am now." In 2007, 15 years later, he hosted one of Carlin's last shows before his death the following year. Peters attributes a performance he did on the Canadian TV comedy show "Comedy Now!", in 2004, which was uploaded onto YouTube and became viral, as the turning point in his career. While the initial video upload featured his performance in its 45 minute entirety, subsequent videos uploaded by other YouTube users were snippets of that performance, chopped into each of the cultural groups he targeted. According to Peters, those snippets made their way to those specified cultural groups, and were well received by them. Notable performances. In Canada, Peters became the first comedian to sell out Toronto's Air Canada Centre, with more than 16,000 tickets in two days for the single show. He ended up selling over 30,000 tickets nationally over the two-day sales period. His show in Sydney, Australia on 15 May 2010 had an audience of 13,880, making it the largest stand-up comedy show in Australian history. He broke a UK comedy sales record at London's O2 Arena when he sold over 16,000 tickets to his show on 2009. Russell Peters' performances on May 5–6, 2012 in Singapore also set attendance records for a single stand-up comedian at the Singapore Indoor Stadium. He hosted the Canada Day Comedy Festival 2006. Peters participated in a USO tour of Iraq, Afghanistan, Germany, Africa and Greenland in November 2007 with Wilmer Valderrama and Mayra Veronica. Peters also currently produces and stars on the radio situation comedy series, "Monsoon House", on CBC Radio One. Peters was the host of the 2008 Juno Awards televised ceremonies in Calgary on April 6, 2008, for which he won a Gemini Award for "Best Performance or Host in a Variety Program or Series". The 2008 awards broadcast received the second-highest ratings ever for the program. He was asked to host the Juno Awards for a second year in a row. The 2009 Juno Awards took place in Vancouver on March 29, 2009. On September 28th, 2013, Peters was awarded the 2013 Trailblazer award by SAMMA - the Association of South Asians in Media, Marketing and Entertainment for Russell's contributions to the world of comedy, being among the first South Asians to enter the field and going on to become one of the most successful comedians in the industry. Publications. His debut comedy album, "Outsourced" aired on Comedy Central on August 26, 2006. The DVD version features his uncensored performance. The DVD has been popular, especially in Canada, selling over 100,000 copies. "Outsourced" remained on the National DVD Chart over one and a half years after release. Peters released a second DVD/CD combo, "Red, White and Brown", in Canada on September 30, 2008, and in the U.S. on January 27, 2009. The album was recorded on February 2, 2008, at The WAMU Theatre in Madison Square Garden. Peters and his brother Clayton self-produced and financed "Red, White and Brown". In May 2011, Peters released "The Green Card Tour: Live from the O2 Arena", a live performance recorded in front of a total audience of 30,000, over a two-night performance at O2 Arena in London, England. The show was directed by Dave Higby, who also produced "Outsourced". On October 26, 2010, Peters released his autobiography, "Call Me Russell", co-written with his brother Clayton and Dannis Koromilas. Earnings. According to "Forbes", Peters earned an estimated $15 million between June 2009 and June 2010, continuing his run as one of the highest-paid comedians after earning an estimated $5 million in the prior year's report. He was ranked as the third highest paid comedian by "Forbes". Comedic style. Russell Peters' stand-up performances are mostly made up of observational comedy where he uses humour to highlight racial, ethnic, class and cultural stereotypes. He often refers to his own life experiences growing up in an Indian family and impersonates various English accents of different groups in his act to poke fun at each group. As Peters told an audience in San Francisco, "I don't make the stereotypes, I just see them." Peters uses his minority status to allow him to poke fun at different races in his performance, but according to an interview done for "The National", he does not intend to put down or offend different races and cultures, but instead tries to raise them up through humour. Peters is widely known for his punchlines, "Somebody gonna get a hurt real bad", in which he tells a joke about his childhood with a traditional Indian father who would use corporal punishment, and "Be a man!", while imitating a Chinese man trying to get him to pay more for an item at a shop. Personal life. Peters proposed to girlfriend Monica Diaz on July 10, 2010, at the Los Angeles International Airport. He announced the engagement via Twitter. The couple married on August 20, 2010 at A Little White Wedding Chapel in Las Vegas. The wedding was attended by about 20 guests, including an Elvis impersonator. Soon after, Peters told "The Canadian Press" that Diaz was pregnant, stating, "Did I get married because she was knocked up? I would say that expedited it." Peters and Diaz's daughter, Crystianna Marie Peters, was born two months early on December 14, 2010. In a March 2012 interview, Peters revealed that he and Diaz were divorcing. Peters lives in Los Angeles and owns two homes there. He also owns homes in Las Vegas, Nevada and Vaughan, Ontario. Works. Television and film appearances. Peters has appeared in many films, including the 2011 Punjabi-Canadian movie "Breakaway", alongside Camilla Belle, Anupam Kher, and Vinay Virmani. He also appeared in "Senior Skip Day" starring Larry Miller, Tara Reid, and Gary Lundy. Besides this, he also made short appearances in the 1994 film "Boozecan" as Snake's Friend, the 2000 film "Tiger Claws III" as Detective Elliott, the 2004 film "My Baby's Daddy" as the obstetrician, the 2006 film "Quarter Life Crisis" as Dilip Kumar, and the 2008 film "The Take" as Dr. Sharma, among others. Peters starred in a Christmas special, "A Russell Peters Christmas", which aired in Canada on 1 December 2011. Guests included Michael Bublé, Pamela Anderson, and Jon Lovitz among others. He also acted in Duncan Jones's movie "Source Code" as Max, an amateur comedian with a bad attitude, and starred as Pervius in "National Lampoon's The Legend of Awesomest Maximus". Peters also guest starred in Mr. D as the school super intendant.
1049318	"The Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight" is a 1969 novel written by Jimmy Breslin, and a film of the same name based on the book and released in 1971. The novel is a "roman à clef" based on the life of Joey Gallo. In the film, Kid Sally Palumbo – the character based on Joe Gallo, also known as "Crazy Joey" – is played by Jerry Orbach. The Mafia comedy features a young Robert De Niro as a member of an Italian cycling team who stays behind illegally in America after the cancellation of the race, for which he had come to the country. For money, he is an adept thief who masquerades as a priest to con Mafia bosses into giving donations to a nonexistent charity.
1244071	Letters to God is a 2010 Christian drama film directed by David Nixon and starring Robyn Lively, Jeffrey Johnson, Tanner Maguire, Michael Bolten and Bailee Madison. The story was written by Patrick Doughtie about his son Tyler, with the screenplay penned by Doughtie, Art D'Alessandro, Sandra Thrift and Cullen Douglas. The story took place in Nashville, Tennessee, but the movie was filmed in the Orlando, Florida area. "Letters to God" is based on the true story of Tyler Doherty, who was played in the film by Tanner Maguire. Parts of the story are real, and others were fictionalized, such as the character of a drunken mailman named Brady McDaniels (Jeffrey Johnson), who receives Tyler's "letters to God." The film was released to theaters on April 9, 2010, with mixed reviews. Despite opening at #10 at the box office, it fell just $150,000 short of its $3 million budget with a final gross of $2.85 million. Plot. Tyler Doherty (Tanner Maguire) is an 8 year-old suffering from cancer, and with a love for writing and sending letters to God. His local postman, Walter Finley, takes them to his office after work. His boss sees them and instructs Walter to take care of them. Later Mr. Finley goes on an extended vacation, causing an alcoholic named Brady McDaniels (Jeffrey Johnson) to replace him temporarily. Brady is a regular at the "Bar and Grill" and close to the bartender, Jack. On his first day of work, Brady is bitten by Mrs. Baker's dog, and is confused by the "Letters to God" that he picks up from the Doherty house. That same day Tyler returns to school after two months of brain tumor surgery, MRIs and radiation. The Doherty family has been through a lot; in addition to Tyler's cancer, they have also lost Patrick Doherty, Tyler's father. Tyler's first day of school starts off with Alex, who bullies Tyler for being bald and having little eyebrows. Tyler's friend Samantha Perryfield (Bailee Madison), pushes Alex's face in his mashed potatoes, causing them to be sent to the principal's office. Tyler sends more letters to God, with Brady picking them up each day. Brady initially wants to give them to a church, but the pastor says that Brady should keep them. Brady reads some of them, and they inspire him to be a better person. Brady develops a close relationship to the Dohertys. Mrs. Doherty gets close to Brady, and later reads Tyler's brother, Ben's, letter that inspires her to be a better mother and immediately goes to get Ben driver's license. Ben makes Tyler and his mom think he is arrogant and selfish like a normal teenager. Tyler tells Sam that he wants Alex to know that he is not mad at him. Alex figures out Tyler's love of soccer and gets an idea of giving a soccer ball with "Get Well" on it. Brady, Alex and Sam visit Tyler at the hospital. Later, Tyler finishes getting chemotherapy and is released. The nurses remind Mrs. Doherty that Tyler's body is not very fit yet. Dave, Tyler's soccer coach, asks Tyler to play in a match. In the middle of it, Brady encourages Tyler to play goalkeeper. Tyler faints at the end of the game and is taken to the hospital. Brady is angrily blamed by Mrs. Doherty for encouraging Tyler to play, but later apologizes. It was shown later that Brady had been in jail for DUI, and that his son, Justin, was taken away from him by his wife. He turns away from his old life, and throws away his bottles of whiskey. Tyler later succumbs to his illness, and passes away at home. Sam dedicates a mailbox for God, saying that "His life was a letter to God." Production. Pat Doughtie and his dying son, Tyler, became a major story in Nashville, Tennessee when Julie Buchanan was convicted of stealing money from the boy's cancer fund. In caring for his son, Doughtie lost his job and his house, and soon his son died as well. "Once he passed, I decided to write a book," said Doughtie, who was unsure of where telling his son's story would lead. Doughtie took a screenplay class and soon wrote the original script for "Letters to God". It was noticed by Christian filmmaker David Nixon, who co-produced Sherwood Pictures' successful Christian films "Facing the Giants" and "Fireproof".
676375	A Countess from Hong Kong is a 1967 British comedy film and the last film directed, written, produced and scored by Charlie Chaplin. It was one of two films Chaplin directed in which he did not play a major role (the other was 1923's "A Woman of Paris"), and his only color film. Chaplin's cameo marked his final screen appearance. The movie starred Marlon Brando, Sophia Loren, Tippi Hedren, and Sydney Earle Chaplin, Chaplin's second son. The story is based loosely on the life of a woman Chaplin met in France, named Moussia Sodskaya, or "Skaya" as he calls her in his 1922 book, "My Trip Abroad". She was a Russian singer and dancer that "was a stateless person marooned in France without a passport". The idea, according to a press release written by Chaplin after the movie received a negative reception, was that the story "resulted from a visit I made to Shanghai in 1931 where I came across a number of titled aristocrats who had escaped the Russian Revolution". It was originally started as a film called "Stowaway" in the 1930s, planned for Paulette Goddard, but production was never completed. This resulting film, created nearly 30 years after its inception, was a critical failure and grossed US$2,000,000 from a US$3,500,000 budget. However, it did prove to be extremely successful in Italy. In addition, the success of the music score was able to cover the budget. Critics such as Tim Hunter and Andrew Sarris, as well as the poet John Betjeman, viewed the film as being among Chaplin's best works. Chaplin, although unhappy with the critical and audience reaction, by the end of his life considered it his greatest film. The film's theme music, written by Chaplin, became the hit song "This Is My Song" for Petula Clark — a UK no. 1 and US no. 3. Plot summary. Ambassador-designate to Saudi Arabia Ogden Mears (Marlon Brando) sails back to America after touring the world. He meets Natasha, a Russian countess (Sophia Loren), in Hong Kong after she sneaks aboard to escape being forced into prostitution. She has no passport and is forced to stay in his cabin during the voyage. Ogden dislikes the situation, being a married man, although partially separated, and worries how it might affect his career if she is found. But he reluctantly agrees to let her stay. They then have to figure out a way to get her off the ship, and it is arranged that she marry his aged valet, Hudson (Patrick Cargill). Although it is only a formality, Hudson wishes to consummate the relationship, which a wish she does not share. Natasha avoids him and, before docking at port, jumps off the ship and swims ashore. Ogden's wife (Tippi Hedren) then joins the cruise, having just missed her. Ogden's lawyer friend Harvey (Sydney Earle Chaplin), who helped arrange the marriage, meets Natasha and tells her that the immigration officers have accepted her as Hudson's wife. Ogden's wife then confronts him about Natasha, speaking rather roughly about her and the life she led. He then asks if his wife would have done as well under such circumstances. The film ends with Ogden and Natasha meeting in a hotel's cabaret, where they begin dancing, since he has left the cruise and his wife behind. Charlie Chaplin makes two brief appearances as the ship's steward. Production. This was Chaplin's first film in ten years after 1957's "A King in New York". This is Tippi Hedren's first feature film after her break with director Alfred Hitchcock. She had high hopes for the film, until she received the script. When she realised that she had a small part as Brando's estranged wife, she asked Chaplin to expand her role. Although Chaplin tried to accommodate her, he could not, as the story mostly takes place on a ship, which Hedren's character boards near the end of the film. In the end, she remained in the film and later said that it was a pleasure working for him. Chaplin's three eldest daughters appeared in the film: Geraldine (at minutes 46 and 1:05), Josephine and Victoria Chaplin (at minute 1:32). It was filmed entirely at Pinewood Studios in Buckinghamshire, just outside London, in 1966. The film was the second of Universal's European unit, following "Fahrenheit 451". Video Release. The movie was not released on home video until 1996, with the VHS format as part of the "Universal Cinema Classics" series. Then in 2003 it was released onto DVD in widescreen format, and later re-released as part of the DVD set "Marlon Brando: The Franchise Collection".
1070255	Christopher Showerman (born June 24, 1971 in Jackson, Michigan) is an American actor, best known for his role as George in George of the Jungle 2. Biography. Born and raised in Michigan, Showerman embarked on an acting career after school - he attended Michigan State University, where he majored in music - and moved to Hollywood shortly thereafter. After small roles in several studio feature films, including "Starship Troopers" (1997) and "Best in Show" (2002), Showerman was cast in the lead in the independent movie "Dumped" (2000). Showerman's big break came in 2003 when he was cast to replace Brendan Fraser as George of the Jungle in Disney's George of the Jungle 2. Film career. Though Showerman is best recognized for his role as George of the Jungle in George of the Jungle 2 (2003), he has also appeared in such films as "Sea of Fear", "Idol", "Live Fast, Die Young", "Complacent" and "Big Game". His most recent credits include "Hole in One", "A Night at the Silent Movie Theater", "Commander and Chief" and "Radio America", which he also wrote, produced and directed.
1166737	Robert Andrew Ri'chard (born January 7, 1983) is an American television and movie actor. Early life. Ri'chard was born in Los Angeles, California. He is of Louisiana Creole (French, African American, Native American, and Spanish) descent. Career. He has starred in the Nickelodeon sitcom "Cousin Skeeter". He also made a few appearances as himself on the hit Nickelodeon game show, "Figure It Out". He played Alex on 'Touched By An Angel'l, a troubled teen who is in prison for shooting a man. Also, he has appeared in films such as "Coach Carter" and "House of Wax". His breakout role was in the TV adaptation of Anne Rice's novel, "The Feast of All Saints", where he played the young Marcel who becomes a man within society. He has been professionally acting since the age of 13. He appeared in the movie "Light It Up" along with R&B star Usher. He attended Palms Middle School in Los Angeles, California. Ri'chard has guest starred on many hit shows such as "Boston Public", "Touched by an Angel", "", "My Wife and Kids", and "The Jamie Foxx Show". In 2000 he starred in the Disney Channel TV movie "Alley Cats Strike". Ri'chard has appeared in the 2006 season of "Veronica Mars". In 1997, Ri'chard starred in the television special, "In His Father's Shoes", which earned him the 1998 Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Performer in a Children's Special. He became popular in 2001 when he got the role of Arnaz Ballard on the UPN hit sitcom "One on One" alongside Flex Alexander and Kyla Pratt. That role was the most significant of his television roles. He continued to play the role until the show ended in 2006. While working on One on One, he dated his co-star Kyla Pratt for a few years before they broke up in early 2006. In the sitcom "Meet the Browns", he portrayed Derek Porter, a buffoonish frat student who lived next door to Brown Meadows. He often provided service to Brown Meadows, and was often either the mastermind or participant in Brown's antics. He debuted in Season 3 as a recurring character, and in the fourth season, was promoted to a main character. Ri'chard was set to star in a new series entitled "Eight Days a Week", starring Christina Milian and Mario Lopez on the CW Television Network during the Fall 2007 season, but it was canceled due to the Writer's Strike before airing. On November 16, 2011, it was announced that Robert Ri'chard was cast as Jamie in the TV series The Vampire Diaries.
589767	Haseena Maan Jayegi is a 1968 Hindi movie directed by Prakash Mehra. The film stars Shashi Kapoor, Babita, Ameeta, Yunus Parvez and Johnny Walker. The film's music, composed by Kalyanji Anandji has songs which are quite memorable, with the melodious Lata-Rafi duet 'Bekhudi Mein Sanam' being the most popular of them all.
1163779	Alice Faye (May 5, 1915 – May 9, 1998) was an American actress and singer, called by "The New York Times" "one of the few movie stars to walk away from stardom at the peak of her career." She is remembered first for her stardom at 20th Century Fox and, later, as the radio comedy partner of her husband, bandleader and comedian Phil Harris. She is also often associated with the Academy Award–winning standard "You'll Never Know", which she introduced in the 1943 musical film "Hello, Frisco, Hello". Early life. Born Alice Jeanne Leppert in New York City, she was the daughter of a New York police officer of German descent and his Irish-American wife, Charles and Alice Moffit Leppert. Faye's entertainment career began in vaudeville as a chorus girl (she failed an audition for the Ziegfeld Follies when it was revealed she was too young), before she moved to Broadway and a featured role in the 1931 edition of "George White's Scandals". By this time, she had adopted her stage name and first reached a radio audience on Rudy Vallée's "The Fleischmann Hour" (1932–1934), where she may have met her future husband and comedy partner, Phil Harris. Film career. Meanwhile, she gained her first major film break in 1934, when Lilian Harvey abandoned the lead role in a film version of "George White's 1935 Scandals", in which Vallee was also to appear. Hired first to perform a musical number with Vallee, Faye ended up as the female lead. She became a hit with film audiences of the 1930s, particularly when Fox production head Darryl F. Zanuck made her his protégé. He softened Faye from a wisecracking show girl to a youthful, yet somewhat motherly figure such as she played in a few Shirley Temple films. Faye also received a physical makeover, from being something of a singing version of Jean Harlow to sporting a softer look with a more natural tone to her blonde hair and more mature makeup, including losing the notorious "pencil" eyebrows.
520557	Donna Cruz (born February 14, 1977) is a Filipina recording artist and entertainer. She emerged as the biggest multimedia superstar in the 1990s, becoming successful as a recording artist, actress, product endorser and television presenter. She is related to the Cruz clan in Philippine showbiz which includes uncle Tirso Cruz III, cousins Sheryl, Sunshine, Geneva, Rayver and Rodjun Cruz. According to Viva Entertainment, she is the most successful OPM female artist of the 1990s, with combined album sales of over 300,000 throughout her nine years as an active recording artist. Biography. 1988-1991: Early career beginnings. Born in Manila, Philippines, Cruz began performing as a child, becoming a grand finalist of Eat Bulaga's Little Miss Philippines beauty pageant and grand champion of Bulilit Batang Kampeon in 1988. She signed with Viva Records in 1991 and released her debut album "Donna" in that same year. During this decade, she became a prominent figure in the entertainment industry, as she was one of the most sought-after entertainers in the Philippines. Her singles "Kapag Tumibok ang Puso" and "Rain" became popular singles in OPM music. In the same year that Cruz was launched as an actress, she played a supporting role alongside Tony Lambino in Mars Ravelo's "Darna", which was topbilled by actress Nanette Medved. 1992-1997: Breakthrough as an actress and multimedia star. In 1992, Cruz won as Best New Performing Artist in Awit Awards. She released "Kurot sa Puso" in that same year, and joined German Moreno's "That's Entertainment", a daily variety show that featured young and upcoming new talents. Two years later, she released "Langit na Naman", her third studio album. It was certified gold in the Philippines. it was in that same year that she starred in two drama movies, "Kadenang Bulaklak" alongside Vina Morales, Ana Roces and Angelu de Leon, and "Pangako Ng Kahapon," together with Agot Isidro and Alice Dixson, the movie which gave her a Best Supporting Actress nomination. After the success of these movies, Cruz starred in her first soap opera entitled "Villa Quintana" opposite actor Keempee de Leon which also got a PMPC Nomination for Best TV Series. In 1995, she starred in college romance flicks such as "Campus Girls", "Okey Si Ma'am", and "Love Notes: The Movie". As a recording artist, she launched her biggest-selling album ever, "Habang May Buhay", an album composed of selected movie theme songs. The album received its Quadruple platinum award in 1997, making it Donna's best-selling album so far. The cut "Only Me and You" was chosen as Awit Award's 1995 Best Ballad Recording, and Donna as Best Female Ballad Performance in an album. The album was certified 4x platinum. The single "Only Me and You" won her the Best Ballad Recording by a Female Artist. Also, a movie was made as a tie-in with the release of the movie "Habang May Buhay" in which she starred alongside Ian de Leon and Hilda Koronel. Before the year closed, Cruz joined de Leon as well as his mother, veteran actress Nora Aunor in the drama film, "Muling Umawit ang Puso", in which she won her first acting award, a Best Supporting Actress trophy given by the Metro Manila Film Festival. In 1996, she starred alongside Bong Revilla in "Pag-Ibig Ko Sa Iyo'y Totoo" and again with Ian de Leon and newcomer Jao Mapa in "Dahil Tanging Ikaw". During that same year, she starred in "DoReMi", the biggest movie of 1996, together with Regine Velasquez and Mikee Cojuangco. Cruz released a Christmas album entitled, "Merry Christmas Donna," which included the single "Muling Sumapit Ang Pasko," written by legendary songwriter Vehnee Saturno. The album was certified platinum, and became the biggest-selling Christmas album during that year. In 1997, she recorded a duet with American singer Jason Everly, called "Wish", son of Phil Everly of the Everly Brothers which became the biggest radio single of that year. She also recorded an Alan Menken song entitled "The Story of My Life" which was included in the Philippine release of "The Best of Disney Love Songs". Her album "Pure Donna" was also released and garnered platinum status in just a week after it was issued in record outlets. Later that year, Cruz together with Jason Everly starred in the blockbuster film, "Isang Tanong, Isang Sagot", which is her latest film to date. Also that same year, she joined "Eat!...Bulaga" as a co-host and performer. She was also part of "SOP", a Sunday musical variety show. Cruz also starred and hosted her musical special "Pure Donna," which was broadcast on GMA 7 on her twentieth birthday. The special won the "Best Musical Special" in the 1997 Aliw Awards. A "Villa Quintana: The Movie" starring Cruz and Keempee de Leon was also planned but was scrapped by Viva Films at the last minute. 1998-2005: Marriage, pregnancy and college graduation. In February 1998, Cruz became engaged to Yong Larrazabal, an ophthalmologist from Cebu. During that year, she was supposed to film "Putikang Anghel" a movie which will depict Cruz in a sexier, more mature and daring role, with Onemig Bondoc and Jake Roxas, but production was halted after Vic del Rosario, Jr., owner of Viva Entertainment, Inc. rejected the script. Cruz married Larrazabal in September of that year, and relocated to Cebu permanently. She released her final album under Viva Records in 1999, entitled "Hulog ng Langit", which focused on love songs and lullabies. During that year, she gave birth to a daughter named Belle. Three years later, she gave birth to her second child, a son named Cian. Cruz made a special guest appearance in "Bahay Mo Ba 'To?" as Lynnette, reprising her role in "Villa Quintana". A year later, she managed to successfully finish a computer degree from Cebu Doctors College in 2003. 2006-present: Comeback and guestings. Cruz returned to the spotlight in 2006, after appearing with her two children, Belle and Cian, for a Jollibee commercial. In 2007, Cruz gave birth to her third child, named Gio. In that same year, Cruz sang the Pampers Christmas Advertisement jingle "Payapang Daigdig". In 2008, Cruz spearheaded the Lactum's "100% Panatag Ako" campaign by singing "Kailanman Panatag", a song written by Ogie Alcasid and Nicole Tolentino, and performed the song in ASAP. In 2010, Cruz appeared as a celebrity contestant in Wowowee, and performed "I Can" with fellow celebrity contestants Dimples Romana and Nikki Valdez. A year later, Cruz appeared in the sitcom "Daldalita" where she played the role of Carmela de Leon-Matias, who is Daldalita's mother. This marked Cruz' first acting role in a television show since 1998's "Growing Up".
761916	Dmitriy Salita (; ; "Star of David"; born April 4, 1982) is a Ukrainian-born Jewish-American boxer from Brooklyn, New York in the welterweight division. He has a 33–1–1 record, with 16 KOs. He is , and his reach is 69". He is a practicing Orthodox Jew, and became so after he moved to Brooklyn. He does not fight on the Sabbath or Jewish holidays and follows Jewish dietary laws. Early life. Born in Odessa, Ukrainian SSR, Soviet Union (now Odessa, Ukraine) as Dmitriy Aleksandrovich Lekhtman, Salita was five years old when he saw his first boxing match. "It was Mike Tyson, and I remember dancing around my room that night imitating the moves", he recalled. Salita moved with his family to Flatbush, Brooklyn, at the age of nine because of the escalating violence against Jews in Ukraine. His father, Aleksandr Lekhtman, was an engineer; his late mother, Lyudmila Salita, was an accountant. He has one brother, Mikhail. He uses his mother's maiden name as his professional name. He said: Basically, we came to America because Jews were discriminated against. My parents thought that my brother and I wouldn’t grow up with the opportunity to be the best that we could be. My brother, who is nine years older than I am, used to get into a lot of fights, because he was often called names. There were rumors of pogrom every now and then, and Jews would go away to the suburbs from the city. ‘Pogrom’ means that groups of people would break into homes and bash the house. I remember that my father bought a gun just in case something was to happen. It was very difficult to get top jobs or to go to top schools and still remain proud of your Judaism. I am very grateful to America for letting me pursue my goals, and have freedom of religion and speech. You don’t normally appreciate it, but when you don't have it, you understand just how great it is to have it. Now that I am older, I understand it. In New York, classmates picked on Salita in school. He said, “When I first started going to school, I had the clothes that I wore over in Russia. I used to get made fun of because of it, and the fact that I didn’t speak English. I had to learn how to defend myself. I got involved in karate, and as time went on my brother brought me to a boxing club. That is how it all started. I got called into the principal's office. I got suspended a few times, but I got my respect. I started kicking some ass at school.” Boxing career. Salita said, “Jimmy runs an old school gym, a ghetto gym. My style isn't European. It isn't even American. It's a city style. It's Black. I don't know how else to say it. But some of us White boys got it like that”. The radio at Starrett was always tuned to HOT 97; Salita described it as “Blasting. A lot of Biggie. A lot of Tupac. I think that changed my style. That's what gave me some rhythm.” Amateur career. Salita had an amateur record of 59–5. When he was 16, he represented New York in the Junior Olympics and won a bronze medal. "I thought, 'I'm ranked in America as a boxer.' That's when I really felt like an American", he said. His last loss came when he was 17 in a split decision in the finals of the Golden Gloves tournament in 2000. He followed that up by becoming U.S. national under 19 champion at the U.S. Amateur under 19 Championships in Gulfport, Mississippi. At the 2001 New York Golden Gloves, he won the championship at 139 pounds. Salita won the finals on April 5, 2001, at Madison Square Garden in New York City. Bill Farrell of the New York Daily News reported, “In a bout that lived up to all its expectations, Dmitriy Salita battled past Joey Rios to win the Golden Gloves 139-pound open title last night at the Theater at Madison Square Garden. The 3–2 decision won by Salita in as fine a boxing match ever staged in the Golden Gloves finals earned Salita the Sugar Ray Robinson Award as the outstanding boxer in the tournament. Salita, who is as talented as they come, got into his rhythm midway through Round 2, and finally took control of the bout to earn the decision and a pair of Golden Gloves.” Salita said , “You know, with me growing up in New York, the New York Golden Gloves is a big, big deal. A lot of the great fighters that have come out of New York have all managed to win the Golden Gloves. The Golden Gloves in New York is like the Olympic games, everyone knows about it. You really get your respect after you win the New York Golden Gloves. I thought that it was an important step, and that it would boost my professional career. Plus, I was just dying to have those Golden Gloves around my neck.” Pro career. He turned pro at the age of 19, in the summer of 2001. He signed a contract with Las Vegas-based promoter Bob Arum, whose Top Rank stable of fighters has included George Foreman, Larry Holmes, and Manny Pacquiao. On August 25, 2005, Salita captured the North American Boxing Association light welterweight championship by stopping Shawn Gallegos via ninth round TKO. Salita remained in contention for a junior welterweight title bout, extending his unbeaten streak to 28, with a unanimous 10-round decision over Grover Wiley at the Hammerstein Ballroom in New York in March 2007. Salita staggered Wiley (30–9–1) with a series of body punches in the 7th round. In May 2009 he scored a dominant 10-round shutout victory over Raul "El Toro" Munoz (20–12–1, 15 KOs) in Las Vegas for his 30th win. "Salita wobbled Munoz with a barrage of power shots. An uppercut flush under the chin awakened a startled Munoz, who somehow found his way back to the middle of the ring", noted distinguished boxing reporter Albert Howell. Recent bouts and the future. Salita lost to WBA light welterweight champion Amir Khan on December 5, 2009. Khan knocked out Salita in 76 seconds, knocking him down three times in the first round to defend his world title, shattering Salita's dreams of a world title. Salita credited Khan's superior hand speed as the reason for being knocked down. "He has very quick hands. I didn't see the punches coming". Salita was criticized before the fight for not having fought difficult competition while racking up an undefeated record. Salita made a comeback on September 1, 2010, fighting as a junior middleweight, winning an eight round unanimous decision over Franklin Gonzalez at Oceana Hall in Brighton Beach, Brooklyn, New York. After the Gonzalez bout, former world champion Paul Malignaggi entered the ring to congratulate Salita and propose a bout between the two of them in the very near future. On April 13, 2011, Dmitriy Salita (33–1–1, 17 KOs) scored an eight round unanimous decision victory over Ronnie Warrior Jr. (13–5–1, 4 KOs) at the Oceana ballroom in Brooklyn, New York. It was Salita’s third fight in only eight months and he came through in front of the hometown crowd, aggressive from the first bell, controlling the bout and show casing his superior fighting skills. On the offensive for most of the eight rounds he forced his left-handed opponent to adopt a defensive stance, while using his greater reach and speed to his advantage. One frightening moment came in the final round when Salita sustained a nasty gash over his left eye after a head butt from Warrior. But the "Star of David" had the final say with many devoted fans and supporters cheering him on as he pulled through the last round with a well-deserved victory. Family. His mother, Lyudmila, originally opposed her son's boxing, but eventually became an enthusiastic supporter. She died in January 1999, after a two-year battle with breast cancer. When she was hospitalized, Salita divided his time between James Madison High School, the Starrett gym, and Sloan Kettering Memorial Hospital. He said, “I’d spend the night sleeping in a chair at the hospital and wake up to do my roadwork.” In September 2009, Salita married Alona Aharonov. Alona is from the Lubavitch community. Jewish heritage. Promoter Bob Arum said, "If he's as good as it appears he is, and he can be held up as an example of religious devotion to both Jews and gentiles, he'll be a great attraction." Salita said, "I will never compromise my beliefs. Never. It’s not a question. I have a personal relationship with God that I won’t compromise. My boxing is such a big part of my life, but it won’t get in the way of my religion. It can't, and it won't." Salita is one of several active Jewish boxers. Others include heavyweight Roman Greenberg at (27–1–0) and junior middleweight Yuri Foreman at (28–1–0) as well as Muay Thai kickboxer Ilya Grad at (29–9–0). Salita enters the ring to Yiddish rap. Movies. "Orthodox Stance", a documentary directed by Jason Hutt about Salita's career to date (2007) and his life as an Orthodox Jew, received its world premiere at the 2007 Silverdocs Documentary Festival and had its second showing and West Coast premiere at the 2007 San Francisco Jewish Film Festival as part of an evening devoted to Jewish boxers. Both Salita and director Hutt participated in a panel discussion following the presentation. "Orthodox Stance" received Best Documentary Film honors at the 2008 London Jewish Cultural Awards.
585539	Nadiya Kollappetta Rathri is a 2007 Malayalam thriller film by K. Madhu starring Suresh Gopi and Kavya Madhavan. The film's plot is inspired from Agatha Christie's novel "Elephants Can Remember" Plot. Three murders happen on a moving train. "Murder on the Orient Express", an Agatha Christie classic, inspired the crime thriller.
1060256	Nathan Lane is an American actor of stage, screen, and television. He is best known for his roles as Mendy in "The Lisbon Traviata", Albert in "The Birdcage", Max Bialystock in the musical "The Producers", Ernie Smuntz in "MouseHunt", Nathan Detroit in "Guys and Dolls", Pseudolus in "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum", and his voice work in "The Lion King" and "Stuart Little". In 2006, he received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, and in 2008 he was inducted into the American Theatre Hall of Fame.
1044137	Robin Askwith (born 12 October 1950, Southport, Lancashire), is an English film actor, most famous for his role as Timmy Lea in the "Confessions..." sex comedies. Career. Confessions.... Askwith appeared in a number of film and television roles before two key appearances in 1973. The first was in appearing in Antony Balch's "Horror Hospital". Now seen as something of a cult film, it is in many ways a bizarre hybrid of horror and the mild titillation of the later 'Confessions...' films. In the same year Askwith also appeared in a Carry On film, "Carry On Girls". These appearances led producers Norman Cohen, Greg Smith and Michael Klinger to offer him the starring role in "Confessions of a Window Cleaner" after the part was turned down by several other previous candidates, Richard Beckinsale, Richard O'Sullivan, Nicky Henson and Dennis Waterman. The success of the film led to three sequels, "Confessions of a Pop Performer", "Confessions of a Driving Instructor" and "Confessions from a Holiday Camp". Although the "Confessions" series came to an end with "Confessions from a Holiday Camp", a fifth and a sixth film, "Confessions of a Plumber’s Mate" and "Confessions of a Private Soldier" had been planned in 1977. Askwith even expressed a desire to direct "Private Soldier", but neither film materialised. Plans to shoot a further made-for-video "Confessions" film in the 1980s also came to nothing, although by this time he was appearing in the ITV sitcom Bottle Boys. Stage work. Askwith’s extensive work on stage, includes numerous farces like "Run For Your Wife" plus the stage "Confessions" sequel "The Further Confessions of a Window Cleaner"- and Pantomimes- appearing with the Chuckle Brothers in Dick Whittington in the late 1990s, while in 2002 he played under Frank Bruno and Sooty in a Wolverhampton production of Goldilocks and the 3 Bears and in 2004 he played in a Milton Keynes production of Aladdin. More unusual stage roles include the title role in a production of Brecht’s "The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui", and The Childcatcher in a 2006 touring production of "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang". Still active on the stage, Askwith has, for some time, been preparing “Paint It Black”, a one-man show based on the life and death of Brian Jones. In 2007 he appeared in Terry Johnson's "Dead Funny", and in the summer of that year, appeared in "Coronation Street" as a holiday tour guide named Aidan. The episodes of the soap that feature Askwith were filmed in Malta, close to the island of Gozo where he has lived for many years. In the 2010-11 pantomime season he appeared as Abanazar in Aladdin at the Theatre Royal, Lincoln. From 11 December 2012 - 27 January 2013, Robin appeared at the Mill at Sonning, Reading, Berkshire in Ray Cooney's farce Caught in the Net. Recent activity. Askwith’s autobiography, "The Confessions of Robin Askwith", was published by Ebury Press in 1999. The book documents his early life and acting career, the success of the Confessions films, and his relationship with the actress (and occasional "Confessions" co-star) Linda Hayden, his common-law wife during the 1970s. He was later married to the actress Leonie Mellinger. Robin has a cameo appearance in the film Run For Your Wife, due for a UK release on 14 February 2013.
582468	Parikshit Sahni () (born: 1944, Murree) is an Indian film and television actor, who is most known for playing the lead in TV series Barrister Vinod, "Gul Gulshan Gulfaam" (Doordarshan) and "Gaatha" (STAR Plus). He is the son of noted actor Balraj Sahni and nephew of writer Bhisham Sahni. He comes from a Punjabi background. Early life. He was born while his father was teaching English at Visva-Bharati University in Shantiniketan of Rabindranath Tagore, and his mother was doing her Bachelors. Schooled at Lawrence School, Sanawar, he went to study at Delhi's prestigious St. Stephen's College. Later, he began his career as a child artist, but couldn't match the rating of his father. Career. His most recent film is "3 Idiots" where he got appreciation for playing R Madhavan's father. He had a major role in the TV series Heena as Nawab Mirza, Heena's father. Heena ended in 2003. Currently, Sahni is playing the role of Veer Singh (Kaka-sa) on the popular Zee serial, Saat Phere opposite Nivedita Bhattacharya. He also starred in the classic Punjabi film "Marhi Da Diva" (1989), also starring Raj Babbar, Pankaj Kapur, Kanwaljit Singh, and Deepti Naval. He played a remarkable role in Hindi film Pavitra Paapi (1970) which was based on a Punjabi novel by Nanak Singh (a famous novelist of the Punjabi language). He acted in Doordarshan television series "The Great Maratha" as Malhar Rao Holkar.
1065090	Geraldine Leigh Chaplin (born 31 July 1944) is a British-American actress and the daughter of Charlie Chaplin. She came to prominence for her Golden Globe–nominated role of Tonya in David Lean's "Doctor Zhivago" (1965). She received her second Golden Globe nomination for Robert Altman's "Nashville" (1975). She also appeared in his other pictures, "Buffalo Bill and the Indians, or Sitting Bull's History Lesson" (1976) and "A Wedding" (1978). She received a BAFTA nomination for her role in "Welcome to L.A." (1976). She then appeared in "Roseland" (1977) and "Remember My Name" (1978). She played her grandmother Hannah Chaplin in the biopic, "Chaplin" (1992) for which she received her third Golden Globe nomination. She also appeared in "The Age of Innocence" (1993), "Jane Eyre" (1996), "" (1997) and "The Wolfman" (2010). Chaplin has also appeared in several Spanish and French films. She starred in Claude Lelouch's "Les Uns et les Autres" (1981), the Alain Resnais comedy, "Life Is a Bed of Roses" (1983) and the Jacques Rivette experimental film, "Love on the Ground" (1984). She has, arguably, enjoyed her greatest critical success collaborating with Carlos Saura. She starred in several notable films by the director, such as "Ana and the Wolves" (1973), "Cría cuervos" (1976), "Elisa, vida mía" (1977), and "Mamá cumple cien años" (1979). She collaborated with Pedro Almodóvar in "Talk to Her" (2002). She was awarded a Goya Award for her role in "En la ciudad sin límites" (2002) and was nominated again for "The Orphanage" (2007). Her contribution to Spanish cinema culminated in her being awarded the Gold medal by the Spanish Academy of Cinematographic Arts and Sciences in 2006. Personal life. Geraldine Chaplin was born in Santa Monica, California, the fourth child of filmmaker Charlie Chaplin. She was the first of his eight children with his fourth and last wife, Oona O'Neill. When Geraldine Chaplin was eight years old, the family moved to Switzerland where she attended boarding school and became fluent in French and Spanish. In 1967 she began what would become a twelve-year relationship with Carlos Saura, who directed her in several films between 1967 and 1979. In 1978 the Chaplin family were the victims of a failed extortion plot by kidnappers who had stolen the body of Charlie Chaplin. Geraldine negotiated with the kidnappers, who threatened to shoot her infant son in the knees. After living in Spain for over 25 years, she left in 1992 after being accused by Spanish intelligence services of being a terrorist arms dealer. The Basque terror group ETA had made a false claim that Chaplin supported the group's cause. Although Chaplin was cleared of any association, she was still viewed with suspicion, and she returned to the family home in Vevey, Switzerland. In the same year, a detainee from a left-wing Chilean group that collaborated with ETA alleged that plans for the 1988 kidnapping of Madrid businessman Emiliano Revilla were made during meetings at the Madrid home of Chaplin's partner, Chilean cinematographer Patricio Castilla. She married Castilla in 2006. She has two children: Shane, a psychologist (b. 1974, by Saura), and Oona, an actress (b. 1986, by Castilla). She has a beachside home in Miami and also lives alternately between Madrid and Switzerland. Career. When Chaplin was eight years old, she appeared uncredited in her father's film "Limelight". She attended the Royal Ballet School but, when her dream of becoming a ballet dancer ended, she followed her father into the acting profession. David Lean chose her to play Tonya, the main character's wife, in his film "Doctor Zhivago", (1965) for which she received a Golden Globe nomination. In an interview to publicise the film, she explained, "Because of my name, the right doors opened." In 1967, she made her Broadway debut in Lillian Hellman's "The Little Foxes". Her performance was praised by Clive Barnes in a review published in "The New York Times". Barnes noted that Chaplin "acts with spirit and force," all the while "acting with a magnificently raw-voiced sincerity" in what was a performance of "surprising power." In the same year, she also began what would become a significant collaboration when she starred in Spanish film director Carlos Saura's psychological thriller, "Peppermint Frappé". She later starred in (and occasionally co-wrote scripts for) later Saura films such as "Ana and the Wolves" (1973), "Cría cuervos" (1976), "Elisa, vida mía" (1977) and "Mamá cumple cien años" (1979). "Cría cuervos" is regarded as their finest collaboration, winning the Special Jury Prize Award at the 1976 Cannes Film Festival. Vincent Canby praised Chaplin's "superb" performance. In 1970, she starred alongside Charlton Heston in the American historical film "The Hawaiians". In 1974 she starred in "The Three Musketeers", as well as the sequel a year later, "The Four Musketeers". In 1975 she starred as the obnoxious BBC reporter Opal in Robert Altman's "Nashville", for which she received a Golden Globe nomination for Best Supporting Actress. She later starred in the Altman films "Buffalo Bill and the Indians, or Sitting Bull's History Lesson" (1976) and "A Wedding" (1978). In an interview with "The New York Times" in 1977, Chaplin cited that her career was going more successfully in Europe than in the United States. She complained that ""I only seem to work with Altman here ... I don't have any offers in this country, none. Not even an interesting script to read. The only person who ever asks me is Altman - and James Ivory."" She starred in several films produced by Altman and directed by Alan Rudolph, with a BAFTA-nominated role in "Welcome to L.A." (1976), in which she played a housewife addicted to cab rides. She received critical acclaim for her role in "Remember My Name" (1978), in which she played Anthony Perkins' murderous estranged wife. She also starred in Rudolph's 1920s set film "The Moderns" (1988). She has also starred in several French-language roles, including Jacques Rivette's "Love on the Ground" (1984) and the Alain Resnais films "Life Is a Bed of Roses" (1983) and "I Want to Go Home" (1989). In 1992, she played the role of her grandmother Hannah Chaplin in the biographical film about her father, "Chaplin", for which she was nominated for another Golden Globe award. A year later she was directed by Martin Scorsese in "The Age of Innocence". In 1996 she appeared in Franco Zeffirelli's "Jane Eyre". Chaplin received a Goya Award for Best Supporting Actress for her role in Spanish-Argentine thriller, "In the City Without Limits" (2001). Other notable Spanish films she appeared in include Pedro Almodóvar's "Talk to Her" (2002) and José Antonio Bayona's "The Orphanage" (2007), for which she received a Goya Award nomination. She also recently starred in the Catalan drama, "The Mosquito Net" (2010), for which she was awarded the Crystal Globe. In 2006 Chaplin was awarded the Gold medal by the Academia de las Artes y las Ciencias Cinematográficas de España for her contribution to cinema. She recently appeared in independent films, "Americano", a drama alongside Salma Hayek and "...And If We All Lived Together" with Jane Fonda. She also reunited with Juan Antonio Bayona for the 2012 film "The Impossible".
358617	Jennifer Maria Syme (December 7, 1972 – April 2, 2001) was an American actress and production assistant. She was best known for her relationship with actor Keanu Reeves. Early life and career. Born in Pico Rivera, California, Syme lived there for 18 years. Shortly after moving to Los Angeles, she landed a job working for director David Lynch. Syme had a few minor film roles including a part in Lynch's "Lost Highway". She later joined the staff of a music label. She was also a personal assistant to Dave Navarro of Jane's Addiction and the Red Hot Chili Peppers (Don't Try This At Home-Neil Strauss). Death. On April 1, 2001, Syme attended a party at musician Marilyn Manson's home. After being driven home by another party guest shortly before dawn, she left her home, reportedly to return to Manson's home at his request. On the morning of April 2, 2001, Syme drove her 1999 Jeep Grand Cherokee into a row of parked cars on Cahuenga Boulevard in Los Angeles. She was ejected from the vehicle and died instantly. Syme was 28 years old. Syme is buried next to her daughter Ava Archer Reeves (born stillborn in December 1999 from father Keanu Reeves) in Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery in Los Angeles. Aftermath. In tribute to Syme's memory, David Lynch dedicated the 2001 film "Mulholland Drive" to her. Marilyn Manson wrote a song about her "Just a Car Crash Away" in his "Eat Me, Drink Me" album in 2007. In April 2002, Syme's mother, Maria St. John, sued Marilyn Manson for wrongful death for giving Syme "various quantities of an illegal controlled substance" and for "instructing to operate a motor vehicle in her incapacitated condition". Shortly after the lawsuit was filed, Manson issued a statement denying responsibility for Syme's death, stating that the lawsuit was "completely without merit". An investigation into the accident concluded that Syme, who was not wearing a seatbelt, was inebriated at the time of the accident. Reports also stated that police found two rolled up dollar bills that contained a white, powdery substance and two bottles of prescription drugs, a muscle relaxant and an anticonvulsant. Syme's mother told police her daughter was seeking treatment for back pain and depression just a few days prior to her death.
1317024	Burton Gilliam (born August 9, 1938) is an American actor. Biography. Career. Prior to acting, Gilliam was a member of the Coast Guard's boxing team and reportedly posted a record of 201 wins out of 217 fights during his enlistment. Gilliam was credited with winning more Golden Gloves bouts than anyone in its history at that time. Upon completing his Coast Guard enlistment, Gilliam followed in his father's footsteps and joined the Dallas Fire Department, where he spent the next 14 years posted at Station 39 in East Dallas. Upon his return to Texas, Gilliam had also completed his General Equivalency Development (GED) diploma with exemplary scores. While working as a fireman, Gilliam appeared in the role of "Floyd", the desk clerk in the film "Paper Moon". He has also appeared in popular motion pictures such as "Blazing Saddles" and "Back to the Future Part III". Gilliam was the first man ever to pass wind in a Hollywood motion picture in "Blazing Saddles". Gilliam has had roles in several other motion pictures such as "Honeymoon in Vegas", "Thunderbolt and Lightfoot", "Farewell, My Lovely", "Fletch", "Gator", "Telefon", and "The Jericho Mile". His television appearances include "Alice", "Charlie’s Angels", "The A-Team","The Dukes Of Hazzard", "The Fall Guy", and he appeared as a regular on "Evening Shade". Personal life. Burton lives with his wife, Susan, in Allen, Texas, just north of Dallas. They have two children and four grandchildren who also live in the local area. His granddaughter, Hollie Vise, is a world champion gymnast. Gilliam graduated from Woodrow Wilson High School (Dallas, Texas) in 1956 and was inducted into the school's hall of fame in 2004.
1016216	All About Women (), originally titled "She Ain't Mean" and "Not All Women Are Bad", is a 2008 Chinese romantic comedy-drama film directed by Tsui Hark. Starring Kitty Zhang, Zhou Xun and Gwei Lun-mei, the film tells a series of interwoven stories as it focuses on the lives of three women and their romantic relationships. Zhou plays a clumsy woman who secretly develops a pheromone drug patch, which serves as a plot device for the film; Kwai plays a punk rock band singer, who is also a boxer and novelist; and Zhang plays a wealthy attractive woman. Originally set to be an updated version of Tsui's "Peking Opera Blues", "All About Women" was shot in Beijing, China, and was released in China and Hong Kong on 11 December 2008. The film was later released in Singapore on 8 January 2009. Cast. The film features cameos from four filmmakers: the film's director, Tsui Hark, in a deleted scene, cameos as a taxi driver; co-screenwriter Kwak Jae-yong appears as a noodle restaurant patron; Hong Kong film director Jacob Cheung appears as himself, playing an unlucky patient; and actor–film producer Henry Fong appears as Ou Fanfan's boss. Production. Development. To commemorate on the 25th anniversary of his production company Film Workshop, director Tsui Hark wanted the film to be one of several remakes of films produced by the company. Tsui expressed his inspiration for "All About Women" being a calligraphy with the words "She Ain't Mean" written in Chinese (女人不坏). He said that after seeing the drawing, he awoke one day, and images of countless women flashed across his mind. While promoting his 1991 film "Once Upon a Time in China" in Seoul, Korea, Tsui attended a seminar, where met Korean filmmaker Kwak Jae-yong. Tsui began working on a script titled "She's a Hooligan", developing various characters, who began to gradually form into something more concrete after several days. When Tsui discovered that Kwak was working on a script similar to his, he abandoned his own script, and collaborated with Kwak. Kwak wrote the script in Korean before it was translated into Chinese. Tsui then commented on and amended the Chinese version before it was translated back into Korean. The script was later re-edited by Kwak and retranslated into Chinese. Filming. "All About Women" was shot in Beijing, China from January 1 to April 2008, and was hailed as updated version of Tsui's 1986 film "Peking Opera Blues". In March, Tsui, for the first time as a filmmaker, invited the Chinese press visit to the set of "All About Women" in Changping, Beijing. Kitty Zhang commented on Tsui's style of filmmaking as the director would frequently make changes to the screenplay: "Often, when I arrived on the set in the morning, he'd hand me three pages of the script, saying that it's what we'd be filming today. I was taken aback. What he gave me earlier only had two paragraphs. Why such a big change?"
1162066	Nicholas Colasanto (January 19, 1924 – February 12, 1985) was an American actor and television director, known for his role, Coach, in the American sitcom "Cheers". Early life. Colasanto attended Bryant University, now located in Smithfield, Rhode Island, and was a decorated veteran of World War II. Around 1954 he was supposed to be an accountant for a company in Saudi Arabia, but he instead attended American Academy of Dramatic Arts. Career. Colasanto was best known for his role as Coach Ernie Pantusso on the sitcom "Cheers". He directed the 1972 "Columbo" episode "Étude in Black" and "Swan Song" in 1974. He also appeared in feature films, including "Fat City" and "Family Plot".
589378	Mehbooba is a 1976 Hindi film produced by Mushir-Riaz and directed by Shakti Samanta. The film stars Rajesh Khanna, Hema Malini and Prem Chopra. The music is composed by Rahul Dev Burman. The plot it is based on Gulshan Nanda's novel "Sisakate Saaz", and Nanda also wrote the screenplay himself. Plot. Singer Suraj (Rajesh Khanna) is stranded in a resthouse during a rainstorm. While there he experiences the feeling he has been there before. He feels himself transported to another lifetime, and is drawn to a woman named Ratna (Hema Malini). He is unable to forget the experience and, investigating further, discovers that in his past life he was a Chief Singer in the emperor's court - his name was Prakash, he was in love with a courtesan named Ratna, much to the chargin and anger of his family and the emperor, and they were tragically separated. He subsequently comes across a portrait of Ratna, and shortly meets a gypsy, Jhumri (also Malini) who looks exactly like Ratna. Soon Jhumri is also able to remember her past life and her love for Prakash to the chagrin of Rita Malhotra (Asha Sachdev) who loves Suraj, and Appa (Prem Chopra), the son of the leader of the gypsies (Madan Puri), who will stop at nothing to make Jhumri his wife. Appa steals the portrait, and sets the gypsies against Suraj, so that he can marry Jhumri, and perhaps separate the two lovers again. Fact. Kishore Kumar too wanted to sing 'Mere Naina Sawan Bhadho' that was initially written for Lata Mangeshkar. R. D. Burman agreed and wanted to record Kishore Kumar first. Kishore Kumar insisted Lata Mangeshkar record first. Though unacceptable at first, R. D. Burman yielded. Lata Mangeshkar recorded the song with great difficulty as it demanded great vocal strengths with long notes. Kishore Kumar had his version recorded. Till date his version is more famous than Lata Mangeshkar's. He listened to the song for 7 days before recording. Soundtrack. Song "Mere Naina Sawan Bhadon" is an evergreen number and "Parbat Ke Peechhe" too was popular number.
1060404	Elizabeth McGovern (born July 18, 1961) is an American film, television, and theater actor, and musician. Early life. McGovern was born in Evanston, Illinois, the daughter of Katharine Wolcott (née Watts), a high school teacher, and William Montgomery McGovern, Jr., a university professor. Her paternal grandfather was adventurer William Montgomery McGovern and her maternal great-grandfather was US diplomat Ethelbert Watts. The McGovern family moved to Los Angeles where her father accepted a teaching position with the law school at UCLA. Her younger sister is novelist Cammie McGovern. McGovern started acting in plays while attending The Oakwood School in North Hollywood. Agent Joan Scott saw her performance in "The Skin of Our Teeth" by Thornton Wilder, was impressed by her talent, and recommended she take acting lessons. McGovern studied at the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco, then at The Juilliard School in New York City. Career. In 1980, while studying at Juilliard, McGovern was offered a part in her first film, "Ordinary People", in which she played the girlfriend of troubled teenager Conrad Jarrett (Timothy Hutton). The following year she completed her acting education at the American Conservatory Theatre and Juilliard, and began to appear in plays, first Off-Broadway and later in famous theaters. In 1981 she earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress for her role as Evelyn Nesbit in the film "Ragtime". In 1984, she starred in Sergio Leone's gangster epic "Once Upon a Time in America" as Robert De Niro's romantic interest Deborah Gelly. In 1989 she played Mickey Rourke's girlfriend in "Johnny Handsome", directed by Walter Hill, and the same year she appeared as a rebellious lesbian in Volker Schlöndorff's thriller "The Handmaid's Tale". Television. McGovern has also appeared in several television productions, mostly in the UK.
1055275	A Man Apart is a 2003 vigilante film directed by F. Gary Gray and released by New Line Cinema. The film stars Vin Diesel and Larenz Tate. The story follows undercover DEA agent Sean Vetter who is on a vendetta to take down a mysterious drug lord named Diablo after his wife is murdered. The film was released in the United States on April 4, 2003. Plot. Sean Vetter (Vin Diesel) and Demetrius Hicks (Larenz Tate), who are former criminals, are members of the U.S. DEA working on the California/Mexico border. After arresting a drug baron named Memo Lucero (Geno Silva), the mysterious "Diablo" steps in and organizes the assassination of Vetter, but his wife, Stacy (Jacqueline Obradors), is the one who is killed instead. Looking for revenge, Vetter acts outside the law to punish his wife's murderers. To accomplish that, he asks Memo, who is now in prison, for help finding Diablo. With Hicks' help, he hunts every member of the cartel from the bottom to the top of the organization's hierarchy and finds that Memo is linked to the recent activities. Production. The premise originated from an idea by producers Joseph Nittolo of Nittolo Entertainment, and producing partners Tucker Tooley & Vincent Newman of Newman/Tooley Films based on their interest in films about the drug trade. Tooley noted that the frequent cover stories in The Los Angeles Times focusing on the drug cartels and ongoing corruption in Mexico were the basis for the film. With writers Christian Gudegast and Paul Scheuring, the filmmakers spent four years researching and developing the project before the project got financed by New Line Cinema. Being director F. Gary Gray's favorite film, Brian De Palma's Scarface served as a major influence for the film. Richard B. Valdemar, a veteran police officer of the Sheriff's Department in Los Angeles, served as a consultant. Filming took place at various locations in and around Los Angeles County during 2001. A scene where Sean beats a dealer to death was cut by seven seconds in order to get an R rating instead of NC-17. Release. Box office performance. After a prolonged delay, "A Man Apart" was finally released April 4, 2003 in 2,459 theaters and grossed $11,019,224 on its opening weekend, ranking #3 at the box office. As of July 10, 2003, the film has a domestic box office gross of $26,736,098 and a foreign gross of $17,614,828, giving it a worldwide total of $44,350,926. Critical reception. The film was universally panned by critics. On the film review website Rotten Tomatoes it currently holds an 11% "Rotten" with the general consensus being "Action and drama elements don't mix well in this cliched actioner". The film holds an average score of 36 out of 100 based on 32 reviews on another film review site, Metacritic. Home video. "A Man Apart" was released on DVD on September 2, 2003 as a 'barebones' release, containing no special features except deleted scenes and trailers. It was criticized for its poor video transfer. The film was later released on Blu-ray Disc on August 14, 2012. Lawsuit. The film's original title "Diablo" was the subject of a lawsuit by the video game company Blizzard Entertainment in 2001 when the developer/publisher filed against New Line Cinema, claiming trademark infringement on the name Diablo (a title used by Blizzard for a franchise of role-playing video games). A court initially ruled in favor of Blizzard, but the decision was reversed on appeal. Ultimately, New Line changed the film's name.
587319	Rajeev Verma is an Indian actor. He has worked in film and television. Early life. He was born June 28 in Hoshangabad, Madhya Pradesh, India. He did his Architectural Degree from Maulana Azad National Institute of Technology (MANIT), Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh. Career. Rajeev Verma has been acting for over two decades and he mostly depicts fathers in his films. He is currently playing Babbu Saa in "Mrs. Kaushik Ki Paanch Bahuein", a series about a woman looking for the fifth and last bride for her youngest son. Rajeev Verma plays Mrs. Kaushik's husband. Rajeev currently features in the Star Plus show, "Paraya Dhan", besides "Aasman Ne Jo Likha" and "Kaise Kahoon", both on DD1 and "Choti Bahu" on Zee TV. Bollywood. Some of his films include "Maine Pyar Kiya" (as Salman Khan's father), "Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam", "90 Minutes", "Benaras 1918", "Rehguzar", "Mohabbat Ho Gayi Hai Tumse", "Dhamkee", "Woh Tera Naam Tha", "Andaaz", "Yeh Raaste Hain Pyaar Ke", "", "Kachche Dhaage", "Biwi No.1", "Himmatwala" and "Jeet". Personal life. Rajeev is married to Rita Bhaduri, an educationist, theater, film and tv actress. Together they run a group in Bhopal named Bhopal Theaters. They have two sons: Shiladitya, who is a management consultant and a painter (also based in Bhopal), and Tathagat, a software engineer working in Mumbai.
1060324	Noah Strausser Speer Wyle (; born June 4, 1971) is an American film, television and theatre actor. He is best known for his roles as Dr. John Carter in "ER" and as Tom Mason in "Falling Skies". He has also played Steve Jobs in the 1999 docudrama "Pirates of Silicon Valley", Dr. Kenneth Monnitoff in the cult hit "Donnie Darko", and Flynn Carsen in "The Librarian" franchise. Wyle was named one of the "50 Most Beautiful People" by "People" magazine in 2001. Early life. Wyle, the middle of three children, was born in Hollywood, California, the son of Marjorie (née Speer), a registered orthopedic head nurse, and Stephen Wyle, an electrical engineer and entrepreneur. His father was Jewish and his mother Episcopalian, and he was raised "fairly nondenominationally", around both faiths. with three children of his own from a previous marriage. Wyle's paternal grandparents, Edith and Frank Wyle, founded the Los Angeles Craft and Folk Art Museum. Edith Wyle was an expressionist painter who also created The Egg and The Eye, an innovative café and shop on Wilshire Boulevard in the Miracle Mile district of Los Angeles, which soon became the preferred hangout for artists, travelers and dreamers. Through Edith Wyle, his great-grandfather is Louis Persinger. Wyle was educated at The Thacher School in Ojai, California, and graduated with the class of 1989. Wyle participated in a theater arts program at Northwestern University after his junior year of high school and appeared in high school plays, even winning an award for a play he wrote. After graduation, he studied with acting teacher Larry Moss while living in a small apartment on Hollywood Boulevard. Career. "ER". Wyle’s big break came when he was given the pilot script for "ER" and was cast as medical student John Carter. Wyle was the only major cast member of "ER" to have been with the show since its inception (1994) when he left after its eleventh season (2005). His performances on the show earned him Emmy Award nominations in each of its first five seasons. As part of an ensemble he was nominated several times for the Screen Actors Guild Award, he was recognized with three Golden Globe nominations as "Best Supporting Actor in a Series, Miniseries or Motion Picture Made for Television" and won the 2001 TV Guide Award for "Supporting Actor in a Drama Series". Wyle left the series at the end of the eleventh season, although he returned in guest appearances for a four-episode arc during the twelfth season. He stated that he left because he wanted to spend more time with his family and friends and to make room for the upcoming generation. However, in 2009, Wyle returned to "ER" during its fifteenth and final season for five episodes, including the series finale. According to the Guinness World Records 2005 Special 50th Anniversary Edition, Wyle became the holder of a "Highest paid TV drama actor per episode" record during the 2003–2004 tenth season, earning approximately $400,000 per episode. While on "ER", Wyle's estimated salary was $9 million a year. Wyle has also appeared in the most episodes of "ER", 255, four more than Laura Innes.* Film. Wyle was first seen in the Paul Bartel film "Lust in the Dust" (a western exploitation/parody which starred Tab Hunter, Lainie Kazan and Divine) as an extra in the local gang running the small town of Chile' Verde. His later parts were a mini-series and featuring in the movie "Crooked Hearts" (1991) in 1990. In 1993 he worked in another feature, "There Goes My Baby". After appearing in several local plays in Los Angeles, he was cast in the box-office hit "A Few Good Men", in which he played a Marine jeep driver who testified in court. He also appeared in the feature "Swing Kids" as Emil Lutz, a leader in the Hitler Youth, and in the independent movie "The Myth of Fingerprints" with Roy Scheider, Blythe Danner and Julianne Moore. Additionally, he starred as Lancelot opposite Sheryl Lee in the Television movie "Guinevere". Recently, Wyle starred in the original film, ' with Sonya Walger and in its sequel ' opposite Gabrielle Anwar and in the third part of the series "" alongside Stana Katic. His other work has included a critically acclaimed turn as Steve Jobs in the Emmy nominated "Pirates of Silicon Valley" (1999). He has also appeared in several feature films including: "White Oleander" opposite Renée Zellweger, "Enough" opposite Jennifer Lopez, the independent feature "Donnie Darko", as the President's interpreter in the 2000 live-television production of "Fail Safe", and in the independent film, "The Californians". Stage. Along with his film and television career, Wyle is also Artistic Producer of The Blank Theatre Company, located in Hollywood, CA. With the company, he has appeared on stage in the 1995 production of "The 24th Day" with Peter Berg, "The Who" (as part of the company's Young Playwrights Festival), and "Lobster Alice", opposite Nicholas Brendon, where he played the surrealist painter Salvador Dalí.
774647	Magic in the Water is a 1995 family film directed by Rick Stevenson and starring Mark Harmon, Joshua Jackson and Sarah Wayne. It is about a fictional lake monster in British Columbia. The film was distributed by TriStar Pictures and produced by Triumph Films.
1054816	Sung Kang (Korean: Kang Sung-Ho; Korean: 강성호; born April 8, 1972) is an American actor, best known for the film "Better Luck Tomorrow" and his role as Han Seoul-Oh in "The Fast and the Furious" franchise. Life and career. Kang was born in Gainesville, Georgia, to South Korean immigrants. His first major role was in "Better Luck Tomorrow", in which he played Han, an aloof gang member. He was one of the stars in "The Motel", in which he played Sam Kim. He became a recurring character in his role of Han in "The Fast and the Furious" film series, appearing in "", "Fast & Furious", "Fast Five" and "Fast & Furious 6". He also had a role in Jet Li's film "War" playing an FBI agent, and was featured as Doran, a son of Genghis Khan, in the movie "Forbidden Warrior".
1165907	Robert Edward "Bob" Crane (July 13, 1928 – June 29, 1978) was an American actor and disc jockey.
589775	सुरक्षा (; translation: Protection) is a 1979 Hindi language movie directed by Ravikant Nagaich. The film stars Mithun Chakravorty, Ranjeeta, Jeevan, Jagdeep, Iftekhar, and Aruna Irani. Based as a spy thriller (with hero's code of Gunmaster G9), it was the first of a two of such films with Mithun in the lead, the other being "Wardat". The film also marked Bappi Lahiri's entry as a singer. Plot. Shiv Shakti Organization (SSO), an organisation intends to spread terror in India. CBI Chief (Iftekhar) learns about this and calls for Officer Gopi (Mithun), aka Gunmaster G-9, to investigate into the matter. The trouble starts when a plane manned by Captain Kapoor (Suresh Oberoi) is attacked by a stream of deadly signals forcelanding it. Soon after, agent Jackson (Tej Sapru) is replaced with his look-alike. Gopi doesn't take long to get to this and sets out to rescue his agent. During this, he happens to encounter Priya (Ranjeeta), who's out to investigate her father's death, supposedly by Gopi. After a few chance encounters, both start to check about the organisation and its high command. Further course of investigation leads them to the Hiralal (Jeevan) working with his men using hi-tech gadgets for this organisation. After few interesting stunts, car-chases, fights, dancing with scantily-clad girls, some romance and comedy by agent Khabri (Jagdeep), they happen to meet the patchy-eyed SSO chief, Doctor Shiva (K. Balaji). The rest of the story show on handling this chief and his organization by the CBI
996494	Daniel Eric Gold (born September 19, 1975 in Los Angeles, California) is an American actor. He attended Lee Strasberg's Theater Institute as a teenager, and went on to graduate from Penn State in 1996, with a degree in Theater Arts. Career. Theater. Gold moved to Chicago after college where he performed as Michael in Jean Cocteau's "Indescretions", Oak Park Festivals "Much Ado About Nothing" and Patrick Marber's "Dealer's Choice". In May 1998, he landed the part of Ste in Jonathan Harvey's coming of age play "Beautiful Thing" at The Famous Door Theater in Chicago. Its success there brought the whole cast to the Cherry Lane Theatre in NY, where it opened to rave reviews in February 1999. Since moving to NY's West Village in 2000, Gold has played several theater roles. For Craig Lucas, he performed in "This Thing of Darkness" at the Atlantic Theater, "A Small Tragedy" and a role written especially for him in "The Singing Forest". He performed in "Loot" and "Singing Forest" for the regional theater Intiman in Seattle. He is a 2004 nominee for the Lucille Lortel Award for acting in the Craig Lucas Obie winning play, "Small Tragedy." In June 2005, Gold was in Roundabout's "The Paris Letter" with John Glover and Ron Rifkin. That role was followed by Eric Bogosian's "subUrbia." Film and television. Film roles include "War of the Worlds" with Tom Cruise. "Charlie Wilson's War" with Tom Hanks. "Definitely, Maybe" with Ryan Reynolds, "Birds of America" again for Craig Lucas and "Spinning into Butter" with Sarah Jessica Parker. Upcoming roles include Ang Lee's "Taking Woodstock" and "Last Night" with Keira Knightley and "The Harvest" in post production. 2009 marked Gold's debut TV role in "Ugly Betty" as Matt Hartley, the love interest for the title character, played by America Ferrera. Gold was in the independent film "Café" in Philadelphia, with Jennifer Love Hewitt and Jamie Kennedy. He also appears in national commercials for McDonald's and AFLAC. Personal life. Gold lives in Brooklyn with his family. He is of English and Jewish descent.
1163805	William Edwin Self (June 21, 1921 – November 15, 2010) was an American television and feature film producer who began his career as an actor. Early life and education. Self was born at Miami Valley Hospital in Dayton, Ohio. During his youth, he lived in Dayton, Akron, Chicago, and Milwaukee. He graduated from Dayton's Roosevelt High School in 1939. Self's father, Edwin Byron Self, worked as an Advertising Manager at the Dayton Rubber Manufacturing Company, Akron Rubber Company, Miller Brewing Company, and Joseph Schlitz Brewing Company. Edwin Self wrote a novel, "Limbo City" (1949), and at least three plays which opened on Broadway: "Junk" (1927) starring Sydney Greenstreet, "Two Strange Women"(1933), and "The Distant City" (1941). His play, "The Lady and the Clown", starring Estelle Winwood, opened in 1944 at the Civic Theatre in Chicago with William Self playing a small part. Edwin and Elizabeth (Elsie) Fundus Self, a homemaker, had two children: William and Jean LaVerne Self (later Bright). From childhood, Self has had "enthusiasms," keen interests that started when he was young and had continued throughout his life. Some of these interests had resulted in important connections and personal friendships. Self's fascination with Rudolph Valentino, for example, began when he was only five years old and his sister took him to see "The Son of the Sheik" (1926). Self had said that because his sister told him that Valentino had just died, he expected to see the movie idol in his casket on screen. Valentino stayed in Self's mind. He saw all the movies and read all the books he could find. As an adult, he became friends with Valentino's personal manager, George Ullman; one of Valentino's best friends, Robert Florey; as well as with Valentino's brother, Alberto.
1502413	Bernadette Peters (born Bernadette Lazzara; February 28, 1948) is an American actress, singer and children's book author. Over the course of a career that has spanned five decades, she has starred in musical theatre, films and television, as well as performing in solo concerts and recordings. She is one of the most critically acclaimed Broadway performers, having received nominations for seven Tony Awards, winning two (plus an honorary award), and nine Drama Desk Awards, winning three. Four of the Broadway cast albums on which she has starred have won Grammy Awards. Regarded by many as the foremost interpreter of the works of Stephen Sondheim, Peters is particularly noted for her roles on the Broadway stage, including in the musicals "Mack and Mabel", "Sunday in the Park with George", "Song and Dance", "Into the Woods", "Annie Get Your Gun" and "Gypsy". Peters first performed on the stage as a child and then a teenage actor in the 1960s, and in film and television in the 1970s. She was praised for this early work and for appearances on "The Muppet Show", "The Carol Burnett Show" and in other television work, and for her roles in films like "Silent Movie", "The Jerk", "Pennies from Heaven" and "Annie". In the 1980s, she returned to the theatre, where she became one of the best-known Broadway stars over the next three decades. She also has recorded six solo albums and several singles, as well as many cast albums, and performs regularly in her own solo concert act. Peters also continues to act in films and on television, where she has been nominated for three Emmy Awards and three Golden Globe Awards, winning once. Early life and career. Peters was born Bernadette Lazzara to a Sicilian American family in Ozone Park, Queens, New York, the youngest of three children. Her siblings are casting director Donna DeSeta and Joseph Lazzara. Her father Peter drove a bread delivery truck, and her mother, Marguerite ("née" Maltese), started her in show business by putting her on the television show "Juvenile Jury" at the age of three-and-a-half. She appeared on the television shows "Name That Tune" and several times on "The Horn and Hardart Children's Hour" at age five. In January 1958, at age nine, she obtained her Actors Equity Card in the name of Bernadette Peters to avoid ethnic stereotyping, with the stage name taken from her father's first name. She made her professional stage debut the same month in "This is Goggle", a comedy directed by Otto Preminger that closed during out-of-town tryouts before reaching New York. She then appeared on NBC television as Anna Stieman in "A Boy Called Ciske", a Kraft Mystery Theatre production, in May 1958, and in a vignette entitled "Miracle in the Orphanage", part of "The Christmas Tree", a Hallmark Hall of Fame production, in December 1958 with fellow child actor Richard Thomas and veteran actors Jessica Tandy and Margaret Hamilton. She first appeared on the New York stage at age 10 as Tessie in the New York City Center revival of "The Most Happy Fella" (1959). In her teen years, she attended the Quintano's School for Young Professionals, a now defunct private school that several famous people, such as Steven Tyler, attended. At age 13, Peters appeared as one of the "Hollywood Blondes" and was an understudy for "Dainty June" in the second national tour of "". During this tour, Peters first met her long-time accompanist, conductor and arranger Marvin Laird, who was the assistant conductor for the tour. Laird recalled, "I heard her sing an odd phrase or two and thought, 'God that's a big voice out of that little girl,'" The next summer, she played Dainty June in summer stock, and in 1962 she recorded her first single. In 1964, she played Liesl in "The Sound of Music" and Jenny in "Riverwind" in summer stock at the Mt. Gretna Playhouse (Pennsylvania), and "Riverwind" again at the Bucks County Playhouse in 1966. Upon graduation from high school, she started working steadily, appearing Off-Broadway in the musicals "The Penny Friend" (1966) and "Curley McDimple" (1967) and as a standby on Broadway in "The Girl in the Freudian Slip" (1967). She made her Broadway debut in "Johnny No-Trump" in 1967, and next appeared as George M. Cohan's sister Josie opposite Joel Grey in "George M!" (1968), winning the Theatre World Award. Peters' performance as "Ruby" in the 1968 Off-Broadway production of "Dames at Sea", a parody of 1930s musicals, brought her critical acclaim and her first Drama Desk Award. She had appeared in an earlier 1966 version of "Dames at Sea" at the Off-Off-Broadway performance club Caffe Cino. Peters had starring roles in her next Broadway vehicles—Gelsomina in "La Strada" (1969) and Hildy in "On the Town" (1971), for which she received her first Tony Award nomination. She played Mabel Normand in "Mack and Mabel" (1974), receiving another Tony nomination. Clive Barnes wrote: "With the splashy "Mack & Mabel" ... diminutive and contralto Bernadette Peters found herself as a major Broadway star." Although these had short runs, Peters was singled out for praise by the critics, and the "Mack and Mabel" cast album became popular among musical theatre fans. She moved to Los Angeles in the early 1970s to concentrate on television and film work. Film appearances. Peters has appeared in 33 feature films or television movies beginning in 1973, including Mel Brooks' 1976 film "Silent Movie" (for which she was nominated for a Golden Globe Award), the musical "Annie" (1982), "Pink Cadillac" (1989), in which she co-starred with Clint Eastwood, and Woody Allen's "Alice" (1990). Peters starred opposite Steve Martin in "The Jerk" (1979), in a role that he wrote for her, and "Pennies From Heaven" (1981), for which she won the Golden Globe Award as Best Motion Picture Actress in a Comedy or Musical. In "Pennies from Heaven", she played Eileen Everson, a schoolteacher turned prostitute. Of her performance in "Pennies From Heaven", John DiLeo wrote that she "is not only poignant as you'd expect but has a surprising inner strength." Pauline Kael wrote in "The New Yorker": "Peters is mysteriously right in every nuance." Kael further noted that "The dance numbers are funny, amazing, and beautiful all at once; several of them are just about perfection." A review of the DVD reissue noted, "Peters brought a cocky attitude and a sexy exuberance to the musical numbers." Peters appeared with three generations of the Kirk Douglas family in the 2003 film "It Runs in the Family", in which she played the wife of Michael Douglas's character. In May 2006, she appeared in the movie "Come le formiche" ("Wine and Kisses") with F. Murray Abraham, filmed in Italy, playing a rich American who becomes involved with an Italian family that owns a vineyard. The DVD was released in 2007 in Italy. She starred in a film titled "Coming Up Roses", playing a former musical comedy actress with two daughters. The movie, directed by Lisa Albright, was filmed in March 2010 and released commercially in November 2012. Theatre roles, 1980s to present. In 1982, Peters returned to the New York stage after an eight-year absence in one of her few non-musical stage appearances, the Off-Broadway Manhattan Theatre Club production of the comedy-drama "Sally and Marsha", for which she was nominated for a Drama Desk Award. She then returned to Broadway as Dot/Marie in the Stephen Sondheim–James Lapine musical "Sunday in the Park with George" (1984), for which she received her third Tony Award nomination. "The New York Times" theatre critic Frank Rich called her performance "radiant". She recorded the role for PBS in 1986, winning a 1987 ACE Award. Her next role was in Andrew Lloyd Webber's "Song and Dance" (1985), winning her first Tony for Best Leading Actress in a Musical for her performance in the role of Emma. Frank Rich wrote in an otherwise negative review of the show that Peters "has no peer in the musical theater right now." She then created the role of the Witch in Sondheim-Lapine's "Into the Woods" (1987). Peters is "considered by many to be the premier interpreter of work," according to writer Alex Witchel. Raymond Knapp wrote that Peters "achieved her definitive stardom" in "Sunday in the Park With George" and "Into the Woods". Sondheim has said of Peters, "Like very few others, she sings and acts at the same time," he says. "Most performers act and then sing, act and then sing ... Bernadette is flawless as far as I'm concerned. I can't think of anything negative." Peters continued her association with Sondheim by appearing in a 1995 benefit concert of "Anyone Can Whistle", playing the role of Fay Apple. Additionally, she appeared in several concerts featuring Sondheim's work, and performed for him at his 1993 Kennedy Center Honors ceremony. She next starred in the musical adaptation of Neil Simon's "The Goodbye Girl" with music by Marvin Hamlisch (1993). Peters won her second Tony for her performance as Annie Oakley in the 1999 revival of "Annie Get Your Gun" opposite Tom Wopat. Among many glowing notices for this role, critic Lloyd Rose of the "Washington Post" commented: "banishes all thoughts of Ethel Merman about two bars into her first number, 'Doin' What Comes Natur'lly.' Partly this is because Merman's Annie was a hearty, boisterous gal, while Peters plays an adorable, slightly goofy gamine... For anyone who cares about the American musical theater, the chance to see Peters in this role is reason enough to see the show." "Playbill" went even further: "Arguably the most talented comedienne in the musical theatre today, Peters manages to extract a laugh from most every line she delivers." In 2003, Peters took on the role of Mama Rose in the Broadway revival of "", earning another Tony nomination. Ben Brantley in his "New York Times" review wrote, "Working against type and expectation under the direction of Sam Mendes, Ms. Peters has created the most complex and compelling portrait of her long career, and she has done this in ways that deviate radically from the Merman blueprint." Arthur Laurents called her Rose "Brilliant, original, totally unlike any of the others." In 2006, she participated in a reading of the Sondheim - Weidman musical "Bounce". In 2007, Peters participated in a charity reading of the play "Love Letters" with John Dossett. After an absence from the Broadway stage of six years ("Gypsy" closed in 2004), Peters starred in the Broadway revival of Sondheim's "A Little Night Music", as Desiree Armfeldt from July 2010 to January 2011. She replaced Catherine Zeta-Jones in the role. "The New York Times" reviewer wrote of her performance, Peters next appeared in the role of Sally Durant Plummer in the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts production of the Sondheim–Goldman musical "Follies" in May and June 2011. Of her performance, one critic wrote: "Peters may not be the most traditional casting for Sally, now an ultraneurotic housewife in Phoenix, but she exquisitely captures the character's unfathomable sadness and longing. It's a star turn, for sure, but one that brings attention to itself because of its truthfulness. Not surprisingly, her rendition of 'Losing My Mind' is simply shattering." She reprised her role of Sally in the Broadway limited engagement, at the Marquis Theatre, from August 2011 to January 2012. She received a nomination for the Drama Desk Award, Outstanding Actress in a Musical, for this role. Theatre awards. Peters has been nominated for the Tony Award seven times, and won twice. She has also been nominated for the Drama Desk Award nine times and won three times, for "Annie Get Your Gun", "Song and Dance", and "Dames at Sea". At the 66th Tony Awards (2012), Peters was presented with the honorary Isabelle Stevenson Award for "making a substantial contribution of volunteered time and effort on behalf of one or more humanitarian, social service or charitable organizations, regardless of whether such organizations relate to the theatre", specifically for her work with Broadway Barks. In making the announcement for this award, the Tony official site noted "With a rich generosity of spirit, Bernadette Peters’ devotion to charitable causes is perhaps only outweighed by her much fêted dedication to performing... Peters’ efforts are held in the highest regard on Broadway and beyond. To quote BC/EFA’s Tom Viola, 'Bernadette’s boundless compassion and generosity represent the best in all of us.' " Television appearances. Peters was nominated for "Emmy Awards" for her guest-starring roles on "The Muppet Show" (1977) and "Ally McBeal" (2001). On "The Muppet Show", Peters sang the song "Just One Person" to Robin the Frog. She was one of the Muppets' guests when they hosted "The Tonight Show" in 1979, again singing "Just One Person" to Robin, and she appeared in other episodes with the Muppets. Peters was also nominated for a Daytime Emmy Award, Outstanding Performer in a Children's Special, for her work in the 2002 made-for-television movie "Bobbie's Girl". She won the 1987 "CableACE Award" for her role as Dot in the television version of "Sunday in the Park with George". She has appeared in many variety shows with stars such as Sonny and Cher and George Burns. She has both performed and presented on the Academy Awards broadcasts in 1976, 1981, 1983, 1987 and 1994. Peters has been a presenter at the annual Tony Awards ceremony and co-hosted the ceremony with Gregory Hines in June 2002. She also hosted "Saturday Night Live" in November 1981. She made 12 guest appearances on "The Carol Burnett Show" as well as appearing with Burnett in the made-for-television version of "Once Upon a Mattress" and the 1982 film "Annie". She also performed at the Kennedy Center Honors ceremony for Burnett in 2003. Peters appeared on "The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson" and on the day-time talk show "Live with Regis and Kelly", both as a co-host and a guest. Peters voiced Rita the stray cat in the "Rita and Runt" segments of the animated series "Animaniacs". Peters, as Rita, sang both original songs written for the show and parodies of Broadway musical numbers. She appeared on "Inside the Actor's Studio" in November 2000, discussing her career and craft. Peters has co-starred in a number of television movies, including "The Last Best Year" (1990) with Mary Tyler Moore, "Rodgers and Hammerstein's Cinderella" (1997) with Brandy (receiving a nomination for the "Golden Satellite Award" for her role), and "Prince Charming" (2003) with Martin Short. She co-starred in her own television series, "All's Fair", with Richard Crenna in 1976–77. She played a young, liberal photographer, who becomes romantically involved with an older, conservative columnist. Although Peters was praised for her charismatic performance, the show ran for only one season. Peters was nominated for a Golden Globe award as Best TV Actress – Musical/Comedy. In March 2005, she made a pilot for an ABC situation comedy series titled "Adopted", co-starring with Christine Baranski, but it was not picked up. Peters appeared in the Lifetime television movie "Living Proof", which was first broadcast on October 18, 2008. She played the role of Barbara, an art teacher with breast cancer, who is initially reluctant to participate in the study for the cancer drug Herceptin. Andrew Gans of "Playbill" wrote, "Peters is able to choose from an expansive emotional palette to color the character, and her performance... is moving, humorous and ultimately spirit-raising". Peters' television work also includes guest appearances on several television series. She appeared as the sharp-tongued sister of Karen Walker (Megan Mullally) on the penultimate episode of the NBC series "Will & Grace", "Whatever Happened to Baby Gin?" (May 2006); as a defense attorney on the NBC series, "" (November 2006); as a judge on the ABC series "Boston Legal" (May 2007); and as an accident victim in "Grey's Anatomy" (September 2008). Of her role in "Grey's Anatomy", "TV Guide" wrote: "Peters is especially fine as she confronts a life spinning out of control. I'd make her an early contender for a guest-actor Emmy nomination." In January, February and May 2009, she appeared in the ABC series "Ugly Betty" in five episodes as Jodie Papadakis, a magazine mogul running the YETI (Young Editors Training Initiative) program that Betty and Marc are in. Her appearance at the Adelaide Cabaret Festival in June 2009 was filmed and broadcast in Australia later that month. Peters first appeared in the NBC series "Smash" in the March 2012 episode "The Workshop", as Leigh Conroy, Ivy's mother, a retired Broadway star, who feels competitive because of her daughter's blossoming career. She visits the workshop and sings "Everything's Coming Up Roses" (from "") at the urging of the workshop cast. She also appeared in the season 1 finale, "Bombshell" (May 2012), to celebrate Ivy's presumed role as Marilyn, in "The Parents" episode (April 2013), where, as Leigh, she sings an original Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman song, "Hang the Moon", in the episode "Opening Night" (April 2013) and in the episode "The Phenomenon" (May 2013). Recordings. Peters has recorded six solo albums and several singles. Three of her albums have been nominated for the Grammy Award. Peters' 1980 single "Gee Whiz" reached the top forty on the U.S. "Billboard" pop singles charts. She has recorded most of the Broadway and off-Broadway musicals she has appeared in, and four of these cast albums have won Grammy Awards. Peters' debut album in 1980 (an LP), entitled "Bernadette Peters" contained 10 songs, including "If You Were The Only Boy", "Gee Whiz", "Heartquake", "Should've Never Let Him Go", "Chico's Girl", "Pearl's a Singer", "Other Lady", "Only Wounded", "I Never Thought I'd Break" and "You'll Never Know". The original cover painting by Alberto Vargas, pictured at left, was one of his last works, created at the age of 84. According to "The New York Daily News", Peters "persuaded him to do one last 'Vargas Girls' portrait... She just went to his California retreat, asked him to do one more, he looked at her and said, 'You ARE a Vargas girl!'" She kept the original painting. The original title planned for the album was "Decades". "Rolling Stone" wrote of her debut album: Her next solo album, "Now Playing" (1981), featured songs by Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller, Carole Bayer Sager and Marvin Hamlisch, and Stephen Sondheim (for example, "Broadway Baby"). "Bernadette Peters" was re-released on CD in 1992 as "Bernadette", with the 1980 Vargas cover art, and included some of the songs from "Now Playing". In 1996, she was nominated for a Grammy Award for her best-selling album, "I'll Be Your Baby Tonight", which includes popular songs by John Lennon, Paul McCartney, Lyle Lovett, Hank Williams, Sam Cooke, and Billy Joel, as well as Broadway classics by Leonard Bernstein and Rodgers and Hammerstein. The live recording of her 1996 Carnegie Hall concert, "Sondheim, Etc. - Bernadette Peters Live At Carnegie Hall", also was nominated for a Grammy Award. Peters' next studio album, in 2002, "Bernadette Peters Loves Rodgers and Hammerstein", consisted entirely of Rodgers and Hammerstein songs, including two that she often sings in her concerts, "Some Enchanted Evening" and "There Is Nothin' Like a Dame". This album, which reached position 14 on the "Billboard" "Top Internet Albums" chart, was her third album in a row nominated for a Grammy Award. It formed the basis of her Radio City Music Hall solo concert debut in June 2002. Her last solo album, titled "Sondheim Etc., Etc. Live At Carnegie Hall: The Rest of It", was released in 2005. It consists of all of the songs (and patter) from her 1996 Carnegie Hall concert that were not included in the earlier recording. Additionally, Peters has recorded songs on other albums, such as "Dublin Lady" on John Whelan's "Flirting with the Edge" (Narada, 1998). On the Mandy Patinkin "Dress Casual" 1990 album, Patinkin and Peters recorded the songs from Stephen Sondheim's 1966 television play, "Evening Primrose". On the tribute album "" Peters sings "Trust Your Heart". In "The New York Times" review of the 1986 Broadway cast recording of "Song and Dance" (titled "Bernadette Peters in Andrew Lloyd Webber's 'Song & Dance), Stephen Holden wrote that the recording was "a personal triumph for a singer and actress who is rapidly establishing herself as the first lady of the Broadway musical. Performing material whose music borders on kitsch and whose lyrics and story suggest a verbose soap opera, Miss Peters nevertheless projects an astounding emotional generosity and conviction. Almost singlehandedly she turns the inconsequential erotic misadventures of Emma ... into a touching romantic fable about love and its defenses and the loss of innocence. ... Miss Peters has always oozed a cuddlesome Shirley Temple-like sweetness and vulnerability. This quality, which used to seem more like an adorable child-star affectation than an deep-seated trait, has proved to be an essential ingredient of Miss Peters's personality. A delivery that once seemed coy and cutesy has deepened and ripened into an honesty and compassion that pour out in singing that is childlike but also resilient." In 2003, Andrew Gans wrote in "Playbill.com" of Peters' recording sessions for "Gypsy": "What is it about her voice that is so moving? Part womanly and part girlish, it is a powerful instrument, not only in volume (though that is impressive) but in the wealth of emotion it is able to convey. ... her voice – that mix of husky, sweet, rounded, vibrato-filled tones – induces a response that spans the emotional scale." Of her "Rose's Turn", Gans wrote: "...her rendition of this song may be the highlight of a career already filled with many highlights: She has taken a song that has been delivered incredibly by others and brought it to a new level." Of her performance on the recording of "Follies" (2011), Steven Suskin wrote in "Playbill.com": "This is a fine Sally, the sort of Sally you'd expect to get from an actress like – well, Bernadette Peters. The performance on the CD is compelling; either this is simply the magic of the recording studio or Peters has changed what she does and how she does it." Concert performances. Peters has been performing her solo concert in the United States and Canada for many years. She made her solo concert debut at Carnegie Hall in New York City in 1996, devoting the second half to the work of Stephen Sondheim. She performed a similar concert in London, which was taped and released on video, and also aired on U.S. Public Television stations in 1999. She continues to perform her solo concert at venues around the U.S., such as the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts in Miami, and with symphony orchestras such as the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, the Dallas Symphony, and the Los Angeles Philharmonic at Walt Disney Hall. In a review of her 2002 Radio City Music Hall concert, Stephen Holden of "The New York Times" described Peters as "the peaches-and-cream embodiment of an ageless storybook princess... inside a giant soap bubble floating toward heaven. A belief in the power of the dreams behind Rodgers and Hammerstein's songs, if not in their reality, was possible." Peters made her solo concert debut at Lincoln Center in New York City on May 1, 2006. Holden, reviewing this concert, noted, "Even while swiveling across the stage of Avery Fisher Hall like a voluptuous Botticelli Venus in Bob Mackie spangles... she radiated a preternatural innocence... For the eternal child in all of us, she evokes a surrogate childhood playmate". In June 2009, Peters was the headliner at the 2009 Adelaide Cabaret Festival in Adelaide, Australia. The "Sunday Mail" felt that Peters showed "the verve, vigour and voice of someone half her age." Peters' concert performances often benefit arts organizations or help them to mark special occasions, such as her performance on an overnight cruise on the Seabourn Odyssey in a benefit for the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts in Miami in November 2009. She was one of the performers to help celebrate the Center's grand opening, in October 2006. She headlined The Alliance of The Arts Black Tie Anniversary Gala at Thousand Oaks Civic Arts Plaza in Thousand Oaks, California, on November 21, 2009. She had helped to celebrate the opening of the Arts Plaza with concerts fifteen years earlier. Children's books. To support the animal adoption charity that she co-founded, Broadway Barks, Peters has written two children's books, both illustrated by Liz Murphy. The first is about a scrappy dog, named after her dog Kramer, and the pleasure of adopting a pet. Titled "Broadway Barks", the book is published by Blue Apple Books (2008). Peters wrote the words and music to a lullaby, titled "Kramer's Song", which is included on a CD in the book. The book reached #5 on "The New York Times" Children's Best Sellers: Picture Books list for the week of June 8, 2008. Her second children's book is the story of a pit bull, Stella, named after Peters' pit bull. The character would rather be a pig ballerina, but she learns to accept herself. Titled "Stella is a Star", the book includes a CD with an original song written and performed by Peters and was released in April 2010 by Blue Apple Books. According to "Publishers Weekly", "Turning the pages to Peters' spirited narration, which is provided in an accompanying CD, makes for a more rewarding reading experience. The story and disc end with a sneakily affecting self-esteem anthem, which, like the familiar tale itself, is buoyed by the author's lovely vocals." Peters introduced the book at a reading and signing where she also sang part of the song, at the L.A. Times Festival of Books, Los Angeles, California, on April 24, 2010. Peters sings four songs on the CD accompanying the 2005 children's picture book "Dewey Doo-it Helps Owlie Fly Again", the proceeds of which benefit the Christopher Reeve Foundation. Her co-star from "Sunday in the Park with George", Mandy Patinkin, also sings on the CD. Other activities. Peters contributes her time and talents to various charitable, celebratory and civic efforts. In 1999, Peters and Mary Tyler Moore co-founded Broadway Barks, an annual animal adopt-a-thon held in New York City. Each July, she and Moore act as co-hosts and presenters for the Broadway Barks event. Peters held a concert, "A Special Concert for Broadway Barks Because Broadway Cares", at the Minskoff Theatre, New York City, on November 9, 2009 as a benefit for both Broadway Barks and Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS. The concert raised an estimated $615,000 for the two charities. Also in support of Broadway Barks, Peters has appeared on the daytime talk show "Live With Regis and Kelly". Peters serves on the Board of Trustees of Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDSand participates in that organization's events, such as the annual Broadway Flea Market and Grand Auction, and the "Gypsy of the Year" competition. She is also a member of the Board of Directors of Standing Tall, a non-profit educational program offering an innovative program for children with multiple disabilities, based in New York City. Her late husband was the Director and Treasurer of Standing Tall. The 1995 benefit concert "Anyone Can Whistle" and Peters' "Carnegie Hall" 1996 concert were benefits for the Gay Men's Health Crisis. In 2007, Peters helped the Broadway community celebrate the end of the stagehand strike in a "Broadway's Back" concert at the Marquis Theatre. In 2008, she was one of the participants in a fund-raiser for the Westport Country Playhouse, and in the opening ceremony and dedication of the renovated TKTS discount ticket booth in Times Square. That year, she also presented Mayor Michael Bloomberg with the Humanitarian Award at the Breast Cancer Research Foundation awards. On March 8, 2009, she helped celebrate the last birthday of Senator Ted Kennedy (singing "There Is Nothin' Like a Dame") in a private concert and ceremony held at the Kennedy Center, hosted by Bill Cosby, with many Senators, Representatives, and President Barack and First Lady Michelle Obama in attendance. On November 19, 2009, she helped to celebrate the opening of The David Rubenstein Atrium at Lincoln Center. On February 8, 2010, Peters was one of the many to honor Angela Lansbury at the annual Drama League of New York benefit, singing "Not While I'm Around". In March 2010, Peters helped Stephen Sondheim celebrate his 80th birthday in the Roundabout Theatre Company "Sondheim 80" benefit. She was one of the Honorary Chairs. She had been part of the Roundabout Theatre's Sondheim gala for his 75th birthday. In 2012, Peters became a Patron of The Stephen Sondheim Society. Personal life. Peters and Steve Martin had begun a romantic relationship in 1977 that lasted approximately four years. By 1981, her popularity had led to Peters appearing on the cover and in a spread in the December 1981 issue of "Playboy Magazine", in which she posed in lingerie designed by Bob Mackie. Peters married investment adviser Michael Wittenberg on July 20, 1996 at the Millbrook, New York home of long-time friend Mary Tyler Moore. Wittenberg died at age 43 on September 26, 2005 in a helicopter crash in Montenegro while on a business trip. Peters had a mixed-breed dog named Kramer (now deceased) that was the model of a character in her first children's book. She has an American pit bull terrier named Stella, the inspiration for her second book and another dog named Charlie. She adopted all three from shelters. Honorary awards. Peters has received many honorary awards, including a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in April 1987. She was named the Hasty Pudding Woman of the Year in 1987. Other honors include the Sarah Siddons Award for outstanding performance in a Chicago theatrical production (1994); the American Theatre Hall of Fame at the Gershwin Theatre in New York City (1996), becoming the youngest person so honored; The Actors' Fund Artistic Achievement Medal (1999); an Honorary Doctorate from Hofstra University in Hempstead, New York (May 19, 2002); the Hollywood Bowl Hall of Fame in June 2002 and the National Dance Institute 2009 Artistic Honoree in April 2009. She was the recipient of the "Sondheim Award", presented by the Signature Theatre in April 2011. In May 2012, New Dramatists, an organization that supports beginning playwrights, presented Peters with their Lifetime Achievement Award. In announcing this honor, New Dramatists said: "She has brought a new sound into the theatre and continues to do so, in surprising and miraculous ways. By some sleight of magic, her singularity always manages to bring out the best and richest in the work of her composers and writers. So, of course New Dramatists is thrilled to honor her." In May 2013 the Drama League gave Peters the honorary Special Award of Distinguished Achievement in Musical Theatre Award "in recognition of her contribution to the musical theatre."
899926	Barbara Bouchet, (born 15 August 1943) is a German-American actress and entrepreneur. She has acted in more than 80 films and television episodes and founded a production company that has produced fitness videos and books. She also owns and operates a fitness studio. Some of her roles include Miss Moneypenny in "Casino Royale", Kelinda in the episode "By Any Other Name" of the original "", as Patrizia in "Non si sevizia un paperino" and as Mrs. Schermerhorn in Martin Scorsese's "Gangs of New York". Biography. Barbara Gutscher was born the oldest of 4 siblings, two boys and two girls in Reichenberg, in the Sudetenland, a part of Czechoslovakia under German occupation, that is now part of the Czech Republic. After World War II, the Gutscher family was placed, along with many others, in a resettlement camp in the American occupation zone in Germany, from where they were, in time, able to apply for, and be granted, permission to emigrate to the United States, under the humanitarian provisions of the Displaced Persons Act that had been legislated by Congress in 1948. Youth. After arriving in America, the Gutschers eventually settled in San Francisco, California, where young Barbara was raised. She attended Galileo High School, at the corner between Russian Hill and the Marina District in San Francisco.
1165809	Florence Halop (January 23, 1923 – July 15, 1986) was an American actress. Best known for her role as the raspy-voiced bailiff Florence Kleiner on the sitcom "Night Court", Halop was the sister of Billy Halop, one of the original Dead End/East Side Kids. Career. Born in Jamaica, Queens, New York, Halop had a long career on radio and got her start when she performed on Orson Welles' "The Mercury Theatre on the Air". She transitioned to television in the early-1950s with a role in the series "Meet Millie". After the series ended in 1956, Halop guest starred on various television series during the late 1950s and 1960s including roles in "Playhouse 90", "Going My Way", and "I Spy".
1036021	Richard Ellef Ayoade ( , born 12 June 1977) is an English comedian, actor, writer and director, best known for his roles as Dean Learner in "Garth Marenghi's Darkplace" and Maurice Moss in "The IT Crowd". Early life. Ayoade was born in Whipps Cross, London, the only child of a Norwegian mother, Dagny, and a Nigerian father, Layide Ade Laditi Ayoade. The family moved to Ipswich in Suffolk when he was young. Ayoade studied at St. Joseph's College in Ipswich and later studied law at St Catharine's College, Cambridge (1995–1998) where he won the Martin Steele Prize for play production and was president of the Footlights from 1997 to 1998. Career. While in Footlights, Ayoade acted in and wrote many shows. He and Footlights vice-president John Oliver wrote two pantomimes together: "Sleeping Beauty", and "Grimm Fairy Tales". Ayoade acted in both Footlights' 1997 and 1998 touring shows: "Emotional Baggage" and "Between a Rock and a Hard Place" (directed by Cal McCrystal). Garth Marenghi. Ayoade co-wrote the stage show "Garth Marenghi's Fright Knight" with Matthew Holness, whom he also met at the Footlights, appearing in the show at the Edinburgh Fringe in 2000 where it was nominated for a Perrier Award. In 2001 he won the Perrier Comedy Award for co-writing and performing in the sequel to "Fright Knight", "Garth Marenghi's Netherhead". In 2004 Ayoade and Holness took the Marenghi character to Channel 4, creating the spoof horror comedy series "Garth Marenghi's Darkplace". He directed and also appeared as Dean Learner, Garth's publisher, who plays Thornton Reed, a hospital administrator who bears a trademark shotgun and answers to hospital boss "Won Ton". Ayoade's "Darkplace" character, Dean Learner, was resurrected in 2006 to host a comedy chat show, "Man to Man with Dean Learner," on Channel 4. The different guests were played each week by Holness. "The Mighty Boosh". In "The Boosh" radio series Richard played the part of Tommy Nookah in the second episode, Jungle, originally aired on 23 October 2001. Ayoade was part of the original cast of Julian Barratt and Noel Fielding's "The Mighty Boosh": he was selected to play the role of dangerous villain Dixon Bainbridge. However, by the time the radio series transferred to television he was under contract by Channel 4 and was only able to act in the pilot before leaving the Boosh. The part was taken by fellow Darkplace actor and eventual "IT Crowd" costar Matt Berry. He later returned in the second series, to play the part of the belligerent shaman Saboo, where he improvised the line 'an erotic adventurer of the most deranged kind' when describing Kirk, a fellow shaman played by Noel Fielding's girlfriend's nephew. Ayoade continued his association with "The Mighty Boosh" in the third series, acting as script editor and also reprising his role of Saboo in the episodes "Eels", "Nanageddon", "The Strange Tale of the Crack Fox" and "Party". "The IT Crowd". Ayoade is now a recognisable face in Britain owing to his role as the technically brilliant but socially awkward Maurice Moss in Channel 4's "The IT Crowd". In 2008 he won the award for an outstanding actor in a television comedy series at Monte-Carlo Television Festival for his performance. Also in 2009, Ayoade co-starred with Joel McHale in an unaired Americanisation of "The IT Crowd" pilot, reprising his character without any changes to his appearance or character. "Was It Something I Said?". Ayoade is a team captain on the Channel 4 panel show "Was It Something I Said?", a show which begins airing on 6 October 2013 and co-starring David Mitchell as host and Micky Flanagan as fellow team captain. "Submarine". In 2010, Ayoade released his debut directorial feature, "Submarine", a coming-of-age comedy-drama film adapted from the 2008 novel of the same name by Joe Dunthorne. The film stars newcomers Craig Roberts and Yasmin Paige with Sally Hawkins and Paddy Considine. The film was produced by Warp Films and Film4 and musician Alex Turner of Arctic Monkeys contributed five original songs to the soundtrack. The film premiered at the 35th Toronto International Film Festival in September 2010. Following a generally positive reception it was picked up by the Weinstein Company for a North American release. The film also played at the 54th London Film Festival in October 2010 and was played out of competition at the 27th Sundance Film Festival in January 2011. It was also screened along with 400 other films at the 61st Berlin International Film Festival the next month. It went on general release in the UK on 18 March and was released on 3 June in the US. It won the 2011 London Awards for Art and Performance. Ayoade was also nominated for a BAFTA for Outstanding Debut by a British Writer, Director or Producer at the 65th British Academy Film Awards. Music video work. Ayoade has directed videos for the Arctic Monkeys ("Fluorescent Adolescent", "Crying Lightning" and "Cornerstone"), Super Furry Animals ("Run Away", which has Matt Berry in the lead role.), the Last Shadow Puppets ("Standing Next to Me" and "My Mistakes Were Made For You") and Vampire Weekend ("Oxford Comma" and "Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa"), as well as videos for Kasabian ("Vlad the Impaler", which starred Noel Fielding) and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs ("Heads Will Roll"). In 2007 he directed a live Arctic Monkeys DVD entitled "At the Apollo", which was recorded at the Manchester Apollo. It was previewed at Vue cinemas across the UK during October 2008 and was released on DVD the following month, winning the "Best DVD" title at the NME Awards that year. Other work. In 2005, he played the role of Ned Smanks in Chris Morris' and Charlie Brooker's "Nathan Barley". Ayoade also directed, co-wrote and co-starred (with fellow "Darkplace" and "IT Crowd" cast member Matt Berry) in "", and has appeared on T4. He helped write "The Mighty Book of Boosh", along with Noel Fielding, Julian Barratt, Rich Fulcher, Dave Brown and Michael Fielding. He is also featured in Paul King's film, "Bunny and the Bull", where he plays the role of an extremely boring museum tour guide. In November 2007, Ayoade appeared on Channel 4's "The Big Fat Anniversary Quiz", which marked the channel's 25th anniversary. In January 2011, he appeared on "The Big Fat Quiz of the Year 2010", then appeared again in December 2012 on "The Big Fat Quiz of the Year 2012". In March 2011, Ayoade directed the episode Critical Film Studies in season 2 of "Community". Ayoade directed comedian Tommy Tiernan's world stand-up tour, "Crooked Man", which was released in November 2011. Ayoade starred in the American comedy film "The Watch" (2012), alongside "Submarine" producer Ben Stiller. He will direct a new comedy, "The Double", starring Jesse Eisenberg and Mia Wasikowska. He also plays the character 'City Gent' in the show "Noel Fielding's Luxury Comedy". Ayoade replaced Stephen Fry as presenter in the second series of Channel 4's "Gadget Man", in September 2013. Personal life. On 8 September 2007, Ayoade married actress Lydia Fox. They live in Peckham, London.
1593625	James Clarence "Jimmy" Wakely (February 16, 1914 - September 23, 1982), was an American actor and country Western music vocalist, and one of the last singing cowboys. During the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s, he released records, appeared in several B-Western movies with most of the major studios, appeared on radio and television and even had his own series of comic books. His duet singles with Margaret Whiting from 1949–51 produced a string of top seven hits, including 1949's number one hit on the US country charts and pop music charts, "Slippin' Around." Wakely owned two music publishing companies in later years and performed at the Grand Ole Opry until shortly before his death. Biography. Early years. James Clarence Wakeley was born in Howard County, Arkansas but his family moved to Rosedale, Oklahoma by 1920. As a teenager, he changed his surname to Wakely, dropping the second "e". Country Western musician. In 1937 in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma he formed The Bell Boys, a country Western singing group named after their Bell Clothing sponsor. The group performed locally, made some recordings, and did frequent radio broadcasts over Oklahoma City's WKY. Johnny Bond, Dick Reinhart, Scotty Harrell and Jack Cheney were members of the Bell Boys and later groups. Over time, Wakely's groups were known as The Jimmy Wakely Trio, Jimmy Wakely and His Saddle Pals, Jimmy Wakely Trio and James Wakely. During a tour through Oklahoma, Western movie star Gene Autry invited Wakely to come to California. Autry felt the group might be a good addition to his new "Melody Ranch" radio show which debuted on CBS in January 1940. The Wakely Trio joined the show in mid-1940. He stayed for a couple of years, then left because of movie commitments and a recording contract with Decca Records that ran from 1941–1942 through 1947. Johnny Bond stayed with the show for most of its run (the show left the air in 1956). Personal life. Wakely married Dora Inez Miser on Friday the 13th, December 13, 1935. They had four children: Deanna, Carol, Linda and son Johnny. Their marriage lasted until his death in 1982. Western movie actor. In 1939, Wakely made his screen debut (with the Jimmy Wakely Trio) in a Roy Rogers Western, "Saga of Death Valley". In the 1940s, Wakely groups provided songs and musical support for several B-western movies, including appearances with: Wakely made only one film with Autry, "Heart of the Rio Grande", at Republic in 1942. He was sometimes referred to as a low-budget Autry in films. His response was, "Everybody reminds somebody of someone else until they are somebody. And I had rather be compared to Gene Autry than anyone else. Through the grace of God and Gene Autry, I got a career." He appeared in 28 Westerns at Monogram between 1944 and 1949. Wakely also appeared in some non-Westerns, including "I'm from Arkansas" in 1944, a showcase for country and hillbilly performers who bring their comedy, tunes and yodeling to Pitchfork, Arkansas. Recording career. About 1941–1942, Decca gave Wakeley a recording contract that ran until 1947. After leaving films, he continued to record, switching to the Columbia label. Though most of his songs were country Western, some crossed over to the pop charts, including collaborations with singer Margaret Whiting and Karen Chandler, and for the Christmas song "Silver Bells". He had a number one country hit with "One Has My Name (The Other Has My Heart)", a song originally released by Western singer Eddie Dean. Comic books. Like other Western film stars of the era, Wakely had his own comic book series. DC Comics published 18 issues from Sept/Oct 1949–July/Aug 1952, billing him as "HOLLYWOOD'S SENSATIONAL COWBOY STAR!" Radio and television appearances. In addition to Autry's "Melody Ranch", Wakely had his own CBS Radio show and co-hosted other programs. He also made several appearances on television variety shows; and in 1961 he was one of five rotating hosts on the NBC-TV program "Five Star Jubilee". He also had one of the last live network radio programs at the NBC radio studios at the corner of Sunset and Vine in Hollywood, California in 1958. Excerpts of the program appear on Wakely's albums and CDs. Recording company. In the 1960s and 1970s, Wakely developed Shasta Records and owned two music publishing companies. He converted part of his California ranch into a recording studio, producing recordings for himself as well as for other country Western performers, including Tex Williams, Merle Travis, Eddie Dean, Tex Ritter and Rex Allen. For his recording work, Wakely has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on Vine Street. Later years. Later in life, Wakely performed at the Grand Ole Opry and "National Barn Dance." His nightclub act visited Las Vegas, Reno and other venues. He did a Christmas USO Tour with Bob Hope. He made a few recordings on the Coral, Decca/Vocalion and Dot labels. He made appearances at Western film nostalgia conventions and continued personal appearances and stage shows, often with his daughter Linda and son Johnny in the act. Death. After contracting emphysema, Wakely died of heart failure at Mission Hills, California on September 23, 1982. He and his wife, who died in 1997, are interred next to each other in the Court of Remembrance at Forest Lawn Memorial Park (Hollywood Hills), Los Angeles, California. Awards and honors. Wakely was inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1971 and the Western Music Association Hall of Fame in 1991. Filmography. Movies. This is a partial list of his movie credits, most of them are Westerns: Television. Wakely appeared as himself on several TV shows including:
1085738	Antony Alda (December 12, 1956 – July 3, 2009) was an American actor who grew up in a famous acting family. The son of Robert Alda, he was born in France, his early studies were in Rome and he finished at The Juilliard School in New York City. An active actor, he appeared on stage, and in film, and on television, including his role as Johnny Corelli in "Days of our Lives". His career culminated in writing, directing, and performing in "The Role of a Lifetime". He died at age 52. Early life. Antony Joseph Alda, born Antonio D'Abruzzo on Dec. 9, 1956, in St. Julien, France, into what would later be called an acting dynasty. His father was well known in the United States both in film and on Broadway, where he earned a Tony. Alda's mother, Flora Martino, was an Italian actress. His half-brother, Alan Alda, graduated from Fordham University in the year of Alda’s birth. Antony’s sons, Ian and Alexander (Zan), as well as his nieces, Beatrice and Elizabeth, have continued the family tradition. Alda described growing up within the dynasty, "The theater has always been a comfortable place for me. I spent all my summers on Broadway. Dad would be in one play and Alan would be in another. I used to hang out with the lighting guys." He found that being an Alda had its professional ups and downs. "People figure you know what you're doing because you grew up around acting. Other people think you got the part because of your name." Antony Alda finished his high school studies at Notre Dame International in Rome and completed his academic career studying musical composition at The Juilliard School in New York City. Alda was married twice, first in 1975 to Leslie Clark at Saint Thomas Episcopal Church in New York City at Fifth Avenue. Their reception was held at the old Biltmore Hotel. The marriage lasted until 1977. His sons were born during his marriage to actress Lori Carrell, to whom he was married from 1981-1992. During this time, his mother commented, "Marriage was good for Tony. It changed him and made him more mature." Career. Throughout his career, Alda played in seven films including "Melvin and Howard", which won an Oscar, and "Homeboy." He also appeared in three movies including "Hot Child in the City" and two TV “shorts” including "Bungle Abbey. He was cast in several television series and appeared in more than 200 episodes including two on "Knots Landing" as Rick Elliot. Alda later played Johnny Corelli during two years (1990-91) on NBC’s "Days of our Lives". Like Johnny Corelli, Alda saw himself as something of a jokester. He said, "I always played practical jokes on people." One prank involved his putting on a wig and passing himself off as one of his mother's church friends to a visiting aunt. "The Role of a Lifetime". His most notable accomplishment is the film, "The Role of a Lifetime", released in 2001. Alda wrote, directed, and acted in, the film. The film is about a formerly successful actor, Bobby. Bobby seems to be egotistical at first, but is rendered into a sympathetic persona by the starring actor, Scott Bakula. Bobby has lost his wife in the Hollywood rat race and is on his way to becoming a “has been.” He has an accident that results in a disappearance long enough for Hollywood to assume he is dead and to begin to cast a movie based on his life. Bobby takes on a different identity, that of Texan Buck Steele, in order to audition for and, eventually, play himself in the movie. In the persona of Buck Steele, Bobby interacts with his ex-wife, his best friend and a mysterious old Hispanic gentleman. These experiences, while disturbing, enable Bobby to reexamine many aspects of his life. (Alda both credited and quoted Socrates. He inconspicuously placed Socrates’ quote: “An unexamined life is not worth living” in several scenes.) Death. Antony Alda died July 3, 2009, in Los Angeles at age 52. The cause of death was cirrhosis of the liver.
589646	Kaagaz Ke Phool, ( "Kāgaz kē Phūl", meaning "Paper Flowers"), is a 1959 Hindi film produced and directed by Guru Dutt, who also played the lead role in the film. The film was a box office disaster in its time but was later resurrected as a world cinema cult classic in the 1980s. The film's music was composed by S. D. Burman and the lyrics were written by Kaifi Azmi, giving hits like "Waqt ne Kiya Kya Haseen Situm", sung by Geeta Dutt. In the 2002 "Sight & Sound" critics' and directors' poll, "Kaagaz Ke Phool" was ranked at #160 among the greatest films of all time. Plot. The film tells, in flashback, the story of Suresh Sinha (Guru Dutt), a famous film director. His marriage to Bina (Veena) is on the rocks because her wealthy family sees filmmaking as a job lacking in social status. He is also denied access to his daughter Pammi (Naaz) who is sent to a private boarding school in Dehradun.
1055435	Lauren Nicole London (born December 5, 1984) is an American film and television actress. Beginning her career in music videos and later transitioning into film and television acting, London earned recognition for her performance in the film "ATL" as well as the television shows "90210" and "Entourage". She currently stars as Kiera Whitaker on the BET Comedy-drama, The Game. Early life. London was born in Los Angeles, to an African American mother and a Jewish father. After attending Palisades High School, London was home schooled, giving her time to audition for films, music videos and commercials. Career. London has made appearances in music videos for artists such as Tyrese Gibson, Ludacris, Pharrell, and Snoop Dogg. Her breakout year came in 2006, where she made her television debut in the "Everybody Hates Funerals" episode of the sitcom "Everybody Hates Chris". That same year, London landed her first film role as well, playing hip hop artist T.I.'s romantic lead in the film "ATL". For her work, London was nominated for Best Supporting Actress at the year's Black Movie Awards. In 2007, London landed a role on the HBO comedy series "Entourage", playing the character Turtle's (Jerry Ferrara) love interest. Later, based on her performance in "ATL", London was given her role in 2007's "This Christmas" without having to audition. London, along with pop/R&B singers Cassie and Asia Nitollano, became one of the spokesmodels for the Sean John woman's collection in 2007. In 2008, London landed the role of the character Christina in the first season of the show "90210", originally thought to be a possible romantic interest of Tristan Wilds' character Dixon Wilson. London's next film role was the character Ivy in the 2009 release "Next Day Air". That same year, she played the character Cammy Alcott in the Chris Columbus film "I Love You Beth Cooper". London has appeared on the cover of such magazines as "Jewel" and "King" as well. She appeared in "Tyler Perry's Madea's Big Happy Family", which was released on April 22, 2011. She also made a cameo appearance in the premiere of VH1's "Single Ladies". In June 2012, It was announced that London has joined the cast of the hit BET show "The Game" as a series regular for the upcoming sixth season. She will play character named Kiera, "a former child star who starred in a Cosby Show-esque sitcom." London will star alongside Paula Patton, Jill Scott and Derek Luke in the film adaptation of playwright and director David E. Talbert's 2005 novel "Baggage Claim" which is scheduled to be released in 2013. Personal life. London met Grammy award winning rapper Lil Wayne in 1998. Over the years, Lil Wayne has penned several songs about London including "Frontin Remix", "California Love", "Youngin Blues", and "Look at me Now" On May 19, 2009, London announced, through her publicist, that she was pregnant by Wayne after weeks of speculation On July 5, 2009, it was confirmed that London was expecting a baby boy On August 18, 2009, during an interview with power 106, Lil Wayne confirmed that he was the father of London's baby. On September 9, 2009, London gave birth to a 7 lb 12oz baby boy named Cameron Carter. Lil Wayne was at her side the whole time. In May 2011, London opened up for the first time about her relationship with Lil Wayne, stating "I met Dwayne when I was 15 years old. I’ve known him a very long time, and we were in a relationship that didn’t make it. We tried more than once to revive it, and we were engaged briefly years ago, but we eventually parted ways. People see the “Lil Wayne” persona and think they know who he really is. My son’s father is an intelligent, loving and lovable person who will always be a dear friend. And that will never change. That is all. Television appearances. In her acting career, London has performed in relatively small roles in episodes for a number of television shows. This list includes appearances in various episodes of shows, while excluding appearances as herself on talk shows, interview shows, ceremonies, and the like. Music Videos. "Frontin" Pharrell feat. Jay-Z "Stand Up" Ludacris feat. Shawnna "Drop It Like It's Hot"
1141139	Jeremy Michael London (born November 7, 1972) is an American actor. He is best known for his regular roles on "Party of Five", "7th Heaven", and "I'll Fly Away", as well as a notable supporting role in the Civil War epic "Gods and Generals". Early life. London was born in San Diego, California, the son of Debbie (née Osborn), a waitress, and Frank London, a sheet metal worker. He was raised mainly in DeSoto, Texas. After divorcing Jeremy's father, his mother moved the family 13 times in six years. His identical twin brother, Jason, is older by 27 minutes and is also an actor. Jeremy has worked mostly in television while Jason has opted for a career in feature films. The two have only acted alongside each other once – in the February 3, 2003 episode of the WB's "7th Heaven", entitled "Smoking." They have also competed for the same role – Jeremy's first audition was for a part in the 1991 film "The Man in the Moon", which Jason won, leaving Jeremy the part of his brother's stunt double. Career. London's first and second major television roles were playing Nathan on the critically acclaimed 1991–1993 drama series "I'll Fly Away". His brother Jason stepped in for Jeremy for the final episode of the show. In 1995 he played T.S. Quint in Kevin Smith's second film, "Mallrats". In 1997, he joined the cast of the hit Fox series "Party Of Five", playing Griffin for three seasons, after serving as a recurring guest star. He then went on to play a young minister named Chandler Hampton on "7th Heaven" from 2002 to 2004. His "7th Heaven" character had a father with lung cancer, much like Jeremy's real-life family members. He has since been in many TV serials, TV movies and feature films. London was a cast member during the fourth season of "Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew", which premiered on VH1 in December 2010. Personal life. London and his wife Melissa Cunningham were married in September 2006. They have a son named Lyrik. Kidnapping incident. London was allegedly kidnapped on June 10, 2010 in the California desert and forced to smoke drugs at gunpoint, according to London. London was fixing a flat tire outside a hotel in Palm Springs when two men approached to help, local police confirmed in a statement. London claimed the men had a gun and forced him to drive to various locations throughout the city, purchase alcohol and use illicit drugs, police said in the statement. The illicit substance was crack cocaine or amphetamines, reports Radar Online. After nearly 12 hours of captivity, London claimed he escaped and contacted police about 2:35 a.m. London's car was found in a Palm Springs development called Gateway Estates, with an arrest made later that day – 26-year-old Brandon Adams, who was charged with kidnapping, robbery and vehicle theft. Adams initially pled not guilty, and London's family expressed doubts about the kidnapping story. London later denounced his family for telling police "the most outrageous lies you've ever heard in your whole life." He said, "They told a bunch of lies saying this never happened. I haven't even seen them in six months. They have no idea what's going on," adding, "This actually did happen to me. It was one of the worst days of my life." Brandon Adams, the kidnapper, claimed that London asked him to procure Xanax and OxyContin pills and also said that London voluntarily went joyriding with him in a quest to locate pills. Brandon claimed London was drinking alcohol and doing drugs in the car voluntarily the entire time. London's story was later corroborated by an investigating detective who revealed that Adams did, in fact, admit to the kidnapping at gunpoint. Adams subsequently pled guilty to a felony violation of Penal Code section 236, False Imprisonment, and was sentenced to state prison. Addiction. London was a cast member during the fourth season of "Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew", which aired on Vh1 from December 2010 to January 2011, and depicted his treatment for addiction at the Pasadena Recovery Center in Pasadena, California. The third episode of that season depicted discussions involving him, Dr. Drew Pinsky and London's wife, Melissa Cunningham, who was simultaneously being treated for addiction herself at a separate wing of the Center. His father, Frank, also appeared in Episode 7, which was filmed during Family Day, in which the patients discussed the effect of addiction on their family relationships.
1055100	Brenda Fricker (born February 17, 1945) is an Irish actress of theatre, film and television. She has appeared in more than 30 films and television roles. In 1990, she became the first Irish actress to win the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for "My Left Foot". Early life. Fricker was born in Dublin. Her mother, "Bina" (née Murphy), was a teacher at Stratford College, and her father, Desmond Frederick Fricker, was an officer in the Department of Agriculture and a journalist for "The Irish Times". In her teens, she aspired to follow her parent's footsteps into journalism. Fricker has an older sister, Nora Ann Grania Fricker. Before becoming an actress, Fricker was assistant to the art editor of the "Irish Times", with hopes to become a reporter. At age 19, she became an actress "by chance", her feature film career began with a small uncredited part in the 1964 film "Of Human Bondage", based on the 1915 novel by W. Somerset Maugham. She also appeared in Tolka Row, Ireland's first ever soap opera. Career. Fricker first came to wider public attention in the United Kingdom for her role as Megan Roach in the BBC One television drama series "Casualty". Fricker bowed out as Megan in December 1990, after playing the character in 65 episodes, because she believed her character had "started off with a wonderful sense of humour, lost it all and all she ever seemed to do was push a trolley around and offer tea and sympathy". In February 1998 she appeared in two episodes, with Megan attending the wedding of her former colleagues Charlie Fairhead and Barbara 'Baz' Samuels. In 2007, she returned for a single episode for Red Nose Day. The episode was written by Richard Curtis. Fricker's final appearance as Megan was in August 2010, when the character took a lethal cocktail of drugs to end her life. Fricker has acted in a string of successful films, and in 1989 she won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance as Christy Brown's mother in "My Left Foot"; among others, she thanked Christy Brown in her acceptance speech, "just for being alive" and also dedicated the Oscar to Mrs. Brown, Christy's mother saying, "Anybody who gives birth twenty-two times deserves one of these." She next co-starred in the 1990 film "The Field" alongside Richard Harris. She continued her television work during this period. She starred in Australian produced short series "Brides of Christ" (1991). She then co-starred in the 1992 TV miniseries "Seekers" alongside Josette Simon, produced by Sarah Lawson. Key film appearances include roles in "" (as the Central Park Pigeon Lady), and "So I Married an Axe Murderer", as a "Weekly World News"-obsessed Scottish immigrant. In 2003, she played Bernie Guerin, mother of Veronica Guerin (played by Cate Blanchett) in the film of the same name. She then played nurse Eileen in the film "Inside I'm Dancing". In 2007, she starred in "How About You" the film based on a short story about people living in a residential nursing home written by Maeve Binchy, playing Heather Nightangle. Other important roles were "Omagh" in 2004 as police Ombudsman Nuala O' Loan, as Graiine McFadden in the TV docudrama "No Tears" about the women treated with the blood product Anti D in the seventies who had been contaminated with Hepatitis C, and as Aunt Maeve in "Durango" in 1999, based on the novel by John B Keane.
675335	Thunder Road is a 1958 drama–crime film about running moonshine in the mountains of Kentucky and Tennessee in the late 1950s. It was directed by Arthur Ripley and starred Robert Mitchum, who also produced the film, co-wrote the screenplay, and is rumored to have directed much of the film himself. He also co-wrote (with Don Raye) the theme song, "The Ballad of Thunder Road". The film became a cult classic and continued to play at drive-in movie theaters in some Southeastern markets through the 1970s and 1980s. Plot. Korean War veteran Lucas Doolin (Robert Mitchum) works in the family moonshine business— delivering the illegal liquor his father distills to clandestine distribution points throughout the south in his souped-up hot rod. However, Lucas has more problems than evading the U.S. Treasury agents ("revenooers"), led by determined newcomer Troy Barrett (Gene Barry). Lucas is concerned that his younger brother Robin (James Mitchum), who is also his mechanic, will be tempted into following in his footsteps and becoming a moonshine runner. A well-funded outside gangster, Carl Kogan (Jacques Aubuchon), tries to gain control of the independent local moonshine producers and their distribution points, and is willing to kill anyone who stands in his way. The stakes rise when an attempt by Kogan to kill Lucas results in the death of a government agent as well as another moonshine driver. In a romantic subplot, Lucas becomes involved with nightclub singer Francie Wymore (Keely Smith). He is unaware one of the neighbor girls, Roxanna Ledbetter (Sandra Knight), has a crush on him and fears for his life. When a series of government raids destroy their hidden stills, Lucas' father and the other local moonshines shut down production "for a spell" to let the government deal with Kogan in its own time, but Lucas is forced by circumstances and his own code of honor to make a final run. Factual background. The film was based loosely on an incident in which a driver transporting moonshine was said to have crashed to his death on Kingston Pike in Knoxville, Tennessee between Bearden Hill and Morrell Road. Per Metro Pulse writer Jack Renfro, the incident occurred in 1952 and may have been witnessed by James Agee, who passed the story on to Mitchum. Cast. Role of Robin Doolin. The role of Robin Doolin, Lucas's younger brother, was originally written for Elvis Presley per Mitchum's request. Mitchum personally submitted the script to Elvis in Los Angeles. The singer was eager to play the role, but his manager, Colonel Tom Parker, in order to maintain his extravagant lifestyle, stepped in and demanded Elvis be paid an enormous sum of money, more than the entire budget for the movie, which ended negotiations. Mitchum's son James got the part, which worked well due to the close physical resemblance. Production. In the film, Mitchum drove a souped-up 1951 Ford 2-door sedan hot-rod with a custom tank in the back for moonshine and later a 1957 Ford coupe with the same alterations. The '51 Ford was modified with a '49 hood and grill and the rear taillight trim was removed. The film's dialogue refers to the car as a '50, but it is not, although at least one exterior shot, when the car spills oil on the road, is of the trunk of a '50. Most of the scenes were filmed in Asheville, North Carolina Highway 19 and others at Lake Lure. Some scenes were filmed in Beech, east of Weaverville. Scenes include Reems Creek Road, Sugar Creek Road and the Beech Community Center. Some scenes were actual local moonshine drivers shot with a camera mounted on a pickup tailgate. The stunt coordinator was Cary Loftin. The stunt team included Ray Austin, Neil Castes Sr., Robert Hoy and Dale Van Sickel.
1211651	Dahmer Vs. Gacy is a 2010 American comedy-horror film directed by Ford Austin and written by Andrew J. Rausch. The film won the Audience Award at the 2010 Bare Bones International Film Festival. Plot. A secret government lab run by Dr. Stravinsky (Peter Zhmutski) has been trying to create the ultimate killer using the DNA of infamous killers Jeffrey Dahmer (Ford Austin) and John Wayne Gacy (Randal Malone), but there's one big problem: they've escaped. Bloody mayhem stretches across the United States as they go on the ultimate killing spree. Trying to stop the maniacal madness is Ringo (Ford Austin), a hick warrior being trained by God (Harland Williams), using only a shotgun and a bottle of whiskey. In his road trip to hell, he must first fight off his own demons, not to mention an army of Japanese ninjas and a super serial killer (Ethan Phillips). It all leads up to the ultimate showdown. Reception. Tony Vilgotsky of Darker rated this movie very high, but mentioned that the film's plot must not be taken seriously in any case. Filming Location. Parts of the movie were shot in Toluca Lake, Echo Park and Hollywood.
1062751	Lynn Rachel Redgrave, (8 March 1943 – 2 May 2010) was an English actress. A member of the well-known British acting family, Redgrave trained in London before making her theatrical debut in 1962. By the mid-1960s she had appeared in several films, including "Tom Jones" (1963), and "Georgy Girl" (1966) which won her a New York Film Critics Award and nominations for an Academy Award and a Golden Globe Award. In 1967, she made her Broadway debut, and performed in several stage productions in New York while making frequent returns to London's West End. She performed with her sister Vanessa in "Three Sisters" in London, and in the title role in a television production of "What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?" in 1991. She made a return to films in the late 1990s in films such as "Shine" (1996) and "Gods and Monsters" (1998), for which she received another Academy Award nomination. Redgrave is the only person to have been nominated for all of the 'Big Four' entertainment awards (Grammy, Emmy, Oscar, and Tony) without actually winning any of them. Early life and theatrical family. Redgrave was born in Marylebone, London, to actors Sir Michael Redgrave and Rachel Kempson. Her sister is actress Vanessa Redgrave; her brother was actor and political activist Corin Redgrave. She was the aunt of writer/director Carlo Gabriel Nero and actresses Joely Richardson, Jemma Redgrave and Natasha Richardson and the sister in law of the director Tony Richardson, the Italian actor Franco Nero and the actress Kika Markham.Her grandfather was silent screen leading man Roy Redgrave . Career. After training in London's Central School of Speech and Drama, Redgrave made her professional debut in a 1962 production of "A Midsummer Night's Dream" at the Royal Court Theatre. Following a tour of "Billy Liar" and repertory work in Dundee, she made her West End debut at the Haymarket, in N. C. Hunter's "The Tulip Tree" with Celia Johnson and John Clements. She was invited to join The National Theatre for its inaugural season at the Old Vic, working with such directors as Laurence Olivier, Franco Zeffirelli, and Noël Coward in roles such as Rose in "The Recruiting Officer", Barblin in "Andorra", Jackie in "Hay Fever", Kattrin in "Mother Courage", Miss Prue in "Love for Love", and Margaret in "Much Ado About Nothing" which kept her busy for the next three years. During that time she appeared in films such as "Tom Jones" (1963), "Girl with Green Eyes" (1964), "The Deadly Affair" (1966) and the title role in "Georgy Girl" (also 1966, and which featured her mother, Rachel Kempson). For the last of these roles she gained the New York Film Critics Award, the Golden Globe and an Oscar nomination. In 1967 she made her Broadway debut in "Black Comedy" with Michael Crawford and Geraldine Page. London appearances included Michael Frayn's "The Two of Us" with Richard Briers at the Garrick, David Hare's "Slag" at the Royal Court, and "Born Yesterday", directed by Tom Stoppard at Greenwich in 1973. In 1974, she returned to Broadway in "My Fat Friend". There soon followed "Knock Knock" with Charles Durning, "Mrs Warren's Profession" (for a Tony nomination) with Ruth Gordon, and "Saint Joan". In the 1985-86 season she appeared with Rex Harrison, Claudette Colbert and Jeremy Brett in "Aren't We All?" and with Mary Tyler Moore in A. R. Gurney's "Sweet Sue". In 1983, she played Cleopatra in an American television version of "Antony and Cleopatra" opposite Timothy Dalton. She was in "Misalliance" in Chicago with Irene Worth, (earning the Sarah Siddons and Joseph Jefferson awards), "Twelfth Night" at the American Shakespeare Festival, "California Suite", "The King and I", "Hellzapoppin"', "Les Dames du Jeudi", "Les Liaisons Dangereuses" and "The Cherry Orchard". In 1988 she narrated a dramatised television documentary, "Silent Mouse", which told the story of the creation of the Christmas carol "Silent Night". In the early winter of 1991 she starred with Stewart Granger and Ricardo Montalban in a Hollywood production of "Don Juan in Hell". With her sister Vanessa as Olga, she returned to the London stage playing Masha in "Three Sisters" in 1991 at the Queen's Theatre, London, and later played the title role in a television production of "Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?", again with her sister. Highlights of her early film career also include "The National Health", "Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex", "The Happy Hooker" and "Getting It Right". In the United States she was seen on such television series as "Teachers Only", "House Calls", "Centennial" and "Chicken Soup". She also starred in BBC productions such as "The Faint-Hearted Feminist", "A Woman Alone", "Death of a Son", "Calling the Shots" and "Fighting Back". She played Broadway again in "Moon Over Buffalo" (1996) with co-star Robert Goulet, and starred in the world premier of Tennessee Williams' "The Notebook of Trigorin", based on Anton Chekhov's "The Seagull". She won the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Featured Actress in a Play for her performance in "Talking Heads". Redgrave became well known in the United States after appearing in the television series "House Calls", for which she received an Emmy nomination. She was sacked from the show after she insisted on bringing her child to rehearsals so as to continue a breast-feeding schedule. A lawsuit ensued but was dismissed a few years after. Following that, she appeared in a long-running series of television commercials for H. J. Heinz Company, then the manufacturer of the weight loss foods for Weight Watchers, a Heinz subsidiary. Her signature line for the ads was "This Is Living". She wrote a book of her life experiences with the same title, which included a selection of Weight Watcher recipes. The autobiographical section later became the basis of her one-woman play "Shakespeare for My Father". In 1993 she was elected President of the Players' Club. In 1989 she appeared on Broadway in "Love Letters" with her husband John Clark, and thereafter they performed the play around the country, and on one occasion for the jury in the O. J. Simpson case. In 1993 she appeared on Broadway in the one-woman play "Shakespeare for My Father", which Clark produced and directed. She was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play. In 2005, Redgrave appeared at Quinnipiac University and Connecticut College in the play "Sisters of the Garden", about the sisters Fanny and Rebekka Mendelssohn and Nadia and Lili Boulanger. She was also reported to be writing a one-woman play about her battle with breast cancer and her 2003 mastectomy, based on her book "Journal: A Mother and Daughter's Recovery from Breast Cancer" with photos by her daughter Annabel and text by Redgrave herself. In September 2006, she appeared in "Nightingale", the U.S. premiere of her new one-woman play based upon her maternal grandmother Beatrice, at Los Angeles' Mark Taper Forum. She also performed the play in May 2007 at Hartford Stage in Hartford, Connecticut. In 2007, she appeared in an episode of "Desperate Housewives" as Dahlia Hainsworth. She also appeared on an episode of ABC's TV series "Ugly Betty" and Desperate Housewives as Dahlia, the mother of Susan Delfino's boyfriend Ian Hainsworth, and an episode of "". In 2009, she was inducted into the American Theatre Hall of Fame. Voice work. Redgrave narrated approximately 20 audiobooks, including "Prince Caspian: The Chronicles of Narnia" by C. S. Lewis for Harper Audio and "Inkheart" by Cornelia Funke for Listening Library. Personal life. On 2 April 1967, Redgrave married English actor John Clark Together they had three children, airline pilot Benjamin Clark (born 1968), singer-songwriter Pema (originally Kelly) Clark (born 1970), and author and photographer Annabel Lucy Clark (born 1981). The marriage ended in 2000 after Clark revealed to Redgrave that he had fathered a child with her personal assistant, who later married (and subsequently divorced) their son Benjamin. The divorce proceedings were acrimonious and became front page news, with Clark alleging that Redgrave had also been unfaithful. Redgrave was appointed OBE in 2001. She was a naturalised citizen of the United States. Death. She discussed her health problems associated with bulimia and breast cancer. She was diagnosed with the latter in December 2002, had a mastectomy in January 2003, and chemotherapy. She died from breast cancer in her Kent, Connecticut, home on 2 May 2010, aged 67. Her brother, actor Corin Redgrave, who had also been a cancer patient in his last years, had died less than one month previously, on 6 April, aged 70. Redgrave's funeral was held on May 8 at the First Congregational Church in Kent, Connecticut. She was interred in St. Peter's Episcopal Cemetery in the hamlet of Lithgow, New York, where her mother, Rachel Kempson, and niece, Natasha Richardson, are also interred.
1065128	Jonathan Frederick "Jon" Tenney (born December 16, 1961) is an American actor who is most known for his work on "The Closer" in which he played the role of Fritz Howard and King %26 Maxwell where he has the role of Sean King. Early life and education. Tenney was born in Princeton, New Jersey, the son of Lillian Sandra Baum, a psychiatrist, and Frederick Haworth Tenney, a research physicist. His maternal grandparents were Polish Jewish immigrants, while his father had English ancestry. He received his B.A. degree from Vassar College in 1984, where he majored in drama and philosophy. He later attended The Juilliard School's Drama Division as a member of "Group 19" (1986–1990). Career. Tenney made his professional debut starring in a touring production of "The Real Thing" directed by Mike Nichols. This led to his working steadily on and off-Broadway, as well as in regional theater. His New York City stage credits include "Biloxi Blues", "The Substance of Fire", and "The Heiress". His work in television includes a lead role in the short-lived Steven Bochco series "Brooklyn South", the Kristin Chenoweth sitcom "Kristin" and guest appearances on "Will & Grace", "Murphy Brown", "", and "Get Real". Tenney appeared as Benbrook Oil Company CEO villain John Milner in "" and as Matthew Perry's best friend in "Fools Rush In". In addition, Tenney has appeared in the following films in small roles: "Tombstone", "Nixon", "Music from Another Room", and the 2009 remake of the horror film "The Stepfather". He also appeared in the John Cameron Mitchell film, "Rabbit Hole". He portrayed Martin Jordan in the 2011 superhero film "Green Lantern". From 2005 to 2012, he starred as Fritz Howard, the husband of Kyra Sedgwick's character Brenda Leigh Johnson on TNT's "The Closer" and its spin-off "Major Crimes". Later, he went on to portray Dr. Simon Craig, a love interest of Sally Field's character Nora Walker, on "Brothers & Sisters". As of 2013, he co-stars with Rebecca Romijn in TNT's "King & Maxwell", as Sean King, a former Secret Service Agent and lawyer who now works as a private investigator. Personal life. Tenney was married to actress Teri Hatcher from 1994 to 2003 and they have a daughter, Emerson Rose Tenney, born on November 10, 1997. He married producer Leslie Urdang on June 16, 2012.
1164171	Howard Hesseman (born February 27, 1940) is an American actor best known for playing disc jockey Johnny Fever on "WKRP in Cincinnati" and schoolteacher Charlie Moore on "Head of the Class". Early life. Hesseman was born in Lebanon, Oregon, the son of Edna (née Forster) and George Henry Hesseman. His parents divorced when he was five, and he was raised by his mother and stepfather, a police officer. Hesseman attended the University of Oregon, and was later a founding member of the San Francisco-based improvisational comedy troupe The Committee with fellow actor David Ogden Stiers. Early in his acting career, he used the alias Don Sturdy, the name he also used as a radio DJ. Career. Under the alias of Don Sturdy, Hesseman made some television appearances, including one episode of "Dragnet" in 1968 in which he portrayed a hippie named Jesse Chaplin who was the editor of an underground newspaper. In this "Dragnet" episode, his character was a panelist on a TV opinion show opposite Sgt. Friday and Officer Gannon.
1365701	Ryan Earl Merriman (born April 10, 1983) is an American film and television actor. He began his career at the age of ten, and has appeared in several feature films and television shows. He is best known for his roles as Jake in "The Ring Two" (2005) and Kevin Fischer in "Final Destination 3" (2006). Background. Merriman was born in Choctaw, Oklahoma, the son of Earl and Nonalyn Merriman. He has a sister, Monica. At a young age, he began acting in commercials, print work, vocal performances, and local theater (Stage Struck Studios) in Oklahoma. Career. Merriman's first major role was on the television series, "The Mommies", which ran from 1993 to 1995. During the mid and late 1990s, he appeared in most episodes of "The Pretender" as a younger version of the title character. Merriman has starred in several made-for-television films, including "Smart House", "The Luck of the Irish (2001)", and as a young Meyer Lansky in "Lansky". He appeared in the 1999 feature film "The Deep End of the Ocean", playing the lost son of Michelle Pfeiffer's character, and subsequently starred as the main character, a Jewish boy from the Bronx, in the film "Just Looking", which received a limited theatrical release in 2000. In 2002 he played the Madeleine L'Engle character Adam Eddington in another Disney Channel original movie, "A Ring of Endless Light". In the years following, Merriman returned to television roles, and appeared in "Dangerous Child", co-starring Delta Burke, the mini-series "Taken" (2003–04), and a guest role on "Smallville" in 2004.
584260	Sona Heiden is an Indian film actress. She was Miss South India in 2002. She became famous for her best item songs in Kollywood movies. She has appeared in the Tamil film, "Kuselan" in 2008. Recently she launched a fashion store - Uniq - in Chennai, with Shilpa Shetty gracing the launch. Personal life. Sona Heiden was born on 13 June 1979 in Chennai,Tamil Nadu,India.Her father is an Anglo Indian (French origin)and her mother is a Tamil.She has started her schooling in her home city Chennai at Lusarus Road convent school.She has completed her graduation in commerce from Annamalai University.Later she has completed her fashion & designing marketing Advanced diploma from Madurai Kamraj University .She has two siblings and both are younger sisters.Sona Heiden's height is 5'6". she is also a producer who has made few tamil films . she has a production house in columbia and many fashion store in the name of UNIQ across the Globe . She was awarded "The Best Entrepreneur Award " in the Year 2010 .
584697	Vaanmathi is a 1996 Tamil language film directed by Agathiyan starring Ajith Kumar and Swathi in the lead roles. This film portrays hatred that slowly transforms to love between two young souls who are from very different financial backgrounds. The film was released on January 15, 1996 and went on to become a commercial success, running for 175 days at the box office. Plot. Krishna (Ajith) belongs to a middle-class family, where his father is a womanizer and brought up Krishna as a good for nothing fellow. Krishna is also a youngster who likes to waste time his time, by hanging out with his friends and roaming behind girls. Vaanmathi (Swathi) is the daughter of a rich business woman who is very arrogant and does anything for money. For example she even abandoned her husband when Vaanmathi was a baby for money. Vaanmathi is a girl who grew up to be a bully, by bringing a bunch of friends in her vehicle and always takes a video camera with her. Then later initiates them. Krishna and Vaanmathi play tricks on each other and fight after they met but eventually fall in love, but Vaanmathi's mother is not happy with that. She dislikes Krishna as sees him as her enemy number 1. She tried everything to break them up and she even arranges a marriage between Vaanmathi and son of the Governor of Tamil Nadu. If their love will be united, forms the rest of the story. Soundtrack. The music composed by Deva. Release. The film became a major success and subsequently set up a future collaboration between the director and actor in "Kadhal Kottai".
1237532	The Hard Corps is a 2006 American action film written and directed by Sheldon Lettich, and starring Jean-Claude Van Damme, Raz Adoti and Vivica A. Fox. Plot. Phillip Sauvage (Jean-Claude Van Damme) is an American soldier suffering from Posttraumatic stress disorder caused by his time in Iraq and Afghanistan. Sauvage snaps out of his stupor just long enough to join Clarence Bowden (Julian D. Christopher), his former commanding officer, to work as a bodyguard for former World Heavyweight boxing champion and now successful businessman Wayne Barclay (Raz Adoti). It appears that the release of notorious rap mogul Terrell Singletery (Viv Leacock) from prison has caused Barclay's worried sister Tamara (Vivica A. Fox) to take pro-active action by hiring Bowden and Sauvage, as Singletery has made threats in the past about doing away with the one man responsible for his incarceration -- Barclay himself. The first night of bodyguard work does not go well for Sauvage and Bowden, as Bowden is killed during an assassination attempt on Barclay by a Hummer full of Uzi-carrying gangbangers sent by Singletery. It is up to Sauvage to continue the fight, which means bringing in a reinforcement in his friend Casey Bledsoe (Mark Griffin), and training some new recruits not of his choosing. Intending to give back to the streets that taught him toughness, Barclay insists that Sauvage compose his team of bodyguards by hiring people from Barclay's gym. But will they be enough to take down Singletery? Barclay however gets suspicious of Sauvage, who is on first name basis with Tamara, after he sights her kissing him on the cheek one night. Home media. On January 29, 2007, DVD was released by Sony Pictures Home Entertainment at the UK in Region 2.
1060394	Peter William "Pete" Postlethwaite, OBE, (; 7 February 1946 – 2 January 2011) was an English stage, film and television actor. After minor television appearances including in "The Professionals", Postlethwaite's first success came with the film "Distant Voices, Still Lives" in 1988. He played a mysterious lawyer, Mr. Kobayashi, in "The Usual Suspects", and he appeared in "Alien 3", "Amistad", "Brassed Off", "The Shipping News", "The Constant Gardener", "The Age of Stupid", "" and "Romeo + Juliet". In television, Postlethwaite's most notable performance was as the villain Sergeant Obadiah Hakeswill in the "Sharpe" television series and television films opposite actor Sean Bean's character of Richard Sharpe". Postlethwaite was born in Warrington, Lancashire, England in 1946. He trained as a teacher and taught drama before training as an actor. Steven Spielberg called Postlethwaite "the best actor in the world" after working with him on "". He received an Academy Award nomination for his role in "In the Name of the Father" in 1993, and was made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire in the 2004 New Year Honours list. He died of pancreatic cancer on 2 January 2011. Early life. Postlethwaite was born in Warrington in Lancashire on 7 February 1946. He was the fourth and youngest child of William (1913–1988) and Mary Postlethwaite (née Lawless; 1913–2000). He was brought up in a working class Roman Catholic family with two sisters, Anne and Patricia, and a brother, Michael. He trained as a teacher at St Mary's College, Strawberry Hill and taught drama at Loreto College, Manchester, before training as an actor at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School. Career. Early in his career, Postlethwaite was advised to adopt a new surname for his acting work by his first agent and by peers who quipped that his "would never be put up in lights outside theaters because they couldn't afford the electricity" (Postlethwaite rejected the advice). Postlethwaite started his career at the Everyman Theatre in Liverpool, where his colleagues included Bill Nighy, Jonathan Pryce, Antony Sher and Julie Walters. Postlethwaite and Walters had an intimate relationship during the latter half of the 1970s. He was a veteran of the Royal Shakespeare Company and other acting companies. On 13 January 1981, he took the leading role in a BBC TV black comedy by Alan Bleasdale, "The Muscle Market", which was a spin-off from "Boys from the Blackstuff"; it was part of the "Play for Today" series and also featured Alison Steadman. After other early appearances in small parts for television programmes such as "The Professionals", Postlethwaite's first film success came with the film "Distant Voices, Still Lives" in 1988. He received an Academy Award nomination for his role in "In the Name of the Father" in 1993. He is well known for his role as mysterious lawyer Mr. Kobayashi in "The Usual Suspects". He also made appearances in several successful films, including "Alien 3", "Amistad", "Brassed Off", "The Shipping News", "The Constant Gardener", "Inception", and as Friar Lawrence in Baz Luhrmann's "Romeo + Juliet". In 2003, he was both the physical and vocal actor for the villain Deeth in "Zixx: Level One", a Canadian TV series created by IDT Entertainment. The same year, he went to Australia and New Zealand, touring a 90-minute one-man play called "Scaramouche Jones" where he played a clown trying to find out why he is who he is before he dies at midnight, receiving a nomination for the TMA Award for Best Actor and winning the Theatregoers' Choice Award for Best Solo Performance. This was directed by Rupert Goold, who would also direct his Lear in 2008, in which Postlethwaite played every character. As well as Australia, the play toured Canada, New Zealand and the UK to great acclaim. In the 2004 book "The Art of Discworld", Terry Pratchett said that he had always imagined Sam Vimes as 'a younger, slightly bulkier version of Pete Postlethwaite'. Steven Spielberg called Postlethwaite ""the best actor in the world"" after working with him on "", to which Postlethwaite quipped: "I'm sure what Spielberg actually said was, 'The thing about Pete is that he thinks he's the best actor in the world.'" One of his more notable roles was as antagonist Sergeant Obadiah Hakeswill in ITV's "Sharpe" series, which starred Sean Bean. Postlethwaite has said that this was one of his favourite roles and that he and Sean played so well off each other because of their mutual love and respect. Bernard Cornwell, the author and creator of the "Sharpe" series, specifically wrote Hakeswill's character in later novels to reflect Postletwaite's performance as the character in the TV series. Postlethwaite also co-starred with Sean Bean in "When Saturday Comes". Postlethwaite next starred in the Liverpool stage production of "King Lear" in 2008 at the Everyman Theatre, Liverpool, and at the Young Vic, London. He appears in the climate change-themed film "The Age of Stupid", premiered in March 2009. Having recently installed a wind turbine in his garden, he said was extremely impressed by the film and made an impassioned call for action on climate change on its release in "The Sun" newspaper; ""The stakes climate of change are very, very high. They're through the roof. How could we willingly know that we're going into extinction... and let it happen."" Terminally ill, Postlethwaite had a minor role in the 2010 blockbuster hit "Inception", playing an industrialist who is similarly dying. Also in 2010, his performance in "The Town" as florist and crime boss Fergus "Fergie" Colm was well received by critics. Postlethwaite's last appearance on screen was in Nick Hamm's film "Killing Bono", based on the memoir of Neil McCormick. The role was written specially for Postlethwaite to accommodate his illness. The film was released on 1 April 2011. His final role was due to be in the BBC series "Exile", written by Danny Brocklehurst and Paul Abbott, but he had to pull out because of ill health. Jim Broadbent replaced him in the role. Awards. Postlethwaite was made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire in the 2004 New Year Honours list and received an honorary degree from Liverpool University in 2006. He received an Academy Award nomination for his role "In the Name of the Father". Personal life. Postlethwaite lived in West Itchenor, West Sussex, before moving to Shropshire, near Bishop's Castle, with his wife Jacqueline (Jacqui) Morrish Postlethwaite, a former BBC producer, whom he began a relationship with in 1987 and later married in 2003 in Chichester. Postlethwaite was diagnosed with testicular cancer in 1990, and had one testicle removed. Postlethwaite was a smoker from the age of ten. In a March 2009 interview with "Scotland on Sunday", Postlethwaite commented on his smoking habit, stating: ""We've got to hope the next generation will do things differently. I'm sure that in 20 years' time the kids will say: 'Can you believe that people actually used to smoke — put these funny little things in their mouths, lit them and sucked all that crap into their lungs?"" Political activity. Postlethwaite appeared as a taxi driver in one of the Labour Party's political broadcasts during the 1997 general election. He marched in London against the Iraq War in 2003. He was an activist calling for action to prevent climate change. At the UK premiere of The Age of Stupid on 16 November 2009, he told Ed Miliband, then-Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, that he would return his OBE and vote for any party other than Labour, if the Kingsnorth coal-fired power station was given the go-ahead by the government. Illness and death. In March 2009, Postlethwaite was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, from which he died at the Royal Shrewsbury Hospital on 2 January 2011. He left behind two children, both of whom were born in Shropshire: son William John (born 1989), a drama student at LAMDA, and daughter Lily Kathleen (born 1996). Postlethwaite continued acting almost to the end of 2010, showing clear signs of weight-loss during his last performances.
430074	Pumping Iron is a 1977 docudrama about the world of bodybuilding, focusing on the 1975 IFBB Mr. Universe and Mr. Olympia competitions. Inspired by a book of the same name by Charles Gaines and George Butler, the film nominally focuses on the competition between Arnold Schwarzenegger and one of his primary competitors for the title of Mr. Olympia, Lou Ferrigno. The film also features brief segments focusing on bodybuilders Franco Columbu and Mike Katz, in addition to appearances by Ken Waller, Ed Corney, Serge Nubret, and other famous bodybuilders of the era. Shot during the 100 days leading up to the Mr. Universe and Mr. Olympia competitions and during the competitions themselves, the filmmakers ran out of funds to finish production, and it entered development hell for two years. Ultimately, Schwarzenegger and other bodybuilders featured in the film helped to raise funds to complete production, and it was released in 1977. The film became a box office success, making Schwarzenegger a household name. The film also served to popularize the then somewhat niche culture of bodybuilding, helping to inspire the fitness craze of the 1980s; following the film's release, there was a marked increase in the number of commercial gyms in the United States. The film was released on CED, VHS, and then re-released on DVD in 2003 for the 25th Anniversary of the theatrical debut. The film inspired two sequels: George Butler's "" in 1985, a documentary about the world of female bodybuilding; and David and Scott McVeigh's "Raw Iron" in 2002, a documentary about the making of "Pumping Iron" and how the film affected the lives of those who appeared in it. Plot. In 1975, bodybuilders are preparing for the upcoming Mr. Universe amateur competition and Mr. Olympia professional competition in Pretoria, South Africa. The first part of the film documents the life of Mike Katz, a hopeful for the title of Mr. Universe. Katz's being bullied in his youth for being Jewish and wearing glasses spurred him to become a pro football player; when his career with the New York Jets was ended by a leg injury, Katz became a bodybuilder. His psychological balance is thrown off by a prank by fellow contender Ken Waller, who steals Katz's lucky shirt before the competition. Waller wins Mr. Universe, and Katz comes in fourth. Fighting back tears, he cheerfully appraises the situation before deciding to call home and check up on his wife and children. Katz then goes to congratulate Waller. The film then switches focus to the rivalry between Arnold Schwarzenegger and Lou Ferrigno, professional bodybuilders competing for the title of Mr. Olympia. Schwarzenegger, a ten-year veteran of bodybuilding, has won Mr. Olympia for five consecutive years, and intends to retire after a final competition. Ferrigno is determined to be the man to finally beat Schwarzenegger. The film contrasts each man's personality, home environment, and training style: Schwarzenegger is extroverted, aggressive, and works out with other bodybuilders at Gold's Gym and Muscle Beach, whereas the quiet, reserved Ferrigno - who went partially deaf after a childhood ear infection - trains with his father in a dimly lit, private basement gym. While Ferrigno surrounds himself with his family, Schwarzenegger is accompanied wherever he goes by other bodybuilders, reporters, and beautiful women. In between interviews and workout demonstrations with Ferrigno and Schwarzenegger, Schwarzenegger explains the basic concepts behind bodybuilding. Although he emphasizes the importance of physique in bodybuilding, Schwarzenegger also stresses the psychological aspects of competition, crediting meticulously crafted strategies of psychological warfare against his opponents for his numerous victories. The film briefly looks at Schwarzenegger's training partner, Franco Columbu, a favorite to win first in the under-200 pound division at Mr. Olympia. A former boxer from a tiny village in Sardinia, Columbu returns home to celebrate a traditional dinner with his family, who still ascribe to old world values and are skeptical of the overt aggression of boxing and bodybuilding. Nevertheless, Columbu impresses his family with a display of strength by lifting the back end of a car and moving it down a street. In South Africa, Schwarzenegger wages his psychological warfare on Ferrigno, befriending Ferrigno and then subtly insulting him over breakfast with his family. The strategy appears to work and Ferrigno becomes troubled. Meanwhile, Schwarzenegger attends the judging for the under 200 pound class in order to scope out who his competition will be for the overall Mr. Olympia title, jokingly disparaging Columbu. The appearance of Ed Corney stuns Schwarzenegger, who for the only time in the film praises another bodybuilder, openly admiring Corney's physique and posing prowess. Columbu places first and he moves on to compete against the winner of the over 200 pound category. Schwarzenegger, Ferrigno, and Serge Nubret prepare to go onstage and compete for the over 200 pound category. In the locker room, Schwarzenegger engages in some last-minute intimidation of Ferrigno and succeeds in weakening Ferrigno's confidence. Ferrigno is visibly shaken onstage, and as a result, ends up placing third behind Nubret and Schwarzenegger, who is declared the winner. Schwarzenegger and Columbu engage in a posedown for the title of Mr. Olympia. Schwarzenegger uses his stage presence and intimidating looks to unnerve Columbu, who falters. Schwarzenegger is declared Mr. Olympia, and in a post-victory speech announces his official retirement from professional bodybuilding. Later, at an after party for the competitors, Schwarzenegger celebrates his victory by smoking marijuana and eating fried chicken. The competition over, he wishes Ferrigno happy birthday and leads the other competitors in singing "Happy Birthday to You" as a cake is revealed. The film ends with Schwarzenegger, Ferrigno and Ferrigno's parents riding together to the airport. Production. The film began as a look at bodybuilding from the perspective of a newcomer to the sport; to this end, the production had hired the slimly built actor Bud Cort, with the intention of following Cort's development from a physically slight man to a muscular, strong bodybuilder. Cort trained at Gold's Gym for a brief period, taking lessons from Schwarzenegger, but ultimately felt that he was wrong for the project; Cort and the producers amicably parted ways, and the documentary team began to focus more intently on the established bodybuilders at Gold's.
581765	Makdee (, ), promoted as The Web Of The Witch, in English, is an Indian children's film in Hindi language, directed by Vishal Bhardwaj. It starrs Shabana Azmi, Makrand Deshpande, Shweta Prasad, and Alaap Mazgaonkar. The film tells the story of a young girl in north India and an alleged witch in a mansion. It also explains the believe in witches and witchcraft across modern day India. Plot. Life in Chunni's village is all peace and quiet, and great fun. She fools the villagers including her parent with her impersonation of her twin sister, Munni. In the village, there is a mansion that is said to be haunted and legend goes that a witch called Makdee (Shabana Azmi) resides there. The legend has it that whosoever wonders into the mansion, comes out as an animal! No one in the village dares enter the mansion. Things are going fine for Chunni until the day one of her pranks gets quite out of hand. As a result of this, Munni, her docile sister, enters the mansion, where the witch turns the little girl into a hen! Chunni is hysterical when she discovers this. She runs from pillar to post to get help, but her credibility is at an all-time low and the entire village refuses to believe her, so Chunni finally enters the haunted mansion alone to search for her sister. In the mansion she comes face to face with the witch, she pleads with the witch to let her poor little sister go, as it was no fault of hers. But the witch asks her to strike a deal. She will turn Munni back into a human only if Chunni can acquire for her hundred hens in exchange. All of a sudden, Chunni is confronted with the biggest challenge of her life. But somehow, down the line, she realises that all this was just a ruse. The witch can't really turn humans into animals, she merely locks them up. All the people locked up are finally freed and the village finds a new hero in Chunni
1502392	Connie and Carla is a 2004 American comedy film directed by Michael Lembeck and starring Nia Vardalos, Toni Collette, and David Duchovny. The film was shot in Vancouver and featured a number of local drag queens. Plot. Nia Vardalos and Toni Collette play the titular characters, whose lifelong friendship and co-obsession with musical theater have brought nothing but career dead ends. Despite this they continue their optimism, hosting a variety act at an airport lounge. After accidentally witnessing a mafia hit in Chicago, they go on the run, landing in Los Angeles. Initially working at a beauty salon, they wind up posing as drag queens and auditioning to host a drag revue at a gay club. Because they sing their own songs (a rarity for queens), they are hired, and their variety show (first entitled "What a Drag (Pun Intended!)" then called "Connie and Carla and the Belles of the Ball" after they add a few friends to the act) becomes a hit. Things are going smoothly but the two make a pact not to let men interfere with their life. This causes conflict when Connie falls for Jeff (David Duchovny), the straight brother of Robert (Stephen Spinella), one of their drag queen friends. As the show gets bigger, the two convince the club owner, Stanley (Ian Gomez), to convert it into a full dinner theater, and eventually their popularity threatens to expose them. On the official opening night of the dinner theater, the mob killers catch up with them, but with the help of their drag queen friends, and to great applause from the audience (who think it is part of their act), Connie and Carla take them down. They ultimately confess their real identities to the audience and are accepted for who they are. Connie reveals herself to Jeff, who arrives after the chaos. He accepts her and becomes her boyfriend. Musicals referenced or featured. The following is a list of musicals referenced or featured in the film (in the order of which they are presented in the film): Box office. The film had a budget of $27 million, and grossed $8,085,771 domestically, and $3,255,245 in foreign release, making $11,341,016 worldwide. The film grossed $3,254,940 during its opening weekend, opening at number 13 in the 4/16-18 weekend box office. The film has been released on DVD.
586416	Parthan Kanda Paralokam () is a 2008 Malayalam film directed by Anil, starring Jayaram, Mukesh and Sree Devika in the lead roles. Plot. Parthasarathy (Jayaram, popularly called Parthan, lives in Krishnapuram village. Parthan is constantly clashing with his uncle Falgunan Thampy (Jagathy Sreekumar), who is the Panchayath President. Falgunan is least bothered about the welfare of the people; rather, he is more keen in grabbing the assets of the village temple, which has been locked for many years by the court over a dispute of ownership. Falgunan, also the secretary of temple's ruling committee, believes that the temple belongs to his family, while Parthan and his friends like Sulaiman (Kottayam Nazeer) and Poonkodi (Sona) argue that the temple belongs to the village. Into this situation comes Falgunan's daughter Sathyabhama (Sreedevika), an advocate, who pretends to be in love with Parthan. In fact, her intention is to help her father on the temple dispute in the court. As a result, Parthan, who begins an agitation, is sentenced to one month's imprisonment for contempt of court. After Parthan is released from jail, the film takes an interesting turn. Parthan nearly dies after consuming spurious liquor in Guruvayoor, but miraculously returns to life. After this near-death experience, Lord Krishna is present to help him in the form of Madhavan (Mukesh), pretending to be his college friend and both start fighting Parthan's uncle. Madhavan helps Parthan to clear all the problems of his life. Sathyabhama realises the innocence of Parthan and her father's wickedness and fell in love with Parthan. Then enters Veerabhadran aka Musafir (Kalabhavan Mani) to sreal the Krishan idol from Krishnapuram temple, to disrupt the communal harmony in the village. Parthan fights his plans and with the help of Madhavan, protects the village from disaster. Finally Parthan and Satyabhama are united in marriage. Soundtrack. Parthan Kanda Paralokam has music composed by M. Jayachandran. The lyrics are by renowned poet Kaithapram Damodaran Namboothiri. The film has three songs. The singers are Unni Menon, Jassie Gift, Pradeep, Deepak, and Ganga. Reception. The film could not rise to the expectations and was declared a flop at the box-office. Rediff.com made mostly negative remarks and gave the film a rating of 1.5 stars out of 5. Bharatstudent.com also gave the film a rating of 1.5 out of 5, commenting the film as a disappointment.
585087	Ranam is a Telugu film ( Dubbed in malayalam as the same title ) which stars T. Gopichand and Kamna Jethmalani. Choreographer-turned-director Amma Rajasekhar directed this film. The film was a success at the box office. This is T. Gopichand's third consecutive hit as a lead actor. The film is remade into Oriya as "Mahanayak" and in Kannada as "Bhadra". The film was dubbed into Tamil as "Stalin" and in Hindi as "Suryaa". Plot. Maheswari (Kamna Jethmalani) is sister of Bhagawati (Biju Menon), a mafia don in Hyderabad. Chinna (T. Gopichand), classmate of Maheshwari, inadvertently enters into a row with the gang members of Bhagavati, do falls in love with Maheswari. The rest of the story is all about the how Chinna resorts to a mind game on Bhagavati to win his sister. Music. The film has six songs composed by Mani Sharma:
585234	Anand Babu (Tamil: ஆனந்த் பாபு) is an Indian film actor, who has appeared in leading and supporting roles throughout his career. Despite, appearing in several leading roles in the early 1990s, he is most widely known for being the son of legendary actor, Nagesh as well as due to his dancing exploits. Personal life. Anand Babu was hospitalized in early 2006, after a build up of problems from intoxication. Despite a solid beginning in the industry, it is widely regarded that Anand Babu has faced a steady decline, becoming a controversial figure.
583241	Manu Rishi () is an Indian film actor, lyricist, script and dialogue writer. Manu Rishi trained under theatre director Arvind Gaur for six years. He won the Filmfare Best Dialogue Award, 2009 for Oye Lucky! Lucky Oye!
1042617	Devil Girl from Mars is a black and white 1954 British science fiction film, directed by David MacDonald. It was adapted from a stage play and has become a cult favorite. Plot. Nyah, a female alien commander from Mars, dressed in black vinyl, is heading for London. She is part of the advanced alien team that is looking for Earthmen to replace the dying male population on her world. Because of damage to her flying saucer, caused by entering Earth's atmosphere, she is forced to land her ship in the remote Scottish moors. She is armed with a raygun that can paralyze or kill, and she also has a tall, menacing robot. On Nyah's world, the emancipation of the women eventually led to open warfare between the sexes. The females won, usurping the political power of the men. This eventually lead to the sexual impotence of the planet's entire male population; a rapid decline in the birthrate soon followed. The aliens possess an organic, self-regenerating technology, which was used to construct Nyah's spacecraft. Against this technology, human weaponry proves ineffectual, as demonstrated when Nyah comes away unscathed by gunshots from a pistol. The alien technology is unreliable, however, and Nyah's people have not been able to use it to artificially produce new offspring. The film is set mostly in the lounge bar of a Scottish country inn, "The Bonnie Charlie," somewhere in Inverness-shire. N'yah occasionally enters, makes threats, then leaves so the residents can contemplate her words. Intermixed with the Nyah story are a pair of romantic sub-plots that unfold in the film. In the first a fashion model, Miss Prestwick (Court), fled to this remote country inn in order to escape a married reporter, Michael Carter (McDermott), with whom she had an affair. Michael doggedly follows her, hoping to rekindle their romance. Meanwhile, a convict, Robert Justin, alias Albert Simpson (Reynolds), who accidentally killed his wife, has managed to escape from a prison in Stirlingshire and has come to the inn, hoping to connect with the barmaid, Doris (Corri) whom he truly loves. Production. The film was shot on a low budget, with no retakes except in cases where the film became damaged. It was shot over a period of three weeks, often filming into the night. Actress Hazel Court later said, "I remember great fun on the set. It was like a repertory company acting that film". The robot, named Chani, was constructed by Jack Whitehead and was fully automated, although it suffered breakdowns during the filming. Reception. "Rolling Stone" columnist Doug Pratt called it a "delightfully bad movie." The "acting is really bad and the whole thing is so much fun you want to run to your local community theater group and have them put it on next, instead of "Brigadoon"." American film reviewer Leonard Maltin said the film is a "hilariously solemn, high camp British imitation of U. S. cheapies." The reviewer for the "Monthly Film Bulletin" (1954) wrote that the "settings, dialogue, characterisation and special effects are of a low order, but even their modest unreality has its charm. There is really no fault in this film that one would like to see eliminated. Everything, in its way, is quite perfect." In "Going to Mars", the authors described the film as "an undeniably awful but oddly interesting" film. They noted that the plot was "more a reflection of the 1950s view of politics and the era's inequality of the sexes than a thoughtful projection of present or future possibilities". Eric S. Rabkin likens the character Nyah to a dominatrix and even a neo-nazi. He said of the film that, "a host of charged images and subconscious fears" are handled with a broad camp irony. Otherwise, "without some underlying psychological engagement, how could anyone sit through a movie so badly made"? The film inspired Hugo and Nebula award winning author Octavia Butler to begin writing science fiction. After watching the motion picture at age twelve, she declared that she could write something better. Likewise, the Los Angeles avant-garde artist Gronk lists this film as the crucial factor that guided him in his career choice.
594696	The Other Side of Midnight is a novel by American writer Sidney Sheldon published in 1973. The book reached No.1 on the "New York Times" Best Seller list. It was made into a 1977 motion picture of the same name, directed by Charles Jarrott. The cast included Marie-France Pisier, John Beck, Susan Sarandon, Christian Marquand and Josette Banzet. It was remade in India as the Hindi film Oh Bewafa (1980).  Sidney Sheldon had written a sequel, the title for the 1990 novel being Memories of Midnight.  It was adapted into a 1991 television mini-series starring Jane Seymour as Catherine Alexander. ﻿In Japan, it was adapted and broadcast as a radio drama, with a soundtrack by Yoko Kanno and Maaya Sakamoto. Plot. The story focuses on two women: Catherine Alexander and Noelle Page. Noelle is implied to have been born as the result of an extra-marital affair in Marseilles, France, but her mother never told anyone the truth. Her legal father believes that Noelle's beauty can be attributed to his ancestry. Because of her beauty, she is treated like a princess, and she grows up certain of her importance and superiority. When she becomes a woman, her father decides to exploit her beauty for money. Believing that she is worth more than a common prostitute, he meets Auguste Lanchon, the husband of a frigid boutique owner and a very well-off man, and manipulates him to hire Noelle as a model. It later becomes clear to Noelle that her father sold her to Lanchon and forces her to sleep with Lanchon. She secretly departs for Paris and eventually meets and falls for American RAF pilot Lawrence "Larry" Douglas, who, before leaving for another mission, promises to marry her. However, Noelle later finds out that Larry has forgotten about her and is with another woman. She nearly dies of pneumonia, but a Jewish intern named Israel Katz saves her and gives her money and a job at his aunt's modeling agency.
585449	Ivan Megharoopan () is a 2012 Malayalam biographical film written and directed by P. Balachandran. The film is based on the life of Malayalam poet P. Kunhiraman Nair and is particularly based on his autobiography, "Kaviyude Kalpadukal". Prakash Bare, who is the producer of the film, also plays the protagonist K. P. Madhavan Nair. Production. Development. "Ivan Megharoopan" is P. Balachandran's debut film as a director. He has earlier written certain notable scripts including "Ulladakkam", "Pavithram" and "Punaradhivasam". Balachandran had discussed the story with filmmaker V. K. Prakash after writing "Punradhivasam" (which won the National Film Award for Best Feature Film in Malayalam in 2000) for him. He suggested Prakash to direct the film but somehow the project didn't take off. In 2008, Balachandran decided to make the film on the poet, himself. "When I spoke to Prakash of my plans, he encouraged me to direct the film. And that is how "Ivan Megharoopan" was born. The film is not a biography of Kunhiraman Nair, It is based on the life and the soul of the great poet," Balachandran says. He adds he was fascinated by the life of Kunhiraman Nair long before he wanted to make a film on it. "It was direction that I learnt at the School of Drama in Thrissur, so I am not surprised that I have become a director. I have sometimes felt that I could have contributed a lot more to Malayalam cinema. Not that I am complaining; if I didn't do more it was because I didn't try hard," Balachandran says. "Kaviyude Kalpadukal", the autobiography of Kunhiraman Nair, is one of the foundations for the film, the director says. "But the film is not based only on that book. "Ivan Megharoopan" is a fictionalised version of the life of the poet," he clarifies. Casting. The audition for the casting was held at Kochi in October. The protagonist of the film is K. P. Madhavan Nair, a character which obviously reflects P. Kunhiraman Nair. Prakash Bare, who played the lead role in the award-winning feature "Sufi Paranja Katha", was chosen to play Madhavan Nair. Bare also produced the film under the banner of Silicon Media. Padmapriya and Anu play the leading ladies while a few new faces play the other important female roles. Jagathy Sreekumar and Chembil Ashokan also act in notable roles. O. N. V. Kurup and Kavalam Narayana Panicker have written the lyrics, which have been tuned by Sharreth. "No, I won't be using any of the poems of Kunhiraman Nair, but music will be important for the film," says Balachandran. Actress Remya Nambeeshan has sung a track in the film. A folk song titled "Aande Londe" is sung by the actress, who was trained in Carnatic vocal singing during her childhood days. The song is penned by Kavalam and is said to have prime importance in the film. Filming. The filming, planned to begin on November 5, 2010, was started a week later only. Major parts were shot from Ottapalam. Release and reception. Film released on July 27, 2012 with critics giving a positive review. Paresh C. Palicha of Rediff.com rated the film and stated that the film has soul. Sify.com gave the verdict as "good" and said that the film "succeeds in taking the viewer along with the narrative and the intriguing life of the poet has been presented in an attractive style." Veeyen of Nowrunning.com also gave a rating and said that, the film "is full of life, and the vivaciousness that pervades the narrative lets the dazzling sparkle on this character study remain right on place." "The Times of India" rated the film and stated that the film "is a moving, poignant account of a poet's life that gains a lot from a carefully chosen cast."
1061076	Joshua Daniel "Josh" Hartnett (born July 21, 1978) is an American actor and producer. He first came to audiences' attention in 1997 as "Michael Fitzgerald" in the television series "Cracker". He made his feature film debut in 1998 in "", followed by teen roles in films such as "The Faculty" and "The Virgin Suicides". Hartnett has since gone on to further fame for his roles in films such as "Pearl Harbor", "O", "Black Hawk Down", "40 Days and 40 Nights" and "30 Days of Night", and has starred for a variety of well-known directors such as Ridley Scott, Brian De Palma, Robert Rodriguez, Tran Anh Hung, Roland Joffé and Michael Bay. Early life. Hartnett was born in Saint Paul, Minnesota, the son of Wendy Anne (née Kronstedt) and Daniel Thomas Hartnett. He was raised by his father, a building manager, and his stepmother, Molly, an artist. He has three younger half-siblings, through his father's re-marriage: Jessica, Jake and Joe. His father is of half Irish and half German ancestry, and his mother is of Swedish and Irish descent. Hartnett was raised Roman Catholic, attending Nativity of Our Lord Catholic Grade School, where he played Adam Apple in an eighth grade production of "Krazy Kamp". He later attended Cretin-Derham Hall High School before switching to South High School in Minneapolis, Minnesota, from which he graduated in June 1996. Hartnett was active in sports as a child, especially football, and did not entertain the thought of becoming a performer, until an injury left him unable to participate on the athletic playing field. A relative encouraged him to audition for a stage production of "Tom Sawyer" at Youth Performance Company, and to Hartnett's surprise, he won the part of Huckleberry Finn. He fell in love with acting and went on to star in a slew of high school plays. Hartnett got his first job at a local video store. He became a vegetarian at the age of 12 but ate meat during the shooting of "The Black Dahlia" for his role as a boxer. After finishing high school, a move to New York to attend the Conservatory of Theatre Arts & Film at SUNY Purchase did not go as well as he had hoped for, and a year later at age 19, Hartnett found himself in California. Shortly after arriving in Los Angeles, he caught an improbable break, landing a part in the short-lived but acclaimed drama "Cracker", on ABC. Although the series was cancelled after sixteen episodes, Hartnett had made a name for himself. He then began to focus on feature film work. Career. In April 1997, Hartnett made his screen debut playing the role of Michael Fitzgerald on the short-lived television series, "Cracker". He performed in small plays and on national television commercials before being cast in his first feature film, playing the son of Jamie Lee Curtis' character in "". Released on August 5, 1998, it performed well at the box office. Hartnett has since developed a successful film career, having appeared in many Hollywood films, including "The Faculty", "Black Hawk Down", "Lucky Number Slevin" and "Pearl Harbor". He was originally scheduled to play the role of Tino in "Deuces Wild", but dropped out to star in "Pearl Harbor". In 2002, he starred in "O", an adaptation of William Shakespeare's "Othello" set in an American high school, as Hugo, the film's version of Iago. In the early 2000s, Hartnett was approached several times to play the role of Clark Kent/Superman in the upcoming film (at the time helmed by Brett Ratner), but always turned it down, not wanting to commit to a predicted ten-year role. Hartnett was chosen as one of "Teen People" magazine's "21 Hottest Stars Under 21" in 1999, "Teen People's" "25 Hottest Stars under 25", and one of "People" magazine's "50 Most Beautiful People", both in 2002. He was also voted "Bliss" magazine's "3rd Sexiest Male", and in 2003 PETA named him the Sexiest Vegetarian Alive, as chosen by voters. One of Hartnett's next films was the 2006 drama-mystery "The Black Dahlia", in which he played a detective investigating the notorious real-life murder of actress Elizabeth Short. Hartnett had been cast in the role five years before the film was produced, remaining committed to appearing in the movie because he liked the subject matter. Among his 2007 roles were "Resurrecting the Champ", a drama also starring Samuel L. Jackson, and the graphic novel-based "30 Days of Night", in which he played a small-town sheriff. Hartnett described the second film as "supernatural, but kind of a western". He was going to play trumpet player, Chet Baker, in the film "The Prince of Cool", but did not agree with the producer's ideas and left the project. In 2008, Hartnett played Charlie Babbit alongside Adam Godley in the theatre adaptation of Barry Morrow's Academy Award-winning "Rain Man" at the Apollo Theatre in London's West End. He starred in the new campaign of the Emporio Armani fragrance, "Diamonds for Men", being featured in both print and TV ads for the fragrance, thus becoming the first male celebrity to represent Giorgio Armani Beauty. He has been featured on many magazine covers, such as "Cosmogirl", "Details", "Entertainment Weekly", "Girlfriend", "Seventeen", "Vanity Fair", "GQ" and "Vman", in addition to being in other magazines like "Vogue", "ELLE", "People", "Glamour", "Intouch" and "InStyle". In 2009, Hartnett produced the video clip for the rapper Kid Cudi's song Pursuit of Happiness. In 2013, Harnett was a guest of honor on Off Plus Camera 2013
1503437	Ann Reinking (born November 10, 1949) is an American actress, dancer, and choreographer. She has worked extensively in musical theatre, both as a dancer and choreographer, as well as appearing in film. Biography. Early Life. Reinking was born in Seattle, Washington, one of seven children born to Frances and Walter Reinking. Of Norwegian descent, she grew up in California, and moved back to Seattle with her family as an adolescent. She began ballet lessons at the age of 10, studying with Marian and Illaria Ladre, a professional ballet couple who had danced for years with the Ballets Russes which later became the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo. She spent summers in junior high and high school dancing at the San Francisco Ballet. She moved to New York City at the age of 17 following her graduation from Bellevue High School in Bellevue, Washington. Career. After working as a chorus girl in "Coco", "Wild and Wonderful", and "Pippin", Reinking came to critical notice in the role of Maggie in "Over Here!" (Theatre World Award). She went on to originate roles in "Goodtime Charley" (for which she received Tony Award and Drama Desk nominations for Best Actress in a Musical) and Bob Fosse's "Dancin"' (Tony nomination). She took over lead roles in "A Chorus Line" (1976), "Chicago" in 1977, and "Sweet Charity" (1986). In 1979 Reinking appeared in Bob Fosse's semi-autobiographical film "All That Jazz", in a role loosely based on her own life and relationship with Fosse. In the film, Reinking starred opposite Leland Palmer, Jessica Lange, Ben Vereen, John Lithgow, and Roy Scheider as Joe Gideon (a role loosely based on Bob Fosse). She appeared in several feature films, including "Annie" (as Grace Farrell) and "Micki + Maude" (as Micki). Reinking attracted notice in 1985 for her performance at the Academy Awards of the song "Against All Odds (Take A Look At Me Now), which had been a #1 Billboard chart hit and was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Song. The song's original writer and performer, Phil Collins, was the only nominee in the category not invited to sing his song on stage; he sat in the audience as Reinking performed it.
582427	Umrao Jaan (Urdu: , Hindi: उमराव जान) is a 1981 Bollywood film, directed by Muzaffar Ali. It is based on the Urdu novel "Umrao Jaan Ada" (1905), written by Mirza Hadi Ruswa based on the famous Lucknow courtesan. The film starred Bollywood actress Rekha and Farooq Shaikh as leads. Plot. In the year 1840, a girl named Amiran (Seema Sathyu) is kidnapped from her family in Faizabad, Oudh by their neighbour, Dilawar Khan (Satish Shah), and sold to Madam Khanum Jaan (Shaukat Kaifi) who owns a brothel in Lucknow where she trains courtesans (tawaif). Amiran, renamed Umrao Jaan, learns to read, write, dance, sing, and charm wealthy men. She is a cultured woman trained to captivate men of wealth and taste. A grown-up Umrao Jaan (Rekha) catches the eye of Nawab Sultan (Farooq Shaikh), and the two fall in love. But Nawab must marry to please his family, and Umrao's heart is broken.
1125899	Denzel Dominique Whitaker (born June 15, 1990) is an American film and television actor.
587722	Anukokunda Oka Roju () is a critically acclaimed and successful Telugu film released on 30 June 2005 that was directed by Chandra Sekhar Yeleti. It stars Charmme Kaur, Jagapati Babu, and Shashank. This heroine-oriented suspense film was a critical success. It was remade as "Sunday" in Hindi starring Ayesha Takia. Plot. Sahasra (Charmme Kaur) is a chorus singer struggling to make a career in playback singing. One night she attends a wild party at the behest of her friend. The next day, life seems as usual for Sahasra. Only she is oblivious of one small detail: The next day is actually the day after. And she is completely unaware of what happened during that one missing day. She realizes something is amiss only when, a few days later, she is chased by unidentified men who try to eliminate her. The rest of the story is about finding the missing links and putting together the jigsaw puzzle. Awards. The film has won the following awards: Publicity and release. The film was released with 24 prints in Andhra Pradesh and two prints in U.S.A.
627761	Dot and the Kangaroo, written in 1899, is a children's book by Ethel C. Pedley about a little girl named Dot who gets lost in the Australian outback and is eventually befriended by a kangaroo and several other marsupials. The book was adapted into a stage production in 1924 and a film in 1977. Plot introduction. A 5-year-old girl named Dot is lost in the outback after chasing a hare into the wood and losing sight of her home. She is approached by a red kangaroo who gives her some berries to eat. Upon eating the berries, Dot is able to understand the language of all animals, and she tells the kangaroo her plight. The kangaroo, who has lost her own joey, decides to help little Dot despite her own fear of humans. The book is filled with criticism on negative human interference in the wild in 1884. Film adaptations. The book was adapted into a film in 1977 which featured a combination of animation and live-action. Production. Yoram and Sandra Gross wanted to make an Australian animated feature for the world market. They read a series of books before deciding on "Dot and the Kangaroo". Two thirds of the budget was provided by the Australian Film Commission. The main character, Dot, was voiced by Barbara Frawley. The film also featured Spike Milligan as the voice of Platypus. The movie featured an original soundtrack including several lyrical melodies composed by Bob Young, John Palmer and Marion Von Alderstein. The movie backdrop was filmed on location in and around the Jenolan Caves of the Blue Mountains in New South Wales, Australia. Although the film uses many of the same elements as other animated children's musicals involving animals, such as many of the Disney classics from the United States, the film is essentially Australian in its use of icons and accents. It also references Indigenous Australian culture in some scenes which depict animation of cave paintings and aboriginal dancing. Reception. The film was a success, being screened around the world and returning its cost within three years. It allowed Yoram Gross to enlarge his production company and market his family films in the United States. Additionally, the film's use of animation set against photographic backgrounds established the style for many of his later films. Soundtrack. Lyrics by John Palmer: Lyrics by Marion Von Alderstein Additional lyrics by "Bob Young". Recorded by "Maurie Wilmore". Sequels. Another eight movies in the series were made by the Yoram Gross studios by 1994. The theme behind all of the films in the Dot series is the negative impact of humanity on animal life in nature. The complete series of films are as follows: Release. A DVD version of the film was released on 30 October 2001. In the 1980s, the first 7 films were released on video in the United States, the first three by CBS/Fox Video and the next four by Family Home Entertainment (possibly the only Australian cartoons to be released on home video by the company). In Australia there is a complete series DVD set of all the Dot films. The various films were shown on The Disney Channel in the late 1980s through the 1990s in the United States, and on Family in Canada.
1065984	While She Was Out is a 2008 American thriller film starring Kim Basinger and Lukas Haas. Basinger plays a suburban housewife who is forced to fend for herself when she becomes stranded in a desolate forest with four murderous thugs. It was written and directed by film producer Susan Montford based on a short story by Edward Bryant. The film was produced by Mary Aloe and Don Murphy. Its executive producers included Guillermo del Toro and Basinger. The film was shot in 2006 and had a very limited release in 5 theaters in Texas during 2008. Plot. On Christmas Eve, suburban housewife Della Myers (Kim Basinger) gets into an argument with her abusive husband Kenneth (Craig Sheffer). After putting her two children to bed, she drives to the mall to buy some wrapping paper and cards. At the mall, she can't find a parking space for a while and angrily leaves a note on the window of a car that is parked using up two parking spaces. She leaves the store as the mall is closing, and the parking lot is nearly deserted. She notices the note is gone from the 'offending' car. As she enters her own car, the car on which she had left the note pulls up behind her. She confronts the car, and four young men emerge—Huey (Jamie Starr), Vingh (Leonard Wu), and Tomás (Luis Chávez)—led by Chuckie (Lukas Haas). They threaten to rape her. Della insults Chuckie, and a security guard intervenes, but he is shot dead by Chuckie. As the gang realizes that they have committed a murder, Della manages to start her car and drive away. They follow her, intending to kill her, as she is the only witness. As they pursue her some distance, she eventually crashes her car in a deserted area where homes are under construction. She takes a road flare and a toolbox out of her car and hides behind a back hoe.
1502356	Anita Gillette (born August 16, 1936) is an American actress, most notable for her work on Broadway and as a celebrity guest on various game shows.
520501	Bernard Palanca, Jr. (born December 3, 1976) is a Filipino film and television actor. Personal life. His maternal grandfather, Armando Goyena (real name: Jose Revilla), was also an actor as is his younger brother, Mico Palanca.He is the son of the Bernard Palanca, Sr, who died when Bernard Jr. was just a child. He is also the grandson of businessman and philanthropist Carlos Palanca, Jr of the prestigious Carlos Palanca Awards. His mother, Pita Revilla-Palanca comes from the Revilla Clan. One of his aunts is former actress/Camay model/jewelry designer Marites Revilla- Araneta. Cita Revilla-Puyat also a Camay model is his aunt. Bianca Araneta-Elizalde, a supermodel and daughter of Marites is his cousin. Tina Revilla-Valencia a former TV host is also his aunt. Another showbiz relation is actor businessman Johnny Revilla married to singer Janet Basco. Bernard is a versatile actor and has worked with all the famous actors and actresses in Philippine Cinema. He has Chinese ancestry from his father's side. Palanca was married to actress Meryll Soriano, the eldest daughter of Willie Revillame. A member of ABS CBN's Star Magic stable, Palanca was part of "The Hunks" together with Piolo Pascual, Jericho Rosales, Diether Ocampo, and Carlos Agassi and the defunct band "Bizkit Factory" that was featured in the movie "Kahit Isang Saglit". He is a Star Magic Batch 5 alumni. On August 27, 2007, Meryll Soriano gave birth to baby Elijah Pineda (6.5 lbs, 10:01 a.m.) at the Makati Medical Center (MMC). Her mother Bec-Bec Soriano rushed her to MMC and father Bernard Palanca with Pita Revilla-Palanca arrived later, while Willie Revillame promised to pay the bills. Transfer to GMA Network. Bernard is a member of an ABS-CBN Star Magic talents but he did not renew his contract after the expiration. He decide to fuse on GMA Network and became one of the cast of primetime series Gagambino were he worked with Dennis Trillo, Katrina Halili and Ryza Cenon. After Gagambino Bernard appeared again in the afternoon hit drama series co-starred with Heart Evangelista and JC de Vera in the remake of Ngayon at Kailanman aired on GMA Network. He got a short role on Philippine remake of "Rosalinda". He did a guesting role on GMA's rival station ABS-CBN via May Bukas Pa for a short role. He was a regular cast on GMA's fantasy series called Panday Kidz but the management allowed him to do some role on their rival station ABS-CBN's program Rosalka top-billed by Empress Schuck. He is now part of GMA Network's Philippine remake of Koreanovela Autumn in My Heart - Endless Love.
1062506	Amy Lou Adams (born August 20, 1974) is an American actress and singer. Adams was born to American parents in Vicenza, Italy, and began her performing career on stage in dinner theaters, before making her screen debut in the 1999 black comedy film "Drop Dead Gorgeous". After a series of television guest appearances and roles in B movies, she was cast in the role of Brenda Strong in 2002's "Catch Me If You Can", but her breakthrough role was in the 2005 independent film "Junebug", playing Ashley Johnsten, for which she received critical acclaim and an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress. Adams subsequently starred in Disney's 2007 film "Enchanted", a critical and commercial success, and received a Golden Globe Award nomination for her performance as Princess Giselle. She received her second Academy Award and Golden Globe Award nominations the following year for her role as a young nun, Sister James, in "Doubt". Though she has appeared in a range of dramatic and comedic roles, Adams originally gained a reputation for playing characters with cheerful and sunny dispositions but has since played a wider variety of roles. Adams starred in "Sunshine Cleaning" with Emily Blunt and Alan Arkin, and the following year appeared as Amelia Earhart in "". She appeared in "Julie & Julia" in 2009 portraying writer Julie Powell followed by "Leap Year" in 2010. Her role as Charlene Fleming in "The Fighter" earned Adams her third Academy Award nomination, her third Golden Globe Award, second BAFTA Award, and fifth Screen Actors Guild Award nominations. In 2011, Adams appeared in "The Muppets" alongside Jason Segel. In 2012, Adams portrayed Peggy Dodd in "The Master" and the daughter of Clint Eastwood's character in the baseball drama "Trouble with the Curve". For "The Master", Adams was nominated for her fourth Academy Award, her fourth Golden Globe Award, and her third BAFTA Award. She played Lois Lane in the 2013 Superman movie "Man of Steel". Early life. Adams was born in Vicenza, Veneto Region, Italy, the fourth of seven children of American parents Richard Kent and Kathryn (née Hicken) Adams. She has four brothers and two sisters. Her father was a U.S. serviceman stationed at Caserma Ederle at the time of her birth, and took the entire family from base to base, before settling in Castle Rock, Colorado, when Adams was eight years old. Thereafter, her father sang professionally in restaurants and her mother was a semi-professional bodybuilder. Adams was raised in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, but her family left the Mormon church after her parents' divorce in 1985. Adams said her religious upbringing "... instilled in me a value system I still hold true. The basic 'Do unto others...', that was what was hammered into me. And love." Throughout her years at Douglas County High School, Adams sang in the school choir and trained as an apprentice at a local dance company with ambitions of becoming a ballerina. Her parents had hoped that she would continue her athletic training, which she gave up to pursue dance, as it would have given her a chance to obtain a college scholarship. Adams later reflected on her decision not to go to college: "I wasn't one of those people who enjoyed being in school. I regret not getting an education, though." After graduating from high school, she moved to Atlanta with her mother. Deciding that she was not gifted enough to be a professional ballerina, she entered musical theater, which she found was "much better suited to personality". She said that ballet was "too disciplined and too restrained and I was always told off in the chorus lines" and her body at the time was "just wrecked from dancing all these years." Upon turning 18, Adams supported herself by working as a greeter at a Gap store while performing in community theater. For a few weeks after graduating high school, she took her first full-time job as a hostess at Hooters, a fact that became her "entire press career" for a while. Adams left the job three weeks later after having saved enough money to buy her first car. She admitted: "... there was definitely an innocence to my interpretation of what Hooters was about. Though I did learn, quickly, that short shorts and beer don't mix!" Career. 1995–2004: Early work. Adams began working professionally as a dancer at Boulder's Dinner Theatre and Country Dinner Playhouse. There, she was spotted by a Minneapolis dinner theater director, Michael Brindisi, in 1995. Adams relocated to Chanhassen, Minnesota, and worked at the Chanhassen Dinner Theatres for the next three years. While she was off work nursing a pulled muscle, she auditioned for the satirical 1999 comedy "Drop Dead Gorgeous", which was being filmed in Minnesota, and was cast in her first film role. Persuaded by her "Drop Dead Gorgeous" co-star Kirstie Alley, Adams moved to Los Angeles, California, in January 1999. Describing her first year there as her "dark year" and "bleak", she recalled that she would "pine for that time" at Chanhassen because she "really loved that security and schedule", and said, "The people I worked with there were also a great family to me." Shortly after arriving in Los Angeles, she was cast in Fox Network's television series spin-off of "Cruel Intentions", "Manchester Prep", in the role of Kathryn Merteuil. The series did not live up to the network's expectations and following numerous script revisions and two production shutdowns, it was canceled. The filmed episodes were then re-edited to be released as the direct-to-video film, "Cruel Intentions 2". From 2000 to 2002, Adams appeared in a series of small films like "Psycho Beach Party" while guest-starring on television series such as "That '70s Show", "Charmed", "Buffy the Vampire Slayer", "Smallville" and "The West Wing". She then appeared in Steven Spielberg's "Catch Me If You Can" as Brenda Strong, a nurse with whom Frank Abagnale, Jr. (Leonardo DiCaprio) falls in love. It was, in Spielberg's words, "the part that should have launched her career" but she was unemployed for a year after that. However, Adams said, "It was the first time I knew I could act at that level with those people. To be believed in by Steven Spielberg... it was a huge confidence booster." In 2004, she starred in "The Last Run" as well as voicing characters on the animated television series "King of the Hill". She was also cast as a regular in the television series, "Dr. Vegas", in the role of Alice Doherty but was later fired after a contract dispute. 2005–2007: Critical success and breakthrough acting roles. Prior to leaving "Dr. Vegas", she had received the script for the low-budget independent film "Junebug" and auditioned for the role of Ashley Johnsten, a young, cheerful and talkative pregnant woman. Director Phil Morrison explains his decision to cast Adams: "Lots of people looked at Ashley and thought, 'What's the sorrow she's masking?' To me, the fact that Amy didn't approach it from the angle of 'What's she covering up?' was key." The film was shot in 21 days in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. During that time, Adams turned 30 and was worried about her film career: "I thought maybe I should move to New York, maybe I should do something else. It wasn't that I was quitting or making a dramatic statement. It was more like maybe this just wasn't a good fit." On the experience of making "Junebug", Adams said, "It was really empowering. At the end of the summer I was unemployed but I was happy and I was proud. I was like, you know what, I'm done with being pushed around." "Junebug" premiered at the 2005 Sundance Film Festival with Adams winning a Special Jury Prize for her performance. After the theatrical release of "The Wedding Date", in which Adams appeared alongside Debra Messing and Dermot Mulroney, "Junebug" was released in theaters by Sony Pictures Classics. Adams earned critical accolades for her work in "Junebug"; Carina Chocano of "Los Angeles Times" noted, "Adams' performance in a role that could have easily devolved into caricature is complex and nuanced." Joe Leydon of "Variety" commented, "Partly due to her character's generosity of spirit, but mostly due to her own charisma, Adams dominates pic with her appealing portrayal of a nonjudgmental optimist savvy enough to recognize the shortcomings of others, but sweet enough to offer encouragement, not condemnation". She received several awards for Best Supporting Actress including the National Society of Film Critics award and the Independent Spirit Award. She was also nominated for a Screen Actors Guild Award and an Academy Award. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences invited Adams to become a member in 2006. Although "Junebug" had a limited audience, Adams' critically acclaimed performance in the film helped to increase interest in her acting career. Adams went on to appear in films like "Standing Still" and "", and played the recurring guest role of Katy on the television series "The Office". After providing the voice for Polly Purebred in Walt Disney Pictures' "Underdog", Adams starred in Disney's 2007 big-budget animated/live-action feature film, "Enchanted". The film, which co-stars Patrick Dempsey, Idina Menzel, Susan Sarandon and James Marsden, revolves around Giselle, who is forced from her hand-drawn animated world to real-life New York City. Adams was amongst 300 or so actresses who auditioned for the role of Giselle, but she stood out to director Kevin Lima because her "commitment to the character, her ability to escape into the character's being without ever judging the character was overwhelming." "Enchanted" was a commercial success, grossing more than $340 million worldwide. Her performance was well received by the critics, with Todd McCarthy of "Variety" describing "Enchanted" as a star-making vehicle for Adams the way "Mary Poppins" was for Julie Andrews. Roger Ebert of "Chicago Sun-Times" commented that Adams was "fresh and winning," while Wesley Morris of "The Boston Globe" stated that she "demonstrates a real performer's ingenuity for comic timing and physical eloquence." Adams garnered a Golden Globe Award nomination for Best Actress - Motion Picture Musical or Comedy, a Critics' Choice Award nomination for Best Actress, and the Saturn Award for Best Actress. Three of the film's songs were nominated for Best Original Song at the 80th Academy Awards. Adams performed one of the songs, "Happy Working Song," live on stage during the Oscar ceremony. "That's How You Know," originally performed by Adams in the film, was sung by Kristin Chenoweth at the ceremony. In an interview, Adams remarked that the song was "perfect" for Chenoweth since Chenoweth "was a huge inspiration for how approached Giselle." The success of "Enchanted" increased Adams' media exposure during the 2007–08 film awards season. As well as appearing on the covers of "Interview", "Elle" and the Hollywood issue of "Vanity Fair", which named her as one of the "10 fresh faces of 2008," Adams hosted the seventh episode of the 33rd season of "Saturday Night Live" in March 2008. In the episode, she played various characters, including Heidi Klum, as well as singing "What is this Feeling" from "Wicked" in a mock battle with "SNL" cast member Kristen Wiig during the opening monologue.
1066494	The Wood is a 1999 romantic comedy, written by Rick Famuyiwa and Todd Boyd. Famuyiwa also directed the film, which stars Omar Epps, Richard T. Jones, and Taye Diggs. The Wood premiered on Cinemax in July 2012. It is the first film from the Paramount Pictures library after 1997 to show on Cinemax or HBO Plot. Roland (Taye Diggs) is getting married (and is currently missing) and Slim (Richard T. Jones), who scoffs at the idea of marriage, is furious at Roland for disappearing. The story reminisces back to Mike's (Omar Epps)(portrayed as a youth by Sean Nelson) first encounters with Roland (Trent Cameron) and Slim (Duane Finley), his first real crush on a girl named Alicia (Malinda Williams), and the three young men's misadventures as teenagers growing up in Inglewood, California ("The Wood"). Shy and awkward, Mike sticks out like a sore thumb on his first day, but is quickly befriended by Slim and Roland. On a dare from Slim and Roland, Mike runs and grabs Alicia's butt, leading to a big fight with her big brother Stacey (De'Aundre Bonds), a violent gang member. While he is thoroughly beat down, Mike earns Stacey's private respect for fighting back like a man. Meanwhile in present day, Mike and Slim go to find Roland for his wedding, when they get a call from Tanya (Tamala Jones) saying that she has him with her and that he is very drunk. They go to her house to pick him up to take him back to the wedding to marry his bride Lisa (LisaRaye McCoy) because they only have two hours before the ceremony begins. Back to their old school times: on their way to their first dance of the year they go to a store that gets held up by Stacey, who recognizes the boys and offers them a ride to the dance. The boys almost get arrested by two cops due to Stacey's broken taillight. Mike's quick thinking prevents one of the cops from finding Stacey's gun and they are let go not realizing that the hold-up Stacey and Boo did is what gotten them off the hook. Impressed, Stacey begins a new friendship with Mike by apologizing for their prior run in but explains that he was protecting his sister, and, seeing how much Mike likes her, gives him advice on how to win her heart. When they get back to the dance it is almost over and Mike gets to dance with Alicia and at the end of the dance gets her number. In the present day while reminiscing, Roland gets sick and throws up all over Slim and Mike. Now they only have an hour left before the wedding and they have to get cleaned up so they take their clothes to the cleaners. Mike, returning to their memories when they were juniors in high school remembers them thinking about sex, ways to get it and making a lot of bets as to who has it first. One day Mike and Alicia walk to her house from the library talking about the prom. They hear the first song they danced to remember their first kiss. They begin to have sex but stop because Mike's condom breaks. Alicia tells Mike that Stacey should have a condom in his room. Mike finds a condom in Stacey's room and has to hide under his bed so as not to get caught when Stacey and his girlfriend come home. After they leave Mike goes back to Alicia's room and they finally make love. Mike wins the bet but he doesn't tell Roland and Slim out of respect for Alicia. Mike, now hiding his still present shyness with a veil of over confidence, reconnects romantically with Alicia. It's revealed in the present that after high school, Alicia and Mike went their separate ways. The boys finally make it to the wedding and Roland apologizes to a furious Lisa for leaving her worried. Before the ceremony begins Mike sees Alicia (Sanaa Lathan). Roland and Lisa get married. Mike tells his last childhood memory, and its when they go to a homecoming dance for their school and that they will be the boys from "The Wood". Critical Reviews. Critical Consensus Critics Reviews Average Grade: B- culturevulture.net, "...there is substance given to the characters' lives." more... B- Nitrate Online, Cynthia Fuchs "...involves basic boy-bonding." more... C+ Orlando Weekly, Philip Booth "...a coming-of-age tale that's only occasionally too sweet." more... B- ReelViews, James Berardinelli "...a pleasant but relatively inconsequential movie..." more... B- More Critics Reviews... Awards and nominations. 2000 Black Reel Awards 2000 NAACP Image Awards 2001 ASCAP Film and Television Music Awards Soundtrack. A soundtrack was released on July 13, 1999 by Jive Records featuring rap and R&B music. The soundtrack found great success, peaking at #16 on the Billboard 200 and #2 on the Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums, and was certified gold by the RIAA on August 25, 1999. References. http://movies.yahoo.com/movie/1800019704/info
1165551	William Lindsey "Bill" Erwin (December 2, 1914 – December 29, 2010) was an American film, stage and television actor with over 250 television and film credits. As a veteran character actor, he was widely known for his role of Sid Fields, an embittered, irascible man on "Seinfeld" – for which he received an Emmy nomination – as well his appearances on shows such as "I Love Lucy" and "".
1395862	"Grave Danger" is the name of the finale of the American crime drama "", which is set in Las Vegas, Nevada. This two parter was directed by Quentin Tarantino and was aired on May 19, 2005. The episode features veteran actors Tony Curtis and Frank Gorshin as long-time friends of character Sam Braun. Gorshin died two days before the episode aired in the United States. The episode was later dedicated to his memory. Summary. The separated graveyard-shift team join together after one of their own is kidnapped from a crime scene and held for a million dollar ransom by a mysterious and vengeful assailant. However, it soon appears that the kidnapping may be about more than the ransom. Plot. Volume 1. The show opens with Nick Stokes driving down The Strip at night, listening to Bob Neuwirth's "Lucky Too" on the radio. He pulls over at a car park and a uniformed officer leads him to the "body": a set of intestines coiled in an alley. When the officer walks off to be sick, Nick wanders down the alley and spots a styrofoam coffee cup, already in an evidence bag. As he crouches down to photograph it, he is snatched from behind and a cloth is clamped over his face. Twenty-five minutes later, police officers and CSIs swarm the scene. Conrad Ecklie, Assistant Director of the Crime Lab, arrives and assures Grissom and Catherine that "the crime lab only has one case tonight." As they search the scene, they find Nick's stab vest, camera and kit lying on the ground. They see the bagged coffee cup and realize that Nick did not bag it. The scene cuts to earlier that night: Grissom and Sara are reviewing a past homicide case, Greg and Hodges are playing a Dukes of Hazzard board game and Nick and Warrick toss a coin to choose assignments: an assault at a strip club or a "trash run" at the cross of Flamingo and Koval. Nick loses and Warrick leaves for the club, gloating. Back to the present, police scent dogs track the smell of Nick's vest to an empty parking space on a side street. Warrick notices a void in the fallen rain and takes measurements. With the help of the lab technicians and a dispatch officer, Warrick determines the getaway vehicle to be a Ford Expedition and tracks its escape route on the traffic camera video tapes. Doc Robbins determines that the entrails belong to a dog.
584238	Singam Puli () is a 2011 Indian Tamil-language action-masala film directed by Sai Ramani, starring Jiiva in dual roles, with Divya Spandana and Honey Rose being paired opposite him, while Santhanam plays a pivotal role. The film was released on 4 March 2011.. Film was dubbed into Telugu as "Simham Puli". Plot. Singam Puli is the story of a fisherman who confronts an evil lawyer. Critical reception. Amit Mishra in nowrunning.com gave the film 2/5 stars stating that "Singam Puli is a mildly entertaining film that is worth checking out if you're looking for popcorn escapism". Soundtrack. All songs scored by Mani Sharma.
1377412	Kenton Duty (born May 12, 1995) is an American actor, dancer and singer. He is best known for his recurring role as "Young Jacob" on the final season of the ABC primetime drama, "Lost", and for his co-starring role as the flamboyant European exchange student, Gunther Hessenheffer on the Disney Channel comedy series, "Shake It Up!". Early life. Kenton Duty was born on May 12, 1995. He was born and raised in Plano, Texas and has two younger siblings, twin sisters, Jessica and Rebecca, born in 1999. Duty first began studying acting at the age of 9, when his parents suggested he attend a musical theatre workshop to help him feel comfortable in front of an audience for school presentations. It was at the summer workshop that he discovered he had a love for musical theatre, and it was there that he would also meet the casting director who would ask him to audition for his first play, "A Christmas Carol". Career. In 2004, Duty began his acting career in Dallas, Texas at the age of 9, playing "Young Scrooge" in the Dallas Theater Center's musical stage production of "A Christmas Carol". He appeared on-stage again the following year with a principal role in the Denton Community Theater's production of "Ragtime". Duty began auditioning for roles in Los Angeles after he was discovered at a showcase performance at the Young Actors Studio in Dallas, Texas by Hollywood talent agent, Cindy Osbrink and she invited him to come to California to audition for pilot season. He has appeared in numerous national commercials for McDonalds, Wal-Mart, Pizza Hut, and Mattel. In 2007, after several appearances in comedy sketches on "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno", Duty landed his first featured role as Michael in the Lifetime television movie, "Christmas in Paradise". Over the next two years, he appeared in guest-starring roles on "Cold Case" and "The Jay Leno Show", as well as a co-starring role in the popular web series "Ctrl". In 2009, Duty landed his first feature film role in the suspense thriller, "", as well as feature film roles in the horror film, "Forget Me Not", the comedy film, "Crazy on the Outside", and the Bollywood film, "My Name Is Khan". In the spring of 2010, Duty gained popular notoriety in the role of "Young Jacob" on the hit TV series "Lost", although no one, including Duty himself, knew who his character was until nearly the final episode of the series. He was billed simply as “Teenage Boy.” In the fall of 2010, Duty landed a co-starring role on the Disney Channel original series "Shake It Up!" as the flamboyant dancer/fashion designer, Gunther Hessenheffer alongside Caroline Sunshine as his twin sister, Tinka. The glitzy brother/sister duo of Gunther and Tinka is said to be inspired by Ryan and Sharpay Evans of Disney's "High School Musical" franchise. While finding some aspects of the show formulaic, "People Magazine" critic, Tom Gliatto expressed appreciation for the comedic twosome's work on the series, writing - ""Shake It Up" doesn't shake up the kidcom formula, but it has something more than the usual shiny-sparkly cuteness... The best performances are from Caroline Sunshine and Kenton Duty as an overbearing brother-and-sister act from abroad named Tinka and Gunther. They're like "High School Musical's" Sharpay split in two and speaking in an unplaceable accent." On June 4, 2012, it was announced that Duty would no longer be a regular on "Shake It Up", but would possibly return in a recurring capacity much like co-star Caroline Sunshine during the first season. Not long after his departure from "Shake It Up", Duty began work on the films "Contest", "Silver Bells" and the short, "Murphy". After a brief stint in the musical group Invasion, Duty moved on to developing his solo music career. In June 2013, he released the lyric video for his first single, titled "Teenage Summer Nights." Personal life. Duty currently lives in Los Angeles with his parents and two younger twin sisters. Duty loves animals and dreamed of becoming a veterinarian before beginning his acting career. He has a pet guinea pig named "Peanut", and a horse that he keeps on his grandmother's property in Texas. Duty's hobbies include baking, cooking, and horseback riding. He also enjoys singing, playing guitar and songwriting. Before beginning work on the TV series "Shake It Up!", Duty played guitar and sang in the band KGMC Gigmasters with Braeden Lemasters and fellow "Lost" co-star Dylan Minnette. Having no dance experience prior to his role on "Shake It Up", Duty began taking private lessons in his free time to develop his dance skills. When he isn't working, Duty involves himself with charitable causes including the Disney's Friends for Change initiative, which benefits environmental charities through the Disney Worldwide Conservation Fund, the Starlight Children's Foundation, which is dedicated to improving the quality of life for children with chronic and life-threatening medical conditions, UCLA Mattel Children’s Hospital, which is dedicated to researching and treating pediatric diseases, the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, which is dedicated to improving the quality of life for those living with cystic fibrosis, and St. Jude Children's Hospital, which is dedicated to providing treatment to children with cancer and other catastrophic illnesses. Kenton is also involved with the Food Allergy and Anaphylaxis Network (FAAN). FAAN is a non-profit organization that provides information, programs and resources about food allergies and anaphylaxis. In addition to his charity work, Duty has been an outspoken voice against school bullying. In May 2011, he was named one of "Dream Magazine's" "Top 16 Under 16" and, when asked about the problem of bullying and cyber-bullying, Duty told the magazine - "You know, I have been bullied. It is always an awkward and difficult situation to be in. A couple of things to try when being bullied is to avoid the bully as much as possible, try using humor against the bully, have a sense of confidence... Hold your head up and look everyone in the eyes."
1047081	The Beast of Hollow Mountain is a 1956 scifi/horror western about an American cowboy living in Mexico who discovers his missing cattle are being preyed upon by an "Allosaurus". The "Allosaurus" would later attack local villagers in a town, and eventually be destroyed by getting lured into some quicksand and drowning.
1598208	Shane Rimmer (born 28 May 1929) is a Canadian actor and voice actor, known for providing the voice of Scott Tracy in the British television series "Thunderbirds" (1965–66). Career. Film. Rimmer has appeared mainly in supporting roles – especially in films and television series produced in the United Kingdom, having emigrated to England in the late 1950s, initially performing as a cabaret singer and then auditioning for "Thunderbirds". His appearances include roles in films such as "" (1964), "Rollerball" (1975), "The Spy Who Loved Me" (1977), "Gandhi" (1982), "Out of Africa" (1985) and "Crusoe" (1989). More recently, he has appeared in "Spy Game" (2001) and "Batman Begins" (2005). In the earlier years of his career, Rimmer appeared uncredited in, among other films, "You Only Live Twice" (1967), "Diamonds Are Forever" (1971), "" (1977) and "Superman II" (1980). With the exception of cast members playing recurring characters, he has appeared in more "James Bond" films than any other actor. He also is believed to have provided the voice for the character Hamilton (played by Robert Dix) in "Live and Let Die" (1973) ("Whose, uh, funeral is it?" ("Yours")) Television. Rimmer had a long-running association with TV producer Gerry Anderson. "Thunderbirds" fans recognise him as the voice actor behind the character of Scott Tracy. He drafted the story for the penultimate episode, "Ricochet" (1966), from which writer Tony Barwick penned a script. He also wrote scripts and provided uncredited voices for Anderson's subsequent Supermarionation productions "Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons" (1967–68), "Joe 90" (1968–69) and "The Secret Service" (1969), appeared in episodes of the live-action series "UFO" (1970) and "The Protectors" (1972–74), provided voices for "" (1975–77), and guest-starred in one of its episodes, "Space Brain" (1976). Later, he appeared in the un-televised 1983 pilot "Space Police" (which was adapted as a full TV series and renamed "Space Precinct" in the 1990s) and provided the voice of the title character in "Dick Spanner, P.I." (1986–87). Also as Ed Condon in Oppenheimer. Rimmer and fellow Anderson associate, American actor Ed Bishop, would joke about how their professional paths frequently crossed, calling themselves "Rent-a-Yanks". They appeared together as United States Navy sailors in "The Bedford Incident" (1965) and as NASA technicians in the opening of "You Only Live Twice" (1967), as well as touring together on stage, including a production of "Death of a Salesman" in the 1990s. Rimmer and Bishop also appeared in the BBC drama-documentary "Hiroshima", which was completed shortly after Bishop's death in 2005. Other work. Rimmer also appeared once in "Doctor Who" (in the 1966 serial "The Gunfighters"), and twice in "Coronation Street": as Joe Donnelli (from 1968 to 1970), who held Stan Ogden hostage before committing suicide, and Malcolm Reid (in 1988), the father of Audrey Roberts' son Stephen. He has made many guest appearances in British TV series for ITV, including Roald Dahl's "Tales of the Unexpected", as well as ITC's "The Persuaders!" In 1989, Rimmer was reunited with Bishop and another Gerry Anderson associate, Matt Zimmerman, during the production of a BBC Radio 4 adaptation of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's "A Study In Scarlet". In 2012, he recorded a reading of Donald Cotton's "Doctor Who" novelisation of "The Gunfighters" for release in February 2013.
585188	Magalir Mattum is a 1994 Tamil-language Indian feature film directed by Singeetham Srinivasa Rao, starring Revathy, Urvashi, Rohini and Nassar in lead roles with Nagesh and Kamal Haasan in guest appearance. The film was inspired by the American film "9 to 5". Storyline. The story is about three different women who work at a fashion export company. Janaki (Urvashi) is a typist who lives with her husband and her baby to earn for a living as her husband lost his job in a factory. Pappamma (Rohini) is a house keeper who lives with her drunkard rickshaw pulling husband and earns for both their living and her husband's drinking expense. Satya (Revathi) a computer graduate and designer who waits to get married. Her marriage was stopped by her once when the groom's family listed a lot for dowry. She joins the fashion company as a fashion designer and stays in a hostel. All the women in the company face a common threat in the form of manager Pandian (Nassar) who is a womanizer. He harasses his female employees in one way or other but the women tolerate his torture due to their family circumstances. Pandian tries to move close with Satya and unaware of Pandian's intention Satya at first dines with him. This isolates her from other employees. Pandian tries to impress her by presenting a silk saree but Satya insults him by saying that only a father or husband should present saree to a woman and what he has done is pure idiotic. This gains the friendship of Janaki and Pappamma to her and Satya understands about Pandian. A small daily clash occurs between Pappamma and Janaki whenever Pappamma misplaces rat poison besides sugar and Janaki mixes rat poison by mistake in the coffee of Pandian's as both sugarand poison look alike. Due to Satya's friendship Janaki becomes bold enough to face her supervisor and she insults her in front of everyone. Hence the supervisor tries to revenge by hiding an important file which is under Janaki's custody. But Pappamma helps her by revealing the truth to Pandian. All the three women are much frustrated by Pandian's attitude and are finding some way to stop his misdeeds towards them. Pandian one day tries to hold Janaki after office hours. But Satya stays back for her help. Janaki mixes rat poison without seeing the stuff in Pandian's coffee and gives him and goes for her work. Pandian falls from his chair and becomes unconscious. Satya finds his state and admits him in hospital. Janaki finds that she has mixed rat poison in the coffee and Pandian drank it and reveals the truth to her friends which shock them. All three rush to hospital and hear that the patient is dead due to strong dosage of poison. But actually they don't know that the dead man is a terrorist who died by drinking cyanide and Pandian has actually fainted due to minor injury and has recovered. They kidnap the corpse and take it to Satya's room only to find that they have kidnapped corpse of the terrorist. Hence they decide to place it back in the hospital. But Pappamma's husband misunderstands that his wife and the dead man has a relationship and fights with him. Finally police find out the missed corpse and all three leave silently. Pandian returns to office and this shocks the three women. The supervisor overhears their conversation and informs Pandian. Pandian blackmails them that he would report to the police about the murder attempt if they did not obey what he says. He demand to spent each night with all the three women in his private house. All three come to a decision and pretend to accept his demands. In his private house, they initially act to romance but finally trap him and tie him. Satya takes charge of acting manager and with the help of Janaki, Pappamma and other employees she brings many changes in the office. In the evening all the three go the private house. One day Satya receives information from head office about boss' visit and get tensed as they have kidnapped the manager. All the three decide to confess about whatever happened in the office and rush to airport to receive the boss. The supervisor overhears them and she rescues Pandian. Both Satya and Pandian try to rush airport before the other. Satya mistakes for an old man to be the boss instead a young man (Kamal Hassan) comes and leaves with Pandian. The trio is shocked and chase him to office. In the office the young boss finds differences and Pandian says that he is not responsible for anything happened here. But the boss looks like he is aware about whatever happened there and appreciates all the three for their innovative ideas. He decides to leave the charge of the office to the trio and transfers Pandian to Andaman. He also gives remedy for Janaki's husband's job in his friend's factory and Pappamma's husband's job as watchman in their school. When he inquires about Satya's marriage Janaki tells that she has a dream boy drawn in the computer. Satya shows her dream boy to him and all are surprised that Satya's dream boy is their boss. The boss asks Satya to marry him and they both fall in the repaired chair revealing that Satya accepted his proposal. Dubbing. "Magalir Mattum" was dubbed in Telugu as "Aadavaallaku Maatram" and "Ladies Only" in Malayalam. Track listing. All Songs penned by Vaali.
1037361	Michael John Elphick (19 September 1946 – 7 September 2002) was an English actor. Elphick was known in the UK for his trademark croaky voice and his work on British television, in particular his roles as the eponymous private investigator in the ITV series "Boon" and later Harry Slater in BBC's "EastEnders". In his prime, Elphick always looked older than he was, and with his gruff Cockney accent and lip-curling sneer he often played menacing hard men. Elphick struggled with a highly publicised addiction to alcohol; at the height of his problem he admitted to consuming two litres of spirits a day, which contributed towards his death from a heart attack in 2002. Early life. Elphick grew up in Chichester, Sussex, where his family had a butcher's shop. He was educated at Lancastrian Secondary Modern Boys School in Chichester, where he took part in several school productions including "Noah" and "A Midsummer Night's Dream". He initially considered joining the Merchant Navy and helped out in his local boatyard during school holidays. It has been reported that he stumbled upon acting by chance when, at the age of 15, he took a job as an apprentice electrician at the Chichester Festival Theatre while it was being built. He gained an interest in acting whilst watching stars such as Laurence Olivier, Michael Redgrave and Sybil Thorndyke. Olivier advised Elphick to go to drama school and gave him two speeches to use at auditions. Elphick was offered a number of places but decided to train at the Central School of Speech and Drama in Swiss Cottage (aged 18), because Olivier had attended there. Career. After graduating from drama school Elphick was offered roles primarily as menacing heavies. He made his debut in "Fraulein Doktor" (an Italian-made First World War film circa 1968). He went on to play the Captain in Tony Richardson's version of "Hamlet" (1969); landed parts in cult films such as "The First Great Train Robbery" and "The Elephant Man" and appeared in Lindsay Anderson's allegorical "O Lucky Man!" (1973). In 1983 he played the role of Pasha in the film "Gorky Park", for which he received a 1985 Best Supporting Actor BAFTA Award nomination. He was also seen as Phil Daniels's father in the cult film "Quadrophenia" (1979) and as the poacher, Jake, in "Withnail & I" (1987). In 1984 he played the lead, Fisher, a British detective recalling under hypnosis a dystopian, crumbling Europe and his hunt for a serial killer in Lars von Trier's Palme D'Or nominated debut film, "The Element of Crime". On stage, Elphick played Marcellus and the Player King in Tony Richardson's stage version of "Hamlet" at the Roundhouse Theatre and on Broadway and he later played Claudius to Jonathan Pryce's Hamlet at the Royal Court Theatre, directed by Richard Eyre. In 1981 he appeared in the Ray Davies/Barrie Keeffe musical "Chorus Girls" at the Theatre Royal, Stratford East and he was also seen in "The Changing Room", directed by Lindsay Anderson, at the Royal Court Theatre. His last West End stage appearance was in 1997 as Doolittle in "Pygmalion" directed by Ray Cooney at the Albery Theatre. However it was for his television roles that Elphick became best known. He briefly appeared in "Coronation Street" (1974) as Douglas Wormold, son of the landlord Edward, who for many years owned most of the properties in the road. Douglas unsuccessfully tried to buy the Kabin newsagent's from Len Fairclough. In 1979 he appeared in "Crown Court" as Neville Griffiths QC, prosecuting the daughter of the Selsey family for harming her abusive father. He was the only actor in that three-part story to correctly pronounce "Selsey" as "Zell-Zey", in the manner of the West Sussex village near where his mother lived in Chichester. He played one of the main roles in the film "Black Island" in 1978 for the Children's Film Foundation, played a villain in "The Sweeney" episode "One of Your Own" (1978) and played a policeman in "The Professionals" episode "Backtrack" (1979) and had a minor role in "Hazell" (1979), and appeared in the Dennis Potter play "Blue Remembered Hills" (1979). Elphick took the title role in Jack Pulman's drama "Private Schulz" (1981). Here he played Gerhard Schulz, a German soldier conscripted into SS Counter Espionage during the Second World War to destroy the British economy by flooding it with forged money. He appeared as the Irish labourer Magowan during the first series of "Auf Wiedersehen, Pet" (1983) and starred as Sidney Mundy in the ITV sitcom "Pull the Other One" (1984), before playing Sam Tyler in four series of "Three Up, Two Down" (1985–89). In 1986 Elphick landed his biggest television success, "Boon" (1986–92, 1995). He played Ken Boon, a retired fireman who opened a motorbike despatch business and later became a private investigator. Boon was very successful and ran for seven series, attracting audiences of 11 million at its peak. There was also a one-off episode screened in 1995, two years after it had been made. During breaks from Boon, Elphick continued to act in film with cameo roles in "The Krays" (1990) and "Let Him Have It" (1991). In 1993 Elphick took the role of a former Fleet Street journalist running a Darlington news agency in "Harry" (1993, 1995). He played the alcoholic and ruthless Harry Salter, who frequently used exploitation and underhand tactics to get a story. This series however was less successful and it was soon cancelled. Elphick went on to play Billy Bones in Ken Russell's televised version of "Treasure Island" (1995) and Barkis in "David Copperfield" (1999). In 2001 he joined the cast of "EastEnders", where he played Harry Slater, a romantic interest for Peggy Mitchell (Barbara Windsor). The plotline indicated that Slater had sexually abused his niece, Kat Slater (Jessie Wallace), at the age of 13 and her "sister" Zoe (Michelle Ryan) was the daughter born to her when she became pregnant by him. Elphick's heavy drinking began to affect his performances, so the character promptly left the series, and news of his death in Spain reached Walford four months later. Personal life. Elphick met his long-term partner, school teacher Julia Alexander, in 1963 and remained with her until her death from cancer in 1996. The couple had a daughter, Kate. For many years Elphick struggled with alcoholism. He made the first of many attempts to stop drinking in 1988, after doctors warned him he could die within a year if he continued. He sought help from Alcoholics Anonymous in the early 1990s, although he admitted he was still drinking in 1993. In 1996 he admitted that he had begun drinking heavily again and also contemplated suicide after the death of his partner of 33 years. However he rallied and returned to the stage in "Loot". The actor also confessed to having taken cocaine and once, while high on drugs, grabbing a shotgun and chasing a gang of thugs after he had been carjacked near his villa in Portugal. Elphick was admitted to the Priory Clinic in Roehampton, in an attempt to beat his addictions. Reports of his alcohol abuse persisted, however, and during his brief spell on "EastEnders" during 2001 it was reported that the BBC was considering dropping his character if his drinking was not curtailed. Death. On 7 September 2002, Elphick died of a heart attack complicated by his drinking problem. He had collapsed at his home in Willesden Green, London, after complaining of pains. He was rushed to hospital where he died. He was 55 years old, twelve days before his 56th birthday. His interment was located in Chichester Crematorium.
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1059159	Millions is a 2004 British comedy-drama film directed by Academy Award–winning director Danny Boyle, and starring Alex Etel, Lewis McGibbon, and James Nesbitt. The screenwriter Frank Cottrell Boyce adapted his novel while the film was in the process of being made. The novel "Millions" was subsequently awarded the Carnegie Medal. So far, this is Danny Boyle's only film that's not R rated by the MPAA. Plot. "Millions" tells the story of 7-year-old Damian, a devout Catholic school boy, whose family moves to the suburbs of Widnes after the death of his mother. Soon after the move, Damian's "hermitage" in a cardboard box by the train tracks is disturbed by a bag of money flung from a passing train. Damian immediately shows the money to his brother, Anthony, and the two begin thinking of what to do with it. Anthony wants the money all to himself. Damian, kind-hearted and religious, had recently overheard three Latter-day Saint missionaries lecture other members of the community on building foundations of rock rather than foundations of sand, an old Christian principle which dictates that self-worth should be based on the teachings of Christ rather than any other object of worship such as Money/Mammon or Power. The lecture inspires Damian, who looks for ways to give his share of the money to the poor; at one point he even stuffs a bundle of cash through the missionaries' letter box, having heard about their modest lifestyle and deciding that they too must be poor. Throughout the story, Damian commits small acts of kindness like buying birds from pet stores and setting them free and taking beggars to Pizza Hut, while Anthony bribes other kids at school into being his transportation and bodyguards, and looks into investing the money in real estate. The story takes place in the weeks leading up to The Bank of England's (fictional) change from the pound (£) to the euro (€)- an event publicised as '€ Day'. An assembly is held at Damian's school to inform the children about the change, as well as to educate the children about helping the poor. Realizing that the money, which is in pounds, will be no good after a few days, Damian decides that the best thing to do would be to give it away before the conversion. He drops £1,000 into the donation can at the assembly. The woman collecting the money, Dorothy, is forced to report Damian; when questioned by the principal, Anthony lies that he and Damian stole the money from the Mormons. Damian and Anthony are grounded that night. When their father collects them from school he chats with Dorothy, and there is an obvious attraction between them. After the donation, Anthony's friend informs them that a train carrying notes which were to be destroyed after the conversion had been robbed. One bag was stolen in a diversion, while the robber remained on the train disguised as one of the emergency staff, and the money had been dispersed by throwing it off of the train at various locations throughout the country to be collected by the robbers. The boys logically conclude that their money was stolen, and Damian, who thought the money was from God, feels terrible. Around this time, a mysterious man comes snooping around the train tracks and asks Damian if he has any money. Damian thinks that the man is a beggar and tells him he has 'loads of money'. However, Anthony realises he is one of the robbers, and gives the man a jar full of coins to cover Damian's tracks. The robber eventually finds out where Damian lives and ransacks his house. Damian had informed his father about the money just before they came home to their destroyed house. The robbery is then explained. The robbers boarded the train. They then escaped the police by dressing as football fans and joining a crowd of similarly dressed fans leaving a game. However, one man remained on the train. He began to throw the money off, to be collected later. The robber who came sneaking around hid in Damian's room after ransacking it, much in the way the train robbery was carried out. Damian's father, who had resolved to give the money back, decided that if the robbers were going to steal his family's Christmas, then he would steal the robbers' money. The family, as well as Dorothy, go on a massive shopping spree on Christmas Eve. That night, after they are asleep, their house is bombarded by beggars and charities begging for contributions, and seeing the confusion that results, Damian runs off to the train tracks to burn the money, deciding that it was doing more harm than good. While he is burning the money, he is visited by his dead mother, who tells him not to worry about her. In the final scene, the audience sees Damian's dream of the family flying a rocket ship to Africa and helping develop water wells, while Damian narrates over the scene that each family member but him had hidden a little bit of the money beforehand. Damian convinced them to spend this money on the wells he is dreaming about. Earlier in the movie this was shown to be the most crucial and cheapest way to drastically improve the quality of life for many African communities. Box office. The film was a mild box office success, earning £7,830,074.88 worldwide despite a limited release to just 340 theatres, contending with Steven Spielberg's "War of the Worlds". Around £3,987,642.22 of the final box office was received in the UK alone. Critical reception. The film received very positive reviews, earning an 88% "Certified Fresh" approval rating on the review aggregate website Rotten Tomatoes. Roger Ebert awarded it a rating of four out of four stars and declared it "one of the best films of the year." He went on to write, ". . . although "Millions" uses special effects and materializing saints, it's a film about real ideas, real issues and real kids. It's not sanitized brainless eye candy. Like all great family movies, it plays equally well for adults—maybe better, since we know how unusual it is." It was on his Top 10 movies of 2005 placing at number 10. Richard Roeper, Roger Ebert's co-host on the television show "Ebert & Roeper", called it "One of the most stylish and eccentric films about childhood dreams and heartbreaks that I've ever seen." Leonard Maltin praised the film upon its DVD release, saying ""Millions" is a winning and unpredictable fable from England that will charm viewers both young and old." Christian film critics. Christian publications weighed in on the film, many adding stock to its religious message. "Catholic News Service"'s Harry Forbes wrote, "Boyle's offbeat tale—with a clever script by Frank Cottrell Boyce—features good performances all around, especially by the remarkable Etel, who displays just the right innocence and religious fervor in delightful vignettes with the saints. The script dramatizes the themes of money and its complexities and the need for societal philanthropy without being heavy-handed, making this ideal entertainment for older adolescents and up." Sister Rose Pacatte, F.S.P. (AmericanCatholic.org) commented, ""Millions" engages, inspires and is just quirky enough to be charming." She added, "Damien's familiarity with the saints and his recitation of their biographies is accurate and very funny." However, although praising the film overall for its positive depiction of the role the Christian faith can play in a young boy's life, there were details some felt marred its religious underpinning. As Harry Forbes wrote, "The film contains a couple of mildly crude expressions, some intense episodes of menace, a momentary sexual situation, religious stereotyping, and a brief scene where the brothers look, with boyish curiosity, at a web site for women's bras on a computer." As such, he explained, "the USCCB Office for Film & Broadcasting classification is A-II – adults and adolescents." Johnathan Wooten of "Christian Spotlight on Entertainment" downplayed the significance, saying, "Those concerned about objectionable content will not find much to offend here though. There is very little violence (a short robbery scene, a very brief moment of a child in peril). Sexual content includes a glimpse of an unmarried couple in bed together as well as pre-pubescent boy viewing an Internet lingerie ad. When played out the latter scene actually has a strange wholesomeness to it considering his other viewing options. The only profanity is some mild British slang." Awards and recognition. The film premiered at the 2004 Toronto International Film Festival on 14 September 2004. 2005 British Independent Film Awards 2006 Broadcast Film Critics Association Awards 2005 Emden International Film Festival 2005 Golden Trailer Awards 2005 Humanitas Prize 2005 Phoenix Film Critics Association 2006 Saturn Awards
1068351	Hood of Horror (aka "Snoop Dogg's Hood of Horror") is a horror film adaptation of a fictional comic book, which is an anthology of three short tales set in an urban milieu in a style reminiscent of "Tales From The Crypt" and "Tales from the Hood". The movie debuted at the 2006 Cannes Film Festival. The American premiere was on October 18, 2006 at Mann's Hollywood and Highland in Los Angeles. It was also the "secret" ninth film screened in the 8 Films to Die For film festival on November 19, 2006. It opened worldwide in theaters on May 4, 2007. Plot. The animated introduction revolves around how Devon (voiced by Snoop Dogg) becomes a Hound Of Hell, in which he agreed to sell his soul to a demon named Liore (voiced by Hawthorne James) to bring back his dead sister (whom he has accidentally killed). Liore grants him knowledge, strength, and the power to decide who goes to heaven or hell for an unspecified period of time. The animation is switched out showing Devon as a real person, as he narrates the stories. Crossed Out. A female tagger named Posie (Daniella Alonso) is given the power of death by a mysterious Derelict (Danny Trejo) (another Hound of Hell), who captures her while she tries to escape from some gang members (Teyo Johnson, Noel Gugliemi and Jeffrey Licon). With it, any tag she "crosses out" causes the gruesome demise of the original tagger. She later suffers the ultimate price when she loses sight of her calling as an artist and starts to abuse her power. The Derelict told her that she could have broken the cycle of murder and violence in her city, but instead she made it worse. He takes the power away and sics the recently deceased gang members on her. They lodge a spray-paint can in her head and spray the wall with her blood into a beautiful mural. A service is given for Posie and her beautiful flower mural, while Devon and Derelict watch on in human disguises. The Scumlord. A racist white couple, Tex Woods Jr. (Anson Mount) and Tiffany (Brande Roderick), are given the chance at inheritance when Tex's father, Tex Woods Sr. (Chuck Hicks) dies "mysteriously". But in order for them to receive the inheritance, they have to live with some black Vietnam vets (Ernie Hudson, Richard Gant, Tucker Smallwood and L. Kenneth Richardson) that served under Tex's father for a year. Instead of learning tolerance and respect from the vets, Tex and Tiffany just harass them and force them to work. When they start to cause casualties, they soon become victims to their unhappy house mates. After Tiffany ironically dies by stomach explosion from caviar and Tex Woods Jr.'s demise, the remaining housemates gain the inheritance of their friend Tex Woods and celebrate. Soon, Devon, who is now revealed to be the new landlord, greets them and congratulates them on their new wealth. However, it's short lived when Tiffany's dog starts barking at Devon, who shoots it in anger, then calmly saying, "No pets allowed." Rapsody Askew. A new rapper named SOD (Pooch Hall) is finally starting to gain recognition and fame. During an awards show after party, he is confronted by Clara (Lin Shaye), a mysterious woman who seemingly stops time (implying she too is a Hound of Hell). She shows him videos from his up and coming days: from when he first met Quon (Aries Spears) (another up-coming MC) to Quon's last day when he was gunned down in a liquor store by a masked burglar. During that life, Quon was always there acting as a big brother usually defending SOD when his ego got out of line. Quon was offered a solo career after SOD's behavior was out of control, but Quon refused and stayed with SOD. When SOD denies having anything to do with his death, Quon enters the room. Back from the dead, Quon knows it was really SOD and Jersey (Diamond Dallas Page) (SOD's manager) who were behind his death revealing the elaborate plot of SOD wearing a bulletproof vest as well as Jersey being the gunman as an act of betrayal and act of fame. Quon then brutally kills Jersey and frames SOD, who is then gunned down by the police. Epilogue. During all the stories, Devon, tells the audience that each character had the potential to do good in life, but instead, chose to do evil for their own needs that resulted in each of their deaths. After each segment, he takes all the deceased characters to a mysterious elevator. First pulling Posie out of her mural, then dragging Tex Woods Jr. by the horn which is embedded in his neck with his partner dragging Tiffany afterwards. After claiming SOD, Devon takes SOD, Posie, Tex Wood Jr., and Tiffany and sends all of them to a one way ticket straight to hell, where all of them are further tormented.
1103184	Lev Semenovich Pontryagin (Russian: Лев Семёнович Понтря́гин) (3 September 1908 – 3 May 1988) was a Soviet mathematician. He was born in Moscow and lost his eyesight due to a primus stove explosion when he was 14. Despite his blindness he was able to become one of the greatest mathematicians of the 20th century, partially with the help of his mother Tatyana Andreevna who read mathematical books and papers (notably those of Heinz Hopf, J. H. C. Whitehead and Hassler Whitney) to him. He made major discoveries in a number of fields of mathematics, including algebraic topology and differential topology. Work. Pontryagin worked on duality theory for homology while still a student. He went on to lay foundations for the abstract theory of the Fourier transform, now called Pontryagin duality. In topology, he posed the basic problem of cobordism theory. This led to the introduction around 1940 of a theory of certain characteristic classes, now called Pontryagin classes, designed to vanish on a manifold that is a boundary. In 1942 he introduced the cohomology operations now called Pontryagin squares. Moreover, in operator theory there are specific instances of Krein spaces called Pontryagin spaces. Later in his career he worked in optimal control theory. His maximum principle is fundamental to the modern theory of optimization. He also introduced there the idea of a bang-bang principle, to describe situations where either the maximum 'steer' should be applied to a system, or none. Pontryagin authored several influential monographs as well as popular textbooks in mathematics. The fact that Pontraygin was legally blind since the age of 14, further underscores his scientific achievements.
1104867	Harald August Bohr (22 April 1887 – 22 January 1951) was a Danish mathematician and football player. After receiving his doctorate in 1910, Bohr became an eminent mathematician, founding the field of almost periodic functions. His brother was the Nobel Prize-winning physicist Niels Bohr. He was a member of the Danish national football team for the 1908 Summer Olympics, where he won a silver medal. Biography. Bohr was born in 1887 to Christian Bohr, a professor of physiology, from a Lutheran background, and Ellen Adler Bohr, a woman from a wealthy Jewish family of local renown. Harald had a close relationship with his elder brother, which "The Times" likened to that between Captain Cuttle and Captain Bunsby in Charles Dickens' "Dombey and Son". Mathematical career. Like his father and brother before him, in 1904 Bohr enrolled at the University of Copenhagen, where he studied mathematics, obtaining his masters in 1909 and his doctorate a year later. Among his tutors were Hieronymus Georg Zeuthen and Thorvald N. Thiele. Bohr worked in mathematical analysis; much of his early work was devoted to Dirichlet series including his doctorate, which was entitled "Bidrag til de Dirichletske Rækkers Theori" ("Contributions to the Theory of Dirichlet Series"). A collaboration with Göttingen-based Edmund Landau resulted in the Bohr–Landau theorem, regarding the distribution of zeroes in zeta functions. Bohr worked in mathematical analysis, founding the field of almost periodic functions, and worked with the Cambridge mathematician G. H. Hardy. In 1915 he became a professor at Polyteknisk Læreanstalt, working there until 1930, when he took a professorship at the University of Copenhagen. He remained in this post for 21 years until his death in 1951. Børge Jessen was one of his students there. He was a visiting scholar at the Institute for Advanced Study in the summer of 1948. In the 1930s Bohr was a leading critic of the anti-Semitic policies taking root in the German mathematical establishment, publishing an article criticising Ludwig Bieberbach's ideas in Berlingske Aften in 1934. Football. Bohr was also an excellent football player. He had a long playing career with Akademisk Boldklub, making his debut as a 16 year old in 1903. During the 1905 season he played alongside his brother Niels, who was a goalkeeper. Harald was selected to play for the Danish national football team in the 1908 Summer Olympics, where football was an official event for the first time. Though a Danish side had played at the 1906 Intercalated Games, the opening match of the 1908 Olympic tournament was Denmark's first official international football match. Bohr scored two goals as Denmark beat the French "B" team 9–0. In the next match, the semi-final, Bohr played in a 17–1 win against France, which remains an Olympic record to this day. Denmark faced hosts Great Britain in the final, but lost 2–0, and Bohr won a silver medal. After the Olympics he made one further appearance for the national team, in a 2–1 victory against an England amateur team in 1910. His popularity as a footballer was such that when he defended his doctoral thesis the audience was reported as having more football fans than mathematicians. Teacher. Bohr was known as an extremely capable academic teacher and the annual award for outstanding teaching at the University of Copenhagen is called the Harald, in honour of Harald Bohr. With Johannes Mollerup, Bohr wrote an influential four-volume textbook "Lærebog i Matematisk Analyse" ("Textbook in mathematical analysis").
900352	Africa Addio is a 1966 Italian documentary about the end of the colonial era in Africa. The film was released in a shorter format under the names ""Africa Blood and Guts"" in the USA and ""Farewell Africa"" in the UK. The film was shot over a period of three years by Gualtiero Jacopetti and Franco Prosperi, two Italian filmmakers who had gained fame (along with co-director Paolo Cavara) as the directors of "Mondo Cane" in 1962. This film ensured the viability of the so-called Mondo film genre, a cycle of "shockumentaries"- documentaries featuring sensational topics, which classifications largely characterize "Africa Addio". Historical events depicted. The film includes footage of the Zanzibar revolution, which included the massacre of approximately 5,000 Arabs in 1964 (estimates range up to 20,000 in the aftermath), as well as of the aftermath of the Mau Mau Uprising in Kenya. Allegations of staging and inauthenticity. There remains controversy over whether all the sequences in the film are real or whether some were staged or reenacted. Jacopetti has stated that all images in the film are real and that nothing was ever staged. In the documentary "The Godfathers of Mondo", the co-directors stated that the only scenes they ever staged were in "Mondo Cane 2". Roger Ebert, in his review of the film, cited several scenes that he found suspect, including one showing white Boers leaving Kenya in cattle-drawn wagons to return to Southern Africa. Ebert wrote that "real Boers (there are a few among the mostly British white population in Kenya) would probably call up a moving van for their furniture and then fly down to the Cape." He also noted a part of the film lamenting how thousands of hippopotamuses were taken from the Zambezi River to provide food, retorting that hippopotamus meat is not eaten in that area. Co-director Gualtiero Jacopetti was accused of murder and tried in Italy due to accusations that one of the executions which appears in the film was staged for the camera. He was acquitted. Different versions. The film has appeared in a number of different versions. The Italian and French versions were edited and were provided with narration by Jacopetti himself. The American version, with the explicitly shocking title "Africa: Blood and Guts", was edited and translated without the approval of Jacopetti. Indeed, the differences are such that Jacopetti has called this film a betrayal" of the original idea. Notable differences are thus present between the Italian and English-language versions in terms of the text of the film. Many advocates of the film feel that it has unfairly maligned the original intentions of the filmmakers. For example, the subtitled translation of the opening crawl in the Italian version reads: The English version: Running length and film credits. Various cuts of the film have appeared over the years. IMDb lists the total runtime as 140 minutes, and a 'complete' version currently offered online via Google Video runs closest to that at 138 minutes, 37 seconds.[http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4540134202583442015] This is an Italian-language based version, with a clear soundtrack and legible English subtitling. IMDb lists the different runtimes for previously-released versions: USA- 122'; Norway- 124'; and Sweden- 116'. An English-language version currently released by Blue Underground runs 128 minutes. The film was released as "Africa Blood and Guts" in the USA in 1970, at only 83 minutes (over 45 minutes removed in order to focus exclusively on scenes of carnage); according to the text of the box for the Blue Underground release, directors Jacopetti and Prosperi both disowned this version. An R-rated version runs at 80 minutes. The documentary was written, directed, and edited jointly by Gualtiero Jacopetti and Franco Prosperi and was narrated by Sergio Rossi (not to be confused with the fashion designer of the same name). It was produced by Angelo Rizzoli. Reception. Film critic Roger Ebert, in a scathing 1967 review of the (unauthorised) American version of the film, calls it "racist" and claims that it "slanders a continent". He notes the opening narration and subtitles: "Europe has abandoned her baby," the narrator mourns, "just when it needs her the most." Who has taken over, now that the colonialists have left? The advertising spells it out for us: "Raw, wild, brutal, modern-day savages!" Soundtrack. A soundtrack of the music used in the film was later released. The composer was Riz Ortolani (who had scored "Mondo Cane" that featured the tune later used for the hit single "More"). When making "Africa Addio", lyrics were added to Ortolani's title theme, making a song called "Who Can Say?" that was sung by Jimmy Roselli. The song did not appear in the film, but (unlike the successful song "More" spawned by "Mondo Cane") did appear on the United Artists Records soundtrack album.
1060402	Glenda May Jackson, CBE (born 9 May 1936) is a British Labour Party politician and former actress. She first became a Member of Parliament (MP) in 1992, and currently represents Hampstead and Kilburn. As a professional actress from the late 1950s, she spent four years as a member of the Royal Shakespeare Company from 1964, being particularly associated with the work of director Peter Brook. During her film career, she won two Academy Awards for Best Actress: for "Women in Love" (1970) and "A Touch of Class" (1973). She appeared in several other award winning performances such as Alex in the film "Sunday Bloody Sunday" (1971) and the BBC television serial "Elizabeth R" (also 1971); for the later she received an Emmy. Before 2010, Jackson was the MP for Hampstead and Highgate, and early in the government of Tony Blair served as a Junior Transport minister from 1997 to 1999, later becoming critical of Blair. After constituency boundary changes for the 2010 general election, her majority of 42 votes was one of the closest results of the entire election. She announced in 2011 that she will stand down as a MP at the next general election. Early life and career. Jackson was born in Birkenhead on the Wirral, Merseyside where her father was a builder, and her mother worked in shops and as a cleaner. Jackson was educated at the West Kirby County Grammar School for Girls, and performed at a YMCA drama group during her teens. She worked for two years in a branch of the Boots the Chemist chain before taking up a scholarship in 1954 to study at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. Jackson made her professional stage debut in Terence Rattigan's "Separate Tables" in 1957 while at RADA. and appeared in repertory for the next six years. Her film debut was a bit part in "This Sporting Life" (1963). A member of the Royal Shakespeare Company for four years from 1964, she originally joined for director Peter Brook's 'Theatre of Cruelty' season which included Peter Weiss' "Marat/Sade" (1965) in which she played an inmate of an asylum portraying Charlotte Corday, the assassin of Marat. The production ran on Broadway in 1965 and in Paris (Jackson appeared in the 1967 film version) and as Ophelia in Peter Hall's production of "Hamlet" in the same year. Critic Penelope Gilliatt thought Jackson was the only Ophelia she had seen who was ready to play the Prince himself. The RSC's staging at the Aldwych Theatre of "US" (1966), a protest play against the Vietnam War, also featured Jackson, and she appeared in its film version, "Tell Me Lies". From 1969 to 1980. Jackson's starring role in Ken Russell's film of "Women in Love" (1969) led to her winning her first Academy Award for Best Actress. Brian McFarlane, the main author of "The Encyclopedia of British Film", has written: "Her blazing intelligence, sexual challenge and abrasiveness were at the service of a superbly written role in a film with a passion rare in the annals of British cinema." In the process of gaining funding for "The Music Lovers" (1970) from United Artists, Russell explained it as "the story of a homosexual who marries a nymphomaniac", the couple being the composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (Richard Chamberlain) and Antonina Miliukova played by Jackson. This film received mixed reviews in the U.S.: the anonymous reviewer in "Variety" wrote of the two principals "Their performances are more dramatically bombastic than sympathetic, or sometimes even believable". Jackson was initially interested in the role of Sister Jeanne in "The Devils" (1971), Russell's next film, but turned it down after script rewrites and deciding that she did not wish to play a third neurotic character in a row. In order to play Queen Elizabeth I in the BBC's serial, "Elizabeth R" (1971), Jackson had her head shaved. After the series was shown on PBS in the US, Jackson received two Emmy Awards for her performance. She also portrayed Queen Elizabeth in the film "Mary, Queen of Scots", and gained a BAFTA for her role in John Schlesinger's "Sunday Bloody Sunday" (both 1971). In that year British exhibitors voted her the 6th most popular star at the British box office, and she appeared in a comedy sketch as Cleopatra for "The Morecambe and Wise Shiow". Filmmaker Melvin Frank saw her comedic potential and offered her the lead female role in his next project. She gained a second Academy Award for Best Actress for "A Touch of Class" (1973). She continued to work in the theatre, and returned to the RSC to play the lead role in Ibsen's "Hedda Gabler". A later film version directed by Nunn was released as "Hedda" (1975) for which Jackson was nominated for an Oscar. For her appearance on "The Muppet Show" she told the producers that she would perform any material they liked; this turned out to be a role where she has a delusion that she is a pirate captain who hijacks the Muppet Theatre as her ship. Later acting career. In 1985, she appeared on Broadway as Nina Leeds in a revival of Eugene O'Neill's "Strange Interlude" at the Nederlander Theatre in a production which had originated in London the previous year and ran for eight weeks. John Beaufort for "The Christian Science Monitor" wrote: "Bravura is the inevitable word for Miss Jackson's display of feminine wiles and brilliant technique." Frank Rich, in "The New York Times" thought Jackson, "with her helmet of hair and gashed features", when Leeds is a young woman, "looks like a cubist portrait of Louise Brooks", and later when the character has aged several decades, is "mesmerizing as a Zelda Fitzgeraldesque neurotic, a rotting and spiteful middle-aged matron and, finally, a spent, sphinx-like widow happily embracing extinction." Herbert Wise directed a British television version of O'Neill's drama which was first broadcast in the US as part of PBS's "American Playhouse" in January 1988. In 1989, Jackson appeared in Ken Russell's "The Rainbow", playing Anna Brangwen, mother of Gudrun, the part which had won her her first Academy Award twenty years earlier. Also in that year she played Martha in a Los Angeles production of Edward Albee's "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" at the Doolittle Theatre (now the Ricardo Montalbán Theatre). Directed by the playwright himself, this staging featured John Lithgow as George. Dan Sullivan in the "Los Angeles Times" wrote that Jackson and Lithgow performed "with the assurance of dedicated character assassins, not your hire-and-salary types" with the actors being able to display their character's capacity for antipathy. Albee was disappointed with this production, pointing to Jackson whom he thought "had retreated back to the thing she can do very well, that ice cold performance. I don't know whether she got scared, but in rehearsal she was being Martha, and the closer we got to opening the less Martha she was!". She performed the lead role in Howard Barker's "Scenes from an Execution" as Galactia, a sixteenth century female Venetian artist, at the Almeida Theatre in 1990. It was an adaptation of Barker's 1984 radio play in which Jackson had played the same role. Career in politics. Jackson retired from acting in order to stand for election to the House of Commons in the 1992 general election subsequently becoming the Labour MP for Hampstead and Highgate. Following a period as an shadow minister on transport, following the 1997 general election, she was appointed as parliamentary under secretary of state (a junior minister )in the government of Prime Minister Tony Blair, with responsibility for London Transport, a post from which she resigned in 1999 before an unsuccessful attempt to be nominated as the Labour Party candidate for the election of the first Mayor of London in 2000. In the 2005 general election, she received 14,615 votes, representing 38.29% of the votes cast in the constituency. As a high profile backbencher she became a regular critic of Blair over his plans to introduce higher education tuition fees in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. She also called for him to resign following the Judicial Enquiry by Lord Hutton in 2003 surrounding the reasons for going to war in Iraq and the death of government adviser Dr. David Kelly. Jackson was generally considered to be a traditional left-winger, often disagreeing with the dominant Blairite governing Third Way faction in the Labour Party. By October 2005, her problems with Blair's leadership swelled to a point where she threatened to challenge the Prime Minister as a stalking horse candidate in a leadership contest if he did not stand down within a reasonable amount of time. On 31 October 2006, Jackson was one of 12 Labour MPs to back Plaid Cymru and the Scottish National Party's call for an inquiry into the Iraq War. Her constituency boundaries changed for the 2010 general election. The Gospel Oak and Highgate wards became part of Holborn & St Pancras, and the new Hampstead & Kilburn constituency switched into Brent to include Brondesbury, Kilburn and Queens Park wards (from the old Brent East and Brent South seats). On 6 May 2010, Jackson was elected as the MP for the new Hampstead and Kilburn constituency with a margin of 42 votes over Conservative Chris Philp with the Liberal Democrat candidate Edward Fordham less than a thousand votes behind them. She had the second closest result and second smallest majority of any MP in the 2010 election. In June 2011, Jackson announced that, presuming the Parliament elected in 2010 lasts until 2015, she will not seek re-election. She explained "I will be almost 80 and by then it will be time for someone else to have a turn". In April 2013, Jackson gave a speech in parliament over discussion about the passing of Margaret Thatcher. In a scathing speech criticising Thatcher's policies, she accused Thatcher of treating "vices as virtues" and stated that because of Thatcherism England was susceptible to unprecedented unemployment rates and homelessness. Personal life and honours. Jackson has a son, Dan Hodges, born in 1969 from her marriage to Roy Hodges; he is a Labour Party advisor and commentator., and a well-known political blogger who describes himself as a "Blairite cuckoo". She was five months pregnant when filming on "Women in Love" was completed. Her marriage to Hodges lasted from 1958 until their divorce in 1976. In 1978, she was awarded an CBE.
1103293	Enrico Bombieri (born 26 November 1940 in Milan, Italy) is a mathematician who has been working at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey. He moved to the USA after receiving his Ph.D. at the University of Milan in 1963. Bombieri's research in number theory, algebraic geometry, and mathematical analysis have earned him many international prizes --- a Fields Medal in 1974 and the Balzan Prize in 1980. In 2010 he received the King Faisal International Prize (jointly with Terence Tao). The Bombieri–Vinogradov theorem is one of the major applications of the large sieve method. It improves Dirichlet's theorem on prime numbers in arithmetic progressions, by showing that by averaging over the modulus over a range, the mean error is much less than can be proved in a given case. This result can sometimes substitute for the still-unproved generalized Riemann hypothesis. In 1976, he developed the technique known as the "asymptotic sieve".
1503661	John McMartin (born August 21, 1929) is an American actor of stage, film and television. Early life and career. McMartin was born in Warsaw, Indiana and raised in Minnesota. He attended college in Illinois and New York. He made his off-Broadway debut in "Little Mary Sunshine" in 1959, opposite Elmarie Wendel. He won a Theatre World Award for his role as Corporal Billy Jester, and married one of the show's producers, Cynthia Baer, in 1960; they divorced in 1971. He has two daughters by this marriage, Kathleen and Susan, and has not remarried. His first Broadway appearance was as Forrest Noble in "The Conquering Hero" in 1961, which was followed by "Blood, Sweat and Stanley Poole". He created the role of Oscar in "Sweet Charity" in 1966, opposite Gwen Verdon,garnering a Tony nomination, and played the role again in the 1969 film opposite Shirley MacLaine. He was cast in Stephen Sondheim's "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum" in 1962, but his role was cut before the show opened. He later starred in the original Broadway production of Sondheim's "Follies" opposite Alexis Smith in 1971 as Benjamin Stone, introducing the ballad "The Road You Didn't Take". His association with Sondheim has continued, appearing in "A Little Night Music" as Frederick at the Ahmanson Theatre, Los Angeles, in 1991.The reviewer for the "Orange County Register" (California) wrote that the actor was "aggressively deadpan as her rediscovered old flame..." He appeared in the Broadway revival of "Into the Woods" in 2002, in the dual role of the Narrator/Mysterious Man. Other Broadway roles include the Narrator in "Happy New Year", Ben in "A Little Family Business" (adapted by Jay Presson Allen, 1982),Donner in Tom Stoppard's "Artist Descending a Staircase", Cap'n Andy in Kern and Hammerstein's "Show Boat" (1994),and Uncle Willie in Cole Porter's "High Society" (1998). He also had a role, as the American Revolutionary naval hero John Paul Jones, in the unsuccessful Loesser/Spewack musical, "Pleasures and Palaces", which closed in Detroit. McMartin was a leading member of the New Phoenix Repertory Company during their three Broadway seasons in the early 1970s, appearing onstage in, among other productions, Eugene O'Neill's "The Great God Brown" (opposite Katherine Helmond), Molière's "Dom Juan", and Pirandello's "The Rules of the Game". He played "Anton Schell" opposite Chita Rivera in Kander and Ebb's musical "The Visit" (based on the play by Friedrich Durrenmatt) at the Goodman Theatre. He created the roles of "J.V. 'Major' Bouvier" and Norman Vincent Peale in "Grey Gardens", opposite Mary Louise Wilson and Christine Ebersole. He played Thomas Jefferson in the original cast of John Guare's "A Free Man of Color" at Lincoln Center (2010-11), and next played "Elisha Whitney" in the 2011 Broadway revival of "Anything Goes", opposite Jessica Walter. On television, he appeared on "The Golden Girls" (Season 2) as Frank Leahy who, unbeknownst to Dorothy (played by Beatrice Arthur) who is romantically attracted to him, is a priest. He appeared as radio personality Fletcher Grey on Frasier (Season 1). He had a recurring role on "Murder She Wrote". He also appeared as Shirley Jones' love interest in "The Partridge Family" 1970 episode titled 'When Mother Gets Married'.
1141144	Jason Paul London (born November 7, 1972) is an American actor, best known for his role as Randall "Pink" Floyd in director Richard Linklater's film "Dazed and Confused". Personal life. London was born in San Diego, California, the son of Debbie (née Osborn), a waitress, and Frank London, a sheet metal worker. He was raised in Oklahoma, near Tuttle and DeSoto, Texas. His identical twin, Jeremy London, is also an actor. As of 2003, the two have acted together in an episode of "7th Heaven" titled "Smoking". Jeremy was Jason's stunt double in "The Man in the Moon". On February 18, 1997, London and actress Charlie Spradling married in Las Vegas, Nevada. They divorced in March 2006, and are the parents of a daughter, Cooper, who shares her father's birthday. Jason and Cooper can be seen at the 2009 Hero Awards. In November 2010, London became engaged to actress Sofia Karstens. They married on July 16, 2011 at the home of his wife's parents, William and Judith Karstens, in North Hero, Vermont. About January 26, 2013, he was arrested on suspicion of assault and disorderly conduct after an altercation at a Scottsdale bar. Career. London has enjoyed moderate success starring mostly as a rebellious, edgy young addict in feature films such as "Broken Vessels" and "$pent". He also starred as Jason in the 2000 NBC miniseries "Jason and the Argonauts". Jason also starred in "Poor White Trash" playing sleazy ladies' man Brian Ross.
1061704	Jacqueline Bisset (born 13 September 1944) is an English actress. She has been nominated for four Golden Globe Awards and an Emmy Award. She is known for her roles in the films "Casino Royale" (1967), "Bullitt" (1968), "Airport" (1970), "The Deep" (1977), "Class" (1983), and the TV series "Nip/Tuck" (2006). She has also appeared in several French productions and was nominated for a César Award for "La Cérémonie" (1995). She was awarded the Légion d'honneur in 2010. Early life and family. Bisset was born Winifred Jacqueline Fraser Bisset in Weybridge, Surrey, England, the daughter of Arlette Alexander, a lawyer-turned-housewife, and Max Fraser Bisset, a general practitioner. She was brought up in Reading, Berkshire, where she lived in the suburb of Tilehurst. Her father was Scottish and her mother was of French and English descent; Bisset's mother cycled from Paris and boarded a British troop transport to escape the Germans during World War II. Bisset has a brother, Max. Her mother taught her to speak French fluently, and she was educated at the Lycée Français Charles de Gaulle in London. She had taken ballet lessons as a child and began taking acting lessons and fashion modelling to pay for them. When Bisset was a teenager, her mother was diagnosed with disseminating sclerosis. In the following years while Bisset was working as an actress in Hollywood, she made frequent trips back home in order to care for her mother, which she says, interfered with her personal relationships. Bisset's parents divorced in 1968 after 28 years of marriage. Her father died aged 71 of a brain tumour in 1982. Her mother died in 1999. Career. Bisset made her screen debut with a bit-part in "The Knack ...and How to Get It" (1965). Her first speaking role was in the 1966 film "Cul-de-sac", starring Donald Pleasence and directed by Roman Polanski. She was cast in the romance film "Two for the Road" (1967) starring Audrey Hepburn, and played her first lead role opposite James Brolin in "The Cape Town Affair" (1967). She participated in the 1967 James Bond satire, "Casino Royale", as Miss Goodthighs. In 1968, she replaced Mia Farrow to star opposite Frank Sinatra in "The Detective"; Farrow and Sinatra had split shortly before production began and the role was given to Bisset, who received special billing in the film's credits. 's break-out role was as Steve McQueen's girlfriend in the hit action film "Bullitt", also released in 1968. The following year she received her first Golden Globe nomination as New Star of the Year for her performance in "The Sweet Ride", and played her first sexy "older woman" (at 25) in "The First Time" (1969), with Ricky Kelman, who is six years her junior. She was one of the many stars in the blockbuster disaster film "Airport" (1970), a Best Picture nominee in which she acted opposite Dean Martin and Helen Hayes. She co-starred with Sean Connery in "Murder on the Orient Express" (1974). Bisset made strides towards becoming a better-known entertainer in America with "The Deep" (1977), co-starring Robert Shaw and Nick Nolte and directed by Peter Yates, who had previously directed her in "Bullitt". A scene of her swimming underwater wearing only a thin, white T-shirt and bikini bottom helped make the film a box office success, leading the producer Peter Guber to say, "That T-shirt made me a rich man". At the time, "Newsweek" declared her "the most beautiful film actress of all time." About that time, a small film Bisset had made six years earlier was re-released in the United States under the title "Secrets". She earned a Golden Globe nomination for the comedy "Who Is Killing the Great Chefs of Europe?" (1978). Soon after, she starred in the movies "Rich and Famous" (1981) with Candice Bergen, "Class" (1983) (playing a woman who seduces her son's best friend) co-starring Rob Lowe and Andrew McCarthy, and "Under the Volcano" (1984), for which she earned her second Golden Globe nomination. Bisset often appeared with her leading men in more than one film. She was cast as Paul Newman's daughter in "The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean", then as his girlfriend in "When Time Ran Out". Bisset has also worked with Albert Finney, Mickey Rourke, Anthony Perkins, and Michael York on multiple occasions. Bisset has worked with such directors as François Truffaut, John Huston, Stanley Donen, Sidney Lumet and George Cukor. Several of her older movies are French or Italian productions. Bisset has appeared in many made-for-TV and independent films, especially in recent years. In 1996, she was nominated for a César Award, for her role in "La Cérémonie". She received Golden Globe and Emmy Award nominations for the 1999 miniseries "Joan of Arc". Other notable projects include the acclaimed Biblical epics "Jesus" (1999) and "In the Beginning" (2000) with Martin Landau. She made guest appearances on "Ally McBeal" during 2001–2002, and ' in 2003. One of her later TV movies, in 2003, was ', in which she portrayed Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis. In 2005, she appeared in the action movie "Domino" with Keira Knightley. Bisset's most recent television work was a recurring role as the mysterious James, during the fourth season of the FX series "Nip/Tuck" in 2006. She later starred in "An Old Fashioned Thanksgiving", which premiered on the Hallmark Channel on 22 November 2008. In the same year she also garnered acclaim for her role in the Holocaust drama, "Death in Love". She recently finished filming "The Last Film Festival", which was the final screen appearance of Dennis Hopper. Unlike many actresses of her generation who have difficulty finding work after 40, Bisset has made a seamless transition from leading lady to character actor. She remains in demand in Hollywood and Europe. She told a Bermuda newspaper in 2004: Bisset co-starred in the independent film, "Latter Days" where she played the role of 'Lila'. Bisset has starred in a large number of independent films throughout her career. She recently returned to the UK to film Stephen Poliakoff's 1930s jazz drama series, "Dancing on the Edge", which will screen on BBC2 in 2013. Personal life. Bisset is godmother to actress Angelina Jolie. Bisset has never married, though she has had several lengthy romances. These include a relationship with actor Michael Sarrazin which lasted over ten years and with Russian-American dancer and actor Alexander Godunov. "I feel like I was married to them because I was very dedicated to them", she said in a 2008 interview. “But I also used to feel claustrophobic. Like many people who don’t easily commit, I think I had a fear of being known; I was not sure there was anybody inside there.” She divides her time between homes in England and Beverly Hills, California.
1101116	Stephen Smale (born July 15, 1930) is an American mathematician from Flint, Michigan. He was awarded the Fields Medal in 1966, and spent more than three decades on the mathematics faculty of the University of California, Berkeley (1960–61 and 1964–1995). Education and career. Smale entered the University of Michigan in 1948. Initially, he was a good student, placing into an honors calculus sequence taught by Bob Thrall and earning himself A's. However, his sophomore and junior years were marred with mediocre grades, mostly Bs, Cs and even an F in nuclear physics. However, with some luck, Smale was accepted as a graduate student at the University of Michigan's mathematics department. Yet again, Smale performed poorly his first years, earning a C average as a graduate student. It was only when the department chair, Hildebrandt, threatened to kick out Smale, that he began to work hard. Smale finally earned his Ph.D. in 1957, under Raoul Bott. Smale began his career as an instructor at the college at the University of Chicago. In 1958, he astounded the mathematical world with a proof of a sphere eversion. He then cemented his reputation with a proof of the Poincaré conjecture for all dimensions greater than or equal to 5, published in 1961; in 1962 he generalized the ideas in a 107 page paper that established the h-cobordism theorem. After having made great strides in topology, he then turned to the study of dynamical systems, where he made significant advances as well. His first contribution is the Smale horseshoe that jumpstarted significant research in dynamical systems. He also outlined a research program carried out by many others. Smale is also known for injecting Morse theory into mathematical economics, as well as recent explorations of various theories of computation. In 1998 he compiled a list of 18 problems in mathematics to be solved in the 21st century, known as Smale's problems. This list was compiled in the spirit of Hilbert's famous list of problems produced in 1900. In fact, Smale's list contains some of the original Hilbert problems, including the Riemann hypothesis and the second half of Hilbert's sixteenth problem, both of which are still unsolved. Other famous problems on his list include the Poincaré conjecture, the P = NP problem, and the Navier–Stokes equations, all of which have been designated Millennium Prize Problems by the Clay Mathematics Institute. Earlier in his career, Smale was involved in controversy over remarks he made regarding his work habits while proving the higher dimensional Poincaré conjecture. He said that his best work had been done "on the beaches of Rio". This led to the withholding of his grant money from the NSF. He has been politically active in various movements in the past, such as the Free Speech movement. At one time he was subpoenaed by the House Un-American Activities Committee. In 1960 Smale was appointed an associate professor of mathematics at the University of California, Berkeley, moving to a professorship at Columbia University the following year. In 1964 he returned to a professorship at UC Berkeley where he has spent the main part of his career. He retired from UC Berkeley in 1995 and took up a post as professor at the City University of Hong Kong. He also amassed over the years one of the finest private mineral collections in existence. Many of Smale's mineral specimens can be seen in the book—"The Smale Collection: Beauty in Natural Crystals". Since 2002 Smale is a Professor at the Toyota Technological Institute at Chicago; starting August 1, 2009, he is also a Distinguished University Professor at the City University of Hong Kong. In 2007, Smale was awarded the Wolf Prize in mathematics.
757047	Dallas Page (born Page Joseph Falkinburg; April 5, 1956), better known by his ring name Diamond Dallas Page, is an American retired professional wrestler, fitness instructor and actor, best known for his tenures with WCW. In the course of his wrestling career, which spanned two decades, Page has wrestled for mainstream wrestling promotions World Championship Wrestling (WCW), the World Wrestling Federation (WWF, now WWE), and Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (TNA). Page first broke into the wrestling business in 1988, as a manager in the American Wrestling Association, where he worked for nine months before signing with WCW in 1991. There, he continued as a manager until late 1991, when he became a wrestler. Over a decade in WCW, Page became a three-time WCW World Heavyweight Champion, two-time WCW United States Champion, four-time WCW World Tag Team Champion and one-time WCW World Television Champion. He is the fourth WCW Triple Crown Champion. Page has the distinction of competing as defending United States Champion on the sole occasion where a match for that title headlined a pay-per-view event: at World War 3 1998, where he defeated challenger Bret Hart. After WCW was sold in 2001, Page signed with the WWF, where he became a one-time WWF European Champion and one-time WWF World Tag Team Champion. Due to a series of injuries, he allowed his contract with the company to expire in 2002. He worked for TNA from 2004 to 2005. Page is now an actor in small-budget films, as well as a fitness guru and motivational speaker. Early life. Page Joseph Falkinburg, the oldest of three children, was born in Point Pleasant, New Jersey, the son of Sylvia (née Seigel) and Page Joseph Falkinburg, Sr. Page was raised by his father during his early years, after his parents divorced. The name "Dallas" came from his love of the Dallas Cowboys. His brother and sister were raised by their maternal grandmother. Page lived with his father from the ages of three to eight. His father took him, at eight years old, to live with his grandmother, who raised him. Page admitted in his autobiography he is dyslexic. He had many challenges hit him throughout his childhood and educational years. DDP attended St. Joseph's High School (now Monsignor Donovan High School) in Toms River, New Jersey) for his freshman and sophomore years, spending his first season on the JV basketball team and making the varsity squad as a sophomore. He transferred to Point Pleasant Boro High School in Point Pleasant, where he was a star basketball player with the Point Pleasant Boro High School Panthers. Professional wrestling career. Early years / American Wrestling Association. Page's first wrestling match was in Canada in 1979. However due to poor initial training and a subsequent bad knee injury he gave up wrestling shortly afterward.
1101257	Lars Valerian Ahlfors (18 April 1907 – 11 October 1996) was a Finnish mathematician, remembered for his work in the field of Riemann surfaces and his text on complex analysis. Background. Ahlfors was born in Helsinki, Finland. His mother, Sievä Helander, died at his birth. His father, Axel Ahlfors, was a Professor of Engineering at the Helsinki University of Technology. The Ahlfors family was Swedish-speaking, so he first attended a private school where all classes were taught in Swedish. Ahlfors studied at University of Helsinki from 1924, graduating in 1928 having studied under Ernst Lindelöf and Rolf Nevanlinna. He assisted Nevanlinna in 1929 with his work on Denjoy's conjecture on the number of asymptotic values of an entire function. He completed his doctorate from the University of Helsinki in 1930. Career. Ahlfors worked as an associate professor at the University of Helsinki from 1933 to 1936. In 1936 he was one of the first two people to be awarded the Fields Medal. In 1935 Ahlfors visited Harvard University. He returned to Finland in 1938 to take up a professorship at the University of Helsinki. The outbreak of war led to problems although Ahlfors was unfit for military service. He was offered a post at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology at Zurich in 1944 and finally managed to travel there in March 1945. He did not enjoy his time in Switzerland, so in 1946 he jumped at a chance to leave, returning to work at Harvard where he remained until he retired in 1977; he was William Caspar Graustein Professor of Mathematics from 1964. Ahlfors was a visiting scholar at the Institute for Advanced Study in 1962 and again in 1966. He was awarded the Wihuri Prize in 1968 and the Wolf Prize in Mathematics in 1981. His book "Complex Analysis" (1953) is the classic text on the subject and is almost certainly referenced in any more recent text which makes heavy use of complex analysis. Ahlfors wrote several other significant books, including "Riemann surfaces" (1960) and "Conformal invariants" (1973). He made decisive contributions to meromorphic curves, value distribution theory, Riemann surfaces, conformal geometry, quasiconformal mappings and other areas during his career. Personal life. In 1933, he married Erna Lehnert, an Austrian who with her parents had first settled in Sweden and then in Finland. The couple had three daughters.
1478956	Vivian Vanessa Kubrick (born 5 August 1960) is an American-born English filmmaker and composer, known for her work with her father, filmmaker Stanley Kubrick. Kubrick was born in Los Angeles, California; her mother is Stanley Kubrick's third wife and widow, Christiane Kubrick. In her late teens, Vivian directed a half-hour documentary for the BBC, "The Making of "The Shining"", which is included on all DVDs and many videotapes of her father's film "The Shining". She shot many hours of footage for a similar documentary on the making of "Full Metal Jacket" but it remained unfinished. She did write the score to "Full Metal Jacket" using the pseudonym Abigail Mead. Abigail Mead was based on the name of the house where the Kubricks lived between 1965 to 1979, "Abbott's Mead", located near to MGM's Borehamwood studio. Director Kubrick had initially envisioned a score that featured Japanese drum compositions, but after hearing an original piece his daughter had recorded, he asked her to score the entire film. Her father solicited work from her to write music for "Eyes Wide Shut", but it was not completed. The film instead used music by Jocelyn Pook. In October 2008, Vivian Kubrick appeared at a 40th anniversary screening of "2001: A Space Odyssey" sponsored by the Jules Verne Society, where she appeared onstage with actor Keir Dullea, star of the film, Daniel Richter who played the chief ape in the film, and Malcolm McDowell who starred in her father's subsequent film, "A Clockwork Orange". She accepted the Society's Legendaire Award on behalf of her father. In August 2010, her family announced that she had since 1999 been involved in the Church of Scientology and has been estranged from her family for the past 10 years. Her family was concerned that she did not attend the funeral of her sister, Anya Kubrick, in 2009, nor earlier meet with her when she was dying. Like her father, Vivian is a devoted lover of animals who rescues stray animals.
1100730	Rafael Bombelli (20 January 1526 (baptised) – 1572) was an Italian mathematician. Born in Bologna, he is the author of a treatise on algebra and is a central figure in the understanding of imaginary numbers. He was the one who finally managed to address the problem with imaginary numbers. In his 1572 book, L'Algebra, Bombelli solved equations using the method of del Ferro/Tartaglia. He introduced the rhetoric that preceded the representative symbols +i and -i and described how they both worked. The lunar crater Bombelli is named after him. Life. Rafael Bombelli was baptised on 20 January 1526 in Bologna, Papal States. He was born to Antonio Mazzoli, a wool merchant, and Diamante Scudieri, a tailor's daughter. The Mazzoli family was once quite powerful in Bologna. When Pope Julius II came to power, in 1506, he exiled the ruling family, the Bentivoglios. The Bentivoglio family attempted to retake Bologna in 1508, but failed. Rafael's grandfather participated in the coup attempt, and was captured and executed. Later, Antonio was able to return to Bologna, having changed his surname to Bombelli to escape the reputation of the Mazzoli family. Rafael was the oldest of six children. Rafael received no college education, but was instead taught by an engineer-architect by the name of Pier Francesco Clementi. Rafael Bombelli felt that none of the works on algebra by the leading mathematicians of his day provided a careful and thorough exposition of the subject. Instead of another convoluted treatise that only mathematicians could comprehend, Rafael decided to write a book on algebra that could be understood by anyone. His text would be self-contained and easily read by those without higher education. Rafael Bombelli died in 1572 in Rome, Italy. http://mata.gia.rwth-aachen.de/Vortraege/Sabrina_Mueller/Geschichte_der_Zahlen/Bilder/cardano.png Bombelli's Algebra. In the book that he wrote in 1572, entitled "L'Algebra", Bombelli gave a comprehensive account of the algebra known at the time. Bombelli wrote down the rules formulated by Brahmagupta regarding negative numbers. The following is an excerpt from the text:
586036	No.20 Madras Mail is a 1990 Malayalam action-comedy film directed by Joshiy, starring Mohanlal, Mammooty, M. G. Soman, Jagadeesh, Manianpilla Raju, Ashokan. The film deals with a murder of a young woman on a train to Madras. Almost half of the film is entirely shot inside the train. The film upon release became a huge hit and ran with packed houses all over Kerala. The film was also notable for fame director Joshiy teaming up with two of the most leading actors in Malayalam cinema. The film has attained a cult status, and garnered immense popularity upon airing on television. This film was remade in Hindi as Teesra Kaun by Partho Ghosh. Plot. The train No.20 Madras Mail to Madras starts from Trivandrum Central. R.K. Nair (M.G. Soman), a Kollam-based businessman takes the first class coupe of the train to Madras with his wife Geetha (Jayabharathi) and daughter Devi (Suchitra) from Kollam Jn. Tony Kurushingal (Mohanlal), along with his friends Hitchcock Kanjikuzhi (Manianpilla Raju) and Kumbalam Hari (Jagadish) boards the same coach from Kottayam. Tony is the son of a wealthy businessman, Kurishinkal Kariyachan (Jagannatha Varma), Kanjikuzhi is a detective novelist and Hari is an young politician. The three of them are going to Madras for seeing a cricket match and to make attempts to make Kanjikuzhi's novel "Vaazhikuzhiyile Kolapathakam" a film. All the three are drunken heavily while boarding the train. After entering the train and seeing Devi, Tony and friends make several attempts in getting a seat for Tony in the same coupe of Devi with the help of TTE officer Nadar (Innocent), but everything fails. While doing this Tony gets into heated arguments with RK Nair and Sunil (Ashokan), who has a reserved seat in the same coupe (from Ernakulam) with R.K. Nair. Actor Mammootty boards the train along the way from Thrissur railway station and gets into the same coach. Nadar leaves the train at Palakkad after giving company with Tony and gang and the new TTE Chokalingam a.k.a Choki (Jagathy Sreekumar) enters the train. Tony and his friends visits Mammootty in his coupe and soon become friends with him. Meanwhile Tony tries to flirt with Devi while she returns from toilet, which causes Tony to land in trouble with R.K Nair which Mammootty helps to resolve. All goes to sleep late night.
1503441	Lillias White (born July 21, 1951) is an American singer and actress. Career. The Brooklyn, New York native made her Broadway debut in "Barnum" in 1981. She understudied the role of Effie in the original 1981 production of "Dreamgirls" and played the part in the 1987 revival. White has appeared on Broadway in "Cats", "Carrie", "Once on This Island", "How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying", "Chicago", and in benefit concert versions of "Funny Girl", "Hair", and "Dreamgirls", reprising her role as Effie, for which she won the Drama League Award for Best Actress in a Musical. For her role in Cy Coleman's "The Life", she won the Tony, Drama Desk, and Outer Critics Circle Awards for her portrayal of a world-weary, no-nonsense, streetwise hooker named Sonja.
584164	Kurumbu is a 2003 Indian Tamil film directed by Vishnuvardhan, making his directorial debut. The film, a remake of the 2002 Telugu film "Allari", stars Allari Naresh, who also starred in the original version, which marked his acting debut, along with the female artists Diya and Nikita Thukral in lead roles. The film released on 21 November 2003 to poor reviews, failing to repeat the success of the original version and hence, ending up as a box-office bomb, being considered as the only commercially unsuccessful film of director Vishnuvardhan. It is a triangular love story between three young teenagers. The story portrays how the hero finds his true love. Soundtrack. The music was composed by Yuvan Shankar Raja, teaming up with newcomer Vishnuvardhan, who since then has worked together with him and scored the music in all his films. The soundtrack was released on 7 August 2003, featuring 8 tracks, including one remixed song, which is the first ever remix of a Tamil film song to feature in another Tamil film, starting off a new trend and the era of remixes in the Tamil film industry. The lyrics were penned by Pa. Vijay. Interestingly, another soundtrack of Yuvan Shankar Raja, "Thennavan" was released on the same day.
629363	Frances Ann O'Connor (born 12 June 1967) is an Australian actress. Background. Born in Wantage, Oxfordshire, England to a pianist mother and nuclear physicist father, her family moved to Perth, Australia when O'Connor was two. Raised a Roman Catholic, O'Connor attended the Mercedes College in Perth. She then went on to attend the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts and earned a BA in literature from the Curtin University of Technology in Western Australia. O'Connor and her long-term partner, Gerald Lepkowski, have a son, Luka, born in April 2005.
1475354	Wicked Little Things (also known as Zombies) is a zombie horror film directed by J. S. Cardone and stars Lori Heuring, Scout Taylor-Compton and Chloë Grace Moretz. It also claims to be based on true events. Plot. In 1913, in Carlton, Pennsylvania (shot in Bulgaria), the cruel owner of the Carlton mine exploits poor immigrant children. In order to excavate a new shaft quickly, he employs a dynamite charge, but the explosion causes the mine to collapse, burying a large group of the children alive. Following his later trial for wilfully causing the death of his workers, Carlton is acquitted and the mine closed down. In present day, eighty years later, Karen Tunny has just lost her husband after a long period of terminal disease and has inherited his birthhome near the since-abandoned Carlton mine. She moves to the house with her daughters, Sarah and Emma. The three stop by the local market for supplies and are told by Walter, the shopkeeper, that he doesn't deliver to the area they live in. While driving, Karen has a near miss with a man crossing the road. She exits the car, looking for the man, but he's nowhere to be found. They arrive at the house and Sarah points out the blood on the door while Karen declares it's just "paint." When Emma hears children giggling, she leaves the house, following the sound of it. Karen goes out looking for Emma and finds her in an old mine. As they try to find their way back to the house, it becomes nightfall and they get lost. They find a house, which is occupied by Hanks, and enter. Karen is advised by Hanks to stay at home during the night, and he also tells her that there is no need to thank him for the blood smeared on his and the Tunny's door. William Carlton, the last surviving heir of the Carlton estate, which has owned the mine since 1913, is hungrily devouring property and kicking people off his own property. Meanwhile, the zombie children begin to kill, which is dismissed among the community as disappearances, though it is hinted that most of the community is aware of the presence of the children. As it turns out, the Tunnys and Hanks, are relatives of the zombie children, who leave blood relatives alive while killing all others. Emma, who has had friendly contact with a less-violent zombie named Mary, informs her mother that the zombies won't eat her, and that Mary would not directly hurt her mother (who is not a direct Tunny blood relative), but passes on the warning that the other children might. Karen finds some old family photo albums in the basement that contain pictures of her late husband, as well as the Tunny and Hanks children who died in the mine disaster, thus revealing that the family is related to some of the children who had died. Karen and Sarah leave the house to go look for Emma. As they exit the mine, not being able to find Emma, they become surrounded by a dozen of the children. They escape, with the children pursuing them, and find a car passing through with Carlton inside. They enter, telling him to drive, but the tires are slashed before they can pull away. Karen and Sarah run to Hanks' house, unsure of what to do. Soon enough, Karen figures out that Hanks' blood has a supposed repellent effect on the zombie children. As both Hanks and Carlton attempt to shoot the children, they realize the bullets are ineffective, and run to the barn. Hanks realizes that, as he and Emma are direct blood relatives, it turns out Mary has an older brother that's also a Tunny, and Karen is in some way protected by Emma's relationship with Mary. The children are really after Carlton, as they blame his family for the mining accident that killed them. After Carlton is killed by the children, Emma remarks that they won't be hurting anyone anymore.
1163601	Waldo Brian Donlevy (February 9, 1901 – April 5, 1972), later known as Brian Donlevy was an Irish-born American actor, noted for playing dangerous tough guys from the 1930s to the 1960s. He usually appeared in supporting roles. Among his best-known films are "Beau Geste" (1939) and "The Great McGinty" (1940). For his role as Sergeant Markoff in "Beau Geste" he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. Donlevy starred as US special agent, Steve Mitchell, in 40 episodes of the 1952 TV series "Dangerous Assignment". Mitchell received assignments to exotic locales involving international intrigue from 'The Commissioner' played by Hubert Butterfield.
1064828	Aunjanue L. Ellis (first name pronounced "on-zsa-new"; born February 21, 1969) is an American actress known for her roles in "Ray", in "Undercover Brother", "The Mentalist" and "The Help". Ellis was born in San Francisco, California, and raised on her grandmother's farm in Mississippi. She attended Tougaloo College before transferring to Brown University, where she completed her Bachelor of Arts in African-American studies, while also studying acting with Jim Barnhill and John Emigh. She went on to study acting in the Graduate Acting Program at New York University. She is a member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority. In 1995, she appeared as Ariel opposite Patrick Stewart's Prospero in a Broadway revival of William Shakespeare's "The Tempest".
1062568	Jason Statham ( ; born 12 September 1967) is an English actor, producer, martial artist, and former diver. He is known for his roles in the Guy Ritchie crime films "Revolver", "Snatch", and "Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels". He has also appeared in films such as "The Italian Job", "The Transporter", "Death Race", "Crank", "The Bank Job", "War", "The Expendables", "The Expendables 2", and "Fast & Furious 6". He usually performs his own stage combat and stunts, and is noted for being typecast as an antihero. Early life. Statham was born in Shirebrook, Derbyshire, England, the son of Eileen (née Yates), a dancer, and Barry Statham, a street seller and lounge singer. He moved to Great Yarmouth, Norfolk, where he initially chose not to follow his father's career working the local market stalls and decided to pursue the arts. He grew up with football player Vinnie Jones, alongside whom he would later go on to act. Jones introduced him to football, and Statham went on to play for the local grammar school (1978–1983), which he had attended since the age of 11, a passion that he shared with diving. He practiced daily in perfecting his diving techniques, and was a member of Britain's National Diving Squad for twelve years. Statham's life in the media began when he was spotted by the agency Sports Promotions specialising in sports modelling while he was training at London's Crystal Palace National Sports Centre. Afterwards, he became a model for the clothing brand French Connection. A spokesperson for the high street clothing chain said: "We chose Jason because we wanted our model to look like a normal guy. His look is just right for now: very masculine and not too male-modelly." However, he was still forced to follow in his father's footsteps as a street seller to make ends meet, selling "fake perfume and jewellery on street corners" according to Statham. He made small appearances in a few music videos including Comin' On Strong by The Shamen in 1993, Run to the Sun by Erasure in 1994 and Dream a Little Dream of Me by The Beautiful South in 1995. Career. While working as a model for French Connection, he was introduced to fledgling British director Guy Ritchie who was developing a film project and needed to fill the role of a street-wise con artist. After learning about Statham's past as a black market salesman, Ritchie cast him to play the role of "Bacon" in his 1998 "Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels". The movie was well received by both critics and audiences, and helped catapult Statham into the public eye. Statham's second collaboration with Ritchie came in the 2000 film "Snatch", playing the role of "Turkish". Cast alongside popular actors Brad Pitt, Dennis Farina and Benicio del Toro, and with the movie earning more than $80 million in box-office revenue, Statham was able to break into Hollywood and appeared in two movies in 2001: "Ghosts of Mars" and "The One". Statham was offered more film roles, and in 2002 he was cast as the lead role of driver Frank Martin in the action movie "The Transporter", in which he was responsible for his own stunts (Statham has made this choice for all of his films). He has studied Wing Chun kung fu, karate, and kickboxing. The film spawned two sequels, "Transporter 2" (2005) and "Transporter 3" (2008). He also played supporting roles in "Mean Machine" (2002), "The Italian Job" (2003) (in which he played Handsome Rob), and "Cellular" (2004) in which he played the lead villain. In 2005, Statham was once again cast by Ritchie to star in his new project, "Revolver", which was a critical and box office failure. He played a dramatic role in the independent film "London" in 2006. That same year he played the lead role as Chev Chelios in the action film "Crank" which spawned the sequel "" (2009). In 2008, Statham starred in the British crime thriller "The Bank Job" and "Death Race", a remake of "Death Race 2000" (1975). American film critic Armond White hailed Statham's ascension as the leading international action film star. On the occasion of "Death Race", White championed Statham's "best track record of any contemporary movie star." Later in 2008, White praised Statham's "Transporter 3" as a great example of kinetic pop art. In 2009, Statham started to develop a new movie written by David Peoples and Janet Peoples ("12 Monkeys"). Statham stated "We've got a movie we're trying to do, written by David Peoples and Janet Peoples, in the vein of an old film, "The Treasure of the Sierra Madre". It’s not a remake or anything, but it's a little bit like that, about relationships and how greed contaminates the relationships these three people have. The working title is "The Grabbers"." In 2010, Statham appeared alongside fellow action stars Sylvester Stallone, Jet Li and Mickey Rourke, among others in "The Expendables". Statham plays Lee Christmas, a former SAS soldier and expert at close quarters combat using knives. In 2011, Statham starred in the remake of the 1972 Charles Bronson film, "The Mechanic", and returned to British film in the police drama "Blitz". He also starred in the action film "Killer Elite". The film was based on real events, which were the subject of Sir Ranulph Fiennes' fictional novel "The Feather Men". Statham played an assassin named Danny who comes out of retirement to save an old friend, who was played by Robert De Niro. In August 2011, he began filming "Parker" for director Taylor Hackford; the film was released in January 2013. Statham played Parker, the criminal antihero previously played by Mel Gibson in 1999's "Payback" and by Lee Marvin in 1967's "Point Blank" (though their characters were given different surnames). His 2012 releases were "The Expendables 2", in which he reprised his character Lee Christmas, and "Safe". Statham had a cameo in "Fast & Furious 6" (2013). He may portray the main antagonist of "Fast and Furious 7", Ian Shaw, the brother of the antagonist in "Fast & Furious 6", Owen Shaw. Influence in popular media. In the comic book series "Ultimate Spider-Man", that series' version of the villain Vulture was rendered by artist Mark Bagley to resemble actor Statham, as per writer Brian Michael Bendis' instructions. Personal life. Statham was in a seven-year relationship with model Kelly Brook, until 2004. Since April 2010, he has been dating Victoria's Secret model Rosie Huntington-Whiteley. Box office performance. Since 1998, Statham has appeared in over thirty films. Several have been box office hits, such as "Snatch" and "The Bank Job". He has starred in three film series, "The Transporter", "Crank" and "The Expendables". The films he has been in have grossed a total of more than $1 billion USD at the box office, with the highest individual film being "The Expendables".
1164096	John Arthur Rubinstein (born December 8, 1946) is an American film, Broadway, and television actor, a composer of film and theatre music, and a director in theatre and television. Early life. Rubinstein was born in Los Angeles, California, the son of Polish parents. His mother, Aniela (née Młynarska), a dancer and writer, was a Roman Catholic native of Warsaw, the daughter of conductor Emil Młynarski. His father was Polish-born Jewish concert pianist Arthur Rubinstein. Career. He made his Broadway acting debut in 1972 and received a Theater World Award for creating the title role in the musical "Pippin", directed by Bob Fosse. In 1980 he won the Tony, Drama Desk, Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle, and Drama-Logue Awards for his portrayal of James Leeds in Mark Medoff's "Children of a Lesser God", directed by Gordon Davidson. Other Broadway appearances were in Neil Simon's "Fools", directed by Mike Nichols, and Herman Wouk's "The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial", which earned him a Drama Desk nomination; he replaced William Hurt as Eddie in David Rabe's "Hurlyburly", replaced David Dukes in David Henry Hwang's "M. Butterfly", and starred in "Getting Away with Murder", by Stephen Sondheim and George Furth, directed by Jack O'Brien. In 1987, he made his off-Broadway debut at the Roundabout Theater as Guildenstern in Tom Stoppard's "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead", with Stephen Lang and John Wood, and subsequently performed in "Urban Blight" and "Cabaret Verboten". In 2005, he received the Lucille Lortel Award for Best Lead Actor in a Play, as well as nominations for both the Outer Critics’ and Drama League Awards, for his portrayal of George Simon in Elmer Rice's "Counsellor-at-Law". In addition, he has made numerous appearances in regional theater productions. Rubinstein's feature films include "21 Grams", "Red Dragon", "Mercy", "Another Stakeout", "Someone to Watch Over Me", "Daniel", "The Boys from Brazil" opposite Laurence Olivier, "Rome and Jewel", "Jekyll", "Kid Cop", "Getting Straight", "Zachariah", "The Trouble with Girls", and "The Car". Since 1965 he has acted in over 150 television films and series episodes. He received an Emmy Award nomination for his portrayal of Jeff Maitland in the series "Family", a role he played for five years, co-starred for two years with Jack Warden in the series "Crazy Like a Fox", and was featured in the miniseries "Perfect Murder, Perfect Town". He has subsequently played recurring parts on "Angel", "The Guardian", "The Practice", "", and "." In the series finale of "Friends", he played the doctor who delivered Monica and Chandler's babies. Rubinstein has composed, orchestrated, and conducted the musical scores for five feature films, including "Jeremiah Johnson" and "The Candidate", as well as for over 150 television films and episodes. He spent six years as host for the radio program "Carnegie Hall Tonight", broadcast on 180 stations in the United States and Canada, and two years as the keyboard player for the jazz-rock group Funzone. He has also recorded over sixty-five books on audio, including eighteen of the best-selling Alex Delaware novels by Jonathan Kellerman.
134286	The 41-Year-Old Virgin Who Knocked Up Sarah Marshall and Felt Superbad About It is an American spoof of several of Judd Apatow's films: "The 40-Year-Old Virgin", "Knocked Up", "Superbad", and "Forgetting Sarah Marshall". The main plot follows Andy (Bryan Callen), a 41-year old who desperately wants to lose his virginity, along with his teenage roommates who have similar goals.
1164839	Julius "Nipsey" Russell (September 15, 1918 – October 2, 2005) was an American comedian, best known today for his appearances as a guest panelist on game shows from the 1960s through the 1990s, especially "Match Game", "Password", "Hollywood Squares", "To Tell the Truth" and "Pyramid". His appearances were distinguished in part by the short, humorous poems he would recite during the broadcast. These lyrics became so closely associated with Russell that Dick Clark, Bill Cullen, Betty White, and others regularly referred to him as "the poet laureate of television." He also had a leading role in the film version of "The Wiz" as the Tin Man. He was also a frequent guest on the long-running "Dean Martin Celebrity Roast" series. Early life. Born in Atlanta, Georgia, Russell went to Booker T. Washington High School in Atlanta and attended the University of Cincinnati for one semester in 1943. He served as a medic in the United States Army during World War II, enlisting as a private on June 27, 1941, and returning from Europe in 1945 as a second lieutenant. He got his start in the 1940s as a carhop at the Atlanta drive-in The Varsity, where he increased the tips he earned by making customers laugh. He was discovered after he began performing in nightclubs in the 1950s. He subsequently made many "party albums," which were essentially compilations of his stand-up routines. Early career. In the mid-1950s Russell joined forces with the popular movie comedian Mantan Moreland for a stage act, replacing Ben Carter as Moreland's dapper straight man. One of their bits was an old routine that Moreland and Ben Carter had performed in vaudeville and in Charlie Chan films. In the "interruption routine" (or "incomplete sentences") Moreland would engage Russell in conversation, only to be interrupted by Russell, who in turn was interrupted by Moreland: Soon the entire conversation was conducted in incomplete sentences, with each man anticipating or contradicting the other. Moreland and Russell's act can be seen in two all-black-cast compilation films, "Rhythm and Blues Review" and "Rock and Roll Revue"; another variation of the "interruption routine" performed by Tommy Davidson and Savion Glover, was featured in Spike Lee's 2000 film "Bamboozled". In the late 1950s, Russell appeared on "The Ed Sullivan Show", which led to a supporting part as a New York policeman in the sitcom "Car 54, Where Are You?" in 1961. In 1965 he became a co-host of ABC's "Les Crane Show". During the 1970s, he was a co-star in the ABC sitcom "Barefoot in the Park" and appeared regularly on "The Dean Martin Show" and "The Dean Martin Comedy World". Scattered appearances on television series followed, as well as occasional guest-host stints on "The Tonight Show" during the Johnny Carson era. Russell also appeared frequently in Las Vegas; including a series of appearances with Sergio Franchi at the Frontier Hotel in 1978 and 1979, and with Franchi in 1979 at the Sands Hotel Copa Room. Game shows. Russell became the first black performer to become a regular panelist on a daily network game show when he joined ABC's "Missing Links" in 1964. Another ABC show, "Rhyme and Reason", had poetry for a premise, making Russell's participation a necessity: In 1971 he started as a featured panelist on To Tell the Truth, which led to his being hired for The Match Game when Goodson-Todman Productions revived it two years later. He also served as panelist in 1968 on the syndicated version of What's My Line? Producer Bob Stewart featured him regularly as a panelist on "Pyramid" throughout its 1970s and 1980s runs. Russell would host two game show pilots: one was "Star Words" for Mark Goodson in 1983 and a revival of "Jackpot" for Bob Stewart in 1984. These pilots were shot for CBS, but neither pilot was picked up by the network. Russell went on to host two revivals of Jack Barry and Dan Enright’s Juvenile Jury for BET during from 1983 to 1984, then again for syndication from 1989 to 1991. In 1985, Russell hosted the short-lived 1985 NBC game show "Your Number's Up", which was produced by Sande Stewart. During his appearances on game shows, at some point in the broadcast the host would give the floor to Russell, who would recite a self-penned poem from memory, looking straight into the camera. These poems from game show appearances are typical of his style and wit: He was a trained dancer, influenced in his youth by legendary performer Jack Wiggins. Russell put these talents to use in the 1978 musical "The Wiz" as the Tin Man. He also appeared on the big screen in 1994's adaptation of "Car 54, Where Are You?", reprising his role as Anderson, who had now been promoted from sergeant to captain. Later career and death. During the 1990s Russell gained popularity with a new generation of television viewers as a regular on "Late Night with Conan O'Brien". Russell would often appear during comedy sketches between scheduled guests and deliver his trademark rhymes. Russell's final TV appearance was as a panelist on a game show-themed week on the final season of the Tom Bergeron version of "Hollywood Squares". He died in 2005 at the age of 87 in New York City, after suffering from stomach cancer. His ashes were scattered into the Atlantic Ocean.
561344	Maryam Mirzakhani (; born May 1977) is an Iranian mathematician, Professor of Mathematics (since September 1, 2008) at Stanford University. Her research interests include Teichmüller theory, hyperbolic geometry, ergodic theory, and symplectic geometry. She is an alumna of National Organization for Development of Exceptional Talents (NODET) Tehran, Iran (Farzanegan highschool). She found international recognition as a brilliant teenager after receiving gold medals at both the 1994 International Mathematical Olympiad (Hong Kong) and the 1995 International Mathematical Olympiad (Toronto), where she finished with a perfect score. Mirzakhani obtained her BSc in Mathematics (1999) from the Sharif University of Technology. She holds a PhD from Harvard University (2004), where she worked under the supervision of the Fields Medallist Curtis McMullen. She was a Clay Mathematics Institute Research Fellow and a professor at Princeton University.
1102466	In mathematics, approximation theory is concerned with how functions can best be approximated with simpler functions, and with quantitatively characterizing the errors introduced thereby. Note that what is meant by "best" and "simpler" will depend on the application. A closely related topic is the approximation of functions by generalized Fourier series, that is, approximations based upon summation of a series of terms based upon orthogonal polynomials. One problem of particular interest is that of approximating a function in a computer mathematical library, using operations that can be performed on the computer or calculator (e.g. addition and multiplication), such that the result is as close to the actual function as possible. This is typically done with polynomial or rational (ratio of polynomials) approximations. The objective is to make the approximation as close as possible to the actual function, typically with an accuracy close to that of the underlying computer's floating point arithmetic. This is accomplished by using a polynomial of high degree, and/or narrowing the domain over which the polynomial has to approximate the function. Narrowing the domain can often be done through the use of various addition or scaling formulas for the function being approximated. Modern mathematical libraries often reduce the domain into many tiny segments and use a low-degree polynomial for each segment. Optimal polynomials. Once the domain and degree of the polynomial are chosen, the polynomial itself is chosen in such a way as to minimize the worst-case error. That is, the goal is to minimize the maximum value of formula_1, where "P"("x") is the approximating polynomial and "f"("x") is the actual function. For well-behaved functions, there exists an "N"th-degree polynomial that will lead to an error curve that oscillates back and forth between formula_2 and formula_3 a total of "N"+2 times, giving a worst-case error of formula_4. It is seen that an "N"th-degree polynomial can interpolate "N"+1 points in a curve. Such a polynomial is always optimal. It is possible to make contrived functions "f"("x") for which no such polynomial exists, but these occur rarely in practice. For example the graphs shown to the right show the error in approximating log(x) and exp(x) for "N" = 4. The red curves, for the optimal polynomial, are level, that is, they oscillate between formula_2 and formula_3 exactly. Note that, in each case, the number of extrema is "N"+2, that is, 6. Two of the extrema are at the end points of the interval, at the left and right edges of the graphs. When a maximum of "P"−"f" occurs at "xi", then And when a minimum of "P"−"f" occurs at "xi", then So, as can be seen in the graph, ["P"("x") − "f"("x")] − ["Q"("x") − "f"("x")] must alternate in sign for the "N" + 2 values of "xi". But ["P"("x") − "f"("x")] − ["Q"("x") − "f"("x")] reduces to "P"("x") − "Q"("x") which is a polynomial of degree "N". This function changes sign at least "N"+1 times so, by the Intermediate value theorem, it has "N"+1 zeroes, which is impossible for a polynomial of degree "N". Chebyshev approximation. One can obtain polynomials very close to the optimal one by expanding the given function in terms of Chebyshev polynomials and then cutting off the expansion at the desired degree. This is similar to the Fourier analysis of the function, using the Chebyshev polynomials instead of the usual trigonometric functions. If one calculates the coefficients in the Chebyshev expansion for a function: and then cuts off the series after the formula_11 term, one gets an "N"th-degree polynomial approximating "f"("x"). The reason this polynomial is nearly optimal is that, for functions with rapidly converging power series, if the series is cut off after some term, the total error arising from the cutoff is close to the first term after the cutoff. That is, the first term after the cutoff dominates all later terms. The same is true if the expansion is in terms of Chebyshev polynomials. If a Chebyshev expansion is cut off after formula_11, the error will take a form close to a multiple of formula_13. The Chebyshev polynomials have the property that they are level – they oscillate between +1 and −1 in the interval [−1, 1]. formula_13 has "N"+2 level extrema. This means that the error between "f"("x") and its Chebyshev expansion out to formula_11 is close to a level function with "N"+2 extrema, so it is close to the optimal "N"th-degree polynomial. In the graphs above, note that the blue error function is sometimes better than (inside of) the red function, but sometimes worse, meaning that it is not quite the optimal polynomial. Note also that the discrepancy is less serious for the exp function, which has an extremely rapidly converging power series, than for the log function. Chebyshev approximation is the basis for Clenshaw–Curtis quadrature, a numerical integration technique. Remez' algorithm. The Remez algorithm (sometimes spelled Remes) is used to produce an optimal polynomial "P"("x") approximating a given function "f"("x") over a given interval. It is an iterative algorithm that converges to a polynomial that has an error function with "N"+2 level extrema. By the theorem above, that polynomial is optimal. Remez' algorithm uses the fact that one can construct an "N"th-degree polynomial that leads to level and alternating error values, given "N"+2 test points. Given "N"+2 test points formula_16, formula_17, ... formula_18 (where formula_16 and formula_18 are presumably the end points of the interval of approximation), these equations need to be solved: The right-hand sides alternate in sign. That is, Since formula_16, ..., formula_18 were given, all of their powers are known, and formula_31, ..., formula_32 are also known. That means that the above equations are just "N"+2 linear equations in the "N"+2 variables formula_33, formula_34, ..., formula_35, and formula_4. Given the test points formula_16, ..., formula_18, one can solve this system to get the polynomial "P" and the number formula_4. The graph below shows an example of this, producing a fourth-degree polynomial approximating formula_40 over [−1, 1]. The test points were set at −1, −0.7, −0.1, +0.4, +0.9, and 1. Those values are shown in green. The resultant value of formula_4 is 4.43 x 10−4 Note that the error graph does indeed take on the values formula_42 at the six test points, including the end points, but that those points are not extrema. If the four interior test points had been extrema (that is, the function "P"("x")"f"("x") had maxima or minima there), the polynomial would be optimal. The second step of Remez' algorithm consists of moving the test points to the approximate locations where the error function had its actual local maxima or minima. For example, one can tell from looking at the graph that the point at −0.1 should have been at about −0.28. The way to do this in the algorithm is to use a single round of Newton's method. Since one knows the first and second derivatives of "P"("x")−"f"("x"), one can calculate approximately how far a test point has to be moved so that the derivative will be zero. After moving the test points, the linear equation part is repeated, getting a new polynomial, and Newton's method is used again to move the test points again. This sequence is continued until the result converges to the desired accuracy. The algorithm converges very rapidly. Convergence is quadratic for well-behaved functions—if the test points are within formula_46 of the correct result, they will be approximately within formula_47 of the correct result after the next round. Remez' algorithm is typically started by choosing the extrema of the Chebyshev polynomial formula_13 as the initial points, since the final error function will be similar to that polynomial.
1079097	The Seventh Seal () is a 1957 Swedish drama-fantasy film written and directed by Ingmar Bergman. Set in Sweden during the Black Death, it tells of the journey of a medieval knight (Max von Sydow) and a game of chess he plays with the personification of Death (Bengt Ekerot), who has come to take his life. Bergman developed the film from his own play "Wood Painting". The title refers to a passage from the Book of Revelation, used both at the very start of the film, and again towards the end, beginning with the words "And when the Lamb had opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven about the space of half an hour". Here the motif of silence refers to the "silence of God" which is a major theme of the film. The film is considered a major classic of world cinema. It helped Bergman to establish himself as a world-renowned director and contains scenes which have become iconic through parodies and homages. Synopsis. Disillusioned knight Antonius Block (Max von Sydow) and his nihilistic squire Jöns (Gunnar Björnstrand) return after fighting in the Crusades and find Sweden being ravaged by the plague. On the beach immediately after their arrival, Block encounters Death (Bengt Ekerot), personified as a pale, black-cowled figure resembling a monk. Block, in the middle of a chess game he has been playing alone, challenges Death to a chess match, believing that he can forestall his demise as long as the game continues. Death agrees, and they start a new game. The other characters in the story do not see Death, and when the chess board comes out at various times in the story, they believe Block is continuing his habit of playing alone. Block and Jöns head for Block's castle. Along the way, they pass some actors, Jof and his wife Mia, with their baby son, Mikael, and their actor-manager, Skat. Jof has visions, but Mia is skeptical. The knight and the squire enter a church where a fresco of the Dance of Death is being painted. Jöns draws a small figure representing himself. Block goes to the confessional where he is joined by Death in the robe of a priest, to whom he admits that his life has been futile and without meaning, but that he wants to perform "one meaningful deed." Upon revealing the chess strategy that will save his life, Block discovers that the priest is Death, who promises to remember the tactics. Leaving the church, Block speaks to a young woman who has been condemned to be burnt alive for supposedly consorting with the devil. Shortly thereafter, Jöns searches an abandoned village for water. He saves a servant girl (Gunnel Lindblom) from being raped by a man robbing a corpse. He recognises the man as Raval, a theologian, who ten years prior had convinced Antonius to leave his wife and join a crusade to the Holy Land. Jöns promises to brand Raval on the face if they meet again. The girl joins Jöns. The trio ride into town, where the little acting troupe is performing. Skat introduces Jof and Mia to the crowd, then is enticed by Lisa, the blacksmith's wife, away for a tryst. They run off together. Jof and Mia's performance is interrupted by the arrival of a procession of flagellants. At a public house, Jof comes across Raval. Raval forces Jof to dance on the tables like a bear. Jöns appears and, true to his word, slices Raval's face. Block enjoys a country picnic of milk and wild strawberries gathered by Mia. Block says: "I'll carry this memory between my hands as if it were bowl filled to the brim with fresh milk...And it will be an adequate sign – it will be enough for me." He invites the actors to his castle, where they will be safer from the plague. Along the way, they come across Skat and Lisa in the forest. Lisa, dissatisfied with Skat, returns to her husband. After the others leave, Skat climbs a tree for the night. Death cuts down the tree, informing the actor that his time is up. They pass the condemned young woman again. Block asks the woman again to summon Satan, so he can ask him about God. The girl claims already to have done so, but Block cannot see him, only her terror. He gives her herbs to take away her pain. Raval reappears. Dying of the plague, he pleads for water. The servant girl attempts to bring him some, but is stopped by Jöns. Jof tells Mia that he can see the knight playing chess with Death, and decides to flee with his family while Death is preoccupied. After hearing Death state "No one escapes me" Block knocks the chess pieces over, distracting Death while the family slips away. Death places the pieces back on the board, then wins the game on the next move. He announces that when they meet again, Block's time—and that of all those travelling with him—will be up. Before departing, Death asks if Block has accomplished his one "meaningful deed" yet; Block replies that he has. The knight is reunited with his wife, the sole occupant of his castle, all the servants having fled. The party shares one "last supper" before Death comes for them. Block prays to God, "Have mercy on us, because we are small and frightened and ignorant." Meanwhile, the little family sits out a storm, which Jof interprets to be "the "Angel of Death" and he's very big." The next morning, Jof, with his second sight, sees the knight and his followers being led away over the hills in a solemn dance of death. Production. Bergman originally wrote the play "Trämålning" ("Wood Painting") in 1953/1954 for the acting students of Malmö City Theatre. The first time it was performed in public was in radio in 1954, directed by Bergman. He also directed it on stage in Malmö the next spring, and in the autumn it was staged in Stockholm, directed by Bengt Ekerot who would later play the character Death in the film version. In his autobiography, "The Magic Lantern", Bergman wrote that ""Wood Painting" gradually became "The Seventh Seal", an uneven film which lies close to my heart, because it was made under difficult circumstances in a surge of vitality and delight." The script for the "Seventh Seal" was commenced while Bergman was in the Karolinska Hospital in Stockholm recovering from a stomach complaint. It was at first rejected and Bergman was given the go-ahead for the project from Carl-Anders Dymling at Svensk Filmindustri only after the success at Cannes of "Smiles of a Summer Night" Bergman rewrote the script five times and was given a schedule of only thirty-five days and a budget of $150,000. It was to be the seventeenth film he had directed. All scenes except two were shot in or around the Filmstaden studios in Solna. The exceptions were the famous opening scene with Death and the Knight playing chess by the sea and the ending with the dance of death, which were both shot at Hovs Hallar, a rocky, precipitous beach area in north-western Scania. In the "Magic Lantern" autobiography Bergman writes of the film's iconic penultimate shot: "The image of the Dance of Death beneath the dark cloud was achieved at hectic speed because most of the actors had finished for the day. Assistants, electricians, and a make-up man and about two summer visitors, who never knew what it was all about, had to dress up in the costumes of those condemned to death. A camera with no sound was set up and the picture shot before the cloud dissolved." Portrait of the Middle Ages. With regard to the relevancy of historical accuracy to a film that is heavily metaphorical and allegorical, John Aberth, writing in "A Knight at the Movies", holds the film only partially succeeds in conveying the period atmosphere and thought world of the fourteenth century. Bergman would probably counter that it was never his intention to make an historical or period film. As it was written in a program note that accompanied the movie's premier "It is a modern poem presented with medieval material that has been very freely handled...The script in particular—embodies a mid-twentieth century existentialist angst...Still, to be fair to Bergman, one must allow him his artistic license, and the script's modernisms may be justified as giving the movie's medieval theme a compelling and urgent contemporary relevance...Yet the film succeeds to a large degree because it is set in the Middle Ages, a time that can seem both very remote and very immediate to us living in the modern world...Ultimately "The Seventh Seal" should be judged as a historical film by how well it combines the medieval and the modern." Similarly defending it as an allegory, Aleksander Kwiatkowski in the book "Swedish Film Classics", writes The international response to the film which among other awards won the jury's special prize at Cannes in 1957 reconfirmed the author' high rank and proved that "The Seventh Seal" regardless of its degree of accuracy in reproducing medieval scenery may be considered as a universal, timeless allegory. Much of the film's imagery is derived from medieval art. For example, Bergman has stated that the image of a man playing chess with a skeletal Death was inspired by a medieval church painting from the 1480s in Täby kyrka, Täby, north of Stockholm, painted by Albertus Pictor. However, the medieval Sweden portrayed in this movie includes creative anachronisms. The last Swedish crusade (the third) took place in 1293 and the Black Death hit Europe in 1348. In addition, the flagellant movement was foreign to Sweden, and large-scale witch persecutions only began in the 15th century. Generally speaking, historians Johan Huizinga, Friedrich Heer and Barbara Tuchman have all argued that the late Middle Ages of the 14th century was a period of "doom and gloom" similar to what is reflected in this film, characterized by a feeling of pessimism, an increase in a penitential style of piety that was slightly masochistic, all aggravated by various disasters such as the Black Plague, famine, the Hundred Years' War between France and England, and papal schism. This is sometimes called the crisis of the Late Middle Ages and Barbara Tuchman regards the 14th century as "a distant mirror" of the 20th century in a way that echoes Bergman's sensibilities. Nonetheless, the period of the Crusades is well before this era; they took place in a more optimistic period. Major themes. The title refers to a passage about the end of the world from the Book of Revelation, used both at the very start of the film, and again towards the end, beginning with the words "And when the Lamb had opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven about the space of half an hour" (Revelation 8:1). Thus, in the confessional scene the knight states: "Is it so cruelly inconceivable to grasp God with the senses? Why should He hide himself in a mist of half-spoken promises and unseen miracles?...What is going to happen to those of us who want to believe but aren't able to?" Death, impersonating the confessional priest, refuses to reply. Similarly, later, as he eats the strawberries with the family of actors, Antonius Block says: "Faith is a torment – did you know that? It is like loving someone who is out there in the darkness but never appears, no matter how loudly you call." Bragg notes that the concept of the "Silence of God" in the face of evil, or the pleas of believers or would-be-believers, may be influenced by the punishments of silence meted out by Bergman's father, a chaplain in the State Lutheran Church. Interestingly, in Bergman's original radio play sometimes translated as "A Painting on Wood", the figure of Death in a Dance of Death is represented not by an actor, but by silence, "mere nothingness, mere absence...terrifying...the void." Strong influences on the film were Bibi Andersson (with whom Bergman was in a relationship 1955–59) who played the juggler's wife Mia, Picasso's picture of the two acrobats, Carl Orff's Carmina Burana, Strindberg's "Folk Sagas" and "To Damascus", the frescoes at Haskeborga church and a painting by Albertus Pictor in Täby kyrka. Just prior to shooting Bergman directed for radio the "Play of Everyman" by Hugo von Hofmannstahl. By this time he had also directed plays by Shakespeare, Strindberg, Camus, Chesterton, Anouilh, Tennessee Williams, Pirandello, Lehár, Molière and Ostrovsky. Bergman grew up in a home infused with an intense Christianity, his father being a charismatic rector (this may have explained Bergman's childhood infatuation with Hitler which later deeply tormented him). As a six-year old child, Bergman used to help the gardener carry corpses from the Royal Hospital Sophiahemmet (where his father was chaplain) to the mortuary. When, as a boy, he saw the film "Black Beauty", the fire scene excited him so much he stayed in bed for three days with a temperature. Despite living a Bohemian lifestyle in partial rebellion against his upbringing, Bergman often signed his scripts with the initials "S.D.G" ("Soli Deo Gloria") — "To God Alone the Glory" —, just as J. S. Bach did at the end of every musical composition. Gerald Mast writes, "Like the gravedigger in "Hamlet", the Squire [...] treats death as a bitter and hopeless joke. Since we all play chess with death, and since we all must suffer through that hopeless joke, the only question about the game is how long it will last and how well we will play it. To play it well, to live, is to love and not to hate the body and the mortal as the Church urges in Bergman's metaphor." Melvyn Bragg writes, "t is constructed like an argument. It is a story told as a sermon might be delivered: an allegory...each scene is at once so simple and so charged and layered that it catches us again and again...Somehow all of Bergman's own past, that of his father, that of his reading and doing and seeing, that of his Swedish culture, of his political burning and religious melancholy, poured into a series of pictures which carry that swell of contributions and contradictions so effortlessly that you could tell the story to a child, publish it as a storybook of photographs and yet know that the deepest questions of religion and the most mysterious revelation of simply being alive are both addressed." The Jesuit publication "America" identifies it as having begun "a series of seven films that explored the possibility of faith in a post-Holocaust, nuclear age". Likewise, film historians Thomas W. Bohn and Richard L. Stromgren identify this film as beginning "his cycle of films dealing with the conundrum of religious faith". Reception. Upon its original Swedish release, "The Seventh Seal" was met by very positive reviews although not without reservations. Nils Beyer at "Morgon-tidningen" compared it to Carl Theodor Dreyer's "The Passion of Joan of Arc" and "Day of Wrath". While finding Dreyer's films to be superior, he still noted that "it isn't just any director that you feel like comparing to the old Danish master." He also praised the usage of the cast, in particular Max von Sydow whose character he described as "a pale, serious Don Quixote character with a face as if sculpted in wood", and "Bibi Andersson, who appears as if painted in faded watercolours but still can emit small delicious glimpses of female warmth." Hanserik Hjertén for "Arbetaren" started his review by praising the cinematography, but soon went on to describe the film as "a horror film for children" and that beyond the superficial, it reminds a lot of Bergman's "sophomoric films from the 40s." Bosley Crowther had only positive things to say in his 1958 review for "The New York Times", and praised how the themes were elevated by the cinematography and acting: "the profundities of the ideas are lightened and made flexible by glowing pictorial presentation of action that is interesting and strong. Mr. Bergman uses his camera and actors for sharp, realistic effects." The film has been regarded since its release as a masterpiece of cinematography. It was Ranked #8 in "Empire" magazines "The 100 Best Films Of World Cinema" in 2010. In a poll held by the same magazine, it was voted 335th 'Greatest Movie of All Time' from a list of 500. In addition, on the 100th anniversary of cinema in 1995, the Vatican included "The Seventh Seal" in its list of its 45 "great films" for its thematic values. The film was selected as the Swedish entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 30th Academy Awards, but was not accepted as a nominee. Impact. "The Seventh Seal" significantly helped Bergman in gaining his position as a world-class director. When the film won the Special Jury Prize at the 1957 Cannes Film Festival, the attention generated by it (along with the previous year's "Smiles of a Summer Night") made Bergman and his stars Max von Sydow and Bibi Andersson well-known to the European film community, and the critics and readers of "Cahiers du Cinéma", among others, discovered him with this movie. Within five years of this, he had established himself as the first real auteur of Swedish cinema. With its images and reflections upon death and the meaning of life, "The Seventh Seal" had a symbolism that was "immediately apprehensible to people trained in literary culture who were just beginning to discover the 'art' of film, and it quickly became a staple of high school and college literature courses... Unlike Hollywood 'movies,' "The Seventh Seal" clearly was aware of elite artistic culture and thus was readily appreciated by intellectual audiences." In popular culture. The representation of Death as a white-faced man who wears a dark cape and plays chess with mortals has been a popular object of parody in other films and television. Several films and comedy sketches portray Death as playing games other than or in addition to chess. In the final scene of the 1968 film "De Düva" (mock Swedish for "The Dove"), a 15-minute pastiche of Bergman's work generally and his "Wild Strawberries" in particular, the protagonist plays badminton against Death and wins when the droppings of a passing dove strike Death in the eye. The photography imitates throughout the style of Bergman's cinematographers Sven Nykqvist and Gunnar Fischer. The protagonists of the 1991 science-fiction comedy "Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey" return to life by defeating Death (played by William Sadler) at Battleship, Clue, electric football, and Twister. After each of the first three games, Death insists that the competition be extended to a "best-of-three," "-five," and then "-seven" series, but after being beaten in four games he concedes defeat. In the film "Last Action Hero", Death, played by Sir Ian McKellen, is transported to the real world from a showing of "The Seventh Seal" and tries to reap Jack Slater. In "Monty Python and the Holy Grail", a scene of flagellants, chanting lines from the "Dies Irae" is a parody of the scene in the film. Also, in Monty Python's "The Meaning of Life", the appearance of death in Antonius' castle is recreated in an English country dinner party. Woody Allen's one-act play entitled "Death Knocks", part of his anthology "Getting Even", depicts a man playing gin rummy against Death. Allen, an enormous fan of Ingmar Bergman, references Bergman's work in his serious dramas as well as his comedies; his "Love and Death", a broad parody of 19th-century Russian novels, closes with a "Dance of Death" scene imitating Bergman's.
314929	"Greaser's Palace" is a 1972 American acid western cult film directed by underground filmmaker Robert Downey, Sr. A parable based on the life of Christ, it is full of references about the destruction of the world. Plot. "Greaser's Palace" follows Jesse (Allan Arbus), a Christ-like figure in a zoot-suit, on his way to Jerusalem to find work as a singer-dancer-actor. In a run-down Western town, he runs afoul of the local boss, Seaweedhead Greaser (Albert Henderson), until he brings Greaser's son Lamy (Michael Sullivan) back from the dead. Production. "Greaser's Palace", which was shot on location in New Mexico, was produced by Cyma Rubin, a neophyte Broadway producer who gave Downey a million dollars to make the film. Rubin would later run into legal problems, unrelated to this film, for which she would serve jail time. Downey had previously made the cult hit "Putney Swope" (1969) as well as lesser-known films such as "Pound" (1970), "Babo 73" (1964) and "Chafed Elbows" (1966). Reception. Although Time's Jay Cocks said it was Downey's "funniest, most accomplished and most audacious film yet," adding that it was "the most adventurous American movie so far this year", in general, "Greaser's Palace" did not receive good critical reviews. Thomas Meehan, writing in the "Saturday Review" said "Robert Downey seems to have absolutely everything it takes to be a successful movie director except talent," and thought that this film was "even worse than his earlier pictures – an absurdist, incomprehensible Western that mixes in scatology, William Morris agents and the second coming of Christ." Kevin Thomas, the critic for the "Los Angeles Times" wrote of it "...the film is so utterly devoid of wit and imagination that the unremitting gross behavior and language it wallows in is quickly revolting." Kathleen Carroll, critic for the "New York Daily News" asked "Does this weird concoction of Harvard Lampoon parody, half-serious symbolism and silly slapstick really work?"
1185069	Ashlee Nicole Simpson (born October 3, 1984) is an American singer-songwriter and actress. The younger sister of Jessica Simpson, she rose to prominence as a participant in her sister's reality show "", and starred in the spin-off program "The Ashlee Simpson Show" which portrayed her creating her debut album, "Autobiography". The album was released after the show's first season and went to the top of the album chart. Following a North American concert tour and a film appearance, Simpson released her second number-one album, "I Am Me" (2005). Simpson assumed creative control over her less successful third album, "Bittersweet World" (2008). Early life and career beginnings. Simpson was born in Waco, Texas and raised in Richardson, Texas. She is the daughter of Tina Ann (née Drew), a homemaker, and Joe Truett Simpson, a former psychologist and Baptist youth minister who works as Simpson's agent. Simpson has an older sister, Jessica, who is also a singer and actress. Her parents were married in 1978 and filed for divorce in 2012. Their divorce was finalized in 2013. She attended the same schools as her sister, Prairie Creek Elementary and Richardson North Junior High. In 1987, when Simpson was three years old, she began studying classical ballet. Simpson enrolled at the School of American Ballet in New York City in 1995, a year in advance. During this time, Simpson suffered from an eating disorder for about six months but received treatment from her parents. Tina and Joe Simpson made the decision to relocate to Los Angeles, California for Jessica's singing career in 1999. Subsequently, Ashlee was cast in television commercials. Music career. 2004–05: "Autobiography". Following the success of her sister Jessica's first album, Ashlee became one of her backup dancers. Simpson recorded a song entitled "Christmas Past, Present and Future" in 2002 for the holiday album "School's Out! Christmas", which was later re-released on "Radio Disney Jingle Jams" in 2004 and 2005. In the summer of 2003, she released a song called "Just Let Me Cry" for the soundtrack to the film "Freaky Friday". After her appearances on the "School's Out! Christmas" and "Freaky Friday" albums, Simpson signed a record deal with Geffen Records. Her first album, "Autobiography", debuted at number one in the United States in July 2004, with first-week sales of around 398,000 copies. The album was certified triple-platinum by the RIAA in September 2004. Simpson co-wrote all of the album's tracks, describing it as "very true to my emotions", however, critical reviews were mixed. "Rolling Stone" magazine's Peter Relic characterised the album as a "mundane melange of Avril-ish brat pop and Sheryl Crow cod rock." The single which preceded the album, "Pieces of Me", was one of the biggest hits of the summer in the United States and was certified gold by the RIAA. The follow-up singles, "Shadow" and "La La", were less successful, although the latter became an RIAA-certified gold seller. At the "Teen Choice Awards" on August 8, 2004, Simpson received the "Song of the Summer" Teen Choice Award for "Pieces of Me", as well as the "Fresh Face" Award. She also won the Billboard Award for New Female Artist of the Year in December, and in the same month, "Entertainment Weekly" named her one of its Breakout Stars of 2004. Simpson's first North American tour ran from mid-February to late April 2005. The tour was described as "stripped down" without pyrotechnics. As well as material from "Autobiography", Simpson performed her own unreleased song "Hollywood", The Pretenders' "Brass in Pocket", Blondie's "Call Me" and Madonna's"Burning Up". 2005–06: "I Am Me". Simpson's second album, "I Am Me", was released on October 18, 2005. She wanted to incorporate the feel of music from the 1980s on the album, and unlike with her debut, she wanted to focus less on relationships and more on herself. The album debuted at number-one, selling around 220,000 copies in its first week; as of 2008, it had sold 944,000 copies in the U.S., according to Nielsen SoundScan. Its lead single, "Boyfriend", became a top 20 hit on the "Billboard" Hot 100 while Simpson's next two singles, "L.O.V.E." and "Invisible" (a track not featured on the album), reached the top 40. Simpson began a concert tour in late September in Portland, Oregon and appeared on the October 8, 2005 episode of "SNL" to promote the album. The first song she performed on the show was "Catch Me When I Fall", a ballad written about her previous "SNL" experience, and she thanked the crowd after her second performance. In mid-December, Simpson collapsed after performing in Japan, and was briefly hospitalized, consequently cancelling an appearance at the Radio Music Awards. The collapse and her subsequent hospitalization were attributed to exhaustion as a result of her busy work schedule. In March 2006, Simpson won an MTV celebrity surfing invitational competition, which also featured celebrities such as Meagan Good, Jack Osbourne, Ashley Parker Angel and Tony Hawk. On April 12, 2006, she hosted and performed at the MTV Australia Video Music Awards, where she won "Best Female Artist" and "Best Pop Video" for the single "Boyfriend". She began a summer tour on June 5, 2006, with Ashley Parker Angel as the opening act. 2007–10: "Bittersweet World". During 2007, Simpson recorded her third studio album, "Bittersweet World" with producers Timbaland, Kenna, and Chad Hugo. She described the album as being influenced by 1980s music—bearing similarities with "I Am Me"—while still incorporating elements of rock and pop and described her intention to go on tour to support the album. Geffen Records chairman Ron Fair said in December 2006 that working on Simpson's next album would be "very tricky" because of press scrutiny and "prejudices", but that Geffen would work with her to overcome that, "because she deserves to be heard and she deserves a shot." "Bittersweet World" was released in the United States on April 22, 2008 to mixed reviews. The album's first single, the Timbaland-produced "Outta My Head (Ay Ya Ya)", was released as a digital download in December 2007, but failed to chart on the "Billboard" Hot 100. The second single, "Little Miss Obsessive", was released in March 2008 and performed marginally better, reaching number 96 on the Hot 100. "Bittersweet World" has sold 126,000 copies, according to Nielsen SoundScan. 2011–present: Fourth studio album. In an interview with "Paper", Simpson stated that her fourth album would have a "folk feel". On the June 23, 2011 episode of "On Air with Ryan Seacrest", Ryan Seacrest confirmed that Simpson had held meetings with record executives alongside previous collaborator John Shanks to plan the exact direction of her next album. On July 20, 2012, in an interview with "Nylon" magazine, Simpson talked about her new album saying: "I'm really proud of the sounds and I'm really excited for it to be an artistic venture. The sound is a little soulful, a little electronic" She also said some of the tracks were completed. On October 31, 2012, Simpson revealed through her official website a preview of the song and video of her new single "Bat for a Heart." The song was released a month later under a patent of her name, "℗ 2012 Ashlee Simpson". Saturday Night Live lip synching incident. Simpson appeared as a musical guest on the October 23, 2004 episode of "Saturday Night Live", where she was scheduled to perform two songs, "Pieces of Me" and "Autobiography". When she began singing "Autobiography", the vocals for "Pieces of Me" were heard again before Simpson had the microphone to her mouth. She began to do an impromptu jig when she realized she had been caught lipsyncing, and then left the stage. During the closing of the show, Simpson appeared with the guest host, Jude Law, and said, "I'm so sorry. My band started playing the wrong song, and I didn't know what to do, so I thought I'd do a hoedown." On October 25, Simpson called in to the music video show "Total Request Live" and explained that due to complications arising from severe acid reflux disease, she had completely lost her voice and been advised not to sing by her doctor. She said that because of the acid reflux, her father wanted her to use a vocal guide track for the performance. During the performance her drummer hit the wrong button, which caused the wrong track to be played. Simpson said of the incident, "I made a complete fool of myself." Film and acting career. Simpson first started by making appearances in films and television series, including "Malcolm in the Middle" (2001), a minor role in "The Hot Chick" (2002), and a recurring role on the family drama series "7th Heaven" (2002, 2003, and 2004). In the summer of 2003, she worked as a VJ for MTV. Occasionally, Simpson appeared on "", a reality show documenting the married life of her sister Jessica and her then-husband, Nick Lachey. In 2004 Simpson had a supporting role as an aspiring actress named Clea in "Undiscovered". While her performance was met with indifference, the film itself was panned by critics and failed to reach the top 10 in its opening weekend, earning just $676,048 during its theatrical run. Her performance in the film earned her a Razzie nomination for Worst Supporting Actress. In 2006 Simpson was cast as Roxie Hart in the West End production of "Chicago" from September 25 to October 28, 2006. She received mostly positive reviews. Her performance in the show was described as "dazzling and near flawless." In 2009 Simpson returned full-time to television episodes by playing the role of Violet Foster in "Melrose Place", the CW's revamp of the 1990s series of the same name. She was originally signed to the show as a regular, but producers and CWexecutives decided to write out her character. Simpson left the show after 12 episodes and stated that she had known all along that her character would leave the show once the murder mystery storyline had concluded. After her departure from "Melrose Place", Simpson reprised her role in the Broadway musical production of "Chicago". She began her Broadway run on November 30, 2009 and performed in New York for eight shows a week until February 7, 2010. In June 2012, it was announced that Simpson was filming "Pawn Shop Chronicles" in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, a comedy movie set for release in 2013. "The Ashlee Simpson Show". As an accompaniment to her debut album, "Autobiography", and to create interest in the beginning of her own music career, she filmed and appeared on her own reality television series, "The Ashlee Simpson Show", which aired in the time slot following "Newlyweds". It ran in the United States for eight weekly episodes over the summer of 2004 (a second season of 10 episodes aired from January to March 2005). The show dealt with the processes of writing, recording and performing Simpson's music, as well as aspects of her personal life. Personal life. In 2006, Simpson started dating Fall Out Boy bassist and songwriter Pete Wentz. In February 2008, Simpson began wearing a diamond ring. She later explained that it was a promise ring from Wentz. In April 2008, Simpson and Wentz confirmed their engagement and were married at Simpson's parents' residence in Encino, California, where her father officiated the ceremony. Two weeks later, Simpson confirmed her pregnancy. Her surname changed from Simpson to Wentz and she was briefly known professionally as Ashlee Simpson-Wentz. Simpson gave birth to their son Bronx Mowgli Wentz on November 20, 2008. She appeared alongside Wentz in the crime drama series "" in 2009. On February 9, 2011, Simpson filed for divorce from Wentz, citing irreconcilable differences. She requested joint legal custody with visitation for Wentz, but sole physical custody and spousal support. She also asked that her name be restored to Ashlee Nicole Simpson. Their divorce was finalized on November 22, 2011. Simpson was in a relationship with Vincent Piazza from June 2011 to November 2012. Musical influences and public image. When Simpson first broke onto the music scene in 2004, she was set apart from her sister's already established image due to a different music style, different fashion choices, and a more assertive personality. Simpson's songs have been characterized by rock elements absent from her sister's music, and, particularly during her early career, Simpson would often wear outfits highlighting a rock or punk-influenced sense of style. She cites her childhood as being the time when she began to sing, and admits that she dreamed of being on Broadway and did not expect to break into the pop music scene. She trains with a vocal coach, and studies Etta James and Aretha Franklin albums for vocal inspiration. She has cited Gwen Stefani, No Doubt, Joan Jett, The Runaways, Madonna, Pat Benatar, Green Day, Alanis Morissette, Fiona Apple, Chrissie Hynde, and Debbie Harry from Blondie as her musical influences. Simpson had a nose job in April 2006. In the May 2007 issue of "Harper's Bazaar", she said that she was not insecure about her appearance and had not been beforehand. She said that plastic surgery was a "personal choice" that one should only decide to do for oneself and not for others. In a September 2007 interview, her father, Joe Simpson said of the surgery: "There was a real problem with her breathing and that was cured". In mid-2006, Simpson gave an interview to "Marie Claire" magazine, in which she was said to have "had it with Hollywood's twisted view of feminine beauty" and was photographed painting a pro-female mural with a group of underprivileged girls from Los Angeles' Green Dot Public School. By the time the magazine hit newsstands, Simpson had already had her nose job, and some "Marie Claire" readers complained that this was hypocritical. The magazine received over 1,000 letters of complaint and the magazine's new editor expanded the letters section of the September issue of the magazine to give readers a chance to vent their frustrations. Simpson launched a collection of tops in partnership with the clothing retailer Wet Seal on April 22, 2008, the same day "Bittersweet World" was released. She also began appearing in commercials for Canadian retailer Zellers to promote their independent clothing line, "Request", in mid-2008. Simpson appeared on the second episode of The CW's "America's Next Top Model, Cycle 17" as a guest judge. She created a fashion line aimed at girls aged 7–16 in collaboration with her sister's successful brand. Simpson is the co-creative director of the line, which was released in the winter of 2011.
1259100	À ma sœur! is a 2001 French film directed by Catherine Breillat and starring Roxane Mesquida. It was released in some English speaking countries under the alternative titles For My Sister or Fat Girl. Breillat's experience shooting the film inspired her 2002 film "Sex Is Comedy", which revolves around shooting a sex scene from the film. Mesquida reprised the scene for the later movie. Plot. Anaïs (Anaïs Reboux) and her older sister, Elena (Roxane Mesquida) are vacationing with their parents on the French seaside. Bored of staying in their vacation home, the two walk into town while discussing relationships and their virginity. Although the highly attractive Elena has been promiscuous, she is saving herself for someone who loves her, while heavy-set, overweight Anaïs thinks it is better to lose one's virginity to a "nobody" just to get it over with. They meet a Matamoros law student, Fernando (Libero De Rienzo), at a cafe. While Elena flirts with him, Anaïs orders a banana split. Later, Fernando sneaks into the girls' bedroom for a liaison with Elena. Anaïs is awake and watches their entire interaction. After a conversation about Fernando's previous relationships with other women, Elena consents to have sex with him, but backs out at the last minute. Frustrated, Fernando pressures her through various means, including threatening to sleep with some other woman just to alleviate himself. Finally, Elena consents to anal sex as a "proof of love", although it is obviously a painful experience for her. In the morning, Fernando asks for oral sex from Elena before he leaves, but Anaïs has had enough and tells them to let her sleep in peace. The next day, the girls and Fernando go to the beach. Anaïs sits in the ocean in her new dress and sings to herself while Elena and Fernando go off alone together. Later, as the girls are reminiscing about their childhood together back at the house, Elena reveals that Fernando has given her a mauve opal engagement ring while at the beach. That night, Elena gives up her virginity to Fernando as Anaïs silently cries on the other side of the room. Later, Fernando's mother arrives at the house that Anaïs and her family are renting, asking for the girl's mother to return the mauve opal ring. Their mother discovers Elena's and Fernando's relationship, and angrily decides to drive back to Paris. On the way back she becomes tired and decides to sleep at a rest stop, where an axe murderer arrives, killing Elena with an axe and strangling her mother. He takes Anaïs into the woods and rapes her. When the police arrive the next morning, Anaïs insists he did not rape her, and the credits roll. Controversy. The film was banned in Ontario by the Ontario Film Review Board in the fall of 2001 because the board objected to the film's representation of teenage sexuality. This ban was eventually overturned and the film played in several theatres in 2003. Awards. In 2001 the film won the Manfred Salzgeber Award at the Berlin International Film Festival and the France Culture Award at the Cannes festival.
394188	Shin Ha-kyun (born May 30, 1974) is a South Korean actor. Notable film roles include "Joint Security Area" (2000), "Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance" (2002), "Save the Green Planet!" (2003), and "Welcome to Dongmakgol" (2005). Career. Shin Ha-kyun first trained as a stage actor at the Seoul Institute of the Arts before going on to act in a large number of plays by Jang Jin. When in 1998 Jang Jin directed his first movie "The Happenings", Shin was cast and he has since appeared in almost all of Jang's feature films. Impressed by his acting abilities, director Kim Ji-woon also cast him in minor roles in "The Foul King" and his 30-minute internet film "Coming Out".
582591	Shootout at Lokhandwala is a 2007 Hindi crime thriller film directed by Apoorva Lakhia. It is the first instalment of the Shootout series. It is based upon the 1991 Lokhandwala Complex shootout, a real-life gun battle between gangsters and Mumbai Police. Additional commissioner of police (ACP) A.A. Khan, head of the ATS, attacked the Lokhandwala Complex on 16 November 1991, with a force of around 400 armed policemen. Dreaded gangster Maya Dolas was hiding in the complex. The leading protagonists in the film have slightly different names than their real-life counterparts and the film caption is "based on true rumours." The film was released on 25 May 2007. Plot. The film opens with shots of brooms and dustpans cleaning dried blood and cartridge casings in and around Swati building at the Lokhandwala Complex. TVN reporter Meeta Matu (Diya Mirza) reports that some 3000 rounds of ammunition were discharged by a large police squad at a previously peaceful residential area. The film moves to the offices of former chief justice turned private prosecutor Dhingra (Amitabh Bachchan) where he interviews the three leading members of the Mumbai Encounter Squad: Additional Commissioner of Police Shamsher S. Khan (Addl.CP S.S. Khan) (referring to A. A. Khan, played by Sanjay Dutt), Inspector Kaviraj Patil (Sunil Shetty) and Inspector Javed Sheikh (Arbaaz Khan). The main film timeline is the extended interview of the three officers by Dhingra; as the officers answer Dhingra's questions, the film flashes back to show the incidents. Dhingra asks about the Encounter Squad. Khan explains that he hand-picked 27 of Mumbai police's best enlisted men and officers. He borrowed the concept from the LAPD SWAT (Special Weapons And Tactics) team to help combat crime. The film flashes back to show Khan selecting his men and putting them through intensive physical and mental training to be "fast, efficient and deadly." Dhingra is hardly impressed: He points out that if Khan "shoots to kill" he is no different from the gangsters he seeks to destroy. Dhingra asks why Khan felt he had do this. Khan explains that following Operation Blue Star in 1984, several Sikh terrorists fled to Mumbai and began establishing a base in the city. They engaged in violence, extortion and other subversive tactics to grow their operations. The film flashes back to show Sub Inspector Mhatre, a very brave officer and disciple of Khan, pursuing and subsequently getting shot down by a group of Sikh terrorists. Khan is deeply frustrated when the Mumbai police, mired in internal bureaucracy and corruption, fail to act. He obtains clearance from the police commissioner Krishnamurthy (played by the real A. A. Khan) and sets out after the militants. Khan asks Meeta Matu (Diya Mirza) to cover the incident so as to deter future terrorists. True to Khan's words, he successfully "encounters" (it indicates summarily gunning down criminals; extrajudicial killings is the term accepted internationally) the terrorists who shot PSI Mhatre. As per Aftab Ahmed Khan the encounter with Khalistani Extremist was more dangerous and tough than "Shootout at Lokhandwala". The film segues into the life of Maya (referring to Mumbai gangster Mahindra Dolas though the film never mentions Dolas specifically; played by Vivek Oberoi). Maya is the second-in-command of the "big boss" in Dubai (a clear reference to Dawood Ibrahim though the film does not mention his name) and runs Dawood's criminal activities in Mumbai. Maya recruits Bhua (referring to Dilip Buwa, played by Tusshar Kapoor) after successfully hatching a plot to eliminate Bhua's old gang led by Ashok Joshi. At this point, Maya and Bhua are at the top of Mumbai's underworld, reporting directly to the big boss in Dubai. Things heat up when Khan recognises, through his network of spies and informers, that Maya is responsible for several criminal and possibly terrorist activities. Around this time, Maya's ambitions, fuelled by his Aai's (Amrita Singh) insistence, grow to the point where he wishes to assert his independence from Dubai and take over Mumbai himself. Khan's ATS now focuses on eliminating Maya and Bhua, and begins a dangerous cat-and-mouse game where neither side shows any overt aggression but tries to disable the adversary by tactical manoeuvre. Khan launches "visits" to the criminals' families to try to "persuade" them to counsel the criminals to surrender. In turn, Maya and his men return the "visit" by approaching the cops at social situations. Maya visits Khan at a restaurant where Khan is having dinner with his family. Maya quietly tells Khan: "This is between your men and mine. Leave the families out of it." Khan retorts: "I did this to give you an opportunity to come clean. But now it appears that any resolution hangs off the barrel of a gun." Maya's rage intensifies when he gets thrown out by prominent city builder Wadhwani (based on real life builder and politician Gopal Rajwani, owner of the building that the movie was set in). Maya had demanded 4 million protection money; Wadhwani claimed to deal directly with Dubai. Maya kidnaps Wadhwani's snivelling, overweight kid. When Wadhwani complains, the big boss asks Maya to cut it out and return the child immediately. Maya quietly informs the boss that he has upped his demands and that he wants to reign supreme in Mumbai. The film also explores the personal lives of the protagonists. Khan's wife Rohini (Neha Dhupia) is unable to bear his constant neglect of his family life. She files for divorce. Patil's divorce is nearly upon him, too. In the enemy camp, Buwa has shacked up with a bar dancer Tanu (Aarti Chhabria) and is unable to spend any quality time with her. Fellow criminals Phatu (estranged from his parents) and RC (plagued by ghost-like visions of an innocent family he gunned down) have similar troubles. It all comes to a head in November 1991. The five criminals including Maya and Buwa secure themselves, while holding Wadhwani's kid, in a flat at Swati building in Lokhandwala. Khan is tipped off of the location by an informant. (In Dhingra's questioning, Khan allegedly also received a call from the big boss in Dubai. Khan vehemently denies this.) Khan assembles a large squad of cops and lays siege to the location. He announces over the bullhorn that residents are advised to stay indoors and bolt their windows. A long and devastating gun battle begins. The criminals launch rocket propelled grenades from their flat and try to escape. But they are overwhelmed by police fire, and all five criminals are eventually slain. The battle lays waste to the building: Film shots show the staircases, hallways and several civilian flats completely pulverised by gunfire. Reporter Meeta Matu covers the action live. Up to this point, Dhingra has been negative and denigrating of Khan and his efforts with the ATS. He cites press reports and civilian complaints that condemn Khan (and the ATS) of unilateral and unwarranted excessive force in a residential locality. Charges are brought against Khan and the ATS. But when Dhingra rises to defend them as their appointed counsel, he, in a surprising twist, presents an unconventional argument as defence. The film ends with Khan and the ATS being acquitted. Production. Many scenes were shot on actual locations at the Lokhandwala Complex in Mumbai. There was a chase sequence with Sunil Shetty and Arbaaz Khan (playing cops)ravi gosain (aslam kesai) through Lokhandwala. It would have been difficult to shoot this sequence with the public around. Hidden cameras were used at five places and the two actors ran 200 meters at the real location to can the scene. Controversy. The film sparked many controversy regarding the "fictionalised" portrayal of the incident. Sikh groups complained about the wrongful portrayal of Sikhs as extremists. This led to Sikh groups wanting the film banned and "bitterly" opposing the film. Soundtrack. The soundtrack for "Shooutout at Lokhandwala" was released during April 2007 by T-Series. The track listing is as follows (names in brackets are the corresponding track names only, in Hindi): Box office. "Shootout at Lokhandwala" got some hard reviews. However, as of 9 June 2007 it had the second highest opening of the year. The film was released with another Bachchan starrer, "Cheeni Kum". "Shootout at Lokhandwala" soared rapidly, and the film was declared as a hit. In the Mumbai circuit, "Shootout at Lokhandwala" was a superhit. Sequel. "See article Shootout at Wadala;" Director Sanjay Gupta confirmed a sequel for the film. In early 2012, it was announced that John Abraham, Kangana Ranaut and Sonu Sood were roped in for the lead roles. Abraham features as the lead protagonist gangster Manya Surve; Ranaut appears as her supportive girlfriend Vidhya Joshi and Sood appears as Dawood Ibrahim.The film released on 1 May 2013 draw major praise for the above mentioned characters and strong box office collections.
586083	Kaaryasthan (; English: "The Caretaker") is a 2010 Malayalam comedy film written by the duo Udayakrishna-Siby K. Thomas and directed by debutant Thomson K. Thomas. It stars Dileep, Akhila, Vandana Menon, Madhu, and Suraj Venjaramoodu. It was Dileep's 100th film. Akhila, a noted television anchor and dancer, debuted as an actress through this film. Plot. Krishnanunni (Dileep) is the Kaaryasthan (Manager) of Puthezhathu Tharavadu and Kalidas (Salim Kumar) is the Kaaryasthan of Kizhakkedathu Tharavadu. Madhu and G K Pillai play the Karanavars (Family head) of these Tharavadus (ancestral house) respectively. The story is set in a picturesque landscape in a village called "Krishnapuram". The two tharavadu are situated in the same compound. The film begins with the celebration of onam festival by the inmates of both the houses. Krishna warrier (Madhu)'s son Raajan (Siddique)is in love with one of the girls there but his marriage is fixed with Saraswathy (Lena), daughter of the karanavar of Puthezhath. Rajan and the girl elopes. But Puthezhath people tries to stop them, but Krishnawarrier comes and rescues and also pulls him up on to the train. As years pass, Krishnanunni is born to Raajan. Soundtrack. The songs of the film are composed by Berny-Ignatious with lyrics penned by Kaithapram Damodaran Namboothiri. The background score for the film is by Rajamani Release. Reception. The film opened to mixed reviews, with "Nowrunning.com" labeling the film as "Disappointing", proceeding to highlight that "With all the formulaic elements intact, Karyasthan as Dileep's hundredth film is a mega hit. Dileep and Suraj do manage to bring in a few giggles, but the film serves as a sure sign that Dileep needs to reinvent himself" and gave 2 Stars Out Of 5, while Moviebuzz of "Sify.com" gave positive verdict, stating that Director Thomson doesn’t experiment much here and you can find every emotion in the required measures that would be essential in a formulaic film.", adding that it is "Masala Entertainer". Furthermore, he praised lead actor Dileep's "power packed" performance, citing that he "nails the character to perfection" and "carries the film to its winning point". The movie performed well at the box office and was declared a blockbuster. Box office. The film opened well, and is one of the blockbuster of 2010.
1649496	Bottle Shock is a 2008 American comedy-drama film based on the 1976 wine competition termed the "Judgment of Paris", when California wine defeated French wine in a blind taste test. It stars Alan Rickman, Chris Pine, and Bill Pullman and is directed by Randall Miller, who wrote the screenplay along with Jody Savin and Ross Schwartz. It premiered at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival. Plot. Sommelier and wine shop owner Steven Spurrier (Alan Rickman), a British expatriate living in Paris, is concerned how to save his business in his daily conversation with Maurice (Dennis Farina), a wine lover from Milwaukee who is Spurrier's regular (sometimes only) customer. He concocts a plan to hold a blind taste-test intended to introduce Parisians to the quality wines coming from elsewhere in the world. Spurrier travels to the not-yet-famous Napa Valley in search of contestants for his Judgment of Paris taste test, where a chance meeting introduces him to floundering vintner Jim Barrett (Bill Pullman) of Chateau Montelena. Barrett wants no part in the competition, believing it to be a set-up designed by the French to humiliate New World wine producers. Barrett's son, Bo (Chris Pine), secretly passes Spurrier a couple of bottles of the Chateau's chardonnay for the competition.
586122	Kodiyettam (, ) is a 1977 Indian feature film production written and directed by Adoor Gopalakrishnan. It is in Malayalam. The film notably does not feature any kind of film score. Plot. The film captures the ascent of the protagonist, Shankaran Kutty, from a carefree individual to a mature responsible adult. The opening sequences, canned by the director himself, shows Shankaran Kutty- attending a temple festival. The film proceeds to show the irresponsible and often nomadic life style of Shankaran Kutty. Shankaran Kutty, though seemingly at the beginning of middle age, spends most of his time playing around with children, joining political processions and helping the villagers when he is not attending temple festivals. He is provided for by his younger sister who works as a house maid in the city of Thiruvananthapuram. His sister in an attempt to get his life organized arranges a marriage for him. But to the dismay of his new wife, Shankaran Kutty continues his life style often staying away from home for weeks. The already pregnant wife soon leaves him, and Shankaran Kutty does not make any attempt to have her back at home.
585704	Thuruppu Gulan is a Malayalam comedy film released in 2006, which had Mammootty and Sneha in the lead roles. Others in the cast include Innocent, Jagathy Sreekumar, Suraj Venjaramoodu, Salim Kumar and Cochin Haneefa.
1123	Frank Collison (born February 14, 1950) is an American actor known to television audiences as the hapless telegrapher Horace Bing in the series "Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman". Early life. Collison was born in Evanston, Illinois, the son of Peg, a publicist, director, and English teacher, and John Collison, a speech therapist, actor, and writer. Collison played his first role as a six-month old mascot at The Tent Theatre in Granville, Ohio. His mother directed him in a number of plays as a youth in Virginia and Ohio. When he was a young boy, Frank assisted his father touring with his one-man Abraham Lincoln show. His father was chosen to play Lincoln for the centennial celebration of Lincoln's first inauguration in Washington, DC; Frank played the young Tad Lincoln. Career. Stage. Collison trained at the American Conservatory Theatre in San Francisco, earning a BA in theatre from the San Francisco State University. He then helped to establish a summer theatre company in the Sierra Nevadas, and went on to gain an MFA in acting at University of California, San Diego. Between acting jobs he has worked as a substitute teacher, diaper service dispatcher and forest firefighter. Appearing in over 150 productions, he has worked off Broadway and in regional theatres in California, Boston, and Denver. His theatrical roles have been as varied as "Jacob Marley" in "A Christmas Carol" to "Miss Havisham" in "Great Expectations" to "Puck" in "A Midsummer Night's Dream". Collison is a founding member of the Pacific Resident Theatre in Venice, California, which has won over 25 Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Awards. Film. Collison's films include "The Blob", "Alien Nation", "Wild at Heart", "Mobsters", "The Last Boy Scout", "Buddy", "Diggstown", "My Summer Story", "O Brother, Where Art Thou?", "The Majestic", "The Whole Ten Yards", "Hidalgo", "Hope Springs", "The Village", "Suspect Zero", "The Happening" and "Hesher". Television. Frank is best known to TV audiences as Horace Bing, the bumbling telegraph operator, on CBS's long-running series "Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman". His numerous other television appearances have included guest-starring roles on "Monk", HBO's "Carnivàle", "", "Seventh Heaven", "NYPD Blue", "Hill Street Blues", "Stargate Atlantis" and "Good Luck Charlie". Personal life. Collison lives in Los Angeles with his wife, the actress Laura Gardner, and his three children. Gabe Collison, his youngest child, is a member of the Crescenta Valley track team, colloquially known as the "dream team". He remains active in theatre while pursuing a film career.
582980	Bas Itna Sa Khwaab Hai (Hindi: बस इतना सा ख़ाब है, Urdu: بس اتنا سا خواب ہے, English: It's Just a Small Dream) is a 2001 Hindi movie was written and directed by Goldie Behl. The film stars Abhishek Bachchan, Rani Mukerji, Sushmita Sen and Jackie Shroff. It was a Disaster at the box-office. Synopsis. Suraj (Abhishek Bachchan), a simple village bumpkin who sings the songs of Ganga maiyya, comes to Mumbai from Benaras to earn a degree in college. He gets smitten by a light-eyed beauty Pooja (Rani Mukerji). After some dilly-dallying the duo express their love for each other. Suraj has big dreams. He wants to emulate his mentor Naved Ali (Jackie Shroff) a shrewd media baron. Then, one day, in a heroic deed in which apna gaon ka chora saves the life of a fatally wounded man, Suraj impresses Naved Ali. A flattered Naved sends his raunchy colleague Lara (Sushmita Sen) to rope in Suraj to start a new channel. Slowly the callow youth becomes a clever businessman and Lara begins to take Pooja’s place. Pooja tries to convince Suraj of the futility of it all but only in vain. Suraj is determined to carve a place for himself in the higher echelons of the society. Soon he has everything he ever wanted and dreamed of – a swanky bungalow, sleek cars etc. But he has lost his innocence. And one day Suraj realizes the dastardly motives of Naved Ali (who wants to become the PM of the country) and how he has been used as a pawn in his power game. The rest of movie is about how Suraj gets redemption for all pain caused to his loved ones. Controversy. The Delhi Police arrested two persons including film producer Tanya Behl on charges of assaulting two city photographers during the shooting of this movie.
1200323	Jorma Christopher "Jorm" Taccone (; born March 19, 1977) is an American actor, director and writer for comedy films. Taccone is one third of the sketch comedy troupe The Lonely Island along with childhood friends Andy Samberg and Akiva Schaffer. In 2010, he co-wrote and directed the "SNL" spin-off film "MacGruber", which was his directorial debut. Personal life. Taccone was born in Berkeley, California, the son of Sue Ellen and Tony Taccone, who is the artistic director of the Berkeley Repertory Theatre. He is of Puerto Rican and Italian descent on his father's side. He is a graduate of UCLA Film School. Jorma's brother, Asa Taccone, is a member of the band Electric Guest. He is married to Marielle Heller and lives in New York City. Career. In Fall 2005, Samberg, Taccone, and Schaffer joined the staff of NBC's late night variety show "Saturday Night Live". Since then, The Lonely Island has been responsible for creating more than 100 SNL Digital Short films including the YouTube favorites "Lazy Sunday" (featuring Chris Parnell), "Jizz in My Pants", "I'm on a Boat" (featuring T-Pain) and the Emmy-winning "Dick in a Box" (featuring Justin Timberlake). Taccone produces much of the music for The Lonely Island including Lazy Sunday, "Dick in a Box" and many other tracks that appear on The Lonely Island's first album "Incredibad" which was released February 2009. As a director, Taccone is responsible for the "SNL" shorts MacGruber, Business Meeting, Sloths, Giraffes, and others. He also directed a MacGruber Pepsi commercial spot for the 43rd Super Bowl which aired February 1, 2009. In 2007, Taccone co-starred in Paramount's "Hot Rod", (starring Andy Samberg, directed by Akiva Schaffer). Taccone is also one of the principal actors in the music video "Jizz in My Pants". He also plays Guy #2 in "We Like Sportz", reprising the role from "Just 2 Guyz". Taccone played the lead role of Brett in The Lonely Island's "The ’Bu", the group's record-breaking contribution to Channel 101, where he played a ninja who did not belong. "The ’Bu", a parody of "The OC", also starred Sarah Chalke ("Roseanne", "Scrubs") as Melissa and Andy Samberg as Aaron. In the group's first Channel 101 show, "ITV Buzz Countdown", Taccone played Chris Hoffman, a fictional VJ on a parody of MTV's "Total Request Live". He made a cameo appearance in "Role Models" as Mitch from Graphics, in which he sings a karaoke version of the Scorpions' "Rock You Like a Hurricane", he co-stars in the Gnarls Barkley music video for the song "Who's Gonna Save My Soul". Taccone appeared as Cha-Ka in Universal's 2009 film "Land of the Lost", starring Will Ferrell. In August 2009, he directed his first film, an adaptation of the "Saturday Night Live" sketch "MacGruber" and was featured as part of the group male vocals on Lightspeed Champion's album "Life Is Sweet! Nice To Meet You". As of "SNL"'s 36th season, Jorma is no longer cited in the end credits, though he is still listed on the NBC website as a writer and holds the unofficial title of "Sexiest Member of Lonely Island." According to his band's website, thelonelyisland.com, however, "the Dudes" are still responsible for the SNL Digital Shorts. It was later confirmed that Jorma had quit "Saturday Night Live", though he worked on some shorts in the 36th season. Taccone is currently acting in the new season of MyDamnChannel's "Wainy Days" and is the Director of the AT&T Wireless "It's Not Complicated" television advertising campaign. He also has a recurring role on the HBO show "Girls", as the character Booth Jonathan.
1163225	Priscilla Barnes (born December 7, 1955) is an American actress known for her role as nurse Terri Alden on the American television sitcom "Three's Company", having been made the permanent replacement for Suzanne Somers. Barnes subsequently made appearances in films such as "A Vacation in Hell", the James Bond thriller "Licence to Kill", the Kevin Smith comedy "Mallrats" and the horror film "The Devil's Rejects". Early life. Barnes was born December 7, 1955 in Fort Dix, New Jersey, the third of four children of a father who was a major in the United States Air Force. Her mother was a housewife. Barnes's childhood was marked by a series of moves across various military bases in the United States before her family settled in Lancaster, California. After graduating from Antelope Valley High School at age 17, she relocated to San Diego, working as a waitress and a dancer. Career. Early career. Barnes' first break came when Bob Hope saw her in a local fashion show and invited her to join his troupe for a 1973 performance at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C. She subsequently moved to Los Angeles to attempt a career in show business in earnest. Her second break came at 19 when she met Peter Falk at Pips. Six months later he gave her a one-line part in an episode of "Columbo", which led to a series of bit parts in films like "The Seniors" (1978) and "Delta Fox" (1979). While working as a hostess at a Hollywood nightclub, Barnes posed nude for the "Pet of the Month" photo layout in the March 1976 issue of "Penthouse" magazine under the pseudonym Joann Witty. "Penthouse" later republished the photos under Barnes' real name in 1982 after she gained fame upon joining the cast of "Three's Company". Barnes filed suit, which was appealed to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. In 1976, she began studying acting with coach Sal Dano, whose students included Tom Selleck, Robert Hays and Catherine Bach. In 1978, she starred in a TV series, "The American Girls", which was canceled after seven weeks. Subsequent parts include the horror film "Tintorera", and TV shows such as "Starsky and Hutch", "Kojak", "The Rockford Files", "The Love Boat", the 1978 TV version of "The Time Machine" and the 1979 television film "A Vacation In Hell", which has gained a cult following over the years. In 1980, Barnes landed a supporting role in "Sunday Lovers", a romantic comedy ensemble featuring Gene Wilder, Roger Moore and Kathleen Quinlan. "Three's Company". In 1981, Barnes was cast as Terri Alden on "Three's Company" after Suzanne Somers left the series after a contractual dispute with producers, and after Jenilee Harrison served as interim replacement Cindy Snow. The part, which is Barnes' most notable role, brought her instant public recognition. In the 1998 TV program "E! True Hollywood Story", Barnes called "Three's Company" the "three worst years" of her life. Barnes revealed that after shooting a couple of episodes of the show, she felt "uncomfortable" on the set and asked, unsuccessfully, to be released from her contract. She remained friends with her co-stars, particularly Joyce DeWitt. The two, along with fellow castmate Richard Kline, made public appearances together. Barnes was portrayed by actress Anne Ross in the 2003 television movie "". Later career. In 1982, Barnes starred in the Aaron Spelling-produced ABC Movie of the Week "The Wild Women of Chastity Gulch" with Joan Collins and Donny Osmond. After "Three's Company" was cancelled by ABC in 1984, Barnes appeared in the 1989 James Bond film "Licence to Kill" as Della Churchill, the underwater sci-fi/action thriller "Lords of the Deep" (1989), "Traxx" (1988) with Shadoe Stevens, and in NBC's "Perry Mason and the Case of the Reckless Romeo" (1993), with Raymond Burr as Perry Mason. Her 1990s feature film appearances include the heroine in "Stepfather III" (1992), a supporting role in the Kevin Smith comedy "Mallrats" (1995) with Jason Lee, the Sean Penn drama "The Crossing Guard" (1995) opposite Jack Nicholson, and the 1999 comedy "Mumford".
774382	Jacob Daniel Tierney (born September 26, 1979) is a Canadian actor, film director and screenwriter. Life and Career. Tierney was born in Montreal, Quebec, the son of veteran producer Kevin Tierney.
1049109	Shabba Doo is the stage name of Adolfo Quiñones (born May 11, 1955), an American actor, dancer, choreographer, and director. Biography. Quiñones grew up in Chicago. He is of multi-ethnic background; his father was Puerto Rican, and his mother, who raised him alone from the age of three, was African American. As a member of The Original Lockers along with Don "Campbellock" Campbell, Fred "Rerun" Berry and Toni Basil, Quiñones became one of the founders of the dance style commonly known as locking.
1059519	Ernest Lee "Ernie" Hudson Sr. (born December 17, 1945) is an American actor known for his roles as Winston Zeddemore in the "Ghostbusters" film series, Sergeant Albrecht in "The Crow", and Warden Leo Glynn on HBO's "Oz". Early life. Hudson was born in Benton Harbor, Michigan. Hudson never knew his father. His mother, Maggie Donald, died of tuberculosis when he was two months old. He was subsequently raised by his maternal grandmother, Arrana Donald. He has a half-brother, Lewis Hudson.
583791	Vikranth () is an Indian film actor. He was first introduced in the film "Karka Kasadara" (2005) directed by R. V. Udayakumar and later appeared in other romantic drama films. Personal life. He is known for being the cousin of Vijay and nephew of S. A. Chandrasekhar. He married Manasa Hemachandran, who is the daughter of actress Kanakadurga, on 21 October 2009 in Chennai. His son was born on 23 July 2010.
1034178	Philip Stone (14 April 1924 – 15 June 2003) was an English actor. He was born Philip Stones in Leeds, West Riding of Yorkshire. Stone appeared in three successive Stanley Kubrick films: playing the central character's "Dad" in "A Clockwork Orange" (1971), "Graham" (the Lyndon family lawyer) in "Barry Lyndon" (1975) and as "Delbert Grady," the original caretaker in "The Shining" (1980). The only other actor to be credited in three Kubrick films is Joe Turkel. Other notable film roles included parts in "Thunderball" (1965), "Where Eagles Dare" (1968), "O Lucky Man!" (1973), "Flash Gordon" (1980), "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom" (1984) and "Shadowlands" (1985). In the 1978 Ralph Bakshi's animated film "The Lord of the Rings", he voiced the role of Théoden. Stone also appeared in the Carry On series (Carry On Loving and Carry On Constable.) Stone was also a prolific stage and television actor, appearing in many popular TV series, including the very first "Avengers" episode, "The Rat Catchers", "Dalziel and Pascoe", "A Touch of Frost", "Heartbeat", "Yes Minister", "Justice" and "Coronation Street".
1047236	Last House on Dead End Street is an exploitation-horror film. The film was made in 1973 and released sometime afterward in the 1970s. The story concerns a disgruntled man, recently released from prison, who takes out his anguish by making snuff films. The true identity of pseudonymous director Victor Janos was largely unknown until Roger Watkins claimed on Internet message boards in 2000 that he had directed the film, a claim subsequently confirmed. In the 1970s, the film's release was limited to grindhouse and drive-in theaters. Barrel Entertainment released a double-disc DVD in 2002. Plot. Terry Hawkins (Watkins) has just been released after spending a year in state prison on drug charges. He wants to get into filmmaking, and claims he previously made pornographic films that he was unable to sell. Hawkins believes audiences want something more, so he decides to make snuff films. Victims are lured to an abandoned building; there they are murdered in elaborate ways for the films, including by decapitation or receiving a power drill to the head. Hawkins is complimented on how realistic his films look. Background. In late November 2000, a user posting on fabpress.com as "pnest" claimed to be writer, producer, director and editor of the film. The user claimed it was originally released as "The Cuckoo Clocks of Hell" in 1974 and caused theater riots in New York City and Chicago, the latter of which's theater was claimed to be burned down. He claims the entire film was made in a building in Oneonta, New York called Old Main. Watkins has said he was high on amphetamines while making the film and that only about $800 of the $3,000 budget was spent making it, while the remaining $2,200 was used to buy drugs. Watkins died in March 2007. Critical reception. Allmovie wrote, "This notorious exercise in low-budget gore is poorly edited and photographed, but its catalogue of horrors and a genuinely nasty tone make it worthwhile for fans of sick cinema." The film has not garnered enough reviews to gain a score at the film-critics aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes.
1060689	The Asphalt Jungle is a 1950 film noir directed by John Huston. The caper film is based on the novel of the same name by W. R. Burnett and stars an ensemble cast including Sterling Hayden, Jean Hagen, Sam Jaffe, Louis Calhern, James Whitmore, and, in a minor but key role, Marilyn Monroe, an unknown at the time who was pictured but not mentioned on the posters. The film tells the story of a group of men planning and executing a jewel robbery. It was nominated for four Academy Awards. In 2008, "The Asphalt Jungle" was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". Plot. When criminal mastermind Erwin "Doc" Riedenschneider is released from prison after seven years, he immediately goes to see a bookie named Cobby in an unnamed Midwest city, who arranges a meeting with Alonzo Emmerich, a high-profile lawyer. Emmerich listens with interest to Doc's plan to steal jewelry worth a million dollars or more. Doc needs $50,000 to hire three men - a "box man", a driver and a "hooligan" - to help him pull off the caper. Emmerich agrees to provide the money, then suggests that he (not one or more fences) assume the responsibility for disposing of the loot. Doc first hires Louie Ciavelli, a professional safecracker. Ciavelli only trusts Gus Minissi, a hunchbacked diner owner, as the getaway driver. The final member of the gang is Dix Handley, a friend of Gus's. Dix explains his ultimate goal to Doll Conovan, who is in love with him. His dream is to buy back the horse farm that his father lost during the Great Depression. Dix, however, just keeps losing his ill-gotten gains betting on the horses via Cobby. This job would pay him the amount he needs. During the meticulously planned crime (an 11-minute sequence in the film), the criminals carry out their work in a calm, professional manner. Ciavelli hammers through a brick wall to get into the jewelry store, deactivates a door alarm and lets in Doc and Dix, then opens the main safe in minutes using an explosive liquid ("the soup"). Unfortunately, the explosion somehow sets off the alarms of nearby businesses and brings the police to the scene more quickly than expected. On their way out, Dix has to slug an arriving security guard, who drops his gun, which discharges and wounds Ciavelli in the belly. The men get away unseen, but a police manhunt quickly begins.
589300	Heer Raanjha (, , ) is a 1970 Hindi film, produced by son Ketan Anand and directed by father Chetan Anand. The film stars Raaj Kumar, Priya Rajvansh, Pran, Prithviraj Kapoor, Ajit, Jayant, Sonia Sahni, Kamini Kaushal, Indrani Mukherjee, Achla Sachdev and Tun Tun. The film's music is by Madan Mohan. The film is based on the legend of Heer Ranjha, the epic poem or "Heer" by Punjabi poet, Waris Shah, written in 1766. The film is unique in the fact that the entire film and its dialogue is in verse, Kaifi Azmi writing the verse dialogue. The film's songs and music are notable as is the photography by Jal Mistry who shot most of Chetan Anand's films and won the Filmfare Award for the film. The film also showcases some of the best dialogues from the legendary actor Raaj Kumar. Soundtrack. The soundtrack includes the following tracks, composed by Madan Mohan, with lyrics by Kaifi Azmi, and is especially remembered for the poignant "Ye Duniya Yeh Mehfil Mere Kaam Ki Nahin", sung by Mohd. Rafi.
588174	Huduga Hudugi is a 2010 comedy film written and directed by Indrajit Lankesh. The film features Dhyan and Lekha Washington in the lead roles, whilst other noted actresses play roles in the film. The film was launched in 2008 as "Thunta Thunti" with Ganesh and Praneetha in the lead roles and then a second launch was conducted in March 2010 with Ganesh and Ishita Sharma but the pair later opted out of the project.
584379	Vaiyapuri (born as Ramakrishnan) is a Tamil film actor who mostly plays a comedian. He has appeared in many Tamil films and is also a guest judge on "Asathapovathu Yaaru" on Sun TV in Chennai. Vaiyapuri was born in Theni. He started his career in Balu mahendra Film "Raman Abdulla" with the servant role and has scored most in the first film. Though he has acted many films and he has been mostly remembered for films with Kamal Hasan.
1449144	The Crimson Permanent Assurance is a short film that plays as the beginning of the feature-length motion picture "Monty Python's The Meaning of Life". Although it is presented as a separate film, and is sometimes shown without the feature, it can also be considered a prologue to "The Meaning of Life", which is almost never shown without "The Crimson Permanent Assurance" preceding it. Having originally conceived the story as a 6-minute animated sequence in "Monty Python's The Meaning of Life", intended for placement at the end of Part V, Terry Gilliam convinced the other members of Monty Python to allow him to produce and direct it as a live action piece instead. According to Gilliam, the film's rhythm, length, and style of cinematography made it a poor fit as a scene in the larger movie, so it became "Our Short Feature Presentation", to be shown ahead of the "Main Feature". It was a common practice in British cinemas to show an unrelated short feature before the main movie, a holdover from the older practice of showing a full-length "B" movie ahead of the main feature. By the mid-1970s the short features were of poorer quality, or simply banal travelogues. As a kind of protest, the Pythons had already produced one spoof travelogue narrated by John Cleese, "Away from It All", which was shown before "The Life of Brian" in Britain. The film includes actor Matt Frewer's debut performance. Plot. The elderly British employees of the Permanent Assurance Company, a staid London firm which has recently been taken over by the Very Big Corporation of America, rebel against their corporate masters when one of them is sacked. Having locked the surviving supervisors in the safe, and forced their boss to walk a makeshift plank out a window, they commandeer their Edwardian office building, which suddenly weighs anchor, uses its scaffolding and tarpaulins as sails, and is turned into a pirate ship. The stone office building starts to move as if it were a ship. Sailing through the City of London, they then proceed to attack The Very Big Corporation of America's skyscraper, using, among other things, wooden filing cabinets which have been transformed into carronades and swords fashioned from the blades of a ceiling fan. On ropes, they swing into the board room and engage the executives of VBCA in hand-to-hand combat, vanquishing them. After their hard-earned victory, the clerks continue to "sail the wide accountan-cy" (as they sing in their heroic sea shanty), until unceremoniously meeting their (now-animated) end by falling off the edge of the world. Typical of how Pythons would weave previously 'terminated' plot lines into later scenes of the same episode (like Nobody Expects the Spanish Inquisition in the TV show, or the recurring theme of the swallows carrying coconuts in the movie "Holy Grail"), "The Crimson Permanent Assurance" suddenly re-emerges in the middle of the main feature of "Monty Python's The Meaning of Life". After the donor scene, the movies shifts to follow a modern board room debate about the meaning of life (and that people are not wearing enough hats). This debate is happening at the Very Big Corporation of America headquarters building in the same room that witnessed the battle in the short film. The debate is halted when one executive asks, "Has anyone seen that building?" which turns out to be the marauding old London building/pirate ship of the Crimson Permanent Assurance. The audience gets to see briefly the attack of the pirates from the angle of the victims in the board room. The raid is halted by a modern skyscraper falling onto the moving Permanent Assurance Company building; with a voice-over apologizing for the temporary interruption "due to an attack by the supporting feature". Cast. Pirates Very Big Corporation of America Cameos In popular culture. The Crimson Permanent Assurance plays a prominent role in Charles Stross's 2013 novel Neptune's Brood, where the CPA is an interstellar insurance company that sponsors space pirates who double as cargo auditors. The CPA also features in the novel's twist ending.
1055733	Forever Mine is a 1999 British–Canadian romantic drama film written and directed by Paul Schrader and starring Joseph Fiennes, Gretchen Mol and Ray Liotta. Plot. Alan Riply (Fiennes), a young cabana boy working at an opulent beach hotel, falls in love with Ella Brice (Mol), the wife of business mogul Mark Brice (Liotta). Ella returns his love, but when Mark finds out he has Alan shot and buried alive. Though badly scarred, Alan survives and works his way to the position of an eminent criminal attorney with underworld connections, under the name of Manuel Esquema. When Brice runs into legal trouble, Esquema is ready to help him for a price, but the man behind the mask, Alan, still yearns for Ella. Production. It was filmed in St. Petersburg, Florida and at the Don CeSar Beach Resort, located in St. Petersburg Beach.
585525	Onnu Muthal Poojyam Vare (1986) is a Malayalam language drama film written and directed by Reghunath Paleri and starring Asha Jayaram, Geethu Mohandas and Mohanlal. The film explores the loneliness of a widow and the need of a father figure for her daughter. Plot. The film portrays the story of Aleena (Asha Jayaram), a widow and her four-year old daughter Deepamol (Geethu Mohandas). Aleena lives with her daughter treasuring the memories of her late husband (Prathap Pothan) in a big house. She repeatedly dismisses the notion of remarriage. She is a painter and works in the advertising industry. Deepamol is a bubbly little girl always playing around with the telephone making random calls. One such call turns their life forever when Deepamol gets in contact with her "Telephone uncle" (Mohanlal). Deepamol gets attached to Telephone uncle very fast. Though Aleena was on the fence and skeptical of the man's intentions, she eventually falls in love. Telephone uncle resists the coercions from the mother and never reveals his name or whereabouts. Finally, he comes to their place on the night of Deepamol's birthday raising Aleena's hope for a better life, only to put an end to it within a very short time.
1018008	Kung Fu Cult Master is a 1993 Hong Kong film adapted from Louis Cha's novel "The Heaven Sword and Dragon Saber". Directed by Wong Jing, it featured fight choreography by Sammo Hung, and starred Jet Li, Sharla Cheung, Chingmy Yau and Gigi Lai in the lead roles. Plot. Zhang Wuji and his parents return from an isolated island and travel to Mount Wudang to celebrate his grandteacher Zhang Sanfeng's 100th birthday. Several pugilists attempt to force Zhang Wuji's parents to reveal the whereabouts of his godfather, Xie Xun, but they refuse and commit suicide in defiance. Zhang Wuji has been seriously injured by the Xuanming Elders and almost dies, but Zhang Sanfeng shows special care towards him and attempts to preserve his life. However, that incurs the jealousy of his senior Song Qingshu, who collaborates with Zhou Zhiruo of the Emei Sect to harm Zhang Wuji. One day, Zhang Wuji is bullied by Song and falls off a cliff together with Xiaozhao, a girl who helped him. They meet Huogong Toutuo by coincidence and Zhang recovers from his wounds completely, learning the powerful "Nine Yang Skill" in the process as well. Zhang discovers later that the Shaolin Sect is plotting with five other major sects to attack Bright Peak, headquarters of the Ming Cult, where Zhang's maternal grandfather, Yin Tianzheng is. Zhang ventures into a forbidden place on the peak and finds the "Heaven and Earth Great Shift" manual, mastering another powerful skill, and he helps the Ming Cult defeat the six sects. The cult members are grateful to Zhang and nominate him to be their leader. Zhang Wuji discovers that the conflict between the Ming Cult and the six sects was instigated by his godfather's sworn enemy, Cheng Kun, who has been hiding under a new identity in Shaolin all this while. At the same time, he also encounters Zhao Min, a Mongol princess, who is also an enemy of his cult. Zhao uses a special drug to poison the cult's members and Zhang Wuji confronts her to ask for the antidote. Zhao Min makes Zhang promise to help her do three things in exchange for the antidote. At the same time, Yin Tianzheng and the cult's members, who misbelieved that Shaolin was behind the poisoning, go to Shaolin Monastery for revenge but they are surprised to see corpses everywhere instead. In fact, Song Qingshu had actually betrayed the Wudang Sect and defected to the Mongol government. He is plotting with Zhao Min and her men to kill Zhang Sanfeng, but Zhang Wuji returns in time and saves his grandteacher. Zhang Wuji promises not to use his newly-mastered skills and still manages to defeat the Xuanming Elders. The film ends on a cliffhanger, as Zhao Min leaves after telling Zhang Wuji to go to Dadu to find her if he wants to rescue the missing members of the six sects. Alternate titles. Alternate titles for the film include:
582748	Tumko Na Bhool Paayenge is a 2002 Hindi film directed by Pankaj Parashar. The films stars Salman Khan, Sushmita Sen and Dia Mirza in the lead roles. It was remade in Bengali as "It Was Raining That Night" (2005). Synopsis. Veer Thakur (Salman Khan) is an eligible young bachelor living in a small community with his parents, Thakur Kunal Singh (Sharat Saxena), and mom Thakurain Geeta (Nishigandha Wad). He is in love with Muskaan(Dia Mirza), his friend & daughter of another Thakur. Their parents give their support to the union, but Veer suddenly starts getting visions of events that he can't remember ever happening to him & finds that he is an expert in fighting techniques no pehelwaan, including his father, have ever seen before. Nobody has any explanation for these facts. One day, as the Chief Minister (Anjan Srivastav) is giving a speech at a certain function in his village, Veer suddenly spots a sniper trying to aim at the CM. Veer lunges to save the CM, only to find that the sniper and the building are both missing. Veer grows restless, but nobody notices that the CM has grown restless on seeing Veer. Some days later, at Veer's wedding, some goons attack the party and try to kill Veer. Veer kills them single-handedly. Convinced that everyone is hiding something important from him, he demands answers. The Thakur relents and tells him that he is neither Veer nor their son. The real Veer (Arbaaz Khan) was a soldier who died in the line of duty. After immersing his ashes, he found the bullet-ridden body of an unknown man. When he realized that this man had no memories of his past, he told him that he is Veer & concoct a past for him, because they feel the need to have a son. The hero decides to go on a quest to find his real identity. He goes to Mumbai to find that both police & goons are baying for his blood. He meets a teenager who calls him Ali bhaiyya, but the teenager dies while trying to save Ali from an assassin. The hero does not see the face of the assassin, but assumes that his name is Ali. He gets visions of a girl(Sushmita Sen) whom he has never seen. The mystery starts unwinding when he meets a guy named Inder(Inder Kumar). As Ali starts getting his past memories, it is confirmed that his name is indeed Ali. Ali & the teenager were orphaned brothers, while Inder was Ali's friend. An old man named Rahim Chacha(Alok Nath) was their guardian. The mysterious girl Ali saw was Mehak, his love. Ali & Inder had won medals for shooting during many contests, although Ali was always the best. The marksmanship skills of Ali & Inder are seen by an Inspector(Mukesh Rishi), who makes a proposal to them: masquerade as goons of a gang, kill goons of their rival gang & trick both the gangs to destroy each other in gang wars. Ali refuses flatly, but after some goons kill Rahim Chacha, Ali & Inder decide to take the offer. Mehak gives both the guys portable video recorders, so that they can prove their innocence if anything goes wrong. Soon, the Inspector takes them to the Chief Minister(Sadashiv Amrapurkar) & his aide(Anjan Srivastav). They plan to enact an attack on the CM, making the opposition look dirty in eyes of people & garnering sympathy votes for CM. However, when Ali is trying to fake the shooting, somebody really kills the CM. The police start chasing Ali thinking him to be the killer & Ali flees. After recovering his memory, Ali realizes that the CM's aide took advantage of the plan to become CM himself. Meanwhile, Ali learns that Inder made Mehak his fiancee to save her from harassment. Ali tries to tell the truth to the Inspector, but realizes that nobody believes him. In an attack when Ali goes aboard a local, the remaining memories come to him. He remembers boarding the train same way on the day of assassination where Inder met him & confessed to killing the CM. Thereafter, Inder shot Ali to hide the truth & threw his body in a river. Suddenly, the Inspector confronts him, but Ali convinces the Inspector by telling the truth. Ali goes to Mehak & tells her everything. He realizes that there must be some incriminating evidence in Inder's tapes. As he plays a tape, Mehak witnesses in horror Inder striking the deal with CM's aide. Ali notifies Inder that he remembers everything now. Inder, along with his cronies, comes to kill Ali, but Mehak dies in the process. Ali kills the goons & demands Inder an explanation. Inder reveals that he was always second best with Ali around & that even Mehak, whom he secretly loved, chose Ali over him. Also, Ali always got money & fame more easily than Inder. Inder reveals that he had sent the goons to kill Rahim Chacha, thus manipulating Ali to take the offer. Also, when Ali came back to Bombay, Inder saw him. Inder was the sniper whom Ali's brother saw. Ali kills Inder in a hand-to-hand combat. Ali broadcasts Inder's tape over the cable TV network, thus freeing himself from his charges & putting the present CM in the dock. He returns to the village and marries Muskaan, just as planned. Box office. It had an average opening at the box office but failed to maintain its good run as it faced tough competition from Raaz which went on to be a blockbuster while this movie flopped grossing a low 6-8 crores.
393763	Once in a Summer (Korean:그해여름) is a 2006 South Korean melodrama/romance film directed by Jo Geun-Sik. The film stars Lee Byung-Hun and Soo Ae. Plot. To make up for her poor performance as an assistant producer, a girl promises to have her reserved but very renowned professor appear on their television series. The show involves locating the long-lost-loved ones of the participants past. Although hesitant at first, the professor finally agrees. His story takes the assistant back 50 years-1969- where the world is in chaos.
1060597	Kelly Ann McGillis (born July 9, 1957) is an American actress. She found fame for her roles in several films throughout the 1980s including her roles as Rachel Lapp in "Witness" (1985) for which she received Golden Globe and BAFTA nominations, Charlie in "Top Gun" (1986) and Kathryn Murphy in "The Accused" (1988). After her appearance in "Cat Chaser" (1989), she was discouraged from acting and took a break for a few years.
1712464	"My Best Friend's Birthday" is a partially lost black-and-white amateur film written by Craig Hamann and Quentin Tarantino and directed by Tarantino, while he was working at the now shuttered Video Archives in Manhattan Beach, California. The project started in 1984, when Hamann wrote a short 30-40 page script about a young man who continually tries to do something nice for his friend's birthday, only to have his efforts backfire.
1092059	Paul Adrien Maurice Dirac, OM, FRS ( ; 8 August 1902 – 20 October 1984) was an English theoretical physicist who made fundamental contributions to the early development of both quantum mechanics and quantum electrodynamics. He was the Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge, a member of the Center for Theoretical Studies, University of Miami, and spent the last decade of his life at Florida State University. Among other discoveries, he formulated the Dirac equation, which describes the behaviour of fermions and predicted the existence of antimatter. Dirac shared the Nobel Prize in Physics for 1933 with Erwin Schrödinger, "for the discovery of new productive forms of atomic theory". He also did work that forms the basis of modern attempts to reconcile general relativity with quantum mechanics. He was regarded by his friends and colleagues as unusual in character. Albert Einstein said of him "This balancing on the dizzying path between genius and madness is awful" referring to his autistic traits. His mathematical brilliance, however, means he is regarded as one of the most significant physicists of the 20th century. Personal life. Early years. Paul Adrien Maurice Dirac was born at his parents' home in Bristol, England, on 8 August 1902, and grew up in the Bishopston area of the city. His father, Charles Adrien Ladislas Dirac, was an immigrant from Saint-Maurice, Switzerland, who worked in Bristol as a French teacher. His mother, Florence Hannah Dirac, née Holten, the daughter of a ship's captain, was born in Cornwall, England and worked as a librarian at the Bristol Central Library. Paul had a younger sister, Béatrice Isabelle Marguerite, known as Betty, and an older brother, Reginald Charles Félix, known as Felix, who committed suicide in March 1925. Dirac later recalled: "My parents were terribly distressed. I didn't know they cared so much. /.../ I never knew that parents were supposed to care for their children, but from then on I knew." Charles and the children were officially Swiss nationals until they became naturalised on 22 October 1919. Dirac's father was strict and authoritarian, although he disapproved of corporal punishment. Dirac had a strained relationship with his father, so much so that after his father's death, Dirac wrote, "I feel much freer now, and I am my own man." Charles forced his children to speak to him only in French, in order that they learn the language. When Dirac found that he could not express what he wanted to say in French, he chose to remain silent. Education. Dirac was educated first at Bishop Road Primary School and then at the all-boys Merchant Venturers' Technical College (later Cotham School), where his father was a French teacher. The school was an institution attached to the University of Bristol, which shared grounds and staff. It emphasised technical subjects like bricklaying, shoemaking and metal work, and modern languages. This was unusual at a time when secondary education in Britain was still dedicated largely to the classics, and something for which Dirac would later express gratitude. Dirac studied electrical engineering on a City of Bristol University Scholarship at the University of Bristol's engineering faculty, which was co-located with the Merchant Venturers' Technical College. Shortly before he completed his degree in 1921, he sat the entrance examination for St John's College, Cambridge. He passed, and was awarded a £70 scholarship, but this fell short of the amount of money required to live and study at Cambridge. Despite his having graduated with a first class honours Bachelor of Science degree in engineering, the economic climate of the post-war depression was such that he was unable to find work as an engineer. Instead he took up an offer to study for a Bachelor of Arts degree in mathematics at the University of Bristol free of charge. He was permitted to skip the first year of the course owing to his engineering degree. In 1923, Dirac graduated, once again with first class honours, and received a £140 scholarship from the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research. Along with his £70 scholarship from St John's College, this was enough to live at Cambridge. There, Dirac pursued his interests in the theory of general relativity, an interest he had gained earlier as a student in Bristol, and in the nascent field of quantum physics, under the supervision of Ralph Fowler. He completed his Ph.D. in June 1926 with the first thesis on quantum mechanics to be submitted anywhere. Family. Dirac married Eugene Wigner's sister, Margit, in 1937. He adopted Margit's two children, Judith and Gabriel. Paul and Margit Dirac had two children together, both daughters, Mary Elizabeth and Florence Monica. Margit, known as Manci, visited her brother in 1934 in Princeton, New Jersey from her native Hungary and, while at dinner at the Annex Restaurant met the "lonely-looking man at the next table." This account from a Korean physicist, Y.S. Kim, who met and was influenced by Dirac, also says: "It is quite fortunate for the physics community that Manci took good care of our respected Paul A.M. Dirac. Dirac published eleven papers during the period 1939–46... Dirac was able to maintain his normal research productivity only because Manci was in charge of everything else." Personality. Dirac was known among his colleagues for his precise and taciturn nature. His colleagues in Cambridge jokingly defined a unit of a "dirac", which was one word per hour. When Niels Bohr complained that he did not know how to finish a sentence in a scientific article he was writing, Dirac replied, "I was taught at school never to start a sentence without knowing the end of it." He criticized the physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer's interest in poetry: "The aim of science is to make difficult things understandable in a simpler way; the aim of poetry is to state simple things in an incomprehensible way. The two are incompatible." Dirac himself wrote in his diary during his postgraduate years that he concentrated solely on his research, and stopped only on Sunday, when he took long strolls alone. An anecdote recounted in a review of the 2009 biography tells of Werner Heisenberg and Dirac sailing on an ocean liner to a conference in Japan in August 1929. "Both still in their twenties, and unmarried, they made an odd couple. Heisenberg was a ladies' man who constantly flirted and danced, while Dirac—'an Edwardian geek', as biographer Graham Farmelo puts it—suffered agonies if forced into any kind of socialising or small talk. 'Why do you dance?' Dirac asked his companion. 'When there are nice girls, it is a pleasure,' Heisenberg replied. Dirac pondered this notion, then blurted out: 'But, Heisenberg, how do you know beforehand that the girls are nice?'" According to a story told in different versions, a friend or student visited Dirac, not knowing of his marriage. Noticing the visitor's surprise at seeing an attractive woman in the house, Dirac said, "This is... this is Wigner's sister". Margit Dirac told both George Gamow and Anton Capri in the 1960s that her husband had actually said, "Allow me to present Wigner's sister, who is now my wife." Another story told of Dirac is that when he first met the young Richard Feynman at a conference, he said after a long silence "I have an equation. Do you have one too?". After he presented a lecture at a conference, one colleague raised his hand and said "I don't understand the equation on the top-right-hand corner of the blackboard". After a long silence, the moderator asked Dirac if he wanted to answer the question, to which Dirac replied "That was not a question, it was a comment." Dirac was also noted for his personal modesty. He called the equation for the time evolution of a quantum-mechanical operator, which he was the first to write down, the "Heisenberg equation of motion". Most physicists speak of Fermi-Dirac statistics for half-integer-spin particles and Bose-Einstein statistics for integer-spin particles. While lecturing later in life, Dirac always insisted on calling the former "Fermi statistics". He referred to the latter as "Einstein statistics" for reasons, he explained, of "symmetry". Religious views. Heisenberg recollected a conversation among young participants at the 1927 Solvay Conference about Einstein and Planck's views on religion between Wolfgang Pauli, Heisenberg and Dirac. Dirac's contribution was a criticism of the political purpose of religion, which was much appreciated for its lucidity by Bohr when Heisenberg reported it to him later. Among other things, Dirac said: Heisenberg's view was tolerant. Pauli, raised as a Catholic, had kept silent after some initial remarks, but when finally he was asked for his opinion, said: "Well, our friend Dirac has got a religion and its guiding principle is 'There is no God and Paul Dirac is His prophet.'" Everybody, including Dirac, burst into laughter. Later in life, Dirac's views towards the idea of God were less acerbic. As an author of an article appearing in the May 1963 edition of "Scientific American", Dirac wrote: In 1971, at a conference meeting, Dirac expressed his views on the existence of God. Dirac explained that the existence of God could only be justified if an improbable event were to have taken place in the past: Dirac did not commend himself to any definite view, but he described the possibilities for answering the question of God in a scientific manner. Honours. Dirac shared the 1933 Nobel Prize for physics with Erwin Schrödinger "for the discovery of new productive forms of atomic theory". Dirac was also awarded the Royal Medal in 1939 and both the Copley Medal and the Max Planck medal in 1952. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1930, an Honorary Fellow of the American Physical Society in 1948, and an Honorary Fellow of the Institute of Physics, London in 1971. Dirac became a member of the Order of Merit in 1973, having previously turned down a knighthood as he did not want to be addressed by his first name. Death. In 1984, Dirac died in Tallahassee, Florida and was buried at Tallahassee's Roselawn Cemetery. Dirac's childhood home in Bristol is commemorated with a blue plaque and the nearby Dirac Road is named in recognition of his links with the city. A commemorative stone was erected in a garden in Saint-Maurice, Switzerland, the town of origin of his father's family, on 1 August 1991. On 13 November 1995 a commemorative marker, made from Burlington green slate and inscribed with the Dirac equation, was unveiled in Westminster Abbey. The Dean of Westminster, Edward Carpenter had initially refused permission for the memorial, thinking Dirac to be anti-Christian, but was eventually (over a five-year period) persuaded to relent. Career. Dirac established the most general theory of quantum mechanics and discovered the relativistic equation for the electron, which now bears his name. The remarkable notion of an antiparticle to each particle - i.e. the positron as antiparticle to the electron - stems from his equation. He was the first to develop quantum field theory, which underlies all theoretical work on sub-atomic or "elementary" particles today, work that is fundamental to our understanding of the forces of nature. He proposed and investigated the concept of a magnetic monopole, an object not yet known empirically, as a means of bringing even greater symmetry to James Clark Maxwell equations of electromagnetism. Gravity. He quantized the gravitational field, and developed a general theory of quantum field theories with dynamical constraints, which forms the basis of the gauge theories and superstring theories of today. The influence and importance of his work has increased with the decades, and physicists daily use the concepts and equations that he developed. Dirac's first step into a new quantum theory was taken late in September 1925. Ralph Fowler, his research supervisor, had received a proof copy of an exploratory paper by Werner Heisenberg in the framework of the old quantum theory of Bohr and Sommerfeld, which leaned heavily on Bohr's correspondence principle but changed the equations so that they involved directly observable quantities. Fowler sent Heisenberg's paper on to Dirac, who was on vacation in Bristol, asking him to look into this paper carefully. Quantum theory. Dirac's attention was drawn to a mysterious mathematical relationship, at first sight unintelligible, that Heisenberg had reached. Several weeks later, back in Cambridge, Dirac suddenly recognized that this mathematical form had the same structure as the Poisson Brackets that occur in the classical dynamics of particle motion. From this thought he quickly developed a quantum theory that was based on non-commuting dynamical variables. This led him to a more profound and significant general formulation of quantum mechanics than was achieved by any other worker in this field. Dirac noticed an analogy between the Poisson brackets of classical mechanics and the recently proposed quantization rules in Werner Heisenberg's matrix formulation of quantum mechanics. This observation allowed Dirac to obtain the quantization rules in a novel and more illuminating manner. For this work, published in 1926, he received a Ph.D. from Cambridge. The Dirac Equation. In 1928, building on 2×2 spin matrices which he discovered independently of Wolfgang Pauli's work on non-relativistic spin systems, (Abraham Pais quoted Dirac as saying "I believe I got these (matrices) independently of Pauli and possibly Pauli got these independently of me") he proposed the Dirac equation as a relativistic equation of motion for the wavefunction of the electron. This work led Dirac to predict the existence of the positron, the electron's antiparticle, which he interpreted in terms of what came to be called the "Dirac sea". The positron was observed by Carl Anderson in 1932. Dirac's equation also contributed to explaining the origin of quantum spin as a relativistic phenomenon. The necessity of fermions (matter being created and destroyed in Enrico Fermi's 1934 theory of beta decay), however, led to a reinterpretation of Dirac's equation as a "classical" field equation for any point particle of spin "ħ"/2, itself subject to quantization conditions involving anti-commutators. Thus reinterpreted, in 1934 by Werner Heisenberg, as a (quantum) field equation accurately describing all elementary matter particles – today quarks and leptons – this Dirac field equation is as central to theoretical physics as the Maxwell, Yang–Mills and Einstein field equations. Dirac is regarded as the founder of quantum electrodynamics, being the first to use that term. He also introduced the idea of vacuum polarization in the early 1930s. This work was key to the development of quantum mechanics by the next generation of theorists, and in particular Schwinger, Feynman, Sin-Itiro Tomonaga and Dyson in their formulation of quantum electrodynamics. Dirac's "Principles of Quantum Mechanics", published in 1930, is a landmark in the history of science. It quickly became one of the standard textbooks on the subject and is still used today. In that book, Dirac incorporated the previous work of Werner Heisenberg on matrix mechanics and of Erwin Schrödinger on wave mechanics into a single mathematical formalism that associates measurable quantities to operators acting on the Hilbert space of vectors that describe the state of a physical system. The book also introduced the delta function. Following his 1939 article, he also included the bra-ket notation in the third edition of his book, thereby contributing to its universal use nowadays. Magnetic monopoles. In 1933, following his 1931 paper on magnetic monopoles, Dirac showed that the existence of a single magnetic monopole in the universe would suffice to explain the observed quantization of electrical charge. In 1975, 1982, and 2009 intriguing results suggested the possible detection of magnetic monopoles, but there is, to date, no direct evidence for their existence. Lucasian Chair. Dirac was the Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge from 1932 to 1969. In 1937, he proposed a speculative cosmological model based on the so-called large numbers hypothesis. During World War II, he conducted important theoretical and experimental research on uranium enrichment by gas centrifuge. Dirac's quantum electrodynamics (QED) made predictions that were – more often than not – infinite and therefore unacceptable. A workaround known as renormalization was developed, but Dirac never accepted this. "I must say that I am very dissatisfied with the situation," he said in 1975, "because this so-called 'good theory' does involve neglecting infinities which appear in its equations, neglecting them in an arbitrary way. This is just not sensible mathematics. Sensible mathematics involves neglecting a quantity when it is small – not neglecting it just because it is infinitely great and you do not want it!" His refusal to accept renormalization resulted in his work on the subject moving increasingly out of the mainstream. However, from his once rejected notes he managed to work on putting quantum electrodynamics on "logical foundations" based on Hamiltonian formalism that he formulated. He found a rather novel way of deriving the anomalous magnetic moment "Schwinger term" and also the Lamb shift, afresh in 1963, using the Heisenberg picture and without using the joining method used by Weisskopf and French, and by the two pioneers of modern QED, Schwinger and Feynman. That was two years before the Tomonaga–Schwinger–Feynman QED was given formal recognition by an award of the Nobel Prize for physics. Weisskopf and French (FW) were the first to obtain the correct result for the Lamb shift and the anomalous magnetic moment of the electron. At first FW results did not agree with the incorrect but independent results of Feynman and Schwinger. The 1963–1964 lectures Dirac gave on quantum field theory at Yeshiva University were published in 1966 as the Belfer Graduate School of Science, Monograph Series Number, 3. After having relocated to Florida in order to be near his elder daughter, Mary, Dirac spent his last fourteen years (of both life and physics research) at the University of Miami in Coral Gables, Florida and Florida State University in Tallahassee, Florida. In the 1950s in his search for a better QED, Paul Dirac developed the Hamiltonian theory of constraints based on lectures that he delivered at the 1949 International Mathematical Congress in Canada. Dirac had also solved the problem of putting the Tomonaga–Schwinger equation into the Schrödinger representation and given explicit expressions for the scalar meson field (spin zero pion or pseudoscalar meson), the vector meson field (spin one rho meson), and the electromagnetic field (spin one massless boson, photon). The Hamiltonian of constrained systems is one of Dirac’s many masterpieces. It is a powerful generalization of Hamiltonian theory that remains valid for curved spacetime. The equations for the Hamiltonian involve only six degrees of freedom described by formula_1,formula_2 for each point of the surface on which the state is considered. The formula_3 ("m" = 0, 1, 2, 3) appear in the theory only through the variables formula_4, formula_5 which occur as arbitrary coefficients in the equations of motion. There are four constraints or weak equations for each point of the surface formula_6 = constant. Three of them formula_7 form the four vector density in the surface. The fourth formula_8 is a 3-dimensional scalar density in the surface "H"L ≈ 0; "Hr" ≈ 0 ("r" = 1, 2, 3) In the late 1950s, he applied the Hamiltonian methods he had developed to cast Einstein’s general relativity in Hamiltonian form and to bring to a technical completion the quantization problem of gravitation and bring it also closer to the rest of physics according to Salam and DeWitt. In 1959 he also gave an invited talk on "Energy of the Gravitational Field" at the New York Meeting of the American Physical Society later published in 1959 Phys Rev Lett 2, 368. In 1964 he published his “Lectures on Quantum Mechanics” (London:Academic) which deals with constrained dynamics of nonlinear dynamical systems including quantization of curved spacetime. He also published a paper entitled “Quantization of the Gravitational Field” in the 1967 ICTP/IAEA Trieste Symposium on Contemporary Physics. Students. Amongst his many students was John Polkinghorne, who recalls that Dirac "was once asked what was his fundamental belief. He strode to a blackboard and wrote that the laws of nature should be expressed in beautiful equations." Legacy. In 1975, Dirac gave a series of five lectures at the University of New South Wales which were subsequently published as a book, "Directions in Physics" (1978). He donated the royalties from this book to the university for the establishment of the Dirac Lecture Series. The Silver Dirac Medal for the Advancement of Theoretical Physics is awarded by the University of New South Wales to commemorate the lecture. Immediately after his death, two organisations of professional physicists established annual awards in Dirac's memory. The Institute of Physics, the United Kingdom's professional body for physicists, awards the Paul Dirac Medal for "outstanding contributions to theoretical (including mathematical and computational) physics". The first three recipients were Stephen Hawking (1987), John Stewart Bell (1988), and Roger Penrose (1989). The International Centre for Theoretical Physics awards the Dirac Medal of the ICTP each year on Dirac's birthday (8 August). The Dirac-Hellman Award at Florida State University was endowed by Dr Bruce P. Hellman in 1997 to reward outstanding work in theoretical physics by FSU researchers. The Paul A.M. Dirac Science Library at Florida State University, which Manci opened in December 1989, is named in his honour, and his papers are held there. Outside is a statue of him by Gabriella Bollobás. The street on which the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory in Tallahassee, Florida, is located was named Paul Dirac Drive. As well as in his home town of Bristol, there is also a road named after him in Didcot Oxfordshire, Dirac Way. The BBC named a video codec Dirac in his honour.
1034044	Penelope Keith, CBE, DL (born 2 April 1940) is an English actress. Having started her television career in the 1950s, Penelope Keith became a household name in the United Kingdom in the 1970s when she played Margo Leadbetter in the sitcom "The Good Life". This role earned Keith her first of two BAFTAs, the second being in 1978 for "The Norman Conquests". One year after "The Good Life"'s finale, Keith was the lead character in another BBC sitcom, "To the Manor Born", a show that received audiences of more than 20 million. In the 1980s and 1990s, she appeared as the lead character in six other sitcoms. Since the 1990s, Keith has appeared rarely on television and works mainly in the theatre. Early life. Penelope Anne Constance Hatfield was born in Sutton in 1940. Her father, who was a Major by the end of World War II, left her mother Connie when she was a baby, and Keith spent her early years in Clacton-on-Sea and Clapham. Her great uncle, John Gurney, was a partner in the coachbuilding firm J. Gurney Nutting & Company Ltd and Keith recalls sitting in the Prince of Wales's car.  Although not a Roman Catholic, at the age of six she was sent to a Catholic boarding school in Seaford. It was here that a young Keith first became interested in acting, and frequently went to matinees in the West End with her mother. When she was eight years old, her mother remarried and Penelope adopted her stepfather's surname of Keith. While she did not get on with her stepfather, her mother was a "rock of love" to her. She was rejected from the Central School of Speech and Drama, on the grounds that, at 5'10", she was too tall. However, she was then accepted at the Webber Douglas Academy of Dramatic Art, and spent two years there while working at the Hyde Park Hotel in the evening.
518164	Alfred Habdank Skarbek Korzybski (; July 3, 1879 – March 1, 1950) was a Polish-American philosopher and scientist. He is remembered for developing the theory of general semantics. Korzybski's work argued that human knowledge of the world is limited both by the human nervous system and by the structure of language. Korzybski thought that people do not have access to direct knowledge of reality; rather they have access to perceptions and to a set of beliefs which human society has confused with direct knowledge of reality. Korzybski is remembered as the author of the dictum: "The map is not the territory". Early life and career. Korzybski was born in Warsaw, Poland which at that time was part of the Russian Empire. He was part of an aristocratic Polish family whose members had worked as mathematicians, scientists, and engineers for generations. He learned the Polish language at home and the Russian language in schools; and having a French governess and a German governess, he became fluent in these four languages as a child. Korzybski was educated at the Warsaw University of Technology in engineering. During the First World War Korzybski served as an intelligence officer in the Russian Army. After being wounded in a leg and suffering other injuries, he moved to North America in 1916 (first to Canada, then the United States) to coordinate the shipment of artillery to Russia. He also lectured to Polish-American audiences about the conflict, promoting the sale of war bonds. After the War, he decided to remain in the United States, becoming a naturalized citizen in 1940. He met Mira Edgerly, a painter of portraits on ivory, shortly after the Armistice, and married her in January, 1919. Their marriage lasted until his death. His first book, "Manhood of Humanity", was published in 1921. In the book, he proposed and explained in detail a new theory of humankind: mankind as a "time-binding" class of life (humans perform time binding by the transmission of knowledge and abstractions through time which are accreted in cultures). General semantics. Korzybski's work culminated in the initiation of a discipline that he named general semantics (GS). As Korzybski said, GS should not be confused with semantics, a different subject. The basic principles of general semantics, which include time-binding, are described in the publication "Science and Sanity", published in 1933. After the publication of "Science and Sanity" he traveled about teaching briefly in many schools and universities. In 1938 Korzybski founded the Institute of General Semantics in Chicago. The post-World War II housing shortage in Chicago cost him the Institute's building lease, so in 1946, he moved the Institute to Lakeville, Connecticut, USA, where he directed it until his death in 1950. Korzybski's work maintained that human beings are limited in what they know by (1) the structure of their nervous systems, and (2) the structure of their languages. Human beings cannot experience the world directly, but only through their "abstractions" (nonverbal impressions or "gleanings" derived from the nervous system, and verbal indicators expressed and derived from language). Sometimes our perceptions and our languages actually mislead us as to the "facts" with which we must deal. Our understanding of what is happening sometimes lacks "similarity of structure" with what is actually happening. He stressed training in awareness of abstracting, using techniques that he had derived from his study of mathematics and science. He called this awareness, this goal of his system, "consciousness of abstracting". His system included modifying the way we consider the world, e.g., with an attitude of "I don't know; let's see," to better discover or reflect its realities as revealed by modern science. One of these techniques involved becoming inwardly and outwardly quiet, an experience that he termed, "silence on the objective levels". "To be". Many devotees and critics of Korzybski reduced his rather complex system to a simple matter of what he said about the verb form "is" of the more general verb "to be." His system, however, is based primarily on such terminology as the different "orders of abstraction," and formulations such as "consciousness of abstracting." It is often said that Korzybski "opposed" the use of the verb "to be," which is a profound exaggeration (see "Criticisms" below). He thought that "certain uses" of the verb "to be", called the "is of identity" and the "is of predication", were faulty in structure, e.g., a statement such as, "Elizabeth is a fool" (said of a person named "Elizabeth" who has done something that we regard as foolish). In Korzybski's system, one's assessment of Elizabeth belongs to a higher order of abstraction than Elizabeth herself. Korzybski's remedy was to "deny" identity; in this example, to be aware continually that "Elizabeth" is "not" what we "call" her. We find Elizabeth not in the verbal domain, the world of words, but the nonverbal domain (the two, he said, amount to different orders of abstraction). This was expressed by Korzybski's most famous premise, "the map is not the territory". Note that this premise uses the phrase "is not", a form of "to be"; this and many other examples show that he did not intend to abandon "to be" as such. In fact, he said explicitly that there were no structural problems with the verb "to be" when used as an auxiliary verb or when used to state existence or location. It was even all right sometimes to use the faulty forms of the verb "to be," as long as one was aware of their structural limitations. This was developed into the language "E-Prime" by D. David Bourland, Jr. 15 years after his death (E-Prime a form of the English language in which the verb "to be" does not appear in any of its forms; for example, the sentence "the movie was good" could translate into E-Prime as "I liked the movie", thereby distinguishing opinion from fact). Anecdotes. One day, Korzybski was giving a lecture to a group of students, and he interrupted the lesson suddenly in order to retrieve a packet of biscuits, wrapped in white paper, from his briefcase. He muttered that he just had to eat something, and he asked the students on the seats in the front row if they would also like a biscuit. A few students took a biscuit. "Nice biscuit, don't you think," said Korzybski, while he took a second one. The students were chewing vigorously. Then he tore the white paper from the biscuits, in order to reveal the original packaging. On it was a big picture of a dog's head and the words "Dog Cookies." The students looked at the package, and were shocked. Two of them wanted to vomit, put their hands in front of their mouths, and ran out of the lecture hall to the toilet. "You see," Korzybski remarked, "I have just demonstrated that people don't just eat food, but also words, and that the taste of the former is often outdone by the taste of the latter." William Burroughs went to a Korzybski workshop in the Autumn of 1939. He was 25 years old, and paid $40. His fellow students—there were 38 in all—included young Samuel I. Hayakawa (later to become a Republican member of the U.S. Senate), Ralph Moriarty deBit (later to become the spiritual teacher Vitvan) and Wendell Johnson (founder of the Monster Study). Reception. Korzybzki was well received in numerous disciplinary realms, as evidenced by the positive reactions from leading persons in the sciences and humanities in the 1940s and 1950s. Some of the persons listed are, like Korzybski, polymaths and several categories apply to them. For example, Heinlein was the "dean of science fiction writers" because he was "the scientist" of science fiction. As reported in the Third Edition of "Science and Sanity", The U.S. Army in World War II used Korzybski's system to treat battle fatigue in Europe with the supervision of Dr. Douglas M. Kelley, who went on to become the psychiatrist in charge of the Nazi prisoners at Nuremberg. Some of the General Semantics tradition was continued by Samuel I. Hayakawa, who had a dispute with Korzybski. When asked because of what, Hayakawa is said to have replied: "Words."
587190	Ketki Dave (née: Joshi; born 13 August 1960, in Bombay) is an Indian actress. She has starred in over 75 Gujarati films; and notable Hindi films including "Aamdani Atthanni Kharcha Rupaiya", "Money Hai Toh Honey Hai", "Kal Ho Naa Ho", and "Hello! Hum Lallan Bol Rahe Hain". She also has many television credits to her name, some of which are "Nach Baliye 2", "Bigg Boss", "Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi", and "Behenein". Dave is best known for her role as Daksha Virani in the soap "Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi", and as Vimla in the film "Aamdani Atthanni Kharcha Rupaiya". Personal life. Ketki was born on August 30, 1960 to the parents Sarita Joshi, an actress and Praveen Joshi, a theatre director. She has a younger sister Purbi Joshi who is also an actress and an anchor. She is married to the actor Rasik Dave, with whom she runs a Gujarati theatre company, They have a daughter Riddhi Dave, who is also an actress.
1044580	Horror Hospital is a 1973 British horror-comedy film starring Robin Askwith, Michael Gough, Dennis Price and Skip Martin. It was the penultimate film directed by Antony Balch. The DVD was released by Dark Sky Films on June 15, 2010. Plot. When attempts to break into the pop business leaves him with nothing but a bloody nose, songwriter Jason Jones (Robin Askwith) decides to take a break with "Hairy Holidays", an outfit run by shifty, gay travel agent Pollock (Dennis Price). After failing to chat Jason up, Pollock sends him to pseudo-health farm Brittlehurst Manor. On the train journey there Jason meets Judy (Vanessa Shaw) who is also on the way to the same destination to meet her long lost Aunt. Both are unaware that the health farm (i.e. "Horror Hospital") is a front for Dr. Storm (Michael Gough) and his lobotomy experiments that turn wayward hippies into his mindless zombie slaves. The wheelchair-bound Doctor surrounds himself with an entourage that includes Judy's aunt, erstwhile brothel madam Olga (Ellen Pollock), dwarf Frederick (Skip Martin) and numerous zombie biker thugs. Dr. Storm also has a Rolls Royce fitted with a giant blade that decapitates escapees and interfering parties. Abraham (Kurt Christian) arrives at the Horror Hospital "looking for his chick" and is promptly whacked around the head by the motorcycle zombies. Frederick, fed up at literally being Storm's whipping boy helps the kids escape—paving the way for Seventies youth to put the final spanner in the works to Storm's scheme. Production. After the success of his feature film debut "Secrets of Sex" (1969), an anthology sex film that flirted with horror themes, Balch envisioned his second film as an out and out horror film and one with a continuous narrative. Location filming was undertaken in and around Knebworth House near Stevenage, Hertfordshire. Writing. The script was written by Balch and his friend Alan Watson during the 1973 Cannes Film Festival, although the film's title was thought up before the plot. Among Watson’s ideas for the "Horror Hospital" script was the lethal Rolls Royce, with its giant blade that decapitated people as it drove by. Filming. The film was shot on a four-week schedule beginning on 16 October 1972. Shooting was done at Merton Park (mainly the pop group scene), Battersea Town Hall (which provided the interiors of Brittlehurst Manor) and Knebworth House. The film’s last night party on the 11 November was compromised when Phoebe Shaw served cake that was laced with drugs. In his autobiography Askwith wrote “I don’t know what she put in the cake but I ended up with a twenty stone electrician Roy, sitting on my lap telling me he thought he was in love with me.” Only producer Richard Gordon managed to avoid eating the cake. Casting. Robin Askwith’s role was specially written for him after he appeared in Gordon’s previous 1972 production "Tower of Evil". Balch asked Michael Gough to base his performance on Bela Lugosi, screening him a 16mm print of "The Devil Bat", in which Lugosi plays a mad, perfume manufacturer. The female lead was taken by Phoebe Shaw, who had previously appeared in several TV Commercials, and was renamed ‘Vanessa Shaw’ for the film. During filming Shaw and Askwith briefly became lovers. Her only two other known roles were un-credited bit parts in a 1969 American TV adaptation of "David Copperfield" and a police cadet in "Ooh… You Are Awful "(1972). Veteran character actor, Dennis Price, and 'dwarf' actor Skip Martin, who ran a tobacconist in between acting assignments, also appeared in the film. As well as Kurt Christian whose full title was Baron Kurt Christian Von Siengenberg, and who left the country not long after the film was released. His ambition at the time, according to Films and Filming magazine, was to "play a role that does not involve killing somebody". Nicky Henson was originally considered for Christian’s role. Soundtrack. "Horror Hospital" also contains a pop music number “Mark of Death”, composed by Jason DeHavilland and performed by the group Mystic (James IV Boris, Alan “The River” Hudson, Simon Lust). Norwich (England) hip-hop group Stonasaurus recorded a concept album about the film in 2003. Release. The DVD release is set for the 15 June 2010 by MPI Media Group.
1103564	In numerical analysis, numerical integration constitutes a broad family of algorithms for calculating the numerical value of a definite integral, and by extension, the term is also sometimes used to describe the numerical solution of differential equations. This article focuses on calculation of definite integrals. The term numerical quadrature (often abbreviated to "quadrature") is more or less a synonym for "numerical integration", especially as applied to one-dimensional integrals. Numerical integration over more than one dimension is sometimes described as cubature, although the meaning of "quadrature" is understood for higher dimensional integration as well. The basic problem in numerical integration is to compute an approximate solution to a definite integral to a given degree of accuracy. If is a smooth function integrated over a small number of dimensions, and the domain of integration is bounded, there are many methods for approximating the integral to the desired precison. History. Quadrature is a historical mathematical term which means calculating area. Quadrature problems have served as one of the main sources of mathematical analysis. Mathematicians of Ancient Greece, according to the Pythagorean doctrine, understood calculation of area as the process of constructing geometrically a square having the same area ("squaring"). That is why the process was named quadrature. For example, a quadrature of the circle, Lune of Hippocrates, The Quadrature of the Parabola. This construction must be performed only by means of compass and straightedge. For a quadrature of a rectangle with the sides "a" and "b" it is necessary to construct a square with the side formula_2 (the Geometric mean of "a" and "b"). For this purpose it is possible to use the following fact: if we draw the circle with the sum of "a" and "b" as the diameter, then the height BH (from a point of their connection to crossing with a circle) equals their geometric mean. The similar geometrical construction solves a problem of a quadrature for a parallelogram and a triangle. Problems of quadrature for curvilinear figures are much more difficult. The quadrature of the circle with compass and straightedge had been proved in the 19th century to be impossible. Nevertheless, for some figures (for example Lune of Hippocrates) a quadrature can be performed. The quadratures of a sphere surface and a parabola segment done by Archimedes became the highest achievement of the antique analysis. For the proof of the results Archimedes used the Method of exhaustion of Eudoxus. In medieval Europe the quadrature meant calculation of area by any method. More often the Method of indivisibles was used; it was less rigorous, but more simple and powerful. With its help Galileo Galilei and Gilles de Roberval found the area of a cycloid arch, Grégoire de Saint-Vincent investigated the area under a hyperbola ("Opus Geometricum", 1647), and Alphonse Antonio de Sarasa, de Saint-Vincent's pupil and commentator noted the relation of this area to logarithms. John Wallis algebrised this method: he wrote in his "Arithmetica Infinitorum" (1656) series which we now call the definite integral, and he calculated their values. Isaac Barrow and James Gregory made further progress: quadratures for some algebraic curves and spirals. Christiaan Huygens successfully performed a quadrature of some Solids of revolution. The quadrature of the hyperbola by Saint-Vincent and de Sarasa provided a new function, the natural logarithm, of critical importance.
314935	Putney Swope, a 1969 film written and directed by Robert Downey, Sr. and starring Arnold Johnson as Swope, is a comedy satirizing the advertising world, the portrayal of race in Hollywood films, the white power structure, and nature of corporate corruption. Plot. Putney Swope, the only black man on the executive board of an advertising firm, is accidentally put in charge after the unexpected death of the chairman of the board: each board member actually believed that he, himself, should be elected chairman, but the bylaws of the corporation prohibit voting for oneself, so each individual member voted his secret ballot for the person that no one else would vote for: Putney Swope. Renaming the business "Truth and Soul, Inc.", Swope replaces all but one of the white employees and insists they no longer accept business from companies that produce alcohol, war toys, or tobacco. The success of the business draws unwanted attention from the United States government, which considers it "a threat to the national security." Production. In an interview on the DVD version of the film, Downey states that Arnold Johnson had great difficulty memorizing and saying his lines during the film shoot. Downey says he didn't worry about it because he had developed a plan to dub in his own voice to replace Johnson's line readings.
1058155	The Roommate is a 2011 American thriller film directed by Christian E. Christiansen and starring Minka Kelly, Leighton Meester, Cam Gigandet, Danneel Harris, Matt Lanter, and Aly Michalka. It was theatrically released on February 4, 2011. Plot. Sara Matthews (Kelly) is starting her freshman year of college. She meets Tracy (Michalka), Stephen (Gigandet), her love interest, and Rebecca (Meester), her roommate. Initially, the girls begin to bond and Rebecca learns that Sara had an older sister, Emily, who died when Sara was 9, and an ex-boyfriend, Jason (Lanter), who keeps calling her in attempts to reconcile. As time goes on, Rebecca's obsession with Sara grows, which causes her to drive away anyone who could come between them. Rebecca attacks Tracy in the shower, pinning her down and ripping out her belly-button ring, and threatens to kill her unless she stays away from Sara. Tracy moves to another dorm, fearful of Rebecca. An old friend of Sara, named Irene (Harris), who is a lesbian invites Sara to move in with her. When Sara's philandering fashion design professor, Roberts (Zane), kisses her, Rebecca plans to get the professor out of the picture by seducing him while recording their dialogue on a tape recorder to make it sound like he was trying to rape her. Sara feels bad for her and decides to spend the Thanksgiving with Rebecca. During her stay, Sara overhears a conversation between Rebecca and her father (Arana), hinting Rebecca has had trouble making friends in the past. Rebecca's mother (Fisher) mentions that Rebecca is supposed to be taking medication. She and Stephen later find a bottle of Zyprexa pills, which they find out (via Wikipedia) is used to treat schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. But the bottle is full, implying that Rebecca hasn't been taking the pills. Sara, worried about what would happen, decides to move in with Irene. Irene goes to a club where she sees Rebecca. They make out in the club's bathroom and Irene, not knowing that Rebecca is Sara's roommate, takes Rebecca back to her place. The following morning, Sara goes to Irene's apartment but she's not there. Rebecca gets Sara's sister's name tattooed in the same place on her body as Sara, saying that Sara can now think of Rebecca as her sister. A shocked Sara realizes that Rebecca is obsessed with her and packs all her things, except her sister's necklace, which she can't find (being later revealed that the necklace had been stolen from her by Rebecca). Jason arrives at Sara's dorm and slips a note under her door, saying that he wants to see her. Rebecca reads the note, impersonates Sara with her sister's necklace and tattoo, and dyes her hair to look like Sara. She then goes to Jason's hotel room and stabs him to death. Later, Sara gets a text from Irene, saying she needs her right away. Sara informs Stephen she will be at Irene's place. When she gets there, she finds Irene held hostage by Rebecca with a revolver. Rebecca reveals that she was responsible for what happened to Tracy, Cuddles, Professor Roberts, and Jason and that she did it all to win Sara's friendship. Rebecca wants to kill Irene in order to finally have Sara all to herself. Stephen arrives just in time to help stop Rebecca from pulling the trigger on Irene. Sara reaches for the revolver to shoot Rebecca, however, the cartridge is empty. Enraged at this, Rebecca picks up Sara and tries to strangle her to death, but Sara stabs Rebecca in the back with a boxcutter, which kills her. Sara moves back into her dorm and moves the extra bed out of her room with the help of her boyfriend Stephen, proclaiming that she does not want a roommate for a while. Production. Sonny Mallhi first thought of shooting the film in New York City but it was eventually shot on location at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles and at Loyola Marymount University. Leighton Meester was originally set to play Sara but was replaced by Minka Kelly and Leighton played Rebecca. Billy Zane and Frances Fisher had both starred together in "Titanic" thirteen years earlier, though in this film they shared no scenes. Release. Box office. The film was originally planned to be released on September 17, 2010, but was moved to February 4, 2011. The trailer can be seen with "Devil" and "Burlesque". Opening in 2,534 theaters, the film grossed $15.6 million its opening weekend to take first place at the box office. Its distributor estimated that females under the age of 21 accounted for two-thirds of its audience. At the end of its run in 2011 the film grossed $37,300,107 in the United States and Canada and $3,192,652 in other countries for a worldwide total of $40,492,759. Home media. "The Roommate" was released on Blu-ray Disc, DVD, and digital download in North America on May 17, 2011. Reception. "The Roommate" was given almost universally negative reviews by critics; it is currently rated at 4% on Rotten Tomatoes, based on 81 reviews with a consensus of it being "Devoid of chills, thrills, or even cheap titillation, "The Roommate" isn't even bad enough to be good." CinemaScore polls indicated a "B−" rating from audiences. Keith Staskiewicz of "Entertainment Weekly" gave the film a D, saying it "is really just a far-below-par thriller that desperately wishes it were a different movie – a longing it shares with the audience," but praises Meester for bringing "the slightest trace of something fascinating to her role. When she smiles, it's perfectly located between a sweet display of affection and a snarling warning." Peter Travers of "Rolling Stone" gave it a half star, stating that ""The Roommate" – the umpteenth uncredited remake of 1992's "Single White Female" – sucks bad, real bad" and that "Danish director Christian E. Christiansen has no flair for suspense". Meester's performance garnered praise from other top critics, including the "Los Angeles Times", which states: "Here her performance often has the feeling of a sports car in neutral. When she punches it for quick changes of tone from manic to wounded or around the bend, she shows how much more she is capable of." "Chicago Sun-Times" film critic Roger Ebert called Leighton Meester's character "A combination between Lindsay Lohan and Amy Fisher". Awards and nominations. Despite the negative reception, "The Roommate" was nominated for the following awards... Controversy. Some of the promotional posters and displays for the film used as its backdrop the Christy Administration Building from Southwestern College in Winfield, Kansas. The college administration voiced concern that permission to use the photograph of the building was not properly obtained and is currently investigating the legality of its use. Primary concerns hinge that the image of the college (particularly the image of the building) could be damaged, while other concerns are that the college's primary iconic image is being used for promotion of an unrelated business venture. After initial success became realized when the film earned $15.6 million in receipts to top the box office during its debut weekend in the United States, concerns continued. By that time, the image of the building had been replaced on the film's official website and on subsequent promotional material. The photo of the building reportedly was licensed from iStockPhoto based in Calgary, Alberta. As of February 8, 2011, no lawsuits have been filed but discussions have taken place. Students at the school are reporting "mixed feelings" about the topic – some believe that it may be helpful for the college and others report that they can see how it may be harmful to the school's image.
1060444	Mena Alexandra Suvari (born February 13, 1979) is an American actress, fashion designer, and model. Shortly after beginning her career as a model, she appeared in guest roles on such 1990s television shows as "Boy Meets World" and "High Incident". She made her film debut in the drama "Nowhere" (1997). She achieved international fame for her roles in the 1999 films "American Beauty" as Angela Hayes (for which she was nominated for a BAFTA Award), and as Heather in "American Pie" (1999). She reprised her role as Heather in "American Pie 2" (2001) and "American Reunion" (2012). She has also appeared in "" (1999), "Loser" (2000), "Sugar & Spice" (2001), "Spun" (2002), "Trauma" (2004) and the HBO drama series "Six Feet Under" in 2004. Suvari is a model for Lancôme cosmetics and print ads for Lancôme Paris Adaptîve and has been featured in several fashion blogs and magazines such as "Vogue". She is a long-time supporter and activist for the African relief organization, the African Medical and Research Foundation. She is also active in feminist issues and is involved with charities whose cause is breast cancer and "End Violence Against Women" campaign. Early life. Suvari was born in Newport, Rhode Island, the daughter of Candice (née Chambers), a nurse, and Ando Süvari, a psychiatrist. Her mother is of half Greek descent and her father is Estonian American. She has three older brothers. She began modeling as a preteen and soon after starred in a Rice-A-Roni commercial. The family later relocated to Charleston, South Carolina, where her brothers attended The Citadel. Mena considered becoming an archaeologist, astronaut or doctor, when a modeling agency stopped by her all-girls school, Ashley Hall, to offer classes. By the time she started acting, she had been modeling for the New York-based Wilhelmina agency for five years. After moving to the Los Angeles area, Mena attended Providence High School in Burbank, graduating in 1997. Career. Early work, 1994–1998. Suvari made appearances in television shows such as "Boy Meets World" and "ER" at the age of fifteen and sixteen respectively. She also appeared in a number of episodes of the television series "High Incident". She played a girl named Ivy infected with HIV in the "Chicago Hope" episode "Sympathy for the Devil". She gained early notice for her performance as Zoe in Gregg Araki's low-budget drama feature "Nowhere", alongside James Duval, Rachel True, Heather Graham, and Ryan Phillippe. She had a supporting part in the indie drama film "Snide and Prejudice", which opened at the 1997 Cannes Film Festival. She played a small role as Coty Pierce in the 1997 thriller "Kiss the Girls", where she appeared opposite Morgan Freeman and Ashley Judd. She next was cast in a supporting role in the independent dramedy "Slums of Beverly Hills", which was released in 1998. It was on the set of this film that she met Natasha Lyonne, who would later join the cast of "American Pie". International success, 1999–2006. In 1999, Suvari starred in the Academy Award-winning "American Beauty", for which she received a BAFTA Award nomination for Best Actress in a Supporting Role and was also nominated for the "Favorite Actress - Newcomer" at the 2000 Blockbuster Entertainment Awards. Her performance as Angela Hayes brought her to the attention of a much wider audience. That year, she appeared as Heather in the popular teen comedy "American Pie". The film was commercially successful, grossing $102 million domestically and $235 million worldwide. She appeared as Lisa Parker in "", the sequel to the 1976 supernatural thriller "Carrie". In the film, she played Emily Bergl's character's best friend, who commits suicide. Suvari starred alongside her "American Pie" co-star Jason Biggs in the romantic comedy "Loser" (2000). She appeared in the poorly received film "The Musketeer", and had an appearance again with Biggs in the music video for the Wheatus song "Teenage Dirtbag" in 2001. She reprised the role of Heather in the 2001 sequel to "American Pie", "American Pie 2", which was also a box office success. She joined the cast of the dark comedy film "Sugar & Spice", playing the character Kansas Hill, one of a group of close-knit cheerleaders. The film was a box office bomb. The following year, she starred in the independent drama "Spun", opposite Brittany Murphy and John Leguizamo, and appeared in Nicolas Cage's directorial debut "Sonny", a low-budget drama co-starring James Franco and Brenda Blethyn. In 2004, Suvari's film, the thriller "Trauma", directed by Marc Evans, was released at the Sundance Film Festival. She portrayed the character of Charlotte, and co-starred with Colin Firth. The film was described by several film critics as a psychological thriller in the same vein as "Jacob's Ladder" (1990) and "Memento" (2000). In that year, she became a recurring character in the fourth season of the critically acclaimed HBO serial "Six Feet Under", as lesbian performance poet and artist, Edie. She and the other "Six Feet Under" cast members received a Screen Actors Guild Award nomination for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series in 2005. Suvari appeared alongside Keira Knightley in Tony Scott's "Domino", an 2005 action film based on the life of bounty hunter Domino Harvey. Later, she played the character Annie, Jennifer Aniston's tennis-obsessed sister in the romantic comedy "Rumor Has It", and co-starred with Queen Latifah and Alicia Silverstone in "Beauty Shop", a spinoff of the "BarberShop" films, as Joanne Marcus. She performed the voice role of Aerith Gainsborough in the Square Enix/Disney video game "Kingdom Hearts II" and the English-language version of Square Enix's "Final Fantasy VII Advent Children". She also had the main role along with Katherine Heigl in the 2006 film "Caffeine", a romantic comedy about the relationships of the staff and patrons of the Black Cat Cafe in London one day. Suvari's final 2006 film was the biographical drama "Factory Girl", playing Richie Berlin. The film premiered on December 29, 2006, and it portrayed the story of Edie Sedgwick and how she came into Andy Warhol's life. Recent work, 2007–present. In 2007, Suvari was cast in Michael Corrente's film "Brooklyn Rules", with Freddie Prinze Jr. and Alec Baldwin. The film is a crime drime drama which was released on May 18, in a limited release. Later, she starred in the Stuart Gordon's controversial independent thriller "Stuck". The film premiered on May 21, 2007 at the Cannes Film Market, and opened in the United States on May 20, 2008. She had the main role in the direct-to-video horror zombie "Day of the Dead" (2008), a remake of George A. Romero's 1985 classic zombie film of the same name.
1042872	Kieron Moore (born Ciarán Ó hAnnracháin Anglicised Kieron O’Hanrahan) (5 October 1924 – 15 July 2007) was an Irish film and television actor whose career was at its peak in the 1950s and 1960s. He may be best remembered for his role as Count Vronsky in the 1948 film adaptation of "Anna Karenina" opposite Vivien Leigh. Early years. He grew up in County Cork in an Irish-speaking household. His father, Peadar Ó hAnnracháin (born 1874) (also known as Peter/Peadar Hourihane and Peadar O'Hourihane) was a writer and poet, and a staunch supporter of the Irish language. Peadar, a son of Seaghan Ó hAnnracháin (born 1834) and Máire Ní Dhonabháin (also born 1834) and who was one of the first organisers for Conradh na Gaeilge (Gaelic League), was twice imprisoned by the British during the Irish Civil War. Peadar lived with his parents and his sister, Áine Ní Annracháin (born 1885), and his niece, Máirín Ní Dhiomasaig (born 1903), at 14 Poundlick, Skibbereen, County Cork in 1911. He also wrote for the "Southern Star" newspaper for many years and had been its editor. Several members of Kieron's family pursued careers in the arts. His sister Neasa Ní Annracháin was a stalwart of the Raidió Éireann Players, while his brother, Fachtna, was director of music at the station, and a second sister, Bláithín Ní Annracháin, played the harp with the National Symphony Orchestra. Following his family's move to Dublin, Moore attended Irish language school, Coláiste Mhuire. Later, his medical studies at University College Dublin were cut short when he was invited to join the Abbey Players. In 1947, he married Barbara White, with whom he had four children. Career. Living in England for years, Moore made more than film 50 appearances and acted in several British television episodes. Beginning his acting career at the Abbey Theatre in Dublin, he made his English stage debut at the age of 19 as Heathcliff in a production of "Wuthering Heights", later starring in a BBC TV production of the play (1948). His first film role was as an IRA man in "The Voice Within" (1945). Alexander Korda offered him a seven-year contract with London Films following his acclaimed performance in the West End hit "Red Roses for Me" (written by Sean O'Casey). Korda announced he was likely to become a major star: He has a brilliant acting talent. Then he has six-feet-two of brawn, a mobile photogenic face, rich expressive eyes, and ability to adapt himself to any type of role-ultra romantic or the last word in villainy. Very soon he will be one of the big names on the world's screens." Adopting the stage name Kieron Moore, he was cast in a leading role in "A Man About the House" in 1947. His next role, in the psychological thriller "Mine Own Executioner" (1947), confirmed his potential, but he was widely seen as seriously miscast when he took on the role of the suave Count Vronsky in Julian Duvivier's production of "Anna Karenina" (1948), which starred Vivien Leigh and Ralph Richardson, receiving the worst notices of his career. Despite this setback, Moore was invited to Hollywood, where in 1951 he made two films, playing Uriah the Hittite in the biblical epic "David and Bathsheba" and a Foreign Legion officer in "Ten Tall Men", starring Burt Lancaster. He also featured in "Mantrap" (1953), "Recoil" (1953), and "The Blue Peter" (1954). In 1959, Moore appeared in "Darby O'Gill and the Little People". The following year, he gave an impressive performance in the comedy-thriller "The League of Gentlemen" (1960), playing a homosexual former fascist and army officer recruited to take part in a big robbery. There followed roles in "The Siege of Sidney Street" (1960), shot on location in Ireland, "Doctor Blood's Coffin" (1961), "The Thin Red Line" (1964), and "Arabesque" (1966). In his final film, "Custer of the West" (1967), he played Chief Dull Knife. He also made television appearances in "Fabian of the Yard", "Jason King" and "Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased)" which aired in 1970 in episode 16 "When the Spirit Moves You", where he was cast as the villain Miklos Corri. Anton Rodgers, another actor who died in 2007, also appeared in that episode. Moore also took on the starring role in "Ryan International", which he also wrote. Moore quit acting in 1974, becoming a social activist on behalf of the Third World. He joined CAFOD (Catholic Agency for Overseas Development), with which he worked for nine years. During that time he made two film documentaries, "Progress of Peoples" (Peru) and "The Parched Earth" (Senegal). Later, as projects manager, he travelled to the Middle East and India. He next became associate editor of "The Universe", editing the supplement, "New Creation", which he transformed into the magazine "New Day". He last worked for television, providing voice-overs for Muiris Mac Conghail's RTÉ documentaries about the Aran Islands and the Blaskets. Moore retired in 1994 to the Charente-Maritime in France, where he joined the church choir, became a hospital visitor, and enjoyed reading French, Spanish, English and Irish literature. He is survived by his wife, the former actress Barbara White, who played opposite him in "The Voice Within" and "Mine Own Executioner", their daughter Theresa (Soeur Miriame-Therese) and sons Casey, Colm and Seán.
1166492	Brenda Marshall (September 29, 1915 – July 30, 1992), the stage name of Ardis Ankerson, was an American film actress. Career. Born in Negros, Philippines, Marshall made her first film appearance in the 1939 "Espionage Agent". The following year, she played the leading lady to Errol Flynn in "The Sea Hawk". After divorcing actor Richard Gaines in 1940, she married the actor William Holden in 1941 and her own career quickly slowed. She starred opposite James Cagney in "Captains of the Clouds" (1942).
583690	Kandukondain Kandukondain (; ) is a 2000 Tamil musical and romantic film based on Jane Austen's novel "Sense and Sensibility". Directed and co-written by Rajiv Menon, the film features an ensemble cast of Mammootty, Aishwarya Rai, Ajith Kumar, Tabu and Abbas. Veteran actors Srividya, Raghuvaran and Manivannan also play other supporting roles. The plot features two young sisters with differing views on love who find themselves with three suitors. The elder sister attracts the attention of an aspiring film director, while a wounded commando falls for her younger, hopelessly romantic sister but hesitates because he is much older than she. Meanwhile, the younger sister meets and falls for an upcoming businessman with a passion for Tamil poetry. However, problems lap up from different directions, resulting in emotional turmoil for both sisters. Whom the sisters marry forms the crux of the story. The film opened to Indian audiences, after several delays, on 4 May 2000 gaining generally positive reviews. "Kandukondain Kandukondain" was dubbed and released in Telugu as "Priyuraalu Pilichindi", and the producers released subtitled versions worldwide. The film's soundtrack was scored by A. R. Rahman. The film went on to feature in international film festivals and gain notable awards. Shankar Mahadevan won the National Film Award for Best Male Playback Singer for the song "Enna solla pogirai" in the movie. Synopsis. "Kandukondain Kandukondain" opens with army commando Major Bala (Mammootty) fighting in a war and losing his left leg in a grenade explosion. After the opening credits, Sowmya (Tabu) and Meenakshi "Meenu" (Aishwarya Rai) are shown as the adult daughters of Pathma (Srividya) living in a Chettiar mansion in Karaikudi, Tamil Nadu with their maternal grandfather Chandrasekhar (Unnikrishan Nambooripad), maidservant Chellatha (S. N. Lakshmi) and younger sister Kamala (Shamili). Sowmya is a school principal while Meenu is passionate about classic Tamil poetry, music and dance. Major Bala, one of the rich men in their village falls in love with Meenu, but Meenu falls in love with Srikanth (Abbas). Manohar (Ajith Kumar) is a director who comes to Meenu's house for a film shoot. Sowmya and Manohar fall for each other but an issue crops up between the two and whether Manohar manages to win her back forms the rest of their part of the story. Chandrasekhar, on his deathbed, tries to say something about the will which was written by him and kept in a box, a long time ago. No one understands him. After his death, their lawyer breaks open the box and found out that he had bequeathed all his property to his younger son Swaminathan (Nizhagal Ravi), remembering the fact that his elder daughter Pathma had eloped and married without his knowledge. Unable to bear Swaminathan's wife's arrogant behaviour upon inheriting the mansion, Sowmya and her family move to Chennai. In Chennai, Sowmya finds a respectable job in a software company while Meenu becomes a playback singer with the help of Major Bala. Meanwhile, Srikanth's finance company goes bankrupt and he has to pay back his investors. A minister offers to bail out Srikanth and his company if Srikanth marries his daughter. Srikanth agrees and when Meenu finds this out by chance, she is shocked and overwhelmed at Srikanth's hypocrisy. She falls into an open manhole and gets rescued by Bala. Realising Bala's true love for her, Meenu falls in love with him. Manohar's first movie project is in disarray and he is thrown out. He plans his own movie, a path-breaking action one with Nandhini Varma (Pooja Batra) as the heroine. Nandhini falls for Manohar's charm although not with any serious intentions. Rumours of an affair spread which hurt Sowmya deeply. The movie becomes a big commercial success. When he visits Sowmya's house in Chennai, he finds out that Sowmya is going to California. Tearful exchanges of resentment are exchanged between them as Manohar tries to convince Sowmya after some tearful drama. The movie ends with Bala marrying Meenakshi. Production. Development. Rajiv Menon was signed by Kalaipuli S. Dhanu to direct a film under his production in the winter of 1998. Menon subsequently wanted a bigger storyline and scripted a screenplay based on the Jane Austen novel, "Sense and Sensibility" and the project emerged as "Kandukondain Kandukondain". Menon stated that the story of two sisters reflected in the film were reminiscent of him and his brother through difficult parts of their lives. The film was initially launched as a multilingual project in Tamil, Telugu, Hindi and Malayalam, though it only released in Tamil with a subsequent dubbed version in Telugu titled "Priyuraalu Pilichindi". After most of the production was complete in November 1999, Menon wanted a rough copy of the film to be previewed by the village audience first, to ensure that they could relate to the subject. After showing parts of the film, they eventually held a group discussion before thanking the volunteers with gifts, while receiving positive feedback. The audio release function of the film was held, with Kamal Haasan in attendance. The film was initially scheduled for release in the Diwali season of 1999, before delays postponed the makers to announce that the film would release on 1 January 2000, becoming the first film of the millennium. However, the film finally released in May 2000. Casting. Mammootty was signed to play the lead role of the former army general. Soundarya was offered Aishwarya Rai's role. She had to turn it down because of schedule issues. Aishwarya Rai was signed on to the project, making her third appearance in Tamil films after "Iruvar" and "Jeans". Tabu was subsequently signed on to play another role in the project. Ajith Kumar selected to play the supporting role. Srividya was signed on to play Tabu and Rai's mother, while Shamili of "Anjali" fame played their sister. Nizhagal Ravi and Anita Ratnam were also a part of the family, with Malayalam actor, Unnikrishnan Nambooripad, making his debut as the bed-ridden grandfather. Prominent actors Raghuvaran and Manivannan were selected for supporting roles in the film, while Hindi actors Dino Morea and Pooja Batra appeared in small character roles. Senthil is credited with a guest appearance in the film, while technicians Gangai Amaren, A. R. Rahman and Rajiv Menon all play one-scene cameos. Rajiv Menon and Dhanu retained several of the technical team from his previous venture, with only Sujatha added to write the dialogues. Menon cited that he often thought of the dialogues in his native language Malayalam before telling writer Sujatha to translate them into Tamil. Furthermore a cinematographer himself, Menon opted not to be so in the project and appointed Ravi K. Chandran to control the camera. Music by the film was composed by Rahman, while lyrics were written by Vairamuthu. Suresh Urs edited the film, while Vikram Dharma directed stunts, Nagu directed arts and Rekha Prakash, Brindha and Raju Sundaram choreographed the songs. Filming. Scenes with Mammootty's army general character were shot from February to April 1999, close to the outbreak of the Kargil War. During the shoot in the Chettiar mansion in Karaikudi, Menon cited that the unit bonded with Aishwarya Rai and Tabu becoming good friends, Ajith Kumar learning off Mammootty and the whole unit joining over dinner. In May 1999, the crew along with Aishwarya Rai and Abbas went to Scotland to film the title song on a lake in Dornie with the backdrop of a castle, the Eilean Donan. In the "Konjum Mainakale" song, professional Kathakali artists were used; the video for "Yengay Yenedhu Kavidhai" was shot in the backdrop of Chennai monsoonal rains. The production team planned a four-day shoot trip to Egypt to film a song with the backdrop of the pyramids, however, the stay turned into a week-long schedule. The team of director, Ajith, Tabu, choreographer Raju Sundaram and cinematographer Ravi K. Chandran daily traveled three hours from Cairo and shot in the heat, with one day of shoot being cancelled after Tabu fainted. The film was delayed for six months due to the success of Aishwarya Rai's "Taal" and "Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam", which prompted the revival of other projects she had signed up to at the period. Furthermore, Menon's insistence that A. R. Rahman reworked some of the music to provide a better fusion of classical and contemporary music, also postponed progress. The film subsequently ended filming six months behind the schedule devised by Menon, but he cited that everything had fallen in place as planned. During post-production, the film ran into problems with dubbing by Mammooty initially showing hesitance for dubbing for his character, before eventually giving in to the producer's demands. Actor Vikram dubbed for Abbas's character while actress Revathi dubbed for Tabu's character. Reception and box office. "Indian Express" stated "A progressive film encouraging female independence, yet staying a warm family tale in essence, "Kandukondain Kandukondain" is the kind of film every intelligent movie-goer ought not to miss. Almost every supporting character pitches in an impressive performance, thus making "Kandukondain Kandukondain" a wonderful watch". In the review for Rediff, Shobha Warrier stated that although the film had "too many songs, too little emotion" it " had a powerful story with intense and well-developed characters. ... One of the most poignant scenes in the film is Mammootty's outburst against the system, which forgets war heroes who lay down their lives for a cause". The film successfully completed 150 days. Its audio rights were sold for record 2.2 crore. Soundtrack. A. R. Rahman composed the original score and the songs with lyrics by Vairamuthu. The album rights were bought by Sa Re Ga Ma for a then-record sum of 2.2 crores. The soundtrack features eight songs, including a poem by Bharathiyar, tuned by Rahman. The song "Kanamoochi" is based on Carnatic raga ragamalika, "Kandukondain Kandukondain" is based on Nalinakanthi raga, "Smayiyai" is based on jazz music, and "Enna Solla Pogirai" is a folsky and romantic number. "Enna Solla Pogirai" earned Shankar Mahadevan the National Film Award for Best Male Playback Singer.
1102004	Leopold Kronecker (December 7, 1823 – December 29, 1891) was a German mathematician who worked on number theory and algebra. He criticized Cantor's work on set theory, and was quoted by as having said, "God made natural numbers; all else is the work of man". Kronecker was a student and lifelong friend of Ernst Kummer. Biography. Leopold Kronecker was born on 7 December 1823 in Liegnitz, Prussia (now Legnica, Poland) in a wealthy Jewish family. His parents, Isidor and Johanna (née Prausnitzer), took care of their children's education and provided them private tutoring at home - Leopold's younger brother Hugo Kronecker would also follow a scientific path later becoming a notable physiologist. Kronecker then went to the Liegnitz Gymnasium where he was interested in a wide range of topics including science, history and philosophy, while also practicing gymnastics and swimming. At the gymnasium he was taught by Ernst Kummer, who noticed and encouraged the boy's interest for mathematics. In 1841 Kronecker became a student at the University of Berlin where his interest did not immediately focus on mathematics, but rather spread over several subjects including astronomy and philosophy. He spent the summer of 1843 at the University of Bonn to study astronomy and 1843-44 at the University of Breslau following his former teacher Kummer. Back in Berlin, Kronecker studied mathematics with Peter Gustav Lejeune Dirichlet and in 1845 defended his dissertation in algebraic number theory written under Dirichlet's supervision. After obtaining his degree, Kronecker did not follow his interest in research with an academic career path. He went back to his hometown to manage a large farming estate built by his mother's uncle, a former banker. In 1848 married his cousin Fanny Prausnitzer and the couple had six children. For several years Kronecker focused on business, and although he continued to study mathematics in his own time as a hobby and kept correspondence with Kummer, he published no mathematical results. In 1853 he wrote a memoir on the algebraic solvability of equations extending the work of Évariste Galois on the theory of equations. His business activity allowed Kronecker a comfortable financial situation, which made it possible for him to go back to Berlin in 1855 to pursue mathematics as a private scholar. Dirichlet, whose wife Rebecka came from the wealthy Mendelssohn family, had introduced Kronecker to the Berlin elite. He became a close friend of Karl Weierstrass, who had recently joined the university, and his former teacher Kummer who had just taken over Dirichlet's mathematics chair. Over the following years Kronecker published numerous papers resulting from his previous years' independent research. As a result of this published research, he was elected a member of the Berlin Academy in 1861. Although he held no official university position, as a member of the Academy Kronecker had the right to hold classes at the University of Berlin and he decided to do so starting with 1862. In 1866, when Riemann died, Kronecker was offered the mathematics chair at the University of Göttingen (previously held by Carl Gauss and Dirichlet), but he refused preferring to keep his position at the Academy. Only in 1883, when Kummer retired from the University, Kronecker was invited to succeed him and became an ordinary professor. Kronecker was the supervisor of Kurt Hensel, Adolf Kneser, Mathias Lerch, and Franz Mertens, amongst others. His philosophical view of mathematics has put him in conflict with several mathematicians over the years, notably straining his relationship with Weierstrass, who almost decided to leave the University in 1888. Kronecker died on December 29, 1891 in Berlin, several months after the death of his wife. In the last year of his life, he converted to Christianity. He is buried in the "Alter St Matthäus Kirchhof" Cemetery in Berlin-Schöneberg, close to Gustav Kirchhoff. Scientific activity. Mathematics research. An important part of Kronecker's research focused on number theory and algebra. In an 1853 paper on the theory of equations and Galois theory he formulated the Kronecker–Weber theorem, however without offering a definitive proof (the theorem was proved completely much later by David Hilbert). He also introduced the structure theorem for finitely-generated abelian groups. Kronecker studied elliptic functions and conjectured his "liebster Jugendtraum" ("dearest dream of youth"), a generalization that was later put forward by Hilbert in a modified form as his twelfth problem. In an 1850 paper, "On the Solution of the General Equation of the Fifth Degree", Kronecker solved the quintic equation by applying group theory (though his solution was not in terms of radicals, since this was already proven impossible by Abel–Ruffini theorem). In algebraic number theory Kronecker introduced the theory of divisors as an alternative to Dedekind's theory of ideals, which he did not find acceptable for philosophical reasons. Although the general adoption of Dedekind's approach led Kronecker's theory to be ignored for a long time, his divisors were found useful and were revived by several mathematicians in the 20th century. Kronecker also contributed to the concept of continuity, reconstructing the form of irrational numbers in real numbers. In analysis, Kronecker rejected the formulation of a continuous, nowhere differentiable function by his colleague, Karl Weierstrass. Also named for Kronecker are the Kronecker limit formula, Kronecker's congruence, Kronecker delta, Kronecker comb, Kronecker symbol, Kronecker product, Kronecker's method for factorizing polynomials, Kronecker's theorem in number theory, and Kronecker's lemma. Philosophy of mathematics. Kronecker's finitism made him a forerunner of intuitionism in foundations of mathematics. Honours. Kronecker was elected as a member of several academies: The 25624 Kronecker asteroid is named after him.
501266	Vincent Pastore (born July 14, 1946) is an American actor. Often cast as a mafioso, he is best known for his portrayal of Salvatore "Big Pussy" Bonpensiero on the television series, "The Sopranos". Early life. Pastore, an Italian American, was born in the New York City borough of the Bronx and grew up in New Rochelle, New York. Following his graduation from high school, he enlisted as a sailor in the United States Navy and then attended Pace University for three years before eventually going into the acting industry after befriending Matt Dillon and Kevin Dillon. Career. Acting. Pastore has made a career of portraying Italian American mafiosi in film and television. He began with small parts in the 1990s, in films such as "Goodfellas" and "Carlito's Way". In "Goodfellas", he is briefly seen rolling a coat rack through the kitchen of The Bamboo Lounge and is credited as "Vinny Pastore" playing "Man with Coat Rack". In "Carlito's Way", he portrays one of the friends of the Italian man that dances with Gail, whom Kleinfeld insults. He is listed in the credits as "Vinny Pastore" playing "Copa Wiseguy." Pastore got a bigger role in the comedy/crime film "" (1995) as Tony Scarboni, one of the three gangsters and Lazarro (Alan Arkin)'s clients. In the 1996 HBO television movie "Gotti", Pastore played the character of Angelo Ruggiero, alongside future "Sopranos" cast members Tony Sirico and Dominic Chianese. In 1999, Pastore got his biggest role to date in "The Sopranos", where he played the character Salvatore "Big Pussy" Bonpensiero. His character was murdered in the finale of season 2, but Pastore would make a few more appearances over the next few years in dream and flashback sequences. In addition to "The Sopranos", he has appeared in "Mickey Blue Eyes", "Two Family House" (with "Sopranos" cast mates Michael Rispoli, Kathrine Narducci, Matt Servitto, Michele Santopietro, Louis Guss, Rosemary De Angelis, and Sharon Angela), "Under Hellgate Bridge", "Riding in Cars with Boys", "Deuces Wild", "Made", "Mafia!", "The Hurricane", "Serving Sara", "American Cousins", "A Tale of Two Pizzas", "This Thing of Ours", "Remedy", "Shark Tale", "Johnny Slade’s Greatest Hits", and Guy Ritchie’s "Revolver". He served as associate producer of the film "Doughboys". Television credits include "Grounded for Life" (2002), character Vinnie Fellachio in "Son of a Beach" (2002), "Law & Order" (various roles from 1992–1996), soap opera, "One Life to Live", hosted "Repo-Men/Stealing for a Living", "Ed", "Queens Supreme", "Vegas", "Everybody Hates Chris", and uncredited in "Aqua Teen Hunger Force" as Terry. In 2007, he starred in the independent feature film "", co-starring with "Sopranos" co-star John Heard and Robert Picardo. In 2008, Pastore entered daytime TV, joining the cast of "General Hospital" as Maximus Giambetti, father of two characters on the show. He once again plays a mobster. He had a role in 2008's "College Road Trip", with Martin Lawrence and Raven-Symoné, as well as in "Our Last Days As Children". Pastore also starred in the 2008 film "Dough Boys". In 2009, Pastore starred in Pavaline Studio's debut film short "Alienated". In 2010, Pastore starred in the award-winning indie feature mob-comedy "Pizza With Bullets", directed and co-written by Robert Rothbard. He appears in the 2013 film "I'm in Love with a Church Girl". Reality shows. Pastore lost 29 lbs on the fourth season of the VH1 reality show "Celebrity Fit Club" which ran from August 6 to October 1, 2006. On February 20, 2007, the ABC television network announced that Pastore would participate in the fourth season of the American version of the competitive dance series "Dancing with the Stars". Pastore withdrew from the competition after only one week, however, after finding the necessary training and preparation too physically demanding. John Ratzenberger took his place in the competition. Pastore was featured as a contestant on the January 2008 edition of "Celebrity Apprentice". In the second week, Vincent participated in raising $52,286.00 by selling hot dogs on a Manhattan Street, for that week’s charity. And in a task of selling Broadway show tickets, Pastore as Project Manager led his team to raise $33,300 for charity. In week 5, Pastore originally got into a faked, blow-out conflict with the project manager of the task, Piers Morgan in order to see if Pastore could get the women to let him on their team to spy on them. The episode had played out like an episode of "The Sopranos" with Pastore switching allegiances multiple times. But then Pastore was deliberately "ratted out" to the women by Morgan in the end, to make Pastore look bad to the women. While Pastore and the men then lost their task, besides, before Trump even lifted a finger to fire anyone that week, Pastore resigned from the show and Trump eventually accepted Pastore's resignation after trying to convince him to stay. The show ended with a sequence based on the series finale of "The Sopranos", ending abruptly before Pastore could give the customary end-of-show interview in the cab. Week 6 episode begins with Pastore meeting his ex-wife Nancy in a restaurant and presenting her the check he received for being Project Manager for $50,000, in memory of her husband, Mitchell Burke’s Memorial fund with the Lustgarden Foundation. On July 1, Pastore appeared on NBC’s new show, "Celebrity Family Feud", as part of a family team trying to win $50,000 for their favorite charity. He first competed, with his friends and family, against the cast of "The Girls Next Door". Then Pastore's team made it to the finals against Kathie Lee Gifford's family, but did not win. However, Pastore and his team picked up a $10,000 consolation prize for their charity, which is researching a cure for pancreatic cancer. On April 8, 2011, Pastore and a Partner came on "Shark Tank" to make a deal for an item called a "Broccoli Wad" that holds money. All the "Sharks" wanted out; Barbara Corcoran said "this is one of the dumbest things I've ever seen on this show". She later had the idea of putting Pastore's face and name on the box, and labeling it "Vinnie's Wad". Corcoran offered $40,000 for a 40% stake in the company, and would give half of her ownership to Vinnie in exchange for his name and face on the packaging. Pastore and his partner agreed. This deal was contingent upon further due diligence. As of July 10, 2011 he appeared on the VH1 Marc Cronin-produced reality show "Famous Food". In the show, contestants are assigned the task of opening a restaurant on the Sunset Strip. Radio. Pastore hosts "The Wiseguy Show" on Sirius Satellite Radio (Raw Dog, channel 104), described as a "weekly three-hour celebration of Italian-American culture." Produced by "Sopranos" co-star Steven Van Zandt, it currently airs on Wednesdays from 6pm-9pm ET. Personal life. Pastore is divorced, having previously been married to Nancy Berke. He became friends with Berke's subsequent husband, Mitchell, and donated the winnings from his stint on the "Apprentice" to a charity in his name. A self-avowed New York Yankees fan, Pastore lives on City Island in the Bronx.
1163422	Fay Okell Bainter (December 7, 1893 – April 16, 1968) was an American film and stage actress. Early life. She was born in Los Angeles, California, the daughter of Charles F. Bainter and Mary Okell. In 1910, she was a traveling stage actress. She made her first appearance on stage in 1908 in The County Chairman at Morosco's Theater in Burbank, California and her Broadway debut was in the role as Celine Marinter in "The Rose of Panama" (1912). She appeared in a number of successful plays in New York like "East is West", "The Willow Tree", and "Dodsworth". In 1926 she appeared with Walter Abel in a Broadway production of Channing Pollock's "The Enemy". Career. MGM persuaded her to try films and her movie debut was in "This Side of Heaven" (February 1934), the same year she appeared in "Dodsworth" on Broadway and in the film "It Happened One Day" (July 1934). Bainter quickly achieved success, and in 1938 she became the first performer nominated in the same year for both the Academy Award for Best Actress, for "White Banners" (1938), and the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, for "Jezebel" (1938), winning for the latter. Since then, only nine other actors have won dual nominations in a single year. In 1940 she played Mrs. Gibbs in the film production of the Thornton Wilder play "Our Town". In 1945 she played Melissa Frake in the Rogers and Hammerstein musical "State Fair". She was again nominated for Best Supporting Actress for her role in "The Children's Hour" (1961). Finally, in 1962, Fay appeared as a guest star on "The Donna Reed Show". She has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 7021 Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood Personal life. Fay Bainter and Reginald Venable married on June 8, 1921, in Riverside, California. The couple had one son, Reginald Venable Jr. (1926–1974), who became an actor. Bainter was the aunt of actress Dorothy Burgess. As her husband, Reginald Venable, was a military officer, the couple are interred at Arlington National Cemetery.
23865	Shooting Dogs, released in the United States as Beyond the Gates, is a 2005 film, directed by Michael Caton-Jones and starring John Hurt, Hugh Dancy and Clare-Hope Ashitey. It is based on the experiences of BBC news producer David Belton, who worked in Rwanda during the Rwandan Genocide. Belton is the film's co-writer and one of its producers.
1236483	Elizabeth Mitchell (born on March 27, 1970), is an American actress. She is best known for her roles as Dr. Juliet Burke on ABC's TV series "Lost" and as FBI agent Erica Evans on "V". She has starred in such films as "The Santa Clause 2", "", and "Gia". Mitchell currently co-stars in Eric Kripke's television series "Revolution", airing on NBC. Early life. Mitchell was born in Los Angeles, California. Her stepfather, Joseph Day Mitchell, and mother, Josephine Marian Mitchell (née Jenkins), are lawyers based in Dallas. Mitchell and her mother moved to Dallas, Texas in 1970, where her mother married Joseph Mitchell in 1975. Mitchell graduated from Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing and Visual Arts, a public magnet school. She is the eldest of three sisters, the others being Kristina Helen "Kristie" Mitchell (b. 1977), and Katherine Day "Kate" Mitchell (b. 1981). In 1991, she graduated from Stephens College with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in acting, and also studying at the British American Drama Academy. Mitchell worked for six years in Dallas Theater Center and a year at Encore Theater. Career. Mitchell had a recurring role as psychiatrist Dr. Kim Legaspi, the first lesbian lover of Dr. Kerry Weaver (Laura Innes) during the 2000–01 season of TV series "ER". She also played Angelina Jolie's hairdresser/lover in the movie "Gia".
1163703	Hedy Lamarr (; 9 November 1914 – 19 January 2000) was an Austro-American actress and inventor, celebrated for her great beauty, who was a contract star of MGM's "Golden Age."
1102320	Ferdinand Georg Frobenius (26 October 1849 – 3 August 1917) was a German mathematician, best known for his contributions to the theory of elliptic functions, differential equations and to group theory. He is known for the famous determinantal identities, known as Frobenius-Stickelberger formulae, governing elliptic functions, and for developing the theory of biquadratic forms. He was also the first to introduce the notion of rational approximations of functions (nowadays known as Padé approximants), and gave the first full proof for the Cayley–Hamilton theorem. He also lent his name to certain differential-geometric objects in modern mathematical physics, known as Frobenius manifolds.
1089944	Computational electromagnetics, computational electrodynamics or electromagnetic modeling is the process of modeling the interaction of electromagnetic fields with physical objects and the environment. It typically involves using computationally efficient approximations to Maxwell's equations and is used to calculate antenna performance, electromagnetic compatibility, radar cross section and electromagnetic wave propagation when not in free space. A specific part of computational electromagnetics deals with electromagnetic radiation scattered and absorbed by small particles. Background. Several real-world electromagnetic problems like scattering, radiation, waveguiding etc., are not analytically calculable, for the multitude of irregular geometries found in actual devices. Computational numerical techniques can overcome the inability to derive closed form solutions of Maxwell's equations under various constitutive relations of media, and boundary conditions. This makes "computational electromagnetics" (CEM), important to the design, and modeling of antenna, radar, satellite and other communication systems, nanophotonic devices and high speed silicon electronics, medical imaging, cell-phone antenna design, among other applications. CEM typically solves the problem of computing the "E" (Electric), and "H" (Magnetic) fields across the problem domain (e.g., to calculate antenna radiation pattern for an arbitrarily shaped antenna structure). Also calculating power flow direction (Poynting vector), a waveguide's normal modes, media-generated wave dispersion, and scattering can be computed from the "E" and "H" fields. CEM models may or may not assume symmetry, simplifying real world structures to idealized cylinders, spheres, and other regular geometrical objects. CEM models extensively make use of symmetry, and solve for reduced dimensionality from 3 spatial dimensions to 2D and even 1D. An eigenvalue problem formulation of CEM allows us to calculate steady state normal modes in a structure. Transient response and impulse field effects are more accurately modeled by CEM in time domain, by FDTD. Curved geometrical objects are treated more accurately as finite elements FEM, or non-orthogonal grids. Beam propagation method can solve for the power flow in waveguides. CEM is application specific, even if different techniques converge to the same field and power distributions in the modeled domain. Overview of methods. One approach is to discretize the space in terms of grids (both orthogonal, and non-orthogonal) and solving Maxwell's equations at each point in the grid. Discretization consumes computer memory, and solving the equations takes significant time. Large scale CEM problems face memory and CPU limitations. As of 2007, CEM problems require supercomputers, high performance clusters, vector processors and/or parallel computer. Typical formulations involve either time-stepping through the equations over the whole domain for each time instant; or through banded matrix inversion to calculate the weights of basis functions, when modeled by finite element methods; or matrix products when using transfer matrix methods; or calculating integrals when using method of moments (MoM); or using fast fourier transforms, and time iterations when calculating by the split-step method or by BPM. Choice of methods. Choosing the right technique for solving a problem is important, as choosing the wrong one can either result in incorrect results, or results which take excessively long to compute. However, the name of a technique does not always tell one how it is implemented, especially for commercial tools, which will often have more than one solver.
689132	The Klansman is a 1974 American motion picture drama based on the book of the same name by William Bradford Huie. It was directed by Terence Young and starred Lee Marvin, Richard Burton, O.J. Simpson, Lola Falana and Linda Evans. Plot. "The Klansman" recounts what happens to an African American man in a small town in the U.S. south after a young white woman (Linda Evans) is sexually assaulted and beaten. Events spiral out of control when a sniper shoots a Ku Klux Klan member at a funeral. Production. Star Richard Burton allegedly ingested so much alcohol during the production that many of his scenes had to be filmed with him sitting or lying down due to his inability to stand. In some scenes, he appears to slur his words or speak incoherently.
1100116	Władysław Hugo Dionizy Steinhaus (January 14, 1887 – February 25, 1972) was a Polish mathematician and educator. Steinhaus obtained his PhD under David Hilbert at Göttingen University in 1911 and later became a professor at the Jan Kazimierz University in Lwów (now Lviv, Ukraine), where he helped establish what later became known as the Lwów School of Mathematics. He is credited with "discovering" mathematician Stefan Banach, with whom he gave a notable contribution to functional analysis through the Banach–Steinhaus theorem. After World War II Steinhaus played an important part in the establishment of the mathematics department at Wrocław University and in the revival of Polish mathematics from the destruction of the war. Author of around 170 scientific articles and books, Steinhaus has left its legacy and contribution on many branches of mathematics, such as functional analysis, geometry, mathematical logic, and trigonometry. Notably he is regarded as one of the early founders of the game theory and the probability theory preceding in his studies, later, more comprehensive approaches, by other scholars. Early life and studies. Steinhaus was born on January 14, 1887 in Jasło, Austria-Hungary to a family with Jewish roots. His father, Bogusław, was a local industrialist, owner of a brick factory and a merchant. His mother was Ewelina, née Lipschitz. Hugo's uncle, Ignacy Steinhaus, was an activist in the "Koło Polskie" (Polish Circle), and a deputy to the Galician Diet, the regional assembly of the Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria.
900766	Nightmare City () is a 1980 Italian-Spanish zombie film directed by Umberto Lenzi. The film stars Hugo Stiglitz as the television news reporter Dean Miller who waits at a European airport for the arrival of a scientist. A military plane makes an emergency landing, where it opens its doors to reveal dozens of zombies who promptly stab and shoot the military personnel waiting outside. Miller tries to let the people know of this event, but General Murchison of Civil Defense doesn't allow it. Miller escapes with his wife to an abandoned amusement park. "Nightmare City" was also released under the title City of the Walking Dead.. Plot. The American television news reporter Dean Miller (Hugo Stiglitz) waits at an unnamed European airport for the arrival of a scientist that he is about to interview regarding a recent nuclear accident. An unmarked military plane makes an emergency landing. The plane doors open and dozens of zombies burst out and begin stabbing and shooting the military personnel outside. Miller tries to let the people know of this event, but General Murchison of Civil Defense (Mel Ferrer) will not allow it. Miller tries to find his wife Anna who works at a hospital as the zombies begin to overrun the city.
584058	Vallavan () (English: "Husband") is a 2006 Tamil film written and directed by T. R. Silambarasan, starring himself in the title role along with Nayantara, Reema Sen and Sandhya whilst Santhanam, Premji Amaren, Sathyan and S. Ve. Shekhar play supporting roles. The dialogues are written by noted writer Balakumaran, whilst the film's score and soundtrack are composed by Yuvan Shankar Raja. The film, loosely based on Hollywood films "The Notebook" (2004) and "Swimfan" (2002), was released on 13 October 2006 and turned out to be an "Average" despite having a good opening. The film was later dubbed into Telugu and released as "Vallabha". Plot. Vallavan (T. R. Silambarasan) is a happy-go-lucky school student with a set of friends. Bala (Santhanam) & Suji (Sandhya) are two of Vallavan's friends. When they're at the temple, he sees Swapna (Nayantara). He immediately falls in love with her.. While Vallavan’s at the college, Swapna shows up. She's revealed to be a teacher, who’s three years older than Vallavan. He decides to woo her by turning into Pallavan, an ugly duckling with buck tooth and glasses. Pallan makes Swapna fall in love with him for his heart, even though he is ugly. The pair get intimate and end up having sex. But when Swapna comes to know that Pallan is younger than her (from one of Vallan's enemies in school) and that too a student, she dumps him and decides to marry another guy. Meanwhile a sequence of events take place, much to the chagrin of Vallavan who is highly insulted by them. As Vallavan walks in the streets wondering how things could get so messy, he recalls his school life. When he was in higher secondary school, Vallavan met Geetha (Reema Sen). A hysteric Geetha ensures that Vallavan runs crazy behind her. Coming to know of her true nature, he ends the affair with her. But she is not ready to let him go so easily, so he resolves to teach her a lesson. Geetha returns for payback time. She tells him that she was the spoilsport for the current mess in his life. In a climax displaying her disorder, she kidnaps Suchitra and Vallavan arrives and frees her. The film fast-forwards to 3 years later. Geetha is released from a mental asylum. The moment she steps out, she lets go of her and exhibits her fiery psychotic expression again. Vallavan is waiting for her and they communicate telepathically while Vallavan says that he will betray her. Soundtrack. The music was scored by noted musician and Silambarasan's friend, Yuvan Shankar Raja, coming together again after churning out the successful album of "Manmadhan" (2004). The soundtrack was released on 1 June 2006 and features 9 tracks, including 7 songs and two Instrumental pieces. As it was the case in "Manmadhan", a second Soundtrack was released afterwards with bit songs that feature in the film but not on the first soundtrack along with pieces from the film score. The lyrics were penned by 'Kavignar' Vaali, Thamarai, film director Perarasu and T. R. Silambarasan himself. Karunakaran wrote the lyrics of the bit song "Kadhal Vandhale", released in the second edition. Yuvan Shankar Raja won accolades for his soundtrack, whereas especially the songs "Loosu Penne" and "Yammaadi Aathaadi" were huge hits, topping the charts for the following weeks, with the latter even becoming the anthem of the season. His film score, too, was lauded, called as the film's highlight and "backbone of the film", while he himself was hailed as the film's "real hero". Release. Critical reception. "The Hindu" wrote: "Vallavan's basic sketch is simpler than "Manmadhan", though the maker has lent it his trademark frills". "Sify" gave 2.5/5 stars to "Vallavan" and said: "If you are looking for some wholesome entertainment, then Vallavan is worth your time and money". "Behindwoods.com" commented: "On a positive note, the glamorous quotient of three heroines along with music and the youth element can play to Vallavan’s advantage". "Oneindia" wrote: "Yuvan's music and Santhanam's comedy provide the much-needed relief as the film's dark and tension filled screenplay roils throughout with many murky games of passion and revenge." Box office. "Vallavan" received mixed reviews from all sources. The film also featured, prior to release, in "most awaited" list from entertainment sites. The film got a grand release for Diwali 2006 along with other films like Ajith's "Varalaru", Jiiva's "E", Arya's "Vattaram" and Sarath Kumar's "Thalaimagan". Due to the pre-release hype it created, "Vallavan" received a very good opening, but collections started declining and the film ended up as an average grosser. Controversies. While filming for "Vallavan", Nayantara was romantically linked with the film's director and co-actor Silambarasan Rajendar. She initially denied the reports. In November 2006, however, she confirmed that she and Silambarasan had broken up, going on to add that she will not work with him again. At the time of their affair, pictures of intimate moments between Simbu and Nayantara got leaked on the internet which were later claimed by Simbu to be released by him. They began appearing together in public and the affair soon gained media and public attention.
592452	Jack Falls is a British independent feature film starring Simon Phillips, Jason Flemying, Dexter Fletcher, Alan Ford, Adam Deacon, Martin Kemp, Tamer Hassan, Olivia Hallinan, Doug Bradley, Jing Lusi and Zach Galligan and the third installment in the "Jack Says" Trilogy, the first ever British film trilogy according to the British Film Institute. Based on the graphic novel of the same title by Paul Tanter, the movie is a contemporary film noir shot in London in high contrast black and white with splashes of colour particularly reminiscent of the Robert Rodriguez film "Sin City", but with a harder, grittier edge. Although a stand-alone film, it follows on from the films "Jack Says" and "Jack Said". Plot. Surviving a murder attempt in Amsterdam, former undercover police officer Jack Adleth returns to London to seek revenge and settle some old scores, but he soon finds himself in danger not just from his former criminal associates, but his old police colleagues too. As he battles to stay alive, he must also deal with the guilt from the consequences of his undercover life.
1068649	Crazy/Beautiful (stylized as "crazy/beautiful") is a 2001 romantic drama film starring Kirsten Dunst and Jay Hernandez. It is largely set at Palisades Charter High School and the surrounding area, including Downtown Los Angeles, Pacific Palisades, Malibu (where Dunst's character lives), and East Los Angeles (where Hernandez's character lives). Plot. Nicole Oakley, the spoiled, rich, out-of-control daughter of congressman Tom Oakley, meets a working class Mexican-American straight-A student, Carlos Nuñez, resulting in a clash of cultures, values, and a love affair. Nicole is troubled because her mother committed suicide when she was very young. She feels unwanted by her father, who is now married to another woman and has another young daughter with his new wife. Carlos, on the other hand, is from a poor background and working hard towards becoming a Navy pilot. They meet at a beach while Nicole is on "community service" and discover they attend the same high school. They later fall in love, and Carlos spends so much time with her that he stops performing well in school. Carlos is applying to the U.S. Naval Academy and Nicole's father suggests Carlos talk to him about gaining his Congressional sponsorship to the Academy. During their meeting, Nicole's father tells Carlos that he needs to break up with Nicole if he does not want her to destroy his life. Carlos does break up with her, which leads Nicole into depression and back into wild, drunken partying. One night, Carlos really misses her and when he calls her, he finds out she is getting drunk at a high school party. He crashes it and saves a drunken Nicole from a boy trying to take advantage of her. Carlos drives her home, but they get stopped by the police. As a result of this incident, Nicole's father and stepmother decide that she needs to go to a boarding school far away from home; Carlos rescues her and they run away together. While they are away, Nicole realizes she is really messing up Carlos's life by taking him away from his dreams and goals, so she decides to sober up. They go back home and she makes up with her father. Her father thanks Carlos for not listening to his advice to stay away from Nicole. In the end credits, we see that Carlos has become a pilot with the Navy. Reception. The film came and went at the box office when it was released in the summer of 2001, however, Kirsten Dunst was praised for her performance. The film opened at #9 at the U.S. Box office taking in $4,715,060 USD during its opening weekend. The film eventually grossed a worldwide total of $19,937,988 on a $13 million budget. Soundtrack. The soundtrack album was released by Hollywood Records on June 2006, 2001; Seven Mary Three's "Wait" served as the album's English lead single; La Ley's "Siempre (Every Time)" was its Spanish lead single. "Wait" charted considerably well and its music video, directed by the film's director Stockwell, featured Dunst and Hernandez. Amazon.com editorialist Rickey Wright gave a mixed review of the soundtrack, citing groups like The Dandy Warhols, Mellow Man Ace, and Delinquent Habits as "evocative" while also stating that it "hardly makes a good argument for the continuing validity of guitar rock."
582803	Tridev (Hindi:त्रिदेव) is a 1989 Indian action thriller film directed by Rajiv Rai. The movie is an action-packed saga of three men — Naseeruddin Shah, Sunny Deol and Jackie Shroff — standing up against a crime lord called Bhujang (played by Amrish Puri), who has plans to spread menace in the country. The three protagonists come from different walks of life with different stories but are connected by their gallantry, honesty and common hatred for Bhujang and his kin. The film was a blockbuster super hit after "Ram Lakhan" in 1989; it earned nearly 20 crores. Synopsis. Karan (Sunny Deol) is a brave and honest police inspector who causes problems for the criminals in Mumbai, including Bhujang (Amrish Puri). His henchman try to get rid of Karan by framing him and getting him posted in some remote village called Madhavpur. Karan sets to put things right there too, and gets into confrontations with the locals who do not abide by the law. One of the lawbreakers in Madhavpur is Jay Singh (Naseeruddin Shah), who is a charming but reckless villager always ready to fight for the oppressed. After some initial tensions, Karan and Jay become friends. Jackie Shroff plays Ravi, son of the Mumbai Police Commissioner (Anupam Kher). After his sister Divya (Madhuri Dixit) is kidnapped by Bhujang, Ravi rescues her and then surprisingly joins Bhujang's criminal empire secretly wanting to get his own revenge on Bhujang. After many attempts on life and few resurrections, the three join forces to destroy Bhujang's criminal empire with everything in it. The three leading ladies provide the love interests of the three heroes. Three of Rajiv Rai's films, Tridev, Vishwatma and Mohra, have the unique distinction of making it to the list of films in which all the songs are superhits.
110145	Bobb'e Jaques Thompson (born February 28, 1996) is an American teen actor. He is known for playing Tracy Jr. on "30 Rock", Stanley on "That's So Raven", Ronnie Shields in "Role Models", Jimmy Mitchell on the short-lived NBC series, "The Tracy Morgan Show" lasted for one season from 2003–2004, his appearance in commercials for the PlayStation Portable, and being the host of his own television series "Bobb'e Says", which aired on Cartoon Network block CN Real, but it was cancelled due to low ratings. Thompson had a recurring role on the hit series "Tyler Perry's House of Payne". He currently has a supporting role as M.J. Williams on "Tyler Perry's For Better or Worse".
1016046	Daniel Yin-Cho Wu (; jyutping: Ng Yin Jou) (born 30 September 1974) is a Hong Kong actor, director and producer. Since his film debut in 1998, he has been featured in over 60 films. Wu has been called "the young Andy Lau," and is known as a "flexible and distinctive" leading actor in the Chinese-language film industry. Early life. Wu was born in Berkeley, California, and raised in Orinda, California. His parents were immigrants from Shanghai, China. Wu developed an interest in martial arts when he saw Jet Li in "The Shaolin Temple", and consequently began studying the form known as wushu at age 11. His childhood role model was Jackie Chan, a man who now considers Wu "like a son." Wu attended the Head-Royce School in Oakland, California and later majored in architecture at the University of Oregon. While there, he founded the University of Oregon Wushu club in 1994 and served as the team's first coach. During this time, Wu also took film classes and frequented local theaters, and came to enjoy the works of filmmakers like Akira Kurosawa and Luc Besson, who he describes as "men of vision." Following graduation, Wu traveled in 1997 to Hong Kong to witness the handover of Hong Kong, with no intention of taking on a movie career. At the suggestion of his sister, Wu began modeling. Four months later, film director Yonfan, after seeing Wu featured in a clothing ad at an MTR station, approached Wu about starring in an upcoming movie. Acting career. Despite his inability at the time to speak Hong Kong Cantonese or read Chinese, Wu successfully completed his first movie, Yonfan's "Bishonen" in 1998. Still today, when he receives a Cantonese script, his assistant reads the entire piece, while he is making notes on the pronunciation. The day after "Bishonen" wrapped, Wu was offered the leading role in Mabel Cheung's "City of Glass" (for which Wu was nominated as best new actor at the 18th Hong Kong Film Awards), and later, a supporting part in "Young and Dangerous: The Prequel", from Andrew Lau's gangster film series. Around this time, Wu met superstar Jackie Chan at a restaurant opening, and was quickly signed to Chan's JC Group with agent Willie Chan. Wu's breakthrough performance came in 1999 with his role in Benny Chan's "Gen-X Cops." He followed this success with roles in a variety of movies including big-budget thriller "Purple Storm," art-house production "Peony Pavilion," and the extremely successful "Love Undercover." In 2001, Wu received criticism from the Hong Kong media for sexual scenes with Suki Kwan in "Cop on a Mission," but Wu says that same criticism attracted the attention of directors and the film represented a turning point in the types of roles he chose in the future. Wu's first experience in film production came with his starring role in Julian Lee's 2003 film, "Night Corridor." Due to budgetary constraints, Wu also participated in the search for funding for, and distribution of, the film, and recruited Jun Kung to create the soundtrack. Though "Night Corridor" dealt with "risky" themes, Wu felt he had less reliance on image than many of his pop-star actor peers, and he was nominated for best actor at Taiwan's 40th Golden Horse Film Awards for his effort. During 2003, Wu also took part as producer and creative director on "MTV's Whatever Things!", a "Jackass"-styled program aired in Asia, also featuring Sam Lee, Josie Ho, Terence Yin, and other celebrities. Also during 2003, Wu took part in a stage production of "The Happy Prince" at the Edward Lam Dance Theater as part of the Hong Kong Arts Festival, during which he recited a 16-minute monologue in Cantonese, learned entirely from pinyin. In 2005, Wu was nominated as best actor at the 24th Hong Kong Film Awards for his role in Derek Yee's "One Nite in Mongkok", and as best supporting actor for "New Police Story". At the 41st Golden Horse Film Awards, Wu won the award for best supporting actor for "New Police Story." The win came as a surprise to him, because he "didn't think that much" of his performance in the film. In 2005, Chinese media began to report that Wu had formed a boyband, Alive, with Terence Yin, Andrew Lin, and Conroy Chan. Wu and his band mates posted information, updates, personal thoughts (including slamming Hong Kong Disneyland, for which they were spokespersons), and the band's music, at their official website. In 2006, Wu made his writing and directorial debut with "The Heavenly Kings", which chronicles Alive's formation and exploits. After the film's release, however, it was revealed that "The Heavenly Kings" was actually a mockumentary of the Hong Kong pop music industry, and Alive was constructed purely as a vehicle to make the movie; the film's characters represented only 10-15% of their real-life counterparts and much of the footage blurred the line between fiction and reality. Wu admitted his own singing voice "sucked really bad," and the band had their voices digitally enhanced for its music, to prove that "it's easy to fake it." Despite some backlash from the media over being intentionally fed false information in the movie about illegal downloads of the band's music, Wu won the best new director award at the 26th Hong Kong Film Awards, an achievement he called "a group effort." Other projects. In April 2007, Wu re-launched his band's old website, AliveNotDead.com, with Terence Yin and RottenTomatoes.com founders Patrick Lee and Stephen Wang, as a place for filmmakers, musicians, and other artists to collaborate, receive exposure, network, and interact with fans. He continues his modeling career as spokesperson for a variety of products such as Seiko and L'Oréal. Wu posed for the charity photography album "SuperStars by Leslie Kee", and performed on rapper Jin's song, "HK Superstar." Wu is an investor in Racks MDB Shanghai, which opened in 2008. Personal life. Wu's parents, George (a retired engineer) and Diana (a college professor) are natives of Shanghai, China. His father emigrated to the United States after the communist revolution in China in 1949, and met his mother in New York, where she was a student. After marrying they settled in California. Wu also has two older sisters, Greta and Gloria.
1052803	Night on Earth is a 1991 film written and directed by Jim Jarmusch. It is a collection of five vignettes, taking place during the same night, concerning the temporary bond formed between taxi driver and passenger in five cities: Los Angeles, New York, Paris, Rome, and Helsinki. Jarmusch wrote the screenplay in about eight days, and the choice of certain cities was largely based on the actors with whom he wanted to work. The soundtrack of the same name is by Tom Waits. Plot. Los Angeles. As evening falls, tomboy cabby Corky (Winona Ryder) picks up Hollywood executive Victoria Snelling (Gena Rowlands) from the airport, and as Corky drives, Victoria tries to conduct business over the phone. Despite their extreme differences socially, the two develop a certain connection. Sometime during the ride Victoria, who is evidently a talent scout or casting director, discovers that Corky would be ideal for a part in a movie she is casting, but Corky rejects the offer, as she has plans to become a mechanic. New York. Helmut Grokenberger (Armin Mueller-Stahl), an East German immigrant who was once a clown in his home country, now works in New York as a taxi driver. He picks up a passenger named YoYo (Giancarlo Esposito), a streetwise young man, and attempts to drive him to Brooklyn. Helmut does not really know how to drive with an automatic transmission so he allows YoYo to drive. On their way, they pick up YoYo's sister-in-law Angela (Rosie Perez). The story revolves around Helmut's attempts to understand and become a part of the culture of New York. Paris. A blind woman (Béatrice Dalle) goes for a ride at night with a driver (Isaach De Bankolé) from the Ivory Coast. They both take some verbal jabs at each other during the ride. The driver asks his passenger what it's like to be blind and she attempts to explain to him, but their cultural differences and differences of life experience make things difficult. After he drops off his blind passenger, he feels fascinated by her and gazes in her direction. This inattention to driving causes him to crash into another car, whose driver angrily accuses him of being blind. An ironic twist at the end of the segment turns upon a French pun near the beginning of it: When the driver states his nationality as ""Ivoirien"," some other Africans mock him with the punning phrase ""Y voit rien"" (he can't see anything). Rome. In the early morning hours, an eccentric cabbie (Roberto Benigni) picks up a priest (Paolo Bonacelli). As he drives, he starts to confess his sins. Much to the priest's discomfort, he goes into great detail about how he discovered his sexuality first with a pumpkin and then with a sheep, then details a love affair he had with his brother's wife. The already-ailing priest is shocked by the confession, and has a fatal heart attack. Helsinki. After an evening spent drinking heavily, three workers, one of whom has just been fired from his job (Kari Väänänen, Sakari Kuosmanen, and Tomi Salmela), climb into a cab to return home. On the way, the workers talk about the terrible situation their now-unconscious friend is in, by being out of work and having to face a divorce and a pregnant daughter. The driver, Mika (Matti Pellonpää), then tells them all the saddest story they have ever heard. The workers are terribly moved and depressed by the story, and even become unsympathetic toward their drunken, laid-off companion. As they arrive home, the sun is beginning to rise.
1484772	Peter Outerbridge (born June 30, 1966) is a Canadian actor, best known for his role as Ari Tasarov in the CW action series "Nikita", Dr. David Sandström in the TMN series "ReGenesis", and William in "Saw VI". Life and career. Outerbridge was born and raised in Toronto, Ontario, the son of a lawyer and the youngest of five siblings. After high school Outerbridge enrolled at the University of Victoria to study acting. Afterwards he toured Canada for four years with the theatre group "Way Off Broadway". In 1997 and 2002 he was nominated in the Canadian Genie Awards as the best actor in the films "Kissed" and "Marine Life", respectively. He was also nominated in the Gemini Awards for his achievements. Outerbridge won a 2013 Canadian Screen Award for Best Performance by an Actor in a Featured Supporting Role in a Dramatic Program or Series for his role in "".
1066036	I Come with the Rain is a 2009 neo-noir atmospheric thriller written and directed by Vietnamese-born French director Tran Anh Hung, starring American actor Josh Hartnett. After making three movies about Vietnam, Tran Anh Hung intended to make a baroque action film, a passionate thriller, both intense and poetic, haunted by three characters from the mythology of film and the Western world: the serial killer, the private investigator, and the Christ figure. The action takes place in Los Angeles, Mindanao and Hong Kong and allows the meeting of American and Asian actors. The film score is written by the Argentine Academy Award Winner Gustavo Santaolalla and the English alternative rock band Radiohead. The filmmaker also makes heavy use of post-rock music, including songs by Explosions in the Sky, Godspeed You! Black Emperor, and A Silver Mt. Zion. The film premiered in Tokyo at Toho Cinemas Roppongi Hills on May 27, 2009. Synopsis. Two years after killing Hasford, a serial killer, in the line of duty, Kline now works as a private detective, but he is still haunted by the ghosts of his past. A powerful pharmaceutical conglomerate boss hires Kline to find his only son Shitao who has mysteriously disappeared in the Philippines where he had been helping in an orphanage. Kline follows the trail left by the ethereal Shitao to the jungles of Mindanao, and then to the urban jungle of Hong Kong, where he enlists the help of Meng Zi, an old police officer friend. The search leads Kline to cross paths with local organized crime syndicate boss Su Dongpo, who is making trouble for the underworld, triggered by an overriding passion for his drug-addicted girlfriend Lili. Caught in the crossfire between the Hong Kong police and Su Dongpo's mafia drug ring which is also hunting for Shitao, Kline finds himself alone, in this unknown city, when Meng Zi is victim of an assassination attempt and is hospitalised. Leaving behind his 5-star hotel for a shabby murder scene apartment in order to get inside the mind of Shitao, Kline gradually loses himself in the terrifying memories of Hasford, whose speciality was dissecting his victims' limbs while they were still alive, then reassembling them into installation sculptures. After a few weeks immersed in his haunted memories, torn between good and evil, Kline is about to leave Hong Kong when he finds Shitao, who has become a mysterious vagrant with healing powers. Festival Screenings. Section: Contemporary World Cinema Location: Karlovy Vary, Czech Republic
519979	Carmina Villaroel-Legazpi (born María Carmina Muñiz Villaroel in Laguna, Philippines) is a Filipina actress, television presenter, and former model. Career. Villaroel was with Regal Entertainment in the early 1980s, and had several movies with the film production company. In the mid-1990s, she moved to Viva Films. She was a presenter on the breakfast television programme "Morning Girls" on ABS-CBN 2, and starred in the "teleserye" "Recuerdo De Amor" ("Memory of Love") from 2001 to 2003. Villaroel switched to rival network GMA 7, hosting the breakfast television show "SiS" in 2005, and in 2007 she co-hosted "Love Ni Mister, Love Ni Misis" on GMA with her husband, Zoren Legaspi.
1035032	Maxine Peake (born 14 July 1974) is an English stage, film and television actress known for playing Veronica in Channel 4's Manchester-based drama series "Shameless", Twinkle in Victoria Wood's sitcom "Dinnerladies", barrister Martha Costello QC in BBC legal drama "Silk" and, most recently, Grace Middleton in "The Village". Early life. Born in Bolton, Peake is the second of two daughters born to Brian and Glynis Peake (née Hall). Her father was a lorry driver before working in the electrical industry, her mother a part-time careworker; Lisa, her elder sister by nine years, is a policewoman. Her parents separated when Peake was nine and she lived with her mother until the age of 15. When her mother moved in with a new boyfriend several miles away, she went to live with her grandfather so she could continue her GCSE studies at Westhoughton High School, before going on to take her A-Levels at Canon Slade School, Bradshaw near Bolton. Her grandfather encouraged her to develop her creativity and start acting.
1163887	Darrell Hammond (born October 8, 1955) is an American actor, stand-up comedian and impressionist. He was a regular on "Saturday Night Live" (SNL) from 1995 until 2009, the longest tenure of any cast member. Upon his departure, Hammond, at age 53, was the oldest cast member in the show's history. Hammond has made more "SNL" appearances than any other cast member and has impersonated more than 107 celebrities (with former President Bill Clinton as his most frequent impression). As of December 10, 2011, he had appeared on the show eight times since leaving the cast. Early life. Hammond was born in Melbourne, Florida, the son of Margaret and Max Hammond. He graduated from Melbourne High School in 1973, where he was a star athlete who lettered in both football and baseball. Darrell was a high school baseball teammate of Bruce Bochy. He then attended Brevard Community College and the University of Florida where he majored in broadcasting. Hammond credits UF theater professor David Shelton for encouraging his work. After completing college, Hammond moved to New York City where he lived for several years before joining the cast of "SNL". Career. "Saturday Night Live". During the 2004–2005 season, Hammond set the record for the longest consecutive tenure of any "SNL" cast member in the show's history. He also holds "SNL" records for the most impressions by a single cast member (107, as of the Zac Efron/Yeah Yeah Yeahs episode) and for the most times saying the show's catch phrase "Live from New York, it's Saturday Night!" to start the show (beating out Dana Carvey). He is best known on the show for impersonating former President Bill Clinton, as well as Al Gore, Donald Trump, John McCain, Regis Philbin, Dick Cheney, Chris Matthews, Phil Donahue, Ted Koppel, John Travolta, Jesse Jackson, Geraldo Rivera, and Sean Connery, in the recurring Celebrity Jeopardy! skits. Hammond also impersonated SNL announcer Don Pardo, filling in for Pardo on occasions when the announcer was unavailable. After the end of the 34th season, Hammond retired from the show after a record-breaking 14 years as a repertory player. Hammond was the last "SNL" cast member from the 1990s to leave the show. After leaving the show, he has made multiple cameo appearances. Hammond also holds the record for most shows of any SNL cast member, 280 (272 as a cast member and 8 cameos since). Other work. In the late 1980s, Hammond gained fame for his impersonations of Elmer Fudd and other Looney Tunes characters in the comedy single "Wappin'." The song was so popular with Dr. Demento listeners, it was included on the show's 20th Anniversary compilation. Hammond is a frequent guest on "The Howard Stern Show". He has also guest starred in episodes of ' and '. He had his own stand-up comedy special on Comedy Central: "Comedy Central Presents Darrell Hammond". Hammond can frequently be seen at The Comedy Cellar in New York City. In the summer of 2007, Hammond made his Broadway theatre debut, playing the role of Vice Principal Douglas Panch in "The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee". In 2009, Hammond had a guest starring role on the FX drama "Damages". The same summer, Hammond appeared with Eli Manning, Peyton Manning, and Donald Trump in an Oreo commercial, where he does an impression of Trump. Personal life. Hammond married his wife, Elizabeth, in 1986. The couple divorced in the early 1990s and remarried in 1997. They have a daughter named Mia who was born in 1998. During a February 7, 2012 appearance on the "Imus in the Morning" radio program, Hammond revealed that the couple is in the process of divorcing. Hammond was seen with another woman several times in May and June 2011, prompting speculation about their marriage. Hammond has admitted to struggling with alcoholism and cocaine abuse. The death of a close friend in 1991 led to a relapse of drug and alcohol abuse. After suffering another relapse in 2009, Hammond went to rehab. In August 2011 Hammond filed a lawsuit against Jose Mendez and Monteleone after a car accident in which he was the passenger. During an October 2011 interview with CNN, Hammond revealed that his mother had brutally abused him during his childhood. This trauma from abuse led to cutting, several hospitalizations due to psychiatric issues, and diagnoses which include bipolar disorder and schizophrenia. Hammond says that he was medicated throughout his tenure on "Saturday Night Live", and that he cut himself backstage and was once taken from the studio to a psychiatric ward. On November 8, 2011, Hammond's memoir, "God, If You're Not Up There, I'm F*cked", was released nationally by Harper Collins. It is a firsthand account of his abusive childhood, psychiatric issues, struggles with substance abuse, and experiences on "Saturday Night Live". Entrapment incident. In the late 1980s, Hammond worked briefly as a stand-up comedian on Premier Cruise Line ships.
1164649	Ruben Santiago-Hudson (born November 24, 1956) is an American actor and playwright, who has won national awards for his work in both areas. From 2009 to 2011, he played Captain Roy Montgomery in ABC's "Castle". In November 2011 he appeared on Broadway in Lydia Diamond's play "Stick Fly".
1056813	Eden Lake is a 2008 British horror film written and directed by James Watkins and starring Kelly Reilly, Michael Fassbender and Jack O'Connell. Plot. Nursery school teacher, Jenny (Kelly Reilly), and her boyfriend, Steve (Michael Fassbender), escape their everyday life to an idyllic remote lake in the green English countryside. Along the way, they meet Adam (James Gandhi), a young boy who is reluctant to talk with them. Attempting to relax near a beach, their trip is disrupted by the presence of delinquent teenagers and their dog, but Steve intends to stay and not be driven away from enjoying their vacation. After sleeping overnight in their tent, problems begin to arise; their food is infested with insects and their car tire becomes impaired by a bottle left behind by the teens. Despite this, they are able to fix the tire and set off for town for breakfast at a cafe. After breakfast, as he is determined to report the unruly kids to their parents, Steve stops at a house hosting a group of bikes he thinks belongs to the kids. With zero response at the front door, he commits forcible entry, and he narrowly escapes out of a window before the homeowner, the father of one of the teenagers, returns. The couple quickly head back to the lake. There, Steve goes scuba diving and Jenny sleeps on the beach shore. Once Steve gets back from the beach, however, he realizes their beach bag containing his car keys, phone and wallet have gone missing. Instinctively, they check on the car, but it is gone. Returning to town on foot, they avoid collision with their car that is being driven recklessly by the gang through the woods, only stopping for gang leader, Brett (Jack O'Connell), to smirk at them. During a confrontation with the gang at nightfall, Steve demands the return of his belongings which Brett acts in denial about. Once Steve's phone sounds off in Brett's pocket, a scuffle ensues leading to Steve mortally wounding Brett's dog with the gang's produced knife in the heated situation. This fuels Brett's lust for revenge after returning their car keys. Brett and his gang proceed to go after the couple, smashing their car windshield and headlights with rocks. Steve and Jenny are able to get free from a steep slope before eventually crashing into a tree branch. Steve, stuck in the branch that came through the windscreen, urges Jenny to run for help and she escapes, finding a place to hide and spend the night. The next morning, a horrified Jenny finds Steve tied up in barbed wire in a small clearing. Goaded by Brett, the gang alternate torturing Steve with their knives, while Paige (Finn Atkins), the girl of the gang, records the event on her phone. To save Steve from his demise, Jenny uses her Bluetooth's GPS to connect with Steve's phone. Aware, Brett believes she is close by and orders the gang after her. Jenny flees to evade the gang, and Steve is given time to free himself, with Jenny gradually finding Steve severely injured. They hide themselves successfully at a shack where Jenny nurses his wounds and finds the wedding ring Steve planned to propose to her with. Soon, Jenny goes off on her own, leaving Steve concealed under leaves. Following the power lines, Jenny treads on a spike and hides, for fear her screams alerted the gang to her location. Coming across Adam, the boy she met in the beginning, she pleads to him for help, but he leads her to the gang who knock her out. Jenny awakens to find herself and Steve, who has died, restrained and about to be set on fire by the gang. While Brett forces Adam to set the fire and Paige to film, Jenny is able to escape and is blackmailed to return to save Adam. Already far away, she watches on terrified as Adam is left to burn alive for his disobedience. Eventually Jenny finds a trail map to help her plot an escape and continues to evade the gang, killing Cooper (Thomas Turgoose), another one of them who appeared helpful. When the gang find the body, Brett is thrown into further rage and Paige runs away from him. Reaching a road, Jenny manages to hitchhike. She tells the driver she had been attacked. Worried, the driver explains he is looking for his brother, Ricky, another gang member who is also in the woods. The driver stops the van and exits, leaving the keys in the ignition. Jenny panics and steals the van, speeding off towards town and running over Paige in the process.
1238478	Blind Dating (also known as Blind Guy Driving) is a 2006 romantic comedy film directed by James Keach and starring Chris Pine, Eddie Kaye Thomas, Anjali Jay, Jane Seymour, and Jayma Mays. The movie is produced by David Shanks and James Keach and is distributed by Samuel Goldwyn Films LLC. During its release, the film received mixed-to-negative reviews. The publication City Weekly proposed that actor Chris Pine receive a special award for "Best Performance in an Otherwise Inexplicable Film." Plot. Danny Valdessecchi (Chris Pine) is an intelligent, handsome, charming boy who happens to be blind. Having been blind from birth, he volunteers for a risky experimental visual prosthesis that may restore his sight—having a microchip installed in the visual cortex of his brain that connects to a camera that would give him only, at best, fuzzy black and white images. During the tests he meets a beautiful Indian nurse, Leeza (Anjali Jay). Meanwhile, because Danny is a virgin at 22, his brother Larry (Eddie Kaye Thomas), who runs a limousine service, gets him a string of hilariously disastrous blind dates in between rentals. When Danny finally realizes that he is falling for Leeza, she tells him she cannot see him anymore because she has been promised in an arranged marriage. Believing that Leeza did not pursue their relationship because of his being blind, Danny becomes depressed and stops taking the necessary tests for his brain surgery. Danny's family, his eccentric psychotherapist Dr. Evans (Jane Seymour) and eye doctor Dr. Perkins (Stephen Tobolowsky) advise him to continue because it is his only chance of seeing, and soon Danny is successfully operated on. He sees his family's faces for the first time, but not Leeza's, who was away, reluctantly preparing for her marriage. Soon the experiment proves to be a failure, as the fragile prosthesis in his brain moves, clouding his already weak vision, and Danny goes back to being blind. Realizing that he really loves Leeza, he bursts into the wedding, professing his love for her and saying "Love is how you speak to me. Love is how you touch me...and guide me showing me the way to go. And when we kiss, when we kiss, it moves me to my soul." The couple kiss. At this the marriage is called off and Danny and Leeza start over, learning more about each other's family and culture.
1050526	Phat Girlz is a 2006 comedy film written and directed by Nnegest Likké and starring Mo'Nique. Plot. Jazmin Biltmore is a smart-mouthed, frustrated, plus-sized, aspiring fashion designer and department store employee who is obsessed with her weight. Jazmin has always been overweight, unlike her skinny, popular cousin Mia. Jazmin wins a trip to Palm Springs for the weekend at a posh five-star resort. She and best friend Stacy find the first day at the spa embarrassing, as hotel robes don't fit, and the massage table is quite small for their curvaceous figures. They leave in frustration to join Mia, who has been ogling a Nigerian man swimming in the pool. He introduces himself as Tunde, but Jazmin is enraptured, too distracted to remember her own name. He and his friends find Jazmin and Stacy beautiful. However, they think Mia is so skinny that they wonder if she is sick. They invite the women out, with Tunde saying he has never seen such beautiful women in America. The three women go with the men to a traditional Nigerian party, where Mia is told she needs to eat more. She storms out in anger because everyone there embraces "big and beautiful". Jazmin's infatuation with Tunde continues, while reserved Stacy is hit on by Tunde's friend Akibo. Pretty soon, they are much in carnal lust. Mia is frustrated because her cousin and her friend have both snagged rich Nigerian doctors and she is lonely. Tunde treats Jazmin with the utmost respect, to the point she is afraid that he is not showing sexual interest. He tells her she is beautiful and should not change herself to please other people, other than cutting down on profanity because she is too classy for that. She says she will eventually get down to a size 5, but he comments that with her body structure, she can never be that small. He lets her know that in Nigeria, her shape, called "thick madame", is equated with wealth and highly respected. She attempts to embrace these concepts by pampering herself at the spa, even indulging in cookies. That night, she goes down to dinner by herself since Tunde is busy with a meeting. After heartily preparing her all-you-can-eat buffet meal, she walks into the dining room to see Tunde sitting with a thin blond woman. She confronts him about cheating on her. But he asks why she gets angry so easily, informing her that the blond woman is actually the president of the medical corporation that he had told her about. She is embarrassed and runs out. She has the girls leave the hotel and goes back home to her dull life as a saleswoman. She goes through a crisis, soon has a breakdown, and throws away her diet pills, size 5 clothing and spring-cleans her room. Jazmin finally accepts what Tunde told her about loving herself and embraces her body. Although Jazmin is a talented designer, and the store's clothing line for plus-sized women is disappointing, her manager has repeatedly said that her designs are too amateur for the store buyer to be interested. Three large women enter and demand assistance in finding the clothing Jazmin is wearing. She sideswipes her manager and approaches the buyer, Robert, who compliments her dress. She is proud to point out that it is her own design. Robert is very pleased and leads her away for further discussion. Jazmin's career blossoms from a section in the store to a store of her own, and finally her Thick Madame clothing line goes nationwide. She holds a fashion show with plus-sized models, including the now more-confident Stacy. One year later, she to travels to Nigeria to apologize to the man she realizes she loves. A woman opens the door holding a baby. Jazmin asks if she is Tunde's wife, and the woman agrees. Jazmin has the girls go to the taxi because she does not like to be rejected with an audience. She tells Tunde that he has changed her life, but she won't "be a homewrecker". Tunde clarifies that the woman is a maid, he delivered the baby, and the maid doesn't understand English. He says his prayers have been answered, as he has loved Jazmin all along. They kiss, and he promises to handle "all of her". Mia and Stacy also reunite with their partners, and they join Tunde's family for dinner. Mia piles food on her plate, stating that she wants to bulk up so she can find a rich Nigerian doctor as well. The film ends with Jazmin and Tunde in bed, while Jazmin insists on having the lights on. Production. The building used to film the FatAssBurger scene was the Fatburger in Palm Springs, California. It is located near the Palm Springs International Airport. Box office. In its opening weekend, the film grossed a total of $3,109,924 in the United States. As of July 9, the film has grossed a total of $7,061,128 in the United States. The film is considered to be successful because it made its $3 million production budget back in its first weekend of release. It only made $340,762 overseas and thus has only made $7,401,890 worldwide. Critical reception. The film received mostly negative reviews, with Rotten Tomatoes reporting that out of 43 reviews, 10 were "Fresh" and 33 "Rotten", making for an overall 23% approval rating and the consensus: "Although "Phat Girlz" has good intentions, it is sloppily made and thin on laughs." The film has a slightly higher score of 36/100 on Metacritic, indicating "generally unfavorable" reviews. The "San Francisco Chronicle" praised the film, saying "Clumsily directed yet entertainingly written by Oakland native Nnegest Likké, "Phat Girlz" is like "Rocky" with cellulite. Or maybe "Pretty Woman" without all the bony butts. It has a lot of heart and soul, but it's almost never mean-spirited." "Variety" magazine's Joe Leydon said that the film "feels torturously padded at an overlong 98 minutes", and also claims that the romance between Jazmin (Mo'Nique) and Tunde (Jean-Louis) is too drawn out, "quite possibly because writer-director Nnegest Likke has nothing else in her scenario to sustain audience interest". "Entertainment Weekly" gave the film a D grade, remarking that "Mo'Nique is fat. Almost every scene in "Phat Girlz" — the fancy z is for Z-grade — is about how she's fat", and concluding that "the movie reduces her to a single discernible characteristic, which is a telltale mark of many a wholly awful comedy."
1165763	Clarence Leroy "Lee" Van Cleef, Jr. (January 9, 1925 – December 16, 1989), was an American film actor who appeared mostly in Westerns and action pictures. His sharp features and piercing eyes led to his being cast as a villain in scores of films, such as "Kansas City Confidential", "High Noon", "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance", and "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly". After his success in the last of these, he played the hero in many of his later movies. Early life. Van Cleef was born in Somerville, New Jersey, the son of Marion Levinia (née Van Fleet) and Clarence LeRoy Van Cleef, Sr. Both of his parents were of partial Dutch ancestry. Coming of age just in time for World War II, he served in the United States Navy aboard a submarine chaser in the Caribbean Sea, then in the Black and China seas on a mine sweeper. After the war, he had a brief career as an accountant. In 1951, he launched his acting career upon the encouragement of friends and family who thought that his looks could make him a success in film. Career. His first acting experiences were on stage, including a small role in the original Broadway production of "Mister Roberts". His first film was the Western classic "High Noon", in which he played an antagonist. Featured curiously in the first shot of the movie, Van Cleef's character role here as a villain would be something he would polish and master over the next many years, culminating 15 years later in Sergio Leone's remarkable "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly". Van Cleef also had a bit part as the sharpshooter in the climax of "The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms" around the same time. In 1956, he co-starred with Peter Graves in the B-grade science fiction movie "It Conquered the World". In addition to westerns and the science fiction films, three of his early major roles were in noir films, "Kansas City Confidential" (1952), "Vice Squad" (1953) and "The Big Combo" (1955). Van Cleef appeared six times between 1951 and 1955 on the children's syndicated western series, "The Adventures of Kit Carson", starring Bill Williams. He was cast three times, including the role of Rocky Hatch in the episode "Greed Rides the Range" (1952), of another syndicated western series, "The Range Rider", starring Jock Mahoney and Dick Jones. In 1952, he was cast in the episode "Formula for Fear" of the western aviation series, "Sky King", starring Kirby Grant and Gloria Winters. In 1954, Van Cleef appeared as Jesse James in the Jim Davis syndicated series, "Stories of the Century". In 1955, he was cast twice on another syndicated western series, "Annie Oakley", starring Gail Davis and Brad Johnson. That same year, he guest starred on the CBS western series, "Brave Eagle", starring Keith Larsen. In 1958, Van Cleef was cast as Ed Murdock, a rodeo performer trying to reclaim the title in the event as Madison Square Garden in New York City, on the CBS crime drama series, "Richard Diamond, Private Detective", starring David Janssen and Regis Toomey. Before he can make his career finale, however, Murdock is murdered through a conspriacy of his wife and her lover, played by Barbara Baxley and Harry Lauter. Dan Blocker appears in the episode as the rodeo performer Cloudy Sims. Van Cleef played different minor characters on four episodes of ABC's "The Rifleman", with Chuck Connors, between 1959 and 1962, and twice on ABC's "Tombstone Territory". In 1958, he was cast as Deputy Sid Carver in the episode "The Great Stagecoach Robbery" of another syndicated western series, "Frontier Doctor", starring Rex Allen. Van Cleef appeared in 1959 as Luke Clagg in the episode "Strange Request" of the NBC western series, "Riverboat", starring Darren McGavin. Van Cleef played a sentry on an episode of the ABC sitcom, "The Real McCoys", with Walter Brennan. Van Cleef was cast with Pippa Scott and again with Chuck Connors in the 1960 episode "Trial by Fear" of the CBS anthology series, "The DuPont Show with June Allyson". A young Van Cleef also made an appearance as Frank Diamond in "The Untouchables" episode entitled "The Unhired Assassin." He also appeared in an episode of the ABC/Warner Brothers, western series, "The Alaskans", starring Roger Moore. Van Cleef guest starred on the CBS western series "Have Gun - Will Travel", on the ABC/WB series, "Colt .45", on the NBC western series, "Cimarron City" and "Laramie" and on Rod Cameron's syndicated crime dramas, "City Detective" and "State Trooper". He guest starred in an episode of John Bromfield's syndicated crime drama, "Sheriff of Cochise". Van Cleef starred as minor villains and henchmen in various westerns, including "The Tin Star" and "Gunfight at the O.K. Corral". In 1959, a severe alcohol-related car crash nearly cost Van Cleef his career. A resulting knee injury made his physicians think that he would never ride a horse again. This injury plagued Van Cleef for the rest of his life and caused him great pain. His recovery was long and arduous and halted his acting for a time. He then began a business in interior decoration with wife Joan, as well as pursuing his talent for painting, primarily of sea and landscapes. While building a studio off his house in Granada Hills, Lee cut off the tip of his finger on his right hand. This would later become rather a trademark for him. He described his down time from acting jobs as unhealthy dry spells. His acting career, it seemed, had run its course ending with many television appearances. It took his career some time to recover from this blow and in contrast to his earlier major roles, he had for several years only occasional small parts. He appeared as a villainous swindler in the "Bonanza" episode, "The Bloodline" (December 31, 1960). He played one of Lee Marvin's villainous henchmen in the 1962 John Ford movie "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance", with James Stewart and John Wayne. He had a small, uncredited role as one of the river pirates in the 1962 film, "How the West Was Won". In 1963, Van Cleef appeared on CBS's "Perry Mason" in "The Case of the Golden Oranges." That same year he played Raoul Volta in "The Day of the Misfits" on the ABC western serives, "The Travels of Jaimie McPheeters", based on a Robert Lewis Taylor novel, with child actor Kurt Russell in the title role. However, in 1965, his career revived when the young Italian director Sergio Leone boldly cast Van Cleef, whose career was still in the doldrums, as one of the two protagonists, alongside Clint Eastwood, in the second of Leone's westerns, "For a Few Dollars More". Leone then chose Van Cleef to appear again with Eastwood, this time as the primary villain Angel Eyes in the now seminal western "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly", 1966. With his roles in Leone's films, Van Cleef became a major star of Spaghetti Westerns, playing central, and often surprisingly heroic, roles in films such as "Death Rides a Horse", "Day of Anger", "The Big Gundown", and "The Sabata Trilogy". Van Cleef also had a supporting role in John Carpenter's cult film "Escape from New York". In 1984, Van Cleef was cast as a ninja master in the NBC adventure series "The Master", but it was canceled after thirteen episodes. All in all, he is credited with 90 movie roles and 109 other television appearances over a 38-year span. In the early 1980s, Van Cleef appeared in a very popular series of commercials for Midas mufflers, in which he played up his gunfighter persona, playing opposite many character actors of the time, including Jack Palance. Personal life. Van Cleef was married three times. He and his first wife, Patsy Ruth, were married from 1943 until their divorce in 1960. Later that year, he married his second wife, Joan Drane. He and Drane divorced in 1974. Two years later, he married his third wife, Barbara Havelone, to whom he remained married until his death in 1989. Death. Van Cleef worked until his death on December 16, 1989, at the age of 64. He collapsed in his home in Oxnard, California, from a heart attack. Van Cleef is interred at Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Hollywood Hills, California. In popular culture. Alternative rock band Primus paid tribute to the actor with a song entitled "Lee Van Cleef" on their 2011 album "Green Naugahyde". Reggae musician Lee Van Cliff modeled his stage name after the actor, and on his first album, "Reggae Sunsplash!", used an unaltered form of the name. Lee van Cleef's characters in the Sergio Leone movies were inspiration for the character Elliot Belt in the Lucky Luke comic album, "The Bounty Hunter". Author Philip Pullman said Lee Van Cleef's appearance inspired the rough character Lee Scoresby in his "His Dark Materials" trilogy. In the video game World of Warcraft, the vilain Edwin Van Cleef was inspired by Lee Van Cleef. In the video game series "Metal Gear Solid" the character Revolver Ocelot was inspired by Lee Van Cleef. In the 2000 movie "Shanghai Noon" the character of Marshal Nathan Van Cleef is an homage to Lee Van Cleef. The Irish blues rock band The Strypes included a reference to Van Cleef in their song 'Angel Eyes'. This song appears on their debut album 'Snapshot', released in September 2013.
1066862	Joe Kidd is a 1972 American western film starring Clint Eastwood and Robert Duvall, written by Elmore Leonard and directed by John Sturges. The film is about an ex-bounty hunter hired by a wealthy landowner named Frank Harlan to track down Mexican revolutionary leader Luis Chama, who is fighting for land reform. It forms part of the Revisionist Western genre. Plot. Clint Eastwood stars as Joe Kidd, a former bounty hunter who is in jail for hunting on Indian land and disturbing the peace in the New Mexican town of Sinola. Mexican bandito/revolutionary Luis Chama (John Saxon) has organized a peasant revolt against the local landowners, who are throwing the poor off land that rightfully belongs to them. When a posse — financed by wealthy landowner Frank Harlan (Robert Duvall) — is formed to capture Chama, Kidd is invited to join but prefers to remain neutral. Harlan persists and Kidd finally relents when he learns that Chama's band has raided his own ranch and attacked one of the workers. The posse rides into a village and forces the villagers into the church at gunpoint. They threaten to kill five Mexican hostages unless Chama surrenders. Harlan throws Kidd into the church to prevent him from helping Helen, an attractive woman who Kidd falls in love with, and the other Mexican hostages. Kidd manages a daring escape and saves the hostages, determined to find Chama himself and see that justice is done. But when he does capture Chama and delivers him to Sheriff Mitchell (Gregory Walcott) Harlan is already waiting for them in town.
1294529	Shafrira Goldwasser (; born 1958) is a professor of electrical engineering and computer science at MIT, and a professor of mathematical sciences at the Weizmann Institute of Science, Israel. Biography. Born in New York City, Goldwasser obtained her B.S. (1979) in mathematics and science from Carnegie Mellon University, and M.S. (1981) and PhD (1983) in computer science from the University of California, Berkeley. She joined MIT in 1983, and in 1997 became the first holder of the RSA Professorship. She became a professor at the Weizmann Institute of Science, concurrent to her professorship at MIT, in 1993. She is a member of the Theory of Computation group at MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory. Goldwasser was a co-recipient of the 2012 Turing Award. Her husband Nir Shavit is also the recipient of 2004 Godel prize. Scientific career. Goldwasser's research areas include computational complexity theory, cryptography and computational number theory. She is the co-inventor of zero-knowledge proofs, which probabilistically and interactively demonstrate the validity of an assertion without conveying any additional knowledge, and are a key tool in the design of cryptographic protocols. Her work in complexity theory includes the classification of approximation problems, showing that some problems in NP remain hard even when only an approximate solution is needed. Awards. Goldwasser has twice won the Gödel Prize in theoretical computer science: first in 1993 (for ""The knowledge complexity of interactive proof systems""), and again in 2001 (for ""Interactive Proofs and the Hardness of Approximating Cliques""). Other awards include the ACM Grace Murray Hopper Award (1996) for outstanding young computer professional of the year and the RSA Award in Mathematics (1998) for outstanding mathematical contributions to cryptography. In 2001 she was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, in 2004 she was elected to the National Academy of Science, and in 2005 to the National Academy of Engineering. She was selected as an IACR Fellow in 2007. Goldwasser received the 2008-2009 Athena Lecturer Award of the Association for Computing Machinery's Committee on Women in Computing. She is the recipient of The Franklin Institute's 2010 Benjamin Franklin Medal in Computer and Cognitive Science. She received the IEEE Emanuel R. Piore Award in 2011, and was awarded the 2012 Turing Award along with Silvio Micali for their work in the field of cryptography.
813353	Alfie Evan Allen (born 12 September 1986) is an English actor, best known for his role as Theon Greyjoy in the HBO series "Game of Thrones." Early years. Allen was born in Hammersmith, London, the son of Keith Allen, and film producer Alison Owen. His older sister is singer Lily Allen. "Alfie", the eleventh song on her debut album "Alright, Still", is about him. Allen went to St John's College in Southsea, Portsmouth; and the Fine Arts College, Hampstead where he studied for his A levels. Career. Allen's first professional appearance was in a one-off Channel 4 comedy, "You Are Here" in 1998, co-written by Matt Lucas and David Walliams. The same year, Allen and his sister Lily appeared in the 1998 film, "Elizabeth", which was produced by their mother. His early work included small roles in "", directed by his uncle Kevin Allen, the film "Atonement" and in BBC1's historical hospital drama, "Casualty 1907", as Nobby Clark. Starting in Chichester on 31 January 2008, he took over Daniel Radcliffe's role in a revival of "Equus" on a nationwide tour. In April 2009, he co-starred with then partner Jaime Winstone in the music video for "Dust Devil" by Madness. He also had a role in the BBC2 film, "Freefall". Allen came to international attention when he was cast as Theon Greyjoy in the HBO medieval fantasy series Game of Thrones in 2011. Allen has continued to work in films, appearing in "Soulboy", "The Kid", "Freestyle" and "Powder" in 2010. In 2012, he will star in the upcoming British thriller, "Confine".
1163137	Jay C. Flippen (March 6, 1899 in Little Rock, Arkansas – February 3, 1971 in Los Angeles, California) was an American character actor who often played police officers or weary criminals in many films of the 1940s and 1950s. Flippen was an established and respected vaudeville singer and stage actor before his film career. He had been discovered by famed African-American comedian Bert Williams in the 1920s. He called himself "The Ham What Am," and performed occasionally in blackface. Flippen attained the most coveted booking in vaudeville, headlining at the Palace Theatre in New York, not once but six times between March 1926 and February 1931. At one time he was also a radio announcer for New York Yankees games and was one of the first game show announcers. Between 1924 and 1929, Flippen recorded more than thirty songs for Columbia, Perfect and Brunswick.
1043622	The Assassination Bureau Limited (released in North America as "The Assassination Bureau") is a black comedy film made in 1969 based on an unfinished novel, "The Assassination Bureau, Ltd" by Jack London. It stars Oliver Reed, Diana Rigg, Telly Savalas, and Curt Jürgens and was directed by Basil Dearden. Whereas London's original novel was set in the USA, this film is set in Europe. Plot. In London, during the early 1900s, aspiring journalist and women's rights campaigner Sonia Winter (Rigg) uncovers an organization that specializes in killing for money, the Assassination Bureau, Limited. To bring about its destruction, she commissions the assassination of the bureau's own chairman, Ivan Dragomiloff (Reed). Far from being outraged or angry, Dragomiloff is amused and delighted and decides to put it to his own advantage. The guiding principle of his bureau, founded by his father, has always been that there was a moral reason why their victims should be killed — these have included despots and tyrants. More recently though, his elder colleagues have tended to kill more for financial gain than for moral reasons. Dragomiloff, therefore, decides to accept the commission of his own death and challenge the other board members: Kill him or he will kill them. With Miss Winter in tow, Dragomiloff sets off on a tour of Edwardian Europe, challenging and systematically purging the bureau's senior members. Little do they realise that this is a plot by Miss Winter's sponsor, newspaper publisher Lord Bostwick (Savalas), to take over the bureau and plunge Europe into war — Bostwick is the bureau's vice-chairman and is bitter for having been passed over in favour of the founder's son. Bostwick and the other members of the Bureau plan to get rich quick by the "biggest killing" of them all — buying stocks in arms factories and then propelling Europe into war by assassinating all the heads of state of Europe while they attend a secret peace conference. Dragomiloff and Miss Winter uncover the plot — dropping a bomb from a Zeppelin airship on to the castle in Ruthenia where the kings, emperors and presidents of Europe are trying to avoid a possible war caused by the death of a Balkan prince who was killed by a bomb intended for Dragomiloff. Dragomiloff steals aboard the airship and destroys it, killing the remaining members of his board of directors. He is then decorated by the heads of state he has saved. It is implied that Dragomiloff may wed Miss Winter as well. Video releases. This film has been released both as a VHS video and as a Region 1 DVD.
1057150	Getting Even With Dad is a 1994 American comedy film starring Macaulay Culkin and Ted Danson. Plot. The movie is about a dysfunctional father-son relationship. Timmy Gleason (Macaulay Culkin) is Ray Gleason's (Ted Danson) estranged son, who tries to blackmail his ex-con father into spending time with him. Ray and two cronies (Saul Rubinek and Gailard Sartain) pull off a rare coin heist, and then Timmy arrives wanting to share father-son time. He hides the coins and uses them to blackmail his father. The police are suspicious of Ray, and Detective Theresa Walsh (Glenne Headly) is over-zealous in her undercover observance of him and Timmy, as she begins to become infatuated with him. Production. Macaulay Culkin's character was supposed to have a short haircut in this movie, but Culkin, who had let his hair grow at the time, liked his looks and did not want to cut it. His father, Kit Culkin, demanded on behalf of his son that he be allowed to keep his hair the way it was, pointing out that his character was more a rough around the edges, working class boy and not a clean-cut, prep school one. He got to keep his long hair. Saul Rubinek was really hit in the nose with a bat during the scene where he falls down the stairs at the stadium. Since he was caught off guard, his reaction gave the scene a more realistic look and the director decided to leave it in the final cut. Locations. The theme park featured in the movie was Paramount's Great America located in Santa Clara, California. Ray's apartment in the movie is located at the corner of Jackson and Mason St. in Chinatown, San Francisco. Reception. "Getting Even with Dad" was ultimately a box office failure, due to struggling competition with "The Lion King", "Speed", and "The Flintstones". The film received negative reviews from critics. Review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes retrospectively collected reviews to give a score of 4% based on reviews from 28 film critics, with a rating average of 3.5 out of 10. Roger Ebert of the "Chicago Sun-Times" gave the film two out of four stars saying, "It wants to be a caper, a comedy, a romance, and a showcase for Macaulay Culkin. That's too much of a stretch."
1060480	James Joseph Gandolfini, Jr. (September 18, 1961 – June 19, 2013) was an American actor best known for his role in "The Sopranos" as Tony Soprano, a troubled crime boss struggling to balance his family life and career in the Mafia. Gandolfini garnered enormous praise for this portrayal, winning three Emmy Awards, three Screen Actors Guild Awards and two Golden Globes for Best Actor – Drama Series as well as two further SAG Awards as a member of the series' ensemble. Gandolfini's other roles include the woman-beating Mob henchman Virgil in "True Romance", enforcer/stuntman Bear in "Get Shorty", and the impulsive Wild Thing Carol in "Where the Wild Things Are". Gandolfini produced the 2007 documentary "Alive Day Memories: Home from Iraq", in which he interviewed ten injured Iraq War veterans. His second documentary "Wartorn: 1861–2010", released in 2010, analyzes the impact of posttraumatic stress disorder on soldiers and families through several wars in American history, from 1861 to 2010.
1065752	Vincent M. Spano (born October 18, 1962) is an American film, stage and television actor; he is also a film director and producer. Early life and teen career. Spano was born in Brooklyn, New York, to Italian-American (Sardinian) parents, Vincent & Theresa. His career started when he was 14 years old in the Broadway drama, "The Shadow Box". He was originally credited as Vincent Stewart because his first agent felt the name Spano was "too ethnic", and he was even instructed to sign autographs using that stage name. At age 16, in respect for his Italian heritage, Spano stopped using the stage name and has used his real name, Spano, ever since.
1060590	Clea Helen D'Etienne DuVall (born September 25, 1977) is an American actress. She is best known for her role as Sofie on the television series "Carnivàle" as well as for films such as "The Faculty" (1998), "Girl, Interrupted" (1999), "The Grudge" (2004), and "Heroes" (season 1, 2006). She is also known for her role as Cora Lijek in the Oscar-winning film "Argo". Early life. DuVall was born in Los Angeles, California, the only child of Rosemary (née Hatch) and Stephen DuVall. Her father is also an actor, mostly remembered as Connor from the Steven Seagal film "The Keeper". Her parents divorced when she was 12. She sought entertainment in movies and television programs, memorizing entire scenes. She is not related to actors Robert Duvall or Shelley Duvall. Career. Prior to making her debut in "Little Witches", she worked in a coffee shop. She appeared in various films and episodes of TV shows such as "ER" and "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" before her breakthrough role as a protagonist goth student in Robert Rodriguez's "The Faculty". She then portrayed an institutionalized pathological liar in the acclaimed "Girl, Interrupted", as well as a lesbian enrolled in 'therapy camp' in the indie hit "But I'm a Cheerleader". Major roles in "The Astronaut's Wife", "Ghosts of Mars" and "Thirteen Conversations About One Thing" followed.
1244061	Facing the Giants is a 2006 American Christian drama film directed by and starring Alex Kendrick. The supporting cast was composed of volunteers from Sherwood Baptist Church, and it is the second film that Sherwood Pictures have done. Shot in Albany, Georgia, the film relates an underdog story about American football from a Christian worldview. The film was released to DVD in early 2007 and made its television debut on September 21, 2008, on Trinity Broadcasting Network. Plot. In 2003, Grant Taylor (Alex Kendrick) is a high school football coach with a mediocre record. After several poor seasons, the Shiloh Eagles are considering replacing him as head coach. This is not the only problem Taylor is facing; his car is breaking down, the players' fathers are trying to replace him as head coach with assistant coach Brady Owens, and he discovers that he is the reason that his wife Brooke cannot become pregnant.
1075116	Blackenstein, also known as Black Frankenstein, is a low budget 1973 blaxploitation horror film loosely based on Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein". It was made in an attempt to cash in on the success of "Blacula", released the previous year by American International Pictures. However, "Blackenstein" fared poorly in comparison to its predecessor, with most reviews agreeing that the movie was "a totally inept mixture of the worst horror and blaxploitation films". Plot. Big and burly black soldier Eddie Turner (Joe De Sue) stepped on a land mine while serving in Vietnam and lost both arms and legs. His physicist fiancee Doctor Winifred Walker (Ivory Stone) thinks she's found help for him in her white former teacher and colleague Doctor Stein (John Hart) who has recently won a Nobel Peace Prize for "solving the DNA genetic code". In a tour of Doctor Stein's castle-like Los Angeles home, Winifred is introduced to his other patients: the ninety-year-old Eleanor who looks to be only fifty (Andrea King) thanks to Stein's treatments, and the bald Bruno (Nick Bolan) whose lower legs have been successfully re-attached via "laser beam fusion" and Stein's "DNA solution". Winifred is startled when she sees one of Bruno's legs is tiger-striped, which Doctor Stein attributes to "an unknown RNA problem" which he hopes to correct during the course of treatment. His sinister black assistant Malcomb (Roosevelt Jackson) seems overly interested in her reaction to this sight and in her in general. Meanwhile, the stoically suffering Eddie is being verbally abused by an obnoxious white orderly (Bob Brophy) at the local Veteran's Hospital. When Doctors Stein and Walker arrive to ask if he'd be interested in submitting to experimental limb transplant surgery that could correct his condition, he consents. Doctor Stein gives Eddie new replacement arms using his DNA solution, and Eddie seems to be recovering well until Malcomb confesses his attraction to Winifred. Winifed tries to let him down gently, explaining that she intends to marry Eddie as soon as the surgeries are complete, and Malcomb seems to accept her statement, but he later vindictively sabotages the DNA solution used during Eddie's leg surgeries with the contaminated RNA, causing the former soldier to start to devolve into a primitive brutish state with hairy hands and a Neanderthal brow ridge. As his condition worsens and he loses the mental capacity for speech and rational thought, the stony-faced Eddie becomes a slowly shambling monster resembling an African-American version of the iconic Boris Karloff Frankenstein with a squarish Afro instead of the usual scars and neck bolts. Although he lies in a near catatonic state by day, compelled by horrible cannibalistic urges the black suit and turtleneck-clad Eddie secretly leaves the house late each night in search of victims who he dismembers, disembowels and devours zombie style, always returning in time each morning for his ongoing schedule of DNA injections with his doctors none the wiser. Two police detectives visit Doctor Stein as the body count starts to rise (their suspicions aroused due to the fact that all the killings took place in the surrounding vicinity and that the abusive hospital orderly was the vengeful Eddie's first victim), but Stein is ignorant of the fact that there is now a murderous monster living in his basement laboratory. Winifred however has become suspicious of Malcomb and spends her time in the lab, examining the various solutions used during Eddie's surgery. One night, returning from his usual senseless rampage, Eddie hears screaming coming from Winifred's room. He enters to find Malcomb at her bedside and interrupts the attempted rape. Malcomb grabs a gun and empties it into the unaffected Eddie as Winifred flees. Eddie strangles Malcomb and then goes on to kill Bruno and Eleanor, the latter aging rapidly as she dies. Doctor Stein meets Winifred on the stairs, where she tells him Eddie is the monster. Together they down run to the lab. Winifred busies herself preparing an injection of the DNA solution that she hopes will cure Eddie. When Eddie draws near, he seems moved by her terror and backs away, perhaps dimly remembering that she is his fiancee. Doctor Stein however attacks him from behind, provoking a violent response. After a brief tussle with his creator that ends with Stein being fatally knocked into the high voltage electrical equipment, Eddie leaves the house. The police arrive too late to stop Eddie but discover Doctor Stein's body and console Winifred. Eddie finds a brunette attempting to start a Jeep and spends several long minutes chasing her around an empty industrial warehouse. The police call in the Los Angeles County Canine Corps, and the Dobermans surround Eddie, knock him to the ground and, with a fittingly macabre irony, viciously tear the monster to pieces in the same way he killed his victims. Trivia. Despite all the talk of DNA and laser surgery, the movie's laboratory set uses Kenneth Strickfaden's original electrical equipment from the 1931 "Frankenstein" film.
1060822	Courage Under Fire is a 1996 film directed by Edward Zwick, and starring Denzel Washington, Meg Ryan, Lou Diamond Phillips and Matt Damon. Plot. Lieutenant Colonel Nathaniel Serling (Denzel Washington) was involved in a friendly fire incident in Al Bathra during the Gulf War. He was an M1 Abrams tank battalion commander who, during the nighttime confusion of Iraqi tanks infiltrating his unit's lines, gave the order to fire, destroying one of his own tanks and killing his friend Captain Boylar. The details were covered up (Boylar's parents were told that their son was killed by enemy fire), and Serling was shuffled off to a desk job. Later, he is assigned to determine if Army Captain Karen Emma Walden (Meg Ryan) should be the first woman to receive (posthumously) the Medal of Honor for valor in combat. A Medevac Huey commander, she was sent to rescue the crew of a Black Hawk that had been shot down. Finding them under heavy fire from an Iraqi T-54 tank and infantry, her men dropped an auxiliary fuel bladder on the tank and ignited it with a flare gun. Shortly after, her helicopter was also hit and downed. The two crews were unable to join forces. The survivors were rescued the next day, but Walden had been killed. At first, everything seems to be straightforward, but Serling begins to notice inconsistencies between the testimonies of the witnesses. Walden's co-pilot, Warrant Officer One A. Rady (Tim Guinee), praises Walden's character and performance, but was hit and rendered unconscious early on. Serling then sees Walden's medic, Specialist Ilario (Matt Damon), who also praises Walden; by his account, Walden was the one who came up with the idea of the improvised incendiary. Staff Sergeant Monfriez (Lou Diamond Phillips), however, tells Serling that Walden was a coward and that he was responsible for destroying the tank. The members of the other downed crew mention that they heard the distinctive sound of an M16 being used in the firefight during the rescue around the other helicopter, but Walden's crew denies firing one during the rescue, as theirs was out of ammunition. When Serling visits Walden's crew chief, Sergeant Altameyer (Seth Gilliam), who is dying of cancer in a hospital, Altameyer manages to get some words out, further confusing Serling, before self-medicating himself into unconsciousness. Under pressure from the White House and his commander, Brigadier General Hershberg (Michael Moriarty), to wrap things up quickly, Serling leaks the story to newspaper reporter Tony Gartner (Scott Glenn) to prevent another cover up. When Serling puts pressure on Monfriez during a car ride, Monfriez forces him to get out of the vehicle at gunpoint, then commits suicide by driving into an oncoming train. After finding an AWOL Ilario, Serling discovers that Monfriez wanted to escape under cover of darkness, which would have meant leaving Rady behind. Altameyer was ready to follow his lead and Ilario was wavering, but Walden refused to go along, resulting in an armed standoff with Monfriez. When an Iraqi infantryman appeared suddenly behind Monfriez, Walden fired at him. Mistakenly believing he was the target, Monfriez shot back and seriously wounded her. Walden, however, regained control of her men. The next morning, Walden stayed behind to cover their evacuation, firing the M16. Monfriez deliberately lied to the rescuers, telling them that she was dead so she would be left behind. Altameyer, injured and unable to say anything but "no!", was ignored. Ilario remains silent, as A-10s napalm the wreckage. Serling presents his final report to Hershberg. Walden's young daughter receives the Medal of Honor in a White House ceremony. Later, Serling tearfully tells the Boylars the truth about the manner of their son's death and they forgive him for his role in it. In the last moments of the film, it is shown that Walden had transported Boylar's body away from the battlefield. Reception. Box office. The film opened #3 at the box office behind "Independence Day" and "Phenomenon" Critical response. The film received mostly positive reviews. As of January 14, 2013 the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes reported that 85% of critics gave the film a positive review based upon a sample of 53 reviews with an average rating of 7.3/10. At the website Metacritic, which utilizes a normalized rating system, the film earned a generally favorable rating of 77/100 based on 19 mainstream critic reviews. The movie was commended by several critics. James Berardinelli of the website ReelReviews wrote that the film was, “As profound and intelligent as it is moving, and that makes this memorable motion picture one of 1996's best.” Roger Ebert of the "Chicago Sun-Times" spoke positively of the film saying that while the ending “…lays on the emotion a little heavily” the movie had been up until that point “…a fascinating emotional and logistical puzzle—almost a courtroom movie, with the desert as the courtroom.” Denzel Washington’s acting was specifically lauded as Peter Travers of "Rolling Stone" wrote, “In Washington's haunted eyes, in the stunning cinematography of Roger Deakins ("Fargo") that plunges into the mad flare of combat, in the plot that deftly turns a whodunit into a meditation on character and in Zwick's persistent questioning of authority, "Courage Under Fire" honors its subject and its audience.” Additionally Peter Stack of the "San Francisco Chronicle" said that, “Denzel Washington is riveting.” Accolades. The film received no Academy Award, Golden Globe or BAFTA nominations. Denzel Washington was nominated for Best Actor at the 1996 Chicago Film Critics Association Awards, but lost to Billy Bob Thornton in "Sling Blade". Historical accuracy. The Medal of Honor had been awarded to a woman, Dr. Mary Edwards Walker, an American Civil War doctor, but not for valor in combat. A White House aide played by Bronson Pinchot makes the distinction. The Geneva Conventions permit military medical personnel to carry and use weapons to defend themselves and their patients. (Taking offensive action would invalidate their status as protected non-combatants and would be considered perfidy.) In this respect, the portrayal of the helicopter crew was accurate in that the commanding officer, Captain Walden, carried a side-arm, while the two non-medical personnel in the helicopter (Monfriez, an infantryman, and Altameyer, the helicopter crew chief) were equipped with an M16 rifle and M249 SAW. Specialist Ilario, the crew's Combat Medic, was unarmed throughout the engagement. Based on these observations, no violation of the Geneva Convention was made by the fictional crew. Production. The U.S. Department of Defense withdrew its cooperation for the film so the tanks Serling commanded early in the film were British Centurions shipped from Australia with sheet metal added to make them resemble M1A1 Abrams. These visually modified tanks were used to simulate the Abrams in several other motion pictures afterwards as well. ROTC Cadets from Texas A&M University were extras in the background in some of the training camp scenes. The Iraqi battle scenes were filmed at the Indian Cliffs Ranch, located just outside El Paso, Texas. Many of the props were left there and became a tourist attraction. The White House rose garden set was destroyed twice: once by a tornado, and once by a sandstorm. In order to lose 40 pounds (18 kilograms) for the later scenes, Matt Damon went on a strict regimen of food deprivation and physical training. On "Inside the Actors Studio", Damon said that the regimen consisted of six and a half miles of running in the morning and again at night, a diet of chicken breast, egg whites, and one plain baked potato per day, and a large amount of coffee and cigarettes. His health was affected to the extent that he had to have medical supervision for several months afterwards. His efforts, however, did not go unnoticed; director Francis Ford Coppola was so impressed by Damon's dedication to method acting that he offered him the leading role in "The Rainmaker" (1997). Steven Spielberg was also impressed by his performance, but thought he was too skinny and discounted him from casting considerations for "Saving Private Ryan" until he met Damon during the filming of "Good Will Hunting" when he was back at his normal weight.
400490	Janet Varney (born February 16, 1976) is an American actress best known for hosting TBS's "Dinner and a Movie" and as the voice of Korra in "The Legend of Korra". Early life. Varney was born in Arizona. She is an alumna of San Francisco State University where she majored in theater. After school she pursued a career in interior design before eventually finding her way back into acting. Career. Television projects. Varney was co-host of The Hollywood Show with Brian Unger, a recurring player on Norm Macdonald's sketch show Back to Norm and an ensemble player on Crossballs, all for Comedy Central. She also starred in the short-lived FOX comedy "Happy Hour." In 2007, Varney appeared in the short films "Random Acts of Kindness", "Die Hardly Working", "Eternal Waters", "Worldly Possession", "The Losers", "Keep Off Grass", and "Dress For Success" which were made during the reality show On the Lot. She has recently appeared as recurring character "Bev" for the web series "Back on Topps" with Randy and Jason Sklar. Starting in 2008, she began starring in the HBO television series Entourage, playing television producer Amy Miller who works alongside Eric and Charlie. And very recently was in a movie called "Best Player" starring opposite Jerry Trainor and Jennette McCurdy. "Dinner and a Movie". In 2005, Varney replaced Lisa Kushell as the hostess of the TBS cooking and entertainment show, "Dinner and a Movie". Since then, she has appeared, alongside host Paul Gilmartin and chef Claud Mann, in each episode introducing movies and injecting humor during the preparation of a creative dinner to go with some theme of the movie. Rifftrax. Varney has written and performed several comedic audio commentaries for films along with fellow SF Sketchfest co-founder Cole Stratton. These appear on the Rifftrax website under the "Rifftrax Presents" branding, as being officially sanctioned by Rifftrax founder and "Mystery Science Theater 3000" alum, Michael J. Nelson. She has performed in Rifftrax commentaries for the following films: Other professional projects. Varney is the co-founder, creative director and producer of SF Sketchfest, The San Francisco Comedy Festival and is also the co-founder of the San Francisco sketch group Totally False People. She performed with the Los Angeles and San Francisco-based group Sequel 4000. In March 2012, she launched a podcast entitled The JV Club, hosted on Nerdist.com. Personal life. She was in a relationship with comedian Chris Hardwick from 2004 to 2011.
1103106	Vladimir Voevodsky (, born 4 June 1966) is a Russian mathematician. His work in developing a homotopy theory for algebraic varieties and formulating motivic cohomology led to the award of a Fields Medal in 2002. Biography. Vladimir Voevodsky's father, Aleksandr Voevodsky, was head of the Laboratory of High Energy Leptons in the Institute for Nuclear Research at the Russian Academy of Sciences. His mother is a chemist. Voevodsky attended Moscow State University and received his Ph.D. in mathematics from Harvard University in 1992, advised by David Kazhdan. Currently he is a full professor at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey. Work. Voevodsky's work is in the intersection of algebraic geometry with algebraic topology. Along with Fabien Morel, Voevodsky introduced a homotopy theory for schemes. He also formulated what is now believed to be the correct form of motivic cohomology, and used this new tool to prove Milnor's conjecture relating the Milnor K-theory of a field to its étale cohomology. For the above, he received the Fields Medal, together with Laurent Lafforgue, at the 24th International Congress of Mathematicians held in Beijing, China. He is coauthor (with Andrei Suslin and Eric M. Friedlander) of "Cycles, Transfers and Motivic Homology Theories", which develops the theory of motivic cohomology in some detail. In January 2009, at an IHES anniversary conference for Alexander Grothendieck, Voevodsky announced a proof of the full Bloch-Kato conjectures. He has recently been involved in the Homotopy type theory project.
584871	Bommarillu () () is a 2006 Telugu romantic comedy film directed and co-written by Bhaskar, and produced by Dil Raju. The film stars Siddharth Narayan, Genelia D'Souza, Prakash Raj and Jayasudha. Following the film's box office success it was remade in Tamil as "Santosh Subramaniam" (2008), in Bengali as "Bhalobasa Bhalobasa" (2008), in Oriya as "Dream Girl" (2009) and will be remade in Hindi as "It's My Life" (2013). The film primarily revolves around the relationship between a father and son, in which the father's excessive concern for his son, and interference in his life, leads to the latter harbouring bitterness towards his overbearing father. The film opened to Indian audiences on 9 August 2006. On its way to winning state honors and rave reviews, the film went on to win the South Filmfare Awards among other prominent awards. The film's success broke several records at the box office during its prime and is one of the highest grossing Telugu films. Plot. The film begins with a baby taking his first steps on a beach supported by his father. The narrator (Murali Mohan) states that, it is right for a father to support his child in his infancy, but questions whether the father should continue to hold the child's hand even after he is 24 years old. As the credits roll, a visibly angry Siddharth "Siddhu" Addala (Siddharth Narayan) begins verbally abusing all the fathers in the world. When queried about his disgust, he says that his father, Aravind (Prakash Raj), gives him more than what he asks for. He cites instances where his choices of dressing, hairstyle, and many others are overruled by his father's. However, he vows that his career and the woman he marries will be his own choice. Satti (Sunil), Addala household's dutiful servant wakes up Siddhu in the morning. In the background, Siddhu's mother, Lakshmi (Jayasudha), is seen singing a devotional Telugu song while cooking. At the dining table, Aravind, Managing Director of their construction company, asks if Siddhu will join their office. When Siddhu deliberates, his father becomes impatient and plans for his marriage despite Siddhu's silent protest. The next week, Siddhu returns home to realize that he is going to get engaged to Subbulakshmi (Neha) against his wishes. He speaks with her only to realize that she is a "daddy's girl" (Tanikella Bharani being the father) and does not take a liking to her. However, with Aravind's final say, they eventually get engaged. While contemplating on his options in a temple, Siddhu accidentally meets Hasini (Genelia D'Souza), an engineering student. Siddhu is attracted by her cheerful nature and energy, and the couple begin to meet on a regular basis. As the days go by, Siddhu grows to admire the ever-friendly Hasini as someone who does what she loves, and he discovers many small things which make him happy to be in her company; he realizes that he has fallen in love with her. Alongside this, Siddhu applies for a bank loan to start his construction company. When his love for Hasini deepens, he wishes to propose to her. He confesses to her that he is engaged to Subbulakshmi against his wishes, but who he really wants is her. On learning of his engagement, Hasini gets dejected, but comes back a few days later and asks him to do what he wishes for and accepts his proposal. At this juncture, the ecstatic Siddhu is seen by a furious Arvind. Siddhu is admonished back home and he expresses his disinterest in marrying Subbulakshmi. When asked for his reason to like Hasini, Siddhu replies that if Hasini can stay with their family for a week, then all their questions shall be answered. He convinces Hasini to stay at his house after lying to her father, Kanaka Rao (Kota Srinivasa Rao) that she is going on a college tour. When Hasini is introduced to Siddhu's family, she gets a lukewarm welcome. As she settles down in the house, the other family members begin to like her. Even though getting used to the living habits of the authoritarian Arvind's household is difficult, Hasini stays for Siddhu's sake. In the meanwhile, Arvind reprimands Siddhu when he finds out about his bank loan and his career plans, only to further enrage Siddhu.
1164746	Robert Pine (born July 10, 1941) is an American actor who is best known as Sgt. Joseph Getraer on the hit NBC television series "CHiPs" (1977â83). Life and career. Pine was born Granville Whitelaw Pine in New York City, New York, the son of Virginia (nĂŠe Whitelaw) and Granville Martin Pine, a patent attorney. He is married to Gwynne Gilford, who made a couple of appearances on "CHiPs" as the wife of Pine's character, Sgt. Joe Getraer. They have two children, Chris Pine ("Star Trek") and Katie Pine. Pine starred on the soap operas "Days of our Lives" as Walker Coleman and had guest appearances in many TV shows, including CBS' "Gunsmoke", "Lost in Space", "The Wild Wild West", "Barnaby Jones", and "Lou Grant". He also appeared on NBC's "Knight Rider". On CBS' "Magnum, P.I.", he appeared as Thomas Magnum's father in a flashback episode. In the late 1980s, Pine guest-starred as Peter Morris, Zack's father, in an episode of "Good Morning, Miss Bliss". (The character was subsequently renamed Derek Morris, when John Sanderford took over the role; the show itself, by then, was retitled "Saved By the Bell".) For ', he guest starred as an Akritirian Ambassador named Liria in the Season 3 episode "The Chute". For ', he guest-starred as Vulcan Captain Tavin in the Season 1 episode "". Among his other credits are "Six Feet Under", "Beverly Hills 90210", and "Match Game". In early 1990s, Pine showed his range by portraying two memorable villains: for "California Dreams", he played a wealthy racist who sabotages his daughter's friendship with drummer Tony (William James Jones). For the CBS Schoolbreak Special "Big Boys Don't Cry," he played a pedophile who molests his two nephews (one, a high-school wrestler whose teammates include Mario Lopez of "Saved By the Bell" fame). In January 1994, Pine guest-starred as Bart Tupelo on CBS' "Harts of the West" comedy/western starring Beau Bridges and Lloyd Bridges. He reprised his role as Joe Getraer in the 1998 TNT TV movie "CHiPs '99". His character was now the CHP commissioner.
1088188	A Riemann solver is a numerical method used to solve a Riemann problem. They are heavily used in computational fluid dynamics and computational magnetohydrodynamics. Exact solvers. Godunov is credited with introducing the first exact Riemann solver for the Euler equations, by extending the previous CIR (Courant-Isaacson-Reeves) method to non-linear systems of hyperbolic conservation laws. Modern solvers are able to simulate relativistic effects and magnetic fields. For the hydrodynamic case latest research results showed the possibility to avoid the iterations to calculate the exact solution for the Euler equations . Approximate solvers. As iterative solutions are too costly, especially in Magnetohydrodynamics, some approximations have to be made. The most popular solvers are: Roe solver. Roe used the linearisation of the Jacobian, which he then solves exactly. HLLE solver. The HLLE (Harten, Lax, van Leer and Einfeldt) solver is an approximate solution to the Riemann problem, which is only based on the integral form of the conservation laws and the largest and smallest signal velocities at the interface. The stability and robustness of the HLLE solver is closely related to the signal velocities and a single central average state, as proposed by Einfeldt in the original paper. The description of the HLLE scheme in the book mentioned below is incomplete and partially wrong. The reader is referred to the original paper. Actually, the HLLE scheme is based on a new stability theory for discontinuities in fluids, which was never published. HLLC solver. The HLLC (Harten-Lax-van Leer-Contact) solver was introduced by Toro. It restores the missing Rarefaction wave by some estimates, like linearisations, these can be simple but also more advanced exists like using the Roe average velocity for the middle wave speed. They are quite robust and efficient but somewhat more diffusive. Rotated-hybrid Riemann solvers. These solvers were introduced by Nishikawa and Kitamura, in order to overcome the carbuncle problems
1061347	"Ryan's Daughter" is a 1970 film directed by David Lean. The film, set in 1916, tells the story of a married Irish woman who has an affair with a British officer during World War I, despite opposition from her nationalist neighbours. The film is a very loose adaptation of Gustave Flaubert's novel "Madame Bovary". The film stars Robert Mitchum, Sarah Miles, John Mills, Christopher Jones, Trevor Howard and Leo McKern, with a score by Maurice Jarre. It was photographed in Super Panavision 70 by Freddie Young. In its initial release, "Ryan's Daughter" was harshly received by critics but was a box office success, grossing nearly $31 million on a budget of $13.3 million, making the film the eighth highest-grossing picture of 1970. It received two Academy Awards. Plot. The film takes place in the imaginary isolated village of Kirrary, on the Dingle Peninsula in County Kerry Ireland during World War I in the year 1916. Rosy Ryan (Sarah Miles) is bored with her humdrum life and fantasizes about the outside world – much to the chagrin of the local priest, Father Hugh Collins (Trevor Howard), an old, sharp-witted and highly influential person who knows all that goes on in the village. Rosy falls in love with the local schoolmaster, Charles Shaughnessy (Robert Mitchum). She imagines, though he tries to convince her otherwise, that he will add excitement to her life. They marry, and Rosy quickly becomes discontented. The villagers are nationalist and exclusionary, taunting Michael (John Mills) (the village idiot) and British soldiers from a nearby army base. They are resentful of Rosy, the spoilt daughter of the local publican Tom Ryan (Leo McKern). Ryan pretends to be a staunch nationalist– in an early scene, he strongly supports the recently suppressed Easter Rising, referring to the rebels as "our boys"– but in truth he is an informer for the British. Major Randolph Doryan (Christopher Jones) arrives to take command of the local army base. A veteran of World War I, he has been awarded a Victoria Cross, but has a crippled leg and suffers from shell shock. Rosy is instantly and passionately attracted to him. Michael's absent-minded banging of his leg on the pub bench causes Doryan to flashback to the trenches. He collapses. When he recovers, he is comforted by Rosy. The two passionately kiss until they are interrupted by the arrival of Ryan and the townspeople. The next day, the two meet in the forest for a 'gauzy', passionate liaison. Charles becomes suspicious of Rosy, but keeps his thoughts to himself. While on a trip to the beach with his students, he finds Rosy and Doryan's footprints in the sand and tracks them to a cave; later he finds a conch shell in Rosy's dresser, but refuses to confront her about it. Michael has also seen the two lovers, however, and having improvised a British officer's uniform, he tips off the townspeople about the affair. The townspeople turn on Rosy, deriding her as a "British officer's whore". One night, in the midst of a fierce storm, IRB leader Tim O'Leary (Barry Foster)– who had killed a police constable earlier– and a small band of comrades arrive in Ryan's pub and strong-arm him into helping them recover a shipment of German arms from the storm. When they leave, Ryan is left alone in possession of the phone, and tips off the British. While doing so he complains: "God, why are you doing this to me?" implying that he supports the British out of genuine loyalty rather than for gain – as the British authorities would not have known it, had he failed to inform them. Soon, the entire town arrives at the beach to help O'Leary, but he and his followers are stopped by Major Doryan and his men on the road and arrested. O'Leary is shot and wounded by Doryan while attempting to escape. Charles tells Rosy he is aware of her infatuation, but hopes it will pass. Though Rosy declares the affair over, Charles decides to leave her. That night he sees her return to Doryan. In dismay, he wanders in his nightclothes to the beach, where in the morning Father Collins finds him. A mob, accusing Rosy of having informed the British of the arms shipment, strip her and shear off her hair. Father Collins arrives before they can do any worse. Ryan, deeply ashamed, has been unable to confess that he's the informer. Rosy, who guesses his guilt, takes the punishment. Meanwhile, Doryan walks along the beach and comes across Michael, who leads him to a cache of arms–-including dynamite–-that was not recovered. After Michael runs off, Doryan commits suicide by detonating the explosives. The next day, Rosy and Charles leave for Dublin, enduring the taunts of the villagers as they go. As Charles gets on the small bus, Father Collins counsels him against ending the marriage. Just before the bus leaves, Rosy, who had previously found Michael repulsive to her, very touchingly kisses him on the cheek. Cast. Casting. Alec Guinness turned down the role of Father Collins: it had been written with him in mind, but Guinness, as a devout Roman Catholic, objected to what he felt was an inaccurate portrayal of a Catholic priest. His conflicts with Lean while making "Doctor Zhivago" also contributed. Paul Scofield was Lean's first choice for the part of Shaughnessy, but he was unable to escape a theatre commitment. George C. Scott, Anthony Hopkins and Patrick McGoohan were considered but not approached, and Gregory Peck lobbied for the role but gave up after Robert Mitchum was approached. The role of Major Doryan was written for Marlon Brando. Brando accepted, but problems with the production of "Burn!" forced him to drop out. Peter O'Toole, Richard Harris and Richard Burton were also considered. Lean then saw Christopher Jones in "The Looking Glass War" (1969) and decided he had to have Jones for the part, and so cast him without ever meeting him. However, unbeknown to Lean, "The Looking Glass War" had hidden Jones' short height and dubbed his high-pitched voice, and so Lean came to regret his casting decision for the role of the heroic, square-jawed Major. Lean was also dissatisfied with Jones' performance, and ultimately had him dubbed by Julian Holloway. Production. Robert Bolt's original idea was to make a film of "Madame Bovary", starring Sarah Miles. Lean read the script and said that he did not find it interesting, but suggested to Bolt that he would like to rework it into another setting. The film still retains parallels with Flaubert's novel– Rosy parallels Emma Bovary, Charles is her husband, Major Doryan is analogous to Rodolfo and Leon, Emma's lovers. Lean had to wait a year before a suitably dramatic storm appeared. The image was kept clear by a glass disk spinning in front of the lens. Leo McKern was injured and badly shaken while filming the storm sequence, nearly drowning and losing his glass eye. He also disliked the amount of time spent working on the project, and afterwards claimed he would never act again (indeed, he did not act in films or television for several years). His comment on the experience was, "I don't like to be paid £500 a week for sitting down and playing Scrabble." Reportedly, Robert Mitchum was initially reluctant to take the role. While he admired the script, he was undergoing a personal crisis at the time and when pressed by Lean as to why he wouldn't be available for filming, told him "I was actually planning on committing suicide." Upon hearing of this, scriptwriter Robert Bolt said to him "Well, if you just finish working on this wretched little film and then do yourself in, I'd be happy to stand the expenses of your burial." Mitchum clashed with Lean, famously saying that "Working with David Lean is like constructing the Taj Mahal out of toothpicks." Despite this, Mitchum confided to friends and family that he felt "Ryan's Daughter" was among his best roles and he always regretted the negative response the film received. In a radio interview, Mitchum claimed (despite the difficult production) Lean was one of the best directors he'd worked with. Christopher Jones and Lean clashed frequently. Sharon Tate, a friend of Jones' with whom he later claimed he was having an affair, was killed by Charles Manson and his followers during filming, devastating the actor. Jones and Sarah Miles also grew to dislike one another, leading to trouble when filming the love scenes. Gerald Sim's Captain Smith character was virtually a bit part in the script, but because of difficulties with Jones' high-pitched voice, which was deemed unsuitable and in need of dubbing, his scene was re-written so that Sim would speak most of the dialogue in the scene. "Ryan's Daughter" was the last feature film photographed entirely in the 65mm Super Panavision format until "Far and Away" (1992), which was shot largely at the same locations. Owing to bad weather, many of the beach scenes were filmed in Cape Town, South Africa. The village in the film was built by the production company from stone so that it could withstand the storms. Villagers from the town of Dunquin were hired as extras. The area was at the time economically destitute, but the amount of money spent in the town – nearly a million pounds – revived the local economy and led to increased immigration to the Dingle Peninsula. In the scene before Doryan commits suicide, there is a cut from a sunset to Charles striking a match, which is a sly allusion to "Lawrence of Arabia" with its famous cut from Peter O'Toole blowing out a match to a sunrise in the desert. MPAA ratings. The MPAA originally gave "Ryan's Daughter" an "R" rating. A nude scene between Miles and Jones, as well as its themes involving infidelity, were the primary reasons for the MPAA's decision. At the time, MGM was having financial trouble and appealed the rating not due to artistic reasons but due to financial reasons. At the appeal hearing, MGM executives explained that they needed the lower rating to allow more audience into the theatres, otherwise the company would not be able to survive financially. The appeal was overturned and the film received a "GP" rating, which later became "PG". Jack Valenti considered this to be one of the tarnishing marks on the rating system. When MGM resubmitted the film to the MPAA in 1996, it was re-rated "R". The film is rated  M  in Australia and  M  in New Zealand and contains sexual themes where it was originally rated PG in Australia and PG in New Zealand. Reception. Upon its initial release, the film received a hostile reception from the critical community. Roger Ebert felt that "Lean's characters, well written and well acted, are finally dwarfed by his excessive scale." Many attribute the bad reviews to critics' expectations being too high as Lean had directed three epics in a row before "Ryan's Daughter". The preview cut, which ran to over 220 minutes, was criticised for its length and poor pacing; Lean felt obliged to remove up to 17 minutes of footage before the film's wide release, and the missing footage has not been restored or located. Lean took these criticisms very personally, and claimed at the time that he would never make another film. (Others dispute this, citing the fact that Lean tried but was unable to get several projects off the ground, most notably "The Bounty".) The film was moderately successful worldwide at the box office and was one of the most successful films of 1970 in Britain, where it ran at a West End theatre for almost two years straight. The film has also been criticised for its perceived depiction of the Irish proletariat as uncivilised compared with the occupying British forces and the Catholic Church. An Irish commentator has since described them in 2008 as ".. the local herd-like and libidinous populace who lack gainful employment to keep them occupied." Some criticised the film as an attempt to blacken the legacy of the 1916 Easter Rising and the subsequent Irish War of Independence in relation to the eruption of "the Troubles" in Northern Ireland at the time of the film's release, but approval of the project had started years before the Troubles. The depiction of the mob stripping and cutting the hair off Rosy, while gratuitously holding and punching her husband brings to mind the historical examples of 1944's liberated France, where after Liberation, women accused of having slept with German soldiers were often mistreated. Since the film's release on DVD, "Ryan's Daughter" has been reconsidered by many critics, now claimed by many to be an overlooked masterpiece, countering many of the criticisms such as its alleged "excessive scale". Other elements, like John Mills' caricature of 'the village idiot' (an Oscar-winning performance) have withstood the test of time less well. The film is still not as widely accepted as Lean's other epics and its critical reputation remains mixed at best. It stands out from his previous work, being characterised by a slower pace, more expansive and allegorical directing, with less dialogue than in previous films, though the film builds tension, albeit slowly. Awards. Academy Awards. Also Nominated for External links. Constantine Santas, The Epics of David Lean, Scarecrow Press, 2011. Further reading. The Epicss of David Lean, by Constantine Santas. Scarecrow Press, 2011. ISBN 978-0-8108-8210—2
1664211	Bumfights is a film series produced by Indecline Films. The videos feature teenagers, homeless men (most notably Rufus Hannah and Donnie Brennan) in the San Diego, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Las Vegas metropolitan areas fighting and attempting amateur stunts in exchange for money, alcohol, and other incentives. The first video, "Bumfights: A Cause for Concern" (2002), was produced by Ryan McPherson, with friends Zachary Bubeck, Daniel J. Tanner, and Michael Slyman, as Indecline Films. Shortly after sales began to escalate, Indecline Films allegedly sold the rights to two investors, who went on to produce three sequels.
1437171	Mark Boone Junior (born March 17, 1955) is an American actor perhaps best known for his roles as Bobby Munson in FX's "Sons of Anarchy" and in two films by Christopher Nolan, "Memento" and "Batman Begins". Early life and education. Boone was born Mark Heidrich in Cincinnati, Ohio, the son of Ginny, a retired teacher, and Bob Heidrich, a former construction consultant. He grew up on Chicago's North Shore and attended the University of Vermont. He moved to New York after college, where he started his career performing stand-up comedy with long-time friend Steve Buscemi. His stage name Boone came from a New York City war memorial. Career. He has appeared in some of Steve Buscemi's directorial work, including "Trees Lounge" and most recently (2004) as "Evil" in "Lonesome Jim". He is a regular cast member on "Sons of Anarchy", where he plays club secretary Bobby Munson. In 2010 he played the role of Vincent Dooly's father in "The Mother of Invention". Boone frequently portrays a crooked cop or other authority figure, and has had a prolific career, appearing in over 70 movies, which also include "2 Fast 2 Furious", "Get Carter", "The General's Daughter", "The Thin Red Line", "Seven", and "Die Hard 2". He has also made guest appearances on TV in "Law & Order", "Seinfeld", "Curb Your Enthusiasm", and several other shows. He had a one-second appearance as "New York Guy" in "Armageddon" when Eddie Griffin's character asked him what the news on TV was all about. He also had another one-second appearance in Season 6 Episode 5 of Oz as a prisoner reading a book in the library. In 1984 he acted in "The Way It Is" (1985) by Eric Mitchell, which included actors Steve Buscemi and Rockets Redglare. Boone has written and produced some films of his own. Personal life. Boone currently resides in California.
582874	Tadipaar is a 1993 Hindi-language Indian feature film directed by Mahesh Bhatt starring Mithun Chakraborty, Pooja Bhatt and Juhi Chawla in lead roles. The super hit songs of the film are composed by Nadeem-Shravan. Synopsis. Tadipaar is the story of Shankar, sentenced to live outside the limits of the city, due to a Police case. One day he happens to rescue a woman in distress from some hoodlums and finds out that her name is Namkeen, who resembles a multi-millionaire Mohinidevi, who has gone missing. Shankar asks Namkeen to impersonate Mohinidevi to embezzle her wealth. Namkeen agrees to do so, but the question remains where is Mohinidevi, and what will happen to Namkeen when she is found?
584545	Pandavar Bhoomi is a 2001 Indian Tamil film, written and directed by Cheran. The film has Arun Vijay, Shamitha and Rajkiran playing the lead roles. While Vinu Chakravarthy and Mukesh Tiwari played the antagonists, Chandrasekhar, Ranjith, Manorama and Charle played supporting roles. The film met with critical acclaim and went on to win the Filmfare Award for Best Director – Tamil. Plot. Dhanasekhar (Rajkiran) returns to his ancestral village after twelve years only to find his house in a dilapidated state. While living in a neighbor's house, he approaches an engineer to rebuild his house. Thamizharasan (Arun Vijay), son of an architect Vijayakumar is an architect himself who specializes in traditional building techniques. He agrees to rebuild their house to their liking. As the construction work progresses, Thamizharasan gets closer to Dhanasekhar and his family members. He befriends Jeeva (Shamitha), Dhanasekhar's niece and eventually falls in love with her. When Dhanasekhar comes to know of this, he reveals the tragic past of his family which forced them out of their own village years ago. Dhanasekhar's family consists of his two brothers Chandrasekhar and Ranjith, a sister Thamarai (again played by Shamitha), and their loving mother Manorama. They are a close-knit family living a happy life, setting an example for the entire village. Dhanasekhar is an old-fashioned man strongly rooted in the traditions. He along with his brothers do agriculture in their land. Vinu Chakravarthy, another landlord doing agriculture is a money-minded person. One day, he suddenly buys tractors and employs modern farm equipments, rendering many of the farmers employed with him jobless. When Dhanasekhar voices for their plight, the situation becomes worse starting an enmity between the two families. Meanwhile Thamarai falls in love with Vinu Chakravarthy's son. To avenge for his father, Vinu Chakravarthy's other son Mukesh Tiwari poisons a water body killing all the bulls owned by Dhanasekhar. So, Ranjith beats up Vinu and his son Mukesh. That is when they see the couple sitting together. This angers both the families. Dhanasekhar's family arranges Thamarai's marriage with someone else and gets her engaged. But she is in no mood to pay heed to her family and elopes with her lover. As a result the family is devastated resulting in the death of Manorama. At her funeral procession, Thamarai comes in a car with her husband and is shocked to find her mother dead. On seeing her back, Ranjith in a fit of rage beheads her and her husband. Due to this Ranjith gets a jail term for 12 years. With lost peace, the family moves to Tirupur and gets settled there. To give Ranjith something to live for when he comes back from jail, Dhanasekhar and his family decides to marry off Jeeva to Ranjith. Citing that this is the only way to get back their long lost peace, Dhanasekhar asks Thamizharasan to stay away from Jeeva. Back in the present, while the old and aging Vinu Chakravarthy is still at logger heads with their family, Mukesh Tiwari pretends to be friendly with them. As the construction work nears completion and the house is been furnished, Mukesh plots a bomb in the new house. Thamizharasan gets to know of this and foils the plot. Ranjith gets released from jail around the same time the house gets ready for occupation. Dhanasekhar and family welcomes home Ranjith with much love and asks him to marry Jeeva. But Ranjith turns down the proposal because the reason for all their suffering was they forced their sister Thamarai into marriage without her consent and now they are doing the same mistake with Jeeva. This makes Dhanasekhar realize his err. He unites Jeeva with Thamizharasan . Soundtrack. The soundtrack album was composed by Bharathwaj. Tracklist Critical Reception. The film received mostly positive reviews from critics. Malathi Rangarajan from The Hindu praised as "Inundated with talent from every quarter" and said: "has to be welcomed, with open arms because decent, meaningful cinema deserves encouragement". Rediff.com particularly heaped praises at Cheran for his screenplay and said "With directors of the calibre of Cheran in its rank, Tamil cinema would not be discredited or degenerated". Thiraipadam.com lauded Cheran saying "Cheran is one of the few filmmakers who has not succumbed to the commercial bug and continues to make movies that satisfy his own creative spirit and also convey a valid message to society." The film also received mixed reviews. Sify.com criticised the length of the movie and said: "Cheran has churned out yet another village based sob story to torment you further" and concluded that "it is a typical overdose of Cheran melodrama masala".
1099124	The Newton fractal is a boundary set in the complex plane which is characterized by Newton's method applied to a fixed polynomial formula_1. It is the Julia set of the meromorphic function formula_2 which is given by Newton's method. When there are no attractive cycles (of order greater than 1), it divides the complex plane into regions formula_3, each of which is associated with a root formula_4 of the polynomial, formula_5. In this way the Newton fractal is similar to the Mandelbrot set, and like other fractals it exhibits an intricate appearance arising from a simple description. It is relevant to numerical analysis because it shows that (outside the region of quadratic convergence) the Newton method can be very sensitive to its choice of start point. Many points of the complex plane are associated with one of the formula_6 roots of the polynomial in the following way: the point is used as starting value formula_7 for Newton's iteration formula_8, yielding a sequence of points formula_9, formula_10, ... If the sequence converges to the root formula_4, then formula_7 was an element of the region formula_3. However, for every polynomial of degree at least 2 there are points for which the Newton iteration does not converge to any root: examples are the boundaries of the basins of attraction of the various roots. There are even polynomials for which open sets of starting points fail to converge to any root: a simple example is formula_14, where some points are attracted by the cycle 0, 1, 0, 1 ... rather than by a root. An open set for which the iterations converge towards a given root or cycle (that is not a fixed point), is a Fatou set for the iteration. The complementary set to the union of all these, is the Julia set. The Fatou sets have common boundary, namely the Julia set. Therefore each point of the Julia set is a point of accumulation for each of the Fatou sets. It is this property that causes the fractal structure of the Julia set (when the degree of the polynomial is larger than 2). To plot interesting pictures, one may first choose a specified number formula_15 of complex points formula_16 and compute the coefficients formula_17 of the polynomial Then for a rectangular lattice formula_19, formula_20, ..., formula_21, formula_22, ..., formula_23 of points in formula_24, one finds the index formula_25 of the corresponding root formula_26 and uses this to fill an formula_27×formula_28 raster grid by assigning to each point formula_29 a colour formula_30. Additionally or alternatively the colours may be dependent on the distance formula_31, which is defined to be the first value formula_32 such that formula_33 for some previously fixed small formula_34. Generalization of Newton fractals. A generalization of Newton's iteration is where formula_36 is any complex number. The special choice formula_37 corresponds to the Newton fractal.
1056275	Jacques Tati (born Jacques Tatischeff, 9 October 1907 in Le Pecq, Yvelines, France – died 5 November 1982) was a French filmmaker. Throughout his long career he worked as a comic actor, writer, and director. In a poll conducted by "Entertainment Weekly" of the Greatest Movie Directors, Tati was voted the 46th greatest of all time. With only six feature-length films to his credit as director, he directed fewer films than any other director on this list of 50. Family origins. Jacques Tati was born French with Russian, Dutch and Italian ancestry. His father, George Emmanuel Tatischeff, born in 1875 in Paris (d. 1957), was the son of Dmitriy Tatischeff (Дмитрий Татищев), General of the Imperial Russian Army and military attaché to the Russian Embassy in Paris. The Tatischeffs (also spelled Tatishchev) were a Russian noble family of patrilineal Rurikid descent. Whilst stationed in Paris Dmitri Tatischeff married a French woman, Rose Anathalie Alinquant. (Russian sources indicate that she was a circus performer and that they never married). Under suspicious circumstances Dmitri Tatischeff died from injuries sustained in a horse riding accident shortly after the birth of George Emmanuel. As a child George Emmanuel experienced turbulent times, such as being forcibly removed from France and taken to Russia to live. In 1883 his mother brought him back to France where they settled on the estate of Le Pecq, near Saint-Germain-en-Laye on the outskirts of Paris. In 1903, Georges-Emmanuel Tatischeff married the Dutch-Italian Marcelle Claire van Hoof (d. 1968). Together they had two children, Natalie (b. 1905) and Jacques. Claire's Dutch father, a friend of van Gogh, whose clients included Toulouse-Lautrec, was the owner of a prestigious picture framing company near the Place Vendôme in Paris, and he brought Georges-Emmanuel into the family business. Subsequently, Georges-Emmanuel became the director of the company Cadres Van Hoof, and the Tatischeff family enjoyed a relatively high standard of living. Childhood and youth. Jacques Tatischeff appears to have been an indifferent student, yet excelled in the sports of tennis and horseback riding. He left school in 1923 at the age of 16 to take up an apprenticeship in the family business, where he was trained as a picture framer by his grandfather. Between 1927 and 1928 he completed his military national service at Saint-Germain-en-Laye with the Cavalry's 16th Regiment of Dragoons. Upon graduating the military he took on an internship in London where he was first introduced to the sport of rugby. Returning to Paris, he joined the semi-professional rugby team Racing Club de France, whose captain was Alfred Sauvy and whose supporters included Tristan Bernard. It was at the Racing Club de France that Jacques Tatischeff first discovered his comic talents, entertaining his teammates during intervals with hilarious impersonations of their sporting endeavours. He also first met Jacques Broido, and they would become lifelong friends. Between 1931 and 1932 the global economic crisis reached France at the same time he left both the Racing Club de France and, to his family's disapproval, his apprenticeship at Cadres Van Hoof. Giving up a relatively comfortable middle class lifestyle for one of a struggling performing artist during this difficult economic time, he developed a collection of highly physical mimes that would become his "Impressions Sportives" ("Sporting Impressions"). Each year from 1931 to 1934 he would participate in an amateur show organised by Alfred Sauvy. Entertainment debut. Although he had likely played music hall engagements before, his act was first mentioned in 1935, when he performed at the gala for the newspaper "Le Journal" to celebrate the French victory in the competition to set the transatlantic crossing record from Normandy. Among the honourable spectators was the influential writer Colette. Tati's act also caught the attention of Max Trebor, who offered him an engagement at the Theatre-Michel, where he quickly became the star act. After his success there, Tati tried to make it in London, playing a short season at the Finsbury Park Empire in March 1936. Upon his return to Paris in the same year, he was immediately hired as top billing at the ABC Théâtre alongside the singer Marie Dubas, where he would work uninterrupted until the outbreak of the Second World War. It was for Tati's performances of his now finely-tuned "Impressions Sportives" at the ABC that the previously impressed Colette wrote, "From now on no celebration, no artistic or acrobatic spectacle can do without this amazing performer, who has invented something quite his own…His act is partly ballet and partly sport, partly satire and partly charade. He has devised a way of being both the player, the ball and the tennis racquet, of being simultaneously the football and the goalkeeper, the boxer and the opponent, the bicycle and the cyclist. Without any props, he conjures up his accessories and his partners. He has suggestive powers of all great artists. How gratifying it was to see the audience's warm reaction! Tati's success says a lot about the sophistication of the allegedly "uncouth" public, about its taste for novelty and its appreciation of style. Jacques Tati, the horse and rider conjured, will show all of Paris the living image of that legendary creature, the centaur." During the 1930s he also performed at the Scala in Berlin between 1937 and 1938, and began to experiment with film acting in the following shorts: World War II. In September 1939 Tati was conscripted back into his 16th Regiment of Dragoons which was then incorporated into the 3rd Division Legere de Cavalerie (DLC). He saw action in the Battle of the Meuse, in May 1940, when the German Army marched through the Ardennes into northern France. The 3rd DLC retreated from Meuse to Mussidan in the Dordogne where the division was demobilised after the Armistice was declared on the 22nd of June, 1940. Returning to Paris, Tati resumed his civilian profession as a cabaret performer, finding employment at Léon Volterra's Lido de Paris, where he performed his "Sporting Impressions" from 1940-42. At the Lido de Paris he met and fell in love with the young Austrian/Czech dancer Herta Schiel, who had fled Vienna with her sister Molly at the time of the Anschluss. In the summer of 1942 Herta gave birth to their daughter, Helga Marie-Jeanne Schiel. Due to pressure from his sister Nathalie, Tati refused to recognise the child and was forced by Volterra to depart from the Lido at the end of the 1942 season. In 1943, after a short engagement at the ABC, where Édith Piaf was headlining, Tati left Paris under a cloud, with his friend Henri Marquet, and they settled in the Village of Sainte-Sévère-sur-Indre. While residing there they completed the script for "L'École des facteurs" ("The School for Postmen") that would later provide material for his first feature, "Jour de fête". Herta Schiel would remain in Paris throughout the war, where she would make acquaintance with the physician Jacques Weil when he was called upon to treat her sister Molly for the then-incurable tuberculosis (TB). Through Weil, second in command of the Juggler network of the SOE F Section networks, both sisters were recruited into the French Resistance. In 1944, Tati returned to Paris and, after a brief courtship, married Micheline Winter. Considered as a possible substitute for Jean-Louis Barrault in "Les Enfants du Paradis", he played the ghost in "Sylvie and the Ghost" ("Sylvie et le fantôme") (Claude Autant-Lara appeared as Sylvie) and also appeared as The Devil in the same film. Here he met Fred Orain, studio director of St. Maurice and the Victorine in Nice. Jacques Tati, Director. In early 1946 Jacques Tati and Fred Orain founded the production company Cady-Films, which would produce Tati's first three films. With the exception of his first and last films, Tati played the gauche and socially inept lead character, Monsieur Hulot. With his trademark raincoat, umbrella and pipe, Hulot is among the most memorable comic characters in cinema. Several themes recur in Tati's work, most notably in "Mon Oncle", "Play Time" and "Trafic". They include Western society's obsession with material goods, particularly American-style consumerism, the pressure-cooker environment of modern society, the superficiality of relationships among France's various social classes, and the cold and often impractical nature of space-age technology and design. On October 23, 1946 Tati fathered his second child, Sophie Catherine Tatischeff. "L'École des facteurs" ("The School for Postmen"). René Clément was first approached to direct "L'École des facteurs", but as he was preoccupied directing La Bataille du rail, directing duties fell to Tati, who would also star in this short comedy of rural life. Encouragingly, L'École des facteurs was enthusiastically well received upon release, winning the Max Linder Prize for film comedy in 1947. "Jour de fête (The Big Day)". Tati's first major feature, "Jour de fête" ("The Big Day"), tells the story of an inept rural village postman who interrupts his duties to inspect the traveling fair that has come to town. Influenced by too much wine and a documentary on the rapidity of the American postal service, he goes to hilarious lengths to speed his mail deliveries aboard his bicycle. Tati filmed it in 1947 in the village of Sainte-Sévère-sur-Indre where he had found refuge during the war. Due to the reluctance of French distributors, "Jour de fête" was first successfully released in London in March 1949 before obtaining a French release on 4 July 1949, where it became a great public success, receiving the 1950 Le Grand prix du cinéma français. The film was intended to be the first French feature film shot in colour; Tati simultaneously shot the film in black and white as an insurance policy. The newly developed Thomson colour system proved impractical, as it could not deliver colour prints. "Jour de fête" was therefore released only in black and white. Unlike his later films, it has many scenes with dialogue, and offers a droll, affectionate view of life in rural France. The colour version was restored by his younger daughter, film editor and director Sophie Tatischeff, and released in 1995. The film won a prize at the Venice Film Festival. 1949 was also the year of the birth of Tati's son, Pierre-François Tatischeff, alias Pierre Tati. Both Pierre and Sophie would go on to work in the French film industry in various capacities, beginning in the early 1970s. Notably, they both worked on Jean-Pierre Melville's last film, "Un flic", (1972). "Les Vacances de Monsieur Hulot (Mr. Hulot's Holiday)". Tati's second film, "Les Vacances de Monsieur Hulot" (Mr. Hulot's Holiday), was released in 1953. "Les Vacances" introduced the character of Mr. Hulot and follows his adventures in France during the mandatory August vacation at a beach resort, lampooning several hidebound elements of French political and social classes. It was shot almost entirely in the tiny west-coast seaside village of Saint-Marc-sur-Mer in the Loire Atlantique region. The hotel in which Mr. Hulot stays (l'Hotel de la Plage) is still there, and a statue memorialising the director has been erected on the beach. Tati had fallen in love with the coast while staying in nearby Port Charlotte with his friends, Mr. and Mrs. Lemoine, before the war, and resolved to return one day to make a film there. The film was widely praised by critics, and earned Tati an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Screenplay, which was shared with Henri Marquet. Production of the movie would also see the reintroduction of Jacques Lagrange into Tati's life, beginning a lifelong working partnership with the painter, who would become his set designer. Les Vacances de Monsieur Hulot remains one of the best-loved French films of that period. The film's comic influence has extended well beyond France and can be found as recently as 2007 in the Rowan Atkinson comic vehicle "Mr. Bean's Holiday". André Bazin, founder of the influential journal "Cahiers du cinéma", wrote in his 1957 essay, "Fifteen Years of French Cinema", that, "Tati could easily have made lots of money with sequels featuring his comic character of the little rural mailman. He chose instead to wait for four years, and, after much reflection, he revised his formula completely. The result this time was an extraordinary masterpiece about which one can say, I think, that it is the most radical innovation in comic cinema since the Marx Brothers: I am referring, of course, to "Les Vacances de M. Hulot"." Various problems would delay the release of Tati's follow-up to his international hit. In 1955 he suffered a serious car accident that physically impaired his left hand. Then a dispute with Fred Orain ensued and Tati broke away from Cady Films to create his own production company, Spectra Films, in 1956. "Mon Oncle (My Uncle)". Tati's next film, 1958's "Mon Oncle" ("My Uncle"), was his first film to be released in colour. The plot centers on Mr. Hulot's comedic, quixotic and childlike struggle with postwar France's obsession with modernity and American-style consumerism, entwined with the relationship he has with his nine year old nephew Gérard. "Mon Oncle" quickly became an international success, and won that year's Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, a Special Prize at Cannes, as well as the New York Film Critics Award. In Place de la Pelouse stands a bronze statue of Tati as Monsieur Hulot talking to a boy, in a pose echoing the movie's poster designed by Pierre Etaix. On receiving his Oscar, Tati was offered any treat that the Academy could bestow on him. To their surprise, Tati simply requested the opportunity to visit Stan Laurel, Mack Sennett and Buster Keaton at their nursing homes. Keaton reportedly said that Tati's work with sound had carried on the true tradition of silent cinema. As guest Artistic Director at AFI FEST 2010, David Lynch selected Tati's "Mon Oncle" alongside "Hour of the Wolf" (Dir Ingmar Bergman), "Lolita" (Dir Stanley Kubrick), "Rear Window" (Dir Alfred Hitchcock) and "Sunset Boulevard" (Dir Billy Wilder) to be screened in his sidebar program, explaining that, "I picked these particular films because they are the ones that have inspired me most. I think each is a masterpiece." Of Tati, Lynch would add in a conversation with Jonathan Rosenbaum, "You know, I feel like in a way he's a kindred soul... That guy is so creative, it's unbelievable. I think he's one of the all-time greats." "Play Time". Considered by many his masterpiece, "Play Time" (1967), shot in 70mm, was to be the most ambitious yet risky and expensive work of Tati's career. "After the success of Mon Oncle in 1958, Jacques Tati had become fed up with Monsieur Hulot, his signature comic creation. With international renown came a growing dissatisfaction with straightforward scenarios centered around one lovable, recognizable figure. So he slowly inched his way toward a new kind of film, a supremely democratic film that would be about “everybody”. It took nine years to make, and he had to borrow heavily from his own resources to complete the picture. "At the time of its making, "Playtime" (1967) was the most expensive film in French history." "Playtime is the big leap, the big screen. I'm putting myself on the line. Either it comes off or it doesn't. There's no safety net." On the outskirts of Paris, Tati famously built an entire glass and steel mini-city (nicknamed Tativille) for the film, which took years to build and left him mired in debt. In the film, Hulot and a group of American tourists lose themselves in the futuristic glass and steel of commercially globalised modern Parisian suburbs, where only human nature and a few reflective views of the old city of Paris, itself, still emerge to breathe life into the sterile new metropolis. "Play Time" had even less of a plot than his earlier films, and Tati endeavored to make his characters, including Hulot, almost incidental to his portrayal of a modernist and robotic Paris. "Play Time" was originally 155 minutes in length, but Tati soon released an edited version of 126 minutes, and this is the version that became a general theatre release in 1967. Later versions appeared in 35mm format. In 1979, a copy of the film was revised again to 108 minutes, and this re-edited version was released on VHS video in 1984. Though "Play Time" was a critical success (François Truffaut praised it as "a film that comes from another planet, where they make films differently"), it was a massive and expensive commercial failure, eventually resulting in Tati's bankruptcy. "Tati had approached everybody from Darryl F Zanuck to the prime minister Georges Pompidou in a bid to get the movie completed. His personal overdrafts began to mount, and long before Playtime was finished," Bellos notes, "Tati was in substantial debt to the least forgiving of all creditors, the Collectors of Taxes." When he failed to pay off his loans, his films were impounded by the banks". Tati was forced to sell the family house of Saint-Germain shortly after the death of his mother, Claire Van Hoof, and move back into Paris. Spectra Films was then placed into administration, concluding in the liquidation of the company in 1974, with an auction of all movie rights held by the company for little more than 120,000 francs. In August 2012 the British Film Institute, polled 846 critics, programmers, academics and distributors to find "The Top 50 Greatest Films of All Time" and Play Time was voted 42nd in the list In the corresponding “Directors Poll” by the BFI, Playtime was awarded the accolade of being seen as the 37th greatest film of all time by his fellow directors. Steven Spielberg has said he was paying a "very slight homage" to "Play Time" in his 2004 film "The Terminal", adding, "I thought of two directors when I made Terminal. I thought this was a tribute to Frank Capra and his honest sentiment, and it was a tribute to Jacques Tati and the way he allowed his scenes to go on and on and on. The character he played in "Mr. Hulot's Holiday" and "Mon Oncle" was all about resourcefulness and using what's around him to make us laugh". While on the set of "Play Time", Tati made a short film about his comedic and cinematic technique, "Cours du soir" ("Evening Classes", 1967), in which Tati gives a lesson in the art of comedy to a class of would-be actors. In 1969, with reduced ambition, Jacques Tati created a new production company, CEPEC, to oversee his opportunities in movie and TV production. In 1971 Tati “Suffered the indignity of having to make an advert for Lloyds Bank in England” in which he depicted the bank of the future as being dehumanized with money dispensed from a computerized counter. “The message of the advert was that however modern Lloyds are, technology isn’t everything and you’ll always be able to speak to a “friendly member of staff or understanding manager” in their branches” . In 1972 trademarked as Cashpoint, Lloyds introduced the first modern ATMs, the IBM 2984 into UK high street banks; they had similar functions as today's machines. "Trafic (Traffic)". The Dutch-funded "Trafic" ("Traffic"), although originally designed to be a TV movie, received a theater release in 1971 and placed Monsieur Hulot back at the centre of the action. It was the last Hulot film, and followed the vein of earlier works that lampooned modern society. In the film, Hulot is a bumbling automobile inventor traveling to an exhibition in a gadget-filled recreational vehicle. Despite its modest budget, Trafic was still very much a Tati film, carefully staged and choreographed in its scenes and effects. "Parade" and final years. Tati's last completed film, "Parade", a film produced for Swedish television in 1973, is more or less a filmed circus performance featuring Tati's mime acts and other performers. In 1977, he received an honorary "César" from the French Film Institute for his lifetime contribution to cinema. In 1978, Tati began filming a short documentary on Corsican soccer team SC Bastia playing the UEFA Cup Final, "Forza Bastia", which he did not complete. His younger daughter, Sophie Tatischeff, later edited the remaining footage, which was released in 2002 after her own death from lung cancer in 2001. Weakened by serious health problems, Tati died on 4 November 1982, of a pulmonary embolism, leaving a final scenario called "Confusion" that he had completed with Jacques Lagrange. In "Paris Match", Philippe Labro reported the death of Jacques Tati under the heading,
589724	Mr. Natwarlal is a 1979 Hindi action comedy film, Produced by Tony Glaad it is directed by Rakesh Kumar. The film stars Amitabh Bachchan, Rekha, Ajit Khan and Amjad Khan. The music is by Rajesh Roshan, the songs are written by Anand Bakshi, and the highlight of the film was a children's song sung by Amitabh Bachchan. Ishraq-Suja made their first writing debut. They became famous for writing a Novel name "Shadman & Zarin er Bhalobasha". Then Tony Glaad decided to take them as the writer of the film. The film was a "Blockbuster" at the box office. The film was shot in Kashmir and major part was shot in Beerwah, Jammu and Kashmir The name of film and lead character were inspired from famous and legendary conman of India, Natwarlal. Getting Amitabh to sing was a gimmick tried for the first time in this movie. "Kabhi Kabhi" earlier had Amitabh spouting poetry in a song, but this was the first song he sang in a movie; this was aped by other fimmakers subsequently in films like "Laawaris", "Silsila" and "Pukar" in which Amitabh Bachchan sang some of the most popular songs of the Hindi Film Industry. Plot. Natwar is a young boy when his beloved older brother and caretaker, police officer Gridharilal (Ajit Khan), is framed for bribery by sinister criminal mastermind Vikram (Amjad Khan). When he grows up, Natwar (Amitabh Bachchan) creates a secret identity for himself, posing as a powerful and mysterious underworld figure named Mr. Natwarlal, determined to slowly but surely exact vengeance on Vikram. This was another 'Hit' of Amitabh Bachchan. Music. The music of the movie proved to be somewhat successful, with the music composed by Rajesh Roshan and the lyric penned by the veteran Anand Bakshi. Rajesh Roshan was nominated for Best Music Director award for the film; Laxmikant Pyarelal received the award for "Sargam" that year.
1181039	Charlotte Maria Church (born Charlotte Maria Reed; 21 February 1986) is a Welsh and British singer-songwriter, actress and television presenter. She rose to fame in childhood as a classical singer before branching into pop music in 2005. By 2007, she had sold more than 10 million records worldwide including over 5 million in the United States. In 2010 she was reported to be worth as much as £11m (though one 2003 report quoted her worth at £25m). She hosted a Channel 4 chat show titled "The Charlotte Church Show". Church released her first album in five years, titled "Back To Scratch", on 17 October 2010. Church has a soprano vocal range. History. Early life. Charlotte Church was born Charlotte Maria Reed in Llandaff, a district of Cardiff, Wales. She was brought up as a Roman Catholic by her mother, Maria, who was separated from Church's biological father, Stephen Reed. Church was adopted by her mother's second husband, James Church, in 1999. Her break came at 11 when she sang Andrew Lloyd Webber's "Pie Jesu" over the telephone on the television show "This Morning" in 1997, followed by her performance on ITV's "Big, Big Talent Show" in 1997. This led to concerts at Cardiff Arms Park, the Royal Albert Hall and opening for Shirley Bassey in Antwerp. She also received a vocal scholarship to Howell's School Llandaff in Cardiff where she started in 1998 after leaving The Cathedral School, Llandaff. She balanced performing and school with help from tutors for when she was on the road and said in many interviews that she was "just like every other girl her age". 1998–2005: Classical career. As a classical music singer, Church used to sing in English, Welsh, Latin, Italian and French. She was then introduced to the Cardiff impresario Jonathan Shalit, who became her manager and negotiated a contract with Sony Music. Her first album, "Voice of an Angel", was a collection of arias, sacred songs, and traditional pieces that sold millions worldwide and made her the youngest artist with a No. 1 album on the British classical crossover charts. Church appeared on US Public Broadcasting Service(PBS) specials. Her self-titled second album also included operatic, religious and traditional tracks. One, the soaring and inspirational "Just Wave Hello", was the centre piece of a millennium-themed ad campaign for the Ford Motor Company. The song's full-length video, featuring Church, won acclaim at the Detroit Auto Show and introduced her to new fans. The track reached No. 31 in Britain. In 2000, she released "Dream a Dream", an album of Christmas carols. It included Church's first foray into a more pop-influenced style in the title track "Dream a Dream", borrowing the melody from Fauré's Pavane and featuring young American country singer Billy Gilman. Church also sang with Gilman in "Sleigh Ride" on his CD "Classic Christmas". In 2001, Church added more pop, swing, and Broadway with her album "Enchantment". That year, Church made her first film appearance in the 2001 Ron Howard film "A Beautiful Mind". Celine Dion was beginning a concert engagement in Las Vegas and was not available to perform the film's end title song, "All Love Can Be", so composer James Horner enlisted Church and the song was rewritten for her vocal range. Church also handled other vocal passages throughout the score. In 2002, at 16, she released a "best of" album called "", and took part in the Royal Christmas tour alongside Julie Andrews and Christopher Plummer, concluding her classical music career. 2005–09: Pursuing pop career; "Tissues and Issues". In 2005, Church issued her first pop album "Tissues and Issues." Four singles were moderately successful in the UK with "Crazy Chick" reaching no. 2, "Call My Name" number 10, "Even God Can't Change the Past" number 17, and "Moodswings (to Come at Me like That)" number 14. Although these were released in Australia as well, they failed to reach the same level of success there. Church's pop album was released in the U.S. through Amazon.com MP3 shop, and iTunes in 2009. In April 2006, she performed three concerts in Glasgow, London, and Cardiff, in venues holding between 2,000 and 3,000 people; the dates at London and Cardiff were sold out. Supported by Irish band the New Druids, Church performed a mix of tracks from her debut pop album and a number of pop covers including Prince's "Kiss" and Gloria Estefan's "Rhythm is Gonna Get You". Though Church hinted at the possibility of a full tour in the future, none took place. In November 2006, it was announced that she and Sony had parted ways. According to her publicist, this was a mutual decision reached after a series of meetings throughout the year, which were held since her five and later six album deal had come to an end. There was some speculation that Church had decided to take a break from her singing career, in order to focus on her television show. Others suggested that the performance of her pop releases in the charts also contributed to the decision. Soon, she became pregnant with her daughter, Ruby Megan Henson, and this was widely believed to have contributed to the decision. In 2007, Church became Patron of the charity The Topsy Foundation UK, helping to raise awareness and funds for its work to support rural communities in South Africa, empowering people infected with and affected by HIV and AIDS, through medical care, social support and skills development. Articles emerged in the UK press in March and April 2008 stating that she was still training classically and was contemplating a return to classical crossover at some point. Church has sung in religious services in Taizé. She has also performed before Pope John Paul II, Queen Elizabeth II, the Prince of Wales and Bill Clinton. In June 2008, she again became pregnant, this time with her son, Dexter Lloyd Henson. In Church's latest interview, she mentioned she would be ready to work on more music a few months after she was fully recovered from her second pregnancy, and Dexter was a little bit older, though was not sure whether she would further develop her classical career, her pop career, or both as she loves both genres for different reasons, and plans to work on both genres but needs to be in a creative state of mind to continue work on her second Pop album. Church also mentioned that she has been working with a vocal instructor to keep her voice in check during, and after her second pregnancy, and while she has never put a focus on her body image, she would like to get back into the shape she was in before becoming a mother when she resumes work. In June 2009, Church was interviewed for "Hello!" magazine, and discussed her life since having her second child. She said that she was currently in the studio, resuming work on a new album. She mentioned that her partner, Gavin Henson, had been strongly encouraging her to get back to work, and pursue her career that she has greatly missed since settling down. 2010: Return to Music and "Back to Scratch". Church appeared on "Friday Night With Jonathan Ross" on 13 March 2010, where she confirmed that she had already begun writing and recording her sixth studio album. Church also stated that the album was of a different sound to previous, more mature with a "kooky" vibe. On 4 August 2010, Church made a new track, "Cold California", available to download from her website. Church's new album, "Back to Scratch", was released in the UK on 25 October 2010. The 14-track album was produced by Martin Terefe. "Back to Scratch" was preceded by a single - the LP's title track - on 24 October. "Back to Scratch" was originally inspired "by problems facing a family member", but Church admitted in a press release that the song now has resonance to her own personal life following her split from Gavin Henson. "Back To Scratch" also featured the song "The Actors", which Church performed on BBC One talent contest "Over The Rainbow", and a cover of Joni Mitchell's "River". It was announced on 13 March 2011 that Church had terminated her $3 million (£2 million) deal with Power Amp Music over promotional disputes. Her spokesperson released the following statement: "All I can really say, because of the confidentiality issues, is that it was in Charlotte's financial interests to do so before the agreement entered the second year of its term. This is typical for these type of deals, which are investment deals rather than record deals. I can also say that the decision to terminate the term early, which suited both parties, was made well before the commercial release of the album." A spokesperson from the record label also released a statement saying "It didn't work out with Charlotte and that's fair enough. There was no falling out. It was a mutual decision. They decided to exit the deal." The third single to be released from the album, "Snow" was released on 11 April 2011. 2012–present: "ONE", "TWO" and "THREE". On 26 May 2012, Church premiered three new songs "The Rise", "How Not to be Surprised When You're a Ghost", and "Say It's True" on BBC Radio with Bethan Elfyn. Church released her first EP "ONE" on 4 September 2012. On 19 December 2012, Church released the first single from her second EP, "Glitterbombed" on The Line of Best Fit, an online music magazine. Her second EP "TWO" was released on 4 March 2013. "ONE" and "TWO" were combined for a US release on 12 March 2013. Church promoted "ONE" and "TWO" in the US with her first North American performances in almost a decade. She appeared in New York, Los Angeles, Toronto, and South by Southwest Festival. Her costumes for her North American concerts were designed by Zoe Howerska. Church released the first single from her third EP, "I Can Dream" via Soundcloud on 15 July 2013. Her third EP "THREE" is scheduled for release on 19 August 2013. Acting and television career. Church has made a number of cameo appearances on television. She appeared in the CBS series "Touched by an Angel", starred in the 1999 Christmas special of "Heartbeat", and in 2002, 2003 and 2012 she appeared on episodes of "Have I Got News For You" (the first time as the show's youngest-ever panelist; the second time as host). In 2005 she played herself in an episode of "The Catherine Tate Show", in a sketch with the fictional character Joannie Taylor. In 2008 she appeared briefly in a sketch in "Katy Brand's Big Ass Show". In December 2005, for "The Paul O'Grady Show" Christmas pantomime, "The Wizard of Oz", Church played Dorothy Gale. In January 2010 for "Hospital 24/7", Church made an appearance on the programme finale, where she visits the Children's Hospital for Wales to launch the Noah's Ark Appeals campaign to fund the equipment in the new Critical Care Unit, which will help children needing high dependency, or critical & intensive care. In the summer of 2006, Church began work on her own entertainment TV show, "The Charlotte Church Show". After a pilot episode which caused some controversy and which was never released to the public, the series began on 1 September 2006 on Channel 4. The show, hosted by Church and featuring two celebrity guests each week, involved a mixture of sketches, reality TV, interviews, extremely foul language, and music, as well as a recurring Welsh theme. The show averaged 1.9 million viewers and 10% of the available audience, and on 6 October 2006, it was announced that Channel 4 paid Church a reported £1,200,000 for a further two series of the show. According to her official website, the final series, originally planned for summer of 2007, was deferred until after Church gave birth. Church won a British Comedy Award for "Best Female Comedy Newcomer" in 2006, and the 'Funniest TV Personality' award at the 2006 "Loaded Magazine's" 'LAFTA' awards. In 2008 she was nominated for the "Rose d'Or" Special Award for Best Entertainer. In late June 2008, Channel 4 began showing trials for the series. It has since concluded its eight-show run. Church confirmed on 28 August 2008 that "The Charlotte Church Show" would return for a Christmas special, which aired on 21 December 2008. On "Friday Night with Jonathan Ross", Church revealed that the third series would be shown on Thursday nights beginning on 10 July 2008. The show ended after its third series. Church was confirmed by the BBC in February 2010 to be one of the judges on Andrew Lloyd Webber's new West End revival show "Over The Rainbow". She made her silver screen debut in 2003's "I'll Be There", co-starring and directed by Craig Ferguson. Church played the role of Olivia, the daughter of a washed-up '80s rocker from a one-night-stand, played by Ferguson. The film did not meet with widespread success, playing for only ten days in British cinemas and being released directly to video in the US. Church was also under consideration to appear in the 2004 film adaptation of Andrew Lloyd Webber's "Phantom of the Opera" as the leading female character Christine Daaé but elected not to audition as it was specified she would have to lose weight before she could try out which she declined to do. The part eventually went to Emmy Rossum. Church also stated she had wanted the part of Hermione Granger in the "Harry Potter" series of films, however, at 14 she was too old for the part, which eventually went to Emma Watson. Church sat in for Zoë Ball on BBC Radio 2's Saturday breakfast show on 10 and 17 September 2011. Church performed at the University of Wolverhampton freshers fair in September 2013. Personal life. Church's personal life has often been portrayed in UK tabloid newspapers, inspiring the song "Let's Be Alone" on her album "Tissues and Issues". Church released an autobiography titled "Voice of an Angel (My Life So Far)" at 14, before the release of "Enchantment" and just after she had wrapped up her "Dream a Dream" Christmas CD. Her change of music direction is hinted at in the final chapter, "Turning Corners". She released a second autobiography titled "Keep Smiling" in late 2007, very different in tone from the first. In 2002, she was photographed smoking; many members of her family were heavy smokers, making it difficult for her to quit. Her smoking habit was alluded to on the album "Tissues and Issues", in "Confessional Song". Her weight gain has been mentioned. Church has been quoted as saying, "I'm happy with how I look. I like looking like this. Why change just to be like everyone else? What's the point of that?" In an interview with "Reveal" magazine in June 2006, she said, "I do look a bit of a heifer on telly and in pictures but that's because the camera puts pounds on you." The press devoted much attention to Church's relationship with boyfriend Gavin Henson, a Welsh International rugby union player. At the end of 2005, she bought a property in her native Cardiff—for a reported £500,000—which she later sold for £900,000. The couple then bought a manor with a 20-acre (8 hectare) small holding in the Vale of Glamorgan in the village of St. Bride's Major. The couple mentioned marriage on talk shows and in the press but put off marriage while Church was pregnant. In 2007, Church made another appearance on a British young people's rich list with Henson. They were ranked 49th-richest young people in Britain with an estimated joint wealth of £12 million,
1105179	Morwen B. Thistlethwaite is a knot theorist and professor of mathematics for the University of Tennessee in Knoxville. He has made important contributions to both knot theory and Rubik's Cube group theory. Biography. Morwen Thistlethwaite received his BA from the University of Cambridge in 1967, his MSc from the University of London in 1968, and his PhD from the University of Manchester in 1972 where his advisor was Michael Barratt. He studied piano with Tanya Polunin, James Gibb and Balint Vazsonyi, giving concerts in London before deciding to pursue a career in mathematics in 1975. He taught at the North London Polytechnic from 1975 to 1978 and the Polytechnic of the South Bank, London from 1978 to 1987. He served as a visiting professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara for a year before going to the University of Tennessee, where he currently is a professor. Thistlethwaite's son Oliver is also a mathematician. Work. Tait conjectures. Morwen Thistlethwaite helped prove the Tait conjectures, which are: Morwen Thistlethwaite, along with Louis Kauffman and K. Murasugi proved the first two Tait conjectures in 1987 and Thistlethwaite and William Menasco proved the Tait flyping conjecture in 1991. Thistlethwaite's algorithm. Thistlethwaite also came up with a well-known solution to the Rubik's Cube. The way the algorithm works is by restricting the positions of the cubes into groups of cube positions that can be solved using a certain set of moves. The groups are: The cube is solved by moving from group to group, using only moves in the current group, for example, a scrambled cube likely lies in group G0. A look up table of possible permutations is used that uses quarter turns of all faces to get the cube into group G1. Once in group G1, quarter turns of the up and down faces are disallowed in the sequences of the look-up tables, and the tables are used to get to group G2, and so on, until the cube is solved. Dowker notation. Thistlethwaite, along with Clifford Hugh Dowker, developed Dowker notation, a knot notation suitable for computer use and derived from notations of Tait and Gauss.
1244806	The Education of Shelby Knox is 2005 documentary film that tells the coming-of-age story of public speaker and feminist Shelby Knox, a teenager who joins a campaign for comprehensive sex education in the high schools of Lubbock, Texas. TEOSK was an official selection of the Sundance Film Festival in 2005 and aired on PBS’ "P.O.V." series that same year. It was directed and produced by Marion Lipschutz and Rose Rosenblatt. Overview. Lubbock has some of the highest teen pregnancy and STD rates in the nation, the "solution" to which is a strict abstinence-only sex education curriculum in the public schools and a conservative preacher who urges kids to pledge abstinence until marriage. Shelby Knox is a deeply religious Southern Baptist teenager who joins the Lubbock Youth Commission, a group of high school students representing a youth voice in city government. When the teens confront Lubbock's sexual health crisis and campaign for comprehensive sex education, Knox throws herself into the battle with missionary fervor, struggling to reconcile her newfound political beliefs with her conservative religious views. When the campaign broadens to include a fight for a gay-straight alliance, Knox must confront her family and pastor in this coming-of-age story. Awards. "The Education of Shelby Knox" has received a number of awards: Pop references. The Dixie Chicks' 2006 album "Taking the Long Way" features a track titled "Lubbock or Leave It", which is based on "The Education of Shelby Knox". When the song came out, the group's member Emily Robison told the press: "We'd seen a documentary called "The Education of Shelby Knox", which was about a girl ... trying to get Lubbock to teach sex education in the schools. Lubbock has one of the highest rates of teen pregnancy and STDs in the U.S., so it really showed what happens when you keep that information away from people." Lead singer Natalie Maines, who is from Lubbock, subsequently spoke (during a 2006 episode of "VH1 Storytellers") about watching the film and drawing from her own experiences of living there to write the song. As of June 2011, Shelby Knox is living in New York City and serving as the Director of Organizing, Women's Rights for Change.org.
1044523	"Dr. Terror's House of Horrors" is a 1965 British horror film from Amicus Productions, directed by veteran horror director Freddie Francis, written by Milton Subotsky, and starring Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee. It was the first in a series of anthology films from Amicus and was followed by "Torture Garden" (1967), "The House That Dripped Blood" (1970), "Asylum" (1972), "Tales from the Crypt" (1972), "The Vault of Horror" (1973), "From Beyond the Grave" (1973), "Tales That Witness Madness" (1974), which was not made by Amicus, but World Film Services, "The Uncanny" (1977) which also was not made by Amicus and "The Monster Club" (1980), . Plot. Five men enter a train carriage in London bound for Bradley, and are joined by a sixth, the mysterious Doctor Schreck (Peter Cushing) During the journey, the doctor opens his pack of Tarot cards and proceeds to reveal the destinies of each of the travellers. This provides the framework to tell five horror stories. Werewolf. The first story concerns an architect, Jim Dawson (Neil McCallum), who travels to a Scottish island to his former house to make alterations requested by the new owner, Mrs. Biddulph (Ursula Howells). Mrs. Bidduplh is described as a widow who bought the house to seek solitude to recover from the death of her husband. Behind a fake wall in the cellar, he finds the coffin of Count Cosmo Valdemar, who had owned the house centuries ago. Valdemar was killed in a conflict with the Dawson family, and had vowed to exact revenge on the owner of the house and reclaim his former home. Dawson soon discovers that Valdemar is emerging to take the form of a werewolf in the night, and believes the house maid was killed by him. Believing the owner, Mrs. Biddulph's life to be in danger, he melts a cross made out of silver by his ancestors to protect the house from Valdemar's spirit, to make silver bullets, which according to legend are the only means of killing a werewolf. On the night he encounters the wolf as it is about to attack Mrs. Biddulph and shoots, he is baffled that the bullets don't kill it. Mrs. Biddulph then reveals that she had switched the silver bullets with ordinary ones. She reveals to Dawson that the true legend was that Valdemar would exact revenge on the last descendants of the Dawson clan, and that the placing of Dawson's body in place of Valdemar's in the coffin, would bring Valdemar back to life in human form. She reveals she was Valdemar's wife who had deliberately lured Dawson to kill him, even after 200 years. Creeping Vine. The second story has Bill Rogers (Alan Freeman) and his family returning from vacation to discover a fast-growing vine has installed itself in the garden. When the plant seems to respond violently to attempts to cut it down, Rogers goes to the Ministry of Defence, where he gets advice from a couple of scientists (played by Bernard Lee and Jeremy Kemp). It soon turns out that the plant has become intelligent, and harbours homicidal tendencies towards any threats to its existence. Voodoo. Story three is the intentionally humorous one. Biff Bailey (Roy Castle) is a jazz musician who accepts a gig in the West Indies, and foolishly steals a tune from a local voodoo ceremony. When he tries to use the tune as a melody in a jazz composition back in London, there are dire consequences. Running from an unknown force, Castle's character stumbles against a wall where there is a garish poster for "Dr Terror's House of Horrors". Castle was a last-minute replacement for Acker Bilk, who had suffered a heart attack. Castle's band was played by the Tubby Hayes Quintet, a leading British modern jazz group of the time. Castle, when appearing to play with the band on-screen, actually mimes the trumpet part to the soundtrack recording of trumpeter Shake Keane. Disembodied Hand. Next is the tale of Franklyn Marsh (Christopher Lee), an art critic who seems more concerned with his own devastating wit than art itself. Painter Eric Landor (Michael Gough) bears the brunt of one of Marsh's tirades, but gets even by humiliating the critic publicly. When Landor takes it too far, Marsh responds in violent fashion causing Landor to lose one of his hands. Unable to paint any more, Landor commits suicide. Marsh is then tormented by the disembodied hand, which seems immune to fire as well as escaping attempts at containing it. Vampire. Lastly, Dr. Bob Carroll (Donald Sutherland) returns to his home in the United States with his new French bride Nicolle (Jennifer Jayne). Soon there is evidence that a vampire is on the loose, and Carroll seeks the aid of his colleague Dr. Blake (Max Adrian), only to find out that his bride "is" the vampire. Following Blake's advice, Carroll kills Nicolle. But when the police come to arrest Carroll under the charge of his wife's murder, Blake denies giving any such advice. When the police takes away Carroll, Blake says that there is not enough place in the city for two doctors or two vampires, and he himself turns into a bat. Epilogue. The frame story ends with a twist: From the Tarot cards, the doctor informs the men that the only way they can avoid these horrible destinies is by dying first. When the train stops, the men find out that they are dead, having already perished in a train wreck; and Doctor Schreck is revealed to be Death himself. Production. Filming began on "Dr. Terror's House of Horrors" at Shepperton Studios on 25 May 1964 with a budget of £105,000. The script began as a still-born television series in 1948 during the time when "Dead of Night" was a recent release. Milton Subotsky considered that movie to be "the greatest horror film ever," and used it as a blueprint for "Dr. Terror" and the rest of Amicus' portmanteau films. Filming was completed on 3 July 1964 and was released on 5 February 1965. Cinematic process. "Dr. Terror's House of Horrors" was filmed using the cinematic process known as Techniscope.
724837	Leighton Marissa Meester (born April 9, 1986) is an American actress and singer. Meester starred as Blair Waldorf in the CW's teen drama television series "Gossip Girl", garnering attention and critical acclaim. She has also appeared in the 2010 country drama film "Country Strong", the 2011 thriller "The Roommate", the 2011 romantic-comedy "Monte Carlo", and the 2012 comedies "That's My Boy" and "The Oranges".
1061203	Dyan Cannon (born Samille Diane Friesen; January 4, 1937) is an American film and television actress, director, screenwriter, editor, and producer. Early life. Cannon was born in Washington State in 1937. Her mother Claire (née Portnoy) was a housewife; Cannon's father, Ben, sold life insurance. Cannon was raised in the Jewish faith of her mother, who had emigrated from Russia; Dyan's father was Baptist. She attended West Seattle High School. Her younger brother is jazz bassist David Friesen. Career. Cannon made her screen debut in 1960 in "The Rise and Fall of Legs Diamond"; however her small screen debut was in the late 1950s including a guest appearance on "Bat Masterson" in the 1959 episode entitled "Lady Luck". She made another guest appearance in 1959 on CBS's "" starring Steve McQueen in episode 54 "Vanishing Act" as Nicole McCready. About this time, she also appeared on another CBS western, "Johnny Ringo", starring Don Durant, and on Jack Lord's ABC adventure drama, "Stoney Burke". She portrayed Mona Elliott, with fellow guest star Franchot Tone, in the episode "The Man Behind the Man" of the 1964 CBS drama, "The Reporter", with Harry Guardino in the title role. She also made appearances on "77 Sunset Strip", the perennial western series "Gunsmoke", "The Untouchables" and the syndicated "Two Faces West" in the 1960 episode entitled "Sheriff of the Town". In 1969, Cannon played Alice in the film "Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice". She received Academy Award and Golden Globe nominations for her performance. In 1971, she starred in "The Anderson Tapes" (with Sean Connery), "The Burglars", and "Such Good Friends", receiving a Best Actress Golden Globe nomination for the last performance. Two years later, she was co-starred with Burt Reynolds in "Shamus" and was one of the many stars in "The Last of Sheila". In 1974, she gave a critically acclaimed performance in "Child Under a Leaf". In addition, she became the first Oscar-nominated actress to be nominated in the Best Short Film, Live Action Category for "Number One" (1976), a project which Cannon produced, directed, wrote and edited. It was a story about adolescent sexual curiosity. In 1978, Cannon starred in "Revenge of the Pink Panther". That same year, she appeared in "Heaven Can Wait", for which she received another Oscar nomination and won a Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress.
584159	7G Rainbow Colony is a 2004 Tamil drama film written and directed by Selvaraghavan, starring Ravi Krishna, who debuted in this film, and Sonia Agarwal in lead roles, with music scored by Yuvan Shankar Raja and cinematography handled by Arvind Krishna. The film, released on 15 October 2004, met with critical acclaim and commercial success upon release. Moreover, Ravi Krishna received the Filmfare Best Male Debut (South) for his acting performance, whilst Yuvan Shankar Raja was awarded the Filmfare Best Music Director Award for his highly praised musical score. The film was simultaneously released in Telugu language as "7G Brundhavan Colony". Later it was remade in Bengali Language as Prem Amar which too was very successful and in Oriya as "Balungatoka". It was also remade in Kannada as Gilli. Plot. Kadhir (Ravi Krishna) belongs to a lower middle class family, living with his parents and younger sister in Rainbow Colony. He is perceived as a good for nothing person as he skips classes, fails in exams, and gets involved in fights. Kadhir believes that his father hates him and often quarrels with him, even threatening to leave the house, only to be persuaded not to do so by his mother. Kadhir's life changes when a Hindi speaking North Indian family moves into the same colony. Kadhir is attracted to the daughter of that family, Anita (Sonia Agarwal). Although he tries to woo her, Anita treats him with disdain. Kadhir confesses to Anita that he loves her. He tells her that having always been ridiculed, he found respite in the fact that she at least bothered to look at him. He promises to wipe her thoughts out of his mind, as he is not right for her. Despite himself, Kadhir continues pursuing her. Anita realizes that Kadhir is not such a useless fellow when his best friend tells her that he can dismantle and assemble a motorcycle within minutes. Anita takes Kadhir to a Hero Honda dealer and asks them to offer him a job. He is promised a job if he can assemble a bike. Initially, Kadhir is disinterested and gives up the task. She tells him that she loves him and asks how he would take care of her without a job. Kadhir then demonstrates his skill in motorcycle assembly, securing a job with the dealer. His father is proud of his son for the first time, when Kadhir gives him his offer letter. Though he refuses to openly praise Kadhir, he does so secretly to Kadhir's mother that night. Overhearing the conversation, Kadhir realizes his father's love for him and weeps. The intimacy between Kadhir and Anita is discovered by her mother and she refuses to permit their marriage even as Kadhir's father tries to persuade her otherwise. Anita's family is heavily indebted to another Hindi family that has been supporting them since Anita's father suffered losses in his business. Anita's parents want Anita to marry the son of the family that has helped them. Anita escapes her home and meets Kadhir and they end up in a hotel room. Anita reveals that she has made the biggest decision of her life by deciding to make love to him, as he should not regret falling in love with her when she marries the man her parents chose. Though stunned by her decision, Kadhir makes love to her. The next morning Kadhir and Anita argue when Kadhir says he wants Anita to live with him, while Anita accuses him of being attracted to her only because of the sex. They continue arguing as they exit the hotel. While crossing the road, Anita is knocked down by a truck as a helpless Kadhir watches. Kadhir is also hit by a speeding vehicle. Anita dies on the spot and he tries to commit suicide only to find everyone screaming at him. Kadhir imagines Anita whenever he is lonely and she consoles him in spirit. Soundtrack. For the music, director Selvaraghavan teamed up once again with musician Yuvan Shankar Raja after "Thulluvadho Ilamai" and "Kaadhal Kondein". The soundtrack released on 21 May 2004 and features 10 tracks overall, two of which are Instrumentals. The lyrics were penned by Na. Muthukumar. Yuvan Shankar Raja used live music for the score, for which he worked with a 40-piece orchestra for one month. As it was the case with "Kaadhal Kondein", an "Original Soundtrack", consisting of 25 tracks, which are pieces of the film score and were titled as "Theme Music", was released afterwards. It includes one bit song "Idhu Enna Maatram" (Theme Music 14), sung by legendary singer P. B. Sreenivas. Yuvan Shankar Raja has given a Madhuvanti in "Kanaa Kaanum Kaalangal". Composer Yuvan Shankar Raja received universal critical acclaim for the musical score as the songs and the film score were hailed as "excellent" and the album as a "great" and "must buy". Particularly, the instrumental track in the album was very much lauded, described as "highly innovative" and "eminently haunting" and even hailed as "one of the most haunting instrumental tracks ever". The song became very popular and were topping the charts for some time. Yuvan Shankar Raja received his first Filmfare Best Music Director Award in Tamil for the music, at the age of 25, becoming the youngest composer ever to win this award. Box office. The film opened in 92 screens throughout Tamil Nadu. It grossed $3 million at the box office. Telugu Version. It was a bilingual film taken in Telugu also in the name "7G Brundavan Colony". The Telugu version was the same as the Tamil version. The only difference was that the character played by Ravi Krishna was named Ravi instead of Kadhir. The song "Thalachi Thalachi" known as "Ninaithu Ninaithu Parthel" in the Tamil version had a shorter duration as compared to the Telugu version. the movie received good opening
585837	Kuthiravattam Pappu, often credited as Pappu, was a popular Indian stage and film actor. His repertoire of acting was based on his unique style and use of the "Kozhikodan" dialect, impeccable timing and the capability to grasp the subtle nuances of any character and mould it into his signature "Pappu style". He has acted in over thousand Malayalam films. Early life. Pappu was born as Padmadalakshan in Feroke in Kozhikode, Kerala and was a son of Panagodu Raman and Devi. The family moved to the village of Kuthiravattam (Half a kilometre from Govindapuram), Kozhikode when Pappu was still a child. He was keen in acting since childhood and performed his first major stage performance when he was 17. At that time he was studying in Kozhikode St. Antony's School. Career. Pappu started his career as a drama artist. He acted in about thousand instant plays and two professional dramas, "Samasya" and "Manasu". His role in the drama "Samasya" fetched him the Best Comedian Award.
1062091	John Peter Sarsgaard (; born March 7, 1971) is an American film and stage actor. He landed his first feature role in the movie "Dead Man Walking" in 1995. He then appeared in the 1998 independent films "Another Day in Paradise" and "Desert Blue". That same year, Sarsgaard received a substantial role in "The Man in the Iron Mask" (1998), playing Raoul, the ill-fated son of Athos. Sarsgaard later achieved critical recognition when he was cast in "Boys Don't Cry" (1999) as John Lotter. He landed his first leading role in the 2001 film "The Center of the World". The following year, he played supporting roles in "Empire", "The Salton Sea", and "". For his portrayal of Charles Lane in "Shattered Glass", Sarsgaard won the National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Supporting Actor and was nominated for the 2004 Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor. Sarsgaard has appeared in an eclectic range of films, including the 2004 comedy-drama "Garden State", the biographical film "Kinsey" (2004), the drama "The Dying Gaul" (2005) and big-budget films such as "Flightplan" (2005), "Jarhead" (2005), "Orphan" (2009), "Knight and Day" (2010), and the superhero film "Green Lantern" (2011). Sarsgaard has also appeared in Off-Broadway productions including "Kingdom of Earth", "Laura Dennis", and "Burn This". In September 2008, he made his Broadway debut as Boris Alexeyevich Trigorin in "The Seagull". Sarsgaard appeared in the off-Broadway production of "Uncle Vanya" in January 2009. Sarsgaard is married to actress Maggie Gyllenhaal. They have two daughters. Early life. Sarsgaard was born at Scott Air Force Base, Illinois, the son of Judy Lea ("née" Reinhardt) and John Dale Sarsgaard. His father was an Air Force engineer and later worked for Monsanto and IBM. He is of Danish, German, Norwegian, Austrian, Ulster-Scots, English, and Irish ancestry (his surname originates in Denmark, where two of his paternal great-great-grandparents were born). Sarsgaard was raised a Roman Catholic and served as an altar boy. His family moved more than 12 times during his childhood, following his father's job. At the age of 7, Sarsgaard originally wanted to become a soccer player and took up ballet to help improve his coordination. After suffering several bad concussions while playing soccer, he gave up the sport and became interested in writing and theater. Sarsgaard attended Fairfield College Preparatory School, a private Jesuit boys' school in Connecticut, where he became interested in movies. Following his graduation from Fairfield Prep, he attended Bard College in New York for two years before transferring to Washington University in St. Louis in 1991, where he co-founded an improvisational comedy troupe "Mama's Pot Roast." While at Washington University, Sarsgaard began performing in plays in an offshoot of New York's Actors Studio; His first role was as the servant Lawrence in Molière's "Tartuffe". In 1993, he graduated with a degree in history and moved to New York. Career. Early work. Sarsgaard branched out with guest roles in television productions filmed in New York City, with "Law & Order" in 1995, and "New York Undercover" (1997) as well as an appearance in the 1997 HBO special "Subway Stories". He appeared in his first film role in "Dead Man Walking" (1995), where he was cast as a murdered teenager, killed by Sean Penn's character. His next film roles were in a series of independent features: "Another Day in Paradise" (1997), part of an ensemble cast that included James Woods, Melanie Griffith, Vincent Kartheiser, and Natasha Gregson Wagner, and In "Desert Blue" (1998), where he had a supporting role in the film. He received his substantial role in the 1998 film "The Man in the Iron Mask", where he played Raoul, the ill-fated son of John Malkovich's dueling Musketeer, Athos. The film uses characters from Alexandre Dumas' d'Artagnan Romances, and is very loosely adapted from some plot elements of "The Vicomte de Bragelonne". The film received ambivalent reviews, but was a success at the box office, earning $182 million worldwide. Critical success. In 1999, Sarsgaard earned critical recognition in Kimberly Peirce's "Boys Don't Cry", where he was cast as notorious killer John Lotter. The film is based on the real-life story of Brandon Teena, a transman who was raped and murdered in 1993 by Lotter and Tom Nissen after they found out that he was actually a woman posing as a man. "Boys Don’t Cry" received overwhelmingly positive acclaim from critics, and his performance was critically well received. According to "The Boston Globe", "Peter Sarsgaard ... makes the killer's terrible trajectory not only believable, but grounded in the most mundane clodhopper behavior. He isn't a drooling monster, he's a guy you wouldn't look twice at a bar or a convenience store." A contributor from the "Seattle Post-Intelligencer" wrote "It's a marvelous performance supported ably by ... Sarsgaard as the unpredictable, sociopathic Lotter." The film was screened at a special presentation at the 2000 Venice Film Festival. In regards to his character, as how Sarsgaard made him "likeable, sympathetic even" was because he wanted the audience "to understand why they would hang out with me. If my character wasn't necessarily likable, I wanted him to be charismatic enough that you weren't going to have a dull time if you were with him." In another interview, Sarsgaard said he felt "empowered" by playing Lotter. His first leading role was in the 2001 feature "The Center of the World", where he plays Richard Longman, a lonely young entrepreneur who skips out on his company's big initial public offering and pays a stripper (Molly Parker) $10,000 to fly to Las Vegas with him. The film received average reviews, however, A.O. Scott of the "New York Times", reported that the performances by both Sarsgaard and Parker "provide a rough grain of authenticity, capturing the blunted affect and aimless neediness of people in their 20s struggling to navigate a world of material abundance and impoverished emotional possibility." Scott concluded in his recap that Sarsgaard made his character "seem like a genuinely nice guy, too innocent to grasp the sleaziness of his bargain with Florence." In 2002, Sarsgaard starred in three films, "", "Empire" and "The Salton Sea". In "K-19: The Widowmaker", he portrayed a young Russian navy lieutenant. The film's budget cost was $100 million to make, but upon release, it grossed $35 million in the United States and $30 million internationally, qualifying it as a box office failure. His next role was in "Empire", a crime thriller, where he was cast in a supporting role. Sarsgaard played a meth addict in D. J. Caruso's "The Salton Sea". Worldwide recognition. 2003 marked a significant turning point in Sarsgaard's career, when he starred in the feature film "Shattered Glass". He depicted journalist Charles Lane, the lead editor of "The New Republic". "Shattered Glass" is based on the real events of journalist Stephen Glass' career at "The New Republic" during the mid-1990s and his fall when his widespread journalistic fraud is exposed. During promotion of the film, Sarsgaard noted of his portrayal of Lane: "I just wanted to get his perspective on the actual events. [...] I think that I tried to have some respect for myself and that way you're respecting the real person you're playing. I've done it a number of times. And it's always a little bit confusing. The best thing to do is just to ignore the fact, I think, that you're playing somebody who is a real life character." According to the "San Diego Union-Tribune", "Peter Sarsgaard is appealingly level, a stolid straight-shooter as Lane". A reviewer from the "Chicago Tribune" noted that Sarsgaard plays Lane with "great subtlety and grace". The newspaper concluded with, "The character doesn't seethe with personal resentment; when he does a slow burn, he conveys a much deeper sense of a man's value system being violated past the breaking point." Sarsgaard's performance in the film earned him his first Golden Globe Award nomination and an Independent Spirit Award nomination. Following the success of "Shattered Glass", Sarsgaard starred in several roles. In 2004, he starred in the comedy-drama "Garden State", where he played Mark, the sarcastic best friend to Zach Braff's character. In the same year, Sarsgaard portrayed Clyde Martin, in the biographical film "Kinsey", a movie about the life of Alfred Kinsey, played by Liam Neeson. "Kinsey" was Sarsgaard's first film role which featured full frontal nudity. Paul Clinton of CNN reported that Sarsgaard's Clyde Martin "stands out" and "confirms that he's without doubt one of the best character actors of his generation." When asked about his kissing scenes with Neeson in "Kinsey", Sarsgaard said: It wasn’t as hard as, say, running around with all my gear on in "Jarhead". I’d rather go for an awkward moment than physical exertion any day. The only thing that I think actors get freaked out about when they have to do something like kiss a guy in a movie—when to their knowledge they’re straight—is that they’re afraid they’re going to be turned on. And if you’re not afraid that you’re going to be turned on—meaning that you know what you like—then really it’s not that hard. In 2005, Sarsgaard starred in the drama "The Dying Gaul", where he plays Robert Sandrich, a struggling screenwriter who has written a serious love story about a man and his terminally ill partner. The film garnered favorable reviews. In an interview, Sarsgaard said, he felt like he was playing a character based on Craig Lucas, the director, whom he describes as "elitist in a fun way". Because his character, a screenwriter, is also "elitist," when he sells his soul by compromising his artistic vision, "...the conflict seems bigger. Anyone can sell their soul. Even people with integrity. There's always that temptation to guard against. Which is why it's best to keep as much as possible hidden." Also in 2005, he had a supporting role in the suspense film "The Skeleton Key". His next film role was in Robert Schwentke's thriller "Flightplan" (2005). In the film, Sarsgaard played an air marshall, who is ordered to keep guard of Jodie Foster's character. "Flightplan" was screened at a special presentation at the 30th annual Toronto International Film Festival in 2005. Despite the mixed reviews, the film was a financial success, earning $223 million worldwide, making it his highest grossing film to the end of 2008. Sarsgaard's next feature was in "Jarhead" (2005) opposite Jake Gyllenhaal. The movie is based on U.S. Marine Anthony Swofford's 2003 Gulf War memoir of the same name. Sarsgaard hosted "Saturday Night Live" ("SNL") on January 21, 2006. In his introductory monologue, he tried to point out that he was a nice guy despite his sometimes macabre roles. Video clips were then played of Sarsgaard scaring the "SNL" cast. One sketch featured the Severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) global scare, which was still fresh in many minds, and one of the skits included a promotion for the Peter Sarsgaard "SARS-Guard", a reference to the mania of facemasks worn in public by those fearing infection. In 2007, he starred in supporting roles in "Year of the Dog" and "Rendition". "Year of the Dog" is a dark comedy about a lonely middle-aged woman, played by Molly Shannon, who finds that animals are the only beings she can truly rely on. Sarsgaard plays Newt, an androgynous dog trainer, and love interest for Shannon's character. He starred alongside Meryl Streep, Alan Arkin, Reese Witherspoon, and Jake Gyllenhaal in "Rendition", a Gavin Hood-directed political thriller about the US policy of extraordinary rendition. Viewed as a sex symbol, Sarsgaard was named one of Salon.com's Sexiest Man Living in 2007. 2008 saw Sarsgaard star in the drama "Elegy", based on a Phillip Roth novel, "The Dying Animal". The film received favorable good reception amongst critics. In 2009, Sarsgaard starred alongside Jon Foster and Sienna Miller in the drama "The Mysteries of Pittsburgh". It is an adaptation of Michael Chabon's novel of the same name. In the movie, Sarsgaard plays Cleveland, the rebellious bisexual boyfriend of Miller's character. "The Mysteries of Pittsburgh" premiered at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival. His next film appearance was in the thriller "Orphan", where he and Vera Farmiga play a married couple who lose a baby and adopt a nine-year-old girl, who is not as innocent as she claims to be. Furthermore in the same year, Sarsgaard starred as David in Lone Scherfig's coming of age film "An Education". The role required Sarsgaard to speak in a British accent. "An Education" drew favorable reviews from critics. According to "Variety", "Sarsgaard ... marvelously expresses the savoir faire that has such an impact on Jenny Mulligan." Sarsgaard played a federal agent in the action comedy film "Knight and Day", released in June 2010, in which he appeared alongside Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz. In February 2010, it was announced that Sarsgaard had been cast as villain Hector Hammond in the superhero film "Green Lantern". The film was released in 2011. Stage career. In 1995, Sarsgaard made his theatrical debut in the Off-Broadway production of Horton Foote's "Laura Dennis", which was directed by James Houghton. Ben Brantley of "The New York Times" wrote: "Mr. Sarsgaard ... emerges as an actor to watch with a performance of breathtaking emotional conviction." The following year he starred in "Kingdom of Earth" opposite Cynthia Nixon and directed by John Cameron Mitchell. His performance in the play received favorable reviews amongst critics. In October 2002, Sarsgaard returned to theater in a New York production of Lanford Wilson's "Burn This", where he replaced Edward Norton. In 2008, Sarsgaard made his Broadway debut at the Royal Court Theatre of Anton Chekhov's adaptation "The Seagull" alongside Kristin Scott Thomas, Mackenzie Crook and Carey Mulligan. In the production, he plays, Boris Alexeyevich Trigorin, a tortured writer who drives a rival to suicide and a young lover to ruin. For the role, Sarsgaard had been required to speak in a British accent, in which he wanted it to be "less liked by an American audience". Sarsgaard played Mikhail Lvovich Astrov, a country doctor and philosopher, in the Classic Stage Company's 2009 off-Broadway production of Anton Chekhov's "Uncle Vanya" in New York City. The cast also included Maggie Gyllenhaal, Mamie Gummer, Denis O'Hare, and George Morfogen. The production, directed by Austin Pendleton, began previews on January 17 and ended its limited run on March 1. Joe Dziemianowicz of the "New York Daily News" gave the production one out of four stars, but complimented his performance, writing that Sarsgaard does a "credible job as the doctor". In the Bloomberg review of "Uncle Vanya", John Simon, wrote: "Sarsgaard can't find the right tempi or emphases: shuttling between colorless rattle and silence-studded rallentandos, he fails at both infectious enthusiasm and self- effacing charm." In May 2010, it was reported that Sarsgaard will star in Chekhov's play "Three Sisters". The production is scheduled to begin in 2011, and Sarsgaard will reunited with "Uncle Vanya" director Austin Pendleton. Personal life. In an interview with the "New York Times", when asked if he still had Catholic faith, Sarsgaard said: "I like the death-cult aspect of Catholicism. Every religion is interested in death, but Catholicism takes it to a particularly high level. [...] Seriously, in Catholicism, you're supposed to love your enemy. That really impressed me as a kid, and it has helped me as an actor. [...] The way that I view the characters I play is part of my religious upbringing. To abandon curiosity in all personalities, good or bad, is to give up hope in humanity." Among his most notable romantic relationships, Sarsgaard dated burlesque dancer Dita Von Teese and model and actress Shalom Harlow. Early in his film career, he dated photographer Malerie Marder, a close friend from his days attending Bard College, who had featured Sarsgaard in some of her early work. Sarsgaard has been in a relationship with actress Maggie Gyllenhaal, the sister of his close friend Jake Gyllenhaal, since 2002. In April 2006, they announced their engagement, and on May 2, 2009, they married in a small ceremony in Brindisi, Italy. They have two daughters, Ramona, born October 3, 2006, and Gloria Ray, born April 19, 2012. The family lives in Brooklyn, New York. In June 2013, Sarsgaard and numerous other celebrities appeared in a video showing support for Bradley Manning.
1057124	200 Cigarettes is a 1999 American comedy and drama film directed by Risa Bramon Garcia, and written by Shana Larsen. The film is a mosaic following multiple characters in New York City on New Year's Eve 1981. It features an ensemble cast, including Ben Affleck, Casey Affleck, Dave Chappelle, Guillermo Díaz, Angela Featherstone, Janeane Garofalo, Gaby Hoffmann, Kate Hudson, Courtney Love, Jay Mohr, Martha Plimpton, Christina Ricci and Paul Rudd. The film also features a cameo by Elvis Costello, as well as paintings by Sally Davies. Plot. The film follows various plot arcs all occurring on New Year's Eve of 1981. Monica (Plimpton) is throwing a big New Year's bash and is desperately afraid no one will attend. Early on the only person to have arrived is her friend Hillary (Kellner). As she tries to convince Hillary to stay, we learn about various other groupings of individuals who are all on their way. The film follows several characters as they spend New Year's Eve in New York City before eventually showing up at Monica's party. The characters are: Val (Ricci) and Stephie (Hoffmann), teens from Ronkonkoma who get lost in the seedy Alphabet City section of the borough and wander into a punk club where they meet Dave (Diaz) and Tom (Casey Affleck), who have a "package" they need to deliver; ditsy and awkward Cindy (Hudson) who is on a dinner date with the paranoid Jack (Mohr); Lucy (Love) and her best friend Kevin (Rudd) who are struggling with the sexual tension between them; Kevin's feminist ex girlfriend Ellie (Garofalo), who walks in on Kevin and Lucy mid-coitus in a restroom stall; a dim-witted and flirtatious bartender (Ben Affleck); competitive friends Bridget (Parker) and Caitlyn (Featherstone) who attempt to ditch Bridget's boyfriend Eric (McCardie) (who is also Monica's ex boyfriend); and the eccentric cab driver (Chappelle) who takes them all around town throughout the evening in his disco themed taxi. Eventually, all the characters find their way to the party, although in the meantime Monica has passed out after drowning her sorrows in alcohol. She wakes up the next morning to find many unrecognizable people on her floor, including Stephie who tells her what a big hit her party was. Monica is thrilled (even though she missed it all), especially when she finds out that Elvis Costello showed up. The final montage shows Polaroids of the party, narrated by the disco cabbie, mostly featuring the unlikely romances from the party and the unconscious Monica being propped up by her party guests. Release. The film received generally negative reviews and grossed $6.8 million in the United States before video release.
1017729	Come Drink with Me is a 1966 Hong Kong "wuxia" film directed by King Hu. Set during the Ming Dynasty, it stars Cheng Pei-pei and Yueh Hua as warriors with Chan Hung-lit as the villain, and features action choreography by Han Ying-chieh. It is widely considered one of the best Hong Kong films ever made. The film was selected as the Hong Kong entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 39th Academy Awards, but was not accepted as a nominee. Plot. A general’s son is taken hostage and used as leverage to free a bandit leader. The general’s other offspring, a girl named Golden Swallow, is sent to rescue the son. When the bandit gang encounter the Golden Swallow in a local inn, the prisoner negotiation escalates to bloodshed and the goons are swiftly defeated. A local drunk beggar named Fan Da-Pei acts as Golden Swallow’s guardian angel, secretly helping her avoid being ambushed at night. That morning Fan Da-Pei, whom we now know only as “Drunken Cat” tips off Golden Swallow to the bandits whereabouts. They have occupied a Buddhist monastery. Under the guise of an acolyte, Golden Swallow penetrates the temple and confronts the man who’s taken her brother hostage. During the brawl she is injured by a deadly, poisoned dart. She escapes and is rescued in the woods by Fan who nurses her back to health. While she’s convalescing, Golden Swallow learns that Fan is actually a martial arts master and a leader of a Kung Fu society, which he otherwise keeps a secret. The monastery is led by an evil abbot, Liao Kung, who is also a kung fu master and has allied himself with the bandits. He finds out that the beggar carries a bamboo staff, and then realises that the beggar is the former student of the same master. The abbot has in fact killed their master in order to get his bamboo staff, which was rescued by Fan Da-Pei. Now Liao Kung sees the opportunity to gain control of the staff. Fan Da-Pei is hesitant to confront Liao Kung for two reasons. First, Liao Kung’s kung fu skills are unparalleled, and he thinks he has no chances against him, or at the very least, one of them would not survive a confrontation. Second, despite his evil ways, Liao Kung has actually done a good deed to Fan Da-Pei: he persuaded the master to accept Fan Da-Pei into the Green Wand Kung-Fu school when he was a mere homeless orphan, thus giving him a chance in life. For this reason, Fan is reluctant to fight the abbot even though Fan knows about the abbot’s criminal deeds. In order to release the General’s son, Fan stages a prisoner exchange. During the exchange, the government soldiers receive the General’s son, but Fan prevents the bandits from releasing their leader. As the government soldiers march the bandit leader back to prison, the bandits attack the procession. Golden Swallow, leading her female warriors, fights off the bandits. The evil abbot forces a showdown with Fan Da-Pei. Production notes. Jackie Chan is rumoured to have appeared as one of the child singers near the beginning of the film. Lead actress Cheng Pei-pei denied this in the audio commentary to the Hong Kong DVD release of the film. Still, the film is listed among Chan's acting credits on his official website and autobiography. Director King Hu told critic Tony Rayns (quoted in Bey Logan's book) that he had deliberately chosen a ballet dancer for the lead female role, "... rather than fighting. I'm very interested in Peking opera and particularly its movement and action effects, although I think it's difficult to express them adequately on stage, where the physical limitations are too great." King Hu was said to recognise that some of the fights are stylised as opposed to realistic but claimed that combat in his movies was "always keyed to the notion of dance." This movie was a great success upon its release in Hong Kong and made a star of Cheng Pei-pei and others. The original film was followed by a sequel, "Golden Swallow" again with Cheng Pei-pei but with Jimmy Wang as the lead actor. Rumors of a remake. Producers Bob and Harvey Weinstein announced in April 2007 that they would invest in movies with Asian themes. One of the movies they announced was a remake of "Come Drink with Me", directed by Quentin Tarantino. However, little has been heard of the project since then, and in June 2008, Tarantino announced his next project would be "Inglourious Basterds", leaving the status of the remake undisclosed. Recent re-releases. In 2003, IVL (through Celestial Pictures) released a digitally restored version of this classic film with a new trailer and interviews, including Cheng Pei-pei. On May 27, 2008, Dragon Dynasty released their own edition with an improved transfer, the original Mandarin mono soundtrack and exclusive supplements, including a newly-recorded audio commentary with Bey Logan and Cheng Pei-pei, trailers, a retrospective with Bey Logan and interviews with the cast (Cheng Pei-pei, Yueh Hua) and director King Hu.
583815	Monisha En Monalisa is a Tamil film released in 1999 directed and produced by T. Rajendar. His son, Silambarasan starred in a cameo role in the film, whilst debutants, Ramanakanth and Mumtaj played the lead roles. The film received primarily poor reviews upon release, with one reviewer labelling it the "low point of Tamil cinema." Production. The song "Tholaipesi Enna" was shot at a grand budget of 10 million rupees but the film had troubles when a flood that hit Chennai washed away a set erected on the banks of the Cooum. During the production of the film, the film was renamed from "Monisha" to "Monisha En Monalisa" due to astrological reasons.
589298	David Abraham Cheulkar (1909–December 28, 1981), popularly known as David, was a Jewish-Indian, Hindi film actor. In a career spanning four decades, he played mostly character roles, starting with 1941 film "Naya Sansar", and went on to act in over 110 films, including memorable films like, "Gol Maal" (1979), "Baton Baton Mein" (1979) and "Boot Polish" (1954) for which he was awarded the 1955 Filmfare Best Supporting Actor Award. Career. A member of Mumbai's Marathi speaking Bene Israel community, he was actively associated with IPTA, a theatre organization and hence went on take part of many Khwaja Ahmad Abbas's films, including, Palme d'Or nominee "Pardesi" (1957), "Shehar Aur Sapna" (1963), which won the 1964 National Film Award for Best Feature Film, "Munaa" and "Char Dil Char Raahein". Strongly associated with friendly uncle roles, David is best known for his portrayal of "John Chacha" in the 1954 hit and Filmfare Award for Best Film winner and Palme d'Or nominee, "Boot Polish", directed by Prakash Arora, for which he won the 1955 Filmfare Best Supporting Actor Award. The song "Nanhe Munne Bachche" from the film, picturized with him became a memorable song of that era. In his prime, in the period 1959-1975, David was one of the best and the well-known anchor, compere and the host of the prominent award shows and other functions. In one of the speeches Jawaharlal Nehru, the prime minister, told any of the event will be surely be incomplete without David's speech. He was involved in promoting sports, and later became India's Olympic Games representative He was awarded the Padma Shri award in 1969 by Government of India. He never married and died on 28 December 1981 in Toronto, Canada of heart attack at the age of 73.
521927	Kisapmata is a 1981 drama film directed by Mike de Leon, written by de Leon and Clodualdo del Mundo Jr., and based on Nick Joaquin's 1968 article entitled "The House on Zapote Street". It was a breakthrough film as it was the first major treatment of incest in Philippine cinema. The movie was both a critical and box-office success, establishing De Leon as one of the great directors of the new generation. The movie garnered 10 major awards in FAMAS, was presented in Cannes in the Director's Fortnight, and was adjudged by the Manunuri ng Pelikulang Pilipino as one of the 10 Best Films of the 1980s. The film deals with some strong themes including incest, murder, suicide and parricide. Summary. Dadong Carandang (Silayan), a retired police officer, is the domineering father of Mila (Santos), and he is extremely jealous of the latter's suitors, never allowing them into his house. One day, Mila falls in love with Noel Manalansan (Ilagan) and they decide to seek Dadong's permission to get married. Mila finds out she is pregnant. Dadong agrees on the condition that Noel pay a ridiculously costly dowry as well as shoulder a luxurious wedding. Noel agrees and works hard to meet Dadong's demands. After the wedding, Dadong insists that the couple stay in his house. Despite protestations by the couple, they acquiesce. The couple is not allowed to sleep together for various reasons, i.e., that Mila's mother Dely (Solis) is sick and Mila needs to comfort her through the night. After several months of living in this misery, the couple decide to escape. They were hunted by Dadong, to no avail. One day Dadong changes his tactic and makes some compromises to bring them back. Eventually, the couple decide to go back to Dadong's house, but only to gather their belongings. Dadong pleads with Mila not to leave as it is revealed that he has been carrying out an incestuous relationship with his daughter all along, and the baby is his. When Mila and Noel stand firm on leaving, Dadong is driven to desperation and brings out his gun, shooting Dely, Noel, and then finally, Mila. Seeing to no longer consume himself in such obsession, he shoots himself. Awards and nominations. It won a total of 8 Gawan Urian Awards and received 1 FAMAS award nomination. Trivia. The movie's title became the title of a hit song by the Filipino band Rivermaya.
1165530	Mary Eleanor Donahue (born April 19, 1937), best known as Elinor Donahue, is an American actress. The naturally red-headed Donahue played Robert Young's eldest/popular daughter, Betty Anderson, on the 1950s sitcom, "Father Knows Best". She was married for nearly thirty years to producer Harry Ackerman, whom she met on the set of that series. She and Harry Ackerman had three children together: Peter, James, and Christopher Ackerman. Early life and career. Donahue was born in Tacoma, Washington, the daughter of Doris Genevieve (née Gelbaugh) and Thomas William Donahue. Her mother was a theatrical costumer, who moonlighted as a department store saleswoman in order to pay for her daughter's dancing lessons. Appearing in dancing-chorus film roles from the age of five, Donahue was at one point a ballet-school classmate of future Fred Astaire partner Barrie Chase. Donahue was a child actor working in vaudeville and had several bit parts in movies as a teenager, including "Love Is Better Than Ever" (1952), starring Elizabeth Taylor. Father Knows Best. Donahue achieved stardom for her role as the elder daughter, Betty, on the television family series "Father Knows Best". Her co-stars were Robert Young, Jane Wyatt, Billy Gray, as her brother, James "Bud" Anderson, Jr., and Lauren Chapin, as the younger sister, Kathy or "Kitten". Donahue has had roles on many television programs. She was a musical judge in ABC's "Jukebox Jury" (1953–54). While in the first season of "Father Knows Best" she also appeared on "The Ray Bolger Show", starring Ray Bolger as a song-and-dance man. Thereafter, she was cast with James Best, Ann Doran, and J. Carrol Naish in the 1956 episode "The White Carnation" of the religion anthology series, "Crossroads". She also guest starred on John Bromfield's syndicated crime drama, "U.S. Marshal". Donahue portrayed Georgiana Balanger in the 1960 episode "Dennis and the Wedding" on the CBS sitcom, "Dennis the Menace", with Jay North as the mischievous Dennis Mitchell. Balanger is the niece of Joseph Kearns's character, George Wilson, and Dennis is the ringbearer at her wedding. Donahue was also cast in 1960 with Marion Ross in an episode ("Duet") of the syndicated crime drama series "The Brothers Brannagan". She played Miriam Welby on ABC's "The Odd Couple", Jane Mulligan on "Mulligan's Stew", and Nurse Hunnicut on "Days of our Lives". Donahue was featured in several episodes of CBS's "The Andy Griffith Show" as pharmacist Ellie Walker, even getting a mention in the opening credits. The character was intended to be a love interest for Sheriff Andy Taylor, but after one season (1960–1961), Donahue decided to ask for a release from her three-year contract. In 1963, Donahue was cast in an episode of NBC's short-lived modern western series, "Redigo", with Richard Egan as the rancher Jim Redigo. In 1964, she appeared as Melanie in "The Secret in the Stone" in the NBC medical drama dealing with psychiatry, "The Eleventh Hour", starring Jack Ging and Ralph Bellamy. In the 1964–65 season, Donahue costarred as Joan Randall, the daughter of Walter Burnley, played by John McGiver, on the CBS sitcom, "Many Happy Returns" about the complaint department of a fictitious Los Angeles department store. Mark Goddard played her husband, Bob Randall, later a cast member of "Lost in Space". Donahue guest appeared on "Star Trek" in the second-season episode "" in 1967. She played Commissioner Nancy Hedford alongside Glenn Corbett as Zefram Cochrane, the inventor of the warp drive. Donahue portrayed Miriam Welby in 17 episodes of "The Odd Couple" (1972–75).
1065267	James Michael "Jimmy" Bennett (born February 9, 1996) is an American actor and musician. He is known for his roles as a child actor in "Daddy Day Care", "Hostage", "Poseidon", "Orphan" and as young James T. Kirk in the 2009 film "Star Trek". He also starred in "No Ordinary Family" as JJ Powell, a teenager gifted with vast intelligence after a plane crash. Life and career. Bennett was born in Seal Beach, California, and now lives with his parents and his sister in Huntington Beach, California, where the family runs a hard rock themed crepe restaurant. When not acting, Bennett plays guitar and sings on his official YouTube channel. He also wrote and performed the song "Summer Never Ends" which can be heard at the end of "Shorts". Bennett appeared in nearly 30 adverts, as well as in episodes of the television series "The Guardian" and "Strong Medicine", before being cast in the role "Tony", the boy who wants to be The Flash, in the Eddie Murphy comedy "Daddy Day Care". He had smaller roles in the movies "" and "Arthur Hailey's Detective". He has also appeared in " ", ' and "Everwood", and lent his voice to characters in the animated films "The Polar Express", ' and "I Want a Dog for Christmas, Charlie Brown". He has been nominated for Young Artist Awards five times. In 2005, Bennett appeared in the film "Hostage", where he starred with Bruce Willis, and "The Amityville Horror" remake, where he played the role of the middle child of a family moving into a haunted house. The films were released in March and April, respectively. He was called "Jimmy Two-Takes" on the set of "Hostage", because of his ability to deliver his lines perfectly. In February 2006, Bennett appeared in the thriller "Firewall", where he played the son of Harrison Ford's character. He also played an abused boy named Jeremiah (aged 7) sharing the role with Dylan and Cole Sprouse playing the older Jeremiah (aged 11) in "The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things", an independent film that was released a month after "Firewall". Also in 2006, he voiced Roo in the Disney/Square-Enix video game "Kingdom Hearts II" and appeared in "Poseidon", a remake of the 1972 film "The Poseidon Adventure". His 2007 roles included "South of Pico", an independent film, and "Evan Almighty", a sequel to the 2003 film "Bruce Almighty". He appeared as a young James T. Kirk in the 2009 "Star Trek" movie. He also starred in the 2009 film "Orphan" and the TV series "No Ordinary Family". Bennett also starred in the film "Bones", featuring him alongside famed Ozzy Osbourne guitarist and Black Label Society frontman Zakk Wylde. Bones is described as a "heartbreaking coming-of-age story of four teens growing up in 1989 blue-collar Long Island, New York, and the bond that would tie them together for life." It is noteworthy that in 2009, Jimmy Bennett starred in the leading role of the movie "Alabama Moon". In August 2011, Bennett released his debut single "Over Again" and the accompanying music video.
582107	Karan Arjun is an Indian Bollywood action thriller film starring Raakhee, Salman Khan, Shahrukh Khan, Amrish Puri, Kajol, Mamta Kulkarni and Ranjeet. The film was directed by Rakesh Roshan and written by Ravi Kapoor and Sachin Bhowmick. "Karan Arjun" is a mix of an upbeat Bollywood musical, religious overtones and an action movie. The film was the second the biggest hit of 1995. At the end of the run, it was declared a "Blockbuster". Plot. Durga Singh is a poor woman raising her two beloved sons Karan and Arjun. Her sons give her bangles, which she says she shall give to the women they marry. Later, when the Munim of an aging Thakur comes to talk to Durga, Karan and Arjun learn that their father is dead. Durga reveals that their father was the Thakur's son, who had married her against his father's wishes. Durjan Singh, a servant of Thakur, killed Durga's husband to prevent him, Durga or their sons from inheriting the Thakur's estate. Karan and Arjun learn from her that the dying Thakur wants to give his estate to his grandchildren before dying. Durjan kills his master when he learns this. He then brutally murders both Karan and Arjun in front of Durga. Durga cannot accept that her sons have died and prays to bring them back. Miraculously, Durga's prayers are heard and her sons are reborn but into different families with no knowledge of their past lives - Durga is unaware of this miracle. For 20 years she keeps persuading the people of her village that Karan and Arjun will come back. Durjan and his family mockingly give her garlands to put on her picture of Karan and Arjun - Durga vows to place the garlands over their dead bodies. Arjun is reincarnated as Vijay. He falls in love with Sonia but neither knows that Sonia is to marry Durjan Singh's son, Suraj. Karan is reincarnated as Ajay. He soon works for Saxena, Sonia's father and Durjan's partner. Karan and Arjun still have nightmares about their deaths in previous lives, and don't know why. On learning about Vijay, Suraj attempts to kill him. However, at Sonia and Suraj's engagement party, Vijay arrives and attacks Suraj. Ajay is sent to kill Vijay and the two start fighting. Durga is given a sign of this when her photo of her sons falls. She rushes to the temple and prays. Vijay and Ajay suddenly stop fighting. Saxena tries to shoot Vijay but Ajay stops him whilst shouting for Arjun to run. This is something that Ajay had said to Vijay in their previous births when they were being attacked by Durjan's men. Ajay is sent to prison while Vijay escapes. Vijay is confused about the incident, mostly because he had dreamt of somebody saying those exact words to him. Sonia is forcibly taken to Durjan's house to marry Suraj. She writes to Vijay begging him to come and rescue her. Vijay and his friend travel to save Sonia. Everybody who sees him is stunned and calls him Arjun. He finally remembers his past life and reunites with Durga. Vijay saves Ajay and explains the whole situation. Ajay refuses to believe, but when Durjan's brothers-in-law attack Durga, Ajay is also convinced. Durjan hears about Karan and Arjun's return but refuses to believe it so his brothers-in-law attempt to bring them before him. In the process, they are killed and Durga places the garlands they gave her over their dead bodies. At the village temple, rituals are held for Sonia and Suraj's wedding. Karan and Arjun frighten Durjan by convincing him that they are back. Soon, Saxena and Durjan have a fallout, after which a fearful Saxena tells Sonia to run away with Vijay. Sonia meets Vijay, but just as everybody is helping them, Durjan and Saxena arrive, making them realize that it was a ruse. Ajay succeeds in creating a diversion, letting Vijay and Sonia escape. Vijay kills Suraj, upon which Durjan kills Saxena in a fit of rage. After all his henchmen are killed, Durjan attempts to kill Karan and Arjun. They overpower him until he falls on his knees. He runs to Durga and begs her for forgiveness. However, she orders her sons to kill him for revenge. They do so and Durga places the garland he gave her over his dead body, fulfilling the promises she made to him. Later, Arjun marries Sonia and Karan marries his love Bindiya, after which Durga places the bangles her sons gave her on her daughters-in-law's wrists, as she promised Karan and Arjun 20 years ago. Production. The casting of film brought together Shahrukh Khan and Salman Khan, two prominent actors of that time. Hrithik Roshan became an assistant director assisting his father Rakesh Roshan in his first major contribution to Bollywood. The whole film was shot in Rajasthan. More specifically the village which is portrayed in film is one of villages of Alwar District of Rajasthan, named Bhangarh. Box Office. It was the second highest grossing film of the year, ranking as blockbuster. Music. The music and background score was composed by Rajesh Roshan and lyrics for all the songs were penned by Indeevar. The most popular song was "Jaati Hoon Main", which remains as an evergreen song. Additionally, the theme from "The Terminator" was featured throughout the film, especially during fight scenes.
394296	Season of Good Rain (), also known as A Good Rain Knows, is a 2009 film by Hur Jin-ho. It stars South Korean actor Jung Woo-sung and Chinese actress Gao Yuanyuan. The film was released to South Korean theaters on October 8th and had a total of 287,887 admissions. Originally intended as the second segment of "Chengdu, I Love You", the director and producers expanded its running time and released it as a stand-alone feature.
1065287	Chloe Webb (born June 25, 1956) is an American actress. Webb was born in Greenwich Village, Manhattan, New York. Her New York theater debut was in the original cast of the long-running musical satire Forbidden Broadway. She received Best Actress award from the National Society of Film Critics for her film debut in 1986's "Sid and Nancy," based on the relationship of the Sex Pistols bassist, Sid Vicious, and his girlfriend Nancy Spungen. The following year she appeared in Peter Greenaway's movie "The Belly of an Architect", and many independent films followed, most recently "Repo Chick", directed by Alex Cox. Two decades of spoken word and performance art include Hal Willner's Poe Show at St. Anne's Episcopal Church, De Sade/Burroughs/Poe with Sean Lennon, Steve Buscemi and Richard Hell at The ISSUE Project Room, Lou Reed's The Raven with Laurie Anderson and Fisher Stevens at St. Ann's Warehouse and at Royce Hall with John Goodman, Todd Rundgren and Ralph Carney. Webb directed the documentary "Surfing Thru" which debuted at Cannes and won Best Documentary Short at The Santa Cruz Film Festival and The Other Venice Film Festival. Webb may be better known to a larger American audience as a USO volunteer in the Emmy-nominated television series "China Beach" and as Danny DeVito's onscreen girlfriend in the 1988 movie "Twins." Webb also played the part of Mona Ramsey in the first miniseries of the PBS adaptation of Armistead Maupin's "Tales of the City". She opted not to return for subsequent installments, and the role was recast.
1067735	Frequently Asked Questions About Time Travel (stylised as "FAQ About Time Travel") is a 2009 science fiction comedy film directed by Gareth Carrivick from a script by Jamie Mathieson, starring Anna Faris, Chris O'Dowd, Marc Wootton and Dean Lennox Kelly. The film follows two social outcasts and their cynical friend as they attempt to navigate a time travel conundrum in the middle of a British pub. Faris plays a girl from the future who sets the adventure in motion. It was released in the UK and Ireland on 24 April 2009. On its television premiere on BBC Two on 1 August 2010, the film was dedicated to its director Gareth Carrivick, who had died earlier in the year. Plot. Ray (Chris O'Dowd) has been fired from his job as a costumed guide in a theme park attraction called "Star Ride". Ray's good friends Pete (Dean Lennox Kelly) and Toby (Marc Wootton) work at the theme park restaurant and they all decide to go to a cinema and pub after they leave. Ray meets an American girl named Cassie (Anna Faris). She says a time machine has been built into her body and her job is to find and repair "time leaks" and stop "editors". Obviously, the guys have some trouble believing her. However, they end up traveling back and forth through time within the pub. Hints about their journey appear in different time stops. They meet a second time traveler, named Millie. Cassie is told about Millie and is immediately suspicious, with good reason. Cassie's time machine is taken offline and she finally meets Millie. Millie makes Toby an offer to die and be a legend which, of course, he refuses. At the end of the movie the three friends walk home wondering about the events in the pub when Cassie appears through a big glowing portal. She reveals that they have only fourteen hours to save the Earth (a reference to the film Flash Gordon), and urges them to go with her to a parallel universe. Continue watching through the credits for a surprise - (hint: Pete has the last word). Home media. The DVD was released on 7 September 2009 in the UK. Production. The film is a co-production between HBO Films and BBC Films. It was filmed at Pinewood Studios in the UK. The credits of the film include thanks to "The Wheatsheaf Pub". Design. The opening credits appear in outline block letters in light blue against the background of space, in the same style as the "Superman" films. Reception. Critical reception has been mixed. Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes gave it a rating of 40% based on twenty professional reviews. "Empire" magazine concludes "Quirky and engaging with a script that keeps you on the ride." The review for the "Daily Mirror"'s verdict was: "This engaging comedy feels like a stretched-out TV pilot, but is nicely put together, with enough laughs to make a refreshing change from usual Brit film fare." "The Irish Times" described it as a "mildly diverting yarn" but was critical of the small scale of the film and the apparently limited budget. Peter Bradshaw reviewed the film for "The Guardian" and said that it was "the worst film of the week, a dire British comedy, to which the only honest response is to soil and then set fire to the Union flag in the foyer of your local cinema."
1062156	Trevor Howard (born Trevor Wallace Howard-Smith; 29 September 1913 – 7 January 1988) was an English film, stage and television actor. Early life. Howard was born in Cliftonville, Kent, England. He was educated at Clifton College (to which he left a substantial legacy for a drama scholarship) and at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA), acting on the London stage for several years before World War II. His first paid work was in the play "Revolt in a Reformatory" (1934), before he left RADA in 1935 to take small roles. Although stories of his courageous wartime service in the Royal Corps of Signals earned him much respect among fellow actors and fans alike, files held in the Public Records Office reveal he had actually been discharged from the Army for mental instability and having a "psychopathic personality". The story, which surfaced in Terence Pettigrew's biography of the actor, published by Peter Owen in 2001, was initially denied by Howard's widow, Helen Cherry. Later, confronted with official records, she told the "Daily Telegraph" (24 June 2001) that his mother had claimed he was a holder of the Military Cross. She added that Howard had an honourable military record and "had nothing to be ashamed of." Acting career. After a theatrical role in "The Recruiting Officer" (1943), Howard began also working with cinema with "The Way Ahead" (1944). His role in "The Way Ahead" came to the attention of David Lean who was looking for the someone to play the role of Alec in "Brief Encounter". Lean recommended him to Noël Coward who agreed and the success of the film launched his career. In "The Passionate Friends" though, which also featured Ann Todd and Claude Rains, in which Howard played a similar character to Alec, was not as successful. "The Third Man" (1949), in which he played the slightly dry, slightly crusty, but capable British military officer, Major Calloway, with which he would become associated, secured his reputation. During filming in Vienna, Howard visited the fairground which was, at that time, under the jurisdiction of the Russians, where, still wearing the uniform of a British Army Major, he was promptly arrested. He was returned to the SIB after his true identity was ascertained. He also starred in "The Key" (1958; based on a Jan de Hartog novel) for which he received the best actor award from the British Academy of Film and Television Arts and "Sons and Lovers" (1960), for which he was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actor. Another notable film was "The Heart of the Matter" (1953), from another Graham Greene story. Over time Howard shifted to being one of Britain's finest character actors. Howard's later works included such films as "Mutiny on the Bounty" (1962), "Father Goose" (1964), "Morituri" (1965), "Von Ryan's Express" (1965), "The Charge of the Light Brigade" (1968), "Battle of Britain" (1969), "Ryan's Daughter" (1970), "Superman" (1978), and "Gandhi" (1982). "The Dawning" (1988) was his final film. One of his strangest films, and one he took great delight in, was Vivian Stanshall's 1980 "Sir Henry at Rawlinson End" in which he played the title role. While continuing to work in film and occasionally theater, he also found work in television, winning an Emmy award for his role as the titular figure in "The Invincible Mr Disraeli" (1963) and being nominated for another for "The Count of Monte Cristo" (1975), in which he played Abbé Faria. He declined a CBE in 1982. Throughout his film career Howard insisted that all of his contracts held a clause excusing him from work whenever a cricket Test Match was being played. Death. He died on 7 January 1988, from a combination of bronchitis, influenza and jaundice, in Arkley, Barnet, aged 74, survived by his widow Helen. Shakespeare. Howard left behind just two Shakespeare performances, the first, recorded in the 1960s, was as Petruchio opposite Margaret Leighton's Kate in Caedmon Records' complete recording of "The Taming of the Shrew"; the second was in the title role of "King Lear" for the BBC World Service in 1986. Awards and nominations. Howard was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor for "Sons and Lovers" (1960). He won one BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role for "The Key" (1958) and was nominated four more times. He won a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor – Miniseries or a Movie for "Hallmark Hall of Fame: Invincible Mr. Disraeli" in 1963 and received two other nominations, one as a lead and the other as a supporting actor. He also got three Golden Globe Award nominations. A British government document leaked to the "Sunday Times" in 2003 shows that Howard was among almost 300 celebrities to decline honours. Filmography. Box office ranking in Britain. For a number of years, British film exhibitors voted him among the top ten British stars at the box office via an annual poll in the "Motion Picture Herald".
626884	Jesse Eden Metcalfe (born December 9, 1978) is an American actor. Metcalfe is best known for his portrayal of John Rowland on "Desperate Housewives". Metcalfe has also had notable roles on "Passions" and "John Tucker Must Die" and currently stars as Christopher Ewing in the TNT continuation of "Dallas", based on the 1978 series of the same name. Early life. Metcalfe was born in Carmel Valley, California, the son of Nancy (née DeMaio) and Jeff Metcalfe. His father is of French and Italian descent and his mother is of Italian and Portuguese descent. Metcalfe played in several basketball leagues during his teen years in Waterford, Connecticut, and graduated from The Williams School in New London, Connecticut. Career. In 1999, Metcalfe successfully auditioned for the NBC soap opera television series "Passions", which debuted in July 1999. Metcalfe portrayed the role of Miguel Lopez-Fitzgerald, a resident in the fictional city of Harmony. In July 2004, after more than five years on the series, Metcalfe announced he was taking a break from "Passions" to pursue other projects. Metcalfe, in November of that year, returned to the series for a brief stint before making his final appearance on the series in January 2005. In October 2004, Metcalfe starred in the ABC drama comedy television series "Desperate Housewives" as teen gardener John Rowland, who is involved in an affair with a married housewife. In 2005, Metcalfe won the "Choice TV Breakout Performance: Male" award at the Teen Choice Awards for his role on the show. For a brief period Metcalfe juggled both "Passions" and "Desperate Housewives" roles before leaving "Passions" to focus on "Desperate Housewives" full-time. Following the first season, creator Marc Cherry revealed Metcalfe would return to the series on a recurring basis. Metcalfe made his final appearance as a special guest star on the show in October 2009. In July 2006, Metcalfe played the title character in the 20th Century Fox comedy film "John Tucker Must Die". The film, which starred Sophia Bush, Brittany Snow, and R&B singer Ashanti, followed three friends who set out to break the heart of a serial cheater by setting him up with the new girl in town. Filming took place in Vancouver on a budget of $18 million. The film and Metcalfe's performance received mixed reviews and went on to make over $68,824,526 worldwide. To promote the film, Metcalfe hosted an episode of the British TV chat show "The Paul O'Grady Show" in October, due to O'Grady's being unwell. In July 2008, Metcalfe starred in the horror film "Insanitarium" portraying the protagonist, Jack. The film, which centers on a young man trying to break his sister out of a mental institution, was filmed in August and September 2007. The film received negative reviews though Metcalfe's performance received positive reviews from the few critics who reviewed the film. That same year Metcalfe starred in "The Other End of the Line" as the romantic interest Granger Woodruff. The film was released in October and went on to make over $507,534 worldwide on a limited theatrical release in selected countries.
1064196	Taryn Manning (born November 6, 1978) is an American actress, fashion designer, and singer-songwriter. She is the vocalist for electronic duo Boomkat and co-owner of the clothing brand Born Uniqorn. Manning gained her first major role as an actress in 2001 when she played the role of Maddy in "Crazy/Beautiful". She is well known for her film portrayals in "Crossroads", "8 Mile", "A Lot Like Love", "Hustle & Flow", "Weirdsville", and "Jack and Jill vs. the World". Early life. Taryn Manning was born to Sharyn and Bill Manning, who divorced when she was two months old. Her mother took Taryn and her brother Kellin to Tucson, Arizona. At the age of 12, Manning and her mother moved to California, where she attended school in Encinitas, California - Oak Crest. She has been the State Champion in Karate in Arizona. When she was 14, her musician father, Bill, committed suicide. Acting career. 1999–2005: Career beginnings. Manning began acting in the late 1990s, appearing in small roles in several film and television productions, including episodes of "The Practice", "Get Real", "Speedway Junky", "NYPD Blue" and "Popular". She also made a guest-appearance on the TV series "Boston Public", in a role that was specifically written for her. In 1999, she was featured in an independent film called "Speedway Junky". She also auditioned for the American version of "Popstars", which aired in early 2001 on The WB. She made her film debut with a part in the romantic drama "Crazy/Beautiful", which was followed by a role in the 2002 feature film, "Crossroads", where she played one of two best friends of singer Britney Spears. She appeared in "8 Mile" as B-Rabbit's ex girlfriend, Janeane, and in Peter Kosminksy's "White Oleander". Along with supporting roles in the films "Lucky 13" and "Debating Robert Lee", Manning appeared briefly in Anthony Minghella's Civil War melodrama "Cold Mountain" and in the romantic comedy "A Lot Like Love". E! Online picked her for its "Sizzlin' 16" list of 2002. She has appeared on the covers of the July 2003 issue of "FHM", the May 2007 issue of "Stuff" and was the December 2007 entry in "Stuff" magazine's 2006-2007 pin up calendar. She was ranked #33 in "Stuff" magazine's 103 Sexiest Women in 2003, #59 in "Maxim"`s Hot 100 Women 2003 and #60 in 2008. 2005–present: Independent films and breakthrough. Her breakthrough role was as Nola in the 2005 film "Hustle & Flow", opposite Terrence Howard, playing a prostitute in Memphis, Tennessee. Manning was nominated in the Washington D.C. Area Film Critics Association Awards for Best Breakthrough Performance. Director Craig Brewer saw Manning's picture in a photography book and was convinced that the actress who played Nola should look just like her. "There are some people who put on trashy like a wardrobe, and Taryn can play those roles with dignity and earnestness," Brewer said of Manning. In a "making of" featurette on the "Hustle & Flow" DVD, "Behind the Hustle", Brewer talks about how surprised and delighted he was to later realize that the model who had originally inspired his image of Nola's look turned out to also be the actress playing her. Her other subsequent film roles included roles in "Unbeatable Harold" and "When the Nines Roll Over". "When the Nines Roll Over" is a drama film centred around a jaded hipster A&R executive tries to steal a talented and sexy young singer away from a small label. Her next film was "Weirdsville", a dark comedy co-starring Scott Speedman and Wes Bentley. Boomkat's song "It's Not My Fault" appeared on the soundtrack for the film as a duet by Manning and John Rowley. In 2007, she played Ivy Chitty on the short-lived but critically acclaimed Fox television series "Drive", which was a drama about various people competing in an illegal cross-country road race. In "After Sex", seven short films within one, Manning played the supporting role of Alanna. She had leading roles in the horror films "Cult" and "Banshee"; in the latter, she performed her own stunts. "I got hurt one day during one of the chase scenes, where another car crashed into my car," Manning explained of her stunts. Manning appeared opposite Freddie Prinze, Jr. in the romantic comedy "Jack and Jill vs. the World". She played Rita Cherry on four episodes of "Sons of Anarchy"; co-star Katey Sagal called her performance fantastic. At first she made a guest appearance on the show and later rejoined, because her performance was so well received. Later in 2008 she appeared as the female lead in Butch Walker's music video for "The Weight Of Her" and in will.i.am's collage-style music video, "Yes We Can". She co-starred with Bill Pullman in the drama film "Your Name Here", in which she played Nikki, who is based on Victoria Principal. The film is based loosely on sci-fi writer Philip K. Dick's life. Manning's dream role would be in a musical like "Moulin Rouge!", because she "grew up dancing". When she was a child, she appeared in many musicals and plays. She admires her friend Gina Gershon's musical appearances. In 2009, she appeared as Rose Atropos in a dramatic music-themed film "The Perfect Age of Rock 'n' Roll". The film received mostly favorable reviews from critics and fans. Manning joined forces with Ron Perlman in two 2009 films, "The Devil's Tomb" and "The Job". She also appeared in a horror film Kill Theory, which tells the story of a group of college students, who find themselves targeted by a sadistic killer. Drama film "The Job" premiered at the San Diego Film Festival on September 25, 2009. Critics called the film "entertaining and fun with twists that arrives like clockwork". In 2009, Taryn portrayed Caroline Bishop, the love interest to Kris Black's coal miner turned boxer in "Five Good Years". In February 2010, she was cast in the 2010 remake of "Hawaii Five-0" as the younger sister of main character Steve McGarrett. In early 2012, Taryn signed on to star in the supernatural Web Series The Unknown, which premiered on Crackle on Friday, July 13, 2012. In 2013, she played Tiffany Doggett in the original Netflix comedy-drama series" Orange is the New Black". Music career. 2003–2011: Pop music beginnings and Boomkat. In 2003, Manning and her brother Kellin formed the band Boomkat. The band first signed a major label deal with American Idol producer Randy Jackson, but the deal fell through. Robbie Robertson then signed them to DreamWorks Records, which was Boomkat's label from 2002 to 2004. In 2002, she sang a rendition of "I'll Take You There" with Tweet in several Gap commercials directed by Peter Lindbergh. Their debut album, "Boomkatalog.One", was released on March 18, 2003. Boomkat released two singles "The Wreckoning" and "What U Do 2 Me". The first single, "The Wreckoning", hit #1 on the Hot Dance Music/Club Play chart. The band closed out 2003 as the #5 Hot Dance Club Play Artist for the year in "Billboard Magazine". Music from "Boomkatalog.One" has also appeared in movies, including "Mean Girls", "Crossroads", "The Hot Chick", "8 Mile" and "The Italian Job". After a hiatus, in an interview in October 2005's issue of "Nylon" magazine, Manning mentioned that Boomkat would be back eventually, and that she is writing songs for the new album once they find another record label. Boomkat released their first single in four years, called "Runaway" on April 8, 2008. In early June 2008 Boomkat's second album "A Million Trillion Stars" became available in online stores. In October 2008, Boomkat played several shows throughout the Los Angeles area, hitting spots like North Hollywood's NOHO Scene Festival and venues such as the Viper Room and Hotel Cafe. In December 2008 Manning recorded a version of Tom Petty's "Christmas All Over Again", which premiered on her official Myspace page. On March 3, 2009, their official first single, "Run Boy" was released along with a visually electric music video. The single premiered on People.com. "A Million Trillion Stars" was officially released in stores on March 10, 2009 by independent record label, Little Vanilla Records. In 2009, Manning was featured on indie band Dreamers' song "Lonely World", as well as in their new music video called "The Dreamers". In the music video, she takes on the role of Ring Master. On October 28, 2009, she announced that Boomkat is working on their third studio album. The bands 5th music video from "A Million Trillion Stars" premiered on MySpace on Wednesday February 17, 2010. 2009–present: Solo career. In September 2009, Manning stated that she is working on a solo album. The album is "dance music and it’s colorful, flamboyant, if you will. Boomkat’s a little darker, experimental, like Portishead kind of stuff," she told in an interview with Adam Bernard. She sang her first solo single, "So Talented" in an episode of "Melrose Place". The song was written with the producer Linney (Darkchild Entertainment). On September 3, 2009, it was confirmed that two tracks were completed for the album. After the song "Spotlight" was featured in an episode of Manning's show "Hawaii Five-0", it was released as a teaser for the album via iTunes & Amazon MP3. "Turn It Up" is being released as the first official single. The music video premiered on People.com on May 4, 2011. "Turn It Up" peaked at #21 on "Billboard"'s Dance/Club Play Chart in October 2011. Taryn's single 'Send Me Your Love' was released digitally worldwide on August 21, 2012. It was also featured on Perez Hilton the next day. The song is the first official single from her solo album intitled 'Freedom City' to be released September 2012. Other ventures. Boomkat's record company, Little Vanilla Records is owned by Manning. She has a clothing line called "Born Uniqorn" with best friend Tara Jane. The brand was founded in fall 2005. Born Uniqorn has hosted many benefits for charity organizations in Los Angeles. Her fashion icons are Kate Moss, Nicole Kidman, Cate Blanchett and Kate Winslet. Manning was honored with "Film Fashion Visionary" award at the 2009 Bel Air Film Festival. She has appeared in Juicy Couture's advertising campaign and in "Frankie B"`s spring 2009 campaign. They shot a short film, which follows a day in the life of a Frankie B. woman. The video is called "Let's Get Lost" which is the original song featured in the video by musician Gilby Clarke with vocals by Manning. She was cover featured in the yearly "Sex & Music" issue of Playboy for April 2011. Personal life. Manning was aboard the JetBlue Airways Flight 292 that had to make a three hour figure-8 flight and emergency landing at Los Angeles International Airport on September 21, 2005. In her own words: "it was the most surreal, out-of-body experience I ever had".
1070568	The Smurfs and the Magic Flute (, lit. "The Flute of Six Smurfs") is a 1976 Belgian animated film starring the Smurfs, directed by their creator, Peyo. Though the film premiered in 1976 in Belgium, and 1979 in the United Kingdom, an English language version was not released in the United States until 1983, in the wake of the characters' newfound popularity. Although the Smurfs play a major part in the film, they do not appear until 35 minutes into the film. The film, set in the Middle Ages, mainly surrounds Johan and Peewit, a young squire and his jester sidekick. Johan and Peewit had also been created by Peyo in 1952 and it was in their adventures that the Smurfs were first introduced in 1958. The film was not produced by Hanna-Barbera, the creators of the "Smurfs" television series, but by Brussels' Belvision Studios. The voice talent from that show was not present in the English version either; instead, the work was handled by a non-union crew whose members had previously appeared in anime dubs for U.S. television. A presentation of independent film company Atlantic Releasing in the United States, "The Smurfs and the Magic Flute" grossed over US$11 million, the highest for a non-Disney animated release until 1985's "The Care Bears Movie". The film's success led to the creation of Clubhouse Pictures, Atlantic's children's film division. The English language version of the film was presented in Dolby Stereo sound. Plot. This story is set at a castle during the Middle Ages. One day a merchant brings musical instruments to sell to Peewit, the court jester, but because Peewit is such a terrible musician the King throws the merchant out before Peewit arrives. However he has left behind a flute that only has six holes. The King throws it into the fireplace in his room, which starts to emit green smoke. When the fire is put out, Peewit retrieves the flute from the ashes unharmed. He cleans it and starts playing it for the whole castle realizing that it causes everyone to dance when it is played. That night a man named Matthew McCreep learns from the merchant that the same flute he had been looking for is at the castle. He heads over to the castle and steals the flute from Peewit. The king sends Peewit and the young knight Johan out to catch McCreep who uses the flute to rob people of their money. However McCreep uses the flute to stop them. Johan and Peewit then go to the house of Homnibus the wizard. Using a spell called Hypnokenesis, the wizard sends Johan and Peewit to Smurfland where the magic flute was built. Upon arriving they meet a smurf who leads them to the village. Papa Smurf greets the two of them and tells them that they'll make a new flute in order to counter McCreep's flute. The smurfs head into the forest and chop down a huge tree to get wood from the tree trunk's very centre as only this kind of wood can be useful in crafting a magical flute. Afterwards they celebrate with a party. However, just as Papa Smurf is about to give the flute to Johan and Peewit, the two are warped back to the wizard's house. Homnibus tries the spell again but passes out from a headache. Meanwhile, McCreep who has now stolen over 7,000 gold pieces arrives at the castle of his partner, Earl Flatbroke. McCreep tells Flatbroke of his plan to go to an island to hire people for an army to raise war on the King's castle; fortunately, two Smurfs had been listening to this. Back at the wizard's house, the Smurfs regroup with Johan and Peewit and give them the magic flute. Then they head to the port of Terminac where McCreep sets sail for the island. However they are too late. Papa Smurf tells Johan and Peewit about Flatbroke's castle and Johan comes up with a plan. Flatbroke receives a letter from McCreep (written by Johan) to come to the island. He heads over to Terminac to board a ship where Johan and Peewit are also on board in disguise as well as Papa Smurf and 3 others. They head to the island where Johan and Peewit tail Flatbroke. Suddenly Peewit comes face to face with McCreep and they both start playing their flutes to each other. They both become exhausted soon after, but Peewit knocks out McCreep with a final note. With McCreep and Flatbroke being brought back to the castle and all the stolen money recovered, Peewit now has two magic flutes. Johan tells him that the flutes are dangerous and must be brought back to the Smurfs, but Peewit begins to carve a phony flute to give to them instead. At the castle, Johan and Peewit give the flutes back to the smurfs, and after they leave, Peewit starts playing the flute, only to realize (to his horror) that it has no effect on the townsfolk; it is the fake flute he had made! Cast. English version. USA: UK: Inspiration. The film is based on "La Flûte à six trous" ("The Flute with Six Holes"), which appeared in the Belgian weekly comic "Spirou magazine" in 1958/59. Subsequent book publications renamed it as "La Flûte à six Schtroumpfs" ("The Flute with Six Smurfs"), which was also the French title of the film. In 2008, a prequel "Les Schtroumpfeurs de flûte" ("The Flute Smurfers") was published, marking the 50th anniversary of the original story to introduce the Smurfs. This story tells of how the Smurfs make the magic flute and how it ends up in the hands of a human merchant. Production and release. Peyo, the creator of the Smurfs, oversaw the production of "La Flûte à six schtroumpfs" at Brussels' Belvision in 1975. The film was based on Peyo's comic album of the same name, and the ninth to feature his duo of characters, Johan and Peewit. The music score was written by Michel Legrand, a recent Oscar winner for "Summer of '42" and the original "Thomas Crown Affair". It was released a year later in its native Belgium, and in some European territories subsequently. A book adaptation of the film, by Anthea Bell, was published in Great Britain by Hodder and Stoughton in 1979 (ISBN 0-340-24068-7). It was not until the success of Hanna-Barbera's "Smurfs" cartoon that "Flute" began to gain widespread attention: in the early 1980s, Stuart R. Ross, head of First Performance Pictures Corporation, acquired the American rights to the film for US$1,000,000. In doing so, he sold those rights to Tribune Entertainment (television), Vestron Video (home video), and Atlantic Releasing (theatrical). The English dubbing for the movie was not provided by the Hanna-Barbera cast members, but by non-union talent who were contributing at the time to American versions of imported anime. John Rust, the director of this dub, appeared as one of the voices. The North American release of "Flute", courtesy of Ross' First Performance and Atlantic, grossed US$11 million out of a maximum 432 venues, the highest on record for a non-Disney production until "The Care Bears Movie" in 1985, and was among Atlantic's all-time top five movies at the box office. Thanks to its success, Atlantic released several more animated features, many of which were distributed by their short-lived children's subsidiary, Clubhouse Pictures. The theatrical poster for the film boasted, "It's the Smurfs' ONE and ONLY full length motion picture...ever!" Prior to "Flute", however, a black-and-white compilation feature, "Les Aventures des Schtroumpfs", was released in Belgium in the mid-1960s, and had been forgotten by the time this film debuted in the US (1983). The film features Papa Smurf, Brainy Smurf, Grouchy Smurf, Hefty Smurf (named "Strong-man Smurf" in one of the English dubs) Handy Smurf, Clumsy Smurf, Greedy Smurf (named "sweetie" in one of the English dubs), Poet Smurf, Farmer Smurf, and a new character, Festive Smurf ("Actor Smurf" in different dub) – who loved to sing, dance and whose priority was wanting to have a party. However, unlike the Hanna-Barbera cartoons, all the Smurfs (with the exception of Papa Smurf, Grouchy Smurf and Brainy Smurf) look alike and don't have their trademark attributes, just like in the original comic book series. The humor is also closer to the one from the comic books. Rather than being symbolically "thrown away", Brainy Smurf is constantly being whacked with a hammer by other Smurfs simply for "talking too much". The characters of Gargamel, Azrael and Smurfette are not present in the film. The UK dub is different than the American version. Many of the names are wrong (for example, Johan and Peewit's names become John and William, respectively), and several Smurfs are called by the wrong names. The film was originally released on VHS and laserdisc in September 1984 by the aforementioned Vestron Video. In 1987, Children's Video Library released the film in a 43-minute cut, excising over half an hour of material, reissued later in the decade by the discount Video Treasures and Avid Home Entertainment labels. A DVD version was released by Morningstar Entertainment in 2008; it was later re-released by Shout! Factory on August 14, 2012. The film was also released to DVD in Canada by Vivendi Entertainment on November 22, 2011. It is the UK dub that is available on DVD. The film was released to both DVD and Blu-Ray in the UK on October 11, 2010. For reasons unknown, the Netflix service in America currently streams the UK dub. Reception. Of "The Smurfs and the Magic Flute", animation historian Jerry Beck wrote in his "Animated Movie Guide": Is the film any good? It is passable entertainment for Smurfs completists only. Otherwise, mom and dad will have a tough time sitting through this one. There are no standout sequences, nothing particularly endearing, nor is it artistically interesting. It is a bland television cartoon stretched out to fill 74 minutes. As part of 1980s pop culture, the Smurfs are classic icons, and nostalgia value alone might be worth giving the film a look. The film was a big hit at the box office and, along with "The Care Bears Movie", helped launch Clubhouse Pictures and started the trend of animated films getting big-screen releases in the 80s.
1240445	Labor Pains (also known as Almost Pregnant in Mexico and Labour Pains in Australia) is a 2009 romantic comedy film written by Stacy Kramer and starring Lindsay Lohan, Luke Kirby, Cheryl Hines, Chris Parnell, Bridgit Mendler, and Kevin Covais. The film received a television premiere on ABC Family on July 19, 2009. It was originally scheduled to be released in theatres. The film was directed by Lara Shapiro and was released on DVD and Blu-Ray on August 4 and 31 in the United States and United Kingdom, respectively. The film drew 2.1 million viewers, a better-than-average prime-time audience for ABC Family, and per the network, was the week's top cable film among coveted female demographic groups. The film received a theatrical release in countries such as Russia, Romania, Spain, the U.A.E., Ecuador, and Mexico. Plot. Thea Clayhill is about to lose her position as secretary to a very cranky publisher. So she lies about being pregnant to save her job, as she saw on an episode of "Law & Order" that it is discriminatory to fire a pregnant woman. The plan works, and she gets to keep her job. With help from her friend, Lisa - and a "baby bump" stolen from a mannequin — Thea fakes her pregnancy while figuring out her next move. In the meantime, her boss gets called out of town and his cute brother Nick takes over. In an attempt to get an author Suzie Cavandish to publish a book with the company, he takes Thea to a meeting with the author. Thea convinces the author that they are the right "home" for her book. Nick then launches a new parenting division at the publishing company, and he wants Thea to be the editor. This results in a raise and promotion for Thea, as well as the beginning of a romantic relationship between her and Nick after breaking off her fake engagement with Miles. She begins to enjoy her life to the extent that her "pregnancy" becomes real to her. In an attempt to get Thea to admit her lie to her family, her little sister, Emma throws Thea a surprise baby shower. When Thea still doesn't admit the lie, Emma destroys her pregnancy pillow in a fit of rage. Quickly, Thea grabs a balloon and leaves. Later that day, the author of the book is going to have a book reading, but her boss comes back a week early, and gets into an argument with Nick (which ends with Nick jumping on him, then Thea pulling them apart). After insulting Thea, she tries to go at him. Nick holds her back by the stomach, and her balloon pops, blowing her cover. After a couple of nights, Nick still does not answer the hundreds of calls Thea left him. She gets to go on the show talking about the book Suzie wrote. After everyone leaves, Thea and Nick kiss until the lights go out.
588560	Anantaram (, , meaning "Thereafter") is a 1987 Malayalam feature film production written and directed by Adoor Gopalakrishnan. Mammootty, Ashokan and Shobhana star in the lead. The film is structured like a monologue. It develops through a commentary by the protagonist about himself in the first person. The attempt of the protagonist is to narrate how he became what he is now. The film was an experimental film for its time as it had a very linear narrative. The film won three National Film Awards. It was included in IBN Live's list of 100 greatest Indian films of all time. Plot. The film develops through a commentary by Ajayan (Ashokan) about himself in the first person. Later he tells another story about his life with the same background. Finally both these stories fuse together. Ajayan was born an orphan. He is brought up by a doctor. A brilliant child, Ajayan grows up into an introvert and confused youth. The beautiful Suma (Shobhana) arrive at their house after marrying Balu (Mammootty), his foster-brother. Ajayan at the very first sight of his sister-in-law gets sexually attracted to her. This creates internal conflict within him and ultimately he leaves the house. In the second story Ajayan narrates his confused youth and about the beautiful girl, Nalini who enters his life. Ajayan's mind shifts often between reality and an imaginary romantic world. Finally both these stories converge to a point where both Nalini and Suma become a single entity. Themes. In "Anantaram", the theme of perception is dealt with through the protagonist, a youth who, like Adoor, is both an introvert and an extrovert at the same time. In an interview, Adoor said, ""Anantaram" is basically about perceptions. About a young, impressionable boy who is an introvert and an extrovert at the same time. You will say he's like me. My treatment was not very familiar, though I was searching for the familiar experience of growing up, struggling with life and relationships. What is in the frame and what is juxtaposed to it just outside the frame... or let us put it this way, it has to do with attuning to the reality just beyond perception. Actually this is part of daily experience though we don't analyse it." Critical reception. The film is considered Adoor's magnum opus by a few critics, however the overall reaction was mixed. Awards. The film has been nominated for and won the following awards since its release: 1987 FIPRESCI Prize (Karlovy Vary) 1987 National Film Awards (India)
1036397	Dylan Moran (; born 3 November 1971) is an Irish stand-up comedian, writer, actor and filmmaker. He is best known for his sardonic observational comedy, the UK television sitcom "Black Books" (which he co-wrote and starred in), and his work with Simon Pegg in "Shaun of the Dead" and "Run Fatboy Run". Moran also appeared as one of the two lead characters in the Irish black comedy titled "A Film with Me in It" in 2008.
590349	Uttam Kumar Chatterjee (3 September 1926 – 24 July 1980) is an Indian film actor in Bengali Cinema. Born Arun Kumar Chatterjee in 1926 at Ahiritola, North Calcutta he is widely known as Uttam Kumar and Mahanayak. He remains as much of a cultural icon. As actor, director, producer, singer and music director, his contribution earned him critical adulation. Considered as one of the most popular film stars in the history of cinema, Kumar managed to have a following, that mainly concentrated in the regions of Bengal and Bangladesh. In his lifetime, he was a recipient of many awards, including National Film Award for Best Actor. Even after his death, his tradition went on as long as the next century. He is often regarded as, by many critics, the 'Actor' who changed the notion of films. In his honour, a Metro Station was renamed in Kolkata Early life and family. Uttam Kumar was born in Kolkata in the home of his maternal uncle at Ahiritola, while his ancestral house is on Girish Mukherjee Road, Bhowanipore, Kolkata. After his schooling in South Suburban School (Main), he went for higher studies in Goenka College of Commerce and Business Administration, a college affiliated to the University of Calcutta. He could not, however, complete his studies and started working at the Kolkata Port trust, then known as Calcutta Port Trust, as a clerk. During this period, he acted in amateur theatre groups. His prodigious joint family had its own theatre group, the Suhrid Samaj, which staged many amateur shows. Uttam Kumar was the eldest of three sons (Arun, Barun and Tarun) of Satkari Chatterjee and Chapala Debi. The youngest, whose screen name was Tarun Kumar, acted in several Bengali films and grew to become an actor of considerable repute, in screen and on stage. There are several films in which Uttam Kumar and Tarun Kumar starred together like "Saptapadi", "Sonar Harin", "Maya Mriga", "Sesh Anka", "Deya Neya", "Jeeban-Mrityu", "Dhanyi Meye","Mon Niye", "Sanyasi Raja", and "Agniswar". Uttam Kumar married Gauri Debi Ganguly". Their only son, Gautam, a businessman, died of cancer at the age of 53. His grandson, Gaurav is a Tollywood actor. Pulak Bandyopadhyay, a famous lyricist, was his uncle. Uttam kumar is generally perceived in Bengal as "Mahanayak" meaning the great actor. Career. Debut and breakthrough. Uttam's first release was "Drishtidan" (The gift of sight) directed by Nitin Bose, though he worked in an earlier unreleased film called "Mayador" (Embrace of affection). He came into prominence in the film "Basu Paribar" and his breakthrough film was "Agni Pariksha" that began the roaring success of the all-time romantic pair of Uttam Kumar - Suchitra Sen; though they had first starred in Sharey Chuattor" (ted mass migration from the then East Pakistan to Kolkata (then known as Calcutta), the Uttam-Suchitra pair gave expression to the yearnings of a new, transformed city. They played out on screen the new desires of a young audience trying to come to terms with industrial modernity and a new form of urban existence. The stylised, black-and-white romanticism of landmark Uttam-Suchitra films of the 1950s like "Agni Pariksha", "Shapmochan","Sagarika" (1956), "Shilpi" (1956), or "Harano Sur", "Indrani", "Sabar Uparey", "Surjyo Toron" reflected a novel, youthful urban desire to break free from the confines of the feudal joint family and set up a nucleated, private space for the couple in love. In contrast to the earlier phase of Bengali cinema mostly dominated by the dramatised style of the New Theaters' films (in the 1940s), the Uttam-Suchitra films were marked by a more naturalistic acting style, a bit dramatic-stylized, soft-focus black-and-white cinematography with chiaroscuro effects, and a more popular and modern form of music that broke away more decisively from earlier dependence on classical types . These features were put in place by a new generation of cinematographers like Dinen Gupta and Ajoy Kar, a fresh batch of directors (Kar himself,Sudhir Mukherjee, Naresh Mitra, Sushil Majumdar, the combines of Jatrik and Agradoot) and musicians like Nachiketa Ghosh, Rabin Chattopadhyay, Anupam Ghatak, Hemanta Mukherjee Anil Bagchi, Sudhin Dasgupta and Salil Chowdhury, along with lyricists like Gauriprasanna Majumdar, Pranab Roy, Pulak Bandopadhyay. A number of them hailed from the left wing Indian People's Theater Association (IPTA) movement, popularly known as "Gananatya Sangha". Uttam Kumar was especially adored for his effortless naturalism in front of the camera and a distinctively urbane charisma that broke free from the prototypical Bengali screen hero of the past. He went on to form successful screen pairs with many leading ladies like Suchitra Sen, Supriya Choudhuri, Sabitri Chatterjee, Madhabi Mukherjee, Sharmila Tagore, Anjana Bhaumick, Aparna Sen and Sumitra Mukherjee, apart from Sandhyarani in the 50s, Arundhati Debi and Mala Sinha in the 60s and Kaberi Bose and Tanuja in the 60s and 70s. However, his rise to stardom and seat of adulation was rather arduous. he had to struggle a lot to find place on the silver screen. This hard fact finds depiction in his signature film "Nayak" by Satyajit Ray in which the master-director scripts the rise of a young actor with an ordinary background to a star sought after by one and all. In fact, this film may be considered as a tribute to Uttam Kumar. Often hailed as the one-man industry, he dominated Bengali cinema for three decades until his death. This near-total reign was somewhat slightly disturbed during the politically turbulent era of the late sixties up to the Emergency, when Uttam Kumar's regular, politically passive or relatively conservative romantic film persona sometimes found it difficult to fit into the narratives of unrest that came to the fore. Never quite satisfied with his undisputed matinée idol status, Uttam Kumar started experimenting with character roles early in his career, as evidenced by films like "Khokababur Pratyabartan", (1960), "Mayamriga", (1960) or "Thana Theke Aschi" (1965) and "Bicharak". In "Marutirtha Hinglaj" (1959), he essayed a mentally disturbed character. In "Kuhak" he was a murderous thief, while in "Sesh Anka", he was a suave businessman who had murdered his wife and was romantically engaged to the daughter of a social elite and rich nobleman. In "Aparichita" (1969) he also played the role of a villain. Such departures were unusual in relation to set formats of stardom in Indian popular cinematic cultures, where deviating from established 'star images' were often considered to be risky. However, this brought Uttam Kumar early recognition as a genuine actor of substance apart from a box office superstar and stood him in good stead later, especially in his collaborations with Satyajit Ray in "Nayak" (1966) and "Chiriyakhana". A perfectionist, Uttam Kumar performed on stage for a full year, opposite Sabitri Chatterjee in Star Theatre in the play "Shyamali" screen, he played opposite Kaberi Boseto hone up his skill as an actor. Stardom and legacy. Apart from Bengali, Uttam Kumar also acted in some Hindi films such as "Chhoti Si Mulaqat" (along with Vyjayanthimala), "Amanush", "Anand Ashram", "Dooriyaan" (with Sharmila Tagore), "Bandie" with Sulakshana Pandit and "Kitaab" with Vidya Sinha. But his towering contribution was to Bengali cinema and the Bengali film industry on the whole. Perhaps his most lauded appearances was in Satyajit Ray's "Nayak" (The Hero). It is now widely accepted that Ray wrote the script with Uttam in mind. Many people feel the film bears resemblance to Uttam Kumar's own life – the sense of anxiety and restlessness mirrored Uttam's insecurities about his phenomenal success and abiding fear that his superstardom might not last. Uttam made the role of Arindam (Mukherjee) his own and Ray later confessed that if Uttam had refused the film, he would have abandoned it. He worked with Ray the following year in "Chiriyakhana" (1967). When the Indian government instituted the National Film Awards for National Film Award for Best Actor and National Film Award for Best Actress in 1967, Uttam Kumar was the first-ever recipient of the Best Actor Award for his performances in "Anthony Firangee" and "Chiriyakhana" in 1967. He explored new avenues of film-making by trying his hand at production, singing, composing music, screenplay writing and directing. The success of his Bengali films as producer — "Harano Sur", "Saptapadi", "Bhrantibilash", "Jotugriha" (1964), "Grihadah" — won great acclaim.On producing Choti Si Mulaqat,which was a Hindi film starring Uttam and Vaijantimala,Uttam almost extinguished up all his saving,since the film had to be shoot in colour and was shoot in extravagant locations.Both Uttam and Vaijantimala has huge hopes associated with the film,but the film flopped and Uttam had to face huge losses and had to work continuously for 2 years to cover up the losses.Uttam also had his first heart attack in that period and his career as a producer was at an end. Later, Uttam directed much-lauded films such as "Sudhu Ekti Bochhor" and "Bon Palashir Padaboli". He composed music for the film "Kaal Tumi Aleya" in which Hemanta Mukherjee and Asha Bhonsle sang to his tune. He came out with an authorised biography "Amaar Ami" in 1979-80. He had a phenomenal fan base which continues even to this day. In 1960, he started writing an autobiography named Harano Dinguli Mor{My Bygone Days}, but could not complete it.Parts of that book was published by the magazine Nabokallol.On the day Uttam died,the original manuscript was stolen.Later a member from Times of India had found the manuscript and the national library hepled to find old editions of Nabakallol and then the incomplete book was finally published in the 37th Calcatta Book Fair. As a singer, he recorded songs for the AIR - All India Radio - and very recently, an album of Tagore songs (Rabindrasangeet) sung by him,has been brought out. Reruns of his films on television decades after his death are still eagerly watched. Uttam Kumar’s time is considered by most as the golden era of Bengali cinema. Filmography. Late journalist Rintu Mukherjee, in his "Khanojonma Uttam", explained the incredible bankability of this star. From 1947 to 1980, both in Bengali and Hindi, Uttam Kumar acted in 202 films. Among them 39 were blockbusters, 57 were superhits, 57 made profits above the average and the rest flopped. Uttam-Suchitra. The on-screen chemistry between Uttam Kumar and Suchitra Sen has always been much adored and admired.They looked like really beautiful couples. Some of Uttam's famous films co-starring Suchitra Sen include "Share Chuattor", "Agni Pariksha", "Shilpi", "Saptapadi" (Seven Steps), "Pathe Holo Deri" (Delay on the road), "Harano Sur" (Lost Music), "Chaowa Paowa" (Wish and Achievement), "Bipasha", "Jiban Trishna" (Thirst for Life), "Sagarika", "Trijama", "Indrani", "Sabar Upare", "Surjyo Toron", "Rajlakshmi O Sreekanto", "Ekti Raat", "Grihadaha", "Kamallata", "Har Mana Har", "Alo Amar Alo". Uttam-Supriya. Shonar Harin (1959) saw Supriya Devi (who would win great accolades for her performance in Ritwik Ghatak's "Meghe Dhaka Tara" the following year) play the lead opposite Uttam Kumar. As they began to act in more films together, the two got involved off-screen as well. In 1963, Uttam left his family home at Girish Mukherjee Road, Bhowanipur and stayed with Supriya for the next 17 years till his death. They starred together in several other films like "Uttarayan", "Chirodiner", "Agni Sanskar", "Suno Baranari", "Kal Tumi Aleya", "Lal Pathor", "Andha Ateet", "Sudhu Ekti Bochhor", "Mon Niye", "Bilambita Loy", "Bhola Maira", "Sanyasi Raja", "Bon Palashir Padabali", "Jibon Mrityue","Bagh Bandir Khela" etc.But Uttam-Suchitra was uncomparable with any pair in bengali film industry.Uttam-Suchita was best of lot of all time. Uttam - Sabitri. Appreeciated by many to be most talented of Bengali heroines, Sabitri Chatterjee was ardently admired by the Mahanayak as his most powerful heroine. Together, they performed in a number of blockbusters and superhits, few of which are acclaimed as evergreen comedies. Uttam-Sabitri starrers include "Abhoyer Biye", "Hat Barelei Bandhu", "Dui Bhai", "Kuhak", "Nishi Padma" (1970), "Bhrantibilash", "Momer Alo", "Kalankita Nayak"starring Aparna Sen, "Dhanyee Meye" and "Mouchak". In a radio interview, the actress recorded her admiration to Uttam Kumar for taking up challenging roles like that of Raicharan in "Khokababur Pratyabartan", the judge in "Bicharak" and police officer in "Thana Theke Aaschhi" at a time when he was at the height of popularity as a matinee idol. Death. A workaholic, he was rumoured to have said that his preferred demise would be on the floor of a studio, doing what he loved best: acting. While filming "Ogo Bodhu Shundori" in 1980, he suffered a heart attack. Uttam Kumar was admitted to the Belleveue Clinic. The doctors did their best for 16 hours but he died that night on 24 July 1980 at the age of 53. As his hearse wound its way across Bhowanipur and finally to the Keoratala Burning Ghat, traffic in Kolkata came to a halt as thousands flocked the streets to pay their respects and have a last glimpse of the legend. Tributes and appreciations. There is a theatre (Uttam Mancha) named after him in Kolkata. A life-size statue has been erected near Tollygunj metro station which has recently been renamed after the iconic actor by the Central Railway Ministry. Besides, Shilpi Sansad, the actor's pet project of safegurading the artistes especially the poor and the old, is active still. Celebrating the 83rd birth anniversary of Uttam Kumar, the Department of Posts in 2009, released a series of new postal stamps featuring the actor on them.The Department of Posts also released a brochure on the Uttam Kumar Stamp release with a note that says 'Uttam Kumar – The Legend of Indian Cinema'. Respects. The Tollygunge metro station of Kolkata Metro was renamed as "Mahanayak Uttam Kumar" and decorated the station by movie pictures of Uttam Kumar by Indian Railways. Kolkata Film Festival 2011 has a special screening of the Mahanayak's "Nayak" and a documentary on him.
113322	Paul Michael Robinson (born April 7, 1963) is an American actor, photographer, producer and model. He is most well known for playing the sexually inexperienced, alien leader Haffron from the classic "Emmanuelle in Space". He is well known in direct-to-video action films including "Maximum Security", "Active Stealth", and "The Capitol Conspiracy". Early life. Paul was born in Long Beach, California. He served in the United States Army and was stationed at Fort Stewart, GA. He was in the 3rd Battalion, 15th Infantry specializing in communications. He was out before Desert Storm. After the military he had a friend take photographs of him to help him break into the film business. "Emmanuelle in Space". Paul was cast as the lead opposite Krista Allen in the erotic epic "Emmanuelle in Space". The role enabled him to show that he had quite a presence as an actor and comedian. It also allowed him to showcase his physical attributes and beauty. "Emmanuelle in Space" remains one of the pioneering softcore films and continues to find new audiences and fans. Justine. The success of "Emmanuelle in Space" brought Paul back to Alain Siritzky Productions to be showcased in their newest epic "The Adventures of Justine". Paul played Klauss Heinmann, Timothy Di Pri's nemesis. The series was not as well received as the "Emmanuelle in Space" series, but did offer Paul the chance to play a very different role. Television. In 1996, Paul was cast as Carl O'Donnell on the ill-fated and short-lived soap opera, ""The Guilt"" opposite Marisa Coughlan and George Hamilton. He then appeared in the first season of "Sabrina the Teenage Witch (TV series)". Paul played a speedo-wearing pool-boy sent to tempt title character. Partnership with Fred Olen Ray. After his brief stint on television, Paul was cast as Alex in erotic thriller, "Friend of the Family 2". The film was in the same vein as "The Hand That Rocks the Cradle" and "Fatal Attraction". Paul played Alex, a man who carries on with an unstable woman only to return home to find her the live-in nanny of his newborn and his wife's confidante. "Friend of the Family 2" marked the first partnership of Paul and movie director/producer Fred Olen Ray. Olen Ray has said that Paul is "kind of a quiet guy." Paul's professionalism allowed him to make four more films with Olen Ray. The sophomore attempt being his action film debut, "Maximum Security" which allowed Paul his first ever chance to headline the film. He was the only actor to have his name appear above the title. He then did three more direct-to-video action movies and thrillers. 1999's "The Capitol Conspiracy" opposite Don "The Dragon" Wilson, 2000's "Active Stealth" opposite Daniel Baldwin, and 2001's "Kept" opposite Christian Oliver. Producer and Photography. Late 2004 marked a turning point in Paul's career where he took on the role of Executive Producer on an upcoming independent film Grow Tall and Then They Fall". It was filmed in 2005 and is available with Netflix. The film was released through Cricket Feet, a production company started by casting director and author Bonnie Gillespie. Paul, always having an eye for photography was also one of her featured industry photographers in her "How-to" Books about the Entertainment Industry. Paul also did all the promotional photography for the release of the film. The film gave Paul the chance to go where he hadn't before. He played the role of Roy, a good looking arborist who becomes mentally handicapped after a tree fell. Paul brought honesty and pathos to a role with very little dialogue. Recent Works. Paul has worked in mainstream Hollywood films as well. His credits include "BASEketball" and "TMNT". He also starred in the vampire action movie, "Revamped" directed by and also starring his "Friend of the Family 2" co-star Jeff Rector. He recently wrapped production on "Head, Heart and Balls...or Why I Gave Up Smoking Put?" co-starring Adam Carolla.
1060880	Bad Day at Black Rock is a 1955 thriller film directed by John Sturges and starring Spencer Tracy and Robert Ryan that combines elements of Westerns and film noir. The picture tells the story of a mysterious stranger who arrives at a tiny isolated town in a desert of the southwest United States in search of a man. The supporting cast includes Anne Francis, Dean Jagger, Walter Brennan, John Ericson, Ernest Borgnine and Lee Marvin. The film was adapted by Don McGuire and Millard Kaufman from the short story "Bad Time at Honda" by Howard Breslin. The original story had appeared in "The American Magazine" in January 1947, with full-color illustrations by Robert Fawcett. Plot. In late 1945, John J. Macreedy (Spencer Tracy), who lacks the use of his left arm, steps off the Southern Pacific passenger train at the desert hamlet of Black Rock. It is the first time the train has stopped there in four years. Macreedy is looking for a man named Komoko, and a place called Adobe Flats, but the few residents are inexplicably hostile. The young hotel desk clerk, Pete Wirth (John Ericson), claims he has no vacant rooms. The newcomer is none-too-subtly threatened by local tough Hector David (Lee Marvin). Reno Smith (Robert Ryan), the town's unofficial leader, informs Macreedy that Komoko, as a Japanese-American, was interned during World War II. Certain that something is wrong, Macreedy sees the town sheriff, Tim Horn (Dean Jagger), but the alcoholic lawman is clearly afraid of Smith. The veterinarian and undertaker, Doc Velie (Walter Brennan), advises Macreedy to leave town immediately. Smith lets slip that Komoko is dead. Pete's sister, Liz (Anne Francis), rents Macreedy a Jeep. Macreedy drives to nearby Adobe Flats, where he finds a homestead burned to the ground, a deep well, and wildflowers. On the way back, Coley Trimble (Ernest Borgnine) tries unsuccessfully to run him off the road. When Smith later asks, Macreedy informs him he lost the use of his left arm fighting in Italy. Macreedy tells him he found wildflowers at the Komoko place, leading him to suspect that a body is buried underneath. Smith reveals that he is virulently anti-Japanese; he tried to enlist the day after the attack on Pearl Harbor, but was rejected. Macreedy tries to telephone the state police, but Pete refuses to put the call through. Doc Velie admits that something terrible happened four years ago and that Smith has everyone too terrified to speak up. Velie offers Macreedy his hearse to leave town, but it will not start. Then Hector comes over and rips out the distributor cap and spark plug wires. Macreedy goes to Hastings' (Russell Collins) telegraph office and writes a telegram addressed to the state police. While Macreedy is having lunch, Trimble picks a fight, but Macreedy uses judo and karate to beat him up and knock him out. Macreedy tells Smith that he knows Smith killed Komoko and that he was too cowardly to do it alone, so he involved Hector, Pete, and Coley. When Macreedy arrives in the hotel lobby, Smith and his henchmen are already there. Doc Velie and Sheriff Horn are there too. Hastings arrives and tries to give Smith a piece of paper (presumably a telegram) but Macreedy snatches it away and discovers that it is his own unsent message. Macreedy and Doc Velie recognize that Hastings has violated the federal law of the Pacific Telegraph Act of 1860 and demand that Sheriff Horn do something. When Horn tries to confront Smith, however, Smith takes away his sheriff's badge and pins it on Hector. Hector tears up the note for the telegraph message (evidence). After Smith and Hector leave, Macreedy reveals that the loss of his arm had left him wallowing in self-pity, but Smith's attempt to kill him has given him strength again. Macreedy finally learns what happened after revealing that he came to Black Rock to give Komoko his son's medal. Komoko's son was a soldier serving in Italy and died in combat while saving Macreedy's life. Komoko leased some farmland from Smith, who was sure there was no water there. However, Komoko dug a well deep enough to find water, and installed a windmill there to pump water. After Smith was turned down for enlistment after Pearl Harbor, he and the other men spent the day drinking, then decided to scare Komoko. The old man barricaded himself inside his home, but the men set the place on fire. When Komoko emerged ablaze, Smith shot him and buried him on the property in an unmarked grave. Pete lures Hector who is standing guard outside the hotel, into the hotel office, where Doc Velie knocks him out. Liz drives Macreedy out of town in her Jeep, but stops in a canyon. Macreedy realizes he has been betrayed. When Smith starts firing at him, Macreedy shelters behind the Jeep. Liz rushes to Smith despite Macreedy's warning. Smith tells her she has to die along with the rest of his accomplices. He shoots her in the back when she tries to run. Macreedy finds a bottle and fills it with gasoline from the jeep's fuel line, creating a Molotov cocktail. When Smith climbs down for a better shot, Macreedy throws it, hitting the rock next to Smith and setting him on fire. Macreedy drives up to the town jail with the injured Smith and Liz's body. Velie and Horn rush out; they had mustered up enough courage to jail Hector David and Coley Trimble. The state police are called in. As Macreedy is leaving, Doc Velie requests Komoko's medal to help Black Rock heal. Macreedy gives it to him just before boarding the train. Noticing the crowds,the conductor asks "What happened here?" MacReedy replies, "There's been a murder". The conductor shrugs, and says, "Figured somethin' happened-first time the train's stopped here in four years". MacReedy's, and the film's last line - "Second time!" Production. Nicholas Schenck, MGM's president at the time, nearly did not allow the picture to be made because he felt the story was subversive. The film's producer, Dore Schary, wanted Spencer Tracy for the leading role. Concerned that Tracy might not accept, Schary ordered the script changed so that Macreedy was a one-armed man. He concluded that no actor would turn down the chance to play a character with a handicap. Just before shooting began, an indecisive Tracy tried to back out of the picture. Schary made clear that he was willing to sue the actor if he quit the film. According to Robert Osborne of the television network Turner Classic Movies in the introduction to the film's airing on its weekly segment "The Essentials," Tracy, weighed down by his growing alcoholism, refused to give MGM an answer. In order to close the deal, according to Osborne, an MGM executive contacted Tracy shortly before filming was to begin and said, "Don't worry, Mr. Tracy, a copy of the script has been sent to Alan Ladd and he has agreed to do the picture." The next day, Tracy committed to "Bad Day at Black Rock". Ladd, however, apparently never even saw the script. It turned out to be Tracy's last film for MGM. Preview audiences reacted negatively to the film's original opening sequence. A revised one, showing the speeding train rushing at the camera, replaced it. The shot was taken from a helicopter as it flew away from the moving train. The film was run in reverse to create the opening shot. "Bad Day at Black Rock" was filmed in Lone Pine, California and the nearby Alabama Hills, one of hundreds of movies that have been filmed in the area since 1920. The "town" of Black Rock was built for the film. Today nothing remains of the set, erected one mile north () of the Lone Pine railroad station, a stop on the Southern Pacific Railroad's Jawbone Branch, which served the northern Mojave Desert and Owens Valley. Reception. Critical response. "Variety" magazine's reviewer wrote: "Considerable excitement is whipped up in this suspense drama, and fans who go for tight action will find it entirely satisfactory. Besides telling a yarn of tense suspense, the picture is concerned with a social message on civic complacency." Bosley Crowther, film critic for "The New York Times," also liked it, writing, "Slowly, through a process of guarded discourse, which director John Sturges has built up by patient, methodical pacing of his almost completely male cast, an eerie light begins to glimmer ... Quite as interesting as the drama, which smacks of being contrived, are the types of masculine creatures paraded in this film. Mr. Tracy is sturdy and laconic as a war veteran with a lame arm (which does not hamper him, however, in fighting judo style). Mr. Ryan is angular and vicious as the uneasy king-pin of the town, and Walter Brennan is cryptic and caustic as the local mortician with a streak of spunk. Ernest Borgnine as a potbellied bully (he was Sgt. "Fatso" Judson in "From Here to Eternity"), Dean Jagger as a rum-guzzling sheriff, Lee Marvin as a dimwitted tough, John Ericson as a nervous hotel clerk and Russell Collins as a station-master are all good, too." (Ericson and Ms. Francis later starred together in "Honey West".) The review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reported that 96% of critics gave the film a positive review, based on 25 reviews." Awards. Wins Nominations
1169440	Darleen Carr (born December 12, 1950) is an American actress, singer, and frequent voice over artist. She has also been credited as Darlene Carr or Darleen Drake. Life and career. Carr remains best known for a recurring role as the editor, reporter and photographer of the town newspaper in the 1981–1982 television series "Bret Maverick" opposite James Garner, a sequel to Garner's 1957 series "Maverick". According to the IMDb, she appeared in eighty-eight television series and films in a career spanning from 1963 to 2001, occasionally doing animation voice-overs. Carr made guest appearances on "", "The Waltons", and "The Paper Chase"; played Henry Fonda's character's daughter for thirty-nine episodes of "The Smith Family"; and portrayed Kathleen "Kick" Kennedy, John F. Kennedy's favorite sister, in a television movie, "Young Joe, the Forgotten Kennedy". She had a recurring role as Margaret Devlin in western series "The Oregon Trail" (1977). In the 1965-1966 television season, Carr played Kathy, a student a private girls' academy in California on "The John Forsythe Show". She portrayed Karl Malden's character's daughter on "The Streets of San Francisco" (1972–1977), as well as in the 1992 TV movie sequel, "Back to the Streets of San Francisco". She is also a singer and sang in "The Sound of Music" and in Walt Disney's "The Jungle Book". She released an album, "The Carr-DeBelles Band", in 1988. She received a Golden Globe Best Supporting actress nomination for her work in the television program "Once An Eagle". Personal life. She is the youngest of three children to vaudeville actress Rita Oehman and musician Brian Farnon. Carr's older sister, actress Charmian Carr, co-starred as the eldest daughter in "The Sound of Music". Her other sister is Shannon Farnon. Since 1992 she has been married to her third husband, actor Jameson Parker. Darleen had one son from her first marriage, Zevan, who died at three years old in 1982 from aplastic anemia, a blood disorder. Award nominations. In 1977, she was nominated for the Best Supporting Actress Golden Globe for her performance in the miniseries "Once an Eagle".
1030481	Dr. Dolittle: Million Dollar Mutts (also known as Dr. Dolittle 5) is a 2009 American comedy film, starring Kyla Pratt and Norm Macdonald. It was released on May 19, 2009 and like its predecessor, "" (2008), was a direct-to-DVD release. Unlike the previous two films, the story focuses more on Lucky (Macdonald). Plot. Maya Dolittle (Kyla Pratt) thinks she doesn't have to spend 7 years in college to be a vet because she can talk to animals. While taking a walk with Lucky, she helps a cat on a tree by talking to it. She gets discovered and Tiffany Monaco (Tegan Moss), a Hollywood star, brings her to L.A. to help her little puppy, who turns out to be a boy. Soon, Maya and Tiffany began creating their own show, "The Animal Talkers". Maya also meets Brandon Booker (Brandon Jay McLaren) who is her love interest. Maya soon finds out the show isn't about helping animals and goes back home to study being a vet. She also finds out Brandon is at her school too. Meanwhile, Monkey is out in L.A. searching for his big break but quits because he wants to help Maya.
1060440	The Seven Year Itch is a romantic comedy 1955 American film based on a three-act play with the same name by George Axelrod. The film was co-written and directed by Billy Wilder, and starred Marilyn Monroe and Tom Ewell, reprising his Broadway role. It contains one of the most iconic images of the 20th century – Monroe standing on a subway grate as her white dress is blown by a passing train. The titular phrase, which refers to declining interest in a monogamous relationship after seven years of marriage, has been used by psychologists. Plot. Richard Sherman (Tom Ewell) is a nerdy, faithful, middle-aged publishing executive with an overactive imagination and a mid-life crisis, whose wife Helen (Evelyn Keyes) and son Ricky (Butch Bernard) are summering in Maine. When he returns home with the kayak paddle Ricky accidentally left behind, he meets a woman (Marilyn Monroe), a commercial actress and former model who rents the apartment upstairs while in town to make television spots for a brand of toothpaste. That evening, he works on proofing a book in which psychiatrist Dr. Brubaker (Oskar Homolka) claims that a significant proportion of men have extra-marital affairs in the seventh year of marriage. He has an imaginary conversation with Helen, trying to convince her, in three fantasy sequences, that he is irresistible to women, including his secretary, a nurse and her bridesmaid, but she laughs it off. A tomato plant then crashes into his lounge chair; the woman upstairs apologizes for accidentally knocking it over, and Richard invites her down for a drink. He waits for her to get dressed, including in underwear she says she keeps cool in her icebox. When she arrives, a vision in pink, they have a drink and he lies about being married. When she sees his wedding ring, he backtracks but she is unconcerned, having no designs on him, only on his air-conditioning. He has a fantasy that she is a femme fatale overcome by his playing of Rachmaninoff's Second Piano Concerto. In reality, she prefers Chopsticks, which they play together. Richard, overcome by his fantasies, awkwardly grabs at her, causing them to fall off the piano bench. He apologizes for his indiscretion but she says it happens to her all the time. Guilt-ridden, however, he asks her to leave. Over the next few days, they spend more time together and Richard imagines that they are growing closer, although she is immune to his imagined charms. Helen continually calls her husband, asking him to send the paddle so Ricky can use the kayak, but Richard is repeatedly distracted. His waning resolve to resist temptation fuels his fear that he is succumbing to the "Seven Year Itch". He seeks help from Dr. Brubaker, but to no avail. His imagination then runs even wilder: the young woman tells a plumber (Victor Moore) how Richard is "just like "The Creature from the Black Lagoon""; the plumber repeats her story to neighbor McKenzie, whom Helen had asked to drop by to pick up Ricky's paddle. Richard imagines his wife with McKenzie on a hayride which actually takes place but into which he injects his paranoia, guilt and jealousy. After seeing "The Creature from the Black Lagoon", the young woman stands over the subway grate to experience the breeze – Monroe in the iconic scene in the pleated white halter dress. Eventually coming to his senses, and fearing his wife's retribution, which he imagines in a fantasy scene, Richard, paddle in hand, tells the young woman she can stay in his apartment; then he runs off to catch the next train to Maine to be with Helen and Ricky. Production. "The Seven Year Itch" was filmed between September 1 and November 4, 1954, and was the only Billy Wilder film released by 20th Century Fox. The characters of Elaine (Dolores Rosedale), Marie, and the inner voices of Sherman and The Girl were dropped from the play; the characters of the Plumber, Miss Finch (Carolyn Jones), the Waitress (Doro Merande), and Kruhulik the janitor (Robert Strauss) were added. Many lines and scenes from the play were cut or re-written because they were deemed indecent by the Hays office. Axelrod and Wilder complained that the film was being made under straitjacketed conditions. This led to a major plot change: in the play, Sherman and The Girl had sex; in the movie, the romance is all in his head. The footage of Monroe's dress billowing over a subway grate was shot twice: the first take was shot on location outside the Trans-Lux 52nd Street Theater, then located at 586 Lexington Avenue in Manhattan, while the second take was on a sound stage. Both eventually made their way into the finished film, despite the often-held belief that the original on-location footage's sound had been rendered useless by the overexcited crowd present during filming in New York. Footage of Walter Matthau and Ewell's screen tests for Sherman is featured in the DVD of the film. Nicolas Roeg's film "Insignificance" features a character based on Monroe and a re-enactment of the subway/dress scene. The exterior shooting location of Richard's apartment was 164 East 61st Street in Manhattan. Saul Bass created the opening animated title sequence for the film, his only title sequence for a Wilder movie. Critical response. The original 1955 review in "Variety" was largely positive. Though Hollywood production codes prohibited writer-director Billy Wilder from filming a comedy where adultery takes place, the review expressed disappointment that Sherman remains chaste. The film earned $6 million in rentals at the North American box office. Awards. The film was listed at number 51 on the American Film Institute's list of the top 100 American comedy films of the past 100 years. Ewell won a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy. Wilder was nominated for a Directors Guild of America Award.
1163925	Bradford Dillman (born April 14, 1930) is an American actor and author. Early life. Bradford Dillman was born on April 14, 1930 in San Francisco, California, the son of Josephine (née Moore) and Dean Dillman, a stockbroker. He studied at Town School for Boys and St. Ignatius High School. Later he attended the
629326	Japanese Story is a 2003 Australian romantic drama film directed by Sue Brooks. It was screened in the Un Certain Regard section at the 2003 Cannes Film Festival. Plot. Sandy Edwards (played by Toni Collette) is a director in a company designing geological software in Perth, Western Australia. Her business partner manipulates her into agreeing to act as a guide for a Japanese businessman visiting mines in the Pilbara desert, in hopes that the businessman will purchase her product and have a good impression during his trip. When Tachibana Hiromitsu (Gotaro Tsunashima) arrives, he treats Sandy like an ordinary driver, with more intent on discovering himself in the wilderness than on buying computer software. At first Sandy is angered by his private and demanding nature. During their first travel in the desert, Hiromitsu, feeling insecure, speaks more on his phone with friends in Japan than he does to Sandy driving next to him, and insists that she drives farther than planned. The terrain becomes too much for the pair's vehicle which becomes bogged down. After a series of desperate attempts to release the vehicle, including digging a dead man anchor, their winch burns out. Sandy tries to contact other people for rescue through cellphone, but Hiromitsu keeps stopping her from doing so. This forces them to spend the night stranded together. The next day Hiromitsu, conscious that his actions had placed them in danger, wakes up much earlier than Sandy and builds a wooden sticks track over which they can drive out of the sand. Now that they are on the road again, the ice breaks and a friendship starts between them that, in isolated surroundings uninterrupted by their work, grows quickly and honestly. Later on at a motel, they have sexual intercourse. Only after does Sandy learn that Hiromitsu has a wife and children in Japan.
519935	Abelardo Dennis Florencio Trillo Ho (born May 12, 1981 in Quezon City, Philippines), more widely known as Dennis Trillo, is a Filipino award-winning actor, singer and fashion model. His film debut was in "Aishite Imasu (Mahal Kita) 1941". He is currently an artist of GMA Network. In 2006, he won three Best Actor trophies. He is perhaps known for his role as Eric del Mundo in the gay-themed series "My Husband's Lover", currently aired on GMA Network. Life and career. Trillo's career in entertainment started in 2000 at ABS-CBN, when he was introduced in the 10th batch of ABS-CBN's Star Circle (now known as Star Magic). He was seen in the television soap operas "Pangako Sayo" and "Sa Dulo ng Walang Hanggan" where he played the confidante of one of the lead stars. He transferred to GMA Network wherein he became one of its contract stars. He was cast in several television outings like "Kahit Kailan", "Twin Hearts" and "Love to Love". In 2004, he became one of the lead stars in the "telefantasya" (fantasy-themed TV series) "Mulawin". He made his film debut in "", where he portrayed a cross-dressing spy for the Hukbalahap during the advent of the Japanese invasion in World War II. For "Aishite Imasu", he received several awards and citations including Best Supporting Actor from the 30th Metro Manila Film Festival and Best Actor trophies from the Film Academy of the Philippines, the PMPC Star Awards for Movies, and the Young Critics Circle. He was also included in the third installment of "Mano Po". In 2005, Trillo was part of the TV adaptation of the Mars Ravelo comic, "Darna", where he played the love interest of both the titular super-heroine as well as her archenemy Valentina. He was later part of the drama anthology "Now and Forever: Agos". That same year, he reprised his role for "Mulawin: The Movie", and was also in the film "Blue Moon". He also won Best Actor trophies that year. Trillo was again cast as a lead in "Etheria", where he portrayed the Sapirian prince, Raquim. Midway through the series, GMA Network management announced that Trillo would be pulled out of "Etheria" to once again star in "Majika", another fantasy-themed television series, but Trillo was allowed to complete "Etheria". Aside from his television show, Trillo also starred in the horror-suspense film "Pamahiin". GMA also included him as a co-host for the network's noontime show "SOP" where he also plays drums as part of the show's Starband. He made a "Lenten Presentation" in GMA-7 entitled "Unico Hijo" which he played the role of Agnes, son of a well-known politician in their province who is gay, and has AIDS. In 2007, Trillo starred in the Regal film "Kulam". On August 21, 2007, he started taping for GMA-7's "fantaserye" "Zaido". On April 27, 2008, five thousand spectators viewed the "Battle of Mactan" play, with Trillo playing Ferdinand Magellan at the Mactan, Cebu Shrine. On May 12, 2008, Trillo joined an afternoon soap, Pablo Gomez's "Magdusa Ka". In late 2008, Trillo starred in "Gagambino" where he played the main character. The series ended in early 2009. In 2009, after "Gagambino", he starred in the comedy "Adik Sa'Yo" and as Pancho in "Darna". Trillo replaced Dingdong Dantes as one of the hosts of "StarStruck V". In 2010, Trillo began co-hosting the GMA variety show, "Party Pilipinas". He also appeared in Sine Novela Presents: "Gumapang Ka Sa Lusak". In 2011, he appeared in the GMA fantaserye, "Dwarfina". After playing lead role in the Philippine adaptation of "Temptation Of Wife", Trillo is now involved in the controversial drama series "My Husband's Lover" which received positive reviews from critics. Personal life. Trillo was born to Florita Florencio Ho (née Trillo), a Filipino and Abelardo Leslie Ho, a Chinese Filipino. Trillo finished his high school at The Philippine Women's University - Jose Abad Santos Memorial School in Quezon City and spent his grade school years (grades 1–7) at the Ateneo De Manila University. He has a B.A. in International Studies from Miriam College. Trillo has a son with Carlene Aguilar born in September 2007.
1164206	Scott Vincent James Baio (; born September 22, 1960) is an American actor and television director, best known for his roles as Chachi Arcola on the sitcom "Happy Days" and its spin-off "Joanie Loves Chachi", the titular character on the sitcom "Charles in Charge" and the main character in the musical "Bugsy Malone". He is also known for his role as Dr. Jack Stewart in the medical-mystery-drama series "". Career. In 1976, Baio played the title character "Bugsy Malone" in the cult children’s gangster musical directed by Alan Parker, which also co-starred Jodie Foster. Baio and Foster later worked together again in the teen girl drama "Foxes" (1980), helmed by Adrian Lyne. When he was 16, Baio was then cast as The Fonz's cousin Chachi Arcola on "Happy Days". During his time on "Happy Days", Baio earned two Emmy Award nominations for his lead performances in the television movies "Stoned" (1981) and "All the Kids Do It" (1985). He won two Young Artist Awards during the Third Annual Youth in Film Awards (1980–1981) as Best Young Actor in a Television Special for "Stoned" and Best Young Comedian in Television or Motion Pictures for "Happy Days". He also starred in the made-for-television youth drama specials "The Boy Who Drank Too Much" with Lance Kerwin and "Senior Trip" with Mickey Rooney. In 1982, Baio was in a spin-off of "Happy Days" entitled "Joanie Loves Chachi" with Erin Moran, which lasted 17 episodes. That same year, he appeared opposite another actor, Willie Aames, in the film "Zapped!", and recorded an album for RCA (he also recorded a second album "The Boys Are Out Tonight" the following year). During this same period, he also starred with Danny Aiello and undertook the lead role of Francis Geminiani in the special HBO cable television presentation of "Gemini", an adaptation of the Broadway comedy-drama "Happy Birthday, Gemini" by the award-winning playwright Alberto Innauranto. From 1984 until 1990, Baio starred in the syndicated comedy series "Charles in Charge". In 1985, he was part of an ensemble cast for "Alice in Wonderland", where he portrayed Pat the Pig. From 1987 through 1991, he was a director of the children's comedy series "Out of This World". During the 1990s, Baio appeared in various television programs, including the short-lived "Look Who's Talking" small screen spin-off "Baby Talk". In 1991, he joined Diana Muldaur and Ally Walker in the NBC Monday Night Movie "Perry Mason and the Case of the Fatal Fashion", as a young prosecutor. Between 1992 and 1995, he portrayed Dr. Jack Stewart in the medical mystery series "" starring Dick Van Dyke. Baio was a guest-star on many series, including "Full House", "Touched by an Angel", "Veronica's Closet" and "The Nanny". He was also in a number of television series and commercials. He also starred in several films on television and video releases such as "Detonator", "Bar-Hopping", "Dumb Luck", "Face Value" and "Danielle Steel's Mixed Blessings". Baio's other movies include the independent films "Very Mean Men", "Face to Face" and "The Bread, My Sweet". "Very Mean Men" (2000) was a comedy directed by Tony Vitale about a mob war between two families. Baio served as a co-producer with his older brother Steven on said film, and even played the crucial role of impetuous crime scion Paulie Minnetti who unwittingly instigates the crime feud. Variety praised his performance: "A career-reviving turn by Scott Baio."
1038873	Bonita Melody Lysette "Bonnie" Langford (born 22 July 1964) is an English actress, dancer and entertainer. She came to prominence as a child star in the early 1970s then she subsequently became Mel Bush a companion of Colin Baker and Sylvester McCoy's "Doctor" in the "BBC" series "Doctor Who", and has appeared on stage in various musicals such as "Peter Pan: The Musical", "Cats", "The Pirates of Penzance" and "Chicago". She is the aunt of actresses Summer, Scarlett, Zizi and Saskia (Sasi) Strallen. Early career and "Doctor Who". Bonnie Langford attended the Arts Educational School St Catherine's School, Twickenham and the Italia Conti Academy stage school. Her first stage appearance was at four months, and her first public appearance was at 15 months when she danced in specially-made ballet shoes. She first came to public attention when, aged six years old, she won the talent show "Opportunity Knocks". This led to early fame in the television series "Just William", the 1974 Broadway revival of "Gypsy" starring Angela Lansbury, the 1976 film "Bugsy Malone", and the 1977 film "Wombling Free". During this time, she was appearing as a regular on a children's prime-time show made by Yorkshire Television called "Junior Showtime", along with child stars Lena Zavaroni, Neil Reed and Glynn Poole among others. Between 1986 and 1987, Langford played the role of Mel, companion to both the sixth and seventh Doctors in the classic science fiction series "Doctor Who". At 22 years, 4 months when her first serial "Terror of the Vervoids" aired in 1986, she was youngest actress to portray a companion until 10-year-old Caitlin Blackwood initiated her recurring role of Amelia "Amy" Pond" in 2010's "The Eleventh Hour", and remains the youngest actress to portray a companion full-time; Matthew Waterhouse (Adric) remains the youngest actor to portray a companion full-time. Langford returned to the role of Mel in 1993 for "Dimensions in Time", a special charity "Doctor Who"/"EastEnders" crossover episode as part of the BBC's "Children in Need". She has continued to reprise the role in several audio dramas produced by Big Finish Productions alongside the Colin Baker and Sylvester McCoy Doctors (including as an alternative version of Mel with Michael Jayston as the Valeyard in the "Doctor Who Unbound" play "He Jests at Scars..."). Bonnie was a featured dancer in BBC One's popular light entertainment series "The Hot Shoe Show" which she co-presented with Wayne Sleep. On 23 October 2005, she performed in "Children Will Listen", a 75th birthday tribute to Stephen Sondheim at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane. She is also a panto regular; recent credits include Prince Charming in "Cinderella" at the Yvonne Arnaud Theatre, Guildford (2005/2006); Peter in "Peter Pan" at the Richmond Theatre in Surrey (2008/2009); and Fairy Fuchsia in "Jack & the Beanstalk" at the Yvonne Arnaud Theatre in Guildford (2011–2012). "Dancing on Ice" show and tour. In 2006, Bonnie was a celebrity contestant in the first series of ITV's "Dancing on Ice", partnering professional figure skater Matt Evers. Their routines were characterised by the dramatic lifts and tricks they performed and were amongst the most ambitious in the competitions. Viewers saw her bang her head as she was spun on the ice during rehearsals, illustrating the danger of some of the moves they were attempting. Their appearances were also notable for the differing reception they received from the panel of judges (which consistently voted them highly, awarding them the highest total scores and the only two maximum scores from individual judges) and the voting public (who twice placed them in the bottom two pairs, forcing a "skate off" to remain in the competition). They finished in third place overall. Langford and Evers appeared again on the programme in the one-off "Champion of Champions" show which followed series two. They were scored second overall by the judging panel but again the public vote was less favourable and they were amongst the four teams eliminated in the first round of the competition. Langford then toured with "Torvill and Dean's " in 2007, a series of 41 shows in which she was the winner 27 times. Bonnie Langford took part in the in April and May 2008. Teamed with new skating partner Pavel Aubrecht she again impressed the judges and fans with two new superb routines, however the competition was extremely high with four of the other celebrities also winning shows as well and in the end Bonnie won 4 of the 49 shows on the tour. Her record of 27 wins set on the 2007 tour was broken on the 2009 tour by Ray Quinn who scored 35/39. Since "Dancing on Ice". Langford's appearance on "Dancing on Ice" sparked a regeneration in her career. She returned to the West End theatre in April 2006 (for the first time since 1998) playing the murderess Roxie Hart in the long-running West End musical "Chicago" and again in December 2007 – February 2008 in the same role, also in 2006–07 she appeared in the Birmingham and Plymouth tours of "Guys and Dolls" playing Miss Adelaide Adams, a dance hall hostess. Starting in 2006 she has also been touring with Sandi Toksvig in a two-woman theatrical show called "Short and Curly". She has also made a number of guest appearances on television, including "Agatha Christie's Marple" on ITV (playing Betty Johnson alongside Brian Conley in the episode "By the Pricking of My Thumbs", February 2006), "The Catherine Tate Show" (late 2006), "Supermarket Sweep" with Dale Winton (February 2007) and the children's programme "Hider in the House" (March 2007). In July 2007 she was a judge on the ITV series . Starting on 16 February 2008, Bonnie was 1 of 5 celebrities making up team Ant for their new team game Ant versus Dec in "Ant & Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway". She survived right up until the final edition, reaching the semi final stage & just missing out on the final which was eventually won by team Dec. From summer 2009 Bonnie again appeared in "Chicago" as Roxie Hart in Canada and also on Broadway in New York City from September – November 2009 (Bonnie returning to Broadway for the first time in 35 years) & again at the Cambridge Theatre in London's West End in December 2009 – January 2010. Bonnie performed at the famous Birdland (jazz club) in New York in February 2010 & in spring & summer 2010 she toured America once again in "Chicago". She has just finished recording a 'Talking Book' audio of her Doctor Who television adventure Paradise Towers released in April 2012 by AudioGO. She displays her many talents in the role of Roz in the first UK tour production of the Broadway musical, "9 to 5" which was launched at the Opera House, Manchester on 12 October 2012. Charity work and personal life. Bonnie Langford has supported the BBC's Children in Need appeal (1983 and 1987) and Comic Relief appeal (2007). During her 1987 Children in Need appearance, she had her ears pierced for the first time live on air after some of her friends had promised to make a large donation if she did so. For the latter, she appeared in the video for the charity single "I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles)" by the Proclaimers, Peter Kay and Matt Lucas. She has also appeared in celebrity versions of game shows to support Childline when she played in "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?" alongside Anton Du Beke in December 2006, and the "CdLs Foundation" on both "The Weakest Link" in January 2007 (which she won) and "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?", this time alongside Jason Gardiner, in January 2008. After a brief hiatus she has returned to screen and stage following her acclaimed performances on celebrity talent show "Dancing on Ice". In 2009, Langford moved to the United States, and now divides her time between New York City and Britain. She lives with her husband, fellow actor Paul Grunert ("ChuckleVision"), whom she married in Mauritius in 1995, along with their two daughters, the elder of whom is Grunert's child from his previous marriage. The younger daughter, Biana was born in October 2000. Bonnie Langford, alongside Kerry Ellis, is the patron for Performance Preparation Academy in Guildford.
1064235	Smokey and the Bandit is a 1977 action comedy film starring Burt Reynolds, Sally Field, Jackie Gleason, Jerry Reed, Pat McCormick, Paul Williams and Mike Henry. It inspired several other trucking films, including two sequels, "Smokey and the Bandit II", and "Smokey and the Bandit Part 3". There was also a series of 1994 television films ("Bandit Goes Country", "Bandit Bandit", "Beauty and the Bandit", and "Bandit's Silver Angel") from original director/writer Hal Needham loosely based on the earlier version, with actor Brian Bloom now playing Bandit. The three original films introduced two generations of the Pontiac Trans Am. The film was the fourth highest-grossing film of 1977. Plot. Rich Texas wheeler-dealer Big Enos Burdette (Pat McCormick) and his son, Little Enos (Paul Williams), are trying to find a truck driver willing to haul Coors beer to Georgia for their refreshment. At the time - fostered by an agreement with Anheuser Busch - Coors was unavailable east of Texas due to a lack of state alcohol distribution permits. Unauthorized transportation of Coors across state lines was considered "bootlegging". Truck drivers who had taken the bet previously had been discovered and arrested by "Smokey" (truck driver and CB slang for highway patrolmen). At a local truck rodeo, the Texans locate legendary truck driver Bo "Bandit" Darville (Burt Reynolds) and offer him $80,000 (over $300,000 in 2013) to haul 400 cases of Coors beer from Texarkana, Texas to the "Southern Classic" in Georgia – in 28 hours, driving a total of , for an average of 65 mph including all stops. (This was an artistic liberty, as the trip is only 1260 miles round-trip. Also, Texarkana, Texas, is located in a dry county, preventing Coors or any other alcoholic beverage from being sold there.) Bandit accepts the bet and recruits his best friend and fellow truck driver Cledus "Snowman" Snow (Jerry Reed) to drive the truck, promising to buy him a new truck with the proceeds. Snowman brings along his dog, a Basset Hound named "Fred", for company. After requesting an advance from the Burdettes for a "speedy car", Bandit purchases a black Pontiac Trans Am, which he will drive as a "blocker" car to deflect attention away from the truck and its illegal cargo. The duo reach Texas ahead of schedule, load their truck with Coors, and immediately head back towards Georgia. Shortly thereafter, Bandit picks up professional dancer and runaway bride Carrie (Sally Field), whom he nicknames "Frog" because she is "always hoppin' around" (in a panic). However, by picking up Carrie, Bandit becomes the target of Texas Sheriff Buford T. Justice (Jackie Gleason), "a respectable law officer of over thirty years seniority", whose handsome yet very simple-minded son Junior (Mike Henry) was to have been Carrie's groom.
1686314	Rahul Pandharipande (born 1969) is an Indian-American mathematician at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zürich (ETH) working in algebraic geometry. His particular interests concern the moduli of curves, Gromov-Witten theory, and the moduli of sheaves. He received his A.B. from Princeton University in 1990 and his Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1994. His advisor at Harvard was Joe Harris. After teaching at the University of Chicago and the California Institute of Technology, he joined the faculty as Professor of Mathematics at Princeton in 2002. In 2011, he accepted a Professorship at ETH Zürich. He frequently collaborates with Fields medalist Andrei Okounkov. He received the Clay Research Award in 2013. His father Vijay Raghunath Pandharipande was a renowned theoretical physicist who worked in the area of nuclear physics.
1064361	Hot Fuzz is a 2007 British action comedy film directed and co-written by Edgar Wright, and co-written by and starring Simon Pegg alongside Nick Frost. The three and the film's producer Nira Park had previously worked together on the television series "Spaced" and the 2004 film "Shaun of the Dead". The film follows two police officers attempting to solve a series of mysterious deaths in a small English village. Over a hundred action films were used as inspiration for developing the script, which Wright and Pegg worked on together. Filming took place over eleven weeks in early 2006, and featured an extensive cast along with various uncredited cameos. Visual effects were developed by ten artists to expand on or add explosions, gore, and gunfire scenes. Debuting on 14 February 2007 in the United Kingdom and 20 April in the United States, "Hot Fuzz" received wide acclaim with a % approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes and 81/100 from Metacritic. The total international box office gross reached $80,573,774 before its home media release. Shortly after the film's release, two different soundtracks were released in the UK and US. The film is the second in Wright and Pegg's "Three Flavours Cornetto trilogy" and was preceded by 2004's "Shaun of the Dead" and followed by 2013's "The World's End"; each of them featuring a different flavour of Cornetto ice cream. Plot. Nicholas Angel (Simon Pegg), an extremely dedicated police officer of the London Metropolitan Police Service, performs his duties so well that he is accused of making his colleagues look bad. His superiors transfer him to "crime-free" Sandford, a town in rural Gloucestershire. He immediately arrests a large group of under-age drinkers, and a drunk driver who turns out to be his partner, PC Danny Butterman (Nick Frost), the son of local police inspector Frank Butterman (Jim Broadbent). Danny, well-meaning but naive, is in awe of his new partner. Angel struggles to adjust to the slow, uneventful pace of the village. Despite clearing up several otherwise unnoticed crimes, including confiscating a naval mine and a number of unlicensed firearms, Angel soon finds his most pressing concern is an escaped swan. His attention to the letter of the law makes him the target of dislike and mockery by his co-workers. Angel and Butterman eventually bond over drinks at the local pub and action films such as "Point Break" and "Bad Boys II". A series of gruesome deaths shock the town; Angel investigates, believing them to be murders. He attempts to arrest Simon Skinner (Timothy Dalton), the manager of the local Somerfield supermarket, and member of Sandford's Neighbourhood Watch Alliance, under suspicion of murdering the victims due to their involvement in a lucrative property deal. Skinner is able to provide plausible explanations for all of Angel's charges, and a solid alibi. Disappointed and concerned that he has become paranoid, Angel returns to his routine policing with Danny. However, he overhears a shopkeeper inquire about the "killers". He realizes that he was wrong in suspecting the murders to be the actions of one person. He takes his multiple-killer theory to Inspector Butterman, who asks him to sleep on it. When Angel returns to his hotel room he is attacked by a cloaked figure. He knocks the attacker unconscious, discovering it is Michael Armstrong (Rory McCann), the trolley boy at Somerfield, sent by Skinner to kill Angel. Tipped off by Skinner on Michael's walkie-talkie, Angel heads to the nearby castle where he discovers the truth: Inspector Butterman and the NWA are obsessed with keeping Sandford's "Village of the Year" title, murdering anyone whom they see as a threat to the village's image. The late Mrs. Butterman had put everything into helping Sandford win the first "Village of the Year", but travellers ruined the park the night before the judges arrived, driving her to suicide. Fleeing the mob, Angel discovers the bodies of various "problem" people whom the NWA had disposed of, but then Danny corners and apparently stabs him. Having tricked the NWA into believing that Angel is dead, Danny drives him to the village limits and releases him, insisting that he knew nothing about their true activities. Danny urges Angel to go back to London, reasoning that no one would believe the truth. At a motorway service station, Angel sees "Point Break" and "Bad Boys II" on a nearby DVD rack and is inspired to stop the NWA. He drives back to town and arms himself with the guns he confiscated earlier, and with Danny's help engages the NWA in a series of gun fights. After persuading their colleagues of the truth, Angel and Danny take the battle to Somerfield. Skinner and Inspector Butterman flee, and are pursued by Angel and Danny, who catch the swan en route, to the nearby model village. Angel fights Skinner one-on-one, until Skinner slips and impales his mouth on the spire of the miniature cathedral, injuring him. Inspector Butterman holds Danny hostage and attempts to escape in Angel's car, but crashes into a tree when the swan attacks him. Angel's former superiors arrive from London, begging him to return as the crime rate has risen without him, but Angel chooses to remain in Sandford. Back at the police station, Tom Weaver (Edward Woodward), the last remaining member of the NWA, attempts to shoot Angel with an antique blunderbuss, but Danny dives in front of Angel and takes the shot. Angel distracts Weaver, causing him to fall onto the confiscated sea mine, triggering it and destroying the station. Angel tears through the rubble, finding an unresponsive Danny. One year later, Inspector Angel lays flowers on a grave marked "Butterman"; it is revealed that Danny has survived and the grave is his mother's. Danny is now a sergeant and Angel the head of the Sandford Police Service. The two head off to patrol Sandford. Cast. While writing the script, the film's director and writer, Edgar Wright, as well as Pegg, intended to include Frost as the partner for Pegg's character. Frost revealed that he would do the film only if he could name his character, and he chose "Danny Butterman". Cast requirements included fifty people for speaking and non-speaking parts, and there were several casting calls for citizens of Wells, Somerset, to fill the roles, as the city was where most of the filming took place. Production. Script. Wright wanted to write and direct a cop film because "there isn't really any tradition of cop films in the UK... We felt that every other country in the world had its own tradition of great cop action films and we had none." Wright and Pegg spent eighteen months writing the script. The first draft took eight months to develop, and after watching 138 cop-related films for dialogue and plot ideas and conducting over fifty interviews with police officers for research, the script was completed after another nine months. The title was based on the various two-word titles of action films in the 1980s and 1990s. In one interview Wright declared that he "wanted to make a title that really had very little meaning...like "Lethal Weapon" and "Point Break" and "Executive Decision"." In the same interview, Pegg joked that many action films' titles "seem to be generated from two hats filled with adjectives and nouns and you just, 'Okay, that'll do.'" Pegg and Wright have referred to "Hot Fuzz" as being the second film in "Three Flavours Cornetto Trilogy" with "Shaun of the Dead" as the first and "The World's End" as the third. Preparation and filming. During the latter half of 2005, Working Title approached several towns in South West England looking for an appropriate filming location. Pegg commented, "We're both from the West Country so it just seemed like it was the perfect and logical thing to drag those kind of ideas and those genres and those clichés back to our beginnings to where we grew up, so you could see high-octane balls-to-the-wall action in Frome". Stow-on-the-Wold was considered amongst others, but after being turned away, the company settled upon Wells in Somerset, Wright's hometown, of which he has said "I love it but I also want to trash it". Wells Cathedral was digitally painted out of every shot of the village, as Wright wanted the Church of St. Cuthbert to be the centre building for the fictional town of Sandford; however, the Bishop's Palace is identifiable in some shots. Filming also took place at the Hendon Police College, including the driving school skid pan and athletic track. While shooting scenes in their uniforms, Pegg and Frost were often mistaken for genuine police officers and asked for directions by passers-by. Filming commenced on 19 March 2006 and lasted for eleven weeks. After editing, Wright ended up cutting half an hour of footage from the film. Homage. Wright has said that "Hot Fuzz" takes elements from his final amateur film, "Dead Right", which he described as both ""Lethal Weapon" set in Somerset" and "a "Dirty Harry" film in Somerset". He uses some of the same locations in both films, including the Somerfield supermarket, where he used to work as a shelf-stacker. In the scene in the Somerfield store, when Angel is confronting a chav for shoplifting, a DVD copy of "Shaun of the Dead" can be seen for a few frames. The title is "Zombies' Party", the Spanish and Portuguese title for the film. Further homages to "Shaun of the Dead" are also present in the film. In one scene, Nicholas wants to chase a shoplifter by jumping over garden fences; however, Danny is reluctant. Nicholas says, "What's the matter, Danny? You never taken a shortcut before?" He smiles arrogantly before jumping over three in a row (according to the DVD commentary, Pegg vaulted over three fences, and a stunt man did a back flip over the fourth). When Danny attempts it, he trips and falls through the fence. This is almost identical to a scene in "Shaun of the Dead", including the fall-through-fence gag (in "Shaun of the Dead", however, it happens to Pegg's character rather than Frost's, and he falls over the fence rather than through it). The DVD commentary says that Frost purposely looked back at the camera after crashing through the fence, to show that he had done the stunt rather than someone else. Frost's characters (Danny in "Hot Fuzz", Ed in "Shaun of the Dead") have a liking for Cornettos. Various scenes in "Hot Fuzz" feature a variety of action film DVDs such as "" and scenes from "Point Break" and "Bad Boys II". Wright revealed that he had to get permission from every actor in each video clip, including stunt men, to use the clips and for the use of the DVD covers had to pay for the rights from the respective studios. The film parodies clichés used in other action movies. On the topic of perceived gun fetishes in these movies, Pegg has said, "Men can't do that thing, which is the greatest achievement of humankind, which is to make another human, so we make metal versions of our own penises and fire more bits of metal out of the end into people's heads... It's our turn to grab the gun by the hilt and fire it into your face." Despite this, Pegg maintains that the film is not a spoof, in that "They lack the sneer that a lot of parodies have that look down on their source material. Because we're looking up to it." The film also includes various references to "The Wicker Man", in which Edward Woodward had played a policeman tough on law and order. Effects. To illustrate the destruction of the mansion as a result of the gas explosion, gas mortars were placed in front of the building to create large-scale fireballs. The wave of fire engulfs the camera, and to achieve that effect, gas mortars were used again but were fired upwards into a black ceiling piece that sloped up towards the camera. When the sequence was shot at a high speed, the flames appeared to surge across the ground. For one of the final scenes of the film, the Sandford police station is destroyed by an explosion. Part of the explosion was created by using a set model that showed its windows being blown out, while the building remained intact. The actual destruction of the building was depicted by exploding a miniature model of the station. Similar to the work in "Shaun of the Dead", blood and gore was prevalent throughout the film. Visual effects supervisor Richard Briscoe revealed the rationale for using the large amounts of blood: "In many ways, the more extreme you make it, the more people know it is stylised and enjoy the humour inherent in how ridiculous it is. It's rather like the (eventually) limbless Black Knight in "Monty Python's Holy Grail"." The most time-consuming gore sequence involved a character's head being crushed by a section of a church. A dummy was used against a green screen and the head was detonated at the point when the object was about to impact the body. Throughout the film, over seventy gunfight shots were digitally augmented; Briscoe's rationale for adding the additional effects was that "The town square shootout, for example, is full of extra little hits scattered throughout, so that it feels like our hero characters really do have it all going off, all around them. It was a great demonstration of seemingly very trivial enhancements can make a difference when combined across a sequence." Promotion. The first two teaser trailers were released on 16 October 2006. Wright, Pegg, and Frost maintained several video blogs, which were released at various times throughout the production of the film. Wright and Frost held a panel at the 2006 Comic-Con convention in San Diego, California to promote "Hot Fuzz", which included preliminary footage and a question and answer session. The two returned to the convention again in 2007 to promote the US DVD release. Advance screenings of the film took place on 14 February 2007 in the UK and the world premiere was on 16 February 2007. The premiere included escorts from motorcycle police officers and the use of blue carpet instead of the traditional red carpet. Release. Critical reception. The film met with critical acclaim, and was rated as highly as "Shaun of the Dead". It also has a Metacritic score of 81/100. Olly Richards of "Empire" said of Simon Pegg and Nick Frost: "After almost a decade together they’re clearly so comfortable in each other’s presence that they feel no need to fight for the punchline, making them terrific company for two hours". Johnny Vaughan of "The Sun" already called it the "most arresting Brit-com of 2007". Phillip French of "The Observer", who did not care for "Shaun of the Dead", warmed to the comedy team in this film. The film also received positive reviews stateside. Derek Elley of "Variety" praised Broadbent and Dalton as "especially good as Angel's hail-fellow-well-met superior and oily No. 1 suspect". As an homage to the genre, the film was well received by screenwriter Shane Black. On Spill.com, it got their 2nd-highest rating of 'Full Price!!'. "The Daily Mirror" gave "Hot Fuzz" only 2/5, stating that "many of the jokes miss their target" as the film becomes more action-based. "Daily Mail" also shared "The Mirror"'s view, saying, "It's the lack of any serious intent that means too much of it is desperately unamusing, and unamusingly desperate". Anthony Quinn of "The Independent" said, "The same impish spirit in "Spaced" is uncorked here, but it has been fatally indulged". Box office. The film generated £7.1 million in its first weekend of release in the United Kingdom on 14 February 2007. In the 20 April US opening weekend, the film grossed $5.8 million from only 825 cinemas, making it the highest per-cinema average of any film in the top ten that week. Its opening weekend take beat the $3.3 million opening weekend gross of Pegg and Wright's previous film, "Shaun of the Dead". In its second weekend of release, Rogue Pictures expanded the film's cinema count from 825 to 1,272 and it grossed $4.9 million, representing a 17% dip in the gross. Altogether, "Hot Fuzz" grossed $80,573,774 worldwide. In nine weeks, the film earned nearly twice what "Shaun of the Dead" made in the US, and more than three times its gross in other countries. Home media. The DVD was released on 11 June 2007 in the UK. Over one million DVDs were sold in the UK in the first four weeks of its release. The two-disc set contains the feature film with commentaries, outtakes, storyboards, deleted scenes, a making-of documentary, video blogs, featurettes, galleries, and some hidden easter eggs. The DVD also features Wright's last amateur film, "Dead Right", which he described as ""Hot Fuzz" without the budget". Due to the above release date, the film arrived on region 2 DVD earlier than the theatrical release date in Germany on 14 June 2007. In the commentary with director Wright and fellow filmmaker Quentin Tarantino, they discuss nearly 200 films. The US DVD and HD DVD release was on 31 July 2007. It opened at #2 at the American DVD sales chart, selling 853,000 units for over $14m in revenue. As per the latest figures,1,923,000 units have been sold, acquiring revenue of $33.3 million. The HD DVD edition has more special features than the standard DVD release. A three-disc collector's edition was released on 27 November 2007 and a Blu-ray edition on 22 September 2009. Soundtrack. The soundtrack album, "Hot Fuzz: Music from the Motion Picture", was released on 19 February 2007 in the United Kingdom, and on 17 April 2007 in the United States and Canada. The UK release contains 22 tracks, and the North American release has 14. The film's score is by British composer David Arnold, who has scored the James Bond film series since 1997. The soundtrack album's "Hot Fuzz Suite" is a compilation of excerpts from Arnold's score. According to the DVD commentary, the scenes where Nicholas Angel is at a convenience store, while leaving Sandford, and his return to the police station while arming for the final shootout (found in the track "Avenging Angel"), were scored by Robert Rodríguez, who did not see the rest of the film while writing the music. Other music from the film is a mix of 1960s and 1970s British rock (The Kinks, T.Rex, The Move, The Sweet, The Troggs, Arthur Brown, Cloud 69, Cozy Powell, Dire Straits), New Wave (Adam Ant, XTC) and a Glaswegian indie band (The Fratellis). The soundtrack album features dialogue extracts by Pegg, Frost, and other cast members, mostly embedded in the music tracks. The song selection also includes some police-themed titles, including Supergrass' "Caught by the Fuzz" as well as "Here Come the Fuzz", which was specially composed for the film by Jon Spencer's Blues Explosion.
698053	Pierre Bouguer (16 February 1698, Croisic – 15 August 1758, Paris) was a French mathematician, geophysicist, geodesist, and astronomer. He is also known as "the father of naval architecture". Career. His father, Jean Bouguer, one of the best hydrographers of his time, was regius professor of hydrography at Le Croisic in lower Brittany, and author of a treatise on navigation. He taught his sons Pierre and Jan at their home, where he also taught private students. In 1714, at the age of 16, Pierre was appointed to succeed his deceased father as professor of hydrography. In 1727 he gained the prize given by the French Academy of Sciences for his paper "On the masting of ships", beating Leonhard Euler; and two other prizes, one for his dissertation "On the best method of observing the altitude of stars at sea", the other for his paper "On the best method of observing the variation of the compass at sea". These were published in the Prix de l’Academie des Sciences. In 1729 he published "Essai d'optique sur la gradation de la lumière", the object of which is to define the quantity of light lost by passing through a given extent of the atmosphere, and became the first known discoverer of what is now more commonly known as the Beer-Lambert law. He found the light of the sun to be 300 times more intense than that of the moon, and thus made some of the earliest measurements in photometry. In 1730 he was made professor of hydrography at Havre, and succeeded Pierre Louis Maupertuis as associate geometer of the Academy of Sciences. He also invented a heliometer, afterwards perfected by Joseph von Fraunhofer. He was afterwards promoted in the Academy to the place of Maupertuis, and went to reside in Paris. In 1735 Bouguer sailed with Charles Marie de La Condamine on a scientific mission to Peru, in order to measure a degree of the meridian arc near the equator. Ten years were spent in this operation, a full account of which was published by Bouguer in 1749, "La figure de la terre". In 1746 he published the first treatise of naval architecture, "Traité du navire", which among other achievements first explained the use of the metacenter as a measure of ships' stability. His later writings were nearly all upon the theory of navigation and naval architecture. In January, 1750 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society. Recognition. A crater on Mars was named in his honor. A lunar crater and an asteroid was also named after him. His name is also recalled as the meteorological term Bouguer's halo (also known as Ulloa's halo, after Antonio de Ulloa, a Spanish member of his South American expedition) which an observer may see infrequently in fog when sun breaks through (for example, on a mountain) and looks down-sun—effectively a "Fog bow" (as opposed to a "rain-bow"). "An infrequently observed meteorological phenomenon; a faint white, circular arc or complete ring of light that has a radius of 39 degrees and is centered on the antisolar point. When observed, it is usually in the form of a separate outer ring around an anticorona." A large bronze statue of him stands at the port in Le Croisic.
1060478	Joseph Peter "Joe" Pantoliano (born September 12, 1951) is an American film and television actor. He played the character of Ralph Cifaretto on "The Sopranos", Bob Keane in "La Bamba", Cypher in "The Matrix", Teddy in "Memento", Francis Fratelli in "The Goonies", Guido "the Killer Pimp" in "Risky Business", and Jennifer Tilly's violent mobster boyfriend, Caesar, in "Bound". He also played Deputy U.S. Marshal Cosmo Renfro in both "The Fugitive" and "U.S. Marshals". He is often referred to as "Joey Pants", because of the difficulty some people have pronouncing his Italian surname. Early life. Pantoliano was born in Hoboken, New Jersey, to first-generation Italian American parents Mary (née Centrella), a bookie and seamstress, and Dominic "Monk" Pantoliano, a hearse driver and factory foreman. He attended HB Studio, but studied extensively with actor John Lehne. Career. He first grew to fame as "Guido the Killer Pimp" in "Risky Business", and continued to rise in 1985 when he appeared as the villainous Francis Fratelli in teen classic "The Goonies". He gained fame amongst a new generation as Cypher in the 1999 landmark sci-fi film "The Matrix", and won an Emmy as Ralph Cifaretto in HBO's "The Sopranos". Pantoliano is also known for his role as Eddie Moscone, the bail bondsman, in the Robert De Niro comedy "Midnight Run", as double-crossed mafioso Caesar in "Bound", as John "Teddy" Gammell in "Memento", and as investigative journalist Ben Urich in Mark Steven Johnson's 2003 "Daredevil" adaptation. He also played Deputy Marshal Cosmo Renfro in "The Fugitive" along with Tommy Lee Jones and reprised the role in the sequel "U.S. Marshals". He is known for his portrayals of criminals, criminal investigators, detectives, and forensic specialists with a wisecracking touch. In 2003, Pantoliano replaced Stanley Tucci in the Broadway play "Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune". That same year he won the Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series for "The Sopranos". In 2012, Joe Pantoliano stars as the eccentric pawn broker Oswald Oswald in the film adaptation of Wendy Mass’s popular children’s book Jeremy Fink and the Meaning of Life, written and directed by Tamar Halpern. When not acting, Pantoliano also writes. He's the author of two memoirs: Who’s Sorry Now: The True Story of a Stand-Up Guy and Asylum: Hollywood Tales From My Great Depression: Brain Dis-Ease, Recovery and Being My Mother’s Son. In the latter, he writes about his addictions to alcohol, food, sex, Vicodin and Percocet, before being diagnosed with clinical depression. Personal life. Pantoliano lives with his wife, former model Nancy Sheppard, and their four children. He was introduced to his wife by his friend, actress Samantha Phillips. On October 9, 2007, Pantoliano announced on the National Alliance on Mental Illness blog that he has been suffering from clinical depression for the last decade, although he was only formally diagnosed recently. He claims that his recent film "Canvas" was what helped him come to terms with his depression. Rather than hide his struggle from the public, he has chosen to speak out about it to remove some of the stigmas that are commonly associated with mental illness. He founded a non-profit organization, "No Kidding, Me Too!", to unite members of the entertainment industry in educating the public about mental illness. He is also dyslexic. The title comes from the response he’s heard all too often after divulging how mental illness affected him and his family. He’s also shot a documentary called No Kidding, Me Too!.
1061036	Garry Kent Marshall (born November 13, 1934) is an American actor, director, writer, and producer. His notable credits include creating "Happy Days" and "The Odd Couple" and directing "Nothing In Common", "Dear God", "Pretty Woman", "Frankie and Johnny", "Runaway Bride", "Georgia Rule", "Valentine's Day", "New Year's Eve" and "Beaches""." Early life. Marshall was born in the New York City borough of The Bronx, the son of Marjorie Irene (née Ward), a tap dance teacher who ran a tap dance school, and the late Anthony Wallace Marshall (1906–99), a director of industrial films and later a producer. He is the brother of actress/director Penny Marshall and Ronny Marshall Hallin, a TV producer. His father was of Italian descent, his family having come from San Martino sulla Marrucina, Chieti, Abruzzo, and his mother was of English and Scottish ancestry; His father changed his last name from "Masciarelli" to "Marshall" before Garry was born. Marshall was baptized Presbyterian and also raised Lutheran for a time. He attended De Witt Clinton High School and Northwestern University, where he wrote a sports column for "The Daily Northwestern," and is a member of the Alpha Tau Omega fraternity. Career. Marshall began his career as a joke writer for such comedians as Joey Bishop and Phil Foster, and then became a writer for "The Tonight Show" with Jack Paar. In 1961 he moved to Hollywood, where he teamed up with Jerry Belson as a writer for television. The pair worked on "The Dick Van Dyke Show," "The Joey Bishop Show," "The Danny Thomas Show," and "The Lucy Show." Their first television series as creator/producers was "Hey, Landlord", which lasted one season (1966–67). They then adapted Neil Simon's play "The Odd Couple" for television. On his own, Marshall created "Happy Days," "Laverne and Shirley," starring his sister Penny, and "Mork & Mindy," which were produced by his associates Thomas L. Miller, Robert L. Boyett, and Edward K. Milkis. He was also a co-creator of the short-lived sitcom "Makin' It," which the three men also produced. In the early 1980s, Marshall met Hector Elizondo while playing basketball and became great friends. Elizondo appears in every movie that Marshall directed, beginning with Marshall's first feature film, "Young Doctors in Love". Elizondo once noted that he is written into all of Marshall's contracts whether he wanted to do the movie or not. In the opening credits of "Exit to Eden", their eighth movie together, Elizondo is credited "As Usual ... Hector Elizondo". In 1984 Marshall had a movie hit as the writer and director of "The Flamingo Kid". A consummate producer, Marshall wore many hats during this period of his career: most of his hit TV shows were created and executive produced by him. His first producing assignment came with "Hey, Landlord" in 1966. He stepped up the very next year, producing "The Lucy Show". Then came successes in producing "The Odd Couple", "Laverne and Shirley", "Blansky's Beauties", "Mork & Mindy", "Angie", and "Happy Days". Marshall also launched independent productions, via his theatre (The Falcon in Toluca Lake) and in association with productions launched with talent he was grooming and working with for years. One such project, titled "Four Stars", was directed by actress Lynda Goodfriend (who portrayed Lori Beth in "Happy Days"), and was based on a play Goodfriend had read when she was studying at the Lee Strasberg Center, which had been written by John Schulte and Kevin Mahoney. It starred Julie Paris (the daughter of "Happy Days" director and "Dick Van Dyke Show" co-star Jerry Paris) and film veteran Bert Kramer. Marshall went on to focus on directing feature films, with a series of hits, such as "Beaches," "Pretty Woman," "The Princess Diaries", and most recently "Valentine's Day" and "New Year's Eve". Marshall is also an actor, making his TV acting debut starting as a child with a recurring role in the long-running "George Burns and Gracie Allen Show" (CBS, 1950–58), appearing on the television series "Murphy Brown" and in such movies as "Soapdish," on FOX's filmmaking-competition reality TV series "On the Lot," which aired in 2007, and provided a guest-starring voice for "The Simpsons" episodes "Eight Misbehavin"' and "Homer the Father." He also appeared in two episodes of "Happy Days" as a drummer. Marshall's theater credits include "Wrong Turn At Lungfish", which he wrote in collaboration with Lowell Ganz, "The Roast" with Jerry Belson, "Shelves" and "Happy Days: A New Musical" with Paul Williams, which had its premiere at The Falcon Theater in Burbank, California in the summer of 2006. In 1996 he was awarded the Women in Film Lucy Award in recognition of excellence and innovation in creative works that have enhanced the perception of women through the medium of television. Marshall has a star on the Hollywood Walk Of Fame. He will play the role of "director" on Burbank's "Lights...camera...actions!" float in the 2014 Rose Parade. His son, Scott Marshall, is also a director.
69998	Manindra Agrawal (born 20 May 1966, Allahabad) is a professor at the department of computer science and engineering and the Dean of Faculty Affairs (DoFA) at the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur. He was also the recipient of the first Infosys Prize for Mathematics., and the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Award in Mathematical Sciences in 2003. He has been honored with Padma Shri in 2013. Early life. Manindra Agrawal obtained a B.Tech. and a Ph.D. at IIT Kanpur in 1986. Career. He co-created the AKS primality test with Neeraj Kayal and Nitin Saxena, for which he and his co-authors won the 2002 Clay Research Award, the 2006 Fulkerson Prize, and the 2006 Gödel Prize. The test is the first deterministic algorithm to test an "n"-digit number for primality in a time that has been proven to be polynomial in "n". In September 2008, Agrawal was chosen for the first Infosys Mathematics Prize for outstanding contributions in the broad field of mathematics. He was a visiting scholar at the Institute for Advanced Study in 2003-04.
1132631	Women in Cages is a 1971 film in the women in prison sexploitation sub-genre, co-produced by Roger Corman and directed by Gerardo de León. It was prominently featured in the "Planet Terror" portion of the 2007 film "Grindhouse". In August 2007, "Grindhouse" director Quentin Tarantino said of the film, "I'm a huge, huge fan of Gerry de Leon... film is just harsh, harsh, harsh," he said, and described the final shot as one of "devastating despair." Story. Carol 'Jeff' Jeffries (Jennifer Gan) is set up by her boyfriend, Rudy (Charlie Davao), who she doesn't realise runs a ship-board prostitution, gambling and drug dealing empire. Thrown into a harsh prison, she encounters Alabama (Pam Grier), a sadistic lesbian guard fond of torture. Cellmate Stokes (Roberta Collins) is a heroin addict who agrees to a plot involving Jeff, that will secure her more heroin. Another cell mate Sandy (Judith "Judy" Brown) also agrees to a plot involving Jeff, that could secure her own release. Their other cellmate Theresa (Sofia Moran) is Alabama's girlfriend. Realising her boyfriend is not helping her, Jeff hopes to escape through the jungle, but learns that local poachers are paid to track and kill escapees—who inevitably become lost in the wilds surrounding the prison. When Theresa falls foul of Alabama and loses her privileged position in the cell block, escape becomes an attractive option to her. Theresa reveals that she knows the jungle well and can obtain outside help. Despite the fact that two of her three cellmates had previously agreed to covert plots involving Jeff, all three of her cellmates—Sandy, Stokes and Theresa—agree to accompany her on the escape.
1066970	Raise the Red Lantern () is a 1991 film directed by Zhang Yimou and starring Gong Li. It is an adaption by Ni Zhen of the 1990 novel "Wives and Concubines" by Su Tong. The film was later adapted into an acclaimed ballet of the same title by the National Ballet of China, also directed by Zhang. Set in the 1920s, the film tells the story of a young woman who becomes one of the concubines of a wealthy man during the Warlord Era. It is noted for its opulent visuals and sumptuous use of colours. The film was shot in Qiao's Compound near the ancient city of Pingyao, in Shanxi Province. Although the screenplay was approved by Chinese censors, the final version of the film was banned in China for a period. Some film critics have interpreted the film as a veiled allegory against authoritarianism. Plot. The film is set in 1920s China during the warlord era, years before the Chinese Civil War. Songlian (played by Gong Li), whose father has recently died and left the family bankrupt, marries into the wealthy Chen family, becoming the "Fourth Mistress" of the household. Arriving at the palatial abode, she is at first treated like royalty, as well as a visit from her husband, Master Chen (Ma Jingwu). Songlian soon discovers, however, that not all the concubines in the household receive the same luxurious treatment. In fact, the master decides on a daily basis the concubine he will spend the night with and gets the most attention and respect from the servants. Pitted in constant competition against each other, the three concubines are continually vying for their husband's attention and affections. The First Mistress, Yuru (Jin Shuyuan), appears to be nearly as old as the master himself. Having borne a son decades earlier, she seems resigned to live out her life as forgotten, always passed over in favor of the younger concubines. The Second Mistress, Zhuoyun (Cao Cuifen), befriends Songlian, and she also warns her about the Third Mistress, Meishan (He Caifei), a former opera singer who is spoiled and who becomes unable to cope with no longer being the youngest and most favored of the master's playthings. As time passes, though, Songlian learns that it is really Zhuoyun who is not to be trusted. Songlian feigns pregnancy, attempting to garner the majority of the master's time and, at the same time, attempting to become actually pregnant. Zhuoyun, however, is in league with Songlian's personal maid, Yan'er (played by Kong Lin) who finds and reveals a pair of bloodied undergarments, suggesting that Songlian had recently had her period, and discovers the pregnancy is a fraud. Zhuoyun summons the family physician, feigning concern for Songlian's "pregnancy." Doctor Gao (Cui Zhigang), who is secretly having an illicit affair with Third Mistress Meishan, examines Songlian and determines the pregnancy to be a sham. Infuriated, the master orders Songlian's lanterns covered with thick black canvas bags indefinitely. Blaming the sequence of events on Yan'er, Songlian reveals that Yan'er's room is filled with lit red lanterns, showing that Yan'er dreams of becoming a Mistress instead of a lowly servant. Yan'er is punished. In an act of defiance, Yan'er remains kneeling in the snow throughout the night until she collapses. Yan'er falls sick and ultimately dies after being taken to the hospital. Songlian eventually sees the competition between the concubines as a useless endeavor. As Songlian retreats into her solitude, she begins speaking of suicide; she reasons that dying is a better fate than being a concubine in the Chen household. On her birthday, severely intoxicated and despondent over her bitter fate, Songlian inadvertently blurts out the details of the love affair between Meishan and Doctor Gao to Zhuoyun; who later catches the adulterous couple together. Following the old customs and traditions, Meishan is hanged to death by the master's servants. Songlian witnesses the entire episode and is emotionally traumatized. The following summer, after the master's marriage to yet another concubine, Songlian is shown wandering the compound in her old schoolgirl clothes, having gone completely insane. Soundtrack. "All songs composed by Zhao Jiping." Distribution. "Raise the Red Lantern" has been distributed on VHS, Laserdisc and DVD by numerous different distributors, with many coming under criticism for their poor quality. The Razor Digital Entertainment DVD release has been widely criticised. DVD Times states "Many other viewers will find this DVD release simply intolerable." DVDTown criticised the same release, giving the video quality 1 out of 10 and the audio quality 6 out of 10, summarising that "the video is a disaster". DVDFile adds to this stating "this horrible DVD is only recommended to those who love the movie so much, that they’ll put up with anything to own a Region 1 release." The translation on this version has been also widely criticised for its numerous inaccuracies. A release by Rajon Vision has also received poor commentary Era's first release received similar attention but the second digitally remastered edition has been more warmly received with DVD Times stating that "It's a film that really needs a Criterion edition with a new print or a full restoration, but in the absence of any likelihood of that, this Era Hong Kong edition is about as good as you could hope for." DVDBeaver broadly agrees stating "Now, this is not Criterion image quality, but it is not bad at all. It is easily the best digital representation of this film currently available." DVD Talk, though, believes that "This new version is a stunner". A new MGM release in 2007 has also received some positive feedback. Reception. Described as "one of the landmark films of the 1990s" by Jonathan Crow of Allmovie, where it received 5 stars, since its release "Raise the Red Lantern" has been very well received. James Berardinelli named it his 7th best film of the 1990s. It has a 96% certified fresh rating at Rotten Tomatoes and "TV Guide" gave it 5 stars. However, there was a small number of negative reviews. Hal Hinson of "The Washington Post" stated that "the story never amounts to much more than a rather tepid Chinese rendition of "The Women."" The film ranked #28 in "Empire" magazines "The 100 Best Films Of World Cinema" in 2010. The film has also been praised for its artistic merit. Desson Howe of "The Washington Post" states that "In purely aesthetic terms, "Raise the Red Lantern" is breathtaking" and James Berardinelli states that "the appeal to the eye only heightens the movie's emotional power". John Hartl of Film.com describe it to be "a near-perfect movie that often recalls the visual purity and intensity of silent films." The film has been interpreted by some critics as a criticism of contemporary China, although Zhang Yimou himself has sternly denied this. Jonathan Crow of Allmovie states that "the perpetual struggle for power that precludes any unity among the wives provides a depressingly apt metaphor for the fragmented civil society of post-Cultural Revolution China". James Berardinelli makes a similar analogy in his review where he states that "Songlian is the individual, the master is the government, and the customs of the house are the laws of the country. It's an archaic system that rewards those who play within the rules and destroys those who violate them.". Furthermore, in such a system, the innocent individual becomes the executer of new incoming victims, making one's outcome even more tragic, as it is analyzed by Gil Hizi of ThinkingChinese. Chinese journalist and activist Dai Qing has said that the film, along with many of Zhang Yimou's earlier works, caters too much to Western taste; "this kind of film is really shot for the casual pleasures of foreigners". The film's popularity has also been attributed to a resurgence in Chinese tourism after the government response to the Tiananmen Square Protests of 1989 due to its use of exotic locations. The film was named one of the 25 movies you must see before you die.
1034568	Trevor Gordon Bannister (14 August 193414 April 2011) was an English actor best known for having played the womanising junior salesman Mr. Lucas in the sitcom "Are You Being Served?" from 1972 to 1979, and for his role as Toby Mulberry Smith in the long-running sitcom "Last of the Summer Wine", from 2003 until it ended its run in 2010. He died the following year. Career. In 1960 Bannister appeared on stage at the Cambridge Theatre in London in "Billy Liar", which starred Albert Finney. He starred as Darkie Pilbeam, a wartime spiv, in the 1968 television series "The War of Darkie Pilbeam", and from 1969 to 1970 he appeared as "Heavy Breathing" in Jack Rosenthal's sitcom, "The Dustbinmen". Shortly afterwards, he was asked to play Mr. Lucas in a "Comedy Playhouse" pilot called "Are You Being Served?" and took the part in the series. In 1972 he appeared as the weak bladdered Producer of a local theatre company in "Steptoe and Son", Episode 2 series 7 – "A Star is Born". He played Peter Pitt in the 1988 BBC sitcom "Wyatt's Watchdogs". Other TV appearances include "Keeping Up Appearances", "Call Earnshaw", "Gideon's Way", "The Saint", "The Tomorrow People", "Only on Sunday", and "The Avengers". Bannister played three different characters in the ITV soap "Coronation Street". From 2001 he played a recurring character (The Golf Captain) in "Last of the Summer Wine". becoming a regular in the 30th series in 2009, finally receiving a name (“Toby Mulbery-Smith″), moving next door to Barry and Glenda (Mike Grady and Sarah Thomas) and befriending Morton (Christopher Beeny). He worked mostly in the theatre, with credits including "Billy Liar" and the farce "Move Over, Mrs Markham". Bannister also performed in Shakespeare and was a regular in pantomime for more than 35 years, nearly always playing the dame. In 2007, he guest starred in the "Doctor Who" audio adventure, "Nocturne". His last appearance was in the TV series "New Tricks" episode "Old Fossils" broadcast 4 July 2011. Family. Bannister was the youngest of three siblings. His first marriage was to actress Kathleen Cravos in 1959. They had three sons together – Jeremy, Simon, and Timothy – and divorced. He married Pamela Carson in 1982 and lived with her in Surrey at the time of his death. Death. Bannister died on 14 April 2011, at the age of 76, after a heart attack at his allotment in Thames Ditton, Surrey. "Are You Being Served?" and "Last of the Summer Wine" co-star Frank Thornton said that the last event Bannister attended was Thornton's 90th birthday on 15 January 2011, three months before Bannister died. He was survived by all of his sons and his brother John.
1163226	Suzanne Somers (born Suzanne Marie Mahoney; October 16, 1946) is an American actress, author, singer and businesswoman, known for her television roles as Chrissy Snow on "Three's Company" and as Carol Lambert on "Step by Step". Somers later became the author of a series of best-selling self-help books, including "Ageless: The Naked Truth About Bioidentical Hormones" (2006), about bioidentical hormone replacement therapy. She has released two autobiographies, four diet books, and a book of poetry.
527361	The King is Dancing (Le Roi danse) is a 2000 costume drama by Belgian filmmaker Gérard Corbiau based on Philippe Beaussant's biography of Jean-Baptiste Lully, "Lully ou le musicien du soleil" (1992). Set in 17th century France, it depicts the rise of King Louis XIV of France, the Sun King, as seen through the eyes of court composer Lully. The rise of Louis XIV and his growing influence in the court are shown through the elaborate dance routines and the maturing of Louis from a pawn of his mother to the full glory of the Sun King.
810389	Good Guys Wear Black is a 1978 action film starring Chuck Norris. This was the third film to feature Norris as the star. Plot. Back in 1973, one United States Senator Conrad Morgan (James Franciscus), the chief delegate diplomat in negotiating the terms of the end of Vietnam War, made a deal in Paris, France with Kuong Yen, the North Vietnamese negotiator. The deal called for Yen to release certain key CIA POWs in exchange for Morgan setting up a death-trap for an elite group of CIA assassins, known as the Black Tigers. The treaty signed, the Black Tigers were sent into the jungles of 'Nam to their unknowing demise, under the guise that they were on mission to liberate American POWs. However, the truly important thing to understand is that the negotiators failed to realize one thing: the commando's team leader was one Major John T. Booker (Chuck Norris). So, needless to say and despite all odds, Booker survives. As do the four men wise enough to have remained in his general vicinity. Five years after returning from Vietnam, Booker, now living in Los Angeles, California, donning a post-war moustache, also with a hobby of race car–driving, and is now working as a political science professor at UCLA. Booker lectures to a bunch of kids on how the war should not have happened, and that the U.S. should not have been involved. He then jokes about singing patriotic songs the following week to atone. Sitting in on one of his lectures is a bright female reporter named Margaret (Anne Archer) who starts asking some very specific questions about the botched rescue mission. It seems that someone is slowly killing all the surviving members of the special forces team. Booker is suddenly thrown back into his past when Morgan's appointment as Secretary of State spurs Yen to blackmail his ex-negotiations buddy into making good on his unfinished deal: the extermination of the Black Tigers. Reception. The movie grossed $18 million at the box office. Other Media. Chuck Norris' character in The Expendables 2 is named Booker, in homage to John T. Booker in "Good Guys Wear Black".
589304	Aakhri Khat (English: The Last Letter) is a 1966 Bollywood film written and directed by Chetan Anand. The music of the film is by Khayyam and lyrics by Kaifi Azmi; it includes the song "Baharon Mera Jeevan Bhi Sanwaro", sung by Lata Mangeshkar. The film was given 5 stars in Bollywood Guide Collections. Chetan Anand, started the film with a bare outline of a script and a 15-month-old infant who he let loose in the city, following him with his camera, mostly a hand-held camera, taking in all the city sounds, under the cinematic direction of Jal Mistry The film was selected as the Indian entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 40th Academy Awards in 1967, but was not accepted as a nominee. Plot. Govind (Rajesh Khanna) is a young sculptor, while vacationing near Kullu, sees Lajjo (Indrani Mukherjee) and falls in love. Subsequently, they get married secretly in a village temple. He then has to leave for the city to pursue further education. Meanwhile, the girl finds that she is pregnant. On finding this her step mother sells her off for Rs. 500, where she is beaten, some time later she gives birth to a little boy, Buntu. Later Lajjo comes to Mumbai to meet Govind, carrying her one year old son. She leaves a letter for him at his doorsteps, and want to leaves the child as well, is unable to go through it, and takes him along. They keep wandering, and feed off whatever comes their way, soon she dies leaving her son alone. The rest of the film is a story of the little child, wandering around the city. He goes out of the house, eating whatever he finds, including a pill, which makes him doze off. On waking up, he wanders even more and more into the city. Meanwhile Govind, comes know all through a letter she has left behind, "Aakhri Khat" (Last Letter), he soon realizes his mistake and with the help of police tries to find his wife and son, though only finds his wife's body. Later, he shows the Police inspector Naik, (Manvendra Chitnis), the statue of Lajjo he has kept in his studio. The child is then rescued by a man who is a staff member of an orphanage nearby. He escapes from that place at night. And after a long time of wandering here and there, and after the help of some people, he ultimately reaches home to find a statue of his lost mother, and a new lady, who is now his new mother. Production. The film Rajesh Khanna's debut film as an actor, and he was shy while face the camera, after facing difficult in first three shots, director Ravindra Dave helped him understand his scenes and movements, and corrected his way of walking.
1060990	Carolyn Laurie "Carol" Kane (born June 18, 1952) is an American stage, screen, and television actress. She became known in the 1970s in films such as "Hester Street" (for which she received an Academy Award nomination) and "Annie Hall". She appeared on the television series "Taxi" in the early 1980s, as the wife of the character played by Andy Kaufman, winning two Emmy Awards for her work. She has played the character of Madame Morrible in the musical "Wicked", both in regional productions and on Broadway from 2005 to 2009, and as of July 2013 is again playing the character in the Broadway company of "Wicked". Early life. Kane was born in Cleveland, Ohio, the daughter of Joy, a jazz singer, teacher, dancer, and pianist, and Michael Kane, an architect who worked for the World Bank. Her family is Jewish, and her grandparents emigrated from Russia. Her parents divorced when she was 12 years old. She attended the Cherry Lawn School, a progressive boarding school in Darien, Connecticut, until 1965. She attended the Professional Children's School, in New York City, and made her professional theatre debut in a 1966 production of "The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie", starring Tammy Grimes. Career. Kane is perhaps best known for her portrayal of Simka Dahblitz-Gravas, wife of Latka Gravas (Andy Kaufman), on the American television series "Taxi", from 1981 to 1983, and also for her role as Allison Portchnik in Woody Allen's "Annie Hall". Kane earned two Emmy Awards for her work in the series and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress for her role in the film "Hester Street". She also appeared in "Dog Day Afternoon" (1975), "The Princess Bride" (1987) and "Scrooged" (1988), in which "Variety" called her "unquestionably pic's comic highlight." Kane was a regular on the 1986 NBC series "All Is Forgiven", a regular on the 1990–1991 NBC series "American Dreamer", guest-starred on a 1994 episode of "Seinfeld" and had a supporting role in the short-lived 1996–1997 sitcom "Pearl", which starred Rhea Perlman. She also appeared in the NBC television live action production of "The Year Without a Santa Claus" in December 2006. In January 2009, Kane appeared in the TV series "Two and a Half Men" as the mother of Alan Harper's receptionist. She starred in the off-Broadway play "Love, Loss, and What I Wore" in February 2010. In March 2010, Kane appeared in the TV series "Ugly Betty" as Justin Suarez's acting teacher. Kane made her West End debut in January 2011 in a major revival of Lillian Hellman's drama "The Children's Hour", at London's Comedy Theatre. She stars alongside Keira Knightley, Elisabeth Moss and Ellen Burstyn. In May 2012, Kane is appearing on Broadway as Betty Chumley in a revival of the play "Harvey". "Wicked". Kane is known for her portrayal of the evil headmistress Madame Morrible in the Broadway musical "Wicked", whom she played in various productions from 2005 to 2009. Kane made her "Wicked" debut on the 1st National Tour, playing the role from March 9 through December 19, 2005. She then reprised the role in the Broadway production from January 10 through November 12, 2006. She again played the role for the Los Angeles production which began performances on February 7, 2007. She left the production on December 30, 2007, and later returned from August 26, 2008 until the production closed on January 11, 2009. She then transferred with the L.A. company, to play the role once again, in the San Francisco production which began performances January 27, 2009. She ended her limited engagement on March 22, 2009. Ms. Kane will return to the Broadway company of "Wicked" on July 1, 2013.
757056	William Scott "Bill" Goldberg (born December 27, 1966) is an American actor, former football player and retired professional wrestler. He is best known for his appearances with World Championship Wrestling (WCW) between 1997 and 2001, and in World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) between 2003 and 2004. He is notable for his lengthy undefeated streak in singles competition. The official count is listed as 173–0, although some have disputed the legitimacy of that total. Goldberg is a two-time world champion: a one-time WCW World Heavyweight Champion and one-time World Heavyweight Champion in WWE, with both reigns represented by the Big Gold Belt. He is recognized by WWE as the first undefeated world champion in the history of professional wrestling, and the first man to hold a version of the Big Gold Belt in both WCW and WWE, later followed by Chris Benoit, Booker T and Big Show. He is also a two-time WCW United States Heavyweight Champion and one-time WCW World Tag Team Champion (with Bret Hart). Goldberg headlined many pay-per-views for WCW and WWE, including closing WCW's premier annual event, Starrcade, on two occasions. Before he was a professional wrestler, Goldberg was a football player. After retiring from wrestling, he began working as a commentator for the mixed martial arts promotion EliteXC until its closure. As of 2010, he has been the host of "Garage Mahal" on the DIY Network. Football. Goldberg earned a scholarship to play for the University of Georgia Bulldogs football team where he served as a defensive tackle. He was taken in the 11th round, with the 302nd overall selection, in the 1990 NFL Draft. He played for the Los Angeles Rams in the 1990 NFL season, followed by a stint with the Atlanta Falcons from 1992 to 1994. After being cut from the Falcons, in 1995 he was selected by the new expansion team, the Carolina Panthers, in the 1995 NFL Expansion Draft, but never played a game with the team. Goldberg's NFL career ended when he tore his lower abdomen off his pelvis. He had hopes of returning to the league after rehabilitation but, due to his lack of success, wasn't considered a major asset. Goldberg has described playing in the NFL as "a mixed emotional experience" because, despite reaching the goal of simply playing in the NFL, he didn't obtain the level of achievement that he desired. Professional wrestling career. World Championship Wrestling (1997–2001). Undefeated streak and WCW Champion. During the rehab following his NFL injury, Goldberg began power lifting and mixed martial arts training. He was spotted by Lex Luger and Sting who urged him to try professional wrestling. Although not a fan of professional wrestling, he saw it as an alternative to his fledgling football career and began training at the WCW Power Plant. On the September 22 edition of "WCW Monday Nitro", Goldberg defeated Hugh Morrus in his debut match. Soon afterward, he began to dish out quick lessons to his fellow WCW wrestlers in the range of 1–2 minutes. Goldberg's succession of wins saw him quickly advance up the card, and he was pushed as a singles wrestler. The newcomer captivated fans with his monstrous yet silent charisma, brute strength, and agility that saw him vault the ropes, perform high kicks and even the occasional backflip. Goldberg was WCW's counter to the WWE's Steve Austin by keeping his head shaved while wearing the same black wrestling trunks. Goldberg made his pay-per-view debut at Starrcade defeating Steve McMichael. In early 1998, Goldberg squashed Brad Armstrong at SuperBrawl VIII and pinned Perry Saturn at Spring Stampede. Around this time, WCW began counting Goldberg's consecutive wins on television as he continued to climb up the ranks. Goldberg's win over Saturn was his 74th consecutive without a loss, and the next night on "Nitro" he challenged Raven for the United States Heavyweight Championship that Raven had won the night before at Spring Stampede. Despite interference from Raven's Flock, Goldberg overpowered them all and defeated Raven for his seventy-fifth straight win and his first professional wrestling championship. Two days later, on the April 22 edition of "WCW Thunder", he made his first successful title defense against Mike Enos. Goldberg then started a feud with Raven and The Flock. At Slamboree, he ended his feud with the Flock after a successful title defense against Saturn. Goldberg would continue to make successful title defenses against Konnan at The Great American Bash and Curt Hennig. By this time, he had adopted the catchphrase "Who's next?" in reference to his rapidly-expanding winning streak. As Goldberg was getting over as a main eventer, he continued to defend the United States Championship and was slowly becoming a contender for the WCW World Heavyweight Championship that was held by nWo leader Hollywood Hulk Hogan. Hogan eventually promised Goldberg a title match, which was to take place on the July 6, 1998 edition of "Nitro". However, Hogan elected instead to make Goldberg earn it in a match with his stablemate Scott Hall which Goldberg won. Goldberg was able to defeat Hogan later in the evening to become world champion, in turn vacating his US Title. At Road Wild, Goldberg won a battle royal, consisting of New World Order (nWo) members. After Diamond Dallas Page became the number one contender for the WCW Title, Goldberg and Page began a feud with each other. At Halloween Havoc, the feud was settled after Goldberg defeated Page to retain the title. At Starrcade, Goldberg's undefeated streak was ended at 173 victories when he lost his title to Kevin Nash after Scott Hall, disguised as a ringside security guard, made a run-in and shocked Goldberg with a taser gun. Goldberg, however, avenged this act by facing Hall at Souled Out, in a Ladder Taser match. Goldberg won when he used the taser, which was hung high above the ring, requiring the ladder to obtain it. At the same time, the World Wrestling Federation (WWF) began mocking Goldberg with the character Gillberg, a perennial jobber who dressed similarly to Goldberg and mocked his signature entrance and mannerisms, but was small and scrawny, using the catchphrase "Who's First?" since he never won. At Spring Stampede, Goldberg gained his revenge against Nash after defeating him. Then at Slamboree the following month, Goldberg was "injured" in an attack by Rick and Scott Steiner and took some time off to prepare for his movie debut in 1999 film "" alongside No Retreat, No Surrender film star Jean-Claude Van Damme. He returned two months later and defeated Rick Steiner at Road Wild. Goldberg then restarted his feud with Diamond Dallas Page also involving Page's allies, The Jersey Triad, which culminated in a match at Fall Brawl that Goldberg won. After Goldberg settled his rivalry with Page, he began focusing on Sid Vicious and challenged him to a match to end Sid's winning streak. The two feuded with each other, which culminated in a match at Halloween Havoc for Sid's U.S. Title. Goldberg defeated Sid via referee stoppage, and thus won his second United States Heavyweight Championship. Later that night, he answered an open challenge from World Heavyweight Champion Sting and defeated him to win the championship. On the next night's edition of "Nitro", commissioner J.J. Dillon ruled that the match had not been sanctioned by WCW and that, therefore, Goldberg's victory was void. The title was vacated and a 32-man tournament was held to determine a new champion, which started that night. Goldberg entered the tournament and wrestled his first match against Bret Hart later that night, choosing also to defend his newly won U.S. Title in the match. Interference from Sid Vicious cost Goldberg the match and the title as well as his second official WCW loss. Goldberg continued his rivalry with Vicious and defeated him in an "I Quit" match at Mayhem. Shortly thereafter, Goldberg joined forces with Hart, teaming with him to defeat Creative Control for the WCW World Tag Team Championship. One week later, they lost the title to The Outsiders (Scott Hall and Kevin Nash). At Starrcade, Goldberg challenged Hart for the World Heavyweight Championship. In the course of the match, Goldberg delivered a stiff kick to Hart's head, legitimately giving him a concussion and tearing a muscle in his neck. After being diagnosed with post-concussion syndrome, Hart wrestled only three more matches and retired several months later. Despite that, Goldberg lost the match to Hart, but Hart vacated the title the next night on "Nitro", saying he did not want to win that way and granting Goldberg a rematch. Goldberg was defeated again due to outside interference from the Outsiders, who began to beat on Goldberg with baseball bats. In a swerve, Hart took one of the bats from The Outsiders and began beating on Goldberg himself, doing enough damage to score the pin and regain his championship. After the match, Hall, Nash, Hart, and Jeff Jarrett announced the reformation of the nWo, and gave Goldberg a new target for a feud. However, it would not last long. Pursuit of the WCW Championship. Shortly after his title match loss, Goldberg injured himself on the December 23, 1999 edition of WCW Thunder, during a sequence where he chased the nWo limousine into the parking lot. A spot in the sequence called for Goldberg to pound on the windshield of the limousine with his hands. To ensure his safety, Goldberg had assistance from a piece of metal pipe and his hands were covered in black tape. However, Goldberg did not limit his pounding to the windshield and instead moved down the limousine breaking its windows. There were four windows on the side of the limousine and Goldberg broke the first two with his hands. He then got aggressive, putting his forearm through the third window and immediately gashing it. Goldberg finished the sequence by pounding on the hood of the limo with his bloody arm, but immediately after it ended he was taken from the arena and rushed to a nearby hospital where the wound was patched. Goldberg lost a large amount of blood due to the accident and came within one centimeter of having to have the arm amputated. The injury caused Goldberg to miss the January 4, 2000 New Japan Pro Wrestling Tokyo Dome show, where he was scheduled to face Manabu Nakanishi. After taking time off to recuperate, Goldberg returned to WCW on the May 29, 2000 edition of WCW Monday Nitro interfering in a handicap match between Kevin Nash and the team of Tank Abbott and Rick Steiner on "Nitro". At The Great American Bash, Goldberg betrayed Nash during Nash's World Heavyweight Title match against Jeff Jarrett and turned heel for the first time in his career, aligning himself with The New Blood faction. This did not last long, as Goldberg would again be lost to injury and miss time. As a result of this betrayal, Goldberg feuded with Nash and defeated him at Bash at the Beach, with help from fellow New Blood member Scott Steiner. Goldberg participated in a triangle number one contender's match against Nash and Steiner at New Blood Rising, which Nash won. Goldberg walked out of the match midway through while Nash had him ready for the Jackknife Powerbomb and swore at Vince Russo as he left the ring, turning face again. He then began a rivalry with Steiner, culminating in a no disqualification match at Fall Brawl which Goldberg lost due to outside interference. After his loss to Steiner, Goldberg's rivalry with Russo accelerated and in October, having finally had enough, Russo gave Goldberg an ultimatum. If Goldberg was to lose another match at any point in time, unless he managed to duplicate his undefeated streak from 1997–98, his career would be over and he would be forced to retire from professional wrestling. Goldberg defeated KroniK (Brian Adams and Bryan Clark) at Halloween Havoc in a handicap elimination match. He started a feud with Lex Luger. This culminated in a match at Mayhem, which Goldberg won. They continued their rivalry and battled in a rematch at Starrcade. Goldberg won the match, but afterwards, he was attacked by Luger's partner Buff Bagwell. Goldberg feuded with both Luger and Bagwell, who called themselves Totally Buffed. His streak was broken at Sin when Goldberg, teaming with his Power Plant trainer Dewayne Bruce, lost to Totally Buffed in a tag team no disqualification match after a "fan" maced him, enabling Totally Buffed to pin him. The storyline was intended to enable Goldberg to have shoulder surgery, but WCW was sold to the WWF in March 2001, while Goldberg was still recuperating. The WWF did not buy out Goldberg's contract with Time Warner (the parent company of WCW) as they had done with several other WCW employees, so he was not involved in the WWF "Invasion" angle. Goldberg instead remained under contract to Time Warner until May 2002, when he agreed on a contract buyout. All Japan Pro Wrestling (2002–2003). Goldberg had suffered an arm injury during the Toyota Pro/Celebrity Race at the Long Beach Grand Prix in April 2002. In August 2002, he returned to the ring in Japan. He initially joined All Japan Pro Wrestling, defeating Satoshi Kojima and Taiyō Kea. He went on to defeat Rick Steiner in a match for the W-1 promotion, and teamed with Keiji Mutoh to defeat KroniK. His success in Japan led the WWF – now renamed World Wrestling Entertainment – to begin contract negotiations with him. World Wrestling Entertainment (2003–2004). World Heavyweight Championship feuds and injury (2003–2004). After leaving Japan, Goldberg signed a 1 year contract with World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) in March 2003, debuting in WWE on the March 31 edition of "Raw", the night after WrestleMania XIX. Immediately, he began a feud with The Rock by spearing him. Their rivalry intensified when The Rock held a segment entitled "The Rock Concert", where he taunted Goldberg along with Gillberg. He defeated The Rock in his debut match at Backlash. The match was won by Goldberg following three spears and a Jackhammer. Goldberg went undefeated over the subsequent half-year, defeating 3-Minute Warning in his first match on "Raw". Goldberg defeated Christian on the following edition of "Raw" in a steel cage match. Goldberg next feuded with Chris Jericho. During Jericho's first edition of the "Highlight Reel", an interview show, where Goldberg was the guest, he complained that no one wanted Goldberg in WWE and continued to insult him in the following weeks. On May 12 on "Raw", a mystery assailant attempted to run over Goldberg with a limousine. A week later, Co-Raw General Manager, Stone Cold Steve Austin, interrogated several Raw superstars to find out who was driving the car. One of the interrogatees was Lance Storm, who admitted that he was the assailant. Austin forced Storm into a match with Goldberg, who defeated Storm. After the match, Goldberg forced Storm to admit that Jericho was the superstar who conspired Storm into running him over. On May 26, Goldberg was once again a guest on the "Highlight Reel". Jericho expressed jealousy towards Goldberg's success in WCW and felt that since joining WWE, he had achieved everything he had ever wanted in his career and all that was left was to defeat Goldberg and challenged him to a match. At Bad Blood, Goldberg settled the score with Jericho and pinned him. Goldberg entered a rivalry with Triple H, challenging him for the World Heavyweight Championship at SummerSlam in the second Elimination Chamber match in WWE; after squashing and eliminating Randy Orton, Shawn Michaels, and Jericho, he was pinned by Triple H after Ric Flair threw a sledgehammer inside the Chamber. Triple H proceeded to attack Goldberg with the sledgehammer and as a result, Triple H retained the title. Goldberg continued his feud with Triple H and finally defeated him for the World Heavyweight Championship at Unforgiven, after agreeing to put his career on the line. The next night on "Raw", Goldberg successfully retained the championship against Chris Jericho. A week later, Triple H issued a $100,000 bounty to anybody who could take Goldberg out of the game. Steven Richards, Mark Henry, La Résistance and Tommy Dreamer all attempted to collect the bounty but were unsuccessful. On October 20, Batista collected the bounty after he interfered in Goldberg's title defense against Shawn Michaels on "Raw" and attacked Goldberg, placing a folding chair around Goldberg's ankle and jumping off the middle rope onto the chair, shattering his ankle. Furious, Goldberg demanded a match against Batista. Triple H, however, got involved in the match between Goldberg and Batista trying to cripple Goldberg, but Goldberg fought back and speared Triple H before attacking Batista with a sledgehammer. At Survivor Series, Goldberg retained his championship against Triple H despite interference from Evolution. On November 17, Goldberg faced Triple H, Randy Orton, and Batista in a Handicap match on "Raw" but was pinned following an RKO, a Batista Bomb and finally a Pedigree. After the match, Kane unexpectedly came out to seemingly assist Goldberg after Evolution continued their assault on him following the match. After scaring off Evolution however, he turned on Goldberg and chokeslammed him. The following week, Kane attacked Goldberg again while he was defending his championship against Triple H in a rematch from Survivor Series and later that night, expressed his desire to face Goldberg for the title. Raw General Manager Eric Bischoff announced that Goldberg would be defending his championship against both Kane and Triple H in a triple threat match at Armageddon. Goldberg teamed with Shawn Michaels and Rob Van Dam to face and defeat Kane, Batista, and Orton in a six-man tag team match. On December 8 on "Raw", Goldberg faced Kane in a Lumberjack match which ended in a disqualification when Evolution and Mark Henry entered the ring and assaulted Goldberg. At Armageddon, Goldberg ultimately lost the title when Triple H pinned him after interference from Evolution and a chokeslam from Kane. Feud with Brock Lesnar and departure (2004) and Possible Return (2014). During the Royal Rumble in 2004, Goldberg crossed paths with then-WWE Champion Brock Lesnar when the latter interrupted Goldberg during a backstage interview. While Goldberg was in the midst of dominating the Royal Rumble, Brock Lesnar interfered in the match and hit Goldberg with the F-5. With his attention turned toward Lesnar, Kurt Angle eliminated a distracted Goldberg from behind. Goldberg vowed revenge on Lesnar and after defeating Mark Henry and Jonathan Coachman in a No DQ match, he declared Brock Lesnar his next victim. On February 2, Goldberg was given a front row ticket to No Way Out by Steve Austin. Smackdown! General Manager Paul Heyman appeared on "Raw" and, along with Vince McMahon attempted to get Goldberg to back off in his vendetta against Brock Lesnar which resulted in Goldberg spearing Heyman and accidentally spearing Austin when he was aiming for McMahon. Goldberg attended No Way Out as a fan, confronting Lesnar at the event and, after several insults by Brock Lesnar, entered the ring and executed a Jackhammer on him. Goldberg was then detained and escorted out of the arena by security guards. During the main event between Brock Lesnar and Eddie Guerrero, Goldberg reemerged from the crowd and cost Brock Lesnar the WWE Championship. This led to a match between the two being scheduled for WrestleMania XX with Austin serving as special guest referee. Fans knew this would be the final WWE match for both Goldberg and Brock Lesnar and thus gave largely negative reactions through the performance because they were very upset. After Goldberg defeated Brock Lesnar, both men received a Stone Cold Stunner from Austin. And It is rumored that WWE Is Interested at Wrestlemania 30 to Book in a Ryback Vs. Goldberg a Match. Although Goldberg said do not count out his return. Mixed martial arts. On July 22, 2006, Goldberg served as color commentator in mixed martial arts (MMA) promotion World Fighting Alliance (WFA) "King of the Streets" pay-per-view in Los Angeles, California. When asked whether he was interested in becoming a mixed martial artist, Goldberg stated, "I'd love to, especially if I was 21 or even 29, but these guys are so far ahead of me in terms of experience. I never say never, though. But I don’t see myself stopping my movies, my shows, my commentating, or being a dad to do that". On June 2, 2007 Bill Goldberg also commentated on K-1 Dynamite USA. Goldberg became a color commentator for the EliteXC organization during their inaugural event. The event, , was broadcast live on Showtime, on February 10, 2007. He has continued in this role through all of EliteXC's showcase and combined cards, including Dynamite!! USA, , , and . Other media. Goldberg began acting while working for WCW in 1999. His appearance in "" corresponded with him being featured in the music video. He was a special guest star on "Hulk Hogan's Celebrity Championship Wrestling". On the show he showed the contestants his various power moves and also how to hit an opponent with a steel chair. He also spent three seasons as host of the Speed Channel show "Bullrun". In 2005, Goldberg also starred in the Happy Madison produced Adam Sandler movie "The Longest Yard", as an inmate, along with fellow wrestlers Kevin Nash, The Great Khali, and "Stone Cold" Steve Austin, as well as actors Chris Rock and Burt Reynolds among others. In the same year he was also the host of The History Channel documentary series ""'Auto-Maniac"" and later starred in the movie "Santa's Slay" where he plays a homicidal Santa Claus who goes on a killing spree on Christmas. In March 2010, Goldberg appeared on the ninth season of Donald Trump's reality series "The Celebrity Apprentice" and was eliminated in the sixth episode. In September 2010, Goldberg joined forces with Louis Gregory, CEO of Uncle Louie Music Group and Uncle Louie Management when Bill placed "Uncle Louie" on Team Goldberg. Goldberg makes frequent guest appearances on 4th & Pain, a pro-wrestling show co-hosted by Adam Carriker. Goldberg is featured in video games such as WCW/nWo Revenge, WCW/nWo Thunder, WCW Mayhem, WCW Backstage Assault, WWE WrestleMania XIX, WWE Raw 2, WWE SmackDown! Here Comes the Pain and WWE 2K14. Personal life. Goldberg's mother, Ethel, is a classical violinist, while his father, Jed, a graduate of Harvard University, was an obstetrician and gynecologist. They divorced, and Jed died in late 2006. In addition to playing the violin, Ethel breeds flowers, and once succeeded in creating an award-winning hybrid orchid which she named after Goldberg. Bill's brother, Michael, is the owner of the premier music club in Aspen, Colorado named Belly Up. Bill is proud of his Jewish heritage and refused to hide it in the wrestling world. Goldberg's Jewish ancestors came from Russia and Romania. His Romanian grandfather, Marcel, emigrated from Bucharest and came to America through Ellis Island. His other great-grandfather, Willie, was an immigrant from Russia. Goldberg was raised in Tulsa, Oklahoma, where he had a bar mitzvah at Temple Israel and graduated from Tulsa Edison High School. He acquired a love for football early in life and was a bouncer at age 16. On April 10, 2005, Goldberg married Wanda Ferraton, a stunt double whom he met while filming "Santa's Slay", as stated in that movie's audio commentary. The couple have one son together named Gage Goldberg. Goldberg is an animal welfare advocate and an American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA) spokesman, and has addressed the United States Congress in order to raise awareness of illegal animal fighting. Every year, Goldberg also plays golf in the Jimmy V Golf Classic and visits with children in local hospitals who are undergoing cancer treatment. Goldberg co-owns and operates the "Extreme Power Gym" Muay Thai and Amateur boxing training facility in Oceanside, California. He also owns over 25 vintage cars, including a Plymouth Hemi Cuda Convertible, Shelby Cobra 427, and a Mustang Boss 429 "Lawman" (one of the two cars used in the Vietnam War to entertain the U.S. Army). Goldberg has a long scar on the right side of his torso from a tear suffered during a college football game that required surgery to repair. He also acquired a scar on his right forearm from an altercation in WCW which kept him out of action for quite some time due to the surgery needed to fix. He has a large tribal tattoo on his left upper shoulder (which became his professional wrestling logo) and a skull on the inside of his right biceps.
1732196	Red vs. Blue, often abbreviated as RvB, is a comic science fiction video web series created by Rooster Teeth Productions and distributed through the Internet and on DVD. The story centers on two opposing teams of soldiers fighting a civil war in the middle of a desolate box canyon (Blood Gulch), in a parody of first-person shooter (FPS) games, military life, and science fiction films. Initially intended to be a short series of six to eight episodes, the project quickly and unexpectedly achieved significant popularity following its Internet premiere on April 1, 2003. In its run, the series has had ten full seasons and five mini-series that extended the series' plot. The fifth season of the original " Blood Gulch Chronicles" series ended with episode 100, released on June 28, 2007. Three mini-series — ', ', and ' — and the three-part "Recollection" trilogy containing the full-length ' (2008), ' (2009) and ' (2010) series (Seasons 6–8) have extended the plot. The "Project Freelancer" saga began with ' (2011) and follows two separate stories: a continuation to the "Recollection" trilogy and a prequel set before the events of "The Blood Gulch Chronicles". The two stories are continued in two further mini-series - ' and ' - and concluded in ' (2012). Burnie Burns confirmed in "What's Trending" that the series will continue with "", which premiered on June 14, 2013. "Red vs. Blue" emerged from Burnie Burns' voice-over-enhanced gameplay videos of Bungie Studios' FPS video game '. The series is primarily produced using the machinima technique of synchronizing video footage from a game to pre-recorded dialogue and other audio. Footage is mostly from the multiplayer modes of "Halo: Combat Evolved" and its sequels, "Halo 2", "Halo 3", and "Halo 4", along with its prequel, ', and "Halo 3 ODST" on the Xbox and Xbox 360 video game consoles. Minute sections of the series as it was originally filmed as well as the remastered versions of the first four seasons were also achieved using the Microsoft PC version of the same game. "Red vs. Blue" has been generally well-received within the machinima community as well as among film critics. Praised for its originality, the series has won four awards at film festivals held by the Academy of Machinima Arts & Sciences. It has also won the award for "Best Animated Web Series" from the "International Academy of Web Television" (IAWTV). It has been credited with bringing new popularity to machinima, helping it to gain more mainstream exposure, and attracting more people to the art form. Graham Leggat, former director of communications for Lincoln Center's film society, described "Red vs. Blue" as "truly as sophisticated as Samuel Beckett". While special videos continue to be released online, the completed series is also available on DVD, making the series one of the first commercially released and successful machinima products. Rooster Teeth has created videos, some under commission from Microsoft, for special events, and "Red vs. Blue" content is included with the Legendary Edition of "Halo 3". Synopsis. Setting and overview. "Red vs. Blue" centers on the Red and Blue Teams, two groups of soldiers engaged in a supposed civil war. Originally, each team occupies a small base in a box canyon known as Blood Gulch. According to , one of the Red Team soldiers, each team's base exists only in response to the other team's base. It is later revealed that there is no actual civil war; both the Red and Blue armies are under the same command, Project Freelancer, and only exist as training simulations for Freelancer Agents. Although both teams generally dislike each other and have standing orders to defeat their opponents and capture their flag, neither team is usually motivated to fight the other. The "Red vs. Blue" storyline so far spans ten full-length seasons and five mini-series. Rooster Teeth periodically releases self-referential public service announcements (PSAs) and holiday-themed videos, which are generally unrelated to the main storyline. In these videos, however, the members of both teams claim to be from "Red vs. Blue". Although the visual background of "Red vs. Blue" is primarily taken from the "Halo" series, Rooster Teeth consciously limits connections to the "Halo" fictional universe. A special video made for E3 2003 portrays Master Chief, the protagonist of the "Halo" series, as a larger-than-life member of the army, and the "Red vs. Blue" trailer and first episode establish that the series is set between the events of the first two games. Beyond these references, the storyline is independent, a decision that, according to Burns, is intended to increase accessibility to those unfamiliar with the games. For example, even though the season 4 and casts include characters from the alien Covenant Elite race, Rooster Teeth never portrays those characters in their original "Halo" context. Beginning with season six Reconstruction the series begins to follow Halo more closely. It is established that Reconstruction onwards takes place one year after Halo 3 and several characters indirectly reference Smart AI, the Human-Covenant War, and Forerunners. Also at several points it is noted that Project Freelancer is under the jurisdiction of the UNSC. Characters. "Red vs. Blue" features characters whose personalities are skewed in different ways and to varying degrees. Character interaction and dialogue, rather than action, drive the story. The series has centered on eleven main characters. Other characters, both team-affiliated and unaffiliated, human and non-human, have played significant roles throughout the story. Notable new characters include The Director and The Chairman, as well as the Freelancers, which are named after U.S. state names. AIs are also important characters, and are named after Greek letters. Plot. Seasons 1–5 ("The Blood Gulch Chronicles"). Initially, the Red Team consists of Grif (Geoff Ramsey, under the credit of Geoff Fink); (Gustavo Sorola); rookie (Dan Godwin); their leader, (Matt Hullum); and a robot engineer, (Burnie Burns). The Blue Team consists of (Jason Saldaña), rookie (Joel Heyman), de facto leader (Burns), and an artificially intelligent tank named (Yomary Cruz); prior to the events of the series, the Blues were led by the late Captain Butch Flowers (Ed Robertson). Church is killed in friendly fire by Caboose, and reappears as a ghost after freelancer (Kathleen Zuelch) is called in to replace him. It is established that Tex comes from an experimental super-soldier program, which paired freelancer soldiers, code-named by U.S. states, with artificial intelligence programs. After Tex is killed in combat, her AI, (various), transfers to and possesses Caboose. Three months later, neutral medic (Hullum) arrives, taking commands from both teams due to a lack of resources. The Blues take Donut hostage, and negotiate his release in exchange for robot bodies, constructed by Sarge, that the ghosts of Church and Tex can possess. O'Malley soon transfers to Doc, kidnaps Lopez, and escapes Blood Gulch through a teleporter. The Red and Blue Teams join forces to pursue O'Malley, eventually confronting him just before a bomb built by Sarge into Church's robot body detonates. The soldiers wake up in a wasteland, and (wrongly) conclude the force of the blast sent them into the future; this is used as a plot device to explain changing from the original Halo to Halo 2. Church, however, travels a thousand years into the past. Living the events leading up to the explosion over and over, Church attempts to alter the timeline and avert the disaster, with every failure sending him back to the past once more. He also accidentally causes several of the problems seen in the earlier seasons, such as causing Sheila to malfunction and kill him, causing Sheila and Lopez's rebellion, and killing Captain Flowers. He eventually abandons his plans, and manages to join the others in the supposed future. The teams gather at O’Malley’s new fortress, and plan to plant the sentient time bomb, (Nathan Zellner). Instead, O’Malley is defeated (temporarily) by an creature. As the Red Team discovers the continued existence of Blood Gulch, the Alien leads Tucker, Caboose and Andy on a sacred quest, but the alien is killed. His murderer, (Hullum), is also part of the super-soldier program, prompting Tex to pursue him with the help of fellow test subject (Sean Duggan) and his AI, (Mark Bellman). York is soon killed as well. It is revealed that Wyoming has an armor enhancement which allows him to alter time, which caused Church to travel into the past to begin with. The Blues, Andy, and Tex eventually return to Blood Gulch, and Tucker becomes ill; Church calls Doc, whom O'Malley still controls, for help. Doc diagnoses Tucker with male pregnancy, caused through parasitic symbiosis with the Alien. Tucker gives birth off-screen to an alien child, (Saldaña). O’Malley leaves Doc. A ship crashes into the gulch, carrying Grif's sibling, (Rebecca Frasier), who is assigned to the Blue Team. Both teams are soon ambushed by Wyoming, Lopez and O’Malley, who now possesses the reanimated corpse of Captain Flowers. They reveal their joint plot to steal Junior, the prophesied ruler of the alien race, in order to raise and control an army of alien creatures. In the ensuing battle, Wyoming and Flowers are killed. Tex, however, sees the possibility of rule over the aliens as a method to end the war, and convinces O’Malley to possess her once more. She takes Junior, and leaves in the ship. The Reds, however, have planted Andy on-board, and the ship explodes on their command. Seasons 6–8 ("The Recollection"). Agent Washington (Shannon McCormick) retrieves Delta from York's body, and has an encounter with a new enemy, a rogue Freelancer known as "", who is killing Freelancer agents for their AI and abilities. After Tex's ship crashes into an outpost named Valhalla, the Meta arrives and captures her, Omega, and Gamma as well as Tex's cloaking mechanism and Wyoming's temporal distortion unit, while later killing everyone in the valley except for one Red. Command has Washington gather the Blues to counter the Meta's growing threat, with the Reds getting embroiled in the plot soon after. Following an encounter with the Meta, Delta is captured. Washington resolves to bring the teams to Freelancer Command in order to retrieve the Alpha, the original AI from which all of the Freelancer AIs were derived. Inside the AI storage facility, Washington reveals that Church is in fact the Alpha, based on the mind of Project Freelancer's director, and not a ghost as originally thought. Washington and Church trigger an electromagnetic pulse which destroys all of the Meta's AIs, including Church and Tex. Sarge, Simmons, Grif and Caboose escape with the Epsilon AI before the pulse destroys it, as it is needed as evidence of Project Freelancer's crimes. During the raid on the base, the Reds deleted all files related to the Blues from the UNSC database (Sarge had wrongfully assumed that this would literally delete the Blue team and win the war), consequently Caboose and the Epsilon AI are not located and Washington is imprisoned as a result. The Reds settle into the new base awarded to them in Valhalla when Lopez and Donut arrive. Donut finds Caboose, who has been trying to fix the Epsilon unit, and tells him Tucker is in trouble. Caboose sets out to rescue him, with Sarge and Grif following, while Simmons, Lopez and Donut remain behind. After reaching Tucker at a desert dig site, Caboose finds a forerunner monitor which he uploads Epsilon into. Epsilon acts as a back-up of Alpha, having Church's voice and personality but no memory of any of the events that have happened throughout the series. Meanwhile, Simmons, Donut and Lopez come under attack from the Meta. Washington arrives as the Reds in Valhalla attempt to escape, killing Donut (supposedly) and Lopez while demanding Epsilon from Simmons, revealing that he is now working alongside the Meta in order to return the Epsilon unit in exchange for his freedom. Doc is sent to Valhalla, at Simmons' request, to give the Meta a medical examination. Sarge and Grif manage to rescue Simmons, but Doc is left behind. Church leads the teams to a Freelancer storage facility run by a computer identical to Sheila. Church releases a copy of Tex from himself into an unused robot body made specifically for her. Tex then proceeds to effortlessly beat the Reds, Tucker, and Epsilon before Sheila and Caboose force her into armor lockup (which Donut was currently in). Tex researches her past to discover who she truly is and leaves for another Freelancer facility with Church. The Reds search Freelancer's database and discover that all the events they have been through in "The Blood Gulch Chronicles" were just one of many simulated scenarios used to train Freelancers for combat and was in fact simply a training scenario that had gone terribly wrong, which devastates Sarge. Tex sets a trap for Washington and the Meta to interrogate them and find the Director. She then proceeds to fight Washington and the Meta, though the showdown ends with the Meta stabbing Tex in the face with the capture unit, trapping her. The Meta then uses Tex to regain some of his armor abilities and betrays Washington who is saved by the arrival of the Reds and Blues in a dropship. In a final showdown with the Meta, the Reds manage to throw the Meta over a cliff by hooking him to a Warthog, causing him to fall to his demise. Church enters the capture unit after Tex, but it shuts down before he can return, trapping him. As the UNSC arrive to clean up the scene, Washington fakes his death and joins the Blues while the Reds escape in a stolen transport. Inside the capture unit, Church relives a version of his memories of his time in Blood Gulch in the hope that Tex will find him there. Seasons 9 & 10 ("Project Freelancer"). Both the ninth and tenth seasons of "Red vs. Blue" are divided into two different, but interrelated storylines, one following Epsilon Church in the present day and another following the events surrounding Project Freelancer, before the events of "The Blood Gulch Chronicles". Before the events of "Blood Gulch Chronicles", Project Freelancer conducted experiments to create supersoldiers augmented with artificial intelligence programs and advanced technology, under the supervisor of Dr. Leonard Church, the project director and template for the Alpha AI. Project Freelancer was primarily concerned with fighting a rogue faction of the UNSC following an insurrection. The AI given to the soldiers was procured by torturing Alpha, the only AI that the UNSC permitted the project to use, and splitting it into fragments, each representing a part of the Alpha's personality. The Freelancers were trained and ranked against each other, creating a highly competitive environment and leading to a rivalry between agent Carolina and agent Texas. Agent Maine is partnered with the Sigma AI, who represents Alpha's ambition, leading to the deterioration of the former's sanity and eventual transformation into the Meta. Implantation of AI into further soldiers is abandoned after the implantation of Epsilon into agent Washington leads to both having a severe psychotic episode. Concurrent to this Tex discovers that she is in fact the Beta AI, a recreation of a woman named Alison, the Director's long-lost love, the memories of whom were inherited by Alpha. The Meta steals Carolina's AI implants and apparently kills her.
1054959	Final Destination 2 is a 2003 American supernatural horror film directed by David R. Ellis. The screenplay by J. Mackye Gruber and Eric Bress was from a story by Gruber, Bress, and series creator Jeffrey Reddick. It is the sequel to the 2000 film "Final Destination" and the second installment of the "Final Destination" series. After the financial success of "Final Destination", New Line Cinema contacted Reddick regarding plans for a sequel. Since the original film's crew was unavailable, New Line replaced most of the production team. Filming took place in Vancouver and Okanagan Lake. "Final Destination 2" was released on January 31, 2003, as well as in DVD on July 22, 2003, which includes commentaries, deleted scenes, documentaries, and videos. A promotional score composed by Shirley Walker was also released on September 30, 2003. The film received mixed reviews from critics; in which negative assessments sorted the film as "silly and illogical" and "begins with the same flawed premise" of its precursor, while positive evaluations eulogized the film as "a real jolter for horror fans", "recognizes the close relationship between fright and laughter", and "surprisingly good fun for the current crop of horror films". The film grossed $46 million domestically and $43 million overseas, earning $90 million internationally. It was nominated for four awards, including the Saturn Award for Best Horror Film. Plot. In 2001, one year after the explosion of Flight 180, college student Kimberly Corman heads to Daytona Beach with her friends for their spring break. While driving, Kimberly has a premonition of a pile-up along Route 23, killing everyone involved. Aghast, she stalls her car and prevents lottery winner Evan Lewis, widow Nora Carpenter and her son Tim, businesswoman Kat Jennings, stoner Rory Peters, pregnant Isabella Hudson, teacher Eugene Dix, and cop Thomas Burke from entering the highway. While Thomas questions Kimberly, the pile-up occurs and kills her friends Shaina, Dano, and Frankie.
1052911	Tracy Griffith (born October 19, 1965) is an American actress and chef. She is the daughter of actor and producer Peter Griffith and model/actress Nanita Greene, and the older sister of production designer and set decorator Clay A. Griffith. She is also the half-sister of actress Melanie Griffith. She is married to Mark Daley, president of Polo Ralph Lauren, Asia. Career. Tracy played supporting roles in Melanie Griffith's starrers, such as "Fear City" (1985) and "Crazy in Alabama" (1999). In addition to acting, Griffith has also been a model, dive master, sailor, painter, guitar player, writer, world traveller and one of the world’s first certified female sushi chefs. She is also a Napa landscape painter. Griffith was the first female graduate of the California Sushi Academy, and was the featured sushi chef at Tsunami’s in Beverly Hills. She also was a partner and chef at Rika’s on Sunset, a sushi restaurant on the Sunset Strip in Los Angeles. In 2006, Griffith released a CD titled “Red” that features boot-scootin’ Western dance tunes to country pop and tender folk ballads. The title “Red” came from her nickname and in honor of her Grandfather, James “Red” Greene. He introduced Griffith to Buck Owens, Johnny Cash and Lefty Frizzell. Early life. Griffith was raised in Bedford (NY), New York City and on the island of St. John - sailing and SCUBA were after-school jobs in the Virgin Islands. In New York City, it was summer teen-modeling and TV commercials that led her into an acting career. Tracy Griffith graduated from Oldfields School, an exceptional all-girls day and boarding school in Glencoe, Maryland. After college, Griffith worked in Hollywood and New York for the next 12 years. Her acting credits include "The Guiding Light", "The Good Mother" (1988); "Fast Food" (1989); "The First Power" (1990); "The Finest Hour" (1991); "All Tied Up" (1993); "21 Jump Street"; Lifetime's "Their Second Chance", and the miniseries "". She was also a regular on the ABC drama series "The Monroes" (1995). After sparking national media attention for being LA’s first professional “sushi girl”, Griffith also developed her unique spin on sushi—sushi without raw fish. This led to a publishing deal for her cookbook “Sushi American Style” that was released by Clarkson Potter in August 2004. Griffith starred as the chef/host on the recurring “Cooking with D.I.Y.” series and “Celebrity Hobbies” on the D.I.Y. Network. References. http://www.amazon.com/Stealth-Health-Lunches-Kids-Love/dp/1624140246/ref=sr_1_10?ie=UTF8&qid=1363062657&sr=8-10&keywords=Tracy+Griffith
1373079	Zachary Levi Pugh (; born September 29, 1980), known professionally as Zachary Levi, is an American actor, director, and singer. Known for his roles in the TV series "Chuck" as the titular character, "Less than Perfect", ' and "Tangled", he is to appear in the Marvel film ' as Fandral in 2013. Early life. Born in Lake Charles, Louisiana, to parents Susan M. (née Hoctor) and Darrell Alton Pugh. He is the middle child between two sisters, Sarah and Shekinah. He has English, German, and Welsh ancestry. As a child, his family moved all over the country before finally heading back to their home in Ventura, California, where Levi attended Buena High School for four years. He began acting in theatre at the age of six, performing lead roles in regional productions such as "Grease", "The Outsiders", and "Oklahoma", as well as "Oliver", "The Wizard of Oz", and "Big River" at the Ojai Art Center. Career. Acting. Levi first appeared in the FX television movie "Big Shot: Confessions of a Campus Bookie." He played Kipp Steadman on the ABC sitcom "Less Than Perfect". He also portrayed a potential boyfriend of Charisma Carpenter's character, Jane, in the ABC Family television movie" See Jane Date." Levi was slated to be a lead in an ABC pilot called "Three" for the 2004/2005 television season. It was written by Andrew Reich & Ted Cohen, and would have costarred James Van Der Beek, Jama Williamson, and Jacob Pitts, but the show was not picked up. Levi financed Kendall Payne's album "Grown" after she was dropped by her label, Capitol Records. He landed the starring role in "Chuck" in 2007. Levi and his "Chuck" co-star, Yvonne Strahovski, were both nominated for Best Action Actor and Actress Choice TV Series for the Teen Choice Awards 2010 where they both won and presented. In the summer of 2008, Levi was named one of "Entertainment Weekly's "Top Thirty People Under Thirty. He later starred in the film "" in the lead role as the Chipmunks' cousin Toby Seville. BuddyTV ranked him #97 on its list of "TV's Sexiest Men of 2011". Levi landed the male lead in the 2012 TV pilot "Let It Go", which would have aired on Fox; however, it was not picked up. Levi hosted the web documentaries "Tomb Raider The Final Hours", going behind the scenes of the new "Tomb Raider game". Levi was originally supposed to portray Fandral in "Thor" but had to drop out due to scheduling conflicts with his series "Chuck," however he has been confirmed in the role for the sequel "". Zachary Levi will have his Broadway debut in a production of the musical comedy "First Date" in August 2013. Music. In April 2010, Katharine McPhee released a preview of a music video to cinemas for her single "Terrified". Levi duets with her on the song (which was re-recorded; the original album version features Jason Reeves) and appears in the music video singing with McPhee. On May 3, 2010, the song was previewed on "Entertainment Weekly"'s website and was made available for purchase on iTunes. The full video premiered on May 7, 2010 on the music video website Vevo. He is also featured on the soundtrack of the movie "Tangled" singing a duet with co-star Mandy Moore called "I See the Light", as well as being featured in the song "I've Got a Dream". In honor of the Oscar nomination for Best Original Song, Levi and Moore performed "I See the Light" at the 83rd Academy Awards. He has also been a guest member of "Band from TV", a band made up of actors from various American TV shows. Personal life. Levi is a sports car and motorcycle enthusiast and owns a 2009 Nissan GT-R. He dated Caitlin Crosby from 2008 to January 2010. Levi is a Christian and has been since childhood. In a 2002 interview with "Relevant Magazine", he said, "My job on my set, I believe, is to first just love people and gain that trust with people where they know that I really do love them and care about their well-being, so that when they are running into problems, they will hopefully, at some point, come to me and ask me, 'What is your peace all about? What is your comfort all about? Where do you get your love? Where do you get your talents?' And I can turn to them and say without blinking, 'Jesus Christ. In September 2010, Levi started his own company, The Nerd Machine. Levi was selected as a participant in the Celebrity All Star Game at NBA All Star Weekend 2011 at Los Angeles. He played for the team coached by Magic Johnson. Levi is an avid gamer, having first played Super Mario Bros. and has come to appreciate video games for their ability to provide interactive stories. Discography. Live performances. On February 27, 2011, Levi performed "I See the Light" with Mandy Moore at the 83rd Academy Awards.
1161725	Bianca Jasmine Lawson (born March 20, 1979) is an American film and television actress. She is perhaps best known for regular roles in the television series "", "Goode Behavior" and "Pretty Little Liars". She has also had recurring roles in the series "Sister, Sister", "Buffy the Vampire Slayer", "The Steve Harvey Show", "Dawson's Creek", "The Secret Life of the American Teenager", "The Vampire Diaries", and "Teen Wolf". Early life. Lawson was born in Los Angeles, California. She is the daughter of Denise (née Gordy) and actor Richard Lawson. Lawson is also the great niece of Motown founder Berry Gordy. She attended the Stella Adler Studio of Acting and graduated from Marymount High School, a Catholic school in Los Angeles. She then went on to study film and psychology at University of Southern California. Lawson is African-American and of Italian, Native American, Portuguese, and Creole descent. Career. Lawson began acting at the age of nine, having appeared in commercials for Barbie and Revlon. In 1993, she was cast in the television series "" as series regular Megan Jones. She appeared in multiple episodes of The WB sitcoms "Sister, Sister" as Rhonda Coley and "The Steve Harvey Show" as Rosalind. In 1996, she co-starred in the UPN sitcom "Goode Behavior" as family sub-title character Bianca Goode, which lasted for just one season. In 1997, she appeared in "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" as vampire slayer Kendra Young. In 1999, she appeared in The WB's "Dawson's Creek" as rival character Nikki Green.
1058520	Cross of Iron is a 1977 war film directed by Sam Peckinpah, featuring James Coburn, Maximilian Schell, James Mason and David Warner. The film is set on the Eastern Front in World War II during the Soviet's Caucasus operations that forced the Wehrmacht to retreat from the Taman Peninsula on the Black Sea in late 1943.
1058568	The Quiet is a 2005 American drama-thriller film directed by Jamie Babbit, and starring Camilla Belle and Elisha Cuthbert. It focuses on a mute teenage girl, Dot (Belle) who goes to live with her godparents (played by Martin Donovan and Edie Falco) after her father dies, where she slowly learns the disturbing secrets of the family, primarily concerning their teenage daughter, Nina (Cuthbert).
1744437	, also known as Lovely Complex, is a romantic comedy shōjo manga by Aya Nakahara. It was published by Shueisha in "Bessatsu Margaret" from 2001 to 2006 and collected in 17 "tankōbon" volumes. The series is about the romance between a tall girl and a short boy who are treated as a comedy duo by their classmates. In 2004, it received the 49th Shogakukan Manga Award for shōjo. The story has been adapted as a live-action movie released in 2006, a 24-episode anime television series broadcast in 2007, and an adventure game released for PlayStation 2 released in 2006. Two drama CDs have also been produced. The manga and the live-action movie are licensed in North America by Viz. A sequel series called "Love★Com D" (or "Lovely Complex Deluxe" or "Lovely Complex Two") began serialization in the May 2009 issue of the bimonthly shōjo manga magazine "Deluxe Margaret", focusing on Risa's younger brother. Plot. "Love★Com" is a love story between a boy and a girl in Sakai, Osaka. The girl, Risa Koizumi, is tall—much taller than the average Japanese girl. The boy, Atsushi Ōtani, is —way below the height of the average Japanese boy. Because of this, the pair are called the "All Hanshin Kyojin" after a popular comedy duo that has a similar height difference. Their height difference is extremely exaggerated. During summer school, a very tall student named Ryouji Suzuki (from another class) shows up and Risa immediately falls for him because he is tall. There is a girl that Atsushi likes as well, so Risa and Atsushi decide to put aside their differences and help each other get their love interests. But both fail, and Suzuki and the girl whom Otani had a crush on - Chiharu Tanaka - became a couple. Risa and Otani become best friends. But as they get to know each other better, Risa's feelings for Atsushi begin to blossom, and her love life gets complicated from there on. One notable fact about "Love★Com" is that instead of speaking standard Japanese, almost all characters speak in Kansai-ben. Many native Osakan voice actors are employed in the anime. While having one or two characters speaking Kansai-ben is common in many anime shows, having all characters doing so is unusual in media produced for a nationwide audience. Creation and development. According to the afterward of volume 6, Ōtani ("big valley") was going to be named Nakatani ("middle valley"), but Aya Nakahara changed her mind because "naka" was "too middlin'." Media. Manga. The manga was written and illustrated by Aya Nakahara. It was initially serialized in Japan by Shueisha in the "shōjo" (aimed at teenage girls) manga magazine "Bessatsu Margaret" from September 2001 to December 2006. The untitled chapters were collected in 17 "tankōbon" volumes. The manga is licensed in English in North America by Viz Media, with 16 volumes published as of January 2010. The Viz edition is licensed for distribution in Australia and New Zealand by Madman Entertainment, which released volume one in May 2008. The series is also licensed in France by Delcourt, in Italy by Planet Manga, in Mexico by Grupo Editorial Vid, in Spain by Planeta DeAgostini, in Taiwan by Tong Li Publishing, in Hungary by Mangafan and in Vietnam by TVM Comics. Movie. "Love★Com" was adapted as a live-action movie directed by Kitaji Ishikawa with screenplay by Osamu Suzuki. It starred Ema Fujisawa as Risa Koizumi and Teppei Koike as Atsushi Ōtani. It was released in theaters on 2006-07-15, and on DVD on 2007-01-01. A subtitled DVD was released in English in North America by Viz Media on 2008-02-19. Anime. The anime television series was produced by Toei Animation and directed by Konosuke Uda, with music by Hironosuke Sato and character designs by Hideaki Maniwa. The opening theme songs were by Tegomass (episodes 1–13) and "Hey! Say!" by Hey! Say! 7 (episodes 14–24); the ending themes were by Tegomass (episodes 1–13) and "Bon Bon" by Hey! Say! 7 (episodes 14–24). It was broadcast on TBS, CBC, and MBS from 7 April 2007 to 29 September 2007. The Italian distributor Dynit licensed the anime for a DVD release. In Italy was broadcast on 24 October 2010 on Rai 4 and ended on 17 April 2011. In April 2012, Discotek Media announced that they will distribute the Love Com anime on DVD in North America in one subtitled boxset. Reception. "Love★Com" received the 2004 Shogakukan Manga Award for shōjo manga. The English edition of "Love★Com" has been favorably reviewed, with praise especially for Nakahara's comedic timing, sympathetic characters, and deft depictions of emotions. A reviewer at Anime News Network praised it as "the standard by which all other modern romantic comedies should be measured" for its handling of the range of its characters' emotions. The first volume was named by the Young Adult Library Services Association as among the best graphic novels for teens for 2007. The live-action movie of "Love★Com" was named by Young Adult Library Services Association as one of 16 movies that are 2009 Fabulous Films for Young Adults on the theme of coming of age around the world.
1104015	John Edensor Littlewood (9 June 1885 – 6 September 1977) was a British mathematician, best known for the results achieved in collaboration with G. H. Hardy. Life. Littlewood was born in 1885 in Rochester in Kent. He was the son of Edward Thornton Littlewood and Sylvia Ackland. He lived in Wynberg in Cape Town from 1892 to 1900 where his father (a 9th wrangler) was a headmaster. His uncommon middle name was the maiden name of his great-great-grandmother Sarah Edensor, who married Thomas Littlewood. He attended St Paul's School in London for three years, where he was taught by F. S. Macaulay, now known for his contributions to ideal theory. He studied at Trinity College, Cambridge and was the Senior Wrangler in the Mathematical Tripos of 1905. He was elected a Fellow of Trinity College in 1908 and, apart from three years as Richardson Lecturer in the University of Manchester, the balance of his career was spent at the University of Cambridge. He was appointed Rouse Ball Professor of Mathematics in 1928, retiring in 1950. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1916, awarded the Royal Medal in 1929, the Sylvester Medal in 1943 and the Copley Medal in 1958. He was president of the London Mathematical Society from 1941 to 1943, and was awarded the De Morgan Medal in 1938 and the Senior Berwick Prize in 1960. Work. Most of Littlewood's work was in the field of mathematical analysis. He began research under the supervision of Ernest William Barnes, who suggested that he attempt to prove the Riemann hypothesis: Littlewood showed that if the Riemann hypothesis is true then the Prime Number Theorem follows and obtained the error term. This work won him his Trinity fellowship. However, the link between the Riemann hypothesis and the Prime Number Theorem had been known before in Continental Europe, and Littlewood also wrote later in his book, "A Mathematician’s Miscellany" that his actually only rediscovered result did not shed a bright light on the isolated state of British mathematics at the time. He coined Littlewood's law, which states that individuals can expect "miracles" to happen to them, at the rate of about one per month. He continued to write papers into his eighties, particularly in analytical areas of what would become the theory of dynamical systems. Littlewood is also remembered for his book of reminiscences, "A Mathematician's Miscellany" (new edition published in 1986). Among his own Ph. D. students were Sarvadaman Chowla, Harold Davenport and Donald C. Spencer. Spencer reported that in 1941 when he (Spencer) was about to get on the boat that would take him home to the United States, Littlewood reminded him: ""n", "n" alpha, "n" beta!" (referring to Littlewood's conjecture). Littlewood's collaborative work, carried out by correspondence, covered fields in Diophantine approximation and Waring's problem, in particular. In his other work, he collaborated with Raymond Paley on Littlewood–Paley theory in Fourier theory, and with Cyril Offord in combinatorial work on random sums, in developments that opened up fields that are still intensively studied. He worked with Mary Cartwright on problems in differential equations arising out of early research on radar: their work foreshadowed the modern theory of dynamical systems. Littlewood's inequality on bilinear forms was a forerunner of the later Grothendieck tensor norm theory. With Hardy. Littlewood collaborated for many years with G. H. Hardy. Together they devised the first Hardy–Littlewood conjecture, a strong form of the twin prime conjecture, and the second Hardy–Littlewood conjecture. In a 1947 lecture, the Danish mathematician Harald Bohr said, "To illustrate to what extent Hardy and Littlewood in the course of the years came to be considered as the leaders of recent English mathematical research, I may report what an excellent colleague once jokingly said: 'Nowadays, there are only three really great English mathematicians: Hardy, Littlewood, and Hardy–Littlewood.'" There is a story (related in the Miscellany) that at a conference Littlewood met a German mathematician who said he was most interested to discover that Littlewood really existed, as he had always assumed that Littlewood was a name used by Hardy for lesser work which he did not want to put out under his own name; Littlewood apparently roared with laughter. There are versions of this story involving both Norbert Wiener and Edmund Landau, who, it is claimed, "so doubted the existence of Littlewood that he made a special trip to Great Britain to see the man with his own eyes".
1067072	Laws of Attraction is a 2004 Irish-British-German romantic comedy film directed by Peter Howitt based on a story by Aline Brosh McKenna and screenplay by Robert Harling and McKenna. It stars Pierce Brosnan and Julianne Moore. It has grossed $30 million, on a budget of $32 million. Plot. High-powered divorce attorneys Audrey Woods (Julianne Moore) and Daniel Rafferty (Pierce Brosnan) have seen love gone wrong in all its worst case scenarios—so, how bad could their chances be? At the top of their respective games, Audrey and Daniel are a classic study in opposites. She practices law strictly by the book; he always manages to win by the seat of his pants or by "cheap theatrics" as Audrey says in one scene. But soon they are pitted against each other on opposite sides of a nasty public divorce between famous clients, the Jamison's (Michael Sheen and Parker Posey), with the case centring upon an Irish castle, named Caisleán Cloiche or rock Castle, that each future divorcee has their sights set on. Audrey and Daniel travel to Ireland to chase down depositions, yet the two lawyers, who have been slowly developing a mutual attraction that neither wants to acknowledge, find themselves thrown together at a romantic Irish festival. After a night of wild celebrating, they wake up the next morning as husband and wife. Audrey is shocked but Daniel seems to be all normal. They return to New York and find their marriage news has been printed in a popular tabloid the next day. This is when Audrey decides that they should stay together to save their careers. But they are fighting the divorce case with the gusto they always had in the courtroom. Meanwhile they both start developing mutual attraction while staying together at Audrey's house. While disposing of garbage one day Daniel discovers some sensitive information about Audrey's client, which he spills accidentally in the next day's court proceedings. Audrey feels betrayed and asks for a divorce there and then, which Daniel agrees to give. Their famous clients, meanwhile, go to Ireland to their castle, but they are not legally permitted to go there. Judge Abramovitz (Nora Dunn) sends their respective counselors (Audrey and Daniel) to Ireland to inform them that the law does not permit them to be in the castle till a proper settlement, i.e. division of assets, is done. But to everybody's surprise the famous couple is reunited and it turns out that the priest who performed Audrey and Daniel's marriage was just a servant at the castle and not a priest, and the marriages he performed were just a part of the festival's celebration. They were anything but real. Audrey and Daniel are shocked and Daniel returns to New York but Audrey follows him as she realises that she has fallen in love with him. They have a court marriage at the end which is carried out by Judge Abramovitz. Reception. "Laws of Attraction" received generally negative reviews from critics, as it holds an 18% rating on Rotten Tomatoes where the site calls the film "a bland and forgettable copy of "Adam's Rib"." On Metacritic, the film holds a 38/100 rating, indicating "generally unfavorable" reviews. The film opened at No. 5 in the US box office in the weekend of 30 April 2004, raking in US$6,728,905 in its first opening weekend.
665764	Chantal Sophia "Tessa" Dahl (born 11 April 1957) is an English author and is in the process of becoming a Benedictine nun. Life. Dahl was born in Oxfordshire, England, the daughter of British author Roald Dahl and American actress Patricia Neal. She grew up in Great Missenden, Buckinghamshire and attended Roedean and Downe House schools, Elizabeth Russell Cookery School and Herbert Bergof Acting Studio. After a brief stint as an actress during the 1970s, Tessa Dahl became a prolific author of a best-selling novel "Working For Love" and best-selling storybooks for children. Her book "Gwenda and the Animals" won the Friends of the Earth Best Children's Book of the Year. In addition, she has written extensively for the "London Times", "Sunday Times", The "Daily Telegraph", "The Sunday Telegraph", the "Daily Mail", "The Mail On Sunday", "Vogue", "House and Garden" (USA) and "YOU Magazine". She is a contributing editor to the women's glossy magazine "Tatler". Dahl's relationship with actor Julian Holloway produced one daughter, model and author Sophie Dahl. She married businessman James Kelly and had two children, Clover and Luke. She then married businessman Patrick Donovan and had a son, Ned. Dahl joined a Benedictine order of nuns in Connecticut in 2010. Theatre. Apprenticed at "TheBarter Theatre,Abingdon, Va. (1972). "The Deep Man" by Hugo Von Hoffmannsthal (1979) Royal Exchange, Manchester.
1015855	New Dragon Gate Inn is a 1992 Hong Kong "wuxia" film directed by Raymond Lee and produced by Tsui Hark, starring Tony Leung Ka-fai, Brigitte Lin, Maggie Cheung and Donnie Yen. It was released as Dragon Inn in North America. The film is a remake of "Dragon Gate Inn" (1966). "New Dragon Gate Inn" was shot as a standard "wuxia" action thriller, with fast-paced action including martial arts, sword fighting and black comedy set in ancient China. Plot. This is a period film set during the Ming Dynasty in the desert region of China. Tsao Siu-yan is a power-crazed eunuch who rules his sector of China as if he were the Emperor and not a mere official. He is the leader of the security agency of the Emperor, this ruthless body is known as the Dong Chang (東廠; East Factory). He has built up an elite army of skilled archers and horsemen who receive intensive training and powerful weapons.
1263840	Dracula 3D is a 2012 Italian-French-Spanish horror film directed by Dario Argento and starring Thomas Kretschmann and Rutger Hauer. The screenplay was written by Argento, Enrique Cerezo, Stefano Piani and Antonio Tentori. It is Argento's first 3D film. The film is not a direct adaptation of Bram Stoker's novel "Dracula", but features elements from the novel. Plot. One night in the woods adjacent to Passo Borgo, at the foot of the Carpathian mountains, a couple of young lovers, Tania and Milos, secretly meet. On her way home, Tania is chased and overcome by a "dark shadow" that kills her. In those days Jonathan Harker, a young librarian, arrives at the village hired by Count Dracula, a nobleman from the area. Tania's body mysteriously disappears from the cemetery. In the meantime Harker, before going to Count Dracula's castle, takes the opportunity to visit Lucy Kisslinger, his wife Mina's best friend as well as the daughter of the local mayor. Upon arriving at the castle, Harker is greeted by Tania, brought back to life from the dead and made vampire, who tries from the very beginning to seduce him; however they are interrupted by Dracula's entrance welcoming Harker. The following night Tania tries again to bite Harker, she is close to his neck when she is stopped by the count who gets the upper hand and it is he himself who bites Harker's neck, however allowing him to live. The following day, weakened but still conscious Harker attempts to escape, but as soon as he is outside the castle a large wolf with a white lock assaults and savagely kills him. Meanwhile, Mina, Harker's wife, arrives in the village and is guest for a few days at the home of her dearest friend Lucy Kisslinger, who will also be bitten and vampirized. The day after, Mina, worried about her husband, goes to Count Dracula's castle. Their encounter makes her forget the reason for her presence there. She is completely under the count's influence; the count had orchestrated the events leading up to their encounter; in fact Mina looks exactly like his beloved Dolinger, who died some centuries ago. Upon her return to the Kisslinger house, Mina learns of the death of her dear friend Lucy. The sequence of such strange and dramatic events summons the aid of Van Helsing, vampire expert of the techniques used to eliminate them. Van Helsing, aware of the circumstances decides to act swiftly and prepares the tools needed to combat vampires. He directs himself to the center of evil, Count Dracula's castle. Meanwhile Dracula, in the village, kills the inhabitants who rescinded their pact, while Van Helsing, inside the castle, is able to definitively eliminate Tania. Dracula, intent on his desire to reunite with his beloved wife, leads Mina, completely hypnotized, to the castle where Van Helsing is waiting. He has decided to engage in a deadly fight with his evil foe. During the struggle Van Helsing loses his gun with the silver bullet and Mina, still under Dracula's spell, gathers it and tries to aid Dracula, but she misses the target and involuntarily kills him. The special silver bullet transforms Dracula into ashes; but his spirit lifts the ashes into the air and uniting, they shape into a large bat with a mocking grin... Production. The project was first announced on 20 May 2010 at the Cannes Film Festival, along with a teaser poster. On 21 February 2011, it was confirmed that Rutger Hauer would play Van Helsing in the film. Filming began on 16 May in Budapest. The first images from the set were released on 10 July 2011. Release. "Dracula 3D" premiered at the Cannes Film Festival on 19 May 2012. Reception. "The Hollywood Reporter" gave the film a negative review, noting that the "first of many unintentional laughs in Dario Argento's "Dracula 3D" comes on the opening credits" and "this is a tired rehash that adds little to the canon aside from such outré touches as having Drac shapeshift into a swarm of flies or a giant grasshopper in one howler of a scene." "Variety" also gave the film a negative review, stating, "director Argento half-heartedly mixes schlocky 3D f/x with one-dimensional characters for a near-two-hour joke that ought to have been funnier." "Screen Daily" noted that "it is so lushly loopy that against all odds it could become something of a 3D cult title, and certainly for those of us who have 'experienced' it there is a certain 'I was there' badge of honour to go alongside having been at the Cannes screenings of "The Brave" or "Southland Tales"."
1064952	Marc A. McClure (born March 31, 1957) is an American actor.
674548	Das Experiment (English: "The Experiment") is a 2001 German thriller film directed by Oliver Hirschbiegel, about a social experiment, based on Mario Giordano's novel "Black Box", which resembles Philip Zimbardo's Stanford prison experiment of 1971. Plot. In a newspaper advertisement, taxi driver Tarek Fahd discovers an invitation to participate in an experiment. 4000 German marks are offered to the participants of the experiment, in which a prison situation is simulated. The experiment is led by Professor Klaus Thon and his assistant, Dr. Jutta Grimm. Tarek participates as a journalist while wearing a pair of glasses with a built-in mini-camera. Tarek has a car accident shortly before the experiment, after which he meets a woman called Dora. She spends the night with him and Tarek keeps thinking of her, shown in flashbacks. The 20 volunteers are pronounced guards and prisoners and are being observed by a team of scientists. The prisoners lose their civil rights and have to obey arbitrary rules, such as completely eating their meals. The guards are given nightsticks, but are told not to use violence in any case. Each prisoner’s name is taken away and replaced by a number. Tarek (prisoner nr. 77) initially refuses to acknowledge the guards' superiority by drinking the milk of one of his co-prisoners because of that prisoner's lactose intolerance, or by throwing his blanket out of his cell to provoke the guards. He befriends his cellmates, Steinhoff and Schütte. Psychological changes develop and the situation deteriorates. The circumstances seem to be escalating after a few days. It becomes clear that limits are not only being reached but being surpassed when the guards kidnap Tarek from his cell late in the night, order him to strip fully naked, shave his head bald and urinate on him. The guards become excessively aware of their power and use the prisoners' fear to make them obedient. On both sides, one person is considered dominant. On the prisoners' side, this is Tarek, and on the guards’ side, it is the quiet guard Berus, a sadist, whose motto during the experiment is: "Humiliation is the only way we can solve these troubles." From that moment on, the guards start to use more and more violence against the prisoners. The scientists engage in a discussion whether or not to abort the experiment. Dr. Grimm suggests to put an end to the alarming situation, but Professor Thon refuses to stop the experiment until the violence has reached a maximum. Dora meanwhile returns to Tarek's apartment and discovers his participation contract for the experiment. She surprises him by showing up for a visit day. Tarek, who was forced to clean the toilet with his own clothes, pleads to the friendly guard Walther Bosch to secretly bring her a message. Berus intercepts Bosch, however, and tells Dora that everything is all right. The situation becomes critical and more violence is involved. The prisoners are being abused and their self-esteem is drastically decreased. Most of the violence is directed against Tarek and they lock him up in solitary confinement inside a "black box" resembling a safe. Schütte, protesting this, is beaten severely, tied up, his mouth bound with duct tape and set on a chair. Later he suffocates to death due to his bloody nose drying up in addition to the duct tape on his mouth. Bosch is beaten by the other guards for his "betrayal" and is put into confinement. Lars, a member of Thon's team, notices this and attempts to contact Professor Thon, who is attending a conference. The guards, who are aware that the professor cannot be reached by phone, are convinced by Berus that the entire situation is a test put up by Thon's team, in order to make the guards handle an exceptional situation. They take over control of the facility and capture Lars, Dr. Grimm and the other scientists, who are put into confinement as well. Dora comes to the facility a second time to speak to Tarek and is lured into a room by Berus, where he locks her up. The guard Eckert attempts to rape Dr. Grimm. He is stopped by Tarek, who escaped from solitary confinement through the use of a screwdriver he found inside the "black box." Tarek knocks down Eckert and frees Lars, Bosch, Steinhoff, Dr. Grimm and the other prisoners. They manage to escape by removing the wall paneling of one of the cells with the screwdriver. Meanwhile, Professor Thon hears Lars' desperate message in his voicemail and leaves for the facility. Steinhoff and Tarek stay behind in order to prevent Berus from coming after them. Professor Thon reaches the facility and demands an explanation from Eckert, who accidentally injures him with a pistol. The fleeing prisoners are ambushed by the guards and trapped. Bosch, who could not keep up with the others, loses his sanity and kills Eckert with a fire extinguisher. Dora then escapes from the room she was locked up in, and steals Eckert's gun. She injures one of the guards while he is engaged in fighting Tarek and Steinhoff, leaving only Berus to fight them. Tarek incapacitates Berus, who is nearly choked to death by Steinhoff until Tarek convinces him not to kill Berus. The film ends with a news break, confirming two deaths (Schütte and Eckert) and three severely injured (Thon, Berus, and Bosch). Both Berus and Thon will be put on trial. Production. The film was inspired by the events of the Stanford prison experiment in the US. It is based on the novel "Black Box" by Mario Giordano. Release. "Das Experiment" premiered on 7 March 2001 in Berlin and was released with a theatrical release in Germany one day later. In the UK it was released on 22 March 2002 as "The Experiment" and in the United States on 20 September 2002. Remake. "The Experiment" is an American 2010 remake of the film directed by Paul Scheuring and stars Adrien Brody, Forest Whitaker, Maggie Grace, and Cam Gigandet. Filming began in Iowa in July 2009. When the film was still shooting, the North American distribution rights were acquired by Sony Pictures Worldwide Acquisitions Group, which released the film direct-to-video in the United States on September 21, 2010 through its Stage 6 Films label.
1689443	Osgood Robert "Oz" Perkins II (born February 2, 1974) is an American actor. Perkins' first acting role was in 1983's "Psycho II", in which he briefly appeared as the twelve-year-old version of the Norman Bates character his father had portrayed. Since then, he has appeared in the 1993 film of the play "Six Degrees of Separation", the 2001 movie "Legally Blonde" as, "Dorky David," and he appeared in theatrical productions including "Not Another Teen Movie" and "Secretary", and on episodes of "Alias" and other television shows. He also has a brief role in the 2009 film "Star Trek" as a Starfleet Academy trainee. In the award winning indie film "La Cucina" he plays Chris, opposite Leisha Hailey. He was born in New York City, New York, the elder son of the actor Anthony Perkins and the photographer and actress Berry Berenson, who was killed in the 9-11 attacks. He also is the brother of musician Elvis Perkins, a grandson of the stage actor Osgood Perkins, a nephew of the actress Marisa Berenson, and a great-grandson of the fashion designer Elsa Schiaparelli, who was a great-niece of Giovanni Schiaparelli, the Italian astronomer. He has been married to wife Sidney since 1999 and they have one son together, born in 2004.
1058785	David Rasche (born August 7, 1944) is an American theater, film and television actor who is best known for his portrayal of the title character in the 1980s satirical police sitcom "Sledge Hammer!". Since then he has often played characters in positions of authority, in both serious and comical turns. Early life. Rasche was born in St. Louis, Missouri. His father was a minister and farmer. Rasche received a graduate degree from the University of Chicago and also worked as a teacher and writer, including several years at Gustavus Adolphus College in Minnesota. Early career. Rasche was at one time a member of Chicago's Second City improvisation group. After Second City, he starred in the Organic Theater's 1974 production of David Mamet's "Sexual Perversity in Chicago", which established the playwright's characteristic blend of earthy, sometimes brutal dialogue. In 1974, he invested $1,000 to help start Victory Gardens Theater in Chicago. He began appearing on television and films in 1977, making his film debut in 1978 in "An Unmarried Woman", directed by Paul Mazursky. The following year, he had a small part in Woody Allen's "Manhattan". He played a terrorist in the 1983 television film "Special Bulletin". He appeared on the "Miami Vice" episode "Bushido" (first aired November 22, 1985) as a KGB agent attempting to capture a former colleague of Lt. Castillo (Edward James Olmos). Ironically, during his subsequent starring role on "Sledge Hammer!" his character would often makes jokes about "Miami Vice". Rasche played Petruchio to Frances Conroy's Kate in a production of Shakespeare's "Taming of the Shrew" directed by Zoe Caldwell at the American Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford, Connecticut in the mid-1980s. "Sledge Hammer!". Rasche is best known for his portrayal of the title character in the satirical television sitcom "Sledge Hammer!", which ran from 1986 to 1988. The show was a spoof of police dramas and concerned the character Sledge Hammer, a violent and chauvinistic policeman. Later work. Rasche had a minor role as a photographer in the movie "Cobra" alongside Brigitte Nielsen. Shortly after "Sledge Hammer!" ended, he played to critical acclaim in the Broadway production of Mamet's "Speed-the-Plow", and he later appeared in an Off-Broadway revival of Mamet's "Edmond". Rasche played the role of Ted Forstmann in the 1993 made for television movie "Barbarians at the Gate", about the leveraged buyout (LBO) of RJR Nabisco. In addition to his work as a screen actor, Rasche can also be heard as Captain Piett in the NPR radio adaptation of "The Empire Strikes Back". He portrayed the late Donald Greene, one of the passengers of doomed flight 93, in Paul Greengrass' 2006 9/11 film "United 93". He had a major role in the 2009 satirical political comedy "In the Loop", as a US official pushing for an invasion of an unspecified Middle Eastern country. Other film roles include: Television. Rasche appeared on the short-lived 2001 television series "DAG" as President Whitman, the President of the United States. Rasche joined the cast of "Ugly Betty" in its third season in 2009 as the wealthy father of Matt Hartley, Betty's love interest. He appeared in the final five episodes of season three, and remained in the cast until mid-season four when his character's arc ended. Other television appearances include: Personal life. Rasche is married to Heather Lupton, who made a guest appearance in the series "Sledge Hammer" as Hammer's ex-wife. The couple have three children.
1163402	John Michael Higgins (born February 12, 1963) is an American actor whose film credits include Christopher Guest's mockumentaries, the role of David Letterman in HBO's "The Late Shift," and a starring role in the American version of "Kath & Kim". He recently portrayd Peter Lovett in the TV Land original sitcom "Happily Divorced". Early life. Higgins was born in Boston, Massachusetts. Known as "Mike Higgins" as he was growing up, he went to Walter Johnson High School in Bethesda, Maryland, and graduated Phi Beta Kappa and Summa Cum Laude from Amherst College in 1985, where he led the all-male a cappella group, The Zumbyes. Career. Higgins' numerous television credits include recurring characters on "Ally McBeal", "Brother's Keeper", "Boston Legal" and "Honey, I Shrunk the Kids: The TV Show". In Season 8 of "Seinfeld", he portrayed Elaine's boyfriend Kurt. He also played attorney Wayne Jarvis in five episodes of "Arrested Development". Higgins arranged the dense vocal harmonies sung by the New Main Street Singers in 2003's "A Mighty Wind". Recently, Higgins has gained more recognition by being featured in the films "Fun with Dick and Jane" and "The Break-Up", for which he also wrote vocal arrangements. His work as a voice actor includes the role of Judge Mentok in "Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law" and 2401 Penitent Tangent in "Halo 2" and Riddler in "". Higgins is also remembered for portraying David Letterman in the HBO TV film "The Late Shift". Higgins could also be seen in the introductory video for the Epcot attraction Test Track. However, the ride was refurbished in 2012 and the introductory video room was removed. Higgins directs and appears on the stage from time to time as well. In 2004, he played Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld in the American premiere of David Hare's "Stuff Happens" at the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles. In 2003, he played the title role in A. R. Gurney's "Big Bill" at New York's Lincoln Center Theater.
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589157	Leela Naidu () (1940 – 28 July 2009) was an Indian actress who starred in a small number of Hindi and English films, including "Yeh Raaste Hain Pyar Ke" (1963), based on the real-life Nanavati case, and "The Householder", Merchant Ivory Productions' first film. She was Femina Miss India in 1954, and was featured in the "Vogue" along with Maharani Gayatri Devi in the list of 'World's Ten Most Beautiful Women', a list she was continuously listed from the 1950s to the 1960s in prominent fashion magazines worldwide. She is remembered for her stunning classical beauty and subtle acting style. Early life. Leela Naidu was born in Bombay (now Mumbai), India to Dr. Pattipati Ramaiah Naidu, a well known nuclear physicist from Madanapalle, Chittoor Dist., Andhra Pradesh, who worked under the supervision of Nobel Laureate Marie Curie for his doctoral thesis in Paris and ran one of her labs. He set up medical radiation equipment devised at the Curie Institute in the United States and India. He had to leave laboratory research after getting cancer from working with radioactive materials. He was Scientific Advisor to UNESCO for Southeast Asia, and later, an advisor to the Tata group. Her mother, journalist and Indologist Dr. Marthe Mange Naidu, was of Swiss-French origin, and earned her Ph.D. from the Sorbonne. . She was the only surviving child out of eight pregnancies as Marthe had seven miscarriages. In her 2009 semi-biography of anecdotes co-authored with Jerry Pinto, it was related that her grandfather on her mother's side owned a factory where he fired a young Benito Mussolini for beating up a coworker, and her grandmother had a strange interlude with a Russian prince who was their next door neighbour who later turned out to be one of Rasputin's assassins. On her father's side, her aunt was Indian independence fighter Sarojini Naidu and she was thus well acquainted growing up with and knowing prominent Indians like Gandhi, Nehru, and Indira Gandhi to name a few. Career. Leela Naidu was crowned Femina Miss India in 1954, and the same year was featured in "Vogue" magazine's list of the world's ten most beautiful women. Film career. Naidu made her film debut alongside Balraj Sahni in "Anuradha" (1960), directed by Hrishikesh Mukherjee. Mukherjee cast Naidu in the role after he happened to see one of her pictures taken by Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay. Though it was not successful at the box office, the film went on to win the National Film Award for Best Feature Film, and garnered Naidu critical acclaim. The movie's music, including the songs "Haye re woh din kewn na aaye", "Jaane kaise sapnon mein kho gayin ankhiyan" and "Kaise din beete kaisi beeti raatein", were composed by sitar maestro Ravi Shankar. Naidu's next film was Nitin Bose's "Ummeed" (1962), alongside Ashok Kumar and Joy Mukherjee. She played an offbeat role as an adulterous wife in "Yeh Raaste Hain Pyar Ke" (1963), directed by R. K. Nayyar. The movie, which co-starred Sunil Dutt and Rehman, was based on the real life case K. M. Nanavati vs. State of Maharashtra. Despite its topical nature and controversial theme, the movie flopped; however, some of its songs, notably "Ye Khaamoshiyaan, Ye Tanahaaiyaan," became quite popular. In 1963, Naidu played the lead role of a rebellious young bride in the first Merchant Ivory film, "The Householder", directed by James Ivory. According to Leela in her 2009 semi-biography, Ismail Merchant and James Ivory had approached her about making their first ever feature movie with a story about an archaeologist but this fell through as the backers did not like the film script. She then suggested to Merchant-Ivory, making a movie about a book called The Householder by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala which led to their introduction to Ruth and a fruitful lifelong partnership. Satyajit Ray loaned his crew, got many of the actors he used in his movies to act in this movie, selected the music and musicians, and re-cut and reedited the final version, thus guiding and teaching Merchant-Ivory in movie making technique which they successfully used in their award winning movies and documentaries in the future. After watching her performance in the "The Householder", Satyajit Ray who had actually assisted and guided Merchant-Ivory in their first film venture planned an English film, "The Journey", with Marlon Brando, Shashi Kapoor and Naidu, but sadly the film was never made. She was considered for the role of Rosie in Vijay Anand's "Guide" (1965), but the role required a trained dancer, and so Naidu lost out to Waheeda Rehman. Her last film in Hindi mainstream cinema was "Baghi" (1964) a costume extravaganza co-starring Pradeep Kumar, Vijaya Choudhury, and Mumtaz. Later, Naidu made a guest appearance in the Merchant-Ivory film, "The Guru" (1969). She returned to cinema in 1985 to play a Goan matriarch in Shyam Benegal's period film, "Trikaal". Her appearance in "Electric Moon" (1992), directed by Pradip Krishen, turned out to be her last cinematic role. She turned down Raj Kapoor four times when he approached her for casting her in his films. In September 2009, "Lila", a documentary on Leela Naidu's life, by Bidisha Roy Das and Priyanjana Dutta was released. Personal life. In 1956, at the age of 17, she married Tilak Raj Oberoi, son of Mohan Singh Oberoi, the founder of the luxury Oberoi Hotels chain. Tilak Raj, known as "Tikki", was 33 years old at the time. Naidu and Oberoi had twin daughters, Maya and Priya. The brief marriage ended in divorce, and Oberoi won custody of the girls. Subsequently, Naidu met philosopher Jiddu Krishnamurti while in London, and was deeply attracted to his teachings. In 1969, she was married for the second time, to Mumbai poet Dom Moraes. They lived in Hong Kong, New York, New Delhi, and Mumbai for about 25 years. After the relationship ended, Naidu led a somewhat reclusive life in Colaba, Mumbai. Her grandsons are Adam, Maya's son, and Erwan, Priya's son. Priya died of a heart attack on February 8, 2008. Naidu also has a god-daughter of four decades, Oopali Operajita, whom she met at Rishi Valley School, who is a Distinguished Faculty Fellow at Carnegie Mellon University, a celebrated classical Odissi dancer, and a Senior Adviser to several of India's prominent leaders in the Lok Sabha. Death. Leela Naidu died in Mumbai on 28 July 2009, due to lung failure after a prolonged bout of influenza, at the age of 69.
1130128	Deborah "Debbi" Morgan (born September 20, 1956) is an American film and television actress. She is perhaps best known for her role as Dr. Angie Hubbard on the ABC soap opera "All My Children", and for her role as The Seer in the fourth and fifth seasons of "Charmed". Morgan joined the cast of "The Young and the Restless" as Yolanda "Harmony" Hamilton on October 7, 2011, exactly two weeks after "All My Children" aired its final television episode on September 23, 2011. Personal life. Morgan was born in Dunn, North Carolina, the daughter of Lora, a teacher, and George Morgan, Jr., a butcher. She has a younger sister, Terry. She moved to New York City when she was three months old. Her father died of leukemia when she was eight, and she was raised by her mother, who worked as a secretary and a typing instructor at Junior High School 80 in the Bronx. Morgan attended parochial school. Debbi Morgan has been married 4 times: to Charles Weldon from 1980 to 1984; to actor Charles S. Dutton from 1989 to 1994, and photographer Donn Thompson from 1997 to 2000. She has been married to Jeffrey Winston since June 2009. Career. Morgan's earliest film role was in the movie "Mandingo" in 1975. She played the role of Dite. Morgan's earliest recurring role was on "What's Happening!!" from 1976 to 1977 as Diane Harris, and also appeared on "Good Times". In 1979, she received critical acclaim for her portrayal of Alex Haley's great-aunt Elizabeth Harvey on the 1979 miniseries "", and her guest-starring role as Curtis Jackson's ex-girlfriend turned prostitute on "The White Shadow". Her most famous role was Angie Baxter Hubbard on the soap opera "All My Children", a role she originally played from January 1982 to July 1990. Her portrayal of Angie struck a chord with many Black viewers across America. Angie and her love interest, Jesse Hubbard (Darnell Williams), became the first African-American "supercouple" on the daytime serials. In 1989, Morgan won the Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series (which she shares with "Santa Barbara" actress Nancy Lee Grahn). She and Williams also co-hosted a music video show titled "New York Hot Tracks" in the mid-1980s. After leaving "All My Children", Morgan played the role of Chantal Marshall on the NBC soap opera, "Generations" (replacing actress Sharon Brown) and remained with the show until it ended. She then reprised her role as Angie Hubbard on ABC's "Loving" in 1991. In 1995, she brought the same character to "The City" (a retooled version of "Loving"), making Morgan one of the few performers to portray the same character on three different soap operas.
629529	Loene Carmen (born in 1970 Adelaide, Australia) is an Australian singer, songwriter and actress. Early life and career. Carmen's father is rock/jazz/blues pianist Peter Head. She wrote and publicly performed her first original song aged ten, accompanied by her father. Head played piano on It Walks Like Love and in several of Carmen's former bands, including acting as musical director for Nashville inspired country revue act Honky Tonk Angels, which also featured Justine Clarke and Noah Taylor. After forming a variety of bands across various genres since the early 1990s, Carmen began writing and releasing solo albums in 2002. A review in Australian Stage states "Loene Carmen sits in a magical, rarefied space, somewhere between Tom Waits and Dolly Parton..." Carmen was discovered working in a Kings Cross pizza bar as a teenager and cast in John Duigan's "The Year My Voice Broke" (1987) for which she was nominated for an Australian Film Institute Best Actress award. Other notable roles followed including Sallie-Anne Huckstepp in the docudrama "Blue Murder" and Christine in Alkinos Tsilimidos' haunting drama "Tom White", for which she also received nominations for Australian Film Institute Best Supporting Actress and IF Best Actress. In 2011 Carmen appeared in successful Australian film "Red Dog". Career. Carmen has released four albums to date (2011), most recently "It Walks Like Love" (Inertia) on 5 December 2009, hailed as ""...a truly outstanding record and, with it, Loene Carmen has not only created her finest piece of work to date, but also one of the albums of the year."" The album was produced by Burke Reid and with guitarist Brock Fitzgerald and drummer Samuel Pearton from The Scare and Sam Worrad from The Holy Soul on bass. Special guests include Jed Kurzel (Mess Hall) on duet "Oh Apollo!", Peter Head on piano with Tex Perkins and Holiday Sidewinder also making an appearance on backing vocals. Her third album "Rock'n'Roll Tears", co written and recorded with Jed Kurzel and Sam Worrad, attracted standout reviews. In 2004, "Slight Delay" was released to minor critical acclaim on Reverberation. Tracks, "Nashville High" and "Rock n Roll Tears" were featured tracks on the Australian series "Love My Way". "Born Funky Born Free" was featured in the film "Fat Pizza". In March 2010 Carmen released mini-album "Leave It at the Door", a home recorded collaboration with "the mysterious Krystina" under the moniker "" in 2003. In December 2011 she released limited edition mini album "Hard Candy Christmas" under the name Sweet Carmo—featuring solo cover versions of country classics by artists such as Dolly Parton and Tammy Wynette. January 2012 saw the launch of "Loene Carmen's Parallel Universe", a lounge room variety show filmed for the internet. Carmen performs with a rotating line-up of musicians that has included Mess Hall, The Holy Soul, Warren Ellis and Jim White (Dirty Three) and "X"'s Cathy Green. She has also toured solo, opening for Gareth Liddiard (The Drones) and Renee Geyer in Australia as well as Mick Harvey in Europe. She showcased solo at SxSW in 2009. She has contributed music writing to anthologies "Meanjin on Rock 'n' Roll: All Yesterday's Parties" and "Your Mother Would be Proud: True Tales of Mayhem and Misadventure" (edited by Jenny Valentish & Tamara Sheward) and is published in the 2011 "Women of Letters" collection (curated by Marieke Hardy and Michaela McGuire). Filmography. "(Selected)" Personal life. Carmen has two sons, Chester Van (b. 2011) and Dutch Bon (b. 2007) by her partner, actor Aden Young and a daughter, Holiday Sidewinder (b. 1990). Young directed the music video for "Nashville High" and 'meticulously edited' Carmen's "Mimic the Rain" clip. Carmen co-composed the score for Young's short film "The Rose of Ba Ziz", as well as appearing in it.
1164176	Janine Turner (born Janine Loraine Gauntt; December 6, 1962) is an American actress best known for her roles as Maggie O'Connell in the 1990 - 1995 television series "Northern Exposure", and as Dr. Dana Stowe on the Lifetime original series "Strong Medicine" from 2000 - 2002. Early life. Turner was born Janine Loraine Gauntt in Lincoln, Nebraska, the daughter of Janice Loraine (née Agee), a real estate agent, and Turner Maurice Gauntt, Jr., a pilot for Braniff Airways. She has a brother, Tim, and was raised in Euless, Texas. Career. In 1978, the fifteen-year old Turner left home to pursue a modeling career with the Wilhelmina Modeling Agency. Turner began her acting career in 1980, appearing in several episodes of "Dallas". She continued to make guest appearances on television shows throughout the 1980s before landing the role of Laura Templeton on "General Hospital". By 1986, Turner had become extremely frustrated with the quality of the roles she was getting; as she told "The Chicago Tribune" five years later, "I was always working, but I wanted to do more serious roles and knew that I had the talent. I had to get away from Hollywood." Disregarding her agent's advice, Turner moved to New York in order to hone her craft, studying there with Marcia Haufrecht of the The Actors Studio. I gained a new respect and appreciation for acting in New York. And I decided that I didn't want to lock myself into roles that portrayed women negatively. I turned a lot of (TV and film) opportunities down because of that. Everyone thought I was crazy. I was really going for broke. I only had eight dollars left and had become very depressed right before I got the part in "Northern Exposure."
1099779	Persi Warren Diaconis (born January 31, 1945) is an American mathematician and former professional magician. He is the Mary V. Sunseri Professor of Statistics and Mathematics at Stanford University. He is particularly known for tackling mathematical problems involving randomness and randomization, such as coin flipping and shuffling playing cards. Card shuffling. Professor Diaconis received a MacArthur Fellowship in 1982, and in 1992 published (with Dave Bayer) a paper entitled ""Trailing the Dovetail Shuffle to Its Lair"" (a term coined by magician Charles Jordan in the early 1900s) which established rigorous results on how many times a deck of playing cards must be riffle shuffled before it can be considered random according to the mathematical measure total variation distance. Diaconis is often cited for the simplified proposition that it takes seven shuffles to randomize a deck. More precisely, Diaconis showed that, in the Gilbert–Shannon–Reeds model of how likely it is that a riffle results in a particular riffle shuffle permutation, it takes 5 riffles before the total variation distance of a 52-card deck begins to drop significantly from the maximum value of 1.0, and 7 riffles before it drops below 0.5 very quickly (a threshold phenomenon), after which it is reduced by a factor of 2 every shuffle. Interestingly, when entropy is viewed as the probabilistic distance, riffle shuffling seems to take less time to mix, and the threshold phenomenon goes away (because the entropy function is subadditive.). Diaconis has coauthored several more recent papers expanding on his 1992 results and relating the problem of shuffling cards to other problems in mathematics. Among other things, they showed that the separation distance of an ordered blackjack deck (that is, aces on top, followed by 2's, followed by 3's, etc.) drops below .5 after 7 shuffles. Separation distance is an upper bound for variation distance. Biography. Diaconis left home at 14 to travel with sleight-of-hand legend Dai Vernon, and dropped out of high school, promising himself that he would return one day so that he could learn all of the math necessary to read William Feller's famous two-volume treatise on probability theory, "An Introduction to Probability Theory and Its Applications". He returned to school (City College of New York for his undergraduate work graduating in 1971 and then a Ph.D. in Mathematical Statistics from Harvard University in 1974), learned to read Feller, and became a mathematical probabilist.
582282	Shamita Shetty (born 2 February 1979) is an Indian actress, model and interior designer. She is the younger sister of Bollywood actress Shilpa Shetty. Early life. Shamita Shetty was born in a traditional family in Mangalore, that hails from the Bunt community. She is the younger daughter of Surendra and Sunanda Shetty, manufacturers of tamper-proof caps for the pharmaceutical industry. In Mumbai, she attended St. Anthony Girls' High School in Chembur, and later attended Podar College in Matunga. Her elder sister is the famous Shilpa Shetty wife of Raj Kundra Career. She made her film debut in 2000 with the Yash Raj Films blockbuster "Mohabbatein", which was directed by Aditya Chopra. Her portrayal of Ishika earned her and her fellow co-stars Kim Sharma and Preeti Jhangiani the 2001 IIFA Award for Star Debut of the Year – Female. Since then, she mostly found success in item numbers, including "Sharara Sharara" in "Mere Yaar Ki Shaadi Hai" (2001) and "Chori Pe Chori" in "Saathiya" (2002). Later, Shetty found success as an actress with her first solo hit "Zeher". She worked once with her sister Shilpa Shetty in "Fareb" in that same year. She was a guest on Bigg Boss (Season 3) on Colors TV. She opted out of the show for her sister Shilpa's wedding. She was out of the show on 14 November 2009 (day 41) after staying for 7 weeks. On 14 June 2011, Shetty announced her retirement from acting to start a career in interior design.
1163690	Alan Walbridge Ladd (September 3, 1913 – January 29, 1964) was an American film actor and one of the most popular and well-known celebrities of the 1940s and the first half of the 1950s. His visibility decreased between the mid-1950s and his death. Early life. Ladd was born in Hot Springs, Arkansas. He was the only child of Ina Raleigh Ladd and Alan Ladd, Sr. He was of English ancestry. His father died when he was four, and his mother relocated to Oklahoma City where she married Jim Beavers, a housepainter. The family then moved again to North Hollywood, California where Ladd became a high school swimming and diving champion and participated in high school dramatics at North Hollywood High School, graduating on February 1, 1934. He opened his own hamburger and malt shop, which he called Tiny's Patio. He worked briefly as a studio carpenter (as did his stepfather) and for a short time was part of the Universal Pictures studio school for actors. But Universal decided he was too blond and too short and dropped him. Intent on acting, he found work in small theatres. He had short term stints at MGM and RKO, and eventually started getting steady work on radio. Film Career. Ladd was heard on radio by the agent Sue Carol who signed him to her books and enthusiastically promoted her new client, starting with "Rulers of the Sea", in which he played a character named "Colin Farrell." Ladd began by appearing in dozens of films in small roles, including "Citizen Kane", in which he played a newspaper reporter towards the end of the film. He first gained some wide recognition with a featured role in the wartime thriller "Joan of Paris", 1942. Superstardom. For his next role Sue Carol found a vehicle which made Ladd's career, Graham Greene's "This Gun for Hire" in which he played "Raven," a hitman with a conscience. "Once Ladd had acquired an unsmiling hardness, he was transformed from an extra to a phenomenon. Ladd's calm slender ferocity make it clear that he was the first American actor to show the killer as a cold angel." – David Thomson ("A Biographical Dictionary of Film," 1975)
592211	Milana () is a Kannada film Directed by Prakash and Produced by "Dushyant". This movie was from the banners of Jai Matha Combines and Chowdeshwari Cine creations. Puneet Rajkumar played the male lead and Parvathi Menon played the female lead, who is making a debut in Kannada movies with this film. Pooja Gandhi of Mungaru Male fame does a cameo role in the film."Mano Murthy" composed the music.The movie is also dubbed to Malayalam as "Ishtam Enikkishtam". Plot. RJ Akash (Puneet) has been in a broken relationship with Priya (Pooja Gandhi). He agrees to get married to Anjali (Parvathi Menon) only because of his parents express wish. When the marriage ceremony is over- Anjali demands a divorce from Akash as her marriage is a sham and she was forced into the marriage by her father when she actually loved Hemant. Akash agrees to give her a divorce and brings her to his flat in Bangalore.
589383	Moushumi Chatterjee (26 April 1948; ; Moushumi Chāţārjī) is a Bollywood actress, who has also acted in Bengali cinema. She worked with actors like Dharmendra, Amitabh Bachchan, Jeetendra and Vinod Mehra. Personal life and education. Moushumi Chatterjee was born in Calcutta. Her father Prantosh Chattopadhyaya was in the Army. She had a sister and a brother. Her grandfather was a judge. She is married to Jayant Mukherjee (son of Hemanta Kumar Mukhopadhyay). They have two daughters, Payal and Megha. She started to act in Bollywood movies after her marriage, which was quite unusual for women during that time. Career. Moushumi Chatterjee was never considered to have conventional beauty, yet she was considered one of the most beautiful faces to hit the Hindi screen in the 1970s. She made her film debut in the Bengali hit, "Balika Badhu" (1967) directed by Tarun Majumdar. Her debut as heroine in the Hindi film "Anuraag" (1973) came courtesy of another famous Bengali director, Shakti Samanta. She played a blind girl who falls in love, and her performance earned her a Filmfare nomination as Best Actress. The film won the Filmfare Award as Best Picture. That led to another huge hit film, where played a rape survivor in Manoj Kumar's "Roti Kapada Aur Makaan" (1974). Her rape sequence in the film is still considered to be one of the most disturbing scenes in Hindi cinema. Her performance earned her a Filmfare Nomination as Best Supporting Actress. That led to more starring roles opposite superstar Amitabh Bachchan in the thriller "Benaam" (1974) and Basu Chatterjee's film "Manzil" (1979). She did more Hindi and Bengali hit films and, by the 1980s, she made the transition to character roles of mother and bhabhi (sister-in-law). Moushumi's personal life has kept her in the gossip columns since the beginning of her career. She married early to producer Jayanta Mukherjee, son of legendary music composer and singer Hemant Kumar. They have two daughters, Payal and Megha. She acted in Hindi films after marriage, which was unusual at that time, as it was customary to act in films before marriage and leave films after marriage. At one point, she was said to leave her husband for film distributor Ramesh Sippy (not to be confused with the director of "Sholay" (1975)) but then changed her mind and stayed with her husband and their daughters. In 2005, she was thrilled when director Tarun Majumdar, who had introduced her to films in "Balika Badhu" (1969), decided to introduce her younger daughter Megha in his next Bengali film "Bhalobasar Anek Naam". (Moushumi played a supporting role as cousin sister to Megha.
1163712	Rose Joan Blondell (August 30, 1906 – December 25, 1979) was an American actress who performed in movies and on television for five decades as Joan Blondell. After winning a beauty pageant, Blondell embarked upon a film career. Establishing herself as a sexy wisecracking blonde, she was a pre-Code staple of Warner Brothers and appeared in more than 100 movies and television productions. She was most active in films during the 1930s, and during this time she co-starred with Glenda Farrell in nine films, in which the duo portrayed gold-diggers. Blondell continued acting for the rest of her life, often in small character roles or supporting television roles. She was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her work in "The Blue Veil" (1951). Blondell was seen in featured roles in two films released shortly before her death from leukemia, "Grease" (1978) and the remake of "The Champ" (1979). Early life. Blondell was born to a vaudeville family in New York City. Her father, known as Eddie Joan Blondell, Jr., was born in Indiana in 1866 to French parents, and was a vaudeville comedian and one of the original Katzenjammer Kids. Blondell's mother was Kathryn ("Katie") Cain, born April 13, 1884, in Brooklyn, of Irish American parents. Her younger sister, Gloria Blondell, also an actress, was briefly married to film producer Albert R. "Cubby" Broccoli (the future producer of the James Bond film series) and bears an extremely strong resemblance to her older sister, Joan. Blondell also had a brother, the namesake of her father and grandfather. Her cradle was a property trunk as her parents moved from place to place and she made her first appearance on stage at the age of four months when she was carried on in a cradle as the daughter of Peggy Astaire in "The Greatest Love". Joan had spent a year in Honolulu (1914-15) and six years in Australia and seen much of the world by the time her family, who had been on tour, settled in Dallas, Texas when she was a teenager. Under the name Rosebud Blondell, she won the 1926 Miss Dallas pageant and placed fourth for Miss America in Atlantic City, New Jersey, in September of that same year. She attended what is now the University of North Texas, then a teacher's college, in Denton, where her mother was a local stage actress, and she worked as a fashion model, a circus hand, and a clerk in a New York store. Around 1927, she returned to New York, joined a stock company to become an actress, and performed on Broadway. In 1930, she starred with James Cagney in "Penny Arcade". Career. "Penny Arcade" only lasted three weeks, but Al Jolson saw it and bought the rights to the play for $20,000. He then sold the rights to Warner Brothers with the proviso that Blondell and Cagney be cast in the film version. Placed under contract by Warners, she moved to Hollywood where studio boss Jack Warner wanted her to change her name to "Inez Holmes", but Blondell refused. She began to appear in short subjects, and was named as one of the WAMPAS Baby Stars in 1931. Blondell was paired with James Cagney in such films as "Sinners' Holiday" (1930) – the film version of "Penny Arcade" – and "The Public Enemy" (1931), and was one half of a gold-digging duo with Glenda Farrell in nine films. During the Great Depression, Blondell was one of the highest paid individuals in the United States. Her stirring rendition of "Remember My Forgotten Man" in the Busby Berkeley production of "Gold Diggers of 1933", in which she co-starred with Dick Powell and Ruby Keeler, became an anthem for the frustrations of the unemployed and the government's failed economic policies. (Even though she was cast in many of the classic Warners musicals, she was not a singer, and in the Forgotten Man number, she mostly talked and acted her way through the song.) In 1937, she starred opposite Errol Flynn in "The Perfect Specimen". By the end of the decade, she had made nearly fifty films, despite having left Warner Bros. in 1939. Continuing to work regularly for the rest of her life, Blondell was well received in her later films, despite being relegated to character and supporting roles after the mid-1940s. She was billed below the title for the first time in fourteen years in 1945 in the film "Adventure", which starred Clark Gable and Greer Garson). She received an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress nomination for her role in "The Blue Veil" (1951). She was also featured prominently in "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn" (1945); "Nightmare Alley" (1947); "The Opposite Sex" (1956), which paired her with ex-husband Dick Powell's wife, June Allyson; "Desk Set" (1957); and "Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?" (1957). She received considerable acclaim for her performance as Lady Fingers in Norman Jewison's "The Cincinnati Kid" (1965), garnering a Golden Globe nomination and National Board of Review win for Best Supporting Actress. John Cassavetes cast her as a cynical, aging playwright in his film "Opening Night" (1977). Blondell was widely seen in two films released not long before her death, "Grease" (1978) and the remake of "The Champ" (1979) with Jon Voight and Rick Schroder. Blondell also guest starred in various television programs, including three episodes in 1963 as the character "Aunt Win" of the CBS sitcom "The Real McCoys", starring Walter Brennan and Richard Crenna. She appeared in a 1964 episode "What's in the Box?" of "The Twilight Zone". She guest starred in the episode "You're All Right, Ivy" of Jack Palance's circus drama, "The Greatest Show on Earth", which aired on ABC in the 1963—1964 television season. Her co-stars in the segment were Joe E. Brown and Buster Keaton. In 1965, she was in the running to replace Vivian Vance as Lucille Ball's sidekick on the hit CBS television comedy series "The Lucy Show". Unfortunately, after filming her second guest appearance as 'Joan Brenner' (Lucy's new friend from California), Blondell walked off the set right after the episode had completed filming when Ball humiliated her by harshly criticizing her performance in front of the studio audience and technicians. Blondell continued working on television. In 1968, she guest-starred on the CBS sitcom "Family Affair", starring Brian Keith. She also replaced Bea Benaderet, who was ill, for one episode on the CBS series "Petticoat Junction". In that installment, Blondell played FloraBelle Campbell, a lady visitor to Hooterville, who had once dated Uncle Joe (Edgar Buchanan) and Sam Drucker (Frank Cady). That same year, Blondell co-starred in the ABC western series "Here Come the Brides", set in the Pacific Northwest of the 19th century. Her co-stars included singer Bobby Sherman and actor-singer David Soul. Blondell received two consecutive Emmy nominations for outstanding continued performance by an actress in a dramatic series for her role as Lottie Hatfield. In 1972, she had an ongoing supporting role in the NBC series "Banyon" as Peggy Revere, who operated a secretarial school in the same building as Banyon's detective agency. This was a 1930s period action drama starring Robert Forster in the titular role. Her students worked in Banyon's office, providing fresh faces for the show weekly. The series was replaced mid-season. Blondell has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for her contribution to Motion Pictures, at 6309 Hollywood Boulevard. In December 2007, the Museum of Modern Art in New York City mounted a retrospective of Blondell's films in connection with a new biography by film professor Matthew Kennedy and theatrical revival houses such as Film Forum in Manhattan have also projected many of her films recently. Personal life. Blondell was married three times, first to cinematographer George Barnes in a private wedding ceremony on 4 January 1933 at the First Presbyterian Church in Phoenix, Arizona. They had one child — Norman S. Powell, who became an accomplished producer, director, and television executive — and divorced in 1936. On 19 September 1936, she married her second husband, actor, director, and singer Dick Powell. They had a daughter, Ellen Powell, who became a studio hair stylist, and Powell adopted her son by her previous marriage. Blondell and Powell were divorced on 14 July 1944. On July 5, 1947, Blondell married her third husband, producer Mike Todd, whom she divorced in 1950. Her marriage to Todd was an emotional and financial disaster. She once accused him of holding her outside a hotel window by her ankles. He was also a heavy spender who lost hundreds of thousands of dollars gambling (high-stakes bridge was one of his weaknesses) and went through a controversial bankruptcy during their marriage. An often-repeated myth is that Mike Todd "dumped" Joan Blondell for Elizabeth Taylor—when, in fact, Blondell left Todd of her own accord years before he met Taylor. Death. Blondell died of leukemia in Santa Monica, California, on Christmas Day 1979 at the age of 73 with her children and her sister at her bedside. She is interred in the Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, California. She wrote a novel titled "Center Door Fancy" (New York: Delacorte Press, 1972), which was a thinly disguised autobiography with veiled references to June Allyson and Dick Powell. Filmography. Features. This list of Blondell's feature-film appearance is believed to be complete.
1060947	Jeffrey Michael Tambor (born July 8, 1944) is an American actor and voice actor, best known for his roles as Hank Kingsley on "The Larry Sanders Show", as well as George Bluth Sr. and Oscar Bluth on "Arrested Development". Early life. Tambor was born in San Francisco, California, the son of Eileen (née Salzberg), a housewife, and Michael Bernard "Mike" Tambor, a flooring contractor. He grew up in a Conservative Jewish family with roots in Hungary and Kiev, Ukraine. Tambor is a graduate of San Francisco State University, where he studied acting and then went on to receive a master's degree from Wayne State University. Career. Early career. Tambor first moved to repertory theater in Milwaukee, later making his Broadway debut in the comedy "Sly Fox" (1976), appearing with George C. Scott and directed by Arthur Penn. He appeared in "Measure for Measure" in the same year. In 1979 he starred in Norman Jewison's "...And Justice For All", as a lawyer friend of the protagonist, Arthur Kirkland (Al Pacino). In an early TV job, an ad for Avis rent-a-car, he was seen running (huffing and puffing) through an airport, mocking O. J. Simpson's "Go, O.J., go!" ads for Hertz. He has had a significant career in episodic TV, where he made numerous guest appearances on different shows, including "Taxi", "Kojak", "M*A*S*H", "The Golden Girls", and "Three's Company". In 1979 Tambor got his first role as a main character in television in the short-lived show "The Ropers". Throughout the 1980s Tambor had a recurring role on "Hill Street Blues" playing a judge. In 1987 and 1988, Tambor appeared as a regular on the prime time ABC series "Max Headroom" as Murray, Edison's editor. "The Larry Sanders Show". Tambor is often remembered as Hank Kingsley, the narcissistic sidekick of fictional talk show host Larry Sanders on "The Larry Sanders Show". Tambor received four Emmy nominations for his performance on the show—all of which he would lose, to Michael Richards for "Seinfeld", David Hyde Pierce for "Frasier", and his co-star, Rip Torn. He is also often remembered for his then-famous catch phrase "Hey Now!" "Arrested Development". Beginning in 2003, Tambor starred in the television comedy "Arrested Development" as George Bluth, Sr. and in some episodes as his twin brother Oscar Bluth. The show was cancelled in 2006, after three seasons, but a fourth season was released on Netflix in 2013. In 2004, Tambor received his fifth Emmy nomination for his work on the show. He lost to David Hyde Pierce for the final season of the sitcom "Frasier". Tambor was nominated for a sixth time in 2005 but lost to Brad Garrett for the final season of "Everybody Loves Raymond". The second episode of Arrested Development's third season lampooned this loss: Tambor's character's son describes his acting ability by saying, "It's a wonderful performance, Dad. You're a regular Brad Garrett." Later work. Tambor served as the announcer (and occasional square) for the game show "Hollywood Squares" in 2002 and 2003. He was also the voice of King Neptune in 2004's "The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie". In the spring of 2005, he starred as George Aaronow in the Broadway revival of "Glengarry Glen Ross". After the cancellation of "Arrested Development" in April 2006, Tambor signed on to a series with John Lithgow called "Twenty Good Years" about two men who ponder the last 20 years of their life. The show premiered on NBC on October 11, 2006, but was taken off the air after only a few episodes. Also in 2006, he portrayed George Washington on "The Radio Adventures of Dr. Floyd". He also starred as "Uncle" Saul in the CBS comedy "Welcome to The Captain" until its cancellation in March 2008. He has made several cameo appearances in "Entourage" as a fictionalized version of himself who regularly annoys his agent, Ari Gold. For several years, based on his availability, Tambor has also taught a popular class for actors. He was formerly a longtime teaching associate of famed acting coach Milton Katselas. In 2009, Tambor appeared in the animated film "Monsters vs. Aliens" and in the comedy "The Hangover". A role Tambor began in 2009 is that of the recurring character Len Trexler in the sardonic comedy "Archer", an animated television series on the FX network. He is a major love interest to Malory Archer played by Jessica Walter – the two formerly playing husband and wife in "Arrested Development". In 2011, Tambor starred in an indie comedy, "Lucky". Also in 2011, he had a minor role in the film "Paul" with Simon Pegg and Nick Frost, reprised his "Hangover" role for its sequel, and was featured in "Flypaper", with Patrick Dempsey and Ashley Judd. In 2012, he co-starred as Walt, Pete's aspiring musician father on the sitcom "Bent" starring Amanda Peet and David Walton. In May 2013 he returned to season 4 of Arrested Development. Personal life. Tambor has been married three times and has six children. His oldest child, Molly Tambor, was born on July 5, 1975. In 1991, Tambor married Kathryn Mitchell. They divorced in 2000. He has four children with Kasia Ostlun, who he married in October 2001. Tambor's third child and first grandchild were born within a few days of each other in December 2004. His wife Kasia gave birth to son Gabriel Kasper on December 10, 2004, and his daughter Molly Tambor gave birth to son Mason Jay Moore on December 14, 2004. On December 10, 2006, his wife gave birth to their second child, daughter Eve Julia ("Evie"). In 2007, Tambor was reported to be a Scientologist. However, in February 2008, Tambor expressed concern about "Internet reports" about his alleged involvement with the religion and stated that he "took some Scientology classes at one time, studied Scientology for a while, but no more. I have nothing against it, but I am no longer a Scientologist." On "The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson" on June 3, 2009, Tambor announced his wife was pregnant with twin boys due in October 2009. The boys, Hugo Bernard and Eli Nicholas, were born on October 4, 2009. Awards and nominations. Tambor was nominated for two Emmy Awards for his work on "Arrested Development" and four for "The Larry Sanders Show." He has won a Satellite Award for Best Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series. As part of the cast of "Arrested Development," he has been nominated for two Screen Actors Guild Awards for Best Cast in a Comedy Series. He has also been nominated for a Television Critics Association Award for Outstanding Individual Achievement in a Comedy Series.
583532	Manthan (Word manthan literally means deep contemplation, churning of facts, analysis aimed at solution or conclusion.(The film manthan meaning the Churning) is a 1976 Hindi film made by Shyam Benegal, based on a story written jointly by Dr. Verghese Kurien (the "Father of the White Revolution in India") and director Shyam Benegal. It is set amidst the backdrop of the White Revolution of India (Operation Flood) which started in 1970, ushering an era of plenty, from a measly amount of milk production and distribution. Aside from the great measurable success that this project was, it also demonstrated the power of "collective might".
589072	Upkar (उपकार) is a 1967 Indian Hindi film directed by Manoj Kumar.The film became superhit at the box-office. Manoj Kumar started his Mr Bharat persona and his brand of patriotism & fearless courage with this film. Plot. Manoj Kumar played a village man 'Bharat', who sacrifices everything to get his brother educated. His brother (Prem Chopra) goes abroad and comes back a selfish man wanting his share of the property. But when war of 1965 between India and Pakistan breaks out, Bharat is off to the war; while his selfish brother, with the help of his greedy uncle, Charandas(Madan Puri) and some partners, tries to gain profit by selling drugs and blackmarketering in the market. In the end, Bharat returns as a war hero defeating the demon designs of the enemy and his brother repents as he is caught by the police (by the brother-in-law of Bharat). Hence, he vows to be a good & hardworking brother just like his Indo-Pak war veteran brother Bharat.
1207009	Sexo con Amor (Sex with Love) is a 2003 Chilean comedy film about sex and relationships. The film was directed by Boris Quercia, who also wrote the screenplay and even played a role in the film. Plot. A group of parents of fourth-grade students addresses how the school should deal with sex education. But sexuality is still an unresolved issue for many of the parents themselves. "Sexo con Amor" is the story of how three of these couples are ambushed by their own erotic passions. They each profess undying love to their partners while hopping enthusiastically on a merry-go-round of physical relations with one another, leading to sometimes tragic and sometimes hilarious effects.
1164133	Gerald Lee "Mac" McRaney (born August 19, 1947) is an American television and movie actor. McRaney is best known as one of the stars of the television shows "Simon & Simon", "Major Dad", and "Promised Land". He was a series regular for the first season of "Jericho", and the final season of "Deadwood". Early life. McRaney was born in Collins, Mississippi, the son of Edna and Clyde McRaney, a builder. He is of Scottish and Choctaw Indian ancestry. He attended college at the University of Mississippi. Before hitting it big as an actor, McRaney worked in the Louisiana oil fields. Career. McRaney holds the distinction of being the last guest star to meet Marshal Matt Dillon in a gunfight on "Gunsmoke," in the episode "Hard Labor," which was first broadcast on February 24, 1975. He starred in 1969's "Night of Bloody Horror", a low-budget slasher film in which he played the lead character Wesley Stuart. Gerald participated in the Dukes of Hazzard series in the episode "Hazzard Connection" (November 9, 1979). He played a receptionist in two different episodes of "The Rockford Files" and a heroin-addicted Vietnam War veteran in one episode of "Hawaii Five-O". In addition, he starred in numerous episodes of "The Incredible Hulk" playing roles as a jealous boyfriend, a race car driver saddled with the care of his disabled brother, and an angry police officer. He played an unnamed town local in the miniseries '. However, McRaney is perhaps best known for his role as Rick Simon in the 1980s television show "Simon & Simon". He also had starring roles on "Major Dad" and "Promised Land", and a recurring role on "Designing Women". McRaney portrayed General Alan Adamle in two episodes of the NBC drama "The West Wing". He played a prominent role in the third season of the HBO television series "Deadwood", as famed gold prospector George Hearst. McRaney had a starring role in the CBS post-apocalyptic series "Jericho" as Johnston Green. In addition, he has acted in many television films such as "Not Our Son" (1995), "Going for Broke" (2003), as General George S. Patton in ' (2004), and appeared as Dan's father in "One Tree Hill". He starred in an episode of ' and ' (Episode 1.13 "Lily") as Det. Andy Ruggio. In 1999 he starred in the film "A Holiday Romance" as Cal Peterson. In the late 2000s, McRaney co-hosted the cable outdoor hunting and shooting series (a McRaney hobby) "The World of Beretta", which featured rifle and shotgun products of the sponsor in a number of exciting hunting locations around the world; and often featured a celebrity shooter to hunt with McRaney. He starred as the villanous General Morrison in the 2010 film "The A-Team". In 2010 he played a recurring role as CIA handler Carlton Shaw in the NBC action drama "Undercovers". In 2011, he began playing a recurring role as a judge on the USA drama "Fairly Legal". In 2012 McRaney played General Luntz in "Red Tails", and he played Calvin in the film "Heart of the Country". He made several appearances in a guest role on the television shows "Longmire" (2012-13) and "Mike & Molly" (2012-13). In 2013, he appeared in the Netflix series "House of Cards", playing a potential vice presidential candidate and the billionaire CEO of an energy corporation specializing in nuclear power. He also made multiple appearances in a supporting role on the FX Network drama "Justified". Personal life. He married actress Delta Burke on May 28, 1989, whom he had met two years earlier during her guest appearance on a "Simon & Simon" episode. She is his third wife. He also appeared on "Designing Women" as Dash Goff (who was named after a real person from Fayetteville, Arkansas, whom Delta Burke's fellow castmate, Annie Potts, had met while filming, "Pass the Ammo" on location). He played a Marine Corps veteran on "Simon & Simon" and a Marine Corps officer on "Major Dad", and has always been very supportive of veterans and soldiers, though he is not a veteran himself. He made many visits to support the soldiers in Operation Desert Storm. During one USO-sponsored trip, McRaney visited sailors and Marines onboard ships ported in Toulon, France on Thanksgiving of 1993. He signed autographs for the men on board the ships. While on board the USS "Ashland", he autographed one sailor's cowboy hat. He visited troops during Operation Restore Hope in Somalia in 1993. Politically he is a conservative Republican and a member of the National Rifle Association.
586456	Seema Azmi is an Indian cinema and theatre actress. Biography. Azmi was born in Delhi, India. Her family was strictly against her becoming an actor. Seema Azmi joined Asmita theatre group, Delhi in 1996. Seema Azmi's major plays with director Arvind Gaur are Girish Karnad's Rakt Kalyan ( Taledanda), Mahesh Dattani's Final Solutions, Ek Mamooli Aadmi, Swadesh Deepak's Court Martaial, Dario Fo's Accidental Death of an Anarchist etc. She attended the National School of Drama in Delhi She complete her training in 2001, she was selected for the NSD Repertory Company.
1041665	The Arsenal Stadium Mystery is a 1939 British mystery film, and is one of the first feature films where football is a central element in the plot. The film is a murder mystery set, as the title suggests, at the Arsenal Stadium, Highbury, London, then the home of Arsenal Football Club, who were at the time the dominant team in English football. The backdrop is a friendly match between Arsenal and The Trojans, a fictitious amateur side; one of the Trojans' players drops dead during the match, and when it is revealed he has been poisoned, suspicion falls on his teammates as well as his former mistress. Detective Inspector Slade (Leslie Banks) is called in to solve the crime. The film stars several Arsenal players and staff (such as Cliff Bastin and Eddie Hapgood), although only manager George Allison has a speaking part. The Trojans' body doubles on the pitch were players from Brentford, during the First Division fixture between the two sides on 6 May 1939; this was the last match of the 1938–39 season and Arsenal's last official league fixture before the outbreak of the Second World War. It is often said that the Brentford players wore a special striped kit for the occasion, but all of the actual match footage shows Arsenal's opponents to be wearing plain white shirts.
1179263	Prince Rogers Nelson (born June 7, 1958), known by his mononym Prince, is an American singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and actor. He has produced ten platinum albums and thirty Top 40 singles during his career. He has written several hundred songs and produces and records his own music for his own music label. In addition, he has promoted the careers of Sheila E., Carmen Electra, the Time and Vanity 6, and his songs have been recorded by these artists and others, including Chaka Khan, the Bangles, Sinéad O'Connor, and Kim Basinger. Born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, Prince developed an interest in music at an early age, writing his first song at age seven. After recording songs with his cousin's band 94 East, seventeen-year-old Prince recorded several unsuccessful demo tapes before releasing his debut album, "For You", in 1978. His 1979 album, "Prince", went platinum due to the success of the singles "Why You Wanna Treat Me So Bad?" and "I Wanna Be Your Lover". His next three records, "Dirty Mind" (1980), "Controversy" (1981), and "1999" (1982) continued his success, showcasing Prince's trademark of prominently sexual lyrics and incorporation of elements of funk, dance and rock music. In 1984, he began referring to his backup band as the Revolution and released the album "Purple Rain", which served as the soundtrack to his film debut of the same name. After releasing the albums "Around the World in a Day" (1985) and "Parade" (1986), The Revolution disbanded and Prince released the critically acclaimed double album "Sign "O" the Times" (1987) as a solo artist. He released three more solo albums before debuting the New Power Generation band in 1991, which saw him changing his stage name to an unpronounceable symbol known as "The Love Symbol". In 1994, he began releasing new albums at a faster pace to remove himself from contractual obligations to Warner Bros, releasing five records in a span of two years before signing to Arista Records in 1998. In 2000, he began referring to himself as "Prince" once again. He has released thirteen albums since then, including his latest, "20Ten", released in 2010. Prince has a wide vocal range and is known for his flamboyant stage presence and costumes. His releases have sold over 100 million copies worldwide. He has won seven Grammy Awards, a Golden Globe, and an Academy Award. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2004, the first year he was eligible. "Rolling Stone" has ranked Prince No. 27 on its list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time. Prince's music has been influenced by rock, R&B, soul, funk, hip hop, blues, new wave, electronica, disco, psychedelia, folk, jazz, and pop. His artistic influences include Sly & the Family Stone, Parliament-Funkadelic, Joni Mitchell, the Beatles, Johnny "Guitar" Watson, Miles Davis, Carlos Santana, Jimi Hendrix, James Brown, Led Zeppelin, Marvin Gaye, the Isley Brothers, Todd Rundgren Duke Ellington, Curtis Mayfield, and Stevie Wonder. Prince pioneered the "Minneapolis sound", a hybrid mixture of funk, rock, pop, R&B and new wave that has influenced many other musicians. Early life. Prince Rogers Nelson was born June 7, 1958, in Minneapolis, Minnesota, to John L. Nelson and Mattie Shaw, though his roots are centered in Louisiana with all four of his grandparents hailing from the state. Prince's father was a pianist and songwriter and his mother was a jazz singer. Prince was named after his father, whose stage name was "Prince Rogers", and who performed with a jazz group called the Prince Rogers Trio. In a 1991 interview with "A Current Affair", Prince's father said, "I named my son Prince because I wanted him to do everything I wanted to do." Prince's childhood nickname was Skipper. In a PBS interview Prince told Tavis Smiley that he was "born epileptic" and "used to have seizures" when he was young. During the interview Prince also said that "my mother told me one day I walked in to her and said, 'Mom, I'm not going to be sick anymore,' and she said 'Why?' and I said 'Because an angel told me so.' " Prince's sister Tika Evene (usually called Tyka) was born in 1960. Both siblings developed a keen interest in music, and this was encouraged by their father. Prince wrote his first tune, "Funk Machine" on his father's piano when he was seven. Prince's parents separated when Prince was ten years old. Following their separation, Prince constantly switched homes: sometimes he lived with his father, and sometimes with his mother and stepfather. Finally he moved into the home of a neighbor, the Andersons, and befriended their son, Andre Anderson, who later became known as André Cymone. Prince and Anderson joined Prince's cousin, Charles Smith, in a band called Grand Central while they were attending Minneapolis's Central High School. Smith was later replaced by Morris Day on the drums. Prince played piano and guitar for the band which performed at clubs and parties in the Minneapolis area. Grand Central later changed its name to Champagne and started playing original music influenced by Sly & the Family Stone, James Brown, Earth, Wind & Fire, Miles Davis, Parliament-Funkadelic, Carlos Santana, Jimi Hendrix, and Todd Rundgren. Prince also played basketball in high school. Career. Musical beginnings: 1975–80. In 1975, Pepe Willie, the husband of Prince's cousin, Shauntel, formed the band 94 East with Marcy Ingvoldstad and Kristie Lazenberry. Willie hired André Cymone and Prince to record tracks with 94 East. Those songs were written by Willie and Prince contributed guitar tracks. Prince also co-wrote, with Willie, the 94 East song, "Just Another Sucker". The band recorded tracks which later became the album "Minneapolis Genius – The Historic 1977 Recordings". Prince also recorded, but never released, a song written by Willie, "If You See Me" (also known as, "Do Yourself A Favor"). In 1995, Willie released the album "94 East featuring Prince, Symbolic Beginning" which included original recordings by Prince and Cymone. In 1976, Prince created a demo tape with producer Chris Moon in Moon's Minneapolis studio. Unable to secure a recording contract, Moon brought the tape to Minneapolis businessman Owen Husney. Husney signed Prince, at the age of 17, to a management contract and helped Prince create a demo recording at Sound 80 Studios in Minneapolis using producer/engineer David Z. The demo recording, along with a press kit produced at Husney's ad agency, resulted in interest from several record companies including Warner Bros. Records, A&M Records, and Columbia Records. With the help of Husney, Prince signed a recording contract with Warner Bros.. Warner Bros. agreed to give Prince creative control for three albums and ownership of the publishing rights. Husney and Prince then left Minneapolis and moved to Sausalito, California where Prince's first album, "For You", was recorded at Record Plant Studios. Subsequently, the album was mixed in Los Angeles and released in on April 7, 1978. According to the "For You" album notes, Prince produced, arranged, composed and played all 27 instruments on the recording. The album was written and performed by Prince, except for the song "Soft and Wet" which had lyrics co-written by Moon. The cost of recording the album was twice Prince's initial advance. Prince used the "Prince's Music Co." to publish his songs. "Soft and Wet" reached No. 12 on the Hot Soul Singles chart and No. 92 on the Billboard Hot 100. The song "Just as Long as We're Together" reached No.91 on the Hot Soul Singles chart. In 1979 Prince created a band which included André Cymone on bass, Dez Dickerson on guitar, Gayle Chapman and Doctor Fink on keyboards, and Bobby Z. on drums. Their first show was at the Capri Theater on January 5, 1979. Warner Bros. executives attended the show but decided that Prince and the band needed more time to develop his music. In October 1979, Prince released a self-titled album, "Prince", which was No.4 on the Billboard Top R&B/Black Albums charts, and No.22 on the Billboard 200, going platinum. It contained two R&B hits: "Why You Wanna Treat Me So Bad?" and "I Wanna Be Your Lover". "I Wanna Be Your Lover" sold over a million copies, and reached No.11 on the Billboard Hot 100, and No.1 for two weeks on the Hot Soul Singles chart. Prince performed both these songs on January 26, 1980 on "American Bandstand". On this album, Prince used "Ecnirp Music – BMI". "Controversy" era, "1999" and breakthrough: 1980–84. In 1980 Prince released the album, "Dirty Mind", which he recorded in his own studio. The album was certified gold and the attendant single "Uptown" reached No. 5 on the "Billboard" Dance chart and No. 5 on the Hot Soul Singles charts. Prince was also the opening act for Rick James' 1980 "Fire it Up" tour. "Dirty Mind" contained sexually explicit material, including the title song, "Head", and the song "Sister". In February 1981, Prince made his first appearance on "Saturday Night Live", performing "Partyup". In October 1981, Prince released the album, "Controversy". He played several dates in support of it, at first as one of the opening acts for the Rolling Stones, who were then on tour in the U.S. He began 1982 with a small tour of college towns where he was the headlining act. The songs on "Controversy" were published by "Controversy Music" – "ASCAP", a practice he continued until the "Emancipation" album in 1996. "Controversy" also marked the introduction of Prince's use of abbreviated spelling, such as spelling the words "you" as "U", "to" as "2", and "for" as "4", as indicated by the inclusion of the track "Jack U Off". (His earlier song titles had used conventional spelling.) By 2002, MTV.com noted that "ow all of his titles, liner notes and Web postings are written in his own shorthand spelling, as seen on 1999's "Rave Un2 the Joy Fantastic", which featured 'Hot Wit U.'" In 1981, Prince formed a side project band called the Time. The band released four albums between 1981 and 1990, with Prince writing and performing most of the instrumentation and backing vocals, with lead vocals by Morris Day. In late 1982, Prince released a double album, "1999", which sold over three million copies. The title track was a protest against nuclear proliferation and became his first top ten hit in countries outside the U.S. Prince's "Little Red Corvette" was one of the first two videos by a black artist played in heavy rotation on MTV, along with Michael Jackson's "Billie Jean". The song "Delirious" also placed in the top ten on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. The Revolution and "Purple Rain": 1984–87. During this period Prince referred to his band as the Revolution. The band's name was also printed, in reverse, on the cover of "1999" inside the letter "I" of the word "Prince". The band consisted of Lisa Coleman and Doctor Fink on keyboards, Bobby Z. on drums, Brown Mark on bass, and Dez Dickerson on guitar. Jill Jones, a backing singer, was also part of The Revolution line up for the "1999" album and tour. Following the 1999 Tour, Dickerson left the group for religious reasons. In the 2003 book "Possessed: The Rise and Fall of Prince", author Alex Hahn says that Dickerson was reluctant to sign a three-year contract and wanted to pursue other musical ventures. Dickerson was replaced by Wendy Melvoin, a childhood friend of Coleman. At first the band was used sparsely in the studio but this gradually changed during the mid-1980s. Prince's 1984 album "Purple Rain" sold more than thirteen million copies in the U.S. and spent twenty-four consecutive weeks at No.1 on the Billboard 200 chart. The film of the same name won an Academy Award and grossed more than $80 million in the U.S. Songs from the film were hits on pop charts around the world, while "When Doves Cry" and "Let's Go Crazy" reached No.1 and the title track reached No.2 on the Billboard Hot 100. At one point in 1984, Prince simultaneously had the number one album, single, and film in the U.S.; it was the first time a singer had achieved this feat. Prince won the Academy Award for Best Original Song Score for "Purple Rain", and the album is ranked 72nd "Rolling Stone"'s 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. The album is included on the list of "Time" magazine's All-Time 100 Albums. After Tipper Gore heard her 12-year-old daughter Karenna listening to Prince's song "Darling Nikki", she founded the Parents Music Resource Center. The center advocates the mandatory use of a warning label ("Parental Advisory: Explicit Lyrics") on the covers of records that have been judged to contain language or lyrical content unsuitable for minors. The recording industry later voluntarily complied with this request. Of what is considered the Filthy Fifteen Prince's compositions appear no. 1 and no. 2, with the fourth position occupied by his protégée Vanity. In 1985 Prince announced that he would discontinue live performances and music videos after the release of his next album. His subsequent recording "Around the World in a Day" held the No.1 spot on the Billboard 200 for three weeks. In 1986 his album "Parade" reached No.3 on the Billboard 200 and No.2 on the R&B charts. The first single, "Kiss", with the video choreographed by Louis Falco, reached No.1 on the Billboard Hot 100. The song was originally written for a side project called Mazarati. That same year the song "Manic Monday", which was written by Prince and recorded by The Bangles, reached No.2 on the Hot 100 chart. The album "Parade" served as the soundtrack for Prince's second film, "Under the Cherry Moon". Prince directed and starred in the movie, which also featured Kristin Scott Thomas. He received the Golden Raspberry Award for his efforts in acting and directing. In 1986, Prince began a series of sporadic live performances called the Hit n Run – Parade Tour. The European tour went to Europe in the summer and ended that September in Japan. After the tour Prince abolished The Revolution, fired Wendy & Lisa and replaced Bobby Z. with Sheila E. Brown Mark quit the band while keyboardist Doctor Fink remained. Prince then recruited new band members Miko Weaver on guitar, Atlanta Bliss on trumpet, Eric Leeds on saxophone, Boni Boyer on keyboards, Levi Seacer, Jr. on bass and dancer Cat Glover. Solo again, "Sign "O" the Times" and spiritual rebirth: 1987–91. Prior to the disbanding of The Revolution, Prince was working on two separate projects, The Revolution album "Dream Factory" and a solo effort, "Camille". Unlike the three previous band albums, "Dream Factory" included significant input from the band members and even featured a number of songs with lead vocals by Wendy & Lisa, while the "Camille" project saw Prince create a new persona primarily singing in a sped up, female-sounding voice. With the dismissal of The Revolution, Prince consolidated material from both shelved albums, along with some new songs, into a three-LP album to be titled "Crystal Ball". However, Warner Bros. forced Prince to trim the triple album to a double album and "Sign "O" the Times" was released on March 31, 1987. The album peaked at No.6 on the "Billboard" 200 albums chart. The first single, "Sign o' the Times", would chart at No.3 on the Hot 100. The follow-up single, "If I Was Your Girlfriend" charted poorly at No.67 on the Hot 100, but went to No.12 on R&B chart. The third single, a duet with Sheena Easton, "U Got the Look" charted at No.2 on the Hot 100, No.11 on the R&B chart, and the final single "I Could Never Take the Place of Your Man" finished at No.10 on Hot 100 and No.14 on the R&B chart. Despite receiving the greatest critical acclaim of any album in Prince's career, including being named the top album of the year by the Pazz & Jop critics' poll, and eventually selling 3.2 million copies, album sales steadily declined. In Europe, however, it performed well and Prince promoted the album overseas with a lengthy tour. Putting together a new backing band from the remnants of The Revolution, Prince added bassist Levi Seacer, Jr., Boni Boyer on keyboards, and dancer/choreographer Cat Glover to go with new drummer Sheila E. and holdovers Miko Weaver, Doctor Fink, Eric Leeds, Atlanta Bliss, and the Bodyguards (Jerome, Wally Safford, and Greg Brooks) for the Sign o' the Times Tour. The tour was a success overseas, with Warner Bros. and Prince's managers wanting to bring it to the U.S. to resuscitate sagging sales of "Sign "O" the Times"; however, Prince balked at a full U.S. tour, as he was ready to produce a new album. As a compromise the last two nights of the tour were filmed for release in movie theaters. The film quality was deemed subpar and reshoots were performed at his Paisley Park studios. The film "Sign o' the Times" was released on November 20, 1987. Much like the album, the film garnered more critical praise than the previous year's "Under the Cherry Moon"; however, its box office receipts were minimal, and it quickly left theaters. The next album intended for release was to be "The Black Album". More instrumental and funk and R&B themed than recent releases, "The Black Album" also saw Prince experiment with hip hop music on the songs "Bob George" and "Dead on It." Prince was set to release the album with a monochromatic black cover with only the catalog number printed, but after 500,000 copies had been pressed, Prince had a spiritual epiphany that the album was evil and had it recalled. It would later be released by Warner Bros. as a limited edition album in 1994. Prince went back in the studio for eight weeks and recorded "Lovesexy". Released on May 10, 1988, "Lovesexy" serves as a spiritual opposite to the dark "The Black Album". Every song is a solo effort by Prince, with exception of "Eye No" which was recorded with his backing band at the time, dubbed the "Lovesexy Band" by fans. "Lovesexy" would reach No.11 on the "Billboard" 200 and No.5 on the R&B albums chart. The lead single, "Alphabet St.", peaked at No.8 on the Hot 100 and No.3 on the R&B chart, but finished with only selling 750,000 copies. Prince again took his post-Revolution backing band (minus the Bodyguards) on a three leg, 84-show Lovesexy World Tour; although the shows were well received by huge crowds, they lost money due to the expensive sets and incorporated props. In 1989, Prince appeared on Madonna's studio album "Like a Prayer", co-writing and singing the duet "Love Song" and playing electric guitar (uncredited) on the songs "Like a Prayer", "Keep It Together", and "Act of Contrition". He also began work on a number of musical projects, including "Rave Unto the Joy Fantastic" and early drafts of his "Graffiti Bridge" film, but both were put on hold when he was asked by "Batman" director Tim Burton to record several songs for the upcoming live-action adaptation. Prince went into the studio and produced an entire nine-track album that Warner Bros. released on June 20, 1989. "Batman" peaked at No.1 on the "Billboard" 200, selling 4.3 million copies. The single "Batdance" topped the Billboard and R&B charts. Additionally, the single "The Arms of Orion" with Sheena Easton charted at No. 36, and "Partyman" (also featuring the vocals of Prince's then-girlfriend, nicknamed Anna Fantastic) charted at No.18 on the Hot 100 and at No.5 on the R&B chart, while the love ballad "Scandalous!" went to No.5 on the R&B chart. However, he did have to sign away all publishing rights to the songs on the album to Warner Bros. as part of the deal to do the soundtrack. In 1990, Prince went back on tour with a revamped band for his stripped down, back-to-basics Nude Tour. With the departures of Boni Boyer, Sheila E., the horns, and Cat, Prince brought in Rosie Gaines on keys, drummer Michael Bland, and dancing trio The Game Boyz (Tony M., Kirky J., and Damon Dickson). The European and Japanese tour was a financial success with its short, greatest hits setlist. As the year progressed, Prince finished production on his fourth film, "Graffiti Bridge", and the album of the same name. Initially, Warner Bros. was reluctant to fund the film, but with Prince's assurances it would be a sequel to "Purple Rain" as well as the involvement of the original members of The Time, the studio greenlit the project. Released on August 20, 1990, the album reached No.6 on the "Billboard" 200 and R&B albums chart. The single "Thieves in the Temple" reaching No.6 on the Hot 100 and No.1 on the R&B chart. Also from that album, "Round and Round" placed at number 12 on the U.S. charts and Number 2 on the R&B charts. The song featured the teenage Tevin Campbell (who also had a role in the film) on lead vocals. The film, released on November 20, 1990, was a critical and box office flop, grossing just $4.2 million. After the release of the film and album, the last remaining members of The Revolution, Miko Weaver and Doctor Fink, left Prince's band. The New Power Generation, "Diamonds and Pearls" and name change: 1991–94. 1991 marked the debut of Prince's new band, the New Power Generation. With guitarist Miko Weaver and long-time keyboardist Doctor Fink gone, Prince added bass player Sonny T., Tommy Barbarella on keyboards, and a brass section known as the Hornheads to go along with Levi Seacer (taking over on guitar), Rosie Gaines, Michael Bland, and the Game Boyz. With significant input from his band members, "Diamonds and Pearls" was released on October 1, 1991. Reaching No.3 on the "Billboard" 200 album chart, "Diamonds and Pearls" saw 4 hit singles released in the United States. "Gett Off" peaked at No.21 on the Hot 100 and No.6 on the R&B charts, followed by "Cream" which gave Prince his fifth U.S. number one single. The title track "Diamonds and Pearls" became the album's third single, reaching No.3 on the Hot 100 and the top spot on the R&B charts. "Money Don't Matter 2 Night" peaked at No.23 and No.14 on the Hot 100 and R&B charts respectively. 1992 saw Prince and The New Power Generation release his twelfth album, 'Love Symbol Album', bearing only an unpronounceable symbol on the cover (later copyrighted as Love Symbol #2). The album, generally referred to as the "Love Symbol Album", would peak at No.5 on the "Billboard" 200. While the label wanted "7" to be the first single, Prince fought to have "My Name Is Prince" as he "felt that the song's more hip-hoppery would appeal to the same audience" that had purchased the previous album. Prince got his way but "My Name Is Prince" only managed to reach No.36 on the "Billboard" Hot 100 and No.23 on the R&B chart. The follow-up single "Sexy MF" fared worse, charting at No.66 on the Hot 100 and No.76 on the R&B chart. The label's preferred lead single choice "7" would be the album's lone top ten hit, reaching #7. 'Love Symbol Album' would go on to sell 2.8 million copies worldwide. After two failed attempts in 1990 and 1991, Warner Bros. finally released a greatest hits compilation with the three-disc "The Hits/The B-Sides" in 1993. The first two discs were also sold separately as "The Hits 1" and "The Hits 2". In addition to featuring the majority of Prince's hit singles (with the exception of "Batdance" and other songs that appeared on the "Batman" soundtrack), "The Hits" includes an array of previously hard-to-find recordings, notably B-sides spanning the majority of Prince's career, as well as a handful of previously unreleased tracks such as the Revolution-recorded "Power Fantastic" and a live recording of "Nothing Compares 2 U" with Rosie Gaines. Two new songs, "Pink Cashmere" and "Peach", were chosen as promotional singles to accompany the compilation album. 1993 also marked the year in which Prince changed his stage name to the Love Symbol (see left), which was explained as a combination of the symbols for male (♂) and female (♀). In order to use the symbol in print media, Warner Bros. had to organize a mass mailing of floppy disks with a custom font. Because the symbol had no stated pronunciation, he was often referred to as "The Artist Formerly Known as Prince", as well as "The Artist". Increased output and "The Gold Experience": 1994–2000. In 1994, Prince's attitude towards his artistic output underwent a notable shift. He began to view releasing albums in quick succession as a means of ejecting himself from his contractual obligations to Warner Bros. The label, he believed, was intent on limiting his artistic freedom by insisting that he release albums more sporadically. He also blamed Warner Bros. for the poor commercial performance of the "Love Symbol Album", claiming that it was insufficiently marketed by Warner. It was out of these developments that the aborted "The Black Album" was officially released, approximately seven years after its initial recording and near-release. The "new" release, which was already in wide circulation as a bootleg, sold relatively poorly. Following that disappointing venture, Warner Bros. succumbed to Prince's wishes to release an album of new material, to be entitled "Come". When "Come" was eventually released, it confirmed all of Warner's fears. It became Prince's poorest-selling album to date, struggling to even shift 500,000 copies. Even more frustrating was the fact that Prince insisted on crediting the album to "Prince 1958–1993". Prince pushed to have his next album "The Gold Experience" released simultaneously with "Love Symbol"-era material. Warner Bros. allowed the single "The Most Beautiful Girl in the World" to be released via a small, independent distributor, Bellmark Records, in February 1994. The release was successful, reaching No.3 on the U.S. "Billboard" Hot 100 and No.1 in many other countries, but it would not prove to be a model for subsequent releases. Warner Bros. still resisted releasing "The Gold Experience", fearing poor sales and citing "market saturation" as a defense. When eventually released in September 1995, "The Gold Experience" failed to sell well, although it reached the top 10 of the "Billboard" 200 initially, and many reviewed it as Prince's best effort since "Sign "O" the Times". The album is now out-of-print. "Chaos and Disorder", released in 1996, was Prince's final album of new material for Warner Bros., as well as one of his least commercially successful releases. Prince attempted a major comeback later that year when, free of any further contractual obligations to Warner Bros., he released "Emancipation", a 36-song, 3-CD set (each disc was exactly 60 minutes long). The album was released via his own NPG Records with distribution through EMI. To publish his songs on "Emancipation", Prince did not use "Controversy Music" – "ASCAP", which he had used for all his records since 1981, but rather used "Emancipated Music Inc." – "ASCAP". Certified Platinum by the RIAA, "Emancipation" is the first record featuring covers by Prince of songs of other artists: Joan Osborne's top ten hit song of 1995 "One of Us"; "Betcha by Golly Wow!" (written by Thomas Randolf Bell and Linda Creed); "I Can't Make You Love Me" (written by James Allen Shamblin II and Michael Barry Reid); and "La-La (Means I Love You)" (written by Thomas Randolf Bell and William Hart). Prince released "Crystal Ball", a 5-CD collection of unreleased material, in 1998. The distribution of this album was disorderly, with some fans pre-ordering the album on his website up to a year before it was eventually shipped to them; these pre-orders were eventually delivered months after the record had gone on sale in retail stores. The retail edition has only four discs, as it is missing the "Kamasutra" disc. There are also two different packaging editions for retail, one being in a 4-disc sized jewel case with a simple white cover and the Love Symbol in a colored circle; the other is all four discs in a round translucent snap jewel case. The discs are the same, as is the CD jacket. The "Newpower Soul" album released three months later failed to make much of an impression on the charts. His collaboration on Chaka Khan's "Come 2 My House", and Larry Graham's "GCS2000", both released on the NPG Records label around the same time as "Newpower Soul" met with the same fate, despite heavy promotion and live appearances on "Vibe with Sinbad", and the NBC "Today" show's Summer Concert Series. In 1999, Prince once again signed with a major label, Arista Records, to release a new record, "Rave Un2 the Joy Fantastic". In an attempt to make his new album a success, Prince easily gave more interviews than at any other point in his career, appearing on MTV's "Total Request Live" (with his album cover on the front of the Virgin Megastore, in the background on "TRL" throughout the whole show), "Larry King Live" (with Larry Graham) and other media outlets. Nevertheless, "Rave Un2 the Joy Fantastic" failed to perform well commercially. A few months earlier, Warner Bros. had also released ', a collection of unreleased material recorded by Prince throughout his career, and his final recording commitment on his contract with Warner Bros. The greatest success he had during the year was with the EP ', released in time for Prince to collect a small portion of the sales dollars Warner Bros. had been seeing for the album and singles of the original "1999". The pay-per-view concert, "Rave Un2 the Year 2000", was broadcast on December 31, 1999 and consisted of footage from the December 17 and 18 concerts of his 1999 tour. The concert featured appearances by many guest musicians including Lenny Kravitz, George Clinton, Jimmy Russell, and The Time. It was released to home video the following year. A remix album, "Rave In2 the Joy Fantastic" (as opposed to "Un2") was released exclusively through Prince's NPG Music Club in April 2000. Turnaround and "Musicology": 2000–05. On May 16, 2000, Prince ceased using the Love Symbol moniker and returned to using "Prince" again, after his publishing contract with Warner/Chappell expired. In a press conference, he stated that, after being freed from undesirable relationships associated with the name "Prince", he would formally revert to using his real name. Prince still frequently uses the symbol as a logo and on album artwork and continues to play a Love Symbol-shaped guitar. For several years following the release of "Rave Un2 the Joy Fantastic", Prince primarily released new music through his Internet subscription service, NPGOnlineLtd.com (later NPGMusicClub.com). Two albums that show substantive jazz influence were available commercially at record stores: 2001's "The Rainbow Children", and the 2003 instrumental record "N.E.W.S" which was nominated for a Best Pop Instrumental Album Grammy Award. Another album of largely jazz-influenced music, "Xpectation", was released via download in 2003 to members of the NPGMusicClub. "Xpectation" is jazz themed along with new age and atmospheric themes. In 2002, Prince released his first live album, "One Nite Alone... Live!", which features performances from the One Nite Alone...Tour. The 3-CD box set, which also includes a disc of "aftershow" music entitled "It Ain't Over!", failed to chart. During this time, Prince sought to engage more effectively with his fan base via the NPG Music Club, pre-concert sound checks, and at yearly "celebrations" at Paisley Park, his music studios. Fans were invited into the studio for tours, interviews, discussions and music-listening sessions. Some of these fan discussions were filmed for an unreleased documentary, directed by Kevin Smith. Smith discusses what happened during those days at length in his "An Evening with Kevin Smith" DVD. Performances were also arranged to showcase Prince's talents, as well as to collaborate with popular and well-established artists and guests including Alicia Keys, the Time, Erykah Badu, Nikka Costa, George Clinton, and Norah Jones. On February 8, 2004, Prince appeared at the Grammy Awards with Beyoncé Knowles. In a performance that opened the show, Prince and Knowles performed a medley of "Purple Rain", "Let's Go Crazy", "Baby I'm a Star", and Knowles' "Crazy in Love" to positive reviews. The following month, Prince was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. The award was presented to him by Alicia Keys along with Big Boi and André 3000 of OutKast. As well as performing a trio of his own hits during the ceremony, Prince also participated in a tribute to fellow inductee George Harrison in a rendering of Harrison's "While My Guitar Gently Weeps", playing a long guitar solo that ended the song. In addition he performed "Red House" on the album "". On February 19, "The Tavis Smiley Show" broadcast included a performance of "Reflection" from Prince's "Musicology" album. Prince was accompanied by Wendy Melvoin, formerly of The Revolution. In April 2004, Prince released "Musicology" through a one-album agreement with Columbia Records. The album rose as high as the top five on a number of international charts (including the U.S, UK, Germany and Australia). The U.S. chart success was assisted by the CD being included as part of the concert ticket purchase, and each CD thereby qualifying (as chart rules then stood) towards U.S. chart placement. "Musicology" is R&B and soul themed along with funk, pop, quiet storm, and rock. Three months later, "Spin" named him the greatest frontman of all time. That same year, "Rolling Stone" magazine named Prince as the highest-earning musician in the world, with an annual income of $56.5 million, largely due to his Musicology Tour, which Pollstar named as the top concert draw among musicians in U.S. The artist played an impressive run of 96 concerts; the average ticket price for a show was U.S.$61. Further highlighting the success of the album, Prince's "Musicology" went on to receive two Grammy wins, for Best Male R&B Vocal Performance for "Call My Name" and Best Traditional R&B Vocal Performance for the title track. "Musicology" was also nominated for Best R&B Song and Best R&B Album, while "Cinnamon Girl" was nominated for Best Male Pop Vocal Performance. The album became the artist's most commercially successful since "Diamonds and Pearls", partly due to a radical scheme devised which included in Billboard's sales figures those that were distributed to each customer during ticket sales for the "Musicology" tour, with concert figures accounting for 25% of the total album sales. "Rolling Stone" magazine has ranked Prince No.27 on their list of 100 Greatest Artists of All Time. In April 2005, Prince played guitar (along with En Vogue singing backing vocals) on Stevie Wonder's single "So What the Fuss", Wonder's first since 1999. In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, which devastated the city of New Orleans on August 29, 2005, Prince offered a personal response by recording two new songs, "S.S.T." and the instrumental "Brand New Orleans", at Paisley Park in the early hours of September 2. Prince again performed all instrumental and vocal parts. These recordings were quickly dispersed to the public via Prince's NPG Music Club, and "S.S.T." was later picked up by iTunes, where it reached No.1 on the store's R&B chart. On October 25, Sony Records released a version of the single on CD. Move to Universal and "3121": 2005–06. In late 2005 Prince signed with Universal Records to release his album, "3121", on March 21, 2006 (3/21). The first single was the Latin-tinged "Te Amo Corazón", the video for which was directed by actress Salma Hayek and filmed in Marrakech, Morocco, featuring Argentine actress and singer Mía Maestro. The video for the second single, "Black Sweat", was nominated at the MTV VMAs for Best Cinematography. The immediate success of "3121" gave Prince his first No.1 debut on the "Billboard" 200 with the album. To promote the new album, Prince was the musical guest on "Saturday Night Live" on February 4, 2006, seventeen years after his last "SNL" appearance on the 15th anniversary special and nearly 25 years since his first appearance on a regular episode in 1981, making Prince the only "SNL" musical guest to have that long of a gap between appearances. He performed two songs from the album, "Fury" and "Beautiful, Loved & Blessed", with Támar. Prince also held a contest to win a trip to see a 'Purple Ticket Concert' at his private residence in Hollywood, California. Seven winning tickets were placed inside "3121" CD packages in the U.S., and other tickets were given away in various contests on the Internet and around the world. On May 6, 2006, twenty-four prize winners (with a guest each) attended a star-studded private party and performance at Prince's home. On June 12, 2006, Prince received a Webby Lifetime Achievement Award in recognition of his "visionary" use of the Internet; Prince was the first major artist to release an entire album, 1997's "Crystal Ball", exclusively on the Internet (although he did take phone orders for it as well...1-800-NEW-FUNK). Only weeks after winning a Webby Award, Prince abruptly shut down his then-official NPG Music Club website at 12:00 am on July 4, 2006 after over five years of operation. The NPG Music Club sent out an email, claiming that "in its current 4m there is a feeling that the NPGMC gone as far as it can go. In a world without limitations and infinite possibilities, has the time come 2 once again make a leap of faith and begin anew? These r ?s we in the NPG need 2 answer. In doing so, we have decided 2 put the club on hiatus until further notice." On the day of the music club's shutdown, a lawsuit was filed against Prince by the British company HM Publishing (owners of the Nature Publishing Group, also NPG). Despite these events occurring on the same day, Prince's attorney has called it pure coincidence and stated that the site did not close due to the trademark dispute. Prince appeared at multiple award ceremonies in 2006. On February 15, 2006, Prince performed at the BRIT Awards along with Wendy & Lisa and Sheila E. He played "Te Amo Corazón" and "Fury" from "3121" and "Purple Rain" and "Let's Go Crazy" from "Purple Rain". On June 27, 2006, Prince appeared at the BET Awards, where he was awarded Best Male R&B Artist. In addition to receiving his award, Prince performed a medley of Chaka Khan songs for Khan's BET Lifetime Award. Prince had previously written and performed several songs with the singer. In November 2006, Prince was inducted into the UK Music Hall of Fame, appearing to collect his award but not performing. Also in November 2006, Prince opened a nightclub named 3121 in Las Vegas at the Rio All Suite Hotel and Casino. He performed weekly on Friday and Saturday nights until April 2007, when his contract with the Rio ended. On August 22, 2006, Prince released "Ultimate Prince". The double disc set contains one CD of previous hits, and another of extended versions and mixes of material that had largely only previously been available on vinyl record B-sides. Prince wrote and performed a song for the hit 2006 animated film "Happy Feet". The song, entitled "The Song of the Heart", appears on the film's , which also features a cover of Prince's earlier hit "Kiss", sung by Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman. In January 2007, "The Song of the Heart" won a Golden Globe for Best Original Song. Prince arrived late, apparently due to traffic problems, and thus was unable to make an acceptance speech, but actor Hugh Grant prompted him later in the ceremony to take a bow. Super Bowl XLI and "Planet Earth": 2007–08. On February 2, 2007, Prince played at the Super Bowl XLI press conference. He and the band played a set comprising Chuck Berry's hit, "Johnny B. Goode", "Anotherloverholenyohead" from "Parade" and "Get On the Boat" from "3121". Prince performed at the Super Bowl XLI halftime show in Miami, Florida on February 4, 2007. The performance consisted of three "Purple Rain" tracks ("Let's Go Crazy", "Baby I'm a Star" and the title track), along with cover versions of "We Will Rock You" by Queen, "All Along the Watchtower" by Bob Dylan, the Foo Fighters song "Best of You" and "Proud Mary" by Creedence Clearwater Revival. Coincidentally, Miami had rain on the day of the Super Bowl, which was lit purple during the performance of "Purple Rain". He played on a large stage shaped as his symbol. The event was carried to 140 million television viewers, the largest audience of his life. On February 4, 2010, Billboard.com ranked the performance as the greatest Super Bowl performance ever. Prince played 21 concerts in London during the summer of 2007. The Earth Tour included 21 nights at the 20,000 capacity O2 Arena, with Maceo Parker in his band. Tickets for the O2 Arena were priced at £31.21 (including a free copy of Prince's latest album), in order to make the concerts "affordable for everybody". The residency at the O2 Arena was increased to 15 nights after all 140,000 tickets for the original seven sold out in just 20 minutes. It was then further extended to 21 nights. On May 10, 2007, Prince performed a 'secret' gig at London's KOKO in front of a small crowd of fans and celebrities. Tickets went on sale that morning on a first-come-first-served basis (again at £31.21). A prelude to the forthcoming summer gigs in London, Prince played a relaxed set of classic hits ("Kiss", changing the lyric from "You don't have to watch "Dynasty"" to "Desperate Housewives", "Girls & Boys", and "Nothing Compares 2 U") alongside more recent tracks, plus a well-received cover version of Gnarls Barkley's "Crazy". Prince made an appearance at the 2007 ALMA Awards, performing with Sheila E. in June 2007. On June 28, 2007, the UK national newspaper the "Mail on Sunday" revealed that it had made a deal to give Prince's new album, "Planet Earth", away for free with an "imminent" edition of the paper, making it the first place in the world to get the album. This move sparked controversy among music distributors and also led the UK arm of Prince's distributor, Sony BMG, to withdraw from distributing the album in UK stores. The UK's largest high street music retailer, HMV, decided to stock the paper on release day due to the giveaway. "Planet Earth" is rock-oriented along with disco, and other various music styles. On July 7, 2007 Prince returned to his hometown of Minneapolis to perform three shows in what was unofficially declared Prince Day in Minnesota. He performed concerts at the Macy's Auditorium (to promote his new perfume "3121") on Nicollet Mall, the Target Center arena, and First Avenue. It was the first time he had played at First Avenue (the club appeared in the film "Purple Rain") since 1987. On April 25, 2008, Prince performed on "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno", where he debuted a new song, "Turn Me Loose". Days after, he headlined the Coachella Festival 2008. Prince was paid more than $5 million for his performance at Coachella, according to Reuters. Prince cancelled a concert, planned at Dublin's Croke Park on June 16, 2008, at just 10 days' notice. In October 2009 promoters MCD Productions went to court to sue Prince for €1.6 million, after paying him $1.5 million, half his agreed fee of $3 million for the concert. MCD claim they had to refund 55,126 tickets purchased and its total losses exceeded $1.66 million. Prince's lawyers argued the MCD claim was "greatly inflated". Prince settled the case out of court in February 2010 for $2.95 million. During the trial, it was revealed that Prince had been offered $22 million for seven concerts as part of a proposed 2008 European tour. In October 2008, Prince released a live album entitled "Indigo Nights", as well as "21 Nights", an accompanying book of poems, lyrics and photos. The book chronicled his record-breaking tenure at London's O2 Arena in 2007, while the album is a collection of songs performed live at aftershows in the IndigO2. "LOtUSFLOW3R" and beyond: 2008–10. On December 18, 2008, Prince premiered four songs from his new album on LA's Indie rock radio station Indie 103.1. The radio station's programmers Max Tolkoff and Mark Sovel had been invited to Prince's home to hear the new rock oriented music. Prince then surprised the two by giving them a CD with 4 songs to premiere on their radio station. The music debuted the next day on Jonesy's Jukebox, hosted by Sex Pistol Steve Jones. The music comprised a cover of "Crimson and Clover" by Tommy James and the Shondells, together with "Colonized Mind", "Wall of Berlin" and "4ever". The same day, another new Prince composition entitled "(There'll Never B) Another Like Me" premiered on the now obsolete and defunct website, mplsound.com — replacing a shorter, instrumental version of the song which streamed several days previously. On January 3, 2009, a new website LotusFlow3r.com was launched, streaming some of the recently aired material ("Crimson and Clover", "(There'll Never B) Another Like Me" and "Here Eye Come") and promising opportunities to listen to and buy music by Prince and guests, watch videos and buy concert tickets for future events. On January 31, Prince released two more songs on LotusFlow3r.com: "Disco Jellyfish", and "Another Boy". "Chocolate Box", "Colonized Mind", and "All This Love" have since been released on the website. Prince released a triple album set containing "LOtUSFLOW3R", "MPLSoUND", and an album credited to his new protégé, Bria Valente, called "Elixer", on March 24, 2009, followed by a physical release on March 29. The release was preceded by performances on "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno" and "The Ellen DeGeneres Show". It was released in other countries digitally, with official physical release dates yet to be announced. The album peaked at No.2 on the "Billboard" 200, and critics' opinions were mixed to positive. On July 18, 2009, Prince performed two shows at the Montreux Jazz Festival, being backed by the New Power Generation including Rhonda Smith, Renato Neto and John Blackwell. There he played "A Large Room with No Light" which had been in Prince's "vault" for some time. On October 11, 2009, Prince gave two surprise concerts at the glass-and-iron Grand Palais exhibition hall after visiting the landmark Paris building on the banks of the Seine. On October 12, he gave another surprise gig at La Cigale. On October 24, Prince played a concert at his own Paisley Park complex in Minneapolis, Minnesota. "20Ten", rejection of the Internet and Welcome 2: 2010–2012. In January 2010, Prince wrote a new song, "Purple and Gold", inspired by his visit to a Minnesota Vikings football game against the Dallas Cowboys. The song is a simple, drumline-driven track. The following month, Prince let Minneapolis-area public radio station 89.3 The Current premiere his new song "Cause and Effect" as a gesture in support of independent radio. In a poll by BBC Radio 6 Music listeners in April 2010, Prince was ranked the eighth-best guitarist of the previous 30 years. Prince was also listed in "TIME" magazine's 2010 annual ranking of the "100 Most Influential People in the World". Prince released a new single on Minneapolis radio station 89.3 The Current called "Hot Summer" on June 7, his 52nd birthday. Also in June, Prince appeared on the cover of the July 2010 issue of "Ebony", and he received the Lifetime Achievement Award at the 2010 BET Awards. Prince released his album "20Ten" in July 2010 as a free covermount with publications in the UK, Belgium, Germany, and France. Prince has refused access to the album to digital download services. He also closed his official website, LotusFlow3r.com. In an interview with the "Daily Mirror", Prince said, "The Internet's completely over. I don't see why I should give my new music to iTunes or anyone else. They won't pay me an advance for it and then they get angry when they can't get it... Anyway, all these computers and digital gadgets are no good. They just fill your head with numbers and that can't be good for you." On July 4, 2010 Prince began his 20Ten Tour, a concert tour in two legs with shows in Europe. The second leg began on October 15 and ended with a concert following the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix on November 14. The second half of the tour has a new band, John Blackwell, Ida Kristine Nielsen, and Sheila E. Prince let Europe 1 debut the snippet of his new song "Rich Friends" from the "new" album "20Ten Deluxe" on October 8, 2010. Prince started the Welcome 2 Tour on December 15, 2010. Prince was inducted in the Grammy Hall of Fame on December 7, 2010. On February 12, 2011, Prince presented Barbra Streisand with an award and donated $1.5 million to charities. On the same day, it was reported that he was unimpressed about Glee covering his hit "Kiss", and that he had not authorised this. On the May 18, 2011, it was announced that Prince would be headlining Hop Farm Festival on July 3, 2011, marking his first UK show since 2007 and his first ever UK festival appearance. Despite having previously rejected the Internet for music distribution, on November 24, 2011 Prince re-released a reworked version of the previously unreleased song "Extraloveable" through both iTunes and Spotify. Purple Music, a Switzerland based record label released a CD single "Dance 4 Me" on Dec 12, 2011 as part of a club remixes package including Bria Valente CD single "2 Nite" released on February 23, 2012. The CD features club remixes by Jamie Lewis and David Alexander, produced by Prince. 2013 "A Big year" From 3rdeyegirl to present. In January 2013, Prince released a lyric video for a new song called "Screwdriver". A couple of months later in April 2013, Prince announced a short West Coast tour with 3rdeyegirl as his backing band. The final two dates of the tour were in Minneapolis where former Revolution drummer Bobby Z. sat in as guest drummer on both shows. In May, Prince announced a deal with Kobalt Music to market and distribute his music. Later that month "Fixurlifeup", the first single of Prince & 3rdeyegirl is released on iTunes, Spotify and other platforms. A video is also released on Vevo. On 29 June 2013, Prince performed at George Lucas' wedding reception and at Chicago's City Winery the same night. Over the next two months, Prince was a power-player at musical festivals and other venues worldwide. On July 12, 13, and 14, Prince performed 3 nights at the Montreux Jazz Festival, the first two nights were with the newly expanded NPG and the final night was with 3RDEYEGIRL On 4 August, Prince and 3RDEYEGIRL played the closing night of the Stockholm Music & Arts Festival On 7 August, Prince and 3RDEYEGIRL played Smukfest Music Festival in Skanderborg, Denmark On 11 August, Prince and 3RDEYEGIRL played two shows, one at 7.30pm and a 2nd at midnight at the Paradiso in Amsterdam, Netherlands. On 14 August 2013, Prince officially sent his first tweet through the 3RGEYEGIRL Twitter account which saw the followers of the account jump from just over 10,000 to nearly 150,000 in less than 48 hours. The same day, he released a new solo single for exclusive download through the 3RDEYEGIRL.com website. The single "Breakfast Can Wait" received attention for its cover art, featuring comedian Dave Chappelle's notable impersonation of the singer in a sketch on the 2000s Comedy Central series "Chappelle's Show". On 22 August and then again on the 25th, Prince joined his band NPG on stage for a 90 minute performance at two midnight shows of their week long residency at City Winery in New York On 31 August, they played the final night of the Curaçao North Sea Jazz Festival. Prince and the band were a last minute addition to the bill. Personal life. Over the years Prince has been romantically linked with many celebrities, including Kim Basinger, Madonna, Vanity, Sheila E., Carmen Electra, Susanna Hoffs, Anna Fantastic, Sherilyn Fenn, and Susan Moonsie of Vanity 6 and Apollonia 6. Prince was engaged to Susannah Melvoin in 1985. He married his backup singer and dancer, Mayte Garcia, on Valentine's Day, 1996. They had a son, Boy Gregory (born October 16, 1996), who was born with Pfeiffer syndrome and died a week after birth. Prince and Mayte divorced in 1999. In 2001, Prince married Manuela Testolini in a private ceremony. Testolini filed for divorce in May 2006. He also had a short-term relationship with protégée Bria Valente in 2007. Prince became a member of the Jehovah's Witnesses in 2001 following a two-year-long debate with friend and fellow Jehovah's Witness, musician Larry Graham. Prince said he didn't consider it a conversion, but a "realization"; "It's like Morpheus and Neo in "The Matrix"", he explained. He attends meetings at a local Kingdom Hall and occasionally knocks on people's doors to discuss his faith. Prince has reportedly needed double-hip-replacement surgery since 2005 but won't undergo the operation unless it is a bloodless surgery because Jehovah's Witnesses do not accept blood transfusions. The condition is rumored to be aggravated by repeated onstage dancing in high-heeled boots. However, when Prince was interviewed in 2010, journalist Peter Willis said he believed the rumors of Prince needing double hip surgery to be unfounded and untrue as Prince appeared to be agile. Prince is a vegetarian. In 2006 he was voted the "world's sexiest vegetarian" in PETA's annual online poll. The liner notes for his album "Rave Un2 the Joy Fantastic" featured a message about the cruelty involved in wool production. Prince is a supporter of the Minneapolis football team Minnesota Vikings. He resides near Minneapolis, Minnesota. Stage names. In 1993, during negotiations regarding the release of Prince's album "The Gold Experience", a legal battle ensued between Warner Bros. and Prince over the artistic and financial control of Prince's output. During the lawsuit, Prince appeared in public with the word "slave" written on his cheek. Prince explained his name change as follows: "Prince" is a trademark owned by Paisley Park Enterprises Inc. It was initially filed with the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) in 2005 in the categories of printed materials, clothing, electronic commerce, and entertainment services based on first commercial in 1978. Various searches to the USPTO did not find any registrations or transfers of "Prince" or related names by Warner Bros. In 1991, PRN Music Corporation assigned the trademarks "Prince", "The Time", "Paisley Park", "New Power Generation", and "Prince and the Revolution" to Paisley Park Enterprises. Prince has used pseudonyms to separate himself from the music (either his own or that of others) for which he has had input; "I was just getting tired of seeing my name," he said, "If you give away an idea, you still own that idea. In fact, giving it away strengthens it. Why do people feel they have to take credit for everything they do? Ego, that's the only reason." These pseudonyms include: Jamie Starr and The Starr Company (for the songs he wrote for the Time and many other artists from 1981–1984), Joey Coco (for many unreleased Prince songs in the late 1980s, as well as songs written for Sheena Easton & Kenny Rogers), Paisley Park (occasionally used in the early 1990s for his production credits on songs, including those written for Martika and Kid Creole), Alexander Nevermind (for writing the 1984 song "Sugar Walls" by Sheena Easton), and Christopher (used for his song writing credit of "Manic Monday" for the Bangles). Copyright issues. On September 14, 2007, Prince announced that he was going to sue YouTube and eBay because they "are clearly able filter porn and pedophile material but appear to choose not to filter out the unauthorized music and film content which is core to their business success." Web Sheriff, the international Internet policing company he hired, told Reuters: "The problem is that one can reduce it to zero and then the next day there will be 100 or 500 or whatever. This carries on ad nauseam at Prince's expense." In October 2007, Stephanie Lenz filed a lawsuit against Universal Music Publishing Group, claiming they were abusing copyright law, after the music publisher had YouTube take down Lenz's home movie in which the Prince song "Let's Go Crazy" played faintly in the background. On November 5, 2007, several fan sites of Prince formed "Prince Fans United" to fight back against legal requests they claim Prince made to cease and desist all use of photographs, images, lyrics, album covers and anything linked to Prince's likeness. While Prince's lawyers claimed that the use of such representations constituted copyright infringement, the Prince Fans United claimed that the legal actions were "attempts to stifle all critical commentary about Prince." A few days later, Prince released a statement denying the fansites' claims, stating "The action taken earlier this week was not to shut down fansites, or control comment in any way. The issue was simply to do with in regards to copyright and trademark of images and only images, and no lawsuits have been filed." The statement from AEG, Prince's promoter, asserted that the only "offending items" on the three fansites were live shots from Prince's 21 nights in London at the O2 Arena earlier in the year. On November 8, 2007, Prince Fans United received a song named "PFUnk", providing a kind of "unofficial answer" to their movement. The song, originally debuted on the PFU main site, was retitled "F.U.N.K." and is available on iTunes. On November 14, 2007, it was reported that the satirical website b3ta.com had pulled their "image challenge of the week" devoted to Prince after legal threats from the star under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. B3ta co-founder Rob Manuel wrote on the site: "Under threat of legal action from Prince's legal team of 'potential closure of your web site' – We have removed the Prince image challenge and B3ta apologizes unreservedly to AEG / NPG and Prince for any offence caused. We also ask our members to avoid photoshopping Prince and posting them on our boards. At the 2008 Coachella Music Festival, Prince performed a cover of Radiohead's "Creep", but immediately after he forced YouTube and other sites to remove footage that fans had taken of the performance, despite Radiohead's demand for it to remain on the website. Days later, YouTube reinstated the videos, while Radiohead claimed "it's our song, let people hear it". In 2009, Prince put the video of that Coachella performance on his then-official website LotusFlow3r.com. In 2013, the Electronic Frontier Foundation granted to Prince the inaugural "Raspberry Beret Lifetime Aggrievement Award", a reference to resentment of parties who allege unfair treatment and misuse of copyright claims by the artist and his lawyers. Discography. Prince has sold over 100 million records worldwide in his career. Awards and nominations. Grammy Awards. Earning 33 nominations, Prince has won seven Grammys. He also has had two albums − "1999" and "Purple Rain" − awarded the Grammy Hall of Fame Award. MTV Video Music Awards. The MTV Video Music Awards (VMAs) is an award show by cable network MTV to honor the top music videos of the year. It was first held in September 1984 and was originally meant as an alternative to the Grammy Awards in the video category. Prince has won four awards from twelve nominations throughout his career.
581809	Mashaal is a 1984 Bollywood film. Produced and directed by Yash Chopra, it starred Dilip Kumar, Anil Kapoor, Waheeda Rehman, Rati Agnihotri, Nilu Phule, Iftekhar, Saeed Jaffery, Gulshan Grover, Alok Nath, Madan Puri and Amrish Puri. The role played by Anil Kapoor was first offered to Kamal Haasan, but after Kamal Haasan declined the offer, the role went to Anil Kapoor. Vinod Kumar (Dilip Kumar) plays a respected, law-abiding citizen who turns to crime for exacting revenge. Plot. Vinod Kumar (Dilip Kumar) is an upright and honest man, who runs a newspaper named "Mashaal". Vinod exposes the ills in the society with help of his newspaper. Vinod's wife, Sudha (Waheeda Rehman), sees a vagabond named Raja (Anil Kapoor) and tries to instill some values and culture in him. Vinod is sceptical about this, but accepts when Raja tells them of his tragic childhood and comes to regard Sudha as a maternal figure. Finally, Vinod decides to help Raja by sending him to Bangalore to complete his education and become a journalist. During frequent meetings with Vinod and Sudha, Raja befriends Geeta (Rati Agnihotri), an aspiring journalist and an assistant in Vinod's paper, and they fall in love. During his investigations, Vinod finds that S.K. Vardhan (Amrish Puri), a wealthy and respected man in the society, is behind many malpractices. Vinod starts exposing S.K's illicit business of drug-trafficking and selling hooch. Initially, S.K. tries to buy Vinod's silence by bribing him, but when Vinod decides to stand up to S.K., the latter inflicts misery on Vinod by having him thrown out of his rented house via the landlord. That very night, Vinod's newspaper office is burnt down by S.K.'s men. Helpless, and on the streets, tragedy strikes Vinod and Sudha further when Sudha, who is ailing, dies on the road, leaving Vinod distraught and heartbroken. A disillusioned Vinod realizes that S.K. will always trump him, since people also support him. Instead of trying to expose S.K., Vinod now decides to follow S.K's footsteps in order to destroy him. Vinod, in association with Kishorilal (Saeed Jaffrey), starts producing illicit hooch and doing other illegal businesses to earn lots of money - the thing, Vinod retrospectively feels, he lacked, and the shortage of which led to the tragedies in his life. In a very short time, Vinod becomes a very rich man. All this time, Raja, who is in Bangalore for his studies, is blissfully unaware of these developments. The only other person exposed to this truth is Geeta, who has grown resentful of Vinod and has started working in another newspaper. Vinod's business now stands as a threat to Vardhan's empire. Soon, Raja returns after completing his education and meets Vinod and is surprised to see that the latter's lifestyle has changed, but doesn't know the truth. Raja meets Munna (Gulshan Grover), an old friend, from whom he learns that a new crime lord has entered the fray and has gained a foothold in the hooch and drugs world. Raja decides to expose this criminal, who, unbeknownst to him, is Vinod himself. Vinod is disturbed to learn that Raja is trying to dismantle his empire, but does not stop him. Raja starts working for Dinesh (Alok Nath), another journalist for whom Geeta also works. A chance discussion between Raja, Dinesh and Geeta leads to the revelation that Vinod is, indeed, the new drug boss. Raja is flummoxed upon learning this, and goes to meet Vinod to confront him about this. Vinod accepts the truth, and tells him what happened. After an emotional upheaval and deep pondering, Raja decides that he will continue on the righteous path Vinod taught him, even if this means exposing the very person, who treated him as his own son, as a criminal. Vinod feels humbled when Raja tells him that he still views Vinod as his mentor, upon which Vinod gives him his blessings to continue his chosen work. Meanwhile, Vinod and S.K's enmity reaches a head when Raja starts writing about both. Finally, S.K kidnaps Raja and threatens him. Vinod enters and saves Raja, before fighting with S.K. Vinod kills S.K by throwing him in printing press wheels. Keshav, a henchman of S.K, tries to shoot Raja, but Vinod comes in between and gets fatally shot. Keshav is arrested, while Vinod dies in Raja's arms, happy and finally content. Influence. The film was based on the well-known Marathi play "Ashroonchi Zhali Phule" written by famous Marathi writer playwright Vasant Kanetkar.
116610	Lost Command is a 1966 war film directed and produced by Mark Robson. The screenplay was written by Nelson Gidding, based on the 1960 novel "The Centurions" by Jean Lartéguy. The film stars Anthony Quinn, Alain Delon, George Segal, Michèle Morgan, Maurice Ronet and Claudia Cardinale. Historical Background. The film, which focuses on the story of French paratroopers battling in French Indochina and French Algeria, was provided technical advice from French military Commandant René Lepage, formerly with the 6th Marine Infantry Parachute Regiment. The character played by Anthony Quinn is loosely based on Marcel Bigeard, the actual commander in French Indochina of the predecessor of the 6th Marine Infantry Parachute Regiment (the 6th Colonial Parachute Battalion). Bigeard later commanded the 3rd Colonial Parachute Regiment in French Algeria. The film was released within four years of the end of the Algerian war for independence, and included scenes that reflected actual atrocities by both sides. "Lost Command" was banned in France for ten years. Plot. In the final moments of the 1954 Battle of Dien Bien Phu, a weakened French garrison anticipates a last assault by communist Viet Minh troops. The garrison commander, Basque Lt. Col. Pierre-Noel Raspeguy (Quinn), has called central headquarters for reinforcements. Headquarters sends only a single plane load of French paratroopers, under the command of Major De Clairefons. Despite Raspeguy's attempts to provide covering fire, the paratroopers are slaughtered as they land. Major De Clairefons is killed when his parachute drags him into a minefield. Raspeguy is enraged that General Melies (Jean Servais) sent only one plane, and further believes that Melies intends to make Raspeguy responsible for the entire debacle at Dien Bien Phu. The Viet Minh overrun the French, with the survivors captured and imprisoned. Among Raspeguy's friends are military historian Captain Phillipe Esclavier (Alain Delon), Indochina born Captain Boisfeures (Maurice Ronet), surgeon Captain Dia (Gordon Heath) and Lt Ben Mahidi (George Segal), an Algerian-born paratrooper who turns down a Viet Minh leader's (Burt Kwouk) offer for preferential treatment because he is an Arab. Raspeguy's leadership keeps the men together in their captivity. When released after a treaty between the Viet Minh and France, Raspeguy leads his men in demolishing a delousing station that they see as a humiliation. Upon his return home to Algeria, Ben Mahidi is disgusted at the treatment of his people, especially when his teenaged brother is machine gunned by the police for spraying graffiti in support of independence from France. He deserts from the army to join the rebels of the Algerian National Liberation Front (FLN), becoming a guerilla leader. Upon his own return from Indochina, Lt. Colonel Raspeguy starts a relationship with Countess Nathalie De Clairefons (Michèle Morgan), widow of the Major who died while trying to reinforce Raspeguy's garrison. The Countess' military contacts result in Raspeguy being given command of the new 10th Regiment of Parachutistes Coloniaux, serving under General Melies in the Algerian war. The General briefs him that the command is his last chance in the military; if his Regiment fails, Raspeguy's career is finished. Raspeguy recruits his comrades in arms from Indochina and trains his battalion with unorthodox methods such as using live ammunition on an assault course to encourage speed and initiative. Soon after beginning counter insurgency operations in both urban and rural environments, Esclavier falls in love with Mahidi's sister Aicha (Claudia Cardinale) who is loyal to the FLN and uses her friendship with Esclavier to smuggle explosive detonators. The previously naive Esclavier begins to have a new view of his nation's conduct, as the FLN rebels and French parachutists try to outdo each other in breaking the rules of war. Production. The film was shot in Spain. Film rights were negotiated for "The Centurions" as far back as 1961 with Nelson Gidding's draft screenplay appearing in 1963. Filmed under the title "The Centurions", the film was retitled "Not For Honor and Glory" in December 1965 with the title changed again to "Lost Command" in 1966. Quotes. Raspeguy: "There's only one rule - don't die!" Raspeguy: (on being encouraged to use Countess De Clairefons' influence to obtain a command) "Since when do women run the army?" Esclavier: "Since longer than peasants were allowed to become officers"
136595	Katherine Sian Moennig (Pronounced "meh-nig"; born December 29, 1977) is an American actress best known for her role as Shane McCutcheon on "The L Word", as well as Jake Pratt on "Young Americans". In 2009, she starred as Dr. Miranda Foster on CBS "Three Rivers". Personal life. Moennig was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to Broadway dancer Mary Zahn and violin maker William H. Moennig III. Moennig has a half-sister and a half-brother from her father's first marriage. Mr. Moennig's half sister is actress Blythe Danner, making actress Gwyneth Paltrow and director Jake Paltrow her half-niece and half-nephew. Moennig is of German, Scottish, and Irish ancestry. Career. Moennig moved to New York City at the age of 18 to study at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. In 1999, she had the central role in the Our Lady Peace video "Is Anybody Home?". She also took a role in a Fleet Bank commercial, and appeared in a Red Cross Campaign benefitting victims of Hurricane Katrina. Moennig was a presenter at the 17th annual GLAAD awards and appeared at the 10th annual Ribbon of Hope Celebration. Her first major role was in the television series "Young Americans", playing Jake Pratt. Moennig has played multiple lesbian roles: Shane McCutcheon in "The L Word"; Rosie's (Drew Barrymore) partner Jilly in "Everybody's Fine"; Candace, the lesbian lover of Sophia Myles' character, in "Art School Confidential"; and Lena, a press agent who works for Liev Schreiber's character, in "Ray Donovan". She has also pursued transgender roles, auditioning for the part of Brandon Teena in "Boys Don't Cry", and playing Cheryl Avery, a young transgender woman in the "" episode "" (S04E21). On April 12, 2006, Moennig made her Off Broadway debut as "American Girl", opposite Lee Pace, in "Guardians", by Peter Morris. The story is loosely based on that of Lynndie England. In 2007, the documentary "My Address: A Look At Gay Youth Homelessness" in New York was launched with Moennig in cooperation with the Hetrick-Martin Institute (HMI), directed by Gigi Nicolas. In 2009, Moennig joined the cast of the TV series "Three Rivers". Moennig played Dr. Miranda Foster, a surgical fellow with a rebellious streak and fiery temper. On November 30, 2009, it was announced that CBS had pulled "Three Rivers" from the schedule, with no plans to return it. In 2010, Moennig played a tattoo artist named Michael Angelo in the "Dexter" episode "First Blood".
1036103	Fay Ripley (born 26 February 1966) is an English actress and recipe author. Born in Wimbledon, London, Ripley is a graduate of the Guildhall School of Music and Drama (1990). Her first professional role was in the chorus of a pantomime version of "Around the World in 80 Days". Ripley's early film and television appearances were limited, so she supplemented her earnings by working as a children's entertainer and by selling menswear door-to-door. After her scenes as a prostitute were cut from "Frankenstein" (1994), Ripley gained her first major film role playing Karen Hughes in "Mute Witness" (1995). In 1996, Ripley was cast in her breakthrough role of Jenny Gifford in the ITV series "Cold Feet". Initially a supporting role in the pilot episode, Ripley's character was expanded when a series was commissioned in 1998. She stayed with the show for three full series before leaving to take more varied roles and to spend more time with her family. She returned for a guest appearance in the fifth series. After leaving "Cold Feet", Ripley played a succession of leading roles in comedies and dramas including "Green-Eyed Monster" (2001), "I Saw You" (2002), "The Stretford Wives" (2002), and "Dead Gorgeous" (2002). Each role won her critical acclaim. In 2006, she filmed a leading role in the ITV drama "Bon Voyage", before taking time away from acting after the birth of her second child. Ripley returned to television in 2009, starring as human resources manager Christine Frances in the ITV comedy drama "Monday Monday", and Nicola Perrin alongside Martin Clunes in BBC One's "Reggie Perrin". Since 2009, Ripley has authored two recipe books; "Fay's Family Food" in 2009 and "What's For Dinner?" in 2012. She is married to actor Daniel Lapaine, with whom she has two children—a daughter and a son—and is an advocate of several charities and causes. Early life. Ripley was born in Wimbledon, south-west London to Bev and Tina Ripley (née Forster) on 26 February 1966. Her father was a successful businessman, and brother of 1960s pop singer Twinkle, and her mother an antiques dealer. They separated when Ripley was two years old and both remarried, so Ripley spent her childhood moving around Surrey between two families. She was the only child from her parents' marriage but had several half-brothers and sisters from their new relationships. In her early life, she lived in various Surrey towns, including Walton-on-Thames, Weybridge, Esher and Cobham. Her father wanted her to have a good education so, despite the family's Protestant religion, sent her to various Catholic convent schools around the county. One was St Maur's Convent School in Weybridge, which she attended with Liza Tarbuck. Ripley did not feel academically challenged there, and later declared the school mediocre. At school, Ripley enjoyed drama lessons, spurred on by the positive remarks she received from her drama teacher Susan Ford. She said of Ford, "When I was 15, one of the few people who said, 'Well done', was my drama teacher, and she was really brilliant. She was a powerful woman. Those women change your life. You always remember them. There was something about her. She basically made me feel very good about myself as a 15-year-old girl." Abandoning her childhood ambition to become a nurse, Ripley decided to go into acting. Her father wanted to send her to a finishing school in Switzerland but, in an effort to rebel from her middle class Home Counties background, Ripley instead went to a local state college in Surrey, where she took A-levels in communication studies, art, and drama. During her time at the college, Ripley performed her own small shows at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. In an effort to "bring Brecht to the masses", she performed "The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui" at the 1983 festival. After completing her A-levels, Ripley sought entry to the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. It took her three attempts before she was accepted onto an acting course at the age of 20. While at drama school, Ripley lived in a flat in Streatham, South London, during a time she described as "horrible and penniless". To support herself financially, she sold menswear door-to-door, timeshares on Kensington High Street and Oxford Street, worked as a receptionist at a health club, and spent five years as children's entertainer "Miss Chief the Clown". As Miss Chief, Ripley performed magic tricks and painted faces at children's parties. The work paid off when she was able to get a mortgage on her first flat, stating clown as her occupation. Early career. Ripley graduated from drama school in 1990. Her first role afterwards was playing Osatko in the chorus of "Around the World in 80 Days" at the Liverpool Playhouse during the 1990–91 pantomime season. She had ten lines in Japanese. Her next role came at the end of the year in the Manchester Royal Exchange's production of "Medea". Ripley recalled, "It was only my second job, and I took it all very seriously, in my Greek sarong and my torch of fire, having to burble in tongues." Ripley's early television and film career was characterised by minor roles as prostitutes or mistresses; in what was to be her film debut, she filmed two scenes as a prostitute in the film "Frankenstein" (Kenneth Branagh, 1994). In the first scene, her character was strangled by the creature (played by Robert De Niro's stand-in). The second scene featured De Niro himself, though Ripley's character was lying dead in a mortuary throughout. Pleased with what looked like her breakout role, Ripley bought a dress for the premiere, though she was distraught when Branagh sent her a card apologising for cutting her scenes from the finished film. The same year, she filmed the role of Karen Hughes, the sister of a mute character who believes she sees a murder, in the low-budget film "Mute Witness" (Anthony Waller, 1995). After "Mute Witness"s British television premiere in 1999, a "Daily Record" critic wrote that Ripley's dramatic scenes were not as good as her comic ones. In 1995, she appeared in an episode of Channel 4's Alan Davies vehicle "One for the Road" and made her last theatre appearance as a cast member in the Bush Theatre's "Two Lips, Indifferent Red". In 1996, she had a role in Stephen Poliakoff's "Frontiers", and played a club barmaid in Dennis Potter's penultimate television series "Karaoke". The following year she had roles in the comedy film "Roseanna's Grave" (Paul Weiland, 1997), an episode of "The Bill"—as a woman whose nanny is accused of stealing from her—and a two-part episode of the Kevin Whately series "The Broker's Man" as a police officer. Her role in "The Broker's Man" was one of the few occasions on which Ripley played a police officer; she has frequently declined offers of similar roles because she does not want to "summon up the misery" to play a character that performs post-mortem examinations or investigates murders when she could be starring in more true to life and funny programmes. Breakthrough roles. In 1996, Ripley auditioned for Granada Television's "Cold Feet", a television pilot about the romances of three couples living in Manchester. She believed she was reading for the role of Rachel, the "young, pretty one", and was surprised to discover that she was wanted for Jenny, the "northern housewife". In the audition, she performed with an inelegant approximation of a local Manchester accent. The producers found her approach to the role refreshing from other actresses, who were seen as too "finger-wagging". Ripley won the role, and appeared opposite John Thomson and James Nesbitt in the programme. After the pilot won an award, ITV's director of programmes commissioned a series of "Cold Feet", so Ripley worked on improving her character's accent by speaking to locals and mimicking their speech. Her supporting character from the pilot episode was given a bigger role in the series; in the first episode (broadcast in 1998), Jenny gives birth to her first child. At that time, Ripley had never experienced childbirth, so copied birth scenes she had seen in other television series. An "Independent" review of the first series in November 1998 noted, "Fay Ripley has a range of quirky mannerisms that are more reminiscent of Elaine in "Seinfeld" than of any other Brit-com woman." The character also gained Ripley public recognition; after being noticed by a member of staff in Marks & Spencer, she was so pleased that she invited the woman to dinner. Ripley's performance in the first series won her a nomination for Best TV Comedy Actress at the British Comedy Awards 1999. For her performance in the third series (2000), in which her character separates from her husband and dates another man (played by Ben Miles), she was nominated for the British Academy Television Award for Best Actress. During pre-production of the fourth series (2001), Ripley announced to the producers that she would be leaving the show, partly because she did not want to spend five months living in Manchester away from her home in London and wanted to spend more time with her husband, and partly to take other roles which she would otherwise not be able to do. She asked the writer Mike Bullen to either kill off Jenny or have her lose a limb. Bullen refused and instead wrote a plot in which Jenny moves to New York. Ripley returned to the series for a guest appearance in the final episode (2003). She had originally planned not to return to the show, but reprised the role so she could have an on-screen record of the final stages of her pregnancy with her first child. In 2000, Ripley appeared in the British dogme film "The Announcement", as well as playing lead female character Grace Bingley—opposite Paul Rhys—in the Granada television pilot "I Saw You", which used many of the same production staff as "Cold Feet". David Belcher of "The Herald" called Ripley "perfectly scatty, tousled and self-sufficient" in the role, and Joe Joseph of "The Times" complimented her comic timing. Ripley returned to "I Saw You" for a three-episode miniseries in 2002. She considers "I Saw You", in which she acted alongside her husband Daniel Lapaine, the television show she is most proud to have worked on. Leading roles. Having left "Cold Feet", Ripley began to take on more leading roles; her first role was as housewife Deanna in the BBC thriller "Green-Eyed Monster", which was broadcast in September 2001. She researched her character, a murderer, by visiting a coroner. "Guardian" critic Gareth McLean wrote of her performance, "Ripley did a good job of exorcising the ghost of Jenny Gifford [...] by coolly cranking up the insane desperation and needy malevolence to an impressive degree." In 2002, she played domestic abuse victim Donna Massey in Danny Brocklehurst's "The Stretford Wives". Ripley was initially not eager to play another character from around Manchester so soon after leaving "Cold Feet", but she changed her mind after reading the script. She did not research spousal abuse to play her character, a woman struggling to bring up her two children in a run-down house while her husband is imprisoned, because she did not find it difficult to "work out what it's like to be scared and want to protect your kids". Also in 2002, Ripley played Rose Bell in the ITV post-war period drama "Dead Gorgeous", alongside Helen McCrory. The following year, she provided the voice of Meg in the ITV adaptation of the "Meg and Mog" children's books, before playing Jill in the third series of the BBC One sitcom "Bedtime" at the end of 2003. In 2004, Ripley had her first of three on-screen partnerships with Martin Clunes, playing Jane White in the CBBC adaptation of "Fungus the Bogeyman". The following year, she played the guest role of corrupt police inspector Sam Phillips in the BBC TV series "Hustle", a role that received praise from "The Times" and "The Sun" newspapers. In 2006, Ripley played the role of child abductor Linda Holder in the two-part ITV drama "Bon Voyage", starring alongside Ben Miles, Rachael Blake and Daniel Ryan. She was offered the part without having to audition, and took it because she wanted the opportunity to play an antagonist. She liked the style of Canadian director John Fawcett in making the thriller, as it differed to that of other British thrillers, which she believed were poorly filmed. Ripley filmed the role in Canada during the later weeks of her second pregnancy, so her character was dressed in baggy clothes to hide her bump. Her pregnancy also caused changes to the script; originally her character was to run through a forest, fall off a cliff and "die a gruesome death". Reviewing, Thomas Sutcliffe of "The Independent" and Gareth McLean of "The Guardian" noted that Ripley's pregnancy was poorly disguised. In complimenting the performance of the whole cast, Brian McIver of the "Daily Record" praised Ripley's portrayal of Linda as "scary but sympathetic". "Bon Voyage" marked Ripley's last television acting appearance until 2009. During that time she appeared as a guest on panel shows and talk shows. In 2009, she returned to television screens as Nicola Perrin alongside Martin Clunes' eponymous character in the BBC One sitcom "Reggie Perrin". She took the role because she had previously worked with Clunes and the writer Simon Nye. As the series was Ripley's first studio sitcom, she approached the role with apprehension; she told "The Independent on Sunday", "I basically just hung off Martin's coat-tails and hoped for the best." Ripley compared Nicola to Reggie's house-bound wife Elizabeth in the original series, noting that the modern character needed a job and independence from her husband because of changes in society. She reprised the role in the second series in 2010, after which the series was cancelled. 2009 also saw the broadcast of "Monday Monday", an ITV comedy drama series in which Ripley plays Christine Frances, an alcoholic human resources manager at a supermarket head office that moves from London to Leeds. She took the role because it was different to characters she had previously played. Other work. During her time on "Cold Feet", Ripley hosted the Channel 4 show "Sofa Melt", a relationships chat show in the vein of "Trisha". The show lasted for one series of 60 episodes, broadcast in 1999. In "Scotland on Sunday", critic Stewart Hennessey called Ripley's presenting fantastic and called the show itself "utterly without any intelligent merit whatsoever. It is just unmissable because the people on it are hilariously stupid. Set the vid, show it at parties." Ripley said of the show retrospectively, "It was the most terrifying thing I've ever done." In 2003, she presented a short film advocating "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire" for the BBC's "Big Read" series and in 2009, she presented an episode of the Blighty documentary series "My Brilliant Britain". In 2004, she appeared on the Star in a Reasonably Priced Car segment of "Top Gear", where she discussed her car history with presenter Jeremy Clarkson. On her celebrity lap of the "Top Gear" test track, she achieved a lap time of 1:53, making her 38th on the Suzuki Liana leader board. The same year, she participated in a major advertising venture by The National Lottery, playing "Lady Luck" alongside a unicorn voiced by Graham Norton. In 2008, she appeared alongside Martin Clunes in a series of advertisements for Tesco Direct and, since 2009, has starred with Mark Addy in a series of adverts for Tesco's various brands. In 2007, Ripley announced that she would be writing a cookbook about family food. She said, "I want to help people prepare good food for their kids, really practical stuff that's easy, quick, healthy and you can whizz up in the blender for the baby." "Fay's Family Food" was published by Michael Joseph, an imprint of Penguin Books, in April 2009 and was selected by Marie-Claire Digby of "The Irish Times" as a "summer read". Ripley's second book, entitled "What's For Dinner", was published in April 2012. Since the release of her first book, she has resisted offers from television production companies to make her own cookery series. Personal life. Ripley met English actor James Purefoy when the two were starring in the eponymous roles in a college production of "Romeo and Juliet" in 1983. They began an 11-year relationship that ended when Ripley was 27. Ripley said of the relationship in 2006, "We were just kids when we met and, therefore, the relationship had more than run its course." She was single for five years, before being introduced to Australian actor Daniel Lapaine at a party hosted by mutual friends. Neither of them thought the other was interested in dating and they drifted apart. After meeting again on separate holidays in New York, they began dating and married in October 2001 in a ceremony in Tuscany, Italy. Ripley gave birth to the couple's first child, a daughter, in October 2002. She gave birth to their first son in October 2006. Ripley is a patron of several charities and causes. In 2007 she took part in "What's it going to take?", a campaign by Women's Aid to raise awareness of domestic abuse against women. She visited Tanzania with ActionAid in October 2008 to raise awareness of child sponsorship. While in the country, Ripley visited community projects set up by ActionAid in Bagamoyo and Mkuranga. Ripley was already sponsoring a child and had been asked by ActionAid to participate in a visit but had always declined because of conflicts with her work. Ripley also fronted a "Climate Action Now" protest with novelist Rebecca Frayn and actress Rula Lenska in 2008, opposing government support of the then planned third runway at Heathrow Airport.
583133	Phas Gaye Re Obama () is a 2010 Bollywood satire film directed by Subhash Kapoor and starring Rajat Kapoor, Neha Dhupia, Sanjay Mishra, Manu Rishi and Amole Gupte in the lead roles. The music and the background score is composed by Manish. J. Tipu and lyrics are penned by Shellee and Gopal Tiwari. The film was released on 3 December 2010. It was produced by Revel Films and distributed by Warner Bros Pictures. "Phas Gaye Re Obama" is a comedy set against the backdrop of global recession/meltdown that originated in the USA. It released to positive reviews and was well appreciated by critics. The film is going to be remade in Telugu. Plot. The story begins with Anni (Manu Rishi) and his gangster colleagues who all work for Bhai Sahab (Sanjai Mishra), a gangster, watching U.S president Barack Obama's famous speech 'Yes We Can' on TV. Anni is shown as a big fan of Obama and wants to migrate to the USA. In USA, Om Shastri (Rajat Kapoor), a business man has faced huge losses due to recession and is all set to lose his house if he can't pay his $100,000 loan in the next thirty days. He comes to India to sell his ancestral property in Uttar Pradesh as his last hope. But the recession has also hit India and he struggles to find a buyer. Anni meets Om who promises him to take him to US Anni in excitement tells Bhai Sahab who thinks Om is rich and orders his kidnapping. He hopes to get a good ransom so that his bad times (due to recession) end. Om is kidnapped but later tells Bhai Sahab and his men that he is bankrupt. Thanks to the local police, one of the local gangsters Ali comes to know about Om and orders Bhai Sahab to hand over to him. Anni comes with idea of selling Om to Ali. Anni, Bhai Sahab and his men chant 'Yes We Can' out of happiness. Om on hearing their conversation suggests Bhai Sahab and him share the money, in return he would not tell Ali about their cheating. The deal happens and Bhai Sahab gets Rs. 3 million. Bhai Sahab then transfers half the amount to Om's bank account in US The other gangster comes to know about Om's bankruptcy. But Om saves his and Anni's life by telling the same idea. The price now is Rs. 6 million and divided equally. Om is then sold for Rs. 6 million to Munni (Neha Dhupia), a dread female gangster who hates men. Om is happy because he receives Rs. 3 million and now there is a total of Rs. 4.5 million (US$100,000) in his bank account and tells his wife to pay off the loan. But soon Munni comes to know about Om's state and captures Bhai Sahab and his men. Om again saves his and others life from Munni asking her to play the same trick with local Minister and politician Dhanajay Singh. So Munni takes Om to Dhanajay Singh. The Minister runs a kidnapping Mafia and is the head of all kidnappings. Minister pays Munni Rs. 15 million (15 million) and keeps Om and Anni at his guest house. Om and Anni come to know that they will be killed if Om's wife doesn't pay the ransom. At night, Om fakes a heart attack and escapes with Anni. The Minister orders the police for a man hunt. Realizing that he cannot escape to Delhi, he comes with a new plan. He goes to the local police station where the Minister is there and surrenders to him. The minister is about to take Om back to the guest house when Anni along with the Minister's supporters and local media arrive. The minister has no option but to release Om. Om on the other hand tells the media to project the Minister as the next Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh for saving his life. While on his way to Delhi to catch a flight back to U.S, Om is stopped by Bhai Sahab and Munni. Munni gives Om his share but Om tells her to give it to his relatives. Om leaves and Anni stays back in India. In the last scene, Munni asks Bhai Sahab if they can be partners and he replies, "Yes, we can". Production. Subhash Kapoor had developed an idea of making a movie on recession after his first film "Salaam India" had a relatively low-key release. He didn't get many opportunities thereafter, leaving him "frustrated". Stating the reason for choosing the recession as the theme, he said, "The producers would say 'We are facing recession'. The frustration was more from the fact that recession was something in which we had no role to play. Like many of our problems, it was also a creation of the U.S. So, in a way, to give vent to my anger I wrote a satire. I thought when the whole world was affected by recession how could the underworld and politicians stay away from it. So I created a set of gangsters who have no money in their pockets. They pin their hopes on an NRI, who also turns out to be hit by recession." Before turning director, Subhash Kapoor, as a journalist toured all over North India extensively and it reflected in the dialect that the characters speak. This was also the reason he opted for kidnapping as the "industry" that got affected by recession. "Kidnapping has become an industry in the region and often the characters involved in action have a humorous take on life", noted Kapoor. He drew inspiration from real life politicians for the character portrayed by Amol Gupte. "The character of the politician played by Amol Gupte is drawn from D.P. Yadav and Shibu Soren and some of his actions remind one of Raja Bhaiyya", said Kapoor. He created a female don character in "Phas Gaye Re Obama" to show her as a "larger-than-life character" and to show her as competing with "her male counterparts in the kidnapping industry" and cast Neha Dhupia for the role. Dhupia had to learn the dialect after watching Mayawati speak. "As I play a gangster from UP in the film, I had to get that language right and so I observed Mayawati to learn how she speaks. She is the only woman whose dialect, whether she is serious or funny, is extremely monotonous. So I have tried to incorporate this in my character. However, my character is not inspired by her", she said. She made her singing debut, recording a song with Kailash Kher for the film. Reception. "Phas Gaye Re Obama" mostly garnered positive reviews. Rajeev Masand of "CNN-IBN" praised the film as a "deliciously smart comedy" and gave it a rating of 3.5 out of a scale of 5. He appreciated Manu Rishi for bringing "perfect degree of naïvete to his role of a gangster’s moderately-educated sidekick yearning for a better life." Nikhat Kazmi of "Times of India" praised the film for its "ticklish humor and trick-and-treat plot line". "Phas Gaye Re Obama is a delightful end-of-the-year surprise package", she said. Mayank Shekhar of "Hindustan Times" rated the it at 3 out of a scale of 5 and described the film as a "black comedy" and credited the director for his "superbly written" script. Sukanya Verma of "Rediff" too gave a positive review about the film and said that there is "absolutely no dearth of LOL inducing moments". She extolled Sanjay Mishra, saying that "though he doesn't have as many scenes as Rajat Kapoor or Manu Rishi, that doesn't keep him from owning the scenes he features in". She declared it as "insane and awesome". Anupama Chopra of "NDTV" appreciated the director but felt that he couldn't "sustain his energy in the second half. Despite the hiccups Phas Gaye Re Obama has genuine laughs and surprising insight". Anuj Kumar of "The Hindu" lauded the director Subhash Kapoor for coming up with a "well-textured satire on recession that almost turns out to be a winner". He also felt that "it would have been better if Kapoor had not cast Neha Dhupia as the male-hating ganglord as she looks the odd one out in the midst of a proficient set of actors like Sanjay Mishra, Manu Rishi and Amol Gupte, who have got the pulse of the screenplay". The film was well appreciated by the critics for its quirky interpretation of Barack Obama's Yes We Can slogan to suit the setting. It has a certification of "68% fresh" on ratings website Rotten Tomatoes with an average rating of 3.5 out of a scale of 5 for 149 user ratings.
1064830	How Stella Got Her Groove Back is a 1998 romantic drama film directed by Kevin Rodney Sullivan, adapted from Terry McMillan's bestselling novel of the same title. The film stars Angela Bassett, Taye Diggs, Whoopi Goldberg, and Regina King. The original music score was composed by Michel Colombier. Plot. Stella Payne is a very successful 40-year-old stockbroker raising her son, Quincy, and living in Marin County, California, who is persuaded by her New York friend Delilah Abraham to take a well-deserved, first-class vacation to Montego Bay, Jamaica. As she soaks in the beauty of the island, she encounters a handsome young islander, Winston Shakespeare, who is twenty years younger. His pursuits for her turns into a blossoming romance that forces Stella to take personal inventory of her life and try to find a balance between her desire for love and companionship, and the responsibilities of mother and corporate executive. Reception. The reception from critics was mixed. Box office. In its opening weekend, "Stella" grossed $11,318,919, ranking #2 in the domestic box office behind "Saving Private Ryan"s fourth weekend. The film would go on to gross $36,672,941 domestically and an additional $1,605,781 overseas for a worldwide total of $39,278,722. From an estimated $20 million budget, this can be considered a moderate success. Soundtrack. A soundtrack containing mostly R&B and reggae music was released on August 11, 1998 by MCA Records. It peaked at #8 on the Billboard 200 and #3 on the Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums and was certified gold on September 22, 1998.
1068748	Machine Gun Preacher is an action biopic about Sam Childers, a former gang biker turned preacher and defender of African orphans. The movie, released in 2011 by Relativity Media, was based on Childers' book "Another Man's War". It was written by Jason Keller, directed by Marc Forster, and stars Gerard Butler, Michelle Monaghan, and Michael Shannon. The film tells the story of Childers and his efforts to save the children of South Sudan in collaboration with the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) against the atrocities of the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA). Plot. Although the film centers on Childers, it starts off with a scene in South Sudan, where the LRA are attacking a village. This opening scene is placed into context later in the film. Childers was an alcoholic drug-using biker from Pennsylvania. On his release from prison, he finds that his wife has given up her job as a stripper, because she has since become a Christian. Eventually, after almost killing a vagrant the night before, he is persuaded by his wife to go to church with her where he is eventually converted.
1091500	Christian Andreas Doppler (; 29 November 1803 – 17 March 1853) was an Austrian mathematician and physicist. Life and work. Christian Doppler was raised in Salzburg, Austria, the son of a stonemason. Doppler could not work in his father's business because of his generally weak physical condition. After completing high school Doppler studied philosophy in Salzburg and mathematics and physics at the "k. k. Polytechnisches Institut" (now Vienna University of Technology) where he worked as an assistant since 1829. In 1835 started to work at the "Prague Polytechnic" (now Czech Technical University), where he was appointed in 1841. Only a year later, at the age of 38, Doppler gave a lecture to the Royal Bohemian Society of Sciences and subsequently published his most notable work, "Über das farbige Licht der Doppelsterne und einiger anderer Gestirne des Himmels" "(On the coloured light of the binary stars and some other stars of the heavens)". There is a facsimile edition with an English translation by Alec Eden. In this work, Doppler postulated his principle (later coined the Doppler effect) that the observed frequency of a wave depends on the relative speed of the source and the observer, and he tried to use this concept for explaining the colour of binary stars. In Doppler's time in Prague as a professor he published over 50 articles on mathematics, physics and astronomy. In 1847 he left Prague for the professorship of mathematics, physics, and mechanics at the Academy of Mines and Forests (its successor is the present day University of Miskolc) in Selmecbánya (then Kingdom of Hungary, now Banská Štiavnica, Slovakia), and in 1849 he moved to Vienna. Doppler's research in Prague was interrupted by the revolutionary incidents of March 1848, when he fled to Vienna. There he was appointed head of the Institute for Experimental Physics at the University of Vienna in 1850. During his time there, Doppler, along with Franz Unger, played an influential role in the development of young Gregor Mendel, known as the founding father of genetics, who was a student at the University of Vienna from 1851 to 1853. Doppler died on 18 March 1853 at age 49 from a pulmonary disease in Venice (also at that time part of the Austrian Empire). His tomb is just inside the entrance of the Venetian island cemetery of San Michele. Full name. Some confusion exists about Doppler's full name. Doppler referred to himself as Christian Doppler. The records of his birth and baptism stated Christian "Andreas" Doppler. Forty years after Doppler's death the misnomer "Johann" Christian Doppler was introduced by the astronomer Julius Scheiner. Scheiner's mistake has since been copied by many.
1193578	Kristin Nelson (born Sharon Kristin Harmon; June 25, 1945) is an American primitive painter, actress and author, once married to the actor and musician Ricky Nelson. The daughter of the American football star Tom Harmon and the actress Elyse Knox, she married Nelson in 1963 and joined their family television show. The couple had four children, but their extravagant lifestyle forced Nelson to tour for long periods, placing great pressure on the marriage. A long-fought divorce was finally granted before Nelson's death in an air-crash in 1985. In 1988, she married Mark Tinker, who encouraged her to paint. Her brightly coloured primitives found favour with Jacqueline Kennedy and Mia Farrow, among other celebrities, and they form the basis of her coffee-table autobiography "Out of My Mind". The actor Mark Harmon is her brother and the actress Kelly Harmon is her sister. Career. Acting. Following her marriage to Nelson in 1963, Harmon joined the Nelson family television show "The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet" as a regular cast member, first appearing in the episode, "Rick's Wedding Ring". In 1965, she co-starred with Nelson in the romantic comedy, "Love and Kisses", in which they demonstrate the troubles of a young couple of school age who get married—an "inspired casting", according to one critic. Subsequently, she played Officer Jim Reed's wife Jean on "Adam-12", guest-starred on other series and appeared in a few theatrical films, including "The Resurrection of Broncho Billy", which won an Academy Award for best live action short film. She retired from acting in 1982 following "Liar's Moon". Art. In 1988, she met the director-producer Mark Tinker, who asked her what she wanted to do with her life. She told him, "I want to paint." She made her living as an artist, receiving a career boost when Jacqueline Kennedy purchased one of her paintings. She became a favorite of several Hollywood collectors including Mia Farrow, Tyne Daly and Dwight Yoakam. Her work, which is "widely acclaimed," is in the primitive genre, and has been likened to that of Grandma Moses. Her paintings are conceived without perspective and are brightly colored with many figures included. Judy Blundell said, "Any symbolism is straightforward and honest. As an artist she is not concerned with being clever or elusive; she is simply using her talent as a means of true visual documentation." Subjects include "When the Kennedys Were in the White House" (1964) and "The Day He Died" (1990), a memorial to her father which is painted on a window frame and depicts a country church and clouds raining. In 1999, Nelson's paintings were published in a coffee-table-sized autobiography, "Out of My Mind". The paintings document her life story and are supplemented with diary entries and poems. Personal life. Marriage to Rick Nelson. On December 25, 1961, Harmon began dating Ricky Nelson. The Nelson and Harmon families had long been friends and the young couple had much in common: quiet dispositions, Hollywood upbringings and high-powered, domineering fathers. During the winter holiday season of 1962-63, the couple announced their engagement, and were married on April 20, 1963, in St. Martin of Tours Church in Hollywood before 400 guests in a 30-minute Catholic ceremony. Harmon was pregnant, and Nelson later described the union as a "shotgun wedding." Nelson, a non-practicing Protestant, received instruction in Catholicism at the insistence of the bride's parents, and signed a pledge to have any children of the union baptized in the Catholic faith. The newlyweds honeymooned in the Bahamas. In 1975, the Nelsons were on the verge of breaking up but Harmon would have had no parental support; the devoutly Catholic Harmons strongly disapproved of divorce. Nelson and Harmon each had affairs outside the marriage. Nelson engaged in one night stands on the road and Harmon's closer-to-home liaisons included athletes and musicians. In 1976, Harmon and 17-year-old Ronald Reagan, Jr. were discovered having sex in his parents' bed by Secret Service agents. When Nelson returned from a tour in 1977, he discovered Harmon had moved him out of their home and into a rented house. In less than a month, she found him there with two Los Angeles Rams cheerleaders. Nelson later said that she set him up to use the incident against him in court. In October 1977, Harmon filed for divorce and asked for alimony, custody of their four children and a portion of community property. The couple temporarily resolved their differences but Harmon retained her attorney to pursue a permanent break. Both spent enormous sums of money—Harmon on parties, Nelson on renting a private Lear jet. In April 1980, they bought Errol Flynn's 1941 Mulholland Drive estate for $750,000. Harmon wanted Nelson to give up music, spend more time at home, and focus on acting, but the family enjoyed a recklessly expensive lifestyle, and Harmon's extravagant spending forced Nelson to tour relentlessly. The impasse over Nelson's career created unpleasantness at home. Nelson toured as often as possible. Harmon began drinking heavily and left the children in the care of household help. In October 1980, Harmon moved into an upstairs room at the Mulholland Drive house, and again filed for divorce. She was determined to take everything she possibly could and leave Nelson ruined. Attempts to negotiate a preliminary settlement agreement were unsuccessful. In January 1981, Harmon's attorney noted that Nelson's assets were insufficient to warrant lengthy proceedings, and recommended a quick settlement. Harmon replaced her lawyer with a more aggressive attorney. In February 1981, Harmon was temporarily granted custody of the children and $3,600 in spousal support. Nelson was required to pay a number of family expenses such as property taxes, doctor bills, and school tuitions. Harmon and her lawyers believed Nelson had a hidden cache of wealth, but such a thing did not exist. Nelson was almost broke. Accusations of drug and alcohol use and poor parenting were exchanged between the Nelsons and, after two years of acrimony, they were divorced in December 1982. The divorce was financially devastating for Nelson with attorneys and accountants taking over $1 million. Children. Harmon and Nelson had four children. Their first, daughter Tracy Kristine Nelson, was born six months after the wedding on October 25, 1963, at St. John's Hospital in Santa Monica, California. She weighed four pounds, one ounce, and was slightly premature. As a pre-schooler, she appeared in "Yours, Mine, and Ours" with Lucille Ball. In her teens, she attended the exclusive Westlake School for Girls. During her parents' marital difficulties, she did not get along with her mother and stayed with her father in the Flynn house despite the temporary divorce agreement. In 1982, she told "People" her parents had been too young when they started a family. She recalled dressing up like a mermaid for an entire week as a child in an attempt to attract their attention. Nelson left his estate to his four children. Twin sons Gunnar Eric Nelson and Matthew Gray Nelson were born on September 20, 1967. Gunnar and Matthew perform as the band Nelson. Their fourth child, Sam Hilliard Nelson, was born August 29, 1974. At six years, he was placed in the care of his maternal grandparents, Tom and Elyse Harmon of Brentwood, because of Harmon's alcohol abuse, unpredictable behavior and sporadic suicidal tendencies. Sam came to call his grandfather "Pop". Custody case. In 1987, two years after Nelson's death, Harmon was undergoing drug rehabilitation when her brother Mark Harmon and his wife Pam Dawber petitioned for custody of Kristin's youngest son Sam, on the grounds that Kristin was incapable of good parenting. Sam's psychiatrist testified that the thirteen-year-old boy depicted his mother as a dragon and complained about her mood swings and how she prevented him from being with his siblings. Mark Harmon dropped his custody bid when Kristin's lawyer insinuated that witnesses could be produced who had snorted cocaine with Dawber. Kristin was given custody, with Mark Harmon being granted visitation rights. The two siblings and Sam entered family counseling. Marriage to Mark Tinker. She married Mark Tinker in 1988; they divorced in 2000.
1635328	Eternal Summer () is a 2006 Taiwanese film starring Joseph Chang, Bryant Chang and Kate Yeung. It was directed by Leste Chen. In 2006 the film received four nominations at the 43rd Golden Horse Awards, including "Best Supporting Actor" and "Best New Performer" for Joseph Chang, and Bryant Chang won "Best New Performer". Plot. Three high school students experience the perks and pitfalls of love in director Leste Chen's sensitive tale of friendship and yearning.
1015000	The Sandlot 2 is a direct-to-DVD 2005 sequel to "The Sandlot". Plot. The start of the movie flashes back to 1962 when Benny becomes Benny "the Jet" Rodriguez. The main part of the movie is set in 1972, 10 years after the events of "The Sandlot". New kids have moved into the neighborhood of San Fernando Valley in Los Angeles. They have started playing baseball in the sandlot. The previous kids have all grown up and moved away. A young boy named Johnnie Smalls, the little brother of Scott Smalls (the first film's protagonist), has heard the legend of "The Great Fear," (a beastly mutated dog, as he puts it when he later on tells the group about the beast) owned by Mr. Mertle, who lives behind the crater. David Durango (Max-Lloyd Jones) is the leader of the boys. Behind the crater; next to Mr. Mertle's home lives the Goodfairer family. Hayley Goodfairer (Samantha Burton), the daughter and her two friends befriend the other boys at first in a census to share the Sandlot, but their relationship burgeons potently into a friendship when they find themselves in a big problem with the beast next door, despite Hayley calling David a little baby, and David calling Hayley a spoiled brat. One day, when Mac gets an aluminum baseball bat, he hits the ball over the junk wall and afterward they try to retrieve it. But just when they were about to cross over through a passage in the fence, Johnnie stops them and tells them the story of "The Great Fear": how it was born to bite and was different from its sibling puppies. There was a boy who loved the comic book hero named Rapid Rocket, and believed he ran as fast as him. On his first day of school, he went past Mr. Mertle's house (who forgot to lock the back gate where the Great Fear was), and The Great Fear got out and chased the boy. It was unknown what happened to him after he was cornered by "The Great Fear". Soon afterward, a wall made of assorted junk was built. Ever since, if anything went over the fence, it would never come out. The main conflict comes when the Space Shuttle for the future of NASA and the United States space program built by Hayley's father is accidentally launched by Johnnie, who initially thought he'd be test launching it with Mr. Goodfarier, is perplexed by the delay of Haley's father and launches it on his own by total misfortune when the rocket comes back it lands in Mr. Mertle's backyard (home of the great fear) and Hayley along with everyone else frantically try many things to get it back, including hiring the boy called "The Retriever" (Griffin Reilly Evans), but he fails, and decides to retire. Then, just like Benny Rodriguez from the first movie, David decided to go over the wall himself to retrieve the rocket. Here it is revealed that the little boy from the story who was bitten by "The Great Fear" was David. He retrieves it and escapes the Great Fear's yard. The Sandlot kids soon find out(just like The Beast) The Great Fear got loose. David then hops on his bike and rides out of the sandlot. The Great Fear then chases after David. David then goes through a construction site, and then David gets off his bike and runs back to the sandlot. David hops over the junk wall back to Mr.Mertle's yard and falls through the tunnel that Mac used to try to get the rocket back. The dog knocks over the wall and saves David from suffocating. When David defeats the dog, it's revealed that the dog's real name is Goliath. After that the kids can be seen running to the sandlot because Goliath got away and realize that he only wanted to get out to see his girlfriend dog, Tiny, who was also behind a fence. As all the kids are leaving Hayley and David share their first kiss and Mr. Mertle decides to not build a new fence because he's tired of kids thinking he's grouchy. In the final moments of the movie the narrator tells what happened to all the sandlot kids. Mac joined the army after high school, was wounded in the Gulf War, won a Purple Heart and joined the Peace Corps. Saul and Sammy started a record company for hip-hop music and called it Def Jam Records. Sammy used the money he made from Def Jam to start a gum company known as Kissing Booth Bubblegum. Penny and Jenny raised three kids with their families. Tarquell was abducted by aliens in 1986 and was never seen again. Hayley became a super model and a pitcher for the United States olympic softball team; she won two gold medals. David and Hayley went all the way through High School together, then went their separate ways. Ten years after college they met again. At that meeting, it was just like the first time he had ever had a chance to talk to her in grade school—he was so nervous he couldn't speak. So she spoke for him and said, "You're supposed to say, 'Will you marry me?'" and he did. Johnnie Smalls grew up and worked for the jet propulsions lab. Rockets were his life and they always would be. David's PF Flyer's stayed on a telephone high wire for a long time. Then some kid found them but that's 'another story'. Reception. "The Sandlot 2" has received mixed reviews from critics. It currently holds a 40% "rotten" rating on the review aggregator website, Rotten Tomatoes.
1090993	Christiaan Huygens, FRS ( or ; ) () (14 April 1629 – 8 July 1695) was a prominent Dutch mathematician and natural philosopher. He is known particularly as an astronomer, physicist, probabilist and horologist. Huygens was a leading natural philosopher of his time. His work included early telescopic studies of the rings of Saturn and the discovery of its moon Titan, the invention of the pendulum clock and other investigations in timekeeping. He published major studies of mechanics and optics, and a pioneer work on games of chance. Early life. Christiaan Huygens was born in 14 April 1629 at The Hague, in a rich and influential Dutch family, the second son of Constantijn Huygens. Christiaan was named after his paternal grandfather. His mother was Suzanna van Baerle. She died in 1637, shortly after the birth of Huygens' sister. The couple had five children: Constantijn (1628), Christiaan (1629), Lodewijk (1631), Philips (1632) and Suzanna (1637). Constantijn Huygens was a diplomat and advisor to the House of Orange, and also a poet and musician. His friends included Galileo Galilei, Marin Mersenne and René Descartes. Huygens was educated at home until turning sixteen years old. He liked to play with miniatures of mills and other machines. His father gave him a liberal education: he studied languages and music, history and geography, mathematics, logic and rhetoric, but also dancing, fencing and horse riding. In 1644 Huygens had as his mathematical tutor Jan Jansz de Jonge Stampioen, who set the 15-year-old a demanding reading list on contemporary science. Descartes was impressed by his skills in geometry. Student years. His father sent Huygens to study law and mathematics at the University of Leiden, where he studied from May 1645 to March 1647. Frans van Schooten was an academic at Leiden from 1646, and also a private tutor to Huygens and his elder brother, replacing Stampioen on the advice of Descartes. Van Schooten brought his mathematical education up to date, in particular introducing him to the work of Fermat on differential geometry. After two years, from March 1647, Huygens continued his studies at the newly founded College of Orange, in Breda, where his father was a curator: the change occurred because of a duel between his brother Lodewijk and another student. Constantijn Huygens was closely involved in the new College, which lasted only to 1669; the rector was André Rivet. Christiaan Huygens lived at the home of the jurist Johann Henryk Dauber, and had mathematics classes with the English lecturer John Pell. He completed his studies in August 1649. He then had a stint as a diplomat on a mission with Henry, Duke of Nassau. It took him to Bentheim, then Flensburg. He took off for Denmark, visited Copenhagen and Helsingør, and hoped to cross the Øresund to visit Descartes in Stockholm. It was not to be. While his father had wished Christiaan to be a diplomat, it also was not to be. In political terms, the First Stadtholderless Period that began in 1650 meant that the House of Orange was not in power, removing Constantijn Huygens's influence. Further, the father realised that his son had no interest in such a career. Early correspondence. Huygens generally wrote in French or Latin. While still a college student at Leiden began a correspondence with the intelligencer Mersenne, who died quite soon afterwards in 1648. Mersenne wrote to Constantijn the father on his son's talent for mathematics, and flatteringly compared him to Archimedes (3 January 1647). The letters show the early interests of Huygens in mathematics. In October 1646 there is the suspension bridge, and the demonstration that a catenary is not a parabola. In 1647/8 they cover the claim of Grégoire de Saint-Vincent to squaring the circle; rectification of the ellipse; projectiles, and the vibrating string. Some of Mersenne's concerns at the time, such as the cycloid (he sent Evangelista Torricelli's treatise on the curve), the centre of oscillation, and the gravitational constant, were matters Huygens only took seriously towards the end of the 1650s. Mersenne had also written on musical theory. Huygens preferred meantone temperament; he innovated in 31 equal temperament, which was not itself a new idea but known to Francisco de Salinas, using logarithms to investigate it further and show its close relation to the meantone system. In 1654, Huygens returned to his father's house in The Hague, and was able to devote himself entirely to research. The family had another house, not far away at Hofwijck, and he spent time there during the summer. His scholarly life did not allow him to escape bouts of depression. Subsequently Huygens developed a broad range of correspondents, though picking up the threads after 1648 was hampered by the five-year "Fronde" in France. Visiting Paris in 1655, Huygens called on Ismael Boulliau to introduce himself. Then Boulliau took him to see Claude Mylon. The Parisian group of savants that had gathered around Mersenne held together into the 1650s, and Mylon, who had assumed the secretarial role, took some trouble from then on to keep Huygens in touch. Through Pierre de Carcavi Huygens corresponded in 1656 with Pierre de Fermat, whom he admired greatly, though this side of idolatry. The experience was bittersweet and even puzzling, since it became clear that Fermat had dropped out of the research mainstream, and his priority claims could probably not be made good in some cases. Besides, Huygens was looking by then to apply mathematics, while Fermat's concerns ran to purer topics. Scientific debut. Huygens was often slow to publish his results and discoveries. In the early days his mentor Frans van Schooten was cautious for the sake of his reputation. The first work Huygens put in print was "Theoremata de quadratura" (1651) in the field of quadrature. It included material discussed with Mersenne some years before, such as the fallacious nature of the squaring of the circle by Grégoire de Saint-Vincent. His preferred methods were those of Archimedes and Fermat. Quadrature was a live issue in the 1650s, and through Mylon, Huygens intervened in the discussion of the mathematics of Thomas Hobbes. Persisting in trying to explain the errors Hobbes had fallen into, he made an international reputation. Huygens studied spherical lenses from a theoretical point of view in 1652–3, obtaining results that remained unpublished until Isaac Barrow (1669). His aim was to understand telescopes. He began grinding his own lenses in 1655, collaborating with his brother Constantijn. He designed in 1662 what is now called the Huygenian eyepiece, with two lenses, as a telescope ocular. Lenses were also a common interest through which Huygens could meet socially in the 1660s with Baruch Spinoza, who ground them professionally. They had rather different outlooks on science, Spinoza being the more committed Cartesian, and some of their discussion survives in correspondence. He encountered the work of Antoni van Leeuwenhoek, another lens grinder, in the field of microscopy which interested his father. Huygens wrote the first treatise on probability theory, "De ratiociniis in ludo aleae" ("On Reasoning in Games of Chance", 1657). He had been told of recent work in the field by Fermat, Blaise Pascal and Girard Desargues two years earlier, in Paris. Frans van Schooten translated the original Dutch manuscript "Van Rekeningh in Spelen van Geluck" into Latin and published it in his "Exercitationum mathematicarum". It deals with games of chance, in particular the problem of points. Huygens took as intuitive his appeals to concepts of a "fair game" and equitable contract, and used them set up a theory of expected values. In 1662 Sir Robert Moray sent Huygens John Graunt's life table, and in time Huygens and his brother Lodewijk worked on life expectancy. On 3 May 1661, Huygens observed the planet Mercury transit over the Sun, using the telescope of instrument maker Richard Reeve in London, together with astronomer Thomas Streete and Reeve. Streete then debated the published record of the transit of Hevelius, a controversy mediated by Henry Oldenburg. Huygens passed to Hevelius a manuscript of Jeremiah Horrocks on the transit of Venus, 1639, which thereby was printed for the first time in 1662. In that year Huygens, who played the harpsichord, took an interest in music, and Simon Stevin's theories on it; he showed very little concern to publish his theories on consonance, some of which were lost for centuries. The Royal Society of London elected him in 1663. In France. The Montmor Academy was the form the old Mersenne circle took after the mid-1650s. Huygens took part in its debates, and supported its "dissident" faction who favoured experimental demonstration to curtail fruitless discussion, and opposed amateurish attitudes. During 1663 he made what was his third visit to Paris; the Montmor Academy closed down, and Huygens took the chance to advocate a more Baconian programme in science. In 1666 he moved to Paris and a position at Louis XIV's new French Academy of Sciences. In Paris Huygens had an important patron and correspondent in Jean-Baptiste Colbert. His relationship with the Academy was not always easy, however, and in 1670 Huygens, seriously ill, chose Francis Vernon to carry out a donation of his papers to the Royal Society in London, should he die. Then the Franco-Dutch War took place (1672−8). England's part in it (1672–4) is thought to have damaged his relationship with the Royal Society. Robert Hooke for the Royal Society lacked the urbanity to handle the situation, in 1673. Denis Papin was assistant to Huygens from 1671. One of their projects, which did not bear fruit directly, was the gunpowder engine. Papin moved to England in 1678, and continued to work in this area. Using the Paris Observatory (completed in 1672), Huygens made further astronomical observations. In 1678 he introduced Nicolaas Hartsoeker to French scientists such as Nicolas Malebranche and Giovanni Cassini. It was in Paris, also, that Huygens met the young diplomat Gottfried Leibniz, there in 1672 on a vain mission to meet Arnauld de Pomponne, the French Foreign Minister. At this time Leibniz was working on a calculating machine, and he moved on to London in early 1673 with diplomats from Mainz; but from March 1673 Leibniz was tutored in mathematics by Huygens. Huygens taught him analytical geometry; an extensive correspondence ensued, in which Huygens showed reluctance to accept the advantages of infinitesimal calculus. Later life. Huygens moved back to The Hague in 1681 after suffering serious depressive illness. In 1684, he published "Astroscopia Compendiaria" on his new tubeless aerial telescope. He attempted to return to France in 1685 but the revocation of the Edict of Nantes precluded this move. His father died in 1687, and he inherited Hofwijck, which he made his home the following year. On his third visit to England, in 1689, Huygens met Isaac Newton on 12 June. They spoke about Iceland spar, and subsequently corresponded about resisted motion. Huygens observed the acoustical phenomenon now known as flanging in 1693. He died in The Hague on 8 July 1695, and was buried in the Grote Kerk. Work in natural philosophy. Huygens has been called the leading European natural philosopher between Descartes and Newton. He adhered to the tenets of the mechanical philosophy of his time. In particular he sought explanations of the force of gravity that avoided action at a distance. In common with Robert Boyle and Jacques Rohault, Huygens adhered to what has been called, more explicitly, "experimentally-oriented corpuscular-mechanical" natural philosophy. In the analysis of the Scientific Revolution this appears as a mainstream position, at least from the founding of the Royal Society to the emergence of Newton, and was sometimes labelled "Baconian", while not being inductivist or identifying with the views of Francis Bacon in a simple-minded way. After his first visit to England in 1661, when he attended a meeting of the Gresham College group in April and learned directly about Boyle's air pump experiments, Huygens spent time in late 1661 and early 1662 replicating the work. It proved a long process, brought to the surface an experimental issue ("anomalous suspension") and the theoretical issue of "horror vacui", and ended in July 1663 as Huygens became a Fellow of the Royal Society. It has been said that Huygens finally accepted Boyle's view of the void, as against the Cartesian denial of it; and also (in "Leviathan and the Air Pump") that the replication of results trailed off messily. Newton's influence on John Locke was mediated by Huygens, who assured Locke that Newton's mathematics was sound, leading to Locke's acceptance of a "corpuscular-mechanical" physics. Laws of motion, impact and gravitation. The general approach of the mechanical philosophers was to postulate theories of the kind now called "contact action". Huygens adopted this method, but not without seeing its difficulties and failures. Leibniz, his student in Paris, abandoned the theory. Seeing the universe this way made the theory of collisions central to physics. The requirements of the mechanical philosophy, in the view of Huygens, were stringent. Matter in motion made up the universe, and only explanations in those terms could be truly intelligible. While he was influenced by the Cartesian approach, he was less doctrinaire. He studied elastic collisions in the 1650s but delayed publication for over a decade.
1056304	Un indien dans la ville ("An Indian in the city") is a 1994 French film by Hervé Palud. The film had a limited English language release under the title Little Indian, Big City. Part of the movie was shot in Miami, Florida, United States.
584401	Amarkalam (; ) is a 1999 Tamil action film directed by Saran and produced by Venkateswaralayam. The film featured Ajith Kumar and Shalini in the lead roles with Raghuvaran, Raadhika and Nassar in other pivotal roles. The film opened in August 1999 to positive reviews from critics and became a commercial success. Plot. Vasu (Ajith), is a ruthless rowdy who lives in a cinema theater owned by Vinu Chakravarthy. He had a tortured childhood and wastes his days by drinking, fighting, and sleeping. It all starts when Vasu's friend Dhamu loses a reel of the movie Annamalai to Mohana (Shalini). Vasu and Mohana clash when Vasu attempts to retrieve the reel. Mohana's family are members of the police, headed by Birla Bose (Nasser), Mohana's father. At this point, an ex-Mafia "Dada" who spent many years in jail because of Birla Bose, Tulasi Das (Raghuvaran), comes to the theater. He doesn't like Bose, and hires Vasu to kidnap Mohana. He cries out his woes in the song "Satham Illatha." Mohana falls in love with him, after hearing his pain. When Tulasi Das realizes Mohana loves Vasu, he hires Vasu further to pretend he loves her back. At first with Vasu it's just pretend, but then, he too begins to love her. Tulasi Das visits Birla Bose to inform him of his daughters love for a gangster and realizes that Mohana is indeed his daughter. A flashback showing the parted friendship between the two men and Ganga Raadhika who is the wife of Tulasi Das abandons him and their child when she comes to know that her husband is a don. Knowing that Mohana is his daughter, Tulasi Das instructs Vasu to give up his love. When Vasu refuses, Tulasi visits Mohana and tells her about his ploy and that Vasu's love for her was fake. Eventually Vasu proves to Mohana that his love was true and unites with her after a clash between the cops and some goons of the locality. Production. The producers of the previous collaboration of Ajith Kumar and Saran during "Kadhal Mannan", Venkateswaralayam had lost a lot of money on that film so Ajith insisted on doing another film for the studio. Saran initially approached Shalini, who was studying at the time and she refused but after a three month pursuit, he finally got her to sign on as well. The role of Tulasi Das was initially offered to Amitabh Bachchan who accepted before later pulling out of the film. The film began production in January 1999 and during the production of the film, the lead pair Ajith Kumar and Shalini fell in love and eventually got married in April 2000. Release. The film won predominantly positive reviews upon release with a reviewer describing the film as having an "okay storyline made very good because of its brilliant execution" whilst stating that the "climax is also very well-developed" and praising the performance of Ajith Kumar. The film went on to become a large commercial success at the box office, extending the lead actor Ajith Kumar's success after his previous film "Vaali". Ajith went on to purchase Saran a car as a token of gratitude for the success. Due to the success of the film, it was subsequently dubbed into the Telugu language with title "Adbhutam" and produced by V. Sathyanarayana. It was later remade in Kannada as "Asura" starring Shiv Rajkumar and Raghuvaran, who reprised his role, before there was also a 2004 version in Telugu titled "Leela Mahal Center". A remake in Hindi featuring Vivek Oberoi was also reported by the director in 2002, however the project failed to materialize. Soundtrack. The film's score and soundtrack was composed by Bharathwaj.
1055574	Mystery Men is a 1999 American superhero comedy film directed by Kinka Usher, and written by Neil Cuthbert and Bob Burden, loosely based on Burden's "Flaming Carrot Comics" published by Dark Horse Comics. William H. Macy, Ben Stiller, and Hank Azaria star as a trio of lesser superheroes with unimpressive powers who are required to save the day. Despite its list of stars "Mystery Men" made only $33,461,011 domestically and internationally, against a budget of $68,000,000. Plot. In the metropolis of Champion City, the would-be superhero team of Mr. Furious, The Shoveler, and The Blue Raja attempt to make a name for themselves, but their suspect skills make them ineffective, and they find themselves upstaged by the city's most successful superhero, Captain Amazing. However, Amazing is finding that his effectiveness at fighting crime has practically made his job obsolete, and without any worthy adversaries remaining, his corporate sponsors are beginning to pull their funding. To create a need for himself, Amazing uses his alter ego, billionaire lawyer Lance Hunt, to argue for the release of insane supervillain Casanova Frankenstein. The plan backfires; once reunited with Tony P and his Disco Boys, Frankenstein blows up the insane asylum, captures Amazing, and prepares to unleash a doomsday device: the "Psycho-frakulator", which lethally bends reality. Mr. Furious, while spying on Frankenstein's mansion, discovers Amazing's capture and informs the others. After an unsuccessful rescue attempt, the three realize they need more allies, and through word-of-mouth and try-outs, they recruit The Spleen, Invisible Boy, and The Bowler. The newly formed team "assaults" Casanova, which only succeeds in annoying him and damaging his car. While drunk from celebrating their victory, the team is nearly killed in retaliation by Tony P and the Disco Boys, but they are saved at the last minute by the Sphinx. The Sphinx trains them, but his methods annoy Mr. Furious – he has them complete rote team-building exercises and speaks exclusively in platitudes. They also seek out mad scientist Dr. Heller, who specializes in non-lethal weaponry, to equip them for their battle. The group breaks into Casanova's mansion during a gathering of several of the city's gangs, but while attempting to free Captain Amazing, they inadvertently set off the Psycho-frakulator, killing him instead. Without Amazing, the team despairs that there is no way they can save the city, but the Shoveler delivers a pep-talk that succeeds in uniting and inspiring them. With new-found purpose, they assault the mansion, and by making effective use of their negligible superpowers, and with the help of Heller's weapons, manage to subdue most of Frankenstein's henchmen. Unfortunately, as the heroes approach Frankenstein, he reveals that he is holding Mr. Furious' girlfriend hostage, and proceeds to activate the Psycho-frakulator, which begins to wreak havoc upon the city. While the team tries to stop the device, Mr. Furious takes on Frankenstein. After initially taking a beating, Mr. Furious unleashes his inner rage and manages to fight effectively for the first time. He defeats Frankenstein, who is thrown into the core of the Psycho-frakulator and killed by its reality-bending powers. The rest of the team helps the Bowler use her bowling ball to destroy the device, and escape the mansion as it implodes, killing several villains still inside. The team is interviewed by reporters, begging to know their team name. As they argue amongst themselves, one reporter states "Well, whoever they are, Champion City owes a great debt of gratitude to these 'Mystery Men'," but the others are too busy arguing to hear it. Reception. The film received mixed reviews from critics. Rotten Tomatoes gives the film a score of 60% based on 101 reviews. Jonathan Romney said that it was "a desperately hit-and-miss affair". Michael Dequina of The Movie Report said that it "fails to come up with worthy gags and one-liners for the able cast". Steve Murray of Cox News Service gave it a negative review, saying "Mystery Men is like its hapless heroes. It's a wannabe that has the best intentions – including a pronounced anti-gun stance – but none of the knack it takes to save the day, or itself." British television channel Film4 gave it a positive review, saying it was "Hugely entertaining – especially for those with a thing for superheroes."
612030	Cradle of Fear is a 2001 British horror film, directed by Alex Chandon. It was released direct-to-video on 4 July 2001. Taking inspiration from the anthology films produced by Amicus Productions in the 1970s, it features three separate half-hour segments, linked by a fourth story. The main narrative involves imprisoned serial killer Kemper wreaking vengeance on those responsible for his capture. This he does through his son: Dani Filth playing an unnamed character referred to in the credits as "The Man". Shot on video and on a very low budget, the film received a lukewarm reception in the horror press, and is chiefly of interest to Cradle of Filth fans, as it features the entire lineup (principally Dani, but the rest crop up in cameo roles) from the band's "Midian" era. Chandon's association with Cradle of Filth began with the promo video for "From the Cradle to Enslave", and he went on to direct the clips for "No Time to Cry" and "Her Ghost in the Fog", plus some DVD documentaries. Kemper is played by David McEwen, who also appeared in the video for "Her Ghost in the Fog", miming to Doug Bradley's narration. Plot. The film begins with "The Man" (Dani Filth) walking on a street on a foggy night. He passes by a tramp and somehow makes him throw up. Two men see that The Man is alone and start following him. One of them throws a cigarette at him and starts to brutally hit him with a chunk of wood. The other joins in and punches The Man with his fists. Just when they think he is knocked out, the first offender checks The Man's body for cash. Then The Man suddenly grabs him by the throat and begins ripping it with his armour rings. While the 2nd thug stands frozen watching, The Man pulls out the 1st thug's larynx. He then tears the 2nd thug's head apart from the top and stomps on his brains. Then the title credits start. The next scene shows two dead bodies being photographed, one of a girl lying on a bed and one of another girl on the floor. The girl on the bed has her stomach ripped open. Then, detective Neilson (Edmund Dehn) enters the room to inspect. He then grabs one of the girl's breasts to see if she's alive. The movie continues showing how it all came to this and how the girls died. Melissa (Emily Bouffante) and Nikki (Melissa Forte)are the two girls are in a goth club looking for a man to take home and to sleep with. Melissa spots The Man. Nikki agrees that The Man is the perfect guy so Melissa takes him home. At her place Melissa starts to strip in front of The Man. Then instead of having sex as Melissa would have expected, The Man gets on her and evolves into some monstrosity. What he does exactly is not clear since the room is flashing with light. The next day, Melissa, scared and confused, goes to Nikki's house. On her way there, she sees people on the street with obscured demonic faces. Afraid to sleep alone now, she stays at Nikki's house for the night. However she feels pounding in her stomach, as if something was trying to get out. Then, some spikes rip out of her stomach. Terrified, Melissa stabs herself with some scissors until she kills herself. Nikki, literally bathing in Melissa's blood, watches in horror as some spider like creature with a baby's face rips through the corpse's stomach. It jumps on her and brutally kills her, spraying blood all over the walls. At the police station, detective Neilson is sent to his boss' office (John Roper played by Barry Lee-Thomas), who has some questions for him. Kemper (David McEwen), a madman imprisoned at Fenham Asylum, is then shown in his cell with a list of those who helped catch him and gives it to his ally and son (which is only revealed at the end), Dani. Melissa was probably 1st on this list. Sophie (Rebecca Eden) and Emma (Emma Rice) try to break into a house. They start looking for a box with money. When Emma finally finds the box under a bed a bony old man (Al Stokes) pops up from the bedcovers. He grabs Emma and starts yelling. Sophie, not knowing what to do, takes a candleholder and hits the old man on the head. The girls check for his pulse but he has none. Bizarrely, the old man jumps up one again and attacks Sophie. Emma takes a knife and stabs the old man first in the cheek, then in the shoulder. Still alive, once again he gets up. Sophie then takes a huge hammer and smashes the old man's face. Confident that he is now dead, the two girls take a bath to remove their bloodstains. Emma tells Sophie that she told her sister that they were going to do this robbery. Angered at Emma, Sophie hits Emma with the same huge hammer and kills her. She stuffs the money in her pockets and makes for the exit of the house, but she trips on the stairs and hits her head on the wall. This knocks her out and she wakes up in the morning. When she checks to see where the corpses of her friend and the old man were, she finds an empty room. She then goes back to her apartment. There she is attacked by the zombies of Emma (who is demanding for her share of the stolen money) and the old man (who is seeking revenge). The old man holds her while Emma stabs Sophie in the eye with a broken bottle and kills her. At the police station, Neilson is told by a police officer the names of the people killed so far. Neilson recognises them as they helped him catch Kemper. That night Neilson has a nightmare. He sees Kemper enter his bedroom. Kemper forces Neilson to keep his mouth open and breaks his front row of teeth using a hammer and nail. Neilson is woken up by his phone. When he answers it he hears a strange voice, Dani's. Dani is at Sophie's apartment and places a coin with a goat head insignia on Sophie's corpse. The Man is then shown performing some sort of ritual. He stabs a cat until its organs fall out on a plate and then eats them. After the police investigate the corpses at Emily's apartment, Neilson's boss John wants another word with him. Suspecting that Kemper somehow murdered the girls and the old man, John orders Neilson to tell him everything he knows about Kemper. Neilson tells John that Kemper in the beginning was a 'magician' who could hypnotize people. He performed at public shows and hypnotized unsuspecting children. At night the children would walk to him and he would use them in sick depraved rituals. He would also eat them. He supposedly did this to emulate his father, satanist Anthony Crowley. Now almost sure that Kemper was guilty, John orders Kemper to be moved to a new cell so his current one can be investigated. Next on the killing list is Nick Holland (Louie Brownsell). Nick drives home with his girlfriend Natalie (Eileen Daily) where he refuses to make love to her. He does this because he feels bad that he only has one leg (the other one was lost in an unknown accident). Nick's doctor says that if Nick brings him a leg, it is possible to stitch it to Nick's body. So, Nick goes to an old friend of his, (a man named Thomas) and shoots him in the head. He then cuts Thomas' leg off with a knife and puts it in a suitcase. He brings the leg to the doctor and the doctor sends a nurse over to Nick's house to stitch the leg on. That night Nick has a nightmare. He sees Thomas murdering Natalie and then stabbing him with a knife. He wakes up and finds Natalie safe next to him. The couple decides to go for a drive. Nick is the driver, but some unknown force twists his legs and makes him hold the gas panel down. Not able to brake, he keeps speeding until a truck crashes into the car. Nick doesn't die after the crash, but he sees that Natalie had been ripped out of the car and had crashed on a pole. Nick, unable to bear Natalie's death, stabs himself in the leg and under the head with a knife. A couple of cops come and call in reinforcements. That's when Dani shows up. He walks in front of the 1st cop and stabs him through the eyes with his metal finger armours. He then approaches the 2nd cop (who is throwing up from the sight of Nick killing himself) and attacks him. After looking through Kemper's old cell some doctors find the list of victims Kemper had. John is informed and calls Neilson. He tells him there are two people left on the list. Richard Neilson (Stuart Lang) (Neilson's son), and Neilson himself. Richard Neilson is a reporter who is for some reason spoiled by the internet. He is slightly attracted to killing and murder. He recently finds a website that lets members choose how they want to have someone killed and see it live on the 'SickCam'. The victims are killed in a room called the 'Sick Room'. Richard likes this website and is blinded by his blood thirst. He sees a sample video on the SickCam and decides he wants to try this. So, he writes the URL of the website down and tricks his girlfriend into coming to his house and assaults her violently. This isn't shown but is obvious, as his girlfriend's face is later shown completely bruised and stitched. The next day Richard tries to enter the site through his laptop but the URL doesn't work. He falls asleep for the rest of the day and tries to enter the site again the next day at work. He tries different URLs until he gets the right one, but just when he enters the site and completes the site membership form, his computer shuts off. Richard's boss fires him for everything bad he's done. Richard tries to get into the site again at home from is laptop. The URL fails to work once more so he tries other possibilities. After days of fruitless effort he finally succeeds. The site says: 'Thank You. If you have found us then you deserve to be here. Please enjoy full membership privilege while we process your account'. Under this text is the goat head insignia, the same on the coin that The Man had left on Sophie's corpse. Richard enjoys commanding how to have a man tortured and killed online while watching it happen on the Sick Cam Hickson. But then, Richard's Internet connection is terminated. He forgot all about his Internet bills all these days as well as his rent. He is kicked out of his house, so the first place he goes to is the Internet cafe. He tries entering the Sick Room website there but with no luck, so he posts an online sign asking for info on the sick room. The next day he gets a reply: 'The Cottage. Elm Drive, Harrow. The man there can tell you more. Please don't try to trace this. A friend'. Richard goes to the cottage in the address and meets a short man (Willie Evans). The man tricks Richard into actually entering the sick room, where Richard is hit with hammers and cut up with razors. The user who is ordering these commands online is then shown to be The Man. Neilson is told that his son is dead. Thinking it was Kemper, he decides to kill him. He goes into Kemper's cell and shoots Kemper in the leg and arm. Then a doctor calls in some backup. Some soldiers come, but Dani comes too, disguised as one of the soldiers. Dani, holding a machete, slits a female doctor's throat, stabs the 1st reinforcement guard in the face, and eventually kills everyone except Neilson. Neilson shoots The Man in the face, blowing half his head off. Then he shoots Kemper in the heart, but as he is checking if Kemper is still alive, a spider-like creature comes out of The Man's half-head as he cries out "Evil has just begun. " Then there are screams and the movie ends. Release. "Cradle of Fear" has a chequered release history. Aside from the festival and convention circuit, the film never saw a cinema screen, and was released straight to video. The UK distributors initially made it available as a mail order VHS title, on the grounds that this would allow the release of an uncut and unrated version, posted out from Europe and circumventing the BBFC (the assumption being that the BBFC would not pass the film without significant alterations). After long delays, these tapes were finally sent out, but, much to the producers' embarrassment, the film was passed completely uncut by the BBFC barely a month later, and picked up for exclusive distribution on DVD by the Blockbuster chain, who immediately sold it at a fraction of the price of the mail order tapes. In 2006 the HMV chain signed an agreement with Pragmatic Pictures for UK distribution of the DVD version, which subsequently entered HMV's DVD Top 10 chart. The film is now widely available on DVD.
1058408	Viola Lynn Collins (born May 16, 1977) is an American actress. She made television appearances in "True Blood" and ', and is recognized for her roles in films such as ' and "John Carter". Early life and education. Collins was born in Houston, Texas, and has stated that she is of Scottish, Irish, and Cherokee descent. She spent her formative years in Singapore, with "summers in Japan where my parents were getting their fourth and fifth and sixth "dan" in Shitaru ... Okinawa-style "karate"". During a childhood Christmas pageant in which she played Mrs. Claus, Collins discovered her love for acting. She attended the Juilliard School's Drama Division ("Group 28": 1995–1999) where she graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree. Career. Collins made her television debut in 1999, in an episode of "", and went on to star onstage as Ophelia opposite Liev Schreiber in "Hamlet", followed by a turn as Juliet in "Romeo and Juliet". After bit parts that included a stint on the show "Haunted" and roles in the movies "Down with Love", "50 First Dates" and "13 Going on 30", she gained notice playing Portia in the film "The Merchant of Venice", starring opposite Al Pacino, Joseph Fiennes and Jeremy Irons.
583331	Aaj Ka Arjun () is a 1990 Hindi crime film drama produced in Bollywood, directed and produced by K.C. Bokadia and starring Amitabh Bachchan and Jaya Prada. The film premiered on 10 August 1990 in Mumbai and was filmed in Rajasthan. The film became a box office hit.[http://boxofficeindia.com/showProd.php?itemCat=196&catName=MTk5MA==] Plot. Thakur Bhupendra Singh (Amrish Puri) and his son Ajit (Rishabh Shukla) are landlords, presiding oppressively over a small Indian community. Ajit gets Laxmi (Raadhika) pregnant and casts her aside. Her brother Bheema (Amitabh Bachchan) goes to plead with them to accept Laxmi as their daughter-in-law and they reject his pleas and have him thrown out. Bheema tries to avenge this humiliation, only to have his sister killed. Bheema is imprisoned, and after his sentence is over he returns to his community, only to be told that he can no longer reside there, as the entire community is terrified of the Thakur and his men. Bheema then decides to move out of town. Some villagers and a police officer (Anupam Kher) persuade Bheema to return, and he agrees. On his return, Bheema's nephew Kanhaiya (Baby Guddu) is abducted by Thakur and his men, and he will only be returned after Bheema obtains signatures/thumb prints from everyone in the community, thereby turning over their properties to Thakur's name. Will Bheema compromise the safety of his nephew, and will he able to persuade the community to bow down to Thakur's demands?
629112	Hercules Returns is a 1993 Australian comedy film directed by David Parker, starring David Argue, Michael Carman, Bruce Spence and Mary Coustas. The film has a cult following in Australia and other countries. It has been released in DVD format (Region 4, format ). It was the first feature directed by David Parker although he had written and produced a number of other films. Synopsis. Film buff Brad McBain (Argue), a frustrated employee of Australia’s largest cinema chain, The Kent Corporation, quits his job and decides to set up and re-open the Picture Palace, a palatial disused cinema in St Kilda, Melbourne, to show classic old films in the old-fashioned style. As a gimmick he chooses the last picture that the cinema featured, "Samson and His Mighty Challenge" (an Italian film, originally released in 1964 as "Ercole, Sansone, Maciste e Ursus: gli invincibili"). When the print arrives at the grand gala opening they discover that it is in unsubtitled Italian, and Brad suspects that his old boss, Sir Michael Kent (Carman), has in some way sabotaged the delivery. This calls for desperate measures and McBain, his projectionist Sprocket (Spence) and his publicist Lisa (Coustas) are forced to improvise voice-overs for the entire film with hilarious results. Kent (Carman), also attends the screening, hoping to see it fail. As he realises that the crowd is enjoying the film, he storms up to the projection box. He and McBain fight just as the film reaches its climax; McBain breaks the fourth wall several times so that the fight in the projection box corresponds with the fight on the screen. Kent is knocked out, and the film is a huge success. Background. "Hercules Returns" is a screen adaptation of the popular Australian live comedy show "Double Take", conceived and performed by Des Mangan with Sally Patience. The "Double Take" show, which began in Sydney in 1986, is part of the dub parody genre, in which ostensibly serious films are deliberately re-voiced in a satirical or spoof manner. Well-known examples of this genre include the 1960s Jay Ward TV series "Fractured Flickers" and Woody Allen's "What's Up, Tiger Lily?" (1966). The "Double Take" concept is similar to the Los Angeles-based club show (later transferred to TV) "Mad Movies with the L.A. Connection", which was popular in the USA in the 1970s and 1980s, and the long-running Dynasty Dub series found on YouTube. "Double Take" was very similar in style to (and may have been partly inspired by) two sketches that featured under the banner "Europa Productions" in the popular Australian TV comedy series "The Aunty Jack Show" (1972–73). In these pre-recorded sketches the "Aunty Jack" team satirically re-voiced an Italian Hercules film (renamed "Herco the Magnificent") and the 1952 Robert Newton swashbuckler "Blackbeard the Pirate" (renamed "Gidget Goes Tasmanian"). Like these TV sketches, "Double Take" performances featured distinctly Australian voicings (often with exaggerated "Ocker" and ethnic Australian accents) and many local humorous references, but unlike the L.A. Connection shows — which often used heavily edited versions and excerpts of films — the films that the Double Take team sent up were presented in their entirety and the scripts were carefully tailored to follow the original sequencing of the movies. Mangan and Patience gained a strong following around Australia with their "Double Take" shows, which were performed live in a cinema. Typically seated at the back of the auditorium, using microphones plugged into the cinema's sound system, the Double Take team performed live comedic voice-overs of movies such as the American B-grade sci-fi film "The Astro-zombies" and the 1960s Italian low-budget 'Sword-and-sandal' epic "Ercole, Sansone, Maciste e Ursus gli invincibili". Of necessity much of their voice-over performance was tightly scripted, but working live also allowed the team some scope to occasionally insert topical jokes and references. The film version came about after businessman Phil Jaroslow saw a "Double Take" performance of "Hercules Returns" in Melbourne. He was so impressed that he purchased the rights to both the original "Ercole" film and Mangan's script, hired cinematographer and film maker David Parker to help write a story to wrap around the Double Take routine, and financed the project with his own funds. Although it was his first film as a producer and Parker's first as a director, the project came in on time and on budget at a cost of less than A$1 million, and shooting was completed in just eight days. The lead actors who appeared on screen were well-known to local audiences. Bruce Spence has been one of Australia's most prominent stage and screen actors since the early 1970s; Coustas was a member of the popular "Wogs Out of Work" team, where she created her Greek-Australian character "Effie", and she co-starred in the popular TV sitcom "Acropolis Now"; Argue was well known from his many live comedy, TV and film appearances. Director David Parker has had a long association with writer-director Nadia Tass and they have collaborated on many popular films including "Malcolm". The film is also notable as the last screen credit for veteran actor Frank Thring (who performed the voice of Zeus) and there are also cameo appearances by Australian film critics Margaret Pomeranz and Ivan Hutchinson. Ironically, the 'real' stars of the film, Mangan and Patience, do not appear on screen and their voice-overs are in fact mimed by Argue, Spence and Coustas. Box office. "Hercules Returns" grossed $318,788 at the box office in Australia. Reception. While the Rotten Tomatoes approval rating is currently N/A, "Hercules Returns" received positive reviews from critics and audiences alike.
1165472	Gail Davis (October 5, 1925 – March 15, 1997) was an American actress, best known for her starring role as Annie Oakley in the 1950s television Western series "Annie Oakley". Life and career. The daughter of a small town physician, she was born as Betty Jeanne Grayson in a hospital at Little Rock, but was raised in McGehee, Arkansas, until her family moved to Little Rock. She had been singing and dancing since childhood. After graduating from Little Rock High School, she studied at the Harcum Junior College for Girls in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, before completing her education at the University of Texas at Austin. At Austin she met and married her first husband, Bob Davis, with whom she had a daughter, Terrie. She and her husband moved to Hollywood to pursue a career in motion pictures. Mrs. Davis told an interviewer how she acquired her professional acting name. "I went under contract to MGM around 1946. They told me 'we can't have a Betty Davis, because of Bette Davis, and we can't have a Betty Grayson because of Kathryn Grayson'... Then a guy in the casting department said 'how about Gail Davis?' So that's where it came from."
53881	Walter Flanagan (born October 23, 1967) is a comic book store manager, reality television personality, podcaster, comic book artist, actor and songwriter. Flanagan is a long-time friend of Kevin Smith, and (according to Smith's book "Silent Bob Speaks") it was Flanagan who had turned Smith onto comic books. He currently manages Jay and Silent Bob's Secret Stash in Red Bank, New Jersey. Flanagan was born in Perth Amboy, New Jersey and attended Henry Hudson Regional High School with Smith. Flanagan is co-host of the "Tell 'Em Steve-Dave!" podcast with longtime friends Bryan Johnson and Brian Quinn. Flanagan is also the lead star in AMC's "Comic Book Men", which premiered in February 2012. Career. Film. According to the "Mallrats" commentary, Smith cites Flanagan as being the influence for the Brodie character, down to the Dixie Cup full of soda that the character carries with him everywhere as well as his October birth date. Flanagan also originated the character of Olaf, seen in "Clerks" as Silent Bob's cousin from Russia. In Smith's 1994 debut movie, "Clerks", Flanagan was credited with four different roles (which made Kevin Smith, on the "Clerks" commentary, refer to Flanagan as "The Lon Chaney, Sr. of the 90's"). Among these were the egg-obsessed guidance counselor, the cigarette protester who bought the cigarettes immediately after the protest, the customer offended by the lewd "jizz mopper" discussion, and the customer to whom Randal said the resident cat's name was "Annoying Customer." He also designed the clown animation that made up the View Askew logo, and appeared in the Soul Asylum video for "Can't Even Tell", directed by Kevin Smith. In Smith's 1995 "Mallrats", Flanagan played the recurring role of Walt Grover the Fanboy, who is accompanied by his friend Steve-Dave (Bryan Johnson), with whom Walt offers constant assent with his trademark phrase, "Tell 'em, Steve-Dave!" He also appears in an uncredited role as one of Mr. Svenning's (Michael Rooker) assistants who places a podium in the wrong place on a stage, is seen at a table under which Jay and Bob hide from the mall security guard LaFours, and greets Brodie at the swap meet. Flanagan was also given a credit for being a set production assistant on the film. Flanagan and Johnson reappear as Walt Grover the Fanboy and Steve-Dave in a deleted scene in Smith's 1997 romantic drama "Chasing Amy". His dog is yet again mentioned in one of the "Bluntman and Chronic" pages during the opening. In another deleted scene, Banky (Jason Lee), and Holden (Ben Affleck) toss a trash can through the window of Steve-Dave's comic store, in retaliation for the harsh criticism Steve-Dave and Walt gave "Bluntman and Chronic".
583520	Apne ('Ours') is a 2007 Bollywood sports drama film directed by Anil Sharma. This is the first and one of the three films to feature real life father and sons Dharmendra, Sunny Deol and Bobby Deol together. Sunny and Bobby had worked together before in "Dillagi" and Dharmendra and Sunny had also appeared together in "Sultanat" (1986) and "Kshatrya" (1993). Kiron Kher, Shilpa Shetty and Katrina Kaif play the female leads. The film opened to an excellent response across India and emerged as a hit overseas as well Plot. An ex-boxer Baldev Choudhary (Dharmendra) has had a stain in his boxing career. He wanted to wash it with his son Angad's (Sunny Deol) success, but times were hard and a financial crunch kept him from achieving this dream. Though Angad pulled through fine, Baldev never forgot who ruined his chance to wash the stain. An opportunity strikes Baldev in the form of a T.V. Show. He trains a local boy to get into this media hyped boxing show, but is ditched for a better coach at the last minute. Baldev's younger son Karan (Bobby Deol) has just launched his first music album. Realizing his father is in crises of his life, he gives up his dream of a musical career to get into the game of boxing. Karan wins all through thinking that his victory will bring the two pillars of his family together. After winning within the nation, he wins all over the world. The final match is with the current world heavy champion. The match goes fine, but Karan is tricked and he ends up paralysed in a hospital bed. Baldev, who wanted to wash a stigma is now about to lose his son. He feels like killing himself. When Karan reveals the world heavy champion cheated, Angad decides to get into the game of boxing once more and win the title for his father.Angad steps in and brings the world heavyweight champion belt to India. On the other hand, Karan suffers liver damage and requires a liver to survive. Baldev pleads with the doctors to use his liver, but the doctors reject the idea. However, the operation continues as God hears Baldev's call – a liver is donated to Karan through an unknown donor. In the end, Baldev who was going to give up his life for Karan, is instead alive and happy with his family. Response. Box office. "Apne" opened to a very good response throughout the country especially in the Northern territories most notably Punjab where it had a mammoth opening becoming a gigantic blockbuster in the long run. The rest of the country saw a good opening for Apne. The Gross Collection of Apne was Rs. .
1016460	Treasure Inn is a 2011 Hong Kong "wuxia" comedy film directed by Wong Jing and Corey Yuen, starring Nicholas Tse, Nick Cheung, Charlene Choi, Liu Yang, Tong Dawei and Huang Yi. Plot. Master Kung and Lo Pa are two police officers of White Horse City, who have high skills but are underused. A robbery happened at the city's richest man Ho Pak Man's home where his whole family was killed and their family treasure the "White Jade Goddess of Mercy" was stolen and the "Police God" Tit Mo Ching investigates the case. Kung and Lo Pa cannot participate because of their low status. Coincidentally, Master Kung and Lo Pa arrest a pair of twin sisters, Water Dragon Girl and Fire Dragon Girl, who always pretend to catch wanted criminals to get monetary rewards. The twin sisters know that the "White Jade Goddess of Mercy" would be brought to the "Treasure Inn" for an auction. Wanting to hit big, Master Kung and Lo Pa go to the "Treasure Inn" with the twin sisters to investigate the truth. During that time, Master Kung and Water Dragon Girl become lovers from a kiss. Release. The film was released on 23 June 2011 in Hong Kong. Reception. Critical Reception. Loong Wai Ting of The Malay Mail gave the film a mediocre review, described the film as "by far one of his Wong Jing better films and one can't help but to feel entertained by the movie" but "there is certainly no treasure". AsiaOne gave "Treasure Inn" a rating of 3.5 stars out of 5. Box office. The Treasure Inn has been a box office success, grossing RMB81.4 final income of billions of dollars yuan at the box office million ($ 12.6 million)as of 12 July 2011.
1055731	Trapped in Paradise is a 1994 Christmas-themed crime comedy film written and directed by George Gallo, and starring Nicolas Cage, Jon Lovitz, and Dana Carvey. Plot. At Christmas time, Bill Firpo (Nicolas Cage), a straight-laced New York restaurant manager, gets an unpleasant Christmas gift. His brothers Dave (Jon Lovitz) and Alvin (Dana Carvey) are paroled early due to overcrowding and placed in Bill's custody. Dave and Alvin ask their brother to take them to Paradise, Pennsylvania to do a favor for a fellow inmate of theirs. Bill refuses because one, his brothers are not allowed out of New York State and two, he knows Dave's pathological tendencies. He only agrees after getting tied to a robbery their brothers made via his dropped wallet. When they discover Paradise's bank is light on security, Bill feels the urge to rob it if he had a gun. Fortunately, there are guns in the Infiniti sedan Dave and Alvin borrowed. With Alvin driving a stolen decrepit car, Bill and Dave storm the bank. The wife of the bank's president (Angela Paton) tells them that the bank safe door is locked and the president, Mr. Clifford Anderson (Donald Moffat), who has the key, is having lunch in the restaurant nearby. While Dave stays in the bank doing yoga breathing with the hostages, Alvin and Bill charge into the restaurant and call in a robbery. They order all customers to come with Bill to the bank so that no one calls the police when they go. Mr. Anderson opens the safe's door and Bill checks for motion sensors via a perfume spray. He steps over the sensors, gets the money, but while getting out of the safe, he touches the sensors via one of the money bags. Bill and Dave rush out of the bank and get away with their crime, stealing $275,000. While trying to get out of town with their car and stolen money, Alvin, who's driving, gets them lost. A police car turns on the sirens and they try to evade getting caught. Because of slick roads, the Infiniti drifts over a bridge and gets wrecked. The police officer does not see them crash and drives past the bridge, but another car stops and offers them a ride. Due to the interstates being closed, the man takes them to his relatives to stay over for Christmas. Upon arriving at the house, they find out it is the house of the bank president Mr. Anderson. However, the relatives don't recognize them because they were covering their faces with ski masks while robbing the bank.
1051891	Fanfan la Tulipe is a 1952 French comedy adventure film directed by Christian-Jaque. It has also been categorized under swashbuckler films. The film starred Gérard Philipe and Gina Lollobrigida. The film was remade in 2003 with Penélope Cruz in Lollobrigida's role. Plot summary. The film is set in France during the Seven Years' War. As the film begins, Fanfan (Gérard Philipe) is a charming, attractive young man who is trying to escape a shotgun marriage. At this vulnerable point in his life, he is approached by the daughter of a recruiting officer, Adeline (played by Gina Lollobrigida), who tells him that if he joins the army, he will find fame, fortune, and will marry the king's daughter. Accordingly he joins the army, only to discover that she made the whole thing up in order for her father to get a recruiting bonus. Nevertheless, encouraged by a series of improbable circumstances, he accepts her prediction as his destiny. A series of events ensues which shows off to great advantage his athleticism and leadership ability. As the film progresses, we become aware of a developing attraction between himself and Adeline which however conflicts with his perceived “destiny” of marrying a king's daughter. Production. The film was photographed in black-and-white by Christian Matras. A colorized version was created (supervised by Sophie Juin for Les Films Ariane) and issued in 2000 on DVD in Europe alongside the original version.
1061096	The Verdict is a 1982 courtroom drama film which tells the story of a down-on-his-luck alcoholic lawyer who pushes a medical malpractice case in order to improve his own situation, but discovers along the way that he is doing the right thing. Since the lawsuit involves a woman in a persistent vegetative state, the movie is cast in the shadow of the Karen Ann Quinlan case. The movie stars Paul Newman, Charlotte Rampling, Jack Warden, James Mason, Milo O'Shea, and Lindsay Crouse. Directed by Sidney Lumet, the film was adapted by David Mamet from the novel by Barry Reed and is not a remake of the 1946 film of the same name.
684981	Let the Game Begin is a 2010 American film romantic comedy from Twisted Light Productions, directed by Amit Gupta. The film stars "" actor Adam Rodriguez and Stephen Baldwin. The film was released in Australia on May 5, 2010, and will be released in other countries in 2010 and 2011. Development. The film was cast in Los Angeles and Quebec in 2008. The script was written by the director and producer Amit Gupta, and after a year of writing the script, the film started production in early 2008. Filming was done in 2008 and picked up again in February 2010 to finish last scenes needed by the distribution company. Filming was done in Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Montreal, and Philadelphia. International release was in April 2010. U.S and Canada release is expected in 2011.
501324	Lenny Venito is an American actor, who has made appearances in movies such as "Gigli", "Men in Black II", and "War of the Worlds". Starting in 2006, Venito has been featured in "The Sopranos" as the character nicknamed "Murmur," who helped shake down actor Ben Kingsley (playing himself) and violently mug actress Lauren Bacall (also playing herself). He also appeared as John, an incompetent mugger, in two episodes (Mugged and Wingmen) of another HBO Series, "Flight of the Conchords". He has also appeared in American sitcom "Ugly Betty", as well as two episodes of Bored to Death as a NYPD mounted police officer. Lenny played in the 2008 Celebrity Poker Invitational and was the first person eliminated on the very first hand when his pocket kings were beat by pocket aces. A consummate character actor, Venito appeared in five episodes of "NYPD Blue," most notably as the snitch with a heart of gold, Julian Pisano, a role he reprised in Blind Justice. In January 2007, Venito starred in the short-lived ABC sitcom "The Knights of Prosperity" as "Squatch". In September 2012 Venito began starring as Marty Weaver in the ABC comedy The Neighbors.
584433	Naam Iruvar Namakku Iruvar (Tamil:நாம் இருவர் நமக்கு இருவர்) (English: We Two, Ours Two) is a 1998 Tamil film directed by Sundar C. Prabhu Deva and Meena played the leading roles, whilst the film featured an extensive cast, along with a bevy of supporting actors. The film released on 14 January 1998 and became a big success at the box office. The film was loosely based on the 1995 Hollywood movie "Two Much". Plot. The film is about Prabhu (Prabhu Deva) and Mani (Manivannan) who earn money through dubious means to support a few orphaned children. They steal a diamond but while escaping, Mani stuffs the diamond into a toy sitting in a car. Chasing the toy takes them to the house of K.D.Chandrasekhar (S. S. Chandran), a rich man in Ooty and with Mani posing as the longlost husband of KD's sister, they enter the household. Pooja (Maheshwari), KD's daughter, falls in love with Prabhu but just as he is being engaged to her, he finds out that her sister Indu (Meena) is the woman of his dreams, the woman he had lost his heart to after seeing her for a few minutes in Coimbatore. Meena bared fully So, he takes off his beard to assume a new identity as Deva, Prabhu's brother and proceeds to woo Indu. Soundtrack. The soundtrack album consists of 6 songs composed by Karthik Raja. Tracklist Production. Prabhudeva, Maheshwari and the entire crew including Sundar C. had landed in South Africa. Rambha had not boarded the plane with them as planned. "Na.Ir.Na.Ir" unit became nervous, not knowing what to do, as the shooting time and spot that they had reserved in Sun City was going to waste. After waiting for a long time, they went ahead and had Maheshwari put on Rambha's costumes and picturized the song with her and Prabhudeva. Rambha, who arrived two days later, got wild and furious that Sundar and company would picturize the song without her. She immediately placed a call to the Rajkamal office in Chennai and asked them to book a ticket on one of the first flights out of South Africa to India. Rambha went back to Chennai almost three days before the "Na.Ir.Na.Ir" unit and got ready to dance for "Kaathala Kaathala" instead. Sundar and others who were angry and disappointed with Rambha's behavior filed a complaint with the Film Chamber. Meanwhile, more developments came about once Rambha was kicked out of the film. It appeared that Sundar's dearest, Kushboo had strongly thrown in a recommendation for Simran and Nagma to grab the role that Rambha had trashed, but Meena entered the picture from somewhere, all of a sudden. The fact is that Meena gave up her "Kaathala Kaathala" role for Rambha and Soundarya, while Rambha gave up her "Naam Iruvar Namakku Iruvar" role for Meena. On a side note to the entire matter, Simran has now declared that she gave up her chances to star in "Kaathala Kaathala" and "Naam Iruvar Namakku Iruvar", because she did not want to pack herself with call sheet troubles and not be able to act in that she had already committed to.
1164269	Connie Stevens (born August 8, 1938) is an American actress and singer, better known for her roles in the television series "Hawaiian Eye" and other TV and film work. Early life. She was born Concetta Rosalie Ann Ingoglia in Brooklyn, New York, the daughter of Peter Ingoglia (known as musician Teddy Stevens) and singer Eleanor McGinley. She adopted her father's stage name of Stevens as her own. Her parents were divorced and she lived with grandparents. and attended Catholic boarding schools. Actor John Megna was her half-brother. At the age of twelve, she witnessed a murder in Brooklyn and was sent to live in Boonville, Missouri, with family friends. Coming from a musical family, she joined the singing group called The Fourmost, in which the other three vocalists (Tony Butala, Jim Pike, and Gary Pike) — all males — went on to fame as The Lettermen. In 1953, Stevens moved to Los Angeles with her father. When she was 16, she replaced the alto in a singing group, The Three Debs. She enrolled at a professional school (The Georgia Massey Professional School in the San Fernando Valley), sang professionally and appeared in local repertory theater. Career. Stevens started working as a movie extra. After she'd appeared in four B movies, Jerry Lewis saw her in "Dragstrip Riot" and cast her in "Rock-A-Bye Baby". Soon after that, she signed a contract with Warner Brothers. She played 'Cricket Blake' in the popular television detective series "Hawaiian Eye" from 1959 to 1962, a role that made her famous; her principal costar was Robert Conrad. In a televised interview on August 26, 2003, on CNN's "Larry King Live", Stevens recounted that while on the set of "Hawaiian Eye" she was told she had a telephone call from Elvis Presley. "She didn't believe it, but in fact it was Elvis, who invited her to a party and said that he would come to her house and pick her up personally"; they subsequently dated. Her first album was titled "Concetta" (1958). She had minor single hits with the standards "Blame It On My Youth" (music by Oscar Levant and lyrics by Edward Heyman), "Looking For A Boy" (music by George Gershwin and lyrics by Ira Gershwin), and "Spring Is Here" (music by Richard Rodgers and lyrics by Lorenz Hart). She appeared opposite James Garner in a comedy episode of the TV Western series "Maverick" entitled "Two Tickets to Ten Strike," and after making several appearances on the Warner Bros. hit TV series "77 Sunset Strip", she recorded the hit novelty song "Kookie, Kookie, Lend Me Your Comb" (1959), a duet with one of the stars of the program, Edd Byrnes, that reached #4 on the Billboard Hot 100. She and Byrnes also appeared together on ABC's "The Pat Boone Chevy Showroom". Stevens also had hit singles as a solo artist with "Sixteen Reasons" (1960), her biggest hit, reaching #3 on the Billboard Hot 100, and a minor #71 hit "Too Young to Go Steady" (1960) (music by Jimmy McHugh and lyrics by Harold Adamson). Other single releases were "Why'd You Wanna Make Me Cry?", "Mr. Songwriter", and "Now That You've Gone". She later starred as Wendy Conway in the television sitcom "Wendy and Me" (1964–1965) with George Burns, who also produced the show and played an older man who watched Wendy's exploits upstairs on the TV in his apartment, periodically commenting to the viewers about what he saw. Her other "Wendy and Me" costars were Ron Harper, James T. Callahan and character actor J. Pat O'Malley. She starred in the Broadway production of Neil Simon's "The Star-Spangled Girl" with Anthony Perkins in 1966. She appeared in stage productions in summer stock, including "The Wizard of Oz", Carousel Theatre, California and "Any Wednesday", Melodyland, Anaheim, California. In the 1970s Stevens started singing the "Ace Is The Place" theme song on Ace Hardware TV commercials in Southern California, and was a guest on "The Dean Martin Celebrity Roast" a few times. Her risque 1976 action movie "Scorchy" has never been released on DVD. In the spring of
584006	Manmadan Ambu ("Cupid's Arrow") is a 2010 Indian Tamil romantic comedy film directed by K. S. Ravikumar. Written by Kamal Haasan, it stars himself alongside R. Madhavan and Trisha Krishnan in the lead roles, while featuring Ramesh Arvind, Sangeetha, Manju Pillai and Urvashi among others in supporting roles. The film features music composed by Devi Sri Prasad, with several songs written and sung by Kamal Haasan himself, while Manush Nandan and Shan Mohammed made their debut as cinematographer and editor. After significant pre-production which included rehearsals of the entire script before filming, the film was extensively shot across Europe and on a cruise ship, whilst scenes were also canned across Chennai and Kodaikanal. It was produced by Udhayanidhi Stalin, "Manmadan Ambu" released worldwide on 23 December 2010. It was dubbed into Telugu as "Manmadha Banam" and distributed by Gemini Film Circuit. Upon release, the film opened to mixed reviews and had an average run at the box office. Plot. Ambujakshi alias "Ambu" (Trisha), a film actress, arrives in Europe to spend the vacations with her friend Deepa (Sangeetha), a divorcee and her two children. While going in a taxi, Ambu recalls an early incident regarding her ex-boyfriend Madanagopal alias Madan (Madhavan), a wealthy entrepreneur: Three years ago, she was shooting for a film with actor Surya in a bright park and Madan was suspicious of her relationship with the actor. While returning, he however let Ambu drive his car. Madan advised Ambu to stop acting, but Ambu claimed it as her profession which she can't give up, leading to an argument that caused the car to crash near a rock. At the same time they blamed a small white car that just passed by, to be the reason for the crash. Unable to bear any more arguments, Ambu broke her relationship with Madan and walked away. Madan now suspects that Ambu may be having a relationship with her colleagues in the film industry. To end that, he hires detective Major Raja Mannar (Kamal Haasan) to follow her when she goes on a cruise for vacation in Barcelona. Mannar accepts, as he needs money to pay the hospital bills of his friend Rajan (Ramesh Arvind), who is afflicted with cancer, and his wife Mallika (Urvashi). Contrary to Madan's suspicions, Ambu is loyal and virtuous; when Mannar reports this, Madan refuses to pay him as his suspicions were unfounded. Disappointed, Mannar to save his dying friend Rajan fabricates a story and tells Madan that she is having a secret affair during her trip. In the process, he introduces himself as a tourist to Ambu, Deepa and Deepa's children, and becomes close to the group. While getting closer to Ambu, Mannar says to Madhan that Ambu is good but the other guy is bad, but Madhan does not want to hear that and eventually breaks up with Ambu. While recollecting his past as an Army officer, Mannar reveals that he lost his wife three years ago in a car accident. Ambujakshi realises to her horror that the accident was caused by herself during the argument with Madan. Both of them decide to confront each other with the truth, but Ambu misunderstands Kurup (Kunchan) as Madhan's detective and slaps him and tells that she loves Mannar. Meanwhile Rajan should undergo an operation immediately after the chemotherapy to keep him alive. To make things worse Madan announces that he will visit them in person at Venice. Ultimately, Mannar and Deepa stage a plan with the help of Kurup to deceive Madhan for the final break-up with Ambu. Madhan arrives at the place and various mix-ups and misunderstandings take place among the characters. Finally, Madhan realises that Ambu has fallen in love with Mannar and accepts it with a heavy heart. At the same time, Rajan recovers from cancer. The film ends as everyone returns to India on the cruise, with Madhan and Deepa starting a relationship. Production. After "Unnaipol Oruvan", Kamal Haasan opted against reviving his home production "Marmayogi", and signed on for a film produced by Udhayanidhi Stalin. While the film went through months of pre-production, Trisha Krishnan, in December 2009, and then R. Madhavan, in February 2010, were added to the project, with K. S. Ravikumar being chosen as the director. Though early indications suggested the film would be titled "Yaavarum Kaelir" or "Karunyam", the launch ceremony of the film, held on 3 June 2010, confirmed the title as "Manmadan Ambu". During the launch, Kamal Haasan said that prior to the shoot rehearsals were performed. Haasan, along with Crazy Mohan, wrote the film's screenplay and dialogues. Shoots were subsequently held aboard on a cruise liner from Dubai, and the film was shot across various regions of Europe including Paris and Marseille in France, Barcelona in Spain and Rome and Venice in Italy. Parts of the film were also shot in Kodaikanal in South India; remaining portions were completed in Chennai. Release. Reception. "Manmadhan Ambu" received mixed reviews from critics. "Behindwoods" gave 2.5 out of 5 and stated "Overall, "Manmadhan Ambu" is an entertainer but in parts", while "Sify" wrote ""Manmadhan Ambu" does impress but it lacks the punch to captivate the audiences". Rediff gave 3 out of 5, claiming that ""Manmadhan Ambu" defies characterization as either a romantic film or a comedy, largely because the two don't mix." "Indiaglitz" said, ""Manmadhan Ambu" may not be a "Panchathanthiram" or "Dasavatharam", but a perfect holiday entertainer with Kamal stamp all over it." Malathi Rangarajan of "The Hindu" stated that, "Sprinkled with humour, joy, love, sadness and sentiment with an undercurrent of jealousy running through it, MMA ["Manmadhan Ambu"] is a cocktail of emotions – tasty, but at times queer!" NDTV resident editor T.S. Sudhir wrote, "Don't go expecting a "Panchatantiram" from the Kamal-KS Ravikumar combo, for you will be disappointed. MMA has starting trouble and one hour into the film, you are desperately waiting for the comic fireworks to start, given that the film has been marketed as a laugh riot. The riot, when it happens post the interval, leaves you with a feeling of being shortchanged." He further mentioned, "The problem with MMA is as much with Kamal as with the audience for you expect nothing short of brilliance from this Master of all trades. In MMA, Kamal has shot the Cupid's arrow (which is what Manmadhan Ambu means) rather lazily. Go without expecting a world record in archery!" The Telugu dub version of the film, "Manmadha Baanam" also opened to mixed reviews from critics. Jeevi from "Idlebrain" gave the film 3 out of 5 rating and stated "The comedy in this film is predictable at times and fresh in certain scenes. The plus points of the movie are main leads and comedy quotient. On the flipside, the characters and narration becomes confusing towards end and the editing should have been smoother. On a whole, "Manmadha Banam" is a decent comedy." Reviewer from "123 Telugu" also gave the film 3 out of 5 and said ""Manmadha Banam" is an interesting movie. It has flaws, but its good parts outweigh them by far." Deepa Garimella from "Full Hyderabad" gave the film 7 out of 10 rating and stated that "While the movie is immensely enjoyable, thanks to the well-conceptualized scenes and the stellar performances all round, it is slow. So slow, in fact, that it feels like 2 movies – pre-interval being a drama and post-interval a comedy." and she also praised the performances of the actors. Y. Sunita Chowdary from "Cinegoer" said ""Manmadha Banam" does have a plot but the character development, narration and the pace makes it a very restless and a tedious watch." and was critical about the dubbing. She finally concluded by stating that "The film could have drawn a little wider audience than the filmmakers intended, if the length would have been a half an hour shorter." Box office. "Manmadhan Ambu" in Chennai alone over a period of 4 weeks. In UK, it grossed $77,360 and in Malaysia $653,942. Sify declared the film as "average". Soundtrack. The film's music was scored by Devi Sri Prasad, after initially Shruti Hassan and later Thaman were reported to be the music composer. The controversial song "Kamal Kavidhai", had come under criticism due to lines about a woman's desire and for references to Hindu deities like Aranganathar and Sri Varalakshmi. Therefore, producer Udhayanidhi Stalin opted to remove it from the film. Critical response. The album received average reviews from music critics. C. Karthik from Behindwoods rated the album 3/5 and quoted "Overall, DSP can be very proud of this album as he has deviated from his normal offerings. A westernised folk song, jazz, melodies, a poem and a kuthu...an album could not ask for more variety and DSP has delivered. Though the music gets a little heavy at times, he has Kamal, with his voice and lyrics, to save him. The new experiments shows his maturity and his intention for being innovative. With the movie's release soon, the songs must be playing non-stop on air." Pavithra Srinivasan of Rediff also gave the album 3/5 saying that "DSP has a reputation for sticking with his regulation format of tunes and here too, you can see it pop up at certain places but there's also a departure from the usual, mostly an influence of Haasan in both lyrics and music. Whatever the reason, the end result is an album that provides you a treat. Go for it." Indiaglitz said "Overall, this film must have been a different experience for DSP who all along dwelled in fast rhythmic world. The whole album has an up market western jazz feel except for that one song. For a story that happens in Europe, DSP has done it right, we guess." Controversies. Though the Censor Board of India cleared the song "Kamal Kavidhai" penned by Kamal himself, it courted controversy after right wing groups protested against the lyrics of song as obscene. However the song made in to the movie but a short version with modified lyrics played in the background with the end credits. There have also been several discussions as to how the picturisation of "Neela Vaanam" (sung by Kamal Haasan himself) has been slightly inspired from official video of Coldplay's The Scientist. The whole song has been depicted in such a way so as to highlight the events that led to the death of Mannar's (Kamal's character) French wife Juliet, in reverse.
573293	Merrily We Live (1938 in film) is a comedy film directed by Norman Z. McLeod, starring Constance Bennett and Brian Aherne and featuring Ann Dvorak, Bonita Granville, Billie Burke, Tom Brown, Alan Mowbray, Clarence Kolb and Patsy Kelly. The film was produced by Hal Roach for Hal Roach Studios, and was released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. The screenplay is by Eddie Moran and Jack Jevne. The film is considered to have set the standard for later family comedy films and TV sitcoms. A number of critics have erroneously claimed that the film is based on the 1936 film "My Man Godfrey" when in fact it is a reworking of the 1930 movie "What a Man (1930 film)", based on the 1924 novel "The Dark Chapter; a Comedy of Class Distinctions" by E. J. Rath and its 1926 Broadway adaptation "They All Want Something" by Courtenay Savage. In the movie, the lines "What a family!" said twice seems to indicate the screenwriters acknowledgment of the earlier movie "What a Man". "Merrily We Live" was extremely successful and garnered five Academy Award nominations. Plot. Butler Grosvenor (Mowbray) discovers at breakfast that the family silver has been stolen by the latest tramp, Ambrose, whom Emily Kilbourne (Burke) had taken under her wing as the chauffeur, in her latest attempt to reform fallen and destitute men, much to the exasperation of the rest of the family. A distressed Emily swears off taking in any more tramps to the delight of the rest of the family. However, later in the morning, a new dusty tramp Wade Rawlins (Aherne) appears at the doorstep and is immediately adopted by Emily Kilbourne, despite the rude efforts of Grosvenor and Emily's daughters Geraldine "Jerry" (Bennett) and Marion (Granville). Further attempts to convince Mrs. Kilborne to get rid of this latest tramp are blissfully ignored.
1104507	Edward Frenkel is a mathematician working in representation theory, algebraic geometry, and mathematical physics. He is Professor of Mathematics at University of California, Berkeley. Biography. Frenkel grew up in Kolomna, Russia. As a high school student he studied higher mathematics privately with Evgeny Evgenievich Petrov, although his initial interest was in quantum physics rather than mathematics. He was not admitted to Moscow State University because of discrimination against Jews and enrolled instead in the Applied Mathematics program at the Gubkin University of Oil and Gas. While a student there, he attended the seminar of Israel Gelfand and worked with Boris Feigin and Dmitry Fuchs. After receiving his college degree in 1989, he was first invited to Harvard University as a Visiting Professor, and a year later he enrolled as a graduate student at Harvard. He received his Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1991, after one year of study, under the direction of Joseph Bernstein. He was a Junior Fellow at the Harvard Society of Fellows from 1991 to 1994, and served as Associate Professor at Harvard from 1994 to 1997. He has been Professor of Mathematics at University of California, Berkeley since 1997. Mathematical work. Jointly with Boris Feigin, Frenkel constructed the free field realizations of affine Kac-Moody algebras (these are also known as Wakimoto modules), defined the quantum Drinfeld-Sokolov reduction, and described the center of the universal enveloping algebra of an affine Kac-Moody algebra. The last result, often referred to as Feigin–Frenkel isomorphism, has been used by Alexander Beilinson and Vladimir Drinfeld in their work on the Geometric Langlands correspondence. Together with Nicolai Reshetikhin, Frenkel introduced deformations of W-algebras and q-characters of representations of quantum affine algebras. Frenkel's recent work has focused on the Langlands program and its connections to representation theory, integrable systems, geometry, and physics. Together with Dennis Gaitsgory and Kari Vilonen, he has proved the geometric Langlands conjecture for GL(n). His joint work with Robert Langlands and Ngô Bảo Châu suggested a new approach to the functoriality of automorphic representations and trace formulas. He has also been investigating (in particular, in a joint work with Edward Witten) connections between the Geometric Langlands correspondence and dualities in quantum field theory. Awards. Frenkel was the first recipient of the Hermann Weyl Prize in 2002. Among his other awards are Packard Fellowship in Science and Engineering and Chaire d'Excellence from Fondation Sciences mathématiques de Paris. Filmmaking. Frenkel has co-produced, co-directed (with Reine Graves) and played the lead in a short film "Rites of Love and Math", a homage to the film "Rite of Love and Death" (also known as "Yûkoku") by the Japanese writer Yukio Mishima. The film premiered in Paris in April, 2010 and was in the official competition of the Sitges International Film Festival in October, 2010. The screening of "Rites of Love and Math" in Berkeley on December 1, 2010 caused some controversy. He has also written (with Thomas Farber) a screenplay "The Two-Body Problem".
629387	The Dish is a 2000 Australian film that tells a somewhat fictionalized story of the Parkes Observatory's role in relaying live television of man's first steps on the moon during the "Apollo 11" mission in 1969. It was the top grossing film in Australia in 2000. Plot. The radio telescope at Parkes, New South Wales, Australia, was used by NASA throughout the Apollo program to receive signals in the Southern Hemisphere, along with the NASA Honeysuckle Creek Tracking Station near Canberra. The film tells a somewhat fictionalised story of three Australian scientists/engineers (Neill, Harrington, Long) and their American NASA representative (Warburton). It had been decided quite late in the planning for Apollo 11 to include a television camera to broadcast the first steps on the Moon. Due to the timing of this, Australia would be the prime receiving station. The film tells of the three dealing with a variety of problems, from a power outage wiping their computer memory, to high winds that could cause the whole telescope to collapse. After the "Apollo 11" crew decide to walk immediately after landing on the Moon, Parkes thinks they have lost their chance to be the prime receiving station. However, due to delays on the Moon and problems with Goldstone they achieve the distinction at the last minute. Production. Although based on true events, the film uses fictional characters and alters historical details for dramatic effect. NASA's Honeysuckle Creek and Goldstone stations both had the signal first, but Parkes' signal was used from soon after the beginning of the moon-walk. No power failure occurred, there was no friction with the NASA representatives (of whom there were several, not just one), and Prime Minister John Gorton visited Honeysuckle Creek, not Parkes. They did however operate in very high winds at 60 degrees inclination, risking damage to the dish and even injury to themselves to keep the antenna pointed at the Moon during the moonwalk. Much of the film was shot on location; the "cricket match" and "hayride" scenes were shot on the real dish and researchers often postponed experiments to position the dish for photography. The set reconstructing the 1969 control room was extremely accurate, even down to small details like ashtrays. Some of the "props" were in fact original NASA equipment used during the "Apollo 11" landing, left behind in Australia as they were too heavy to ship back. Staff from that era expressed amazement at seeing the set; they said it was like walking into a time warp. "The Dish" was written by Santo Cilauro, Tom Gleisner, Jane Kennedy and Rob Sitch and directed by Sitch. Apart from the radio telescope scenes, the majority of the movie was actually filmed in the small town of Forbes 33 km south of Parkes because of its old historic buildings, and also in Old Parliament House in Canberra, and Crawford Studios in Melbourne. Box office. "The Dish" grossed $17,999,473 at the box office in Australia.
1104001	Vladimir Igorevich Arnold (alternative spelling Arnol'd, , 12 June 1937 – 3 June 2010) was a Soviet and Russian mathematician. While he is best known for the Kolmogorov–Arnold–Moser theorem regarding the stability of integrable systems, he made important contributions in several areas including dynamical systems theory, catastrophe theory, topology, algebraic geometry, classical mechanics and singularity theory, including posing the ADE classification problem, since his first main result—the partial solution of Hilbert's thirteenth problem in 1957 at the age of 19. Biography. While a student of Andrey Kolmogorov at Moscow State University and still a teenager, Arnold showed in 1957 that any continuous function of several variables can be constructed with a finite number of two-variable functions, thereby partially solving Hilbert's thirteenth problem. After graduating from Moscow State University in 1959, he worked there until 1986 (a professor since 1965), and then at Steklov Mathematical Institute. He became an academician of the Academy of Sciences of the Soviet Union (Russian Academy of Science since 1991) in 1990. Arnold can be said to have initiated the theory of symplectic topology as a distinct discipline. The Arnold conjecture on the number of fixed points of Hamiltonian symplectomorphisms and Lagrangian intersections were also a major motivation in the development of Floer homology. Arnold worked at the Steklov Mathematical Institute in Moscow and at Paris Dauphine University up until his death. he was reported to have the highest citation index among Russian scientists, and h-index of 40. To his students and colleagues Arnold was known also for his sense of humour. For example, once at his seminar in Moscow, at the beginning of the school year, when he usually was formulating new problems, he said: "There is a general principle that a stupid man can ask such questions to which one hundred wise men would not be able to answer. In accordance with this principle I shall formulate some problems." Arnold died of acute pancreatitis on 3 June 2010 in Paris, nine days before his 73rd birthday. His students include Alexander Givental, Victor Vassiliev and Askold Khovanskii. He was buried on June 15 in Moscow, at Novodevichy Monastery. In a telegram to Arnold's family, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev stated: Popular mathematical writings. Arnold is well known for his lucid writing style, combining mathematical rigour with physical intuition, and an easy conversational style of teaching. His writings present a fresh, often geometric approach to traditional mathematical topics like ordinary differential equations, and his many textbooks have proved influential in the development of new areas of mathematics. However, Arnold's books have been criticized for supporting the theory with statements meant to teach an intuitive understanding, without providing the tools necessary to prove these statements. Arnold was an outspoken critic of the trend towards high levels of abstraction in mathematics during the middle of the last century. He had very strong opinions on how this approach—which was most popularly implemented by the Bourbaki school in France—initially had a negative impact on French, and then later other countries', mathematical education. Honours and awards. The minor planet 10031 Vladarnolda was named after him in 1981 by Lyudmila Georgievna Karachkina.
1028968	Jason Austin Wiles (born April 25, 1970) is an American actor known for his role in the TV series "Third Watch". Wiles was born in Kansas City, Missouri, U.S., and raised in Lenexa, Kansas, where he attended Holy Trinity Catholic School. He found employment with the local Park and Rec department, having passed up the opportunity to play college football. In 1990, Wiles began to pursue an interest in film-making, working on the set of the film "Mr. and Mrs. Bridge", filming on location in Kansas City. Not long after, the Stephen King tele-movie, "Sometimes They Come Back", came to town and he worked on the crew as well as appearing in scenes as an extra. After forming some connections while working on these films, Wiles ventured to Los Angeles where he appeared in commercials before landing the lead in an after-school special. In 1994, he had a part in the Bon Jovi music video "Always". In 1995, Wiles made the first of 32 appearances in "Beverly Hills, 90210" as Colin Robbins, a role which gained him some note in Hollywood. He also appeared in "WindRunner: A Spirited Journey" starring Margot Kidder and Russell Means as Jim Thorpe's ghost. In 1999, Wiles successfully auditioned for the role of Maurice 'Bosco' Boscorelli in the drama "Third Watch"; Wiles appeared in all six seasons of the show from 1999-2005.
392229	Jon-Erik Hexum (November 5, 1957 – October 18, 1984) was an American model and actor. He died as a result of an accidental self-inflicted blank cartridge gunshot wound to the head on the set of the CBS television series "Cover Up" in which he played the male lead. Early life and career. Hexum was born in Englewood, New Jersey, to Gretha and Thorleif Hexum. He and his elder brother, Gunnar, were raised in Tenafly, New Jersey, by their mother after their parents divorced when Hexum was four. After graduating from high school, Hexum went on to Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, in order to study biomedical engineering. He soon left that university, however, and transferred to Michigan State University in East Lansing, Michigan. During that time, he worked as a radio disc jockey, played football, and acted in minor stage roles. Only a few days after graduation, he moved to New York in 1980, in order to pursue his acting career. While working as an apartment cleaner, he met Bob LeMond of LeMond/Zetter Management and the manager of John Travolta. LeMond saw great potential in Hexum. At LeMond's urging, Hexum relocated to Los Angeles in September 1981 in order to audition for a movie called "Summer Lovers," which was to be directed by Randal Kleiser. Though he lost the part to Peter Gallagher, Hexum attracted the notice of Hollywood powerbrokers, and in short time was cast in the lead role of Phineas Bogg in the NBC series "Voyagers!" after playing the character in "Voyager from the Unknown", the pilot for the series. "Voyagers!" aired during the 1982–83 television season, with Hexum's role earning him $10,000 a week. Unable to sustain itself against CBS' newsmagazine, "60 Minutes", "Voyagers!" was canceled after one season. But Hexum's good looks and charm kept him marketable, and soon he was cast opposite Joan Collins in the made-for-television movie "Making of a Male Model", starring also Jeff Conaway and Roxie Roker.
1063694	Taraji Penda Henson (born September 11, 1970) is an American actress and singer. She is known for her roles as Yvette in "Baby Boy" (2001), Shug in "Hustle and Flow" (2005) and Queenie in "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" (2008), for which she was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress in 2009. Since 2011, she has co-starred in the CBS drama "Person of Interest". Early life. Henson was born in southeast Washington, D.C., the daughter of Bernice Gordon, a corporate manager at Woodward & Lothrop, and Boris Henson, a janitor and fabricator. She is a relative of Matthew Henson, discoverer of the Geographic North Pole. Her first and middle name are of Swahili origin, "taraji" meaning hope and "penda" meaning love. Henson spent summers at her grandparents' house in suburban southern Maryland. She attended Oxon Hill High School in Oxon Hill, Maryland. She first attended NC A&T, where she started a major in Electrical Engineering. She later transferred to Howard University. She worked two jobs—in the morning as a secretary at the Pentagon and in the night as a singing and dancing waitress on a dinner cruise ship—The Spirit of Washington—to pay for Howard University. She won the Triple Threat Award and graduated with a degree in Theater Arts. Career. Henson has appeared in the films "Four Brothers" (2005), "Talk To Me" (2007), "Smokin' Aces" (2007), "The Family That Preys" (2008), and "Hurricane Season" (2009). In late 2008, she starred opposite Brad Pitt in "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button." Henson plays the role of Queenie, Benjamin's mother, in a performance which has garnered critical acclaim and an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress. She noted in an interview that, "Queenie is the embodiment of unconditional love." Henson has also been a cast member on several television shows, including Lifetime Television's "The Division" and ABC's "Boston Legal" for one season. Her recurring appearances in television include the character Angela Scott on ABC's "Eli Stone" in December 2008. She has guest-starred on several television shows, such as the WB Television Network's "Smart Guy", playing the role of Monique (1997–98); the Fox series "House" in 2005; and CBS's "" in 2006. She also starred on an episode of "Sister, Sister". In 2011, Henson was cast in the CBS crime-suspense series "Person of Interest". Henson made her singing debut in "Hustle & Flow"; she provided the vocals for the Three 6 Mafia track "It's Hard Out Here for a Pimp". The song won an Academy Award for Best Original Song in 2006, giving Three 6 Mafia the distinction of becoming the first African-American hip-hop act to win in that category. Henson performed the song at the live Oscar ceremony on March 5, 2006 with the group. Additionally, she performed the song "In My Daughter's Eyes" on the 2006 charity album "Unexpected Dreams – Songs From the Stars". Henson has made several appearances in music videos. For example, she starred in the rapper Common's music video called "Testify" in 2005 as the wife of a soon to be convicted murderer. Henson joined PETA in its campaign against the use of animal products in clothing, stating, "I don't think a living being should suffer for the sake of fashion, period. End of story... You don't have to kill an animal just because you want to be hot and fly. And I really stand by that". In January 2011, she appeared nude in an ad for the "I'd Rather Be Naked Than Wear Fur" campaign. In 2012, Henson starred in the large ensemble cast film "Think like a Man," which was based on Steve Harvey's 2009 book "Act like a Lady, Think like a Man." Henson will reprise her role in the film's sequel "Think Like a Man Too," which is set to be released in June 2014. Henson joined PETA again for a 2013 campaign stating "Be an Angel for Animals". In the ad Henson poses with her family dog Uncle Willie while wearing a piece of sheer fabric. The ad highlights the issue that, "Chained dogs suffer day in and day out. They are cold, hungry, thirsty, vulnerable, and lonely. Keep them inside, where it's safe and warm."
1017469	Roy Horan (born January 1, 1950), is a martial artist and actor. Horan is perhaps best known for his role as Lewis in 1981 martial arts film "Game of Death II" and Priest/Russian in 1978 martial arts film "Snake in the Eagle's Shadow". Personal life. Family. Horan was married to Christina Horan on December 20, 1981, they had two children, both daughters. Horan's daughter Celina Jade (Celina Horan) made her film debut in 2008 film "Legendary Assassin" along with Tai Chi Boxer, , Invisible Target and Fatal Contact film star Wu Jing. History and early career. Acting. Horan made his film debut in the 1976 movie "Bruce Lee's Secret" as Charlie. Horan went on to play Tolstoy in the 1977 film "Snuff Bottle Connection", and the Russian priest in the 1978 film "Snake in the Eagle's Shadow" along with Jackie Chan and Hwang Jang Lee. In 1980s, Horan appeared as Lewis in the 1981 film "Game of Death II" along with Tong Lung and Hwang Jang Lee. Horan also directed in the 1981 documentary "Art of High Impact Kicking". Horan played American Consular in 1987 film "No Retreat, No Surrender 2", along with Hwang Jang Lee, Loren Avedon, Matthias Hues, Max Thayer and Cynthia Rothrock, which he also wrote and produced. Final film and retirement from acting. In 1991, Horan retired from acting at the age of 41, after final film "Shanghai 1920". Horan is currently teaching at the University of Hong Kong.
1595904	Reba Nell McEntire (born March 28, 1955) is an American country music artist and actress. She began her career in the music industry as a high school student singing in the Kiowa High School band, on local radio shows with her siblings, and at rodeos. While a sophomore in college, she performed the National Anthem at the National Rodeo in Oklahoma City and caught the attention of country artist Red Steagall. He brought her to Nashville, Tennessee, where she signed a contract with Mercury Records a year later in 1975. She released her first solo album in 1977 and released five additional studio albums under the label until 1983. Signing with MCA Nashville Records, McEntire took creative control over her second MCA album, "My Kind of Country" (1984), which had a more traditional country sound and produced two number one singles: "How Blue" and "Somebody Should Leave". The album brought her breakthrough success, bringing her a series of successful albums and number one singles in the 1980s and 1990s. McEntire has since released 26 studio albums, acquired 40 number one singles, 14 number one albums, and 28 albums have been certified gold, platinum or multi-platinum in sales by the Recording Industry Association of America. She has sometimes been referred to as "The Queen of Country". And she is one of the best-selling artists of all time, having sold more 80 million records worldwide. In the early 1990s, McEntire branched into film starting with 1990's "Tremors." She has since starred in the Broadway revival of "Annie Get Your Gun" and in her television sitcom, "Reba" (2001–2007) for which she was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Performance by an Actress in a Television Series–Musical or Comedy. Early life. Reba Nell McEntire was born on March 28, 1955, in McAlester, Oklahoma, to Jacqueline ("née" Smith; born November 6, 1927) and Clark Vincent McEntire (born November 30, 1927). She was named for her maternal grandmother Reba Brassfield. Her father and grandfather were both champion steer ropers and her father was a World Champion Steer Roper three times (1957, 1958, and 1961). Her mother originally had plans to become a country music artist but decided not to pursue that professionally and worked as a schoolteacher. Instead, McEntire's mother taught her children how to sing. McEntire also taught herself how to play the guitar. On car rides home from her father's rodeo trips, the McEntire siblings were taught songs and learned their own harmonies, eventually forming a vocal group called the "Singing McEntires". Consisting of her brother, Pake, and her younger sister, Susie (her older sister, Alice did not participate), and McEntire played guitar in the group and wrote the all the songs, the group sang at rodeos and recorded "The Ballad of John McEntire" together. Released on an indie label, Boss, the song pressed one thousand copies. In 1974, McEntire attended Southeastern Oklahoma State University and intended on becoming an elementary school teacher (eventually graduating December 16, 1976). While not attending school, she also continued to sing locally. That same year she was also hired to perform the national anthem at the National Rodeo in Oklahoma City. Country artist Red Steagall (who was also performing that day) was impressed by her vocal ability and later agreed to help in making McEntire a country artist in Nashville, Tennessee. After recording a demo tape, she signed a recording contract with Mercury Records in 1975. Music career. 1976–83: Career launch at Mercury. McEntire made her first recordings for Mercury January 22, 1976, when she cut her debut single. Upon its release that year, "I Don't Want to Be a One Night Stand" failed to become a major hit on the "Billboard" country music chart, peaking at No. 88 in May. She completed her second recording session September 16, which included the production of her second single, "(There's Nothing Like The Love) Between a Woman and Man", which only reached No. 86 in March 1977. She recorded a third single that April, "Glad I Waited Just for You", which reached number 88 by August. That same month, Mercury issued her self-titled debut album. The album was a departure from any of McEntire's future releases, as it resembled the material of Tanya Tucker and Tammy Wynette, according to "Allmusic" reviewer Greg Adams. The album itself did not chart the "Billboard" Top Country Albums chart upon its release. After releasing two singles with Jacky Ward ("Three Sheets in the Wind" b/w "I'd Really Love to See You Tonight"; and "That Makes Two of Us" at number 20 and number 26, respectively), Mercury issued her second studio album in 1979, "Out of a Dream." The album's cover of Patsy Cline's "Sweet Dreams" became McEntire's first Top 20 hit, reaching No. 19 on the "Billboard" country chart in November 1979. In 1976 she made two albums listed under the genre of 'urban cowboy' instead of 'country.' In 1980, "You Lift Me Up (To Heaven)" brought her to the Top 10 for the first time. Her third studio album, "Feel the Fire" was released in October and spawned two additional Top 20 hit singles that year. In September 1981, McEntire's fourth album, "Heart to Heart" was issued and became her first album to chart the "Billboard" Top Country Albums list, peaking at No. 42. Its lead single, "Today All Over Again" became a top five country hit. The album received mainly negative reviews from critics. William Ruhlmann of "Allmusic" gave it two-and-a-half out of five stars, stating she did not get creative control of her music. Ruhlmann called "There Ain't No Love" "essentially a soft pop ballad". Most of the album's material consisted of mainly country pop-styled ballads, which was not well liked by McEntire herself. Her fifth album, "Unlimited" was issued in June 1982 and spawned her first "Billboard" Number One single in early 1983: "Can't Even Get the Blues" and "You're the First Time I've Thought About Leaving". The following year her sixth album, "Behind the Scene" was released and was positively-received by music critics. In 1983, McEntire announced her departure from Mercury, criticizing the label's country pop production styles. 1984–90: Breakthrough. McEntire signed with MCA Nashville Records in 1984 and released her seventh studio album, "Just a Little Love." Harold Shedd was originally the album's producer; however, McEntire rejected his suggestions towards country pop arrangements. It was instead produced by Norro Wilson, although the album still had a distinguishable country pop sound. Dissatisfied with the album's sound, she went to MCA president, Jimmy Bowen, who told McEntire to find material that was best-suited to her liking. Instead of finding new material, she found previously-recorded country hits from her own record collection, which was then recorded for the album. The album's material included songs originally released as singles by Ray Price ("Don't You Believe Her", "I Want to Hear It from You"), Carl Smith ("Before I Met You"), Faron Young ("He's Only Everything") and Connie Smith ("You've Got Me Where You Want Me"). The album spawned two number one singles: "How Blue" and "Somebody Should Leave". It was given positive reviews from critics, with "Billboard Magazine" praising McEntire as "the finest woman country singer since Kitty Wells" and "Rolling Stone" critics honoring her as one of their Top 5 favorite country artists. Upon its release, "My Kind of Country" became her highest-peaking album on the Top Country Albums chart, reaching No. No. 13. The album also included instruments such as a fiddle and pedal steel guitar, and was aimed more towards a traditional country sound. McEntire was later praised as a "new traditionalist", along with Ricky Skaggs and George Strait. That year, she won the Country Music Association Awards' Female Vocalist of the Year, her first major industry award. The album was certified Gold. In 1985, McEntire released her third MCA album, "Have I Got a Deal for You", which followed the same traditional format as "My Kind of Country." It was the first album produced by McEntire and was co-produced with Jimmy Bowen. Like her previous release, the album received positive feedback, including "Rolling Stone", which called it a "promising debut". The album's second single, "Only in My Mind" was entirely written by McEntire and reached number five on the "Billboard" country chart. On January 17, 1986, McEntire became a member of the Grand Ole Opry show in Nashville, Tennessee, and has been a member ever since. In February 1986, McEntire's ninth studio album, "Whoever's in New England" was released. For this album, McEntire and co-producer Jimmy Bowen incorporated her traditional music style into a mainstream sound that was entirely different than anything she had previously recorded. "Country Music: The Rough Guide" called the production of the title track, "bigger and sentimentalism more obvious, even manipulative". The title track peaked at number one on the "Billboard" Country Chart and won her a Grammy Award for Best Female Country Vocal Performance the following year. In addition, the album became McEntire's first release to certify gold in sales by the Recording Industry Association of America (and was later certified Platinum). At the end of the year, McEntire won Entertainer of the Year from the Country Music Association, the highest honor in the awards show. McEntire released a second album in 1986, "What Am I Gonna Do About You." Allmusic critic William Ruhlmann was not overly pleased with album's production, saying that it lacked the features that had been set forth on "Whoever's in New England." Rulhlmann criticized the title track for "something of the feel of 'Whoever's in New England' in its portrayal of a woman trying to recover from a painfully ended love affair". The title track was the lead single from the release and was a number one single shortly after its release. This album also spawned a second Number One in "One Promise Too Late". The following year, her first MCA compilation, "Greatest Hits" was released and became her first album to be certified platinum in sales, eventually certifying triple-platinum. A twelfth studio album, "The Last One to Know", was released in 1987. The emotions of her divorce from husband, Charlie Battles, were put into the album's material, according to McEntire. The title track from the release was a number one single in 1987 and the second single, "Love Will Find Its Way to You", also reached the top spot. In late 1987, McEntire released her first Christmas collection, "Merry Christmas to You", which sold two million copies in the United States, certifying double Platinum. The album included cover versions of "Away in a Manger", "Silent Night", and Grandpa Jones's "The Christmas Guest". Her thirteenth album, "Reba", was issued in 1988 and was not well received by critics, who claimed she was moving farther away from her "traditional country" sound. "Stereo Review" disliked the album's contemporary style, stating, "After years of insisting that she'd stick to hard-core country 'because I have tried the contemporary-type songs, and it's not Reba McEntire—it's just not honest,' McEntire[...]has gone whole-hog pop. The album peaked at number one on the "Billboard" Top Country Albums chart and remained there for six consecutive weeks. Okay, so maybe that's not so terrible." Although it was reviewed poorly, the album itself was certified platinum in sales and produced two number one singles: "I Know How He Feels" and "New Fool at an Old Game". In addition, the release's cover version of Jo Stafford's "A Sunday Kind of Love" became a Top 5 hit on the "Billboard" country music chart. Also in 1988, McEntire founded Starstruck Entertainment, which controlled her management, booking, publishing, promotion, publicity, accounting, ticket sales, and fan club administration. The company would eventually expand into managing a horse farm, jet charter service, trucking, construction, and book publishing. McEntire's fourteenth studio album, "Sweet Sixteen", was released in May 1989; it spent sixteen weeks at number one on the "Billboard" Top Country Albums chart, while also becoming her first album to peak in the top 100 on the Billboard 200, reaching No. 78. The album was given positive reviews because unlike her previous studio album, the release, "welcomes the fiddles and steel guitars back as she returns to the neo-traditionalist fold", according to Allmusic, which gave the release four-and-a-half out of five stars. Reviewer William Ruhlmann found "Sweet Sixteen" to "double back to a formula that worked for her in the past". The lead single was a cover of The Everly Brothers' "Cathy's Clown", with McEntire's version reaching number one in July on the "Billboard" country music chart. Three more Top 10 hits followed from "Sweet Sixteen": "Till Love Comes Again", "Little Girl", and "Walk On", at number four, seven and two, respectively. In September she released "Reba Live", her first live album, which originally certified gold but certified platinum ten years later. Sixteen months after the release of "Sweet Sixteen" and after giving birth to her son, McEntire transitioned into 1990 with the release of "Rumor Has It." The album's "sound and production were almost entirely pop-oriented", according to Kurt Wolff of "Country Music: The Rough Guide." Although "Rumor Has It" was an attempt to receive critical praise, many reviewers found the album to be "predictable". "Stereo Review" mainly found the recording displeasing in some places, but the reviewer also believed she "still leaves most of the competition in the dust", calling the album "glorious". "Rumor Has It" eventually sold three million copies by 1999, certifying triple-platinum by that year. It was prefaced by the single "You Lie", which became her fifteenth number one single on the country chart. In addition, the album's cover of Bobbie Gentry's 1969 hit "Fancy" and a new track, "Fallin' Out of Love", became Top 10 hits on the same "Billboard" country chart. 1991: Aviation accident and "For My Broken Heart". While on tour for her 1990 album, McEntire lost eight members of her road band (Chris Austin, Kirk Cappello, Joey Cigainero, Paula Kaye Evans, Jim Hammon, Terry Jackson, Anthony Saputo, and Michael Thomas), plus pilot Donald Holmes and co-pilot Chris Hollinger, when their charter jet plane crashed near San Diego, California in the early morning of March 16, 1991. The accident occurred after McEntire's private performance for IBM executives the night before. The first plane was a Hawker Siddeley DH-125-1A/522 charter jet, believed to have taken off around 1:45 AM from the Brown Field Municipal Airport, located near the border of Mexico. After reaching an altitude of about 3,572 feet above sea level, the Hawker aircraft crashed on the side of Otay Mountain, located ten miles east of the airport, while the second plane (carrying her other band members) did not crash. The accident was believed to have occurred due to poor visibility near Otay Mountain, which was not considered "prohibitive" for flying. The news was reported nearly immediately to McEntire and her husband, who were sleeping at a nearby hotel. A spokeswoman for McEntire at the time stated in the "Los Angeles Times" that "she was very close to all of them. Some of them had been with her for years. Reba is totally devastated by this. It's like losing part of your family. Right now she just wants to get back to Nashville." McEntire dedicated her sixteenth album, "For My Broken Heart", to her deceased road band. Released in October 1991, it contained songs of sorrow and lost love about "all measure of suffering", according to Alanna Nash of "Entertainment Weekly." Nash reported that McEntire "still hits her stride with the more traditional songs of emotional turmoil, above all combining a spectacular vocal performance with a terrific song on "Buying Her Roses", a wife's head-spinning discovery of her husband's other woman". The release peaked at number one on the "Billboard" Top Country Albums chart, while also reaching number 13 on the Billboard 200, and eventually sold four million copies. Its title track became McEntire's sixteenth number one, followed by "Is There Life Out There", which also reached number one on the "Billboard" country music chart. The third single, "The Greatest Man I Never Knew" peaked in the Top 5 and her cover of Vicki Lawrence's "The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia" reached No. 12. "If I Had Only Known", a cut from this album, was later included in the soundtrack to the 1994 film "8 Seconds". 1992–96: Continued success. In December 1992, McEntire's seventeenth studio album, "It's Your Call", was released. It became her first album to peak within the "Billboard" 200 Top 10, reaching number eight. McEntire commented that the record was a "second chapter" to "For My Broken Heart", while music reviewers such as Alanna Nash of "Entertainment Weekly" disagreed, writing, "In truth, it isn't nearly as pessimistic as its predecessor—and unfortunately it isn't anywhere as involving." Nash called the album's title track—which peaked at number five on the "Billboard" Hot Country Singles & Tracks chart—"one of those moment-of-truth sagas at which McEntire excels. In the song, a wife answers the phone to find her husband's girlfriend on the other end and seizes the opportunity not only to inform her mate that she knows of his affair but to give him the ultimatum of choosing between the two. "She's not the only one who's waitin' on the line", she sings, handing her husband the phone. "It's your call"." Christopher John Farley of "Time" magazine wrote that the album ranged from being "relaxing" to "cathartic", and "these vocals from one of the best country singers linger in the mind". The album's preceding singles—"The Heart Won't Lie" (a duet with then-labelmate Vince Gill) and "Take It Back"—were Top 10 hits on the "Billboard" country chart, reaching number one and number five respectively. Like its preceding album, "It's Your Call" sold over a million copies, eventually certifying by the RIAA in sales of double-platinum. In October 1993, McEntire's third compilation album, "Greatest Hits Volume Two" was released, reaching number one and number five on the "Billboard" Top Country Albums and "Billboard" 200 charts respectively, selling 183,000 copies during Christmas week 1993. Out of the ten tracks were two new singles: the first, "Does He Love You", was a duet with Linda Davis. The song later went on to reach number one on the "Billboard" Hot Country Singles & Tracks chart and win both women a Grammy for Best Country Collaboration with Vocals. Its second single, "They Asked About You", was also a Top 10 hit. The additional eight songs were some of McEntire's biggest hit singles during a course of five years including "The Last One to Know", "I Know How He Feels", "Cathy's Clown", and "The Heart Won't Lie". After originally selling two million copies upon its initial release (2× Multi-Platinum), "Greatest Hits Volume Two" would later certify at 5× Multi-Platinum by the RIAA in 1998. Her eighteenth studio release was 1994's "Read My Mind." The album spawned five major hit singles onto the "Billboard" Country chart, including the number one single "The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter". The further releases ("Till You Love Me", "Why Haven't I Heard from You", and "And Still") became Top 10 singles on the same chart, with "Till You Love Me" also reaching number 78 on the Billboard Hot 100, a chart that she had not previously entered. The album itself reached number two on the both the "Billboard" 200 and Top Country Albums charts. Charlotte Dillon of Allmusic gave the album four out of five stars, calling it "another wonderful offering of songs performed by the gifted country singer Reba McEntire". Dillon also felt that the album's material had "a little soul, a little swing, and some pop, too". "Entertainment Weekly"s Alanna Nash also gave the album positive feedback, viewing the album to have "enough boiling rhythms and brooding melodies to reflect the anger and disillusionment of the middle class in the '90s", calling the track "She Thinks His Name Was John" to be the best example of that idea. The song was eventually spawned as a single and was considered controversial for its storyline, which described a woman who contracts AIDS from a one-night stand. Because of its subject, the song garnered less of a response from radio and peaked at number 15. "Read My Mind" became another major seller for McEntire and her label, selling three million copies by 1995 and certifying at 3× Multi-Platinum from the RIAA. After many years of releasing studio albums of newly-recorded material, McEntire's nineteenth studio album, "Starting Over" (1995) was collection of her favorite songs originally recorded by others from the 1950s through the early 1980s. The album was made to commemorate twenty years in the music industry, but many music critics gave it a less positive response than her previous release. "Allmusic"s Stephen Thomas Erlewine commented that although the album was considered a "rebirth" for McEntire, he thought that some tracks were recorded for merely "nothing more than entertainment". The album paid tribute to many of McEntire's favorite artists and included cover versions of "Talking In Your Sleep" originally sung by Crystal Gayle, "Please Come to Boston", "Starting Over Again", cowritten by Donna Summer and originally a hit for Dolly Parton, "On My Own", and "By the Time I Get to Phoenix". "On My Own" featured guest vocals from Davis, as well as Martina McBride and Trisha Yearwood. Despite negative reviews, "Starting Over" was certified Platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America within the first two months of its release, but only one single—a cover of Lee Greenwood's "Ring on Her Finger, Time on Her Hands"—was a Top 10 hit single. 1997–98: "What If It's You" and "If You See Him". McEntire made a major comeback into the music industry the following year with her twentieth studio album, "What If It's You." The album's lead single, "The Fear of Being Alone" reached number two on the country charts, and its further two singles ("How Was I to Know" and "I'd Rather Ride Around with You") reached number one and number two respectively. The release garnered higher critical acclaim than "Starting Over", with Thom Owens of "Allmusic" calling the album "nevertheless an excellent reminder of her deep talents as a vocalist". MCA Nashville chairman Bruce Hinton told "Billboard" how pleased he was with McEntire's release, calling the album's ten tracks "powerful" and concluding by stating, "There are so many writers and so many great songs in Nashville, and Reba has collected her disproportionate share[...]She's country music's female artist of the 90's." "What If It's You" peaked at number one Top Country Albums and No. 15 on the Billboard 200, while also becoming her first album in three years to certify in multi-platinum sales, selling two million copies by 1999. At the end of 1997, McEntire also charted at number 23 the charity single "What If". The proceeds of sales for this single were donated to the Salvation Army. In 1997, McEntire headlined a tour with Brooks & Dunn that led to the recording of "If You See Him/If You See Her" with the duo the following year. This song was included on McEntire's "If You See Him" album and Brooks & Dunn's "If You See Her" album, both of which released on June 2. Thom Owens of "Allmusic" reported in its review that both album titles were named nearly the same as "a way to draw attention for both parties, since they were no longer new guns—they were veterans in danger of losing ground to younger musicians". The duet reached number one on the "Billboard" Hot Country Singles & Tracks chart in June 1998 and spawned an additional three Top 10 hits during that year: "Forever Love", "Wrong Night", and "One Honest Heart". In addition, "If You See Him" peaked within the Top 10 on both the Billboard 200 and Top Country Albums chart, reaching number eight and number two, respectively. 1999–2001:"So Good Together" and "Greatest Hits Vol. 3: I'm A Survivor". For 1999, McEntire released two albums. In September she issued her second Christmas album, "", which eventually sold 500,000 copies in the United States. In November, her twenty second studio album, "So Good Together" was released, spawning three singles. The first release, "What Do You Say" and the second release, "I'll Be" both reached the Top 5 on the Hot Country Singles & Tracks chart. So Good Together also brought her into the Top 40 of the Billboard Hot 100 for the first time, peaking at No. 31 there. The album would eventually certify Platinum by the end of the decade. What Do You Say became her first crossover hit as well. Unlike any of her previous albums, "So Good Together" was produced by three people, including McEntire. "Entertainment Weekly" commented that most of the album's material was "an odd set—mostly ballads, including an English/Portuguese duet with Jose e Durval on Boz Scaggs' 'We're All Alone'". In 2001, McEntire returned with her third greatest-hits album: "." The album helped McEntire receive her third gold certification from the Recording Industry Association of America, which made her the most certified female country artist in music history. It spawned the number three hit "I'm a Survivor", which would be her last major hit for two years, as McEntire would go on a temporary hiatus to focus on her television sitcom, "Reba." The album's only other single, a cover of Kenny Rogers' "Sweet Music Man", went to No. 36. 2003–07: Return to the music industry. McEntire's seventy-sixth chart single, "I'm Gonna Take That Mountain", released in mid-2003, ended her two-year break from recording. In November 2003, her twenty-third studio album, "Room to Breathe", marked her first release of new material in four years. Writing for "The Boston Globe", Steve Morse found the album's material to have a variety of musical stylings, saying the track "Love Revival" sounded like Tanya Tucker and calling "If I Had Any Sense at All" "a mournful country ballad". Dan MacIntosh of "Country Standard Time" gave "Room to Breathe" a less-received review, reporting that "it ultimately falls short of leaving the listener breathless". He highlighted "I'm Gonna Take That Mountain" for sounding like a Bluegrass-inspired song such as music by Ricky Skaggs or Patty Loveless. The album itself reached a peak of number four on the "Billboard" Top Country Albums chart and No. 25 on the Billboard 200, staying at the position for only one week. The second single, "Somebody", also recorded by Mark Wills on his "Loving Every Minute" release, became her twenty-second number one single on the "Billboard" Hot Country Songs chart and first since "If You See Him/If You See Her" six years previous. This became her thirty-third number one single overall. It took longer than expected to become a hit, according to McEntire, who said, "Yeah, that had us concerned. The album came out in November and it took 30 weeks for "Somebody" to work its way up the charts. Usually, it's 15 weeks. But this one had a resurgence of life, especially after the video came out. MCA is really kicking butt with it." Its third single, "He Gets That from Me" reached number seven, followed by the Amy Dalley co-written track "My Sister", which reached number 16. In 2005, McEntire released the compilation "Reba No. 1's." The album comprised all thirty-three Number One hits in her career on all major trade charts. Two new songs were included on the album: "You're Gonna Be" and "Love Needs a Holiday". Both were released as singles, peaking at number 33 and number 60, respectively, with the latter becoming her first single in 27 years to miss the country top 40 entirely. "Country Standard Time" called the tracks "Whoever's in New England" and "You Lie" the album highlights. The album reached a peak of number three on the Top Country Albums chart and number 12 on the Billboard 200 upon its release, certifying 2× Platinum by the RIAA within two years. On August 30, 2007, McEntire received two CMA nominations: Female Vocalist of the Year and Vocal Event of the Year. With those two nominations plus another in 2008 and two more in 2009, Reba became the female artist with the most nominations (forty-eight) in the forty-three year history of the CMA Awards, surpassing Dolly Parton, who has forty-three. In mid-2007, McEntire announced the release of her twenty-fifth studio album, "", on September 18. McEntire stated that out of all the albums she had previously recorded, her newest release was particularly special: "This is an album that will go down in history as probably my favorite album to record because I got to work and sing and be with my friends. Out of everything in this whole career that I can say that I'm the most proud of, are my friends. And here's the proof." In promotion for the album, McEntire made appearances at radio shows and on "The Oprah Winfrey Show" September 19. The album's lead single, "Because of You"—a duet with Kelly Clarkson, who originally recorded the song—became her fifty fifth Top 10 single on the "Billboard" Hot Country Songs chart, tying her with Dolly Parton, who also had the same amount of Top 10 records. The album was given high critical praise from magazines such as "PopMatters", which called McEntire's vocals, "to sound sweet without being syrupy, while being extremely powerful. McEntire's vocal strength yields a different kind of authority than the bluesy, drawling growl of Janis Joplin, the weathered rasp of Marianne Faithfull, or even the soul-shrieking powerhouse of Tina Turner. Instead, Reba's voice combines the aspects of all three singers but tempers it with a Southern sweetness and an unmistakable femininity." The album contained ten tracks of duets with country and pop artists, including Kenny Chesney, LeAnn Rimes, Trisha Yearwood, Carole King, and Justin Timberlake. "Reba: Duets" peaked at number one on the Top Country Albums chart, while also becoming her first album in her thirty-year career to peak and debut at number one on the "Billboard" 200, with 300,536 copies (according to Nielsen Soundscan) sold within its first week of release. On January 17, 2008, McEntire embarked on the 2 Worlds 2 Voices Tour with Clarkson, which began in Dayton, Ohio. A month after its release, the album was certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America on October 19, 2007. The album's only other single was "Every Other Weekend". Recorded on the album as a duet with Chesney, it was released to radio with its co-writer, Skip Ewing, as a duet partner. 2008–12: Move to Valory. In early 2008, McEntire partnered again with Brooks & Dunn for a re-recorded version of their single "Cowgirls Don't Cry". McEntire is featured in the video, but not on the version found on the album "Cowboy Town". It became McEntire's fifty-sixth Top Ten country hit, breaking Dolly's record for the most Top Ten country hits for a solo female. In November 2008, McEntire announced that she would be departing from her label of twenty-five years and signing with the Valory Music Group, an imprint of Big Machine Records (coincidentally distributed by MCA and Mercury's parent, Universal Music Group). Under MCA, she had sold a total of sixty-seven million records worldwide and won two Grammys. The switch to Valory reunited McEntire with the label's president, Scott Borchetta, who had worked as senior vice president of promotion at MCA during most of the 1990s. McEntire later commented on her label switch, stating, "I am thrilled to be joining the Valory team. Scott and I worked together on some of the biggest singles of my career, and I am excited to renew our partnership." In November, 2008, MCA released a 50 Greatest Hits box set compilation album, containing three CDs, from 1984's "How Blue" to 2007's "Because of You". On April 5, 2009, McEntire debuted her first single, "Strange", on Valory at the 2009 Academy of Country Music Awards. The song debuted at No. 39 on the "Billboard" Hot Country Songs chart, giving McEntire the highest single debut of her career, and went on to peak at No. 11. Her twenty-sixth studio album, "Keep On Loving You" was released August 18, 2009 and became McEntire's first solo studio album in six years. The album gained fairly positive reviews from most album critics, including Jim Malec of The 9513, which gave "Keep on Loving You" three and a half out of five stars. Malec favored "Strange", calling McEntire's performance of the song "stellar". Criticism was given to the album's fourth track, "I Want a Cowboy", characterizing the song as an "annoying stop-and-go melody and lyrics more befitting a 17 year old Lila McCann, it is a song so generic and irrelevant that it would be album filler on the worst albums". On August 26, "Keep on Loving You" became McEntire's second album to top both the "Billboard" Country and 200 charts, selling almost 96,000 copies within its first week. With the album, McEntire broke the record for the female country artist with the most "Billboard" number one albums, which was previously held by Loretta Lynn. On August 18 the label released the album's second single, "Consider Me Gone", and it debuted at number 51 on The Hot Country Single's Chart. The single became McEntire's thirty fourth number one on the "Billboard" chart in December. With a four-week stay at Number One, this song became the longest-lasting Number One of her career, as well as the first multi-week Number One by a female country singer since Taylor Swift's "Our Song" in 2007. The album's third and final single was "I Keep On Loving You", co-written by Ronnie Dunn of Brooks & Dunn, which peaked at number 7. McEntire's thirty-fourth studio album, "All the Women I Am", was released on November 9, 2010 under Valory Music Group/Starstruck Records. The album's lead single called "Turn On the Radio" was released on August 3, 2010 and the music video premiered on August 18, 2010. Upon its release, "All the Women I Am" received generally positive reviews from most music critics. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album received an average score of 72, based on 4 reviews, which indicates "generally favorable reviews". On November 10, 2010, McEntire appeared at the Country Music Association Awards performing "If I Were a Boy". On December 20, 2010, McEntire scored her 35th Billboard number one single in the U.S. with "Turn On the Radio". The second single from "All the Women I Am" was a cover of Beyoncé's "If I Were a Boy", which McEntire took to number 22. After it came "When Love Gets a Hold of You" at number 40 and "Somebody's Chelsea" at number 44. The latter was the only single that McEntire had co-written since "Only in My Mind" in 1985. McEntire later announced that she would be visiting 31 cities on her All the Women I Am Tour late that year with The Band Perry, Steel Magnolia, and Edens Edge as opening acts on different stops of the tour. Dates for the tour were announced July 6, 2011. On March 1, 2011, the Country Music Association announced that McEntire will be inducted in the Country Music Hall of Fame. McEntire was unable to attend the announcement after her father slipped into a coma following a stroke. Reba was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame on May 22, 2011 at a Medallion Ceremony that took place at the Country Music Hall of Fame. She was inducted by musical idol, Dolly Parton. Acting career. 1990–99: Entrance into film and television. During the late 1980s, many of McEntire's music videos were being described as "mini movies". In each video, she would portray a different character, which distinguished her music videos from other videos released by artists during that time. In the late 1980s, McEntire became interested in an acting career, eventually hiring an agent. In 1989, she co-hosted "Good Morning America" on the ABC network. In 1990, she obtained her first film role playing Heather Gummer in the horror comedy "Tremors", along with Kevin Bacon. The film told the story of a small group of people living in Nevada who were fighting subterranean worm-like creatures. After the film's release, McEntire developed a strong interest in acting and made it her second career. The following year, she starred along with Kenny Rogers and Burt Reynolds in the made-for-television movie, "." In 1994, McEntire worked with director, Rob Reiner in the film, "North", playing Ma Tex. The film obtained negative reviews, receiving only two and a half stars from "Allmovie." In 1994, McEntire starred in "Is There Life Out There?", a television movie based on her song of the same name. The following year, she appeared in "Buffalo Girls", which was based upon the life of western cowgirl, Calamity Jane (played by Anjelica Huston). Playing Jane's friend, Annie Oakley, "Buffalo Girls" was nominated for an Emmy award. In 1996, McEntire was cast by director James Cameron as Molly Brown in his film "Titanic." However, when it became apparent production for the film would extend well beyond its original length, McEntire had to turn down the part, as she had already scheduled prior concert engagements. The role was recast with Kathy Bates. In 1998, she starred as Lizzie Brooks in "Forever Love", which was based upon McEntire's hit single of the same name. In 1994, There was a new "The Little Rascals" where McEntire was Guest Starring as A.J. Ferguson. 2000–07: Broadway and television series. In early 2001, McEntire expanded into theater, starring in the Broadway revival of "Annie Get Your Gun." Playing Annie Oakley (whom she had previously portrayed in "Buffalo Girls"), McEntire's performance was critically acclaimed by several newspapers, including "The New York Times", which commented, "Without qualification the best performance by an actress in a musical comedy this season." McEntire personally called the musical, "some of the hardest work I've ever done in my life". In 2005, McEntire starred as Nellie Forbush in the Carnegie Hall concert production of the Broadway musical "South Pacific" with Alec Baldwin as Luther Billis and Brian Stokes Mitchell as Emile de Becque, directed by Walter Bobbie and with an adapted script by David Ives. The concert was broadcast as part of the "Great Performances" series in 2006. In October 2001, McEntire premiered her half-hour television sitcom "Reba" on the WB network. The show was based around divorced mother Reba Hart, who learns how to handle life situations after her husband divorces her and their teenage daughter becomes pregnant. "Reba" garnered critical acclaim and success, becoming the network's highest-rated television show for adults ranging from the ages of eighteen to forty nine. The show ran for six seasons and earned McEntire a nomination for a Golden Globe award. It was cancelled on February 18, 2007; the series finale had 8.7 million viewers world-wide. 2011—present: Return to television. In September 2011, McEntire confirmed on her website that ABC had ordered a pilot for her second television series, "Malibu Country". McEntire would play a divorced mother of two who moves to Malibu, California to restart her music career. The pilot would be filmed in April 2012 and will begin production on its first season in August. It was announced that the pilot for "Malibu Country" would premiere November 2, 2012. The show will then begin showing every Friday night at 8:30/7:30c on ABC. On May 11, 2012, McEntire tweeted that the show had been picked up. She also was the host in the 2011 NASCAR Award Show in Las Vegas. According to deadline TV reviews "Malibu Country" stands as TV's most-watched freshman comedy this season (8.7 million). "Malibu Country" was officially cancelled by ABC on May 10, 2013 after eighteen episodes. Musical styles and legacy. McEntire's sound has been influenced by the country music of Bob Wills, Merle Haggard, Dolly Parton, Barbara Mandrell, and Patsy Cline. In college, McEntire would sneak into local dances at the Oklahoma–Texas border so she could dance to Wills's music, commenting that, "it didn't get any better than dancing to Bob Wills music". She also explained Merle Haggard's influence on her career, stating "I had every album he ever put out", and would sing "every song he did", along with her brother, Pake and sister, Susie. In addition, her first major hit, "Sweet Dreams" was a remake of Patsy Cline's version of the song, according to McEntire herself. McEntire's music has been described to not only be built upon traditional country music, but also expand into the genres of Country pop, Mainstream pop, Soul, Adult Contemporary, and R&B. At times, her music has often been criticized for moving away from traditional country music. Many music critics have often called her music to be "melodramatic", "formulaic", and "bombastic", particularly after her 1988 album, "Reba." Studio releases such as "Sweet Sixteen", "Rumor Has It", "It's Your Call", and "Starting Over" have often been described by these terms. McEntire possesses a contralto vocal range and performs "vocal gymnastics" with her voice, a musical technique in which a singer twirls a note around, using their vibrato. McEntire has often credited Dolly Parton for influencing this trait, stating that she would always listen to Parton's records and find her style of vocal gymnastics, "so pretty". McEntire has often been regarded as one of country music's most influential female vocalists and most beloved entertainers. She has also been highly credited for remaining one of country's most popular female artists for nearly four decades, maintaining her success by continually incorporating contemporary musical sounds without changing her traditional vocal style. For many new artists, she has been credited as the inspiration to their careers in country music, including Faith Hill, Martina McBride, Trisha Yearwood, and LeAnn Rimes. She has also been credited as an inspiration to other performers such as Sara Evans, Kelly Clarkson, Lee Ann Womack, Terri Clark, Taylor Swift, Carrie Underwood. "The Net Music Countdown" second handedly reported, "That influence has manifested itself in many ways. As a role model, she's shown others how to handle fame with grace and good humor while never backing down from her values or goals. Just as importantly, she's shown others to refuse to accept limitations on what she can do or how much she can achieve." McEntire also explained to the online website, "Whatever I'm doing, I feel like I'm representing country music". "It's always been my main career, and it's where my loyalties lie. I feel like I'm waving the flag of country music wherever I go, and I couldn't be prouder to do it." Personal life. McEntire's two siblings (both from the Singing McEntires) have also maintained careers in the music industry. Her brother, Pake McEntire, was a successful country artist in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Her sister, Susie Luchsinger, is a successful Christian music singer. She also has an older sister, Alice. In 1976, McEntire married national steer wrestling champion and rancher Charlie Battles. Together, the couple owned a ranch in Oklahoma and managed her career. In 1987, McEntire divorced Battles and moved to Nashville, Tennessee. She later commented to Bob Allen of "Country Music" about their separation, saying, "I had to pack everything in one day and leave. I was totally starting over." McEntire later claimed that she wanted to focus more on her music career, while Battles insisted that she remain at home, helping to take care of the ranch. McEntire stated, "I wasn't the little girl anymore, taking orders, and doing what he said." In 1989, McEntire married her manager and former steel guitar player, Narvel Blackstock. The couple wed in a private ceremony on a boat in Lake Tahoe. Together, the pair took over all aspects of McEntire's career, forming Starstruck Entertainment, which was originally designed to help manage her career. From her second marriage, McEntire inherited three stepchildren and gave birth to a son, Shelby Steven McEntire Blackstock, on February 23, 1990. After the couple celebrated their twentieth wedding anniversary, McEntire stated that the secrets to her enduring marriage were "Respect, faith, love, trust, and lots of patience". McEntire's stepson and talent manager Brandon Blackstock became engaged to McEntire's friend Kelly Clarkson on December 14, 2012, after ten months of dating. On hearing the news, McEntire was quick to express her excitement in a recent interview with Katie Couric: "[I'm] thrilled to death, thrilled to death. To have my buddy as my daughter-in-law, I mean, who could ask for more? She's a big-hearted, very good person. Very talented", Awards. McEntire holds the record for the most Academy of Country Music Top Female Vocalist Awards (seven), and American Music Awards for Favorite Country Female Artist (twelve), and ties with Martina McBride for most Country Music Association Female Vocalist of the Year Awards (four), though McEntire does have the distinction of winning the award 4 times consecutively. She also is one of only two women in country music history to have attained a number one hit in four different decades, and the only female to achieve solo number ones across four decades. She was inducted into the Oklahoma Hall of Fame in 1998. Discography. Other albums. Christmas albums Live albums Compilation albums
1066041	All the Real Girls is a 2003 romantic drama film written and directed by David Gordon Green. The film is about the romance between a young, small-town womanizer and his best friend’s sexually inexperienced younger sister. It debuted at the Sundance Film Festival on January 19, 2003. While the film fared poorly at the box office, it was generally well received by critics and was nominated for several awards when it was shown at film festivals. It stars Paul Schneider, Zooey Deschanel, Shea Whigham, Danny McBride and Patricia Clarkson. Plot. Paul is a womanizer in his early twenties who lives in a small Southern town, where he earns a living fixing cars for his uncle. Paul still lives with his mother, Elvira, who works as a clown cheering up children at the local hospital. He spends most of his time hanging out with his best friend and self-proclaimed partner-in-crime, Tip, and their friends Bo and Bust-Ass. Among his friends, Paul has a reputation as a ladies' man, but he's not at all known for being involved with long-term relationships; most of Paul's romances last only a few weeks, and he's slept with nearly every girl in town. Paul is beginning to reach a point where he would like to lead a different life, and that feeling becomes all the more clear when he meets Noel, Tip's teenage sister who has come back home after attending a boarding school. Noel is more thoughtful and mature than the girls Paul is used to. Paul and Noel soon fall in love, but for Paul this is a different sort of relationship than he's accustomed to — Noel is still a virgin, and her contemplative nature gives him a desire to be a better, stronger person, but Tip does not approve of Paul dating his younger sister, which leads to a rift between these longtime friends. Reception. "All the Real Girls" got mostly positive reviews when it was initially released in 2003. "All the Real Girls" currently has a 71% rating at rottentomatoes.com The film’s current rating on metacritic.com is 71 out of 100. Roger Ebert of the "Chicago Sun Times" said “Green is 27, old enough to be jaded, but he has the soul of a romantic poet. Wordsworth, after all, was 36 when he published, ‘The Rainbow comes and goes and lovely is the Rose.’ How many guys that age would have that kind of nerve today?” He gave the film a four out of four star rating. "All the Real Girls" was not a financial success at the box office. It was made on a budget of $2,500,000 and premiered on January 19, 2003 at the Sundance Film Festival. The film was released on February 14, 2003 and played in six theaters, bringing in $39,714 in its opening weekend. By the time the film ended its theatrical run on July 10, 2003 it had made $549,666. The film was nominated for awards at several different film festivals all over the world. Green was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize but won the Special Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival along with Clarkson for her role in the film. At the 2004 Chlotrudis Awards, "All the Real Girls" was nominated for Best Actress, (Deschanel), Best Cinematography (Tim Orr), Best Director (Green), and Best Original Screenplay (Green and Paul Schneider). Deschanel was also nominated for Best Female Lead at the 2004 Independent Spirit Awards and Best Actress at the 2004 Mar del Plata Film Festival.
1103031	Jean-Victor Poncelet (July 1, 1788 – December 22, 1867) was a French engineer and mathematician who served most notably as the commandant general of the École Polytechnique. He is considered a reviver of projective geometry, and his work "Traité des propriétés projectives des figures" is considered the first definitive paper on the subject since Gérard Desargues' work on it in the 17th century. He later wrote an introduction to it; "Applications d’analyse et de géométrie". As a mathematician, his most notable work was in projective geometry, in particular, his work on Feuerbach's theorem. He also made discoveries about projective harmonic conjugates; among these were the poles and polar lines associated with conic sections. These discoveries led to the principle of duality, and also aided in the development of complex numbers and projective geometry. As a military engineer, he served in Napoleon's campaign against the Russian Empire in 1812, in which he was captured and held prisoner until 1814. Later, he served as a professor of mechanics at the École d’Application in his home town of Metz, during which time he published "Introduction à la mécanique industrielle", a work he is famous for, and improved the design of turbines and water wheels. After this, he served as professor at the Faculté des Sciences at the University of Paris, and finally as the commandant general of his "alma mater", the École Polytechnique.He is honoured by having his name listed among notable French engineers and scientists displayed around the first stage of the Eiffel tower. Biography. Birth, education, and capture (1788–1814). Poncelet was born in Metz, France, on July 1, 1788, the illegitimate son of Claude Poncelet, a lawyer of the Parliament of Metz and wealthy landowner. At a young age, he was sent to live with the Olier family at Saint-Avold. He returned to Metz for his secondary education, at the Lycée. After this, he attended the École Polytechnique, a prestigious school in Paris, from 1808 to 1810, though he fell behind in his studies in his third year due to poor health. After graduation, he joined the Corps of Military Engineers. He attended the École d'Application in his hometown during this time, and achieved the rank of lieutenant in the French Army the same year he graduated. Poncelet took part in Napoleon's invasion of Russia in 1812. His biographer Didion writes that he was part of the group that did not follow Marshal Michel Ney at the Battle of Krasnoi, which was forced to capitulate to the Russians, though other sources say that he was left for dead. Upon capture, he was interrogated by General Mikhail Andreyevich Miloradovich, but he did not disclose any information. The Russians held Poncelet as a prisoner of war and confined him at Saratov. During his imprisonment, in the years 1812–1814, he wrote his most notable work, "Traité des propriétés projectives des figures", which outlined the foundations of projective geometry, as well as some new results. Poncelet, however, could not publish it until after his release in 1814. Release and later employment (1822–1848). In 1815, the year after his release, Poncelet was employed a military engineer at his hometown of Metz. In 1822, while at this position, he published "Traité des propriétés projectives des figures". This work was the first major to discuss projective geometry since Desargues', though Gaspard Monge had written a few minor works about it previously. It is considered the founding work of modern projective geometry. Joseph Diaz Gergonne wrote about this branch of geometry at approximately the same time, beginning in 1810. Poncelet published several papers about the subject in Gergonne's mathematical journal "Annales de Gergonne" (officially known as "Annales de mathématiques pures et appliquées").
1062302	Spider-Man 3 is a 2007 American superhero film produced by Marvel Entertainment and Laura Ziskin Productions, and distributed by Columbia Pictures based on the fictional Marvel Comics character Spider-Man. It was directed by Sam Raimi and scripted by Sam and Ivan Raimi and Alvin Sargent. It is the final film in the Sam Raimi "Spider-Man" trilogy. The film stars Tobey Maguire, Kirsten Dunst, James Franco, Thomas Haden Church, Topher Grace, Bryce Dallas Howard, Rosemary Harris, J. K. Simmons, James Cromwell and Cliff Robertson in his final film appearance.
1161575	Mary Jane Croft (February 15, 1916 – August 24, 1999) was an American actress best known for her roles as Betty Ramsey on "I Love Lucy", Mary Jane Lewis on "The Lucy Show" and "Here's Lucy", and Clara Randolph on "The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet". Radio. Born in Muncie, Indiana, Croft worked extensively as an actress in radio, appearing on such programs as "The Adventures of Sam Spade", "Suspense", "The Beulah Show", "The Bill Goodwin Show", "Blondie", "Broadway Is My Beat", "Cathy and Elliott Lewis on Stage", "Crime Classics", "Four-Star Playhouse", "Honest Harold", "Joan Davis Time", "The Mel Blanc Show", "One Man's Family", "Our Miss Brooks", "Romance", "Sears Radio Theater", "The Story of Sandra Martin" and "Twelve Players". She also appeared in frequent guest star roles on Lucille Ball's "My Favorite Husband", the beginning of their later professional and personal relationship. Television. In addition to her work with Lucille Ball, she was a frequent guest star on other television programs, including Howard Duff's adventure/drama series "Dante" in the 1960 episode "The Misfortune Cookie". She was a regular on at least two other series, as ebullient neighbor Clara Randolph on "The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet" (ABC) and on "Our Miss Brooks" (CBS), in which she reprised her radio role as Miss Daisy Enright, the title character's rival. She provided the voice for Cleo the basset hound in Jackie Cooper's NBC series "The People’s Choice" (1955–58). Late in the weekly run of the original "I Love Lucy" series, the major characters moved to Connecticut. There Lucy Ricardo befriended a new neighbor, Betty Ramsey (portrayed by Croft), who was very socially conscious and tended to get Lucy involved in adventures different from those that involved Ethel Mertz (Vivian Vance). Croft had previously guest-starred as Lucy's wealthy schoolmate Cynthia Harcourt in "Lucy is Envious," then as Evelyn Bigsby, the airline passenger seated next to Lucy in "Return Home from Europe," the episode in which Lucy disguises a hunk of cheese as a baby. When Vance left "The Lucy Show" after the 1964-1965 season, Croft became Lucy's new sidekick, Mary Jane Lewis. Croft had previously had a recurring role as Audrey Simmons during the show's early seasons set in Danfield, New York. Mary Jane Lewis was Croft's legal name at the time, as she was then married to actor-producer Elliott Lewis (who had originally produced "The Lucy Show" during its first two seasons) but continued to use her maiden name professionally. Her only son, by a prior marriage, was killed in the Vietnam War during the period that she was co-starring with Ball. The Lewis character was maintained when "The Lucy Show" was transformed into Ball's third sitcom, "Here's Lucy". The character remained until the cancellation of "Here's Lucy" in 1974. Later years and death. Croft continued to act in television for several years after the end of "Here's Lucy", even reuniting with Ball in 1977 in the special, "Lucy Calls the President". She died of natural causes in Century City, California.
1052181	Potiche is a 2010 French-Belgian comedy film directed by François Ozon, based on the play of the same name by Pierre Barillet and Jean-Pierre Grédy. It stars Catherine Deneuve, Gérard Depardieu, Fabrice Luchini, Karin Viard, Judith Godrèche and Jérémie Renier. Set in 1977, the film tells the story of a submissive wife who gets to run her husband's umbrella factory, after the employees rebel against their tyrannical manager. In French, a "potiche" is a decorative vase, but also roughly means the same thing as "trophy wife". The film competed at the 67th Venice International Film Festival and received two Magritte Award nominations, winning Best Supporting Actor for Jérémie Renier. Production. François Ozon saw the play "Potiche" by Pierre Barillet and Jean-Pierre Grédy about ten years before he made the film. According to Ozon, the genesis of the film version was partly that he had been approached by the producers Éric and Nicolas Altmayer and asked to make a biographical film about Nicolas Sarkozy, and partly his experiences from the 2007 presidential campaign where he followed the Socialist Party's candidate Ségolène Royal. While writing the screenplay, Ozon regularly met with Barillet, who gladly approved the tweaks made in order to enhance the story's relevance for contemporary society. The 1970s setting was however kept; this was both because the distance allowed the director to make a more humorous film, and because France was more politically divided in the 1970s, which made the class relations more remarkable. The political career of Suzanne was entirely Ozon's own addition to the story, which in its original incarnation ended when Robert returns to the factory. The project was led by Mandarin Cinéma with co-production support from Production Services Belgium. Principal photography took place in Belgium from 26 October 2009 and lasted eight weeks. The film was deliberately given a theatrical look in order to create distance and give the audience a constant awareness of watching a work of fiction. An important influence for the visual style was the cinema of Jacques Demy. The soundtrack includes Michèle Torr with "Emmène-moi danser ce soir", Il était une fois with "Viens faire un tour sous la pluie" and Jean Ferrat's "C'est beau la vie". Release. The film premiered on 4 September 2010 in competition at the 67th Venice International Film Festival. It was released in France and Belgium on 10 November. Launched in 440 prints through Mars Distribution, "Potiche" had 875,000 admissions during its first week in French theatres. At its peak the film was playing in 542 venues. When the theatrical run ended, the total number of tickets sold in France had reached 2,318,221. As of 28 June 2011, Box Office Mojo reported that the worldwide theatrical revenues of the film corresponded to 23,157,170 US dollars. Overseas. A subtitled version in English is due to come out on DVD in October 2011. Clips from the film were used in "trailers" subtitled by Orange, with all the dialogue reworded to be about mobile phones, in order to illustrate how phones can ruin a film.
634045	Peter Woodward (born 24 January 1956) is an English actor, stuntman and screenwriter. He is probably best known for his role as Galen in the "Babylon 5" spin-offs ', "Crusade" and '. He is also known for his role as Brigader General, O'Hara in "The Patriot". Life and career. Woodward was born in London, the son of actors Venetia Mary Collett (also known as Venetia Barrett) and Edward Woodward. His brother Tim and sister Sarah are also actors. He graduated from the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) and then joined the Royal Shakespeare Company, starring in many of their productions including "Winter's Tale", "Comedy of Errors" and "A Midsummer Night's Dream". Woodward has also played a wide range of major character roles in films and television including the role of the German Captain Stossel in the feature film "The Brylcreem Boys". As a member of the British Academy of Dramatic Combat, Woodward is known in the film industry for his work as a fight arranger and also as a post-production supervisor, writing the additional dialogue recording for films including: "Columbus – 1492", "Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea", "The Scarlet Tunic", "Les Misérables" and "Dangerous Obsessions" (1998). Woodward's dramatic combat training inspired him to study historical weaponry and combat techniques. This interest ultimately led him to create, co-write, and host The History Channel's documentary series "Conquest", a hands-on showcase of weapons, training and combat techniques throughout history. The series ran from 2002–2005 and, as of February 2007, it is occasionally still shown in reruns. Branching out in the late 1990s, Woodward and his father formed Tripal Productions, for which he wrote and produced his first feature film "The House of Angelo", directed by Jim Goddard in 1997 with his father in the starring role as "Angelo". Woodward's latest writing project, "Closing the Ring", was directed by Richard Attenborough. As the Techno Mage Galen in the "Babylon 5" spin-off "Crusade", Woodward played opposite his father in the episode "The Long Road." In the episode, the Excalibur visits a planet that may contain a potent anti-viral agent in its minerals. Earth agencies are strip-mining the planet. Edward Woodward played Alwyn, a rogue Techno Mage living on the planet with its inhabitants who was a friend of Galen's former teacher.
1064815	Akeelah and the Bee is a 2006 American drama film written and directed by Doug Atchison. It tells the story of Akeelah Anderson, portrayed by Keke Palmer, an 11-year-old girl who participates in the Scripps National Spelling Bee, her mother, portrayed by Angela Bassett, schoolmates, and also her coach, Dr. Joshua Larabee, portrayed by Laurence Fishburne. It also explores issues of education in an African-American community of low socioeconomic status. The film was developed over a period of 10 years by Doug Atchison, the germ of the idea having started after his watching the Scripps National Spelling Bee of 1994 and combined with his experiences spent tutoring disadvantaged students in the area around the University of Southern California, where he attended film school. After four years of trying to secure funding for the film, the documentary film "Spellbound" came out in 2002 and perhaps, according to one producer, Sid Ganis, facilitated funding. "Spellbound" features a black girl, Ashley White, from Washington, D.C., in rough parallel to the independent idea developed in "Akeelah and the Bee". This film, together with the 2005 "Bee Season", also touched off a brief national interest in spelling bees—2006 Scripps National Spelling Bee was broadcast live on television. The film has been heavily promoted by Starbucks as a result of a partnership between Lions Gate Entertainment, 2929 Entertainment, and Starbucks Entertainment. It became the first DVD offered for sale at Starbucks. Plot. Akeelah Anderson (Keke Palmer) attends Crenshaw Middle School, a predominantly black school in South Los Angeles. Akeelah is a bright 11-year-old and never makes errors on her spelling tests and doesn't really seem to fit in. She lives with her widowed mother, Tanya (Angela Bassett), her three siblings Kiana, Devon, and Terrence (Erica Hubbard, Lee Thompson Young, and Julito McCullum), and her infant niece. Her principal, Mr. Welch and her teacher, Mrs. Cross, recommend her to sign up for the Crenshaw Schoolwide Spelling Bee, which she wins easily by spelling "fanciful". After that, Dr. Joshua Larabee (Laurence Fishburne), a visiting English professor and Mr. Welch's college friend, tests her with some difficult words and finds that she has the potential to reach the National Spelling Bee, even though she misspells "pulchritude". When Akeelah asks Dr. Larabee to coach her, he rejects her for being rude. Instead, she studies on her own for the district spelling bee. During the bee, during the final round, she misspells "synecdoche". Her sister Kiana catches the final contestant cheating, when trying to spell "carmagnole" because his mom helps him spell with a "g". She tries to deny he cheated, but he admitted it and the judge disqualifies him. This allows Akeelah to get a second chance to take the tenth and final qualifying spot for the regional/state bee by spelling "pastiche". She also meets and befriends Javier Mendez (J.R. Villarreal), a 12-year-old Mexican-American boy and fellow speller who has a crush on her. Their friendship started when he helped Akeelah pin her number on her shirt, saying that he won't "impale her". Javier invites her to join the spelling club at his Woodland Hills middle school.
1099828	A radial basis function (RBF) is a real-valued function whose value depends only on the distance from the origin, so that formula_1; or alternatively on the distance from some other point "c", called a "center", so that formula_2. Any function formula_3 that satisfies the property formula_1 is a radial function. The norm is usually Euclidean distance, although other distance functions are also possible. For example, using Lukaszyk-Karmowski metric, it is possible for some radial functions to avoid problems with ill conditioning of the matrix solved to determine coefficients "w""i" (see below), since the formula_5 is always greater than zero. Sums of radial basis functions are typically used to approximate given functions. This approximation process can also be interpreted as a simple kind of neural network. RBFs are also used as a kernel in support vector classification. RBF types. Commonly used types of radial basis functions include (writing
1062246	Full Metal Jacket is a 1987 war film produced, directed and co-written by Stanley Kubrick. It is an adaptation of Gustav Hasford's 1979 novel "The Short-Timers" and stars Matthew Modine, Vincent D'Onofrio, R. Lee Ermey, Arliss Howard, and Adam Baldwin. The film follows a platoon of U.S. Marines through their training and the experiences of two of the platoon's Marines in the Tet Offensive during the Vietnam War. The film's title refers to the full metal jacket bullet used by infantry riflemen. The film received critical acclaim. It received an Academy Award nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay for Kubrick, Michael Herr and Gustav Hasford. In 2001, the American Film Institute placed "Full Metal Jacket" at #95 in their "AFI's 100 Years...100 Thrills" poll. Plot. In 1967, during the Vietnam War, a group of new U.S. Marine Corps recruits arrives at Parris Island for basic training. After having their heads shaved, they meet their Senior Drill Instructor, Gunnery Sergeant Hartman. Hartman employs draconian tactics to turn the recruits into hardened Marines prepared for combat. Among the recruits are Privates "Joker", "Cowboy" and the overweight, bumbling Leonard Lawrence, who earns the nickname "Gomer Pyle" after attracting Hartman's wrath. Unresponsive to Hartman's discipline, Pyle is eventually paired with Joker. Pyle improves with Joker's help, but his progress halts when Hartman discovers a contraband jelly doughnut in Pyle's foot locker. Believing that the recruits have failed to motivate Pyle, Hartman adopts a collective punishment policy: every mistake Pyle makes will earn punishment for the rest of the platoon, with Pyle being spared. In retaliation, the platoon hazes Pyle with a blanket party, restraining him to his bunk and beating him with bars of soap wrapped in towels. Shortly after this incident Pyle shows a strong aptitude for marksmanship with his M14 rifle, impressing Hartman. But Joker becomes worried as he witnesses Pyle showing increasing signs of obsession and mental breakdown, such as talking to his rifle. Following their graduation the recruits receive their Military Occupational Specialty assignments; Joker is assigned to Basic Military Journalism. During the platoon's final night on Parris Island, Joker discovers Pyle in the latrine, loading his rifle with live ammunition. Joker attempts to calm Pyle, who responds by loudly executing drill commands and reciting the Rifleman's Creed. The noise awakens the platoon and Hartman. Hartman confronts Pyle and orders him to surrender the rifle. Pyle kills Hartman, and then commits suicide.
633312	Brent Jay Spiner (, born February 2, 1949) is an American actor, best known for his portrayal of the android Lieutenant Commander Data in the television series ' and four subsequent films. His portrayal of Data in ' and of Dr. Brackish Okun in "Independence Day", both in 1996, earned him a Saturn Award and Saturn Award nomination respectively. He has also enjoyed a career in the theatre and as a musician. Early life. Brent Jay Spiner was born February 2, 1949 in Houston, Texas to Sylvia and Jack Spiner, who owned a furniture store. After his father's death, Spiner was adopted by Sylvia's second husband, Sol Mintz, whose surname he used between 1955 and 1975. Spiner was raised Jewish. He attended Bellaire High School, Bellaire, Texas. Spiner became active on the Bellaire Speech team, winning the national championship in dramatic interpretation. He attended the University of Houston where he performed in local theatre. Career. Early work. Spiner moved to New York City, where he became a stage actor, performing in several Broadway and Off-Broadway plays, including "The Three Musketeers" and Stephen Sondheim's "Sunday in the Park with George". He had a non-speaking background role in the film "Stardust Memories" as one of the silent Felliniesque "grotesques" on Sandy Bates's train car. Spiner appeared as a media technician in "The Advocates", a second season episode of the Showtime cable series "The Paper Chase". In 1984, he moved to Los Angeles, where he appeared in several pilots and made-for-TV movies. He played a recurring character on "Night Court", Bob Wheeler, patriarch of a rural family. In 1986, he played a condemned soul in "Dead Run", an episode of the short-lived revival of Rod Serling's series "The Twilight Zone" on CBS. He made two appearances as characters in season 3 (1986) of the situation comedy "Mama's Family", playing two different characters. Spiner's first and only starring film role was in "Rent Control" (1984). In the "Cheers" episode "Never Love a Goalie, Part II", he played acquitted murder suspect Bill Grand. Spiner also had a role in a "Tales from the Darkside" episode, "A Case of the Stubborns", as a priest who experiences a crisis of faith. He portrayed Jim Stevens in the made-for-TV movie "Manhunt for Claude Dallas". "Star Trek". In 1987, Spiner started his 15-year run portraying Lieutenant Commander Data on ', which spanned seven seasons and four feature films. As a main character, he appeared in all but one of the series' 178 episodes; he was not in the episode "". He reprised his role in the spin-off films "Star Trek Generations" (1994), ' (1996), ' (1998) and ' (2002). Although billed as the final "Trek" movie for the "TNG" cast, the ambiguous ending of ' suggested a possible avenue for the return of Data. However, Spiner has opined that he is too old to continue playing the part, as Data embodies a "childlike innocence" that Spiner can no longer credibly exhibit, as his appearance had already begun to lose that quality by the time he filmed his last "Trek" films. In addition to the series and films, he voiced his character in several "Star Trek" video games, such as "Star Trek Generations", ', ' and '. Album. In 1991, Spiner recorded an album of 1940s pop standards entitled "Ol' Yellow Eyes Is Back", the title of which was a play on the yellow contact lenses Spiner wore as Data, and the title of a Frank Sinatra record, "Ol' Blue Eyes Is Back". In 1997, he returned to Broadway, playing John Adams in the Roundabout Theatre Company revival of the musical "1776". The production was nominated for a Tony Award. A cast recording was released of the revival production. After "Star Trek". Spiner has appeared in the television series "Deadly Games", "Dream On", "Frasier", "Friends", "Gargoyles", ', "Mad About You" and "The Outer Limits". In the series "The Big Bang Theory" and "Joey", he appeared as himself. He has acted in the movies "The Aviator", "Dude, Where's My Car?", "I Am Sam", "Independence Day", "The Master of Disguise", "Out to Sea", "Phenomenon", "The Ponder Heart" and '. His television-movie appearances during this period include the 2000 musical "Geppetto" and the role of Dorothy Dandridge's manager and confidant, Earl Mills, in the HBO production "Introducing Dorothy Dandridge". In 2004, Spiner returned to "Star Trek" when he appeared as Dr. , an ancestor of Data's creator Dr. Noonien Soong, whom he also played, in a three-episode story arc of "": "", "Cold Station 12" and "The Augments". He also briefly reprised the role of Data for the series, providing a voice-only cameo in the "Enterprise" finale "These Are the Voyages...". Spiner guest-starred in "Friends" as a man who interviews Rachel for Gucci, and later cameoed as himself in the "Friends" spin-off "Joey". In 2005, Spiner appeared in a short-lived science-fiction television series "Threshold", which was canceled in November of that year after 13 episodes. In 2006, he appeared in a feature film comedy, "Material Girls", with Hilary and Haylie Duff. During the tenth season of the situation comedy "Frasier", in the episode "Lilith Needs a Favor", Spiner made two brief cameos as a fellow airline passenger with Frasier Crane's ex-wife, Lilith Sternin. In March 2008, Spiner performed alongside Maude Maggart in a radio show/musical, "Dreamland", which was released as a CD album. In 2008, Spiner played Dr. Strom in the feature film parody "Superhero Movie". In February 2009, he played William Quint in "The Juror #6 Job", an episode of the drama series "Leverage" directed by his "Next Generation" co-star Jonathan Frakes. That same year, he voiced himself in the "Family Guy" episode "Not All Dogs Go to Heaven". In 2010, Spiner and fellow "" star LeVar Burton appeared on TWiT.tv's coverage of the Consumer Electronics Show. In April 2011, Spiner began starring in "Fresh Hell", a comic webseries in which he plays a version of himself, attempting to put his career back together after falling out of the limelight. He appeared as Dr. Kern in the September 12, 2011 episode of the Syfy channel program "Alphas" entitled "Blind Spot". In October 2011, he appeared as himself in the episode "The Russian Rocket Reaction" (October 13, 2011) of "The Big Bang Theory". The day after his guest appearance on "The Big Bang Theory", it was announced that Spiner would guest-star in the "Young Justice" episode "Revelation", providing the voice of the Joker. Spiner has also guest starred on the Syfy channel program "Warehouse 13" as Brother Adrian in the third and fourth seasons. In episode 7 of season 4, the character Pete Lattimer jokingly describes another obsessively tidy, character in this episode as "Commander Data". Spiner's web site is at therealbrentspiner.com. He selected that domain name because someone else bought the domain name brentspiner.com before he could do so, and he was not amenable to paying the price the owners demanded for it, which Spiner called "inflated".
1036374	Sanjeev Bhaskar, OBE (born 31 October 1963) is a British Indian comedian, actor and broadcaster, best known for his work in the BBC Two comedy series "Goodness Gracious Me" and as host of "The Kumars at No. 42". He also presented and starred in a documentary series called "India with Sanjeev Bhaskar" in which he travelled India and visited his ancestral home in today's Pakistan. In 2003, he was listed in "The Observer" as one of the 50 funniest acts in British comedy. Biography. Personal life. Bhaskar was born in Ealing, London, and grew up living above a launderette in Hounslow, west London. At first, Bhaskar's father, a factory supervisor for Nestlé, and mother, a bookkeeper, were mortified by their son's proposed career. To appease them, he earned a degree in marketing from the Hatfield Polytechnic (now the University of Hertfordshire) before landing a job as a marketing executive at IBM. He soon realised that he preferred comedy to marketing and joined forces with an old college friend, Nitin Sawhney, to start a musical comedy double act called ""The Secret Indians (non-Asian)"" which they first performed in 1996 at the now-defunct Tom Allen Arts Centre in East London. This performance was featured on a BBC magazine show called "Reportage". They performed extensively also at the Watermans Arts Centre with numerous other acts at a regular Asian comedy night called "One Nation Under a Groove...Innit". Their real break came when they were performing a show at the Oval House venue in South London where, after a strong review in "Time Out" magazine by journalist and playwright Bonnie Greer, they were approached by Anil Gupta, the producer of what was to become the BBC sketch series "Goodness Gracious Me". In 2005 he married his frequent collaborator, Meera Syal, who plays his grandmother in "The Kumars at No. 42" and was his co-star in "Anita and Me". In August of that year, it was announced that they were expecting their first child. Their son, Shaan, was born at the Portland Hospital on 2 December 2005. In February 2009, Bhaskar and other entertainers wrote an open letter to "The Times" protesting against the trial of Bahá'í leaders then being held in Iran. Before the 2010 general election, Bhaskar was one of 48 celebrities who signed a letter warning against Conservative Party policy toward the BBC. Career. At the age of 32, he at last felt that his parents were pleased with him. "For the first 32 years of my life, they didn’t laugh at a single thing I said", he jokes. "Then, quite frankly, they just jumped on the bandwagon because they saw everyone else was laughing!" Bhaskar has starred in a number of British-produced films including "The Guru" and "Anita and Me". He also had a cameo as a shop owner in Yash Raj Films' production "Jhoom Barabar Jhoom". Bhaskar, the Kumars and Gareth Gates collectively released the official single for Comic Relief in 2003, which spent three weeks at number 1 and was the second highest selling single of the year. He appeared as a guest on the BBC’s "Top Gear" in 2003, setting a time of 1:51.0 around a wet Top Gear test track in a Suzuki Liana, placing him 32nd on the original leader board. In 2005 Bhaskar was made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the New Year Honours List. As part of the BBC’s series of programmes on the 60th anniversary of the independence of India and Pakistan, he filmed a BBC documentary series "India with Sanjeev Bhaskar" with director Deep Sehgal which was broadcast to coincide with the 60th anniversary of Indian Independence in August 2007. According to the BBC it included “an emotional journey” to his father’s ancestral home which is now in Pakistan. His first book "India with Sanjeev Bhaskar" based on the documentary series became a "Sunday Times" bestseller in 2007. In 2008 he made his musical theatre debut as King Arthur in "Spamalot" at London's Palace Theatre. In October 2008 he was featured on BBC Radio 4's "Desert Island Discs". He wrote and starred in the ITV sitcom "Mumbai Calling" and the UK tour of the hit American improv show "Totally Looped". On 23 February 2009 Sanjeev was appointed as the University of Sussex's new Chancellor. He was formally installed at the university's summer graduation ceremony on the 22 July 2009. In March 2010 Sanjeev featured on the BBC Radio 4 comedy show "I've Never Seen Star Wars". On 23 July 2010 he was guest on the BBC comedy panel game "Would I Lie To You?" He also featured in a Channel 4 documentary series called 'The House That Made Me.' This show, produced by Nutopia (Production Company) in 2010, recreated his childhood home and introduced him to the characters of his youth.
1089869	John Couch Adams FRS (5 June 1819 – 21 January 1892) was a British mathematician and astronomer. Adams was born in Laneast, near Launceston, Cornwall, and died in Cambridge. The Cornish name Couch is pronounced "cooch". His most famous achievement was predicting the existence and position of Neptune, using only mathematics. The calculations were made to explain discrepancies with Uranus's orbit and the laws of Kepler and Newton. At the same time, but unknown to each other, the same calculations were made by Urbain Le Verrier. Le Verrier would assist Berlin Observatory astronomer Johann Gottfried Galle in locating the planet on 23 September 1846, which was found within 1° of its predicted location, a point in Aquarius. (There was, and to some extent still is, some controversy over the apportionment of credit for the discovery; see Discovery of Neptune.) He was Lowndean Professor at the University of Cambridge for thirty-three years from 1859 to his death. He won the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society in 1866. In 1884, he attended the International Meridian Conference as a delegate for Britain. A crater on the Moon is jointly named after him, Walter Sydney Adams and Charles Hitchcock Adams. Neptune's outermost known ring and the asteroid 1996 Adams are also named after him. The Adams Prize, presented by the University of Cambridge, commemorates his prediction of the position of Neptune. His personal library is now in the care of Cambridge University Library. Early life. Adams was born at Lidcot, a farm at Laneast, near Launceston, Cornwall, the eldest of seven children. His parents were Thomas Adams (1788–1859), a poor tenant farmer, and his wife, Tabitha Knill Grylls (1796–1866). The family were devout Wesleyans who enjoyed music and among John's brothers, Thomas became a missionary, George a farmer, and William Grylls Adams, professor of natural philosophy and astronomy at King's College London. Tabitha was a farmer's daughter but had received a rudimentary education from John Couch, her uncle, whose small library she had inherited. John was intrigued by the astronomy books from an early age. John attended the Laneast village school where he acquired some Greek and algebra. From there, he went, at the age of twelve, to Devonport, where his mother's cousin, the Rev. John Couch Grylls, kept a private school. There he learned classics but was largely self-taught in mathematics, studying in the Library of Devonport Mechanics' Institute and reading "Rees's Cyclopaedia" and Samuel Vince's "Fluxions". He observed Halley's comet in 1835 from Landulph and the following year started to make his own astronomical calculations, predictions and observations, engaging in private tutoring to finance his activities. In 1836, his mother inherited a small estate at Badharlick and his promise as a mathematician induced his parents to send him to the University of Cambridge. In October 1839 he entered as a sizar at St John's College, graduating B.A. in 1843 as the senior wrangler and first Smith's prizeman of his year. Discovery of Neptune. In 1821, Alexis Bouvard had published astronomical tables of the orbit of Uranus, making predictions of future positions based on Newton's laws of motion and gravitation. Subsequent observations revealed substantial deviations from the tables, leading Bouvard to hypothesize some perturbing body. Adams learnt of the irregularities while still an undergraduate and became convinced of the "perturbation" theory. Adams believed, in the face of anything that had been attempted before, that he could use the observed data on Uranus, and utilising nothing more than Newton's law of gravitation, deduce the mass, position and orbit of the perturbing body. On the 3rd of July 1841, he noted his intention to work on the problem. After his final examinations in 1843, Adams was elected fellow of his college and spent the summer vacation in Cornwall calculating the first of six iterations. While he worked on the problem back in Cambridge, he tutored undergraduates, sending money home to educate his brothers, and even taught Mrs. Ireland, his bedmaker, to read. Supposedly, Adams communicated his work to James Challis, director of the Cambridge Observatory, in mid-September 1845 but there is some controversy as to how. On 21 October 1845, Adams, returning from a Cornwall vacation, without appointment, twice called on Astronomer Royal George Biddell Airy in Greenwich. Failing to find him at home, Adams reputedly left a manuscript of his solution, again without the detailed calculations. Airy responded with a letter to Adams asking for some clarification. It appears that Adams did not regard the question as "trivial", as is often alleged, but he failed to complete a response. Various theories have been discussed as to Adams's failure to reply, such as his general nervousness, procrastination and disorganisation. Meanwhile, Urbain Le Verrier, on 10 November 1845, presented to the "Académie des sciences" in Paris a memoir on Uranus, showing that the pre-existing theory failed to account for its motion. On reading Le Verrier's memoir, Airy was struck by the coincidence and initiated a desperate race for English priority in discovery of the planet. The search was begun by a laborious method on 29 July. Only after the discovery of Neptune on 23 September 1846 had been announced in Paris did it become apparent that Neptune had been observed on 8 and 12 August but because Challis lacked an up-to-date star-map it was not recognized as a planet. A keen controversy arose in France and England as to the merits of the two astronomers. As the facts became known, there was wide recognition that the two astronomers had independently solved the problem of Uranus, and each was ascribed equal importance. However, there have been subsequent assertions that "The Brits Stole Neptune" and that Adams's British contemporaries retrospectively ascribed him more credit than he was due. But it is also notable (and not included in some of the foregoing discussion references) that Adams himself publicly acknowledged Le Verrier's priority and credit (not forgetting to mention the role of Galle) in the paper that he gave 'On the Perturbations of Uranus' to the Royal Astronomical Society in November 1846:- Adams held no bitterness towards Challis or Airy and acknowledged his own failure to convince the astronomical world: Adams' style of working. His lay fellowship at St John's College came to an end in 1852, and the existing statutes did not permit his re-election. However, Pembroke College, which possessed greater freedom, elected him in the following year to a lay fellowship which he held for the rest of his life. Despite the fame of his work on Neptune, Adams also did much important work on gravitational astronomy and terrestrial magnetism. He was particularly adept at fine numerical calculations, often making substantial revisions to the contributions of his predecessors. However, he was "extraordinarily uncompetitive, reluctant to publish imperfect work to stimulate debate or claim priority, averse to correspondence about it, and forgetful in practical matters". It has been suggested that these are symptoms of Asperger syndrome which would also be consistent with the "repetitive behaviours and restricted interests" necessary to perform the Neptune calculations, in addition to his difficulties in personal interaction with Challis and Airy. In 1852, he published new and accurate tables of the moon's parallax, which superseded Johann Karl Burckhardt's, and supplied corrections to the theories of Marie-Charles Damoiseau, Giovanni Antonio Amedeo Plana, and Philippe Gustave Doulcet. He had hoped that this work would leverage him into the vacant post as superintendent of HM Nautical Almanac Office but John Russell Hind was preferred, Adams lacking the necessary ability as an organiser and administrator. Lunar theory — Secular acceleration of the Moon. Since ancient times, the Moon's mean rate of motion relative to the stars had been treated as a constant rate, but in 1695, Edmond Halley had suggested that this mean rate was gradually increasing. Later, during the eighteenth century, Richard Dunthorne estimated the rate as +10" (arcseconds/century2) in terms of the resulting difference in lunar longitude,-- also given in Philosophical Transactions (abridgements) (1809), vol.9 (for 1744-49), p669-675 as "On the Acceleration of the Moon, by the Rev. Richard Dunthorne". an effect that became known as the "secular acceleration of the Moon". Pierre-Simon Laplace had given an explanation in 1787 in terms of changes in the eccentricity of the Earth's orbit. He considered only the radial gravitational force on the Moon, from the Sun and Earth but obtained close agreement with the historical record of observations. In 1820, at the insistence of the "Académie des sciences", Damoiseau, Plana and Francesco Carlini revisited Laplace's work, investigating quadratic and higher-order perturbing terms, and obtained similar results, again addressing only a radial, and neglecting tangential, gravitational force on the Moon. Hansen obtained similar results in 1842 and 1847. In 1853, Adams published a paper showing that, while tangential terms vanish in the first-order theory of Laplace, they become substantial when quadratic terms are admitted. Small terms integrated in time come to have large effects and Adams concluded that Plana had overestimated the secular acceleration by approximately 1.66" per century. At first, Le Verrier rejected Adams's results. In 1856, Plana admitted Adams's conclusions, claiming to have revised his own analysis and arrived at the same results. However, he soon recanted, publishing a third result different both from Adams's and Plana's own earlier work. Delaunay in 1859 calculated the fourth-order term and duplicated Adams's result leading Adams to publish his own calculations for the fifth, sixth and seventh-order terms. Adams now calculated that only 5.7" of the observed 11" was accounted for by gravitational effects. Later that year, Philippe Gustave Doulcet, Comte de Pontécoulant published a claim that the tangential force could have no effect though Peter Andreas Hansen, who seems to have cast himself in the role of arbitrator, declared that the burden of proof rested on Pontécoulant, while lamenting the need to discover a further effect to account for the balance. Much of the controversy centred around the convergence of the power series expansion used and, in 1860, Adams duplicated his results without using a power series. Sir John Lubbock also duplicated Adams's results and Plana finally concurred. Adams's view was ultimately accepted and further developed, winning him the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society in 1866. The unexplained drift is now known to be due to tidal acceleration. In 1858 Adams became professor of mathematics at the University of St Andrews, but lectured only for a session, before returning to Cambridge for the Lowndean professorship of astronomy and geometry. Two years later he succeeded Challis as director of the Cambridge Observatory, a post Adams held until his death. The Leonids. The great meteor shower of November 1866 turned his attention to the Leonids, whose probable path and period had already been discussed and predicted by Hubert Anson Newton in 1864. Newton had asserted that the longitude of the ascending node, that marked where the shower would occur, was increasing and the problem of explaining this variation attracted some of Europe's leading astronomers. Using a powerful and elaborate analysis, Adams ascertained that this cluster of meteors, which belongs to the solar system, traverses an elongated ellipse in 33.25 years, and is subject to definite perturbations from the larger planets, Jupiter, Saturn and Uranus. These results were published in 1867. Some experts consider this Adams's most substantial achievement. His "definitive orbit" for the Leonids coincided with that of the comet 55P/Tempel-Tuttle and therefore suggested the, later widely accepted, close relationship between comets and meteors. Later career. Ten years later, George William Hill described a novel and elegant method for attacking the problem of lunar motion. Adams briefly announced his own unpublished work in the same field, which, following a parallel course had confirmed and supplemented Hill's. Over a period of forty years, he periodically addressed the determination of the constants in Carl Friedrich Gauss's theory of terrestrial magnetism. Again, the calculations involved great labour, and were not published during his lifetime. They were edited by his brother, William Grylls Adams, and appear in the second volume of the collected "Scientific Papers". Numerical computation of this kind might almost be described as his pastime. He calculated the Euler–Mascheroni constant, perhaps somewhat eccentrically, to 236 decimal places and evaluated the Bernoulli numbers up to the 62nd. Adams had boundless admiration for Newton and his writings and many of his papers bear the cast of Newton's thought. In 1872, Isaac Newton Wallop, 5th Earl of Portsmouth donated his private collection of Newton's papers to Cambridge University. Adams and G. G. Stokes took on the task or arranging the material, publishing a catalogue in 1888. The post of Astronomer Royal was offered him in 1881, but he preferred to pursue his peaceful course of teaching and research in Cambridge. He was British delegate to the International Meridian Conference at Washington in 1884, when he also attended the meetings of the British Association at Montreal and of the American Association at Philadelphia. Family and death. Five years later his health gave way, and after a long illness he died at the Cambridge Observatory on 21 January 1892, and is buried in the Parish of the Ascension Burial Ground in Cambridge, near his home. In 1863 he had married Miss Eliza Bruce (1827 - 1919), of Dublin, who survived him, and is buried with him. His wealth at death was £32,434 (£2.6 million at 2003 prices).
1100545	Alan Mathison Turing, OBE, FRS ( ; 23 June 1912 – 7 June 1954), was an English mathematician, logician, cryptanalyst, and computer scientist. He was highly influential in the development of computer science, giving a formalisation of the concepts of "algorithm" and "computation" with the Turing machine, which can be considered a model of a general purpose computer. Turing is widely considered to be the father of computer science and artificial intelligence. During World War II, Turing worked for the Government Code and Cypher School (GC&CS) at Bletchley Park, Britain's codebreaking centre. For a time he was head of Hut 8, the section responsible for German naval cryptanalysis. He devised a number of techniques for breaking German ciphers, including the method of the bombe, an electromechanical machine that could find settings for the Enigma machine. After the war, he worked at the National Physical Laboratory, where he designed the ACE, one of the first designs for a stored-program computer. In 1948 Turing joined Max Newman's Computing Laboratory at Manchester University, where he assisted in the development of the Manchester computers and became interested in mathematical biology. He wrote a paper on the chemical basis of morphogenesis, and predicted oscillating chemical reactions such as the Belousov–Zhabotinsky reaction, which were first observed in the 1960s. Turing's homosexuality resulted in a criminal prosecution in 1952, when homosexual acts were still illegal in the United Kingdom. He accepted treatment with female hormones (chemical castration) as an alternative to prison. Turing died in 1954, just over two weeks before his 42nd birthday, from cyanide poisoning. An inquest determined that his death was suicide; his mother and some others believed his death was accidental. On 10 September 2009, following an Internet campaign, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown made an official public apology on behalf of the British government for "the appalling way he was treated." In May 2012, a private member's bill was put before the House of Lords to grant Turing a statutory pardon. In July 2013 it gained government support. Early life and career. Turing was born in London while his father was on leave from his position with the Indian Civil Service (ICS) at Chhatrapur, Odisha, in British India. Turing's father, Julius Mathison Turing (1873–1947), was the son of a clergyman from a Scottish family of merchants which had been based in the Netherlands and included a baronet. Julius's wife, Alan's mother, was Ethel Sara (née Stoney; 1881–1976), daughter of Edward Waller Stoney, chief engineer of the Madras Railways. The Stoneys were a Protestant Anglo-Irish gentry family from both County Tipperary and County Longford, while Ethel herself had spent much of her childhood in County Clare. Julius' work with the ICS brought the family to British India, where his grandfather had been a general in the Bengal Army. However, both Julius and Ethel wanted their children to be brought up in England, so they moved to Maida Vale, London, where Turing was born on 23 June 1912, as recorded by a blue plaque on the outside of the house of his birth, later the Colonnade Hotel. He had an elder brother, John (the father of Sir John Dermot Turing, 12th Baronet of the Turing baronets). His father's civil service commission was still active, and during Turing's childhood years his parents travelled between Hastings in England and India, leaving their two sons to stay with a retired Army couple. Very early in life, Turing showed signs of the genius he was later to display prominently. His parents purchased a house in Guildford in 1927, and Turing lived there during school holidays. The location is also marked with a blue plaque. His parents enrolled him at St Michael's, a day school at 20 Charles Road, St Leonards-on-Sea, at the age of six. The headmistress recognised his talent early on, as did many of his subsequent educators. In 1926, at the age of 13, he went on to Sherborne School, a well known independent school in the market town of Sherborne in Dorset. The first day of term coincided with the 1926 General Strike in Britain, but so determined was he to attend that he rode his bicycle unaccompanied more than from Southampton to Sherborne, stopping overnight at an inn. Turing's natural inclination toward mathematics and science did not earn him respect from some of the teachers at Sherborne, whose definition of education placed more emphasis on the classics. His headmaster wrote to his parents: "I hope he will not fall between two stools. If he is to stay at public school, he must aim at becoming "educated". If he is to be solely a "Scientific Specialist", he is wasting his time at a public school". Despite this, Turing continued to show remarkable ability in the studies he loved, solving advanced problems in 1927 without having studied even elementary calculus. In 1928, aged 16, Turing encountered Albert Einstein's work; not only did he grasp it, but he extrapolated Einstein's questioning of Newton's laws of motion from a text in which this was never made explicit. At Sherborne, Turing formed an important friendship with fellow pupil Christopher Morcom, which provided inspiration in Turing's future endeavours. However, the friendship was cut short by Morcom's death in February 1930 from complications of bovine tuberculosis contracted after drinking infected cow's milk some years previously. This event shattered Turing's religious faith. He became an atheist and adopted the conviction that all phenomena, including the workings of the human brain, must be materialistic, but he still believed in the survival of the spirit after death. University and work on computability. After Sherborne, Turing studied as an undergraduate from 1931 to 1934 at King's College, Cambridge, from where he gained first-class honours in mathematics. In 1935, at the young age of 22, he was elected a fellow at King's on the strength of a dissertation in which he proved the central limit theorem, despite the fact that he had failed to find out that it had already been proved in 1922 by Jarl Waldemar Lindeberg. In 1928, German mathematician David Hilbert had called attention to the "Entscheidungsproblem" (decision problem). In his momentous paper "On Computable Numbers, with an Application to the "Entscheidungsproblem"" (submitted on 28 May 1936 and delivered 12 November), Turing reformulated Kurt Gödel's 1931 results on the limits of proof and computation, replacing Gödel's universal arithmetic-based formal language with the formal and simple hypothetical devices that became known as Turing machines. He proved that some such machine would be capable of performing any conceivable mathematical computation if it were representable as an algorithm. He went on to prove that there was no solution to the "Entscheidungsproblem" by first showing that the halting problem for Turing machines is undecidable: in general, it is not possible to decide algorithmically whether a given Turing machine will ever halt. Although Turing's proof was published shortly after Alonzo Church's equivalent proof using his lambda calculus, Turing had been unaware of Church's work. Turing's approach is considerably more accessible and intuitive than Church's. It was also novel in its notion of a 'Universal Machine' (now known as a Universal Turing machine), with the idea that such a machine could perform the tasks of any other machine, or in other words, it is provably capable of computing anything that is computable. In effect, it is programmable. Von Neumann acknowledged that the central concept of the modern computer was due to this paper. Turing machines are to this day a central object of study in theory of computation. From September 1936 to July 1938, he spent most of his time studying under Church at Princeton University. In addition to his purely mathematical work, he studied cryptology and also built three of four stages of an electro-mechanical binary multiplier. In June 1938, he obtained his PhD from Princeton; his dissertation, "Systems of Logic Based on Ordinals", introduced the concept of ordinal logic and the notion of relative computing, where Turing machines are augmented with so-called oracles, allowing a study of problems that cannot be solved by a Turing machine. When Turing returned to Cambridge, he attended lectures given by Ludwig Wittgenstein about the foundations of mathematics. The two argued and disagreed, with Turing defending formalism and Wittgenstein propounding his view that mathematics does not discover any absolute truths but rather invents them. He also started to work part-time with the Government Code and Cypher School (GCCS). Cryptanalysis. During the Second World War, Turing was a leading participant in the breaking of German ciphers at Bletchley Park. The historian and wartime codebreaker Asa Briggs has said:
585710	Kilichundan Mampazham is a 2003 Family Entertainer film directed by Priyadarshan. It features Mohanlal, Soundarya, Sreenivasan, Salim Kumar. The story is written by Sreenivasan and the screenplay and the dialogues was written by Priyadarshan. Story. Moidukutty Haji returns to his village after marrying a third time. His new wife Amina is young and beautiful. His other two wives are really unhappy to see this, but they have no other choice but to accept it. Abdu and Usman comes to the village and they come to Moidukutty Haji's house to sell bangles. Abdu sees Amina there,in order to get into Moidukutty Haji's house, he tries very hard but Moidukutty Haji drives them away. In the meantime, Amina is giving excuses to Moidukutty Haji and not making him touch her. Abdu and Amina was in love. But, when Abdu was in Gulf, Amina's wicked father secretly stole all letters sent by Abdu by bribing the postman, Amina's marriage took place without her acceptance. Abdu with some help from his friends make secret moves to get Amina back. The events that is going to happen from here makes the plot of the story. Soundtrack. Music : Vidyasagar
1165285	Barbara Ann Stuart (née McNeese; January 3, 1930 – May 15, 2011) was an American actress. Major roles. Stuart portrayed "Miss Bunny", the girlfriend of Sergeant Vincent Carter, played by Frank Sutton, on three seasons of CBS's "Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C." In 1969, Stuart was cast as "Wilma Winslow" on CBS's "The Queen and I". In 1985, she was cast as Marianne Danzig, the wife of a Mafia godfather in the ABC's crime drama "Our Family Honor", both in the television movie and the short-lived series of the same name. Between 1959 and 1961, she appeared in four episodes of the NBC crime drama "The Lawless Years", starring James Gregory and Robert Karnes ("The Marie Walters Story", "The Maxey Gorman Story", "The Billy Boy 'Rockabye' Creel Story", and "Ginny"). She also appeared as "Alice" in nine episodes of the another CBS sitcom, "Pete and Gladys", starring Harry Morgan and Cara Williams. In 1976 she played McLean Stevenson's wife on the short-lived NBC sitcom, "The McLean Stevenson Show". Early years. Stuart was born in Paris, the seat of Edgar County in eastern Illinois. She attended the Schuster-Martin School of Drama in Cincinnati, Ohio, which was founded by an aunt of the actor Tyrone Power. Thereafter she studied in New York City under Stella Adler, having modeled to pay for her acting lessons. She was invited to join the national tour of Zero Mostel's "Lunatics and Lovers". Her first television role was as Bessie, the secretary, on the 1955 syndicated series "The Great Gildersleeve", starring Willard Waterman and based on the "Fibber McGee and Molly" radio program. She guest starred in numerous television series, including two Rod Cameron syndicated crime dramas, "State Trooper" and "COronado 9". She appeared in three episodes of the television crime drama "Peter Gunn". She appeared as Mrs. Bugsy McKenna in the episode "Bugsy" of the CBS crime drama "Mr. Lucky", with John Vivyan, who had also appeared on "The Lawless Years". Western roles. In 1960, Stuart appeared as the legendary gambler Poker Alice in three episodes of the CBS-Desilu western series "The Texan", starring Rory Calhoun. In 1959, she appeared as Belle in "The Magic Box" of the ABC/Warner Brothers western series, "Colt .45," starring Wayde Preston. She appeared in the episode with Vaughn Taylor as Oliver Pate and Dan Sheridan as Babcock. Stuart also appeared in two other ABC/WB series, "Sugarfoot" and "Lawman". Her other western roles were on "Sheriff of Cochise", "Jefferson Drum", "Outlaws", "Riverboat", "Frontier Circus", "Two Faces West", "Rawhide" (1963 episode "Incident of the Wild Deuces"), "The Wide Country", "Alias Smith and Jones", "Destry", "Kung Fu", and "Tales of Wells Fargo". She later appeared as Lil Kane in the 1967 episode "Sister Death" of the ABC television series "The Iron Horse". Drama roles. Stuart guest starred as Edith in Rod Serling's "The Twilight Zone" in the 1960 episode "A Thing About Machines". In 1961 she made two appearances on "Perry Mason": Violet Ryder in "The Case of the Guilty Clients," and Maizie Freitag in "The Case of the Brazen Bequest." She appeared in various other dramatic series, including "M Squad", "The Untouchables", "Markham", "The Blue Angels", "87th Precinct", "Adventures in Paradise", "The Eleventh Hour", "Sam Benedict", "Arrest and Trial", "77 Sunset Strip", "Hawaiian Eye", "Surfside 6", "Banyon", "Banacek", "The Rookies", "Barnaby Jones", "Cannon", "Batman", "T.H.E. Cat", "Starsky and Hutch", "Trapper John, M.D.", and "Quincy M.E.". Additional sitcom roles. Stuart played comedy roles on such television sitcoms as "December Bride", "The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show", "The Dick Van Dyke Show", "The Bill Dana Show", "The Joey Bishop Show", "The Cara Williams Show", "The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet", "The Andy Griffith Show", "Mister Roberts", "The Farmer's Daughter", "Three's Company", "Taxi", and "Love, American Style". Later years. Later years saw her appear in guest roles on "Hotel", "Simon and Simon", "Highway to Heaven", "L.A. Law", and "Nash Bridges". Stuart's last role was as "Alice" in five episodes of Showtime's "Huff". She appeared in such motion picture feature films as "Airplane!", "Dreamer", "Marines, Let's Go" and "Hellfighters". She played Tom Hanks' character's increasingly appalled mother-in-law-to-be in 1984's "Bachelor Party". Family. Stuart was divorced from actor Dick Gautier; she had three stepchildren by this marriage.
1104767	Norbert Wiener (November 26, 1894 – March 18, 1964) was an American mathematician. He was Professor of Mathematics at MIT. A famous child prodigy, Wiener later became an early researcher in stochastic and noise processes, contributing work relevant to electronic engineering, electronic communication, and control systems. Wiener is considered the originator of cybernetics, a formalization of the notion of feedback, with many implications for engineering, systems control, computer science, biology, philosophy, and the organization of society. Biography. Youth. Wiener was born in Columbia, Missouri, the first child of Leo Wiener and Bertha Kahn, Ashkenazi Jews of Polish and German origin, respectively. Norbert Wiener became a famous child prodigy. Leo had educated Norbert at home until 1903, employing teaching methods of his own invention, except for a brief interlude when Norbert was 7 years of age. Earning his living teaching German and Slavic languages, Leo read widely and accumulated a personal library from which the young Norbert benefited greatly. Leo also had ample ability in mathematics, and tutored his son in the subject until he left home. In his autobiography, Norbert described his father as calm and patient, unless he (Norbert) failed to give a correct answer, at which his father would lose his temper. Despite being raised in a Jewish family, he later became an agnostic. After graduating from Ayer High School in 1906 at 11 years of age, Wiener entered Tufts College. He was awarded a BA in mathematics in 1909 at the age of 14, whereupon he began graduate studies of zoology at Harvard. In 1910 he transferred to Cornell to study philosophy. Harvard and World War I. The next year he returned to Harvard, while still continuing his philosophical studies. Back at Harvard, Wiener became influenced by Edward Vermilye Huntington, whose mathematical interests ranged from axiomatic foundations to engineering problems. Harvard awarded Wiener a Ph.D. in 1912, when he was merely 17 years old, for a dissertation on mathematical logic, supervised by Karl Schmidt, the essential results of which were published as Wiener (1914). In that dissertation, he was the first to state publicly that ordered pairs can be defined in terms of elementary set theory. Hence relations can be defined by set theory, thus the theory of relations does not require any axioms or primitive notions distinct from those of set theory. In 1921, Kazimierz Kuratowski proposed a simplification of Wiener's definition of ordered pairs, and that simplification has been in common use ever since. In 1914, Wiener traveled to Europe, to be taught by Bertrand Russell and G. H. Hardy at Cambridge University, and by David Hilbert and Edmund Landau at the University of Göttingen. During 1915–16, he taught philosophy at Harvard, then was an engineer for General Electric and wrote for the "Encyclopedia Americana". Wiener was briefly a journalist for the "Boston Herald", where he wrote a feature story on the poor labor conditions for mill workers in Lawrence, Massachusetts, but he was fired soon afterwards for his reluctance to write favorable articles about a politician the newspaper's owners sought to promote. Although Wiener eventually became a staunch pacifist, he eagerly contributed to the war effort in World War I. In 1916, with America's entry into the war drawing closer, Wiener attended a training camp for potential military officers, but failed to earn a commission. One year later Wiener again tried to join the military, but the government again rejected him due to his poor eyesight. In the summer of 1918, Oswald Veblen invited Wiener to work on ballistics at the Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland. Living and working with other mathematicians strengthened his interest in mathematics. However, Wiener was still eager to serve in uniform, and decided to make one more attempt to enlist, this time as a common soldier. Wiener wrote in a letter to his parents, "I should consider myself a pretty cheap kind of a swine if I were willing to be an officer but unwilling to be a soldier". This time the army accepted Wiener into its ranks and assigned him, by coincidence, to a unit stationed at Aberdeen, Maryland. World War I ended just days after Wiener's return to Aberdeen and Wiener was discharged from the military in February 1919. After the war. Wiener was unable to secure a permanent position at Harvard, a situation he blamed largely on anti-semitism at the university and in particular on the antipathy of Harvard mathematician G. D. Birkhoff. He was also rejected for a position at the University of Melbourne. At W. F. Osgood's suggestion, Wiener became an instructor of mathematics at MIT, where he spent the remainder of his career, becoming promoted eventually to Professor. In 1926, Wiener returned to Europe as a Guggenheim scholar. He spent most of his time at Göttingen and with Hardy at Cambridge, working on Brownian motion, the Fourier integral, Dirichlet's problem, harmonic analysis, and the Tauberian theorems. In 1926, Wiener's parents arranged his marriage to a German immigrant, Margaret Engemann; they had two daughters. His sister, Constance, married Philip Franklin. Their daughter, Janet, Wiener's niece, married Václav E. Beneš. Many tales, perhaps apocryphal, were told of him at MIT, especially concerning his absent-mindedness. It was said that he returned home once to find his house empty. He inquired of a neighborhood girl the reason, and she said that the family had moved elsewhere that day. He thanked her for the information and she replied, "That's why I stayed behind, Daddy!" During and after World War II. During World War II, his work on the automatic aiming and firing of anti-aircraft guns caused Wiener to investigate information theory independently of Claude Shannon and to invent the Wiener filter. (To him is due the now standard practice of modeling an information source as a random process.) His anti-aircraft work eventually led him to formulate cybernetics. Unlike many of his contemporaries, Wiener was not invited to participate in the Manhattan Project. After the war, his fame helped MIT to recruit a research team in cognitive science, composed of researchers in neuropsychology and the mathematics and biophysics of the nervous system, including Warren Sturgis McCulloch and Walter Pitts. These men later made pioneering contributions to computer science and artificial intelligence. Soon after the group was formed, Wiener suddenly ended all contact with its members, mystifying his colleagues. This emotionally traumatized Walter Pitts, and led to his career decline. In their biography of Wiener, Conway and Siegelman suggest that Wiener's wife Margaret, who detested McCulloch's bohemian lifestyle, engineered the breach. Wiener later helped develop the theories of cybernetics, robotics, computer control, and automation. He shared his theories and findings with other researchers, and credited the contributions of others. These included Soviet researchers and their findings. Wiener's acquaintance with them caused him to be regarded with suspicion during the Cold War. He was a strong advocate of automation to improve the standard of living, and to end economic underdevelopment. His ideas became influential in India, whose government he advised during the 1950s. After the war, Wiener became increasingly concerned with what he believed was political interference with scientific research, and the militarization of science. His article "A Scientist Rebels" for the January 1947 issue of "The Atlantic Monthly" urged scientists to consider the ethical implications of their work. After the war, he refused to accept any government funding or to work on military projects. The way Wiener's beliefs concerning nuclear weapons and the Cold War contrasted with those of John von Neumann is the major theme of the book "John Von Neumann and Norbert Wiener" Wiener was a core participant of the Macy conferences. He died, aged 69, in Stockholm, Sweden. Work. Wiener was an early studier of stochastic and noise processes, contributing work relevant to electronic engineering, electronic communication, and control systems. Wiener is regarded as the originator of cybernetics, a formalization of the notion of feedback, with many implications for engineering, systems control, computer science, biology, philosophy, and the organization of society. Wiener's work with cybernetics influenced Gregory Bateson and Margaret Mead, and through them, anthropology, sociology, and education. Wiener equation. A simple mathematical representation of Brownian motion, the Wiener equation, named after Wiener, assumes the current velocity of a fluid particle fluctuates randomly. Wiener filter. For signal processing, the Wiener filter is a filter proposed by Wiener during the 1940s and published in 1949. Its purpose is to reduce the amount of noise present in a signal by comparison with an estimation of the desired noiseless signal. In mathematics. Wiener took a great interest in the mathematical theory of Brownian motion (named after Robert Brown) proving many results now widely known such as the non-differentiability of the paths. Consequently the one-dimensional version of Brownian motion was named the Wiener process. It is the best known of the Lévy processes, càdlàg stochastic processes with stationary statistically independent increments, and occurs frequently in pure and applied mathematics, physics and economics (e.g. on the stock-market). Wiener's Tauberian theorem, a 1932 result of Wiener, developed Tauberian theorems in summability theory, on the face of it a chapter of real analysis, by showing that most of the known results could be encapsulated in a principle taken from harmonic analysis. In its present formulation, the theorem of Wiener does not have any obvious association with Tauberian theorems, which deal with infinite series; the translation from results formulated for integrals, or using the language of functional analysis and Banach algebras, is however a relatively routine process. The Paley–Wiener theorem relates growth properties of entire functions on Cn and Fourier transformation of Schwartz distributions of compact support. The Wiener–Khinchin theorem, (or "Wiener – Khintchine theorem" or "Khinchin – Kolmogorov theorem"), states that the power spectral density of a wide-sense-stationary random process is the Fourier transform of the corresponding autocorrelation function. An abstract Wiener space is a mathematical object in measure theory, used to construct a "decent", strictly positive and locally finite measure on an infinite-dimensional vector space. Wiener's original construction only applied to the space of real-valued continuous paths on the unit interval, known as classical Wiener space. Leonard Gross provided the generalization to the case of a general separable Banach space. The notion of a Banach space itself was discovered independently by both Wiener and Stefan Banach at around the same time. Publications. Wiener wrote many books and hundreds of articles: Fiction: Autobiography: Under the name "W. Norbert" References. Notes Further reading A brief profile of Dr. Wiener is given in The Observer newspaper, Sunday, 28 January 1951.
585050	Okkadunnadu (Telugu: ఒక్కడున్నాడు) is a 2007 Telugu film starring Gopichand in the lead role, Neha Jhulka is female lead, and Mahesh Manjrekar as the antagonist. The film was written and directed by Chandra Sekhar Yeleti and produced by P. Chiranjeevi(Cherry), who was an executive producer for hit films such as "Chatrapati" and "Vikramarkudu". The film released on 3 March 2007, turned out to be an average flick at the boxoffice . Plot. Gauthami (Neha Jhulka) is a real estate agent in Mumbai. She brokers deals with the buyers and sellers and gets paid commission. She arranges a deal between Gowri Shankar (Suman) of Sri Venkateswara Bank, Hyderabad, India, and a Seth (Raghubabu) in Mumbai, for the sale of a guest house in Mumbai. As per the agreement, there is three months time for registration. However, Gowri Shankar's son Kiran (Gopichand) comes to Mumbai and demands the money immediately. Though Gauthami tries very hard to convince Kiran that it may not be possible to complete the deal early, Kiran does not listen and wants to complete the deal saying that he needs the money urgently. Kiran needs money of Rs. 2 Crore urgently because his father's bank falls into bankruptcy and his father was arrested, he can get money by selling their guest house. Kiran plans that by giving this amount to an official(Thanikella Bharani) in Central Government as bribe solves all the problems. One day Kiran sees a man with a board in his hand searching for Bombay Blood group to save his mother's life. Kiran's blood group is Bombay Blood group. Kiran meets him and tells him that he is willing to donate blood. They go to a hospital and Kiran donates the blood. Kiran gives his mobile number to the hospital people, but not the address. On the other hand, there is a mafia don called Sona Bhai (Mahesh Manjrekar) whose blood group is Bombay blood group, who needs an urgent heart transplant and looks for a person who has the same blood group. Despite several efforts, the entire mafia gang could not get a person who is healthy with that rare blood group. The hospital people give Kiran's mobile number to the goons saying that his blood group is Bombay blood group and he is perfectly healthy. Kiran receives a call from Sona Bhai, who requests Kiran to donate some blood to him which Kiran finally accepts. But the real intention of Sona Bhai and his gang is to get Kiran's heart.
1163516	James Francis "Jimmy" Durante (February 10, 1893 – January 29, 1980) was an American singer, pianist, comedian, and actor. His distinctive clipped gravelly speech, comic language butchery, jazz-influenced songs, and large nose helped make him one of America's most familiar and popular personalities of the 1920s through the 1970s. His jokes about his nose included referring to it as a "Schnozzola", and the word became his nickname. Early life. Childhood. Durante was born on the Lower East Side of New York City. He was the youngest of four children born to Bartolomeo and Rosa Durante, both of whom were immigrants from Salerno, Italy. Bartolomeo was a barber, and his wife Rosa was the sister of a woman who lived in the same boarding house. Jimmy Durante served as an altar boy at Saint Malachy's Roman Catholic Church, known as the Actor's Chapel. Early career. Durante dropped out of school in eighth grade to become a full-time ragtime pianist. He first played with his cousin, whose name was also "Jimmy Durante". It was a family act, but he was too professional for his cousin. He continued working the city's piano bar circuit and earned the nickname "Ragtime Jimmy", before he joined one of the first recognizable jazz bands in New York, the Original New Orleans Jazz Band. Durante was the only member not from New Orleans. His routine of breaking into a song to deliver a joke, with band or orchestra chord punctuation after each line, became a Durante trademark. In 1920, the group was renamed Jimmy Durante's Jazz Band. Stardom. Durante became a vaudeville star and radio personality by the mid-1920s, with a trio called Clayton, Jackson and Durante. Lou Clayton and Eddie Jackson, Durante's closest friends, often reunited professionally. Jackson and Durante appeared in the Cole Porter musical "The New Yorkers", which opened on Broadway on December 8, 1930. Earlier that same year, the team had appeared in the movie "Roadhouse Nights", ostensibly based on Dashiell Hammett's novel "Red Harvest". By 1934, he had a major record hit with his own novelty composition, "Inka Dinka Doo", with lyrics written by Ben Ryan to music that Durante himself composed. It became his theme song for the rest of his life. A year later, Durante starred on Broadway in the Billy Rose stage musical "Jumbo", in which a police officer stopped him while leading a live elephant and asked him, "What are you doing with that elephant?" Durante's reply, "What elephant?" was a regular show-stopper. This comedy bit, also reprised in his role in "Billy Rose's Jumbo" (1962, based on the 1935 musical) likely contributed to the popularity of the idiom "the elephant in the room". Durante also appeared on Broadway in "Show Girl" (1929), "Strike Me Pink" (1934) and "Red, Hot and Blue" (1936). He began appearing in motion pictures in a series pairing him with silent film legend Buster Keaton, three popular comedies entitled "What! No Beer?" (1932), "Speak Easily" (1932), and "The Passionate Plumber" (1933); although the team was a financial hit and the movies served as an introductory springboard for Durante, Keaton's vocal dissatisfaction with the constraints the studio placed upon him exacerbated by his alcoholism led to MGM ending the series. Durante went on to appear in "The Wet Parade" (1932), "Broadway to Hollywood" (1933), "The Man Who Came to Dinner" (1942, playing "Banjo", a character based on Harpo Marx), "Ziegfeld Follies" (1946), "Billy Rose's Jumbo" (1962, based on the 1935 musical) and "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World" (1963). In 1934 he starred in "Hollywood Party", where he dreams he is 'Schnarzan', a character in parody of 'Tarzan', extremely popular at the time due to the Johnny Weissmuller films. Radio. On September 10, 1933, Durante appeared on Eddie Cantor's "The Chase and Sanborn Hour", continuing until November 12 of that year. When Cantor departed, Durante took over the NBC show as its star from April 22 to September 30, 1934, moving on to "The Jumbo Fire Chief Program" (1935–36). He teamed with Garry Moore for "The Durante-Moore Show" in 1943. Durante's comic chemistry with the young, brushcut Moore brought Durante an even larger audience. "Dat's my boy dat said dat!" became an instant catchphrase. The duo became one of the nation's favorites for the rest of the decade, including a well-reviewed Armed Forces Radio Network command performance with Frank Sinatra that remains a favorite of radio collectors today. Moore left in mid-1947, and the program returned October 1, 1947 as "The Jimmy Durante Show". Durante worked in radio for three years after Moore's 1947 departure, including a reunion of Clayton, Jackson and Durante on his April 21, 1948 broadcast. Television. Durante made his television debut on November 1, 1950, though he kept a presence in radio as one of the frequent guests on Tallulah Bankhead's two-year, NBC comedy-variety show, "The Big Show". Durante was one of the cast on the show's premiere November 5, 1950. The rest of the cast included humorist Fred Allen, singers Mindy Carson and Frankie Laine, stage musical performer Ethel Merman, actors Jose Ferrer and Paul Lukas, and comic-singer Danny Thomas (about to become a major television star in his own right). A highlight of the show was Durante and Thomas, whose own nose rivaled Durante's, in a routine in which Durante accused Thomas of stealing his nose. "Stay outta dis, No-Nose!" Durante barked at Bankhead to a big laugh. From 1950 to 1951, Durante was one of four alternating hosts on NBC's comedy-variety series "4-Star Revue". He alternated Wednesdays with Danny Thomas (now a headliner), Jack Carson, and Ed Wynn. Beginning in the early 1950s, Durante teamed with sidekick Sonny King, a collaboration that would continue until Durante's death. Jimmy could be seen regularly in Las Vegas after Sunday Mass outside of the Guardian Angel Cathedral standing next to the priest and greeting the people as they left Mass. On August 4, 1955, "The Jimmy Durante Show" on NBC was the venue of the final performance by the famous Brazilian singer Carmen Miranda. Miranda fell to her knees while dancing with Durante, who instinctively told the band, "STOP—da music!" He helped Miranda up to her feet as she laughed, "I'm all out of breath!" "Dat's OK, honey, I'll take yer lines," Durante replied. Miranda laughed again and quickly pulled herself together and finished the show. However, the next morning, August 5, Miranda died at home from heart failure. Durante also appeared on NBC's "Club Oasis", another comedy/variety show broadcast in the 1957–1958 season, alternating first with "The Polly Bergen Show". Marriages. Durante's radio show was bracketed with two trademarks: "Inka Dinka Doo" as his opening theme, and the invariable signoff that became another familiar national catchphrase: "Good night, Mrs. Calabash, wherever you are." For years Durante preferred to keep the mystery alive. One theory was that it referred to the owner of a restaurant in Calabash, North Carolina, where Durante and his troupe had stopped to eat. He was so taken by the food, the service, and the chitchat he told the owner that he would make her famous. Since he did not know her name, he referred to her as "Mrs. Calabash". Another idea was that it was a personal salute to his deceased first wife, Jeanne (Olsen) Durante, who died in 1943. "Calabash" might be a mangle of Calabasas, the California city where they made their home during the last years of her life. At a National Press Club meeting in 1966 (broadcast on NBC's Monitor program), Durante finally revealed that it was indeed a tribute to his wife. While driving across the country, they stopped in a small town called Calabash, whose name she had loved. "Mrs. Calabash" became his pet name for her, and he signed off his radio program with "Good night, Mrs. Calabash." He added "wherever you are" after the first year. Durante's first wife was the former Jean (Jeanne) Olson, whom he married on June 19, 1921. She was born in Ohio on August 31, 1896. She died on Valentine's Day in 1943, after a lingering heart ailment of about two years. She was 46 years old when she died, although different newspaper accounts of her death suggest she was 45 or perhaps 52. Her death was not immediately expected, as Jimmy was touring in New York at the time and returned to Los Angeles right away to complete funeral arrangements. Durante married his second wife, Margaret "Margie" Little, at St. Malachy's Catholic Church in New York City on December 14, 1960. As a teenager, with her gorgeous red hair and undeniable charm, Margie had been crowned Queen of the New Jersey State Fair. She attended New York University before being hired by the legendary Copacabana, in New York City. They met 16 years before their marriage when he was performing there and where she worked as a hatcheck girl. She was 41, he 67, when they married. With help from their attorney Mary G. Rogan, the couple was able to adopt a baby, Cecilia Alicia (nicknamed CeCe and now known as CeCe Durante-Bloum) on Christmas Day, 1961. CeCe became a champion horsewoman and then a horse trainer and horseback-riding instructor near San Diego, married a computer designer (Stephen), and has two sons and a daughter (Connor, Ryan and Maddie). Margaret died on June 7, 2009, at age 90. Charitable work. On August 15, 1958, for his charitable acts, Durante was awarded a huge three-foot-high brass loving cup by the Al Bahr Shriners Temple. The inscription read: "JIMMY DURANTE THE WORLD'S MOST FAMOUS COMEDIAN. A loving cup to you Jimmy, it's larger than your nose, but smaller than your heart. Happiness always, Al Bahr Temple, August 15, 1958." Jimmy's love for children continued through the Fraternal Order of Eagles children, who among many causes raise money for handicapped and abused. At Jimmy's first appearance at the Eagles International Convention in 1961, judge Bob Hansen inquired about his fee for performing. Jimmy replied, "Do not even mention money judge or I'll have to mention a figure that'll make ya sorry ya brought it up" "What can we do then?" asked Hansen. "Help da kids," was Durante's reply. Jimmy performed for many years at Eagles conventions free of charge, even refusing travel money. The Fraternal Order of Eagles changed the name of their children's fund to the Jimmy Durante Children's Fund in his honor, and in his memory have raised over 20 million dollars to help children. A reporter once remarked of Durante after an interview: "You could warm your hands on this one." One of the projects built using money from the Durante Fund was a heated therapy swimming pool at the Hughen School in Port Arthur, Texas. Completed in 1968, Durante named the pool the "Inka Dinka Doo Pool". Politics. Durante was an active member of the Democratic Party. In 1933, he appeared in an advertisement shown in theaters supporting Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal programs and wrote a musical score entitled "Give a Guy a Job" to accompany it. Later years. Durante continued his film appearances through "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World" and television appearances through the early 1970s. He narrated the Rankin-Bass animated Christmas special "Frosty the Snowman" (1969), re-run for many years since. The television work also included a series of commercial spots for Kellogg's Corn Flakes cereals in the mid-1960s, which introduced Durante's gravelly growl and narrow-eyed, large-nosed countenance to millions of children. "Dis is Jimmy Durante, in puy-son!" was his introduction to some of the Kellogg's spots. One of his last appearances was in a memorable television commercial for the 1973 Volkswagen Beetle, where he proclaimed that the new, roomier Beetle had "plenty of breathin' room... for de old schnozzola!" In 1963, Durante recorded an album of pop standards, "September Song". The album became a best-seller and provided Durante's re-introduction, to yet another generation, almost three decades later. From the "Jimmy Durante's Way of Life" album, came the gravelly interpretations of "As Time Goes By", which accompanied the opening credits of the romantic comedy hit, "Sleepless in Seattle", while his version of "Make Someone Happy" launched the film's closing credits. Both are included on the film's best-selling soundtrack. Durante also recorded a cover of the well known song "I'll Be Seeing You", which became a trademark song on his 60's TV show. This song was also featured in the 2004 film "The Notebook". He wrote a foreword for a humorous book titled "Cockeyed Americana", compiled by Dick Hyman. In the first paragraph of the ""Foreword!", as Durante called it, he met Hyman and discussed the book and the contribution Hyman wanted Durante to make to it. Durante wrote, "Before I can say gaziggadeegasackeegazobbath, we're at his luxurious office." After reading the material Hyman had compiled for the book, Durante commented on it, "COLOSSAL, GIGANTIC, MAGNANIMOUS, and last but not first, AURORA BOREALIS. "Durante's." Four little words that make a sentence—and a sentence that will eventually get me six months." Aside from "Dat's my boy dat said dat!", "Dat's moral turpentine!" and "It's a catastastroke!" (for "catastrophe",) Durante sent such catchphrases as "Everybody wants ta get inta the act!", "Umbriago!", "Ha-cha-cha-chaaaaaaa!", "I got a million of 'em" and "Surrounded by assassins!" into the vernacular. Durante retired from performing in 1972 after suffering a stroke that left him confined to a wheelchair. He died of pneumonia in Santa Monica, California, on March 29, 1980. He received Roman Catholic funeral rites four days later, with fellow entertainers including Desi Arnaz, Ernest Borgnine, Marty Allen, and Jack Carter in attendance, and was interred at Holy Cross Cemetery, Culver City. Animation. Jimmy Durante is known to most modern audiences as the character who narrated and sang the 1969 animated special "Frosty the Snowman". He also performed the Ron Goodwin title song to the 1968 comedy-adventure "Monte Carlo or Bust" sung over the film's animated opening credits. There are numerous Durante depictions and allusions in animation. Pumbaa does a brief Durante impression while singing "Hakuna Matata" in "The Lion King". A character in M-G-M cartoons, a bulldog named Spike, whose puppy son was always getting caught by accident in the middle of "Tom and Jerry's" activities, referenced Durante with a raspy voice and an affectionate "Dat's my boy!" In another Tom and Jerry episode, a starfish lands on Tom's head, giving him a big nose. He then proceeds with Durante's famous "Ha-cha-cha-cha" call. The 1943 Tex Avery cartoon "What's Buzzin' Buzzard" featured a vulture with a voice that sounded like Jimmy Durante. A Durante-like voice (originally by Doug Young) was also given to the father beagle, Doggie Daddy, in Hanna-Barbera's "Augie Doggie and Doggie Daddy" cartoons, Doggie Daddy invariably addressing the junior beagle with a Durante-like "Augie, my son, my son", and with frequent citations of, "That's my boy who said that!" In the 1933 Warner Bros. Looney Tunes short, "Bosko's Picture Show", there is a scene where he is chased by Adolf Hitler with a meat cleaver. Many 1940s Looney Tunes/Merrie Melodies cartoons had characters based on Durante. Two examples are "A Gruesome Twosome", which features a cat based on Durante and "Baby Bottleneck", which in unedited versions opens with a Durante-like stork. "Book Revue" shows the well-known (at that time) 1924 Edna Ferber novel "So Big" featuring a Durante caricature on the cover. The "so big" refers to his nose, and as a runaway criminal turns the corner by the book, Durante turns sideways using his nose to trip the criminal, allowing his capture. In "Hollywood Daffy", Durante is directly depicted as himself, pronouncing his catchphrase "Those are the conditions that prevail!" In "The Mouse-Merized Cat", Babbit (a Bud Abbott mouse) is briefly hypnotized to imitate Jimmy Durante singing "Lullaby of Broadway". One of Durante's common catch phrases, "I got a million of 'em!", was used as Bugs' final line in "Stage Door Cartoon". A Durante-like voice was also used for Marvel Comics superhero The Thing in the Hanna-Barbera cartoon "Fred and Barney Meet the Thing". In a 1993 episode of "The Simpsons" titled "Lady Bouvier's Lover", after Grampa cries out, "Good night, Mrs. Bouvier, wherever you are," the blue-haired lawyer announces himself in charge of Jimmy Durante's estate and therefore puts a halt to Abraham Simpson's "unauthorized imitation" of Durante. The voice and appearance of Crispy, the mascot for Crispy Critters cereal, was also based on Durante. In Disney's House of Mouse, a character named Mortimer Mouse (voiced by Maurice LaMarche) was based on Durante, complete with the "ha-cha-cha!".
1163314	Philip Edward "Phil" Hartman (September 24, 1948May 28, 1998; born Hartmann) was a Canadian American actor, comedian, screenwriter, and graphic artist. Born in Brantford, Ontario, Hartman and his family moved to the United States when he was 10. After graduating from California State University, Northridge, with a degree in graphic arts, he designed album covers for bands like Poco and America. Feeling the need for a more creative outlet, Hartman joined the comedy group The Groundlings in 1975 and there helped comedian Paul Reubens develop his character Pee-wee Herman. Hartman co-wrote the screenplay for the film "Pee-wee's Big Adventure" and made recurring appearances on Reubens' show "Pee-wee's Playhouse". Hartman became famous in the late 1980s when he joined the sketch comedy show "Saturday Night Live". He won fame for his impressions, particularly of President Bill Clinton, and he stayed on the show for eight seasons. Called "the Glue" for his ability to hold the show together and help other cast members, Hartman won a Primetime Emmy Award for his "SNL" work in 1989. In 1995, after scrapping plans for his own variety show, he starred as Bill McNeal in the NBC sitcom "NewsRadio". He also had frequent roles on "The Simpsons" as Lionel Hutz, Troy McClure, and others, and appeared in the films "Houseguest", "Sgt. Bilko", "Jingle All the Way", and "Small Soldiers". Hartman had been divorced twice before he married Brynn Omdahl in 1987; the couple had two children together. However, their marriage was fractured, due in part to Brynn's drug use. On May 28, 1998, Brynn shot and killed Hartman while he slept in their Encino, Los Angeles, home, then committed suicide several hours later. In the weeks following his death, Hartman was celebrated in a wave of tributes. Dan Snierson of "Entertainment Weekly" opined that Hartman was "the last person you'd expect to read about in lurid headlines in your morning paper...a decidedly regular guy, beloved by everyone he worked with". Hartman was posthumously inducted into Canada's Walk of Fame in 2012. Early life. Hartman was born Philip Edward Hartmann (later dropping the final "n") in Brantford, Ontario, Canada, on September 24, 1948. He was the fourth of eight children of Rupert and Doris Hartmann. His parents were Roman Catholic, and his father was a salesman specializing in building materials. As a middle child, Hartman found affection hard to earn and stated: "I suppose I didn't get what I wanted out of my family life, so I started seeking love and attention elsewhere." His family moved to the United States when Hartman was ten years old, gaining American citizenship in 1990. The family first lived in Connecticut, and later moved to the West Coast. There, Hartman attended Westchester High School and frequently acted as the class clown. After graduating, Hartman studied art at Santa Monica City College, dropping out in 1969 to become a roadie with a rock band. He returned to school in 1972, this time studying graphic arts at California State University, Northridge. He developed his own graphic arts business, which he operated on his own, creating over 40 album covers for bands including Poco and America, as well as advertising and the logo for Crosby, Stills & Nash. In the late 1970s, Hartman made his first television appearance on an episode of "The Dating Game"; he won, but was stood up by his date. Career. Early career (1975–1985). Working alone as a graphic artist, Hartman frequently amused himself with "flights of voice fantasies". Eventually he felt he needed a more social outlet and in 1975, aged 27, developed this talent by attending evening comedy classes run by the California-based improvisational comedy group The Groundlings. While watching one of the troupe's performances, Hartman impulsively decided to climb on stage and join the cast. After several years of training, paying his way by re-designing the groups' logo and merchandise, Hartman formally joined the cast of The Groundlings; by 1979 he had become one of the show's stars. Hartman met comedian Paul Reubens and the two became friends, often collaborating on writing and comedic material. Together they created the character Pee-wee Herman and developed "The Pee-wee Herman Show", a stage performance which also aired on HBO in 1981. Hartman played Captain Carl on "The Pee-wee Herman Show" and returned in the role for the children's show "Pee-wee's Playhouse". Reubens and Hartman made cameos in the 1980 film "Cheech & Chong's Next Movie". Hartman co-wrote the script of the 1985 feature film "Pee-wee's Big Adventure" and had a cameo as a reporter. Although he had considered quitting acting at the age of 36 due to limited opportunities, the success of "Pee-wee's Big Adventure" brought new possibilities and changed his mind. After a creative falling-out with Reubens, Hartman left the Pee-Wee Herman project to pursue other roles. In addition to his work with Reubens, Hartman recorded a number of voice-over roles. These included appearances on "The Smurfs", "Challenge of the GoBots", "The 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo", and voicing characters Henry Mitchell and George Wilson on "Dennis the Menace". Additionally Hartman developed a strong persona providing voice-overs for advertisements. "Saturday Night Live" (1986–1994). After appearing in the 1986 films "Jumpin' Jack Flash" and "¡Three Amigos!", Hartman successfully auditioned for NBC's variety show "Saturday Night Live" ("SNL") and joined the cast and writing staff. He told the "Los Angeles Times", "I wanted to do ["SNL"] because I wanted to get the exposure that would give me box-office credibility so I can write movies for myself." In his eight seasons with the show Hartman became known for his impressions, and performed as over 70 different characters. Hartman's original "Saturday Night Live" characters included Eugene, the Anal Retentive Chef and Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer. His impressions included Frank Sinatra, Ronald Reagan, Ed McMahon, Barbara Bush, Charlton Heston, Phil Donahue and Bill Clinton; the last was often considered his best-known impression. Hartman first performed his Clinton impression on an episode of "The Tonight Show". When he met Clinton in 1993 Hartman remarked, "I guess I owe you a few apologies", adding later that he "sometimes a twinge of guilt about [his Clinton impression". Clinton showed good humor and sent Hartman a signed photo with the text: "You're not the president, but you play one on TV. And you're OK, mostly." For his Clinton impression, Hartman copied the president's "post-nasal drip" and the "slight scratchiness" in his voice, as well as his open, "less intimidating" hand gestures. Hartman opted against wearing a larger prosthetic nose when portraying Clinton, as he felt it would be distracting. He instead wore a wig, dyed his eyebrows brighter and used makeup to highlight his nose. One of Hartman's more famous sketches as Clinton saw the president visit a McDonald's restaurant and explain his policies by eating other customers' food. The writers told him that he was not eating enough during rehearsals for the sketch – by the end of the live performance, Hartman had eaten so much he could barely speak. Backstage at "SNL", Hartman was called "the Glue", a name coined by Adam Sandler, according to Jay Mohr's book "Gasping for Airtime". "SNL" creator Lorne Michaels explained the reason for the name: "He kind of held the show together. He gave to everybody and demanded very little. He was very low-maintenance." Hartman often helped other cast members. For example, he aided Jan Hooks in overcoming her stage fright. Michaels added that Hartman was "the least appreciated" cast member by commentators outside the show, and praised his ability "to do five or six parts in a show where you're playing support or you're doing remarkable character work". Hartman won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Writing for a Variety, Music or Comedy Program for "SNL" in 1989, sharing the award with the show's other writers. He was nominated in the same category in 1987, and individually in 1994 for Outstanding Individual Performance in a Variety or Music Program. After his co-stars Jon Lovitz, Dennis Miller, Jan Hooks and Dana Carvey had left, Hartman said he felt "like an athlete who's watched all his World Series teammates get traded off into other directions ... It was hard to watch them leave because I sort of felt we were all part of the team that saved the show." This cast turnover contributed to his leaving the show in 1994. Hartman had originally planned to leave the show in 1991, but Michaels convinced him to stay to raise his profile; his portrayal of Clinton contributed to this goal. Jay Leno offered him the role of his sidekick on "The Tonight Show" but Hartman opted to stay on "SNL". NBC persuaded him to stay on "SNL" by promising him his own comedy–variety show entitled "The Phil Show". He planned to "reinvent the variety form" with "a hybrid, very fast-paced, high energy with sketches, impersonations, pet acts, and performers showcasing their talents". Hartman was to be the show's executive producer and head writer. Before production began, however, the network decided that variety shows were too unpopular and scrapped the series. In a 1996 interview, Hartman noted he was glad the show had been scrapped, as he "would've been sweatin' blood each week trying to make it work". In 1998, he admitted he missed working on "SNL", but had enjoyed the move from New York City to Southern California. "NewsRadio" (1995–1998). Hartman became one of the stars of the NBC sitcom "NewsRadio" in 1995, portraying radio news anchor Bill McNeal. He signed up after being attracted by the show's writing and use of an ensemble cast, and joked that he based McNeal on himself with "any ethics and character" removed. Hartman made roughly $50,000 per episode of "NewsRadio". Although the show was critically acclaimed, it was never a ratings hit and cancellation was a regular threat. After the completion of the fourth season, Hartman commented, "We seem to have limited appeal. We're on the edge here, not sure we're going to be picked up or not", but added he was "99 percent sure" the series would be renewed for a fifth season. Hartman had publicly lambasted NBC's decision to repeatedly move "NewsRadio" into different timeslots, but later regretted his comments, saying, "this is a sitcom, for crying out loud, not brain surgery". He also stated that if the sitcom were cancelled "it just will open up other opportunities for me". Although the show was renewed for a fifth season, Hartman would die before production began. Ken Tucker praised Hartman's performance as McNeal: "A lesser performer ... would have played him as a variation on "The Mary Tyler Moore Show"'s Ted Baxter, because that's what Bill was, on paper. But Hartman gave infinite variety to Bill's self-centeredness, turning him devious, cowardly, squeamish, and foolishly bold from week to week." Hartman was posthumously nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series in 1998 for his work on "NewsRadio", but lost to David Hyde Pierce. Other work. Hartman provided the voices for numerous characters on the Fox animated series "The Simpsons", appearing in 52 episodes. He made his first appearance in the second season episode "Bart Gets Hit by a Car". Although he was originally brought in for a one-time appearance, Hartman enjoyed working on "The Simpsons" and the staff wrote additional parts for him. He voiced the recurring characters Lionel Hutz and Troy McClure, as well as several one-time and background characters. His favorite part was that of McClure, and he often used this voice to entertain the audience between takes while taping episodes of "NewsRadio". He remarked, "My favorite fans are Troy McClure fans." He added "It's the one thing that I do in my life that's almost an avocation. I do it for the pure love of it." Hartman was popular among the staff of "The Simpsons". Showrunners Bill Oakley and Josh Weinstein stated that they enjoyed his work, and used Hartman as much as possible when working on the show. To give Hartman a larger role, they developed the episode "A Fish Called Selma", which focuses on Troy McClure and expands the character's backstory. "The Simpsons" creator Matt Groening said that he "took [Hartman for granted because he nailed the joke every time", and that his voice acting could produce "the maximum amount of humor" with any line he was given. Before his death, Hartman had expressed an interest in making a live action film about Troy McClure. Many of "The Simpsons" production staff expressed enthusiasm for the project and offered to help. Hartman said he was "looking forward to [McClure's live-action movie, publicizing his Betty Ford appearances", and "would love nothing more" than making a film and was prepared to buy the film rights himself in order to make it happen. Hartman's first starring film role came in 1995's "Houseguest", alongside Sinbad. Other films included "Greedy", "Coneheads", "Sgt. Bilko", "So I Married an Axe Murderer", "CB4", "Jingle All the Way", "Kiki's Delivery Service", and "Small Soldiers", the last of which was his final theatrically released film. At the same time, he preferred working on television. His other television roles included appearances on episodes of "Seinfeld", "The John Larroquette Show", "The Dana Carvey Show", and the HBO TV film "The Second Civil War" as the President of the United States. He appeared as the kidnapper Randy in the third season cliffhanger finale of "3rd Rock from the Sun"—a role written especially for him. He died before filming of the concluding episode could take place. Executive producer Terry Turner decided to recast the part, reshoot and air the finale again, noting: "I have far too much respect for to try to find some clever way of getting around this real tragedy." Hartman made a considerable amount of money from television advertising, earning $300,000 for a series of four commercials for the soft drink Slice. He also appeared in advertisements for McDonalds (as Hugh McAttack) and 1-800-Collect (as Max Jerome). Hartman wrote a number of screenplays that were never produced. In 1986, Hartman began writing a screenplay for a film entitled "Mr. Fix-It", and completed the final draft in 1991. Robert Zemeckis was signed to produce the film, with Gil Bettman hired to direct. Hartman called it "a sort of a merger of horror and comedy, like "Beetlejuice" and "Throw Momma From the Train"", adding, "It's an American nightmare about a family torn asunder. They live next to a toxic dump site, their water supply is poisoned, the mother and son go insane and try to murder each other, the father's face is torn off in a terrible disfiguring accident in the first act. It's heavy stuff, but it's got a good message and a positive, upbeat ending." Zemeckis could not secure studio backing, however, and the project collapsed. Another movie idea involving Hartman's Groundlings character Chick Hazard, Private Eye also fell through. Style. In contrast to his real-life personality which was described as "a regular guy and, by all accounts, one of show business' most low-key, decent people", Hartman often played unpleasant characters or villains. He noted that his standard character is a "jerky guy", and described his usual roles as "the weasel parade", citing Lionel Hutz, Bill McNeal, Troy McClure and Ted Maltin from "Jingle All the Way" as examples. Hartman enjoyed playing such roles because he "just want to be funny, and villains tend to be funny because their foibles are all there to see." He often played supporting roles, rather than the lead part. He said "throughout my career, I've never been a huge star, but I've made steady progress and that's the way I like it," and "It's fun coming in as the second or third lead. If the movie or TV show bombs, you aren't to blame." Hartman was considered a "utility player" on "SNL" with a "kind of Everyman quality" which enabled him to appear in the majority of sketches, often in very distinct roles. Jan Hooks stated of his work on "SNL": "Phil never had an ounce of competition. He was a team player. It was a privilege for him, I believe, to play support and do it very well. He was never insulted, no matter how small the role may have been." He was disciplined in his performances, studying the scripts beforehand. Hooks added: "Phil knew how to listen. And he knew how to look you in the eye, and he knew the power of being able to lay back and let somebody else be funny, and then do the reactions. I think Phil was more of an actor than a comedian." Film critic Pauline Kael declared that "Phil Hartman and Jan Hooks on "Saturday Night Live" are two of the best comic actors I've ever seen." Writer and acting coach Paul Ryan noted Hartman's work ethic with his impressions. He assembled a collection of video footage of the figure he was preparing to impersonate and watched this continually until he "completely embodied the person." Ryan concluded that "what made impressions so funny and spot on was Phil's ability to add that perfect touch that only comes from trial and error and practicing in front of audiences and fellow actors." Hartman described this process as "technical." As an impressionist Lyle V. Harris said Hartman had a "rare talent for morphing into...anybody he wanted to be." Ken Tucker summarized Hartman's comedic style: "he could momentarily fool audiences into thinking he was the straight man, but then he'd cock an eyebrow and give his voice an ironic lilt that delivered a punchline like a fast slider—you barely saw it coming until you started laughing." Hartman claimed that he borrowed his style from actor Bill Murray: "He's been a great influence on me – when he did that smarmy thing in "Ghostbusters", then the same sort of thing in "Groundhog Day". I tried to imitate it. I couldn't. I wasn't good enough. But I discovered an element of something else, so in a sick kind of way I made myself a career by doing a bad imitation of another comic." Personal life. Hartman married Gretchen Lewis in 1970 and they divorced sometime before 1982. He married real estate agent Lisa Strain in 1982, and their marriage lasted three years. Strain told "People" that Hartman was reclusive off screen and "would disappear emotionally ... he'd be in his own world. That passivity made you crazy." Hartman married former model and aspiring actress Brynn Omdahl (born Vicki Jo Omdahl) in November 1987, having met her on a blind date the previous year. Together they had two children, Sean and Birgen Hartman. The marriage had difficulties—Brynn reportedly felt intimidated by her husband's success and was frustrated that she could not find any on her own, although neither party wanted a divorce. Hartman considered retiring to save the marriage. He tried to get Brynn acting roles but she became progressively more reliant on narcotics and alcohol, entering rehab several times. Because of his close friendship with "SNL" associate Jan Hooks, Brynn joked on occasion that Hooks and Hartman were married "on some other level". Stephen Root, Hartman's "NewsRadio" co-star, felt that few people knew "the real Phil Hartman" as he was "one of those people who never seemed to come out of character," but he nevertheless got the impression of a family man who cared deeply for his children. In his spare time, Hartman enjoyed driving, flying, sailing, marksmanship and playing the guitar. Death. On the evening of May 27, 1998, Brynn Hartman visited the Italian restaurant Buca di Beppo in Encino, California, with producer and writer Christine Zander, who said she was "in a good frame of mind". After returning to the couple's nearby home, Brynn started a "heated" argument with her husband, who threatened to leave her if she started using drugs again, after which he then went to bed. While Hartman slept, Brynn entered his bedroom shortly before 3 a.m. with a .38 caliber handgun and fatally shot him twice in the head and once in his side. She was intoxicated and had recently taken cocaine. Brynn drove to the home of her friend Ron Douglas and confessed to the killing, but he did not initially believe her. The pair drove back to the house in separate cars, after which Brynn called another friend and confessed a second time. Upon seeing Hartman's body, Douglas called 911 at 6:20 a.m. Police subsequently arrived and escorted Douglas and the Hartmans' two children from the premises, by which time Brynn had locked herself in the bedroom and committed suicide, shooting herself once in the head. Los Angeles police stated Hartman's death was caused by a "domestic discord" between the couple. A friend stated that Brynn allegedly "had trouble controlling her anger...She got attention by losing her temper." A neighbor of the Hartmans told a CNN reporter that the couple had been experiencing marital problems: "It's been building, but I didn't think it would lead to this." Steve Guttenberg said that they were "a very happy couple, and they always had the appearance of being well-balanced." Other causes for the incident were later suggested. Before committing the act, Brynn was taking the antidepressant drug Zoloft. A wrongful-death lawsuit was filed in 1999 by Brynn's brother, Gregory Omdahl, against the drug's manufacturer, Pfizer, and her child's psychiatrist Arthur Sorosky, who provided samples of Zoloft to Brynn. Hartman's friend and former "SNL" colleague Jon Lovitz has accused Hartman's former "NewsRadio" co-star Andy Dick of re-introducing Brynn to cocaine, causing her to relapse and suffer a nervous breakdown. Dick claims to have known nothing of her condition. In 2006, Lovitz claimed that Dick had approached him at a restaurant and said, "I put the Phil Hartman hex on you; you're the next one to die." The following year at the Laugh Factory comedy club in Los Angeles, Lovitz and Dick had a further altercation over the issue. Dick asserts that he is not at fault in relation to Hartman's death. Brynn's sister Katharine Omdahl and brother-in-law Mike Wright raised the two Hartman children. Hartman's will stipulated that each child will receive their inheritance over several years after they turn 25. The total value of Hartman's estate was estimated at $1.23 million. In accordance with Hartman's will, his body was cremated by Forest Lawn Memorial Park and Mortuary in Glendale, California, and his ashes were scattered over Santa Catalina Island's Emerald Bay. Response and legacy. Hartman was widely mourned in Hollywood. NBC executive Don Ohlmeyer stated that Hartman "was blessed with a tremendous gift for creating characters that made people laugh. Everyone who had the pleasure of working with Phil knows that he was a man of tremendous warmth, a true professional and a loyal friend." Steve Guttenberg expressed shock at Hartman's death, and Steve Martin said he was "a deeply funny and very happy person." Matt Groening called him "a master", and director Joe Dante said, "He was one of those guys who was a dream to work with. I don't know anybody who didn't like him." Dan Snierson of "Entertainment Weekly" concluded that Hartman was "the last person you'd expect to read about in lurid headlines in your morning paper" and "a decidedly regular guy, beloved by everyone he worked with." In 2007 "Entertainment Weekly" ranked Hartman the eighty-seventh greatest television icon of all time, and "Maxim" named Hartman the top "Saturday Night Live" performer of all time. Rehearsals for "The Simpsons" were canceled on the day of Hartman's death, as was that night's performance by The Groundlings. The season five premiere episode of "NewsRadio", "Bill Moves On", finds Hartman's character, Bill McNeal, has died of a heart attack, while the other characters reminisce about his life. Jon Lovitz joined the show in his place from the following episode. A special episode of "Saturday Night Live" commemorating Hartman's work on the show aired on June 13, 1998. Rather than substituting another voice actor, the writers of "The Simpsons" retired Hartman's characters, and the season ten episode "Bart the Mother" (his final appearance on the show) was dedicated to him. At the time of his death, Hartman was preparing to voice Zapp Brannigan, a character written specifically for him on Groening's second animated series "Futurama". After Hartman's death, "Futurama"'s lead character Philip J. Fry was named in his honor, and Billy West took over the role of Brannigan. West later said that he purposely tweaked Zapp's voice to better match Hartman's intended portrayal. Hartman was also planning to appear with Lovitz in the indie film "The Day of Swine and Roses" scheduled to begin production in August 1998. In 2007, a campaign was started on Facebook by Alex Stevens and endorsed by Hartman's brother Paul to have Hartman inducted to Canada's Walk of Fame. Amongst the numerous events to publicize the campaign, Ben Miner of the Sirius XM Radio channel Laugh Attack dedicated the month of April 2012 to Hartman. The campaign ended in success and Hartman was inducted to the Walk of Fame on September 22, 2012, with Paul accepting the award on his behalf. Hartman was also awarded the Cineplex Legends Award. In June 2013, it was announced that Hartman would also receive a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Laugh.com and Hartman's brother John Hartmann published the album "Flat TV" in 2002. The album is a selection of comedy sketches recorded by Hartman in the 1970s that had been kept in storage until their release. Hartmann commented: "I'm putting this out there because I'm dedicating my life to fulfilling his dreams. This is my brother doing what he loved." In 2013, "Flat TV" was optioned by Michael "Ffish" Hemschoot's animation company Worker Studio for an animated adaptation. The deal came about after Michael T. Scott, a partner in the company, posted a hand-written letter he had received from Hartman in 1997 on the internet, leading to a correspondence between Scott and Paul Hartmann. A special prize at the Canadian Comedy Awards was named for Hartman. Beginning with the 13th Canadian Comedy Awards in 2012, the Phil Hartman Award was awarded to "an individual who helps to better the Canadian comedy community."
1743122	, subtitled looking up at the half-moon and also known as "Hantsuki", is a Japanese romance light novel series written by Tsumugu Hashimoto and illustrated by Keiji Yamamoto centering around two hospitalized children aged seventeen and the love they begin to share. The series was originally serialized in MediaWorks' now-defunct light novel magazine "Dengeki hp" and spanned eight volumes released between October 2003 and August 2006. An anime was adapted from the novels and aired in Japan on the WOWOW television network between January 12 and February 23, 2006 with a total of six episodes. A manga series by B.Tarō was serialized in MediaWorks' shōnen manga magazine "Dengeki Comic Gao!" between August 2005 and November 2006; two volumes were released. A set of five drama CDs were produced between October 2006 and August 2007 by Wayuta. A live action drama of the series was aired on TV Tokyo between October and December 2006, and a live action film premiered in Japanese theaters in April 2010. Plot. The story of "Hantsuki" focuses on the budding relationship between the seventeen years old Yūichi Ezaki and Rika Akiba. Both are hospitalized in Yūichi's home town for their respective conditions. Yūichi has hepatitis A, while Rika has problems with a weak heart valve. These teens would then fall in love while they spend time with one another. The story is based in Ise, Mie prefecture. Media. Light novels. The series began as a light novel series written by Tsumugu Takahashi with illustrations by Keiji Yamamoto that was first serialized in the Japanese light novel magazine "Dengeki hp". There were eight volumes released between October 10, 2003, and August 10, 2006. The novels were published by MediaWorks under their "Dengeki Bunko" light novel label. Manga. A manga illustrated by B.Tarō based on the novel was serialized in the Japanese manga magazine "Dengeki Comic Gao!" between August 27, 2005 and November 27, 2006, published by MediaWorks. Two bound volumes were later released, the first on February 27, 2006, and the second on December 16, 2006. The volumes are published by MediaWorks under their "Dengeki Comics" label. Anime. A short anime adaptation aired in Japan between January 12 and February 23, 2006; there were six episodes. The anime was produced by the Japanese animation studio Group TAC and was aired on the WOWOW television network. Three DVDs were originally released, each containing two episodes, between April 19 and June 21, 2006. The premium DVD box set containing the six episodes was released on January 16, 2008. The anime has been licensed by Japanese-based company Bost Digital Entertainment for distribution through their video streaming website Bost TV. The episodes are available only to Australia and New Zealand for the price of US$1.99 per episode. Crimson Star Media licensed the anime for a North American release in September 2013.
1059587	Snakes on a Plane is a 2006 American action thriller film directed by David R. Ellis and starring Samuel L. Jackson. It was released by New Line Cinema on August 18, 2006, in North America. The film was written by David Dalessandro, John Heffernan, and Sheldon Turner and follows the events of hundreds of snakes being released on a passenger plane in an attempt to kill a trial witness. The film gained a considerable amount of attention before its release, forming large fanbases online and becoming an Internet phenomenon, due to the film's title, casting, and premise. In response to the Internet fan base, New Line Cinema incorporated feedback from online users into its production, and added five days of reshooting. Before and after the film was released, it was parodied and alluded to on television shows and films, fan-made videos, video games, and various forms of literature. Released in the United States and United Kingdom on August 18, 2006, the film received mixed to positive reviews with 68% of reviews positive and an average normalized score of 58%, according to the review aggregation websites Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic, respectively. Despite the immense Internet buzz, the film's gross revenue did not live up to expectations, earning US$15.25 million in its opening weekend. The film grossed US$62 million worldwide before its release on home video on January 2, 2007. Plot. After witnessing gangster Eddie Kim brutally beat U.S. Prosecutor Daniel Hayes to death in Hawaii, Sean Jones is escorted by FBI agents Neville Flynn (Jackson) and John Sanders on a Boeing 747-400 to testify in a trial in Los Angeles. Despite increased security for the flight, Kim arranges for a time-release crate full of venomous snakes to be placed in the cargo hold in an attempt to bring down the plane before it reaches Los Angeles International Airport (LAX). To ensure the snakes attack the passengers without being provoked, he has one of his henchmen disguised as an airport ground employee spray the passengers' leis with a special pheromone which makes the snakes more aggressive in their attack. The crate opens midway through the flight and the snakes make their way through the cabin. A cat in the cargo bay, a couple having sex in the bathroom, and a man using the bathroom are the first killed. The plane's captain, Sam McKeon, investigates and fixes an electrical short, but is killed by the viper that caused it. Co-pilot Rick, unaware of the snake, believes Sam has suffered a heart attack and continues toward LAX. Some of the snakes attack Rick, and while fending them off he accidentally releases the oxygen masks throughout the plane, causing several snakes to drop into the cabin with them. Numerous passengers, including Agent Sanders, are killed. The surviving passengers, who have made their way to the front of the plane, put up blockades of luggage in a desperate attempt to stop the snakes. Agent Flynn contacts FBI Special Agent Hank Harris on the ground, who gets in touch with ophiologist Dr. Steven Price (Louiso). Based on pictures of the reptiles emailed to him via a mobile phone, Price believes a Los Angeles snake dealer known for illegally importing exotic and highly dangerous snakes to be responsible. After a shootout with the dealer, he reveals that Kim hired him to obtain the snakes. His supply of anti-venom is commandeered for the plane's victims, and Harris gives orders to have Eddie Kim arrested. Rick is attacked and the plane starts to dip downwards, causing a food trolley to crash through the luggage blockade. The passengers flee to the upstairs first class cabin before blocking the stairwell with an inflatable liferaft. Agent Flynn and Flight Attendant Claire regain control of the plane. Rick retakes the controls and has Flynn go into the cargo hold to restore the air conditioning/ventilation system. Harris contacts Flynn, telling him that anti-venom will be ready for the passengers when they land. However, Flynn discovers that the cockpit is filled with snakes and Rick is dead. After a brief discussion, Troy, Three Gs' bodyguard, agrees to land the plane based on prior experience. After everyone gets prepared, Flynn shoots out two windows with his pistol, causing the plane to depressurize. The snakes are blown out of the cockpit and the lower floor of the plane. Flynn and Troy take the controls of the plane and Troy reveals that his flight experience was from a video game flight simulator. After an emergency landing, the plane makes it to the terminal. The passengers leave the plane and anti-venom is given to those who need it. Just as Flynn and Sean are about to disembark the plane, a final snake jumps out and bites Sean in the chest. Flynn draws his gun and shoots the snake, and paramedics rush to Sean, who is unharmed due to a bulletproof vest. As a token of gratitude, Sean later takes Flynn to Bali and teaches him how to surf. Development. The story is credited to David Dalessandro, a University of Pittsburgh administrator and first-time Hollywood writer. He developed the concept in 1992 after reading a nature magazine article about Indonesian brown tree snakes climbing onto planes in cargo during World War II. He originally wrote the screenplay about the brown tree snake loose on a plane, titling the film "Venom". He soon revised it, expanding upon the premise to include a plague of assorted venomous snakes, then—crediting the film "Aliens"—revised it once again to include "lots of them loose in the fuselage of a plane." Dalessandro's third draft of "Venom" was turned down by more than 30 Hollywood studios in 1995. In 1999, a producer for MTV/Paramount showed interest in the script, followed up by New Line Studios, which took over the rights for production. Originally, the film, under the working title "Snakes on a Plane", was going to be directed by Hong Kong action director Ronny Yu. Jackson, who had previously worked with Yu on "The 51st State", learned about the announced project in the Hollywood trade newspapers and, after talking to Yu, agreed to sign on without reading the script based on the director, storyline, and the title.
582333	Dil (, translation: "heart") is a 1990 Bollywood romantic drama film starring Aamir Khan, Madhuri Dixit, Anupam Kher and Saeed Jaffrey. It was directed by Indra Kumar with music composed by Anand-Milind. "Dil" clashed with Sunny Deol's "Ghayal" at box-office when released and subsequently went on to become a super-hit. The film was remade in Telugu in 1993 under the title Tholi Muddhu, starring Divya Bharti and Prashanth in the leading roles. Plot summary. Hazari Prasad (Anupam Kher) is a miser who dreams of finding a rich young woman for his only son, Raja (Aamir Khan), to marry. However, Raja is a spendthrift who is only interested in spending his father's money on wild parties. One day as Raja is walking to his college, a passing jeep douses him with mud and the rude response of the beautiful Madhu (Madhuri Dixit) who is driving enrages Raja. He tricks Madhu into thinking that he is blind and then mocks her when the truth is revealed. The two quickly become enemies and play pranks on each other. Raja causes Madhu to trip during a dance rehearsal, and she forces him into a fight with the school's champion boxer Shakti (Adi Irani), which Raja wins.
1103863	Maxim Lvovich Kontsevich (; born 25 August 1964) is a Russian and French mathematician. He holds both Russian and French citizenship. He is a professor at the Institut des Hautes Études Scientifiques and a distinguished professor at the University of Miami. He received the Henri Poincaré Prize in 1997, the Fields Medal in 1998, the Crafoord Prize in 2008 and the Shaw Prize and Fundamental Physics Prize in 2012. Biography. Born into the family of Lev Rafailovich Kontsevich – Soviet orientalist and author of the Kontsevich system. After ranking second in the All-Union Mathematics Olympiads, he attended Moscow State University but left without a degree in 1985 to become a researcher at the Institute for Problems of Information Transmission in Moscow [http://www.berkeley.edu/news/berkeleyan/1994/1012/math.html]. In 1992 he received his Ph.D. at the University of Bonn under Don Bernard Zagier. His thesis proves a conjecture by Edward Witten that two quantum gravitational models are equivalent. His work concentrates on geometric aspects of mathematical physics, most notably on knot theory, quantization, and mirror symmetry. His most famous result is a formal deformation quantization that holds for any Poisson manifold. He also introduced knot invariants defined by complicated integrals analogous to Feynman integrals. In topological field theory, he introduced the moduli space of stable maps, which may be considered a mathematically rigorous formulation of the Feynman integral for topological string theory. These results are a part of his "contributions to four problems of geometry" for which he was awarded the Fields Medal in 1998. Honors and Awards. In July 2012, he was an inaugural awardee of the Fundamental Physics Prize, the creation of physicist and internet entrepreneur, Yuri Milner.
1054751	The Accidental Husband is a 2008 American romantic comedy film directed by Griffin Dunne, and starring Uma Thurman, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Colin Firth, Isabella Rossellini, and Sam Shepard. The film was written by Mimi Hare, Clare Naylor and Bonnie Sikowitz, and is produced by Jennifer Todd, Jason Blum, and Uma Thurman. It was initially released in the UK in 2008, but was released direct-to-DVD in the United States following the bankruptcy of the distributor. Release. It was released on February 29, 2008 in the UK and was scheduled to be released on August 22, 2008 in the United States delayed to March 27, 2009 before being shelved indefinitely following the bankruptcy of its distributor, Yari Film Group's releasing division. It was released direct-to-DVD in the United States on November 10, 2009. The film features several Indian songs, including A. R. Rahman's "Yaro Yarodi", "Swasamae" and "Rang De" (from the films "Alaipayuthey", "Thenali" and "Thakshak" respectively) as well as Punjabi Hit Squad's "Kuriyeh". Plot. New York firefighter Patrick Sullivan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) had no idea his seemingly idyllic life was about to go up in smoke — especially as the unwitting, second-hand recipient of advice from famed love expert and radio host Dr. Emma Lloyd (Uma Thurman). One day he is a happy-go-lucky guy looking forward to a life with his soon-to-be-bride. Then, his fiancée, Sophia (Justina Machado), is seeking couples counseling on the radio from Dr. Lloyd. Lloyd questions Sophia’s concept of romantic love and advises her to break their engagement, which she swiftly does. Patrick is so upset that when he hears that Emma is about to be married herself, he allows his young neighbour, an Indian computer whiz-kid to hack into public records and create a fake marriage between himself and Emma, because he wants to force a confrontation. Emma is told she cannot marry her perfect-gentleman fiancé, Richard (Colin Firth), because she is already married. She has no choice but to confront Patrick, who after stringing her along with lie upon lie, finds out that he is attracted to her, and makes a play for her romantically. He proceeds to inject himself into her life, causes her to have to lie herself, to her beloved fiancé. Emma is drawn to his immense charisma but tries to ignore it. Emma needs Patrick’s help desperately because he has to sign the annulment papers so that she can marry Richard. Patrick delays this process long enough so that he can get enough time to spend with Emma. At one point, Patrick acts as her fiancé Richard and Emma doesn’t deny the pretence because of some people watching them while tasting a wedding cake. Unknown to Emma, one of the ladies there happens to be the wife of a man Richard is doing business with. This particular man decides to stop his deals with Richard and is planning to tell him in so during a banquet where both Richard and Emma are attending. This lady (after finding out her husband’s plans) meets Emma during the banquet and tells her of the same. Emma wants to save Richard’s business, but she is in a dilemma because the lady believes Patrick to be Richard. It so happens that Patrick arrives there at the banquet. Not knowing what else to do, Emma continues to pretend that Patrick is her fiancé Richard and that Richard is her brother Carl. Matters get worse when Patrick and Emma are invited to dinner with Richard’s business partner and his wife. But the funny side is that Patrick charms the businessman so much that he decides to change his decision and continue business with "Richard". Later, Emma and Patrick go to dinner with the businessman. Patrick then takes them on a surprise visit to a special event. Patrick stays with an Indian family and is quite close to them. They support and encourage him through his difficult times. It is to a Hindu "sacred thread ceremony" (Upanayana) rite-of-passage ritual, that Patrick takes Emma and the businessman’s family. The computer whiz-kid is the one getting initiated. Emma and the other guests have a really good time there, and it is there that she sees a whole new side of Patrick, who had been repulsive to her so far. There is a slight spark of attraction, but Emma flees the scene before anything else can happen. Patrick continues to pursue her later, and even comes to visit her in her radio studio. There they have a confrontation and then board a lift, continuing their argument. Suddenly Patrick asks the other occupants of the lift to leave and they do so after seeing his fireman’s badge. He then locks the lift and then proceeds to kiss Emma. They have quite a passionate time, not knowing that they are being viewed by the security staff on the camera at the top of the lift. Soon Emma can not deny her attraction to Patrick anymore and decides to call off her wedding. She goes to Patrick’s lodgings and they make love that night. It is only the next morning that she finds out that Patrick had been keeping tabs on her and stalking her. Patrick then confesses that he had initially wanted to teach her a lesson about love but then fell for her. She is so hurt that he had been using her. She then goes back to the honourable Richard, who still loves her and says that she wants to marry him. Richard tells Patrick to leave Emma alone. Patrick also decides to let Emma go because by this point, he feels he will always have to question her resolve and honesty. But both Patrick and Emma are miserable with their separate lives. One day before her wedding, Patrick calls her at the radio station and tells her that he loves her. She does not answer him. She confides in her father and asks his advice. He tells her that the decision is hers. At the next day, Emma and her guests arrive early to the church and are getting ready for the wedding. There, Richard tells her that he wants her to be happy and decides to let her marry the man she has fallen in love with. Richard had also heard the radio show the night before and recognized Patrick telling Emma of his love for her. Richard then walks away while Emma activates the sprinkler system with a burning paper. The sprinklers drench the guests who then leave the church to dry. During this time, Emma’s father calls the fire department where Patrick works and asks them to come to the church. When Patrick arrives there, they get married, and live happily ever after. The final scene shifts to a year later where it is shown that Emma is pregnant, and that she and Patrick are still very much in love. The movie ends with a Tamil song "Swasame" from the movie Thenali in the background. Box office performance. As of March 29, 2009, it made $20,745,939. It is being considered for an Indian remake.
1266467	Helen Chandler (February 1, 1906 – April 30, 1965) was an American film and theater actress. Career. Born in Charleston, South Carolina, Chandler began her acting career in New York at the age of nine and was on Broadway two years later in 1917. Her early performances include Arthur Hopkins' 1920 production of "Richard III", which starred John Barrymore, "Macbeth" in 1921 with Lionel Barrymore; Hedvig in Henrik Ibsen's "The Wild Duck" in 1925 and Ophelia in the 1925 modern dress version of "Hamlet" starring Basil Sydney. By the time of her first film she had been in over twenty Broadway productions. She made her film debut in 1927 in the silent film "The Music Master" and in 1930 joined Leslie Howard, Douglas Fairbanks Jr., and Beryl Mercer for the film version of the stage success "Outward Bound". The unusual story told of a group of passengers on an ocean liner who gradually realise that they are all dead and will soon face the Last Judgment. Chandler, with her blonde hair and ethereal quality, was considered to be perfectly cast, and she received critical praise for her performance.
1055708	Iron Eagle II is a 1988 action film directed by Sidney J. Furie. It is the first sequel to the 1986 film "Iron Eagle", with Louis Gossett, Jr. reprising his role as Charles "Chappy" Sinclair. An uncredited Jason Gedrick also returns as ace pilot Doug Masters in the film's opening scene. The film's story is loosely based on Operation Opera, a surprise airstrike performed by the Israeli Air Force on a nuclear reactor near Baghdad, Iraq, on June 7, 1981. Like its predecessor, "Iron Eagle II" received negative reviews. However, it did not fare well at the box-office, with earnings of $10,497,324. Plot. While on a routine patrol on United States airspace west of Alaska, pilots Matt "Cobra" Cooper and Doug "Thumper" Masters test the g-forces of their F-16C planes. Their antics get them carried away, as they stray over Soviet airspace. As they are being escorted back into U.S. airspace, one of the Soviet planes has Doug on missile-lock. This leads to a brief dogfight. In the ensuing battle, Matt loses control of his plane and is too late to save Doug, who is shot down by the Soviets. The next day, the U.S. Secretary of Defense publicly denies the incident, claiming a training accident caused by a fuel system malfunction killed Doug. At the United States Air Force Museum in Arizona, Col. Charles "Chappy" Sinclair is taken out of reserve duty and promoted to Brigadier General to lead "Operation Dark Star", a top-secret military operation. He meets up with Matt and the rest of the operation's selected pilots and soldiers at an undisclosed military base in Israel. The ragtag group is shortly joined by a group of Soviet pilots that comprise the other half of the operation, much to their dismay. During their briefing, it is revealed that an unnamed Middle Eastern country has completed construction of a nuclear weapons compound capable of launching warheads towards both the U.S. and U.S.S.R. Their mission is to destroy the compound, as its nuclear arms will be ready within two weeks. Both the Americans and Soviets have difficulty cooperating with each other. The situation is further complicated when Matt realizes that ace pilot Yuri Lebanov is the one who shot down Doug. At the same time, he slowly develops a relationship with female pilot Valeri Zuyeniko. After a mock dogfight followed by a fist fight that gets them grounded, Matt and Lebanov settle their differences. Then, tragedy strikes when Major Bush, the lead American pilot, is killed during a training exercise due to his claustrophobia. Chappy is later informed that the joint operation is canceled. He realizes that as both the American and Soviet teams consist of delinquent soldiers, the operation was doomed to fail from the beginning. Nevertheless, he is grateful that both factions have the courage to cooperate with each other. His pep talk encourages the entire operation to continue with the mission against General Stillmore's orders. For the mission, the F-16 units are to fire their missiles at the compound through the ventilation shafts while the MiGs provide high-altitude cover against enemy aircraft. Ground units are also necessary to take out the anti-aircraft defenses. Upon entering enemy airspace, the transport plane carrying the APCs is shot down. Chappy orders the pilots to abort the mission, but Matt and his wingman Graves disobey and provide air cover to the ground units. Both pilots are outnumbered by the opposing fighters, but Valeri and Lebanov arrive to even the playing field. Meanwhile, the enemy prepares to launch a warhead while the U.S. and Soviet forces order bombers on standby in case the operation fails. Chappy and the ground forces manage to destroy the guidance tower controlling the SAM launchers, but Hickman is killed in the process. They reach the target point, but Graves is shot down by an anti-aircraft gun. Valeri takes over while Matt provides cover. She fires her two remaining missiles; one of which penetrates through the ventilation shaft, obliterating the compound completely. After the joint operation is congratulated, Chappy is offered continued service under General Stillmore, but he adamantly declines the offer. Matt and Valeri bid each other farewell, but Chappy reveals to him that they are flying to Moscow on Tuesday as part of a pilot exchange program. Production. "Iron Eagle II" was filmed on location in Israel. Filming locations included the Israeli Air Force base near Haifa, the desert flatlands, the mountains, and the coast of the Dead Sea. Israeli Air Force pilots performed the aerial manoeuvres for the film, using General Dynamics F-16 Fighting Falcon and McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II units - 69 Squadron's latter used to portray the Soviet MiG-29. Reception. As with its predecessor, "Iron Eagle II" was met with mixed reviews. Kevin Thomas of the "Los Angeles Times" found the film to be better than the first, saying it "hasn't the sleekness of "Top Gun", which it clearly tries to emulate, but it delivers the goods in its elementary fashion." In his review, Richard Harrington of "The Washington Post" said the film "plays like a video game. The training sequence is long and tedious, the comrade-rie is short and tedious." "Variety" magazine wrote that the film "nervily tries to update the formula (of the 1986 original). Plot meanders and fails to really fire its engines until deep into the story."
1161636	Justina Machado (born September 6, 1972) is an American actress. She is known for her role as Vanessa Diaz in the HBO drama series "Six Feet Under". Early life. Machado was born in Chicago, Illinois, where her family moved to from Puerto Rico. There her parents met and were married. The couple had two children and subsequently divorced. Her mother remarried and had three children. Machado was very active in drama, always participating in her school plays. In 1986, she attended Lane Technical College Prep High School ("Lane Tech") and during her spare time performed with the Latino Chicago Theater Company. In 1990, she graduated from Lane Tech and moved to New York City. The experience which she had gained as a performer with the Latino Chicago Theater Company helped open the doors for her in that city. Soon, she was offered a job as a professional actress in Los Angeles, California. She moved to Los Angeles and in 1996, Machado landed her first two acting roles. She was cast as "Elsa" in the TV series "NYPD Blue" episode #311, and she was also cast as "Val Cho" in the movie made for television "No One Would Tell". Career. "Six Feet Under". On June 10, 2001, Machado auditioned for the TV series "Six Feet Under" and was cast as "Vanessa Diaz", a supporting role character which evolved into a "regular" character in the series. Machado and her castmates were honored with a Screen Actors Guild Award for "Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series". The series entered its fifth and final season in 2005. Machado has also appeared in the Canadian television series "1-800-Missing" as "Sunny Estrada".> Films. Machado has participated in over 15 films. Amongst her most notable roles so far have been Carmen Rodriguez in "She's So Lovely", Isabella Hudson in "Final Destination 2", Agent Herderson in "Torque", Natalia in "Little Fugitive", Teresa in "Man Maid", Sofia in "The Accidental Husband", and FBI Agent Rosie Gomez in the film "In the Electric Mist". Theatre. She has also made appearances on stage, including Neil LaBute's "Some Girl(s)" at the Geffen Playhouse in Los Angeles. She participated in the productions of "Blade to the Heat" and "Black Butterfly" at the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles. She was the first replacement for Andrea Burns in Broadway's "In the Heights". In 2010 she appeared in the Los Angeles run of "Love, Loss and What I Wore". Other work. In 2003, she appeared in the music video for TLC's song "Damaged", the third single from their final studio album "3D", as a young woman trapped in an abusive relationship and unsure of what to do with her life. In 2009, she appeared in nine episodes as Claudia Diaz in the TV series ER
1463300	M. S. (Madabusi Santanam) Raghunathan is an Indian mathematician. He is currently Head of the National Centre for Mathematics, Indian Institute of Technology, Mumbai. Formerly Professor of eminence at TIFR in Homi Bhabha Chair. Raghunathan received his Ph.D. in Mathematics from (TIFR), University of Mumbai; his advisor was M. S. Narasimhan. Raghunathan is a Fellow of the Royal Society, of the Third World Academy of Sciences, and of the American Mathematical Society. Early life and education. Madabusi Santanam Raghunathan was born on August 11, 1941 at Anantapur, Andhra Pradesh, his maternal grandparents' place. The family lived in Chennai. His father Santanam continued the family's timber business and expanded it through exports to Europe and Japan. He had earlier joined the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, after a B.Sc. in Physics, but had to leave his studies mid-way to take care of the family business. Raghunathan fondly recalls that his father had a feeling for science and used to talk about it, making it very interesting to the children. Raghunathan's mother came from a family with an academic tradition. Her father was an esteemed Professor of English, who had contributed articles to the Cornhill Magazine. He also wrote, and published on his own, a book on William Makepeace Thackerey, which was later found to have been reprinted in the United States, without his knowledge, indeed in violation of the copyright he held. Raghunathan had his schooling in Chennai, in P.S. High School, Mylapore and the Madras Christian College High School. He passed his SSLC (Secondary School Leaving Certificate) examination in 1955. There is a rather interesting story about it: after the Sanskrit paper he absent-mindedly left the examination hall along with his answer paper, and was intercepted on his way home by a fellow student, following commotion at the examination hall on account of the missing answer paper. He narrowly escaped having to reappear for the entire examination, thanks to the headmaster vouching for his integrity. The University of Madras had the curious restriction of not admitting anyone under the age of 14 years and six months, though after attaining that age it was possible to be admitted even in higher classes. Raghunathan therefore pursued his Intermediate at the St. Joseph's College, Bangalore during 1955-57. He then returned to Chennai and joined B.A.(Hons.) in mathematics, in Vivekananda College, which had a very good reputation. Research. After initial training during 1960-62, he worked on a research problem suggested by Prof. M.S. Narasimhan, on "Deformations of linear connections and Riemannian metrics", and solved it by the summer of 1963. He wrote his Ph.D. thesis under the guidance of Professor Narasimhan and was awarded the degree by the University of Bombay in 1966. After completing his Ph.D., Raghunathan spent a year at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, U.S., a well-known international centre for post-doctoral research. As is to be expected, through the years he has visited several renowned centres in the U.S., Europe and Japan, on invitation, for durations ranging from a few weeks to a year, and has spoken at several international conferences. Discrete subgroups of Lie groups have been the central objects of his researches. He has made contributions to rigidity and arithmeticity problems. Administration. Raghunathan has also played an important role in the promotion of mathematics through various scientific bodies, in both advisory and administrative capacities. He organised the Ramanujan centenary celebrations in Chennai in 1987, with an international conference attended by the foremost number theorists. His most important and comprehensive contribution in this sphere has been his role in the National Board for Higher Mathematics (NBHM). Raghunathan was a member of the Board since it was formed in 1983 and became its Chairman in 1987. He continues to serve in that capacity. The Board has undertaken a variety of activities through the years: apart from providing financial support to mathematics libraries around the country and grants for research projects, organising conferences, travel to both national and international events and so on, the Board has taken a pro-active role in tapping mathematical talent through various activities, such as Olympiad activity, Mathematics Training and Talent Search, Scholarships/Fellowships at the M.Sc., Ph.D. and post- doctoral levels, and the rather innovative Nurture Programme conceived by Raghunathan to support learning of mathematics by students even while pursuing other career options Publication. Raghunathan's book Discrete Subgroups of Lie Groups, published by Springer Verlag, Germany, in 1972 is now a classic in the area. It is unique in its coverage of various results which in recent decades have been put to considerable use, and as such it is much appreciated and widely referred to. I have often heard the laments of researchers in the field about it now being out of print. The book has been translated into the Russian and published with a foreword by G.A. Margulis, who is a celebrity in the field.
1057965	Mary Elizabeth Hartman (December 23, 1943 – June 10, 1987) was an American actress, best known for her performance in the 1965 film "A Patch of Blue", playing a blind girl named Selina D'Arcy, opposite Sidney Poitier, a role for which she won the Golden Globe Award for New Star Of The Year – Actress and was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress and Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Drama. The next year, she appeared in "You're a Big Boy Now" as Barbara Darling, for which she was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy. Early life. Hartman was born in Youngstown, Ohio, where she became known to patrons of the Youngstown Playhouse as "Biff" Hartman. After gaining valuable experience in community theater, she relocated to New York City. In 1964, Hartman was signed to play the ingénue lead in the Broadway comedy "Everybody Out, the Castle is Sinking". Film and theatre career. In 1964, Hartman was screen-tested by MGM and Warner Brothers. In the early autumn of 1964, she was offered a leading role in "A Patch of Blue", opposite Sidney Poitier and Shelley Winters. The role won Hartman widespread critical acclaim, a fact proudly noted by the news media in her hometown. The role also won Hartman an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress. At the time of her nomination in 1966, Elizabeth Hartman (who was 22 years old) was the youngest nominee ever in the Best Actress category. That same year, Hartman received an achievement award from the National Association of Theater Owners. She went on to star in three well-received films, "The Group", "You're a Big Boy Now" and "The Beguiled". A role as wife of former Sheriff Buford Pusser in "Walking Tall" (1973) was followed a decade later by voice work in 1982's critically acclaimed animated feature "The Secret of NIMH", wherein she voiced mouse-heroine Mrs. Brisby. She was highly praised for her performance as Mrs. Brisby, however this proved to be her last Hollywood film role. In 1975, Hartman starred in the world premiere of Academy and Emmy Awards nominee Tom Rickman's play "Balaam", a play about political intrigue in Washington, D.C. Her costar was veteran actor Peter Brandon, with supporting roles played by Howard Whalen and Ed Harris. The production was mounted in Old Town Pasadena, California, by the Pasadena Repertory Theatre located in The Hotel Carver. It was directed by Hartman's husband, Gill Dennis and produced by Duane Waddell. Later years and death. Throughout much of her life, Hartman suffered from depression. In her later years, her mental health continued to decline and she moved to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania to be closer to her family. In 1984, she divorced her husband, screenwriter Gill Dennis, after a five-year separation. In the last few years of her life, she gave up acting altogether and worked at a museum in Pittsburgh while receiving treatment for her condition at an outpatient clinic. On June 10, 1987, Hartman committed suicide by jumping from the window of her fifth floor apartment. Earlier that morning, she had reportedly called her psychiatrist saying that she felt down. Hartman was subsequently buried at Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in her home town.
629346	The Rage in Placid Lake is a 2003 Australian film starring Ben Lee and Rose Byrne. It features Placid Lake (Lee), a seventeen-year-old boy who has led a suburban hippie life with his neurotic, free loving parents. The film documents his journey of self-discovery as he rejects his hippie roots and embraces the mundane by working for an insurance agency, much to his parents' horror. Plot. Precocious, bohemian teenager Placid Lake finishes high school, but after having an existential crisis devises a plan to totally reinvent himself as a functioning member of society. With a few weeks spent reading a library of self-help manuals, Lake gets a haircut, bespoke suit, and gets a white collar job working for an insurance agency. Lake has a smart friend Gemma (played by Byrne) who tries to talk him out of his newly found economic rationalism. Box office. "The Rage in Placid Lake" grossed $482,798 at the box office in Australia. Reception. Based on 15 reviews collected by the film review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, 53% of critics gave "The Rage in Placid Lake" a positive review, with an average rating of 6.1/10.
584445	Samuthiram (, ) is a 2001 Tamil film written and directed by K. S. Ravikumar, starring Sarath Kumar, Murali, Manoj Bharathiraja, Kaveri, Abhirami, Sindhu Menon and Monal. The film's score and soundtrack are composed by Sabesh-Murali. The film was released on August 31, 2001. The film was remade in Telugu as "Siva Rama Raju" with Jagapathi Babu. Plot. Selvarasu (Sarathkumar) is the head of the family and his two brothers (Murali, Manoj kumar) are ready to give up their life for him. The three brothers think the world of their sister Rasamani (Kaveri). A rich man ('Pyramid' Natrajan) from the neighboring village feels insulted when Murali mishandles his son and to take revenge, makes Rasamani his daughter-in-law. Starting with taking away all of the brothers' wealth, he insults them at every opportunity while ill-treating Rasamani. At last in the climax Rasamani's husband and father-in-law reforms accepts her and her brothers. Production. R. B. Choudary's financial problems meant that the director K. S. Ravikumar financed the first schedule of the film by himself. The producer acknowledged and thanked the director at the audio launch function. Review. It received good response from ladies. But the movie generally got negative reviews as it was felt that the story is not new. Malathi Rangarajan from thehindu.com stated "Samudhiram" is a story of the sincere affection that exists in a family - love that is more filial than fraternal; attachment that is more unnatural than normal. Screenindia wrote that stars performed well in the film.
1064267	Once Upon a Time in Mexico is a 2003 action film written, produced, edited, cinematographied, scored, and directed by Robert Rodriguez. It is the third and final film in Rodriguez's "Mexico Trilogy", and is a sequel to "El Mariachi" (1992) and "Desperado" (1995). The film features Antonio Banderas in his second and final performance as El Mariachi. In the film, El Mariachi is recruited by CIA agent, Sheldon Sands (Johnny Depp), to kill Armando Barillo (Willem Dafoe), a Mexican drug lord who is planning a coup d'état against the President of Mexico. At the same time, El Mariachi seeks revenge against a corrupt general responsible for the death of his wife Carolina (Salma Hayek). "Once Upon a Time in Mexico" was not only the first film Rodriguez ever shot digitally in HD (instead of 35mm film) but was also one of the first high budget films shot in HD pre-dating "". "Once Upon a Time in Mexico" received positive reviews, but was criticized for reducing its protagonist to an almost secondary character in his own trilogy and for having a convoluted plot. In the special features of the film's DVD, Rodriguez has explained that this was intended, as he wanted this to be "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly" of the trilogy. "Once Upon a Time in Mexico" holds the box office record for being the most improved second sequel of all-time, grossing 122% more than "Desperado". Plot. El Mariachi (Antonio Banderas) is recruited by CIA agent Sheldon Sands (Johnny Depp) to kill General Emiliano Marquez (Gerardo Vigil), leader of a guerilla force who has been hired by Mexican drug lord Armando Barillo (Willem Dafoe) to assassinate the President of Mexico (Pedro Armendáriz Jr.) and overthrow the government. Many years before, El Mariachi and his wife Carolina (Salma Hayek) confronted Marquez in a shootout and wounded the general; in retaliation, Marquez took the lives of Carolina and their daughter in an ambush. In addition to El Mariachi, Sands persuades former FBI agent Jorge Ramírez (Rubén Blades) to come out of retirement and kill Barillo, who had murdered his partner Archuleta in the past. Furthermore, AFN operative Ajedrez (Eva Mendes) is assigned by Sands to tail Barillo. While monitoring Barillo's activities, Ramírez meets Billy Chambers (Mickey Rourke), an American fugitive who has been living under the protection of Barillo, but can no longer stomach the horrible tasks he's been forced to carry out for him. Ramírez convinces Chambers he will provide him protection in exchange for getting closer to Barillo by tagging Chambers' pet chihuahua with a hidden microphone, and Chambers agrees to complete the deal by surrendering to U.S. authorities once Barillo has been taken down. Cucuy (Danny Trejo), who was originally hired by Sands to keep an eye on El Mariachi, tranquilizes El Mariachi and brings him to Barillo's mansion. Cucuy, however, is promptly killed by Chambers while El Mariachi escapes from captivity and calls his friends Lorenzo (Enrique Iglesias) and Fideo (Marco Leonardi) to assist him in his mission. While monitoring Barillo's activity outside a hospital, Ramírez notices armed men storming the building and follows suit. He discovers that a group of doctors have been gunned down and Barillo has bled to death as a result of a botched facial reconstruction, but realizes that the corpse on the operating table is a body double before he is knocked out and kidnapped by the real Barillo and Ajedrez, who reveals herself to be Barillo's daughter. Sands realizes his mission has been compromised, but is too late, as he is captured by Barillo and Ajedrez—who drill out his eyes before sending him out. Despite his blindness, he manages to gun down a hitman tailing him with the aid of a chiclet boy. As the village celebrates Day of the Dead, Marquez and his army storm in and attack the presidential palace. The guerrillas, however, are met with resistance from not only the Mexican army, but the villagers and the Mariachis. Marquez enters the presidential palace, only to once again confront El Mariachi, who shoots out his kneecaps before finishing him off with a headshot. Ramírez, who was released from captivity by Chambers, faces Barillo. After Barillo guns down Chambers, Ramírez and El Mariachi kill the drug lord. Sands manages to shoot the sadistic Ajedrez dead outside the presidential palace. Ultimately, Lorenzo and Fideo walk away with the loot that Barillo was using to pay Marquez, and escort the president to safety. Ramírez walks away, having accomplished his job. El Mariachi then gives his part of the loot to his village before walking into the sunset. Cast. In a 2003 issue of "Rolling Stone", Depp was named as one of its "People of the Year", and gave an interview in which he briefly discussed his role as Sands: "The idea behind him is there was this guy I used to know in Hollywood, in the business, who on the outside was very charming – soft-spoken and almost hypnotic in the rhythm he used to speak. He refused to call me Johnny – always called me John. You knew this guy was aiming to fuck you over, but somehow you stuck around because he was just so fascinating to watch." Depp also said in an "Entertainment Weekly" article that he "imagine this guy wore really cheesy tourist shirts", that he had a "sideline obsession with Broadway", and that he favored strange, obvious disguises – all three qualities can be observed in the film. It was also revealed in the director's commentary on the DVD that Depp himself came up with the character's first and middle names. Production. Made on a $29 million budget, the film was shot in May 2001 before ' (2002) and ' (2003) in order to avoid a potential Screen Actors Guild strike. Willem Dafoe's character Armando Barillo is based on Mexican drug lord Amado Carrillo Fuentes. The botched surgery that killed Carrillo was also reenacted in the movie. Soundtrack. The film's score includes songs composed by director Robert Rodriguez and performed by a group of musicians gathered specifically for the soundtrack recording. Tracks performed by the group includes "Malagueña" with guitar by Brian Setzer and "Siente Mi Amor", with singing by Salma Hayek. Track 9, "Sands' Theme", is credited to "Tonto's Giant Nuts" but was in fact written by Johnny Depp (who invented the name Tonto's Giant Nuts as a joke. It is not the name of his band, as commonly thought). On the DVD director commentary, Robert Rodriguez states that he requested that each of the main actors give him four or eight notes of a melody for their character, but Depp presented him with the entire track. Additional music includes Juno Reactor's "Pistolero", "Me Gustas Tú" by Manu Chao and "Cuka Rocka" by Rodriguez' own rock band, Chingon. Reception. "Once Upon a Time in Mexico" was released on September 12, 2003 in 3,282 theaters with an opening weekend gross of USD $23.4 million. It went on to make $56.4 million in North America and $41.8 in the rest of the world for a combined total of $98.2 million, well above its $29 million budget. The film received a generally positive reception with a 68% rating on Rotten Tomatoes and a 56 metascore on Metacritic. "Chicago Sun-Times" film critic Roger Ebert gave the film three out of four stars and wrote, "Like Leone's movie, the Rodriguez epic is more interested in the moment, in great shots, in surprises and ironic reversals and closeups of sweaty faces, than in a coherent story". A. O. Scott, in his review for "The New York Times", wrote, "But in the end, the punched-up editing and vibrant color schemes start to grow tiresome, and Mr. Rodriguez, bored with his own gimmickry and completely out of ideas, responds by pushing the violence to needlessly grotesque extremes". In her review for "USA Today", Claudia Puig wrote, "In "Mexico", Rodriguez has fashioned a swaggering fantasy that pays homage to spaghetti Westerns such as Sergio Leone's "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly". Plenty of blood is shed, lots of powerful artillery is fired, and action sequences provide astounding car crashes and fiery explosions". "Entertainment Weekly" gave the film a "B" rating and praised Johnny Depp's performance with its "winking grace notes of Brandoesque flakery ... is as minimal and laid-back as his "Pirates of the Caribbean" turn was deep-dish theatrical".
1130331	Stuart Damon (born Stuart Michael Zonis; February 5, 1937) is an American actor. He is known for thirty years of portraying the character Dr. Alan Quartermaine on the American soap opera "General Hospital", for which he won an Emmy Award in 1999. Outside the USA, he is better known for the role of Craig Stirling in "The Champions". Personal life. Damon was born in Brooklyn, New York, the son of Eva (née Sherer) and Marvin Leonard Zonis, who was a manufacturer. His parents were Russian Jewish immigrants, making their home in America after fleeing the Bolshevik Revolution. Damon has been married since 1961 to Deirdre Ann Ottewill. They have two children, Jennifer and Christopher, and adopted their grandson, Alexander, in 2000. Acting career. After a series of appearances on Broadway, Damon's appearance as the Prince in the 1965 version of Rodgers and Hammerstein's "Cinderella" starring Lesley Ann Warren helped pave the way to a long career in television and soap opera. Moving to Britain in the 1960s, Damon starred in the hit musical Charlie Girl with Anna Neagle in 1965 and appeared as secret agent Craig Stirling, alongside Alexandra Bastedo and William Gaunt, in the cult series "The Champions". He also partnered with Roger Moore in an episode of "The Saint" which has been credited as an inspiration for the later series "The Persuaders!", with Damon's role being played by Tony Curtis. Damon also played magician Harry Houdini in a lavishly staged London musical, "Man of Magic". In the 1970s, he was cast alongside Gene Barry and Catherine Schell in the series "The Adventurer", appearing briefly in two episodes. Damon has since spoken candidly about the fact that Barry did not want him in the series because of his height. At over six feet, he towered over the relatively short Barry. After acting roles in several other British television series, including "The New Avengers" and children's favourite "The Adventures of Black Beauty" where he played a hypnotist, he returned to the United States. In 1977, he began his most famous American role, that of Dr. Alan Quartermaine, Sr. on "General Hospital". He also repeated the role on the short-lived "GH" spin-off "Port Charles" (1997–2003). In 1999, Damon won the Best Supporting Actor Emmy, for his portrayal of Alan, a physician, addicted to the painkiller hydrocodone. In 2005, Damon was reunited with Alexandra Bastedo and William Gaunt for the first time in almost 40 years, to provide audio commentary on a DVD release of "The Champions". In December 2006, it was reported that Damon had been fired by Jill Farren Phelps on the orders of Anne Sweeney and Brian Frons from "General Hospital" and his last air date was scheduled for February 26, 2007, when his character died. The reason behind his release was not made public. The taping of the final scene occurred on February 5, coincidentally Damon's 70th birthday. Fellow actors on "General Hospital" spoke to the press about how upset they were over Damon's firing, with Damon's on-show wife Leslie Charleson saying, "This is the 30th anniversary for the two of us, in August. The timing leaves me very discouraged about the way soaps are going, the total disregard for history and the blatant disregard for the veterans." Despite the death of the character, Damon had remained on the show, playing the ghost of Alan Quartermaine, haunting his sister Tracy about forging Alan's will. He remained with the show until December 23, 2008, when Alan appeared to Monica on Christmas to tell her that he loved her.
1055283	Dead Silence (originally titled Shhhh... and Silence, with alternate title suggestions such as The Doll and Mary Shaw) is a 2007 horror film, directed by James Wan and written by Leigh Whannell, the creators of "Saw". The film stars Ryan Kwanten, Judith Roberts, Donnie Wahlberg, and Amber Valletta. Plot. Jamie Ashen and his wife Lisa receive a mysterious ventriloquist doll, "Billy", in an unmarked package. Wondering who sent the doll, Lisa recalls a poem about a woman named Mary Shaw. Jamie disregards this, but later finds Lisa dead with her tongue ripped out, and Billy lying near her body. Jamie discovers that Billy belonged to Mary Shaw, a ventriloquist from his hometown of Ravens Fair. Returning to Ravens Fair, Jamie confronts his wealthy, estranged father, Edward, about Mary Shaw. Edward is wheelchair-bound with a new wife, Ella, who takes care of him. Edward and Ella remind Jamie of the poem, regarding Shaw and her penchant for cutting out her victims' tongues. Before leaving, Jamie warns Ella that Edward is a monster. After Lisa's funeral, Jamie wanders into a cemetery and finds Shaw's grave and those of her puppets. Marion, the mortician's senile wife, warns him of the danger of Shaw's puppets, and he realizes he should rebury Billy. He does so, but Detective Jim Lipton digs it back up, unconvinced of Jamie's innocence in Lisa's death and believing that he's trying to conceal evidence. Jamie tells him about the poem, but Lipton is skeptical. The next morning, Jamie brings Billy to the mortician, Henry, who finally tells him about Mary Shaw. Shaw was a famous ventriloquist whose ambition was to make the perfect puppet. At one performance, a young boy named Michael heckled her, and went missing shortly after. Shaw was blamed for the disappearance, and the villagers killed her. Her final wish was to turn her body into a ventriloquist's puppet and to be buried with her 101 puppets. A young Henry wandered into his fathers mortuary and accidentally knocked the coffin over. Shaw's body briefly came to life and approached Henry, but he survived by covering his mouth to keep from screaming; Shaw can only kill her victims when they scream. At the theater, Jamie finds Shaw's dressing room and discovers an old book with plans to make the perfect puppet. Jamie confronts Edward and learns that Michael was his great-uncle—with help from the other villagers, Michael's family murdered Shaw by forcing her to scream and then cutting out her tongue. The men involved were then killed off one by one, found with their tongues ripped out. Their wives, children, and children's children all suffered the same fate; Edward deliberately drove Jamie away to spare him, but Shaw will now come back for them. Lipton tells Jamie that Shaw's puppets are all missing from their graves. Jamie receives a phone call from Henry, telling him to go to the theater. In truth Henry has been murdered by Mary Shaw; when she takes her victims' tongues, she acquires their voices. Jamie and Lipton go to the theater and Shaw's living quarters. In a hidden back room, they find the body of Michael Ashen, kidnapped and murdered by Mary Shaw, strung up like a marionette, and 100 of Shaw's puppets. Unable to have children, Shaw treated Michael as her "son" by turning his corpse into a puppet. A clown doll, possessed by Shaw, tells them she wants to silence those who silenced her, and that she killed Lisa because she was pregnant with the last of Jamie's family line. Lipton shoots the doll, but Shaw begins materializing through the other dolls. Realizing they must destroy all the dolls, they set the room on fire and try to flee the theater. Shaw's ghost chases them, and kills Lipton after he screams. Jamie escapes as the theater burns down, destroying the dolls. Billy is the only remaining puppet, and the only way to get rid of Shaw is to destroy him. After Marion tells Jamie that Edward took the doll, he returns to his father's house to destroy Billy. When he arrives, Shaw reappears, but is forced to retreat when Jamie throws Billy into the fireplace. Jamie finds Edward in his wheelchair, but is horrified to discover his father is dead, his entire back hollowed out and replaced with a wooden shaft used in ventriloquist dummies. Jamie realizes Edward has been wearing the same suit, and that Ella has been at his side the entire time with her hand behind his back. Ella, Mary Shaw's "perfect doll", appears. Jamie screams, and Shaw materializes through Ella and turns Jamie into a doll. Alternate ending. In an alternate ending, Ella had been abused by Edward until she suffered a miscarriage; seeking revenge, she dug up one of Mary Shaw's puppets and was possessed by her spirit, becoming the perfect puppet that Shaw strove to make. After killing Edward, she hollowed out his corpse and used it as a puppet to lure Jamie back to Ravens Fair. Ella sits a tied-up Jamie alongside Edward and Lisa in a macabre family portrait. Jamie screams as Mary Shaw attacks him, presumably taking his tongue. The film ends with Ella reciting the poem to Jamie's corpse, tucked into bed like a child. Before blowing out the candle, Ella tells Jamie that if he sees Mary Shaw, the only thing that will protect him is silence. Release. "Dead Silence" was released in the United States on March 16, 2007, with a "R" rating. Box office. In the United States, as of April 16, 2007, the film's total gross has been worth US$16.5 million (according to Box Office Mojo), and screenings of "Dead Silence" were ceased in most theaters sixteen days following its release; the film's estimated production budget was US$20 million. As of April 1, 2009, US$5,408,331 has been generated globally. Tentative plans for a sequel were abandoned. Critical reception. The film received generally negative reviews; Rotten Tomatoes rated the film with a 21% "Rotten" based on 76 reviews with a consensus of "More tasteful than recent slasher flicks, but "Dead Silence" is undone by boring characters, bland dialogue, and an unnecessary and obvious twist ending." Home media. The film was released on DVD on June 26, 2007 with an "unrated" version was released, and the same occurred for the HD DVD product. The film has since grossed US$17,304,718 in overall DVD sales. Soundtrack. Lakeshore Records released the soundtrack of Dead Silence on the 20th March, 2007. The CD contains 31 tracks, the first track being the song "We Sleep Forever" performed by American rock band Aiden. The rest of the CD is taken up by Charlie Clouser's film's score. Clouser has worked on many film scores such as the "Saw" series and "". Post-release commentary. In his personal blog, screenwriter Whannell reveals the origins of the film within the context of the "Hollywood" film industry. In a candid post entitled, "Dud Silence: The Hellish Experience Of Making A Bad Horror Film", Whannell explains that the film was conceived following the advice of his agent at the time and that a "script doctor" was eventually employed by the production studio. Whannell concludes the post with a description of the key lessons that were learned following the "Dead Silence" experience: After everything is said and done, I’m almost glad ‘Dead Silence’ happened, because it gave me an extreme, coal-face lesson in what not to do. It was like learning to swim by leaping off Niagara Falls. I only write scripts on spec now, which means that I write them in my own time without getting paid and then take them out into the world to see if anyone’s interested. Never again will I enter the arranged marriage of selling a pitch. I have also become very gun-shy about working with studios. In the world of independent film, what you write ends up on screen. Plus, they don’t have the money to bring in script doctors! Works fine for me. Who knows, maybe one day I will work with a studio again...
590325	Ajantrik (known internationally as The Unmechanical, The Mechanical Man or The Pathetic Fallacy) is a 1958 Indian Bengali film written and directed by parallel filmmaker Ritwik Ghatak. The film is adapted from a Bengali short story of the same name written by Subodh Ghosh. A comedy-drama film with science fiction themes, it is one of the earliest Indian films to portray an inanimate object, in this case an automobile, as a character in the story. It achieves this through the use of sounds, recorded during post-production, to emphasize the car's bodily functions and movements. The protagonist Bimal can be seen as an influence on the cynical cab driver Narasingh (played by Soumitra Chatterjee) in Satyajit Ray's "Abhijan" (1962), which in turn served as a prototype for the character of Travis Bickle (played by Robert De Niro) in Martin Scorsese's "Taxi Driver" (1976). The film was considered for a special entry in the Venice Film Festival in 1959. Plot. Bimal is a taxi-driver in a small provincial town. He lives alone, his taxi (an old 1920 Chevrolet jalopy which he named "Jagaddal") is his only companion and, although very battered, it is the apple of Bimal's eye. The film shows episodes from his life in the industrial wasteland, delivering people from one place to another. Georges Sadoul, the well-known film critic shared his experience of watching the film in this way. He said, "What does 'Ajantrik' mean? I don't know and I believe no one in Venice Film Festival knew...I can't tell the whole story of the film...there was no subtitle for the film. But I saw the film spellbound till the very end". According to the noted Bengali poet and German scholar Alokranjan Dasgupta, "The merciless conflict of ethereal nature and mechanised civilization,through the love of taxi driver Bimal and his pathetic vehicle Jagaddal seems to be a unique gift of...modernism."
1065384	Rosamund Mary Elizabeth Pike (born 27 January 1979) is an English actress who first came to international attention when she played Bond girl Miranda Frost in "Die Another Day" (2002). Since then her films roles have included Jane Bennet in "Pride and Prejudice" (2005), Nikki Gardner in "Fracture" (2007), Alex in "Fugitive Pieces" (2007), Helen in "An Education" (2009), Miriam Grant-Panofsky in "Barney's Version" (2010), Lisa Hopkins in "Made in Dagenham" (2010), Kate Sumner in "Johnny English Reborn" (2011), Queen Andromeda in "Wrath of the Titans" (2012), Helen Rodin in "Jack Reacher" (2012) and Sam Chamberlain in "The World's End" (2013). Early life. Rosamund Pike was born in Hammersmith, London, the only child of concert musicians/opera singers Caroline (née Friend) and Julian Pike. Pike's father is now a professor of music and head of Operatic Studies at the Birmingham Conservatoire. The family traveled across Europe until she was seven, following wherever her parents' performing career took them; as a result, she is conversant in French and German. Pike won a scholarship to Badminton School in Bristol, and while appearing in a production of "Romeo and Juliet" at the National Youth Theatre, was noticed by an agent who helped her embark upon a professional career. After being turned down by every stage school she applied to, she gained a place to read English Literature at Wadham College, Oxford from which she graduated After taking a year off to pursue her acting career, garnering stage experience in David Hare's "Skylight", Arthur Miller's "All My Sons", and several plays by Shakespeare; she achieved an Upper Second class degree in 2001. Career. While she was still at university, Pike made appearances on British television shows, including "A Rather English Marriage" (1998), "Wives and Daughters" (1999), and "Love in a Cold Climate" (2001), a miniseries based on Nancy Mitford's novels "The Pursuit of Love" and "Love in a Cold Climate". She also appeared as "Sarah Beaumont" in an episode of the series "Foyle's War", during which she was required to smoke a cigarette almost constantly. After graduating she considered working at Waterstone's bookshop, due to a lack of acting opportunities, but was offered a role as a Bond girl and MI6 agent assigned to aid James Bond in "Die Another Day." She also appeared in the special show "Bond Girls Are Forever" and, shortly afterwards, the BAFTA tribute to the "James Bond" series. Pike then played Elizabeth Malet in "The Libertine" (2004), co-starring Johnny Depp, which won her the Best Supporting Actress award at the British Independent Film Awards. In the same year, she portrayed Rose in "The Promised Land", a film about Israel, and starred as scientist Samantha Grimm in the cinematic adaptation of the computer game series "Doom". In 2005, she appeared as Jane, the elder sister of Elizabeth (played by Keira Knightley), in "Pride & Prejudice". Pike then starred in the film adaptation of Anne Michaels's novel "Fugitive Pieces". She also starred as a successful attorney in the film "Fracture", opposite Anthony Hopkins and Ryan Gosling. Her stage credits include "Hitchcock Blonde" by Terry Johnson (in a role requiring her to appear completely nude on stage with only a pair of high heels) and Tennessee Williams' "Summer and Smoke", both in London's West End, and "Gaslight" at London's Old Vic Theatre. Pike has said that she would be happy to do at least one play every year. In 2009, she played the title character in "Madame De Sade" during the Donmar's West End season. She appeared in the British film "Made in Dagenham" and in the Canadian film "Barney's Version" where she plays Miriam. In 2010, she starred in a production of "Hedda Gabler" on UK tour. Pike has recorded voicework for a lead role in the film "Jackboots on Whitehall" and lent her voice to a new series of James Bond audio-books, narrating The Spy Who Loved Me. In 2010 Pike played the part of Pussy Galore in the BBC Radio 4 adaptation of Fleming's "Goldfinger". In 2011, Pike played the part of Kate Sumner in the 2011 Bond spoof film "Johnny English Reborn", playing a psychologist and English's love interest. The film is a sequel to the 2003 film "Johnny English" and was a box office success, taking over $160m. In 2012, she played the role of Queen Andromeda in the fantasy epic "Wrath of the Titans". She replaced Alexa Davalos, who had played the role in "Clash of the Titans" and had dropped out due to a scheduling conflict. Taking the role in "Wrath of the Titans" meant she had to drop out of consideration for a role in the forthcoming Superman film. Although the film was not well received by critics, it grossed over $300m and critics considered her performance to be one of the film's highlights. She also starred as Helen Rodin, the female lead alongside Tom Cruise in the thriller "Jack Reacher", an adaptation of the novel One Shot by author Lee Child. The film opened to positive critical reception and had grossed over $213m as of 28 February 2013. Personal life. While she was at Oxford, Pike had a two-year relationship with actor Simon Woods. She was engaged in 2007 to film director Joe Wright, but he called off the wedding in 2008. In May 2012, it was reported that she gave birth to her first child, a son, Solo. The father is Robie Uniacke, whom she has been dating since December 2009. Pike is a skilled cellist.
1428767	Brandon Jay McLaren (born October 15, 1980) is a Canadian television actor. He is best known for his role as Jack Landors, the Red SPD Power Ranger, on ', and Danny Brooks on "Harper's Island". He was a guest star in the episode "" of ' and was featured throughout the first season of The N original television series "The Best Years" as Devon Sylver, the love interest of lead character Samantha Best. He is also well-known to Canadian audiences for his role of Lenin, Sam's love interest, in the popular show "Being Erica", and he portrayed Jamil Dexter as a recurring role on TNT's "Falling Skies". He currently stars as U.S. Customs agent Dale Jakes on "Graceland". Biography. Brandon's parents, Ira and Denise, live in Austin, Texas, but are originally from Grenada and Trinidad.
1058809	Mallrats is a 1995 American romantic comedy film written and directed by Kevin Smith, and the second to be set in Smith's View Askewniverse series of interlocking films set mostly in New Jersey, although nearly all of the film was shot in Minnesota. As in the other View Askewniverse films, the characters Jay and Silent Bob figure prominently, and characters and events from other films are discussed. Several cast members, including Jason Lee, Ben Affleck, and Joey Lauren Adams, have gone on to work in several other Smith films. Comic book icon Stan Lee appeared, as did Brian O'Halloran, the star of Smith's breakout feature "Clerks". Plot. The day prior to the events of "Clerks", college student T.S. Quint (Jeremy London) is preparing for a trip to Universal Studios in Florida with Brandi Svenning, during which he plans to propose to her; however, Brandi tells him she cannot go because she has volunteered to fill in as a contestant on "Truth or Date", her father's dating game show. They argue over this and eventually break up. T.S. turns to his best friend Brodie Bruce (Jason Lee), who has also broken up with his girlfriend, Rene Mosier (Shannen Doherty), after having an argument, and Brodie suggests the two might find solace at the local mall. Brodie and T.S. discover "Truth or Date" is being filmed at the same mall, and ask local drug dealers Jay and Silent Bob (Jason Mewes and Kevin Smith, respectively) to destroy the show's stage (which they admit that they had already intended to do, after stealing blueprints), a task for which they devise elaborate but ultimately unsuccessful plans. These actions result in the two being pursued by mall security guard LaFours (Sven-Ole Thorsen), but they are able to escape him. Brodie finds out Rene began a relationship with his nemesis Shannon Hamilton (Ben Affleck), a clothing store manager who hates Brodie because of his "lack of a shopping agenda". Brodie confronts Rene to find out more about her relationship with Shannon, and the two have sex in an elevator. Rene seems to have some respect for Brodie once more, but the latter is later confronted and assaulted by Shannon, who admits on intending to seduce Rene and then have sex with her in a "very uncomfortable place". As a running joke, this is interpreted as the "back of a Volkswagen". As a result of this incident, Jay and Silent Bob assault the mall's Easter Bunny, under the wrongful assumption that he attacked Brodie. Brandi's father, Jared (Michael Rooker), who is aware of Brodie and T.S's presence at the mall, has the two arrested by LaFours, who tries to make it look like the duo had drugs on them. Jay and Silent Bob are able to rescue Brodie and T.S. and are once again able to evade LaFours. Meanwhile, Brodie and T.S. seek refuge at a local flea market, where they meet fortune teller Ivannah. T.S. decides to repair his relationship with Brandi and the two return to the mall. Before the show begins, Brodie receives advice on romance from Stan Lee, who was visiting the mall. After this, Brodie requests that his friend Tricia Jones retrieve footage of her sexual intercourse with Shannon. Tricia herself was doing a project in which she had sex with a number of male adults, despite being only 15 years old, for a book about the sex drive of men. Meanwhile, T.S. also persuades Jay to get two of the game show contestants high, which allow him and Brodie to replace them on "Truth or Date". The initial plan was all three contestants but the third one, Gil Hicks, showed up late, and Brodie and T.S. must go on with him. During the show, Brandi recognizes the voices of Brodie and T.S., and an argument ensues between the three while being aired as well as being in front of the crowd. Brodie tells Brandi that T.S. had spent all day trying to repair their relationship. T.S. then proposes to Brandi, which she accepts. As the police arrive to arrest T.S. and Brodie after the show is over, Silent Bob (who was setting up a VCR backstage) plays a sex tape of Shannon and Tricia, which results in the former being arrested. Brodie and Rene renew their relationship as a result. The conclusion reveals that T.S. marries Brandi, while the show's producers are so impressed with Brodie's stage banter that he becomes the host of "The Tonight Show", with Rene as his bandleader. Production. After the success of the independent hit "Clerks", writer/director Kevin Smith and his best friend/producer Scott Mosier began to make their second film. After a screening of "Clerks", producer James Jacks approached them to do another film for Universal Studios. Smith soon finished the script for this new film, and casting began.
44830	The Night of Counting the Years, a.k.a. The Mummy (Arabic: "Al-Mummia" المومياء) is a 1969 Egyptian film directed by Shadi Abdel Salam. It was Salam's first feature film. Egyptian critics consistently list it as one of the most important Egyptian films ever made. The film was selected as the Egyptian entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 43rd Academy Awards, but was not accepted as a nominee. Plot. Set in 1881, before a year of British colonial rule, it is based on the true story of the Abd el-Rasuls, an Upper-Egyptian clan that had been robbing a cache of mummies discovered at tomb DB320 near the village of Kurna, and selling the artefacts on the illicit antiquities black market. After a conflict within the clan, one of its members goes to the police, helping the Antiquities Service find the cache. Symbolism. The film casts its story in terms of the search for an authentic, lost Egyptian national identity, represented by the neglected and misunderstood artifacts of ancient Egyptian civilisation. However, the conflict between city and countryside suggests questions that are not resolved in the film, making it an ambiguous, unsettling reflection on the price of identity. Visual style. Its slow pace, unusual camera angles and striking colours give the film a dreamlike quality, reinforced by Mario Nascimbene's eerie music. Moreover, the dialogue is entirely in classical Arabic, a very unusual trait for an Egyptian film, which adds to the sense of unreality.
1502429	Carole "Kelly" Bishop (born February 28, 1944) is an American actress and dancer, best known for her roles as matriarch Emily Gilmore on the series "Gilmore Girls", and as the mother of Jennifer Grey's character in the film "Dirty Dancing". Bishop created the role of Sheila in "A Chorus Line", for which she won a Tony Award for Best Performance by a Featured Actress in a Musical. She is currently starring as Fanny Flowers in ABC Family comedy-drama series "Bunheads". Early life. Bishop was born in Colorado Springs, Colorado to Jane Lenore (née Wahtola) and Lawrence Boden Bishop. She grew up in Denver, Colorado, where she trained to be a ballet dancer, attending the American Ballet Theatre School and the San Jose Ballet School. At eighteen, she headed to New York City and landed her first job dancing in a year-round ballet company at Radio City Music Hall. Bishop continued to dance in Las Vegas, summer stock and on television until she was cast in 1967 in "Golden Rainbow", her first Broadway role. Career. Bishop's big break came when she was cast as the sexy, hard-edged Sheila in the Broadway production of "A Chorus Line". Her performance earned her the 1976 Tony Award as "Best Supporting or Featured Actress (Musical)" as well as the 1976 Drama Desk Award for "Outstanding Actress in a Musical". She also acted in the Broadway productions of "Six Degrees of Separation", Neil Simon's "Proposals", the Tony Award-winning "The Last Night of Ballyhoo" and "Bus Stop". It wasn't long before she was cast opposite Jill Clayburgh in Paul Mazursky's big-screen drama "An Unmarried Woman" (1978). In 1986, Bishop was initially cast in a much smaller part in the film "Dirty Dancing" but was called upon to play Mrs. Houseman when Lynne Lipton, the actress assigned the role, fell ill during the first week of shooting. Bishop went on to play a "mom" to high-profile stars in features: Howard Stern's in the Betty Thomas-directed comedy "Private Parts" (1997), and Tobey Maguire's in "Wonder Boys" (2000). Additional feature credits include "Ich und Er" (USA: "Me and Him", 1988), "Queens Logic" (1991), "Café Society" (1995), "Miami Rhapsody" (1995) and "Blue Moon" (2002). On television, Bishop starred in the Mike Nichols' "The Thorns" opposite Tony Roberts and Marilyn Cooper. She played Lisa Ann Walter's mother on "My Wildest Dreams". She has guest-starred on "Kate & Allie", "Law & Order", "" and "Murphy Brown". From 2000-07, Bishop starred in the CW Television Network series "Gilmore Girls" as wealthy New England matriarch Emily Gilmore, mother of Lorelai and grandmother of Rory. Bishop was in "Becky Shaw" at the Second Stage Theatre in 2008. She then performed briefly in the 2011 revival of "Anything Goes" alongside Sutton Foster and Joel Grey. She replaced Jessica Walter in the role of Evangeline Harcourt.
696338	Ik Kudi Punjab Di is a 2010 Punjabi film directed by the ace Bollywood cinematographer and a successful Punjabi film director Manmohan Singh with story and screenplay by Manmohan Singh and dialogues by Rana Ranbir. "Ik Kudi Punjab Di" is produced by Manmohan Singh and Ratan Bhatia and stars Amrinder Gill, Jaspinder Cheema, Aman Dhaliwal, Gugu Gill, Gurpreet Ghuggi, Rana Ranbir, and Kimi Verma. "Ik Kudi Punjab Di" released on 17 September 2010 globally. It was keenly awaited due to reasons like its theme, lead actor Amrinder Gill and the director. The director/writer/producer has attempted a very new and unique concept of drama/theatre in "Ik Kudi Punjab Di" which is not done much in Punjabi cinema. Plot. "Ik Kudi Punjab Di" tells a richly textured tale from a keenly female perspective set against the backdrop of male-dominated Punjabi society. It does so with a Shakespearean credo of “all the world’s a stage” and a lively cast. SP Singh (Amrinder Gill) is a boy from a wealthy family who meets Navdeep (Jaspinder Cheema), the girl of his dreams, at his college drama class. They quickly bond, much to the chagrin of bad-boy student Vicky (Aman Dhaliwal) who prizes Navdeep for himself. The male-chauvinist Vicky has no chance with the progressive-minded Navdeep. Even Singh, the man who she admires enough to call a friend, is in for a shock. Navdeep doesn’t want to get married; she’s intent on being the guardian of her loving parents because the family lacks a male heir. Few scene were also filmed in Post Graduate College Sector 11 Chandigarh. Singh tests his own view of women by agreeing to all of Navdeep’s demands, including moving in with her family after marriage. This is seen as both revolutionary (by her classmates) and an affront to Punjabi society and tradition. Cast. Surbhi jyoti Music. The music of "Ik Kudi Punjab Di" was praised by audiences and critics alike. Singh Speaks particularly praised it by calling this album very good. Punjabi Portal also praised the album saying that the great music further increases the expectation from the film. The album was released on Speed Records in India and Moviebox in the UK. The UK album artwork featured the stars of the film, Amrinder Gill and Jaspinder Cheema, instead of the support characters pictured on the Indian cover artwork. In October 2010, Amrinder Gill scored a Top 30 hit in the UK on the official Asian Download Chart with the lead track from the film, "Sochan Vich."
585273	Aval Appadithan () (English: "That's How She Is") is a Tamil film is directed by C. Rudhraiya. It starred Sripriya, Kamal Hassan and Rajnikanth, with Ilayaraja as music director. The film was noted for its very stylized film making and cutting-edge dialogues, a large portion of it in English. IBN Live included the film in its list of 100 greatest Indian films of all time. Plot. The film revolves around the lives of 3 people. The central character is a woman, played by Sripriya. Raised in a dysfunctional family with a wimp of a father and a philandering mother, she hurtles from one disastrous affair to another. As the movie begins, she has degenerated into a cynical, man-hating 'modern' woman. Into her life enter two radically different men. One of them is her boss (Rajnikanth), who owns the advertising agency that she works for. He is a prototype of the successful man - money-minded, opinionated, arrogant and a male chauvinist. In sharp contrast is Kamal Hassan, who has come to Chennai from Coimbatore to make a documentary on women. Sensitive and sincere, he believes his job has a purpose and is both shocked and amused at the cynical attitudes of the other two. As the movie begins, Sripriya has been drafted by Rajnikanth to assist Kamal Hassan in his documentary. As Kamal and Sripriya start working together, Kamal starts understanding the complex personality of Sripriya. He recounts these over his whiskey-and-cigarette conversations with Rajnikanth, as the latter keeps warning him to not get too involved with such women. As he states famously, "Women should be enjoyed, not analysed". Inevitably, Kamal Hassan falls for Sripriya. But Sripriya incurs the wrath of Rajnikanth. Just when it seems that she is about to lose her job, she seems to have a change of heart and starts courting Rajnikanth. Kamal Hassan is devastated to see that she has turned out to be just the sort of woman that Rajnikanth said she was - opportunistic, money-minded and fickle. The truth finally emerges that Sripriya was merely baiting Rajnikanth to teach him a lesson, but it comes too late for Kamal Hassan, who has already married a small town girl (Saritha, in a guest role) identified by his parents. In a final discussion in Rajnikanth's car, Sripriya asks Saritha, "What do you think of women's liberation?". Saritha replies, "Oh, I don't know anything about that". Sripriya replies with a cynical "No wonder you are happy". The film ends with Sripriya standing on the road as the car carrying Rajnikanth and the married couple pulls away from her. A voice-over says, "She died today. She will be reborn tomorrow. She will die again. She will be reborn again. That's how she is". Direction style. The film uses sharp contrasts of black and white to lend an almost surreal atmosphere to the movie. The dialogues are sharp and (for that era) almost vulgar. A lot of English is used, particularly during the "whiskey-and-cigarette" discussions between Rajnikanth and Kamal Hassan, which are the highlight of the movie. Ilayaraja's brooding background score adds to the sombre nature of the movie. The movie has two songs - Uravugal thodarkathai (rendered by KJ Yesudas) and Panner pushpangale (rendered by Kamal Hassan himself). The Cinematographer of this film is Mr.Nallusamy. This was his first film. He may be the first camaramen who did not work as assistant to any Cameraman prior to this movie. He did the three year Diploma course in the Tharamani Institute. About the director. Very little is known about C. Rudhraiya, the director of this movie. He directed just one more movie "Gramathu Athiyayam" (A village chapter). The movie was mired in problems involving Kamal Haasan and his availability who was slated to act in the movie. Rudraiah shot the movie with 'fresh' actors to prove a point when Kamal Haasan pulled out of the project. It was the first film dedicated to Ananthoo (late) outside banner of Rahini Recreation, Kala Kendra and later Kavithalaya. The person behind the success of KB and Kamal who had been intellectual associate with K.Balachandar for about 3 decades. The person who changed the name of Arumugam as Rudraiah in the film industry.
1068777	, initially titled in English as Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea, is a 2008 Japanese animated fantasy film written and directed by Hayao Miyazaki of Studio Ghibli. It is Miyazaki's eighth film for Ghibli, and his tenth overall. The plot centers on a goldfish named Ponyo who befriends a five-year-old human boy, Sōsuke, and wants to become a human girl. This film is the first animated feature film to use traditional inked-and-painted cels since the release of "Princess Mononoke" in 1997. The film has won several awards, including the Japan Academy Prize for Animation of the Year. It was released in Japan on July 19, 2008, in the US and Canada on August 14, 2009, and in the UK on February 12, 2010. The film reached #9 in the US box office charts for its opening weekend. Plot. Brunhilde is a fish-girl who lives with her father Fujimoto, a once-human wizard who now lives underwater, and her numerous smaller sisters. One day, while she and her siblings are on an outing with their father in his four-flippered submarine, Brunhilde is driven by a desire to see even more of the world and floats away on the back of a jellyfish. After an encounter with a fishing trawler (which is being used to clean up the trash-strewn bottom of the harbour), she ends up stuck in a bottle. She drifts to the shore of a small fishing town and is found and rescued by a small boy named Sōsuke. He cuts his finger in the process, but Brunhilde licks his wound when he picks her up, and the wound heals almost instantly. After taking a great liking to her, Sōsuke renames her Ponyo and promises to protect her forever. Meanwhile, a distraught Fujimoto is searching frantically for his daughter. Because of his own bad memories of the human world, he believes that Sōsuke has kidnapped her, and he calls his wave spirits to recover her. After the wave spirits take Ponyo away, Sōsuke is heartbroken and goes home with his mother, Lisa, who tries to cheer him up, to no avail. Ponyo and Fujimoto have a confrontation, during which Ponyo refuses to let her father call her by her birthname, "Brunhilde". She declares her name to be Ponyo and voices her desire to become human, because she has started to fall in love with Sōsuke. Suddenly she starts to grow legs and turn into a human, a power granted to her by the human blood she ingested when she licked Sōsuke's finger. Her father turns her back with difficulty and goes to summon Ponyo's mother, Granmamare. Meanwhile, Ponyo, with the help of her sisters, breaks away from her father and uses his magic to make herself fully human. The huge amount of magic that she inadvertently releases into the ocean causes an imbalance in the world, resulting in a huge tsunami. Running pell-mell over the waves of the storm, Ponyo goes back to visit Sōsuke, who is amazed but overjoyed to see her. Lisa is equally amazed, but takes Ponyo's transformation in stride. Lisa, Sōsuke, and Ponyo wait out the storm at Sōsuke's house, where Ponyo learns of some of the things in the human world. Worried about the residents of the nursing home where she works, Lisa leaves to check up on them, promising Sōsuke that she will return as soon as possible. Granmamare arrives at Fujimoto's submarine. On her way there, Sōsuke's father sees and recognizes her as the Goddess of Mercy. Fujimoto notices the moon appears to be falling out of its orbit and satellites are falling like shooting stars, symptoms of the dangerous imbalance of nature that now exists. Granmamare declares that if Sōsuke can pass a test, Ponyo can live as a human and the world order will be restored. A still-worried Fujimoto reminds her that if Sōsuke fails the test, Ponyo will turn into sea foam. Sōsuke and Ponyo wake up to find that most of the land around the house has been covered by the ocean. Since it is impossible for Lisa to come home, the two children decide to find her. With the help of Ponyo's magic, they make Sōsuke's toy boat life-size and set out across the ocean. Over the course of their journey, they see prehistoric fish swimming beneath them, and encounter several other evacuees in boats. After landing and finding Lisa's empty car, Ponyo and Sōsuke head into a tunnel. There Ponyo loses her human form and reverts into a fish from using too much of her magical power to help Sōsuke and others along the way. Meanwhile, Lisa and the residents of the nursing home are below the surface, but have been temporarily given the power to breathe underwater. Sōsuke and Ponyo encounter Fujimoto, but Sōsuke doesn't trust him and attempts to flee. However, Fujimoto captures them and takes them down to the protected nursing home. Sōsuke is reunited with Lisa and meets Granmamare, with whom Lisa has just had a long private conversation. Granmamare asks Sōsuke if he can love Ponyo whether she is a fish or human. Sōsuke replies that he "loves all the Ponyos." Granmamare then tells her daughter that if she chooses to become human once and for all, she will have to give up her magical powers. Ponyo agrees to this, so Granmamare encases her in a bubble and gives her to Sōsuke, and tells him that kissing the bubble will complete Ponyo's transformation. The balance of nature is then restored, and the previously stranded ships head back to port, including Sōsuke's father's. Ponyo jumps high in the air and kisses Sōsuke, transforming back into a human. Cast. The cast also includes: Tokie Hidari as , a resident of the Himawari House and formerly a career woman as a youth; she is voiced by Cloris Leachman in Disney's English adaptation. Nippon Television announcer Shinichi Hatori voices , a television news reporter who relays information about the hurricane; he is voiced by Kurt Knuttson in Disney's English adaptation. Emi Hiraoka and Nozomi Ōhashi voice and , attendants of Himawari Nursery School; their respective English voice actresses are Jennessa Rose and Colleen O'Shaughnessey. Production. Hayao Miyazaki, the film's director and writer, said his inspiration was the Hans Christian Andersen story, "The Little Mermaid" but his inspiration was more abstract than a story. Along with animation director Katsuya Kondo and art director Noboru Yoshida, Miyazaki devised a set of goals which included to use traditional animation entirely in "Ponyo", pursuing the animation and art possibilities without struggling under the demands of the production schedule, showing the quality of Yoshida's artwork as well as celebrating the innocence and cheerfulness of a child's universe. Production of "Ponyo" began in May 2006, while key animation of "Ponyo" began in October of that year. Miyazaki was intimately involved with the hand-drawn animation in "Ponyo". He preferred to draw the sea and waves himself, and enjoyed experimenting with how to express this important part of the film. The level of detailed drawing present in the film resulted in 170,000 separate images—a record for a Miyazaki film. Ponyo's name is an onomatopoeia, based on Miyazaki's idea of what a "soft, squishy softness" sounds like when touched. The seaside village where the story takes place is inspired by Tomonoura, a real town in Setonaikai National Park in Japan, where Miyazaki stayed in 2005. Some of the setting and story was affected by Richard Wagner's opera "Die Walküre". The music also makes reference to Wagner's opera. The character of Sōsuke is based on Miyazaki's son Gorō Miyazaki when he was five. Sōsuke 's name is taken from the hero in the famous novel "The Gate". The name of the ship on which Sōsuke's father works is "Koganeimaru", a reference to Studio Ghibli's location in Koganei, Tokyo. is a common ending for ship names. Distribution. Japan. The film was released by Toho on July 19, 2008, in theatres across Japan on 481 screens—a record for a domestic film. It grossed ¥10 billion ($91 million) in its first month of release, and a total of ¥15.0 billion ($153.1 million) as of November 9, 2008. Tokyo Anime Fair chose "Ponyo" as Animation of the Year of 2008, as revealed in a press release by Anime News Network. North America. "Ponyo" was released in the U.S. and Canada on August 14, 2009 by Walt Disney Pictures and The Kennedy/Marshall Company, opening at a wide release at 927 theaters across America, which is by far the widest release for a Studio Ghibli film ever in the U.S, as compared to other Miyazaki films ("Spirited Away" opened in 26 theaters, "Howl's Moving Castle" opened in 36 theaters, and "Princess Mononoke" opened in 38 theaters). The film's English dub was directed by John Lasseter, Brad Lewis and Peter Sohn of Pixar, an American computer animation film studio based in Emeryville, California (whose first film was "Toy Story" in 1995), and produced by Frank Marshall, Hayao Miyazaki, John Lasseter, Steve Alpert, and Kathleen Kennedy; the English script was written by Melissa Mathison. In July 2009, there were multiple pre-screenings of the film in California. Miyazaki traveled to America to promote this film by speaking at the University of California, Berkeley and the San Diego Comic-Con. Soundtrack. "Ponyo"'s eponymous theme song, "Gake no Ue no Ponyo," was released ahead of the film on December 5, 2007, performed by Fujioka Fujimaki (a duo consisting of Takaaki Fujioka and Naoya Fujimaki who are known for their underground band "Marichans" from the 1970s) and eight year old Nozomi Ōhashi. It entered the top 100 on the Oricon Weekly Charts on July 14, then rose to 24th on (July 21), then 6th on (July 28), and after the release of the film it ranked 3rd (August 4). By the end of 2008, it was ranked as the 14th highest selling single on the Oricon Yearly Charts. Ōhashi was also the youngest participant in the 59th NHK Kōhaku Uta Gassen, beating Cute's Mai Hagiwara's record at age 11. Afterward, Ōhashi announced her unit with Fujioka Fujimaki was disbanding. An English-translated pop version of the theme was recorded by Frankie Jonas and Noah Cyrus, the voices of Sōsuke and Ponyo in the North American dub, to tie in with the film's English release. The theme plays over the second half of the English version's closing credits; the first half is merely a translated version of the theme rather than remix. The film score of "Ponyo" was composed by Joe Hisaishi, Miyazaki's regular collaborator. The score album, published on compact disc in Japan by Tokuma Japan Communications, in South Korea by Pony Canyon Korea and throughout Europe by Germany-based label Colosseum, received a great deal of press in the West, including positive reviews from several veteran film music reviewers. Reception. The film has received very positive reviews from film critics. Rotten Tomatoes reported that the film has a "certified fresh" rating of 92%, based on 149 reviews (137 "Fresh"; 12 "Rotten"), with an average score of 7.7. The consensus is that "While not Miyazaki's best film, "Ponyo" is a visually stunning fairy tale that's a sweetly poetic treat for children and Miyazaki fans of all ages." Metacritic reported a metascore of 86. On its opening weekend in the United States and Canada, it made $3,585,852 on 927 screens, which is a per screen average of $3,868. It also opened at number nine at the United States and Canada box office. In the United States and Canada the film made a total of $15,090,399 at the box office. It was released on DVD and Blu-ray, as well as a DVD/Plush Toy pack, on March 2, 2010. "The Japan Times" gave the film four out of five stars, and praised the film's simple thematic elements and its visual scheme, and compared the film to Miyazaki's classic animation "My Neighbor Totoro". "Anime Diet" cited the quality of the translation, noting, "The story and the core of the film was communicated more than adequately through the professional dub and it did not get in the way of the sheer delight and joy that Miyazaki wanted to convey." Citing "slight pacing problems," it gave "Ponyo" a rating of 88%. The pronunciation of Japanese names in the English cinema version varied between characters, however. Critics at the Venice International Film Festival generally had high praise. Wendy Ide of "The Times" said "Ponyo" "is as chaotic and exuberant as a story told by a hyperactive toddler," and gave it 4 stars out of 5. Roger Ebert of the "Chicago Sun-Times" gave the film a full four stars, the highest rank on his review scale, stating that, "There is a word to describe "Ponyo", and that word is magical. This poetic, visually breathtaking work by the greatest of all animators has such deep charm that adults and children will both be touched. It's wonderful and never even seems to try: It unfolds fantastically." The film was rated #2 on Dentsu's list of "2008 Hit Products in Japan", after the Wii console. Awards. "Ponyo" was an entrant in the 65th Venice International Film Festival. It received a special mention in the Bologna Future Film Festival, for "the high artistic and expressive quality of animation able to give form to wonderful imagination of the worldwide cinema master". In 2009, "Ponyo" won five awards at the 8th annual Tokyo Anime Awards. The awards included "Anime of the year" and "Best domestic feature". Miyazaki received the award for best director and best original story, and Noboru Yoshida received the award for best art direction. The film won the awards for Animation of the Year and Outstanding Achievement in Music at the 32nd Japan Academy Prize.
1761385	Barbara Jane Bennett (August 13, 1906 – August 8, 1958) was an American silent film actress. Born into an acting family, she was the daughter of actor Richard Bennett and actress Adrienne Morrison, whose father was the stage actor Lewis Morrison. Her sisters were actresses Constance and Joan Bennett. Bennett married three times in her lifetime. Her first husband was tenor Morton Downey. They married on January 28, 1929, and had five children: adopted son Michael, daughter Lorelle, and sons Morton Downey Jr, who would go on to fame as a television personality, Anthony, and Kevin. They divorced in June 1941. Bennett later married actor Addison Randall, a popular romantic star and singing cowboy at the time. On July 16, 1945, Randall died after suffering a heart attack and falling from a horse during the filming of "The Royal Mounted Rides Again". Bennett married Laurent Suprenant in 1954. They remained together until her death four years later. Many people believe Bennett was portrayed in the 1981 film "Mommie Dearest" by actress Jocelyn Brando, older sister of actor Marlon Brando, but this is not the case. It is a coincidence that the "Redbook" writer in the movie has the same name. Bennett was never a magazine writer. She held sporadic jobs, once as a literary rep for producer Walter Wanger. Bennett scouted best-sellers and the like as potential movie properties, especially for Wanger's wife, her sister Joan. Death. Barbara Bennett Suprenant committed suicide five days before her 52nd birthday in Montréal, Québec, Canada.
1163686	Jeanne Elizabeth Crain (May 25, 1925 – December 14, 2003) was an American actress whose career spanned three decades from 1943 to 1975. She received an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress in the 1949 film "Pinky" in which she played the leading role. She was also noted for her ability in ice skating. Early life. Crain was born in Barstow, California, to George A. Crain, a school teacher, and Loretta Carr; she was of Irish heritage on her mother's side, and of English and distant French descent on her father's. She moved to Los Angeles, California, as a young child.
583140	Kitu Gidwani (born 22 October 1957) is an Indian actress and model. She has starred in some movies as well as serials in Indian television. She became popular after a TV series, Air Hostess aired on Doordarshan in 1986, and received critical acclaimed for her roles in "Dance of the Wind" (1997), Deepa Mehta's "Earth" (1998), Govind Nihalani's "Rukhmavati Ki Haveli" (1991), Kamal Haasan's "Abhay" and "Deham" (2001). Personal life and background. Gidwani was born in Mumbai. Her Sindhi parents migrated from Pakistan after the partition. They lived in a refugee camp in Worli. She has a brother. She studied in Fort Convent School, Mumbai. Her post graduation days saw her interested in French and she started acting in French plays. Soon she was acting in English plays directed by Janak Toprani. She acted in some television serials and subsequently acted in a French film "Black" (1987). She has never been married and has vowed never to settle down at the risk of her pursuit of what she calls "duende," a search for harmony with the many magical aspects of living and nature. Acting career. Gidwani made her television debut in 1984 on the TV soap "Trishna", and during the 1980s and '90s, gave some memorable performances in TV serials like "Swabhimaan", "Air Hostess" and "Junoon". She caught a lot of attention after her kissing scene in bed with actor Raj Zutshi in "Junoon". She recently appeared in multi-starrer Hindi serials "Kaashish" and "Kulvadhu". In 1997, she played the role of a Hindustani classical singer, Pallavi, who struggles to get her voice back after losing her mentor/mother, in "Dance of the Wind" . The role won her Best Actress Award at Three Continents Festival, Nantes. In 2001, she was roped in by Wills Lifestyle, an apparel chain owned by ITC Limited, to promote "Wills Sport Lifestyle" brand of clothing. In 2006, she also acted in a play, "Your Place or Mine" by Darshan Jariwala. She also did a play, "Sock ’em With Honey", where she played a traditional Parsi woman from Pakistan, whose daughter falls in love with a Jew, prompting her first trip abroad. Awards. In 1998, Kitu won the Best Actress Award at the Three Continents Festival, Nantes, France. The award recognized her outstanding achievement for the role of "Pallavi" in "Dance of the Wind" (directed by Rajan Khosa).
633431	Diana Muldaur (born August 19, 1938) is an Emmy-nominated American film and television actress. Muldaur's television roles include "L.A. Law"s Rosalind Shays and Dr. Katherine Pulaski in the second season of "". Born in New York City, but raised on Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts, Muldaur started acting in high school and continued on through college, graduating from Sweet Briar College in Virginia in 1960. She studied acting under Stella Adler and made her name on the New York stage. She was at one point a board member of the Screen Actors Guild and was the first woman to serve as president of the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences (1983–1985). Early career. In 1965, Muldaur landed the role of Ann Wicker in the CBS daytime soap opera "The Secret Storm." During this time she met and fell in love with future first-husband James Vickery, who was a longtime regular on the daytime series. This led to a five-episode arc as Jeannie Orloff in the final season of Richard Chamberlain's NBC medical drama "Dr. Kildare".
1015878	All for the Winner (Chinese: 賭聖 Literal translation: "Saint of Gambling") is a 1990 Hong Kong comedy film directed by Jeffrey Lau and Corey Yuen. This is the movie that launched Stephen Chow to stardom. It is a parody of the original "Dou San" or "God of Gamblers" movie which starred Chow Yun-fat in 1989.
1044196	Rita Webb (25 February 1904 – 30 August 1981) was an English character actress, mainly in comedy roles. She was the eldest child of Henry Augustus Webb (1880-1926) and Rose Jeannette Keysor. She had a younger brother, Henry Richard Webb, also an actor, and two elder identical twin half-brothers, Leslie and Gordon Durlacher, from her mother's first marriage to Samuel Durlacher. She was the niece of Leonard Keysor, the first Jewish serviceman to win the Victoria Cross in World War I. A half-brother was the actor George Webb. Born Olive Webb in Willesden, Middlesex, England, she is best known for her appearances as a stooge for Benny Hill in his long-running Thames Television series. At under five feet tall, with a booming voice and dyed flame-red hair, she was often cast as a blowsey mother-in-law or Cockney type character. Her vital statistics were 48 inch bust, 46 inch waist, 52 inch hips, 4' 10" inches in height and 15 stone (approx. 210 lbs) in weight.
1038294	Matthew Gregory Wise (born 15 May 1966) is an English actor and producer. He has appeared in many British television works, as well as several feature films (notably the role of John Willoughby in "Sense and Sensibility"). Early life. He was born to architect parents in Newcastle upon Tyne, Northumberland, and was educated at the independent St Peter's School, York. He went to Heriot-Watt University to study architecture, and performed with the Edinburgh University Theatre Company. Wise then moved to Glasgow where he studied drama at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama. He then travelled in the Far East. Career. His television work includes three BBC period dramas: "The Moonstone" with Keeley Hawes, "Madame Bovary" with Frances O'Connor and as Sir Charles Maulver in the 2007 five-part series "Cranford". In 1999 he starred as Marshall in ITV's seven-part drama "Wonderful You" alongside his future mother-in-law Phyllida Law and future brother-in-law Richard Lumsden. Recently he filmed a number of readings of love scenes from a selection of classic and modern love scenes, from Thomas Hardy's "Tess of the d'Urbervilles" to Kiran Desai's "The Inheritance of Loss" for The Carte Noire Readers. In 2011, he appeared in Hallmark Channel's "Honeymoon for One", starring Nicollette Sheridan. He is also the producer of the 2010 BBC/Masterpiece production The Song of Lunch starring his wife, actress Emma Thompson and Alan Rickman. Personal life. He has been married to Emma Thompson, who played Elinor in "Sense and Sensibility", since 2003. They have a daughter, Gaia Romilly (born 1999) and a Rwandan son named Tindyebwa Agaba (informally adopted in 2003 at the age of 16).
1014322	Killer Condom (original title Kondom des Grauens (English: Condom of Horror)) is a 1996 German horror comedy directed by Martin Waltz. It is based on the comic book of the same name by Ralf König. It was distributed in the United States by Troma Entertainment. Tagline: "The rubber that rubs YOU out!" Plot. Set in the seedy parts of New York City, "Killer Condom" follows gay Detective Luigi Mackeroni (Udo Samel), who has been hired to investigate a series of bizarre attacks at the Hotel Quickie in which male guests have all had their penises mysteriously bitten off. While at the crime scene, he enlists the services of a gigolo named Billy and invites him up to the crime room. Before the two men engage in sex, a carnivorous living condom interrupts them and bites off Mackeroni's right testicle. Now on a personal vendetta, Mackeroni begins his lone quest to not only bring a stop to the rash of condom attacks, but also face his true feelings toward Billy the gigolo.
592196	Rangayana Raghu () is an Indian actor in the Kannada film industry who appears mostly in comic roles He has acted in over 130 films. Before beginning his career in film, he was an artist in Rangayana, Mysore. He started out in films by appearing in minor roles in films like "Megha Banthu Megha", "Aryabhata" His major breakbrough was Yogaraj Bhat's debut directorial venture "Mani". Sudeep starer "Dum" too gave him a stand in the industry.
1317031	Cheerleader Massacre is a 2003 slasher film directed by Jim Wynorski and written by Lenny Juliano. The film stars Tamie Sheffield, Charity Rahmer, and Erin Byron. The film is a sequel to the "Slumber Party Massacre" franchise. It is the first sequel in the franchise to depart from the original title. Like its predecessors it relies on female nudity, sex, and gore. It is regarded as a modern B-movie. The DVD was released on March 25, 2003. The special features include trailers, actor bios, audio commentaries, and a making of featurette. Plot. Five Cheerleaders go to a cabin in the woods along with their coach and others. During their time in the woods, each of them receives a brutal death, except the gothic girl, who is then revealed to be the one picking off each of the victims one at a time. Reception. "Cheerleader Massacre" received mixed to negative reviews. The review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes has no reviews from critics, yet a "rotten" audience approval rating of 22%. On IMDb, the film's current rating is 3/10 stars.
1105370	In mathematics and computer science, truncation is the term for limiting the number of digits right of the decimal point, by discarding the least significant ones. For example, consider the real numbers To "truncate" these numbers to 4 decimal digits, we only consider the 4 digits to the right of the decimal point. The result would be: Note that in some cases, truncating would yield the same result as rounding, but truncation does not round up or round down the digits; it merely cuts off at the specified digit. The truncation error can be twice the maximum error in rounding. Truncation and floor function. Truncation of positive real numbers can be done using the floor function. Given a number formula_1 to be truncated and formula_2, the number of elements to be kept behind the decimal point, the truncated value of x is However, for negative numbers truncation does not round in the same direction as the floor function: truncation always rounds toward zero, the floor function rounds towards negative infinity. Causes of truncation. With computers, truncation can occur when a decimal number is typecast as an integer; it is truncated to zero decimal digits because integers cannot store real numbers (that are not themselves integers). In algebra. An analogue of truncation can be applied to polynomials. In this case, the truncation of a polynomial "P" to degree "n" can be defined as the sum of all terms of "P" of degree "n" or less. Polynomial truncations arise in the study of Taylor polynomials, for example.
1603276	Louis Leithold (San Francisco, USA, 16 November 1924 – Los Angeles, 29 April 2005) was an American mathematician and teacher. He is best known for authoring "The Calculus", a classic textbook about calculus that changed the teaching methods for calculus in world high schools and universities. Known as "a legend in AP calculus circles," Leithold was the mentor of Jaime Escalante, the Los Angeles high-school teacher whose story is the subject of the 1988 movie "Stand and Deliver". Biography. Leithold attained master's and doctorate degrees from the University of California, Berkeley. He went on to teach at Phoenix College (Arizona) (which has a math scholarship in his name), California State University, Los Angeles, the University of Southern California, Pepperdine University, and The Open University (UK). In 1968, Leithold published "The Calculus", a "blockbuster best-seller" which simplified the teaching of calculus. At age 72, after his retirement from Pepperdine, he began tutoring math at Malibu High School, in Malibu, California, drilling his students for the Advanced Placement Calculus, and achieving considerable success. He regularly assigned two hours of homework per night, and had training sessions at his own house that ran Sundays from 9AM to 4PM. His teaching methods were praised for their liveliness, and his love for the topic was well-known. He also taught workshops for calculus teachers. One of the people he influenced was Jaime Escalante, who taught math to minority students at Garfield High School in East Los Angeles. Escalante's subsequent success as a teacher is portrayed in the 1988 film "Stand and Deliver". Leithold died of natural causes the day before his class (which he had been "relentlessly drilling" for eight months) was to take the AP exam; his students went on to receive top scores. A memorial service was held in Glendale, and a scholarship established in his name.
1057973	Unaccompanied Minors (called Grounded in the UK) is a 2006 Christmas comedy film directed by Paul Feig and starring Lewis Black and Wilmer Valderrama. "Unaccompanied Minors" has been rated PG by the MPAA for "mild rude humor and language". It is based on a true story by Susan Burton first told on the public radio show "This American Life" under the title "In the Event of an Emergency, Put Your Sister in an Upright Position". Plot. Spencer and his younger sister Katherine must fly from California to Pennsylvania on Christmas Eve to spend the holidays with their father, an absentminded environmentalist. However, during their layover at the Hoover Airport in Kansas, a massive blizzard grounds all planes and cancels all flights, and the siblings are sent to the anarchic UM (unaccompanied minors) room, where they meet jolly Charlie, tough girl Donna, snobbish Grace, and mysterious Beef. Spencer, Donna, Charlie, Grace and Beef sneak out and cause chaos around the airport. Beef messes around in emergency equipment room. Grace sneaks to the airport's luxury club for adults. Spencer orders an enormous amount of junk food in the restaurant, but can't pay for it. Charlie goes to an electronics store, where he sings karaoke. Donna steals a baggage transporter and drives away with it. When they are returned to the UM room by the airport security, they find that the other minors, Katherine included, have been sent to a lodge down the road, and that the grouchy head of passenger relations, Oliver Porter, intends for the kids to spend Christmas Eve in the UM room. The reason Mr. Porter is grouchy is because his flight to Hawaii got canceled. Knowing that it will break Katherine's faith in Santa Claus if she does not receive a present by the next morning, Spencer asks the others, that in return for a plan to escape, they will help him get a present to his sister. With Spencer's plan, the minors give Zach, the friendly clerk watching them, the slip, but Mr. Porter grows desperate to get the kids back, and sends the entire airport security to search for them. Meanwhile, Spencer and Katherine's father tries to drive to the airport in his biodiesel fueled car, but It's not long before it stops working. At a gas station, the owner lets him borrow a Hummer. After Beef leaves by himself to get a Christmas tree, the minors head to a thinly secured exit in the back of the airport. While they hide from Mr. Porter in the baggage warehouse, Charlie, who is hiding in a suitcase, gets placed on a conveyor transport. The minors follow him to the unclaimed luggage warehouse, where they find many wonderful presents, including a set of walkie-talkies, and a doll for Katherine. However, their antics in the warehouse are seen on security cameras, and Mr. Porter and the guards chase the minors through the airport. Using a canoe, the minors sled to the lodge while pursued by the guards, and manage to elude Mr. Porter long enough to find Katherine asleep in the lobby, and place the doll in her arms. With their mission completed, the minors go back to the airport with Mr. Porter quietly. They are placed under surveillance in separate rooms. Using the walkie-talkies, the minors tamper with the security cameras and escape through air ducts. They find the Christmas decorations Mr. Porter confiscated, and Beef returns with a Christmas tree as he promised after selling his prized Aquaman action figure. With Zach's help, the minors decorate the airport, and take items from the unclaimed luggage warehouse to use as presents for the rest of the stranded passengers. Mr. Porter finds Spencer to admit defeat, and the boy inspires some holiday spirit in the man - who admits his resentment of the holiday is because his wife left him at Christmastime - with some friendly words and the gift of a snow globe. On Christmas morning, Mr. Porter dresses up as Santa Claus to hand out presents to the passengers, Spencer and Katherine's father arrives to pick up his children, and the minors promise to stay in touch. Deleted scenes. Original opening: At a mall, Spencer meets a girl from his school named Ashley. They talk and are about to kiss, but this is revealed to be a daydream. His mom interrupts him, and tells him to take his sister to see Santa. The daydream sequence was commonly seen in TV promotions for the film, despite not making the final cut. Snotty Beef: During the sledding sequence, there is a shot of Beef wiping his nose on his coat. Extended dance sequence: Alternate takes of Charlie dancing. Soundtrack. Tyler James Williams performed a rap song for the film with the same name as the film, but was not used in the film, but in a television spot to promote the film. The full version is available on iTunes. Reception. "Unaccompanied Minors" was not an initial success at the box office, having earned only $16,655,224 domestically against its $26 million budget, not counting DVD sales. Its worldwide box office gross was $21,994,214. The film received generally negative to mixed reviews from critics, It has a "Rotten" rating of 30% on Rotten Tomatoes, with the general consensus being: "Unaccompanied Minors, while featuring credible performances by its mostly young cast, is simply a rehash of other, funnier movies" This has a 43 out of 100 on Metacritic, indicating "mixed or average reviews".
1059420	Rhys Ifans (; born Rhys Owain Evans; 22 July 1967) is a Welsh actor and musician. He is known for his portrayal of characters such as Spike in "Notting Hill" and Jed Parry in "Enduring Love" and as a member of the Welsh rock groups Super Furry Animals and The Peth. Ifans also appeared as Xenophilius Lovegood in "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 1", and as Dr. Curt Connors/The Lizard in "The Amazing Spider-Man". He played Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford, in "Anonymous". Ifans gained fame in the United States as the gambling footballer turned American football player Nigel Gruff in the 2000 film "The Replacements". Early life. Ifans was born in Haverfordwest, Pembrokeshire, Wales, in 1967, the son of Beti Wyn (née Davies), a nursery school teacher, and Eirwyn Evans, a primary school teacher. His first language is Welsh. Ifans grew up in Ruthin, North Wales, and received his primary education at Ysgol Pentrecelyn, before attending Ysgol Maes Garmon, a Welsh language secondary school in Mold, Flintshire, where he sat his O levels and A levels. He also attended youth acting schools at Theatr Clwyd, Mold and trained at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. Career. In 1990, Ifans presented "Stwnsh" (Welsh for "Mash"), an anarchic children's quiz programme. A total of 31 fifteen-minute programmes were broadcast on Welsh-language TV channel S4C. Ifans appeared in many Welsh-language television programmes before embarking on his film career, as well as performing at the Royal National Theatre, London and the Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester. He was briefly lead vocalist of the rock band Super Furry Animals before they released any records. After his role as Jeremy Lewis in the Swansea-based movie "Twin Town" (1997), he gained international exposure in his role as the slovenly roommate Spike in the British film "Notting Hill" (1999). According to the DVD's commentary, Ifans did not wash or brush his teeth, in preparation for the role. He played Adrian, the pompous eldest brother in "Little Nicky" (2000). His film roles include: "Eyeball Paul" in "Kevin and Perry Go Large" (2000), Nigel in "The Replacements" (2000), Iki in "The 51st State" (2001), William Dobbin in "Vanity Fair" (2004), and Vladis Grutas in "Hannibal Rising" (2007). He played Jed Parry in the film version of Ian McEwan's "Enduring Love" and the lead role in "Danny Deckchair" (2003) as Danny Morgan. In 2002 he gained some controversy in the British media for his alleged support of Welsh nationalist group Meibion Glyndŵr, a militant group who burnt more than a hundred empty, second homes in the Welsh heartlands in the 1980s. This was mainly because of comments he made in an interview conducted by Mariella Frostrup for "The Observer" newspaper. In 2005, Ifans won a BAFTA for his portrayal of comedian Peter Cook in the TV film "Not Only But Always". Later that year he made a guest appearance for the rock band Oasis in the video for their single "The Importance of Being Idle" for which he accepted their award for "Video Of the Year" at the 2006 NME Awards. He has also made appearances in the music videos for "God! Show Me Magic", and "Hometown unicorn" by the Super Furry Animals, "Mulder & Scully" by Catatonia, and "Mama Told Me Not To Come" by Tom Jones and the Stereophonics. In December 2006, he returned to the London stage in Michael Grandage's production "Don Juan In Soho" at the Donmar Warehouse (run ended 10 February 2007). He had appeared previously at the Donmar in 2003's "Accidental Death Of An Anarchist". Earlier stage work includes "Hamlet" at Theatre Clwyd, "A Midsummer Night's Dream" at the Regent's Park Theatre and "Under Milk Wood" and "Volpone" at the Royal National Theatre. On 16 July 2007, he received an Honorary Fellowship of Bangor University in north Wales, for services to the film industry. Since 2007 Ifans has sung with Welsh psychedelic rock band The Peth ("peth" is Welsh for "thing"), featuring Super Furry Animals' Dafydd Ieuan, which played a number of concert dates in South Wales and in London in the autumn of 2008. The band played its first date outside London or Wales on 28 September 2008 at the Southampton Soul Cellar. Ifans revealed on "Friday Night with Jonathan Ross", on 27 March 2009, that he was to appear in "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 1". He played Xenophillius Lovegood, editor of the wizarding magazine "The Quibbler" and father of the eccentric Luna Lovegood. In the same interview, he also announced that he would play the title role in the film "Mr. Nice", based on the life of Howard Marks who was released from prison for helping illiterate criminals to read and write, so they could get an education behind bars. He played Nemo Nobody's father in "Mr. Nobody", starring Jared Leto and Diane Kruger. He played a villain in "Nanny McPhee and the Big Bang", which also starred Emma Thompson and Maggie Gyllenhaal. On 11 October 2010, the Associated Press confirmed that Ifans would portray the villain in the Spider-Man reboot movie, "The Amazing Spider-Man". The villain was revealed as the Lizard a few days later, and the film was released in July 2012. In September 2012 Ifans became patron of the newly formed Living Paths Society, to further and develop the Welsh language Wikipedia: "Wikipedia Cymraeg. Personal life. Ifans's brother, Llŷr Ifans, is also an actor. They starred together in the Welsh produced film "Twin Town". Rhys was romantically linked to actress Sienna Miller, and has a swallow tattoo on his right wrist to match hers. In June 2008 it was reported that Miller had ended the relationship with Ifans just a few months after they had become engaged. Ifans is currently in a relationship with actress Anna Friel. During 2011 Comic Con, Ifans was arrested for misdemeanour battery, by San Diego police, after allegedly pushing a guard prior to speaking on a guest panel. In August 2011, the local District Attorney's office announced that Ifans would not be charged due to lack of evidence.
590424	Devika Rani Chaudhuri Roerich () (30 March 1908 – 9 March 1994) was an early Indian movie star. Career. Born in Waltair (now Visakhapatnam), Devika Rani came from a distinguished background: she was the great-grandniece of the Nobel Laureate Rabindranath Tagore and her father, Col. M. N. Chaudhuri, was the first Indian Surgeon-General of Madras. Her mother's name was Leela. She completed her early schooling in the early 1920s. She then studied drama at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) and the Royal Academy of Music in London, UK, where she won scholarships. She also studied architecture, textile and decor design, and apprenticed under Elizabeth Arden. Here, through her Brahmo connections, she met with scriptwriter Niranjan Pal who would eventually write many of her most successful screen roles. Devika Rani married Indian producer and actor Himanshu Rai in 1929. Together they starred in "Karma" (1933). They soon founded the Bombay Talkies film studio, along with retainers Niranjan Pal and Franz Osten, whose films challenged the caste system. In addition to Devika Rani, other notable actors to work for Bombay Talkies at one point or another included Ashok Kumar and Madhubala. In 1936, Devika Rani eloped with her lover actor Najam-ul-Hassan. Himanshu Rai somehow managed to bring her back but her paramour did not return. And the studio head Himanshu Rai called upon his laboratory assistant Ashok Kumar to take the leading man's part and thus began a six-decade-long acting career for that actor. Ashok Kumar later starred with the actress in "Achhut Kanya" (1936). This, her most notable film, is the story of a relationship between an untouchable girl (played by herself) and a Brahmin boy (played by Ashok Kumar). Devika Rani is also accredited for having acted in the longest kissing scene in the movie world with her husband Himanshu Rai in "Karma" (1933). It was 4 minutes long and very controversial in the then culturally orthodox India. Later life. Widowed in 1940, she fought for control of her husband's studio Bombay Talkies, she had to share control with Sashadhar Mukherjee, but in 1943 Sashadhar, Ashok Kumar and a lot of Bombay talkies veterans left and formed a new studio - Filmistan. After that Bombay Talkies started to fade and she married Russian painter Svetoslav Roerich in 1945.
587842	Yamaleela (Telugu: యమలీల) is a Telugu film released in 1994. The film is directed by S. V. Krishna Reddy, introducing comedy actor Ali as the hero first time. This film is a huge box office success. This film was later remade in Hindi as "Taqdeerwala" with Venkatesh. Plot. This story is dependent on the mother sentiment. The story is very simple. Hero’s mother lived a very royal life in a great palace as her husband was Jameendar that time. But later she lost her property due to some circumstances and she also lost her husband. And left that palace along with 2 year old kid (Ali).From that moment, she has been living a normal life. One fine day, Ali happens to listen the entire story of her mother and decides there itself to make his mother happy by purchasing the same palace for her mother. So he does lots of mischievous things to earn money. Bringing Yamadharmaraja, lord of Naraka, to Earth is part of that. The story ends up with a good climax. The comedy scenes of Yama(Satyanarayana) and chitragupta(Bramhanandham) are most hilarious. Their conversation with the local police is most memorable hilarious comedy. Music is excellent. This movie is musical hit. All songs in this movie have become most popular. This is also a good movie for children. Totally, this is a good family entertainment.
898987	Ossessione (Obsession) is a 1943 film based on the novel, "The Postman Always Rings Twice", by James M. Cain. Luchino Visconti’s first feature film, it is considered by many to be the first Italian neorealist film, though there is some debate about whether such a categorization is accurate. Historical context. Working under the censorship of the Fascist Italian government, Visconti encountered problems with the production even before filming commenced. He had initially planned to adapt a story by Giovanni Verga, a renowned Italian realist writer and one of his greatest influences, but it was turned down almost immediately by the Fascist authorities due to its subject matter, which revolved around bandits. Around this time, Visconti uncovered a French translation of Cain’s novel which, famously, had been given to him by French director Jean Renoir while he was working in France in the 1930s. Visconti adapted the script with a group of men he selected from the Milanese magazine "Cinema". The members of this group were talented filmmakers and writers and played a large role in the emerging neorealist movement: Mario Alicata, Gianni Puccini, Antonio Pietrangeli and Giuseppe De Santis. When "Ossessione" was completed and released in 1943, it was far from the innocent murder mystery the authorities had expected; after a few screenings in Rome and northern Italy, prompting outraged reactions from Fascist and Church authorities, the film was banned by the Fascist government reestablished in the German occupied part of Italy after the September 1943 armistice. Eventually the Fascists destroyed the film, but Visconti managed to keep a duplicate negative from which all existing prints have been made. After the war, "Ossessione" encountered more problems with mass distribution, this time in the United States. As a result of the wartime production schedule, Visconti had never obtained the rights to the novel and Metro-Goldwyn Mayer began production on another version of the film, directed by Tay Garnett ("The Postman Always Rings Twice", 1946), while the Fascist ban on Visconti’s work was still in effect.
1044107	Carry On Cabby is the seventh in the series of "Carry On" films to be made. Released in 1963, it was the first one to be written by Talbot Rothwell (although the first screenplay "Tolly" submitted to Peter Rogers was developed as "Carry On Jack") from a story by Dick Hills and Sid Green (script writers for Morecambe and Wise). Regulars Sid James, Hattie Jacques, Kenneth Connor and Charles Hawtrey are all present. Liz Fraser makes her third appearance (although she'd have to wait 13 years for her next Carry On) and Esma Cannon makes her fourth and final appearance. This was the first film in the series to feature "Carry On" regular Jim Dale. The previous film in the series, "Carry On Cruising", was filmed in colour, but this movie was the penultimate in the series to be shot in black and white. "Carry On Cabby" was originally planned as a non-Carry On film, called "Call Me A Cab" (after a stage play) but midway through it became part of the "Carry On" series. Plot. Charlie Hawkins (Sid James) is the workaholic owner of thriving taxi company "Speedee Taxis", but his wife Peggy (Hattie Jacques) feels neglected by him. When Charlie misses their fifteenth wedding anniversary, because he's out cabbing, she decides to punish him. Telling Charlie that she's going to 'get a job', she establishes a rival company, "GlamCabs". The cars are brand new Ford Cortina Mk1's and driven by attractive girls in provocative uniforms. Flo, the girlfriend of one of Charlie's drivers, similarly neglected, gets the post of office manager. Charlie continues to coach his mainly inept (and largely ex-army) drivers, including accident-prone Terry "Pintpot" Tankard (Charles Hawtrey), whilst Peggy refuses to tell Charlie what her new 'job' is. Charlie feigns a lack of interest, but he's dying to know. As Charlie unsuccessfully struggles to cope with his wife's absences, and realises just what she had to endure, Peggy's company becomes a thriving success due to the large number of male taxi passengers preferring to ogle her sexy drivers during journeys. Speedee rapidly starts losing money and faces bankruptcy. Peggy feels terrible for what she has done. Charlie and his drivers attempt to sabotage the rival company, but they are chased off. In desperation, Charlie suggests a merger with his rivals, but is furious to discover who the real owner is and storms off. A month later, Peggy is living at the office and Charlie has turned to drink, allowing his company to collapse around him. Peggy and Flo are hijacked by bank robbers. Peggy manages to use the taxi radio to subtly reveal their situation and location. Charlie intercepts the broadcast and rallies the other "Speedee" drivers in pursuit. The robbers are cornered and captured. Peggy and Charlie are reconciled, especially over the fact that she is expecting a baby. Filming and locations. Interiors: Exteriors: The filming of "Carry On Cabby" is portrayed in the BBC drama "Hattie", a dramatisation of the life of Hattie Jacques.
1038349	MyAnna Buring (; born Margaretha MyAnna Buring Rantapää; 22 September 1979) is a British-based Swedish actress, who is best known for appearing in the 2005 horror film "The Descent", and most recently as Tanya in "", and playing the role as maid Edna Braithwaite in "Downton Abbey". Early life. Buring was born 22 September 1979, in Sweden, as Anna Margaretha My Buring Rantapää, but grew up in the Middle East. When she turned 16, she moved to Great Britain.
1129805	Night of Dark Shadows is a 1971 horror film by Dan Curtis. It is the sequel to "House of Dark Shadows". It centers on the story of Quentin Collins and his bride Tracy at the Collinwood Mansion in Collinsport, Maine.
1375597	"Steven Spielberg Presents Animaniacs: Wakko's Wish, usually referred to as Wakko's Wish" is a 1999 direct-to-video animated tragicomedy musical film based on the Warner Bros. 1993–98 animated series, "Animaniacs", and also the swan song to the series. The film relocates all the "Animaniacs" characters to a quasi-medieval fairy tale world and portrays their race to find the wishing star that will grant them a wish. While the film was released during the Christmas season, the holiday is not a factor in its plot, though the events do take place during winter. "Wakko's Wish" was first released on VHS on December 21, 1999. It contained 10 original songs and starred Rob Paulsen, Jess Harnell and Tress MacNeille reprising their roles as "Animaniacs" characters Yakko, Wakko, and Dot. Plot. In the town of Acme Falls within the kingdom of Warnerstock, all the "Animaniacs" characters (and a mime) live happily together. However, upon the death of the king, Sir William the Good, Warnerstock enters a state of civil war. Taking advantage of the situation, the neighboring fictional kingdom of Ticktockia (a parody of Time Inc.), led by King Salazar, the Pushy, takes over Warnerstock, and makes all its people (and the Mime) poor and miserable due to overtaxing (a parody of the Time Inc.-Warner merger) Three orphans, Yakko, Wakko and Dot Warner, are particularly troubled, as Dot needs an operation. So Wakko decides to find work in another town to pay for it. But after he gets his pay (a half penny, quite a substantial amount in the near bankrupt country), Plotz takes it away from him, lying that it's for taxes. Wakko, saddened about Dot's illness and finding no other choice, tries wishing upon a star. A fairy (who calls himself a "desire fulfillment facilitator" or "Pip") falls from the star he picks and explains that Wakko had just chosen the only wishing star in the sky. The star itself Rita and Runt witness falls shortly after in the mountains and the fairy tells Wakko that whoever touches the star first gets one wish. The following morning, the siblings tell the whole town about the star in their excitement, which makes them all rush towards the glow in the mountains, each wanting their own wish granted. King Salazar finds out about the star, orders Taxman Plotz to stop the Warners from reaching the star alive, and orders his troops to head to the star first and secure it. Plotz doesn't manage to stop the Warners from reaching the star at the same time as all the other townsfolk. However, the King's army has already built a military base around the star, and a small ice palace to the side of it, and the townspeople (including Plotz) are all captured and locked up so that the King may have his wish. The Warners hint that the wishing process is not as simple as the king thinks in a desperate bluff. The King captures the Warners and tortures them with "Animaniacs" antagonists (such as Baloney the Dinosaur). The Warners tell the King that any wish he makes could have an ironic twist and demonstrate this to his annoyance. He orders the Warners executed, but Dot uses her cuteness to get the guards to release them. As the King is about to make his wish (for the Warners to leave him alone), the Warners show up, and he tries shooting them himself with a cannon. Yakko and Wakko were only knocked back by the explosion, but Dot appeared to be hit. Wakko seizes his chance to head to the star, and Yakko drops behind, trying to convince Dot that she can make it. Yakko then tells Dot the story of how Dot was born one last time. Dot then seemingly dies, causing the people of Acme Falls to cry in sorrow, along with some of the royal army, who become furious with King Salazar for his cruel nature. As everyone turns on the King, Wakko reaches the star. Dot reveals that she had been acting and was not actually injured (she was buying time for Wakko), while Wakko wishes for two ha'pennies. Wakko uses the first of these to buy food and "season tickets for the Lakers." The second one pays for Dot's operation, which is revealed to be a plastic surgery to give her a beauty mark. Wakko's first ha'penny, however, returns prosperity to the town as the butcher, the baker, and the candlestick maker start spending the money they've just earned, and the people from whom they make purchases in turn do the same. The Hospital finds Yakko, Wakko, and Dot's birth certificates, and reveals they were indeed the heirs to the throne. Their parents (seen for first and only time in a portrait) were the king and queen of Warnerstock. They then boot Salazar out of their palace (literally) where he is attacked by his own dogs. The movie ends showing how the Warners use their new-found royal authorities to grant the citizens of Acme Falls (except for the Mime) their wishes. Before the credits, everyone spins the Wheel of Morality. The moral of the story is ""Just cheer up and never ever give up hope"". Production and release. "Wakko's Wish" featured 10 original songs, with lyrics written by Tom Ruegger and Randy Rogel, and songs composed by "Animaniacs" composers, Richard Stone and Julie Bernstein. The compositions Stone wrote for the film were some of the last he wrote for Warner Bros. Animation prior to his death. Although "Wakko’s Wish" had been rated highly amongst children and adults in test screenings, Warner Bros. decided to release it direct-to-video rather than spending money on marketing a wide release. "Wakko's Wish" was released only on VHS on December 21, 1999 by Warner Home Video While Warner Bros. began to release the "Animaniacs" series in volumes on July 25, 2006, a recent discussion at the Home Theater Forum with Warner Home Video representatives revealed that Warner has "no plans" for more "Animaniacs" releases on DVD. On August 25, 2008, "Wakko's Wish" was released for rental or purchase on iTunes, and more recently has become available on Netflix. "Wakko's Wish" has also aired on cable networks such as Cartoon Network,Cinemax, Boomerang, and more recently on The Hub. It is also available to download from the Playstation Store. Reception. Test screenings of "Wakko's Wish" on children and parents revealed very positive reactions to the film. In February 1999, ToonZone reported that "97% of kids and parents gave it a review of 'highly positive'", and that "98% of children screened gave the film a rating of good, very good, or excellent". Critical reviews for "Wakko's Wish" were generally mixed. Many comments of the film focused on the introduction of a serious tone to a series known for its off-the wall humor. Brett Rogers of AOL Hometown gave the film a positive review, saying that "a lot about this movie that will please die-hard Animaniacs fans," noting the appearances of almost all the main characters and antagonists of the original series. Rogers pointed that the pathos not usually seen in the series may leave some "Animaniacs" fans distant from the film, but that the serious tone is "backed up with superb voice acting," by Paulsen and Harnell. Other reviews were not so positive. MaryAnn Johanson of FlickFilosopher wrote that "[imposing the kind of story and characters necessary to fill a 90-minute movie upon the Animaniacs constrains their lunacy," and that doing so left the characters boring, so much so that "older kids and adult fans of the Warners et al will be sorely disappointed." Michael Stewart of Entertainment Weekly found that the lack of the typical "Animaniacs" humor was positive, saying that the film "avoids the forced wackiness that plagues the television series," while "deliversome laughs for both kids and adults." However, he noted a similar criticism to Johanson, saying that placing the entire "Animaniacs" cast into the film felt uncomfortable, and that the "[warm sentiments" of the film aren't the "specialty" of "Animaniacs". He rated the film a "C+" overall. Michael Dequina of TheMovieReport.com gave one of the most positive reviews of the film. Praising the film's "smart, satiric in-jokes for the adults and broader slapstick for the young ones," Dequina said that the film was "one glorious example" of a family film that would appeal to the whole family, and rated the film with three and a half out of four stars. In 2000, "Wakko's Wish" was nominated for four Annie Awards: One for "Outstanding Achievement in An Animated Home Video Production", one for "Outstanding Individual Achievement for Music in an Animated Feature Production" (Richard Stone, Steve Bernstein, Julie Bernstein Gordon L. Goodwin & Timothy Kelly), one for "Outstanding Individual Achievement for Voice Acting By a Female Performer in an Animated Feature Production" (Tress MacNeille), and one for "Outstanding Individual Achievement for Voice Acting By a Male Performer in an Animated Feature Production" (Maurice LaMarche). Since its release, "Wakko's Wish" has been rated as one of the "Top 60 Animated Features Never Theatrically Released in the United States" by the Animated Movie Guide.
393696	Park Soo-ae (born July 25, 1980), known simply as Soo Ae, is a South Korean actress. Soo Ae began her career on television, but after her breakout role in "A Family" (2004), she became best known as a leading actress in film, notably in "Sunny" (2008) and "Midnight FM" (2010). She also appeared in the popular TV series "Emperor of the Sea" (2004) and "A Thousand Days' Promise" (2011). Career. Soo Ae nearly became a member of a K-pop idol group. Fresh out of high school, a record agent approached the young stunner on the street in the trendy Apgujeong area. She spent six months in grueling practice, but in the end had no album to put out. She reminisced in an interview, "I didn't sing well, but the six months I spent with the team was so fun. I was lucky to get into acting." She made her small screen debut in 2002 in a one-act drama on MBC, going on to star in "Love Letter", "Merry Go Round" and "April Kiss". Her 2004 hit historical drama "Emperor of the Sea" was exported to other Asian countries, South America and the Middle East, introducing Soo Ae to a wider international audience. With her classical beauty and pure, graceful image, Soo Ae gained the moniker "queen of tears." But she revamped that image in the 2007 romantic comedy "Two Outs in the Ninth Inning" opposite Lee Jung-jin, playing a 30-year-old foul-mouthed, disheveled and jaded single woman struggling with life and love. Soo Ae in reality famously has a husky, neutral voice, which helped her tomboyish performance feel so natural. But her voice wasn't always a plus. She said, "I've been told many times that my voice would be a detriment to my career. When I first got started, a lot of viewers posted comments online that they changed the channel because of the way I talk. [...] It was odd because I thought of my husky voice as my biggest asset. So I would tell people, 'Keep on listening, you'll get to like it.'"
590389	Sedin Dekha Hoyechilo () is a 2010 Indian romantic Bengali film directed by Sujit Mondal. It's a Shree Venkatesh Films production. The film stars Dev, Srabanti Chatterjee, Tapas Paul, Premjit, Koushik Bandyopadhyay, Laboni Sarkar, Shakuntala Barua and many more. SDHC was a Blockbuster at the Box-office. This is a remake of Telugu film Parugu starring Allu Arjun and Sheela. Plot. Nandini’s elder sister elopes with her boyfriend on the day of her marriage.Neelkantha Roy, her father, a very strict and stern man decides to find them at any cost. He manages to locate four of Ajoy’s friends from different places and brings them over to his place out of which one of them is Abeer.He holds them captive till they tell about the couple’s whereabouts. They tell him that they don’t know anything, but no one believes them. They decide to flee one day, but Abeer falls in love with a girl though he is unable to see her face. They are again held captive. Nandini comes to know one day that the girl whom Abeer had told her to locate is herself. She doesn’t tell him anything. Abeer and his friends go with Neelkantha’s men to town one day to Kavita and Ajoy where Abeer helps them to board a bus to Kolkata. Nandini’s uncle accidentally comes to know that Abeer had helped them to flee when he accidentally overhears Nandini’s conversation. The entire group is beaten badly. Abeer and his friends as well as Nandini accompany her father to Kolkata to find the couple.Abeer even saves Nandini from goons one day and the entire group even stay in Abeer’s house. Then on that night Nandini confesses her love for Abir and they hug each other. They are able to locate the couple one day, but once Kavita replies back to her father, he decides to let them go and stay in peace. The group go back home from Kolkata and Nandini’s marriage is fixed. Abeer and his friends arrive on the day of her marriage and Neelkantha somehow comes to know about their relationship. Though Abeer’s friends plan and bring Nandini away so that she can elope, Abeer decides against it and decides to go away. He is stopped at the last moment by Neelkantha who tells him to take Nandini away who also appears there. Then Nandini and Abir hug. This is a remake of Telugu film Parugu starring Allu Arjun and Sheela. Soundtrack. The music is composed by Jeet Ganguly, Rishi Chanda and Samidh Mukherjee. Lyrics for the songs are written by Chandrani Ganguly, Samidh, Prasen and Priyo Chatterjee.
591024	Miss Malini was a 1947 Tamil social satire film based on the "Mr. Sampath" story by R.K. Narayan. It included aspects of life in Madras (now known as Chennai) during the World War II period (1939-1945) when there was a shortage of commodities and high prices, and includes depictions of social mores, a love story, and the moral dilemmas its characters face pursuing business and personal interests. No print of the film is known to exist presently, so it is considered it a lost film. Plot. Life is a constant struggle for Malini, a poor young woman with an ailing father. She reluctantly accepts stage actor-friend Sundari’s suggestion to go on stage, and joins her theatre group, "Kala Mandhiram". Success smiles on her and she soon becomes an idol of the masses. Sampath, a suave swindler, befriends Malini and takes control of her life. He persuades her to start her own theatre company. A puppet in his hands, Malini severs ties with those who have helped her in the past such as Sundari. Soon she is in debt and back at the bottom of the ladder. Sampath abandons her. Sundari and others come to her rescue and Malini goes back to "Kala Mandhiram" and begins her life anew, sadder but certainly wiser. Production. Produced by Gemini Studios, the film featured Pushpavalli in the title role and Sundari Bai as Malini's friend. Kothamangalam Subbu wrote and directed the film and appeared as Sampath, a cheat, in a portrayal that was then considered "exceptional" in South Indian cinema and his performance was praised for being "suave villainy". The cast also included N. Sitaraman, who later became known as Javar Sitaraman, and a debut by Ramaswamy Ganesan who was working in Gemini Studios casting department before going on to "blossom as one of the top stars of Tamil and Telugu cinema — Gemini Ganesan". Soundtrack. Saluri Rajeswara Rao and Carnatic musician Parur S. Anantharaman composed the film's score. Reception. Randor Guy, a critic from "The Hindu" described it as "one of the finest social satires to have been made in South Indian cinema" and noted that it "did not receive the appreciation it so richly deserved" because it was ahead of its time. He however concluded that the film would be "remembered for its music, Gemini Ganesan’s debut and as a film that appealed to the intellectuals in South India." The film was not successful at the box-office, but was well received by intellectuals.
1062043	Christopher Eugene "Chris" O'Donnell (born June 26, 1970) is an American actor. He played Dick Grayson/Robin in "Batman Forever" and "Batman & Robin", Charlie Simms in "Scent of a Woman", Finn Dandridge in "Grey's Anatomy", Peter Garrett in "Vertical Limit", and Jack McAuliffe in "The Company". O'Donnell stars as NCIS Special Agent G. Callen on the CBS crime drama television series "". Early life. O'Donnell, the youngest of seven children (with four sisters and two brothers), was born in Winnetka, Illinois. He is the son of Julie Ann Rohs von Brecht and William Charles O'Donnell, Sr., a general manager of WBBM-AM, a CBS radio station. O'Donnell is of paternal Irish and maternal German descent. He was raised in a Roman Catholic family and attended Roman Catholic schools, including Loyola Academy in Willmette, Illinois, for high school, graduating in 1988. O'Donnell attended Boston College and graduated with a Bachelor of Science in marketing.
1165133	Virginia Christine (March 5, 1920 – July 24, 1996) was an American stage, radio, film, television, and voice actress. Christine had a long career as a character actress in film and television. She is particularly remembered as "Mrs. Olson" (or the "Folgers Coffee Woman") in a number of television commercials for Folgers. Early life. Christine was born Virginia Christine Ricketts in Stanton in Montgomery County in southwestern Iowa. She was of Swedish descent. Upon her mother's remarriage, she changed her last name to "Kraft". The family later moved to Des Moines in Polk County, where Virginia attended Elmwood Elementary School. The family relocated again to Des Moines County in southeastern Iowa, not to be confused with the state capital in central Iowa. There Christine attended Mediapolis High School, where she aspired to be a concert pianist. Her family later moved to California, where she enrolled at UCLA. Career. Radio and films. Christine began working in radio during college. She began training for a theatrical career with actor/director Fritz Feld whom she married in 1940. In 1942, she made her stage debut in the Los Angeles production of "Hedda Gabler". While performing in the play, she was spotted by an agent from Warner Bros. who signed her to a film contract with the studio. Her first film for Warner's was "Edge of Darkness" (1943), in which she played a Norwegian peasant girl. She was dropped by Warner Bros. in 1943 and signed with Universal Pictures in 1944. That year, Christine had a supporting role in "The Mummy's Curse" and "The Wife of Monte Cristo", with her husband Fritz Feld (the two would also go on to appear together in the Western "4 for Texas" in 1963). In 1946, she appeared in "The Scarlet Horseman", a 13-chapter film serial playing Carla Marquette, or Matosca, followed by a supporting role in mystery film "The Inner Circle". Christine's next film for Universal was the film noir classic "The Killers". She initially tested for the lead role of femme fatale Kitty Collins, but lost out to Ava Gardner. The film's producer, Mark Hellinger, was impressed with her test and cast her as Lilly Harmon Lubinsky, the wife of Lt. Sam Lubinsky (Sam Levene). Christine also portrayed the role of Miss Watston in the 1964 remake of the film, starring Lee Marvin and Angie Dickinson. In 1950, she co-starred as Marlon Brando's wife in "The Men". Although the part was small and the film was not a commercial success, her performance impressed the film's producer Stanley Kramer. She became a favorite of his and went on to appear in a number of his films including "Cyrano de Bergerac" (1950) and "High Noon" (1952). Kramer later cast her in the 1955 drama "Not as a Stranger", where she played a countrywoman. She also coached the film's star Olivia de Havilland on her Swedish accent. The following year, she co-starred in the horror film "Invasion of the Body Snatchers". In 1961, Kramer cast her again as a German housekeeper in "Judgment at Nuremberg" (1961). One of her most notable roles was as Hilary St. George, the bigoted co-worker of the Katharine Hepburn character in the 1967 film "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner". Television. In addition to her work in films, Christine also appeared in numerous television series. In the 1950s, she appeared in multiple guest roles on "The Abbott and Costello Show", "Four Star Playhouse", "Dragnet", "Alfred Hitchcock Presents", "The Ford Television Theatre", "Gunsmoke", "Science Fiction Theatre", "Matinee Theatre", "Father Knows Best", "Trackdown", "State Trooper", "", "The Rifleman", "Letter to Loretta", and "General Electric Theater". In November 1959, Christine co-starred as the wife of a verbally abusive hypochondriac in the first season episode of "The Twilight Zone" entitled "Escape Clause". In 1960 and 1961, Christine guest starred on episodes of "COronado 9", "Rawhide", and "The Untouchables". From 1961 to 1962, Christine had a recurring role as widower Ovie Swenson in the Western series "Tales of Wells Fargo". She made four guest appearances on "Perry Mason", including the role of defendant Beth Sandover in the season 6, 1962 episode, "The Case of the Double-Entry Mind," and murderer Edith Summers in the season 7, 1963 episode, "The Case of the Devious Delinquent." For the remainder of the decade, she continued with guest starring roles in show such as "77 Sunset Strip", "Ben Casey", "Bonanza", "The Fugitive", "Hazel", "Wagon Train", "The Virginian", "Going My Way", "The F.B.I.", and "Daniel Boone". In 1969, Christine co-starred in the ABC television movie "Daughter of the Mind". Her greatest fame came in 1965 when she started her 21-year stint as the matronly Mrs. Olson, who had comforting words for young married couples while pouring Folgers Coffee in the television commercials. The commercials became a popular staple on television and Christine's character, Mrs. Olsen, was often parodied by comedians and entertainers including Carol Burnett, Johnny Carson, Bob Hope, Ann-Margret, and Jackie Gleason. She would go on to appear in over 100 commercials for Folgers. In 1971, Christine's hometown of Stanton, Iowa, honored her by transforming the city water tower to resemble a giant coffeepot.
1019100	Operation Daybreak (also known as The Price of Freedom in the US) is a 1975 World War II film based on the true story of Operation Anthropoid, the assassination of SS General Reinhard Heydrich in Prague. Starring Anthony Andrews, Timothy Bottoms and Martin Shaw, it was directed by Lewis Gilbert and shot mostly on location in Prague. It is adapted from the book "Seven Men at Daybreak" by Alan Burgess.
1164665	Christine Helen Lakin (born January 25, 1979) is an American actress. She is best known for her role as Alicia "Al" Lambert on the 1990s ABC/CBS situation comedy "Step by Step" and as Joan of Arc in Showtime's "Reefer Madness". She was the sidekick on Craig Kilborn's 2010 Fox talk show, "The Kilborn File". Early years. Lakin was born in Dallas, Texas, the daughter of Karen (née Niedwick) and James Daley Lakin, and raised in Roswell, Georgia. She graduated from UCLA with a B.A. in Communications. Career. Lakin got her start acting in commercials, before landing her first major role as Young Rose in the American Civil War drama "The Rose and the Jackal". That movie aired in 1990, one year before she was cast as Al Lambert, the tomboyish daughter, on "Step by Step". After "Step by Step" was cancelled in 1998, she continued to appear in television movies, such as Showtime's "Reefer Madness" and 2005's "Who's Your Daddy?". In 2006 she was a regular cast member in MTV's "Wild 'n Out", an improv comedy show similar in structure to "Whose Line Is It Anyway?" She also appeared in a commercial called "But He Has Bud Light" that aired during Super Bowl XLI, in which her male companion wants to pick up a hitchhiker who has Bud Light beer in one hand and an axe in the other. In 2008 she starred alongside Paris Hilton in the movie "The Hottie and the Nottie", requiring extensive makeup to make her appear ugly. The film met dismal reviews in the US.
584468	Bommalattam is a Tamil film directed by the Bharathiraja starring Arjun Sarja and Nana Patekar in the lead roles. The film was dubbed and released in Hindi as "Cinema" and in Telugu as "Rana". This marked Nana Patekar's Tamil film debut. Plot. The opening scene is shown in a way that director Rana(Nana Patekar) shoots a scene in his upcoming film with his film's heroine. As he is not happy with the way the heroine behaves, he decides to find another heroine. In search of the heroine, he finally finds Trishna(Rukmini Vijayakumar) suited for his film. But he never discloses the identity of his heroine to media and the wallpapers of the film also doesn't show the hero as well as the heroine of the film.Finally the film gets completed and Rana need to attend a press meet regarding his film's release. But he didn't go the press meet and he is shown to have had an illegal relationship with Trishna. At this instant the producer of the film calls Rana and the media come to know where he is and with whom. So the whole media people gathers at the hotel where Rana stays and he manages to escape from them and get into a car.They start chasing him and finally he kills Trishna by creating an accident like situation. In this situation Vivek(Arjun Sarja), a CBI officer takes in charge for this murder case, along with two previous murder cases which was also suspected to be done by Rana. As a suspicion he is arrested and taken into CBI custody.There Vivek starts his interrogation.In between this a poet(Kajal Aggarwal) who is also a crazy fan of Rana is shown as Vivek's lover and also she was an assistant to Rana during his film shooting.Finally, during interrogation, Rana reveals of how he found Trishna and their relationship. She was a dancer, who used to dance in temples and small-time shows across Andhra Pradesh. He hires her as his new muse, and in the shooting spot, they are shown to share a very intimate relationship, fueling existing rumors that he is a womanizer. When Trishna is left without a place to sleep, Rana offers her a place in his room, and witnessing this, another unit member informs Rana's wife (Ranjitha). The next morning, as Rana is once again shown to share a very close rapport with Trishna, his wife arrives, beats up the hairdresser, and throws a tantrum, accusing him as a womanizer. He however continues shooting, appearing to be unperturbed by the incident but apparently cries lightly while instructing his actors, something which his assistant notices. He and his assistant are also shown to share a special and close relationship, as she comforts him later on. However, at the same village in which they are shooting, they face troubles in the form of the village chief (Manivannan), who is notorious and constantly lusting over Trishna. He states in rage at one point that he would kill the chief should he cause more inconvenience. The next day, the chief is murdered at a nearby quarry. Vivek recalls this and states that Rana committed this murder because he can't stand the chief's behavior towards Trishna, but Rana neither agrees or denies this statement. Rana is later admitted to the hospital as he faints shortly after that interrogation, but Vivek pursues him even in the hospital, and recollects the incident of the second murder. After finishing their schedule at the village, the unit head to Malaysia to continue their shooting for 'Cinema'. There, Rana has to meet another nuisance in terms of the financier's son, who is also the film's second hero. He flirts around with Trishna and tries to constantly approach her, of which she is obviously uncomfortable with, and shortly afterwards, he is found murdered as well. Once again, Rana neither denies or agrees as Vivek accuses him of murder. Rana's assistant upon witnessing what Vivek is doing confronts him and accuses him of trying to pin down Rana in jealousy. She offers her body in exchange of Rana being left alone, but Vivek reveals to her the complication that exist in the investigation. The badly burnt body in the car which fell from the cliff belongs to a man and not a woman, and all the evidence that exists at the crime scene are all fake, which are used for cinema. With the mystery lingering, Rana is released due to the absence of strong evidence to convict him. He goes off to live in a secluded bungalow with his assistant, who describes theirs as a 'special' relationship. Vivek arrives there too and finally uncovers the mystery. Trishna is revealed as a boy, and not a girl. Babu, being his real name, comes from a very poor background and his mother raised him as a woman since childhood thus his demeanor has become womanly since small. Rana, in him, sees an opportunity to take up a unique challenge by introducing him as a heroine and at the same time provide financial aid to his struggling family. Babu killed the village chief after the chief discovers Babu's gender identity and demands that Babu, despite being a boy, still sleep with him in return of the truth not being revealed in public. And when the financier's son tells him that he has taken his picture while he is bathing (which he actually did not), Babu became insecure once again and kills him too. Rana asks Vivek to give the boy the least available sentence, but Vivek, overwhelmed by the truth, decides to let the boy go. Rana thanked Vivek, but Vivek in return says Rana is a greater human being than he is a director. Production. The film was launched in Malaysia in 2006. This was Nana Patekar's debut film in Tamil, scenes involving him and Arjun was shot in Chennai. Nana and Bharathi fought in shotting, replying to this matter Bharathi said: "We fought with each other a couple of times. However the fights helped us to sharpen our thoughts and to shape the movie in a nice way". Nagravi of Insight media tiedup with the film and bought the rights. Bharathiraja went on to say that it is one of the best films he had made. This was originally a debut film for Kajal Agarwal since this film was delayed, Pazhani became her first release. Voice of nana has been dubbed by actor "Nizhalgal Ravi". Reviews. Nowrunning wrote:"Like aged and mellowed spirits, director Bharati Raja has matured and levitated towards one of his first loves - a whodunit". Behindwoods wrote: "Bommalattam is a perfectly crafted and executed investigative thriller. The surprise factor being Bharathiraja’s tautly woven screenplay – it negates the chance of tedium, even for a fraction of a second". Sify wrote: "hats off to Bharathiraja for creating a taut thriller which is a masterpiece of moods, anxieties and dread. Quite simply, unmissable". Rediff wrote: " Bharathiraja's screenplay lacks punch. He seems to have been confused about whether to give importance to the characters themselves, or the thriller portion. Hindu wrote: "The pluses of ‘Bommalattam’ place Bharatiraaja on a pedestal. The minuses play spoilsport".
581731	Bombay Boys (1998) is an unorthodox comedy film written and directed by the Indian director Kaizad Gustad. It follows the adventures of three young men in modern-day Mumbai (or Bombay). The boys are of Indian origin, but were all raised in the West. Krishna Sahni (played by Naveen Andrews) is an aspiring actor from New York who wants to make it big in Bollywood. Ricardo Fernandes (Rahul Bose) is from Sydney, Australia and is in Mumbai to search for his long-lost brother. Finally, Xerxes Mistry (Alexander Gifford), a musician from London, is looking to discover his "roots" in the land of his ancestors. Synopsis. The three meet each other for the first time at Mumbai's airport and decide to find a place together. In the course of the movie, Krishna finds out that, in order to break into the local film industry, he must first win the (decidedly risky) patronage of Don Mastana (Naseeruddin Shah), a godfather of the Mumbai underworld who's also a film producer. Mastana is a violent man who thinks nothing of impaling a lizard with a knife or shattering the skull of a fellow crime boss for making a pass at his girlfriend.
586675	Sholay (; meaning "Embers" in English) is a 1975 action-adventure Hindi film directed by Ramesh Sippy and produced by his father G. P. Sippy. The film follows two criminals, Veeru and Jai (played by Dharmendra and Amitabh Bachchan), hired by a retired police officer (Sanjeev Kumar) to capture the ruthless dacoit Gabbar Singh (Amjad Khan). Hema Malini and Jaya Bhaduri also star, as Veeru and Jai's love interests. "Sholay" is considered a classic and one of the best Indian films. It was ranked first in the British Film Institute's 2002 poll of "Top 10 Indian Films" of all time. In 2005, the judges of the 50th annual Filmfare Awards named it the Best Film of 50 Years. The film was shot in the rocky terrain of Ramanagara, in the southern state of Karnataka, over a span of two and a half years. After the Central Board of Film Certification mandated the removal of several violent scenes, "Sholay" was released with a length of 198 minutes. In 1990, the original director's cut of 204 minutes became available on home media. When first released, "Sholay" received negative critical reviews and a tepid commercial response, but favourable word-of-mouth publicity helped it to become a box office success. It broke records for continuous showings in many theatres across India, and ran for more than five years at Mumbai's Minerva theatre. By some accounts, "Sholay" is the highest grossing Indian film of all time, adjusted for inflation. The film drew heavily from the conventions of Westerns, and is a defining example of the masala genre. Scholars have noted several themes in the film, such as glorification of violence, conformation to feudal ethos, debate between social order and mobilised usurpers, homosocial bonding, and the film's role as a national allegory. The combined sales of the original soundtrack, scored by R. D. Burman, and the dialogues (released separately), set new sales records. The film's dialogues and certain characters became extremely popular, contributing to numerous cultural memes and becoming part of India's daily vernacular. Plot. In the small village of Ramgarh, the retired policeman Thakur Baldev Singh (Sanjeev Kumar) summons to a pair of small-time thieves that he had once arrested. Thakur feels that the duo—Veeru (Dharmendra) and Jai (Amitabh Bachchan)—would be ideal to help him capture Gabbar Singh (Amjad Khan), a dacoit wanted by the authorities for a 50,000 reward. Thakur tells them to surrender Gabbar to him, alive, for an additional 20,000 reward. The two thieves thwart the dacoits sent by Gabbar to extort the villagers. Soon afterwards, Gabbar and his goons attack Ramgarh during the festival of Holi, and in a tough battle, Veeru and Jai are cornered. Thakur, although he has a gun within his reach, does not help them. Veeru and Jai fight back and the bandits flee. The two are, however, upset at Thakur's inaction, and consider leaving the village. Thakur explains that Gabbar had killed nearly all of his family members, and cut off both his arms a few years earlier; which is why he could not use the gun. He had concealed the dismemberment by always wearing a shawl. Living in Ramgarh, the lively Veeru and cynical Jai find themselves growing fond of the villagers. Veeru is attracted to Basanti (Hema Malini), a feisty, talkative young woman who makes her living by driving a horse-cart. Jai is drawn to Radha (Jaya Bhaduri), Thakur's reclusive, widowed daughter-in-law, who subtly returns his affections. Skirmishes between Gabbar's gang and Jai-Veeru finally result in the capture of Veeru and Basanti by the dacoits. Jai attacks the gang, and the three are able to flee Gabbar's hideout with dacoits in pursuit. Fighting from behind a rock, Jai and Veeru nearly run out of ammunition. Veeru, unaware that Jai was wounded in the gunfight, is forced to leave for more ammunition. Meanwhile, Jai, who is continuing the gunfight singlehandedly, decides to sacrifice himself by using his last bullet to ignite dynamite sticks on a bridge from close range. Veeru returns, and Jai dies in his arms. Enraged, Veeru attacks Gabbar's den and catches the dacoit. Veeru nearly beats Gabbar to death when Thakur appears and reminds Veeru of the promise to hand over Gabbar alive. Thakur uses his spike-soled shoes to severely injure Gabbar and destroy his hands. The police then arrive and arrest Gabbar. After Jai's funeral, Veeru leaves Ramgarh and finds Basanti waiting for him on the train. Radha is left alone again. Production. Origin. The idea for "Sholay" began as a four-line snippet which screenwriter pair Salim-Javed told G.P. Sippy and Ramesh Sippy; two other producer/director teams had earlier rejected the idea. Ramesh Sippy liked the concept and hired them to develop it. The original idea of the film involved an army officer who decided to hire two ex-soldiers to avenge the murder of his family. The army officer was later changed to a policeman because Sippy felt that it would be difficult to get permission to shoot scenes depicting army activities. Salim-Javed completed the script in one month, incorporating names and personality traits of their friends and acquaintances. The film was loosely styled after Akira Kurosawa's 1954 film "Seven Samurai", and drew heavily from the conventions of Westerns, especially Sergio Leone's Spaghetti Westerns such as "Once Upon a Time in the West" (1968), and John Sturges' film "The Magnificent Seven" (1960). "Sholay" was also influenced by the westerns of Sam Peckinpah, such as "The Wild Bunch" (1969) and "Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid" (1973); and by George Roy Hill's "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" (1969). A scene depicting an attempted train robbery was inspired by a similar scene in "North West Frontier" (1959), and a scene showing the massacre of Thakur's family has been compared with the massacre of the McBain family in "Once Upon a Time in the West". Some plot elements were borrowed from the Indian films "Mera Gaon Mera Desh" (1971) and "Khote Sikkay" (1973). The character Gabbar Singh was modelled on a real-life dacoit of the same name who had menaced the villages around Gwalior in the 1950s. Any policeman captured by the real Gabbar Singh had his ears and nose cut off, and was released as a warning to other policemen. The character was also influenced by the villain "El Indio" (played by Gian Maria Volonté) of Sergio Leone's "For A Few Dollars More" (1965). Soorma Bhopali, a minor comic relief character, was based on an acquaintance of actor Jagdeep, a forest officer from Bhopal named Soorma. The real-life Soorma eventually threatened to press charges when people who had viewed the film began referring to him as a woodcutter. The main characters' names, Jai and Veeru, mean "victory" and "heroism" in Hindi. Casting. The producers considered Danny Denzongpa for the role of bandit chief Gabbar Singh, but he could not accept it as he was committed to act in Feroz Khan's "Dharmatma" (1975), under production at the same time. Amjad Khan, who was the second choice, prepared himself for the part by reading the book "Abhishapta Chambal", which told of the exploits of Chambal dacoits. The book was written by Taroon Kumar Bhaduri, the father of fellow cast member Jaya Bhaduri. As cast members had read the script ahead of time, many were interested in playing different parts. Pran was considered for the role of Thakur Baldev Singh, but Sippy thought Sanjeev Kumar was a better choice. Initially, Dharmendra was also interested to play the role of Thakur. He eventually gave up the role when Sippy informed him that Sanjeev Kumar would play Veeru if that happened, and would be paired with Hema Malini, who Dharmendra was trying to woo. Dharmendra knew that Kumar was also interested in Malini. Sippy wanted Shatrughan Sinha to play the part of Jai, but there were already several big stars signed, and Amitabh Bachchan, who was not extremely popular yet, lobbied hard to get the part for himself. During the film's production, four of the leads became romantically involved. Bachchan married Bhaduri four months before filming started. This led to shooting delays when Bhaduri became pregnant with their daughter Shweta. By the time of the film's release, she was pregnant with their son Abhishek. Dharmendra had begun wooing Malini during their earlier film "Seeta Aur Geeta" (1972), and used the location shoot of "Sholay" to further pursue her. During their romantic scenes, Dharmendra would often pay the light boys to spoil the shot, thereby ensuring many retakes and providing more time to spend with her. The couple married five years after the film's release. Filming. Much of "Sholay" was shot in the rocky terrain of Ramanagara, a town near Bangalore, Karnataka. The filmmakers had to build a road from the Bangalore highway to Ramanagara for convenient access to the sets. Art director Ram Yedekar had an entire township built on the site. A prison set was constructed near Rajkamal Studio in Mumbai, also outdoors, to match the natural lighting of the on-location sets. One part of Ramanagara was for a time called "Sippy Nagar" as a tribute to the director of the film. , a visit to the "Sholay rocks" (where much the film was shot) was still being offered to tourists travelling through Ramanagara. Filming began on location on 3 October 1973, with a scene featuring Bachchan and Bhaduri. The film had a lavish production for its time (with frequent banquets and parties for the cast), took two and a half years to make, and went over budget. One reason for its high cost was that Sippy re-filmed scenes many times to get his desired effect. "Yeh Dosti", a 5-minute song sequence, took 21 days to shoot; two short scenes in which Radha lights lamps took 20 days to film because of lighting problems, and the shooting of the scene in which Gabbar kills the imam's son lasted 19 days. The train robbery sequence, shot on the Mumbai–Pune railway route near Panvel, took more than 7 weeks to complete. "Sholay" was the first Indian film to have a stereophonic soundtrack and to use the 70 mm widescreen format. However, since actual 70 mm cameras were expensive at the time, the film was shot on traditional 35 mm film and the 4:3 picture was subsequently converted to a 2.2:1 frame. Regarding the process, Sippy said, "A 70mm "" format takes the awe of the big screen and magnifies it even more to make the picture even bigger, but since I also wanted a spread of sound we used six-track stereophonic sound and combined it with the big screen. It was definitely a differentiator." The use of 70 mm was emphasised by film posters on which the name of the film was stylised to match the CinemaScope logo. Film posters also sought to differentiate the film from those which had come before; one of them added the tagline: "The greatest star cast ever assembled – the greatest story ever told". Alternate version. The director's original cut of "Sholay" has a different ending in which Thakur kills Gabbar, along with some additional violent scenes. Gabbar's death scene, and the scene in which the imam's son is killed, were cut from the film by India's Censor Board, as was the scene in which Thakur's family is massacred. The Censor Board was concerned about the violence, and that viewers may be influenced to take the law into their own hands. Although Sippy fought to keep the scenes, eventually he had to re-shoot the ending of the film, and as directed by the Censor Board, have the police arrive just before Thakur can kill Gabbar. The censored theatrical version was the only one seen by audiences for fifteen years. The original, unedited cut of the film finally came out in a British release on VHS in 1990. Since then, Eros International has released two versions on DVD. The director's cut of the film preserves the original full frame and is 204 minutes in length; the censored widescreen version is 198 minutes long. Themes. Scholars have noted several themes in the film, such as glorification of violence, conformation to feudal ethos, debate between social order and mobilised usurpers, homosocial bonding, and the film's role as a national allegory. Koushik Banerjea, a sociologist in the London School of Economics, notes that "Sholay" exhibits a "sympathetic construction of 'rogue' masculinity" exemplified by the likeable outlaws Jai and Veeru. Banerjea argues during the film, the moral boundary between legality and criminality gradually erodes. Film scholar Wimal Dissanayake agrees that the film brought "a new stage in the evolving dialectic between violence and social order" to Indian cinema. Film scholar M. Madhava Prasad states that Jai and Veeru represent a marginalised population that is introduced into conventional society. Prasad says that, through the elements of revenge included in the plot and the application of Jai and Veeru's criminality for the greater good, the narrative reflects reactionary politics, and the audience is compelled to accept feudal order. Banerjea explains that though Jai and Veeru are mercenaries, they are humanized by their emotional needs. Such dualism makes them vulnerable, in contrast to the pure evil of Gabbar Singh. Gabbar Singh, the film's antagonist, was well received by the audience, despite his pervasive sadistic cruelty. Dissanayake explains that the audience was fascinated by the dialogues and mannerisms of the character, and this element of spectacle outweighed his actions, a first for Indian melodrama. He notes that the picturisation of violence in the film was glamourised and uninhibited. He further notes that, unlike earlier melodramas in which the female body occupies the audience's attention as an object of male fetish, in "Sholay", the male body becomes the centrepiece. It becomes the battleground where good and evil compete for supremacy. Dissanayake argues that "Sholay" can be viewed as a national allegory: it lacks a comforting logical narrative, it shows social stability being repeatedly challenged, and it shows the devaluation of human life resulting from a lack of emotions. Taken together, these elements comprise the allegorical representation of India. The narrative style of "Sholay", with its violence, revenge, and vigilante action, is occasionally compared by scholars to the political unrest in India at the time of its release. This tension culminated in the Emergency (rule by decree) declared by prime minister Indira Gandhi in 1975. Dissanayeke and Sahai note that, although the film borrowed heavily from the Hollywood Western genre, particularly in its visuals, it was successfully "Indianised". As an example, William van der Heide has compared a massacre scene in "Sholay" with a similar scene in "Once Upon a Time in the West". Although both films were similar in technical style, "Sholay" emphasised Indian family values and melodramatic tradition, while the Western was more materialistic and restrained in its approach. Maithili Rao, in "Encyclopedia of Hindi Cinema", notes that "Sholay" infuses the style of the Western genre into a "feudalistic ethos". Ted Shen of the "Chicago Reader" notes "Sholay"s "hysterical visual style" and intermittent "populist message". Cultural critic and Islamist scholar Ziauddin Sardar lampoons the film in his book "The Secret Politics of Our Desires: Innocence, Culpability and Indian Popular Cinema", both for its caricature and stereotyping of Muslim and women characters, and for what he calls mockery of innocent villagers. Sardar notes that the two most prominent Muslim characters in the film are Soorma Bhopali (a buffoonish criminal), and an impotent victim of the bandits (the imam). Meanwhile, the sole function of one female character (Radha) is to suffer her fate in silence, while the other female lead (Basanti) is just a garrulous village belle. Some scholars have indicated that "Sholay" contains homosocial themes. Ted Shen describes the male bonding shown in the film as bordering on camp style. Dina Holtzman, in her book "Bollywood and Globalization: Indian Popular Cinema, Nation, and Diaspora", states that the death of Jai, and resultant break of bonding between the two male leads, is necessary for the sake of establishing a normative heterosexual relationship (that of Veeru and Basanti). According to Thomas Waugh, professor of Film Studies and Interdisciplinary Studies in Sexuality at Concordia University, the manner in which the male leads "clutch and caress each other's hands, shoulders, head and thighs" during the song "Yeh Dosti", although seemingly innocuous, implies homosexual gesturing. Soundtrack. R. D. Burman composed the film's music, and the lyrics were written by Anand Bakshi. The songs used in the film, and released on the original soundtrack are listed below. Following that is a list of unused tracks and dialogues which were released later on an updated soundtrack. The album's cover image depicts an emotional scene from the film in which Basanti is forced to sing and dance on broken glass under the blazing sun to save Veeru's life. The song "Mehbooba Mehbooba" was sung by its composer, R. D. Burman, who received his sole Filmfare Award nomination for playback singing for his effort. The song, which is often featured on Bollywood hit song compilations, was based on "Say You Love Me" by Greek singer Demis Roussos. "Mehbooba Mehbooba" has been extensively anthologised, remixed, and recreated. It was remixed and sung by Himesh Reshammiya (along with Asha Bhosle) in his debut film "Aap Kaa Surroor" (2007). Another version was created by the Kronos Quartet for their Grammy-nominated album "You've Stolen My Heart", also featuring Bhosle. "Yeh Dosti" has been called the ultimate friendship anthem. It was remixed for the 2010 Malayalam film "Four Friends", and in 2012 it was used to symbolise India's friendship with the United States during a visit from President Barack Obama. Several songs from the soundtrack were included in the annual "Binaca Geetmala" list of top filmi songs. "Mehbooba Mehooba" was listed at No. 24 on the 1975 list, and at No. 6 on the 1976 list. "Koi Haseena" was listed at No. 30 in 1975, and No. 20 in 1976. "Yeh Dosti" was listed at No. 9 in 1976. Despite the soundtrack's success, at the time, the songs from "Sholay" attracted less attention than the film's dialogue—a rarity for Bollywood. The producers were thus prompted to release records with only dialogue. Taken together, the album sales totalled an unprecedented 500,000 units, and became one of the top selling Bollywood soundtracks of the 1970s. Music critic Oli Marlow reviewed the soundtrack in 2013, calling it a unique fusion of religious, folk, and classical music, with influences from around the world. He also commented on the sound design of the film, calling it psychedelic, and saying that there was "a lot of incredible incidental music" in the film that was not included the soundtrack releases. In a 1999 paper submitted to London's Symposium on Sound in Cinema, film critic Shoma A. Chatterji said, ""Sholay" offers a model lesson on how sound can be used to signify the terror a character evokes. "Sholay" is also exemplary in its use of sound­matching to jump­ cut to a different scene and time, without breaking the continuity of the narrative, yet, intensifying the drama." Reception. Box office. "Sholay" was released on 15 August 1975, Indian Independence Day, in Mumbai. Due to lacklustre reviews and a lack of effective visual marketing tools, it saw poor financial returns in its first two weeks. From the third week, however, viewership picked up owing to positive word of mouth. During the initial slow period, the director and writer considered re-shooting some scenes so that Amitabh Bachchan's character would not die. When business picked up, they abandoned this idea. After being helped additionally by a soundtrack release containing dialogue snippets, "Sholay" soon became an "overnight sensation". The film was then released in other distribution zones such as Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Bengal, and Hyderabad on 11 October 1975. It became the highest grossing Bollywood film of 1975, and film ranking website Box Office India has given the film a verdict of "All Time Blockbuster". "Sholay" went on to earn a still-standing record of 60 golden jubilees across India, and was the first film in India to celebrate a silver jubilee at over 100 theatres. It was shown continuously at Mumbai's Minerva theatre for over five years. "Sholay" was the Indian film with the longest theatrical run until "Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge" (1995) broke its record of 286 weeks in 2001. Exact figures are not available on the budget and box office earnings of "Sholay", but film trade websites provide estimates of its success. According to Box Office India, "Sholay" earned about 15 crores nett gross (valued at about US$16,778,000 in 1975) in India during its first run, which was many times its 3 crores (valued at about US$3,355,000 in 1975) budget, earning it an "All Time Blockbuster" status. Those earnings were a record that remained unbroken for nineteen years, which is also the longest amount of time that a film has held the record. Its original gross was increased further with re-releases during the late 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, and early 2000s. It is often cited that after adjusting the figures for inflation, "Sholay" is one of the highest grossing films in the history of Indian cinema, although such figures are not known with certainty. In 2012, Box Office India gave as "Sholay"'s adjusted nett gross, whereas "Times of India", in a 2009 report of business of Indian films, reported over as the adjusted gross. Critical response. Initial critical reviews of "Sholay" were negative. Among contemporary critics, K.L. Amladi of "India Today" called the film a "dead ember" and "a gravely flawed attempt". "Filmfare" said that the film was an unsuccessful mincing of Western style with Indian milieu, making it an "imitation western—neither here nor there." Others labelled it as "sound and fury signifying nothing" and a "second-rate take-off" of the 1971 film "Mera Gaon Mera Desh". Trade journals and columnists initially called the film a flop. In a 1976 article in the journal "Studies: An Irish Quarterly Review", author Michael Gallagher praised the technical achievement of the film, but otherwise criticised it stating, "As a spectacle it breaks new ground, but on every other level it is intolerable: formless, incoherent, superficial in human image, and a somewhat nasty piece of violence". Over time, the critical reception to "Sholay" greatly improved; it is now considered a classic, and among the greatest Hindi-language films. In a 2005 BBC review, the well-rounded characters and simple narrative of the film were commended, but the comical cameos of Asrani and Jagdeep were considered unnecessary. On the film's 35th anniversary, the "Hindustan Times" wrote that it was a "trailblazer in terms of camera work as well as music," and that "practically every scene, dialogue or even a small character was a highlight." In 2006, The Film Society of Lincoln Center described "Sholay" as "an extraordinary and utterly seamless blend of adventure, comedy, music and dance", labelling it an "indisputable classic". "Chicago Review" critic Ted Shen criticised the film in 2002 for its formulaic plot and "slapdash" cinematography, and noted that the film "alternates between slapstick and melodrama". In their obituary of the producer G.P. Sippy, the "New York Times" said that "Sholay" "revolutionized Hindi filmmaking and brought true professionalism to Indian script writing". Awards. "Sholay" was nominated for nine Filmfare Awards, but the only winner was M. S. Shinde, who won the award for Best Editing. The film also won three awards at the 1976 Bengal Film Journalists' Association Awards (Hindi section): "Best Actor in Supporting Role" for Amjad Khan, "Best Cinematographer (Colour)" for Dwarka Divecha, and "Best Art Director" for Ram Yedekar. "Sholay" received a special award at the 50th Filmfare Awards in 2005: Best Film of 50 Years. Legacy. "Sholay" has received many "Best Film" honours. It was declared the "Film of the Millennium" by BBC India in 1999. It topped the British Film Institute's "Top 10 Indian Films" of all time poll of 2002, and was voted the greatest Indian movie in a Sky Digital poll of one million British Indians in 2004. It was also included in "Time Magazine"'s "Best of Bollywood" list in 2010. "Sholay" inspired many films and pastiches, and spawned a sub-genre of films, the "Curry Western", which is a play on the term Spaghetti Western. It was an early and most definitive masala film, and a trend-setter for "multi-star" films. The film was a watershed for Bollywood's scriptwriters, who were not paid well before "Sholay"; after the film's success, script writing became a more respected profession. Certain scenes and dialogues from the film earned iconic status in India, such as ""Kitne aadmi the"" (How many men were there?), ""Jo dar gaya, samjho mar gaya"" (One who is scared is dead), and ""Bahut yaarana laagta hai"" (Looks like you two are very close) – all dialogues of Gabbar Singh. These and other popular dialogues entered the people's daily vernacular. Characters and dialogues from the film continue to be referred to and parodied in popular culture. Gabbar Singh, the sadistic villain, ushered in an era in Hindi films characterised by "seemingly omnipotent oppressors as villains", who play the pivotal role in setting up the context of the story, such as Shakal (played by Kulbhushan Kharbanda) of "Shaan" (1980), Mogambo (Amrish Puri) of "Mr. India" (1987) and Bhujang (Amrish Puri) of "Tridev" (1989). "Filmfare" named Gabbar Singh the most iconic villain in the history of Indian cinema, and four actors were included in its list of "80 Iconic Performances" for their work in this film. The film is often credited with making Amitabh Bachchan a "superstar", two years after he became a star with "Zanjeer" (1973). Some of the supporting actors remained etched in public memory as the characters they played in "Sholay"; for example, Mac Mohan continued to be referred to as "Sambha", even though his character had just one line. Major and minor characters continue to be used in commercials, promos, films and sitcoms. Amjad Khan acted in many villainous roles later in his career. He also played Gabbar Singh again in the 1991 spoof "Ramgarh Ke Sholay", and reprised the role in commercials. The British Film Institute in 2002 wrote that fear of Gabbar Singh "is still invoked by mothers to put their children to sleep". The 2012 film "Gabbar Singh", named after the character, became the highest grossing Telugu film up to that point. Comedian Jagdeep, who played Soorma Bhopali in the film, attempted to use his "Sholay" success to create a spinoff. He directed and played the lead role in the 1988 film "Soorma Bhopali", in which Dharmendra and Bachchan had cameos. In 2004, "Sholay" was digitally remastered and shown again to packed theatres in India, including Mumbai's Minerva, where it had run successfully 29 years earlier. An attempt to remake "Sholay", Ram Gopal Varma's film "Aag" (2007), starring Amitabh Bachchan as the villain, was a commercial and critical disaster. In March 2012, Shaan Uttam Singh, the grandson of producer G.P. Sippy, said that he would sponsor a conversion of the film to 3D, and release it in August 2012; however it remains unreleased as of 2013. Because of television and home media, "Sholay" is widely available and still popular. Twenty years after its release, "Sholay" was first shown on the Indian DD National television channel, where it drew the highest ratings ever for a film broadcast. Video game producer Mobile2win released the "Sholay Ramgarh Express" game for mobile phones in 2004, along with other "Sholay" themed content such as wallpapers, video clips, and ringtones. "Sholay" has been the subject of two books and many articles. Wimal Dissanayake and Malti Sahai's "Sholay, A Cultural Reading" (1992) attempts a comprehensive scholarly study that sets the film within the broader history of popular cinema in India. Anupama Chopra's "" (2001) provides an inside look at the film's production based on interviews with the director, stars, and crew members. "Sholay" has been labeled by Chopra as the gold standard in Indian cinema, and a reference point for audiences and trade analysts. Over the years, the film has reached a mythic stature in popular culture, and has been called the greatest Hindi film of all time. It belongs to only a small collection of films, including "Kismet" (1943), "Mother India" (1957), "Mughal-e-Azam" (1960) and "Hum Aapke Hain Koun..!" (1994), which are repeatedly watched throughout India, and are viewed as definitive Hindi films with cultural significance. The lasting effect of "Sholay" on Indian cinema was summarised by Anupama Chopra, when she called it "no longer just a film, an event". The noted director Shekhar Kapur stated "there has never been a more defining film on the Indian screen. Indian film history can be divided into "Sholay" BC and "Sholay" AD".
520482	John Lloyd Cruz (born June 24, 1983) is a Filipino actor, model, and occasional TV host. His career started with appearances in numerous teen-oriented movies and TV shows. He is a member of ABS-CBN's Star Magic, where he is an alumnus of Batch 5.
590450	Arun Govil (born 12 January 1958) is an award-winning Indian actor, producer and director. He has acted in various Hindi, Bhojpuri, Oriya and Telugu movies. He is best known for playing Rama in Ramanand Sagar's hit television series "Ramayan" (1986). Personal life. Arun Govil was born in Ramnagar near Meerut, Uttar Pradesh. He got his formal education at Meerut University, where he acted in some plays. He spend his teenage life in Shahjahanpur, Uttar Pradesh .His father wanted him to become a government servant while Arun wanted to do something for which he would be remembered. In 1975, at the young age of 17, he moved to Mumbai to start his own business there. He later found his way into acting. Family. Arun Govil is the fourth of six brothers and two sisters. His elder brother Vijay Govil is married to Tabassum, a former child actress and the host of the first Bollywood Celebrity talk show on Doordarshan " Phool Khile Hain Gulshan Gulshan" which continued for 21 years. His nephew is Film and TV actor Hoshang Govil (Son of Vijay and Tabassum Govil).His father Shri Chandra Prakash Govil was a government officer. Govil is married to actress Shrilekha, with whom he has a son and a daughter. He is currently working in a Bollywood movie. Religious beliefs. Arun Govil describes himself as "not particularly religious" and says when he was a child he would attend Ram-lila plays to please his religious mother. He currently serves as the president of Lakshmi Narayan Dham, an organization that works under His Holiness 'Brahmrishi Shri Kumar Swami' who is known for blessing people with "beej mantra's" (secret incantations) to help them with their problems and cure their illnesses.According to Arun Govil, his journey from 'not particularly religious' to a God loving person, was really interesting, and today he is happy serving the society. He adds that he's enjoying the spiritual change, he is experiencing today, and feels peace and ecstasy in the same. Career. Actor. Arun Govil got his first break in Indian cinema in the 1977 film "Paheli" When he was introduced to Tarachand Barjatya by his sister in law Tabassum .He later starred in other films such as "Sawan Ko Aane Do" (1979), "Saanch Ko Aanch Nahin" (1979), "Ayaash" (1982) and "Itni Si Baat" (1981). Ramanand Sagar cast Govil as Vikramaditya in his television series "Vikram Aur Betaal" and Rama in his highly successful television series "Ramayan", for which he won the Uptron Award for "Best Actor in a Leading Role" in 1988. His role as Rama provided great exposure to him and led to him being cast in other religious-based roles, including Harishchandra in "Vishwamitra (TV series)" and Buddha in TV series Buddha. Arun govil has worked in languages of almost all languages. He has worked in Oriya movies like "Bidhira Bidhan" (1989) and many Telugu movies like "Edu Kondalaswamy" (1991), "Govindha Govindha" (1993), and "Great Robbery" (1996). "Aa re Kaaliya"
582938	Yeh Hai Mumbai Meri Jaan is a 1999 Hindi-language Indian feature film directed by Mahesh Bhatt and produced by Mukesh Bhatt, starring Saif Ali Khan, Twinkle Khanna, Akshay Anand and Chunky Pandey. Trivia. The film was announced as "Mr. Aashiq" and the audio released under that name, but when the film got delayed, its producers changed its title and released it as "Yeh Hai Mumbai Meri Jaan".
1265442	Margaret Lindsay (September 19, 1910 - May 9, 1981) was an American film actress. Her time as a Warner Bros. contract player during the 1930s was particularly productive. She was noted for her supporting work in successful films of the 1930s and 1940s such as "Jezebel" (1938) and "Scarlet Street" (1945) and her leading roles in lower-budgeted B movie films such as the Ellery Queen series at Columbia in the early 1940s. Critics regard her portrayal of Nathaniel Hawthorne's Hepzibah Pyncheon in the 1940 film adaptation of "The House of the Seven Gables" as Lindsay's standout career role. Early life. Born as Margaret Kies in Dubuque, Iowa, she was the oldest of six children of a pharmacist father who died in 1930 before her Hollywood career began. According to Tom Longden of the "Des Moines Register", "Peg" was "a tomboy who liked to climb pear trees" and was a "roller-skating fiend". She graduated in 1930 from Visitation Academy in Dubuque. Career. 1930s. After attending National Park Seminary in Washington, D.C., Lindsay convinced her parents to enroll her at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York. She then went abroad to England to make her stage debut. She appeared in plays such as "Escape", "Death Takes a Holiday", and "The Romantic Age". Lindsay was often mistaken as being British due to her convincing English accent, which impressed Universal Studios enough to sign her for their 1932 version of "The Old Dark House". As James Robert Parish and William T. Leonard wrote in "Hollywood Players: The Thirties" (Arlington House, 1976), Lindsay returned to America and arrived in Hollywood, only to discover that Gloria Stuart had been cast in her role in the film. After some minor roles in Pre-Code films such as "Christopher Strong" and the groundbreaking "Baby Face", which starred Barbara Stanwyck, Lindsay was cast in the Fox Film Corporation's award-winning "Cavalcade". Lindsay was selected for a small but memorable role as Edith Harris, a doomed English bride whose honeymoon voyage takes place on the "Titanic".
588450	Kurradu (Telugu: కుర్రాడు, ) is a 2009 Telugu film, directed by Sandeep Gunnam. The film stars Varun Sandesh and Neha Sharma in the lead roles. It is a remake of the Tamil film "Polladhavan" starred Dhanush and Divya Spandana. The film was released on 12 November 2009. Plot. Varun (Varun Sandesh), the son of a middle-class man (Tanikella Bharani), is fit for nothing in the beginning. Though he wants to do something with his life, he knows he cannot get a job, just as he could not get a costly education, as his father is not someone who can bribe Rich men for a job to his son. On the night of his birthday, he spills out his frustration to his father who beats him for consuming liquor. Life changes for the good the next morning, when Varun's father gives away the sum he has saved for the daughter's wedding to Varun. The lad, who has been dreaming of owning a bike, gets one and whizzes off in life. A lucky talisman for him, he develops an emotional attachment to it as he sees it as the reason for his upward mobility. After it entered his life, he has got everything he had desired- father's affection, a job and Hema's (Neha Sharma) love for which he has been thirsting for two years now. But there is more to what meets the eye. In an ironic twist, the same 'charm' turns out to be his nightmare. The society where Varun is fulfilling his ordinary dreams, is also the play field for drug-peddlers and ganja mafia, headed by Satya (Ravi Shankar P) and Bullet. The leitmotif is, of course, the bike. The innocent job-holder at a private bank is dragged into a bestial world. So long effeminate, he now turns gutsy and grudges Satya's disaffected brother Ravi. Unlike his nemesis, all Varun wants is his bike back. In no time, events spiral in such a way that he has to put up a fight for his life and save his family. The film is an average grosser. The film is not fulfilled the polladhavan(original version) sensational Hit.It is based on the real life incidents of Arunraj Shanmugam, the villan's script is based on members of Rowdy Gang Chinraj, GD and AD. Soundtrack. Music of Kurradu was launched at Prasad Labs on the morning of 10 September 2009. Ram Charan Teja, Puri Jagannadh, S. S. Rajamouli, M. M. Keeravani, Ramesh Prasad, Rama Rajamouli, Gangaraju Gunnam, Urmila, Madhumita, Neha Sharma, Koti, Achu, Anantha Sreeram attended this function. Ram Charan Teja launched the audio cassette and gave the first unit to Puri Jagannadh. S. S. Rajamouli launched the audio CD and gave it to M. M. Keeravani. The Songs were Instant Chart busters and The Platinum disc function of Kurradu was organized at FNCC on the morning of 2 November 2009. It was attended by Gemini Kiran, Sandeep Gunnam, Varun Sandesh, Anant Sreeram, Madhumita and Achu. Gemini Kiran presented the platinum discs to all the unit members.
1163050	Theodore Martin "Ted" McGinley (born May 30, 1958) is an American actor. He is known for his roles as Jefferson D'Arcy on the television satire "Married... with Children" and as Charley Shanowski on the ABC sitcom "Hope & Faith". He was also a regular
1102705	Sir Michael Francis Atiyah, (born 22 April 1929) is a British mathematician specialising in geometry. Atiyah grew up in Sudan and Egypt and spent most of his academic life in the United Kingdom at Oxford and Cambridge, and in the United States at the Institute for Advanced Study. He has been president of the Royal Society (1990–1995), master of Trinity College, Cambridge (1990–1997), chancellor of the University of Leicester (1995–2005), and president of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (2005–2008). Since 1997, he has been an honorary professor at the University of Edinburgh. Atiyah's mathematical collaborators include Raoul Bott, Friedrich Hirzebruch and Isadore Singer, and his students include Graeme Segal, Nigel Hitchin and Simon Donaldson. Together with Hirzebruch, he laid the foundations for topological K-theory, an important tool in algebraic topology, which, informally speaking, describes ways in which spaces can be twisted. His best known result, the Atiyah–Singer index theorem, was proved with Singer in 1963 and is widely used in counting the number of independent solutions to differential equations. Some of his more recent work was inspired by theoretical physics, in particular instantons and monopoles, which are responsible for some subtle corrections in quantum field theory. He was awarded the Fields Medal in 1966, the Copley Medal in 1988, and the Abel Prize in 2004. Biography. Atiyah was born in Hampstead, London, to Greek Orthodox Lebanese academic Edward Atiyah and Scot Jean Atiyah (née Levens). Patrick Atiyah is his brother; he has one other brother, Joe, and a sister, Selma. He went to primary school at the Diocesan school in Khartoum, Sudan (1934–1941) and to secondary school at Victoria College in Cairo and Alexandria (1941–1945); the school was also attended by European nobility displaced by the Second World War and some future leaders of Arab nations. He returned to England and Manchester Grammar School for his HSC studies (1945–1947) and did his national service with the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers (1947–1949). His undergraduate and postgraduate studies took place at Trinity College, Cambridge (1949–1955). He was a doctoral student of William V. D. Hodge and was awarded a doctorate in 1955 for a thesis entitled "Some Applications of Topological Methods in Algebraic Geometry". Atiyah married Lily Brown on 30 July 1955, with whom he has three sons. He spent the academic year 1955–1956 at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, then returned to Cambridge University, where he was a research fellow and assistant lecturer (1957–1958), then a university lecturer and tutorial fellow at Pembroke College (1958–1961). In 1961, he moved to the University of Oxford, where he was a reader and professorial fellow at St Catherine's College (1961–1963). He became Savilian Professor of Geometry and a professorial fellow of New College, Oxford, from 1963 to 1969. He then took up a three-year professorship at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton after which he returned to Oxford as a Royal Society Research Professor and professorial fellow of St Catherine's College. He was president of the London Mathematical Society from 1974 to 1976. Atiyah has been active on the international scene, for instance as president of the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs from 1997 to 2002. He also contributed to the foundation of the InterAcademy Panel on International Issues, the Association of European Academies (ALLEA), and the European Mathematical Society (EMS). Within the United Kingdom, he was involved in the creation of the Isaac Newton Institute for Mathematical Sciences in Cambridge and was its first director (1990–1996). He was President of the Royal Society (1990–1995), Master of Trinity College, Cambridge (1990–1997), Chancellor of the University of Leicester (1995–2005), and president of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (2005–2008). Since 1997, he has been an honorary professor at the University of Edinburgh. Atiyah is a distinguished supporter and member of the British Humanist Association. Collaborations. Atiyah has collaborated with many other mathematicians. His three main collaborations were with Raoul Bott on the Atiyah–Bott fixed-point theorem and many other topics, with Isadore M. Singer on the Atiyah–Singer index theorem, and with Friedrich Hirzebruch on topological K-theory, all of whom he met at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton in 1955. His other collaborators include J. Frank Adams (Hopf invariant problem), Jürgen Berndt (projective planes), Roger Bielawski (Berry–Robbins problem), Howard Donnelly (L-functions), Vladimir G. Drinfeld (instantons), Johan L. Dupont (singularities of vector fields), Lars Gårding (hyperbolic differential equations), Nigel J. Hitchin (monopoles), William V. D. Hodge (Integrals of the second kind), Michael Hopkins (K-theory), Lisa Jeffrey (topological Lagrangians), John D. S. Jones (Yang–Mills theory), Juan Maldacena (M-theory), Yuri I. Manin (instantons), Nick S. Manton (Skyrmions), Vijay K. Patodi (Spectral asymmetry), A. N. Pressley (convexity), Elmer Rees (vector bundles), Wilfried Schmid (discrete series representations), Graeme Segal (equivariant K-theory), Alexander Shapiro (Clifford algebras), L. Smith (homotopy groups of spheres), Paul Sutcliffe (polyhedra), David O. Tall (lambda rings), John A. Todd (Stiefel manifolds), Cumrun Vafa (M-theory), Richard S. Ward (instantons) and Edward Witten (M-theory, topological quantum field theories). His later research on gauge field theories, particularly Yang–Mills theory, stimulated important interactions between geometry and physics, most notably in the work of Edward Witten. Atiyah's many students include Peter Braam 1987, Simon Donaldson 1983, K. David Elworthy 1967, Howard Fegan 1977, Eric Grunwald 1977, Nigel Hitchin 1972, Lisa Jeffrey 1991, Frances Kirwan 1984, Peter Kronheimer 1986, Ruth Lawrence 1989, George Lusztig 1971, Jack Morava 1968, Michael Murray 1983, Peter Newstead 1966, Ian R. Porteous 1961, John Roe 1985, Brian Sanderson 1963, Rolph Schwarzenberger 1960, Graeme Segal 1967, David Tall 1966, and Graham White 1982. Other contemporary mathematicians who influenced Atiyah include Roger Penrose, Lars Hörmander, Alain Connes and Jean-Michel Bismut. Atiyah said that the mathematician he most admired was Hermann Weyl, and that his favorite mathematicians from before the 20th century were Bernhard Riemann and William Rowan Hamilton. Mathematical work. The six volumes of Atiyah's collected papers include most of his work, except for his commutative algebra textbook and a few works written since 2004. Algebraic geometry (1952–1958). Atiyah's early papers on algebraic geometry (and some general papers) are reprinted in the first volume of his collected works. As an undergraduate Atiyah was interested in classical projective geometry, and wrote his first paper: a short note on twisted cubics. He started research under W. V. D. Hodge and won the Smith's prize for 1954 for a sheaf-theoretic approach to ruled surfaces, which encouraged Atiyah to continue in mathematics, rather than switch to his other interests—architecture and archaeology. His PhD thesis with Hodge was on a sheaf-theoretic approach to Solomon Lefschetz's theory of integrals of the second kind on algebraic varieties, and resulted in an invitation to visit the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton for a year. While in Princeton he classified vector bundles on an elliptic curve (extending Grothendieck's classification of vector bundles on a genus 0 curve), by showing that any vector bundle is a sum of (essentially unique) indecomposable vector bundles, and then showing that the space of indecomposable vector bundles of given degree and positive dimension can be identified with the elliptic curve. He also studied double points on surfaces, giving the first example of a flop, a special birational transformation of 3-folds that was later heavily used in Mori's work on minimal models for 3-folds. Atiyah's flop can also be used to show that the universal marked family of K3 surfaces is non-Hausdorff. K theory (1959–1974). Atiyah's works on K-theory, including his book on K-theory are reprinted in volume 2 of his collected works. The simplest example of a vector bundle is the Möbius band (pictured on the right): a strip of paper with a twist in it, which represents a rank 1 vector bundle over a circle (the circle in question being the centerline of the Möbius band). K-theory is a tool for working with higher dimensional analogues of this example, or in other words for describing higher dimensional twistings: elements of the K-group of a space are represented by vector bundles over it, so the Möbius band represents an element of the K-group of a circle. Topological K-theory was discovered by Atiyah and Friedrich Hirzebruch who were inspired by Grothendieck's proof of the Grothendieck–Riemann–Roch theorem and Bott's work on the periodicity theorem. This paper only discussed the zeroth K-group; they shortly after extended it to K-groups of all degrees, giving the first (nontrivial) example of a generalized cohomology theory. Several results showed that the newly introduced K-theory was in some ways more powerful than ordinary cohomology theory. Atiyah and Todd used K-theory to improve the lower bounds found using ordinary cohomology by Borel and Serre for the James number, describing when a map from a complex Stiefel manifold to a sphere has a cross section. (Adams and Grant-Walker later showed that the bound found by Atiyah and Todd was best possible.) Atiyah and Hirzebruch used K-theory to explain some relations between Steenrod operations and Todd classes that Hirzebruch had noticed a few years before. The original solution of the Hopf invariant one problem operations by J. F. Adams was very long and complicated, using secondary cohomology operations. Atiyah showed how primary operations in K-theory could be used to give a short solution taking only a few lines, and in joint work with Adams also proved analogues of the result at odd primes. The Atiyah–Hirzebruch spectral sequence relates the ordinary cohomology of a space to its generalized cohomology theory. (Atiyah and Hirzebruch used the case of K-theory, but their method works for all cohomology theories). Atiyah showed that for a finite group "G", the K-theory of its classifying space, "BG", is isomorphic to the completion of its character ring: The same year they proved the result for "G" any compact connected Lie group. Although soon the result could be extended to "all" compact Lie groups by incorporating results from Graeme Segal's thesis, that extension was complicated. However a simpler and more general proof was produced by introducing equivariant K-theory, "i.e." equivalence classes of "G"-vector bundles over a compact "G"-space "X". It was shown that under suitable conditions the completion of the equivariant K-theory of "X" is isomorphic to the ordinary K-theory of a space, formula_2, which fibred over "BG" with fibre "X": The original result then followed as a corollary by taking "X" to be a point: the left hand side reduced to the completion of "R(G)" and the right to "K(BG)". See Atiyah–Segal completion theorem for more details. He defined new generalized homology and cohomology theories called bordism and cobordism, and pointed out that many of the deep results on cobordism of manifolds found by R. Thom, C. T. C. Wall, and others could be naturally reinterpreted as statements about these cohomology theories. Some of these cohomology theories, in particular complex cobordism, turned out to be some of the most powerful cohomology theories known. He introduced the J-group "J"("X") of a finite complex "X", defined as the group of stable fiber homotopy equivalence classes of sphere bundles; this was later studied in detail by J. F. Adams in a series of papers, leading to the Adams conjecture. With Hirzebruch he extended the Grothendieck–Riemann–Roch theorem to complex analytic embeddings, and in a related paper they showed that the Hodge conjecture for integral cohomology is false. The Hodge conjecture for rational cohomology is, as of 2008, a major unsolved problem. The Bott periodicity theorem was a central theme in Atiyah's work on K-theory, and he repeatedly returned to it, reworking the proof several times to understand it better. With Bott he worked out an elementary proof, and gave another version of it in his book. With Bott and Shapiro he analysed the relation of Bott periodicity to the periodicity of Clifford algebras; although this paper did not have a proof of the periodicity theorem, a proof along similar lines was shortly afterwards found by R. Wood. In he found a proof of several generalizations using elliptic operators; this new proof used an idea that he used to give a particularly short and easy proof of Bott's original periodicity theorem. Index theory (1963–1984). Atiyah's work on index theory is reprinted in volumes 3 and 4 of his collected works. The index of a differential operator is closely related to the number of independent solutions (more precisely, it is the differences of the numbers of independent solutions of the differential operator and its adjoint). There are many hard and fundamental problems in mathematics that can easily be reduced to the problem of finding the number of independent solutions of some differential operator, so if one has some means of finding the index of a differential operator these problems can often be solved. This is what the Atiyah–Singer index theorem does: it gives a formula for the index of certain differential operators, in terms of topological invariants that look quite complicated but are in practice usually straightforward to calculate. Several deep theorems, such as the Hirzebruch–Riemann–Roch theorem, are special cases of the Atiyah–Singer index theorem. In fact the index theorem gave a more powerful result, because its proof applied to all compact complex manifolds, while Hirzebruch's proof only worked for projective manifolds. There were also many new applications: a typical one is calculating the dimensions of the moduli spaces of instantons. The index theorem can also be run "in reverse": the index is obviously an integer, so the formula for it must also give an integer, which sometimes gives subtle integrality conditions on invariants of manifolds. A typical example of this is Rochlin's theorem, which follows from the index theorem. The index problem for elliptic differential operators was posed in 1959 by Gel'fand. He noticed the homotopy invariance of the index, and asked for a formula for it by means of topological invariants. Some of the motivating examples included the Riemann–Roch theorem and its generalization the Hirzebruch–Riemann–Roch theorem, and the Hirzebruch signature theorem. Hirzebruch and Borel had proved the integrality of the Â genus of a spin manifold, and Atiyah suggested that this integrality could be explained if it were the index of the Dirac operator (which was rediscovered by Atiyah and Singer in 1961). The first announcement of the Atiyah–Singer theorem was their 1963 paper. The proof sketched in this announcement was inspired by Hirzebruch's proof of the Hirzebruch–Riemann–Roch theorem and was never published by them, though it is described in the book by Palais. Their first published proof was more similar to Grothendieck's proof of the Grothendieck–Riemann–Roch theorem, replacing the cobordism theory of the first proof with K-theory, and they used this approach to give proofs of various generalizations in a sequence of papers from 1968 to 1971. Instead of just one elliptic operator, one can consider a family of elliptic operators parameterized by some space "Y". In this case the index is an element of the K-theory of "Y", rather than an integer. If the operators in the family are real, then the index lies in the real K-theory of "Y". This gives a little extra information, as the map from the real K theory of "Y" to the complex K theory is not always injective. With Bott, Atiyah found an analogue of the Lefschetz fixed-point formula for elliptic operators, giving the Lefschetz number of an endomorphism of an elliptic complex in terms of a sum over the fixed points of the endomorphism. As special cases their formula included the Weyl character formula, and several new results about elliptic curves with complex multiplication, some of which were initially disbelieved by experts. Atiyah and Segal combined this fixed point theorem with the index theorem as follows. If there is a compact group action of a group "G" on the compact manifold "X", commuting with the elliptic operator, then one can replace ordinary K theory in the index theorem with equivariant K-theory. For trivial groups "G" this gives the index theorem, and for a finite group "G" acting with isolated fixed points it gives the Atiyah–Bott fixed point theorem. In general it gives the index as a sum over fixed point submanifolds of the group "G". Atiyah solved a problem asked independently by Hörmander and Gel'fand, about whether complex powers of analytic functions define distributions. Atiyah used Hironaka's resolution of singularities to answer this affirmatively. An ingenious and elementary solution was found at about the same time by J. Bernstein, and discussed by Atiyah. As an application of the equivariant index theorem, Atiyah and Hirzeburch showed that manifolds with effective circle actions have vanishing Â-genus. (Lichnerowicz showed that if a manifold has a metric of positive scalar curvature then the Â-genus vanishes.) With Elmer Rees, Atiyah studied the problem of the relation between topological and holomorphic vector bundles on projective space. They solved the simplest unknown case, by showing that all rank 2 vector bundles over projective 3-space have a holomorphic structure. Horrocks had previously found some non-trivial examples of such vector bundles, which were later used by Atiyah in his study of instantons on the 4-sphere. Atiyah, Bott and Vijay K. Patodi gave a new proof of the index theorem using the heat equation. If the manifold is allowed to have boundary, then some restrictions must be put on the domain of the elliptic operator in order to ensure a finite index. These conditions can be local (like demanding that the sections in the domain vanish at the boundary) or more complicated global conditions (like requiring that the sections in the domain solve some differential equation). The local case was worked out by Atiyah and Bott, but they showed that many interesting operators (e.g., the signature operator) do not admit local boundary conditions. To handle these operators, Atiyah, Patodi and Singer introduced global boundary conditions equivalent to attaching a cylinder to the manifold along the boundary and then restricting the domain to those sections that are square integrable along the cylinder, and also introduced the Atiyah–Patodi–Singer eta invariant. This resulted in a series of papers on spectral asymmetry, which were later unexpectedly used in theoretical physics, in particular in Witten's work on anomalies. The fundamental solutions of linear hyperbolic partial differential equations often have Petrovsky lacunas: regions where they vanish identically. These were studied in 1945 by I. G. Petrovsky, who found topological conditions describing which regions were lacunas. In collaboration with Bott and Lars Gårding, Atiyah wrote three papers updating and generalizing Petrovsky's work. Atiyah showed how to extend the index theorem to some non-compact manifolds, acted on by a discrete group with compact quotient. The kernel of the elliptic operator is in general infinite dimensional in this case, but it is possible to get a finite index using the dimension of a module over a von Neumann algebra; this index is in general real rather than integer valued. This version is called the "L2 index theorem," and was used by Atiyah and Schmid to give a geometric construction, using square integrable harmonic spinors, of Harish-Chandra's discrete series representations of semisimple Lie groups. In the course of this work they found a more elementary proof of Harish-Chandra's fundamental theorem on the local integrability of characters of Lie groups. With H. Donnelly and I. Singer, he extended Hirzebruch's formula (relating the signature defect at cusps of Hilbert modular surfaces to values of L-functions) from real quadratic fields to all totally real fields. Gauge theory (1977–1985). Many of his papers on gauge theory and related topics are reprinted in volume 5 of his collected works. A common theme of these papers is the study of moduli spaces of solutions to certain non-linear partial differential equations, in particular the equations for instantons and monopoles. This often involves finding a subtle correspondence between solutions of two seemingly quite different equations. An early example of this which Atiyah used repeatedly is the Penrose transform, which can sometimes convert solutions of a non-linear equation over some real manifold into solutions of some linear holomorphic equations over a different complex manifold. In a series of papers with several authors, Atiyah classified all instantons on 4 dimensional Euclidean space. It is more convenient to classify instantons on a sphere as this is compact, and this is essentially equivalent to classifing instantons on Euclidean space as this is conformally equivalent to a sphere and the equations for instantons are conformally invariant. With Hitchin and Singer he calculated the dimension of the moduli space of irreducible self-dual connections (instantons) for any principle bundle over a compact 4-dimensional Riemannian manifold. For example, the dimension of the space of SU2 instantons of rank "k">0 is 8"k"−3. To do this they used the Atiyah–Singer index theorem to calculate the dimension of the tangent space of the moduli space at a point; the tangent space is essentially the space of solutions of an elliptic differential operator, given by the linearization of the non-linear Yang–Mills equations. These moduli spaces were later used by Donaldson to construct his invariants of 4-manifolds. Atiyah and Ward used the Penrose correspondence to reduce the classification of all instantons on the 4-sphere to a problem in algebraic geometry. With Hitchin he used ideas of Horrocks to solve this problem, giving the ADHM construction of all instantons on a sphere; Manin and Drinfeld found the same construction at the same time, leading to a joint paper by all four authors. Atiyah reformulated this construction using quaternions and wrote up a leisurely account of this classification of instantons on Euclidean space as a book. Atiyah's work on instanton moduli spaces was used in Donaldson's work on Donaldson theory. Donaldson showed that the moduli space of (degree 1) instantons over a compact simply connected 4-manifold with positive definite intersection form can be compactified to give a cobordism between the manifold and a sum of copies of complex projective space. He deduced from this that the intersection form must be a sum of one dimensional ones, which led to several spectacular applications to smooth 4-manifolds, such as the existence of non-equivalent smooth structures on 4 dimensional Euclidean space. Donaldson went on to use the other moduli spaces studied by Atiyah to define Donaldson invariants, which revolutionized the study of smooth 4-manifolds, and showed that they were more subtle than smooth manifolds in any other dimension, and also quite different from topological 4-manifolds. Atiyah described some of these results in a survey talk. Green's functions for linear partial differential equations can often be found by using the Fourier transform to convert this into an algebraic problem. Atiyah used a non-linear version of this idea. He used the Penrose transform to convert the Green's function for the conformally invariant Laplacian into a complex analytic object, which turned out to be essentially the diagonal embedding of the Penrose twistor space into its square. This allowed him to find an explicit formula for the conformally invariant Green's function on a 4-manifold. In his paper with Jones, he studied the topology of the moduli space of SU(2) instantons over a 4-sphere. They showed that the natural map from this moduli space to the space of all connections induces epimorphisms of homology groups in a certain range of dimensions, and suggested that it might induce isomorphisms of homology groups in the same range of dimensions. This became known as the Atiyah–Jones conjecture, and was later proved by several mathematicians. Harder and M. S. Narasimhan described the cohomology of the moduli spaces of stable vector bundles over Riemann surfaces by counting the number of points of the moduli spaces over finite fields, and then using the Weil conjectures to recover the cohomology over the complex numbers. Atiyah and R. Bott used Morse theory and the Yang–Mills equations over a Riemann surface to reproduce and extending the results of Harder and Narasimhan. An old result due to Schur and Horn states that the set of possible diagonal vectors of an Hermitian matrix with given eigenvalues is the convex hull of all the permutations of the eigenvalues. Atiyah proved a generalization of this that applies to all compact symplectic manifolds acted on by a torus, showing that the image of the manifold under the moment map is a convex polyhedron, and with Pressley gave a related generalization to infinite dimensional loop groups. Duistermaat and Heckman found a striking formula, saying that the push-forward of the Liouville measure of a moment map for a torus action is given exactly by the stationary phase approximation (which is in general just an asymptotic expansion rather than exact). Atiyah and Bott showed that this could be deduced from a more general formula in equivariant cohomology, which was a consequence of well-known localization theorems. Atiyah showed that the moment map was closely related to geometric invariant theory, and this idea was later developed much further by his student F. Kirwan. Witten shortly after applied the Duistermaat–Heckman formula to loop spaces and showed that this formally gave the Atiyah–Singer index theorem for the Dirac operator; this idea was lectured on by Atiyah. With Hitchin he worked on magnetic monopoles, and studied their scattering using an idea of Nick Manton. His book with Hitchin gives a detailed description of their work on magnetic monopoles. The main theme of the book is a study of a moduli space of magnetic monopoles; this has a natural Riemannian metric, and a key point is that this metric is complete and hyperkahler. The metric is then used to study the scattering of two monopoles, using a suggestion of N. Manton that the geodesic flow on the moduli space is the low energy approximation to the scattering. For example, they show that a head-on collision between two monopoles results in 90-degree scattering, with the direction of scattering depending on the relative phases of the two monopoles. He also studied monopoles on hyperbolic space. Atiyah showed that instantons in 4 dimensions can be identified with instantons in 2 dimensions, which are much easier to handle. There is of course a catch: in going from 4 to 2 dimensions the structure group of the gauge theory changes from a finite dimensional group to an infinite dimensional loop group. This gives another example where the moduli spaces of solutions of two apparently unrelated nonlinear partial differential equations turn out to be essentially the same. Atiyah and Singer found that anomalies in quantum field theory could be interpreted in terms of index theory of the Dirac operator; this idea later became widely used by physicists. Later work (1986 onwards). Many of the papers in the 6th volume of his collected works are surveys, obituaries, and general talks. Since its publication, Atiyah has continued to publish, including several surveys, a popular book, and another paper with Segal on twisted K-theory. One paper is a detailed study of the Dedekind eta function from the point of view of topology and the index theorem. Several of his papers from around this time study the connections between quantum field theory, knots, and Donaldson theory. He introduced the concept of a topological quantum field theory, inspired by Witten's work and Segal's definition of a conformal field theory. His book describes the new knot invariants found by Vaughan Jones and Edward Witten in terms of topological quantum field theories, and his paper with L. Jeffrey explains Witten's Lagrangian giving the Donaldson invariants. He studied skyrmions with Nick Manton, finding a relation with magnetic monopoles and instantons, and giving a conjecture for the structure of the moduli space of two skyrmions as a certain subquotient of complex projective 3-space. Several papers were inspired by a question of M. Berry (called the Berry–Robbins problem), who asked if there is a map from the configuration space of "n" points in 3-space to the flag manifold of the unitary group. Atiyah gave an affirmative answer to this question, but felt his solution was too computational and studied a conjecture that would give a more natural solution. He also related the question to Nahm's equation, and introduced the Atiyah conjecture on configurations. With Juan Maldacena and Cumrun Vafa, and E. Witten he described the dynamics of M-theory on manifolds with G2 holonomy. These papers seem to be the first time that Atiyah has worked on exceptional Lie groups. In his papers with M. Hopkins and G. Segal he returned to his earlier interest of K-theory, describing some twisted forms of K-theory with applications in theoretical physics. Awards and honours. In 1966, when he was thirty-seven years old, he was awarded the Fields Medal, for his work in developing K-theory, a generalized Lefschetz fixed-point theorem and the Atiyah–Singer theorem, for which he also won the Abel Prize jointly with Isadore Singer in 2004. Among other prizes he has received are the Royal Medal of the Royal Society in 1968, the De Morgan Medal of the London Mathematical Society in 1980, the Antonio Feltrinelli Prize from the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei in 1981, the King Faisal International Prize for Science in 1987, the Copley Medal of the Royal Society in 1988, the Benjamin Franklin Medal for Distinguished Achievement in the Sciences of the American Philosophical Society in 1993, the Jawaharlal Nehru Birth Centenary Medal of the Indian National Science Academy in 1993, the President's Medal from the Institute of Physics in 2008, the Grande Médaille of the French Academy of Sciences in 2010 and the Grand Officier of the French Légion d'honneur in 2011. He was elected a foreign member of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1969), the Academie des Sciences, the Akademie Leopoldina, the Royal Swedish Academy, the Royal Irish Academy, the Royal Society of Edinburgh, the American Philosophical Society, the Indian National Science Academy, the Chinese Academy of Science, the Australian Academy of Science, the Russian Academy of Science, the Ukrainian Academy of Science, the Georgian Academy of Science, the Venezuela Academy of Science, the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters, the Royal Spanish Academy of Science, the Accademia dei Lincei and the Moscow Mathematical Society. In 2012 he became a fellow of the American Mathematical Society. Atiyah has been awarded honorary degrees by the universities of Bonn, Warwick, Durham, St. Andrews, Dublin, Chicago, Cambridge, Edinburgh, Essex, London, Sussex, Ghent, Reading, Helsinki, Salamanca, Montreal, Wales, Lebanon, Queen's (Canada), Keele, Birmingham, UMIST, Brown, Heriot–Watt, Mexico, Oxford, Hong Kong (Chinese University), The Open University, American University of Beirut, the Technical University of Catalonia and Leicester. Atiyah was made a Knight Bachelor in 1983 and made a member of the Order of Merit in 1992. The Michael Atiyah building at the University of Leicester and the Michael Atiyah Chair in Mathematical Sciences at the American University of Beirut were named after him. References. Books by Atiyah. This subsection lists all books written by Atiyah; it omits a few books that he edited.
1063186	The Abyss is a 1989 American science fiction-adventure film written and directed by James Cameron, starring Ed Harris, Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, and Michael Biehn. When an American submarine sinks in the Atlantic, the US search and recovery team works with an oil platform crew, racing against Russian vessels to recover the ship. Deep in the ocean, they encounter a new and mysterious species. The original musical score was composed by Alan Silvestri. It was released on August 9, 1989, in North America. Plot. A US ballistic missile submarine, the USS "Montana", sinks near the edge of the Cayman Trough after an accidental encounter with an unidentified submerged object. As Soviet ships and submarines head towards the area in an attempt to salvage the sub, and with a hurricane moving in, the Americans decide that the quickest way to mount a rescue is to insert a SEAL team onto the "Deep Core", a privately owned, experimental underwater oil drilling platform, which will serve as their base of operations. The designer of the platform, Dr. Lindsey Brigman, insists on accompanying the SEAL team, even though her estranged husband, Virgil "Bud" Brigman, is currently serving as the platform's foreman. As the SEALs and the platform crew attempt to discover the cause of the "Montana"s failure, they spot strange creatures they cannot identify, only later discovering that the creatures have intelligence and dubbing them "NTIs"—"non-terrestrial intelligence". On orders from the SEAL leader Lt. Hiram Coffey and without the platform crew's knowledge, the SEALs use one of the platform's mini-subs to retrieve a warhead from a Trident missile aboard the "Montana". However, they do so at an inopportune time, as the hurricane strikes the surface and they are unable to release the tether from the rig's surface support ship, the "Benthic Explorer". Tossed by the storm, the "Explorer"s entire crane and cable system break off and fall into the water. The crane barely misses the platform when it hits the ocean floor, but falls into the trench, its weight pulling the tether and the whole platform towards the drop-off. The rig hangs up on the very edge of the cliff, preventing a plummet into the depths. Several crew members are lost due to flooding in the platform, while the surviving crew and SEALs tend to wounds and attempt to restore the platform's critical power. An NTI probe in the form of a living column of water explores the platform, and while the platform crew believes it to be harmless, Coffey sees it as a threat. The platform crew realizes Coffey is suffering from high-pressure nervous syndrome, which is making him paranoid. Using one of the remote operated vehicles to spy on Coffey from outside the platform, they discover he is planning on sending the warhead down into the chasm to destroy whatever may be down there. Bud attempts to subdue Coffey before he can leave the platform in one of the mini-subs, but he is unable to do so. Bud and Lindsey chase Coffey in the station's other sub; they manage to damage Coffey's sub, causing it to fall into the trench, where Coffey is killed when the pressure crushes the vehicle. However, Bud and Lindsey are too late to stop the remote vehicle and its attached warhead, on a pre-programmed course, from dropping into the trench. Furthermore, their sub is flooding due to a rupture in the hull. Lindsey realizes that the sub's crippled systems, the distance between the sub and the platform, and the fact that their sole source of oxygen is a backpack and regulator that are hard-mounted to Bud's diving helmet combine to leave just one solution. After being convinced, Bud locks his helmet onto his diving suit, watches Lindsey drown, and then tows her body back to Deep Core, hoping that the cold water shocked her body into deep hibernation. The Deep Core crew, trained and equipped for medical emergencies, is able to restart Lindsey's heart via CPR and a defibrillator. The two reaffirm their lost love. The crew tracks the warhead, finding the remote vehicle has failed from the pressure and landed on a ledge partway down the trench. The SEALs have brought along special diving equipment featuring a liquid breathing apparatus that would allow for a human to dive that far. However, only one of the two surviving SEALs is trustworthy and his injuries prevent him from using it. Bud volunteers; he will not be able to talk and is instead forced to communicate through a keypad on his suit. Bud begins his dive into the trench, reaches the ledge where the warhead sits, and is guided by the SEAL in disarming it. However, the dive has taken too long for Bud to return to the top of the trench before the oxygen in the liquid runs out. Bud, aware this could happen, writes that he has only five minutes left, and despite Lindsey's pleas to return, decides to remain on the ledge. He types his love to Lindsey in a final message, saying, "Knew this was a one-way ticket, but you know I had to come. Love you, wife." As Bud lies on the ledge awaiting his death, bright lights appear below him and he encounters an aquatic NTI. The being reaches out and takes Bud's hand and then leads him even further down to a massive NTI spacecraft sitting deep in the trench. Deep within the ship, the NTIs provide Bud with an atmosphere that allows him to breathe. The NTIs replay Bud's message to Lindsey for him, and they exchange meaningful looks. On the platform, believing Bud to be dead, Lindsey and the crew are surprised to find Bud radioing back to them, telling them to get ready. The crew observes something very large quickly rising out of the trench, and sees the lights from the NTI spacecraft as it rises. The enormous ship eventually surfaces, lifting many of the naval ships out of the water and leaving them aground on the NTI ship's hull, as well as the platform itself. Leaving the platform on the surface of the ship, the platform crew and remaining SEALS are surprised to find that they are fine and not suffering from decompression sickness after rising so fast out of the water, and credit the NTIs. Bud emerges from the NTI ship, and he and Lindsey rush to meet each other; engaging in a passionate kiss. Special Edition. The special edition includes more of the conflict between the United States and Soviet forces over the crash of the "Montana", with each side initially blaming the other for the disaster. When Bud arrives on the NTI ship, he is shown images of humanity's destructive behavior on a view screen. The NTIs create enormous megatsunami-level waves that threaten every coastline, including New York City (shown by the Statue of Liberty and the Verrazano Narrows Bridge) and San Francisco (shown by the Golden Gate Bridge), but then stall them moments before they would come crashing down. After showing Bud his messages of self-sacrifice and caring and believing all humanity to be capable of the same, the NTIs cause the standing waves to harmlessly recede back to normal ocean levels. The message is that it is time for humanity to end its self-destructive ways and unite. After Bud relays this through his keyboard, the NTIs start to bring their ship to the surface. Production. H. G. Wells was the first to introduce the notion of a sea alien in his 1897 short story "In the Abyss". The idea for "The Abyss" came to James Cameron when, at age 17 and in high school, he attended a science lecture about deep sea diving by a man who claimed to have been the first human to breathe fluid through his lungs. He subsequently wrote a short story that focused on a group of scientists in a laboratory at the bottom of the ocean. The basic idea did not change, but many of the details evolved over the years. Once Cameron arrived in Hollywood, he quickly realized that a group of scientists was not that commercial and changed it to a group of blue-collar workers. While making "Aliens", Cameron saw a "National Geographic" film about remote operated vehicles operating deep in the North Atlantic Ocean. These images reminded him of his short story. He and producer Gale Anne Hurd decided that "The Abyss" would be their next film. Cameron wrote a treatment combined with elements of a shooting script, which generated a lot of interest in Hollywood. He then wrote the script, basing the character of Lindsey on Hurd and finished it by the end of 1987. Cameron and Hurd were married before "The Abyss", separated during pre-production, and divorced in February 1989, two months after principal photography. Pre-production. The cast and crew trained for underwater diving for one week in the Cayman Islands. This was necessary because 40% of all live-action principal photography took place underwater. Furthermore, Cameron's production company had to design and build experimental equipment and develop a state-of-the-art communications system that allowed the director to talk underwater to the actors and dialogue to be recorded directly onto tape for the first time. Cameron had originally planned to shoot on location in the Bahamas where the story was set but quickly realized that he needed to have a completely controlled environment because of the stunts and special visual effects involved. He considered shooting the film in Malta, which had the largest unfiltered tank of water, but it was not adequate for Cameron's needs. The film was shot at the Cherokee Nuclear Power Plant outside Gaffney, South Carolina. It had been abandoned after a local power company spent $700 million in construction. The underwater sequences were filmed in two specially constructed tanks. The first one held of water, was 55 feet (18 m) deep and 209 feet (70 m) across. At the time, it was the largest fresh-water filtered tank in the world. Additional scenes were shot in the second tank that held of water. As the production crew rushed to finish painting the main tank, millions of gallons of water poured in. It took five days to fill. The Deepcore rig was anchored to a 90-ton concrete column at the bottom of the large tank. It consisted of six partial and complete modules that took over half a year to plan and build from scratch. Can-Dive Services Ltd., a Canadian commercial diving company that specialized in “saturation” diving systems and underwater technology, specially manufactured the two working craft (Flatbed and Cab One) for the film. Two million dollars was spent on set construction. Filming was also done at the largest underground lake in the world — a mine in Bonne Terre, Missouri, which was the background for several underwater shots. Principal photography. The main tank was not ready in time for the first day of principal photography. Cameron delayed filming for a week and pushed the smaller tank's schedule forward, demanding that it be ready weeks ahead of schedule. Filming eventually began on August 15, 1988, but there were still problems. On the first day of shooting in the main water tank, it sprang a leak and of water a minute rushed out. The studio brought in dam-repair experts to seal it. In addition, enormous pipes with elbow fittings had been improperly installed. There was so much water pressure in them that the elbows blew off. Cameron's choice of cinematographer on the movie was Mikael Salomon - a US-based Danish national who would go on to work on other blockbusters such as "Backdraft" and "Arachnophobia" before moving into the director's slot on a myriad of films and TV shows including two editions of the acclaimed HBO WW2 series "Band of Brothers". Salomon used three cameras in watertight housings that were specially designed. Another special housing was designed for scenes that went from above-water dialogue to below-water dialogue. The filmmakers had to figure out how to keep the water clear enough to shoot and dark enough to look realistic at 2,000 feet (700 m), which was achieved by floating a thick layer of plastic beads in the water and covering the top of the tank with an enormous tarpaulin. Cameron wanted to see the actors' faces and hear their dialogue, and thus hired Western Space and Marine to engineer helmets which would remain optically clear underwater and installed state-of-the-art aircraft quality microphones into each helmet. Safety conditions were also a major factor with the installation of a decompression chamber on site, along with a diving bell and a safety diver for each actor. The breathing fluid used in the film actually exists and has been successfully tested on a human subject. Over the previous 20 years it had been tested on several animals, who survived. The rat shown in the film was actually breathing fluid and survived unharmed, although the scene was censored in Britain for perceived cruelty to animals. Ed Harris did not breathe the fluid. He held his breath inside a helmet full of liquid while being towed 30 feet (10 m) below the surface of the large tank. He recalled that the worst moments were being towed with fluid rushing up his nose and his eyes swelling up. Actors played their scenes at 33 feet (11 m), too shallow a depth for them to need decompression, and rarely stayed down for more than an hour at a time. Cameron and the 26-person underwater diving crew sank to 50 feet (17 m) and stayed down for five hours at a time. To avoid decompression sickness, they would have to hang from hoses halfway up the tank for as long as two hours, breathing pure oxygen. The cast and crew endured over six months of grueling six-day, 70-hour weeks on an isolated set. At one point, Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio had a physical and emotional breakdown on the set and on another occasion, Ed Harris burst into spontaneous sobbing while driving home. Cameron himself admitted, "I knew this was going to be a hard shoot, but even I had no idea just how hard. I don't "ever" want to go through this again". For example, for the scene where portions of the rig are flooded with water, he realized that he initially didn't know how to minimize the sequence's inherent danger. It took him more than four hours to set up the shot safely. Actor Leo Burmester said, "Shooting "The Abyss" has been the hardest thing I've ever done. Jim Cameron is the type of director who pushes you to the edge, but he doesn't make you do anything he wouldn't do himself." A lightning storm caused a 200-foot (65 m) tear in the black tarpaulin covering the main tank. Repairing it would have taken too much time, so the production began shooting at night. In addition, blooming algae often reduced visibility to 20 feet (6 m) within hours. Over-chlorination led to divers' skin burning and exposed hair being stripped off. Some of the actors did not like the slow pace of filming. Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio remembered, "We never started and finished any one scene in any one day". At one point, she became so frustrated with Cameron's style of directing that she walked off the set, yelling, "We are not animals," when Cameron told the actors to relieve themselves in their wetsuits to save time between takes. Michael Biehn also grew frustrated by the waiting. He claimed that he was in South Carolina for five months and only acted for three to four weeks. He remembered one day being ten meters underwater and "suddenly the lights went out. It was so black I couldn't see my hand. I couldn't surface. I realized I might not get out of there." Harris said that the daily mental and physical strain was very intense and remembered, "One day we were all in our dressing rooms and people began throwing couches out the windows and smashing the walls. We just had to get our frustrations out." There were reports from South Carolina that the actor was so upset by the physical demands of the film and Cameron's dictatorial directing style that he said he would refuse to help promote the motion picture. Harris later denied this rumor and helped promote the film. Cameron responded to these complaints, saying, "For every hour they spent trying to figure out what magazine to read, we spent an hour at the bottom of the tank breathing compressed air." After 140 days and $4 million over budget, filming finally wrapped on December 8, 1988. Post-production. To create the alien water tentacle or pseudopod, Cameron initially considered cel animation or a tentacle sculpted in clay and then animated via stop-motion techniques with water reflections projected onto it. Phil Tippett suggested Cameron contact Industrial Light & Magic. The special visual effects work was divided up among seven FX divisions with motion control work by Dream Quest Images and computer graphics and opticals by ILM. ILM designed a program to produce surface waves of differing sizes and kinetic properties for the pseudopod. For the moment where it mimics Bud and Lindsey's faces, Ed Harris had eight of his facial expressions scanned while twelve of Mastrantonio's were scanned via software used to create computer-generated sculptures. The set was photographed from every angle and digitally recreated so that the pseudopod could be accurately composited into the live-action footage. The company spent six months to create 75 seconds of computer graphics needed for the creature. The film was to have opened on July 4, 1989, but its release was delayed for more than a month by production and special effects problems. Studio executives were nervous about the film's commercial prospects when preview audiences laughed at scenes of serious intent. Industry insiders said that the release delay was because nervous executives ordered the film's ending completely re-shot. There was also a question of the size of the film's budget. One executive claimed $47 million while "The Wall Street Journal" reported a figure of $60 million. Box office revenue tracker site "The Numbers" lists the production budget at $70 million. None of these figures include marketing or distribution costs. Reception. "The Abyss" was released on August 9, 1989, in 1,533 theaters, where it grossed $9.3 million on its opening weekend. It went on to make $54.4 million in North America and $35.5 million throughout the rest of the world for a worldwide total of $90 million. Critical reaction. The review-tallying website Rotten Tomatoes scores "The Abyss" a "Certified Fresh" rating of 88%, with 36 out of the 41 counted reviews being positive and an average rating of 7.4 out of 10, with the consensus: "The utterly gorgeous special effects frequently overshadow the fact that "The Abyss" is also a totally gripping, claustrophobic thriller, complete with an interesting crew of characters." On Metacritic, the film holds an average score of 62 out of 100, based on 14 reviews. As of March 17, 2013, the film has a score or 7.6 out of 10 on the Internet Movie Database, based on 88,867 votes. The reviews tallied therein contain reviews for both the theatrical release and the Special Edition. "Newsweek" magazine's David Ansen, summarizing the theatrical release, wrote, "The payoff to "The Abyss" is pretty damn silly — a portentous "deus ex machina" that leaves too many questions unanswered and evokes too many other films." In her review for "The New York Times", Caryn James claimed that the film had "at least four endings," and "by the time the last ending of this two-and-a-quarter-hour film comes along, the effect is like getting off a demon roller coaster that has kept racing several laps after you were ready to get off." Chris Dafoe, in his review for "The Globe and Mail", wrote, "At its best, "The Abyss" offers a harrowing, thrilling journey through inky waters and high tension. In the end, however, this torpedo turns out to be a dud - it swerves at the last minute, missing its target and exploding ineffectually in a flash of fantasy and fairy-tale schtick." While praising the film's first two hours as "compelling", the "Toronto Star" remarked, "But when Cameron takes the adventure to the next step, deep into the heart of fantasy, it all becomes one great big deja boo. If we are to believe what Cameron finds way down there, E.T. didn't really call home, he went surfing and fell off his board." "USA Today" gave the film three out of four stars and wrote, "Most of this underwater blockbuster is 'good,' and at least two action set pieces are great. But the dopey wrap-up sinks the rest 20,000 leagues." In her review for "The Washington Post", Rita Kempley wrote that the film "asks us to believe that the drowned return to life, that the comatose come to the rescue, that driven women become doting wives, that Neptune cares about landlubbers. I'd sooner believe that Moby Dick could swim up the drainpipe." "Halliwell's Film Guide" claimed the film was "despite some clever special effects, a tedious, overlong fantasy that is more excited by machinery than people." Conversely, "Rolling Stone" magazine's Peter Travers enthused, "["The Abyss" is] the greatest underwater adventure ever filmed, the most consistently enthralling of the summer blockbusters...one of the best pictures of the year." The release of the Special Edition in 1993 garnered much praise. It also helped some of the above people and others see the film as less confusing. Each giving it thumbs up, Siskel remarked, ""The Abyss" has been improved," and Ebert added, "It makes the film seem more well rounded." In the book "Reel Views 2", James Berardinelli comments, "James Cameron's "The Abyss" may be the most extreme example of an available movie that demonstrates how the vision of a director, once fully realized on screen, can transform a good motion picture into a great one." Awards and nominations. "The Abyss" won the 1990 Oscar for Best Visual Effects. It was also nominated for: The studio unsuccessfully lobbied hard to get Michael Biehn nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. Many other film organizations, such as the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films and the American Society of Cinematographers, also nominated "The Abyss". The film ended up winning a total of three other awards from these organizations. History of the Special Edition. Even as the film was in the first weeks of its 1989 theatrical release, rumors were circulating of a wave sequence missing from the film's end. As chronicled in the 1993 laserdisc Special Edition release and later in the 2000 DVD, the pressure to cut the film's running time stemmed from both distribution concerns and Industrial Light & Magic's then-inability to complete the required sequences. From the distributor's perspective, the looming three-hour length limited the number of times the film could be shown each day, assuming that audiences would be willing to sit through the entire film, though 1990's "Dances with Wolves" would shatter both industry-held notions. Further, test audience screenings revealed a surprisingly mixed reaction to the sequences as they appeared in their unfinished form; in post-screening surveys, they dominated both the "Scenes I liked most" and "Scenes I liked least" fields. Contrary to speculation, studio meddling was not the cause of the shortened length; Cameron held final cut as long as the film met a running time of roughly two hours and 15 minutes. He later noted, "Ironically, the studio brass were horrified when I said I was cutting the wave." Cameron elected to remove the sequences along with other, shorter scenes elsewhere in the film, reducing the running time from roughly two hours and 50 minutes to two hours and 20 minutes and diminishing his signature themes of nuclear peril and disarmament. Subsequent test audience screenings drew substantially better reactions. Star Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio publicly expressed regret about some of the scenes selected for removal from the film's theatrical cut. Shortly after the film's premiere, Cameron and video editor Ed Marsh created a longer video cut of "The Abyss" for their own use that incorporated dailies. With the tremendous success of Cameron's "" in 1991, Lightstorm Entertainment secured a five-year, $500 million financing deal with 20th Century Fox for films produced, directed or written by Cameron. The contract allocated roughly $500,000 of the amount to complete "The Abyss." ILM was commissioned to finish the work they had started three years earlier, with many of the same people who had worked on it originally. The CGI tools developed for "Terminator 2" allowed ILM to complete the rumored tidal-wave sequence, as well as correcting flaws in rendering for all their other work done for the film. The tidal wave sequence had originally been designed by ILM as a physical effect, using a plastic wave, but Cameron was dissatisfied with the end result, and the sequence was scrapped. By the time Cameron was ready to revisit "The Abyss," ILM's CGI prowess had finally progressed to an appropriate level, and the wave was rendered as a CGI effect. "Terminator 2" screenwriter and frequent Cameron collaborator William Wisher had a cameo in the scene as a reporter in Santa Monica who catches the first tidal wave on camera. When it was discovered that original production sound recordings had been lost, new dialogue and foley were recorded, but since Captain Kidd Brewer had died of a self-inflicted gunshot before he could return to re-loop his dialog, producers and editors had to lift his original dialogue tracks from the remaining optical-sound prints of the dailies. The Special Edition was therefore dedicated to his memory as a result. As Alan Silvestri was not available to compose new music for the restored scenes, Robert Garrett, who had composed temp music for the film's initial cutting in 1989, was chosen to create new music. The Special Edition was completed in December 1992, with 28 minutes added to the film, and saw a limited theatrical release in New York City and Los Angeles on February 26, 1993, and expanded to key cities nationwide in the following weeks. On home video, in addition to the conventional two-tape VHS release, the first THX-certified LaserDisc title of the Special Edition Box Set was released in May of 1993 and was a best seller for the rest of the year. Both the theatrical and SE editions remain available on DVD; however all available DVDs are non-anamorphic, with the exception of the Chinese DVD produced for Region 6 by Excel Media. There has been demand for this film to be released on Blu-ray format. Talk of Cameron supervising the digital transfer of the film negative to Blu-ray format has circulated the internet, but no release date has been given by 20th Century Fox. Adaptations. Science-fiction author Orson Scott Card was hired to write a novelization of the film based on the screenplay and discussions with Cameron. He wrote back-stories for Bud, Lindsey and Coffey as a means not only of helping the actors define their roles, but also to justify some of their behavior and mannerisms in the film. Card also wrote the aliens as a colonizing species which preferentially sought high-pressure deep-water worlds to build their ships as they traveled further into the galaxy (their mothership was in orbit on the far side of the moon). The NTIs' knowledge of neuroanatomy and nanoscale manipulation of biochemistry was responsible for many of the "deus ex machina" aspects of the film. A licensed interactive fiction video game based on the script was being developed for Infocom by Bob Bates, but was cancelled when Infocom was shut down by its then-parent company Activision. Source Interactive later created an action video game entitled "The Abyss: Incident at Europa". The game takes place a few years after the film, where the player must find a cure for a deadly virus.
1081891	Surviving Sid is a 2008 computer-animated short film from Blue Sky Studios, starring Sid the Sloth of "Ice Age" and a cameo appearance by Scrat. It is the third in the series of "Ice Age" short films, the other two being "Gone Nutty" and "No Time for Nuts". Unlike the first two "Ice Age" short films, "Surviving Sid" focuses on Sid and a small group of camping children. Directed by Galen Tan Chu and Karen Disher, the short premiered on on December 9, 2008, on the "Horton Hears a Who!" DVD and Blu-ray. Plot. Sid, the Sloth, takes a school of children out on a camping trip from home, only to find that in typical Sid style, he is not a very good guide and the children he takes with him don't have a very good time. Scrat makes a small cameo appearance in the short, he has swallowed his nut and is struggling to keep it down, in true Scrat style he coughs it up and it is stolen from him. The camping trip leaves some of the children somewhat traumatized. Sid tries to pick a flower, but somehow this has led to a tree falling, which then hits a rock, which causes a chain reaction and hits a series of larger rocks, until eventually hitting a large iceberg. The iceberg then carves out a u-shaped valley, which Sid later names the Grand Canyon. Afterwards the kids get so annoyed with Sid that it ends with them tying him up. At the end of the short movie (20,000 years later in the present day) it shows a father and son beaver looking over the Grand Canyon with the son asking who made it. The father replies "Nature or a being with infinite wisdom." Release. The short film was released with the "Horton Hears a Who!" Blu-ray and DVD, which was released in the United Kingdom on October 20, 2008, and in the United States on December 9, 2008. As of July 2009, it is also available as a free "Video Podcast" in the USA iTunes Store, and on the PlayStation Network.
1635358	Barbie Hsu also known as Dà S (大S) ( was born on 6 October 1976. She is a Taiwanese actress and singer. She is most well known for her role as Shan Cai in Taiwanese drama "Meteor Garden", an adaptation of the Japanese manga Boys Over Flowers and "Mars" with Vic Chou of F4. She has also acted in movies, her first being the Chinese movie "The Ghost Inside". She also had a singing career prior to her acting career. She was in a duo group called "S.O.S." (Sisters of Shu) with her sister Dee Hsu. Their last album was called Abnormal Girls. Due to the nature of the term S.O.S, they changed their group name to ASOS (A Sisters of Shu).
1164017	Wilfred Bailey Everett "Bill" Bixby III (January 22, 1934 − November 21, 1993), was an American film and television actor, director, and frequent game show panelist. His career spanned more than three decades, appearing on stage, in films and on television series. He is known for his roles as Tim O'Hara on the CBS sitcom "My Favorite Martian", Tom Corbett on the ABC comedy-drama series "The Courtship of Eddie's Father", stage illusionist Anthony Blake in the NBC crime drama series "The Magician", but is perhaps best known for his role as scientist Dr. David Banner on the CBS sci-fi drama series "The Incredible Hulk". Biography. Early years. Bixby, a fourth-generation Californian of English descent, was born in San Francisco, California. His father, Wilfred Bailey Everett Bixby Jr., was a store clerk and his mother, Jane (née McFarland) Bixby, was a senior manager at I. Magnin & Company. When Bixby was eight, his father enlisted in the U.S. Navy during World War II and traveled to the South Pacific. He attended Lowell High School where he developed his oratory and dramatic skills as a member of the Lowell Forensic Society. Though he received only average grades, he also competed in high school speech tournaments regionally. After graduation from high school in 1952, against his parents' wishes, he majored in drama at San Francisco City College, where he was a classmate of future actress Lee Meriwether. Later, he attended the University of California, Berkeley, his parents' alma mater, and joined the Phi Delta Theta fraternity there. Just four credits short of earning a degree, Bixby dropped out of college and joined the United States Marine Corps after being drafted into the United States Army during the Korean War. Bixby served stateside duty in the Marines and was honorably discharged. He then moved to Hollywood, where he had a string of odd jobs that included bellhop and lifeguard. He organized shows at a resort in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. In 1959, he was hired to work as a model and to do commercial work for General Motors and Chrysler. Beginning acting. In 1961, Bixby was in the musical "The Boy Friend" at the Detroit Civic Theater, returning to Hollywood to make his television debut on an episode of "The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis". He became a highly regarded character actor and guest-starred in many 1960s TV series including "Ben Casey", "The Twilight Zone", "The Andy Griffith Show", "Dr. Kildare", "Straightaway", and "Hennesey". He also joined the cast of "The Joey Bishop Show" in 1962. In 1963 he played a sailor with a Napoleon tattoo in the movie "Irma La Douce", a romantic comedy starring Jack Lemmon and Shirley MacLaine, directed by Billy Wilder based on the 1956 French musical. During the 1970s, he made guest-appearances on TV series such as "Ironside", "Insight", "Barbary Coast", "The Love Boat", "Medical Center", four episodes of "Love, American Style", "Fantasy Island", and two episodes each of "The Streets of San Francisco", and Rod Serling's "Night Gallery". "My Favorite Martian" and other early roles. Bixby took the role of young reporter Tim O'Hara in the 1963 CBS sitcom, "My Favorite Martian", in which he co-starred with Ray Walston. But by 1966, high production costs forced the series to come to an end after 107 episodes. After the cancellation of "Martian", Bixby starred in four movies: "Ride Beyond Vengeance", "Doctor, You've Got to Be Kidding!", and two of Elvis Presley's movies, "Clambake", and "Speedway". He turned down the role as Marlo Thomas's boyfriend in the successful "That Girl" (though he later guested on the show) and starred in two failed pilots. "The Courtship of Eddie's Father". In 1969, Bixby starred in his second high-profile television role, as Tom Corbett in "The Courtship of Eddie's Father", a comedy-drama on ABC. The series concerned a widowed father raising a young son, managing a major syndicated magazine while at the same time trying to re-establish himself on the dating scene. This series was in the vein of other 1960s and 1970s sitcoms that dealt with widowhood, such as "The Andy Griffith Show" and "My Three Sons". Eddie was played by novice actor Brandon Cruz. The pair developed a close rapport that translated to an off-camera friendship as well. The cast was rounded out by Academy Award-winning actress Miyoshi Umeki, who played the role of Tom's housekeeper, Mrs. Livingston; James Komack (one of the series' producers) as Norman Tinker (Tom's pseudo-hippie, quirky photographer) and actress Kristina Holland as Tom's secretary, Tina. One episode of the show co-starred Bixby's future wife, Brenda Benet, as one of Tom's girlfriends. Bixby was nominated for the Emmy Award for Lead Actor in a Comedy Series in 1971. The following year, he won the Parents Without Partners Exemplary Service Award for 1972. Bixby made his directorial debut on the show in 1970, directing eight episodes. ABC canceled the sitcom in 1972 at the end of season three. After the show was canceled, Bixby and Cruz remained in contact. Cruz was even a guest on Bixby's hit series, "The Incredible Hulk". The death of Bixby's only child, in 1981, drew Bixby and Cruz closer still. The two would remain in touch until Bixby's death in 1993. In 1995, Cruz would name his own son Lincoln Bixby Cruz. Brandon Cruz said of the show which developed a professional father-son relationship, compared to that of "The Andy Griffith Show", “We dealt with issues that were talked about but were never brought up on television. Bill wasn't the first actor to portray a single widowed father, but he became one of the popular ones, because of his easy-going way of this crazy little kid." Prior to Bixby's promotion as the director, Brandon said, "He was looking for the best dolly grip, along with the boom operator that if something was called specifically and failed, Bill could be easily angry." On the kind of relationship Bill had wanted with his co-star, Brandon also said, “Bill would never speak down to me. Bill treated me as an equal. He made sure that we had a lot of time together, just so he could kinda crawl inside my head and see what actually made a kid tick.” The final thing he realized of Bill's real-life father's death in 1971, and when asked about his mentor’s father’s loss, he stated: "He had that type of mentality that the show must go on, thinking it was just a great T.V. show, after he broke down weeping." 1973 to 1977. In 1973, Bixby starred in "The Magician". The series was well liked, but it only lasted one season. An accomplished amateur magician himself, he hosted several TV specials in the mid-1970s which featured other amateur magicians, and was a respected member of the Hollywood magic community, belonging to The Magic Castle, an exclusive club for magicians. During the show's popular, although short-lived production, Bixby as always, invited a few old friends along to co-star such as Pamela Britton (in her final role), Kristina Holland and Ralph O'Hara. Also in 1973, he starred in Steambath, a play by author Bruce Jay Friedman, on PBS with Valerie Perrine and Jose Perez. He became a popular game show panelist, appearing mostly on "Password" and "The Hollywood Squares". He was also a panelist on the 1974 revival of "Masquerade Party" hosted by Richard Dawson. He had also appeared with Dawson on "Cop-Out". In 1975, he co-starred with Tim Conway and Don Knotts in the Disney movie "The Apple Dumpling Gang", which was well received by the public. Returning to television, he worked with Susan Blakely on "Rich Man, Poor Man", a highly successful television miniseries in 1976. He played a daredevil stunt pilot in an episode of the short-lived 1976 CBS adventure series "Spencer's Pilots", starring Gene Evans. In 1977, Bixby appeared with Donna Mills, Richard Jaeckel, and William Shatner in the last episode, entitled "The Scarlet Ribbon", of NBC's western series "The Oregon Trail", starring Rod Taylor and Andrew Stevens. Bixby directed two of "The Oregon Trail" episodes. In 1976, he was honored with two Emmy Award nominations, one for Outstanding Lead Actor for a Single Appearance in Drama or Comedy for "The Streets of San Francisco" and the other for Outstanding Single Performance by a Supporting Actor in Comedy or Drama Series for "Rich Man, Poor Man". Bixby also hosted "Once Upon A Classic" on PBS from 1976 to 1980. "The Incredible Hulk". Although he initially declined the part of Dr. David Banner in "The Incredible Hulk" because of its comic book origins, on reading Kenneth Johnson's script for the pilot episode, he was persuaded to change his mind (and agreed to remain involved with the series for as long as Johnson was to be involved). Consequently, Bixby starred in the pilot movie called "The Incredible Hulk", based loosely on the Stan Lee and Jack Kirby Marvel comic book characters. Its success (coupled with some theatrical releases of the film in Europe) convinced CBS to turn it into a weekly series, which began airing in the Spring of 1978. It became an international hit, seen in over 70 countries. The show made Bixby a pop icon of the late 1970s and 1980s. One line of dialogue spoken by Bixby in the pilot: "Don't make me angry. You wouldn't like me when I'm angry", became a catchphrase the world over (the phrase was used again, first in Ang Lee's "Hulk" (2003), although in Spanish, and again in the 2008 movie "The Incredible Hulk", with an altered version in Portuguese). The pilot also starred Susan Sullivan as Dr. Elaina Marks, who tries to help the conflicted and widowed Dr. Banner overcome his "problem", and falls in love with him in the process. During the show's run, Bixby invited two of his long-time friends, Ray Walston and Brandon Cruz, to guest star with him in different episodes of the series. He also worked on the show with his friend, movie actress Mariette Hartley, who would later star with Bixby in his final series, "Goodnight, Beantown" in 1983. Hartley appears in the memorable double-length episode "Married" (in which David finds another source of help with whom he falls in love and marries), and subsequently won an Emmy Award for her guest appearance. Future star Loni Anderson would also guest star with Bixby during the first season. Bixby directed one episode of the series, "Bring Me the Head of the Hulk" in 1980 (original airdate: January 9, 1981). The series was canceled after the following season, but leftover episodes aired as late as the next June. Bixby later reprised the role in three television movies: "The Incredible Hulk Returns", "The Trial of the Incredible Hulk", and "The Death of the Incredible Hulk". Later work. Bixby was executive producer and co-star of the short-lived sit-com "Goodnight, Beantown" (1983–84). He also directed three episodes of the series. During the same time period, Bixby directed several episodes of another short-lived television series, "Wizards and Warriors", which aired in 1983. In 1987, he directed eight episodes of the satirical police sitcom "Sledge Hammer!", including the episode, "Hammer Hits the Rock" in season two, where he made an uncredited appearance as "Zeke" (prisoner in cell No. 76). Bixby was executive producer of the three "Hulk" made-for-television sequel movies in the late 1980s and in 1990. He also directed the latter two. Bixby hosted two "Is Elvis Alive?" specials in August 1991 and January 1992, both from Las Vegas. Bixby made his last acting appearance in 1992, guest starring on an episode of "". He finished his career by directing 30 episodes (in seasons two and three) of the "NBC" sitcom "Blossom". Personal life. Bixby's father died of a heart attack in 1971, a month before Bill's first wedding. His ashes were scattered in the Pacific off the coast of the island of Maui. Bixby was married three times. His first marriage was to actress Brenda Benet. They were married on July 4, 1971. She gave birth to their son Christopher on September 25, 1974. In addition to their earlier appearance together on "Courtship", Benet guest-starred with him on his "The Magician" series in 1973, did an episode of "The Love Boat" with him in 1977, and guested on his "The Incredible Hulk" program in 1980 just before they divorced. On March 1, 1981, Bixby's six-year-old son Christopher died suddenly of a rare throat infection. His ashes were scattered in the Pacific Ocean, near Maui, like his grandfather's. Benet committed suicide on April 7, 1982, following a break-up with her assistant, Tammy Bruce. In 1989, he met Laura Michaels, who had worked on the set of one of his "Hulk" movies. The couple married a year later in Hawaii. In early 1991, Bixby was diagnosed with prostate cancer and underwent treatment. He was divorced in the same year. In late 1992, friends introduced him to the artist Judith Kliban, widow of B. Kliban, a cartoonist who had died of a pulmonary embolism. Bixby married Judith in late 1993, just six weeks before he collapsed on the set of "Blossom". In early 1993, after rumors began circulating about his health, Bixby went public with his illness, discussing his disease and the energy needed to keep him alive. As a result, he made several guest appearances on shows such as "Entertainment Tonight", "The Today Show", and "Good Morning America", among many others. Death. Bixby's cancer recurred and was diagnosed as terminal. On November 21, 1993, six days after his final assignment on "Blossom", he died of complications in Century City, California. He was 59 years old. His wife, Judith, and his longtime friend, Dick Martin, were by his side. His ashes are at Kliban's Maui estate. Biopic. In 2003, while promoting "X2", Hugh Jackman mentioned in an interview on UK television morning talk show "This Morning" that he planned to make a biopic of Bill Bixby, that he had been drawn to the project by Bryan Singer and that it was a project he loved. A year later, while promoting "Van Helsing", he mentioned on "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno" that he wanted to make the movie soon. Leno showed a picture of Jackman and Bixby and pointed out the similarities in looks. Jackman would later reveal on "Parkinson" in the UK that he was drawn to Bixby's story because it was one of tremendous courage and determination against the odds. Many magazines in the UK including "Total Film", "Empire" and "SFX" ran the story that Jackman would be playing Bixby. Nothing more was heard until summer 2009 when it was rumoured that Jackman's Seed Productions would add this to their upcoming projects with the possibility of Richard Donner directing or Jackman himself making his directing debut. TNT announced in 2009 that it too would be making a TV movie based on Bixby's life. It will star possibly Noah Wyle or Tim Daly as Bixby.
1055052	Down Periscope is a 1996 comedy film starring Kelsey Grammer as the captain of a rust-bucket Navy submarine, the USS "Stingray", who is fighting for his career as he is saddled with a group of misfit seamen. David S. Ward directed the film. Lauren Holly and Rob Schneider co-star as officers on the sub. Also featured are Harry Dean Stanton, Bruce Dern, William H. Macy and Rip Torn. The name of the film is a play on the 1959 World War II drama "Up Periscope", takes plot themes — such as a decrepit submarine and female crewmember(s) — from the 1959 World War II comedy "Operation Petticoat", and spoofs several titles in the genre of films about submarines including Cold War drama "The Hunt for Red October".
1163546	Leonard Simon Nimoy ( ; born March 26, 1931) is an American actor, film director, poet, singer and photographer. Nimoy is best known for his role of Spock in (1966–1969), and in multiple film, television, and video game sequels. Nimoy began his career in his early twenties, teaching acting classes in Hollywood and making minor film and television appearances through the 1950s, as well as playing the title role in "Kid Monk Baroni". In 1953, he served in the United States Army. In 1965, he made his first appearance in the rejected "Star Trek" pilot, "", and would go on to play the character of Mr. Spock until 1969, followed by seven feature films and guest slots in various sequels. His character of Spock had a significant cultural impact and garnered Nimoy three Emmy Award nominations; "TV Guide" named Spock one of the 50 greatest TV characters. After the original "Star Trek" series, Nimoy starred in "" for two seasons, hosted the documentary series "In Search of...", and narrated "Civilization IV", as well as making several well-received stage appearances. More recently, he also had a recurring role in the science fiction series "Fringe".
1056228	Racing with the Moon is a 1984 American drama film starring Sean Penn, Elizabeth McGovern, and Nicolas Cage. It was directed by Richard Benjamin and written by Steven Kloves. The original music score was composed by Dave Grusin. Plot. The film is set in 1942 California, in and around Mendocino. Penn plays Henry 'Hopper' Nash, a small town boy who has been drafted into the U.S. Marine Corps and is about to serve overseas. He is close friends with Nicky (Cage), who is also about to be deployed. They have approximately six weeks before shipping out; the film portrays their remaining time as civilians. Henry (Penn) and Nicky (Cage) work together at the bowling alley setting pins, buffing lanes, and working the front counter. Henry sees Caddie Winger (McGovern) at the movie theatre taking tickets. He is immediately smitten and conspires with a younger boy to give her flowers. Caddie comes to the soda shop where Henry and Nicky are hanging out. Henry jumps over the counter and pretends that he is working. He follows Caddie to her home and discovers that she lives in an elaborate mansion. He assumes that she is a "Gatsby girl" and is therefore rich. As it turns out, Caddie lives there because her mother is a maid. Later, Henry sees Caddie working at the library. He attempts to get her name but she rebuffs him. At the soda shop, Caddie sets Henry up with one of her friends. Henry meets the others at the skating rink and pretends that he knows how to skate. He ends up crashing but in doing so is able to steal some time with Caddie. She agrees to go on a date with Henry and the two quickly become an item. Meanwhile, Nicky's girlfriend, Sally Kaiser (Suzanne Adkinson), is pregnant with his child. He attempts to get $150 from Henry for an abortion. Henry asks Caddie, whom he assumes can easily afford it. Caddie, in an effort to avoid letting Henry down, attempts to steal a pearl necklace from Alice, a young woman who lives at the house at which Caddie resides. She is caught and confesses the reason she needs the necklace. She ends up borrowing the money from Alice. Sally has the abortion and Henry berates Nicky for not being there for his girlfriend. This causes a brief rift that is mended when each realizes that they need each other in order to handle the difficult transition they are about to make. The film closes at the boys prepare to get on the train taking them away to the war. They wait for the train to go by before racing after it and jumping on.
1156995	Tulpan is a 2008 Kazakh drama film. It was directed by Sergey Dvortsevoy and distributed by Zeitgeist Films. "Tulpan" was Kazakhstan's 2009 Academy Awards official submission to Foreign Language Film category. It won the award for Best Film at the 2nd Asia Pacific Screen Awards. Overview. Asa, a recently discharged Russian Navy sailor, is living in the remote Kazakhstan steppe with his sister Samal, her older husband, Ondas, and their three children. He dreams of becoming a herdsman with his own ranch, but needs to be married before he will be able to fulfil his dream. Asa hopes to marry Tulpan, the daughter of a neighboring family and the only woman eligible for marriage perhaps within a hundred miles. However, her parents are unwilling to see their daughter married off to an unemployed man with few prospects and Tulpan herself appears to have little interest in Asa. The plot of the story follows the trials of Asa, his surrogate family, and his western culture-loving friend Boni. Development. Director Sergey Dvortsevoy was born in Kazakhstan, lived there for 28 years working for an aviation company, and was very familiar with Kazakhstan's countryside. In an interview at the New York Film Festival he revealed how he had always wanted to tell a story about such a barren setting. Dvortsevoy has said that the people who live in the Hunger Steppe have always intrigued him; in the interview he revealed how he has always noticed an inner balance to the people that live in this part of the world, a happiness despite subjective adversity that has always interested him. Casting for the film took many, many months, and Dvortsevoy recalls having sent crews with small cameras to nearly every city in Kazakhstan in search of the right cast members. Having found them, he made the main cast (Asa, Samal, Ondas, Beke, Maha and Nuka) live in the yurt depicted in the film for one month before filming. In the interview, Dvortsevoy described how the story came together, 20 percent of the film was from his original script while the other 80 percent came about from a real-time reworked script based on the circumstances and conditions that arose on location. Dvortsevoy rehearsed all of the sequences with the animals or on the tractor, but the emotional scenes were rehearsed without dialogue and only fully performed at the time of filming. Samal, who played Asa's sister and the mother of the children, was the only professional actress on set having worked on stage in the theatre, however at the time of filming she was only nineteen years old. Still "only a child herself", she struggled to grow accustomed to the household chores and motherly duties during her month living in the yurt. Askhat Kuchinchirekov, the actor who portrayed Asa, was not a professional but still a student at one of the film schools in Kazakhstan. The three children were able to rehearse scenes to different degrees with the exception of Nurzhigit Zhapabayev, the little boy who played Nuka, who Dvortsevoy simply "let loose" to be as wild and natural as one of the "animals". Reception. The film was well received. It received a 95% rating on the website Rotten Tomatoes. Roger Ebert gave it four stars and praised it in his review. Upon the film's initial release in Kazakhstan, at a special screening of 1500 people, although it was praised by the herdsman and rural folk depicted in the film, it was criticized and looked down upon by some Kazakhstan government officials, who felt that the film portrayed an even more degrading picture of Kazakhstan than Borat.
1163525	Bryan Lee Cranston (born March 7, 1956) is an American actor, voice actor, screenwriter, director, and producer. He is best known for portraying Walter White in the AMC drama series "Breaking Bad", for which he won the Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series three consecutive times. He is also widely known for portraying Hal in the Fox sitcom "Malcolm in the Middle", and has appeared in several critically acclaimed films such as "Saving Private Ryan", "Little Miss Sunshine", "Drive", and "Argo". Early life. Cranston was born in Canoga Park, California. He is the son of Audrey Peggy Sell, a radio actress, and Joseph Louis "Joe" Cranston, an actor and Hollywood producer. He was the second of their three children. He is of Irish, English, German, and German-Austrian ancestry on his father's side, while his maternal grandparents were immigrants from Germany. In reference to his upbringing, Cranston has stated: "My mom and dad were both broken people, and because of that, they were incapacitated as far as parenting. They weren't capable, and we lost the house in a foreclosure. We were kicked out." He was raised partly by his grandparents, living on their farm and working with poultry. He grew up in the Los Angeles area, where he graduated from Canoga Park High School, and earned an associate degree in police science from Los Angeles Valley College in 1976. Career. After college Cranston began his acting career in local and regional theaters, getting his start at the Granada Theater in the San Fernando Valley. He had previously performed as a youth, but his show business parents had mixed feelings about their son being involved in the profession, so he did not continue until years later. He has worked regularly since the late 1980s, mostly in minor roles. His advertising work includes commercials for Frito Lay, Excedrin, Honda Accord, Coffee-Mate, and Preparation H. His voice acting includes English dubbing of Japanese anime under the name Lee Stone, including "Royal Space Force – The Wings of Honneamise", "Macross Plus", and "Armitage III Polymatrix." He was an original cast member of the ABC soap opera "Loving", where he played Douglas Donovan from 1983 to 1985. Cranston also starred in the short-lived series "Raising Miranda" in 1988. His largest role prior to "Malcolm in the Middle" was as astronaut Buzz Aldrin in the HBO series "From the Earth to the Moon". He also played astronaut Gus Grissom in the film "That Thing You Do!". In 1998, he appeared in Steven Spielberg's "Saving Private Ryan", as the colonel who insists that Private Ryan be saved. From 1994 to 1997, Cranston appeared as Dr. Tim Whatley, Jerry's dentist, on "Seinfeld". Several episodes focused on Jerry's paranoia about Tim in bizarre situations, such as when Jerry becomes obsessed with the notion that Tim and his female assistant are molesting him while he is unconscious during dental surgery. 1999 marked Cranston's second appearance for a recurring role; on the CBS sitcom "The King of Queens", he played Doug Heffernan's annoying neighbor, Tim Sacksky, who at one point becomes a water purifier salesman and recruits Doug to sell them with him. In 1997, Cranston had a small role in "Babylon 5" as Ericsson, the captain of a White Star vessel ordered into a suicide mission to plant misinformation within the enemy ranks. Later in 1999, Cranston wrote and directed the film "Last Chance". His theatrical credits include starring roles in "The God of Hell", "Chapter Two", "The Taming of the Shrew", "A Doll's House", "Barefoot in the Park", "Eastern Standard", "Wrestlers", and "The Steven Weed Show", for which he won a Drama-Logue Award. In 2000, Cranston landed a leading role as Hal on the comedy series "Malcolm in the Middle". He would eventually direct several episodes of the show, and received three Emmy nominations for his performance. Cranston reprised his role (voice only) in a cutaway gag during the "Family Guy" episode "I Take Thee Quagmire", killing Lois (his wife on "Malcolm in the Middle") with a refrigerator door because of her incessant babbling, freeing himself and his sons. He has had guest roles in many television series, including a white-collar criminal searching for his estranged wife and daughter in "The Flash", a lawyer attempting to free the title character from a contract in "Sabrina the Teenage Witch", and a bigoted man being driven insane by extremely low frequency sonar waves in "The X-Files" episode "Drive". He also had a guest role in late 2006 on the CBS sitcom "How I Met Your Mother", playing Ted Mosby's obnoxious co-worker and former boss Hammond Druthers. He played Lucifer in the ABC Family miniseries "Fallen". Cranston appeared as Nick Wrigley, an irresponsible uncle who accidentally brings Christmas close to destruction when he steals Santa's sleigh to have a crazy ride, in the 2001 Disney Channel Original Movie '"Twas the Night". He appeared as the more successful business colleague of Greg Kinnear's character in the 2007 film "Little Miss Sunshine". In September 2008, Cranston narrated a pre-teen adventure/fantasy audiobook called "Adventures with Kazmir the Flying Camel". From 2008 to 2013, Cranston starred in the AMC series "Breaking Bad", in which he played Walter White, a high school chemistry teacher who is diagnosed with terminal lung cancer. Walter teams up with former student Jesse Pinkman, played by Aaron Paul, to manufacture and sell methamphetamine to ensure the well-being of Walter's family after he dies. For his work on the series, Cranston won the Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series in each of the first three seasons of the show; only he and Bill Cosby have won the award three consecutive times. For the fourth season, Cranston also became a producer for the series, and was nominated for an Emmy once again. He had supporting roles in the drama film "The Lincoln Lawyer", as well as the successful thrillers "Drive" and "Contagion". He voiced James Gordon in the 2011 animated film '. In 2012, he had supporting roles in "John Carter", ', and "Rock of Ages", and a major role in the hostage drama "Argo". He also lent his voice to several episodes of the animated series "Robot Chicken". In 2012, he starred in the remake of the 1990 film "Total Recall", as Chancellor Vilos Cohaagen, the corrupted president of a fictional war-ravaged United Federation of Britain. In the same year, he made a guest appearance as Kenneth Parcell's step-father, Ron, on the NBC sitcom "30 Rock", and was invited to join the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Cranston has produced an instructional DVD called "KidSmartz", which is designed to educate families on how to stay safe from child abduction and Internet predators. "KidSmartz" raises money for the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, by donating half the proceeds from sales. After the success of "Breaking Bad", it was recently reported that Bryan would be developing new TV shows in collaboration with Sony Pictures Television. Personal life. Cranston played baseball when he was a student, and remains a collector of baseball memorabilia and avid fan of the Los Angeles Dodgers. From 1977 to 1982 he was married to writer Mickey Middleton. At 35, he married Robin Dearden whom he had met on the set of the show "Airwolf" in 1984. He was playing the villain of the week, and she played his hostage; he held her at gunpoint. Their daughter, Taylor Dearden Cranston (born 1993), is a theatre studies student at the University of Southern California and played an extra in one of the "Breaking Bad" episodes directed by her father. In accepting his third Emmy as Best Lead Actor in a Drama, Cranston thanked his wife and daughter and told them that he loves them "more than baseball". He resides in Albuquerque, New Mexico, when filming "Breaking Bad". He is a part-owner of the independent theater Cinemas Palme d'Or in Palm Desert, California. He is a strong supporter of LGBT rights, supporting same-sex marriage in the United States. In 2010, he designed a house for himself.
643136	John Warner Backus (December 3, 1924 – March 17, 2007) was an American computer scientist. He directed the team that invented the first widely used high-level programming language (FORTRAN) and was the inventor of the Backus-Naur form (BNF), a widely used notation to define formal language syntax. He also did research in function-level programming and helped to popularize it. The IEEE awarded Backus the W.W. McDowell Award in 1967 for the development of FORTRAN. He received the National Medal of Science in 1975, and the 1977 ACM Turing Award “for profound, influential, and lasting contributions to the design of practical high-level programming systems, notably through his work on FORTRAN, and for publication of formal procedures for the specification of programming languages.” Life and career. Backus was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and grew up in nearby Wilmington, Delaware. He studied at the The Hill School in Pottstown, Pennsylvania, and was apparently not a diligent student. After entering the University of Virginia to study chemistry, he quit and was conscripted into the U.S. Army. He began medical training at Haverford College and, during an internship at a hospital, he was diagnosed with a cranial bone tumor, which was successfully removed; a plate was installed in his head, and he ended medical training after nine months and a subsequent operation to replace the plate with one of his own design. After moving to New York City he trained initially as a radio technician and became interested in mathematics. He graduated from Columbia University with a Master's degree in mathematics in 1949, and joined IBM in 1950. During his first three years, he worked on the Selective Sequence Electronic Calculator (SSEC); his first major project was to write a program to calculate positions of the Moon. In 1953 Backus developed the language Speedcoding, the first high-level language created for an IBM computer. Programming was very difficult at this time, and in 1954 Backus assembled a team to define and develop Fortran for the IBM 704 computer. Fortran was the first high-level programming language to be put to broad use. Backus made another, critical contribution to early computer science: during the latter part of the 1950s Backus served on the international committees that developed ALGOL 58 and the very influential ALGOL 60, which quickly became the "de facto" worldwide standard for publishing algorithms. Backus developed the Backus-Naur Form (BNF), in the UNESCO report on ALGOL 58. It was a formal notation able to describe any context-free programming language, and was important in the development of compilers. This contribution helped Backus win the Turing Award. He later worked on a "function-level" programming language known as FP which was described in his Turing Award lecture "Can Programming be Liberated from the von Neumann Style?". Sometimes viewed as Backus's apology for creating FORTRAN, this paper did less to garner interest in the FP language than to spark research into functional programming in general. An FP interpreter was distributed with the 4.2BSD Unix operating system. FP was strongly inspired by Kenneth E. Iverson’s APL, even using a non-standard character set. Backus spent the latter part of his career developing FL (from "Function Level"), a successor to FP. FL was an internal IBM research project, and development of the language essentially stopped when the project was finished (only a few papers documenting it remain), but many of the language's innovative, arguably important ideas have now been implemented in versions of the J programming language. Backus was named an IBM Fellow in 1963, and was awarded a degree honoris causa from the Henri Poincaré University in Nancy (France) in 1989 and a Draper Prize in 1993. He retired in 1991 and died at his home in Ashland, Oregon on March 17, 2007.
253230	Hendrik Wade Bode (pronounced "Boh-dee" in English, "Boh-dah" in Dutch), (24 December 1905 – 21 June 1982) was an American engineer, researcher, inventor, author and scientist, of Dutch ancestry. As a pioneer of modern control theory and electronic telecommunications he revolutionized both the content and methodology of his chosen fields of research.
1162823	Tracee Ellis Ross (born October 29, 1972) is an American actress. She is best known for her lead role as Joan Clayton on the UPN/CW series, "Girlfriends". Also, she was recently known for starring as Dr. Carla Reed on the new BET sitcom Reed Between the Lines. Early life. Born Tracee Joy Silberstein in Los Angeles, California, she is the daughter of legendary Motown singer/actress Diana Ross and music business manager Robert Ellis Silberstein. Actor and musician Evan Ross is her half-brother. Her father is Jewish and her mother is African-American. Ross attended the Dalton School in Manhattan and the Institut Le Rosey in Switzerland. She was a model in her teens. She attended Brown University where she appeared in plays, and graduated in 1994 with a theatre degree. She later worked in the fashion industry, as a model and contributing fashion editor to "Mirabella" and "New York" magazine. She also featured in the video of the 1996 dance hit Macarena by Los del Río, as one of the ten female dancers. Career. Ross made her big screen debut in 1996, playing a Jewish/African-American woman in the independent feature film "Far Harbor." The following year, she debuted as host of "The Dish," a Lifetime TV magazine series keeping tabs on popular culture. In 1998, she starred as a former high school track star who remained silent about having been abused at the hands of a coach, in the NBC made-for-TV movie: "Race Against Fear: A Moment of Truth." Her next role was an independent feature film "Sue". In 2000, she landed her first major studio role in Diane Keaton's "Hanging Up." The same year, she broke into comedy as a regular performer in the MTV series "The Lyricist Lounge Show," a hip-hop variety series mixing music, dramatic sketches, and comedic skits. Ross' biggest career achievement came when she landed the lead role in the hit UPN/CW series "Girlfriends" in which she starred as the show's main protagonist Joan Carol Clayton — a successful (and often neurotic) lawyer looking for love, challenges, and adventure. The series centered on four (later three) young African-American women, and their male best friend. In 2007, Ross won an NAACP Image Award in the category, Outstanding Actress in a Comedy Series for her role on the series. She won a second Image Award for the role in 2009. In 2007, Ross starred with her brother Evan Ross and Queen Latifah in the HBO movie "Life Support", That same year, she appeared in the Tyler Perry theatrical movie, "Daddy's Little Girls". She appeared in the 2009 film "Labor Pains". In 2010, she appeared in an episode of "Private Practice" as a pregnant doctor. In 2011, Ross appeared in four episodes of "" as the estranged wife of Laurence Fishburne's character. Ross starred in the sitcom, Reed Between the Lines, with Malcolm-Jamal Warner airing on BET starting in October 2011. In August 2012, it was announced that Tracee Ellis Ross would not return for Season Two.
582789	Aashiqui is a 1990 Bollywood romantic musical drama film. It was commercially and critically successful particularly because of its music and even today the songs and music are still as popular as it was then. The film made the careers of singer Kumar Sanu and composers Nadeem-Shravan. The soundtrack album has been rated the 4th best ever by Planet Bollywood on their
582055	Dia Mirza, (born as Dia Handrich on 9 December 1981) is an Indian model, actress and Former Miss Asia-Pacific who appears in Bollywood films. Dia is known in media for her Social work. Dia co-owns a production house Born Free Entertainment along with Sahil Sangha and Zayed Khan. Their first film, "Love Breakups Zindagi", made under the banner was released on 7 October 2011. Personal life and education. Dia Mirza was born in Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh. Her father, Frank Handrich, was a German graphic and industrial fair designer, architect, artist and interior designer from Munich and her mother, Deepa is a Bengali Hindu who is an interior designer, landscaper and currently does social work as a volunteer to help alcoholics and addicts. They separated when she was six years old. Her father died when she was nine and her mother married Ahmed Mirza, who died in 2004. She adopted her stepfather's surname and has recently adopted the last name of her birth-father, becoming Dia Mirza Handrich. When living in Khairatabad, Hyderabad district, she attended Vidyaranya High School for Boys and Girls, a school partly based on the teachings of Jiddu Krishnamurti, and later Nasr School, in Khairtabad. She attended Stanley Junior College and completed her graduation in Bachelors of Arts from Andhra Pradesh Open University, Hyderabad. Career. Dia Mirza worked when still in college as a Marketing executive for a media firm. At the same time she modeled for print and TV commercials for brands like Lipton, Emami and many more. She won Asia Pacific in the year 2000. She debuted through 'Rehnaa Hai Terre Dil Mein' which could not do well at Box Office. Then she appeared in various movies like 'Dum', 'Deewanapan', 'Tumko Na Bhool Paayenge', 'Tumsa Nahin Dekha - A Love Story', 'Parineeta', 'Dus', 'Lage Raho Munnabhai' etc. She could not grow up as an Actress. But she has garnered a lot of praise for her social work. She has also got an IIFA 2012 Green Award for her contribution towards green environment. She has done various awareness campaigns on prevention of female feticide, HIV awareness, PETA, Cry. She also publicly supported the Naramada Bachao Andolan. She has also written articles for Hindustan Times and other publications. Dia started working at the age of 16 years while continuing her college education. She worked as a marketing executive in a multi-media firm called Dr. Neeraj’s Multi media studio. She simultaneously modelled for the print and television advertisement campaigns of various brands such as Walls, Lipton, Emami etc. Mirza wanted to complete her graduation in Arts by correspondence, but decided to postpone it as it was becoming difficult to juggle between the Miss Asia Pacific competition, modeling assignments, travelling and training. Miss Asia Pacific. Dia Mirza was a second runner up at Femina Miss India, 2000 and was subsequently sent to Miss Asia Pacific, where she won. When she won the Miss Asia Pacific title on 3 December 2000 in Manila, Philippines, she became the first Indian contestant to win this title in 27 years. She completed the hat-trick of India winning international pageants in the year 2000; Lara Dutta won the Miss Universe title and Priyanka Chopra won the Miss World title in the same year. Film career. Dia Mirza made her cinematic debut with "Rehnaa Hai Terre Dil Mein" opposite R. Madhavan. Although the film was not a box office success, she appeared in "Parineeta", a Vidhu Vinod Chopra production. She also starred in the music video, "Kajara Mohabbat Wala" alongside Sonu Nigam from his album "Kajara Nite". The album contained multiple remixes, but was mainly advertised with the title song, sung by Sonu Nigam and Alisha Chinai. She also appeared in the films "Dus" and "Fight Club". She was the only female actor among the six key characters in the film, "Acid Factory" in which she played a femme fatale who is also a gangster. Dia will next be featuring in 'Johny Mastana', 'Bits and pieces', 'Kayanat', 'Bidhaatar lekha' Community services. Dia Mirza has been involved with Cancer Patients Aid Association, Spastics Society of India, and has worked extensively with government of Andhra Pradesh to spread HIV awareness, prevention of female foeticide, PETA, CRY and most recently the NDTV Greenathon – an effort to find tangible solutions against pollution and book, ""Deke Dheko"" by Radio Mirchi (a campaign initiated to collect books for underprivileged children). Her other hobbies include writing, reading, painting, pottery, horse riding and theater. She has written several articles for the "Hindustan Times" and various other publications as a guest writer. She is on the board of the Coca Cola foundation that works towards development in rural India. She recently adopted two cheetah cubs at the Prince of Wales zoological park in Lucknow. Controversies. Dia Mirza and fellow-actor Aamir Khan publicly expressed support for the Narmada Bachao Andolan, a group protesting the building of a dam. This aroused the ire of political activists from the Bharatiya Janata Party, who led a protest march against the actress. Awards. Dia Mirza won the IIFA 2012 'Green Award' for her contribution for working towards a greener environment.
96382	Embrace Life is an award winning short British public information film made for the Sussex Safer Roads Partnership (SSRP) about the importance of wearing seat belts. Released on 20 January 2010 and initially only shown in the local Sussex area, the short film became an international phenomenon after it was distributed on the internet, through social networking sites and YouTube, gaining over a million views in its first two weeks. By 13 February 2010 it had reached 129 different countries, was the 5th top rated video that month on YouTube and was the most top rated YouTube film of all time in the education category. The film achieved the highest rating of No. 8 Top Rated (All Time) film on YouTube, and as of 27 March 2013 it has had over 16,599,000 views. The film has been praised for its beauty and its emotional impact. The film has so far not been shown on television as part of a road safety campaign; it was primarily designed for and its spread has been almost entirely through the internet. Development. Despite being a legal requirement for all car drivers and passengers in the UK, some people fail to wear their seat belt. The Sussex Safer Roads Partnership is a local government body in the East Sussex and West Sussex areas of England, and was looking to produce an internet-based road safety campaign film with a positive message, rather than one using more graphic shock tactics. Double BAFTA award-winning writer and director Daniel Cox learned of the proposed campaign, and approached the Partnership with an idea for just such a film: "Key to the film's creation was to focus on a message that didn't take a conventional route to shock and scare the audience; rather it was my intention to bring the audience in on the conversation of road safety, specifically seat belts, and the best way to do this was to make a film that could engage the viewer purely visually and could be seen and understood by all, whoever they are and wherever they lived." (Daniel Cox) The name of the film, "Embrace Life", reflects its focus on life rather than the death and injury often associated with car crashes. Producer Sarah Alexander joined the project and immediately was faced with the challenge of the logistics of bringing Cox's vision to fruition. He specifically wanted slow-motion photography, requiring state of the art camera technology and 93,000 watts of lighting required by the high-speed filming. "I wanted to create a visual metaphor addressing how a single decision in a person's day can greatly influence both their own and their loved ones' lives. Choosing to film the story inside the family living room represents the feelings many people equate with their own car, in that it represents a level of safety and protection from the 'outer' world. So to create the emotion of this dramatic moment, I wanted to tell the story using slow motion to allow the audience the time to be drawn into the film's world and to let them connect with and project their own feelings onto the scenario playing out before them. I wanted to give the audience the time to breathe, to absorb our message and using slow motion was the right technique to allow this to happen." (Daniel Cox) "It was central to the development of the project that we root the concept of wearing a seat belt firmly in the family domain, and create the advert so that it could be viewed by anyone of any age. Children are so important as opinion formers within their family that we felt it imperative to have a child take a pivotal role in relaying our message. One key aspect to the storytelling is that we developed "Embrace Life" to be non-language specific, so that the message wouldn’t become lost when viewed by visitors to, or residents of, the UK where English might not be their first language." (Daniel Cox) "The inspiration for "Embrace Life" came from wanting to offer a positive message towards road safety really. A lot of the campaigns focus on the more graphic and horrific outcomes of accidents, whereas I really wanted to bring people into the conversation. The house represents a safety area, an area where you're normally surrounded by your loved ones, and the car can be an extension of that, but it's not only yourself that's impacted if something unfortunately goes wrong, but also family and friends too." (Daniel Cox) Making of. The film had a small budget of £47,000 (US$72,000) and was shot over two days in the summer of 2009 at Halliford Studios in London. The film was shot on a Phantom HD digital camera, with speeds of up to 1000 frames per second, and no CGI was used in the making of the film. It has a running time of 1 minute 29 seconds. The music was specially composed for the film by Dutch composer Siddhartha (Sid) Barnhoorn, and is available as a download from his online music store. Main credits. A full list of credits can be found at the Sussex Safer Roads Partnership website. The film. A father, mother and daughter are playing in their living room, with the father play-acting at driving a car: he turns an imaginary ignition key, operates an imaginary footpedal and steers an imaginary wheel. His family watch from the sofa. The father turns to look at them, and as he turns back, his concentration momentarily taken from the road, he sees some sort of peril approaching. He grimaces and turns the wheel to the left to avoid the oncoming threat. Realising the danger he is in, the daughter rushes to him and embraces him around the waist; his wife follows, putting her arms around his upper body. The impact occurs, and the man is violently thrown in his seat; his legs jolt out and kick over a table with a bowl holding small metallic decorations. The bowl is thrown upwards and the metal decorations shower down. The daughter and mother successfully restrain the father, and he recovers, bringing his arms up to embrace his family who have saved him. The legend "Embrace Life Always wear your seat belt" appears on the left of the screen, and as the film fades to black the triangular grey, orange and blue "Embrace Life" logo is shown above that of the Sussex Safer Roads Partnership. Imagery. The daughter's and mother's arms represent the two parts of a seat belt. The film was made for a British audience; cars are driven on the left hand side of the road in the UK and so the positioning of the mother's arms reflects the position of the upper seat belt strap for a driver in the UK. Similarly, the father turns the wheel to the left (the shoulder part of the road in the UK) to avoid the oncoming danger. If the film was shown in mirror image, it would correct these apparent inconsistencies for audiences in those parts of the world where cars are driven on the right hand side. The daughter is wearing fairy wings. Some commentators have seen these as angel wings, symbolising a guardian angel. The small metallic decorations graphically represent the shattered windscreen glass and metal fragments generated during a car accident. Campaign. The film was first shown to the Sussex Safer Roads Partnership members, including emergency services representatives, at The Capitol, Horsham, West Sussex on 20 January 2010. Alexander said of this occasion: "The scariest part of making anything is the first time you show other people. Touching people’s emotions is not a science at all, it is an incredibly difficult thing to do and even after working on it for months you are still not sure how people will react. We always aimed to make something of TV/cinema quality so that is where we launched it. The first time I saw it on a cinema screen in front of an audience of hardened Police officers and realised they were touched, I was sure we had succeeded." (Sarah Alexander) The marketing and promotion strategy for the film comprised a direct mail campaign in Sussex, which directed people to the "Embrace Life" website, which at the time only had a countdown clock and the "Embrace Life" logo (which represents a stylised seat belt). This generated interest on Twitter and other social networking sites. A poster/flyer campaign in Sussex followed, and the campaign was picked up by the local media in Sussex. At the same time, a council-sanctioned graffiti campaign was undertaken around Brighton and Hove, with "Embrace Life" logos (some up to 20 feet high) and the Embrace This website address painted by graffiti artist Aroe and his team. (The Embrace Life website address had already been taken, and so was not available. Embrace This was chosen as the alternative.) At the same time a public space art gallery was set up in a disused shop in Horsham. The existing web front page – at that time just the countdown clock and the logo – was shown on a large plasma screen along with props from the film and stills. These were all designed to give nothing away, to heighten curiosity about the campaign. Children were encouraged to interact by drawing a picture of what made them feel safe, and then to add it to the wall. By the end of the installation, the walls were covered with children’s drawings, and visitors and participants were given a flier with the campaign's web address. The film was launched on the website on 20 January 2010. The film was put on YouTube by the Sussex Safer Roads Partnership on 29 January 2010. Reception. The lack of dialogue means "Embrace Life" is accessible to all viewers, no matter what nationality. Once it was put on to the internet it rapidly spread around the globe, gaining over a million views in its first two weeks. By 10 February 2010 international interest in licensing the film for broadcasting on national or province/state TV channels had resulted in enquiries from some Persian Gulf countries, from Brazil, France, Ontario in Canada and from four states in the USA. By 13 February 2010 it had reached 129 different countries, was the 5th top rated video that month on YouTube and was the most top rated YouTube film of all time in the education category. The film was discussed by the British Parliamentary Advisory Council for Transport Safety. Comedian Ze Frank blogged about the film, and "American Idol" presenter Ryan Seacrest also embedded the YouTube film in his website, describing it as "beautiful", "visually arresting" and "poignant". An article in the New York "Daily News" drew a comparison between the poorly received (and expensive) advertisements during the Super Bowl XLIV on 7 February 2010 and "the breath of fresh air" of "Embrace Life." The film was shown at the TED conference on 13 February in California immediately before James Cameron's speech. Josh Levs on CNN said that he was "stunned" by the film, "which has been praised by people around the world for its beauty." After watching it during his report, a visibly emotional Levs said "It gets me every time." The film was featured on "The Wanda Sykes Show" on Fox on 15 May 2010. On 2 May 2010 it was reported that the Sussex Safer Roads Partnership had received enquiries from bodies such as the United Nations, from European schools and American traffic police, and from major companies about the licencing the film for broadcast. The film's Executive Producer, Neil Hopkins of SSRP commented: "From a really small start it's become a global monster. It's smashed all our expectations. We're handling licensing requests from state troopers in the US, big firms like Shell, talk shows, the French government, schools and road safety organisations." The money raised from licencing will be used by the SSRP for further road safety schemes in Sussex. So far, the film has not been shown on British national television as part of a road safety campaign, although it was featured on "Live from Studio Five" on Five on 19 April 2010 and there is a Facebook campaign to get it shown on British television as part of a road safety campaign. Neil Hopkins said of the film's success: "Originally, we wanted something to run on local cinema screens, on my workplace’s website, and on DVDs at educational interventions within our county. We never dreamed that the campaign would touch so many people." Awards and honours. On 12 June 2010 "Embrace Life" was awarded the 2010 Gold World Medal for Best Digital and Interactive Campaign at the New York Festivals International Advertising Awards ceremony in Shanghai. On 26 June 2010 it won a Bronze award in the Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival, in the Public Health & Safety category. "Embrace Life" was also shortlisted for the UK's Chartered Institute of Highways and Transport / Atkins 'Road Safety – Reducing All Casualties' Award, in the awards ceremony of 16 June 2010, but did not win. In November 2010 "Embrace Life" won the inaugural YouTube Advert of the Year Award, winning with three times more votes than its nearest competitor. As of 14 December 2010, "Embrace Life" has had 12,399,302 views on the Sussex Safer Roads channel on YouTube. Highest honours for the video on YouTube include No. 8 Top Rated (All Time), No. 1 Top Rated (All Time) Education and No. 1 Top Favourited (All Time) Education. It reached its highest Top Rated (All Time) rating in late April-early May 2010.
1055650	"Three O'Clock High" is a 1987 high-school comedy film, directed by Phil Joanou, written by Richard Christian Matheson and Thomas Szollosi; the executive producer was Aaron Spelling. The plot concerns a student (Casey Siemaszko) who accidentally offends a bully (Richard Tyson) and who devotes most of his school day to avoiding a fistfight with the bully at 3:00 p.m.
1163915	Billy Dennis Weaver (June 4, 1924 – February 24, 2006) was an American actor, best known for his work in television, including his role as Matt Dillon's trusty helper Chester Goode on the long-running western series "Gunsmoke". He later played Marshal Sam McCloud on the NBC police drama "McCloud", and appeared in the 1971 TV movie "Duel", the first film of director Steven Spielberg. Life and career. Early life. Weaver was born in Joplin, Missouri, son of Walter Weaver and his wife Lenna Prather. His father was of Irish, Scottish, English, Cherokee and Osage ancestry. Weaver wanted to be an actor from childhood. For a short time during his teenage years he lived in Manteca, California. He studied at Joplin Junior College, now Missouri Southern State University and then transferred to the University of Oklahoma at Norman, where he studied drama and was a track star, setting records in several events. During World War II he served as a pilot in the United States Navy. At the war's end, he married Gerry Stowell and they had three children. He tried out for the U.S. Olympic team in the decathlon. He finished sixth and only the top three were chosen for the team. Weaver later said, "I did so poorly [in the Olympic Trials, I decided ... stay in New York and try acting." Career. Weaver's first role on Broadway came as an understudy to Lonny Chapman as Turk Fisher in "Come Back, Little Sheba." He eventually took over the role from Chapman in the national touring company. Solidifying his choice to become an actor, Weaver enrolled in The Actors Studio, where he met Shelley Winters. In the beginning of his acting career, he supported his family by doing odd jobs, including selling vacuum cleaners, tricycles and women's hosiery. In 1952, Shelley Winters helped him get a contract from Universal Studios. He made his film debut that same year in the movie "The Redhead from Wyoming." Over the next three years, he played in a series of movies, but still had to work odd jobs to support his family. It was while delivering flowers that he heard he had landed the role of Chester Goode, the limping, loyal assistant of Marshal Matt Dillon (James Arness) on the new television series "Gunsmoke"  — it was his big break — the show would go on to become the highest-rated and longest-running series in US television history (1955 to 1975). He received an Emmy Award in 1959 for Best Supporting Actor (Continuing Character) in a Dramatic Series. According to the Archive of American Television interview with Weaver, the producer had him in mind for Chester, but could not locate him, and was delighted when he showed up to audition. Never having heard the radio show, Weaver gave Chester's "inane" dialog his best Method delivery. Disappointed in his delivery, however, the producer asked for something humorous, and Weaver nailed it. The stiff leg came about when the producer pointed out that sidekicks almost always have some failing or weakness that makes them less-capable than the star. Weaver decided that a stiff leg would be just the right thing. Having become famous as Chester, he was next cast in an offbeat supporting role in the 1958 Orson Welles film "Touch of Evil", in which he played an employee of a remote motel who nervously repeated, "I'm the night man." In 1960, he appeared in an episode of "Alfred Hitchcock Presents" entitled "Insomnia" in which his character suffers from sleeplessness due to the tragic death of his wife. In 1961, he did an episode of "The Twilight Zone" called "Shadow Play" where he was trapped inside his own dream. From 1964 to 1965, he portrayed a friendly veterinarian in NBC's comedy-drama "Kentucky Jones". His next substantial role was as Tom Wedloe on the CBS family series "Gentle Ben", with co-star Clint Howard, between 1967 and 1969. In 1970, Weaver landed the title role of the NBC series "McCloud", for which he received two Emmy Award nominations. In 1974, he was nominated for Best Lead Actor in a Limited Series ("McCloud") and in 1975, for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Limited Series. The show, about a modern western lawman who ends up in New York City, was loosely based on the Clint Eastwood film "Coogan's Bluff". His frequent use of the affirming Southernism, "There you go," became a catchphrase for the show. During the series, in 1971, Weaver also appeared in "Duel", a television movie directed by Steven Spielberg. Spielberg selected Weaver based on the intensity of his earlier performance in "Touch of Evil". From 1973 to 1975, Weaver was president of the Screen Actors Guild. Later series during the 1980s (both of which lasted only one season) were "Stone," in which Weaver played a Joseph Wambaugh-esque police sergeant turned crime novelist, and "Buck James," in which he played a Texas-based surgeon and rancher ("Buck James" was loosely based on real-life Texas doctor Red Duke). He portrayed a Navy rear admiral for 22 episodes of a 1983-84 series, "Emerald Point N.A.S.". In 1978, Weaver played the trail boss R.J. Poteet in the television miniseries "Centennial" on the episode titled "The Longhorns." Weaver also appeared in many acclaimed television films. In 1980, he played Dr. Samuel Mudd, who was imprisoned for involvement in the Lincoln assassination, in "The Ordeal Of Doctor Mudd." Also in 1980 he starred with his real life son Robby Weaver in the short lived NBC police series "Stone". In 1983, he played a real estate agent addicted to cocaine in "Cocaine: One Man's Seduction." Weaver received probably the best reviews of his career when he starred in the 1987 film "Bluffing It," in which he played a man who is illiterate. In February 2002, he appeared on the animated series "The Simpsons" (episode DABF07, "The Lastest Gun in the West") as the voice of aging Hollywood cowboy legend Buck McCoy. For his contribution to the television industry, Dennis Weaver was given a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6822 Hollywood Blvd, and on the Dodge City (KS) Trail of Fame. In 1981, he was inducted into the Western Performers Hall of Fame with the Bronze Wrangler Award at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.
591470	Maula Jatt (Punjabi: مولا جٹ) is one of the most popular films in the history of Pakistani cinema . It is a Punjabi film starring actor Sultan Rahi in the lead role and with Aasia and Mustafa Qureshi as the villain Noori Natt. "Maula Jatt" was a classic, a film that received critical and popular acclaim. It has cult status in Pakistan. Such was the impact of the film that it was copied by film makers in Pakistan where several films were given names with the suffix "Jat". This movie belongs to a genre which represents the rural culture of Punjab. This films success set the trend of Action films being popular in Pakistan and cemented Sultan Rahi as Lollywood's main hero. Story. The film is an unofficial sequel to the 1975 film Wehshi Jatt. Wehshi Jatt itself was inspired by an Urdu play "Gandasa" written by Ahmed Nadeem Qasmi which depicts a bloody feud in Gujranwala against the backdrop of rural Punjab. Following the settlement of Maula's family feud in Wehshi Jatt, Maula has renounced violence and is in charge of administering the peace of his village and it's surrounding villages. The film begins with Makha Natt chasing a girl through villages. She asks for help but as soon as people hear that she is being pursued by Makha, the brother of Noori Natt they ask her to leave and not share her misfortune with them. She arrives in Maula's village and is sheltered by Maula's sister- in-law Taani. Maula Jatt arrives and decrees that if Makha wants to avoid the fate of being killed by his 'Gandasa' he should marry the very girl he has dishonoured and also marry his sister off to the girl's brother. The girl has no family so Maula orders Makha to marry his sister to his friend Moodha. When Makha returns home to plot his revenge, his sister Daro incensed upon hearing what he has agreed to kills him. The Natt clan now try to avenge the humiliation that Maula Jutt has caused them while Maula Jutt tries to ensure that his decision is enforced and justice is given. Impact. The film completed continuously 130 weeks at Shabistan Cinema Lahore and combined 310 weeks in its first run. This film was a success in the 1980s and spawned a number of sequels, becoming the first ever successful unofficial franchise for a Lollywood title. "Maula Jat"'s success spawned "Maula Jat tey Noorie Nut" as well as "Maula Jat in London" and continues to influence popular culture. Various productions such as the 2002 play "Jatt and Bond" use "Maula Jat" as their "inspiration". Similarities with Bollywood. The movie came after the Bollywood classic Sholay where villains became part of folklore. The music and sound effects of the movie are also similar to the ones used in Sholay, and since subcontinental choices are often similar, certain elements from the Bollywood's greatest hit at that time were included in the movie. Banning of the movie by the government. It is said, that this film was banned because of violence, but later this ban was lifted. Soundtrack. The songs used in the film were composed by Inayat Hussein. These songs were sung by some very popular singers, namely, Noor Jehan, Mehnaz, Inayat Hussein, Alam Lohar, Shoukat Ali and Ghulam Ali. The soundtrack consisted of the following songs:
1055911	Gardener of Eden is a 2007 American comedy-drama film directed by Kevin Connolly. It stars Lukas Haas, Erika Christensen and Giovanni Ribisi. Plot. Adam Harris (Haas), a twenty-something college dropout, returns to his hometown, the fictional "Bickleton" in New Jersey, and moves back in with his parents. Lacking real direction in his life, Adam spends his time working at a local deli and hanging out with his equally unambitious friends. Adam soon finds himself unemployed and cut off by his friends.
1502375	Beatrice "Bebe" Neuwirth (; born December 31, 1958) is an American actress, musician and dancer. She has worked in television and is known for her portrayal of Dr. Lilith Sternin, Dr. Frasier Crane's wife (later ex-wife), on both the TV sitcom "Cheers" (in a starring role), and its spin-off "Frasier" (in a recurring guest role). On stage, she is also known for the role of Nickie in the revival of "Sweet Charity", the role of Velma Kelly in the revival of "Chicago" (for both of which she won Tony Awards) and for the role of Morticia Addams in "The Addams Family" musical. Early life. Neuwirth was born in Princeton, New Jersey, the daughter of Sydney Anne, a painter, and Lee Paul Neuwirth, a mathematician. She has an older brother Peter, an actuary. Neuwirth is Jewish, and attended Chapin School in New Jersey as well as Princeton Day School (New Jersey) of Princeton, but graduated from Princeton High School (a public school) in 1976.
1058827	Jacob Vargas (born August 18, 1971) is a Mexican actor. Early life. Vargas was born in Michoacán, Mexico, and raised in Pacoima, Los Angeles, California, since 1971. He was raised in a devout Roman Catholic family. Career. Vargas’ break into acting came when he was cast as a street dancer on "Diff'rent Strokes", and his career has continued successfully including films such as "Traffic" and "Jarhead". He was also in the horror movie "The Hills Have Eyes 2". But he is most known for his role as Joker from the Joker Brothers in the 2000 film "Next Friday" and as Abraham Quintanilla, the brother of the late Tejano singer Selena in the biopic film of the same name. Personal life. He is married to Sylvia Arzate. They have two daughters, Rose, born in 2004 and Ava Victoria, born in 2011.
585279	Mudhal Mariyadhai (1985) is a Tamil feature film directed by P. Bharathiraja. It starred Sivaji Ganesan and Radha in the lead with Vadivukkarasi, Ranjani, Aruna Mucherla, A. K. Veerasamy and Sathyaraj playing other significant role. The film's score and soundtrack are composed by Ilaiyaraaja. The film was critically received upon release. It fetched Best Lyricist Award and Best Feature Film in Tamil Award for Vairamuthu and Bharathiraja respectively at the 33rd National Film Awards. While the lead actors won their respective Filmfare Awards South in Best Tamil Actor and Best Tamil Actress category. Plot. The film commences with friends and family of an ailing village head, Malaichami(Sivaji Ganesan), gathered around him on his death bed. The plot then moves along in a series of flashbacks, featuring significant episodes of the dying man's life. These include the presence of a boatman's young daughter Kuyil (Radha) in his village. The protagonist is unhappily married to a shrewish wife by the name of Ponnatha (Vadivukkarasi), and seeks comfort and solace in a friendship with Kuyil. The friendship raises eyebrows, and is socially awkward and complicated for both Malaichami and Kuyil.
1061787	Kimila Ann "Kim" Basinger ( , often mispronounced ; born December 8, 1953) is an American actress, singer, and former fashion model.
1042469	Confessions of a Driving Instructor is a 1976 British sex-farce film. This was the third instalment of the "Confessions" sequence on the erotic adventures of Timothy Lea, based on the novels published under the name by Christopher Wood. Premise. This time Timothy joins his brother-in-law's driving school. Their school is soon in rivalry with a competing school, while Timothy finds himself involved in erotic adventures with his clients, secretary and landlady. His clients are a mix of the inept and the dangerous and, as usual, mayhem ensues. A rugby match is organised between the two schools, at which one of the rival school's instructors unknowingly swallows a powerful aphrodisiac and rampages around the field, an event that leads to the climactic car chase.
1068157	Candleshoe is a 1977 Walt Disney Productions live action family film and heist film based on the Michael Innes novel "Christmas at Candleshoe" and starring Jodie Foster, Helen Hayes in her last big screen appearance, David Niven and Leo McKern. Plot. Con-artist Harry Bundage (McKern) believes that there is a great treasure at Candleshoe, the large country estate of Lady St Edmund (Hayes).
1039987	John Edward Thaw, CBE (3 January 1942 – 21 February 2002) was an English actor, who appeared in a range of television, stage and cinema roles, his most popular being television series such as "Redcap", "The Sweeney", "Home to Roost", "Inspector Morse" and "Kavanagh QC". Early life. Thaw was born in Longsight, Manchester, to working class parents Dorothy (née Ablott) and John, a long-distance lorry driver. Thaw had a difficult childhood as his mother left when he was seven years old and he didn't see her again for 12 years. His younger brother, Raymond Stuart "Ray" emigrated to Australia in the mid-1960s. Thaw grew up in Gorton and Burnage, attending the Ducie Technical High School for Boys. He entered the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) at the age of 16, where he was a contemporary of Tom Courtenay. Career. Soon after leaving RADA he made his formal stage début in "A Shred of Evidence" at the Liverpool Playhouse and was awarded a contract with the theatre. His first film role was a bit part in the 1962 adaptation of "The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner" starring Tom Courtenay and he also acted on-stage opposite Sir Laurence Olivier in "Semi-Detached" (1962) by David Turner. He appeared in several episodes of the BBC police series "Z-Cars" in 1963–64 as a detective constable who left the force because of an unusual drink problem, he couldn't take the alcohol so often part of the policeman's work. Between 1964 and 1966, he starred in two series of the ABC Weekend Television/ITV production "Redcap", playing the hard-nosed military policeman, Sergeant John Mann. He was also a guest star in an early episode of "The Avengers". In 1967 he appeared in the Granada TV/ITV series, "Inheritance", alongside James Bolam and Michael Goodliffe, as well as appearing in TV plays such as "The Talking Head" and episodes of series such as "Budgie", where he played against type (opposite Adam Faith) as an effeminate failed playwright with a full beard and a Welsh accent. Thaw will perhaps be best remembered for two roles: the hard-bitten Flying Squad detective Jack Regan in the Thames Television/ITV series (and two films) "The Sweeney" (1974–1978), which established him as a major star in the United Kingdom, and as the quietly spoken, introspective, well-educated and bitter detective "Inspector Morse" (1987 – 1993, with specials from 1995 – 1998 and 2000). Thaw was only 32 when he was cast in The Sweeney, although many viewers thought he was older. Starring alongside Kevin Whately as the put upon Detective Sergeant Lewis, Morse became a cult character—"a cognitive curmudgeon with his love of classical music, his classic Jaguar and spates of melancholy". Inspector Morse became one of the UK's most loved TV series; the final three episodes, shown in 2000, were seen by 18 million people, about one third of the British population. He won "Most Popular Actor" at the 1999 National Television Awards and won two BAFTA awards for his role as Morse. He subsequently played liberal working class Lancastrian barrister James Kavanagh in "Kavanagh QC" (1995 – 1999, and a special in 2001). Thaw also tried his hand at comedy with two sitcoms—"Thick as Thieves" (London Weekend/ITV, 1974) with Bob Hoskins and "Home to Roost" (Yorkshire/ITV, 1985 – 1990). Thaw is best known in America for the Morse series, as well as the BBC series "A Year in Provence" with Lindsay Duncan. During the 1970s and '80s, Thaw frequently appeared in productions with the Royal Shakespeare Company and Royal National Theatre. He appeared in a number of films, including "Cry Freedom", where he portrayed the conservative South African justice minister Jimmy Kruger, for which he received a BAFTA nomination for Best Supporting Actor, and "Chaplin" alongside Robert Downey Jr. for director Richard Attenborough. Thaw also appeared in the TV adaptation of the Michelle Magorian book "Goodnight Mister Tom" (Carlton Television/ITV). It won "Most Popular Drama" at the National Television Awards, 1999. In September 2006, Thaw was voted by the general public as number 3 in a poll of "TV's Greatest Stars". Personal life. On 27 June 1964, Thaw married Sally Alexander, a feminist activist and theatre stage manager, and now professor of history at Goldsmiths, University of London). They divorced four years later. He met actress Sheila Hancock in 1969 on the set of a London comedy "So What About Love?". She was married to fellow actor Alexander "Alec" Ross, and after Thaw professed his love to Hancock, she told him that she would not have an affair. After the death of her husband (from oesophageal cancer) in 1971, Thaw and Hancock married on 24 December 1973 in Cirencester, and he remained with her until his death in 2002 (also from oesophageal cancer). Thaw had three daughters (all of whom are actresses): Abigail from his first marriage to Sally Alexander, Joanna from his second marriage to Sheila Hancock, and he also adopted Sheila Hancock's daughter Melanie Jane, from Hancock's first marriage to Alec Ross. Melanie Jane legally changed her surname from Ross to Thaw. Thaw was a committed socialist and a lifelong supporter of the Labour Party. Thaw was appointed a Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (CBE) in March 1993 by Queen Elizabeth II. In September 2006, Thaw was voted by the general public as number 3, after David Jason and Morecambe and Wise, in a poll of TV's 50 Greatest Stars for the past 50 years. Illness and death. A heavy drinker until going teetotal in 1995, and a heavy smoker from the age of 12, Thaw was diagnosed with cancer of the oesophagus in June 2001. He underwent chemotherapy in hope of overcoming the illness, and at first seemed to be responding well to the treatment, but on 5 January 2002, he was told that the cancer had spread. He died on 21 February 2002, seven weeks after his 60th birthday, the day after he signed a new contract with ITV, and the day before his wife's birthday. At the time of his death he was living at his country home, near the villages of Luckington and Sherston in Wiltshire, and was cremated at Westerleigh Crematorium in Gloucestershire in a private service. A memorial service was held on 4 September 2002 at St Martin-in-the-Fields church in Trafalgar Square, attended by 800 people including Prince Charles and Cherie Blair. Honours and awards. Won Nominated
1166995	Katherine LaNasa (born December 1, 1966) is an American actress and former ballet dancer and choreographer. Early life. LaNasa was born in New Orleans, Louisiana, the daughter of Anne (née Hardin) and Dr. James J. LaNasa, Jr., a plastic surgeon. LaNasa began dancing at the age of 12, and at the age of 14, she was accepted to the North Carolina School of the Arts in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. After an apprenticeship with Milwaukee Ballet, LaNasa danced with Salt Lake City's Ballet West and the Karole Armitage Ballet. Career. LaNasa assisted John Carrafa with the choreography for the 1989 film "Rooftops". She made her screen debut with a small role in the film "Catchfire" (1990) and in following years appeared in movies and television. LaNasa played the lead role of Bess Bernstein-Flynn Keats in the NBC comedy series "Three Sisters" (2001-2002), which was cancelled after two seasons. She was a star of the short-lived CBS series "Love Monkey" (2006), playing Karen Freed, and HBO's "12 Miles of Bad Road".
1075098	The Education of Sonny Carson is a 1974 film based on the best-selling autobiography of Sonny Carson. Plot. The film starts out with the viewers obtaining insight of a young Sonny and some of his early struggles, which include, the first scene in which Sonny and three of his friends are in the process of breaking into a local market to steal food; and money, from the cash register. Sonny is subdued by police and soon finds himself on a "lenient" sentence of three months at the age of thirteen. While incarcerated a young Sonny meets Willie, the leader of a local gang called The Lords. It is then the audience is brought to and older Sonny and we learn he is now he is heavily involved in the gangs activities and of the rivalry The Lords have with a fellow gang called 'The Tomahawks'. Sonny is now entrenched in the every day life of a Lord which includes frequent brawls with their rivals The Tomahawks. During one of these brawls one of Sonny's friends a fellow Lord by the name of Lil' Boy gets fatally stabbed in the back with a stiletto. Sonny and the rest of the gang show up at Lil' Boy's wake, and, its when they leave that we are brought to the attention of Sonny trying to purchase flowers from a local shop but couldn't afford a bouquet. He then proceeds to rob a white man carrying a telegram with change of $100 in it. He then purchases the flowers and places them on Lil' Boy's casket. This crime ends up getting Sonny hemmed up and we bear witness to him nearly getting beaten to death by police in an interrogation room. He is then sentenced to no less that one year and no more than 3 upstate. Here he re-connects with his friend Willie who informs Sonny of the harsh realities of prison life. During his time incarcerated Sonny's father visits giving him emotional hope that he will survive and that his dad and family are still supporting him. However the harsh social condition during the time also lead to a gruesome incarceration and Sonny bears witness to the guards frequent brutality which includes Willie nearly being beaten to death. After the savage beating Willie informed Sonny that he could no longer sustain but he would "At least take one of them with him" the next scene shows the guards pulling Willie out of his room at night and proceeding to throw him over the rail causing his death. After these traumatic experiences we see Sonny finally escape the horrors of prison and get a celebratory greeting by his family. It is afterwards however when sonny is looking for members of his old gang that he learns that drugs have hit the streets hard and have taken most of his former friends (and his girlfriend) with them. He puts his priorities in order and finds a "born again" purpose in life under his new name, Iwina Lmiri Abubadika. The film ends in the 1970s, long before Abubadika's controversial involvement in New York politics. Background. The Education of Sonny Carson had a budget of $1 million. Due to this low budget the director was forced to use new and creative styles of directing. using kids from the neighborhood and simple “dark” rooms to imply interrogation rooms and jail cells and such. In order to portray Sonny Carson's violent gang initiation, the film camera was placed in a metal cage. The scene was filmed from two points of view: one of Sonny running through a row of gang-members beating him with chains and clubs, the other from Sonny's own perspective as he was being humiliated and injured in order to join the gang. Michael Campus has stressed over this low budget and says he didn't know how he did it. The film explores social issues facing the African American population during their struggles to obtain civil rights, and sheds light on both political and social travesties at the time such as poverty, drug abuse, violence and police discrimination. Influence. The Wu-Tang Clan, Prodigy of Mobb Deep, AZ, Common, Ghostface Killah, and Lauryn Hill have sampled dialogue from the film in their music.
583984	Mankatha is a 2011 Indian Tamil action-thriller film written and directed by Venkat Prabhu. It features Ajith Kumar in the lead role, starring in his 50th film, along with an ensemble cast including Arjun Sarja, Trisha Krishnan, Vaibhav Reddy, Lakshmi Rai, Andrea Jeremiah, Premji Amaren, Mahat Raghavendra and Anjali. It was produced by Dhayanidhi Alagiri's Cloud Nine Movies while Yuvan Shankar Raja composed the musical score and soundtrack, with Sakthi Saravanan working as the cinematographer and the duo Praveen K. L. and N. B. Srikanth as editors. The story, set in Mumbai, revolves around a heist of cricket betting money, executed by a gang of four thieves, who are joined by a fifth unknown man, and its aftermaths. The film was formally launched in August 2010, with its principal photography beginning on 25 October 2010. Filming was held for more than eight months and took place primarily across Chennai, the Dharavi slum in Mumbai and Bangkok, Thailand. Following speculations regarding the film's release, Sun Pictures acquired the theatrical rights and distributed the film via Raadhika Sarathkumar's "Radaan Mediaworks". "Mankatha" released on 31 August 2011 worldwide to highly positive reviews and grossed the second biggest opening of all time after "Endhiran" at the time of release. The film was also dubbed into Telugu as "Gambler" and released in Andhra Pradesh ten days later while it was a box-office hit in Kerala as well. Plot. Vinayak Mahadevan (Ajith Kumar), an assistant commissioner of Maharashtra Police, gets suspended for having saved a smuggler named Faizal (Aravind Akash) from encounter killing and helped him escape. He starts leading life in his own way. Meanwhile, a police officer commits suicide because of the leakage of his IPL gambling plans who is revealed to be Kamal Ekambaram (Subbu Panchu). A tough cop Prithvi (Arjun Sarja) takes charge to end betting scandal in IPL cricket in Mumbai. It is then revealed by Prithvi that Kamal faked his death to catch the culprits in a secret mission and returns under the name Praveen Kumar. Arumuga Chettiar (Jayaprakash), an influential local illegal business dealer and the head of Faizal, owns "Golden Theatres" in Mumbai, which has been converted into a gambling den and forms the front for all his illegal businesses. Vinayak is introduced to Arumuga Chettiyar through his girlfriend Sanjana (Trisha). Sanjana is in love with Vinayak, but Vinayak just pretends to love her. Arumuga Chettiyar uses his links with dons in Mumbai and tries to route through his old theatre, a cash of over to be used in betting. Sumanth (Vaibhav Reddy), a goon working for Arumuga Chettiyar, hatches a conspiracy to rob the money in the company of his friends – Ganesh (Ashwin Kakumanu), a local Sub-Inspector, Mahat (Mahat Raghavendra), who owns a bar in Mumbai and Mahat's friend Prem (Premji Amaren), an IIT graduate. Vinayak befriends the boys at Sumanth's marriage with Suchithra (Anjali). One late evening, Vinayak meets Prem, who becomes inebriated by him and reveals their heist plan. Vinayak starts spying on them and confronts them on the day of the planned heist, stepping in. Vinayak, however, has other plans. He wants to kill his four accomplices and take the entire amount. He promises to help them and divide it between them. After looting the money they leave the money in an old cafe. Both Arumuga Chettiar and the police search for them. Sumanth is caught by Faizal, but is saved by Ganesh and Vinayak. Sanjana engulfs in grief when she comes to know about Vinayak's true intentions. Meanwhile, Mahat and Prem escape with the cash and are accompanied by Sona (Lakshmi Rai). Vinayak, Sumanth and Ganesh get to know about this. Sumanth, however, turns approver, since his wife Suchithra has been kidnapped by Arumuga Chettiyar, but is killed when Prithvi's wife Sabitha Prithviraj (Andrea Jeremiah) is kidnapped and threatened by Vinayak. Sequence of events lead to the murders of the gang members one by one—Mahat is killed by Sona who betrays him, Prem is killed by Prithvi who suspects him of the robbery, and Sona is killed by Vinayak—with Ganesh and Vinayak remaining alive. A final fight ensues between Vinayak and Prithvi. The two actually prove to be equal. At the final moment of the fight, Kamal throws a gun to Prithvi who shoots Vinayak, thus killing him. After several days, the police gets information about Ganesh to be living in Thailand. Kamal (under the name of Praveen Kumar) arrives there, but instead comes across Vinayak. Praveen confronts him and calls up Prithvi to inform him of Vinayak's presence, but then it is then revealed that Prithviraj and Vinayak are actually best friends since their college days and took trainings together. They had come to know about that betting money and operated the plan together (including Vinayak's fake death). Ganesh had also been killed by Vinayak as a part of the plan. It is implied that Praveen will also be killed by Vinayak. Production. Development. Following the release of his film "Aasal" in February 2010, Ajith Kumar was signed by Dhayanidhi Alagiri's Cloud Nine Movies for a project touted to be directed by Gautham Menon. However, as Ajith Kumar participated in the 2010 season of the FIA Formula Two Championship, Gautham Menon, unwilling to wait, decided to shelve the film and opted to focus on another project, which prompted Venkat Prabhu, who was keen on making a multi-starrer film featuring top stars, to sign the actor in his next film, after the director saw moderate success with his previous film, "Goa". Prabhu had written three scripts, out of which the actor chose "Mankatha", in which he would portray a character "with grey shades". Venkat Prabhu later disclosed that Ajith Kumar was never considered for the role when he wrote the first draft of the script but that he kept his "usual gang of boys in mind" while creating the characters. Vaibhav Reddy suggested that a "big hero" should play the protagonist, with Bollywood actor Vivek Oberoi and Sathyaraj being considered first for the role. Ajith Kumar had called Prabhu at that time and expressed interest in performing a role similar to The Joker character played by Heath Ledger in the 2008 English film "The Dark Knight". With the protagonist role in "Mankatha" incidentally being such a character, Ajith immediately accepted the role, turning the film into a high-profile production. Prabhu further emphasised that the script had been altered due to Ajith's entry and he had incorporated "certain elements" that Ajith's fans would expect in a film. The film officially commenced on 2 August 2010 with the formal launch and a simple pooja held at the AVM Studios, Chennai, coinciding with Ajith Kumar's 18th anniversary of his entry into the film industry. The film's title, initially being "Mangaatha", derived from a popular Indian traditional card game, underwent a minor change in its spelling, due to numerological reasons. During the pre-production stage, while Prabhu was still working on the scriptment, sources claimed the film to be on the lines of Steven Soderbergh's crime thriller "Ocean Eleven" (2001). The story was later reported to revolve around a Mafia gang gambling during the Indian Premier League (IPL) cricket season. In June 2011, reports emerged that the film was a remake of the 2008 Hindi film "Jannat" that was based on match fixing. However, Dhayanidhi and Venkat Prabhu quickly denied the news and assured that "Mankatha" was original. Upon completion of filming, Prabhu named it "his favourite film so far" and "close to my heart". Casting. The film was supposed to be a "multi-starrer", with several leading South Indian actors expected to appear in it, which is a rare occurrence and would be the first of its kind in the Tamil film industry. Telugu actor Nagarjuna was first approached to essay a powerful character as a CBI officer, being initially confirmed by the director during the launch of the film. He had also conveyed interest in remaking the film into Telugu and playing Ajith Kumar's role in return, but since he could not adjust his call sheet, he was forced to pull out, with Arjun replacing him in November 2010. In an interview from August 2010, Venkat Prabhu had affirmed that Mohan Babu's son, Manoj Manchu, Ganesh Venkatraman, Venkat Prabhu's younger brother, Premji Amaren, who had been part of all his brothers' films, and a newcomer Mahat Raghavendra, a childhood friend of producer Dhayanidhi Alagiri, were signed to portray Ajith Kumar's sidekicks in the film. However, Manoj Manchu couldn't accept the offer due to a shoulder injury and was eventually replaced by Vaibhav Reddy, appearing in the third consecutive Venkat Prabhu film, while in December 2010, sources revealed that another newcomer Ashwin Kakumanu, who previously was seen in "Nadunisi Naaygal", was roped in for the fourth role, replacing Ganesh Venkatraman. Nandha later stated that he was offered the role as well, but had to reject it since he was busy shooting for "Vellore Maavattam". Prasanna was also considered for the film only to reject due to busy schedules. Prabhu termed the film as "male-oriented", attaching less importance and significance to the female characters in the film. Early reports suggested that Samantha Ruth Prabhu, and Anushka Shetty were initially approached for the lead female roles, while in July 2010, reports surfaced that Neetu Chandra, and Lakshmi Rai were supposedly signed for the roles. However, the following month Neetu Chandra opted out of the film, refusing the project due to unavailability of dates. Subsequently Trisha Krishnan was signed to portray Sanjana, Ajith Kumar's love interest, pairing with him for the third time, with Lakshmi Rai being confirmed later, who was signed on to play an important and "lengthy role". Venkat Prabhu revealed that changes in the script resulted in changes of the female characters' personalities, clarifiying that Trisha was not the replacement for Neetu Chandra and that the characters offered to both were different, while adding that Trisha's role was specifically written for her. Prabhu further stated that Lakshmi Rai was first chosen to play Ashwin's pair, which was dropped when the screenplay was altered, and that she was eventually offered the role of Sona, resolving that Rai was not given a choice to select between the roles of Sanjana and Sona, as the actress had claimed post the film's release. Earlier, reports had claimed that Sri Lankan model and actress Jacqueline Fernandez was also roped in for a guest role. In November 2010, Sneha was reported to be added to the cast to be paired opposite Arjun, however the role was later finalised with Andrea Jeremiah portraying that character. She was also expected to perform a song for the soundtrack album. Other additions to the cast in the following months included Subbu Panchu, who rose to fame with his appearance in "Boss Engira Bhaskaran" and would essay a police officer character, Jayaprakash, enacting also a character with negative shades as the father of Trisha's character, and Anjali, playing Vaibhav's pair. Sources claimed that Venkat Prabhu himself would also enact a pivotal role in the film, while reports suggesting that Vijay would appear in a cameo role were dismissed by the producer, who clarified that Vijay Vasanth would appear in a pivotal role. Concerning the film crew, Venkat Prabhu renewed his previous associations with his cousin Yuvan Shankar Raja, for the background score and soundtrack of "Mankatha", Sakthi Saravanan, who would handle the cinematography, and Praveen K. L., who along with N. B. Srikanth, would take care of the editing. Vasuki Bhaskar and Kalyan remained the costume designer and the main choreographer, respectively, with Shoby joining the latter for a couple of songs, while Selva was assigned as the stunt coordinator. Filming. The film was launched on 2 August 2010 at AVM Studios in Vadapalani, Chennai in a simple manner, following which the film's shooting commenced with the principal photography. The first schedule of filming was supposed to begin by early September, but due to pre-production works and since the principal cast was not decided yet, the shooting got delayed further, finally commencing on 25 October in Chennai. Several days earlier, a test shoot was conducted with Premji Amaren, Mahat Raghavendra and Vaibhav Reddy taking part in it. Following shoots, involving Ajith Kumar, Trisha and Premji, along the Rajiv Gandhi Salai (OMR), and at Ajith's home, a duet song, picturized on Ajith Kumar and Trisha, featuring CGI special effects, was filmed in early November, in a Chennai studio nearby the East Coast Road. From 10 November onwards, the "introduction" song was shot for five days in Bangkok, Thailand, with Ajith Kumar, Lakshmi Rai and some foreigners participating. The film's second schedule was planned to begin on 6 December 2010 in a studio in Chennai, which was slightly delayed due to heavy rain, and started couple of days later. This led to speculation that the film had been shelved due to financial constraints, which was quickly denied by Venkat Prabhu. During the schedule, all important stunt sequences were canned at Binny Mills in Perambur, while simultaneously a grand set, resembling the Dharavi slum in Mumbai was erected in a Chennai studio. Ajith Kumar also performed one of the action choreographies with the use of a body mounted camera, weighing around 30 kg. In late December, the third song, a "high-spirited peppy number", was shot for five days, with Shobi choreographing the steps. An item number, titled "Machi, Open The Bottle", it featured actresses Debi Dutta and Kainaat Arora dancing to the song along with Ajith Kumar and the rest of the gang. The schedule was wrapped up by early February, with which approximately fifty per cent of the film was reportedly completed. The remaining part of the film was supposedly to be shot during the third and last schedule to be held in Mumbai, which was to start in late February. However, sourced clarified that the subsequent schedule, too, would be held in Chennai only, with filming being carried on at the Padmanabha Theatre in North Chennai. In late March, the crew eventually moved to Mumbai, where the filming was held for nearly two weeks, mostly at the Dharavi slum. The climax portion was planned to be filmed at Madurai, which was considered as "apt" for the "action-oriented" sequence, but was eventually filmed in Chennai as well, while the remaining scenes were to be canned in Hyderabad. During the first week of June, Ajith had reportedly completed his portion, with his last day shoot being held in Hyderabad, while sources confirmed that filming was still being carried on later that month in Hyderabad. Shooting was further extended, with the crew leaving for Bangkok again in late June for a ten-day schedule to shoot the pending scenes, including a lengthy fight sequence and a song, involving Premji and Lakshmi Rai. Despite earlier announcement that Ajith had finished his portions, a "special scene" featuring Ajith in a different look was filmed on one day during the first week of July. By 10 June 2011, the crew returned to Chennai and announced the completion of the entire filming. "Mankatha"'s post-production works commenced by mid-June 2011, and were carried on for over one month. Earlier, an animation sequence lasting about 4 minutes was being created by specialised technicians, while CGI special effects were included in a song and action scenes, which was cited as the reason for the delay. By early August, all actors but Ajith Kumar had finished dubbing for their characters, including Trisha who on Venkat Prabhu insistence spoke dubbing for herself in the film, which became only the third film to feature her original voice. Rekhs, who had previously subtitled films including "Enthiran" and "Vinnaithaandi Varuvaayaa", subtitled "Mankatha" during the first week of August, while Yuvan Shankar Raja worked on the re-recording, being assisted by Premji. Marketing. Even before beginning the principal photography, a short teaser trailer was shot on the day of the launch itself, since it coincided with Aadi Perukku and was considered an auspicious day. The teaser was screened during the intermission of "Naan Mahaan Alla", another Cloud Nine Movies distribution that released on 20 August 2010. During Diwali 2010, the first official posters of "Mankatha" were published in newspapers. A teaser featuring the song "Vilaiyaadu Mankatha" was released on Ajith Kumar's birthday, on 1 May 2011 on YouTube, after plans of releasing the film or the soundtrack on that day had failed. As the teaser garnered high response, the song was released as a single track on 20 May 2011, creating positive media response. Music. The film score and soundtrack of "Mankatha" were composed by Yuvan Shankar Raja, becoming his fourth collaboration with Venkat Prabhu and Ajith Kumar as well. The soundtrack, consists of eight tracks, including one Theme music track and one club mix, with lyrics penned by Vaali, and Gangai Amaran and renowned poet Subramanya Bharathi's grandson, Niranjan Bharathi. As earlier done in "Saroja" and "Goa", a promotional track too was planned, which however did not materialise in last minute. Prior to the official soundtrack launch, a single track, "Vilaiyaadu Mankatha", was released in mid-May 2011. The music rights were bagged by Sony Music who had reportedly offered 10 million. The soundtrack album, following several postponements, was released on 10 August 2011 at Radio Mirchi's Chennai station, while two days later the team arranged a press meet, showcasing two songs and the trailer of the film. The album was reported to have achieved record breaking sales. The songs received mixed response, with their placements in the film being criticizied, while the film's score was widely appreciated. Release. During the late production stage, reports indicated that "Mankatha" faced "political pressure" following the change in government after the 2011 Tamil Nadu legislative assembly election, with sources claiming that the film did not find any buyers in Tamil Nadu, since it was produced by the grandson of DMK president M. Karunanidhi. Cloud Nine Movies began negotiations with other production houses to sell the domestical theatrical rights, however talks with UTV Motion Pictures and Gemini Film Circuit resulted in failure. On 22 August 2011, Gnanavelraja confirmed that his production house Studio Green, had purchased the Indian domestic theatrical and the television rights of the film at an undisclosed record amount. However in a turn of events, Studio Green cancelled the deal the very next day due to "various reasons" which Gnanavel Raja did not want to elaborate, in spite of posters in newspapers featuring Studio Green's logo. "Times of India" reported that Azhagiri bought back the rights, since Gnanavel Raja had planned to sell the satellite rights to Jaya TV, a channel run by the opposition party, AIADMK. On 24 August, Azhagiri announced that Kalanidhi Maran's Sun Pictures had bought the theatrical and satellite rights of the film and would distribute it along with Cloud Nine Movies. Udhayanidhi Stalin was said to have negotiated the deal and united the production houses to release the film jointly. "Mankatha" thus became the first Ajith Kumar film under Sun Pictures' banner as well as their first release after the assembly election. Actress Raadhika Sarathkumar's Radaan Mediaworks distributed the film to Tamil Nadu theatres. Dhayanidhi Azhagiri announced that the film would be a worldwide release with subtitles in English, simultaneously opening across Singapore, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, United Kingdom, the United States, Australia, Canada and many other parts of Middle East and Europe. Noted Telugu producer Bellamkonda Suresh acquired the film's dubbing rights by late August 2011 and released a dubbed Telugu version titled "Gambler" on 9 September 2011 across 225 screens, enabling the biggest opening for a dubbed version of a Tamil film. The film became scheduled for a release on 1 September 2011 in order to cash in on the Vinayaka Chaturthi-Ramadan weekend, before Ayngaran International eventually finalised 31 August 2011 as the release date in overseas theatres few days later. In the United States, the film was released at 34 theatres. The film was given a U/A (Parental guide) certificate by the Indian censor board on 23 August 2011, and passed without any cuts, while few words were bleeped. One week later, the British Board of Film Classification issued a 15 certificate with an advice that it "contains strong threat and violence". Reception. Critical reception. "Mankatha" received generally positive reviews, with critics lauding Ajith Kumar's performance. "IndiaGlitz" wrote: "In 'Mankatha', Ajith pulls it off with his impeccable style and excellent performance, which is aptly supported by a racy script and brilliant execution by director Venkat Prabhu and his team" and termed the film as ""Attagasam" of a "Villain"". Malathi Rangarajan of "The Hindu" called it a "gutsy" and "engaging game of cat and mouse that springs no surprises", adding that Venkat Prabhu had "laid out a filling spread this time". Anupama Subramanian of the "Deccan Chronicle" rated it 3 out of 5 as well, claiming that Ajith "sparkles in his 50th film". "Behindwoods" rated the film 3 out of 5, saying "Ajith is unarguably the pièce de résistance of Mankatha and it is his uninhibited performance that captivates the audience. For him, it is a superb knock on the field well laid out by Venkat Prabhu. He simply sizzles in his action shots and his cute expressions in dance sequences are a revelation." but pointed out that, "the number of gun battles and their lengths may tire you a bit and the vital heist which should have been extremely powerful lacks the fizz." and gave the verdict, "Ajith's 'Golden' gamble with Venkat that has paid off !" N Venkateswaran of "The Times of India" rated the film 4 out of 5, saying "Ajith is the soul of the movie and the others have nothing much to do, with the exception of Arjun." and called it "a good watch, especially because of Ajith's baddie act." S. Viswanath of "Deccan Herald" said, "Mankatha is strictly for Ajith fans, who has a wholesome blast, puffing, bulldozing his way and bedding belles by the dozen like there is no tomorrow." Kanchana Devi of "TruthDive" said, "Mankatha is truly an absolute entertainer for the masses. On the whole, ‘Mankatha’ has some slow moments during first half, but as the story proceeds during second half, it has gripping moments with an unexpected climax." Pavithra Srinivasan of "Rediff" rated the film 2.5 out of 5 stars, saying "If Mankatha works even just a bit, it's because of Ajith, whose charisma shines through. Watch it only for him. The rest really don't matter." "Sify"s critic highlighted that Ajith "steals the thunder and plays the emotionless bad man, to perfection", further adding that he looked "smashing and his scorching screen presence is unmatchable", while the reviewer criticised the script as being "dull", and concluded " For die-hard fans of Ajith who don't have a problem with an unforgivable 2 Hours 40 minutes running time and juvenile comedy, this might be a treat. For others though, it's strictly average entertainment." Rohit Ramachandran of nowrunning.com rated Mankatha 2.5/5 stating that "Mankatha doesn't stand on independent merit. It rests on the fanboy's identity crisis." Film critic Sudhish Kamath rated the film 6.5 out of 10, saying "The greatest disservice to an actor with potential is to worship a bad film. Stop defending the Aasals, aas***l*s." Akhila Krishnamurthy of Outlook said, "The thing about testosterone is it can either excite or frustrate. There is no in-between. Tamil superstar Ajith’s much-anticipated 50th film is a very “male film”, no doubt. There’s a heist, a few chases, gunfights, cusswords, three good-looking women and a salt-and-pepper-haired protagonist, who is naughty at forty. Only, none of it excites." Box Office. "Mankatha" had a solo opening in Tamil Nadu on 31 August. It was said to have collected 24 crore from 370 screens during the opening five-day weekend, and around 410 million in its first week. The film became the biggest grosser of the year as well as that of Ajith's career, while also garnering the second-highest opening after "Enthiran" (2010). In Chennai city alone, the film earned 27.2 million in the first weekend from 19 screens. The multiplexes gave it the maximum number of shows including morning shows in all screens. At the Mayajaal multiplex, "Mankatha" was screened in all 14 screens on the first day, resulting in 70 shows per day, all being sold out, while Sathyam Cinemas reported a net of 3.4 million from two screens for the five-day weekend. The film grossed 65 million in 19 days in Chennai. The Telugu version "Gambler", which released in 225 screens. In Kerala, the film was released in the original language in Thiruvananthapuram and Palakkad districts on 31 August while a dubbed version released all over the state on 9 September, opening at first rank, outclassing other Malayalam releases. The film bought for 60 lakh in Kerala was expected to get distributor share of 14 million. The Telugu version got high opening compared to other mainstream films It was successful at the Bangalore box office. The film opened at second rank in Malaysia, grossing $803,666 in its first weekend, with a per screen average of $19,602 (highest per screen average) claiming the second-highest opening weekend for a Tamil film. After four weeks, the film grossed 60 million in Malaysia. In the United Kingdom, the film grossed $179,054 from 16 screens, opening at No.1 spot and No.4 in the all-time chart Overall the film grossed $1,104,911 in Malaysia in six weeks, and $268,533 in UK at the end of the third week. Sun Pictures the distributor declared that "Mankatha" grossed 800 million in the first month. Sify termed the film as a blockbuster as well as the year's biggest commercial success. The film completed a 50-day run at the box office and was ranked as the fourth biggest grosser in Tamil film history. Brand merchandise related to the film were launched for sale after the 50th day. Items included sun glasses, T-shirts, hand cuffs and lockets, all on a limited edition basis. Google Zeitgeist. Google Zeitgeist 2011, a compilation of the year's most frequent search queries, placed "Mankatha" at 7th rank, becoming the only Tamil film to secure a place in the list. Sequel. Shortly after the film's release and its high commercial success, Venkat Prabhu confirmed the possibility of a sequel, provided that Ajith Kumar accepted. Sources also reported that Prabhu planned to use the initial script that he had penned before Ajith Kumar became part of the film. Remake. A Hindi remake of the film has been confirmed by Gnanavel Raja of Studio Green. The cast and crew are yet to be finalised.
581235	Karuppusamy Kuththagaithaarar is a South Indian Tamil film released in 2007. The film earned mixed reviews and had an average run at the box office. Plot. Karan plays this happy go lucky guy next door who is a small time contractor for cycle stands. When not at work, he kills time with his friends taking part in their mimicry troupe where he is famous for his Rajini look-alike acts. Life goes on for the protagonist until Meenakshi stumbles upon in his life. An aspiring medical student, she relates Karan’s benevolence to her late mother’s. Soon after, they both become victim of the stupid cupid’s bait. Although in love with the uncle, Karan insists that education should be her priority over romance. Besides, their love affair wreaks havoc in Meenakshi’s upper caste family, which is known for cast prejudices. With a family to resist and her education to pay attention to, Meenakshi find it tough to get along. Finally, a seamless climax tells it all as to how the couple manages to pull it off against all the odds, predominantly Meenakshi’s family.
1059863	Diane Venora (born August 10, 1952) is an American stage, television, and film actress. Early life. Venora was born in East Hartford, Connecticut, one of six children of Marie (née Brooks) and Robert P. Venora, who owned a dry cleaning establishment. Diane graduated from East Hartford High School (class of 1970), during which she was active in musicals and plays. She studied at Boston Conservatory of Music and two years later won a scholarship to The Juilliard School in New York City, where she graduated in 1977. At Juilliard she was a member of the Drama Department's (1973–1977), which also included Kelsey Grammer, Harriet Sansom Harris, and Robin Williams. Career. After graduation, Venora performed extensively on the stage, particularly in Shakespearean plays. She made her film debut alongside Albert Finney and Gregory Hines in "Wolfen" (1981). In 1983, she starred in Joseph Papp's production of "Hamlet" at the New York Shakespeare Festival in the lead role, the first woman to play the role at the prestigious showcase. She has a long history with Hamlet, having played the title role, having played Ophelia opposite Kevin Kline, and having played Gertrude onscreen opposite Ethan Hawke. In 1988, her critically acclaimed performance in Clint Eastwood's biographical feature of jazz great Charlie Parker, "Bird", as Chan Parker, his wife, earned her a Golden Globe Award nomination and the New York Film Critics Circle Award. In 1994, after taking five years off to care for her daughter, Venora landed a starring role in the ABC TV series "Thunder Alley" (playing Ed Asner's character's daughter), followed by a recurring role as plastic surgeon Geri Infante in the Emmy-winning TV series "Chicago Hope". In 1995, she starred opposite Al Pacino and Robert De Niro in "Heat", earning high regard from both critics and audiences for her portrayal of Justine Hanna, the Pacino character's troubled wife. That performance and her follow-up as Juliet's mother, Gloria Capulet, in "Romeo + Juliet" (1996) earned her supporting roles in "The Jackal" (1997), "The 13th Warrior" (1999), and "The Insider" (1999). She was most recently seen in the 2010 film, "All Good Things". Personal life. Venora was married to cinematographer Andrzej Bartkowiak in 1980; the couple divorced in 1989. She quit show business in 1989 to spend more time with her daughter Madzia, then eight years old. During her hiatus, Venora lived in New York, teaching disadvantaged children and acting in an occasional play. In 1994, Venora and her daughter moved to Los Angeles.
1719206	Steal This Film is a film series documenting the movement against intellectual property produced by The League of Noble Peers and released via the BitTorrent peer-to-peer protocol. Two parts, and one special The Pirate Bay trial edition of the first part, have been released so far, and The League of Noble Peers is working on "Steal this Film - The Movie" and a new project entitled "The Oil of the 21st Century". Part one. "Part One", shot in Sweden and released in August 2006, combines accounts from prominent players in the Swedish piracy culture (The Pirate Bay, Piratbyrån, and the Pirate Party) with found material, propaganda-like slogans and Vox Pops. It includes interviews with The Pirate Bay members Fredrik Neij (tiamo), Gottfrid Svartholm (anakata) and Peter Sunde (brokep) that were later re-used by agreement in the documentary film "Good Copy Bad Copy", as well as with Piratbyrån members Rasmus Fleischer (rsms), Johan (krignell) and Sara Andersson (fraux). The film is notable for its critical analysis of an alleged regulatory capture attempt performed by the Hollywood film lobby to leverage economic sanctions by the United States government on Sweden through the WTO. Evidence is presented of pressure applied through Swedish courts on Swedish police to conducting a search and seizure against The Pirate Bay to disrupt its BitTorrent tracker service, in contravention of Swedish law. "The Guardian's" James Flint called "Part One" "at heart a traditionally structured 'talking heads' documentary" with "amusing stylings" from film-makers who "practice what they preach." It also screened at the British Film Institute and numerous independent international events, and was a talking point in 2007's British Documentary Film Festival. In January 2008 it was featured on BBC Radio 4's "Today", in a discussion piece which explored the implications of P2P for traditional media.
1377409	Stuck in the Suburbs is a Disney Channel Original Movie. It was released on July 16, 2004, and stars Danielle Panabaker as Brittany Aarons and Brenda Song as Natasha Kwon-Schwartz. Brittany, a regular middle school student in the suburbs, accidentally exchanges cell phones with pop singer Jordan Cahill. This was one of the first made-for-television movies by Disney which was also accompanied by its own soundtrack. The film gathered 3.7 million viewers which made the film the most-watched telecast in its time period in the kids 6-11 and 9-14 demographics. The film's soundtrack entered the U.S. "Billboard" 200 and peaked at #5 on the "Billboard" Top Kid Audio charts. Plot. Brittany Aarons (Danielle Panabaker) is one of the many girls who has a crush on popular singer and boy-toy Jordan Cahill (Taran Killam). However, she is bored of living a suburban existence and seeks a little something more. She meets the new girl Natasha Kwon-Schwartz (Brenda Song), who looks like an Upper East-sider from the City, except she's not. Upon Natasha's arrival, Brittany slowly starts to make a move towards breaking out of her conformist routines, but not before becoming an extra in Jordan's latest music video, and inviting Natasha to join her and her fangirl friends. When Jordan and his team bump into Brittany and Natasha after a show, Eddie (Jordan's assistant) and Brittany collect their stuff, and accidentally take each other's cell phones. Once Brittany gets a hold of Jordan's much more sophisticated phone, Natasha convinces Brittany that it would be fun to mess with his career. They prank call his hair stylist, get her to cut off all his hair, and have someone serve him raisins, which he hates. Along the way they find that Jordan's life is not the life he chooses, but rather the one his record company wants for him. They will not even allow him to use the original lyrics he wants for his own songs. At first he is terrified that his personal barber gave him a major haircut, but eventually accepts it as the first step towards a break from his manufactured image. Eventually the girls attempt to force him to do a concert to save a historic house but he runs away.
1066505	Night Catches Us is a 2010 drama film directed and written by Tanya Hamilton and stars Kerry Washington, Anthony Mackie, Jamie Hector, Wendell Pierce and Novella Nelson. Plot. In 1976 former Black Panther Marcus (Anthony Mackie), returns to his Philadelphia neighborhood to attend his father's funeral. Marcus has been away for several years, part of the time spent in prison on gun running charges and part spent wandering the country. Marcus has a reputation for having snitched on a fellow Panther which led to his death when the police tried to arrest him. Marcus' former friend DoRight (Jamie Hector), now a local gangster, and Marcus' brother Bostic (Tariq Trotter), a Black Muslim, are especially displeased by his return.
632814	David Ian Hewlett (born 18 April 1968) is an English-Canadian actor best known for his role as Dr. Meredith Rodney McKay on the science fiction television shows "Stargate SG-1", "Stargate Atlantis" and "Stargate Universe", and his role as David Worth in "Cube". Early life. Hewlett was born in Redhill, Surrey, and moved with his family to Canada at an early age. Hewlett became a regular on the series "Traders" and "" and starred in the film "Cube". Before his acting career took off, he ran Darkyl Media, a web site design firm, and also founded Fusefilm.com, a now defunct internet community for filmmakers. Career. Hewlett got his first computer in his mid-teens and became a self-described "computer nerd". While attending high school in Toronto he launched his acting career, starring in student films by Vincenzo Natali. He dropped out of high school in his senior year to pursue careers in acting and computing. David Hewlett has appeared in many low-budget horror films, such as "The Darkside" and the minor cult favourites "" and "Pin". He also guest starred in several television series. In 1996, he landed one of his better-known roles, as Grant Jansky on "Traders". In 1997, Hewlett worked again with Natali, starring in the critically acclaimed thriller "Cube" as Worth the architect, a role that saw the rise of his stardom due to the commercial success of the low budget Canadian film. A self-confessed science fiction fan, Hewlett has been quoted saying that "Doctor Who" is what first sparked his love for the genre and that he made science fiction when he was younger in Britain on his 8 millimetre camera with friends. Hewlett more or less had his early dreams of working in science fiction made into a reality when he first had a four-episode guest role on "Stargate SG-1" as the Stargate expert Rodney McKay, which eventually grew into his starring role on "Stargate Atlantis". In 2007, David appeared as a guest star in the first episode of the TV series "Sanctuary", a show produced by and starring Stargate actress Amanda Tapping. He played Larry Tolson – a patient suffering from a form of psychosis, who was shot and wounded before being taken into custody by police as a murder suspect. There are no plans for him to reprise this role. In 2006 he wrote and directed "A Dog's Breakfast" starring himself, his sister Kate Hewlett, his dog Mars, and "Stargate Atlantis" costars Paul McGillion, Christopher Judge and Rachel Luttrell. Personal life. From 2000 until their divorce in 2004, David Hewlett was married to actress Soo Garay. He became engaged to Jane Loughman in late 2006, and on 21 June 2008 David and Jane were wed at Warwick Castle in Warwick, Warwickshire, England. Their son Sebastian Flynn was born in 2007. David Hewlett has three younger siblings. Kate Hewlett, played the role of Jeannie Miller, McKay's sister in four episodes of "Stargate Atlantis". Kate also appeared as the character Marilyn in Hewlett's directorial debut, "A Dog's Breakfast".
1059605	Dr. Dolittle 2 is a 2001 American comedy film, and the theatrical sequel to the 1998 film "Dr. Dolittle". The continuing tale of the doctor who can talk to the animals—this time, it's Dolittle versus Darwin when the animals launch a labor strike to protect their forest from unscrupulous human developers. Dolittle quickly comes up with a plan: populate the forest with a species of animal that the law protects. He finds a perfect candidate when he comes across Ava (Lisa Kudrow), a lone Pacific Western bear living in the condemned forest. To provide her with a mate, Dolittle turns to Archie (Steve Zahn), a wise-cracking, fast-food loving, circus performing bear. It is also the last film to feature Eddie Murphy as Doctor Dolittle. This film features a cameo appearance by the "Crocodile Hunter", Steve Irwin. Plot. The movie starts out with Lucky the Dog (Norm Macdonald) explaining Dr. John Dolittle's (Eddie Murphy) gift of talking to animals. John comes home from France and gives his wife a present from Paris. He also gives his daughter, Maya (Kyla Pratt), a chameleon, named Pepito. Also, Charisse's (Raven-Symoné) sixteenth birthday is coming today. She was also not doing well in her classes. As a punishment, her father takes her phone away. Later on, Charisse's boyfriend, Eric (Lil' Zane), comes over and decides to join the family at the birthday party. However, a possum (voice of Isaac Hayes) and a raccoon, Joey (voice of Michael Rapaport), tell the doctor that their boss, the Godbeaver, wants to see him.
522266	Gagamboy is a 2004 Filipino science fiction action comedy film made in 2004 directed by Erik Matti and starring Vhong Navarro. It is of the same ilk as the "Spider-Man" films, with a mutated spider that causes Gagamboy to gain his superpowers. Plot. Junie (Vhong Navarro), is an ice cream vendor, who goes around selling ice cream to children, and adults alike. After his shift, Junie gets in a predicament with a rival vendor Dodoy (Jay Manalo). Their manager, angered by their actions, demotes Junie to a warehouse guard. Dodoy celebrates, only to be demoted too, working a different shift than that of Junie. Junie goes home in a bad mood, until he sees the love of his life, Liana (Aubrey Miles). After dinner, Junie gets ready to sleep, to work a new job the next day. While on the job, Junie accidentally swallows a spider, thus giving him web slinging abilities, and becoming Gagamboy. After his shift, Dodoy comes in to his work, and leaves a sandwich unprotected. A roach slips into his sandwich, and as he eats it, he collapses, only to regain consciousness as a large roach. He hires two henchmen, and calls himself, Ipisman (Cockroachman). Junie and Dodoy, both try to win Liana's love. Dodoy practically gives up, only to return as Ipisman, to kidnap Liana to lure Gagamboy to his lair. There, he plans to finish off Gagamboy, but the tables turned and Dodoy was destroyed. Release. The film featured at the 2004 Hong Kong Film Festival. Despite its low production qualities, the film received general praise due to its use of humour, especially in parodying other tokusatsu and superhero films. As a result, the film is well known in the Chinese kuso community.
724749	Bonnie Somerville (born 24 February 1974) is an American actress and singer. As an actress, she has had roles in a number of movies and television series, most notably "NYPD Blue", "Grosse Pointe", "Friends", "The O.C.", "Cashmere Mafia", and as of 2013, CBS's "Golden Boy". Biography. Personal life. Somerville was born and reared in the Brooklyn borough of New York City. She started acting and singing at a young age, appearing in high school plays at Poly Prep Country Day School in Bay Ridge in Brooklyn. Somerville attended Boston College as a Musical Theater major, and returned home upon completing her education in order to try acting professionally. At 2 a.m. on October 18, 2008, Somerville and a friend were leaving a party thrown by T-Mobile on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood, California, when a man approached her and demanded her purse. A struggle ensued, and her friend was shot in the lower back with a .22 caliber handgun. Somerville then gave up her purse, and the shooter fled. He has not yet been apprehended. Acting career. Somerville's first acting job was as an extra in the 1996 film "City Hall". Her first major role for television was for the lead in the CBS miniseries, "" (1999), in which she also sang. Somerville starred in the 2000 series "Grosse Pointe", and later played Rachel Hoffman, a colleague of Sandy Cohen, in Season 1 of "The O.C.".
1132600	La Bestia in Calore (also known as SS Hell Camp, SS Experiment Part 2, The Beast in Heat and Horrifying Experiments of the S.S. Last Days) is an Italian exploitation film released in 1977. Directed by Luigi Batzella and written by Batzella and Lorenzo Artale, it gained notoriety when it was banned in the UK as a video nasty. This is one of many so-called video nasties about fictionalized World War II Nazi POW camp atrocities. The film is currently banned in Australia due to offensive depictions of sexual violence and extreme impact violence throughout. The film is also currently banned in the UK as well. Story. A beautiful, nefarious senior female SS officer/doctor (Magall) creates a genetic, incubus-like mutant human beast (half man/half beast). The beast is a rapacious, squat, sex fiend which she uses to torture and molest female prisoners while the Nazis watch. The dwarfish beast is kept on a diet of mega-aphrodisiacs. In addition to the beast, the prisoners (male and female) are stripped naked and forced to endure group interrogations, electric shocks, systematic rape, and beatings. Genre. The film duplicates the formula of the surprise hit "Ilsa, She Wolf of the SS" (1974) and its sequels, which popularized the Nazi exploitation subgenre (particularly in Italian cinema). Macha Magall's sexy yet cruel SS dominatrix is clearly patterned after the titular "Ilsa" character (played by Dyanne Thorne in all three "Ilsa" movies), though Magall is less statuesque. The film is considered a B-movie due to the poor sound quality, formulaic plot, and low-grade special effects (amongst other things). The only set is a laboratory with a cage in the middle, with some cheap costumes, poor lighting, and inept editing. The film contains reused war footage (much of it obviously shot on different film stock) and scenes from "Quando suona la campana", another film by the same director, with the lab scenes occupying around 40 minutes of the final film. Several actors from "Quando suona la campana" were rehired to provide a link with the new footage. Like many films of the Nazi exploitation subgenre, the movie features torture, gore and nudity. The film continues to be re-issued in various formats (VHS, DVD). Due to the film's graphic nature, It has been banned from several countries and remains banned in some countries to this day. In 1992, the Australian Classification Board banned the film for "excessive sexual violence" and the film remains banned in Australia to this day. The film is banned elsewhere too, such as the United Kingdom where it was originally prosecuted as a Video Nasty.
1058362	Torn Curtain is a 1966 American political thriller film directed by Alfred Hitchcock, starring Paul Newman and Julie Andrews. Written by Brian Moore, the film is about an American scientist who pretends to defect to East Germany as part of a clandestine mission to obtain the solution of a formula resin and escape back to the United States. Plot. Michael Armstrong (Paul Newman), an esteemed American physicist and rocket scientist, is to attend a scientific conference in Copenhagen. He takes a cruise ship to Copenhagen along with his assistant and fiancée, Sarah Sherman (Julie Andrews). Armstrong tells Sherman that he did not want her to come along, and en route to Copenhagen, he receives a radiogram to pick up a book once in Copenhagen. The book, allegedly a first-edition of one of Armstrong's book, actually contains a message that says, "Contact in case emergency." He tells Sherman he is going to Stockholm, but she discovers he is flying to East Berlin, and she follows him there. When they land, he he is welcomed by representatives of the East German government, and Sherman realizes that Armstrong has defected to the other side. Sherman, however, is extremely uncomfortable with this move, realizing if the apparent defection is in fact real, given the circumstances of the Cold War of the period, she would likely never see her home or family again. They are constantly accompanied by Professor Karl Manfred (Günter Strack), who took part in arranging Armstrong's defection to the East. Armstrong visits a contact, a 'farmer' (Mort Mills), where it is revealed that his defection is in fact a ruse to gain the confidence of the East German scientific establishment in order to learn just how much their chief scientist Gustav Lindt (Ludwig Donath) and by extension, the Soviet Union, knows about anti-missile systems. While Armstrong does not inform the U.S. government of his plan, he has made preparations to return to the West via an escape network, known as . However, Armstrong is followed to this farm by his official body man, Hermann Gromek (Wolfgang Kieling), an East German security officer assigned to him. Gromek realizes what is and that Armstrong is a double agent, and as Gromek is calling the police to report his suspicions, a tortuous fight scene commences that ends with Gromek being killed. So as to not arouse the suspicion of the taxi driver who brought Armstrong to the farm, a gun is not used to kill Gromek, but instead he is choked, stabbed, hit with a shovel, and, ultimately, gassed to death by Armstrong and the farmer's wife (Carolyn Conwell). Gromek and his motorcycle are then buried by the 'farmer' and his wife. The taxicab driver (Peter Lorre Jr., uncredited) who drove Armstrong to the farm, however, reports on Armstrong's behavior to the police when he sees Gromek's missing person ad in the newspaper. Armstrong visits the physics faculty of Karl Marx University in Leipzig, where his interview with the scientists is abruptly ended when he is questions by security officials about the missing Gromek. The faculty try to interrogate Sherman about her knowledge of the American "Gamma Five" anti-missile program, but she refuses to cooperate and runs from the room even though she had agreed to cooperate and defect to East Germany. At this point, Armstrong secretly confides to her his actual motives, and asks her to go along with the ruse. He finally goads Professor Lindt into revealing his anti-missile equations in a fit of pique over what Lindt believes are Armstrong's mathematical mistakes. When Lindt hears over the university's loudspeaker system that Armstrong and Sherman are being sought for questioning, he realizes that he has given up his secrets while learning nothing in return. Armstrong and Sherman escape from the school with the help of the university clinic physician Dr. Koska (Gisela Fischer). They travel to East Berlin, pursued by the "Stasi", in a decoy bus operated by the escape network, led by Mr. Jacobi (David Opatoshu). Roadblocks, highway robbery by Soviet Army deserters, and bunching with the "real" bus result in the police becoming aware of the decoy bus and everyone fleeing. While looking for the Friedrichstraße post office, the two encounter the exiled Polish countess Kuchinska (Lila Kedrova) who leads them to the post office in hopes of being sponsored for an American visa. The police find Armstrong and Sherman at the post office, and Kuchinska throws herself in front of the police so they can go to their next destination, a travel agency.
1165315	Dayle Lymoine Robertson (July 14, 1923February 27, 2013) was an American actor best known for his starring roles on television. He played the roving investigator Jim Hardie in the NBC/ABC television series "Tales of Wells Fargo", and Ben Calhoun, the owner of an incomplete railroad line in ABC's "The Iron Horse". He was often presented as a deceptively thoughtful but modest western hero. From 1968 to 1970, Robertson was the fourth and final host of the syndicated "Death Valley Days" anthology series. Early life. Born in 1923 to Melvin and Vervel Robertson in Harrah in Oklahoma County near Oklahoma City in central Oklahoma, Robertson worked as a professional boxer briefly before enrolling in the Oklahoma Military Academy in Claremore. He also served in the military before his professional acting career began. He served in the United States Army 322nd Combat Engineer Battalion of the 97th Infantry Division in Europe during World War II and was wounded twice. He received Bronze and Silver Star medals. Career. Robertson began his acting career by chance when he was in the United States Army. Stationed at San Luis Obispo, California, Robertson decided to have a photograph taken for his mother; so he and several other soldiers went to Hollywood to find a photographer. A large copy of his photo was later displayed in the photographer's shop window. He found himself receiving letters from film agents who wished to represent him. After the war, Robertson stayed in California. Hollywood actor Will Rogers, Jr., gave him this advice: "Don't ever take a dramatic lesson. They will try to put your voice in a dinner jacket, and people like their hominy and grits in everyday clothes." Robertson thereafter avoided formal acting lessons. For most of his career, Robertson played in western films and television shows—well over sixty titles in all. His best-remembered series, "Tales of Wells Fargo", aired on NBC from 1957 to 1961, when it moved to ABC and expanded to an hour-long program for its final season in 1961-1962. Robertson also did the narration for "Tales of Wells Fargo" through which he often presented his own commentary on matters of law, morality, and common sense. In its March 30, 1959, cover story on television westerns, "Time" magazine reported Robertson was 6 feet tall, weighed 180 pounds, and measured 42-34-34. He sometimes made use of his physique in "beefcake" scenes, such as one in 1952's "Return of the Texan" where he is seen bare-chested and sweaty, repairing a fence. In the 1966-67 season, Robertson starred in ABC's "The Iron Horse", in which his character wins an incomplete railroad line in a poker game and then decides to manage the company. In 1968, he succeeded Robert Taylor as the host of "Death Valley Days", a role formerly held by Stanley Andrews and future U.S. President Ronald W. Reagan. In rebroadcasts, "Death Valley Days" is often known as "Trails West", with Ray Milland in the role of revised host. Though Robertson played a central part in two episodes of CBS's "Murder, She Wrote" series with Angela Lansbury, he was not credited in either appearance. In 1960, Robertson guest starred as himself in NBC's "The Ford Show", starring Tennessee Ernie Ford. In 1962, he similarly appeared on a short-lived western comedy and variety series, ABC's "The Roy Rogers and Dale Evans Show". In 1963, after "Tales of Wells Fargo" ended its five-year run, he played the lead role in the first of A.C. Lyles' second feature westerns, "Law of the Lawless".
1102706	Early years. He was born in Tokyo. He graduated from the University of Tokyo in 1938 with a degree in mathematics and also graduated from the physics department at the University of Tokyo in 1941. During the war years he worked in isolation, but was able to master Hodge theory as it then stood. He obtained his Ph.D. degree from the University of Tokyo in 1949, with a thesis entitled "Harmonic fields in Riemannian manifolds". He was involved in cryptographic work from about 1944, at a time of great personal difficulty, while holding an academic post in Tokyo. Institute for Advanced Study. In 1949 he travelled to the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey at the invitation of Hermann Weyl. At this time the foundations of Hodge theory were being brought in line with contemporary technique in operator theory. Kodaira rapidly became involved in exploiting the tools it opened up in algebraic geometry, adding sheaf theory as it became available. This work was particularly influential, for example on Hirzebruch. In a second research phase, Kodaira wrote a long series of papers in collaboration with D. C. Spencer, founding the deformation theory of complex structures on manifolds. This gave the possibility of constructions of moduli spaces, since in general such structures depend continuously on parameters. It also identified the sheaf cohomology groups, for the sheaf associated with the holomorphic tangent bundle, that carried the basic data about the dimension of the moduli space, and obstructions to deformations. This theory is still foundational, and also had an influence on the (technically very different) scheme theory of Grothendieck. Spencer then continued this work, applying the techniques to structures other than complex ones, such as G-structures. In a third major part of his work, Kodaira worked again from around 1960 through the classification of algebraic surfaces from the point of view of birational geometry of complex manifolds. This resulted in a typology of seven kinds of two-dimensional compact complex manifolds, recovering the five algebraic types known classically; the other two being non-algebraic. He provided also detailed studies of elliptic fibrations of surfaces over a curve, or in other language elliptic curves over algebraic function fields, a theory whose arithmetic analogue proved important soon afterwards. This work also included a characterisation of K3 surfaces as deformations of quartic surfaces in "P"4, and the theorem that they form a single diffeomorphism class. Again, this work has proved foundational. (The K3 surfaces were named after Kummer, Kähler, and Kodaira). Later years. Kodaira left the Institute for Advanced Study in 1961, and briefly served as chair at the Johns Hopkins University and Stanford University In 1967, returned to the University of Tokyo. He was awarded a Wolf Prize in 1984/5. He died in Kofu on 26 July 1997.
394302	Ad-lib Night (; lit. "A Very Special Guest") is the third film by South Korean director Lee Yoon-ki. A group of boys from the country who have come to Seoul to find the runaway daughter of a dying man to be with him on his death bed. The film, based on a short story by Japanese writer Azuko Taira, debuted at the 11th annual Pusan International Film Festival as well as 57th Berlin International Film Festival. Plot. Bo-kyung (Han Hyo-joo) is approached by two young men from the countryside, who are both convinced she is Myung-eun, a girl who left the village years ago and whose father is now dying. When they realize she is isn't who they think she is, the more outspoken of the pair, Ki-yeong (Kim Yeong-min), asks her to be the "stand-in" for a night, so that the old man can die after seeing his estranged daughter one last time. Despite her hesitation, she gets in their car.
1044947	The Shuttered Room is a 1967 British horror film starring Gig Young and Carol Lynley as a couple who move into a house with dark secrets. It is based on a short story of the same name by August Derleth and H. P. Lovecraft. The film has also been re-released under the title "Blood Island". Although set in the US, the film was shot in Cornwall and Norfolk, England. The film features a large, half-brick, half-timber watermill, which is destroyed by fire in the closing scenes. The building used was Hardingham Mill on the River Yare in Norfolk. Plot. Susannah Kelton, a newly-married twentysomething who was raised in foster care in the big city, learns that her real parents have only recently died and left all of their property to her. She and her husband, Mike, travel to the island of Dunwich off the coast of Massachusetts to inspect the property. They find a local culture that is clannish, backward and ignorant. The few friends they make amongst the locals, including Susannah's Aunt Agatha, warn them that the family mill is cursed and urge the Keltons to leave immediately and never look back. Refusing to bow to superstition, the Keltons consider rehabilitating the abandoned mill. They become the target of a gang of local thugs led by Susannah's lecherous cousin, Ethan. Their reign of terror is ended by something still living in the shuttered attic room of the mill, something that caused Susannah nightmares as a child.
587715	Nuvve Kavali (English translation "I Want Only You") is a 2000 Telugu romance film, produced by Ushakiron Movies, and directed by K. Vijaya Bhaskar. The film was a remake of Malayalam film "Niram". Trivikram Srinivas, penned dialogues for the film. Tarun and Richa Pallod debuted with this film as actors in lead role. The film has also garnered the National Film Award for Best Feature Film in Telugu. Plot. Tarun (Tarun) and Madhu (Richa Pallod) are childhood best buddies. They were born on the same day, in the same hospital. Even their parents are best friends from their college years and are now neighbors. Tarun and Madhu are inseparable, so much so that they study in the same college in the same class. Everyone knows them to be just friends, except Varsha (Varsha), the innocent and clumsy girl who has an enormous crush on Tarun. She notices his feelings towards Madhu and asks him about that, which he firmly and laughingly denies. Another student Prakash (Sai Kiran), a very talented singer, develops feelings towards Madhu when she spontaneously sings along with him at a college function. He, Madhu and others leave for Bangalore for a week to participate in a few inter-college competitions. As they are apart for the first time in their lives, Tarun starts missing Madhu very badly, but does not understand his feelings. His maid Rukku (Kovai Sarala), who often teases him and Madhu, starts teasing him that he is missing her because he loves her. Slowly, Tarun begins to realize that indeed, he loves her. He buys a gift and greeting card to express himself when she returns. Meanwhile he sees a girl from his college slapping her friend because he proposed to her. She, in a distressed mood, says that such guys are a shame towards friendship as they pretend to be friends but really have other intentions. She wishes that every guy could be like Tarun so that a girl and guy could be best friends without any worries. Tarun decides not to express his feelings to Madhu lest she too react in the same. Madhu returns from Bangalore and tells Tarun that Prakash proposed to her during their stay. She comes to his room to ask him what to reply and by mistake half opens the drawer in which he kept his greeting card and gift. He hurriedly closes it and asks her not to open that and tells her to agree to the proposal if she likes Prakash. She finally agrees to Prakash's proposal but later things start to get a little rough as Prakash doesn't like the intimacy Tarun and Madhu share. Soon Prakash's grandmother comes to Madhu's house to set the date for their marriage. Her parents agree and marriage preparations are underway. It is decided that after marriage, Madhu will leave with Prakash to USA where his whole family is settled. It is then that she realises this marriage means breaking her relationship with Tarun and leaving forever. She suddenly dislikes getting married and tries to talk to Tarun about it. He casually says that it is all part of life and inevitable. She asks how can he talk so cold heartedly. She says she wishes she did not have to leave and wonders why she had to love Prakash. She scolds him why he did not get the idea to love her in the first place. At this point Tarun, ruled by emotions, hugs Madhu and cries and runs away from her. Madhu growns suspicious of his actions and remembers the drawer which he did not let her open. She goes to his room and is shocked to find the card and gift. She says that she does not want to marry Prakash and will tell everyone about them. Tarun firmly refuses saying that their parents have given them unlimited freedom and it would be very selfish and irresponsible of them to break their trust. At his insistence she goes through the engagement ceremony. After the engagement, Tarun says that he has to go to a basketball match out of the state and will not be there for the marriage. The parents try to convince him but he doesn't listen. Madhu gives him a ride to the station and on the way they remember their entire childhood. At the station as Tarun is boarding the train, Madhu weeps and holds him. He is unable to leave. At the house, the maid tells their parents everything and they come to the station. They find Madhu and Tarun on the platform stairs and tell them that what they feel is not wrong and it is the way of the world. They assure the love birds that Madhu's marriage to Prakash will cancelled. Soundtrack. Thesoundrtack was composed is by Koti.
1191264	Bret Michael Harrison (born April 6, 1982) is an American actor and musician known predominantly for his work on comedy television series such as "Grounded for Life", "The Loop", "Reaper", and "Breaking In". Early life. Harrison was born in Portland, Oregon. In his senior year, he attended Tualatin High School in Tualatin, Oregon. His first acting role came at the Hillsboro Artists' Regional Theatre in his home state where he had the role of George in "Our Town". He married Lauren Zelman in 2012. Career. Acting. One of his first TV appearances was in the third season of MTV's "Undressed" and the MTV film "Everybody's Doing It". Bret's first major role was dorky next-door neighbor Brad O'Keefe on "Grounded for Life". Harrison appeared in five "That '70s Show" episodes as Charlie Richardson, a character that was intended to be a replacement for departing cast member Topher Grace but the character was soon killed off when Harrison decided to work on another series. He also appeared in "The O.C." as Danny, Seth's rival. He had a dramatic guest role on "" as Sam Cavanaugh, a young victim of sexual abuse. In film, he appeared alongside Jack Black and Colin Hanks in "Orange County". In addition, Harrison also starred in the movie "Deal", which was released in the US on April 26, 2008. During 2006 and 2007 he starred in "The Loop", as a young professional trying to balance the needs of his social life with the pressures of working at the corporate headquarters of a major U.S. airline. It was canceled following the second season in 2007. Later in 2007, he became the star of The CW series, "Reaper" as Sam Oliver. "Reaper" was canceled on May 19, 2009, after two seasons. Bret Harrison signed on to play Dr. Sidney Miller on ABC's re-imagined "V" series, according to The Ausiello Files. Harrison's character appears throughout Season 2 (2011) as an evolutionary biologist and eventual member of the counter-visitor resistance. Also in 2011, he was signed by Fox to fill a main cast role in a mid-season replacement comedy called "Breaking In". Music. Big Japan is a four-piece indie rock band from Los Angeles, with Nathanial Castro on vocals and guitar, Adam Brody on drums, Harrison on guitar and Brad Babinski on bass. The band only performs, writes and records sporadically given Brody and Harrison's unpredictable acting schedules. Their first band name was Steven's Team, named after the film "The Cable Guy". Big Japan's first release, "Music for Dummies", was digitally released through Nightshift Records on August 23, 2005. This CD originally titled "Music for Dummies" was changed to "Untitled" thus the limited number of CDs printed have become collectors items.
1057793	Scavenger Hunt is a 1979 comedy film with a large ensemble cast, in the mold of the 1963 comedy "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World". Plot summary. Milton Parker (Vincent Price), an elderly and eccentric game inventor, dies after losing a video game with his seductive nurse (Carol Wayne). Following his funeral, Parker's greedy and estranged relatives show up at his mansion for the reading of his will. They learn from lawyer Charles Bernstein (Robert Morley) that the winner of an elaborate scavenger hunt will inherit his $200 million estate. The (potential) beneficiaries form five teams and get involved in various misadventures. The five teams consist of: Each group is given five lists containing clues to acquire 100 items with various point values ranging from five to 100 points. The items are to be acquired by any means necessary, with the exception of being purchased. They are to be placed in five different pens on the grounds of the estate. The winner of the scavenger hunt will be the person or team to acquire the most points by 5 p.m. that day. Chaos and carnage ensue, with scavengers returning occasionally to the Parker mansion to deposit items under the supervision of Bernstein and the scorekeeper, Cornfeld. Mildred, Stewart and Georgie's adventure has them trying to win a stuffed toy bear at a local carnival, trying to haul a heavy safe out of Stewart's office building, stealing the false teeth of a Native American (who spends the rest of the movie tracking them down), as well as resorting to stealing other people's items. Stewart gets roughed up by a motorcycle gang led by a burly guy named Scum (Meat Loaf) after attempting to steal a stuffed fox tail from a biker. The servants' adventure has them trying to steal a toilet from a fancy hotel, partaking in a robbery at a lconvenience store to steal a cash register ("sans" the cash), and getting locked in a university laboratory while trying to steal a microscope. Kenny, Jeff and Lisa's adventure has them "borrowing" items such as a clown head from a local Jack in the Box eatery and recruiting an obese man named Duane (Stuart Pankin) (since the list gives 50 bonus points for bringing the heaviest person), although they soon discard him (due to his unreasonable bribes for food) and pick up another obese person. A bulletproof vest is borrowed from a self-defense-obsessed elderly lady named Arvila (Ruth Gordon) and they acquire "laughing gas," steal a uniform from a motorcycle cop, and get stuck in a football team's locker room trying to steal a helmet.
1224233	Mary Willa "Mamie" Gummer (born August 3, 1983) is an American actress. Early life. Gummer was born in New York City, New York, and is the daughter of actress Meryl Streep and sculptor Don Gummer. She grew up in Salisbury, Connecticut and also spent five years in Los Angeles, California, with her older brother, Henry Wolfe Gummer, and younger sisters, actress Grace Gummer and Louisa. Career. As a young child, she appeared with her mother in "Heartburn" (credited under the name Natalie Stern to avoid press scrutiny); 20 months old at the time of filming, she received a positive review in the New York Times. She attended Miss Porter's School and graduated from the Kent School in Kent, Connecticut before continuing her studies in theater and communications at Northwestern University, graduating in 2005. Later that year, she made her off-Broadway debut alongside Michael C. Hall in the premiere of Noah Haidle's "Mr. Marmalade", for which she won a Theatre World Award. In 2007, she received a Lucille Lortel Award nomination for her performance in Theresa Rebeck's "The Water's Edge".
774909	Allan Hawco (born July 28, 1977), is a Canadian television and film actor, best known for his roles in the television series "" and "Republic of Doyle" and the television films "H2O" and "The Trojan Horse". Early and personal life. Hawco was born on Bell Island, Newfoundland Labrador, as the youngest of four children but moved to Goulds, Newfoundland and Labrador at an early age. His father, Michael Hawco, worked on the Bell Island Ferry and his mother, Mary Hawco, was an elementary school teacher. He attended a Catholic school and went on to study business at Memorial University but dropped out in favor of the National Theatre School of Canada. Career. Hawco's first role was in the Shakespeare by the Sea production of Macbeth, which was directed by Aiden Flynn. From there, director Danielle Irvine encouraged Allan to audition for the National Theatre School where he was one of 13 selected from thousands of applicants that year. After graduation from the National Theatre School of Canada in 2000, Hawco worked in many of the major theatres in the country. He started his own production company "The Company Theatre" with Philip Riccio. The Company’s inaugural production, "A Whistle in the Dark", brought Hawco critical acclaim. Their 2009 production of "Festen" won him three Dora Awards, including Outstanding Production of a Play. Some of Hawco's earlier movie roles include Canadian productions such as "Making Love in Saint Pierre"[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0430330/], "Above and Beyond", and "Love and Savagery", the latest of which won him an ACTRA nomination for Outstanding Male Performance. His career took off with the launch of his own TV series "Republic of Doyle", which premiered in 2010. Hawco is co-creator with Perry Chafe and Malcolm MacRury, executive producer, lead actor, head writer as well as the show’s showrunner. The show has been sold to over 90 countries, and maintains over a million viewers a week on CBC television in Canada.
1169797	Conrad Janis (born February 11, 1928) is an American jazz musician (trombone) and also a theatre, film, and television actor. He was born in New York City, New York, the son of Harriet, a writer, and Sidney Janis, an art dealer and writer, and he has a brother named Carroll.
1163368	Robyn Elaine Lively (born February 7, 1972) is an American actress. Lively is best known for her role in the film "Teen Witch", as well as for her roles in the TV shows "Doogie Howser, M.D.", "Twin Peaks" and "Saving Grace". Early life. Born in Powder Springs, Georgia, Lively began her career as a child actress. At age six, she made her screen debut in the television movie "Summer of My German Soldier" in 1978. Throughout the 1980s, she appeared in several television shows and movies including "Punky Brewster", "Wildcats" with Goldie Hawn, "The Karate Kid, Part III", and "Not Quite Human". Career. After being cast as Jessica Andrews in "The Karate Kid III" in 1989, producers were forced to drop the idea of her character being the new love interest for the films protagonist Daniel LaRusso. This was because Lively was only 17 at the time of filming and still a minor, while Ralph Macchio (LaRusso) was 27 (LaRusso's on-screen age for the film was 18). This caused scenes that called for Daniel and Jessica to romantically kiss to be re-written so that the pair only developed a close friendship. According to rumor, Macchio also asked for their on-screen relationship to be kept platonic as he didn't want to make his wife of two years (Phyllis Fierro) jealous. At the age of 19, Lively was nominated for an Emmy Award for her performance as an insecure teen in the 1991 "ABC Afterschool Special" episode "Less Than Perfect Daughter". In the 1990s, Lively had recurring roles on "Twin Peaks", "Doogie Howser, M.D." and "Chicago Hope". In 1996, she appeared as Lane McKenzie, one of three lead characters in the short-lived WB drama "Savannah". In 2003, Lively played NCIS Special Agent Vivian Blackadder in the "JAG" episodes "Ice Queen" and "Meltdown" (the backdoor pilot for "NCIS"). Initially a member of Special Agent Gibbs' team, she never appeared in the spin-off series. In 2008, Lively appeared alongside Holly Hunter in an episode of "Saving Grace" and also had a role in "Cold Case". In 2010, she appeared alongside Twin Peaks costars in the "Dual Spires" episode of "Psych". Personal life. Lively was born into a family of actors; her mother, stepfather and all four siblings are, or have been, in the entertainment industry. She is the daughter of talent manager Elaine Lively and Elaine's first husband Ronnie Lively. Her siblings are sister Lori (born 1966) and Jason (born 1968), and her half-siblings are Blake (born 1987) and Eric (born 1981). Lively married fellow actor Bart Johnson on September 25, 1999. The couple have three children: Baylen, Kate, and Wyatt Blake.
1166694	Rosemarie Bowe (born September 17, 1932) is a former American film and television actress. Early Life. Bowe's father was a building contractor and her mother was a dress designer. The family moved to Tacoma, Washington when Bowe was a child. She graduated from Stadium High School in Tacoma just before moving to Los Angeles, California. Beauty contestant. She was crowned Miss Tomica and Miss Montana in 1950. In May 1951 Bowe competed in a contest to choose the queen of the sixth annual Home Show and Building Exposition. Along with Mary Ellen Nichols, she was a runner-up to the contest winner, Linda Peterson. Model. When she arrived in California, Bowe secured work as a model. Her measurements were 36-25-36. She is 5'5" tall and has blue-green eyes. Her modeling agency was contacted by a high fashion photographer, "Christa", who suggested she pose for national and fashion magazine portraits. Modeling for magazines such as "Eye", "Tempo", and "Blightly", she eventually made the transition from model to actress in television. Her magazine credits include a Life Magazine cover. Bowe's look was at times likened to both Marilyn Monroe and Grace Kelly. She always modeled high fashion rather than lingerie or bathing suits. She was never asked by photographers to pose for cheesecake pictures as was many a pin-up girl. She once said, "Of all the auditions and interviews I have had with casting men, directors and producers, not one ever made a pass at me. I guess they were afraid of me." Motion pictures. Bowe moved to Hollywood in 1950. Initially she was signed by film agent Charles Feldman. When his production plans stalled, she obtained a contract with Columbia Pictures. She was trained in dramatic acting by Benno Schneider. Her early experience as an entertainer included performing as a singer and dancer in amateur musicals. As a screen debutante Bowe appeared in "Lovely To Look At" (1952) with Kathryn Grayson and Red Skelton. The 16 beauties showcased include Jane Lynn, Alma Carroll, Shirley Kimball, Betty Sully and Honey King. Bowe's part is uncredited, as is her depiction of a swimmer in, "Million Dollar Mermaid" (1952). In 1954 she was appeared in "The Golden Mistress" and "The Adventures of Hajji Baba". The former was Bowe's first movie after requesting her release from Columbia. As "Ann Dexter," she was featured opposite John Agar in an R.K. Productions release, set in Haiti. During filming she almost drowned, was stung by a sea urchin, and sustained bumps, bruises and insect bites. Bowe was under option to 20th Century Fox when she filmed "The Peacemaker" (1956). Based on a novel, the western also featured James Mitchell. It was released by Hal R. Makelim Productions. Announced in April 1954, the Makelim plan for producing pictures "guaranteed a flow of film products through a fixed fee system." Marriage. In 1956 she married Robert Stack. The couple became the parents of a daughter, Elizabeth Langford Stack, on January 20, 1957. They shared mutual passions for the outdoors, especially sailing and riding. Stack enjoyed skeet shooting as his favorite pastime. Rosemarie temporarily gave up her career when her children were young. In 1970, Bowe was in an automobile accident in Sacramento, California, and sustained serious internal injuries. She crashed into a concrete culvert because of a mechanical failure in the rental car she was driving. At the time, Stack was filming "The Name of the Game". He chartered a flight to come and be with her. Rosemarie Bowe is retired from show business. Her son, Charles Robert Stack, is also retired.
1750430	Matthew Richard "Matt" Stone (born May 26, 1971) is an American actor, voice artist, animator, screenwriter, director, producer and musician, best known for being the co-creator of "South Park" along with his creative partner and best friend Trey Parker, as well as co-writing the 2011 multi-Tony Award winning musical "The Book of Mormon". Stone and Parker launched their largely collaborative careers in 1989 when they met at the University of Colorado. In 1992 they made a holiday short titled "Jesus vs. Frosty" which would eventually become South Park. Their first success came from "Alferd Packer: The Musical", subsequently distributed as "Cannibal! The Musical". From there he made another short title "Jesus vs. Santa", leading him and college friend Parker to create "South Park", which has been airing for over fifteen years. He has four Emmy Awards for his role in "South Park", winning for both "Outstanding Programming More Than One Hour" and "Outstanding Programming Less Than One Hour". Early life. Stone was born in Houston, Texas, to Gerald Whitney Stone, Jr. (1941-2010), an economics professor and textbook author, and Sheila Lois Belasco (who share the first names of "South Park" character Kyle Broflovski's parents). Stone's mother is Jewish and his father was of Irish descent. Stone and his younger sister, Rachel were raised in Littleton, Colorado, a suburb of Denver, Colorado, where both attended Heritage High School. He graduated from the University of Colorado at Boulder, and was their first student to double major in film and mathematics. Career. "South Park". In 1992, Stone and Parker created the short film "Jesus vs. Frosty". It included four boys, two resembling Stan Marsh and Kyle Broflovski, one called Kenny who looked like Cartman, and a fourth unnamed boy who looked like Kenny. Both "Jesus" and "Cannibal! The Musical" were made while they were students at the University of Colorado film school, studying under both Stan Brakhage and Jerry Aronson. After the duo released "Cannibal! The Musical", they were asked to make another animated short. They came down to two ideas: one a sequel to "Jesus vs. Frosty", and one about a character that would later be recurring in "South Park", Mr. Hankey. They chose to write about the four boys, and their decision ultimately opened the door for them to present a show ("South Park") to Comedy Central. Stone and Parker produced 13 episodes for season 1. The video landed in the hands of Comedy Central's Doug Herzog. "It literally was the funniest thing I'd ever seen," he said in a 2006 interview. "We said, 'Develop a show.' So they went off and developed the show." Stone and Parker produced 13 episodes for season 1. "South Park" is currently still under contract to produce new episodes through 2016. In 1999, Stone and Parker made "", which gave the series prominence. The film's music was nominated for an Academy Award, but lost to "You'll Be In My Heart" from Tarzan. As of 2007, Parker is credited with directing and writing the vast majority of "South Park" episodes, and voicing most of the regular and guest characters, leading fans to question Stone's involvement in the creative process. According to a 2007 "Maclean's" article by Jaime J. Weinman, however, Stone handles the business side of the series as its production coordinator, responsible for assembling its various elements, and making sure they arrive on time and under budget. Stone commented to IGN, "I am not a good director, I know that. I am not a very good actor either, and I know it, but it is good to know that." As Parker is "self-admittedly anti-social" and non-confrontational, Stone is the one who handles conflicts with the network over issues of censorship and contracts, grants interviews with the media in the wake of controversial episodes, and acts as a go-between between Parker and others when Parker says provocative things. Weinman compared Parker and Stone's relationship to that of Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld, in which the diplomatic Seinfeld would defuse tension created by more volatile David, and suggested that Parker would not be able to get away with saying offensive things without Stone. On September 25, 2013, "South Park'"s seventeenth season will premiere. Other projects. In 1997, Stone and Parker released "Orgazmo", a movie rated NC-17. In 1998, they starred in (but did not write or direct) "BASEketball", another feature film, while being renewed for a second season of "South Park". In 2001, the duo announced they would do 39 shorts between the lengths of 2 and 5 minutes. Although originally thought to be "South Park" related, they decided they would do something different. The result was the shorts "Princess". The content was so extreme that it was cancelled after two shows aired. In 2001, they also created "That's My Bush!", another television series, which was cancelled after one season. In 2004, they made a film, titled "". The film was not considered a box-office success, grossing 51 million dollars in theaters, despite largely positive reviews.
1016228	Triple Tap () is a 2010 Hong Kong action film directed by Derek Yee. This film is follow-up to the Derek Yee produced 2000 film "Double Tap" which starred Leslie Cheung and Alex Fong, the latter being only actor to reprise his role from the previous installment. Release. The film was released in Hong Kong on 1 July 2010. Plot. Champion competitive marksman Ken comes across an armored van robbery. He sees a policeman held hostage and shoots and kills four of the robbers. One of the robbers escapes and the policeman survives. The case is handled by Jerry Chang, whom Ken knows from having recently beaten him in a shooting match. Ken is found not guilty in court. Soon after, Ken is attacked by the escaped robber Pang Tao. Their confrontation reveals a very different background story and brings about a myriad of lies and traps and changes in relationships as Jerry and Ken try to outsmart each other. Awards and nominations. 30th Hong Kong Film Awards
1163135	Marie Windsor (December 11, 1919 – December 10, 2000). Born as Emily Marie Bertelson in Marysvale, Piute County, Utah, Windsor was an actress known as "The Queen of the Bs" because she appeared in so many B-movies and film noirs. Career. Windsor, a former Miss Utah, trained for the stage under Maria Ouspenskaya. After working for several years as a telephone operator, a stage and radio actress, and a bit and extra player in films, she began playing feature and lead parts in 1947. The 5'9" actress's first memorable role was opposite John Garfield in "Force of Evil" playing seductress Edna Tucker. Windsor also co-starred with Randolph Scott in his 1954 western "The Bounty Hunter". She had large roles in film noirs, including "The Sniper", "The Narrow Margin," "City That Never Sleeps", and Stanley Kubrick's heist movie, "The Killing," playing Elisha Cook Jr.'s scheming wife. Later Windsor moved to television. She appeared in 1954 as the bandit Belle Starr in the premiere episode of the syndicated western series "Stories of the Century", starring and narrated by Jim Davis. She appeared on such programs as "Maverick" (in the episodes "The Quick and the Dead" with James Garner and "Epitaph for a Gambler" with Jack Kelly), "Bat Masterson" (in "The Fighter") opposite Gene Barry, four episodes of "Perry Mason" starring Raymond Burr, including the role of murderer Helen Reed in "The Case of the Wednesday Woman," two episodes of "Bourbon Street Beat" starring Andrew Duggan, "The Incredible Hulk", "Rawhide" ("Incident on the Edge of Madness"), "General Hospital", "Salem's Lot," and "Murder, She Wrote." In 1962, Windsor played Ann Jesse, a woman dying in childbirth, in the episode "The Wanted Man" of the ABC/Warner Brothers western series, "Lawman", starring John Russell as Marshal Dan Troop. Her wanted husband, Frank (Dick Foran), orders their son, Ben (Jan Stine) to turn him into Marshal Dan Troop in order to collect the $5,000 reward and have the funds to rear his surviving infant brother. Meanwhile, Troop counters Joe Street (Alan Baxter), a bounty hunter seeking the same reward.
900534	The Ages of Love (Known in Italian as "Manuale d'amore 3") is a 2011 Italian romantic comedy film composed of three episodes. It was directed by Giovanni Veronesi, and it is a sequel of "Manuale d'amore" (2005) and "Manuale d'amore 2 – Capitoli successivi" (2007). Plot. The film is composed of three episodes, each following a different couple: The episodes are connected by short monologues and phrases recited by a young author who plays Cupid. In the first episode Roberto (Scamarcio) works at a mortgage company that gave the order to evict a family of Tuscan farmers to build complex sites, providing them with the sum of € 15,000. Roberto goes on the spot, and there, in addition to clash with the rural owners of the house, meet the beautiful falls in love with Micol (Chiatti). But Roberto is already about to marry another woman, and this may cause him much trouble, but in the meantime he is having fun with Micol. At the end of the story Roberto will agree with Micol and return safe and sound to his home.
1065551	Jason Scott Lee (, born November 19, 1966) is an American actor and martial artist. Lee is well known for portraying Bruce Lee in the 1993 martial arts film "", and for portraying Mowgli in the 1994 live-action adaptation of "The Jungle Book". Personal life. Lee was born in Los Angeles, California. He was raised in Hawaii and is of Chinese-Hawaiian descent. He attended school at Pearl City High School and is a friend of Carrie Ann Inaba, of "Dancing with the Stars", whom he dated briefly. Career. Lee started his acting career with small roles in "Born In East LA" (1987) and "Back to the Future Part II" (1989). He played his first leading role portraying Bruce Lee in the biopic "" in 1993. Lee has trained in Bruce Lee's martial art Jeet Kune Do since portraying Lee and continues to train and is now a certified instructor under former Bruce Lee student Jerry Poteet. He played leading roles in other films such as "Map of the Human Heart" (1993) and "Rapa Nui" (1994). He starred as Mowgli in the 1994 live-action "adaptation" of Rudyard Kipling's stories. Lee was considered for the role of Liu Kang in 1995 film "Mortal Kombat", but he turned down the role and was replaced by Robin Shou.
393950	Lee Jung-jae (born 15 March 1973) is a South Korean actor. He debuted as a fashion model, then began his acting career on television, notably in the campus series "Feelings" (1994) and the iconic drama "Sandglass" (1995). After his acting breakthrough in "An Affair" (1998), Lee's film career took off. He has starred in a variety of film genres, among them romantic films such as "Il Mare" (2000) and "Over the Rainbow" (2002), melodrama "Last Present" (2001), comedy "Oh! Brothers" (2003), action films "The Last Witness" (2001) and "Typhoon" (2005), heist film "The Thieves" (2012), and film noir "New World" (2013). He won Best Actor awards at the Blue Dragon Film Awards for "City of the Rising Sun" (1999), and at the Fantasporto Director's Week for "The Housemaid" (2010). Career. Lee Jung-jae was discovered by designer Ha Yong-soo while he was working at a café in Apgujeong, then worked as a fashion model for a number of years. Upon making his acting debut with the 1993 TV drama "Dinosaur Teacher", Lee became a star practically overnight, and was almost always cast in lead roles thereafter. A year later, he received favorable reviews for his first big screen role in Bae Chang-ho's "The Young Man", but it was the 1994 hit drama "Feelings" that made him a household name.
586788	Xcuse Me is a 2003 Hindi comedy film. It is the sequel to N. Chandra's 2001 film "Style". Plot. Bantu (Sharman Joshi) and Chantu (Sahil Khan) are unemployed, and are not able to get any jobs due to lack of experience. They come across an advertisement for a hotel management program in Goa, and make their way there. Once there, they hoodwink the trainer by posing as the nephew of the owner of the hotel, and thus enroll themselves in the training course. In the course of the program, they expose several employees and guests as cheats, earning their wrath but also the admiration of the two daughters of the hotel owners. Things turn sore for the two when the guests and former employees get together to avenge their humiliation.
1163437	David Wayne Spade (born July 22, 1964) is an American actor, comedian, and television personality. He is best known for his nasally and high pitched voice and his use of cutting and sarcastic one liners and his sometimes childish stage personality. He rose to fame in the 1990s as a cast member on "Saturday Night Live", for co-starring in the 1995 comedy "Tommy Boy", and from 1997 until 2003 when he starred as Dennis Finch on "Just Shoot Me!". He also starred as C. J. Barnes, along with Katey Sagal, James Garner, and Kaley Cuoco on "8 Simple Rules". He starred as Russell Dunbar on the CBS sitcom "Rules of Engagement". He also is working with TBS on an animated series based on his film, "Joe Dirt". Early life, high school & college. Spade was born in Birmingham, Michigan, the son of Judith J. (née Meek), a writer and magazine editor, and Wayne M. Spade, a sales representative. Andy Spade is the husband of designer Kate Spade and CEO of Kate Spade New York. Spade and his family moved to Scottsdale, Arizona, when he was four years old. Spade attended Saguaro High School and later Scottsdale Community College, before transferring to Arizona State University, where he earned his Bachelor's degree in business in 1986. He also was a member of the Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity. Spade performed standup at the university's long-running sketch comedy show, "Farce Side Comedy Hour", on numerous occasions. In the mid-80s he also did "stand up" in the Monday night comedy show at Greasy Tony's Pizza in Tempe, Arizona. Career. With the help of friend and fellow comedian, Dennis Miller, he joined "Saturday Night Live" in 1990 as a regular cast member and writer. While there, his well-known sarcasm became popular, and his smart aleck characters in a number of sketches were hits. Some of them include: a flight attendant who bids a perceived-as-unpleasant "Buh-Bye" to each passenger upon disembarking; a receptionist for Dick Clark who, as a matter of policy, asks people indiscriminately "And you are?"; and the sarcastic "Hollywood Minute" reporter who communicates with celebrities by means of one-liners. Other characters include Christy Henderson from the Gap Girls, and Karl from the Karl's Video sketches. He also has done impressions of famous celebrities, such as Brad Pitt and Michael J. Fox. According to interviews with Spade, most of the material that he wrote early in his time at SNL was given to Dana Carvey to perform on the show. Due to his relatively low work rate, he was in danger of being fired as a performer, until the "Hollywood Minute" segment secured his position. Though most of the cast left in 1995, Spade stayed the following year to help in the transition with the new cast. He then quit in 1996 citing "burnout" as the reason. Said Spade, "When I leave, it will be to ease the pressure, not to be a movie star. You can't stay there forever – it kills you inside. It ages you in dog years. It's a tough place." He returned to host an episode in 1998 and another in 2005. He recently also voiced a chihuahua in an animated short, written by Fred Wolf, in 2010. Spade's attempt at a film career met with success. He worked with fellow "Saturday Night Live" cast member and friend, Chris Farley, in the films "Tommy Boy" and "Black Sheep". The two were planning a third film together when Farley died of a drug overdose at the age of 33. He then proceeded to act in films where he was the central character, such as "Joe Dirt" and "", but they were not as well received. They were both written by Spade with Fred Wolf. Although he received several offers to star in his own TV shows, he turned them down and joined the ensemble cast of Steven Levitan's office sitcom "Just Shoot Me!," opposite Laura San Giacomo and George Segal, which ran for seven seasons from 1997 to 2003. He played as sarcastic receptionist, Dennis Finch, which earned him an Emmy nomination and two Golden Globe nominations. Spade hosted both the Teen Choice Awards and SpikeTV's Video Game Awards in 2003. He voiced characters on several episodes of "Beavis and Butt-head," and produced his own TV series "Sammy" in 2000. From 2002 to 2006 Spade regularly appeared in commercials for Capital One (with Nate Torrence) where he played the employee of a fictional rival company whose policy toward honoring credit card rewards (and just about everything else) is "always no." In 2004, he joined the cast of "8 Simple Rules," following the death of the sitcom's star, John Ritter. On September 5, 2003, Spade received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, which is located at 7018 Hollywood Blvd. He was the host of the Comedy Central show, "The Showbiz Show with David Spade," which began in September 2005. On the show Spade made fun of Hollywood and celebrities in a manner similar to his old "Hollywood Minute" segment on "SNL". "The Showbiz Show with David Spade" was canceled in October 2007 after three seasons. Along with actors Elijah Wood and Gary Oldman, Spade is one of the voice talents for "", the sixth installment of the platform game series "Spyro the Dragon". He provides the voice for Spyro's dragonfly companion, Sparx. He also starred as Russell Dunbar in the CBS comedy, "Rules of Engagement". Personal life. Spade has one daughter named Harper with Playboy Playmate Jillian Grace. Spade confirmed his paternity on September 3, 2008. Spade is very sensitive to light. The combination of bright lights on-set and working under sunlight while filming "Black Sheep" caused permanent damage to his eyes. Spade says of his condition: "I have to wear a hat even indoors and flashes in particular freak me out. I even have to make them turn down the lights in the make-up trailers. I've become such a pain in the butt with this light-sensitive thing, it's a wonder they don't just shoot me!" In December 2005, Spade donated $100,000 to the police department in his hometown of Phoenix, Arizona, as part of a program designed to provide patrol officers with rifles. Spade's contribution will buy 50 AR-15 semi-automatic rifles for Phoenix police officers. On May 20, 2013, he donated $200,000 for the Oklahoma tornado relief program.
584162	Baana Kaathadi (; ) is a 2010 Tamil romance film written and directed by Badri Venkatesh. Adharvaa, son of Tamil actor Murali, makes his debut in the film as a lead actor, while Prasanna, Samantha Ruth Prabhu, and Karunas also play lead roles, while Murali makes a cameo appearance. Featuring music scored by Yuvan Shankar Raja, cinematography by Richard Maria Nathan and editing by Suresh Urs, the film, which was launched in March 2009, released on 6 August 2010. It is the last movie of Murali, who made a special appearance in this movie, before his death in September 2010. This movie was an above average grosser but was an acclaimed film. Plot. One day, in his rush to grab hold of a falling kite, Ramesh bumps into Priya (Samantha), a fashion technology student. In the process, her pendrive falls into his pocket, without either of them realising. The pendrive consists of six months worth of Priya's project work, and she needed to submit it. Asking the principal for an extension, Priya searches for Ramesh, and finally manages to find him. She thoroughly humiliates him, while he denies the pendrive is with him. After college one day, Ramesh and his friends see Priya on the road. They tease her and infuriate her, eventually leading to her slapping him.
1557840	Andrew Allan Clyde, known as Andy Clyde (March 25, 1892 — May 18, 1967), was a Scottish film and television actor whose career spanned more than four decades. In 1922, he broke into silent films as a Mack Sennett comic. He was the fifth of six children of theatrical actor, producer and manager John Clyde. Clyde's brother David and his sister Jean also became screen actors. Although Andy Clyde's movie career spanned 34 years, he may be best known for his work in two long-running television series: as the farmer Cully Wilson in CBS's "Lassie" and as the neighbor, George MacMichael, on ABC's "The Real McCoys". Coincidentally, the number of appearances in these series was identical: 29 episodes each. Early years. In 1912, Clyde first came to the United States on tour in a company performing a play called "The Concealed Bed". Years later, at the invitation of his close friend James Finlayson, he returned to the United States in 1920 to join producer Mack Sennett's roster of comedians. Clyde's mastery of makeup allowed him tremendous versatility; he could play everything from grubby young guttersnipes to old crackpot scientists. He hit upon an "old man" characterization in his short comedies, and the masquerade was immediately successful. Adopting a gray wig and mustache, he used this makeup for the rest of his short-subject career, and the character was so durable that he literally grew into it. He starred in short comedies longer than any other actor (32 years, 1924-56). He made a successful transition to sound films while in Mack Sennett's employ. In 1932, when the Sennett studio was facing financial problems, Sennett cut Clyde's salary. Clyde objected and Sennett put the "old man" costume on character actor Irving Bacon. Audiences reacted adversely, and Sennett abandoned the character. Educational Pictures, Sennett's distributor, took over the Andy Clyde series, which continued for two more years. Columbia Pictures launched its short subject department in 1934 and Andy Clyde was one of the first comedy stars signed by producer Jules White. Unlike many of the Columbia short-subject comedians who indulged in broad facial and physical gestures, Clyde was subtler and more economical: his comic timing was so good that he could merely lift an eyebrow, shudder slightly, or mutter "My, my, my" for humorous effect. His work for Columbia was prolific enough that, from the mid-1940s, the studio was able to produce lower-budgeted remakes, editing older scenes into the new ones. "You Were Never Uglier" (1944), for example, was remade with the same principals in 1953 as "Hooked and Rooked". Clyde was such an audience favorite that he continued to star in Columbia shorts through 1956. He outlasted every comedian on the Columbia payroll except The Three Stooges. Clyde also kept busy as a character actor in feature films; for example, he played a sad provincial postman in the Katharine Hepburn film "The Little Minister" and Charles Coburn's drinking buddy in "The Green Years". In the 1940s, he gravitated toward outdoor and western adventures. Clyde is well remembered for his roles as a comic sidekick, usually teaming with William Boyd in the "Hopalong Cassidy" series, as "California Carlson", or with Whip Wilson in Monogram Pictures' low-budget western movies. Clyde also worked on the Hopalong Cassidy "record readers" issued by Capitol Records in the 1950s. Television career. Clyde's last theatrical film was released in 1956, after which he worked mostly in television, having appeared on Rod Cameron's syndicated series "City Detective". On "The Pepsi-Cola Playhouse" and "Studio 57" in 1954 and 1955, respectively, he portrayed Tom Harper in the episode "Santa's Old Suit," with co-star Jane Darwell. Clyde guest starred in several other early series too, including "The People's Choice", "Soldiers of Fortune", "My Little Margie", "The Bob Cummings Show", and "Lock Up". He appeared in two children's programs: as Colonel Jack in four episodes of "Circus Boy" and as Homer Tubbs in four segments of ABC's western series, "The Adventures of Rin Tin Tin".
1068412	Butterfly on a Wheel (US: Shattered, Europe: Desperate Hours) is a 2007 British–Canadian thriller film directed by Mike Barker, co-produced and written by William Morrissey, and starring Pierce Brosnan, Gerard Butler, and Maria Bello. The film’s title is an allusion to a line of Alexander Pope’s poem "Epistle to Dr Arbuthnot": “Who breaks a butterfly upon a wheel?” The line is usually interpreted as questioning why someone would put massive effort into achieving something minor or unimportant, or who would punish a minor offender with a disproportional punishment. Plot. Chicago residents Neil Randall (Gerard Butler) and his wife, Abby Randall (Maria Bello) have the perfect life and a perfect marriage. With their beautiful young daughter, Sophie, they are living the American dream... until today. When Sophie is suddenly kidnapped, they have no choice but to comply with the abductor's demands. The kidnapper, Tom Ryan (Pierce Brosnan), a cold and calculating sociopath, takes over their lives with the brutal efficiency of someone who has nothing to lose.
585693	Mazha Peyyunnu Maddalam Kottunnu is a 1986 Malayalam comedy film directed by Priyadarshan. Starring Mohanlal, Mukesh, Lizy, Sreenivasan, Jagathi Sreekumar, Maniyanpilla Raju, and Kuthiravattam Pappu in the main roles. This film was a huge hit in theaters and is considered as one of the best comedy films in Malayalam cinema. Plot. Madhavan, who calls himself M.A.Dhavan (Sreenivasan) is back in Kerala after spending a few years getting his MBA in USA. His schoolmate Shambhu (Mohanlal) is now working as a driver at his house, whom the now vain and snobbish Madhavan treats with disdain. Madhavan's parents want him to get married to Shobha (Lizy), daughter of Sardar Krishna Kurup (Jagathy Sreekumar), a rich and aristocratic businessman. Madhavan, who wants to observe his fiancée from a distance, decides to go to her house dressed as a driver and makes his driver Shambhu act as himself. Just minutes after they set out from he house, his parents telephone Krishna Kurupp about their son's scheme. Various mishaps on way end up with Madhavan discarding his plan and deciding to visit as himself. Unaware of the change in plan, Kurup and wife have the driver Shambhu mistaken for the prospective groom and Madhavan as the driver. The prospective in-laws dote over Shambu, ignoring Madhavan, who is unaware of the impression that Kurup and wife are under. In the meantime Shobha, who also mistakes Shambhu as the fiance, falls in love with him. At the same time, Sardar Koma Kurup (Kuthiravattam Pappu), is in a big fight with Krishna Kurup for past long years. Both are trying to capture the power at the Nethaji Club, a reputed social club for personal reasons. Damu (Maniyanpilla Raju) enters inside the house of Koma Kurup and wins his heart. But the real intention of Damu is to kill Koma Kuruppu and marry his daughter, so that he could grab the whole property. But one after another, the attempts of Damu to kill Koma Kurup fails, with each time, he hurting himself. It was then, Shivan (Mukesh), a friend of Damu arrives at the house of Koma Kurup as the brother of Damu, who also makes everyone believe that he is a heart patient. He succeeds in winning the heart of Kurup's daughter, destroying the plans of Damu. Thus the two love stories, one between Shambhu and Shobha and the other between Shivan and the daughter of Koma Kurup, blooms side by side. This unites Shambhu and Shivan against Madhavan and Damu. Madhavan hires Kadathanatt Pappan Gurukkal (Cochin Haneefa), a known goon to beat up Shambhu, but instead, he himself got beaten up by Shambhu. This incident makes Shambhu to force Krishna Kurup to conduct the marriage within three days. But, everything turns more messy as the parents of Madhavan makes a surprise visit at the house of Sardar Krishna Kurup. They finds the foul play of Shambhu, and Krishna Kurup, who realizes the mistake decides to get his daughter married to Madhavan. Shobha, who by this time is in love with Shambhu is adamant that she won't marry Madhavan. The marriage venue and date is fixed. At the same time Sardar Koma Kurup also finds out that his daughter is in love with Shivan, a jobless chap, which he objects to. At the marriage venue both Shambhu and Shivan are denied entry. They calls up police by informing that there is gold hidden by Krishna Kurup at the marriage hall. Police enters the venue and then happens a long fight packed with several comic incidents. In the end, with the help of police inspector (Jagadish), Shambhu marries Shobha and Shivan the daughter of Koma Kurup. This tragic incident unites both Krishna Kurup and Koma Kurup. Everything ends well and both couples starts their married life with the blessing of all others including Madhavan and Damu.
1047658	Reginald Horace "Reggie" Bannister (born September 29, 1945) is an American musician, actor, producer, writer, and activist. He is often referred to as "The Hardest Working Man in Horror". Biography. Bannister, known for playing the shotgun-toting, ex-ice cream man Reggie, from writer/director Don Coscarelli's Phantasm series in which he starred alongside A. Michael Baldwin, Bill Thornbury, and Angus Scrimm. Bannister has appeared in dozens of films and worked with such notables as Ossie Davis, Bruce Campbell, Ella Joyce, Daniel Roebuck, Andy Griffith, Joe Estevez and many, many others. Bannister has played many great roles from Reggie in the "Phantasm" series to Herb Tooklander in the latest Stephen King adaption for "One for the Road". And most recently, Bannister and wife, Gigi, have collaborated with co-writer Shelby McIntyre and co-writer/director Vito Trabucco with the comedy/horror extravaganza "Bloody Bloody Bible Camp". Also having great experience working with Sullivan on "One for the Road", he had even asked Sullivan to co-produce and star in the film as the main villain, Sister Mary Chopper, which he accepted. Along with co-producer Tim Sullivan and writer/director Paul Ward, he has also co-produced and starred in the short sequel to "Salem's Lot", entitled "One for the Road". This film stars Bannister, of course, as well as Adam Robitel as Booth and Audrey Walters as Janey Lumley. Music career. He has also composed the song "Have You Seen It" (used in "Phantasm IV: Oblivion" co-produced and recorded by Doug Agee at Alpha Sound Services Geneva Il.) and also arranged "Sittin' Here at Midnight" with Bill Thornbury (used in "Phantasm"). Personal life. Bannister currently resides in Crestline, California where he lives with his wife, Gigi.
1089986	Martin David Kruskal (; September 28, 1925 – December 26, 2006) was an American mathematician and physicist. He made fundamental contributions in many areas of mathematics and science, ranging from plasma physics to general relativity and from nonlinear analysis to asymptotic analysis. His single most celebrated contribution was the discovery and theory of solitons. He was a student at the University of Chicago and at New York University, where he completed his Ph.D. under Richard Courant in 1952. He spent much of his career at Princeton University, as a research scientist at the Plasma Physics Laboratory starting in 1951, and then as a professor of astronomy (1961), founder and chair of the Program in Applied and Computational Mathematics (1968), and professor of mathematics (1979). He retired from Princeton University in 1989 and joined the mathematics department of Rutgers University, holding the David Hilbert Chair of Mathematics. Apart from his research, Kruskal was known as a mentor of younger scientists. He worked tirelessly and always aimed not just to prove a result but to understand it thoroughly. And he was notable for his playfulness. He invented the Kruskal Count, a magical effect that has been known to perplex professional magicians because – as he liked to say – it was based not on sleight of hand but on a mathematical phenomenon. Personal. Martin David Kruskal was born in New York City and grew up in New Rochelle. He was generally known as Martin to the world and David to his family. His father, Joseph B. Kruskal, Sr., was a successful fur wholesaler. His mother, Lillian Rose Vorhaus Kruskal Oppenheimer, became a noted promoter of the art of origami during the early era of television and founded the Origami Center of America in New York City, which later became OrigamiUSA. He was one of five children. His two brothers, both eminent mathematicians, were Joseph Kruskal (1928-2010; discoverer of multidimensional scaling, the Kruskal tree theorem, and Kruskal's algorithm) and William Kruskal (1919–2005; discoverer of the Kruskal–Wallis test).
1059533	Isla Lang Fisher (; born 3 February 1976) is an actress who began her acting career on Australian television. She was born to Scottish parents in Oman and raised in Australia. She appeared on the children's adventure series "Bay Cove", and the short-lived soap opera "Paradise Beach", before playing Shannon Reed on the soap opera "Home and Away". She has since been known for her comedic roles in "Scooby-Doo" (2002), "I Heart Huckabees" (2004), "Wedding Crashers" (2005), "Hot Rod" (2007), "Definitely, Maybe" (2008), "Confessions of a Shopaholic" (2009), "Rango" (2011), "Bachelorette" (2012), and the fourth season of "Arrested Development" (2013). In 2013, Fisher starred as Myrtle Wilson in "The Great Gatsby" and as Henley Reeves in "Now You See Me". Early life. Fisher was born in Muscat, Oman, the daughter of Elspeth Reid and Brian Fisher. Her parents are Scottish and, at the time of her birth, resided in Oman because her father worked as a banker for the United Nations. While she was still in her early years, they moved to Bathgate, Scotland, and when she was six years old, moved once again to Perth, Western Australia, where she was brought up. She has four brothers, and says that she had a "great" upbringing in Perth with a "very outdoorsy life". She attended Methodist Ladies' College and also Walliston Primary School. She also appeared in lead roles in school productions, such as "Little Shop of Horrors". Career. She began appearing in commercials on Australian television at the age of nine, before going on to win roles in popular children's television shows "Bay City" and "Paradise Beach". At the age of 18, with the help of her mother, she published two teen novels, "Bewitched" and "Seduced by Fame", and in a 2005 interview, Fisher admitted that had she not been successful as an actress she would probably have been a full-time writer. From 1994 to 1997 she played the role of Shannon Reed on the Australian soap opera "Home and Away". In 1996, she received a Logie Award nomination for Most Popular Actress for her role. After leaving the soap, Fisher enrolled at L'École Internationale de Théâtre Jacques Lecoq, a theatre and arts training school in Paris, and went on to appear in pantomime in the United Kingdom. She also toured with Darren Day in the musical "Summer Holiday" and appeared in the London theatre production "Così". In 2001, Fisher was cast as Kim in the German horror film "Swimming Pool". In 2002 she had a part in the film version of "Scooby-Doo" as Mary Jane, Shaggy's love interest who is allergic to dogs. She wore a blonde wig for portraying her role because Sarah Michelle Gellar was supposed to be the only redhead in the film. The following year, she portrayed the character Kristy in the Australian comedy "The Wannabes". Subsequently, Fisher was taken on by an American agent. A larger role in "Wedding Crashers" (2005), alongside Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson, won her the Breakthrough Performance Award at the MTV Movie Awards. While promoting "Wedding Crashers", she was officially crowned the 1000th guest on Australian talk show "Rove" on 2 August 2005. She entered the set ahead of Owen Wilson, winning the title by two metres. In 2006, Fisher starred as Becca, a Manhattan party host, in the relationship drama "London", co-starring Jessica Biel, Chris Evans, and Jason Statham. She played the role of Katie in the romantic comedy "Wedding Daze" with Jason Biggs. In 2007, she appeared in "The Lookout", a thriller film co-starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Matthew Goode, and "Hot Rod", opposite Andy Samberg. She was scheduled to appear in "The Simpsons Movie", although her appearance was cut from the final version. In 2008, she starred in the critically acclaimed romantic comedy film "Definitely, Maybe", with Ryan Reynolds, Elizabeth Banks, Rachel Weisz, and Abigail Breslin, and had a voice role in "Horton Hears a Who!" Fisher has also co-written a script entitled "Groupies" with Amy Poehler, as well as another project entitled "The Cookie Queen". She starred in the movie adaptation of the book "Confessions of a Shopaholic", which opened on 13 February 2009. In the film, Fisher played a college graduate who works as a financial journalist in New York City to support her shopping addiction. "Confessions of a Shopaholic" suffered critically but eventually opened at No.4, grossing $15,054,000 on its opening weekend. Fisher received her third Teen Choice Award nomination. Fisher has spoken out against the lack of opportunities for comediennes in Hollywood. In 2010, she starred in the black comedy "Burke and Hare". Fisher then voiced the role of Beans in "Rango", a computer-animated Western film released in March 2011. In the movie, Johnny Depp and her "Definitely, Maybe" co-star Abigail Breslin also provide voice-over roles. In another voice-over role, Fisher voiced the character of Tooth (the Tooth Fairy) in the animated film "Rise of the Guardians", which was released in 2012. In 2013, she starred in the Baz Luhrmann adaptation of "The Great Gatsby" with Leonardo DiCaprio and the magician crime thriller "Now You See Me" with Jesse Eisenberg and Woody Harrelson. She also plays a part in several episodes of the fourth season of "Arrested Development", released in 2013. Personal life. Fisher first met English comedian Sacha Baron Cohen in 2002 at a party in Sydney, Australia. The couple became engaged in 2004, and wed on 15 March 2010, in Paris, France. The couple have two daughters: Olive (born October 17, 2007) and Elula Lottie Miriam (born August 2010). Before marrying, Fisher converted to Judaism, saying, "I will definitely have a Jewish wedding just to be with Sacha. I would do anything — move into any religion — to be united in marriage with him. We have a future together, and religion comes second to love as far as we are concerned." She completed her conversion in early 2007, after three years of study. She took the Hebrew name Ayala (איילה), the Hebrew word for doe, and has described herself as keeping Shabbat. Fisher has said that her "sensibility is Australian" and that she has a "laid-back attitude to life" that she feels is "very Australian". Her mother and siblings live in Athens, Greece, while her father divides his time between Frankfurt, Germany, and Nicaragua.
582302	36 China Town is a 2006 Bollywood comedy murder mystery film directed by Abbas-Mustan. A Bollywood adaptation of "Once Upon A Crime" (1992), the film is a murder mystery that follows the investigation of a police officer trying to find the killer of a wealthy casino owner, Sonia Chang. The comedy scenes enacted in the movie by Paresh Rawal, Johny Lever and Tanaz Kareem are the plus point of the movie. The film stars Shahid Kapoor and Kareena Kapoor in their second film together along with actor Upen Patel making his debut. Other cast members include Akshaye Khanna, Isha Koppikar, Paresh Rawal, Johnny Lever, Payal Rohatgi and Tanaz Lal with special appearances by Priyanka Chopra and Tanushree Dutta. The film was declared "above average" at the Box office. Summary. When Raj Malhotra (Shahid Kapoor), a cash strapped wannabe Bollywood actor, meets Priya (Kareena Kapoor), a runaway jilted girl who has discovered the true nature of her gold-digger lover, neither has an inkling of the plot about to unfold. The duo soon find a baby, who seems to be the lost infant son of Sonia Chang (Isha Koppikar). Sonia is the owner of the titular casino in Goa. After her baby was kidnapped, the kidnapper & the baby both went missing. The distraught Sonia is contemplating changing her will, when the duo inform her of the development. Soon the duo come to Goa with her baby, only to find that Sonia has been murdered just some time before. Horrified, they try to run, only to be caught by Inspector Karan (Akshaye Khanna). The circumstances make the duo look like murderers, but something is not right. With a host of interesting characters who had a motive to kill Sonia, will the killer ever be caught? Plot. Raj & Priya meet each other after both of their dreams have been shattered. They find an infant & realise that he has been dumped there by someone. They take pity on him, but after seeing a missing persons ad, they realise that the baby is the only son of Sonia Chang, a millionairess in Goa. The ad says that they will get a lot of money if they return the son back. They both need the money so they decide to return the baby to her. Sonia lives in a huge mansion, with Mr. & Mrs.Lobo, her servants. She is discussing the change in her will with her lawyer Mr.Dixit, when the duo inform her about her baby. Sonia is overjoyed to learn this & calls them to Goa. Meanwhile, her casino is hosting some interesting people. One of them is Natwar, a notorious gambler who has come along with his wife Gracy. Natwar has pawned his hotels to Sonia & has only one hotel left in his possession. When he loses money, he is forced to pawn the last hotel too. He keeps this a secret, but Gracy knows the fact. Another person is KK who has come along with his wife Ruby. There is also a playboy named Rocky among them, who is a big hit with ladies, especially Sonia. Raj & Priya come to Goa, where they run into a drunkard loitering near the mansion. The drunkard runs away on seeing them. The duo are surprised to see the mansion to be in dark, since they expected Sonia to be waiting for them. They enter the mansion & call for Sonia. When she doesn't answer, they realise that something is wrong. On seeing the state of the house, they realise that Sonia has been robbed, but are later horrified to see Sonia dead. The duo run, but with police on heels, Raj tells Priya to run away. Karan arrests Raj, whereby Raj tries to shield Priya. Priya does the same & soon the duo become prime suspects. Karan starts interrogating other people and realises that almost everybody has a shaky alibi. Soon everybody starts lying for one reason or other. Nevertheless, this results in everybody's lie falling apart. Karan is able to reconstruct what actually happened that night. Based on Mr. Dixit's statement about the will & everybody's statement, Karan is able to find the truth. First, he procures the drunkard, whom Raj & Priya believe to be the murderer. But, Karan goes on to explain that he is in fact, the kidnapper. Karan goes on to explain that the kidnapper was hired by someone to kidnap the baby & leave it somewhere it won't be found. The masterminds thought that Sonia will be forced to change her will, but when the baby was rediscovered, they knew that Sonia had to be killed before being united with her baby. Hence, they murdered her, while other people incriminated themselves by fooling others to believe that it was robbery gone wrong. Based on the testimonies, Karan points out that only two persons had the motive: Mr. & Mrs.Lobo. He catches their lie too & arrests them. Everybody else is exonerated, while Raj & Priya decide to marry & adopt the baby. Soundtrack. The music is composed by Himesh Reshammiya. Lyrics are penned by Sameer. The Music was released by Tips Music.
1059296	Patricia Colleen Nelligan, known as Kate Nelligan (born March 16, 1951), is a Canadian stage, film and television actress. Nelligan received an Academy Award nomination as Best Supporting Actress for the 1991 film "The Prince of Tides". The same year she won a British Academy Award as Best Supporting Actress for "Frankie and Johnny". During the 1980s, Nelligan also earned four Tony nominations for her work on the Broadway stage. Early life. Nelligan, the fourth of six children, was born in London, Ontario, the daughter of Josephine Alice (née Deir), a schoolteacher, and Patrick Joseph Nelligan, a factory repairman and municipal employee in charge of ice rinks and recreational parks. Her mother, whom Nelligan has described as "very powerful, very brilliant and very, very crazy", suffered from alcohol abuse and other psychological problems, and was subsequently institutionalized. Nelligan attended London South Collegiate Institute in London, Ontario, then studied at Glendon College in Toronto, but did not graduate. Instead, she switched to studies at the Central School of Speech and Drama in London, United Kingdom. Career. In 1973, she made her professional stage debut, in Bristol, England, while appearing in a regular role on the British television series "The Onedin Line". In 1974, she was invited to London to play the part of Jenny in David Hare's play "Knuckle" at the Comedy Theatre, followed by a season with the National Theatre Company: Ellie in "Heartbreak House". 1975 saw her appear opposite Anthony Hopkins in the televised play, "The Arcata Promise" followed by the televised theatrical version of "The Count of Monte Cristo" that featured an all-star cast of British and American actors. That same year her first feature-length film "The Romantic Englishwoman" was released. In 1977, again with the National Theatre, she gave a "stunning" performance as Marianne, opposite Stephen Rea, in "Tales from the Vienna Woods" directed by Maximilian Schell. In 1977, she played the part of Rosalind in "As You Like It", directed by Terry Hands, opposite Peter McEnery, in Stratford-upon-Avon and the following year in London. This she followed with "Plenty", another play from David Hare, at the National Theatre, for which she received a 1978 Olivier Award nomination for Best Actress in a New Play. The winner was Joan Plowright in Filumena. She was cast in a similar role, playing against Bill Paterson, in Hare's BAFTA award-winning companion play, "Licking Hitler", for BBC television. Again on screen, in 1978, she played the part of Isabella in the BBC Television Shakespeare production of "Measure for Measure", a performance that led the New York Times to describe her as providing "the image of idealized faultlessness. In 1979, she was the female lead with Frank Langella and Laurence Olivier in "Dracula". In 1981, she starred opposite fellow Canadian Donald Sutherland in "Eye of the Needle", a wartime espionage thriller based on the Ken Follett best-selling novel. Two years later, Nelligan moved to New York City where she earned four Tony Award "Best Actress" nominations between 1983 and 1989 from the five Broadway plays she appeared in. In 1991 she won a BAFTA for best actress in a supporting role For her performance in Frankie and Johnny and for her performance in the 1991 film, "The Prince of Tides", she was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. Between 1990 and 2004, she was nominated for five Gemini Awards for her performances on Canadian television mini-series and films.
582643	Madhoshi is a 2004 Bollywood film. It is directed by Tanveer Khan and stars Bipasha Basu, John Abraham, Shweta Tiwari and Priyanshu Chatterjee. Synopsis. Anupama Kaul (played by Bipasha Basu) is a woman whose sister lives in New York. One day she gets a call from her sister and while they are talking on the phone, her sister is killed by the 9/11 attacks. Anupama is devastated. A few years later Anu is happily engaged to Arpit Oberoi (played by Priyanshu Chatterjee); then Arpit leaves for America for business reasons and Anu is wooed by a man named Aman (played by John Abraham). When Arpit comes back from America, Anu tells him that she is in love with Aman and she can't marry Arpit. Then Arpit starts asking questions: Who is Aman? Where does he live? She can answer these questions but there's no evidence to support her answers, which leads Arpit to ask "Does he even exist?" The truth is Aman doesn't exist. He is just a figment of Anupama's imagination. Her friends and family try to explain to her that Aman doesn't exist. Anupama refuses to listen. Then, suddenly, Aman comes and everyone can see him. On Anupama's and Aman's wedding day Aman confesses that he is really Arpit and that he got plastic surgery. The only way that his face looks exactly like Aman's is that Arpit got the drawings from Anupama's sketchbook. Anupama doesn't believe him and still believes that he is truly Aman. Anupama's best friend asks her to show proof. Anupama shows pictures of her and Aman at the movies when Arpit is still in America without even taking a second glance at the pictures. Her friend shows the pictures to her and she sees that Aman wasn't there. He was just a part of her imagination. Arpit and Anupama soon get married.
1164728	Abbe Lane (born December 14, 1932) is an American singer and actress. Biography. Born Abigail Francine Lassman in a Jewish family in Brooklyn, New York, Lane began her career as a child actress on radio, and from there she progressed to singing and dancing on Broadway. Married to Xavier Cugat from 1952 until their divorce in 1964, Lane achieved her greatest success as a nightclub singer, and was described in a 1963 magazine article as "the swingingest sexpot in show business". Cugat's influence was seen in her music which favoured Latin and rumba styles. In 1958 she starred opposite Tony Randall in the Broadway musical "Oh, Captain!" but her recording contract prevented her from appearing on the original cast album of the show. On the recording, her songs were performed by Eileen Rodgers. Lane later recorded her songs on a solo album. The most successful of her records was a 1958 album collaboration with Tito Puente titled "Be Mine Tonight". Apart from working solo, Lane frequently appeared on talk shows with Cugat.
1054467	The Banger Sisters is a 2002 American comedy film produced by Fox Searchlight Pictures about the reunion of two middle-aged women who used to be friends and groupies when they were young. The movie stars Goldie Hawn, Susan Sarandon and Geoffrey Rush. It was written and directed by Bob Dolman. To date, this continues to be Hawn's final appearance in a feature film. Plot. When Suzette (Hawn) is fired from her job as bartender at the Whisky A Go-Go in Los Angeles, she decides, on the spur of the moment, to travel all the way to Phoenix, Arizona to see her old friend Vinnie (Sarandon). Stranded at a service station without any money to buy some gasoline, she picks up Harry Plummer (Rush), a neurotic, middle-aged author who is on his way to Phoenix to once and for all come to grips with the negative influence his father has had over his life. On arriving in Phoenix, Suzette has a chance meeting with Vinnie's 17-year-old daughter Hannah (Erika Christensen) who, after some recreational drug use, passes out in Harry's hotel room. When she drives her back to her parents' elegant suburban home Suzette at first cannot believe what she sees: Vinnie, who now calls herself Lavinia Kingsley, leads the life of the perfect wife and mother—a life which at one point prompts one of her daughters to ask Suzette, "Did she "ever" do "anything" wrong?" Raymond, Vinnie's lawyer husband and an aspiring politician, has no idea about his wife's past either. However, Suzette's sudden appearance brings back all those memories for Lavinia. Down in the basement she retrieves some of the memorabilia of their previous life as groupies, including a collection of Polaroids of the penises of numerous "musicians and a few roadies". She cuts her hair and throws off her expensive but boring clothes and, just for one night, relives the old days by going dancing with Suzette. In the end, both her husband and her two daughters have understood that Lavinia is only human after all. In her graduation speech, Hannah speaks out against anything that is "fake" and urges her schoolmates, teachers and the parents present to "do it true". On the following day, Suzette returns to Los Angeles together with Harry, who has come to consider her his muse. Reception. The film was released on September 20, 2002, and opened at #2 in 2,738 theaters and grossed $10,037,846 in the opening weekend. It went on to gross $30,307,416 domestically and $7,760,937 from overseas markets, for a worldwide total of $38,068,353.
1061057	Crispin Hellion Glover (born April 20, 1964) is an American film actor, director and screenwriter, recording artist, publisher, and author. Glover is known for portraying eccentric people on screen such as George McFly in "Back to the Future", Layne in "River's Edge", unfriendly recluse Rubin Farr in "Rubin and Ed", Andy Warhol in "The Doors", the "Thin Man" in the big screen adaptation of "Charlie's Angels" and its sequel, Willard Stiles in the "Willard" remake, The Knave of Hearts in "Alice in Wonderland", Phil in "Hot Tub Time Machine", and as a Willy Wonka parody in "Epic Movie". He is also the voice of Fifi in the "Open Season" franchise and most recently has appeared in the screen adaption of the Elmore Leonard novel "Freaky Deaky". In the late 1980s, Glover started his company, Volcanic Eruptions, which publishes his books and also serves as the production company for Glover's films, "What Is It?" and "It is Fine. Everything is Fine!" Glover tours with his movies and is currently having sets built for his next productions at property he owns in the Czech Republic. Early life. Glover, an only child, born and raised in New York City, and moved to Los Angeles with his family at the age of five. His father is actor Bruce Glover and his mother, Mary Elizabeth Lillian Betty Krachey (née) Bloom Koerber, was an actress and dancer who retired upon his birth. He was named after the Saint Crispin's Day speech from William Shakespeare's play "Henry V", which his parents enjoyed. "Hellion", his real middle name, had earlier been used as a false middle name by his father, who did not like his own real middle name, Herbert. His father is of English, Czech, and Swedish descent, and his mother is of German and English ancestry. As a child, Glover attended The Mirman School from grade one through nine. He then attended both Venice High for grade ten and eleven, and Beverly Hills High School only for grade twelve; he graduated in 1982. Career. Acting career. Glover began acting professionally at the age of 13. He appeared in several sitcoms as a teenager, including "Happy Days" and "Family Ties". His first film role was in 1983's "My Tutor". That led to roles in "Teachers" (1984) and "" (1984). He then worked with director Trent Harris on the third chapter of the Beaver Trilogy, entitled "The Orkly Kid". In this short film, he portrayed a small town man who organizes a local talent show to showcase his obsession with Olivia Newton-John, much to the embarrassment of the local community. At the climax of the film, Glover does his rendition, in full drag, of Newton-John's "Please Don't Keep Me Waiting" from her 1979 album "Totally Hot". He has continued to play exceedingly eccentric types, e.g., playing Andy Warhol in Oliver Stone's "The Doors" in 1991, as well as the title characters in "Bartleby" (2001) and "Willard" (2003). He received mainstream attention as the "Thin Man" in the "Charlie's Angels" films; the character had initially been cast as a speaking role, but Glover, noting that the lines as written were exposition, convinced the producers to eliminate the lines to create a darker image for the character. Glover was a co-interlocutor with Norm Hill and Werner Herzog for the special feature commentary for the DVD of Werner Herzog's "Even Dwarfs Started Small" and "Fata Morgana". Glover appeared in the 2007 film "Beowulf" as the monster Grendel, playing the part via performance capture technology. The film was Glover's first collaboration with director Robert Zemeckis since the original "Back to the Future" film. He also voiced the character "6" in the film 9. "Late Night" appearance. Glover appeared on "Late Night with David Letterman" on July 28, 1987, to promote the movie "River's Edge", in which he starred. Unbeknownst to Letterman and the audience, Glover appeared in character as "Rubin", from a then-unreleased movie "Rubin and Ed", wearing platform shoes and a wig. Rather than a conventional interview, Glover staged an Andy Kaufman-like prank. After being goaded by a woman in the audience (who some argue had been planted), Glover stated that he "knew that this was gonna happen" and that "the press, they can do things, they can twist things around". After challenging Letterman to an arm-wrestling match, Glover delivered an impromptu karate kick a few feet from Letterman while stating, "I'm strong... I can kick!" Letterman then abruptly ended the segment by walking off stage, saying "I'm going to check on the Top 10", as the program cut to commercial. The subsequent confusion and controversy surrounding his appearance was compounded by the fact that "Rubin and Ed" was not actually released until 1991; however, the movie had been in development since before "Back to the Future" — Crispin had actually already devised Rubin's "look" by 1985. Almost no one, apparently including Letterman, understood what Glover was doing and the interview became the hallmark of the "weird" TV guest. Glover returned to the Letterman show twice after that, the first about a month later, and then again almost 3 years after where he participated in a more nearly standard interview, but made it questionable whether he was ever on the show before and used a variety of delay tactics explaining the incident; he did say something about it being "an interesting thing." Glover then appeared two years later promoting a record album. When again asked about his first appearance, Glover launched into a long story, mentioning meeting a fellow resembling himself named Rubin, and needing to appear on "The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson" simultaneous to his appearance with Letterman. Here Letterman cut him off to talk about the album Glover was promoting, as the time allotted for the interview was more than halfway over. Glover has subsequently refused to go into detail about the reasons for his behavior on the show, other than to mention that he's flattered that fans are still speculating on the performance more than 20 years later. Glover has also mentioned that he prefers there to be an "air of mystery" about the appearance.
527372	Le scandale (The Champagne Murders) is a 1967 French suspense thriller mystery film directed by Claude Chabrol and starring Anthony Perkins. It was the first of two films that Chabrol made with Perkins, who is most famous for his role in "Psycho" directed by Alfred Hitchcock, who Chabrol admires above all other directors. For his role in the film, Maurice Ronet won the Best Actor award at the San Sebastián International Film Festival. Synopsis. Following a car accident, Paul Wagner suffers a head injury he is struggling to recover fully and can not manage his business of trading of champagne. Christine Belling advantage of the situation to try to sell the company, while Paul denies. Murders are committed: it is likely that Paul is the culprit. He then approaches Christine for her support. But she is murdered in turn. Paul is obviously the prime suspect in the eyes of investigators. Paul is suspicious of Jacqueline, his secretary, who is at the heart of this case. Jacqueline is related to Christopher, husband of Christine. We then discover that they have joined forces to divert capital from Paul Wagner.
590236	Swastika Mukherjee (, born 13 December 1980 in Kolkata) is a Bengali actress at Tollywood. She is daughter of actor Santu Mukherjee. Mukherjee's first stint with acting was the tele-serial "Devdasi". She made her film debut in 2003 with the film "Hemanter Pakhi" directed by Urmi Chakraborty. Her first lead role came with Ravi Kinnagi-directed "Mastan". Personal life. Mukherjee was born on 13 December 1980 in Kolkata. As a child she lived a self-described "simple life" with her father Santu Mukhopadhyay, younger sister Ajopa and mother Gopa. Her favorite films were "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang", "Mary Poppins" and "The Sound of Music". She did her schooling at Carmel School, Kolkata, St. Teresa' School, and Gokhale Memorial School. In 1998 at the age of 18, she married singer Pramit Sen, son of Rabindra Sangeet singer exponent Sagar Sen. The marriage was an unhappy one, lasting only two years before the couple separated. She accused him of physically abusing her and locking her out of their home when she was pregnant and filed a charge against him for cruelty (it was later dismissed). According to Mukherjee, Sen filed for divorce in 2000, but changed his mind later when she became successful in her acting career. She had one daughter from the marriage, Anwesha, born in 2000. In 2001 Mukherjee enrolled at the Ananda Shankar Centre for Culture, learning dance from veteran Tanushree Shankar. She broke up with him in 2008 after they "began to drift apart". She then went into a relationship with Jeet,but broke up due to gossips saying that Jeet was dating Koel Mullick. Later, she began a relationship with Parambrata Chatterjee on the sets of "Brake Fail". As she was still technically married to Pramit Sen, he filed a charge against Chatterjee for criminal adultery and enticement of a married woman. They separated in 2010 after Chatterjee moved to London. Career. While working on a history degree at Jadavpur University Mukherjee was spotted by the director of the TV serial "Devdasi" who convinced her to act in his production. She went on to appear in other serials like "Akasher Niche" and "Protibimbo". Mukherjee made her film debut in 2003 with the film "Hemanter Pakhi" directed by Urmi Chakraborty. In this film she played a small role. Her first lead role came with "Mastan" directed by Ravi Kinagi. During the filming of "Mastan" she began to date her co-star Jeet. They went on to appear in several films together, including "Kranti", "Krishnakanter Will" and "Partner". Mukherjee has recently appeared in "Bye Bye Bangkok" and made her Hindi debut in the anthology film "Mumbai Cutting".
1065959	Nicola Anne Peltz (born January 9, 1995) is an American actress. Her breakthrough came when she played in the 2010 film "The Last Airbender". Since then, she has played Bradley Martin in the A&E TV series "Bates Motel" (2013–present) and will star as the female lead, Tessa Vincent, in the upcoming fourth "Transformers" film, "" (2014). Early life. Peltz was born in Westchester County, New York, the daughter of Claudia (née Heffner), a former model, and Nelson Peltz, a billionaire businessman who once owned the Snapple brand. She has four older brothers, two younger brothers, and a sister. Peltz's ancestry is Jewish on her father's side. Career. Peltz played in the 2010 movie "The Last Airbender". She plays Renee Kyte in the upcoming independent movie, "Eye of the Hurricane". The movie wrapped filming in late August 2010 with a release date yet to be determined. Peltz also appeared in the 2006 film "Deck the Halls", playing Mackenzie, and "Harold", in 2008, where she was cast as Becki. She also had a minor role in Miley Cyrus' "7 Things" music video. On March 27, 2010, Peltz made an appearance at the Kids Choice Awards 2010 on Nickelodeon, and also appeared at the 2010 MTV Movie Awards, along with "The Last Airbender" co-star Jackson Rathbone, presenting a trailer for the film. On March 26, 2013, Peltz was cast as one of the lead characters, Tessa in the upcoming fourth "Transformers" film "" .
582089	Kaminey (English: "The Scoundrels") is a 2009 Indian caper thriller film directed by Vishal Bharadwaj and featuring Shahid Kapoor, Priyanka Chopra and Amol Gupte in the lead roles. Set against a backdrop of the underworld, the film tells the story of a day in the lives of a pair of twins; one of whom has a lisp and the other who stutters.
589469	Purab Aur Paschim (English: "East and West") is a 1970 Indian film. The movie was produced and directed by Manoj Kumar, and it stars Manoj Kumar, Saira Banu, Ashok Kumar, Pran and Prem Chopra in the lead roles. The music is by Kalyanji Anandji. The 2007 film "Namastey London" is inspired from this film. This was the second film by Manoj Kumar where he stars as Bharat (first being "Upkar") and his fourth film on patriotism ("Shaheed" was his first, to be followed by "Roti Kapda Aur Makaan" and "Kranti".) Synopsis. In 1942 British India, Harnam (Pran) betrays a freedom fighter, and as a result is rewarded, but the freedom fighter is killed, leaving his wife, Ganga (Kamini Kaushal) and family devastated and destitute.
586050	Perumazhakkalam (English: "The season of heavy rains") is a 2004 Malayalam film directed by Kamal. It stars Meera Jasmine, Kavya Madhavan, Dileep and Vineeth. The film was adapted to Hindi by Nagesh Kukunoor as "Dor". Kavya Madhavan got the 2004 Kerala State Film Award for Best Actress for her performance. "Perumazhakkalam" won the National Film Award for Best Film on Other Social Issues in 2005. Plot. Akbar (Dileep) is happily married to Raziya (Meera Jasmine). Akbar goes to the Persian Gulf for employment. There he accidentally kills Raghu Rama Iyer (Vineeth). He is now facing the death penalty. The only way for him to escape the penalty is to obtain a letter from Raghu's wife Ganga (Kavya Madhavan) that she pardons him. Raziya goes to meet Ganga to plead for mercy and obtain such a letter from her.
1102721	Robert Phelan Langlands (born October 6, 1936) is a Canadian mathematician best known as the founder of the Langlands program, a vast web of conjectures and results connecting representation theory and automorphic forms to the study of Galois groups in number theory. He is an emeritus professor at the Institute for Advanced Study. Career. Langlands received an undergraduate degree from the University of British Columbia in 1957, and continued on there to receive an M. Sc. in 1958. He then went to Yale University where he received a Ph.D. in 1960. His academic positions since then include the years 1960-67 at Princeton University, ending up as Associate Professor, and the years 1967-72 at Yale University. He was appointed Hermann Weyl Professor at the Institute for Advanced Study in 1972, becoming Professor Emeritus in January 2007. Research. His Ph.D. thesis was on the analytical theory of semi-groups, but he soon moved into representation theory, adapting the methods of Harish-Chandra to the theory of automorphic forms. His first accomplishment in this field was a formula for the dimension of certain spaces of automorphic forms, in which particular types of Harish-Chandra's discrete series appeared. He next constructed an analytical theory of Eisenstein series for reductive groups of rank greater than one, thus extending work of Maass, Roelcke and Selberg from the early 1950s for rank one groups such as formula_1. This amounted to describing in general terms the continuous spectra of arithmetic quotients, and showing that all automorphic forms arise in terms of cusp forms and the residues of Eisenstein series induced from cusp forms on smaller subgroups. As a first application, he proved the Weil conjecture on Tamagawa numbers for the large class of arbitrary simply connected Chevalley groups defined over the rational numbers. Previously this had been known only in a few isolated cases and for certain classical groups where it could be shown by induction. As a second application of this work, he was able to show meromorphic continuation for a large class of formula_2-functions arising in the theory of automorphic forms, not previously known to have them. These occurred in the constant terms of Eisenstein series, and meromorphicity as well as a weak functional equation were a consequence of functional equations for Eisenstein series. This work led in turn, in the winter of 1966/67, to the now well known conjectures making up what is often called the Langlands program. Very roughly speaking, they propose a huge generalization of previously known examples of reciprocity, including (a) classical class field theory, in which characters of local and arithmetic abelian Galois groups are identified with characters of local multiplicative groups and the idele quotient group, respectively; (b) earlier results of Eichler and Shimura in which the Hasse-Weil zeta functions of arithmetic quotients of the upper half plane are identified with formula_2-functions occurring in Hecke's theory of holomorphic automorphic forms. These conjectures were first posed in relatively complete form in a famous letter to Weil, written in January 1967. It was in this letter that he introduced what has since become known as the formula_2-group and along with it, the notion of functoriality. Functoriality, the formula_2-group, the rigorous introduction of adele groups, and the consequent application of the representation theory of reductive groups over local fields changed drastically the way research in automorphic forms was carried out. Langlands's introduction of (or in cases where others had done previous work, emphasis on) these notions broke up large and to some extent intractable problems into smaller and more manageable pieces. For example, they made the infinite-dimensional representation theory of reductive groups into a major field of mathematical activity. Functoriality is the conjecture that automorphic forms on different groups should be related in terms of their formula_2-groups. As one example of this conjecture the letter to Weil raised the possibility of solving the well known conjecture of Emil Artin regarding the behaviour of Artin's formula_2-functions, a hope partly realized in Langlands' later work on base change. In its application to Artin's conjecture, functoriality associated to every formula_8-dimensional representation of a Galois group an automorphic representation of the adelic group of formula_9. In the theory of Shimura varieties it associates automorphic representations of other groups to certain formula_10-adic Galois representations as well. The book by Hervé Jacquet and Langlands on formula_11 presented a theory of automorphic forms for the general linear group formula_11, establishing among other things the Jacquet–Langlands correspondence showing that functoriality was capable of explaining very precisely how automorphic forms for formula_11 related to those for quaternion algebras. This book applied the adelic trace formula for formula_11 and quaternion algebras to do this. Subsequently James Arthur, a student of Langlands while he was at Yale, successfully developed the trace formula for groups of higher rank. This has become a major tool in attacking functoriality in general, and in particular has been applied to demonstrating that the Hasse-Weil zeta functions of certain Shimura varieties are among the formula_2-functions arising from automorphic forms. The functoriality conjecture is far from proved, but a special case (the octahedral Artin conjecture, proved by Langlands and Tunnell) was the starting point of Andrew Wiles' attack on the Taniyama–Shimura conjecture and Fermat's last theorem. In the mid-1980s Langlands turned his attention to physics, particularly the problems of percolation and conformal invariance. In recent years he has turned his attention back to automorphic forms, working in particular on a theme he calls `beyond endoscopy'. In 1995 Langlands started a collaboration with Bill Casselman at the University of British Columbia with the aim of posting nearly all of his writings—including publications, preprints, as well as selected correspondence—on the Internet. The correspondence includes a copy of the original letter to Weil that introduced the formula_2-group. Awards and honors. Langlands has received the 1996 Wolf Prize (which he shared with Andrew Wiles), the 2005 AMS Steele Prize, the 1980 Jeffery-Williams Prize, the 1988 NAS Award in Mathematics from the National Academy of Sciences, the 2006 Nemmers Prize in Mathematics, and the 2007 Shaw Prize in Mathematical Sciences (with Richard Taylor) for his work on automorphic forms. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of London in 1981. In 2012 he became a fellow of the American Mathematical Society.
591810	"Fiction feature film / 35mm / Hindi stl-English / French / German / 2004" Hava Aney Dey (English: "Let the Wind Blow") was a film shot on location in the northern suburbs (Vikhroli and Andheri East) of Mumbai, India, in October–November 2003 with a mixed crew composed of French and Indian technicians. It is an Indo-French co-production between Santocha Productions, Paris and Mystique Media Ltd, Mumbai and Independent Movies LTD, Mumbai. It was also funded partly by the Fonds Sud, of the French Foreign Ministry and the French Cultural Ministry. It was post-produced partly in Mumbai and Paris.
1060175	Andrew Stevens (born June 10, 1955) is an American executive, film producer, director and former actor. Early life. Andrew Stevens was born Herman Andrew Stephens in Memphis, Tennessee, the only child of actress Stella Stevens and her former husband Noble Herman Stephens. Career. Prior to his producing career, Stevens was a writer, director, and actor. He was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for his performance in 1978's "The Boys in Company C" (Columbia Pictures). In 1977, Stevens played 17-year-old Andrew Thorpe on the NBC western series, "The Oregon Trail". The program filmed only thirteen episodes, seven of which never aired. He appeared opposite Dennis Weaver and Susan Dey in the short-lived drama "Emerald Point N.A.S.", as a playboy/tennis bum in "Columbo: Murder in Malibu", and as one of Lucy Ewing's love interests, Casey Denault, in "Dallas", for two seasons, beginning in 1987. He also played in the famous 1980s mini-series "Hollywood Wives". During this time, he also starred in the popular erotic thriller "Night Eyes", and its sequels.
1100251	Lenhard Ng (born 1976, United States) is an American mathematician, working primarily on symplectic geometry. Ng is an associate professor of mathematics at Duke University. Personal life. Lenhard Ng is an American of Chinese descent. His father, Jack Ng, is a professor of Physics at University of North Carolina Chapel Hill. He earned his B.A. (Summa Cum Laude) in Mathematics and Physics at Harvard University and his Ph.D. in Mathematics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2001. He is married to Astrid Giugni. Child prodigy. Ng was a child prodigy who was once thought to be the "smartest kid in America". At age 10, he earned a perfect score of 800 on the math portion of the SAT-I. He is one of the youngest children to have achieved this feat. At the age of 11, he earned a perfect score on the College Board Test of Standard Written English. He earned a perfect score on the American High School Mathematics Examination in all 4 years of high school. He attended the Johns Hopkins Center for Talented Youth and was one of the gifted children included in the Study of Mathematically Precocious Youth longitudinal cohort. He was estimated to be top one in approximately one million of his age-mates.
1105411	Julia Hall Bowman Robinson (December 8, 1919 – July 30, 1985) was an American mathematician best known for her work on decision problems and Hilbert's Tenth Problem. Background and education. Robinson was born in St. Louis, Missouri, the daughter of Ralph Bowers Bowman and Helen (Hall) Bowman. Her older sister was the mathematical popularizer and biographer Constance Reid. The family moved to Arizona and then to San Diego when the girls were a few years old. Julia attended San Diego High. She entered San Diego State University in 1936 and transferred as a senior to University of California, Berkeley, in 1939. She received her BA degree in 1940 and continued in graduate studies. She received the Ph.D. degree in 1948 under Alfred Tarski with a dissertation on "Definability and Decision Problems in Arithmetic". Mathematics career. In 1975 she became a full professor at Berkeley, teaching quarter-time because she still did not feel strong enough for a full-time job. Hilbert's tenth problem. Hilbert's tenth problem asks for an algorithm to determine whether a Diophantine equation has any solutions in integers. A series of results developed in the 1940s through 1970 by Robinson, Martin Davis, Hilary Putnam, and Yuri Matiyasevich resolved this problem in the negative; that is, they showed that no such algorithm can exist. George Csicsery produced and directed a one-hour documentary about Robinson titled "Julia Robinson and Hilbert's Tenth Problem", that premiered at the Joint Mathematics Meeting in San Diego on January 7, 2008. "Notices of the American Mathematical Society" printed a film review and an interview with the director. College Mathematics Journal also published a film review. Other decidability work. Her Ph.D. thesis was on "Definability and Decision Problems in Arithmetic". In it she showed that the theory of the rational numbers was undecidable by showing that elementary number theory could be defined in terms of the rationals, and elementary number theory was already known to be undecidable (this is Gödel's first Incompleteness Theorem). Other mathematical works. Robinson's work only strayed from decision problems twice. The first time was her first paper, published in 1948, on sequential analysis in statistics. The second was a 1951 paper in game theory where she proved that the fictitious play dynamics converges to the mixed strategy Nash equilibrium in two-player zero-sum games. This was posed as a prize problem at RAND with a $200 prize, but she did not receive the prize because she was a RAND employee at the time. Political work. Robinson was attracted to politics by the 1952 presidential campaign of Adlai Stevenson. (Stevenson was her husband's first cousin, but it was his ideas that attracted her and not the family connection.) In the 1950s Robinson was active in local Democratic party activities, and did less mathematics. She stuffed envelopes, rang doorbells, asked for votes, and so on. She was Alan Cranston's campaign manager in Contra Costa County when he ran for his first political office, state controller.
1053605	William Robert "Rob" Pinkston IV (born January 30, 1988) is an American actor who appeared during the fourth season of MTV's hidden camera practical joke television series, "Punk'd". He also played "Coconut Head" on Nickelodeon's "Ned's Declassified School Survival Guide". Although their last names are the same, he is not related to Ryan Pinkston, another "Punk'd" alumnus, though the two are said to be friends. He attended William S. Hart High School, in Santa Clarita, California a city located north of Los Angeles. He recently was in "Extreme Movie" with Ryan Pinkston and Frankie Muniz.
939533	Eloise at Christmastime is a live-action film based on the 1958 book of the same name written by Kay Thompson and illustrated by Hilary Knight. The film was produced by Handmade Films and DiNovi Pictures for Walt Disney Television with distribution handled by the ABC Television Network. It was released on both VHS and DVD in 2003 by Buena Vista Home Entertainment. As of 2009, the movie was shown in the 25 Days of Christmas programming block on ABC Family, but it was not part of the block in 2010. In 2011 and 2012, it was aired on the Hallmark Channel as part of their "Countdown to Christmas". The film stars young Sofia Vassilieva as Eloise, a six-year-old girl who lives in the penthouse at the top of the Plaza Hotel in New York City. This story takes place immediately after the events of "Eloise at the Plaza"; Eloise receives a package full of Spy stuff from her friend Leon, the supporting character in the previous film who did spy work with Eloise. Plot. The movie begins with a shot of the Hotel Lobby, with a large pink gift box leaning on the display table, in the middle of the room. The hotel manager, Mr. Salamone, asks one of the staff to take the box to the package room. Two of the staff take the gift box to the package room. When they leave, the box is opened and we see Eloise crawling out. Eloise is on a mission to find any presents in the package room from her mother, who has taken a trip to Paris.
1163718	Anne Baxter (May 7, 1923 – December 12, 1985) was an American actress known for her performances in films such as "The Magnificent Ambersons" (1942), "The Razor's Edge" (1946), "All About Eve" (1950) and "The Ten Commandments" (1956). Early life. Baxter was born in Michigan City, Indiana, to Kenneth Stuart Baxter and Catherine (née Wright), whose father was the famed architect Frank Lloyd Wright. Kenneth Baxter was a prominent executive with the Seagrams Distillery Co. and she was raised in New York City, where she attended Brearley. At age 10, Baxter attended a Broadway play starring Helen Hayes, and was so impressed that she declared to her family that she wanted to become an actress. By the age of 13, she had appeared on Broadway. During this period, Baxter learned her acting craft as a student of the famed teacher Maria Ouspenskaya. Career. At 16, Baxter screen-tested for the role of Mrs. DeWinter in "Rebecca", losing to Joan Fontaine because director Alfred Hitchcock deemed Baxter too young for the role, but she soon secured a seven-year contract with 20th Century Fox. Her first movie role was in "20 Mule Team" in 1940. She was chosen by director Orson Welles to appear in "The Magnificent Ambersons" (1942). Baxter co-starred with Tyrone Power and Gene Tierney in 1946's "The Razor's Edge", for which she won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. Baxter later recounted that "The Razor's Edge" contained her only great performance which was a hospital scene where the character, Sophie, "loses her husband, child and everything else". She said she relived the death of her brother, who had died at age three. She played Mike in the 1948 Western film "Yellow Sky" with Gregory Peck and Richard Widmark. In 1950, Baxter was chosen to co-star in "All About Eve", largely because of a resemblance to Claudette Colbert, who was originally set to star in the film, but dropped out and was replaced by Bette Davis. The original idea was to have Baxter's character gradually come to mirror Colbert's over the course of the film. Baxter received an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress for the title role of Eve Harrington. She said she modeled the role on a bitchy understudy she had for her debut performance in the Broadway play "Seen But Not Heard" at the age of thirteen and who had threatened to "finish her off". Through the 1950s she continued to act on stage. In 1953 Baxter contracted a two picture deal for Warner Brothers. Her first was opposite Montgomery Clift in Alfred Hitchcock's "I Confess"; the second was the whodunit "The Blue Gardenia" as a woman accused of murder. Baxter is also remembered for her role as the Egyptian Queen Nefertari opposite Charlton Heston's portrayal of Moses in Cecil B. DeMille's award winning "The Ten Commandments" (1956). She appeared regularly on television in the 1960s. She did a stint as one of the "What's My Line?" "Mystery Guests" on the popular Sunday night CBS-TV quiz program. She also starred as guest villain "Zelda the Great" in two episodes of the superhero show "Batman". She appeared as another villain, "Olga, Queen of the Cossacks", opposite Vincent Price's "Egghead" in three episodes of the show's third season. She also played an old flame of Raymond Burr on his crime series "Ironside". Baxter returned to Broadway during the 1970s in "Applause", the musical version of "All About Eve", but this time in the "Margo Channing" role played by Bette Davis in the film (succeeding Lauren Bacall, who won a Tony Award in the role). In the 1970s, Baxter was a frequent guest and stand-in host on "The Mike Douglas Show", since Baxter and host Mike Douglas were friends. She portrayed a murderous film star on an episode of "Columbo", called "Requiem for a Fallen Star". In 1971, she also had a role in Fools' Parade, as an aging prostitute who helps characters played by Jimmy Stewart, Strother Martin, and Kurt Russell escape from George Kennedy. In 1983, Baxter starred in the television series "Hotel", replacing Bette Davis after Davis became ill. Baxter has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6741 Hollywood Blvd. Personal life. In 1946, Baxter married actor John Hodiak. They had one daughter, Katrina, born 1951. Baxter and Hodiak divorced in 1953, which she later blamed on herself. He died one-and-a-half years later. In 1960, Baxter married her second husband, Randolph Galt. Galt was the American owner of a neighboring cattle station near Sydney, Australia, where she was filming "Summer of the Seventeenth Doll". She left Hollywood with Katrina to live with him on a remote cattle station he bought north of Sydney called "Giro" (pronounced Ghee-ro). During this time, they had two daughters, Melissa (b. 1962) and Maginel (b. 1963). In 1976, Baxter recounted her courtship with Galt (whom she called "Ran") and their experiences at Giro in a well-received book called "Intermission". After the birth of Maginel, back in California, Galt unexpectedly announced that they were moving to an ranch south of Grants, New Mexico. They then moved to Hawaii (his home state) before settling back in Brentwood, Los Angeles, California. Baxter and Galt were divorced in 1969. Melissa Galt became an interior designer and then a business coach, speaker and seminar provider. Maginel became a cloistered Roman Catholic nun, reportedly living in Rome, Italy. Baxter married again, in 1977 to David Klee, a prominent stockbroker. It was a brief marriage; Klee died unexpectedly from illness. The newlywed couple had purchased a sprawling property in Easton, Connecticut, which they extensively remodeled; however, Klee did not live to see the renovations completed. Baxter never remarried. Although she maintained a residence in West Hollywood, Baxter considered her Connecticut home to be her primary residence. Baxter was passionate about music, and was an active benefactor of The Connecticut Early Music Society. Baxter was a long time friend of celebrated costume designer Edith Head, whom she first met on the set of "All About Eve". Head appeared with Baxter in a cameo role in "Requiem For A Falling Star", a 1973 "Columbo" episode. Upon Head's death in 1981, Melissa Galt, who was also a goddaughter of Head, was bequeathed Head's jewelry collection.
1163565	Clerow Wilson, Jr. (December 8, 1933 – November 25, 1998), known professionally as Flip Wilson, was an American comedian and actor. In the early 1970s, Wilson hosted his own weekly variety series, "The Flip Wilson Show". The series earned Wilson a Golden Globe and two Emmy Awards. In January 1972, "Time" magazine featured Wilson's image on their cover and named him "TV's first black superstar". Early life. Born Clerow Wilson, Jr. in Jersey City, New Jersey, he was one of 24 children (18 of whom lived into adulthood) born to Clerow, Sr. and Cornelia Wilson. Clerow, Sr. worked as a handyman and, because of the Great Depression, was often out of work. When Wilson was seven years old, his mother abandoned the family. His father was unable to care for the children alone and he placed many of them in foster homes. After bouncing from foster homes to reform school, 16-year-old Wilson lied about his age and joined the United States Air Force. His outgoing personality and funny stories made him popular; he was even asked to tour military bases to cheer up other servicemen. Claiming that he was always "flipped out", Wilson's barracks mates gave him his famous nickname. Discharged in 1954, Wilson started working as a bellhop in San Francisco's Manor Plaza Hotel.
1163127	Alexandra Elizabeth Paul (born July 29, 1963) is an American actress. She is best known for her role as Lt. Stephanie Holden in the television series "Baywatch" from 1992–97. She has starred in over 70 movies and television programs. Personal life. Paul was born in New York City, the daughter of Sarah, a social worker, and Mark Paul, an investment banker. Paul is married to triathlon coach Ian Murray and has competed in triathlons. Her identical twin sister, Caroline Paul, became one of the first women to join the San Francisco Fire Department and has written a memoir entitled "Fighting Fire: A Personal Story" about her experiences. Her younger brother Jonathan Paul, a lifelong eco-animal activist, was released in 2011 from a federal prison after a 4 year 3 month sentence for the 1997 arson of a horse slaughterhouse. She was educated at the Cornwall Consolidated School in Connecticut and was first in her 8th grade class. She went to Groton School in high school and graduated with honors . Acting career. Alexandra has starred in over 70 films and television shows. Apart from "Baywatch", Paul is known for movies such as "Paper Dolls" (1982) with Daryl Hannah, "Christine" (1983), based on the book by Stephen King; the bicycle-racing film "American Flyers" (1985) with Kevin Costner and the film parody of the classic television series "Dragnet" starring Tom Hanks and Dan Aykroyd. She has also hosted non-fiction TV shows, including 's "Winning Women" and a southern California local environmentalism show, "Earth Talk Today". She made a cameo appearance in "" in a deleted scene parodying her "Baywatch" role. She remains in the DVD specials.
1724942	Charles Babbage, FRS (26 December 1791 – 18 October 1871) was an English polymath. He was a mathematician, philosopher, inventor and mechanical engineer, who is best remembered now for originating the concept of a programmable computer. Considered a "father of the computer", Babbage is credited with inventing the first mechanical computer that eventually led to more complex designs. His varied work in other fields has led him to be described as "pre-eminent" among the many polymaths of his century. Parts of Babbage's uncompleted mechanisms are on display in the London Science Museum. In 1991, a perfectly functioning difference engine was constructed from Babbage's original plans. Built to tolerances achievable in the 19th century, the success of the finished engine indicated that Babbage's machine would have worked. Early life. Babbage's birthplace is disputed, but according to the "Oxford Dictionary of National Biography" he was most likely born at 44 Crosby Row, Walworth Road, London, England. A blue plaque on the junction of Larcom Street and Walworth Road commemorates the event. His date of birth was given in his obituary in "The Times" as 26 December 1792; but then a nephew wrote to say that Babbage was born one year earlier, in 1791. The parish register of St. Mary's Newington, London, shows that Babbage was baptised on 6 January 1792, supporting a birth year of 1791. Babbage was one of four children of Benjamin Babbage and Betsy Plumleigh Teape. His father was a banking partner of William Praed in founding Praed's & Co. of Fleet Street, London, in 1801. In 1808, the Babbage family moved into the old Rowdens house in East Teignmouth. Around the age of eight Babbage was sent to a country school in Alphington near Exeter to recover from a life-threatening fever. For a short time he attended King Edward VI Grammar School in Totnes, South Devon, but his health forced him back to private tutors for a time. Babbage then joined the 30-student Holmwood academy, in Baker Street, Enfield, Middlesex, under the Reverend Stephen Freeman. The academy had a library that prompted Babbage's love of mathematics. He studied with two more private tutors after leaving the academy. The first was a clergyman near Cambridge; through him Babbage encountered Charles Simeon and his evangelical followers, but the tuition was not what he needed. He was brought home, to study at the Totnes school: this was at age 16 or 17. The second was an Oxford tutor, under whom Babbage reached a level in Classics sufficient to be accepted by Cambridge. At the University of Cambridge. Babbage arrived at Trinity College, Cambridge, in October 1810. He was already self-taught in some parts of contemporary mathematics; he had read in Robert Woodhouse, Joseph Louis Lagrange, and Marie Agnesi. As a result he was disappointed in the standard mathematical instruction available at Cambridge. Babbage, John Herschel, George Peacock, and several other friends formed the Analytical Society in 1812; they were also close to Edward Ryan. As a student, Babbage was also a member of other societies such as The Ghost Club, concerned with investigating supernatural phenomena, and the Extractors Club, dedicated to liberating its members from the madhouse, should any be committed to one. In 1812 Babbage transferred to Peterhouse, Cambridge. He was the top mathematician there, but did not graduate with honours. He instead received a degree without examination in 1814. He had defended a thesis that was considered blasphemous in the preliminary public disputation; but it is not known whether this fact is related to his not sitting the examination. After Cambridge. Considering only his reputation, Babbage quickly made progress. He lectured to the Royal Institution on astronomy in 1815, and was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1816. After graduation, on the other hand, he applied for positions unsuccessfully, and had little in the way of career. In 1816 he was a candidate for a teaching job at Haileybury College; he had recommendations from James Ivory and John Playfair, but lost out to Henry Walter. In 1819, Babbage and Herschel visited Paris and the Society of Arcueil, meeting leading French mathematicians and physicists. That year Babbage applied to be professor at the University of Edinburgh, with the recommendation of Pierre Simon Laplace; the post went to William Wallace. With Herschel, Babbage worked on the electrodynamics of Arago's rotations, publishing in 1825. Their explanations were only transitional, being picked up and broadened by Michael Faraday. The phenomena are now part of the theory of eddy currents, and Babbage and Herschel missed some of the clues to unification of electromagnetic theory, staying close to Ampère's force law. Babbage purchased the actuarial tables of George Barrett, who died in 1821 leaving unpublished work, and surveyed the field in 1826 in "Comparative View of the Various Institutions for the Assurance of Lives". This interest followed a project to set up an insurance company, prompted by Francis Baily and mooted in 1824, but not carried out. Babbage did calculate actuarial tables for that scheme, using Equitable Society mortality data from 1762 onwards. During this whole period Babbage depended awkwardly on his father's support, given his father's attitude to his early marriage, of 1814: he and Edward Ryan wedded the Whitmore sisters. He made a home in Marylebone in London, and founded a large family. On his father's death in 1827, Babbage inherited a large estate (value around £100,000), making him independently wealthy. After his wife's death in the same year he spent time travelling. In Italy he met Leopold II, Grand Duke of Tuscany, foreshadowing a later visit to Piedmont. In April 1828 he was in Rome, and relying on Herschel to manage the difference engine project, when he heard that he had become professor at Cambridge, a position he had three times failed to obtain (in 1820, 1823 and 1826). Astronomical Society. Babbage was instrumental in founding the Astronomical Society in 1820. Its initial aims were to reduce astronomical calculations to a more standard form, and to circulate data. These directions were closely connected with Babbage's ideas on computation, and in 1824 he won its Gold Medal, cited "for his invention of an engine for calculating mathematical and astronomical tables". Babbage's motivation to overcome errors in tables by mechanisation has been a commonplace since Dionysius Lardner wrote about it in 1834 in the "Edinburgh Review" (under Babbage's guidance). The context of these developments is still debated. Babbage's own account of the origin of the difference engine begins with the Astronomical Society's wish to improve "The Nautical Almanac". Babbage and Herschel were asked to oversee a trial project, to recalculate some part of those tables. With the results to hand, discrepancies were found. This was in 1821 or 1822, and was the occasion on which Babbage formulated his idea for mechanical computation. The issue of the "Nautical Almanac" is now described as a legacy of a polarisation in British science caused by attitudes to Sir Joseph Banks, who had died in 1820. Babbage studied the requirements to establish a modern postal system, with his friend Thomas Frederick Colby, concluding there should be a uniform rate. Colby was another of the founding group of the Society. He was also in charge of the Survey of Ireland. Herschel and Babbage were present at a celebrated operation of that survey, the remeasuring of the Lough Foyle baseline. British Lagrangian School. The Analytical Society had initially been no more than an undergraduate provocation. During this period it had some more substantial achievements. In 1816 Babbage, Herschel and Peacock published a translation from French of the lectures of Sylvestre Lacroix, which was then the state-of-the-art calculus textbook. Reference to Lagrange in calculus terms marks out the application of what are now called formal power series. British mathematicians had used them from about 1730 to 1760. As re-introduced, they were not simply applied as notations in differential calculus. They opened up the fields of functional equations (including the difference equations fundamental to the difference engine) and operator (D-module) methods for differential equations. The analogy of difference and differential equations was notationally changing Δ to D, as a "finite" difference becomes "infinitesimal". These symbolic directions became popular, as operational calculus, and pushed to the point of diminishing returns. The Cauchy concept of limit was kept at bay. Woodhouse had already founded this second "British Lagrangian School" with its treatment of Taylor series as formal. In this context function composition is complicated to express, because the chain rule is not simply applied to second and higher derivatives. This matter was known to Woodhouse by 1803, who took from Louis François Antoine Arbogast what is now called Faà di Bruno's formula (a misnomer). In essence it was known to Abraham De Moivre (1697). Herschel found the method impressive, Babbage knew of it, and it was later noted by Lovelace as compatible with the analytical engine. In the period to 1820 Babbage worked intensively on functional equations in general, and resisted both conventional finite differences and Arbogast's approach (in which Δ and D were related by the simple additive case of the exponential map). But via Herschel he was influenced by Arbogast's ideas in the matter of iteration, i.e. composing a function with itself, possibly many times. Writing in a major paper on functional equations in the "Philosophical Transactions" (1815/6), Babbage said his starting point was work of Gaspard Monge. Academic. From 1828 to 1839 Babbage was Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge. Not a conventional resident don, and inattentive to teaching, he wrote three topical books during this period of his life. He was elected a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1832. Babbage was out of sympathy with colleagues: George Biddell Airy, his predecessor there, thought an issue should be made of his lack of interest in lecturing. Babbage planned to lecture in 1831 on political economy. Babbage's reforming direction looked to see university education more inclusive, universities doing more for research, a broader syllabus and more interest in applications; but William Whewell found the programme unacceptable. A controversy Babbage had with Richard Jones lasted for six years. He never did give a lecture. It was during this period that Babbage tried to enter politics. Simon Schaffer writes that his views of the 1830s included disestablishment of the Church of England, a broader political franchise, and inclusion of manufacturers as stakeholders. He twice stood for Parliament as a candidate for the borough of Finsbury. In 1832 he came in third among five candidates, missing out by some 500 votes in the two-member constituency when two other reformist candidates, Thomas Wakley and Christopher Temple, split the vote. In his memoirs Babbage related how this election brought him the friendship of Samuel Rogers: his brother Henry Rogers wished to support Babbage again, but died within days. In 1834 Babbage finished last among four. "Declinarians", learned societies and the BAAS. Babbage now emerged as a polemicist. One of his biographers notes that all his books contain a "campaigning element". His "Reflections on the Decline of Science and some of its Causes" (1830) stands out, however, for its sharp attacks. It aimed to improve British science, and more particularly to oust Davies Gilbert as President of the Royal Society, which Babbage wished to reform. It was written out of pique, when Babbage hoped to become the junior secretary of the Royal Society, as Herschel was the senior, but failed because of his antagonism to Humphry Davy. Michael Faraday had a reply written, by Gerrit Moll, as "On the Alleged Decline of Science in England" (1831). On the front of the Royal Society Babbage had no impact, with the bland election of the Duke of Sussex to succeed Gilbert the same year. As a broad manifesto, on the other hand, his "Decline" led promptly to the formation in 1831 of the British Association for the Advancement of Science (BAAS). The "Mechanics' Magazine" in 1831 identified as Declinarians the followers of Babbage. In an unsympathetic tone it pointed out David Brewster writing in the "Quarterly Review" as another leader; with the barb that both Babbage and Brewster had received public money. In the debate of the period on statistics ("qua" data collection) and what is now statistical inference, the BAAS in its Statistical Section (which owed something also to Whewell) opted for data collection. This Section was the sixth, established in 1833 with Babbage as chairman and John Elliot Drinkwater as secretary. The foundation of the Statistical Society followed. Babbage was its public face, backed by Richard Jones and Robert Malthus. "On the Economy of Machinery and Manufactures". Babbage published "On the Economy of Machinery and Manufactures" (1832), on the organisation of industrial production. It was an influential early work of operational research. John Rennie the Younger in addressing the Institute of Civil Engineers on manufacturing in 1846 mentioned mostly surveys in encyclopedias, and Babbage's book was first an article in the "Encyclopædia Metropolitana", the form in which Rennie noted it, in the company of related works by John Farey, Jr., Peter Barlow and Andrew Ure. From "An essay on the general principles which regulate the application of machinery to manufactures and the mechanical arts" (1827), which became the "Encyclopædia Metropolitana" article of 1829, Babbage developed the schematic classification of machines that, combined with discussion of factories, made up the first part of the book. The second part considered the "domestic and political economy" of manufactures. The book sold well, and quickly went to a fourth edition (1836). Babbage represented his work as largely a result of actual observations in factories, British and abroad. It was not, in its first edition, intended to address deeper questions of political economy; the second (late 1832) did, with three further chapters including one on piece rate. The book also contained ideas on rational design in factories, and profit sharing. "Babbage principle". In "Economy of Machinery" was described what is now called the "Babbage principle". It pointed out commercial advantages available with more careful division of labour. As Babbage himself noted, it had already appeared in the work of Melchiorre Gioia in 1815. The term was introduced in 1974 by Harry Braverman. Related formulations are the "principle of multiples" of Philip Sargant Florence, and the "balance of processes". What Babbage remarked is that skilled workers typically spend parts of their time performing tasks that are below their skill level. If the labour process can be divided among several workers, labour costs may be cut by assigning only high-skill tasks to high-cost workers, restricting other tasks to lower-paid workers. He also pointed out that training or apprenticeship can be taken as fixed costs; but that returns to scale are available by his approach of standardisation of tasks, therefore again favouring the factory system. His view of human capital was restricted to minimising the time period for recovery of training costs. Publishing. Another aspect of the work was its detailed breakdown of the cost structure of book publishing. Babbage took the unpopular line, from the publishers' perspective, of exposing the trade's profitability. He went as far as to name the organisers of the trade's restrictive practices. Twenty years later he attended a meeting hosted by John Chapman to campaign against the Booksellers Association, still a cartel. Influence. It has been written that "what Arthur Young was to agriculture, Charles Babbage was to the factory visit and machinery". Babbage's theories are said to have influenced the layout of the 1851 Great Exhibition, and his views had a strong effect on his contemporary George Julius Poulett Scrope. Karl Marx argued that the source of the productivity of the factory system was exactly the combination of the division of labour with machinery, building on Adam Smith, Babbage and Ure. Where Marx picked up on Babbage and disagreed with Smith was on the motivation for division of labour by the manufacturer: as Babbage did, he wrote that it was for the sake of profitability, rather than productivity, and identified an impact on the concept of a trade. John Ruskin went further, to oppose completely what manufacturing in Babbage's sense stood for. Babbage also affected the economic thinking of John Stuart Mill. George Holyoake saw Babbage's detailed discussion of profit sharing as substantive, in the tradition of Robert Owen and Charles Fourier, if requiring the attentions of a benevolent captain of industry, and ignored at the time. The French engineer and writer on industrial organisation Léon Lalande was influenced by Babbage, but also the economist Claude Lucien Bergery, in reducing the issues to "technology". William Jevons connected Babbage's "economy of labour" with his own labour experiments of 1870. The Babbage principle is an inherent assumption in Frederick Winslow Taylor's scientific management. Natural theology. In 1837, responding to the series of eight "Bridgewater Treatises", Babbage published his "Ninth Bridgewater Treatise", under the title "On the Power, Wisdom and Goodness of God, as manifested in the Creation". In this work Babbage weighed in on the side of uniformitarianism in a current debate. He preferred the conception of creation in which natural law dominated, removing the need for "contrivance". The book is a work of natural theology, and incorporates extracts from related correspondence of Herschel with Charles Lyell. It was quoted extensively in "Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation". Babbage put forward the thesis that God had the omnipotence and foresight to create as a divine legislator. He could make laws which then produced species at the appropriate times, rather than continually interfering with "ad hoc" miracles each time a new species was required. In "Vestiges" the parallel with Babbage's computing machines is made explicit, as allowing plausibility to the theory that transmutation of species could be pre-programmed. Babbage has been seen as influenced by Indian thought, in particular Indian logic; one possible route would be through Henry Thomas Colebrooke. Mary Everest Boole claims that Babbage was introduced to Indian thought in the 1820s by her uncle George Everest: Some time about 1825, came to England for two or three years, and made a fast and lifelong friendship with Herschel and with Babbage, who was then quite young. I would ask any fair-minded mathematician to read Babbage's Ninth Bridgewater Treatise and compare it with the works of his contemporaries in England; and then ask himself whence came the peculiar conception of the nature of miracle which underlies Babbage's ideas of Singular Points on Curves (Chap, viii) – from European Theology or Hindu Metaphysic? Oh! how the English clergy of that day hated Babbage's book! Later life. The British Association was consciously modelled on the Deutsche Naturforscher-Versammlung, founded in 1822. It rejected romantic science as well as metaphysics, and started to entrench the divisions of science from literature, and professionals from amateurs. Belonging as he did to the "Wattite" faction in the BAAS, represented in particular by James Watt the younger, Babbage identified closely with industrialists. He wanted to go faster in the same directions, and had little time for the more gentlemanly component of its membership. Indeed, he subscribed to a version of conjectural history that placed industrial society as the culmination of human development (and shared this view with Herschel). A clash with Roderick Murchison led in 1838 to his withdrawal from further involvement. At the end of the same year he sent in his resignation as Lucasian professor, walking away also from the Cambridge struggle with Whewell. His interests became more focussed, on computation and metrology, and on international contacts. Metrology programme. A project announced by Babbage was to tabulate all physical constants (referred to as "constants of nature", a phrase in itself a neologism), and then to compile an encyclopedic work of numerical information. He was a pioneer in the field of "absolute measurement". His ideas followed on from those of Johann Christian Poggendorff, and were mentioned to Brewster in 1832. There were to be 19 categories of constants, and Ian Hacking sees these as reflecting in part Babbage's "eccentric enthusiasms". Babbage's paper "On Tables of the Constants of Nature and Art" was reprinted by the Smithsonian Institution in 1856, with an added note that the physical tables of Arnold Henry Guyot "will form a part of the important work proposed in this article". Exact measurement was also key to the development of machine tools. Here again Babbage is considered a pioneer, with Henry Maudslay, William Sellers, and Joseph Whitworth. Engineer and inventor. Through the Royal Society Babbage acquired the friendship of the engineer Marc Brunel. It was through Brunel that Babbage knew of Joseph Clement, and so came to encounter the artisans whom he observed in his work on manufactures. Babbage provided an introduction for Isambard Kingdom Brunel in 1830, for a contact with the proposed Bristol & Birmingham Railway. He carried out studies, around 1838, to show the superiority of the broad gauge for railways, used by Brunel's Great Western Railway. In 1838, Babbage invented the pilot (also called a cow-catcher), the metal frame attached to the front of locomotives that clears the tracks of obstacles; he also constructed a dynamometer car. His eldest son, Benjamin Herschel Babbage, worked as an engineer for Brunel on the railways before emigrating to Australia in the 1850s. Babbage also invented an ophthalmoscope, which he gave to Thomas Wharton Jones for testing. Jones, however, ignored it. The device only came into use after being independently invented by Hermann von Helmholtz. Cryptography. Babbage achieved notable results in cryptography, though this was still not known a century after his death. Letter frequency was category 18 of Babbage's tabulation project. Joseph Henry later defended interest in it, in the absence of the facts, as relevant to the management of movable type. During the Crimean War of the 1850s, Babbage broke Vigenère's autokey cipher as well as the much weaker cipher that is called Vigenère cipher today. His discovery was kept a military secret, and was not published. Credit for the result was instead given to Friedrich Kasiski, a Prussian infantry officer, who made the same discovery some years later. Babbage did write to the "Journal of the Society for Arts" a short letter "Cypher Writing" which was printed on 7 December 1855. His priority wasn't established until 1985. Public nuisances. Babbage involved himself in well-publicised but unpopular campaigns against public nuisances. He once counted all the broken panes of glass of a factory, publishing in 1857 a "Table of the Relative Frequency of the Causes of Breakage of Plate Glass Windows": Of 464 broken panes, 14 were caused by "drunken men, women or boys". Babbage's distaste for commoners ("the Mob") included writing "Observations of Street Nuisances" in 1864, as well as tallying up 165 "nuisances" over a period of 80 days. He especially hated street music, and in particular the music of organ grinders, against whom he railed in various venues. The following quotation is typical:
1163385	Joanne Dru (January 31, 1922 – September 10, 1996) was an American film and television actress, known for such films as "Red River" and "All the King's Men". Career. Born as Joan Letitia LaCock in Logan, West Virginia, Dru came to New York City in 1940 at the age of eighteen. After finding employment as a model, she was chosen by Al Jolson to appear in the cast of his Broadway show "Hold Onto Your Hats". When she moved to Hollywood, she found work in the theater. Dru was spotted by a talent scout and made her first film appearance in "Abie's Irish Rose" (1946). Over the next decade, Dru appeared frequently in films and on television. She was cast often in western films such as Howard Hawks's "Red River" (1948), and John Ford's "She Wore a Yellow Ribbon" (1949), and "Wagon Master" (1950). She gave a well-received performance in the dramatic film "All the King's Men" (1949) and co-starred with Dan Dailey in "The Pride of St. Louis" (1952) about major-league baseball pitcher Jerome "Dizzy" Dean. She appeared in the James Stewart drama "Thunder Bay" in 1953 and then a Martin and Lewis comedy "3 Ring Circus" (1954). Her film career petered out by the end of the 1950s, but she continued working frequently in television, most notably as "Babs Wooten" on the 1960-61 sitcom, "Guestward, Ho!".
774770	Lies My Father Told Me is a 1975 Canadian film made in Montreal, Quebec. It was directed by Ján Kadár and stars Jeffrey Lynas as an orthodox Jewish boy growing up in 1920s Montreal. The original story was written by Ted Allan in 1949. Allan, a Jew from East End Montreal, was working at an advertising agency. David Rome, editor of the Canadian Jewish Congress "Bulletin", asked him to write a story immediately. Allan thought up a story and had it in Rome's hands within hours. It eventually became this Academy Award-nominated film and a novella. Plot summary. The story tells of a six-year-old boy who would travel with his grandfather on an old horse-drawn cart through the alleyways in a Jewish ghetto of Montreal in the 1920s. The two would call out to residents asking to collect their old junk (a rag-and-bone man). The boy's grandfather was religious but his father was not. Eventually the grandfather dies, as does his horse Ferdeleh, leaving the boy feeling bitter toward his secular father.
1071969	The film is a combination of several genres, mixing martial arts action with the clichés of the sports film—particularly skewering baseball, one of Japan's most popular high school sports—and the violence and brutality of a horror film. The film's bizarre—sometimes almost incoherent—plot, blood and gore, and unique comedy have given it something of a "cult" popularity in the West. Though the film is ostensibly about high school baseball rivalries, the amount of actual baseball in the film is fairly light. There are many scenes involving bats and balls, however. The film was released on Region 1 DVD by Subversive Cinema. Plot. It's every high school baseball team's dream to go to the legendary Koshien Stadium Tournament. For the first time in years, Seido High School has a chance—star player Gorrila Matsui has finally given the team an opportunity to succeed. Most delighted at this prospect is Principal Kocho. His hopes are dashed, however, when the Head teacher reveals to him that the first game will be played against the infamous Gedo High School. Gedo is notorious for its brutal killings during games. They hardly play at all, instead engaging in a form of martial arts combat called "fighting baseball". Their matches erupt into brutal battlefields, Gedo slaughtering its opponents in any way possible, and the competing team vainly struggling for their lives. The Gedo team is almost inhuman in its slaughter, and their bizarre weapons and attire coupled with their green-grey skin only increase this reputation. Understandably, Kocho is distressed—not only at the likely murder of his students, but at the loss of yet another chance to win the Koshien Stadium Tournament. Much to his delight, however, is the appearance of mysterious newcomer Jubeh, played by Tak Sakaguchi. Jubeh rescues Four Eyes (Megane, so named because of his eyeglasses.), played by Atsushi Itō, from a gang of expelled students, beating Bancho (Japanese for "boss" or "leader") and catching Kocho's eye. He begs and pleads with Jubeh to join the team to help them defeat Gedo, but he steadfastly refuses. During this time Kocho and Jubeh are also confronted by a resurrected Bancho, though his "face changed". Bancho joins the team, explaining that the injuries that prevented him from playing baseball were cured by Jubeh's punches. When confronted by Four Eyes, Jubeh reveals why he has stopped playing baseball–in song. He musically laments his pitching skill, explaining how he became so skilled he was a danger to himself and others. Only his father, with an absurdly huge catcher's mitt, will allow Jubeh to pitch. However, when an accidental ball to the head kills him, Jubeh vows never to pitch again. Despite this sorowful story, Four Eyes insists that Jubeh join the team, explaining his own plight. His mother hates baseball, and would be furious if he were to play. As a result, he must keep his presence on the Seido team a secret. Four Eyes' sheer love for the game touches Jubeh deeply, and he joins the team. However, when the game against Gedo starts, Jubeh is nowhere to be found. As a result, the team is, predictably, slaughtered by the Gedo students. Jubeh gets there in time to hear Gorilla's last words. Finding a body he believes to be Four Eyes', Jubeh laments the loss, before realising that it's in fact a Gedo trap. The "body" explodes, hurling Jubeh across the field, sending him to an early grave. Jubeh finds himself in a sepia-toned small town street in the afterlife. He sees a man he has not seen for some time–his father. He convinced Jubeh to embrace his pitching skills, and defeat Gedo once and for all. Jubeh pledges to do so as he watches his father ride off. Returning from the afterlife, he introduces his pitch, dubbed the "Super Tornado". Bancho also returns, again, this time as a child. He too met Jubeh's father in the afterlife, and was given his catcher's mitt. In the meantime, somehow Four Eyes' mother has discovered that he was on the baseball team. As punishment, she locks him up in a cage, and watches over him day and night. Jubeh comes to rescue him, fighting Four Eyes's mother. He confronts her, asking her why she hates baseball so much. She reveals that her husband was killed by a baseball pitcher. All three come to a sudden realization—They are family. In jubilation, Four Eyes' mother gives him permission to play. Kocho, Bancho, Jubeh, and Four Eyes, having formed a new Seido team, confront Gedo. The Gedo coach mocks the size and strength, or more accurately the lack thereof, of the new team. Much to his surprise however, several new team members show up—Head Teacher and Gorilla, now cyborgs, having been resurrected by "advanced technology", one of the school's cheerleaders, and Four Eyes' mother all team up to defeat Gedo.
1056695	Ian Bannen (29 June 1928 – 3 November 1999) was a Scottish character actor and occasional leading man. He is known for starring as the character Christopher Lowe in "From Beyond the Grave" (1974), Jim Prideaux in the BBC production of "Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy" (1979), and Jackie O'Shea in "Waking Ned Devine" (1998). Early life. Bannen was born in Airdrie, North Lanarkshire, the son of Clare (née Galloway) and John James Bannen, a lawyer. Bannen served in the British Army after attending St Aloysius' College, Glasgow and Ratcliffe College, Leicestershire. His first acting role came in a 1947 Dublin stage production of "Armlet of Jade". He became a successful figure on the London stage, making a name for himself in the plays of both Shakespeare and Eugene O'Neill. He was an original member of the Royal Shakespeare Company and appeared on Broadway as well. Career. His film debut occurred in the early 1950s with a small role in "Pool of London" (1951), and he quickly rose to prominence, primarily in a wide range of supporting roles. He had a very significant role as Stoker Samuel Bannister in the Yangtze Incident. During the early stages of his career he worked with the Boulting Brothers on "Private's Progress" and "Carlton-Browne of the F.O.". His performance as Crow in "The Flight of the Phoenix" (1965) earned him an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor, making him the first Scottish actor to receive this honour; he also received a Golden Globe nomination for New Star of the Year - Actor. That same year, he starred alongside Sean Connery in the WW2 prison drama, "The Hill". Bannen turned down lead roles in "Hawaii Five-O", "Van der Valk" and "The Love Boat". His notable television appearances include parts in "Doctor Finlay", "Thriller", and as a school teacher and ex-spy in "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy". Director John Schlesinger cast him as a replacement for Alan Bates in the part of well-off homosexual doctor Daniel Hirsh in his controversial film "Sunday Bloody Sunday" (1971), after Bates was deemed unavailable to shoot. According to screenwriter Penelope Gilliatt, Bannen never felt comfortable with the part. The anxiety adversely affected his performance during the early filming. Schlesinger replaced Bannen with Peter Finch, who received an Oscar nomination for the role.
1054221	__FORCETOC__ "National Lampoon's Barely Legal is a 2003 comedy film about three male high school students who decide to make money by selling pornographic videos, in the hopes of gaining both women and standing among their peers. The film was also known as After School Special". Plot. Matt, Fred, and Deacon are three high school teenagers who are obsessed with sex, but unable to obtain it. Frustrated at being restricted to fantasy and voyeurism, they decide to film a pornographic movie, in order to gain access to women, money and social standing. Fred (Tony Denman) steals credit card records from one of his father's patients, and posing as adults, they purchase a web hosting service for "After School Special"—a site "by virgins, for virgins". Masquerading as Hawaiians vacationing in Cleveland, they cast local strippers.
1141479	John Mitchum (September 6, 1919 – November 29, 2001) was an American actor from the 1940s to the 1970s in film and television. Born in Bridgeport, Connecticut, and the younger brother of Julie Mitchum and Robert Mitchum, he initially appeared in only unbilled and extra roles before gradually receiving bigger character parts in middle age. Mitchum supported his more famous brother on several occasions and was featured as the cop Frank DiGiorgio in the first three "Dirty Harry films".
1104609	Paul Albert Gordan (27 April 1837 – 21 December 1912) was a German mathematician, a student of Carl Jacobi at the University of Königsberg before obtaining his Ph.D. at the University of Breslau (1862), and a professor at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg. He was known as "the king of invariant theory". His most famous result is that the ring of invariants of binary forms of fixed degree is finitely generated. He and Alfred Clebsch gave their name to Clebsch-Gordan coefficients. Gordan also served as the thesis advisor for Emmy Noether. A famous quote attributed to Gordan about David Hilbert's proof of the Hilbert Basis Theorem, a result which vastly generalized his result on invariants, is "This is not mathematics; this is theology." The proof in question was the (non-constructive) existence of a finite basis for invariants. It is not clear if Gordan really said this since the earliest reference to it is 25 years after the events and after his death, and nor is it clear whether the quote was intended as criticism, or praise, or a subtle joke. Gordan himself encouraged Hilbert and used Hilbert's results and methods, and the widespread story that he opposed Hilbert's work on invariant theory is a myth (though he did correctly point out in a referee's report that some of the reasoning in Hilbert's paper was incomplete). He was born in Breslau, Germany (now Wrocław, Poland), and died in Erlangen, Germany.
1101167	Atle Selberg (14 June 1917 – 6 August 2007) was a Norwegian mathematician known for his work in analytic number theory, and in the theory of automorphic forms, in particular bringing them into relation with spectral theory. He was awarded the Fields Medal in 1950. Early years. Selberg was born in Langesund, Norway, the son of teacher Anna Kristina Selberg and mathematician Ole Michael Ludvigsen Selberg. Two of his brothers also went on to become mathematicians as well, and the remaining one became a professor of engineering.
586673	Feroz Khan (Hindi: फ़िरोज़ ख़ान, Urdu: فیروزخان September 25, 1939 – 27 April 2009) was an Indian actor, film editor, producer and director in the Hindi film industry. For his flamboyant style, with cowboyish swagger and cigar toting persona which revolutionised the style quotient of the otherwise conventional Filmi hero, he is known as the Clint Eastwood of the East and a style icon in the industry. He appeared in over 50 films in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, and became one of India's best-loved heroes with his role in the 1980 hit film "Qurbani", which he also directed. Khan followed this multi-disciplinary achievement by directing more successful films like "Dayavan" (1988) and "Janbaaz" (1986). He won the Filmfare Best Supporting Actor Award for "Aadmi Aur Insaan" in 1970, and was honoured with the Filmfare Lifetime Achievement Award in 2000. Early life. Khan was born on 25 September 1939 in Bangalore, India to a Pathan Afghan immigrant father belonging to the tanoli tribe of Ghazni, while his mother was of Iranian background. Khan was educated in Bishop Cotton Boys' School, Bangalore and St. Germain High School, Bangalore. His brothers are Sanjay Khan (Abbas Khan), Shahrukh Shah Ali Khan, Sameer Khan and Akbar Khan (director). He has a sister Dilshad Bibi. After his schooling in Bangalore, he travelled to Mumbai where he made his debut as second lead in "Didi" in 1960. Career. Through the early 1960s and 1970s, he made low-budget thrillers opposite starlets. In 1962, he appeared in an English-language film titled "Tarzan Goes to India" opposite Simi Garewal. His first big hit was in 1965, with Phani Majumdar's "Oonche Log" (1965), where he was pitted against screen idols Raaj Kumar and Ashok Kumar; he gave a notable sensitive performance. It was followed by some more small budget hit films like "Samson", "Ek Sapera Ek Lutera", "Char Darvesh" Again, in the same year, he played a sacrificing lover in the mushy musical "Arzoo", starring Sadhana. With this, Khan earned his entry into A-list second leads. With the film "Aadmi Aur Insaan" (1969), Khan won his first Filmfare award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role. His other hit films were "Khotey Sikkay", "Geeta Mera Naam", "Pyasi Sham", "Shankar Shambhu" and "Safar". He appeared alongside his real-life brother Sanjay Khan in the hit films "Upaasna" (1967), "Mela" (1971), and "Nagin" (1976). He turned into a successful producer and director in 1971 so as to improve his career opportunities as a leading man with his first directorial film "Apradh", which was the first Indian movie showing auto racing in Germany; Mumtaaz was his co-star. He produced, directed, and starred in the 1975 film "Dharmatma", which was the first Indian film to be shot in Afghanistan and was also his first blockbuster hit as producer, director, and star and marked appearance of actress Hema Malini in a glamorous avatar. This movie was inspired by the Hollywood film "The Godfather". Throughout the late 1970s and 1980s, he was a leading Bollywood star, directing and starring in many of his films. He also starred in the Punjabi film "Bhagat Dhanna Jat" (1974). The 1980 film "Qurbani", with Zeenat Aman, was the biggest hit of his career and launched the singing career of iconic Pakistani pop singer Nazia Hassan, with her memorable track "Aap Jaisa Koi." In 1986, he directed and starred in "Janbaaz", a box-office hit, which some consider to be one of his best movies, featured an all-star cast and was possessed of great songs and excellent cinematography. In 1988, he directed and starred in "Dayavan", which was a remake of a South Indian film titled "Nayagan". After directing and starring in "Yalgaar" (1992), he took a long break from acting for 11 years. He launched his son Fardeen Khan's career with the 1998 film "Prem Aggan", which, however, was a box-office bomb. In 2003, he made his acting comeback as well as produced and directed "Janasheen", which also starred his son Fardeen. He always used performing animals in his films—a chimpanzee and lion were used in "Janasheen"—but People for Animals (PFA) Haryana [http://www.pfaharyana.in/] chairman Naresh Kadyan moved a complaint in the court of law at Faridabad for animal cruelty and legal action as per law against the producer, director, and actor. He starred alongside his son again in "Ek Khiladi Ek Haseena" (2005) and made his last film appearance in "Welcome" (2007). 'Welcome' has been one of the best comedy films made in recent time in which he worked with Akshay Kumar, Paresh Rawal, Nana Patekar, Anil Kapoor and Katerina Kaif. It was a block-buster of the year. Feroz Khan was ahead of his time in terms of his unmatchable style, which reflected in his movies and music. His movies like "Qurbani" and "Dharmatma" are cult favourites in Hindi cinema. He was not considered a superstar. In May 2006, Feroz Khan was blacklisted by then Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf when he went there to promote his brother's film, "Taj Mahal". In an intelligence report submitted to Musharraf, he was said to have gotten drunk and insulted Pakistani singer and anchor Fakhr-e-Alam and criticizing the country saying: "I am a proud Indian. India is a secular country. The Muslims there are making lot of progress unlike in Pakistan. Our President is a Muslim and our Prime Minister a Sikh. Pakistan was made in the name of Islam, but look how the Muslims are killing Muslims here." Pakistan's high commission in India and the foreign and interior ministries were subsequently directed to deny Khan a visa in the future. Personal life. Feroz Khan was married to Sundari Khan. He has a son named Fardeen Khan who is married to Natasha Madhwani, daughter of former Bollywood actress Mumtaz. He also has a daughter Laila Khan, who is married to Farhan Furniturewala. Laila was married to Rohit Rajpal, a national level tennis player but divorced him and married Furniturewala in 2010. Although Fardeen and Farhan had their differences and nearly came to blows at a nightclub with each other, Fardeen and Farhan sorted everything out and accepted each other later on. Death and funeral. He succumbed to a battle with cancer on April 27, 2009. During his illness he returned to rest at his farmhouse in Bangalore. He was laid to rest in his beloved Bangalore near to his mother's grave at Hosur Road Shia Kabristan with thousands in attendance included his close family, dear friends, and notable celebrities of Indian film industry. He was remembered for his larger than life presence, and excellence in cinema.
1129822	Joanna C. Going (born July 22, 1963) is an American actress. Early life and education. Born in Washington, D.C., she is the oldest of six children of a police dispatcher, and a state assemblyman and lawyer. Raised in Newport, Rhode Island, she graduated from Rogers High School in 1981, then attended Emerson College for two years before studying at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. Career. Going appeared in soap opera roles in the late 1980s, most notably as Lisa Grady on "Another World" from 1987 to 1989. She went on to portray lead character Victoria Winters on the 1991 primetime series "Dark Shadows". Throughout the majority of the 1990s and 2000s, Going starred in several made-for-television movies, feature films and television series. She appeared in the 1997 independent film "The Keys to Tulsa" opposite Eric Stoltz, playing a stripper named Cherry and performing a nude dance routine. Her biggest role may be in the 1998 film version of "Phantoms". She also appeared opposite Sean Penn in the 2010 film "The Tree of Life", her first role in a major motion picture since 2003's "Runaway Jury". Personal life. Going married actor Dylan Walsh on October 10, 2004. They have a daughter, Stella Haven. On December 15, 2010 Walsh announced he had filed for divorce. The divorce was finalized in December 2012.
1299084	Ramgarh Ke Sholay is a 1991 spoof film that parodies the 1975 classic Bollywood blockbuster "Sholay". It was directed by Ajit Diwani.
134100	Kelly Lee Carlson (born February 17, 1976) is an American actress and model. She is best known for her role as Kimber Henry on "Nip/Tuck". Career. Carlson is originally from Bloomington, Minnesota, and attended the Academy of Holy Angels in Richfield, Minnesota. In addition to acting, she has also modeled, including ad campaigns with Miller Lite, Rembrandt, and Oliver Peoples sunglasses. She appeared in the August 2004 issue of "Maxim" magazine and on the cover of the October issue of "Stuff Magazine". She is a spokesperson for the Smile Network, a Minnesota-based humanitarian organization that provides reconstructive surgeries and related health care services to impoverished children and young adults in developing countries. An enthusiastic equestrian since the age of 7, Carlson lobbied for a bill to prevent both inhumane transport of American horses to slaughterhouses in Mexico and Canada as well as roundups of wild horses by government authorities in January 2010. Carlson started out in theater, performing in productions of "Vanities", "Cheaters", "Girls Guide to Chaos", "Charlotte's Web" and "Can't Trust the Mate". She also appeared as an extra in the film "3000 Miles to Graceland". In 2003, Carlson booked a guest role in the pilot of the FX series "Nip/Tuck". Her character, Kimber Henry, quickly became popular with audiences, and she appeared in several episodes of the first and second seasons, eventually becoming a regular in the show's third season, remaining with the series until it wrapped in March 2010. Outside of "Nip/Tuck", Carlson has appeared in several feature films, including "Paparazzi", "The Marine", the direct-to-video sequel ' and a supporting role in the mainstream comedy "Made of Honor" alongside Patrick Dempsey. She has also made guest spots on "Everwood", ', "", "Monk" and "The Finder". She was initially cast in the 2007 horror movie "Dead of Winter" (later retitled "Killer Movie") alongside stars like Leighton Meester and Kaley Cuoco, but was replaced by former Pussycat Doll turned actress Cyia Batten before filming began, due to creative differences with the director. After completing work on the final episodes of "Nip/Tuck" in 2009, Carlson segued into a recurring role on the CW update of "Melrose Place", playing a Hollywood madam. She also had a short appearance in the television movie "Degrassi Goes Hollywood". She can next be seen in "Ghostfacers", an online spin-off the of the CW series "Supernatural". In 2001 she was listed on "Tear Sheet Magazine"'s 50 Most Beautiful list. Carlson was also listed at #43 on "Maxim" magazine's Hot 100 of 2005 list, and ranked #94 on their Hot 100 of 2007 list. Personal life. She currently resides in Los Angeles, California. Her mother is a hairdresser, her late father was a high school football coach. Carlson has trained in Kali, the Filipino martial arts street-fighting kickboxing for years. She is a sponsor and volunteer for the LongRun Thoroughbred Retirement Society that helps former racehorses.
1060038	Bugsy Malone is a 1976 British musical gangster film, directed by Alan Parker. Set in 1929 New York City, the film is very loosely based on events in New York City from the early 1920s to 1931 in the Prohibition era, specifically the exploits of gangsters like Al Capone and Bugs Moran, as dramatized in cinema. Featuring only child actors (with singing voices provided by adults), Parker lightened the subject matter considerably for the children's market; the film received a G rating. The film was Parker's feature-length directorial debut, introduced actor Scott Baio, and featured veteran actress (at age 13) Jodie Foster. Plot. The film opens with a brief action sequence in which a mobster named Roxy Robinson is "splurged" by members of a gang, using rapid-fire custard-shooting "splurge guns". Once splurged, a kid is "all washed up" and his career in crime is over—the splurged gangsters are never shown as dead or even unconscious, merely "finished". Speakeasy boss, Fat Sam introduces himself and Bugsy Malone, a boxing promoter with no money (""Bugsy Malone""). At Fat Sam's speakeasy, there is much dancing and singing (""Fat Sam's Grand Slam""), but Fat Sam himself is worried that his rival Dandy Dan will come to the speakeasy and try to take over. Blousey Brown, an aspiring singer, has come for an audition, but Sam is too distracted. Bugsy meets Blousey when he trips over her luggage. He is smitten, and flirts with her. Suddenly, Fat Sam's is raided by Dandy Dan's men, who shoot the place up. Dandy Dan's men continue to attack Fat Sam's empire, eventually taking away rackets and splurging most of Fat Sam's gang. Fat Sam learns about the splurge guns when one is dropped and left at the scene of an attack. Fat Sam sends all his available men to see if they can track down the guns; they are trapped at a laundry and all splurged by Dandy Dan's gang. Bugsy returns to Fat Sam's to try to arrange a new audition for Blousey. He only finds Fat Sam's girlfriend, Tallulah, the chanteuse of the speakeasy, who tells him that she likes him. Although Bugsy rejects her flirtation, when Blousey enters, Tallulah plants a big kiss on Bugsy's forehead, making Blousey jealous. Blousey has her audition and Fat Sam hires her, but she still refuses to speak to Bugsy (""I'm Feelin' Fine""). Fat Sam hires Bugsy to come along to a meeting with Dandy Dan. This meeting turns out to be a trap, but Bugsy helps Fat Sam escape. Gratefully, Fat Sam pays him $200. Bugsy and Blousey reconcile, and have a lunch and a romantic outing on a lake. Back in the city, Bugsy promises to buy tickets for them to leave for Hollywood. However, when he returns Sam's car to the garage, he is attacked, and his money stolen. Bugsy is saved by Leroy Smith, who punches the attackers; seeing this, Bugsy realizes he has found a potentially great boxer. Bugsy introduces Leroy to Cagey Joe and helps him begin training (""So You Wanna Be a Boxer?""). Fat Sam once again enlists Bugsy's aid after his assistant Knuckles gets splurged by a splurge gun which Fat Sam invented. Bugsy declines, but when Fat Sam pays him $400 he sees another chance to fulfill his promise to Blousey, so he agrees to help Fat Sam. However, when Blousey finds out that Bugsy hasn't yet bought the tickets, she is left in a state of disappointment (""Ordinary Fool""). Bugsy and Leroy follow Dandy Dan's men to a warehouse, where they discover the guns are being stashed. The two of them can't take the place alone, so Bugsy enlists the aid of a large group of down-and-out workers at a soup kitchen (""Down and Out""). They steal the crates of guns and return with them to Fat Sam's just as Dandy Dan's gang arrives. Chaos breaks out and everyone is covered in a melee of custard. A pie hits the piano player Razmataz, who falls forward, striking a single bass note with his head. Silence instantly breaks out, and then the cast, now covered in white cream (with the sole exceptions of Bugsy and Blousey), engages in a final musical number (""You Give a Little Love""). The characters realise they can all be friends, and Bugsy and Blousey leave for Hollywood. Production. "Bugsy Malone" was Alan Parker's first feature film. Parker was trying to find a film that his children would enjoy, and his eldest son suggested one featuring a cast of only children. The director chose to cast several unknown actors in the film. To find his Fat Sam, Parker visited a Brooklyn classroom, asking for "the naughtiest boy in class". They were unanimous in selecting John Cassisi, and Parker gave him the role. Actress Florrie Dugger was originally cast in a smaller role; when the actress cast as Blousey suddenly grew taller than Baio, Dugger was promoted. At the time they filmed, all of the cast were under 17 years old. Parker cast Baio after he slammed down the script and stormed out of his audition. Parker chose Paul Williams to score the film in order to get a more "palatable" modern sound, and simply because he liked him. Williams had scored Brian De Palma's commercial failure Phantom of the Paradise, but had also written huge pop-radio hits (such as We've Only Just Begun (lyrics), and (Just An) Old Fashioned Love Song). In fact, Williams would soon win an Oscar for his song Evergreen from the 1976 film A Star Is Born. (He would also go on to become very well known for his work in children's films, such as The Rainbow Connection from his score for The Muppet Movie). Williams felt that "...the challenge for me was to provide songs that reflected the period ... and yet maintained an energy that would hold the young audiences attention." According to Parker, Williams was writing while on tour, recording songs in different cities, and sending the completed tapes to Hollywood. Arriving during pre-shoot rehearsals, the songs had to be accepted and used as they were, with voices by Paul, Archie Hahn and others. Neither the director nor the songwriter was entirely comfortable with the results. Williams later wrote "I'm really proud of the work and the only thing I've ever doubted is the choice of using adult voices. Perhaps I should have given the kids a chance to sing the songs." Parker also commented: "Watching the film after all these years, this is one aspect that I find the most bizarre. Adult voices coming out of these kids' mouths? I had told Paul that I didn't want squeaky kids voices and he interpreted this in his own way. Anyway, as the tapes arrived, scarcely weeks away from filming, we had no choice but to go along with it!" The film was rehearsed and shot in England, largely on Pinewood Studios' "H" stage, with locations in Black Park Country Park (Wexham, Buckinghamshire) and Reading, Berkshire. The "splurge guns" proved to be problematic. After initial experiments with cream-filled wax balls proved painful, Parker decided to abandon the idea of filming the guns directly. Instead, the guns fired ping-pong balls, and a fast cut to a victim being pelted with "splurge" was used to convey the impression of the rapid-firing guns. Release. The film was released in late 1976 to positive reviews. It currently holds a score of 82% on Rotten Tomatoes. Despite the positive critical reception, "Bugsy Malone" was not a commercial success in the US, bringing in just over $2.7 million. Paramount released it limited, usually dumping it onto second-tier theaters in a double-bill with "The Bad News Bears", which had already been out for six months, and was no longer much of a draw. The film gained a small cult following in the US during airings on HBO, and later on home video. The film performed well in the UK and Japan, however. By 1985 it had earned an estimated profit of £1,854,000. Accolades. The film garnered 15 award nominations, including "Best Motion Picture (Musical/Comedy)", "Best Original Score" and "Best Original Song" (for the title track) from the Golden Globes, an Oscar for "Best Original Song Score" (Paul Williams), and the prestigious Golden Palm at the 1976 Cannes Film Festival. Actress Jodie Foster received two BAFTAs, "Best Supporting Actress" and "Most Promising Newcomer to Leading Film Roles", however, both her nominations were for her previous year's work in "Taxi Driver" in addition to her work on "Bugsy Malone". Alan Parker received the BAFTA Award for Best Original Screenplay, and a nomination for Best Direction. Geoffrey Kirkland won the BAFTA Award for Best Production Design. Additionally, Paul Williams received a nomination for the Anthony Asquith Award for Film Music, and Monica Howe a Best Costume Design nomination. The film itself received a Best Picture nomination. "Bugsy Malone" was nominated for AFI's Top 10 Gangster Films list. Home media. In the early eighties, "Bugsy Malone" was released on VHS. On 16 April 1996, it was re-released by Paramount on VHS. Although the film has never been commercially released on Region 1 DVD, it has been available through Internet sites as an Asian import supporting Region 1 (US). On 9 September 2008, BMG/Arista released a Blu-ray version, encoded for "all regions", as a United Kingdom import. This edition includes a director's commentary as well as other special features; however, as of October, 2009, the Blu-ray version has been discontinued. A US DVD (Region 1) release was listed around 2003/04 as being available soon, however the film has yet to be released in this format. Soundtrack. In March 1996, Polydor UK released the soundtrack on CD. It has yet to be released in the US on CD but is available through various outlets as an import. It was released as an LP in 1976. Performers include Paul Williams, Archie Hahn, Julie McWirder, and Liberty Williams. The track listing is: A cast recording of the National Youth Music Theatre stage version of "Bugsy Malone" was released in 1998. Like the stage show, this recording featured two songs originally written by Williams, but not used in the film: "That's Why They Call Him Dandy" and "Show Business". There is also some additional incidental orchestral score, such as an "Overture" and "Exit Music", with music arranged by John Pearson. Legacy. In 2003, "Bugsy Malone" was voted #19 on a list of the 100 greatest musicals, as chosen by viewers of Channel 4 in the UK, placing it higher than "The Phantom of the Opera", "Cats", and "The King and I". "Bugsy Malone" ranks 353rd on "Empire Magazine"'s 2008 list of the 500 greatest movies of all time. "Bugsy Malone" has been adapted into a stage show in two forms. A TV documentary called "Bugsy Malone: After They Were Famous" features a reunion and interviews with Jodie Foster, Scott Baio, John Cassisi and Florrie Dugger. The British actors who played Fat Sam's gang are also reunited at Pinewood Studios. It was aired in December 2004 on ITV in the UK. In 1981 the song "So You Want To Be A Boxer?" was used as the theme tune for BBC1 sitcom Seconds Out. In 2007 during the Super Bowl XLI, an animated Coca-Cola commercial was based around the song "You Give a Little Love" from "Bugsy Malone". It was animated to resemble the action computer game "Grand Theft Auto". But the character's typical actions of anger and crime were replaced with opposite redeeming actions. The version of the song in the commercial features vocals by Moses Patrou. An episode of Simon Pegg and Jessica Stevenson's British sitcom "Spaced" pays a subtle and brief homage to "Bugsy Malone". A cake fight occurs during Daisy's birthday dinner. The waiter signals angrily to the pianist to end the fight. The brief piano piece heard at the end of the film's final splurge gun fight and as an incidental throughout the film is played. The 13th track on British rapper Dizzee Rascal's 2007 album, "Maths + English", entitled 'Wanna Be' references the Bugsy Malone track 'So You Wanna be a Boxer'. The song "Ordinary Fool" has been performed on recordings by Karen Carpenter, Ella Fitzgerald and Mel Tormé. The Swedish EBM band Spetsnaz performed a cover of "Down and Out", which was released as an extra track on the "Hardcore Hooligans" single. The Newcastle-based band Moira Stewart (named after the British newsreader) included a cover of "You Give a Little Love" (with a slight change of title to simply "Give a Little Love") on their début album "Sweetness, Yes!". In the 2009 comedy "In the Loop", Judy Molloy (Gina McKee) remarks, after seeing that most of the top positions in D.C. are staffed by young college graduates, "They're all kids in Washington. It's like "Bugsy Malone," but with real guns." In 2010, UK band Silvery included a cover of "You Give a Little Love" on their second album 'Railway Architecture', and Olly Murs, runner up in the 2009 UK series of "The X Factor", sampled "So You Wanna Be a Boxer" in his song "Hold On" that can be found on his debut album. Tampa Bay Lightning player Ryan Malone's locker room nickname is Bugsy, a homage to this film. In 2011, the film was the most screened film in secondary schools in the United Kingdom. Stage adaptation. Alan Parker went on to write the book for a stage adaptation of "Bugsy Malone", using Paul Williams's music. Music Theatre International currently holds the licensing and performance rights for both the regular production and a "Junior" version of the show meant for children.
1057910	Black Narcissus is a 1947 film by the British director-writer team of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, based on the 1939 novel of the same name by Rumer Godden. It is a psychological drama about the emotional tensions within a convent of nuns in an isolated valley in the Himalayas, and features in the cast Deborah Kerr, Kathleen Byron, Sabu, David Farrar, Flora Robson, Esmond Knight, and Jean Simmons. Plot summary. A group of Anglican nuns travel to a remote location in the Himalayas (the Palace of Mopu, near Darjeeling) to set up a school and hospital for the local people, only to find themselves increasingly seduced by the sensuality of their surroundings in a converted seraglio high up in the mountains, and by the local British agent Mr Dean (David Farrar). Clodagh (Deborah Kerr), the Sister Superior, is attempting to forget a failed romance at home in Ireland. Tensions mount as Dean's laid-back charm makes an impression on Clodagh, but also attracts the mentally unstable Sister Ruth (Kathleen Byron), who becomes pathologically jealous of Clodagh, resulting in a nervous breakdown and a violent climax. In a subplot, 'the Young General' (Sabu), heir to the throne of a princely Indian state who has come to the convent for his education, becomes infatuated with Kanchi, a lower caste dancing girl (Jean Simmons). Deviations from the novel. While much of the film's dialogue is taken verbatim from the novel, the film does not follow the novel exactly. In particular the film does not include Mr Dean's rejection of Sister Clodagh's design for the chapel, in favour of his own design of an open-sided building without door, located at the top of the ridge, above the Holy Man. Additionally, (the imminently departing) Sister Philippa is not replaced by Sister Adela, a stern nun who is horrified at the dereliction of duty by the original nuns. Production. Of the three principal Indian roles, only the Young General was played by an ethnic Indian; the roles of Kanchi and the Old General were performed by white actors in makeup. The role of Kanchi was a change indeed for 'the demure Miss Simmons.' Kanchi, 17, is described by Rumer Godden as "a basket of fruit, piled high and luscious and ready to eat. Though she looks shyly down, there is something steady and unabashed about her; the fruit is there to be eaten, she does not mean it to rot." On landing the part Simmons told her mother she had been given a part in which she had to have 'oomph'. 'The Indian extras were cast from workers at the docks in Rotherhithe. The film was made primarily at Pinewood Studios, but some scenes were shot in Leonardslee Gardens, West Sussex, the home of an Indian army retiree which had appropriate trees and plants for the Indian setting. The film makes extensive use of matte paintings and large scale landscape paintings to suggest the mountainous environment of the Himalayas, (credited to W. Percy Day) as well as some scale models for motion shots of the convent. Powell said later, 'Our mountains were painted on glass. We decided to do the whole thing in the studio and that's the way we managed to maintain colour control to the very end. Sometimes in a film its theme or its colour are more important than the plot.' For the costumes, Alfred Junge, the art director, had three main colour schemes. The nuns were always in the white habits that he designed from a medley of medieval types. These white robes of heavy material stressed the nuns' other-worldliness amid the exotic native surroundings. The chief native characters were robed in brilliant colours, particularly the General and his young nephew, in jewels and rich silks. Other native characters brought into the film merely as 'atmosphere' were clad in more sombre colours, with the usual native dress of the Nepalese, Bhutanese and Tibetan peoples toned down to prevent overloading the eye with brilliance. According to Robert Horton, Powell set the climactic sequence, a murder attempt on the cliffs of the cloister, to a preexisting musical track, staging it as though it were a piece of visual choreography. Also, on a note of personal tension that existed behind-the-scenes, was the fact that Kerr was the director's ex-lover, and Byron his current one. "It was a situation not uncommon in show business, I was told", Powell later wrote, "but it was new to me". The version of the film originally shown in the United States had scenes depicting flashbacks of Sister Clodagh's life before becoming a nun edited out at the behest of the Catholic Legion of Decency. Lost scene. Originally, the film was intended to end with an additional scene in which Sister Clodagh sobs and blames herself for the convent's failure to Mother Dorothea. Mother Dorothea touches and speaks to Sister Clodagh welcomingly as the latter's tears continue to fall. When they filmed the scene with the rainfall on the leaves in what was to have been the penultimate scene, Powell was so impressed with it that he decided to designate that the last scene and to scrap the Mother Dorothea closing scene. It was filmed but it's not known if it was printed. Historical context. "Black Narcissus" was released only a few months before India achieved independence from Britain in August 1947. Film critic Dave Kehr has suggested that the final images of the film, as the nuns abandon the Himalayas and proceed down the mountain, could have been interpreted by British viewers in 1947 as 'a last farewell to their fading empire'; he suggests that for the filmmakers, it is not an image of defeat 'but of a respectful, rational retreat from something that England never owned and never understood'. The story in the film quite closely follows that of the book, which was written in 1939. Critical response. In "The Great British Picture Show", the writer George Perry stated, "Archers films looked better than they were – the location photography in Technicolor by Jack Cardiff in "Black Narcissus" was a great deal better than the story and lifted the film above the threatening banality". In contrast, the critic Ian Christie wrote in the "Radio Times" in the 1980s that "unusually for a British film from the emotionally frozen forties the melodrama works so well it almost seems as if Powell and Pressburger survived the slings and barbs of contemporary criticism to find their ideal audience in the 1980s". Marina Warner, introducing the film on BBC2 (on a nun-themed film evening, with "Thérèse"), called it a masterpiece: In Michael Powell's own view this was the most erotic film he ever made. "It is all done by suggestion, but eroticism is in every frame and image from beginning to end. It is a film full of wonderful performances and passion just below the surface, which finally, at the end of the film, erupts". The film currently holds a 100% "Fresh" rating on Rottentomatoes. Home media. A DVD was released in the UK on 26 September 2005. A restored version was released on Blu-ray in the UK on 23 June 2008 by ITV DVD. It is also available in Region 1 DVD from the Criterion Collection, who released a Blu-ray version on 20 July 2010. Awards and honours. The filmmakers were recognised with several awards for their work on "Black Narcissus":
1057907	5 Fingers, known also as "Five Fingers", is a 1952 American 20th Century Fox spy film directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz and produced by Otto Lang. The screenplay by Michael Wilson and Mankiewicz was based on "Operation Cicero" (Original German: "Der Fall Cicero") (1950) by L.C. Moyzisch. In the film, James Mason plays Ulysses Diello (Cicero), the character based on Bazna. The rest of the cast includes Danielle Darrieux, Michael Rennie, Herbert Berghof and Walter Hampden. The film tells the true story of Albanian-born Elyesa Bazna, one of the most famous spies of World War II. He worked for the Nazis in 1943–44 while he was employed as valet to the British ambassador to Turkey, Sir Hughe Montgomery Knatchbull-Hugessen. He used the code name "Cicero". He would photograph top-secret documents and turn the films over to Franz von Papen, the former German chancellor, at that time German ambassador in Ankara, via the intermediary Moyzisch, a commercial attaché at the embassy. Plot summary. Turkey, 1944: German ambassador Franz von Papen and his British counterpart Sir Frederic Taylor attend a reception and encounter Countess Anna Staviska, who is a Frenchwoman and the widow of a Polish count. Now destitute, the countess volunteers to become a spy for a fee, but she is turned down. A man approaches a German embassy atttache, Moyzisch, offering to provide Von Papen with top-secret British documents for a price: 20,000 pounds. What is not yet known by the Germans is that the man, Diello, is the personal valet to Sir Frederic as well as the former valet of the late count. The documents taken from Sir Frederic's safe and photographed prove genuine. Diello is given the code name "Cicero" and asked to continue his subterfuge. Diello gives his money to Anna for safekeeping and pays her a portion of it, provided he be allowed to use her new villa as a meeting place for his transactions. When the valet also tells Anna his dream of living in South America together, she slaps his face. But she agrees to his conditions. Moyzisch is summoned to Berlin by military officers suspicious of Cicero's true intent. A bombing of a Romanian City is carried out, exactly as Cicero's photographed documents had outlined. Colonel Von Richter is sent to Ankara to take over the negotiations with Cicero, while the British send a counter-intelligence man, Colin Travers, to identify the spy. Anna's newfound wealth and previous willingness to become a spy cause her to fall under suspicion from Travers, who also rigs the ambassador's safe with a burglar alarm. Von Richter requests a document detailing an Allied operation called "Overlord." It is the D-Day invasion plan and Cicero wants 40,000 pounds for it. Diello realizes that he could soon be killed by one side or captured by the other. He decides to leave for South America, only to discover that Anna has stolen all of his money and departed to Switzerland instead. A letter arrives from her to Sir Frederic that identifies his valet as the spy. Diello intercepts it while breaking into the safe, but sets off the alarm and must flee. He now knows for certain how Anna feels toward him. Broke and on the run, Diello demands a 100,000-pound payment from the Germans for the D-Day information. He receives it, then manages to avoid getting killed or captured. A forged letter from Anna informs the Germans that the valet is actually a British spy, so they dispose of the D-Day document as unreliable. Diello travels alone to Rio, where he is enjoying a new life of prosperity and freedom. Or at least he is until Brazilian authorities arrive to take him into custody because his money is counterfeit. Anna's money in Switzerland, he finds out, is fake as well. Awards. The film was nominated for two Academy Awards, Best Director for Mankiewicz and Best Screenplay for Wilson. Mankiewicz was also nominated for "Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Motion Pictures" by the Directors Guild of America and Wilson was nominated for "Best Written American Drama" by the Writers Guild of America. He won the Golden Globe for "Best Screenplay" and the Edgar Award for "Best Mystery Screenplay." Notes. "Five Fingers" was adapted to television in a 1959-1960 NBC and 20th Century Fox 16-episode series starring David Hedison and Luciana Paluzzi.
1060523	Michael John McKean (born October 17, 1947) is an American actor, comedian, writer, composer and musician well known for his portrayal of Squiggy's friend, Leonard "Lenny" Kosnowski, on the sitcom "Laverne & Shirley"; and for his work in the Christopher Guest ensemble films, particularly as David St. Hubbins, the lead vocalist and rhythm guitarist of the fictional rock band Spinal Tap from the eponymous film. Early life and career. McKean was born in New York City, New York, the son of Ruth and Gilbert McKean.
1163604	Jeffrey Hunter (born Henry Herman “Hank” McKinnies, Jr., November 25, 1926 – May 27, 1969) was an American film and television actor. His most famous roles are as John Wayne's character's sidekick in "The Searchers", as Jesus Christ in the biblical film "King of Kings", and as Capt. Christopher Pike in the original pilot episode of "Star Trek". Early life. Hunter was born in New Orleans, Louisiana, and after 1930 reared in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where he graduated from Whitefish Bay High School. He began acting in local theater and radio in his early teens. He served stateside in the United States Navy, in World War II, then from 1946 to 1949 studied theatre at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois alongside Charlton Heston. Acting career. In 1950, while a graduate student in radio at the University of California, Los Angeles and appearing in a college play, he was spotted by talent scouts and offered a two-year motion picture contract by 20th Century-Fox that was eventually extended to 1959. He made his Hollywood debut in "Fourteen Hours", had star billing by "Red Skies of Montana" (1952), and first billing in "Sailor of the King" (1953). A loan-out to co-star with John Wayne in the title roles of the now-classic western "The Searchers" began the first of three pictures he made with director John Ford; the other two being "The Last Hurrah" (1958) starring Spencer Tracy and "Sergeant Rutledge" (1960). The same year as "The Searchers", Hunter also co-starred with top-billed Fess Parker in Walt Disney's "The Great Locomotive Chase", based on an actual 1862 historical event during the American Civil War. Ironically, according to Parker's Archive of American Television interview, Ford had originally wanted to cast Parker in Hunter's role in "The Searchers" but Disney refused to loan him out, something Parker didn't hear about until years later; Parker referred to his loss of that part to Jeffrey Hunter as his single biggest career setback.
583845	Bagavathi is a 2002 Tamil film directed by A. Venkatesh, which features Vijay and Reemma Sen in the leading roles. Vadivelu, K. Vishwanath, Yugendran and Ashish Vidyarthi play other supporting roles, while Deva composed the music for the film. Vijay introduced himself as an action hero through this film with firing puch dialogues and crackling style of a mass hero. However The film opened to mixed reviews but was an above average success at the box office. Plot. Bhagavathi (Vijay), owns a tea shop cum hotel near Chennai High court. He lives with the aim of bringing up his younger brother Guna (Jai) as a doctor. He also befriends a modern girl Anjali (Reemma Sen) who is a daughter of a Judge. Guna has a girl friend Priya with whom he accidentally develops a physical relationship. Guna's love is objected by Priya's father (Ashish Vidyarthi). Bhagavathi to fulfill his brother's wish tries to convince Priya's father. But in vain. Guna attempts to marry Priya even without the knowledge of his brother. But Priya's father collapses the marriage and Guna is killed in front of Bhagavathi.
590481	Asli-Naqli (English: "Real And Fake") is a 1962 Hindi movie produced by L.B Lachman and L.B Thakur. The film is directed by Hrishikesh Mukherjee and stars Dev Anand, Sadhana Shivdasani, Leela Chitnis, Anwar Hussain, Sandhya Roy and Keshto Mukherjee. The film's music is by Shankar Jaikishan and lyrics by Hasrat Jaipuri. The film became a box office hit.[http://boxofficeindia.com/showProd.php?itemCat=168&catName=MTk2Mg==] Cast. Sadhana and Dev Anand with Leela Chitnis, Anwar Hussain, Sandhya Roy, Mukri, Kesto Mukherjee & Motilal. Hrishikesh Mukherjee as a director comes to maturity in this film and develops a signature style of healthy family entertainment. This film follows one of his earlier successes, Anari. Innovative Song Picturisation: In the expression of love, while filming the song, "Ek but banaunga," Hrishikesh Mukherjee took care so that Dev Anand and Sadhana maintained a distance of at least 20 feet between them. At one time when they come nearer, there is a blackboard on stand between them. When Dev Anand turns around the blackboard to Sadhana's side, the latter puts a slate between them. In the backdrop of rains outside, with Mohammed Rafi's magic all around, some one takes away a goat from the rain-sheltered veranda and one is transported to the dream world of love. At times Dev Anand is outside in the veranda with the bamboo mesh of a window between them. Dev is worshipping Sadhana with folded hands and in the end Sadhana comes near with her hands raised in blessing. Similarly while picturising the song, "Tera mera pyaar amar," Hrishikesh Mukherjee demonstrates the love between Dev Anand and Sadhana by putting them in different places as the song unfolds. In the early part of his career, Hrishikesh Mukherjee was a cinematographer and all through the film, there is brilliant camera work. The Story: Dev Anand plays the role of a rich heir spoilt by his grand father (played by Nasir Hussain) and leaves his house to seek employment under the guise of an unemployed, uneducated youth. Sadhana takes pity on him and helps in his employment. Sadhana works herself to support her mother and her family, and she hides the fact that her father has died in Africa. The film gives the message that wealth is not everything and being rich does not give one happiness. On the other hand poor people with their limited means find ways and means to live a life of happiness with compassion. Dev Anand through his adventure discovers life and in the end is reconciled with his grand father. Renu lives a poor lifestyle with her mom, dad and a brother. Her dad decides to travel to Africa so that he can earn enough money to send his son to study engineering, so that he can find employment abroad. But fate has other plans when one day Renu's brother returns home sick from college, and shortly thereafter passes away. His shocked father books a seat on a plane to attend his son's funeral, but the plane crashes killing everyone on board. Shattered and devastated, Renu decides to hide her dad's death from her ill and fragile mom, and goes along pretending that her father is still alive. She obtains employment and through her earnings convinces her mom that her dad is regularly sending money. Then things brighten up when a homeless young man, Anand, enters her life, both fall in love with each other and want to get married. But once again fate plays a cruel joke on Renu as she subsequently finds out that Anand is not who he claims to be...
591300	Andha Naal () is a 1954 Indian crime mystery film in Tamil directed by "Veenai" S. Balachander. It is arguably the first film-noir in Tamil cinema and is the first Tamil film to be made without songs. The film was inspired by the 1950 Akira Kurosawa film Rashômon. However, in contrast to Rashômon, the film's climax provides a solution to the murder using an Indian proverb as a vital clue. The film revolves around a murder of Radio Engineer Rajan (Sivaji Ganesan), with suspects being five characters: Rajan's wife Usha (Pandari Bai), Chinnaiah Pillai, Rajan's brother Pattabi, Rajan's sister-in-law Hema, and dancer Ambujam (also Rajan's Mistress). Each one recounts an incident which points to a new suspect. Sivanandam then uses clues in the victim's room, serendipitous leads, and understands the characters' persona, and uses the knowledge to identify the culprit. Plot. On the night of 11 October 1943, the Japanese bombed the Indian city of Madras (now known as Chennai), causing commotion all over the city. In Triplicane the next morning, Rajan (Sivaji Ganesan), a radio engineer and communications researcher, is found murdered with his own hand gun. His neighbour Chinnaiah Pillai (P. D. Sambandam) hears the gunshot and complains to the police. A local Police Inspector named Purushothaman Naidu arrives and investigates the scene. He is joined by C.I.D. officer Sivanandam (Javar Seetharaman) there. He concludes that the killer is some petty thief who must have shot Rajan for the lump of money found in the same room of the crime scene. However, Sivanandam states that to be a bad solution, as the amount of money matches exactly with the withdrawal entry in the bank passbook found in the same room, without a single rupee's difference. Nonetheless, it was clear Rajan was making plans to leave Chennai in anticipation of the bombings. Rajan's wife Usha (Pandari Bai) is almost dumbstruck and unable to speak during any inquiries. Sivanandam and Naidu feel reluctant and embarrassed to do any questioning to her. The two decide to investigate the case by questioning the people in and around the house, who are the family members or friends of Rajan. They start their questioning with Chinnaiah Pillai, the neighbour, as he is the first to inform them. He tells that the killer could probably be Pattabi, Rajan's younger brother (T. K. Balachandran). He recounts an incident (as flashback), in which Pattabi confronts Rajan at the house's garage to ask for his share of the family property to be apportioned and given to him. Rajan, in good faith, denies to give Pattabi his share, feeling that he and his wife might squander it. Chinnaiah concludes that this would have caused Pattabi to kill Rajan. Sivanandam and Naidu decide to inquire Pattabi. However, Pattabi had rushed to the Beach before their arrival, probably to commit suicide. They rush there themselves to inquire him. When questioned, Pattabi feels remorseful of his brother's death. He states that he did not treat his brother well when he was alive and failed to understand his good intentions. He recounts another incident where his wife Hema, had fought with him herself, during dinner for the apportionment of the property. She is also a person who loses sanity when overpowered by anger. Pattabi believes it is easily possible that Hema used the Rajan's gun to shoot him for the money. Sivanamdam briefly parts Naidu, to meet Hema soon after, to do his inquiry. Hema was initially impudent and refusing to give her statement about the crime, but later gives in when threatened that her husband would be arrested for the same. She reveals a secret of Rajan. Rajan has had an extramarital affair with a dancer named Ambujam (Suryakala). Only a week before the murder, she found this out when she stumbled upon and overheard Rajan and Ambujam conversing in some public place. During their conversation, Ambujam unveils that she is pregnant with Rajan's child. Rajan treats the news with a reckless attitude, infuriating Ambujam. Additionally, Hema had received a letter addressed to Rajan from Ambujam, that had the address "No.15, Thoni Street". Hema proposes that Ambujam could have killed Rajan in retaliation to Rajan's lack of concern for her. Fatigued with the case's complicated nature, Naidu compares it with a supposed "Peruvala Vaikal" in Trichy, a river that has a lot of twists and turns. Sivanandam makes a better analogy of the case, to the story of "blind men and an elephant", in which he states each suspect has a different and contrasting opinion to offer. On Thoni Street, Ambujam leaves her house, at the news of Rajan's death, to go out of town. Thirty minutes after her departure, Sivanandam and Naidu arrive to find the house locked. They take with them Shanmugam, Ambujam's servant boy, to the police station and inquire him on the physical features of Ambujam, to locate and recognize her, but in a coincidence, Ambujam's bullock-cart and another bicycle strike each other in a road accident, right in front of the very same police station. They identify and inquire Ambujam. Ambujam accuses Chinnaiah (Rajan's neighbour whom they had inquired as the very first suspect) of the murder. She explains that Chinnaiah was her foster father, who wanted her to stay away from Rajan. She started loving him after the trio's meeting in a picnic. When their relationship started deepening, Chinnaiah got infuriated and wanted to put an end to the affair. Ambujam gives a strong opinion that it must have been Chinnaiah who killed Rajan. Sivanandam does his homework by developing the film roll found in Rajan's camera, collecting and comparing all of the suspects' and others' fingerprints with those found in Rajan's shoes, finding a teardrop mark in Rajan's shoes and finding broken bangle pieces on the crime scene. He finds that they further complicate the case and the case comes to nowhere. He gets small clue at a sharbat shop, apparently making no sense. He make inquiries to Rajan's college (Victoria College) principal Ranganathan, who has a good opinion of both Rajan and Usha, his wife, both being his alumni. He says Rajan once broke into the college laboratory at night, to complete an experiment, for which he never felt guilty, and Usha once put up the Indian flag as part of Freedom Movement and accepted doing it herself. This emphasizes her patriotism. Sivanandam finally inquires Usha. She narrates an incident during college where Rajan spoke of individualistic needs that are equally as important as the country's freedom. He managed to convince the entire crowd of his viewpoint, who previously opined in contrary. However, he was bullied and disdained when Usha took over and changed the crowd back to "giving your life for the nation". Usha further tells Sivanandam on how she and Rajan came to love each other. In the process, he tricks into collecting Usha's fingerprints with a leaky fountain pen. On that eve, Sivanandam meets all the suspects along with Naidu at Rajan's residence. He caries out an exercise wherein the suspects including Usha must shoot Sivanandam, assuming that he is Rajan. They are given revolvers with fake bullets. Everyone but Usha is able to shoot. Usha breaks down into tears and fails to shoot. Then Sivanandam orders an (apparent) arrest of Pattabi and Hema. Unable to bear the torture, Usha comes out with the truth. On the day of the murder, when she entered the room, she found Rajan working with something meticulously, with a radio equipment, powered by a generator. She believes that he is doing something suspicious. The second time she enters she discovers that he is part of the terrorist activity that involves bombing Chennai. Rajan was indeed communicating to the Japanese bombers, the suitable time for the bomb to be dropped. He is the key part for their plans. Out of her extreme patriotism for her nation, and unable to bear the injustice, she tries to talk and mend Rajan's ways. However, Rajan only wants to help the Japanese (who helped him with his radio business), and does not mind betraying his own country. Rajan has in fact, planned is to escape to Japan in a submarine after the bombing, for which he had packed the money. Usha, unable to stop him in any polite way, attempts to shoot Rajan. However, she then changes her mind but the trigger is accidentally pulled, killing Rajan. She has cried at his boots later, holding them, explaining the fingerprints and teardrop stain. Sivanandam and Naidu ask for the papers Rajan used to hatch the bombing plan. She goes inside to fetch them. Sivanandam tells Naidu that the Usha's fingerprints (which he collected) and the ones on the boots matched, which led him to suspect her. Also, her failure to shoot during the exercise confirms the fact. When Usha takes a long time to come back, the two hear a moment's silence followed by a gunshot and they run inside. Sivanandam shouts "Usha!" followed by a screen closing behind them. Production. "Andha naal" (lit. That day) was the first Tamil film to have no song or stunt sequences. The film was inspired by Rashomon and the 1950 Anthony Asquith's film, The Woman in Question. It was produced by AVM Studios and directed by "Veenai" S. Balachander. The screenplay was written by Javar Seetharaman who also acted in the movie as a CID officer investigating a murder case. Muktha. V. Sreenivasan was the assistant director and Maruthi Rao was the cinematographer. The film was short (12,431 feet or 130 Minutes) when compared to other Tamil films of the 1950s (when 15000 feet was considered as normal length for films). Actor S. V. Sahasranamam was originally cast in the lead role, but was deemed "rather old" and was replaced by actor Calcutta N. Viswanathan, who for undisclosed reasons was eventually replaced by Sivaji Ganesan. Reception. "Andha naal" was released on 13 April 1954 and received critical and public acclaim. But it was a commercial failure. Its failure to generate revenues meant no such film (without songs or stunts) was made again in Tamil for a long time. The film won the Certificate of Merit for the Second Best Feature Film in Tamil at 2nd National Film Awards. IBN Live included the film in its list of 100 greatest Indian films of all time.
1017489	Once Upon a Time in China III is a 1993 Hong Kong martial arts film written and directed by Tsui Hark and starring Jet Li as Chinese folk hero Wong Fei-hung. It is the third installment in the "Once Upon a Time in China" film series. Plot. In the late years of the Qing Dynasty, China experiences turmoil as foreigners usurp and erode the sovereignty. To restore national pride and put on a display of the might of Chinese martial arts, the Empress Dowager Cixi and Governor Li Hongzhang decide to stage a lion dance competition, inviting all interested parties from within the country to participate and compete for the title of "Lion Dance King". Wong Fei-hung, accompanied by his romantic interest 13th Aunt and student Leung Foon, arrive in Beijing to visit his father Wong Kei-ying at the Cantonese Association. At the train station, they meet a Russian diplomat called Tomanovsky, who knew 13th Aunt when they were studying in Britain. He starts vying for her attention and annoys Wong, who is disgusted by the Western custom of kissing a woman's hand. When Wong reaches the association, he learns that his father had been attacked by a wealthy rival martial artist called Chiu Tin-bak and his lackey Clubfoot. Fortunately, Wong Kei-ying only sustains minor injuries, and he decides to give his blessing to his son and 13th Aunt when he notices that they have become closer to each other. Prior to the actual competition, all the lion dance troupes that have gathered in Beijing start fighting among themselves and they hold a contest of their own before the actual one. Wong Fei-hung does not participate and instead, spectates. However, unknown to him, Leung Foon and another student have secretly joined the contest out of mischief. They annoy Clubfoot and a short scrimmage between Clubfoot and Leung ensues. Clubfoot's legs are crushed when Leung accidentally releases a rampage of horses, and Chiu Tin-bak abandons Clubfoot after seeing he is useless. Wong takes pity on Clubfoot, brings him into his home and nurses him back to health. Clubfoot is initially hostile towards Wong, but becomes touched by the latter's kindness and eventually becomes Wong's disciple. With the help of a film camera given to her by Tomanovsky, 13th Aunt inadvertently uncovers an attempt on Li Hongzhang's life and learns that Tomanovsky is one of the conspirators. She warns Wong and he joins the competition to foil the assassination attempt. In the final round, Wong, together with Leung Foon and Clubfoot, face off dozens of rival lion dancers as they battle their way to reach the top of a scaffolding. Chiu Tin-bak also joins the contest, carrying a large and deadly lion mask, and fights with Wong for the prize, a gold medal. Wong ultimately overcomes Chiu and wins the competition. Meanwhile, Tomanovsky fails to assassinate Li Hongzhang and is shot dead by his fellow Russians, who confirm their suspicions that he is a spy for the Japanese embassy. Wong refuses to accept the gold medal, claiming that his triumph is a Pyrrhic victory, because the contest only leads to more bloodshed, and that every Chinese must play a role to restore national pride. He tosses the medal to Li, turns his back on the governor and walks away. Alternate versions. English. There is an English export version entitled "The Invincible Shaolin". In comparison with the Hong Kong version, there are English credits and the scene with 13th Aunt teaching Fei-hung English is cut. Columbia Tristar released both versions on DVD in the US. Taiwanese. There is a Taiwanese version in Mandarin with approximately 15 minutes more footage than the Hong Kong version. It is distributed by Long Shong and features a 4:3 cropped image with embedded Chinese and English subtitles. In most scenes, their logo appears on the upper left corner of the screen. Scenes:
582808	Vijaypath () is a 1994 Bollywood action drama film starring Ajay Devgan, Tabu and Danny Denzongpa The film was one of the hits of 1994 in India mainly due to its soundtrack composed by Anu Malik which became an instant superhit. Divya Bharti was originally meant to be the female lead but was replaced by Tabu after her death. Plot. The family of Justice Saxena is extremely happy until his younger brother Inspector Rajesh Saxena (Suresh Oberoi) arrests a notorious gangster, Bhawani Singh. Justice Saxena sentences Bhawani Singh to death.
1039943	Julia McKenzie (born 17 February 1941) is an English actress, singer and theatre director. She is best known for her performance in "Fresh Fields", but to current television audiences, she may be better known for her role as Miss Marple in "Agatha Christie's Marple". McKenzie has also appeared on the stage in both the West End and on Broadway, including in several Stephen Sondheim musicals. Early life. She was born Julia Kathleen McKenzie on 17 February 1941, in Enfield, Middlesex, England, the daughter of Kathleen Rowe and Albion McKenzie. Career. Theatre. In London's West End her performing credits include "Guys and Dolls" as Miss Adelaide (1982) and "Sweeney Todd" as Mrs. Lovett (1994), winning the Olivier Award for Actress of the Year in a Musical for each. For her role in "Woman in Mind", she received the "Evening Standard" Award for Best Actress. She has also appeared in "Follies" as Sally at the Shaftesbury Theatre in 1987 and "Into the Woods" as the Witch at the Phoenix Theatre in 1990. She appeared in "Side By Side By Sondheim" in the West End in 1976 and on Broadway in 1977, and was nominated for a Tony Award and a Drama Desk Award for her performance. McKenzie appeared in a National Theatre 80th birthday tribute to Lord Olivier, "Happy Birthday, Sir Larry" on 31 May 1987 in the presence of Olivier himself. Television. On television, McKenzie co-starred with Irene Handl in the sitcom "Maggie and Her" (1978–79), and with Gareth Hunt in "That Beryl Marston...!" (1981). She went on to greater popularity with British viewers as Hester in "Fresh Fields" and the sequel "French Fields" in the 1980s opposite Anton Rodgers, for which she was voted TV Times Favourite Female Comedy Performance for five consecutive years. She also appeared as Mrs Forthby in "Blott on the Landscape" and as a Midsomer villager involved in a series of murders in an episode of "Midsomer Murders". Film credits include "Hotel du Lac", "Shirley Valentine", "Bright Young Things" and "These Foolish Things". In 2007 she was reunited with Anton Rodgers (again as a husband and wife team) in the ITV comedy "You Can Choose Your Friends". In 2007 she co-starred with Michael Gambon and Judi Dench in the BBC1 costume drama series "Cranford", playing Mrs. Forrester, a military widow of slender means, very attached to her cow Bessie. In 2008 she was announced as the replacement for Geraldine McEwan as ITV's Miss Marple. McKenzie noted: "It’s difficult because Agatha Christie wrote her in two ways...First, very much what Geraldine McEwan played: a slight, rather Victorian creature. Then, a little sturdier and tweedier. I chose the latter. A lot of people say they don’t like the tweedier version. But they’re both genuine." Also, she said: "Just about everybody in the world knows about Miss Marple and has an opinion of what she should be like, so I’m under no illusions about the size of the task ahead." McKenzie's first series of Marple comprises "A Pocket Full of Rye", "Murder is Easy", "Why Didn't They Ask Evans?", and "They Do It with Mirrors". The second series of the show, airing in 2010, includes "The Mirror Crack'd from Side to Side," "The Secret of Chimneys," "The Blue Geranium," and "The Pale Horse." A sixth series, including adaptations of "A Caribbean Mystery", "Greenshaw's Folly" and "Endless Night", began filming in September 2012. During the 2012 Summer Olympics opening ceremony she played Her Majesty the Queen on board the helicopter in the short film Happy and Glorious. That year she also played the role of Betty Nicholas in the ITV television series "The Town". Other work. She is a radio performer with a long list of credits, including "Blithe Spirit", "The Country Wife" and "A Room with a View". As a director she has staged "Stepping Out", "Peter Pan", "Hey, Mr. Producer!", "Steel Magnolias", "Putting It Together" and "A Little Night Music". She also recorded an audio book of Lewis Carroll's "Through the Looking Glass". Personal life. McKenzie has been married since 1971 to American actor-director, Jerry Harte.
1253677	George Robert Lazenby (born 5 September 1939) is an Australian actor and former model, best known for portraying James Bond in the 1969 film "On Her Majesty's Secret Service". Early life. Lazenby was born in Goulburn, New South Wales, at Ovada Private Hospital, to railway worker George Edward Lazenby and Sheila Joan Lazenby (née Bodel), who worked at Fosseys. He went to Bourke Street School in his primary years, and Goulburn High until either 1953 or 1954. His sister, Barbara, was an accomplished dancer. When he was young he spent 18 months in hospital after having an operation which left him with only half a kidney. When Lazenby was about 13 he moved with his family from Goulburn to Queanbeyan, where his father ran a store. He worked as a car salesman and mechanic, before serving in the Australian Army. He moved to London in 1963. Career. Lazenby became a used car salesman in Finchley, then sold new cars in Park Lane. He was spotted by a talent scout who persuaded him to become a model, and he was soon earning ₤25,000 a year. He was best known for an advertisement for Big Fry Chocolate. James Bond (1969). In 1968, after Sean Connery quit the role of James Bond, producer Albert R. Broccoli first met Lazenby when getting their hair cut at the same barber. He later saw him in the Big Fry commercial and felt he could be a possible Bond, calling him in for a screen test. Lazenby dressed for the part by sporting several sartorial Bond elements such as a Rolex Submariner wristwatch and a Savile Row suit (ordered, but uncollected, by Connery). Broccoli offered him an audition. The position was consolidated when Lazenby accidentally punched a professional wrestler, who was acting as stunt coordinator, in the face, impressing Broccoli with his ability to display aggression. Lazenby won the role based on a screen-test fight scene, the strength of his interviews, fight skills and audition footage. Director Peter R. Hunt later claimed: We wanted someone who oozed sexual assurance, and we think this fellow has that. Just wait til the women see him on screen ... I am not saying he is an actor. There is a great deal of difference between an actor and a film star. Didn't they find Gary Cooper when he was an electrician? During the production of the film, Lazenby's voice was dubbed over with George Baker's in scenes in which Bond impersonated Sir Hilary Bray (Baker's character), something not traditionally done with a leading actor whose original language is English. According to an interview, Lazenby experienced difficulties on the set stemming from director Hunt's refusal to speak directly with him, and Hunt's brusqueness in asking Lazenby's friends to clear the set before filming. Leaving Bond. In November 1969, prior to the release of the film, Lazenby announced that he no longer wished to play the role of James Bond due to his conflict with the film's producers, about whom he said, "They made me feel like I was mindless. They disregarded everything I suggested simply because I hadn't been in the film business like them for about a thousand years." His co-star Diana Rigg was among many who commented on this decision: The role made Sean Connery a millionaire. It made Sean Connery ... I truly don't know what's happening in George's mind so I can only speak of my reaction. I think it's a pretty foolish move. I think if he can bear to do an apprenticeship, which everybody in this business has to do - "has" to do - then he should do it quietly and with humility. Everybody has to do it. There are few instant successes in the film business. And the instant successes one usually associates with somebody who is willing to learn anyway. Lazenby grew a beard and long hair. "Bond is a brute," he announced. "I've already put him behind me. I will never play him again. Peace - that's the message now." He later elaborated: Fantasy doesn't interest me. Reality does. Anyone who's in touch with the kids knows what's happening, knows the mood. Watch pop music and learn what's going to happen. Most filmmakers don't watch and aren't in touch. People aren't going to films because filmmakers are putting out films people don't want to see. As for the so-called "Tomorrow movies" they are only tomorrow movies with yesterday directors ... Actors aren't all that important. Directors are. I'm terribly impressed with Dennis Hopper. I'd like to work for him. I also like Arthur Penn, John Schlesinger and Peter Yates ... What I'm going to do is look for a great director first, a good screenplay second. Meanwhile, no more Bond. I make better money doing commercials. At the time of the release of "OHMSS", Lazenby's performance received mixed reviews. Some felt that, while he was physically convincing, some of his costumes were inappropriate ("too loud" according to some) and that he delivered his lines poorly. Others, however, have developed differing views in the decades since the film. In the 1998 book "The Essential James Bond", Lee Pfeiffer and Dave Worrell write: "Although "OHMSS" was routinely dismissed by critics who cited Lazenby as a brave but disappointing successor to Connery, the intervening years have been notably kinder to both the film and its star. Indeed, due in no small part to Peter Hunt's inspired direction, "OHMSS" generally ranks among the top films with fans. Likewise, Lazenby has emerged as a very popular contributor to the series and has enjoyed large enthusiastic audiences during his appearances at Bond related events. In summary, "OHMSS" is a brilliant thriller in its own right and justifiably ranks amongst the best Bond films ever made". In Roger Moore's commentary for a 2007 DVD release of "The Man with the Golden Gun", he referenced George Lazenby as follows : "I have a great deal of e-mail contact with George Lazenby; he's sort of on the joke circuit ... that we simply send jokes to each other. "OHMSS" – very well made film – Peter Hunt – excellent, excellent, excellent fight stuff, excellent snow effects ... but I think the end result for George was that it was one of the better Bonds". Although Lazenby had been offered a contract for seven movies, his agent, Ronan O'Rahilly, convinced him that the secret agent would be archaic in the liberated 1970s, and as a result he left the series after the release of "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" in 1969. After this role Lazenby began to study drama at Durham University's College of the Venerable Bede. Lazenby has portrayed James Bond several times over the years in numerous parodies and unofficial 007 roles, most notably the 1983 television movie "The Return of the Man from U.N.C.L.E." and an episode of "The New Alfred Hitchcock Presents", entitled "Diamonds Aren't Forever". In 2012 Lazenby made a guest appearance on the Canadian sketch comedy series "This Hour Has 22 Minutes", spoofing the 007 series in a skit called "Help, I've Skyfallen and I Can't Get Up". Although Eon Productions attempted on several occasions to cast Americans as Bond (most notably signing John Gavin for "Diamonds Are Forever" before the services of Sean Connery were obtained) Lazenby remains the only actor from outside the British Isles to portray Bond in a Bond feature film. Post-Bond career. Lazenby's first film after "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" was "Universal Soldier" (1971), which he helped write. He also appeared in an Italian film, then spent the next 15 months sailing around the world. He then played a role in the BBC's "Play For Today" series in 1973, with Lazenby starring in Roger Smith's "The Operation". Broccoli claims that Lazenby asked for another chance to play James Bond in 1971 but the producer refused. In 1973, Lazenby was set to work in Hong Kong with Bruce Lee. A planned meeting with Lee and Raymond Chow to discuss a movie project for the Golden Harvest film "Game of Death" collapsed after Lee's sudden death, although Lazenby would still go on to make three of the four films he signed to do with Lee in Hong Kong, "The Shrine of Ultimate Bliss" (1974), "The Man from Hong Kong" (1975) (also known as "The Dragon Flies"), and "A Queen's Ransom" (1976). Lazenby was only featured with archive footage when "Game of Death" was finally released in 1978, after a five-year delay caused by Lee's death while it was still in production. In the mid-1970s, he appeared in a number of television movies shot in Australia, then he returned to Hollywood. In 1978, he took out an advertisement in "Variety", offering himself for acting work. "If I could get a TV series or a good movie, I swear I'd do it for nothing," he told a journalist. Lazenby had a brief appearance in the 1983 made for television movie "The Return of the Man from U.N.C.L.E", which his on screen character was identified only by the initials "J.B.". Lazenby later spoofed his spy image in the 1996 video game "Fox Hunt", the full-motion video aspects of which were later reedited as a limited-release feature film. Lazenby also made a guest appearance on the television series "Superboy", playing as an alien disguised as Jor-El, Superboy's biological father, in a two-part episode story during the series' 1990 second season. He appeared with Sylvia Kristel in several new "Emmanuelle" films in the 1990s, many of which appeared on cable television. In the films, Lazenby plays a businessman who listens to Kristel's character recounting her sexual history; neither Lazenby nor Kristel participated in any of the films' frequent sexual scenes. Influence on popular culture. Lazenby's singular portrayal of the iconic Bond character, and his lack of standing as a favourite in the series has resulted in his name being used as a metaphor for forgettable, non-iconic acting efforts in other entertainment franchises, and for entities that are largely ignored. In his review of "Batman & Robin", widely regarded as the weakest and least successful film in the "Batman" film franchise, Mick LaSalle of the "San Francisco Chronicle" said that George Clooney "should go down in history as the George Lazenby of the series." Actor Paul McGann has described himself with good humour as "the George Lazenby of "Doctor Who"" because, although he has continued in the role of the Eighth Doctor in other media, he made only one appearance on TV as the Time Lord. In a September 2006 episode of "The Daily Show", comedian John Oliver suggested that Pope Benedict XVI is the George Lazenby of the papacy, in comparison to "John Paul II's Sean Connery". In 2010 Roger Moore, who also played James Bond, provided the voice of a talking cat character named Tab Lazenby in the film "", which contained . Personal life. In 1973, Lazenby married his girlfriend of three years, Chrissie Townsend . They subsequently divorced. Lazenby later married former tennis player Pam Shriver. In August 2008, it was reported that Shriver had filed for divorce from Lazenby. Documents filed in Los Angeles Superior Court cite "irreconcilable differences" for the end of the couple's six-year marriage. The couple have three children, including twins born in 2005. Lazenby's autobiography, "The Other Fella", is scheduled to be released in hardcover by Century in 2013, and in paperback by Arrow in 2013.
1063270	Monique Angela Jackson ("née" Imes; born December 11, 1967), known professionally as Mo'Nique, is an American comedian and actress. She is best known for her role as Nikki Parker in the UPN series "The Parkers" while making a name as a stand-up comedian hosting a variety of venues, including "Showtime at the Apollo". Mo'Nique transitioned to film with roles in such films as "Phat Girlz", and "Welcome Home Roscoe Jenkins". In 2009, she received critical praise for her villainous role in the film "" and won numerous awards including the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. She hosted "The Mo'Nique Show", a late-night talk show that premiered in 2009 on BET; it was cancelled in 2011. Early life. Mo'Nique was born in Baltimore, Maryland, to Steven Imes, Jr., a drug counselor, and Alice Imes, an engineer. She is the youngest of four children: sister Millicent is her personal assistant; brother Steve is her manager. Mo'Nique graduated from Milford Mill High School in Baltimore County and attended Morgan State University. She is a 1987 graduate of the Broadcasting Institute of Maryland. Before working in her chosen career, Mo'Nique worked as a phone operator. She got her start in comedy at the downtown Baltimore Comedy Factory Outlet, when her brother Steve dared her to perform at an open mic night. Mo'Nique revealed during an interview with "Essence" magazine in 2008 that she was sexually abused by her brother, Gerald, from the age of seven until she was eleven. He went on to sexually abuse another girl and was sentenced to 12 years in prison. After her twin boys were born in 2005 she cut all contact with her brother and they have not spoken since. On April 19, 2010, Mo'Nique's brother admitted on "Oprah" to sexually abusing her and that the abuse continued for over several years. Her brother, who has struggled with substance abuse, was also abused himself by other family. Career. Television roles. She played the role of Nicole "Nikki" Parker on the UPN television series "The Parkers". The show ran from 1999 to 2004. Mo'Nique was subsequently featured on a number of leading stand-up venues, including stints on "Showtime at the Apollo", "Russell Simmons' Def Comedy Jam", and "Thank God You're Here". She was also named hostess of "Showtime at the Apollo." She is currently the hostess and executive producer of "Mo'Nique's Fat Chance", a beauty pageant for plus-sized women, on the Oxygen cable network. She hosted the first season of "" on "VH1", where she crowned Saaphyri as the winner. Her 2007 documentary "I Coulda Been Your Cellmate!", focuses on women who are incarcerated. Mo'Nique touches on the common factors that bring many women into the penal system in her interviews with individual women. The documentary was related to her filming a comedy special at the Ohio Reformatory for Women, also known as "The Farm". In 2007, Mo'Nique had a guest-starring role on the hit television series "Ugly Betty" as L'Amanda, "Mode"'s weekend security guard Mo'Nique starred in her own late-night talk show called "The Mo'Nique Show". Taped in Atlanta, the show premiered October 5, 2009, on BET. Film and video career. Mo'Nique has had a number of supporting roles in film. She appeared in the 2008 comedy film, "Welcome Home Roscoe Jenkins" with Martin Lawrence. She has had roles in "Beerfest", " 3 Strikes", "Two Can Play That Game", "Half Past Dead", and "", in which she voiced a CGI character but her role was cut from the movie. She also appeared in "Soul Plane". In 2005, Mo'Nique played a significant role in the Tony Scott bounty hunter thriller "Domino", co-starring Keira Knightley and Mickey Rourke. In 2006, Mo'Nique was cast as the lead in "Phat Girlz", a comedy about an aspiring plus size fashion designer struggling to find love and acceptance. The film was met with lukewarm response from critics and fans. It did earn back its $3 million production cost in its first weekend of release. She was featured in soul singer Anthony Hamilton's video "Sista Big Bones", the second single from his "Ain't Nobody Worryin album. She plays the role of a beautiful plus sized woman whom Anthony secretly admires because she has always loved herself. Mo'Nique hosted the 2003 and 2004 BET Awards and appeared as the host again for the 2007 BET Awards. She received positive responses in July 2004 with her opening performance of Beyoncé's single "Crazy in Love"; as well as in 2007 by performing her "Déjà Vu". Mo'Nique claimed on the January 28, 2008, "Oprah Winfrey Show" that Martin Lawrence gave her invaluable advice about show business: "He pulled me to the side and he said, 'Listen, don't ever let them tell you what you can't have.' Since that day, I've made some of the best deals I've ever made in my career because it keeps ringing in my head. ... It will stay with me forever." In 2009, Mo'Nique appeared in the film "", directed by Lee Daniels, portraying an inner-city teenager's abusive mother. She won the Sundance Film Festival Special Jury Prize for her critically acclaimed performance in the film. The African-American Film Critics Association (AAFCA) awarded Mo'Nique with the Best Supporting Actress Award in December 2009. They also announced that Mo'Nique received the AAFCA's first ever unanimous vote in an acting category. Moreover, she received "Best Supporting Actress" awards from the Stockholm International Film Festival, the Washington DC Area Film Critics Association, the Los Angeles Film Critics Association, the Boston Society of Film Critics, the New York Film Critics Online, the New York Film Critics Circle, the Southeastern Film Critics Association, the San Francisco Film Critics Circle, the Dallas-Fort Worth Film Critics Association, the Las Vegas Film Critics Society, the Utah Film Critics Association, the Detroit Film Critics Society, the Indiana Film Critics Association, the Online Film Critics Society, the National Society of Film Critics Awards, the Alliance of Women Film Journalists, and the Critics Choice Awards. "Time" magazine ranked Mo'Nique's outstanding performance as the "Best Female Performance of 2009," beating performances by Meryl Streep, Sandra Bullock, Carey Mulligan, Julianne Moore and Marion Cotillard. She won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, beating Penélope Cruz, Vera Farmiga, Maggie Gyllenhaal and Anna Kendrick along with a Golden Globe Award, beating Penélope Cruz, Vera Farmiga, Anna Kendrick and Julianne Moore Screen Actors Guild Award, Independent Spirit Award, and the BAFTA Award. It has been reported that Mo'Nique will next appear in the big screen adaptation of J. Eric's Novel "A Place In Heaven" along with Leonardo DiCaprio. In November 2009, Mo'Nique said, "I own the rights to Hattie McDaniel's life story, and I can't wait to tell that story, because that woman was absolutely amazing. She had to stand up to the adversity of black and white at a time when we really weren't accepted. Mr. Lee Daniels is going to direct it, of course, and I'm going to be Miss Hattie McDaniel. I really hope I can do that woman justice." Theater. Mo'Nique's first play was Eve Ensler's Obie Award-winning production of "The Vagina Monologues", in March 2002. Mo'Nique, along with Ella Joyce ("Roc"); Wendy Raquel Robinson ("The Steve Harvey Show" and "The Game") and Vanessa Bell Calloway ("What's Love Got to Do with It"), were the first all black celebrity cast to perform "The Vagina Monologues". Executive produced by YYP & Associates, LLC, the show was Produced and Directed by noted theater producer/director, Yetta Young, and Producers Lisa D. Washington, Anita M. Cal, and Kellie Griffin. Books and radio. Mo'Nique is the author of the best-selling book "Skinny Women Are Evil: Notes of a Bigg Girl in a Small-Minded World". She also released a 2006 cookbook called "Skinny Cooks Can't Be Trusted". Mo'nique was part of the Washington, DC, WHUR radio show with George Wilborn. In 2006 she occasionally filled in for afternoon personality Michael Baisden when his contract with ABC Radio was in the process of getting renewed. In 2008, Radio One inked a deal for her to get her own radio show, "Mo'Nique In the Afternoon" (or "The Mo'Nique Show") which premiered on several Radio One-owned Urban Adult Contemporary-formatted R&B/soul radio stations in July 2008. It mainly aired on those stations that had a local lineup as some Radio One stations did not carry it due to their contracts with Michael Baisden. The show lasted until March 18, 2009, when Mo'Nique decided to leave to "further her career in television, film, and comedy." Personal life. Mo'Nique was briefly engaged to accountant Kenny Mung. From 1997-2001 she was married to Mark Jackson and was credited as Monique Imes-Jackson. They have a son named Shalon Jackson together.
1165528	Burton Hill "Burt" Mustin (February 8, 1884 – January 28, 1977) was an American character actor. Over the course of his career, Mustin appeared in over 150 film and television productions. He also worked in radio and appeared in stage productions.
1102255	Georg Friedrich Bernhard Riemann (September 17, 1826 – July 20, 1866) was an influential German mathematician who made lasting contributions to analysis, number theory, and differential geometry, some of them enabling the later development of general relativity. Biography. Early years. Riemann was born in Breselenz, a village near Dannenberg in the Kingdom of Hanover in what is the Federal Republic of Germany today. His father, Friedrich Bernhard Riemann, was a poor Lutheran pastor in Breselenz who fought in the Napoleonic Wars. His mother, Charlotte Ebell, died before her children had reached adulthood. Riemann was the second of six children, shy and suffering from numerous nervous breakdowns. Riemann exhibited exceptional mathematical skills, such as calculation abilities, from an early age but suffered from timidity and a fear of speaking in public. Education. During 1840, Riemann went to Hanover to live with his grandmother and attend lyceum (middle school). After the death of his grandmother in 1842, he attended high school at the Johanneum Lüneburg. In high school, Riemann studied the Bible intensively, but he was often distracted by mathematics. His teachers were amazed by his adept ability to perform complicated mathematical operations, in which he often outstripped his instructor's knowledge. In 1846, at the age of 19, he started studying philology and theology in order to become a pastor and help with his family's finances. During the spring of 1846, his father, after gathering enough money, sent Riemann to the renowned University of Göttingen, where he planned to study towards a degree in Theology. However, once there, he began studying mathematics under Carl Friedrich Gauss (specifically his lectures on the method of least squares). Gauss recommended that Riemann give up his theological work and enter the mathematical field; after getting his parents' approval, Riemann transferred to the University of Berlin in 1847. During his time of study, Jacobi, Lejeune Dirichlet, Steiner, and Eisenstein were teaching. He stayed in Berlin for two years and returned to Göttingen in 1849. Academia. Riemann held his first lectures in 1854, which founded the field of Riemannian geometry and thereby set the stage for Einstein's general theory of relativity. In 1857, there was an attempt to promote Riemann to extraordinary professor status at the University of Göttingen. Although this attempt failed, it did result in Riemann finally being granted a regular salary. In 1859, following Lejeune Dirichlet's death, he was promoted to head the mathematics department at Göttingen. He was also the first to suggest using dimensions higher than merely three or four in order to describe physical reality—an idea that was ultimately vindicated with Einstein's contribution in the early 20th century. In 1862 he married Elise Koch and had a daughter. Austro-Prussian War. Riemann fled Göttingen when the armies of Hanover and Prussia clashed there in 1866. He died of tuberculosis during his third journey to Italy in Selasca (now a hamlet of Verbania on Lake Maggiore) where he was buried in the cemetery in Biganzolo (Verbania). Meanwhile, in Göttingen his housekeeper discarded some of the papers in his office, including much unpublished work. Riemann refused to publish incomplete work and some deep insights may have been lost forever. Influence. Riemann's published works opened up research areas combining analysis with geometry. These would subsequently become major parts of the theories of Riemannian geometry, algebraic geometry, and complex manifold theory. The theory of Riemann surfaces was elaborated by Felix Klein and particularly Adolf Hurwitz. This area of mathematics is part of the foundation of topology, and is still being applied in novel ways to mathematical physics. Riemann made major contributions to real analysis. He defined the Riemann integral by means of Riemann sums, developed a theory of trigonometric series that are not Fourier series—a first step in generalized function theory—and studied the Riemann–Liouville differintegral. He made some famous contributions to modern analytic number theory. In a single short paper (the only one he published on the subject of number theory), he investigated the Riemann zeta function and established its importance for understanding the distribution of prime numbers. He made a series of conjectures about properties of the zeta function, one of which is the well-known Riemann hypothesis. He applied the Dirichlet principle from variational calculus to great effect; this was later seen to be a powerful heuristic rather than a rigorous method. Its justification took at least a generation. His work on monodromy and the hypergeometric function in the complex domain made a great impression, and established a basic way of working with functions by "consideration only of their singularities". Riemann was the inspiration for mathematician Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (better known by his pen name Lewis Carroll) to write Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass. Euclidean geometry versus Riemannian geometry. In 1853 Gauss asked his student Riemann to prepare a "Habilitationsschrift" on the foundations of geometry. Over many months, Riemann developed his theory of higher dimensions and delivered his lecture at Göttingen in 1854 entitled "Über die Hypothesen welche der Geometrie zu Grunde liegen" ("On the hypotheses which underlie geometry"). When it was finally published in 1868, two years after his death, the mathematical public received it with enthusiasm and it is now recognized as one of the most important works in geometry. The subject founded by this work is Riemannian geometry. Riemann found the correct way to extend into "n" dimensions the differential geometry of surfaces, which Gauss himself proved in his "theorema egregium". The fundamental object is called the Riemann curvature tensor. For the surface case, this can be reduced to a number (scalar), positive, negative or zero; the non-zero and constant cases being models of the known non-Euclidean geometries. Higher dimensions. Riemann's idea was to introduce a collection of numbers at every point in space (i.e., a tensor) which would describe how much it was bent or curved. Riemann found that in four spatial dimensions, one needs a collection of ten numbers at each point to describe the properties of a manifold, no matter how distorted it is. This is the famous construction central to his geometry, known now as a Riemannian metric.
1063936	Albert "Al" Leong (born 30 September 1952), aka Al 'Ka Bong', is an American stuntman and actor. Characterised by impressive martial arts skills, long wavy hair, and a prominent Fu Manchu moustache, he has had a number of small but memorable roles as the token long-haired Asian henchman in popular action films, that usually ended in his character's death. Among action movie fans Leong has a cult following. His credits include "Lethal Weapon", "Die Hard", "Joshua Tree", "Big Trouble in Little China", "The Scorpion King", and a recurring role on the first season of the TV series "24". He also portrayed an out-of-time Genghis Khan in the comedy "Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure". In 2003, Leong lampooned himself as well as the Hollywood tradition of actor and director 'reels' by starring in screenwriter Dave Callaham's "Writer's Reel." . In the five-minute short film, Leong portrayed Callaham going through a typical day in the life of a writer. The 'reel' was accepted into a number of short film festivals.
1065914	"Twilight's Last Gleaming" is a 1977 film directed by Robert Aldrich, starring Burt Lancaster and Richard Widmark. The film was a West-German/US coproduction, shot mainly in Bavaria. Loosely based on a 1971 novel, "Viper Three" by Walter Wager, it tells the story of Lawrence Dell, a renegade USAF general, who escapes from a military prison and takes over an ICBM silo near Montana, threatening to launch the missiles and start World War III unless the President reveals a top secret document to the American people about the Vietnam War. A split screen technique is used at several points in the movie to give the audience insight into the simultaneously occurring strands of the storyline. The film's title, which functions on several levels, is taken from "The Star-Spangled Banner", the national anthem of the United States of America: Plot. After escaping from a military prison, rogue Air Force general Lawrence Dell (Burt Lancaster) and accomplices Powell and Garvas infiltrate an ICBM complex and gain launch control over its nine nuclear missiles. They then make direct contact with the US government (avoiding any media attention) and demand both ten million dollars ransom and, more importantly, that the President (Charles Durning) go on national television and make public the contents of a top-secret document. The document, which is unknown to the current president but not to certain members of his cabinet, contains conclusive proof that the US government knew there was no realistic hope of winning the Vietnam War but continued fighting it for the "sole" purpose of demonstrating to the Soviet Union their unwavering commitment to defeating communism. While the President and his Cabinet debate the practical, personal, and ethical aspects of agreeing to these demands, they also authorize the military to send an elite team led by General MacKenzie (Richard Widmark) to penetrate the ICBM complex and incinerate its command center with a low-yield tactical nuclear device. When this attempt is discovered, the hostage-takers respond by initiating a missile launch. As the military and President Stevens watch the underground missile silo launch covers begin to open, they agree to call off the attempt and the launch is aborted. Eventually the President agrees to meet the demands, which include allowing himself to be taken hostage and used as a human shield while Dell and his team make their escape from the complex. As the president leaves the White House he asks the Secretary of Defense to release the document should he be killed in the process. US Air Force snipers kill the general but also shoot the President, who with his dying breath asks the Secretary of Defense if he will release the document. The Secretary cannot bring himself to answer. Distribution. The film did poorly at the box office. It was unsuited for videocassettes, because the split-screen effects do not work well in low resolution of that format. After the rights reverted to the film’s German co-producers, a major remastering effort was done by Bavaria Media, who released a Blu-ray edition, distributed in the United States by Olive Films in 2012.
1054319	In the Electric Mist is a 2009 Franco-American drama/mystical film based on the novel "In the Electric Mist with Confederate Dead" by James Lee Burke. It is directed by Bertrand Tavernier, written by Jerzy Kromolowski and Mary Olson-Kromolowski, and stars Tommy Lee Jones in the lead role of Louisiana police detective Dave Robicheaux. The film has never been released cinematically in the U.S., only in Europe and Asia. A trimmed-down version (102:00 minutes NTSC), cut by the studio, was released direct-to-DVD in the United States. A longer director's cut version (112:23 minutes) was released in the rest of the world and premiered at the 2009 Berlin International Film Festival. In 2009, the director's cut version won the Grand Prix at the first "Festival International du Film Policier de Beaune", which is the continuation of the "Festival du Film Policier de Cognac." It opened on April 15, 2009 in France to positive reviews while reviews for the American version were mixed (60 per cent on Rotten Tomatoes). In December 2009, Bertrand Tavernier released a book titled "Pas à Pas dans la Brume Électrique" ("Step by Step into The Electric Mist"), which is a day-by-day account of the shooting of this movie. "In the Electric Mist" is a sequel to 1996's "Heaven's Prisoners". Dave Robicheaux at that time was an ex-homicide detective in the swamplands of Louisiana and was portrayed by Alec Baldwin. Plot. Iberia Parish Sheriff's Detective Dave Robicheaux (Tommy Lee Jones) is investigating the murder of a young woman and has a chance encounter with a pair of Hollywood stars, Elrod Sykes (Peter Sarsgaard) and his girlfriend Kelly Drummond (Kelly Macdonald), who are in the small town to make a Civil War film. Due to the erratic driving, Dave determines that Elrod is driving drunk and decides to arrest him. Elrod, objecting to being sent to jail, tells Dave of a decayed corpse that he and Kelly had found in the swamp. Dave goes to investigate while remembering a murder he had witnessed as a teenager where a chained prisoner was shot in the swamp and disappeared into the bog. The discovery is soon tied to several murders in that area that had occurred recently, mostly to young runaways and prostitutes. The clues seem to point to Julie "Baby Feet" Balboni (John Goodman) whose ties with the mafia had caused Dave and him to drift apart and become enemies. Balboni denies knowing the prostitute whose murder is being investigated. With little to go on, Dave visits the film site and meets the producer Michael Goldman (John Sayles) who states that while Baby Feet is helping to fund the film, he is not a co-producer as he had said. Meanwhile, Dave's home life is disrupted by Elrod and Kelly, who begin turning up regularly, almost every time with Elrod being drunk. This prompts Dave to take pity on him as he, too, is a struggling alcoholic. His daughter, Alafair (Alana Locke) looks up to movie star Elrod, but wife Bootsie (Mary Steenburgen) has concerns. The discovery of a second body prompts the FBI to become involved in the case. Dave is partnered with agent Rosie Gomez (Justina Machado). Dave attends a birthday party for Goldman and, though drinking Dr Pepper, becomes terribly uncoordinated during his drive home and crashes his pickup truck, sending him off in a daze to the forest. There he encounters a camp of Confederate soldiers, and their commanding officer General John Bell Hood (Levon Helm) who apparently wishes to help Dave with his journey to solve these murders. When he awakens from his daze in a hospital, Dave learns from Gomez that his drink had been laced with LSD.
744376	Amy Jo Johnson (born October 6, 1970) is an American actress, singer, songwriter, musician and gymnast, first starring as the Pink Ranger Kimberly Ann Hart in "Mighty Morphin Power Rangers". Aside from "Power Rangers", she is also known for her roles in "Felicity", "The Division", "Wildfire", and "Flashpoint". She also starred in television films including "Susie Q", "Killing Mr. Griffin", "Perfect Body", "Sweetwater", and "". Johnson is one of very few "Power Rangers" alumni to continue her career as an actress. Johnson released her first song, "Puddle Of Grace", when she was on "Felicity". Since then, she has released a few solo albums. As a volunteer, she has participated as a tutor for refugee children through the International Rescue Committee's summer program in the Bronx and made trips to Bosnia as a volunteer with the Global Children’s Organization. For her role as Jules Callaghan on "Flashpoint", Johnson was nominated for the 2009 Gemini Award for Best Performance by an Actress in a Continuing Leading Dramatic Role. Personal life. Johnson was born in Dennis, Massachusetts, on Cape Cod, a daughter of Greig Johnson, a car salesman, and his wife Christine, who managed a clothing store. She became interested in gymnastics and, after training four years, decided to aim for the Olympic Games. She reached Class One and participated in competitions hosted in the United States and Europe in uneven bars, vault, beam and floor. She was forced to abandon gymnastics following a severe injury. Johnson is married to Olivier Giner. They have one daughter, Francesca Christine, born December 1, 2008. Acting career. At the age of eighteen, after graduating from Dennis-Yarmouth Regional High School, Johnson moved to New York City to pursue an acting career. She attended the Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute and the American Musical and Acting Academy. She moved to Los Angeles to audition for her first part. Johnson's first role was as Kimberly Ann Hart, the Pink Ranger, in the 1993 series "Mighty Morphin Power Rangers". She acquired the role within the first month of her main stay in L.A. Her gymnastics background was an advantage for her in fight scenes, as the Hart character was also an accomplished gymnast. Her martial arts skills were learned from choreographers in the studio. The series achieved unexpected success, and Johnson had a fair share of media exposure. Her appearances on the show jump-started her career and served as a positive influence for many younger viewers and fans. After she left the series in 1995, Johnson went on to star in the Disney Channel's "Susie Q" and the "" episode "Backstage Pass" as Linda.
433520	Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (; 27 January 1832 – 14 January 1898), better known by his pen name, Lewis Carroll (), was an English writer, mathematician, logician, Anglican deacon and photographer. His most famous writings are "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" and its sequel "Through the Looking-Glass", as well as the poems "The Hunting of the Snark" and "Jabberwocky", all examples of the genre of literary nonsense. He is noted for his facility at word play, logic, and fantasy, and there are societies in many parts of the world (including the United Kingdom, Japan, the United States, and New Zealand) dedicated to the enjoyment and promotion of his works and the investigation of his life. Antecedents. Dodgson's family was predominantly northern English, with Irish connections. Conservative and High Church Anglican, most of Dodgson's ancestors were army officers or Church of England clergy. His great-grandfather, also named Charles Dodgson, had risen through the ranks of the church to become the Bishop of Elphin. His grandfather, another Charles, had been an army captain, killed in action in Ireland in 1803 when his two sons were hardly more than babies. His mother's name was Frances Jane Lutwidge. The oldest of these sons – yet another Charles Dodgson – was Carroll's father. He reverted to the other family tradition and took holy orders. He went to Westminster School, and then to Christ Church, Oxford. He was mathematically gifted and won a double first degree, which could have been the prelude to a brilliant academic career. Instead he married his first cousin in 1827 and became a country parson. Dodgson was born in the little parsonage of Daresbury in Cheshire near the towns of Warrington and Runcorn, the eldest boy but already the third child of the four-and-a-half-year-old marriage. Eight more children were to follow. When Charles was 11, his father was given the living of Croft-on-Tees in North Yorkshire, and the whole family moved to the spacious rectory. This remained their home for the next twenty-five years. Young Charles' father was an active and highly conservative cleric of the Church of England who later became the Archdeacon of Richmond and involved himself, sometimes influentially, in the intense religious disputes that were dividing the church. He was High Church, inclining to Anglo-Catholicism, an admirer of John Henry Newman and the Tractarian movement, and did his best to instill such views in his children. Young Charles was to develop an ambiguous relationship with his father's values and with the Church of England as a whole. Education. Home life. During his early youth, Dodgson was educated at home. His "reading lists" preserved in the family archives testify to a precocious intellect: at the age of seven the child was reading "The Pilgrim's Progress". He also suffered from a stammer – a condition shared by most of his siblings – that often influenced his social life throughout his years. At age twelve he was sent to Richmond Grammar School (now part of Richmond School) at nearby Richmond. Rugby. In 1846, young Dodgson moved on to Rugby School, where he was evidently less happy, for as he wrote some years after leaving the place: Scholastically, though, he excelled with apparent ease. "I have not had a more promising boy at his age since I came to Rugby", observed R. B. Mayor, then Mathematics master. Oxford. He left Rugby at the end of 1849 and matriculated at Oxford in May 1850 as a member of his father's old college, Christ Church. After waiting for rooms in college to become available, he went into residence in January 1851. He had been at Oxford only two days when he received a summons home. His mother had died of "inflammation of the brain" – perhaps meningitis or a stroke – at the age of forty-seven. His early academic career veered between high promise and irresistible distraction. He did not always work hard, but was exceptionally gifted and achievement came easily to him. In 1852 he obtained first-class honours in Mathematics Moderations, and was shortly thereafter nominated to a Studentship by his father's old friend, Canon Edward Pusey. In 1854 he obtained first-class honours in the Final Honours School of Mathematics, standing first on the list, graduating Bachelor of Arts., He remained at Christ Church studying and teaching, but the next year he failed an important scholarship through his self-confessed inability to apply himself to study. Even so, his talent as a mathematician won him the Christ Church Mathematical Lectureship in 1855, which he continued to hold for the next twenty-six years. Despite early unhappiness, Dodgson was to remain at Christ Church, in various capacities, until his death. Character and appearance. Health challenges. The young adult Charles Dodgson was about six feet tall, slender, and had curling brown hair and blue or grey eyes (depending on the account). He was described in later life as somewhat asymmetrical, and as carrying himself rather stiffly and awkwardly, though this may be on account of a knee injury sustained in middle age. As a very young child, he suffered a fever that left him deaf in one ear. At the age of 17, he suffered a severe attack of whooping cough, which was probably responsible for his chronically weak chest in later life. Another defect he carried into adulthood was what he referred to as his "hesitation", a stammer he acquired in early childhood and which plagued him throughout his life. The stammer has always been a potent part of the conceptions of Dodgson; it is part of the belief that he stammered only in adult company and was free and fluent with children, but there is no evidence to support this idea. Many children of his acquaintance remembered the stammer while many adults failed to notice it. Dodgson himself seems to have been far more acutely aware of it than most people he met; it is said he caricatured himself as the Dodo in "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland", referring to his difficulty in pronouncing his last name, but this is one of the many "facts" often-repeated, for which no first-hand evidence remains. He did indeed refer to himself as the dodo, but that this reference was to his stammer is simply speculation. Although Dodgson's stammer troubled him, it was never so debilitating that it prevented him from applying his other personal qualities to do well in society. At a time when people commonly devised their own amusements and when singing and recitation were required social skills, the young Dodgson was well equipped to be an engaging entertainer. He reportedly could sing tolerably well and was not afraid to do so before an audience. He was adept at mimicry and storytelling, and was reputedly quite good at charades. Social connections. In the interim between his early published writing and the success of the "Alice" books, Dodgson began to move in the pre-Raphaelite social circle. He first met John Ruskin in 1857 and became friendly with him. He developed a close relationship with Dante Gabriel Rossetti and his family, and also knew William Holman Hunt, John Everett Millais, and Arthur Hughes, among other artists. He also knew the fairy-tale author George MacDonald well – it was the enthusiastic reception of "Alice" by the young MacDonald children that convinced him to submit the work for publication. Politics, religion and philosophy. In broad terms, Dodgson has traditionally been regarded as politically, religiously, and personally conservative. Martin Gardner labels Dodgson as a Tory who was "awed by lords and inclined to be snobbish towards inferiors." The Reverend W. Tuckwell, in his "Reminiscences of Oxford" (1900), regarded him as "austere, shy, precise, absorbed in mathematical reverie, watchfully tenacious of his dignity, stiffly conservative in political, theological, social theory, his life mapped out in squares like Alice's landscape." However, Dodgson also expressed interest in philosophies and religions that seem at odds with this assessment. For example, he was a founding member of the Society for Psychical Research. It has been argued by the proponents of the 'Carroll Myth' that these factors require a reconsideration of Gardner's diagnosis, and that perhaps, Dodgson's true outlook was more complex than previously believed (see 'the Carroll Myth' below). Dodgson wrote some studies of various philosophical arguments. In 1894, he published a version of his Barbershop paradox in "Mind" which generated responses from many logicians of his time. In 1895, he developed a philosophical regressus-argument on deductive reasoning in his article "What the Tortoise Said to Achilles", which appeared in one of the early volumes of the philosophical journal "Mind". The article was reprinted in the same journal a hundred years later, in 1995, with a subsequent article by Simon Blackburn titled "Practical Tortoise Raising". Artistic activities. Literature. From a young age, Dodgson wrote poetry and short stories, both contributing heavily to the family magazine "Mischmasch" and later sending them to various magazines, enjoying moderate success. Between 1854 and 1856, his work appeared in the national publications, "The Comic Times" and "The Train", as well as smaller magazines like the "Whitby Gazette" and the "Oxford Critic". Most of this output was humorous, sometimes satirical, but his standards and ambitions were exacting. "I do not think I have yet written anything worthy of real publication (in which I do not include the "Whitby Gazette" or the "Oxonian Advertiser"), but I do not despair of doing so some day," he wrote in July 1855. Sometime after 1850, he did write puppet plays for his siblings' entertainment, of which one has survived, La Guida di Bragia. In 1856 he published his first piece of work under the name that would make him famous. A romantic poem called "Solitude" appeared in "The Train" under the authorship of "Lewis Carroll". This pseudonym was a play on his real name; "Lewis" was the anglicised form of "Ludovicus", which was the Latin for "Lutwidge", and "Carroll" an Irish surname similar to the Latin name "Carolus", from which comes the name "Charles". The transition went as follows: "Charles Lutwidge" translated into Latin as "Carolus Ludovicus". This was then translated back into English as "Carroll Lewis" and then reversed to make "Lewis Carroll". "Alice" books. In the same year, 1856, a new dean, Henry Liddell, arrived at Christ Church, bringing with him his young family, all of whom would figure largely in Dodgson's life and, over the following years, greatly influence his writing career. Dodgson became close friends with Liddell's wife, Lorina, and their children, particularly the three sisters: Lorina, Edith and Alice Liddell. He was for many years widely assumed to have derived his own "Alice" from Alice Liddell. This was given some apparent substance by the fact the acrostic poem at the end of "Through the Looking Glass" spells out her name and also that there are many superficial references to her hidden in the text of both books. It has been noted that Dodgson himself repeatedly denied in later life that his "little heroine" was based on any real child, and frequently dedicated his works to girls of his acquaintance, adding their names in acrostic poems at the beginning of the text. Gertrude Chataway's name appears in this form at the beginning of "The Hunting of the Snark" and it is not suggested that this means any of the characters in the narrative are based on her. Though information is scarce (Dodgson's diaries for the years 1858–1862 are missing), it does seem clear that his friendship with the Liddell family was an important part of his life in the late 1850s and he grew into the habit of taking the children (first the boy, Harry, and later the three girls) on rowing trips accompanied by an adult friend to nearby Nuneham Courtenay or Godstow. It was on one such expedition, on 4 July 1862, that Dodgson invented the outline of the story that eventually became his first and largest commercial success. Having told the story and been begged by Alice Liddell to write it down, Dodgson eventually (after much delay) presented her with a handwritten, illustrated manuscript entitled "Alice's Adventures Under Ground" in November 1864. Before this, the family of friend and mentor George MacDonald read Dodgson's incomplete manuscript, and the enthusiasm of the MacDonald children encouraged Dodgson to seek publication. In 1863, he had taken the unfinished manuscript to Macmillan the publisher, who liked it immediately. After the possible alternative titles "Alice Among the Fairies" and "Alice's Golden Hour" were rejected, the work was finally published as "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" in 1865 under the Lewis Carroll pen-name, which Dodgson had first used some nine years earlier. The illustrations this time were by Sir John Tenniel; Dodgson evidently thought that a published book would need the skills of a professional artist. Annotated versions provide insights into many of the ideas and hidden meanings that are prevalent in these books. The overwhelming commercial success of the first Alice book changed Dodgson's life in many ways. The fame of his alter ego "Lewis Carroll" soon spread around the world. He was inundated with fan mail and with sometimes unwanted attention. Indeed, according to one popular story, Queen Victoria herself enjoyed "Alice In Wonderland" so much that she suggested he dedicate his next book to her, and was accordingly presented with his next work, a scholarly mathematical volume entitled "An Elementary Treatise on Determinants". Dodgson himself vehemently denied this story, commenting "...It is utterly false in every particular: nothing even resembling it has occurred"; and it is unlikely for other reasons: as T.B. Strong comments in a "Times" article, "It would have been clean contrary to all his practice to identify author of Alice with the author of his mathematical works". He also began earning quite substantial sums of money but continued with his seemingly disliked post at Christ Church. Late in 1871, a sequel – "Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There" – was published. (The title page of the first edition erroneously gives "1872" as the date of publication.) Its somewhat darker mood possibly reflects the changes in Dodgson's life. His father had recently died (1868), plunging him into a depression that lasted some years. "The Hunting of the Snark". In 1876, Dodgson produced his last great work, "The Hunting of the Snark", a fantastical "nonsense" poem, exploring the adventures of a bizarre crew of tradesmen, and one beaver, who set off to find the eponymous creature. The painter Dante Gabriel Rossetti reputedly became convinced the poem was about him. Photography. In 1856, Dodgson took up the new art form of photography, first under the influence of his uncle Skeffington Lutwidge, and later his Oxford friend Reginald Southey. He soon excelled at the art and became a well-known gentleman-photographer, and he seems even to have toyed with the idea of making a living out of it in his very early years. A recent study by Roger Taylor and Edward Wakeling exhaustively lists every surviving print, and Taylor calculates that just over fifty percent of his surviving work depicts young girls, though this may be a highly distorted figure as approximately 60% of his original photographic portfolio is now missing, so any firm conclusions are difficult. Dodgson also made many studies of men, women, male children and landscapes; his subjects also include skeletons, dolls, dogs, statues and paintings, and trees. His pictures of children were taken with a parent in attendance and many of the pictures were taken in the Liddell garden, because natural sunlight was required for good exposures. He also found photography to be a useful entrée into higher social circles. During the most productive part of his career, he made portraits of notable sitters such as John Everett Millais, Ellen Terry, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Julia Margaret Cameron, Michael Faraday, Lord Salisbury, and Alfred, Lord Tennyson. Dodgson abruptly ceased photography in 1880. Over 24 years, he had completely mastered the medium, set up his own studio on the roof of Tom Quad, and created around 3,000 images. Fewer than 1,000 have survived time and deliberate destruction. He reported that he stopped taking photographs because keeping his studio working was difficult (he used the wet collodion process) and commercial photographers (who started using the dry-plate process in the 1870s) took pictures more quickly. With the advent of Modernism, tastes changed, and his photography was forgotten from around 1920 until the 1960s. Inventions. To promote letter writing, Dodgson invented "The Wonderland Postage-Stamp Case" in 1889. This was a cloth-backed folder with twelve slots, two marked for inserting the then most commonly used penny stamp, and one each for the other current denominations to one shilling. The folder was then put into a slip case decorated with a picture of Alice on the front and the Cheshire Cat on the back. All could be conveniently carried in a pocket or purse. When issued it also included a copy of Carroll's pamphletted lecture, "Eight or Nine Wise Words About Letter-Writing". Another invention is a writing tablet called the nyctograph for use at night that allowed for note-taking in the dark; thus eliminating the trouble of getting out of bed and striking a light when one wakes with an idea. The device consisted of a gridded card with sixteen squares and system of symbols representing an alphabet of Dodgson's design, using letter shapes similar to the Graffiti writing system on a Palm device. Among the games he devised outside of logic there are a number of word games, including an early version of what today is known as Scrabble. He also appears to have invented, or at least certainly popularised, the "doublet" (see word ladder), a form of brain-teaser that is still popular today: the game of changing one word into another by altering one letter at a time, each successive change always resulting in a genuine word. For instance, CAT is transformed into DOG by the following steps: CAT, COT, DOT, DOG. Other items include a rule for finding the day of the week for any date; a means for justifying right margins on a typewriter; a steering device for a velociam (a type of tricycle); new systems of parliamentary representation; more nearly fair elimination rules for tennis tournaments; a new sort of postal money order; rules for reckoning postage; rules for a win in betting; rules for dividing a number by various divisors; a cardboard scale for the college common room he worked in later in life, which, held next to a glass, ensured the right amount of liqueur for the price paid; a double-sided adhesive strip for things like the fastening of envelopes or mounting things in books; a device for helping a bedridden invalid to read from a book placed sideways; and at least two ciphers for cryptography. Mathematical work. Within the academic discipline of mathematics, Dodgson worked primarily in the fields of geometry, linear and matrix algebra, mathematical logic and recreational mathematics, producing nearly a dozen books under his real name. Dodgson also developed new ideas in linear algebra (e.g. the first printed proof of the Kronecker-Capelli theorem), probability, and the study of elections (e.g., Dodgson's method) and committees; some of this work was not published until well after his death. He worked as the Mathematical Lecturer at Christ Church (college),Oxford, an occupation that gave him some financial security. His mathematical work attracted renewed interest in the late 20th century. Martin Gardner's book on logic machines and diagrams, and William Warren Bartley's posthumous publication of the second part of Carroll's symbolic logic book have sparked a reevaluation of Carroll's contributions to symbolic logic. Robbins' and Rumsey's investigation of Dodgson condensation, a method of evaluating determinants, led them to the Alternating Sign Matrix conjecture, now a theorem. The discovery in the 1990s of additional ciphers that Carroll had constructed, in addition to his "Memoria Technica", showed that he had employed sophisticated mathematical ideas to their creation. Later years. Over the remaining twenty years of his life, throughout his growing wealth and fame, his existence remained little changed. He continued to teach at Christ Church until 1881, and remained in residence there until his death. His last novel, the two-volume "Sylvie and Bruno", was published in 1889 and 1893 respectively. It achieved nowhere near the success of the "Alice" books. Its intricacy was apparently not appreciated by contemporary readers. The reviews and its sales, only 13,000 copies, were disappointing. The only occasion on which (as far as is known) he travelled abroad was a trip to Russia in 1867 as an ecclesiastical together with the Reverend Henry Liddon. He recounts the travel in his "Russian Journal", which was first commercially published in 1935. On his way to Russia and back he also saw different cities in Belgium, Germany, the partitioned Poland, and France. He died on 14 January 1898 at his sisters' home, "The Chestnuts" in Guildford, of pneumonia following influenza. He was two weeks away from turning 66 years old. He is buried in Guildford at the Mount Cemetery. Controversies and mysteries. Suggestions of paedophilia. Stuart Dodgson Collingwood (Dodgson's nephew and biographer) wrote: Despite comments like this, Dodgson's friendships with young girls and psychological readings of his work – especially his photographs of nude or semi-nude girls – have all led to speculation that he was a paedophile. This possibility has underpinned numerous modern interpretations of his life and work, particularly Dennis Potter's play "Alice" and his screenplay for the motion picture, "Dreamchild", Robert Wilson's "Alice", and a number of recent biographies, including Michael Bakewell's "Lewis Carroll: A Biography" (1996), Donald Thomas's "Lewis Carroll: A Portrait with Background" (1995), and Morton N. Cohen's "Lewis Carroll: A Biography" (1995). All of these works more or less unequivocally assume that Dodgson was a paedophile, albeit a repressed and celibate one. Cohen claims Dodgson's "sexual energies sought unconventional outlets", and further writes: Cohen notes that Dodgson "apparently convinced many of his friends that his attachment to the nude female child form was free of any eroticism", but adds that "later generations look beneath the surface" (p. 229). Cohen and other biographers argue that Dodgson may have wanted to marry the 11-year-old Alice Liddell, and that this was the cause of the unexplained "break" with the family in June 1863. There has never been significant evidence to support the idea, however, and the 1996 discovery of the "cut pages in diary document" (see below) seems to make it highly probable that the 1863 "break" had nothing to do with Alice, but was perhaps connected with rumours involving her older sister Lorina (born 11 May 1849, so she would have been 14 at the time), her governess, or her mother who was also nicknamed "Ina". Some writers, e.g., Derek Hudson and Roger Lancelyn Green, stop short of identifying Dodgson as a paedophile, but concur that he had a passion for small female children and next to no interest in the adult world. The basis for scholars' speculation regarding Dodgson's interest in female children has been challenged in the last ten years by several writers and scholars. "Carroll Myth". Since 1999 a group of scholars, notably Karoline Leach, Hugues Lebailly and Sherry L. Ackerman, John Tufail, Douglas Nickel and others, argue that what Leach terms the "Carroll Myth" has wildly distorted biographical perception of his life and his work. Those such as Carolyn Sigler and Cristopher Hollingsworth have joined the ranks of those calling for a major reassessment. Leach's book, "In the Shadow of the Dreamchild", claims that: In more detail, Lebailly has endeavoured to set Dodgson's child-photography within the "Victorian Child Cult", which perceived child-nudity as essentially an expression of innocence. Lebailly claims that studies of child nudes were mainstream and fashionable in Dodgson's time and that most photographers, including Oscar Gustave Rejlander and Julia Margaret Cameron, made them as a matter of course. Lebailly continues that child nudes even appeared on Victorian Christmas cards, implying a very different social and aesthetic assessment of such material. Lebailly concludes that it has been an error of Dodgson's biographers to view his child-photography with 20th- or 21st-century eyes, and to have presented it as some form of personal idiosyncrasy, when it was in fact a response to a prevalent aesthetic and philosophical movement of the time. Leach's reappraisal of Dodgson focused in particular on his controversial sexuality. She argues that the allegations of paedophilia rose initially from a misunderstanding of Victorian morals, as well as the mistaken idea, fostered by Dodgson's various biographers, that he had no interest in adult women. She termed the traditional image of Dodgson "the Carroll Myth". She drew attention to the large amounts of evidence in his diaries and letters that he was also keenly interested in adult women, married and single, and enjoyed several scandalous (by the social standards of his time) relationships with them. She also pointed to the fact that many of those he described as "child-friends" were girls in their late teens and even twenties. She argues that suggestions of paedophilia evolved only many years after his death, when his well-meaning family had suppressed all evidence of his relationships with women in an effort to preserve his reputation, thus giving a false impression of a man interested only in little girls. Similarly, Leach traces the claim that many of Carroll's female friendships ended when the girls reached the age of fourteen to a 1932 biography by Langford Reed. Ordination. Dodgson had been groomed for the ordained ministry in the Anglican Church from a very early age and was expected, as a condition of his residency at Christ Church, to take holy orders within four years of obtaining his master's degree. He delayed the process for some time but eventually took deacon's orders on 22 December 1861. But when the time came a year later to progress to priestly orders, Dodgson appealed to the dean for permission not to proceed. This was against college rules and initially Dean Liddell told him he would have to consult the college ruling body, which would almost undoubtedly have resulted in his being expelled. For unknown reasons, Dean Liddell changed his mind overnight and permitted Dodgson to remain at the college in defiance of the rules. Uniquely amongst senior students of his time Dodgson never became a priest. There is currently no conclusive evidence about why Dodgson rejected the priesthood. Some have suggested his stammer made him reluctant to take the step, because he was afraid of having to preach. Wilson quotes letters by Dodgson describing difficulty in reading lessons and prayers rather than preaching in his own words. But Dodgson did indeed preach in later life, even though not in priest's orders, so it seems unlikely his impediment was a major factor affecting his choice. Wilson also points out that the then Bishop of Oxford, Samuel Wilberforce, who ordained Dodgson, had strong views against clergy going to the theatre, one of Dodgson's great interests. Others have suggested that he was having serious doubts about Anglicanism. He was interested in minority forms of Christianity (he was an admirer of F.D. Maurice) and "alternative" religions (theosophy). Dodgson became deeply troubled by an unexplained sense of sin and guilt at this time (the early 1860s) and frequently expressed the view in his diaries that he was a "vile and worthless" sinner, unworthy of the priesthood, and this sense of sin and unworthiness may well have affected his decision to abandon being ordained to the priesthood. Missing diaries. At least four complete volumes and around seven pages of text are missing from Dodgson's 13 diaries. The loss of the volumes remains unexplained; the pages have been deliberately removed by an unknown hand. Most scholars assume the diary material was removed by family members in the interests of preserving the family name, but this has not been proven. Except for one page, the period of his diaries from which material is missing is between 1853 and 1863 (when Dodgson was 21–31 years old). This was a period when Dodgson began suffering great mental and spiritual anguish and confessing to an overwhelming sense of his own sin. This was also the period of time when he composed his extensive love poetry, leading to speculation that the poems may have been autobiographical. Many theories have been put forward to explain the missing material. A popular explanation for one particular missing page (27 June 1863) is that it might have been torn out to conceal a proposal of marriage on that day by Dodgson to the 11-year-old Alice Liddell; there has never been any evidence to suggest this was so, and a paper discovered by Karoline Leach in the Dodgson family archive in 1996 offers some evidence to the contrary. This paper, known as the "cut pages in diary document", was compiled by various members of Carroll's family after his death. Part of it may have been written at the time the pages were destroyed, though this is unclear. The document offers a brief summary of two diary pages that are now missing, including the one for 27 June 1863. The summary for this page states that Mrs. Liddell told Dodgson there was gossip circulating about him and the Liddell family's governess, as well as about his relationship with "Ina", presumably Alice's older sister, Lorina Liddell. The "break" with the Liddell family that occurred soon after was presumably in response to this gossip. An alternative interpretation has been made regarding Carroll's rumoured involvement with "Ina": Lorina was also the name of Alice Liddell's mother. What is deemed most crucial and surprising is that the document seems to imply Dodgson's break with the family was not connected with Alice at all. But until a primary source is discovered, the events of 27 June 1863 remain inconclusive. Migraine and epilepsy. In his diary for 1880, Dodgson recorded experiencing his first episode of migraine with aura, describing very accurately the process of 'moving fortifications' that are a manifestation of the aura stage of the syndrome. Unfortunately there is no clear evidence to show whether this was his first experience of migraine "per se", or if he may have previously suffered the far more common form of migraine without aura, although the latter seems most likely, given the fact that migraine most commonly develops in the teens or early adulthood. Another form of migraine aura, Alice in Wonderland syndrome, has been named after Dodgson's little heroine, because its manifestation can resemble the sudden size-changes in the book. Also known as micropsia and macropsia, it is a brain condition affecting the way objects are perceived by the mind. For example, an afflicted person may look at a larger object, like a basketball, and perceive it as if it were the size of a golf ball. Some authors have suggested that Dodgson may have suffered from this type of aura, and used it as an inspiration in his work, but there is no evidence that he did. Dodgson also suffered two attacks in which he lost consciousness. He was diagnosed by three different doctors; a Dr. Morshead, Dr. Brooks, and Dr. Stedman, believed the attack and a consequent attack to be an "epileptiform" seizure (initially thought to be fainting, but Brooks changed his mind). Some have concluded from this he was a lifetime sufferer of this condition, but there is no evidence of this in his diaries beyond the diagnosis of the two attacks already mentioned. Some authors, in particular Sadi Ranson, have suggested Carroll may have suffered from temporal lobe epilepsy in which consciousness is not always completely lost, but altered, and in which the symptoms mimic many of the same experiences as Alice in Wonderland. Carroll had at least one incidence in which he suffered full loss of consciousness and awoke with a bloody nose, which he recorded in his diary and noted that the episode left him not feeling himself for "quite sometime afterward". This attack was diagnosed as possibly "epileptiform" and Carroll himself later wrote of his "seizures" in the same diary. Most of the standard diagnostic tests of today were not available in the nineteenth century. Recently, Dr Yvonne Hart, consultant neurologist at the Radcliffe Hospital, Oxford, considered Dodgson's symptoms. Her conclusion, quoted in Jenny Woolf's "The Mystery of Lewis Carroll", is that Dodgson very likely had migraine, and may have had epilepsy, but she emphasises that she would have considerable doubt about making a diagnosis of epilepsy without further information. Memorials. On Copenhagen Street, Islington is the Lewis Carroll Children's Library.
66391	Marin Mersenne, Marin Mersennus or le Père Mersenne (8 September 1588 – 1 September 1648) was a French theologian, philosopher, mathematician and music theorist, often referred to as the "father of acoustics" . Mersenne was "the center of the world of science and mathematics during the first half of the 1600s." Life. Marin Mersenne (pronounced Mehr-SENN) was born of peasant parents near Oizé, Maine (present day Sarthe, France). He was educated at Le Mans and at the Jesuit College of La Flèche. On 17 July 1611, he joined the Minim Friars, and, after studying theology and Hebrew in Paris received his full holy orders in 1613.
1058567	Saul Rubinek (born July 2, 1948) is a Canadian actor, director, producer and playwright, known for his work in TV, film and the stage. Early life. Rubinek was born in Föhrenwald, Wolfratshausen, Germany, the son of Polish Jews Frania and Israel Rubinek, who was a factory worker, theatre company manager, Yiddish Theatre actor, and Talmudic scholar. Rubinek's parents were hidden by Polish farmers for over two years during World War II and moved to Canada in 1948. Career. Early in his career Rubinek gained the attention of Canadian audiences when he starred as detective Benny Cooperman in two TV films, "The Suicide Murders" (1985) and "Murder Sees the Light" (1986), which are based on books in author Howard Engel's popular series of mystery novels set in the Niagara Region of Canada. Rubinek starred as Owen Hughes, the antagonist, in "Obsessed" (1987). In another TV film, "" (1988), he played Seymour Heller, the long-time friend and manager of Liberace.
1059875	Damon Kyle Wayans Sr. (; born September 4, 1960) is an American stand-up comedian, writer and actor, one of the Wayans family. Early life. Wayans was born in New York City, New York, the son of Elvira, a homemaker and social worker, and Howell Wayans, a supermarket manager. He has five sisters, Elvira, Vonnie, Nadia, Kim, Diedre, and four brothers, actors Marlon Wayans, Keenen Ivory Wayans, Shawn Wayans, and Dwayne Wayans. He had a clubbed foot as a child. This attribute would also be given to his character in "My Wife and Kids" and his character on the cartoon series "Waynehead". Wayans attended Murry Bergtraum High School. Career. Damon started doing stand-up comedy in 1982. His earliest film appearance was a brief cameo as an effeminate hotel employee in the 1984 Eddie Murphy film "Beverly Hills Cop". He was briefly on "Saturday Night Live" as a featured performer, before getting fired for playing his character as a flamboyant gay cop instead of a straight cop. He went against the script during the live performance. In the "Saturday Night Live" book "Live From New York", it was stated that Wayans did this largely due to growing frustrations that his sketches were not being considered for the show and increasing stress. He also appeared in the syndicated TV series "Solid Gold" during the 1980s as a stand-up comedian. After that, he went on to co-create and appear in the TV-show "In Living Color" from 1990 to 1992, part of a team that was nominated for Emmy Awards all three years. After "In Living Color", he starred in films such as "The Last Boy Scout", "Major Payne" and "The Great White Hype" and wrote and starred in the film "Blankman". He also appeared in Janet Jackson's video "The Best Things in Life Are Free" and was considered for the role of The Riddler in "Batman Forever" (the role went to Jim Carrey, his co-star from "In Living Color" and "Earth Girls Are Easy"). In 1996, he produced "Waynehead", a cartoon for the WB, loosely based on his own childhood growing up in a large family, starring a poor boy with a club foot. The show only lasted a season due to poor ratings. From 1997 to 1998, he was the executive producer of "413 Hope St.", a short-lived drama on the FOX network starring Richard Roundtree and Jesse L. Martin. In 1998, he starred in a short-lived comedy titled "Damon", in which he played a Chicago detective. It aired on FOX. In 1999, his "New York Times" bestselling book "Bootleg" with co-author David Asbery was published; it is a humorous compilation of his observations about family. In 2006, he began starring in "The Underground", a sketch comedy series on Showtime. His son, Damon, Jr. also stars on the show. He hosted the 2006 BET Awards which was held at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles, California on June 27, 2006. For his role in the ABC comedy series "My Wife and Kids", Wayans received four International Press Academy "Golden Satellite Award" nominations, in addition to four Emmy awards nominations for his acting and directing in the 1990s' series "In Living Color". He also added author of a serious fictional novel to his credits this past year with "Red Hats" which is the story of a suicidal 65-year-old woman who finds friendship and happiness when she joins the Red Hat Society. Personal life. Wayans was married to Lisa Thorner, however they divorced in 2000. He has four children, sons Damon Wayans, Jr., Michael Wayans and daughters Cara Mia Wayans, and Kyla Wayans. He is the uncle of Damien Dante Wayans, Chaunté Wayans and Craig Wayans. Wayans is a close personal friend of both NBA legend Michael Jordan and fellow "In Living Color" star Jim Carrey. He won the People's Choice Awards for Favorite Male. On July 27, 2013 at a live performance at Tommy T's in Pleasanton, CA, Wayans told the audience that he has been diagnosed with Type 2 Diabetes.
716038	The Luzhin Defence is a 2000 film directed by Marleen Gorris, starring John Turturro and Emily Watson. The film centres on a mentally tormented chess grandmaster and the young woman he meets while competing at a world-class tournament in Italy. The screenplay was based on the novel "The Defense" (or "The Luzhin Defence") by Vladimir Nabokov. Emily Watson received best actress nominations at the British Independent Film Awards and the London Film Critics Circle Awards. Plot. It's the early 1920s and Aleksandr Ivanovich 'Sascha' Luzhin (Turturro), a gifted but tormented chess player, arrives in a Northern Italian city to compete in an international chess competition. Prior to the tournament he meets Natalia Katkov (Watson) and he falls in love with her almost immediately. She in turn finds his manner to be appealing and they begin to see each other in spite of her mother's disapproval. Competing alongside Luzhin in the championship is Dottore Salvatore Turati (Fabio Sartor), who is approached by Leo Valentinov (Stuart Wilson), a Russian, who is Luzhin's former chess tutor from pre-revolutionary Russia. Valentinov tells the Italian that Luzhin cannot handle pressure and he intimates he will make sure that his former prodigy will be unsettled off-table giving Turati a winning chance. The competition starts badly for Luzhin who is unsettled by the presence of his former friend and coach. He struggles through the early rounds but he soon begins to win again as his relationship with Katkov becomes closer and intimate. She then informs her parents that she is going to marry him. Meanwhile Luzhin goes on to reach the final and face Turati. But in the finals the Russian Émigré loses out to the time clock, forcing the game to adjourn. However, outside the venue, he is whisked away by an accomplice of Valentinov who abandons him in the countryside. His former teacher knows that this will completely unhinge him because of the memory of his parents' abandonment many years ago. Luzhin wanders aimlessly until he collapses and is found by a group of Blackshirts. Luzhin is taken to the hospital suffering from complete mental exhaustion. The doctor informs Katkov that he will die if he keeps playing chess as he is addicted to the game and it's consuming his very being. Nevertheless even while recuperating Valentinov comes around with a chess board encouraging Luzhin to finish the match with the Italian, Turati. Natalia defends her beloved but assures him to break off with the game. Luzhin seems to agree. Eventually Luzhin leaves the hospital. He and Natalia then agree to marry at the earliest opportunity. However on the morning of the wedding, Luzhin is put into a car with Valentinov, who tells him that there is the small matter of finishing the competition. In terror, Luzhin leaps from the car. Dazed, cut and mentally confused, he stumbles back to the hotel where he tries to dig up a glass chess piece in the grounds, one which he buried years ago, but he does not find it. Luzhin, who is in his muddied wedding suit, sits in his room as Natalia and the hotel staff try to open the door. But before they can get in, the troubled chess grandmaster throws himself out of his bedroom window and dies. The tragic death is witnessed by Valentinov who has just arrived by car. The film then concludes in the competition hall where Natalia completes the competition using her fiance's notes. She discovers the papers in his pocket and an experienced chess player explaint her the matter of the notes. In an arranged meeting without public she plays against Turati who does exactly what Luzhin expected and loses. Katkov and Turati then leave acknowledging the Pyrrhic victory and the genius of Luzhin. Production notes. Nabokov based "The Defense" on the life of German chess master Curt von Bardeleben who committed suicide by leaping from a window in 1924. The film was shot entirely on location in Europe. Budapest, Hungary was used for outdoor scenes set in St Petersburg, these included the Széchenyi Chain Bridge, Hungarian National Museum and Heroes' Square. The chess tournament (although in Italy) was shot inside the main hall of Museum of Ethnography, Budapest. In Italy, the hotel scenes were filmed at The Bergamo, Lombardia, and Lake Como. The scene at the railway station is in Brenna-Alzate, near Como. In the novel, Valentinov' first name is never mentioned; in the contrary, Luzhin's first name in revealed only in the closing sentences. Another dissimilarity is that the novel ends up by the Luzhin's suicide, thereby his game would be never finished. The finale. The chess position they play for the final between Turati and Luzhin is already a winning position for Black (Luzhin), even though Black is down on material. By playing 1. Kg4 (as opposed to 1. Kf2) White walks into a forced checkmate with a rook sacrifice: If White plays 1. Kf2 instead of 1. Kg4 this leads to a heavy material loss for White and an easy game for Black: and Black is up by a rook. In the film Luzhin's final moves were made by his fiance. The tournament had been paused after Luzhin had a nervous breakdown which had been caused by extreme strain. On the same day he was going to get married he committed suicide by jumping from the hotel balcony. His fiance later found a piece of paper inside his jacket where he had written down his final moves against Turati. Cinematic error. In Luzhin's previous game, on his way to the final, the film shows an inaccurate checkmating move. The scene shows White (Luzhin) play an apparently brilliant combination culminating in a queen sacrifice followed by Rd1-d8#. However, White's rook on the "d1" square is pinned against its king in the corner at "h1" by Black's rook on "c1", making the checkmate unplayable. Nevertheless Luzhin (White) is shown playing the illegal winning move to wild applause from the audience. The sequence is as follows, Luzhin has just played his rook to e8 (check) although it is not clear if this was a capture or not. Play then continues: White's last move is illegal (see rules of chess).
1224141	Robert Lee Sudduth IV (born August 23, 1956), generally known by his stage name Skipp Sudduth, is an American theater, film, and TV actor. Sudduth is perhaps best known for his role in the movie "Ronin" and his lead in the TV drama "Third Watch". Biography. Personal life. Born in Wareham, Massachusetts, the son of an engineer and a nurse, Sudduth attended George Washington High School in Danville, Virginia. Sudduth then earned a Bachelor of Science degree in biology from Hampden-Sydney College (H-SC). Career. He worked for a year as Director of Alumni Relations at his alma mater in the administration of the college's then-new president Josiah Bunting III, author of "The Lionheads" and future commandant of Virginia Military Institute in Lexington.
582052	Shabana Azmi (‏born 18 September 1950) is an Indian actress of film, television and theatre. An alumnus of the Film and Television Institute of India of Pune, she made her film debut in 1974 and soon became one of the leading actresses of Parallel Cinema, an Indian New Wave movement known for its serious content and neo-realism. Regarded as one of the finest actresses in India, Azmi's performances in films in a variety of genres have generally earned her praise and awards, which include a record of five wins of the National Film Award for Best Actress and several international honours. She has also received four Filmfare Awards. Azmi has appeared in over 120 Hindi films in both mainstream and independent cinema, and since 1988 she has acted in several foreign projects. In addition to acting, Azmi is a social and women's rights activist, a Goodwill Ambassador of the United Nations Population Fund (UNPFA), and a member of the Rajya Sabha, the upper house of the Indian parliament. She is married to Indian poet and screenwriter Javed Akhtar. Early life and background. Shabana Azmi was born in Mallepally Hyderabad, India. Her parents are Kaifi Azmi (an Indian poet) and Shaukat Azmi (a veteran Indian People's Theatre Association stage actress), both of whom were members of the Communist Party of India. Her brother, Baba Azmi, is a cinematographer. Her parents had an active social life, and their home was always thriving with people and activities of the communist party. It was not unusual for her to wake up in the morning and find members of the communist party sleeping about, from a previous night's communist social that ran late. Early in childhood, the environment in her home was inculcated into her a respect for family ties, social and human values; and her parents always supported her to develop a passion for intellectual stimulation and growth. Azmi did her schooling at the premier girl's school, Queen Mary School, Mumbai. She completed a graduate degree in Psychology from St. Xavier’s College, Mumbai, and followed it with a course in acting at the Film and Television Institute of India (FTII), Pune. She described the reason she decided to attend the film institute, saying, "I had the privilege of watching Jaya Bhaduri in a (Diploma) film, "Suman," and I was completely enchanted by her performance because it was unlike the other performances I had seen. I really marvelled at that and said, 'My god, if by going to the Film Institute I can achieve that, that's what I want to do.'" Azmi eventually topped the list of successful candidates of 1972. Career. Azmi graduated from the FTII in 1973 and went on to sign on Khwaja Ahmad Abbas' "Faasla" and began work on Kanti Lal Rathod's "Parinay" as well. Her first release, however, was Shyam Benegal's directorial debut "Ankur" (1974). Belonging to the arthouse genre of neo-realistic films, "Ankur" is based on a true story which occurred in Hyderabad. Azmi played Lakshmi, a married servant and villager who drifts into an affair with a college student who visits the countryside. Azmi was not the original choice for the film, and several leading actresses of that time refused to do it. The film went on to become a major critical success, and Azmi won the National Film Award for Best Actress for her performances. Upperstall.com described her work in the film as "an outstanding psychologically penetrating performance very different from those seen normally till then in mainstream Hindi cinema", and famous independent filmmaker Satyajit Ray commented, "In "Ankur" she may not have fitted immediately into her rustic surroundings, but her poise and personality are never in doubt. In two high pitched scenes, she pulls out the stops to firmly establish herself as one of our finest dramatic actresses". She went on to receive the National Film Award consecutively for three years from 1983 to 1985 for her roles in movies, "Arth", "Khandhar" and "Paar". Another film "Godmother" (1999) earned her another National Film Award, taking her tally to five. Azmi’s acting has been characterised by a real-life depiction of the roles played by her. In "Mandi", she acted as a madam of a whorehouse. For this role, she put on weight and even chewed betel. Real life portrayals continued in almost all her movies. These included the role of a woman named Jamini resigned to her destiny in "Khandhar" and a typical urban Indian wife, homemaker and mother in "Masoom". She also acted in experimental and parallel Indian cinema. Deepa Mehta’s 1996 film "Fire" depicts her as a lonely woman, Radha, in love with her sister-in-law. The on-screen depiction of lesbianism (perhaps the first in Indian cinema) drew severe protests and threats from many social groups as well as by the Indian authorities. Her role as Radha brought her international recognition with the Silver Hugo Award for Best Actress at the 32nd Chicago Film Festival and Jury Award for Best Actress at Outfest, Los Angeles. She was the initial choice for Deepa Mehtha's "Water" which was actually planned to hit the floors on 2000. Few scenes were already shot. Shabana Azmi had to shave her head with Nandita Das to portray the character of Shakuntala. However, due to political reasons, the film was shelved and later shot in 2005 with Seema Biswas replacing Azmi. Some of her notable films include Shyam Benegal's "Nishant" (1975), "Junoon" (1978), "Susman" (1986), and "Antarnaad" (1992); Satyajit Ray’s "Shatranj Ke Khiladi"; Mrinal Sen’s "Khandhar", "Genesis", "Ek Din Achanak"; Saeed Mirza’s "Albert Pinto Ko Gussa Kyon Aata Hai"; Sai Paranjpye’s "Sparsh" and "Disha"; Gautam Ghose’s "Paar"; Aparna Sen’s "Picnic" and "Sati"; Mahesh Bhatt’s "Arth"; Vinay Shukla’s "Godmother". Her other films include the commercially successful Manmohan Desai's "Amar Akbar Anthony" and "Parvarish" and Prakash Mehra’s "Jwalamukhi". Azmi starred in Hollywood productions such as John Schlesinger’s "Madame Sousatzka" (1988) and Roland Joffe’s "City of Joy" (1992). Azmi debuted on the small screen in a soap opera titled "Anupama". She portrayed a modern Indian woman who, while endorsing traditional Indian ethos and values, negotiated more freedom for herself. She had participated in many stage plays, and notable among them include M. S. Sathyu’s "Safed Kundali" (1980), based on "The Caucasian Chalk Circle"; and Feroz Abbas Khan's "Tumhari Amrita" with actor Farooq Sheikh, which ran for five years. She toured Singapore on an assignment with the Singapore Repertory Theatre Company, acting in Ingmar Bergman’s adaptation of Ibsen’s "A Doll's House", which was directed by Rey Buono. Pointing out the differences in all these media, she once remarked that theatre was really the actor’s medium; the stage was actor’s space; cinema was the director’s medium; and television was a writer’s medium. Personal life. In the initial stage of her career, she was linked to film director Shekhar Kapur. She married Javed Akhtar, a lyricist, poet and Bollywood scriptwriter on 9 December 1984, making her a member of the Akhtar-Azmi film family. It was Akhtar’s second marriage, the first being with Bollywood scriptwriter, Honey Irani. However Shabana's parents objected her to being involved with a very much married man with 2 children Indian actresses Farah Naaz and Tabu are her nieces. Shabana has no children of her own. Social activism. Shabana Azmi has been a committed social activist, active in supporting child survival and fighting AIDS and injustice in real life. Azmi has voiced her opinion on a variety of issues. Initially, her activism drew scepticism and was dubbed by some as a publicity gimmick. However, she proved her critics wrong and used her celebrity status to emerge as a high-profile social activist. She had participated in several plays and demonstrations denouncing communalism. In 1989, along with Swami Agnivesh and Asghar Ali Engineer, she undertook a four-day march for communal harmony from New Delhi to Meerut. Among the social groups whose causes she has advocated are slum dwellers, displaced Kashmiri Pandit migrants and victims of the earthquake at Latur (Maharashtra, India). The 1993 Mumbai riots appalled her and she emerged as a forceful critic of religious extremism. After the 11 September 2001 attacks, she opposed the advice of the grand mufti of Jama Masjid calling upon the Muslims of India to join the people of Afghanistan in their fight by retorting that the leader go there alone. She has campaigned against ostracism of victims of AIDS. A small film clip issued by the Government of India depicts an HIV positive child cuddled in her arms and saying: "She does not need your rejection, she needs your love". In a Bengali film named "Meghla Aakash" she played the role of a physician treating AIDS patients. She has also given her voice to an HIV/AIDS education animated software tutorial created by the nonprofit organisation TeachAIDS. Since 1989, she has been a member of the National Integration Council headed by the Prime Minister of India; a member of National AIDS Commission (of India); and was nominated (in 1997) as a member of the Rajya Sabha, the upper house of the Indian parliament. In 1998, the United Nations Population Fund appointed her as its Goodwill Ambassador for India. Selected filmography. She has acted in more than one hundred Hindi films, both in the mainstream as well as in Parallel Cinema. Several of her films have received attention in the international arena, including at the Norwegian Film Institute, the Smithsonian Institution and the American Film Institute. She has appeared in a number of foreign films, most of which have won international acclaim, including John Schlesinger’s "Madame Sousatzka", Nicholas Klotz’s "Bengali Night", Roland Joffe’s "City of Joy", Channel 4’s "Immaculate Conception", Blake Edwards' "Son of the Pink Panther", and Ismail Merchant’s "In Custody". Awards and honours. National Awards. Azmi has received the National Film Award for Best Actress five times, making her the overall most-awarded actor in the function: Filmfare Awards. Winner: Nominated:
1165165	Harry Guardino (December 23, 1925 – July 17, 1995) was an American actor whose career spanned from the early 1950s to the early 1990s. In 1964, he was cast in a short-lived CBS series entitled "The Reporter", a drama about a hard-hitting investigative journalist named Danny Taylor. His principal co-star was Gary Merrill as city editor Lou Sheldon. WIth Merrill, he had co-starred the year before in "The Human Factor" episode of "The Outer Limits". Born in Brooklyn, New York, Guardino appeared on stage, in films, and on television. His Broadway theatre credits included "A Hatful of Rain", "One More River" (earning a Tony Award nomination for Best Featured Actor in a Play for his performance), "Anyone Can Whistle", "The Rose Tattoo", "The Seven Descents of Myrtle", and "Woman of the Year". Guardino's other film credits include "Houseboat", "Pork Chop Hill" (about the Korean War), "The Five Pennies", "King of Kings", "The Enforcer", "Madigan", "Lovers and Other Strangers", and "Dirty Harry". He was nominated twice for the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor. He guest starred on John Cassavetes's 1959–1960 series, "Johnny Staccato", the story of a pianist/private detective in New York City. In 1960, Guardino appeared as Johnny Caldwell in the episodes "Perilous Passage", "The O'Mara's Ladies", and "Daughter of the Sioux" in the NBC western series "Overland Trail" starring William Bendix and Doug McClure. McClure two years later would join the long-running "The Virginian" series on NBC after a preceding stint on the CBS detective series "Checkmate". In 1971 Guardino starred in the short-lived series "Monty Nash". Guardino had a continuing role as Perry Mason's nemesis, Hamilton Burger, in the 1973 television series "The New Perry Mason" and a recurring role on Angela Lansbury's "Murder, She Wrote". He made guest appearances in dozens of television series, including "Studio One", "", "The Eleventh Hour", "Untouchables", "Alfred Hitchcock Presents", "Kraft Television Theatre", "Playhouse 90", "Dr. Kildare", "The Lloyd Bridges Show", "Route 66", "Ben Casey", "Hawaii Five-O", "Love, American Style", "The Greatest Show on Earth", "Kojak", "The Streets of San Francisco", "Jake and the Fatman", "Cheers" and The Untouchables with Robert Stack. He had the lead role of Det. Lee Gordon in the 1969 made-for-television suspense film "The Lonely Profession". In 1993, a Golden Palm Star on the Palm Springs, California, Walk of Stars was dedicated to him. Guardino died at the age of sixty-nine of lung cancer in Palm Springs.
899747	Virna Lisi (born 8 November 1936 in Ancona) is a Cannes and César award-winning Italian film actress. She was born in Ancona, Marche, as Virna Lisa Pieralisi. Career. Early career. Virna Lisi began her film career in her teens. She was discovered in Paris by two Neapolitan producers, Antonio Ferrigno and Ettore Pesce. Her debut was in "La corda d'acciaio" ("The line of steel", 1953). Initially, she did musical films, like in "E Napoli canta" ("Napoli sings", 1953) and the successful "Questa è la vita" (1954, with the popular Totò). Nonetheless, her beauty was more valued than her talent, as in "Le diciottenni" and "Lo scapolo" films of 1955. Yet she filled demanding roles, particularly in "La Donna del Giorno" (1956), "Eva" (1962), and the Italian-made spectacle "Romolo e Remo" (1961). In the late 1950s, Lisi did theater at Piccolo Teatro di Milano in "I giacobini" by Federico Zardi under the direction of Giorgio Strehler. During the 1960s, Lisi did comedies and participated in television dramas that were widely viewed in Italy. Lisi also promoted a toothpaste brand on television with a slogan that would become a catchphrase among Italians: ""con quella bocca può dire ciò che vuole"" ("with such a mouth, she can say whatever she wants"). Hollywood career. Hollywood producers sought a new Marilyn Monroe, and so Lisi debuted in Hollywood comedy as a blue-eyed blonde temptress opposite Jack Lemmon in "How to Murder Your Wife" (1965) and appeared with Tony Curtis in "Not with My Wife, You Don't!" (1966). Lisi then starred with Frank Sinatra, in "Assault on a Queen" (1966), in "La Ragazza e il Generale," co-starring with Rod Steiger, and in two films with Anthony Quinn, "The Secret of Santa Vittoria", directed by Stanley Kramer, and the war drama "The 25th Hour". She also gained attention for a photo of her shaving her face that appeared on the March 1965 cover of "Esquire" magazine. Career renaissance in Europe. Indeed, to overcome her typecast just of a seductive woman, Virna Lisi sought new types of roles, of evil women or of a lover in relationships of disparate age for example. In those years, Virna Lisi participated in Italian productions, in "Casanova 70" and "Le bambole" (1965), "Arabella" (1967), and "Le dolci signore" (1968). Lisi also starred in "The Birds, the Bees and the Italians" (1965) which shared the Palme d'Or at Cannes that year. In the early 1970s, Virna Lisi decided temporarily to attend to her family, husband Franco Pesci and her son Corrado, born in July 1962. Nonetheless, a career renaissance occurred soon for Virna with a large list of productions, including "Al di là del bene e del male" (1977), "Ernesto" (1979), and "La cicala" (1980). For the film "La Reine Margot" (1994), Lisi portrayed a malevolent Catherine de' Medici and so she won both the "César" and Cannes Film Festival awards, along with a "Silver Ribbon for Best supporting Actress". Particularly since the late 1990s, Virna Lisi did many successful dramatic productions of television. In 2002, Lisi starred in her last film, "Il più bel giorno della mia vita". Legacy. A Brazilian rock band, "Virna Lisi", is named after her. The 1980s Argentinian band Sumo (led by Luca Prodan), made a song for her. The singer's brother is the actor Andrea Prodan, who appeared with her in the movie "I ragazzi di via Panisperna" (1988).
1165072	Leo Vincent Gordon (December 2, 1922 - December 26, 2000) was an American film and television character actor as well as a screenplay writer and novelist. During more than forty years in film and television, he was frequently cast as a supporting actor playing brutish bad guys. Early life and career. Gordon was born in Brooklyn in New York City on December 2, 1922. Reared by his father in dire poverty, Gordon grew up during the Great Depression. He left school in the eighth grade, went to work in construction and demolition, and then joined the New Deal agency, the Civilian Conservation Corps, in which he participated in various public works projects. After the United States entered World War II in 1941, Gordon enlisted in the U.S. Army, in which he served for two years and received an undesirable discharge. Gordon was in southern California where he and a cohort attempted to rob a bar and its patrons with a pistol. He was shot in the stomach by one of the patrons. He was arrested for armed robbery and served five years in San Quentin Prison, where he furthered his education by reading nearly every book in the library.
633759	Ian Tracey (born June 26, 1964) is a Canadian actor. Over the years, Tracey has participated in over seventy films and television series. Tracey has starred in series like "Da Vinci's Inquest" and "Intelligence", both CBC television series produced by long-time colleague Chris Haddock. He is also known for his role as the title character in 1979's "Huckleberry Finn and His Friends and gap toothed beach bum "Spider" in TV series Tropical Heat". Life and career. Tracey was born on Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada. He grew up in British Columbia's Port Coquitlam. A performer at a young age, Tracey started working at the age of 11, playing in the 1976 film "The Keeper" starring Christopher Lee. He is also the father of actor Keenan Tracey (b. 1991). Tracey's recent feature film credits include "Prozac Nation", "Owning Mahowny", with Philip Seymour Hoffman, Kevin Costner's western "Open Range" and Christopher Nolan's 2001 thriller "Insomnia". In 1999, Tracey won the Leo Award for Best Performance by a Male in a Feature Length Drama for "Rupert's Land". Tracey has appeared in a number of movies-of-the-week, including starring in the title role of "Milgaard", for which he won both the Gemini Award for Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in a Dramatic Program or Mini-Series and Leo Award for Best Performance by a Male in a Picture in 1999. Other television film include "The Rookies", for which he received a 1991 Gemini nomination for Best Actor in a Supporting Role. He was nominated for a Gemini Award in 2000 for his portrayal of the talented Homicide Detective Mick Leary in the Canadian TV series "Da Vinci's Inquest". He also directed two episodes in that television series, as well as two in "Intelligence". Tracey was a series regular on "Sweating Bullets" (also known as "Tropical Heat") and had a recurring lead on "The Commish". He was also seen in "Taken" and has guest starred on "Smallville", "Dark Angel", "The Sentinel", "The X-Files", "The Outer Limits", "", "The Collector" and "Mom P.I." In 2005, Tracey was in the TV miniseries "" and "Intelligence", a CBC television series about the interactions between organized crime and government intelligence services. In "Intelligence", Tracey plays the head of a third-generation crime family that built its fortune on rum-running before turning to heroin and weed. He also appeared as Nova Group leader Daniel Armand in season three of the science fiction series "The 4400" and guest-starred as Lincoln Cole in "Smallville". In 2010 he began the recurring role of villain Adam Worth on "Sanctuary". In spring 2007, he filmed the Chinese-Canadian historical miniseries "Iron Road" with Sam Neill and Peter O'Toole and narrated the making-of documentary for the DVD release of the series "Huckleberry Finn and His Friends".
1017554	Wheels on Meals () is a 1984 Hong Kong martial arts comedy film written and directed by Sammo Hung, and starring Hung, Jackie Chan and Yuen Biao. Film title. The film's name was actually supposed to be more sensibly titled "Meals on Wheels". However, superstitious Golden Harvest executives demanded the name change because their two previous films with titles that began with the letter 'M' – "Megaforce" and "Menage A Trois" – were both box office flops. Plot. Thomas (Jackie Chan) and David (Yuen Biao) are cousins who run a fast food van in Barcelona. The food is delivered by Thomas, who rushes around the square on a skateboard. After fending off a biker gang they continue business as normal. They go and visit David's father who is in a mental institution and bump into Sylvia (Lola Forner) who is the daughter of David's father's girl friend. Thomas encourages David to try to ask her out on a date and chickens out of this making the excuse she would have said no anyway. Cut to the van serving food late at night where Thomas inadvertently bumps into Sylvia who is pretending to be a prostitute. But Sylvia is actually a pickpocket and she robs a man in a bed room and runs away to their fast food van. Both Thomas and David are enamoured by her. But after allowing her to stay in their apartment that night, they wake to find Sylvia and their money gone. The next day, they bump into Moby (Sammo Hung), a bumbling private investigator who is also tracking Sylvia. They later discovered that Sylvia is the heir to a sizeable inheritance that a criminal gang is trying to steal from her. When she is kidnapped, Thomas, David, and Moby team up to save her, infiltrating the villains' castle and defeating them in a martial arts battle. Cast. The three action star "brothers", Yuen, Chan and Hung, are long time best friends and had been Peking Opera School colleagues in their youth. The release of "Wheels on Meals" came in the midst of their most prolific period working together as a trio. The three men had acted together on Chan's "Project A" and the first of Hung's original Lucky Stars trilogy, "Winners and Sinners" in 1983. "Wheels on Meals" was released in 1984, and a year later they were reunited twice more for the Lucky Stars semi-sequels "My Lucky Stars" and "Twinkle, Twinkle Lucky Stars". This was something of a golden period for Hong Kong cinema-goers, as three of the nation's most beloved action stars performed together on screen. The film also features cameo appearances from fellow Lucky Stars Richard Ng and John Shum as mental patients in the hospital attended by the father of Yuen's character. "Wheels on Meals" was the first of two films which paired star Jackie Chan against former professional kickboxing champion Benny Urquidez (the other being the 1988 film "Dragons Forever"). Their fight in this film is typically regarded as one of the greatest on-screen martial arts fights ever performed. At one point in the final battle between the pair, a spin-kick performed by Urquidez is so quick that the resulting airflow extinguishes a row of candles. This is shown onscreen, with no cuts or trick photography. Co-star Lola Forner appeared in another Jackie Chan film, "Armour of God" (1987). Filming. Audio commentator Bey Logan explains why Sammo Hung decided to shoot the film outside of Hong Kong. By the time it was made in 1984, shooting in Hong Kong had become practically impossible – firstly, because the action stars had become so famous that they could not walk through the streets with impunity, and secondly due to the mounting difficulties in obtaining a permit from the government in order to film in Hong Kong. Bruce Lee had paved the way for Hong Kong filmmakers shooting abroad with the 1972 film "Way of the Dragon", whose location filming was done in Italy, whereas the interiors had been shot at Golden Harvest studio. When Hung took his cast and crew to Barcelona, he wanted to strongly establish the locations in Barcelona as real, and to avoid shooting interiors at Golden Harvest. In comparison to Hong Kong, the Spanish authorities were very cooperative in allowing the use of locations for filming, even for car chases and fight scenes. DVD. Unlike the majority of Chan's later films, the standard DVD release of ‘‘Wheels on Meals’’ does not contain the usual outtakes over the final credits. However, a VHS release of the film did exist in the mid-1980s under the title "Spartan X", which has the outtakes intact. Box office. "Wheels on Meals" grossed HK $21,465,013 in its Hong Kong theatrical run. DVD release. On January 30, 2006, DVD was released in a two disc platinum edition in Hong Kong Legends at UK in Region 2.
627153	Isabella Acres (born February 21, 2001) is an American child actress who played Rose on "Better Off Ted". Early life. Acres was born in Atlanta Georgia, where she discovered her love for acting in children's theater. She then relocated to Los Angeles. Acres' little sister, Ava, is also an actress. Acres is best known for her series regular role as Rose Crisp on "Better Off Ted", the seven-year-old daughter of Ted (Jay Harrington) who is often the most mature person at his home and workplace. The show's first season finished in August 2009, with a second picked up for January 2010. Appearances. Acres also appeared on an episode of "Monk" in 2007, and single episodes of "The Mentalist" where she plays Patrick Jane's (Simon Baker) daughter and on the hit television show "Hannah Montana". Acres was nominated for Best Performance in a TV Series, Guest Starring Young Actress at the Young Artist Awards 2009 for her performance in "The Mentalist". She currently can be seen in the recurring role of Soleil Friedman in the second season of the Fox television series "Touch".
588557	Ala Modalaindi (meaning: "That's how it started") is a 2011 Indian Telugu romantic comedy film written and directed by Nandini Reddy under the Sri Ranjith Movies banner. It stars Nani and Nithya Menen in the lead roles. The film was released on 21 January 2011. The film opened to favourable reviews by critics and turned out to become a super hit and one of biggest blockbuster of the year, and successfully completed 100 days. Plot. The film begins with an accident. Gautham (Nani) is abducted by John Abraham (Ashish Vidyarthi). On the way Gautham is forced to narrate his tale as Gautham talks of stopping a marriage and John too talks of preventing a wedding. Hence, the flashback. Gautham is ready to propose to Simran (Kriti Kharbanda) with a bunch of red roses. But destiny has other plans. Elsewhere, Nithya (Nitya Menen) is playing cricket and hits Gautham with her shot. He is then taken to the hospital in the stretcher. Simran falls in love with the doctor treating Gautham and they get married eventually. Gautham is invited and goes to the wedding but cannot face Simran. When he walks out, he gets drunk and meets a drunk Nithya who actually was in love with the doctor. They go around freaking during the night and part ways the next day. As destiny has it, they happen to meet in a pub after a few days. Gautham accompanies her everywhere. He realises he's in love with her. But before he could tell her, he gets to know that she is already engaged. Gautham steps back and stays secluded. Nithya and her fiance end their engagement over an argument about Gautham. Unaware of this and having moved on, Gautham starts dating a veterinary doctor, Kavya, but they break up after an altercation. The rest of the story is on how Gautham and Nithya step out of their confusion and realise their love for each other. Critical reception. Rediff gave a four star rating, stating "All in all Ala modalaindi is a fun ride" explaining "Nani and Nithya are at their natural best. Both are so effortless and at ease and share a great chemistry. They are expressive in a range of emotions too." Sify also gave a 4/5 star rating, noting "Nandini Reddy's plot is simple but her screenplay is knitted with many twists and turns and that makes the movie a pleasant watch. Nani and Nithya Menen score in performance." Review sites IdleBrain and GreatAndhra, which gaves also 4 ratings, praised the lead pair's performance. Production. Development. It started with the idea of two people (belonging to opposite sex) meeting in a crisis situation. It will be more interesting than a boy meeting a girl in a regular way. I was in Chennai at that time and discussing with Anjana Ali Khan (director of Tamil film Veppam). The basic seed of the story came out of that conversation. I gave a 10-minute narration to Nani and he said that its awesome. We wanted to title the movie as ‘Prema Thokka Tholu’. I am basically a lazy writer. Hence, Anjana threatened me by putting a deadline of 10 days to complete the script. I wanted the scenes, characters and characterisations come out of the experiences from my life and the from the people I have observed. To stay in that zone/space, I repeatedly watched Friends, When Harry Met Sally and A Lot Like Love during that period. I wrote a 60-scenes order on a pair of yellow papers. I write very little on paper for a scene (a couple of lines for a scene as most of the content is there in my head). I don’t want to slow down my mind while writing as our mind works faster than our hand. Casting. John Abraham – Asish Vidyardhi I wanted to take the film to next level and I felt that I needed one more layer. I watched a film titled ‘In July’ in my initial days. In that film a guy is carrying a dead body to cross the border. Another guy takes a lift, but notices the dead body. The entire film is about misrepresentation. I took that movie as reference and created a character called ‘John Abraham’ who is a professional kidnapper. I wanted to derive humor by showing the human angle in him. I have also used John Abraham character to ask the questions to Nani on the behalf of audiences. I liked the layer of Johan Abraham character, but the entire team is not convinced about it. That idea was put in cold-storage. After the 3rd schedule of the film, a friend and a co-director Srinivas came to the sets. I narrated him the John Abraham thread. Srinivas loved it and convinced the producer by talking to him. Since it involves casting a notable actor, it is a big decision to the producer. Asish Vidyardhi was my original preference. But tried Prakash Raj as I personally know him. Prakash Raj loved the character but said that he is playing a similar character in Orange movie. Then I spoke to Asish Vidyardhi and narrated the script. He loved it and quoted his price. It was unaffordable to the producer. After a few days, Asish Vidyardhi called us again and lowered him remuneration. Scrat – Ramesh I used to love the scrat character in Ice Age movie. Scrat character has nothing to do with the story of Ice Age, but creates chaos. I wanted to create such a character for my movie. Producer Damu suggested that we should have a guy hit with recession. Writer Bhupal said that we should have a drunken character. It was Bhupal who suggested Ramesh for that character. Ramesh worked for Mahatma and Bheemili in the past, but didn’t get any recognition. He is a simple and hardworking boy. His work in Ala Modalaindi is being appreciated well. Shooting of the climax was very difficult as we have many character, links and threads. Writer Anil Ravipudi provided great help in climax. Introduction of Sneha Ullal’s character Anjana pointed out that Nani’s character is always rejected by all the girls. He should reject a girl by choice (not by destiny). That’s how we created the character of Sneha Ullal. Soundtrack. Kalyani Malik has composed the songs and soundtrack for the film. Malayalam dubbed version. Angane Thudangi, the Malayalam dubbed version, got released in Kerala on 28 July 2011. The film got a wide release and a good reception, indicating the growing popularity of Telugu dubbed films in Kerala. The presence of kerala actress Nithya Menen also helped in film's success. the Malayalam version of the film received largely positive reviews. Angane Thudangi was the first Malayalam film (though dubbed) to be made available for online viewing on the same day as its release. This arrangement was made by Mathrubhumi, who also released the music for the Malayalam version. The music for the Malayalam version was composed by Jassie Gift, based on the tunes in the original film. The music of the film was also a chart-topper in Malayalam. The home video of "Angane Thudangi" was released by "Hot & Sour" on 2 December 2011. Tracklist. The lyrics for Angane Thudangi were written by Siju Thuravoor. The music for the Malayalam version was composed by Jassie Gift, based on the tunes in the original film.
1065558	Bree Nicole Turner (born March 10, 1977) is an American actress. Personal life. Turner was born in Palo Alto, California. Her father is former pro-football player Kevin Turner of the New York Giants, Washington Redskins, Seattle Seahawks and Cleveland Browns. In 1995, Bree graduated from Monte Vista High School in Danville, California, where she was voted 1994 Homecoming Queen. She subsequently enrolled at the King's College in London and at University of California, Los Angeles. Bree, a competitive roller-skater and professional dancer, is a fan of video games. She said: “Growing up, I had a Nintendo. I liked the Mario Bros. and Track and Field. I was very good. I don't mean to age myself, but I came home every day, went straight to my Nintendo and rocked it. I have three younger brothers, so I always leaned towards more boy hobbies. I was a dancer, so in my down time I always wanted to play video games and hang out with the boys. Then when I went to college, I had a PlayStation but I haven't picked up my joystick in a while. I need to get back on it. I got into Dance Dance Revolution for a while.” In 2008, Turner married Orthopaedic Surgeon Justin Saliman at the Casa Del Mar hotel in Santa Monica, California. Turner and Saliman have one daughter, Stella Jean, who was born on June 29, 2010. Their son, Dean, was born on September 12, 2012. Career. Turner landed her first speaking role in "". That same year, she was cast on MTV's late night anthology series, "Undressed". She also did TV commercial for Gap "Khaki Country" and "Khaki-a-go-go," and for Dr. Pepper. Turner was a background dancer in such hit films as "The Big Lebowski" (1998), "She's All That" (1999) and Mike Myers’ "" (1999). She has since appeared in films like "The Wedding Planner" (2001), "Joe Dirt" (2001), "American Pie 2" (2001), "Sorority Boys" (2002), "Bring It On Again" (2004) and "Jekyll + Hyde" (2006). She played a supporting role in Todd Holland's family film "Firehouse Dog", alongside Josh Hutcherson, Bruce Greenwood, Dash Mihok, Steven Culp and Bill Nunn. In 2000, Turner could be seen in two independent films, Scott Falconer and Scott Hatley's musical and romantic drama "True Vinyl" and writer-director Robert Boris' wrestling drama "Backyard Dogs". The next year, she shared the screen with Jennifer Lopez and Matthew McConaughey in the romantic comedy "The Wedding Planner", with David Spade in the comedy "Joe Dirt", and with Jason Biggs and Eugene Levy in the teen comedy "American Pie". Meanwhile, Turner was also playing recurring roles on the UPN sitcom "Moesha", the ABC sitcom "Spin City" and the CBS drama "Cold Case". She also did a TV commercial for Hyundai. Additionally, she acted on stage, playing Ivy in "The Pages of My Diary I'd Rather Not Read" at Hudson Mainstage Theater in Los Angeles, California, in January 2003. After being cast in Wallace Wolodarsky's comedy film "Sorority Boys", she landed the starring role as the head cheerleader in "Bring It On Again". Back on the small screen, she starred as Marjorie in the short-lived sitcom "Good Girls Don't". The next year in October, she guest starred on UPN drama "Sex, Love & Secrets". That same month, she also starred in the pilot episode of the Showtime's horror/thriller series "Masters of Horror", entitled "Incident On and Off a Mountain Road.". On her appearance in the pilot episode of the series, she said: "I caught the first four and I loved them. It was nice to be rewarded with being the first episode to kick off the whole series. We actually went to the (Mick Garris; the series creator) executive producer's house and we had a little screening. The second the opening credits came on with the music and the stark white and the blood drops I was just so pleased. This is a class A project and I think it turned out that way." In 2006, she guest starred on the CBS/VH1 drama "Love Monkey", appearing in the TV series pilot-turned-TV movie, "Flirt" and in a TV commercial for Budweiser. Back on the big screen, she was cast in "The TV Set" and in Nick Stillwell's "Jekyll + Hyde", adaptation of the Robert Louis Stevenson novel "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde". She also had a supporting role in the romantic comedy "Just My Luck". In 2007, Turner appeared in an episode of the ABC series "Traveler" and in an episode of the Fox series "Standoff". She also appeared in the family film "Firehouse Dog". She appeared in the comedy "The Ugly Truth" with Katherine Heigl and Gerard Butler, which was released on July 24, 2009. In 2012 she landed a recurring guest role on the NBC drama series "Grimm". In April, it was announced that Turner had joined the cast as a series regular.
1058203	The Missing is a 2003 American Western thriller film directed by Ron Howard, based on Thomas Eidson's 1996 novel "The Last Ride". The film is set in 1885 New Mexico Territory is notable for the authentic use of the Apache language by various actors, some of whom spent long hours studying it. The film was produced by Revolution Studios and Imagine Entertainment and distributed by Columbia Pictures. Plot. Set in the late 19th-century New Mexico, Samuel Jones reappears hoping to reconcile with his adult daughter Maggie Gilkeson. She is unable to forgive him for abandoning the family and leaving her mother to a hard life and early death. This situation changes when Pesh-Chidin and a dozen of his followers who have left the reservation pass through the area, ritualistically killing settlers and taking their daughters to be sold into prostitution and slavery across the Mexican border. Among those captured is Maggie's eldest daughter, Lilly. Maggie's rancher boyfriend Brake Baldwin was among the settlers killed.
1042549	Twisted Nerve is a 1968 British psychological thriller film directed by Roy Boulting and starring Hywel Bennett, Hayley Mills, Russell Napier, and Billie Whitelaw. The film follows a disturbed young man, Martin, who pretends, under the name of Georgie, to be mentally retarded to be near Susan, a girl he has become infatuated with, killing those who get in his way. Plot. The film opens with Martin playing catch with his young mentally challenged brother, Pete, at a special school in London. Martin is the only thread to Pete's family life; their father died years before and their mother has a new life with a new husband. Martin expresses concern for his brother's well-being to the school's physician, who is comfortable with Pete's progress. After the title sequence, Martin is shown in a toy store, gazing at Susan, who purchases a toy. As she leaves, Martin follows. Two undercover store detectives ask them to return to the manager's office. The detectives assert that Martin and Susan were working together to allow Martin to steal a toy. Susan assures them she has never met Martin. The manager asks Susan for her address, and Martin appears to make a mental note when she offers it. When questioned by the manager, Martin turns soft, presents himself as mentally challenged, and calls himself "Georgie." Sympathetic to him, Susan pays for the toy. Certain that this was a misunderstanding, the manager lets them leave. Martin returns home to his parents arguing in the parlor over his lack of interest in life. There is allusion to some perverse behaviour he has exhibited, though this is not elaborated upon. He shuts himself in his room. While secluded, Martin stares in the mirror, bare chested, examining his frame. He seems disappointed at his appearance, eventually punching and cracking the mirror in frustration. The camera reveals a stack of body building magazines on Martin's dresser. The next day, Martin goes to Susan's house and waits for her to return. She arrives with a young Indian man named Shashee. He drops off Susan, who thanks him, and she goes to the library, where she keeps an after-school job. There, Martin approaches Susan who immediately recognises him as 'Georgie'. He tells her that he followed her and pays her back for the toy. Before he leaves, Martin, as Georgie, gets Susan to lend him a book about animals. Martin has a heated conversation with his stepfather, who insists he travel to Australia. Martin refuses, then sets in motion a plan to leave home, pretend to go to France, and then go on to live with Susan. Martin leaves his family and shows up late at Susan's mother's house, where she rents rooms. Presenting himself as Georgie, he gains sympathy both from Susan and her mother and they let him stay. The plot unravels with Martin's duplicitous nature clashing against his desires to win Susan's heart. He wants her to accept him as a lover, but cannot reveal that he is in fact Martin, as he is worried she will shun him. Meanwhile, Martin uses his new-found identity to his advantage to seek out revenge on his stepfather, who believes he is in France. This series of decisions leads Martin down the path of self-destruction. Soundtrack. The film score was composed by Bernard Herrmann. The theme can also be heard in Quentin Tarantino's "Kill Bill" when a menacing Elle Driver (Daryl Hannah) whistles it in the hospital scene and in "Death Proof" as Rosario Dawson's character's ringtone. The theme can also be heard in several episodes of "American Horror Story", a horror-drama television series created by Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk, which premiered on FX on 5 October 2011. The character of Tate (played by Evan Peters) has many similarities to Martin. The theme can also be heard in the Malayalam movie "Chaappa Kurish" as a ringtone of "Fahad Fazil" s character's iPhone. The theme can also be heard about 40 minutes into the 2012 Tamil film 'Thadaiyara Thaakka' as the actress Mamta Mohanda's ringtone. Controversy. The film is notorious for its use of Down's syndrome, then referred to as mongolism, as a catalyst for Martin's actions. The film opens with a disclaimer to discount the connection between the disorder and antisocial behaviour.
1060651	Wallace Michael "Wally" Shawn (born November 12, 1943) is an American actor, playwright, and essayist. His best-known film roles include Wally Shawn in "My Dinner with Andre" (1981), Vizzini in "The Princess Bride" (1987), and Rex the toy dinosaur in the "Toy Story" animated film series. His plays include "The Designated Mourner", "Aunt Dan and Lemon", and "Grasses of a Thousand Colors"; he also co-wrote the screenplay for "My Dinner with Andre" with Andre Gregory, and scripted "Vanya on 42nd Street", a film adaptation of Anton Chekov's play "Uncle Vanya". Early life. Shawn was born into a prominent Jewish family in New York City, where he continues to reside. He is the son of William Shawn, the longtime editor of "The New Yorker", and journalist Cecille Shawn (née Lyon); his brother, Allen, is a composer. Shawn attended The Putney School, a private liberal arts high school in Putney, Vermont, and graduated with an A.B. in history from Harvard College. He studied economics and philosophy at Oxford, originally intending to become a diplomat; he also traveled to India as an English teacher, on a Fulbright program. Since 1979, Shawn has made a living primarily as an actor. Career. Playwright. Shawn's early plays, such as "Marie and Bruce" (1978), portrayed emotional and sexual conflicts in an absurdist style, with language that was both lyrical and violent. In a conversation with Andre Gregory, parts of which were used to create "My Dinner with Andre", Shawn referred to these plays as depicting "my interior life as a raging beast." Critical response was extremely polarized: some critics hailed Shawn as a major writer, while John Simon called "Marie and Bruce" "garbage" and described Shawn as "one of the unsightliest actors in this city". His play "A Thought in Three Parts" caused a minor uproar in London in 1977 when the production was investigated by a vice squad and attacked in Parliament due to allegedly pornographic content. His later plays became more overtly political, drawing parallels between the psychology of his characters and the behavior of governments and social classes. Among the best-known of these are "Aunt Dan and Lemon" (1985) and "The Designated Mourner" (1997). Shawn's political work has invited controversy, as he often presents the audience with several contradictory points of view, such as "Aunt Dan and Lemon", which Shawn described as a cautionary tale against fascism. The monologue "The Fever", originally created by Shawn to be performed for small audiences in apartments, describes a person who becomes sick while struggling to find a morally consistent way to live when faced with injustice, and harshly criticizes the record of the U.S. in supporting oppressive anti-communist regimes. In 1997 Shawn discussed the political nature of "Aunt Dan and Lemon", "The Fever", and "The Designated Mourner" in an interview. In this interview Shawn talked extensively with Patrick Mcgrath about the thematic developments between the three plays, as well as his own views on Marxist, communist and socialist politics, their relevance to American liberalism, and how government and individual responsibilities for finding solutions to the dichotomy between rich and poor in the world take hold in the characters presented in his plays. Shawn's four plays have been adapted into films: "The Designated Mourner" (basically a film version of David Hare's stage production), "Marie and Bruce", "My Dinner With Andre", and "The Fever". Oscar winner Vanessa Redgrave stars in "The Fever" (2004), which first aired on HBO on June 13, 2007. Shawn has also written political commentary for "The Nation", and in 2004 he published the one-issue-only progressive political magazine "Final Edition", which features interviews with and articles by Jonathan Schell, Noam Chomsky, Mark Strand, and Deborah Eisenberg. Shawn is credited as translator of Bertolt Brecht's "The Threepenny Opera," which opened at Studio 54 in Manhattan on March 25, 2006. He appears briefly in voiceover during "Song about the Futility of Human Endeavor." He published his first non-fiction work, "Essays", on September 1, 2009. It is a collection of essays that expresses his perceptions of politics and other subjects that reflect an aspect of his life. Acting. Shawn's involvement with theater began in 1970 when he met Andre Gregory, who has since directed several of his plays. As a stage actor, he has appeared mostly in his own plays and other projects with Gregory. He made his film debut in 1979, playing Diane Keaton's ex-husband in Woody Allen's "Manhattan" and an insurance agent in Bob Fosse's "All That Jazz". His best-known film roles include Earl in "Strange Invaders" (1983) and Mr. Hall in "Clueless" (1995). After seeing his performance in "My Dinner With Andre" (1981), casting director Janet Hirshenson was so fond of his delivery of the word "inconceivable" that she cast him as the evil Vizzini in "The Princess Bride" (1987). Other recent roles include Baron Von Westphalen on the 2005 film "Southland Tales", in "Gossip Girl" as Cyrus Rose, and in "The Haunted Mansion" as Ezra.
588163	Phoonk is a 2008 Horror film directed by Ram Gopal Varma and produced by Praveen Nischol starring Sudeep. The film is about superstition and black magic. It spawned a sequel, "Phoonk 2". Plot. Phoonk is based upon the concept of black magic. Civil engineer and atheist Rajiv (Sudeep) lives in Mumbai with his family of wife Aarti (Amruta Khanvilkar) and two kids, Raksha(Ahsaas Channa) and Rohan(Shrey Bawa), with Rajiv's mother and the housemaid Laxmi(Anu Ansari). Rajiv's most trusted colleagues are Anshuman(Kenny Desai) and Madhu(Ashwini Kalsekar), whom everyone, including Rajiv's friend Vinay and Raksha feel are not normal. At a party at his house, when he comes to know that the husband and wife duo have cheated him on a valuable contract for an IT firm in Delhi, Rajiv fires both of them after insulting them both. Humiliated and angry at this, the two of them decide to take revenge on Rajiv. Madhu notes that Rajiv is very fond of Raksha. Soon a series of strange events start to take place in and around Rajiv's house. Mandar (Bharat Kaul), who is appointed to take the place of Madhu and Anshuman is killed at the construction site mysteriously. Raksha starts to talk and behave weirdly, much to the shock of everyone. Doctors are called for, but the strange behaviour continues, with Raksha flying in the air, talking in a manly voice, acting in pain. The superstitious and religious grandmother repeatedly says that someone is using Black Magic on Raksha, but Rajiv and the doctors refuse to believe any of it.
1211656	Felissa Rose (born May 23, 1969) is an American actress, known for her role as Angela Baker in the 1983 cult classic, "Sleepaway Camp", which she reprised in "Return to Sleepaway Camp". Biography. Early life. Felissa Rose was born Felissa Rose Esposito in Greenwich Village, and grew up in Woodbury, Long Island. Movie career. After appearing in "Sleepaway Camp", she quit acting to attend school at New York University (NYU) in the Tisch School of the Arts. She has since returned to cinema and has appeared in such films as Chris Watson's "Zombiegeddon" (2003), Andreas Schnaas' "Nikos" (2003), and Steve Taylor's "Sludge" (2005). She has also appeared in two films by New Jersey filmmaker Dante Tomaselli: "Horror" (2002) and "Satan's Playground" (2005). In addition Felissa co-hosted the 2005 Village Halloween Parade in New York City with fellow scream queens Debbie Rochon and Raine Brown. She also had a cameo role in the sequel to the original "Sleepaway Camp" titled "Return to Sleepaway Camp". In the sequel, she reprises the role of Angela Baker. The movie had a straight to DVD release on November 4, 2008. She also appears in "Hotdog Casserole",written and directed by Chris Raab, as the mother in a dysfunctional family. Rose starred in a role as Mother in the segment "Dinner Guest" in the anthology horror film, "The Perfect House". She also portrayed forensic pathologist Amy Short in the Francis Xavier thriller Poe. Personal life. Rose lives in California with her husband, CKY singer/ guitarist Deron Miller, and their two daughters, Bianca Rose (born June 8, 2005) and Lola Marue (born March 4, 2007) and son, Thomas Carver (born August 29, 2009). Rose and Miller were co-stars in Dave Campfield's 2008 horror comedy Caesar and Otto's Summer Camp Massacre.
578490	13 Beloved ( or "13 Game Sayong", also 13: Game of Death) is a 2006 Thai horror comedy/psychological thriller film written and directed by Chukiat Sakveerakul and starring Krissada Sukosol Clapp. The story, about a man who is led through progressively challenging, degrading, and dangerous stunts by mysterious callers from an underground reality game show, is adapted from the "13th Quiz Show" episode in the "My Mania" comic-book series by Eakasit Thairaat. It was the second feature-length film for Chukiat, who previously directed the horror film, "Pisaj". The film won several awards in Thailand and from film festivals. Remake rights for the film were purchased by The Weinstein Company. Plot. A Boy Scout is standing at the crosswalk of a busy intersection in Bangkok and sees an elderly woman carrying some bags, struggling to make her way across the street. The woman drops some of her belongings, and as the seconds tick away before the lights will change, the boy runs out to assist the woman. In the confusion, he drops his mobile phone, and leaves it in the street while he helps the woman to safety. Just as the light changes and traffic starts to rush forward, the boy runs out to retrieve his phone, where he is hit by a bus and killed. The scene then shifts to Phuchit Puengnathong (ภูชิต พึ่งนาทอง) (Krissada Sukosol Clapp), a struggling Yamaha Corporation salesman. He arrives at a potential client's school to find that a co-worker from his firm has already made the sale. His girlfriend, Maew, has recently dumped him to become a pop star. He lives alone in a small apartment. The next morning, he finds that his car has been repossessed. He arrives at work and is called into his boss's office, and is forced to resign due to his lack of sales. He goes out to the stairwell to gather his thoughts and have a cigarette. He then discovers he has no more. He has a big stack of overdue bills from credit companies. However, his mobile phone is still working. His mother calls. She needs some money to pay for his younger brother's schooling. Puchit agrees to send her some money. Angrily, he crumples his credit-card statements and bills and throws them to the floor. His phone rings again. The caller says Phuchit has a chance to win 10,000 baht. Phuchit is ready to hang up, thinking the call is cruel joke being played on him by his co-workers or friends. But then the caller tells Phuchit his full name, age, employment status and other details that makes Phuchit stay on the line. To win the 10,000 baht, all he has to do is swat a fly which is at that very moment buzzing around him and has been pestering him the whole time he's been sitting in the stairwell. The caller even says there is a rolled up newspaper nearby. Phutchit grabs the paper and swats the fly. He immediately receives a message that 10,000 baht has been transferred to his bank account. His phone immediately rings again. The caller says Phuchit will win more money if he eats the dead fly. He goes back to his desk, holding the fly while debating whether to eat it. One of his co-workers, a friend, Tong (Achita Sikamana), comes to see him, just as he pops the fly into his mouth. She is stunned and is not sure what to say to him. Phuchit receives another phone call. The caller explains that if he completes 11 more tasks, he will win 100 million baht. Needing the money, Phuchit reluctantly agrees to the play the game. The caller explains that if he quits the game or anyone discovers that he's playing the game, he'll forfeit all his winnings so far. For the third stunt, he is told he must make some children cry. This act makes Phuchit recall his childhood, in which his father crushed his toys by stomping on them; Phuchit's father, a farang named John Adams (Philip Wilson), had married his Thai mother (Sukulya Kongkawong). Next, Phuchit must steal coins from a beggar. For his fifth stunt, Phuchit is told to go to a fine Chinese restaurant. He is brought a covered plate that contains feces and he is told that he must eat it. This makes Phuchit recall when some bullies tried to make him eat dog feces when he was a child. The stunts grow increasingly degrading, unlawful and deadly. His sixth is to fight with a gang of school-age thugs while riding a public bus in order to get another mobile phone. He must jump down a well and drag up the corpse of a dead man. He has to beat up his ex-girlfriend Maew's new boyfriend with a chair. Next, he must break an elderly woman (the same old woman from the first scene) out of a hospital. The game causes Phuchit to recall his childhood, when he was beaten by his cruel farang father, was taunted by bullies and other bad memories. Meanwhile, Phuchit's friend Tong is concerned about the strange behavior she witnessed earlier in the office and later in the Chinese restaurant, and putting together clues overheard at the police station, she goes to her computer at work and gets on the internet. A computer expert, she manages to hack into a website for a game called "13". However, unbeknownst to her, she is being watched, and unwittingly, she is made part of the game. A police detective, Surachai, also becomes involved, and comes close to catching Phuchit. However, Phuchit evades capture, and a higher-ranking police official orders Surachai to call off the pursuit.
1062972	Joan Agnes Theresa Sadie Brodel (born January 26, 1925 in Detroit, Michigan) known professionally as Joan Leslie, is a retired American film and television actress. Early life. Leslie was born Joan Agnes Theresa Sadie Brodel in Detroit, Michigan, and raised Roman Catholic. She began performing as a singer at the age of nine as part of a vaudeville act with her two sisters; Betty and Mae Brodel. She later began her Hollywood acting career while still a child, performing under her real name in several movies, beginning with her debut in the MGM movie "Camille" (1936) with Greta Garbo and Robert Taylor.
1065602	Dame Gladys Constance Cooper DBE (18 December 1888 – 17 November 1971) was an English actress whose career spanned seven decades on stage, in films and on television. Beginning on the stage as a teenager in Edwardian musical comedy and pantomime, she was starring in dramatic roles and silent films before the beginning of the First World War. She also became a manager of the Playhouse Theatre from 1917 to 1933, where she played many roles. Beginning in the early 1920s, Cooper was winning praise in plays by W. Somerset Maugham and others. In the 1930s, she was starring steadily both in the West End and on Broadway. Moving to Hollywood in 1940, Cooper found success in a variety of character roles; she was nominated for three Academy Awards, the last one as Mrs. Higgins in "My Fair Lady" (1964). Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, she mixed her stage and film careers, continuing to star on stage until her last year. Early life and career. Cooper was born at 23 Ennersdale Road, Hither Green, Lewisham, London, the oldest of the three daughters of Charles William Frederick Cooper (1844–1939) by his marriage to Mabel Barnett (1861–1944). Her two younger sisters were Doris Mabel (1891–1987) and Grace Muriel (1893–1982). Gladys Cooper spent most of her childhood in Chiswick, where her family moved when she was an infant. She made her stage debut in 1905 touring with Seymour Hicks in his musical "Bluebell in Fairyland". The young beauty was also a popular photographic model. In 1906, she appeared as Lady Swan in London in "The Belle of Mayfair" and then in the pantomime "Babes in the Wood" as Mavis. The following year she became a chorus girl at the Gaiety Theatre, London, creating the small role of Eva in "The Girls of Gottenberg". That Christmas, she was Molly in "Babes in the Wood". In 1908, she appeared in the musical "Havana" followed, the next year, by "Our Miss Gibbs", in which she played Lady Connie; she was then on tour again with Hicks, in "Papa's Wife", before playing Sadie von Tromp in the hit operetta "The Dollar Princess" at Daly's Theatre in 1909. In 1911, she appeared in a production of "The Importance of Being Earnest" and in "Man and Superman". Among several other plays, the next year she was Muriel Pym in "Milestones" at the Royalty Theatre. A highlight of 1913 was Dora in "Diplomacy" at Wyndham's Theatre. That year she also played the title role in "The Pursuit of Pamela" at the Royalty. In 1913 Cooper appeared in her first film, "The Eleventh Commandment", going on to make several more silent films during the First World War and shortly afterwards. She continued full-time stage work, however, including appearances as Lady Agatha Lazenby in "The Admirable Crichton" in 1916 and Clara de Foenix in "Trelawny of the Wells". In addition, in 1917, Cooper became co-manager, with Frank Curzon, of the Playhouse Theatre, taking over sole control from 1927 until she left in 1933. During these years, she starred several times in "My Lady's Dress". She appeared in W. Somerset Maugham's "Home and Beauty" in 1919, repeated Dora at His Majesty's Theatre in 1920 and elsewhere thereafter, and played numerous roles at the Playhouse Theatre. It was not until 1922, however, now in her mid thirties, that she found major critical success, in Arthur Wing Pinero's "The Second Mrs. Tanqueray". Early in her stage career, she was criticised for being too stiff. Aldous Huxley dismissed her performance in "Home and Beauty", writing "she is too impassive, too statuesque, playing all the time as if she were Galatea, newly unpetrified and still unused to the ways of the living world." Evidently, her acting improved during this period, as Maugham praised her for "turning herself from an indifferent actress to an extremely competent one" through her common sense and industriousness. For both the 1923 and 1924 Christmas shows at the Adelphi Theatre, Cooper played the title character in "Peter Pan", while also playing several other roles at that theatre during those two years. She appeared in Maugham's "The Letter" in London and on tour in 1927 and 1928, in "Excelsior" (adapted from "L'Ecole des Cocottes" by H.M. Harwood) in 1928, and in Maugham's "The Sacred Flame" in 1929, also in London and on tour. Among other roles, Cooper was Clemency Warlock in "Cynara" (1930), Wanda Heriot in "The Pelican" (1931), Lucy Haydon in "Dr Pygmalion" (1932), Carola in "The Firebird" (1932), Jane Claydon in "The Rats of Norway" (1933), Mariella Linden in "The Shining Hour" in 1934 and 1935, in London and New York City and on tour (at the same time making her first "talkie" film, "The Iron Duke"), also playing Desdemona and Lady Macbeth on Broadway in 1935. She was Dorothy Hilton in "Call it a Day", again in both London and New York, from 1935 to 1936. A highlight of 1937 was Laura Lorimer in "Goodbye to Yesterday" in London and on tour. In 1938, she played Tiny Fox-Collier in "Spring Meeting" in New York, Montreal and Britain, as well as several Shakespeare roles and Fran Dodsworth in "Dodsworth". She repeated "Spring Meeting" in 1939. Later career. Cooper turned to film full-time in 1940, finding success in Hollywood in a variety of character roles and was frequently cast as a disapproving, aristocratic society woman, although she sometimes played lively, approachable types, as she did in "Rebecca" (1940). She was nominated three times for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performances as Bette Davis's domineering mother in "Now, Voyager" (1942), a sceptical nun in "The Song of Bernadette" (1943), and Rex Harrison's mother, Mrs. Higgins, in "My Fair Lady" (1964). In 1945, after playing the role of Clarissa Scott in the film "The Valley of Decision", she was signed to an MGM contract. Her credits there included both dramatic and comedy films, including "The Green Years" (1946), "The Cockeyed Miracle" (1946) and "The Secret Garden" (1949). Other notable film roles were "The Man Who Loved Redheads" (1955), "Separate Tables" (1958) and "The Happiest Millionaire" (1967) as Aunt Mary Drexel, singing "There Are Those". Her only stage roles in the 1940s were Mrs. Parrilow in "The Morning Star" in Philadelphia and New York (1942) and Melanie Aspen in "The Indifferent Shepherd" in Britain (1948). She returned to theatre (between films) more often in the 1950s and 1960s, playing in London and on tour in such roles as Edith Fenton in "The Hat Trick" (1950); Felicity, Countess of Marshwood, in "Relative Values" (1951 and 1953); Grace Smith in "A Question of Fact" (1953); Lady Yarmouth in "The Night of the Ball" (1954); Mrs. St. Maugham in "The Chalk Garden" (1955–56), Dame Mildred in "The Bright One" (1958); Mrs. Vincent in "Look on Tempests" (1960); Mrs. Gantry (Bobby) in "The Bird of Time" (1961); Mrs. Moore in "A Passage to India" (1962); Mrs Tabret in "The Sacred Flame" (1966 and 1967); Prue Salter in "Let's All Go Down the Strand" (1967); Emma Littlewood in "Out of the Question" (1968); Lydia in "His, Hers and Theirs" (1969); and others. She also had numerous television roles in the 1950s and '60s. In 1967, at the age of 79, she was made a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE). Her last major success on the stage was at age 82, in 1970–71 in the role of Mrs. St. Maugham in Enid Bagnold's "The Chalk Garden", a role she had created on Broadway and in the West End in 1955–56. Private life and last years. Cooper was thrice married: She lived mostly in the United Kingdom in her final years and died from pneumonia at the age of 82 in Henley-on-Thames, England. Television. Among many other appearances, Cooper starred in the 1960s in "The Rogues" with David Niven, Charles Boyer, Gig Young, Robert Coote, John Williams and Larry Hagman. For this, she won a Golden Globe Award in 1965. Cooper also appeared in three episodes of "The Twilight Zone". In the first, entitled "Nothing in the Dark" (1962), she played an old lady who refuses to leave her flat for fear of meeting Death. A young policeman (Robert Redford) is shot at her doorstep and persuades her to let him in. Her second appearance was in "Passage on the Lady Anne", which aired on 9 May 1963. Her final episode was the 1964 "Night Call", where she portrayed a difficult, lonely old lady who is besieged by late-night phone calls, which she learns too late are from the ghost of her long-dead fiancé.
1221081	Eric Fred Norris (born Fred Leo Nukis; July 9, 1955) is an American radio personality known for being the longest-tenured staff member of "The Howard Stern Show" aside from Stern himself. He first met Stern while working at WCCC-FM, a radio station in Hartford, Connecticut. Early life. Born in Willimantic, Connecticut, Norris is the son of Valija and Henry Nukis who were Latvian immigrants. Fred was raised in Manchester, Connecticut. By the time Fred, the second of two sons, was born, his parents' marriage was already on the ropes. His biological father left home when Fred was five, but those first few years were turbulent. "There was always tension and rage," Norris remembers. "My father had an alcohol problem. When Dad came home, you hid in the closet because there was always something going on you'd rather not be a part of." Fred spent most of his early childhood alone. When his older brother wasn't using Fred as a human punching bag, the brother wanted nothing to do with him. So Fred would escape by reading books, taking long bicycle rides, or watching lots of afternoon TV reruns (whence came his encyclopedic knowledge of trashy fifties TV). "I'd like to state for the record that every person on this show of Howard's, even Robin, at least had a father figure to guide them," he says. "Me, I was on my own."
1169762	Eric Allan Kramer (born March 26, 1962) is an American actor. He is known for his role as Little John in the 1993 film "". From 1998–2002, he co-starred as Dave Rogers in the sitcom "The Hughleys". He currently co-stars as Bob Duncan in the Disney Channel sitcom "Good Luck Charlie". Early life. Kramer was born in Grand Rapids, Michigan, son of Roger Kramer, and remained in Canada following his father's career in the Canadian Football League . He attended the BFA program at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, which led to acting in the theater and some television and movie roles, as well as a career in fight choreography. Career. In 1987, Kramer made his first acting debut in television film "The Gunfighters". He also starred in the 1990 film "Quest for the Mighty Sword". He played Thor in the television movie "The Incredible Hulk Returns" and a Russian baseball player in the television movie The Comrades of Summer. Among Kramer's more notable roles have been Little John in ', Bear in "American Wedding", and Boris, bodyguard to producer Lee Donowitz, in "True Romance". He has also appeared in a number of notable television series, including "Two and a Half Men", "Wizards of Waverly Place", "Growing Pains", "Cheers", "Empty Nest", ', "NewsRadio", "JAG", "Roseanne", "Murder, She Wrote", "Seinfeld", "That '70s Show", "Ellen", "Monk", "Jack and Bobby", "Phil of the Future", "How I Met Your Mother" and "My Name Is Earl". Kramer was also a series regular on the sitcom "Bob" as Whitey van de Bunt (1993) and the ABC/UPN sitcom "The Hughleys" as Dave Rogers. Kramer continues to work on the stage as a member of the Antaeus Classical Rep Company in Los Angeles, and received an Ovatti Award nomination for his role in "The Wood Demon". He currently co-stars as Bob Duncan on the Disney Channel sitcom "Good Luck Charlie".
1060565	Saturday Night Fever is a 1977 American dance film directed by John Badham and starring John Travolta as Tony Manero, an immature young man whose weekends are spent visiting a local Brooklyn discothèque; Karen Lynn Gorney as his dance partner and eventual friend; and Donna Pescow as Tony's former dance partner and would-be girlfriend. While in the disco, Tony is the king. His care-free youth and weekend dancing help him to temporarily forget the reality of his life: a dead-end job, clashes with his unsupportive and squabbling parents, racial tensions in the local community, and his associations with a gang of macho friends. A huge commercial success, the film significantly helped to popularize disco music around the world and made Travolta, already well known from his role on TV's "Welcome Back, Kotter", a household name. The "Saturday Night Fever" soundtrack, featuring disco songs by the Bee Gees, is one of the best selling soundtracks of all time. The film is the first example of cross-media marketing, with the tie-in soundtrack's single being used to help promote the film before its release and the film popularizing the entire soundtrack after its release. The film also showcased aspects of the music, the dancing, and the subculture surrounding the disco era: symphony-orchestrated melodies, haute-couture styles of clothing, pre-AIDS sexual promiscuity, and graceful choreography. The story is based upon a 1976 "New York magazine" article by British writer Nik Cohn, "Tribal Rites of the New Saturday Night". In the late 1990s, Cohn acknowledged that the article had been fabricated. A newcomer to the United States and a stranger to the disco lifestyle, Cohn was unable to make any sense of the subculture he had been assigned to write about; instead, the character who became Tony Manero was based on a Mod acquaintance of Cohn's. Plot. Anthony "Tony" Manero (John Travolta) is a 19-year old Italian American from the Bay Ridge neighborhood of Brooklyn in New York City. Tony lives at home with his parents (Val Bisoglio and Julie Bovasso), and works a dead-end job in a small hardware store by day. But every Saturday night, Tony is "king of the dance floor" at 2001 Odyssey, a local disco club. Tony has four close friends: Joey (Joseph Cali); Double J (Paul Pape); Gus (Bruce Ornstein); and the diminutive Bobby C. (Barry Miller). Another informal member of their group is Annette (Donna Pescow), a neighborhood girl who longs for a more permanent and physical relationship with Tony. One plot device in the story is the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge, on which the friends ritually stop to clown around, but is particularly symbolic to Tony as an escape to a better life on the other side, in more suburban Staten Island. Tony agrees to be Annette's partner in an upcoming dance contest at 2001 Odyssey, but her happiness is short-lived when Tony becomes infatuated with another girl dancing at the club, Stephanie Mangano (Karen Lynn Gorney). Stephanie coldly rejects Tony's advances, but eventually agrees to be his partner in the competition, nothing more. Tony's older brother, Frank Jr. (Martin Shakar), who was the pride of the family since becoming a priest in the Catholic Church, brings despair to their parents when he quits the priesthood. Tony shares a warm relationship with Frank Jr., but feels vindicated, no longer being the black sheep. While on his way home from the grocery store, Gus is attacked by a Hispanic gang and is hospitalized, and tells the guys it was the Barracudas. Meanwhile, Bobby C. has been trying to get out of his relationship with his devoutly Catholic girlfriend, Pauline, who is pregnant with his child. Facing pressure from his family and others to marry her, Bobby asks former priest Frank Jr., if the Pope would grant him dispensation for an abortion. But when Frank tells him this would be highly unlikely, Bobby's feelings of despair deepen. Bobby C also lets Tony borrow his 1964 Chevrolet Impala to help move Stephanie from Bay Ridge to Manhattan, with Tony promising to call him later that night, but Tony does not. Eventually, the group gets their revenge on the Barracudas, and crash Bobby C's car into their hangout. Tony, Double J and Joey get out to fight, but Bobby C. takes off when a gang member tries to attack him in the car. When the guys visit Gus in the hospital, they are angry when he tells them that he may have fingered the wrong gang. Later, Tony and Stephanie dance at the competition and end up winning first prize. However, Tony believes that a Puerto Rican couple performed better, and the judges' decision was based on racism. He gives them the first prize, and leaves with Stephanie in tow. Once outside in the car, he tries to rape Stephanie, resulting in her fleeing from him. Tony's friends come to the car along with a drunken and stoned Annette, who Joey says has agreed to have sex with everyone. Tony tries to lead her away, but is subdued by Double J and Joey, and sullenly leaves with the group in the car. Double J and Joey take turns with Annette, who begins to sober up during what has become a rape scene. Bobby C. pulls the car over on the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge for the usual cable-climbing antics. Typically abstaining, Bobby gets out and performs more dangerous stunts than the rest. Realizing that he is acting recklessly, Tony tries to get him to come down. But upset at his lonely life, his situation with Pauline, and a broken promise from Tony earlier, Bobby issues a tirade at Tony's lack of care before slipping and falling to his death more than two hundred feet in the water below. Disgusted and disillusioned by his friends, his life and his family, Tony spends the rest of the night riding the subway. As morning comes, he finally shows up at Stephanie's apartment in Manhattan, apologizing for his bad behavior. He tells her that he plans to leave Brooklyn and come to Manhattan to try and start a new life. Tony and Stephanie salvage their relationship and agree to be friends, sharing a tender moment as the credits roll. Versions and sequel. The R-rated version released in 1977 represented the movie's first run, and totaled 118 minutes. After the success of the first run, in 1978 the film was re-issued to a PG-rated version and re-released during a second run to attract a wider audience. The R-rated version contained profanity, nudity, a fight sequence, and a multiple rape scene in a car, all of which were de-emphasized or removed from the "PG version". Producer Robert Stigwood said in a recent interview on "The Inside Story: Saturday Night Fever", about the PG version: "It doesn't have the power, or the impact, of the original, R-rated edition." The PG-rated version was 112 minutes. Numerous profanity-filled scenes were replaced with alternate takes of the same scenes, substituting milder language initially intended for the network television cut. To maintain runtime, a few deleted scenes were restored (including Tony dancing with Doreen to "Disco Duck," Tony running his finger along the cables of the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge, and Tony's father getting his job back). In 1979, Paramount Pictures paired up the PG-rated version of the film as a double feature along with its other John Travolta blockbuster, "Grease". Both theatrical versions were released on VHS, Laserdisc, and CED Videodisc. But the R-rated version never saw wide release until its Laserdisc (in limited edition) and DVD issues. The R-rated special-edition DVD release includes most of the deleted scenes present on the PG version. The DVD release also includes a director's commentary and "Behind the Music" highlights. Starting in the late 1990s VH1, TBS, and TNT started showing the original R-rated version with a TV-14 rating. The nudity was removed/censored, and the stronger profanity was either edited or (on recent airings) silenced. But this TV edit included some of the innuendos from the original film that were edited or removed from the PG version. Turner Classic Movies has aired the film in both versions (the R-rated version is commonly seen on their normal lineup, while the PG version has appeared on TCM's "Funday Night at the Movies" and "Essentials Jr." program blocks.) The network television version (which premiered on November 16, 1980 on ABC) was basically a slightly shortened form of the PG-rated version, but contained several minutes of out-takes normally excised from both theatrical releases to make up for lost/cut material. It is among the longest cuts of the film.. A sequel, "Staying Alive", was released in 1983. It starred John Travolta and was directed by Sylvester Stallone. ("Staying Alive", rated PG, also predated the introduction of the PG-13 rating.) Production. Donna Pescow was almost considered 'too pretty' for the role of Annette. She corrected this by putting on 40 pounds (18 kilograms) and training herself back to her native Brooklyn accent, which she trained herself away from while she was studying drama at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. After production ended, she immediately lost the weight she gained for the role and dropped the accent. John Travolta's mother Helen and sister Ann both appeared in minor roles in this movie. Travolta's sister is the pizzeria waitress who serves him the pizza slices, and his mother is the woman he sells the can of paint to early in the film. John G. Avildsen was signed to direct but was fired three weeks prior to principal photography over a script dispute with producer Robert Stigwood. Despite this, one reference to Avildsen directing remains in the final film - John Travolta's character has a "Rocky" poster in his room (the first film in that series was directed by Avildsen.) Filming locations. All of the filming locations are in Brooklyn, New York. Soundtrack. (*) ""Jive Talkin'" was not contained in the film." According to the DVD commentary for this movie, the producers intended to use the song "Lowdown" by Boz Scaggs for use in the rehearsal scene between Tony and Annette in the dance studio, and choreographed their dance moves to the song. However, representatives for Scaggs' label, Columbia Records, refused to grant legal clearance for it, as they wanted to pursue another disco movie project, which never materialized. Composer David Shire, who scored the film, had to in turn write a song to match the dance steps demonstrated in the scene and eliminate the need for future legal hassles. However, this track does not appear on the movie's soundtrack. The song "K-Jee" was used during the dance contest with the Hispanic couple that competed against Tony and Stephanie. Some VHS cassettes used a more traditional Latin-style song instead. The DVD restores the original recording. The album has been added to the National Recording Registry in the Library of Congress. Reception. Critical response. "Saturday Night Fever" is regarded by many critics as one of the best films of 1977. The film currently holds a 90% "Fresh" rating on the review aggregate website Rotten Tomatoes. It also holds a score of 77/100 (mostly favorable) on a similar review website Metacritic. It was eventually added to "The New York Times" "Guide to the Best 1,000 Movies Ever Made," which was published in 2004. In 2010, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". Film critic Gene Siskel, who listed this as one of his favorite movies, praised the film: "One minute into "Saturday Night Fever" you know this picture is onto something, that it knows what it's talking about." He also praised John Travolta's energetic performance: "Travolta on the dance floor is like a peacock on amphetamines. He struts like crazy." Siskel even bought Travolta's famous white suit from the film at a charity auction. Film critic Pauline Kael, wrote a gushing review of the film in The New Yorker: "The way "Saturday Night Fever" has been directed and shot, we feel the languorous pull of the discotheque, and the gaudiness is transformed. These are among the most hypnotically beautiful pop dance scenes ever filmed...Travolta gets so far inside the role he seems incapable of a false note; even the Brooklyn accent sounds unerring...At its best, though, Saturday Night Fever gets at something deeply romantic: the need to move, to dance, and the need to be who you'd like to be. Nirvana is the dance; when the music stops, you return to being ordinary." Awards and nominations. Award wins: Award nominations: American Film Institute Lists References in popular culture. John Belushi parodied the film as "Samurai Night Fever", one of his "Samurai" sketches on "Saturday Night Live". Belushi spoofed it again in the film "Neighbors", during a scene in which tilted camera angles show Belushi combing his hair in front of the mirror as "Stayin' Alive" plays in the background. Ironically, the oft-repeated phrase in the movie, "Can you dig it? I knew that you could," had been made famous on "Saturday Night Live" during a stand-up performance by Billy Crystal. The Children's Television Workshop published a record album of music from "Sesame Street" under the title "Sesame Street Fever", the cover of which spoofed the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack album cover, with muppet Grover wearing the white three-piece disco suit in the famous Travolta pose and Bert, Ernie, and Cookie Monster taking the place of the Bee Gees. Robin Gibb (of the Bee Gees) sings on two tracks for this album, "Sesame Street Fever" and "Trash", and has a dialogue with Cookie Monster on the intro for "C Is For Cookie." The Goodies parodied the film in their "Saturday Night Grease" episode. The 1980 film "Airplane!" contained a parody scene, with Robert Hays mocking the famous pose and the clothing shown on the poster and album cover, to the tune of "Stayin' Alive" slightly sped up (the actual song used for that scene in "Saturday Night Fever" was "You Should Be Dancing"). In the 1985 film "Teen Wolf", there is a scene in which Michael J. Fox's character as the wolf is getting ready for a school dance by standing in front of a bathroom mirror blow-drying his hair a la John Travolta as Tony Manero. Clips from "Saturday Night Fever" are featured in the 1986 film "Short Circuit" in which Number 5 dances to "You Should Be Dancing" and then dances with Stephanie played by Ally Sheedy to "More Than A Woman". On the political comedy series "Spin City" which also starred Fox, Paul Lassiter played by Richard Kind is walking the hallways of City Hall is walking with Stayin' Alive playing in the background in the first season episode "Gabby's Song" after spending the night with his girlfriend Claudia portrayed by Faith Prince. In the film "Look Who's Talking" (1989), the opening of "Staying Alive" is heard as Mikey, in the stroller, hits the street being wheeled by James (played by John Travolta). In season 6, episode 7 of "The Simpsons", Jessica Lovejoy (Meryl Streep) invites Bart for dinner, upon which he says, "There's only one thing to do at a moment like this: strut!". Bart then struts to "Stayin' Alive" in the same manner as Travolta's character at the end of the sequel "Staying Alive". In 1998, Singaporean filmmaker Glen Goei made "Forever Fever" (That's the Way I Like It). Set in Singapore during the 1970s, the film starred Adrian Pang as the Tony Manero character who eventually develops a liking for disco dancing. The movie also used cover versions of songs from the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack. In 2000, at the Inner Circle press dinner, mayor Rudy Giuliani spoofed John Travolta by dancing to "Disco Inferno" by The Trammps. Giuliani wore a white 70s-style disco suit. On June 25, 2002, in an episode of "Son of the Beach", David Arquette guest-starred as Johnny Queefer in a send-off episode entitled "Saturday Night Queefer", which also included parodies of the Bee Gees songs sung by a quartet of guys breathing helium balloons to get the high voices like the Gibb brothers. In the 2005 film "Madagascar", when Marty the Zebra escaped the zoo and walks on the streets of Manhattan, the camera displays a similar fashion of the intro of "Saturday Night Fever", even the song "Stayin' Alive" was played in the background. In 2011, British comedian John Bishop includes a tribute to Saturday Night Fever at the end of his performance on his latest Sunshine stand-up tour. His finale whilst playing in theaters, he included a video of him re-enacting the opening scene and dancing at the discothèque however, whilst performing at arenas, he showed extracts of the video and the section where he is supposed to dance at the disco, he emerges on stage with a troupe of dancers and performs the dance routine like John Travolta. On April 17, 2012, aired Fox TV series "Glee" episode 16, "Saturday Night Glee-ver", which pays tribute to the film and features various songs from its soundtrack (especially the songs performed by The Bee Gees), covered by the series' cast. Blu-ray release. On May 5, 2009, Paramount released "Saturday Night Fever" on Blu-ray Disc in 1.78:1 aspect ratio.
680375	Giovanni Alfonso Borelli (28 January 1608 – 31 December 1679) was a Renaissance Italian physiologist, physicist, and mathematician. He contributed to the modern principle of scientific investigation by continuing Galileo's custom of testing hypotheses against observation. Trained in mathematics, Borelli also made extensive studies of Jupiter's moons, the mechanics of animal locomotion and, in microscopy, of the constituents of blood. He also used microscopy to investigate the stomatal movement of plants, and undertook studies in medicine and geology. During his career, he enjoyed the patronage of Queen Christina of Sweden. Biography. Giovanni Borelli was born on 28 January 1608 in the district of Castel Nuovo, in Naples. He was the son of Spanish infantryman Miguel Alonso and a local woman named Laura Porello (alternately "Porelli" or "Borelli".) Borelli eventually traveled to Rome where he studied under Benedetto Castelli, matriculating in mathematics. Sometime before 1640 he was appointed Professor of Mathematics at Messina. In the early 1640s, he met Galileo Galilei in Florence. While it is likely that they remained acquaintances, Galileo rejected considerations to nominate Borelli as head of Mathematics at the University of Pisa when he left the post himself. Borelli would attain this post in 1656. It was there that he first met the Italian anatomist Marcello Malpighi. Borelli and Malpighi were both founder-members of the short-lived Accademia del Cimento, an Italian scientific academy founded in 1657. It was here that Borelli, piqued by Malpighi's own studies, began his first investigations into the science of animal movement, or biomechanics. This began an interest that would continue for the rest of his life, eventually earning him the title of the Father of Biomechanics. Borelli's involvement in the Accademia was temporary and the organization itself disbanded shortly after he left. Borelli returned to Messina in 1668 but was quickly forced into exile for suspected involvement in political conspiracies. Here he first became acquainted with ex-Queen Christina of Sweden who had also been exiled to Rome for converting to Catholicism. Borelli lived the rest of his years in poverty, teaching basic mathematics at the school of the convent where he had been allowed to live. He never saw the publication of his masterwork, "De Motu Animalium (On the Movement of Animals)" as it was published posthumously, financed by Christina and his benefactors at the convent. Sociopolitical climate. In 1542, the Congregation of the Holy Office (now known as the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith) was created by Pope Paul III to facilitate in the inquisition of heresy. This institution had influence in philosophy, mathematics, and science. The Holy Office was designed to protect the Catholic faith from ideas that were viewed as damaging to the Church. Its effects continued through the time of Borelli and on to modern times. The office was a well-structured, localized system that targeted new ideas considered to be dangerous by the Church. In addition to containing these ideas, the Holy Office could also punish the offending parties who brought the ideas into the public domain. This institution was one of many ways in which the Catholic Church responded to the Protestant Reformation of the sixteenth century. Although Borelli lived and worked within this climate, the Holy Office did not hinder his work, perhaps because the Church did not find his work to be damaging to the faith. His work, and the work of many others, however, may still have been influenced by the Holy Office’s treatment of his contemporary Galileo Galilei. His work resembled that of many of his contemporaries in that he started to adhere to the rules of scientific exploration that are used in modern times, that is, building hypotheses and theories based on observations in the natural world, and then testing them. Scientific achievements. Borelli’s major scientific achievements are focused around his investigation into biomechanics. This work originated with his studies of animals. His publications, "De Motu Animalium I" and "De Motu Animalium II", borrowing their title from the Aristotelian treatise, relate animals to machines and utilize mathematics to prove his theories. The anatomists of the 17th century were the first to suggest the contractile movement of muscles. Borelli, however, first suggested that ‘muscles do not exercise vital movement otherwise than by contracting.’ He was also the first to deny corpuscular influence on the movements of muscles. This was proven through his scientific experiments demonstrating that living muscle did not release corpuscles into water when cut. Borelli also recognized that forward motion entailed movement of a body’s center of gravity forward, which was then followed by the swinging of its limbs in order to maintain balance. His studies also extended beyond muscle and locomotion. In particular he likened the action of the heart to that of a piston. For this to work properly he derived the idea that the arteries have to be elastic. For these discoveries, Borelli is labeled as the father of modern biomechanics and the American Society of Biomechanics uses the Borelli Award as its highest honour for research in the area. Along with his work on biomechanics, Borelli also had interests in physics, specifically the orbits of the planets. Borelli believed that the planets were revolving as a result of three forces. The first force involved the planets' desire to approach the sun. The second force dictated that the planets were propelled to the side by impulses from sunlight, which is corporeal. Finally, the third force impelled the planets outward due to the sun’s revolution. The result of these forces is similar to a stone’s orbit when tied on a string. Borelli's measurements of the orbits of satellites of Jupiter are mentioned in Volume 3 of Newton's Principia. Borelli is also considered to be the first man to consider a self-contained underwater breathing apparatus along with his early submarine design. The exhaled gas was cooled by sea water after passing through copper tubing. The helmet was brass with a glass window and 0.6 m (2 ft) in diameter. The apparatus was never likely to be used or tested. Borelli also wrote:
1245652	Blue Eyed is a 1996 documentary film by Bertram Verhaag in which Jane Elliott is teaching a workshop on racism. She separates people regarding their eye color. The brown eye color people are considered to be superior to the blue or green eye color people. Through this simple and obviously non-sense division she creates a whole environment where educated adults, many times in position of power, even though being aware of taking part in a workshop, disagree, argue with each other and cry, not being able to cope or stand the situation in which they are put. Jane Elliott proves that despite people considering themselves open and caring, they never know how deep is the repression and outcasting which they help to create by doing nothing against it and conforming with the current situation.
1062523	The Hurt Locker is a 2008 American war film about a three-man Explosive Ordnance Disposal (bomb disposal) team during the Iraq War. The film was directed by Kathryn Bigelow and the screenplay was written by Mark Boal, a freelance writer who was embedded as a journalist in 2004 with a U.S. Army EOD team in Iraq. It stars Jeremy Renner, Anthony Mackie, and Brian Geraghty. "The Hurt Locker" premiered at the Venice Film Festival in Italy during 2008. After being shown at the Toronto International Film Festival, it was picked up for distribution in the United States by Summit Entertainment. In May 2009, it was the Closing Night selection for Maryland Film Festival. The film was released in the United States on June 26, 2009 but received a more widespread theatrical release on July 24, 2009. Because the film was not released in the United States until 2009, it was eligible for the 82nd Academy Awards, where it was nominated for nine Academy Awards. It won six Oscars, including Best Director for Bigelow, the first woman to win this award, and Best Picture. Boal won for Best Original Screenplay. "The Hurt Locker" earned numerous awards and honors from critics' organizations, festivals and groups, including six BAFTA Awards. However, it received criticism by some in the military for various inaccuracies. Plot. "The Hurt Locker" opens with a quotation from "War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning", a best-selling 2002 book by Chris Hedges, a "New York Times" war correspondent and journalist: "The rush of battle is a potent and often lethal addiction, for war is a drug." Sergeant First Class William James (Jeremy Renner), a battle-tested veteran, arrives as a new team leader of a U.S. Army Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) unit in the Iraq War, replacing Staff Sergeant Matthew Thompson (Guy Pearce), who was killed by a radio-controlled 155mm improvised explosive device (IED) in Baghdad. His team includes Sergeant J.T. Sanborn (Anthony Mackie) and Specialist Owen Eldridge (Brian Geraghty). James' maverick methods and attitude lead Sanborn and Eldridge to consider him reckless, and tensions mount. When they are assigned to destroy some explosives in a remote desert area, James returns to the detonation site to pick up his gloves. Sanborn openly contemplates killing James by "accidentally" triggering the explosion, making Eldridge very uncomfortable, but Sanborn does nothing. Returning to Camp Victory in their Humvee, the team encounters five armed men in traditional Arab garb standing near the men's Ford Excursion, which has a flat tire. After a tense encounter, the men reveal themselves to be private military contractors and British mercenaries. They have captured two prisoners featured on the most-wanted Iraqi playing cards. The entire group suddenly comes under fire, and when the prisoners attempt to escape in the confusion, the leader of the mercenaries (Ralph Fiennes) remembers the bounty for them is "dead or alive" and shoots them. Enemy snipers kill three of the mercenaries, including the leader. Sanborn and James borrow a Barrett .50 cal to dispatch three attackers, while Eldridge kills a fourth. During a raid on a warehouse, James discovers the body of a young boy, which has been surgically implanted with an unexploded bomb. James believes it to be "Beckham" (Christopher Sayegh), an Iraqi youth he had previously befriended. During evacuation, Lieutenant Colonel John Cambridge (Christian Camargo), the camp's psychiatrist and a friend of Eldridge's, is killed in an explosion; Eldridge blames himself for the Colonel's death. Later, James leaves the military compound seeking revenge for Beckham and breaks into the house of an Iraqi professor, but his search reveals nothing and he leaves. Called to a petrol tanker detonation, James decides on his own to hunt for the insurgents responsible, guessing they are still in the immediate area. Sanborn protests, but when James heads out, he and Eldridge reluctantly follow. After they split up, insurgents capture Eldridge. James and Sanborn rescue him but accidentally shoot him in the leg. The following morning, James is approached by Beckham, who James believed was dead. The young boy tries to play soccer with James and sell him more DVDs, but the soldier walks by without saying a word. Before being airlifted for surgery elsewhere, Eldridge angrily blames James for his injury. James and Sanborn's unit is called to another mission in their last two days of their rotation. An innocent Iraqi civilian man has had a bomb vest strapped to his chest. James tries to cut off the locks to remove the vest, but there are too many to undo in the time available before the bomb will detonate. He has to abandon the man, who is killed when the bombs explode. Sanborn is left distraught by the man's death; he confesses to James that he can no longer cope with the pressure and wants to return home and have a son.
1042582	John Bernard Lee (10 January 190816 January 1981), known as Bernard Lee, was an English actor, best known for his role as M in the first eleven Eon-produced James Bond films. Lee's career spanned 1934 to 1979, beginning on stage at the age of six. He was trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. Although best remembered for the Bond series, he appeared in over one hundred films, as well as on stage and television dramatisations. Lee was known for his roles as authority figures, often playing military characters or policemen, and highlights in his career include "The Third Man", "The Blue Lamp", "The Battle of the River Plate" and "Whistle Down the Wind". He died of stomach cancer on 16 January 1981, aged 73. Life and career. Early life. Lee was born on 10 January 1908, the son of Nellie (née Smith) and Edmund James Lee. He was born in either County Cork in what is now the Republic of Ireland, or Brentford, London. Lee's father was also an actor and Bernard's first appearance on stage in 1914, at the age of six, was with his father in a sketch called "The Double Event" at the Oxford Music Hall in London. Lee attended the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, working as a fruit porter to pay his fees. During the 1930s, after graduating from RADA, he initially worked in repertory theatre in Rusholme and Cardiff before beginning work on the West End stage in thrillers, such as "Blind Man's Bluff". Lee also played in comedic roles, such as with Arthur Askey in "Ten Minute Alibi". Lee's screen debut was in "The Double Event" in 1934, followed by a role as Cartwright in Berthold Viertel's "Rhodes of Africa" (1936), a biopic of Cecil Rhodes, in which he starred alongside Walter Huston, Oskar Homolka, and Basil Sydney. Terence Pettigrew mentions a "witty scene" featuring Bernard Lee in the film in which he is "struggling to put on a tight collar prior to slipping into town for a few ales." Although Lee was in wartime service in the army between 1940 and 1946, he had managed to film several films earlier which were released between 1939 and 1943, including "Murder in Soho", "The Frozen Limits", "Let George Do It!" (known in the US as "To Hell with Hitler"), "Spare a Copper", "Once a Crook", and "The New Lot". Second World War to 1962. Lee's wartime service was with the Royal Sussex Regiment and while he was awaiting his demob he attended golfing ladies night where he met a producer and was subsequently offered a part in the play "Stage Door". After the war, Lee returned to the stage whilst also developing a successful film career. He appeared in Herbert Wilcox's "The Courtneys of Curzon Street" (1947), playing a colonel alongside Anna Neagle, Michael Wilding and Daphne Slater; the film was a major success and become the best-selling film at the British box office for 1947. He developed a reputation for playing "solid, dependable characters such as policemen, serving officers or officials" in films such as "The Fallen Idol" (1948), "The Third Man" (1949), "The Blue Lamp" (1950), "Last Holiday" (1950), "Cage of Gold" (1950), "Mr. Denning Drives North" (1952), "The Yellow Balloon" (1953), "Beat the Devil" (1953), and "Father Brown" (1954), and commanders, colonels, or brigadiers in films such as "Morning Departure" (1950), "Calling Bulldog Drummond" (1951), "Appointment with Venus" (1951), and many more. In John Huston's "Beat the Devil", Terence Pettigrew considers Lee to have been instrumental to the climax of the film, remarking that it was "left to Bernard Lee to inject a badly needed touch of earthiness at the end." In total Lee appeared in over one hundred films during his career.
1093595	Francesco Maria Grimaldi (2 April 1618 – 28 December 1663) was an Italian Jesuit priest, mathematician and physicist who taught at the Jesuit college in Bologna. He was born in Bologna to Paride Grimaldi and Anna Cattani.
1163951	Lois June Nettleton (August 16, 1927 – January 18, 2008) was an American actress of film, stage, and television. Early life. Born on August 16, 1927 in Oak Park, Illinois (suburban Chicago), to Virginia and Edward L. Nettleton. She was Miss Chicago of 1948 as well as a semifinalist at that year's Miss America Pageant. Her professional acting career began in 1949. She understudied Barbara Bel Geddes in the original Broadway production of Tennessee Williams' "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" and first appeared on television in "Captain Video". Career. Television/Emmy Award nominations. She performed in dozens of guest-starring roles on television shows, including the original "Twilight Zone" (in the classic episode "The Midnight Sun" in 1961); "Naked City"; "Route 66"; "Mr. Novak"; "The Alfred Hitchcock Hour" (episode "The Dark Pool", 1963); "The Eleventh Hour"; "Dr. Kildare"; "Twelve O'Clock High"; "The Fugitive"; "The FBI"; "Bonanza"; "Gunsmoke"; "The Virginian"; "Daniel Boone". Continued: "Night Gallery" (in the 2nd season episode "I'll Never Leave You—Ever"); "Cannon"; "The Mary Tyler Moore Show"; "Marcus Welby, M.D."; "Barnaby Jones" (as an embezzler); "Kung Fu"; "Medical Center"; "The Streets of San Francisco"; "The Love Boat"; "Trapper John, M.D."; "The Golden Girls"; "Cagney & Lacey"; "In the Heat of the Night"; "Full House"; "Murder, She Wrote"; "Seinfeld"; "Babylon 5" (in the episode "Soul Mates", 1994); "Coach"; "Baywatch Nights"; and "Crossing Jordan".
583053	Sophie Choudry (born Sophia Choudhry, 8 February 1981) is a British film actress and singer. She has been active primarily in Indian films and is also a former MTV India VJ and occasional model and television presenter. Early life. Sophie was born and brought up in London, England, United Kingdom. Her father adored Sophia Loren and hence her birthname is "Sophia", however she now goes by the name "Sophie". She has one elder brother. She now lives with her mother and grandmother. She studied at the London School of Economics, graduating in European politics and French and is also a gold medallist from the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art. Furthermore, she studied for nearly two years at the "Sciences Po", an esteemed political institute in Paris, France, where many French politicians studied. BollySpice reports, that while still studying, Choudry became a VJ for Zee UK. Sophie is a polyglot, able to speak fluently English, Hindi, Urdu, French and Italian and sings in these languages as well as in Spanish, Punjabi and Arabic. She is trained in various dance styles, including Indian classical dance as Bharatnatyam, which she learnt in London for four years, and Kathak, which she learnt in Mumbai for two years as well as in Western dance as salsa. She is also well trained in Western classical music, which she learnt for three years in the UK from Helena Shenel, as well as in Indian classical music, which she learnt from Pandit Ashkaran Sharma. Career. Music. Having completed her education, Sophie decided it was time to follow her dreams and she began her singing career. When she was 12 years old, her talent was discovered by noted music director Biddu, who launched her musical career. She, at first, lent her voice as a backup singer to playback singers like Shweta Shetty and Alisha Chinai. In 2000, she started her career as a pop singer with her all-girl band "Sansara" with a song which Sophie herself wrote ("Yeh Dil Sun Raha Hai"). Very soon the band separated and Choudry started her solo singing career, donning the videos "Habibi" and "Le Le Mera Dil" in 2001. She then moved to Mumbai in 2002, becoming a VJ for MTV India and hosting the popular show MTV Loveline, which eventually gained her popularity. In November 2003, she released her first remix album "Sophie & Dr. Love". The album was a chart-topper for six months in India and broke records in the U.K Asian Pop Charts by holding the number 1 spot for 12 weeks. The album contained old classics by Runa Laila, Nazia Hassan and Salma Agha. The video was directed by Rao and Sapru of "Kaanta Laga" fame and music remixed by Harry Anand. Less than one year on, Sophie returned with her newest offering "Baby Love". According to Sophie, she listened to over 400 songs in order to come up with her perfect 12. Songs on this album include "Dil Ke Armaan", "Ghar aaya Mera Pardesi", "Ek Pardesi Mera Dil Legaya". In December 2009, she launched her album "Sound of Sophie", which had no remixes, but only original numbers. The launch of this album marked her association with the Indian fashion brand MADAME, who sponsored the album and also hired her as their first brand ambassador. She worked with well known music composers such as Rishi Rich, Bappi Lahiri, Biddu and Gaurav Das Gupta in the album.
584844	Ileana D'Cruz is an Indian film actress, who predominantly appears in Telugu movies. She won the Filmfare Award for Best Female Debut – South for the 2006 Telugu film "Devadasu. "She has appeared in films like "Pokiri" (2006), "Jalsa" (2008), "Kick" (2009), and "Julayi" (2012), establishing herself as one of Tollywood's leading actresses. D'Cruz made her Kollywood debut with "Kedi" and made a comeback in Shankar's "Nanban" (2012). In 2012, she made her Bollywood debut with Anurag Basu's critically and commercially successful "Barfi!", for which she received critical appreciation and the Filmfare Award for Best Female Debut. Early life. She was born in Mumbai and has three siblings — older sister Farrah, younger brother Rhys and youngest sister Eileen. Her first name comes from Greek mythology, meaning Helen of Troy. While growing up, she lived in Goa for about seven years. During that time, the manager of the hotel her mother was working in, suggested that she has a beautiful face with a vibrant smile and should start modelling and fixed a meeting with Marc Robinson. Though initially reluctant, she was persuaded and her first portfolio was created in January 2003, which she described as a "disaster". She began gaining notice through photo shoots and ramp shows and her second portfolio was set up the following year, which landed her three advertisements from Electrolux, Emami Talc and Fair and Lovely. The latter, in particular, which was directed by Rakesh Roshan, gave her exposure and brought in several offers for acting in feature films. Career. 2005–2007. In 2005, D'Cruz was called for an audition by director Teja, but the project was cancelled. She instead made her feature film debut in the Telugu language romance film "Devadasu" (2006), directed by Y. V. S. Chowdhary. She underwent acting classes with Aruna Bhikshu, before starting to work on the film. She recalls that during filming she felt "pressured [...] almost cried and didn't want to go further", but went ahead after her mother encouraged her, giving her "the lecture of a lifetime [...] at 3 am." A review from "Indiaglitz" stated that she "has chiseled features and a figure to die-for." "Devadasu" became the year's first major commercial success, eventually grossing around 140 million, whilst earning D'Cruz the Filmfare Award for Best Female Debutant. She next appeared in the gangster film "Pokiri" in which she portrayed an aerobics teacher, who is harassed by a corrupt police officer. The film was a high financial success, emerging as the highest-grossing Telugu film at the time. She made her Tamil-language film debut in "Kedi" (2006). Although the film did not do so well at the box-office, D'Cruz remained too busy to accept all the film roles offered to her. Her Telugu film "Khatarnak" (2006) in which she acted opposite Ravi Teja did not do as well as expected, which has been attributed to her glamorous appearance not going down well with the audience. She subsequently experienced a setback in her career as her following releases "Rakhi" (2006) and "Munna" (2007) proved critically and financially successful. 2007–2011. D'Cruz's career took a turn for the better with the release of her well-received 2007 film "Aata". She received favorable reviews for her performance as Satya, a college student who is on the run from the home minister's crooked son by whom she is targeted, when leading a protest and demanding punishment for his crimes. In 2008, she performed the female lead role in the action film "Jalsa", directed by Trivikram Srinivas. D'Cruz received largely positive remarks, with critics citing that she looked "pretty", "damn cool", and "every bit chic and stunning throughout the film", while being later awarded the Santosham Award, one of five awards for "Jalsa", and the South Scope Style Award, besides garnering a nomination for the Best Actress prize at the 56th Filmfare Awards South. Her first 2009 release, titled "Kick", was likewise declared a box office success, becoming one of the highest-grossing films that year. Later that year she starred in the films "Rechipo" and Y. V. S. Choudary's "Saleem" both of which performed poorly at the box office. D'Cruz had 2 releases in 2011. Her first film that year was "Shakti", where she essayed the lead female role. She gave a stage performance for this movie's audio release function along with Jr. NTR, as part as promotion of the film. The socio-fantasy film, the costliest Telugu film ever made at . Her next release was "Nenu Naa Rakshasi", which marked her second collaboration with Puri Jagannadh. Though the film was a failure, her performance was received positively by critics; an Indiaglitz reviewer described her as a "pleasant surprise in the film" as she "cried, smirked, looked hot, grabbed sympathy and made faces that were apt to the scenes", while cinegoer's reviewer cited that the film had "one bright spot, Ileana, she looks stunning and also like an accomplished senior to the hero." Despite her recent failures, D'Cruz continued to be the highest paid actress in South India. 2012–present. In early 2012, she starred in the Kollywood film "Nanban", a remake of the 2009 Hindi film "3 Idiots" directed by S. Shankar. The film opened to critical acclaim and became a major financial success. Her next release was the Telugu film "Julai". The film opened to positive reviews and became the third biggest hit in 2012 and biggest hit in Telugu. She then starred in Puri Jagannadh's comedy "Devudu Chesina Manushulu". In this film she played the role of a taxi driver. The film received mixed reviews and eventually under-performed at the box office. D'Cruz made her Hindi debut with Anurag Basu's "Barfi!" In addition to playing the role of the narrator, she portrayed the character of Shruti Ghosh, a girl who leaves her true love for material comforts. The movie released on 14 September 2012, to highly positive reviews from critics, and was a major commercial success, earning worldwide. D'Cruz's performance was well received, earning her a Filmfare Best Female Debut Award, as well as a nomination for Filmfare Award for Best Supporting Actress. Rachit Gupta from Filmfare said "This is Ileana’s first film but her fantastic performance is just a testament why the Telugu audience consider her a superstar. Of course it also helps that she is the most visually appealing in Barfi! out shining even the scenic hills of Darjeeling". Rajeev Masand stated "Ileana leaves a lasting impression in her Hindi film debut, conveying both love and pain through those beautiful, expressive eyes". The film was screened at the Busan International Film Festival, Marrakech International Film Festival and was chosen as India’s official entry to the Oscars for the 85th Academy Awards. Upcoming projects. She is working in a Hindi film called Phata Poster Nikla Hero, which released on September 20, 2013,and garnered her positive reviews. her other projects include main tera hero opposite varun dhawan and happy ending and a film opposite actor akshay kumar. References. Sources
584369	Arvind Swamy, also sometimes spelled Aravind Swamy is an Indian film actor who features mainly in Tamil cinema. He was introduced as an actor by Mani Ratnam in the drama film "Thalapathi" (1991) and subsequently went on to play the lead role again in Ratnam's "Roja" (1992) and "Bombay" (1995). Swamy went on to star in other ventures including the Malayalam film "Devaraagam" (1996) and Rajiv Menon's "Minsaara Kanavu", and Mani Ratnam's "Alaipayuthey" (2000). Swamy spent a decade in businesses ranging from construction to international trade to outsourcing before returning to acting in Mani Ratnam's production, "Kadal", which was released on Feb 1st, 2013. Early life. Swamy was born in Chennai, Tamil Nadu. His parents were industrialist V. D. Swamy and the Bharatanatyam dancer Vasantha Swamy. Swamy studied at the Sishya School and later in Don Bosco Matriculation Higher Secondary School and completed his schooling in 1987. He then graduated from Loyola College, Chennai in 1990 in business. He went to the United States to do his Masters in International Business from Wake Forest University in North Carolina. In childhood, Swamy never wanted to become an actor or join his father's business. Instead he wanted to become a doctor. In college, he used to model for pocket money. When he joined the Loyola Theatre Society, he wasn't well received and asked to get off stage. Mani Ratnam saw one of his ads and called him for a meeting. He and Santhosh Sivan introduced him into the basics of film making. Film career. Swamy made his debut in Mani Ratnam's action drama film, "Thalapathi", where he played a young district collector pitted against a don and his own biological brother. Subsequently Mani Ratnam signed him on to play the lead role in the 1992 political drama film "Roja". "Roja" and "Bombay" won awards at the State and National Film Award functions, and his performance in "Bombay" was called "soulful" by Time Magazine. Swamy has won several awards, popular and critical, for his films. In 1995, Swamy provided the Tamil dubbing voice for the adult Simba of Disney's "The Lion King" (1994). He starred in Rajiv Menon's "Minsaara Kanavu", which won four National Film Awards besides high box office reviews. Swamy semi-retired from acting in 2000 after playing a guest role in Mani Ratnam's "Alaipayuthey" and concentrated on his business interests. He initially wanted to come back to films after 4-5 years, but was physically injured. The treatment took another 4-5 years. After his successful treatment, Mani Ratnam called him once more to play a role in one of his films, "Kadal" (2013) for which Swamy lost 15 Kilograms of weight. Swamy stated that he was initially nervous to do a film after this long gap, and wondered whether he could be as effective as in his early films, "Roja" and "Bombay". Business career. Swamy was director of V. D. Swamy and Company and engaged in international trade and engineering erection and construction. He was the president of InterPro Global and the chairman and managing director of Prolease India, engaged in transaction processing. He then founded Talent Maximus a company engaged in payroll processing and temporary staffing in India. Personal life. Swamy married Gayathri Ramamurthy in 1994 and they had a daughter, Adhira (born 1996) and a son Rudra (born 2000). However, the couple lived separately for seven years until 2010, when they filed for divorce. Arvind Swamy continues to live with his children.
901987	The People vs. George Lucas is a 2010 documentary/comedy film which explores the issues of filmmaking and fanaticism pertaining to the "Star Wars" franchise and its creator, George Lucas. The film combines filmmaker and celebrity interviews with fan films which were submitted via the film's site. Interviewees include a variety of figures such as Neil Gaiman, MC Frontalot and Gary Kurtz. Lucas himself appears frequently in archival footage but is never interviewed directly. The film discusses the extent to which the "Star Wars" franchise is an artistic creation of Lucas and subject to his vision versus a social phenomenon that belongs to the general public of fans and their participatory/remix culture. The film is dedicated to interviewee Jason Nicholl, a blogger at nukethefridge.com who died before the film's release. The DVD was released on October 25, 2011. Background and contents. Director Alexandre Philippe, a lifetime "Star Wars" fan from his early childhood, has said that the film was not meant to be one-sided against Lucas, although the title has often created that interpretation. He instead aims at showing both sides evenhandedly to explore to what extent the Star Wars franchise is controlled by Lucas versus something morally held by the public. Philippe believes Lucas is a relatively talented director and an "ideas man" based on the original Star Wars trilogy, "THX 1138 "and "American Graffiti". However, Philippe dislikes the changes made by Lucas in re-releases of the original trilogy as well as the prequel trilogy. Philippe thinks that fans deserve and ought to receive a complete re-mastering and re-release of the original series in current formats (DVD, Blu-ray, etc.) without any changes. Philippe also states that, to his knowledge, Lucas has never seen the documentary. However, Philippe has said that he would love to hold a private screening at Skywalker Ranch. The film begins with a brief history of Lucas' career leading up to the release of "" in 1977. The rest of the film is structured by inter-cutting interviews with all kinds of fans, academics, film critics, former colleagues of Lucas, well-known writers in the science fiction/fantasy genre and others. The narrative of the film shows the complex relationship between Lucas and his fans as well as how and why exactly the elements of the Star Wars franchise have appealed to so many people so deeply. Reviews and reception. "The New York Post" ran a positive review by Kyle Smith in which the film received three out of four stars. AMC critic Josh Bell wrote, ""People" is a skillfully edited, wide-ranging look at a subject that's very close to many movie fans' hearts, part of an ongoing debate that will only gain more attention as Lucas continues to tinker with his creations." Independent critic Christian Toto praised the film and wrote that "the Force is strong with this one". "Salt Lake City Weekly" ran a negative review by Bryan Young, who commented that the "film comes off as a one-sided attack" and that it's "not hard to talk to people who love Star Wars... the filmmakers should have tried harder to provide that balance." "Slant Magazine" writer Elise Nakhnikian lauded the film as "one of this year's best" documentaries. She also called it, "Smart, funny, and often impassioned." Philippe has appeared on the RedLetterMedia program "Half in the Bag" by Jay Bauman and Mike Stoklasa to discuss the film, which the interviewers praised. In a sketch, "George Lucas" broke into the interview room to assassinate Philippe by lighting a fuse to a copy of "Howard the Duck" (a 'bomb'). Philippe defuses the bomb and then leaves after asking Bauman and Stoklasa: "So, is this what you guys do with your lives?"
1163577	Garry Emmanuel Shandling (born November 29, 1949) is an American comedian, actor and writer. He is best known for his work in "It's Garry Shandling's Show" and "The Larry Sanders Show". Shandling began his career writing for sitcoms such as "Sanford and Son" and "Welcome Back, Kotter". He made a successful stand-up performance on "The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson" and became a frequent guest-host on the show. Shandling was for a time considered the leading contender to replace Carson (other hopefuls were Joan Rivers, David Letterman and David Brenner). In 1986 he created "It's Garry Shandling's Show", for the pay cable channel Showtime. It was nominated for four Emmy Awards (including one for Shandling) and lasted until 1990. His second show, "The Larry Sanders Show", which began airing on HBO in 1992, was even more successful. Shandling was nominated for 18 Emmy Awards for the show and won in 1998, along with Peter Tolan, for writing the series finale. During his three-decade career, Shandling has been nominated for 19 Primetime Emmy Awards, two Golden Globe Awards, along with many other awards and nominations. Early life and career. Shandling was born in Chicago, Illinois, to a Jewish family. He grew up in Tucson, Arizona, the son of Muriel, a pet store proprietor, and Irving Shandling, a print shop owner. He had an older brother, Barry, who died of cystic fibrosis when Garry was 10. Shandling attended Palo Verde High School. After graduation, he attended the University of Arizona, at first majoring in electrical engineering, but eventually completing a degree in marketing and pursuing a year of postgraduate studies in creative writing. In 1973, Shandling moved to Los Angeles, California. He worked at an advertising agency for a time, and then sold a script for the popular NBC sitcom "Sanford and Son". Shandling's script became the November 21, 1975 episode titled "Sanford and the Rising Son," in which Ah Chew (played by Pat Morita) turned junkyard owner Fred Sanford's (played by Redd Foxx) house into a Japanese restaurant. Shandling also wrote the script for the "Sanford and Son" episode, "The Committee Man", in which Fred Sanford represents the community of Watts on the Los Angeles Mayor's Committee. In addition to "Sanford and Son", Shandling wrote scripts for the sitcoms "Welcome Back, Kotter" and "Three's Company". In 1977, Shandling was involved in an auto accident in Beverly Hills that left him in critical condition for two days. He later turned the accident into part of his stand-up comedy. Stand-up comedy. In an interview, he said that he became a stand-up comedian because he was frustrated by situation comedy's formulaic writing. In 1978, Shandling performed his first stand-up routine at the Comedy Store in Los Angeles. His persona was an anxiety-ridden, grimacing, guarded, confused man on the verge of losing control. After a couple of years on the road, a talent scout from "The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson" caught his act and booked him to appear as a guest on March 18, 1981. Shandling began substituting for Carson on a regular basis, along with Joan Rivers, until 1985. In 1984, he performed his first stand-up special, "Garry Shandling: Alone in Vegas", for Showtime, followed by a second televised special in 1986, "The Garry Shandling Show: 25th Anniversary Special", also for Showtime. In 1991, a third special, "Garry Shandling: Stand-Up", was part of the "HBO Comedy Hour". Shandling still performs stand-up comedy and tours the U.S. each year. He also continues to perform on various television talk shows. Some of his stand-up performances can be viewed on YouTube, including his first appearance on "The Tonight Show" and some of his "Comic Relief" act. TV series. It's Garry Shandling's Show. Shandling and co-writer Alan Zweibel went on to create the surreal comedy series "It's Garry Shandling's Show" in 1985. It ran for 72 episodes on the Showtime cable television network through 1990. The edited reruns played on the Fox network beginning in 1988. Shandling wrote 15 episodes of the show. The series subverted the standard sitcom format by having its characters openly acknowledge that they were all part of a TV show. Building on a concept that harked back to "The Burns and Allen Show", in which George Burns would frequently break the "fourth wall" and speak directly to the audience, Shandling's show went so far as to incorporate the audience and elements of the studio itself into the storylines, calling attention to the artifice of the show. The show was nominated for four Emmy awards including one for Shandling. He won an American Comedy Award for Funniest Male Performance in a Series, and won four CableACE awards, two for Best Comedy Series. The show also won an award for Outstanding Achievement in Comedy in the Television Critics Association Awards. On October 20, 2009, Shout! Factory released "It's Garry Shandling's Show: The Complete Series" on DVD. The 16-disc set features extensive bonus features including featurettes, commentaries and outtakes. The first season was released individually on April 15, 2010. The Larry Sanders Show. In 1992, Shandling launched another critical and commercial success by creating the mock behind-the-scenes talk show sitcom "The Larry Sanders Show". It ran for 89 episodes through 1998 on the cable network HBO. It garnered 56 Emmy Award nominations and three wins. In an interview, he stated that he based the show on his experiences guest hosting "The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson". The show was a behind-the-scenes look at the world of Larry Sanders, fictional host of a talk show entitled "The Larry Sanders Show". It sardonically depicted the talk-show business as a den of vipers, with egomaniacal celebrities, clueless network executives, drug addiction, broken marriages, cutthroat competition and comedic camaraderie. In 1993, NBC offered Shandling $5 million to take over the late-night talk show "Late Night" when host David Letterman announced his highly publicized move to CBS, but Shandling declined. "The Larry Sanders Show" later spoofed the network's efforts to find a Letterman successor, making it appear to be Tom Snyder. Shandling wrote 38 episodes of the show, and directed three in the show's final season. Shandling was nominated for 18 Emmy Awards for the show; five for acting, seven for writing and six for being co-executive producer with Brad Grey. He won one Emmy Award for Outstanding Writing in a Comedy Series for the series finale "Flip". He has also been nominated for two Golden Globe Awards for Best Actor (Musical or Comedy) in 1994 and 1995. He won two American Comedy Awards for Funniest Male Performance in a Comedy Series, eight CableACE awards and a BAFTA Award. It is the most successful show Shandling has created. The show also influenced other shows such as "Entourage", "30 Rock", "Extras" and "Curb Your Enthusiasm" in which guest stars play themselves in episodes of the series. In 2002, "TV Guide" named "The Larry Sanders Show" as 38th Greatest Show of All Time. In 2008, "Entertainment Weekly" ranked the show the 28th Best Show of the past 25 years. It was also included on "Time" magazine's 100 Greatest Shows of All Time. The first season was re-released in 2007 along with a "Not Just the Best of the Larry Sanders Show" which are Shandling's pick of the best 23 episodes. On November 2, 2010, Shout! Factory released "The Larry Sanders Show: The Complete Series" on DVD. The 17-disc set features extensive bonus features including featurettes, commentaries and outtakes. Other Awards and nominations. He has won two British Comedy Awards, eleven CableACE Awards (seven for "The Larry Sanders Show" and four for "It's Garry Shandling's Show"), a BAFTA Award and was nominated for two Writers Guild of America Awards for "The Larry Sanders Show". He has also received three American Comedy Awards, two Satellite Award nominations, and in 2004 he was presented with the Austin Film Festival's Outstanding Television Writer Award. Other work. Shandling has appeared occasionally in movies, beginning with a cameo as dental patient Mr. Vertisey in "The Night We Never Met". He played supporting roles in the 1994 films "Love Affair" and "Mixed Nuts", "Dr. Dolittle" (1998) as the voice of a live-action pigeon, the David Rabe play adaptation "Hurlyburly" (1998), and "Trust the Man". Shandling wrote and starred in director Mike Nichols' "What Planet Are You From?" (2000), and co-starred with Warren Beatty and others in "Town & Country". He also appeared in a brief cameo in the comedy film "Zoolander" (2001). Again voicing an animal, Shandling co-starred as Verne the turtle in the computer animated comic strip adaptation "Over the Hedge" (2006). He appeared in "Iron Man 2" (2010), as Senator Stern and will reprise the role in "" (2014). He appears uncredited as a health inspector in "The Dictator" (2012). Shandling hosted the Grammy Awards from 1990 to 1995, and the Emmy Awards in 2000 and 2004. At the first Emmy hosting job, Shandling cracked up the audience by saying "I auditioned to play the Vice President on "The West Wing", but they said 'No, too Jewish'", a reference to real-life Vice Presidential candidate Senator Joe Lieberman during the 2000 Presidential campaign. He appeared in "Caroline in the City" in 1998. In 2006, comedian Ricky Gervais interviewed Shandling for a British documentary, citing him as a comic influence. The reviews of British TV critics were mixed – one "Guardian" reviewer described it as "the uneasiest interview ever", another as Gervais' most interesting but the general consensus was that it felt "awkward", a hallmark of both the artists' comedic styles. Shandling starred as himself representing Fox Mulder alongside Téa Leoni as Dana Scully in "The X-Files" season 7 spoof episode "Hollywood A.D." Shandling, along with co-author David Rensin, wrote the book "Confessions of a Late Night Talk Show Host: The Autobiography of Larry Sanders" written in the voice of his alter ego, Larry Sanders. Personal life. Shandling is unmarried and has divulged little about his personal life. He shared an apartment with actress fiancee and onetime Playboy model Linda Doucett from 1987 until 1994; on "The Larry Sanders Show", Doucett portrayed Darlene, Hank Kingsley's doting assistant. After their breakup, she was written out of the show. Doucett then filed a lawsuit against Shandling and producer Brad Grey's company for sexual harassment and wrongful termination, which was settled out of court for $1 million. To promote "Not Just the Best of The Larry Sanders Show", he appeared on the "Late Show with David Letterman", where he explained that he plays a lot of basketball and has just started boxing. He has also mentioned on "The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson" that he has a pet snake. Shandling was one of only a few people to attend Farrah Fawcett's funeral. In popular culture. In the Butthole Surfers song "Revolution Part 2," Gibby Haynes sings a long chorus of Shandling's name interspersed with those of other famous actors. Haynes said that Shandling was "just one of those people who haunt me." A few years later, the Butthole Surfers made an appearance playing themselves on "The Larry Sanders Show" in the episode "The Prank". He is mentioned by Marge in "The Simpsons" season 13 episode "Jaws Wired Shut".
585895	Gopika (born 26 August 1984 as Girly Anto) is an Indian film actress, who has predominantly starred in Malayalam films. Starting her career as a model, she ventured into acting with the film "Pranayamanithooval" (2003). She went on to appear in over 35 films, working in Tamil, Telugu and Kannada film industries as well. Early life. Gopika was born as Girly Anto to Anto Francis and Tessy Anto in Ollur in Thrissur, Kerala. She has one sister, Glini. After completing her 12th standard in St. Raphael's Convent Girls High School, Ollur, she studied sociology from the Calicut University. She learnt classical dance from her teacher Kamalher. She was crowned as Miss College during her farewell. The beauty contest Miss Thrissur was turning point in her life. Though she did not win the title, she stood as the first runner up in the contest which gained her few modeling assignments. She claims that she never wanted to be an actress, and her ambition was to be airhostess. Career. Her first film was "Pranayamanithooval", in which she starred with Jayasurya and Vineeth. "Pranayamanithooval", directed by Director Thulasi Das did not do well but got her recognition in the film industry. She got a second film "4 the People" which was a blockbuster and had its prints dubbed in many different Indian Languages. The film was directed by Jayaraj and she acted opposite Bharath. The song "Lejjavathiye Ninde Kalla Kadaikkannil" from the film was also a big hit in Kerala. Renowned Tamil movie director Cheran signed her up for his film "Autograph" which was another big hit in 2004. She also acted in "Kana Kandaen". Among her other movies she has acted in Kannada film "Kanasina Loka" and the Telugu remake of "Azhagi". Her Telugu film "Leta Manasulu" directed by Raju Upati crashed at the box office. She starred in the Malayalam movie "Kirtichakra" opposite Superstar Mohanlal. Directed by Major Ravi the movie tells the story about a soldier against the backdrop of Kargil war. Apart from "Kirtichakra", she also did another movie with Dileep "Pachakuthira". Her previous film with Dileep "Chanthupottu" was a big hit. "Veruthe Oru Bharya" was a phenomenal hit and it also fetched her the Asianet Best actress award of 2008. Personal life. On 17 July 2008, Gopika married Ajilesh Chacko, a doctor working in Northern Ireland. She has come back to the cinema industry after marriage, acting in the movie Swantham Lekhakan and says that she will continue to act in more films if she gets good opportunities and likes the script. She says that her husband doesn't mind her acting and that she is getting a lot of support from him and her family. A daughter, Amy, was born to them in Belfast on 14 April 2010. Gopika made a comeback to the Malayalam cinema in the movie Bharya Athra Pora along with Jayaram, directed by Akku Akbar.
1236415	Naveen William Sidney Andrews (born 17 January 1969) is a British Indian actor. He is best known for portraying Sayid Jarrah in the television series "Lost, "Kip in the film "The English Patient" and Sanjay in the 2002 remake of "Rollerball". Early life. Andrews was born in Lambeth, London, the son of Nirmala, a psychologist, and Stanley Andrews, a businessman, both Malayali Nasrani immigrants from Kerala, India. He was brought up in Wandsworth, South London, and had what he has described as a "very repressive" upbringing. Andrews was brought up in the Methodist denomination. At the age of 16, while at Emanuel School, he fell in love with his mathematics teacher, Geraldine Feakins; seven years later they had a son, Jaisal, born in 1992. Career. Andrews auditioned for drama school and was accepted at London's Guildhall School of Music and Drama with Ewan McGregor and David Thewlis. His studies paid off when he won a role in Hanif Kureshi's film, "London Kills Me" (1991). Andrews starred in the 1993 BBC miniseries "Buddha of Suburbia". He portrayed "Kip" in "The English Patient" (1996) and Sayid in the popular television series "Lost" (2004). In 2006, he was voted one of "People" magazine's World's Most Beautiful People. He also starred in "" (1996), "Mighty Joe Young" (1998) and "Bride and Prejudice" (2004). Personal life. Andrews was in a relationship with actress Barbara Hershey; they lived together in Los Angeles. The couple separated briefly in 2005 and, during that time, Andrews had another son, Naveen Joshua, with Czech actress, Elena Eustache. He and Hershey later reconciled. However, he and Hershey announced in May 2010 that they had separated six months earlier. He has been involved in an ongoing custody dispute with Eustache over their son; on 7 January 2009 Andrews was granted sole legal and physical custody of the child. Andrews has spoken about his alcoholism and his two-year addiction to heroin in the mid-'90s. Andrews also plays guitar and sings, while tap-dancing to his own tune as a hobby. He became a naturalised US citizen on 27 May 2010.
1015987	Shu Qi (born 16 April 1976), birth name Lin Li-Hui, is a Taiwanese actress and model. She has also been credited as "Hsu Chi" and "Shu Kei" (Cantonese for "Shu Qi") due to the different dialects of the films she acted in. Early life and career. Born in Xindian District, Taipei County (now New Taipei City), Shu Qi moved to Hong Kong at the age of 17. She began in the softcore pornography modelling industry, appearing on the cover of "Penthouse" for the February 1995 Hong Kong issue and the Chinese edition of "Playboy". She eventually came under the management of Hong Kong film producer Manfred Wong, who signed her on to several softcore Hong Kong films such as "Sex & Zen II" (1996). Film career. Shu Qi starred in Derek Yee's 1996 film, "Viva Erotica", which was about the erotic film industry in Hong Kong, together with Karen Mok and Leslie Cheung. She received the Best Supporting Actress award for her performance in "Viva Erotica" at the 16th Hong Kong Film Awards in 1997. Since then, she has appeared in mainstream Hong Kong films such as "Gorgeous" (1998), Stanley Kwan's "The Island Tales" (1999) and Hou Hsiao-Hsien's critically acclaimed "Millennium Mambo" (2000). In 2002, Shu Qi appeared in the French action film "The Transporter" and Corey Yuen's "So Close". In 2004, she played the lead character in the Hong Kong horror film "The Eye 2". In 2005, she won the Best Actress Award at the 2005 Golden Horse Awards for her three roles in Hou Hsiao-Hsien's "Three Times". Shu Qi was a member of the jury of the Berlin International Film Festival in 2008. In the same year, she starred in a romantic comedy film, "If You Are the One", directed by Feng Xiaogang. The film grossed over ¥364 million (US$53.7 million) at the Chinese box office. In 2009, she was a member of the jury at the Cannes Film Festival. Other work. From 2006 to 2009, Shu Qi was selected by Kenzo Takada to be part of the third advertising campaign for its successful fragrance, "Flower by Kenzo". She also worked as a spokesperson for Shiatzy Chen. Shu Qi has been representing Frederique Constant in Asia as a brand ambassador since 2008. In 2009, she, along with Frederique Constant and Paint-a-Smile Foundation, repainted the murals on the walls of the cardiology department at the Beijing Children's Hospital. Shu Qi has also been Emporio Armani's Asian ambassador since its Fall/Winter 2010 collection. Filmography. Other works. "Hong Kong" (2008): an audio walking tour by Louis Vuitton and Soundwalk
1038884	Les Dennis (born Leslie Dennis Heseltine; on 12 October 1953) is an English comedian, television presenter and actor. He was best known as the host of "Family Fortunes" for 15 years. Early life. Dennis was born in Garston, Liverpool, Lancashire. His father worked in a betting shop after service in the Royal Navy during World War II and a period as a football player on the books of Liverpool F.C. (but did not play for the first team), whilst his mother worked in a factory. He attended the Stockton Wood and Joseph Williams primary schools and then Quarry Bank High School after passing the Eleven plus exam. He had a Saturday job in Burton's clothes store whilst still at school and started in entertainment as a stand-up comedian in working men's clubs. Career. Early work and "Family Fortunes". As a comedian Dennis worked the North West social and working men's clubs. He was given his earliest opportunities by Liverpool based husband and wife theatrical agents Stuart and Dorene Gillespie ( Stuart and Dorene had been a successful act themselves in Variety ) and in his autobiography he credits them with discovering him. His first radio appearance was in 1971 on Stuart's BBC Radio Merseyside series Variety Time (The programmes were taped in front of a live audience in Merseyside Clubs ). In 1974, he won "New Faces", an ITV talent show and appeared on numerous light-entertainment shows. In 1982, he joined as one of the team on "Russ Abbot's Madhouse" and "The Russ Abbot Show" before forming a comedy partnership with fellow impressionist Dustin Gee, which in turn led to a series of their own, "The Laughter Show". Following Dustin's sudden death on January 3, 1986, Les carried on "The Laughter Show" as a solo performer and became the third host of "Family Fortunes" for a fifteen-year run from 1987 to 2002. Theatre work. His theatre work included Amos Hart in "Chicago", Bill Snibson in "Me and My Girl" in the West End. He had starred in "Skylight" at the Water Mill Theatre, Newbury, Berkshire; "Mr Wonderful" at the Gateway Theatre, Chester, "Misery" at the Coliseum Theatre, Oldham; toured in the play "Just Between Ourselves" and appeared with Janet Suzman in "Cherished Disappointments In Love" at London's Soho Theatre. He starred with Christopher Cazenove and John Duttine in a national tour of Art and as Norman Bartholomew in Anthony Shaffer's dark comedy "Murderer" at London's Menier Chocolate Factory. He also starred in a hit season in "Neville's Island" at Birmingham Repertory Theatre. He appeared in the role of Mr. Fulton in "High School Musical 2" in a UK tour from late August 2009 to February 2010. He had also made an appearance on two episodes of "Bang Bang, It's Reeves and Mortimer" in The Club sketch, where he played himself. He also took part in a video-only special of "Shooting Stars" in 1993, where Vic Reeves introduced him pronouncing his name as if it were French saying "Les Dennis, the French fire engine". He toured in Hairspray as Wilbur Turnblad alongside Michael Ball, Brian Conley and Michael Starke – who alternated the role of Edna Turnblad. He is currently starring in the touring production of "Legally Blonde The Musical" playing the role of Professor Callahan. Film work. Dennis' big screen debut was in the film "Intimate Relations" with Julie Walters, Rupert Graves and Laura Sadler and he appeared in the comedy feature film "Large" and in "Wildlife", a short directed by Nick Allsop. Soap acting. Dennis acted in soap operas "Brookside", "Merseybeat", "Family Affairs", "Casualty" and the short-lived revival of "Crossroads" plus "Hotel Babylon" (for one episode). "Big Brother". Dennis appeared in the second series of the UK "Celebrity Big Brother" during the period when his marriage to Amanda Holden was breaking down again – he described his time in the BB House as "not one of his wisest moves", although he went on to finish as runner-up to Mark Owen. "Extras" and beyond. On 11 August 2005 Dennis appeared as a guest star in an episode of the first series BBC-series "Extras" written by and starring Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant. In this appearance, Dennis portrayed a fictional version of himself, alongside Gerard Kelly, who played a camp theatre director, the recurring character Bunny. Dennis would go onto say that "you could say Extras changed my life." In early 2006, Dennis presented and performed in BBC One's "The Sound of Musicals" and guested in "New Street Law" on BBC One. In summer 2006, he played scriptwriter Nick Chase in a new comedy play called "Marlon Brando's Corset", which toured the UK from July 2006, including a month-long run at the Edinburgh Fringe. He appeared as a guest in August 2006 on the ITV drama series, "The Bill" starring as a man suspected of murdering his father. Dennis appeared alongside fellow former "Russ Abbot" performer Lisa Maxwell, who played D.I. Samantha Nixon in the series. At the 2006 Edinburgh International Television Festival, it was announced Les would make a return to the gameshow genre, presenting a new big-money quiz show titled "In the Grid" for Channel 5. The show debuted on 30 October 2006. From April 2007, he also hosted UKTV Gold's "TV Now and Then" quiz show. The same month he guest starred on BBC One's "Holby City". He appeared on "The Friday Night Project" as a panellist on "Who knows the most about the guest host?" when Rupert Everett guest hosted. In theatre Les guest-starred as narrator in "Side by Side by Sondheim" at the Venue, London. As one of the team, he completed running the Safaricom Marathon in Lewa to raise funds for the BBC Wildlife Fund, screened on BBC One's "Saving Planet Earth" in July 2007. In August 2007, he starred in the hit play "Certified Male"- about the highs and lows of modern manhood – at the Edinburgh Festival. He then toured in "The Servant of Two Masters", directed by Michael Bogdanov and at Christmas he returned to pantomime after a ten-year break, co-starring in "Cinderella" with Hollywood veteran Mickey Rooney at the Empire Theatre, Sunderland, produced by First Family Entertainment. Recent work. Les Dennis' autobiography, "Must The Show Go On?", was published by Orion in early 2008. In April 2008, Dennis toured in Eurobeat Almost Eurovision prior to a West End season in the show. Also in 2008, he narrated the home video clip show on Challenge, "Les Dennis's Home Video Heroes", and appeared in the ITV documentary "Les Dennis' Liverpool", which was, coincidentally, broadcast a week after BBC Two ran "Alexei Sayle's Liverpool", a three-part documentary on the city. During Christmas 2008 panto season, Dennis appeared as Buttons in "Cinderella" at the Empire Theatre, Liverpool. The pantomime also featured Jennifer Ellison as Cinderella, and Cilla Black as the Fairy Godmother. At Christmas 2008, Les was featured on the Wombats' Christmas single and video "Is This Christmas?" in aid of MENCAP. In 2009, Dennis played Herbert Soppitt in J.B. Priestley's "When We Are Married" at the West Yorkshire Playhouse, Leeds and the Playhouse, Liverpool. At Christmas 2009, he returned to the Liverpool Empire to appear in "Peter Pan" with Fonz actor Henry Winkler and again in 2010 to play the role of Aladdin's brother, Wishee Washee in Aladdin. As of 2010, Dennis presents the children's TV series "Fee Fi Fo Yum" for CBBC. From 17 October 2011, Dennis was due to start a week-long stint in "Countdown's" Dictionary Corner. In 2011 he again worked with Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant, with recurring appearances as a fictionalized version of himself in the Warwick Davis comedy series, “Life’s Too Short”. From August 2012, he performed in the play "Jigsy" at the Assembly Rooms (Edinburgh) as part of the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Dennis has been playing the part of King Arthur in Monty Python's Spamalot at London's Playhouse Theatre since 2 August 2013 Dennis was a contestant in Celebrity Masterchef 2013 and was runner-up. Personal life. Dennis married actress Amanda Holden, his second wife, on 4 June 1995. They had a temporary split in 2000 when Holden's affair with actor Neil Morrissey was exposed in the press, before eventually separating in December 2002 and divorcing in 2003. Dennis met Claire Nicholson in 2005. The couple have a daughter, Eleanor Grace, who was born on 24 April 2008; Dennis and Nicholson were married on 23 November 2009 in Highgate. Their son Thomas Christopher was born on 14 April 2011. Dennis also has an adult son, Philip, from his first marriage. Dennis is a Liverpool fan, despite the fact that his mother was a Manchester United supporter.
1745118	, or The Vanishment of Haruhi Suzumiya, is a 2010 Japanese animated film based on the fourth "Haruhi Suzumiya" light novel of the same name written by Nagaru Tanigawa. It is produced by Kyoto Animation and directed by Tatsuya Ishihara and Yasuhiro Takemoto. It was released in Japanese theaters on February 6, 2010 and on DVD and Blu-ray Disc on December 18, 2010. The film has been licensed by Bandai Entertainment in North America and Manga Entertainment in the UK. Plot. Following on from the events of "The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya" anime series, the story takes place from December 16 until December 24, a month after the cultural festival. The SOS Brigade, led by Haruhi Suzumiya, makes plans to have a nabe party for Christmas. However, on the morning of December 18, Kyon arrives at school and finds out everything has changed. Haruhi, along with Itsuki Koizumi, are missing, Ryoko Asakura has mysteriously returned, Mikuru Asahina does not recognize him and Yuki Nagato is an ordinary human, complete with emotions. Only Kyon is aware that everything is different, as no one remembers anything about Haruhi or the SOS Brigade. The only clue Kyon manages to find is a bookmark left by the alien version of Yuki before everything was changed, telling him to gather 'keys' to run a program. While wondering about this clue, he gets to know the new Yuki, who appears to be quite fond of him. As December 20 comes, Kyon learns from Taniguchi that Haruhi was at another high school the whole time, along with Itsuki and others formerly from his school. By revealing his identity to her as 'John Smith' (his alias when he first traveled back in time and assisted a young Haruhi), Kyon manages to convince Haruhi to believe his story. With her assistance they gather the SOS Brigade together in the club room, thus bringing the keys necessary for a program built by alien Yuki. Wanting to go back to his interesting life, Kyon activates the program and goes back in time to the Tanabata of three years ago. After meeting up with the future Mikuru, he obtains an uninstall program from the past's Yuki, which needs to be shot at the culprit right after the change in the early hours of December 18. Returning to the present, they find the culprit, Yuki, who had borrowed Haruhi's power to change everyone's memories except Kyon's, giving him the choice of which world he would rather live in. Kyon questions himself about his choice, and decides that his original world was more interesting and fun. Kyon tries to install the program into Yuki but is stabbed by Ryoko, who had retained her psychotic behavior. Before Ryoko can finish him off, he is rescued by future counterparts of Yuki, Mikuru and himself. He wakes up a few days later in a hospital, where the world is back to normal, but almost everyone believes Kyon had been in a coma since December 18 after having fallen down the stairs. When Yuki mentions to Kyon how the Data Integration Thought Entity would punish her for her actions, Kyon tells her to let them know that if they ever do, he can tell Haruhi about him being John Smith and have her alter reality so the Data Integration Thought Entity would cease to exist. As December 24 comes and his everyday life returns, Kyon decides there is still time before he has to go back in time to save himself and decides to join in on the Christmas party. Production and release. On December 18, 2007, the official website of "The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya" anime series, haruhi.tv, was replaced by a fake 404 error with five form input fields, a reference to the pivotal date in "The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya", the fourth volume in the light novel series. The story of "The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya" did not appear in the 2009 re-airing of the anime series "The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya", which included previously un-aired episodes adapted from the second, third and fifth novels. However, at the close of the 2009 season on October 8, 2009, a 30-second teaser trailer showing Yuki Nagato was aired, revealing that "The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya" would actually be a film, set for a February 6, 2010 release. A one-minute promotional video was released in December 2009. The film was released on BD/DVD, in regular and limited editions on December 18, 2010 in Japan. The film has been licensed for North America distribution by Bandai Entertainment. English-subtitled screenings began running in San Francisco's Viz Theater from May 21, 2010, and were followed by a screening at the Laemmle's Sunset theater in Hollywood on June 24, 2010 and a theatrical run in Hawaii in June 2010 through Consolidated Theatres and Artisan Gateway as part of their Spotlight Asia Films program. An English-language version has been co-produced by Bang Zoom! Entertainment and was released on DVD and Blu-ray Disc in North America on September 20, 2011. Manga Entertainment released it in the UK on DVD on November 7, 2011, though a planned 2012 Blu-ray release has been cancelled. Madman Entertainment released the film on DVD and Blu-ray in Australia and New Zealand on November 16, 2011. The film had its European premiere on October 17, 2010 at the Scotland Loves Anime event in Edinburgh. Animax Asia will air the film. Music. The film's theme song is by Minori Chihara, the single of which was released on February 24, 2010. The opening theme is "Bōken Desho Desho?" by Aya Hirano. The film's original soundtrack was released on January 27, 2010. The soundtrack is performed by the Eminence Symphony Orchestra and was produced by Satoru Kōsaki. Related media. A spin-off manga titled is illustrated by Puyo and started serialization in Kadokawa Shoten's "Young Ace" in July 2009. A visual novel video game titled was released on May 12, 2011 by Bandai Namco Games for the PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Portable. The game's story takes place shortly after the events of the film. Reception. With the film's release on February 6, 2010 on 24 screens in Japan, it placed in the top 10 for Japanese box office sales in its first weekend, and earned an estimated 200 million yen in its first week. The film won the Best Theatrical Film award at the 2010 Animation Kobe Awards. The BD version sold over 77,000 copies in its first week, topping the Oricon charts, while placing fourth in the DVD charts with 19,667 copies sold. Minori Chihara won the Best Singing Award at the fifth annual Seiyu Awards held in 2011 in Tokyo for her performance of the "Yasashii Bōkyaku" ending theme song. In Thailand, the film was forced by the nationwide floods to be screened only at the Lido Theatre, Siam Square, Bangkok, and only for one day, November 6, 2011. However, it is reported that the tickets were immediately sold out on the first day of booking. After the showing, Rose Media & Entertainment, the Thai "Haruhi Suzumiya" franchisee, also held an auction of the "Haruhi" goods, including limited BDs and DVDs, and donated all the earnings to the flood relief efforts.
1101021	Richard Ewen Borcherds (born 29 November 1959) is a British mathematician specializing in lattices, number theory, group theory, and infinite-dimensional algebras. He was awarded the Fields Medal in 1998. Personal life. Borcherds was born in Cape Town, but the family moved to Birmingham in the United Kingdom when he was six months old. His father is a physicist and he has three brothers, two of whom are mathematics teachers. He was a promising mathematician and chess player as a child, winning several national mathematics championships and "was in line for becoming a chess master" before giving up after coming to believe that the higher levels of competitive chess are merely about the competition rather than the fun of playing. He was educated at King Edward's School, Birmingham and Trinity College, Cambridge, where he studied under John Horton Conway. After receiving his doctorate in 1985 he has held various alternating positions at Cambridge and the University of California, Berkeley, serving as Morrey Assistant Professor of Mathematics at Berkeley from 1987 to 1988. From 1996 he held a Royal Society Research Professorship at Cambridge before returning to Berkeley in 1999 as Professor of mathematics.
1161463	Thomas Andrew "Tom" Lehrer (; born April 9, 1928) is an American singer-songwriter, satirist, pianist, and mathematician. He has lectured on mathematics and musical theater. Lehrer is best known for the pithy, humorous songs he recorded in the 1950s and 1960s. His work often parodies popular song forms, though Lehrer usually creates original melodies when doing so. A notable exception is his song "The Elements", where he sets the names of the chemical elements to the tune of the "Major-General's Song" from Gilbert and Sullivan's "Pirates of Penzance." Lehrer's earlier work typically dealt with non-topical subject matter and was noted for its black humor, seen in songs such as "Poisoning Pigeons in the Park". In the 1960s, he produced a number of songs dealing with social and political issues of the day, particularly when he wrote for the U.S. version of the television show "That Was The Week That Was". Despite their of-the-moment subject matter and references, the popularity of these songs has endured; Lehrer quoted a friend's explanation: “Always predict the worst and you’ll be hailed as a prophet.” In the early 1970s, he retired from public performances to devote his time to teaching mathematics and music theatre at the University of California, Santa Cruz. He did two additional performances in 1998 at a London gala show celebrating the career of impresario Cameron Mackintosh. Early life. Lehrer was born in 1928 to a Jewish family in Manhattan. Although he was raised Jewish, Lehrer later on became an agnostic atheist. Lehrer began studying classical piano at the age of seven. He was more interested in the popular music of the age, however. Eventually, his mother also sent him to a popular-music piano teacher. At this early age, he began writing his own show tunes, which eventually helped him in his future adventures as a satirical composer and writer in his years of lecturing at Harvard University, and later at other universities. Lehrer graduated from the Horace Mann School in Riverdale, NY. He attended Camp Androscoggin, both as a camper and a counselor. While studying mathematics as an undergraduate student at Harvard College, he began to write comic songs to entertain his friends, including "Fight Fiercely, Harvard" (1945). Those songs were later named "The Physical Revue", a joking reference to a leading scientific journal, "The Physical Review". Mathematics career. Lehrer earned his AB in mathematics ("magna cum laude") from Harvard University in 1946, when he was nineteen. He received his MA degree the next year, and was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa. He taught classes at MIT, Harvard, and Wellesley. He remained in Harvard's doctoral program for several years, taking time out for his musical career and to work as a researcher at the Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory. He served in the U.S. Army from 1955 to 1957, working at the National Security Agency. (Lehrer has stated that he invented the Jell-O Shot during this time, as a means of circumventing liquor restrictions.) All of these experiences eventually became fodder for songs, e.g., "Fight Fiercely, Harvard", "The Wild West Is Where I Want To Be" and "It Makes a Fellow Proud to Be a Soldier".
1033846	Sir Anthony "Tony" Robinson (born 15 August 1946) is an English actor, comedian, amateur historian, TV presenter and political activist. He is known for playing Baldrick in the BBC television series "Blackadder" and for hosting Channel 4 programmes such as "Time Team" and "The Worst Jobs in History". Robinson is a member of the Labour Party and has served on its National Executive Committee. He has also written sixteen children's books. Early life. Born in Homerton in the London Borough of Hackney, London, Robinson attended the independent Woodford Green Preparatory School followed by Wanstead High School in what is now the London Borough of Redbridge. He performed in his first professional acting role at the age of 12, as a member of Fagin's gang in the original production of the musical "Oliver!", including a stint as the Artful Dodger when the boy playing the role didn't turn up. Over the next five years, he appeared in a number of West End shows, in film and on television. At school, Robinson passed four O-Levels (English Language, English Literature, History and Geography) and went on to study for A-Levels. However, he did not complete his A-Levels and decided to study at a drama school instead. Career. Too young to attend the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, Robinson instead studied at the Central School of Speech and Drama. After leaving, he spent four years in repertory theatre most notably at the West Yorkshire Playhouse in Leeds. He won an Arts Council bursary to work as a director at the Midland Arts Centre, Birmingham and founded the Avon Touring Company, a Bristol-based community theatre company, with writer David Illingworth. He played a small role as student doctor Grace in the 1972-73 series of "Doctor In Charge". He appeared in the 1974-75 season at Chichester Festival Theatre, as Angel Chicago in the nativity musical "Follow The Star". In the 1975 season, he appeared as Hovstad in Henrik Ibsen's "Enemy of the People". In 1976, he appeared as Feste in "Twelfth Night", and as Majorin in "Monsieur Perrichon's Travels". In 1972 he starred in the children's educational programme "Sam on Boffs' Island" and was later a presenter on "Play Away". He also appeared in the award-winning "Horizon" documentary "Joey", and in the title role in the BBC production of "The Miracle of Brother Humphrey". He also had a minor part in the film "Brannigan" starring John Wayne. He was also one of the "Who Dares Wins" team in the Channel 4 comedy/satirical show in the early/mid-1980s. "Blackadder" period (1983–1989). Robinson came to prominence in 1983 for his role in the British historical sitcom "Blackadder", as Edmund Blackadder's dogsbody Baldrick. In the first series, broadcast as "The Black Adder", he was quite astute, while his master was an idiot. Later series ("Blackadder II", "Blackadder the Third", "Blackadder Goes Forth") moved the duo through history and switched the relationship: the Edmund Blackadder of "Blackadder II" was a brilliant schemer, whereas Baldrick had devolved into a buffoon whose catchphrase was "I have a cunning plan" (which he rarely had). In addition to his acting on "Blackadder", Robinson also wrote and narrated several "Jackanory"-style children's programmes, encouraged by Richard Curtis. Programmes in this style included "Tales From Fat Tulip's Garden" (continued in "Fat Tulip Too"), "Odysseus: The Greatest Hero of Them All" (a retelling of the "Iliad" and the "Odyssey") and "Blood and Honey" (tales from the Old Testament, filmed on location). After "Blackadder" (1989 – present). After "Blackadder", Robinson became the narrator and one of the lead actors for the British animated series "Nellie the Elephant", based on a song of the same name. The series ran from 1989 to 1991 and was shown on Children's ITV. He also provided voice-over to the "Free-ranger" Chicken cartoon short, an English child-scripted arts-funded production in 1989. Robinson also presented the early-Saturday evening series "Stay Tooned" for BBC 1, which featured a selection of classic Warner Brothers and MGM cartoons. In 1989 he created the children's comedy TV series "Maid Marian and her Merry Men", a loose retelling of the legend of Robin Hood in which he appeared as the Sheriff of Nottingham. Four series were broadcast on BBC1 during 1989–94. In 1990 he appeared as "Shlomo Denkoviz" in Series 8, Episode 2 of "Bergerac" - "My Name’s Sergeant Bergerac". In 1994, Robinson began presenting "Time Team", a TV programme devoted to archaeological investigations limited to three days (the outcome is never guaranteed, varying from spectacular to disappointing). In 2005, Exeter University conferred an Honorary Doctorate on Robinson, and Honorary Professorships on principal presenter Mick Aston and producer Tim Taylor, to reflect its great appreciation for what "Time Team" has done for the public understanding of archaeology in the UK. In the 2011 episode "Hitler's Island Fortress", Robinson described himself as an amateur archaeologist. Also in 1994, Robinson played a minor part in an episode called "One Flew Over the Parents Nest" in the TV series "Minder", playing a character called "Willie the Weed". Robinson was drafted to present other history-based shows on Channel 4, including "The Worst Jobs in History", researching and re-enacting some of the more horrible jobs of the past millennium. He also took this show on tour around the country along with an autobiographical question and answer session. This first series was followed by "The Worst Christmas Jobs in History" in December 2005 and then a second series of "The Worst Jobs in History" on Channel 4 in April 2006. In 1999, Robinson returned to star in a one-off "Blackadder" short film to celebrate the new millennium, entitled "". This short film was shown in the Millennium Dome throughout 2000 and was later aired on BBC One in 2002. Robinson also contributed the voiceover for the TV series "Airline" in its set of new series from 1999 focusing on the daily routine of EasyJet staff at a selection of airports. The show was made for ITV and is often repeated today on Sky Real Lives, Sky 1, Sky 2, Sky 3 (now Pick TV) & ITV2. He worked as the narrator for six of the remaining nine series until 2006 when the series ended. "Tony Robinson's Cunning Night Out", a largely improvised stage show, followed in early 2005 and included a mix of the many themes from his career for which Robinson is famous. He also edited and presented "The Real Da Vinci Code", a documentary for Channel 4's "Weird World" series which countered the claims made by Dan Brown in his novel "The Da Vinci Code". In addition to telling his own stories, Robinson narrated the abridged audio book versions of Terry Pratchett's "Discworld" novels. Nigel Planer, Celia Imrie and Stephen Briggs narrated the unabridged versions. He also provided the voicing for several characters in the videogame "Discworld". He followed on this "Discworld" work by playing a role in the live action television dramatisation of "Hogfather", broadcast on Sky over the Christmas season in 2006. Robinson also presented Classic FM's "Friendly Guide to Classical Music" which aired on a Sunday at 4 pm. The whole 16-episode series was repeated on 26 December 2006. He revealed on the BBC Radio 2 feature "Tracks of My Years" that his favourite songs are: "I Can Help" by Billy Swan, "Bleeding Love" by Leona Lewis, "Chasing Cars" by Snow Patrol, "Beautiful" by Christina Aguilera, "Unfinished Sympathy" by Massive Attack, "Tangled Up In Blue" by Bob Dylan, "Shoulda Woulda Coulda" by Beverley Knight, "This Woman's Work" by Maxwell, "He's So Fine" by the Chiffons and "Falling Slowly" by the Frames. In 2007, Robinson narrated television advertisements for Honda, in the humorous style of "Tales From Fat Tulip's Garden". The advertisements feature plastic cars with expressive faces (similar to "Thomas the Tank Engine"). He has also done voiceovers for laundry product Vanish as of 2007. In the spring of 2007 Robinson visited thirty towns in Britain and Ireland with his one-man show, "A Cunning Night Out". The show was released on DVD. With Channel 4 Robinson presented "Tony Robinson's Crime and Punishment" and "Catastrophe" and "Man on Earth" focusing on humanity's struggle with climate change in the past 200,000 years. "Tony Robinson and the Paranormal" was first broadcast on Channel 4 in December 2008. In this series, Robinson investigates paranormal phenomena combining the fields of archaeology, parapsychology, history and spiritualism to investigate paranormal evidence. In July 2009, he appeared in the light-hearted BBC1 series "Hotel Babylon" as sly hit-man named Arthur Barnes. The character is knocked unconscious by a flying bottle expertly lobbed by the hotel manageress during a showdown in the lobby. In February 2010 Robinson, described as the 'stunt Pratchett', read the main part of Terry Pratchett's BBC "Richard Dimbleby Lecture". From 1 September 2010, Robinson hosted a new series on National Geographic Channel called "Birth of Britain" which was repeated on Channel 4 beginning in January 2011. "Tony Robinson Explores Australia" was first broadcast in the first half of 2012. Filmed in High Definition, the series roughly follows a chronology from the earliest sightings of "Terra Australis Incognita" through to the present with each era defined by a theme rather than equal blocks of time. From 10 September 2012, Robinson hosted a new series on History Channel Australia called "Tony Robinson's Time Walks". The series uncovers stories that shaped the character of various cities and suburbs around Australia, including Fremantle, Melbourne, Hobart, Woolloomooloo, Bendigo, Newcastle, Carlton, Brisbane, St Kilda and Adelaide. During October 2012, it was announced that Time Team would be cancelled after nearly 20 years on television. Tara Conlan from the Guardian called the show "television history". When talking about the successful run of the show, Tony Robinson said "Not many performers are given the privilege of featuring in two iconic TV series – but I've been lucky." It is said that the show is being cancelled due to dwindling viewing figures. Politics and personal life. Robinson and his former wife Mary Shepherd were active in Bristol Labour politics from the early 1980s. From 1996 to 2000, he was vice-president of the actors' union Equity, helping with a huge restructuring programme which turned a £500,000 deficit into a small surplus. He continues to work within Equity. In 2000 he was elected to the Labour Party's National Executive Committee, a position he held to 2004. He was also active in the "Make Poverty History" campaign during early 2005, in the lead-up to the G8 summit in Scotland, and is the patron for UK-based charity Street Child Africa. In March 2011, Robinson participated in the 'March for the Alternative' protests in Central London, which opposed the Conservative led Coalition UK Government's spending cuts programme. In 2006 he appeared in "Tony Robinson: Me and My Mum", a documentary surrounding Robinson's decision to find a nursing home for his mother, and the difficulty he had with doing so. The documentary showed his mother's death in the home. It also featured stories from other families in similar situations. It appeared as part of Channel 4's short season of programmes entitled "The Trouble With Old People". He previously supported the football clubs Tottenham Hotspur and Stoke City, but now supports League One side Bristol City. He also follows Spanish Liga BBVA side Valencia, often spending his holidays in the country. He is honorary president of the Young Archaeologists' Club of the Council for British Archaeology. Robinson has shown his support for the Burma Campaign UK, an NGO that aims to highlight human rights violations in Burma under the State Peace and Development Council. He is a big fan of the rock band Genesis and provided sleeve notes for the reissue of the album "The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway" as part of the "Genesis 1970–1975" box set. In late 2009 he was invited to be guest speaker at the Pride of Craegmoor Awards, where he gave a speech about his time with his mother and finding a care home. He then went on to give the prizes to Craegmoor's Shining Star and Leading Light. Robinson married Louise Hobbs on 24 June 2011. Robinson was knighted in the 2013 Birthday Honours for public and political service. Robinson was quoted as saying "I’ll use my new title with abandon to highlight the causes I believe in, particularly the importance of culture, the arts and heritage and the plight of the infirm elderly and their carers," adding, “I also pledge that from this day on I’ll slaughter all unruly dragons, and rescue any damsels in distress who request my help.”
1100459	Alonzo Church (June 14, 1903 – August 11, 1995) was an American mathematician and logician who made major contributions to mathematical logic and the foundations of theoretical computer science. He is best known for the lambda calculus, Church–Turing thesis, proving the undecidability of the Entscheidungsproblem, Frege–Church ontology, and the Church–Rosser theorem. Life. Alonzo Church was born on June 14, 1903 in Washington, D.C. where his father, Samuel Robbins Church, was the judge of the Municipal Court for the District of Columbia. The family later moved to Virginia after his father lost this position because of failing eyesight. With help from his uncle, also named Alonzo Church, he was able to attend the Ridgefield School for Boys in Ridgefield, Connecticut. After graduating from Ridgefield in 1920, Church attended Princeton University where he was an exceptional student, publishing his first paper, on Lorentz transformations, and graduating in 1924 with a degree in mathematics. He stayed at Princeton, earning a Ph.D. in mathematics in three years under Oswald Veblen. He married Mary Julia Kuczinski in 1925 and the couple had three children, Alonzo Church, Jr. (1929), Mary Ann (1933) and Mildred (1938).
587394	Uthiripookkal is a 1979 Tamil drama film directed by J. Mahendran. The movie was based on Pudhumaipithan's short story Chitrannai.The movie is considered as a break through in commercial Tamil cinema. Director Mani Ratnam once famously remarked: "If I get anywhere near what Mahendran did in "Udhiri Pookkal", I’ll be a happy man." Editor B. Lenin made his debut in this film. IBN Live included the film in its list of 100 greatest Indian films of all time. Plot. Sundaravadivelu (Vijayan) is a wealthy school manager and a landlord who is a hedonist and a sadist. He finds pleasure in torturing people emotionally including his own family members. His wife Lakshmi (Ashwini) is a goodhearted homely wife, and he has two children. Sundaravadivelu never respects his wife's feelings. He is an irresponsible husband and a father. Lakshmi's father is indebted to Sundaravadivelu as he had borrowed money from him. Using this as a trump card, Sundaravadivelu proposes Lakshmi's sister. But Lakshmi's sister and father do not approve this. Sundaravadivelu is infuriated and forces out his wife from his house falsely accusing her of having an affair with the health inspector of the village. Lakshmi, who is seriously ill, passes away soon. Sundaravadivelu marries again, and his second wife shows no love or care for his kids. Meanwhile, Lakshmi's sister develops a liking towards an school teacher working at Sundaravadivelu's school. The teacher, knowing Sundaravadivelu's sadism and ill mindset, resigns from school and then proposes Lakshmi's sister. The marriage is set, and on the previous day, Lakshmi's sister goes to Sundaravadivelu's house, requesting him to send his kids with her, so that she can take care of her. Sundaravadivelu molests her which is seen by his second wife. His wife ditches him and go her way. The villagers are provoked and maddened now. They corner Sundaravadivelu and ask him to choose his way of death, and finish his life. Sundaravadivelu commits suicide, and in his last moments, he realises that he was always a sadist. Moments before his death he shares a tender moment with his kids. Soundtrack. This movie features 5 songs composed by Ilaiyaraaja and lyrics written by Kannadasan, Ilaiyaraaja, Gangai Amaran, M. G. Vallaban and Muthulingam.
1213018	Christmas on Mars is a science fiction film from the alternative rock band The Flaming Lips, written and directed by the band's frontman, Wayne Coyne and featuring the entire band in the cast, as well as many of their associates, including Steve Burns, Adam Goldberg, and Fred Armisen.
69556	Dattaraya Ramchandra Kaprekar (1905–1986) was an Indian mathematician who discovered several results in number theory, including a class of numbers and a constant named after him. Despite having no formal postgraduate training and working as a schoolteacher, he published extensively and became well known in recreational mathematics circles. Biography. Kaprekar received his secondary school education in Thane and studied at Fergusson College in Pune. In 1927 he won the Wrangler R. P. Paranjpe Mathematical Prize for an original piece of work in mathematics. He attended the University of Mumbai, receiving his bachelor's degree in 1929. Having never received any formal postgraduate training, for his entire career (1930–1962) he was a schoolteacher at Nashik in Maharashtra, India. He published extensively, writing about such topics as recurring decimals, magic squares, and integers with special properties. He also known as "Ganitanand" (गणितानंद) Discoveries. Working largely alone, Kaprekar discovered a number of results in number theory and described various properties of numbers. In addition to the Kaprekar constant and the Kaprekar numbers which were named after him, he also described self numbers or "Devlali numbers", the Harshad numbers and Demlo numbers. He also constructed certain types of magic squares related to the Copernicus magic square. Initially his ideas were not taken seriously by Indian mathematicians, and his results were published largely in low-level mathematics journals or privately published, but international fame arrived when Martin Gardner wrote about Kaprekar in his March 1975 column of "Mathematical Games" for "Scientific American". Today his name is well-known and many other mathematicians have pursued the study of the properties he discovered. Kaprekar constant. Kaprekar discovered the Kaprekar constant or 6174 in 1949. He showed that 6174 is reached in the limit as one repeatedly subtracts the highest and lowest numbers that can be constructed from a set of four digits that are not all identical. Thus, starting with 1234, we have
774075	Brendan Jacob Joel Fehr (born October 29, 1977) is a Canadian film and television actor, perhaps best known for portraying Michael Guerin in the WB television series "Roswell" and for portraying Laboratory Tech in "". In 2008, Fehr won a "Gemini Award" for "Hottest Canadian Male TV Star". Early life. Fehr was born in New Westminster, British Columbia, to a mother who worked as a correctional case manager and a father who was a yacht manufacturer. He moved to Winnipeg, Manitoba in 1990, and was raised a strict Mennonite. He graduated in 1995 from Mennonite Brethren Collegiate Institute. Career. Fehr has modeled for Levi's, Calvin Klein, Emporio Armani, DKNY Jeans and his pictures appeared in magazines. In 1996 he was cast in an early Internet soap opera, "CR6". He broke into television in 1997 when he was cast in "Breaker High". In 2001, Fehr starred in the U2 video "Stuck in a Moment You Can't Get Out Of". He plays a rookie football player named Paul Hewson (Bono's real name), who blows what would have been the game winning kick in an American football game as the ball hit the goal post. He appeared in Vanessa Carlton's video "Pretty Baby". Since 2008, he has starred as Jake Stanton in the ABC mini-series "Samurai Girl", and he has had a recurring role as the character Jared Booth on "Bones". Fehr recently played a businessman in "A Christmas Kiss" and the navigator of a U.S. warship in the movie "X-Men First Class". Personal life. Fehr lives in Los Angeles, California with his wife, Jennifer Rowley, whom he married in July 2006. The couple have three daughters. Awards and nominations. Saturn Award Gemini Award Genie Award Teen Choice Awards
394179	Ahn Sung-ki (; born January 1, 1952) is a South Korean actor.
1164547	Melissa Ann McCarthy (born August 26, 1970) is an American film and television actress, comedian, writer and producer. McCarthy first gained recognition for her role as Sookie St. James on the television series "Gilmore Girls", where she starred from 2000 to 2007. From 2007 to 2009, she portrayed Dena on the ABC sitcom "Samantha Who?". McCarthy was then cast as Molly Flynn-Biggs on the CBS sitcom "Mike & Molly", a role that earned her an Emmy Award win, as well as another subsequent nomination. McCarthy was also nominated for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy Series for her work as host on "Saturday Night Live". McCarthy achieved major success and fame for her breakthrough role in the 2011 comedy hit "Bridesmaids," which garnered her numerous award nominations including an Academy Award nomination, a BAFTA nomination and a Screen Actors Guild Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress. She also appeared in the films "The Nines", "The Back-up Plan", and "Life as We Know It", and her 2013 roles include "Identity Thief", "The Heat", and "The Hangover Part III". Early life. Melissa Ann McCarthy was born in Plainfield, Illinois, the daughter of Sandra and Michael McCarthy. She is a first cousin of actress Jenny McCarthy. McCarthy was raised on a farm, in a "big, Irish-Catholic family". Some of her ancestors were from County Cork. She graduated from St. Francis Academy (now Joliet Catholic Academy) in Joliet, Illinois. Her career started with stand-up comedy and includes film, television and theater. McCarthy is an alumna of The Groundlings, an improvisational and sketch comedy troupe based in Los Angeles, California. Career. In 1997 she appeared in an episode of the NBC comedy series "Jenny". From 2000 to 2003 she played supporting roles in the films "Disney's The Kid", "Charlie's Angels", "Go", "The Third Wheel" and "The Life of David Gale". She also did voice work in three episodes of "Kim Possible", where she played DNAmy. From 2000 to 2007 she played the role of Sookie St. James, the control freak and scatterbrain/klutzy best friend of Lorelai Gilmore on the The WB television series "Gilmore Girls". In 2007, she acted opposite Ryan Reynolds in "The Nines", written and directed by John August. McCarthy played Dena on the ABC sitcom "Samantha Who?" from 2007 to 2009. She also was a guest star in TV series "Rita Rocks" in 2009 and "Private Practice" in 2010. In 2010, she played character roles in films "The Back-Up Plan" and "Life as We Know It". Since 2010 McCarthy has played a leading role as Molly Flynn on the CBS hit sitcom "Mike & Molly". In 2011, she received her first Emmy award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series for her role on "Mike & Molly". In 2011, McCarthy had a breakout performance in the hit film "Bridesmaids" alongside Kristen Wiig, Maya Rudolph, Rose Byrne, Wendi McLendon-Covey and Ellie Kemper. McCarthy received critical acclaim and an Academy Award nomination for her performance. In June 2011, she hosted the "Women in Film Crystal + Lucy Awards". She appeared as the host of "Saturday Night Live" on October 1, 2011, and again on April 6, 2013. McCarthy plays a role in the 2012 movie "This Is 40", the sequel to Judd Apatow's film Knocked Up. She was invited to join the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in June 2012 along with 175 other individuals. In 2013, she starred in the film "Identity Thief" with Jason Bateman. She also starred in the film "The Heat", with Sandra Bullock, and will star in "Tammy". McCarthy is also the author and producer of an upcoming CBS pilot. Personal life. McCarthy married her longtime boyfriend, Ben Falcone, an actor and alumnus of The Groundlings, on October 8, 2005. They have two daughters, Vivian, born May 5, 2007, and Georgette, born in March 2010. McCarthy's pregnancy with Vivian was written into the last season of "Gilmore Girls". Awards and nominations. Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy SeriesNominated — Teen Choice Awards for Best Scene Stealer Female Nominated — Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series Nominated — Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy Series Nominated — Teen Choice Award for Favorite Movie Actress: ComedyNominated — Teen Choice Awards for Best Villain Teen Choice Awards for Choice Movie: Chemistry "(with Sandra Bullock)"Nominated — Teen Choice Awards for Choice Summer Movie Star: FemaleNominated — Teen Choice Awards for Choice Movie: Hissy Fit Nominated — Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy Series
1244869	Gasland is a 2010 American documentary written and directed by Josh Fox. Nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary in 2011, the film focuses on communities in the United States impacted by natural gas drilling and, specifically, a method of horizontal drilling into shale formations known as slickwater fracking. Synopsis. Fox narrates his reception of a letter in May, 2008, from a natural gas company offering to lease his family's land in Milanville, Pennsylvania for $100,000 to drill for gas. This claim has been challenged by Energy In Depth, which has stated that the lease to which Fox refers in the movie was never offered and did not provide a $100,000 offer. Fox then set out to see how communities are being affected in the west where a natural gas drilling boom has been underway for the last decade. He spent time with citizens in their homes and on their land as they relayed their stories of natural gas drilling in Colorado, Wyoming, Utah and Texas, among others. He spoke with residents who have experienced a variety of chronic health problems directly traceable to contamination of their air, of their water wells or of surface water. In some instances, the residents are reporting that they obtained a court injunction or settlement monies from gas companies to replace the affected water supplies with potable water or water purification kits. Throughout the documentary, Fox reached out to scientists, politicians and gas industry executives and ultimately found himself in the halls of Congress as a subcommittee was discussing the Fracturing Responsibility and Awareness of Chemicals Act, "a bill to amend the Safe Drinking Water Act to repeal a certain exemption for hydraulic fracturing." Hydraulic fracturing was exempted from the Safe Drinking Water Act in the Energy Policy Act of 2005. Production. "Gasland" was conceived, directed, primarily filmed and narrated by Fox. This is his first documentary and second film; his first was a narrative feature entitled "Memorial Day". The executive producers of "Gasland" are Debra Winger and Hunter Gray; producers are Trish Adlesic, Fox and Molly Gandour; co-produced by David Roma; cinematographers are Fox and Matthew Sanchez; editor is Matthew Sanchez; supervising sound editor is Brian Scibinico; animators are Juan Cardarelli and Alex Tyson; consultants are Morgan Jenness and Henry Chalfant and researchers are Molly Gandour, Barbara Arindell, Fox and Joe Levine. The documentary was made in about eighteen months. Fox began the project as a one man crew, but was joined by three other cameras at different points. Matt Sanchez is credited with the structure of the film and together with Fox edited roughly 200 hours of footage to about 100 minutes. "Biogenic" and "thermogenic". Dave Neslin and the State of Colorado’s Department of Natural Resources issued a statement regarding “errors in the film’s portrayal of the Colorado incidents.” Neslin, now of David Graham and Stubbs LLP, a law firm specializing in representing energy companies, was approached but not included in the film. His statement focuses in part on a distinction between biogenic and thermogenic gas:
631563	Saw IV is a 2007 Canadian-American horror film and midquel to 2006's "Saw III" and the fourth installment of the Saw series. It was directed by Darren Lynn Bousman and written by newcomers Patrick Melton, Marcus Dunstan and Thomas Fenton. The film was released in North America on October 26, 2007. The film's North American release date followed the series' tradition that the films be released the Friday before or on Halloween of each year. The film continues the story of the Jigsaw Killer and his obsession with teaching people the "value of their own lives". Despite Jigsaw being killed in the last installment, the film still focuses on his ability to manipulate people into continuing his work of trapping people. The story follows Daniel Rigg being put in a series of tests in order to try and let go of his obsession of saving everyone, whilst at the same time attempting to save his partner. Plot. After his death, the "Jigsaw killer", John Kramer's (Tobin Bell) body is on the operating table in the police station. During an autopsy a wax-coated tape is found in Kramer's stomach. It is given to Det. Mark Hoffman (Costas Mandylor, a warns him that he will not walk away untested. Meanwhile,Trevor (Kevin Rushton) and Art Blank (Justin Louis), awaken chained at the neck to a winch in a mausoleum. Trevor's eyes are sewn shut, as is Art's mouth, rendering communication impossible. Trevor panics activating the winch, and Art kills him to retrieve the key from his collar after a brief struggle. Art frees himself and yells tearing the stitches on his lips. Allison Kerry's (Dina Meyer) body is found by police four days after her death. Hoffman is met at the scene by FBI agents Peter Strahm (Scott Patterson) and Lindsey Perez (Athena Karkanis), after sending Lt. Daniel Rigg (Lyriq Bent) home. They believe that someone else set up Kerry's murder, as John and Amanda Young were physically incapable of putting Kerry in the harness. Strahm soon becomes suspicious of Rigg, who is convinced that Eric Matthews (Donnie Wahlberg) is still alive, even though he has been missing for the last 6 months. Rigg returns to his home, which is being renovated, and against his wife, Tracy's, objections, he decides to stay. Soon enough, he is subdued by a masked figure, and awakens in his bathroom, finding pictures on the walls. He enters his bedroom, and Jigsaw's puppet appears on the TV. He reveals that Eric Matthews is still alive, he is standing on a melting block of ice, with a noose around his neck. Next to him is Hoffman, tied a chair with electrodes at his feet. They are at opposite ends of a balanced seesaw, and if Matthews jumps off the ice or too much of it melts, he will be hanged and the weight shift will dump the runoff water into Hoffman's end. Rigg has 90 minutes To save them, and truly learn "how to save a life". Rigg undergoes his first test in which he finds a prostitute named Brenda (Sarain Boylan). Jigsaw advises Rigg to walk away--to "see what I see," as written on the wall--but Rigg's natural instinct to help those in need clouds his judgment. When Rigg removes the pig mask covering Brenda's face, he triggers a trap device that begins to slowly tear her scalp from her head. He succeeds in freeing her, but to his surprise, she comes at him with a knife; Brenda has been told by Jigsaw that Rigg is there to arrest her and the only way to stop it is to kill him. He throws her into a mirror, killing her and leaves to find the site of his next test. In his next test, Rigg is instructed to "feel what I feel,". He abducts the manager,Ivan Landsness (Marty Adams), who is revealed to be a serial rapist. Angered by seeing videos and photos of Ivan's exploits, Rigg forces Ivan into a prearranged trap, and departs after handing him two controllers. The trap gives him the option between gouging out his eyes or being dismembered. Ivan manages to blind one eye, but cannot bring himself to blind the other one, and his limbs are ripped apart one by one. In his third test, Rigg must "save as I save". He enters a school and finds an abusive husband Rex and Morgan (Ron Lea and Janet Land),his wife, in a harness, being impaled by spikes.The spikes are placed such that they pass through vital circulatory points of his body, but non-vital points of hers. If she has the courage to remove the rods, her abusive husband will bleed to death but she will survive. By the time Rigg finds the couple, Morgan has pulled out all but one rod and has gone into shock. She suddenly wakes up and Rigg tells her that she has to save herself. He wraps his jacket around her, hands her the key to the harness and sets off a fire alarm to alert emergency services to her position. Rigg proceeds to his final test. Meanwhile, Strahm and Perez alternate between investigating each test scene and interrogating Jill Tuck (Betsy Russell), John's ex-wife. While married to John, she had been pregnant with his baby, who was to be named Gideon. Jigsaw's puppet and its tricycle were meant for Gideon. She miscarried due to the unwitting actions of a drug addict named, Cecil Adams (Billy Otis). The agents also learn that they are the next two targets, and realize that Art is Jigsaw's accomplice, as all the victims were represented by Art and he is also Jill's lawyer. It is revealed Art is the one overseeing Rigg's test. An incident with Jigsaw's puppet leaves Perez hospitalized,and Strahm furiously questions Jill, now certain that Art is the accomplice. Jill recounts that John's depression following the miscarriage ultimately ended their marriage, as well as his property development work with Art. After his suicide attempt, John began his work and targeted Cecil first. Cecil was to push his face through several knives to hit a switch and release himself. The chair collapsed via freeing himself but Cecil died after falling into a tangle of razor-wire trying to kill John with a large piece of the chair. Strahm connects her story with the Gideon Meatpacking Plant, the location of Rigg's final test. Strahm arrives soon after Rigg, but follows a different pathway. Strahm arrives at the sickroom, just as Jeff kills John, and the door closes. Using a clue given to him by Kerry, Strahm unlocks the door. Jeff waves his gun demanding to know his daughter's whereabouts and Strahm shoots Jeff in self-defense. Meanwhile, Rigg locates Matthews and Hoffman, who can be released by Art when the timer expires; if he presses the button before the timer expires, a pair of pincers will cut into his spine. Unaware of this, Rigg breaks into the room with one second left, just as Matthews shoots him, which releases two ice blocks that crush Matthews's head. Rigg shoots Art in the head, believing he's responsible for the traps, and learns from a tape recorder that Matthews would have lived if Rigg had not interfered. An unharmed Hoffman releases himself, revealed to be the accomplice, and leaves Rigg to die. He seals Strahm in the sickroom before he leaves. The scene then cuts back to John's autopsy, which is revealed to have took place after Rigg's test. Production. The film's writer was Thomas Fenton. There was also a hunt for the director of "Saw IV" before it was officially stated that Darren Lynn Bousman would direct the fourth installment, with creators and executive producers, James Wan and Leigh Whannell also returning. principal photography took from April 16, 2007 to May 3, 2007. The filming location was Toronto, Ontario, the same place both "Saw II" and "Saw III" were filmed. Post-production period began on May 19. In an interview with Darren Lynn Bousman, he stated that the last work on "Saw IV" would happen in August to be able to have prints made. At Comic Con 2007 it was revealed by Bousman and producer Mark Burg that the MPAA had given the film an NC-17 rating. They would have to figure out whether or not to cut the film to achieve an R Rating or release it as an NC-17 film, the former of which they accomplished. Lionsgate held its fourth annual "Give Til It Hurts" blood drive for the Red Cross. Reception. Box office. The film grossed $63,300,095 in the United States and an additional $71,228,814 internationally, bringing the theatrical total to $134,528,909. It is Lionsgate's sixth highest-grossing film in the United States and Canada. Reviews. Critical reception to "Saw IV" was negative. Rotten Tomatoes reports that 16% of critics gave the film a positive review, based upon 73 reviews, with an average score of 3 out of 10. On Metacritic, the film has an average score of 36 out of 100, based on 16 reviews. Scott Schueller from the "Los Angeles Times" called it "a film as edgy as a rubber knife" and said that "if the terrible craft of Bousman's film doesn't turn your stomach, the borderline pornographic violence will. It's disconcerting to imagine anyone enjoying the vile filth splashing the screen." Frank Scheck from "The Hollywood Reporter" said "the famously inventive torture sequences here seem depleted of imagination", but added that "it hasn't yet jumped the shark like such predecessors as the "Nightmare on Elm Street" and "Friday the 13th" movies eventually did." Peter Hartlaub from "The San Francisco Chronicle" called it "the "Syriana" of slasher films, so complicated and circuitous that your only hope of understanding everything is to eat lots of fish the night before and then watch each of the previous films, in order, right before you enter the theater." James Berardinelli wrote that ""Saw IV" functions as a drawn-out, tedious epilogue to a series that began with an energetic bang three years ago with "Saw", then progressively lost momentum, coherence, and intelligence with each successive annual installment. "Saw IV" is nothing short of a money-grab. Despite a couple of loose ends (that are tied up unsatisfactorily here), "Saw III" finished the story." A less negative review came from Scott Weinberg from Fearnet, who said that while it "is almost certainly the weakest of the series where stuff like plot, logic, and chills are concerned... there's still more than enough here to keep the fans intrigued, entertained, and squirming in their seats" and added that the ""Saw"-makers are to be commended for actually putting forth this sort of effort. I grew up in an era that offered little more than quick-cash, stand-alone horror sequels like ' and ' — so the fact that these producers actually give a damn about narrative continuity (right down to the smallest detail) is fairly impressive." Horror.com said that "with "Saw IV", the pieces have all come together and [it's] the best of the lot." Jamie Russell from the BBC called it "deeply unsettling; just like a horror movie should be." Chris Hewitt from "St. Paul Pioneer Press" claimed that ""Saw IV" is a fluid film, as neatly constructed as the deadly puzzles Jigsaw creates to snare his victims." Film School Rejects said that "One of the things that is most intriguing to me about the "Saw" movies is how much I actually have enjoyed them" and claimed that "As far as fourth installments in a series, "Saw IV" is quite impressive." Linda Cook from "Quad-City Times" gave it a positive review also and said "The twists and turns are deadly, the 'lessons' are taught once again, and we have the perfect setup for "Saw V"." Home media. The Unrated Director's Cut was released on January 22, 2008 in America and March 3, 2008 in the UK, on DVD and Blu-ray. The "Extreme Edition", which was released in the UK only, before the release of Saw V in October 2008 features a 95-minute running time of the film. Extreme Limited Edition. This edition was only released in the United Kingdom. Soundtrack. The soundtrack was released on October 23, 2007 by WEA/Warner Bros. Records.
1449184	Michael Edward Palin, CBE, FRGS (pronounced ; born 5 May 1943) is an English comedian, actor, writer and television presenter best known for being one of the members of the comedy group Monty Python and for his travel documentaries. Palin wrote most of his comedic material with Terry Jones. Before Monty Python, they had worked on other shows such as the "Ken Dodd Show", "The Frost Report" and "Do Not Adjust Your Set". Palin appeared in some of the most famous Python sketches, including "Argument Clinic", "Dead Parrot", "The Lumberjack Song", "The Spanish Inquisition", and "The Fish-Slapping Dance". Palin continued to work with Jones after Python, co-writing "Ripping Yarns". He has also appeared in several films directed by fellow Python Terry Gilliam and made notable appearances in other films such as "A Fish Called Wanda", for which he won the BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role. In a 2005 poll to find "The Comedians' Comedian", he was voted the 30th favourite by fellow comedians and comedy insiders. After Python, he began a new career as a travel writer and travel documentarian. His journeys have taken him across the world, including the North and South Poles, the Sahara Desert, the Himalayas, Eastern Europe and, most recently, Brazil. In 2000 Palin was honoured as a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) for his services to television. From 2009 to 2012 Palin was the president of the Royal Geographical Society. On 12 May 2013, Palin was made a BAFTA fellow, the highest honor that is conferred by the organization. Early life and career. Palin was born in Broomhill, Sheffield, West Riding of Yorkshire, the second child and only son of Mary Rachel Lockhart (née Ovey) and Edward Moreton Palin. His father was a Shrewsbury School and Cambridge-educated engineer working for a steel firm. His maternal grandfather, Lieutenant-Colonel Richard Lockhart Ovey, DSO, was High Sheriff of Oxfordshire in 1927. He started his education at Birkdale Preparatory School, Sheffield, and later Shrewsbury School. His sister Angela was nine years older than he was. Despite the age gap the two had a close relationship until her suicide in 1987. He has ancestral roots in Letterkenny, County Donegal. When he was five years old, Palin had his first acting experience at Birkdale playing Martha Cratchit in a school performance of "A Christmas Carol". At the age of 10, Palin, still interested in acting, made a comedy monologue and read a Shakespeare play to his mother while playing all the parts. After his school days in 1962 he went on to read modern history at Brasenose College, Oxford. With fellow student Robert Hewison he performed and wrote, for the first time, comedy material at a university Christmas party. Terry Jones, also a student in Oxford, saw that performance and began writing together with Hewison and Palin. In the same year Palin joined the Brightside and Carbrook Co-Operative Society Players and first gained fame when he won an acting award at a Co-Op drama festival. He also performed and wrote in the Oxford Revue (called the Et ceteras) with Jones. In 1966 he married Helen Gibbins, whom he first met in 1959 on holiday in Southwold in Suffolk. This meeting was later fictionalised in Palin's play "East of Ipswich". The couple have three children and a grandchild. His youngest child, Rachel (b. 1975) is a BBC TV director, whose work includes "", shown on BBC2 throughout October and November 2010. While still a baby, his son William briefly appeared in "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" as "Sir Not-appearing-in-this-film". His nephew is the theatre designer Jeremy Herbert. After finishing university in 1965 Palin became a presenter on a comedy pop show called "Now!" for the television contractor Television Wales and the West. At the same time Palin was contacted by Jones, who had left university a year earlier, for assistance in writing a theatrical documentary about sex through the ages. Although this project was eventually abandoned, it brought Palin and Jones together as a writing duo and led them to write comedy for various BBC programmes, such as "The Ken Dodd Show", "The Billy Cotton Bandshow", and "The Illustrated Weekly Hudd". They collaborated in writing lyrics for an album by Barry Booth called Diversions. They were also in the team of writers working for "The Frost Report", whose other members included Frank Muir, Barry Cryer, Marty Feldman, Ronnie Barker, Ronnie Corbett, Dick Vosburgh and future Monty Python members Graham Chapman, John Cleese and Eric Idle. Although the members of Monty Python had already encountered each other over the years, "The Frost Report" was the first time all the British members of Monty Python (its sixth member, Terry Gilliam, was at that time an American citizen) worked together. During the run of "The Frost Report" the Palin/Jones team contributed material to two shows starring John Bird: "The Late Show" and "A series of Bird's". For "A series of Bird's" the Palin/Jones team had their first experience of writing narrative instead of the short sketches they were accustomed to conceiving. Following "The Frost Report" the Palin/Jones team worked both as actors and writers on the show "Twice a Fortnight" with Graeme Garden, Bill Oddie and Jonathan Lynn, and the successful children's comedy show "Do Not Adjust Your Set" with Idle and David Jason. The show also featured musical numbers by the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band, including future Monty Python musical collaborator Neil Innes. The animations for "Do Not Adjust Your Set" were made by Terry Gilliam. Eager to work with Palin sans Jones, Cleese later asked him to perform in "How to Irritate People" together with Chapman and Tim Brooke-Taylor. The Palin/Jones team were reunited for "The Complete and Utter History of Britain". During this period Cleese contacted Palin about doing the show that would ultimately become "Monty Python's Flying Circus". On the strength of their work on "The Frost Report" and other programmes, Cleese and Chapman had been offered a show by the BBC, but Cleese was reluctant to do a two-man show for various reasons, among them Chapman's reputedly difficult personality. At the same time the success of "Do Not Adjust Your Set" had led Palin, Jones, Idle and Gilliam to be offered their own series and, while it was still in production, Palin agreed to Cleese's proposal and brought along Idle, Jones and Gilliam. Thus the formation of the Monty Python troupe has been referred to as a result of Cleese's desire to work with Palin and the chance circumstances that brought the other four members into the fold. "Monty Python". In "Monty Python", Palin played various roles, which ranged from manic enthusiasm (such as the lumberjack of the Lumberjack Song, or Herbert Anchovy, host of the game show "Blackmail") to unflappable calmness (such as the Dead Parrot vendor, Cheese Shop proprietor, or Postal Clerk). As a straight man he was often a foil to the rising ire of characters portrayed by John Cleese. He also played timid, socially inept characters such as Arthur Putey, the man who sits idly by as a marriage counsellor (Eric Idle) makes love to his wife (Carol Cleveland), and Mr. Anchovy, a chartered accountant who wants to become a lion tamer. He also appeared as the "It's" man at the beginning of most episodes. Palin frequently co-wrote sketches with Terry Jones and also initiated the "Spanish Inquisition sketch", which included the catchphrase "Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!" He also composed songs with Jones including "The Lumberjack Song", "Every Sperm is Sacred" and "Spam". His solo musical compositions included "Decomposing Composers" and "Finland". Other work. After the "Monty Python" television series ended in 1974, the Palin/Jones team worked on "Ripping Yarns", an intermittent television comedy series broadcast over three years from 1976. They had earlier collaborated on the play "Secrets" from the BBC series "Black and Blue" in 1973. He starred as Dennis the Peasant in Terry Gilliam's 1977 film "Jabberwocky". Palin also appeared in "All You Need Is Cash" (1978) as Eric Manchester (based on Derek Taylor), the press agent for the Rutles. In 1980, Palin co-wrote "Time Bandits" with Terry Gilliam. He also acted in the film. In 1982, Palin wrote and starred in "The Missionary", co-starring Maggie Smith. In it, he plays the Reverend Charles Fortescue, who is recalled from Africa to aid prostitutes. In 1984, he reunited with Terry Gilliam to appear in "Brazil". He appeared in the comedy film "A Fish Called Wanda", for which he won the BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role. Cleese reunited the main cast almost a decade later to make "Fierce Creatures". After filming for "Fierce Creatures" finished, Palin went on a travel journey for a BBC documentary and, returning a year later, found that the end of "Fierce Creatures" had failed at test screenings and had to be reshot. Apart from "Fierce Creatures", Palin's last film role was a small part in "The Wind in the Willows", a film directed by and starring Terry Jones. Palin also appeared with John Cleese in his documentary, "The Human Face". Palin was in the cast of "You've Got Mail", the Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan romantic comedy as a subplot novelist, but his role was eventually cut entirely. He also assisted Campaign for Better Transport and others with campaigns on sustainable transport, particularly those relating to urban areas, and has been president of the campaign since 1986. Palin has also appeared in serious drama. In 1991 Palin worked as producer and actor in the film "American Friends" based upon a real event in the life of his great grandfather, a fellow at St John's College, Oxford. In that same year he also played the part of a headmaster in Alan Bleasdale's Channel 4 drama series "G.B.H.". Palin also had a small cameo role in Australian soap opera "Home and Away". He played an English surfer with a fear of sharks, who interrupts a conversation between two main characters to ask whether there were any sharks in the sea. This was filmed while he was in Australia for the "Full Circle" series, with a segment about the filming of the role featuring in the series. In November 2005, he appeared in the "John Peel's Record Box" documentary. Michael Palin is set to appear in a new First World War drama titled "The Wiper Times" written by Ian Hislop and Nick Newman. Television documentaries. Travel. Palin's first travel documentary was part of the 1980 BBC Television series "Great Railway Journeys of the World", in which, humorously reminiscing about his childhood hobby of train spotting, he travelled throughout the UK by train, from London to the Kyle of Lochalsh, via Manchester, York, Newcastle upon Tyne, Edinburgh and Inverness. At the Kyle of Lochalsh, Palin bought the station's long metal platform sign and is seen lugging it back to London with him. In 1994, Palin travelled through Ireland for the same series, entitled "Derry to Kerry". In a quest for family roots, he attempted to trace his great grandmother – Brita Gallagher – who set sail from Ireland 150 years ago during the Great Famine (1845–1849), bound for a new life in Burlington, New Jersey. The series is a trip along the Palin family line. Starting in 1989, Palin appeared as presenter in a series of travel programmes made for the BBC. It was after the veteran TV globetrotter Alan Whicker and journalist Miles Kington turned down presenting the first of these, "Around the World in 80 Days", that gave Palin the opportunity to present his first and subsequent travel shows. These programmes have been broadcast around the world in syndication, and were also sold on VHS tape and later on DVD: Following each trip, Palin wrote a book about his travels, providing information and insights not included in the TV programme. Each book is illustrated with photographs by Basil Pao, the stills photographer who was on the team. (Exception: the first book, "Around the World in 80 Days", contains some pictures by Pao but most are by other photographers.) All seven of these books were also made available as audio books, and all of them are read by Palin himself. "Around the World in 80 Days" and "Hemingway Adventure" are unabridged, while the other four books were made in both abridged and unabridged versions, although the unabridged versions can be very difficult to find. For four of the trips a photography book was made by Pao, each with an introduction written by Palin. These are large coffee-table style books with pictures printed on glossy paper. The majority of the pictures are of various people encountered on the trip, as informal portraits or showing them engaged in some interesting activity. Some of the landscape photos are displayed as two-page spreads. Palin's travel programmes are responsible for a phenomenon termed the "Palin effect": areas of the world that he has visited suddenly become popular tourist attractions – for example, the significant increase in the number of tourists interested in Peru after Palin visited Machu Picchu. In a 2006 survey of "15 of the world's top travel writers" by "The Observer", Palin named Peru's Pongo de Mainique (canyon below the Machu Picchu) his "favourite place in the world". Art and history. In recent years, Palin has written and presented occasional documentary programmes on artists that interest him. The first, on Scottish painter Anne Redpath, was "Palin on Redpath" in 1997. In "The Bright Side of Life" (2000), Palin continued on a Scottish theme, looking at the work of the Scottish Colourists. Two further programmes followed on European painters; "Michael Palin and the Ladies Who Loved Matisse" (2004) and "Michael Palin and the Mystery of Hammershøi" (2005), about the French artist Henri Matisse and Danish artist Vilhelm Hammershøi respectively. The DVD "Michael Palin on Art" contains all these documentaries except for the Matisse programme. In November 2008, Palin presented a First World War documentary about Armistice Day, 11 November 1918, when thousands of soldiers lost their lives in battle after the war had officially ended. Palin filmed on the battlefields of Northern France and Belgium for the programme, called the "Last Day of World War One", produced for the BBC's "Timewatch" series. Activism. In July 2010, Palin sent a message of support for the Dongria Kondh tribe of India, who are resisting a mine on their land by the company Vedanta Resources. Palin said, "I’ve been to the Nyamgiri Hills in Orissa and seen the forces of money and power that Vedanta Resources have arrayed against a people who have occupied their land for thousands of years, who husband the forest sustainably and make no great demands on the state or the government. The tribe I visited simply want to carry on living in the villages that they and their ancestors have always lived in". On 2 January 2011, Palin became the first person to sign the UK-based Campaign for Better Transport's Fair Fares Now campaign. Recognition. Each member of Monty Python has an asteroid named after him. Palin's is Asteroid 9621 Michaelpalin. In honour of his achievements as a traveller, especially rail travel, Palin has two British trains named after him. In 2002, Virgin Trains' new £5m high speed Super Voyager train number 221130 was named "Michael Palin" – it carries his name externally and a plaque is located adjacent to the onboard shop with information on Palin and his many journeys. Also, National Express East Anglia named a British Rail Class 153 (unit number 153335) after him. In 2008, he received the James Joyce Award of the Literary and Historical Society in Dublin. Palin was instrumental in setting up the Michael Palin Centre for Stammering Children in 1993. In recognition of his services to the promotion of geography, Palin was awarded the Livingstone Medal of the Royal Scottish Geographical Society in March 2009, along with a Fellowship to the Society. In June 2013, he was similarly honoured in Canada with a gold medal for achievements in geography by the Royal Canadian Geographical Society. In June 2009, Palin was elected for a three-year term as President of the Royal Geographical Society. Because of his self-described "amenable, conciliatory character" Michael Palin has been referred to as unofficially "Britain's Nicest Man." Bibliography. Travel books. All his travel books can be read at no charge, complete and unabridged, on his website.
1065249	License to Drive is a 1988 teen adventure film starring Corey Haim, Corey Feldman, Heather Graham, Carol Kane, Richard Masur, Michael Manasseri, and Nina Siemaszko. The film was written by Neil Tolkin and directed by Greg Beeman. The film was in production in late 1987. It was released on July 6, 1988 in the United States and grossed over $20 million at the North American box office. It was distributed by 20th Century Fox. Plot. The film is about Les Anderson (Haim), a 16-year-old living in Southern California who is trying to get his driver's license and has a crush on one of the more popular and attractive girls in school, Mercedes Lane (Graham).
1042861	Lionel Charles Jeffries (10 June 1926 – 19 February 2010) was an English actor, screenwriter and film director. Early life and career. Jeffries attended the Queen Elizabeth Grammar School, Wimborne Minster, Dorset. In 1945, he received a commission in the Oxford and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry. After his World War II service, for which he was awarded the Burma Star, he trained at RADA. He entered repertory at the David Garrick Theatre, Lichfield, Staffordshire for two years and appeared in early British television plays. Recognition. Jeffries built a successful career in British films mainly in comic character roles and as he was prematurely bald he often played characters older than himself, such as the role of father to Caractacus Potts (played by Dick Van Dyke) in the film "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang" (1968), although Jeffries was actually six months younger than Van Dyke. His acting career reached a peak in the 1960s with leading roles in other films like "Two-Way Stretch" (1960), "The Trials of Oscar Wilde" (1960), "First Men in the Moon" (1964) and "Camelot" (1967). Jeffries turned to writing and directing children's films, including a well regarded version of "The Railway Children" (1970) and "The Amazing Mr Blunden" (1972). He was a member of the British Catholic Stage Guild. Jeffries had a dislike of television and its production values and shunned the medium for many years. He reluctantly appeared on television in an acting role in the 1980 London Weekend Television Dennis Potter drama "Cream in My Coffee" and realised that television production values had little differences from those in the film industry; as a result he launched a belated career in television. He appeared in an episode of the Thames Television/ITV comedy-drama Minder in 1983, played a leading role in the situation comedy "Roll Over Beethoven" (Central Television/ITV) and appeared in an episode of "Inspector Morse" in 1990 (Central Television/Zenith/ITV). During location filming for an episode of the 1983 Thames/ITV situation comedy "Tom, Dick and Harriet", Jeffries and his co-stars Ian Ogilvy and Bridget Forsyth had to be rescued when a stunt involving a car went wrong. Retirement and death. Jeffries retired from acting in 2001 and his health declined in the following years. He died on 19 February 2010 in a nursing home in Poole, Dorset. He had been married to Eileen Mary Walsh from 1951 until his death. Their son and two daughters also survived him.
1060961	North by Northwest is a 1959 American spy thriller film directed by Alfred Hitchcock, starring Cary Grant, Eva Marie Saint and James Mason. The screenplay was written by Ernest Lehman, who wanted to write "the Hitchcock picture to end all Hitchcock pictures". "North by Northwest" is a tale of mistaken identity, with an innocent man pursued across the United States by agents of a mysterious organization who want to stop his interference in their plans to smuggle out microfilm containing government secrets. This is one of several Hitchcock films with a music score by Bernard Herrmann and features a memorable opening title sequence by graphic designer Saul Bass. This film is generally cited as the first to feature extended use of kinetic typography in its opening credits. Plot. Advertising executive Roger O. Thornhill (Cary Grant) is mistaken for "George Kaplan" and kidnapped by Valerian (Adam Williams) and Licht (Robert Ellenstein). The two take him to the Long Island estate of Lester Townsend. There he is interrogated by a man he assumes to be Townsend, but who is actually spy Phillip Vandamm (James Mason). Vandamm orders his right-hand man Leonard (Martin Landau) to get rid of Thornhill. Thornhill is forced to drink bourbon, but manages to escape a staged driving accident. He is unable to get the authorities or even his mother (Jessie Royce Landis) to believe what happened, especially when a woman at Townsend's residence says he got drunk at her dinner party; she also remarks that Townsend is a United Nations diplomat. Thornhill and his mother go to Kaplan's hotel room. While there, Thornhill answers the phone; it is one of Vandamm's henchmen. Narrowly avoiding recapture, he goes to the U.N. General Assembly building to see Townsend, but finds that the diplomat is a stranger. Valerian throws a knife which hits Townsend in the back. He falls dead into Thornhill's arms. Without thinking, Thornhill removes the knife, making it appear that he is the killer. He is forced to flee. Knowing that Kaplan has a reservation at a Chicago hotel the next day, Thornhill sneaks onto the "20th Century Limited". He meets Eve Kendall (Eva Marie Saint), who hides Thornhill from policemen searching the train. Unknown to Thornhill, Eve is working with Vandamm and Leonard, who are in another compartment. In Chicago, Eve tells Thornhill she has arranged a meeting with Kaplan.
582893	Lal Baadshah is a 1999 Bollywood film directed by K.C. Bokadia and starring Amitabh Bachchan in a dual role, Raghuvaran, Manisha Koirala, Shilpa Shetty and Amrish Puri. Nirupa Roy also appears in her last film playing Bachchan's foster mother. This was Bachchan's third film since his comeback after a five year hiatus; it failed at the box office. Plot. Lal Singh (Amitabh Bachchan) lives with his mother (Nirupa Roy) in a small basti in Bombay, grows up with the poor and needy. He is called Lal Badshah by the people he lives among. Lal is a very helping person and dead set against crime. In the same city lives Vikram Singh alias Vicky Baadshah (Raghuvaran) who is the Don of the city always clashing with Lal Baadshah. Vicky is the son of Dayal Singh (Amrish Puri) who lives far away from Mumbai in a castle. Vicky & his brother Ajit Singh (Mukesh Rishi), a corrupt police officer want to rule the city. Meanwhile, Lal meets Kiran (Manisha Koirala), an L.I.C. agent who falls in love with him & is determined to become his wife. At the castle, Dayal Singh is still hunting for the treasures of the Maharaja, whom he murdered years ago along with his brother Sultan Singh (Prem Chopra). When the Maharaja was murdered, his son, Dewan Ranbir Singh (also Amitabh Bachchan) hid the treasure, for which Dayal Singh tried to murder him. What is the link between Ranbir Singh and his look-alike Lal Singh and will Dayal Singh be able to ever find the treasure? Soundtrack. The music is composed by Aadesh Shrivastav. Lyrics are penned by Shyam, Maya Govind, and Gohar Kamla.
1058292	Alice Maud Krige (; born 28 June 1954) is a South African actress and producer. Her first feature film role was as the Gilbert and Sullivan singer Sybil Gordon in the 1981 Academy Award-winning film "Chariots of Fire". Since then, she has played a variety of roles in a number of genres. Krige first played the role of the Borg Queen in the motion picture ' and reprised the role for the final episode of the television series "." A year after the series ended, she reprised the role in "Borg Invasion 4-D" at '. Early life. Krige was born in Upington, Cape Province, Union (now Republic) of South Africa, the daughter of Pat, a psychologist, and Louis Krige, a physician. The Kriges later moved to Port Elizabeth where Alice grew up in what she describes as a "very happy family", with two brothers, both of whom became physicians. She left for London, England, in 1976, with plans to become a clinical psychologist, but turned to acting after an experience in an acting class at Rhodes University. She then attended the Central School of Speech and Drama in London. Career. Krige made her professional debut on British television in 1979, and appeared in the television movie "A Tale of Two Cities". She went on to play Sybil Gordon in "Chariots of Fire" and Eva Galli/Alma Mobley in "Ghost Story", both in 1981. She earned a Plays and Players Award, as well as a Laurence Olivier Award for Most Promising Newcomer, after appearing in a 1981 West End theatre production of George Bernard Shaw's "Arms and the Man". This early theatrical success allowed her to also work with the Royal Shakespeare Company. Krige played Bathsheba in "King David" (1985) and Mary Shelley in "Haunted Summer" (1988). She appeared on stage in plays such as Thomas Otway's "Venice Preserv'd". She appeared in what she called "tons of TV" in both the United States and the United Kingdom, including made for television movies from "Baja Oklahoma" (1988) and "Ladykiller" (1992), to mini-series such as "Ellis Island" (1984) and "Scarlet and Black" (1993). She also performed in several horror films, including "Ghost Story", "Sleepwalkers", "Stay Alive", and "Silent Hill". In ', she played the Borg Queen, who attempts to assimilate Earth into the Borg collective. She won Best Supporting Actress at the 1997 Saturn Awards for that role. Krige returned to this character in the Star Trek game ' and in the "" series finale "" in 2001. Her science fiction career has also expanded into television, with prominent roles in miniseries adaptations of "Dinotopia" and "Frank Herbert's Children of Dune". In April 2004, Krige was awarded an honorary Litt.D. degree from Rhodes University. In 2008, she had a leading role as Sannie Laing, Sandra's mother, in "Skin", the biopic about Sandra Laing, who was classified "Coloured" by the South African authorities during Apartheid, although her parents were white. In 2011, Krige was a major supporting character throughout the BBCs final season (Series 10) of "Spooks", playing Russian double agent Elena Gavrik. Krige also featured in the final season of BBC drama "Waking the Dead", in 2011. Personal life. Krige is married to the writer and director Paul Schoolman.
1100697	Wendelin Werner (born September 23, 1968) is a German-born French mathematician working in the area of self-avoiding random walks, Schramm-Loewner evolution, and related theories in probability theory and mathematical physics. In 2006, at the 25th International Congress of Mathematicians in Madrid, Spain he received the Fields Medal. He is currently professor at ETH Zürich. Werner became a French national in 1977. After a "classe préparatoire" at Lycée Hoche, he studied at the École Normale Supérieure from 1987 to 1991. His 1993 doctorate was written at the Université Pierre-et-Marie-Curie and supervised by Jean-François Le Gall. Werner was a research officer at the CNRS (National Center of Scientific Research, Centre national de la recherche scientifique) from 1991 to 1997, during which period he held a two-year Leibniz Fellowship, at the University of Cambridge. He has been Professor at
292442	Jeremy Glazer (born November 1, 1978) is an American actor. He is best known for his roles in the films "Letters From Iwo Jima" and "Save Me". Glazer has balanced his performances in big-budget blockbusters and independent films, theatre and with guest appearances on such television shows as "", "Desperate Housewives", "Castle" and "In Plain Sight". Early life. Glazer was born and raised in Huntington Station, New York on Long Island, in a Jewish family alongside his older brother, Daniel Glazer; a former talent agent and now successful commercial real estate broker in New York. During his childhood summers he competed in many athletics at a sports camp in West Virginia. He attended Walt Whitman High School, South Huntington and was elected President of his class from sophomore to senior year, began performing in school theatre productions, competed in All County Chorus and played varsity tennis. His father, Roger Glazer and mother, Evelyn Cohen, are both retired health and physical education high school teachers. Glazer attended the University of Delaware, majoring in Mass Communications and minoring in Theatre. During his summer semesters off from college, Glazer lived in Los Angeles to intern in the entertainment industry to see where in entertainment his feet would land. After learning the industry from interning at reputable talent agencies and production companies, he graduated from college with a bachelor's degree and moved to Los Angeles. He first worked as a production assistant at Paramount Pictures on such television shows as "The Trouble With Normal", "Spring Break Lawyer" and "Men, Women & Dogs". Glazer then jumped into acting. Career. He appeared in the film "Letters from Iwo Jima" which was directed by Clint Eastwood in 2006 and "Save Me". He co-produced and appeared in "Good Dick", which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2008. He has also appeared in "Moonlight Serenade" and "When Do We Eat?" playing a young Jack Klugman. Glazer has made guest appearances on the television shows "", "Castle", "Desperate Housewives", "In Plain Sight", "Cold Case", "Victorious", "Numb3rs", "Veronica Mars", "ER", "Angel".
519761	TGIS (Thank God It’s Sabado) is a Filipino youth-oriented drama series aired on GMA Network from July 8, 1995 to November, 1999. The series aired every Saturday. It was produced by GMA Network, and VIVA Television. The title is derived from the popular expression "TGIF." Premise. The show revolves around a clique of friends living in a fictional village presumably located somewhere in Quezon City. They deal with the various episodes that usually come with adolescent life. Almost all characters in the series are part of the same continuity. Cast. Second Batch (May 1997 – August 1999). Delos Santos, Umali, Dela Cruz, Llansang, and Martinez were part of the original cast, but had more screen time in the second batch. Members of both batches would intermittently appear in both TGIS and the first year of "Growing Up". Also included in the original cast are Lee Robin Salazar & Bernadette Alyson, Lee Robin left the show after the group's first movie "Takot Ka Ba Sa Dilim?" was shown in cinemas & Bernadette a month after the show's launching, but Bernadette later rejoined them in Growing Up. Curtis and Marquez would later form part of a third batch that were featured in the final few months of TGIS' run from August to November 1999. Their batch's story is set in an alternate timeline, where Curtis' character falls for Wacks. Sotto was included in the second batch after the original cast went to "Growing Up". She would join them in 1998. TGIS The Movie. TGIS The Movie is a film tie-in to the series. It was released in early January 1997 by VIVA Films & GMA Network. Plot. Wacks plans a weekend get-away using his father's yacht without him knowing. However, the boat breaks down, forcing the group to stay on a nearby island. The boat is not tightly anchored to the bottom; as a result it drifts away from the island with nobody on board. Left stranded, the gang try to survive as their loved ones search for them. Eager to find help, the guys move out using an improvised raft, but not before Wacks finally confesses his feelings for Peachy, who fell unconscious in a bat cave. The entire group is eventually rescued the following day. "GMA Love Stories" Reunion. The original cast members - minus Angelu de Leon and Onemig Bondoc - returned for a special episode of "GMA Love Stories" that aired on February 17, 2001. The episode aims to show character developments after the "Growing Up" series finale in February 1999. Plot. Most of the gang's members come together in a beach resort, where Kiko successfully proposes marriage to Mitch. When Wacks appears, everyone except Kiko greets him. The characters' fates since Growing Up are explained over the course of the episode: Wacks says his quest to go to the US to patch things up with Peachy after their aborted wedding has failed; she has since married someone else. Cris is a single mother. Mickey and Bea have been in an on-and-off relationship for years. Noticing that Kiko has been cold to him since they met again, Wacks learns that Kiko resented him for not even keeping in touch while he was in the US. They reconcile and later joins in the rehearsal for Kiko and Mitch's wedding.
1069075	Warriors of Heaven and Earth is a 2003 Chinese action adventure film directed by He Ping. The film's notable cinematography captures a wide range of landscapes across China's Xinjiang province. It was China's official entry for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, though it did not get nominated. Plot. The film is set in western China in 700 during the Tang Dynasty, and revolves around two protagonists, the first of which is Lieutenant Li of the Chinese army. Li's refusal to kill Göktürk women and child prisoners causes a mutiny, leading him to be expelled from the army and become a fugitive, traveling through the Gobi Desert. He eventually comes across a caravan which carries a powerful, mystical relic accompanied by a Buddhist monk. Li protects the caravan from Göktürks as well as the overlord of the region, Master An, who is hired by the Göktürk Khan to seize the relic. The second protagonist, a Japanese emissary, Lai Xi, is ordered by the emperor of China to kill the fugitive, Li. In a twist of fate, Lai Xi realizes that the caravan is on a mission and helps Li to defend it, and ensures that it arrives at the capital safely. They promise to fight each other only after their duty is done, although that battle never comes to pass. Awards and nominations. 11th Beijing Student Film Festival 27th Hundred Flowers Awards 24th Golden Rooster Awards Soundtrack. Warriors of Heaven and Earth: The Original Motion Picture Soundtrack was composed by celebrated Indian composer, A. R. Rahman. It features 16 tracks, including the theme song, "Mirage (Warriors In Peace)", in three languages, Mandarin, English and Hindi. The Mandarin version of the theme song is sung by Taiwanese singer Jolin Tsai, while the Hindi version is sung by Sadhana Sargam and English version by Sunitha Sarathy. Following the film's release, the score and soundtrack were released in one album separately, under the title Between Heaven and Earth. Rahman signed the project after the head of Sony Classical Music suggested him to do a project for them in the Western Classical mode. While signing the project, Rahman was working with violinist Joshua Bell on compositions based on poems by the Persian poet Rumi. This project was later cancelled. Originally the music was supposed to be recorded in Beijing. But because of SARS, Rahman moved to Prague to record the score. Rahman has mixed Chinese, Turkish and Indian sounds as the film is about the Silk Route. He says that he wanted to give the Chinese something they had not heard before, while retaining that international flavour. The score is completely acoustic with symphonic pieces and relatively little electronic sounds have been used. Performers of the score include The Czech Film Orchestra and Chinese soloists in Hong Kong. Other instruments, including the erhu, flute, duduk, dizi, taiko drums are featured.
1266331	Ricardo Cortez (born Jacob Krantz; September 19, 1900 – April 28, 1977) was an American actor. Life and career. Born to a Jewish family in New York City (Vienna has been incorrectly cited as his birthplace), Krantz was an amateur boxer and worked on Wall Street prior to entering the film business. Hollywood executives changed his name from Krantz to Cortez in order to capitalize on the popularity of the era's "Latin lovers" (namely Rudolph Valentino, Ramon Novarro and Antonio Moreno). When rumor began to circulate that Cortez was not actually Spanish, the studios attempted to pass him off as French before finally "admitting" to his supposedly Viennese origin. Cortez appeared in over 100 films. Having begun his career playing romantic leads, when sound cinema arrived, his strong delivery and New York accent made him an ideal heavy. Though he would go on to occasionally portray leading men, Cortez's main focus became character acting. He played opposite Joan Crawford in "Montana Moon" (1930), played Sam Spade in the original, pre-code version of "The Maltese Falcon" (1931), co-starred with Charles Farrell and Bette Davis in "The Big Shakedown", and with Al Jolson and Dolores del Río in "Wonder Bar" (1934). In 1936, Cortez replaced Warren William as Perry Mason in "The Case of the Black Cat". Cortez was married to silent film actress Alma Rubens until her death from pneumonia in 1931. When he retired from the film business, Cortez returned to New York, working as a stockbroker for Salomon Brothers on Wall Street. He died in New York City in 1977, and was interred at Woodlawn Cemetery in The Bronx.
1056285	Is Paris Burning? () is a 1966 film, starring an ensemble cast, about the 1944 liberation of Paris by the French Resistance and the Free French Forces during World War II. Plot. The film opens shortly after the 20 July plot as general Dietrich von Choltitz (Gert Fröbe) is appointed military governor of occupied Paris by Adolf Hitler (Billy Frick). Hitler believes von Choltitz will obey his order to not let the Allies capture Paris without the Germans destroying it completely (similar to the planned destruction of Warsaw). The French Resistance learn that the Allies aren't planning to take Paris, but are heading straight for Germany instead. The two different factions within the Resistance react differently to this news. The Gaullists want to wait and see, while the Communists want to take action. The Communists force the issue by calling for a general uprising by the citizens of Paris and by occupying important government buildings. The Gaullists go along with this plan of action once it is set in motion.
520966	Wag Kang Lilingon (English: "Don't Turn Away; more specifically Don't Look Back") is a 2006 Filipino film produced by Star Cinema and Viva Films starring Anne Curtis and Kristine Hermosa. The movie is directed by Jerry Lopez Sinengneng and Quark Henares. This is the first movie produced by Viva Films and Star Cinema years after Viva split from ABS-CBN in 2001. Plot. Uyayi. Uyayi (Lullaby) opens with the story of an obscure hospital being gripped by controversy because of its strange nature. An obscure hospital named the Angel of Mercy hospital was haunted by unknown spirits. Most of the victims are male patients. A nurse named Melissa (Anne Curtis) points the finger of blame to Dr. Carl (Raymond Bagatsing), one of the superior doctors of the aforementioned hospital. A frantic Melissa seeks help from her boyfriend James (Marvin Agustin). Melissa and James conclude that someone or something makes the patients die. James offered to spy at the hospital, pretending to be a sick patient to investigate if Dr. Carl is indeed the killer. They even interviewed a patient, to no avail, gaining no information. The next night at 3AM, the spirits attacked again, this time killing another patient. Some doctors speculated that he died in a nightmare. Worse, Melissa discovered that James had a girlfriend before thus making a temporary turmoil between them. James and Melissa's plan failed. The tide began to turn, one night, when Dr. Carl was found dead in his car. Sensing danger, Melissa's sanity began to wane: she wonders if the culprit is human. A series of apparitions began to manifest themselves, driving her crazy. The conclusion of it all began at the 3AM next morning. The hauntings worsened: she began to see hallucinations of James being murdered. Finally, the young journalist calmed her down and formulated their next move. Surprisingly, Melissa began to lose her sanity and hums a lullaby: a very spine-chilling lullaby resembling a mockingbird's song. She begrudgingly warns James to never turn back and pushed him to a shelf of chemicals, severely burning him as Melissa stabs him to death with a scapel. It was revealed that Melissa was the real culprit. Salamin. For the edge-driving finale, Salamin (Mirror/Lens) grips us into the uncanny tale of a family moving into a new house, which was seemed uninhabited for years. This old house has nothing, even electricity, making the atmosphere horrible. Rosing (Ms. Cherry Pie Picache), along with her daughters Angel (Kristine Hermosa) and Nina (Celine Lim) begin a new life at their new home. However, Rosing detects the smell of blood. It was happening ever since they sat foot at the house. Angel dismisses it, saying she is sick. The girls explored the rest of the house, saying it was perfect. Meanwhile, Nina tries to open a door leading to the basement, but to no avail. One night, during a happy dance and dinner, the mysterious door opened itself. This door was the one Nina was trying to open that morning. They examined the basement to see an antique-looking mirror. Angel then told Nina of a superstition: once you lighted a candle in front of a mirror, during a full moon, make a wish and it will come true. Rosing objected to their plan, saying it's too dangerous. So dangerous it is. Immediately, after their little "ritual", strange things began to stir the atmosphere. What the girls don't know, they have conjured the spirits from the mirror. The mirror was supposed to be a portal of lost souls, whom they have summoned after their candle-lighting incident. However, the ghosts do not reveal themselves yet. Aside to the growing turmoil inside the house, Angel's boyfriend Lander's (Archie Alemania) unfaithfulness adds strain to their relationship causing them to be estranged. Thus, they have no contact to each other. The hauntings began to worsen. A frantic Angel seeks help from her psychic friend Trixie (Dimples Romana). Their guts were right: Trixie told them that the spirits from the mirror were souls of the previous tenants of the house. They weren't just one, but many of them. And there is only one culprit. Angel and Trixie have decided to get rid of the mirror, dumping it in the river. Rosing decided to bless the house. However, the hauntings worsened. Until one morning, after another haunting incident, the family had had enough. They hastily packed and were to move to Trixie's house. Before they depart, Angel saw another mirror that foresaw that her family will die. At Trixie's house, the spirits have followed them relentlessly. That night, Angel decided to stop it all and trekked back to their old house. There, she learns that the house caretaker Nestor (Soliman Cruz) was the culprit on the crimes that happened. The chase begins here. Trixie, Rosing and Nina came to Angel's aid; however, Trixie was bludgeoned in the head. They were forced to abandon her. Angel, Rosing and Nina tried to flee but they were cornered: Angel and Rosing were stabbed; Nina, the remaining survivor, was pursued by Nestor in the attic, where the latter hums the lullaby (the same lullaby in Uyayi Episode)to lure the terrified little girl. A bleeding Angel hits Nestor in the head, killing him. Afterwards, Angel dies in Nina's arms. The Story Ties. The ending of Wag Kang Lilingon winds up being the epilogue to Salamin and a prologue to Uyayi. It turns out that in Salamin, after the tragic events leaves Nina an orphan, she is placed with an adoption agency and changes her name from Nina to Melissa (the same Melissa in Uyayi). She leaves for the United States, where she studies nursing for the next 6 years, only to return to the Philippines to work at the Angel of Mercy hospital. It is then revealed that her childhood home was demolished and the hospital was erected in its place. The spirits that haunts the Angel of Mercy hospital are the same ghosts that haunted Nina/Melissa's old house. The movie ends with Nina/Melissa driving James' body to Angel's dream house, which the audience was privy to in Salamin. Still wracked with guilt, Melissa delude herself into believing her mother, Angel and James are still alive and pretends to have dinner with them. "Angel" tells Melissa that she can't hold them in the mortal coil like this, and as the camera zooms out, it is shown that Nina/Melissa is actually carrying the entire conversation in her head, she is actually not talking to anyone and James is still very dead. Melissa imagines that she hears James whisper her name, then leans in closer towards him. Suddenly, James awakens from his unconscious state and grabs her by the neck. The film ends abruptly. Recurring Themes. There were repeating themes in Wag Kang Lilingon that tied the two stories of Angel and Melissa.
1244828	Please Vote for Me is a 2007 documentary film following the elections for class monitor in a 3rd grade class of eight-year-old children in the Evergreen Primary School in Wuhan, China. The candidates, Luo Lei, Xu Xiaofei, and Cheng Cheng, compete against each other for the coveted role and are egged on by their teachers and doting parents. This was reported to be the first election of its type for a class monitor held in a school in China, as well as an interesting use of classic democratic voting principles and interpersonal dynamics. The documentary gives a glimpse into China's contemporary urban middle classes. It won the Sterling Feature Award at Silverdocs in 2007. In November 2007, "Please Vote for Me" was named by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences as one of 15 films on its documentary feature Oscar shortlist. The list was narrowed to five films on January 22, 2008, but "Please Vote for Me" did not make it to the final five. The film is part of the "Why Democracy?" series. It was aired in no less than 35 different countries around the world in October 2007, including BBC in the UK and PBS in the United States
1063253	Leslie Louise Bibb (born November 17, 1973) is an American fashion model and actress. Bibb transitioned into film and television in the late 1990s. She played minor roles in a few television series, including "Home Improvement", before making her film debut in the Howard Stern biopic "Private Parts". She scored her first recurring role in the show "The Big Easy", followed by a film role in "This Space Between Us". Bibb's role as Brooke McQueen on the WB Network dramedy series "Popular" (1999–2001) brought her to the attention of a wider audience; she received a Teen Choice Award for Television Choice Actress for the role. During breaks in filming the series, she also played notable roles in the films "The Skulls" and "See Spot Run". She had recurring TV series roles in NBC's "ER", ABC's "Line of Fire," NBC's "Crossing Jordan," and the lead in ABC's "GCB" series. Bibb was cast as Carly Bobby in the Will Ferrell comedy film "", followed by supporting roles in the films "Iron Man", "Law Abiding Citizen", and "Zookeeper". Early life and modeling career. Bibb was born in Bismarck, North Dakota and raised in Nelson County, Virginia. Her father died three years after she was born. Bibb subsequently moved to Richmond, Virginia with her widowed mother and three older sisters, where she attended the all-girl Saint Gertrude High School. In 1990, "The Oprah Winfrey Show" and the Elite Agency held a nationwide modeling search. The celebrity judges, John Casablancas, Naomi Campbell, Linda Evangelista, and Iman chose Bibb to be the winner. After finishing her junior year, Bibb flew to New York City to sign a contract with Elite Agency and modeled over that summer and went on a trip to Japan. Bibb returned to America for her senior year and graduated in 1991. Bibb later decided to attend the University of Virginia. After a single semester, Bibb shortened her studies and moved to New York City to pursue her full-time modeling career. Bibb's modeling photographs have appeared in the magazines "Maxim" and "FHM". She also attended the William Esper acting studio for three years. Career. After one-episode roles in the television shows "Pacific Blue" and "Home Improvement", Bibb's first film role came in the comedy "Private Parts". This was followed by her first television series, where she replaced the departed Susan Walters as the female lead in the second season of "The Big Easy". Most critics panned the show, and it was canceled months later after low ratings. She appeared in the romantic drama "Touch Me", co-starring Amanda Peet, Michael Vartan and Peter Facinelli. Later she portrayed a supporting role, Summer, in the film "This Space Between Us", released in 1999. In 1999, Bibb had her big break appearing as a lead character on the WB Network television series "Popular". Her role was Brooke McQueen, the most popular girl at Kennedy High School who is beautiful, a straight-A student, and a cheerleader. The show was a major success among teenagers and led Bibb to more recognizable film roles. The show garnered her a Teen Choice Award for Television Choice Actress and a Young Hollywood Award nomination for Exciting New Face – Female. During the series, she filmed the horror–thriller "The Skulls" – released in 2000 – which co-starred Paul Walker and Joshua Jackson. Her character was Chloe, the classmate, friend and love interest of Jackson's character. "The Skulls" received a negative reception from critics but was a box-office success. She received a role in the 2001 comedy "See Spot Run". Her role in the film was Stephanie, a single mother who spend most of the film on her own "Planes, Trains and Automobiles". Bibb was cast in a recurring role in the show "ER", and played the lead character in the television series "Line of Fire". She also had a one-episode appearance in "". Bibb joined the cast of "Crossing Jordan" as Detective Lu Simmons until Season 6.
1065330	Fisher Stevens (born Steven Fisher, born November 27, 1963) is an American actor, director and producer. His most recent successes include the 2010 Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature for his film "The Cove" and 2008 Independent Spirit Award for Best Documentary Feature for his film "Crazy Love". Life and career. Stevens was born Steven Fisher in Chicago, Illinois, the son of Sally, a painter and AIDS activist, and Norman Fisher, a furniture executive. He co-founded Naked Angels Theater Company with longtime friends Rob Morrow, Nicole Burdette, Pippin Parker, Charles Landry, Nancy Travis, and Ned Eisenberg in 1986. He also co-founded a film production company called Greene Street Films, located in Tribeca, New York City in 1996. Stevens performed as Edgar Allan Poe on Lou Reed's album "The Raven" in 2003. He is also an accomplished harmonica player. As an actor, he is well known for his portrayals of Chuck Fishman on "Early Edition", Seamus O'Neill on "Key West", Eugene "The Plague" Belford in "Hackers", Iggy in "Super Mario Brothers", Hawk Ganz in "The Flamingo Kid", and Ben Jabituya in "Short Circuit" and "Short Circuit 2". His television credits include "Frasier", "Friends", "Law & Order", "Key West", and "Lost". He recently appeared on two episodes of the TV show "Numb3rs". Fisher also has a distinguished Broadway and off-Broadway career spanning nearly 3 decades. He played Jigger Craigin in the 1994 Lincoln Center revival of "Rodgers and Hammerstein's Carousel". He had an early success in the 1982 Broadway production of "Torch Song Trilogy" playing David, the adopted son of the gay protagonist played by the show's writer Harvey Fierstein, and the original Broadway production of "Brighton Beach Memoirs", where he succeeded Matthew Broderick in the starring role of Eugene. Throughout his career, he has acted in and directed more than 50 stage productions. In 2010, Fisher co-founded a new media and documentary film company, Insurgent Media, with Andrew S. Karsch and Erik H. Gordon. In June 2010, Stevens made his major theatrical directing debut with John Leguizamo's one-man show, "Ghetto Klown" (originally called "Klass Klown"), which eventually ran on Broadway from March to July 2011. The two had appeared together in a production of "A Midsummer Night's Dream" at The Public Theater about 20 years earlier. On July 13, 2012, PBS debuted "Tales From a Ghetto Klown," a documentary about the development of the show which prominently features Stevens.
1100863	Laurent Lafforgue (; born 6 November 1966) is a French mathematician. He has made outstanding contributions to Langlands' program in the fields of number theory and analysis, and in particular proved the Langlands conjectures for the automorphism group of a function field. The crucial contribution by Lafforgue to solve this question is the construction of compactifications of certain moduli stacks of shtukas. The monumental proof is the result of more than six years of concentrated efforts. In 2002 at the 24th International Congress of Mathematicians in Beijing, China he received the Fields Medal together with Vladimir Voevodsky. Career. He won 2 silver medals at International Mathematical Olympiad (IMO) in 1984 and 1985. He entered the École Normale Supérieure in 1986. In 1994 he received his Ph.D. under the direction of Gérard Laumon in the Arithmetic and Algebraic Geometry team at the Université de Paris-Sud. Currently he is a research director of CNRS, detached as permanent professor of mathematics at the Institut des Hautes Études Scientifiques (I.H.E.S.) in Bures-sur-Yvette, France. He received the Clay Research Award in 2000. His younger brother Vincent Lafforgue is also a notable mathematician. On May 22, 2011, Lafforgue was awarded an honorary Doctor of Science from the University of Notre Dame.
1377131	Jason Scott Dolley (born July 5, 1991) is an American actor and musician, best known for his roles in various Disney Channel projects. These include Newton "Newt" Livingston III on "Cory in the House", Virgil Fox in "Minutemen", Connor Kennedy in "Read It and Weep" and Pete Ivey in "Hatching Pete". He currently stars as PJ Duncan in Disney's "Good Luck Charlie". Career. Jason Dolley was born in Los Angeles, California. Dolley gained his first stage experience at 11 when he and one of his brothers performed the Abbott and Costello "Who's on First" routine in a school talent show. His first real acting jobs came that same year. He won the lead role in the award winning short film entitled "Chasing Daylight". He was then cast by director Mel Gibson to be 13-year-old T.J. Savage on the ABC TV series "Complete Savages". After "Complete Savages" was cancelled, he starred in the film "Saving Shiloh" as Marty Preston, in the Disney Channel Original Movie "Read it and Weep" as Connor Kennedy and in the film "The Air I Breathe" as the younger form of the character named 'Pleasure' (the adult version of whom was played by Brendan Fraser). In 2006, Dolley appeared in Duracell's commercial "Trusted Everywhere" Campaign "Amazon". Dolley was part of the Yellow team in the second edition of the "Disney Channel Games", broadcast in mid-2007. From 2007 to 2008, Dolley starred in the Disney Channel show, Cory in the House. In 2008, he appeared in the film "Minutemen" as Virgil Fox and was in the third edition of the Disney Channel Games on the Green Team. In 2009, Jason starred in the Disney film "Hatching Pete" as Pete Ivey. In 2010, Dolley began appearing in his second Disney Channel Original Series, "Good Luck Charlie as P.J. Duncan". When asked about his role in the new Disney Channel Original Series family sitcom, "Good Luck Charlie", he replied, "I like the realness of it. I like the more authentic tone. I like the family sitcom. That's something different for Disney, which also appealed to me." He also said in a different interview, "When I read the script, I was like, 'Oh, this is kind of cool. This is a little different. It has a "Full House" kind of feel. It's very family-friendly. Families can sit down and watch this and get a real laugh. I think that's what's been cool about it from the start and what's still cool about it today." Dolley and cast appeared be in a feature-length Christmas Disney Channel Original Movie based on the series entitled "Good Luck Charlie, It's Christmas!" began production in March 16, 2011 for a December 2011 premiere. He also appeared on Disney Channel's "Tinker Bell and the Pixie Hollow Games", an animated movie which also stars Brenda Song, Tiffany Thornton and Zendaya. Personal life. His favorite things to do include guitar, piano, video games and paintball, he also enjoys playing football with his friends. He likes to spend time with his pet chocolate Labrador retriever and his family as well as staying active in his church youth group. Dolley currently lives with his parents in Simi Valley, California. When not filming he takes college courses in philosophy at Moorpark College.
1069497	Sebastiane is a 1976 film written and directed by Derek Jarman and Paul Humfress. It portrays the events of the life of Saint Sebastian, including his iconic martyrdom by arrows. The film, which was aimed at a homosexual audience, was controversial for the homoeroticism portrayed between the soldiers. It is significant for being the first film to be entirely recorded accurately in Latin, which went as far as the translation of some dialogue into vulgar Latin. Cast. The Emperor's guests included such notables as Peter Hinwood, Jordan, Charlotte Barnes, Nell Campbell, Nicholas de Jongh, Duggie Fields, Christopher Hobbs, Andrew Logan, Patricia Quinn, and Johnny Rozsa. Commentary. Margaret Walters, author of "The Nude Male", commented that "Sebastiane", "where male nudes in various stages of ecstacy positively littered the screen", was "successfully aimed at a very specialized homosexual audience."
583663	Baasha is a 1995 Indian Tamil action drama film starring Rajinikanth, Nagma, and Raghuvaran. The film was directed by Suresh Krissna, and features music by Deva. The film was a blockbuster and completed 368-day run at the box office. The film's soundtrack, as well, was critically acclaimed. The film is a revised adaptation of Amitabh Bachchan starrer "Hum" and it took inspiration from Mammootty starrer "Samrajyam". The film borrows background score used by Brad Fiedel in the Terminator series. Originally, producer Prasad Rao had bought the remake and dubbing rights with Amitabh Bachchan, but the project never took off. Now the film is being dubbed in Hindi in addition to being digitally mastered. Music director Deva, who composed for the original score has recorded for the Hindi version. The Hindi version's audio launch will happen in early May while Rao plans on releasing the newly dubbed version by May end. Rajinikanth won Filmfans Association Award and Cinema Express Award for the Best Actor for his performance in the film. This film was later remade in Kannada as "Kotigobba" starring south super star Dr.Vishnuvardhan and Priyanka Upendra in the lead that looted the box-office. Plot. Manikkam (Rajnikanth) is a humble auto driver who helps the needy. He also keeps away from unnecessary fights and quarrels. His ambition is to bring up his brother and sisters with flying colours. His brother Shiva (Shashikumar) gets through the police training and waits for posting. Manikkam meets Priya (Nagma), a rich girl who travels frequently in his auto. She develops a respect and feelings for him due to his nobility. Shiva attends his interview and he is asked to bring his brother to office by a senior official when he hears the name Manikkam and Shiva's birthplace is Bombay. Hesitating at first, Manikkam goes to commissioner's office. Manikkam's sister who had passed with more marks requests a medical seat to a medical college proprietor. The proprietor demands that she sleep with him and stay in his guest house. Hearing about this Manikkam meets the guy. He surprises his sister when he makes the proprietor bow to him and readily to give seat without any condition. He also surprises his brother when he attacks the area Don who teased his sister. The men attacked by Manikkam are critical in the hospital. Shiva inquires Manikkam about his past life in Bombay. The film then goes into a flashback about Manikkam's life at Bombay. The flashback shows that Manikkam was actually once a Don named Manik Baashha in Bombay. He had a great friend Anwar Baasha (Charan Raj). They were great friends despite being from different religions. Once Anwar questions the activities of the Mafia Don Antony (Raghuvaran). Events lead to Antony's men killing Anwar on the main road. Manikkam is saved due to the pleas of his father (Vijayakumar), who works as the personal assistant of Antony. Manikkam vows to avenge his dear friend's death. He does so by murdering all those responsible before even his friend is laid to rest. The people of Mumbai also come to his support and claim they have not seen any murder occur to the police. Manikkam soon becomes Manik Baashha, the Don – a "Robin Hood" kind of a Don. He is greatly revered by the people. But situations lead him to direct confrontation with Mark Antony. Antony convinces an assistant of Baashha to murder him on his birthday. But Baashha cleverly recognises the plot and his foes end up shooting a wax model of him. The assistant is evicted and he later appears in the movie as the father of Manikkam's fiancée (Nagma). Meanwhile, Antony goes desperate in his attempts to quell the Baashha challenge. The only option left with him is to kill Baashha's father. His loyalty notwithstanding, Antony proceeds with that. Baashha on the other hand aids the police in the arrest of Antony. He also promises his father before his death to forgo all illicit activities and return to Chennai to lead a peaceful life. He makes the media and the police believe that he has died in an accident. Meanwhile Priya proposes to Manikkam. Her dad arranges for a marriage with one of his men against Priya's wishes. She begs for Manikkam to save her life else she will kill herself. On the day of marriage Manikkam deeply thinks and finally decides to save Priya. He reaches the marriage hall and shows his hand to Priya. Priya is surprised when her dad did not show sign of opposing and is not aware of the fact that her father is familiar to Manikkam as Baashha. Priya's dad lets them go. An underling informs Mark Anthony that Manikkam is alive. Antony escapes from Bombay jail and kills Kesavan for killing his family for money. He kidnaps Manikkam's family before Manikkam comes to their rescue. In the struggle Manikkam loses one of his friends. Manikkam rescues his family from Antony and chases him. Just as he was about to kill Antony he was stopped by a senior police official. The story ends with Antony trying to shoot Manikkam but instead being shot dead by Shiva. Soundtrack. Tamil version Hindi version Hindi version with lyrics by Indeewar & Gopal Ram. The Hindi version was repackaged by Prasad Rao as "Baashha". Originally dubbed in Hindi as "Manik Baasha" in 1995. Digital conversion and 2013 re-release. The film is to be re-released in Hindi with color restoration, DI correction, revamped new intermediate negative, new graphics for the title cards, with digitised stereo sound and the 5.1 channel. The Hindi version music is done by Deva who composed the original music score. Producer Badrakali Vara Prasad Rao said that the Hindi version will be released by end of May 2013 all over the world and it is expected that the film will be re-released in Tamil and Telugu also with the digitally converted version.
581871	Nandita Das (born 7 November 1969) is an award-winning Indian film actress and director. As an actress, she is known for her performances in "Fire" (1996), "Earth" (1998), "Bawandar" (2000), "Kannathil Muthamittal" (2002), "Azhagi" and "Before The Rains" (2007). As a director, she is known for her directorial debut "Firaaq" (2008), which has won a number of national and international awards. She has been awarded the Chevalier of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the Government of France for her work. Nandita Das was the first Indian to be inducted into their International Women's Forum's hall of fame. Early life and education. Das was born to noted Indian Oriya painter, Jatin Das and a Gujarati Jain mother, Varsha who is a writer. She was born in Mumbai and brought up in Delhi.
587678	Student No.1 is a Telugu movie starring Jr NTR and Gajala. This was the debut film of current Tollywood director S.S. Rajamouli. This film turned out to be a hit for both the actor and the director as well. The film was dubbed in Hindi as "Aaj Ka Mujrim". The film was remade into Tamil as "Student Number 1". Plot. Aditya (NTR) joins a law college in Vizag as a student. The law college is notorious for its unruly students headed by Satya (Rajeev Kanakala). Aditya is shown as a young mysterious man and throughout the first half there are several flashbacks to his story. He makes the unruly students mend their ways. In the interval, we come to know that Aditya is a criminal facing murder charges and is serving his life term in Vizag central jail. He attends the college with a special permission from the jail authorities.
1101961	Christian Felix Klein (25 April 1849 – 22 June 1925) was a German mathematician, known for his work in group theory, complex analysis, non-Euclidean geometry, and on the connections between geometry and group theory. His 1872 Erlangen Program, classifying geometries by their underlying symmetry groups, was a hugely influential synthesis of much of the mathematics of the day. Life. Klein was born in Düsseldorf, to Prussian parents; his father, Caspar Klein, was a Prussian government official's secretary stationed in the Rhine Province. Klein's mother was Sophie Elise Klein. He attended the Gymnasium in Düsseldorf, then studied mathematics and physics at the University of Bonn, 1865–1866, intending to become a physicist. At that time, Julius Plücker held Bonn's chair of mathematics and experimental physics, but by the time Klein became his assistant, in 1866, Plücker's interest was geometry. Klein received his doctorate, supervised by Plücker, from the University of Bonn in 1868. Plücker died in 1868, leaving his book on the foundations of line geometry incomplete. Klein was the obvious person to complete the second part of Plücker's "Neue Geometrie des Raumes", and thus became acquainted with Alfred Clebsch, who had moved to Göttingen in 1868. Klein visited Clebsch the following year, along with visits to Berlin and Paris. In July 1870, at the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War, he was in Paris and had to leave the country. For a short time, he served as a medical orderly in the Prussian army before being appointed lecturer at Göttingen in early 1871. Erlangen appointed Klein professor in 1872, when he was only 23. In this, he was strongly supported by Clebsch, who regarded him as likely to become the leading mathematician of his day. Klein did not build a school at Erlangen where there were few students, and so he was pleased to be offered a chair at Munich's Technische Hochschule in 1875. There he and Alexander von Brill taught advanced courses to many excellent students, including, Adolf Hurwitz, Walther von Dyck, Karl Rohn, Carl Runge, Max Planck, Luigi Bianchi, and Gregorio Ricci-Curbastro. In 1875 Klein married Anne Hegel, the granddaughter of the philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. After five years at the Technische Hochschule, Klein was appointed to a chair of geometry at Leipzig. There his colleagues included Walther von Dyck, Rohn, Eduard Study and Friedrich Engel. Klein's years at Leipzig, 1880 to 1886, fundamentally changed his life. In 1882, his health collapsed; in 1883–1884, he was plagued by depression. Nonetheless his research continued; his seminal work on hyperelliptic sigma functions dates from around this period, being published in 1886 and 1888. Klein accepted a chair at the University of Göttingen in 1886. From then until his 1913 retirement, he sought to re-establish Göttingen as the world's leading mathematics research center. Yet he never managed to transfer from Leipzig to Göttingen his own role as the leader of a school of geometry. At Göttingen, he taught a variety of courses, mainly on the interface between mathematics and physics, such as mechanics and potential theory. The research center Klein established at Göttingen served as a model for the best such centers throughout the world. He introduced weekly discussion meetings, and created a mathematical reading room and library. In 1895, Klein hired David Hilbert away from Königsberg; this appointment proved fateful, because Hilbert continued Göttingen's glory until his own retirement in 1932. Under Klein's editorship, "Mathematische Annalen" became one of the very best mathematics journals in the world. Founded by Clebsch, only under Klein's management did it first rival then surpass "Crelle's Journal" based out of the University of Berlin. Klein set up a small team of editors who met regularly, making democratic decisions. The journal specialized in complex analysis, algebraic geometry, and invariant theory (at least until Hilbert killed the subject). It also provided an important outlet for real analysis and the new group theory. Thanks in part to Klein's efforts, Göttingen began admitting women in 1893. He supervised the first Ph.D. thesis in mathematics written at Göttingen by a woman; she was Grace Chisholm Young, an English student of Arthur Cayley's, whom Klein admired. Around 1900, Klein began to take an interest in mathematical instruction in schools. In 1905, he played a decisive role in formulating a plan recommending that the rudiments of differential and integral calculus and the function concept be taught in secondary schools. This recommendation was gradually implemented in many countries around the world. In 1908, Klein was elected chairman of the International Commission on Mathematical Instruction at the Rome International Congress of Mathematicians. Under his guidance, the German branch of the Commission published many volumes on the teaching of mathematics at all levels in Germany. The London Mathematical Society awarded Klein its De Morgan Medal in 1893. He was elected a member of the Royal Society in 1885, and was awarded its Copley medal in 1912. He retired the following year due to ill health, but continued to teach mathematics at his home for some years more. Klein bore the title of Geheimrat. He died in Göttingen in 1925. Work. Klein's dissertation, on line geometry and its applications to mechanics, classified second degree line complexes using Weierstrass's theory of elementary divisors. Klein's first important mathematical discoveries were made in 1870. In collaboration with Sophus Lie, he discovered the fundamental properties of the asymptotic lines on the Kummer surface. They went on to investigate W-curves, curves invariant under a group of projective transformations. It was Lie who introduced Klein to the concept of group, which was to play a major role in his later work. Klein also learned about groups from Camille Jordan. Klein devised the bottle named after him, a one-sided closed surface which cannot be embedded in three-dimensional Euclidean space, but it may be immersed as a cylinder looped back through itself to join with its other end from the "inside". It may be embedded in Euclidean space of dimensions 4 and higher. In the 1890s, Klein turned to mathematical physics, a subject from which he had never strayed far, writing on the gyroscope with Arnold Sommerfeld. In 1894 he launched the idea of an encyclopedia of mathematics including its applications, which became the Encyklopädie der mathematischen Wissenschaften. This enterprise, which ran until 1935, provided an important standard reference of enduring value. Erlangen Program. In 1871, while at Göttingen, Klein made major discoveries in geometry. He published two papers "On the So-called Non-Euclidean Geometry" showing that Euclidean and non-Euclidean geometries could be considered special cases of a projective surface with a specific conic section adjoined. This had the remarkable corollary that non-Euclidean geometry was consistent if and only if Euclidean geometry was, putting Euclidean and non-Euclidean geometries on the same footing, and ending all controversy surrounding non-Euclidean geometry. Cayley never accepted Klein's argument, believing it to be circular. Klein's synthesis of geometry as the study of the properties of a space that is invariant under a given group of transformations, known as the "Erlangen Program" (1872), profoundly influenced the evolution of mathematics. This program was set out in Klein's inaugural lecture as professor at Erlangen, although it was not the actual speech he gave on the occasion. The "Program" proposed a unified approach to geometry that became (and remains) the accepted view. Klein showed how the essential properties of a given geometry could be represented by the group of transformations that preserve those properties. Thus the "Program"'s definition of geometry encompassed both Euclidean and non-Euclidean geometry. Today the significance of Klein's contributions to geometry is more than evident, but not because those contributions are now seen as strange or wrong. On the contrary, those contributions have become so much a part of our present mathematical thinking that it is hard for us to appreciate their novelty, and the way in which they were not immediately accepted by all his contemporaries. Function theory. Klein saw his work on function theory as his major contribution to mathematics, specifically his work on: Klein showed that the modular group moves the fundamental region of the complex plane so as to tessellate that plane. In 1879, he looked at the action of PSL(2,7), thought of as an image of the modular group, and obtained an explicit representation of a Riemann surface today called the Klein quartic. He showed that that surface was a curve in projective space, that its equation was "x"3"y" + "y"3"z" + "z"3"x" = 0, and that its group of symmetries was PSL(2,7) of order 168. His "Ueber Riemann's Theorie der algebraischen Funktionen und ihre Integrale" (1882) treats function theory in a geometric way, connecting potential theory and conformal mappings. This work drew on notions from fluid dynamics. Klein considered equations of degree > 4, and was especially interested in using transcendental methods to solve the general equation of the fifth degree. Building on the methods of Hermite and Kronecker, he produced similar results to those of Brioschi and went on to completely solve the problem by means of the icosahedral group. This work led him to write a series of papers on elliptic modular functions. In his 1884 book on the icosahedron, Klein set out a theory of automorphic functions, connecting algebra and geometry. However Poincaré published an outline of his theory of automorphic functions in 1881, which led to a friendly rivalry between the two men. Both sought to state and prove a grand uniformization theorem that would serve as a capstone to the emerging theory. Klein succeeded in formulating such a theorem and in sketching a strategy for proving it. But while doing this work his health collapsed, as mentioned above. Klein summarized his work on automorphic and elliptic modular functions in a four volume treatise, written with Robert Fricke over a period of about 20 years. Bibliography. Primary: Secondary
1207255	Casi, Casi (in English, Almost Nearly) is a 2006 Puerto Rican film, written and directed by brothers Jaime and Tony Vallés. It received a theatrical release in Puerto Rico in early 2007. The film takes place in a Catholic school in Puerto Rico where the main character, Emilio, is infatuated with Jacklynne, the most popular girl in school. In an attempt to win her over, he decides to run for Student Council President to impress her, only to discover that Jacklynne herself will be his adversary. Emilio then devises a plan, together with his friends, to rig the election and lose on purpose. All this without being caught by strict school Principal Richardson (Marian Pabón). Title. Casi [cah'-se], adv. means: Almost, nearly, somewhat more or less; just. Casi que or casi casi, Very nearly. Plot. Emilio is a normal teenager who somehow finds himself being sent to the principal's office every other week. He has a crush on Jacklynne, the most popular girl in school, so he decides to run for Student Council President in order to impress her. After announcing his candidacy, Emilio discovers, to his horror, that Jacklynne herself will be running for office against him. Emotions fly high as campaign fever intensifies. Not wanting to lose his chance to win her heart, Emilio devises a risky plan that could come to a disastrous end if the tyrannous school principal gets wind of his scheme. Production Details. First-time directors, Jaime and Tony Vallés, had some experience working in theater. However, they had never made a movie before. They then set out to learn everything they needed about it through books and the Internet
578536	Bangkok Haunted () is a 2001 Thai horror film compilation, directed by Oxide Pang and Pisut Praesangeam. It is a trio of ghost stories, as told by three people sitting around in a darkened Bangkok bar. Plot. "Legend of the Drum". An antiques dealer discovers that a dancer's musical spirit possesses an old drum in her shop. "Black Magic Woman". A lonely young woman is given an aphrodisiac perfume. It is extracted from corpses. "Revenge". A police cadet searches for the truth behind a girl's suicide by hanging. Release and reception. At the time of its release in Thailand, "Bangkok Haunted" was the second-biggest grossing Thai horror film since "Nang Nak" in 1999. The film was screened at the London Thai Film Festival on October 13, 2002. Reviewing the film at the festival, "Variety" critic Derek Elley noted the film's atmospheric stylistic touches and technique, saying the first segment, "Legend of the Drum" was the strongest in terms of storytelling. "Black Magic Woman" is "largely an excuse for soft-porn sequences between some yucky shocks", Elley wrote. He said "Revenge" has weak plot development and had an over-reliance on "flashy effects". "Bangkok Haunted" was released on Region 2 DVD on March 24, 2003 by Tartan Video and on Region 1 DVD July 26, 2005 by Panik House Entertainment. Some called unrelated one story "The Unborn (2003)" and four stories "Haunted Universities (2009)" as "Bangkok Haunted 2" and "3".
1060943	Hannah Dakota Fanning (born February 23, 1994), known as Dakota Fanning, is an American actress who rose to prominence after her breakthrough performance at age seven in the 2001 film "I Am Sam". Her performance earned her a nomination for a Screen Actors Guild Award at age eight in 2002, making her the youngest nominee in history. As a child actress, she went on to appear in high-profile films such as "Man on Fire" (2004), "War of the Worlds" (2005) and "Charlotte's Web" (2006). Fanning then began the transition to more adult roles with "Hounddog" (2007) and "The Secret Life of Bees" (2008). Her recent film roles have included the eponymous character in "Coraline" (2009), Cherie Currie in "The Runaways" (2010), and Jane Volturi in "The Twilight Saga" (2009–12).
584671	Naan Aval Adhu () () is an upcoming Tamil-language film directed by Kona Venkat. Filming started for the project in 2009 with Madhavan, Shamita Shetty and Sadha in the title roles, with the film being a remake of the 2007 Hindi horror film, "Darling". It was initially produced by Ram Gopal Varma, but the film was sold before release to Storm Pictures after Varma, Venkat and Madhavan had gone through creative differences. Whilst post-production also experienced difficulties after Madhavan refused to dub for the film, the film still remains unreleased. Cast. Several heroines were rumoured to have been signed up for this prestigious film offer. Actresses first rumoured were Shriya Saran, Shriya Reddy, Isha Sharvani, Esha Deol and Nisha Kothari but however Shamita Shetty and Sadha have just about been confirmed. Soundtrack. The songs were composed by G. V. Prakash and R. P. Patnaik.
1163745	Virginia Mayo (born Virginia Clara Jones; November 30, 1920 – January 17, 2005) was an American vaudeville performer and film actress. Early life. Born in St. Louis, Missouri to Luke and Martha Henrietta (née Rautenstrauch) Jones, the yound Mayo was tutored by a series of dancing instructors engaged by her aunt. She appeared in the St. Louis Municipal Opera chorus and in an act with six other girls at the Jefferson Hotel, where she was recruited by vaudeville performer Andy Mayo to appear in his act (as ringmaster for two men in a horse suit). Mayo would later take his surname as her stage name. She appeared in vaudeville for three years in the ringmaster act and appeared with Eddie Cantor on Broadway in 1941's "Banjo Eyes". Hollywood. Mayo continued her career as a dancer, then signed a contract with Samuel Goldwyn and appeared in several of Goldwyn's movies. One of her first films was "Jack London" (1943), which starred her future husband Michael O'Shea. After four films, Mayo starred in David Butler's "The Princess and the Pirate" (1944) with comedian Bob Hope, which was her first starring role. In the mid-1940s, Mayo became a popular actress who personified the dream girl or girl-next-door image in a series of films. This can be seen particularly in several pairings with dancer-actor Danny Kaye, including "Wonder Man" (1945), "The Kid from Brooklyn" (1946), and "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty" (1947).
1065781	Matthew George "Matt" Frewer (born January 4, 1958) is a Canadian American stage, TV and film actor. Acting since 1983, he is known for portraying the 1980s icon Max Headroom and the retired villain Moloch in the film adaptation of "Watchmen". Life and career. Frewer was born in Washington, D.C., the son of Gillian Anne (née German) and Frederick Charlesley Frewer, a Royal Canadian Navy officer. He was raised in Peterborough, Ontario, and trained at the famous Bristol Old Vic Theatre School, graduating from its three-year acting course in 1980. He portrayed the artificial intelligence character of Max Headroom in the 1980s, starring in a British-made science fiction TV movie of the same name (1985) followed by "The Original Max Talking Headroom Show" (1987) and an American series based upon the 1985 movie, entitled "Max Headroom" (1987–88). He also portrayed the character in other media, including a series of television commercials for "New Coke", as well as the single and music video for "Paranoimia" by Art of Noise. Frewer starred as Dr. Mike Stratford in the CBS situation comedy series "Doctor Doctor" (1989–91). Frewer appeared in such films as "The Fourth Protocol" (1987, with Joanna Cassidy), "Honey, I Shrunk the Kids" (1989, with Rick Moranis, Amy O'Neill, Carl Steven, and Mark L. Taylor), "National Lampoon's Senior Trip" (1995, with Nicole de Boer), and the 2004 remake of "Dawn of the Dead". Frewer was nominated for two Gemini Awards in 2000, one for a guest appearance on "Da Vinci's Inquest" (a series which starred Nicholas Campbell) and another for his work on the series "Mentors". He was a regular on the Syfy original series "Eureka" during the show's first two seasons, playing eccentric Australian animal expert Jim Taggart. Frewer has done voice-over work on several animated projects, including "Batman: The Animated Series" (1993) and "The Incredible Hulk" (1996–97). Frewer played Case Manager Matt Praeger in the Canadian Sci-Fi series "" from 1997-2000; the series was created by and starred Dan Aykroyd.
1048378	Bad Girls Go to Hell is an American 1965 sexploitation film, written, produced and directed by Doris Wishman. The film stars Gigi Darlene, George La Rocque, Barnard L. Sackett, Harold Key and Darlene Bennett. This film marked the end of Wishman's lighthearted nudist camp series and "nudie-cutie" comedies (such as "Nude on the Moon") and a shift toward serious stories dealing with sex and violence. The new wave of harder-edged sexploitation and violent "roughie" films had already arrived a year earlier with David F. Friedman and Herschell Gordon Lewis' "Scum of the Earth!" (1963), Russ Meyer's "Lorna" (1964), Michael Findlay's "Body of a Female", and Joseph P. Mawra's "Olga's House of Shame" and its sequels.
1044929	Pandora and the Flying Dutchman (1951) is a British drama film made by Romulus Films and released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in the United States. The film was directed by Albert Lewin and produced by Lewin and Joe Kaufmann from his own screenplay, based on the legend of "The Flying Dutchman". It was filmed mainly on the Costa Brava. The land record speed scenes were shot at Pendine Sands in Wales. The film starred Ava Gardner and James Mason, featuring Nigel Patrick, Sheila Sim, Harold Warrender, Mario Cabré and Marius Goring. The cinematographer was Jack Cardiff. Most of the movie was shot on location in Tossa de Mar, Catalonia, Spain, where a statue of Gardner has been erected on the hill overlooking the town's main beach. MGM delayed its release until Gardner's star-making role in 1951's "Show Boat". The tactic worked, and this film solidified her status as a rising star.
1165113	Davenie Johanna "Joey" Heatherton (born September 14, 1944) is an American actress, dancer, and singer. Early life. Heatherton was raised in Rockville Centre, New York, a suburb of New York City. There she attended St. Agnes Cathedral School, a Catholic grade and high school. Her father Ray Heatherton was a Broadway star ("Babes in Arms") and television pioneer. Career. Heatherton began her career as a child actress, appearing in 1959 as a member of the ensemble and an understudy in the original Broadway production of "The Sound of Music", and received her first sustained national exposure that same year as a semi-regular on "The Perry Como Show", playing an exuberant teenager with a perpetual crush on Perry Como. She also appeared extensively on "The Dean Martin Show"; Dean Martin invited her to perform numerous times on the show, starting with the premiere episode of September 16, 1965. From June to September 1968, along with Frank Sinatra, Jr., she co-hosted Martin's summer substitute musical comedy hour, "Dean Martin Presents the Golddiggers". She also made multiple appearances on 1960s television shows such as "The Andy Williams Show", "The Hollywood Palace", "The Ed Sullivan Show", and "This Is Tom Jones". She first appeared on television on her father's show "The Merry Mailman", a popular children's show in New York. In 1964, she appeared on "The Tonight Show", where she energetically coached Johnny Carson on the finer points of dancing "The Frug." During that era, she also appeared in Bob Hope's USO troupe between 1965 and 1977, entertaining the GIs with her singing, dancing and provocative outfits. Excerpts from the USO tours were televised as part of Hope's long-running series of NBC monthly specials, culminating in the top-rated Christmas shows, where Heatherton's segments were regularly featured. She appeared as a mystery guest on "What's My Line" on November 7, 1965, which was the last show that Dorothy Killgallen appeared on. Acting. Throughout the 1960s, Heatherton interspersed her variety show appearances with dramatic turns in three theatrical films and on numerous episodes of series such as "Route 66" (playing a 15-year-old temptress in the November 18, 1960 teleplay), "Mr. Novak", "The Virginian", "Channing", "Arrest and Trial", "The Nurses", and "Breaking Point". Heatherton also appeared in the movies "Twilight of Honor" (1963), "Where Love Has Gone", (1964) and "My Blood Runs Cold" (1965), alongside veteran actors such as Claude Rains, Bette Davis and Susan Hayward. In "Twilight of Honor", her film debut, she played the young wife of an accused murderer (Oscar-nominee Nick Adams). The only one of the three films to be made in color, 1964's "Where Love Has Gone", was a big-budget melodrama based on Harold Robbins' roman à clef about the scandalous Lana Turner–Cheryl Crane–Johnny Stompanato manslaughter case, with Heatherton playing the daughter of the Turner character (Susan Hayward). In 1966 she did an impressive two-part episode of "I Spy" with Robert Culp and Bill Cosby, playing a cute and sexy girl returning an original Leonardo Da Vinci painting to a Roman museum. Finally, she appeared in "Blood", the second of three 1965 horror-suspense films directed by William Conrad, alongside Troy Donohue. 1970s–present. In 1972, Heatherton had a #24 pop hit with the 1957 Ferlin Husky song "Gone". Her album, "The Joey Heatherton Album", did not do as well on the charts as her single. By the 1970s, Heatherton's career was slowing down, but she was still popular enough to do a series of television ads for RC Cola and Serta Mattresses. A brief high point came in July 1975 when she headlined "Joey & Dad", a four-week Sunday night summer replacement series for Cher's 1975-76 variety show in which she performed alongside her own father. Each episode would involve Ray Heatherton waxing nostalgic over life with his daughter, while rooting through his attic. In subsequent years, Heatherton performed in Las Vegas and acted in a few scattered television shows and films, including the 1972 "Bluebeard" (with Richard Burton in the title role). Additionally, she played the starring role as Xaviera Hollander in 1977's Watergate-inspired "The Happy Hooker Goes to Washington". In April 1997, Heatherton appeared nude in an issue of "Playboy". Her most recent acting role was in the 2002 Damon Packard film "Reflections of Evil". Personal life. In 1969, Heatherton married Lance Rentzel, a wide receiver for the Dallas Cowboys. In November 1970, Rentzel was arrested for exposing himself to a 10-year-old girl. They separated shortly afterward and divorced in 1972.
582632	Vishwatma is a 1992 Indian action thriller film directed by Rajiv Rai. This film marked the Hindi film debut of late actress Divya Bharti and Jyotsna Singh who did not appear in any other films after this. The film was a box office success. The music of the film was very successful especially the song "Saat Samundar" which became a favorite and gave Divya Bharti the limelight into Bollywood. Synopsis. Vishwatma is the story of a man named Prabat Singh (Sunny Deol) who is an honest and dedicated police officer. He usually has no time for his family and his father is constantly at loggerheads with him. His father believes in peace and opposes bloodshed and disturbance in the country. Prabat is currently on a mission to apprehend the most dreaded crime lord Ajgar Jurrat (Amrish Puri) who lives in Kenya but operates in India. Things take a turn for the worse when Prabat kills Ajgar's brother in an encounter. An angered Ajgar abducts and kills Prabat's school-going brother. Prabat's family is devastated and his father blames him for his brother's death. Prabat's father disowns him from the family. Meanwhile, one of Ajgar's men turns against him and threatens to turn him in to the police. Fearing his arrest, Ajgar has the man, Madan Bhardwaj (Mangal Dhillon) killed on the night of his wedding. Ajgar's son also molests Madan's wife, leaving her traumatised. Thus, Madan's brother Akash Bhardwaj (Chunky Pandey) swears revenge on Ajgar. But Ajgar flees to Kenya and it's almost impossible to bring him back to India in order to try him in court. So, the police commissioner (Dalip Tahil) decides to look for Prabat as he is the only one who can achieve the impossible. Prabat moves to a remote corner of a distant village in India after his dad disowns him. Prabat's dad also changes his mind and decides to go to persuade Prabat to take on the mission to bring Ajgar back to India.Prabat agrees to take on the mission but insists that Akash also join him. Akash agrees as well. And they fly all the way to Kenya on a mission to bring the dreaded criminal to justice in India. There, Prabat and Akash find Madan's sister-in-law Renuka (Sonam) who's also on the same mission. She helps them get to Ajgar. But this task is not as easy as they may have thought as Ajgar is a respected citizen in Kenya. Prabat and Akash seek the help of another honest cop, Surya Pratap (Naseeruddin Shah) to apprehend Ajgar. However, Surya Pratap thinks Ajgar is an honorable man. Akash falls in love with Ajgar's daughter, Sonia (Jyotsna Singh) and Prabat falls for Kusum (Divya Bharti). Renuka falls in love with Surya, despite knowing he has a daughter. Surya's wife committed suicide while Ajgar's son tried to molest her. When Surya learns that Ajgar's son was the reason behind his wife's death, he sets out to take revenge against Ajgar as well.
395768	"A Millionaire's First Love" () is a South Korean romance film released in 2006. It stars Hyun Bin and Lee Yeon Hee. Theme of this movie is "Nothing is more important than the true love of your heart." It was released on 9 February 2006, distributed by Lotte Entertainment and ran at 116 minutes. On February 16th 2002 the Japanese distribution rights were purchased by Digital Adventure for $1,500,000. It also inspired the telugu movie Pilla Zamindar (2011).It was also remade in Nepali as Mero Euta Sathi Cha.Both the remakes were hits at the box office. Plot. Kang Jae-kyung (Hyun Bin) is your typical rich kid. He is arrogant, drives sporty cars, attends the big clubs and rides through school corridors on his motorcycle. As his 18th birthday approaches, he is set to inherit his grandfather’s fortune, but first Jae-kyung is required to transfer to a new school in Gangwon Province and graduate. Until then all access to his penthouse, cottage and credit cards are denied. Should he fail to graduate or drops out then he loses everything. If he wishes to give up, he will only receive 0.1% of his over-all inheritance. With this in mind, he heads out to the countryside, to a small town in which daily life is far removed from what he is used to. Shortly after settling into his new home, he meets 19 year-old Choi Eun-hwan (Lee Yeon-hee), who happened to run into him back in Seoul. They don’t exactly hit it off; he’s far too stubborn and cool for school. Conversely, she sees hope for him and sets out to make him see it for himself. They eventually draw closer, thanks to a set of coincidences and school projects. Kang learns of Choi's terminal disease and does what he can to make her happy. He even tells his lawyer that he would give up his inheritance so he could buy an orphanage for her. One day during the rehearsal of a play at school, Kang Jae-kyung notices that the play is resembles the incident that had happened in his life. He recalls a childhood memory of being at the orphanage at Gangwondo, where he had met Eun-Whan and had made a promise to return in ten days. He went to find her and told her that he was unable to fulfill his promise and did not remember his promise or the girl because his parents had died in a car accident on that same day. His memories were thus erased.
1072399	All Monsters Attack, released in Japan as , is a 1969 Japanese Kaiju film produced by Toho. Directed by Ishirō Honda, the film starred Tomonori Yazaki, Eisei Amamoto, and Kenji Sahara. The 10th film in the Godzilla series, this was also the first film specifically geared towards children. While credited with the special effects work, Eiji Tsuburaya was not directly involved with the production of this film. The "Special Effects Supervised by" credit was given out of respect, since he was still the head of the Visual Effects Department. The effects were handled by Ishirō Honda himself, with assistance from Teruyoshi Nakano. The film was released theatrically in the United States in the winter of 1971 by Maron Films as "Godzilla's Revenge", where it was paired up nationwide on a double bill with "Island of the Burning Damned". Plot. Ichiro Miki (Tomonori Yazaki) is a highly imaginative but lonely latchkey kid growing up in urban (and at that time, polluted) Tokyo. Every day he comes home to his family's empty apartment. His only friends are a toymaker named Shinpei Inami (Eisei Amamoto) and a young girl named Sachiko (Hidemi Ito). Every day after school, Ichiro is tormented by a gang of bullies led by a child named Sancho (Junichi Ito), whom Ichiro has nicknamed "Gabara." To escape his loneliness, Ichiro sleeps and dreams about visiting Monster Island. During his visit he witnesses Godzilla battle three Kamacuras and Ebirah, a giant sea monster. Ichiro is then chased by a rogue Kamacuras and falls into a deep cave, but luckily avoids being caught by Kamacuras. Shortly afterwards, Ichiro is rescued from the cave by Godzilla's Son, Minilla. Ichiro quickly learns that Minilla has bully problems too, as he is bullied by a monstrous ogre known as Gabara. Ichiro is then awoken by Shinpei who informs him that his mother must work late, "again". Down on his luck Ichiro goes out to play, but is then frightened by the bullies and finds and explores an abandoned factory. After finding some souvenirs (tubes, a headset, and a wallet with someone's license), Ichiro leaves the factory after hearing some sirens close by. After Ichiro leaves, two Bank Robbers (played by Sachio Sakai and Kazuo Suzuki) who were hiding out in the factory learn that Ichiro has found one of their drivers licenses and follow him in order to kidnap him.
1265573	Nancy Carroll (November 19, 1903 – August 6, 1965) was an American actress. Career. She was christened Ann Veronica Lahiff in New York City. Of Irish parentage, she and her sister once performed a dancing act in a local contest of amateur talent. This led her to a stage career and then to the screen. She began her acting career in Broadway musicals. She became a successful actress in "talkies" because her musical background enabled her to play in the movie musicals of the 1930s. Her film debut was in "Ladies Must Dress" in 1927. In 1928 she made eight films. One of them, "Easy Come, Easy Go", co-starring Richard Dix, made her a star. In 1930 she was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress for "The Devil's Holiday". Among her other films are "Laughter" (1930), "Paramount on Parade" (1930), "Hot Saturday" (1932) with Cary Grant and Randolph Scott, "The Kiss Before the Mirror" (1933) directed by James Whale, and "Broken Lullaby" aka "The Man I Killed" (1932) directed by Ernst Lubitsch. Under contract to Paramount Pictures, Carroll often balked at the roles being offered to her and earned a reputation as a recalcitrant and uncooperative actress. In spite of her ability to successfully tackle light comedies, tearful melodramas, and even musicals, and as well as garnering considerable praise by the critics and public (she received the most fan mail of any star in the early 1930s), she was released by the studio. In the mid-1930s under a four-film contract with Columbia Pictures, she made four rather insignificant films and was no longer an A-list actress. Later years. Carroll retired from films in 1938, returned to the stage, and starred in the early television series "The Aldrich Family" in 1950. In the following year, she guest starred in the television version of "The Egg and I", starring her daughter, Patricia Kirkland. Death. On August 6, 1965, she was found dead after failing to arrive at the theater for a performance. The cause of her death was an aneurysm. She was 61 years old. For her contributions to the motion picture industry, Nancy Carroll has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 1719 Vine Street.
1100547	John Venn FRS (4 August 1834 â 4 April 1923), was a British logician and philosopher. He is famous for introducing the Venn diagram, which is used in many fields, including set theory, probability, logic, statistics, and computer science. Life and work. John Venn was born in 1834 in Hull, Yorkshire. His mother, Martha Sykes, came from Swanland, near Hull, and died while John was only three. His father was the Rev. Henry Venn who, at the time of John's birth, was the rector of the parish of Drypool near Hull. Henry Venn, a fellow of Queens', was from a family of distinction. His own father, John's grandfather, was the Reverend John Venn who had been the rector of Clapham in south London. He was a leader of the Clapham Sect, a group of evangelical Christians centered on his church who campaigned for prison reform and the abolition of slavery and cruel sports. His son described him thus: " "Of spare build, he was throughout his life a fine walker and mountain climber, a keen botanist, and an excellent talker and linguist."" John Venn's father (Henry) also played a prominent role in the evangelical Christian movement. The Society for Missions to Africa and the East was founded by evangelical clergy of the Church of England in 1799, and in 1812 it was renamed the Church Missionary Society for Africa and the East. Henry Venn was secretary to this Society from 1841. He moved to Highgate near London in order to carry out his duties and held this position until his death in 1873. John Venn was brought up strictly. It was expected that he would follow the family tradition into the Christian ministry. After Highgate School, he entered Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, in 1853. He was graduated in 1857 and shortly afterward was elected a fellow of the college. He was ordained as a deacon at Ely in 1858 and became a priest in 1859. In 1862 he returned to Cambridge as a lecturer in moral sciences. Venn also had a rare skill in building machines. He used his skill to build a machine for bowling cricket balls, which was so good that when the Australian Cricket team visited Cambridge in 1909, Venn's machine clean bowled one of its top stars four times. Venn's main area of interest was logic and he published three texts on the subject. He wrote "The Logic of Chance" which introduced the frequency interpretation or frequency theory of probability in 1866, "Symbolic Logic" which introduced the Venn diagrams in 1881, and "The Principles of Empirical Logic" in 1889. In 1883, Venn was elected to the Royal Society. In 1897, he wrote a history of his college, called "The Biographical History of Gonville and Caius College,1849â1897". He began a compilation of biographical notes of Cambridge University alumni, a work which was continued by his son, John Archibald Venn (1883â1958) and published as "Alumni Cantabrigienses" in 10 volumes from 1922-1953. John Venn died in 1923 at Cambridge, and was buried nearby at Trumpington Churchyard (Extension). In 1867 Venn married Susanna Carnegie Edmonstone, the daughter of the Rev. Charles Edmonstone. They had one child, a son, John Archibald Venn, who in 1932 became president of Queens' College, Cambridge. The Venns, father and son, wrote "Alumni Cantabrigienses" together (see below). "The annals of a clerical family" (1904) traces the Venn family history back to the seventeenth century - he was the eighth generation of his family to have a university education. In 1910 he published a work on historical biography, namely a treatise on John Caius, one of the founders of his College. Three years later he published "Early Collegiate Life" which collected many of his writings describing what life was like in the early days of Cambridge University. Working with his son he then started the immense task of compiling a history of Cambridge University "Alumni Cantabrigienses". The first volume, published in 1922, contained 76,000 names and covered the period up to 1751. It was "nothing less than a 'biographical list of all known students, graduates, and holders of office at the University of Cambridge from the earliest times to 1900'. ... The Venns, father and son, spared no industry in building up these records, which are of extraordinary value to historians and genealogists ..."
350576	Richard Martin Tyson (born February 13, 1961) is an American actor. Biography. His most prominent role was as the villain Cullen Crisp, Sr. in "Kindergarten Cop" co-starring alongside Arnold Schwarzenegger. He also starred as high school bully Buddy Revell in the 1987 comedy "Three O'Clock High". Richard can also be seen in the Farrelly Brothers movies, "Kingpin", "Me, Myself & Irene" and "There's Something About Mary". The latter features Tyson as Detective Krevoy who questions (then attacks) Ben Stiller in a classic scene from the film. Tyson was the co-star of the television series "Hardball" alongside actor John Ashton in the 1980s. Richard's recent films include "The Fear Chamber", "Richard III", "Flight of the Living Dead" (a film about a government-created virus that turns the dead into zombies being transported on a plane) in which he plays a Sky Marshal, "No Bad Days" starring Michael Madsen and the western "Shoot First and Pray You Live" also starring Jim Gaffigan and James Russo. He is also the lead in the horror film "Big Bad Wolf", in which he plays a step father accused by his stepson of being a cruel and vicious werewolf.
927588	Steven Henry Strogatz (born August 13, 1959, Torrington, Connecticut) is an American mathematician and the Jacob Gould Schurman Professor of Applied Mathematics at Cornell University. He is known for his contributions to the study of synchronization in dynamical systems, and for his work in a variety of areas of applied mathematics, including mathematical biology and complex network theory. Education. Strogatz attended the Loomis Chaffee School (1972–1976) and graduated summa cum laude with a Bachelor of Arts degree in mathematics from Princeton University in 1980. He was a Marshall Scholar at Trinity College, Cambridge from 1980–1982, and then received a PhD in applied mathematics from Harvard University in 1986 for his research on the dynamics of the human sleep-wake cycle. Research. Strogatz 1998 Nature paper with Duncan Watts, entitled "Collective dynamics of small-world networks", is widely regarded as a seminal contribution to the interdisciplinary field of complex networks, whose applications reach from graph theory and statistical physics to sociology, business, epidemiology, and neuroscience. As one measure of its importance, it was the most highly cited article about networks between 1998 and 2008, and the sixth most highly cited paper in all of physics. Strogatz's writing includes the 1994 textbook "Nonlinear Dynamics and Chaos", three popular books, and frequent newspaper articles. His book, published in 2009, "The Calculus of Friendship", was called "a genuine tearjerker" and "part biography, part autobiography and part off-the-beaten-path guide to calculus". His trade book "Sync" was chosen as a Best Book of 2003 by Discover Magazine. Strogatz also filmed a series of lectures on chaos theory for the Teaching Company, released in 2008, and, in late January 2010, Strogatz began writing a weekly column on mathematics in "The New York Times." These columns, along with many others penned by Strogatz, now appear in a book "The Joy of X" released in October 2012. The New York Times columns have been described as "must reads for entrepreneurs and executives who grasp that mathematics is now the "lingua franca" of serious business analysis." Career. After spending three years as a National Science Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow at Harvard and Boston University, Strogatz joined the faculty of the Department of Mathematics at MIT in 1989. His research on dynamical systems was recognized with a Presidential Young Investigator Award from the National Science Foundation in 1990. In 1994 he moved to Cornell where he is the Jacob Gould Schurman Professor of Applied Mathematics, as well as a Professor of Mathematics and of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering. Awards. Strogatz is a Fellow of the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Strogatz has been lauded for his ability as a teacher and communicator. In 1991 he was honored with the E.M. Baker Memorial Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching, MIT's only institute-wide teaching award selected and awarded solely by students. He has also won several teaching awards from Cornell's College of Engineering, including the Tau Beta Pi Excellence in Teaching Award (2006), given to a faculty member selected by engineering students for exemplary teaching. At the national level, Strogatz received the JPBM Communications Award in 2007. Presented annually, this award recognizes outstanding achievement in communicating about mathematics to nonmathematicians. The JPBM represents the American Mathematical Society, the American Statistical Association, the Mathematical Association of America, and the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics. Strogatz was selected to be the 2009 Rouse Ball Lecturer at Cambridge and a MIT Mathematics 2011 Simons lecturer.
1348062	Loves of a Blonde () is a 1965 Czechoslovakian film directed by Miloš Forman. It is also known under the alternate title of "A Blonde in Love". Plot. Andula is a working-class woman living in a fading Czech factory town. After a party she sleeps with Milda, a pianist with the band who was visiting from Prague. A famous line is uttered as they are lying in bed afterward. Andula asks what Milda meant when he said she was "angular." He goes on to explain that a woman is shaped like a guitar. "And you, you look like a guitar too," he tells her, "but one painted by Picasso." They part ways, and when she doesn't hear from him again, she packs up and arrives on his doorstep in the big city. Milda is not home, and she meets his parents, who don't know what they should do with her. Milda comes home early the next morning, and it becomes clear to Andula that she is not wanted, so she returns to her home. Reception. The film was nominated for the Golden Globe for Best Foreign Film and the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 1967. It was ranked #89 in "Empire" magazines "The 100 Best Films Of World Cinema" in 2010.
1066661	The Heavenly Kid is a 1985 comedy film directed by Cary Medoway and starring Lewis Smith, Jason Gedrick, Jane Kaczmarek, and Richard Mulligan. Plot. In the early 1960s, Bobby Fantana (Lewis Smith), a young greaser-type rebel, challenges Joe Barnes (Mark Metcalf) to a game of chicken for making a pass at his girlfriend Emily (Jane Kaczmarek). Bobby wins the race easily when Joe dives out of his car, but Bobby is unable to get out of the car in time due to his bracelet getting caught on the gearshift. He dies as his car plummets over the cliff into a fiery wreck. Bobby awakens to find himself on a surreal trip aboard a speeding train vessel. The train stops at a station housing a huge escalator going up into a bright white light, which one of the attendants refers to as "Uptown". Bobby is denied entry, and his new spirit guide Rafferty (Richard Mulligan) appears and explains that he isn't considered ready yet and needs to carry out an assignment in order to earn his ticket Uptown. After many years in limbo Bobby is finally given his assignment - he is to return to Earth and act as a guardian angel and friend for nerdy Lenny Barnes (Jason Gedrick), a promising high school student who is constantly picked on in school, particularly by school bullies Fred Gallo (Stephen Gregory) and Bill McIntyre (Beau Dremann). However, Bobby is instructed that he is only allowed to reveal himself to Lenny and nobody else. Bobby helps Lenny by giving him a makeover, assisting him in dealing with Fred and Bill, and helping him win the affection of the hottest girl in school, Sharon (Anne Sawyer). However, Bobby eventually realizes that the new lifestyle Lenny is leading is not noble, as it causes him to rebel against everyone, including his parents. Bobby soon realizes that Lenny's mother is Emily, his former girlfriend, and is married to Joe, the man he died racing against. Bobby breaks the Uptown rules and reveals himself to Emily to confess his love for her, and Emily informs him that he is actually Lenny's father. In a scene reminiscent of the opening sequence, Lenny is challenged to a chicken race at the local quarry by Fred, Sharon's former boyfriend. Having been told by Rafferty that Lenny will die just as Bobby did earlier, Bobby offers to trade his own chance to move Uptown (essentially, his own immortal soul) to save Lenny's life. Much like Bobby's car race, the race ends with Lenny and Bobby flying over the edge of a cliff, and the car exploding in a fiery wreck. However, Bobby prevents Lenny from dying, and they climb up the cliff together. Bobby helps Lenny see the error of his ways as Lenny reunites with his long-time friend Melissa (Nancy Valen), who was in love with him and by his side even during his "nerdy years". After bidding an emotional goodbye to Lenny, during which he tells him that they will always be best friends, Bobby offers himself to Rafferty to fulfill his end of the bargain by accepting a ride "Downtown" (essentially, to hell). However, Rafferty explains that this will not be happening. Bobby incredulously asks why, since he had made a deal to trade his own soul for Lenny's second chance at life. Rafferty explains to Bobby that he had learned to love and value someone more than himself, and that is how one earned a ticket Uptown. Lenny and his girlfriend then watch Bobby and Rafferty fly into the sky on a motorbike, while the movie ends with Bobby going on the escalator to Uptown. Soundtrack. The soundtrack consists of 10 songs featured in the movie. It was taken out-of-print almost as quickly as it became available due to manufacturing defects on the LP: during the tracks Animal Attraction and Crusin' Tonight there are several mis-aligned grooves that transferred to all copies of the LP which caused major skips and poor quality sound. The Promotional copy of this record has these defects as well.
1042762	Mona Washbourne (27 November 1903 – 15 November 1988) was an English actress of stage, film and television. Early life. Mona Washbourne was born in Birmingham, Warwickshire, and began her entertaining career training as a concert pianist. Her sister Katherine Washbourne was a violinist with the BBC Symphony Orchestra under Sir Adrian Boult. Acting career. While performing on stage in the early 1920s, she found that she liked acting and became an actress. She married the actor Basil Dignam and her brother-in-law Mark Dignam was also a stage and film actor. In 1948, after numerous stage musical performances, Washbourne began appearing in films. Her film credits include "Billy Liar" (1963) and "The Collector" (1965). She played Mrs. Pearce in 1964's "My Fair Lady", the stern and caustic Mrs. Bramson in the remake of "Night Must Fall", and the Matron in the 1968 film, "If...".
1385996	Witless Protection is a 2008 comedy film from Lionsgate, starring Daniel Lawrence Whitney, better known as Larry the Cable Guy and Jenny McCarthy written and directed by Chicago native Charles Robert Carner. Whitney plays Larry Stalder, a small-town deputy in Mississippi. Many parts of the film were filmed in Plano, Illinois and Virgil, Illinois (train depot, farms, gas station and a few downtown restaurants). Filming also took place in numerous towns in Illinois including Elmhurst, Lombard, Lemont, Sugar Grove, Glen Ellyn, Vernon Hills, Westmont and Yorkville. The film was released in theatres on February 22, 2008 and was released for DVD on June 10, 2008. Plot summary. The story centers on a small-town sheriff who witnesses what he believes is a kidnapping and rushes to rescue a woman. The kidnappers turn out to be FBI agents assigned to protect her and deliver her to a big Enron-type corruption trial in Chicago but are later found to be on the take and are villains who are bent on killing her. Reception. This film received near unanimously negative reviews from critics. As of December 19, 2010, the review website Rotten Tomatoes reported that 3% of critics gave the film positive reviews, based on 29 reviews. Metacritic reported the film had an average score of 17 out of 100, based on 6 reviews. "Witless Protection" was nominated for three Golden Raspberry Awards: Worst Actor (Larry the Cable Guy), Worst Supporting Actress (Jenny McCarthy) and Worst Screen Couple (Larry the Cable Guy and Jenny McCarthy).
1073758	Cleopatra Jones is a 1973 blaxploitation action film starring Tamara Dobson. Plot. Cleopatra "Cleo" Jones (Dobson) is an undercover special agent for the United States Government. Overseas modeling, however, is only a cover for her real job. Cleo is a Bond-like heroine with power and influence, her silver and black `73 Corvette Stingray (equipped with automatic weapons), and her martial arts ability. While she evokes the glory of a funk goddess, she remains loyal to her drug-ravaged community and her lover, Reuben Masters, who runs B&S House (a halfway home for recovering drug addicts). The film opens with Cleo overseeing the destruction of a poppy field in Turkey belonging to the evil drug lord, Mommy (Shelley Winters). Mommy employs an all-male crew and a bevy of beautiful young women catering to her many wants. When she hears about her poppies' demise, she plots revenge, hiring a corrupt policeman to raid the B&S House. When Cleo returns to LA to arrest the police responsible for the raid, she continues to take apart Mommy’s underworld drug business, thwarting her minions along the way. Cleo and Mommy face off in a showdown, in which she is trapped by Mommy in a car crusher but is saved by her friends from the B&S House. In the final showdown, Cleo chases Mommy to the top of a magnetic crane where the two women fight. Mommy, despite her weight advantage, proves to be no match for Cleo, who hurls Mommy over the side of the crane to her death, while Cleo's friends defeat her henchmen. At the end of the film, as Reuben and the members of the community celebrate victory, Cleo departs the scene, off to take on a new mission. Background. "Cleopatra Jones" was made by Warner Brothers following the success of the "Shaft" series and AIP’s films. It opened while the Black Power movement, second-wave feminism, and an increasingly growing black feminism were all prevalent. This social environment created the desire for a black heroine who appealed to women through a combination of alluring femininity, macho strength and combat skill. The film depicts the harsh reality of the black ghetto but portrays a united community whose members help one another. The final scene where Jones, Reuben, and the other B&S members join together to defeat Mommy emphasizes a "coming together" of the black community against white supremacy.
1689623	Saradaga Kasepu is a Telugu film starring Allari Naresh, Madhurima and Srinivas Avasarala in the Lead roles directed by Vamsy. The Movie was released on September 17, 2010. Plot. Ranga Babu (Allari Naresh) is a driver whose childhood friend is Srinivas (Srinivas Avasarala). Srinivas is from a rich family and he lives in the US. The story takes a turn when Srinivas comes to India for getting married and his parents (Jeeva, Sana) want him to tie the knot to Raja Rao's (Ahuti Prasad) daughter Manimala (Madhurima) who lives in a different place. However, Srinivas has a condition that he must know the girl's character. For this, he switches places with Ranga Babu. As expected, misunderstandings and confusions arise. What happens from there forms the rest of the story.
578492	Bangkok Love Story (; ; literally "Friend ... I love you") is a 2007 Thai film written and directed by Poj Arnon. A gay romantic crime action drama, it is the story of a man who falls in love with a gunman assigned to kill him. Plot. A loner gunman named Maek is assigned to kidnap a police informant named Iht, but Maek has a change of heart when he takes Iht to the 'hit house'. Maek is ordered to kill Iht, but because he only kills scum and has discovered that Iht isn't bad, he refuses, turning the gun on the enforcers who had hired him to murder Iht. A gun battle ensues during which Maek is wounded, but Iht grabs Maek's gun and shoots their way out of the mobsters' headquarters. The two men then escape on Maek's motorcycle. Maek tells Iht to leave at gun point but he won't and takes Maek back to his rooftop hide-out. There, over a period of time, Iht tends to Maek's wound and finds himself attracted to him. In fact, Maek is also attracted to Iht, but keeps it hidden, while Iht cares for his former would-be killer with great tenderness. While giving Maek a bath one day, Iht kisses him on the mouth. Maek reciprocates and the two men engage in a passionate sexual experience. The next day, however, a conflicted Maek demands that Iht go away and leave him alone. Iht returns home to his fiancee, Sai, but is no longer interested in continuing a relationship with her. Iht spends his days pining over Maek, and tracks down Maek's brother, Mhok, and their mother. Mhok is HIV positive, as the result of sexual abuse by his and Maek's stepfather, and their mother is dying of AIDS. Maek remains elusive, hiding from Iht when he visits the hideout, but leaving signs that he's there so Iht will return. Though Maek avoids making contact with Iht, eventually he goes to visit his mother and brother, and Iht corners him at the entrance to the building, declaring his love for Maek and stressing how much he misses him. They kiss passionately. They are unfortunately covertly observed by Sai, Iht's live-in fiancee. Maek's dream is to take his mother and brother away from Bangkok to the mountains of Mae Hong Son Province. But after Maek's mother overhears that Mhok has prostituted himself to survive after contracting AIDS from his stepfather, she commits suicide by hanging herself. The brothers take her down, and as they are rushing her from the apartment, she is killed by a gunshot fired by an unseen sniper. The bullet is presumably intended for Maek. Maek's former mobster employers are gunning for him and Iht. Maek decides to hunt them down first, and he succeeds in killing them. After Mohk informs Iht what Maek is doing, Iht goes to the capo's house to try to stop Maek, but he is too late and misses Maek by a second. Iht is injured when the capo's wife shoots at a clock that shatters in Iht's face. Maek, meanwhile meets his brother at the railway station to leave Bangkok for good. But before he can board the train, he is apprehended by the police and taken away. Mhok breaks down. He's the sole witness to his brother being apprehended. Years pass by. Iht visits Maek in prison and reveals that he was left blind in the final gunbattle with Maek's ex-boss. Mhok commits suicide while at a Hospice of Watphrabahtnamphu in Lopburi because he no longer has the energy to fight his disease. Eventually, Maek is released from prison, and Iht meets him. But before the two men can leave to start their life together, Maek is shot dead by a single bullet fired by an unseen assassin. A bewildered, blind Iht collapses over his lover's corpse, swearing his love for him again and again. Iht eventually regains his sight, and is finally able to view on his mobile phone a video recorded by Maek himself many years before, admitting that all along, he had loved Iht and that he would love him to his last breath. Production. When "Bangkok Love Story" was in pre-production in 2006, the Royal Thai Police raised objections to the script, which originally depicted a policeman (Iht) falling in love with the assassin Maek. The character Iht's exact connection to the police department was then made ambiguous so that the film would be passed by the Board of Censors, which includes members of the Royal Thai Police. Both lead actors, Chaiwat Thongsang (Iht) and Ratanabanrang Tosawat (Maek) are heterosexual, according to a profile of the two actors in "BK Magazine". Chaiwat said he took the role because he wanted the "challenge" and to "become famous". Ratanabanrang simply stated playing a gay man "is an honor." Chaiwat said he had hoped camera angles could be used so he could avoid having to kiss his co-star, but director Poj Arnon insisted the kisses must be real. "It was totally disgusting at first, but we kind of got used to it after a while," Chaiwat said. Ratanabanrang said he had to imagine he was kissing his girlfriend. "Actually, we acted so well, that my girlfriend got paranoid." Both actors acknowledged that the film would be compared to "Brokeback Mountain", but Ratanabanrang noted that Poj Arnon had the idea for "Bangkok Love Story" long before "Brokeback" had been adapted into a film. Release and reception. "Bangkok Love Story" was released in Thailand cinemas on August 13, 2007. The film proved popular, with the "Bangkok Post" stating it was “the movie everybody has been talking about". The film earned US$325,000 in its Thailand theatrical run. Critical reception was mixed. The weekly "BK Magazine" stated that the film suffered from being overly melodramatic, but praised the cinematography by Tiwa Moeithaisong, which "turns Bangkok into a character in its own right." Reviews from the Bangkok English-language daily "The Nation" were characterised as "dismissive". LGBT-related website Fridae praised "Bangkok Love Story" as "the boldest Thai gay movie to date." It additionally praised the film for being a departure from the Thai LGBT genre, which generally features coarsely stereotyped kathoey transvestite caricatures. Gay Thai independent film producer Vitaya Saeng-aroon similarly praised the film, saying director Poj Arnon was "brave enough to shake society up". "Bangkok Love Story" was screened at the 34th Brussels International Independent Film Festival, where it won the top prize, the Grand Award in all Categories. It was also the Opening Night selection for the 2007 Hong Kong Lesbian and Gay Film Festival, and played at the 2008 London Lesbian and Gay Film Festival. TLA Releasing acquired theatrical, home video, television and video on demand rights for North America and the United Kingdom. The company plans to release the film in those territories in summer 2008. Soundtrack. The film also produced a popular theme song "Yahk roo tae mai yahk taam" (in meaning "I want to know, but I don't want to ask").
1162559	Barbara Lee Payton (November 16, 1927 – May 8, 1967) was an American film actress best known for her stormy social life and eventual battles with alcohol and drug addiction. Her life has been the subject of several books including "Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye: The Barbara Payton Story" (2007), by John O'Dowd, and "L.A. Despair: A Landscape of Crimes and Bad Times" (2005), by John Gilmore. Early life. Payton was born Barbara Lee Redfield in Cloquet, Minnesota, the daughter of Norwegian immigrants Erwin Lee ("Flip") Redfield and Mabel Irene Todahl. A son, Frank Leslie III was born in 1931 and in 1938, the family moved to Odessa, Texas. With financial assistance from his sister, Payton’s father was able to start his own business, a court of tourist cabins, “Antlers Court,” anticipating it would turn out to be a profitable enterprise in a city like Odessa whose population was booming due to the oil business. By various accounts, Payton’s father was a hard-working but difficult man, emotionally closed off, slow to express himself but quick to temper. His interaction with his children was minimal and child-rearing responsibilities were left to his wife, Mabel, who occupied herself with her homemaking duties and keeping problems out of her husband’s field of consciousness. Both of Payton's parents had long-standing problems with alcohol. Payton’s first cousin, Richard Kuitu remembers visits to the home of his uncle and aunt. The Redfields would often start drinking mid-morning and continue long after midnight. He recalls the violent temper Lee Redfield could demonstrate when fueled by drink, which would sometimes result in the physical abuse of his wife. As Payton was growing into maturity her good looks were also blossoming which garnered her attention. This type of attention was valued, even encouraged by her mother. She was known as a lively girl, willing to please and she learned early in life that she had a potent effect on the opposite sex. In November 1943, the then sixteen-year-old eloped with her high school boyfriend William Hodge. The marriage seemingly amounted to nothing more than an act of impulsive, teen-age rebellion, and Payton did not fight her parent's insistence that the marriage be annulled. A few months later, she quit high school in the eleventh grade. Her parents, who held to the belief that formal education was not mandatory for success in life, did not object to their daughter leaving high school before obtaining a diploma. In 1944, she met her second husband, a decorated combat pilot named John Payton, who at the time was stationed at Midland Air Base. The couple were married on February 10, 1945 and moved to Los Angeles where John enrolled at USC under the G.I. Bill. It was still early in their marriage that Barbara, restless and feeling confined by her life as a housewife, expressed a desire to pursue a modeling or acting career. Payton officially launched her modeling path by hiring the services of a local photographer who shot photos of her sporting fashionable outfits. This portfolio attracted the favorable attention of a clothing designer, Saba of California, who signed her to a contract modeling a line of junior fashion. Her career progressed and in September 1947, the Rita La Roy Agency in Hollywood took her on as a client and brought her more work as a model in print advertising; notably in catalogs for Studebaker cars. She also appeared in clothing ads for such magazines as "Charm" and "Junior Bazaar". During this period in her life, the couple welcomed their son, John Lee, who was born in February 1947. Payton managed to combine the responsibilities of wife, new mother and professional model, yet the strains on the Payton marriage finally reached the breaking point and Barbara and her husband separated in July 1948. Payton's drive, fueled by her high-energy personality, had become focused on promoting her career and showcasing her beauty around the town’s hot spots. Her notoriety as a luminous, fun loving party girl in the Hollywood club scene ignited the attention of William Goetz, an executive of Universal Studios. In January 1949, he signed her, age twenty-one, to a contract with a starting salary of $100 per week. Career. Payton first gained notice in the 1949 film noir "Trapped", co-starring Lloyd Bridges. In 1950, she was given the opportunity to make a screen test for John Huston's production of the forthcoming MGM crime drama "The Asphalt Jungle". She was not chosen and the part of the sultry mistress of a mob connected lawyer went to Marilyn Monroe. After being screen-tested by James Cagney and his producer brother William, Payton starred with Cagney in the violent noir thriller "Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye" in 1950. William Cagney was so smitten with Payton's sensual appeal and beauty that her contract was drawn as a joint agreement between William Cagney Productions and Warner Bros. who together saw fit to bestow on Payton a salary of $5,000 a week; a large sum for an actress yet to demonstrate star power at the box-office. For a relative newcomer, in "Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye", Payton more than managed to hold her own among a cast of Hollywood veterans and alongside a super-star like Cagney himself. Her portrayal of the hardened, seductive girlfriend, whom Cagney’s character ultimately double-crosses, was critically praised in newspaper reviews of the movie. Her acting skills were recognized and her significant screen charisma widely acknowledged. "Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye" was the highpoint in Payton’s career, the moment in time she was christened as a player with bonafide star power. Her other screen appearances opposite Gary Cooper in "Dallas", and Gregory Peck in "Only the Valiant", both westerns, were lackluster productions where her roles were no more than window dressing for the hero and did little to highlight her skills as an actress. Payton's career decline began with the 1951 horror film "Bride of the Gorilla", co-starring Raymond Burr. Decline. Over time, Payton's public displays of excess partying, drinking, and liaisons with men of dubious reputation tarnished her credibility as an actress on a serious career track and ultimately alienated the very Hollywood power brokers whose good will she needed to court in order to have a viable movie career. Through it all, however, Payton held to a childlike belief in her Hollywood stardom, which in her mind had never faded. She was unable to acknowledge that her once-promising career had crashed and burned, never to be resurrected. Personal life. In addition to affairs with Howard Hughes, Bob Hope, Woody Strode, Guy Madison, George Raft, John Ireland, Steve Cochran, and Texas oilman Bob Neal, Payton was married four times. She married her first husband, William Hodge, when both were high school students in Texas. The marriage was later annulled. Her second marriage was to United States Air Force pilot John Payton, Jr. in 1945. The had one child, John Lee Payton (born 1947), before divorcing in September 1950. Payton lost custody of the couple's son in March 1956 after her ex-husband charged that she exposed John Lee to "profane language, immoral conduct, notoriety, unwholesome activities" and failed to provide the boy with a "moral education". In 1950, Payton met actor Franchot Tone and the two were later engaged. While engaged to Tone, Payton began having an affair with B-movie actor Tom Neal. She soon went back and forth publicly between Neal and Tone. On September 14, 1951, Neal, a former college boxer, physically attacked Tone at Payton's apartment leaving him in an 18-hour coma with a smashed cheekbone, broken nose and concussion. The incident garnered huge publicity and Payton decided to honor her engagement to Tone. Payton and Tone, who was still recovering from his injuries, were married on September 28, 1951 in Payton's hometown of Cloquet, Minnesota. After being married to Tone for 53 days, Payton walked out on him, and returned to Neal. Tone was granted a divorce in May 1952. The Payton/Neal relationship essentially ended their Hollywood film careers. During that time the couple capitalized on the notorious press coverage by touring in plays such as "The Postman Always Rings Twice", based on the popular 1946 film of the same name. They would also star together in "The Great Jesse James Raid", a B-movie western that received a limited released to theaters in 1953. In May 1953, Payton announced that she and Neal were to be married that summer in Paris. The couple broke up the following year. In November 1955, Payton married George A. "Tony" Provas, a furniture store executive in Nogales, Arizona. They divorced in August 1958. Later years and death. Payton's hard drinking and hard living ultimately destroyed her both physically and emotionally. From 1955 to 1963, her growing alcoholism and drug abuse led to multiple skirmishes with the law including arrests for the passing of bad checks and eventually an arrest on Sunset Boulevard for prostitution. Offered the choice of being admitted to the detox unit, Payton said, “I'd rather drink and die.” Following her brief hospitalization, she was driven by a county social worker to her parents’ home in San Diego. She told her family's neighbor, “I never wanted to be with them, I never wanted to see them again. But here I am, and I got all the booze I want.” Her father, Flip Redfield, and her mother, Mabel, were both heavy drinkers, and engaged with Payton in unabated drinking binges. Writer Robert Polito recalls a thirty-four-year-old Payton in 1962, when she was a habitué of a Hollywood, Sunset Boulevard establishment, “Coach and Horses,” where the young Polito’s father tended bar, "Barbara Payton oozed alcohol even before she ordered a drink … her brassy hair; her face displayed a perpetual sunburn, a map of veins by her nose … she carried an old man’s potbelly … her gowns and dresses … creased and spotted … She must have weighed two hundred pounds … She does not so much inhabit a character as impersonate a starlet." In 1963, she was paid $1,000 for her autobiography, "I Am Not Ashamed", which was ghost written by Leo Guild. The book included unflattering photographs of Payton and admissions that she had been forced to sleep on bus benches and suffered regular beatings as a prostitute. In 1967, ill and seeking refuge from her turbulent circumstances, she moved back to San Diego, California, to live with her parents. On May 8, 1967, Payton died at her parents' home of heart and liver failure. Payton was cremated and is interred at Cypress View Mausoleum and Crematory in San Diego, California.
632693	Robin Dunne (born November 19, 1976) is a Canadian actor who is mainly known for having had numerous leading roles in sequels throughout his career, and lately for his role as Doctor Will Zimmerman in the science fiction Television series, "Sanctuary". Personal life. He was born in Toronto, Ontario, Canada and attended The Etobicoke School of the Arts. Around 2001 to April 2002 he married actress Heidi Lenhart, but divorced under pressures of living in Hollywood. Acting career. One of Dunne's earliest starring roles was as Franz Bhaer in the CTV/PAX television series "Little Men" in 1998–99. He also appeared in Channel 4's "As If" as well as recurring guest roles on "Dawson's Creek" and "Dead Like Me". Dunne also appeared on "NCIS" and in "Just Friends". His most notable movie role was the character Sebastian Valmont in "Cruel Intentions 2". He has also appeared in "Au Pair II", "The Skulls II", "Species 3", "American Psycho II: All American Girl", and "Jewel". Additionally, Dunne appeared in the made-for-TV movies "Code Breakers" and "Roughing It", where in the latter he portrayed a young Mark Twain traveling across the American West. Dunne also portrayed Robin Hood in the film "Beyond Sherwood Forest", directed by Peter DeLuise, starring alongside Erica Durance. Beginning in 2007 Dunne co-starred with Amanda Tapping in the science fiction/fantasy series "Sanctuary" which premiered as a series of eight webisodes before being commissioned as a conventional TV series by the Syfy Channel in the U.S. The series was broadcast on many international free-to-air and cable networks. On May 6, 2013 Dunne appeared in an episode of Defiance on the SyFy Channel. His character was Miko. Dunne plays on the Mighty Thunder, a recreational hockey team based in North Vancouver.
1053998	Leo Bernard Gorcey (June 3, 1916 or 1917– June 2, 1969) was an American stage and movie actor who became famous for portraying on film the leader of the group of young hooligans known variously as the Dead End Kids, The East Side Kids, and The Bowery Boys. Always the most pugnacious member of the gangs he participated in, young Leo was the filmic prototype of the young punk. He was the shortest and the oldest of the original gang. Early years. Gorcey was born in New York City, the son of Josephine (née Condon) and Bernard Gorcey, vaudeville actors. His mother was 16 years old at the time of his birth, and was already a mother at 14; his father was 31 years old. Both were small people. Bernard Gorcey was 4' 10", and his wife was 4' 11". Their son Leo would reach 5' 6" as an adult. In 1921, another son was born, David Gorcey. His father was a Russian Jewish immigrant and his mother was an Irish Catholic immigrant. Film career. In the 1930s, Leo's father became estranged from the family while working in theater and film. When he returned in 1935, he and David persuaded Leo to try out for a small part in the play "Dead End". Having just lost his job as a plumber's apprentice and seeing his father's relative success, Leo decided to give acting a try. Leo and David were cast as two members of the East 53rd Place Gang, with limited stage time. Charles Duncan, who was originally cast as Spit, left the play, and Leo, his understudy, was promoted. Gorcey created a quarrelsome guttersnipe whose greatest joy was in making trouble. In 1937, Samuel Goldwyn made the popular play into a movie of the same name, and transported the six rowdy boys to Hollywood. Gorcey became one of the busiest actors in Hollywood for the next 20 years. In the Bowery Boys movies, Leo's father, Bernard Gorcey, played Louie Dumbrowski, the diminutive sweetshop owner from whom the boys conned banana splits and financial loans. Leo's character "Slip" was famed for his malapropisms always delivered in a Brooklyn accent, such as "a clever seduction" for "a clever deduction", "I depreciate it!" ("I appreciate it!"), "I regurgitate" ("I reiterate"), and "optical delusion" ("optical illusion"). In the movie "Jungle Gents", set in Africa (but filmed on stage 2), Huntz Hall lost the map and substituted a newspaper ad for lingerie. When Slip saw it, he said, "This ain't a map—it's an ad for ladies' griddles! [girdles]" In 1939, Gorcey married 17-year-old dancer Kay Marvis, who appeared in four of his Monogram movies. They divorced in 1944, after which Kay went on to become the second wife of Groucho Marx. In 1949, Gorcey married Amelita Ward, with whom he had worked in "Clancy Street Boys" and "Smugglers' Cove". She gave birth to Leo Gorcey, Jr., during their marriage. Also in 1944, Gorcey had a recurring role in the Pabst Blue Ribbon Town radio show, starring Groucho Marx. In 1948, Gorcey played a small role in the sophisticated movie comedy "So This Is New York" starring acerbic radio and television comedian Henry Morgan and featuring Arnold Stang. In 1955, after his father was killed in an automobile accident, Leo turned to the bottle for solace and lost a great deal of weight. When he trashed a movie set in an intoxicated rage, the studio refused to give him the pay raise he demanded, so he quit the Bowery Boys and was replaced in the last seven movies by Stanley Clements. Leo's brother David remained with the series until it ended in early 1958. During the 1960s, Leo did very little acting. He did appear in the epic 1963 comedy, "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World", sharing the screen with Sid Caesar and Edie Adams in a bit part as their first cab driver, their second being Peter Falk. Gorcey then made two final appearances on film with Huntz Hall in a pair of low budget productions: "Second Fiddle To A Steel Guitar" (1966) and "The Phynx" (1970). Life after acting. In 1967, Leo Gorcey published his autobiography, entitled "An Original Dead End Kid Presents: Dead End Yells, Wedding Bells, Cockle Shells, and Dizzy Spells". The original publication was limited to 1,000 hardcover copies. A 2004 reprint, with a foreword by Leo Gorcey, Jr., was also limited to 1,000 numbered copies. In addition, in 2003, Gorcey, Jr., published his own book about his father, entitled "Me and the Dead End Kid". Gorcey was removed from the cover of The Beatles' "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" album after his agent demanded a payment of $400. Gorcey's first cousin, twice removed, is sports writer Ryan Gorcey. Another of Gorcey's first cousins, twice removed, is actress Liz Gorcey, who is most known for her role in Footloose. Death. Gorcey died from liver failure on June 2, 1969, one day before his 52nd birthday. He is buried at Molinos Cemetery in Los Molinos, California.
584803	Mallika Kapoor is an Indian film actress, working in the South Indian film industries. Biography. Kapoor was raised in a middle-class Punjabi family. Her father works in the merchant navy and her mother is a housewife. Career. She started her film career through her debut Malayalam film "Albudhadweep", alongside actor Prithviraj Sukumaran. Her Tamil debut was the leading role in "Azhagai Irukkirai Bayamai Irukkirathu", alongside Bharath, and then subsequently in "Vathiyar" with Arjun. Her appearance "Allare Allari", opposite Allari Naresh, was her first in Telugu. She has returned to the Malayalam scene in 2008 with "Madambi". She has two additional Tamil films to date: "Arputha Theevu" (dubbed from Malayalam), which was released in September 2006, and "Vathiyar", which was released on Diwali.
589612	Ali Baba aur 40 chor (Hindi - अलीबाबा और चलीस चोर, Russian – Приключения Али-Бабы и сорока разбойников) is a 1980 India-USSR film based on the story of Ali Baba, starring Dharmendra, Hema Malini and Zeenat Aman. The story line is slightly altered to extend as a long movie. The movie was directed by Latif Faiziyev and Umesh Mehra. The writers were Shanti Prakash Bakshi and Boris Saakov. The music was scored by the famous musician of yesteryear R.D.Burman. Plot. The story is about a poor lad named Ali Baba (Dharmendra) who lives in the town of Gulabad, somewhere in central Asia, with his mother and elder brother Qasim who owns a small petty shop. Ali Baba's father Yousuf is a merchant in a faraway land who has never returned since he last left when Ali Baba was born. So poor Ali Baba makes a living out of selling timber cut from the hills. Gulabad is terrorized by a band of 40 dacoits. They hide their loot in a magical cave in the deserted hills. When the bandit leader recites the magical spell it opens and when he says another spell it closes. When news reaches them that his father has gone missing, Ali Baba goes in his search and not only finds his father, but also rescues princess Marjeena from the guards of the king who murdered her father to become king. Both Marjeena and Ali Baba fall in love with each other. Then they are attacked, Marjeena is taken captive, and his father is killed. After burying his father, Ali Baba finds out that Marjeena is being sold in the slave market, he borrows money from Qasim, and uses that to pay for Marjeena, and brings her home. Qasim wants to recover his money, and as a result decides to evict Ali Baba from their family home. Ali Baba and his mother leave the home. It is then the Khazi of the region announces a reward for the capture of notorious bandit Abu Hassan. A young girl named Fatima (Zeenat Aman) whose father has been murdered by the dacoits has a score to settle with Abu Hassan. Fatima pledges her support to Ali Baba in killing Abu Hassan. Shortly, thereafter Ali Baba comes to know the secret hideout of Abu Hassan and its magic spells to open it. He also gets some gold and jewelry from there, which he distributes amongst villagers for diverting some water to their parched land. Ali Baba’s greedy brother Qasim lures Ali Baba into telling him where the cave is and those magic spells. Out of greed Qasim takes so much gold jewelry and coin as a result of which he forgets the spell to reopen the door and gets stuck inside. When the dacoits find him they kill him. Ali Baba then informs the Khazi about Abu Hassan's hideout. What Ali Baba does not know is that the Khazi and Abu Hassan is the same person, and that the Khazi has given instructions to his men to ensure that Ali Baba is killed, so that no one can get their hands on his treasure. . Abu Hassan hides the 40 thieves in large urns to kill Ali Baba. Ali Baba comes to know of this and kills them all with the help of Fatima. He brings to light the startling truth that their own ruler heads the dacoits.
1034494	Vittorio Giorgio Andrea Spinetti (2 September 1929 – 18 June 2012) was a Welsh comedy actor, author, poet and raconteur. He appeared in dozens of films and stage plays throughout his 50-year career and is best remembered today for appearing in the three Beatles' films in the 1960s, "A Hard Day's Night", "Help!" and "Magical Mystery Tour." Born in Cwm, Ebbw Vale, Wales, Spinetti was educated at Monmouth School and the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama in Cardiff, of which he became a Fellow. After various menial jobs, Spinetti pursued a stage career and was closely associated with Joan Littlewood's Theatre Workshop. Among the productions were, "Fings Ain't Wot They Used T'Be" and "Oh! What a Lovely War" (1963), which transferred to New York City and for which he won a Tony Award. Simultaneous to this, Spinetti appeared in dozens of films including Zeffirelli's "The Taming of the Shrew", "Under Milk Wood", "The Return of the Pink Panther" and "Under the Cherry Moon". During his later career, Spinetti acted with the Royal Shakespeare Company, in such roles as Lord Foppington in "The Relapse" and the Archbishop in "Richard III", at Stratford-upon-Avon and, in 1990, appeared in "The Krays". In 2008 he appeared in a one-man show, "A Very Private Diary", which toured the UK, as "A Very Private Diary ... Revisited!", recounting his life story. Spinetti was diagnosed with prostate cancer in 2011 and died of the disease in June 2012. He was the older brother of session musician Henry Spinetti. Early life. Spinetti was born in Cwm, Ebbw Vale, Wales, of Welsh and Italian heritage from a grandfather who was said to have walked from Italy to Wales to work as a coal miner. His parents, Giuseppe and Lily (née Watson), owned the chip shop in Cwm, over which premises the family lived and where Spinetti was born. Spinetti was the eldest of six; his younger brother, Henry (born 1951), is a session drummer. Spinetti was educated at Monmouth School and the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama in Cardiff, of which he became a Fellow. Early on he was a waiter and a factory worker. It was at the college that Spinetti met the actor Graham Curnow, who became his partner. The two shared a house and were openly non-monogamous. Film career. Spinetti sprang to international prominence in three Beatles' films in the 1960s, "A Hard Day's Night", "Help!" and "Magical Mystery Tour." He also appeared on one of the Beatles' Christmas recordings. The best explanation for this long-running collaboration and friendship might have been provided by George Harrison, who said, "You've got to be in all our films ... if you're not in them me Mum won't come and see them — because she fancies you." But Harrison would also say, "You've got a lovely karma, Vic." Paul McCartney described Spinetti as "the man who makes clouds disappear". Spinetti would later make a small appearance in the promotional video for Paul's song "London Town" from the 1978 album of the same name. In July 2010 his performance of the song "Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da", at The Festival Theatre, Malvern, would be later made available on "The Beatles Complete on Ukulele" podcast. Spinetti appeared in more than 31 films, including Zeffirelli's "The Taming of the Shrew", "Under Milk Wood" with Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, "Becket", "Start the Revolution Without Me", "Voyage of the Damned", "The Return of the Pink Panther", "Under the Cherry Moon" and "The Krays". Spinetti's last on-screen appearance was in the DVD release of the independent film "Beatles Stories" by US musician Seth Swirsky, issued to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Beatles' first recording sessions at Abbey Road. Theatre. Spinetti's work in Joan Littlewood's Theatre Workshop produced many memorable performances including "Fings Ain't Wot They Used T'Be" (1959, by Frank Norman, with music by Lionel Bart), and "Oh! What a Lovely War" (1963), which transferred to New York City and for which he won a Tony Award for his main role as an obnoxious Drill Sergeant. He appeared in the West End in "The Odd Couple" (as Felix); in "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang" in the West End; and as Albert Einstein in a critically lauded performance in 2005 in a new play, "Albert's Boy" at the Finborough Theatre. He launched his own one-man show of witty reminiscences, "A Very Private Diary", at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. One of Spinetti's most challenging theatre roles was as the principal male character in Jane Arden's radical feminist play "Vagina Rex and the Gas Oven", which played to packed houses for six weeks at the Arts Lab on Drury Lane in 1969. In 1980 he directed "The Biograph Girl", a musical about the silent film era, at the Phoenix Theatre. In 1986 he appeared as Fagin in the musical "Oliver!", which was the last professional production to use Sean Kenny's original stage design. He appeared on Broadway in "The Hostage" and "The Philanthropist", and also acted in 1995 with the Royal Shakespeare Company, in such roles as Lord Foppington in "The Relapse" and the Archbishop in "Richard III", at Stratford-upon-Avon, although this was not a happy experience for him. Spinetti co-authored "In His Own Write", the play adapted from a book by John Lennon with the Beatle which he also directed at the National Theatre, premiering on 18 June 1968, at the Old Vic. Spinetti and Lennon appeared together in June 1968 on BBC2's "Release". During the interview, Spinetti said of the play,""it's not really John’s childhood, it's all of ours really, isn’t it John?"" John Lennon, assuming a camp voice answered ""It is, we're all one Victor, we're all one aren't we. I mean 'what's going on?'"" Spinetti said the play ""is about the growing up of any of us; the things that helped us to be more aware"". He also directed "Jesus Christ Superstar" and "Hair", including productions staged in Europe. His many television appearances on British TV, include "Take My Wife" in which he played a London-based booking agent and schemer who was forever promising his comedian client that fame was just around the corner, and the sitcom "An Actor's Life For Me". In September 2008 Spinetti reprised his one-man show, "A Very Private Diary", touring the UK, as "A Very Private Diary ... Revisited!", telling his life story. Television. Between 1969 and 1970 Spinetti appeared on Thames Television, alongside Sid James, as one half of "Two In Clover" over two series. A sitcom about two office workers who jack it all in to become farmers, he starred in all but one of the 13 episodes. His absence in episode #3 of the second series was covered by fellow Welsh actor Richard Davies, playing Spinetti's character's brother. In the 1970s Spinetti appeared in a series of television advertisements for McVities' (now United Biscuits) Jaffa Cakes, as "The Mad Jaffa Cake Eater", a turbaned, Middle-Eastern style character who rode a bicycle and surreptitiously stole and ate other people's Jaffa Cakes, prompting the catchphrase "There's Orangey!" He hosted "Victor's Party" for Granada. Later he voiced arch villain Texas Pete in the popular S4C animated TV series "SuperTed" (1982–84) and narrated several "Fireman Sam" audiobooks. In 1992, He voiced The King of the Rats in the British children's programme "Tales Of The Tooth Fairies"- The Stolen Present on BBC, produced by Welsh animation company Calon. In 1995 he appeared in an episode of "Bottom" with Rik Mayall and Adrian Edmondson as Audrey the Maitre d'. Spinetti also starred in "Boobs in the Wood"' with Jim Davidson, filmed for DVD in 1999. From 1999 to 2002 Victor played Max, the 'man of a thousand faces', in the popular Children's TV programme "Harry and the Wrinklies", which also starred Nick Robinson (Goodnight Mister Tom) in the title role. Writing. Spinetti's poetry, notably "Watchers Along the Mall" (1963), and prose appeared in various publications. His memoir, "Victor Spinetti Up Front...: His Strictly Confidential Autobiography", published in September 2006, is filled with anecdotes. In conversation with BBC Radio 2's Michael Ball, on his show broadcast on 7 September 2008, Spinetti revealed that Princess Margaret had been instrumental in securing the necessary censor permission for the first run of "Oh! What A Lovely War". Personal life. Spinetti was gay; his partner of 44 years, Graham Curnow, died in 1997. Curnow appeared in the 1959 British horror film "Horrors of the Black Museum" directed by Arthur Crabtree. Death. Spinetti had been diagnosed with prostate cancer in February 2011, after he collapsed onstage on Valentine's Day. He suffered a spinal fracture and discovered only by chance that he had a tumour. He was at first treated in London, but after being cared for by sister and brother-in-law, Gianina and David Hughes, moved to the Velindre Cancer Centre in Whitchurch, Cardiff for radiotherapy treatment."Victor was a magnificent man, a wonderful man who was full of great stories... Liz Taylor and Richard Burton wanted him at their parties, The Beatles loved him – they wouldn't do a film without him." He died from the disease at Monnow Vale Community Hospital in Monmouth on the morning of 18 June 2012, his agent announced. Spinetti had been visited shortly before his death by Barbara Windsor, who had co-starred with him in the West End production of "Oh! What a Lovely War". Windsor said: "We were very close. He was another of my great friends from that era. He was such a great man," adding "He was such a good actor because he took notice of people and used their characters. He portrayed them wonderfully, whatever he did." Comedian Rob Brydon tweeted: "So sad Victor Spinetti has died. The funniest story teller I've ever met and a lovely warm man." Spinetti also received warm tributes from actor and singer Britt Ekland and from fellow Welsh actor Sian Phillips, who told BBC Wales that she was shocked and saddened. Phillips added: "He was such a force of joy and vitality. When one saw him across a crowded room, one couldn't wait to get together with him and have a chat and a catch-up." Paul McCartney paid tribute to Spinetti on his website: "Victor was a fine man, a great pal and a fantastic actor and someone I am proud to have known for many years. His irreverent wit and exuberant personality will remain in my memory forever. I will miss his loyal friendship as will all the others who were lucky enough to know and love the wonderful Mr Spinetti." and pasted the tribute to his Facebook page. Preston FM scheduled a tribute broadcast, for 22 June, of a previously unaired in-depth interview with Spinetti, recorded when he visited Blackpool in July 2010, in Paul and Lucy Breeze's "Best Kept Secrets In Conversation".
1164145	Donna Mills (born December 11, 1940) is an American actress and producer. She is best known for her nine-year tenure as Abby Cunningham on the primetime soap opera "Knots Landing", and for her role as Clint Eastwood's girlfriend "Tobie" in the cult film "Play Misty for Me". Early life. Born as Donna Jean Miller in 1940 in Chicago, Illinois, where she attended Garvey Elementary School and Taft High school. After being double-promoted at Garvey, she graduated from Taft at an early age. From there Mills attended the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign where she was a member of Delta Gamma sorority. She completed one year of course work, then left to pursue a dancing career, gaining some early stage experience in the late 1950s when she danced in summer stock productions. Her first professional acting role was in production of "Come Blow Your Horn" at the Drury Lane Theater in Chicago. She later was cast in a touring production of "My Fair Lady", which brought her to New York City. Career. Mills began her acting career on television with a six-month stint on the CBS daytime soap opera "The Secret Storm" in 1966, playing the character of "Rocket." Following this, she made her film debut in "The Incident" (1967), co-starring alongside Martin Sheen, Beau Bridges, Ed McMahon, and Thelma Ritter. She appeared on Broadway in Woody Allen's comedy, 'Don't Drink the Water', as the Sultan of Bashir's wife.
1163485	Eve Arden (April 30, 1908 – November 12, 1990) was an American actress. Her almost 60-year career crossed most media frontiers with both supporting and leading roles, but she may be best-remembered for playing the sardonic but engaging title character, a high school teacher, on "Our Miss Brooks", and as the Rydell High School principal in both "Grease 1" and "2". Early life. Eve Arden was born Eunice M. Quedens (pronounced qwi-DENZ) in Mill Valley, California, to Lucille and Charles Peter Quedens. Her parents divorced when she was a child. Arden claimed to have been an insecure child, declaring later in life that she needed therapy because her mother was so much more beautiful than she.
1052210	One Deadly Summer () is a French film directed by Jean Becker. Isabelle Adjani won a César award for her performance in this film. The film was a massive hit in France gaining 5,137,040 admissions and was the 2nd highest grossing film of the year. Plot summary. In this tragic tale of misunderstanding, obsession, and increasing madness, "Elle," a beautiful young woman (Isabelle Adjani) settles into a small town in the south of France with her introverted mother (Maria Machado) and physically handicapped father and soon becomes the subject of wild speculation because of her aloofness and at the same time, her obvious sexuality. The young woman is actually caught up in the desire to avenge the long-ago rape of her mother, a rape committed by three Italian immigrants, one of whom is associated with a player piano. A shy car mechanic (Alain Souchon) becomes enamored of her, and the woman suddenly sees him in a different light when she learns that his father, now dead, was an Italian immigrant who owned a player piano. Intent on taking action against the mechanic's family to right the wrong suffered by her mother, the daughter begins to lose her grip on sanity when she finds out that the men she suspects of the rape are actually innocent. In fact, her father long ago exacted his own vengeance on the real culprits. This knowledge pushes her over the edge, and she has to be institutionalized. Meanwhile, the young mechanic misunderstands what happened and that leads to tragedy; he tracks down and kills the innocent men Elle had suspected of raping her mother, believing them to be responsible for Elle's current condition. Soundtrack. The original music was written by Georges Delerue. Yves Montand sings his "Trois petites notes de musique", a song that was originally performed by Cora Vaucaire in "The Long Absence".
1066672	"Jason's Lyric" is a 1994 romantic drama film, written by Bobby Smith, Jr, and directed by Doug McHenry, who co-produced the film with George Jackson and Marilla Lane Ross. Both Jackson and McHenry have been notably successful as producers with films that include "New Jack City".
394310	Sad Movie is a 2005 South Korean romantic melodrama film with a star-studded cast. The film was released in South Korean theaters on October 20, 2005 and had a total of 1,066,765 admissions nationwide. Plot. Jin-woo is a firefighter who buys a ring for his girlfriend. Her name is Soo-jung, and she works at a TV station as a news translator for the deaf. She is waiting for him to propose, with the rationale that given his dangerous job, she likes the idea of him having to think of her, to hesitate for a while before jumping into danger. He, on the other hand, is waiting for that perfect opportunity and setting, before popping the question.
1066738	Tapeheads is a 1988 comedy film directed by Bill Fishman. The film stars John Cusack, Tim Robbins, Sam Moore and Junior Walker. The movie was produced by Michael Nesmith, who is seen briefly in the film as a bottled water delivery man. Plot. After losing their jobs as security guards, best friends Ivan (John Cusack) and Josh (Tim Robbins) start a music video production company called "Video Aces". When they meet their childhood heroes, 1970s soul duo "The Swanky Modes" (Sam Moore and Junior Walker), Ivan and Josh concoct a scheme to give them a new audience by hijacking a Menudo concert, getting them to perform in Menudo's place, and broadcasting it live across the country on a television satellite hook-up.
583013	Rahul Roy (born 9 February 1968) is an Indian film actor, who works in Bollywood films. He became famous from the debut in the hit Mahesh Bhatt production "Aashiqui" (1990), where he was helped by the music of Nadeem Shravan, with Kumar Sanu's vocals. In 2006, by public vote Roy won the first season of game show "Bigg Boss" – the Indian version of "Celebrity Big Brother", currently produced by Endemol India for Colors viacom 18. Acting career. Rahul, began his acting career in the 1990 film "Aashiqui", a Mahesh Bhatt production as the lead actor with newcomer Anu Agarwal. It was a hit and made him a popular actor. He appeared opposite Karishma Kapoor in Sudhakar Bokade's romantic film "Sapne Sajan Ke" (1992). Roy delivered a notable performance in Mahesh Bhatt's autobiographical "Phir Teri Kahani Yaad Aayee", in which Roy's character was based on the filmmaker. The film was Zee TV's first mainstream production and was based on Bhatt's love story with the late actress Parveen Babi. The movie had strong performances from the lead pair, Rahul Roy and Pooja Bhatt, with music by Anu Malik. Rahul Roy featured in Bhatt's production "Jaanam", which was Vikram Bhatt's directorial debut.
1163470	Jesse Donald "Don" Knotts (July 21, 1924 – February 24, 2006) was an American comedic actor best known for his portrayal of Barney Fife on the 1960s television sitcom "The Andy Griffith Show", a role which earned him five Emmy Awards. He also played landlord Ralph Furley on the 1970s and 1980s television sitcom "Three's Company". In 1996, "TV Guide" ranked him # 27 on its 50 Greatest TV Stars of All Time list. Early life. Knotts was born in Morgantown, West Virginia, the son of William Jesse Knotts and his wife, the former Elsie L. Moore. Knotts's paternal ancestors had emigrated from England to America in the 17th century, originally settling in Queen Anne's County, Maryland. Knotts' father was a farmer. Because of the burden of a fourth child (Don) being born so late (his mother was 40), he had a nervous breakdown, becoming a shell of his former self. Afflicted with both schizophrenia and alcoholism, he sometimes terrorized his young son with a knife, causing him to turn inward at an early age. Knotts' father died of pneumonia when he was 13 years old. Knotts and his three brothers were then raised by their mother, who ran a boarding house in Morgantown. Knotts' mother died in 1969, at age 84. Son William Earl Knotts (1910–1941) preceded her in death in 1941, at age 31. They are buried in the family plot at Beverly Hills Memorial Park, in Morgantown, West Virginia. Knotts is a sixth cousin of Ron Howard, a co-star on "The Andy Griffith Show". An urban legend claims that Knotts served in the United States Marine Corps during World War II, serving as a drill instructor at Parris Island. In reality, Knotts enlisted in the United States Army after graduating from Morgantown High School and spent most of his service entertaining troops. Career. Early roles. Knotts began his career performing in many venues, including a ventriloquist act with a dummy named Danny "Hooch" Matador. In a "TV Guide" interview in the 1970s, he spoke about how, when he was in the Army, he was getting tired of playing straight man for a hunk of wood. According to Knotts, while on a ship in the South Pacific, he took the dummy topside and tossed him overboard. He swore he could hear the dummy calling for help as the ship sailed on, leaving him bobbing helplessly in the waves. Knotts got his first major break on television in the soap opera "Search for Tomorrow" where he appeared from 1953 to 1955. He came to fame in 1956 on Steve Allen's variety show, as part of Allen's repertory company, most notably in Allen's mock "Man in the Street" interviews, always as an extremely nervous man. In 1958, Knotts appeared in the film "No Time for Sergeants" alongside Andy Griffith. "The Andy Griffith Show". In 1960, when Griffith was offered the opportunity to headline in his own sitcom, "The Andy Griffith Show" (1960–1968), Knotts took the role of Barney Fife, the deputy—and originally cousin—of Sheriff Andy Taylor (portrayed by Griffith). Knotts’s portrayal of the deputy on the popular show earned him five Emmy Awards for Best Supporting Actor in a Television Comedy, one award for each of the five seasons he played the character. A summary of the show from the website of the Museum of Broadcast Communications describes Deputy Barney Fife: Self-important, romantic, and nearly always wrong, Barney dreamed of the day he could use the one bullet Andy had issued to him although he did fire his gun on a few occasions. He always fired his pistol accidentally while still in his holster or in the ceiling of the court house, at which point he would sadly hand his pistol to Andy. This is why Barney kept his one very shiny bullet in his shirt pocket. In episode # 196 Andy gave Barney more bullets so that he would have a loaded gun to go after a bad guy that Barney unintentionally helped to escape. While Barney was forever frustrated that Mayberry was too small for the delusional ideas he had of himself, viewers got the sense that he couldn't have survived anywhere else. Don Knotts played the comic and pathetic sides of the character with equal aplomb and he received three Emmy Awards during the show's first five seasons. When the show first aired, Griffith was intended to be the comedic lead with Knotts as his straight man, similar to their roles in "No Time for Sergeants". However, it was quickly discovered that the show was funnier with the roles reversed. As Griffith maintained in several interviews, "By the second episode, I knew that Don should be funny, and I should play straight." Believing earlier remarks made by Griffith, that "The Andy Griffith Show" would soon be ending after five seasons, Knotts began to look for other work. He signed a five-film contract with Universal Studios. He was caught off guard when Griffith announced he would be continuing with the show after all, but Knotts’ hands were tied. In his autobiography, Knotts admitted that he had not yet signed a contract when Griffith made his decision, but he had made up his mind believing that he would not get this chance again. Knotts left the series in 1965. Within the series, it was announced that Deputy Fife had finally made the "big time", joining the Raleigh, North Carolina police force. Post-Mayberry films. Knotts went on to star in a series of film comedies which drew on his high-strung persona from the TV series: he had a cameo appearance in "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World" (1963), and starred in "The Incredible Mr. Limpet" (1964), "The Ghost and Mr. Chicken" (1966), "The Reluctant Astronaut" (1967), "The Shakiest Gun in the West" (1968), "The Love God?" (1969) and "How to Frame a Figg" (1971). Knotts would, however, return to the role of Barney Fife several times in the 1960s: he made five more guest appearances on "The Andy Griffith Show" (gaining him another two Emmys), and later appeared once more on the spin-off "Mayberry RFD", where he was present as best man for the marriage of Andy Taylor and his longtime love, Helen Crump. After making "How to Frame a Figg", Knotts’s 5-film contract with Universal came to an end. He continued to work steadily, though he did not appear as a regular on any successful television series until his appearance on "Three's Company" in 1979. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, Knotts served as the spokesman for Dodge trucks and was featured prominently in a series of print ads and dealer brochures. On television, he went on to host an odd-variety show/sitcom hybrid on NBC, "The Don Knotts Show", which aired Tuesdays during the fall of 1970, but the series was low-rated and short-lived. He also made frequent guest appearances on other shows such as "The Bill Cosby Show" and "Here's Lucy". In 1970, he would also make yet another appearance as Barney Fife, in the pilot of "The New Andy Griffith Show." In 1972, Knotts would voice an animated version of himself in two memorable episodes of "The New Scooby Doo Movies"; one being "The Spooky Fog of Juneberry", in which he played a lawman who bore a remarkable resemblance to Barney Fife, and the other being "Guess Who's Knott Coming to Dinner". He also appeared as Felix Unger in a stage version of Neil Simon's "The Odd Couple" with Art Carney as Oscar Madison. Beginning in 1975, Knotts was teamed with Tim Conway in a series of slapstick films aimed at children, including the Disney film "The Apple Dumpling Gang", and its 1979 sequel, "The Apple Dumpling Gang Rides Again". They also did two independent films, a boxing comedy called "The Prize Fighter" in 1979, and a mystery comedy film in 1981 called "The Private Eyes". Knotts co-starred in several other Disney films, including 1976's "Gus", 1976's "No Deposit, No Return", 1977's "Herbie Goes to Monte Carlo" and 1978's "Hot Lead and Cold Feet". "Three’s Company". In 1979, Knotts returned to series television in his second most identifiable role, the wacky-but-lovable landlord Ralph Furley on "Three's Company". The series, which was already an established hit, added Knotts to the cast when the original landlords, Helen Roper and her husband Stanley Roper, a married couple played by Audra Lindley and Norman Fell, respectively, left the show to star in their own short-lived spin-off series ("The Ropers"). Though the role of the outlandish, overdressed, buffoon landlord was originally intended to be a minor recurring character, Knotts was so funny and lovable as a character who fantasized that he was an incredibly attractive lothario, that the writers greatly expanded his role. On set, Knotts easily integrated himself to the already-established cast who were, as John Ritter put it, "so scared" of Knotts because of his star status when he joined the cast. When Suzanne Somers left the show after a contract dispute in 1981, the writers started giving the material meant for Somers's Crissy to Knotts's Furley. Knotts remained on the show until it ended in 1984. The "Three's Company" script supervisor, Carol Summers, went on to be Knotts’s agent—often accompanying him to personal appearances. Later roles. In 1986, Don Knotts reunited with Andy Griffith in the made-for-television film "Return to Mayberry", where he reprised his role as Barney Fife. In early 1987, Knotts joined the cast of the first-run syndication comedy "What a Country!", playing Principal Bud McPherson for series' remaining 13 episodes. The sitcom was produced by Martin Rips and Joseph Staretski, who had previously worked on "Three's Company". In 1988, Knotts joined Andy Griffith in another show, playing the recurring role of pesky neighbor Les Calhoun on "Matlock" until 1992. After his appearances on "Matlock" ended in 1992, Knotts’ roles became sporadic, including a cameo in the 1996 film "Big Bully" as the principal of the high school. In 1998, Knotts had a small but pivotal role as a mysterious TV repairman in "Pleasantville" with Tobey Maguire and Reese Witherspoon. That year, his home town of Morgantown, West Virginia, changed the name of the street formerly known as South University Avenue (U.S. Route 119) to Don Knotts Boulevard on "Don Knotts Day". Also that day, in a nod to Don's role as Barney Fife, he was also named an honorary deputy sheriff with the Monongalia County Sheriff's Department. Later years. Knotts was recognized in 2000 with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Though he continued to act on stage, much of his film and television work after 2000 was as voice talent. In 2002, he would appear again with Scooby-Doo in the video game "Scooby-Doo: Night of 100 Frights" (Knotts also sent up his appearances on that show in various promotions for Cartoon Network and in a parody on "Robot Chicken", where he was teamed with Phyllis Diller). In 2003, Knotts teamed up with Tim Conway again to provide voices for the direct-to-video children's series, "Hermie and Friends" which would continue until his death. In 2005, he was the voice of Mayor Turkey Lurkey in "Chicken Little" (2005), his first Disney movie since 1979. On September 12, 2003, Knotts was in Kansas City in a stage version of "On Golden Pond" when he received a call from John Ritter's family telling him that his former "Three's Company" co-star had died of an aortic dissection that day. Knotts and his co-stars attended the funeral four days later. Knotts had appeared with Ritter one final time in a cameo on "8 Simple Rules for Dating My Teenage Daughter." It was an episode that paid homage to their earlier TV series. Knotts was the last "Three's Company" star to work with Ritter. During this period of time, macular degeneration in both eyes caused the otherwise robust Knotts to become virtually blind. His live appearances on television were few. In 2005, Knotts parodied his Ralph Furley character while playing a Paul Young variation in a "Desperate Housewives" sketch on "The 3rd Annual TV Land Awards". He would parody that part one final time, in his last live-action television appearance, an episode of "That ’70s Show", ("Stone Cold Crazy"). In the show, Don played Fez and Jackie's new landlord. Knotts's final role was in "Air Buddies", the 2006 direct-to-video sequel to "Air Bud", voicing the sheriff's deputy dog, Sniffer. Personal life and death. Knotts was married three times: Kathryn Metz from 1947–1964; Loralee Czuchna from 1974–1983; and Frances Yarborough from 2002 until his death. He had a son, Thomas Knotts, and a daughter, actress Karen Knotts, from his first marriage. Don Knotts died on February 24, 2006, at the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, California from pulmonary and respiratory complications to pneumonia related to lung cancer. He had been undergoing treatment at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in the months before his death, but had gone home after he reportedly had been feeling better. His long-time friend, Andy Griffith, visited Knotts’s bedside just hours before his death. Knotts's wife and daughter stayed with him until he died. He was buried at Westwood Memorial Park in Los Angeles. Knotts’s obituaries cited him as a major influence on other entertainers.
1065685	The Descent is a 2005 British adventure horror film written and directed by Neil Marshall. The film follows six women who, having entered an unmapped cave system, become trapped and are hunted by subterranean flesh-eating humanoids. Filming took place in the United Kingdom; exterior scenes were filmed at Ashridge Park, Buckinghamshire, and because the filmmakers considered it too dangerous and time-consuming to shoot in an actual cave interior scenes were filmed on sets built at Pinewood Studios near London. "The Descent" opened commercially 8 July 2005 in the United Kingdom. It premiered in the 2006 Sundance Film Festival and opened commercially on 4 August 2006 in the United States. A follow-up film, titled "The Descent Part 2", was released in 2009 and depicts events that take place two days after the end of the original film. Plot. Juno (Natalie Mendoza), Sarah (Shauna Macdonald) and Beth (Alex Reid) are whitewater rafting in Scotland. Sarah's husband Paul (Oliver Milburn) and their daughter Jessica (Molly Kayll) wave and cheer from the bank. Juno is seen talking intimately with Paul by Beth. On the drive back to their hotel, Paul is distracted, causing a collision. Paul and Jessica are killed, but Sarah survives. One year later, Juno, Sarah, Beth, Sam (MyAnna Buring) and Rebecca (Saskia Mulder) are reunited at a cabin in the Appalachian Mountains of North Carolina, USA. Holly (Nora-Jane Noone), Juno's new friend, is introduced. As they reminisce over an old photo of Juno, Sarah, and Beth, Sarah says "Love each day", explaining that it was a saying of her late husband's. The next morning the group goes spelunking. When the group breaks for lunch in a huge gallery, Juno tearfully apologises to Sarah for not being there for her after the accident, but Sarah is distant. As the group moves through the next passage it collapses behind them, with Sarah barely making it through. After a heated discussion, Juno admits that she has led them into an unknown cave system, instead of the fully explored cave system they planned for. The only people who were told about their expedition think they are at the other cave system, making rescue impossible. They are trapped with no way out. Privately, Juno tells Sarah that she led them into the unknown cave hoping to restore their relationship, but Sarah rebuffs her. The group discovers a cave painting and climbing equipment from a previous visitor, suggesting a second exit exists. Juno keeps the latter secret, allowing for the group to remain hopeful. Holly falls down a hole and breaks her leg. Sam sets Holly's fracture with a splint and they carry her. As the others help Holly, Sarah wanders off and observes a pale, humanoid creature drinking at a pool. It scampers off into the darkness when Sarah gasps. The others think Sarah imagined it, but Sarah insists that she saw someone. Soon after they are attacked by one of the creatures. The group scatter, and the crawler rips Holly's throat. Sarah trips and falls and passes out. Seeing Holly is still alive, Juno tries to defend her from the crawlers, but in the confusion, she whirls around, only to stab Beth through the neck with her pickaxe. Beth grabs Juno's pendant as she drops to the ground, but Juno stumbles away in shock as Beth reaches out to her. Juno eventually locates Sam and Rebecca and rescues them from a crawler. Juno tells them she may have found a way out, but will not leave without Sarah. The others reluctantly agree to help her search. Meanwhile, Sarah awakens and encounters the mortally wounded Beth, who tells Sarah that Juno wounded her and left her. Sarah does not believe her until Beth gives her Juno's pendant, which Sarah finds out to have the words "love each day" inscribed on it – revealing Juno's affair with Sarah's husband. Beth, in extreme pain, asks Sarah to euthanise her, and Sarah reluctantly complies. Sarah soon encounters and kills a young crawler, a female crawler, and a male crawler in quick succession. Elsewhere, Juno, Sam and Rebecca are pursued by a large group of crawlers. Crawlers kill Sam and Rebecca, and Juno leaps into a chasm to escape. Juno climbs out of the chasm and is helped onto a ledge by Sarah, who asks her if she saw Beth die. Juno nods. The two cautiously explore the caves until they encounter a group of crawlers and defeat them. Sarah then faces Juno, and reveals that she has Juno's pendant, revealing that she knows that she wounded Beth and also about her affair. Sarah cripples Juno with a pickaxe. Juno pulls the pickaxe from her leg and turns to face a large group of crawlers while Sarah leaves her behind, with Juno's fighting screams fading as Sarah goes further. Sarah falls down a hole and is knocked unconscious. She apparently awakens, scrambles up a huge pile of bones towards daylight, squeezes through a narrow opening onto the surface, runs to her vehicle and speeds off. She pulls over to vomit and sees Juno sitting next to her, her face streaked with blood. Sarah screams and reawakens, to find herself still in the cavern, revealing the events since her previous awakening were a dream. She sees her smiling daughter close by and a birthday cake between them. The field of view widens to reveal that Sarah is hallucinating and she is actually staring at a torch. The calls of the crawlers grow louder, but Sarah is oblivious. Alternate versions. For the US theatrical release, the film ends with the appearance of Juno in the car, and the scene where Sarah hallucinates her daughter in the torchlight was removed entirely. The Unrated DVD released in the US includes the original ending. Production. When Neil Marshall's 2002 film "Dog Soldiers" was a moderate success, the director received numerous requests to direct other horror films. The director was initially wary of being typecast as a horror film director, though he eventually agreed to make "The Descent", emphasising, "They are very different films." Marshall decided to cast only women in the main roles, going against the original plan for a gender diverse cast. Casting. Filmmakers originally planned for the cast to be both male and female, but Neil Marshall's business partner realised that horror films almost never have all-female casts. Defying convention, Marshall cast all women into the role, and to avoid making them clichéd, he solicited basic advice from his female friends. He explained the difference, "The women discuss how they feel about the situation, which the soldiers in "Dog Soldiers" would never have done." He also gave the characters different accents to enable the audience to tell the difference between the women and to establish a more "cosmopolitan feel" than the British marketing of "Dog Soldiers". The cast included Shauna Macdonald as Sarah, Natalie Mendoza as Juno, Alex Reid as Beth, Saskia Mulder as Rebecca, MyAnna Buring as Sam, Nora-Jane Noone as Holly, Oliver Milburn as Paul, and Molly Kayll as Jessica. Craig Conway portrayed one of the film's crawlers, Scar. Filming. While "The Descent" was set in North America, the film was shot entirely in the United Kingdom. Exterior scenes were filmed in Scotland, and interior scenes were filmed in sets built at Pinewood Studios near London. The cave was built at Pinewood because filmmakers considered it too dangerous and time-consuming to shoot in an actual cave. Set pieces were reused with care, and filmmakers sought to limit lighting to the sources that the characters bring with them into the cave, such as the helmet lights. Marshall cited the films "The Texas Chain Saw Massacre", "The Thing", and "Deliverance" as influences in establishing tension in "The Descent". The director elaborated, "We really wanted to ramp up the tension slowly, unlike all the American horror films you see now. They take it up to 11 in the first few minutes and then simply can't keep it up. We wanted to show all these terrible things in the cave: dark, drowning, claustrophobia. Then, when it couldn't get any worse, make it worse." Simon Bowles designed the maze of caves for "The Descent". Reviews credited Bowles: "cave sets by production designer Simon Bowles look just like the real thing" and "Bowles’ beautifully designed cave sets conjure a world of subterranean darkness." There were 21 cave Sets, built by Rod Vass and his company Armordillo Ltd. using a unique system of polyurethane sprayed rock that was developed for this production. Production of "The Descent" was in competition with an American film of a similar premise, "The Cave". "The Descent" was originally scheduled to be released in the United Kingdom by November 2005 or February 2006, but "The Cave" began filming six months before its competitor. The Filmmakers of "The Descent" decided to release the film before "The Cave", so they fast-tracked production to be completed by the end of February 2005. Editing. "The Descent" was released in North America with approximately a minute cut from the end. In the American cut, Sarah escapes from the cave and sees Juno, but the film does not cut back to the cave. In the 4 August 2006 issue of "Entertainment Weekly", it was stated that the ending was trimmed because American viewers did not like its "uber-hopeless finale". Lionsgate marketing chief Tim Palen said, "It's a visceral ride, and by the time you get to the ending you're drained. Neil Marshall had a number of endings in mind when he shot the film, so he was open making a switch." Marshall compared the change to the ending of "The Texas Chain Saw Massacre", saying, "Just because she gets away, does that make it a happy ending?" The North American Unrated DVD includes the original ending. The film has aired on Canada's The Movie Network with the original ending. In contrast, the American Syfy Channel as recently as 27 August 2010 broadcast the recut version of Sarah escaping, with Juno's spectre appearing beside her in the SUV. As exhibited on Syfy (Latin America), "The Descent" retains the original ending, with Sarah awakening back in the cave facing her dead daughter surrounded by the crawlers. Creature design. In the film, the women encounter underground creatures referred to as crawlers by the production crew. Marshall described the crawlers as cavemen who have stayed underground. The director explained, "They've evolved in this environment over thousands of years. They've adapted perfectly to thrive in the cave. They've lost their eyesight, they have acute hearing and smell and function perfectly in the pitch black. They're expert climbers, so they can go up any rock face and that is their world." Filmmakers kept the crawler design hidden from the actresses until they were revealed in the scenes in which the characters encountered the creatures, to allow for natural tension. Conception. Director Neil Marshall first chose to have a dark cave as the setting for his horror film "The Descent" then decided to add the element of the crawlers, describing them as "something that could get the women, something human, but not quite". The crawlers were depicted as cavemen who never left the caves and evolved in the dark. The director included mothers and children in the colony of creatures, defining his vision, "It is a colony and I thought that was far more believable than making them the classic monsters. If they had been all male, it would have made no sense, so I wanted to create a more realistic context for them. I wanted to have this very feral, very primal species living underground, but I wanted to make them human. I didn't want to make them aliens because humans are the scariest things." The crawlers were designed by Paul Hyett, a makeup and prosthetics creator. Production designer Simon Bowles said that the crawler design had started out as "wide-eyed and more creature-like", but the design shifted toward a more human appearance. Crawlers originally had pure white skin, but the look was adjusted to seem grubbier. The skin was originally phosphorescent in appearance, but the effect was too bright and reflective in the darkened set, so the adjustment was made for them to blend in shadows. The director barred the film's all-female cast from seeing the actors in full crawler make-up until their first appearance on screen. Actress Natalie Mendoza said of the effect, "When the moment came, I nearly wet my pants! I was running around afterwards, laughing in this hysterical way and trying to hide the fact that I was pretty freaked out. Even after that scene, we never really felt comfortable with them." The crawlers reappear in "The Descent Part 2", a sequel by Jon Harris with the first film's director Neil Marshall as executive producer. For the sequel, Hyett improved the camouflaging ability of the crawlers' skin tones to deliver better scares. According to Hyett, "Jon wanted them more viciously feral, inbred, scarred and deformed, with rows of sharklike teeth for ripping flesh." A charnel house was designed for the crawlers as well as a set that the crew called the "Crawler Crapper". Description. Rene Rodriguez of "The Miami Herald" described the crawlers as "blind, snarling cave-dwellers, looking much like Gollum's bigger kin". Douglas Tseng of "The Straits Times" also noted that the crawlers looked similar to Gollum, being a cross between the creature and the vampiric Reapers from "Blade II". David Germain of the Associated Press noted of the crawlers, " have evolved to suit their environment—eyes blind because of the darkness in which they dwell, skin slimy and gray, ears batlike to channel their super-hearing." The crawlers are sexually dimorphic, with males being completely bald, whilst females sport thick dark hair on their heads. They are nocturnal hunters which surface from their caves to hunt for prey and bring the spoils of their hunts to their caverns. Marketing. The skull of women motif used in some advertising material is based on Philippe Halsman's "In Voluptas Mors" photograph. The film's marketing campaign in the United Kingdom was disrupted by the London bombings in July 2005. Advertisements on London's public transport system (including the bus that had exploded) had included posters that carried the quote, "Outright terror... bold and brilliant", and depicted a terrified woman screaming in a tunnel. The film's theatrical distributor in the UK, Pathé, recalled the posters from their placement in the London Underground and reworked the campaign to exclude the word "terror" from advertised reviews of "The Descent". Pathé also distributed the new versions to TV and radio stations. The distributor's marketing chief, Anna Butler, said of the new approach, "We changed tack to concentrate on the women involved all standing together and fighting back. That seemed to chime with the prevailing mood of defiance that set in the weekend after the bombs." Neil Marshall stated in a review "Shauna was pretty upset about it; it was on newspapers all across the county" and cites the attacks as harming the film's box office, as "people were still trapped underground in reality, so no one really wanted to go see a film about people trapped underground...". Many commentators, including writers for "Variety" and "The Times", remarked on the rather unfortunate coincidence. Due to these events there was some initial concern that the film's release might have been delayed out of sensitivity for the tragedy but Pathé ultimately chose to release the film on schedule, with a slightly retooled advertising campaign; however, the US promotional campaign managed by Lionsgate Films was significantly different from the original European version. Release. Reception. "The Descent" premiered at the Scottish horror film festival Dead by Dawn on 6 July 2005. The film opened commercially to the public in the UK on 10 July 2005, showing on 329 screens and earned £2.6 million. The film received limited releases in other European countries. The London bombings in the same month was reported to have affected the box office performance of "The Descent". The film has received critical acclaim. Based on 164 reviews collected by "Rotten Tomatoes", "The Descent" received an 84% "Certified Fresh" overall approval rating, with the site's consensus stating "Deft direction and strong performances from its all-female cast guide The Descent, a riveting, claustrophobic horror film. In this low-budget import from Scotland, director Neil Marshall has masterfully created a spelunking nightmare, which doubles as a compelling meditation on morality, vengeance, and the depths to which we might go for survival." By comparison, Metacritic calculated an average score of 71 out of 100 from 30 reviews. On its debut weekend in the US, "The Descent" opened with a three-day gross of $8.8 million, and finished with $26,005,908. Total worldwide box office receipts are $57,051,053. Roger Ebert's editor, Jim Emerson, reviewed the film for Ebert's column whilst Ebert was on leave due to surgery, giving it four out of four stars. He wrote, "This is the fresh, exciting summer movie I've been wanting for months. Or for years, it seems." Manohla Dargis of "The New York Times" described "The Descent" as "one of the better horror entertainments of the last few years", calling it "indisputably and pleasurably nerve-jangling". Dargis applauded the claustrophobic atmosphere of the film, though she perceived sexual overtones in the all-female cast with their laboured breathing and sweaty clothing. Rene Rodriguez of "The Miami Herald" thought that the film devolved into a guessing game of who would survive, though he praised Marshall's "nightmare imagery" for generating scares that work better than other horror films. Rodriguez also noted the attempt to add dimension to the female characters but felt that the actresses were unable to perform. Top-ten lists, 2006: Bloody Disgusting ranked the film third in their list of the 'Top 20 Horror Films of the Decade', with the article saying "One of the scariest films of this or any decade... Ultimately, The Descent is the purest kind of horror film – ruthless, unforgiving, showing no mercy." Lawrence Toppman of "The Charlotte Observer" thought a weakness of "The Descent" was the failure of the writer to explain the evolution of the creature, though he said, "Their clicking and howling, used for echolocation and communication, makes them more alien; this otherness gives humans permission to mutilate them without seeming too disgusting to be sympathetic." Michael Wilmington of the "Chicago Tribune" thought that the crawlers should have been left out of the film, believing, "Watching those gray, slithering beings chasing and biting the women makes it hard to maintain any suspension of disbelief." Home media. "The Descent" was released on DVD and Blu-ray on 26 December 2006. The film is also slated for a 3D re-release by Samsung as part of a deal between Samsung and Lionsgate to do so for several of Lionsgate's films. Sequel. A sequel to "The Descent" was filmed at Ealing Studios in London during 2008 and was released on 2 December 2009 in the UK.
1064594	Anything Else is a 2003 romantic comedy film. The film was written and directed by Woody Allen, produced by his sister Letty Aronson, and stars Jason Biggs, Christina Ricci, Woody Allen, Stockard Channing, Danny DeVito, Jimmy Fallon and KaDee Strickland. "Anything Else" was the opening-night selection at the 60th annual Venice International Film Festival. Plot. Jerry Falk (Biggs) is an aspiring writer living in New York City, who falls in love at first sight with Amanda (Ricci) and begins having an affair. He eventually tells his girlfriend about it so that she will dump him, because Falk cannot end relationships. Seeking advice, Jerry turns to an aging struggling artist (Allen) who acts as his oracle — and that includes trying to help sort out Jerry’s romantic life. Critical reception. The film received generally mixed reviews from critics. The review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reported that the film received 40 percent positive reviews, based on 129 reviews. Metacritic reported the film had an average score of 43 out of 100, based on 37 reviews. Leonard Maltin, in his movie and video guide, gave the film a “BOMB” rating (the only Allen-directed film he has ever rated BOMB), and called it “Allen’s all-time worst”. However, the reception was not entirely negative; in August 2009, it was cited by Quentin Tarantino as one of his favorite 20 films since 1992.
1162870	Alexandrea "Alex" Borstein (born February 15, 1973) is an American actress, voice actress, writer, producer and comedienne. She is well known for her long-running role as Lois Griffin on the animated television series "Family Guy", and as a cast member on the sketch comedy series "MADtv". A native of Deerfield, Illinois, Borstein is a graduate of San Francisco State University, where she studied rhetoric. She was trained in improvisational comedy at the ACME Comedy Theatre, near Hollywood, California, and was selected to join "MADtv" after being scouted by talent agents who noticed her work at the theatre. She was a writer and voice actor for several television shows, including "Casper", "Pinky and the Brain" and "", before joining the cast of "MADtv" as a featured player, and later as a repertory player in 1997. Early life. Borstein was born in Highland Park, Illinois, a suburb north of the city of Chicago, in 1973 (according to her own official website), though some sources still say 1971. Her parents, Judy and Irv Borstein, are both mental health professionals. She was raised in a Jewish family. She attended San Francisco State University in San Francisco, California. Career. Borstein trained in improv at the ACME Comedy Theater, where she met her writing partner and future husband Jackson Douglas. Shortly after they began working together on the animated series "Casper" and "Pinky and the Brain", Borstein left her position at an ad agency – where she had written print ads for Barbie – to become a full-time writer. In 1996, while still writing for "Casper", Borstein worked on the show "" as the voice of Queen Machina, the queen of the Machine Empire. In 1997, Borstein became a cast member on the third season of the sketch comedy show "MADtv". She originally joined the cast as a featured player, but was upgraded to the repertory mid-season.
628189	Linda Kozlowski (born January 7, 1958) is an American actress. She has been nominated for a Golden Globe Award. Early life. Kozlowski was born and raised in Fairfield, Connecticut, the daughter of Helen E. (Parniawski) and Stanley M. Kozlowski. She is of Polish descent. She is a 1976 graduate of Fairfield's Andrew Warde High School. Kozlowski graduated from the Juilliard School's drama division in 1981, where one of her classmates was Val Kilmer. Career. Kozlowski debuted in the 1981–1982 off-Broadway production, "How It All Began". She played "Miss Forsythe" on Broadway in "Death of a Salesman" and in 1984 took the same role in the film version of 1985. Her big break came in 1986 when she was cast as the female lead opposite Paul Hogan in the Australian film "Crocodile Dundee", in which their on-screen chemistry spilled over into a real relationship. Two years later, she revisited her starring role with Hogan in "Crocodile Dundee II". Also in 1988 she starred with Bill Paxton, Tim Curry and Annie Potts in "Pass the Ammo".
1522817	Criminal Lovers (French title: Les Amants Criminels) is a 1999 psychological thriller film by French director François Ozon. Synopsis. High school student Alice (Natacha Régnier) convinces her lover, Luc (Jérémie Renier), to murder their classmate Saïd (Salim Kechiouche), whom she claims raped her. When they dispose of his body in the woods late one night, the couple get lost on their way back to their car and are taken in by a mysterious hermit (Miki Manojlovic). However, matters take a bizarre twist when the stranger locks the young lovers in his basement along with the dead body of Saïd and reveals that he plans to eat them. The stranger harnesses Luc and convinces for sex. He finally gives Luc an option to survive with his girlfriend (Alice), Luc finally shares bed with stranger and gets away from the forest without killing his rapist. When the couple comes out of forest they find the police near their car and the police comes to know about their murder and the strange hermit also gets arrested. Luc gets arrested as he gets caught into a bear trap, and Alice tries to run away and finally she gets shot by police. In the final sequence the apprehended Luc attempts to stop the police who are beating the forester up but all in vain. He is carried to the city in the police car.
584961	Allari Pidugu () is a Tollywood film which released on 5 October 2005 and was directed by Jayant Paranjee. Balakrishna plays a dual role and Katrina Kaif and Charmi play the heroines.The film met with negative reviews from critics and was declared a flop at the box office. Plot. Charkavarthy (Puneet Issar), has two sons Giri and Ranjith (both played by Balakrishna). Giri is the younger one, who is the village Romeo and in love with his cousin Subbalakshmi (Charmy). Ranjith turns into an ACP and meets his match Swathi (Katrina Kaif). GK (Mukesh Rushi) is a member of the parliament, whose anti-social activities are contained by Ranjith. Also, Chakravarthy who spends 14 years in prison after falsely charged by GK in a case is released. GK plans to take revenge on the family. But, the person who comes to the rescue of the family and the people threatened by the villain’s plans is Giri. The story is on how he ends as winner, by saving lives and winning respect from his father. This movie was dubbed into Hindi as "Vijaypath-The Mission".
1377377	Brittany Elizabeth Curran (born June 2, 1990) is an American actress. She is best known for her role as Lucy Tranelli in the comedy-drama television series "Men of a Certain Age". Career. Born in Weymouth, Massachusetts, she also lived in other parts of the Massachusetts area including Avon, Marstons Mills, Cape Cod and Hingham. As a child, she took part in plays and also studied ballet, jazz and tap and the violin, as well as participating in summer theatre. At eleven years-old, Curran made her screen acting debut on an episode of the sketch comedy series "MADtv" in 2001. She went on to guest star in the television series "Drake & Josh", "The Suite Life of Zack & Cody", "The Suite Life on Deck" and "Ghost Whisperer", "Criminal Minds", and "The Young and the Restless".
1162557	Wanda Hendrix (November 3, 1928 – February 1, 1981) was an American film and television actress. Born Dixie Wanda Hendrix in Jacksonville, Florida, Hendrix was performing in her local amateur theater when she was seen by a talent agent who signed her to a Hollywood contract. She made her first film, "Confidential Agent", in 1945 and for the first few years of her career was consistently cast in "B" pictures. By the late 1940s, she was being included in more prestigious films, such as "Ride the Pink Horse" (1947) and "Miss Tatlock's Millions" (1948). She starred with Tyrone Power in "Prince of Foxes". In 1946, Audie Murphy saw Hendrix on the cover of Coronet magazine and arranged to meet her. The two were married on February 8, 1949, making the film "Sierra" (1950) together, but the marriage was short-lived; they divorced on April 14, 1950. Hendrix later said that Murphy had wanted her to give up her career, but more significantly, he was suffering from post traumatic stress disorder from his service in World War II and during "flashback" episodes he would turn on her, once holding her at gunpoint. In her later years, Hendrix spoke of Murphy's condition with sympathy. Hendrix resumed her career but found it difficult to obtain good roles. On June 26, 1954, she married wealthy sportsman James Langford Stack, Jr., the brother of actor Robert Stack, and retired from acting, but worked in live television dramatic anthology shows such as made occasional appearances in television series such as "Pulitzer Prize Playhouse", "Robert Montgomery Presents", "The Plymouth Playhouse", "The Ford Television Theatre", "The Revlon Mirror Theater", and "Schlitz Playhouse", then occasionally appeared in later series such as "Bat Masterson", "My Three Sons", "Wagon Train" and "Bewitched". The couple divorced on November 3, 1958. She married Italian financier and oil company executive Steven LaMonte on June 7, 1969. They divorced on November 17, 1980. She died in Burbank, California from double pneumonia at the age of 52, and was interred at Forest Lawn Cemetery. Selected Filmography. This is only a partial list of her film work. Some of her films have been released for Home Media, or are available on-line, such as "The Admiral Was a Lady".
1059503	Joseph Anthony "Joe" Mantegna, Jr. (, ; born November 13, 1947) is an American actor, producer, writer, director, and voice actor. He is best known for his roles in box office hits such as "Three Amigos" (1986), "The Godfather Part III" (1990), "Forget Paris" (1995), and "Up Close & Personal" (1996). He currently stars in the CBS television series "Criminal Minds" as FBI Special Agent David Rossi. Mantegna has gained Emmy Award nominations for his roles in three different miniseries: "The Last Don" (1997), "The Rat Pack" (1999), and "The Starter Wife" (2007). He has also served as executive producer for various movies and television movies, including "Corduroy" (1984), "Hoods" (1998), and "Lakeboat" (2000) which he also directed. For television, Mantegna has starred in the short lived series "First Monday" (2002) and "Joan of Arcadia" (2003–2005). Since the 1991 episode "Bart the Murderer," Mantegna has had a recurring role on the animated comedy series "The Simpsons" as mob boss Fat Tony, reprising the role in "The Simpsons Movie" (2007). Additionally, he played Robert B. Parker's fictional detective Spenser in three made-for-TV movies between 1999 and 2001. Early life. An Italian American, Mantegna was born in Chicago, Illinois, in 1947 to Mary Anne (Novielli), a shipping clerk from Acquaviva delle Fonti Italy, and Joseph Anthony Mantegna, Sr., who worked in insurance sales and died in 1969 of tuberculosis. Mantegna was raised Catholic and attended J. Sterling Morton High School East in Cicero, Illinois. He studied acting at the Goodman School of Drama at DePaul University in from 1967 to 1969. While still a young man in Chicago, he played bass in a band called The Apocryphals which later played with another local group The Missing Links, who went on to form the band Chicago. Mantegna is still very close to the original members of Chicago, and keeps in touch with his old band mates as well. Career. Mantegna made his acting debut in the 1969 stage production of "Hair" and debuted on Broadway in "Working" (1978). He also helped write "Bleacher Bums," an award-winning play which was first performed at Chicago's Organic Theater Company, and was a member of its original cast. He had a small role in the movie "Xanadu" which was cut, although since his name is in the film's credits Mantegna gets residuals for the film. Mantegna won a Tony award for his portrayal of Richard Roma in David Mamet's play "Glengarry Glen Ross." He has had a long and successful association with Mamet, appearing in a number of his works. Mantegna made his feature film debut in "Medusa Challenger" (1977). He played womanizing dentist Bruce Fleckstein in "Compromising Positions" (1985). Other early movies include co-starring roles in "The Money Pit" (1986), "Weeds" (1987), and "Suspect" (1987). He also starred in the critically acclaimed movies "House of Games" (1987) and "Things Change" (1988), both written by Mamet. He and "Things Change" co-star Don Ameche received the Best Actor Award at the Venice Film Festival. In 1991 Mantegna starred in another Mamet story, the highly praised police thriller "Homicide." A highly versatile actor, Mantegna has played a wide range of roles, from the comic—as a fed up shock jock in "Airheads" and the hilariously inept kidnapper from "Baby's Day Out"—to the dramatic, in roles such as Joey Zasa, a treacherous mobster in "The Godfather Part III" and an Emmy-nominated performance as singer Dean Martin in HBO's 1998 film "The Rat Pack." Mantegna has a recurring role in the animated series "The Simpsons" as the voice of mob boss Anthony "Fat Tony" D'Amico. He insists on voicing the character every time he appears, no matter how little dialogue he has. To quote: "If Fat Tony sneezes, I want to be there." In one instance, however, Phil Hartman voiced Fat Tony in the episode "A Fish Called Selma." Mantegna spoofed himself when he hosted "Saturday Night Live" for the 1990–1991 season in which he calmly began his monologue by saying he did not wish to be typecast from his gangster roles. A disappointed little boy and his father leave, as they mistakenly believed the host would be Joe Montana (football player) due to the similar names. Mantegna then began speaking in a low, controlled voice to the little boy, telling him it was best to stay in the audience and respect his performance; he warned the boy that if he (Mantegna) made a call, then Montana would not play in his next game—an implication that Mantegna's true personality equaled his gangster roles. In 2002, Mantegna starred as Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, Justice Joseph Novelli, on the CBS midseason replacement drama "First Monday". Mantegna received the Lifetime Achievement Award on April 26, 2004, at the Los Angeles Italian Film Festival. On August 11, 2007, Mantegna signed on to replace departing star Mandy Patinkin on the CBS crime drama "Criminal Minds". Since 2006, he has co-narrated the National Memorial Day Concert on the Mall in Washington, D.C. with Gary Sinise. Mantegna was the keynote commencement speaker at The Chicago School of Professional Psychology in June 2008.
775352	I Am So Proud Of You is a 2008 animated short film by Don Hertzfeldt. It is the second chapter of a trilogy about the character Bill and
1054807	The Cassandra Crossing is a 1976 British disaster/thriller film directed by George Pan Cosmatos and starring Richard Harris, Sophia Loren, Martin Sheen, Burt Lancaster, Lee Strasberg, Ava Gardner and O. J. Simpson. With the backing of the European media tycoon Sir Lew Grade (the head of the British broadcast network ATV) and the Italian film producer Carlo Ponti, the international all-star cast was expected to attract a widespread audience, with rights sold prior to filming, to both British and American distributors. Ponti also saw the production as a showcase for his wife, Sophia Loren. Plot. When the existence of a strain of plague (vaguely identified as pneumonic) is revealed at the U.S. mission at the International Health Organization, three terrorists seek to blow up the U.S. mission. Two of them are shot, one mortally, by security personnel but one escapes. The surviving terrorist is hospitalized and quarantined and identified as Swedish. Dr. Elena Stradner (Ingrid Thulin) and U.S. Colonel Stephen Mackenzie (Burt Lancaster) (Military Intelligence assigned to the IHO) argue over the nature of the strain, which Stradner suspects is a biological weapon but which Colonel Mackenzie claims was in the process of being destroyed.
351579	Stag Night is a 2008 American horror film, written and directed by Peter A. Dowling. Plot. It tells about four men on a bachelor party in New York who ride the subway and, along with two strippers from the club, accidentally get off at a station that closed down in the 1970s. Trapped in the tunnels beneath New York, they witness the murder of a transit cop by three transients and find themselves on the run for their lives. Production. Produced by Arnold Rifkin and Chris Eberts, under their Rifkin/Eberts label, and Michael Philip and Jo Marr of Film Tiger. The movie was shot in 2007 in Sofia, Bulgaria and in New York. The post-production took place at "The Post Group", Hollywood, Los Angeles in 2008. Chris Ouwinga and Darryn Welch financed the film via their production company, Instinctive Film. Starring Kip Pardue, Vinessa Shaw, Breckin Meyer, Karl Geary, Scott Adkins, Sarah Barrand, Rachel Oliva and Luca Bercovici. Closing Credits Song, "Don't Hide Away From the Sun" by Alphanaut. Inspiration. Running in almost real time, "Stag Night" is a throwback to the early movies of John Carpenter and '70s thrillers such as "Deliverance" while the plot bears a certain resemblance to that of the classic British horror film Death Line. Release. The film was first time released as Direct-to-DVD on 26 June 2008 in Brazil as Fuga Sobre Trilhos. It was part of the Screamfest Horror Film Festival on 8 February 2010. Ghost House Pictures will release the DVD in the United States on 15 February 2011.
1018179	Jade Goddess of Mercy or Goddess of Mercy () is a 2003 film directed by Ann Hui, starring Zhao Wei and Nicholas Tse. It was adapted from a novel from Chinese writer Hai Yan. The title comes from a necklace featuring Kuan Yin, the "Goddess of Mercy". In 2003 Hai Yan also produced a TV serial based on his novel, starring Betty Sun.[http://ent.sina.com.cn/s/m/2003-07-02/1555165075.html] Plot. Yang Rui is a handsome Beijing executive who is bored with his easy life and numerous female conquests. He is having an affair with his female boss, and in general seems to despise women and relationships. He hears about a woman named He Yanhong who is from out of town, beautiful but mysterious and quite reclusive. He soon falls in love with her, despite the fact that she rejects his advances and appears to have few friends. When she kicks him in the head after coming on too strongly, she shows some regret and compassion, nursing him back to health and they develop a friendship. He Yanhong tells him her nickname is An Xin ("peace" in English). Unfortunately, Yang Rui's scorned female boss becomes jealous, reveals she has been spying on the young couple, arranges for He Yanhong to lose her job, reveals that she has a child, and then frames him for accepting an illegal kickback that briefly sends Yang Rui to prison.
940093	The Aristocats is an American animated feature film produced and released by Walt Disney Productions in 1970 and features the voices of Eva Gabor, Hermione Baddeley, Phil Harris, Dean Clark, Sterling Holloway and Roddy Maude-Roxby. The 20th animated feature in the Walt Disney Animated Classics series, the film is based on a story by Tom McGowan and Tom Rowe, and revolves around a family of aristocratic cats, and how an alley cat acquaintance helps them after a butler has kidnapped them to gain his mistress' fortune which was intended to go to them. It was originally released to theaters by Buena Vista Distribution on December 11, 1970. The film is noted for being the last film project to be approved by Walt Disney himself, as he died in late 1966, before the film was released. It gained positive reviews on first release and was a box office success. Plot. In Paris in 1910, a mother cat named Duchess and her three kittens, Marie, Berlioz, and Toulouse, live in the mansion of retired opera diva Madame Adelaide Bonfamille, along with her English butler, Edgar. She early on settles her will with her lawyer Georges Hautecourt, an aged, eccentric old friend of hers, stating that she wishes her fortune to be left to her cats, who will retain it until their deaths, upon which her fortune will revert to Edgar. Edgar hears this from his own room through a speaking tube and is unwilling to wait for the cats to die naturally before he inherits Madame Adelaide's fortune, and plots to eliminate the cats. He sedates the cats by putting sleeping pills into their food and heads out into the countryside to release them in the wild. However, he is ambushed by two hound dogs, named Napoleon and Lafayette. Edgar escapes, leaving behind his umbrella, hat, the cats' bed-basket, and the sidecar of his motorcycle. The cats are unharmed, but stranded in the countryside, while Madame Adelaide, Roquefort the mouse, and Frou-Frou the horse discover their absence. In the morning, Duchess meets an alley cat named Thomas O'Malley, who offers to guide her and the kittens to Paris. Marie, Berlioz, and Toulouse have a struggle returning to the city, briefly hitchhiking on the back of a milk cart before being chased off by the driver. Marie subsequently falls into a river and is saved by O'Malley. They then meet a pair of English geese, Amelia and Abigail Gabble, who are on a tour of France. The group head off, marching like geese, until they reach Paris and come across the girls' drunken Uncle Waldo. Abigail and Amelia then depart to take Waldo home. Travelling across the rooftops of the city, the cats meet Scat Cat and his band, close friends to O'Malley, who perform the song "Ev'rybody Wants to Be a Cat." After the band has departed and the kittens lie in bed, O'Malley and Duchess spend the evening on a nearby rooftop and talk, while the kittens listen at a windowsill. The subject of their conversation is the question of whether Duchess may stay and marry Thomas. Eventually, she turns him down, largely out of loyalty to Madame Adelaide. Edgar, meanwhile, retrieves his sidecar, umbrella, and hat from Napoleon and Lafayette, albeit with some difficulty, knowing that it is the only evidence that could incriminate him. The cats return to the mansion, whereupon O'Malley departs sadly. Edgar sees Duchess and Kittens coming and captures them, places them in a sack and briefly hides them in an oven. The cats tell Roquefort to pursue O'Malley and get help. He does so, whereupon O'Malley races back to the mansion, ordering Roquefort to find Scat Cat and his gang. Edgar places the cats in a trunk which he plans to send to Timbuktu, Africa. O'Malley, Scat Cat and his gang, and Frou-Frou all fight Edgar, while Roquefort frees Duchess and the kittens. In the end, Edgar is tipped into the trunk, locked inside, and sent to Timbuktu himself. Madame Adelaide's will is rewritten to exclude Edgar and include O'Malley (after ironically claiming that the will would have included Edgar after all). She starts a charity foundation providing a home for all of Paris' stray cats. The grand opening thereof, to which most of the major characters come, features Scat Cat's band, who perform a reprise of "Ev'rybody Wants to Be a Cat".
1041753	A Canterbury Tale is a 1944 British film by the film-making team of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger. It stars Eric Portman, Sheila Sim, Dennis Price and Sgt. John Sweet; Esmond Knight provided narration and played several small roles. For the postwar American release, Raymond Massey narrated and Kim Hunter was added to the film. The film was made in black and white, and was the first of two collaborations between Powell and Pressburger and cinematographer Erwin Hillier. "A Canterbury Tale" takes its title from "The Canterbury Tales" of Geoffrey Chaucer, and loosely uses Chaucer's theme of 'eccentric characters on a religious pilgrimage' to highlight the wartime experiences of the citizens of Kent, and encourage wartime Anglo-American friendship and understanding. Plot. The story concerns three young people: British Army Sergeant Peter Gibbs (Dennis Price), US Army Sergeant Bob Johnson (played by real-life Sergeant John Sweet), and a 'Land Girl', Miss Alison Smith (Sheila Sim). The group arrive at the railway station in the fictitious small Kent town of Chillingbourne (filmed in Chilham, Fordwich, Wickhambreaux and other villages in the area), near Canterbury, late on Friday night, 27 August 1943. Peter has been stationed at a nearby Army camp, Alison is due to start working on a farm in the area, and Bob left the train by mistake, hearing the announcement "next stop Canterbury" and thinking he was in Canterbury. As they leave the station together Alison is attacked by a mysterious assailant in uniform who pours glue on her hair, before escaping. It transpires that this has happened quite a few times before, to other women. Alison asks Bob if he could spend the weekend in Chillingbourne to help her solve the mystery. The next day, while riding a farm cart in the countryside, Alison meets Peter, who surrounds her cart with his platoon of three Bren Gun Carriers. Alison agrees to meet Peter again. The three decide to investigate the attack, enlisting the help of the locals, including several young boys who play large-scale war games. The three use their detective skills to identify the culprit as a local magistrate, Mr Thomas Colpeper (Eric Portman), a gentleman farmer and pillar of the community, who also gives local history lectures to soldiers stationed in the district. Alison interviews all the glue man's victims to identify the dates and times of their attacks. Gibbs visits Colpeper at his home and borrows the fire watch roster listing the nights Colpeper was on duty in the town hall, whilst a paper drive for salvage by Johnson's boy commandos lets Johnson discover receipts for gum used to make glue sold to Colpeper. The dates of the attacks correspond with Colpeper's night watches where he wore a Home Guard uniform kept in the town hall to carry out his attacks. On a train journey to Canterbury on the Monday morning, Colpeper joins them in their compartment. They confront him with their suspicions, which he doesn't deny, and they discover that his motive is to prevent the soldiers from being distracted away from his lectures by female company and to help keep the local women faithful to their absent British boyfriends. In Colpeper's words, Chaucer's pilgrims travelled to Canterbury to "receive a blessing, or to do penance". On arriving in the city of Canterbury, devastated by wartime bombing, all three young people receive blessings of their own. Alison discovers that her boyfriend, believed killed in the war, has survived after all; his father, who had blocked their marriage because he thought his son could do better than a shopgirl, finally relents. Bob receives long-delayed letters from his sweetheart, who is now a WAC in Australia. Peter, a cinema organist before the war, gets to play the music of J.S. Bach on the large organ at Canterbury Cathedral, before leaving with his unit. He decides not to report Mr Colpeper to the Canterbury police, as he had planned to do – in its way a blessing for Colpeper, when he had expected instead to do penance. Production. The film is notable for its many exterior shots showing the Kent countryside, as well as extensive bombsites in Canterbury itself, so soon after the infamous Baedeker raids of May/June 1942 which had destroyed large areas of the city centre. Many local people, including a lot of young boys, were recruited as extras for the extensive scenes of children's outdoor activities such as river 'battles' and dens. The Cathedral itself was not available for filming as the stained glass had been taken down, the windows boarded up and the organ, an important location for the story, removed to storage, all for protection against air raids. By the use of clever perspective, large portions of the cathedral were recreated within the studio by art director Alfred Junge. The focal point for the ending of the film is Canterbury Cathedral as a parade of soldiers march through the city before stopping at the Cathedral. Many of the streets used in the film are still recognisable today. Soldiers parade down the High Street, Actress Shelia Sim walks down Rose Lane and G.I Joe meets his friend for a drink in Cathedral Square. Chilham Mill features in the film in the scene where GI Bob meets children playing in the river on a sail boat. The village was used for scenes showing Chillingbourne village. In the scene where soldiers gather for a lecture at the Colpepper institute they are actually in Fordwich. Selling Station appears in the film as "Chilingbourne" Station at the beginning of the film. Bob and Alison ride on a cart through the village, the local Wickhambreaux Mill can be clearly seen. The local village pub "The Red Lion" was used for exterior shots of "The Hand of Glory" Inn where Joe stays whilst in the village. Style and themes. The film's visual style is a mixture of British realism and Hillier's German Expressionist style. But this is harnessed to a neo-romantic sense of the English landscape. This sense that 'the past always haunts the present' in the English landscape was a powerful theme that would be mined by countless British novelists and film-makers from the 1960s onwards. Described as 'morally weird but forever English', its characters, rare for mainstream cinema, play out their moral choices instead of merely verbalising them. Anglo-American (mis)understandings. A major theme is Johnson's problems with, and gradual acceptance of, the differences and common ground of American and British 1940s life and heritage, along with the townsfolk's acceptance of him. These include: Anglo-American relations were also explored in Powell and Pressburger's previous film "The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp" and in more detail in their subsequent film "A Matter of Life and Death". Reception. The world premiere was held on 11 May 1944 at the Friars' Cinema (later the second site of the Marlowe Theatre, now demolished), Canterbury, England, an event commemorated there by a plaque unveiled by stars Sheila Sim and John Sweet in October 2000. The film initially had very poor reviews in the UK press, and only small audiences. The film was the first production of Powell and Pressburger not to be a major box office success. With the war over Powell was forced by the studio to completely re-edit the film for the US release, cutting over 20 minutes to make the film shorter and faster moving, adding narration by Raymond Massey, and filming "bookends" which introduced Kim Hunter as Sergeant Johnson's girlfriend to make the film more contemporary. At the time of filming, Hunter and Massey were preparing to film "A Matter of Life and Death" for Powell. Powell filmed her sequences with Sweet on an English set simulating New York City where the couple, now married, presented the film as a flashback similar to the openings of "The Way to the Stars" and "12 O'Clock High". Sweet was actually filmed in New York with the sequences combined. The film was fully restored by the British Film Institute in the late 1970s and the new print was hailed as a masterwork of British cinema. It has since been reissued on DVD in both the UK and USA. Music featured. Besides that composed by Allan Gray for the film, musical works featured include: Acknowledgements. Before the credits, the following plays over an image of the cathedral from the Christ Church Gate: Major characters. Sgt. Bob Johnson. "(John Sweet)" Sergeant Bob Johnson, ASN 31036062, hails from Three Sisters Falls, Oregon. On his way from Salisbury to Canterbury to meet his friend and fulfil a promise to his mother to see Canterbury Cathedral, he gets off the train at Chillingbourne (filmed at Selling railway station in Kent) by mistake and almost immediately gets caught up in the mystery of the "glue man". He has come to Britain as a part of the American Army preparing for the invasion of Europe. He becomes more and more willing to learn something about England during his visit. The original script mentioned that Johnson was on his way to Canterbury as his ancestors had come from there. The producers had originally planned to use Burgess Meredith in the role but changed their mind in favour of an unknown. Meredith acted as a script editor for Johnson's character. Sgt. Peter Gibbs. "(Dennis Price)" Sergeant Peter Gibbs is a cinema organist from London. He has been conscripted into the British Army and has just been stationed at the military camp outside Chillingbourne, where his unit is engaged in training manoeuvres. He disembarks from the train at Chillingbourne and, as he and Bob Johnson are escorting Alison Smith from the station to the town hall, he witness the attack by the "glue man". A cynical young Londoner, he initially has no time for any thoughts about Kentish history of the land or its people, but is 'converted' by the end of the film, just as his unit leave the camp and are deployed to an unnamed location. Alison Smith. "(Sheila Sim)" Alison Smith is a shop assistant in a department store in London. She has joined the Women's Land Army to "do her bit" to help in the defence of her country. She has been assigned to the farm of Thomas Colpeper, the local JP in Chillingbourne. Alison had previously spent a happy summer just outside Chillingbourne, living in a caravan with her fiancé, a geologist who has since joined the RAF and is missing in action at the outset of the film. (He is reported at the end as alive and in Gibraltar.) Alison is determined to solve the mystery of the "glue man" and seeks the help of Bob Johnson to do so. Johnson replies "You need about as much help as a Flying Fortress" Thomas Colpeper, JP. "(Eric Portman)" Thomas Colpeper is a gentleman farmer and magistrate in Chillingbourne. He is a bachelor, living with his mother and, being very keen on the local history of the area, wants to share that knowledge with everyone around him, particularly with the soldiers from elsewhere in England who have been billeted nearby. Narrator / Seven-Sisters Soldier / Village Idiot. "(Esmond Knight)" The Narrator reads the modernised extract from Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, followed by a piece in Chaucerian style on the changes to Kent since Chaucer's time (both only in the non-US version). The Seven-Sisters Soldier is the British sergeant at the lecture who gets into conversation with Bob and then joins Peter and Alison. The Village-Idiot supplies some information for Peter after the lecture, and is mocked for his speech impediment. The Boys. "(Leonard Smith, James Tamsitt" and "David Todd)" The film uses an adventure and river battle between a group of boys as part of the bucolic setting. The boys were all local to the Canterbury area. Three of them were selected for more important, speaking roles. "Leonard Smith" played "General" Leslie, "James Tamsitt" played "General" Terry and "David Todd" played "Commander" Todd, the boy crying in the boat after the river battle. The boys also help with the hunt for the "glue Man" by providing some local information, distracting Colpeper so that Peter Gibbs may search a bit more thoroughly and by handing in the receipt book from the grocers which shows that Colpeper had been purchasing gum and other ingredients of glue long-distance from Ryman's in Canterbury. For their reward in obtaining evidence in the manner of Sherlock Holmes's Baker Street Irregulars, Johnson buys the boys a football, seen in the film's final scene in the end credits where they are no longer playing war games. The Hortons. "(George Merritt" and "Edward Rigby)" An important scene takes place in the yard of the local wheelwright and blacksmith. This serves to remind us of the importance of the horse and cart and the knowledge of the old ways of doing things that have served the British countryside for generations. The blacksmith, Ned Horton, was played by "George Merritt". The wheelwright, Ned's brother, Jim Horton, was played by "Edward Rigby". The real Horton brothers, Ben and Neville, are seen acting as assistants to the actors. Alison doesn't seem to be able to communicate properly with these country folk despite she and they both speaking British English (indeed, he initially tries to make fun of her for her lack of knowledge of obscure wheelwrighting terms). In contrast, although he's a foreigner, Bob "can" talk to them because he and Jim Horton both know about woodworking and felling and can speak as equals on that topic. Legacy. Margaret Mitchell, the author of "Gone With the Wind", was killed by a speeding automobile whilst walking to a screening of this film in Atlanta, Georgia, USA in 1949. There is now an annual festival based around the film, in which film fans tour the film's locations. Several video artists have recut the more visionary sections of the film as video-art. The film was shown in the nave of Canterbury Cathedral on 19 September 2007 to help raise money for the cathedral restoration fund. Parody. The theme of the film was used by Spike Milligan for the Goon Show "The Phantom Head Shaver of Brighton" in 1954.
1163081	Maxwell Emmett "Pat" Buttram (June 19, 1915 – January 8, 1994) was an American actor, known for playing the sidekick of Gene Autry and for playing the character of Mr. Haney in the television series "Green Acres". He had a distinctive voice which, in his own words, "... never quite made it through puberty". It has been described as sounding like a handful of gravel thrown in a Mix-Master". Life. Buttram was born in Addison in Winston County in northern Alabama, to Wilson McDaniel Buttram, a Methodist minister, and his wife Mary Emmett Maxwell. He had an older brother, Augustus McDaniel Buttram, as well as five other elder siblings. When "Pat" Buttram was a year old, his father was transferred to Nauvoo, Alabama. Buttram graduated from Mortimer Jordan High School, which was then located in Morris, Alabama, then entered Birmingham–Southern College to study for the Methodist ministry. He performed in college plays and on a local radio station, before he became a regular on the "WLS National Barn Dance" in Chicago, Illinois. Buttram went to Hollywood in the 1940s and became a "sidekick" to Roy Rogers. However, since Rogers already had two regulars, Buttram was soon dropped. He was then picked by Gene Autry, recently returned from his World War II service in the Army Air Force, to work with him. Buttram would co-star with Gene Autry in more than 40 films, and in over 100 episodes of Autry's television show. Film and television career. Buttram's first Autry film was "Strawberry Roan" in 1948. In the late 1940s, Buttram joined Autry on his radio show, "Melody Ranch" and then on television with "The Gene Autry Show". During the first television season, Buttram went by "Pat" or "Patrick", with a variety of last names. From the second season forward, he used his own name. Buttram guest starred on three epiosdes of Walter Brennan's ABC sitcom, "The Real McCoys", including the role of Cousin Carl in the episode "Back to West Virginny" (July 27, 1961). In the story line, the Amos, Luke, and Kate McCoy return to Smokey Corners, West Virginia, for the 100th birthday gathering of "Grandma McCoy", played by Jane Darwell. Henry Jones guest starred in this segment as Jed McCoy. Buttram is remembered for his role as "Mr. Haney" (Eustace Haney) in the 1965–1971 CBS television comedy "Green Acres". He did voice work for several Disney animated features, playing Napoleon (hound dog) in "The Aristocats", the Sheriff of Nottingham (a wolf) in "Robin Hood", Luke (swamp inhabitant) in "The Rescuers", Chief (hunting dog) in "The Fox and the Hound", and one of the Toon bullets in "Who Framed Roger Rabbit". He had a recurring role as the voice of Cactus Jake on "Garfield and Friends". One of his last roles was a cameo in "Back to the Future Part III". His final voice over was "A Goofy Movie", released a year after his death. Buttram made the oft-quoted observation about the 1971 "rural purge", in which CBS cancelled many programs with a rural-related theme or setting: ""CBS canceled everything with a tree — including Lassie"", referring to the cancellations of "Green Acres, The Beverly Hillbillies and Petticoat Junction". ("Lassie" actually ran until 1973.) Personal life. In 1936, Buttram married Dorothy McFadden and adopted a daughter with her named Gayle but they divorced in 1946. In 1952, he married actress Sheila Ryan; the marriage ended with her death in 1975. They had a daughter named Kathrine (nicknamed Kerry) born in 1954. Buttram retired from acting in 1980 and made his home in his native Winston County, Alabama. However, he soon returned to California, where he made frequent personal appearances. Buttram was a staunch Republican who helped Ronald W. Reagan spice up his speeches with political quips. In 1993, Buttram expressed surprise that with the inauguration of Bill Clinton and Al Gore as U.S. President and Vice President, respectively, so many Hollywood actors were "taken with that whole country-boy image they tried to project." According to his niece, Mary Buttram Young of Sheffield, Alabama, "Uncle Pat would always say, 'I'm from Alabama - I can see right through that'." Buttram died in 1994 at the age of seventy-eight of renal failure in Los Angeles, California. He was survived by his daughter Kerry Buttram-Galgano, who died from cancer in 2007,) and two granddaughters, Natalie and Angie Galgano, and an older brother, Gus Buttram of Haleyville, Alabama. He is interred at the cemetery at the Maxwell Chapel United Methodist Church in Haleyville. Buttram was also honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and also by a star on the "Alabama Stars of Fame" in Birmingham. References. Notes Further reading
588685	Mr Ya Miss () is a 2005 Bollywood comedy film which is written, directed by and stars Antara Mali alongside Ritesh Deshmukh, Aftab Shivdasani and Divya Dutta. The film is inspired by the Hollywood film "Switch". Plot. A womaniser is accidentally killed by one of his many girlfriends. As redemption, he is reincarnated as a woman. However this is not a second chance but a punishment.
1063899	Scout Taylor-Compton (born February 21, 1989) is an American actress. She has appeared in numerous small television roles and in feature films that range from dramas to those in the horror genre. Her most notable roles include Laurie Strode in the horror films "Halloween" (2007) and "Halloween II" (2009), as well as Lita Ford in the film "The Runaways" (2010). In addition to taking vocal lessons and singing the theme song for her film "Chicken Night" (2001), Taylor-Compton is recording her debut rock album. Taylor-Compton had also provided voice over work in other films, including "The Core" (2003) and "" (2004). Personal life. Scout Taylor-Compton was born Desariee Starr Compton in Long Beach, California, and is of Mexican descent on her mother's side. Her father is a mortician. Taylor-Compton says she "grew up in that whole genre and visiting my dad at the mortuary. I have no problem with that stuff. Whether it was a coffin or my dad bringing his work home." Andy Biersack from Black Veil Brides, her ex-boyfriend whom she dated for five years, wrote the song The Mortician's Daughter about her. She has 7 tattoos and claims to be a tomboy.
586293	Thanthonni () is a 2010 Malayalam-language film released on March 19, 2010. The film is directed by George Varghese, a former assistant to Joshy. Thanthonni stars Prithviraj and Sheela in the lead roles. Plot. Kochukunju (Prithviraj) is the spoilt son of the well known Vadakkan veettil family, situated in kannur. He is the son of Kathreena (Ambika), who believes that his formal father David (Saikumar) has died, who unknown to her is still alive(after being spared by the killer sent out by her brothers to kill him. Captain Raju and Vijayaraghavan play the major old-age characters. In the film, Vijayaraghavan plays a double role both as Kochousepp, the ancestor of the family and one amongst his three sons. The female lead role is played by Sheela Kowl. Suraj Venjarammood plays Achu, Kochukunju's friend. Kochukunju is hated by everyone of his family, because they want to divide the Vadakkan Veetil property and engage in some business and he is a barrier for them. As the film proceeds, it is revealed that kochukunju knows about the whereabouts of his dad, and also "Neelan" the killer who spared his dad. He promises him to return home one day. His cousins all hate him, excepting one who comes to know about his truth and his goodness. the brother engages in a brawl in a hotel killing the other person, he realises that its kochukunju's hotel and he is not what he seems to be. he is about to take up the blame of his brother same as he took in childhood, but is stopped by the Manager(Sudheesh)his friend who takes the blame. He fights for him in the court. His brother comes back home and confesses to his mother that he is not what he seems to be, and the tears shed by her for these many years have not gone waste as he has turned out to be good, and also confesses of the theft he did years back. His mother n uncle(Vijayraghavan) prank him into sending him to a rehabbiliation centre, where he makes the owner n doctor himself drink. He tells that he wdoesn't need a rehabilliation and will stop if his mother tells him so. In the jail, it is seen that the Manager, his friend is beaten up by 3 rogues, and is in hospital. he stops kochukunju from retaliating. Helen his fiancee n cousin comes to know of his truth and urges him to tell all, where the flashback of the 3 rouges is revealed. Bhai n a do gooder for the people of Dubai, whose 3 sons, the rogues do all kinds of wrong business. Kochukunju once saves him in an accident, n becomes his right hand. Bhai trusts him more than his sons, and puts all his wealth in his name helped by his lawyer. The sons kill the father and put the blame on kochukunju, who is spared after knowing his innocence. The sons get arrested and are in jail for some illegal business. Kochukunju is waiting for the day they come out and he can hand them their property. But they come out and kill the lawywer, and both Nandu and kochukunju decide to kill them. He kills all 3 of them and returns to kerala. His brothers try to kill him by sending out a rogue, who is defeated and the truth is brought out. They did it for property. Then he tells them to take whatever they want, and he does not need a penny, except for his mother and helen. The day arrives, the property is divided n a stranger buys their whole property in place of the money. The person is a benaami and the real owner is a big person, who then comes out, i.e, David and his wife is shocked. He introduces himself and everyone is shocked. He tells them he did not come for their money or wealth but only one has the right to own it, that is his son kochukunju. he reveals that it is kochukunju, who is the real owner who brought all the property and is not a loser that they think of him. He had acted in front of them for this long, but is a big businessman.
1061059	Anna Helene Paquin (; born 24 July 1982) is a Canadian-born New Zealand film, television and theatre actress. Paquin's first film was "The Piano", for which she won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress in 1994 at the age of 11 – making her the second youngest winner in Oscar history. She later appeared in a number of successful films, including "Fly Away Home", "She's All That", "Almost Famous" and the "X-Men" franchise. Paquin is well known for her role as Sookie Stackhouse in the HBO series "True Blood", for which she won a Golden Globe Award for Best Performance by an Actress in a Television Series – Drama in 2008. Early life. Paquin was born in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, the daughter of Mary Paquin (née Brophy), an English teacher and native of Wellington, New Zealand, and Brian Paquin, a high school physical education teacher from Canada. Paquin has two older siblings: a brother, Andrew, a director, born in 1977, and a sister, Katya, born in 1980, who is the partner of the Green Party of New Zealand co-leader Russel Norman. Paquin's family moved to New Zealand when she was four. She attended the Raphael House Rudolf Steiner School until she was eight or nine. Her musical childhood hobbies in New Zealand included playing the viola, cello and piano. She also participated in gymnastics, ballet, swimming and downhill skiing, though she did not have any hobbies related to acting. While in New Zealand, Paquin attended Hutt Intermediate School from 1994 to 1995. Having begun her secondary education in Wellington at Wellington Girls' College, she completed her high school diploma at Windward School in Los Angeles, after moving to the US with her mother following her parents' divorce in 1995. She graduated from Windward School in June 2000 and completed the school's community service requirement by working in a soup kitchen and at a special education centre. She studied at Columbia University for one year, but has since been on a leave of absence to continue her acting career. Career. Child actress. It was in New Zealand in 1991 that Paquin became an actress by chance. Director Jane Campion was looking for a little girl to play a key role in "The Piano", set to film in New Zealand, and a newspaper advertisement was run announcing an open audition. Paquin's sister read the ad and went to try out with a friend; Paquin herself tagged along because she had nothing better to do. When Campion met Paquin—whose only acting experience had been as a skunk in a school play—she was very impressed with the nine-year-old's performance of the monologue about Flora's father, and she was chosen from among the 5000 candidates. When "The Piano" was released in 1993 it was lauded by critics, won prizes at a number of film festivals, and eventually became a popular film among a wide audience. Paquin's debut performance in the film earned her the 1993 Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress at the age of 11, making her the second-youngest Oscar winner in history, behind Tatum O'Neal. "The Piano" was made as a small independent film and wasn't expected to be widely known, and Paquin and her family did not plan to continue in the acting circles. However, she was invited to the William Morris Agency, and she kept receiving offers for new roles. She systematically refused them, but she did appear in three commercials for the phone company MCI in 1994. She later made a series of television commercials for Manitoba Telecom Systems in her birth city of Winnipeg. She also appeared as a voice in an audio book entitled "The Magnificent Nose" in 1994. In 1996, she appeared in two films. The first role was as young Jane in "Jane Eyre". The other was a lead part in "Fly Away Home" playing a young girl who, after her mother dies, moves in with her father and finds solace in taking care of orphaned goslings. As a teenager, she had roles in films, including "A Walk on the Moon", "Amistad", "Hurlyburly", "She's All That" and "Almost Famous". "X-Men" and beyond. Paquin returned to worldwide prominence with her role as the mutant superheroine Rogue in the Marvel Comics movie "X-Men" in 2000, its sequel "X2" in 2003, and its third instalment, "", in 2006. Between 2006 and 2007, she starred in, as well as executive-produced "Blue State". The film is made by "Paquin Films", a production company formed by both her and her brother, Andrew Paquin. In November 2006, she completed the film "Margaret", which was released in 2011. She played Elaine Goodale in HBO's made-for-TV film "Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee", based on Dee Brown's best-seller. Paquin was cast as waitress Sookie Stackhouse in the HBO series "True Blood" in 2008, her first role in a TV series. The show is based on "The Southern Vampire Mysteries" series of novels by Charlaine Harris, set in the fictional town of Bon Temps, Louisiana. While working on True Blood, she started dating co-star Stephen Moyer and later married him in 2010.
1066128	There Be Dragons is a 2011 English-language historical epic film written and directed by Roland Joffé. It is a drama set during the Spanish Civil War of the 1930s and features themes such as betrayal, love and hatred, forgiveness, friendship, and finding meaning in everyday life. The film was released on 6 May 2011. It includes the story of soldiers, a journalist, his father, and a real life priest, Josemaría Escrivá, the founder of Opus Dei who was canonized as a Roman Catholic saint.
1163518	Jack Oakie (November 12, 1903 – January 23, 1978) was an American actor, starring mostly in films, but also working on stage, radio and television. Early life. Jack Oakie was born as Lewis Delaney Offield in Sedalia, Missouri. His father was a grain dealer and his mother a psychology teacher. When he was five years old the Offield family moved to Muskogee, Oklahoma, the source of his "Oakie" nickname. His adopted first name, Jack, was the name of the first character he played on stage. Young Lewis/Jack grew up mostly in Oklahoma but also lived for periods of time with his grandmother in Kansas City, Missouri. While there he attended Woodland Elementary and made spending money as a paperboy for "The Kansas City Star". He recalled years later that he made especially good money selling "extras" in November, 1916 during the reelection of President Woodrow Wilson. Early career. Oakie worked as a runner on Wall Street, New York, and narrowly escaped being killed in the Wall Street bombing of 16 September 1920. While in New York, he also started appearing in amateur theatre as a mimic and a comedian, finally making his professional debut on Broadway in 1923 as a chorus boy in a production of "Little Nellie Kelly" by George M. Cohan. Oakie worked in various musicals and comedies on Broadway from 1923 to 1927, when he moved to Hollywood to work in movies at the end of the silent film era. Oakie appeared in five silent films during 1927 and 1928. As the age of the "talkies" began, he signed with Paramount Pictures, making his first talking film, "The Dummy", in 1929. Film career. When his contract with Paramount ended in 1934, Oakie decided to freelance. He was remarkably successful, appearing in 87 films, most made in the 1930s and 1940s. In the film "Too Much Harmony" (1933), the part of Oakie's on-screen mother was played by his real mother Mary Evelyn Offield. During the 1930s he was known as "The World's Oldest Freshman", as a result of appearing in numerous films with a collegiate theme. He was also known for refusing to wear screen make-up of any kind, and the frequent use of double-take in his comedy. Oakie was quoted as saying of his studio career:
1190665	City of Ghosts is a 2002 drama film co-written, directed by and starring Matt Dillon, about a con artist who must go to Cambodia to collect his share of money from an insurance scam. The film was made in Cambodia, in locations that include Phnom Penh and the Bokor Hill Station. Plot. Jimmy (played by Matt Dillon) is a conman who's been working for a fake insurance company in New York City that is being investigated by the FBI after it cannot pay claims that have poured in after a hurricane. Discovering that his mentor and the mastermind of the scheme, Marvin (James Caan), has skipped the country and gone to Thailand, Jimmy boards a plane with the intention of trying to collect his money. Once in Bangkok, Jimmy meets Joseph Kaspar (Skarsgård), a partner in the scheme who's living with his Thai katoey companion Rocky (Kyoza). Joseph informs Jimmy that Marvin has moved on to Cambodia, where he's planning an even greater scam. So Jimmy sneaks across the border and makes his way to Phnom Penh. He checks into a seedy hotel run by a Frenchman named Emile (Gérard Depardieu) and has his passport stolen by another traveller. Later Jimmy has his sunglasses stolen by a macaque monkey.
1244131	Geoff Pierson (born June 16, 1949) is an American actor known for his role on The WB series "Unhappily Ever After" as Jack Malloy, the father of a dysfunctional family whose best friend is a stuffed animal rabbit named Mr. Floppy. He is also known for his roles on the soap opera "Ryan's Hope", and a recurring role as Tom Matthews on the Showtime series "Dexter". Life and career. Pierson was born in Chicago, Illinois, the son of Helen T. (née McGinness) and Roy J. Pierson, who worked in business. "Unhappily Ever After" was created by one of the original creators of FOX's "Married...With Children" and Pierson appeared on the season two episode "Just Married...With Children" as a loving husband who refused to abuse his wife on the game show "How Do I Love Thee". Other TV roles include a regular role as R.T. Howard on "That 80's Show", and recurring roles on "Grace Under Fire" as Grace's ex-husband Jimmy and on "24" as President John Keeler, appearing in 19 episodes in Seasons 3 and 4. He also appeared in the 2003 Comedy Central TV film "Windy City Heat" as "The President of Show Business". In 2006, he guest-starred in "Criminal Minds", playing Max Ryan, a former FBI agent-turned-author and also Jason Gideon's mentor who comes out of his retirement to capture a serial killer known as "the Keystone Killer" in the episode, "Unfinished Business". He appeared in the 2008 film "Changeling" as the flamboyant defense attorney Sammy "S.S." Hahn. Beginning in 2010, he had a recurring role in "Boardwalk Empire" as Senator Walter Edge. In 2011, Pierson portrays Midas Mulligan in "Atlas Shrugged", based on Ayn Rand's novel of the same name. He has a role as Russell Dunbar's wealthy father on "Rules of Engagement". In 2011, season four of television series "Castle", he had recurring role as Mr. Smith.
1056431	A Very Long Engagement () is a 2004 French romantic war film, co-written and directed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet and starring Audrey Tautou. It is a fictional tale about a young woman's desperate search for her fiancé who might have been killed in the Battle of the Somme, during World War I. It was based on a novel of the same name, written by Sebastien Japrisot, first published in 1991. Plot. Five French soldiers are convicted of self-mutilation in order to escape military service during World War I. They are condemned to face near certain death in the no man's land between the French and German trench lines. It appears that all of them were killed in a subsequent battle, but Mathilde, the fiancée of one of the soldiers, refuses to give up hope and begins to uncover clues as to what actually took place on the battlefield. She is all the while driven by the constant reminder of what her fiancé had carved into one of the bells of the church near their home, MMM for "Manech Aime Mathilde" (Manech Loves Mathilde; a pun on the French word "aime", which is pronounced like the letter "M". In the English-language version, this is changed to "Manech's Marrying Mathilde"). Along the way, she discovers the brutally corrupt system used by the French government to deal with those who tried to escape the front. She also discovers the stories of the other men who were sentenced to the no man's land as a punishment. She, with the help of a private investigator, attempts to find out what happened to her fiancé. The story is told both from the point of view of the fiancée in Paris and the French countryside—mostly Brittany—of the 1920s, and through flashbacks to the battlefield.
1061055	The Dirty Dozen is a 1967 war film directed by Robert Aldrich, released by MGM, and starring Lee Marvin. The picture was filmed in England and features an ensemble supporting cast including Ernest Borgnine, Charles Bronson, Jim Brown, John Cassavetes, Telly Savalas and Robert Webber. The film is based on E. M. Nathanson's novel of the same name that was potentially inspired by a real life group called the "Filthy Thirteen". In 2001, the American Film Institute placed the film number 65 on their 100 Years... 100 Thrills list. Plot. In England, in the spring of 1944, Allied forces are preparing for the D-Day invasion. Among them are Major John Reisman (Lee Marvin), an OSS officer; his commander, Regular Army Major General Sam Worden (Ernest Borgnine); and his former commander Colonel Everett Dasher Breed (Robert Ryan). Early in the film the personalities of the three men are shown to clash and the characters of the individualistic Reisman and the domineering Breed are established. Reisman is aided by his friend, the mild-mannered Major Max Armbruster (George Kennedy) Major Reisman is assigned an unusual and top-secret pre-invasion mission: take a small unit of soldiers convicted of felonies and turn them into a commando squad to be sent on a special mission, an airborne infiltration and assault on a chateau near Rennes in Brittany. The chateau will be hosting a meeting of dozens of high-ranking German officers, the elimination of which will presumably hamper the German military's ability to respond to D-Day. Those felons who survive the mission will have their sentences commuted. It quickly becomes clear that both Reisman and his superiors regard the operation as a near-suicide mission and expect that few, if any of the felons will return. Reisman is assigned twelve convicts, all either serving lengthy sentences or destined to be executed. Notable members include slow-witted Vernon Pinkley (Donald Sutherland); Robert Jefferson (Jim Brown), an African American soldier convicted of killing a man in a racial brawl; Samson Posey (Clint Walker), a gentle giant who becomes enraged when pushed; Joseph Wladislaw (Charles Bronson) a taciturn coal miner recruited for his ability to speak German, convicted of shooting his squad's medic; A.J. Maggott (Telly Savalas), a misogynist and religious fanatic; and Victor Franko (John Cassavetes), a former member of the Chicago organized-crime Syndicate who has extreme problems with authority. Under the supervision of Reisman and military police Sergeant Bowren (Richard Jaeckel), the group begin training. After being forced to construct their own living quarters, the twelve individuals are trained in combat by Reisman and gradually learn how to operate as a group. For parachute training they are sent to the base operated by Colonel Breed. Under strict orders to keep their mission secret, Reisman's men run afoul of Breed and his troops, especially after Pinkley poses as a general and inspects Breed's troops. Angered at the usurpation of his authority, Breed attempts to discover Reisman's mission and then attempts to get the program shut down. Major Armbruster suggests a test of whether Reisman's men are ready: during practice maneuvers which Breed will be taking part in, the "Dirty Dozen" will attempt to capture the Colonel's headquarters. During the maneuvers, the men use various unorthodox tactics, including theft, impersonation, and rule-breaking, to infiltrate Breed's headquarters and hold him and his men at gunpoint. This proves to the General that Reisman's men are ready. The night of the raid, the men are flown to France, and practise a rhyme they have learned which details their roles in the operation. There is a slight snag when upon landing in a tree one of the Dozen, Jiminez (Trini Lopez) breaks his neck and dies, but the others proceed with the mission. Wladislaw and Reisman infiltrate the meeting disguised as German officers while Jefferson and Maggott sneak onto the top floor of the building. The others set up in various locations around the chateau. The plan falls apart when Maggott sees one of the women who had accompanied the officers, abducts her at knifepoint, and orders her to scream. The German officers downstairs ignore her, thinking she is just having sex. Maggott stabs her and begins shooting, alerting the German officers. Jefferson kills Maggott, as Maggott began to realize he was going to die anyway. As the officers and their companions retreat to an underground bomb shelter, a general firefight ensues between the Dozen and the German troops. After Wladislaw and Reisman lock the Germans in the bomb shelter, the Dozen pry open the ventilation ducts to the shelter and drop unprimed grenades down, then pour gasoline inside. Jefferson throws a primed grenade down each shaft and sprints for their vehicle, but is shot down as the grenades explode. Reisman, Bowren, Wladislaw, and Franko, the last remaining survivors of the assault team, are making their escape on a German half-track when Franko, shouting triumphantly that he has survived, is shot by a stray round. Back in England only Reisman, Bowren and Wladislaw (the sole surviving felon) have managed to get out alive. The film unfolds in three major acts. Act one – Identification and "recruiting" the prisoners. After witnessing a hanging in a military jail in London, Major Reisman is briefed on the mission at General Worden's headquarters. As the credits to the film are rolling he walks along the line of 12 prisoners and stares at each of them as Sergeant Bowren (Richard Jaeckel) reads out their sentences. On March 19, Reisman visits Franko, Wladislaw, Maggott, Posey and Jefferson in their cells. Some details of their crimes are revealed and he uses a different approach with each in an effort to gain their cooperation. Act two – Training. Depicts the unit building their own compound and training for the mission. It highlights the interpersonal conflicts between the men, some of whom see the mission as a chance for redemption and others as a chance for escape. The second act places the mission, and the characters, in jeopardy when a breach of military regulations on Reisman's part forces General Worden, at Breed's urging, to have the men – now dubbed the "Dirty Dozen" by Sergeant Bowren because of their refusal to shave or bathe as a protest against their living conditions – prove their worth as soldiers at 'divisional maneuvers', a wargame in "Devonshire". Act three – The mission. The final act, which was a mere footnote in the novel, is an action sequence detailing the attack on the chateau. The men recite the details of the attack in a chant in order to remember their roles: Production. Although Robert Aldrich had tried to buy the rights to E.M. Nathanson's novel "The Dirty Dozen" while it was just an outline, MGM succeeded in May 1963. The novel was a best-seller upon publication in 1965. Filming took place at the MGM British Studios, Borehamwood and the English prison camp location scenes were filmed at Ashridge in Hertfordshire. Wargame scenes were filmed at the village of Aldbury and Bradenham Manor in Buckinghamshire featured as 'Wargames Headquarters'. Beechwood Park School in Markyate was also used as a location during the school's summer term, where the training camp and tower were built and shot in the grounds. The main house was also used, appearing in the film as a military hospital. The château was built especially for the production, by art director William Hutchinson. It was 240 ft wide and 50 ft high, surrounded with 5,400 sq. yds. of heather, 400 ferns, 450 shrubs, 30 spruce trees and 6 weeping willows. Construction of the faux château proved problematic. The script required its explosion, but it was so solid that 70 tons of explosives would have been required for the effect. Instead, a cork and plastic section was destroyed.
1376741	Rino Romano (born July 1, 1969) is an Italian-Canadian voice actor who has portrayed Batman in the animated TV series "The Batman", Spider-Man in the animated TV series "Spider-Man Unlimited", Eduardo Rivera in "Extreme Ghostbusters", and the original Tuxedo Mask in the English dub of the anime series "Sailor Moon". Romano currently provides voice narration for the PBS series "Curious George", as well as previews on NBC.
1162765	Louis Jude "Lou" Ferrigno (born November 9, 1951) is an American actor, fitness trainer/consultant, and retired professional bodybuilder. As a bodybuilder, Ferrigno won an IFBB Mr. America title and two consecutive IFBB Mr. Universe titles, and appeared in the bodybuilding documentary "Pumping Iron". As an actor, he is best known for portraying the titular role in the CBS television series "The Incredible Hulk" and vocally reprising the role in subsequent animated and computer-generated incarnations. He has also appeared in European-produced fantasy-adventures such as "Sinbad of the Seven Seas" and "Hercules", and as himself in the sitcom "The King of Queens" and the 2009 comedy "I Love You, Man". Early life. Lou Ferrigno was born in Brooklyn, New York to Victoria and Matt Ferrigno, a police lieutenant. He is of Italian descent. Soon after he was born, Ferrigno says he believes he suffered a series of ear infections and lost 75 to 80% of his hearing, though his condition was not diagnosed until he was three years old. Ferrigno started weight training at age 13, citing body builder and "Hercules" star Steve Reeves as one of his role models. He was also a fan of the "Hercules" films that starred Reeves—and would later play Hercules as well. Ferrigno's other personal heroes as a child were Spider-Man and the Hulk. Ferrigno attended St. Athanasius Grammar School and Brooklyn Technical High School, where he learned metal working. Bodybuilding career. After graduating from high school in 1969, Ferrigno won his first major titles, IFBB Mr. America and IFBB Mr. Universe, four years later. Early in his career he lived in Columbus and trained with Arnold Schwarzenegger. In 1974, he came in second on his first attempt at the Mr. Olympia competition. He then came third the following year, and his attempt to beat Arnold Schwarzenegger was the subject of the 1975 documentary "Pumping Iron". The documentary made Ferrigno famous.
1177154	Peter Asher (born 22 June 1944) is a British guitarist, singer, manager and record producer. He first came to prominence in the 1960s as a member of the pop music vocal duo Peter and Gordon, before going on to a successful career as a manager and record producer. Early life. Asher was born at the Central Middlesex Hospital. When he was eight years old, he began working as a child actor, and appeared in the film, "The Planter's Wife", and the stage play "Isn't Life Wonderful". He also appeared in the ITV series, "The Adventures of Robin Hood". He was a member of Mensa. While attending the independent Westminster School as a day boy, he first met fellow pupil Gordon Waller (1945–2009), and they began playing and singing together as a duo in coffee bars. In 1962, they began working formally as Peter and Gordon. Their biggest hit was the 1964 Paul McCartney song "A World Without Love." Asher later read philosophy at King's College London. Asher is the son of Dr Richard and Margaret Asher, and the older brother of actress and businesswoman, Jane Asher, and radio actress, Clare Asher. Jane Asher was, in the mid-1960s, the girlfriend of Paul McCartney. Through this connection, Asher and Waller were often given unrecorded Lennon-McCartney songs to perform.
1060871	The Greatest Story Ever Told is a 1965 American epic film produced and directed by George Stevens and distributed by United Artists. It is a retelling of the story of Jesus Christ, from the Nativity through the Resurrection. This film is notable for its large ensemble cast and for being the last film appearance of Claude Rains. Pre-production. "The Greatest Story Ever Told" originated as a U.S. radio series in 1947, half-hour episodes inspired by the Gospels. The series was adapted into a 1949 novel by Fulton Oursler, a senior editor at Reader's Digest. Darryl F. Zanuck, the head of 20th Century Fox, acquired the film rights to the Oursler novel shortly after publication, but never brought it to pre-production. In 1958, when George Stevens was producing and directing "The Diary of Anne Frank" at 20th Century Fox, he became aware that the studio owned the rights to the Oursler property. Stevens created a company, "The Greatest Story Productions", to film the novel. It took two years to write the screenplay. Stevens collaborated with Ivan Moffet and then with James Lee Barrett. It was the only time Stevens received screenplay credit for a film he directed. Ray Bradbury and Reginald Rose were considered but neither participated. The poet Carl Sandburg was solicited though it is not certain if any of his contributions were included. Sandburg, however, did receive screen credit for "creative association." Financial excesses began to grow during pre-production. Stevens commissioned French artist André Girard to prepare 352 oil paintings of Biblical scenes to use as storyboards. Stevens also traveled to the Vatican to see Pope John XXIII for advice. In August 1961, 20th Century Fox withdrew from the project, noting that $2.3 million had been spent without any footage being shot. Stevens was given two years to find another studio or 20th Century Fox would reclaim its rights. Stevens moved the film to United Artists. Meanwhile, MGM proceeded with their own 1961 Technicolor epic about the life of Christ, "King of Kings" starring Jeffrey Hunter as Jesus. Filmed in Spain, it was critically panned and flopped, but is now considered a classic. "King of Kings", when released, turned out to be nearly an hour shorter than "The Greatest Story Ever Told". Casting. For "The Greatest Story Ever Told", Stevens cast Swedish actor Max von Sydow as Jesus. Von Sydow had never appeared in an English-language film and was best known for his performances in Ingmar Bergman's dramatic films. Stevens wanted an unknown actor free of secular and unseemly associations in the mind of the public. "The Greatest Story Ever Told" featured an ensemble of well-known actors, many of them in brief, even cameo, appearances. Some critics would later complain that the large cast distracted from the solemnity, notably in the appearance of John Wayne as the Roman centurion who comments on the Crucifixion, in his well-known voice, by stating: "Truly this man was the son of God." Beyond von Sydow, the film's primary cast was Smaller roles (some only a few seconds) were played by Michael Ansara, Ina Balin, Carroll Baker, Robert Blake, Pat Boone, Victor Buono, John Considine, Richard Conte, Jamie Farr, David Hedison, Van Heflin, Russell Johnson, Angela Lansbury, Mark Lenard, Robert Loggia, John Lupton, Sal Mineo, Nehemiah Persoff, Sidney Poitier, Gary Raymond, Marian Seldes, David Sheiner, Paul Stewart, John Wayne and Shelley Winters. Production. Stevens shot "The Greatest Story Ever Told" in the U.S. southwest, in Arizona, California, Nevada and Utah. Pyramid Lake in Nevada represented the Sea of Galilee, Lake Moab in Utah was used to film the Sermon on the Mount, and California's Death Valley was the setting of Jesus' 40-day journey into the wilderness. Stevens explained his decision to use the U.S. rather than in the Middle East or Europe in 1962. "I wanted to get an effect of grandeur as a background to Christ, and none of the Holy Land areas shape up with the excitement of the American southwest," he said. "I know that Colorado is not the Jordan, nor is Southern Utah Palestine. But our intention is to romanticize the area, and it can be done better here." Forty-seven sets were constructed, on location and in Hollywood studios, to accommodate Stevens' vision. To fill location scenes with extras, Stevens turned to local sources – R.O.T.C. cadets from an Arizona high school played Roman soldiers (after 550 Navajo Indians from a nearby reservation did not give a convincing performance) and Arizona Department of Welfare provided disabled state aid recipients to play the afflicted who sought Jesus' healing. Principal photography was scheduled to run three months but ran nine months or more due to numerous delays and setbacks (most of which were due to Stevens' insistence on shooting dozens of retakes in every scene). Joseph Schildkraut died before completing his performance as Nicodemus, requiring scenes to be rewritten around his absence. Cinematographer William C. Mellor had a fatal heart attack during production; Loyal Griggs, who won an Academy Award for his cinematography on Stevens’ 1953 Western classic "Shane", was brought in to replace him. Joanna Dunham became pregnant, which required costume redesigns and carefully chosen camera angles. Much of the production was shot during the winter of 1962-1963, when Arizona had heavy snow. Actor David Sheiner, who played James the Elder, quipped in an interview about the snowdrifts: "I thought we were shooting "Nanook of the North"." Stevens was also under pressure to hurry the John the Baptist sequence, which was shot at the Glen Canyon area – it was scheduled to become Lake Powell with the completion of the Glen Canyon Dam, and the production held up the project. Stevens brought in two veteran filmmakers. Jean Negulesco filmed sequences in the Jerusalem streets while David Lean shot the prologue featuring Herod the Great. Lean cast Claude Rains as Herod. By the time shooting was completed in August 1963, Stevens had amassed six million feet of Ultra Panavision 70 film (about 1829 km or 1136 miles, roughly the radius of the Moon). The budget ran to an astounding $20 million – 2010 equivalent: approximately $142 million – plus additional editing and promotion charges), making it the most expensive film shot in the U.S. The film was deceptively advertised on its first run as being shown in Cinerama. While it was shown on an ultra-curved screen, there never really was any such thing as one-projector Cinerama, as its makers claimed. True Cinerama required three projectors running simultaneously. Release and reception. "The Greatest Story Ever Told" premiered 15 February 1965, 18 months after filming wrapped, at the Warner Cinerama Theatre in New York City. Critical reaction toward the movie was divided once it premiered. In its favor, "Variety" called the film "a big, powerful moving picture demonstrating vast cinematic resource." The "Hollywood Reporter" stated: "George Stevens has created a novel, reverent and important film with his view of this crucial event in the history of mankind." However, Bosley Crowther in "The New York Times" wrote: "The most distracting nonsense is the pop-up of familiar faces in so-called cameo roles, jarring the illusion." Shana Alexander in "Life Magazine" stated: "The pace was so stupefying that I felt not uplifted – but sandbagged!" And John Simon – later notorious as the frequently scathing theater and film critic of "New York Magazine" – wrote: "God is unlucky in "The Greatest Story Ever Told." His only begotten son turns out to be a bore." Bruce Williamson, in "Playboy Magazine", likewise called the movie "a big windy bore." Brendan Gill wrote in "The New Yorker": Stevens told a "New York Times" interviewer: "I have tremendous satisfaction that the job has been done – to its completion – the way I wanted it done; the way I know it should have been done. It belongs to the audiences now…and I prefer to let them judge." Reviews to the film continue to be mixed, as it currently holds a 37 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 19 reviews. The original running time was 4 hr 20 min. The time was revised three times, to 3 hr 58 min; to 3 hr 17 min for the United Kingdom, and finally 2 hr 17 min for general U.S. release. Commercially, the film was not successful (by 1983 it had grossed less than $8 million, perhaps 17 percent of the amount required to break even), and its inability to connect with audiences discouraged production of Biblical epics for years. "The Greatest Story Ever Told" was nominated for five Academy Awards: For the 2001 DVD release, a 3 hr 19 min version was presented along with a documentary called "He Walks With Beauty", which detailed the film’s tumultuous production history. Its Blu-ray release appeared in 2011.
1101021	Richard Ewen Borcherds (born 29 November 1959) is a British mathematician specializing in lattices, number theory, group theory, and infinite-dimensional algebras. He was awarded the Fields Medal in 1998. Personal life. Borcherds was born in Cape Town, but the family moved to Birmingham in the United Kingdom when he was six months old. His father is a physicist and he has three brothers, two of whom are mathematics teachers. He was a promising mathematician and chess player as a child, winning several national mathematics championships and "was in line for becoming a chess master" before giving up after coming to believe that the higher levels of competitive chess are merely about the competition rather than the fun of playing. He was educated at King Edward's School, Birmingham and Trinity College, Cambridge, where he studied under John Horton Conway. After receiving his doctorate in 1985 he has held various alternating positions at Cambridge and the University of California, Berkeley, serving as Morrey Assistant Professor of Mathematics at Berkeley from 1987 to 1988. From 1996 he held a Royal Society Research Professorship at Cambridge before returning to Berkeley in 1999 as Professor of mathematics.
1163080	Sterling Price Holloway, Jr. (January 4, 1905November 22, 1992), was an American character actor who appeared in 150 films and television shows. He was also a voice actor for The Walt Disney Company, well known for his distinctive tenor voice, and is perhaps best remembered as the original voice of Walt Disney's "Winnie the Pooh". Early life. Born on January 4, 1905 in Cedartown, Georgia, Holloway was named after his father, Sterling Price Holloway, who himself was named after a prominent Confederate general, Sterling "Pap" Price. His mother was Rebecca DeHaven (some sources say her last name was Boothby). He had a younger brother named Boothby. The family owned a grocery store in Cedartown, where his father served as mayor in 1912. He was said to have had a theatrical bent from an early age and reportedly bore a distant relationship to a historical London stage actress named Lady Penelope Boothby. After graduating from Georgia Military Academy in 1920 at the age of fifteen, he left Georgia for New York City, where he attended the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. While there, he befriended actor Spencer Tracy, whom he considered one of his favorite working colleagues. Career. Motion pictures and shorts. In his late teens, Holloway toured with stock company of The Shepherd of the Hills, performing in one-nighters across much of the American West before returning to New York where he accepted small walk-on parts from the Theatre Guild, and appeared in the Rodgers and Hart review "The Garrick Gaieties" in the mid-1920s. A talented singer, he introduced "Manhattan" in 1925, and the following year sang "Mountain Greenery". He moved to Hollywood in 1926 to begin a film career that lasted almost 50 years. His bushy red hair and high pitched voice meant that he almost always appeared in comedies. His first film was "The Battling Kangaroo" (1926), a silent picture. Over the following decades, Holloway would appear with Fred MacMurray, Barbara Stanwyck, Lon Chaney Jr, Clark Gable, Joan Crawford, Bing Crosby, and David Carradine. In 1942, during World War II, Holloway enlisted in the United States Army at the age of 37 and was assigned to the Special Services. He helped develop a show called "Hey Rookie", which ran for nine months and raised $350,000 for the Army Relief Fund. In 1945, Holloway played the role of a medic assigned to an infantry platoon in the critically acclaimed film "A Walk in the Sun". During 1946 and 1947, he played the comic sidekick in five Gene Autry Westerns. Holloway's voice work in animated films began in 1941, when he was heard in "Dumbo" (1941), as the voice of Mr. Stork. Walt Disney considered him for the voice of Sleepy in "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" (1937), but chose Pinto Colvig instead. Holloway was the voice of the adult Flower in "Bambi" (1942), the narrator of the Antarctic penguin sequence in "The Three Caballeros" (1944) and the narrator in the "Peter and the Wolf" sequence of "Make Mine Music" (1946). He was the voice of the The Cheshire Cat in "Alice in Wonderland" (1951), the narrator in "Susie the Little Blue Coupe" (1952), the narrator in "Goliath II" (1960), Kaa in "The Jungle Book" (1967), and Roquefort in "The Aristocats" (1970). He is perhaps best remembered as the voice of Winnie the Pooh in Disney's "Winnie-the-Pooh" featurettes. He was honored as a 'Disney Legend' in 1991, the first one to ever receive the award in the Voice category. Holloway's last role was the Hobe Carpenter, a friendly moonshiner who gets help from Harley Thomas (David Carradine) in "Thunder and Lightning" (1977), Radio and recordings. Holloway acted on many radio programs, including "The Railroad Hour", "The United States Steel Hour", "Suspense" and "Lux Radio Theater". His distinctive tenor voice retained a touch of its Southern drawl and was very recognizable. Holloway was chosen to narrate many children's records, including "Uncle Remus Stories" (Decca), "Mother Goose Nursery Rhymes" (Disneyland Records), "Walt Disney Presents Rudyard Kipling's Just so Stories" (Disneyland Records) and "Peter and the Wolf" (RCA Victor). Television. Holloway easily made the transition from radio to television. He appeared on the "Adventures of Superman" as "Uncle Oscar", an eccentric inventor. He also played a recurring role on "The Life of Riley". He was a guest star on Fred Waring's CBS television program in the 1950s, and appeared on "Circus Boy" as a hot air balloonist, "Five Fingers" ("The Temple of the Swinging Doll"), "The Untouchables", "The Real McCoys" (in the 1960 episode "The Jinx"), "Hazel", "Pete and Gladys", "The Twilight Zone" (episode "What's in the Box"), "The Brothers Brannagan", "Gilligan's Island", "The Andy Griffith Show", "The Donald O'Connor Show", "Peter Gunn" as 'Felony', "F Troop", and "Moonlighting". He voiced Sugar Bear in many Sugar Crisp cereal commercials. During the 1970s, Holloway did commercial voice-overs for Purina Puppy Chow dog food and sang their familiar jingle, "Puppy Chow/For a full year/Till he's full-grown!". He also provided the voice for Woodsy Owl in several 1970s and 1980s United States Forest Service commercials. In 1982 he auditioned for the well known comic book character Garfield but lost to Lorenzo Music. Final years, death, and legacy. Unmarried through his life, Holloway once explained that this was because he felt lacking in nothing and did not wish to disturb his pattern of life, but he had a son, Richard (it is unknown exactly when Richard was adopted). Holloway died on November 22, 1992 of cardiac arrest in a Los Angeles hospital, aged 87. He was cremated and his ashes were buried at sea. Voice actor Hal Smith took over the role of Winnie the Pooh for the 1981 short "Winnie the Pooh Discovers the Seasons". He would maintain the role until Jim Cummings replaced him in 1988 for "The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh" and also took over most of Holloway's other voice roles, including Kaa in "Jungle Cubs" and "The Jungle Book 2". The show "Animaniacs" paid tribute to him by having Cummings (in his Pooh voice) narrate episodes like "Nighty Night Toon" and "The Warners and the Beanstalk".
1376343	Danté Basco (born August 29, 1975) is an American actor, voice actor, poet, and dancer. He is best known for voicing Zuko in the Nickelodeon series ', from the Disney series ', and playing Rufio in the 1991 live-action Peter Pan film "Hook". Life and career. Dante Basco is a Filipino American born in Pittsburg, California and raised in Cerritos and Paramount, California. He is the brother of Darion Basco, Derek Basco, Dion Basco, and Arianna Basco. In his early years, he was part of the Streat Freaks breakdancing crew. When he got into acting, he started taking on minor roles in television. He later appeared in his most famous role as the charismatic red-stripe-haired leader Rufio of the Lost Boys in Steven Spielberg's 1991 film "Hook" with Robin Williams and Dustin Hoffman. A punk band is later named after this character. He attended Orange County High School of the Arts in the Music and Theatre Conservatory and graduated in 1993.
742011	Von Richthofen and Brown (1971) also known as The Red Baron, is a film directed by Roger Corman, and starring John Phillip Law and Don Stroud as the titular characters. Although the names of real people are used, the story by Joyce Hooper Corrington and John William Corrington is essentially fictionalised. Plot summary. Manfred von Richthofen (John Phillip Law) is a German cavalry officer newly assigned to an air squadron under the command of Oswald Boelcke who quickly becomes an ace. His career is presented on screen intercut with scenes of another pilot across the lines, a Canadian pilot named Roy Brown who arrives at a British squadron, where the top scoring pilot is a Victoria Cross holder named Lanoe Hawker. The two pilots are very different; Brown ruffles the feathers of his squadron mates by refusing to drink a toast to von Richthofen, while von Richthofen awards himself silver trophies in honour of his kills and clashes with fellow pilot, Hermann Göring, when Boelcke is killed after a mid air collision and Richthofen assumes command of the squadron. While Brown becomes moody and depressed by his war service, Richthofen becomes outwardly energized by the war. Outraged by an order to camouflage his squadron's aircraft, he paints them in bright conspicuous colours, claiming that gentlemen should not hide from their enemies. The toll on both squadrons is highlighted when Richthofen is wounded during an aerial battle and Lanoe Hawker is killed. The war becomes personal for both when Brown and his squadron attack von Richthofen's airfield, destroying their aircraft on the ground. Revenge comes when von Richthofen, with the help of a batch of new fighters from Anthony Fokker launches a counter attack on the British airfield. The climax of the film (April 21, 1918) pits Brown and von Richthofen in an aerial combat with each other from which only one survives. Production. Roger Corman had been interested in making a film about Von Richthofen for a number of years - in 1965 it was announced he had commissioned a script called "The Red Baron" from Robert Towne. Ex-RCAF pilot Lynn Garrison supplied the aircraft, crews and facilities for "Von Richthofen and Brown" and personally coordinated the flying sequences for Corman’s film. Garrison had purchased the collection of hangars, aircraft, vehicles and support equipment accumulated for filming 20th Century’s top grossing film, "The Blue Max", in 1965. The collection included replica Pfalz D.III's, S.E.5s, Fokker D.VII's, Fokker Dr.I's, plus Tiger Moths, and Stampe SV4C's. Corman used an Alouette helicopter, along with a Helio Courier, for aerial photography, supported by a number of specialized camera mounts Garrison developed for use on individual aircraft. This allowed footage of actors, such as John Philip Law, and Don Stroud “flying” the aircraft. In fact, Lynn Garrison trained Law and Stroud to the point where they could take off, land the Stampe, and fly basic sequences themselves, from the rear seat, filmed with a rear-facing camera. Stunt pilots were still used for the more complicated sequences, one such pilot being famed New Age author Richard Bach. Bach wrote about his experiences with the film production in a short story entitled "I Shot Down the Red Baron, and So What", which is reproduced in his short story collection, "A Gift of Wings". Corman used a filming schedule that included so-called Blue Days, Grey Days and Don’t Give a Damn Days so that the aircraft were used no matter what the weather presented. On September 15, 1970, Charles Boddington, veteran of "The Blue Max" and "Darling Lili" shoots, was killed when his SE-5 spun in during a low-level maneuver over the airfield. The next day, during the last scheduled flight on the shooting schedule, Garrison and Law were involved in a low-level sequence across Lake Weston, in the Stampe, when a jackdaw struck Garrison in the face, knocking him unconscious. The aircraft then ran through five powerlines, snap rolled and plunged into River Liffey inverted. Garrison and Law were rescued from the waters. Law was uninjured while Garrison required 60 stitches to close a head wound. Corman did not direct another film until "Frankenstein Unbound". Some of the interior shots were filmed at Powerscourt House, a famous stately home in County Wicklow Ireland. Powerscourt had been designed by a German architect (Richard Cassels) and the entrance hall had a Germanic feel to it, making it a suitable location. It was also used for scenes in Stanley Kubrick's "Barry Lyndon" a few years later. The house was destroyed in an accidental fire in 1974, so these films serve a record for the lost interiors, and valuable artifacts, including some left there by Oliver Cromwell. German pilots were filmed with American accents. Over Corman's objections, they were dubbed over with German accents, which influenced Corman to form his own company so he had final say. Reaction. In its day and after, the film received mixed to negative reviews from both viewers and critics, mainly on the grounds that it was low budgeted and had no distinctive stars. Another factor was the fictional approach the story took on the two main characters. Factual Errors. The film contains so many factual errors (a selection of which are listed here) that it is effectively almost completely fictionalised:
1063735	The Electric Horseman is a 1979 adventure and romance feature film starring Robert Redford and Jane Fonda and directed by Sydney Pollack. It was the third time Redford and Fonda starred together in a feature film, having previously teamed on "The Chase" (1966) and "Barefoot in the Park" (1967).
588643	Neelima Azeem is an Indian TV and Film actress. Biography. Azeem's father Anwar Azim was a prominent Marxist journalist and Urdu author. While, her mother Khadija Azim was the granddaughter (not directly) of film director, screen writer, Urdu novelist and journalist Khwaja Ahmad Abbas. Popularly known as K.A.Abbas. Whilst, K.A.Abbas was grandson (not directly) to Urdu poet Ghalib. Career. Azeem studied the Kathak form of Indian classical dance under Birju Maharaj and Munna Shukla. She is known in India for her roles in television shows. She also worked in the Hindi movie "Sadak" opposite Deepak Tijori. She is Bollywood Film actor/rising star Shahid Kapoor's mother and character actor Pankaj Kapur's first wife.
581919	Koi... Mil Gaya () is a 2003 Bollywood science fiction film directed by Rakesh Roshan (who also has a cameo role), starring Hrithik Roshan, Rekha and Preity Zinta. The film's theme is largely inspired by the 1982 Hollywood hit "E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial", which was also accused of being inspired of the cancelled movie "The Alien" written by Indian director Satyajit Ray, although the director has claimed that it is 'not an Indian E.T.' The film was released on 8 August 2003. It was shot in Kasauli, Nanital, Bhimtal and in Canada. "Koi... Mil Gaya" was the most successful Bollywood film of 2003 and swept the Best Picture, Best Director (Rakesh Roshan) and Best Actor (Hrithik Roshan) awards in all major award ceremonies of 2003 including the Filmfare Awards, IIFA Awards, Screen Awards, etc. It is widely regarded as Bollywood's very first sci-fi thriller. It spawned two sequels — "Krrish" and "Krrish 3" — making it the first of the "Krrish" film series. It also spawned a spin-off animation-cum-live-action series titled "J Bole Toh Jadoo" that aired on Nickelodeon (India). The film was screened at the Jerusalem Film Festival and the NatFilm Festival in Denmark. Plot. A scientist named Dr. Sanjay Mehra (director Rakesh Roshan) creates a computer program from which he sends variations of the syllable om into space, hoping to attract the attention of extraterrestrial life. When he believes he has finally gotten a response, the scientific community mocks him. While driving home, an alien spacecraft appears overhead. Dr. Mehra looks out the window, exclaims, "UFO!" and veers off the road. His pregnant wife (Rekha) grabs the steering wheel, causing the car to hit a stone, flip over, and explode. Dr. Mehra dies, but his wife, thrown out of the car, survives the wreck and returns home to India. When their son Rohit (Hrithik Roshan, Rakesh Roshan's real son) is born, he is developmentally disabled. His mother raises him in the town of Kasauli, where he grows up to be a man of limited intellect and childish personality, but with a loving heart. Rohit has a number of much younger friends: loyal children who play with him. He befriends a young woman named Nisha (Preity Zinta). Nisha is sympathetic towards him and humors him, knowing about his mental disability from his mother, who chastises Nisha's suitor Raj for beating Rohit up. Rohit and Nisha find Sanjay's old 'om' computer and summon the aliens by accident. The visiting aliens leave in haste, leaving one behind by accident. Rohit, Nisha and Rohit's friends find and befriend the alien, naming him Jadoo ("Magic") when they discover his psychokinesis abilities. Jadoo discovers that Rohit is mentally subnormal, so he uses his powers to enhance the boy's mind. Rohit finds himself accepted by most of his peers. Raj and his buddies attempt to embarrass Rohit multiple times, only to be beaten in fights as well as in basketball, since Rohit's physical strength and agility was increased along with his mental abilities. Rohit and his young friends also receive a little help from the telekinetic Jadoo during the basketball game, with humorous results. Nisha and Rohit spend more and more time together, and ultimately Rohit proposes to her. She accepts. Jadoo's presence is kept secret from everyone but Rohit's friends and mother. The government, however, never gave up in their search for aliens. Police capture Jadoo, who is then rescued by Rohit after he summons the aliens to return for Jadoo. Jadoo flees in his returned family's spaceship, apparently taking Rohit's new mental and physical powers with him. Rohit again is mentally disabled, which saves him from prosecution by the government. After everything dies back down, Jadoo returns and restores Rohit's new abilities permanently. Nisha and Rohit lead a loving and happy life together from then on. Soundtrack. The film's soundtrack was first released in 2004 by Saregama. The music was composed by Rajesh Roshan, and the lyrics were by Dev Kohli. It also uses uncredited music from the Art of Noise ("Moments in Love") and Kraftwerk ("Trans-Europe Express"). Critical reception. "Koi... Mil Gaya" received mainly positive reviews and was declared a "Blockbuster" by Indian Box office. According to Rotten Tomatoes, the film received 75% 'Certified Fresh'.
25474	William Albert "Bill" Dembski (born July 18, 1960) is an American philosopher and theologian. He is a proponent of intelligent design, specifically the concept of specified complexity. He is currently the "Philip E. Johnson Research Professor in Culture & Science" at the Southern Evangelical Seminary at Matthews, North Carolina, and a senior fellow of the Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture. He is the author of a number of books about intelligent design, including "The Design Inference" (1998), "Intelligent Design: The Bridge between Science and Theology" (1999), "The Design Revolution" (2004), "The End of Christianity" (2009), and "Intelligent Design Uncensored" (2010). The concept of intelligent design involves the argument that an intelligent cause is responsible for the complexity of life and that it can be detected empirically. Dembski postulates that probability theory can be used to prove irreducible complexity, or what he calls specified complexity. Intelligent design—and Dembski's concept of specified complexity—are seen by the scientific community as a form of conservative Christian creationism, attempting to portray itself as science. Biography. Dembski was born in Chicago, Illinois, the only child of Catholic parents, his mother an art dealer and his father a college professor and lecturer. His father held a D.Sc in biology from the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg and taught evolutionary biology; while growing up Dembski was neither particularly religious nor did he question the theory of evolution. He attended an all-male Catholic preparatory school in Chicago. Dembski finished high school a year early, excelling in math and finishing a calculus course in one summer. After high school he attended the University of Chicago. There, Dembski experienced educational and personal difficulties, struggling with the advanced courses and finding the unfamiliar social milieu of college challenging. Dembski dropped out of school and worked at his mother's art business while reading works on creationism and the Bible. Finding the creationist works interesting in their challenge of evolution but their literal interpretations lacking, Dembski returned to school at the University of Illinois at Chicago, studying statistics.
1003667	The Wildest Dream is a 2010 theatrical-release feature documentary film about the British climber George Mallory who disappeared on Mount Everest in 1924 with his climbing partner Andrew Irvine. The film interweaves two stories, one about climber Conrad Anker (who discovered Mallory's body lying on Everest in 1999) returning to Everest to investigate Mallory's disappearance and the other a biography of Mallory told through letters (read by Ralph Fiennes and Natasha Richardson), original film footage from the 1920s and archival photos. The film was released in the US and on giant screen cinemas around the world by National Geographic Entertainment in August 2010 as The Wildest Dream: Conquest of Everest. The film was released in the UK by Serengeti Entertainment in September 2010 as "The Wildest Dream". This was Natasha Richardson's last film before her death on March 18, 2009. Synopsis. In 1924 mountaineer George Mallory was torn between love for his wife Ruth, and his obsession with the last great adventure left to man: becoming the first person to reach the summit of the untouched Mount Everest.
1470395	Anna Brewster (born 1986) is an English actress and model. Acting career. Anna has appeared in the films "Anita and Me", "Mrs Henderson Presents", "Hippie Hippie Shake" with Sienna Miller and Cillian Murphy and "How to Lose Friends & Alienate People". She has also appeared in the television series "The Tudors, The Royal, Luther, "and had a starring role in E4's "Nearly Famous" as Kate Sherman." Recently, Brewster played a supermodel named 'Lydia Kane' in the BBC series "Material Girl", a British romantic comedy produced by Carnival Films that first aired on BBC One on 14 January 2010. It stars Lenora Crichlow, Dervla Kirwan and Michael Landes. Inspired by the book "Fashion Babylon", "Material Girl" is "about a young fashion designer battling an evil ex-boss, a sexy-but-devilish business partner and snobby fashionistas to get her break in work and love." In 2009, Brewster starred in the horror film "The Reeds", which premiered at the After Dark Horrorfest. In January 2013 she appeared in the BBC series Silent Witness as Deanna Collier. Model career. Brewster modelled a range of women's clothing for designer label Ben Sherman; she was seen in the autumn/winter 2007 range throughout the UK. She appeared in a campaign for Aquascutum, Hermes for two seasons, Jigsaw A/W 2011, Sportsgirl and was the face of "Links of London" for a season. She has shot editorial for UK and American "Glamour", "Dazed & Confused", Italian "Vogue", Japanese Vogue', 'Hercules", "Plastique" and Russian "Vogue". Personal life. Anna Brewster is from Moseley, Birmingham. She attended St Bernard's RC School, Kings Heath Junior School and Queensbridge School in Moseley before studying for her A levels at Solihull Sixth Form College. She has also studied at the Birmingham School of Speech and Drama.
1105254	Claude Elwood Shannon (April 30, 1916 – February 24, 2001) was an American mathematician, electronic engineer, and cryptographer known as "the father of information theory". Shannon is famous for having founded information theory with a landmark paper that he published in 1948. However, he is also credited with founding both digital computer and digital circuit design theory in 1937, when, as a 21-year-old master's degree student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), he wrote his thesis demonstrating that electrical applications of boolean algebra could construct and resolve any logical, numerical relationship. It has been claimed that this was the most important master's thesis of all time. Shannon contributed to the field of cryptanalysis for national defense during World War II, including his basic work on codebreaking and secure telecommunications. Biography. Shannon was born in Petoskey, Michigan. His father, Claude, Sr. (1862 – 1934), a descendant of early settlers of New Jersey, was a self-made businessman, and for a while, a Judge of Probate. Shannon's mother, Mabel Wolf Shannon (1890 – 1945), was a language teacher, and for a number of years she was the principal of Gaylord High School. Most of the first 16 years of Shannon's life were spent in Gaylord, Michigan, where he attended public school, graduating from Gaylord High School in 1932. Shannon showed an inclination towards mechanical and electrical things. His best subjects were science and mathematics, and at home he constructed such devices as models of planes, a radio-controlled model boat and a wireless telegraph system to a friend's house a half-mile away. While growing up, he also worked as a messenger for the Western Union company. His childhood hero was Thomas Edison, whom he later learned was a distant cousin. Both were descendants of John Ogden, a colonial leader and an ancestor of many distinguished people. On his political and religious views, Shannon was apolitical and an atheist.
1057807	Joseph Bologna (born December 30, 1934) is an American actor. Life and career. Bologna was born in Brooklyn, New York. He attended Brown University, where he majored in art history. After a hitch with the Marines, Bologna was hired to produce and direct Manhattan-based TV commercials. Bologna has a long history in film and television. His breakthrough film, "Lovers and Other Strangers", written with his wife Renée Taylor, was based on the true-life circumstances of organizing a wedding on short notice with the involvement of his Italian extended family and Renée's Jewish clan. Several relatives performed as extras in the final cut. A year later, in 1971, the couple again collaborated to write and perform in the movie "Made for Each Other". Bologna stayed close with his old-neighborhood aunts and uncles after becoming successful. Two of them were slightly famous on their own: his Uncle Pat was "Blacky the Bootblack", whom Joseph Kennedy credited as his main influence when he sold all of his stock holdings in the summer of 1929 (the market crashed in October), and his aunt Pauline was one of the best-known chefs to the stars, working for Jackie Gleason, Burt Reynolds and many other luminaries.
587464	Nadunisi Naaygal ("Midnight Dogs"; ) is a 2011 Tamil psychological thriller film written and directed by Gautham Menon that stars Sameera Reddy, Veera Bahu and Deva in lead roles, with Swapna Abraham, Ashwin Kakumanu and Samantha Ruth Prabhu in other pivotal roles. The film notably does not feature any kind of film score, but only sounds designed by Renganaath Ravee. Produced by Photon Kathaas Productions and R. S. Infotainment, "Nadunissi Naaygal" released to mixed reviews on 18 February 2011, while being simultaneously dubbed and released in Telugu as "Erra Gulabilu". The title "Nadunisi Naaygal" is taken from the title of one of the poems of Sundara Ramasamy. The film received mixed reviews from both audience and critics. Plot. Samar (Veera Bahu), an eight-year-old motherless boy lives with his father in Mumbai who leads a colourful life indulging in orgy. Samar gets subjected to sexual abuse by his father and is rescued by his neighbour, a middle aged single woman Meenakshi Amma (Swapna Abraham) who names him Veera, takes him under her wings and protects him. Daunted and chased by the ghosts of his painful past, Veera forcefully has sex with Meenakshi Amma. She, though reluctant at first, indulges in the act. After coming back to her senses the next morning, she refuses Veera's apology and decides to marry her colleague. After the marriage, on the same night, when Meenakshi and her husband are in bed, Veera stabs him brutally and sets him and the room on fire. Accidentally, Meenakshi Amma also gets injured in the fire. After treatment, he brings back the scar-faced, burn inflicted Meenakshi Amma to his bungalow in ECR. After a couple of weeks, Veera meets a girl named Priya (Priya) on the net. They meet up and finally fall for each other. He invites her home and they grow intimate, suddenly to be interrupted by a loud scream from Priya, because Meenakshi Amma stabs her brutally, similar to Veera's exploit. She orders him to cut her hair as she wants it. In the following years, Veera kidnaps women, rapes them and finally kills them in cold-blood. As the murders continue, Veera stumbles upon Sukanya (Sameera Reddy), a girl whom he has been in love with since 10th grade. He meets her at a theatre with her boyfriend Arjun (Ashwin Kakumanu) and lies to her that he had gone with another girl and offers her a ride home. An upset Sukanya agrees but does not know that Veera had been stalking her for a few weeks. Veera suddenly slaps her, making her unconscious and kisses her. Disgusted and terrified, Sukanya then finds Arjun in a pool of blood, in the backseat of the car. Sukanya tries to escape, engages in a fist fight with Veera but is stabbed in the abdomen. In sometime, Police surround the car and take Sukanya to a hospital. A bystander who had sensed something fishy with Veera's car follows him to his bungalow and informs the Assistant Commissioner Vijay (Deva). Veera takes Sukanya to his bungalow and informs Meenakshi Amma that he loves this girl truly and is going to live the rest of his life with her. Meanwhile, Sukanya tries to escape and murdered all the victims and even Meenakshi Amma. He says Meenakshi Amma is actually dead but Samar still thinks she is alive. In a few moments, Vijay arrives at the residence and is confronted by four Rottweilers ready to pounce on him. Alarmed by this, Veera tries to fend him off. After sometime, he returns to take Sukanya into a secret hidden basement, where another two girls are tied to, with their heads half-tonsured. He locks her up in the basement and gets into a fight with Vijay. Sukanya, meanwhile, finds a way into the bungalow, takes a gun and shoots at Veera. He is shocked as he thinks it was Meenakshi Amma who shot at him. All this is recorded on tape as Veera narrates it to the Assistant Commissioner. Finally he is taken to a mental asylum where another patient (Samantha Ruth Prabhu) is also shown as a psychopath, victimised due to child sexual abuse and the end credits roll. Production. Menon claimed that the film was inspired by a true event from the USA, while also claiming that a novel also helped form the story of the film. During the making, he explicitly revealed that the film was for "the multiplex audience" and would face a limited release, citing that "it will not cater to all sections of the audience". Reception. The film opened to mixed reviews. A Sify critic rated the film as "above average", citing that "Don’t go expecting a typical Gautham romantic film laced with peppy songs, be prepared to try out something new and experimental." Further he cites that the film "is definitely not for the family audiences", while criticising that "there are too many loopholes in the story, raising doubts about logic". Another reviewer from Sify gave the film 2.5 out of 5, while describing the film as an "unimpressive show by star director Menon, as it is neither convincing nor appealing, despite having some engrossing moments". Rediff's Pavithra Srinivasan, too, gave the film 2.5 out of 5, citing that the film "has a serious premise and is pretty realistic. But if you've watched any kind of Hollywood thriller at all, then the appeal is lost". "Times of India" in its review wrote that "in his earlier movies [...] Gautham Menon had pushed the envelope when it came to presentation and themes, but in "Nadunisi Naaygal" he takes it a bit too far. Best, let the sleeping dogs lie", giving it 2 out of 5. Aravindan DI of Nowrunning.com gave the film a score of 2.5 on 5 deeming it as "An unimpressive show, as it is neither convincing nor appealing." Siddhartha of Silentcritics.com in his review wrote that it was not worth the money and time. The film also went through harsh criticism for the intimate controversial scene between Veera and Swapna Abraham. Protests were staged in front of Menon's residence, who clarified that the scene is shown in an aesthetic manner and it is a sensitive story about a psychopath. When asked whether the scene would be removed from the film, Menon, as candid as ever, said the film would be removed soon from theatres as it was not doing good business. In contrast, Behindwoods gave it a positive review, giving it 3.5 out of 5. The reviewer labelled the film as a "differently made psychological thriller", adding that the film is "engaging right through and the desire of wanting to know 'what next' propels it in a uniform pace." Further praise was addressed to the director who "should also be applauded for not bowing down to any cinematic syntax", congratulating him "for the brave attempt to drive home a socially relevant point in a dignified manner". Rohit Ramachandran of Nowrunning.com put it at No. 4 in his 'Best of 2011' list.
589385	Jeene Ki Raah() is a 1969 Hindi movie produced directed and written by L. V. Prasad. The film stars Jeetendra, Tanuja, Jagdeep and Sanjeev Kumar. The films music is by Laxmikant Pyarelal with lyrics by Anand Bakshi. It is remake of 1953 Telugu film "Bratuku Theruvu". Plot Summary. Desperate to earn money to support his extended family, Mohan becomes entangled in a web of deceit when he tells a lie in order to obtain a secretarial job in the city with the wealthy Mr Rai. He says he isn't married, but he is. Mr Rai has a daughter with a heart condition. In the beginning of the film she uses a wheelchair, but Mohan has more than a mild therapeutic effect on her. She is soon up and running - running after him. Meanwhile, back in the village, the money he has been sending home is being filched by his greedy sister. Soon, mother, wife and a flock of children come looking for him and Mohan finds himself leading a double life in an increasingly desperate effort to avoid all parties learning the truth.
1163923	Barbara Parkins (born May 22, 1942) is a Canadian-American television and film actress. Biography. Early life and rise to stardom. Parkins was born in Vancouver, British Columbia. At the age of sixteen, she and her mother moved to Los Angeles, where she enrolled at Hollywood High School and began to study acting, tap, ballet, and fencing at the Falcon School, where her mother played the piano. Her earliest employment was as a backup singer and dancer in the nightclub acts of major stars, including comedian George Burns. She made her film debut in a low-budget crime caper, "20,000 Eyes", in 1961, and also guested in a number of television series, including "Leave It to Beaver", "The Untouchables", "Perry Mason", and "The Wide Country". Shortly before gaining nationwide fame, Parkins worked as an usher in a cinema to pay for drama lessons. "Peyton Place" and "Valley of the Dolls". Parkins was involved in two of the most highly publicized projects of the 1960s — the ABC primetime serial, "Peyton Place", and the film adaptation of Jacqueline Susann's best-selling novel, "Valley of the Dolls". In "Peyton Place" Parkins received lead billing for her role as small town bad girl Betty Anderson. As initially conceived, the character was scheduled to die in a car crash six weeks into the season, but audience reaction to Parkins was overwhelmingly favorable, and it was decided to keep her in the story line. In a late 1965 interview the actress said about her role: She was the only female star to remain with the series through its entire run (1964–1969). In 1966 she was nominated for an Emmy Award as Best Actress in a Lead Role in a Dramatic Series, but lost to Barbara Stanwyck for "The Big Valley". About losing the award on her 22nd birthday, Parkins told the press: Eventually shedding her "other side of the tracks" image, Betty endured many of the trials and tribulations of soap opera life. The character achieved such popularity that when the show ended its run, producer Paul Monash developed a spin-off series, "The Girl from Peyton Place", for Parkins. However, when co-star Ryan O'Neal, who played her husband, declined to participate, the project was shelved. Nevertheless, Parkins insisted she often felt very insecure on the set, saying In "Valley of the Dolls" Parkins played Anne Welles, the naive small-town girl, described as "the good girl with a million dollar face and all the bad breaks" — a character based on author Susann. The film was trashed by the critics, although Parkins was one of the few to emerge unscathed. The movie, however, was a huge commercial success and eventually became a campy cult classic. "Jackie was ...taken with Barbara, who she felt resembled an earlier Jackie Susann, dark and intense and with a distinctive voice." In the late 1960s Parkins was linked to several men, but she insisted most of the stories were made up by gossip magazines. Some of the men included Omar Sharif, Adam West, David Hedison and Marcel Marceau. In a 1965 interview Parkins said: Later life and career. After visiting London in 1968 when she served as a bridesmaid at the wedding of "Valley of the Dolls" co-star Sharon Tate and director Roman Polanski, Parkins decided to move to England, where she starred in several productions. Among them were "Puppet on a Chain", "Shout at the Devil", and "The Mephisto Waltz", with Alan Alda and Jacqueline Bisset. Parkins motivated her choice to move to London by saying: "It's more relaxed; there's a simplicity; I love the traditions." Parkins posed for nude pictorials in the May 1967, February 1970, and May 1976 editions of "Playboy Magazine". She spent most of the mid-70s appearing on American television in several mini-series, including "Jennie: Lady Randolph Churchill" with Lee Remick, "Captains and the Kings" with another "Dolls" co-star, Patty Duke, and "The Testimony of Two Men" with William Shatner. She also appeared in guest spots on "Fantasy Island", "The Love Boat", "Hotel", and "Vega$". In the late 1970s, Parkins moved to France and married, and in the late 1980s she adopted her only child, daughter Christina. In the 1980s, she continued to work in television movies, including "To Catch a King", in which she portrayed the Duchess of Windsor, and opposite Sharon Stone in "The Calendar Girl Murders". She also auditioned for the title role in the James Bond film "Octopussy" (1983) but lost the role to Maud Adams. She returned to the role of Betty Anderson in "", a one-shot sequel to her popular series, in 1985. In 1991, she starred in a Canadian mystery series entitled "Scene of the Crime", then spent most of the remainder of the decade in semi-retirement. She emerged in the late 1990s to participate in two Susann-inspired projects, the biopic "Scandalous Me" and a segment of the Lifetime series "Intimate Portrait". In 1995 she was chosen by Empire magazine as number 81 on their list of 100 Sexiest Stars in film history. In 2006, she participated with Ted Casablanca on the audio-commentary for the DVD release of "Valley of the Dolls" and attended the release party on June 13, 2006. Filmography. "Sources: "
1691991	Benjamin David "Jamie" Elman (born July 5, 1976) is a Canadian American actor best known for his leading roles of Cody Miller on YTV’s "Student Bodies" and Luke Foley in NBC’s "American Dreams". Life and career. Elman was born in New York City, and was raised in Montreal, Quebec. He attended Jewish day school. In Montreal, Elman began performing in plays such as "The Children's Hour" and "Annie Get Your Gun" before landing his first roles in TV ("Are You Afraid of the Dark?") and film ("Johnny Mnemonic"). Elman graduated from McGill University with a BA in English. He was part of the ensemble cast of the film "Shattered Glass" opposite Hayden Christensen and Peter Sarsgaard, and has guest-starred on numerous popular series including "Crossing Jordan", "Criminal Minds", "Without a Trace", "" and "The Closer". Recent roles include starring opposite Armand Assante in California Dreaming which won the Un Certain Regard award at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival; portraying a young Sigmund Freud, again opposite Assante and Ben Cross, in "When Nietzsche Wept"; and on the small screen, where he improvised with Larry David in HBO’s "Curb Your Enthusiasm". In 2009, Elman began work on his first webseries titled "Brainstorm" for Dailymotion.com. In addition, he will be starring in a film titled "The Chicago 8" due to be released in 2010. In April 2010, Elman appeared on the soap opera "The Young and the Restless" as Jamie Peterson.
583196	Ada... A Way of Life is a 2010 Hindi musical film written and directed by Tanvir Ahmad, with music by A. R. Rahman, described by "Time Magazine" in 2005 as "India's most prominent movie songwriter" and "by some computations, the best-selling recording artist in history". Rahman composed the songs for "Ada" in 2001, after completing the score for "Lagaan", but Ahmad's plans for the film were shelved. Though the music was composed for the original concept, the film features a new script as well as different actors, as it stars debuting actor Ayaan Ahmed, the director's son. Along with its notable composer, the soundtrack also features award-winning singer Jayachandran, contributing vocals for the first time to a Hindi language film. The soundtrack was released on 20 May 2008. The film was scheduled to be released on 31 December 2009 but released a year later on 24 December 2010. Plot. The director, Tanvir Ahmed, describes this film as "a tale of a noble father, a religious mother and a gangster son in Mumbai City". It is the tale of "Ayaan", son of the noble "Anil Anand", and the spiritual "Aamina". Ayaan’s world is turned upside down when Anil starts receiving death threats if he goes ahead with his testimony against some criminals. The murder of his father sets Ayaan on a course of revenge and killing against the criminals of Mumbai, as he becomes a contract killer. Promotion. To promote the film, Nokia and Big Music combined to launch a contest allowing contributors to remix two of the soundtrack songs, the winner of which—selected by Rahman—will have the opportunity to work with Rahman in the composer's studio. In support of the unusual promotion, Nokia launched its Nokia XpressMusic mixer, a positioning strategy not only to promote the film but also Nokia's music phones in advance of the launch of the Nokia MusicStore. Soundtrack. The soundtrack features 10 songs, composed by A. R. Rahman and lyrics penned by Nusrat Badr and Raqeeb Alam. The album was released in India on 20 May 2008 by Big Music, two years before the release of the film. The soundtrack received generally favorable reviews from critics. It got an 8.5/10 rating on Planet Bollywood, 8.25/10 on Music Aloud, and 3/5 on Bollywood Hungama. Lyrics by Nusrat Badr except where noted
1068688	The Last American Hero (also known as Hard Driver) is a 1973 sports drama film based on the true story of American NASCAR driver Junior Johnson. Directed by Lamont Johnson, it stars Jeff Bridges as Junior Jackson, the character based on Johnson. The film is based on Tom Wolfe's story, "The Last American Hero", which is included in his 1965 debut collection of essays, "The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby". The film was favorably reviewed by Pauline Kael in "The New Yorker", even though "The New Yorker" had a long-standing feud with Wolfe. The film's theme song, "I Got a Name", sung by Jim Croce, became a best-selling single.
1622164	The Elder Son (2006) is a comedy-drama film directed by Marius Balchunas and written by Marius Balchunas and Scott Sturgeon. Plot. Maxim Sarafanov (Rade Šerbedžija) has just been fired from the orchestra he played clarinet in, his son Nikita (Reiley McClendon) is in love with his schoolteacher Susan (Regina Hall) and his daughter Lolita (Leelee Sobieski) is getting married to a US pilot Greg (Brian Geraghty) and leaving home to go to Texas. But things get worse when a small time car thief Bo (Shane West) looking for a hideout from the police tells Maxim that he is his son from Maxim's old girlfriend towards whom he still has feelings. Production notes. The film is based on the screenplay "The Elder Son" written in 1968 by Russian writer Alexander Vampilov.
1116677	Sir Ronald Ross KCB FRS (13 May 1857 – 16 September 1932) was an Indian-born British doctor who received the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 1902 for his work on malaria. His discovery of the malarial parasite in the gastrointestinal tract of the "Anopheles mosquito" led to the realization that malaria was transmitted by "Anopheles", and laid the foundation for combating the disease. Early life. Sir Ronald Ross was born in India, the eldest son of General Sir Campbell Claye Grant Ross of the British Indian Army and Matilda Charlotte Elderton. His grandfather, Lieutenant Colonel Hugh Ross, had malaria, and the boy resolved to find a cure for the disease. At the age of eight, he was sent to England for his education. He commenced the study of medicine in London in 1875. He passed his final examination in 1880 and joined the Indian Medical Service in 1881. His second posting was in Madras. He commenced the study of malaria in 1892. Discovery. Ross studied malaria between 1882 and 1899, working at the Presidency General Hospital, Calcutta. Ross built a bungalow with a laboratory at Mahanad village, where he used to stay from time to time, collecting mosquitoes in Mahanad and adjoining villages and conducting research. In 1883, Ross was posted as the Acting Garrison Surgeon at Bangalore during which time he noticed the possibility of controlling mosquitoes by controlling their access to water. In 1897, Ross was posted to Ooty and fell ill with malaria. After this he was transferred to Secunderabad, where Osmania University and its medical school is located. He discovered the presence of the malarial parasite within a specific species of mosquito, of the genus Anopheles, which he initially called "dapple-wings". He was able to find the malaria parasite in a mosquito that he artificially fed on a malaria patient named Hussain Khan. He also did pioneering work in Malaria and the life cycle of P.vivax in the gut of anopheles mosquito while invited to Labac T.E. in southern Assam( NE Indian state), while he was invited there by Dr. Henry Joseph Grover, the CMO of the Labac T.E. Hospital ( the article with a picture of his microscope can be seen to the day at the Labac T.E. Hospital), where he did work on the understanding the life cycle in mosquito. In 1899, Ross went to Britain and joined the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine as a professor. In 1901 Ross was elected a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons and also a Fellow, of which he became Vice-President from 1911 to 1913. In 1902, Ross was awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine for his work on malaria. His assistant, Kishori Mohan Bandyopadhyay, was awarded a gold medal. In the same year, he was appointed a Companion of the Most Honourable Order of Bath by King Edward VII, and discovered how malaria was transmitted. In 1911 he was elevated to the rank of Knight Commander of the same Order. During his active career Ross advocated the task of prevention of malaria in different countries. He carried out surveys and initiated schemes in many places, including West Africa, the Suez Canal zone, Greece, Mauritius, Cyprus, and in the areas affected by the First World War. He also initiated organisations, which have proved to be well established, for the prevention of malaria within the planting industries of India and Sri Lanka, and declared 20 August World Mosquito Day. He made many contributions to the epidemiology of malaria and to methods of its survey and assessment. Perhaps his greatest was the development of mathematical models for the study of its epidemiology, initiated in his report on Mauritius in 1908, elaborated in his Prevention of malaria in 1911 and further elaborated in a more generalised form in scientific papers published by the Royal Society in 1915 and 1916. These papers represented a profound mathematical interest which was not confined to epidemiology, but led him to make material contributions to both pure and applied mathematics. Through these works Ross continued his great contribution in the form of the discovery of the transmission of malaria by the mosquito. He also found time and mental energy for many other pursuits, being a poet, playwright, writer and painter. Particularly, his poetic works gained him wide acclaim which was independent of his medical and mathematical standing. Ross Institute and Hospital for Tropical Diseases. The Ross Institute and Hospital for Tropical Diseases was founded and in 1926 established at Bath House, a grand house with keeper's lodge and large grounds adjacent to Tibbet's Corner at Putney Heath. The hospital was opened by the then Prince of Wales, the future Edward VII. It was later incorporated into the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine in Keppel Street. Bath House was later demolished and mansion flats built on the property. In memory of its history and owner the block was named Ross Court. Within the grounds an older dwelling, Ross Cottage, remains. Family. Ross married Rosa Bessie Bloxam in 1889. They had two sons, Ronald and Charles, and two daughters, Dorothy and Sylvia. His wife died in 1931. Ross died a year later after a long illness and asthma attack, at Bath House. He was buried at the nearby Putney Vale Cemetery. Honors and awards. Ross received many honours in addition to the Nobel Prize, and was given honorary membership of learned societies of most countries of Europe, and elsewhere. He got an honorary M.D. degree in Stockholm in 1910 at the centenary celebration of the Caroline Institute and his 1923 autobiography "Memoirs, Etc." was awarded that year's James Tait Black Memorial Prize. While his vivacity and single-minded search for truth caused friction with some people, he enjoyed a vast circle of friends in Europe, Asia and the United States who respected him for his personality as well as for his genius. In India, Ross is remembered with great respect. Because of his relentless work on l, the deadly epidemic which used to claim thousands of lives every year could be successfully controlled. There are roads named after him in many Indian towns and cities. In Calcutta the road linking Presidency General Hospital with Kidderpore Road has been renamed after him as Sir Ronald Ross Sarani. Earlier this road was known as Hospital Road. In his memory, the regional infectious disease hospital at Hyderabad was named after him as Sir Ronald Ross Institute of Tropical and Communicable Diseases in recognition of his services in the field of tropical diseases. The building where he worked and actually discovered the malarial parasite, located in Secunderabad near the Begumpet Airport, is a heritage site and the road leading up to the building is named Sir Ronald Ross Road. In Ludhiana, Christian Medical College has named its hostel as "Ross Hostel". The young doctors often refer to themselves as "Rossians". The University of Surrey, UK, has named a road after him in its Manor Park Residences. Ronald Ross primary school near Wimbledon Common is named after him. The school's coat of arms includes a mosquito in one quarter. Sir Ronald Ross Institute of Parasitology was established in memory of Ronald Ross in Hyderabad, under Osmania University. Most recently, the University of Liverpool has named a large Biological Science building in his honour. The Ronald Ross building is home to the University's Institute of Infection and Global Health.
1067513	Club Dread (also known as "Broken Lizard's Club Dread") is a 2004 comedy horror film written by the comedy group Broken Lizard, who also created "Super Troopers". It is directed by Jay Chandrasekhar, one of the group members. Though the story is set on an island in Costa Rica, filming took place in Mexico. Plot. On Coconut Pete's private party island, Rolo, Stacy, and Kellie sneak off to a mausoleum to make out. While there, a masked killer stabs Rolo to death. The two girls run through the jungle and eventually split up, but Kellie is thrown off a cliff and Stacy decapitated before they can reach help. As Lars arrives on 'Pleasure Island', he is introduced to the staff, including Jenny, Juan, Putman, Dave, Sam, Yu, and Carlos. As the staff and guests, including Penelope, Dirk, and Hank party, Carlos is lured outside where he is swiftly murdered. Meanwhile, Dave tells other partiers the story of an insane partier who murdered the staff of the island and disappeared years previously. The next day, as the party continues, Cliff is violently murdered in a maze. As Jenny and Lars bond, they discover Carlos' body, while Cliff's body is also found. The staff band together where they find that the killer is targeting the staff, and also all communication and transportation off the island have been destroyed. Hank convinces the staff to continue with their jobs and allow him to catch the killer. As the other workers get on with their jobs and attempt to help find the killer, Yu remains persistent to tell the guests, despite warnings not to do so from the killer. As she gathers people to make the announcement she is attacked and chased by the killer. Hank attempts to save her, but has his throat slit before Yu is also murdered. The next day, the group find the bodies and believe the killer is murdering people according to one of Pete's songs. As they split up to try and identify the killer, suspicion falls on Penelope who seduces Juan into her room. Jenny, Sam and Dave hide in the closet to save Juan if Penelope attempts to murder him but the pair instead have sex, taking suspicion off Penelope. While Lars and Putman camp on the beach, Putman has a nightmare and runs off into the jungle. Meanwhile Sam and Dave find a shrine to Pete in Lars' room. Due to the shrine and disappearance of Putman, the group believe Lars to be the killer and lock him in a room. That night Jenny goes swimming where she is interrupted by Dirk. The killer soon turns up and electrocutes Dirk, causing the electricity on the island to fail. Jenny runs away, and bumps into Putman and Sam. They realize Lars is not the killer, but when entering the room he was locked in, find him gone. The trio then go to Pete's house where they find Juan, Lars and Dave. When the group find Pete's body, the are quick to turn on one another, however group together to survive through the night until the boat comes the following day to take them back to the main land. Despite this plan, the group all decide to split up from each other. Dave ventures to a hut where he manages to turn on the electricity. Jenny and Lars hear the music playing and go to the hut, only to find Dave's decapitated head. Jenny and Lars then hide from who they believe to be the killer and handcuff their foot to a bed. However it is revealed it was in fact, Putman. Before long the killer appears and a trapped Putman is killed. Meanwhile, a party is being held in the club. As Jenny and Lars arrive, the dead bodies of the staff are shown to the guests, causing them all to flee, except Penelope. Juan also arrives, before the group rush off to rescue Sam, whom they see at a nearby window. They arrive and find a presumed dead Sam in a mud bath, however he soon holds Lars hostage, revealing himself as the killer. Sam goes on to explain he began murdering the staff after Pete sold the island to Dave, despite the fact he believed he should have gotten the island. Lars manages to overcome Sam and allow the others to get away. As they run to the club, Penelope is carried away by other partiers, while Jenny and Juan lock themselves in the club. Soon after, the pair find Sam drowning Penelope in a large tank. Juan manages to smash the tank, saving Penelope. As Sam is about to kill the group, Lars arrives and stabs Sam, allowing himself, Jenny, Penelope and Juan to escape. However as they are leaving, they realize Sam is following them. The group runs through the jungle, and comes to a cliff which they jump off to escape. They find one of the islands sunk boats, and decide to take the propeller off it and attach it to another boat that had lost its propeller. As Jenny, Lars and Penelope swim to the afloat boat, Juan retrieves the propeller off the sunk boat. As Juan arrives with the propeller, Lars begins to attach it. However it is revealed Juan has been stabbed and soon dies, before Sam attacks Jenny and Penelope. Lars comes to their rescue and together the group finally manage to defeat Sam, cutting him in half. The upper half tries to attack Penelope, but Sam throws it back into the sea. As Jenny and Lars start a relationship, Penelope drives the survivors away in the boat. Soundtrack. On one of the disc's commentary tracks the filmmakers state that they screened the film for Jimmy Buffett, who was so amused that he requested permission to sing some of the film's songs on one of his live tours. Critical reception. "Club Dread" has received mixed reviews, scoring 45% on review aggregator site Metacritic based on 28 critics reviews, and 29% on Rotten Tomatoes based on 96 reviews. According to Rotten Tomatoes the consensus was "Comedy is too hit-or-miss in this slasher spoof". Alternate version. In 2005, an unrated edition was released to DVD. This version of the film contains an additional 15 minutes of footage for a 118-minute running time. It features several extended scenes, and also restores a subplot involving two cops (played by Paco Mauri and Tony Amendola) that was absent in the theatrical edition. Director Jay Chandrasekhar states in one of the disc's commentary tracks that the original R-rated version is still the director's cut.
1068787	The Grudge 2 is a 2006 American horror film and a sequel to 2004's "The Grudge". This film is the second installment in Sony's "The Grudge" series and was directed by Takashi Shimizu (director of the "Ju-on" series) and written by Stephen Susco. The film was produced by Sam Raimi and stars Sarah Michelle Gellar, Amber Tamblyn, Edison Chen, Arielle Kebbel, Matthew Knight, Teresa Palmer and Takako Fuji. As stated by Takashi Shimizu, the film is not a remake of any of the "Ju-on" films and follows a different storyline. It was released in North America on October 13, 2006 (Friday the 13th) after being pushed forward a week from the original October 20 release date. It was released in the UK on October 20 and in Australia on October 26, 2006. The film was followed by "The Grudge 3" in 2009. Plot. As with the first film, "The Grudge 2" focuses on the cursed house of the deceased Saeki family. The curse was born when Takeo Saeki murdered his wife Kayako Saeki, son Toshio Saeki and the family cat Mar before being hanged by Kayako's vengeful Onryō. Karen Davis, an American careworker, became involved in the curse and attempted to burn the house down to end it, only to be hospitalized. First Part: Aubrey. Meanwhile, in Pasadena, California, her ill mother hears the news about her, and sends Karen's sister Aubrey to Tokyo to bring her home. Aubrey struggles to speak with the Japanese hospital staff, so a local journalist, Eason, translates for her, having dragged Karen from the house fire, and who is curious about the house himself. Aubrey briefly speaks with Karen (the only survivor besides Maria Kirk) who gets into a panic due to telling Aubrey not to go into the Saeki house and has to be strapped to her bed. Karen manages to get free and escapes to the roof, pursued by Kayako's ghost who throws her off the building to her death in front of Aubrey and Eason. The next week, Eason explains the curse to Aubrey, venturing to the house to retrieve Kayako's old diary. However, Aubrey is lured into the house by Toshio, who grabs her and pulls her inside the house, and becomes cursed like Eason. Taking the diary to an associate of his, Eason and Aubrey learn Kayako's mother Mrs. Kawamata was an "itako" who exorcised evil spirits from cursed people using Kayako as "bait" (spirits are attracted to children as purest souls). Planning to visit Mrs. Kawamata later, Aubrey falls asleep in Eason's apartment whilst he develops some photographs of the Saeki house. However, Kayako emerges from a photo and kills Eason. The next day, Aubrey finds Eason's body and hugs it, crying, but it suddenly becomes Kayako. She then runs out of the darkroom in horror as all the pictures show Kayako's face. Aubrey flees to find Mrs. Kawamata. She finds the elderly woman in a rural village, but Mrs. Kawamata explains the curse is irreversible. She realizes Aubrey brought Kayako with her, and tries to murder her herself, only to be suddenly stopped by Kayako (who chokes her mother's throat) - a motive which will be revealed later. After calling her mother for a final conversation, Aubrey ventures into the Saeki house. She demands to know the motive of the curse and enters a flashback, seeing Karen walking into Kayako's bedroom, looking for her boyfriend. Aubrey follows her and shouts at her not to enter, but instead meets the evil Takeo Saeki in Kayako's bedroom, reading Kayako's diary. Takeo attacks Aubrey, breaks her ankle and forces her to crawl downstairs just like the original victim, before he catches up with her, seizes her hair, and breaks her neck. Toshio watches as Takeo kills Aubrey, and drowns him just like before. Before she dies, Kayako comes out from another room and looks down at Aubrey with her wide, staring eyes. She felt sorry for Aubrey, as she died the same way as Kayako did. Second Part: Allison. Two weeks later, three schoolgirls, exchange student Allison, vain Vanessa and her friend Miyuki, visit the Saeki house to challenge the rumors that it is haunted. However, Vanessa and Miyuki trap Allison in the house's closet where Toshio and then seemingly Kayako appear. The girls flee the house and are haunted by the Saeki family. Miyuki is killed by Kayako while staying at a love hotel with her boyfriend, who is showering. When she leans back, feeling something in her sheets, she rests her back on the mirror, then suddenly Kayako reaches out from the mirror behind her and drags her into the glass, vanishing. Allison and Vanessa are spoken to by the school counselor Ms. Dale, but the distraught Allison runs off, followed by Ms. Dale. Vanessa is terrified when Toshio calls her using Miyuki's phone, and she quickly runs to a public phone booth and tries to call Miyuki from there. However, Kayako's death rattle is heard on the other line, causing Vanessa to drop the phone in horror. Suddenly, Toshio grabs her legs and she is consumed by Kayako's hair. Allison later speaks with Ms. Dale in her office about the house. She tells Mrs. Dale that the curse has consumed Miyuki, and Vanessa, but discovers that Ms. Dale went to the house and says that there is no curse, making Allison believe that she will be Kayako's next victim. Suddenly, Miyuki and Vanessa appear on either side of Allison as ghosts and Ms. Dale becomes a ghost and makes a loud moaning noise. Realizing that Ms. Dale has also been killed by Kayako, Allison flees the office. Third Part: Jake. Six months later, in an apartment block in Chicago, Jake Kimble is disturbed by a strange presence in the building. His father Bill and stepmother Trish are influenced by the curse, Bill becoming convinced that Trish is having an affair. However, his confrontation is short-lived when Trish wallops him with a frying pan, killing him. Sally, best friend to Jake's sister Lacey is also affected and dies. Jake is mostly fearful of the hooded stranger seen in the apartment of the Flemings, Jake's neighbors. The stranger covers the windows in newspaper. Jake and Lacey came back from school to find their apartment in a mess. Jake finds his father's body, then finds Lacey who was drowned by Takeo's evil spirit and then Trish appears in the tub as well, who tells Jake that it's time for his bath, before Toshio pulls her underwater. Fleeing his apartment, he finds out that the Flemings are dead and finally confronts the hooded stranger, revealed to be Allison. It`s then revealed that Allison is still alive, but completely consumed by the curse. In the final sequence, Allison tells Jake the curse had followed her. Jake's eyes widen with horror when he sees Toshio's eye in Allison's hood. She is then killed by the curse when it pulls her inside her hood. Jake, left alone in the corridor, picks up Allison's discarded hoodie and Kayako emerges from it, uttering her death rattle, and looms towards Jake. Chronology. In "The Grudge 2," the story of Aubrey is the first, chronologically, being in 2004 and occurring shortly after the events of "The Grudge". The story of Allison, Miyuki and Vanessa follow in 2006, following on with the Kimble family a couple of months later. "The Grudge 3" picks up shortly after the second film, focusing on the events that occurred in the building where the Kimble family had died. Production. The Grudge 2 was announced 3 days after the release of "The Grudge" in 2004 and was officially fasttracked after a positive box office response with the film grossing $110,175,871. In early January 2005 Takashi Shimizu suggested ideas regarding the film's plot. Ideas included the origin of the curse and new character subplots. The film was later placed into production hell for almost a year until December 2005, when the first few cast (Sarah Michelle Gellar and Teresa Palmer) members were cast. Other production details were also revealed, including the original scheduled date for principal photography, which was due to begin January 30, 2006, but was postponed until February. Principal photography for "The Grudge 2" was held at Toho Studios in Tokyo, Japan and production wrapped up on April 25, 2006. During an interview on Dread Central with Amber Tamblyn, it was reported that sets were created in Chicago, Illinois for Tamblyn to re-shoot several scenes. Director Takashi Shimizu stated in an interview with "Sci Fi Wire"': "For The Grudge 2, I was going for this mystery that was never there in The Grudge, and I think that's going to fulfill the audience. ... There's a secret about Kayako's childhood life, so that's part of the big mystery. And the other mystery is this grudge will never stop, and it's going to ... spread. And how is it going to get spread? That's another mystery." " He also stated that: ""The Grudge was a complete remake of Ju-on, meaning the storyline was very similar. Basically, it's the same. But Grudge 2 is actually different from , and I don't think I would have accepted this job if it was going to be the same storyline. And because it was a different story, you know, my motivation was a bit higher, and I actually enjoy doing this." " Deleted scenes. The names of the deleted scenes are taken from the DVD's 'Special Feature' section. In the unrated director's cut DVD are various shots included that were missing from the theatrical release, including extended shots of Karen's death in which blood spatters all over Eason and Aubrey, and a longer shot of blood gushing out from Karen's head. Many extra scenes were included in the unrated Directors cut DVD: Promotion. Teaser Site. On April 1, 2006 a teaser site was launched with details revealing the October 13 release date. Many Database forum sites such as IMDB were swamped with claims that Sony was playing an April Fool's joke. A few days later, the site's authenticity was proven, and claims that it was a hoax were dismissed. Missing Person File: Jason C. To promote the film, Sony released a missing persons file on its official blog stating a student filmmaker known as "Jason C" disappeared a few weeks after visiting the set of the film. The blog originally broadcast interviews with the film's stars including Sarah Michelle Gellar and Amber Tamblyn but has been taken over by his roommate who filed the report. Tales from The Grudge. On September 19, 2006 Yahoo! Movies was the first site to release three short films titled "Tales from the Grudge" with an introduction from one of the producers of "The Grudge", Sam Raimi. The series of short expands on the story of The Saeki curse. The shorts also appear on the film's official site Sony Pictures Entertainment, here fans who volunteer their mobile phone number, will get surprise calls from Kayako or Toshio. The films are also available on other film and horror-related websites as part of a wide-reaching and unique digital marketing strategy. The shorts were directed by Toby Wilkins (director of "The Grudge 3") Official Site, IMDb page, and written by Ben Ketai. Release. Premiere. The Grudge 2 premiered at Knott's Berry Farm in Buena Park, California on October 8, 2006. During the premiere, the theme park was open to the public and featured a "Grudge 2" maze as part of its 2006 Halloween Haunt. Reception. The film was one of three films not shown to film critics on the release date (others included "The Marine" and "One Night with the King"). It received notably worse reviews from critics than its predecessor, with a freshness rating of 10% on Rotten Tomatoes (7 out of 69 reviews counted fresh) compared to The Grudge's 40%, despite heavy advertisement. The film has received criticisms from several critics regarding a confusing plot. Keith Phipps from The A.V. Club stated, "While The Grudge 2 deserves some credit for creating and sustaining a creepy atmosphere, it doesn't matter much when the plot doesn't go anywhere." Pete Vonder Haar from Film Threat stated, "The same problems that plagued the original are on display here. Most notably, the lack of any coherent plot." Paul Debrudge from "Variety" stated, "The Story is incidental, as auds merely anticipate the scares." Tim Goernert from Joblo stated, "For the most part, I found it really hard to follow the story as well, as there were three of them happening at the same time." The film has also been criticised as being eye candy. Terry Lawson from the "Detroit Free Press" stated, ""The Grudge 2" is just a mélange of images, some mildly disturbing, but mostly just variations on a theme." The film has generated generally negative reviews with an average score of 34/100 on Metacritic. Box office. The film opened in 3,211 theatres and was expected to generate $27 Million on the October 13 - 15th weekend but generated $10,018,039 on its opening day and $20.8 million on its opening weekend. It placed number 1 at the box office, kicking out "The Departed". The film showed exceptionally poor staying power and earned $39.1 million in North America, making it the first ever film to open over $20 million yet gross less than 50% of its earnings after opening weekend. It also easily set the record for lowest gross of a $20 million opener. It earned an additional $30 million internationally. The movie made $70 million worldwide. Sequel. During post-production on the film, Takashi Shimizu discussed ideas of creating another sequel, ""During the script meeting, Our ideas didn't go anywhere good, and we couldn't come up with anything interesting to stop the curse, so if that's the case, I would rather just go for something that could never be stopped. But who knows, maybe something can be stopped in The Grudge 3". During Comic Con '06, Sony officially announced plans of creating the sequel. Takashi Shimizu stated he has offered to direct the sequel but would rather produce the film instead. The film was putting out a casting call for new actors to play Kayako and Toshio, since Takako Fuji (Kayako) and Yuya Ozeki (Toshio) have passed on the opportunity. Shawnee Smith, who appeared as Amanda in the Saw series, was one of the major characters in the film. Release information. The following is a list of the film's release dates worldwide. Formats. "The Grudge 2" was released on DVD and UMD video for the PlayStation Portable on February 6, 2007. Both are available in a rated and unrated director's cut format. The unrated format is 6 minutes longer than the rated version. Both DVD formats include the following extras: The movie was also made available on iTunes in October 2008. A Blu-ray version of the movie is yet to be released. Sales. The DVD sold $5,233,327 in its first week much lower than the previous films £9 Million. Its second week it sold a further $3,060,351. Selling $8,293,678 within two weeks. It is estimated to have sold at least $15 Million since, bringing the films total gross to a more pleasing $85 Million.
395789	Attack on the Pin-Up Boys, also known as "Flower Boys' Series of Terror Events or simply Flower Boys", is a 2007 South Korean high school mystery/comedy film and is the first film produced by SM Pictures, a subsidiary of SM Entertainment. The film stars every member of Super Junior, except Kyuhyun due to the car accident on 19 April 2007. A soundtrack was released along with the film's premiere on 26 July 2007. Summary. After the unusual February 14 attack (tossing of a bag of feces) on a school flower boy (meaning heartthrob or pretty boy), Sungmin, the same form of attack begins happening at different high schools on the 14th day of every month. Rumors say that the next victims will be at Neulparan High School. The studious student Kibum decides to investigate the matter, covering the attacks on his blog, which causes them to become a hot topic within the student body. After several attacks, Kibum predicts that the next victim will be either Siwon, president of the student body; Heechul, president of the dance club; or Kangin, the captain of the Judo Team. Cast and characters. Stars (Super Junior): Cameos Notes Box office and reviews. Cheekily poking fun at idol culture and Super Junior's own flower boy image, the film did better than expected in box office sales on its premiere week. In reference to online ticket sales, the company was expecting a 22% range, but the sales made past 41.19%. The film also gained positive reviews from critics, pointing out that the movie was more plot-oriented instead of star-oriented. Unlike past movies that tout its pretty boy casting, the film kept all the viewers until the end with a fascinating mystery. Despite unexpected success in the box office of the film's premiere week, the film has failed to attract no more than an audience of 102,600 viewers. Because this is SM Picture's first production, the company is still making an effort to promote the film and to succeed in breaking through the film industry. The company will be attending the 12th Busan International Film Festival on 4 October 2007, and will also organize an opening ceremony, "SM Night." Previously, only "SidusHQ" and "Namooactors", two of South Korea's top film producers, has contributed in the festival's opening ceremony. Throughout the remaining of the year, the film failed to attract more than 102,600 viewers and was proven to be a big loss for SM Pictures. However, both versions of the film's DVD became a best-selling record and were sold-out in both Korea and oversea markets, which is more than enough to make up for the production loss of 850,000,000 won. The film made its debut in the cinemas of China, Thailand, Vietnam, and other Asian countries.
1531108	Leslie Eileen Easterbrook (born July 29, 1949) is an American actress. Early life. Easterbrook was born in Los Angeles and adopted by a family in rural Arcadia, Nebraska, where she was raised. Her father later earned a Ph.D and became a voice/trumpet professor at University of Nebraska at Kearney. He prepared her for operatic roles and coached her in trumpet playing for "Laverne & Shirley". Career. Easterbrook has become a familiar face to American audiences, with about a dozen feature films and over 300 television episodes to her credit. She first became famous as Rhonda Lee, the Marilyn-Monroe-like neighbor of "Laverne & Shirley". But the role for which she is most widely known is that of Sergeant (later Lieutenant, then Captain) Debbie Callahan, the no-nonsense blonde bombshell in the popular "Police Academy" movie series. Among the television shows in which Leslie has appeared are "Murder, She Wrote", "Hangin' with Mr. Cooper", "Baywatch", "Matlock", "Hunter", and "The Dukes of Hazzard". Soap opera fans will remember her as Devlin Kowalski from "Ryan's Hope". More recently, she's been doing voice work, lending her vocal talents to "Superman and Batman: The Animated Series". Easterbrook's vocal talents led to her being chosen to sing the National Anthem at Super Bowl XVII and have landed her starring roles in musicals on Broadway and throughout the country; she also recorded a song for the soundtrack of "". She was also a frequent panelist on "Match Game" in the 1980s. An accomplished sports shooter, Leslie has put together a video, "Real Beginner's Guide to the Shotgun Sports", the first in a series designed to encourage and prepare non-shooters for their first shooting experience. Leslie serves on the board of the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund, and supports a number of children's charities including Girls, Inc., The Sunshine Kids and Variety Children's Charities. Easterbrook is an NRA member and has served on the board of directors of the California Rifle & Pistol Association. In 2005, Leslie replaced Karen Black as Mother Firefly in Rob Zombie's "The Devil's Rejects", the sequel to the 2003 horror movie, "House of 1000 Corpses". In 2007, she played security guard Patty Frost in Rob Zombie's remake of "Halloween". In 2008, she played as Betty in the thriller/horror film "House". In 2010 she played the lead role in "The Afflicted". Her next major role will be in the film Greater, which tells the story of Brandon Burlsworth, and his journey from a former walk-on football player at the University of Arkansas, to an All-American, drafter into the NFL.
1163448	Samuel Joel "Zero" Mostel (February 28, 1915 – September 8, 1977) was an American actor and comedian of stage and screen, best known for his portrayal of comic characters such as Tevye on stage in "Fiddler on the Roof", Pseudolus on stage and on screen in "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum", and Max Bialystock in the original film version of "The Producers". Mostel was a student of Don Richardson, using an acting technique based on muscle memory. He was blacklisted during the 1950s, and his testimony before the House Committee on Un-American Activities was well-publicized. He was a Tony Award and Obie Award winner. Early life. Mostel was born to Israel Mostel, an Eastern European Jew, and Cina "Celia" Druchs, also from a Jewish family, who was born in Poland and raised in Vienna. The two immigrated to the United States (separately: Israel in 1898 and Cina in 1908), where they met and married. Israel already had four children from his first wife; he had four more children with Cina. Samuel, later known as Zero, was Israel's seventh child. It is said that Samuel Mostel got his nickname "Zero" since his parents were not kind with words and always told him that he would only ever amount to "gornisht", (גאָרנישט, "gornisht" or "gurnisht") which is Yiddish for "zero" or "nothing". Initially living in the Brownsville section of Brooklyn, the family moved to Moodus, Connecticut, where they bought a farm. The family's income in those days came from a winery and a slaughterhouse. The farm did not do well. When, according to Zero, an unyielding bank president with fierce mustache and long whip foreclosed the mortgage on the farm, the ten Mostels trekked back to New York and settled on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, where the boy attended public school, his character was shaped, and his father was employed as a wine chemist. While not at poverty level, the family had to struggle financially. As a child, Mostel was described by his family as outgoing and lively, and with a developed sense of humor. He showed an intelligence and perception that convinced his father he had the makings of a rabbi; however, Mostel preferred painting and drawing, a passion he was to retain for life. According to Roger Butterfield, his mother made a practice of dressing the boy in a velvet suit and sending him to the Metropolitan Museum of Art to copy masterpieces. Zero had a favorite painting, John White Alexander's "Study for Woman in Black and Green", which he copied every day, to the delight of the gallery crowds. One afternoon, while a crowd was watching over his velvet-clad shoulder, he solemnly copied the whole painting upside down, delighting his audience. Already at a young age he developed the duality of character that baffled critics years later: when alone he was studious and quiet, but when observed he felt he had to be the center of attention, which he invariably did through use of humor. The fact that at home he spoke English, Yiddish, Italian and German helped him reach out to audiences of many ethnicities in New York. He attended Public School 188, where he had been an A student (this is in contrast to his later claim that he was nicknamed Zero after his grade average). He also received professional training as a painter through The Educational Alliance. He completed his high school education at Seward Park High, where his yearbook noted: "A future Rembrandt… or perhaps a comedian?". Mostel attended the City College of New York, a public college that allowed many poor students to pursue higher education. Mostel belonged to the swimming team and the R.O.T.C., where he distinguished himself by clowning. The story goes that at the College's Charter Day exercises, the R.O.T.C. unit held a review in honor of the occasion. When he was commanded by the captain to stand at attention, the future comedian "started to crumple like an airless accordion." "Attention!" barked the officer, "not at ease." "Mon capitaine", Mostel replied, "it's not me at ease, it's my uniform." Legend also has it that the R.O.T.C. situation became so critical that on inspection days the staff officers tried to get the youth out of sight. They attempted to detail him on special duty. "Private Mostel, would you be so good as to go to the gymnasium with a message for Corporal S?" they would demand uneasily. "I gotta drill", Mostel, professing not to understand, is supposed to have said. "But we excuse you from drill", pleaded the staff. "I gotta drill", persisted Mostel. "I gotta get hard. I gotta get strong. I gotta get ready to die for dear old City College." As only beginner classes were available in art, Mostel took them repeatedly to be able to paint and receive professional feedback. During that time he worked odd jobs, and graduated in 1935 with a bachelor's degree. He then continued studying towards an MA, and also joined the Public Works of Art Project (PWAP), which paid him a stipend to teach art. In 1939 he married Clara Sverd, and the couple moved to an apartment in Brooklyn. The marriage did not last, however, since Clara could not accept the many hours Mostel spent in his studio with his fellow artists, and he did not seem to be able to provide for her at the level to which she had been accustomed. They separated in 1941 and divorced in 1944, Clara only agreeing to the divorce in return for a percentage of Mostel's earnings for the rest of his life. Career. Early comic routines. Part of Mostel's PWAP duty was to give gallery talks at New York's museums. Leading groups of students through the many paintings, Mostel could not suppress his comedic nature, and his lectures were noted less for their artistic content, but more for his sense of humor. As his reputation grew, he was invited to entertain at parties and other social occasions, earning three to five dollars per performance. Labor Union Social Clubs followed, where Mostel mixed his comic routine with social commentary. These performances would play a large role in his eventual blacklisting in the next decade. In 1941, the Café Society—a downtown Manhattan nightclub—approached Mostel with an offer to become a professional comedian and play a regular spot. Mostel accepted, and in the next few months he became the Café Society's main attraction. It was at the Café Society that he adopted the stage name Zero (Zee to his friends). The press agent of the night club prevailed upon Mostel to adopt this stage name, hoping that it would inspire the comment: "Here's a man who made something out of nothing." Thus, at the age of 27, Mostel dropped every other job and occupation to start his show business career. Rise. Mostel's rise from this point on was rapid. In 1942 alone his salary at the Café Society went up from US$40 a week to US$450; he appeared on radio shows, opened in two Broadway shows ("Keep Them Laughing", "Top-Notchers"), played at the Paramount Theatre, appeared in an MGM movie ("Du Barry Was a Lady"), and booked into "La Martinique" at US$4,000 a week. He also made cameo appearances at the Yiddish theatre, the style of which influenced his own. In 1943 "Life" magazine described him as "just about the funniest American now living". In March 1943, Mostel was drafted by the Army. His length of service is hard to determine as conflicting accounts exist—some say that he was released after six months due to colitis, others that he served to the end of the war. At any rate it is apparent that he was honorably discharged and gave the troops many months of free entertainment through the USO until 1945. Mostel married Kathryn (Kate) Cecilia Harkin, a "Chez Paree" club chorus girl, on July 2, 1944, after two years of courtship. The marriage was shaky at times, again mostly due to Mostel's spending most of his time in his art studio. Their relationship was described by friends of the family as complicated, with many fights but having mutual adoration. The couple stayed together until Mostel's death, bearing two children: film actor Josh Mostel in 1946 and Tobias in 1948. After Mostel's discharge from the army, his career took off again. He appeared in a series of plays, musicals, operas, and movies. In 1946 he even made an attempt at serious operatic acting in "The Beggar's Opera", but received lukewarm reviews. Critics saw him as a versatile performer, who was equally adept at a Molière play as he was on the stage of a night club. Mostel's rise was aided by his appearances on early TV in the late 1940s. He had his own show in 1948 called Off The Record on WABD-TV (DuMont Channel 5 of the time in NYC) with comedian partner Joey Faye. The early live TV show was featured in "Life" Magazine that year (Oct - Nov 1948), with pictures from the telecast, followed by Zero sending in a Letter to the Editor published in the December 1948 issue of "Life" thanking them for the free publicity. An October 1948 Billboard article describes disputes between the show producer and DuMont on their not providing live studio audiences for the program which Zero needed to play off to perform at his peak. Simultaneously, Zero had a live TV show on WPIX (Channel 11 in NYC, which launched its broadcasts in June 1948) called "Channel Zero". A rare kinescope of the December 1948 episode is archived at the Paley Center in NYC, and is shown on occasion on WPIX anniversary celebrations (including on YouTube). Zero also appeared in the May 11, 1949 "Toast of the Town" broadcast hosted by Ed Sullivan. This is also available on video from the original kinescope recording which survived from this show. All of these preceded his being blacklisted from TV. Mostel's choice of political causes led to his surveillance by the FBI. According to his FBI file, he was seen at many Communist Party meetings in 1941 and was active in support of the Free Earl Browder Movement. Blacklist years and HUAC testimony. It was not until 1950 that Mostel again acted in movies, for a role in the Oscar winning film" Panic in the Streets", at the request of its director, Elia Kazan. Kazan describes his attitude and feelings during that period, where, according to biographer Arthur Sainer, "MGM blacklisted Zero Mostel way before the days of the blacklist": Mostel made 5 movies in 1951, then, once officially blacklisted, he was not to appear on the screen again until 1959. With growing popularity and many excellent reviews, Mostel's career nonetheless came to a complete halt during the 1950s. Seeing many of his show business friends blacklisted and forced to name names of supposed Communists, it came as no surprise to him that he was named, too. On January 29, 1952, Martin Berkeley identified him to the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) as having been a member of the Communist party (Berkeley had named 160 people in all—more than any other witness). This was enough to stifle Mostel's career even before he was subpoenaed to appear before HUAC, which happened on August 14, 1955. The committee was presided over by chairman Clyde Doyle. Frank Wilkinson recalled the proceedings as follows: "It began with the committee's counsel immediately launching his attack. 'Mr. Mostel, are you or are you not a Communist?' Zero leaped out of his chair behind the counsel's table, knocking the microphones to the floor, and reached for the throat of the HUAC's attorney while shouting, 'That man called me a Communist! Get him out of here! He asked me if I'm a Communist! Get him out of here!' "The committee was roaring with laughter. They were delighted. Here they had Zero Mostel all to themselves, on stage, in a private dining room. Zero went on playing and parlaying with them for at least twenty minutes, responding to their questions by reciting each amendment in the Bill of Rights. "Finally, the HUAC's lawyers cautiously said, 'Mr. Mostel, we know all about those amendments. We simply want to know are you, or are you not, claiming the Fifth Amendment'. "He didn’t ask Zero, 'Are you or are you not a Communist.' He asked him, 'Are you or are you not claiming the Fifth Amendment.' What they wanted him to say was 'Yes'. After another ten minutes of sparring, Zero said, 'Yes, I'm claiming the Fifth Amendment'. "The hearings were stopped right there. The committee's PR guy goes to the door and opens it. He doesn't say a word to the crowd of reporters. He just holds up five fingers, and the press dashes off to the telephones there in the hotel. The headlines the next morning: 'Zero Mostel Pleads Fifth Amendment at HUAC Meeting.'" Thus Mostel refused the opportunity to ingratiate himself by giving the committee more names, choosing instead not to answer any question that might incriminate him (a direct refusal to name names would have allowed the committee to find him in contempt). His testimony had won him admiration in the blacklisted community, as in addition to not naming names he also confronted the committee on ideological matters, something that was rarely done. Among other things, he referred to Twentieth Century Fox as "Eighteenth Century Fox" (due to their collaboration with the committee), and manipulated the committee members to make them appear foolish. The admiration he received for his testimony did nothing to take him out of the blacklist, however, and the family had to struggle throughout the 1950s with little income. Mostel used this time to work in his studio. Later he would say that he cherished those years for the time it had afforded him to do what he loved most. Mostel's appearance before the HUAC (as well as others') was incorporated into Eric Bentley's 1972 play "Are You Now or Have You Ever Been…?" "Ulysses in Nighttown" and career revival. In 1957, Toby Cole, a New York theatrical agent who strongly opposed the blacklist, contacted Mostel and asked to represent him. The partnership was to have the effect of reviving Mostel's career and making him a household name. Mostel accepted the role of Leopold Bloom in "Ulysses in Nighttown", a play based on the novel "Ulysses", which he greatly admired in his youth. It was an Off-Off-Broadway play produced in a small Houston Street theater, but the reviews Mostel received were overwhelmingly favorable. Most notably, "Newsweek"'s Jack Kroll compared him to Laurence Olivier, writing, "Something unbelievable happened. A fat comedian named Zero Mostel gave a performance that was even more astonishing than Olivier's." Mostel received the Obie award for best Off Broadway performance of the 1958–59 season. After the success of "Ulysses", Mostel received many offers to appear in classic roles, especially abroad. However, artistic differences with the directors and the low salaries he was offered prevented these from ever materializing. By this time the blacklist was beginning to crumble, and in 1959, appeared twice on TV's "The Play of the Week". 1960s and height of career. On 13 January 1960, while exiting a taxi on his way back from rehearsals for the play "The Good Soup", Mostel was hit by a number 18 (now the M86) 86th Street crosstown bus, and his leg was crushed. The doctors wanted to amputate the leg, which would have effectively ended his stage career. Mostel refused, accepting the risk of gangrene, and remained hospitalized for four months. The gamble paid off, but the injury took a toll regardless; for the rest of his life, the massively-scarred leg gave him pain and required frequent rests and baths. After incurring his injury, he retained the famous Harry Lipsig (the 5'3" self-described "King of Torts") as his attorney. The case was settled for an undisclosed sum. From this time forward Mostel would carry a cane whenever he attended the Metropolitan Opera, to go along with the cape that he also favored. Later that year Mostel took on the role of Estragon in a TV adaptation of "Waiting for Godot." In 1961, he played Jean in "Rhinoceros" to very favorable reviews. "The New Republic's" Robert Brustein said that he had "a great dancer's control of movement, a great actor's control of voice, a great mime's control of facial expressions." His transition onstage from man to rhinoceros became a thing of legend; he won his first Tony Award for Best Actor, even though he was not in the lead role. In 1962 Mostel began work on the role of Pseudolus in the Broadway musical "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum," which was to be one of his best remembered roles. The role of Pseudolus was originally offered to Phil Silvers, who declined it, saying he did not want to do this "old shtick". Mostel did not originally want to do the role either, which he thought below his capabilities, but was convinced by his wife and agent. The reviews were excellent, and, after a few slow weeks after which the play was partially rewritten with a new opening song, "Comedy Tonight", which became the play's most popular piece, the show became a great commercial success, running 964 performances and conferring on Mostel a star status (he also won a Tony Award for Best Actor in a Musical for this role). It was also produced as a movie version in 1966, also starring Mostel—and Silvers. On September 22, 1964, Mostel opened as Tevye in the original Broadway production of "Fiddler on the Roof." Mostel's respect for the works of Sholem Aleichem made him insist that more of the author's mood and style be incorporated into the musical, and he made major contributions to its shape. He also created the cantorial sounds made famous in songs such as "If I Were a Rich Man". In later years, the actors who followed Mostel in the role of Tevye invariably followed his staging. The show received rave reviews and was a great commercial success, running 3242 performances, a record at the time. Mostel received a Tony Award for it and was invited for a reception in the White House, officially ending his political pariah status. In 1967, Mostel appeared as Potemkin in "Great Catherine," and in 1968 he took on possibly his best remembered role, as Max Bialystock in "The Producers." Mostel refused to accept the role at first, but director Mel Brooks persuaded him to show the script to his wife, who then talked Mostel into doing it. His performance received mixed reviews, and was not a great success at first, but the film has achieved cult status since. Still bitter and angry over his having been blacklisted, then injured as severely as he was, Mostel channeled his hostility into his role as Bialystock, an approach that Nathan Lane made no attempt to duplicate when he took over the role of Bialystock for the Broadway musical version or the film based on it. He lived in a beautiful and sprawling rented apartment in The Belnord on the Upper West Side of Manhattan Last years. In his last decade, Mostel showed little enthusiasm for artistic theatrical progress. Rather than choosing roles that would bring him critical acclaim or that he wanted to do, he seemed to be available for any role that paid well. The result was a succession of movies for which, for the first time since he had established himself as a performer, reviews were mixed at best. Such endeavors were "The Great Bank Robbery", "The Angel Levine", "Once Upon a Scoundrel", and "Mastermind". This caused the devaluation of his star power: once a top-billing actor, he now had to make do with featured billing, and his appearance in a movie or play no longer guaranteed success. There were a few exceptions, however: a successful revival tour of "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum", the movie version of "Rhinoceros", "The Front" (where he played Hecky Brown, a blacklisted performer whose story bears a similarity to Mostel's own, and for which he was nominated for a BAFTA Award for Best Supporting Actor), and theatrical revivals of "Fiddler" and "Ulysses in Nighttown". He also made memorable appearances in children's shows such as "Sesame Street", "The Electric Company" (for which he performed the Spellbinder in the Letterman cartoons), and gave voice to the boisterous seagull Kehaar in the animated film "Watership Down". He also appeared as a guest star during Season 2 of 'The Muppet Show', filmed during the summer of 1977. Mostel would have the distinction of being the only guest in the show's history to die before his appearance was broadcast. Death. In the last four months of his life, Mostel took on a nutritionally unsound diet (later described by his friends as a starvation diet) that reduced his weight from 304 to 215 pounds. During rehearsals for Arnold Wesker's new play "The Merchant" (in which Mostel played a re-imagined version of Shakespeare's Shylock) in Philadelphia, he collapsed in his dressing room and was taken to Thomas Jefferson University Hospital. He was diagnosed with a respiratory disorder and it was believed he was in no danger and would be released soon. However, on September 8, 1977, Mostel complained of dizziness and lost consciousness. The attending physicians were unable to revive him, and he was pronounced dead that evening. It is believed that he suffered an aortic aneurysm. Wesker wrote a book chronicling the out-of-town tribulations that beset the play and culminated in Zero's death called "The Birth of Shylock and the Death of Zero Mostel". In accordance with his final requests, his family did not stage any funeral or other memorial service to mark his death. Mostel was cremated following his death; the location of his ashes is not publicly known. Professional relationships. Mostel had often collided with directors and other performers in the course of his professional career. He was described as irreverent, believing himself to be a comic genius (many critics agreed with him) and showed little patience for incompetence. He often improvised, which was received well by audiences but which often left other performers (who were not prepared for his ad-libbed lines) confused and speechless during live performances. He often dominated the stage whether or not his role called for it. Norman Jewison stated this as a reason for preferring Chaim Topol to him for the role of Tevye in the movie version of "Fiddler on the Roof". Mostel took exception to these criticisms: "There's a kind of silliness in the theater about what one contributes to a show. The producer obviously contributes the money… but must the actor contribute nothing at all? I’m not a modest fellow about those things. I contribute a great deal. And they always manage to hang you for having an interpretation. Isn’t theater where your imagination should flower? Why must it always be dull as shit?" Other producers, such as Jerome Robbins and Hal Prince, preferred to hire Mostel on short contracts, knowing that he would become less faithful to the script as time went on. His exuberant personality, though largely responsible for his success, had also intimidated others in his profession and prevented him from receiving some important roles. In his autobiography, "Kiss Me Like A Stranger", actor Gene Wilder describes being initially terrified of Mostel. However, just after being introduced, Mostel got up, walked over to Wilder, and planted a big kiss on him. Wilder claims to be grateful to Mostel for teaching him such a valuable lesson, and for picking Wilder up every day so that they could ride to work together. He also tells the story of a dinner celebrating the release of "The Producers". Mostel switched Wilder's place card with Dick Shawn's, allowing Wilder to sit at the main table. Mostel and Wilder would later go on to work together in "Rhinoceros" and the Letterman cartoons for the children's show "The Electric Company". The two remained close friends until Mostel's death.
1130707	Constance Mary Towers (born 20 May 1933) is an American actress and singer. Early life. Towers was born in Whitefish, Montana, in 1933, the daughter of Ardath L. (née Reynolds) and Harry J. Towers (both born in Ireland according to the 1940 U.S. census.) According to her official website, she was offered a contract with Paramount Pictures at age 11, but the offer was declined by her parents. She later attended Juilliard School of Music and the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. Career. Towers has had an extensive career on both the stage and screen. She played the title role in the short-lived 1965 musical, "Anya", and appeared as Julie in a 1966 production of "Show Boat" at Lincoln Center. She played Anna Leonowens opposite Yul Brynner in a revival of "The King and I" on Broadway (1977–1978). Towers starred in number of movies including "The Horse Soldiers" (1959), "Sergeant Rutledge" (1960), "Shock Corridor" (1963), "Fate Is the Hunter", and "The Naked Kiss" (1964). In later years she appeared in "The Next Karate Kid" (1994), and "A Perfect Murder" (1998). Towers starred in several television soap operas. She played Marian Hiller, the wheelchair-bound wife of Dr. Sanford Hiller in "Love is a Many Splendored Thing"; as Clarissa McCandless in "Capitol"; as Madame Julianna Deschanel on "Sunset Beach"; as villainous Helena Cassadine on "General Hospital". Towers guest-starred in the "" episode "The Forsaken" in 1993. She has had guest roles on a number of popular television programs, including five episodes of "Perry Mason". In her first two appearances she played the murderer: Jonny Baker in "The Case of the Missing Melody" (1961), and Esther Metcalfe in "The Case of the Prankish Professor" (1963). She also appeared in "Designing Women", "Frasier", "Baywatch" and "The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air". Other television roles include "State Trooper", "Hawaii Five-O", "The Rockford Files", "L.A. Law", "The 4400", and "Cold Case". Personal life. Towers is married to actor and former ambassador to Mexico, John Gavin. She has two children from her first marriage and two stepchildren by her marriage to Gavin.
588058	Kayam is a 2011 Malayalam film directed by Anil K. Nair starring Manoj K. Jayan, Bala and Shwetha Menon in the lead roles. Plot. "Kayam" tells the story of Choonda (Manoj K. Jayan) and Thamara (Shwetha Menon). Choonda is a fisherman. He is also the leader of the Kabaddi Team of the village. Thamara is a native of the neighboring village. She has watched her mother being brutally raped and murdered. Tired with every man out there vying for her body, she flees with Choonda to his village. Sasikuttan (Bala), leader of another Kabaddi team, contests with Choonda. Choonda realizes that Sasi is his brother from whom he had been separated for long. Sasi realises the truth as well, and stays back in the village. He has also fallen in love with a local girl Muthu (Aparna). Controversy. Shwetha Menon, who played the lead role in the film has filed a complaint to take legal action against the producer for using the stills from the film for an ad of a sexual steroid pill. Swetha alleges that the scenes shot for the movie has been used to market the product without her knowledge and consent. Shwetha has also filed a complaint to the Vanitha Commission.
1164546	Liza Rebecca Weil (born June 5, 1977) is an American actress. She is known for her role as Paris Geller in the television drama "Gilmore Girls", and as former White House intern Amanda Tanner in the first season of the ABC series "Scandal". She has starred on the web drama "Anyone But Me" and guest-starred on programs such as "The Adventures of Pete & Pete", "ER", "", "Grey's Anatomy", and "The West Wing". Early life. Weil was born in New Jersey to a family of actors. Her parents, Lisa and Marc Weil, toured Europe with their own comedy troupe, The Madhouse Company of London with her in tow. Weil had aspirations of becoming an archaeologist in her younger years, because of the "Indiana Jones" film trilogy and a childhood crush on Harrison Ford. In 1984, at the age of seven, her family settled down in suburban Lansdale, Pennsylvania, a community north-northwest of Philadelphia, where her parents continue to reside. In contrast to her "Gilmore Girls" character, Weil was a self-avowed average student in high school who focused more on her budding acting career than her studies. Weil traveled frequently to New York City for professional auditions, and acted in productions both off-Broadway and in Philadelphia's theatrical community before pursuing her film and television career. She is a 1995 graduate of the borough's North Penn High School. Career. Weil continues to be active in the Los Angeles theatrical community during hiatuses, is a regular performer at the Ojai Playwrights Conference in early August and radio dramas with L.A. Theatre Works, and still occasionally performs in live theater in Philadelphia and New York. She has acted with every member of her family; in 2004, she headlined with her father in a well-received community theater production of "Proof" at the Montgomery Theater in Souderton, Pennsylvania, just north of her adopted hometown of Lansdale. Her first ever television role in 1994, which was an episode of "The Adventures of Pete & Pete" called "Yellow Fever", found her playing a bully alongside her mother Lisa, who played a teacher. Finally her younger sister Samantha shared the screen with Liza in "Gilmore Girls"'s third season finale, "Those Are Strings, Pinocchio". Samantha Weil played a student named Bernadette (who was unrelated to Paris) making out a video yearbook entry in front of an impatient Paris, standing off to the side waiting to make her own. An alumna of Columbia University, Weil received her first major feature film role co-starring with Kevin Bacon in "Stir of Echoes". Before that role, she was the star of the 1998 independent film "Whatever", and her first film in 1996 was the short film "A Cure For Serpents", where she played the daughter of a mysophobic woman bringing to her home a boyfriend who was not as obsessive with cleanliness, and how the mother deals with the challenge. She has also done several other short and feature-length independent films, which include "Motel Jerusalem", "Scar", and "Lullaby", and shown interest in behind-the-camera work. Weil was originally considered for the role of Rory Gilmore by "Gilmore Girls" creator Amy Sherman-Palladino before Alexis Bledel won the role; the character of Paris Geller was created especially for Weil. Current work. In 2006, Weil was featured in the horror themed short film "Grace", in which her character suffers a miscarriage, yet decides to carry the baby to term with terrifying results. The film, which also featured Brian Austin Green, premiered at the Fangoria Weekend of Horrors convention on June 2, 2006, and is the basis for the 2009 feature film of the same name. She also had a minor role as a humane society worker in the Molly Shannon film "Year of the Dog", and appeared as Doris Delay in the 2008 biographical film "Neal Cassady", and as a reporter in the 2010 live-action rotoscoping film "Mars", which is currently on the film festival circuit. Weil also voiced a public service announcement which aired from June–October 2007 and aired on radio stations in Philadelphia and the Delaware Valley in support of the American Diabetes Association's "Step Up to Fight Diabetes" staircase climb event, which took place in Center City Philadelphia on October 20, 2007. In 2009 Weil returned to her roots as a regular guest star in various television series, including appearances in "Eleventh Hour", "", "In Plain Sight", "Grey's Anatomy" and "Private Practice" and in February 2010 began a run as Dr. Glass on the popular Internet series "Anyone But Me"; series creator Susan Miller officiated at Weil's wedding to Paul Adelstein in 2006. In March 2011 it was confirmed that Weil had signed for the role of Amanda Tanner, a White House intern, in Shonda Rhimes's pilot, "Scandal", for ABC. It was picked up by the network for their midseason 2011-12 schedule on May 13, 2011, and Weil had a recurring, though critical role in the series' first season. Weil played a supporting role in the horror film "Smiley", and started 2013 as a recurring guest star in the last half of the only season of Amy Sherman-Palladino's ABC Family series "Bunheads" as Milly, the sister of Truly Stone. Personal life. As of 2006, Weil resided in Santa Monica and is a film and movie buff. She married actor Paul Adelstein in a Jewish ceremony in November 2006. They had previously known each other through theatrical projects. The two have since acted together in three film projects, the 2007 short "Order Up", the 2008 Gregory Dark-helmed "Frenemy", and "The Missing Person". She also appeared in an episode of "Private Practice" on February 24, 2011, although she and Adelstein had no scenes together. Weil became pregnant in mid-2009 with her and Adelstein's first child, a girl named Josephine Elizabeth Weil-Adelstein, who was born around April 20, 2010. In 2006, she also became an aunt, when her sister Samantha had a child after she moved to the Los Angeles area. Weil is left-handed, and a natural brunette, having that hair color through at least 2000; it is believed she was told to dye it dark-blonde for her "Gilmore Girls" role to contrast with Bledel/Rory's brown hair. After the series, she went back to her original brown hair color, though has subsequently returned to being a blonde. Amy Sherman-Palladino has complimented Weil's skin as "the best she's ever seen in her life".
1079819	Alfred Russel Wallace (8 January 1823 – 7 November 1913) was a British naturalist, explorer, geographer, anthropologist and biologist. He is best known for independently conceiving the theory of evolution through natural selection; his paper on the subject was jointly published with some of Charles Darwin's writings in 1858. This prompted Darwin to publish his own ideas in "On the Origin of Species". Wallace did extensive fieldwork, first in the Amazon River basin and then in the Malay Archipelago, where he identified the Wallace Line that divides the Indonesian archipelago into two distinct parts: a western portion in which the animals are largely of Asian origin, and an eastern portion where the fauna reflect Australasia.
1063865	"Summer of '42" is a 1971 American coming-of-age comedy-drama film based on the memoirs of screenwriter Herman Raucher. It tells the story of how Raucher, in his early teens on his 1942 summer vacation on Nantucket Island, off the coast of New England, embarked on a one-sided romance with a woman, Dorothy, whose husband had gone off to fight in World War II. The film was directed by Robert Mulligan, and starred Gary Grimes as Hermie, Jerry Houser as his best friend Oscy, Oliver Conant as their nerdy young friend Benjie, Jennifer O'Neill as Hermie's mysterious love interest, and Katherine Allentuck and Christopher Norris as a pair of girls whom Hermie and Oscy attempt to seduce. Mulligan also has an uncredited role as the voice of the adult Hermie. Maureen Stapleton (Allentuck's real-life mother) also appears in a small, uncredited voice role (calling after Hermie as he leaves the house in an early scene, and after he enters his room in a later scene). Raucher's novelization of his screenplay of the same name was released prior to the film's release and became a runaway bestseller, to the point that audiences lost sight of the fact that the book was based on the film and not vice-versa. Though a pop culture phenomenon in the first half of the 1970s, the novelization went out of print and slipped into obscurity throughout the next two decades until a Broadway adaptation in 2001 brought it back into the public light and prompted Barnes & Noble to acquire the publishing rights to the book. Synopsis. The film opens with a series of still photographs appearing over melancholic music, representing the abstract memories of the unseen Herman Raucher, now a middle-aged man. We then hear Raucher recalling the summer he spent on the island in 1942. The film flashes back to a day that then 15-year-old "Hermie" and his friends – jock Oscy and introverted nerd Benjie – spent playing on the beach. They spot a young soldier carrying his new bride into a house on the beach and are struck by her beauty, especially Hermie, who is unable to get her out of his mind. They continue spending afternoons on the beach where, in the midst of scantily-clad teenage girls, their thoughts invariably turn to sex. All of them are virgins: Oscy is obsessed with the act of sex, while Hermie finds himself developing romantic interest in the bride, whose husband he spots leaving the island on a water taxi one morning. Later that day, Hermie finds her trying to carry bags of groceries by herself, and helps get them back to her house. They strike up a friendship and he agrees to return to help her with chores. Meanwhile, Oscy and Hermie, thanks to a sex manual discovered by Benjie, become convinced they know everything necessary to lose their virginity. Led by Oscy, they test this by going to the cinema and picking-up a trio of high-school girls. Oscy stakes out the most attractive one, Miriam, "giving" Hermie her less attractive friend, Aggie, and leaving Benjie with Gloria, a heavyset girl with braces. Frightened by the immediacy of sex, Benjie runs off, and is not seen by Hermie or Oscy again that night. Hermie and Oscy spend the entirety of the evening's film attempting to "put the moves" on Miriam and Aggie. Oscy pursues Miriam, eventually making out with her during the movie, and later learns her ways are well-known on the island. Hermie finds himself succeeding with Aggie, who allows him to grope what he thinks is her breast; Oscy later points out Hermie was fondling her arm. The next morning, Hermie helps the bride move boxes into her attic and she thanks him by giving him a kiss on the forehead. Later, in preparation for a marshmallow roast on the beach with Aggie and Miriam, Hermie goes to the local drugstore. In a painfully humorous sequence he builds up the nerve to ask for condoms. That night, Hermie roasts marshmallows with Aggie while Oscy succeeds in having sex with Miriam between the dunes. He is so successful he sneaks over to Hermie and Aggie to ask for more condoms. Confused as to what's happening, Aggie follows Oscy back, where she sees him having sex with Miriam and runs home, upset. The next day, Hermie comes across the bride sitting outside her house, writing to her husband. Hermie offers to keep her company that night and she says she looks forward to seeing him, revealing her name is Dorothy. An elated Hermie goes home and puts on a suit, dress shirt and heads back to Dorothy's house, running into Oscy on the way; Oscy relates that Miriam's appendix burst and she's been rushed to the mainland. Hermie, convinced he is at the brink of adulthood because of his relationship with Dorothy, brushes Oscy off. He heads to her house, which is eerily quiet. Going in, he discovers a bottle of whiskey, several cigarette butts, and a telegram from the government. Dorothy's husband is dead, his plane shot down over France. Dorothy comes out of her bedroom, crying, and Hermie tells her "I'm sorry." The sense of empathy triggers her to channel to Hermie some of her loneliness. She turns on the record player and invites Hermie to dance with her. They kiss and embrace, tears on both their faces. Without speaking, and to the sound only of the waves, they move to the bedroom, where she draws him into bed and gently makes love with him. Afterward, withdrawing again into her world of hurt, Dorothy retires to the porch, leaving Hermie alone in her bedroom. He approaches her on the porch, where she can only quietly say "Good night, Hermie." He leaves, his last image of Dorothy being of her leaning against the railing, as she smokes a cigarette and stares into the night sky. At dawn Hermie meets Oscy and the two share a moment of reconciliation, with Oscy informing Hermie that Miriam will recover. Oscy, in an uncharacteristic act of sensitivity, lets Hermie be by himself, departing with the words, "Sometimes life is one big pain in the ass." Trying to sort out what has happened, Hermie goes back to Dorothy's house. Dorothy has fled the island in the night and an envelope is tacked to the front door with Hermie's name on it. Inside is a note from Dorothy, saying she hopes he understands she must go back home as there is much to do. She assures Hermie she will never forget him, and he will find his way of remembering what happened that night. Her note closes with the hope that Hermie may be spared the senseless tragedies of life. In the final scene, Hermie, suddenly approaching manhood, is seen looking at Dorothy's old house and the ocean from a distance before he turns to join his friends. To bittersweet music, the adult Raucher sadly recounts that he has never seen Dorothy again or learned what became of her. Production. Herman Raucher wrote the film script in the 1950s during his tenure as a television writer, but "couldn't give it away." In the 1960s, he met Robert Mulligan, who had just finished directing "To Kill a Mockingbird". Raucher showed Mulligan the script, and Mulligan took it to Warner Bros., knowing that the studio was looking for a follow up to "Mockingbird". Mulligan argued the film could be shot for the relatively low price of $1 million, and Warner approved it. They had so little faith in the film becoming a box-office success, though, they shied from paying Raucher outright for the script, instead promising him ten percent of the gross. When casting for the role of Dorothy, Warner Bros. declined to audition any actresses younger than the age of 30; Jennifer O'Neill's agent, who had developed a fondness for the script, convinced the studio to audition his client, who was only 22 at the time. O'Neill auditioned for the role, albeit hesitantly, not wanting to perform any nude scenes. O'Neill got the role and Mulligan agreed to find a way to make the film work without blatant nudity. Though the film took place on Nantucket, by the 1970s the island was too far modernized to be convincingly transformed to resemble a 1940s resort, so production was taken to Mendocino, California, on the West Coast of the US. Shooting took place over eight weeks, during which Jennifer O'Neill was sequestered from the three boys cast as "The Terrible Trio," in order to ensure that they didn't become close and ruin the sense of awkwardness and distance that their characters felt towards Dorothy. Production ran smoothly, finishing on schedule. After production, Warner Bros., still wary about the film only being a minor success, asked Raucher to adapt his script into a book. Raucher wrote it in three weeks, and Warner Bros. released it prior to the film to build interest in the story. The book quickly became a national bestseller, so that when trailers premiered in theatres, the film was billed as being "based on the national bestseller," despite the film having been completed first. Ultimately, the book became one of the best selling novels of the first half of the 1970s, requiring 23 re-prints between 1971 and 1974 to keep up with customer demand. Factual basis. The film (and subsequent novel) were memoirs written by Herman Raucher; they detailed the events in his life over the course of the summer he spent on Nantucket Island in 1942 when he was fourteen years old. Originally, the film was meant to be a tribute to his friend Oscar "Oscy" Seltzer, an Army medic killed in the Korean War. Seltzer was shot dead on a battlefield in Korea whilst attending to a wounded man; this happened on Raucher's birthday, and consequently, Raucher has not celebrated a birthday since. During the course of writing the screenplay, Raucher came to the realization that despite growing up with Oscy and having bonded with him through their formative years, the two had never really had any meaningful conversations or gotten to know one another on a more personal level. Instead, Raucher decided to focus on the first major adult experience of his life, that of falling in love for the first time. The woman (named Dorothy, like her screen counterpart) was a fellow vacationer on the island whom Raucher had befriended one day when he helped her carry groceries home; he became a friend of her and her husband and helped her with chores after her husband was called to fight in World War II. Raucher went to bed with her one night when he came to visit her, arriving only minutes after she received notification of her husband's death. The next morning, Raucher discovered that she had left the island, leaving behind a note for him (which is read at the end of the film and reproduced in the book). He never saw her again; his last "encounter" with her, recounted on an episode of "The Mike Douglas Show", came after the film's release in 1971, when she was one of over a dozen women who wrote letters to Raucher claiming to be "his" Dorothy. Raucher recognized the "real" Dorothy's handwriting, and she confirmed her identity by making references to certain events only she could have known about. She told Raucher that she had lived for years with the guilt that she had potentially traumatized him and ruined his life. She told Raucher that she was glad he turned out all right, and that they had best not re-visit the past. In a 2002 Scripps Treasure Coast Publishing interview, Raucher lamented never hearing from her again and expressed his hope that she was still alive. Raucher's novelization of the screenplay, with the dedication, "To those I love, past and present," serves more as the tribute to Seltzer that he had intended the film to be, with the focus of the book being more on the two boys' relationship than Raucher's relationship with Dorothy. Consequently, the book also mentions Seltzer's death, which is absent from the film adaptation. Reception and awards. The film became a blockbuster upon its release, grossing over $32 million, making it the sixth highest-grossing film of 1971 and one of the most successful films in history, with an expense-to-profit ratio of 1:32; beyond that, it is estimated video rentals and purchases in the United States since the 1980s have produced an additional $20.5 million. On this point, Raucher said in May 2002 that his ten percent of the gross, in addition to royalties from book sales, "has paid bills ever since." As well as being a commercial success, "Summer of '42" also received rave critical reviews. It went on to be nominated for over a dozen awards, including Golden Globe Awards for "Best Motion Picture – Drama" and "Best Director", and five Academy Award nominations for Best Original Music Score, Best Cinematography, Best Editing, Best Writing-Story and Best Screenplay. Ultimately, the film won two awards: the 1972 44th Academy Awards Oscar for Original Dramatic Score, and the 1971 BAFTA Anthony Asquith Award for Film Music, both to Michel Legrand. It counted among its fans Stanley Kubrick, who had the film play on a television in a scene in "The Shining". Sequel. In 1973, the film was followed by "Class of '44", a slice-of-life film made up of vignettes about Herman Raucher and Oscar Seltzer's experiences in college prior to fighting in the Korean War; because the timeline of Raucher's life was altered for "Summer of '42," "Class of '44" involves the boys facing army service in the closing days of WWII rather than Korea. The only crew member from "Summer of '42" to return to the project was Raucher himself, who wrote the script; a new director and composer were brought in to replace Mulligan and Legrand. Of the principal four cast members of "Summer of '42", only Jerry Houser and Gary Grimes returned for prominent roles, with Oliver Conant making two brief appearances totaling less than two minutes of screen time. Jennifer O'Neill did not appear in the film at all, nor was the character of Dorothy mentioned. The film is noted for featuring a young, slim John Candy briefly appearing in his first film role. The film met with poor critical reviews; the only three reviews available at Rotten Tomatoes are resoundingly negative, with Channel 4 calling it "a big disappointment," and "The New York Times" stating "The only things worth attention in 'Class of 44' are the period details," and "'Class of '44' seems less like a movie than 95 minutes of animated wallpaper." Soundtrack. The film's soundtrack consists almost entirely of compositions by Michel Legrand, many of which are variants upon "The Summer Knows", the film's theme. Lyrics are by Marilyn and Alan Bergman. In addition to Legrand's scoring, the film also features the song "Hold Tight" by The Andrews Sisters and the theme from "Now, Voyager". Cultural impact. Music. Legrand's theme song for the film, "The Summer Knows," has since become a pop standard, being recorded by such artists as Peter Nero (who had a charting hit with his 1971 version), Biddu, Tony Bennett, Frank Sinatra, Sarah Vaughan, Andy Williams, Jonny Fair, Scott Walker, Jackie Evancho, Oscar Peterson, Bill Evans, Toots Thielemans,and Barbra Streisand. The 1973 song "Summer (The First Time)" by Bobby Goldsboro has almost exactly the same subject and apparent setting, although there is no direct credited link. Bryan Adams has, however, credited the film as being a partial inspiration for his 1985 hit "Summer of '69." Film and television. In Stanley Kubrick's 1980 film version of Stephen King's "The Shining", Wendy (Shelley Duvall) is shown watching "Summer of '42" on television (a brief clip of the scene featuring Hermie helping Dorothy bring her groceries in the house is playing on the television in the background during the scene). An episode of the 1970s sitcom "Happy Days" was loosely based upon "Summer of '42," with Richie Cunningham befriending a Korean War widow. Remakes. In the years since the film's release, Warner Bros. has attempted to buy back Raucher's ten percent of the film as well as his rights to the story so it could be remade; Raucher has consistently declined. The 1988 film "Stealing Home" has numerous similarities to both "Summer of '42" and "Class of '44", with several incidents (most notably a subplot dealing with the premature death of the protagonist's father and the protagonist's response to it) appearing to have been directly lifted from Raucher's own life; Jennifer O'Neill stated in 2002 she believes ""Home"" was an attempted remake of ""Summer"." There are also similarities between "Summer of '42" and 2000's "Malèna," another coming-of-age film set in the context of World War II, and starring Monica Bellucci and Giuseppe Sulfaro. Off-Broadway musical. In 2001, Raucher consented to the film being made into an off Broadway musical play. He was on hand opening night, giving the cast a pep-talk which he concluded, "We've now done it every possible way – except go out and piss it in the snow!" The play met with positive critical and fan response, and was endorsed by Raucher himself, but the play was forced to close down in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks. Nevertheless, the play was enough to spark interest in the film and book with a new generation, prompting Warner to re-issue the book (which had since gone out of print, along with all of Raucher's other works) for sale with Barnes & Noble's online bookstore, and to restore the film and release it on DVD. The musical has since been performed across the country, at venues such as Kalliope Stage in Cleveland Heights, Ohio in 2004 (directed by Paul Gurgol) and Mill Mountain Theatre in Roanoke, Virginia, (directed by Jere Hodgin and choreographed by Bernard Monroe), and was subsequently recorded as a concert by the York Theatre Company in 2006. More recently, the show received its UK Premiere in Liverpool being performed by 2nd Year Acting Students on the Liverpool Institute of Performing Arts' BA Acting (Hons) programme. Alternate sequel. In 2002, O'Neill claimed to have obtained the rights to make a sequel to "Summer of '42", based on a short story she wrote, which took place in an alternate reality where Herman Raucher had a son and divorced his wife, went back to Nantucket in 1962 with a still-living Oscar Seltzer, and encountered Dorothy again and married her. As of 2006, this project – which O'Neill had hoped to produce with Lifetime television – has not been realized, and it is unknown whether O'Neill is still attempting to get it produced, or if Raucher consented to its production.
1067648	Deborah Rush (born April 10, 1954) is an American actress.
1141112	Garden of Evil (1954) is a Western film about three somewhat disreputable 19th-century soldiers of fortune, played by Gary Cooper, Richard Widmark, and Cameron Mitchell, who are hired by a woman, portrayed by Susan Hayward, to rescue her husband. The movie was directed by Henry Hathaway.
583728	Kannathil Muthamittal (; ) is a 2002 Tamil drama film directed and produced by Mani Ratnam. It features P. S. Keerthana, Madhavan and Simran in the leading roles with Nandita Das, J. D. Chakravarthy, Prakash Raj and Pasupathy portraying other pivotal characters. The film's score and soundtrack were composed by A. R. Rahman, while Ravi K. Chandran handled the cinematography. Mani Ratnam presents the story of a child of Sri Lankan Tamil parentage adopted by Indian parents, who desires to meet her biological mother during the midst of the Sri Lankan Civil War. The film premiered at the 2002 Toronto International Film Festival, and was selected as India's official entry to the 2004 Cannes Film Festival. It also received a strong reception when screened at the San Francisco International Film Festival in 2003. The film received high critical acclaim upon release and went on to win six National Film Awards, six Filmfare Awards South and Best Film awards at six international film festivals. Plot. The film begins in a small village in Sri Lanka called Mankulam, where a Sri Lankan Tamil woman Shyama (Nandita Das) gets married to Dileepan (J. D. Chakravarthy), who along with few other Sri Lankan Tamils in the village (including Shyama's elder brother) is part of the Tamil Tigers rebel association, which fights for the Eelam Tamil Nation. While romancing each other at a mud river after marriage, the couple hear sounds of Sri Lankan army troops approaching. He asks Shyama to leave for her safety while he remains in the forest. What happened to Dileepan after that remains a mystery. as Shyama realizes that she is pregnant and waits in vain for Dileepan to return. Her villagers begin fleeing to India to seek refuge as the war between LTTE and the Sri Lankan army goes full scale, affecting their village in the process. Shyama is initially stubborn to leave since one of the men says that he has seen Dileepan with bullet wounds in the forest near the mud lake, but her relatives convince her that she has to seek refuge for the sake of her to-be-born child. The villagers board a boat to the shores of Rameswaram, which is a famous refugee hub for Sri Lankan Tamils. While a local collector takes down the names of the refugees, Shyama's water breaks and she gives birth to a baby girl. However, as soon as the baby is born, her urge to find her husband and be with her people back home overwhelms her and she leaves behind the newborn girl in hopes that the girl will lead a better life. The film later shifts focus to nine years later in Chennai where a young exuberant girl Amudha (P. S. Keerthana) narrates about her family life. She introduces her short-tempered but talented father, writer Thiruchelvan (R. Madhavan), who uses the pen name 'Indira' for his books. Indira (Simran Bagga) is Amudha's mother, while she has a younger brother named Vinay, with whom she always has childish frictions, and another younger brother called Akhil. Amudha's ninth birthday approaches and both her parents take her to the temple early in the morning. Indira later reminds Thiruchelvan that they have promised themselves to reveal 'the truth' to Amudha on her ninth birthday. After praying in the temple, Thiruchelvan brings Amudha to the beach, and she runs around in the beach, he reveals the truth that she was adopted and is not their biological daughter. She was adopted from a refugee camp in Rameswaram after her parents abandoned her. Amudha is heavily disturbed after hearing the news and begins comparing and distancing herself from the family, seeing herself as an outsider. Indira's father criticizes them for revealing the truth to her at such a young age, but Thiruchelvan and Indira are certain they have taken the right decision. Amudha asks her parents to tell her the story of how she comes to be adopted. The film then flashes to nine years previously in Rameswaram, where Thiruchelvan, then a budding writer, constantly travels to the refugee camp and writes stories inspired by the people there. At one such instance, Thiruchelvan sees a newborn baby girl, and writes a short story about why her mother found the urge to abandon her child and return to a war-ridden land. Indira is his neighbour, and has always expressed interest in him. Thiruchelvan, after a while, finds the urge to adopt the small baby girl and raise her, but realizes that he will not be allowed to do so until he is married. He then proposes to Indira (in whom he is also interested) in order to be able to adopt the baby. Indira suggests the name 'Amudha' after seeing the baby once, and then adopt the baby after they marry each other. Vinay was born few years after their marriage, followed by the younger brother, and thus, the family happened. Even after hearing this, Amudha is rebellious and dissatisfied. She requests to meet her biological mother at all costs despite Indira's insistence that they can't possibly find the mother even if they wanted to. Thiruchelvan finally gives in and promises to take Amudha to Sri Lanka to find her biological mother. The three of them (excluding the two boys who are left under the care of their grandfather) travel to Sri Lanka and are greeted by Dr. Herold Vikramsinghe (Prakash Raj) who is a Sinhalese, their guide during the trip. Dr. Herold Vikramsinghe too helps to find her biological mother. At Lanka, Amudha and Indira's relationship strains as Amudha becomes increasingly rude at her mother while urging to find her real mother, while the family witnesses civil violence first hand as they travel to a village that is being bombed by the army to find Shyama only to realize that they have discovered the wrong Shyama. While taking a walk in the jungles and ideologically talking about violence, civil war and western manipulation, Thiruchelvan and Vikramsinghe are captured by a group of LTTE rebels. Thiruchelvan immediately recites Tamil poetry and is identified as a Tamil writer by the group's leader (Pasupathy). Thiruchelvan explains his motives of coming to the country, and even mentions the only evidence that he has regarding Amudha's mother - that her name is Shyama. The group leader arranges a meet and says he will bring Shyama there, and it is later revealed that Shyama is the group leader's sister, with her also being part of the LTTE rebels living in seclusion. The next day, on the meet, Vikramsinghe, Amudha, Indira, and Thiruchelvan wait at the told spot, but a sudden series of bombings break out at the place as the Sri Lankan army tries to infiltrate the hiding of the rebels in a building nearby. Vikramsinghe urges that they leave the place but Amudha stays stubborn, causing Indira to be shot in her arm. The family finally leaves the place, and Amudha, shaken by what she saw and what happened to her mother apologizes and asks that all of them leave the country and return home. The next day, the family leaves for the airport but unexpectedly, Indira requests that they drive through the meeting spot one more time. As they wait in the car parked at the spot, an auto comes by and Shyama gets down from the vehicle. The meeting finally takes place and Amudha asks Shyama a series of questions as to why Shyama abandoned her. Shyama is unable to answer to all of those questions, but also insists that her life will remain fighting for her people in her country and that Amudha should live happily with her adopted parents. Shyama leaves after that. The film ends with Thiruchelvan, Amudha, and Indira hugging each other as Shyama leaves, and a teary-eyed Amudha kisses her parents, re-affirming her love for them. Production. Like other Mani Ratnam projects, the film began production with very little official publicity in early 2001 with the media covering the project as either "Manjal Kudai" (Yellow Umbrella) or "Kudaigal" (Umbrellas). The film was reported of a trilogy of films based on love and peace in the backdrop of war - after "Roja" (1992) and "Bombay" (1995) - with Mani Ratnam choosing to base the film with the backdrop of the Sri Lankan Civil War. Madhavan was signed up to play a leading role in the film, with the venture becoming his third straight Mani Ratnam project after "Alaipayuthey" and the Mani Ratnam production, "Dumm Dumm Dumm". For the role of Indira, Mani Ratnam considered casting either Rani Mukerji, Soundarya or relative newcomer Bhumika Chawla, before finalising Simran to portray the character. Madhavan and Simran thus shot for two films simultaneously together, as they had also been cast in K. Balachandar's "Paarthale Paravasam" as a married couple. Nandita Das was also roped in for the film, making her debut in Tamil films, and in a later interview mentioned that the team shot for nearly thirteen hours a day. P. S. Keerthana, the second daughter of actors Parthiban and Seetha, was cast the child artiste in the film, while Prakash Raj and J. D. Chakravarthy were also roped in. The title of the film was finally announced as "Kannathil Muthammittal" (A peck on the cheek) in July 2001, after a famous phrase from a poem written by Subramanya Bharathi. Parts of the film shown to be Colombo in the film were shot in Puducherry. Further schedules were carried out in the forests of Kerala to depict the base of the LTTE in northern Sri Lanka. As most of the cast were non-native Tamil speakers, dubbing artistes were used with actresses Suganya and Deepa Venkat lending their voices for Nandita Das and Simran respectively. Furthermore Mounika lent her voice for Easwari Rao's character, while Thalaivasal Vijay spoke lines for Chakravarthy. Soundtrack. The film soundtrack features score and 6 songs composed by A. R. Rahman, with lyrics by Vairamuthu. Sinhalese lyrics for the song "Signore Signore" were by B. H. Abdul Hameed. It was released in India on 4 February 2002 by the label TIPS to acclaim, and quickly became popular. The score and soundtrack of the film fetched A. R. Rahman his fourth National Film Award for Best Music Direction and another National Film Award for Best Lyrics for lyricist Vairamuthu. Amrutha (Telugu) Awards. The film has won the following awards since its release: 2002 Filmfare Awards South (India) 2003 National Film Awards (India) 2003 International Tamil Film Awards (ITFA)
583566	Tathastu is a 2006 Hindi film directed by Anubhav Sinha. It is based on the film John Q. "Tathastu" is a common Sanskrit phrase meaning, 'So be it'. Plot summary. Ravi Rajput comes from a poor family; his father was a foreman at a mill, and could not afford to send Ravi to a private school. Ravi studied in Municipal school, got a job in a mill, got married to Saru, who subsequently gave birth to their son, Gaurav. The proud parents watch as Gaurav grows up, starting walking, talking, and feigning illness just to stay home and watch World Cup Cricket. Their lives are turned upside down when Gaurav faints while playing cricket.
1055952	Greased Lightning is a 1977 American biographical film, starring Richard Pryor, Beau Bridges, and Pam Grier, and directed by Michael Schultz. "Greased Lightning" is a film loosely based on the true life story of Wendell Scott, the first African American stock car racing champion in the United States. "Greased Lightning" was partially filmed in Winder, Georgia and Madison, Georgia. Plot. Wendell Scott, a taxi cab driver in post-World War II, learns his craft for car racing by transporting illegal moonshine in the backwoods of Virginia. By the mid-1960s, he was a veteran driver who had won his battles with the white racetrack owners and police officers.
1015886	Natalis "Nat" Chan, born 3 December 1950 in Hong Kong, is a Hong Kong television host, film actor and producer. Besides his duties as a variety show host, he has also been a horse racing commentator and horse trainer. In total, his horses have won 54 races, including the hard to achieve triple-trifecta six times. In the recent decade, he invested in Star East with Eric Tsang.
1062922	Denise Lee Richards (born February 17, 1971) is an American actress and former fashion model. She has appeared in films, including "Starship Troopers" (1997), "Wild Things" (1998), "Drop Dead Gorgeous" (1999) "The World Is Not Enough" (1999) as a Bond girl and in "Valentine" (2001). She later appeared in "Scary Movie 3" (2003), "Love Actually" (2003), "Edmond" (2005), "Madea's Witness Protection" (2012), and "Ted" (2012). She appeared in guest arcs on television series such as "Melrose Place" (1996), "Spin City" (2001) and "Two and a Half Men" (2003). She also played Monica and Ross Geller's cousin on "Friends" (2001). In 2008-2009, she starred on the E! reality TV show "". In 2010-2011, she was a series regular on the comedy "Blue Mountain State". In 2012, she made guest appearances on "30 Rock", "Anger Management" and "90210". She currently stars in the ABC Family series "Twisted", on which she plays a fallen socialite and mother of a murderer. Early life. Richards was born in Downers Grove, Illinois, the daughter of Joni Lee, a coffee shop owner, and Irv Richards (born 1950), a telephone engineer. She has one sister, Michelle. Her ancestry includes German, French-Canadian, Irish, English, Dutch, Welsh and Croatian. Richards grew up in both Mokena and Downers Grove. She graduated in 1989 from El Camino High School in Oceanside, California. As a child, she was the "only girl on the baseball team." Career. She spent the majority of the 1990s appearing in lower-budget films and television shows such as "Saved by the Bell", television movies, and guest starring in episodes of several television shows such as "Married with Children" (1991), a five-second walk through. She later made guest appearances in shows such as "Beverly Hills, 90210" (1992), "Seinfeld" (1993), "Lois and Clark" (1994) and a guest-arc in "Melrose Place" (1996). Her first starring role in a wide theatrical release was Paul Verhoeven's "Starship Troopers" in 1997. The film grossed over $121,214,377 worldwide and Richards was nominated for the Blockbuster Entertainment Award for Favourite Female Newcomer. She followed this with a role in the 1998 erotic thriller, "Wild Things". "Variety" praised Richard's transition from good girl type roles to manipulative villainess and the review continued to include her as part of "an ensemble that appears to be enjoying the challenge of offbeat roles and unusual material. There's not a wrong note struck by the game group of players." In 1998, she appeared in the music video for the Blues Traveler song "Canadian Rose". Richards was cast as the nuclear physicist Christmas Jones in the 1999 James Bond film "The World Is Not Enough" (1999). Though she considered her role "brainy", "athletic", and having depth of character, she was criticized as not credible in the role. Her outfit, which often comprised a low-cut tank top and tight shorts, elicited comments. She was ranked as one of the worst Bond girls of all time by "Entertainment Weekly" in 2008, and was chosen as "Worst Supporting Actress" at the 1999 Razzie Awards for the role, although, Richards was also nominated for the Blockbuster Entertainment Award for Favourite Actress – Action, for the same film. Later that year, Richards starred alongside Kirsten Dunst in the beauty pageant satire, "Drop Dead Gorgeous". Richards, playing a spoiled princess, was praised for her performance by "Los Angeles Times" for being "as rightly nasty as she is pretty." In 2001, she guest-starred in "Friends" as Ross and Monica Geller's cousin, Cassie Geller in the episode "The One with Ross and Monica's Cousin". Later that year she appeared in four episodes of "Spin City" as Jennifer Duncan, a love interest of Charlie Sheen's character. She starred as Sheen's character's ex-girlfriend two years later in two episodes of "Two and a Half Men". In 2005, she starred in the short-lived UPN series "Sex, Love & Secrets". Richards appeared in films such as "Valentine" (2001), "Undercover Brother" (2002) and "Scary Movie 3" (2003). In 2003, she made a very brief appearance in the British romantic comedy, "Love Actually". In 2005, she starred in the ensemble drama, "Edmond" alongside Julia Stiles. In December 2004, she posed for a nude pictorial in "Playboy" magazine, five months after giving birth. Richards posed semi-nude for the July 2006 issue of "Jane" magazine to raise money for the Clothes Off Our Back Foundation. In 1999, she ranked 9th in "Maxim's" 50 Sexiest Women and in 2001 she was voted 2nd in "FHM's" USA 100 Sexiest Women, 5th in "FHMs 100 Sexiest Women and 19th in AskMen.com's 50 Most Beautiful Women. She was named one of the "100 Hottest Women of All-Time" by "Men's Health". In 2008, she reunited with her "Wild Things" screen-mother, Theresa Russell in "Jolene". The independent drama, also starring Jessica Chastain was praised by the "The New York Observer" as it "boasts a terrific cast" and that "you go away exhilarated" from this "engaging" film. Richards appeared on the 8th season of "Dancing with the Stars", paired with Maksim Chmerkovskiy. She was eliminated second on March 24, 2009. In 2010 she joined the cast of "Blue Mountain State", a Spike comedy series. Richards plays Debra, the ex-wife of Coach Daniels. In July 2011, Richards published a memoir "The Real Girl Next Door", a New York Times Best Seller. Richards will be a part of TV Guide Network's upcoming show, "Hollywood Moms' Club", which airs in November 2011. In September 2011, Richards reportedly turned down $100,000 to appear as an ex-girlfriend at Charlie's funeral in "Two and a Half Men". A month later, she began filming a guest spot for a forthcoming episode for the sixth season of NBC comedy "30 Rock". In 2012, Richards joined the cast of ABC Family pilot, "Twisted" (formerly "Socio"). In February 2013, ABC Family commissioned the drama for a full series. Personal life. Marriage to Charlie Sheen and children. Richards first met actor Charlie Sheen on the set of "Good Advice" in 2000. However they did not begin dating until October 2001, when Richards guest-starred on Sheen's TV show "Spin City". They became engaged on December 26, 2001, and married on June 15, 2002, at the estate of "Spin City" creator Gary David Goldberg. They have two daughters together, Sam J. Sheen (born March 9, 2004) and Lola Rose Sheen (born June 1, 2005). In March 2005, while pregnant with their second daughter, Richards filed for divorce from Sheen. The couple briefly reconciled and sought marriage counselling. However, on January 4, 2006, Richards' representative announced that she was continuing with the divorce. She later sought a restraining order against Sheen, alleging death threats against her. On April 19, 2006, Richards filed formal legal papers seeking a divorce from Sheen under the laws of the state of California. In 2008, Richards decided to include her two daughters with Charlie Sheen in her confessional reality program on E!, "", which premiered on May 26, 2008. He deemed her plans "greedy, vain and exploitative". On January 25, 2008, Richards won a court case against Sheen so that she could include her daughters in the show. When a judge rejected Sheen's request to block it, Sheen urged fans to boycott it. An agreement was reached between Sheen and Richards in the custody of the children, with Sheen stating in April 2009 that “we had to do what’s best for the girls.” In June 2011, Richards adopted a third daughter, Eloise Joni, as a single parent. Her middle name is that of Richards' mother, who died from cancer in December 2007. Richards adopted her at birth domestically within the United States, following a two-year adoption process. By summer 2012, Richards and Sheen were on good terms, often spending time together with their children. In 2012, he made a cameo appearance in her movie "Madea's Witness Protection" and she appeared in Sheen's television series, "Anger Management" on the FX network. In a move supported by Sheen, in May 2013, Richards was awarded temporary custody of Bob and Max, the twin sons born in 2009 to Sheen and third wife Brooke Mueller, after the children were removed from Mueller's home by child protective services due to concerns over drug use. Richards had previously cared for the children on other occasions as well, including during Mueller's December 2012 stint in rehab for addiction to Adderall. Image. In 1990, at age 19, Richards had a rushed breast implant procedure, which led to the doctor putting in larger ones than she asked for. As Richards was preparing to film 1998's "Wild Things", she had corrective breast implant procedure, with the surgeon again giving her larger implants than she expected. In 2004 Richards posed for "Playboy," to "encourage women that it's OK to embrace your sexuality even though you're a mum...At the same time, I was having some problems in my marriage Charlie Sheen and I didn't feel sexy and felt I had to prove something." Richards has appeared in the NOH8 Campaign. and has spoken in support of gay marriage, while admitting she had a lesbian affair many years prior during an interview with radio host Howard Stern. Richards added, “You would know who she is” but declined to name the woman. Confrontation with paparazzi. On November 8, 2006, officers from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) were called to the River Rock Casino in Richmond, B.C., where Richards was making a movie. After seeing two photographers taking her picture from a nearby balcony, she confronted them, and threw their two laptop computers over the balcony. No charges were filed against her. Animal welfare work. Richards has worked with Best Friends Animal Society on several projects, including its Pup My Ride program, which transports small dogs from high-kill animal shelters to other parts of the US where there's a greater demand for small dogs. She has regularly appeared on Access Hollywood's monthly pet segment showcasing shelter dogs rescued by Best Friends and available for adoption. While assisting with relief efforts in New York following Hurricane Sandy, she adopted a puppy from a Long Island shelter.
1059444	Sarah Michelle Prinze (née Gellar; born April 14, 1977) is an American actress and producer. In 1983, she made her acting debut in the made-for-TV movie "An Invasion of Privacy" and went on to appear in "" and "Crossbow". Gellar had her first lead part in 1992's mini-series "Swans Crossing" and originated the role of Kendall Hart on the ABC daytime soap opera "All My Children", winning the 1995 Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Younger Actress in a Drama Series. Gellar came to prominence in the late 1990s, landing roles in 1997's horror films "I Know What You Did Last Summer" and "Scream 2". She portrayed Buffy Summers on the WB/UPN TV series "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" (1997-2003), for which she won six Teen Choice Awards, the Saturn Award for Best Genre TV Actress and received a Golden Globe Award nomination for Best Actress – Television Series Drama. She also gained recognition for her performances as Kathryn Merteuil in "Cruel Intentions" (1999) and Daphne Blake in "Scooby-Doo" (2002). After "Buffy" ended, Gellar was in films "" (2004), "The Grudge" (2004) and its sequel, "The Grudge 2" (2006). She had the main role in the television series "Ringer", from 2011 to 2012. She will star in CBS's sitcom "The Crazy Ones" with Robin Williams. Early life. Gellar was born in New York City. She is the only child of Rosellen (née Greenfield), a nursery school teacher, and Arthur Gellar, a garment worker. Both of her parents were Jewish, though Gellar's family had a Christmas tree during her childhood holidays. In 1984, when she was seven, her parents divorced and she was raised by her mother on the city's Upper East Side. She graduated from Fiorello LaGuardia High School of the Performing Arts in 1995. Gellar was estranged from her father until his death from liver cancer on October 9, 2001. Talking about not having a father figure in her early life, she remarked: "I might have been an immaculate conception. You never know. My father, you can just say, is not in the picture. I'm not being deliberately evasive about him, it's just that there's so little to say. He is not a person who exists in my life. Just because you donate sperm does not make you a father. I don't have a father. I would never give him the credit to acknowledge him as my father". Career. Early career (1981–1996). At four, she was spotted by an agent in a restaurant in Uptown Manhattan. Two weeks later, she auditioned for a part in "An Invasion of Privacy", a television film starring Valerie Harper, Carol Kane and Jeff Daniels. At the audition, Gellar read both her own lines and those of Harper, impressing the directors enough to cast her in the role. She subsequently appeared in a controversial television commercial for Burger King, in which her character criticized McDonald's and claimed to eat only at Burger King. This led to a lawsuit by McDonald's. As a child, Gellar modeled for magazines. Gellar appeared in TV series such as "" and "Crossbow", and had minor roles in the films "Funny Farm" (1988) and "High Stakes" (1989). She appeared in the young-teen girl talk show Girl Talk. In 1991, she appeared as a young Jacqueline Bouvier in the TV movie "A Woman Named Jackie". Gellar's first major acting work came in 1992, when she starred in the serial "Swans Crossing" and was subsequently cast in the soap opera "All My Children", playing Kendall Hart, the long-lost daughter of character Erica Kane (Susan Lucci). In 1995, at the age of eighteen, she won a Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Younger Actress in a Drama Series for the role. Gellar left "All My Children" in 1995. "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" and breakthrough (1997–2003). Gellar landed the lead in the 1997 TV series "Buffy the Vampire Slayer", playing a teenager burdened with the responsibility of fighting a number of mystical foes, mostly vampires. She was screen tested eleven times (originally auditioning for the role of Cordelia Chase). The show was well received by critics and audiences. It had seven seasons and 144 episodes. Gellar sang during the "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" musical episode "Once More, with Feeling", which spawned an original cast album. She first had her major film role in the popular slasher film "I Know What You Did Last Summer". She was cast as Helen Shiver, an aspiring beauty actress. "Washington Post" found her "likable". The film was successful at the box office, grossing $125,586,134 around the globe and earned Gellar a Blockbuster Entertainment Award for Favorite Supporting Actress – Horror and a MTV Movie Award nomination for Best Breakthrough Performance. As a result the film has been parodied and referenced in popular culture. Gellar got a role in the teen horror "Scream 2", in which she portrayed Cici Cooper, a Sorority sister and film fan. She signed on to "Scream 2" without having read the script, on the basis of the success of the first film. The film gained acclaim and earned an impressive $172,363,301. With her recent work at the time, she cemented her It girl status with her first appearance on the 'Most Beautiful' list by "People" magazine. In 1998, she appeared in one episode of "Saturday Night Live" and went on to host the show two more times until 2002. She also provided the voice of the Gwendy Doll in "Small Soldiers" (1998), a commercial success with mixed feedback. After making a cameo appearance in the romantic comedy "She's All That", Gellar had the starring role in "Simply Irresistible", film that premiered in early 1999. The film opened to negative reviews and did not do well at the box office. She admitted in an interview having regrets for her choice to work in the film: ""Simply Irresistible" was just a bad choice – and for that, it was a great learning experience. I wasn't ready to make that movie. I was too young. The script was not ready. I knew in my heart before I left to make it that I should back out." "Cruel Intentions" (1999), a modern-day retelling of "Les Liaisons dangereuses" featured a kiss between Gellar and co-star Selma Blair that won the two the "Best Kiss" award at the 2000 MTV Movie Awards. This film was a modest hit at the box office, grossing over $38 million in the United States and over $75 million worldwide, and earned several awards and nominations. Critic Roger Ebert stated that Gellar and co-star Ryan Phillippe "develop a convincing emotional charge" and that Gellar is "effective as a bright girl who knows exactly how to use her act as a tramp". Gellar's role showed her versatility as an actress, and many were surprised to see her playing a brunette cocaine addict with an appetite for manipulating and using people. Her performance was praised by a number of critics, including Rob Blackwelder for SPLICEDwire, who wrote about the "dazzling performance by Sarah Michelle Gellar who plunges headlong into the lascivious malevolence that makes Kathryn so delightfully wicked. (Plus she looks great in a corset.)". Around that time, she guest-starred in three episodes of "Angel" and appeared as Debbie in the HBO series "Sex and the City" episode "Escape from New York". Gellar subsequently was casted a lead role in James Toback's independent "Harvard Man" (2001), as a mobster's daughter, to mixed reviews at its premiere. "Filmcitic.com" found Gellar's performance "memorable" along with cast's. Two sex scenes with Gellar helped her shed her good girl image along with 1999's "Cruel Intentions". In 2002, Gellar's portrayal of Daphne Blake in "Scooby-Doo", which received negative reception but grossed $275,650,703 worldwide, making it the 15th most successful film worldwide of 2002. Gellar won the Teen Choice Award in the category of Choice Movie Actress: Comedy. During her growing film career Gellar continued work on the television series "Buffy the Vampire Slayer"; however, she decided to leave the show after the seventh season. When asked why, she explained, "This isn't about leaving for a career in movies, or in theater – it's more of a personal decision. I need a rest." Shortly after the show's end, Gellar stated that she had no interest in appearing in a "Buffy" feature film, but that she will consider it if the script is good enough. She did not appear in the final season of "Angel", causing the intended episode ("You're Welcome") to be rewritten for the character of Cordelia Chase. Gellar has said that she was willing to appear in the episode, but scheduling conflicts and family problems prevented it. Another actress, Giselle Loren, voiced Buffy for an animated series based on the show, which never aired, and the various "Buffy" video games. In her feature in "Esquire" magazine Gellar expressed her pride for her work on "Buffy", "I truly believe that it is one of the greatest shows of all time and it will go down in history as that. And I don’t feel that that is a cocky statement. We changed the way that people looked at television." Gellar's likeness is used in the comic continuation of the series. Focus on films and hiatus (2004–2010). After the end of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer", Gellar provided her voice for the character Gina Vendetti in "The Simpson" episode "The Wandering Juvie" that aired in March 2004. Her next film was "". The movie received negative reviews but was a commercial success, grossing $181,466,833 around the globe. In that year, she appeared in the horror film "The Grudge", which was also a hit with a $187,281,115 worldwide gross. Gellar received praise for her role, and many critics referenced her performance as the reason for the film's success. She then received a MTV Movie Award nomination for Best Frightened Performance as well as a nomination for the Teen Choice Award for Choice Movie Actress: Thriller for the part of Karen Davis. In 2005, she had a voice-over role in an episode of the animated television series "Robot Chicken". Since then, Gellar has voiced several other characters, in a total of 12 episodes of the show, as of 2013. Gellar appeared in the sequel "The Grudge 2", which opened in October 2006; in the film, she had a supporting role reprising her character from the first film. Upon her appearance, she received mixed reviews due to the character's surprise death upsetting many fans. Although not being as successful as the first installment, the movie was a modest commercial hit that premiered at number one at the box office, garnering $22 million in its opening weekend. Gellar next appeared in the thriller "The Return", which was released the following month and in which she played a businesswoman haunted by memories of her childhood and the mysterious death of a young woman. The movie was marketed as a horror movie and many including critics were surprised to find "The Return" was, as Rafe Telsch said, "just a murder mystery with a few supernatural elements". The movie pulled in a disappointing $4,800,000 weekend gross with little promotion. Gellar then lent her voice to the animated film "Happily N'Ever After", which was universally panned by critics and unsuccessful at the box office. However, her next animated movie, "TMNT" (in which she played April O'Neil), was a commercial success, grossing over $95 million while it received a mixed reception. Her project, Richard Kelly's thriller "Southland Tales" opened at the Cannes Film Festival in May 2006 and came out in a limited release in the U.S. on November 9, 2007, garnering divided reviews. Gellar had met with Kelly and was drawn to the original ideas in his script for the movie. "Suburban Girl" and "The Air I Breathe" – in which Gellar starred – were screened at the 2007 Tribeca Film Festival. "Suburban Girl" was released direct-to-DVD in January 2008. It was described as "a blend of "Sex and the City" and "The Devil Wears Prada"" and a "pseudo-sophisticated romantic comedy" according to "Variety.com". Her on screen chemistry with Alec Baldwin was either criticized or praised, with "Eye For Film" commenting, "The film works best when Baldwin and Gellar are together – aside from the fact that Gellar seriously needs to eat a bun or two". Film website "Moviepicturefilm.com" stated "Gellar and Baldwin both give wonderful performances and make their chemistry incredibly real and ultimately, quite heartbreaking. Containing a ton of laughs and killer fashion that could give ""The Devil Wears Prada"" a run for its money, this movie has something uncommon in most romantic comedies, tons of style and a huge heart." "The Air I Breathe" premiered theatrically the same month in a limited release (making more than 2 million at the worldwide box office) to generally poor reviews. "The New York Times" called it a "gangster movie with delusions of grandeur." However, Gellar's performance was praised by a number of critics, "DVD Talk Review" noted that "her character here has the deepest emotional arc, and she hits all the right notes." Gellar had the starring role in the psychological thriller "Possession", which was presented at the Cannes Film Market in May 2008. Due to financial problems at YARI Film Group, the movie had a range of release dates in the U.S. between 2008 and 2009, and it was ultimately released straight-to-video in March 2010. However, "Possession" had theatrical openings in various countries such as Argentina, Ecuador and Mexico, gaining $682,173. Gellar also starred in "Veronika Decides to Die" (2009). The film tells the story of a young woman suffering from severe depression who rediscovers the joy in life when she finds out that she only has days to live following a suicide attempt. Filming of the movie began on May 12, 2008, in New York City and finished in late June. It was reported that Kate Bosworth was previously attached to the project. The movie and Gellar herself received acclaim and "Veronika" was theatrically opened in limited release in several countries throughout 2009 and grossed over $1.3 million worldwide. At that time, her daughter Charlotte Grace Prinze was born and Gellar took a rest from film roles in order to spend time with her child. Television work (2011–present). In 2011, Gellar signed on to star and work as executive producer for a new drama titled "Ringer", in which she plays a woman on the run who manages to hide by living the life of her wealthy twin sister. The show was originally made for CBS but was picked up by its sister channel The CW in May 2011. Gellar has stated that part of her decision to return to a television series was because it allows her to both work and raise her daughter. The series premiered with mixed-positive reviews; "E! Online" wrote that Gellar was "awesome" and "fantastic", "TV Line" remarked she "does a fine job" as both characters and "USA Today" found her performance "well-defined". The first episode brought high rating for the network (with 2.84 million viewers), however after a decline in ratings and viewership from the three month hiatus over the holiday break, The CW announced the cancellation of "Ringer". On August 4, 2011, Gellar confirmed she would be returning as a guest star on the ABC soap opera "All My Children" before the show's ending in September but not as Kendall Hart. Her airdate was September 21, 2011. She portrayed a patient at Pine Valley Hospital. She tells Maria Santos that Pine Valley is familiar to her, and, that she is "Erica Kane's daughter". She also states that she saw vampires before they became trendy—a reference to "Buffy the Vampire Slayer". Gellar then guest-starred in the "American Dad" episode "Virtual In-Stanity" (aired on November 20, 2011), which brought 4.82 million viewers. Her former "Buffy" co-star Alyson Hannigan also made a voice-over role in the episode, receiving positive reviews. "The AV Club" called Gellar and Hannigan "effective guest stars" and that "both have voices with enough personality to fit their characters". Gellar provided her voice again for the December 6, 2012 episode of the show ("Adventures in Hayleysitting"). On February 15, 2013, it was reported that Gellar would return to television with a pilot for CBS entitled "The Crazy Ones" opposite Robin Williams. The show will be a single-camera comedy, about an advertising agency run by a father (Williams) and his daughter (Gellar). The series will air in the 9/8c timeslot on Thursday nights, beginning September 26, 2013.
1221630	How Tasty Was My Little Frenchman () is a Brazilian black comedy directed by Nelson Pereira dos Santos released in 1971. Almost all of the dialogue in the film was written in the Tupi language. The actors and actresses who portrayed the Tupinambas wore historically correct attire resulting in a considerable amount of historically correct nudity and semi-nudity in many scenes.
1518169	NEKRomantik 2 is 1991 German horror/splatter film directed by Jörg Buttgereit and a sequel to his 1987 film "Nekromantik". The film is about necrophilia, and was quite controversial and was seized by authorities in Munich 12 days after its release, an action that had no precedent in Germany since the Nazi era. Today, it is regarded as a cult classic. Plot. The film begins where the first one left off, with a flashback to Robert "Rob" Schmadtke's suicide (Daktari Lorenz), whose corpse Monika (Monika M.) retrieves from a church's graveyard after the opening credits. Monika apparently evades notice while carrying Rob's corpse into her apartment, where she unwraps him from his body bag. Meanwhile, Mark (Mark Reeder) heads to his as yet unspecified job, and the film then cuts back to a scene of Monika undressing Rob. Mark's job is thereupon revealed to be dubbing porn films, and this scene foreshadows the next, in which Monika has sex with Rob's corpse. Betty (Beatrice Manowski), Rob's ex-girlfriend from the previous film, is then briefly introduced as she discovers, to her disappointment, that Rob's grave has already been robbed. Once Monika has cleaned Rob's corpse, she takes photos with him using her camera's self-timer. Mark, meanwhile, makes plans to meet a friend (Simone Spörl) at the movies. Mark's friend, however, is late, and Mark offers his ticket instead to Monika, who happens to be passing by. Monika and Mark hit it off and soon go on a carnival date, after which point Monika decides to break up with Rob, by sawing him into pieces and putting him into garbage bags, saving just his head and genitals. When Mark spends the night at Monika's, though, Mark discovers Rob's genitals in Monika's refrigerator, and this discovery, combined with Monika's desire to photograph Mark in positions that make him appear dead, plants doubts in his mind about the relationship. Consequently, Mark consults first his perennially tardy friend and then a drunk in a bar regarding his relationship with the perverse Monika. Soon thereafter, Monika and her fellow necrophiliac friends have a movie night (the film depicts the dissection of a seal) at Monika's apartment when Mark comes over with a porn video to watch with Monika (whose friends take an immediate dislike to Mark and leave). When Mark insistently asks what Monika and her friends had been doing, she reluctantly shows him the seal video, which disgusts Mark, who says it's perverse to watch such a thing for fun, leading to a quarrel. The couple later speak on the phone and makes plans to meet at Monika's and discuss the matter. In the meantime, Monika makes a trip to the ocean, where she contemplates what course of action to take. When Mark arrives the next day, they have make-up sex, during which Monika severs Mark's head and replaces it with Rob's decapitated head. In addition, Monika is finally shown climaxing, which suggests that she has chosen the correct lover. Finally, in the last scene, a doctor congratulates Monika on her pregnancy. Soundtrack. The soundtrack, by Hermann Kopp, Daktari Lorenz, John Boy Walton, and Peter Kowalski, is neither ironic nor campy, but rather is intended to generate genuine emotional response. The serious intent of the film in general is made clear in an interview in which Buttgereit discusses an audition in which actors performed the love scene with Rob's corpse: "Though they were all quite willing, none of them took it as seriously as we did." Furthermore, although he is commenting on the soundtrack to the original "Nekromantik", Christian Keßler's observations about that film's soundtrack resonate in the context of the second film as well: "The excellent soundtrack by Lorenz, Hermann Kopp, and John Boy Walton accentuates this unusual, charnel domestic circumstances with a romantic leitmotif composed for a single piano that makes the gruesome environment seem like a protective case, shielding Robert from the reality that so torments him." Critical response. "Jörg Buttgereit is the only person in Germany who manages to dedicate himself to these darkest of subjects with this much charm," writes critic Christian Keßler. Though some accuse the Nekromantik films of being "little more than 'disappointingly witless' and 'morbidly titillating' attempts 'to disgust the most jaded conceivable audience', these movies are not only more thematically complex and technically sophisticated than is popularly supposed, but share a set of artistic and ideological concerns more usually associated with the canonic authors of the Young German Cinema and the New German Cinema of the turbulent years of the 1960s and 1970s." Though speaking of the first "Nekromantik", in which a "beer-guzzling, oompah-listening fat-man" accidentally kills a man picking apples, Linnie Blake's comments are also relevant to "Nekromantik 2" when she writes, "As Buttgereit makes clear, then, it is neither Rob nor Betty protagonists of the first "Nekromantik" who has transformed the young apple-picker into a corpse. This has been accomplished by an ostensibly morally upstanding member of society who subsequently disappears from view, unpunished for his crimes. Buttgereit's mission, it seems, is to embrace that corpse, and in so doing to raise the question originally posed by Alexander Mitscherlich, Director of the Sigmund Freud Institute in Frankfurt, as to why the collapse of the Third Reich had not provoked the reaction of conscience-stricken remorse one might logically expect; why, in Thomas Elsaesser's words, 'instead of confronting this past, Germans preferred to bury it'. Confiscation. In June 1991, Munich police confiscated the film, leading an interviewer to ask Buttgereit, "How does it feel to be Germany's most wanted filmmaker?" Buttgereit responded, "I'm not sure how to feel. At the moment I'm afraid of a police raid. But I'm not really proud of it if that's what you mean." The reason for the film's seizure was that it purportedly glorified violence. According to Buttgereit, "The thing that people find offensive about "Nekromantik 2" is that it "doesn't accuse" Monika." At a different point in the interview, Buttgereit states, "It was very important to me that the audience is on Monika's side, even with her doing these terrible things." In 1993, however, the film was officially deemed "art," thanks to an exhaustive expert opinion by film scholar Knut Hickethier. However, Buttgereit says, "the big shops are still afraid to sell my DVDs."
454712	"My Architect: A Son's Journey" is a 2003 documentary film about the American architect Louis Kahn (1901-1974), by his son Nathaniel Kahn, detailing the architect's extraordinary career and his familial legacy after his death in 1974.
1061842	Elijah Jordan Wood (born January 28, 1981) is an American actor and film producer. He made his film debut with a minor part in "Back to the Future Part II" (1989), then landed a succession of larger roles that made him a critically acclaimed child actor by age 9, being nominated for several Young Artist Awards. As a child actor he starred in the films "Radio Flyer" (1992), "The Good Son" (1993), "North" (1994) and "Flipper" (1996), and began to transfer to teenage roles in the films "The Ice Storm" (1997), "Deep Impact" and "The Faculty" (both 1998). He is best known for his high-profile leading role as Frodo Baggins in Peter Jackson's critically acclaimed "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy (2001–2003) and its prequel "" (2012). Since then, he has resisted typecasting by choosing varied roles in critically acclaimed films such as "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" (2004), "Sin City", "Green Street" and "Everything Is Illuminated" (all 2005) and "Bobby" (2006). Wood has also provided the voices of the main character in the award-winning animated musical films "Happy Feet" (2006) and "Happy Feet Two" (2011), as well as the lead, 9, in the Tim Burton-produced action/science fiction film "9" (2009). In 2005, he started his own record label, Simian Records. He did the voice acting for Spyro in the "Legend of Spyro" trilogy. In 2012, he began voicing Beck in the animated series "", and Sigma in the of the Rooster Teeth series "Red vs. Blue". Since 2011, Wood has been playing the role of Ryan in FX's dark comedy "Wilfred". Early life and education. Wood, the second of three children, was born and raised in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, son of Warren and Debra (Krause) Wood, delicatessen operators. He is of English, German, Austrian, and Danish ancestry. He was raised Roman Catholic. He has a brother, Zachariah Wood, and a sister, Hannah Wood. At age seven, Wood began modeling in his hometown and took piano lessons. He appeared in elementary school in "The Sound of Music", followed by the title character in "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz". He also served as choir boy during the production of "See How They Run", produced by the Marion Creative Council. Career. 1988–1998: Beginnings. Wood modeled and did local commercials before moving with his family to Los Angeles in 1988, where he got his first break in the video for Paula Abdul's "Forever Your Girl", directed by David Fincher, followed by a pivotal role in TV film "Child in the Night" and a minor role in "Back to the Future Part II" as a boy playing video games in the 80s Cafe. It was Wood's role as Aidan Quinn's son in "Avalon" and "Tin Men" that garnered Wood professional attention, as "Avalon" received widespread critical acclaim and was nominated for four Academy Awards. A small part in Richard Gere's "Internal Affairs", was followed by the role of a boy who brings estranged couple Melanie Griffith and Don Johnson back together in "Paradise". Wood co-starred with Mel Gibson and Jamie Lee Curtis in "Forever Young" and Joseph Mazzello in "Radio Flyer". In 1993, Wood played the title character in "The Adventures of Huck Finn", and the following year appeared in "The Good Son", and "The War". The latter film was nominated four times, and won two, with Roger Ebert's film review; Wood's title role in "North", was followed by a Super Bowl commercial for Wavy Lay's potato chips (with Dan Quayle) using its slogan. In 1995, Wood was in the video for The Cranberries "Ridiculous Thoughts", played the lead role in "Flipper", and appeared in Ang Lee's "The Ice Storm". In 1997, Wood was Jack "The Artful Dodger" Dawkins in Tony Bill's film adaptation of "Oliver Twist", and also appeared in "Deep Impact" and "The Faculty". In 1999, Wood played a suburban white teenager who affects hip-hop lingo in James Toback's "Black and White", and a junior hitman in "Chain of Fools". 1999–2003: "The Lord of the Rings". Wood was cast as Frodo Baggins in "", the first installment of director Peter Jackson's adaptation of J. R. R. Tolkien's novel. His most hotly anticipated project, the 2001 film gave Wood top billing as Baggins, alongside a cast that included Ian McKellen, Liv Tyler, Orlando Bloom, Cate Blanchett, Christopher Lee, Sean Bean, Sean Astin, Billy Boyd, Dominic Monaghan, Viggo Mortensen, and John Rhys-Davies. "The Lord of the Rings" was filmed in New Zealand for over a year, and before the cast left the country, Jackson gave Wood two gifts: one of the One Ring props used on the set and Sting, Frodo's sword. He was also given a pair of prosthetic "hobbit feet" which were worn during filming.
1057527	About a Boy is a 2002 comedy-drama film directed by brothers Chris Weitz and Paul Weitz. It is an adaptation of the 1998 novel of the same name by Nick Hornby. The film stars Hugh Grant, Nicholas Hoult, Toni Collette, and Rachel Weisz. The film at times uses double voice-over narration, where the audience hears both Will's and Marcus's thoughts. It was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay. Actor Hugh Grant was nominated for a Golden Globe for his performance. Plot. Will Freeman (Hugh Grant) lives a very comfortable and leisurely lifestyle in London thanks to substantial royalties left to him from the successful Christmas song that his father composed. Will does not need to work and spends most of his free time watching television, and reading about pop culture. When Will's friends, Christine (Sharon Small) and John (Nicholas Hutchinson), ask him to be the godfather of their second child, Will bluntly refuses, insisting that he "really is that shallow". In an attempt to avoid spending time with the couple, Will meets Angie (Isabel Brook), a single mother, but the two only share a brief relationship which, to Will's surprise actually ends amicably. Afterward, Will comes up with the idea of attending a single-parents group called "SPAT" (Single Parents Alone Together) to meet potential female partners. As part of his ploy, he claims to have a two-year-old son named Ned. His plan succeeds and he meets Suzie (Victoria Smurfit). Will's pursuit to court Suzie takes him to one of the group's functions – a picnic – where he meets Marcus (Nicholas Hoult), the 12-year-old son of Suzie's friend, Fiona (Toni Collette). At the picnic, Marcus accidentally kills a duck with a stale loaf of bread while trying to feed it. When a park keeper questions him about it, Will quickly defends Marcus by claiming the duck was already dead. Afterward, when Will and Suzie take Marcus home, they find Fiona in the living room, overdosed on pills in a suicide attempt. Marcus begins to be uncomfortable with staying at home alone with his mother, so he tries to get Will to date her so she won't be so lonely. After a single date this plan fails so Marcus follows Will around and discovers that Will is actually childless and had been faking being a single parent. Marcus then appears on Will's doorstep and blackmails him into letting him hang out at his apartment after school every day instead of going straight home. Will is initially against Marcus spending time at his place, but when Marcus is chased there one day by bullies Will begins to realise the importance of his presence in Marcus's life. He starts helping Marcus fit in by taking him shopping for new shoes. Unfortunately, the shoes are stolen by bullies, causing a fight among Marcus, Fiona, and Will. At school, Marcus develops a crush on a grunge girl named Ellie (Natalia Tena), and his popularity steadily improves. Will begins a relationship with a single mother named Rachel (Rachel Weisz). Will lets Rachel believe that Marcus is his son to appear interesting to her. Later, in an attempt to be honest with her, he reveals that Marcus is not really his son, but his lie backfires and their relationship ends. One day, Marcus comes home from school to find his mother crying in the living room. Marcus attempts to unburden himself to Will, who is unreceptive, as he is still upset about the break-up with Rachel. Will tells Marcus that he can't help him and the two have a fight. Marcus decides that the only way to help his mother is to sing at the school variety show – an act which Ellie deems "social suicide", warning that the other children will crucify him. Will continues his superficial existence, but realises that it doesn't fulfill him the way it did before. Will crashes a SPAT meeting and implores Fiona not to attempt suicide again. She assures him that she has no plans to do so in the immediate future and also tells him that Marcus has decided to sing at the school show that day. Will and Fiona rush to the school to stop Marcus from committing social suicide, and Will finds Rachel in the school audience watching her son in the show. Will makes his way backstage to stop Marcus from singing, but Marcus is unswayed and believes that his singing will make his mother happy. Marcus proceeds to sing a shrill, out-of-tune rendition of "Killing Me Softly with His Song" as the student body taunts him. Suddenly, Will appears onstage with a guitar to accompany Marcus for the rest of the song. With Will's assistance, the school children accept Marcus's performance, giving him mild applause at the end. Seeing this, Will continues on with an unnecessary solo to take the negative attention off Marcus but is then ridiculed himself. The following Christmas, Will hosts a celebration at his place where Marcus, Rachel, Rachel's son Ali, Fiona and Ellie are present. The idea of Will marrying Rachel is brought up, but Marcus seems unenthusiastic, believing that couples have no future without "backup" to their relationships. Soundtrack. The soundtrack was released on 23 April 2002, composed by singer/songwriter Badly Drawn Boy. Reception. The film received critical acclaim, with a 93% 'Certified Fresh' rating on Rotten Tomatoes. The film, with a budget of US$30 million, grossed a worldwide total of US$130,549,455. In December 2002, the film was chosen by the American Film Institute as one of the ten best movies of the year. The film received a B+ CinemaScore from American audiences. Almost universally praised, with an Academy Award-nominated screenplay, "About a Boy" was determined by the "Washington Post" to be "that rare romantic comedy that dares to choose messiness over closure, prickly independence over fetishised coupledom, and honesty over typical Hollywood endings." "Rolling Stone" wrote, "The acid comedy of Grant's performance carries the film he gives this pleasing heartbreaker the touch of gravity it needs," while Roger Ebert observed that "the Cary Grant department is understaffed, and Hugh Grant shows here that he is more than a star, he is a resource." Released a day after the blockbuster ', "About a Boy" was a more modest box office grosser than other successful Grant films, making all of $129 million globally. The film earned Grant his third Golden-Globe nomination, while the London Film Critics Circle named Grant its Best British Actor and "GQ" honoured him as one of the magazine's men of the year 2006. "His performance can only be described as revelatory," wrote critic Ann Hornaday, adding that "Grant lends the shoals layer upon layer of desire, terror, ambivalence and self-awareness." "The New York Observer" concluded: "film gets most of its laughs from the evolved expertise of Hugh Grant in playing characters that audiences enjoy seeing taken down a peg or two as a punishment for philandering and womanising and simply being too handsome for words-and with an English accent besides. In the end, the film comes over as a messy delight, thanks to the skill, generosity and good-sport, punching-bag panache of Mr. Grant's performance." "About a Boy" also marked a notable change in Grant's boyish look. Now 41, he had lost weight and also abandoned his trademark floppy hair. "Entertainment Weeklys Owen Gleiberman took note of Grant's maturation in his review, saying he looked noticeably older and that it "looked good on him." He added that Grant's "pillowy cheeks are flatter and a bit drawn, and the eyes that used to peer with 'love me' cuteness now betray a shark's casual cunning. Everything about him is leaner and spikier (including his hair, which has been shorn and moussed into a Eurochic bed-head mess), but it's not just his surface that's more virile; the nervousness is gone, too. Hugh Grant has grown up, holding on to his lightness and witty cynicism but losing the stuttering sherry-club mannerisms that were once his signature. In doing so, he has blossomed into the rare actor who can play a silver-tongued sleaze with a hidden inner decency."
1443433	Tru Loved is a 2008 Independent film written and directed by Stewart Wade.
1102702	Daniel Gray "Dan" Quillen (June 22, 1940 – April 30, 2011) was an American mathematician. From 1984 to 2006, he was the Waynflete Professor of Pure Mathematics at Magdalen College, Oxford. He is renowned for being the "prime architect" of higher algebraic K-theory, for which he was awarded the Cole Prize in 1975 and the Fields Medal in 1978. Education and career. Quillen was born in Orange, New Jersey, and attended Newark Academy. He entered Harvard University, where he earned both his BA (1961) and his PhD (1964), the latter of which was completed under the supervision of Raoul Bott with a thesis in partial differential equations. He was a Putnam Fellow in 1959. Quillen obtained a position at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology after completing his doctorate. However, he also spent a number of years at several other universities. This experience would prove to be important in influencing the direction of his research.
1039579	Dame Eileen June Atkins, (born 16 June 1934) is an English actress and occasional screenwriter. She has worked in the theatre, film, and television consistently since 1953. She has been nominated for and received many professional awards and was created a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1990 and later a Dame in 2001. Early life. Atkins was born in the "Mothers' Hospital" in Clapton, a Salvation Army women's hostel in East London. Her mother, Annie Ellen (née Elkins), was a barmaid who was 46 when Eileen was born, and her father, Arthur Thomas Atkins, was a gas meter reader who was previously under-chauffeur to the Portuguese Ambassador. She was the third child in the family and when she was born the family moved to a council home in Tottenham. Her father did not, in fact, know how to drive and was responsible, as under-chauffeur, mainly for cleaning the car. At the time Eileen was born, her mother worked in a factory the whole day and then as a barmaid in the Elephant & Castle at night. When Eileen was three, a Gypsy woman came to their door selling lucky heather and clothes pegs. She saw little Eileen and told her mother that her daughter would be a famous dancer. Her mother promptly enrolled her in a dance class. Although she hated it, she studied dancing from age 3 to 15 or 16. From age 7 to 15, which covered the last four years of the Second World War (1941–45), she danced in working men's club circuits for 15 shillings a pop as "Baby Eileen". During the war, she performed as well at London's Stage Door canteen for American troops and sang songs like "Yankee Doodle." At one time she was attending dance class four or five times a week. By 12, she was a professional in panto in Clapham and Kilburn. Once, when she was given a line to recite, someone told her mother that she had Cockney accent. Her mother was appalled but speech lessons were too expensive for the family. Fortunately, a woman took interest in her and paid for her to be educated at Latymer's grammar school in Edmonton, London. One of her grammar school teachers who used to give them religious instruction, a Rev. Michael Burton, spotted her potential and rigorously drilled away her Cockney accent without charge. He also introduced her to the works of William Shakespeare. She studied under him for two years. When she was 14 or 15 and still at Latymer's, she also attended "drama demonstration" sessions twice a year with this same teacher. At around this time (though some sources say she was 12), her first encounter with Robert Atkins took place. She was taken to see Atkins' production of "King John" at the Regent's Park Open Air Theatre. She wrote to him saying that the boy who played Prince Arthur was not good enough and that she could do better. Robert Atkins wrote back and asked that she come to see him. On the day they met, Atkins thought she was a shop girl, and not a school girl. She gave a little prince speech and he told her to go to drama school and come back when she was grown up. Rev. Burton came to an agreement with Eileen's parents that he would try to get her a scholarship for one drama school and that if she did not get the scholarship he would arrange for her to do a teaching course in some other drama school. Her parents were not all keen on the fact that she would stay in school until 16 as her sister had left at 14 and her brother at 15 but somehow they were convinced. Eileen was in Latymer's until 16. Out of 300 applicants for a RADA scholarship, she got down to the last three but was not selected, so she did a three-year course on teaching at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. But, although she was taking the teaching course, she also attended drama classes and in fact performed in three plays in her last year. This was in the early 1950s. In her third and last year she had to teach once a week, an experience she later said she hated. As soon as she left Guildhall she got her first job with Robert Atkins in 1953: as Jaquenetta in "Love's Labour's Lost" at the same Regent's Park Open Air Theatre where she was brought to see Robert Atkins' King John production years before. She was also, very briefly, an assistant stage manager at the Oxford Playhouse until Peter Hall fired her for impudence. She was also part of repertory companies performing in Billy Butlin's holiday camp in Skegness, Lincolnshire. It was there when she met Julian Glover. It took nine years (1953–62) before she was working steadily. Stage. She joined the Guild Players Repertory Company in Bangor, Northern Ireland as a professional actress in 1952. She appeared as the nurse in "Harvey" at the Repertory Theatre, Bangor, in 1952. Eileen Atkins' London stage debut was in 1953 as Jaquenetta in Robert Atkins's staging of "Love's Labour's Lost" at the Open Air Theatre in Regent's Park.
582506	"Neal 'n' Nikki" is a Bollywood film, released in 2005 starring Uday Chopra, Tanisha Mukherjee, Abhishek Bachchan and Richa Pallod. It was produced by Yash Chopra and directed by Canadian-based director Arjun Sablok. The film was critically panned and was a failure at the box office in India though it did well overseas. This film created quite a stir, as this was a major film that dealt with intimate scenes. This film, along with Salaam Namaste, were controversial in that the characters were seen engaging in sexual behavior, which was not approached before in any major Bollywood film. Plot. The film, as its name implies, centers on Gurneal "Neal" Ahluwalia (Uday Chopra) and Nikkita "Nikki" Bakshi (Tanisha Mukherjee), two Canadians of Punjabi descent, born and raised in British Columbia. But Neal and Nikki are different in many ways. Before getting married Neal wants to spend 21 days on vacation with 21 women. On his way, he meets Nikki in a club, where Neal is with his date Kristi. Unfortunately Nikki gets drunk and starts dancing. Neal leaves his date and takes Nikki to a hotel where he watches T.V. while Nikki falls asleep. The next morning, Nikki thinks that Neal raped her when he didn't. She uses this to blackmail him all the time. Nikki also interrupts his romantic meetings with other women from time to time, including one time when Nikki interrupts Neal while he is having sex with another woman.
1166371	French Stewart (born February 20, 1964) is an American actor, best known for his role as Harry Solomon on the 1990s sitcom "3rd Rock from the Sun". Stewart is currently starring in the CBS series "Mom". Early life. French Stewart was born Milton French Stewart in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and attended Del Norte High School. His mother was a homemaker, and his stepfather was a microfilm technician. Career. Stewart studied at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts and toured in regional theatre for seven years before breaking into television with the role of Razor Dee, a spaced-out DJ on the final season of "The New WKRP in Cincinnati" in 1992. Stewart earned his Screen Actors Guild card while working for Hanna-Barbera's Shakey Quakey tour, but was later terminated for removing the head of his costume in front of children. In 1996, he was cast on "3rd Rock from the Sun", which lasted for six seasons. On the show, Stewart was noted for his talents at physical comedy and his characteristic "squinting" facial expression. During the height and popularity of "3rd Rock from the Sun", Stewart appeared in numerous commercials and as a spokesperson for the beverage Clamato. Major motion picture credits for French Stewart include his film debut on "Stargate" (1994) as Lieutenant Ferretti, followed by "Leaving Las Vegas" (1995), "The Poison Tasters" (1995), "Magic Island" (1995) "Glory Daze" (1996), "McHale's Navy" (1997), "Love Stinks" (1999), "Clockstoppers" (2002) as Earl Doppler and "Wedding Daze" as Nathan Bennett IV. Animated credits include the voice of Bob on the short-lived animated series "God, the Devil and Bob" (2000), and Disney's animated series "" (1998) as Icarus. Since the end of "3rd Rock" in 2001, Stewart has appeared in a number of minor roles, mainly in situation comedies such as "Just Shoot Me!", "Becker", "The Drew Carey Show", "Less Than Perfect" and "That '70s Show" (from the same creators as "3rd Rock from the Sun") He also starred in "the WB" show "Charmed" as a genie at the end of season 2. He has starred in comedy films, with major roles in the direct-to-video films "Home Alone 4" (2002) and "Inspector Gadget 2" (2003). He also appeared as a guest star in the TV show, "Phineas and Ferb", in the episode "Run Away Runway" as the fashion designer, Gaston Le Mode (2008). Stewart has appeared on "MADtv" and guest-starred in the "Seinfeld" episode "The Opposite". He can also be seen on the "I Love The..." series on VH1. Stewart was an executive producer for "Has Anyone Seen My Baby?", a drama on the Lifetime network that portrayed the life of a woman who lost her child on an African safari in the early 1970s. He also appeared as the "weird guy" office temp on "NewsRadio" with Andy Dick, who told him, "there's only room for one weird guy" on staff at the radio station.
1054889	Ice Princess is a 2005 American figure-skating film directed by Tim Fywell, written by Meg Cabot and Hadley Davis, and starring Michelle Trachtenberg, Joan Cusack, Kim Cattrall, Hayden Panettiere, Trevor Blumas, and Kirsten Olson. The film focuses on Casey Carlyle, a normal teenager who gives up a promising future academic life in order to pursue her new-found dream of being a professional figure skater. The film was released on March 18, 2005. "Ice Princess" had a successful performance at the box office, grossing $24 million in the United States during its theatrical run. Plot. Seventeen-year-old Casey Carlyle (Michelle Trachtenberg), a bookworm and physics geek, plans to use her academic skills to pursue a scholarship to Harvard University. For the scholarship, Casey must present a personal summer project about physics. While watching a figure skating competition with her math geek friend Ann, Casey realizes that her favorite childhood hobby, which is ice skating on the pond outside her house, would make a perfect project for getting her scholarship. At first, she watches other skaters at the local ice rink, but decides to try to improve her own skating by applying the physics and what she has discovered from watching other skaters.
1066571	Happythankyoumoreplease is a 2010 comedy-drama film written and directed by Josh Radnor in his directorial debut. The film stars Radnor, Malin Åkerman, Kate Mara, Zoe Kazan, Michael Algieri, Pablo Schreiber, and Tony Hale, and it tells the story of a group of young New Yorkers, struggling to balance love, friendship, and their encroaching adulthoods. "Happythankyoumoreplease" premiered at the 26th Sundance Film Festival in 2010, where it won the 'Audience Award' and was further nominated for the 'Grand Jury Prize'. On March 4, 2011 it was released in theatres throughout Los Angeles and New York. Plot. A story of relationships, "Happythankyoumoreplease" deals with the struggles facing several pairs trying to find their way. The film centers on Sam (Radnor) and Rasheen (Algieri), a writer and foster care child who meet when Rasheen is abandoned on the subway. Through this story we learn of Sam's best friend Annie (Åkerman), an Alopecia patient trying to find a reason to be loved, his friend Mary Catherine (Kazan) and her boyfriend Charlie (Schreiber), a couple facing the prospect of leaving New York, and Mississippi (Mara), a waitress/singer trying to make it in the Big Apple. Happythankyoumoreplease captures a generational moment - young people on the cusp of truly growing up, tiring of their reflexive cynicism, each in their own ways struggling to connect and define what it means to love and be loved.
775014	Kenneth Welsh, CM (born March 30, 1942) is a Canadian-American film and television actor (sometimes credited as Ken Welsh). He is known to "Twin Peaks" fans as the multi-faceted villain Windom Earle, and played the father of Katharine Hepburn (Cate Blanchett) in Martin Scorsese's "The Aviator". He lives in Los Angeles, California. Life and career. Welsh was born in Edmonton, Alberta to a father who worked for the Canadian National Railway. He grew up in Alberta and studied drama at school. He later moved to Montreal and attended the National Theatre School. Following graduation, he auditioned for the Stratford Festival in Ontario and then spent the first seven years of his career on stage.
1103108	Walter Rudin (May 2, 1921 – May 20, 2010) was an American mathematician and professor of Mathematics at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. He is known for three books on mathematical analysis: "Principles of Mathematical Analysis", "Real and Complex Analysis", and "Functional Analysis." The first (affectionately referred to as "Baby Rudin") was written when Rudin was a Moore instructor at MIT for his undergraduate analysis course and is widely used as a textbook for undergraduate courses in analysis. Biography. Rudin was born into a Jewish family in Austria in 1921. They fled to France after the Anschluss in 1938. When France surrendered to Germany in 1940, Rudin fled to England and served in the British navy for the rest of the war. After the war he left for the United States, and earned his B.A. from Duke University in North Carolina in 1947, and two years later earned a Ph.D. from the same institution. After that he was a C.L.E. Moore instructor at MIT, briefly taught in the University of Rochester, before becoming a professor at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. He remained at the University for 32 years. His research interests spanned from harmonic analysis to complex analysis. He received an honorary degree from the University of Vienna in 2006. His Erdős number is 2. In 1953, he married fellow mathematician Mary Ellen Estill. The two resided in Madison, Wisconsin, in the eponymous Walter Rudin House, a home designed by architect Frank Lloyd Wright. They had four children. Rudin died on May 20, 2010 after suffering from Parkinson's disease. Publications. Uniqueness Theory for Laplace Series. Rudin wrote his dissertation while working towards his PhD under doctoral advisor John Jay Gergen at Duke University. It was published in March 1950.
1162623	Elizabeth Jean Philipps (born June 25, 1979), known professionally as Busy Philipps, is an American actress, known for her supporting roles on the television series "Freaks and Geeks" and "Dawson's Creek". She has also performed significant roles in films like "The Smokers" (2000), as Karen Carter, the drama film "Home Room" (2002) as Alicia Browning, she appeared in "White Chicks" (2004), played a supporting role in "Made of Honor" (2008) and appeared in "He's Just Not That Into You" (2009). She plays Laurie Keller in the TV series "Cougar Town" for which she won a Best Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series Critic's Choice Television Award in 2011.
402541	Keli Price (born June 30, 1990.) is an American actor, musician, and model. Price is best known for his starring role as Chris Abeley in the teen hit film "The Clique", executive produced by Tyra Banks. He is also known for his role as Bobby Love on Nickelodeon's "The Naked Brothers Band" television movie "Battle of the Bands". In 2012, Price was seen in the film "One Fall" produced by Dean Silvers. Price recently finished shooting a musical dramedy TV series from the creators of "One Tree Hill" & "Smallville". He's a regular on the series and it is set to come out in July 2013. Biography. Personal life. Price was born in Manhattan, New York. A few years later, he and his family moved to Brookville, Long Island. He has a younger brother, Nikko, who is an aspiring politician. Price says he and his brother are extremely close. Price is a singer and songwriter, who also plays the drums, piano, acoustic and electric guitar. Price's father, Jeffrey, performed with a rock band from New York and used to have his own recording studio. As Price states: "I pretty much grew up in this environment where I was always surrounded by music and performing...because my dad was a musician." His education included attending the Long Island High School for the Arts, where he was involved in both the acting and music programs. Career. At the age of four, Price entered the modeling industry, and has since worked for companies which include Polo Ralph Lauren, Gap, Sean John, H&M, Nike, Cole Haan, Tommy Hilfiger, and Macy's. Price also appeared on the cover of the "New York Times Magazine" and with Nelly on a nationwide campaign for Reebok. In 2005, he starred in the independent movie "Bug Boy", in which he played Danny, an aspiring jockey who has to cope with his mother's alcohol addiction while caring for his little brother. The film was directed by the well-known photographer, Ken Regan, and features a soundtrack with personal courtesies of Bob Dylan and The Rolling Stones. Price also starred in the Nickelodeon mockumentary TV series "The Naked Brothers Band", created by Polly Draper. He plays Bobby Love, a deceitful British rocker who wins the heart of Nat's girlfriend, Rosalina (Allie DiMeco). "He's a faux British rocker who's really a surfer dude from San Diego" stated Price. In March 2008, Price signed with Strong Management for acting. In late 2008, Price became a teen sensation in the hit Warner Bros. film "The Clique",directed by Michael Lembeck. He starred as the heartthrob, Chris Abeley, a handsome high school student whom Massie Block and her clique have a crush on. The film is based on the bestselling novel of the same name, by Lisi Harrison. In July 2011, Price filmed another feature film called "One Fall", which was released to select theaters in October 2012. In June 2010, Price was named BMI Young Songwriter of the Year, and was subsequently inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame. He also received the Abe Olman Publisher's Award for Excellence in Songwriting. Price's new TV series from Awesomeness TV/DreamWorks is set to come out in July 2013. The show is executive produced by Brian Robbins & Joe Davola. Price plays the role of "Zac" on the show. "Move My Way". Recorded in Electric Lady Studios, where legends such as Jimi Hendrix, John Lennon, and Peter Frampton have made history, Price's first album, entitled "Move My Way",dropped in early December, 2009. The album featured co-writes with various artists including Kevin Griffin of Better Than Ezra, and the well-known musician/producer, Kiyanu Kim, who toured with Gwen Stefani. In addition, Price has collaborated with Robbie Nevil, best known for his hit single "C'est La Vie", and soundtrack for the "High School Musical" series.
586026	Kerala Cafe is a 2009 Malayalam anthology film produced by Ranjith and directed by a team of ten directors including Lal Jose, Shaji Kailas, Anwar Rasheed, Shyamaprasad, B. Unnikrishnan, Revathy, Anjali Menon, M. Padmakumar, Shankar Ramakrishnan, and Uday Ananthan. For the first time in the history of Malayalam cinema, one film was conceived by a team of ten directors. Ten cinematographers, musicians, editors, art directors and almost all the top Malayalam film actors joined this unique venture. The cast includes Mammootty, Suresh Gopi, Dileep, Sreenivasan, Prithviraj, Siddique, Jayasurya, Sreenath, Rahman, Thilakan, Jagathy Sreekumar, Salim Kumar, Anoop Menon, Fahadh Faasil, Navya Nair, Shwetha Menon, Jyothirmayi, Rima Kallingal, Nithya Menon and Dhanya Mary Varghese. Backwater Media & Entertainment Private Limited distributed the film. The film released in Kerala on 29 October 2009. Theme. On a common theme of journeys, each filmmaker presents their cinematic impression of contemporary times in Kerala. The independent narratives integrate when, during these journeys, their characters pass through Kerala Cafe—a quaint railway cafeteria—thereby creating a joint mosaic of issues and impressions. Songs. The only song featured in the movie is "Kathayamama, Kathayamama, Kathakalathisadaram", an ode to Thunchath Ezhuthachan's famous verse, shown when the final credits roll. The lyrics of the song are by Rafeeq Ahmed and the music was created by Bijibal, with the voice of P. Jayachandran. Other features. The project involved ten different cinematographers from the industry. The project features ten different stories from different settings in Kerala, providing ample scope for a diverse bouquet of visual styles. The intersection of the ten stories happens in a railway cafeteria called “Kerala Café”, where there is an interaction among the characters of the different stories. This portion was collectively shot by the participating directors and the cinematography was done by Prakash Kutty. Ranjith was the compiler and the producer of the project. Plots. "Nostalgia" (First segment). "Nostalgia" that is loosely based on Venugopal's poem "Naatuvazhikal" is the first film that unfolds. Johnykutty (Dileep) is a millionaire based in the Middle East, who dreams of being back to Kerala some day. On a vacation back to India though, he despises the government and the potholes on the road, the bureaucracy and the people. Having signed a deal to sell off his ancestral mansion, and cheating his old friend (Sudheesh), he flies back to Dubai, to commence his nostalgic laments all over again. "Island Express" (Second segment). The hero (Prithviraj) zooms down and starts whispering to us about Jesus, Frankenstein and Mangalassery Neelakantan, the idol trio who have had a say in his life. With his 'editor-publisher bitch'(Kani) hanging around his arms, the writer that he is, speeds off to Kerala, promising her that he would get traditional attire to cover her up when they reach there. An aged woman (Sukumari) waits around for her bus to arrive in some bus station, while an army officer (Jayasurya) sitting nearby dozes off, his head resting gently on her shoulders. A dishevelled looking man in his fifties (Maniyanpilla Raju), brushes aside the advances of a teenage girl in a shabby looking lodge, as he gets all ready to go somewhere. Island Express splendidly bonds together these diverse characters and more in a dramatic climax. "Lalitham Hiranmayam" (Third segment). Ramesh (Suresh Gopi) is caught between his wife Lalitha (Jyothirmayi) and mistress Mayi (Dhanya Mary Varghese) and has to take the big decision now. The turmoil that goes on inside the man's mind is slickly edited and trendily depicted on screen. Ramesh discloses his affair with Mayi to Lalitha before his accidental death, and Lalitha accepts Mayi and her child as part of her life. "Mrityunjayam" (Fourth segment). "Mrityunjayam" has a journalist (Fahadh Faasil) doing an investigative story on a spooky old 'Mana' (ancestral Kerala house) that in its owner's (Thilakan) own words is a 'very different and peculiar place'. He falls in love with a girl,owner's grand daughter(Rima Kallingal) who greets him at the door there, and pops the question if he could marry her. She's taken aback but all the more impressed by his candidness. He then proceeds to the "Mana" to unveil the mystery despite its owners cautionary warning. In the end the journalist also succumbs to the mystery of the "Mana", and is found dead inside, the next morning. "Happy Journey" (Fifth segment). "Happy Journey" is a hilarious take on the psyche of the lecherous Malayalee. A middle aged man (Jagathy Sreekumar) delights himself with a bit of flirting with a young girl (Nithya Menen) who sits beside him on a bus from Ernakulam to Kozhikode. Edging his way into the girl's seat and engaging in worthless conversation, he is all optimistic about the night that lies ahead. The girl on the other hand is visibly uncomfortable, and all on a sudden composedly takes on a different garb that stuns the man. Against all odds, she would keep her head above the water, and a calmness descends on her that is at once creepy and confident. A psychological combat between the two ensues that concludes in an impressive climax. "Aviramam" (Sixth segment). "Aviramam" talks of life that would go on, even as one strives to put an end to it all. Devi (Shwetha Menon) wakes up to find her doting husband Ravi (Siddique) beside her with a cup of tea. Gulping down the tea, she talks of 'how horrible a kisser' he was. There is talk of the recession eating into the IT sector and Ravi's business in particular before they get ready to leave for the railway station with their kids. Having seen off his family on a short vacation of three days, Ravi heads back home and gets a noose ready to finally call it a day. But the true love of Devi prevents any mishaps and they decide to take on life as it comes. "Off Season" (Seventh segment). Kunjappai (Suraj Venjarammood) gets all pepped up as he comes across a foreigner couple on an almost empty Kovalam beach.His hopes of earning some quick money are dashed when he learns that they have traveled all the way from Lisbon looking for work. "Bridge" (Eighth segment). "Bridge" illustrates the very obvious symbols of loss, misery and desolation. The film talks about two parallel tracks, the first one involving a young boy and his pet kitten. The other story has a son (Salim Kumar), who lives in poor surroundings, deciding to leave his ailing mother (Kozhikkode Shantha Devi) in the street. "Makal" (Ninth segment). "Makal" is about the flesh trade which is happening under the guise of adoption. Sona Nair and Sreenath have done the main roles. "Puram Kazhchakal" (Tenth segment). "Puram Kazhchakal" portrays a nameless man (Mammootty) aboard a bus trudging along a hill terrain. His anger and impatience at the slow moving vehicle is being amusedly watched by a fellow passenger (Sreenivasan) who gulps down his own memories. Release. The film was premiered in Abu Dhabi on 9 October 2009. The film released in theatres on 29 October 2009. Reception. Critics gave the movie generally favourable reviews. Giving it three stars out of five, Nowrunning.com commented: "Open up this box of assorted candies, and you see them all laid out on a salver, quite uneven in manner and matter, posture and perspective and yet it all builds into something quite incredible that makes this ambitious enterprise a fascinating filmic feast." Movie Buzz of Sify.com said, "Here is a film that looks different from the rest and catches the viewers' attention quite easily."
1375355	Richard "Ricky" Mabe (born May 24, 1983) is a Canadian actor. Mabe was born in Pointe-Claire, Quebec. He first voiced the character Willie in CINAR Animation's "The Little Lulu Show" and has subsequently starred frequently on various Canadian television series' and in feature films alongside Burt Reynolds, Ryan Gosling and Elisha Cuthbert. He was also the voice of Timmy Tibble one of the Tibble Twins on the PBS children's animated television program "Arthur", Stig in "Pig City", Freddie Fay in the later season of "The Kids from Room 402" and played Gideon Lustig in several episodes of "Beautiful People". More recently, Mabe has been cast in such feature films as "Zack and Miri Make a Porno" and "The Trotsky".
1712290	For a Few Dollars More () is a 1965 Italian spaghetti western film directed by Sergio Leone and starring Clint Eastwood, Lee Van Cleef, and Gian Maria Volonté. German actor Klaus Kinski also plays a supporting role as a secondary villain. The film was released in the United States in 1967 and is the second part of what is commonly known as the Dollars Trilogy. Plot. Eastwood (as the Man with No Name) and Van Cleef (as Colonel Douglas Mortimer and the "Man in Black") portray two bounty hunters in pursuit of "El Indio" (Gian Maria Volonté), one of the most wanted fugitives in the western territories, and his gang. Indio is a ruthless, intelligent man. He has a musical pocketwatch that he plays before engaging in gun duels. "When the chimes finish, begin", he says. Flashbacks reveal that the watch originates from a young woman (Rosemary Dexter), who killed herself while being raped by Indio after he had found her with her lover (in Joe Millard's novelization of the film, the young man is her newly-wed husband) and killed him. The watch bears a photo of the woman and was presented as a gift by the young man before being killed. Colonel Mortimer (Van Cleef) illegally stops a train in Tucumcari, and soon after collects a bounty of $1,000 on Guy Calloway (José Terrón). Mortimer's gunslinging skill is displayed as he easily kills him from long distance. After collecting the bounty he inquires about Red "Baby" Cavanagh (José Marco), who has a $2,000 bounty, and was last seen in White Rocks. Mortimer is told that Cavanagh has already been targeted by Eastwood's character, who is referred to as "Manco" (meaning one-armed in Spanish — see below for an explanation). We see Manco ride into town and track down Cavanagh at a saloon playing five-card draw poker. Manco kills him and his men, and takes the bounty. Eventually, the two bounty hunters, after learning about each other from different sources, meet in El Paso and, after butting heads, decide to team up to take down Indio and his gang. Indio's primary goal is to rob the Bank of El Paso and its disguised safe containing "almost a million dollars." Mortimer persuades a reluctant Manco to join Indio's gang during the robbery in order to "get him between two fires." Manco is offered membership in the gang after rescuing one of Indio's friends from prison. When Indio robs the bank, he brings the gang and the money to the small border town of Agua Caliente, where Mortimer reunites with Manco. The hunchback Wild (Klaus Kinski) recognizes the Colonel from a previous encounter in which the Colonel had deliberately insulted him and forces a showdown in which he is killed by the Colonel. The Colonel then proves his worth to Indio by cracking open the safe without using explosives, but Indio states his intention to wait a month if necessary to allow the furor over the bank robbery to die down and locks the money away. Manco and the Colonel plan to steal the bank money from Indio, but the bandits catch them in the act and severely beat them. Indio's right-hand man Nino (Mario Brega), on orders from Indio, kills their guard and releases the bounty hunters. Indio informs his gang that they "got away", and sends them after the escaped bounty hunters. He intends to kill off his gang with the bounty killers while he and Nino take all the loot for themselves. However, the smarter Groggy (Luigi Pistilli) figures out what Indio is up to, and kills Nino. Before he can kill Indio, he finds that the Colonel has already removed the stolen money from where Indio had hidden it. Indio convinces Groggy to join forces with him to trap the bounty-killers. The next morning, Manco and Mortimer shoot down the gang, one by one, in the streets of the town. Standing alone, Mortimer shoots Groggy when the outlaw tries to run for it, but then has his gun shot out of his hand by Indio, who then takes out his pocketwatch and begins playing it. As the chimes nears the end, Manco suddenly appears with an identical pocketwatch, playing the same tune as Indio's, which Mortimer realizes had been taken from him earlier. As this happens, Manco holds an 1854 Jennings Rifle Company Volcanic Rifle on Indio and gives his gunbelt and pistol to Mortimer, evening the odds. "Now we start", Manco announces and sits while Mortimer and Indio face off. During the standoff, Manco looks down at the pocketwatch and sees the same picture of the woman Indio had raped. The music finishes, and Mortimer outdraws and guns down Indio. At this juncture, Mortimer takes Indio's pocketwatch. Manco gives him back the other watch and remarks on a family resemblance; the Colonel replies, "Naturally, between brother and sister". His revenge complete, he decides to take no part of the bounty. As Manco tosses Indio's body into a wagon with the corpses of the rest of the gang and counts them by the reward for each one, he realizes he is short of the $27,000 total, and spins around to gun down Groggy who had survived and was sneaking up behind him to kill him. As he leaves, he recovers the money stolen from the Bank of El Paso, though it is not clear whether he intends to return it. He then rides off into the distance with his horse towing the wagon full of the lifeless bodies of the entire gang. Production. After the box-office success of "A Fistful of Dollars" in Italy, director Sergio Leone and his new producer, Alberto Grimaldi, wanted to begin production of a sequel, but they needed to get Clint Eastwood to agree to star in it. Eastwood was not ready to commit to a second film when he had not even seen the first. Quickly, the filmmakers rushed an Italian-language print (a U.S. version did not yet exist) of "Per un pugno di dollari" to him. The star then gathered a group of friends for a debut screening at CBS Production Center and, not knowing what to expect, tried to keep expectations low by downplaying the film. As the reels unspooled, however, Eastwood's concerns proved to be unfounded. The audience may not have understood Italian, but in terms of style and action, the film spoke volumes. "Everybody enjoyed it just as much as if it had been in English", Eastwood recalled. Soon, he was on the phone with the filmmakers' representative: "Yeah, I'll work for that director again", he said. Charles Bronson was again approached for a starring role but he passed, citing that the sequel's script was like the first film. Instead, Lee Van Cleef accepted the role. Eastwood received $50,000 for returning in the sequel, while Van Cleef received $17,000. The film was shot in Almería, Spain, with interiors done at Rome's Cinecittà Studios. Screenwriter Luciano Vincenzoni wrote the film in nine days. The production designer, Carlo Simi built the town of "El Paso" in the Almería desert: it still exists, as a tourist attraction "Mini Hollywood". The town of Agua Caliente, where Indio and his gang flee after the bank robbery, is Albaricoques, a small "pueblo blanco" on the Níjar plain. As all of the film's footage was shot silent, Eastwood and Van Cleef returned to Italy where they dubbed over their dialogue and sound effects were added. Characters. Manco. In the English-dubbed version of the film, Eastwood's character is said to "go by the name of 'Manco.'" "Manco" is a word that means "one-armed" and "lame of one hand" in Spanish and "limp" in Portuguese; Eastwood's character performs nearly all actions using only his left hand, to leave free his right hand, with which he draws. His behavior thus bears a joking resemblance to that of a one-armed man. In the original Italian version, Eastwood's character's sobriquet is "Monco", the Italian equivalent of the word "manco". Thus in many written sources, the Man with No Name is called Monco, due to the Italian form. In any case, the English-dubbed voices of the film's characters seemingly pronounce "Manco" when they refer to him. El Indio. El Indio (Spanish for "The Indian"), played by Gian Maria Volonté, is a ruthless character, considered by the authorities in the film to be one of the worst criminals of the times; according to a bank official "Not even Indio would dare to rob that one." In a flashback sequence it is revealed that he shot a young man (Peter Lee Lawrence) and raped his wife (Rosemary Dexter). The girl, who was the sister of Van Cleef's character, shot and killed herself during the rape. El Indio smokes what seems to be marijuana or opium to ease the intensity of the memory. In the film El Indio has a gang of fourteen men who rob the bank in El Paso. The act of killing Mortimer's sister distresses him to an ascertainable degree, as it lingers in his memory profoundly; notable in most Sergio Leone films is there being antagonistic or authoritarian characters having psychological or physical disabilities. Colonel Douglas Mortimer. Colonel Douglas Mortimer is a rival bounty hunter, though he is much older than Eastwood's character: "almost fifty years of age." Manco, Clint Eastwood's character, travels to visit a man known as "The Prophet" early in the movie to find out all he can about his rival. "The Prophet" explains Colonel Douglas Mortimer to have "once been a great man, a soldier" and "the finest shot in the Carolinas. Now he's reduced to being a bounty killer same as you." At the bank in El Paso, Mortimer explains to a bank manager he was from the Carolinas. The bank manager is encouraged by Mortimer's presence, giving the indication Mortimer has a large amount of money elsewhere which the bank of Tucumcari would be glad to accept. Unlike Manco, Mortimer's motivation throughout the movie is not the bounty over El Indio and his gang, but vengeance for the death of Mortimer's sister many years before, who killed herself while being raped by Indio. During an encounter with El Indio in the movie, Mortimer exclaims, "This is Colonel Mortimer, Douglas Mortimer. Does the name mean anything to you?" Having seen the death of Indio, Mortimer leaves all of the bounty to be collected by Manco at the end of the movie. Mortimer says to Manco, after being questioned by Manco about the bounty, "It's all for you, I think you deserve it." Mortimer rides off alone at the end, as his purposes were then completed. Music. Ennio Morricone composed the film's soundtrack as he did for " Fistful of Dollars": before production had started, under Leone's explicit direction. In fact Leone often shot to Morricone's music on set. In the United States, Hugo Montenegro released a cover version as did Billy Strange and Leroy Holmes who released a cover version of the soundtrack album with the original American poster art. Maurizio Graf sang a vocal "Occhio Per Occhio"/"Eye For An Eye" to the music of the cue "Sixty Seconds to What" track that did not appear in the film but was released as a tie-in 45rpm record. Release. The film was released in Italy in December 1965 as "Per Qualche Dollaro in Piu". In the United States, it debuted four months after the release to "A Fistful of Dollars", grossing $5 million. The film currently holds a 94% rating on Rottentomatoes.com.
1060540	Jennifer Tilly (born September 16, 1958) is a Canadian-American actress and poker player. She is an Academy Award nominee, and a World Series of Poker Ladies' Event bracelet winner. She is the older sister of actress Meg Tilly. Early life and education. Tilly was born Jennifer E. Chan in Harbor City, Los Angeles. She is the first child of Harry Chan, a used car salesman, and Patricia (née Tilly), a Canadian schoolteacher and former stage actress. Her father was of Chinese descent and her mother was of Irish, Finnish, and First Nations ancestry. Following her parents' divorce when she was five, Tilly was raised by her mother and stepfather, John Ward, on rural Texada Island, British Columbia. Her mother divorced again when Tilly was 16, and moved to Victoria, where Tilly attended Belmont High School. Tilly holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Theater from Stephens College in Missouri. Career. Acting. In 1983, Tilly had small roles and had a recurring guest role on "Hill Street Blues" as Gina Srignoli, a mobster's widow who becomes romantically involved with detective Henry Goldblume. She played Frasier Crane's seductive-but-ditzy date on an episode of the fourth season of "Cheers" and appeared as a similar character on the eleventh season of "Frasier". She appeared as Garry's girlfriend on "It's Garry Shandling's Show", which aired on Showtime. She was also cast as a high end prostitute in the short lived comedy "Key West", alongside Fisher Stevens. Tilly's breakthrough film role was as a singing waitress in "The Fabulous Baker Boys" in a part that was specially written for her by Steve Kloves. She was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her role as a hopelessly bad actress in Woody Allen's "Bullets Over Broadway" (1994). In 1994, she also had a small role in "The Getaway" with Alec Baldwin and Kim Basinger. Tilly starred in 1996's "Bound", directed by The Wachowskis, which portrays a lesbian relationship her character has with Gina Gershon. She played Samantha Cole in the 1997 Jim Carrey hit "Liar Liar". In 2000's "Dancing at the Blue Iguana", she played a stripper and part-time dominatrix. She portrayed gossip columnist Louella Parsons in the 2001 Peter Bogdanovich film "The Cat's Meow". She gained some additional popularity in recent years for her portrayal of serial killer Tiffany Ray for three of the six "Child's Play" films. The character was first introduced in the fourth installment of the franchise, "Bride of Chucky" and subsequently appeared in "Seed of Chucky" and the most recent film, "Curse of Chucky". In "Seed", however, she plays a dual role providing the voice for Tiffany and also playing an exaggerated version of herself. She is a semi-regular cast member on "Family Guy", voicing the Griffin family's neighbor, Bonnie Swanson. She has also done voice-over work for the films "Monsters, Inc.", "Stuart Little and ""Home on the Range", as well as the children's series "Hey Arnold". In Disney's "The Haunted Mansion", she portrays Madame Leota (a head in a crystal ball). She has been active in the theatre, winning a Theater World Award for her performance in the off-Broadway play "One Shoe Off". She had a starring role in the series "Out of Practice", which starred Henry Winkler and Stockard Channing. The series was cancelled in May 2006. About this time, Tilly started dividing her time between her film career and professional poker. By the end of 2008, she returned to her film and television career. In 2009, Tilly made her Chinese film debut in the Christina Yao-directed "Empire of Silver" playing Mrs. Landdeck. Poker. On June 27, 2005, Tilly won a World Series of Poker bracelet (and $158,625) in the Ladies' No-Limit Texas Hold 'Em event, beating 600 other players. She followed up this accomplishment on September 1, 2005, by winning the third World Poker Tour Ladies Invitational Tournament held at the Bicycle Casino in Los Angeles. Tilly has appeared in the GSN Poker Royale series. Tilly played in the Celebrity Poker Showdown which aired June 14, 2006, on Bravo. She was knocked out in third place by Bravo's online poker champion Ida Siconolfi when her failed to improve against Ida's starting hand of . She often wears low-cut tops with push-up bras that expose lots of cleavage while playing poker, to distract less serious players, saying "the thing is, if people are ­"really" playing poker, they don’t care. Nothing looks better to them than a pair of aces. They’re not looking at "your pair". They’re looking at their pair." Tilly also appears in the "World Series of Poker Tournament of Champions 2007 Edition" video game (along with boyfriend, Phil Laak) that was released in 2007 by Activision. In a television interview in 2005, Tilly stated that at that point in her career she was more interested in pursuing poker than acting. By December 2008, Tilly announced her retirement from poker as a career. In her monthly column in "Bluff Magazine" she said: "I love poker but greatness in poker is an elusive dream. There are too many variants. Trying to find validation in poker is like trying to find a virgin in a whorehouse. I'm not giving up poker entirely – gambling is an addiction after all. I'm just going to treat it more like a hobby and less like a career." In January 2010, she resumed her poker career, and in July 2012, Tilly's live tournament winnings exceed $590,000. Personal life. From 1984 until 1991, Tilly was married to Sam Simon, developer and producer of "The Simpsons". She has an older brother, Steve, and two younger sisters, Meg and Rebecca.
1016007	Infernal Affairs III is a 2003 Hong Kong crime thriller film directed by Andrew Lau and Alan Mak. It is the third and final installment in the "Infernal Affairs" film series, and is both a sequel and a semi-prequel to the original film, as it intercuts events before and after the events in the first film. Andy Lau, Tony Leung, Kelly Chen, Anthony Wong, Eric Tsang, and Chapman To reprise their roles again, joined by new cast members Leon Lai and Chen Daoming. "Infernal Affairs III" received mixed to positive reviews, grossed HK$30,225,661 and was nominated for seven Hong Kong Film Awards. Plot. "Infernal Affairs III" uses parallel storytelling, flashing between the past and the present. Six months before Chan's death. Undercover cop Chan Wing-yan seeks to uncover the link between Hong Kong triad boss Hon Sam and the mysterious Chinese gang leader Shen Cheng. Since Hon's ascension to the seat of triad boss was due to the death of his predecessor, Ngai Wing-hau, Hon is suspicious of all his men for fear they might usurp his position. He tests Chan's loyalty by ordering him to smash an ashtray on Shen's brother during a negotiation, resulting in Chan's arrest by Inspector Yeung Kam-wing. Yeung tells Chan that though Chan does not recognise him, he recognises Chan and he warns the latter to "be careful". Chan is released after both Hon and Shen fetch him at police headquarters. Concurrently, Chan is prosecuted for violent behaviour. His superior, Superintendent Wong Chi-shing, persuades the court to allow Chan to seek therapy, leading him to meet Dr. Lee Sum-yee. Hon asks Chan to deliver arms to Shen, but he and other triad members do not show up. When Chan delivers the cargo, Shen's men discover that the boxes are empty and open fire on Chan; Shen and Chan shoot each other in the limbs during the crossfire. Shen finds out that Chan is an undercover cop when Yeung unexpectedly arrives on the scene. Yeung tells Chan that Shen is also an undercover cop, working for Chinese authorities. Yeung also tells Chan that he gained top honours when he was in the police academy due to Chan's "expulsion". The three shake hands and wait for the chaos to subside before leaving. Ten months after Chan's death. Lau Kin-ming, Hon's former mole in the Hong Kong Police Force, has been demoted to administrative duty pending an investigation into the deaths of Chan and Inspector B. He falsely claims that B shot Chan in the head while holding him hostage, and that he killed B in retaliation. After months of investigation, Lau is transferred back to Internal Affairs, where he struggles to whitewash his past and cover his true identity. Lau later learns that Hon had previously planted five other moles in the police force, one of whom might be a fellow Security Division Inspector, Yeung. A battle of wits develops between Lau and Yeung, as each of them tries to discover the other's secret. Meanwhile, Lau suffers from an identity collapse as he loses track of reality, wrestling with guilt over Chan's death and grappling with his impending divorce from his wife, Mary. His psychological trauma deteriorates to the point where he begins to see himself as Chan. As "Chan", Lau makes it a personal mission to apprehend Yeung, whom he sees as his former self. After witnessing an incident where Lau suffers a hallucination, Dr. Lee conducts a hypnosis on him and finds out that he was Hon's mole. Lau realises his folly and knocks Lee unconscious before escaping. Lau steals tapes from Yeung's office safe, using spy cameras to determine the code. He thinks he hears recordings of Yeung relating information to Hon, and leads his team to the Security Division to arrest Yeung just as Shen arrives. Lau plays a tape recording, which is actually the conversation between him and Hon. When Lau's second-in-command tries to arrest him instead, Lau panics and draws his gun, killing Yeung. He is immediately shot by Shen and attempts suicide by shooting himself in the neck. During a search of Lau's office, a tape is found in his safe and played. It is a recording of the song sung by Tsai Chin, given to him by Hon's wife. Eleven months after Chan's death. A series of flashbacks play: immediately after Chan's death, Shen and Yeung meet. Shen suspects Lau. Yeung breaks into Lau's office to find tape recordings of his conversations with Hon, proving that Shen is right. Yeung is buried next to Chan in the police cemetery. Shen and Lee visit the graves and Shen says to Lee: "Events change men, but men do not change events. But these two men are extraordinary because they changed events." Lau ends up crippled and catatonic, lost inside his own mind, haunted by the spirit of Mary (Hon Sam's wife, whom he had a crush on in "Infernal Affairs II") and locked in his own "continuous hell". His divorced wife Mary visits and tells him, "Our baby can say "papa" now." Before the picture fades into the next scene, the camera pans down onto Lau's fingers tapping out in Morse code, "H-E-L..." (and then the start of another 'L' as the picture dims). Before the film ends, there is one final flashback to the hi-fi shop scene in "Infernal Affairs", where Lau is buying an audio system from Chan. Music. The film's score was composed by Chan Kwong-wing. The theme song, "Road to Inferno" (自作自受; "Zi Zuo Zi Shou"), was composed by Andy Lau, Chan Tak-kin and Wan Ho-kit, lyrics provided by Andy Lau, and performed by Hacken Lee. Andy Lau also sang an alternate version of the song. Reception. Despite grossing higher than the second film at the box office with HKD 30,225,661 (over HKD 5 million more than "Infernal Affairs II"), "Infernal Affairs III" received lower ratings than the former. Channel 4 awarded the film a 3 out of 5 rating. The plot is also seen as confusing due to the constant flashbacks depicting Chan Wing-yan alive. LoveHKFilm rated the film as pushing beyond its original intentions, leaving more questions than answering them at the end of the run. While a relatively enjoyable film, it was obviously commercialized, citing scenes where all lead actors are crammed into one room or bringing back characters who were killed in the previous film in order to garner screentime for them. Although Tony Leung won the Best Actor award at the Hong Kong Film Awards and the Golden Horse Awards for his portrayal of Chan Wing-yan in the original "Infernal Affairs", Andy Lau was the one who won the Best Actor award at the 41st Golden Horse Awards for his portrayal of Lau Kin-ming in "Infernal Affairs III". There are two cuts of the film: a 107-minute version which was released in Hong Kong theatres, and a 118-minute version, which is the directors' cut. Both are available on DVD. According to LoveHKFilm, the longer version is the superior cut. Awards. 23rd Hong Kong Film Awards 41st Golden Horse Awards 9th Golden Bauhinia Awards
1059657	Blue Thunder is a 1983 feature film that features a high-tech helicopter of the same name. The movie was directed by John Badham and stars Roy Scheider. A spin-off television series also called "Blue Thunder" lasted 11 episodes in 1984. Plot. Francis McNeil "Frank" Murphy (Roy Scheider) is a Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) helicopter-pilot-officer and troubled Vietnam War veteran with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). His field partner is the newly assigned Richard Lymangood (Daniel Stern), who is given the nickname "JAFO". The two patrol Los Angeles at night and give assistance to police cars below. Murphy is selected to pilot the world's most advanced helicopter, nicknamed "Blue Thunder," which is essentially a military-style combat helicopter intended for police use in surveillance and large-scale civic disobedience. With powerful armament, stealth technology that allows it to fly virtually undetected, and other accoutrements (such as infrared scanners, powerful microphones and cameras, and a U-Matic VCR), Blue Thunder appears to be a formidable tool in the war on crime. But when the death of city councilwoman Diane McNeely turns out to be more than just a random murder, Murphy begins his own covert investigation. He discovers that a subversive action group, using the acronym THOR (Tactical Helicopter Offensive Response, the "proposed use of military helicopters to quell disorder"), is intending instead to use Blue Thunder to carry out an evil mission of their own, one that involves the secret elimination of political undesirables. Murphy suspects the involvement of his old wartime nemesis, former United States Army Colonel F.E. Cochrane (Malcolm McDowell), the primary test pilot for Blue Thunder. After using the technology aboard Blue Thunder to record a meeting Cochrane has with other high-powered government officials planning to use the helicopter for nefarious purposes, Murphy tries to get the video tape to a television station before he is killed, as Lymangood has already been. Frank Murphy succeeds in giving the video tape to his girlfriend Kate (Candy Clark), who sends the tape to the television station. A final showdown between Murphy and Cochrane, who flies a heavily armed Hughes 500 helicopter, takes place over downtown Los Angeles. It includes an initial battle with two Air National Guard F-16 fighters with one being shot down. By pulling off a spectacular 360° loop through use of Blue Thunder's turbine boost function, Murphy shoots down Cochrane. He then destroys Blue Thunder by landing it in front of an approaching freight train, having deemed the tactical helicopter too dangerous to be used by anyone else. Production. Co-writers Dan O'Bannon and Don Jakoby began developing the plot while living together in a Hollywood apartment in the late 1970s, where low-flying police helicopters awoke them on a regular basis. Their original script was a more political one, attacking the concept of a police state controlling the population through high-tech surveillance and heavy armament. They sought and received extensive script help from Captain Bob Woods, then-chief of the LAPD's Air Support Division. The first draft of the screenplay for "Blue Thunder" featured Frank Murphy as more of a crazy main character with deeper psychological issues, who went on a rampage and destroyed much of Los Angeles before finally falling to F-16s. Filmed on location in Los Angeles during the winter months of 1980-81, this was one of Warren Oates's last films before his death in 1982, which occurred during post-production less than one year after principal filming had ended, and it is dedicated to him. He made one movie and one TV episode before and after filming during 1981-1982 that were released after "Blue Thunder." The LAPD Hooper Heliport served as home base for the fictional police unit in the while construction of the heliport was still being completed. The drive-in theater scene where Frank's girlfriend Kate recovers the tape was filmed at the Pickwick Theatre in Burbank, California; the theater has since then been demolished and replaced by a Pavilions supermarket. Malcolm McDowell, who acted out the villain F. E. Cochrane, actually hated flying, and no one, not even his then wife Mary Steenburgen, could persuade him to rid himself of this phobia. In an interview for "Starlog" in 1983, Badham recalled, "He was terrified. He used to get out and throw up after a flight." During the climax with Frank Murphy while McDowell's character of Cochrane was in the attack helicopter, McDowell's grimaces and discomfort were caught on film for all to see. There are a few shots, during the chase sequence, that show McDowell clearly not to be comfortable about being in the air. When Steenburgen saw the film, she incredulously asked the filmmakers afterward, "How did you get him into that little helicopter? "I" couldn't get him inside a plane!" Blue Thunder helicopter. Designer Mickey Michaels invented the iconic helicopters used in the film after reviewing and rejecting various existing designs. The helicopter used for "Blue Thunder" was a French-made Aérospatiale SA-341G Gazelle modified with bolt-on parts and an Apache-style canopy. Two modified Gazelle helicopters, a Hughes 500 helicopter, and two F-16 fighter aircraft were used in the filming of the movie. The helicopters were purchased from Aerospatiale by Columbia Pictures for $190,000 each and flown to Cinema Air in Carlsbad, California where they were heavily modified for the film. These alterations made the helicopters so heavy that various tricks had to be employed to make it look fast and agile in the film. For instance, the 360° loop maneuver Murphy performs at the end of the film, which catches Cochrane so completely by surprise that he is easily shot down by Murphy's gunfire and killed, was carried out by a radio controlled model. Reception. "Blue Thunder" was released on May 13, 1983, and was the #1 ranked movie in the United States in its opening weekend, taking $8,258,149 at 1,539 theaters. It overtook Flashdance as the #1 movie that weekend. The movie was ranked #2 in its second and third weekends. Overall in the United States, it took $42,313,354 from 66 days on release. Blue Thunder was released in West Germany on February 5, 1983, before its United States release, then released worldwide between June-September 1983. Its UK release was August 25, 1983. It was released in East Germany and South Korea in 1984. Its international box office takings are unknown. The movie made $21.9 million in video rentals in the United States also. "Blue Thunder" received positive reviews, with an 84% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. "Variety" called it "a ripsnorting live-action cartoon, utterly implausible but no less enjoyable for that." Cultural references. An acronym used in "Blue Thunder," "JAFO," means "Just Another Fucking Observer." This police community is mentioned repeatedly in the film in reference to any police helicopter's non-pilot second officer, in this case Daniel Stern's character of Richard Lymangood. In the related TV series, the reference is bowdlerized as ""Just Another Frustrated Observer."" The Galaxie 500 song "Blue Thunder" takes its name from frontman Dean Wareham's car, which was named after the helicopter. Video Game. In 1987, Coca-Cola Telecommunications released a Blue Thunder video tape cartridge for Worlds of Wonder's short lived Action Max game system. Using footage from the film, the player plays the pilot of the Blue Thunder helicopter as he tries to prevent the World Peace Coalition from being attacked by a terrorist organization.
1163784	Carl William Demarest (February 27, 1892 – December 28, 1983) was an American character actor possibly best known for playing Uncle Charley in My Three Sons. A veteran of World War I, Demarest became a prolific film and television actor, working on over 140 films. He frequently played crusty but good-hearted roles. Early life and career. He was born Carl William Demarest in St. Paul, Minnesota, the son of Samuel and Wilhelmina (née Lindgren) Demarest. He moved to New Bridge, a hamlet in Bergen County, New Jersey, in infancy. He started in show business working in vaudeville, appearing with his wife as "Demarest and Colette", then moved on to Broadway. His film career began in 1926 and spanned the decades up to the 1970s. Demarest worked regularly with director Preston Sturges, becoming part of a "stock" troupe of actors that Sturges repeatedly cast in his films. He appeared in ten films written by Sturges, eight of which were under his direction, including "The Lady Eve", "Sullivan's Travels", and "The Miracle of Morgan's Creek". His most famous TV role was in the ABC and then CBS sitcom "My Three Sons" from 1965 to 1972, playing Uncle Charley O'Casey. He replaced William Frawley, whose failing health had made procuring insurance impossible. Demarest had worked with Fred MacMurray previously in the 1935 film "Hands Across the Table", the 1945 film "Pardon My Past", the 1948 film "On Our Merry Way" and the 1955 film "The Far Horizons" and was a personal friend of MacMurray. Prior to "My Three Sons", Demarest appeared with veteran western film star Roscoe Ates in the 1958 episode "And the Desert Shall Blossom" of CBS's "Alfred Hitchcock Presents". In the story line, Ates and Demarest appear as old timers living in the Nevada desert. The local sheriff, played by Ben Johnson, appears with an eviction notice, but he agrees to let the pair stay on their property if they can make a dead rosebush bloom within the next month.
1555155	Nolan Gould (born October 28, 1998) is an American teen actor widely known for his role as youngest sibling Luke Dunphy on the ABC sitcom "Modern Family". He is the brother of actor Aidan Gould. Career. Gould began his career at the age of three doing commercials. Nolan Gould's most recent films include leads in the features "Ghoul" (based on the novel by Brian Keene) and "Space Buddies". Current television credits for Nolan Gould include "Eleventh Hour" and the movie of the week, "Sweet Nothing in My Ear." He is also a star of the TV show "Modern Family", for which he has twice won a Screen Actor's Guild Award for Best Ensemble in a Comedy Series. Gould has trained with Patrick Malone and Lisa Picotte for years, focusing on scene study, cold reading and improv. During 2009, Gould appeared in commercials for The Hartford. Personal life. Gould was born in Columbus, Georgia. Gould is a member of Mensa, and as of 2012, had accelerated ten grades in school. During the 2012 summer, at age 13, he graduated from high school by taking a General Educational Development (GED) Test and said he hopes to take online college courses. Gould plays the double bass and banjo. He received his first banjo after going on "The Ellen Degeneres Show", and as a result, started playing instruments such as the didgeridoo and mandolin. When he went on the show a second time, he said he was thinking of either buying a theremin or a sitar. Ellen then gave him the sitar.
136605	Elizabeth Keener (born 1 December, 1966) is an American actress. She is best known for playing Dawn Denbo on the Showtime American lesbian drama, "The L Word".
1744907	Plot. Retro and Pandy, two unlikely renegades, awaken naked on Earth with no recollection of their past, but with superior physical abilities. After embarking on a brief but devastating crime spree for food, clothing and transportation in downtown Tokyo, they are captured by authorities and sent to the infamous prison called Dead Leaves, on the half-destroyed Moon.
1236319	Titus B. Welliver (born March 12, 1961) is an American actor. He is best known for his recurring roles on the television shows "Deadwood", "Lost", "Sons of Anarchy" and "The Good Wife". His most notable films are "Gone Baby Gone" and "The Town". Early life. Welliver was born in New Haven, Connecticut, the son of Norma Cripps, a fashion illustrator, and the landscape painter Neil Welliver. He studied drama at New York University in the early 1980s, before his film and television career began to take off. Career. Welliver has worked on several film projects, including "The Doors", "Rough Riders", "Mulholland Falls", "Twisted", "Biker Boyz", and "Assault on Precinct 13".
587099	Vaishnavi or Vaishnavi Mahant is an Indian actress who is best known for playing Geeta Vishwas in Mukesh Khanna's television series "Shaktimaan" telecasted on Doordarshan.
1163384	Larry Parks (December 13, 1914 – April 13, 1975) was an American stage and movie actor. He was born Samuel Klausman Lawrence Parks. His career was virtually ended when he admitted to having once been a member of a Communist party cell, which led to his blacklisting by all Hollywood studios. Background. Parks grew up in Joliet, Illinois, graduating from Joliet Township High School in 1932. He attended the University of Illinois as a pre-med student, and played in stock companies for a few years before signing a movie contract with Columbia Pictures in 1941. As did most Columbia contract players, he played supporting roles in higher-budgeted films, and larger roles in B pictures, such as 1942's "Atlantic Convoy".
194761	Erik the Viking is a 1989 British comedy-fantasy film written and directed by Terry Jones. The film was inspired by Jones's children's book "The Saga of Erik the Viking" (1983), but the plot is completely different. Jones also appears in the film as King Arnulf. Story. The film is based largely upon Norse mythology. In the film's opening scene Erik (Tim Robbins), a young Viking, discovers that he has no taste for rape and pillage, and suffers guilt over the death of Helga (Samantha Bond), an innocent woman. Erik learns from the wise woman Freya (Eartha Kitt) that Fenrir the wolf has swallowed the sun, plunging the world into the grip of the age of Ragnarök. Erik resolves to travel to Asgard to petition the gods to end Ragnarök. Freya informs him that to do so he must seek the Horn Resounding in the land of Hy-Brasil. The first note blown upon the Horn will take Erik and his crew to Asgard, the second will awaken the gods, and the third will bring the crew home. Keitel Blacksmith (Gary Cady) and his underling Loki (Antony Sher) are opposed to Erik's plan, because peace would end the demand for Keitel's swords. Keitel joins Erik's crew, hoping to sabotage Erik's plans. Halfdan the Black (John Cleese) joins them, afraid that peace will mean the end of his reign, and sets sail in pursuit. Arriving at Hy-Brasil, Erik and crew are astonished to find it a sunlit land whose people are friendly (if musically untalented). Erik promptly falls in love with Princess Aud (Imogen Stubbs), daughter of King Arnulf (Terry Jones). During one of their romantic encounters, Erik hides from Arnulf using Aud's magic cloak of invisibility.
1165515	Dan Blocker (December 10, 1928 – May 13, 1972) was an American television actor and Korean War veteran. He is best remembered for his role as Eric "Hoss" Cartwright in the NBC western television series "Bonanza". Early life. Blocker was born Bobby Dan Davis Blocker in De Kalb in Bowie County in northeastern Texas, son of Ora Shack Blocker (1895–1960) and his wife Mary Davis Blocker (1901–1998). The family moved to O'Donnell, south of Lubbock in West Texas, where they operated a store.
566990	"Adam's Apples" () is a 2005 Danish black comedy film directed by Anders Thomas Jensen. The film revolves around the theme of the Book of Job. The main roles are played by Ulrich Thomsen and Mads Mikkelsen. Plot. Neo-Nazi gang leader Adam (Ulrich Thomsen), is granted parole from prison by participating in a rehabilitation program, where he joins the aggressive Arabian burglar Khalid (Ali Kazim) and the kleptomanic rapist Gunnar (Nicolas Bro). The community is headed by the priest Ivan (Mads Mikkelsen), who believes firmly and blindly in the goodness of man, and is seemingly oblivious to the ongoing misconduct and aggression of his charges. Ivan tells Adam to choose a goal for himself to complete his rehabilitaion. Trying to mock the priest, Adam chooses the goal of baking an apple pie. Ivan accepts, but stipulates that making the pie includes grooming and harvesting the churchyard apple tree. Adam is loath to complete his task, especially because at first crows attack the apples, and later most of those that remain are eaten by worms. The misanthropic Nazi is especially irritated by Ivan's joyful manner, excessive optimism and extreme forgiveness, and he sets it as his personal goal to break the priests spirit and crush his faith. Adam discovers that Ivan's life has been very difficult. Growing up as a victim of child abuse, he has terminal brain cancer, and is the widowed father of a severely disabled child. The cynical village doctor theorizes that Ivan discounts reality and sees all problems as tests from the devil, because his real life would be otherwise nearly impossible to bear. Adam psychologically attacks the priest by quoting the Book of Job, reasoning that it is god who hates the priest, not the devil, and in the face of Adam's brutal confrontation, Ivan finally breaks down and renounces his faith.
1040113	James D'Arcy (born Simon D'Arcy; 24 August 1975) is an English actor. Early life. James D'Arcy was born in Fulham, London, where he and his younger sister, Charlotte were raised by their mother, Caroline (a nurse). His father died when he was young. After completing his education at Christ's Hospital in 1991, he went to Australia for a year and worked in the drama department of a school in Perth, which gave him an interest in acting. When he returned to London he applied for drama school. He did a three-year course at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art, completing a BA in Acting in 1995. During his time at LAMDA he appeared in training productions of "Heracles", "As You Like It", "Wild Honey", "The Freedom of the City" and "Sherlock Holmes". On leaving drama school: "It was only when I finished the course and left my graduation diploma on the bus that I realized I'd become an actor." Career. His first appearances on television were small roles in the TV series "Silent Witness" (1996) and "Dalziel and Pascoe" (1996), followed by roles in TV film such as Nicholas Hawthorne in Ruth Rendell's "Bribery and Corruption" (1997), Lord Cheshire in "The Canterville Ghost" (1997) and Jonathan Maybury in "The Ice House" (1997). In 1997 he furthermore played Blifil in the Mini-series "The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling". In 1999, he acted alongside Daniel Craig in the World War I drama "The Trench" as well as having a small role in the comedy "Guest House Paradiso". From 2001 on, D’Arcy played bigger roles and leading characters in the mini-series "Rebel Heart" (2001, Ernie Coyne), "The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby" (2001, Nicholas Nickleby), with Sophia Myles and Charles Dance and "Revelation" (2001, Jake Martel). In 2002, he portrayed a young Sherlock Holmes in the television film '. In 2003, he played the role of Barnaby Caspian in the film "Dot the I" alongside Gael García Bernal and Natalia Verbeke, and the character Jim Caddon in the series "P.O.W" In 2003, he also gained wider recognition when he portrayed Lt. Tom Pullings in Peter Weir's ', opposite Russell Crowe and Paul Bettany. He played in horror films ' (2004, Father Francis), "An American Haunting" (2005, Richard Powell) and ' (2007, Bishop). Apart from that, he appeared on television as Derek Kettering in the "Poirot" episode "The Mystery of the Blue Train" (2005), as Jerry Burton in "Marple: The Moving Finger", as Tiberius Gracchus in the episode "Revolution" of "" (2007), as Toby Clifford in "Fallen Angel" (2007) and as Tom Bertram in ITV's production of "Mansfield Park". He has also worked for BBC radio dramas such as Thomas Hardy's "Tess of the d'Urbervilles", Bram Stoker's "Dracula" and Winifred Holtby's "The Crowded Street". He played the role of Duncan in "Secret Diary of a Call Girl". In 2011, he played the role of King Edward VIII in "W.E.", the second film directed by Madonna. In 2012, he played Rufus Sixsmith (young and old) in addition to two other minor roles in the independent film, Cloud Atlas.
583281	Kuch Meetha Ho Jaye (translation: "Lets Have Something Sweet") is a 2005 Romantic Bollywood film directed by Samar Khan as his debut film. It starred Arshad Warsi, Mahima Chaudhry, Parvin Dabas in lead roles while Shahrukh Khan had a special appearance as himself. Synopsis. A plane-load of passengers are stranded in distant Ganganagar in rural India as their plane is unable to take off due to technical problems. The Airport Manager is S.R. Khan (Arshad Warsi), intoxicated and belligerent at most times, gets to meet his former sweetheart, Gulab Khan (Mahima Chaudhry), in the company of her husband; his wise-cracking Sikh Assistant, Ram Saran Dubey (Jaspal Bhatti), whose mother is a Sardarni, while his dad is from Bihar; An estranged father, Sunil Wadhwa (Sachin Khedekar), and his wife try to pacify their daughter into accepting their imminent separation; while Italian Siddharth (Parvin Dabas) has only a few hours to make up his mind who he wants to marry, Anita Ahuja or Manju Narang, who both happen to be cousins, and both aggressively want to be his wife; The Pilot Captain Vikram Sinha (Rohit Roy) is shattered when he gets the news that his affair with air-hostess, Raj (Sharavan), has resulted in a much avoidable pregnancy; and Internet lovers Farha and Rahul finally meet - only to come to face with reality as Farha's father does not approve of her affair with Rahul, and does not want her to come home. Farha also goes missing then. All this happens in the midst of a mysterious male who is asleep on a bench in the Airport Lounge, and he is not to be disturbed under any circumstances. The mysterious male turns out to be Farha's famous idol Shahrukh Khan, who persuades her to go back home with Raj, and makes sure that their parents approve it.
1163662	Roderick Andrew Anthony Jude "Roddy" McDowall (17 September 1928 – 3 October 1998) was an English actor, film director, photographer and voice artist. His film roles included Cornelius and Caesar in the "Planet of the Apes" film series. He began his long acting career as a child in "How Green Was My Valley", "My Friend Flicka" and "Lassie Come Home", and as an adult appeared most frequently as a character actor on stage and television. He served in several positions on the Board of Governors for the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences as well as contributing to various charities related to the film industry and film preservation. Early life and career. McDowall was born at 204 Herne Hill Road, Herne Hill, London, the son of Winsfriede Lucinda (née Corcoran), an Irish-born aspiring actress, and Thomas Andrew McDowall, a merchant seaman of Scottish descent. Both of his parents were enthusiastic about the theatre. He had an older sister, Virginia, who was a sometime actress. After McDowall had appeared in several British films, his family moved to the United States of America in 1939 because of the outbreak of World War II in Britain. McDowall apparently resided in the United States for the rest of his life. He never married. He made his first well-known film appearance at the age of 12, playing "Huw Morgan" in "How Green Was My Valley" (1941). This role made him a household name. He starred in "Lassie Come Home" (1943), a film that introduced a girl who would become his lifelong friend — Elizabeth Taylor. He then appeared as Ken McLaughlin in the 1943 film "My Friend Flicka". McDowall went on to appear in several other films, including "The Keys of the Kingdom" (1944) and "The White Cliffs of Dover" (1944). In 1944 exhibitors voted him the number four "star of tomorrow". Adult career. McDowall continued his career successfully into adulthood. He made his first screen appearances as a young adult in 1948 for Monogram Pictures, a low-budget studio that always welcomed established star names. Apart from "Kidnapped" (1948), an adaptation of the Robert Louis Stevenson story, the McDowall Monograms were contemporary outdoor adventures; he made seven features for the studio until the series lapsed in 1952. With no other movie roles forthcoming, McDowall temporarily retired from the screen and worked instead on the stage (notably in "Camelot") and in television through the 1950s and 1960s. He appeared in such series as the original "The Twilight Zone", "The Eleventh Hour", "Buck Rogers in the 25th Century", "Night Gallery", "The Invaders", "The Carol Burnett Show", "Fantasy Island", "Columbo" and "Quantum Leap". He is well remembered for his performances (in heavy makeup as various "chimpanzee" characters) in four of the "Planet of the Apes" films (1968–1973) and in the 1974 TV series that followed. During one guest appearance on "The Carol Burnett Show", he came out onto the stage in his "Planet of the Apes" makeup and the look of fright on Carol Burnett's face was reported to be genuine. In the 1960s McDowall specialized in character roles. Film appearances included "Cleopatra" (1963), in which he played Octavian (the young Emperor Augustus) and was believed to be set to get nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor but was disqualified when accidentally submitted for Best Actor instead; "It!" (1966), in which he played a Norman Bates-like character reminiscent of "Psycho"; "The Poseidon Adventure" (1972), in which he played Acres, a dining room attendant; "The Legend of Hell House" (1973), in which he played a physical medium assigned to a team attempting to crack the secret of the Belasco House; "Dirty Mary, Crazy Larry" (1974); "Evil Under the Sun" (1982); "Class of 1984" (1982); "Fright Night" (1985), in which he played Peter Vincent, a television host and moderator of telecast horror films; and "Overboard" (1987) in which he played a kind-hearted butler (and produced the film). McDowall appeared frequently on "Hollywood Squares", and occasionally came up with quips himself. McDowall played "The Bookworm" in the 1960s American TV series "Batman", and he had an acclaimed recurring role as "The Mad Hatter" in ' as well as providing his adroit dramatic tones to the audiobook adaptation of the 1989 "Batman" film. He also played the rebel scientist Dr. Jonathan Willoway in the 1970s science fiction TV series, "The Fantastic Journey", based on the Bermuda Triangle. McDowall's final acting role in animation (at least), was for an episode of ' in the episode "Dreadloch". In "A Bug's Life" (1998), one of his final contributions to motion pictures, he provides the voice of the ant "Mr. Soil". During the 1990s, McDowall became active in film preservation and participated in the restoration of "Cleopatra" (1963). McDowall served for several years in various capacities on the Board of Governors of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the organisation that presents the Oscar Awards. He was Chairman of the Actors' Branch for five terms. He was elected President of the Academy Foundation the year that he died. McDowall received recognition as a photographer and published five books of photographs, one being of his celebrity friends such as Elizabeth Taylor, Judy Garland, Judy Holliday and Maureen O'Hara. One of his last public appearances occurred when he accompanied the actress Luise Rainer to the 70th Oscar ceremony. Personal life. In 1974, the FBI raided the home of McDowall and seized the actor's collection of films and television series in the course of an investigation of film piracy and copyright infringement. His collection consisted of 160 16 mm prints and more than 1,000 video cassettes, at a time before the era of commercial videotapes, when there was no legal aftermarket for films (copying or selling prints obtained from studios without owning the copyright was illegal). McDowall had purchased Errol Flynn's home cine films and the prints of his own directorial debut "Tam-Lin" (1970) starring Ava Gardner and transferred them all to tape for longer-lasting archival storage. McDowall was quite forthcoming about those who dealt with him: Rock Hudson, Dick Martin and Mel Tormé were just a few of the celebrities interested in his film reproductions. No criminal charges were filed against him as he did not sell any films from his collection. Later in the 1980s with the advent of the VHS tape, strict laws on copying videotape were put in place and enforced. Death. On 3 October 1998, McDowall died at his home in the Studio City district of Los Angeles of lung cancer. "It was very peaceful," said Dennis Osborne, a screenwriter friend who had cared for the actor in his final months. "It was just as he wanted it. It was exactly the way he planned." Though he was cremated through the Neptune Society Columbarium, his ashes were not distributed in the Pacific Ocean as had been widely reported at the time.
719588	How to Rob a Bank is an American independent film, with as its subtitle: "And 10 Tips To Actually Get Away With It". It finished filming in March 2006 and premiered May 20, 2007 at the Cannes Film Market. It was shown at the Los Angeles Film Festival on June 25, 2007. It opened in limited release in the United States on February 6, 2008. The film is about a man who gets caught in the middle of a bank robbery, ending up in the vault with one of the robbers he then treats as a hostage. After grossing $1,006 in the domestic market, the film was released on DVD on September 2, 2008. Plot. As he tries to access an ATM to retrieve his last twenty bucks, Jason “JINX” Taylor runs into a snag – the transaction fee will overdraw him, and he cannot get his money out of the bank. Jinx fumes about this and other hidden charges which complicate his life…as we realize that he is locked in a bank vault…with the beautiful but tied-up Jessica, her apparently a hostage. But, as Jinx rails against corporations and how they stack the deck, we realize that the situation is very different from what it appears: in fact, it is Jessica, not Jinx, who is robbing the bank. She is aligned with Simon, who leads an armed team inside the branch. However, Jinx’s entry into the scenario upsets the heist, leading him and Jessica to be inadvertently locked inside the vault. In addition, Jinx has called the cops, who, led by Officer De Gepse, have surrounded the bank. Jinx makes contact with Simon by cell phone, and the situation becomes clearer, as he realizes Jessica has access to a special inside-the-vault computer and its codes…she and only she can open the vault door. Simon becomes increasingly upset when he is unable to strong-talk Jinx into getting the vault open (so the robbers can clear out the safe deposit boxes). And De Gepse is equally frustrated by the standoff, particularly when it is Jinx, not he, who seems to gain control over the situation. As things progress, Jinx realizes that he and Jessica actually think very much alike – they both feel used – and this new kinship leads them to plot an escape. A call comes in from Nick, the true mastermind of the robbery, and Jinx and Jessica realize that Nick needs them to issue a PIN for him to access funds which have been skimmed (from fees, of course) over the course of years. With Simon increasingly unstable, Jinx is able to manipulate both him and De Gepse while also making a deal with Nick to provide a PIN (controlled by Jinx and Jessica) to go with Nick’s account information. Jinx manages to talk both cops and robbers into letting Jessica and him out, as freed hostages, and in the ensuing chaos, they slip away, to meet Nick and escape with their cut of the cash…
1169693	Jackie Joseph (born Sammie Jacqueline Joseph; November 7, 1934) is an American character actress, voice artist, and writer known for portraying Alan Brady's niece Jackie on the "Dick van Dyke Show", as well as the film characters of: Audrey Fulquard in the original "The Little Shop of Horrors", Sheila Futterman in both "Gremlins" films, and the voice of Melody in the animated television series "Josie and the Pussycats" and "Josie and the Pussycats in Outer Space". She was a regular on "The Doris Day Show" as Jackie Parker. She played the love interest of Ernest T. Bass on "The Andy Griffith Show" as well as Imogene Harris, the love interest of Mario (played by Jamie Farr) in "Who's Minding the Mint?" (1967). Life and career. Joseph was born in Los Angeles, California. She began her career as a featured performer and singer in the "Billy Barnes Revues" of the 1950s/60s, with future husband and actor Ken Berry. She was married to Berry, with whom she adopted two children, from May 29, 1960, until June 1976. Joseph has since remarried, to David Lawrence. Joseph is popular with fans of the original low-budget version of "The Little Shop of Horrors" (1960). Some of her television credits include appearances on such memorable shows as "The Andy Griffith Show", "The Dick Van Dyke Show" (two appearances), "That Girl", "F Troop", "Hogan's Heroes" (Season 1 Episode 28: "I Look Better in Basic Black" as Charlene Hemsley), "McHale's Navy", "Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C." (four appearances), "CHiPs" (in a two-part episode), "Full House" and "Designing Women" (as Mary Jo's mother). She also appeared for a week on the game show "Match Game '74". Although she only appeared once on the 1964 sitcom "My Living Doll" as one of the few surviving actors to appear on the series she participated in a retrospective featurette included on the 2012 DVD release of the series. In the early 1980s, Joseph helped form an organization for celebrity wives overcoming divorce. The group, which included Lynn Landon, Patti Palmer Lewis, and Carol Lawrence, went on talk shows (such as "The Phil Donahue Show") discussing the foibles of celebrity split-ups. In recent years she has been heavily involved with the Screen Actors Guild as well as organizations providing care for stray animals. She has been a columnist for Toluca Lake's newspaper, "The Tolucan Times", in which her signature sign off was "We'll talk."
1057094	Robin Hughes Harris (August 30, 1953 – March 18, 1990) was an American comedian and actor, known for his recurring comic sketch about "Bébé's Kids". Childhood. Robin Harris was born in Chicago, Illinois. His father, Earl, was a welder, and his mother, Mattie, was a factory seamstress. In 1961, the family moved to Los Angeles where he attended Manual Arts High School. A track star, Harris received a scholarship and attended Ottawa University in Kansas. During this time, he began to hone his craft of comedy. He worked for Hughes Aircraft, a rental car company, and Security Pacific Bank to pay his bills. In 1980, he debuted at Los Angeles’ Comedy Store. Career. During the mid 80's Robin worked as the master of ceremonies at the Comedy Act Theater. His “old school” brand of humor began to gain him a mainstream following. Harris made a promising feature debut playing a no-nonsense bartender in the feature film "I'm Gonna Git You Sucka" (1988). Harris performed in director Spike Lee’s "Do the Right Thing" (1989). As "Sweet Dick Willie," Harris served as part of the neighborhood "Greek chorus" that commented on the events of an increasingly tense day. Harris was Pop, the no-nonsense, quick-witted father of Kid in "House Party" (1990). He followed up later that year with a small turn as a jazz club MC in "Mo' Better Blues". He also had a role in Eddie Murphy's "Harlem Nights" (1989).
589100	Khubsoorat is a 1980 Indian Hindi film directed by Hrishikesh Mukherjee, whose direction together with dialogues by Gulzar. The film won the 1981 Filmfare Best Movie Award. The lead actress, Rekha, won her first Filmfare Best Actress Award for her role as Manju Dayal (she was also nominated for a role in the film "Judaai" that year). Plot. Nirmala Gupta (Dina Pathak), wife of Dwarka Prasad Gupta (Ashok Kumar), runs her household very strictly. While most of her family resent this, they obey her instructions to be on her good side.
774099	Corey Daniel Sevier (born July 3, 1984) is a Canadian actor. He is perhaps best known for his role on the Fox television series "North Shore" as Gabriel McKay or as Timmy Cabot on the television series "Lassie" from the late 1990s. Life and career. Sevier was born in Ajax, Ontario, the son of Lynda and Bruce Sevier. Sevier first scored a modelling job at the mere age of six months, winning a baby beauty pageant. As a child actor, he notably appeared on the "Goosebumps" television series "A Night in Terror Tower", "Cry Of The Cat", and in the theatrical release "Summer of the Monkeys". As a teenager, he played the role of Timmy Cabot in the 1997-1999 remake of the "Lassie" TV series, and also the character Dan in the "Little Men" TV series in 1998 and 1999. He later starred in the Canadian series "2030 CE" as Hart Greyson. He briefly starred in the failed WB series "Black Sash" before landing his role on "North Shore". He starred in the movie "Decoys" and its sequel "". He starred opposite Elizabeth Berkley in the made-for-television movie "Student Seduction" which premiered on Lifetime in 2003. He also starred in the 2006 film "Surf School". In addition, he played the role of MegaMan Volnutt in the English version of the "Mega Man Legends" video game; in fact, he was the first male actor to voice an incarnation of Mega Man, excluding non-canon material. Sevier guest starred on the show "Instant Star" for a two episode arc as "Hunter", an ex-convict out for revenge. In 2007 he appeared in an episode of "The Dresden Files" and in the film "The Secret". In 2008, he co-stars in "A Broken Life", and he appeared in an episode of "Smallville". Corey played the part of Carter in Ryan Little's 2007 film "House of Fears". Corey is currently part of the ensemble cast of Cedar Cove. A Hallmark channel original series based on the best selling books by Debbie Macomber.
1502363	Lorna Luft (born November 21, 1952) is an American television, stage, and film actress and singer. She is the daughter of singer and actress Judy Garland and Sid Luft, and the half-sister of singer and actress Liza Minnelli. Biography. Luft was born in Santa Monica, California to Judy Garland (who was of English, Scottish and Irish descent) and her third husband, Sid Luft (who was of Russian-German Jewish descent). She made her show-business debut at age 11 singing "Santa Claus Is Coming to Town" on the 1963 Christmas episode of her mother's CBS television series, "The Judy Garland Show". Siblings Liza Minnelli and Joey Luft also appeared in this episode. She soon joined the family act on a summer concert tour, the highlight being Garland’s third and final appearance at New York City's famed Palace Theatre on Broadway in 1967. In this month-long engagement, Judy Garland "shared" the bill with Lorna (then 14 years old) and son Joey (12 years old). The show was recorded live and released on ABC Records as "Judy Garland: At Home At The Palace". Luft is married to her second husband, musician Colin R. Freeman. Luft has two children, Vanessa and Jesse Richards, born during her first marriage to musician and artist manager Jake Hooker. Stage and television career. Luft appeared as Nurse Libby Kegler on the CBS television series "Trapper John, M.D." during that show's final season, 1985–1986;
1167076	Gail Russell (September 21, 1924 – August 26, 1961) was an American film and television actress. Career. She was born Elizabeth L. Russell to George and Gladys (Barnet) Russell in Chicago, Illinois, and then moved to the Los Angeles, California, area when she was a teenager. Russell's extraordinary beauty brought her to the attention of Paramount Pictures in 1942. Although she was almost clinically shy and had no acting experience, Paramount had great expectations for her and employed an acting coach to work with her. At the age of 19 she appeared in her first film, "Henry Aldrich Gets Glamour" (1943). Russell appeared in several more films in the early and mid-1940s, the most notable being "The Uninvited" (1944) with Ray Milland and "Our Hearts Were Young and Gay" (1944), in which she co-starred with Diana Lynn. Russell later appeared in the more popular films "Calcutta" (1947) with Alan Ladd and the two with John Wayne, "Angel and the Badman" (1947) and "Wake of the Red Witch" (1948). Later career and personal life. She continued working after 1947, and married actor Guy Madison in 1949, but by 1950 it was well known that she had become a victim of alcoholism, and Paramount did not renew her contract. She started drinking on the set of "The Uninvited" to ease her paralyzing stage fright and lack of self-confidence. Alcohol made a shambles of her career, appearance and personal life. She was divorced by Madison in 1954 and, after a five-year absence, returned to work in a co-starring role with Randolph Scott in the western "Seven Men from Now" (1956), produced by her friend Wayne, and had a substantial role in "The Tattered Dress" (1957). On July 5, 1957, she was photographed by a "Los Angeles Times" photographer after she drove her convertible into the front of Jan's coffee shop at 8424 Beverly Blvd. After failing a sobriety test, Russell was arrested and charged with driving under the influence. Death. She appeared in two more films after that but was not able to control her addiction, and on August 26, 1961, Russell was found dead in her apartment in Brentwood, Los Angeles, California, at the age of 36. She died from liver damage attributed to alcohol. She was found to have been suffering from malnutrition at the time of her death. She was buried in Valhalla Memorial Park Cemetery in North Hollywood, California.
1162795	Robert Estes (born July 22, 1963; Norfolk, Virginia) is an American actor. He is best known for his roles as Harry Wilson on the teen drama "90210", as Sgt. Chris Lorenzo on the crime drama "Silk Stalkings", and as Kyle McBride on the prime time soap opera "Melrose Place". Career. Estes first became interested in an acting career while training to be a stunt double. One of his first acting jobs was in the soap opera "Days of Our Lives" playing Glenn Gallagher (1986–1987). He later gained widespread recognition for his role as Sergeant Chris Lorenzo in "Silk Stalkings" (1991–1995), half of the "dynamic duo" alongside Mitzi Kapture. In 1993, Estes had a guest role on the prime time FOX soap opera "Melrose Place", playing Sam Towler. Three years later, the producers of the series brought him back but cast him in a different role, that of restaurateur Kyle McBride. Estes played the role from 1996 to the series' cancellation in 1999. Following "Melrose Place" he had guest starring roles on "Providence", "Suddenly Susan", "" and "Gilmore Girls". He also performed in theatre, and had roles in "Same Time, Next Year" (2004) and "The Lake" (2005). Estes starred in the comedic television movie "I Do, They Don't" (previously titled "Blended"), which also starred his "Melrose Place" co-star and then-wife Josie Bissett. The movie premiered on ABC Family Channel in March 2005. He made his return to series television playing Sean Cole in the ABC television crime drama "The Evidence". He completed a recurring role on "" as Nick Townsend, the abusive ex-husband of Natalia Boa Vista. In a January 2007 episode, he was murdered by the husband of a killer to cover up her crime. Estes then portrayed Lieutenant Tom Hogan, Inspector Lindsay Boxer's ex-husband and current boss in the ABC police procedural and legal drama "Women's Murder Club". In 2008, he was cast in "90210" on the CW Network, as Harry Wilson. The series, like "Melrose Place" before it, is a spin-off from the original 1990s series "Beverly Hills, 90210", marking Estes' third appearance in the franchise. On January 20, 2010, Estes announced that the second season of "90210" would be his last. "This is my final season on 90210 and I wish the show, cast and crew nothing but the best. I am looking forward to spending time with my kids and exploring other opportunities," Estes said in a statement. Personal life. Estes attended Santa Monica High School and is a graduate of the University of Southern California where he was a member of the Alpha Tau Omega fraternity. On 1 May 1992, Estes married actress Josie Bissett, another cast member of "Melrose Place". In 2005, they separated, with Estes reportedly moving out of their Seattle home at his wife's request. The couple have two children, Mason True, born , and Maya Rose, born . In January 2006 the couple announced their plans to divorce. On 15 June 2010, Estes married teacher/surfer Erin Bolte. They have a son Makai Ever, born . Estes continues to live in Seattle to be near his two older children.
1056952	"Madea's Family Reunion" is a 2006 comedy-drama film adaptation of the stage production of the same name written by Tyler Perry and sequel to "Diary of a Mad Black Woman". It was written and directed by Perry, who also played several characters, including Madea. It was released on February 24, 2006, nearly one year following its predecessor, "Diary of a Mad Black Woman". The independent film was produced by Lionsgate. Plot. While planning her family reunion, the pistol-packing grandma, Madea (Tyler Perry), must contend with the other dramas on her plate, including the runaway who has been placed under her care, and her troubled nieces, half-sisters Lisa and Vanessa. Her niece Lisa is engaged and has an abusive fiancé and informs her mother but is ignored due to her mother's greed. Vanessa is trying to find love while struggling to forgive her mother for allowing her stepfather to rape her numerous times in her younger teen years. Madea is on to help fix their problems and help them realize who they are. Soundtrack. The soundtrack was released by Motown Records on February 21, 2006. Release and reception. Box office. "Madea's Family Reunion" was budgeted at $6 million and opened at #1 in its opening weekend (2/24-26) with $30,030,661 and eventually grossed $63,257,940 in North America with an additional $50,939 internationally, tying $63,308,879 worldwide after 9 weeks in theaters. Small independent filmmaker Tyler Perry has garnered one of the highest wide-release openings to date in 2006, in both gross ($30 million) and screen average ($13,687). "The number one movie is "Madea's Family Reunion", a small comedy/melodrama which grossed an astounding $30.3 million from 2,194 venues. It had a super-hot venue average of $13,787..." "Playing at 2,194 locations across North America, the film averaged a remarkable estimated $13,788 per screen, demonstrating the enormous breadth and depth of Perry's audience. The debut weekend of "Madea's Family Reunion" outperformed the opening weekend of Lionsgate's first Tyler Perry film, "Diary of a Mad Black Woman", by nearly 40 percent." Audience. The reasoning for the film's relative success, according to Steve Rothenberg, Lions Gate president of domestic distribution, is due to its targeted market appeal, "I believe that we're in all the right theaters...I'm not sure there's much room for expansion." To illustrate the point, Lions Gate's exit polls showed 52 percent of the audience were black women over the age of 35. Critical reception. "Madea's Family Reunion" received mixed reviews from critics. Metacritic gives the film a score of 45% based on reviews from 18 critics.
646334	Warren Weaver, PhD (July 17, 1894 – November 24, 1978) was an American scientist, mathematician, and science administrator. He is widely recognized as one of the pioneers of machine translation, and as an important figure in creating support for science in the United States. Career. Weaver received three degrees from the University of Wisconsin–Madison; a Bachelor of Science in 1916, a Civil Engineering degree in 1917 and a PhD in 1921. He became an assistant professor of mathematics at Throop College (soon to be renamed the California Institute of Technology). He served as a second lieutenant in the Air Service during World War I. After the war, he returned to teach mathematics at Wisconsin (1920–32). Weaver married Mary Hemenway, one of his fellow students at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, a few years after their graduation. They had a son, Warren Jr., and a daughter, Helen. He was director of the Division of Natural Sciences at the Rockefeller Foundation (1932–55), and was science consultant (1947–51), trustee (1954), and vice president (from 1958) at the Sloan-Kettering Institute for Cancer Research. Weaver's chief researches were in the problems of communication in science and in the mathematical theory of probability and statistics. At the Rockefeller Foundation, he was responsible for approving grants for major projects in molecular engineering and genetics, in agriculture (particularly for developing new strains of wheat and rice), and in medical research. During World War II, he was seconded from the Foundation to head the Applied Mathematics Panel at the U.S. Office of Scientific Research and Development, directing the work of hundreds of mathematicians in operations research. He was therefore fully familiar with the development of electronic calculating machines and the successful application of mathematical and statistical techniques in cryptography. He was co-author (together with Claude Shannon) of the landmark work on communication, "The Mathematical Theory of Communication" (1949, Urbana: University of Illinois Press). While Shannon focused more on the engineering aspects of the mathematical model, Weaver developed the philosophical implications of Shannon's much larger essay (which forms about 3/4 of the book). With Max Mason he authored the book "The Electromagnetic Field" which was published by the University of Chicago Press in 1929. The "Translation" memorandum. Weaver had first mentioned the possibility of using digital computers to translate documents between natural human languages in March 1947 in a letter to the cyberneticist Norbert Wiener. In the following two years, he had been urged by his colleagues at the Rockefeller Foundation to elaborate on his ideas. The result was a memorandum, entitled simply "Translation", which he wrote in July 1949 at Carlsbad, New Mexico. Said to be probably the single most influential publication in the early days of machine translation, it formulated goals and methods before most people had any idea of what computers might be capable of, and was the direct stimulus for the beginnings of research first in the United States and then later, indirectly, throughout the world. The impact of Weaver's memorandum is attributable not only to his widely recognized expertise in mathematics and computing, but also, and perhaps even more, to the influence he enjoyed with major policy-makers in U.S. government agencies. Weaver's memorandum was designed to suggest more fruitful methods than any simplistic word-for-word approach, which had grave limitations. He put forward four proposals. These were that the problem of multiple meanings might be tackled by the examination of immediate context; that it could be assumed that there are logical elements in language; that cryptographic methods were possibly applicable, and that there may also be linguistic universals. At the end of the memorandum, Weaver asserted his belief in the fourth proposal with what is one of the best-known metaphors in the literature of machine translation: "Think, by analogy, of individuals living in a series of tall closed towers, all erected over a common foundation. When they try to communicate with one another, they shout back and forth, each from his own closed tower. It is difficult to make the sound penetrate even the nearest towers, and communication proceeds very poorly indeed. But, when an individual goes down his tower, he finds himself in a great open basement, common to all the towers. Here he establishes easy and useful communication with the persons who have also descended from their towers". Advocate for science. Weaver early understood how greatly the tools and techniques of physics and chemistry could advance knowledge of biological processes, and used his position in the Rockefeller Foundation to identify, support, and encourage the young scientists who years later earned Nobel Prizes and other honours for their contributions to genetics or molecular biology. He had a deep personal commitment to improving the public understanding of science. He was President of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 1954 and Chairman of the Board in 1955, a member or chairman of numerous boards and committees, and the primary author of the Arden House Statement, a 1951 declaration of principle and guide to setting the Association's goals, plans, and procedures. Weaver was awarded the Public Welfare Medal from the National Academy of Sciences in 1957. In 1965 he was awarded the first Arches of Science Medal for outstanding contributions to the public understanding of the meaning of science to contemporary men and women, and UNESCO's Kalinga Prize for distinguished contributions to the popular understanding of science. Other activities. Weaver was fascinated by Lewis Carroll's "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland". In 1964, having built up a collection of 160 versions in 42 languages, Weaver wrote a book about the translation history of Alice called "Alice in many tongues: The translations of Alice in Wonderland". Among other features, it provides excerpts from the business correspondence of author Lewis Carroll (the Reverend Charles Dodgson) dealing with publishing royalties and permissions as Alice's fame snowballed worldwide. Ever the scientist, even in the area of literature, Weaver devised a design for evaluating the quality of the various translations, focusing on the nonsense, puns and logical jokes in the Mad Tea-Party scene. His range of contacts provided an impressive if eccentric list of collaborators in the evaluation exercise including anthropologist Margaret Mead (for the South Pacific Pidgin translation), longtime Jerusalem mayor Teddy Kollek, and Nobel laureate biochemist Hugo Theorell (Swedish).
1016171	Lawyer Lawyer () is a 1997 Hong Kong comedy film produced, directed and co-written by Joe Ma. Plot. Stephen Chow is Chan Mong-Gut, a famous Chinese lawyer, who must defend his apprentice Foon, who got framed for murder, in court. Stephen Chow stars as Chan Mong-Gut, a famous Chinese lawyer who was killed in the Qing dynasty. He must defend his apprentice, Foon, who has been framed for murder in Hong Kong. Being the third worst lawyer in China, he challenges the British legal system with no evidence on hand and manages to identify the killer in a hilarious way. 1997. The film was released during the same year as the Transfer of sovereignty over Hong Kong. As the film deals specifically with the issue of justice, it can be interpreted as responding to the fears of the PRC takeover and to the general uncertainty of what that meant to the people of Hong Kong. The film promotes a normative vision of justice that can prevail over any tyranny, suggesting that knowledge of law, and the freedom to express it, is more important than brute strength (as embodied by the trials and tribulations of Chang Mong-Gut over countless foes).
774036	Mark Rendall (born October 21, 1988) is a Canadian actor, perhaps best known for starring in the title role of the 2004 film, "Childstar", as well as Mick in Season 1 of the Canadian television drama series "ReGenesis". He played Bastian Bux in the TV series, "Tales from the Neverending Story", and the title character in "The Interrogation of Michael Crowe". He has also done voice work for the television series "Jane and the Dragon" and "Time Warp Trio", and starred in the popular kid TV series "Arthur" (Season 6-8). Recently, Rendall has appeared in several Hollywood films. Personal life. Rendall was born in Toronto, Ontario, the son of Cathy and Henry Rendall. He has two older brothers, David (an actor) and Matthew. His father is Jewish and his mother is Christian and he celebrates both Jewish and Christian holidays. Rendall attended the Interact Program at Vaughan Road Academy in Toronto, where he became good friends with fellow Canadian actress Ellen Page. In his spare time, Mark enjoys juggling, playing guitar, photography, baseball and spending time with his pet sugar gliders—tiny flying Australian marsupials. Career. Rendall started acting at the age of ten, when he asked his parents if he could try his hand at acting. Fortunately, around the same time, the Cameron Maclntosh London touring production of the musical "Oliver" was holding auditions for children. Having had no formal training in either acting or singing, he surprised everyone when he was cast in the role of Spider, and as understudy to the lead role, Oliver. He later starred in several films, including "The Impossible Elephant", "Tales from the Neverending Story" (for which he received a 2002 Gemini nomination), the multi-award-winning "Touching Wild Horses" (2002) opposite Jane Seymour (for which he received a 2003 Young Artists Award nomination), Disney's "The Scream Team" with Eric Idle, the "Court TV" Peabody award-winning true story, "The Interrogation of Michael Crowe" (for which he received a 2004 ACTRA Award nomination for Outstanding Performance - Male), Don McKellar's dark comedy "Childstar" (2004), opposite Jennifer Jason Leigh, Eric Stoltz and Dave Foley; the title role in "" (2004) with Ed Begley, Jr. and Graham Greene, NBC's mini-series "Revelations" (2005) opposite Bill Pullman and Natascha MacElhone, and Francois Girard's "Silk". Rendall played supporting roles in the films "30 Days of Night", opposite Josh Hartnett and Melissa George, and "Charlie Bartlett", with Anton Yelchin and Kat Dennings. In 2009, he starred in the films, "Victoria Day", directed by David Bezmozgis and "The Exploding Girl", directed by Bradley Rust Gray. Voice acting. After Justin Bradley ended voicing for "Arthur", Rendall took his place for three seasons. He also dubbed over Bradley's voice for reruns of Season 6 most likely due to the voice director complaining Bradley would make Arthur whiny when he got upset. In 2005, he voiced the 14 year old Jester character of the New Zealand CGI animated show "Jane and the Dragon". He has also provided voices for other animated shows, for example "King", "Time Warp Trio", and "Wayside". Rendall will voice the character Benjamin Higgenbottom in the second season of "The Mighty B!".
582238	Love Sex aur Dhokha, a 2010 anthology film directed by Dibakar Banerjee and produced by Alt Entertainment, was released on 19 March 2010. It was shot entirely on DigiCam, being one of the first films coming out of India to be presented in the found footage style. The film is a satire on the way television news media has been turning into cheap entertainment, feeding social voyeurism without taking any significant moral or ideological stance.
1059501	Richard Quine (November 12, 1920 – June 10, 1989) was an American stage, film, and radio actor and film director. Quine was born in Detroit. He made his Broadway debut in the Jerome Kern/Oscar Hammerstein II musical "Very Warm for May" in 1939 and appeared in "My Sister Eileen" the following year. His screen acting credits include "The World Moves On" (1934), "Jane Eyre" (1934), "Little Men" (1934), "Babes on Broadway" (1941), "My Sister Eileen" (1942), and "Words and Music" (1948), among others. At MGM he became friends with Mickey Rooney and later directed several of Rooney's films. During World War II, Quine served in the United States Coast Guard, He married actress Susan Peters in November 1943. After the war, he tried directing, first as co-producer and co-director on "Leather Gloves" (1948), with William Asher, before his first solo effort on the musical "The Sunny Side of the Street" (1951). His directing credits include "Pushover" (1954), "Operation Mad Ball" (1957), "Bell, Book and Candle" (1958), "Strangers When We Meet" (1960), and "The World of Suzie Wong" (1960). He made several films in collaboration with Blake Edwards including "My Sister Eileen" (1955) and "The Notorious Landlady" (1962). Some of Quine's earlier projects, particularly Drive a Crooked Road and Pushover, are regarded as classic examples of film noir. He also produced some of his films such as "Paris, When It Sizzles" (1964) with Audrey Hepburn and William Holden, "How to Murder Your Wife" (1965) with Jack Lemmon, "Synanon" (1966), and "Hotel" (1967). By the late 1960s his output fell and in the 1970s Quine made only a few disappointing films. Having in the 1954–1955 season created with Blake Edwards the first Mickey Rooney series, "", which aired on NBC, Quine turned to television in the 1970s, directing three episodes of Peter Falk's "Columbo", including "Dagger of the Mind", an episode set in Britain. Some UK fans of that series regard this episode as an embarrassment for its unrealistic depiction of the country, as was the case with "The Notorious Landlady" (1962). He also worked on another, much less successful "NBC Mystery Movie" series, "McCoy", reuniting him with star Tony Curtis. His final work was on "The Prisoner of Zenda" (1979) with Peter Sellers, although he was briefly part of the crew for another Sellers film, "The Fiendish Plot of Dr. Fu Manchu" (1980), for which he received no credit. Quine's work is often seen as part of the expressive sentimental style of film directing. His first wife, whom he married on November 7, 1943, was actress Susan Peters, who was crippled from the waist down on a hunting trip with Quine in 1945 with Quine when she reached to the ground for her 22-caliber rifle, and it accidentally discharged. The bullet lodged in her spine. They divorced in 1948, and she died of the effects of anorexia nervosa in 1952, at age 31. On April 17, 1946, the couple adopted an infant, whom they named Timothy Richard Quine. Quine was later engaged to Kim Novak, but the two did not marry. He also married Barbara Bushman (by whom he had two daughters, Katherine and Victoria), Fran Jeffries, and Diana Balfour. After an extended period of depression and poor health, Quine committed suicide by shooting himself in Los Angeles on June 10, 1989. Filmography. As director:
586536	Mohan Gokhale (1954 – 29 April 1999) was an Indian film, television and theater actor who has worked in art films such as "Sparsh", "Bhavni Bhavai" and "Mirch Masala". Early life. Mohan Gokhale was born in Pune, Maharashtra. He had a passion for theatre since childhood won a number of awards at the college and State-level. Career. Mohan Gokhale debuted on television in Shwetambara. He has acted in many films in Marathi and Hindi, including Hech Maze Maher and Mirch Masala. He became popular because of his role in the Doordarshan television serial "Mr. Yogi". He also played the role of Mahatma Gandhi in Jabbar Patel's biopic on Babasaheb Ambedkar. Death. Gokhale died in his sleep of a heart attack in Chennai on 29 April 1999; he was working on Kamal Hassan's Hey Ram at the time. Amol Palekar's Kairee was his last film. Personal life. Mohan Gokhale was married to Shubhangi Sangvi, a Marathi actress. They have a daughter. References. Lekhu Serial
1111678	Kelli Brianne Garner (born April 11, 1984) is an American actress. Her credits include "Man of the House", "The Aviator", "Bully", and "Thumbsucker". Garner was born in Bakersfield, California, to Dawn and Brian Garner. She appeared in two Green Day music videos "Jesus of Suburbia" and the unreleased "Whatsername". In December 2005, Garner starred in the Off-Broadway production of "" at the Century Center for the Performing Arts. She played Kate Cameron in "Pan Am".
1063407	Denholm Mitchell Elliott, CBE (31 May 1922 – 6 October 1992) was an English film, television and theatre actor with over 120 film and television credits. In the 1980s, he won the BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role in three consecutive years, the only actor ever to have achieved this. Early life. Elliott was born in London, the son of Nina (née Mitchell) and Myles Laymen Farr Elliott, a barrister. He attended Malvern College and trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London. He was asked to leave RADA after one term. As Elliott later recalled: "They wrote to my mother and said, 'Much as we like the little fellow, he's wasting your money and our time. Take him away!'" In World War II, he joined the Royal Air Force, training as a sergeant radio operator and gunner and serving with No. 76 Squadron RAF under the command of Leonard Cheshire. On the night of 23/24 September 1942, his Handley Page Halifax bomber took part in an air raid on the U-boat pens at Flensburg, Germany. The aircraft was hit by flak and subsequently ditched in the North Sea near Sylt, Germany. Elliott and two other crew members survived and he spent the rest of the war in a prisoner of war camp in Silesia. While imprisoned he became involved in amateur dramatics. Career. After making his film debut in "Dear Mr. Prohack" (1949), he went on to play a wide range of parts, often ineffectual and occasionally seedy characters as the journalist Bayliss in "Defence of the Realm", the abortionist in "Alfie", and the washed-up film director in "The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz". Elliott and Natasha Parry played the main roles in the 1955 television play, "The Apollo of Bellac". Elliott made many television appearances, notably in plays by Dennis Potter, including "Follow the Yellow Brick Road" (1972), "Brimstone and Treacle" (1976), and "Blade on the Feather" (1980). He took over for an ill Michael Aldridge for one season of "The Man in Room 17" (1966) and appeared in the series "Thriller" (1975). In the 1980s, he won three consecutive British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) awards – Best Supporting Actor for "Trading Places" as Dan Aykroyd's kindly butler, "A Private Function", and "Defence of the Realm" – as well as an Academy Award nomination for "A Room with a View". He also became familiar to a wider audience as the well-meaning but addlepated Dr. Marcus Brody in "Raiders of the Lost Ark" (1981) and "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade". A photograph of his character appears in "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" and a reference is made to Brody's death. In 1988, Elliott was the Russian mole Povin, around whom the entire plot revolves, in the television miniseries "". Having filmed Michael Winner's "The Wicked Lady" (1983), Elliott was quoted in a BBC Radio interview as saying that he and Marc Sinden "are the only two British actors I am aware of who have ever worked with Winner more than once and it certainly wasn't for love. But curiously, I never, ever saw any of the same crew twice." (Elliott in "You Must Be Joking!" (1965) and "The Wicked Lady" and Sinden in "The Wicked Lady" and "Decadence"). Elliott had also worked with Sinden's father, Donald Sinden, in the film "The Cruel Sea" (1953). He also starred with Katharine Hepburn and Harold Gould in the television film, "Mrs. Delafield Wants to Marry" (1986) and with Nicole Kidman in "Bangkok Hilton" (1989). In 1988, Elliott was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) for his services to acting. His career included many stage performances, including with the Royal Shakespeare Company, and a well acclaimed turn as the twin brothers in Jean Anouilh's Ring Round the Moon. His scene-stealing abilities led Gabriel Byrne, his co-star in "Defence of the Realm", to say: "Never act with children, dogs or Denholm Elliott." Personal life. Privately bisexual, Elliott was married twice; first to the British actress Virginia McKenna for a few months in 1954 and later, in an open marriage, to actress Susan Robinson, with whom he had two children, a son named Mark and a daughter named Jennifer (1964–2003). In 1995, Paul McMullan of "The News of the World" published a series of articles claiming that Jennifer was living on the street and working as a prostitute and hooked on heroin, by his own admission using information obtained illegally by bribing police officers. Her death in 2003 was suicide, by hanging. Death. Elliott was diagnosed with HIV in 1987 and died of AIDS-related tuberculosis at his home in Santa Eulària des Riu on Ibiza, Spain, in 1992. Tributes were paid by actors Donald Sinden and Sir Peter Ustinov, playwright Dennis Potter and former wife Virginia McKenna. Sinden said: "He was one of the finest screen actors and a very special actor at that. He was one of the last stars who was a real gentleman. It is a very sad loss." Ustinov said: "He was a wonderful actor and a very good friend on the occasions that life brought us together." Potter commented: "He was a complicated, sensitive and slightly disturbing actor. Not only was he a very accomplished actor, he was a dry, witty and slightly menacing individual. As a man, I always found him very open, very straightforward and very much to the point." McKenna added: "It is absolutely dreadful, but the person I am thinking of at the moment more than anybody is his wife. It must be terrible for her." Ismail Merchant described Elliott as "an all-giving person, full of life ... He had an affection and feeling for other actors, which is very unusual in our business." His widow set up a charity, the Denholm Elliott Project, in his honour and collaborated on his biography. She also worked closely with the UK Coalition of People Living with HIV and AIDS. She died on 12 April 2007, following a fire in her flat in London.
1052192	Un secret () is a 2007 French film directed and written by Claude Miller. The screenplay was based on the novel by Philippe Grimbert. Synopsis. The film follows Maxime Nathan and his Jewish family in France during the years leading up to World War II. François Grimbert (played as a young boy by Valentin Vigourt and as an adolescent by Mathieu Amalric) grows up in Paris in the 1950s. He is the skinny, sickly son of two marvelously athletic parents, Tania (Cécile de France) and Maxime (Patrick Bruel). For a while, he dreams of a stronger, fitter, more charismatic older brother to compensate for his own feelings of inadequacy. Only gradually does he learn of his parents' tragic past and that he has a sibling — a half-brother named Simon, his father's first son.
1058467	The Break-Up is a 2006 American romantic comedy-drama film directed by Peyton Reed, starring Jennifer Aniston and Vince Vaughn. It was written by Jay Lavender and Jeremy Garelick and produced by Universal Pictures. Plot. Gary Grobowski (Vince Vaughn) and Brooke Meyers (Jennifer Aniston) meet at Wrigley Field during a Chicago Cubs game and begin dating, eventually buying a condominium together. Gary works as a tour guide in a family business with his brothers, Lupus (Cole Hauser) and Dennis (Vincent D'Onofrio). Brooke manages an art gallery owned by eccentric artist Marilyn Dean (Judy Davis). Their relationship comes to a head after the latest in an escalating series of, ""Why can't you do this one little thing for me?!"" arguments. Brooke, feeling unappreciated, criticizes Gary's perceived immaturity and unwillingness to work on improving their relationship. Gary is frustrated by Brooke’s perceived controlling, perfectionistic attitude, and expresses his desire to have a little more independence (particularly when arriving home from work, wanting to unwind). Brooke becomes irate when Gary fails to offer to help her clean up after a big dinner party at their home; and, still frustrated from their earlier, unresolved argument, breaks up with him (despite still being in love with him). Brooke seeks relationship advice from her friend Addie (Joey Lauren Adams), while Gary goes to tell his side of things to friend Johnny Ostrofski (Jon Favreau).
1037403	Patricia Maynard (born 16 February 1942) is a British actress. She was the second wife of actor Dennis Waterman, and they have two daughters, one of whom is the actress Hannah Waterman. She is now married to Jeremy Griggs, a circuit judge in the South West of England. Biography. Patricia Maynard was born in Beighton, Sheffield, West Riding of Yorkshire, brought up in Tooting Bec, South London and went to school in Battersea, just down the road from the Old Vic where she learned her love of Shakespeare. She trained at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. Her first five years were spent in rep and the theatre. One of her first theatrical engagements was in a play "Collapse of a Stout Party", written by Trevor Peacock. In 1966 she joined the RSC, the same year as Trevor Nunn and Terry Hands, with appearances as Katharine to Ian Holm’s "Henry V" and also Castiza in "Revengers’ Tragedy". She was at the Bristol Old Vic from 1967-69, where her plays included "Blythe Spirit", "Comedy of Errors", "Venice Preserved" (with Alan Bates, Bernard Hepton and Alan Webb), "Vote, Vote, Vote for Nigel Barton" by Dennis Potter, and a musical of Nancy Mitford’s book "The Pursuit of Love" written by Julian Slade. She returned to Bristol in 1982, playing Lady India in Anouilh’s "Ring Round the Moon". Her television work has included playing the heroine Cora in "The Last of the Mohicans" in 1971, and Tom Baker's first story line in "Doctor Who" in 1974-75, "Robot", playing chief villain Miss Winters. Two films for television in the 1970s, "When Day is Done", co-starring with Edward Woodward, and "Lives of our Own". Her TV series have included "This Year, Next Year" about Yorkshire hill farmers, "General Hospital", playing the gynaecologist, with Lynda Bellingham, "Strike it Rich" - two series in the 1980s - and guest appearances in "The Sweeney", "Minder", "Jemima Shore Investigates", "The House of Eliott", and "Campion". She has appeared in most of the soaps of the time – "Coronation Street", "Emmerdale Farm", "Casualty", "Holby City", "Crossroads" and "EastEnders", where she played the part of Edwina Dunn, the mother of Laura Beale, who was played by her daughter Hannah.
586464	That Girl in Yellow Boots is a 2011 Indian thriller film by director Anurag Kashyap, starring Kalki Koechlin and Naseeruddin Shah. The film was first screened at the Toronto International Film Festival in September 2010, followed by the Venice Film Festival after it played in several festivals worldwide including the South Asian International Film Festival. The commercial release however took place a year later in September 2011, both in India as well as in the U.S. Plot. "That Girl in Yellow Boots" is a thriller tracing Ruth (Kalki Koechlin), a British woman who comes to Mumbai to search for her father - a man she hardly knew but cannot forget. Without a work permit, desperation drives her to work at a massage parlour. Torn between several schisms, Mumbai becomes the alien but yet strangely familiar backdrop for Ruth's quest. She struggles to find her independence and space even as she is sucked deeper into the labyrinthine politics of the city's underbelly. She starts dating a drug addict Prashant (Prashant Prakash). A city that feeds on her misery, a love that eludes her and above all, a devastating truth that she must encounter. And everyone wants a piece of her. After numerous encounters with people, almost all of whom are depicted as needing to be serviced by her, she discovers that her father is one amongst her regular clients, who knew all along that she was his daughter. In what is possibly seen as a commentary on the cult of godmen in India, her father is shown as one such member of a religious cult, and views having sex with his daughter as an expression of his love. The film ends with Ruth hanging up her yellow boots, her quest having come to a shocking end. Production. Development. Lead actress Kalki Koechlin who also co-wrote the film with Anurag Kashyap mentioned, "A lot of these characters were based loosely on figures that I had seen growing up in India ...Growing up as a white-skinned woman in India, I was always the odd one out -- there was a certain alienation that came with that, and you end up alienating yourself because everyone comes to you like the white girl, the easy, "Baywatch," loose-moraled white girl." Anurag Kashyap asked Koechlin to write the first scene, to get a female perspective on the treatment of white women at Indian government offices as she personally experienced the objectification. He also wanted to explore the theme of child abuse; he had previously played the role of child abuser in "I Am" (2010) by Onir, and he himself had been a victim of child abuse for 11 years. At the writing stage Koechlin and Kashyap disagreed on the ending initially, as Koechlin wanted an optimistic ending, unlike Kashyap who wanted to portray that "...you don't always get solutions to your problems". The film had difficulty finding funding because it dealt with controversial themes like child abuse and drug addiction and "differed so vastly from his previous work". As Kashyap put it, "I wanted to break the formula that many directors and actors find themselves in." Filming. The film was shot in just 13 days. It was primarily framed in tight spaces, like apartments, massage parlors, and rickshaws leading to a "claustrophobic sense of unease that permeates the entire film". Many of the cast members had previously worked together in theatre productions; this familiarity allowed the director to shoot the film a shorter period of time. He admitted that he never "directed" any of the actors during the filming, "I've never told any actor what to do, only what not to do. You have to trust your actors, and I know mine inside and out." Director Anurag Kashyap found the entire filming emotionally draining and tough, especially because it was made mostly on borrowed money. Release. After travelling to 2010 Toronto International Film Festival, 67th Venice International Film Festival in September 2010 and International Film Festival of Los Angeles (IFFLA), at its New York premiere on August 24, 2011, at the Asia Society, director Anurag Kashyap said, "I hope you feel the film, because you will not enjoy it." The film's commercial, however, took over a year as it was delayed to coincide with its US release to avoid internet piracy. Indian distributors were not keen on the film, as without big Bollywood stars they did not find it viable for an international release; they mainly cater to an NRI (Non-resident Indian) audience. Finally US based-distributor Indie Pix came on board for paving the way for a US release with 30 prints, all in non-NRI theatres, a rare feat for a Bollywood film. Meanwhile the film was also sold in Scandinavian countries, Turkey, Southern Europe, and New Zealand. Its satellite rights were sold in many countries. The film thus became Kashyap's first worldwide release, as it was released in 40 US theatres on September 2 by IndiePix Films, on the same day of its India release. Previously, after its showing at the London Indian Film Festival, Britain-based Mara Pictures picked up the film there for UK release in last quarter of 2011. Kashyap later told BBC News that he received a negative backlash from financial backers because of the film's sexual content: "A lot of people involved with the film were embarrassed about the film. A lot of people we thanked in the film who actually lent us money, they said, 'Please take our names from the film,' because they don't want somebody to see and say 'You gave the money to make this film!'" Marketing. Prior to its India release, the first look of the film was unveiled to the press on August 11, 2011. MTV India started a "That Girl with Yellow Boots contest" asking for audition tapes from aspiring actors, the winner of which would act in future Anurag Kashyap's films. In the run up to the film, its lead Kalki Koechlin appeared at an event, colour-coordinated, complete with yellow boots. Critical reception. The film opened to mostly positive reviews. Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-times gave it 3.5 out of the 4 stars, and he also noted that ' "The film's value is in its portrait of Ruth, and her independence as a solo outsider in a vast, uncaring city." ' In his "Huffington Post" review, Kia Makarechi wrote, "an unnervingly realistic portrait of unimaginable pain -- is one with an ending you'll wish you could forget." Nupur Barua of fullhyd.com rated it 7 out of 10, and said that besides the Kashyap-esque tone of despair and melancholy, That Girl In Yellow Boots is Anurag Kashyap's best till date, adding that you can watch it "only if you can handle the unspeakable". Parmita Borah, on EF News International, wrote, "Kalki Koechlin carries That Girl in Yellow Boots on her shoulders and does so with great panache and élan." Shivesh Kumar of IndiaWeekly awarded the movie 3.5 out of 5 stars.
602002	The Simpsons Movie is a 2007 American animated comedy film version of the animated television series "The Simpsons". The film was directed by David Silverman, and stars the regular television cast of Dan Castellaneta, Julie Kavner, Nancy Cartwright, Yeardley Smith, Hank Azaria, Harry Shearer, Tress MacNeille, and Pamela Hayden. It features Albert Brooks as Russ Cargill, the evil head of the Environmental Protection Agency who intends to destroy Springfield after Homer pollutes the lake. As the townspeople exile him and eventually his family abandons him, Homer works to redeem his folly by stopping Cargill's scheme. Previous attempts to create a film version of "The Simpsons" failed due to the lack of a script of appropriate length and production crew members. Eventually, producers James L. Brooks, Matt Groening, Al Jean, Mike Scully, and Richard Sakai began development of the film in 2001. A writing team consisting of Scully, Jean, Brooks, Groening, George Meyer, David Mirkin, Mike Reiss, John Swartzwelder, Jon Vitti, Ian Maxtone-Graham, and Matt Selman was assembled. They conceived numerous plot ideas, with Groening's being the one developed into a film. The script was re-written over a hundred times, and this creativity continued after animation had begun in 2006. This meant hours of finished material was cut, which included cameo roles from Erin Brockovich, Minnie Driver, Isla Fisher, Kelsey Grammer, and Edward Norton. Tom Hanks and Green Day appeared in the final cut as themselves. Tie-in promotions were made with several companies, including Burger King and 7-Eleven, which transformed selected stores into Kwik-E-Marts. The film premiered in Springfield, Vermont, which had won the right to hold it through a competition organized by Fox. The film was a box office success, grossing over $527 million, and received mostly positive reviews. Plot. The film follows the plot of the TV series "The Simpsons", focusing on the Simpson family of Homer Simpson (Dan Castellaneta), his wife Marge (Julie Kavner), and children Bart (Nancy Cartwright), Lisa (Yeardley Smith), and Maggie, and the town of Springfield. While performing on Lake Springfield, rock band Green Day (themselves) are killed when pollution in the lake dissolves their barge, following an audience revolt after front man Billie Joe Armstrong proposes an environmental discussion. At the memorial service, Grampa Simpson (Castellaneta) has a prophetic vision in which he foresees the impending doom of the town, but only Marge takes it seriously. Later that day, Homer dares his son Bart to skate naked. Bart does so, but is consequently arrested by Chief Wiggum (Hank Azaria), left embarrassed and begins to consider their neighbor Ned Flanders (Harry Shearer) to be a better father figure. Lisa and an Irish boy named Colin (Tress MacNielle), with whom she has fallen in love, hold a meeting where they convince the town to clean up the lake. Meanwhile, Homer adopts a pig from a Krusty Burger restaurant and names it "Spider Pig" (later "Plopper"). Homer seems to show more love for the pig than he does for Bart, furthering the latter's relationship with Flanders. Homer stores the pig's feces (and some of his own) in an overflowing silo which Marge tells him to dispose of safely. Homer takes the silo to the waste management plant, but while waiting in line receives a phone call from his friend Lenny (Shearer), who tells him that Lard Lad Donuts has been shut down and free donuts are being given out. A now impatient Homer decides instead to dump the silo in the lake, re-polluting it to an even more toxic degree. Moments later, a squirrel jumps into the lake and becomes severely mutated. Nearby, Flanders and Bart discover the creature during a hike before the Environmental Protection Agency captures it. Russ Cargill (Albert Brooks), head of the EPA, presents five "unthinkable" options to U.S. President Schwarzenegger (Shearer) to keep the town's pollution contained; Schwarzenegger randomly picks option three, enclosing Springfield in a large glass dome. When the police discover Homer's silo in the lake, an angry mob of townspeople approach the Simpsons' home with pitchforks and torches and attempt to kill them, but the family escape through a sinkhole that leads to the outside of the dome. As the EPA searches for the escapees, the Simpsons find a motel for the night and Homer tells them that he has a plan: flee to Alaska to start a new life. The trapped citizens damage the dome over time and Cargill, not wanting news of what he has done to become widespread, plans to destroy Springfield. In Alaska, the Simpsons see an advertisement starring Tom Hanks (himself), for a new crater to be located on the site where Springfield once stood. Marge and the kids want to return to save the town, but Homer refuses to help the people who tried to kill them. Homer later returns home to find the house empty and a message from Marge taped over their wedding video, explaining to him that she and the kids are leaving to go save their town. Alone, Homer is sent adrift on a piece of ice. Meanwhile, on a train heading to Seattle, Marge and the kids are captured by the EPA upon arrival and put back into the dome. After a visit from a mysterious Inuit shaman (MacNielle) who saves him from a polar bear, Homer has an epiphany and believes he must save the town in order to save himself. As he arrives at Springfield to do so, a helicopter lowers a bomb suspended by rope through a hole in the dome. Homer climbs to the peak of the dome and descends the rope, knocking the escaping townspeople and bomb off. Homer takes the bomb and a motorcycle. After reconciling with Bart, they drive up the side of the dome and Bart throws the bomb through the hole, seconds before detonation. The bomb explodes, shattering the dome and freeing the town. Cargill, angry at them for ruining his plan, prepares to shoot Homer, but is knocked out by a boulder which Maggie drops on his head. The town finally praises Homer, who kisses Marge on the motorcycle before riding off into the sunset with her and Maggie. The townspeople begin restoring Springfield back to normal. Production. Development. The production staff had considered a film adaptation of "The Simpsons" since early in the series. The show's creator, Matt Groening, felt a feature length film would allow them to increase the show's scale and animate sequences too complex for a TV series. He intended the film to be made after the show ended, "but that [...] was undone by good ratings". There were attempts to adapt the fourth season episode "Kamp Krusty" into a film, but difficulties were encountered in expanding the episode to feature-length. For a long time the project was held up. There was difficulty finding a story that was sufficient for a film, and the crew did not have enough time to complete such a project, as they already worked full-time on the show. Groening also expressed a wish to make "Simpstasia", a parody of "Fantasia"; it was never produced, partly because it would have been too difficult to write a feature-length script. Before his death, Phil Hartman had said he had wished to make a live action Troy McClure film, and several of the show's staff had expressed a desire to help create it. The voice cast was signed on to do the film in 2001, and work then began on the script. The producers were initially worried that creating a film would have a negative effect on the series, as they did not have enough crew to focus their attention on both projects. As the series progressed, additional writers and animators were hired so that both the show and the film could be produced at the same time. Groening and James L. Brooks invited back Mike Scully and Al Jean (who continued to work as showrunner on the television series) to produce the film with them. They then signed David Silverman (who, in anticipation of the project, had quit his job at Pixar) to direct the film. The "strongest possible" writing team was assembled, with many of the writers from the show's early seasons being chosen. David Mirkin, Mike Reiss, George Meyer, John Swartzwelder, and Jon Vitti were selected. Ian Maxtone-Graham and Matt Selman joined later, and Brooks, Groening, Scully, and Jean also wrote parts of the script. Sam Simon did not return having left the show over creative differences in 1993. Former writer Conan O'Brien wanted to work with the "Simpsons" staff again, joking that "I worry that the "Simpsons"-writing portion of my brain has been destroyed after 14 years of talking to Lindsay Lohan and that guy from "One Tree Hill", so maybe it's all for the best." The same went for director Brad Bird who said he had "entertained fantasies of asking if could work on the movie", but did not have enough time due to work on "Ratatouille". The producers arranged a deal with Fox that would allow them to abandon production of the film at any point if they felt the script was unsatisfactory. Work continued on the screenplay from 2003 onwards, taking place in the small bungalow where Groening first pitched "The Simpsons" in 1987. The writers spent six months discussing a plot, and each of them offered sketchy ideas. Jean suggested the family rescue manatees, which became the 2005 episode "Bonfire of the Manatees", and there was also a notion similar to that of "The Truman Show" where the characters discovered their lives were a TV show. Groening rejected this, as he felt that the Simpsons should "never become aware of themselves as celebrities". Groening read about a town that had to get rid of pig feces in their water supply, which inspired the plot of the film. The decision for Flanders to have an important role also came early on, as Jean wished to see Bart wonder what his life would be like if Flanders were his father. Having eventually decided on the basic outline of the plot for the film, the writers then separated it into seven sections. Jean, Scully, Reiss, Swartzwelder, Vitti, Mirkin, and Meyer wrote 25 pages each, and the group met one month later to merge the seven sections into one "very rough draft". The film's script was written in the same way as the television series: the writers sitting around a table, pitching ideas, and trying to make each other laugh. The script went through over 100 revisions, and at one point the film was a musical. However, the songs were continually being shortened and the idea was dropped. Groening described his desire to also make the film dramatically stronger than a TV episode, saying that he wanted to "give you something that you haven't seen before". Animation. Animation for the film began in January 2006, with the "Itchy & Scratchy" short being the first scene to be storyboarded. Groening rejected making either a live-action or a CGI film, calling the film's animation "deliberately imperfect" and "a tribute to the art of hand-drawn animation". The film was produced in a widescreen 2.35:1 aspect ratio, to distinguish it from the look of the television series, and colored with the largest palette the animators had ever had available to them. A lot of the animation was produced using Wacom Cintiq tablets, which allowed images to be drawn directly onto a computer monitor to facilitate production. Animation production work was divided among four studios around the world: Film Roman in Burbank, California, Rough Draft Studios in Glendale, California, and AKOM and Rough Draft's division in Seoul, South Korea. As with the television series, the storyboarding, characters, background layout, and animatic parts of production, were done in America. The overseas studios completed the animation, in-betweening, and digital ink and paint processes. Director David Silverman said that unlike the TV series where "you to pick and choose", the film gave them the opportunity to "lavish that attention [on every single scene". The characters have shadows, unlike in the show. Silverman and the animators looked to films such as "The Incredibles", "Triplets of Belleville", and "Bad Day at Black Rock" for inspiration, as they were "a great education in staging because of how the characters are placed". They also looked for ideas for a dream sequence, in Disney films such as "Dumbo" and the Pluto cartoon "Pluto's Judgment Day", and for crowd scenes in "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World". Silverman looked at some of the "Simpsons" episodes he had directed, primarily his two favorites, "Homie the Clown" and "Three Men and a Comic Book". Mike B. Anderson, Lauren MacMullan, Rich Moore, and Steven Dean Moore each directed the animation for around a quarter of the film under Silverman's supervision, with numerous other animators working on scenes. Casting. For inspiration for the crowd scenes in the film, the production staff referenced a poster featuring more than 320 "Simpsons" characters. Groening said they tried to include every single character in the film, with 98 having speaking parts, and most members of the crowds being previously established characters instead of generic people. The series' regular voice actors: Dan Castellaneta, Julie Kavner, Nancy Cartwright, Yeardley Smith, Hank Azaria, and Harry Shearer, as well as semi-regular performers Tress MacNeille, Pamela Hayden, Marcia Wallace, Maggie Roswell, Russi Taylor, and Karl Wiedergott, reprised their roles. Joe Mantegna returned as Fat Tony, while Albert Brooks, who supplied many guest voices in episodes, was hired as Russ Cargill, after he told the staff that he wanted to be part of the film. For "about a week", he was to reprise the role of Hank Scorpio from the episode "You Only Move Twice", but the staff felt that creating a new character was a better idea. The cast did the first of three table readings in May 2005, and began recording every week from June 2006 until the end of production. James L. Brooks directed them for the first time since the television show's early seasons. Castellaneta found the recording sessions "more intense" than recording the television series, and "more emotionally dramatic". Some scenes, such as Marge's video message to Homer, were recorded over one hundred times, leaving the voice cast exhausted. The writers had written the opening concert scene without a specific band in mind. Green Day were cast in that role having requested to guest star in the show. Tom Hanks also appears as himself in the film and accepted the offer after just one phone call. "Everybody Loves Raymond" creator Philip Rosenthal provides the voice of the father in the "new Grand Canyon" commercial with Hanks. Due to time restraints, several guests who had recorded parts were cut from the film. Minnie Driver recorded the part of a patronizing grievance counselor in a scene that ended up being cut. Edward Norton recorded the part of the man who gets crushed as the dome is implemented, performing a Woody Allen impression. The staff felt the voice was too distracting, so Castellaneta re-recorded Norton's dialogue with a different voice. Isla Fisher and Erin Brockovich also recorded cameos, but their scenes were cut. Kelsey Grammer recorded lines for Sideshow Bob, who was to appear at several different points, but these scenes were also cut. Johnny Knoxville was also touted as a possible guest star. Although he does not provide the voice, Arnold Schwarzenegger is President of the United States in the film. He was chosen instead of the then President George W. Bush because then, "in two years [...] the film be out of date". Brooks was nervous about the idea, noting that "opinion polls were way down", and has said that they "were [hoping he'd make a political comeback". The animators began by drawing an accurate caricature of Schwarzenegger, but one of the staff instead suggested an altered version of recurring character Rainier Wolfcastle as President. This idea was developed, with the design of Wolfcastle, himself also a caricature of Schwarzenegger, being given more wrinkles under his eyes and a different hairstyle. Editing. Every aspect of the film was constantly analyzed, with storylines, jokes, and characters regularly being rewritten. Although most animated films do not make extensive changes to the film during active production due to budget restrictions, "The Simpsons Movie" crew continued to edit their film into 2007, with some edits taking place as late as May, two months before the film was released. James L. Brooks noted, "70 percent of the things in of the trailers—based on where we were eight weeks ago—are no longer in the movie." Groening said that enough material for two more movies was cut. Various new characters were created, and then cut because they did not contribute enough. Originally Marge was the character who had the prophetic vision in church. The writers however considered this to be too dark and it was changed to Grampa. The role of Lisa's love interest Colin was frequently revised. He was previously named Dexter and Adrien, and his appearance was completely altered. One idea was to have Milhouse act as Lisa's love interest, but the writers realized "the audience was not as familiar with long-standing crush on [Lisa as had thought". A car chase in which Homer throws flaming mummies out of a truck at the EPA was replaced with "more emotional and realistic" scenes at the motel and carnival that allowed for a change of pace. Further changes were made after the March 2007 preview screenings of the film in Portland, Oregon and Phoenix, Arizona. This included the deletion of Kang and Kodos heavily criticizing the film during the end credits. A lot of people at the screenings found the original film too coarse, and some of Homer's behavior too unkind, so several scenes were toned down to make him appear nicer. Russ Cargill was redesigned several times, originally appearing as an older man whose speech patterns Albert Brooks based on Donald Rumsfeld. The older model was the one used by Burger King for the action figure. Cargill's scene with Bart and Homer at the film's conclusion was added in to fully resolve his story, and the "Spider-Pig" gag was also a late addition. One excised scene, before the dome is put over Springfield, had Mr. Burns reminding viewers that it was the last point in the film that they could get a refund. Other deletions included Homer's encounter with a sausage truck driver, which was featured on the DVD, a scene with Plopper the pig at the end, and a news report, showing the dome's effect on daily life in Springfield in areas such as farming and sport, was cut because it did not fit the overall context of the film. Several musical numbers, at various intervals throughout the film, were cut. These included a song about Alaska, featuring music by Dave Stewart of Eurythmics. Jean said it "got pretty far along in the animation, and then we got scared that the movie began to drag in that section." Music. James L. Brooks chose Hans Zimmer to compose the film's score, as they were good friends and regular collaborators. Zimmer felt that the score was a "unique challenge", and he had to "try and express the style of "The Simpsons" without wearing the audience out". He used Danny Elfman's original opening theme, but did not wish to overuse it. He created themes for each member of the family. Homer's leitmotif was a major focus, and Zimmer also composed smaller themes for Bart and Marge. Regular television series composer Alf Clausen was not asked to score the film, noting: "sometimes you're the windshield, sometimes you're the bug". In addition to their appearance in the film, Green Day recorded its own version of the "Simpsons" theme, and released it as a single. Zimmer turned the Spider-Pig song into a choral piece, which was a joke he never intended to be put into the film. Zimmer also had to write foreign-language lyrics for the 32 dubbed versions of the song when the film was released internationally. He found translating the song into Spanish the hardest to write. The same choir learned to sing the piece for each of the foreign-language dubs. Cultural references. Many cultural references and allusions are made throughout the film. Green Day play "Nearer, My God, to Thee" on violins as their barge sinks, in a sequence parodying the film "Titanic". When Bart is riding his skateboard naked, different passing objects are constantly covering his genitalia, a nod to similar techniques used in '. Homer and Marge's love scene parodies many Disney films, including "Cinderella", with Disney-style animals helping them undress. Originally, the music from "The Wizard of Oz" was used in that scene, and the fawn had white spots; these were removed because the animators felt it resembled Bambi too clearly. Bart impersonates Mickey Mouse on the train, calling himself "the mascot of an evil corporation". Homer plays "Grand Theft Walrus", an allusion to the video game series "Grand Theft Auto". In the game, his character shoots a tap-dancing penguin in reference to the film "Happy Feet". The "Spider-Pig" song is a parody of the theme song of the 1967 "Spider-Man" TV series, and the name of Lisa's lecture is "An Irritating Truth", a play on Al Gore's film "An Inconvenient Truth". The bomb disposal robot was based on Vincent D'Onofrio's character Leonard "Pyle" Lawrence from the film "Full Metal Jacket", who commits suicide in a similar way. At the end of the film, the crowd's celebration is similar to the conclusion of ', with Carl performing exactly the same hand gestures as Lando Calrissian. The $1,000 Homer received when entering Alaska is a reference to the Alaska Permanent Fund Dividend. As Homer leaves Eski-Moe's he grabs on to a passing truck and uses it to propel himself back to the house, a tribute to actor Buster Keaton, while the epiphany scene features homages to the film "Brazil" and the works of Salvador Dalí. Hillary Clinton appears as Itchy's vice president, while an Orc from "The Lord of the Rings" appears in the mob scene. A scene that was cut had Marge and the kids appear on the TV talk show "The View" to spread the news of Springfield's impending doom. Parts were written for the show's entire panel and the scene was planned to feature Russ Cargill having a gunfight with Joy Behar. Another dropped scene featured Moe describing Springfield's varying physical states inside the dome, one of which was the Disneyland ride Autopia. There are several references to events in previous TV episodes of "The Simpsons". These include the wreckage of the ambulance from the episode "Bart the Daredevil" crashed into a tree next to Springfield Gorge. The Carpenters' song "(They Long to Be) Close to You" was used in Homer and Marge's wedding video and had also been used in several emotional moments between them in the TV series.
581759	Darna Zaroori Hai (, , translation: "Getting scared is necessary") is a Bollywood Anthology film released on 28 April 2006. It was considered a sequel to "Darna Mana Hai" which was also produced by RGV. It stars a host of Bollywood actors including Amitabh Bachchan, Riteish Deshmukh, Anil Kapoor, Sunil Shetty, Mallika Sherawat, Isha Koppikar, Arjun Rampal, Rajpal Yadav, Bipasha Basu, and more. The film was archived at the New York Institute of Technology, as part of the film course. Plot. "Darna Zaroori Hai" interweaves six stories into one film. Six children get lost in the middle of a forest until they find a haunted house. Inside, there is an old woman who agrees to tell them six scary stories, and they will all compete on who is able to sit through all six stories without getting scared. Additional Story – Uncredited. The first story is about a young film-buff named Satish (Manoj Pahwa), living with his mother. Satish has an habit of watching a Bollywood movie in theaters every Friday, on the last show of the day. He decides to watch the film "Darna Mana Hai". His mother warns him not to take the graveyard shortcut because it's Friday the 13th, a new moon night, and witches might appear. He insults his mother, and takes the shortcut. He safely arrives at the cinema, buys his regular snacks, gets some change back, watches the movie and returns home. On his return, he once again uses the graveyard shortcut. Walking through the graveyard, he hears clinking footsteps and begins to run. He sees a witch and falls to the ground in terror. His fear leads to his death. It turns out the footsteps were actually the coins jingling in his pocket as he walked and the witch he saw was actually a poster for a movie, "Darna Zaroori Hai". Story 1 – Imaginary Ghost. Six children arrive at a haunted house. The resident of the house, an old woman, decides to tell them six scary stories. The children decide to have a competition to see who gets scared first. The first story is about a professor, Sunil Khanna (Amitabh Bachchan), who is giving tuition to one of his Biotechnology student Altaaf (Riteish Deshmukh) at home. Every minute, the professor points out something (or someone) in his house. Once in the kitchen, once in the dining room and once on the sofa. The confused student decides to leave when the professor warns him not to leave the house, or the ghost will go after him as well. Curious, the student asks the professor about the ghost and the professor tells him that the ghost is an exact lookalike of himself, except he has a hollow face with a hat. The frightened student tries to run but the professor takes him in front of the mirror and points at his reflection. The professor's reflection in the mirror looks exactly like the ghost he talked about. After the story, one child, Nisha, goes down to the bathroom, only to come back as a ghost without revealing her real identity. Nisha sits down with the rest of the kids with a bowed head. Story 2 – Spirits Do Come. The second story is about a photographer, Kunal (Arjun Rampal), who confronts a strange house when his car breaks down. There, Varsha (Bipasha Basu) invites him in and claims she has been lonely for the past few years since her husband Rahul died. He tries to make a phone call but is confronted by Rahul. He gets scared and says that Varsha opened the door, but gets astonished on listening that Varsha is the one who had died 2 years ago, and not Rahul (Makrand Deshpande). They then confess to a scared Kunal that they were playing a prank on him. The two explain to Kunal that Rahul has been trying to call spirits and bring them down to earth. When Kunal interrupts by saying he's in hurry, Rahul plays as if he is calling a spirit of a mechanic. After a few moments, the three hear a door knock, and Rahul goes outside to check and then he screams for Varsha and while Kunal decides to stay inside the house. When she comes out, there lies Kunal dead on the bonnet of his broken-down car. The scream was from Rahul, who was horrified at seeing Kunal's dead body. The door was knocked by a trespasser and he asks them to inform the police. Just then, Kunal walks out and declares in a chilly voice that spirits do come, whenever you call them.
1064761	The House Bunny is a 2008 romantic comedy film directed by Fred Wolf, written by Kirsten Smith and Karen McCullah Lutz, and starring Anna Faris as a former Playboy bunny who signs up to be the "house mother" of an unpopular university sorority after being conned by a rival into believing she is now too old by Playboy standards. Plot. Shelley Darlington (Anna Faris) is an aspiring Playboy Playmate living the life of luxury in the Playboy Mansion. The day after her twenty-seventh birthday, she awakes to find a note, seemingly from Hugh Hefner, asking her to pack up and leave. She happens to stumble upon a group of girls who remind her of herself: beautiful and fun. She follows them and sees that they live in luxury too. They turn out to be the Phi Iota Mu sorority, and snobbishly reject her when she tries to join them. She makes her way down to the Zeta Alpha Zeta house, which appears to be far less luxurious than the first sorority she visited. The members of the Zeta house are dowdy, socially awkward, and caught off guard by Shelley's bubbly nature, prompting them to initially reject her. Once they see Shelley's ability to attract boys, the Zetas change their mind and take in Shelley as their new "house mother", hoping that she can save them: their sorority is in danger of being shut down unless they can get thirty new pledges to join. During her time spent with the Zetas, Shelley meets and becomes attracted to an intellectual, altruistic guy named Oliver (Colin Hanks), who works at a retirement home. Shelley goes out on a date with Oliver, and while her flirty tactics work with most guys, they fail with him, for he is a guy who actually wants to get to know Shelley rather than just sleep with her. To impress Oliver on their upcoming second date, Shelley starts attending classes and reading books, and tones down her appearance, but the second date is also a disaster. Having gotten a makeover and lessons on how to attract guys and be popular, the Zetas throw a party, which is a huge success. Later, the Zetas are reviewing the girls who are hoping to pledge to Zeta, but their new popularity has made them conceited. When they realize what they've become, they blame Shelley—just as she returns from her unsuccessful date. Although Shelley had just been invited back to the Playboy mansion (after Hefner had learned of the forged dismissal) and decided to stay with the Zetas, the unexpected attack from them makes her reconsider, and she calls back to accept the invitation. The Zetas then feel guilty, and decide to give themselves a second makeover, this time being "Half-Shelley and Half-Themselves". They also decide to draw the pledges out at random, instead of judging them. They show up at Shelley's photoshoot and ask for her to come back, to which she agrees, having changed her mind about her dream of being a centerfold. The rival Phi Iota Mu sorority intercepts the invitations and prevents them from being mailed out, so the Zetas are again in danger of being shut down at the campus meeting of the Panhellenic Council. Shelley crashes the meeting and gives a heartfelt speech about what her experience with the Zetas has taught her about love and acceptance, and asks for pledges on the spot; gradually thirty students agree to pledge, and the sorority is saved. Oliver and Shelley reconcile, and Shelley explains that she likes Oliver a lot and was trying too hard to impress him. They decide to start over with their relationship and Oliver is looking forward to getting to know the "real" Shelley. The film ends with Zetas and their new pledges celebrating. Shelley has remained in close contact with Mr. Hefner and her friends at the Playboy mansion. Cast. Cameos Production. Faris had pitched the film's concept to a few companies and Happy Madison picked it up. The working title of the film was "I Know What Boys Like". The film was made during Summer 2007. Reception. Critical reception. Anna Faris' performance was praised by most critics; however, the film itself received mixed reviews. Rotten Tomatoes gives the film a 42% "Rotten" rating based on 123 reviews, with the consensus stating "Anna Faris is game, but she can't salvage this middling, formulaic comedy.
901234	Rya Kihlstedt (born July 23, 1970) is an American actress. Life and career. Kihlstedt was born in Lancaster, Pennsylvania and is a 1991 graduate of Skidmore College in Theatre Arts. She is of Swedish descent. She has two children (Ava Emanuelle born 1999, and Giovanni born 2001) with her actor husband Gil Bellows. She is the sister of Oakland-based violinist, Carla Kihlstedt. Kihlstedt is best known for portraying Alice Rivens in "Home Alone 3" (1997). She appeared in recurring roles on Showtime drama series "Dexter" as Dr. Michelle Ross, and on ABC drama series "Nashville" as powerful producer Marilyn Rhodes. She starred with Peter Gallagher in "Brave New World" (1998). Others notable television credits include "Early Edition", "Criminal Minds" and "NCIS", and supporting roles in films "Arctic Blue", "Deep Impact", "Jaded" and "Women in Trouble".
584418	Vallarasu is a Tamil action film released in 2000.This film is a blockbuster. The movie stars Vijayakanth, Devayani, Raghuvaran, Karan, Vadivelu and Livingston. The music is by Deva. It was remade in Hindi as "Indian". Plot. Vallarasu (Vijayakanth) is the deputy commissioner of police and a very honest Police Officer who has arrested Wasim Khan a terrorist from Pakistan.He is married and has wife Anjali(Devayani) and 2 children. Vallarasu kills his senior Police officer on knowing who is his senior but who, he realises, is hand-in-glove with terrorists and Anti-National elements. Vallarasu takes the help of some youths who are disillusioned by their inability to join the police force to fight the terrorist and other criminal elements. Vallarasu fights R.Kandasamy a rich man who is behind the attempts to destabilise the country.He deals firmly with caste leaders. Production. A scene shot was of Vijayakant and Devayani at a jewellery shop in T.Nagar in Chennai. The song was picturised near Pollachi and with the lead pair there were about 100 dancers. And choreographing the dance was dance master Haridas. A lavish set was erected at the A.V.M. Studios where a stunt scene was picturised between Vijayakant and Richard. Some stunt scenes were picturised between Vijayakant and Richard. Some stunt artistes who played as Richard's henchmen, also participated in the shot. Apart from Chennai, shooting locations were at New Delhi and Kulu Manali. Bollywood villain Mukesh Rishi made his debut in tamil cinema with this film. Director P. Vasu made his debut as actor with this film.
1163619	James Coco (March 21, 1930 – February 25, 1987) was an American character actor. Early life and career. Born James Emil Coco in New York City, son of Feliche Coco, a shoemaker, and Ida Detestes Coco, James began acting straight out of high school. As an overweight and prematurely balding adult, he found himself relegated to character roles. He made his Broadway debut in "Hotel Paradiso" in 1957, but his first major recognition was for Off-Broadway's "The Moon in Yellow River", for which he won an Obie Award. For the next several years he worked steadily in commercials and on stage with emerging talents like Robert Drivas, Gene Hackman, Doris Roberts and Brenda Vaccaro and established stars such as Eileen Heckart, Jason Robards, Christopher Plummer, and Roddy McDowall. Coco's first collaboration with playwright Terrence McNally was a 1968 off Broadway double-bill of the one-act plays "Sweet Eros" and "Witness", followed by "Here's Where I Belong", a disastrous Broadway musical adaptation of "East of Eden" that closed on opening night. They had far greater success with their next project, "Next", which ran for more than 700 performances and won Coco the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Performance. Sixteen years later, the two would reunite for the Manhattan Theatre Club production of "It's Only a Play". Coco also achieved success with Neil Simon, who wrote "The Last of the Red Hot Lovers" (1969) specifically for him. It won him a Tony Award nomination as Best Actor in a Play. The two later joined forces for a Broadway revival of the musical "Little Me" and the films "Murder By Death", "The Cheap Detective", and "Only When I Laugh", for which he was Oscar-nominated. Film and television roles. Coco's additional film credits include "Ensign Pulver", "Tell Me That You Love Me, Junie Moon", "Man of La Mancha", "Such Good Friends", "A New Leaf", "The Wild Party", and "The Muppets Take Manhattan". Three of his films were released posthumously: "Hunk" (1987), "The Chair" (1988) and "That's Adequate" (1989). On television, Coco starred in two unsuccessful 1970s series, "Calucci's Dept." and "The Dumplings", and made guest appearances on many shows, including "ABC Stage 67", "The Edge of Night", "Marcus Welby, M.D.", "Trapper John, M.D.", "Medical Center", "Maude", "Fantasy Island", "Alice", "Murder, She Wrote", "The Muppet Show", "The Love Boat", and "St. Elsewhere", for which he won an Emmy Award. One of his last TV assignments was a recurring role as Nick Milano on the sitcom "Who's The Boss?". In his final years, Coco became known for his cooking prowess ("The James Coco Diet") publishing several best-selling cookbooks with his best friend, Marion Paone, and making frequent guest appearances on talk shows garbed in a chef's hat and apron. Death. Coco died of a heart attack in New York City on February 25, 1987 at the age of 56. Coco is buried in St. Gertrude's Roman Catholic Cemetery in Colonia, New Jersey.
1055932	The Theory of Flight is a 1998 film directed by Paul Greengrass, starring Helena Bonham Carter and Kenneth Branagh. Bonham Carter plays a woman with motor neurone disease, and the film deals with the sexuality of people with disabilities. Reception. "The Theory of Flight" received mixed reception from critics and currently holds a 50% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. This was the last film reviewed by the noted film critics Gene Siskel, who gave the film a thumbs up, and Roger Ebert, who gave the film a thumbs down, on "Siskel and Ebert at The Movies" before Siskel's death on 20 February 1999.
1059301	Michael Christopher Sheen, OBE (born 5 February 1969), is a Welsh stage and screen actor. After training at London's Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, Sheen made his professional debut in 1991, starring opposite Vanessa Redgrave in "When She Danced" at the Globe Theatre. He worked mainly in theatre throughout the 1990s and made notable stage appearances in "Romeo and Juliet" (1992), "Don’t Fool With Love" (1993), "Peer Gynt" (1994), "The Seagull" (1995), "The Homecoming" (1997) and "Henry V" (1997). His performances in "Amadeus" at the Old Vic and "Look Back in Anger" at the National Theatre were nominated for Olivier Awards in 1998 and 1999, respectively. In 2003, he was nominated for a third Olivier Award for his performance in "Caligula" at the Donmar Warehouse. Sheen has become better known as a screen actor since the 2000s, in particular through his roles in various biopics. With writer Peter Morgan he has starred in a trilogy of films as British politician Tony Blair: the first was the television film "The Deal" in 2003, followed by "The Queen" (2006) and "The Special Relationship" (2010). For playing Blair he was nominated for both a BAFTA Award and an Emmy. Sheen was also nominated for a BAFTA as the troubled comic actor Kenneth Williams in BBC Four's 2006 "", and was nominated for a fourth Olivier Award nomination in 2006 for portraying the broadcaster David Frost in "Frost/Nixon", a role he revisited in the 2008 film adaptation of the play. He also starred as the outspoken football manager Brian Clough in "The Damned United". Since 2009 and into the 2010s, Sheen has become known for a wider variety of roles. In 2009, Sheen appeared in two fantasy films, ' and ', while in 2010, he made a four-episode guest appearance in the NBC comedy "30 Rock". He appeared in the science-fiction film "" (2010) and Woody Allen's romantic comedy "Midnight in Paris" (2011). At Easter 2011, Sheen directed and starred in National Theatre Wales's "The Passion", a 72-hour secular passion play staged in his hometown of Port Talbot. From late 2011 until early 2012, Sheen played the title role in "Hamlet" at the Young Vic. In September 2013, he will star in Showtime's twelve-episode drama "Masters of Sex". Early life. Sheen was born in Newport, Wales, the son of Irene (née Thomas), a secretary, and Meyrick, a British Steel personnel manager. He has one younger sister, Joanne. When he was five, the family moved to Liverpool, England, but settled in his parents' hometown of Baglan in Port Talbot, Wales three years later. Port Talbot is also the hometown of actors Richard Burton and Anthony Hopkins. Director Sam Mendes has described Sheen as "a stage creature" and attributed that to the actor's Welsh roots. "I'm serious. He's Welsh in the tradition of Anthony Hopkins and Richard Burton: fiery, mercurial, unpredictable." A keen footballer, Sheen was scouted and offered a place on Arsenal F.C.'s youth team at the age of 12 but his family were unwilling to relocate to London. He later said he was "grateful" for his parents' decision as the chances of forging a professional football career were "so slim". "It would have meant moving from Wales to London as a family. It was just too big an upheaval." He lost interest in playing football in his early teens. Sheen was raised in a theatrical family—his parents were both involved in local amateur operatics and musicals and, later in life, his father worked as a part-time professional Jack Nicholson look-alike. In his teenage years, Sheen was involved with the West Glamorgan Youth Theatre and, later, the National Youth Theatre of Wales. "It was a brilliant youth theatre", Sheen has said, "and it taught me not only a lot about acting, but also about work ethic; it was very disciplined." He was influenced by the performances of Laurence Olivier and the writings of theatre critic Kenneth Tynan—"the combination of those two things kind of blew my head off." Sheen was educated at Blaenbaglan Primary School, Glan Afan Comprehensive School and, finally, Neath Port Talbot College where he sat A-levels in English, Drama and Sociology. He considered studying English at university but instead decided to attend drama school. He moved to London in 1988 to train as an actor at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA), having spent the previous year working in a Welsh fast food restaurant called Burger Master to earn money. Sheen was granted the Laurence Olivier Bursary by The Society of London Theatre in his second year at RADA. He graduated in 1991 with a BA in Acting. Career. Classical stage roles (1991–2001). Sheen worked predominantly in theatre in the 1990s and has since remarked that he will always feel "slightly more at home" on stage. "It's more of an actor's medium. You are your own editor, nobody else is choosing what is being seen of you." His first professional role, while still in his third and final year at RADA, was in "When She Danced" at the Globe Theatre in 1991. He later described the role as "a big break. One day I was at RADA doing a movement class, the next I was at a read-through with Vanessa Redgrave and Frances de la Tour." Milton Shulman of the "Evening Standard" praised an "excellent" performance while "The Observer" wrote of "a notable West End debut". In 1992, Sheen's performance in "Romeo and Juliet" at the Royal Exchange received a MEN Theatre Award nomination and led theatre critic Michael Coveney to declare him "the most exciting young actor of his generation ... a volatile, electrifying and technically fearless performer". His 1993 turn as Perdican in Alfred de Musset's "Don’t Fool With Love" at the Donmar Warehouse was nominated for the Ian Charleson Award and was described by "The Independent" as "quite thrilling". Also in 1993, Sheen appeared in the world premiere of Harold Pinter's "Moonlight" at the Almeida Theatre and made his television debut in the 1993 BBC mini-series "Gallowglass". Sheen played the title role in "Peer Gynt" in 1994. The Yukio Ninagawa production was staged in Oslo, Tokyo and at the Barbican Centre, London. "The Times" praised Sheen's "astonishing vitality" while "The Independent" found him "sensationally good" and noted that "the Norwegian press were grudgingly captivated by the mercurial Welsh boyo". In other 1994 work, Sheen appeared in "Le Livre de Spencer" at the Odéon-Théâtre de l'Europe, Paris and starred in the cross-dressing farce "Charley's Aunt" at the Royal Exchange. In 1995, he appeared opposite Kate Beckinsale in a production of "The Seagull" at the Theatre Royal, Bath and, with the encouragement of Thelma Holt, directed and starred in "The Dresser" at the Theatre Royal, Plymouth. In addition, Sheen made his film debut that year, appearing opposite Kenneth Branagh in "Othello". 1996 saw Sheen at the National Theatre for "The Ends of the Earth", an original play by David Lan. A minor role in "Mary Reilly" marked the first of three film collaborations with director Stephen Frears. Sheen's most significant appearance of 1997 was the title role in "Henry V", staged by the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) at their Stratford-upon-Avon theatre, which earned him a second Ian Charleson Award nomination. "The Times" praised "a blisteringly intelligent performance". Also in 1997, he appeared in a revival of Harold Pinter's "The Homecoming" at the National Theatre, directed by Roger Michell, and directed "Badfinger", starring Rhys Ifans, at the Donmar Warehouse. The latter was staged by the Thin Language Theatre Company, which Sheen had co-founded in 1991, aiming to further Welsh theatre. He then appeared in the biographical film "Wilde", playing Robbie Ross to Stephen Fry's Oscar Wilde. In early 1998 Sheen formed a production company, The Foundry, with Helen McCrory and Robert Delamere to promote the work of emerging playwrights, and produced "A Little World of Our Own" at the Donmar Warehouse, which gave Colin Farrell his West End debut. From 1998 to 1999, Sheen starred as Mozart in a highly successful revival of "Amadeus". The Peter Hall-directed production was staged at the Old Vic, London and later transferred to the Music Box on Broadway. Ben Brantley, chief theatre critic for "The New York Times", was particularly vocal in his praise. He noted that "Mr. Sheen elicits a real poetry from the role" and felt that, while watching him, "you start to appreciate the derivation of the term star. This actor is so luminous it's scary!". "The Independent" found him "quite stunning as Mozart. His fantastically physical performance convinces you of his character's genius and the play catches fire whenever he's on stage." Sheen was nominated for a Laurence Olivier Award for Best Supporting Performance and an Outer Critics Circle Award for Outstanding Actor. In 1999, Sheen explored the role of Jimmy Porter in the National Theatre's production of "Look Back in Anger". In 2003, Sheen described the production as "the most enjoyable thing I've ever done ... everything came together". The "Daily Mail" declared him a "definitive Jimmy Porter... simply exhilarating in his great jazz riffs of speeches, mercurial and irresistible." "Sheen has cornered the market in explosive energy", said "The Independent", "but this thrilling performance is his finest yet." The "Financial Times" noted: "As Jimmy Porter, a role of staggering difficulty in every way, Michael Sheen gives surely the best performance London has yet seen from him ... You hang on every word he utters ... This is a dazzlingly through-the-body performance." He was nominated for a Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actor and an Evening Standard Award for Best Actor. "The Deal", "The Queen" and "Fantabulosa" (2002–2006). At this point in his career, Sheen began to devote more time to film work. "Heartlands", a little-seen 2002 film about a naive man's road trip in the Midlands, was his first leading film role. While "The Guardian" dismissed the "cloying bittersweet-regional-lottery-Britfilm", it noted that "Sheen himself has a childlike, Frank Spencer-ish charm". "It was great to do something that was so different", Sheen has said of the role. "I usually play very extreme characters but I couldn't get away with doing all my usual silly tricks with Colin." Also in 2002, he had a minor role in the action-adventure film "The Four Feathers". In 2003, Sheen appeared in "Bright Young Things", the directorial debut of his "Wilde" co-star, Stephen Fry. An adaptation of Evelyn Waugh's novel, the film followed high society partygoers in decadent, pre-war London. Sheen played a gay aristocrat in an ensemble cast which included James McAvoy, Emily Mortimer, David Tennant, Dan Aykroyd, Jim Broadbent and Peter O'Toole. While the "Los Angeles Times" said he "shone", "The Guardian" felt the role "drastically under-uses his talents". Sheen described his character as "possibly the campest man in cinema history" and relished a scene "where I do drugs with then 95-year-old Sir John Mills." In other 2003 film work, Sheen appeared as a werewolf named Lucian in "Underworld" and made a brief appearance in the sci-fi film "Timeline". Sheen also returned to the stage in 2003 to play the title role in "Caligula" at the Donmar Warehouse, directed by Michael Grandage. It was the first of just three stage appearances during the 2000s; his young daughter was now based in Los Angeles, California which made more frequent stage runs in Britain impractical. "The Independent"'s critic declared it "one of the most thrilling and searching performances I have ever witnessed" while "The Daily Telegraph" described him as an "outrageously charismatic actor" with "an astonishing physical presence". "The Times" praised a "riveting performance" while "The Guardian" found him "highly impressive ... at one point he attacks his court poet with a single hair-raising leap across a chair and table". Sheen won an Evening Standard Award for Best Actor and a Critics' Circle Theatre Award for Best Actor, and was again nominated for a Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actor. Sheen's breakthrough role was as British politician Tony Blair in 2003's "The Deal". The Channel 4 film explored the so-called Granita pact made by Tony Blair and Gordon Brown prior to the 1994 Labour Party leadership election, and was the actor's first collaboration with screenwriter Peter Morgan. Director Stephen Frears cast him because "he was in "Mary Reilly" and I knew he was brilliant." Filmed while he was playing "Caligula" nightly on stage, Sheen has remarked, "It’s interesting that in searching for monsters to play, you often end up playing leaders." "The Daily Telegraph" praised his "earnest, yet steely, portrayal" while "The Guardian" found him "excellent. This is intelligent and honest casting." In 2004, Sheen starred in ITV's "Dirty Filthy Love", a comic film about a man dealing with OCD and Tourette's after a marital separation. Sheen spoke of "treading a fine line" because "a lot of the symptoms are intrinsically comical". He was nominated for a BAFTA Award for Best Television Actor and a RTS Best Actor Award. Also in 2004, Sheen played a pompous rock star in the romantic comedy "Laws of Attraction" and produced and starred in "The Banker", which won a BAFTA Award for Best Short Film. In 2005, Sheen starred in the National Theatre's production of "The UN Inspector", a David Farr adaptation of "The Government Inspector". "The Times" wrote of "a scathingly brilliant and inventive performance" while "Variety" noted that the actor "adds comic finesse to his apparently ceaseless repertoire". "The Evening Standard", while conceding that the performance was "technically brilliant", expressed bemusement as to why "one of the most mercurial and inspiring actors we have seems set on impersonating Rik Mayall throughout". Also that year, he took part in the Old Vic's "24 Hour Play", in which "The Telegraph" felt he "dazzled". In 2005 film work, Sheen starred in "Dead Long Enough", a small-budget Welsh/Irish film, with his longtime friend, Jason Hughes. In addition, he had a supporting role in Ridley Scott's "Kingdom of Heaven", made a cameo appearance in "The League of Gentlemen's Apocalypse" and starred in the short film "The Open Doors". Sheen came to international attention in 2006 for his portrayal of Tony Blair in "The Queen". The film focused on the differing reactions of the British Royal Family and the newly appointed Prime Minister following the death of Diana, Princess of Wales in 1997; it was Sheen's third collaboration with director Stephen Frears and his second with screenwriter Peter Morgan. He enjoyed reprising his role because Blair, at this point in his career, had "a weight to him that he didn’t have before". When asked to discuss his personal opinion of Blair, Sheen admitted that the more time he spent working on the character, the "less opinion" he has of the politician: "Now when I watch him on TV or hear his voice, it's sort of like a cross between a family member, a friend and seeing a really old embarrassing video of yourself." Peter Travers of "Rolling Stone" praised "a sensational performance, alert and nuanced" while Empire spoke of an "uncanny, insightful performance". Sheen was nominated for a BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role. His second film appearance of 2006 was a supporting role in "Blood Diamond" as an unscrupulous diamond dealer. Also in 2006, Sheen starred as the troubled English comic actor Kenneth Williams in BBC Four's ' In preparation for the role, he lost two and a half stone, studied archival footage and read Williams' published diaries. Sheen has said he is "fascinated by finding the private side of the public face". "The Times" found his performance "mesmerising" while "The Observer" described it as "a characterisation for which the description tour-de-force is, frankly, pretty faint praise". He won a RTS Award for Best Actor, and received his second BAFTA nomination of 2006, for Best Television Actor. Sheen starred in two other BBC television productions in 2006, playing H. G. Wells in ' and Nero in "". "Frost/Nixon" and "The Damned United" (2007–2009). From 2006 to 2007, Sheen starred as the television broadcaster David Frost in "Frost/Nixon" at both the Donmar Warehouse and Gielgud Theatre in London and at the Jacobs Theatre on Broadway. The play, written by Peter Morgan, directed by Michael Grandage and co-starring Frank Langella, was a critical and commercial success but Sheen initially accepted the role as a favour to his friends and "never thought it was going anywhere". "The Guardian" said the actor "exactly captures Frost's verbal tics and mannerisms while suggesting a nervousness behind the self-assurance". "He’s got the voice, the mannerisms, the blaze," said the "Financial Times", "but, more than that, Sheen—as viscerally exciting an actor as any in Britain today—shows us the hunger of Frost’s ambition .. and fox-like instinct for the hunt and the kill." Sheen was nominated for a Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actor and a Drama League Award for Distinguished Performance. Sheen next appeared in the 2007 film "Music Within" as a political activist with cerebral palsy. He spoke of having a "responsibility" to accurately portray the condition. "Variety" said his performance was "remarkable.. utterly convincing", "USA Today" found him "outstanding" while the "Los Angeles Times" felt he was "reminiscent of Daniel Day-Lewis in "My Left Foot", bringing a vibrancy and wit to the role". Also that year, Sheen starred in the short film "Airlock, or How To Say Goodbye in Space" with Derek Jacobi and was invited to join the actors' branch of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences. Sheen revisited the role of David Frost in 2008's "Frost/Nixon", a film dramatisation of the The Nixon Interviews of 1977. Despite appearing in the original stage production in a part written for him by Peter Morgan, Sheen was surprised to have been cast in the film: "Peter said he'd only be prepared to give the rights to someone who would cast me as Frost, which was very nice, but when the studios get their hands on something... Right up until we started filming I was prepared to be disappointed". Roger Ebert of the "Chicago Sun-Times" asserted that Sheen embodied his character in a "compelling, intense" performance while "The Wall Street Journal" felt he was "a brilliant actor" who "grows his character from a bright-eyed social butterfly to a gimlet-eyed interrogator". However, "The New York Times" felt "the likable, watchable Mr. Sheen has been pitted against a scene-stealer" in Frank Langella's Nixon. Frost himself later said it was "a wonderful performance". Sheen was the recipient of the Variety Award at the British Independent Film Awards 2008. 2009 saw Sheen portray another public figure; he starred in "The Damned United" as the outspoken football manager Brian Clough. The Tom Hooper-directed film focused on Clough's disastrous 44-day tenure as manager of Leeds United and marked Sheen's fifth collaboration with writer Peter Morgan. The actor has said Clough is the real-life character he enjoyed playing most. "The Guardian", writing in 2009, declared it the "best performance of his big-screen career" while "The Times" found him "magnificent". "USA Today" praised "Sheen's masterful performance" while the "Los Angeles Times" felt he played the role with "a cheeky, dark panache" and "skillful verve". "Entertainment Weekly" asserted that, despite American audiences' unfamiliarity with Clough, "what's lost in translation is recovered easily enough in Michael Sheen's astonishing performance". "Variety" noted that his "typically scrupulous channeling of Clough gets the tics and mannerisms right, but also carves a moving portrait of a braggart suddenly out of his depth". Also in 2009, Sheen reprised his role as a werewolf in "", a prequel to the original film. Of his decision to take part, Sheen has said: "My rule of thumb is that I want to do things I'd like to go and see myself." "The New York Times" felt he was "the movie’s greatest asset ... a lively break from his usual high-crust duties to bring wit, actual acting and some unexpected musculature to the goth-horror flick". "Variety" said he hit "all the right notes in a star-powered performance that will amuse, if not amaze, anyone who only knows the actor as Tony Blair or David Frost" while Richard Corliss of "Time" noted that he "tries bravely to keep a straight face" Sheen had a supporting role in 2009's ', the second film in the highly popular vampire series. He was paid a reported £5 million fee and director Chris Weitz has said he "aggressively" pursued the actor for the role. In its review, "Rolling Stone" said: "Late in the film, a real actor, Michael Sheen, shows up as the mind-reading Aro, of the Italian Volturi vampires, and sparks things up. You can almost hear the young cast thinking, "Is that acting? It looks hard." So Sheen is quickly ushered out." While "The New York Times" said he "preens with plausible menace", "USA Today" felt he "plays the character with more high-pitched giddiness than menace". He was named Actor of the Year at "GQ Magazines annual Men of the Year ceremony. Sheen made two once-off stage appearances in 2009; he performed a scene from "Betrayal" as part of a Harold Pinter tribute evening at the National Theatre and performed improvisational comedy as part of The Groundlings' "Crazy Joe Show" in Los Angeles. "Hamlet" and "Masters of Sex" (2010–present). In 2010, Sheen had a supporting role in the science fiction sequel "". Referring to his David Bowie-esque character, Sheen has said, "I was paid to show off basically". "The Wall Street Journal" found little fun in the movie "except for a gleefully campy turn by Michael Sheen" while "The New York Times" said he "shows up to deliver the closest thing to a performance in the movie". "The Daily Telegraph" felt his "lively hamming as a cane-swishing nightclub owner merely underlines how impersonal—how inhuman—much else here is". However, "USA Today" felt his "scenery-chewing performance ... is meant as comic relief, but this movie thunders along so seriously that the attempt at humor feels jarring". In other 2010 film work, Sheen provided the voices for characters in Tim Burton's "Alice in Wonderland" and Disney's "Tinker Bell and the Great Fairy Rescue" and appeared as a terrorist in "Unthinkable". On television, Sheen's performance in the third instalment of Peter Morgan's Blair trilogy, "The Special Relationship", was nominated for an Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor – Miniseries or Movie. The HBO film examined the "special relationship" between the US and the UK in the political era of Blair and Bill Clinton. It was the sixth collaboration between Sheen and Peter Morgan; both parties have since said they will not work together again "for the foreseeable future". Sheen also made a guest appearance in four episodes of NBC's "30 Rock" as Wesley Snipes, a love interest for Tina Fey's Liz Lemon. Fey, the sitcom's star and creator, has said that "he was so funny and delightful to work with". In November 2010, Sheen received the BAFTA Britannia Award for British Artist of the Year. In 2011, Sheen starred in and was creative director of National Theatre Wales's "The Passion", a 72-hour secular passion play staged in his hometown of Port Talbot, Wales. In addition to a professional cast, over one thousand local amateurs took part in the performance and as many more volunteers from local charity and community groups were involved in preparations in the months leading up to the play. The event was the subject of both a BBC documentary and "The Gospel of Us", a film by director Dave McKean. Sheen has described it as "the most meaningful experience" of his career. "The Observer" declared it "one of the outstanding theatrical events not only of this year, but of the decade". "The Independent"'s critic described it as "the most extraordinary piece of community-specific theatre I've ever beheld". While the "The Daily Telegraph" bemoaned the large-scale production's logistical problems, "overall I found it touching, transformative and, in its own wayward way, a triumph." "The Guardian" felt it was "so much more than just an epic piece of street theatre..transforming and uplifting". Sheen and co-director Bill Mitchell were jointly honoured as Best Director at the Theatre Awards UK 2011. In 2013, Sheen was nominated for a Best Actor Welsh BAFTA for "The Gospel of Us". Sheen's most notable film appearance of 2011 was a supporting role in Woody Allen's "Midnight in Paris". Allen noted that "Michael had to do the pseudo-intellectual, the genuine intellectual, the pedant, and he came in and nailed it from the start". Sheen enjoyed playing "someone who’s just absolutely got no sense that he’s overstepping the mark or that he’s being a bore." The film opened the 2011 Cannes Film Festival and became Allen's highest grossing film to date. Also in 2011, Sheen starred in "Beautiful Boy", an independent drama focusing on the aftermath of a school shooting, voiced the enigmatic and mysterious villain House in the "Doctor Who" episode "The Doctor's Wife" written by his friend Neil Gaiman and made cameo appearances in ' and "Resistance". In 2012 film work, Sheen starred opposite Toni Collette in the independent comedy "Jesus Henry Christ" and reprised his role as the vampire Aro in the final instalment of '. Sheen played the title role in "Hamlet" at the Young Vic in late 2011 and early 2012, a role he first explored in a 1999 BBC Radio 3 production. While there had been tentative plans over the years for both Peter Hall and Michael Grandage to direct Sheen in the play, he eventually asked Ian Rickson. Rickson's production was set in the secure wing of a psychiatric hospital and featured original music by PJ Harvey. The "Evening Standard" declared Sheen's performance "an audacious achievement" that "will live in the memory" while "The Independent" praised "a recklessly brilliant and bravura performance." "The Telegraph" felt that Sheen "could be right up there among the great Hamlets" while "The Times" found him "unbearably moving". "The Guardian" described him as "fascinating to watch ... intelligent, inventive and full of insights ... delivers the "What a piece of work is man" passage with a beautiful consciousness of human potential." "The Observer" declared him an actor "always worth crossing a principality to see and hear" whose ""To be or not to be" is a marvel." In 2013, Sheen appeared in the comedy "Admission" as Tina Fey's "stiff British boyfriend". In September 2013, Sheen will star in Showtime's twelve-episode drama "Masters of Sex". He and Lizzy Caplan will portray the 1960s human sexuality pioneers Masters and Johnson; the series will chronicle "their unusual lives, romance and pop culture trajectory, which saw them go from a Midwestern teaching hospital to the cover of "Time" magazine and Johnny Carson’s couch". The pilot episode was directed by John Madden. In late 2013, Sheen will appear in the fantasy children's film "Mariah Mundi and the Midas Box". In early 2014, he will star in IFC's six-episode "The Spoils of Babylon", a television parody of classic, sweeping miniseries. Sheen will play the husband of Kristen Wiig's character. In 2014, Sheen will play a supporting role in "Kill the Messenger", which tells the true story of reporter Gary Webb's attempts to connect the CIA to the crack cocaine trade only to become the victim of a smear campaign. Charity work. Sheen is an ambassador for TREAT Trust Wales, a charity which aims to provide a rehabilitation and therapy centre in the grounds of Swansea’s Morriston Hospital by 2015, and is the Welsh ambassador of FILMCLUB, a charity which offers after-school film clubs to state primary and secondary schools in an effort to improve literacy levels. He is also an ambassador of the environmental charity Keep Wales Tidy. He is a patron of British charities including Scene & Heard, NSPCC's Child's Voice Appeal, Healing The Wounds, The Relationships Centre and WGCADA. He has taken part in a number of charity football matches, most notably captaining the winning team at Wembley Stadium. He is also a patron of the British Independent Film Awards, an ambassador for the Dylan Thomas Prize and vice-president of Port Talbot Town FC. Personal life. Sheen does not adhere to any religion, having asked his parents at the age of seven if he could stop attending church. He has said that he usually votes for the Labour Party and has criticised the Conservative Party's Big Society initiative, describing it as "a totally cosmetic bit of PR". "Rather than trying to encourage people to do more voluntary work, I would say look at the people who are doing the work already and give them more support." Relationships. Sheen had an eight-year relationship with English actress Kate Beckinsale from 1995 until 2003. They met when cast in a touring production of "The Seagull" in early 1995 and began living together shortly afterwards. Beckinsale credited Sheen with saving her from "a hospital for the criminally insane". Their daughter, Lily Mo Sheen, was born in 1999 in London, England. The actress has said she was "embarrassed" that Sheen never proposed but felt as if she were married: "If you keep a library book out long enough, you feel it's yours." Their relationship ended in early 2003, after the filming of "Underworld". Beckinsale had persuaded director Len Wiseman to cast Sheen in the film but, while on set, she and Wiseman (who was married) fell in love. She relocated to Los Angeles, California, and married Wiseman in 2004. Sheen also moved from London to Los Angeles following the split in order to live close to his daughter. "I like LA", he has remarked. "It's grown on me and it's my home for now, but I wouldn't choose to live in LA if it wasn't for my daughter... Once Lily's older and able to move around, I'll probably return to the UK." He remains friends with both Beckinsale and Wiseman. "We were very lucky in that we didn't have an acrimonious split," Beckinsale has said. "We are still very close and daughter sees us around each other." "He's absolutely one of my most favourite people ever." "I love him dearly—I would miss him dreadfully if he wasn't in my life." Sheen has said that Beckinsale "will always be one of the most important people in my life. I have real love for her and a lot of affection for Len." Sheen had a long-distance relationship with English ballet dancer Lorraine Stewart from late 2004 until mid-2010. He was in a relationship with Canadian actress Rachel McAdams, whom he met on the set of "Midnight in Paris", from mid-2010 to early 2013. Sheen is currently dating his "Masters of Sex" co-star Caitlin Fitzgerald; they were first photographed together in July 2013. Awards and recognition. Other honours. Sheen was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire in the 2009 New Year Honours list for his services to drama. He was awarded the freedom of the borough of Neath Port Talbot, Wales in 2008 for his services in the field of the dramatic arts. He is an Honorary Fellow of the University of Wales, Newport, the Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama Swansea University, Aberystwyth University and Swansea Metropolitan University, and has been awarded the James Joyce Award by University College Dublin. List of performances. In addition to theatre, film and television credits, Sheen has also appeared in many radio productions, particularly in the early years of his career. Notable radio play appearances include "Strangers on a Train" (1994) opposite Bill Nighy, "The Importance of Being Earnest" (1995) opposite Judi Dench, "Romeo and Juliet" (1997) opposite Kate Beckinsale, "Troy" (1998) opposite Paul Scofield and "The Pretenders" (2004) opposite, again, Paul Scofield. He has narrated five novels for BBC Radio 4 and Naxos AudioBooks: "Crime and Punishment" (1994), "The Idiot" (1995), "The Picture of Dorian Gray" (1995), "A White Merc With Fins" (1997), "Salmon Fishing in the Yemen" (2007) and "The Ocean at the End of the Lane" (2013).
591427	Kadhalikka Neramillai ( ) is a 1964 Tamil comedy film starring T. S. Balaiya, R. Muthuraman, Ravichandran, Nagesh and others. The film was directed by Sridhar with music by M.S.Viswanathan. The film was remade into Telugu as "Preminchi Choodu" in 1965 and into Hindi as "Pyar Kiye Jaa" in 1966. Actress Rajasree featured in all three versions. The film was a blockbuster and the biggest grosser of the year completing a 175-day run at the box office. Plot. Vishwanathan ("T.S.Balaiya") is a rich estate owner in Chinnamalai (near Pollachi, Coimbatore District, Tamil Nadu, India). He has a son Chellappa ("Nagesh") and two daughters Kanchana and Nirmala. Vishwanathan's son (Chellappa) aspires to become a great cinema director and always demands money for his cinema production (Oho Productions) from his father. Vishwanathan has two daughters - Kanchana who is doing her B.Sc and Nirmala who is doing her P.U.C in Madras. After their exams, they both come to their father's i.e. Vishwanathan's home in Chinnamalai. Vishwanathan wants his daughters to get married to rich grooms. Kanchana is in love with Vasu ("R.Muthuraman"), the only son of a rich businessman Sachidanandham. Ashok ("Ravichandran") works as Asst. Manager in Vishwanathan's estate. His father is a teacher. Ashok and Vasu are friends. Ashok drives his old and battered car straight into Kanchana's and Nirmala's car. He gets into an argument with the girls. The girls get provoked by Ashok and complain to their father and ask him to fire Ashok. Vishwanathan complies at his daughters' insistence. Ashok gets angry with Vishwanathan. He pitches a tent in front of Vishwanathan's house and keeps demanding his job back. Love flares up between Ashok and Nirmala. As Vishwanathan wants his daughter to get married with a rich person, Ashok decides to pose as a rich man. For this he seeks his friend Vasu's help. Now Vasu comes to Vishwanathan disguised as a rich businessman Chidambaram. He impresses Vishwanathan by saying that he owns Chidambaram Shipping Agency in Madras and he has many ships, grandhouses, etc. in Madras. He says Ashok is his son and the only heir to all his properties, but that Ashok left him because he once scolded Ashok. Ashok pretends to ask for forgiveness from Vasu. Vishwanathan asks Vasu and Ashok to stay in his guest house for some days and tour Chinnamalai, and they both accept Vishwanathan's invitation. Now Vishwanathan is keen for either of his daughters to get married to Ashok and he expresses his wish to Ashok and Vasu. Ashok says that he will marry Nirmala, which makes Vishwanathan very happy.
1016179	Enter the Phoenix (Chinese: 大佬愛美麗, "Daai lo oi mei lai", literally "Big brother loves beauty") is a 2004 Hong Kong film directed by Stephen Fung.
1162919	Marjorie Armstrong "Markie" Post (born November 4, 1950) is an American actress, best known for her roles as bail bondswoman Terri Michaels in "The Fall Guy" on ABC from 1982 to 1985, as public defender Christine Sullivan on the NBC sitcom "Night Court" from 1985 to 1992, and as Georgie Anne Lahti Hartman on the CBS sitcom "Hearts Afire" from 1992 to 1995. Early life. Born in Palo Alto, California, Post is the daughter of scientist Richard F. Post and Marylee Post. She grew up in Walnut Creek, California, and attended Las Lomas High School where she was a cheerleader. She later earned her Bachelor of Arts from Lewis & Clark College in Portland, Oregon. Career. Prior to acting, Post worked on several game shows. She began her career with the production crew of the Tom Kennedy version of "Split Second". She also served as associate producer of Alex Trebek's "Double Dare" and as a card dealer on the NBC Jim Perry version of "Card Sharks". Post often was a celebrity player on various game shows, including "Pyramid" and "Password". Her early acting credits include the pilot episode of "Simon & Simon" "Details at Eleven" in 1981, two episodes of "The A-Team" as two different characters in the 1983 episode "The Only Church in Town" and the 1984 episode "Hot Styles", respectively. She appeared in the science fiction series "Buck Rogers in the 25th Century" and as Diane Chambers' best friend in the sitcom "Cheers", before eventually becoming a regular on the ABC action drama "The Fall Guy". After "The Fall Guy", she played Christine Sullivan on the 1980s television comedy series "Night Court" from the third season until the show's end. She played Georgie Anne Lahti Hartman on the comedy series "Hearts Afire", co-starring John Ritter. Post has also had regularly re-occurring guest star roles on "The District" and on "Scrubs" as the mother of Dr. Elliot Reid. Film credits include "There's Something About Mary" (1998), in which she played the mother of Cameron Diaz's character. She played a call girl and dominatrix in the 1988 TV movie "Tricks of the Trade" opposite Cindy Williams, and a singer in "Glitz" with Jimmy Smits, based on a novel by Elmore Leonard. She also had a starring role in NBC's 1995 movie "Visitors in the Night". Post also appeared in the 1997 TV movie "Survival on the Mountain". She worked on the comedy movie "Cook Off!" as Christine Merriweather. She appeared in the "30 Rock" episode "The One with the Cast of Night Court" playing herself when she, Harry Anderson, and Charles Robinson staged a mock reunion of the "Night Court" cast. Post does the voice of June Darby for the animated series "". Personal life. Post is currently married to actor and writer Michael A. Ross, and has two daughters. She was previously married to Stephen Knox, whom she met at Lewis and Clark College. During Bill Clinton's years in the White House, a tabloid published a photograph of Post hand in hand with Linda Bloodworth-Thomason jumping up and down on what appears to be President Abraham Lincoln's bed while on an overnight stay at the White House.
1093058	Nikolay Nikolayevich Bogolyubov (; 21 August 1909 – 13 February 1992), also transliterated as Bogoliubov, was a Soviet mathematician and theoretical physicist known for a significant contribution to quantum field theory, classical and quantum statistical mechanics, and to the theory of dynamical systems; a recipient of the Dirac Prize (1992). Biography. Early life (1909–1921). Nikolay Bogolyubov was born on 21 August 1909 in Nizhny Novgorod, Russian Empire to Russian Orthodox Church priest and seminary teacher of theology, psychology and philosophy Nikolay Mikhaylovich Bogolyubov, and Olga Nikolayevna Bogolyubova, a teacher of music. The Bogolyubovs relocated to the village of Velikaya Krucha in the Poltava Governorate (now in Poltava Oblast, Ukraine) in 1919, where the young Nikolay Bogolyubov began to study physics and mathematics. The family soon moved to Kiev in 1921, where they continued to live in poverty as the elder Nikolay Bogolyubov only found a position as a priest in 1923. He attended research seminars in Kiev University and soon started to work under the supervision of the well-known contemporary mathematician Nikolay Krylov. In 1924, at the age of 15, Nikolay Bogolyubov wrote his first published scientific paper "On the behavior of solutions of linear differential equations at infinity". In 1925 he entered Ph.D. program at the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR and obtained the degree of Kandidat Nauk ("Candidate of Sciences", equivalent to a Ph.D.) in 1928, at the age of 19, with the doctoral thesis titled "On direct methods of variational calculus". In 1930, at the age of 21, he obtained the degree of Doktor nauk ("Doctor of Sciences", equivalent to Habilitation), the highest degree in the Soviet Union, which requires the recipient to have made a significant independent contribution to his or her scientific field. This early period of Bogolyubov's work in science was concerned with such mathematical problems as direct methods of the calculus of variations, the theory of almost periodic functions, methods of approximate solution of differential equations, and dynamical systems. This earlier research had already earned him wide recognition. One of his essays was awarded the Bologna Academy of Sciences Prize in 1930, and the author was awarded the erudite degree of doctor of mathematics. This was the period when the great scientific rise of the young Nikolai Bogolyubov began, later producing new multiple scientific trends in modern mathematics, physics, and mechanics. Since 1931, Krylov and Bogolyubov worked together on the problems of nonlinear mechanics and nonlinear oscillations. They were the key figures in the "Kiev school of nonlinear oscillation research", where their cooperation resulted in the paper ""On the quasiperiodic solutions of the equations of nonlinear mechanics"" (1934) and the book "Introduction to Nonlinear Mechanics" (1937; translated to English in 1947) leading to a creation of a large field of non-linear mechanics. Distinctive features of the Kiev School approach included an emphasis on the computation of solutions (not just a proof of its existence), approximations of periodic solutions, use of the invariant manifolds in the phase space, and applications of a single unified approach to many different problems. From a control engineering point of view, the key achievement of the Kiev School was the development by Krylov and Bogolyubov of the describing function method for the analysis of nonlinear control problems. In the period 1928—1973, Nikolay Bogolyubov worked in the Institute for Theoretical Physics of the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR holding the position of the Director of the institute since 1965. He lectured at Kiev University in the period 1936—1959. In evacuation (1941–1943). After the German attack against the Soviet Union on 22 June 1941 (beginning of the Great Patriotic War), most institutes and universities from west part of Russia were evacuated into east regions far from the battle lines. Nikolay Bogolyubov moved to Ufa, where he became Head of the Departments of Mathematical Analysis at Ufa State Aviation Technical University and at Ufa Pedagogical Institute, remaining on these positions during the period of July 1941 – August 1943. Moscow (1943–?). In autumn 1943, Bogolyubov came from evacuation to Moscow and on 1 November 1943 he accepted a position in the Department of Theoretical Physics at the Moscow State University (MSU). At that time the Head of the Department was Anatoly Vlasov (for a short period in 1944 the Head of the Department was Vladimir Fock). Theoretical physicists working in the department in that period included Dmitry Ivanenko, Arsenij Sokolov, and other famous physicists. In the period 1943–1946, Bogolyubov's resesarch was essentially concerned with the theory of stochastic processes and asymptotic methods. In his work "?" a simple example of an anharmonic oscillator evolving under the force of the form as a superposition of incoherent sinusoidal oscillations with continuous spectrum was used to show that depending on a specific approximation time scale the evolution of the system can be either deterministic, or a stochastic process satisfying Fokker-Planck equation, or even a process which is neither deterministic nor stochastic. In other words, he showed that depending on the choice of the time scale for the corresponding approximations the same stochastic process can be regarded as both dynamical and Markovian, and in the general case as a non-Markov process. This work was the first to introduce the notion of time hierarchy in non-equilibrium statistical physics which then became the key concept in all further development of the statistical theory of irreversible processes. In 1945, Bogolyubov proved a fundamental theorem on the existence and basic properties of a one-parameter integral manifold for a system of non-linear differential equations. He investigated periodic and quasi-periodic solutions lying on a one-dimensional manifold, thus forming the foundation for a new method of non-linear mechanics, the "method of integral manifolds". In 1946, he published in JETP two works on equilibrium and non-equilibrium statistical mechanics which became the essence of his fundamental monograph "Problems of dynamical theory in statistical physics" (Moscow, 1946). On 26 January 1953, Nikolay Bogolyubov became the Head of the Department of Theoretical Physics at MSU, after Anatoly Vlasov decided to leave the position on January 2, 1953. Steklov Institute (1947–?). In 1947, Nikolay Bogolyubov organized and became the Head of the Department of Theoretical Physics at the Steklov Mathematical Institute. In 1969, the Department of Theoretical Physics was separated into the Departments of Mathematical Physics (Head Vasily Vladimirov), of Statistical Mechanics, and of Quantum Field Theory (Head Mikhail Polivanov). While working in the Steklov Institute, Nikolay Bogolyubov and his school contributed to science with many important works including works on renormalization theory, renormalization group, axiomatic S-matrix theory, and works on the theory of dispersion relations. In the late 1940s and 1950s, Bogoliubov worked on the theory of superfluidity and superconductivity, where he developed the method of BBGKY hierarchy for a derivation of kinetic equations, formulated microscopic theory of superfluidity, and made other essential contributions. Later he worked on quantum field theory, where introduced the Bogoliubov transformation, formulated and proved the Bogoliubov's edge-of-the-wedge theorem and Bogoliubov-Parasyuk theorem (with Ostap Parasyuk), and obtained other significant results. In the 1960s his attention turned to the quark model of hadrons; in 1965 he was among the first scientists to study the new quantum number color charge. In 1946, Nikolay Bogoliubow was elected as a Corresponding Member of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR. He was elected a full member (academician) of the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR and in full member of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR in 1953. Dubna (1956–1992). Since 1956, he worked in the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research (JINR), Dubna, Russia, where he was a founder (together with Dmitry Blokhintsev) and the first director of the Laboratory of Theoretical Physics. This laboratory, where Nikolay Bogolyubov worked for a long time, has traditionally been the home of the prominent Russian schools in quantum field theory, theoretical nuclear physics, statistical physics, and nonlinear mechanics. Nikolay Bogolyubov was Director of the JINR in the period 1966—1988. Family. His son Nikolay Boglyubov (jr) is a theoretical physicist working in the fields of mathematical physics and statistical mechanics. Students. Nikolay Bogoliubov was a scientific supervisor of Yurii Mitropolskiy, Dmitry Shirkov, Selim Krein, Iosif Gihman, Tofik Mamedov, Kirill Gurov, Mikhail Polivanov, Naftul Polsky, Galina Biryuk, Sergei Tyablikov, Dmitry Zubarev, Vladimir Kadyshevsky, and many other students. His method of teaching, based on creation of a warm atmosphere, politeness and kindness, is famous in Russia and is known as the "Bogoliubov approach". Awards. Nikolay Bogolyubov received various high USSR honors and international awards. Institutions, awards and locations have been named in Bogolyubov's memory: In 2009, the centenary of Nikolay Bogolyubov's birth was celebrated with two conferences in Russia and Ukraine: Research. Fundamental works of Nikolay Bogoliubov were devoted to asymptotic methods of nonlinear mechanics, quantum field theory, statistical field theory, variational calculus, approximation methods in mathematical analysis, equations of mathematical physics, theory of stability, theory of dynamical systems, and to many other areas. He built a new theory of scattering matrices, formulated the concept of microscopical causality, obtained important results in quantum electrodynamics, and investigated on the basis of the edge-of-the-wedge theorem the dispersion relations in elementary particle physics. He suggested a new synthesis of the Bohr theory of quasiperiodic functions and developed methods for asymptotic integration of nonlinear differential equations which describe oscillating processes. Publications. Books. Mathematics and Non-linear Mechanics: Statistical Mechanics: Quantum Field Theory:
584066	Aaranya Kaandam (; ; English title: "Anima and Persona") is a 2011 Indian Tamil action film, written and directed by newcomer Thiagarajan Kumararaja. It is supposedly the first "neo-noir" film in Tamil cinema. The story takes place in a day in the lives of the six protagonists, played by Jackie Shroff, Ravi Krishna, Sampath Raj and newcomers Yasmin Ponnappa, Somasundaram and Master Vasanth. Produced by S. P. B. Charan's Capital Film Works, the film features musical score by Yuvan Shankar Raja and cinematography by P. S. Vinod and editing handled by the duo Praveen K. L. and N. B. Srikanth. The film was launched on 18 December 2008, with its principal photography being completed by late 2009, which was followed by a lengthy post-production phase. It ran into difficulties as the regional censor board in Chennai raised objection against the film, giving it an adult rating besides demanding 52 cuts. After screening at and becoming approved by the Tribunal in Delhi, the film was released worldwide on 10 June 2011, to high critical acclaim. It had its world premiere on 30 October 2010 at the South Asian International Film Festival, where it won the Grand Jury Award for Best Film. Subsequently, the film was honored with two National Film Awards for Best Editing and Best First Film of a Director category respectively. Plot. The film opens with the aging gangster, Singaperumal, forcing himself on a young girl, Subbu. He is unable to perform, and vents his anger by slapping the helpless Subbu. Singaperumal is the grand don of crime in Madras. His lieutenant, Pasupathi, brings a proposal. A large stash of cocaine, worth about 20 million rupees, has entered the city. The guy bringing the stash wants to sell it for 5 million rupees. Pasupathi sees the immediate easy profit, as well as the long term benefit (to control the cocaine market with such a large supply) and the recognition that they are able to pull off such a deal. The drawback is that the stash really belongs to their arch rival Gajendran. Singaperumal knows that Gajendran is a vicious and unpredictable adversary, and the venture is risky and likely to become messy. He decides to pass. Pasupathi dourly suggests Singaperumal is getting old and rusty. He asks Singaperumal to loan him the five million so he can do the job himself. Pasupathi is prepared to face the risks, and in return for the loan, he offers Singaperumal a cut of the profits. Singaperumal agrees to the loan, but, instead asks Pasupathi to first get the stash and then think of the profit distribution. The money for the loan is brought to Singaperumal. The film introduces Kalaya, a now destitute farmer, and his young, street-smart son Kodukapuli. They live in the slums and earn a meager living staging cockfights; as a coincidence, Singaperumal loves to watch these cockfights. One evening, a man arrives to bunk with Kalaya for the night. This man is the cocaine courier. He routinely transports various stashes of drugs in and out of the city, and collects a relatively small fee (10 thousand rupees) for each trip. That evening, after a long bout of drinking, he reveals that he has learnt the true value of the stash, and he now intends to sell it himself instead of delivering it to its true owner. He passes out. Seeing Subbu in tears, Singaperumal asks one of his men, Sappai, to take her out and comfort her "so she is prepared to perform for him at night". Sappai takes her to the beach and tries to console her. Pasupathi and the men meet with the tipster and drive off to retrieve the stash. En route in the car, one of the men receives a call from Singaperumal, who orders him to bump off Pasupathi as soon as the stash is acquired. Pasupathi overhears this as the call is on speaker mode and gets into a Mexican standoff with others. In a desperate ploy he deliberately provokes a cop at a checkpoint, getting arrested and then later making an escape . The other men kidnap his wife, Kasturi, and use her as bait to lure Pasupathi. Singaperumal orders them to bring Kasturi to him. Subbu hates being a plaything for Singaperumal. She yearns to be free and live life on her own terms. She tries to persuade Sappai to think for himself and realize that Singaperumal is merely using them. Sappai, however, is too fearful and weak to oppose Singaperumal. Subbu and Sappai become unlikely lovers, and Subbu continues to hope for a way out. We learn that Subbu is somewhat educated, and learns whatever she can about the world outside Singaperumal. Kalaya stages his cockfight the following day. But this time, his prize cocks get killed. Kalaya is in serious financial trouble. Kodukapuli senses this and immediately goes to see if their visitor, still unconscious, has any money. They find out that the man had overdone his drink and died. Kalaya and Kodukapuli find the cocaine stash and the telephone number of a prospective buyer (Singaperumal and Pasupathi). Kalaya declares that his financial woes are at an end. Singaperumal is worried. His stash has not arrived, nor has he got word that Pasupathi is dead. He gets an angry call from Gajapati (Gajendran's right hand man): if Pasupathi seizes Gajapati's stuff, Gajendran will unleash a terrible gang war. The cunning Singaperumal tells Gajapati that Pasupathi has gone rogue, and that Gajapati is free to take out Pasupathi. Singaperumal figures this will benefit him both ways: he will get the stash, and his avaricious general will be killed by Gajendran. Gajendran sends his thugs after Pasupathi. Pasupathi is on the run. Now that Singaperumal has become his enemy, Pasupathi figures that Gajendran could possibly become an ally. Kalaya calls Singaperumal to meet and make a deal for the stash. While waiting for him, Singaperumal's thugs arrive and kidnap Kalaya at the rendezvous point. After continuous torture, Kalaya is unable to reveal anything as his son Kodukapuli has the stash. Kodukapuli ends up calling Pasupathi's number accidentally, and offers to trade the stash for his father. Pasupathi joins Kodukapuli and offers the same trade to Singaperumal: the stash in return for Kalaya and Kasturi. Pasupathi places a call to Gajendran and offers to reveal the location of the stash. Gajendran and his gang arrive at the location to make the exchange with Pasupathi. Singaperumal's thugs also arrive at about the same time. Pasupathi pretends to offer the stash to Gajapati, but instead slices his throat right in front of Gajendran. An engraged Gajendran and his gang chase Pasupathi. Pasupathi leads them around the block where Singaperumal's gang lay waiting. Both gangs mistaking Pasupathi's loyalties charge at each other and ensue in a gangfight. Pasupathi gets out of the fray, and watches as Gajendran and the key generals of Singaperumal's hack each other to bits. Pasupathi's plan to decimate the two strong factions has succeeded. He returns to finish Singaperumal. Back in his rooms, Singaperumal discovers that the bag with the loan money is missing. He rushes to the conclusion that Sappai took it. When Sappai returns (having been sent by Subbu to fetch fruits), Singaperumal beats him up severely. Sappai's faith is shattered. In his first moment of independence, he grabs a pistol and shoots Singaperumal dead! Subbu emerges from the shadows. She is proud of Sappai, but in a stunning twist, she shoots and kills Sappai! When Pasupathi arrives, he finds Sappai and Singaperumal dead and Subbu in tears. Having always been sympathetic to Subbu's suffering with Singaperumal, he says she is free to go. Subbu leaves. Pasupathi summons the remaining thugs of Singaperumal's gang and assumes command. Kasturi is unharmed. Pasupathi gets the stash and pays Kodukapuli a fair commission. It is finally revealed that Subbu had planned the whole thing. She sent Sappai with the bag containing the loan money to provoke Singaperumal's temper. She retrieves the bag with the loan money and quietly leaves the city to begin her new life. She remarks that the men basically mistrusted, misused and slaughtered each other. In her view, Sappai, too, was not really an innocent victim. The film ends with her line: Sappai is also a man.but all men are sappai (The word 'sappai' has varied meanings, but in this case, it means insignificant to the point of being contemptuous) . Production. Development. In August 2007, following the success of his film "Chennai 600028" (2007), speculation over S. P. B. Charan's next production venture arose. While initial reports suggested that he would produce "Achchamundu! Achchamundu!", starring Sneha and Prasanna, Charan opted to produce a film titled "Aranya Kandam", to be directed by a newcomer Kumar Raja and starring newcomers. However, despite announcing the project, it was called off later that year and Charan started producing the film "Kunguma Poovum Konjum Puravum" in May 2008. In late 2008, while "Kunguma Poovum Konjum Puravum" was in post-production stage, reports surfaced that Charan and Kumararaja were going to revive the project, with noted Bollywood actor Jackie Shroff being roped in for a leading role, making his debut in Tamil cinema. Director Thiagarajan Kumararaja was revealed to be a former Loyola College student, and popular advertisement filmmaker, who has also directed several short films, including the short film "Becky", which was awarded the first prize at the one-minute film competition "60 Seconds to Fame". Kumararaja had previously written the dialogues for the 2007 comedy film "Oram Po" as well. He got the opportunity to work with Charan, when Pushkar-Gayathri, the director duo of "Oram Po", had suggested him to approach Charan, who listened to the storyline and immediately agreed to produce the film, "in a matter of time" as Kumararaja cites. The film was formally launched on 18 December 2008 at the Kodandapani Studios in Chennai. Writing and inspiration. The script was written by Kumararaja himself, which he had finished in 2006. He cites that he wanted to make a "racy film" and wrote the climax part first, which would be the "raciest part of a film". He then wrote "multiple story lines with three climaxes" as he felt that one climax was "not enough for a feature film", which eventually turned out to be a "leisurely paced film, taking its own time to unfold" and not a racy film as intended. He cited that, while writing the script, he was sure that it was meant for a matured audience and not for children, "primarily because of the content". Kumararaja went on to add that there were "no hero and no villain introduction scenes, there are no love scenes, no sentimental scenes" but nonetheless considered his film a masala film and not an experimental film. His inspiration behind the film was revealed to be "The Godfather" as well as the thought of "how someone becomes a gangster and continues to be one", clarifying that "Aaranya Kaandam" was not a biography or history of a gangster but "a page out of the life of a gangster". Poster of this film is directly lifted from the poster of Akira a much acclaimed Japanese post-apocalyptic cyber-punk animated film Casting. When announcing the film, Kumararaja had already roped in Jackie Shroff, debuting in the Tamil film industry, Ravi Krishna, Sampath Raj of "Saroja" fame along with Guru Somasundaram from the Chennai based theatre group "Koothu-P-Pattarai". Shroff was said to play the role of a "hoodlum", who was chosen after Kumararaja had approached several other Tamil actors, who refused the offer, fearing of their "image". According to the director, the role required a senior person and Shroff had fit the role "completely". Speaking of his role, Shroff remarked that he had done things in the film that he hadn't dared to do in the past 30 years of his career, quoting "I am literally a monster in the film. Actually, I am more like a coconut — hard on the outside, but a veritable softie inside". Ravi Krishna plays a "lover boy", whose role, he claimed would be totally different from his earlier roles. Ravi Krishna was Kumararaja's first choice for the character as he had written it with keeping Ravi Krishna in mind. Sampath Raj enacts the role of a gangster named Pasupathy. Kumararaja finalized Guru Somasundaram for the character of Kaalayan, after he had seen him performing the titular character in Koothu-P-Pattarai's play "Chandrahari". Kumararaja had stated that the voice modulation and pattern of the Kaalaiyan character was based on Somasundaram's performance in the play Chandrahari, which eventually resulted in casting him in the film. Somasundaram cited that the dialogues were also written "keeping the artist in mind". Yasmin Ponnappa, a popular Bangalore based model, who had appeared in television advertisements and won many beauty pageants, was selected for the role of the lead female character. Her role was, however, written for Pooja Umashankar, keeping her in mind, who couldn't accept the offer as she had given her dates to Bala's magnum opus "Naan Kadavul". The details about the crew members were also published, when the film was announced in early December. P. S. Vinod was chosen as the cinematographer, who had earlier shot films like "Musafir" and "My Wife's Murder", while Videsh was announced as the art director, 'Super' Subbarayan as the stunt master and Kalyan and Ajay Raj as choreographers. Vasuki Bhaskar was appointed as the costume designer. However, during the making of the film 'Super' Subbarayan was replaced by his son Dilip Subbarayan. Music. Yuvan Shankar Raja was signed as the music director, who was working on a gangster film again after the likes of "Pattiyal" and "Pudhupettai". Kumararaja divulged that he actually hadn't anyone in mind, but joined with Yuvan Shankar, following producer Charan's recommendation, who shared a "good working relationship" with the composer. Initially a soundtrack was also planned to be composed, with Gangai Amaran being roped in to pen lyrics, however Charan disclosed later that the film would feature no songs at all, becoming Yuvan Shankar Raja's second film project after "Adhu" without a soundtrack. Charan told that background music of this film will be released in CD's. Release. The film was first screened on 30 October 2010 at the South Asian International Film Festival in New York. The film was incomplete at that time, with post-production works pending and a low quality version without colour correction and without a film score was projected at the festival. Despite the drawbacks, the film gained positive feedbacks and went on to win the Grand Jury prize for Best Film. After completion, the film was screened to the regional censor board in Chennai, who refused to clear it. The committee had demanded 52 cuts and several consequential sub-cuts, particularly due to profanity and excessive violence, before permitting a theatrical release. Kumararaja, who admitted that he had expected difficulties in the censorship, disapproved of the board's demands as he wanted to present the film uncompromisingly to the audiences. He claimed that the usage of "bad language" was "part of developing the characters" in his story, while he also disagreed with bleeping out the "objectionable" words since he felt "it throws audiences off the film's narrative". Producer Charan voiced the same opinion, citing that he had made the film for a "mature audience", took the film to the Central Tribunal at Delhi. Critical response. "Aaranya Kaandam" opened to strong critical acclaim. "The India Daily" lauded the director and the producer for making a "strikingly different film that is raw, realistic and is just like watching angry men up close", further adding that "picturising crude realities of life so real needs amazing guts". The leading actors, particularly Jackie Shroff and Sampath, were appreciated for their performances, being labelled as "perfect", while film score and cinematography were praised as well, citing that "Yuvan Shankar Raja deserves all accolades for a fantastic re-recording" and that "Vinod's lens captures the darker sides of city life well". "Rediff"s Pavithra Srinivasan gave the film 3 out of 5, claiming that film "bypasses gangster cliches". The reviewer also spoke in high terms of the cast and crew, pointing out Guru Soma Sundaram's performance whose "gleeful cackles at the rooster fight, pathetic rumblings to his son and wide-eyed act in the Lodge are wonderful to behold" and Yuvan Shankar Raja's score, described as "easily of the movie's biggest strengths". "Behindwoods" claimed the film to be an "intelligently made gangster flick", giving it 3.5 out of 5. Director Kumararaja was praised for that having structured "every frame and character in his film with brilliant dexterity", adding that the manner of narration and screen play was "commendable", while also acknowledging aspects such as dialogues, music and cinematography. "Sify"s reviewer appreciated Kumararaja for "taking the road less travelled", however criticized the large amount of violence in the film, terming it the "most violent and bloody film ever to get through Chennai regional censors". In regard to the performances of the cast, he cited that the best performance came from Sampath, who "just smirks throughout the film", while claiming that Yasmin was "fantastic in her debut role". "NDTV"s critic described the film as a "gangster movie which stands out with its realistic portrayal and no-nonsense treatment", further addding that "good performances, effective dialogues, slick editing and amazing camerawork help the movie stand out from the crowd". A reviewer from "Chennaionline" wrote that the film was made "near-perfect" featuring "some stunning performances, sharp dialogues and excellent camera work and music". Jackie Shroff and P. S. Vinod, in particular, won high praise from the critic, who wrote that the former "proves his class" and "shines in the don’s role", while they had done a "terrific job and should be considered a major factor for the film’s success at the box-office". N. Venkateswaran from "Times of India" rated the film 4.5 out of 5 (the highest rating for any Tamil film ever), while "The Hindustan Times" critic Gautaman Bhaskaran gave 3.5 out of 5. Rohit Ramachandran of "nowrunning.com", too, rated the film 3.5 out of 5 stating that "Aaranya Kaandam is a neo-noir film that runs at breakneck speed only to be slowed down and stopped at an unwelcome destination. But why think of the destination when the journey is one that you've thoroughly enjoyed?" Baradwaj Rangan commended the film, citing that "with most mainstream films, especially in Tamil, you know some fifteen minutes in if they’re working for you (or not) [...] But there are a few that leave you hanging until almost the end [...] and then, gradually, things begin to cohere and reshape your entire thus-far experience, and you slap your forehead and smile and say "wow"! This is one of those films. Box office. Despite strong critical acclaim, the film performed very poorly at the box office. Accolades. "Aaranya Kaandam" appeared on many top ten or top five lists of the best films of 2011. Litigation. Producer, S.P.B. Charan wanted to dub this movie in other regional languages like Telugu and Kannanda. Aggrieved by this, Thiagarajan filed a suit in the Madras High Court on grounds of copyright violation saying that he is the author of the script and has copyright over it and therefore dubbing the movie in other languages would violate his copyright for it. With respect to the same, he prayed for an injunction directing the producer not to dub and release the movie. The respondent argued that the copyright rests with him and that his authorship of the movie entitles him to dub the movie. The court both in the Original Suit as well as in the Appeal passed orders in favour of the respondent/producer.
1198191	Bob and the Monster is a 2011 documentary film by Keirda Bahruth which profiles musician and drug counselor Bob Forrest. Synopsis. This documentary film follows outspoken indie-rock hero Bob Forrest, through his life-threatening struggle with addiction, to his transformation into one of the most influential and controversial drug counselors in the US today. "Bob and the Monster" crafts contemporary footage, animation and compelling interviews with archival performances and personal videos from Bob's past to reveal the complex layers of this troubled, but hopeful soul. Testimony from his peers, including John Frusciante, Flea, Anthony Kiedis, Steven Adler and Courtney Love add texture, but it's the depth of Bob's music, interwoven throughout the film, that illuminates this unforgettable and inspirational story.
586496	Tezz (English: Fast/Speed) is a 2012 Hindi action thriller film directed by Priyadarshan. The film stars Anil Kapoor, Kangna Ranaut, Zayed Khan, Mallika Sherawat, Sameera Reddy, Boman Irani and Ajay Devgn who plays the antagonist of the film. Mohanlal has a cameo role in the film. The stunt choreographer chosen for the movie was Gareth Milne, the stunt co-ordinator of ' and '. "Tezz" was earlier titled ""Bullet Train"". The official trailer was released on 4 January 2012. The movie was released on 27 April 2012 in 2000 screens. Shooting began in beginning of 2011 first in Scotland and finally wrapping up in Mumbai. Upon release the film received mixed reviews from critics and was an average performer at the box office, despite having a stellar cast and a large cinematic release. Plot. Aakash Rana (Ajay Devgn), is an illegal immigrant married to British citizen Nikita (Kangna Ranaut) living as a successful engineer but is eventually caught and deported from the UK thus crushing his dreams of an ideal life. Four years later, Aakash returns with vengeance on his mind and teams up with his former employees Aadil Khan(Zayed Khan) and Megha (Sameera Reddy) to wreak some havoc. What follows is a bomb threat on a train and a tensed Railway Control officer Sanjay Raina (Boman Irani) and Anti-Terrorism officer Arjun Khanna (Anil Kapoor) trying every trick in the book to avert the disaster and to apprehend the culprits. Sanjay Raina trying his best to save his daughter Piya (Avika Gor) and the passengers in the train who are thrown in the mix are police officer Shivan Nair (Mohanlal) and his team of cops, who are escorting a prisoner on the same ill-fated train. Aakash demands 10 million euros and then he will tell how to disarm the bomb. The ministry does not want to give the money, but Khanna convinces them that the money will be given back and is a way to lure the terrorists. After following Aakash's instructions and dropping the money in a river, he walks away. Meghna gets the money and tries to get away. She evades the cops after a vicious chase but unfortunately she is killed by a van in an intersection. Khanna finds out that Khan is one of the bombers and chases him. Khan is shot in the leg, but he gets away after jumping from the bridge and landing on a jet ski driven by Aakash. Aakash once again demands money and tells it to be left in a dustbin. The dustbin falls inward and Aakash runs away with the money even though the police attempt to pursue him. Khanna and his team find out where Aadil is and go there to arrest him. However, Aadil commits suicide with a bomb almost killing Khanna. Aakash calls Raina and tells him that a note has been left at a restaurant called Delhi Darbar that tells how to diffuse the bomb. However, the restaurant catches on fire and the letter is burnt. Aakash visits Nikita and his son and they arrange to leave UK that night via flight. Khanna visits Nikita and tells who her husband is. After changing the plan, that they should leave UK via train because the police has found out about his plan of leaving via plane, he goes to the train station. There he sees a video of Raina asking the bomber to call again as the letter was burnt. Aakash calls Raina and tells him that the bomb was not connected to the wheels and the train will not explode if stopped. Raina stops the train and everyone disembarks safely. Nikita who is helping Khanna now, goes to the train station and sees Aakash and the news that the bomb threat was a hoax. She lets Aakash go, but Khanna finds out as Aakash's son calls him Daddy. Khanna chases him and they fight. After Aakash pleas to Khanna to let him go and explains why he took such drastic actions. Realizing that Aakash was a victim of deportation and wants to just be with his family again at peace, Khanna stays silent (hinting he will let him leave scotfree). However, the police arrive and after seeing that Aakash had a gun, they shoot him. In the end, Nikita receives a letter which Aakash had written before his death. It stated that the money (which Aakash asked for defusing the bomb) was in Aakash's bank locker, in case he dies. He also states that she should give half the money to Megha's brother and Adil's mother. Also, he asks her to tell his son that what he did was to get justice and dies in doing so. Finally, Aakash tells Nikita that if they ever meet in the next life, the end of their love story would be much better and bids her goodbye. Reception. Critical. The movie received mixed reviews. Taran Adarsh of Bollywood Hungama gave 3.5 out 5 and says "TEZZ is a taut, entertaining action spectacle. Those with an appetite for well-made thrillers should lap it up!" Jaidev Hemmady of "Movie Talkies" gave the film 3.5 out 5 stars and said, "Tricks & Thrills Galore!" The overall racy pace of the movie and the nail-biting chase sequences. apart from the few scenes, where the pace of the movie drops, the film overall lives up to its title 'Tezz'. Subhash K. Jha of IANS has given 3 out of 5 Stars saying "Not quite edge-of-the-seat, the thrills in Tezz are engaging enough to keep us watching". Kunal Guha of Yahoo Movies gave the movie 1/2 out of 5 and calls this "an epic fail of bomb diffusion by Priyadarshan". Blessy Chettiar of DNA rated Tezz with 1.5 out of possible five stars and wrote in her review - "May be Priyadarshan should stick to mindless comedies, so we can be sure we’re in safe territory. You won’t be missing much if you skipped Tezz". Rajeev Masand of CNN IBN gives 1.5 out of 5 and says Tezz is "awfully boring for a film that promises speed and thrills". Srijana Mitra Das of ToI gave it three stars out of five. Daily Bhaskar returned a 2.5 out of 5 and said "Overall, Tezz deserves a one-time watch as it doesn’t disappoint". Mid-Day gave it 2 out of 5 and said it has "a predictable plot and lack of pace makes this an entirely forgettable film." Box office. "Tezz" opened to good opening of 85% in multiplexes and occupancy succeed to rise as the day progressed. Single screens were better as expected but even there occupancy remained up around 95%. That was a very good opening keeping in mind the recent box office performance of Ajay Devgan.Tezz was very good overseas with business of $8550,000. The major market figures are as follows United Kingdom - £460,000 North America - $250,000 UAE - $130,000 Australia - $45,000. The film was an average performer worldwide. Soundtrack. The Soundtrack is composed by musical duo Sajid-Wajid, and the lyrics were penned by Shabbir Ahmed, Sameer Anjaan and Jalees Sherwani, and it is released by k Eros Music and Venus. The Music Launch for the film was held in Delhi on 30 March.
581251	Poramboku is an 2007 Telugu movie that is directed by Krishna Reddy. Navdeep plays the lead roles while Ekta Khosla. The film was released on 26 January 2007. Plot. Karthik (Navdeep) has a life ambition to become a film hero as his mother claimed that he was like a hero. As his mother dies in his childhood, Karthik's sister brings him up like mother. Karthik wants to join in a Film Institute but he has to pay Rs 1 lakh towards the fee. Chaitra (Ekta Khosla) reaches their village claiming that she was planning to do a telefilm. As she is rich, Karthik and his friends try to cash in on the opportunity. Chaitra's foster mother (Vadivukkarasi) comes to know that she is in Dosakayalapalli and sends goons. But, Chaitra escapes from the place without any notice to Karthik. Finally Karthik reaches Hyderabad with the help of his sister and meets Chaitra in a dramatic turn of events. Karthik starts his efforts and finally gets the chance as a hero in a film. Again the goons attack Chaitra and try to whisk her away only to get saved by Karthik. Chaitra reveals her flashback. Her foster mother who brought her up plans to snatch her property by getting Chaitra married to her brother Satti. When Karthik was about to face the camera, that woman demands Chaitra. But Karthik categorically tells her that he is in love with her. Though Chaitra decides to sacrifice herself to make Karthik a winner, she could not hide her love. Finally Karthik wins her love and Chaitra's foster mother realizes her folly. Music. The film has six songs composed by Mani Sarma Alternate meanings. Poramboku, in Tamil, can also refer to waste land.
590253	Kaushik Ganguly is an Indian director, screenwriter and actor in Bengali cinema. He is known for his works that explore sexuality like "Ushnatar Janye" (2003) which deals with a lesbian relationship and "Arekti Premer Golpo" (2010) that examines transgendered identity. Life and career. Ganguly was born in Kolkata on August 4, 1968. He attended Ramakrishna Mission Vidyalaya, Narendrapur and later Jadavpur University where he worked on a degree in Bengali literature. While at university he started a theatre troupe with his future wife actress Churni Ganguly and Suman Mukhopadhyay (who would later become a film director). In 1987, Ganguly began working as a screenwriter for Tollywood films. In 1995, he moved to ETV Bangla to direct telefilms like "Ushnatar Janye", "Ulka" and "Aatithi". These telefilms incorporated elements like lesbianism and sex determination that had not been depicted in Bengali television productions before.
903838	Calliope "Callie" Thorne (born November 20, 1969) is an American actress known for her current role as Dr. Dani Santino on the USA Network series "Necessary Roughness". She is also known for past work such as her roles on ' as Detective Laura Ballard, a role she held for two seasons, and the movie '. She is also known for playing Sheila Keefe on "Rescue Me" and Elena McNulty in "The Wire". Life and career. Thorne was born in Boston, Massachusetts, and is of Armenian and English descent. She studied theater and dramatic literature at Wheaton College in Norton, Massachusetts and at the Lee Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute in New York City. In addition to "Rescue Me", Thorne has made guest appearances on television series such as "ER" (2005–2006), ' (, (2004), ' (2003–2004), "The Wire" (2002–2008), "Prison Break" (2006), "Royal Pains" (2009), 'White Collar' (2009), "Burn Notice" (2009–2010),
1068126	Korinna Moon Bloodgood (born September 20, 1975) is an American actress and model, known for her role as Lt. Blair Williams in the 2009 film "Terminator Salvation" and as Anne Glass in the TNT television series "Falling Skies". Early life. Bloodgood was born in Anaheim, California on September 20, 1975. Her father, Shell Bloodgood, is an American of Dutch and Irish descent, and her mother, Sang Cha, is Korean. Her father was stationed in South Korea where he met her mother. Career. At age 17, Bloodgood became one of the Laker Girls. In 2005 Bloodgood was ranked #99 on "Maxim's" magazine's Hot 100 list. She subsequently ranked #53 in 2006, #40 in 2007 and #20 in 2009.
1264427	Dorothy Dell (January 30, 1915 – June 8, 1934) was an American film actress. Early life and career. Born Dorothy Dell Goff in Hattiesburg, Mississippi to entertainers, she moved with the family to New Orleans, Louisiana, at age 13. She was born into a socially prominent family, and her mother was a descendant of Jefferson Davis. Initially desiring to become a singer, she was discovered by composer Wesley Lord, and soon signed a radio contract. She began entering and winning beauty pageants and at the age of 15 won the title of "Miss New Orleans" in 1930. That same year she attended the International Pageant of Pulchritude in Galveston, Texas, and won. With this success. she established a successful vaudeville act. Although she had received better offers, she decided to enter the vaudeville circuit, because she believed it would enable her to help her friend Dorothy Lamour rise to fame, a promise she had made shortly before winning the Miss Universe title. After working on the vaudeville circuit for 32 weeks, she moved to New York in 1931. One night, she sang at a benefit and was discovered by Florenz Ziegfeld, who arranged for her to appear on Broadway in the Ziegfeld Follies, and she followed this success with her role in the production of "Tattle Tales" in 1933. During this time she was closely associated with Russ Colombo, and her celebrity status was elevated by the media attention she received while denying rumors of an impending marriage. Dell and Columbo had met at her Ziegfeld audition; Columbo's manager, Con Conrad, was determined to end their relationship and did so with a series of "publicity only" romances between Columbo and other, more famous actresses. She moved to Hollywood in December 1933 and was signed to a contract by Paramount Pictures. Initially being contracted for bit parts, she won her first film role over such established contenders as Mae Clarke and Isabel Jewell and made her debut in "Wharf Angel" (1934). The film was a success and the reviews for Dell were favorable; Paramount began to consider her as a potential star. Her most important and substantial role followed in the Shirley Temple film "Little Miss Marker".
796276	Mittal v/s Mittal is a 2010 Bollywood film written and directed by Karan Razdan and produced by Rajeev Kore and Dinesh Chugh. The film traces a case on file that fights for the rights of women who are subjugated to domestic violence and inhuman treatment at the hands of husbands and in-laws, a case that will empower women to fight for their pride, respect and their very right to live with dignity. The film was released on 26 March 2010. Plot. Mitali, a successful model, meets Karan, the Mittal scion, the heir to one of the richest families in the country. Mitali ‘s simple, middle-class upbringing is in complete contrast to Karan’s super-brat lifestyle. But Karan was smitten by Mitali. Accustomed to getting what he wants in life, Karan landed up at Mitali’s home with his parents with a marriage proposal. Delighted at their daughter’s luck, Mitali’s family approves the match and they both get married. It was not long before Mitali’s dreams turned into her worst nightmare. Her mother-in-law detested her and created misunderstandings between Karan and her. Karan turned out to be a puppet in his mother’s hands and her father-in-law is a helpless, mute spectator. Karan has a certain pattern of dealing with women and wanted to subdue Mitali’s independent streak. He who appeared to be a loving husband was in fact a violent monster at night within the privacy of their bedroom.Unable to bear the humiliation and pain after she resisted his advances and is raped by him,Mitali decided to take charge of her life. She decided to fight back.Mitali walked out of her in-laws home, hired a lawyer and filed a case against her husband. Karan retaliated by hiring the best lawyer money can buy to fight on his behalf.
1056417	8 Women () is a 2002 French dark comedy musical film, written and directed by François Ozon. Based on the 1958 play by Robert Thomas, it features an ensemble cast of French high profile actresses, including Danielle Darrieux, Catherine Deneuve, Isabelle Huppert, Emmanuelle Béart, Fanny Ardant, Virginie Ledoyen, Ludivine Sagnier, and Firmine Richard. Revolving around an eccentric family of women and their employees in the 1950s, the film follows eight women as they gather to celebrate Christmas in an isolated, snowbound cottage – only to find Marcel, the family's patriarch, dead with a knife in his back. Trapped in the house, every woman becomes a suspect, each having her own motive and secret. Ozon initially envisioned to film a remake of George Cukor's 1939 film "The Women", but eventually settled on Thomas's "Huit femmes" after legal reasons prevented him from doing so. Drawing inspiration from Cukor's screwball comedies of the late 1930s and the 1950s work of pioneering directors such as Douglas Sirk, Vincente Minnelli, and Alfred Hitchcock, "8 Women" addresses themes like murder, greed, adultery, and homosexuality, mixing the genres of farce, melodrama, musical, and murder-mystery film. Primarily set in the entrance hall of a manor-house, the film recreates much of the play's original theatrical feeling. It also references as a pastiche of and homage to both the history of film and the actresses' filmographies. The film's premiere was held on January 8, 2002 in Paris, where the filming had taken place. "8 Women" was one of the films competing for the Golden Bear at the 52nd Berlin International Film Festival, where its all-female cast was awarded the Silver Bear. Released to widespread critical acclaim, with major praise for the stars, the film was nominated for twelve César Awards including Best Film. At the 2002 European Film Awards, the film was nominated for six awards including Best Film and Best Director; it won for Best Actress for the eight main actresses. Plot. The film is set in the 1950s in a large country residence, as a family and its servants are preparing for Christmas, when the master of the house is discovered dead in his bed, with a dagger stuck into his back. The murderer must be one of the eight women in the house at the time, and in the course of the investigations each has a tale to tell and secrets to hide. The scene opens with Suzon returning from school for Christmas break, finding her mother Gaby, her younger sister Catherine, and her wheelchair-bound grandmother Mamy in the living room, where most of the action of the film takes place. Their conversation drifts to the subject of the patriarch of the family, Marcel, and Catherine leads the first song of the film, "Papa t'es plus dans le coup" (roughly, "Dad, you're out of touch"). The singing wakes up Suzon and Catherine's aunt Augustine, who picks arguments with the rest of the family and the two servants (Madame Chanel and Louise), eventually returning upstairs, threatening to commit suicide. Mamy jumps out of her wheelchair, trying to stop her, haphazardly explaining her ability to walk as a "Christmas miracle." Augustine is eventually calmed down, and she sings her song of longing, "Message personnel" (Personal Message). The maid takes the tray upstairs, finds Marcel's stabbed body, and screams. Catherine goes up to see what happened and locks the door. The others finally go up to Marcel's room to see him stabbed in the back. Catherine tells the others that they should not disturb the room until the police arrive so they re-lock the door. Realizing that the dogs have not barked the night before, it seems clear that the murderer was one of the women in the house. Attempting to call the authorities, they find that the phoneline has been cut, and they will have to go in person to the police station. However, the women are distracted by the announcement that someone is roaming in the garden, who for some reason, the guard dogs are not chasing. The person turns out to be Marcel's sister Pierrette, a nightclub singer who is also rumored to be a prostitute, and has not been allowed to the house before, due to Gaby's dislike for her. When questioned, she claims she received a mysterious phone call, telling her that her brother was dead; she also sings "A quoi sert de vivre libre" (What's the point of living free?), commenting on her sexual freedom. It is realized that she has been to the house before, as the dogs did not bark and she knew immediately which room belonged to her brother, making her the eighth potential killer. The women try to start the car, and find that it has been sabotaged, cutting them off from help due to the snowstorm outside, until they can hitchhike to town when the weather clears. The women spend their time trying to find the murderer amongst them. It is discovered that Suzon in fact returned the night before, to tell her father in secret that she was pregnant. She sings a song to Catherine, "Mon Amour, Mon Ami" (My Lover, My Friend), about her lover however, she has in fact been abused by her father. We later find out that, unknown to everyone involved excluding Gaby, Suzon is not his child, and is actually the child of Gaby's first great love. Gaby reveals that he was killed not long after her conception and that every time she looks at Suzon, she is reminded of her love for him. Suspicion then swings to Madame Chanel, the housekeeper, whose actions the night before seem suspicious; it is revealed that she has been having an affair with Pierrette, who went to see her brother that night to ask for money to pay off her debts. When some members of the family react in outrage to the fact that she is a lesbian, Madame Chanel retreats to the kitchen, and sings "Pour ne pas vivre seul" (So as to not live alone). In the meantime we find out that Mamy, Suzon's and Catherine's "old and sick" grandmother, not only can walk but also possesses some valuable shares that could have saved Marcel from his bankruptcy. Out of greed she lied that her shares have been stolen by someone who knew where she was hiding them. The spotlight moves to Louise, the new maid, who is found out to be Marcel's mistress. She declares, however, affection for Gaby, but also expresses disappointment in her for her weakness and indecision. She sings "Pile ou Face" (literally Heads or Tails, but referring to the Ups and Downs of life), and removes the symbols of her servitude, her maid's cap and apron, asserting herself as an equal to the other women. Gaby sings "Toi Jamais" (Never You), about Marcel, saying that he never paid enough attention to her, while other men did; it is revealed that she had an affair with his business partner Jacques Farneaux, the same man who has been having an affair with Pierrette. The two women get into a fight that turns into a passionate make-out session on the living room floor, which the others walk in on and are stunned. Eventually, Madame Chanel discovers the solution to the mystery but is silenced by a gunshot; she is not hit but goes mute out of shock, while Catherine takes the lead, revealing that she had hidden in her father's closet, and had seen the other women all talk to Marcel the night before, and explains the mystery: Marcel had faked his own death, with her help, to see what was really going on in his house. She claims that he is now free of the other women's clutches, and rushes into his bedroom, only to see him shoot himself in the head, in absolute dismay. Mamy ends the film with the song "Il n'y a pas d'amour heureux" (There is no happy love) that reunites all the women involved as they grab hands and face the audience. Production. Ozon was inspired by the 1950s Ross Hunter productions of Douglas Sirk and Alfred Hitchcock. To achieve the look of the latter two director's films, Ozon had costume designer Pascaline Chavanne fashion an original costume for each character. Chavanne was inspired by Dior's New Look and the earlier film costumes of Edith Head. Composer Krishna Levy also provided an instrumental score evocative of Bernard Herrmann, with touches of Miklos Rosza and Elmer Bernstein, as well as a soundtrack featuring eight songs performed unexpectedly by the film's title characters. Reception. Critical reception. "8 Women" received generally positive reviews from critics. The review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes reported that 78% of critics gave the film a positive rating, based on 115 reviews, with an average score of 6.9/10. Its consensus states "Featuring some of the best French actresses working today, "8 Women" is frothy, delirious, over-the-top fun." On Metacritic, which uses a normalized rating system, the film holds a 64/100 rating, based on 30 reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews". Jonathan Curiel of the "San Francisco Chronicle" remarked that "8 Women" was "a movie that is so original, so funny, so alive with drama, intrigue, mystery and colors that you want to see it again and again", citing it the "new masterpiece" in Ozon's filmography. Roger Ebert, writing for the "Chicago Sun-Times", gave "8 Women" three out of four stars. He noted that the film "is in no sense serious about murder, its plot, or anything else. It's an elaborate excuse to have fun with its cast," adding: "Watching "8 Women", you have a silly grin half of the time." He concluded that "Movies like "8 Women" are essentially made for movie-lovers. You have to have seen overdecorated studio musicals, and you have to know who Darrieux and Deneuve and Beart and Huppert and Ardant are, to get the full flavor." Lisa Schwarzbaum from "Entertainment Weekly" felt that "what does matter is that a phalanx of France's most famous actresses play a gay peekaboo with their own images in the guise of replicating a '50s technicolored production. The result is weightless entertainment that's both camp and true, a warped adoration of star-quality actresses as amazing creatures who can project the lives of fictional characters as well as the essence of their own fabulous selves. Hollywood, start your remake." "Washington Post" writer Ann Hornaday called the film "a gorgeous, if disjointed, spectacle, made endurable—if not entirely comprehensible—by its eye-popping cast." She found that the picture "retains a stagy quality of heightened theatricality" and that "with its bold, luxurious palette and hard-candy surfaces, the film seems less photographed than forged out of silk and nail lacquer." "Rolling Stone"s Peter Travers concurred: "All eight women are something to see and marvel at. Whatever you call this one-of-a-kind bonbon spiked with wit and malice, it's classic oo-la-la." He rated the comedy three out of four stars. A. O. Scott from "The New York Times" said, "The high-minded critical term of art for such a decadent delight is 'guilty pleasure,' but a movie like this reveals that stuffy phrase to be both a redundancy and an oxymoron. "8 Women" is indefensible, cynical, even grotesque; it is also pure—that is to say innocent and uncorrupted—fun." Less enthusiastic with the film, Salon.com wrote that "despite the all-star cast of beautiful, talented actresses, this French whodunit never lives up to the grand musicals it rips off." Specific performances were cited for acclaim. Isabelle Huppert's portrayal of Augustine was met with praise. Curiel wrote that "Huppert's song and dance—and her whole performance in the movie—is a study in determination. Huppert has a reputation for her intense portrayals, and in "8 Women", she steals every scene she's in as the uptight, melodramatic, bespectacled aunt." Fanny Ardant also received praise for her performance with Hornaday saying that "the showstopper is Ardant, who in a sensational turn combining the earthiness of Ava Gardner and the fire of Rita Hayworth, explodes with an elemental force all her own. Ardant alone is worth the price of admission to "8 Women"." Box office. The film was released on 6 February 2002 in France and opened at #3 in 493 theaters, grossing $5,246,358 in the opening weekend. It grossed $18,991,866 in the domestic market. The film's international gross was in total $42,426,583.
1059162	Hugh Michael Horace Dancy (born 19 June 1975) is an English actor and model. Early life. Dancy was born in Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire, and raised in Newcastle-under-Lyme. His mother, Sarah Ann (née Birley), works in academic publishing. His father is philosophy professor Jonathan Peter Dancy, who teaches at the University of Reading and at the University of Texas at Austin. He is the oldest of three children, followed by brother John (Jack) Christopher Dancy (born 25 May 1977), co-director of the travel company Trufflepig Travel, and sister Katharine Sarah Redman (born 5 March 1980), who works at the EFA Global Monitoring Report, UNESCO. From the age of 5 to the age of 10, Dancy was educated at Edenhurst Preparatory School in Newcastle-under-Lyme. At age 10, Dancy attended boarding school at the Dragon School in Oxford, then at 13 at Winchester College. At 18, Dancy acted in the Winchester College Players production of "Twelfth Night" which was performed in both Winchester and at the Minack Theatre in Cornwall. He went on to study English at St Peter's College, Oxford. Career. After graduation, Dancy moved to London, where a chance conversation in a cafe led to his meeting casting director Ros Hubbard and agent Dallas Smith, who signed him. In 1999, Dancy played the role of Danny, who had a fleeting romance with Rachel, one of the show's main characters, in the second series of "Cold Feet". In 2007, Dancy had a starring role on Broadway as Captain Dennis Stanhope in "Journey's End" (Belasco Theatre). He also played Aiden in the 2007 film "Blood and Chocolate". He portrayed the title character, a man with Asperger syndrome, in the 2009 independent film "Adam". Dancy also appeared in "Savage Grace", a film adaptation of the novel of the same name by Natalie Robins and Steven M.L. Aronson. Hugh Dancy appeared in MCC Theater's "The Pride", written by Alexi Kaye Campbell, at the Lucille Lortel Theatre in New York City. The off-Broadway production was directed by Joe Mantello and co-starred Ben Whishaw and Andrea Riseborough. In 2009 Dancy appeared in "Confessions of a Shopaholic". In 2010-11, Dancy co-starred alongside Nina Arianda in a Broadway production of "Venus in Fur" in which he was praised by "The New York Times" In March 2012, NBC announced that Dancy had been cast as Will Graham in "Hannibal", the television adaptation based on the main character of Thomas Harris' 1981 novel "Red Dragon". Personal life. Dancy met actress Claire Danes on the set of "Evening" in Newport, Rhode Island, and they began dating. In February 2009, they announced their engagement. The couple married in France in late August or early September 2009, in a ceremony not announced publicly. The two have a son, Cyrus Michael Christopher Dancy, born on 17 December 2012. His previous longtime girlfriend was UK artist Annie Morris.
1164214	Charles Elmer "Rip" Taylor, Jr. (born January 13, 1934) is an American actor and comedian. Early life. Taylor was born in Washington, D.C., the son of Elizabeth, a waitress, and Charles Elmer Taylor, Sr., a musician. As a young man, Taylor served in the Korean War while in the U.S. Army Signal Corps. Career. Television/film career. After serving a stint in the Army, Taylor appeared in two episodes of "The Monkees" television series in 1968. He continued to work as a voice performer in the 1970s NBC cartoon series "Here Comes the Grump" (as the title character) and in the second "The Addams Family" cartoon series (as Uncle Fester).
1016100	A Chinese Ghost Story () is a 1987 Hong Kong romantic comedy horror film starring Leslie Cheung, Joey Wong, and Wu Ma, directed by Ching Siu-tung, and produced by Tsui Hark. The plot was loosely based on a short story from Qing Dynasty writer Pu Songling's "Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio" (聊齋誌異), and also inspired by the 1960 Shaw Brothers Studio film "The Enchanting Shadow". The film was popular in Hong Kong and several Asian countries, including South Korea and Japan when released. Most notably it boosted the stardom of Joey Wong, won Leslie Cheung popularity in Japan, and sparked a trend of folklore ghost films in the Hong Kong film industry, including two sequels, an animated film, a television series and a 2011 remake. Plot. Ning Choi-san is a timid debt collector whose job requires him to travel to rural areas. He arrives at a town but is forced to seek shelter in a deserted temple in the forest on the outskirts because he ran out of money in the first place due to his inability to collect the debt as initially planned. That night in the temple, Ning meets a beautiful and alluring young maiden called Nip Siu-sin and falls in love with her. However, when he later recalls last night's events the next day, he becomes increasingly fearful and superstitious because a Taoist told him that the people he saw at the temple were ghosts. That night, he returns to the temple to spend his night there and confirms his theory that Nip is actually a spirit.
768867	Cedric Yarbrough (born March 20, 1973) is an American comedian and actor. Yarbrough was born in Burnsville, Minnesota. Yarbrough attended Burnsville Senior High School and later Minnesota State University, Mankato. He is also an alumnus of Dudley Riggs' Brave New Workshop in Minneapolis. Yarbrough starred on the Comedy Central television series "Reno 911!" as Deputy S.(Sven) Jones. He also provides the voice of Tom Dubois and Colonel H. Stinkmeaner on "The Boondocks" animated series featured on the "Adult Swim" lineup. He also voiced Firestorm in the animated film "".
1190832	A Christmas Snow is a 2010 direct-to-video independent Christmas film by Trost Moving Pictures. It stars Catherine Mary Stewart, Muse Watson, Anthony Tyler Quinn and newcomer Cameron ten Napel. There is also a guest appearance by Danny Cahill as the Food Critic. A soundtrack based on the film is being produced by Bryan Popin. Author Jim Stovall will write a novelized version of "A Christmas Snow". Plot. For the past 30 years, Kathleen (Catherine Mary Stewart) has carried around the haunting memory of her father abandoning her and her mother on Christmas Eve. She blames her mother for that night and now refuses to celebrate Christmas at all. Although she tries to forget her past, it has not forgotten her. Because of a blizzard, Kathleen finds herself stuck in her home with two strangers during the days leading up to Christmas. Sam (Muse Watson), a gentle older man Kathleen took in for the night, and Lucy (Cameron Ten Napel), the daughter of her soon to be fiancé (Anthony Tyler Quinn) bring her face to face with the hurts of her past. She has to choose between letting go and grabbing hold of a life-changing forgiveness, or continuing to carry her pain and bitterness. Production. "A Christmas Snow" was filmed in Tulsa, Oklahoma on an 18 day schedule. The final scene was shot at the Greyhound Bus terminal at Fourth and Detroit streets. Filming was completed on February 25, 2010 after an overnight shoot.
583058	Taxi No 9211 is a 2006 Bollywood slice-of-life drama film directed by Milan Luthria and produced by Ramesh Sippy. The film stars John Abraham along with Nana Patekar in lead roles. It released on 24 February 2006, and received positive response from critics, and was a moderate success at the box office. The film is a loose remake of the Hollywood film "Changing Lanes". Plot. "Taxi No 9211" focuses on Raghav Shastri (Nana Patekar), a cab driver in Mumbai who lies to his wife about his job, pretending to be an insurance salesman. One day, he gives Jai Mittal (John Abraham), a young businessman, a lift. Jai is fighting for ownership rights of his late father's estate. The cab involves in an accident with Jai escaping as he's in hurry. Jai loses the key to the vault containing his father's will in the back of Raghav's taxi. Raghav decides to hide it from Jai, who, in search for his lost item, goes to Raghav's house and tells his wife what he really does for a living. She leaves him, taking their son, and Raghav decides to take revenge. Raghav and Jai vow to kill each other in their fight for their own properties. When Raghav fails to kill Jai he targets Jai's girlfriend, Rupali (Sameera Reddy). As Raghav chases Rupali she is saved by Jai by hair's breadth. Jai lets Rupali escape and he attacks Raghav. They have a dirty car fight, but both survive. Raghav then decides to go to Jai's place. Jai returns to his apartment from a second court hearing regarding his father's estate in defeat, because he doesn't have his father's will. He discovers the will, torn to pieces and pasted on the wall of his apartment. Jai becomes depressed and feels lonely after his friends left him.Soon he even gets dumped by Rupali. Losing everything that used to be precious for him, Jai realise the hard hitting life, and start respecting his father and his work. On the other side Raghav is caught again by police and taken to police station where his wife tells his real character and problem within himself. soon he realise his deeds. Later he gets out of cell by Jai, where he ask for a drink and make jai to take him in his apartment. Raghav give back his will and say he never destroyed it rather he tore the fake one. The film ends with Jai rejecting the will and taking back the case but he is given back everything since his father wanted to him like that, Raghav having new fresh life with his family. Priyanka Chopra has a cameo appearance hinting the audience to be the new girlfriend of Jai. Soundtrack. The music in the movie was composed by Vishal-Shekhar with lyrics by Vishal Dadlani and Dev Kohli. The movie has 8 songs in total with two remixes. The soundtrack also features a song sung by yesteryear music composer Bappi Lahiri. The soundtrack of the movie was released sometime in the third week of January 2006 under the label of Saregama HMV.
1463198	Chakravarthi Padmanabhan Ramanujam (January 9, 1938 – October 27, 1974) was an Indian mathematician who worked in the fields of number theory and algebraic geometry. He was elected a Fellow of the Indian Academy of Sciences in 1973. Like his namesake Srinivasa Ramanujan, Ramanujam also had a very short life. As David Mumford put it, Ramanujam felt that the spirit of mathematics demanded of him not merely routine developments but the right theorem on any given topic. "He wanted mathematics to be beautiful and to be clear and simple. He was sometimes tormented by the difficulty of these high standards, but in retrospect, it is clear to us how often he succeeded in adding to our knowledge, results both new, beautiful and with a genuinely original stamp". Early life and education. Ramanujam was born on January 9, 1938 in Madras (now Chennai), India, as the eldest of seven, to Chakravarthi Srinivasa Padmanabhan. He finished his schooling and joined Loyola College in Madras in 1952. He wanted to specialize in mathematics and he set out to master it with vigour and passion. He also enjoyed music and his favorite musician was Dr. M. D. Ramanathan, a maverick concert musician.His teacher and friend at this time was Father Racine, a missionary who had obtained his doctorate under the supervision of Élie Cartan. With Father Racine's encouragement and recommendation, Ramanujam applied to the graduate school at the TATA Institute of Fundamental Research in Bombay and was admitted to TIFR. His father had wanted him to join the Indian Statistical Institute in Calcutta as he had passed the entrance exam meritoriously. Career. Ramanujam set out for Mumbai at the age of eighteen to pursue his interest in mathematics. He and his friend and schoolmate Raghavan Narasimhan, and S. Ramanan joined TIFR together in 1957. At the Tata Institute there was a stream of first rate visiting mathematicians from all over the world. It was a tradition for some graduate student to write up the notes of each course of lectures. Accordingly, Ramanujam wrote up in his first year, the notes of Max Deuring's lectures on "Algebraic functions of one variable". It was a nontrivial effort and the notes were written clearly and were well received. The analytical mind was much in evidence in this effort as he could simplify and extend the notes within a short time period. "He could reduce difficult solutions to be simple and elegant due to his deep knowledge of the subject matter" states Ramanan. "Max Deuring's lectures gave him a taste for Algebraic Number Theory. He studied not only algebraic geometry and analytic number theory of which he displayed a deep knowledge but he became an expert in several other allied subjects as well". On the suggestion of his doctoral advisor, K. G. Ramanathan, he began working on a problem relating to the work of the German number theorist Carl Ludwig Siegel. In the course of proving the main result to the effect that every cubic form in 54 variables over any algebraic number field K had a non-trivial zero over that field, he had also simplified the earlier method of Siegel. He took up Waring's problem in algebraic number fields and got interesting results. In recognition of his work and his contribution to Number Theory, the Institute promoted him as Associate Professor. He protested against this promotion as 'undeserved', and had to be persuaded to accept the position. He proceeded to write his thesis in 1966 and took his Doctoral examination in 1967. Dr. Siegel who was one of the examiners was highly impressed with the young man's depth of knowledge and his great mathematical abilities. Ramanujam was a scribe for Igor Shafarevich's course of lectures in 1965 on minimal models and birational transformation of two dimensional schemes. Professor Shafarevich subsequently wrote to say that Ramanujam not only corrected his mistakes but complemented the proofs of many results. The same was the case with Mumford's lectures on abelian varieties which was delivered at TIFR around 1967. Mumford wrote in the preface to his book that the notes improved upon his work and that his current work on abelian varieties was a joint effort between him and Ramanujam. A little known fact is that during this time he started teaching himself German, Italian, Russian and French so that he could study mathematical works in their original form. His personal library contained quite a few non-English mathematical works. Illness and death. Between 1964 and 1968, he was making great strides in Number theory and his contacts with Shafarevich and Mumford led him on to Algebraic Geometry. According to Ramanathan and other colleagues, his progress and deep understanding of Algebraic Geometry was phenomenal. In 1964, based on his participation in the International Colloquium on Differential Analysis, he earned the respect of Alexander Grothendieck and David Mumford who invited him to Paris and Harvard. He accepted the invitation and was in Paris, but for a brief period. He was diagnosed in 1964 with schizophrenia with severe depression and left Paris for Chennai. He later decided to quit his position at TIFR. He quit his post at Mumbai in 1965 after a bout of illness and secured a tenured position as a Professor in Chandigarh, Punjab. There he met the young student Chitikila Musili, who later went on to prove interesting results in the geometry connected with the theory of Lie groups and wrote good expository books. Ramanujam stayed in Chandigarh only 8 months and he had to return to Chennai again for treatment. TIFR was his real home and he was back there again in June 1965. Around this time he accepted an invitation from Institut des Hautes Études Scientifiques, near Paris. He was barely there before he was flown back to Chennai. Unfortunately schizophrenia, a highly treatable condition today, was not properly diagnosed and treated at that time. Thus he continued until the end of his life - to be highly creative for short periods before the recurrent illness overtook him. Again, in 1970, he sent his resignation letter to TIFR but the institute would not take it seriously. Around this time, Mumford invited him to Warwick as a visiting professor during the Algebraic Geometry year. Mumford writes that he spent many delightful evenings with him and that his presence contributed importantly to the success of the Algebraic Geometry year. A famous paper written during this time, by Michael Artin and David Mumford acknowledges Ramanujam's suggestions and help. He also had a short tenure at Turin where he was widely appreciated and accepted. Just after his death a commemorative hall was named after him in the former Istituto di Matematica (Institute of Mathematics) of the university of Genoa. Back in India after his year at the University of Warwick, Ramanujam requested for a Professorship at the Tata Institute but to be made tenable in their Bangalore campus. The Tata Institute had an applied mathematics wing in Bangalore. Although Ramanjuam had nothing to do with this area, the Institute, wishing him to continue his research, made a special arrangement by which he could stay and work there. By this time, he was deeply affected and depressed by his illness. He was put in charge of a new branch dealing with applied mathematics. He settled down in Bangalore but again in the depths of depression caused by his illness, he tried to leave the Institute and obtain a university teaching post. During one of the attacks, he tried to take his life, but was rescued in time. However, late one evening on October 27, 1974, after a lively discussion with a visiting foreign professor he took his life with an overdose of barbiturates. He was barely thirty seven.
1059234	Timothy Peter Dalton (born 21 March 1944 or 1946) is a British actor of film and television. Dalton is known for portraying James Bond in "The Living Daylights" (1987) and "Licence to Kill" (1989), as well as Rhett Butler in the television miniseries "Scarlett" (1994), an original sequel to "Gone with the Wind". His greatest commercial success has been "The Tourist" which grossed US$278 million worldwide. Early life. Dalton was born in Colwyn Bay, Denbighshire, North Wales to an English father, who was a captain in the Special Operations Executive during World War II and had become an advertising executive at the time of his son's birth, and an American mother of Italian and Irish descent. Before his fourth birthday, the family moved back to England to Belper in Derbyshire. While in Belper, he attended the Herbert Strutt Grammar School. As a teenager, he was a member of the Air Cadets. He decided to become an actor at 16 after seeing a production of "Macbeth". He left school in 1964 to enroll in the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and tour with the National Youth Theatre. Dalton did not complete his RADA studies, leaving the academy in 1966 to join the ensemble of the Birmingham Repertory Theatre. Career. Dalton quickly moved to television, working mainly with BBC and, in 1968, made his film debut as Philip II of France in "The Lion in Winter". This was the first of several period dramas, which included a remake of "Wuthering Heights" in 1970 in which he portrayed Heathcliff. After a few more films, Dalton took a break in 1971 to concentrate on the theatre, performing with the Royal Shakespeare Company and other troupes throughout the world. In 1975, Dalton and Vivien Merchant headed the cast of a revival of Noël Coward's "The Vortex". With two notable exceptions, the films "Mary, Queen of Scots" (1971) and "Permission to Kill" (1975), he remained a theatre actor until 1978. That year he starred in "Sextette" as the husband of 85-year-old Mae West, hailing his return to cinema and the beginning of his American career. While in the United States, Dalton worked mainly in television, although he starred in several films. During this time, he played Prince Barin in the 1980 cult science fiction classic "Flash Gordon" and played Mr. Rochester in the 1983 BBC serial of "Jane Eyre". Dalton starred alongside Jonathan Pryce in the 1985 film "The Doctor and the Devils". He also co-starred with Joan Collins in the miniseries, "Sins" (1986). Dalton was also replaced in two films he'd been signed to appear in. Dalton was offered the role of real-life British Prime Minister William Lamb in the film "Lady Caroline Lamb". However, the filmmakers replaced him with Jon Finch at the last moment. Dalton sued for breach of contract and won an out-of-court settlement. In 1985, Dalton was set to play "Don Alfonso de la Torré" in Roman Polanski's film "Pirates". However, the two men did not get along, so Polanski replaced him with Damien Thomas. James Bond (1987–1994). Initial offers. Dalton had been considered for the role of James Bond several times. According to the documentary "Inside The Living Daylights", the producers first approached Dalton in 1968 for "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" although Dalton himself in this same documentary claims the approach occurred when he was either 24 or 25 and had already done the film "Mary, Queen of Scots" (1971). Dalton told the producers that he was too young for the role. In a 1987 interview, Dalton said, "Originally I did not want to take over from Sean Connery. He was far too good, he was wonderful. I was about 24 or 25, which is too young. But when you've seen Bond from the beginning, you don't take over from Sean Connery." In either 1979 or 1980, he was approached again, but did not favour the direction the films were taking, nor did he think the producers were seriously looking for a new 007. As he explained, his idea of Bond was different. In a 1979 episode of the television series "Charlie's Angels", Dalton played the role of Damien Roth, a millionaire playboy described by David Doyle's character as "almost James Bond-ian". In 1986, Dalton was approached to play Bond after Roger Moore had retired, and Pierce Brosnan could not get out of contractual commitments to the television series "Remington Steele". However, Dalton would soon begin filming "Brenda Starr" and could do "The Living Daylights" only if the Bond producers waited six weeks. Films. Dalton's first appearance as 007, "The Living Daylights" (1987) was critically successful, and grossed more than the previous two Bond films with Moore, as well as contemporary box-office rivals such as "Die Hard" and "Lethal Weapon". However, his second film, "Licence to Kill" (1989), although almost as successful as its predecessor in most markets, did not perform as well at the U.S. box office, in large part due to a lacklustre marketing campaign, after the title of the film was abruptly changed from "Licence Revoked". The main factor for the lack of success in the U.S. was that it was released at the same time as the hugely successful "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade", Tim Burton's "Batman", and "Lethal Weapon 2", during the summer blockbuster season. In the United Kingdom - one of its critical markets, the film was also hampered by receiving a 15 certificate from the British Board of Film Classification which severely affected its commercial success. Future Bond films, following the resolution of legal and other issues, were all released between 31 October and mid-December, in order to avoid the risk of a summer failure, as had happened to "Licence To Kill". With a worldwide gross of $191 million, "The Living Daylights" became the fourth most successful Bond film at the time of its release. In 1998 the second Deluxe Edition of Bond's Soundtracks was released. "The Living Daylights" was one of the first soundtracks to receive Deluxe treatment. The booklet/poster of this CD contains MGM's quote about "The Living Daylights" being the fourth most successful Bond film. Since Dalton was contracted for three Bond films, the pre-production of his third film began in 1990, in order to be released in 1991. What was confirmed is that the story would deal with the destruction of a chemical weapons laboratory in Scotland, and the events would take place in London, Tokyo and Hong Kong. However, the film was cancelled due to legal issues between UA/MGM and Eon Productions, which lasted for four years. The legal battle ended in 1993, and Dalton was expected to return as James Bond in the next Bond film, which later became "GoldenEye". Despite his contract having expired, negotiations with him to renew it took place. In an interview with the "Daily Mail" in August 1993, Dalton indicated that Michael France was writing the screenplay for the new film, and the production was to begin in January or February 1994. When the deadline was not met, Dalton surprised everyone on 12 April 1994 with the announcement that he would not return as James Bond. At this time, he was shooting the mini-series "Scarlett". The announcement for the new Bond came two months later, with Pierce Brosnan playing the role. Dalton reflected in 2007, "I was supposed to make one more but it was cancelled because MGM and the film's producers got into a lawsuit which lasted for five years. After that, I didn't want to do it any more." Dalton as Bond. Unlike Moore, who had played Bond as more of a light-hearted playboy, Dalton's portrayal of Bond was darker and more serious. Dalton pushed for renewed emphasis on the gritty realism of Ian Fleming's novels instead of fantasy plots and humour. Dalton stated in a 1989 interview:
1017466	Twin Dragons is a 1992 Hong Kong action-comedy film directed by Ringo Lam and Tsui Hark, starring Jackie Chan in two roles as a pair of twin brothers. Plot. In 1965, a couple (Sylvia Chang and James Wong) are doting on their newborn twin boys. Meanwhile, a dangerous gang leader named Crazy Kung (Kirk Wong) is being transported as a captive in the same hospital. Crazy Kung escapes and attempts to take one of the twins hostage. In the ensuing chaos, the twins are permanently separated. One of them, named Ma Yau, is raised by his parents and grows up to be a concert pianist and conductor. The other, named Wan Ma, is raised by a woman named Tsui (Mabel Cheung), and grows up to be a street racer and martial artist. Neither of them has ever thought that he has a twin brother. 26 years later, the twins' (Jackie Chan) lives intersect in Hong Kong. Wan Ma and his best friend Tarzan (Teddy Robin) get mixed up with a dangerous gang. Meanwhile, Ma Yau prepares to conduct a major concert. The twins accidentally switch places, causing confusion for both of them until they discover each other. The twins also have romantic interests named Barbara (Maggie Cheung) and Tong Sum (Nina Li Chi). Eventually, the twins defeat the gang that has been threatening them, and marry their romantic interests. Production. According to co-director Tsui Hark, Ringo Lam handled most of the action scenes in the film. The action in the film has a larger focus on actual martial arts rather than Jackie Chan's usual comedic style. Release. On the film's release in Hong Kong, "Twin Dragons" was the ninth highest grossing film of the year, earning HK$33,225,134 during its theatrical run. The film received an American release on April 9, 1999 in a dubbed version. The American release of the film cut scenes that included scenes involving Wong Jing and Lau Kar-leung in a hospital and a fantasy scene involving Maggie Cheung singing. The film grossed a total of HK$8,332,431 in the United States. Reception. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the film has received an average score of 54, based on 15 reviews. The Austin Chronicle gave the film a positive review of three and a half stars out of five, noting that the film is "only for those who are fully on the bus with Jackie's approach...and who won't let a little bad (okay, execrable) English-language dubbing get in the way of their movie enjoyment." The A.V. Club gave a positive review, but noted that it "probably won't make anyone forget "Dragons Forever", "Wheels On Meals", "Project A", or any number of other excellent Chan films" Some reviews critiqued the special effects, such as in "Variety" which noted "the camera trickery is glaringly cheesy in some shots, greatly undercutting the illusion of twin brothers in the same frame. When the two brothers first meet in a hotel lavatory, it's easy to see how two shots have been overlapped." TV Guide gave the film one star out of four, noting that it "suffers from some very dicey twinning effects when the brothers are in frame together. Only die-hard and undemanding Chan fans need apply." Jackie Chan was unhappy with how "Twin Dragons" came out to be primarily based on the special effects. Chan stated that he worked with Tsui Hark who he felt would provide the film with better special effects. Chan was so soured with the results of the special effects that he decided he would only attempt more special-effect based work in his American productions.
64932	Hilary Whitehall Putnam (born July 31, 1926) is an American philosopher, mathematician and computer scientist who has been a central figure in analytic philosophy since the 1960s, especially in philosophy of mind, philosophy of language, philosophy of mathematics, and philosophy of science. He is known for his willingness to apply an equal degree of scrutiny to his own philosophical positions as to those of others, subjecting each position to rigorous analysis until he exposes its flaws. As a result, he has acquired a reputation for frequently changing his own position. Putnam is currently Cogan University Professor Emeritus at Harvard University. In philosophy of mind, Putnam is known for his argument against the type-identity of mental and physical states based on his hypothesis of the multiple realizability of the mental, and for the concept of functionalism, an influential theory regarding the mind-body problem. In philosophy of language, along with Saul Kripke and others, he developed the causal theory of reference, and formulated an original theory of meaning, inventing the notion of semantic externalism based on a famous thought experiment called Twin Earth. In philosophy of mathematics, he and his mentor W. V. Quine developed the "Quine-Putnam indispensability thesis," an argument for the reality of mathematical entities, later espousing the view that mathematics is not purely logical, but "quasi-empirical". In the field of epistemology, he is known for his critique of the well known "brain in a vat" thought experiment. This thought experiment appears to provide a powerful argument for epistemological skepticism, but Putnam challenges its coherence. In metaphysics, he originally espoused a position called metaphysical realism, but eventually became one of its most outspoken critics, first adopting a view he called "internal realism", which he later abandoned in favor of a pragmatist-inspired direct realism. Putnam's "direct realism" aims to return the study of metaphysics to the way people actually experience the world, rejecting the idea of mental representations, sense data, and other intermediaries between mind and world. In his later work, Putnam has become increasingly interested in American pragmatism, Jewish philosophy, and ethics, thus engaging with a wider array of philosophical traditions. He has also displayed an interest in metaphilosophy, seeking to "renew philosophy" from what he identifies as narrow and inflated concerns. Outside philosophy, Putnam has contributed to mathematics and computer science. Together with Martin Davis he developed the Davis–Putnam algorithm for the Boolean satisfiability problem and he helped demonstrate the unsolvability of Hilbert's tenth problem. He has been at times a politically controversial figure, especially for his involvement with the Progressive Labor Party in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Personal life. Putnam was born in Chicago, Illinois in 1926. His father, Samuel Putnam, was a scholar of Romance languages, columnist and translator who wrote for the "Daily Worker", a publication of the American Communist Party from 1936 to 1946 (when he became disillusioned with communism). As a result of his father's commitment to communism, Putnam had a secular upbringing, although his mother, Riva, was Jewish. The family lived in France until 1934, when they returned to the United States, settling in Philadelphia. Putnam attended Central High School; there he met Noam Chomsky, who was a year behind him. The two have been friends—and often intellectual opponents—ever since. Putnam studied mathematics and philosophy at the University of Pennsylvania, receiving his BA (undergraduate degree) and becoming a member of the Philomathean Society, one of the oldest collegiate literary societies in the U.S. He went on to do graduate work in philosophy at Harvard University, and later at UCLA's Philosophy Department, where he received his Ph.D. in 1951 for a dissertation entitled "The Meaning of the Concept of Probability in Application to Finite Sequences". Putnam's teacher Hans Reichenbach (his dissertation supervisor) was a leading figure in logical positivism, the dominant school of philosophy of the day; one of Putnam's most consistent positions has been his rejection of logical positivism as self-defeating. After briefly teaching at Northwestern, Princeton, and MIT, he moved to Harvard in 1965 with his wife, Ruth Anna Jacobs, who took a teaching position in philosophy at Wellesley College. Hilary and Ruth Anna were married in 1962. Ruth Anna Jacobs, descendant of a family with a long scholarly tradition in Gotha (her ancestor was the German classical scholar Christian Friedrich Wilhelm Jacobs), was born in Berlin, Germany, in 1927 to anti-Nazi political-activist parents and, like Putnam himself, she was raised an atheist (her mother was Jewish and her father had been from a Christian background). The Putnams, rebelling against the anti-Semitism that they had experienced during their youth, decided to establish a traditional Jewish home for their children. Since they had no experience with the rituals of Judaism, they sought out invitations to other Jews' homes for Seder. They had "no idea how to do it ", in the words of Ruth Anna. They therefore began to study Jewish ritual and Hebrew, and became more Jewishly interested, identified, and active. In 1994, Hilary Putnam celebrated a belated Bar Mitzvah service. His wife had a Bat Mitzvah service four years later. Hilary was a popular teacher at Harvard. In keeping with the family tradition, he was politically active. In the 1960s and early 1970s, he was an active supporter of civil rights causes and an opponent of American military intervention in Vietnam. In 1963, he organized one of the first faculty and student committees at MIT against the war. Putnam was disturbed when he learned from reading the reports of David Halberstam that the U.S. was "defending" South Vietnamese peasants from the Vietcong by poisoning their rice crops. After moving to Harvard in 1965, he organized campus protests and began teaching courses on Marxism. Hilary became an official faculty advisor to the Students for a Democratic Society and, in 1968, became a member of the Progressive Labor Party (PLP). He was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1965. After 1968, his political activities were centered on the PLP. The Harvard administration considered these activities disruptive and attempted to censure Putnam, but two other faculty members criticized the procedures. Putnam permanently severed his ties with the PLP in 1972. In 1997, at a meeting of former draft resistance activists at Arlington Street Church in Boston, Putnam described his involvement with the PLP as a mistake. He said that he had been impressed at first with PLP's commitment to alliance-building, and its willingness to attempt to organize from within the armed forces. In 1976, he was elected President of the American Philosophical Association. The following year, he was selected as Walter Beverly Pearson Professor of Mathematical Logic, in recognition of his contributions to philosophy of logic and mathematics. While breaking with his radical past, Putnam has never abandoned his belief that academics have a particular social and ethical responsibility toward society. He has continued to be forthright and progressive in his political views, as expressed in the articles "How Not to Solve Ethical Problems" (1983) and "Education for Democracy" (1993). Putnam is a Corresponding Fellow of the British Academy. He retired from teaching in June 2000, but, as of 2009, he still gives a seminar almost yearly at Tel Aviv University. He is the Cogan University Professor Emeritus at Harvard University. He is also a founding patron of the small liberal arts college Ralston College. His corpus includes five volumes of collected works, seven books, and more than 200 articles. Putnam's renewed interest in Judaism has inspired him to publish several recent books and essays on the topic. With his wife, he has co-authored several books and essays on the late-19th-century American pragmatist movement. Philosophy of mind. Multiple realizability. Putnam's best-known work concerns philosophy of mind. His most noted original contributions to that field came in several key papers published in the late 1960s that set out the hypothesis of multiple realizability. In these papers, Putnam argues that, contrary to the famous claim of the type-identity theory, it is not necessarily true that "Pain is identical to C-fibre firing." Pain, according to Putnam's papers, may correspond to utterly different physical states of the nervous system in different organisms, and yet they all experience the same mental state of "being in pain". Putnam cited examples from the animal kingdom to illustrate his thesis. He asked whether it was likely that the brain structures of diverse types of animals realize pain, or other mental states, the same way. If they do not share the same brain structures, they cannot share the same mental states and properties. The answer to this puzzle had to be that mental states were realized by different physical states in different species. Putnam then took his argument a step further, asking about such things as the nervous systems of alien beings, artificially intelligent robots and other silicon-based life forms. These hypothetical entities, he contended, should not be considered incapable of experiencing pain just because they lack the same neurochemistry as humans. Putnam concluded that type-identity theorists had been making an "ambitious" and "highly implausible" conjecture which could be disproven with one example of multiple realizability. This argument is sometimes referred to as the "likelihood argument". Putnam formulated a complementary argument based on what he called "functional isomorphism". He defined the concept in these terms: "Two systems are functionally isomorphic if 'there is a correspondence between the states of one and the states of the other that preserves functional relations'." In the case of computers, two machines are functionally isomorphic if and only if the sequential relations among states in the first are exactly mirrored by the sequential relations among states in the other. Therefore, a computer made out of silicon chips and a computer made out of cogs and wheels can be functionally isomorphic but constitutionally diverse. Functional isomorphism implies multiple realizability. This argument is sometimes referred to as an ""a priori" argument". Jerry Fodor, Putnam, and others noted that, along with being an effective argument against type-identity theories, multiple realizability implies that any low-level explanation of higher-level mental phenomena is insufficiently abstract and general. Functionalism, which identifies mental kinds with functional kinds that are characterized exclusively in terms of causes and effects, abstracts from the level of microphysics, and therefore seemed to be a better explanation of the relation between mind and body. In fact, there are many functional kinds, such as mousetraps, software and bookshelves, which are multiply realized at the physical level. Machine state functionalism. The first formulation of such a functionalist theory was put forth by Putnam himself. This formulation, which is now called "machine-state functionalism", was inspired by analogies noted by Putnam and others between the mind and theoretical "Turing machines" capable of computing any given algorithm. In non-technical terms, a Turing machine can be visualized as an infinitely long tape divided into squares (the memory) with a box-shaped scanning device that sits over and scans one square of the memory at a time. Each square is either blank ("B") or has a "1" written on it. These are the inputs to the machine. The possible outputs are: A simple example of a Turing machine which writes out the sequence '111' after scanning three blank squares and then stopping is specified by the following machine table: This table states that if the machine is in state one and scans a blank square ("B"), it will print a "1" and remain in state one. If it is in state one and reads a "1", it will move one square to the right and also go into state two. If it is in state two and reads a "B", it will print a "1" and stay in state two. If it's in state two and reads a "1", it will move one square to the right and go into state three. Finally, if it is in state three and reads a "B", it prints a "1" and remains in state three. The point, for functionalism, is the nature of the "states" of the Turing machine. Each state can be defined in terms of its relations to the other states and to the inputs and outputs. State one, for example, is simply the state in which the machine, if it reads a "B", writes a "1" and stays in that state, and in which, if it reads a "1", it moves one square to the right and goes into a different state. This is the functional definition of state one; it is its causal role in the overall system. The details of how it accomplishes what it accomplishes and of its material constitution are completely irrelevant. According to machine-state functionalism, the nature of a mental state is just like the nature of the automaton states described above. Just as "state one" simply is the state in which, given an input "B", such-and-such happens, so being in pain is the state which disposes one to cry "ouch", become distracted, wonder what the cause is, and so forth. Rejection of functionalism. In the late 1980s, Putnam abandoned his adherence to functionalism and other computational theories of mind. His change of mind was primarily due to the difficulties that computational theories have in explaining certain intuitions with respect to the externalism of mental content. This is illustrated by Putnam's own Twin Earth thought experiment (see "Philosophy of language"). He also developed a separate argument against functionalism in 1988, based on Fodor's generalized version of multiple realizability. Asserting that functionalism is really a watered-down identity theory in which mental kinds are identified with functional kinds, Putnam argued that mental kinds may be multiply realizable over functional kinds. The argument for functionalism is that the same mental state could be implemented by the different states of a universal Turing machine. Despite Putnam's rejection of functionalism, it has continued to flourish and has been developed into numerous versions by thinkers as diverse as David Marr, Daniel Dennett, Jerry Fodor, and David Lewis. Functionalism helped lay the foundations for modern cognitive science and is the dominant theory of mind in philosophy today. Philosophy of language. Semantic externalism. One of Putnam's contributions to philosophy of language is his claim that "meaning just ain't in the head". He illustrated this using his "Twin Earth" thought experiment to argue that environmental factors play a substantial role in determining meaning. Twin Earth shows this, according to Putnam, since on Twin Earth everything is identical to Earth, except that its lakes, rivers and oceans are filled with XYZ whereas those of earth are filled with H2O. Consequently, when an earthling, Fredrick, uses the Earth-English word "water", it has a different meaning from the Twin Earth-English word "water" when used by his physically identical twin, Frodrick, on Twin Earth. Since Fredrick and Frodrick are physically indistinguishable when they utter their respective words, and since their words have different meanings, meaning cannot be determined solely by what is in their heads. This led Putnam to adopt a version of semantic externalism with regard to meaning and mental content. The late philosopher of mind and language Donald Davidson, despite his many differences of opinion with Putnam, wrote that semantic externalism constituted an "anti-subjectivist revolution" in philosophers' way of seeing the world. Since the time of Descartes, philosophers had been concerned with proving knowledge from the basis of subjective experience. Thanks to Putnam, Tyler Burge and others, Davidson said, philosophy could now take the objective realm for granted and start questioning the alleged "truths" of subjective experience. Theory of meaning. Putnam, along with Saul Kripke, Keith Donnellan, and others, contributed to what is known as the causal theory of reference. In particular, Putnam maintained in "The Meaning of "Meaning"" that the objects referred to by natural kind terms—such as tiger, water, and tree—are the principal elements of the meaning of such terms. There is a linguistic division of labor, analogous to Adam Smith's economic division of labor, according to which such terms have their references fixed by the "experts" in the particular field of science to which the terms belong. So, for example, the reference of the term "lion" is fixed by the community of zoologists, the reference of the term "elm tree" is fixed by the community of botanists, and the reference of the term "table salt" is fixed as "NaCl" by chemists. These referents are considered rigid designators in the Kripkean sense and are disseminated outward to the linguistic community. Putnam specifies a finite sequence of elements (a vector) for the description of the meaning of every term in the language. Such a vector consists of four components: Such a "meaning-vector" provides a description of the reference and use of an expression within a particular linguistic community. It provides the conditions for its correct usage and makes it possible to judge whether a single speaker attributes the appropriate meaning to that expression or whether its use has changed enough to cause a difference in its meaning. According to Putnam, it is legitimate to speak of a change in the meaning of an expression only if the reference of the term, and not its stereotype, has changed. However, since there is no possible algorithm that can determine which aspect—the stereotype or the reference—has changed in a particular case, it is necessary to consider the usage of other expressions of the language. Since there is no limit to the number of such expressions which must be considered, Putnam embraced a form of semantic holism. Philosophy of mathematics. Putnam made a significant contribution to philosophy of mathematics in the Quine–Putnam "indispensability argument" for mathematical realism. This argument is considered by Stephen Yablo to be one of the most challenging arguments in favor of the acceptance of the existence of abstract mathematical entities, such as numbers and sets. The form of the argument is as follows. The justification for the first premise is the most controversial. Both Putnam and Quine invoke naturalism to justify the exclusion of all non-scientific entities, and hence to defend the "only" part of "all and only". The assertion that "all" entities postulated in scientific theories, including numbers, should be accepted as real is justified by confirmation holism. Since theories are not confirmed in a piecemeal fashion, but as a whole, there is no justification for excluding any of the entities referred to in well-confirmed theories. This puts the nominalist who wishes to exclude the existence of sets and non-Euclidean geometry, but to include the existence of quarks and other undetectable entities of physics, for example, in a difficult position. Putnam holds the view that mathematics, like physics and other empirical sciences, uses both strict logical proofs and "quasi-empirical" methods. For example, Fermat's last theorem states that for no integer formula_1 are there positive integer values of "x", "y", and "z" such that formula_2. Before this was proven for all formula_1 in 1995 by Andrew Wiles, it had been proven for many values of "n". These proofs inspired further research in the area, and formed a quasi-empirical consensus for the theorem. Even though such knowledge is more conjectural than a strictly proven theorem, it was still used in developing other mathematical ideas. Mathematics and computer science. Putnam has contributed to scientific fields not directly related to his work in philosophy. As a mathematician, Putnam contributed to the resolution of Hilbert's tenth problem in mathematics. Yuri Matiyasevich had formulated a theorem involving the use of Fibonacci numbers in 1970, which was designed to answer the question of whether there is a general algorithm that can decide whether a given system of Diophantine equations (polynomials with integer coefficients) has a solution among the integers. Putnam, working with Martin Davis and Julia Robinson, demonstrated that Matiyasevich's theorem was sufficient to prove that no such general algorithm can exist. It was therefore shown that David Hilbert's famous tenth problem has no solution. In computability theory, Putnam investigated the structure of the ramified analytical hierarchy, its connection with the constructible hierarchy and its Turing degrees. He showed that there exist many levels of the constructible hierarchy which do not add any subsets of the integers and later, with his student George Boolos, that the first such "non-index" is the ordinal formula_4 of ramified analysis (this is the smallest formula_5 such that formula_6 is a model of full second-order comprehension), and also, together with a separate paper with Richard Boyd (another of Putnam's students) and Gustav Hensel, how the Davis–Mostowski–Kleene hyperarithmetical hierarchy of arithmetical degrees can be naturally extended up to formula_4. In computer science, Putnam is known for the Davis-Putnam algorithm for the Boolean satisfiability problem (SAT), developed with Martin Davis in 1960. The algorithm finds if there is a set of true or false values that satisfies a given Boolean expression so that the entire expression becomes true. In 1962, they further refined the algorithm with the help of George Logemann and Donald W. Loveland. It became known as the DPLL algorithm. This algorithm is efficient and still forms the basis of most complete SAT solvers. Epistemology. In the field of epistemology, Putnam is known for his "brain in a vat" thought experiment (a modernized version of Descartes' evil demon hypothesis). The argument is that one cannot coherently state that one is a disembodied "brain in a vat" placed there by some "mad scientist". This follows from the causal theory of reference. Words always refer to the kinds of things they were coined to refer to, thus the kinds of things their user, or the user's ancestors, experienced. So, if some person, Mary, were a "brain in a vat", whose every experience is received through wiring and other gadgetry created by the "mad scientist", then Mary's idea of a "brain" would not refer to a "real" brain, since she and her linguistic community have never seen such a thing. Rather, she saw something that looked like a brain, but was actually an image fed to her through the wiring. Similarly, her idea of a "vat" would not refer to a "real" vat. So, if, as a "brain in a vat", she were to say "I'm a brain in a vat", she would actually be saying "I'm a brain-image in a vat-image", which is incoherent. On the other hand, if she is not a "brain in a vat", then saying that she is still incoherent, but now because she actually means the opposite. This is a form of epistemological externalism: knowledge or justification depends on factors outside the mind and is not solely determined internally. Putnam has clarified that his real target in this argument was never skepticism, but metaphysical realism. Since realism of this kind assumes the existence of a gap between how man conceives the world and the way the world really is, skeptical scenarios such as this one (or Descartes' Evil demon) present a formidable challenge. Putnam, by arguing that such a scenario is impossible, attempts to show that this notion of a gap between man's concept of the world and the way it is, is in itself absurd. Man cannot have a "God's eye" view of reality. He is limited to his conceptual schemes. Metaphysical realism is therefore false, according to Putnam. Metaphilosophy and ontology. In the late 1970s and the 1980s, stimulated by results from mathematical logic and by some ideas of Quine, Putnam abandoned his long-standing defence of metaphysical realism—the view that the categories and structures of the external world are both causally and ontologically independent of the conceptualizations of the human mind. He adopted a rather different view, which he called "internal realism". Putnam renounced internal realism in his reply to Simon Blackburn in the volume "Reading Putnam". The reasons he gave up his "antirealism" are stated in the first three of his replies in "The Philosophy of Hilary Putnam", an issue of the journal "Philosophical Topics", where he gives a history of his use(s) of the term "internal realism", and, at more length, in his "The Threefold Cord: Mind, Body and World" (1999). Internal realism was the view that, although the world may be "causally" independent of the human mind, the structure of the world—its division into kinds, individuals and categories—is a function of the human mind, and hence the world is not "ontologically" independent. The general idea is influenced by Kant's idea of the dependence of our knowledge of the world on the categories of thought. The problem with metaphysical realism, according to Putnam, was that it fails to explain the possibility of reference and truth. According to the metaphysical realist, our concepts and categories refer because they match up in some mysterious manner with the pre-structured categories, kinds and individuals that are inherent in the external world. But how is it possible that the world "carves up" into certain structures and categories, the mind carves up the world into its own categories and structures, and the two "carvings" perfectly coincide? The answer must be that the world does not come pre-structured but that structure must be imposed on it by the human mind and its conceptual schemes. In "Reason, Truth, and History", Putnam identified truth with what he termed "idealized rational acceptability." The theory, which owes something to C.S. Peirce, is that a belief is true if it would be accepted by anyone under ideal epistemic conditions. Nelson Goodman had formulated a similar notion in "Fact, Fiction and Forecast" in 1956. In that work, Goodman went as far as to suggest that there is "no one world, but many worlds, each created by the human mind." Putnam rejected this form of social constructivism, but retained the idea that there can be many correct descriptions of reality. No one of these descriptions can be scientifically proven to be the "one, true" description of the world. This does not imply relativism, for Putnam, because not all descriptions are equally correct and the ones that are correct are not determined subjectively. Under the influence of C.S. Peirce and William James, Putnam also became convinced that there is no fact–value dichotomy; that is, ethical and aesthetic judgments often have a factual basis, while scientific judgments have an ethical element. Neopragmatism and Wittgenstein. At the end of the 1980s, Putnam became increasingly disillusioned with what he perceived as the "scientism" and the rejection of history that characterize modern analytic philosophy. He rejected internal realism because it assumed a "cognitive interface" model of the relation between the mind and the world. Under the increasing influence of James and the pragmatists, he adopted a direct realist view of this relation. For a time, under the influence of Ludwig Wittgenstein, he adopted a pluralist view of philosophy itself and came to view most philosophical problems as nothing more than conceptual or linguistic confusions created by philosophers by using ordinary language out of its original context. Many of Putnam's most recent works have addressed the concerns of ordinary people, particularly their concerns about social problems. For example, he has written about the nature of democracy, social justice and religion. He has discussed the ideas of the continental philosopher, Jürgen Habermas, and has written articles influenced by "continental" ideas. Criticism. Putnam himself may be his own most formidable philosophical adversary. His frequent changes of mind have led him to attack his previous positions. However, many significant criticisms of his views have come from other philosophers and scientists. For example, multiple realizability has been criticized on the grounds that, if it were true, research and experimentation in the neurosciences would be impossible. According to Bechtel and Mundale, to be able to conduct such research in the neurosciences, universal consistencies must either exist or be assumed to exist in brain structures. It is the similarity (or homology) of brain structures that allows us to generalize across species. If multiple realizability were an empirical fact, results from experiments conducted on one species of animal (or one organism) would not be meaningful when generalized to explain the behavior of another species (or organism of the same species). Other criticisms of MR have been proposed by Jaegwon Kim, David Lewis, Robert Richardson and Patricia Churchland. One of the main arguments against functionalism was formulated by Putnam himself: the Twin Earth thought experiment. However, there have been other criticisms. The Chinese room argument by John Searle (1980) is a direct attack on the claim that thought can be represented as a set of functions. The thought experiment is designed to show that it is possible to mimic intelligent action, without any interpretation or understanding, through the use of a purely functional system. In short, Searle describes a situation in which a person who speaks only English is locked in a room with Chinese symbols in baskets and a rule book in English for moving the symbols around. The person is instructed, by people outside the room, to follow the rule book for sending certain symbols out of the room when given certain symbols. Further, suppose that the people outside the room are Chinese speakers and are communicating with the person inside via the Chinese symbols. According to Searle, it would be absurd to claim that the English speaker inside "knows" Chinese based on these syntactic processes alone. This thought experiment attempts to show that systems that operate merely on syntactic processes cannot realize any semantics (meaning) or intentionality (aboutness). Thus, Searle attacks the idea that thought can be equated with the following of a set of syntactic rules. Thus, functionalism is an inadequate theory of the mind. Several other arguments against functionalism have been advanced by Ned Block. Putnam has consistently adhered to the idea of semantic holism, in spite of the many changes in his other positions. The problems with this position have been described by Michael Dummett, Jerry Fodor, Ernest Lepore, and others. In the first place, they suggest that, if semantic holism is true, it is impossible to understand how a speaker of a language can learn the meaning of an expression, for any expression of the language. Given the limits of our cognitive abilities, we will never be able to master the whole of the English (or any other) language, even based on the (false) assumption that languages are static and immutable entities. Thus, if one must understand all of a natural language to understand a single word or expression, language learning is simply impossible. Semantic holism also fails to explain how two speakers can mean the same thing when using the same linguistic expression, and therefore how any communication at all is possible between them. Given a sentence "P", since Fred and Mary have each mastered different parts of the English language and "P" is related differently to the sentences in each part, the result is that "P" means one thing for Fred and something else for Mary. Moreover, if a sentence "P" derives its meaning from its relations with all of the sentences of a language, as soon as the vocabulary of an individual changes by the addition or elimination of a sentence, the totality of relations changes, and therefore also the meaning of "P". As this is a common phenomenon, the result is that "P" has two different meanings in two different moments in the life of the same person. Consequently, if I accept the truth of a sentence and then reject it later on, the meaning of that which I rejected and that which I accepted are completely different and therefore I cannot change my opinions with regard to the same sentences. The brain in a vat argument has also been subject to criticism. Crispin Wright argues that Putnam's formulation of the brain-in-a-vat scenario is too narrow to refute global skepticism. The possibility that one is a recently disembodied brain in a vat is not undermined by semantic externalism. If a person has lived her entire life outside the vat—speaking the English language and interacting normally with the outside world—prior to her "envatment" by a mad scientist, when she wakes up inside the vat, her words and thoughts (e.g., "tree" and "grass") will still refer to the objects or events in the external world that they referred to before her envatment. In another scenario, a brain in a vat may be hooked up to a supercomputer that randomly generates perceptual experiences. In this case, one's words and thoughts would not refer to anything, and would therefore be devoid of content. Semantics would no longer exist and the argument would be meaningless. In philosophy of mathematics, Stephen Yablo has argued that the Quine–Putnam indispensability thesis does not demonstrate that mathematical entities are truly indispensable. The argumentation is sophisticated, but the upshot is that one can achieve the same logical results by simply replacing all occurrences of the expression "so-and-so exists" (e.g., numbers exist) by occurrences of the expression "so-and-so is assumed (or hypothesized) to exist". For example, one can take the argument for indispensability described above and replace all references to existent entities with references to entities assumed to exist as follows. Finally, Putnam's internal realism has been accused by Curtis Brown of being a disguised form of subjective idealism. If this is the case, it is subject to the traditional arguments against that position. In particular, it falls into the trap of solipsism. That is, if existence depends on experience, as subjective idealism maintains, and if one's consciousness were to stop existing, then the rest of the universe would stop existing as well.
930441	The Good Witch is a television film that aired on the Hallmark Channel on January 19, 2008. It starred Catherine Bell as Cassandra Nightingale and Chris Potter as Sheriff Jake Russell. Although set in "Middleton, USA" it was filmed in Hamilton and Niagara on the Lake, Ontario. Plot. A mysterious woman named Cassandra Nightingale moves into an old, abandoned house which is reputed to be haunted by its original owner, "The Grey Lady." The small community is divided in their opinion of her: Some want her to stay (especially widowed police chief Jake Russell and his two children), while others want her to leave. Through the course of the story, seemingly magical things happen, and the community attributes these occurrences to her. Everyone begins to wonder if she is really a witch. Promotion. On January 15, 2008, Hallmark Channel and Limbo, the mobile entertainment community, teamed up to create and launch the cable network’s first-ever mobile interactive initiative. The campaign "enhanced viewers’ experience of the premiere of the network’s original movie..through ‘Limbo Unique’ – a game played via cell phone or online." The grand prize was $2,000 and a portrait of the “Grey Lady,” that was featured in the actual movie. Reception. The movie had great success on Hallmark Channel on the night of its premiere, making it the second-highest-rated original movie to that date. It premiered with a 3.8 HH (household) rating and was in nearly 3.2 million homes. It also was #1 in its time period, propelling the channel to the #4 spot in weekly ranking. Sequels. On February 7, 2009 the Hallmark Channel aired the sequel "The Good Witch's Garden". The second sequel "The Good Witch's Gift" aired on November 13, 2010 on Hallmark. Catherine Bell noted on her official Twitter (late Dec 2010) that the fourth installment of the Good Witch series had completed filming and it aired on the Hallmark channel October 2011. The fourth installment is titled "The Good Witch's Family" and aired on October 29, 2011. In June 2012, Catherine Bell announced on her Twitter page that sequels 5 and 6 will begin filming back to back in July and August. "The Good Witch's Charm" premiered on Hallmark October 27,2012. "The Good Witch's Destiny" is set to premiere on October 26th 2013. Home media. The Region 1 DVD was released on January 5, 2010.
628902	Matthew "Matt" Day (born 28 September 1971) is an Australian actor best known for his film and television roles. Early life and career. Matt Day was born in Melbourne, Victoria in 1971. When he was 11 years old he went to live in the United States with his father, who was a newspaper correspondent, and it was there that he became interested in acting. On his return to Australia, he attended Princes Hill Secondary College and joined the youth theatre as St Martin's in South Yarra. He was spotted by an agent and at the age of 17, left his home in Carlton in Melbourne to go to Sydney for the role in the television series "A Country Practice" that was to be his big break. He joined the cast of "A Country Practice" in 1989, as Luke Ross, a role he played until 1991. Further TV roles included "Water Rats", "Farscape", and "Spooks". He also appeared in the hit film "Muriel's Wedding". Other film roles include "Love and Other Catastrophes", "Doing Time for Patsy Cline", "Kiss or Kill" (for which he was nominated for an AFI award) and "My Brother Jack" (mini series). During his time in Britain from 2000 to 2007, Day played many television roles including BBC's 2002 version of "The Hound of the Baskervilles", in which he played Sir Henry Baskerville, "The Love of Lionel's Life" and a guest role in "Spooks". He has said that his favourite role of this period was the photographer Frank Hurley in the 2002 Channel 4 television film "Shackleton", in which Kenneth Branagh played the title role. His most recent film he appeared in was in 2009, in "My Year Without Sex", directed by Sarah Watt. In 2009 and 2010, Day was in "Tangle". Also in 2010, he was in "" and in "Rake", again acting with Richard Roxburgh, who he had appeared with in "The Hound of the Baskervilles". In 2011, he was in ABC1's TV film "". Personal life. Day's parents divorced when he was young. When he was 7 and his brother Chris was 5, his mother, an English teacher, took them around Europe for six months. He said later that "the whole experience went definitely some way to influencing my wanderlust". Day moved with his wife, journalist Kirsty Thomason, to Britain in 2000, not returning to Australia until 2007. The couple and their son now live in Sydney.
1016464	Sex and Zen (traditional Chinese: 玉蒲團之偷情寶鑑, "Juk6 Pou4 Tyun4 Zi1 Tau1 Cing4 Bou2 Gaam3") is a 1991 Hong Kong erotic comedy film directed by Michael Mak and starring Lawrence Ng and Amy Yip. The film is loosely based on "The Carnal Prayer Mat", a Chinese erotic novel by 17th century author and playwright Li Yu. Plot. The story is about a lustful scholar (played by Lawrence Ng) who dares to challenge the moral teachings of the Sack Monk. The monk attempts to lecture the scholar that spiritual enlightenment transcends the passions of the flesh but the scholar, who enjoys women, doesn't agree. However, the most powerful man in the town marries his daughter, played by Amy Yip, to the scholar. The daughter is a virgin and has been taught that sex is dirty. The scholar, after a disastrous yet humorous wedding night, soon initiates his bride into the pleasures of sex, aided greatly by the illustrations of a copy of a sex manual. The amorous husband goes about his 'scholastic travels' where he meets the greatest thief known to man. The thief is able to sneak into people's houses undetected, and the scholar wants to learn this skill so that he can sleep with other men's wives. The thief was initially willing to help him, until he catches the scholar one day and discovers that the scholar is not very well-endowed. The thief tells the scholar that stealing other men's wives requires good lovemaking skills and equipment. The thief promises to help the scholar only if he has a horse's penis. Of course, the thief didn't think it was possible, until the scholar returned one day, indeed, with a horse's penis attached as his own. Apparently, the scholar met a doctor who was able to replace anatomical parts (a scene with a cameo by Hong Kong comedian Kent Cheng). The doctor managed to transplant a horse's penis to replace the scholar's meager one. Armed with his new 20-inch penis, the scholar goes on a sexual rampage, not caring if he is seducing other men's wives or is nearly caught in the process. Meanwhile, the scholar's wife, after experiencing the joys of sex, becomes sexually frustrated. She tried masturbating with paintbrushes but is left unsatisfied until she has an affair with the gardener, the husband of one of the wives the scholar seduced. She becomes pregnant and runs away with the man, who persuades her to have an abortion. She finds solace in a brothel where she perfects her sexual skills to become the top courtesan. The scholar has become frail and sick due to too much sex (involving two sisters-in-law who are bisexual and into S&M). He goes to the brothel for treatment, where he is offered the top courtesan. At first, husband and wife cannot recognize each other; she looked at his penis and thought it couldn't be her husband's because his was small; he couldn't recognize her because his eyesight was failing. While they were having sex, he takes a close look at her figure and nipple and recognizes her. To her dismay, he screams, shouts and calls her a disgrace. To his dismay, she runs off and hangs herself. The man, completely broken, goes back to the monk to ask for forgiveness. Box office. In Hong Kong, the film grossed $18,424,224 HKD. This was enormous business considering the film was saddled with the restrictive Category III rating (the Hong Kong equivalent of NC-17). Sequels. "Sex and Zen" went on to spin off two "sequels", "Sex and Zen II" and "Sex and Zen III". These are not sequels in plot, as each movie illustrates a different story also based on the sex manual. The movies were also budding platforms for former Category III actresses such as Shu Qi who has since made it as an A-list Hong Kong movie star. However, even the stigma of having been a sex symbol actor cannot be completely erased. Lawrence Ng once mentioned in an interview that he was embarrassed for having made the film and wishes that he instead be known for his serious character roles in modern and period drama TV series.
582908	Sapne Sajan Ke is 1992 Hindi language Movie directed by Lawrence D'Souza and starring Karishma Kapoor, Rahul Roy, Jackie Shroff. Plot. Shalini wants her daughter, Jyoti, to marry the son of wealthy man, Gulu. But Jyoti isn't attracted to Gulu. So she meets Deepak and they both fall in love. Then Shalini agrees with her daughters choice and lets her marry Deepak. But Jyoti comes to know that Deepak is not a wealthy guy as he pretended all along the way. Soundtrack. The Soundtrack of the movie was composed by Nadeem-Shravan. The song lyrics were written by Sameer and Anwar Sagar.
1712236	100 Rifles is a 1969 western directed by Tom Gries based on the 1966 novel "The Californio" by Robert MacLeond. The film stars Jim Brown, Burt Reynolds, Raquel Welch, and Fernando Lamas and was shot in Spain. The original music score was composed by Jerry Goldsmith. Plot. Set in 1912 Mexico, an Arizona lawman named Lyedecker (Brown) travels to a remote village looking for Yaqui Joe (Reynolds), a half-Indian, half-white bank robber who has stolen $6,000 (in Arizona) to buy 100 rifles for his Yaqui people who are being repressed by the government. Lyedecker isn't concerned with Yaqui Joe's cause of helping his tribe, and all he cares about is getting the money returned to a Phoenix bank within his jurisdiction. The two men escape to the hills where they are joined by Sarita (Welch), a beautiful Indian revolutionary. They eventually become allies and fight for the Indians. Taking over the leadership of the Yaquis, Lyedecker ambushes Verdugo's train while Sarita distracts the attention of the soldiers on board by taking a public shower. The train is later derailed in a town and the culmination of the film is a fierce gun battle which Yaqui Joe and his people finally win. Locations. Filmed in Almeria, Spain.
583001	Khiladi 420 (English: "Con Player") is an Indian Hindi action film directed by Niraj Vora and starring Akshay Kumar and Mahima Chaudhry. The film was written by Uttam Gudda and released on 29 December 2000. It is the seventh installment in the "Khiladi" series starring Kumar, which included "Khiladi" (1992), "Main Khiladi Tu Anari" (1994), "Sabse Bada Khiladi" (1995), "Khiladiyon Ka Khiladi" (1996), "Mr. and Mrs. Khiladi" (1997) and "International Khiladi" (1999). Plot. Shyam Prasad Bhardwaj (Alok Nath) is a multi-millionaire industrialist, and his business is spread worldwide. He has a daughter, Ritu (Mahima Chaudhry), who is of marriageable age. He hires Dev Kumar (Akshay Kumar) to work for him, and is impressed with the way Dev handles himself. Shyam would like Ritu and Dev to get married. But days after the engagement, Shyam finds that Dev is a con man after his money, since he has taken debt from a criminal (Gulshan Grover). Dev kills Shyam to bury the secret but Ritu's younger sister Riya sees this. The girl goes in a deep shock & since Dev is constantly watching her the secret cannot come out. Dev plans to kill her as well but Ritu gets an inkling of the truth somehow. Dev tries to kill Ritu on the night of their honeymoon, but Ritu manages to kill him. An afraid Ritu decides to hide Dev's body. After hiding Dev's body, Ritu comes home. She gets the shock of her life to see Dev alive - and without a scratch on his body. Dev behaves as if nothing happened. Everyone in the home believes him to be Dev. Finally, when she is alone with him, Ritu confronts this new Dev. He tells that he is indeed Dev's twin brother Anand. Anand explains that Dev had crooked ways, something which Anand disliked. The brothers separated. Dev called Anand just a week ago to tell that he has mended his ways & is going to get married. Dev came there meet Ritu. Dev had given all the information about Ritu & her family to Anand. That night, Anand came to meet Dev just after Ritu had killed him. Anand saw all the mess & realized that something had gone wrong. But when he saw his ID, he realized that Dev was posing as Anand here. Now Dev was probably dead, for which he is grateful to Ritu as Dev might have had a plan to kill him along with her. Ritu & Anand kept this a secret. However, Inspector Rahul, an old friend of Ritu, became suspicious. Besides, Dev's girlfriend, whom Anand does not recognize, thinks that Dev has dumped her. Dev's another enemy is a criminal (Mukesh Rishi) who is also a rival of his money lender. Ritu slowly starts falling for Anand, but Anand doesn't reciprocate the feelings. Anand has to live a double life - in front of the bad guys, he is Anand while in front of Ritu's family he is Dev. Rahul becomes suspicious that Ritu & Dev conspired to kill Shyam. To save Ritu, Dev takes the blame on his shoulders. Meanwhile, when both the criminals try to get even with Dev, Rahul realizes that he has not seen a clear picture. Anand tells him the true story, which he reluctantly believes. As he cannot see an innocent man die, Rahul proposes that Dev can live only if Anand's dead body is found. Anand escapes from custody as per Rahul's plans & retrieves his brother's body from the place where Ritu hid it. He wants the people to believe that the bad twin died in an accident after the escape while he is the good person. Dev's rivals unite & try to kill Anand. Dev's girlfriend dies in the melee after learning the truth. Anand succeeds in killing the villain. When Dev's body is found, the court closes the case. Anand is exonerated & united with Ritu. Stunts. Akshay Kumar performed some of his most dangerous stunts during a scene in the film. During one scene, in Kumar's own words: “I had to catch this running plane and climb it. People are scared of sitting inside a plane, and like a stupid man I am standing on top of a plane. And then I’m supposed to jump from that plane, after it is a thousand feet up in the air, onto a hot air balloon. I did it in one shot.” Towards the end of the film, which involves car chases and fight scenes, Kumar performs various other stunts. During the finale, he is seen being chased by a car, dodging bullets, jumping off buildings, and climbing walls. Return to the series. Akshay Kumar came back to the Khiladi Series with Khiladi 786, which released on the 7th of December, 2012, 12 years after his last appearance in the Khiladi series.
1015972	Days of Being Wild (A Fei jingjyuhn) is a 1990 Hong Kong film directed by Wong Kar-wai. The film stars some of the best-known actors and actresses in Hong Kong, including Leslie Cheung, Andy Lau, Maggie Cheung, Carina Lau, Jacky Cheung and Tony Leung Chiu-Wai. "Days of Being Wild" also marks the first collaboration between Wong and cinematographer Christopher Doyle, with whom he has since made eight films. The movie forms the first part of an informal trilogy, together with "In the Mood for Love" (released in 2000) and "2046" (released in 2004). Plot details. The movie is set in Hong Kong and the Philippines in 1960. Yuddy, or 'York' in English (Leslie Cheung), is a playboy in Hong Kong and is well known for stealing girls' hearts and breaking them. His first victim is Li Zhen (Maggie Cheung) who suffered emotional and mental depression as a result of Yuddy's wayward attitude. Li Zhen eventually seeks much-needed solace from a sympathetic policeman named Tide (Andy Lau). Their near-romance is often hinted at but never materialises. York has forgotten his fling with the unassuming and shy Li Zhen and has set his attentions to a vivacious cabaret dancer whose stage name is Mimi (Carina Lau). Mimi is also secretly loved by York's best friend, Zeb (Jacky Cheung). Unsurprisingly, York dumps her too and she begins a period of self-destruction. It later becomes evident that York's inability to commit and his instinct for romantic cruelty derives from conflicting feelings about his adoptive mother who is a former prostitute, played by Rebecca Pan; and his biological mother, a Filipino aristocrat. Most sections of the film attempt to narrate how people react to rejection, although it was very vaguely depicted. This film was seen to be among the first of its genre popularised by Wong Kar-wai, it does not rely on a plot but more on the individual strengths of its many actors and actresses to narrate the story through their seemingly mundane day-to-day activities. "Days of Being Wild" broke away from the light fare that typified Hong Kong cinema at the time by introducing thematic ambiguity and an arthouse aesthetic. Many other Hong Kong films such as "Ashes of Time", "Temptress Moon", and "In the Mood for Love" belong to the same school of Hong Kong cinema. Box office. "Days of Being Wild" grossed HK $9,751,942 in its Hong Kong run, a number that would become typical for a Wong Kar Wai film. With the starry cast, this figure was considered a disappointment. Still, the film was successful enough to warrant a parody ("The Days of Being Dumb", which also featured Tony Leung), and now routinely tops Hong Kong critics' lists of the best local productions.
1065407	Herbie Rides Again is a 1974 comedy film. It is the sequel to "The Love Bug," released six years earlier, and the second in a series of movies made by Walt Disney Productions starring an anthropomorphic 1963 Volkswagen racing Beetle named Herbie. The movie starred Helen Hayes, Stefanie Powers, Ken Berry, and Keenan Wynn reprising his villainous role as Alonzo Hawk (originated in the films "The Absent-Minded Professor" and "Son of Flubber"). "Herbie Rides Again" was followed by two more theatrical sequels "Herbie Goes to Monte Carlo" and "Herbie Goes Bananas". A later theatrical sequel, "" was released in 2005. Plot. Ruthless real estate magnate Alonzo Hawk (Keenan Wynn) is pursuing his newest indoor shopping center, the 130-story Hawk Plaza. His only obstacle is an archaic firehouse inhabited by "Grandma" Steinmetz (Helen Hayes), widow of its former owner, Fire Captain Steinmetz, and aunt of mechanic Tennessee Steinmetz (Buddy Hackett), who appeared in "The Love Bug"; her displaced neighbor, flight attendant Nicole Harris (Stefanie Powers); and their sentient machines: Herbie the Love Bug, an orchestrion that chooses its own songs, and a retired cable car known as "Old No. 22". It is explained that Tennessee has gone to Tibet to visit his ailing philosophy teacher, while Herbie's former owner, Jim Douglas, has gone to Europe. Hawk has made numerous attempts at evicting Mrs. Steinmetz, intending to imprison her in a retirement home of his own making; but Hawk's lawyers have been unsuccessful in these attempts, and when his lawyer nephew Willoughby Whitfield (Ken Berry) comes to visit him, Hawk sends him to Mrs. Steinmetz in their stead. Having met the firehouse's inhabitants, Willoughby becomes disillusioned and decides to return home to Missouri. Having lost him, Hawk attempts to capture Herbie; but when Hawk insults him, Herbie causes a series of traffic collisions and discards Hawk at his own office door, where Hawk orders his subordinates to capture Herbie again, followed by a Policeman giving Hawk several tickets for traffic offenses. While Herbie takes Mrs. Steinmetz to market, they are chased by Hawk's men; whereupon Herbie makes several daring escapes culminating in travel through the 1909 landmark Sheraton Palace Hotel and along a suspension cable on the Golden Gate Bridge, leaving Mrs. Steinmetz unaware of his activity throughout. Willoughby having decided to go home in disguise, he is convinced by Nicole to stay. On their return to the firehouse, they find that every item of furniture has been removed by Hawk; whereupon Mrs. Steinmetz, Willoughby, Nicole, and Herbie track the theft to a warehouse, which they invade to recover the furniture and whence they return, Mrs. Steinmetz riding "No. 22" while Nicole and Willoughby follow in Herbie. Piled into "No. 22" is Steinmetz's furniture, as well as a drunk named Judson (John McIntire), who thinks himself on a public cable car. Hawk pursues; but Herbie distracts him and later rescues Mrs. Steinmetz and Judson from a potential crash. Hawk thereafter recruits an independent demolition agent named Loostgarten (Chuck McCann); while Mrs Steinmetz decides to confront Hawk herself. Accompanied by Willoughby, she drives Herbie onto the window-cleaning machine of Hawk’s skyscraper to reach his office, where Mrs. Steinmetz overhears a telephoned conversation with Loostgarten about the deal to demolish the firehouse and activates the window cleaning machine to fill the office with foam and water. This done, Herbie pursues Hawk around the building's perimetre until Mrs Steinmetz orders him to desist. Disguising his voice to resemble his uncle's, Willoughby directs Loostgarten to demolish Hawk's own house. Loostgarten then telephones Hawk to confirm the demolition, waking Hawk from several nightmares showing himself at the mercy of Herbie; whereupon Hawk gives confirmation, but belatedly realizes that he has condemned his own residence and attacks Loostgarten. In the morning, Hawk calls a truce with Mrs. Steinmetz, and thinking him sincere Willoughby and Nicole go for dinner, while Mrs. Steinmetz invites Judson to a similar meeting; but Hawk violates the truce by sending earthmovers to crush the firehouse and its inhabitants, prompting Herbie to go in search of Nicole and Willoughby. In the absence of Herbie, the only means of defense is an antique Fire hose, which Judson uses against the earthmovers. Having obtained Nicole and Willoughby, Herbie animates several other Volkswagen Beetles from various places in the city, with whom to frighten Hawk's men and ruin his scheme. Hawk is pursued from the grounds by Herbie, and later captured by the police; and later, Nicole and Willoughby are married, and ride Herbie through an arch formed by the other Volkswagen Beetles. Production notes. Cast. Keenan Wynn's character Alonzo Hawk had previously appeared in "The Absent-Minded Professor" and "Son of Flubber." Fritz Feld, who appears as the Maitre d', and Vito Scotti, who plays the Italian cab driver, also appear in the sequel "Herbie Goes Bananas" as crewmen of the ship "Sun Princess". Dan Tobin, Raymond Bailey, Iggie Wolfington, Robert S. Carson and John Zaremba played Hawk's attorneys; Disney regular Norman Grabowski played "Security guard #2;" John Myhers played the San Francisco's Office of the President announcer; and Alan Carney played the Announcer at the Chicken Tournament. Deleted scenes. The GAF View-Master reel set for the film shows a still from a deleted sequence where one of Hawk's nightmares has him about to be treated by a pair of white VW Beetle doctors, who decide to "take his carburetor out and have a look at it". As they approach Hawk, he is woken by Loostgarten. Props. The Herbies used for the film consisted both of 1963 and 1965 Beetles. The included 1965 models make for some bad continuity howlers as the windows are noticeably larger on the 1965 cars. This was to become worse in subsequent Herbie films as even later model cars were included. One of the VW Beetles used in the deleted nightmare sequence (see above) was first used in "The Love Bug" as a stunt car during the El Dorado race (also used for interior filming). Many years after "Herbie Rides Again", the car's red cross, mechanical arms, and eyeball headlights were removed and restored to former appearance. "Hawk Plaza" is shown as a shining, twin-tower skyscraper touted as "The World's Highest Building". Coincidentally, "The Towering Inferno", released six months later, featured "The Glass Tower", a shining, golden single-tower 138-story San Francisco skyscraper touted as "The Tallest Building in the World". (New York's twin towers of the World Trade Center, "The Tallest Buildings in the World" had officially opened in 1973, and Chicago's 108-story Sears Tower took that honor in 1974.) Release. Box office. "Herbie Rides Again" opened on June 6, 1974 in 2,178 theaters and 1,761 drive-in theaters. The film grossed $38,229,000 at the domestic box office, accumulating $17,500,000 in theatrical rentals, adding a total of $55,729,000. Video releases. "Herbie Rides Again" was released on VHS on October 15, 1981 and re-released in 1985, 1992, 1995 and September 16, 1997. It was released on DVD in Region 1 on May 4, 2004 and was re-released as a 2-DVD double feature set along with "Herbie Goes to Monte Carlo" on April 26, 2009. A Blu-Ray DVD release for "Herbie Rides Again" has been rumored to happen but has not been announced. Reception. "Herbie Rides Again" has received mostly positive reviews, scoring an 80% at Rotten Tomatoes.com.
582517	Arjun Mathur (born 18 October 1981) is a Indian actor who has appeared in such Bollywood films as "Luck by Chance" and "My Name Is Khan". Early life and education. Mathur was born in London, England. His father, a hotelier, moved the family to Delhi when Mathur was a child, where he grew up, before moving with his family to Mumbai for a while, before coming back to Delhi. His brother, Gautam Mathur, is a screenwriter. He did his schooling at St. Columba's School, Delhi, St. Mary's School, Mumbai, and at The British School, New Delhi where he completed his schooling. Subsequently he studied at Oaklands College, St Albans, Hertfordshire, UK Mathur trained at both Barry John's institute as well as the Lee Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute in New York. Career. Mathur served as assistant on the sets of the Bollywood films "Kyun! Ho Gaya Na...", "", "Rang De Basanti" and "Bunty Aur Babli". He also played a small role in "Kyun! Ho Gaya Na...". He has appeared opposite Irrfan Khan in Mira Nair's "Migration" and worked with Shabana Azmi and Boman Irani in Farhan Akhtar's "Positive". His performance as a struggling actor in Zoya Akhtar's "Luck By Chance" received positive reviews. He also appeared in "Barah Aana" with Naseeruddin Shah and in Karan Johar's "My Name Is Khan". In 2011 he appeared in Onir's "I Am" in which he has a controversial gay love scene. He also appeared in an Airtel 3G ad with "Aditi Rao Hydari" and in ad for Axis Bank. He is now slated to appear in the lead role of Bring on the Night (TV Show) which will be aired on MTV India from the 22nd of September 2012
1084283	Tales of Terror (1962) is an American International Pictures horror film starring Vincent Price, Peter Lorre, and Basil Rathbone; it is the fourth in the so-called Corman-Poe cycle of eight films largely featuring adaptations of Edgar Allan Poe stories directed by Roger Corman and released by AIP. Plot. The three short sequences are based on the following Poe tales: "Morella", "The Black Cat" which is combined with another Poe tale, "The Cask of Amontillado", and "The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar". Each sequence is introduced by Vincent Price who also appears in all three narratives. The story "Morella" was remade in the 1990s as "The Haunting of Morella". "Morella". When Lenora Locke (Maggie Pierce) travels from Boston to be reunited with her father (Vincent Price) in his decrepit and cobwebbed mansion, she finds him drunk, disordered, and depressed. He refuses her company, insisting that she killed her mother Morella (Leona Gage) in childbirth. Lenora then discovers her mother's body decomposing on a bed in the house. Lenora cannot return to Boston and remains in the house to care for her father. His feelings soften towards her when he learns she has a terminal illness. One night Morella's spirit rises, and kills Lenora in revenge for her childbed death. Morella's body is then resurrected, becoming as whole and as beautiful as she was in life. This is in exchange for Lenora's, which is now decomposing where Morella lay. Morella strangles her horrified husband as a fire breaks out in the house. Then Morella and Lenora return to their original bodies, Lenora smiling as she lies on her dead father, rotten Morella cackling as the flames consume the house. The cast includes Edmund Cobb as a coach driver. "The Black Cat". Montresor Herringbone (Peter Lorre) hates his wife Annabelle (Joyce Jameson) and her black cat. One night on a ramble about town, he happens upon a wine-tasting event and challenges the world's foremost wine taster, Fortunato Luchresi (Vincent Price), to a contest. Herringbone becomes drunk. Luchresi escorts him home and meets his wife. Time passes, and Annabelle and Luchresi become intimate. The cuckolded Herringbone then inters them alive in an alcove in the basement. The authorities become suspicious and two policemen (John Hackett and Lennie Weinrib) visit the house to investigate. Hearing screeching behind a basement wall, they knock the wall down to discover the dead lovers — and Annabelle's black cat, which Herringbone had accidentally walled up with the lovers. Cast includes Wally Campo as bartender Wilkins and Alan DeWitt as the Wine-Tasting Chairman. "The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar". Dying from a painful disease, M. Valdemar (Vincent Price) employs a hypnotist, Mr. Carmichael (Basil Rathbone), to alleviate his suffering by putting him under various trances. He then remains between the world of the living and the dead. In a trance, Valdemar begs Carmichael to release his soul so he can die but Carmichael cruelly refuses. Months pass and Valdemar's putrifying body remains in his bed under the complete control of Carmichael. The hypnotist tries to force Valdemar's wife Helene (Debra Paget) to marry him. When she refuses, he attacks her. Valdemar's putrid body rises from the bed and kills Carmichael. Helene is rescued by Valdemar's physician (David Frankham) and carried from the scene of horror. Production. Corman commented on how "Tales of Terror" differed from his earlier film adaptations released by AIP: The three stories in the film took a total of three weeks to film. For the conclusion of "Morella", Corman reused some sets and event footage from the fiery climax of "House of Usher". Price explained how the effect of slow decomposition was achieved in "The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar": "We settled for an old-fashioned mud pack - it dries and draws the skin up and then cracks open." To give the impression of Vincent Price's face melting away, a mixture of glue, glycerin, corn starch and make-up paint was heated and then poured over his head. The substance was so hot, that Price could only stand it for a few seconds. Reception. "The New York Times" called the film a "dull, absurd and trashy adaptation." Merchandise. The film was released on DVD; Dell Comics published a comic book adaptation of the film. A novelization of the film was written in 1962 by Eunice Sudak adapted from Richard Matheson's screenplay and published by Lancer Books in paperback.
1073726	Stay Cool is a 2009 American comedy film directed by Ted Smith, and written by Mark and Michael Polish. The film stars Winona Ryder, Mark Polish, Hilary Duff, Sean Astin, Josh Holloway, Jon Cryer, and Chevy Chase. Production. "Stay Cool" was filmed between July and September 2008 in Santa Clarita, Saugus and Valencia (California). Release. A film festival version of "Stay Cool" was shown at the Tribeca Film Festival on April 23, 2009 and received favorable reviews. It was presented under the category for "World Narrative Film Festival". On the official Tribeca Film Festival it was described as a film that "...reminds us that time certainly does fly and old flames are hard to put out." A version of the film was also premiered in May 2010 at the Marché du Film of Cannes (France).
1165772	Jacqueline Sue Scott (born January 1, 1932) is an American actress who has appeared in several films and guest starred in more than one hundred television programs. A "TV Guide" article once referred to her as "The Youngest Old-Timer in the Business," because she played opposite most of the leading men of the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s. Biography. Scott was born in Sikeston in Scott County in southeastern Missouri. She spent a good part of her childhood moving from town to town following her father, who worked for the state purchasing right-of-way for roads. She attended 15 grade schools before settling down in Neosho, Missouri, to attend high school there. At age three, she won a tap dancing contest, which led her to pursue a show business career. As training, she saw every movie she could, learning how to mouth the actors' lines. Eventually she moved to St. Louis, where she worked for a small theatre company, and soon afterwards left for New York City to begin her career in earnest. There she studied with Uta Hagen. Her first major role on Broadway was as the ingenue lead in "The Wooden Dish", which starred Louis Calhern. This was followed by the ingenue lead in "Inherit the Wind", which starred Paul Muni. She started her career in television by playing opposite such stars as Helen Hayes on live television. Between 1958-1960 Scott made three guest appearances on "Perry Mason": Amelia Armitage in "The Case of the Daring Decoy" (1958), Sally Wilson in "The Case of the Glittering Goldfish" (1959), and Kathi Beecher in "The Case of the Violent Village" (1960). In the television series "The Fugitive", Scott played the sister of Dr. Richard Kimble (David Janssen) in five episodes telecast between 1964 and 1967, including the two-part finale that at the time became the highest-rated program in television history. In July 2007, Scott was among celebrities at the Western Film Fair in Charlotte, North Carolina. Others in attendance were Lynn Borden, Brett Halsey, Rick Lenz, Betty Lynn, Joyce Meadows, and Lana Wood.
965347	24 Hour Party People is a 2002 British comedy-drama film about Manchester's popular music community from 1976 to 1992, and specifically about Factory Records. It was written by Frank Cottrell Boyce and directed by Michael Winterbottom. The film was entered into the 2002 Cannes Film Festival. It was met with very enthusiastic reviews and currently holds a Metacritic score of 85/100. Roger Ebert gave it four out of four stars. It begins with the punk rock era and moves through the 1980s into the "Madchester" scene of the late 1980s and early 1990s. The main character is Tony Wilson (played by Steve Coogan), a news reporter for Granada Television and the head of Factory Records. The narrative largely follows his career, while also covering the major Factory artists, especially Joy Division and New Order, A Certain Ratio, The Durutti Column, and the Happy Mondays. The film is a dramatisation based on a combination of real events, rumours, urban legends, and the imaginings of the scriptwriter – as the film makes clear. In one scene, one-time Buzzcocks member Howard Devoto (played by Martin Hancock) is shown having sex with Wilson's first wife in the toilets of a club; the real Devoto, an extra in the scene, turns to the camera and says, "I definitely don't remember this happening". The fourth wall is frequently broken, with Wilson (who also acts as the narrator) frequently commenting on events directly to camera as they occur, at one point declaring that he is "being postmodern, before it's fashionable". The actors are often intercut with real contemporary concert footage, including the Sex Pistols gig at the Lesser Free Trade Hall. Plot. The story opens in the late 1970s in the Pennines, where Tony Wilson (Steve Coogan), reporting for Granada Television embarks on a hang gliding adventure, despite not having any training. After crashing several times and receiving a "rather unfortunate" injury to his coccyx, he walks away, then turns to the camera, breaking the fourth wall, saying the scene was symbolic of what is to come on many levels. Wilson is dissatisfied with his job as a television news reporter, finding stories like the hang-gliding stunt unfulfilling, telling his producer, Charles (John Thomson), "I'm a serious fucking journalist ... I went to Cambridge." Wilson then attends a concert in June 1976 at Manchester Lesser Free Trade Hall by the Sex Pistols (the Buzzcocks were also to perform but were not ready). Despite only being attended by 42 people, Wilson cites the concert as a great historical event that would inspire attendees to "go out and perform wondrous deeds". For his part, Wilson, the host of a music show, "So It Goes", decides to move beyond just putting bands on television and get into promoting concerts. With some friends, actor Alan Erasmus (Lennie James) and Rob Gretton (Paddy Considine), Wilson starts a weekly series of punk rock shows at a Manchester club. It is during the opening night, and a performance by a band Gretton manages called Joy Division, that Wilson is caught by his wife, Lindsay (Shirley Henderson), getting fellatio from a woman in the back of the club owner Don Tonay (Peter Kay)'s "nosh van" a Ford Transit. She then retaliates by having sexual intercourse in a toilet cubicle with the Buzzcocks' Howard Devoto (Martin Hancock), and is caught by Tony (he was told of this by Alan a few seconds earlier). The real Devoto, portraying a janitor cleaning the bathroom sink, then turns to the camera a few seconds after Wilson passes him by and says "I definitely don't remember this happening." Wilson continues in the music business, and with his friends, starts Factory Records, signing Joy Division (Sean Harris, John Simm, Ralf Little and Tim Horrocks), led by erratic, brooding lead singer Ian Curtis (Harris), as the first band. Showing his dedication, Wilson prepares a record contract for the band, written in his own blood, giving the artists full control over their music. Irascible producer Martin Hannett (Andy Serkis) is hired to record Joy Division, and though he is difficult to work with – he orders Joy Division drummer Stephen Morris, to dismantle his drum kit and reassemble it on the roof of the studio – the results are the work of genius, and soon Joy Division have a hit record. The success is short-lived, however, when, just before Joy Division is to tour the United States, Curtis commits suicide by hanging himself. The news is broken to Wilson as he is preparing to do a news report about a Chester town crier, and the distraught Wilson asks the crier to report on Curtis' death. Joy Division beat the odds and survive the death of their lead singer, going on to rename themselves New Order, and record a number of hit songs, including "Blue Monday". Factory Records continues with the building of its nightclub, The Haçienda, with an opening night performance by Factory band A Certain Ratio in front of less than 40 customers. The Haçienda shown in the film was not the real club, but a replica built in a Manchester factory space; the original club was closed in 1997 and demolished in 2002, replaced by luxury apartments. The exterior of the building is used in some scenes. Another hit band, the Happy Mondays, are signed, and the beginning of the ecstasy-fuelled rave culture is witnessed. Despite all the success, Factory Records is losing vast amounts of money, both on The Haçienda and on recording its bands. In one scene, Erasmus points out (with a grin on his face, ironically) that the label is actually losing 5 pence for every copy of the 12-inch single for "Blue Monday" that is sold because the intricately designed packaging by Peter Saville costs more than what the records are being sold for. Saville is additionally portrayed for having a reputation for missing deadlines, turning in posters and tickets for club dates after the events have already occurred. The Factory partners try to save the label by selling it to London Records, but when it is revealed that Factory does not hold valid contracts with any of its artists, the deal falls through. Other troubles include the drug use by the Happy Mondays' Shaun Ryder (Danny Cunningham), who holds the master tapes for the band's troubled fourth studio album hostage until Wilson gives him some money. When the master tape is played, it turns out that Ryder, despite being hailed by Wilson as "the greatest poet since Yeats", was unable to write any lyrics (or, as implied in a cutaway segment called "The Life and Surprisingly Strange Adventures of Ryderson Crusoe, refused to write them; "Why the fuck should I?!", he explains), so all the tracks to the album, expensively recorded in Barbados, are instrumentals. Hannett has also become unpredictable, attempting at one time to shoot Wilson with a pistol. He has a falling out with Factory Records over finances, and spirals into decline due to alcohol and drug abuse and weight gain, and dies aged 42. Meanwhile, various aspects of Wilson's life are glossed over, and Wilson takes a moment to acknowledge this, quickly skimming over his divorce from his first wife, Lindsay, his second marriage and children, and his relationship with beauty queen Yvette Livesey (Kate Magowan). His own drug problems and professional difficulties are also glossed over. "I'm a minor character in my own story," Wilson explains, saying that the stories about the music, as well as Manchester itself, are more important. Cast. Cameos Soundtrack. The soundtrack to "24 Hour Party People" features songs by artists closely associated with Factory Records who were depicted in the film. These include Happy Mondays, Joy Division (later to become New Order) and The Durutti Column. Manchester band the Buzzcocks are featured, as are The Clash. The album begins with "Anarchy in the U.K." by the Sex Pistols, the band credited in the film with inspiring Factory Records co-founder Tony Wilson to devote himself to promoting music. New tracks recorded for the album include Joy Division's "New Dawn Fades", from a concert performance by New Order with Moby and Billy Corgan. Other songs in film. Several songs appear in the film but are not on the soundtrack album, including:
583820	Mandhira Punnagai (),() is an Indian Tamil-language film written and directed by Karu Pazhaniappan, starring himself in the lead role, along with Meenakshi and Santhanam. The film was released in 19 November 2010. Plot. The film tells the story of an architect, Kathir (Karu Pazhaniappan), who is talented but also forthright in his dealings whether in office or in his personal life. He doesn't have any girlfriend or many friends whether at work or in personal life. When he is asked to design a spanking new showroom for Honda Dealership, Nandini (Meenakshi) one of the employees there meets Karu in connection with the new design and falls in love with Karu's forthrightness unbeknownst to him. While he doesn't pay much attention to Meenakshi's overtures initially, perhaps influenced by his troubled childhood, he starts to like her slowly. At the same time he also fears that she is cheating on him and tries to kill her. He goes to the police station confessing his crime that he killed her. When police come to find the body in his apartment, they are unable to find the body. Kathir's friend Manmadha Naidu (Thambi ramaiah) says that last night Kathir was talking to himself and broken all the things in a fit of anger (When Kathir saw Nandini sleeping with Srikanth, Kathir got angry broken all the things imagining himself as killing Nandhini). Kathir had a troubled childhood where his mother committed suicide after her illegal affair with his father's friend came to light, his father also died at the same time, which made him to view things in a different light. In the end, Nandini claimed that she planned things to make him reform him but Kathir in anger says that he celebrate people dying. In next scene, kathir receives a call that nandini had committed suicide he immediately goes to hospital and finds out that nandini didn't commit suicide and she gave him shock to make him realize the wrongdoings. The film ends with Nandini and Kathir uniting, reflection of kathir's father gives acceptance. Soundtrack. Music : Vidhyasagar
1067755	Step Up 3D (also known as Step Up 3) is a 2010 American 3D dance film written by Amy Andelson and Emily Meyer and directed by ""s Jon M. Chu. The sequel sees the return of Adam Sevani and Alyson Stoner, who portrayed Moose from "Step Up 2 the Streets" and Camille Gage from "Step Up". As the third installment in the "Step Up" trilogy, and the first shot in 3D, the film follows Moose and Camille Gage as they head to New York University, the former dancer of whom is majoring in electrical engineering after promising his father that he would not dance anymore. However, he soon stumbles upon a dance battle, meeting Luke Katcher and his House of Pirates dance crew and later teaming up with them to compete in the World Jam dance contest against their rival, the House of Samurai dance crew. "Step Up 3D" premiered in Hollywood at the El Capitan Theater on August 2, 2010 and was subsequently released worldwide on August 6, 2010, through conventional 2D and 3D (in RealD 3D, Dolby 3D, and XpanD 3D) formats. It was also the second movie to feature the Dolby Surround 7.1 audio format theatrically, the first of which was "Toy Story 3". The film grossed $15.8 million in its opening weekend, the lowest of the trilogy, but went on to make more money than any other installment in the series and has received generally positive critical reviews, with most praise towards its dance sequences and effective use of 3D, while criticism went towards the repetitive story and acting. Plot. The story began in traditional video style, as several of the film's characters are recorded and asked a series of questions about why they dance. The film then cuts to Moose (Adam Sevani) and Camille (Alyson Stoner) attend New York University. Moose is majoring in electrical engineering after promising his father that he would not dance anymore. While touring the campus, he sees a pair of Limited Edition Gun Metal Nike Dunks worn by Luke Katcher (Rick Malambri). Moose follows the shoes and then accidentally stumbles upon a dance battle, where he beats Kid Darkness (Daniel Campos) from the dancing crew "House of Samurai". Luke takes him back to his place, an old warehouse converted into a club. Luke shows Moose the House of Pirates, his dance crew, where he later teams up with them to compete in the World Jam dance contest against their rivals, the House of Samurai dance crew. But then, Jacob (Keith Stallworth), a member of House of Pirates, informs Luke that the warehouse will be put up for auction if the overdue rents are not made.
1066649	Two Evil Eyes (Italian: Due occhi diabolici) is a 1990 horror film, written and directed by Dario Argento and George A. Romero. The two had previously worked together on the immensely popular "Dawn of the Dead" in 1978. The film is split into two separate tales, both based largely on the works of Edgar Allan Poe: "The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar", directed by Romero and starring Adrienne Barbeau, showcases his traditional mix of horror with social commentary, especially capitalism, and "The Black Cat", directed by Argento and starring Harvey Keitel, which blends a number of Poe references into a new narrative. Both of the tales were filmed, and take place, in contemporary Pittsburgh. Synopsis. "The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar" Jessica Valdemar, an attractive 40-year-old woman, rides in a taxi to the downtown Pittsburgh office of Steven Pike, her elderly husband’s lawyer with some paperwork for Mr. Pike approval. Pike sees that Jessica’s 63-year-old husband named Ernest Valdemar, who is dying from an unnamed terminal illness, is liquidating a number of his assets for cash and suspects Jessica of having undue influence on him. Jessica denies the allegations that she’s any negative influence over her husband, while Pike makes a phone call to the house to talk with Ernest Valdemar, who speaks over the phone in a weak but coherent voice explaining about his decision to let Jessica take control of his money and assets from his personal signature on the written documents that she has. Pike reluctantly agrees to let Jessica have access to the money, but warns her that if anything were to happen to Mr. Valdemar within the next three weeks before the transfer of his estate over to Jessica is finalized, she will be investigated by the authorities. Jessica returns home to Ernest Valdemar’s large suburban mansion where she meets with Dr. Robert Hoffman where its revealed that he and Jessica have been conspiring to cheat the terminally ill Mr. Valdemar out of his estate by hypnotizing him and having him do what they wish from his deathbed. Jessica doesn’t like the procedure, but Robert wants it done because he used to have a romance with Jessica and wants to run off with her after they acquire his $3 million assets. The next day, Jessica goes to a bank where she withdraws $300,000 and stores it in a safe. Robert sees this. But then, Mr. Valdemar goes into cardiac arrest and dies while under another hypnosis spell. Not wanting to reveal his death just yet, Robert and Jessica carry his body to the basement where they hide it in a freezer. But during the night, Jessica becomes frightened when she hears moaning coming from the basement, but when she tries to wake up Robert, he has put himself under a hypnotic-induced slumber to help him sleep. The next morning, Jessica and Robert wake up and also hear the same noises coming from the basement. Upon checking the body, they hear Ernest Valdemar’s voice coming from the still body claiming that his soul is alive and trapped in a dark void between the living and the dead while under hypnosis. Valdemar tells them that he sees "others" in the dark void looking at him. While Jessica goes out to make sense of this situation, she returns to find Robert talking to Mr. Valdemar’s undead corpse who tells him that the "others" are vengeful spirits trapped in a realm and want to use him to enter our world. Valdemar tells Robert to wake him up and free him from his hypnotic state. In a panic, Jessica shoots Valdemar’s corpse and wants to bury the body and skip town with the money they have. While Robert heads outside to dig a hole to bury the body, Jessica goes back into the cellar only to find Valdemar’s body rising up out of the freezer and walking towards her saying that he is under control of "the others" to use him. Jessica shoots him, but he keeps on coming. Robert enters the house when he hears the gunshots and sees Jessica and Valdemar struggling on the balcony where the undead walking cadaver shoots Jessica in the head and she falls off the balcony, dead. Robert finally tells Valdemar that he’s going to wake him and free him from his hypnosis. But after doing so by counting to five, Valdemar tells Robert that it's too late to wake him for without his body as a conduit, the Others cannot return to their realm. "They're with you now!" exclaims Valdemar, who finally falls dead. Robert then steals all the cash that Jessica had stored in the safe and flees the house. Robert goes back to his apartment in downtown Pittsburgh, where he puts himself under a hypnotic sleep. But then, the ghostly "Others" enter his apartment and kill him by shoving the hypnotic digital counter into his chest. The ghosts then form themselves into one large mass-like mist and enter Robert's dead body. Several days later, the police led by Detective Grogan arrive at Robert’s apartment to answer complaints about a "strange smell" and constant moaning coming from the apartment. Grogan finds the apartment ransacked and the stolen cash scattered everywhere. But just then, the horribly decomposed body of Robert, under the control of the Others, appears and attacks Grogan, telling him that there is nobody to wake him up. "The Black Cat" Rod Usher makes his entrance in a building decorated with the abject remains of dismantled corpses. A naked woman lies bound to a table, sliced in two by a huge pendulum-like blade. Rod is a professional crime scene photographer for as he puts it: "still life’s my art," a talent which ensures that he is frequently called upon the local authorities -led by Detective LeGrand- to document the horrors of the baroque crime scenes which are apparently commonplace in Pittsburgh where Rod lives. After arriving home at a semi-fancy row house, Rod works in his darkroom in the basement developing the photos when his work is interrupted by the appearance of a mysterious black cat, which has apparently been adopted by his live-in girlfriend Annabel. Rod and Annabel’s relationship is uncomfortably distant. Annabel is delicate, sensitive, and somewhat ethereal, while Rod is a rough, burly, brutish man who seem more at home with the gritty hyper-reality of crime scenes that he is with Annabel’s talk of witches and superstition. Annabel, in contrast to Rod, is a professional violinist who gives private lessons to local high school students who show up at the house after their school classes, and she even takes some of them on excursions to local opera houses to watch the arts of life. Over the next several days, a strong antipathy grows between Rod and the mysterious cat, a situation worsened by Annabel’s excessive protection of it. Driven to distraction by the cat’s apparent hatred of him, Rod eventually strangles it during a photo shoot he has set up with the cat being the center of attention. Rod then uses the photos of him strangling the cat to post on the cover of his newest photography book, titled "Metropolitan Horrors", a lurid collection of his most revolting pictures. As Annabel begins to guess the truth about what has happened to her pet, the couple embarks on a series of violent arguments, one of which ends with Rod falling into an alcohol-induced sleep where he has a nightmare about participating in a Medieval Pagan festival where he is executed for the murder of the cat. One day, when Annabel finally spots his book in a shop window, with the strangled body of her much-loved cat on the front cover, she immediately goes home and makes plans to leave Rod, who at that very moment is in a local bar drinking heavily. Rod becomes unnerved when the barmaid Eleanora gives him a stray black cat, which is identical to Annabel’s own cat. Rod notices that the inky feline has an identical white marking on its chest (an obscure white patch which seems to resemble the shape of a gallows). Rod brings the cat home and sets about to kill the feline once and for all. But Annabel intervenes and comes to the cat's rescue, causing a confrontation which ends in her gruesome and gory death when Rod hacks her to death with a meat cleaver. After shaking off his suspicious next door neighbor and landlord, Mr. Pym, who arrives after hearing the argument, Rod assures him that nothing is wrong. Confident that he can escape detection, Rod conceals the body behind a wall in the house and invents a story to explain Annabel’s disappearance to her music students, Betty and Christian, when they show up the next day for their violin lessons. But after a confrontation with Christian, who expresses doubt and suspicion to Rod about his story of Annabel leaving him, he confides in Mr. and Mrs. Pym about his suspicions that Rod might have killed Annabel. When Annabel’s friend in New York keeps phoning the house to ask of her whereabouts, Rod becomes increasingly trapped by his own increasing elaborate web of lies. The situation is exacerbated by yet another appearance of the black cat. But this time, Rod ensures its death by slicing it in two with a saw, and disposes of it in a garbage dump. The next day, Detective LeGrand arrives with his partner to question Rod about Annabel’s whereabouts. Despite their stern questioning, Rod is not fazed by their questions. After looking around the house, the detectives leave, but immediately come back when an eerie, distorted mewing sound is heard echoing though one of the walls. Rod is handcuffed and the fake wall of that he put up is torn down and his crime scene is finally revealed. It reveals that the ever troublesome feline had given birth in Annabel’s tomb and its offspring are now feasting on the remains of their mistress. Not to be outdone, Rod grabs the pickaxe from LeGrand's partner and in seconds kills both policemen. But handcuffed and in a panic, Rod tries to make his escape when his neighbors show up after nearing the commotion, pounding on the front door. Rod attempts to flee from his house by climbing out a second floor window by using a rope to tie around a tree in his backyard. But his plan fails when he gets tangled in the rope and slips, the rope tightening around his neck and killing him. The black cat makes a final appearance and stares at the fate Rod had coming for him. Production notes. Romero collaborator Tom Savini provides the film's special effects and appears briefly in "The Black Cat" episode playing a serial killer who looks like Edgar Allan Poe himself. It was Julie Benz's first acting role and the first feature film she starred in. Her role in the movie is small as a teenage violin student in a few scenes in "The Black Cat" episode.
585727	Kakkakuyil is a 2001 Malayalam film produced, written, and directed by Priyadarshan starring Mohanlal and Mukesh in the lead roles. The film received mixed reviews upon release and became a below average grosser at the box-office . The storyline of the film was inspired by the 1988 Hollywood film "A Fish Called Wanda". "Kakkakuyil" was later remade as "London" in Tamil with Prashanth, "" in Hindi with Ajay Devgn and "Thappuchesi Pappukoodu" in Telugu with Mohan Babu by different directors. Plot. Sivaraman (Mohanlal), an unemployed man, comes to Mumbai to find a job. Unfortunately he loses all his certificates but happens to find Govindan Kutty (Mukesh), who also is a jobless man (from Sivaraman's native place) wandering in Mumbai. They try to get visa from a travel agency but finds no way to gather such massive amount. Govindan Kutty persuades Sivaraman to participate in a bank robbery planned by Thomas (Cochin Haneefa) and his gang - his stammering brother Tyootty (Jagadish) and Alina (who pretends to be Thomas' lover) - which puts them in more trouble as the robbery ends in vain when they hit Pothuval (Innocent). Alina secretly informs the police about the robbery and tells that the entire plan was carried out by Thomas. Thomas, before getting arrested, hides the money, and the place is kept secret except to his lawyer, Nambeeshan (Jagathy Sreekumar). Alina fakes to be in love with Nambeeshan to find the place where the money is hidden. Meanwhile, to find a safe cover Sivaraman and Govindan Kutty plan to impersonate Kunjunni, the grandson of a rich but elderly couple, Thampuran (Nedumudi Venu) and his wife Sethu (Kaviyoor Ponnamma). They haven't seen their grandchild since his childhood. At the confusion of the moment Sivaraman and Govindankutty end up disguising with the body of Govindan Kutty and the voice of Sivaraman to make up for Kunjunni in front of the blind couple. Pothuval, who knows Govindan Kutty before, makes several attempts to make the old man learn the truth, but all of them fail knowingly or unknowingly much to the luck of the Sivaraman and Govindankutty. While successfully carrying on, they are interrupted by Radhika Menon who disguises herself as the lover of Kunjunni. She calls on all the relatives of the couple by mocking them. The relatives arrive in the absence of Sivaraman. Finding no-way out Govindan Kutty pretends to have fainted unconscious and he gets admitted to the hospital. Sivaraman comes to his rescue and says that he is Dr. Gopalakrishnan, a friend of Kunjunni from America. After many successful escapades during their drama, Govindankutty tries to steal the "Lord Krishna" statue for which he plays a cruel trick by placing a wooden stool in the staircase to injure the old woman which keeps all others out of the house for sometime. Sivaraman engages in a fight with Govindankutty when he tries to leave with the statue he had stolen. The old man accuses his relatives for the accident and asks all his relatives to leave immediately. Sivaraman and Govindankutty gets desperate as the date for the visa payment was nearing. Radhika gives them the money for the visa and asks them to leave the house. She also reveals that she is Kunjunni's actual lover and tells them that Kunjunni has died in America in an accident and she had come to inform this. Sivaraman and Govindankutty accept the money and leave the house. Upon leaving, they come to know that the visa agency was a fake one. Having lost all their resources, Govindan Kutty plans to start some new business with the money they have. Sivaraman disagrees to take the money and asks Govindan Kutty not to take the money which they have got for cheating on the innocent old couple. Govindankutty leaves Sivaraman in anger taking the money with him. Sivaraman returns to the old man and confesses all his mistakes. The old man asks them to continue the drama in front of his wife Sethu, who loves her grandson above all. Sethu comes and calls Kunjunni but she gets no replies but finally gets hold of Govindan Kutty's arms who has returned in remorse. In the closing scene it is shown that Thomas and Tyootty started a new hambug, Nambeeshan has gone back to his native place and has started farming, his ex-wife (Sukumari) gets married to an younger man, Pothuval started an anti-alcohol society, and the future plans of Alina as still unknown. Soundtrack. The hit songs were composed by Deepan Chatterjee and lyrics were penned by Gireesh Puthenchery.
582692	Dil Hai Ke Manta Nahin (Hindi:दिल है कि मानता नहीं) is a Bollywood film released in 1991. It was produced by Gulshan Kumar, directed by Mahesh Bhatt, and starred his daughter Pooja Bhatt in the lead female role. The lead male role was played by Aamir Khan. Anupam Kher, Sameer Chitre, Tiku Talsania, and Deepak Tijori played supporting roles. It is an unofficial remake of the 1934 Hollywood film "It Happened One Night",and is the frame by frame copy of 1956 films "Chori Chori". The script of the 1934 Hollywood film was modified to suit Indian culture in Chori Chori, which was copied frame by frame in this 1991 movie. Some scenes are totally copied from the earlier film, such as the hitchhiking scene, the scene of the hotel room with curtains between the beds, as in the 1956 Bollywood blockbuster "Chori Chori". Starring Aamir Khan, Anupam Kher and daughter Pooja, Dil Hai Ki Manta Nahin revolves around a spoilt heiress who runs away from home to marry a gold-digging film star. En route she is helped by a smart-alecky journalist only to end up falling for him. The premise was previously tackled in Chori Chori starring Raj Kapoor and Nargis, which itself took inspiration from Hollywood's It Happened One Night. Singer Anuradha Paudwal received the Filmfare award for best playback singer (female) for this film. It did reasonably well at the box office and was declared as an above average performer. Plot. Pooja Dharamchand (Pooja Bhatt) is the daughter of a rich Mumbai shipping tycoon, Seth Dharamchand (Anupam Kher). She is head-over-heels in love with movie star Deepak Kumar (Sameer Chitre), but her father strongly disapproves of their courtship. One night, Pooja escapes from her father's yacht and hops onto a bus to Bangalore to be with Deepak, who is shooting there. Meanwhile, Seth Dharamchand, realizing his daughter has run away, dispatches private detectives to locate her. Aboard the bus, Pooja meets Raghu Jetley (Aamir Khan), a loud-mouth newspaperman, a man of values like straightforwardness and some sort of arrogance, who has just lost his job. He offers to help her in exchange for an exclusive story on her, which would revive his flagging career. Pooja is forced to agree to his demands, as he threatens to let her father know of her whereabouts should she not comply. After the bus breaks down, Raghu and Pooja go through various adventures together and find themselves falling more and more in love. Raghu desires to marry Pooja, but financially he is in no shape to do so. He simply wanted a story on her life and never wanted to win her heart. Pooja also falls for Raghu and she decides to go with him, but a misunderstanding leads her to believe that Raghu was just looking for a story and not her love. She calls it quits, returns home and agrees to marry Deepak. However, her father learns about Raghu when he comes to him to take back his money, spent by Raghu on Pooja on his way to Bangalore. He realises how Raghu has taken care of Pooja during the trip. Pooja misunderstands him and believes that he might have come for the reward announced by her rich father. At last her father tells Pooja that Raghu is the right man for her and that he has not come for the reward. On the wedding day she realises that Raghu really loves her and then runs away from the marriage mandap to Raghu.
1163401	Mae Margaret Whitman (born June 9, 1988) is an American actress. She is known for her roles as Ann Veal in the TV series "Arrested Development", Amber Holt on the TV series "Parenthood", and Roxy Richter in "Scott Pilgrim vs. the World". She is also known for her voice work as in the animated television series ', Rose/Huntsgirl in ', April O'Neil in the 2012 iteration of "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" and Tinker Bell in the "Tinker Bell" movies. Her first major studio role was as the President's daughter in the 1996 film "Independence Day". She was also in the 2012 film "The Perks of Being a Wallflower" as Mary-Elizabeth. Personal life. Whitman was born in Los Angeles, California. She is the only child of Pat Musick, a voice artist, and Jeff Whitman, a personal manager and set construction co-ordinator. She was educated in a private school in Los Angeles. She later graduated from Whitefish Bay High School, Wisconsin. Whitman started her career with a voice over for a Tyson Chicken commercial at the age of three. She learned acting with Andrew Magarian who would help her memorize lines as she could not read. Career. In 1994, at the age of six, Whitman made her film debut, acting alongside Meg Ryan in "When a Man Loves a Woman" (1994), playing Ryan's youngest daughter, Casey. She beat 700 other girls who were interested in the part. In 1996, Whitman appeared in two films: "Independence Day" as the President's daughter; and "One Fine Day" playing George Clooney's character's daughter Maggie. The same year, Whitman guest starred in the episode "The One Where Rachel Quits" of the sitcom "Friends". In 1998, she was Sandra Bullock's character's daughter Bernice in "Hope Floats".
1202443	Peter Navy Tuiasosopo (born December 22, 1963 in San Pedro, California) is an American-Samoan actor perhaps best known for his roles as E. Honda in Universal Pictures "Street Fighter" and Manumana in the Paramount Pictures film "Necessary Roughness". Acting. Tuiasosopo is perhaps best known for playing the role of E. Honda in the live action movie "Street Fighter" along with Jean-Claude Van Damme and Raúl Juliá. Tuiasosopo's first motion picture film role was Manumana "the Slender", the committed and respectful center on the fictional reconstructed Texas State "Fighting Armadillos" football team in the 1991 film "Necessary Roughness". Tuiasosopo took a leave of absence from McDonnell Douglas in Long Beach, California for the film. Shortly afterwards, he co-starred in his first television series with original television Batman Adam West as the strong-armed detective Al Hamoki for the Fox network called "Danger Theatre". Tuiasosopo had another film role as Willie Dumaine in "12 Rounds" along with WWE wrestler John Cena. He also had a part in the "NCIS" season 10 episode "Hereafter" as Charles Kang / Chucky Bang.
1101087	Nikolai Ivanovich Lobachevsky (; – ) was a Russian mathematician and geometer, known primarily for his work on hyperbolic geometry, otherwise known as Lobachevskian geometry.
583415	Lootere is a 1993 Bollywood action movie, written and directed by Dharmesh Darshan and produced by Suneel Darshan. Plot. The movie is a love story of Karan (Sunny Deol) and Anjali (Juhi Chawla). Karan, a decorated police officer is given the duty to protect Anjali who is the only witness against one of the underworld bosses. In order to safeguard Anjali, Karan has to take her far away in wilderness so that no one gets to know where she is. During this escapade Karan and Anjali fall in love and desire to get married against all odds. How the hero fights all the villains and saves his girl forms the crux of the story. Trivia. This movie was Dharmesh Darshan's directorial debut. Juhi Chawla shed her girl-next-door image with this movie.
1058271	Kangaroo Jack is a 2003 American adventure comedy film directed by David McNally, produced by Jerry Bruckheimer, and starring Jerry O'Connell, Anthony Anderson, Estella Warren, Michael Shannon and Christopher Walken. An animated sequel, "", was produced and released direct-to-video on November 16, 2004. While the film was a box office success, it was universally panned. Plot. In the summer of 1982, a boy named Charlie Carbone (Robert Reid) is about to become the stepson of a mobster named Salvatore Maggio (Christopher Walken). On that same day, he meets his new best friend, Louis Booker (Shawn Smith), who saves him from drowning.
632749	Amanda Tapping (born 28 August 1965) is an English-born Canadian actress, producer and director. She is best known for portraying Samantha Carter in the Canadian-American military science fiction television series "Stargate SG-1" and "Stargate Atlantis". She also starred as Helen Magnus in the Syfy Channel series "Sanctuary". Early life and education. Born in Rochford, Essex, England, she moved with her family to Ontario, Canada when she was three years old. She attended North Toronto Collegiate Institute where she excelled in environmental science and drama. However, when she finished in 1984, she decided to focus her attention on drama, attending the University of Windsor School of Dramatic Arts in Windsor, Ontario. Acting career. After graduation Tapping continued to study theatrical arts while performing in several stage productions. She appeared in several television commercials and played a variety of roles in television and film productions, such as "The Outer Limits" and "The X-Files". She also formed a comedy troupe, the "Random Acts", with collaborators Katherine Jackson and Anne Marie Kerr, in Toronto in the early 1990s. Tapping is best known for her portrayal of Samantha Carter in the science fiction television series "Stargate SG-1", which debuted in 1997. After "SG-1" aired its final episode, Tapping reprised the role of Samantha Carter on "Stargate Atlantis" as the new commander of the Atlantis expedition. In season five however, Tapping's role on the show was reduced to that of "special guest-star" with only occasional appearances due to her choosing to focus attention on the development of a new series for Syfy called "Sanctuary". The show expanded on an original series of eight webisodes released on the internet in 2007. The bulk of the scenery and characters were entirely green screen and CGI creations. Tapping served as both star and executive producer of the show. Tapping is also working with William Shatner on a 2011 animated webisode series "The Zenoids", written by Alan Dean Foster. Tapping and Shatner voice characters and Tapping is executive producer. In 2007, she won a Canadian Comedy Award for Best Actress for her role in the short film "Breakdown". On September 18, 2012, she was cast as an angel named Naomi on the TV series "Supernatural". She has appeared in 7 episodes so far. Directing experience. Tapping's first directing experience was during the seventh season of "Stargate SG-1" on an episode titled "Resurrection", written by co-star Michael Shanks. She directed the seventh episode of "Sanctuary" season two titled "Veritas". She has directed three episodes (6, 8 and 10) of "" and one episode (2.12) of "Continuum". Personal life. As of 2004, Tapping lives with her husband, Alan Kovacs, in Vancouver, British Columbia. She has one daughter, Olivia, born on 22 March 2005. Tapping has two living brothers, Richard and Christopher. Chris is her fraternal twin, who works in Toronto as a database administrator. A third brother, Steven, died in December 2006. Awards and nominations. Tapping has won 6 awards, out of 13 nominations.
1224143	Mary Alice (born December 3, 1941) is an American actress. Life and career. Alice was born Mary Alice Smith in Indianola, Mississippi, the daughter of Ozelar (née Jurnakin) and Sam Smith. She had a yen to act and began her career on stage in her hometown. Alice appeared in over 50 television shows and feature films during her career. She made her screen debut in 1974 film "The Education of Sonny Carson", and later guest-starred in "Police Woman" and "Sanford and Son". She played Ellie Grant Hubbard on soap opera "All My Children" in earle 1980's, and co-starred in "A Different World" as Leticia 'Lettie' Bostic from 1988 to 1989. In 1987 she received a Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Play for her work in "Fences". She also won an Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series in 1993 for "I'll Fly Away" (1991–1993). Alice's other film credits include "Malcolm X" (1992), "The Inkwell" (1994) and "Down in the Delta" with Alfre Woodard. Alice replaced Gloria Foster in the film "The Matrix Revolutions" and video game "Enter The Matrix" as the Oracle, after Foster died in 2001. Awards. "Nominations" "Nominations" "Nominations"
582647	Aksar (, translation: "Often") is a 2006 Hindi thriller film directed by Anant Mahadevan and produced by Narendra and Shyam Bajaj under the banner of Siddhi Vinayak Creations. The film stars Emraan Hashmi, Udita Goswami and Dino Moreain the lead roles. It features the song "Jhalak Dikhlaja" sung by Himesh Reshammiya, also done a remix video for the promotion. The film was a box office success.
1162172	Eric Barrett Winter (born July 17, 1976) is an American actor and former fashion model. He is also ambassador for Operation Smile. Career. At a young age, Winter began painting imitations. After expressing his emotions through the medium of paint, he looked into another output for his talents and began acting. Before his acting roles, Winter was a male model and had some high profile campaigns, such as one print campaign for Tommy Hilfiger. He was also in a television commercial ad with Britney Spears for her perfume called "Curious." Winter is best known for playing the role of Rex Brady on the daytime soap opera "Days of our Lives". He joined the show from July 8, 2002 until his final appearance on July 26, 2005. After leaving "Days of our Lives", he had many small roles in television shows, such as "," "Love, Inc.," "Charmed" and the now-cancelled "Just Legal." He has guest starred on ABC Family's "Wildfire" for five episodes. His character, R.J. Blake, a bull-rider who dated the character of Dani Davis (played by Nicole Tubiola), was killed in the episode "Heartless" which aired originally on Monday, February 28, 2007. Winter has also appeared on "The Parkers" in the episode "The Boomerang Effect". More recently, Winter has appeared in an episode of the CBS series "The Ex-List", and a recurring role of Jason McCallister, the brother of Senator Robert McCallister (Rob Lowe) and love interest of Kevin Walker (Matthew Rhys) on the ABC drama "Brothers & Sisters". He was a regular on the short-lived CBS series "Viva Laughlin" and "Moonlight". He starred in the 2008 film, "Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay" and 2009 film "The Ugly Truth".
1162654	Kyle Egan Richards (born January 11, 1969) is an American actress and television personality. She is known for returning to television with her sister, Kim Richards, on Bravo's "The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills". Early life. Richards was born in Hollywood, California, the daughter of Kenneth E. Richards (1935–1998) and Sharon Kathleen Dugan (1938–2002). The couple separated in 1972 and Kathleen later remarried twice more. Richards' siblings are Kathy Hilton (her older half-sister from her mother's first marriage to Lawrence Avanzino; born 1959) and Kim Richards (born 1964). Nicky and Paris Hilton are her nieces. She graduated from Central Union High School in El Centro, California in 1987. Acting career. Richards began acting in 1974. She appeared in eighteen episodes of the television series "Little House on the Prairie" as Mr. Edward's adopted daughter, Alicia Sanderson Edwards. Her sister, Kim Richards (of "Witch Mountain" fame and various other very popular Disney films), also appeared once on the series, playing Laura's friend Olga, a shy child with one leg shorter than the other, who gets fitted with a handmade wooden shoe by Laura's father, which finally enables her to run and play normally with the other children. Throughout the 1970s, Richards guest starred in several television series and acted in a few horror films: "The Car", "Eaten Alive", and "Halloween", in which she played Lindsey Wallace, one of the two children whom Laurie Strode babysits. In 1980 she appeared opposite Bette Davis and Lynn-Holly Johnson in the Disney children's horror film "The Watcher in the Woods", playing a terrorized young girl. Most of her 1980s roles were minor, and included made-for-television, direct-to-video, or other video work. Subsequent roles include Nurse Dori in 21 episodes of the television series "ER" (1998–2006) and Lisa, a supporting character in the film "National Lampoon's Pledge This!". She has also appeared in episodes of her niece Paris Hilton's reality series "The Simple Life" and "My New BFF". Richards appears in the Bravo reality series "The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills", which the first season aired from October 2010 through February 2011. She and her sister, Kim Richards, are both currently appearing in the show on Bravo. She appeared in a new thriller film, "Deadly Sibling Rivalry", as Tricia, a woman left inside a freezer in which she dies, by disturbed evil twins Callie/Janna, played by Charisma Carpenter. Store. Richards announced that she would partner with upscale fashion retailer Alene Too to launch an innovative boutique concept, Kyle by Alene Too. The concept, which opened its first location at Brighton Way and Bedford Drive in Beverly Hills in late 2012, features exciting new fashions, trends and accessories by the world’s top exclusive designers. Personal life. In 1988, at age 19, Richards married Guraish Aldjufrie while she was pregnant with their daughter Farrah, but they were separated in 1990 and divorced in 1992. Richards met second husband Mauricio Umansky in 1994. Umansky is a mix of Greek and Russian descent. He was born and raised in the Jewish religion in Mexico. They married on February 4, 1996 when Kyle was 5 months pregnant. Their daughter Alexia was born on June 18. The couple went on to have two more daughters: Sophia (b. 2000) and Portia (b. 2008). Richards, who is of English, Irish and Welsh descent, converted to Judaism when she married Umansky. They live in Bel Air, Los Angeles.
568235	Elling is a Norwegian film directed by Petter Næss. Shot mostly in and around the Norwegian capital Oslo, the film, which was released in 2001, is primarily based on Ingvar Ambjørnsen's novel "Brødre i blodet" ("Blood brothers", 1996), one of a series of four featuring the Elling character – the others are "Utsikt til paradiset" ("A view of paradise", 1993), "Fugledansen" ("The bird dance", 1995), and "Elsk meg i morgen" ("Love me tomorrow", 1999). The film was followed by an original prequel not based on any of the novels, "Mors Elling" (2003), and a sequel, "Elsk meg i morgen" (2005) based on the fourth and last book in the series. Plot. The movie deals with the main character, Elling, an autistic man in his 40s, and his struggle to function normally in society. He suffers from anxiety, dizziness, and neurotic tendencies, preventing him from living on his own. Elling has lived with his mother for his entire life, and when his mother dies, the authorities take him from the apartment where he has always lived and send him to an institution. His roommate is the simpleminded, sex-obsessed Kjell Bjarne. The Norwegian government pays for the two to move into an apartment in Oslo, where every day is a challenge as they must prove they can get out into the real world and lead relatively normal lives. With the help of social worker Frank and a few new friends, they learn to break free from their respective conditions. International. "Elling" has been released in several languages and has also received one Oscar nomination for Best Foreign Language Film. Awards. In addition, the film was nominated and won several other awards all over the world.
1103046	Gregorio Ricci-Curbastro (; 12 January 1853 – 6 August 1925) was an Italian mathematician born in Lugo di Romagna. He is most famous as the inventor of tensor calculus, although the advent of tensor calculus in dynamics goes back to Lagrange, who originated the general treatment of a dynamical system, and to Riemann, who was the first to think about geometry in an arbitrary number of dimensions. He was also influenced by the works of Christoffel and of Lipschitz on the quadratic forms. In fact, it was essentially Christoffel’s idea of covariant differentiation that allowed Ricci-Curbastro to make the greatest progress. With his former student Tullio Levi-Civita, he wrote his most famous single publication, a pioneering work on the calculus of tensors, signing it as Gregorio Ricci. This appears to be the only time that Ricci-Curbastro used the shortened form of his name in a publication, and continues to cause confusion. Ricci-Curbastro also published important works in other fields, including a book on higher algebra and infinitesimal analysis, and papers on the theory of real numbers, an area in which he extended the research begun by Dedekind. Biography. Youth. Born in lower Romagna. His family was amongst the most ancient and noble of the families of Lugo, and by tradition deeply Catholic. When Pope Pio IX made his only journey to Romagna (1857), he stayed at Lugo at the family palace. This intense religious faith was an element which strongly characterized the whole life of Gregorio. Completing privately his high school studies at only sixteen years of age he enrolled on the course of philosophy-mathematics at Rome University (1869). The following year the Papal State fell and so Gregorio was called by his father to the city of his birth, Lugo. Subsequently he attended courses at Bologna, but after only one year he enrolled at the University - Scuola Normale Superiore - of Pisa. In 1875 he graduated in Padua in Physical Sciences and mathematics with a thesis on differential equations, entitled “On Fuches’s Research Concerning Linear Differential Equations”. During his various travels he was a student of mathematicians of the calibre of Enrico Betti, Eugenio Beltrami, Ulisse Dini and Felix Klein. Studies on absolute differential calculus. In 1877 Ricci Curbastro obtained a scolarship at the Technische Hochschule of Munich, Bavaria, and he later worked as an assistant of
582875	Dinesh Hingoo, born Dinesh Hingorani, is a Bollywood actor who has played mainly comic roles. He has appeared in over 300 films. Hingoo, who has appeared in about 296 films, from "Taqdeer (1967)" to "Be Careful (2010)", is known for his unique laughter and impersonations including that of a Parsee (parsi) businessman. He has played supporting roles in the films "Qurbani" (1980), "Saajan" (1992), "Humraaz", "Baazigar", "No Entry" and "Judaai", and has acted in television serials on Indian public broadcaster, Doordarshan.
1038542	Kelly Brook (born Kelly Ann Parsons; 23 November 1979) is an English model, actress, entrepreneur, and television presenter. Early life. Brook was born and brought up in Rochester, Kent, England. She is the daughter of Sandra, a cook, and Kenneth Parsons, a scaffolder. She has a younger brother, Damian, and an older half-sister, Sasha. Kenneth died aged 57 in Rochester from lung cancer on 26 November 2007, during Brook's time on "Strictly Come Dancing". Brook attended the Thomas Aveling School in Warren Wood, Rochester. She then studied at the Italia Conti Academy of Theatre Arts in London for three years before becoming a professional model. Modelling. Brook's modelling career began at 16 after winning a beauty competition, in which she was entered by her mother. She later worked on a range of advertising campaigns, including for Foster's Lager, Renault Mégane, Walker's crisps, Piz Buin and Bravissimo, a company that specialises in bras and lingerie for large-breasted women. Her figure eventually caught the eye of the editorial team of the "Daily Star" tabloid, which began featuring her as a Page Three girl. Brook's picture soon began appearing in other lads' mags such as "GQ", "Loaded" and "FHM". In April of the same year, a poll over 5,000 women for "Grazia" magazine considered her to have the best British female body. She also topped the 'FHM 100 Sexiest Women in the World' list in 2005, which was said to have polled 15 million people. Appearing in this list every year since 1998, she ranked No.34 in 2008, No.67 in 2009 and No.7 in 2010. She was the cover star of "FHM"'s World Cup 2010 special issue, and was on the cover of the magazine in April 2011. In February 2007, it was announced that Brook had signed a contract, reported to be worth around £1m, to represent Unilever's Lynx bodyspray, known as "Axe" in the US and in continental Europe. She has appeared on billboards, in newspapers and on-line as part of their advertising campaign. She has also appeared in commercials for Sky + and T Mobile and modelled for Reebok. In 2010, she was chosen as the "new face and body" of lingerie maker Ultimo's advertising campaign. In September 2010, Brook appeared in the American edition of "Playboy" magazine. In October 2010, Kelly Brook appeared live at Clapham Picture House to surprise cinemagoers as part of a promotion for Carlsberg and Sky 3D. In November 2010, Brook presented an award at MTV's EMA's in Madrid. Brook produces her own line of swimwear with New Look, which she herself has modelled. Television. Presenter. In 1997, aged eighteen, Brook started presenting youth television programmes on MTV, Granada Television and the Trouble TV channel. Brook had a breakthrough into mainstream presenting in January 1999, when she was chosen to replace Denise van Outen as the female half of "The Big Breakfast" hosting team, alongside Johnny Vaughan. She left the show in July 1999. In 2005, she hosted the reality television programme "Celebrity Love Island" for ITV. Reality television. In 2007, Brook participated in the celebrity dancing competition "Strictly Come Dancing" on BBC1, with dance partner was Brendan Cole. During the TV series, her father Kenneth Parsons died from cancer, and although she initially decided to continue dancing in his memory, she withdrew from the competition in week nine. She also competed in the "Strictly Come Dancing Christmas Special 2008", dancing the Jive with Brian Fortuna, Brendan Cole having to compete with his later partner Lisa Snowdon. Brook and Fortuna were put into fourth place, but with the studio audience's vote they came second to Jill Halfpenny and Darren Bennett. In 2008, Brook took Jennifer Ellison's place as one of the three judges on the second series of the reality TV programme "", broadcast between September and November 2008. In January 2009, she joined the third series of "Britain's Got Talent" as a fourth judge, but was subsequently axed from the programme after less than a week on the panel, the producers having decided the four-judge format was "too complicated". Brook was billed as a guest judge in the episode in which she appeared, taped in Manchester and aired on 16 May. In October 2009, Brook claimed that "Britain's Got Talent" hosts Ant & Dec had been the cause of her removal as the fourth judge. She claimed that she was asked to leave the show after she upset the pair. Acting. In 1997, she appeared in a Pulp video "Help the Aged" with Huck Whitney of the band the Flaming Stars, in a slow dance sequence.
589397	Tun Tun (11 July 1923 – 24 November 2003) was the screen name of Indian playback singer and actress-comedian, Uma Devi Khatri, who is often called the 'first woman comedienne of Hindi cinema'. Early life. Uma Devi, was born in a conservative North Indian family, in a small village in Uttar Pradesh, where after the premature death of her parents while she was still her teens, she was raised by her brother and later by her uncle. Career. She arrived in Bombay (Mumbai) at the age of 13, having run away from home, and knocked on composer Naushad Ali’s door. She told him that she could sing and that she would throw herself in the ocean if he didn’t give her a chance. He auditioned her, and hired her on the spot. She made her debut as a solo playback singer, in Nazir's " Wamiq Azra" (1946), working with legends like Naushad Ali, soon she signed a contract with the producer-director A.R. Kardar, who used Naushad as music director, and went on make a place for herself amidst music stalwarts like, Noor Jehan, Rajkumari, Khursheed and Zohrabai Ambalewali. In 1947, she had huge hits with " Afsana Likh Rahi Hoon Dil-e-beqarar ka" ("I Am Writing My Saga of desperate heart"), "Yeh Kaun Chala Meri Aankhon Mein Sama Kar" ("Who is This My Love?") and "Aaj Machi Hai Dhoom Jhoom Khushi Se Jhoom", which she sang for actress, Munawar Sultana, in A.R. Kardar's production, Dard (1947), again under the music direction of Naushad; she also sang a duet, "Betaab Hai Dil Dard-e-Mohabat Ke Asar Se", with Suraiya In fact, a gentleman from Delhi, got so enamoured by her song, "Afsana Likh Rahi Hoon", that he never went back and stayed with her in Bombay. They got married, and the couple had two daughters and two sons; her husband, whom she called Mohan, died in 1992. Success of "Dard", meant that she next received Mehboob Khan's, " Anokhi Ada" (1948), which again had two hit numbers, "Kahe jiya dole" ("Why the Heart Throbs") and "Dil ko lagake humne kuch bhi na paya" ("I Got Nothing by Falling in Love"). This brought her into the league of highly rated playback singers. She reached her peak as a vocalist in, director S.S. Vasan’s, "Chandralekha" (1948), made by Gemini Studios, Chennai, her seven songs, which include hits like, "Saanjh ki bela" ("These Moments of Evening"), remain her most accomplish work in her singing career; though signing the film also meant a breach of contract with producer-director, Kardar, which lead to her dwindling fortunes in the industry. Moreover, in coming years, owing to her older style of singing and limited vocal range, she found it difficult to compete with the rising singing stars, Lata Mangeshkar and Asha Bhosle. Eventually Naushad suggested that she take up acting, because she had a very bubbly personality and wonderful comic timing. He asked his friend Dilip Kumar to cast her in one of his films, and she appeared in Babul (1950) with him, which had Nargis as the lead actress; it is he who renamed her as 'Tun Tun' to suit her comic persona, and name stayed with her, and a comedic legend was born. She went on to act in Guru Dutt’s classics like Aar Paar, (1954), Mr. & Mrs. '55 (1955) and Pyaasa (1957). In the 1960s and 1970s, she remained as a permanent comic relief in numerous Bollywood films, a few years down the line, she most notably starred in Amitabh Bachchan starrer, Namak Halaal (1982), a Prakash Mehra's blockbuster
588592	Ambasamudram Ambani is a 2010 Tamil-language film. It was produced by Karunaaas and Singapore Rama Saravana. In 2011 it was declared a "super hit". Karunaas might return with a sequel in 2013 as Chandamama (2013 film) Plot. Dandapani (Karunaas), coming from a poor background, nurtures his ambition to become an owner of businesses like Reliance, Vasant & C.o, Saravana Stores, etc. He meets Nandhini (Navneet) who falls in love with him because of his steadfast ambition. He is not in a position to accept owing to his goals. Thereafter he gives all his hard-earned money to Annachi (Kota Srinivasa Rao) to own a shop in his newly constructed complex. Before the construction is over, Annachi dies. Annachi's son does not believe that Dandapani could have given money to his girlfriend and he forcibly chases away Dandapani. Later he learns that Dandapani paid 35 lakhs for the shop from Registrar. Finally Dandapani succeeds in getting a new shop and sets up his supermarket. Reception. Because of the underlying theme of the story was "dream big ... you can achieve at least half of it," the audience welcomed it and gave a decent success at the box office. Reviews. Rediff notes that "Ambasamudram Ambani" is worth a watch.
1060740	Jason Isaacs (born 6 June 1963) is an English actor and character actor born in Liverpool. He is known for his performance as the Death Eater Lucius Malfoy in the "Harry Potter" films, the brutal Colonel William Tavington in "The Patriot" and as lifelong criminal Michael Caffee in the American television series "Brotherhood". Though most of his work has been in film and television, it also includes stage performances; most notably as Louis Ironson in Declan Donnellan's 1992 and 1993 Royal National Theatre London premières of Parts One ("Millennium Approaches") and Two ("Perestroika") of Tony Kushner's Pulitzer Prize-winning play "", and as Ben, one of two hitmen, playing opposite Lee Evans as Gus, in Harry Burton's 2007 critically acclaimed 50th-anniversary revival of Nobel Laureate Harold Pinter's 1957 two-hander "The Dumb Waiter" at Trafalgar Studios. He starred in the National Broadcasting Company (NBC) drama "Awake" as Detective Michael Britten from March to May 2012. Early life and education. Jason Isaacs was born on 6 June 1963, in Liverpool, to Jewish parents. His father was a jewellery-maker. Isaacs spent his earliest childhood years in an "insular" and "closely knit" Jewish community of Liverpudlians, of which his Eastern European great-grandparents were founder-members. The third of four sons, Isaacs attended a Jewish school and a cheder twice a week as a young adult. When he was 11, he moved with his family to Northwest London, attending the Haberdashers' Aske's Boys' School, in Elstree, Hertsmere, Hertfordshire, where he was in the same year as film reviewer Mark Kermode. He describes his childhood as "preparation" for portraying the "unattractive", villainous characters whom he has most often played. National Front members frequently harassed Isaacs and his friends throughout the 1960s and 1970s. Following his more traditionally inclined brothers, who became respectively a doctor, a lawyer, and an accountant, Isaacs studied law at Bristol University (1982–85), but he became more actively involved in the drama society, eventually performing in over 30 plays and performing each summer at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, first with Bristol University and then, twice, with the National Student Drama Company. After graduating from Bristol he went immediately to train at London's Central School of Speech and Drama (1985–88). Isaacs' parents eventually immigrated to Israel. Career. After completing his training as an actor, Isaacs almost immediately began appearing on the stage and on television; his film debut was in a minor role as a doctor in Mel Smith's "The Tall Guy" (1989). He was initially known as a TV actor in the UK, with starring roles in the ITV drama "Capital City" (1989) and the BBC drama "Civvies" (1992) and guest roles in series such as "Taggart", "Inspector Morse", and "" (1993). He also played Michael Ryan in ITV1's adaptation of Martina Cole's novel "Dangerous Lady", directed by Jack Woods and produced by Lavinia Warner, in 1995. On stage he portrayed the "emotionally waffling" gay Jewish office temp Louis Ironson in Tony Kushner's Pulitzer-Prize-winning "", at the Royal National Theatre, in its London première, performing the role in both parts, "Part One: Millennium Approaches", in 1992, and "Part Two: Perestroika", in 1993. When auditioning for that role, he told the producers, "Look, I play all these tough guys and thugs and strong, complex characters. In real life, I am a cringing, neurotic Jewish mess. Can't I for once play that on stage?" His first Hollywood role was alongside Laurence Fishburne in the film "Event Horizon" in 1997, in which he played a crew member ultimately killed by the protagonist-turned-antagonist acted by Sam Neill. Subsequently, he appeared in the Bruce Willis blockbuster "Armageddon" (1998). Initially called upon to take a fairly substantial role, Isaacs was eventually cast in a much smaller capacity as a planet-saving scientist so that he could accommodate his commitment to "Divorcing Jack" (1998), a comedy thriller he was making with David Thewlis. After portraying a priest opposite Julianne Moore and Ralph Fiennes in Neil Jordan's acclaimed adaptation of Graham Greene's "The End of the Affair" (1999), Isaacs played the charismatic honourable priest opposite Kirsty Alley in the mini series "The Last Don". He then shone as "memorable" villain, Colonel William Tavington, in Roland Emmerich's Revolutionary War fictional film epic "The Patriot" (2000). Starring opposite Mel Gibson as the film's hero, and Heath Ledger as Gibson's screen son, Isaacs portrays a sadistic British army officer who kills Ledger's character, among many other soldiers. Although his work in the film earned him comparisons to Ralph Fiennes' portrayal of Nazi Amon Göth in "Schindler's List" (1993) and mention of a Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination, reaching beyond being typecast as an historical villain, Isaacs chose to play a drag queen in his next project, "Sweet November" (2001), a romantic comedy-drama starring Charlize Theron and Keanu Reeves. Isaacs has appeared in many other films, most notably as Lucius Malfoy in the "Harry Potter" series of films (2002–2011). Regarding the Harry Potter books by J.K. Rowling, Isaacs has said: "I went off and read the books after the audition and I read the first four books in one sitting – you know – didn't wash, didn't eat, drove around with them on the steering wheel like a lunatic. I suddenly understood why my friends, who I'd thought were slightly backward, had been so addicted to these children's books. They're like crack." In "The Naked and the Dead", an article published in the "San Francisco Chronicle", on 26 November 2006, Neva Chonin names the character Lucius Malfoy one of the 12 "Sexiest Men Who Were Never Alive" and Isaacs one of the 13 "Sexiest Men Who Are Real and Alive". Prior to the making of the film, when asked whether or not he would be in "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix" (2007), Isaacs replied, "I hope so – you'll have to ask David (producer David Heyman). I can't bear the idea that somebody else would get to wear my Paris Hilton wig, but you never know." Isaacs also talked to J.K. Rowling on the inclusion of Lucius Malfoy in the then unpublished "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows", so that he would have a part in the seventh and final film: "The character does not appear in the sixth book, "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince"; but ... joked, 'I fell to my knees and begged ... It didn't do any good. I'm sure she doesn't need plot ideas from me. But I made my point. We'll see. Like everybody else, I'm holding my breath to July to see what's in there. I just want to bust out of prison, that's all. I don't want to stay in Azkaban most of my life.' " Ultimately Isaacs did reprise the role of Malfoy as a cameo appearance in "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" (2009), where he is seen in a moving portrait. Afterwards, Isaacs reprised the role again in "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 1" (2010) and "Part 2" (2011). He has appeared in "Dragonheart" (1996), "Event Horizon" (1997), "Black Hawk Down" (2001), Jackie Chan's "The Tuxedo" (2002), and as George Darling and Captain Hook in P.J. Hogan's adaptation of "Peter Pan" (2003), and as the voice of Admiral Zhao in the animated Nickelodeon series "" (2005). Isaacs played the leading role of Sir Mark Brydon, the British Ambassador to the US in the BBC Four miniseries "The State Within" (2006), for which he was nominated for the Best Performance by an Actor in a Mini-Series or a Motion Picture Made for Television for the 65th Golden Globe Awards. On British television, he also portrayed actor Harry H. Corbett in "The Curse of Steptoe", part of "a season of new one-off dramas for BBC Four revealing the stories behind some of Britain's best loved television entertainers, and their achievements," first broadcast in March 2008. On American television, Isaacs appeared in three episodes of "The West Wing" in 2004, prior to developing his most notable TV serial role, as Michael Caffee in "Brotherhood" (2006–08). Between 2 February and 24 March 2007, Isaacs played Ben, opposite Lee Evans (Gus), in the critically acclaimed 50th-anniversary production of Harold Pinter's "The Dumb Waiter", at Trafalgar Studios, in London, his first theatre performance since appearing in "The Force of Change" (2000). He posed for photographs after his performance on 3 March 2007. Isaacs played Major Briggs, an American military officer, opposite Matt Damon and Greg Kinnear, in Paul Greengrass's thriller "Green Zone" (2010), a fictionalised drama set in Iraq after the defeat of Saddam Hussein based on the book "Imperial Life in the Emerald City: Inside Baghdad's Green Zone" (2006), by Rajiv Chandrasekaran, for which production began in Morocco, in January 2008. In 2007, he was cast in Jan de Bont's then-still-upcoming film "Stopping Power", to play its star John Cusack's "nemesis", but, on 31 August 2007, "Variety" reported that the film, also planned for release in 2009, had been cancelled after a financial backer pulled out. Isaacs appeared in one episode of the TV show "Entourage" in the autumn of 2008 as Fredrick Line. In 2009, he was nominated at the British Academy Television Awards for Best Actor for his role as Harry H. Corbett in "The Curse of Steptoe". On the evening of 2 May 2009, Isaacs performed the role of Ben again, opposite his "Brotherhood" co-star (and Tony Award winner) Brian F. O'Byrne (as Gus), in a "rehearsed reading" of "The Dumb Waiter". Their reading capped off the Harold Pinter Memorial Celebration being curated by Harry Burton (who had directed him and Evans at Trafalgar Studios). This Tribute to Harold Pinter co-sponsored by the Martin E. Segal Theatre Center (MESTC), of The Graduate Center of The City University of New York (CUNY), was part of the Fifth Annual PEN World Voices Festival of International Literature, held in New York City, from 27 April to 3 May 2009. He provided the voice of Ra's al Ghul in the 2010 DC animated film, ' and also the voice of Sinestro in the 2011 DC animated film '"." Isaacs starred as Detective Michael Britten in the NBC series "Awake", which premiered on 1 March 2012, and ended in May 2012. After Britten gets into a terrible car wreck with his family, his dreams begin to take on two alternate realities, one in which his wife died in the crash and one in which his son died. Says Isaacs about the ambitious premise: “There’s no question it's challenging. We’ve got a bunch of very experienced writers who have written things from HBO shows to "The X-Files", to "24" and everything in between. And they are challenged. All of them have said that it’s the hardest job that they’ve ever had. But sometimes that’s a good thing. … If it comes easily, that they could write in their sleep, I personally wouldn’t want to act – and I think the audience wouldn’t want to watch.” Personal life. Isaacs and his wife, BBC documentary filmmaker Emma Hewitt, whom he began dating at the Central School, have been married since 1988 and have two daughters: Lily and Ruby. Despite Isaacs' screen celebrity as Lucius Malfoy, he maintains a relatively modest, "calm, sedate and suburban" life, which he prefers to the "hideously compromised lives" of the more rich and famous: "I imagine like most of us that I'd like obscene amounts of money but the people I met and worked with who have those obscene amounts of money and have obscene amounts of fame have awful lives. Really. I mean hideously compromised lives..." Described as an "invisible star" who can still travel by the London Underground to film premières unrecognised, he has observed: "They just think, who's that t*** in black tie? As soon as I get on the red carpet they start screaming and screaming. ... It's laughable because when it's all over I go home on the Tube as well." "I can go anywhere. No one knows who I am. I can go on the tube and bus and wander through the streets." As a non-religious Jew, Isaacs has semi-jokingly called himself a "Jewish man who does almost nothing Jewish in his life". Isaacs is a firm, though not uncritical supporter of the Labour Party declaring, in April 2009: "I am huge New Labour supporter. They've done amazing things in terms of real money put into education, health service and childcare. But they've also, on this watch, done away with the right to silence, and been party to an invasion of a country based on false pretexts. They, and most of the West, have done away with the Geneva Convention... all these things have happened on my watch, but I've done absolutely nothing about it other than try to sound righteous." Selected work. Television. Some of the information in this table was obtained from
1165636	Joyce Benignia Van Patten (born March 9, 1934) is an American stage, film and television actress, best known for the wry, astringent and neurotic characters she portrays. Personal life. Van Patten was born in New York City to Josephine Rose (née Acerno), a magazine advertising executive, and Richard Byron Van Patten, an interior decorator. Her mother was of Italian descent, while her father was of Dutch and English ancestry.
1059715	Terry Alan Crews (born July 30, 1968) is an American actor and former NFL player. He is perhaps best known for playing Julius on the UPN/CW sitcom "Everybody Hates Chris" and for his appearances in Old Spice commercials, "Arrested Development", "The Newsroom" and for his roles in films like "Friday After Next", "White Chicks", "Bridesmaids", "Idiocracy", "Gamer", and "The Expendables". He has starred as Nick Kingston-Persons in the TBS sitcom "Are We There Yet?" and as himself in the BET reality series "The Family Crews". Currently he plays NYPD Sergeant Terry Jeffords on the Fox sitcom "Brooklyn Nine-Nine". He is widely known for playing large, muscled characters. Early life and education. Crews was born in Flint, Michigan on July 30, 1968, the son of Patricia and Terry Crews, Sr. Crews grew up in a rather strict Christian household where the rearing of the children was mainly held down by his mother. After earning his high school diploma from Flint Southwestern Academy, he received a Chrysler-sponsored art scholarship at the prestigious Interlochen Center for the Arts in Northern Michigan. This achievement was soon followed by an equally impressive Art Excellence scholarship and a full-ride athletic scholarship for football at Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo, MI. As a defensive end for the WMU Broncos, Crews earned All-Conference honors and helped his team win the Mid-American Conference Championship in 1988. Crews was drafted by the Los Angeles Rams of the NFL in the 11th round of the 1991 NFL Draft. He carved out a career spanning seven years, including stints with the Rams, San Diego Chargers, the Washington Redskins and the Philadelphia Eagles. Career. After retiring from the NFL in 1997, Crews pursued an acting career and got a role as T-Money on "Battle Dome" (modeled after "American Gladiators"). Crews played the beefcake "he-man" in films such as "White Chicks". He played Damon Pearly in "Friday After Next", starring Ice Cube and Mike Epps. He has also done commercials with Nike. He last starred in the sitcom "Everybody Hates Chris" as Julius Rock, and his more modern movie appearances were alongside Adam Sandler in "The Longest Yard," "Click", and "The Benchwarmers" (as well as the long-delayed Mike Judge film "Idiocracy," where Crews played President Dwayne Elizondo Mountain Dew Herbert Camacho). Crews has made many cameo appearances. He was in Blink-182's music video of "Down" as a police officer, in Jamie Kennedy's "Rollin' with Saget" as the security guard, and in films such as "Training Day" and "Soul Plane." Crews usually portrays buff-looking characters with a humorous softer side. But more recently, he has been able to alternate with more serious projects such as his recent appearances in "Harsh Times", "Street Kings", and "The Expendables". He has been featured in several Old Spice TV commercials for their "Odor Blocker Body Wash", their body sprays, and most recently, their shaving lotion. The ads are directed by Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim. In the sitcom "Are We There Yet?", Crews had a lead role as Nick Kingston-Persons. In the series' first trailer, Ice Cube said that Crews is the perfect person to replace him as Nick, and that his physical comedy is undeniable. The series was picked up for 90 new episodes (approx six seasons) by August 2010, while Crews enjoyed box office success in three movies in August 2010 ("Middle Men", "The Expendables", "Lottery Ticket"). He also stars in his own reality series on BET entitled "The Family Crews" which is about his everyday life with his family. The show premiered on February 21, 2010. In 2012 it was announced that he would be joining the cast of the Aaron Sorkin-helmed drama "The Newsroom". He will be portraying the bodyguard and life coach of Will McAvoy, the show's protagonist. There was a reference to his football past during his first appearance in the series, but it should however be noted that the football past of his character, "Lonny Church", is completely different from his real-life one (his character was a Defensive Tackle who played for the Clemson Tigers in college before being drafted to the Cincinnati Bengals in the eighth round of the NFL Draft and who then got cut five weeks into the training camp, while Crews played a Linebacker in defense for the Western Michigan Broncos in college before being drafted in the eleventh round by the Los Angeles Rams and then played in the league for four seasons). Terry is currently a contestant in a NBC celebrity reality competition series called "Stars Earn Stripes". In July 2013, it was revealed that Crews is to play a real life version of the cartoon character used as the mascot for the group Major Lazer, appearing in the video for their track, "Scare Me". Personal life. Crews has four daughters, Azriel, Tera, Wynfrey, Naomi Burton, and one son, Isaiah, one grandchild (with one being a stepdaughter from his wife's previous relationship) with his wife of 22 years, Rebecca King-Crews, a former beauty queen and gospel recording artist.
1182025	Jello Biafra (born Eric Reed Boucher; June 17, 1958) is the former lead singer and songwriter for San Francisco punk rock band Dead Kennedys, and is currently a musician and spoken word artist. After he left the Dead Kennedys, he took over the influential independent record label Alternative Tentacles, which he had co-founded in 1979 with Dead Kennedys bandmate East Bay Ray. Although now focused primarily on spoken word, he has continued as a musician in numerous collaborations. Politically, Biafra is a member of the Green Party of the United States and actively supports various political causes. He ran for the party's Presidential nomination in 2000, finishing second to Ralph Nader. He is a staunch believer in a free society, who utilizes shock value and advocates direct action and pranksterism in the name of political causes. Biafra is known to use absurdist media tactics, in the leftist tradition of the Yippies, to highlight issues of civil rights and social justice. Early life. Eric Boucher was born in Boulder, Colorado, to parents Stanley Boucher, a psychiatric social worker and poet, and Virginia Boucher, a librarian. He also had a sister, Julie J. Boucher, the Associate Director of the Library Research Service at the Colorado State Library (who died in a mountain-climbing accident on October 12, 1996). As a child, Eric Boucher developed an interest in international politics that was encouraged by his parents. An avid news watcher, one of his earliest memories was of the John F. Kennedy assassination. Biafra says he has been a fan of rock music since first hearing it in 1965, when his parents accidentally tuned into a rock radio station. He began his career in music in January 1977 as a roadie for the punk rock band The Ravers (who later changed their name to The Nails), soon joining his friend John Greenway in a band called The Healers. The Healers became infamous locally for their mainly improvised lyrics and avant garde music. In the autumn of that year, he began attending the University of California, Santa Cruz. Musical career. The Dead Kennedys. In June 1978, he responded to an advertisement placed in a store by guitarist East Bay Ray, stating "Guitarist wants to form punk band", and together they formed the Dead Kennedys. He began performing with the band under the stage name Occupant, but soon began to use his current stage name, a combination of the brand name Jell-O and the short-lived African state Biafra. Biafra wrote the band's lyrics, most of which were political in nature and displayed a sardonic, sometimes absurdist, sense of humor despite their serious subject matter. In the tradition of UK anarcho-punk bands like Crass, the Dead Kennedys were one of the first US punk bands to write politically themed songs. The lyrics Biafra wrote helped popularize the use of humorous lyrics in hardcore. Biafra cites Joey Ramone as the inspiration for his use of humor in his songs (as well as being the musician who made him interested in punk rock), noting in particular songs by The Ramones such as "Beat on the Brat" and "Now I Wanna Sniff Some Glue". Biafra initially attempted to compose music on guitar, but his lack of experience on the instrument and his own admission of being "a fumbler with my hands" led Dead Kennedys bassist Klaus Flouride to suggest that Biafra simply sing the parts he envisioned to the band. Biafra sang his riffs and melodies into a tape recorder, which he brought to the band's rehearsal and/or recording sessions. This later became a problem when the other members of the Dead Kennedys sued Biafra over royalties and publishing rights. By all accounts, including his own, Biafra is not a conventionally skilled musician, and his work, particularly with the Dead Kennedys, is highly respected by punk-oriented critics and fans. Biafra's first popular song was the first single by the Dead Kennedys, "California Über Alles". The song, which spoofed California governor Jerry Brown, was the first of many political songs by the group and Biafra. The song's popularity resulted in its being covered by other musicians, such as The Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy (who rewrote the lyrics to parody Pete Wilson), John Linnell of They Might Be Giants and Six Feet Under on their Graveyard Classics album of cover versions. Not long after, the Dead Kennedys had a second and bigger hit with "Holiday in Cambodia" from their debut album "Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables". "Allmusic" cites this song as "possibly the most successful single of the American hardcore scene" and Biafra counts it as his personal favorite Dead Kennedy's songs. Minor hits from the album included "Kill the Poor" (about potential abuse of the then-new neutron bomb) and a satirical cover of Elvis Presley's "Viva Las Vegas". The Dead Kennedys received some controversy in the spring of 1981 over the single "Too Drunk to Fuck". The song became a big hit in Britain, and the BBC feared that it would manage to be a big enough hit to appear among the top 30 songs on the national charts, requiring a mention on "Top of the Pops". However, the single peaked at number 31 in the charts. Later albums also contained memorable songs, but with less popularity than the earlier ones. The EP "In God We Trust, Inc." contained the song "Nazi Punks Fuck Off!" as well as "We've Got A Bigger Problem Now", a rewritten version of "California Über Alles" about Ronald Reagan. Punk musician and scholar Vic Bondi considers the latter song to be the song that "defined the lyrical agenda of much of hardcore music, and represented its break with punk". The band's most controversial album, "Frankenchrist", brought with it the song "MTV Get Off the Air", which accused MTV of promoting poor quality music and sedating the public. The album also contained a controversial poster by Swiss surrealist artist H. R. Giger entitled "Penis Landscape". The Dead Kennedys toured widely during their career, starting in the late 1970s. They began playing at San Francisco's Mabuhay Gardens (their home base) and other Bay Area venues, later branching out to shows in southern Californian clubs (most notably the Whisky a Go Go), but eventually they moved to major clubs across the country, including CBGB in New York. Later, they played to larger audiences such as at the 1980 Bay Area Music Awards (where they played the notorious "Pull My Strings" for the only time), and headlined the 1983 Rock Against Reagan festival. On May 7, 1994, Punk Rock fans who believed Biafra was a "sell out" attacked him at the 924 Gilman Street club in Berkeley, California. Biafra claims that he was attacked by a man nicknamed Cretin, who crashed into him while moshing. The crash injured Biafra's leg, causing an argument between the two men. During the argument, Cretin pushed Biafra to the floor and five or six friends of Cretin assaulted Biafra while he was down, yelling "Sellout rock star, kick him", and attempting to pull out his hair. Biafra was later hospitalized with serious injuries. The attack derailed Biafra's plans for both a Canadian spoken-word tour and an accompanying album, and the production of "Pure Chewing Satisfaction" was halted. However, Biafra returned to the Gilman club a few months after the incident to perform a spoken-word performance as an act of reconciliation with the club. Biafra has been a prominent figure of the Californian punk scene and was one of the third generation members of the San Francisco punk community. Many later hardcore bands have cited the Dead Kennedys as a major influence. Hardcore punk author Steven Blush describes Biafra as hardcore's "biggest star" who was a "powerful presence whose political insurgence and rabid fandom made him the father figure of a burgeoning subculture an inspirational force could also be a real prick... Biafra was a visionary, incendiary [performer." After the Dead Kennedys disbanded, Biafra's new songs were recorded with other bands, and he released only spoken word albums as solo projects. These collaborations had less popularity than Biafra's earlier work. However, his song "That's Progress", originally recorded with D.O.A. for the album "Last Scream of the Missing Neighbors", received considerable exposure when it appeared on the album "Rock Against Bush, Vol. 1". Obscenity prosecution. In April 1986, police officers raided his house in response to complaints by the Parents Music Resource Center (PMRC). In June 1986, L.A. deputy city attorney Michael Guarino, working under City Attorney James Hahn, brought Biafra to trial in Los Angeles for distributing "harmful material to minors" in the Dead Kennedys album "Frankenchrist". In actuality, the dispute was about neither the music nor the lyrics from the album, but rather the print of the H. R. Giger poster "Landscape XX" ("Penis Landscape") included with the album. Biafra believes the trial was politically motivated; it was often reported that the PMRC took Biafra to court as a cost-effective way of sending a message out to other musicians with content considered offensive in their music. Music author Reebee Garofalo argued that Biafra and Alternative Tentacles may have been targeted because the label was a "small, self-managed and self-supported company that could ill afford a protracted legal battle." Facing the possible sentence of a year in jail and a $2000 fine, Biafra, Dirk Dirksen, and Suzanne Stefanac founded the No More Censorship Defense Fund, a benefit made up of several punk rock bands, to help pay for his legal fees, which neither he nor his record label could afford. The jury deadlocked 5 to 7 in favor of acquittal, prompting a mistrial; despite a motion to re-try the case, the judge ordered all charges dropped. The Dead Kennedys disbanded during the trial, in December 1986, due to the mounting legal costs; in the wake of their disbandment, Biafra made a career of his spoken word performances. His early spoken word albums focused heavily on the trial (especially in "High Priest of Harmful Matter"), which made him renowned for his anti-censorship stance. Biafra has a cameo role in the 1988 film "Tapeheads". He plays an FBI agent who arrests the two protagonists (played by Tim Robbins and John Cusack). Whilst arresting them his character asks "Remember what we did to Jello Biafra?" lampooning the obscenity prosecution. On March 25, 2005, Biafra appeared on the U.S. radio program "This American Life", "Episode 285: Know Your Enemy", which featured a phone call between Jello Biafra and Michael Guarino, the prosecutor in the "Frankenchrist" trial. The episode was about Guarino's change of opinion and the reconciliation between Guarino and Biafra. Lawsuit by former band members and reunion activities. In October 1998, former members of the Dead Kennedys sued Biafra for nonpayment of royalties. According to Biafra, the suit resulted from his refusal to allow one of the band's most well known singles, "Holiday in Cambodia", to be used in a commercial for Levi's Dockers; Biafra opposes Levi's because he believes that they use unfair business practices and sweatshop labor. The three former members claimed that their motive had nothing to do with advertising, and that they had filed suit because Biafra had denied them royalties and failed to promote their albums. Biafra maintained that he had never denied them royalties, and that he himself had not even received royalties for rereleases of their albums or "posthumous" live albums which had been licensed to other labels by the Decay Music partnership. Decay Music denied this charge and have posted what they say are his cashed royalty checks. Biafra also complained about the songwriting credits in new reissues and archival live albums of songs that Biafra claims he composed himself to the entire band. In May 2000, a jury found Biafra liable for fraud and malice and ordered him to pay $200,000, including $20,000 in punitive damages, to the band members. After an appeal by Biafra’s lawyers, in June 2003, the California Court of Appeal unanimously upheld all the conditions of the 2000 verdict against Biafra and Alternative Tentacles. The other band members reunited in 2001 without Biafra under the name of "DK Kennedys" (later returning to the original band name), replacing Biafra first with Brandon Cruz, then with Jeff Penalty, and finally with Ron "Skip" Greer. Biafra himself has openly criticized his former bandmates' legal tactics and reunion tours, most notably in the song "Those Dumb Punk Kids (Will Buy Anything)", which he performed with The Melvins. Other bands. In 1988, Biafra, with Al Jourgensen and Paul Barker of the band Ministry, and Jeff Ward, formed Lard. The band became yet another side project for Ministry, with Biafra providing vocals and lyrics. According to a March 2009 interview with Jourgensen, he and Biafra are working on a new Lard album, which is being recorded in Jourgensen's El Paso studio. While working on the film "Terminal City Ricochet" in 1989, Biafra did a song for the film's soundtrack with D.O.A.. As a result, Biafra worked with D.O.A. on the album "Last Scream of the Missing Neighbors". Biafra also worked with Nomeansno on the soundtrack, which led to their collaboration on the album "The Sky Is Falling and I Want My Mommy" the following year. Biafra also provided lyrics for the song "Biotech is Godzilla" for Sepultura's 1993 album "Chaos A.D.". In 1999, Biafra and other members of the anti-globalization movement protested the WTO Meeting of 1999 in Seattle. Along with other prominent West Coast musicians, he formed the short-lived band the No WTO Combo to help promote the movement's cause. The band was originally scheduled to play during the protest, but the performance was canceled due to riots. The band performed a short set the following night at the Showbox in downtown Seattle (outside the designated area), along with the hiphop group Spearhead. No WTO Combo later released a CD of recordings from the concert, entitled "Live from the Battle in Seattle". As of late 2005, Biafra was performing with the band The Melvins under the name "Jello Biafra and the Melvins", though fans sometimes refer to them as "The Jelvins." Together they have released two albums, and have been working on material for a third collaborative release, much of which was premiered live at two concerts at the Great American Music Hall in San Francisco during an event called Biafra Five-O, commemorating Biafra's 50th birthday, the 30th anniversary of the founding of the Dead Kennedys, and the beginning of legalized same-sex marriage in California. Biafra is also working with a new band known as Jello Biafra and the Guantanamo School of Medicine, which includes Ralph Spight of Victims Family on guitar and Billy Gould of Faith No More on bass. This group debuted during Biafra Five-O. In 2011, Biafra appeared in a singular concert event with an all-star cast of Southern musicians including members from Cowboy Mouth, Dash Rip Rock, Mojo Nixon and Down entitled, "Jello Biafra and the New Orleans Raunch & Soul All Stars" who performed an array of classic Soul covers to a packed house at the 12-Bar in New Orleans, Louisiana. Alternative Tentacles. In June 1979, Biafra co-founded the record label Alternative Tentacles, with which the Dead Kennedys released their first single, "California Über Alles". The label was created to allow the band to release albums without having to deal with pressure from major labels to change their music (although the major labels were not willing to sign the band due to their songs being deemed too controversial). After dealing with Cherry Red in the UK and IRS Records in the US for their first album "Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables", the band released all later albums (and later pressings of "Fresh Fruit") on Alternative Tentacles (with the exception of live albums released after the band's break-up, which the other band members compiled from recordings in the band partnership's vaults without Biafra's input or endorsement). Biafra has been the owner of the company ever since its founding, though he does not receive a salary for his position (Biafra has referred to his position in the company as "absentee thoughtlord"). Biafra is an ardent collector of unusual vinyl records of all kinds, from 1950s and 1960s ethno-pop recordings by the likes of Les Baxter and Esquivel to vanity pressings that have circulated regionally, to German crooner Heino; he cites his always growing collection as one of his biggest musical influences. In 1993 he gave an interview to RE/Search Publications for their second "Incredibly Strange Music" book focusing primarily on these records. His heavy interest in such recordings (often categorized as outsider music) eventually led to his discovery of the prolific (and schizophrenic) singer/songwriter/artist Wesley Willis, whom he signed to Alternative Tentacles in 1994, preceding Willis' major label deal with American Recordings. His collection grew so large that on October 1, 2005, Biafra donated a portion of his collection to an annual yard sale co-promoted by Alternative Tentacles and held at their warehouse in Emeryville, California. In 2006, along with Alternative Tentacles employee and The Frisk lead singer Jesse Luscious, Biafra began co-hosting "The Alternative Tentacles Batcast", a downloadable podcast hosted by alternativetentacles.com. The show primarily focuses on interviews with artists and bands that are currently signed to the Alternative Tentacles label, although there are also occasional episodes where Biafra devoted the show to answering fan questions. Spoken word. Biafra first became a spoken word artist in January 1986, starting with a performance at University of California, Los Angeles. In his performance he combined humor with his political beliefs, much in the same way that he did with the lyrics to his songs. Despite his continued spoken word performances, he did not begin recording spoken word albums until after the disbanding of the Dead Kennedys. His ninth spoken word album, "In the Grip of Official Treason", was released in October 2006. Biafra was also featured in the British band Pitchshifter's song As Seen on TV reciting the words of dystopian futuristic radio advertisements. Politics. In a 2012 interview, Biafra said "I'm very pro-tax as long as it goes for the right things. I don’t mind paying more money as long as it’s going to provide shelter for people sleeping in the street or getting the schools getting fixed back up, getting the infrastructure up to the standards of other countries, including a high speed rail system. I’m totally down with that." Mayoral campaign. In the autumn of 1979, Biafra ran for mayor of San Francisco, using the Jell-O ad campaign catchphrase, "There's always room for Jello", as his campaign slogan. Having entered the race before creating a campaign platform, Biafra later wrote his platform on a napkin while attending a Pere Ubu concert where Dead Kennedys drummer Ted told Biafra, "Biafra, you have such a big mouth that you should run for Mayor." As he campaigned, Biafra wore campaign T-shirts from his opponent Quentin Kopp's previous campaign and at one point vacuumed leaves off the front lawn of another opponent, current U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein, to mock her publicity stunt of sweeping streets in downtown San Francisco for a few hours. He also made a whistlestop campaign tour along the BART line. Supporters committed equally odd actions; two well known signs held by supporters said "If he doesn't win I'll kill myself" and "What if he does win?" In San Francisco any individual could legally run for mayor if a petition was signed by 1500 people or if $1500 was paid. Biafra paid $900 and got signatures over time and eventually became a legal candidate, meaning he received statements put in voters' pamphlets and equal news coverage. His platform included unconventional points such as forcing businessmen to wear clown suits within city limits, erecting statues of Dan White (who assassinated Mayor George Moscone and City Supervisor Harvey Milk in 1978) all over town and allowing the parks department to sell eggs and tomatoes with which people could pelt them, hiring out of job workers, due to a tax initiative, to become pan handlers in wealthy neighborhoods (one being where Diannne Feinstein lives), and a citywide ban on cars (although the latter point was not considered completely outlandish by many voters at the time, as the city was suffering from serious pollution). Biafra has expressed irritation that these parts of his platform attained such notoriety, preferring instead to be remembered for serious proposals such as legalizing squatting in vacant, tax-delinquent buildings and requiring police officers to keep their jobs by running for election voted by the people of the neighborhoods they patrol. He finished fourth out of a field of ten, receiving 3.79% of the vote (6,591 votes); the election ended in a runoff that did not involve him (Feinstein was declared the winner). Presidential campaign. In 2000, the New York State Green Party drafted Biafra as a candidate for the Green Party presidential nomination, and a few supporters were elected to the party's nominating convention in Denver, Colorado. Biafra chose death row inmate Mumia Abu-Jamal as his running mate. The party overwhelmingly chose Ralph Nader as the presidential candidate with 295 of the 319 delegate votes. Biafra received 10 votes. Biafra, along with a camera crew (dubbed by Biafra as "The Camcorder Truth Jihad"), later reported for the Independent Media Center at the Republican and Democratic conventions. Post-2000. After losing the 2000 nomination, Jello became highly active in Ralph Nader's presidential campaign, as well as in 2004 and 2008. During the 2008 campaign Jello played at rallies and answered questions for journalists in support of Ralph Nader. When gay rights activists accused Nader of costing Al Gore the 2000 election, Biafra reminded them that Tipper Gore's Parents Music Resource Center wanted warning stickers on albums with homosexual content. After Barack Obama won the general election, Jello wrote an open letter making suggestions on how to run his term as president. Biafra criticized Obama during his term, stating that "Obama even won the award for best advertising campaign of 2008." Biafra dubbed Obama "Barackstar O'Bummer". Biafra refused to support Obama in 2012. Biafra has stated that he feels that Obama continued many of George W. Bush's policies, summarizing Obama's policies as containing "worse and worse laws against human rights and more and more illegal unconstitutional spying." Boycott of Israel. In the summer of 2011 Jello Biafra and his band were scheduled to play at the Barby Club in Tel Aviv. They came under heavy pressure by the pro-Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign, and finally decided to cancel the gig – after a debate which according to Biafra "deeply tore at the fabric of our band [. . .] This whole controversy has been one of the most intense situations of my life - and I thrive on intense situations". Biafra then decided to travel to Israel and the Palestinian Occupied Territories, at his own expense, and talk with Israeli and Palestinian activists as well as with fans disappointed at his cancellation. In the article stating his conclusions he wrote: "I will not perform in Israel unless it is a pro-human rights, anti-occupation event, that does not violate the spirit of the boycott. Each musician, artist, etc. must decide this for themselves. I am staying away for now, but am also really creeped out by the attitudes of some of the hardliners and hope some day to find a way to contribute something positive here. I will not march or sign on with anyone who runs around calling people Zionazis and is more interested in making threats than making friends." Personal life. Biafra married Therese Soder, aka Ninotchka, lead singer of San Francisco-area punk band The Situations on October 31, 1981. The wedding was conducted by Flipper vocalist/bassist Bruce Loose, who became a Universal Life Church minister just to conduct the ceremony, which took place in a graveyard. The wedding reception, which members of Flipper, Black Flag, and D.O.A. attended, was held at director Joe Rees' Target Video studios. The marriage ended in 1986. Partial discography. "For a more complete list, see the Jello Biafra discography."
1163491	Lew Ayres (born Lewis Frederick Ayres III; December 28, 1908 – December 30, 1996) was an American actor, best known for starring as Paul in "All Quiet on the Western Front" and for playing Dr. Kildare in nine movies. Early life. Ayres was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota to Irma and Louis Ayres, who divorced when he was four. Louis, an amateur musician and court reporter, remarried soon after. As a teen, Lew and his mother moved with his step-father and half brother and sister to San Diego, California. Career as Musician. Leaving high school before graduating, he started a small band which traveled to Mexico. He returned months later to pursue an acting career, but continued working full-time as a musician. He played banjo and guitar for big bands, including the Henry Halstead Orchestra. He recorded one of the earliest Vitaphone movie shorts called "Carnival Night in Paris" (Warner Brothers, 1927). Ayres wrote, "I was a member of Henry Halstead's orchestra in 1927 at the Mission Beach Ballroom in San Diego, California for the summer. My instruments were tenor banjo, long-neck banjo and guitar. After a hiatus, I rejoined Mr. Halstead with a new group, including Phil Harris, on New Year's Eve the same year for the opening night of the Beverly Wilshire Hotel, a memorable occasion." He left a national tour to pursue a career as an actor full-time. Acting. Ayres was discovered at a night club by talent agent Ivan Kahn. In 1929 he was cast to play opposite Greta Garbo in 1929's "The Kiss," but it was his leading role in 1930's "All Quiet on the Western Front" which made him a star and secured him a contract with Universal. He made a number of mostly forgotten B movies for Universal, with the exception of "Iron Man" (with Jean Harlow). His most successful movies at this time were those he made on loan to other studios, including "Doorway to Hell" (with James Cagney in a supporting role), and as Janet Gaynor's leading man in both "State Fair" and "Servants' Entrance", which featured a combination of live action and Walt Disney animation in a musical dream sequence, both for Fox Films.
587471	Anandhapurathu Veedu is a 2010 Indian Tamil supernatural mystery film directed by Tamil television director Naga, who has directed serials like "Marmadesam", "Vidathu Karuppu" and "Chidambara Rahasiyam". This film, Naga's feature film debut, stars Nandha and Chaya Singh in lead roles along with child artist Aryan, making his debut. Written by Naga, Sharath Haridasan and Indra Soundar Rajan and produced by director S. Shankar's S Pictures, "Anandhapurathu Veedu" was released on 9 July 2010. The film was commercial success at the box office. Plot. 15 years after an accident in which Bala's parents both died, Bala returns with wife, Revathi, and son, Anand, to his hometown. They decide to stay a couple of nights in the massive house that he grew up in. As he spends a few days in the house and recalls his memories, Anand- who has a disability to speak- sees movement around the house. But he cannot tell anyone what he witnesses. Soon Revathi who suffers from claustrophobia, sees that the house is haunted and so tells Bala that they have to go back to Chennai. Anand enjoys being in the presence of the ghosts and doesn't find any problem. Problems come up between the couple that they had never thought of when they had love marriage. Soon Revathi discovers that they did not come on holiday but in fact, came to escape some rowdies that Bala owes money to. This is when Bala's classmate and business partner, Jeeva, arrives to stay with them. His company had borrowed 40 lakhs from a rowdy and over the months it had increased to 50 lakhs but he is unable to pay back any money as his agent, who was supposed to give him 2 crores, runs away and is nowhere to be found. With the help of ghosts, Bala and his family find a way to escape from being kept under house arrest.
584202	Venkat Kumar Gangai Amaren (born on 7 November 1975), better known by his stage name Venkat Prabhu is an Indian filmmaker, who has worked as an actor, director and playback singer in the Tamil film industry. After completing his education, he began pursuing an acting career, with his first three ventures, featuring him in a starring role, failing to release, following which he began appearing in character roles. He hogged spotlight for the first time when he turned director with the summer hit "Chennai 600028" (2007). He achieved further commercial successes with his subsequent directorials "Saroja" (2008) and "Mankatha" (2011). Career. Early years. Venkat Prabhu lived in UK, United Kingdom for seven years; during that time, he completed his high school and university studies, obtaining a degree in Accounting. After pursuing his music degree from Trinity College of Music, London, he had the ambition to become a successful music director. Following his return to India, Prabhu began singing for demo works of his cousins, Yuvan Shankar Raja and Karthik Raja, and started his career as a playback singer in the film industry. In 1996, he, his brother Premgi Amaren and his childhood friend S. P. B. Charan set up a music band called Next Generation, which also featured Yugendran and Thaman as members, and did several stage performances. The following year, Prabhu played the lead role opposite Sangeetha in a film titled "Poonjolai" directed by his father Gangai Amaren, but the film was cancelled in the midst and attempts to revive and release the film by the late-2000s were unsuccessful. Prabhu starred in two more ventures, alongside his friends S. P. B. Charan and Yugendran, "Wanted", directed by Premgi Amaren, and Agathiyan's "Kadhal Samrajyam", both failing to release as well. Venkat Prabhu was then approached to essay supporting roles, with "April Maadhathil" (2002), becoming his first release. He went on to play character roles in nearly ten films, the most notable ventures being N. Linguswamy's "Ji", starring Ajith Kumar, and the Perarasu-directorial "Sivakasi", featuring Vijay in the lead role. He also played lead roles in Samuthirakani's directorial debut "Unnai Charanadaindhen" and "Gnabagam Varuthey" (2007), both co-starring Charan. "Chennai 600028" and the future. In 2007, Venkat Prabhu ventured into film directing with the sports comedy film "Chennai 600028", produced by S. P. B. Charan that revolved around a street cricket team from a suburban area in Chennai, with its players being portrayed by 11 newcomers, including his brother Premgi. The film emerged a sleeper hit, garnering high critical acclaim and becoming labelled a "cult classic" in the following years, which led to the lead cast growing in popularity. He next directed the comedy thriller film "Saroja" (2008), the title being derived from a hit number from "Chennai 600028", which also featured an ensemble cast including Charan and Premgi. The film followed the journey of four young men who, by taking a diversion off the main road, land into the hands of a kidnapper gang; it received positive response from critics and at the box office as well. He followed it up with "Goa" (2010), a full-length comedy film, which received mixed response and fairly well at the box-office. In 2011, he directed his biggest project to date, the action thriller "Mankatha", featuring Ajith Kumar in the lead role went on to become one of the highest grossing Tamil movies of all time. His current project is "Biriyani" (2013) with Karthi and Hansika Motwani in the lead roles. Personal life. Venkat Prabhu is the son of director-cum-music-director Gangai Amaran and older brother to actor, singer and music director Premji Amaran. His uncle is the music director Ilayaraaja and his cousins are the music composers Yuvan Shankar Raja, Karthik Raja and singer Bhavatharini. S. P. B. Charan, producer of Prabhu's first directorial venture "Chennai 600028", is his very close friend and they both have worked together on several projects. He did his schooling at annur higher school in Chennai. On 10 September 2001, Venkat Prabhu married Rajalakshmi, the foster daughter of dance teacher K. J. Sarasa, and has a daughter named Shivani. Shivani has already sung a song for the album "Thaaaii" when she was 5 years old. Recurring collaborators. Venkat Prabhu often casts certain actors more than once in his films. His younger brother Premji, Jai, Shiva, Vaibhav and Sampath Raj are among his most frequent acting collaborators. Venkat's cousin, Yuvan Shankar Raja, has composed the music for all his films, whilst another cousin, Vasuki Bhaskar, contributes as the costume designer. Duo Praveen and Srikanth have been Venkat's editors and Sakthi Saravanan has served as cinematographer for all of Venkat's films.
589645	Sahib Bibi Aur Ghulam (Hindi: साहिब बीबी और गुलाम) is a 1962 Indian Hindi film produced by Guru Dutt and directed by Abrar Alvi. It is based on a Bengali novel, "Shaheb Bibi Golam" by Bimal Mitra, and is a look into the tragic fall of the haveli-dom and feudalism in Bengal during the British Raj. The title of the movie and the story is a reference to the plot simultaneously exploring a platonic friendship between a beautiful, lonely wife (Bibi) of an aristocrat (Sahib) and a career-driven low-income part-time servant (Ghulam). The film's music is by Hemant Kumar and lyrics were by Shakeel Badayuni. Cinematography was by V. K. Murthy. The film stars Guru Dutt, Meena Kumari, Rehman, Waheeda Rehman and Nasir Hussain. The film was a major critical and commercial success, with critics attributing it to Meena Kumari's performance as Chhoti Bahu, which is regarded as one of the best performances of Hindi cinema. It won four Filmfare Awards, including Best Movie award, was nominated for the Golden Bear at the 13th Berlin International Film Festival, and was chosen as India's official entry to the Oscars. "Indiatimes Movies" ranks it amongst the Top 25 Must See Bollywood Films. Plot. Bhoothnath (Guru Dutt), a middle-age architect, wanders through the ruins of an old haveli.
1066442	The Air I Breathe is the 2008 directorial film debut of Korean-American filmmaker Jieho Lee, who co-wrote the script with Bob DeRosa. It stars Kevin Bacon, Julie Delpy, Brendan Fraser, Andy Garcia, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Emile Hirsch, and Forest Whitaker. The film was financed by NALA Investments through its production company NALA Films, and was released on January 25, 2008 in the United States. The concept of the film is based on an ancient Chinese proverb that breaks life down into four emotional cornerstones – Happiness (Whitaker), Pleasure (Fraser), Sorrow (Gellar), and Love (Bacon). The proverb speaks of these emotions, not as isolated fragments of feelings, but as elements that make up the whole of the human existence. Each of the four protagonists is based on one of the four emotions; and like the proverb their paths are inextricably linked to each other, akin to the Fingers (Garcia) of a hand. None of the four main characters' actual names are mentioned in the whole film, although Gellar's character's stage name, "Trista", is mentioned several times. Plot. Each of the elements of life is portrayed using different characters, with the character Fingers (Garcia) playing the character that intertwines all four individuals. Forest Whitaker plays a meek bank employee who loves butterflies. He accidentally overhears acquaintances discuss a fixed horse race, and decides to bet $50,000, borrowing from a bookie, Fingers. Unfortunately he loses the bet. Fingers derives his name from his habit of cutting off the fingers of those who don’t pay back their debts. Fingers threatens Happiness, and Pleasure, Finger's enforcer, visits him to collect, but pities Happiness, so gives him a revolver and leaves. In desperation, Happiness robs the bank. While fleeing, he is slightly hit by a moving vehicle, then escapes to the top of a building. Surrounded, the police order him to drop his gun. He does not comply, throwing the money bag off the roof, and is killed by the police. When he hits the ground his coat is spread out making him look like a butterfly. Brendan Fraser plays a man with a sad past and an ability to see the future of the people he meets, an ability that deprives him of the pleasure of enjoying the surprises in life. When he was young, he was forced to defend his younger brother in a street fight against two teenagers. Pleasure won the fight but found his brother lying dead. Pleasure often has flashbacks of this scene throughout the film. Later in life, Pleasure joins Fingers' gang and becomes one of his favorites due mostly to his ability. He, however, cannot see the future of Trista (Gellar). He is assigned to look after Fingers' visiting nephew, Tony. He has a vision of Tony climbing a fence and falling back. To avoid trouble, he leaves Tony in a club while working (collecting protection money). Unfortunately, one of the girls that Tony is with, high on drugs, staggers into the next room. When Tony follows her, they struggle over a gun, and an older mobster gets shot. Pleasure rescues Tony, and they run from the henchmen, ending at the fence of the earlier vision. Tony gets away, and it is Pleasure who is caught by the henchmen, severely beaten, and then treated by Love (Bacon) in hospital. Sarah Michelle Gellar plays a somewhat morose up-and-coming pop singer/dancer with the stage name "Trista". In flashback, it's revealed that as a young child, she saw her father killed when he was accidentally hit by a moving car, immediately after promising to 'be there for her', and the loss affects her deeply. Trista's manager is deeply indebted to Fingers, and embezzles Trista's money to pay Fingers, but that is not enough, so he assigns Trista's contract to Fingers. Trista, incensed, escapes from Fingers and meets Pleasure. Fingers, naturally, has already ordered his team to find her. Pleasure, sympathetic to her, helps Trista by letting her stay with him, knowing that his house is the only place Fingers wouldn't search for her. They become lovers, but soon Fingers finds out about her location, and kills Pleasure, causing Trista even more sorrow. Her blood type is Kp(a-b-), which she reveals when a TV interviewer asks her what is special about her. This becomes hopeful information when Love hears it on the television, as he is searching for that blood type, the same as Gina's, when he is trying to save her life. Kevin Bacon plays a doctor who is in love with his longtime friend Gina (Julie Delpy). He never confessed his love and, so, she married his best friend. Gina gets bitten by a poisonous snake and needs a rare type of blood. Desperate, Love races to the location where Trista is filming the interview; however, Trista's assistant is in the process of trying to help Trista run away. Love runs to Trista. Her bodyguards, thinking he is a crazed fan, grab him while Trista is accidentally knocked down, hits her head and ends up in the hospital. When she awakens, Fingers informs her that she will have to abort the baby that she has just become aware that she is carrying. In her sorrow that the one thing she has left of the man she loved (Pleasure) will be lost, she sneaks out of her room and goes to the roof to jump off and commit suicide. Love, by circumstance, sees her and races up in time to see her step off the ledge. He grabs the bed sheet that she had wrapped around her like a cape and catches her. He tells her she will have to come up and grab his hand for him to be able to pull her up. After she does this, the movie flashes to Gina, saved, awakening from her coma. Love gives Trista his car as a gift for saving Gina and she leaves the hospital. As Trista escapes in Love's car she hits Happiness (in the scene that we saw from his point of view earlier); as she sits at the intersection, coming to grips with all that has happened, the money bag Happiness threw from the top of the building lands on her car's rooftop. The film closes with Trista at an airport traveling away and Fingers looking for her in the hospital at the same time. Reception. American critics gave the film generally negative reviews, although Sarah Michelle Gellar's performance was praised by many critics. As of April 1, 2008, the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reported that 14% of critics gave the film positive reviews, based on 22 reviews. Metacritic reported the film had an average score of 37 out of 100, based on 9 reviews. The film was a major failure at the box office in spite of the famous cast. Home release. The film was released on DVD and Blu-ray Disc on May 27, 2008 in the United States and includes a commentary, featurette, trailer and deleted scenes. The film was released on DVD in the UK on September 15, 2008.
589284	Zehreela Insaan is a 1974 Hindi film directed by Puttanna Kanagal and produced by Virendra Sinha. The film stars Rishi Kapoor, Moushumi Chatterjee, Neetu Singh, Pran, Nirupa Roy, Dara Singh, Iftekhar, Madan Puri and Paintal. It is a remake of a 1972 Kannada movie "Naagarahaavu". Although the Hindi version did not do well in the box office and is forgotten, one song O Hansini from the film, sung by Kishore Kumar, still stands out. Both the Kannada and Hindi versions were based on a popular novel written by legendary Kannada writer T. R. Subba Rao (TaRaSu). The Hindi version was shot extensively in Chitradurga Fort in Karnataka. Both the Kannada and Hindi versions directed by Puttanna Kanagal and the music was composed by R.D. Burman. External links. The film based on Kannada Novel by TaRaSu (T R Subba Rao)
1066523	Gridiron Gang is a 2006 American sports drama film starring Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, Xzibit, L. Scott Caldwell, and Kevin Dunn. It was filmed in California at Camp Kilpatrick, a Los Angeles County Probation Department facility. It is loosely based on the true story of the Kilpatrick Mustangs during the 1990 season. It was released on September 15, 2006 by Columbia Pictures. Plot. Sean Porter (Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson) works at Kilpatrick Detention Center in Los Angeles. Frustrated at not being able to help the kids get away from their problems in life, such as street gangs and drug dealings, he decides to create a football team so the kids can feel like they're part of something. Porter believes that football will teach the teenage inmates what it takes to be responsible, mature, and winners. He picks out a few kids in the room that he feels will benefit from this program and requires that they practice with him the following day. He states to his new team, the Kilpatrick Mustangs, "You are all losers, But if you stick with the program you could all be winners at the end." Two of the teens do not get along because they are from rival gangs. Willie Weathers (Jade Yorker) is from the 88’s and Kelvin Owens (David Thomas) is from the 95’s. The first game is against the best team in the league, Barrington. The game starts out somewhat positive for the Mustangs, as they recover a fumble on the first drive, but things quickly turn. They are demolished by Barrington, losing by 38 points. After starting 0-2, the Mustangs start winning games as they learn to work together. Kelvin and Willie finally shake hands when they win a game by one touchdown after Kelvin makes a big block for Willie. Near the end of the season, the Mustangs are headed for the playoffs. They are getting more publicity and more fans along the way. One of Willie’s 88 gang mates Free stops by the field. He realizes that Kelvin is a 95. Free and Kelvin get into a fight, and Free shoots Kelvin in the shoulder. As Free prepares to put another bullet in Kelvin's head, Willie runs toward Free and tackles him to the ground to save Kelvin. Free is shocked that Willie helped Kelvin and not him. The police show up, and Free runs off. He fires at the responding officers who fire in return, killing him. Although Kelvin survives the attack, he will not be able to play in the finals. In the next game, against Barrington, the Mustangs go into the half down 14-0. Willie gives a motivational speech, and they go out and beat Barrington on the last play of the game. It is revealed in the narration that they lost the championship game, but no one called them losers. A few months later, Sean's football method is officially made part of the program.
1129801	Thayer David (born David Thayer Hersey, March 4, 1927 – July 17, 1978) was a film, stage and television actor. He was best known for his work on the cult ABC serial "Dark Shadows" (1966–1971) and as the fight promoter George Jergens in the Oscar-winning movie "Rocky" (1976). He also appeared as Count Arne Saknussemm in the film "Journey to the Center of the Earth" in 1959. His raspy distinctive voice narrated many voice-overs in commercials and narrations of instructional films and commercials. Early life. Thayer David was born March 4, 1927, in Medford, Massachusetts. His father, Thayer Frye Hersey, was an executive in the paper pulp industry. David attended Harvard University in the 1940s but did not graduate, concentrating instead upon a career on the stage. With financial support from his father, he co-founded the Brattle Theater Company (1948–1952) in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and established himself in the professional theatre. Stage career. He went on to act in "The Relapse" 1950 (Sir Tunbelly Clumsey);"The Taming of the Shrew" 1951 (Grumio); "The Way of the World" 1954 (Petulant); " The Carefree Tree " 1955 (The Sixth Son); "King Lear" 1956 (Duke of Cornwall); "Mister Johnson" 1956 (Gollup); "Saint Joan" 1956 (The Inquisitor); "Protective Custody" 1956 (Dr. Steidl); "Oscar Wilde" 1957 (Oscar Wilde); "The Golden Six" 1958 (Tiberius); "A Man for All Seasons" 1961 (Cardinal Wolsey); "Andorra" 1963 (pub keeper); "The Seagull" 1964 (Sorin); "The Crucible" 1964 (Danforth); "Baker Street" 1965 (Moriarty); "The Royal Hunt of the Sun" 1965 (Miguel Estete); "Ring Round the Moon" 1966 (Messerchann); "Those That Play the Clowns" 1966 (Henning); "Breakfast at Tiffany's" 1966 (Rusty Trawler); "The Sorrows of Frederick" 1967; "The Bench" 1968 (Phillipi); "Uncle Vanya" 1971 (Serebryakov); "The Jockey Club Stakes" 1973 (Sir Dymock Blackburn); "The Dogs of Pavlov" 1974. Film and television. He played Count Saknussem in the 1959 release of "Journey to the Centre of the Earth". From 1966 to 1971, David portrayed various characters on ABC's daytime phenomenon "Dark Shadows". His roles on Dark Shadows were Matthew Morgan, Ben Stokes, Professor T. Elliot Stokes, Sandor Rakoski, Count Petofi, Timothy Stokes PT, Mordecai Grimes, and Ben Stokes PT. He also played Reverend Silas Pendrake in "Little Big Man" (1970), the arsonist in "Save the Tiger" (1973), the afflicted spymaster Dragon in "The Eiger Sanction" (1975) with Clint Eastwood, and fight promoter Miles Jurgens in "Rocky" (1976). He played numerous characters on different TV series including "The Wild Wild West", "The Rockford Files", "Columbo", "Ellery Queen", "Kojak", "Petrocelli", Charlie's Angels and "Hawaii Five-O". David did several pilot films which included a villainous role in "The Amazing Spider-Man" (1977). In 1977, Thayer David played the title role in "Nero Wolfe", Paramount Television's made-for-TV movie based on the Rex Stout novel "The Doorbell Rang". David portrayed the corpulent detective Nero Wolfe, who took on clients grudgingly and solved mysteries dazzlingly. Intended to be the pilot for a series, the film was shelved by ABC. It eventually aired December 18, 1979, 17 months after David's death. Personal life. A resident of Manhattan, Thayer David collected walking sticks, 18th-century European landscape paintings and Victorian furniture. "He was the most widely educated and best-read actor I've ever encountered," said Frank D. Gilroy, who wrote and directed the 1977 TV movie "Nero Wolfe". His fellow cast members on "Dark Shadows" remembered him as a "walking encyclopedia" around the studio. He was married to and divorced from film and television actress Valerie French. Death. Thayer David died July 17, 1978, from a heart attack in New York City at the age of 51. He and his former wife Valerie French were planning to remarry before he died.
582649	Zeher (, , ) is a 2005 Bollywood suspense thriller directed by debutant director Mohit Suri and produced by Mahesh Bhatt. The film features Emraan Hashmi, Shamita Shetty and Udita Goswami in the lead roles. The film had only moderate success at the box office despite getting positive reviews from the critics. It is an adaptation of Hollywood movie Out of Time Starring Denzel Washington and Eva Mendes. Plot. In a small town in Goa steeped in azure seas and sultry secrets, the chief of local police station, Siddharth (Emran Hashmi) finds himself caught in the eye of a storm…and about to get blown away. Siddharth, who is going through a divorce with his wife, Sonia (Shamita Shetty) whom he still loves, finds himself involved with a local married woman named Anna (Udita Goswami). Unable to cope with the pressures of his wife's success who is in the special police force, he continues his secret and dangerous relationship with Anna. Things get even more complicated when Siddharth realizes that Anna's husband, Shawn (Sameer Kochhar) is a wife beater and Anna is dying from cancer. Being a good soul, Siddharth does not have it in him to abandon this woman who seems to have given him some affection in recent times. In the heat of the moment, Siddharth takes an irrational decision to give Anna the money he recovered in a drug raid, for her medication in a final effort to save her. Things are not what they seem since Anna dies in a fire that very night. Siddharth now races to uncover a murky tail of drug money, murder and deceit, because all the evidences points to him. With his wife heading the case, Siddharth is now in a race against time to find out the real truth behind Anna's murder, recover the drug money and also win his wife's love back. After a bunch of wild goose chases, Siddharth finds out that Anna is very much alive and was actually controlling Shawn and Siddharth in the whole plot for getting the Insurance money. Siddharth finds this in just nick of time and while confronting Anna with the truth, Anna points a gun at him. In the scuffle that follows, Sonia shoots Anna and she provides the alibi for him stating that Anna's death was an accident. The movie ends with Siddharth recovering the lost drug money and his wife. Cast. Tracklist. The soundtrack of Zeher was composed by Anu Malik, Roop Kumar Rathod & Atif Aslam & the music was recreated and directed by Anu Malik (Roop Kumar Rathod's compositions) & Mithoon Sharma, Naresh Sharma (Atif Aslam compositions).Lyrics by Sayeed Qadri & Shakeel Azmi Awards. Nominations:
1225108	Zoe Swicord Kazan (born September 9, 1983) is an American actress and screenwriter. Early life and education. Kazan was born in Los Angeles, the daughter of screenwriters Nicholas Kazan and Robin Swicord. Her paternal grandparents were film and theatre director Elia Kazan and playwright Molly (Thacher) Kazan. Through her paternal grandmother, she is a direct descendant of classicist and college administrator Thomas Anthony Thacher, Yale president Jeremiah Day, and founding father Roger Sherman. Kazan has a younger sister, Maya (born 1985). She has Greek (from her paternal grandfather), English, and German ancestry. Kazan was educated at the private Wildwood School, Windward School, and also at the Marlborough School located in Hancock Park, Los Angeles. She attended Yale University (where she was a member of the Manuscript Society), and graduated in 2005. Career. After her film debut in 2003 playing Samantha in "Swordswallowers and Thin Men", Kazan went on to play her first professional stage role in the 2006 off-Broadway revival of "The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie" starring Cynthia Nixon. In 2007 she had a small role in "The Savages", which starred Laura Linney and Philip Seymour Hoffman. She also guest appeared in an episode of supernatural drama "Medium" as a friend of the main character's younger self. She next appeared in the films "Fracture" and "In the Valley of Elah". In the fall of the same year, she returned to the stage in a Playwrights Horizons production of "100 Saints You Should Know" and Jonathan Marc Sherman's "Things We Want", directed by Ethan Hawke. In January 2008, Kazan made her Broadway debut opposite S. Epatha Merkerson and Kevin Anderson in a revival of William Inge's "Come Back, Little Sheba". Ben Brantley of "The New York Times" called her performance "first-rate," adding, "Ms. Kazan is terrific in conveying the character’s self-consciousness." In the fall, she appeared on Broadway as Masha in Anton Chekhov's "The Seagull" opposite Kristin Scott Thomas and Peter Sarsgaard. The same year she had roles in "August", "Me and Orson Welles" and "Revolutionary Road". Kazan is also a playwright. In 2009, her play "Absalom" premiered at the Humana Festival of New American Plays in Louisville, KY. The play, about a father's tense relationships with his children, had been extensively read and workshopped since Kazan's junior year at Yale University. She capped off the year playing Meryl Streep's daughter in the Nancy Meyers comedy "It's Complicated". She appeared in the Broadway production of "A Behanding in Spokane" with Christopher Walken and Sam Rockwell until June 6, 2010. She also played a main role in the movies "I Hate Valentine's Day" and "The Exploding Girl", which were both released in 2009. In 2010, she had a main role in the comedy-drama "happythankyoumoreplease" as Mary Catherine, the cousin of Josh Radnor's character. She also starred as Millie Gately in 2010 (alongside Paul Dano, playing her husband) in Kelly Reichardt's independent western drama "Meek's Cutoff". In the fall, Kazan played Harper Pitt in Signature Theatre Company's 20th Anniversary production of Tony Kushner's "Angels in America". On the small screen, Kazan then appeared in four episodes of HBO's "Bored to Death" as Nina, the love interest of a fictionalized Jonathan Ames played by Jason Schwartzman. Her play "We Live Here", about a dysfunctional family, received its world premiere production from October 12 to November 6, 2011 at the off-Broadway Manhattan Theater Club in New York City. Among the ensemble cast was Amy Irving and the director was 2010 Obie Award winner Sam Gold. Her next project, for which she wrote the screenplay, was "Ruby Sparks", a comedy-romance film directed by Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris, and starring Kazan herself, along with Paul Dano, Chris Messina, Antonio Banderas, Annette Bening, Deborah Ann Woll, and Steve Coogan. Personal life. Kazan has been dating actor and "Ruby Sparks" co-star Paul Dano since 2007.
44820	Berinthia "Berry" Berenson Perkins (April 14, 1948 – September 11, 2001) was an American photographer, actress, and model. Perkins, who was the wife of actor Anthony Perkins, died in the September 11 attacks as a passenger on American Airlines Flight 11. Early life. Berenson was born in Murray Hill, Manhattan. Her father, Robert Lawrence Berenson, was an American career diplomat turned shipping executive; he was of Lithuanian Jewish descent, and his family's original surname was Valvrojenski. Her mother was born Countess Maria-Luisa Yvonne Radha de Wendt de Kerlor, better known as Gogo Schiaparelli, a socialite of Italian, Swiss, French, and Egyptian ancestry. Her maternal grandmother was the Italian-born fashion designer Elsa Schiaparelli, and her maternal grandfather was Count Wilhelm de Wendt de Kerlor, a Theosophist and psychic medium. Her elder sister, Marisa Berenson, became a well-known model and actress. She also was a great-grandniece of Giovanni Schiaparelli, an Italian astronomer who believed he had discovered the supposed canals of Mars, and a second cousin, once removed, of art expert Bernard Berenson (1865–1959) and his sister Senda Berenson (1868–1954), an athlete and educator who was one of the first two women elected to the Basketball Hall of Fame. Career. Following a brief modeling career in the late 1960s, Berenson became a freelance photographer. By 1973, her photographs had been published in "Life", "Glamour", "Vogue" and "Newsweek". She also appeared in several motion pictures, including "Cat People" with Malcolm McDowell. She starred opposite Anthony Perkins in the 1978 Alan Rudolph film "Remember My Name" and opposite Jeff Bridges in the 1979 film "Winter Kills". Personal life and death. On August 9, 1973, in Cape Cod, Massachusetts, Berenson married her "Remember My Name" costar Anthony Perkins. They had two sons: actor-musician Oz Perkins (born February 2, 1974) and folk/rock recording artist Elvis Perkins (born February 9, 1976). They remained married until Perkins' death from AIDS-related complications on September 12, 1992. Berenson died at age 53 in the September 11 attacks aboard American Airlines Flight 11, one day before the ninth anniversary of Perkins' death. She was returning to her California home following a holiday on Cape Cod. At the National September 11 Memorial & Museum, Berenson is memorialized at the North Pool, on Panel N-76.
1375589	Christmas Is Here Again is a 2007 animated Christmas film released on DVD by Screen Media Films. The first feature production from the Renegade Animation studio, it was co-written, co-produced and directed by Robert Zappia. Narrated by Jay Leno, the film features the voices of Edward Asner, Kathy Bates, Madison Davenport, Colin Ford, Brad Garrett, Andy Griffith, Shirley Jones, Norm Macdonald, and Daniel Roebuck. Synopsis. Sophianna, a crippled orphan girl, sets out to find Santa's toy sack, (which is a magical source of toys since it was made from the baby Jesus' swaddling clothes) which is stolen by Krad who wants revenge after Santa stops handing out Krad's coal to bad children. She is helped in her quest by Paul one of Santa's elves, Dart one of Santa's young reindeer, Buster a fox and Charlee a polar bear. Production. Renegade Animation, an animation company located in Glendale, California and known for the TV series "Hi Hi Puffy AmiYumi" and The Mr. Men Show, teamed up with Easy to Dream Entertainment to create "Christmas Is Here Again". A small crew spent nine months on the principal animation, which was completed in mid-2006. One of the songs in the film's soundtrack (as well as the film's working title) was "Who Stole Santa's Sack?" Co-producer Darrell Van Citters, a Renegade staff member, once directed a Disney short called "Fun with Mr. Future" (1982). Awards and release. "Christmas Is Here Again" premiered on October 20, 2007, as an official selection at the Heartland Film Festival. The following year, it received an Annie Award nomination for Best Voice Acting in an Animated Television Production (Madison Davenport as Sophianna). The film was originally slated for a theatrical release in November 2007, but ultimately received its DVD debut in the U.S. on November 4, 2008. The disc contains a behind-the-scenes featurette, cast interviews and "Name the Reindeer", as extras. Originally, the reindeer on the DVD cover had a red nose akin to Rudolph's. On the final version of the cover, it is black. Reception. Richard Propes of "The Independent Critic" website gave it a B+ and 3.5 stars, calling it "an ideal choice for families, children and for Scrooges like myself who, somewhere deep inside, still want to believe".
1060813	Alfred Thomas "Freddie" Highmore (born 14 February 1992) is an English actor. He is best known for his roles in the films "Finding Neverland" (2004), "Five Children and It" (2004), "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" (2005), "Arthur and the Invisibles" (2006), "August Rush" (2007),"The Spiderwick Chronicles" (2008), and "The Art of Getting By" (2011). He currently stars as Norman Bates in the A&E series "Bates Motel" (2013–present). Early life and education. Highmore was born on 14 February 1992 into a show business family. His mother, Sue Latimer, is a talent agent whose clients include actors Daniel Radcliffe and Imelda Staunton, and his father, Edward Highmore, is an actor. He has a younger brother named Albert ("Bertie"), born in 1995. Highmore's home is in Highgate, an area of North London.
1236340	Kiele Michelle Sanchez ( ; born October 13, 1976) is an American actress who stars in the A&E Network drama "The Glades". Previously she had starred as Anne Sorelli in the The WB comedy-drama "Related" and as Nikki Fernandez on the main cast in the third season of the ABC television action-adventure series "Lost".
1053510	Erik Lee Preminger (born December 11, 1944 in New York City) is an American writer and actor. He has also been known as Erik Kirkland, Erik de Diego, Erik Lee, and Eric Preminger.
1061319	The Sting is a 1973 American caper film set in September 1936, involving a complicated plot by two professional grifters (Paul Newman and Robert Redford) to con a mob boss (Robert Shaw). The film was directed by George Roy Hill, who had directed Newman and Redford in the western "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid". Created by screenwriter David S. Ward, the story was inspired by real-life cons perpetrated by brothers Fred and Charley Gondorff and documented by David Maurer in his book "The Big Con: The Story of the Confidence Man". The title phrase refers to the moment when a con artist finishes the "play" and takes the mark's money. If a con is successful, the mark does not realize he has been "taken" (cheated), at least not until the con men are long gone. The film is played out in distinct sections with old-fashioned title cards, with lettering and illustrations rendered in a style reminiscent of the "Saturday Evening Post". The film is noted for its anachronistic use of ragtime, particularly the melody "The Entertainer" by Scott Joplin, which was adapted for the movie by Marvin Hamlisch (and a top-ten chart single for Hamlisch when released as a single from the film's soundtrack). The film's success encouraged a surge of popular and critical acclaim for Joplin's work. "The Sting" was hugely successful at the 46th Academy Awards, being nominated for 10 Oscars and winning seven, including Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Original Screenplay. Plot. Johnny Hooker, a grifter from Depression-era Joliet, Illinois, cons $11,000 in cash from an unsuspecting victim with the aid of his partners Luther Coleman and Joe Erie. Buoyed by the windfall, Luther announces his retirement and advises Hooker to seek out an old friend, Henry Gondorff, in Chicago to teach him "the big con". Unfortunately, their victim was a numbers racket courier for vicious crime boss Doyle Lonnegan. Corrupt Joliet police Lieutenant William Snyder confronts Hooker, revealing Lonnegan's involvement and demanding part of Hooker’s cut. Having already spent his share, Hooker pays Snyder in counterfeit bills. Lonnegan's men murder Luther, and Hooker flees for his life to Chicago. Hooker finds Henry Gondorff, a once-great con-man now hiding from the FBI, and asks for his help in taking on the dangerous Lonnegan. Gondorff is initially reluctant, but he relents and decides to resurrect an elaborate and supposedly obsolete scam known as "the wire", using a crew of con artists to create a phony off-track betting parlor. Aboard the opulent 20th Century Limited, Gondorff, posing as boorish Chicago bookie Shaw, buys into Lonnegan's private, high-stakes poker game. Shaw infuriates Lonnegan with his obnoxious behavior, then out-cheats him to win $15,000. Hooker, posing as Shaw's disgruntled employee, Kelly, is sent to collect the winnings and instead convinces Lonnegan that he wants to take over Shaw's operation. Kelly reveals that he has a partner named Les Harmon (actually con man Kid Twist) in the Chicago Western Union office, who will allow them to win bets on horse races by past-posting. Meanwhile, Snyder has tracked Hooker to Chicago, but his pursuit is thwarted when he is summoned by undercover FBI agents led by Agent Polk, who orders him to assist in their plan to arrest Gondorff using Hooker. At the same time, Lonnegan has grown frustrated with his men's inability to find and kill Hooker. Unaware that Kelly is Hooker, he demands that Salino, his best assassin, be given the job. A mysterious figure with black leather gloves is then seen following and observing Hooker. Kelly's connection appears effective, as Harmon provides Lonnegan with the winner of one horse race and the trifecta of another race. Lonnegan agrees to finance a $500,000 bet at Shaw's parlor to break Shaw and gain revenge. Shortly thereafter, Snyder captures Hooker and brings him before FBI Agent Polk. Polk forces Hooker to betray Gondorff by threatening to incarcerate Luther Coleman's widow. The night before the sting, Hooker sleeps with Loretta, a waitress from a local restaurant. As Hooker leaves the building the next morning, he sees Loretta walking toward him. The black-gloved man appears behind Hooker and shoots her dead – she was Lonnegan's hired killer, Loretta Salino, and the shooter was hired by Gondorff to protect Hooker. Armed with Harmon’s tip to "place it on Lucky Dan", Lonnegan makes the $500,000 bet at Shaw’s parlor on Lucky Dan to win. As the race begins, Harmon arrives and expresses shock at Lonnegan's bet, explaining that when he said "place it" he meant, literally, that Lucky Dan would "place" (i.e., finish "second"). In a panic, Lonnegan rushes the teller window and demands his money back. As this happens, Agent Polk, Lt. Snyder, and a half dozen FBI officers storm the parlor. Polk confronts Gondorff, then tells Hooker he is free to go. Gondorff, reacting to the betrayal, shoots Hooker in the back. Polk then shoots Gondorff and orders Snyder to get the ostensibly respectable Lonnegan away from the crime scene. With Lonnegan and Snyder safely away, Hooker and Gondorff rise amid cheers and laughter. Agent Polk is actually Hickey, a con man, running a con atop Gondorff's con to divert Snyder and provide a solid "blow off". As the con men strip the room of its contents, Hooker refuses his share of the money, saying "I'd only blow it", and walks away with Gondorff. Production. The movie was filmed on the Universal Studios backlot, with some scenes filmed at the Santa Monica Pier and in Pasadena. Lonnegan's limp (used to great effect in the film by Robert Shaw) was authentic; Shaw had slipped on a wet handball court at the Beverly Hills Hotel a week before filming began and had injured the ligaments in his knee. He wore a leg brace during production which was hidden under the wide 1930s style trousers. This incident was revealed by Julia Phillips in her 1991 autobiography "You'll Never Eat Lunch in This Town Again". She stated that Shaw saved "The Sting", since no other actor would accept the part; Paul Newman hand-delivered the script to Shaw in London in order to ensure his participation. Philips' book asserts that Shaw was not nominated for a Best Supporting Actor Academy Award because he demanded that his name follow those of Newman and Redford before the film's opening title. Rob Cohen (later director of action films in such as "The Fast and the Furious") years later told of how he found the script in the slush pile when working as a reader for Mike Medavoy, a future studio head, but then an agent. He wrote in his coverage that it was "the great American screenplay and … will make an award-winning, major-cast, major-director film." Medavoy said that he would try to sell it on that recommendation, promising to fire Cohen if he couldn't. Universal bought it that afternoon, and Cohen keeps the coverage framed on the wall of his office. In 1974 author David Maurer filed a $10 million lawsuit claiming that at least part of the film's story had been taken from his book "The Big Con." The matter was settled out of court in 1976. Reception. The film received rave reviews and was a box office smash in 1973-74, taking in more than US$160 million. In 2005, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". The Writers Guild of America ranked the screenplay #39 on its list of 101 Greatest Screenplays ever written. Awards. Wins. The film won seven Academy Awards and received three other nominations. At the 46th Academy Awards, Julia Phillips became the first female producer to win Best Picture. Music. The soundtrack album, executive produced by Gil Rodin, included several Scott Joplin ragtime compositions, adapted by Marvin Hamlisch. According to Joplin scholar Edward A. Berlin, ragtime had experienced a revival in the 1970s due to several separate, but coalescing events: There are some variances from the film soundtrack, as noted. Joplin's music was no longer popular by the 1930s, although its use in "The Sting" evokes the 1930s gangster movie, "The Public Enemy", which featured Joplin's music. The two Jazz Age-style tunes written by Hamlisch are chronologically closer to the film's time period than are the Joplin rags: The album sequence differs from the film sequence, a standard practice with vinyl LPs, often for aesthetic reasons. Some additional content differences: Sequel. A flat sequel with different players, "The Sting II", appeared in 1983. In the same year a prequel was planned, exploring the earlier career of Henry Gondorff. Famous confidence man Soapy Smith was scripted to be Gondorff's mentor. When the sequel failed, the prequel was scrapped. Home media. A deluxe DVD, "The Sting: Special Edition" (part of the Universal Legacy Series) was released in September 2005, including a "making of" featurette and interviews with the cast and crew. The film was released on Blu-ray Disc in 2012, as a part of Universal's 100th anniversary string of releases.
1105137	In numerical analysis, Chebyshev nodes are the roots of the Chebyshev polynomial of the first kind. They are often used as nodes in polynomial interpolation because the resulting interpolation polynomial minimizes the effect of Runge's phenomenon.
1163203	Adam Arkin (born August 19, 1956) is an American television, film and stage actor and director. He played the role of Aaron Shutt on "Chicago Hope". He has been nominated for numerous awards, including a Tony (Best Actor, 1991, "I Hate Hamlet") as well as 3 primetime Emmys, 4 SAG Awards (Ensemble, "Chicago Hope"), and a DGA Award ("My Louisiana Sky"). In 2002, Arkin won a Daytime Emmy for Outstanding Directing in a Children's Special for "My Louisiana Sky". He is also one of the three actors to portray Dale "The Whale" Biederbeck on "Monk". Between 2007 and 2009, he starred in the NBC drama "Life". In 2009, he portrayed villain Ethan Zobelle, a white separatist gang leader, on the FX original series "Sons of Anarchy". He is the son of Oscar winning actor Alan Arkin. Life and career. Career. Arkins first starring role in television was as Lenny Markowitz, the central character in the 1977 situation comedy "Busting Loose". He since has appeared in various television series such as The Twilight Zone (1986), "Northern Exposure" (CBS, 1990–1995), where he played the mercurial barefooted chef Adam, and "Chicago Hope" (CBS, 1994–2000). He appeared in two "Law & Order" episodes, Self Defense (Season 3, 1992), as jewelry store owner, George Costas and in Red Ball (Season 16, 2005), as a district attorney named Charles Graham. He has also appeared in Picket Fences (Season 2 Episode 13). Other recent television appearances include "The West Wing" (1999) (as trauma specialist and psychiatrist Dr. Stanley Keyworth), "Frasier", as an obsessive fan of Frasier's, for which he was nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Comedy Series, "Boston Legal", "Baby Bob", "Monk" and "8 Simple Rules for Dating My Teenage Daughter" (2002). he starred in the NBC drama "Life" in the role of Ted Earley. He plays a white separatist leader named Ethan Zobelle during the second season of the FX series "Sons of Anarchy" reuniting with former "8 Simple Rules" cast mate Katey Sagal. In 2011, he appeared in "The Closer" episode "To Serve With Love" (Season 7) as a suspect named Steven Hirschbaum. He also portrayed mob boss Theo Tonin on "Justified" in 2011, and an FBI agent in "The Chicago Code", also in 2011. Arkins film appearances include "Hitch" (2005) and "" (1998). Arkin is also a theatre actor where he has performed in Broadway, Off-Broadway and regional theatre productions, including most recently, both the South Coast Repertory world premiere and Broadway production of "Brooklyn Boy" by playwright Donald Margulies. In addition he is known for his directing work, having done episodes of "Grey's Anatomy", "Boston Legal", "The Riches", "Dirt", "Ally McBeal", "Sons of Anarchy" and "Justified". He won an Emmy for directing the Showtime television film "My Louisiana Sky". In April 2008, Arkin guest-starred on the web series "Gorgeous Tiny Chicken Machine Show". He recently played the part of a divorce lawyer in the film "A Serious Man" (2009) directed by Ethan and Joel Coen.
1049249	Frank Sivero (born January 6, 1952) is an American character actor, perhaps best known for playing the roles of Genco Abbandando in Mario Puzo's and Francis Ford Coppola's "The Godfather Part II" and Frankie Carbone (based on Angelo Sepe) in Martin Scorsese's "Goodfellas". Sivero was born Francesco LoGiudice in Siculiana, Sicily, Italy, and raised in Brooklyn, New York. He can be seen as an extra in "The Godfather" as one of the witnesses to Sonny Corleone's brutal beating of his brother-in-law, Carlo. Director Martin Scorsese cast him as Frankie Carbone after seeing his performance in "The Godfather: Part II". He also appeared in the "The Wedding Singer" with Adam Sandler.
1164596	Betty Thomas (born July 27, 1948) is an American actress, director of television, and motion pictures. She is known for her Emmy-award winning role as Lucy Bates on the television series "Hill Street Blues". Early life. Thomas was born Betty Thomas Nienhauser in St. Louis, Missouri, the daughter of Nancy (née Brown) and William H. Nienhauser, Sr. Thomas graduated from South High School, Willoughby, Ohio in 1965. After high school Thomas attended Ohio University in Athens, Ohio, and graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree. Upon graduating Thomas worked as an artist and taught high school before becoming a part of The Second City Chicago premiere source for improvisational theater. Second City. Thomas came to her entertainment career by a circuitous route. While working as an artist and school teacher she became a waitress at The Second City to earn extra cash for a trip abroad. While waiting tables Thomas was encouraged to try out for the troupe, and subsequently joined the company. She was praised for her brassy and outspoken performances; she also worked with several up and coming Second City alumni- most notably Bill Murray. When The Second City opened a Los Angeles branch, Thomas moved west. Career. Acting career. Upon her arrival in Los Angeles Thomas received many bit parts in low-budget films like "Chesty Anderson, USN" (1976), the Robert Zemeckis film "Used Cars" (1980) as well as sketch comedy films like "Tunnel Vision" (1975), and "Loose Shoes" (1980) the latter of which featuring Second City classmate Bill Murray. She has also appeared in the 1989 film "Troop Beverly Hills", starring Shelley Long. "Hill Street Blues". While Thomas had been building her career in comedy, her breakthrough role as an actress came when she was cast in the dramatic role of police officer (later Sergeant) Lucille Bates on the TV series "Hill Street Blues" (1981–1987). Over the course of the series her character goes from inexperienced rookie to confident sergeant and earned her seven Emmy nominations for best supporting actress, taking home the award for the 1984-1985 season. Directing career. After making several other acting appearances Thomas was given the chance to direct episodes of "Hooperman" and the premiere episodes of "Doogie Howser, M.D." in 1989. She went on to direct episodes of "", "Arresting Behavior" and several episodes of the HBO series "Dream On" the latter of which earned her an Emmy for best director. "Only You". In 1992 Thomas took the next step in her directing career with her feature debut "Only You". A slight, playful romantic comedy; "Only You" was a departure from Thomas's experience on "Hill Street Blues" or her subsequent television directing. Some said that Thomas was chosen to direct due in part to the film's plot in which a man is on a hapless quest to find the perfect woman would be considered inherently sexist without a female director. "The Brady Bunch Movie". Three years following the release of "Only You" Thomas followed her feature debut with "The Brady Bunch Movie" (1995). A more humorous, satirical, and witty vision of the 1970s television series "The Brady Bunch". "The Brady Bunch Movie" was a box office hit with $46,576,136 nearly quadrupling its $12,000,000 budget. "The Brady Bunch Movie" remains one of the highest grossing films directed by a woman. Career continued. Thomas followed the "The Brady Bunch Movie" with other successes, most notably "Private Parts" (1997), "Dr. Dolittle" (1998), "28 Days" (2000), "John Tucker Must Die" (2006) and most recently "" (2009). Currently, Thomas is working on a new feature titled "Desperados" which is to star Isla Fisher. Recent activity. Besides working on her next upcoming feature Thomas takes the time to visit her alma mater and discuss her career with students.
1054663	Dreams on Spec is a 2007 American documentary film that profiles the struggles and triumphs of emerging Hollywood screenwriters. It was written and directed by Daniel J. Snyder, who learned first-hand about the screenwriter's travails in the late 1980s when he was a teenager working alongside aspiring writer/directors Quentin Tarantino and Roger Avary in the famed Video Archives video store in Manhattan Beach, California.
592093	Bindaas (; ) is a Kannada film directed by D. Rajendra Babu and Produced by M.Chandrashekar. Puneet Rajkumar played the male lead while Hansika Motwani played the female lead. The film was released on 15 February 2008. The film was released in Telugu as "Pandugadu". Plot. Shivu (Puneet Rajkumar) does pickpocket and sells cinema tickets in the black. He is totally flat to the beauty of Preethi (Hansika). Be happy no BP is the Mantra of Shivu. After initial hate-love meetings Shivu decides to ascertain the feel in the mind of Preethi. He hands over a cover and says she will definitely open it to know the contents. Preethi says it is impossible. The next day Preethi hands over the letter to Shivu and says she has won. No you have lost says Shivu. It is because she could not read the lovely contents in the letter he says. By slip of the tongue Preethi says no there was nothing in the letter. That is true because Shivu had inserted only blank sheet in the cover. The final test in love Shivu wins and Preethi this time is absolutely in love with Shivu for his intelligence. Preethi daughter of ACP Vikram Rathod (Nazar) wants the way to be cleared. But Shivu wants a job before his marriage. At this time ACP knows that his daughter in love with petty thief Shivu and give him the post of police informer. At this time ACP says he will clear the way for his marriage with Preethi. Now Shivu a police informer goes in to the den of dons. He wants to catch Saleem the terrorist who has been responsible of blasting of three important buildings. The mission of Shivu is complete but the ACP deceives him. The frustrated Shivu takes law in to his own hand in clearing his decks for joining Preethi. Music. The official soundtrack contains five songs. The music was released on 3 January 2008.
1266901	Pearl Fay White (March 4, 1889 – August 4, 1938) was an American film actress. White began her career on the stage at the age of six. She later moved on to silent film appearing in a number of popular serials. Dubbed the "Queen of the serials", White was noted for doing the majority of her own stunts in several film serials, most notably in "The Perils of Pauline". Early life. White was born in New Jersey, to her parents Edgar and Inez White. She had four brothers and sisters. The family later moved to Springfield, Missouri. At age 6, she made her stage debut as "Little Eva" in "Uncle Tom's Cabin". When she was 13 years-old, White worked as a bareback rider for the circus. She began performing with the Diemer Theater Company, located on Commercial Street, while in her second year of high school. In 1907, at age 18, she went on the road with the Trousedale Stock Company, working evening shows while keeping her day job to help support her family. She was soon able to join the company full-time, touring through the American Midwest. That year she married fellow actor Victor Sutherland, but they soon separated and eventually divorced in 1914. White played minor roles for several years, when she was spotted by the Powers Film Company in New York. She claimed she had also performed in Cuba for a time under the name Miss Mazee, singing American songs in a dance hall. Her travels as a singer took her to South America, where she performed in casinos and dance halls. In 1910, White had trouble with her throat, and her voice began to fail from the nightly theatrical performances. She made her debut in films that year, starring in a series of one-reel dramas and comedies for the Powers Film Company in the Bronx, New York. Career rise. In 1910, White was offered a role by Pathé Frères in "The Girl From Arizona", the French company's first American film produced at their new studio in Bound Brook, New Jersey. She then worked at Lubin Studios and several other of the independents, until the Crystal Film Company in Manhattan gave her top billing in a number of short films. In 1914, Pathé director Louis J. Gasnier offered her the starring role in "The Perils of Pauline", a film based on a story by playwright Charles W. Goddard. The film was one where "Pauline" was the central character in a story involving considerable action, which the athletic Pearl White proved ideally suited for. "The Perils of Pauline" consisted of twenty episodes. A box-office success, the movie made White a major celebrity, and she was soon earning the then astronomical sum of $3,000 a week. She followed this with an even bigger box-office winner, "The Exploits of Elaine". Flying airplanes, racing cars, swimming across rivers, and doing other similar feats, White made four more successful serials on the same theme. She did much of her own stunt work and she suffered injuries that would force her to use a stunt double in her later films. Personal life and later years. Pearl White was a wealthy young woman when in 1919 she met and married World War I veteran Major Wallace McCutcheon, Jr. (1880–1928), an actor, director, and cinematographer. However, the marriage failed and they divorced in 1921. Two years later, White made her last American film. Influenced by her French friends from Pathé Studios, White was drawn to the artistic gathering in the Montparnasse Quarter of Paris. While living there, she made her last film for her friend, Belgian-born director Edward José, who had directed her in several serials. Silent films could be made in any country, and as White was a recognizable star worldwide, she was offered many roles in France. Instead, she chose to perform on stage in a Montmartre production ""Tu Perds la Boule"" (You Lose the Ball). In 1925 she accepted an offer to star with comedian Max Wall in the "London Review" at the Lyceum Theatre in London. White's childhood poverty made her frugal with money. A shrewd businesswoman, she invested in a successful Parisian nightclub, a Biarritz resort hotel/casino, and a profitable stable of thoroughbred race horses. Living in a fashionable town house in the exclusive Parisian suburb of Passy, she also owned a villa in Rambouillet. She became involved with Theodore Cossika, a Greek businessman who shared her love of travel. Together they purchased a home near Cairo, Egypt, and White travelled with him throughout the Middle East and the Orient. White then returned to France. She made just one more film, "Terror" (1924). She starred in several popular stage reviews at the Montmartre Music Hall in Paris, and was in a London revue with George Carney. She then retired from performing. Alcoholism and death. Over the years, White's alcohol use had increased, possibly in response to the chronic pain of injuries from her film stunts. She had to be hospitalized in 1933, which led to an addiction to the drugs used to ease her suffering. Her last years were spent in an alcoholic haze, and she died of cirrhosis at age 49 on August 4, 1938 in the American Hospital in the Paris suburb of Neuilly, France. She was buried in the Cimetière de Passy. Legacy. Pearl White's place in film history is important in both the evolution of cinema genres and the role of women. "The Perils of Pauline" is only known to exist in a reduced nine-reel version released in Europe in 1916, but "The Exploits of Elaine" survives and was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry. All of her films were made at East Coast studios, and it is believed White never visited Hollywood, which would nevertheless honor her contributions with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. The 1947 Paramount Pictures film "The Perils of Pauline", starring Betty Hutton, was a fictionalized biography of Pearl White.
1163555	Brad Garrett (born Brad H. Gerstenfeld; April 14, 1960) is an American actor and stand-up comedian. He has appeared in numerous television and film roles. Garrett was initially successful as a stand-up comedian in the early 1980s. Taking advantage of that success in the late 1980s, Garrett began appearing in television and film, in minor and guest roles. His first major role was Robert Barone on the CBS series "Everybody Loves Raymond". The series debuted September 13, 1996 and ran for nine seasons. Garrett's film roles include "Stuart Little 2", "Finding Nemo", "Garfield", "The Amateurs", "The Pacifier", "Night at the Museum", "Tangled", and "Hoodwinked Too! Hood vs. Evil". Garrett also played the leading role of Eddie Stark on the Fox television series '"Til Death" from 2006 to 2010.
1039968	Rupert Graves (born 30 June 1963) is an English film, television and theatre actor. He is known for his early roles in "A Room with a View" and "Maurice" as well as for his more recent role as DI Lestrade in the television series "Sherlock". Early life. He was born in Weston-super-Mare in Somerset, England, to Mary Lousilla ("née" Roberts) Graves, a travel coordinator, and Richard Harding Graves, a music teacher and musician. Education. Graves was educated at Wyvern Community School, a state comprehensive school in his home town of Weston-super-Mare, which he left at the age of fifteen. The school has since closed and re-opened as the Hans Price Academy. Career. Graves's first job after leaving school was as a circus clown. He has appeared in over twenty-five films and over thirty-five television productions; he has also appeared on stage. During his career, he has starred alongside actress Helena Bonham Carter four times in "A Room with a View", "Maurice", "Where Angels Fear to Tread" and "The Revengers' Comedies". He first came to prominence in costume-drama adaptations of E. M. Forster's novels "A Room with a View" (1985) and "Maurice" (1987), before going on to appear in films including "A Handful of Dust" (1988), "Different for Girls" (1996) and "Intimate Relations" (1996). His role in "Intimate Relations" won him the Best Actor award at the 1996 Montreal World Film Festival. He was also acclaimed for his portrayal of Jolyon Forsyte Jr. in the television miniseries "The Forsyte Saga" (2002). Personal life. In 1987 in his hometown of Weston-super-Mare, Graves met Yvonne, a stained glass artist (later a trained gardener), in a cafe. They lived together in Stoke Newington, and he helped her raise her two daughters, who were 10 and 14 years old when the relationship began. Graves and Yvonne were together for 13 years. In September 2000, shortly after his relationship with Yvonne ended, he met Australian-born production coordinator Suzanne Lewis at the opening-night party for The Caretaker, a play he was appearing in at the time with Michael Gambon. They married, and have five children together: Joseph, Ella, Noah, Isaac, and Zoe. Theatre work. In addition to his screen work, Graves has also won acclaim for his stage acting, including roles on the American stage in Broadway-theatre productions in New York City, New York, of the plays "Closer" (2000) and "The Elephant Man" (2002). Graves also appeared as Presley Stray in the play "The Pitchfork Disney" (1991) at the Bush Theatre in London, England and also "A Madhouse in Goa" opposite Vanessa Redgrave.
1164682	Season Hubley (born March 14, 1951) is an American actress. Biography. Hubley was born Susan Season Hubley in New York City, the daughter of Julia Kaul (née Paine) and Grant Shelby Hubley, a writer and entrepreneur. Her brother is actor Whip Hubley. She also has a sister, Sally Hubley. Hubley was steadily active in supporting roles in the late 1970s and starred in "Hardcore" with George C. Scott. However, she is best known for her appearance as Priscilla Presley opposite Kurt Russell as Elvis Presley in the made-for-television film "Elvis". She also appears briefly in "Escape from New York". In 1973, she played the title character in "Lolly-Madonna XXX", also known as "The Lolly Madonna War", around whom the story revolved. It had to do with two battling backwoods families. Her other known film role is in the 1982 cult film "Vice Squad", in which she played a prostitute named Princess. In television, she made an appearance on "The Partridge Family" in 1972 playing the part of a princess. In 1973, she starred as Pam in the made-for-television movie about a young couple, "She Lives", co-starring Desi Arnaz, Jr. In the later 1970s, she appeared as a nun whose sister was murdered in an episode of "Kojak", and she had a continuing and significant role in the evening TV drama "Family". Hubley guest-starred in several episodes in 1976 and 1977 as Salina Magee, the love interest of teenage dropout Willie Lawrence. She also co-starred in an episode of "Starsky and Hutch", "Starsky´s Lady", in which she was Starsky's (Paul Michael Glaser) fiancee. From 1991 to 1994, she portrayed Angelique Marick on the daytime drama "All My Children". She appeared in "Stepfather III" and "Child in the Night", both in 1990. Hubley was married to Kurt Russell from 1979 to 1983. They have a son, Boston Oliver Grant Russell (born 1980).
1057820	Comes a Horseman is a 1978 film starring James Caan, Jane Fonda, Jason Robards, and Richard Farnsworth, directed by Alan J. Pakula. Set in the American West of the 1940s but not a typical Western, it tells the story of two ranchers (Caan and Fonda) whose small operation is threatened both by economic hardship and the expansionist dreams of a local land baron (Robards). Farnsworth, a former stuntman, received a Best Supporting Actor Academy Award nomination for his performance. A stuntman working on this film, Jim Sheppard, was killed while doing a scene where Robards' character is dragged to (presumably) his death. A horse dragging him veered from its course and caused Sheppard to hit his head on a fence post. The scene made it into the movie, although it is cut right before the horse passes through the gate where the fatal accident occurred.
1179786	Paula Julie Abdul (; born June 19, 1962) is an American singer, choreographer, songwriter, dancer, actress and television personality. She began her career as a cheerleader for the Los Angeles Lakers before rising to prominence in the 1980s as a highly sought-after choreographer at the height of the music video era. Abdul later scored a string of pop music hits in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Her six number one singles on the Billboard Hot 100 tie her with Diana Ross for sixth among the female solo performers who have topped the chart. She won a Grammy for "Best Music Video – Short Form" for "Opposites Attract" and twice won the "Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Choreography". After her initial period of success, Abdul suffered a series of setbacks in her professional and personal life. She saw renewed fame and success as an original judge on "American Idol" in the 2000s, which she left after the eighth season. She went on to star on CBS' short-lived television series "Live to Dance", which lasted one season in 2011, and was subsequently a judge on the first season of the American version of "The X Factor" along with her former "American Idol" co-judge Simon Cowell, the creator and producer of the show. She was also a guest judge on the All-Stars edition of "Dancing with the Stars" in 2012 and the tenth season of "So You Think You Can Dance" in 2013. On January 30, 2013, Paula Abdul was presented with a Lifetime Achievement Award at 14th anniversary show. Early life. Abdul was born in San Fernando, California, to Jewish parents. Abdul's father, Harry Abdul, was born into the Syrian Jewish community in Aleppo, Syria, was raised in Brazil, and subsequently immigrated to the United States. Her mother, the concert pianist Lorraine M. (née Rykiss), grew up in one of two Jewish families in Minnedosa, Manitoba in Canada, with ancestors from the Ashkenazi Jewish minority in Russia and Ukraine, and Abdul derives Canadian citizenship through her. She has a sister named Wendy, who is seven years her senior. In 1978, she graduated from Van Nuys High School and was voted girl with the funniest laugh. An avid dancer, Abdul was inspired towards a show business career by Gene Kelly in the classic film "Singin' in the Rain" as well as Debbie Allen, Fred Astaire, and Bob Fosse. Abdul began taking dance lessons at an early age in ballet, Jazz, and Tap. She attended Van Nuys High School, where she was a cheerleader and an honor student. At 15, she received a scholarship to a dance camp near Palm Springs, and in 1980 appeared in a low-budget Independent musical film, "Junior High School". Abdul studied broadcasting at the California State University at Northridge. During her freshman year, she was selected from a pool of 700 candidates for the cheerleading squad of the Los Angeles Lakers NBA basketball team—the famed Laker Girls. Within a year, she became head choreographer. Six months later, she left the university to focus on her choreography and dancing career. Career. 1982–1986: Dance and choreography era. Abdul was discovered by The Jacksons, after a few of the band members had watched her while attending a Los Angeles Lakers game. She was signed to do the choreography for the video to their single "Torture". "My only problem was how to tell the Jacksons how to dance," Abdul later recalled. "Imagine me telling them what routines to do. I was young, I was scared. I'm not quite sure how I got through that." The success of the choreography in the video led to Abdul's career of choreographer in music videos. It was also due to the success of the video that Abdul was chosen to be the choreographer for the Jacksons' "Victory" tour. Abdul choreographed videos for several singers throughout the 1980s, including many videos for Janet Jackson during her "Control" era. In 1995, Abdul released a dance workout video entitled "Paula Abdul's Get Up and Dance!" (re-released on DVD in 2003), a fast-paced, hip-hop style workout. In 1998, she released a second video called "Cardio Dance" (re-released on DVD in 2000). In December 2005, Abdul launched a cheerleading/fitness/dance DVD series called "Cardio Cheer," which is marketed to children and teenage girls involved with cheerleading and dance. In film, Abdul choreographed sequences for the giant keyboard scene involving Tom Hanks’s character in "Big." Further credits include "Coming to America", "Action Jackson", "Jerry Maguire", "The Running Man", "American Beauty", "Can't Buy Me Love", and Oliver Stone's "The Doors". Television credits include "The Tracey Ullman Show," American Music Awards, the Academy Awards, and several commercials, such as The King's touchdown celebration, as seen in a string of popular Burger King television commercials that aired during the 2005–2006 NFL season. 1987–1994: "Forever Your Girl" and "Spellbound". In 1987, Abdul used her savings to make a singing demo. Although her voice was relatively untrained, her exceptional dancing proved marketable to the visually oriented, MTV-driven, pop music industry. She was a tireless worker, and relied on input from her vocal coach and producers to improve her sound. In 1988, Abdul released her pop debut album, "Forever Your Girl". The album took 64 weeks to hit No. 1 on the Billboard 200 album sales chart—the longest an album has been on the market before hitting No. 1—and spent 10 weeks there. The album eventually became multi-platinum in the spring and summer of 1989, and it spawned five American Top Three singles, four of them No. 1s (three in 1989 and one in 1990): "Straight Up", "Forever Your Girl", "Cold Hearted", and "Opposites Attract". A remix album, "Shut Up and Dance", was also released and reached No. 7 on Billboard's album chart, becoming one of the most successful remix albums to date. The Grammy award-winning video for "Opposites Attract" featured an animated cat named MC Skat Kat. At the 33rd Grammy Awards, Abdul won her first Grammy for Best Music Video for "Opposites Attract", She was also nominated for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance for her song "Straight Up" but it lost to Bonnie Raitt's "Nick of Time". In early 1991, Yvette Marine, backing vocalist on "Forever Your Girl", claimed that she sang "co-lead vocals" on the album and sued Paula and Virgin Records for compensation. After one month of court proceedings, Abdul and Virgin won the case. Abdul's follow-up album, 1991's "Spellbound," contained another string of hits, and sold 7 million copies worldwide. The first single from "Spellbound" was the ballad, "Rush, Rush," which topped the Billboard Hot 100 chart for five consecutive weeks, and was noted for its music video and "Rebel Without a Cause" motif featuring Keanu Reeves in the James Dean role. "Promise of a New Day", the second release from the album, also hit No. 1, and was followed by the Top 10 hit "Blowing Kisses in the Wind" and two Top 20 hits: "Vibeology" and "Will You Marry Me?". Many of these songs were written by Peter Lord, Jeffrey Smith and Sandra St. Victor, who were members of The Family Stand. The album, "Spellbound", retained much of the dance-oriented formula heard on her debut album. The track "U" was written for Paula by Prince. Abdul promoted the album through the "Under My Spell Tour", which was named by an MTV contest for fans. This tour was nearly cancelled due to an accident during rehearsals. The tour began on schedule and ran from October 1991 to the summer of 1992. In 1991, Abdul embraced advertising and starred in a popular Diet Coke commercial in which she danced with a digital image of her idol, a young Gene Kelly. Abdul was honoured with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in December 1991. 1995–2001: "Head over Heels". By 1995, Paula Abdul had recovered from her battle with the eating disorder bulimia nervosa and prepared to return to the spotlight with her new album "Head over Heels". The first single off the album, "My Love Is for Real" featured a fusion of R&B and traditional Middle Eastern instruments, and was performed with Yemeni-Israeli singer Ofra Haza. Its accompanying "Lawrence of Arabia"-inspired music video was played in theaters across the world as a prologue to the film "Clueless". The single was a hit in the clubs (peaking at No. 1 on Billboard's Hot Dance Music/Club Play chart), and made it to No. 28 on Billboard's Hot 100 chart. The second single, "Crazy Cool", peaked at No. 13 on the dance charts. "Ain't Never Gonna Give You Up" was the album's third and final single. To date, "Head over Heels" has sold 3 million copies worldwide. In January 1997, Abdul starred in the ABC television movie "Touched by Evil," playing a businesswoman who discovers that her boyfriend is a serial rapist. Also that year, Abdul co-wrote the song "Spinning Around" with songwriter and producer Kara DioGuardi, who became a fellow judge on "American Idol" in 2009. "Spinning Around" was a dance-pop track intended to be the lead single on Abdul's follow-up album to "Head over Heels". But the album never materialized, and "Spinning Around" was instead given to Kylie Minogue. The song was highly successful, reaching No. 1 in numerous countries. While Abdul took a break from the music industry, she remained busy behind the scenes. Abdul served as the choreographer for several film and theater productions, including the 1998 musical "Reefer Madness" and the cheerleading scenes in the 1999 film "American Beauty" (she had previously also choreographed the 1991 film "The Doors"). Abdul also co-produced a 2001 pilot episode of "Skirts", a dramatic series that would have aired on MTV about a high-school cheerleading squad; Abdul was also set to appear as the head coach. The pilot never aired. In 2000, Abdul’s "" CD was released by Virgin Records (with whom Abdul was already no longer affiliated). It included all her hit singles and other noteworthy tracks. The song "Bend Time Back 'Round" had previously been heard only on the 1992 soundtrack for the hit television series "Beverly Hills, 90210". 2002–2009: "American Idol". In 2002, Abdul appeared as one of three judges for the reality television music competition show "American Idol". Abdul, along with fellow judges Simon Cowell and Randy Jackson, evaluated thousands of amateur contestants in their ability to sing. Abdul won praise as a sympathetic and compassionate judge. She seemed especially kind compared to fellow judge Simon Cowell, who was often blunt in his appraisals of the contestants' performances. When she realized that Cowell's over-the-top judging style was heartbreaking for many young contestants, Abdul was so horrified that she considered leaving the show. Although their differences often resulted in extremely heated on-air exchanges and confrontations, Cowell says he played a major role in convincing Abdul not to leave the show. While serving as a judge on "American Idol," Abdul accepted a second assignment as reporter for "Entertainment Tonight". In March 2006, Fox announced that Abdul had signed to stay on "American Idol" as a judge for at least three more years. Later that year, fellow "American Idol" judge Simon Cowell invited her to be a guest judge at some of the early auditions for the third series of his similar UK talent show "The X Factor". Abdul was present at the initial audition of the eventual winner, Leona Lewis. Paula Abdul's second greatest-hits CD, "", was released by Virgin Records on May 8, 2007. Virgin Records also released the music videos to all six of Abdul's No. 1 singles to iTunes. Meanwhile, Bravo began airing the reality television series "Hey Paula," which followed Abdul through her day-to-day life. The series was produced by Scott Sternberg Productions and debuted on June 28, 2007. Abdul's behavior as depicted on the show was described as "erratic" by comedian Rosie O'Donnell and decried by numerous fans and critics. The show aired for only one season. In 2007, Paula Abdul Jewelry launched its nationwide consumer debut on QVC, with the tagline "fashion jewelry designed with heart and soul." Paula's first QVC appearance resulted in 15 sellouts of her first jewelry collection involving more than 34,000 pieces. In January 2008, Abdul returned to the music charts for the first time in nearly 13 years with the single "Dance Like There's No Tomorrow," the first track on the album "Randy Jackson's Music Club Vol 1". The song debuted on "On Air with Ryan Seacrest"., and Abdul performed it during the pre-game show for Super Bowl XLII. "Dance Like There's No Tomorrow" was a modest comeback hit for Abdul, peaking at No. 62 on the Billboard Hot 100, No. 11 on iTunes and No. 2 on the Billboard Hot Dance Club Play chart. Abdul has reported other songs that she is working on such as, "Boom Box." Abdul also made a brief guest appearance in season 3 episode 1 of the British television Comedy-Drama "Hotel Babylon", which aired in the United Kingdom on February 19, 2008. In February 2008, it was reported she was to be working on a new album. In January 2009, Abdul hosted "RAH!," a 90-minute cheerleading competition on MTV. "RAH!" featured five collegiate squads competing in a series of challenges with Abdul crowning one the winner. In May 2009, Abdul debuted her latest song "I'm Just Here for the Music" (originally an unreleased song from Kylie Minogue's ninth album Body Language) on the Ryan Seacrest Radio KIIS-FM show and performed the single on the "American Idol" results show. "I'm Just Here for the Music" reached No. 87 on the Billboard Hot 100, becoming Abdul's 15th song to appear on the chart. In an interview with the "Los Angeles Times" on July 18, 2009, Paula's manager David Sonenberg told the newspaper that, "Very sadly, it does not appear that she’s going to be back on ‘Idol’." This came about as a result of stalled negotiations between Paula and the show. On August 4, 2009, after numerous contract negotiations, Abdul confirmed that she would not be returning to "Idol" for its ninth season. "The Times" cited reports Abdul had been earning as much as $5 million per season and that she was reportedly seeking as much as $20 million to return. On August 18, 2009, it was reported that Abdul was negotiating to return to "Idol" after not taking part in season nine of "Dancing with the Stars". Two days later, Abdul's manager said that there were not any talks with Fox, but they were not ruling anything out. Abdul claimed her departure from "Idol" was not about money, but that she had to stand on principle. On September 9, 2009, Ellen DeGeneres was confirmed as Abdul's successor for "Idol". 2010–present: "Live to Dance" and "The X Factor". In January 2010, Abdul presented a Lifetime Achievement Award to choreographer Julie McDonald at the 11th Anniversary show of the . In November, Abdul launched and co-founded AuditionBooth.com, a website that allows aspiring talents to connect with casting directors, producers, and managers. Abdul kicked off 2011 by serving as lead judge, executive producer, creative partner, mentor and coach on CBS' new dancing competition, "Live to Dance" (formerly "Got to Dance") Abdul said that unlike "American Idol", her new show is less about "competition" and more about "celebration." After its first season of seven weekly shows, it was canceled by CBS. On May 8, 2011, it was announced that Abdul would rejoin Simon Cowell on the first season of the American version of "The X Factor". The judging panel consisted of Abdul, Cowell, music executive L.A. Reid, and former Pussycat Dolls lead singer Nicole Scherzinger (who replaced Cheryl Cole). The series premiered on September 21, 2011. She was the mentor for the "Groups" category. She was called by X Factor producers about the news of her category whilst at home in Los Angeles, California. During the Judges' Houses stage of the competition, Abdul was aided by guest judge Pharrell Williams in Santa Barbara, California. Abdul's contestants were all eliminated from the competition, her final act "Lakoda Rayne" were eliminated by the public vote on week five of the Live Shows. They were the Groups category's most successful act. In January 2012, Abdul announced that she would not be returning as a judge for the show's second season. Fellow season one judge Nicole Scherzinger and season one host Steve Jones were also axed from the show that month. On October 15, 2012, Abdul served as a guest judge during week four of the "All-Stars version" of "Dancing with the Stars". In week seven, she performed the "Dream Medley", a compilation of four of her No. 1 singles: "Straight Up", "Cold Hearted", "Forever Your Girl" and "Opposites Attract". The medley was a re-recording with live instruments. On April 18, 2013, Abdul appeared on the Top 5 results show of season 12 of "American Idol" to compliment contestant Candice Glover on her performance of "Straight Up". On July 9, 2013, Abdul was a guest judge on "So You Think You Can Dance" (season ten). Personal life. Abdul was married to Emilio Estevez from 1992 to 1994. She married clothing designer Brad Beckerman in 1996 at the carousel museum in Bristol, Connecticut. They divorced in 1998, citing irreconcilable differences. On Valentine's Day 2006, Abdul appeared on "Dr. Phil" as part of a prime time special on love and relationships. She was set up on two dates, and Phil McGraw gave her advice. In mid July 2007, Abdul announced that she had begun dating J.T. Torregiani, a restaurant owner 12 years her junior. She told Access Hollywood: ""He is a good guy. Things are looking upwards. It's looking good right now. I wasn't even looking for someone and that's what usually happens."" Paula and JT broke up in June 2008, citing their hectic work schedules. Abdul is still observant in her Jewish faith today and is proud of her heritage. She once stated, "My father is a Syrian Jew whose family immigrated to Brazil. My mother is Canadian with Jewish roots. My dream is to go to Israel for a real holiday." In November 2006, Israeli Tourist Minister Isaac Herzog invited her to Israel, Abdul responding with a hug, adding, "I will come; you have helped me make a dream come true." On December 20, 2004, Abdul was driving her Mercedes on a Los Angeles-area freeway when she changed lanes and hit another vehicle. The driver and passenger snapped a photograph with a cell phone camera and wrote down the license plate number of the car, which was traced to Abdul. On March 24, 2005, Abdul was fined US$900 and given 24 months of informal probation after pleading no contest to misdemeanor hit-and-run driving in Los Angeles. In addition to the fines, she was ordered to pay $775 for damage to the other car. On April 4, 2006, Abdul filed a report at a Hollywood police station claiming she had been a victim of battery at a private party at about 1 a.m. April 2, according to L.A.P.D. spokesman police Lt. Paul Vernon. "According to Abdul, the man at the party argued with her, grabbed her by the arm and threw her against a wall," Vernon said. "She said she had sustained a concussion and spinal injuries." In April 2005, Abdul revealed that she suffers from a neurological disorder called Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy (CRPS) that causes chronic pain. Paula is a dog lover who raised awareness about National Guide Dog Month in May 2009, and she teamed up with Dick Van Patten to help people with blindness to have more independence through the help of guide dogs. She does not wear real fur. Controversies. Corey Clark. In May 2005, ABC's news magazine "Primetime Live" reported claims by season two "American Idol" contestant Corey Clark that he and Abdul had an affair during that season, and that she had coached him on how to succeed in the competition. The fact that Clark came forward at a time when he was marketing a CD and trying to get a book deal was seen as suspicious by some, but Clark maintains that his career was being prejudiced because of his relationship with Abdul and that is why he came forward with the information to clear his name. For the most part, Abdul refused to comment on Clark's allegations. Simon Cowell came to Abdul's defense, calling Corey Clark a creep and stating “It was just somebody using her to get a lot of publicity for an appalling record, full stop."
1055171	Dying Young is a 1991 American romance film, directed by Joel Schumacher. It is based on a novel of the same name by Marti Leimbach, and stars Julia Roberts and Campbell Scott with Vincent D'Onofrio, Colleen Dewhurst, David Selby, and Ellen Burstyn. The original music score was composed by James Newton-Howard. Plot. Hilary O'Neil (Julia Roberts) is a pretty, outgoing yet cautious young woman who has had little luck in work or love. After recently parting ways with her boyfriend when she caught him cheating, Hilary finds herself living with her eccentric mother (Ellen Burstyn). One day, Hilary answers an ad in a newspaper for a nurse only to find herself being escorted out before the interview starts. Victor Geddes (Campbell Scott) is a well-educated, rich, and shy 28 year-old. As the film progresses, Victor's health worsens progressively, due to leukemia. Despite his father's protests, Victor hires Hilary to be his live-in caretaker while he undergoes a traumatic course of chemotherapy. Hillary becomes insecure of her ability to care for Victor after her first exposure to the side effects of his chemotherapy treatment. She studies about leukemia and stocks healthier food in the kitchen. He is "finished" with his chemotherapy and suggests they take a vacation to the coast. They rent a house and she begins to feel that she's no longer needed to care for him. They fall in love and continue living at the coast. He's hiding his use of morphine to kill the pain. During dinner with one of the friends they made there Victor starts acting aggressively and irrationally. Victor collapses and is helped to bed. She searches the garbage and discovers his used syringes. She confronts him and he admits he wasn't finished with his chemotherapy. He explains that he wants quality in his life and she says that he's been lying to her. She calls his Father and he comes to take him home but he wants to stay for one last (Christmas) party. Hilary and Victor reconnect at the party and he tells her that he is leaving with his father to go back to the hospital in the morning. After speaking with Victor's father who says Victor wants to spend one night alone before leaving, Hilary goes back to the house they rented only to find Victor packing clothes, ready to run away and not go with his father to the hospital. Hilary confronts him about running away and Victor admits that he's afraid of hoping. At this confession, Hilary finally tells Victor she loves him and they then decide to go back to the hospital where he will fight for his life with Hilary. The last frame of the movie shows Victor and Hilary leaving the house, which has a small picture of Gustav Klimt's "Adam and Eve" (the first painting Victor shows Hilary) in the window. Reception. Prior to its original 1991 release, "Premiere" magazine dubbed the film as one of the hot movies of the summer. The film earned mainly negative reviews from critics, currently holding a 23% rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 39 reviews. "Dying Young" grossed $33.6 million domestically and $48.6 million overseas to a grand total of $82.2 million worldwide.
581224	Baanam () is a Tollywood film which released on September 16, 2009. This film stars Nara Rohith and Vedika in the lead roles. Chaitanya Dantuluri directed this film and Priyanka Dutt produced this film on Three Angels Studio Pvt Ltd Banner. The film was a debut for Nara Rohith as lead actor and Chaitanya Dantuluri as director. The Movie was an average at the box office but brought some praises for the film-makers. Plot. The story is set in the fictitious town of Ranasthali, in year 1989. Bhagat Panigrahi (Nara Rohith) is preparing to become a police officer. His father Chandrasekhar Panigrahi (Sayaji Shinde), a former Naxalite returns after 20 years before giving up his fight for the society for the reasons only known to him. He comes back home and questions his son's ambition of becoming a Police Officer. Meanwhile a local don, Shakti Patnaik (Randhir Gatla) is slowly building his empire, terrorizing police and anyone who opposes him. One day, Bhagat meets Subbalaxmi (Vedika) at the railway station and rescues her from the tragedy of her life. When her ex-husband involves Shakti's gang to abduct her, it triggers a series of consequences between Bhagat and Shakti. The rest is about how Bhagat never gives anything for his ambition, which inspires others to stand up for the fight against the tyranny of Shakti. Soundtrack. The music for the film has been composed by Mani Sharma. The audio was launched on August 24, 2009 and also present during the event were Shyam Prasad Reddy, industrialist Dr Vasu. This was done with variety as five channels were taken for the coverage and biggies like Chandrababu Naidu, Dasari Narayana Rao, Nandamuri Balakrishna, Allu Aravind, Young Tiger NTR Junior unveiled the audio CD and released one song each in each channel.
585075	Ek Niranjan (Telugu: ఏక్ నిరంజన్) is a 2009 Telugu film starring Prabhas and Kangna Ranaut in lead roles. The film is directed by Puri Jagannadh. The film has been shot on a specially erected set in Hyderabad and shot in Bangkok and the songs have been shot in Switzerland. The film revolves around Chotu (Prabhas), who is a bounty hunter getting criminals to the police in exchange for money and how he reunites with his parents he never got to meet due to the fact he was kidnapped. The film released on 29 October 2009. The film was dubbed in Hindi as "Ek Hi Raasta". Plot. Viraiah's (Tanikella Bharani) younger son is stolen by Chidambaram (Makrand Deshpande), who abducts children and makes them beggars. He names him as Chotu (Prabhas) and makes him beg on streets to earn money for him. The police raid Chidambaram and Chotu helps the police to find him. The police reward Chotu for helping them. This makes Chotu realise that he can earn money by catching criminals for the police. From then on Chotu works for the police and catches hold of criminals whom the police are in search of and becomes as bounty hunter. He also is in touch with Chidambaram and communicates with him so that he can tell him who his parents are, but he never told him. While getting hold of a goon, Chotu comes across Sameera (Kangna Ranaut) who is a guitar teacher. Sameera is the sister of the goon who works for Johnny Bhai (Sonu Sood). Chotu is asked by the police to nab her brother who is wanted by them for many crimes. When Sameera is feeding her brother, Chotu enters and forcefully arrests him after causing much havoc in the house. Chotu and Sameera fall in love. As her brother reels behind the bars, Sameera reciprocates her love to Chotu. Veeraiah's elder son Kailash (Mukul Dev) also works for Johnny Bhai who will be arrested on charges of killing the minister (Posani Krishna Murali) which is planned by Johnny Bhai. Johnny Bhai wants to kill Kailash, who is arrested, fearing that he will reveal his name to the police interrogation. Kailash escapes from the police clutches and Johnny Bhai is in search of him. The police commissioner also asks Chotu to find Kailash and bag a handsome reward. Sameera's brother vacates his house and escapes to Bangkok fearing Johnny Bhai. Chotu also goes to Bangkok in search of Sameera and finds Kailash there. He catches Kailash who tells him that the minister was killed by his brother, and Kailash to the blame. Johnny Bhai kidnaps Sameera and her brother and threatens to kill them if Chotu does not hand over Kailash to him. The story ends with Chotu rescuing Sameera from Johnny Bhai and how he meets his parents. Development. Jagganadh and Prabhas worked together for the film Bujjigadu which was an average score in the box-office, Puri decided to do the duo again for Ek Niranjan. His character is dynamic, rough and tough guy and a loner. Kangna Ranaut, who is popular in Bollywood films, is making her debut in the Tollywood industry. Her character is said to be a guitar teacher. It was also said that she is acting in the film for a very big price of Rs.10 million.Puri, initially, approached her for Pokiri which Ileana D'Cruz has done, but she was unable to do the film due to the dates of "Gangster". Sonu Sood will essay the villain in the film. The film is described to be a commercial entertainer mixed with romance and comedy to appeal to the audience. Filming. Ek Niranjan began shooting on 31 March in Lahari resorts and on Road No. 25, Jubilee Hills, a part of Hyderabad which was recreated for the film. Art director Chinna and his team brought a natural look to their creations – a clock tower, a four road junction, by lanes, a Hanuman temple, and dhobi ghat including house sets for the lead pair. Around June, they left for Switzerland for the canning of two songs on Prabhas and Kangna Ranaut. After shooting in Switzerland till 30 June the film began to film the final phase of shooting in July in Bangkok and Pattaya where the climax was shot at. The film completed in September. The audio of the film was released on 25 September at Shilpakala Vedika and the music has already gotten good reviews and has been very successful so far with people loving "Evaru Lerani" and title track "Ek Niranjan". The music is done by Mani Sharma who also did the music for Billa. Release. Reception. The film received mixed reviews. Rediff gave a two star rating commented "the film does not live up to the expectations. Technically, Puri ensures that the film is in place. He tries to earnestly build up a deft screenplay with a wafer-thin story (which is increasingly becoming his trademark). But the clichéd plot falls flat despite all the technical gimmicks (fights and all) and attempts to prop it up. However Prabhas is effortless as Chotu, he acts well and the movie is watchable for him although he has developed a similar style in all his films. Kangna's Telugu debut can't be really raved about. She looks pretty but as far as performance goes, there's nothing much to write about as the script doesn't have anything for her to showcase her acting skills". Sify gave a three star rating and said "Prabhas has come up with a good and lively performance in the film. He has improved a lot in his dialogue delivery. He also excelled in dance sequences. Bollywood beauty Kangna Ranaut makes her debut in Tollywood with this film and she is looking gorgeous. Sonu Sood comes up with another dazzling performance after magnum opus Arundathi. Director Puri Jagannadh just played a routine stuff in this film. The presentation and narration are very weak, lacking all seriousness. The dialogues are to some extent good. The screenplay was not impressive and there a lot many illogical threads. local review sites Greatandhra gave two and half rating and Idlebrain gave a three star says "On a whole, Ek Niranjan is a not a bad film. First half of the movie is entertaining and the second half should have been better". Box office. Ek Niranjan was released all over Andhra Pradesh with over 350 prints in 700 theaters and the hype was outstanding due to the combination of Prabhas and Puri. Even before the release date of the film, the advance booking of the film was successful and houseful. The film had a wonderful opening with the masses loving the film despite the negative talk from critics. The film grossed Rs.210 million in its first week and is the biggest grosser of Prabhas' career. Even though the film is a good success, it has dropped tremendously during its 2nd week. Soundtrack. The music is composed by Mani Sharma. The soundtrack contains six songs and will be featured throughout the film. The audio release was held on 25 September and was an elaborate event. Prabhas, Kangna Ranaut, Allu Arjun, Puri Jagannadh presented the music at the event.
586723	Do Aur Do Paanch is a 1980 Hindi action comedy movie produced by C. Dhandyadupani and directed by Rakesh Kumar. The film stars Amitabh Bachchan, Parveen Babi, Shashi Kapoor, Hema Malini, Shreeram Lagoo, Om Prakash and Kader Khan.
1044737	John Jeremy Lloyd OBE (born 22 July 1930) is an English writer, screenwriter, author and actor, best known as co-author and writer of several successful British sitcoms. Career. Lloyd began his career as a writer in 1958 before making his film debut two years later in 1960 in "School for Scoundrels", and appeared in numerous film and television comedies during the 1960s and 1970s, notably "Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In" as a regular performer during the 1969–70 television season. He was lauded in America where they loved his patrician upper class depiction of an Englishman. Back in England after the season had been completed he met Joanna Lumley. A decision had to be made as to whether he would return to America for the start of the new season or remain in the United Kingdom and marry Miss Lumley. He never returned to America. He stands out in two films with The Beatles. In "A Hard Day's Night" (1964) Lloyd is uncredited as a tall man dancing at the disco with Beatles drummer Ringo Starr. In "Help!" (1965) he is a restaurant patron, also uncredited. In 1969 he filmed a scene with Peter Sellers for "The Magic Christian", which co-starred Ringo Starr. Lloyd can be seen in the board room meeting offering marketing slogans for a really big car and suggests "the gang's all here back seat." His first major success as a comedy writer was with "Are You Being Served?" in 1972, on which he worked with David Croft. He had worked for a short time for Simpsons of Piccadilly and many of the characters depicted are drawn from his recollections of his time there. They subsequently produced Allo 'Allo!", which was equally popular in the UK, and a spinoff of "Are You Being Served?", "Grace & Favour" which aired in 1992. Jeremy also wrote the poem/lyrics for the popular "Captain Beaky" album and books in 1980. Jeremy played the eccentric chimney sweep, Berthram Fortesque Wynthrope-Smythe aka Bert Smith in 'The Avengers' episode, From Venus With Love in 1967. Lloyd has been the subject of a persistent urban legend which claims that he had been invited to a dinner party at the home of Sharon Tate on the night that she was murdered by followers of Charles Manson. This was verified as true, not a myth, when the octogenarian was interviewed by Emma Freud on BBC Radio 4 "Loose Ends" on 10 December 2011. Lloyd was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2013 New Year Honours for services to British comedy. Personal life. Lloyd's first marriage (1955) to the model Dawn Bailey lasted seven years. After their marriage ended, Lloyd was briefly married to the actress Joanna Lumley, but the marriage was dissolved after a few months. Trivia. Lloyd appeared in "A Hard Day's Night" and "Help!", two films starring the Beatles, and also had a brief role in "The Magic Christian", which starred Peter Sellers and Ringo Starr. Starr appeared in an episode of "Laugh-In", recalling the films he and Lloyd were in together, while Lloyd looked at him as a stranger, saying "Sorry, you can't expect me to remember "everybody"."
1055450	Honky Tonk Freeway is a 1981 comedy film directed by John Schlesinger. The film, conceived and co-produced by Don Boyd, was one of the most expensive box office flops in history, losing its British backers Thorn-EMI an estimated $11,000,000 and profoundly impacting its fortunes and aspirations. The film was financed in part by Roy Tucker's tax avoidance schemes funded by the Rossminster banking group. Just before the film was released, EMI sold the ancillary rights under this scheme to German investors in need of a tax loss, in an effort to try to recoup their $11,000,000 loss. When the movie's distributors learned this fact, they were no longer financially motivated to distribute the movie widely and consequently released the film for only one week. Plot. In a small Florida tourist town named Ticlaw, the Mayor/Preacher Kirby T. Calo (William Devane) also operates a hotel and tiny wildlife safari park. The town's major draw is a water-skiing elephant named Bubbles. When the state highway commission builds a freeway adjacent to the town, Calo slips an official $10,000 to assure an off ramp. The ramp doesn't come, so the townsfolk literally paint the town pink to attract visitors. Meanwhile, tourists from various parts of the United States, shown in a series of concurrent, ongoing vignettes, are heading to Florida and will all end up in Ticlaw, one way or another, including a pair of bank robbers from New York (George Dzundza, Joe Grifasi) who pick up a cocaine-dealing hitchhiker (Daniel Stern); a Chicago copy machine repairman and wannabe children's author, Duane Hansen (Beau Bridges), who picks up a waitress, Carmen Odessa Shelby (Beverly D'Angelo), who is carrying her deceased mother's ashes to Florida; a dentist and his dysfunctonal family (Howard Hesseman, Teri Garr, Peter Billingsley), vacationing cross-country in their RV; an elderly woman, Carol (Jessica Tandy), with a drinking problem and her loving husband Sherm (Hume Cronyn), who are heading to Florida to retire; two nuns (mother superior Geraldine Page, novice nun Deborah Rush); and a wannabe country songwriter hauling a playful rhino and other wild animals to Ticlaw, and more. Filming. This movie was filmed in the small central Florida town of Mount Dora. The off ramp filming location took place at the I-75 and Palmer Road overpass in Sarasota, Florida. Most of the highway scenes take place on I-75 between Sarasota and Ft Myers while the highway was still under construction. Dynamite crews blew up the south bound lane overpass at I-75 and Palmer Road before the Tampa to Miami leg of the highway was completed in 1981. Many portions of Fruitville were painted pink to match the sets in Mount Dora and remained pink for decades afterward. Palmer Road was never designated for an I-75 exit because it is not a main thoroughfare. The exit for Fruitville is on Fruitville Road about 2 miles north of the filming location. Reception. The film received negative reviews: Famously, it was slated by "Variety" on release and pulled from theatres after just one week: Some have argued that the film can be viewed as a satire on the American way of life and this contributed to its unfavourable critical reception at the time Since its release on DVD it has attained something of a cult following. Nominations. The film was nominated for a Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Original Song for the song "You're Crazy, But I Like You".
1066116	Coffy is a 1973 blaxploitation film written and directed by American filmmaker Jack Hill. The story is about a black female vigilante played by Pam Grier. The film's tagline in advertising was "They call her 'Coffy' and she'll cream you!" Plot. Nurse "Coffy" Coffin (Pam Grier), seeks revenge for her younger sister's getting hooked on drugs and having to live in a rehabilitation home, a product of the drug underworld, mob bosses and chain of violence that exists in her city. The film opens with Coffy showing her vigilante nature by killing a drug supplier and dealer. She does this without getting caught by using her sexuality as an attractive and athletic African American woman willing to do anything for a drug fix.
1166085	Danitra Vance (July 13, 1954 – August 21, 1994) was an American comedian and actress best known as a cast member on the NBC sketch show "Saturday Night Live" during its eleventh season and for work in feature films like "Sticky Fingers" (1988), "Limit Up" (1990) and "Jumpin' at the Boneyard" (1992). Career. Born in Chicago, Vance graduated from nearby Thornton Township High School in 1972. In high school she was active in theater and was a member of the debate team. She later attended Roosevelt University and graduated with honors. She then studied drama at Webber Douglas Academy of Dramatic Art. Vance was the first African American woman to become an "SNL" repertory player in 1985 (not to be confused with Yvonne Hudson from season six, who first appeared as a recurring extra for season four and season five [1979-1980 and was hired as a feature player during Jean Doumanian's notoriously shaky 1981 season), the only "SNL" cast member to have a learning disability (Vance was dyslexic and, according to Al Franken in the book, "Live from New York: The Uncensored History of Saturday Night Live," she had trouble memorizing lines and reading cue cards, though this was not made apparent in most cases and, in one case, ad-libbing covered it up), was the first lesbian cast member hired (though her sexual orientation never became public knowledge until her death), and the only black lesbian cast member as of 2012. She is best remembered for the sketch "That Black Girl," (a spoof of the 1960s sitcom "That Girl"), and for her character Cabrini Green Harlem Watts Jackson, a teenage mother who dispensed advice on the do's and don'ts of being pregnant. Both were recurring characters during her time on "SNL."
1578081	Alien Hunter is a 2003 television science-fiction-thriller film, directed by Ron Krauss and stars James Spader, Carl Lewis and Leslie Stefanson. Plot. In 1947 New Mexico, a radio operator receives a bizarre signal, coming from Roswell. He decides to investigate the signal's origin and goes out to follow it, to never be seen again. Present day and the same signal is received from the South Pole and then retransmitted from the Falkland Islands to the United States. A satellite image captures an unknown object sitting on the Antarctic snow. Cryptologist Julien Rome (James Spader), a teacher at Berkeley University, is invited to investigate the mystery and he is sent to an Antarctic research base, which includes a huge greenhouse of genetically modified plants being studied by the scientists. They found what appears to be an alien vehicle frozen in a huge block of ice. The unknown object is shaped like a shell or pod and is emitting the mysterious encrypted signal. Once it is freed of the ice Julien discovers that it has a powerful static electric charge on its surface and painfully shocks anyone who touches it.
1410923	Caitlin Clarke (May 3, 1952 – September 9, 2004) was an American theater and film actress best known for her role as Valerian in the 1981 fantasy film "Dragonslayer" and for her role as Charlotte Cardoza in the 1998–1999 Broadway musical "Titanic". Biography. Clarke was born Katherine Anne Clarke in Pittsburgh, the oldest of five sisters, the youngest of whom is Victoria Clarke. Her family moved to Sewickley when she was ten. Clarke received her B.A. in theater arts from Mount Holyoke College in 1974 and her M.F.A. from the Yale School of Drama in 1978. During her final year at Yale Clarke performed with the Yale Repertory Theater in such plays as Tales from the Vienna Woods. The first few years of Clarke's professional career were largely theatrical, apart from her role in Dragonslayer. After appearing in three Broadway plays in 1985, Clarke moved to Los Angeles for several years as a film and television actress. She returned to theater in the early 1990s, and to Broadway as Charlotte Cardoza in "Titanic". Clarke was diagnosed with ovarian cancer in 2000. She returned to Pittsburgh to teach theater at the University of Pittsburgh and at the Pittsburgh Musical Theater's Rauh Conservatory as well as to perform in Pittsburgh theatre until her death on September 9, 2004. Television. Series: "Northern Exposure", "The Equalizer", "Once A Hero", "Moonlighting", "Sex And The City", "Law & Order" ("Menace", "Juvenile", "Stiff"). Movies: "Mayflower Madam" (1986), "Love, Lies and Murder" (1991), "The Stepford Husbands" (1996). The episode, " The Witness", Matlock 1990
1064776	Open Season 2 is a direct-to-video sequel to the 2006 computer animated film "Open Season", produced by Sony Pictures Animation, directed by Matthew O'Callaghan, co-directed by Todd Wilderman, and produced by Kirk Bodyfelt and Matthew O'Callaghan. Most of the supporting cast reprised their voice roles, however Martin Lawrence, Ashton Kutcher, and Patrick Warburton do not reprise their roles as Boog, Elliot, and Ian from the first film; instead, Mike Epps, Joel McHale, and Matthew W. Taylor voice Boog, Elliot, and Ian respectively. Plot. The film takes one year after the events of the first film. Elliot (Joel McHale) has grown giant new antlers and is getting married to Giselle (Jane Krakowski). But during a mishap, Elliot's new antlers are cracked off and now look like they did in the first film, which upsets him. Luckily, Boog (Mike Epps) and the others manage to cheer Elliot up by having a rabbit fight. But Elliot has new emotions about his marriage and feels reluctant to marry Giselle. Mr. Weenie (Cody Cameron) finds a dog biscuit trail that his previous owners left behind and uncontrollably follows it. At the climax of the wedding, Elliot witnesses Mr. Weenie being taking away by his old owners, Bob and Bobbie (Georgia Engel). Elliot tells the story to the other forest animals (a little overreacting) and decide to make a rescue mission to save him. The other ones that go on Elliot's rescue mission are Boog, Giselle, McSquizzy (Billy Connolly), Buddy, (Matthew W. Taylor), and Serge (Danny Mann) and Deni (Matthew W. Taylor). Meanwhile, the other pets meet. There is Fifi (Crispin Glover), a toy poodle and his basset hound companion Roberto, (Steve Schirripa), two cats named Stanley (Fred Stoller) whose companion is a mentally retarded cat named Roger (Sean Mullen), and a Southern dog named Rufus (Diedrich Bader), whose companion is his girlfriend Charlene (Olivia Hack). Fifi discusses his hatred for wild animals as one night he goes into the bushes to retrieve his chew toy and is shocked by the wild animals inside, and accidentally gets his tail touched by the bug lighter. He then tries to maul a nearby rabbit, until stopped by his owner. Meanwhile, the wilds find Weenie, much to Elliot's dismay, who does not want to marry Giselle. They try to free him while his owners are in a gas station. They free him from his chains, but accidentally leave him stuck on the RV along with Buddy. Elliot and Giselle get in a feud, and eventually leaves Elliot to search for Mr. Weenie himself, while Serge and Deni fly to look for him. The owners reach the pet camp with Mr. Weenie and Buddy, unbeknownst to them. The other pets meet with Weenie, and Fifi tries to change Weenie back into a pet, but fails. Buddy helps Weenie escape and Buddy tries to free Weenie from his shock collar. During the chase, Fifi gets shocked by the collar and gets his forehead burned, which causes him to lose most of his sanity. Meanwhile, Serge and Deni return and explain they found Weenie and Buddy at a pet camp, which they now escaped from. Boog and the others set camp at a human camp, and Boog tries to convince Giselle that Elliot is a good person and they are good together, but fails. Elliot, meanwhile, is having a horrible time, following his own tracks that he confuses for Mr. Weenie's and gets his head stuck on a trash can lid with gum on it, but misses his friends and becomes a mess. The wilds reach the pet camp, but the pets and their owners have already left, but realizes that they have gone to Pet Paradiso, a vacation spot for pets. Elliot finds Weenie and Buddy and is convinced to go to Pet Paradiso to save his friends. The wilds reach Pet Paradiso and try to sneak in by disguising themselves as pets, with Giselle as a dalmatian and McSquizzy as a chihuahua. Boog attempts to sneak in as a cat, but gets the idea to be a sheepdog. Elliot also disguises himself as Boog's female human owner. Giselle and McSquizzy walk around Pet Paradiso looking for Mr. Weenie, but their cover is blown and are kidnapped by Fifi and the other pets. Elliot, Boog, Buddy and Mr. Weenie attempt to go inside to save Giselle and McSquizzy, but are captured by Fifi as well. Fifi tries to kill them with a pile of shock collars. As Boog tries to stop Mr. Weenie from going down a waterslide, his cover is blown as well and the security try to tranquilize him after he causes a rampage after people confuse his weight. Before Fifi shocks the wilds into submission, Elliot tries to profess his love for Giselle, but fails. As Fifi is about to fry the wilds, Boog, is was chasing Weenie down a waterslide, enters the pets' lair, and the water that was rushed from the waterslide forces everyone out of the lair. A battle between the wilds and the pets ensues, with the Pet Paradiso security focused on tranquilizing the wilds. Elliot saves Giselle and accidentally places all the shock collars on himself. He also wrestles Fifi in the pool for the shock collar remote. Fifi eventually grabs the remote and activates all the shock collars, but does not realize that Elliot put all the shock collars on him. Fifi survives, but the explosion caused him to lose his hair and become bald. The pets and the wilds settle their differences and decide to become friends. Mr. Weenie decides to join the pets and returns to his owners in rejoice. Elliot finally professes his true feelings for Giselle, and they get married. During a music number called "Close to You", Elliot falls off the edge again and his remaining antler falls off (again), to which Boog says, "Ooh. That just ain't right.", with Elliot heard exclaiming, "Oh, come ON!". Production. Sony announced a sequel to "Open Season" in September 2007. Although, the original grossed $85 million and $105 million outside the United States, Sony felt the film performed much better on DVD, thus, making a direct-to-DVD sequel. Sony Pictures Digital president said that "the studio will keep Open Season 2's costs low by utilizing Imageworks' satellite facilities in India and New Mexico". Release. Although "Open Season 2" was as direct-to-video in the United States and the United Kingdom, it was released theatrically in some countries. In South Africa on its opening day, the film grossed $84,244 from 26 screens with an $2,081 average. In Russia, it opened with $2,835,600 from 360 screens with a $7,877 average. In Poland, it opened with $194,339 from 75 screens with an $2,591 average. In total, the film grossed $8,716,950. Theatrical releases: Reception. Overall, the film received mixed reviews from critics. Critic at DVD Verdict claimed, ""Open Season 2" is no classic (neither was the original), but it's a competent check-your-brain-at-the-door comedy for children of all ages. The animation and storytelling may not stack up against Pixar's (whose does?), but the flick offers something that Pixar movies generally don't: old cartoon slapstick and sight gags in the mold of Bugs Bunny". Home release. "Open Season 2" was released on DVD, Blu-ray Disc and PSP UMD on January 27, 2009. Sequel. The sequel "Open Season 3" premiered in theaters in Russia on October 21, 2010 and was released on DVD and Blu-ray in United States on January 25, 2011.
591935	Priyanka Trivedi (born 9 November, 1977) is an Indian actress who has acted in Kannada, Tamil and some Telugu and Tollywood Bangla films. She is widely popular in Kannada cinema. Personal life. Priyanka is married to the Kannada cinema director, actor and script writer Upendra. The couple have two children. She had a role opposite Dr.Vishuvardhan in the film "Kotigobba". She then acted with Upendra in "Raa", "H2O", & Shrimathi and with Ravichandran in "Malla".
1054395	Set It Off is a 1996 American action-crime-thriller film directed by F. Gary Gray, and stars Jada Pinkett Smith, Queen Latifah, Vivica A. Fox and Kimberly Elise (in her theatrical acting debut), as four close friends in Los Angeles, California who decide to plan and execute a bank robbery. They decide to do so for different reasons, although all four want better for themselves and their families. Plot. Francesca "Frankie" Sutton (Vivica A. Fox) is a Los Angeles bank teller who witnesses a robbery. Shortly after the incident, the bank fires Frankie after the police uncover a connection between her and Darnell, one of the robbers. Frankie reluctantly gets a job at a janitorial company where her friends Lita "Stoney" Newsome (Jada Pinkett), Cleopatra "Cleo" Sims (Queen Latifah), and Tisean "T.T." Williams (Kimberly Elise) already work. Stoney's brother Stevie is wrongfully gunned down by the police after they mistake him for one of the men involved in the previous robbery. The incident prompts Cleo to suggest that they rob a bank themselves. While Frankie is happy to go along with the plan, T.T. is initially opposed the idea. However, when an accident at work leads to her toddler being taken away by social services, T.T. commits to the plot as well. The four women embark on a series of bank robberies, which are investigated by LAPD detective Strode (John C. McGinley). The women stash the money in an air vent at one of their work sites. However, when they show up for work another day, they realize that their boss, Luther (Thomas Jefferson Byrd), has discovered the money and fled. The women track down Luther and find him at a motel with a woman. When they confront Luther he is killed by T.T. when he pulls a gun on Cleo. Afterwards, Cleo takes the woman's drivers license to prevent her from contacting the police. With their money gone, the girls rob another bank, which happens to be the same bank where Keith (Blair Underwood), Stoney's lover, works. Before they make it out of the bank, Strode and his partner arrive and order them to drop their weapons, but as they do, a bank security guard shoots Tisean. Stoney and Cleo open fire at the security guard and carry Tisean to the getaway car with Frankie behind the wheel. As Tisean dies in Stoney’s arms en route to a hospital, the three women decide to split up. Cleo is the second of the girls to be killed after the police catch up to her. The police catch up to Frankie and order her to surrender. However, Frankie pulls a gun on Strode and tries to run away, but is shot and killed by an officer. Stoney, in the meantime, boards a bus heading to Mexico, but she painfully witnesses the killing of Frankie. Strode spots Stoney on the bus, but lets her go. After cutting her hair in a small motel where she has taken refuge, she calls Keith but does not say anything. While she does not tell him where she is, she assures him that she is all right and thanks him. The movie ends with her driving through the mountains with the stolen money in tow. Critical reception. On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, "Set It Off" holds an overall 63% approval rating based on 24 reviews, with a rating average of 6.1 out of 10. The site's consensus reads: "It may not boast an original plot, but Set It Off is a satisfying, socially conscious heist film thanks largely to fine performances from its leads." Awards and nominations. 1997 Acapulco Black Film Festival 1997 Independent Spirit Awards 1997 NAACP Image Awards
585269	Maaveeran is the first Tamil film to be released with wide high resolution 70 mm and directed by Rajasekhar. It was a remake of the 1985 Hindi film "Mard". Ambika appeared in a glamorous role alongside Rajinikanth. She first comes across as a rude princess, who later falls in love with him. The film was produced by Rajinikanth himself. Release. The film released on 1 November 1986 Diwali Day with Kamal Haasan starring Punnagai Mannan and failed at the box office..
582807	Main Prem Ki Diwani Hoon (English: I'm Crazy About Prem) is a 2003 Bollywood romantic comedy drama film by Sooraj R. Barjatya and a production by Rajshri. The film is a remake of the 1976 film Chitchor and features Hrithik Roshan, Kareena Kapoor and Abhishek Bachchan in the lead roles. The movie had a worldwide release on 27 June 2003. Plot. "Main Prem Ki Diwani Hoon" is the story of Sanjana (Kareena Kapoor), a girl of today's generation full of life. She lives life on her own terms and gets very upset when her mother Susheela (Himani Shivpuri) arranges for her to see a boy leading to a marriage prospect. Roopa, the eldest daughter, shows Sanjana's photos to Prem's mother who instantly approves of her. She eventually meets Prem Kishen (Hrithik Roshan). At first she cannot stand him, but eventually they fall in love. Her parents are happy that Sanjana likes him, but suddenly Roopa e-mails them to tell that Prem could not make it so they sent someone else. Sanjana's confused parents find out that the boy who is here is not the rich N.R.I. Prem whom Sanjana was meant to meet. He is Prem Kishen, an employee in Prem Kumar's company. It gets even worse when the real Prem Kumar (Abhishek Bachchan) arrives to meet Sanjana. The meddling mother ousts Prem Kishen, though the father (Pankaj Kapoor) has reservations because he sees how much Sanjana and Prem are in love. Prem Kumar likes Sanjana instantly and Sanjana can't believe how much she has in common with him, but Sanjana is now inseparable from Prem Kishen, her true love. He returns to Sundarnagar and reveals during the family photo that his boss is going to get married with his beloved Sanjana. Trouble ensues; a marriage is decided for Sanjana and Prem Kumar with Prem Kumar's mother's (Reema Lagoo) blessing. Prem Kishen's loyalty to his boss and his boss' happiness forces him to leave and let the marriage go on. Sanjana finally meets her soulmate when Prem Kumar learns the reality and unites Sanjana with Prem Kishen. Soundtrack. The music of this movie was composed by Anu Malik and was a big hit specially, "Bani Bani Prem Diwani Bani", "Chali Aayee Chali Aayee" & "Kasam Ki Kasam".
1043100	Passport to Pimlico is a 1949 British comedy film made by Ealing Studios and starring Stanley Holloway, Margaret Rutherford and Hermione Baddeley. It was directed by Henry Cornelius. The script was written by T.E.B. Clarke and demonstrated his usual logical development of absurd ideas. Some scenes in which the residents are refused passage out of their district into London by the authorities, and rely on supplies thrown over the dividing wall by well-wishers, were very topical because the film was made during the Berlin blockade. The film was inspired by a true incident during the Second World War, when the maternity ward of Ottawa Civic Hospital was temporarily declared extraterritorial by the Canadian government so that, when Princess Margriet of the Netherlands was born there, she would not lose her right to the throne. The film was screened at the 1949 Cannes Film Festival, but not entered into the competition. Plot. When some local children roll a tractor tyre down a hole, it sets off an unexploded bomb left over from the Second World War in Miramont Gardens in the Pimlico district of London. The explosion reveals a buried cellar containing artwork, coins, jewellery and an ancient parchment document. Professor Hatton-Jones (Margaret Rutherford) authenticates it as a royal charter of Edward IV that ceded the house and its estates to Charles VII ("the Rash"), the last Duke of Burgundy, when he sought refuge there several centuries ago after being presumed dead at the Battle of Nancy. As the charter had never been revoked, Pimlico is legally part of Burgundy. Local policeman P.C. Spiller (Philip Stainton) is shocked to realise, "Blimey! I'm a foreigner!". The British government has no legal jurisdiction and requires the Burgundians to form a representative committee according to the laws of the long-defunct dukedom before negotiating with them. Ancient Burgundian law requires that the Duke himself appoint a council. Without one, all seems lost - until a young man from Dijon (Paul Dupuis) steps forward and proves that "he" is the heir to the dukedom. He duly forms a governing body; one of its members is the shrewd shopkeeper Arthur Pemberton (Stanley Holloway). Very quickly, Burgundy (followed soon after by the rest of London) realises that it is not subject to post-war rationing and other bureaucratic restrictions, and the district is quickly flooded with entrepreneurs, crooks and eager shoppers. A noisy free-for-all ensues, which Spiller, the Chief (and only) Constable of Burgundy, finds himself unable to handle. Then the British authorities close the "border" with barbed wire. Having left England without their passports, the bargain hunters have trouble returning home - as one policeman replies to an indignant woman, "Don't blame "me" Madam, if you choose to go abroad to do your shopping."
1044579	Twins of Evil is a 1971 horror film by Hammer Film Productions starring Peter Cushing, with Damien Thomas and the real-life twins and former Playboy Playmates Mary and Madeleine Collinson. It is the third film of The Karnstein Trilogy, based on the vampire tale "Carmilla" by Sheridan Le Fanu. The film has the least resemblance to the novel and adds a witchfinding theme to the vampire story. Much of the interest of the film revolves around the contrasting evil and good natures of two beautiful sisters, Frieda and Maria Gellhorn. Unlike the previous two entries in the series, this film contains only a brief vampire lesbian element. Some considered the film a prequel to "The Vampire Lovers" and "Lust for a Vampire". Plot. Maria and Frieda, recently orphaned identical twin teenage girls, move from Venice to Karnstein in Central Europe to live with their uncle Gustav Weil. Weil is a stern puritan and leader of the fanatical witch-hunting 'Brotherhood'. Both twins resent their uncle's sternness and one of them, Frieda, looks for a way to escape. Resenting her uncle, she becomes fascinated by the local Count Karnstein, who has the reputation of being "a wicked man". Count Karnstein, who enjoys the Emperor's favour and thus remains untouched by the Brotherhood, is indeed wicked and interested in Satanism and Black Magic. Trying to emulate his evil ancestors, he murders a girl as a Human Sacrifice, calling forth Countess Mircalla Karnstein from her grave. Mircalla turns the Count into a vampire. Frieda, following an invitation from the Count, steals away to the castle at night, while Maria covers for her absence. In the castle, the Count transforms Frieda into a vampire, offering her a beautiful young chained victim. Returning home, Frieda threatens Maria to keep covering for her nightly excursions, but secretly fearing she might bite her sister. Meanwhile Maria becomes interested in the handsome young teacher, Anton, who is initially infatuated with the more mysterious Frieda. Anton has studied what he calls "superstition", but becomes convinced of the existence of vampires when his sister falls victim to one. One night, when Frieda attacks a member of the Brotherhood, she is captured by her uncle and put in jail. While the Brotherhood debates the vampire woman's fate, the Count and his servants kidnap Maria and exchange her for Frieda in the cell. Anton goes to see Maria, not knowing that she is actually Frieda. She tries to seduce him, but he sees her lack of reflection in a mirror and repels her with a cross. Anton rushes to rescue Maria from burning. Maria kisses a cross, revealing her innocence. Weil now listens to Anton's advice on the proper ways to fight vampires, and the two men lead the Brotherhood and villagers to Karnstein Castle to confront the Count. The Count and Frieda attempt to escape, but they are surprised by Weil, who beheads Frieda. Maria is captured by the Count, who uses her as a shield. Weil challenges the Count and is killed, giving Anton the opportunity to pierce the distracted Count's heart with a spear. Anton and Maria are united as Karnstein crumbles to corruption. Reception. Film critic Leonard Maltin gave the film a passing grade of two and a half stars, calling it "engaging" and "inspired" in its use of the Collinson twins. A.H. Weiler wrote in "The New York Times" that the Collinson twins made the film interesting, but "The rest of the costumed crew... hardly give "Twins of Evil" a good name." In other media. A novelisation of the film was written by Shaun Hutson and published by Arrow Publishing in association with Hammer and the Random House Group in 2011, ISBN 978-0-09-955619-0. The book contains an introduction by the film's director, John Hough. The film was adapted into an 18-page comic strip for the January–February 1977 issue of the magazine "House of Hammer" (volume 1, # 7, published by General Book Distribution). It was drawn by Blas Gallego from a script by Chris Lowder. The cover of the issue featured a painting by Brian Lewis based on imagery from the film. The British music duo Collinson Twin (formed 2009) are named in tribute to the "Twins of Evil" stars. Another British music group The Twin Dracula are thought to be named after the characters.
1164599	Orlando Jones (born April 10, 1968) is an American comedian and film and television actor. He is notable for being one of the original cast members of the sketch comedy series "MADtv" and for his role as the 7 Up spokesman from 1999-2002. Early life. Jones was born in Mobile, Alabama. His father was a former professional baseball player for the Philadelphia Phillies. He moved to Mauldin, South Carolina, when he was a teen and graduated from Mauldin High School in 1985. One of his early acting experiences involved playing a werewolf in a haunted house to help raise money for the junior/senior prom. Jones enrolled in the College of Charleston, South Carolina. He left in 1990 without finishing his degree. To pursue his interest in the entertainment industry, Jones, together with comedian Michael Fechter, formed a production company, Homeboy's Productions and Advertising. Together Jones and Fechter worked on several projects including a McDonald's commercial with basketball superstar Michael Jordan for the McDonald's specialty sandwich the "McJordan". He scored his first Hollywood job in 1987, writing for the NBC comedy "A Different World", on which he had a small guest role in the season five finale. During 1991-92, Jones penned the Fox series "Roc" and, in 1993, he co-produced "The Sinbad Show". He also made a brief appearance on the FOX sitcom "Herman's Head" in 1992. Career. MADtv. After hosting Fox's music series Sound FX, in 1994, Jones became one of the original nine cast members of "MADtv". Unlike some of his fellow original repertory performers on "MADtv", Jones came to the show with limited sketch comedy experience. However, his comedy writing and television producing skills proved to be valuable to the early success of the show. Throughout Seasons One and Two of "MADtv", Jones produced characters like the Cabana Chat band leader Dexter St. Croix and Reverend LaMont Nixon Fatback, the vocal follower of Christopher Walken. He was also noted for his impressions of Temuera Morrison, Warwick Davis, Danny Devito, Michael Jai White, Eddie Griffin, and Ice Cube. After two seasons on "MADtv", Jones left the show at the end of its second season to pursue a movie career. However, Jones returned to "MADtv" in 2004 to celebrate its 200th episode. With his guest appearance, Jones became the third (out of five) original cast member to return as a guest on the show, joining Alex Borstein, Nicole Sullivan, Artie Lange, Mo Collins, and Will Sasso. During his time at "MADtv", he roomed with Artie Lange. Other television projects. Aside from "MADtv", Jones made many other television appearances. Perhaps his most popular and enduring television appearance was not in the form of a sitcom or television drama, but rather in a series of humorous commercials for a soda company. In 2000, Jones became the spokesperson for 7 Up and he gained wide recognition. This exposure led to a plethora of opportunities for Jones. First, he hosted an "HBO First Look" special in 2000 and then, in 2003, Jones was given his own late night talk show on FX called "The Orlando Jones Show". Although his talk show was short lived, Jones continued to make additional television appearances. In 2003, he appeared on "The Bernie Mac Show" and on "Girlfriends". In 2006, Jones decided to return to television as one of the lead characters of ABC's crime drama "The Evidence", as Cayman Bishop. He has also appeared in two episodes of "Everybody Hates Chris", the first in 2007 as Chris's substitute teacher and the second in 2008 as Clint Huckstable, an allusion to the character Cliff Huxtable played by Bill Cosby on "The Cosby Show". In 2008, he appeared as Harold Wilcox, a violent veteran with PTSD, on "New Amsterdam". In the first season of the show, Jones also starred on Nick Cannon's "Wild 'N Out". Jones was the first guest star on the show. Jones was the co-host of ABC's "Crash Course" (which was canceled after 4 episodes). On November 16, 2009, it was announced on TV Guide that Orlando has been cast as Marcus Foreman, Eric Foreman's brother on "House". Jones appeared as Marcus in "Moving the Chains". Film projects. After leaving MADtv, Jones expanded his cinema resume. He appeared in a bit part in his first big screen film, "In Harm's Way" (1991), Jones then joined Larry David in the feature "Sour Grapes" (1998), playing the character of an itinerant man. Subsequently, he appeared in "Woo" (1990), Mike Judge's "Office Space" (1999), alongside fellow MADtv alumnus David Herman, and in Barry Levinson's praised drama, "Liberty Heights" (1999). Since then, Jones has appeared in "Magnolia" (1999), "New Jersey Turnpikes" (1999) and in Harold Ramis' "Bedazzled" (2000). During the 2000s, Jones' career began to branch out. In addition to his witty appearances in the 7-Up campaigns, Jones played the role of Clifford Franklin in "The Replacements" (2000) and he appeared in the Horror"Sleepy Hollow (TV Series 2013-)" (2000) and the horror film "" (2003). In 2002, Jones landed the lead role of Freddy Tiffany in the action-dramedy "Double Take" (2002) alongside Temuera Morrison and worked with Seann William Scott and Julianne Moore in Ivan Reitman's sci-fi comedy, "Evolution" (2001). Jones was also in the 2006 film "Cirque Du Freak The Vampire's Assistant" and he appeared as the computer Vox 114 in "The Time Machine" (2002). His other more recent films includes "Biker Boyz (2003)", "Godzilla" (2005), "Runaway Jury" (2004)and "Primeval" (2004). Jones appeared in an uncredited cameo and played in "Grindhouse Planet Terror (2007 film). In 2011 Jones appeared in the documentary film "Looking for Lenny" in which he talks about Lenny Bruce and freedom of speech. In 2012, Jones starred in Mystery Guitar Man's original interactive thriller series "Meridian" created in conjunction with Fourth Wall Studios. Voice acting. Jones has been featured in many voice acting projects over the years. In 1993, Jones appeared in "Yuletide in the 'hood" and in 1998, he made a guest appearance in the animated comedy TV Series, "The Boondocks". More recently, he lent his voice to the TV series "Father of the Pride" and the video games Halo 2 as the marine Sergeant Banks as well as other black marines and "L.A. Rush". Jones is recently reported to be starring in the ABC's crime-drama Evidence with Oscar winner Robin Williams. In 2006, he co-created, produced and voice acted for the MTV2 animated series "The Adventures of Chico and Guapo". Jones is one of eight original "MADtv" cast members to engage in some form of voice work after leaving the show. Only Bryan Callen has not appeared in voice acting projects. He appeared on the very first episode of Nick Cannon's "Wild 'N Out". April Fools Joke. In early April 2013, it was largely thought that Jones would be taking Tyler Perry's place as Madea. This stemmed from Jones own report that he'd be taking over the role and photography of himself impersonating Madea. This led to public outcries from fans. Perry later revealed, however, that this was an elaborate prank played by Jones, stating "That was an April Fools' joke that "HE" did. Not true. And not funny. When I’m done with Madea, she is done." Personal life. Jones married former model Jacqueline Staph in 2008.
1504105	Carole Shelley (born 16 August 1939) is an English actress. Among her many stage roles are the character of Madame Morrible in the original Broadway cast of the musical "Wicked". She won the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play for her performance in "The Elephant Man" in 1979. Life and career. Shelley was born in London, England, the daughter of Deborah (née Bloomstein), a singer, and Curtis Shelley, a composer. On stage, Shelley made her Broadway debut as Gwendolyn Pigeon in the original 1965 production of "The Odd Couple" (starring Art Carney and Walter Matthau). She reprised the role for the 1968 film version (starring Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau), and for (the first part of) the first season of the subsequent television series (starring Tony Randall and Jack Klugman). She and Monica Evans, her co-star as her sister Cecily Pigeon, were the only two performers to be in all three of "The Odd Couple" versions: stage, then movie, then first TV adaptation—and in the same roles.
1105376	Alexis Claude de Clairaut (or Clairault) (13 May 1713 – 17 May 1765) was a prominent French mathematician, astronomer, geophysicist, and intellectual. Biography. Childhood. Clairaut was born in Paris, France, where his father taught mathematics. He was a prodigy — at the age of twelve he wrote a memoir on four geometrical curves and under his father's tutelage he made such rapid progress in the subject that in his thirteenth year he read before the Académie française an account of the properties of four curves which he had discovered. When only sixteen he finished a treatise on tortuous curves, "Recherches sur les courbes a double courbure", which, on its publication in 1731, procured his admission into the French Academy of Sciences, although he was below the legal age as he was only eighteen. The shape of the Earth. In 1736, together with Pierre Louis Maupertuis, he took part in the expedition to Lapland, which was undertaken for the purpose of estimating a degree of the meridian arc. After his return he published his treatise "Théorie de la figure de la terre" (1743). In this work he promulgated the theorem, known as Clairaut's theorem, which connects the gravity at points on the surface of a rotating ellipsoid with the compression and the centrifugal force at the equator. This hydrostatic model of the shape of the Earth was founded on a paper by Colin Maclaurin, which had shown that a mass of homogeneous fluid set in rotation about a line through its centre of mass would, under the mutual attraction of its particles, take the form of an ellipsoid. Under the assumption that the Earth was composed of concentric ellipsoidal shells of uniform density, Clairaut's theorem could be applied to it, and allowed the ellipticity of the Earth to be calculated from surface measurements of gravity. In 1849 Stokes showed that Clairaut's result was true whatever the interior constitution or density of the Earth, provided the surface was a spheroid of equilibrium of small ellipticity. Focus on astronomical motion. He obtained an ingenious approximate solution of the problem of the three bodies; in 1750 he gained the prize of the St Petersburg Academy for his essay "Théorie de la lune"; the team made up of Clairaut, Jérome Lalande and Nicole Reine Lepaute successfully computed the date of the 1759 return of Halley's comet. The "Théorie de la lune" is strictly Newtonian in character. This contains the explanation of the motion of the apsis which had previously puzzled astronomers, and which Clairaut had at first deemed so inexplicable that he was on the point of publishing a new hypothesis as to the law of attraction when it occurred to him to carry the approximation to the third order, and he thereupon found that the result was in accordance with the observations. This was followed in 1754 by some lunar tables, which he computed using a form of the discrete Fourier transform. Clairaut subsequently wrote various papers on the orbit of the Moon, and on the motion of comets as affected by the perturbation of the planets, particularly on the path of Halley's comet. Personal life and death. His growing popularity in society hindered his scientific work: "He was focused," says Bossut, "with dining and with evenings, coupled with a lively taste for women, and seeking to make his pleasures into his day to day work, he lost rest, health, and finally life at the age of fifty-two." He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of London in November, 1737. Clairaut died in Paris in 1765.
1175767	Rachel Lauren Stevens (born 9 April 1978) is an English singer-songwriter, actress, presenter, dancer, television personality and model. She was a member of the pop group S Club, and launched a solo recording career in 2003, releasing seven singles and two albums in the UK between 2003 and 2005. In 2008, she came second in the sixth series of the BBC One series "Strictly Come Dancing" with her dance partner Vincent Simone. Early life. Born in Southgate, London, she attended Osidge JMI School and Ashmole School in London. Stevens has two brothers, Jason and Leigh. Stevens is Jewish, and has stated that she "observe some of the holidays and I’ll go to the synagogue on special occasions". In 1993 she first caught attention while beating out 5,000 competitors and winning a modelling contest sponsored by UK teen magazine
1103228	Shing-Tung Yau (; born April 4, 1949) is a Chinese-born American mathematician. He won the Fields Medal in 1982. Yau's work is mainly in differential geometry, especially in geometric analysis. His contributions have had an influence on both physics and mathematics and he has been active at the interface between geometry and theoretical physics. His proof of the positive energy theorem in general relativity demonstrated—sixty years after its discovery—that Einstein's theory is consistent and stable. His proof of the Calabi conjecture allowed physicists—using Calabi–Yau compactification—to show that string theory is a viable candidate for a unified theory of nature. Calabi–Yau manifolds are among the ‘standard toolkit’ for string theorists today. Yau is the first Chinese to receive the Fields Medal. Yau has held American citizenship since 1990. Biography. Yau was born in Shantou, Guangdong Province, China with an ancestry in Jiaoling (also in Guangdong) in a family of eight children. When he was only a few months old, his family emigrated to Hong Kong, where they lived first in Yuen Long and then 5 years later in Shatin. When Yau was fourteen, his father Chiou Chenying, a philosophy professor, died. After graduating from Pui Ching Middle School, he studied mathematics at the Chinese University of Hong Kong from 1966 to 1969. Yau went to the University of California, Berkeley in the fall of 1969. At the age of 22, Yau was awarded the Ph.D. degree under the supervision of Shiing-Shen Chern at Berkeley in two years. He spent a year as a member of the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, New Jersey, and two years at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. Then he went to Stanford University. Since 1987, he has been at Harvard University, where he has had numerous Ph.D. students. He is also involved in the activities of research institutes in Hong Kong and China. He takes an interest in the state of K-12 mathematics education in China, and his criticisms of the Chinese education system, corruption in the academic world in China, and the quality of mathematical research and education, have been widely publicized. Contributions to mathematics. Duong Hong Phong of Columbia University has commented on the influence of Yau's research in geometric analysis. Work on conjectures. Calabi conjecture. Yau's solution of the Calabi conjecture, concerning the existence of an Einstein–Kähler metric, has far-reaching consequences. The existence of such a canonical unique metric allows one to give explicit representatives of characteristic classes. Calabi–Yau manifolds are now fundamental in string theory, where the Calabi conjecture provides an essential piece in the model. In algebraic geometry, the Calabi conjecture implies the Miyaoka–Yau inequality on Chern numbers of surfaces, a characterization of the complex projective plane and quotients of the two-dimensional complex unit ball, an important class of Shimura varieties. Yau also made a contribution in the case that the first Chern number "c"1 > 0, and conjectured its relation to the stability in the sense of geometric invariant theory in algebraic geometry. This has motivated the work of Simon Donaldson on scalar curvature and stability. Another important result of Donaldson–Uhlenbeck–Yau is that a holomorphic vector bundle is stable (in the sense of David Mumford) if and only if there exists an Hermitian–Yang–Mills metric on it. This has many consequences in algebraic geometry, for example, the characterization of certain symmetric spaces, Chern number inequalities for stable bundles, and the restriction of the fundamental groups of a Kähler manifold. Positive mass conjecture and existence of black holes. Yau pioneered the method of using minimal surfaces to study geometry and topology. By an analysis of how minimal surfaces behave in space-time, Yau and Richard Schoen proved the long-standing conjecture that the total mass in general relativity is positive. This theorem implies that flat space-time is stable, a fundamental issue for the theory of general relativity. Briefly, the positive mass conjecture says that if a three-dimensional manifold has positive scalar curvature and is asymptotically flat, then a constant that appears in the asymptotic expansion of the metric is positive. A continuation of the above work gives another result in relativity proved by Yau, an existence theorem for black holes. Yau and Schoen continued their work on manifolds with positive scalar curvature, which led to Schoen's final solution of the Yamabe problem. Smith conjecture. Yau and William H. Meeks solved the well-known question whether the Douglas solution of a minimal disk for an external Jordan curve, the Plateau problem, in three space, is always embedded if the boundary curve is a subset of a convex boundary. They then went on to prove that these embedded minimal surfaces are equivariant for finite group actions. Combining this work with a result of William Thurston, Cameron Gordon assembled a proof of the Smith conjecture: for any cyclic group acting on a sphere, the set of fixed points is not a knotted curve. Hermitian Yang–Mills connection and stable vector bundles. Yau and Karen Uhlenbeck proved the existence and uniqueness of Hermitian–Einstein metrics (or equivalently Hermitian Yang–Mills connections) for stable bundles on any compact Kähler manifold, extending an earlier result of Donaldson for projective algebraic surfaces, and M. S. Narasimhan and C. S. Seshadri for algebraic curves. Both the results and methods of this paper have been influential in parts of both algebraic geometry and string theory. This result is now usually called the Donaldson–Uhlenbeck–Yau Theorem. Frankel conjecture. Yau and Yum-Tong Siu proved the 1981 Frankel conjecture in complex geometry, stating that any compact positively-curved Kähler manifold is biholomorphic to complex projective space. An independent proof was given by Shigefumi Mori, using methods of algebraic geometry in positive characteristic. Mirror conjecture. With Bong Lian and Kefeng Liu, Yau proved mirror formulas conjectured by string theorists. These formulas give the explicit numbers of rational curves of all degrees in a large class of Calabi–Yau manifolds, in terms of the Picard–Fuchs equations of the corresponding mirror manifolds. New methods and concepts. Gradient estimates and Harnack inequalities. Yau developed the method of gradient estimates for Harnack's inequalities. This method has been used and refined by him and other people to attack for example, bounds on the heat kernel. Early in 1981, Yau suggested to Richard Hamilton that he use the Ricci flow to realize naturally the canonical decomposition of a three-dimensional manifold into pieces, each of which has a geometric structure, in the Thurston program. Hamilton amplified their results, to what is now called the Li–Yau–Hamilton inequality for the Ricci flow equations. Gradient estimates were also used crucially in Yau's joint work with S. Y. Cheng to give a complete proof of the higher dimensional Hermann Minkowski problem and the Dirichlet problem for the real Monge–Ampère equation, and other results on the Kähler–Einstein metric of bounded pseudoconvex domains. Uniformization of complex manifolds. When Yau was a graduate student, he started to generalize the uniformization theorem of Riemann surfaces to higher-dimensional complex Kähler manifolds. For a compact manifold with positive bisectional curvature, the Frankel conjecture proved by Siu and Yau, and independently by Mori, shows that it is complex projective space. Yau proposed a series of conjectures when the manifold is non-compact, and made contributions towards their solutions. For example, when the bisectional curvature is positive, it must be biholomorphic to "C""n". Harmonic maps and rigidity. When Yau was working on his thesis about manifolds with non-positive curvature and their fundamental groups, he realized that it is possible to use harmonic maps to give alternative proofs of some results there. He was aware of the Mostow rigidity theorem for locally symmetric spaces, which was used by him to prove the uniqueness of complex structure of quotients of complex balls. He proposed that harmonic maps be used to prove rigidity of the complex structure for Kähler manifolds with strongly negative curvature, a program that was successfully carried out by Yum-Tong Siu. This method, the so-called Siu-Yau method, has been extended to prove strong and super-rigidities of many locally symmetric spaces. Minimal submanifolds. Minimal submanifolds have been used by Yau in the solutions of the Positive Mass Conjecture, the Smith conjecture, the Frankel conjecture, and else. Many people others have since applied minimal surfaces to other problems. Mikhail Gromov's introduction of pseudo-holomorphic curves in symplectic geometry has also had an important impact on that field. Open problems. Yau has compiled an influential set of open problems in geometry. Harmonic functions with controlled growth. One of Yau’s problems is about bounded harmonic functions, and harmonic functions on noncompact manifolds of polynomial growth. After proving non-existence of bounded harmonic functions on manifolds with positive curvatures, he proposed the Dirichlet problem at infinity for bounded harmonic functions on negatively curved manifolds, and then proceeded to harmonic functions of polynomial growth. Dennis Sullivan tells a story about Yau's geometric intuition, and how it led him to reject an analytical proof of Sullivan's. Michael Anderson independently found the same result about bounded harmonic function on simply connected negatively curved manifolds using a geometric convexity construction. Rank rigidity of nonpositively curved manifolds. Again motivated by Mostow's strong rigidity theorem, Yau called for a notion of rank for general manifolds extending the one for locally symmetric spaces, and asked for rigidity properties for higher rank metrics. Advances in this direction have been made by Ballmann, Brin and Eberlein in their work on non-positive curved manifolds, Gromov's and Eberlein's metric rigidity theorems for higher rank locally symmetric spaces and the classification of closed higher rank manifolds of non-positive curvature by Ballmann and Burns-Spatzier. This leaves rank 1 manifolds of non-positive curvature as the focus of research. They behave more like manifolds of negative curvature, but remain poorly understood in many regards. Kähler–Einstein metrics and stability of manifolds. It is known that if a complex manifold has a Kähler–Einstein metric, then its tangent bundle is stable. Yau realized early in 1980s that the existence of special metrics on Kähler manifolds is equivalent to the stability of the manifolds. Various people including Simon Donaldson have made progress to understand such a relation. Mirror symmetry. He has collaborated with string theorists including Strominger, Vafa and Witten, and as post-doctorals from theoretical physics with B. Greene, E. Zaslow and A. Klemm . The Strominger–Yau–Zaslow program is to construct explicitly mirror manifolds. David Gieseker wrote of the seminal role of the Calabi conjecture in relating string theory with algebraic geometry, in particular for the developments of the SYZ program, mirror conjecture and Yau–Zaslow conjecture. Initiatives in mainland China and Taiwan. Yau was born in China but grew up in Hong Kong. After the door of China was opened to the west in the late 1970s, Yau revisited China in 1979 on the invitation of Hua Luogeng. To help develop Chinese mathematics, Yau started by educating students from China, then establishing mathematics research institutes and centers, organizing conferences at all levels, initiating out-reach programs, and raising private funds for these purposes. John Coates has commented on Yau's success as fundraiser. The first of Yau's initiatives is The Institute of Mathematical Sciences at The Chinese University of Hong Kong in 1993. The goal is to “organize activities related to a broad variety of fields including both pure and Applied mathematics, scientific computation, image processing, mathematical physics and statistics. The emphasis is on interaction and linkages with the physical sciences, engineering, industry and commerce.” The second one is the Morningside Center of Mathematics in Beijing, established in 1996. Part of the money for the building and regular operations was raised by Yau from the Morningside Foundation in Hong Kong. Yau proposed organizing the International Congress of Chinese Mathematicians, now held every three years. The first congress was held at the Morningside Center from December 12 to 18, 1998. The third is the Center of Mathematical Sciences at Zhejiang University. It was established in 2002. Yau is the director of all these three math institutes and visits them on a regular basis. Yau went to Taiwan to attend a conference in 1985. In 1990, he was invited by Dr. C.-S. Liu, then the President of National Tsinghua University, to visit the university for a year. A few years later, he convinced Liu, by then the chairman of National Science Council, to create the National Center of Theoretical Sciences (NCTS), which was established at Hsinchu in 1998. He was the chairman of the Advisory Board of the NCTS until 2005 and was followed by H. T. Yau of Harvard University. Outreach. His classmate at college Y.-C.Siu speaks of Yau as an ambassador of mathematics. In Hong Kong, with the support of Ronnie Chan, Yau set up the Hang Lung Award for high school students. He has also organized and participated in meetings for high school and college students, for example, the panel discussions "Why Math? Ask Masters!" in Hangzhou, July 2004, and "The Wonder of Mathematics" in Hong Kong, December 2004. Yau organized the JDG conference surveying developments in geometry and related fields, and the annual Current development of mathematics conference. Yau also co-initiated a series of books on popular mathematics, "Mathematics and Mathematical People". Honors and awards. Yau has received numerous honors and awards in his life, including: Poincaré conjecture controversy. In August 2006, a "New Yorker" article on the Poincaré conjecture, "Manifold Destiny", discussed Yau's relationship to that famous problem. On October 17, 2006, a more sympathetic profile of Yau appeared in "The New York Times". It devoted about half its length to the Perelman affair. The article stated that Yau had alienated some colleagues, but represented Yau's position as that Perelman's proof was not generally understood and he "had a duty to dig out the truth of the proof".
592190	Anant Nagarkatte (born September 4, 1948) popularly known as Anant Nag is an actor and politician from Karnataka, India. He is considered to be one of the all time greatest actors in the Kannada film industry with a vast number of commercially successful movies. As a result, he is popularly known as an actor with no-failures, by critics. In addition to Kannada movies, he has acted in Marathi, Tamil, Malayalam, Telugu and Hindi movies. He has also acted in Malgudi Days, directed by his younger brother Shankar Nag based on the stories by R.K.Narayan. His work was much appreciated by critics at that time. He is fluent in Kannada, Konkani, Marathi, Hindi and with a good understanding of Tamil, Telugu and Malayalam. The versatile natural acting coupled with the style of speaking (accent of southern Kannada with a tint of coastal touch) made him one of the most successful actors in Kannada cinema. Early life. Anant Nag is a son of Anandi and Sadanand Nagarkatte. He had his early education under the aegis of Ananda Ashrama in Dakshina Kannada district and Chitrapura matha in Uttara Kannada. He was sent to Mumbai for onward education and got involved with amateur Marathi theatre for eight years. He started out doing amateur theatre in Konkani and Kannada, misinterpreted sometimes as Marathi. Anant Nag had failed SSC (SSLC quivalent) board exams. Film career. Shyam Benegal introduced him into Hindi cinema in his 1973 film "Ankur". Anant Nag acted in many of Shyam Benegal's movies after that. Well known for his mainstream Kannada films, Nag is active in alternative Indian cinema. His entry into Kannada films was through legendary G. V. Iyer's "Hamsageethe". It is one of the most critically acclaimed of his movies and is about trysts of a learner whose greatest search is finding the right Guru. Nag and fellow popular actress Lakshmi have been known as an all-time greatest pair in South Indian movies. They acted together in more than 25 films. Most of the films based on Ta　Ra　Su novels and some of them directed by great Duari-Bhagavan. The films like "Chandanada Gombe, Naa Ninna Bidaalare (1979), Benkiya Bale, Ibbani Karagitu, Makkaliralavva Mane Thumba, Mududida Taavare Aralitu, Nodi Swamy Naavirodu Heege (1983), Amma" and others in their combination were blockbuster hits that made Ananth Nag and Lakshmi household names in Karnataka. Both the actors have signed a new film together in 2013 called "Gulmohar" directed by Devanuru Chandra that has already started shooting. Although he began his career as an actor in artistic movies, became most popular in comedies due to his versatile acting and natural sense of humour. Ananth Nag kept re-inventing himself with each era. In the 1970s and 80s, he was the darling of the middle-class with his natural acting. He also dabbled in television during this period. In the 90s, he experimented with negative roles ("Shanti Kranti") and accepted character roles. With greatest hits in the films like "Ganeshana Maduve", "Gauri Ganesha", "Udbava", "Undoohoda Konduhoda", "Beladingala Baale", "Hasyaratna Ramakrishna", "Yarigu Helbedi", "dairya lakshmi", he has been noted for his abilities. These days, he appears in supporting roles in Kannada movies (for example, blockbuster films like "Mungaru Male"): He has been the favourite choice of most popular directors of Kannada cinema. He is equally popular in supportive roles amongst dignified viewers across the Karnataka. His recent movie "Eredane maduve" has been a huge hit where he acted in a lead role with Suhasini Maniratnam. Nag acted in "Anahat" and it drew rave reviews. Marathi film director Amol Palekar found Nag's sensitive depiction of the king's dilemmas to have greatly enhanced the multifaceted complexities of the film. The character portrayed by Nag has depth and dimension, powerfully drawing you into the core of the story. Though he is one of the most influential men both from a film and political point of view, he has often been regarded as the finest, the simplest and polite personality. His appearance in front of media or appearances for publicity have hardly been noticed and the association of his name with any controversy has hardly been reported, either with his film or with political career. For these reasons, Nag is considered as one of the most respectable personalities in the real life. Now he is one of the most sought-after actor in Kannada cinemas. Political career. Staying in Mumbai, in the heady days of Socialism, Ananth Nag was a strong supporter of reformist movement. He identified himself with the Janatha Party and was the star-campaigner for Janatha Party in 1983, 1985 and 1989 elections. He won from Malleshwaram constituency in 1994 and served as a Minister for BDA in the J. H. Patel's cabinet. His tenure was uneventful, with him being criticized for not catering the infrastructure needs of Bangalore. When Ramakrishna Hegde, supposedly his mentor was expelled from Janatha Dal, he stayed within Janatha Dal, leading to speculations of divide between the Mentor and Mentee. In 2004, he contested a very fierce assembly election from Janata Dal (Secular) where he was pitched against the then Chief minister of Karnataka, S. M. Krishna from Indian National Congress, alongside fellow actor Mukhyamantri Chandru from Bharatiya Janata Party in the Chamrajpet constituency in Bangalore. However, S.M. Krishna won the election. But, Krishna, disappointed for not being able to win the majority opted not to lead the party and soon became the governor of Maharashtra. Selected filmography. English. Stumble (2003)
457598	Error analysis is the study of kind and quantity of error that occurs, particularly in the fields of applied mathematics (particularly numerical analysis), applied linguistics and statistics. Error analysis in numerical modeling. In numerical simulation or modeling of real systems, error analysis is concerned with the changes in the output of the model as the parameters to the model vary about a mean. For instance, in a system modeled as a function of two variables formula_1. Error analysis deals with the propagation of the numerical errors in formula_2 and formula_3 (around mean values formula_4 and formula_5) to error in formula_6 (around a mean formula_7). In numerical analysis, error analysis comprises both forward error analysis and backward error analysis. Forward error analysis involves the analysis of a function formula_8 which is an approximation (usually a finite polynomial) to a function formula_9 to determine the bounds on the error in the approximation; i.e., to find formula_10 such that formula_11. Backward error analysis involves the analysis of the approximation function formula_12, to determine the bounds on the parameters formula_13 such that the result formula_14. Error analysis in second language acquisition. In second language acquisition, error analysis studies the types and causes of language errors. Errors are classified according to: Error analysis in SLA was established in the 1960s by Stephen Pit Corder and colleagues. Error analysis was an alternative to contrastive analysis, an approach influenced by behaviorism through which applied linguists sought to use the formal distinctions between the learners' first and second languages to predict errors. Error analysis showed that contrastive analysis was unable to predict a great majority of errors, although its more valuable aspects have been incorporated into the study of language transfer. A key finding of error analysis has been that many learner errors are produced by learners making faulty inferences about the rules of the new language. Error analysis in molecular dynamics simulation. In molecular dynamics (MD) simulations, there are errors due to inadequate sampling of the phase space or infrequently occurring events, these lead to the statistical error due to random fluctuation in the measurements. For a series of "M" measurements of a fluctuating property "A", the mean value is: When these "M" measurements are independent, the variance of the mean
774588	Lost and Delirious is a 2001 Canadian drama film directed by Léa Pool and loosely based on the novel "The Wives of Bath" by Susan Swan. "Lost and Delirious" is filmed from the perspective of Mary (Mischa Barton), who observes the changing love between her two teenage friends, Pauline (Piper Perabo) and Victoria (Jessica Paré). The film premiered at the 2001 Sundance Film Festival. Plot summary. When shy and introspective Mary arrives as a new student at an all-girls boarding school, she shares a dorm room with Paulie and Victoria (nicknamed Tori). In contrast to the timid Mary, outspoken Paulie is full of life. For example, at one point she turns a quiet afternoon on the campus into a music-blasting dance party and spikes the punch. In an effort to break Mary out of her shell, Paulie and Tori involve her in their activities, such as running in the morning. When Mary's roommates learn that her mother recently died, Paulie nicknames her "Mary Brave." Mary observes the intimacy between her two roommates. Peering out a window at night, she sees them kissing on a roof. She notes the closeness of Paulie and Tori's relationship. At first, she thinks that they are practicing kissing in order to prepare themselves for kissing males. She then realises the nature of their romance. This also manifests itself in Paulie coming to Tori's rescue. For example, Paulie defends Victoria from a frustrated math teacher who unintentionally humiliates her when she does not understand a mathematical equation. Over time, Paulie and Tori become more comfortable showing affection in front of Mary. It progresses from a quick kiss on the lips in front of her to the two sharing a bed while they think Mary is sleeping. At first, Mary is shy about sharing a room with the two lovers and feels like an intruder. After a few days, she finds their kissing and murmuring comforting and familiar. When the three are running one day, Paulie comes across a hurt falcon, which she befriends. After reading up on falcons, she trains the animal and becomes obsessed with caring for it as she believes that something untoward has happened to its parents. While Paulie tends to the orphaned falcon, Mary and Tori meet some boys from the nearby boys' school. One of the boys, Jake, flirts with Tori, asking if she will be attending her brother's 18th birthday party and making it clear that he is interested in her. When Mary and Tori are alone, Tori expresses disgust at the boy's interest in her, saying, "He liked my tits." When Mary asks if she'll go to the party, Tori says, "And have all those gross guys groping me? No, thanks. I'd rather stay home and do math." One morning, Victoria's sister, Allison (Emily VanCamp), and her friends rush into the room to wake up the older girls. Paulie is lying in Tori's bed, both naked. Allison and the other girls are shocked. Mary pushes Tori's sister out of the room and closes the door. After the younger girls leave, Tori, her head in her hands, decides at that moment to end whatever intimate relationship she had with Paulie, who claims that she loves her. Tori refuses outright, saying, 'No! You don't know Allison. She'll get hysterical and tell my dad.' Tori then angrily tells Paulie to get out of her bed. Paulie tries to downplay the situation, and Tori tells her she does not understand, explaining that her sister will tell her parents about it. When confronted by Allison, Tori tries to extinguish her sister's suspicions by telling her Paulie has an unrequited crush on her and crawled into her bed. Her sister promises to "fix" the rumors about Tori and not tell their parents anything. As she walks away from this conversation, Victoria collapses into tears. In the library, Victoria explains to Mary that her family, her parents and her sister, are strongly opposed to homosexuality, and she must stop the relationship to prevent their rejection. Mary sympathizes with both of her friends, as she too feels rejected by her father, who does not bother to show up to a father/daughter dance. In the forest at night, Tori and Jake have sex against a tree. Both Mary and Paulie accidentally witness this scene and run back to their room before Tori returns. When Tori returns to the room, Paulie asks her where she's been and Tori says she was with a friend. Paulie lashes out at her by telling her that she saw what Tori and Jake were doing in the woods. Tori tells Paulie that the intimacy that they had shared will never happen again but she (Tori) would always love her. Paulie cannot handle Tori's withdrawal from the relationship. She smashes a mirror and hurls a dish cart to the ground and begins to act out in other ways. A rejection letter from the agency that handled Paulie's adoption, which informs her that her birth mother denied a request from Paulie to get in touch, further sends her over the edge. Meanwhile, Victoria creates an image of heterosexuality to her friends and her sister, dating Jake Hollander (Luke Kirby) from a nearby all-boys school and avoiding Paulie. Paulie declares a duel to the death with Jake. Jake is not taking her seriously until he ends up on the ground, with Paulie brandishing a sword above him. She demands that he give up Tori. When he refuses, she stabs him in the leg. Mary rushes to stop her and Paulie runs off. Mary runs to Victoria's soccer match, where the headmistress, math teacher and fellow students are congregated. Upon reaching the group, Mary sees Paulie, sobbing from the top of a building while holding her falcon. Whispering "I rush into the secret house," a reference to Shakespeare on suicide, Paulie jumps to her death and the movie ends with the falcon flying in the background. Reception. The film garnered a mixed reaction from critics. Based on 58 reviews collected by Rotten Tomatoes it is certified "rotten", with an approval rating of 50%. The consensus reads, ""Lost and Delirious" becomes exactly that, as the film sinks into overwrought melodrama and cliched, obvious symbolism." The performances of Perabo, Paré and Barton were, however, widely praised. Perabo's performance in particular received critical acclaim, which Loren King of the "Chicago Tribune" remarked was her "breakout performance". Entertainment Weekly's Owen Gleiberman called her "an actress of glittering ferocity" and her performance "a geyser of emotion". Jim Lane of the "Sacramento News & Review" said that "Perabo is a revelation, wild and fiery — it’s a breakthrough performance, astonishing in its fervency" and Roger Ebert praised her performance for its sincerity and "wonderful abandon and conviction". Ebert went on to give the film three-and-a-half out of four stars, writing that the film "stirred within me memories of that season in adolescence when the heart leaps up in passionate idealism--and inevitably mingles it with sexual desire." Ebert praised Pool as she "creates a lush, thoughtfully framed, and composed film; her classical visual style lends gravitas to this romantic story." Production details. The movie was filmed in Lennoxville, Quebec on the Bishop's University Campus and across the St Francis River at Bishop's College School. Students attending summer classes there during filming were used as extras.
1063161	Waltz with Bashir (, translit. Vals Im Bashir) is a 2008 Israeli animated documentary film written and directed by Ari Folman. It depicts Folman in search of his lost memories of his experience as a soldier in the 1982 Lebanon War. This film and "$9.99", also released in 2008, are the first Israeli animated feature-length films released in movie theaters since Alina and Yoram Gross's "Ba'al Hahalomot" (1962). "Waltz with Bashir" premiered at the 2008 Cannes Film Festival where it entered the competition for the Palme d'Or, and since then has won and been nominated for many additional important awards while receiving wide acclaim from critics. It won a Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Language Film, an NSFC Award for Best Film, a César Award for Best Foreign Film and an IDA Award for Feature Documentary, and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, a BAFTA Award for Best Film Not in the English Language and an Annie Award for Best Animated Feature. The film is officially banned in Lebanon. Plot summary. In 1982, Ari Folman was a 19-year-old infantry soldier in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). In 2006, he meets with a friend from his army service period, who tells him of the nightmares connected to his experiences from the Lebanon War. Folman is surprised to find that he remembers nothing from that period. Later that night he has a vision from the night of the Sabra and Shatila massacre, the reality of which he is unable to recall. In his memory, he and his soldier comrades are bathing at night by the seaside in Beirut under the light of flares descending over the city.
1163317	John M. Slattery, Jr. (born August 13, 1962) is an American actor and director, best known for his role as Roger Sterling on AMC's series "Mad Men". He has been nominated for many awards, and has won two SAG Awards with the "Mad Men" ensemble. Early years. Slattery was born in Boston, Massachusetts, to Joan Mulhern, a retired CPA, and John "Jack" Slattery, a leather merchant. He is one of six children. Slattery is of Irish descent and was raised Roman Catholic. He attended high school at St. Sebastian's School in Needham, Massachusetts, and received a Bachelor of Fine Arts from The Catholic University of America in 1984. He said when he was younger he loved both TV and movies, staying up late to watch them and making it very hard to wake up in the morning.
1064822	For Colored Girls is a 2010 drama film adapted from Ntozake Shange's 1975 stage play "For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow Is Enuf". Written, directed and produced by Tyler Perry, the film features an ensemble cast which includes Janet Jackson, Whoopi Goldberg, Phylicia Rashad, Thandie Newton, Loretta Devine, Anika Noni Rose, Kimberly Elise, and Kerry Washington. Like Shange's play—which is considered to be a landmark piece in African American literature and black feminism—the film depicts the interconnected lives of nine women, exploring their lives and struggles as women of color. It is the first film to be produced by 34th Street Films, an imprint of Tyler Perry Studios, and distributed by Lions Gate Entertainment. It is also Perry's first and only R-rated film, to date. With a budget of $21 million, "For Colored Girls" was released on November 5, 2010, grossing $20.1 million in its opening weekend. With generally mixed reviews, several critics have asserted that Tyler Perry failed to adequately translate the original stage play to film, while more supportive critics describe the film as his finest work to-date. Shange noted her apprehension in allowing Perry to adapt her work, but was ultimately supportive of the film. Plot. Retaining the play's poetic style, the film's lead cast consists of nine African-American women, seven of whom are based on the play's seven characters, only known by color (e.g. "lady in red," "lady in brown," "lady in yellow,"). Like its source material, each character deals with a different personal conflict, such as love, abandonment, rape, infidelity, and abortion. Each woman is represented by a color: Jo Bradmore (Janet Jackson) represents red, Tangie Adrose (Thandie Newton) represents orange, Yasmine (Anika Noni Rose) represents yellow, Juanita Sims (Loretta Devine) represents green, Kelly Watkins (Kerry Washington) represents blue, Nyla Adrose (Tessa Thompson) represents purple, and Crystal Wallace (Kimberly Elise) represents brown. Additionally, the characters of Alice Adrose (Whoopi Goldberg), who represents white, and Gilda (Phylicia Rashad), who does not represent a color, were made specifically for the film. The movie opens with the nine main characters reciting a poem of their inner thoughts ("Dark Phrases") before showing Tangie throwing her latest lover out of her apartment ("One"). Kelly arrives at Tangie's brownstone to see Crystal about the safety of her children. At that time, Juanita arrives to leave her lover, Frank (Richard Lawson), a potted plant and telling him that she is breaking off their affair ("No Assitance"). Kelly attempts to speak with Crystal's children on how they ended up in the hospital, but is unsuccessful when Crystal's alcoholic, veteran husband, Beau Willie (Michael Ealy), kicks her out. Crystal's nosy neighbor and apartment manager, Gilda, informs Kelly of Crystal's situation ("A Night with Beau Willie Brown") and reveals she was the one who called her. Meanwhile, Alice, Tangie's mother, shows up to beseech Tangie for money, but gets rebuffed instead. Alice goes out to raise money, and encounters Yasmine, who gives her a little money. Yasmine is boasting about the girls in her dance class with Bill (Khalil Kain), a man she met on the subway, and agrees to a date, despite her initial hesitance. One of Yasmine's dance students, Nyla, is talking with the girls about her graduation night and losing her virginity ("Graduation Nite"), and later begins to vomit. Meanwhile, Kelly's husband, Donald (Hill Harper), and his partner Renee (Rayna Tharani) arrest two men performing oral sex in public. Juanita is waiting in Jo's office at Robe Rouge, a fictional magazine company, where a frazzled Katina (May Zayan), Jo's assistant, tries to make Jo a cup of tea. Crystal shows up for work, having been running late and informs Jo that her 9 o'clock appointment has arrived, despite it already being 10 o'clock. Juanita is then allowed in to interest Jo in giving some money to a non-profit organization that specializes in women's health care, but is rudely rebuffed. Kelly is with Donald at the gynecologist, who informs Kelly that she cannot have children do to scarring in her fallopian tubes caused by an untreated STD. So, Kelly runs off without an explanation. Juanita is at the hospital giving advice on safe sex to women when Frank comes along to ask for forgiveness, but Juanita refuses to give in to his advances. Tangie, who works as a bartender, finds a married man on business and offers to show him a "good time." That same night, Crystal implores Beau Willie to stop drinking, while he only cares about marrying her to increase his welfare benefits. At a restaurant, Jo leaves a voice message on her husband's, Carl (Omari Hardwick), phone, imploring him to call her. At that same restaurant, Yasmine and Bill have a magical date night together, recalling a story about her love for Latin dances ("Now I Love Somebody More Than"). Alice comes home to her apartment and it's revealed that Nyla is Alice's daughter and Tangie's sister. Alice gives Nyla the feeble amount of money she made, under the belief that it's for Nyla's college application fees. Meanwhile, Yasmine is walking home from her date with Bill, explaining that she loved dance more than anything until she met Bill ("Now I Love Somebody More Than" cont.). Tangie takes the married man home with her to sleep with him, but angrily kicks him out after she learns that he thought she was a prostitute. Nyla shows up to ask Tangie for money, explaining that she needs it for college, but Tangie is not fooled. She then deduces that Nyla is pregnant, but Nyla denies this. Tangie relishes in the fact that Nyla isn't so perfect after all and that Alice will hate her the way she hates Tangie. She then tells her about the time she got pregnant and reveals where to find a back-alley abortionist. Jo waits impatiently for Carl to return home and it's then revealed that Carl was the man Donald had arrested earlier. The couple then get into an argument about Carl investing into a failed company with Jo's money, which Carl did because he felt emasculated as a man, who is not providing and forfeiting his right to do anything in favor of submitting to Jo's will. Donald returns to his and Kelly's apartment where Kelly then reveals how she got her STD. She explains that long before she was married, she and two of her friends had been seeing the same man and all contracted a disease from him ("Pyramid"). Despite this, Donald reveals that he still loves Kelly regardless of her condition. Juanita drives home to see Frank waiting for her on the stoop. He seduces her into letting him stay at her apartment. The next day, Jo receives flowers from Carl and calls him to thank him. He reveals that he got tickets to the opera, which he hates, as an apology for last night's argument. During this conversation, he is clearly looking at other men desiringly. Yasmine also receives flowers, from Bill, and is visited by Tangie, who came by to pay the three hundred dollars for Nyla's college fees. She rudely informs Yasmine that Bill only wants to "fuck her," then offers to pay for Nyla's fees, but Yasmine reveals that the dance class is free. Tangie realizes that Nyla went to see the abortionist, Rose (Macy Gray), who is terrifying, and probably drunk. Nyla's mind completely goes blank during the abortion as Rose tells her of a story about her life in Harlem ("I Used to Live in the World"). Yasmine excitedly invites Bill into her home for dinner. After some light flirting and some drinking, Bill removes his clothing and savagely rapes her. Jo and her husband are at the opera, watching a performance of "La Donna in Viola" (an Italian, operatic version of "Pyramid"). During the performance, Jo watches as her husband gives another man the eye. The next day, Jo informs Crystal that she does not have her list of advertisers in her folder and has a very important meeting soon. Crystal offers to take the train to her building, but Jo tells her that'll waste time and offers to drive her there in her limo. Seeing the male driver in the car, Beau Willie believes Crystal is having an affair and the abuse begins, which can be heard in Gilda's house as she watches the kids. She tries to calm their fears by telling them a story about how she met her first husband ("Toussaint"). Beau Willie takes the children from Gilda's to show that he can be a good father and asks Crystal to marry him once again. After she refuses, Beau Willie becomes violent and dangles the children over the fifth-story window, giving Crystal an ultimatum. Gilda frantically runs out into the street and screams for help as Jo, Juanita and several on-lookers witness Beau Willie drop the children to their death ("A Night with Beau Willie Brown" cont.). Donald interrogates Yasmine at the hospital on her rape, where he informs her that it'll be difficult to press charges as she tells him that women can be raped anywhere by anyone ("Latent Rapists"). At the same hospital, Alice frantically comes in search of Nyla, who passed out in the streets after her abortion. Nyla is being interrogated by Renee and Kelly, and gives them and Alice a vivid detail of her abortion ("Abortion Cycle #1"). Kelly leaves the room to find Crystal screaming in horror at the realization of her children's brutal murder as she is being comforted by Gilda, Jo and Juanita. After being informed of the situation and recognizing Crystal, Kelly becomes visibly upset. Alice confronts Tangie in her apartment and after a physical altercation, they reveal to each other that Tangie was raped by her grandfather, Alice's father, causing Alice to take her to the abortionist where Alice supervised her, whereas Nyla was unsupervised. Alice reveals that her father took her virginity and was given to a white man at fifteen to have children. All these events explained why Tangie is the way she is ("One" cont.). After kicking Alice out of her apartment, Gilda comes into her house to put ice on the bruise on Tangie's face. She explains that Tangie and mother make a lot of sense before telling her a detailed account of Tangie's exploits ("One" cont.). Tangie believes that Gilda has been snooping again through the wall, but Gilda reveals that she was once like Tangie. Juanita comes home to find Frank gone and assumes he has left again, but he soon comes home with Chinese food and sees that Juanita is upset, despite trying to appear to be happy and is asked to hold her. Carl comes home to find Jo distraught and reveals what happened with Crystal, stating that she never once knew she was abused and wondering what kind of person she was. Jo and Carl embrace as she sobs into his shoulder. Alice and Nyla return to their apartment where Alice tells her to pray for forgiveness. As Nyla prays, Alice attempts to exorcise her with ashes and hot oil, hurting Nyla. Nyla freaks out, fights off Alice and then runs away to Yasmine's apartment, hoping to find some comfort. However, Yasmine is too traumatized from her rape to answer the door, so Nyla leaves. Kelly is waiting outside the brownstone as Crystal comes out with a pail and a brush to wash away the blood of her children. Kelly walks up to her and Crystal asks if she's awake, to which Kelly, who is speechless, nods her head. Crystal comments that she does not feel awake and thinks that this is what death must feel like. Nyla passes by and Kelly takes her into Crystal's apartment to wash her up. Hearing Tangie bring in yet another suitor to her apartment, Nyla confronts her. Tangie kicks her suitor out after he asks her to invite Nyla for a threesome. Tangie and Nyla hash out their problems, before Tangie reveals that her life is complicated and she's still learning from her mistakes ("No More Love Poems #4"). Afterwards, Tangie and Nyla reconcile. Yasmine is practicing an interpretive dance ("Sechita") as Kelly discovers that Crystal has swallowed an entire bottle of pills. Crystal is taken to the hospital as Yasmine is visited by Donald, who has informed her that Bill has been murdered after attempting to rape another woman. She goes into the morgue to look at his body one last time, before slapping him and then leaving. Juanita informs Kelly, Nyla, Tangie and Gilda that the doctors pumped Crystal's stomach and can see visitors as soon as she stabilizes. That night, Kelly is unable to sleep, feeling guilty for not taking Crystal's children away sooner because she had to see the doctor about her infertility. Donald reassures her that one thing has nothing to do with the other. Juanita comes home with a birthday cake for Frank, only to find that he is not home and his clothes are gone. Juanita vents her frustration to her women's health class ("Somebody Almost Walked Off Wid Alla My Stuff") as Crystal is released from the hospital and goes into therapy. Jo gives Juanita a check for her non-profit organization, Beau Willie is sent to jail, and Nyla returns to dance class with Yasmine. Tangie knocks on Crystal's door to invite her to Nyla's going away party. Crystal initially declines, but says she'll go if she feels up to it. Tangie begrudgingly invites Gilda, both finally having an unspoken, mutual respect for each other. Juanita finally breaks things off with Frank for good ("No More Love Poems #1"). Gilda comes by Crystal's apartment to see if she's eaten, which she hasn't. Crystal is still wondering how Beau Willie could do such a thing, but Gilda tells her that she also needs to take responsibility for not leaving Beau Willie sooner, and tells her that she needs to get out of the apartment. Jo confronts Carl on his homosexuality, which he angrily denies at first but Jo tells him that she was not oblivious to the way Carl looks at other men. After venting his frustrations over Jo's controlling nature, he then admits that he has been sleeping with other men and tells her that he's sorry. Jo, however, tells him that she is not accepting his apology, having heard him apologize many times before ("Sorry"). Jo then reveals that she is HIV-positive from Carl's exploits and tells Carl to leave when she gets back home. At Nyla's going away party, all the women gather to celebrate. Alice arrives under Tangie's invitation to give Nyla a few presents and tells Nyla she's proud of her. She then leaves to let Nyla and Tangie enjoy their night together. Jo and Juanita have a conversation on the rooftop about HIV, where Juanita assures Jo that HIV is not a death sentence. The other women come out to join them, including Crystal, as the women talk about the value of their love ("My Love Is Too") and share their experiences with men's apologies ("Sorry" cont.). Crystal tells everyone that she was missing something in her life and the women reveal the hurt and pain they've gone through in their lives, before coming together to embrace Crystal and each other ("A Laying on of Hands") and move forward with their lives. Production. On September 3, 2009, Lionsgate announced it had acquired the distribution rights to Tyler Perry's 34th Street Films adaptation of the play, with principal photography originally scheduled to take place in Atlanta, Georgia in November and December 2009, with a planned 2010 release. The film was written, directed, and produced by Perry. The cast includes Loretta Devine, Kimberly Elise, Whoopi Goldberg, Janet Jackson, Phylicia Rashad, Anika Noni Rose, Kerry Washington and Thandie Newton. Mariah Carey had also been cast, but pulled out in May 2010, citing medical reasons (later revealed to be her pregnancy); Thandie Newton was cast to replace her. Macy Gray was also cast. Originally using the play's full title, the film's title was shortened to "For Colored Girls" in September 2010. In an October 2010 press conference with the cast, Perry credited his full body of work for being able to make the film, stating, "It took everything—"Madea", "House of Payne" and all of that—for me to be able to do "For Colored Girls". Had none of that happened I wouldn’t have been able to say, 'Listen, this is what I want to do next,' so I’m very proud of it all." When asked if she held reservations about Perry's adaptation of her work, Shange responded: "I had a lot of qualms. I worried about his characterizations of women as plastic." In reference to the film post-production, she stated, "I think he did a very fine job, although I'm not sure I would call it a finished film." Soundtrack. "For Colored Girls: Music From and Inspired by the Original Motion Picture Soundtrack" was released on November 2, 2010. It features music from the cast, as well as Leona Lewis, and Nina Simone. Release. The film was originally planned for a 2010 release, but was later delayed until January 14, 2011. However, the studio chose to move the release date forward to November 5, 2010; Tyler Perry commented it was "a serious film that really lends itself to the Fall period." Grossing $20.1 million in its opening weekend, "For Colored Girls" debuted at the box office at #3, behind "Megamind" ($47.7 million) and "Due Date" ($33.5 million). Critical reception. Upon its release, "For Colored Girls"' received generally mixed-to-negative reviews from most critics. At Metacritic the film received an average score of 50, based on 33 reviews, which indicates "mixed or average reviews". Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reports that 32% of 102 professional critics have given the film a positive review, with a rating average of 5.3 out of 10. The site's consensus is that "Tyler Perry has assembled a fine cast for this adaptation of the 1975 play, and his heart is obviously in the right place, but his fondness for melodrama cheapens a meaningful story". Early reviews from a private screening by "Variety" and "The Hollywood Reporter" were negative. Peter DeBruge of "Variety" stated that "n adapting Ntozake Shange's Tony-nominated play—a cycle of poetic monologues about abuse, abortion and other issues facing modern black women, rather than a traditional narrative—the do-it-all auteur demonstrates an ambition beyond any of his previous work. And yet the result falls squarely in familiar territory, better acted and better lit, perhaps, but more inauthentically melodramatic than ever." Despite an overall negative view of the film's plot and direction, DeBruge gives praise to the acting of its principal cast. Kirk Honeycutt of "The Hollywood Reporter" also highlighted the difficulty in translating Shange's poetic play to film. He commented: "No, it never was going to be easy, but someone needed to put creative sweat into this one, to reach for cinematic solutions to the theatrical challenge. All Perry does is force conventional plots and characters—utter cliches without lives or souls—into the fabric of Shange's literary work. The hackneyed melodramas get him from one poem to the next but run roughshod over the collective sense of who these women are." Honeycutt acknowledged the talents of the film's actresses, highlighting performances by Phylicia Rashad, Anika Noni Rose, and Kimberly Elise. Critic Marshall Fine gave a negative review in "The Huffington Post". He asserts Perry's screenplay is inadequate for its source material, stating that each character "gets the opportunity to suddenly burst into Shange's poetic arias. But the connective tissue that links the various stories ... amounts to a college course in black social pathology—or perhaps just human pathology." Acknowledging the acting talent of the ensemble cast, he states: "Don't get me wrong. The women of this film all shine, hitting strong emotional notes that ring true even when Perry's adaptation feels false ... So let's just say that For Colored Girls is a barely competent film (which is a big step up for Perry), illuminated by luminous performances." Similarly, Lisa Schwarzbaum of "Entertainment Weekly" comments: "The female cast is great, with especially fierce performances from Loretta Devine, Kimberly Elise, Phylicia Rashad, and Anika Noni Rose. But stuck in a flailing production that might just as well invite Perry's signature drag creation Madea to the block party, the actors' earnest work isn't enuf." Claudia Puig of "USA Today" called the film a "strained soap opera" which "has wrung the beauty and truth out of the original in almost every way possible." Mary Pols of "TIME" magazine states that despite the caliber of the cast, "Elise's performance is the only restrained one in the film and her Crystal is For Colored Girls' most compelling character." She concludes that "For Colored Girls feels like the cinematic equivalent to putting a garish reproduction of the Sistine Chapel on the ceiling of your McMansion and calling it art. " In contrast, a review by "Shadow and Act" was favorable, calling "For Colored Girls" "the best thing Perry has done to date." Perry is complimented on his cinematography, and use of "subtlety and nuance", although his screenwriting is still considered to be the weakest aspect of the film. Like previous reviews, praise is given to the acting quality of the cast, especially regarding performances given by Thandie Newton, Janet Jackson, and Kimberly Elise. "The Huffington Post" journalist Jenee Darden gave a mixed review. She comments that Perry's modern plot conflicts with the narrative of Shange's poetry which was written during the 1970s, explaining: "The film is set in the present and black people don't use the word 'colored' anymore. Watching a character type on a laptop then hearing someone describe themselves as 'colored' a few scenes later doesn't feel realistic." She commends the acting of the cast, stating "Kimberly Elise stirs you as always. Loretta Devine is funny and vivid. Thandie Newton delivers as a troubled, selfish sex addict. She and Whoopi were matched perfectly as a mother and daughter with serious tensions. Singer Macy Gray's eerie portrayal of a back-alley abortionist will make you rethink ever having unsafe sex." Roger Ebert comments that "Shange’s award-winning play is justly respected, but I’m not sure it’s filmmable, and I’m pretty sure it wasn’t a wise choice for Perry ... That’s not to say 'For Colored Girls' doesn’t have its virtues. Seeing these actresses together is a poignant reminder of their gifts, and of the absence of interesting roles for actresses in general and African-American ones in particular." Betsy Sharkey of the "Los Angeles Times" gave a positive review, stating that "a surgical precision, the writer-director cut [Shange's poetry apart and reassembled it, using various pieces to create characters and storylines, keeping much of the poetry, writing the connective tissue himself so that it finds a new life, a somewhat different life on screen," and said it is his most "mature" film to-date. Commenting on the acting of the ensemble cast, she states: "Newton's Tangie swings too wildly; Goldberg's Alice, clad in white and rage, never finds traction; and Rashad, as the apartment manager Gilda, the central link between many of the characters, never quite connects, so it often feels as if she's walked onto the wrong stage" but adds that "hatever stumbles there may be, they are offset by moments when 'For Colored Girls' soars," ultimately describing the film as "unforgettable." Mick LaSalle of the "San Francisco Chronicle" called "For Colored Girls" "a serious achievement." He compliments Perry's work, stating "this new film shows a mastery of tone, a capacity to elicit strong performances and also to bring out different colors within those performances so that, when it all comes together, it's not the same note sounding over and over. This is smart, lovely work." Manohla Dargis of "The New York Times" called the film "a thunderous storm of a movie." Dargis states that "working with fine performers like Ms. Elise, Anika Noni Rose, Phylicia Rashad and Kerry Washington, he sings the song the way he likes it—with force, feeling and tremendous sincerity." Matt Zoller Seitz of Salon.com calls "For Colored Girls" Perry's "most problematic work. It's also his most ambitious." He adds that "Perry never solves the stage-to-screen translation problem. But the path he has chosen is as intriguing as it is irksome, and it works better than you might expect." In terms of acting, he praises Jackson's performance, stating: "he outdoes herself here ... It's not just Jackson's short haircut and traumatized eyes that might remind viewers of Jane Wyman or Joan Crawford; Perry gets at the mix of masculine hyper-competitiveness and feminine vulnerability that has always defined Jackson, and links it to the wily, lonely coldness often captured in Wyman and Crawford performances, a directorial gambit of tremendous perceptiveness." In addition, he says Perry "is just as sharp directing Jackson's costars—especially Elise, Rashad and Devine." Accolades. Prior to the film's debut, "For Colored Girls" had gained commentary as a probable forerunner in the 83rd Academy Awards. Lionsgate's For Your Consideration campaign asked to consider "For Colored Girls" in all categories, including all nine actresses for Best Supporting Actress. However, due to unfavorable reviews, the film was overlooked by a majority of film and critic associations. Despite mostly negative views of Tyler Perry's screenplay and direction, the film's actresses were almost universally praised, noting several had given award-winning performances, including "Washington, Janet Jackson and Phylicia Rashad." Guy Lodge wrote that Lionsgate should have pushed harder for an Oscar campaign in the acting category, because "[chief among them is the extraordinary Kimberly Elise, an actress who deserved an awards break in 1998 for her best-in-show turn in the similarly uneven but impassioned "Beloved"—and 12 years later, is once more the great lost Best Supporting Actress contender of the 2010 season." Lodge is also complementary towards the rest of Elise's co-stars, stating they "produce enough high-level thesping between them to justify ensemble honors that didn’t materialize either. Anika Noni Rose, in particular, merits an individual shout, principally for a seething post-rape monologue that lands just on the right side of the film’s stage origins. As a sex-addicted bartender, Thandie Newton turns in some of the most alert, adventurous work of her career, while Janet Jackson’s tight range has never been more strikingly deployed. And ... Macy Gray’s unnerving cameo as a Harlem backstreet abortionist ... further convinces me she’s one brave casting decision away from a Mo'Nique moment." "For Colored Girls" has received accolades primarily from African American film and critic associations, in multiple categories including acting, writing, directing and overall production. Kimberly Elise has received the most acting nomination among the cast, followed by Anika Noni Rose and Phylicia Rashad.
583408	Shraddha Kapoor is an Indian film actress and a former model. Hailing from a filmi background, she wanted to become an actress from a young age. Prior to making her cinematic debut, she took up theatre studies at Boston University. Kapoor marked her debut in Leena Yadav's 2010 Bollywood film Teen Patti alongside Amitabh Bachchan and Ben Kingsley. Kapoor earned critics approvals and the Stardust Award for Best Actress for her leading role in Y-Films's 2011 melodrama Luv Ka The End although the film was a below average at the box office. In 2013, after a disheartening debut, several setbacks, walking out of her Y-Films three—films contract, and almost a two years break from the limelight and films, Shraddha Kapoor finally rose to prominence playing the role of "Arohi" in the romantic musical drama film Aashiqui 2 which earned her rave reviews for her performance and turned out to be a 'blockbuster', earning more than 100 crore. Early life and background. Shraddha Kapoor was born in Mumbai to actor Shakti Kapoor and Shivangi Kapoor. She is the niece of actress Padmini Kolhapure and Tejaswini Kolhapure. And also, the distant niece of Lata Mangeshkar and Asha Bhosle. Her older brother, Siddhanth Kapoor, is a former Disc Jockey who made his film debut with "Shootout at Wadala". She did her schooling at Jamnabai Narsee School in Juhu, Mumbai, completing her twelfth standard. She has been whetted [...] to be a personality in the film-industry since childhood which was too apprehensive to her education, during her persuasion of her academic studies, she never had the attribution of studying. Stating, "I was naive at that time of my life and for self manipulative reasons I took for granted the art of being studious, yet I've always been infatuated by the informed ones. My schooling phase was simply terrifying."
68926	Harold Scott MacDonald "Donald" Coxeter, FRS, FRSC, (February 9, 1907 – March 31, 2003) was a British-born Canadian geometer. Coxeter is regarded as one of the greatest geometers of the 20th century. He was born in London but spent most of his life in Canada. Biography. In his youth, Coxeter composed music and was an accomplished pianist at the age of 10. He felt that mathematics and music were intimately related, outlining his ideas in a 1962 article on "Mathematics and Music" in the "Canadian Music Journal". He worked for 60 years at the University of Toronto and published twelve books. He was most noted for his work on regular polytopes and higher-dimensional geometries. He was a champion of the classical approach to geometry, in a period when the tendency was to approach geometry more and more via algebra. Coxeter went up to Trinity College, Cambridge in 1926 to read mathematics. There he earned his BA (as Senior Wrangler) in 1928, and his doctorate in 1931. In 1932 he went to Princeton University for a year as a Rockefeller Fellow, where he worked with Hermann Weyl, Oswald Veblen, and Solomon Lefschetz. Returning to Trinity for a year, he attended Ludwig Wittgenstein's seminars on the philosophy of mathematics. In 1934 he spent a further year at Princeton as a Procter Fellow. In 1936 Coxeter moved to the University of Toronto, becoming a professor in 1948. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada in 1948 and a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1950. He met Maurits Escher and his work on geometric figures helped inspire some of Escher's works, particularly the "Circle Limit" series based on hyperbolic tessellations. He also inspired some of the innovations of Buckminster Fuller. Coxeter, M. S. Longuet-Higgins and J. C. P. Miller were the first to publish the full list of uniform polyhedra (1954). Since 1978, the Canadian Mathematical Society have awarded the Coxeter–James Prize in his honor. In 1990, he became a Foreign Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 1997 he received Sylvester Medal from the Royal Society and was made a Companion of the Order of Canada.
821117	Love and Pain and the Whole Damn Thing is a 1973 American film directed by Alan J. Pakula. It is often categorized as a drama, but contains many comic elements. Maggie Smith and Timothy Bottoms star. Plot. Walter Elbertson (Timothy Bottoms) is a young, shy asthmatic who lacks direction in his life and the confidence to tackle his future. His father, in an effort to instill some spirit into his son, sends him on a biking holiday in Spain. Walter goes to Spain but finds the bike riding torturous due to his asthma and lags behind the rest of the group. Lila Fisher (Maggie Smith), meanwhile, is touring Spain by bus. She too is awkward with people and keeps to herself, and looks uncomfortable when a Spaniard tries to woo her with bird noises. Soon the two tours coincide. Seeing the bus about to depart, Walter decides he has had enough of the bike and joins the bus tour. He ends up alongside Lila on the rear bus seat, wheezing terribly from having run for the bus. The two begin spending time together out of necessity, but neither seems particularly confident in the growing relationship, Lila particularly. However, their similar dispositions soon bring them closer and they consummate their relationship. Not all goes smoothly, both expressing doubt of the other's loyalty. They make pledges of commitment to one another, increase their intimacy, and strengthen their bond. Walter and Lila eventually decide to leave the bus tour behind. Walter organises a small caravan to take them around the country. At one point, they meet The Duke (Don Jaime de Mora y Aragon), who lives in a large Spanish castle, and seems to be very taken with Lila. This awakens jealousy in Walter, and for the first time he acts with strength and resolve to keep her with him. Lila, who has shown signs of illness at various points along the way, confesses to Walter that she has not long to live. The two determine, with Walter as the main instigator, to spend her remaining days traveling together and following their hearts. Alternate title. Also known as "The Widower" (a working title in the U.S.)
1635357	Ariel Lin (, Hakka: Lim Yi Sen) was born 29 October 1982. She is a Taiwanese actress and singer, who won "Best Leading Actress in a Television Series" at the 43rd and 47th Golden Bell Awards. She majored in Korean and Literature at National Chengchi University, Taiwan. Career. Acting. Lin was first discovered in a Taiwanese variety show "Guess Guess Guess" and was the champion of the pretty subway girl contest in the show. She was paired with Mike He in the television drama series "Love Contract". After starring in several television roles in Taiwanese dramas and two films during the early 2000s, she rose to fame in 2005 for her role as Yuan Xiangqin in "It Started With a Kiss". Lin was also praised for her work in "Tokyo Juliet" (2004) as Lin Laisui with Wu Chun and Simon Yam. Her performances in "The Little Fairy" (2005) as The Seventh Fairy Maiden and "The Legend of the Condor Heroes" (2008) as Huang Rong brought her increased popularity in Mainland China. In October 2008, Lin won Best Leading Actress in a Television Series for "They Kiss Again" at the 43rd Golden Bell Awards. In 2008, she reunited with Joe Cheng, her co-star for "It Started With a Kiss" and "They Kiss Again", in "Love or Bread". In November 2008, Lin was confirmed to play Kyōko alongside Jerry Yan as Tsuruga Ren, in a live-adaption of Japanese shōjo manga by Yoshiki Nakamura, titled "Extravagant Challenge" (). However the production was postponed indefinitely and subsequently re-cast. Ariel Lin filmed a Gala Television (GTV) production, titled "In Time with You" (), co-starring Bolin Chen and directed by Chu Yu-ning (瞿友寧) in 2011, which garnered Ariel a second Golden Bell Award for Best Actress. Music. As a singer,Ariel Lin has recorded a number of songs since the mid-2000s, many of which are featured in her television series.
1164208	Ann Jillian (born January 29, 1950) is an American actress. She is best known for her role as Cassie Cranston on the 1980s sitcom "It's a Living". Early life and career. Ann Jillian was born Ann Jura Nauseda in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1950, although some sources mistakenly cite 1951. She was born to Lithuanian immigrant parents and speaks Lithuanian fluently. Jillian was raised as a devout Roman Catholic.
589009	Randhir Kapoor (born 15 February 1947) is a Bollywood actor, producer and director. His nickname is Daboo. Early years and family ties. Kapoor was born on 15 February 1947 in Bombay, Bombay Presidency, British India (now Mumbai, Maharashtra, India). He belongs to the famous Kapoor family who have been part of the Hindi film industry since the late 1920s. He is the eldest son of Raj Kapoor, and one of the grandsons of actor and producer Prithviraj Kapoor. His wife is actress Babita and his daughters are actresses Karisma Kapoor and Kareena Kapoor. Career. Randhir first appeared as a child artist in Shree 420 (1955) and Do Ustad(1959).He became assistant director with the film Jhuk Gaya Aasman starring Rajendra Kumar in 1968. Randhir Kapoor made his acting and directorial debut with "Kal Aaj Aur Kal" (1971) which also starred his wife, father and grandfather. The film, produced under the R.K banner, was an average success. After his debut, he acted in three consecutive hit films, all released in 1972: "Jeet", "Raampur Ka Lakshman" and "Jawani Diwani". "Jawani Deewani" was one of the biggest hits of that year. 'Raampur Ka Lakshman', costarred Shatrughan Sinha and Rekha, and was directed by Manmohan Desai, with music by R.D. Burman. After which remake of MGR’s hit 1971 film Rickshawkaran was made in Hindi in 1973 with Randhir as the lead hero opposite new heroine Neetu Singh but the film flopped though its music was popular. In 1974 he had 2 big hits – Hamrahi and the 2 hero film Haath Ki Safai as hits but Dil Diwana failed to be a hit at the box-office, in spite of its music being better than its predecessor "Jawani Deewani". In 1975, two of his films, Lafange and Ponga Pandit, were hits, but his other two movies, Dafa 302 and Dharam Karam, were box-office failures. From 1976 till 1981, Randhir had solo hero hit films like - Khalifa, Aaj Ka Mahaatma, Bhanwar, Ram Bharose, Dhongee and his multi-star films like "Chacha Bhatija" (1977), "Kasme Vaade" (1978) (he earned a Filmfare nomination as Best Supporting Actor), Mama Bhanja, Heeralal Pannalal, Dhyanu Bhagat also known as Bhakti Mein Shakti, Chor Ke Ghar Chor, were hits too. After the failure of the 1981 Harjaee, he got few offers to star or co-star in films. His film "Nikkamma", begun in 1976, was finally released in 1983 as Jaan-e-jaan, was also a dud. He starred in "Sawaal" and "Pukar" in 1983, and received critical praise for his performance, but they flopped nonetheless. In the same year, Humse Na Jeeta Koi received average collections. Randhir played the lead hero in 34 films from 1971-1987 and 22 of them were box-office hits. Randhir Kapoor (tied with Dharmendra) was the third-highest paid actor from 1971-1975 and fourth from 1976-1983.He did 9 multi-star films and 25 solo hero films. After his opportunities to star declined, he turned to producing and directing, and quit acting entirely after the 1986 film "Khazana". He produced the blockbusters "Ram Teri Ganga Maili" (1985) and "Henna" (1991). The latter starred his younger brother, Rishi and Pakistani actress Zeba Bakhtiar. "Heena" resulted in a trip to Pakistan, where he was treated royally by then-president Nawaz Sharif, a fan of his father Raj, his uncles Shammi and Shashi, and of Randhir himself. In 1991 he finished his father's last film "Henna", which was in production at the time of his death, and earned a Filmfare nomination for Best Director. In 1996 he produced "PremGranth", the directorial debut of his younger brother Rajiv, and in 1999 produced "Aa Ab Laut Chalen", the directorial debut of his brother Rishi. In 1999 he returned to acting with the film "Mother" alongside Rekha and Jeetendra and Rakesh Roshan. After another break he appeared in the film "Armaan" (2003). On 13 May 2007 he made an appearance on the television chat show "Koffee with Karan" with his brothers and sister Rima and his sister-in-law Neetu Singh appeared. On the show, it was mentioned how Randhir had been Neetu's first leading man in the film "Rikshawala" (1972), which was not a success. In 2010 he returned to films with roles in "Housefull" and "Action Replayy". In 2012 he appeared in the multi-starrer "Housefull 2", the first film in which he acts along with his brother Rishi. Personal life. Randhir married actress Babita on 6 November 1971 when he was just 24 after co-starring with her in Kal Aaj Aur Kal, as the couple fell in love during the shooting of this film. Their two daughters, Karisma Kapoor, born in June 1974, and Kareena Kapoor, born in September 1980, are Indian film actresses. The couple separated in 1988 as differences arose between the couple as Randhir's acting career slumped after 1983 and Babita wanted her daughter Karishma to be an actress. Babita left Randhir with her daughters. Although against his daughters becoming involved in acting, he eventually came around the idea and is supportive of their careers. The two reconciled in October 2007, having never divorced but lived separately for 19 years. Filmography. As Actor
1017369	Ocean Heaven () is a 2010 Chinese-Hong Kong drama film starring martial arts superstar Jet Li in his first full drama role. It also co-stars Taiwanese actress Gwei Lun-mei, who previously starred in Jay Chou's "Secret". The movie was filmed in Qingdao at the Qingdao Polar Ocean World and received promotion from the Qingdao council. It was announced that it was to be released in spring 2010, but the release date was pushed back to 24 June 2010, which opened the 2010 Shanghai International Film Festival on 2 June. Jet Li wants this film to get a good message across and promote the works with autism as well as the works of his charity ‘The One Foundation’.
520945	Alfie Anido (December 31, 1959 – December 30, 1981) was a popular Filipino matinee idol best remembered for his death at the age of twenty one. He was the eldest of four children of Alberto Anido and Sara Serrano, and was the brother of Albert Anido, another Filipino actor. Biography. Born Alfonso Serrano Anido, he was also a fashion and commercial model before he became a contract star for Regal Films, a leading Filipino film production company. He was dubbed as one of the Regal Babies, along with then-young actors such as Gabby Concepcion, William Martinez, Albert Martinez, Jimi Melendez, Maricel Soriano, Snooky Serna and Dina Bonnevie. He was famously linked with Bonnevie, his co-star in the 1980 camp classic Temptation Island. At the time of his entry into show business, he was in college at the Ateneo de Manila University taking up Management. To date, an air of mystery still surrounds the circumstances behind Anido's death. The official version, contemporaneously reported in the mainstream Manila media, was that Anido had shot himself in a suicide. This version has not been officially or authoritatively contradicted to this day. However, immediately after his death, rumors quickly spread that Anido was actually murdered, and that such fact was covered up owing to the prominence of the personalities allegedly involved. Fingers started pointing to the direction of the family of an ex-girlfriend whose father was a high ranking government official, Minister of Defense Juan Ponce Enrile. The rumor gained traction in Manila, which was then under the throes of the authoritarian rule of Ferdinand Marcos, whose government controlled the mass media during that period. Other versions on the death of Anido were printed in the alternative press such as the Philippine Collegian, the official student organ of the University of the Philippines, a hotbed of anti-Marcos activism. While the rumor that Alfie Anido was murdered still persists, with the aura of an urban legend, the fact remains that no evidence has been put forth to rebut the official version of a suicide. Death. Anido died on December 30, 1981 at his home in Bel Air Makati when he was the age of 21.
1103645	Charles Louis Fefferman (born April 18, 1949) is an American mathematician at Princeton University. His primary field of research is mathematical analysis. Biography. A child prodigy, Fefferman entered college by the age of eleven and had written his first scientific paper by the age of 15 in German. After receiving his bachelor's degrees in physics and mathematics at the age of 17 from the University of Maryland and a PhD in mathematics at 20 from Princeton University under Elias Stein, Fefferman received full professorship at the University of Chicago at the age of 22. This made him the youngest full professor ever appointed in the United States. At 24, he returned to Princeton to assume a full professorship there — a position he still holds. He won the Alan T. Waterman Award in 1976 (the first mathematician to get the award) and the Fields medal in 1978 for his work in mathematical analysis. He was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1979. He was appointed the Herbert Jones Professor at Princeton in 1984.
1055068	Mister Lonely is a 2007 comedy-drama film directed by Harmony Korine, and co-written with his brother Avi Korine. The film is an international co-production between the UK, France, Ireland, and the United States. The film features an ensemble cast of generally well-known, but some foreign, actors, including Diego Luna, Samantha Morton, Denis Lavant, Werner Herzog, James Fox, Anita Pallenberg, and Leos Carax. Plot. A young American man living in Paris scratches out a living as a Michael Jackson look-alike, dancing on the streets, public parks, tourist spots and trade shows. During a show in an old people's home, he meets Marilyn Monroe. Haunted by her angelic beauty, he follows her to a commune in the Scottish Highlands, joining her husband Charlie Chaplin, and her daughter Shirley Temple. Here, the Pope, the Queen, Madonna, James Dean, and other impersonators build a stage in the hope that the world will visit and watch them perform. A Subplot concerns a convent of nuns, in what seems to be a Third World country. One of the nuns survives a fall from an airplane during a mission to deliver food to villages, and discovers that if you are true of heart, God will protect you. All the nuns then begin jumping from planes to show they are true of heart and protected by God. This storyline ends with the nuns being invited to the Vatican to meet the Pope himself, but the plane crashes into the ocean, killing everyone on board. Development. Korine conceived of a film about impersonators as a way to explore what he called "the obsessive nature" of the impersonator personality. Rather than mocking or belittling impersonation, Korine claims to have felt a "fondness and empathy" for impersonators since childhood. Korine came up with the idea for the film after the release of "Julien Donkey-Boy", but his drug use and general disillusionment (along with fund-raising difficulties) prolonged the process. In a February 2007 interview with "Screen International", he said: "I'd been making movies since I was virtually a kid, and it had always come very easily. At a certain point after the last movie, I started to have this general disconnect from things. I was really miserable with where I was. I began to lose sight of things and people started to become more and more distant. I was burnt out, movies were what I always loved in life and I started to not care. I went deeper and deeper into a dark place and to be honest movies were the last thing I was thinking about - I didn't know if I was going to be alive. My dream was to evaporate. I was unhealthy. Whatever happened during that time, and I won't go into the details, maybe it was something I needed to go through." In a 2003 interview with the "New York Post", former girlfriend Chloë Sevigny revealed that the formerly straight edge Korine had become addicted to heroin and methadone while they were together, with Korine's substance abuse issues contributing to the end of their relationship. Richard Strange, who plays Abraham Lincoln, claimed that Korine often changed scenes and lines as filming progressed. Production. While shooting the commune scenes, the cast and crew lived together in a Scottish castle, and many of the actors remained in their impersonated characters for all or part of the time they were off-camera. Actor Denis Lavant even bathed with his shoes on, as his impersonated character Charlie Chaplin was said to do. To film the secondary storyline, Korine worked with real skydiving nuns from Spain, sometimes in temperatures of 48°C (120°F). Soundtrack. Half of the music was written and performed by Sun City Girls, with the other half being created by Spiritualized frontman, Jason "Spaceman" Pierce. Reception. Korine's largest film to date with a budget of $8.2 million, "Mister Lonely" earned $386,915 in its first nine months — $167,396 in the United States and $219,519 in other territories. The film received mixed to negative reviews. Rotten Tomatoes reports that the film maintains a 46% approval, with one reviewer commenting, "Less biting or offensive than Korine's earlier works, this frustratingly dull film still maintains the director's trademark odd beauty."
1065657	Adam Ruebin Beach (born November 11, 1972) is a Canadian Saulteaux actor. He is best known for his roles as Victor in "Smoke Signals", Tommy in "Walker, Texas Ranger", Kickin' Wing in "Joe Dirt", Marine Private First Class Ira Hayes in "Flags of Our Fathers", Private Ben Yahzee in "Windtalkers", Dr. Charles Eastman (Ohiyesa) in "Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee", Chester Lake in "", and Officer Jim Chee in the film adaptations of "Skinwalkers", "Coyote Waits", and "A Thief of Time". He is currently starring in Arctic Air. Early life. Born in Ashern, Manitoba, Adam Beach spent his early years with his two brothers on the Lake Manitoba/Dog Creek First Nation Reserve at Lake Manitoba. When Beach was eight years old, his mother, Sally Beach, eight months pregnant with a baby girl, was killed by a drunk driver. Eight weeks after his mother's death, the family stricken with grief, Adam's father, Dennis, was discovered to have drowned nearby the community. It is unclear whether Mr. Beach's death was an accident or if he committed suicide. Adam Beach and his two brothers initially went to live with their grandmother, who had spent her own childhood in one of the assimilationist Indian residential schools. He lived with his grandmother from age 8 to age 12. Five years after their parents' deaths, the three brothers were taken to Winnipeg to live with an aunt and uncle: Agnes and Chris Beach (his father's brother). Adam refers to his Uncle Chris as "dad". Beach attended a drama class at Gordon Bell High School. He began performing in local theatre productions, and eventually dropped out of school to take a lead role at the Manitoba Theatre for Young People. Career. At age 18, Beach won a small role in the miniseries "Lost in the Barrens", based on the Farley Mowat novel. In the following years, he continued to work in local theatre and guest-starred on television shows like "Walker, Texas Ranger" and "Touched by an Angel". Shortly afterwards, Beach was cast as a regular on the television shows "North of 60" and "The Rez". After his performance in "Dance Me Outside" he starred in "Smoke Signals", which was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival. He took a small role in Disney's "Mystery, Alaska" in 1999 and in 2000 accepted a role in the thriller, "The Last Stop". Beach then appeared in Helen Lee's "The Art of Woo" and the 2001 hit "Joe Dirt" as Kickin' Wing, a Native American fireworks salesman. In 2002, "Windtalkers", starring Beach, came out in theatres. To prepare for this role, Beach spent six months learning the Navajo language. He was also able to use this skill in his next project, "Skinwalkers", directed by Chris Eyre, who gave him his breakout role in "Smoke Signals". Between large-scale projects, Beach made small television appearances on such shows as "JAG" and "Third Watch". Also, in 2003, he returned to the character that he first portrayed in "Skinwalkers" in the movie "Coyote Waits". He also made a guest appearance in the hit show "The Dead Zone" as a Native shaman (in the episode "Shaman"). In 2006, Beach portrayed Ira Hayes in Clint Eastwood's feature film "Flags of Our Fathers". During the filming of this movie, both Beach's grandmother and his best friend died. Beach commented, "And if you add those up, there's a lot of emotion. When you're doing a movie, when you let go emotionally, there's nothing to grab onto," he said about the deaths. About playing the part, Beach said, "For me, playing Ira was a meaningful relationship. I would call it – trying to find out how he was, or how he thought and felt". The movie won two Academy Award nominations and Beach was nominated for multiple Best Supporting Actor honors. In 2007, Beach starred in HBO Films' adaptation of Dee Brown's history, "Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee". In the film, Beach portrays the Sioux advocate, author and medical doctor Charles Eastman (Dakota name, Ohiyesa) and his changing understanding of Aboriginal-US relations during the period leading up to the Wounded Knee Massacre. In addition to starring in the Canadian television series "Moose TV", Beach is executive-producing and starring in the movie "Older Than America", the independent feature filmed in Cloquet, Minnesota mostly on the Fond du Lac Ojibwe reservation. He also joined the cast of "" as Detective Chester Lake for the show's ninth season after guest-starring in season eight. However, in April 2008, "TV Guide" announced that he would not return for the show's tenth season. He later stated he grew disillusioned with the strictly procedural nature of the show and opted to leave after the finish of the ninth season. In 2006, Beach unsuccessfully attempted to run for the leadership of his Lake Manitoba First Nation, but has stated he will try again during the next election. Starting in 2009, Beach played a supporting role on the HBO series, "Big Love" as a manager in an Indian casino with Bill Henrickson (Bill Paxton). On February 10, 2010 it was announced that Beach will portray Tommy Prince, the Canadian war hero, in an upcoming movie about his life. According to Bay Film Studios, the movie will be a "true account of Canada's most highly decorated First Nations soldier." Beach said he is honoured to portray Prince, calling him a positive role model for all First Nations. In 2011, he starred in "Cowboys & Aliens", an American science fiction Western film directed by Jon Favreau and starring Daniel Craig, Harrison Ford, and Olivia Wilde. The film is based on the 2006 graphic novel of the same name created by Scott Mitchell Rosenberg. Also in 2011, Beach returned to Canada to star in the TV series "Arctic Air", which premiered on January 12, 2012. Personal life. Adam Beach has been married twice and has three children. He had two sons, Noah (born 1996) and Luke (born 1998), with his first wife Meredith Porter (1999-2002). He did not have any children with his second wife, Tara Mason. They married in 2003, but have since separated. In 2008 his then domestic partner Summer Tiger gave birth to a daughter, Phoenix. He later began dating Leah Gibson, his co-star on "Arctic Air". Beach stated in a Huffington Post interview that the two met each other on set.
1015790	A Simple Life (), also known as Sister Peach, is a 2012 Hong Kong drama film directed by Ann Hui and starring Andy Lau and Deanie Ip. Ip, in the titled role as Sister Peach, won the Best Actress Award at the 68th Venice International Film Festival. Originally, Ann Hui considered retiring after making this film. However, due to the film's success, Ann Hui changed her mind and is considering other projects. Lau and Ip had not worked together since 1999's "Prince Charming". Production of the film officially began during Chinese New Year. It was filmed in Mei Foo Sun Chuen. Production was wrapped on 6 April 2011 after two months of filming. The film competed in the 68th Venice International Film Festival. It was also selected as the Hong Kong entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 84th Academy Awards, but it did not make the final shortlist. "A Simple Life" was an official selection for competition at the 68th Venice International Film Festival, where it won 4 awards. Deanie Ip won the Volpi Cup for Best Actress for her role in this film. She is the first Hong Konger to win this prize. In March, she also became the first Hong Konger to win the Asian Film Award for Best Actress. At the same event, director Ann Hui has become the first female to win the Lifetime Achievement Award. At the 31st Hong Kong Film Awards Ceremony, "A Simple Life" won 5 major prizes (film, director, screenplay, actor, actress), repeating what happened with Ann Hui's "Summer Snow" in 1996. Ann Hui has won Best Director (4 times) more than anyone else at the Hong Kong Film Awards. Deanie Ip is the oldest Best Actress recipient (64-years-old at the time of her win). Plot. Inspired by the true story of producer Roger Lee and his servant, the film depicts the relationship between Roger (Lau) and Sister Peach (Ip), a woman who has worked for four generations of Roger's family. Box office. In China after being shown for only four days the film made US$5.2 million and reached second place in the top gross film of the week ending 11 March 2012.
1227364	Girl Happy is a 1965 American musical romantic comedy and beach party film starring Elvis Presley in his 18th feature. The movie won a fourth place prize Laurel Award in the category Top Musical of 1965. It featured the song "Puppet on a String", which reached #14 on the "Billboard" Hot 100, #3 on the Adult Contemporary chart and in Canada, and was certified Gold by the RIAA. Plot. Nightclub singer Rusty Wells (Elvis) and his band have just closed their engagement at the club where they work in Chicago, and are just about ready to leave for their annual spring break trip to Fort Lauderdale, Florida—that is, until the club's owner, Big Frank (Harold Stone), extends their stay at his club, foiling the band's plans for some sun and fun in Florida.
591367	Purana Mandir (Hindi for "The Old Temple") is a 1984 Hindi feature film, produced and directed by the Ramsay brothers. It is a horror film chronicling the story of the monster-demon, Samri. The Soundtrack were composed by Ajit Singh. It is considered to be a cult classic film in India. A Telugu film called Arundhati, which was a blockbuster, was made in the same lines Plot. The film opens with a scene taking place some 200 years ago, with the royal procession of Raja Harimansingh of the sultanate of Bijapur, stranded near the "Kali Pahari" (literally, black mountain). The Raja is concerned because his daughter Princess Rupali has disappeared near the lair of the devil-worshipper Samri (Ajay Agarwal). The princess wanders into the ruins of an old fortress and is promptly captured and tortured by the villainous Samri. His trademark attack is mesmerizing the hapless victim apparently sucking out their life force through the eyes, causing their natural eyes to be replaced with demonic white shades. During this process, Samri's eyes gleam blood red. Raja Harimansingh catches Samri in this terrible act and orders the soldiers to capture him. Samri is put on trial, where his terrible litany of crimes is read. He has performed various heinous acts to please his demonic spirit masters and enhance his own evil powers. He has raped and disembowelled newly-wed brides; he has mutilated and cannibalized young children; he has — it shocks the crier as he reads out this charge — exhumed corpses for sacrifice and eating; and he has terrorized the hamlets surrounding Bijapur with his reign of evil. While the "rajpurohit" (royal priest) suggests Samri be subjected to pure "Agni" i.e. to be cremated, the Raja proposes another sentence—Samri is to be decapitated, with the headless body to be buried behind the old temple at Kalighat and the head secured in a strong-box to be kept at the Raja's "haveli" (mansion). The strongbox is chained with a "trishul" (trident, the weapon of the Hindu God Shiva) to hold the evil in thrall. Samri pronounces his curse upon the Raja: "So long as my head is away from my body, every woman in your line shall die at childbirth; and when my head is rejoined to my body, I will arise and wipe out every living person in your dynasty." As the years pass, the princely states merge into the Indian republic, and the great-great-grandson of Raja Harimansingh, Thakur Ranvir Singh (veteran actor Pradeep Kumar, known for his royal roles), now resides in the city. Samri is long gone, but not forgotten. His evil legend is passed from father to son in the Harimansingh clan, and his sinister curse occurs with each generation. Ranvir Singh's wife died at the birth of his daughter Suman (Aarti Gupta). Suman, now a college student, has a boyfriend Sanjay (Mohnish Behl) and they spend most of their young love frolicking in pools, the beach and nightclubs. One the Thakur learns about their relations, he severely disapproves of their relationship ostensibly because Sanjay is not of royal birth. (The real reason is that any man who marries Suman must endure her inevitable death when their child arrives.) Suman is unaware of the ancient curse and resolute in her love, and Sanjay is steadfast in standing by her. They try to confront the intractable Thakur and the latter succumbs and reveals the curse which has been terrorizing their families for 200 years. Sanjay finally understands the father and walks out on Suman. However Suman leaves her home in the middle of the night and convinces Sanjay to accompany her to Bijapur where they can track and, if possible, to investigate the sordid tale put an end to the demonic barrier to their love. They head down to Bijapur accompanied by Sanjay's bosom buddy Anand (Puneet Issar) and his wife. They undertake a frightening journey to Bijapur. After their car blows a flat, they are met by an old toothless hag Mangli and her mysterious son Durjan (Sadashiv Amrapurkar) who is the cook and "chowkidar" (caretaker) of the Harimansingh "haveli". There is also a deformed woodcutter Sanga (Satish Shah) who makes fast friends with Durjan but secretly believes there is a treasure buried somewhere in the "haveli". The "haveli" has a painting of Raja Harimansingh; this painting shifts its gaze when Suman looks at it; and the eerie likeness of Samri appears through it. Various other sinister events (creaking beds, flaming torch lamps and random winds) somehow lead Anand and Sanjay to smash the wall behind the painting and uncover the strong box that holds Samri's head. Misinterpreting the head to be potentially that of a brave soldier who incurred the king's displeasure, they head back with the intention of sealing the wall the next day. Unfortunately Sanga and Durjan notice the whole incident. Sanga, already biased with self-created visions of treasure, yields to his temptations (believing the treasure is within the box) and detaches the "trishul". Samri's undead head mesmerizes him putting him into a trance. Sanga brings the head to the body behind the old temple and rejoins it in a gruesome ritual, making Samri whole. With the hatred of 200 years under him, Samri begins his murderous rampage to eliminate the descendants of Raja Harimansingh and once again wreaks evil all over the surrounding hamlets. The townsfolk are unprepared to deal with evil of such magnitude. Misunderstandings and tensions claim the lives of many townspeople and Anand meets a horrific death at the hands of Samri. The remainder barely withstand the onslaught when Thakur Ranvir Singh arrives. He relates the legend but he, too, does not know the means to defeat the bloodthirsty Samri. Despondent, the townsfolk seek refuge at the temple as Samri cannot enter that holy ground. They perform "aarti" (lamp adornment) to Lord Shiva. Divine guidance comes before Sanjay; the trishul holds the key to check the monster. Sanjay and Suman return to the haveli to seek the trishul and offer a battle to Samri. Unbeknown to them, Durjan had moved the trishul to a different location within the haveli itself. Sanjay and Suman find themselves trapped in the haveli while being hunted by the bloodthirsty Samri. After a series of tumultuous events, Sanjay manages to trap Samri in a coffin and, with the "trishul" in hand to check the monster, drag him out to the village square (next to the old temple). There, they construct a hasty pyre and burn Samri alive once and for all. Few days after, Sanjay and Suman were married and lives with Suman's parents happily. Soundtrack. The movie has a very melodious haunting love song "Woh Beete Din Yaad Hai, Woh Pal Chhin Yaad Hai", having four different versions (two male and two female), two of which are very rare to find, sung by Ajit Singh and Asha Bhosle separately. The complete soundtrack is as follows: Reception. Purana Mandir proved to be a stupendous hit across India and led to multiple movies offering the similar formula and roster. The haunting theme from the movie was used within several other subsequent Ramsay releases such as Tahkhana, Dak Bangla, Veerana etc. Samri became a household name and resulted in an unrelated, nevertheless Ramsay produced release, Saamri 3D. Purana Mandir was a pathbreaking film in the horror genre of Indian films.
568133	I Am Dina is a 2002 Swedish-Norwegian-Danish film directed by Ole Bornedal. It is based on the 1989 book "Dinas bok" ("Dina's Book") by Herbjørg Wassmo. The movie was one of the most high-profile in Norwegian movie history. Plot. In Northern Norway during the 1860s, a little girl named Dina accidentally causes her mother's death. Overcome with grief, her father refuses to raise her, leaving her in the care of the household servants. Dina grows up wild and unmanageable, with her only friend being the stable boy, Tomas. She summons her mother's ghost and develops a strange fascination with death as well as a passion for living. Family friend Jacob (Gérard Depardieu) encourages Dina's father to hire Chris Lorch, a tutor of American English, who introduces her to the cello. When Jacob asks for Dina's hand in marriage, Dina refuses. Her outraged father slaps her, prompting Dina to attack him. Known that Lorch and Dina have grown close, her father retaliates by sending Lorch away, devastating Dina. Unable to come to terms with Lorch's departure, Dina nearly kills Lorch in a fit of insanity. When Dina (Maria Bonnevie) is old enough, she marries Jacob and moves to Reinsnes, a port he runs with his mother, Karen, and his stepsons Niels and Anders. Niels doesn't like Dina's wild ways, nor the fact that she has taken over accounting duties at Reinsnes. As Dina's eccentric tendencies become even stronger, Jacob suffers gangrene poisoning after breaking his leg when he falls off the roof of his mistress' house while trying to fix a leak. As Jacob does not appear to be getting better and takes a turn for the worse, Dina takes him on sled to the top of a cliff and pushes him off to his death, hoping to end his suffering and send him to a better place. Jacob's death brings Tomas back into her life and the two have a passionate affair. Several months later, she gives birth to a baby boy that she names Benjamin, that she presumably had with Tomas. She then learns of Lorch's death when the latter bequeaths her his cello and his "Writer's Reference". Some years later, as a child, Benjamin accidentally sets fire to the barn. Dina falls in love with a courageous, handsome Russian named Zhukovsky (Christopher Eccleston) who rushes into the burning barn to save her beloved horses. It turns out Zhukovsky had seen Dina several years ago in Bergen and was smitten by her, and has come to Reinsnes to court her. However, he leaves suddenly and Dina forces herself on Tomas. Niels, deep into alcoholism, rapes a servant named Stina. When Dina finds out, she issues an ultimatum to Niels: Marry Stina or leave for America. Neils will not countenance marrying a servant, but cannot afford to leave for America. Zhukovsky then returns to Reinsnes to take a prisoner back to Bergen. When a drunken Niels staggers into the house, Dina announces that he too will soon be leaving, to America. Niels then decides to ask Stina to marry him, but she refuses. Overcome with rage, Niels hangs himself. Dina's father then announces to Dina that Zhukovsky is an anarchist involved in a plot against the King, and is to hang. A distraught Dina rushes to Bergen to try and exonerate Zhukovsky. But when she visits him in prison and her visit's time is up, Dina attacks the guards, who then brutalize her, causing her to lose her baby with Zhukovsky. On the way back to Reinsnes, she is saved by Anders, who stops her bleeding. Her appeal is successful however, and Zhukovsky is released, though no one has seen him since. Several weeks later, Dina nearly drowns while teaching Benjamin how to sail but is miraculously saved by Zhukovsky who is on a nearby steamer. In her near death state, she dreams that she kills Zhukovsky when he announces that he is leaving her again. Dina then comes to, and asks if Zhukovsky is going to leave her again. Zhukovsky says he will always be leaving her, though he says he will always be coming back. Themes. The main theme of the movie is death, and Dina's inability to let go of those she loves. Dina almost kills Lorch when she finds out he is leaving her, kills her husband Jacob (as a mercy killing) when she thinks he is dying in pain, and kills Zhukovsky in a dream where he tells her he is leaving her. Casting. Though the movie is set in 1860s Norway, all the dialogue is in English, resulting in a variety of accents throughout the movie. There was some controversy surrounding the casting of the movie, as it was felt by many that Gørild Mauseth was the right choice for the part. In the end the casting of Maria Bonnevie was accepted, though the movie took in far less in ticket sales than it had cost to produce. Filming. The film is shot on location in Kjerringøy, in the present-day municipality of Bodø, in Nordland, Norway (according to the IMDb web site), and features spectacular fjord scenery.
1062126	Matthew Avery Modine (born March 22, 1959) is an American actor. His film roles include Private Joker in Stanley Kubrick's "Full Metal Jacket", the title character in Alan Parker's "Birdy", high school wrestler Louden Swain in "Vision Quest", and oversexed Sullivan Groff on "Weeds". Early life. Modine, the youngest of seven children, was born in Loma Linda, California, the son of Dolores (née Warner), a bookkeeper, and Mark Alexander Modine, who managed drive-in theaters. He is a nephew of a stage actress Nola Modine Fairbanks. Career. His first film role was in John Sayles' "Baby It's You". His performance caught the eye of director Harold Becker, who cast him in "Vision Quest" based on the novel by Terry Davis. He appeared in the sex comedy "Private School", co-starring Phoebe Cates and Betsy Russell. The director Robert Altman propelled Modine to international stardom with his film adaptation of David Rabe's play "Streamers". Modine and his fellow castmates won an unprecedented Best Actor prize from the Venice Film Festival for the tragic story of young American soldiers about to be shipped to Vietnam. Modine played Mel Gibson's brother in "Mrs. Soffel" and starred with Nicolas Cage in Alan Parker's "Birdy". The film was awarded Gran Prix at the Cannes Film Festival. Modine may be best known for his role as Private Joker, the central character of Stanley Kubrick's 1987 war movie "Full Metal Jacket". Subsequently, he played the dangerous young criminal Treat in Alan Pakula's film version of the hugely successful Lyle Kessler stageplay "Orphans". Modine played the goofy, earnest FBI agent Mike Downey in Jonathan Demme's screwball comedy "Married to the Mob" opposite Michelle Pfeiffer. In 1990 he led the cast of "Memphis Belle", a fictionalized account of the famous B-17 Flying Fortress. Modine has twice been nominated for an Emmy Award. First for his performance in "And the Band Played On" (an HBO the Emmy award winning movie about the early years of the HIV/AIDS epidemic) and the dark comedy "What the Deaf Man Heard". In 1995, he appeared opposite Geena Davis in the romantic action-adventure film "Cutthroat Island". Modine made his feature directorial debut with "If... Dog... Rabbit", which came after the success of three short films debuting at the prestigious Sundance Film Festival: "When I Was a Boy" (co-directed with Todd Field), "Smoking" written by David Sedaris, and "Ecce Pirate" written by Modine. The dark comedy, "I Think I Thought" debuted at the Tribeca Film Festival. The film tells the story of a Thinker (Modine) who ends up in Thinkers Anonymous. Other short films include, "To Kill an American", "Cowboy", and "The Love FIlm". in 2011, he completed "Jesus Was a Commie", an avant garde-dialectical conversation about the world and the prominent issues of modern society. Modine co-directed the short film with Terence Ziegler, the editor of "I Think I Thought". Modine's short films have played internationally. In 2003, he guest starred on "The West Wing" in the episode "The Long Goodbye". He portrayed the character Marco, who went to high school with Cregg (Allison Janney), and who helped her deal with her father's steady mental decline due to Alzheimer's disease. Modine agreed to the role because he is a longtime friend of Janney. (The two appeared in a theatrical production of the play "Breaking Up" directed by Stuart Ross). That same year, he played Fritz Gerlich in the CBS miniseries "". In 2004, Modine appeared in "Funky Monkey" as ex-football star turned spy Alec McCall, who teams up with super-chimp Clemens and his friend Michael Dean (Seth Adkins) to take down the villainous Flick (Taylor Negron). The film was a critical failure yet has gained a cult status. In 2005, Abel Ferrara's "Mary" won the Special Jury Prize at the Venice Film Festival. In the film, Modine portrayed a director recounting the story of Mary Magdalene (Juliette Binoche). In 2009, he rejoined "Full Metal Jacket" costar Adam Baldwin in the direct-to-DVD indie film "Little Fish, Strange Pond". In 2010, Modine appeared in "The Trial", which was awarded the Parents Television Council's Seal of Approval™. The PTC said: "'The Trial' combines the best features of courtroom drama, murder mystery and character story. 'The Trial' is a powerful drama which shows the power of healing and hope." Modine played a corrupt Majestic City developer named "Sullivan Groff" throughout Season 3 on "Weeds". Groff has affairs with Nancy Botwin (Mary-Louise Parker) and Celia Hodes (Elizabeth Perkins). He also guest starred in the "" episode "Rage" as a serial killer. In 2010, Modine appeared in HBO's "Too Big to Fail", a film about the Wall Street financial crisis. Modine stars as John Thain, former Chairman and CEO of Merrill Lynch, who famously spent millions decorating his office. In 2011, Modine completed two independent films, "Family Weekend" and "Girl In Progress", opposite Eva Mendes. In 2012, he appeared in Christopher Nolan's "The Dark Knight Rises" as Deputy Commissioner Peter Foley, a Gotham City police officer and peer to Gary Oldman's Commissioner James Gordon. In February 2013, Modine was cast in the Ralph Bakshi animated film "Last Days of Coney Island" after coming across the film's Kickstarter campaign online. Theatre. Modine appeared in Arthur Miller's "Finishing the Picture" at Chicago's Goodman Theatre, and Miller's "Resurrection Blues" at London's Old Vic. He played Atticus Finch in "To Kill a Mockingbird" at Connecticut's Hartford Stage. This production became the most successful play in the theatre's 45-year history. In 2010, he starred with Abigail Breslin in the 50th Anniversary Broadway revival of the "The Miracle Worker" at the Circle in the Square theatre.
70855	The Devil Came on Horseback is a documentary film by Ricki Stern and Anne Sundberg illustrating the continuing Darfur Conflict in Sudan. Based on the book by former U.S. Marine Captain Brian Steidle and his experiences while working for the African Union, the film version had its premiere at film festivals in early and mid-2007. This documentary is a Break Thru Films production in association with Global Grassroots and 3 Generations. The award-winning film premiered at Sundance 07, was screened at the Laemmle Music Hall on Wilshire Blvd. in Los Angeles in June 2007 and opened its nationwide release at the IFC New York in July 2007. The film won the Working Films Award at the 2007 Full Frame Documentary Festival. The film asks viewers to become educated about the on-going genocide in Darfur and laments the failure of the US and others to end this crisis. Book. The book version is by Brian Steidle with his sister, Gretchen Steidle Wallace.
1015941	A Better Tomorrow () is a 1986 Hong Kong crime film directed by John Woo and starring Chow Yun-fat, Ti Lung and Leslie Cheung. The film had a profound influence on the Hong Kong film-making industry, and later on an international scale. Although it was produced with a tight budget and was relatively unknown until it went on screen (due to virtually no advertising), it broke Hong Kong's box office record and went on to become a blockbuster in Asian countries. It is highly regarded, ranking at #2 of the Best 100 Chinese Motion Pictures. Its success also ensured the sequel "A Better Tomorrow 2", also directed by Woo, and "A Better Tomorrow 3: Love & Death in Saigon", a prequel directed by Tsui Hark. Plot. Sung Tse-Ho (Ti Lung) works for the Triad, whose principal operation is printing and distributing counterfeit US bank notes. Ho is a respected member of the organization and is entrusted the most important transactions. Mark Lee (Chow Yun-Fat), another high-ranking member of the group, is his best friend and partner in crime. Ho has a younger brother, Kit (Leslie Cheung), who aspires to become a police officer. Ho keeps his criminal life secret from his brother and encourages Kit's career choice. However, Ho's father is aware of Ho's criminal activities and appeals to him to go straight. Ho is sent to Taiwan by the boss to complete a deal. Shing (Waise Lee), a new member, is sent along as an apprentice. The deal turns out to be a trap by the Taiwanese gang. A shootout ensues in which Ho and Shing flee, pursued by local law enforcement. Ho eventually surrenders to the police in order to buy time for Shing to escape. After reading about Ho's capture in the newspaper, Mark finds and kills the Taiwanese gang leader and his bodyguards. However, Mark's leg is shot in the gunfight, leaving him crippled.
1060117	Rush Hour 2 is a 2001 martial arts action comedy film. This is the second installment in the "Rush Hour" series. A sequel to the 1998 film "Rush Hour", the film stars Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker who respectively reprise their roles as Inspector Lee and Detective Carter. The film finds Lee and Carter embroiled in a counterfeit scam involving the Triads. "Rush Hour 2" was released August 3, 2001 to mixed reviews from critics, but it grossed $347,325,802 at the worldwide box office, becoming the eleventh highest-grossing film of 2001 worldwide. It is the highest-grossing live-action martial arts film of all time, and the second highest-grossing martial arts film of all time, behind "Kung Fu Panda". The film was followed up with another sequel, "Rush Hour 3", in 2007. Plot. Los Angeles Police Department Detective James Carter (Chris Tucker) is on vacation in Hong Kong, visiting his friend, Hong Kong Police Force Chief Inspector Lee (Jackie Chan). Carter is interested in having a good time; however, soon after he arrives, a bomb explodes at the United States Consulate General. Inspector Lee is assigned to the case, which becomes personal when it is discovered that it somehow involves Ricky Tan (John Lone), his late police officer father's former partner. Tan, who was suspected, but never proven, of having a role in Lee's father's death, is now a leader of the Triads. The United States Secret Service, led by Agent Sterling (Harris Yulin), and the Hong Kong Police Force soon get into a fight over the jurisdiction of the case. Lee, believing Tan is the head of the operation, learns that Tan will be attending a dinner party on his yacht. Tan scolds his underling, Hu Li (Zhang Ziyi), who then leaves as Lee and Carter confront Tan. Tan claims that someone is trying to frame him. Hu Li suddenly appears and shoots Ricky Tan, making her escape in the chaos, and an angry Sterling holds Lee responsible for Tan's death, and orders him off the case. Carter is ordered to be flown back to Los Angeles for involving himself. However, Lee and Carter return to L.A. together. On the plane, Carter tells Lee that in every large criminal operation, there is a rich white man behind it and that man is Steven Reign (Alan King), an L.A. hotel billionaire that Carter says he saw on Tan's boat and that his calm demeanor during the shooting was suspicious. They set up camp outside the Reign Towers, spotting a sexy U.S. Secret Service agent named Isabella Molina (Roselyn Sánchez), whom Carter met on Ricky Tan's yacht. After they watch Molina undress, and a few misunderstandings, Molina tells the two men that she is undercover, looking into Reign's money laundering of $100 million in superdollars (high grade counterfeit $100 bills). Lee and Carter pay a visit to Kenny (Don Cheadle), an ex-con known to Carter who runs a gambling den in the back of the Chinese restaurant he owns. He tells them that a usually broke customer recently came into his establishment with a suspicious amount of hundred-dollar bills. Carter speculates them and confirms that they are Reign's counterfeits. They trace the money back to a bank friendly to the Triads, who are waiting for them and knock the two cops unconscious, with Molina looking on. After arriving in Las Vegas, Lee and Carter wake up inside one of the Triads' trucks and escape. After finding out where they are, they realize that Reign is laundering the $100 million through the new Red Dragon Casino (filmed at the now demolished Desert Inn). At the Red Dragon, Lee and Carter split up. Lee attempts to infiltrate the back area to find the engraving plates (which were used to make the counterfeit money) while Carter makes a distraction, to attract all the security allowing Lee to pass. However, Hu Li captures Lee and places a small bomb in his mouth. She then takes him up to the penthouse, where it is revealed that Ricky Tan faked his death and, as Lee suspected, is in charge of the operation. Tan soon departs the room, and Molina attempts to arrest Hu Li leading to a confrontation between the two. But, despite Molina's best efforts, she is defeated due to Hu Li's martial arts experience. In the enusing chaos, Carter is able to free Lee from the bomb in his mouth before Hu Li has the chance to detonate it. Carter then fights Hu Li, while Lee heads to the penthouse to prevent Tan from escaping with the plates. In the penthouse, Reign opens the safe and takes the plates, running into Tan as he leaves. After Reign announces he is cutting their deal short and keeping the plates, Tan stabs him with a knife, killing him. Lee arrives and confronts Tan along with Carter, who shortly appears after (accidentally) knocking out Hu Li. After a tense standoff, where Tan admits he killed Lee's father, Tan tries to break free, but Lee kicks Tan out of the window and he falls to his death. Hu Li then enters, holding a time bomb. Lee and Carter leap out of the window just as the bomb goes off, killing Hu Li. They slide on decoration wires with their jackets and barely escape the traffic on the street in the process. Later, at the airport, Sterling thanks Lee for his work on the case. Molina says she would like to tell Lee something, and proceeds to kiss him for a short time, an event witnessed from afar by Carter. Lee and Carter plan to go their separate ways, but Lee reveals that he has always wanted to go to Madison Square Garden and watch a New York Knicks basketball game. Carter tells Lee he could go for one more vacation, and the two of them decide to go to New York City. Release. Prior to its August 4 release, "Rush Hour 2" was premiered to the public on Thursday, July 26, 2001 on-board United Airlines Flight 1 from Los Angeles to Hong Kong, which was renamed, "The Rush Hour Express". The Hong Kong Board of Tourism teamed up with United Airlines and New Line Cinemas in a campaign that offered both trailers for the film for passengers on all domestic United flights during July and August (reaching an expected 3 million people), as well as Hong Kong travel videos to inspire tourists to visit China where the film was set. This promotion is thought to have aided greatly in the film's success despite lackluster reviews from most critics. Box office. "Rush Hour 2" opened on August 3, 2001 in 3,118 North American theaters, and it grossed $67,408,222.87 ($21,619 per screen) in its opening weekend. It ended its run with $226,164,286.92, making it the fourth highest-grossing film of 2001 domestically, and the highest-grossing martial arts film at the time. The film's total worldwide box office take was $347,325,802, making it the eleventh highest-grossing film of 2001 worldwide. "Rush Hour 2" out-grossed its predecessor, "Rush Hour". This was due to the fact that it had a little more box office longevity and lasted consistently within the domestic box office top ten for roughly two weeks longer than "Rush Hour". In addition, the hype surrounding "Rush Hour 2" helped it maintain high numbers for a longer period of time. After fifty days since its domestic release, "Rush Hour" was only 10 on the box office charts while comparatively, "Rush Hour 2" was still pulling in big audiences after fifty days in theaters and was the 2 grossing film domestically. Accolades. "Rush Hour 2" earned a total of 27 award nominations and 10 wins, including an MTV Movie Award for Best Fight, a Teen Choice Award for Film-Choice Actor, Comedy, and 3 Kids' Choice Awards for Favorite Male Butt Kicker (Chan), Favorite Movie Actor (Tucker), and Favorite Movie. Sequel. Because of development hell, "Rush Hour 3" was not released until August 10, 2007—six years after "Rush Hour 2". A fourth installment in the series is in negotiations, however, and reportedly may be set in Moscow. Soundtrack. A soundtrack containing hip hop and R&B music was released on July 31, 2001 by Hollywood Records and Epic Records. It peaked at 11 on the "Billboard" 200 and 11 on the Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart. Home media. Blu-ray. "Rush Hour 2" is the only instalment in the series to not receive a Blu-ray release. A Blu-ray was originally set to be released in October 2007 in the U.S., and December 2007 in the U.K. to coincide with the releases of Rush Hour and Rush Hour 3 on the same format. For reasons unknown, both dates were pulled from the release schedule.
519966	Herminio Jose Lualhati Alcasid, Jr., more popularly known as Ogie Alcasid (born August 27, 1967), is a Filipino singer-songwriter, television presenter, comedian, parodist, and actor.He is currently the President of OPM (Organisasyon ng Pilipinong Mang-Aawit) and Commissioner of the Edsa People Power Commission. Educational Background. ELEMENTARY SCHOOL HIGH SCHOOL COLLEGE Television career. Alcasid's television career started as one of the hosts of comedy show "Small Brothers" on ABS-CBN on 1992. He also appeared on other comedy programs such as ABS-CBN's "Mana Mana" (from 1991 to 1992), ABC's "Tropang Trumpo" (from 1994 to 1995), GMA Network's "Bubble Gang" (from 1995 TO 2013), QTV's "Ay, Robot!" (from 2005 to 2007), and a sitcom "Show Me Da Manny" (from 2010 to 2011). He also branched out as a game show host, beginning in ABS-CBN's "Game Na Game Na" on 1995 and the Philippine version of ' on ABC-5 in 2001. He also hosted Fastbreak, a former basketball game show on IBC 13 in 2002. Alcasid also recently hosted ' on GMA with Regine Velasquez and is currently one of the main hosts on musical variety show "SOP Rules". Alcasid had his own break in a GMA Primetime drama Hanggang Kailan opposite Lorna Tolentino and Christopher de Leon. This was Alcasid's first drama show and he also sung its main theme with Aiza Seguerra. Alcasid is recently the judge in "Pinoy Idol". and hosted in his former game shows Da Big Show and Hole In The Wall (with his fellow co-host, Michael V). He played a spoiled brat Angelina in "Ang Spoiled" segment on Bubble Gang. Alcasid returned to sitcom via "Show Me Da Manny", playing "Manny Pa-Cute". Alcasid also hosted a kids documentary show on GMA, "Kap's Amazing Stories Kids Edition: Featuring Wild Animals", with co-hosts Ramboy Revilla and Jayda Avanzado. In 2013, Alcasid left of Main Cast of Bubble Gang and He currently moved to Tv5 and also a newest Kapatid Star. Recording career. Alcasid debuted as a singer in 1989 with the release of his self-titled album. "Ogie Alcasid" reached gold record status, while his debut single "Nandito Ako" (I Am Here) was awarded "Song of the Year" by local radio station Magic 89.9. He has since released 18 albums, including a Christmas album ("Larawan ng Pasko"/ Images of Christmas, 1994), a live album ("OA sa Hits (Live)", 2002), and four greatest hits albums. He has received a total of twelve gold records, three platinum records, and three double platinum records.
775186	A pissoir or vespasienne is a French invention common in Europe that allows for urination in public without the need for a toilet building. Availability of a pissoir reduces the likelihood of urination onto buildings, sidewalks, or streets. Pissoirs were first introduced in Paris in 1834 by Claude-Philibert Barthelot, comte de Rambuteau the Préfet of the former Départment of the Seine. They have become common and some communities such as the patrons of San Francisco's Dolores Park have vocally demanded their installation. They are said to have the added benefit of freeing up single occupancy public toilets for women.
1063817	Meet the Fockers is a 2004 American comedy film directed by Jay Roach and the sequel to "Meet the Parents". The film stars Robert De Niro (who was also one of the film's producers), Ben Stiller, Dustin Hoffman, Barbra Streisand, Blythe Danner and Teri Polo. It was followed up by a sequel, "Little Fockers", in 2010. Plot. Gaylord Myron "Greg" Focker (Ben Stiller) and his fiancée Pam Byrnes (Polo) decide to introduce their parents to each other. They first fly to Oyster Bay, Long Island, to pick up Pam's father, retired CIA operative Jack Byrnes (De Niro), her mother Dina (Danner) and one-year-old nephew Little Jack. But rather than going to the airport as planned, Jack decides to drive the family to Miami to meet the Fockers in his new RV. Once they arrive, they are greeted by Greg's eccentric but fun-loving and amiable father, Bernie (Hoffman), and mother, Roz (Streisand), who is a sex therapist for elder couples. Worried that Jack may be put off by the Fockers' lifestyle, Greg convinces Roz to pretend that she is a yoga instructor for the weekend. Though Jack and Bernie get off to a good start, small cracks begin to form between Jack and the Fockers, due to their contrasting personalities. Things are made worse when a chase between the Fockers' dog, Moses, and the Byrnes' cat, Jinx, culminates with Jinx flushing Moses down the RV's toilet, forcing Bernie to destroy it to save Moses, and later on when Bernie accidentally injures Jack's back during a game of football. Pam, meanwhile, informs Greg that she is pregnant, but the two decide to keep it a secret from Jack, who does not know they are having sex. Jack, however, becomes suspicious of Greg's character again when they are introduced to the Fockers' housekeeper, Isabel Villalobos (Alanna Ubach), with whom Bernie reveals Greg had a sexual affair fifteen years before. Jack later takes the RV to Isabel's fifteen-year-old son, Jorge (Ray Santiago), to fix the toilet, but is disturbed by Jorge's striking resemblance to Greg and begins to suspect he may be Greg's son with Isabel. Meanwhile, Roz, Bernie and Dina realize Pam is pregnant, but promise not to tell Jack. Growing envious of Bernie and Roz's active sex life, Dina consults Roz on sex tips in order to seduce Jack, but none of them work. Things eventually come to a crunch when Greg is left alone to babysit Little Jack, whom Jack has been raising via the Ferber method. Despite Jack's instructions to leave Little Jack to self-soothe, Greg cannot bear to listen to Little Jack's cries and tends to the boy to cheer him up, turning the television on, acting funny and inadvertently teaching Little Jack to say "asshole". A brief phone call from Roz is long enough for Little Jack to wander out of his pen (after Jinx opens it by accident), put on "Scarface" and glue his hands to a rum bottle. After a furious argument with the Fockers and his own family (though amends are quickly made), Jack reverts to his old ways and sends Greg and Jorge's hair samples for a DNA test, while inviting Jorge to the Fockers' planned engagement party in hopes of getting Greg to admit he is Jorge's father.
1102320	Ferdinand Georg Frobenius (26 October 1849 – 3 August 1917) was a German mathematician, best known for his contributions to the theory of elliptic functions, differential equations and to group theory. He is known for the famous determinantal identities, known as Frobenius-Stickelberger formulae, governing elliptic functions, and for developing the theory of biquadratic forms. He was also the first to introduce the notion of rational approximations of functions (nowadays known as Padé approximants), and gave the first full proof for the Cayley–Hamilton theorem. He also lent his name to certain differential-geometric objects in modern mathematical physics, known as Frobenius manifolds.
1058641	Judy Greer (born Judith Laura Evans; July 20, 1975) is an American actress known for portraying a string of supporting characters, including Kitty Sanchez on the Fox series "Arrested Development" and Cheryl Tunt on the animated comedy series "Archer". Greer has had a supporting role in a number of romantic comedy films, including "The Wedding Planner", "13 Going on 30", "27 Dresses" and "Love and Other Drugs". She also had a supporting role in the 2011 film "The Descendants". In 2011, Greer began hosting an online series of workout videos called "Reluctantly Healthy". Early life. Greer was born Judith Laura Evans in Detroit, Michigan on July 20, 1975, and grew up in Redford Township and Livonia. She was raised Catholic. Greer attended Churchill High School and Bunny Sanfords Academy of Dance in Livonia. In 1997 she graduated from The Theatre School at DePaul University. Career. Greer had a recurring role on the Fox comedy series "Arrested Development" (2003–2006), playing Kitty Sanchez in 10 episodes total and appearing in each of the series' three original seasons. In an August 2009 interview, Greer said that she is most recognized for this role. She had supporting roles in "Jawbreaker" (1999), "The Wedding Planner" (2001), "13 Going on 30" (2004), "The Village" (2004), "Elizabethtown" (2005), "27 Dresses" (2008), and "Love Happens" (2009). Greer has made guest appearances on "Just Shoot Me!" (2003), "" (2005), "My Name Is Earl" (2006), "Two and a Half Men" (2007), "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia" (2007), "Californication" (2007–2008, 2012), "ER" (2009), "House" (2009), "Modern Family" (2010), "The Big Bang Theory" (2010), "How I Met Your Mother" (2010), and "Warren the Ape" (2010). She took on a starring role in the ABC sitcom "Miss Guided" (2008), but it was canceled in its first season. She also starred in the indie satire "Visioneers" (2008). In April 2008, Greer appeared as a yoga instructor in the "Get a Mac" ad series alongside John Hodgman and Justin Long. Greer starred in a CBS sitcom entitled "Mad Love", which premiered in February 2011 as a midseason replacement 2010–2011. The show was canceled after the first season. Greer is also a voice actor, voicing the character of Cheryl on the animated comedy series "Archer", a character which has been compared to her role on "Arrested Development", and the character of Wendy Park on the stop-motion animated sitcom "Glenn Martin, DDS". Greer currently portrays Bridget Schmidt, Walden Schmidt (Ashton Kutcher)'s ex-wife on "Two and a Half Men". She previously played Myra, a love interest for Charlie Sheen's character, Charlie Harper, and the sister of Herb Melnick, Ryan Stiles' character, on two episodes of the show in 2007. In November 2011, Greer was honored with the John Cassavetes Independent Spirit Award at the Denver Film Festival, where two films featuring Greer were in the festival's programming, including a Red Carpet screening of Alexander Payne's "The Descendants" and the Jay and Mark Duplass' "Jeff, Who Lives at Home". She is the first actress to be honored with the award. She was announced as female chimp Cornelia in the upcoming sequel "Dawn of the Planet of the Apes". She will also appear as gym teacher Miss Desjardin in the 2013 film adaptation of "Carrie" starring alongside Chloë Grace Moretz and Julianne Moore. Personal life. Greer is married to Dean E. Johnsen, an executive producer of "Real Time with Bill Maher".
393890	Blades of Blood (; lit. "Like the Moon Escaping from the Clouds") is a 2010 South Korean action drama film directed by Lee Joon-ik. The film is based on Park Heung-yong's graphic novel "Like the Moon Escaping from the Clouds". Plot. In the late 16th century, the Joseon kingdom is thrown into chaos by the threat of a Japanese invasion. Royal descendant Lee Mong-hak (Cha Seung-won) and legendary blind swordsman Hwang Jeong-hak (Hwang Jung-min) were once allies who dreamed of stamping out social inequality and corruption, and creating a better world. Persecuted by the court, Lee forms a rebel army in hopes of overthrowing the inept king and taking the throne himself. Lee is willing to kill recklessly and betray former comrades to forge his bloody path to the palace, but Hwang Jeong-hak and the vengeful young man Kyeon-ja stand in the way.
1058409	Lois Smith (born November 3, 1930) is an American actress whose career in theater, film, and television has spanned five decades. Life and career. Smith was born as Lois Arlene Humbert in Topeka, Kansas, the daughter of Carrie Davis (née Gottshalk) and William Oren Humbert, who was a telephone company employee. She is a graduate of the University of Washington. After two TV appearances, Smith made her film debut in "East of Eden" (1955). Other film credits include "Five Easy Pieces", "Up the Sandbox", "Four Friends", "Fatal Attraction", "Fried Green Tomatoes", "How to Make an American Quilt", "Hard Promises", "Dead Man Walking", "Twister", "Minority Report", "Tumbleweeds", "Hollywoodland", and "Please Give". She has been active in television, appearing in early anthology series ("Studio One", "Robert Montgomery Presents"), soap operas ("Another World", "Somerset", "The Edge of Night", "All My Children", "One Life to Live"), prime-time dramas ("The Defenders", "Dr. Kildare", "Route 66", "thirtysomething", "The Practice", ', ', "Desperate Housewives", "ER", "Grey's Anatomy", " Cold Case" and "True Blood"), and sitcoms ("Just Shoot Me!" and "Frasier"). Smith made her Broadway debut in the 1952 comedy "Time Out for Ginger". A member of the Steppenwolf Theatre Company, she appeared as "Ma Joad" in their production of "The Grapes of Wrath" in Chicago, La Jolla Playhouse in San Diego, and London before bringing it to New York City, where her performance earned her a Tony Award nomination.
1300725	The Mostly Unfabulous Social Life of Ethan Green is a syndicated comic strip drawn by Eric Orner. Appearing in lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender publications, the strip's title character is Ethan Green, a young gay man trying to balance his professional career as a personal assistant with his search for love. It was started in 1989. Film adaptation. In 2005, George Bamber directed a film based on the comic strip, starring Daniel Letterle as Ethan Green, Meredith Baxter as his mother, Diego Serrano as his boyfriend Kyle, Shanola Hampton as his roommate Charlotte and Joel Brooks and Richard Riehle as the Hat Sisters, an older gay couple in Ethan's circle of friends who are known for wearing outrageous hats. Roy Firestone wrote music for the film, including the title song "Don't Walk Away" (credits shared with Kazakh-American opera singer Timur Bekbosunov, named "The Reform Tenor" by LA Weekly in 2011.) The film premiered on the film festival circuit in 2005 and enjoyed a limited theatrical release beginning June 16, 2006. Plot summary. 26 year-old Ethan lives with roommate Charlotte in a house owned by his ex-boyfriend Leo in West Hollywood. Ethan has been dating former pro baseball player-turned-autobiographer Kyle Underhill for several months, so when Leo announces he plans to sell the house, Ethan starts dropping hints to Kyle that they should live together. Inexplicably, when Kyle actually asks him to move in, Ethan breaks up with him. Ethan hooks up with a younger man, Punch, who works in a real estate office. Together they conspire to delay the sale of Leo's house by convincing him to sign with the world's worst realtor, the terminally depressed Sunny Deal. However, Charlotte ends up sleeping with Sunny which knocks her out of her depression and motivates her to make the sale. Meanwhile, after a nostalgic one-night stand, Ethan has decided he wants to get back together with Leo. Unfortunately, Leo has gotten engaged to a controlling and even emotionally abusive gay Republican Chester Baer and Ethan's event planner mother has agreed to plan their commitment ceremony. In an odd moment, Leo, Punch and Kyle end up in a torrid threesome in Ethan's bedroom. Punch decides that Ethan isn't mature enough for him and dumps him. Kyle, who'd been considering taking Ethan back, abruptly changes his mind. Chester forgives Leo and they go ahead with their plans. The house sells, Charlotte and Sunny move in together and Ethan signs a lease at a local retirement community. Ethan crashes the commitment ceremony but only to give Leo his silent blessing. However, at the altar, Leo has an anxiety attack and has to be taken away in an ambulance. A few days later Ethan settles in at the retirement community and the screen fades to black with the words THE END. The screen then fades back up on Leo talking with a lady retiree. As Ethan stands nearby, Leo tells her that he gave Chester his ring back and broke up with him. Leo has realized that he still loves Ethan. He and Ethan reconcile and the film ends as they kiss.
1039573	Jonathan Hyde (born 21 May 1948) is an Australian-born English actor, best known for his role as the loyal butler in "Richie Rich" and Sir J. Bruce Ismay in 1997 hit film "Titanic". Early life. Hyde was born in Brisbane, Queensland to an average middle-class family. Career. He is a member of the Royal Shakespeare Company. Among other roles, he played Ferdinand in a 1985 production of John Webster's "The Duchess of Malfi". He graduated from the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and is an Associate Member there. He was an original cast member of "Not the Nine O'Clock News", the first series of which was pulled from broadcast because of the General Election of 1979. Hyde played J. Bruce Ismay, the managing director of the White Star Line in Titanic, Egyptologist Allen Chamberlain in The Mummy and Sam Parrish/Van Pelt, the hunter in Jumanji. He has been in numerous films including "The Contract", "The Curse of King Tut's Tomb", "Land of the Blind", "The Tailor of Panama", "Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the Silk Stocking", "Eisenstein", "The Mummy", and "Anaconda". He appeared in the 1989 BBC miniseries "Shadow of the Noose" in which he played barrister Edward Marshall Hall. He has also appeared in several television mysteries, including "The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes" starring Jeremy Brett and "Midsomer Murders" as Frank Smythe-Webster. In 2007, Hyde played Dr. Dorn in Chekhov's "The Seagull" and the Earl of Kent in "King Lear" for the RSC in a repertory company that included Ian McKellen, Frances Barber, Romola Garai, William Gaunt and Sylvester McCoy. Both plays toured together internationally, before taking up residence in the New London Theatre. The final performance was on 12 January 2008. He reprised his role of Kent in the 2008 television film of "King Lear". In the final series of BBC's popular series "Spooks", Hyde played Ilya Gavrik, a Russian Minister. Hyde appeared as Lionel Logue, the King's speech therapist in the West End production of "The King's Speech" at Wyndham's Theatre. He also appeared on the rap supergroup Westside Connection's first studio album Bow Down on the intro on the album Personal life. Hyde is married to Scottish soprano Isobel Buchanan. The couple have two daughters, one of whom is actress Georgia King.
1061489	Olivia Mary de Havilland (born 1 July 1916) is an Anglo-American actress known for her early ingenue roles, as well as her later more substantial roles. Born in Tokyo to British parents, de Havilland and her younger sister, actress Joan Fontaine, moved to California in 1919. She is best known for her performance in "Gone with the Wind" (1939), and her eight co-starring roles opposite Errol Flynn, including "The Adventures of Robin Hood" (1938), "Dodge City" (1939), "Santa Fe Trail" (1940), and "They Died with Their Boots On" (1941). De Havilland won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performances in "To Each His Own" (1946) and "The Heiress" (1949); de Havilland and sister Fontaine are the only siblings to have won lead acting Academy Awards. She also received the National Board of Review Award, the New York Film Critics Circle Award, the Italian National Syndicate of Film Journalists Silver Ribbon, and the Venice Film Festival Volpi Cup for her performance in "The Snake Pit" (1948). She was awarded the Golden Globe Award for her performance in "The Heiress" in 1950 and for "Anastasia: The Mystery of Anna" in 1987. In 1960, she was honoured with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for her work in films. In 2008, she was presented with the National Medal of Arts by President George W. Bush. Early life. Olivia de Havilland was born on 1 July 1916 in Tokyo, Japan, to parents from the United Kingdom. Her father, Walter Augustus de Havilland (31 August 1872 – 23 May 1968), was educated at the University of Cambridge and served as an English professor at the Imperial University in Tokyo before becoming a patent attorney with a practice in Japan. Her mother, Lilian Augusta (née Ruse; 11 June 1886 – 20 February 1975), was educated at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London and became a stage actress who left her career after going to Tokyo with her husband. Her mother would return to work with the stage name Lillian Fontaine after her daughters achieved fame in the 1940s. Olivia's paternal cousin was Sir Geoffrey de Havilland (1882–1965), an aircraft designer, notably of the De Havilland Mosquito, and founder of the aircraft company which bore his name. Her paternal grandfather was from Guernsey in the Channel Islands. Olivia's parents married in 1914, but the marriage was not a happy one, due to her father's infidelities. Olivia's younger sister, Joan de Havilland and as future actress Joan Fontaine, was born on 22 October 1917. In February 1919, Lillian persuaded her husband to take the family back to England to a climate better suited for their ailing daughters. The family stopped in California to treat Olivia's bronchial condition and high temperature. After Joan developed pneumonia, Lillian decided to remain with her daughters in California, where they settled in the village of Saratoga, about 50 miles south of San Francisco. Her father abandoned the family and returned to his Japanese housekeeper, who would eventually become his second wife. Her parents' divorce was not finalized until February 1925. Although she left the acting profession, Lillian taught her daughters to appreciate the arts, reading Shakespeare to her children. She also taught them music and elocution. In April 1925, after her divorce was finalised, Lillian remarried, this time to a department store owner named George M. Fontaine, whose strict parenting style soon generated animosity in his new stepdaughters. Only a year apart, the sisters also developed a rivalry between themselves that would last throughout their lives. De Havilland was educated at Saratoga Grammar School, the Notre Dame High School in Belmont, and Los Gatos High School. In high school, she excelled in oratory and field hockey, and participated in the school drama club. In 1933, she made her debut in amateur theatre in the lead role in "Alice in Wonderland", a production of the Saratoga Community Players based on the work of Lewis Carroll. She would later remember: After graduating high school in 1934, de Havilland was offered the role of Puck in the Saratoga Community Theatre production of "A Midsummer Night's Dream". That summer, Austrian director Max Reinhardt came to California for a major new production of the same play at the Hollywood Bowl. After one of Reinhardt's assistants saw Olivia perform in the Saratoga production, he offered her the understudy position for the role of Hermia. One week before the premiere, the actress playing Hermia left to take a part in a film, and de Havilland took her place. After receiving positive reviews, she went on to play Hermia through the entire engagement, as well as the four-week tour that followed. During the tour, Reinhardt received word that he would direct the Warner Bros. film version of his stage production, and he offered de Havilland the film role of Hermia. Wanting to become an English teacher, she had intended to enter Mills College with a scholarship in the fall, but was persuaded by Reinhardt to accept. Soon after, the 18-year-old actress signed a seven-year contract with Warner Bros. Career. De Havilland made her screen debut in Max Reinhardt's film "A Midsummer Night's Dream", which was released in October 1935, following the release of her second and third films, "Alibi Ike" with Joe E. Brown and "The Irish in Us" with James Cagney, respectively. All three films received mixed reviews and disappointing public response. At this point, Warner Bros. made a decision that would have a profound impact on her career, pairing her with an unknown Australian actor named Errol Flynn in "Captain Blood" (1935). The casting of de Havilland was due to producer Hal B. Wallis wanting to showcase his "protege". The popular success of the film, as well as the critical response to the on-screen couple, led to seven additional collaborations, including "The Charge of the Light Brigade" (1936), "The Adventures of Robin Hood" (1938), "Dodge City" (1939), "Santa Fe Trail" (1940), and "They Died with Their Boots On" (1941). Throughout the late 1930s, de Havilland appeared in a variety of light romantic comedy films, including "Call It a Day" (1937), "Four's a Crowd" (1938), and "Hard to Get" (1938), as well as period films such as "Anthony Adverse" (1936) and "The Great Garrick" (1937). Her refined demeanor and beautiful diction made her particularly effective in the latter films. While her performances were generally well received by critics and the public, they did not advance her career toward the more serious roles she desired. One such role was the character of Melanie Hamilton in David O. Selznick's upcoming film adaptation of Margaret Mitchell's epic novel "Gone with the Wind". Having read the novel, de Havilland knew she could bring the character to life on the screen. According to some sources, her sister Joan Fontaine was approached by director George Cukor to audition for the role. Interested more in playing Scarlett O'Hara, Fontaine reportedly turned him down, recommending her sister. Ultimately, Jack Warner's wife Ann was instrumental in de Havilland getting the part. She went on to play Melanie Hamilton in "Gone with the Wind" (1939) and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance. On 28 November 1941, de Havilland became a naturalized citizen of the United States. Following the critical acclaim she received for her performance in "Gone with the Wind", de Havilland sought more serious and challenging roles, but was not supported in her efforts by Warner Bros. After receiving third billing in "The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex" (1939) starring Bette Davis and Errol Flynn, she was loaned out to Samuel Goldwyn for the crime drama "Raffles" (1939), and then assigned to the light musical comedy "My Love Came Back" (1940). Throughout the early 1940s, de Havilland was becoming increasingly frustrated by the roles assigned to her, which she felt were unchallenging and insubstantial. Feeling she had proven herself capable of playing more than the demure ingénues and damsels in distress that were typecasting her, she began to reject scripts that offered her this type of role and actively sought out better roles. She concluded her long series of popular films with Errol Flynn with "Santa Fe Trail" (1940) and "They Died with Their Boots On" (1941), which contained some of their most telling scenes together. Other highlights from this period include "The Strawberry Blonde" (1941) with James Cagney, "Hold Back the Dawn" (1941) with Charles Boyer for which she received fine reviews, and "Princess O'Rourke" (1943), which she considered one of the few truly satisfying characters she played for Warner Bros. In 1942, de Havilland received an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress for her performance in "Hold Back the Dawn". After fulfilling her seven-year Warner Bros. contract with "The Male Animal" (1942),
1064019	2 Fast 2 Furious is a 2003 American street racing action film directed by John Singleton. It is the second installment in "The Fast and the Furious" film series. In "2 Fast 2 Furious", ex-cop Brian O'Conner (Paul Walker) teams up with his ex-con friend Roman Pearce (Tyrese Gibson) and works with undercover U.S. Customs Service agent Monica Fuentes (Eva Mendes) to bring Miami-based drug lord Carter Verone (Cole Hauser) down. Plot. After allowing fugitive Dominic Toretto (Vin Diesel) to evade arrest (in "The Fast and the Furious"), former Los Angeles Police Department officer Brian O'Conner (Paul Walker) finds himself on the run from the L.A.P.D. and the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation and leaves Los Angeles, California to start a new life. He travels across the U.S., racing against the locals using a silver Nissan Skyline GT-R R34 and the driving skills he learned as a member of Toretto's now disbanded crew, earning money for the trip. After traveling for few days, he arrives in Miami, Florida. There, he makes new friends with Tej Parker (Ludacris), an ex-street racer and organizer who leads a top racing garage and is the man-to-know in Miami, and Jimmy (Jin Auyeung), a well-known car tuner who works with Tej, as well as Suki (Devon Aoki), also a street racer, and now lives in a small cot near his garage. Brian has now modified his Skyline to top grade. He has also added details and under glow lights to give it a stunning look. He takes his Skyline to the streets of Miami, and after a while he is given the credit of being the best racer there is.
1166738	Kel Johari Rice Mitchell (born August 25, 1978) is an American actor, comedian, dancer, musician, writer, and producer. He is best known for his work as a regular cast member of the Nickelodeon sketch comedy series "All That", his portrayal of Kel Kimble on the Nickelodeon sitcom "Kenan & Kel", his role as Ed in the film and All That sketch "Good Burger", as the voice of Dutch in the Disney XD cartoon "Motorcity", and as the voice of Jay Jay in the Nicktoons cartoon Wild Grinders.
393884	A Man Who Was Superman () is a 2008 South Korean film directed by Jeong Yoon-chul. The film applies techniques of Magical realism to problems arising from the Narcissism of small differences that plagues the modern Korean conscience. Plot. Song Soo-jung is a producer going on her third year at a small company. Her speciality is filming human interest stories. She is driven to produce these shallow stories for the sake of her ambition of one day becoming Korea's own Oprah Winfrey. However, she is reaching the end of what's left of her pride. After months of not getting paid, one day she leaves her office as usual with the company camera to produce a story on a lion apparently refusing to eat its meal. On her way, however, she comes across a robber, but she is saved somehow by "Superman" in a Hawaiian shirt. Superman claims he's unable to tap into his superhuman powers because "bad guys" have placed kryptonite inside his head. However, he doesn't let that get in his way of helping others, and saving the world from global warming and rescuing a lost puppy. Soo-jung can see this will make a good story and, with a little tweaking and a little fabricating, she produces the "Superman Saves the World" documentary which goes on to be a ratings hit. After an X-Ray examination of "Superman's" skull, it becomes clear that there really is something stuck in his head - a bullet. However, the true story behind this Superman (whose real name is Lee Hyuk-Suk), is revealed: two major tragedies that befell Hyun-Suk traumatized him and left him believing he was, in fact, Superman. When Lee was a boy, he saw "Superman" with his father, who told him that if he counted to one-hundred, he would become Superman. Caught in a skirmish during the Gwangju Democratization Movement, Lee's father is killed, and the young Lee is shot in the back of the head. Miraculously, he lived with the bullet still lodged in his skull. Years later Lee, his wife, and daughter were hit in a car accident. His wife died instantly, but his daughter survived. In the burning wreckage, Lee told his daughter if she counted to one hundred, he'd turn into Superman to save her. Unfortunately, just as he was running to the car with a fire extinguisher, the bullet in his head caused a seizure, causing him to collapse on the road. As he writhed on the ground in pain, the car exploded with his daughter still inside. None of the onlookers in the crowd attempted to help Lee or his daughter. It was at this moment when mental trauma caused Lee to believe he was Superman.
1078554	Cameron Morrell Douglas (born December 13, 1978) is an American actor. Early life and family. Douglas was born in Santa Barbara, California, the eldest son of actor Michael Douglas and only child of Diandra Morrell Douglas (née Luker, whom Michael Douglas divorced in 2000), and grandson of actor Kirk Douglas and Bermudian actress Diana Dill. He has appeared in four films: Jackie Chan's "Mr. Nice Guy" (1997), "It Runs in the Family" (2003), "National Lampoon's Adam & Eve" (2005) and "Loaded" (2008). In "It Runs in the Family" he appeared together with his father, Michael Douglas, grandfather, Kirk Douglas, and grandmother, Diana Dill. Drug dealing and conviction. Douglas has been arrested for drug offences at least three times. In 1999 he was found with cocaine in Manhattan and was arrested and charged with a misdemeanor possession of a controlled substance. The charge was dropped after he pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of disorderly conduct. In 2007 he was charged with felony possession of a controlled substance after police officers found a syringe with liquid cocaine in a car he was in. On July 28, 2009, Douglas was arrested by the Drug Enforcement Administration for possession of of methamphetamine. Due to the large amount of the drug seized, Douglas was charged with intent to distribute. The charge carries a minimum prison sentence of 10 years and a maximum of life. On January 27, 2010, Douglas pleaded guilty to both conspiracy to distribute drugs and to heroin possession after his girlfriend had smuggled heroin hidden inside an electric toothbrush and passed it on to him while he was under house arrest. On April 20, 2010, Douglas was sentenced to five years in prison for possessing heroin and dealing large amounts of methamphetamine and cocaine out of a New York hotel room. His father, Michael, publicly assumed blame for "being a bad father" but said that without prison intervention, Cameron "was going to be dead or somebody was gonna kill him. I think he has a chance to start a new life, and he knows that." In October 2011 Douglas pleaded guilty to possessing drugs in prison. On December 21, 2011, he was sentenced to an additional 4-1/2 years in prison for this charge. On April 15, 2013, this extended prison sentence was confirmed by the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeal. In December 2012 he had his leg broken by another inmate. In January 2013 Douglas was again found to have drugs in his system while in prison in Loretto, Pennsylvania where he is serving a ten-year sentence. He failed a urinalysis and was sent to solitary confinement. In April 2013 Douglas lost an appeal to have his sentence reduced. He will have to remain in prison until early 2018.
1162995	Alexander Jerome Gould (born May 4, 1994) is an American television actor and voice artist, best known for voicing Nemo in Finding Nemo Life and career. Gould was born in Los Angeles, California, to Tom and Valerie Gould. Gould has two younger sisters, Emma and Kelly, who are also actors. Raised Jewish, he is active in the Conservative Jewish youth group USY (he was president of his local USY synagogue chapter during his senior year of high school). He participated in the Gap year program, Nativ, spending ten months living in Israel, including time in the Negev desert, teaching English to elementary school children. Gould is scheduled to attend Clark University. Gould made his acting debut at the age of six in the episode of Freaks and Geeks where Lindsey gets high and then has to babysit his character of Ronnie. Gould made his feature film debut in the 2002 horror film They. He is best remembered for voicing the title character of Disney/Pixar's "Finding Nemo". On television, Gould played the role of Shane Botwin on the Showtime dramedy series "Weeds", as well as guest-starring on such series as "Ally McBeal", "Malcolm in the Middle", "", "Supernatural", and "Pushing Daisies". He starred as David Collins in the WB remake of the soap opera "Dark Shadows", but its pilot episode was rejected by the WB Television Network and never aired.
1166416	Brad Taylor Negron (born August 1, 1957) is an American writer, actor, and stand-up comedian. Personal life. Negron was born in Glendale, California, the son of Lucy and Conrad Negron, Sr., former mayor of Indian Wells, California. Career. Negron's motion picture appearances include "Stuart Little", "The Last Boy Scout", "Fast Times at Ridgemont High", "Angels in the Outfield", "The Aristocrats", "Nothing but Trouble", "Punchline", "Better Off Dead", "Easy Money", "Young Doctors in Love", "Call Me Claus" and Amy Heckerling's "Vamps" where he will reprise his infamous "Fast Times at Ridgemont High" pizza delivery scene, this time with Sigourney Weaver and his mom, after she passed away he decided to run for mayor on NDSF. Among his television appearances are guest star roles on "Wizards of Waverly Place", "Fresh Prince of Bel Air", "Curb Your Enthusiasm", "Reno 911", "Friends","My Wife and Kids", "Seinfeld", "ER", and "Party of Five". He starred in the regular role of Manuelo the nanny in "So Little Time" with Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen. In 2008 he wrote "The Unbearable Lightness of Being Taylor Negron – A Fusion of Story and Song" directed by opera director David Schweitzer and co-starring singer/songwriter Logan Heftel. The show debuted to critical acclaim in the Green Room at the Edinburgh Comedy Festival. It ran also in the 2009 Best of New York Solo Festival at the SoHo Playhouse and at the Barrow Street Theater. Kate Copstick of The Scotsman wrote of it, "The underlying theme of this spellbinding hour seems to be Nietzschean - 'that which does not destroy me makes me strong'. And if that doesn't sound like out-and-out comedy, then that is good. Because the show is not out-and-out comedy. It is a mix of music, storytelling and comedy." His comedy essays have been published in the anthology "Dirty Laundry" (Phoenix Books) and "Love West Hollywood: Reflections of Los Angeles" (Alyson Books). Director Justin Tanner recently revived Negron’s play "Gangster Planet", a four-character domestic comedy set during the Los Angeles Riots, which was chosen by the Los Angeles Times as a Critics Choice. Of it they wrote, "If Aristophanes were alive today and had watched L.A. burn, Gangster Planet could be the result... acute cynicism with a clown’s humanism." Negron’s new play, "Downward Facing Bitch", a suspense comedy, is currently being developed with director Kiff Scholl. Negron is a regular contributor to Wendy Hammer's Tasty Words, Jill Solloway's “Sit and Spin” and Hilary Carlip’s online magazine “Fresh Yarns” as well as the "Huffington Post" He performs regularly across the United States and is one of the original members of the Un-Cabaret, dubbed “The Mother Show of Alternative Comedy” by the Los Angeles Times, where Negron fused standup, dada poetry and stream of consciousness storytelling to create some of the most artistic comedy ever.
1055993	P.J. Soles (born Pamela Jayne Hardon; July 17, 1950) is an American film and television actress, known for her roles as Lynda van der Klok in "Halloween", Riff Randell in "Rock 'n' Roll High School", Norma Watson in "Carrie" and Bill Murray's military girlfriend Stella in "Stripes". Early life. Soles was born Pamela Jayne Hardon in Frankfurt, Germany, to an American mother from New Jersey and a Dutch father. At the time, her father was working for an international insurance company and the family moved all over the world. Soles lived in Casablanca, Morocco, and Maracaibo, Venezuela, where she learned to speak fluent Spanish, and then Brussels, Belgium, where she went to high school at the International School of Brussels. When she was at Briarcliff College, she wanted to become the first woman ambassador to the Soviet Union. This career goal changed when she visited the Actors Studio in New York City. Career. Soles moved to Manhattan and began acting in commercials and modeling for fashion magazines. She was among the hundreds of actors auditioning for Brian De Palma and George Lucas in their joint casting session for "Carrie" (1976) and "" (1977). She was injured during the filming of "Carrie", when a blast from a fire hose during the prom scene ruptured her eardrum. After "Carrie", she went to Georgia to film "Our Winning Season" (1978) and met actor Dennis Quaid. They were married in 1978 in Texas on a dude ranch. Later that year she played one of the supporting roles in "Halloween" (1978), as the final victim of the Michael Myers character in the classic horror film. John Carpenter wanted her for his film "Halloween" after seeing "Carrie". He wrote the part of Lynda especially for her because of the way she said the word "totally". Soles starred in "Rock 'n' Roll High School" (1979) with The Ramones and was injured during filming. She has a singing credit for a second version of the title song on the movie's soundtrack. Soles had roles in two military comedies, 1980's "Private Benjamin" and as Bill Murray's romantic interest in 1981's "Stripes". In 2005 Soles played the victim, Susan, of a family on a murderous rampage in the Rob Zombie movie "The Devil's Rejects". Soles was also in the science fiction movie "Alienator" with Jan Michael Vincent, a Terminator take off, produced by Jeffrey C. Hogue, and directed by Fred Olen Ray Personal life. She was married to J. Steven Soles during her years in New York, but then made the move to Los Angeles to work in TV and movies. She and Soles were divorced, but she decided to retain her name as P.J. Soles. She was later married to actor Dennis Quaid from 1978 to early 1983. Her third marriage was to Skip Holm, who was the stunt pilot on "The Right Stuff" (1983). They have a son named Sky (born in 1983) and a daughter named Ashley (born in 1988). She and Holm were divorced in 1998.
1164028	Valerie Kathryn Harper (born August 22, 1939) is an American actress known for her roles as Rhoda Morgenstern in the 1970s television series "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" and its spin-off, "Rhoda", and later as Valerie Hogan in "Valerie". Early life. Harper was born in Suffern, New York, the middle child of three siblings. She claims her parents were expecting a boy and after her arrival her first and middle names derived from that year's women's doubles tennis champions, Valerie Scott and Kay Stammers. Her Canadian-born mother, Iva Mildred (née McConnell), was a nurse, and her father, Howard Donald Harper, was a lighting salesman. She is of French, English, Irish, Scottish, and Welsh ancestry. She has an older sister, Leah; a younger brother, Merrill (who later took the name "Don") and a half-sister, Virginia, from her father's second marriage. Harper claims to have based her future character Rhoda Morgenstern on her Italian stepmother, Angela Posillico, and Penny Ann Green (née Joanna Greenberg), with whom she danced in the Broadway musical "Wildcat". She was raised Catholic, although at an early age she "quit" the church. The family moved every two years due to her father's work, attending schools in South Orange, New Jersey; Pasadena, California; Monroe, Michigan; Ashland, Oregon; and Jersey City, New Jersey. When her family returned to Oregon, Harper remained in the New York City area to study ballet. She attended Lincoln High School in Jersey City, graduating from the private Young Professionals School on West 56th Street, where classmates included Sal Mineo, Tuesday Weld, and Carol Lynley. Career. Broadway dancer and improv. Harper began as a dancer/chorus girl on Broadway in 1959 in the musical "Li'l Abner" and went on to perform in several Broadway shows, some choreographed by Michael Kidd, including "Wildcat" (starring Lucille Ball), "Take Me Along" (starring Jackie Gleason), and "Subways Are For Sleeping". In-between she was also cast in "Destry Rides Again" but was forced to leave rehearsals due to illness. Her roommate, actress Arlene Golonka, introduced her to Second City improvisation theater and to improv performer Dick Schaal, whom Harper later married in 1965. Harper was stepmother to Schaal's daughter, Wendy, an actress. They lived in Greenwich Village. She returned to Broadway in February 2010, playing Tallulah Bankhead in Matthew Lombardo's "Looped" at the Lyceum Theatre. Harper appeared in a bit part in the film version of "Li'l Abner" (1959), playing a Yokumberry Tonic wife. She broke into television on an episode of the soap opera "The Doctors" ("Zip Guns can Kill"). She was an extra in "Love with the Proper Stranger". She toured with Second City with Schaal, Linda Lavin and others, later appearing in sketches on "Playboy After Dark". Harper and Schaal moved to Los Angeles in 1968, and co-wrote an episode of "Love, American Style". In 1966, Harper appeared as a member of the cast on the classic ensemble comedy recording, "When You're In Love The Whole World is Jewish," along with her future TV Jewish Mother, Nancy Walker.
1422890	The Loss of a Teardrop Diamond is a 2008 independent film by director Jodie Markell. The film is based on Tennessee Williams's long-forgotten 1957 screenplay. The film stars Bryce Dallas Howard in the leading role of Fisher Willow. Plot. The film tells the story of heiress Fisher Willow (Bryce Dallas Howard). Fisher returns home from overseas to find that her father has become a hated man in Memphis as he had intentionally blown up the southern half of his levee earlier that year, resulting in the deaths of two people and enormous property damage for anyone downstream. Fisher is to come out to society this season, but because of her father's reputation – and her inappropriate/wild behavior – she is unable to find a man willing to be her escort. She asks Jimmy (Chris Evans) to be her escort for the season.
1162134	Theresa Merritt Hines (September 24, 1922 June 12, 1998) was an American stage, film, and television actress and singer. Career. Born in Emporia, Virginia, Merritt appeared in many theatrical productions but gained fame later in life when she starred in "Ma Rainey's Black Bottom", for which she earned a (Tony Award nomination), and "The Wiz", in which she replaced Mabel King as Evelline. She left The Wiz, citing the role's harmful effect on her voice. She then starred in the television sitcom "That's My Mama". Her most notable film roles were Aunt Em in the 1978 film version of "The Wiz", Mrs. Crosby in the 1977 film adaptation of Neil Simon's "The Goodbye Girl", and Juanita in the Adam Sandler comedy "Billy Madison". She also appeared alongside Burt Reynolds and Dolly Parton in the film adaptation of "The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas". Personal life and death. Merritt was married to Benjamin Hines and they had four children. Merritt died of skin cancer on June 12, 1998, in The Bronx.
563000	Global Metal is a 2007 documentary film directed by Scot McFadyen and Canadian anthropologist Sam Dunn. It is a follow-up to their successful 2005 documentary, "". The film's international premiere took place at the Bergen International Film Festival on October 17th 2007. "Global Metal" aims to show the impact of globalization on the heavy metal underground as well as how different people from different cultures are transforming heavy metal music. Interviews. As in "Metal: A Headbanger's Journey", most of the information in the film comes in the form of interviews: Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo, Brazil. Non musicians Tokyo, Japan. Non musicians Mumbai and Bangalore, India. Non musicians Beijing, China. Non musicians Jakarta, Indonesia. Non musicians Jerusalem, Israel. Non musicians Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Non musicians Soundtrack. There was a soundtrack released on July 24th featuring music from various metal bands all around the world, including bands from Israel, China, India, Indonesia, Iran and Japan
1549349	The Road to Guantánamo, alternatively The Road to Guantanamo, is a British 2006 docudrama film directed by Michael Winterbottom and Mat Whitecross about the incarceration of three British citizens (the 'Tipton Three'), who were captured in 2001 in Afghanistan and detained by the United States there and for more than two years at the detainment camp in Guantánamo Bay Naval Base, Cuba. It premiered at the "Berlinale" on 14 February 2006, and was first shown in the UK on Channel 4 on 9 March 2006. The following day it was the first film to be released simultaneously in cinemas, on DVD, and on the Internet. It was generally well received: Michael Winterbottom won the Silver Bear for Best Director at the 56th Berlin International Film Festival, and the film won the Independent Spirit Award for Best Documentary Feature at the Sundance Film Festival. "The Times" criticised Winterbottom for accepting the men's stated reasons for going to Afghanistan at a time of danger after the 9/11 attacks in the United States, as it was known as al-Qaeda and Taliban territory. Synopsis. The film portrays the accounts of Ruhal Ahmed, Asif Iqbal and Shafiq Rasul (the 'Tipton Three'); three young British men from Tipton in the West Midlands, who are of Pakistani and Bangladeshi ancestry. It features both actors and portrayals of actions, historical footage, and interviews with the three men. They travelled to Pakistan in September 2001, just days after the September 11 terrorist attacks in the USA, to attend a wedding of a friend of theirs. While staying at a mosque in Karachi, the three decided to take a trip to Afghanistan to see first-hand what was happening in the region. Mixed with interviews with the three men, and archive news footage from the period, the film portrays a dramatic account with actors of the three men's experiences: from their travels into Afghanistan to their capture and imprisonment. Travelling by van, Ruhal, Asif, and Shafiq, with two other friends, crossed the border in October 2001 just as US warplanes began attacking Taliban positions all over the country. They made it to Kandahar without incident, and later to the capital city of Kabul a few days later. After nearly a month of "lingering" aimlessly around Kabul, the Tipton Three decided to return to Pakistan. But through a combination of bad luck and the increasing chaos, the friends took the wrong bus, which travelled further into Afghanistan towards the north and the front-line fighting between the Taliban and the Northern Alliance rebels. The convoy of vehicles they were riding in was hit by an airstrike, and they were left wandering around the unfamiliar country. In mid-November, near the town of Baghlan, the three came across a group of Taliban fighters and asked to be taken to Pakistan. Shortly afterward, all of the men were captured by Northern Alliance soldiers. Imprisoned at a base at Mazar-e Sharif, the three were interrogated and discovered to be British citizens. As they had no luggage, money, passports or any kind of identification to support their stories, Ruhal, Asif, and Shafiq were transferred to the United States military. They were imprisoned in a US army stockade for a month with other prisoners, being regularly interrogated and occasionally beaten by US soldiers. In January 2002, the 'Tipton Three' were declared "enemy combatants" by the US military, and flown with dozens of other alleged Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters to Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, where they were held for the next two years. They were held in mostly solitary confinement without charge or legal representation. The film portrays several scenes depicting beatings during interrogation, the use of torture techniques such as stress positions, and attempts by the US Army to extract forced confessions of involvement with al-Qaeda and the Taliban. The isolation continued in Camp X-Ray and another camp. During two years they were subjected to more questioning by US Army and Central Intelligence Agency interrogators. In one incident, one US army guard at Camp X-Ray desecrated one prisoner's Qur'an by throwing it to the ground to incite a reaction from the rest of the prisoners. Ruhal witnessed a group of US soldiers severely beat up an unruly and mentally ill Arab prisoner for not obeying their orders. When Ruhal shouts out that the beatings violate the Geneva Conventions, the guards laugh and say those laws do not apply to enemy combatants. In 2004, the Tipton Three were released without charge. They were flown back to England where, one year later, they returned to Pakistan for the wedding they had planned to attend in the first place. (It had been postponed.) Production. The torture depicted in the film had to be reduced from that claimed by the detainees for the benefit of the actors; according to the actor Rizwan Ahmed, they were unable to bear the pain and had the shackles on their legs cushioned. They were also unable to remain in the stress positions depicted for more than an hour. The Tipton Three claim to have been left in such positions for up to eight hours. Filming took place in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iran, which doubled as Cuba. Mat Whitecross is credited as co-director. He handled most of the interviews with the Tipton Three, the three British citizens who are featured as characters in the film. Release. The original poster made to promote the film in the United States (shown right) was refused by the Motion Picture Association of America. They said the burlap sack over the detainee's head was considered to be depicting torture, and inappropriate for young children to see. Howard Cohen of the US-distributors Roadside Attractions condemned this as "inconsistent" when compared to the MPAA-approved posters for contemporary horror films such as "Hard Candy" or "Hostel". The final version of the poster showed just the detainee's manacled hands. The film premiered at the 56th Berlin International Film Festival on 14 February 2006. It was broadcast to the UK on Channel 4 on 9 March, attracting 1.6 million viewers, and released on DVD and the Internet the following day. Roadside Attractions, an independent distributor, bought the rights to show the film in the United States in late March. Iranian authorities asked the film's distributor to release the film in Iran, which was unusual for a Western picture. According to the distributor's president, it ordered four prints instead of the usual one and offered three times the normal amount for fees. As of late April 2006, the film was awaiting official approval; it was expected to be released in late May. Reception. The film received generally positive reviews, garnering an 86% positive rating at Rotten Tomatoes. Michael Winterbottom won the Silver Bear for Best Director at the 56th Berlin International Film Festival. Commentators have criticised Winterbottom for not questioning the decision of the Tipton Three to enter Afghanistan in the first place; a review in "The Times" (which gave the film 3 out of 5 stars) refers to this gap as "an insane lack of cool perspective...The sheer stupidity of these Brits mocks the sincerity of the film. Winterbottom refuses to ask the bleeding obvious. His unquestioning faith in his 'cast' is bewildering." The portrayal of human rights abuses at Guantanamo Bay highlighted widespread criticism of the prison and detention already made by activist organisations and politicians. Amnesty International had referred to the prison as "the gulag of our times" World leaders have criticised the US for maintaining the prison; German Chancellor Angela Merkel said, "An institution like Guantánamo in its present form cannot and must not exist in the long term". Actors detained. Four of the actors in the film were detained for about an hour by police at London Luton Airport after returning from the film's premiere in Berlin. Rizwan Ahmed alleged that during questioning, police asked him whether he had become an actor to further the Islamic cause, questioned him on his views of the Iraq war, verbally abused him, and denied him access to a telephone. The police tried to recruit him as an informant. A spokesperson for Bedfordshire police said that none of the men was arrested, and that the Terrorism Act allows the police to "stop and examine people if something happens that might be suspicious." She did not clarify what the actors had done to arouse suspicion. "Lie Lab". In May 2007, two members of the Tipton Three – Ruhal Ahmed and Shafiq Rasul – agreed to participate in the Channel 4 reality show, "Lie Lab". The technology used on the show was developed by Professor Sean Spence from the University of Sheffield. It uses functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to look at the activity in the brain's pre-frontal cortex to view how a subject reacts to questioning. Critics of the test have included neuroscientists and legal scholars, who have said the technique is unlikely to accurately measure truth-telling as there are too many variables affecting results. They think the technique may be useful for additional research. Although Ahmed had earlier said that he entered Afghanistan to do charity work, on the programme he said that he had visited an Islamist training camp, where he handled weapons and learned how to use an AK-47. Rasul refused to go through with the test. BBC Five Live interview. In January 2010, on BBC Radio 5 Live, both Ruhal Ahmed and Shafiq Rasul confirmed having visited a Taliban training camp, but said they were trapped in the province, and "we all went to the Taliban training camp on many occasions to find out what was happening. Because they were the government at the time.." The interviewer Victoria Derbyshire observed that Ahmed had admitted handling AK-47 rifles. Shafiq Rasul responded:
774502	Incendies is a 2010 Canadian mystery drama film written and directed by Denis Villeneuve. Adapted from Wajdi Mouawad's play of the same name, "Incendies" follows the journey of twin brother and sister as they attempt to unravel the mystery of their mother's life. The film premiered at the Venice and Toronto Film Festivals in September 2010 and was released in Quebec on 17 September 2010. In 2011, it was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. The film won eight awards at the 31st Genie Awards, including Best Motion Picture, Best Actress (Lubna Azabal), Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay, Cinematography, Editing, Overall Sound and Sound Editing. Incendies was named by the "New York Times" as one of the 10 best films of 2011. Plot. After their mother succumbs to a stroke she suffers at a community swimming pool, twin brother and sister receive final requests in their immigrant mother's will. To fulfill her wishes, they must journey to her birthplace in an unnamed Middle-Eastern country (based on Lebanon during the Lebanese Civil War). The movie contains a series of flashbacks to the mother's life (Nawal Marwan). Nawal, a Middle-Eastern Christian is impregnated by a refugee (likely a Palestine refugee in Lebanon). Nawal's infuriated brothers kill her lover as he and Nawal try to escape. She reveals to her grandmother that she is pregnant. They keep the pregnancy secret in order to save face. Upon the baby's birth, the grandmother tattoos the infant's heel, and they give the baby boy away. Nawal follows her promise to her grandmother to study in Daresh (a fictional city) during which a civil war breaks out. Under threat of war, Nawal returns to find her lost son. War has preceded her arrival as she discovers her son's orphanage at Kfar Khout has been destroyed. She then pretends to be a Muslim to board a bus with other Muslims fleeing to get to the camp where her son has been moved. On the way to the camp her bus is attacked by armed Christians. She and a Muslim woman and her daughter survive, only to have the bus covered in gas to be burnt. Nawal escapes by showing her cross. They would not spare the woman, so Nawal claims the other woman's daughter as her own. However, the daughter runs back to the bus and is shot. Disillusioned, Nawal joins a radical organization. She is planted as a French tutor for a prominent Christian leader and assassinates him. She is sent to Kfar Ryat prison for 15 years, and as prisoner number 72, despite all efforts of her captors, she remains resolute and becomes known as "The Woman Who Sings". Before her release, her enraged captors call upon the torture specialist Abou Tareq to break her spirit and stop her singing. He rapes her repeatedly and she gives birth to twins in the jail. A nurse secretly saves the babies and returns them to Nawal after her release. Nawal emigrates to Canada with the twins. Upon her death, Nawal leaves a will requesting that her children, Simon and Jeanne, find their father and lost brother. Simon refuses, but Jeanne continues on her own, following in her mother's footsteps. She finds her extended family. They refuse to speak to Jeanne because of the shame her mother brought on the family. She then finds the prison and learns from a former employee that her mother was tortured and gave birth in prison. He gives her the name of the nurse who assisted Nawal during childbirth. Distraught, she calls Simon to join her. He arrives with their mother's former employer from Canada. They find the nurse and ask about the baby who was born in prison. The nurse reveals their mother gave birth to twins, Janaan and Sarwan whom she safeguarded. A local notary identifies the name of their lost half-brother as Nihad of May. They trace the warlord who conducted the revenge attack on Kfar Khout and destroyed the orphanage. Simon learns that the warlord had spared the children and took them in and trained them to fight alongside them. Nihad becomes a sniper and searches for his mother. He becomes crazed with war but is refused the chance to become a martyr by the warlord. He returns to Daresh as a sniper and is eventually captured by the enemy. They turn him to their side and train him to be a prison torturer. He is sent to the Kfar Ryat prison where Simon's mother was held. The warlord reveals that Nihad adopts the name Abou Tareq. Having discovered that their father is their half-brother, they find out that he too had moved to Canada. They find him, and deliver the letters from their mother—one for the father and one for the son. We learn that after many years living in Canada, while swimming in a pool, Nawal had spotted a man with a tattooed heel. She approaches him and although he does not recognise her, she realises upon seeing his face that he was also her rapist in prison. She suffers a stroke from the shock and eventually dies, giving instructions to her employer, a notary, about the letters and instructions for her children. Their task fulfilled, the children are now allowed to leave an engraved headstone at her grave. Her first son, Nihad, having read the letters, realises what he had done to his own mother, and visits her grave. Production. Parts of the story were based on the life of Souha Bechara. The film was shot in Montreal and Amman. Reception. Critical response. Reviews for the film have been extremely positive. Kevin N. Laforest of the "Montreal Film Journal" gave it 3.5 stars out of 4 and wrote, "Villeneuve has done his best work yet here." "The Gazette"s Brendan Kelly gave the film a rare 5 out of 5 stars and called it a "masterpiece." The review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes reports 92% positive reviews with an average score of 7.9/10. Both Roger Ebert and Richard Roeper picked the film as their favorites to win the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film. However, it lost to "In a Better World" from Denmark. The film appears on IMDb's Top 250 movies of all time, listed at #225. Accolades. On 22 September 2010, "Incendies" was chosen to represent Canada at the 83rd Academy Awards in the category of Best Foreign Language Film. It made the shortlist on 19 January 2011, one of nine films and was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film on 25 January 2011.
1162952	Wendy Phillips (born January 2, 1952) is an American actress, noted for playing David Selby's last wife, Lauren Daniels, during the final season of "Falcon Crest" and for playing Gerald McRaney's wife, Claire Greene, on both "Touched by an Angel" and "Promised Land". Other television series in which she has been a featured player have included "A Year in the Life", "Homefront" and "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip". Among her movie works, there is a role in "" and also on "Bugsy". Phillips was born in Brooklyn, New York, the daughter of Wendell Phillips and Jean Shelton, both of whom are actors and acting teachers. Personal Life. She and her husband actor Scott Paulin have been married since 1981. They have a daughter, Jenny Dare Paulin.
581682	Gundaraj is a 1995 Bollywood action film directed by Guddu Dhanoa. It stars Ajay Devgan, Kajol and Amrish Puri. The film premiered on 7 September 1995 in Mumbai. Synopsis. Ajay Chauhan lives with his parents and younger sister. He is in love with Pooja, and hopes to marry her someday. His father wants him to get a job and settle down, and then get married. Ajay applies for a job in Bombay, and soon receives a letter asking him to appear for an interview. He attends the interview, and is hired. Delighted to see all his dreams coming true, he goes to offer his thanks to God, and it is there a woman named Pratika Jetley sees him and notifies the police that he is indeed the one who had brutally raped three young women in a college campus. Ajay vehemently denies this, but is personally identified and criminally held responsible, convicted and sentenced to prison. Several years later he is released from prison, and finds out that his father and Pooja had committed suicide while his mother and sister are untraceable. He sets out to put his life together and meets with a ruthless police inspector, whose daughter was one of the rape victims. It is then Ajay finds out about the conspiracy behind this plot to frame him.
1503701	Cheyenne Jackson (born July 12, 1975) is an American actor and singer. He has played in many prominent roles in theater on Broadway. His first Broadway leading role in "All Shook Up" earning him a Theatre World Award for "Outstanding Broadway Debut". Additionally, on the New York stage he has starred in "The Performers", "8", "Finian's Rainbow" (Drama Desk nomination), "Damn Yankees", "Xanadu" (Drama League, Drama Desk nominations), "The Agony & the Agony", the premiere cast of "Altar Boyz", "Aida", and "Thoroughly Modern Millie". He has also appeared in a number of films, including portrayal of Mark Bingham in the 2006 Academy Award nominated "United 93" which earned him the Boston Society of Film Critics 2006 award for "Best Ensemble Cast", in television series like NBC's "30 Rock", Fox's "Glee" and guest starring on several other TV series.
1185221	Tracy Marrow (born February 16, 1958), better known by his stage name Ice-T, is an American rapper, singer and actor. He was born in Newark, New Jersey, and moved to the Crenshaw district of Los Angeles when he was in the 8th grade. Tracy "Ice-T" Marrow's music career started with the band of the singing group, The Precious Few of Crenshaw High School. Tracy and his group opened the show, dancing to a live band. The singers were Thomas Barnes, Ronald Robinson, and Lapekas Mayfield. After graduating from high school, he served in the United States Army for four years. He began his career as a rapper in the 1980s and was signed to Sire Records in 1987, when he released his debut album "Rhyme Pays", the first hip-hop album to carry an explicit content sticker. The next year, he founded the record label "Rhyme Syndicate Records" (named after his collective of fellow hip-hop artists called the "Rhyme Syndicate") and released another album, "Power". He co-founded the heavy metal band Body Count, which he introduced in his 1991 album '. Body Count released its self-titled debut album in 1992. Ice-T encountered controversy over his track "Cop Killer", which was perceived to glamorize killing police officers. Ice-T asked to be released from his contract with Warner Bros. Records, and his next solo album, "Home Invasion", was released later in February 1993 through Priority Records. Body Count's next album was released in 1994, and Ice-T released two more albums in the late 1990s. Since 2000, he has portrayed NYPD Detective Odafin Tutuola on the NBC police drama '. Early life. Ice-T was born Tracy Marrow, son of Solomon and Alice Marrow, in Newark, New Jersey. As a child, his family moved to upscale Summit, New Jersey. Solomon was an African American, and Alice was Creole. For decades, Solomon worked as a conveyor belt mechanic at the Rapistan Conveyor Company. The first time race played a major part in Tracy's life was at the age of 7, when he became aware of the racism leveled by his white friends toward children, and that he escaped similar treatment because they thought that Marrow was white because of his lighter skin. Relating this incident to his mother, she told him "Honey, people are stupid"; her advice and this incident taught Marrow to control the way the negativity of others affected him. His mother died of a heart attack when Tracy was in third grade. Solomon raised Tracy while he was a single father for four years, with help from a housekeeper. Tracy's first experience with an illegal activity occurred after a bicycle that Solomon "bought" him for Christmas was stolen. After Tracy told his father, Solomon shrugged, "Well, then, you ain't got no bike." Tracy stole parts from bicycles and assembled "three or four weird-looking, brightly painted bikes" from the parts; his father either did not notice, or never acknowledged this. When Tracy was 12 years old, Solomon died of a heart attack. For many years, AllMusic.com has stated that his parents "died in an auto accident", but Ice-T has stated that it was actually he who had been in a brutal auto accident and that was decades later. Following his father's death, Tracy lived with a nearby aunt briefly, and was sent to live with his other aunt and her husband in View Park-Windsor Hills, a middle-class black neighborhood by South Los Angeles. While his cousin Earl was preparing to leave for college, Tracy shared a room with him. Earl was a fan of rock music and listened to only the local rock stations; sharing a room with him spurred Tracy's interest in heavy metal music. Gangs, criminal life and the army. Marrow attended Palms Junior High, which was predominately made up of white students, and included black students bused in from South Central. After graduating, he attended Crenshaw High School, which was almost entirely made up of black students. Marrow stood out from most of his friends because he did not drink alcohol, smoke tobacco, or use drugs. During high school, gangs began to intensify in the Los Angeles school system. Students who belonged to the Bloods and Crips gangs attended Crenshaw, and fought in the school's halls. Tracy, while he never was an actual gang member, was more affiliated with the Crips, and began reading the novels of Iceberg Slim, which he memorized and recited to his friends, who enjoyed hearing the excerpts and told him, "Yo, kick some more of that by Ice, T," and the handle stuck. Marrow and other Crips wrote and performed "Crip Rhymes", long before the advent of hip hop and recorded rapping. At the age of 17, Tracy received the Social Security death-benefit money for the death of his father to rent an apartment for $90 a month. Marrow sold cannabis and stole car stereos for money, but was not making enough money to support his girlfriend and daughter, leading him to join the United States Army for the financial benefits; he served for four years in the 25th Infantry Division. Marrow was in a group that was jailed for the theft of an infantry rug. While awaiting trial, he received a $2,500 bonus check. He then decided to escape from the jail and desert his army duties, yet he returned a month later after the rug had been returned. He received an Article 15 non-judicial punishment and subsequently completed Advanced Infantry Training. Marrow became interested in hip hop music while serving in the army. During this period, he heard Sugar Hill Gang's newly-released single "Rapper's Delight," which inspired him to perform his own raps over the instrumentals of this and other early hip-hop records. The music, however, did not fit his lyrics or form of delivery, which ultimately led Marrow to develop his own personalized skills as a rapper. As a squad leader at Schofield Barracks, in Hawaii Marrow met a real-life pimp named Mac in Hawaii, where prostitution was not a heavily prosecuted crime. Because Mac admired that Marrow could quote Iceberg Slim, he taught Marrow how to pimp. Marrow was also able to purchase stereo equipment cheaply in Hawaii, including two Technics turntables, a mixer, and large speakers. Once equipped, he then began to learn turntablism and rapping. Towards the end of his time in the army, Marrow learned from his commanding officer that he could receive an honorable discharge because he was a single father, so he left four months ahead of schedule. During an episode of the Adam Carolla Podcast that aired on June 6, 2012, Marrow claimed that after being discharged from the army, he began a career as a bank robber. Using combat skills allegedly acquired in Ranger School, Marrow claimed he and some associates began conducting take-over bank robberies, "...like the film Heat." Marrow then elaborated, explaining, "Only punks go for the drawer, we gotta go for the safe." Although Marrow may have been using some artistic license in describing his bank robbing exploits, he also stated he was glad the United States justice system has a statute of limitations, which had likely expired when Marrow admitted to his involvement in multiple Class 1 Felonies in the early- to mid-1970s. Music career. Early career. After leaving the Army, Marrow wanted to stay away from gang life and violence and instead make a name for himself as a disc jockey. As a tribute to Iceberg Slim, Marrow adopted the stage name Ice-T. While performing as a DJ at parties, he received more attention as a rapper, which led Marrow to pursue a career as a rapper. After breaking up with his girlfriend Caitlin Boyd, he returned to a life of crime and robbed jewelry stores with his high school friends. Marrow's raps later described how he and his friends pretended to be customers to gain access before smashing the display glass with baby sledgehammers. One of Marrow's friends, Sean E. Sean, was arrested for possession of not only cannabis, which Sean sold, but also material stolen by Marrow. Sean took the blame and served two years in prison. Marrow stated that he owed a gratitude to Sean because his prison time allowed Marrow to pursue a career as a rapper. Concurrently, Marrow wound up in a car accident and was hospitalized as a John Doe because he did not carry any form of identification due to his criminal activities. After being discharged from the hospital, he decided to abandon the criminal lifestyle and pursue a professional career rapping. Two weeks after being released from the hospital, he won an open mic competition judged by Kurtis Blow. Professional career. In 1982, Marrow met producer William Strong from Saturn Records, who recorded his first single, "Cold Wind Madness", also known as "The Coldest Rap", which became an underground success, becoming popular even though radio stations did not play it due to the song's hardcore lyrics. Marrow appeared as a featured rapper on "Reckless", a single by DJ Chris "The Glove" Taylor, and recorded the songs "You Don't Quit" and "Dog'n the Wax" with Unknown DJ, who provided a sound for the songs. Marrow received further inspiration as an artist from Schoolly D's gangsta rap single "P.S.K. What Does It Mean?", which Marrow heard in a club. Marrow enjoyed the single's sound and delivery, as well as its vague references to gang life, although the real life gang, Park Side Killers, was not named in the song.
583922	Priya Vasudev Mani Iyer, better known by her stage name Priyamani (born 4 June 1984), is an Indian film actress and model, who appears mainly in South Indian cinema. She made her film debut in 2003 with the Telugu film "Evare Atagaadu" while also making inroads into Tamil Cinema and Malayalam Cinema during 2004. In 2007, she gained widespread recognition for her role as a village girl in the Tamil film "Paruthiveeran", receiving the National Film Award for Best Actress as well as a Filmfare Award for Best Actress – Tamil for her performance. During the same year, she achieved commercial success in Telugu Cinema with "Yamadonga". In 2008, Priyamani received further critical acclaim for her role as Malavika in the Malayalam film "Thirakkatha" for which she received her second Best Actress prize at the Filmfare Awards South. The following year, she made her Kannada film debut in "Raam" opposite super star Puneet Rajkumar which proved to be a commercial and critical success. Although her Hindi film debut through Mani Ratnam's bilingual in Tamil and Hindi, titled "Raavan" and "Raavanan" respectively, failed to propel her Bollywood career forward, her subsequent films, particularly in Kannada cinema, established her as a leading contemporary actress in South Indian cinema. In 2012, she received her third Filmfare Award as the 'Best Actor Female-Kannada' for her portrayal of conjoined twins in the Kannada-Tamil-Telugu multilingual film "Chaarulatha" produced by the very popular legendary Kannada actor-director Dwarakish. Early life. Priyamani was born in Palakkad, Kerala to Vasudeva Mani and Latha Mani a Tamil Brahmin family. She is the granddaughter of the late Carnatic vocalist Kamala Kailas. She grew up in Bangalore. After completing her schooling, Priyamani modeled for print advertisements. After being approached by several directors and being considered, she starred in director Bharathiraja's "Kangalal Kaidhu Sei", which was released in 2004. She is currently pursuing a degree in B.A. in psychology. Bollywood actress Vidya Balan is her cousin. Career. Early career. After her debut film "Kangalal Kaidhu Sei", her Telugu debut was "Evare Atagaadu", Priyamani then made her debut in the Malayalam film industry, where she starred in "Satyam", but this film also performed poorly at the box office. She was signed by Tamil film director and cinematographer Balu Mahendra to star in the 2005 drama "Adhu Oru Kana Kaalam". Before release, Balu Mahendra said "Priyamani has come up with an excellent performance in the movie. Her performance would be widely acclaimed." "Adhu Oru Kana Kaalam" was critically acclaimed but failed to keep the cash registers ringing. She won acclaim for her performance. In 2006, Priyamani starred opposite Jagapathi Babu in "Pellaina Kothalo". The film was a super hit and got her 3 Telugu films. "Paruthiveeran" and the future. Priyamani managed to prove her acting credentials and commercial appeal with 2007's "Paruthiveeran", directed by the Tamil director Ameer Sultan, in which she was paired with debutant Karthi Sivakumar. A rural subject which told the story of a notorious young villager in Madurai, the film won critical acclaim and became a surprise box-office blockbuster. Priyamani's performance was unanimously praised: Indiaglitz cited "utterly cool and convincing" while another critic said "Priya Mani steals the show with her spontaneity and authenticity." She went on to win the National Film Award, followed by a South Filmfare Award, a Tamil Nadu State Film Award and an award at the Osian's Cinefan Festival of Asian and Arab Cinema. She had another blockbuster in Telugu, opposite Jr. NTR in the 2007 film "Yamadonga" and opposite Vishal in the Tamil film "Malaikottai". She again received critical acclaim in 2008 for her role in the Malayalam film "Thirakkatha", in which she played a role based on the turbulent real-life story of late film actress Srividya. She won another Filmfare Award for her performance. In Tamil, she had a single release in 2008: "Thotta". In 2009 she had two Tamil releases, the masala film "Arumugam" and the remake of the Malayalam blockbuster "Classmates", titled "Ninaithale Inikkum", in which she was paired for the third time with Prithviraj. The former was a commercial failure: Her Kannada debut opposite super star Puneet Rajkumar in "Raam" was also a commercial success. All three of her Telugu releases that year, however, ("Drona", "Mitrudu", "Pravarakhyudu") did not do well at the box office. In 2010 she acted opposite Mammootty in the satirical film "Pranchiyettan & the Saint" which became the longest-running Malayalam film since 2005. She won a Filmfare nomination for her role as a Mumbai-based interior decorator in the film. She was subsequently signed by director Mani Ratnam for his bilingual film, titled "Raavanan" and "Raavan" in Tamil and Hindi respectively. Soon after, she was roped in by Bollywood director-producer Ram Gopal Varma for his trilingual film "Rakht Charitra" starring Vivek Oberoi and Suriya. RGV decided to cast her after seeing her National Award-winning performance in "Paruthiveeran". Her Kannada movie "Only Vishnuvardhana" with southern sensational star Sudeep became a blockbuster hit and later she starred in "Anna Bond" with Puneeth Rajkumar again. Surprisingly "Anna Bond", even after getting bad reviews from critics went on to become the biggest hit of the year making huge money at the box office. But this super hit film was termed as "The Most Disappointing Kannada Films of 2012" list by Rediff and had got a thumbs down from critics.
1059877	Shawn Mathis Wayans (born January 19, 1971) is an American actor, DJ, producer, writer and comedian who starred in "In Living Color" and "The Wayans Bros." He is the brother of Keenen Ivory, Damon, Marlon, Kim, and Nadia Wayans. Early life. Wayans, second youngest child of ten siblings, was born in New York City, New York, the son of Elvira, a homemaker and social worker, and Howell Wayans, a supermarket manager. His family were once Jehovah's Witnesses. Wayans grew up in the Fulton Houses in the Manhattan neighborhood of Chelsea and is a 1989 graduate of the Bayard Rustin High School for the Humanities. On Fox's "In Living Color", he began as DJ SW-1 and later became a featured performer, working with brothers Dwayne, Keenen (the show's creator), Damon, Marlon and sister Kim. Along with Marlon, Shawn Wayans created and starred in the sitcom "The Wayans Bros". (The WB, 1995–99) and co-wrote, co-executive produced and starred in the feature "Don't Be a Menace to South Central While Drinking Your Juice in the Hood" (1996), in which Keenen also acted. Wayans guest-starred on episodes of "MacGyver" and "Hangin' with Mr. Cooper" and provided the voice of Toof for the animated children's series "Waynehead" (based on brother Damon's real-life childhood experiences). After a supporting stint in the little-seen gang drama "New Blood" (1999) Wayans' film fortunes increased dramatically when he co-starred with his brother Marlon in a hit film directed by their older brother Keenan: "Scary Movie" (1999–2000), a comic satire (which he also co-wrote) on the then-recent trend of horror films like "Scream". Wayans played the apparently closeted Ray Wilkins, a role he reprised for the similarly popular 2001 sequel "Scary Movie 2". He kept the familial team intact when he and Marlon starred in the Keenan-directed comedy "White Chicks" (2004), playing a pair of FBI agents forced to masquerade as a pair of spoiled white blonde heiresses. Shawn also received a share of story and screenplay credit on the film. Wayans teamed up with Marlon and Keenen once again for the 2006 comedy "Little Man". He acted in, co-wrote, and co-produced the film.
1044240	Madeline Smith (born 2 August 1949) is an English actress. Having been a model in the late 1960s she appeared in many television series and stage productions, plus comedy and horror films, in the 1970s and '80s. She was born in Hartfield, Sussex. Her father owned an antiques shop near Kew Gardens and in her late teens she had a temporary job at Biba, the famous boutique located on Kensington High Street, London. It was at the instigation of Barbara Hulanicki, founder of Biba, that she became a model. In the late 1960s and early '70s, she was regularly featured in the work of "Disc" cartoonist J Edward Oliver, who on one occasion devoted an entire strip to her entitled 'The Life and Habits of the Madeline Smith'. She first worked for Hammer Film Productions in "Taste the Blood of Dracula" (1969), billed as 'Maddy Smith' and playing an East End prostitute. Among her other film appearances, she played opposite Ava Gardner in "Tam-Lin", Peter Cushing in "The Vampire Lovers" and "Frankenstein and the Monster from Hell", Diana Dors in "The Amazing Mr Blunden", Frankie Howerd in "Up Pompeii" and "Up the Front", and Vincent Price in "Theatre of Blood". In 1973 she played the Bond girl Miss Caruso in the post-titles sequence of "Live and Let Die", the first James Bond film starring Roger Moore. She was recommended for the role by Moore himself, having previously appeared with him in an episode of "The Persuaders!" on TV. Her numerous stage credits include working with US director Charles Marowitz on "Blue Comedy" (Yvonne Arnaud Theatre, Guildford) and "The Snob" (at Marowitz's Tottenham Court Road venue the Open Space). She also acted opposite Alec Guinness in the original West End production of Alan Bennett's "Habeas Corpus" (playing Felicity Rumpers), supported Frankie Howerd again in the "Volpone" adaptation "The Fly and the Fox" (Churchill Theatre, Bromley), played Elma in a Cambridge Theatre Company revival of Frederick Lonsdale's "Canaries Sometimes Sing", and spent two years playing the female lead in Agatha Christie's "The Mousetrap" at the St Martin's Theatre. Her television credits include "Doctor at Large" (1971), "The Two Ronnies" (appearing in the serial 'Hampton Wick', 1971), "Clochemerle" (1972), "His and Hers" (1970) with Tim Brooke-Taylor, "Casanova '73" (1973) with Leslie Phillips, "Steptoe and Son" (1974), "The Howerd Confessions" (1976), "Why Didn't They Ask Evans?" (1980) and "The Steam Video Company" (1984). She was a member of the regular cast of the BBC2 series "The End of the Pier Show" (1974) and "In The Looking Glass" (1978) alongside satirists John Wells and John Fortune and composer Carl Davis. Smith made her last film, "The Passionate Pilgrim", in 1984; this turned out to be the final screen appearance of Eric Morecambe. Having given birth to a daughter, Emily, she gradually wound down her acting career. Her husband, actor David Buck, died from cancer in 1989. Twenty years later she was interviewed in, and was the cover star of, the coffee-table book "Hammer Glamour". She returned to acting in 2011.
1060281	Elizabeth Ann Perkins (born November 18, 1960) is an American actress. Her film roles have included "Big", "The Flintstones", "Miracle on 34th Street", "About Last Night...", and "Avalon". She is best known for her role as Celia Hodes in the critically acclaimed Showtime TV series "Weeds". Early life. Perkins was born in Queens, New York City, the daughter of Jo Williams, a drug treatment counselor and concert pianist, and James Perkins, a farmer, writer, and businessman. Her paternal grandparents were Greek immigrants from Salonika who anglicized their surname from "Pisperikos" to "Perkins" when they emigrated to the United States. Perkins was raised in Colrain, Massachusetts; her parents divorced in 1963. She began working in theatre with Arena Civic Theatre, a non-profit community theatre group based out of Greenfield, Massachusetts. Perkins attended Northfield Mount Hermon School, an elite preparatory school, and then spent 1978 to 1981 in Chicago studying for an acting certificate from the Goodman School of Drama. In 1984, she made her theatrical debut on Broadway in Neil Simon's "Brighton Beach Memoirs" and afterward, worked in a number of ensemble companies, including The New York Shakespeare Festival and the Steppenwolf Theater. Career. She was listed as one of the 12 "Promising New Actors of 1986" in John Willis' Screen World, and has since landed numerous film roles. Perkins made her film debut in 1986 in Edward Zwick's "About Last Night..." and had a career breakthrough co-starring with Tom Hanks in "Big". She received critical acclaim for her performance in Barry Levinson's "Avalon", and was a standout opposite William Hurt in "The Doctor" (1991), receiving critical acclaim for her performance as a terminal cancer patient. She played Wilma Flintstone in the 1994 live-action comedy "The Flintstones". In 1993, Perkins appeared in the television project "For Their Own Good". She later starred in the comedy series "Battery Park" and has appeared in television and films including the 1994 remake of "Miracle on 34th Street" and 2000's "28 Days" starring as Sandra Bullock's sister. Perkins also had a small role in the 2003 film "Finding Nemo", she was the voice of a clownfish who was the wife of Marlin and mother of Nemo and was killed by a barracuda at the beginning of the film. Perkins appeared as a psychiatrist in the 2005 suspense thriller, "The Ring Two", starring Naomi Watts. From 2005 to 2009, Perkins played Celia Hodes, an alcoholic and image-obsessed PTA mother, alongside Mary-Louise Parker and Justin Kirk on the Showtime series "Weeds". For her work on "Weeds", Perkins received two Golden Globe nominations for Best Supporting Actress in a TV Series, Miniseries or Made for TV Motion Picture (in 2006 and 2007). She was also nominated three times for an Emmy Award for Best Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series for her work on "Weeds". At a screening of the season 2 finale of "Weeds", at the Museum of TV and Radio on October 25, 2006, Perkins said that she considers Celia Hodes her favorite role in her career. On May 6, 2010, she announced that the fifth season of "Weeds" was her last despite the cliffhanger her character had in the season finale. She starred in the ABC comedy series "How to Live with Your Parents (for the Rest of Your Life)". She portrayed the uncredited character, Lizzie, in "The Lorax". Personal life. Perkins' first husband was Chicago actor and director Terry Kinney; the couple divorced. She has one daughter, Hannah Phillips, born in 1991. In 2000, she married her present husband, Argentinian-born cinematographer Julio Macat, gaining three stepsons: Maximillian, Alexander, and Andreas. In 2005, at the age of 44, she learned that she had latent autoimmune diabetes, a form of Juvenile diabetes that is most often diagnosed in middle age.
395979	Song Hye-kyo (; born February 26, 1982) is a South Korean actress. She gained popularity through television dramas such as "Autumn in My Heart" (2000), "All In" (2003), and "Full House" (2004).
1376453	Tom and Jerry Meet Sherlock Holmes is a 2010 animated direct-to-video film starring Tom and Jerry produced by Warner Bros. Animation. It is the first Tom and Jerry direct-to-video film to be produced without any of its original creators, William Hanna and Joseph Barbera. In the city of London, a crook is stealing jewels around the Scotland Yard, and Red, a beautiful singer, is being framed for this crime. Tom and Jerry, as assistants, must help Sherlock Holmes look for clues and track down the real thief to solve this case. Since its release, it has also aired on Cartoon Network as part of their regular rotation of Tom and Jerry cartoons. The film is also known as "Tom e Jerry e Sherlock Holmes" (Portugal) and "Tom e Jerry: Uma Aventura com Sherlock Holmes" (Brazil).
1060361	Rose Arianna McGowan (born September 5, 1973) is an American actress and singer. She is best known for her role as Paige Matthews in The WB Television Network supernatural drama series "Charmed". She played Ann-Margret alongside Jonathan Rhys Meyers as Elvis Presley in the CBS mini-series "Elvis". In 2008, she was guest programmer and co-host of TCM's film-series program, "The Essentials". She made her film debut in the 1992 comedy "Encino Man", where she played a small role. Her performance as Amy Blue in the 1995 dark comedy film "The Doom Generation" brought her wider attention, and received an Independent Spirit Award nomination. McGowan then appeared in the 1996 hit horror film "Scream" and starred alongside Ben Affleck in the 1997 coming-of-age feature "Going All the Way". Later, she appeared in several Hollywood films, including "Devil in the Flesh" (1998), "Jawbreaker" (1999), "Ready to Rumble" (2000), "Monkeybone" (2001) and "The Black Dahlia" (2006). In 2007, she was cast in the double-feature film directed by Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino "Grindhouse". She also portrayed the character Grace in the crime thriller film "Fifty Dead Men Walking" (2008). In 1996, McGowan was the cover model for the Henry Mancini tribute album "Shots in the Dark", and was the face of American clothing company Bebe from 1998 to 1999. She has also appeared on numerous magazine covers, including "Seventeen", "Interview", "Maxim", "GQ", "Entertainment Weekly" and "Rolling Stone". She has also frequently been featured on "Maxim", "FHM" and "Stuff" magazine's sexiest women lists. Early life. McGowan, the second-eldest of six children (plus two half-siblings), was born in Florence, Italy, the daughter of Terri, an American writer of French descent, and Daniel McGowan, an artist of Irish descent. Daniel McGowan ran an Italian chapter of the Children of God to which both he and his wife held membership until 1978. McGowan spent her early childhood amid the group's communes, often traveling Europe with her parents. Interviewed by Howard Stern, she stated she had avoided the group's calls for members to become sexually active as children ("I waited till I was 14.") and described the practice of 'flirty fishing' as "creepy". Through her father's art contacts in Italy, McGowan became a child model and appeared in "Vogue Bambini" and various other Italian magazines. Her parents returned to the United States when she was 10, when they divorced. She subsequently relocated to Oregon. McGowan did not speak English until she moved to the U.S. McGowan's formative years were spent with her father in Seattle, Washington, attending Roosevelt High School and Nova Alternative High School. At the age of 15, she officially emancipated herself from her parents. McGowan pursued a career in the film industry during her late teens while enrolled in a beauty school as a back-up. Career. Early work: 1992–2007. McGowan made her first appearance in a Hollywood film with a bit role in the 1992 Pauly Shore comedy "Encino Man". Her role in the 1995 dark comedy "The Doom Generation" brought her to the attention of film critics, and she received a nomination for "Best Debut Performance" at the 1996 Independent Spirit Awards. McGowan was subsequently cast in a supporting role in the 1996 hit horror film "Scream". She was the cover model for the Henry Mancini tribute album "Shots in the Dark", which was released in 1996. She became the face of American clothing company Bebe from 1998 to 1999. McGowan spent the majority of the 1990s appearing in a variety of independent films, including roles in "Southie", "Going All the Way", and "Lewis & Clark & George". In 1997, she appeared in the critically acclaimed short "Seed," directed by San Francisco-born filmmaker Karin Thayer, and played opposite Peter O'Toole in the 1998 film adaptation of the Dean Koontz novel "Phantoms". Notably, McGowan also starred in the 1998 dark comedy "Jawbreaker", where she played a snooty high school student who tries to cover up a classmate's murder. That role earned McGowan a nomination for Best Villain at the 1999 MTV Movie Awards. In 2001, McGowan was cast as Paige Matthews in the popular The WB television series "Charmed", as a replacement lead actress after Shannen Doherty's departure from the show. She was offered to be a producer after the seventh season alongside co-stars Holly Marie Combs and Alyssa Milano, but turned it down. The series ended its run on May 21, 2006. During and after "Charmed", McGowan tackled a variety of different roles. She portrayed actress/singer Ann-Margret in "Elvis", a Golden Globe-winning CBS mini-series about the life of Elvis Presley, and also appeared in Brian De Palma's "The Black Dahlia". Later work: 2007–present. In 2007, McGowan headlined the critically acclaimed Quentin Tarantino/Robert Rodriguez double-feature "Grindhouse", released on April 6, 2007. Cast in utterly divergent roles, McGowan appears in both portions of the film, as go-go dancing Cherry Darling in "Planet Terror", and as Pam in "Death Proof". She followed up the project with a role in the IRA thriller "Fifty Dead Men Walking" and a recurring role as a con artist on the acclaimed drama series "Nip/Tuck". After a brief hiatus from film, McGowan shot a cameo in the Robert Rodriguez thriller "Machete", a role ultimately cut but included on the DVD release, and played a semi-homeless junkie in the fantasy drama "Dead Awake". McGowan's name was attached to several recent films which ended up being unmade. Following the release of "Grindhouse", she signed to play B-movie staple Susan Cabot in "Black Oasis", to be directed by Stephan Elliott. However, the film was affected by the 2007-2008 Writers Guild of America strike and ultimately put on indefinite hold. Another project, a proposed film adaptation of the Sylvia Plath novel "The Bell Jar" alongside Julia Stiles, also never came to fruition. She was also attached to three projects to be produced by Robert Rodriguez, a remake of the science fiction cult classic "Barbarella", a proposed television series titled "Women in Chains!", and a big-screen update of the Red Sonja comic books. After several years of development, Rodriguez announced in 2009 that "Barbarella" had been canceled due to location difficulties, while "Women in Chains!" appears to have never gotten past the script stages and is believed to no longer be in development.
589088	"Not to be confused with Dosti (2005 film)". Dosti (English: "Friendship") is a 1964 Indian black-and-white Hindi film directed by Satyen Bose and produced by Tarachand Barjatya under his Rajshri Productions banner. It was Sanjay Khan's debut film and had Sudhir Kumar and Sushil Kumar in lead roles. The film focuses on the friendship between two boys, one blind and the other a cripple.
643283	Leslie Lamport (born February 7, 1941 in New York City) is an American computer scientist. Lamport is best known for his seminal work in distributed systems and as the initial developer of the document preparation system LaTeX. Early life and education. A graduate of the Bronx High School of Science, he received a B.S. in mathematics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1960, and M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in mathematics from Brandeis University, respectively in 1963 and 1972. His dissertation was about singularities in analytic partial differential equations. Career. Professionally, Lamport worked as a computer scientist at Massachusetts Computer Associates from 1970 to 1977, SRI International from 1977 to 1985, and Digital Equipment Corporation and Compaq from 1985 to 2001. In 2001 he joined Microsoft Research in Mountain View, California. Lamport’s research contributions have laid the foundations of the theory of distributed systems. Among his most notable papers are These papers relate to such concepts as logical clocks (and the "happened-before" relationship) and Byzantine failures. They are among the most cited papers in the field of computer science and describe algorithms to solve many fundamental problems in distributed systems, including: Lamport is also known for his work on temporal logic, where he introduced the temporal logic of actions (TLA). Among his more recent contributions is TLA+, a logic for specifying and reasoning about concurrent and reactive systems, that he describes in the book “Specifying Systems: The TLA+ Language and Tools for Hardware and Software Engineers” and defines as a “quixotic attempt to overcome engineers' antipathy towards mathematics”. Awards and memberships. Lamport received five honorary doctorates from European universities: University of Rennes and Christian Albrechts University of Kiel in 2003, EPFL in 2004, University of Lugano in 2006, and Nancy-Université in 2007. In 2004, he received the IEEE Emanuel R. Piore Award. In 2005, the paper “Reaching Agreement in the Presence of Faults” received the Dijkstra Prize. In honor of Lamport's sixtieth birthday, a lecture series was organised at the 20th Symposium on Principles of Distributed Computing (PODC 2001). In 2008, he received the IEEE John von Neumann Medal. In 2011, he was elected to the United States National Academy of Sciences.
1039965	Trevor John Eve (born 1 July 1951) is a British film and television actor. In 1979 he gained fame as the eponymous lead in the detective series "Shoestring" and is also known for his role as Detective Superintendent Peter Boyd in BBC television drama "Waking the Dead". Early life. Eve was born in Sutton Coldfield, Warwickshire, the son of Elsie (née Hamer) and Stewart Frederick Eve. His father was English, and his Welsh mother was from the Mumbles area of Swansea, South Wales. Educated at Bromsgrove School, he had little acting experience during his school days. In his early years Eve wanted to be an artist but was dissuaded from this career path by his father for financial reasons. He instead initially studied architecture at Kingston Polytechnic College in London but dropped out of the course to enroll at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA). Career. Eve has enjoyed a long and successful acting career on stage, television and film, with his career spanning back to the 1970s. One of his early stage successes was portraying Paul McCartney in Willy Russell's play "John, Paul, George, Ringo and Bert" at the Lyric Theatre in London's West End in 1974. His first major film role was in "Dracula" (1979), playing Jonathan Harker. Eve appeared in "Hindle Wakes" (1976) directed by Laurence Olivier as part of the "Laurence Olivier Presents" TV series. In 1979 and 1980 he became famous throughout the UK for playing the role of the private investigator Eddie Shoestring in "Shoestring". Trevor Eve played Tom Schwartz in the TV series "Lace" in 1984. Also starring Brooke Adams. He co-starred with Natasha Richardson and Stephen Rea in the 1987 London stage production of Cole Porter's "High Society". In 1994, Trevor starred in the film "Don't Get Me Started". He played Superintendent Albert Tyburn in the 1998 Carlton Television/WGBH Boston television series "Heat of the Sun", which was filmed in Zimbabwe. In September 2000 Eve starred in the pilot episode of the award-winning BBC drama series "Waking the Dead". Eve plays the central role of Detective Superintendent Peter Boyd, the head of a team of CID detectives, the Cold Case Unit. Eve has continued to play Boyd throughout the subsequent nine series of the drama, until the show's final episode on 11 April 2011. In 2004 he played the role of Velior in "Troy", with Brad Pitt. Following this he played Dr Patrick Stowe, a fertility expert in "The Family Man" in 2006. Eve co-owns a TV company called Projector Productions which produced Twelfth Night for Channel 4. In April 2008 Eve starred as game show host and TV personality Hughie Green in the BBC Four biographical film "Hughie Green, Most Sincerely". In 2010, Eve played the father of the female lead, his real-life daughter, Alice, in "She's out of My League", and starred as Peter Manson in the ITV/Mammoth Screen remake of "Bouquet of Barbed Wire". In January 2011, he starred in the three-part ITV drama "Kidnap and Ransom", filmed on location in South Africa. Eve reprised his role as Dominic King in the second series of "Kidnap and Ransom" on ITV1 starting Thursday, 23 February 2012 Awards. In 1982 he was awarded the Laurence Olivier Award for "Best Actor in a New Play" (1981 theatre season), for his performance in "Children of a Lesser God". In 1997 he was awarded his second Olivier Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role for his 1996 performance in "Uncle Vanya" at the Noël Coward Theatre. Personal life. In 1979, Eve met actress Sharon Maughan when they both had parts in the West End show "Filumena". In 1980, they married and had three children, Alice Sophia born 6 February 1982 who is also an actress, Jack (born 1985) and George (born 1994). Eve, Maughan and Alice all appeared in "She's Out of My League" casting as father, mother and daughter. Eve appeared as Maughan's ex-husband in the famous Gold Blend couple television advertisements for Nescafé Gold Blend coffee (known as Taster's Choice in the USA). In 2009, Maughan guest starred in the BBC's "Waking the Dead", of which Eve was the main star, until the show was cancelled in 2011. Eve's interests include golf, painting, squash and tennis. In 1995, while playing polo, he was seriously injured when he fell badly from his pony. Temporarily unable to act, he took up production. He is also a supporter of Chelsea Football Club.
1059960	Death Race 2000 is a 1975 cult action film directed by Paul Bartel, and starring David Carradine, Simone Griffeth and Sylvester Stallone. The film takes place in a dystopian American society in the year 2000, where the murderous Transcontinental Road Race has become a form of national entertainment. The screenplay is based on the short story "The Racer" by Ib Melchior. Plot. In an alternate timeline of the late 1970s, the United States is no more as the result of a financial crisis and military coup. Both major political parties have collapsed into a single Bipartisan Party, which also acts as a unified national church. The resulting fascist police state, the United Provinces, is headed by "Mr. President" (Sandy McCallum). The country is kept satisfied through a stream of gory gladiatorial entertainment, including the Annual Transcontinental Road Race, a symbol of "modern values and way of life". During the coast-to-coast, three-day race, points are scored not just for speed, but for the number of innocent pedestrians killed during the race. Mr. Frankenstein (David Carradine) is the most celebrated racer and is the government's champion and national icon. He is supposedly part human and part machine, rebuilt after numerous crashes over his career, and constantly wears a mask in the face of public because of supposed facial disfigurements. Though he regularly quarrels with the other drivers, Frankenstein's main foe is "Machine Gun" Joe Viterbo (Sylvester Stallone), who is constantly bitter about being overshadowed by Frankenstein's celebrity and is obsessed with trying to beat him. Each race driver has a theme. Frankenstein drives a Shala Vette, a custom-built car designed by Dick Dean cast in the semblance of an alligator. Joe is a gangster and his car has a giant knife and machine guns mounted on the front. His navigator is the feisty, blonde haired Myra (Louisa Moritz). Nero the Hero, a fan of the Roman Empire, drives "The Lion", a feline-shaped Fiat 850 Spider, and his navigator is Cleopatra. Matilda the Hun, a Nazi, has the "The Buzz-Bomb", a VW Karmann-Ghia shaped like a V-1 flying bomb, and her navigator is Herman "The German" Boch. Cowgirl Calamity Jane's car resembles a bull and her navigator is named Pete. Race commentary is provided by Junior Bruce (Don Steele), an egotistical and often annoying sportscaster. Color commentary is given by the fawning Grace Pander (Joyce Jameson) and the stoic "Harold" (Carle Bensen), who provides historical insight to various parts of the race coverage. In one notable scene, Harold describes the scoring system, with points given for hit-and-run victims varying by age range.
1164693	Harvey Lembeck (April 15, 1923 – January 5, 1982) was an American comedic actor best remembered for his role as Cpl. Rocco Barbella on "The Phil Silvers Show" (a.k.a. "Sgt. Bilko") in the late 1950s, and as the stumbling, overconfident outlaw biker Eric Von Zipper in beach party movies during the 1960s. He also turned in noteworthy performances in both the stage and screen versions of "Stalag 17". He was the father of actor/director Michael Lembeck and actress Helaine Lembeck. Early life. Born in Brooklyn, Lembeck started his career right out of New Utrecht High School, as a dancer at the 1939/40 New York World's Fair. He was half of an exhibition dance team known as The Dancing Carols. His partner, Caroline Dubs, became his wife. The son of a Brooklyn button manufacturer, Lembeck yearned for a career as a radio sports announcer. Following his discharge from the United States Army at the end of World War II in 1945, he attended New York University, obtaining a degree in radio arts in 1947. However, he chose the stage as a career upon the advice of one of his instructors, Prof. Robert Emerson, who had seen him perform in college plays. Career. 1940s and 1950s. Two weeks after graduation, Lembeck won the key role of Sam Insigna in "Mister Roberts", which he played on Broadway for nearly three years, winning runner-up honors to James Whitmore as New York's best new actor of 1948. Lembeck made three movies for 20th Century Fox, "You're in the Navy Now", "Fourteen Hours", and "The Frogmen", all released in the first half of 1951. He went back to Broadway as Army Air Forces Sgt. Harry Shapiro in "Stalag 17", which he subsequently played in the Billy Wilder – directed film version, earning the Theater Owners of America's Laurel Award for outstanding comedy performance and best possibility for stardom. From 1952 to 1954 he also made nine other movies mostly playing military roles. In 1954, he returned to Broadway, appearing in the play "Wedding Breakfast". That same year, he appeared with Skip Homeier in the episode "Eye for an Eye" of the NBC legal drama "Justice", based on case studies of the Legal Aid Society of New York. His stint with Phil Silvers' popular "Sergeant Bilko" series began in 1955. Lembeck played Bilko's sidekick, Corporal Rocco Barbella. The show ran for four years. 1960s and 1970s. In the 1961-1962 television season, Lembeck played a theatrical agent, Jerry Roper, in the ABC sitcom "The Hathaways", starring Peggy Cass and Jack Weston as "parents" to the performing Marquis Chimps. He appeared twice as "Al" in "Variations on a Theme" and "Music Hath Charms" (both 1961) on another ABC sitcom, "The Donna Reed Show". Having spent a great deal of his adult life in uniform, Lembeck once again donned Navy togs in the 1962-1963 season to co-star with Dean Jones in the NBC sitcom "Ensign O'Toole". He co-starred with Steve McQueen in "Love with the Proper Stranger" and then spent part of the early 1960s playing the lovable bad guy Eric Von Zipper in seven American International Beach Party films, with Frankie Avalon and Annette Funicello. (He did not appear in the second "beach" film, 1964's "Muscle Beach Party".) The Von Zipper character, leader of the Rat Pack motorcycle gang, was a parody of Marlon Brando's role in "The Wild One." (In fact, Von Zipper reveals that one of his idols was "Marlo Brandon".) Among other things, Von Zipper pronounced his judgments on others by saying "Him, I like", or "Him, I do "not" like". In 1964 he also co-starred with Debbie Reynolds in "The Unsinkable Molly Brown". In 1964, Jack Kosslyn of the Mercury Theatre asked Lembeck to take over his actors' workshop. Lembeck took this opportunity to create his comedy workshop. Initially working with comedy scripts, he soon ran out of good comedy material and found that improv was a wonderful tool to teach and exercise comedy. He realized that the improv method, new in the early 1960s, was one of the best ways to develop actors' comedy instincts. Lembeck returned to the theatre to star as Sancho Panza on Broadway and in the first national company of "Man of La Mancha". President Lyndon Johnson chose this company to give a command performance at the White House. During the late 1960s and 1970s, Lembeck became a mainstay on television, making over 200 guest appearances, including "Ben Casey", "Mr. Novak", "The Munsters", "The Man from U.N.C.L.E.", "Route 66", "The Monkees", "Night Gallery", "It Takes a Thief", "The Partridge Family", "Chico and the Man", "Vega$", "All in the Family", "Batman" and "Mork and Mindy".
1060073	James David Van Der Beek, Jr. (born March 8, 1977) is an American television, film, and stage actor, mainly known for his portrayal of Dawson Leery in The WB series "Dawson's Creek" and for portraying a fictionalized version of himself on the ABC sitcom "Don't Trust the B---- in Apartment 23". He is also famous for his website, which includes Van Der Beek himself acting out famous internet memes. Early life and stage career. Van Der Beek was born in Cheshire, Connecticut, the son of Melinda (née Weber), a former dancer and gymnastics studio manager, and James William Van Der Beek, Sr., a cellular phone company executive and former professional baseball pitcher. He has a brother, Jared (born 1979) and a sister, Juliana (born 1981). He attended Norton Elementary School, Dodd Junior High School, and the Cheshire Academy.
582845	Sabse Bada Khiladi () is a 1995 Bollywood action thriller film directed by Umesh Mehra and starring Akshay Kumar, Mamta Kulkarni, Mohnish Behl, Gulshan Grover and Sadashiv Amrapurkar. It was the third installment in the Khiladi (film series) of films that had Akshay in the lead after "Khiladi" and "Main Khiladi Tu Anari". Sabse Bada Khiladi was the seventh highest grossing movie of 1995. The story of the film is adapted from a Hindi novel called 'Lallu' by Ved Prakash Sharma, a Hindi pulp fiction writer. Sharma is credited during the opening credits. Plot. Lallu (Akshay Kumar) is an orphan who was separated from his parents and his brother as a child and has been brought up by foster parents. He travels to Bombay to look for a job and starts working as a loyal servant for rich businessman Jamna Das (Avtar Gill). One day he discovers Jamna Das's daughter Sunita (Mamta Kulkarni) drunk in a nightclub and takes her home. Jamna Das realises how loyal Lallu is and how he never took advantage of Sunita in her drunken state decides to get them married. Sunita immediately refuses as she is in love with Amit (Mohnish Behl). When Jamna Das suddenly dies of a heart attack, his will and testament reveals that Sunita must get married to Lallu or she will not be entitled to any of his wealth and estate. Seeing no other option she marries Lallu but decides to have him killed with the help of Amit so that she can inherit all of her father's wealth. Sunita and Amit succeed in their plan to kill Lallu by poisoning him, putting him into a car, and crashing it to make it look like an accident. His death is considered suspicious, and the case is assigned to Inspector Vijay Kumar (also Akshay Kumar), who is a lookalike of the supposedly deceased Lallu. Vijay also has a twin brother whom he lost during childhood. His brother was apparently murdered by Amit's father, Amar Singh (Sadashiv Amrapurkar), and the latter had raped a close friend's wife, who was Jamna Das's wife Gomti (Anjana Mumtaz). Later Gomti dies of heart attack when in court Amar Singh (as a lawyer) falsely proves his 'innocence' and renders her guilty. This fact is not known by Sunita. But Vijay swears revenge against Amar Singh for what he did. The twist in the story comes when Lallu appears before Sunita and Amit, who have presumed him to be dead. He then terrorizes them at their house and, when Amit finally owns up to the crime, out come the police to arrest Amit and Sunita. Lallu says he is none other than Inspector Vijay Kumar. Vijay reveals that it was his plan to frame Amit and his father. It was he who had come as Lallu in the first place, told Jamna Das to enact the heart attack, took Sunita into confidence, done all the pretense, and finally they had gotten Amit into trouble. Because now Amit is guilty of 'murdering Lallu', Inspector K. Kada (Gulshan Grover), a cunning inspector who had helped cover the crime, is also arrested. Amit is taken into custody. Amar, Amit, and K. Kada hatch a plan to release Amit and send him out of the country. They go to Vijay's police station on the pretext of meeting Amit and, as part of a plan hatched by Amar, a fight breaks out near the station, to which Vijay responds. At that moment, they release Amit, knock K. Kada out, and immolate him after Amit exchanges clothes with him. By the time Vijay realizes whats happening, it is too late. Amit escapes to the airport; Amar goes to court and accuses Vijay of burning his son. But Vijay manages to save K. Kada. He then says that Vijay is the biggest player ('Sabse Bada Khiladi') and helps Vijay nab Amit. The film reaches a climax when Vijay chases Amit all the way to the abandoned airport with K. Kada following in a helicopter. Eventually they burst many stationary aircraft to shreds and destroy the hangar, with both chasing and trying to kill the even through the raging fires. Amit shoots K. Kada in the chopper from his car. But Vijay manages to nab him and take him in the chopper. Finally they reach court, where Vijay produces Amit, the dead K. Kada, and everything is open. Amar is now forced to say that he was the one who killed Lallu and raped Gomti, to save his son now. Unfortunately he is not able to prove it and save his son because he has destroyed all the evidence. A frustrated Amar tries to shoot Vijay but is overpowered. They are then arrested. There ends the film. Soundtracks. Mukaala Mukaabla is uncredited copy of A R Rahman's Muqabla Bharo Maang Meri Bharo is based on Enigma's Hallelujah (Back to the River's of Belief). Box office. Sabse Bada Khiladi became one of the biggest commercial success of 1995 collecting 20cr in 2 days and Akshay Kumar being appreciated for his action sequences.
1064800	Gothika is a 2003 supernatural thriller film directed by Mathieu Kassovitz and written by Sebastian Gutierrez. Halle Berry plays a psychiatrist in a women's mental hospital who wakes up one day to find herself on the other side of the bars for being accused of having murdered her husband. The film was first released on November 21, 2003 in the United States. At the time of its release, "Gothika" was the most successful film from Dark Castle Entertainment with $141.6 million. Plot. Psychiatrist Dr. Miranda Grey (Halle Berry) works at a mental hospital. While driving home, Miranda has a car accident after trying to avoid a girl on a road during a stormy night. She rushes to try to help the girl, but the girl turns out to be a ghost, and possesses Miranda's body. Miranda loses consciousness and wakes up in the very hospital she works for, but as a patient treated by her co-worker, Dr. Pete Graham (Robert Downey, Jr.). Drugged and confused, she remembers nothing of what happened after the car accident. To her horror, she learns that her husband Douglas (Charles S. Dutton) was brutally murdered and that she is the primary suspect. While Miranda copes with her new life in the hospital, the ghost uses her body to carry out messages (most noticeably, she carves the words "not alone" into Miranda's arm), which leads her former colleagues to believe Miranda is suicidal and is inflicting the wounds upon herself. Miranda bonds with fellow inmate and her former patient Chloe Sava (Penélope Cruz). Several times in sessions, Chloe had claimed that she'd been raped while in the hospital, but Miranda had always attributed these stories to mental illness. One night, the door to Miranda's room in the hospital is opened by the ghost. When she passes Chloe's room, she can hear the rape occurring and momentarily sees a man's chest pressed against the window. The man's chest bears an Anima Sola tattoo. Miranda realizes that Chloe was not making up these stories, and apologizes to her, and the two embrace. Chloe then warns Miranda her attacker said he was going to target her next. Miranda begins to regain some of her memories bit by bit, and slowly comes to remember herself killing her husband. She realizes that the ghost had used her body to murder Douglas, thus making Miranda the patsy for his murder. Miranda escapes the hospital, seeking clues to the mystery of why she killed her husband, and goes to a farmhouse in Willow Creek, Rhode Island. In the cellar of the barn, she discovers a room containing a bloodstained bed, what appears to be a box containing drugs, restraints and video equipment. She watches the videotape and hears a woman screaming as if being tortured or raped. In the final seconds of the video, Douglas walks into the shot, covers the woman's lifeless body with a sheet, and winks at the camera. At this point, police arrive. Miranda backs up to a staircase, and all of a sudden, an injured, screaming girl grabs hold of her from the adjoining crawlspace. The police release the girl, and Miranda is taken to jail.
1166018	Luther Adler (May 4, 1903 – December 8, 1984) was an American actor best known for his work in theatre, but who also worked in film and television. He also directed plays on Broadway. Life and career. Born Lutha Adler in New York City, Adler was one of six children born to Russian Jewish actors Sara and Jacob P. Adler. His siblings also worked in theatre; his sister Stella Adler achieved fame as an actress and drama teacher. His brother Jay also achieved some fame as an actor. Adler made his first acting appearance on Broadway in 1921 and appeared in several productions before joining The Group Theatre in 1931. He played opposite Katharine Cornell in "Alien Corn" (1933), his sister Stella in "Gold Eagle Guy" (1934), "Awake and Sing!" and "Paradise Lost" (both 1935), and Frances Farmer in "Golden Boy" (1937). He also appeared in the anti-war musical "Johnny Johnson" (1936). By the early 1940s he was also directing but his first production "They Should Have Stood in Bed" closed after only eleven performances in 1942. His next directorial venture, "A Flag is Born", ran for 120 performances in 1946 and featured newcomer Marlon Brando in one of the major roles. In 1965, when Zero Mostel left the Broadway cast of "Fiddler on the Roof" during a contract dispute, Adler took over the role of Tevye. From 1937 Adler appeared also in films, though they were never his highest priority. His credits include "House of Strangers" (1949), "D.O.A." (1950), "M" (1951), "Voyage of the Damned" (1976) and "Absence of Malice" (1981). He also acted frequently on television, in such programs as the anthology series, "Crossroads", "General Electric Theater", "Kraft Television Theater", and "Robert Montgomery Presents". He guest starred in such drama/adventure series as "The Twilight Zone", in the episode "The Man in the Bottle", "The Untouchables", "Ben Casey", "77 Sunset Strip", "", "Hawaii Five-O", most notably in the series' only three-part episode "'V' for Vashon", "The Streets of San Francisco" and "Naked City". Adler was married to actress Sylvia Sidney from 1938 until 1946, and father of Sidney's only child, her son Jacob, who predeceased her. He died in Kutztown, Pennsylvania, and was buried in Mount Carmel Cemetery, Glendale, New York, next to several of his relatives, including his older sister Stella.
1163395	Melanie Joy Mayron (born October 20, 1952) is an American actress and director of film and television. Mayron is best known for portraying the role of photographer Melissa Steadman on the ABC drama "Thirtysomething". Life and career. Mayron was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the daughter of Norma (née Goodman), a real estate agent, and David Mayron, a pharmaceutical chemist. Her family is Jewish; her father was from a Sephardic background (the original surname was "Mizrahi") and her mother from an Ashkenazi family from Russia. She trained as an actress at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. Mayron is the mother of Olivia and Miles, born in 1998. Most recently, she and her chemist father have developed a line of skin care products for babies and adults called "Mayron's Good Baby". Mayron appeared in the 1974 movie "Harry and Tonto", in the 1976 movie "Car Wash" and starred in 1978's "Girlfriends". In the late 1970s, she played Brenda Morgenstern's best friend, Sandy Franks, on three episodes of the sitcom "Rhoda". In 1988, she wrote, produced, and directed the comedy film "Sticky Fingers". In 1995, Mayron directed "The Baby-Sitters Club", a film based upon the book series of the same name. She also directed the television movie "Toothless" (1997) starring Kirstie Alley and the movie "Slap Her... She's French" (2002), starring Piper Perabo (which appeared on television as "She Gets What She Wants"). In 2006, she appeared as a judge in the reality show "Looking for Stars" on the Starz! channel. In addition, she has served as director for a number of television shows such as "In Treatment", "Providence", "Dawson's Creek", "Ed", "State of Grace", "Nash Bridges", "Wasteland", "Tell Me You Love Me" and "The Naked Brothers Band". Awards. "Winner:" "Nominations:'
582161	Krazzy 4 is a 2008 Bollywood comedy film directed by Jaideep Sen and produced by Rakesh Roshan. The film stars Juhi Chawla, Arshad Warsi, Irrfan Khan, Suresh Menon and Rajpal Yadav in lead roles while Shahrukh Khan and Hrithik Roshan appear in item numbers. Music of the film is by Rajesh Roshan. Even though the film is scripted by Ashwani Dhir, the screenplay is an (uncredited) adaptation of the Malayalam film "Mookkilla Rajyathu", which in turn was an (uncredited) adaptation of the 1989 Hollywood film "The Dream Team", written originally by John Connolly and David Loucka. Plot. Raja (Arshad Warsi) has a temper problem, Gangadhar (Rajpal Yadav) has an obsession of freedom, Dr. Mukherjee (Irrfan Khan), is a clean freak and Dabboo (Suresh Menon), has not spoken in years. Dr. Sonali (Juhi Chawla) is treating all four of them. While Raja is diagnosed with Intermittent Explosive Disorder due to his sudden anger at the slightest provocation, schizophrenic Gangadhar is living in the past where he shares friendships with Jawaharlal Nehru, Mahatma Gandhi, Lokamanya Tilak and Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel. He seems busy in fighting for the country's freedom, which was achieved long back. Dr. Mukherjee is a perfect doctor and always keeps himself tidy and prim. He has been diagnosed with Obsessive Compulsive Personality Disorder. Dabboo suffers from Selective Mutism. He has not spoken for years, and appears frightened all the time. He is loved by one and all. Dr. Sonali negotiates with the mental hospital's top doctors to allow her to take the four of them for a cricket match between India and England which is being held on Independence Day. She eventually manages to get permission and the four of them get ready. The following morning, she takes them to the match and on the way stops at her clinic to pick up some important papers. She tells the group to stay in the car. After a while, Dabboo gets out of the car and goes to a spot nearby to pee. From there, he watches Dr. Sonali being kidnapped by thugs. He notices one of the faces as a thug removes his mask. Dabboo then goes back to the car where his friends realize that something is wrong from the expression on his face, but soon ignore it as Dabboo cannot speak. As time goes on, the four become bored. One by one, all of them except Dabboo get out of the car to look for Dr. Sonali. They split up and go to different places. Meanwhile, Dr. Sonali is being bribed to sign papers for declaring a criminal called Rana as insane at a hospital at 11 am the following day. As Raja searches for her, he passes by a store where there is a TV set showing a news report about Independence Day. Raja notices that the woman who is speaking is actually his ex-girlfriend, Shikha (Dia Mirza), who he had lost a long time ago. He tracks her, and the two have a tearful reunion. Raja decides to go to Shikha's house to apologize to her father (Kenneth Desai), as he had been rude to him the last time they had met. He however meets Shikha's new boyfriend Pranav to who she will be engaged and married to soon. Raja becomes angry and starts beating Pranav up, and is once again thrown out of the house. Meanwhile, Gangadhar returns after having followed some school children singing Jana Gana Mana, and accidentally bumps into Dr. Mukherjee. They realise that the car is gone. Raja then returns and goes with the group to a nearby traffic station, where they find Dabboo and register a complaint that Dr. Sonali is missing. Raja then comes up with the idea that they should call up Sonali's husband, R K Sanyal (Rajat Kapoor), and tell him what has happened. They get his number from the traffic station and find out that he is at a hotel. They find him there but he receives a call from a man who tells him that Sonali has been captured and is safe which leads the team to realize that he was behind the kidnapping. They are caught by the same man who Dabboo saw kidnapping Sonali. They manage to escape and head off to Shikha's office, begging her to help them. She reluctantly agrees, and they kidnap Sanyal at the Star Awards function. They make him announce that he will pay Rs50 million to anyone who finds Sonali. Sanyal then escapes but this is just part of the plan as they have hidden a camera that films what he does and says. Then, they go to Pranav's office and beg him to play the video as he works with Shikha, but he doesn't agree. They however play the tape and a very distressed husband and his partner watch it. The next day, a taxi driver picks up four people who have found Dr. Sonali and he immediately recognizes who she is and takes the four men to a village close by where they are captured and put into the earth like seeds. He then calls them and tells the four about the news. When they arrive at the scene, they find her missing again. They eventually find her wrapped in a bag and walk away only to be caught by the board of directors but escape after Sonali again when she suddenly disappears. She gets into the car which her husband's partner is driving and goes to the hospital. The four follow her in an auto and arrive at the hospital moments later after Sonali was dropped off there. Dr. Mukherjee runs somewhere in the building leaving the others lost. When Sonali goes to the room where Rana is being held, the other three turn out to be the doctors who are also meant to examine Rana shortly joined by Dr. Mukherjee who ran off to see his wife who worked in the same hospital. They then torture him by injecting him with needles, electrocuting him and by giving him a heart shock. They then explain to Sonali that her husband was the one that kidnapped her and that it was just a trick to get her to do what they wanted. They then catch the criminals responsible and the movie ends when all of them go back home. Production. "Krazzy 4" marks the first production-only venture of Rakesh Roshan. In all his previous films, he not only produced but also directed them. Sunaina, Roshan's daughter, who recovered from cervical cancer, is the co-producer of this film.
1166122	Henry "Henny" Youngman (original Russian surname Yungman; 16 March 1906 – 24 February 1998) was a British-American comedian and violinist famous for "one-liners", short, simple jokes usually delivered rapid-fire. His best known one-liner was "Take my wife—please." In a time when many comedians told elaborate anecdotes, Youngman's comedy routine consisted of telling simple one-liner jokes, occasionally with interludes of violin playing. These gags depicted simple, cartoon-like situations, eliminating lengthy build-ups and going straight to the punch line. He was known as the King of the One Liners, a title bestowed upon him by columnist Walter Winchell. A typical stage performance by Youngman lasted only fifteen to twenty minutes, but contained dozens of jokes, delivered in rapid-fire fashion. Early life. Youngman was born to a Jewish family in Liverpool, Lancashire, England, and his family moved to Brooklyn, New York, when he was young. He grew up in New York City, and his career as a comedian began after he had worked for a number of years at a print shop, where he penned and published a large number of "comedy cards"—cards containing one-line gags that were sold at the shop. The comedy cards were discovered by up-and-coming professional comedian Milton Berle, who encouraged Youngman and formed a close working friendship with him. Berle quipped about his friend, "The only thing funnier than Henny's jokes is his violin playing." Career. Encouraged by his family to learn the violin, Youngman's start in show business was as an orchestra musician. He led a small jazz band called the "Swanee Syncopaters", and during the band's performances, Youngman often told jokes to the audience. One night, the regular comedian didn't show for his performance, and the club owner asked Youngman to fill in. Youngman was a success, and he began a long career of stand-up, telling one-line jokes and honing his act to razor sharpness. His generally inoffensive, friendly style of comedy kept his audiences in stitches for decades. He started his career playing in clubs and speakeasies, but his big break came on the Kate Smith radio show in 1937. His manager, Ted Collins, booked him on the popular show, where he was a great success; he made many return appearances to the radio. During the 1940s Youngman tried to break into films and become an actor, but he was unsuccessful in Hollywood. He returned to the nightclub scene and worked steadily with his stand-up act, performing as many as 200 shows a year. Working with writer/producer Danny Shapiro, Youngman recorded a "live" album for National Recording Corporation in 1959 at the Celebrity Club in St. Louis. The album is still popular today in CD, and is a frequent iTunes download. Like many comedians, Henny Youngman treated his profession as a working job, one where it is difficult to make a living, and getting paid for the work is all-important. In numerous interviews, Youngman's advice to other entertainers was to "nem di gelt" (Yiddish for "take the money"). He was quoted in an interview with the Web-based magazine "Eye": "I get on the plane. I go and do the job, grab the money and I come home and I keep it clean. Those are my rules. Sinatra does the same thing, only he has a helicopter waiting. That's the difference." When the New York Telephone Company started its Dial-a-Joke line in 1974, over three million people called in one month to hear 30 seconds of Youngman's material—the most ever for a comedian. Youngman never retired, and he performed his stage act in venues worldwide until his final days. As his fame passed into legendary status, he never considered himself aloof or above others, and he never refused to perform a show in a small venue or unknown club. In a tribute to Youngman, TV and animation producer Mark Evanier described Youngman in a way that emphasized both his money consciousness and his love of performing: He would take his fiddle and go to some hotel that had banquet rooms. He'd consult the daily directory in the lobby and find a party—usually a Bar Mitzvah reception—and he would go up to the room and ask to speak to whoever was paying for the affair. "I'm Henny Youngman," he would tell that person. "I was playing a date in another banquet room here and one of the waiters suggested you might want to have me do my act for your gathering here." He would negotiate whatever price he could get—$200, $500, preferably in cash—and he would do his act for them. Roger Ebert described a similar episode in a 2011 film review: I once observed Henny Youngman taping a TV show in the old NBC studios at the Merchandise Mart. We got into an elevator together. It stopped at the second floor, a private club. A wedding was under way. Youngman got off the elevator, asked to meet the father of the bride and said, "I'm Henny Youngman. I'll do 10 minutes for $100." Youngman made numerous appearances on television, including a long-running stint on "Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In". In 1955 he was host of a TV series titled "The Henny and Rocky Show," appearing with champion boxer Rocky Graziano. He had cameo appearances in several movies, including "History of the World, Part I" and "Goodfellas." He had a larger role as the strip club owner in Herschell Gordon Lewis's "The Gore Gore Girls", a fact he denied vehemently. He made a few recordings, most notably "The Primitive Side of Henny Youngman", recorded "live" in St. Louis and released by National Recording Corporation on the NRC label. The CD is still in print. His published autobiography is entitled "Take My Life, Please!". Youngman's last movie appearance before his death was in the Daniel Robert Cohn film "Eyes Beyond Seeing," in which he has a cameo as a mental patient claiming to be Henny Youngman. Personal life. Youngman's wife, Sadie Cohen, was often the butt of his jokes ("My wife said to me, 'For our anniversary I want to go somewhere I've never been before.' I said, 'Try the kitchen!'", or "my wife's cooking is fit for a king. (gesturing as if feeding an invisible dog) Here King, here King!" Also, "Last night my wife said the weather outside was fit for neither man nor beast, so we both stayed home.") but in reality the two were very close, with Sadie often accompanying her husband on his tours. Youngman remained married for over sixty years until his wife's death in 1987, after a prolonged illness. While she was ill, Henny had an ICU built in their bedroom, so she could be taken care of at home, rather than in the hospital (Sadie was terrified of hospitals). Henny explained the origin of his classic line "Take my wife, please" as a misinterpretation: in the mid-1930s he took his wife to a show and asked the usher to escort his wife to a seat. But his request was taken as a joke, and Youngman used the line countless times ever after. Youngman had two children, son Gary and daughter Marilyn. Gary started his career screenwriting and directing, and thereafter continued to work in the film industry in various capacities. Gary is best known for his 1976 film "Rush-It!", which introduced the filmgoing public to a number of soon to be very famous actors and actresses (John Heard, Jill Eikenberry, Tom Berenger his debut part, others). After "Rush-It"'s lukewarm reception, Gary removed himself from the public eye—he then lived a quiet life in California. Henny had a grandson of note: Lawrence ["Larry"] Michael Kelly. Kelly spent much of his youth with Henny on the road following the death of Larry's father at an early age. While Kelly tried for many years to follow in his grandfather's footsteps he never managed to attain a following. Kelly struggled with a severe weight problem for his entire life regularly fluctuating between 250 to over 500 pounds. Despite not achieving fame for himself, he was a very astute judge of talent in others, and through his connections in Henny's world, Kelly was able to help promote the early careers of Sam Kinison, Louie Anderson, Roseanne Barr and several other notable personalities. Larry's numerous and ever changing enterprises included the running of one of the first computer bulletin boards in the world ("Modem Over Manhattan", a/k/a "M*O*M"), as well as obtaining Henny's partnership with the nascent shared "Dial-A-Joke" telephone service. Kelly's last venture was a small banana bread business in Woodstock called "Top Banana". From 1992 until his death, Kelly co-hosted a local public-access television show called "The Village Green", with then future Woodstock councilman Gordon Wemp. The cause of Kelly's death remains unknown today. With the exception of a week following his wife's death, and the month he was in his final hospital stay, Henny was renowned for having worked almost every day for over 70 years without vacations or other breaks. Death. Youngman developed pneumonia and died on 24 February 1998, at the age of 91. He is interred in the Mount Carmel Cemetery, Glendale, New York, next to his wife, Sadie.
1100680	CORDIC (for COordinate Rotation DIgital Computer), also known as the digit-by-digit method and Volder's algorithm, is a simple and efficient algorithm to calculate hyperbolic and trigonometric functions. It is commonly used when no hardware multiplier is available (e.g., simple microcontrollers and FPGAs) as the only operations it requires are addition, subtraction, bitshift and table lookup. Origins. The modern CORDIC algorithm was first described in 1959 by Jack E. Volder. It was developed at the aeroelectronics department of Convair to replace the analog resolver in the B-58 bomber's navigation computer. Although CORDIC is similar to mathematical techniques published by Henry Briggs as early as 1624, it is optimized for low complexity finite state CPUs. John Stephen Walther at Hewlett-Packard further generalized the algorithm, allowing it to calculate hyperbolic and exponential functions, logarithms, multiplications, divisions, and square roots. Originally, CORDIC was implemented using the binary numeral system. In the 1970s, decimal CORDIC became widely used in pocket calculators, most of which operate in binary-coded-decimal (BCD) rather than binary. CORDIC is particularly well-suited for handheld calculators, an application for which cost is much more important than speed (e.g., chip gate count has to be minimized). Also the CORDIC subroutines for trigonometric and hyperbolic functions can share most of their code. Applications. The beauty of CORDIC lies in the fact that by simple shift-add operations, it can perform several computing tasks such as the calculation of trigonometric, hyperbolic and logarithmic functions, real and complex multiplications, division, square-root calculation, solution of linear systems, eigenvalue estimation, singular value decomposition, QR factorization and many others. As a consequence, CORDIC has been utilized for applications in diverse areas such as signal and image processing, communication systems, robotics and 3-D graphics apart from general scientific and technical computation. Hardware. CORDIC is generally faster than other approaches when a hardware multiplier is not available (e.g.,a microcontroller), or when the number of gates required to implement the functions it supports should be minimized (e.g., in an FPGA). On the other hand, when a hardware multiplier is available (e.g., in a DSP microprocessor), table-lookup methods and power series are generally faster than CORDIC. In recent years, the CORDIC algorithm has been used extensively for various biomedical applications, especially in FPGA implementations. Software. Many older systems with integer-only CPUs have implemented CORDIC to varying extents as part of their IEEE Floating Point libraries. As most modern general-purpose CPUs have floating-point registers with common operations such as add, subtract, multiply, divide, sin, cos, square root, log10, natural log, the need to implement CORDIC in them with software is nearly non-existent. Only microcontroller or special safety and time-constrained software applications would need to consider using CORDIC. Mode of operation: rotation mode. CORDIC can be used to calculate a number of different functions. This explanation shows how to use CORDIC in "rotation mode" to calculate the sine and cosine of an angle, and assumes the desired angle is given in radians and represented in a fixed point format. To determine the sine or cosine for an angle formula_1, the "y" or "x" coordinate of a point on the unit circle corresponding to the desired angle must be found. Using CORDIC, we would start with the vector formula_2: In the first iteration, this vector is rotated 45° counterclockwise to get the vector formula_4. Successive iterations rotate the vector in one or the other direction by size-decreasing steps, until the desired angle has been achieved. Step "i" size is arctan(1/(2"i"−1)) for "i" = 1, 2, 3, …. More formally, every iteration calculates a rotation, which is performed by multiplying the vector formula_5 with the rotation matrix formula_6: The rotation matrix is given by: Using the following two trigonometric identities: the rotation matrix becomes: The expression for the rotated vector formula_11 then becomes: where formula_13 and formula_14 are the components of formula_5. Restricting the angles formula_16 so that formula_17 takes on the values formula_18, the multiplication with the tangent can be replaced by a division by a power of two, which is efficiently done in digital computer hardware using a bit shift. The expression then becomes: where and formula_21 can have the values of −1 or 1, and is used to determine the direction of the rotation; if the angle formula_22 is positive then formula_21 is +1, otherwise it is −1. formula_24 can be ignored in the iterative process and then applied afterward with a scaling factor: which is calculated in advance and stored in a table, or as a single constant if the number of iterations is fixed. This correction could also be made in advance, by scaling formula_2 and hence saving a multiplication. Additionally it can be noted that: to allow further reduction of the algorithm's complexity. After a sufficient number of iterations, the vector's angle will be close to the wanted angle formula_28. For most ordinary purposes, 40 iterations ("n" = 40) is sufficient to obtain the correct result to the 10th decimal place. The only task left is to determine if the rotation should be clockwise or counterclockwise at each iteration (choosing the value of formula_29). This is done by keeping track of how much the angle was rotated at each iteration and subtracting that from the wanted angle; then in order to get closer to the wanted angle formula_28, if formula_31 is positive, the rotation is clockwise, otherwise it is negative and the rotation is counterclockwise. The values of formula_33 must also be precomputed and stored. But for small angles, formula_34 in fixed point representation, reducing table size. As can be seen in the illustration above, the sine of the angle formula_28 is the "y" coordinate of the final vector formula_36, while the "x" coordinate is the cosine value. Mode of operation: vectoring mode. The rotation-mode algorithm described above can rotate any vector (not only a unit vector aligned along the x axis) by an angle between –90° and +90°. Decisions on the direction of the rotation depend on formula_22 being positive or negative. The vectoring-mode of operation requires a slight modification of the algorithm. It starts with a vector the x coordinate of which is positive and the y coordinate is arbitrary. Successive rotations have the goal of rotating the vector to the x axis (and therefore reducing the y coordinate to zero). At each step, the value of "y" determines the direction of the rotation. The final value of formula_22 contains the total angle of rotation. The final value of "x" will be the magnitude of the original vector scaled by "K". So, an obvious use of the vectoring mode is the transformation from rectangular to polar coordinates. Software implementation. The following is a MATLAB/GNU Octave implementation of CORDIC that does not rely on any transcendental functions except in the precomputation of tables. If the number of iterations "n" is predetermined, then the second table can be replaced by a single constant. The two-by-two matrix multiplication represents a pair of simple shifts and adds. With MATLAB's standard double-precision arithmetic and "format long" printout, the results increase in accuracy for "n" up to about 48.
1030222	Novo is a 2002 romantic comedy film starring Eduardo Noriega. Storyline. Graham (Noriega) suffers from severe amnesia and cannot remember what he has done hours after he has done it. Consequently, he must write everything down; who he knows, where he should be, even where he works. His boss takes advantage of his disability and manipulates him into having sex with her. Graham meets a temp called Irène and begins a relationship with her, which is difficult as he never remembers who she is. To help him remember, Irène writes her name on his chest with a marker pen. A little boy called Antoine is frequently seen in the same places Graham happens to be. Graham doesn't notice this due to his condition, but it is clear to the viewer that the child is of significance. Through the machinations of his boss, Graham's notebook is stolen leading him into a misadventure to try to recover it.
588979	Amjad Khan (12 November 1940 – 27 July 1992) was an Indian actor and director. He worked in over 130 films in a career spanning nearly twenty years. He enjoyed popularity for his villainous roles in Hindi films, the most famous being the iconic Gabbar Singh in the 1975 classic "Sholay" and of Dilawar in "Muqaddar Ka Sikandar" (1978). Early life. Amjad Khan was born in Hyderabad,India the son of legendary actor Jayant. He was the brother of fellow actor Imtiaz Khan and Inayat Khan who acted in one film. In 1957, he was cast in the movie "Ab Dilli Dur Nahin". Khan was educated at St Theresa's High School, in Bandra, Mumbai. He attended R D National College, and was the general secretary – the highest elected student body representative. Career. Before Amjad came to films he was a theatre actor. His first role was in the film "Nazneen" (1951). His next role was at the age of 17 in the film "Ab Dilli Dur Nahin" (1957). He made appearances in minor roles with father Jayant in a few films. He assisted K. Asif in "Love and God" in the late 1960s and had made a brief appearance in the film. The film was left incomplete after Asif's death in 1971, and it ended up releasing in 1986. In 1973 he made his debut as an adult in "Hindustan Ki Kasam". In 1975 he was offered the role of dacoit "Gabbar Singh" for the film "Sholay" (literally meaning "flames") by Salim who was one of its writers. For preparation for the role, Amjad read "Abhishapth Chambal", a book on Chambal dacoits written by Taroon Kumar Bhaduri (actress Jaya Bhaduri's father). Amjad shot to stardom with the movie. His portrayal of Gabbar Singh is considered by many to be the first depiction of pure evil on the screen in Indian Cinema: a totally evil character who doesn't make excuses for his evil. His mannerisms and dialogues have become an integral part of Bollywood lexicon and spawned numerous parodies and spoofs. "Sholay" went on to become a blockbuster. Although it boasted an ensemble cast of superstars including Dharmendra, Amitabh Bachchan and Sanjeev Kumar, he stole the thunder with his unorthodox and eerie dialogue delivery that was perfectly apposite to the total lack of empathy his character was supposed to convey. Even today people fondly remember his dialogues and mannerisms. He later appeared in advertisements as Gabbar Singh endorsing Britannia Glucose Biscuits (popularly known as "Gabbar Ki Asli Pasand"), and it was the first incidence of a villain being used to sell a popular product. After the success of "Sholay", Khan continued to play villain roles in many subsequent Hindi films in the 1970s, 1980s and early 1990s – superseding, in terms of popularity and demand, the earlier Indian actor, Ajit — portraying more sophisticated and urbane criminal bosses, mastermind of bank robberies, murders and conspiracies to seize power. He often acted as villain opposite Amitabh Bachchan as the hero. His role in 'Inkaar' was also presented in terrifying manner. He made his presence felt in 'Des Pardes', 'Nastik', 'Satte Pe Satta', 'Dada', 'Chambal Ki Kasam', 'Ganga Ki Saugandh', 'Hum Kisise Kam Nahin', and 'Naseeb'. Khan was also acclaimed for playing many unconventional roles. In the critically acclaimed film "Shatranj Ke Khiladi" (1977) (based on the novel of the same title) by Munshi Premchand and directed by Satyajit Ray, Khan played the helpless and deluded monarch Wajid Ali Shah, whose kingdom, Avadh, is being targeted by British colonialists from the British East India Company. It is the only movie in which he dubbed a song. He played many positive roles in films such as "Yaarana" (1981) and "Laawaris" (1981) as Amitabh's friend and father respectively. In the art film "Utsav" (1984), he portrayed Vatsayana, the author of the "Kama Sutra". In 1988 he appeared in the Merchant-Ivory English film "The Perfect Murder" as an underworld don. He excelled at playing comical characters in films such as "Qurbani" (1980), "Love Story", and "Chameli Ki Shaadi" (1986). In 1991, he reprised his role as Gabbar Singh in "Ramgarh Ke Sholay", a parody of the legendary film which included look-alikes of Dev Anand and Amitabh Bachchan. He ventured into directing for a brief period in the 1980s directing and starring in "Chor Police" (1983), which was a success, and "Ameer Aadmi Gareeb Aadmi" (1985) which failed to do well at the box office. Amjad was the president of the Actors Guild association. He was respected in the film industry. He would intervene and negotiate disputes between actors and directors/producers. One such dispute occurred when Dimple Kapaddia agreed to play a mother role and later backed down. The entire film producer community tried to boycott her. Amjad intervened on behalf of the Actors Guild. Personal life. In 1972, he married Shehla Khan; the following year, she gave birth to their first child, Shadaab Khan, who acted in a few films. He also had a daughter Ahlam Khan and another son Seemaab Khan. His daughter Ahlam married popular theater actor Zafar Karachiwala in 2011. Death. In 1986, Khan had a near-fatal accident on the Mumbai-Goa road, when he drove his car into a tree while trying to avoid a boulder. The drugs administered to him caused a serious weight problem for the rest of his life. As a result of his increasing weight, he died in 1992 after suffering from heart failure at the age of 51. Several of the films he had completed were released after his death, right until 1996. His funeral procession passed from his house in Pali Hill to the Muslim Burial in Bandra East.
276602	Calvin Cylk Cozart (born 1957, February 1,) is an American actor who has appeared in over 30 films and 20 television shows. Early life. Cozart was born in the Great Smokey Mountains of Knoxville, Tennessee. His father is African American and his mother is Native American (Cherokee). Prior to becoming an actor, Cozart was an established and very successful model working in Miami, Florida. In his high school years, he was a talented football and basketball player. He attended Montreat-Anderson, Jr College, in Black Mountain, North Carolina, his freshman year then transferred to King College in Bristol, Tennessee, on a basketball scholarship. After college, Cozart almost made a professional career out of basketball, but he suffered a foot injury in the NBA's Summer Pro League in Los Angeles California. A demonstration of his basketball skills can be seen in the film "White Men Can't Jump", which also starred actors Wesley Snipes and Woody Harrelson. Career. Some of his most prominent roles are Det. Jimmy Mulvey opposite Bruce Willis in "16 Blocks", Steven Spielberg's "Eagle Eye", and the family feature film, "Adrift". Cozart co-created and produced, "Spirit of Life", for the 2000 Summer Paralympic Games in Sydney, Australia. "Spirit of Life" earned a Videographer Award, Aurora Award, NY Film Festival Bronze Award, and Telly Award. Currently, Cozart is the Director of Entertainment / Education for his Foundation, Keeping Dreams Alive, which focuses on mentoring children and teenagers from Jr, High School all the way through College. “Our Foundation is for all sports. KDA will help find Scholarships for the kids that have fallen through the cracks of life." Filmography. Actor 2013 - "Sweetwater" - (pre-production) Papa 2013 - "A Fine Step" - (post-production) 2013 -"Inch of Grace" - (short) Donnie 2009 -"Eagle Eye" "Batman" the Courier 2008 -"Steam" William 2006 -"16 Blocks" Det. Jimmy Mulvey 2005 - "Over There" - (TV series) Follow the Money
1038352	Andrew Lincoln (born Andrew James Clutterbuck, 14 September 1973) is an English actor, best known for his roles as Mark in the British Romantic Comedy "Love Actually", Simon in the Channel 4 sitcom "Teachers", and Rick Grimes in the AMC television series "The Walking Dead". Early life. Andrew James Clutterbuck was born in London, he is the younger son of a South African mother, a nurse, and an English father, a civil engineer. He grew up in Hull and moved to Bath at the age of 10. After leaving Beechen Cliff School, he attended the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts (RADA), where he changed his surname to Lincoln. Career. Lincoln made his first on-screen appearance in "Births and Deaths", a 1994 episode of Channel 4 sitcom "Drop the Dead Donkey". His first major role was Edgar "Egg" Cook, one of the lead characters in the highly successful BBC drama "This Life". He went on to star as probationary teacher Simon Casey in the Channel 4 sitcom "Teachers", and had a lead role as university lecturer and psychologist Robert Bridge in "Afterlife". Lincoln appeared in several films, including "Human Traffic" and "Love Actually", and directed two episodes in the third series of "Teachers". In 2009, he appeared in the stage production of "Parlour Song". He starred in the Sky One series "Strike Back" with Richard Armitage, and starred alongside Vanessa Paradis in Pascal Chaumeil's "Heartbreaker". In April 2010, Lincoln was cast as Rick Grimes, affecting a Southern USA accent in the live-action adaptation of the comic "The Walking Dead", and narrated the project at the 2010 San Diego Comic-Con International. Personal life. On 10 June 2006, he married Gael Anderson, the daughter of musician Ian Anderson. At the wedding, Apple Martin (daughter of Gwyneth Paltrow and Chris Martin) was the flower girl. He has two children. His older brother, Richard Clutterbuck, heads the Bristol Free School.
1102359	Adrien-Marie Legendre () (18 September 1752 – 10 January 1833) was a French mathematician. Legendre made numerous contributions to mathematics. Well-known and important concepts such as the Legendre polynomials and Legendre transformation are named after him. Life. Adrien-Marie Legendre was born in Paris (or possibly, in Toulouse, depending on sources) on 18 September 1752 to a wealthy family. He was given an excellent education at the Collège Mazarin in Paris, defending his thesis in physics and mathematics in 1770. From 1775 to 1780 he taught at the École Militaire in Paris, and from 1795 at the École Normale, and was associated with the Bureau des longitudes. In 1782, he won the prize offered by the Berlin Academy for his treatise on projectiles in resistant media, which brought him to the attention of Lagrange.
1054439	Jack Kehler (born May 22, 1946) is an American actor. He is sometimes credited as Jack Keeler.
1059565	Daddy Day Care is a 2003 comedy film starring Eddie Murphy. Written by Geoff Rodkey and directed by Steve Carr, the film was released in theaters on May 9, 2003. It was produced by Revolution Studios and released by Columbia Pictures. Although the film received mostly negative reviews, it was financially successful, grossing $164 million worldwide on a budget of $60 million plus prints and advertising. The 2007 sequel "Daddy Day Camp", starring Cuba Gooding, Jr., was almost universally panned by critics but had success in the box office. Plot. Charlie Hinton is a hardworking father whose wife Kim has just gone back to work as a lawyer. They enroll their child, Ben, in Chapman Academy, a very academic pre-school headed by Miss Harridan. Soon after, Charlie is laid off. In need of money, he opens up a day care center, Daddy Day Care, with the help of his best friend Phil Ryerson. At first, the local moms are suspicious of men wanting to work with children (mainly because they think they are homosexual or child molesters). But as Daddy Day Care is cheaper and more child-centered than the academy, the latter begins to lose popularity. Miss Harridan attempts to shut down Daddy Day Care by notifying child services that Charlie and Phil are not following the regulations. Mr. Kubitz, a director of child services notifies them of the codes that need to be fixed, which Charlie and Phil quickly correct. Daddy Day Care grows in popularity and attracts more children. Mr. Kubitz informs Phil and Charlie that they need another employee to keep an appropriate ratio of children to caregivers. Luckily, Marvin, a former co-worker, had dropped by and after seeing how good he is at entertaining the children, Phil and Charlie ask him about joining. Marvin is unsure at first, but then finds himself falling for Kelli, the single mother of one of the children, and agrees. Later, Mr. Kubitz tells them they have too many kids to stay at Charlie's residence. They find an abandoned building with potential, but do not have the money to buy it. They hold a fund raising event called "Rock for Daddy Day Care" which Miss Harridan finds out about. Miss Harridan and her assistant wreck the festival by unplugging a bouncy castle, filling the food with cockroaches, switching face paint with glue, releasing animals from the petting zoo, and turning on the sprinklers. Daddy Day Care does not raise enough money. Shortly after, Charlie and Phil are offered their old jobs back, accepting Miss Harridan's offer to take the kids back to the academy. Marvin, heartbroken by the closing of the day care, declines Charlie and Phil's offer to be on board their marketing panel. Charlie soon realizes that marketing is not what it is all cracked up to be, and successfully convinces the children and their parents to return to Daddy Day Care, making it a raging success, and causing Chapman Academy to shut down. Marvin is now in a relationship with Kelli. Miss Harridan now takes a job as a crossing guard, and her former assistant, Jenny, (Lacy Chabert) joins Daddy Day Care at the new facility. Release. Box office. Despite the negative critical ratings, the film was a box office success, grossing over $160 million worldwide based on a $60 million budget. Critical reception. The film received generally negative reviews from critics. Rotten Tomatoes gives it a score of 28% rating based on reviews from 125 critics; the site's consensus is: ""Daddy Day Care" does its job of babysitting the tots. Anyone older will probably be bored." On Metacritic, the film has a 39% rating based on 35 reviews, indicating "generally unfavorable" reviews. Sequel. Due to the film's success, a sequel was released in 2007 titled "Daddy Day Camp" with Cuba Gooding, Jr. replacing Eddie Murphy's role as Charlie Hinton.
1163598	Marlee Beth Matlin (born August 24, 1965) is an American actress. She is the only deaf performer to win the Academy Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role, which she won for "Children of a Lesser God". Her work in film and television has resulted in a Golden Globe award, with two additional nominations, and four Emmy nominations. Deaf since she was 18 months old, she is also a prominent member of the National Association of the Deaf. Early life. Matlin was born in Morton Grove, Illinois, to Libby (née Hammer) and Donald Matlin, an automobile dealer. She has two older brothers, Eric and Marc. She lost all hearing in her right ear and 80% of the hearing in her left ear at the age of 18 months. In her autobiography, "I'll Scream Later", she suggests that her hearing loss may have been due to a genetically malformed cochlea. She also indicated that she is the only member of her family who is deaf. Her family was Jewish, and of Russian descent, Matlin had a Bat Mitzvah, and managed to read her torah portion by learning Hebrew phonetically; she was later interviewed for the book "Mazel Tov: Celebrities' Bar and Bat Mitzvah Memories". Matlin graduated from John Hersey High School in Arlington Heights and attended Harper College. In chapter 11 of her autobiography "I'll Scream Later", she speaks of her two instances of child molestation – by her babysitter at the age of 11, and by her teacher in high school. Career. Matlin made her stage debut at the age of seven, as Dorothy in a children's theatre (ICODA) version of "The Wizard of Oz", and continued to appear with the ICODA children's theatre group throughout her childhood. Her discovery by Henry Winkler during one of her ICODA theater performances ultimately led to her film debut in "Children of a Lesser God" (1986). That film brought her a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Drama and an Academy Award for Best Actress. In 1989, she played a deaf widow in "Bridge to Silence". Matlin was nominated for a Golden Globe award for her work as the lead female role in the television series "Reasonable Doubts" (1991–1993) and was nominated for an Emmy Award for a guest appearance in "Picket Fences". She became a regular on the series during its final season. She portrayed Carrie Buck in the television drama "Against Her Will: The Carrie Buck Story" (1994) based on the United States Supreme Court case "Buck v. Bell" 274 U.S. 200 (1927). In the movie, Matlin played a hearing woman for the first time and earned a CableACE Nomination as Best Actress. Matlin appeared during the 20th season of the TV series, "Sesame Street", with Billy Joel (She did a signing version of "Just the Way You Are", and kissed Oscar the Grouch). Matlin later had recurring roles in "The West Wing", and "Blue's Clues". Other television appearances include "Seinfeld" ("The Lip Reader"), "The Outer Limits" ("The Message"), "ER", "Desperate Housewives", ' and '. She was nominated for Primetime Emmy Awards for her guest appearances in "Seinfeld", "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit" and "The Practice". In 2002, Matlin published her first novel, "Deaf Child Crossing", which was loosely based on her own childhood. She wrote and published a sequel to "Deaf Child Crossing," titled "Nobody's Perfect," which was produced on stage at the John F. Kennedy Center for Performing Arts in partnership with VSA arts in October 2007. In 2004, she starred in the movie "What the Bleep Do We Know?" as Amanda. She also hosted the 3rd annual Festival for Cinema of the Deaf in Chicago, October 15–18, 2004. In 2006, she played a deaf parent in "Desperate Housewives". She also had a recurring role as Joy Turner's (who made many jokes of Marlee's deafness at her expense) public defender in "My Name Is Earl" and played the mother of one of the victims in an episode of "." That same year, Matlin was cast in season 4 of "The L Word" as Jodi Lerner, a gay deaf sculptor. She appeared in season 4 (2007), season 5 (2008) and season 6 (2009) as the girlfriend of one of the show's protagonists, Bette Porter, (played by Jennifer Beals). On February 4, 2007, Matlin performed the "Star Spangled Banner" in American Sign Language at Super Bowl XLI in Miami, Florida. In January 2008, she appeared on "Nip/Tuck" as a television executive. On February 18, 2008, it was announced that Matlin would participate as a competitor in the sixth season of ABC's "Dancing with the Stars." Her dance partner was newcomer Fabian Sanchez. Matlin and Sanchez were the sixth couple eliminated from the competition. On May 6, 2009, Matlin received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. On November 8, 2009, Matlin appeared on "Seth & Alex's Almost Live Comedy Show", hosted by Seth MacFarlane and Alex Borstein. After Borstein imitated Matlin calling MovieFone and singing "Poker Face", Matlin herself appeared and launched into a comical tirade against Borstein over being made fun of, and how she was not invited to provide her own voice for "Family Guy". Matlin went on to voice a fictional deaf character in the Season 10 episode "The Blind Side". In 2010, Matlin produced a pilot for a reality show entitled "My Deaf Family", which she presented to various national network executives. Although they expressed interest, no network purchased rights to the show for ongoing production. On March 29, 2010, Matlin uploaded the pilot to YouTube and launched a viral marketing campaign. On July 26, 2010, Matlin signed a speech at an event commemorating the 20th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act. She was a finalist on the NBC show "The Celebrity Apprentice", competing to win money for her charity, The Starkey Hearing Foundation, finishing in second place. However, on one episode of "The Celebrity Apprentice" ("The Art of the Deal" aired on April 3, 2011), Matlin raised more funds than had ever been raised for charity in a single event on any television show before ($986,000). Donald Trump then donated an additional $14,000 to make the contribution an even million. She is now an active character on the abcfamily hit T.V. show Switched at Birth. Personal life. Matlin is actively involved with a number of charitable organizations, including Easter Seals (where she was appointed an Honorary Board Member), the Children Affected by AIDS Foundation, Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation, VSA arts, and the Red Cross Celebrity Cabinet. She was appointed by President Clinton in 1994 to the Corporation for National Service and served as chair of National Volunteer Week. Matlin received an honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters degree from Gallaudet University in 1987. In October 2007, she was appointed to the Gallaudet University Board of Trustees. In 1988, Matlin received the Samuel S. Beard Award for Greatest Public Service by an Individual 35 Years or Under, an award given out annually by Jefferson Awards. Matlin attended the 1987 Oscars to present the Academy Award for Best Actor. After signing her introduction in ASL, she spoke aloud the "names of the nominees" and of Michael Douglas, the winner. Matlin, who has described her personal identity as "a lot more than Deaf," was shocked by commentary on the event, which constituted a dynamic shift from when she "was widely praised by the Deaf community" for supporting the Gallaudet University Deaf President Now campaign on Nightline earlier in 1988. --> On April 14, 2009, Matlin released an autobiography, "I'll Scream Later". In it she describes her drug abuse and how it drove her to check herself into the Betty Ford clinic. She also wrote about her rocky, two-year relationship with actor William Hurt, who she claims was physically abusive to her and abused drugs during that time. She also addresses the sexual abuse she suffered at the hands of her babysitter. Matlin enjoys a sense of humor about her deafness: "Often I’m talking to people through my speaker phone, and after 10 minutes or so they say, 'Wait a minute, Marlee, how can you hear me?' They forget I have an interpreter there who is signing to me as they talk. So I say, 'You know what? I can hear on Wednesdays.'" Marriage. Matlin married Burbank police officer Kevin Grandalski on August 29, 1993, at the home of actor Henry Winkler, five days after her twenty-eighth birthday. They first met while she was filming a scene from "Reasonable Doubts" outside the studio grounds; the police department had assigned Grandalski to provide security and control traffic. They have four children: Sarah, Brandon, Tyler and Isabelle.
1057519	Inventing the Abbotts is a 1997 coming-of-age film directed by Pat O'Connor, starring Liv Tyler, Joaquin Phoenix, Billy Crudup, Jennifer Connelly, and Joanna Going. The screenplay by Ken Hixon is based on a short story by Sue Miller. The original music score was composed by Michael Kamen. Plot summary. The lives of two closely linked families dangerously intersect in a small Illinois town in the 1950s. Two brothers, Jacey and Doug Holt are growing up in Haley, Illinois, sons of a working single mother. Their father, a reckless risk-taker, has lost his life via a bet with Lloyd Abbott (Will Patton), his business partner. Abbott eventually becomes one of the town's foremost, wealthiest and most-admired citizens. The lives of the Holts and the Abbotts are intertwined through various entanglements. Lloyd Abbott and his distant wife, Joan, are the parents of three beautiful daughters, Alice, Eleanor and Pamela. Because of a misunderstanding of the circumstances surrounding his father's death (a supposed bet with Abbott that took the elder Holt's life), Jacey (Billy Crudup) seeks revenge on the Abbotts through the calculated seduction of the Abbott daughters. At first, Jacey cannot wait to escape the suffocating life in Haley; later in the film, however, he is pulled back as he idolizes the Abbott family, and obsesses about the oldest daughter, Alice (Joanna Going), thus seeking to jockey his way into the Abbott family. At first, Doug (Joaquin Phoenix), the younger brother, admires and worships his brother's libertine lifestyle. However, as he matures, he discovers that all that glitters is not gold. He eventually falls in love with the youngest, virginal Abbott, Pamela (Liv Tyler), who protests his early, fumbling sexual advances, and she forces him to appreciate her for who she is, not what she may offer up to him. Meanwhile, Eleanor (Jennifer Connelly) is sent away to stewardess school after she and Jacey are caught by Lloyd Abbott, who cannot keep them apart. After two years of being apart from each other, Doug and Pamela meet again by chance while they are in college in Philadelphia. However, Doug and Jacey are brought back to Haley after their mother's death. They also find a letter from their late father that says he has sold their patent for a 1937 DeSoto Coupe convertible. Despite the obstacles that Lloyd Abbott places in the way of any of the Holt brothers ever seeing his daughters again, Doug convinces Abbott at the end of the story of his true love for Pamela and receives his blessing on a future relationship.
1065604	The Great Santini is a 1979 film which tells the story of a Marine officer whose success as an F-4 Phantom military aviator contrasts with his shortcomings as a husband and father. The film explores the high price of heroism and self-sacrifice. It stars Robert Duvall, Blythe Danner, Michael O'Keefe, Lisa Jane Persky, Julie Anne Haddock, Brian Andrews, Stan Shaw and David Keith. The film is set in 1962 before widespread American involvement in the Vietnam War and is based on the novel of the same name by Pat Conroy. In the novel Conroy makes the point that Santini is a warrior without a war, and in turn is at war alternately with the service that he loves and his family. Production. The script was adapted by Lewis John Carlino from the novel, with assistance from an un-credited Herman Raucher. Carlino directed the film. The title character, Lt. Col. Wilbur "Bull" Meechum, aka "The Great Santini", was based on Conroy's father. Much of the film was shot on location in Beaufort, South Carolina. The setting of the Meechum house was later used in "The Big Chill". The story, for the most part, follows the book. The movie's major divergence is the absence of Sammy, Ben Meecham's Jewish best friend. The spelling of the family's name was also changed from Meecham to Meechum. Also changed is that in the book Meecham flies and commands a squadron of F-8 Crusaders while in the film the fighters shown are F-4 Phantom IIs. The film was shot in a 1.85:1 aspect ratio, but was only produced in that ratio in the LaserDisc format. Both the VHS & DVD releases are in 1.33:1 also known as or pan & scan. To date the film has not had a release in the Blu-ray Disc format. Release. Warner Bros. executives were concerned that the film's plot and lack of bankable actors would make it hard to market. It made its world premiere in Beaufort in August 1979 and was soon released in North Carolina and South Carolina to empty houses. Believing that the film's title - giving the perception that it was about circus stunts - would be the problem, it was tested as "Sons and Heroes" in Fort Wayne, Indiana, as "Reaching Out" in Rockford, Illinois, and "The Ace" in Peoria, Illinois. As it tested better in Peoria, "The Ace" stuck, though even with its new title it was still performing poorly. Orion Pictures eventually pulled the film and sold cable rights to HBO along with the airline rights to recoup its losses. Producer Charles A. Pratt still had faith in the film and raised enough money, some coming from Orion, to release "The Great Santini" in New York under its original title. It ended up getting great reviews and business was steady, but two weeks later debuted on HBO, and audiences stopped coming. Orion executive Mike Medavoy blamed the film's box office failure to a lack of a traditional release: screening it first in New York and expanding markets due to word-of-mouth. Critical reception. The film was well received. Roger Ebert wrote that "Like almost all my favorite films, "The Great Santini" is about people more than it's about a story. It's a study of several characters, most unforgettably the Great Santini himself, played by Robert Duvall...There are moments so unpredictable and yet so natural they feel just like the spontaneity of life itself." Awards. "The Great Santini" received two Academy Award nominations: Best Actor in a Leading Role (Duvall) and Best Actor in a Supporting Role (O'Keefe).
590542	Jait Re Jait (English: "Win, Win") is 1977 Indian Marathi language film directed by Dr. Jabbar Patel and produced by Usha Mangeshkar and Hridaynath Mangeshkar, under the banner Mahalakshmi Chitra. The film stars Mohan Agashe and Smita Patil in lead roles. The film won President's Silver Medal for Best Feature Film in Marathi at National Film Awards. It is considered to be one of the greatest musical hits of all time in Marathi cinema. It is based on a book by G. N. Dandekar. Though the music achieved all-time hit status, the film was a box-office disaster.
1051595	"Ascenseur pour l'échafaud is a 1958 French film directed by Louis Malle. It was released as Elevator to the Gallows in the USA (aka Frantic") and as Lift to the Scaffold in the UK. It stars Jeanne Moreau and Maurice Ronet as criminal lovers whose perfect crime begins to unravel when Ronet is trapped in an elevator. The film is often associated by critics with the film noir style.[http://www.allmovie.com/cg/avg.dll?p=avg&sql=1:18507] According to recent studies, it also introduces very peculiar narrative and editing techniques so that it can be considered a very important experience at the base of the Nouvelle Vague and the so-called New Modern Cinema. The movie presents also unique and completely new solutions in the history of cinema in the relationship between music and image. The score by Miles Davis has been described by jazz critic Phil Johnson as "the loneliest trumpet sound you will ever hear, and the model for sad-core music ever since. Hear it and weep." Synopsis. Florence Carala (Moreau) and Julien Tavernier (Ronet) are illicit lovers who plan to kill Florence's husband, Simon Carala (Wall), a wealthy industrialist who is also Julien's boss. Julien, an ex-Foreign Legion parachutist officer veteran of Indochina and Algeria, climbs up the office block on a rope, shoots Carala in his office without being seen, and arranges the room to make it look like a suicide. However, upon going to his car, Julien realizes he left the rope dangling outside the building. Leaving his expensive car unlocked and with the keys in the ignition, he goes to remove the evidence, but, after disposing of the rope, becomes trapped in the elevator as the building closes down for the weekend. Julien's car is stolen by a young couple, small-time crook Louis (Poujouly) and flower-seller Veronique (Bertin). Florence, who is waiting for Julien at a cafe, sees the car go by and Veronique leaning out of the window. She assumes that Julien has run off with Veronique, and wanders the Paris streets despondently all night. Louis and Veronique spend the night in a motel, checking in under the name "Mr. and Mrs. Julien Tavernier," and make the acquaintance of Horst Bencker (Petrovich) and his wife Frieda (Andersen), a German tourist couple. Frieda takes pictures of Louis and her husband with Julien's miniature camera. After the Benckers go to bed, Louis attempts to steal their luxury car. Bencker catches Louis and threatens him with a "gun" (really a cigar tube). Louis shoots and kills the couple with Julien's handgun.
1712407	Guns of the Magnificent Seven (1969) is a Zapata Western and the second sequel to the 1960 western film, "The Magnificent Seven" (itself based on Akira Kurosawa's "Seven Samurai").
1749953	The Gods Must Be Crazy is a 1980 South African comedy film written and directed by Jamie Uys. Originally released in 1980, the film is the first in "The Gods Must Be Crazy" series of films. Set in Botswana, it tells the story of Xi, a Sho of the Kalahari Desert (played by Namibian San farmer Nǃxau) whose tribe has no knowledge of the world beyond. The film is followed by one official sequel although three unofficial sequels were produced in Hong Kong starring Nǃxau. Plot. The film is a collision of three separate stories — the journey of a Ju/'hoansi Bushman to the end of the earth to get rid of a glass bottle, the romance between a bumbling scientist and a school teacher, and a band of guerrillas on the run. Xi and his tribe of Bushmen relatives are "living well off the land" in the Kalahari Desert. They are happy because the gods have provided plenty of everything, and no one in the tribe has unfulfilled wants. One day, a glass bottle is thrown out of an airplane and falls to earth unbroken. Initially, this strange artifact seems to be another "present" from the gods — Xi's people find many uses for it. But unlike anything that they have had before, there is only one glass bottle to go around. This exposes the tribe to a hitherto unknown phenomenon, property, and they soon find themselves experiencing things they never had before: jealousy, envy, anger, hatred, and even violence. Since it has caused the tribe unhappiness on two occasions, Xi decides that the glass bottle is an evil thing and must be thrown off of the edge of the world. He sets out alone on his quest and encounters Western civilization for the first time. The film presents an interpretation of civilization as viewed through Xi's perceptions. There are also plot lines about shy biologist Andrew Steyn who is studying the local animals (which, because of his nervousness around women, he once describes as "manure-collecting"); the newly hired village school teacher, a former newspaper reporter named Kate Thompson; and some guerrillas led by Sam Boga, who are being pursued by government troops after an unsuccessful attempt to massacre the Cabinet of "Barani" and the president. Also taking a share of the limelight is Steyn's Land Rover, dubbed the Antichrist (also "Son of a Mlakka") by his assistant and mechanic, M'pudi. Also part of the chaos is an impudent safari tour guide named Jack Hind, who has designs on Thompson and often steals Steyn's thunder. Xi happens upon a farm and, being hungry as well as oblivious to the concept of ownership, shoots a goat with a tranquilizer arrow. For this he is arrested and jailed for stealing livestock. M'pudi, who lived with the Bushmen for a long time and speaks Xi's language, realizes that Xi will die in the alien environment of a prison cell, and he and Steyn manage to hire Xi as a tracker for the 11 remaining weeks of his prison sentence. Meanwhile, the guerrillas invade the school where Kate teaches and use her and her pupils as human shields for their escape by foot to the neighboring country and threaten to kill the children if they see one soldier. Steyn, M'pudi and Xi, who are unwittingly observing the local wildlife within the terrorists' chosen path, manage to immobilize the guerrillas as they are passing by and save Kate and the children. Steyn allows Xi to leave to continue his quest to the edge of the world, and subsequently he and Kate become romantically involved. Xi eventually finds himself at the top of a cliff with a solid layer of low-lying clouds obscuring the landscape below. This convinces Xi that he has reached the edge of the world, and he throws the bottle off the cliff (this scene was filmed at God's Window in Eastern Transvaal, South Africa (now Mpumalanga), at the edge of the escarpment between the Highveld and Lowveld of South Africa). Xi then returns to his tribe and a warm welcome from his family. Release. "The Gods Must Be Crazy" was released in South Africa in 1980 by Ster Kinekor Pictures; it became a box-office record breaker in that country. For the film's overseas release, the original Afrikaans dialogue was dubbed into English, and voiceover work was provided for !Kung and Tswana lines. At the time, it broke all box office records in Japan and it broke all box office records for a foreign film in the United States. In mid-November 1986, "The Gods Must Be Crazy" was released on videocassette in the U.S. by CBS/Fox through their Playhouse Video label. Reception. Based on nineteen reviews, "The Gods Must Be Crazy" has carried a 95% "Fresh" score on Rotten Tomatoes. Reaction and controversy. The portrayal of Xi as incapable of understanding the gods was viewed as insulting by some, including the government of Trinidad and Tobago, which consequently banned the film. However, the film's many fans believe that it is exactly the opposite, a send-up of so-called civilization and a condemnation of racism with Xi as the hero. Xi's life is portrayed as the norm, while the other peoples are portrayed as strange. The film's progression from documentary style to comedy to the fantastical ending adds its allegorical point. Some of the debate centered on Xi's reaction to the first white people he met: he assumed they were gods since they looked and acted so strangely (he had only known other Sho before), had road vehicles (which he also had never seen before), and were comparatively huge. However, within minutes he began doubting they were gods. The second film clearly shows Xi's greater understanding as he tells the children about the people he had met: "Heavy people… who seem to know some magic that can make things move," but are "not very bright, because they can't survive without their magic contrivances". The film's depictions of the Bushmen, even if they were superficially accurate in the decades before the rapid social changes of the 1970s and 1980s, are no longer accurate. The DVD's special feature "Journey to Nyae Nyae" (N!xau's homeland in northeastern Namibia), filmed in 2003, demonstrates this. Aftermath. Despite the film's having grossed over $100 million worldwide, Nǃxau reportedly earned less than $2,000 for his starring role. Before his death, Uys supplemented this with an additional $20,000 as well as a monthly stipend.
1056852	The Cheyenne Social Club is a 1970 Western comedy, written by James Lee Barrett, directed and produced by Gene Kelly, and starring James Stewart, Henry Fonda and Shirley Jones. It's the story about an aging cowboy who inherits a brothel and decides to turn it into a respectable boarding house, against the wishes of both the townspeople and the ladies working there. Plot. In 1867, John O'Hanlan (Stewart) and Harley Sullivan (Fonda) are aging cowboys working on open cattle ranges in Texas. O'Hanlan gets a letter from an attorney in Cheyenne, Wyoming, that his disreputable and now deceased brother, DJ, left him something called The Cheyenne Social Club in his will. After they make the 1,000 mile (1,600 km) trek to Cheyenne, O'Hanlan and Sullivan learn that The Cheyenne Social Club is a high-class brothel next to the railroad. O'Hanlan's new-found status as a man of property makes him the most popular man in town, until he decides to turn the Club into a respectable boarding house. The ladies of the Club hunker down, and show no sign of leaving. John gets into a bar-room brawl with several men who are equally angry at the prospect of the Club closing. John then learns from DJ's lawyer that DJ had made a deal with the railroad: if the ladies leave the Club, the land the Club is on will revert to the railroad. John returns to the Club to discover that Jenny, the head girl (Jones), has been assaulted by a man named Corey Bannister. John, with Harley following along, arms himself and goes to the bar where Bannister is. John kills Bannister when Bannister mistakes Harley's cracking pecans for a second gun. "Just like DJ would have done" the barkeeper intones of John's heroics. The Sheriff advises John and Harley that Bannister's relatives are sure to head for Cheyenne once they learn of Bannister's death. He says he would like to stay and help John and Harley face down the Bannisters, but has to leave town on business. Harley heeds the Sheriff's warning and leaves for Texas in spite of John's pleads to stay. En route, Harley meets several men at a campfire. While engaging in conversation with the men, Harley discovers they are the Bannisters. He gets on his horse and rides on. The Bannisters show up at the Club and a gunfight ensues. John, with help from Jenny, kills two Bannisters from the window. A third Bannister enters the house through a back door and is killed by Jenny. Harley, who has returned, kills the fourth Bannister after climbing the railroad water tower. John yells, "Is that you Harley?" The head Bannister hears this and remembers Harley as the man who approached them at the campfire. He shoots at Harley, but is gunned down by John. The sixth Bannister runs away. John and Harley are feted at the bar which had formerly shunned them. The Sheriff congratulates them and then tells them 20 to 30 of the Bannisters cousins, the Markstones, are heading to Cheyenne. He says he would like to stay and help John and Harley face the Markstones, but has to leave town again on business. This time, John decides to leave and he has DJ's lawyer transfer ownership of the Club to Jenny. Months later, while working cattle on the range in Texas, John receives a letter from Jenny. He is touched by it, but tosses it into the fire before him. Harley is upset John has destroyed the letter because he wanted to read it. They then ride off together, arguing. Production. Set in a brothel with suggestive dialogue, the movie was one of the few off-color films that James Stewart did. He also specifically asked that his friend Fonda be cast; they had most recently worked together two years previously in "Firecreek". Stewart and Fonda's first film together had been the musical comedy "On Our Merry Way" (1948), and they had also both appeared in "How the West Was Won" (1962) but had no scenes together despite playing best friends. The exteriors were shot at two Western film lots Bonanza Creek Ranch and Eaves Movie Ranch outside Santa Fe, New Mexico, while the interiors were shot at the Samuel Goldwyn Studios in Hollywood. Reception. "The Cheyenne Social Club" made a small profit, and was poorly received by critics. It didn't receive any notoriety until decades later with numerous cable television broadcasts. Barrett's script earned a 1970 Writers Guild of America nomination for "Best Comedy Written Directly for the Screen", but lost to Neil Simon for "The Out-of-Towners".
582070	Sahabzade Irrfan Ali Khan (born 7 January 1967), credited as Irrfan Khan or even simply Irrfan, is an Indian film actor known for his works predominantly in Bollywood. He is also known for his works in British Indian films, Hollywood ventures, and a Telugu film. He was credited as Irrfan Khan in the 2012 U.S. film "The Amazing Spider-Man". In India, Khan gained the reputation of a skilled actor from his roles in Bollywood movies such as "The Warrior", "Maqbool", "Haasil", "Paan Singh Tomar" and "Rog". He also hosted the TV show "Mano Ya Na Mano" and appeared in popular Vodafone commercials. In 2012 he appeared in the lead titular role in "Paan Singh Tomar", a biopic about an athlete. Both the movie and Khan's performance received critical acclaim. He has appeared in more than 30 films in Bollywood. Khan's English-language mainstream work includes character roles in movies like "The Namesake", "New York, I Love You", "A Mighty Heart", "Slumdog Millionaire", "The Amazing Spider-Man", and "Life of Pi", as well as in the HBO series "In Treatment". Khan has won three Filmfare Awards, a Screen Actors Guild Award, and an Independent Spirit Award nomination. He is also the recipient of 2011 Padma Shri award, the fourth highest civilian award in India. He has garnered the National Film Award for Best Actor in the 60th National Film Awards 2012, for his performance in Paan Singh Tomar. Early life and background. Irrfan Khan was born in Jaipur, to a Muslim family. Khan's mother, Begum, was from the Tonk Hakim family, and his father, the late Jagirdar, was from the Khajuriya village near the Tonk district, and ran a tyre business. Khan was studying for his MA degree, when he earned a scholarship to study at National School of Drama (NSD) in New Delhi in 1984. Career. Irrfan Khan moved to Mumbai, where he acted in numerous television serials like "Chanakya", "Bharat Ek Khoj", "Sara Jahan Hamara", "Banegi Apni Baat", "Chandrakanta" (Doordarshan), "AnooGoonj" on Doordarshan" "Star Bestsellers" (Star Plus), and "Sparsh". Much before these, he had acted in a teleplay on Doordarshan named "Laal Ghaas Par Neele Ghode" where he played Lenin. It was based on a translation by Uday Prakash of a Russian play by Mikhail Shatrov. He was the main villain in a series called "Darr" (which aired on Star Plus), where he played the role of a psycho serial killer, opposite Kay Kay Menon. He also played the role of famous revolutionary Urdu poet and Marxist political activist of India Makhdoom Mohiuddin in "Kahkashan" produced by Ali Sardar Jafri. He acted in some of the episodes of "Star Bestsellers" (aired on Star-Plus). In one of the episodes (Ek Sham Ki Mulakat), his role was of a parchoon shopkeeper who has a misconception that his landlord's wife is trying to seduce him and it turns out that his own wife (Tisca Chopra) is cheating on him. In the other one, he played the role of an office-accountant who, after being insulted by his female boss, took revenge. He also appeared in a serial called "Bhanvar" (aired on SET India) for two episodes. In one episode, he performed the role of a thug who somehow lands in court. Theatre and television kept him afloat until Mira Nair offered him a cameo in "Salaam Bombay" (1988) though his role was edited out in the final film. In the 1990s he appeared in the critically acclaimed film "Ek Doctor Ki Maut" and "Such a Long Journey" (1998) and various other films which went unnoticed. After many unsuccessful films, things changed when London-based director Asif Kapadia gave him the lead in "The Warrior", a historical film completed in 11 weeks on location in Himachal Pradesh and Rajasthan. In 2001 "The Warrior" opened in international film festivals, making Irrfan Khan a known face. In 2003–04 he acted in Indian born writer-director, Ashvin Kumar's short film, "Road to Ladakh". After the film received rave reviews at international festivals, the film is now being made into a full length feature, again starring Irrfan Khan. That same year he played the title role in the critically acclaimed "Maqbool", an adaptation of Shakespeare's "Macbeth." His first Bollywood main lead role came in 2005 with film "Rog" in which his performance was praised by critics, especially a critic wrote "Irfaan's eyes speak louder than his words and every time he is in frame, be it talking to his buddy Munish or arguing with Suhel, he shows his capability as an actor". Thereafter he appeared in several films either playing the leading role or a supporting role as a villain. In 2004 he won the Filmfare Best Villain Award for his role in film "Haasil". Critics praised his performance in "Haasil" saying that "as the ambitious, brash, fearless goon who is mind-blowing. He is outright scary and makes you sit up, wondering what he'll do next". In 2007, he appeared in the box office hits "Metro", for which he received a Filmfare Best Supporting Actor Award, and "The Namesake". His chemistry with Konkana Sen in "Metro" was one of the highlights of the Multi-star movie. They were closely followed by his appearance in the international films "A Mighty Heart" and "The Darjeeling Limited". Even after becoming a successful actor in Bollywood, he has not severed his ties with television. He anchored a show "Mano Ya Na Mano" (airing on Star One). He hosted another programme named "Kyaa Kahein" which was similar to "Mano Ya Na Mano". In 2008, he was featured as a narrator in an Arts Alliance production, id – Identity of the Soul. The performance toured worldwide, with tens of thousands turning out to see the event as it toured the West Bank. He also plays the police inspector in the 2008 film "Slumdog Millionaire", for which he and the cast of the movie won a Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture. About him, Danny Boyle said, "he has an instinctive way of finding the "moral center" of any character, so that in Slumdog, we believe the policeman might actually conclude that Jamal is innocent. Boyle compares him to an athlete who can execute the same move perfectly over and over. "It's beautiful to watch." In 2009, he featured in the film "Acid Factory". Khan has stated that he wants to do more and more action films in the future. He also appeared as an FBI agent in "New York" and as a Gujarati diamond merchant in "New York, I Love You". His latest film "Paan Singh Tomar" in which essays the role of real-life Rajput runner Paan Singh Tomar has received extremely favourable reviews by critics. Irrfan has been highly praised. He recently worked on the third season of the HBO series "In Treatment", enacting the part of Sunil, who is finding it difficult to come to terms with his wife's death and loneliness after moving to New York, USA. In addition, Irrfan signed a contract to be in the new Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham remake in December 2011. Khan played Dr. Rajit Ratha in "The Amazing Spider-Man" in 2012. Khan played the adult version of Piscine "Pi" Molitor Patel in the Film adaptation of Life of Pi. Within both Spider-man and Life of Pi, Khan's characters refer to a Richard Parker, Peter Parker's father and a Bengal Tiger respectively. Personal life. On 23 February 1995, Khan married writer Sutapa Sikdar, who is also an NSD graduate. They have two children named Babil and Aryan. He has two brothers, Imran Khan and Salman Khan and one sister Rukhsana Begum. Sutapa said about him, "He was always focused. I remember when he would come home, he would head straight for the bedroom, sit on the floor, and read books. The rest of us would be hanging around gossiping." Even now, as reads through at least one new Hollywood script a week, he believes in doing his homework, staying up till 3 in the morning, taking notes, trying to understand ways to play his character. Sikdar recalls how he would demand as many as 11 rewrites from her when he directed episodes of Banegi Apni Baat. "Once he dragged me to a police station in Mumbai to understand procedure," she recalls. Recently, he has changed his name to Irrfan. He also said he likes the sound of the extra "r" in his name.
1084302	How to Stuff a Wild Bikini is a 1965 beach party film from American International Pictures. The sixth entry in a seven-film series, the movie features Mickey Rooney, Annette Funicello, Dwayne Hickman, Brian Donlevy, and Beverly Adams. The film features brief, uncredited appearances by Frankie Avalon and includes Buster Keaton in one of his last roles. Synopsis. The story begins with Frankie (Avalon) going to Tahiti on naval reserve duty. While cavorting with local girls, Frankie realizes that Dee Dee (Funicello) might be disloyal to him. When Frankie seeks help from a witch doctor (Buster Keaton), the witch doctor sends a sea beauty, Cassandra (Adams), to lure Ricky (Hickman), an advertising exec, away from Dee Dee.
1503970	Mary Beth Peil (born June 25, 1940) is an American actress and singer. Early life. Born in Davenport, Iowa in 1940, Peil (pronounced "peel") trained as an opera singer at Northwestern University under Lotte Lehmann. There she became a member of the Gamma Phi Beta sorority. In 1964 she won both the Young Concert Artists International Auditions and the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions. Career. During the 1960s, Peil toured with Boris Goldovsky's opera company and the Metropolitan Opera's national company singing such roles as Susanna in Mozart and da Ponte's "The Marriage of Figaro". She also sang with the New York City Opera.
1132127	"The Muppets' Wizard of Oz" is a 2005 musical television film directed by Kirk Thatcher and starring Ashanti and The Muppets with supporting roles done by Jeffrey Tambor, Quentin Tarantino, David Alan Grier, and Queen Latifah. The film was produced by Bill Barretta and written by Debra Frank, Steve L. Hayes, Tom Martin, and Adam F. Goldberg. "The Muppets' Wizard of Oz" follows a young woman named Dorothy Gale who dreams of becoming a singer but is unable to pursue her dreams. After being swept up by a tornado with her pet prawn Toto, she embarks on a journey to meet the Wizard of Oz, the person who both she and the citizens of Oz believe can help make her dream come true. The film was co-produced by The Jim Henson Company in association with Fox Television Studios, Touchstone Television, and the The Muppets Studio. Pre-production on "The Muppets' Wizard of Oz" took place throughout February 2004, and filming occurred during September 2004. ABC made several changes to the film after the initial script was written, ultimately deciding to base the film on L. Frank Baum's original novel "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz" instead of the 1939 film. As with the preceding Muppet films, "The Muppets' Wizard of Oz" became a musical, and included five new songs written and composed by Michael Giacchino. "The Muppets' Wizard of Oz" premiered on April 27, 2005 at the Tribeca Film Festival. The film's television premiere was broadcast on ABC on May 20, 2005. Overall, the film ended up receiving negative reviews from critics. Most critics agreed that the film was too mature for young audiences, and that the cameo scenes and popular culture marks were unnecessary. Plot. Dorothy Gale (Ashanti) is an orphaned young woman living in a trailer park in Kansas. Her Aunt Em (Queen Latifah) and Uncle Henry (David Alan Grier) own a diner, to which Dorothy works for room and board. Her dream of becoming a singer is slim, but when waiting on some truckers Dorothy overhears that the Muppets are conducting a cross-country show called "Star Hunt" and are looking for a backup singer. Aunt Em disapproves, but with Uncle Henry's best wishes, she goes to the audition. However, the Muppets are about to end the audition, and Dorothy only manages to give them a demo CD that she created beforehand. In returning home, the civil defense sirens sound as a tornado is headed for Dorothy's trailer park. When Aunt Em and Uncle Henry run into the county storm shelter for safety, Dorothy hurries back to her family's mobile home to get Toto, her pet prawn. She does not make it out in time, and the two are swept by the tornado across the vast fields of Kansas. When Dorothy climbs out of the wreckage, she finds that Toto (Pepe the King Prawn) can talk and that she is no longer in Kansas. Dorothy and Toto discover that they are in Munchkinland, a small town part of the vast Land of Oz. After discussing her situation with the town's people, the Munchkins (played by Rizzo the Rat and the other rats), she learns that the land's ruler the Wizard, has the power to grant her wish of becoming a famous singer. She meets the Good Witch of the North (Miss Piggy), and receives a pair of magic silver slippers from the Wicked Witch of the East (Miss Piggy), the Witch of the North's sister who was killed when Dorothy's trailer fell on her. Soon after, she embarks on a journey with Toto on the yellow brick road to meet the Wizard of Oz, who lives in the Emerald City, the capital of Oz. On her journey, she meets three creatures: a Scarecrow (Kermit), a Tin Thing (Gonzo), and a Cowardly Lion (Fozzie). They are also seeking the Wizard of Oz to give them a brain, heart, and courage, respectively. The group meets various obstacles involving a deep gorge where the Kalidah Critics (Statler and Waldorf) are heckling them and a Poppy Field Club run by Clifford which nearly puts them to sleep. After arriving at the Emerald City and meeting the Wizard, Dorothy and her friends are sent to retrieve the Wicked Witch of the West's magic eye, a tool she uses to see anything she desires in the Land of Oz. The group assumes that completing this task will result in the granting of their wishes. The Wicked Witch of the West (Miss Piggy) sees them coming and consults with her pet Foo-Foo and her henchman Johnny Fiama. When the Wicked Witch of the West plans to have either her pack of 40 great wolves, a flock of 40 crows, and a swarm of black bees to do away with them, Johnny tells her that the animals that work for her are unavailable due to personal reasons. This forces her to resort to using her Magic Biker Cap to call Sal Minella and the other Flying Monkeys (played by Sweetums, Crazy Harry, Black Dog, Calico, Old Tom, Spotted Dick, and Aretha from "Fraggle Rock") to deal with them. The Witch and the Flying Monkeys capture Dorothy and Lion while Scarecrow and Tin Thing are dismantled by the Flying Monkeys. After being threatened to be killed by her, Toto calls the Munchkins, who set Dorothy free and hold up the witch. During the final battle, it cuts away to a scene where Quentin Tarantino is discussing with Kermit on ideas for Dorothy to defeat the witch. When Quentin's ideas are deemed too expensive and too violent for a family film, they agree for Dorothy to do a powerful kick on the witch. Cutting back to the action, Dorothy kicks the witch into her own "bottled water bath" which contains tap water which she is severely allergic to. Angel Marie admitted that he filled the water bottles with tap water to restock them. This action causes her to melt as Johnny averts Foo-Foo's eyes. With the Wicked Witch of the West dead, Dorothy finds the magic eye unharmed and floating in the tub and grabs it. After gaining control of the Flying Monkeys upon giving Sal Minella back the group's Magic Biker Cap, Dorothy has Scarecrow and Tin Thing rebuilt by the Flying Monkeys. Then she and her friends travel back to the Emerald City to have their wishes granted. When they all storm into the Wizard's room, they discover it's just a Hollywood effects stage and that the Wizard (Jeffrey Tambor) is just an ordinary man pretending to be someone he isn't. He asked for the witch's eye so that she could not see him for who he really was. Even so, he still proceeds to grant their wishes. Dorothy finally becomes a singer in the Land of Oz, but realizes that all she ever really wanted was to go back home and be with her family. After traveling back to Munchkinland, she meets Glinda the Good Witch of the South (Miss Piggy), who tells her that if she clicks her heels together three times, she will be able to go anywhere she desires, contrary to how the Good Witch of the North said to get to the Emerald City. She does so, saying "take me home to Aunt Em". She is then spun by the slippers' charm into Kansas, and, much to her surprise, she finds out that Kermit was looking for her, saying that she had the best voice they heard on the whole search, and that she has been chosen to go on the Star Hunt. Dorothy, having been reunited with her aunt and uncle, and feeling that she is not ready to leave Kansas to become a real star, rejects, but Aunt Em says that she wants her to go with the Muppets on their Star Hunt, much to her even bigger surprise. She then sings "Good Life" on television with them as the film ends. Cast. Muppet Performers. Additional Muppet performed by Adam Behr, Jeny Cassidy, Drew Massey, Gord Robertson, Geoff Redknap, and James Rowley. Steve Whitmire and Dave Goelz appear as audience members at Aunt Em's Diner during the finale. Production. When The Walt Disney Company acquired the Muppets franchise from The Jim Henson Company in February 2004, the Muppets were re-introduced to the public by marketing products and guest appearing on television shows such as "Good Morning America" and "America's Funniest Home Videos". After a new film titled "The Muppets' Wizard of Oz" was announced by The Jim Henson Company, Fox Television Studios, Touchstone Television, and the Muppets Holding Company signed on to help produce it. Filming took place throughout September 2004 in Vancouver, British Columbia. Before filming, ABC announced that the film would be based on the original book, not the 1939 film. In many ways, elements from "The Muppets' Wizard of Oz" follow the elements of the original book more closely than that of the 1939 film. A prominent example is the changing of the color of the magic slippers; from ruby in the 1939 film to silver for the 2005 film. On August 25, 2004, it was announced that Hilary Duff, Jessica Simpson, and Ashanti had auditioned for the role of Dorothy Gale, but Ashanti had won the part. When asked about how she felt about working with the Muppets, Ashanti replied, "I love children, and to me, the Muppets are just like little kids." She also stated, "The director had to give me a few pointers and tips for acting with them, but the most important thing that I learned was to keep eye contact." Also in August 2004, BBC News reported that Quentin Tarantino would appear in the film. Music. Michael Giacchino, who had previously worked on a Muppet-related project which is video game "Muppet Monster Adventure" and would become an Academy Award-winning composer, worked with Jeannie Lurie, Adam Cohen, Debra Frank, and Steve Hayes to write five original songs for the film. The five songs created were "Kansas", "When I'm With You", "It's a Good Life", "The Witch is in the House", and "Nap Time". "When I'm With You" was later nominated for a Primetime Emmy in the Outstanding Music and Lyrics category, but lost to "Mary Jane/Mary Lane" from "Reefer Madness". Ashanti and the Muppet cast, mainly Bill Barretta and Eric Jacobson, contributed the vocals for each of the songs. Ted Kryczko produced the album, Booker T. Washington White prepared the songs for recording, and Paul Silveira and Brandon Christy mixed the film's songs. Soundtrack. "The Muppets' Wizard of Oz" official soundtrack was released on May 17, 2005. The album was an enhanced soundtrack titled "Best of Muppets featuring The Muppets' Wizard of Oz" as it was not a film-specific soundtrack, but an album featuring the Muppets' best songs from "The Muppet Show" as well as songs from the film. Track listing Release. "The Muppets' Wizard of Oz" premiered on April 27, 2005 at the Tribeca Film Festival. The television premiere was on May 20, 2005 at 8:00pm on ABC in the US, where it was rated TV-PG. It aired in Canada on CBC Television, and in the UK on December 18, 2005. In the US, the film's official soundtrack was released on May 17, 2005. Buena Vista Home Entertainment released the DVD and VHS in both the US and in international territories. The film was released to Region 1 DVD and VHS on August 9, 2005. The Canadian Home Video Classification System rated the film G for all home video releases within Canadian territories. The Region 2 DVD was released on April 3, 2006. The film was rated U by the British Board of Film Classification, K-3 in Finland, and G in Australia. The DVD and VHS were released under the title "Extended Version" in the US and "Anniversary Edition" outside the US. The extended version contains 20 minutes of footage cut from the feature film, including the footage of the Kelly Osbourne and Quentin Tarantino cameos. The DVD and VHS included an extended interview with Quentin Tarantino, a blooper reel, and a behind-the-scenes look at the film guided by Pepe the Prawn. In the US, the DVD and VHS release of the film was in a 1.33:1 (fullscreen) aspect ratio, whereas the international versions are in the original 1.78:1 (widescreen) aspect ratio. During Macy's annual Flower Show promotion, the store's windows along Broadway displayed flower arrangements illustrating six scenes from the movie, while the store sold "The Muppets' Wizard of Oz"-related merchandise, such as plush dolls. Critical reception. 7.75 million viewers watched "The Muppets' Wizard of Oz" on its television premiere night in the United States; it ranked as the forty-second most-watched television program of the week. Michael Schneider of "Variety" wrote that it "performed solidly ... particularly with adults 18–34, teens and kids." The film received mostly negative reviews from critics. At Rotten Tomatoes, the movie currently holds a 38% "rotten" rating, with an average of three out of eight critics giving the film a positive review. For the film's positive response, Kevin Carr stated that "When you dig down and actually find (and watch) the new Muppet material, some of the magic is still there." MaryAnn Johanson of Flick Filosopher said that, "It's not on a par with the Muppet movie madness of old, but it's darn close." According to the Bums Corner's review the film was a "treat for all ages, and that it was a colorful, musical, humorous romp." Keith Allen of Movie Rapture gave the film 2.5 stars out of 3, explaining that the film's humor was surprisingly clever, and that the film would frequently make you laugh. Mutant Reviewers commented that although the Muppet deal with Walt Disney was disappointing, the film managed to be funny and witty. For the film's negative response, David Nusair of Reel Film Reviews warned that the film was "strictly for kids" Nusair stated that although Ashanti can sing, she cannot act. Joshua Tyler of Cinema Blend explained that Dorothy visiting the Wizard of Oz to become a star instead of going back home was a big mistake, and that it showed how shallow society has become. R.J. Carter of The Trades gave the film a B-, also stating that Dorothy's wish to become a star was a selfish one. Ultimate Disney's review found that the extended version of the film did more harm than good; Andy Dursin of The Aisle Seat said that the original film was "dull" and that the extended version was actually an improvement over the original. Cold Fusion Video felt that although the film was entertaining, it lacked the heart and wit of Jim Henson's Muppet films. Bryan Pope of DVD Verdict said that the film drained the Muppets of their spirit and was slightly gratuitous. Techtite TV reviews felt that the film was done poorly on all levels, and that the film was on the higher end of TV-PG. Other reviewers felt that the film's attempt to appeal to an older, more mature audience was ultimately a bad idea. Kerry Bennett of Parent Previews warned that it sometimes steered "dangerously off course" due to an excess of sexual content and violence. Referential humor to the marriage of Jennifer Lopez, Manolo Blahnik style silver shoes, and films such as "Girls Gone Wild", "The Passion of the Christ", "Apocalypse Now", and "Kill Bill: Volume 1" were seen as too mature. Cold Fusion Video judged the Kelly Osbourne cameo as "pointless". Dursin contrasted the two guest appearances and found that the Tarantino cameo dragged the film down. Critics were split on whether ABC's decision to base the film's plot on the original novel and not the 1939 film was ultimately a good one. See also. List of television films produced for American Broadcasting Company
1165299	Ben Cooper (born September 30, 1933) is a retired American actor of film and television, who won a Golden Boot Award in 2005 for his work in Westerns. Early films. Cooper's earliest credited screen appearance was as an eighteen-year-old in 1952–1953 on the "Armstrong Circle Theatre", then on NBC, in the two episodes "The Commandant's Clock" and "Changing Dream". Thereafter, he appeared in numerous films: "Thunderbirds" (1952) as Calvin Jones, "Women They Almost Lynched" (1953) as Jesse James Dingus, "A Perilous Journey" (1953) as Sam, "Flight Nurse" (1953) as Private First Class Marvin Judd, "Sea of Lost Ships" (1954) as a crewman, "Johnny Guitar" (1954) as Turkey Ralston, "The Outcast" (1954) as The Kid, "The Rose Tattoo" as Seaman Jack Hunter, "Duel at Apache Wells," "The Last Command" (1955) as Jeb Lacey, (1957) as Johnny Shattuck (or the Durango Kid), and "Outlaw's Son" as Jeff Blaine. In 1959, he guest starred on CBS's fantasy drama "The Millionaire" as William Williams in the episode "Millionaire Alicia Osante." Westerns. Starting in 1959, Cooper began appearing on dozens of television westerns; first, on NBC's "Tales of Wells Fargo" as Matthew Land in the episode "Home Town", on "Wichita Town" as Tom Warren in the episode "Passage to the Enemy", and on Ward Bond's "Wagon Train" as the principal guest star of two episodes, "The Steve Campden Story" and "The Tom Tuckett Story". In 1960, he starred on Don Durant's CBS series "Johnny Ringo", a spinoff of "Dick Powell's Zane Grey Theater", on which Cooper appeared five times between 1956 and 1960. The "Zane Grey" episodes were "Vengeance Canyon" (1956) as Clint Harding, "The Sunrise Gun" (1959) as Sam Duskin, Jr., and three 1960 segments, "Miss Jenny" with Vera Miles in the title role and Cooper as Darryl Thompson, "The Sunrise Gun," again as Sam Duskin, Jr., and "Desert Flight" as Sandy. Cooper appeared in the title guest-starring role in "Stagecoach West", starring Wayne Rogers and Robert Bray. In "The Saga of Jeremy Boone" (November 29, 1960), Cooper is cast as a wealthy young Texan seeking to establish his own ranch in the Midwest and who claims descent from frontiersman Daniel Boone. He is smitten by Felicia Sparks, a beautiful conwoman some ten years his senior, played by Marti Stevens. Steve Brodie plays Deuce Stone, Felicia's estranged partner, who tries to kill Jeremy for the $40,000 he has announced exists in his money belt. Wayne Rogers as Luke Perry races to keep Deuce from killing Jeremy, who survives a shot in the back. Other westerns followed: NBC's "The Westerner" as Cal in "Hand on the Gun" (1960) and ABC's "The Rifleman" as Simon Lee in the 1961 episode "Face of Yesterday," NBC's "Bonanza" as Sam Kirby in "Showdown" (1960) and as Johnny Lightly in "The Horse Breaker" (1961). In 1962, Cooper appeared in two episodes of NBC's "Laramie" as Sandy Catlin in "The Runt" and as Johnny Hartley, the nephew of Sheriff Mort Corey, played by series character Stuart Randall, in the episode entitled "Gun Duel." Cooper appeared three times on CBS's "Gunsmoke": as Breck Taylor in the two 1965 episodes "Breckinridge" and "Two Tall Men" and as Pitt Campbell in "Apprentice Doc" in 1961. He appeared on CBS's "Rawhide" as Clell Miller in the episode "The Photographer" (1964). In 1967, Cooper appeared as Lieutenant Drake in the film "Red Tomahawk". In 1969, he starred in the syndicated series "Death Valley Days" as Jason Tugwell in the episode "Biscuits and Billy the Kid." In 1970, Cooper appeared as another "Jason" in the episode "With Love, Bullets, and Valentines" of the long-running NBC series "The Virginian" starring James Drury and Doug McClure. In 1971, Cooper appeared in the role of "Colorado" in the James Garner film "Support Your Local Gunfighter". In 1974, Cooper guest starred as Goodnight in the episode "The Cenotaph: Part 2" of ABC's "Kung Fu" starring David Carradine. Twenty-one years later in 1995, Cooper appeared as Sheriff Dowd in the episode "The Promise" of another "Kung Fu" series, "". Drama. Cooper made many appearances in roles other than westerns. In 1961, he appeared as Dauger in the American Civil War episode, "Still Valley", of CBS's "The Twilight Zone" created by Rod Serling. In 1962, he guest starred as Mark Perry in "The Exclusive Story" on Robert Young's CBS comedy/drama series "Window on Main Street". In 1965, Cooper was cast as Sam Grayson in the episode "Won't It Ever Be Morning?" of NBC's "Kraft Suspense Theatre". He guest starred in five episodes of CBS' s legal drama "Perry Mason" starring Raymond Burr: as murderer Frank Wells in "The Case of the Impatient Partner", as Davis Crane in "The Case of the Promoter's Pillbox" (1962), as James Grove in "The Case of the Polka-dot Pony" (1962), as Jasper in "The Case of the Mischievous Doll" (1965), and as Lowell Rupert in "The Case of the Baffling Bug" (also 1965). On September 16, 1966, he appeared, along with Larry Ward, James T. Callahan, and Warren Stevens, in the ABC science fiction series "The Time Tunnel" in the role of Nazarro, an astronaut, in the episode "One Way To The Moon." In 1969, he portrayed "Pete" in the episode "The Playground" of Mike Connors's CBS detective series "Mannix". The next year, he appeared again as Pete in the "Mannix" episode "To Cage a Seagull." He portrayed Officer Brinkman in the episode "Log 95: Purse Snatcher" of Jack Webb's NBC police drama "Adam-12", starring Martin Milner and Kent McCord. He guest starred on Robert Young's ABC medical drama, "Marcus Welby, M.D." In 1974, Cooper appeared as Ben Steward in the episode "Cheers" of David Hartman's NBC drama "Lucas Tanner". In 1975, he appeared as Hank in the two-parter "The Sky's the Limit" on NBC's "Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color". In 1979, he appeared as Waverly in NBC's "B. J. and the Bear" starring Greg Evigan. He continued in the role of Waverly in 1979–1980, when NBC revamped the series as "The Misadventures of Sheriff Lobo", with Claude Akins in the title role. Cooper appeared in episodes "Perkins Bombs Out," "Treasure of Nature Beach," "Police Escort," "The Boom Boom Lady," and "Dean Martin and the Moonshiners." Later career. From 1981 to 1983, appeared as the stunt scene director in seven episodes of ABC's "The Fall Guy" starring Lee Majors, including "The Molly Sue" "The Further Adventures of Ozzie and Harold", "Manhunter", "License to Kill: Part 1" and "No Way Out". Among Cooper's last television roles were as Mr. Parrish in two 1985 episodes, "Dead Ends" and "Terms of Estrangement", of CBS's prime time soap opera "Dallas" and as a bureaucrat in the "Dallas" spinoff, "Knots Landing" in the 1986 episode "His Brother's Keeper." He appeared too in 1986 as J. Howard Tucker in the episode "Gibbon Take" of the NBC legal drama "L.A. Law". Cooper's last film roles were as in "Lightning Jack" (1994) and in the 1996 television production "Joan Crawford: Always the Star". Cooper, a native of Hartford, Connecticut, and his wife, Pamela R. Cooper, reside in the Greater Los Angeles Area. They have two daughters. He attended Columbia University in New York City.
583760	Priyamaanavale () is a 2000 Tamil film directed by K. Selva Bharathy, which is the remake of the Telugu film "Pavithra Bandham". The film has Vijay and Simran playing the lead roles, with S. P. Balasubrahmanyam, Vivek and Radhika Choudhry in supporting roles. The film revolves around a working woman in a struggling family and portrays the sufferings she receives from her husband with negative shades in his role but later he realises his fault and he becomes a loving and caring husband. The film was released on October 26, 2000. Plot. Vishwanathan (S. P. Balasubrahmanyam) is a multi-millionaire industrialist, who lives in a palatial house, with his only chid, a son named Vijay (Vijay). Vijay has been born with a silver spoon and indulges in life's temptations and weaknesses to the extreme. Vishwanath would like his son to get married and be responsible. Vijay agrees to get married on condition a kind of a test drive! His condition is that his future bride should sign an agreement that the marriage is on a trial basis for one year and, thereafter, if Vijay does not fall in love with her, the marriage gets annulled. Vishwanathan asks his personal assistant, Priya (Simran), to quit her job and marry Vijay, but Priya refuses initially. Priya comes from a poor family, consisting of her mom, two sisters, and one brother. Priya reconsiders this offer and asks for financial support for her mom and siblings, to which Vishwanath agrees happily. Vijay and Priya are married. After the marriage, Vijay and Priya do become friends, and Priya goes out of her way to look after Vijay when he meets with an accident. At the end of the year, however, Vijay decides to annul the marriage, as had been agreed upon. Priya leaves Vijay and returns home heavy heartedly. Complications arise when Priya gets pregnant, and her family and people in the community start to question her living with her mom and who the biological father is. Vijay seems to be enjoying himself but slowly and eventually he starts to feel a longing for Priya and her staunch devotion to him. Priya gets a job in a new company; to her surprise, on the day when the company's managing director arrives and everyone greets him, she's bewildered to see that it's Vijay. He later confesses to her that he's a changed person and wants her back. But, even after constant persuasion, she disagrees. Later, Priya and her family hold a ceremony on the occasion of her to-be-born child. As the guests start to come in and give her presents, Vishwanath and Vijay arrive and with presents. Priya gets up in front of everyone reveals Vijay to be her husband and tells them about the contract. Soon after an altercation follows and Vijay and his father walk out followed by all the guests. A few days later, Priya gets to know that her uncle (Kazan Khan) and Vijay's uncle Thalaivasal Vijay, who had attempted to cheat Vijay, have escaped from prison and are looking out for Vijay who had fired them from his father's company for cheating and fraud. Priya gets anxious and tries to reach Vijay's home as soon as possible. On the way she learns that the whole thing was a setup meant to lure her to come back to Vijay. Enraged, she goes to confront Vijay. While at the other end, the villains has really escaped from the prison and are stabbing Vijay to death. Without knowing all this, when she reaches Vijay's home, she accuses him of this shameless act. Vijay, who is now in extreme pain, takes out the wine bottle piece stabbed in his stomach by the two rogues. Priya who is shocked, runs toward him, slips and goes into labour. Vijay, with all his strength, gets up and drives Priya to the Hospital and there she delivers the baby.
501418	Al Sapienza (born July 31, 1962) is an American actor, who has had numerous roles in television, stage and film productions. He is most well known for his role as Mikey Palmice on the HBO series "The Sopranos" as well as Marty Spinella, a lobbyist for the teachers' union in the Netflix series "House of Cards". He played the role of Dr. Jake Housman in the North American premiere of the stage version of Dirty Dancing. Early life. Sapienza was born in New York City, New York, the son of Angela Louise Caldi and Joseph Richard Sapienza. His four grandparents all originated from different regions of Italy. He is the youngest among his four siblings. He graduated with a B.S. from New York University in 1986.
1162770	Martin Gabel (June 19, 1912 – May 22, 1986) was an American actor, film director and film producer. Life and career. Gabel was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the son of Ruth (née Herzog) and Israel Gabel, who was a jeweler. He married Arlene Francis on May 14, 1946, and they had a son named Peter Gabel, former president of New College of California. Gabel's most noted work was as narrator and host of the May 8, 1945 CBS Radio broadcast of Norman Corwin's epic dramatic poem "On a Note of Triumph", a commemoration of the fall of the Nazi regime in Germany and the end of World War II in Europe. The broadcast was so popular that the CBS, NBC, Blue and Mutual networks broadcast a second live production of the program on May 13. The Columbia Masterworks record label subsequently published an album of the May 13 production. The production became the title focus of the Academy Award-winning short film "" in 2005, the 60th anniversary year of the broadcast. Gabel won the 1961 Tony Award for Best Supporting or Featured Actor (Dramatic) for "Big Fish, Little Fish"; he was also noted for his performances in the Broadway productions of "Baker Street", in which he played Professor Moriarty; "The Rivalry", in which he played Stephen A. Douglas. One of the original members of Orson Welles's Mercury Theatre, Gabel played Javert in the radio adaptation of "Les Misérables", and he portrayed Cassius in the company's modern-dress production of "Julius Caesar" (1937). Gabel made few films over his career, usually in small roles. A notable large supporting part was as crime boss Tomas Rienzi in Richard Brooks's "Deadline U.S.A." (1952), starring Humphrey Bogart. Gabel played another mob figure in a Frank Sinatra private-detective film, "Lady in Cement" (1968), then co-starred again with Sinatra in "Contract on Cherry Street" and "The First Deadly Sin". He played businessman Mr. Strutt in Alfred Hitchcock's "Marnie" (1964), and a psychiatrist in the Billy Wilder version of "The Front Page" (1974) with Walter Matthau and Jack Lemmon. He was also a frequent guest panelist on the popular CBS Television Sunday night game show "What's My Line?", on which his wife Arlene Francis regularly appeared.
68652	Francine Faure (6 December 1914 in Oran, Algeria – 24 December 1979), a pianist specializing in Bach and a noted mathematician, is perhaps best known as the second wife of Albert Camus, whom she met in 1937 in Algiers. They were married in Lyon on 3 December 1940. She came from a middle-class French family in Oran, Algeria, which was a French colony at the time. She also taught mathematics, sometimes as a substitute teacher. Personal life. Francine's father died in World War I, at the Marne, where Camus' father had also died. Her mother, Fernande, was considered by Camus biographer Olivier Todd to be domineering. Her grandfather had built part of the Oran harbor. Although Camus was indifferent if not hostile to formal marriage and was serially unfaithful to Francine, the couple had twins, Catherine and Jean Camus, in Paris in 1945 after the city's liberation. Francine had moved there from Algeria after two years' separation from Albert, who was participating in the French resistance at the time. Friends of Camus reported that Francine had something of a fiery temper, and once threw a tray of cocktail drinks at Albert during an argument. She suffered from and was hospitalized for depression, for which insulin and electroshock therapy were at various times prescribed. At one point she threw herself from a balcony, whether to escape the hospital or to kill herself is not known. Her depression was blamed in part on her husband's affairs, although she had her own affair with the actress María Casares. She and Camus are buried together in Lourmarin.
1084194	The Giant Spider Invasion is a low-budget 1975 film produced by Transcentury Pictures, a partnership owned by the film's director Bill Rebane. The film is about giant spiders that terrorize the town of Merrill, Wisconsin and the surrounding area. "The Giant Spider Invasion" was given a U.S. release in theaters in 1975, and was distributed by Group 1 Films. The iconic theatrical poster art was a throwback to the giant monster movies of the 1950s. The film received a considerable theatrical run and became one of the fifty top grossing films of that year. After a three time ABC television network run, the movie achieved additional exposure many years later, when it was featured in a 1997 episode of "Mystery Science Theater 3000" ("MST3K") (season 8, episode 10). It is now regarded as a cult classic in the B film realm. The film is listed in Golden Raspberry Award founder John Wilson's book The Official Razzie Movie Guide as one of the The 100 Most Enjoyably Bad Movies Ever Made. The film gives major roles to some actors who might have been considered "has-beens" at the time. The leads were Steve Brodie and Barbara Hale, with other roles going to Alan Hale, Jr. and Leslie Parrish. The film's one "Giant Spider" was constructed by covering a Volkswagen automobile with artificial black fur, with the fake legs operated from the inside by seven members of the crew. The back of the car was the front of the monster, and its red tail lights served as the monster's glowing eyes. A few other "giant spiders" were puppets representing spiders as large as dogs. Plot. The central plot of the film revolves around the titular spider invasion, which occurs when what appears to be a meteorite crashes down in rural Wisconsin, and spawns spiders of varying sizes.
584090	Jayaprakash is an Indian film actor and producer. He ventured into film business in the early 2000s as a producer, making several films under his banner GJ Cinema and later turned actor, with Cheran's 2007 film, "Mayakannadi". Subsequently performing a variety of supporting roles, he found more success as a character actor, with his most notable performances featuring in "Pasanga", "Naadodigal", "Naan Mahaan Alla" and "Mankatha". Career. Acting. He made his acting debut in 2007 with the film "Mayakannadi", following which he received more acting assignments. His role as the village school teacher, Chokkalingam, in Company Production's critically acclaimed "Pasanga" is considered his breakthrough performance, for which he received accolades and several awards. Apart from "Pasanga", he essayed notable supporting roles in other commercially successful ventures such as "Naadodigal", "Vamsam", "Naan Mahaan Alla","Bale Pandiya" and "Yudham Sei" and "Mankatha". He also appeared in Pandiraj's "Marina". Producer. As a producer he has produced several films like "Chellamae", "April Maadhathil", "Thavasi" and many more under his GJ Cinema banner. He hasn't starred in any of the film that he had produced. Before starting GJ Cinema banner he produced films like "Porkaalam" and "Gopala Gopala" with M. Kajamaideen under Roja Combines. Both GJ cinema and Roja Combines have been closed down for long time. Personal life. Jayaprakash is Maharashtrian by birth. He has two sons, Niranjan and Dushyanth, who turned actors with the 2010 M. Sasikumar film "Eesan".
1105364	Chen Jingrun (, May 22, 1933 – March 19, 1996) was a Chinese mathematician who made significant contributions to number theory. Personal life. Chen was the third son in a large family from Fuzhou, Fujian, China. His father was a postal worker. Chen Jingruen graduated from the Mathematics Department of Xiamen University in 1953. His advisor at Chinese Academy of Sciences was Hua Luogeng. Research. His work on the twin prime conjecture, Waring's problem, Goldbach's conjecture and Legendre's conjecture led to progress in analytic number theory. In a 1966 paper he proved what is now called Chen's theorem: every sufficiently large even number can be written as the sum of a prime and a semiprime (the product of two primes) — e.g., 100 = 23 + 7·11. Commemorations. The Asteroid 7681 Chenjingrun was named after him. In 1999, China issued an 80-cent postage stamp, titled "The Best Result of Goldbach Conjecture," with a silhouette of Chen and the inequality: Several statues in China have been built in memory of Chen. At Xiamen University, the names of Chen and four other mathematicians — Peter Gustav Lejeune Dirichlet, Matti Jutila, Yuri Linnik, and Pan Chengdong — are inscribed in the marble slab behind Chen's statue (see image).
1062944	Sally Cecilia Hawkins (born 27 April 1976) is an English actress. Her performance as Poppy in the 2008 film "Happy-Go-Lucky" won her several international awards, including the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy. Other significant roles include Susan in "Vera Drake" (2004), Sue Trinder in the BBC serial "Fingersmith" (2005), Anne Elliot in "Persuasion" (2007), Rita O'Grady in "Made in Dagenham" (2010), and Ginger in the Woody Allen film "Blue Jasmine" (2013). Early life. The daughter of Jacqui and Colin Hawkins, authors and illustrators of children's books, Hawkins was born in Dulwich, and brought up in Blackheath, in southeast London. She attended James Allen's Girls' School in Dulwich. She graduated from the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in 1998. Career. Hawkins' theatre appearances include "Much Ado About Nothing" (2000), "A Midsummer Night's Dream" (2000), "Misconceptions" (2001), "Country Music" (2004), and David Hare's adaptation of Federico García Lorca's play "The House of Bernarda Alba" in 2005. Hawkins made her first notable screen performance as Samantha in the 2002 Mike Leigh film "All or Nothing". She also appeared as Slasher in the 2004 film "Layer Cake." She played the role of Zena Blake in the BBC adaptation of Sarah Waters' novel, "Tipping the Velvet" in 2002. Her first major television role came in 2005, when she played Susan Trinder in the BAFTA-nominated BBC drama "Fingersmith", an adaptation of Sarah Waters' novel of the same name, in which she co-starred with Imelda Staunton, as she had in "Vera Drake". Since then she has gone on to star in another BBC adaptation, Patrick Hamilton's "Twenty Thousand Streets Under the Sky". Hawkins appeared in three episodes of the BBC comedy series "Little Britain", in addition to "Ed Reardon's Week" on BBC Radio 4. She has also contributed to the BBC Radio 4 series "Concrete Cow". In 2006, Hawkins returned to the stage, appearing at the Royal Court Theatre in Jez Butterworth's "The Winterling." In 2007, she played the lead in a new film of Jane Austen's "Persuasion", and followed this with her critically acclaimed performance in "Happy-Go-Lucky". Questions and a minor controversy arose when Hawkins was not nominated for an Academy Award for her performance as Poppy. It was the first year since 2000-01 that the winner of the Golden Globe for Best Actress in a Motion Picture Musical or Comedy was not nominated for an Academy Award, and the first year since 1995-96 that no one from the category was nominated. During 2006 she also made uncredited appearances in Richard Ayoade's "Man to Man with Dean Learner" where she played various uncredited roles from Personal Assistant to Wife of Steve Pising in various deleted scenes included on the DVD. Hawkins' 2009-10 films included "Desert Flower", "Never Let Me Go", and "Happy Ever Afters". In November 2010, she appeared on Broadway as Vivie in "Mrs. Warren's Profession". In 2011, Hawkins appeared in "Submarine" and had a supporting role in the film adaptation of "Jane Eyre". Hawkins will appear in "Godzilla" in 2014.
393891	Crush and Blush (; lit. "Miss Hongdangmu" or "Miss Carrot") is a 2008 South Korean film. It is the debut feature film of director Lee Kyoung-mi, and also the first film to be produced by Park Chan-wook. "Crush and Blush" premiered at the 13th Pusan International Film Festival, and went on general release in South Korea on October 16, 2010. Plot. Yang Mi-sook is an unpopular and frumpy high school Russian teacher, who has a habit of going red in the face. For ten years she has been harbouring a crush on Seo Jong-cheol, her former teacher and now married colleague, though he is more interested in pretty new teacher Lee Yoo-ri. Mi-sook tries to put a halt to this blossoming romance, forming an unlikely alliance with Jong-cheol's daughter, Jong-hee.
485416	George Robert Price (October 6, 1922 – January 6, 1975) was an American population geneticist. Originally a physical chemist and later a science journalist, he moved to London in 1967, where he worked in theoretical biology at the Galton Laboratory, making three important contributions: first, rederiving W.D. Hamilton's work on kin selection with a new Price equation; second, introducing (with John Maynard Smith) the concept of the evolutionarily stable strategy (ESS), a central concept in game theory; and third, formalising Fisher's fundamental theorem of natural selection. After radical Christian conversion and giving all his possessions to the poor, he committed suicide. Early life. Price was born in 1922. His father, an electrician, died when Price was four. His mother was a former opera singer, and the family struggled through the Great Depression.
400666	Christopher Paul "Chris" Gethard (pronounced /'gɛθɚd/) (born May 23, 1980) is an American actor, comedian, and writer. He is the host of "The Chris Gethard Show", a public-access talkshow based out of New York City. Life and career. Personal life. Gethard was born in West Orange, New Jersey, to Martha and Jeremy Gethard. Gethard is the author of "Weird NY", a book detailing the ghost stories and urban legends of New York, and "A Bad Idea I'm About to Do", a collection of stories from Gethard's life, which has been highlighted on This American Life. Previously, Gethard served as an editorial assistant for the popular "Weird NJ" and "Weird US" publications. He is an avid fan of The Smiths and has two tattoos related to the band—Morrissey's signature on his right shoulder (based on an actual signature he got in marker on his arm), and "It takes strength to be gentle and kind," a lyric from "I Know It's Over," on his right bicep. Comedy. In addition to his books, Gethard is an improvisational actor who works largely out of Manhattan's Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre. He began taking classes at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre in 2000 while he was a student at Rutgers University. He is in the longform improvisation team The Stepfathers. He organizes a monthly show entitled "The Nights of Our Lives". He has also been part of the UCB Theater's national touring company. An early noted work was entitled "Darryl", a one-man show where he portrayed troubled baseball player Darryl Strawberry. Gethard was featured on Variety magazine's "Ten Comics to Watch in 2010" list. Gethard has appeared in multiple CollegeHumor.com videos. He has also appeared on "Late Night with Conan O'Brien", "Hope and Faith", and Comedy Central's "Crossballs". In April 2010, he was tapped as the lead, alongside Horatio Sanz and Chris Parnell, in the Comedy Central sitcom "Big Lake". In May 2012, during the collegehumor allnighter Gethard announced he would be opening a strawberry farm in upper New Jersey. The Chris Gethard Show. Gethard currently hosts "The Chris Gethard Show", a talkshow that airs on New York City public-access and is streaming around the world on Gethard's website. The show began as a live piece at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theater in 2009. Gethard then went to Los Angeles to pitch a network version of the show, but ended up return to New York City to produce it for public-access because he wanted to retain the chaotic, cheep feel of early MTV talk shows. The show has since grown to consist of both stage and filmed performances. It has developed a reputation for outrageous spectacle, often featuring awkward viewer calls, high-concept group segments and Gethard subjecting himself to abuse, including an episode where he hired a kickboxer to hit him if he failed to answer simple questions about his friends. As a child, Gethard admired comedians who seemed to be able to do whatever they wanted, such as Howard Stern, Andy Kaufman and David Letterman. This interest influenced the style of "The Chris Gethard Show" and Gethard's comedic persona. The show is entirely self-funded and none of the performers are paid for their time. Though this largely surfaced as result of the style of Upright Citizens Brigade shows and the aesthetic of the show, Gethard has stated that he would not be opposed to the show being picked up by a television network. He has met with a number of network producers, but the show has yet to be picked up, the primary concern being its unpredictable nature and frequent swearing. In 2013, Gethard was propositioned by the Independent Film Channel to write a pilot based on his book, "A Bad Idea I'm About to Do". In addition to writing his pilot, IFC gave Gethard a year to market for them at festivals and produce web content. Interactions with fans. Gethard walked from Los Angeles to Bonnaroo relying only on the good will of others to help him. He has a series of YouTube videos that document his trip. The videos include trips in vans, driving a firetruck, and his associated crew shooting a bear with tranquilizers while Gethard humps the body of the limp grizzly. The Chris Gethard Show is well known for its audience interaction. One show featured a woman calling in to inquire about the purpose of the show. Gethard invited her to join them and she became a regular for four months. After this the notion of random, unknown fans becoming regular cast members became popular. The show has continued this trend, having a new "random" as a cast member for 15 episodes.
1058153	Kelly Lynch (born January 31, 1959) is an American actress.
1067002	Angela Featherstone (born 3 April 1965) is a Canadian actress. She is best known for playing Chloe in "Friends", and the fiancee (Linda) that left Adam Sandler's character (Robbie) at the altar in "The Wedding Singer". Most recently she played the role of Jame on Girls/HBO. She has created sitcoms for Sony, DreamWorks and NBC television, and written nonfiction for Time, Jane, Flare and The Huffington Post. She also curated ‘Fuck Pretty,’ a gallery show featuring important & emerging female photographers. She lives in Los Angeles, CA.
1103120	Barry Charles Mazur (born December 19, 1937) is an American mathematician and professor at Harvard. Life. Born in New York City, Mazur attended the Bronx High School of Science and MIT, although he did not graduate from the latter on account of failing a then-present ROTC requirement. Regardless, he was accepted for graduate school and received his Ph.D. from Princeton University in 1959, becoming a Junior Fellow at Harvard from 1961 to 1964. He is currently the Gerhard Gade University Professor and a Senior Fellow at Harvard. Work. His early work was in geometric topology. In a clever, elementary fashion, he proved the generalized Schoenflies conjecture (his complete proof required an additional result by Marston Morse), around the same time as Morton Brown. Both Brown and Mazur received the Veblen Prize for this achievement. He also discovered the Mazur manifold and the Mazur swindle. His observations in the 1960s on analogies between primes and knots were taken up by others in the 1990s giving rise to the field of arithmetic topology. Coming under the influence of Alexander Grothendieck's approach to algebraic geometry, he moved into areas of diophantine geometry. Mazur's torsion theorem, which gives a complete list of the possible torsion subgroups of elliptic curves over the rational numbers, is a deep and important result in the arithmetic of elliptic curves. Mazur's first proof of this theorem depended upon a complete analysis of the rational points on certain modular curves. This proof was carried in his seminal paper "Modular curves and the Eisenstein ideal". The ideas of this paper and Mazur's notion of Galois deformations, were among the key ingredients in Wiles's proof of Fermat's Last Theorem. Mazur and Wiles had earlier worked together on the main conjecture of Iwasawa theory. In an expository paper, "Number Theory as Gadfly", Mazur describes number theory as a field which He expanded his thoughts in the 2003 book "Imagining Numbers" and "Circles Disturbed, a collection of essays on mathematics and narrative" that he edited with writer Apostolos Doxiadis. Awards and honors. In 1982 he was elected a member of the National Academy of Sciences, and in 2012 he became a fellow of the American Mathematical Society. Mazur has received the Veblen Prize in geometry, the Cole Prize in number theory, the Chauvenet Prize for exposition, and the Steele Prize for seminal contribution to research from the American Mathematical Society. In early 2013, he was presented with one of the 2011 National Medals of Science by President Barack Obama.
1164830	D.C. Douglas (born February 2, 1966) is an American character actor, voice actor, and director. Born in Berkeley, California. His father was a salesman, and his mother was an artist and writer. His grandparents were vaudeville performers. His grandmother, Grace Hathaway, continued in burlesque as a dancer and his grandfather, Joe Miller, became known in San Francisco for his talks at the Theosophy Lodge and his weekly walks through Golden Gate Park. Theatre, film and television. Douglas performed on stage in the San Francisco Bay Area in the late 1970s and early 1980s, moving to Los Angeles in 1985 to study at the Estelle Harman Actors Workshop. In Los Angeles, he co-founded the improvisation troupe "Section Eight", and was a member of Theatre of NOTE. In 1996, he landed a small role in "Boston Common", an NBC pilot. When the show was picked up for a season he returned in ten additional episodes as the character "D.C.", the antagonist to Hedy Burress's character. That same year, Douglas wrote, produced and starred in "Falling Words", his first festival film short. In subsequent years he wrote, produced and directed "The Eighth Plane", an anti-Scientology gangster film short and "Freud and Darwin Sitting in a Tree", about cousin marriage and Lewis Henry Morgan. In 2005, Douglas's film short, "Duck, Duck, Goose!", played film festivals worldwide and received awards for the Best Short from the Seattle's True Independent Film Festival (STIFF) and Best Actor from the Trenton Film Festival.
393810	My Wife is a Gangster 3 () is a 2006 Korean film. It is a sequel to "My Wife is a Gangster 2". This movie, however bearing the "My Wife is a Gangster" title, has little to no relation to the previous movies. Plot. Korean gangster Han Ki-Chul (Lee Beom-su) is put in charge by his Big Boss of looking after Lim Aryong (Shu Qi) who comes from Hong Kong. They expect Lim Aryong to be some big male gangster but she turns out to be a woman and acts very cold toward him and his associates. Moreover none of them speak her language and she doesn't understand Korean. A translator called Yeon-Hee (Hyun Young) arrives. She is immature and very scared of the gangsters so at the beginning, instead of translating Aryong's rather rude answers, she changes them to nice ones. Quickly, Aryong shows her fighting skills beating other bosses to save her companions. Ki-Chul and his associates who are rather unskilled, are impressed and become afraid of her while, upon finding that they are actually nice, she's trying to be more friendly. Her efforts are ruined by Yeon-Hee who, taking advantage of Aryoung's aura, 'translates' very threatening sentences.
1060397	Rupert James Hector Everett (; born 29 May 1959) is an English actor. He first came to public attention in 1981, when he was cast in Julian Mitchell's play and subsequent film "Another Country" (1984) as an openly gay pupil at an English public school in the 1930s. He has since appeared in many other films, including "My Best Friend's Wedding", "An Ideal Husband", "The Next Best Thing" and the "Shrek" sequels. Early life. Everett was born in Burnham Deepdale, Norfolk, to Major Anthony Michael Everett (1921–2009), who worked in business and served in the British Army, and wife Sara (née Maclean). His maternal grandfather, Vice Admiral Sir Hector Charles Donald Maclean, was a nephew of Scottish military man Hector Lachlan Stewart MacLean, who received the Victoria Cross. His maternal grandmother, Opre Vyvyan, was a descendant of the baronets Vyvyan of Trelowarren and the German "Freiherr" (Baron) von Schmiedern. He has a brother, Simon Anthony Cunningham Everett (born 1956). Everett was brought up as a Roman Catholic. From the age of seven, Everett was educated at Farleigh School, Hampshire, and later was educated by Benedictine monks at Ampleforth College, Yorkshire; he left school at 16 and ran away to London to become an actor. In order to support himself, he worked as a prostitute for drugs and money as he later admitted to "US" magazine in 1997. After being dismissed from the Central School of Speech and Drama (University of London) for insubordination, he travelled to Scotland and got a job at the Citizens' Theatre in Glasgow. 1980s. Everett's break came in 1981 at the Greenwich Theatre and later West End production of "Another Country", playing a gay schoolboy opposite Kenneth Branagh, followed by a film version in 1984 with Cary Elwes and Colin Firth. Following on with 1985's "Dance With a Stranger", Everett began to develop a promising film career until he co-starred with Bob Dylan in the huge flop "Hearts of Fire" (1987). Around the same time, Everett recorded and released an album of pop songs entitled "Generation of Loneliness". Despite being managed by the largely successful pop svengali Simon Napier-Bell (who also managed Marc Bolan, launched and managed the band Japan, and steered Wham! to international fame), the public didn't take to his change in direction. The shift was short-lived, and he only returned to pop indirectly by providing backing vocals for his friend Madonna many years later, on her cover of "American Pie" and on the track "They Can't Take That Away from Me" on Robbie Williams' "Swing When You're Winning" in 2001. 1990s. In 1989, Everett moved to Paris, writing a novel, "Hello, Darling, Are You Working?", and coming out as gay, a disclosure which he has said may well have damaged his career. Returning to the public eye in "The Comfort of Strangers" (1990), several films of variable success followed. The Italian comics character Dylan Dog, created by Tiziano Sclavi, is graphically inspired by him. Everett, in turn, later appeared in an adaptation of a novel based on Sclavi's novel, "Dellamorte Dellamore". In 1995 he released a second novel, "The Hairdressers of St. Tropez". His career was revitalised by his award-winning performance in "My Best Friend's Wedding" (1997), playing Julia Roberts's gay friend. In 1999, he played Madonna's best friend in "The Next Best Thing" (he also sang backup on her cover of "American Pie", which is on the film's soundtrack). He has since appeared in a number of high-profile film roles, often playing leads. Also in 1999 he starred as the villainous Sanford Scolex/Dr. Claw in Disney's "Inspector Gadget" with Matthew Broderick. 2000s. For the 21st century, Everett has decided to write again. He has been a "Vanity Fair" contributing editor and wrote a film screenplay on playwright Oscar Wilde's final years, for which he seeks funding. In 2006, he published a memoir, "Red Carpets and Other Banana Skins". In it he revealed he had a six-year affair with British television presenter Paula Yates. "I am mystified by my heterosexual affairs – but then I am mystified by most of my relationships," he wrote. Although he is sometimes described as bisexual as opposed to homosexual, at a radio show with Jonathan Ross, he described his heterosexual affairs as resulting from adventurousness: "I was basically adventurous, I think I wanted to try everything" and in an interview on "This Morning" he simply described himself as homosexual, making a joke of any suggestion he might find a woman attractive. Since then, Everett has participated in public activities (leading the 2007 Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras), played a double role in the film "St. Trinian's", and has appeared on TV several times (as a contestant in the special "Comic Relief Does The Apprentice", as a presenter at Live Earth and as guest host at Channel 4 show "The Friday Night Project" among others), but has made much news for making shocking comments and remarks at interviews that have caused public outrage. In 2009, Everett told British newspaper "The Observer" that he wished he had never come out of the closet as he feels that it hurt his career and advises younger actors not to: In May 2007, he delivered one of the eulogies at the funeral of fashionista Isabella Blow, his friend since they were in their teens. He currently lives in London. Recent projects. In recent years, Everett has returned to his acting roots appearing in several theatre productions; He made his Broadway debut in 2009 at the Shubert Theatre to good critical review, performing in a Noël Coward play, "Blithe Spirit", starring alongside Angela Lansbury, Christine Ebersole and Jayne Atkinson, directed by Michael Blakemore. He was also expected to tour several Italian cities during the 2008–09 winter season in another Noël Coward play, "Private Lives" (performed in Italian, which he speaks fluently), playing Elyot to Italian actress Asia Argento's Amanda. However, production was cancelled and the play never opened. During the summer of 2010 he played in a revival of "Pygmalion" as Professor Henry Higgins next to English actress Honeysuckle Weeks, with Stephanie Cole in the role of the Professor's mother, at the Chichester Festival Theatre and reprised this role in May 2011, at the Garrick Theatre in London's West End, starring alongside Diana Rigg as Professor Higgins mother and Kara Tointon as Eliza. As for television projects, Everett has presented Channel 4 documentaries, one on Romantic poet Lord Byron's travels, broadcast in July 2009 and another on British explorer Sir Richard Burton. In July 2010, Everett was featured in the popular family history programme "Who Do You Think You Are?" He also has a part in the comedy film "Wild Target", starring Bill Nighy. In 2012 he starred in the TV screen adaptation of "Parade's End" with Benedict Cumberbatch. As of September 2012, Everett is starring as Oscar Wilde in the stage play "The Judas Kiss", at London's Hampstead Theatre and in tours throughout the UK.
208130	West Bank Story is a comedy/musical short film, directed by Ari Sandel, co-written by Sandel and Kim Ray, produced by Pascal Vaguelsy, Amy Kim, Ashley Jordan, Ravi Malhotra, Bill Boland and featuring choreography by Ramon Del Barrio. The film is a parody of the classic musical film "West Side Story", which in turn is an adaptation of "Romeo and Juliet". The film follows the romance between the relatives of the owners of rival falafel restaurants, one Israeli and the other Palestinian, respectively named the "Kosher King" and the "Hummus Hut," in the West Bank. The film stars Ben Newmark as the IDF soldier, Noureen DeWulf as the Palestinian cashier, A.J. Tannen as the Israeli restaurant owner and Joey Naber as his Palestinian rival. Filmed on a Santa Clarita ranch, the short premiered at the 2005 Sundance Film Festival, and was screened at numerous additional film festivals across the world, garnering several awards. In 2007, at the 79th Academy Awards, it won the Oscar in the category Best Live Action Short Film. Plot. The film begins with a scene in which the Palestinians and Jews are both snapping, similar to the opening scene of "West Side Story". The two parties head in to their own stands and sing about their own family-owned falafel stands, Hummus Hut and Kosher King ("Our People Must Be Fed/Our People Must Be Served"). During the day, Hummus Hut employee Fatima and Kosher King relative David are daydreaming about each other ("When I See Him"). When Fatima rushes to give a customer his forgotten leftovers, she has a chance encounter with David, and they realize their mutual attraction. Upon returning to the shop, Fatima finds the Kosher King Jews have built a large machine that encroaches onto their property. The head of Hummus Hut throws a rock into the machine, making it malfuncton, provoking a standoff between the two families (including David and Fatima). Ariel, head of the Kosher King, decides he is going to build a wall. After they leave, David and Fatima stay, and David plans to come to her balcony tonight. The construction begins, and the Palestinians plan to end it abruptly ("We're Gonna Build It"). As such happens, David goes to Fatima's house ("This Moment Is All We Have"), wanting to kiss her, but Fatima refuses, saying it will only escalate the conflict. They head over to stop the fight. As they do, it is revealed to Fatima's family that they are in love. The following fight tips over a canister of gasoline, causing the entire stand to catch fire. David goes to warn the Israelis, who celebrate - until an ember reaches the Kosher King, which proceeds to catch on fire. As the Hummus Hut denizens celebrate, Fatima points out to everyone that they are only making their lives worse. The next morning, expectant falafel customers are oblivious to the fire, and still want food. Ahmed and Ariel have nothing, but David and Fatima scrape together some of the remaining food, merging the two falafel stands. After the others are working, David and Fatima kiss. At the very end, Fatima asks what will happen if their families cannot stop fighting. David says he will "take you to a place called... Beverly Hills", alluding to the song "Somewhere" in "West Side Story".
1062485	Inception is a 2010 science fiction film written, co-produced, and directed by Christopher Nolan. The film stars a large ensemble cast that includes Leonardo DiCaprio, Ken Watanabe, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Marion Cotillard, Ellen Page, Tom Hardy, Dileep Rao, Cillian Murphy, Tom Berenger, and Michael Caine. DiCaprio plays Dom Cobb, a thief who commits corporate espionage by infiltrating the subconscious of his targets. He is offered a chance to regain his old life as payment for a task considered to be impossible: "inception", the implantation of another person's idea into a target's subconscious. Shortly after finishing "Insomnia" (2002), Nolan wrote an 80-page treatment about "dream stealers" envisioning a horror film inspired by lucid dreaming and presented the idea to Warner Bros. Feeling he needed to have more experience with large-scale film production, Nolan retired the project and instead worked on "Batman Begins" (2005), "The Prestige" (2006), and "The Dark Knight" (2008). He spent six months revising the script before Warner Bros. purchased it in February 2009. "Inception" was filmed in six countries and four continents, beginning in Tokyo on June 19, 2009, and finishing in Canada on November 22, 2009. Its official budget was US$160 million; a cost which was split between Warner Bros and Legendary Pictures. Nolan's reputation and success with "The Dark Knight" helped secure the film's $100 million in advertising expenditure, with most of the publicity involving viral marketing.
110164	Robert Scott Adsit (born November 26, 1965) is an American actor, writer and improvisational comedian. He is best known for co-starring as Pete Hornberger in the NBC comedy "30 Rock" and in the Adult Swim stop-motion animation programs "Moral Orel" and Mary Shelley's Frankenhole. Life and career. 1990s. After attending Columbia College Chicago, Adsit joined the mainstage cast of Chicago's The Second City in 1994, where he appeared in several Jeff award-winning revues, including "Piñata Full of Bees" and "Paradigm Lost" for which he won The Joseph Jefferson Award for Best Actor in a Comedy. A sketch he performed with future "Saturday Night Live" head writer Adam McKay, "Gump," was included as one of Second City's all-time best in the theater's 25th anniversary compilation. He appeared in the 1997 PBS documentary about the process of creating the multi-award winning Second City review, Paradigm Lost, "Second to None" along with castmates Tina Fey, Kevin Dorff, Rachel Dratch, Jenna Jolovitz and Jim Zulevic. Adsit also attended DePauw University in Indiana. In 1996, he portrayed an alcoholic and drug-addicted father in the Hazelden Substance Abuse Clinic (Minnesota) short-subject production, "Reflections From The Heart Of A Child". This 26-minute video/DVD feature is required curriculum in most DWI Repeat Offender classes and substance abuse rehabilitation clinics nationwide to this day. In 1997, Adsit recorded the voices for the King of Payne, Sir Psycho, The Duke of Bourbon, and Merlin for Williams' "Medieval Madness" pinball machine. Adsit co-wrote the game's recorded dialog with fellow Second City cast member, Kevin Dorff. Adsit, Dorff and their Second City castmate, Tina Fey, played the character voices in the game.
434839	Multiphysics treats simulations that involve multiple physical models or multiple simultaneous physical phenomena. For example, combining chemical kinetics and fluid mechanics or combining finite elements with molecular dynamics. Multiphysics typically involves solving coupled systems of partial differential equations. Many physical simulations involve coupled systems, such as electric and magnetic fields for electromagnetism, pressure and velocity for sound, or the real and the imaginary part of the quantum mechanical wave function. Another case is the mean field approximation for the electronic structure of atoms, where the electric field and the electron wave functions are coupled. Single Discretization Method. Abaqus, ADINA, ANSYS Multiphysics, MSC-NASTRAN, Code_Aster, CFD-ACE+, CFD-FASTRAN, COMSOL Multiphysics, FlexPDE, LS-DYNA, NEi Nastran, CheFEM, Elmer and OOFELIE are some examples of commercially available software packages for simulating multiphysics models. These software packages mainly rely on the Finite Element Method or similar commonplace numerical methods for simulating coupled physics: thermal stress, electromechanical interaction, fluid structure interaction (FSI), fluid flow with heat transport and chemical reactions, electromagnetic fluids (magnetohydrodynamics or plasma), electromagnetically induced heating. In many cases, to get accurate results, it is important to include mutual dependencies where the material properties significant for one field (such as the electric field) vary with the value of another field (such as temperature) and vice versa. Multiple Discretization Methods. There are cases where each subset of partial differential equations has different mathematical behavior, for example when compressible fluid flow is coupled with structural analysis or heat transfer. To perform an optimal simulation in those cases, a different discretization procedure must be applied to each subset. For example, the compressible flow is discretized with a finite volume method and the conjugate heat transfer with a finite element analysis. fluidyn-MP is one of the example of commercially available software package for simulating Multiphysics engineering problems using Multiple Discretization Methods.
419852	Peter Cambor (born September 28, 1978) is an American film and television actor. During the 2009–2010 TV season he appeared as part of the main cast of "", in the role of operational psychologist Nate Getz. However in the second season Cambor only appeared in 3 episodes as part of the guest cast as a result of him being removed from the main cast. He is credited as a Special Guest Star whenever he appears on the show.
1555554	A Fistful of Fingers is a 1994 British film written and directed by Edgar Wright. It is a homonymous remake of an earlier, and even lower-budget, movie by Wright and starring Graham Low which had been made while they were still at school. The original "Fistful of Fingers" was never picked up by a distributor, but did receive enough local attention - along with his other similarly spoof-based school-era work such as "Carbolic Soap", "The Unparkables" and "Rolf Harris Saves the World" - for Wright to win funding for the 1994 remake.
1058160	John Carroll Lynch (born August 1, 1963) is an American actor, known for his role as Drew Carey's cross-dressing brother on "The Drew Carey Show", and for his role as Norm, the unassuming husband of Margie Gunderson (Frances McDormand) in "Fargo". Lynch played (from Season 1-2) homicide Detective Bud Morris in the medical drama television series "Body of Proof", which premiered on ABC in March 2011. In the fall of 2003, he starred in the CBS show "The Brotherhood of Poland, New Hampshire," with Randy Quaid, Chris Penn, Mare Winningham, Elizabeth McGovern, and Ann Cusack. The show was cancelled after only a few episodes. He also had a recurring role in the HBO show "Carnivàle", playing escaped convict Varlyn Stroud. Lynch appeared as a district attorney in the CBS series "Close to Home" and as NASA official Bob Gilruth in the HBO mini-series "From the Earth to the Moon". Lynch appeared in the 2003 thriller "Gothika" and the 2007 biopic "Zodiac". Life and career. Lynch was born August 1, 1963, in Boulder, Colorado. He was raised in Denver. In 1996, he received critical acclaim for his role as Marge Gunderson's simple husband Norm Gunderson in "Fargo".
1376007	Tegan Moss (born February 7, 1985) is a Canadian actress appearing in film and television. She has been nominated for a Young Artist Award. Moss was born in Vancouver, British Columbia. She has two brothers, Rory Moss, and actor Jesse Moss. Her given name is of Welsh origin, meaning "fair one" and pronounced to rhyme with "Megan". Moss had attended the Point Grey Secondary School and graduated in June 2003. Moss appears in the 2009 film "Free Style" and in the planned "". She appeared in the movie "Sea People" as Amanda Forrest.
1063203	The Women is a 2008 American comedy film written, produced and directed by Diane English. The screenplay is an updated version of the George Cukor-directed 1939 film of the same name based on a 1936 play by Clare Boothe Luce. In the original film, most of the characters were Manhattan socialites whose primary interest was idle gossip. In the 2008 version, several work in the fields of fashion design and publishing, and the character of Alex Fisher is openly a lesbian. A feature of the film, shared with the 1939 version, is that the movie does not show a single male actor or extra, with the exception of the baby at the very end of the film. Plot. Clothing designer Mary Haines lives in a beautiful suburban Connecticut home with her wealthy financier husband Steven and their 11-year-old daughter Molly. Her best friend since college, Sylvie Fowler, is the editor of a prominent fashion magazine that dictates the latest in taste and style for New York City fashionistas. When Sylvie learns Steven is involved with Crystal Allen, a perfume salesgirl in Saks Fifth Avenue, from chatty manicurist Tanya, she confides in the ever-pregnant Edie Cohen but hesitates to tell Mary, who discovers the news herself from the same woman after getting a manicure herself. Despite her mother Catherine's exhortation to keep quiet about what she knows and a holiday away, Mary confronts Crystal first, in a lingerie store, and then Steven, before asking for a divorce. Sylvie, Edie, and writer Alex Fisher join forces to support their spurned friend, but complications arise when Sylvie, facing the loss of her job, conspires with local gossip columnist Bailey Smith by confirming Mary's marital woes in exchange for Bailey contributing a celebrity profile to the magazine. Mary is stunned by Sylvie's betrayal and ends their friendship. Mary's daughter begins to ditch school and confides in Sylvie because her mother, distracted by the upheavals in her once idyllic life, becomes more distant. Mary is fired from her job by her father, has a makeover, and decides to open her own clothing design firm with some financial assistance from Catherine. As she begins to get her life in order, she makes an effort to bond with Molly, who reveals her father's relationship with Crystal is unraveling and reunites with Sylvie, who has quit her job. With this knowledge in hand, Mary sets out to repair her fractured marriage as she prepares to unveil her new line of womenswear in a fashion show attended not only by boutique owners but the buyer from Saks, as well. Sylvie tells Mary that she has met a guy and is thinking of giving him her real phone number. In the final scene, Edie's water breaks and she has a baby boy. Whilst Edie is in labour Mary receives a call from her husband and is encouraged by the others to answer it; she then arranges a date with him.
584785	Chaya Singh (ಕನ್ನಡ: ಛಾಯಾ ಸಿಂಗ್) is an Indian actress, born 16 May 1981 in Bangalore. She started her acting career in Kannada films and has worked in Tamil, Malayalam, Bengali, Bhojpuri, Telugu and Oriya films. She has a reputation of being very selective in her roles. Career. Her parents had migrated from Uttar Pradesh to Karnataka before her birth. She belongs to a Rajput family. Chaya grew up in Bangalore. She did her schooling at Lourdes School, Bangalore and studied for her Plus Two there. Her first film role was in "Munnudi". She went to do more films in Kannada including "Haseena" which was directed by Girish Kasaravalli, "Thuntata", which was a success, Dinesh Babu's "Chitte" and Sai Prakash’s "Rowdy Aliya". After having few chances in the Kannada industry she migrated to Tamil movies. Chaya Singh's most famous movie is "Thiruda Thirudi" in Tamil which has the popular song "Manmadharasa". She also acted in its Kannada remake "Sakha Sakhi", which unlike the original was not successful. Chaya later acted in little known films "Kavithai" and "Jaisurya" and did item numbers in "Arul" and "Thirupaachi", though she stated that she dislikes doing them. She returned to Tamil with "Vallamai Tharayo" and then starred in the supernatural thriller "Anandhapurathu Veedu". She has performed in "Akasha Gange" in Kannada which released in 2008. About her performance in the film, Rediff wrote, "The highlight of the film is Chaya Singh who has come out with an outstanding performance as a music teacher who comes to her lover's house to win over his family". Sify wrote, "This is Chaya Singh's yet another best performance. She speaks from her lovely eyes". She acted in the Kannada short film "Simply kailawesome" which won the prestigious Platinum Remi Award at the 44th Annual WorldFest-Houston International Film Festival. The film made on playwright T. P. Kailasam revolves around conversations between Kailasam and female protagonists from four of his plays. Chaya Singh played all the four characters: Paatu from "Tollugatti", Eeke from "Gandaskathri", Venkamma from "Home Rule" and Sule from the play "Sule". She has acted in two Malayalam films, too, "Mullavalliyum Thenmavum" and "Police", both directed by V. K. Prakash. In 2008 she was acting in two Bhojpuri films. Her first Bhojpuri release was "Mahamaayi". She has directed a Bengali film, too. She has done supporting roles in Kannada TV shows such as E-TV's "Sarojini" and "Prema Kathegalu". She has acted in Tamil serial "Nagamma", airing on Sun TV. She was a judge in the show "Kuniyonu Bara" on a Kannada television channel. Since 2012, she acts in Telugu serial "Kanchna Ganga", airing on Maa TV. She is currently acting in the Tamil film "Idhu Kathirvelan Kadhal". Personal life. Singh's parents are Gopal Singh and Chamanlata. She married Tamil television actor Krishna in June 2012. References. http://www.indiaglitz.com/channels/tamil/article/10402.html
1104710	John Machin (bapt. 1686? – June 9, 1751), a professor of astronomy at Gresham College, London, is best known for developing a quickly converging series for Pi in 1706 and using it to compute Pi to 100 decimal places. Machin's formula is:
1081894	No Time for Nuts is a computer animated short film from Blue Sky Studios, starring Scrat from "Ice Age" . Directed by Chris Renaud and Mike Thurmeier, it premiered on November 21, 2006, on the DVD release of "". The short follows Scrat on a chase after his nut, which has been accidentally sent forward in time by a frozen time machine. "No Time for Nuts" was nominated for the 2007 Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film. Synopsis. Scrat, the saber-toothed squirrel (a fictional animal from the Ice Age film series), while trying to find a place to hide his acorn, finds a buried time machine that states the date he's currently in (May 26, 20000 BC) next to the ice-encased skeletal body of a human time traveler that looks like Einstein or Dr. Emmett L. Brown from Back to the Future trilogy. He accidentally activates the machine, sending the acorn away. Scrat gets mad and tries to beat up the time machine and it sends him to the Middle Ages. Finding the acorn wedged under a rock, Scrat sees the Sword in the Stone and decides to use it as a lever to move the rock. He pulls out the sword but then finds himself under attack by a group of unseen archers, and uses the sword to block the arrows fired by the archers. He frees the acorn and takes it and the time machine and races off to find cover, only to hide in the barrel of a cannon. The cannon fires him into the path of hundreds of incoming arrows. The time machine teleports the acorn mid-flight and Scrat just barely manages to activate the machine again for himself.
357208	Blue Cat Blues is the 103rd one reel animated "Tom and Jerry" short, created in 1955, directed and produced by William Hanna and Joseph Barbera with music by Scott Bradley. The cartoon was animated by Ed Barge, Irven Spence, Lewis Marshall and Kenneth Muse, with layouts by Richard Bickenbach and backgrounds by Robert Gentle. Unusual for a "Tom and Jerry" short, Jerry "speaks", narrating the story in voiceover via Paul Frees. Since Jerry narrates through inner monologue, the short does not break the "cardinal rule" of not having Tom or Jerry physically speaking on screen. This cartoon was released on November 16, 1956 by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Plot. Jerry relates the events leading up to Tom's depression: Tom and Jerry had been inseparable best friends, until Tom became attracted to a female cat. The female feline initially reciprocates Tom's feelings, but Tom's rival, the much wealthier Butch, is suddenly smitten by her as well, rudely interrupting her date with Tom to make his move. The female cat shows herself to be an opportunist and, attracted by Butch's wealth, immediately leaves Tom for him. Tom pushes himself and his finances to the limit trying to win his girlfriend back with presents such as flowers, perfume, diamond rings, and a car, but the gold-digging, black-hearted cat rejects all of his efforts, as Butch's presents are much bigger, more expensive, and much more outrageously extravagant (including a tanker truck full of perfume and a ring with a diamond so large and shiny that it cannot be looked at without eye protection). Now broken-hearted, penniless, and deep in debt, Tom tries to drown his sorrows in milk, deaf to Jerry's pleas to stop. Tom is about to literally let himself go down the gutter until Jerry, at the last second, rescues him. Just when Tom's life could not get any worse, he sees that his ex-girlfriend is now Butch's wife; the pair drive past him in a car laden with luggage, with a "Just Married" sign on the back. Jerry breaks from the sad story to think about his own girlfriend, "Toots," happy that, unlike how Tom's ex-girlfriend was to him, she has been faithful to Jerry. Suddenly, "Jerry's" idyllic world is shattered when Toots rides by with another mouse, a "Just Married" sign on the back of "their" car. The now-dejected Jerry then joins Tom on the railroad tracks. They wait for an incoming train which draws near. The sound of the whistle of the incoming train turns louder as the cartoon comes to a close.
432338	Sufiah Yusof (born 1984) is a British mathematics prodigy originally from Malaysia.
1550643	Angels in the Endzone is a 1997 American film directed by Gary Nadeau and starring Christopher Lloyd. The film is about a high school football team that lacks skill. Plot. The "Westfield Angels" high school football team have not won a game in years. Jesse Harper (Matthew Lawrence) is their best player and is playing as tailback, shedding a new light for the team. After a terrible accident in a rainstorm in which his father, Peter Harper (Jack Coleman), dies, he feels lonely and quits the team. Peter was actually a football star in his high school days. On the night that Jesse quits, Kevin (David Gallagher), his younger brother, confronts him and tells him that football was a major part of his life. He tells him that he belongs in the team. He responds by saying that the only way he would get back into it is if it starts winning. Kevin prays to the angels to come and help the team to win some games, so that Jesse would start playing again. The next day, they come. They are headed by Al (Christopher Lloyd), the only returning character from "Angels in the Outfield". Kevin is the only one who can see them, though. Game after game after game, Westfield keep winning with the angels' help. Kevin becomes a "lucky charm" for his brother's football team, since he can tell Coach Buck (Paul Dooley) what the angels need. At the same time somewhere else, Jesse begins to associate with some really bad people. At one point in the film, he distracts a window washer at the gas station as his "shady" friends rob the cash registers. After Jesse pays him, he leaves his wallet behind. The station attendant picks it up and has the police visit the Harpers' home. The championship game is the following day, and Coach Buck asks Jesse if he could possibly come back to the team and play. He accepts, since now he has confidence that they can win.
1099235	Sir Ronald Aylmer Fisher FRS (17 February 1890 – 29 July 1962) was an English statistician, evolutionary biologist, geneticist, and eugenicist. Fisher is known as one of the chief architects of the neo-Darwinian synthesis, for his important contributions to statistics, including the analysis of variance (ANOVA), method of maximum likelihood, fiducial inference, and the derivation of various sampling distributions, and for being one of the three principal founders of population genetics. Anders Hald called him "a genius who almost single-handedly created the foundations for modern statistical science", while Richard Dawkins named him "the greatest biologist since Darwin". Biography. Early life. Fisher was born in East Finchley in London, England, to George and Katie Fisher. His father was a successful fine arts dealer at one time. He had a happy childhood, being doted on by three older sisters, an older brother, and his mother, but she died when he was 14. His father lost his business in several ill-considered transactions only 18 months later. Although Ronald Fisher had quite poor eyesight, he was a precocious student, winning the Neeld Medal (a competitive essay in mathematics) at Harrow School at the age of 16. Because of his poor eyesight, he was tutored in mathematics without the aid of paper and pen, which developed his ability to visualize problems in geometrical terms, without contributing to his interest in writing proper derivations of mathematical solutions, especially proofs. He amazed his peers with his ability to conjecture mathematical solutions without justifying his conclusions by showing intermediate steps. He also developed a strong interest in biology, and especially evolutionary biology. In 1909, he won a scholarship to the Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge. There he formed many friendships and became enthralled with the heady intellectual atmosphere. At Cambridge, Fisher learned of the newly rediscovered theory of Mendelian genetics. He saw biometry and its growing corpus of statistical methods as a potential way to reconcile the discontinuous nature of Mendelian inheritance with continuous variation and gradual evolution. However, his foremost concern was eugenics, which he saw as a pressing social as well as scientific issue that encompassed both genetics and statistics. In 1911, Fisher was involved in the forming of the University of Cambridge Eugenics Society with John Maynard Keynes, R.C. Punnett, and Horace Darwin (the son of Charles Darwin). This group was active, and it held monthly meetings, often featuring addresses by leaders of mainstream eugenics organizations, such as the Eugenics Education Society of London, founded by Charles Darwin's half-cousin, Francis Galton in 1909. Close to Fisher's graduation in 1912, his tutor told his student that—despite his enormous aptitude for scientific work and his mathematical potential—his disinclination to show calculations or to prove propositions rendered him unsuited for a career in applied mathematics, which required greater fortitude. His tutor gave him a "lukewarm" recommendation, stating that if Fisher "had stuck to the ropes he would have made a first-class mathematician, but he would not." After his graduation, Fisher was eager to join the British Army in anticipation of the entry of Great Britain into World War I. However, he failed the medical examinations (repeatedly) because of his poor eyesight. Over the next six years, he worked as a statistician for the City of London. For part of his war work, he took up teaching physics and mathematics at a sequence of public schools, including Bradfield College in Berkshire, as well as aboard H.M. Training Ship "Worcester". Major Leonard Darwin (another son of Charles Darwin) and an unconventional and vivacious friend he called Gudruna were almost his only contacts with his Cambridge circle. They sustained him through this difficult period. A bright spot in his life then was that Gudruna set him up with her sister Eileen Guinness. They were married in 1917 when she was only 17 years old. With her sister's help, he set up a subsistence farming operation on the Bradfield estate, where they had a large garden and raised animals, learning to make do on very little. They lived through the rest of the war without using their food coupons. During this period, Fisher started writing book reviews for the "Eugenic Review" and gradually increased his interest in genetic and statistical work. He volunteered to undertake all such reviews for the journal, and was hired to a part-time position by Major Darwin. He published several articles on biometry during this period, including the ground-breaking paper "The Correlation Between Relatives on the Supposition of Mendelian Inheritance", written in 1916 and published in 1918. This paper laid foundation for what came to be known as biometrical genetics, and it introduced the methodology of the analysis of variance, which was a considerable advance over the correlation methods used earlier. This paper showed that the inheritance of traits measurable by real values (i.e., continuous or dimensional traits) is consistent with Mendelian principles. This forms the basis of the genetics of complex trait inheritance and mitigated debates between biometricians and Mendelians, and the compatibility of particulate inheritance with natural selection. In this paper was also the first use of the term "variance" in statistics. After the end of World War I, Fisher went looking for a new job in low hopes, calling himself "an egregious failure in two professions" as a commercial statistician and as a teacher. He was offered a position at the Galton Laboratory led by Karl Pearson, the founder of mathematical statistics in Great Britain. Because he saw the developing rivalry with Pearson as a professional obstacle, however, he accepted a temporary job instead as a statistician with a small agricultural station in the countryside in 1919. Early professional years. In 1919, Fisher started work at Rothamsted Experimental Station in Harpenden, Hertfordshire, England. Here he started a major study of the extensive collections of data recorded over many years. This resulted in a series of reports under the general title "Studies in Crop Variation." This began a period of great productivity. Over the next seven years, he pioneered the principles of the design of experiments and elaborated his studies of analysis of variance. He furthered his studies of the statistics of small samples. Perhaps even more important, he began his systematic approach of the analysis of real data as the springboard for the development of new statistical methods. He developed computational algorithms for analyzing data from his balanced experimental designs. In 1925, this work resulted in the publication of his first book, "Statistical Methods for Research Workers". This book went through many editions and translations in later years, and it became the standard reference work for scientists in many disciplines. In 1935, this book was followed by "The Design of Experiments", which was also widely used. In addition to analysis of variance, Fisher named and promoted the method of maximum likelihood estimation. Fisher also originated the concepts of sufficiency, ancillary statistics, Fisher's linear discriminator and Fisher information. His article "On a distribution yielding the error functions of several well known statistics" (1924) presented Pearson's chi-squared test and William Gosset's t in the same framework as the Gaussian distribution, and his own parameter in the analysis of variance Fisher's z-distribution (more commonly used decades later in the form of the F distribution). These contributions made him a major figure in 20th century statistics. He was a prominent opponent of Bayesian statistics, and was even the first to use the term "Bayesian". His work on the theory of population genetics also made him one of the three great figures of that field, together with Sewall Wright and J.B.S. Haldane, and as such was one of the founders of the neo-Darwinian modern evolutionary synthesis. In addition to founding modern quantitative genetics with his 1918 paper, he was the first to use diffusion equations to attempt to calculate the distribution of gene frequencies among populations. He pioneered the estimation of genetic linkage and gene frequencies by maximum likelihood methods, and wrote early papers on the wave of advance of advantageous genes and on clines of gene frequency. His 1950 paper on gene frequency clines is notable as the first application of a computer, the EDSAC, to biology. His ground-breaking book "The Genetical Theory of Natural Selection" was started in 1928 and published in 1930. He developed ideas on sexual selection, mimicry and the evolution of dominance. He famously showed that the probability of a mutation increasing the fitness of an organism decreases proportionately with the magnitude of the mutation. He also proved that larger populations carry more variation so that they have a larger chance of survival. It was in this book that he set forth the foundations of what was to become known as population genetics. The book was reviewed, among others, by physicist Charles Galton Darwin, a grandson of Charles Darwin's, and following publication of his review, C.G. Darwin sent Fisher his copy of the book, with notes in the margin. The marginal notes became the food for a correspondence running at least three years. Fisher's book also had a major influence on the evolutionary biologist W. D. Hamilton and the development of his later theories on the genetic basis for the existence of kin selection. Fisher had a long and successful collaboration with E.B. Ford in the field of ecological genetics. The outcome of this work was the general recognition that the force of natural selection was often much stronger than had been appreciated before, and that many ecogenetic situations (such as polymorphism) were not selectively neutral, but were maintained by the force of selection. Fisher was the original author of the idea of heterozygote advantage, which was later found to play a frequent role in genetic polymorphism. The discovery of indisputable cases of natural selection in nature was one of the main strands in the modern evolutionary synthesis. His later years. Fisher received the recognition of his peers in 1929 when he was inducted into the Royal Society. His fame grew and he began to travel more and lecture to wider circles. In 1931, he spent six weeks at the Statistical Laboratory at Iowa State College in Ames, Iowa. He gave three lectures per week on his work, and he met many of the active American statisticians, including George W. Snedecor. He returned to Iowa State again for another visit in 1936. In 1933 he left Rothamsted to become a Professor of Eugenics at the University College London. In 1937, he visited the Indian Statistical Institute in Calcutta, which at the time consisted of one part-time employee, P. C. Mahalanobis. He visited there often in later years, encouraging its development. He was the guest of honour at its 25th anniversary in 1957 when it had grown to 2000 employees. In 1939, when World War II broke out for the British Empire, the University tried to dissolve the eugenics department, and it ordered all of the animals destroyed. Fisher fought back, but then he was dispatched back to Rothamsted with a much-reduced staff and resources. He was unable to find any really suitable war work, and though he kept very busy with various small projects, he became discouraged of any real progress. His marriage disintegrated. His oldest son George, an aviator, was killed in combat. In 1943, Fisher was offered the Balfour Chair of Genetics at the University of Cambridge, his alma mater. During the war, this department was almost destroyed, but the University promised him that he would be charged with rebuilding it after the war. Fisher accepted this offer, but the promises were largely unfilled, and the department grew very slowly. A notable exception was the recruitment in 1948 of the Italian researcher Cavalli-Sforza, who established a one-man unit of bacterial genetics. He continued his work on mouse chromosome mapping—breeding the mice in laboratories in his own house— and other projects. These culminated in the publication in 1949 of "The Theory of Inbreeding." In 1947, Fisher cofounded the journal "Heredity: An International Journal of Genetics" with Cyril Darlington. He opposed the UNESCO Statement of Race. He believed that evidence and everyday experience showed that human groups differ profoundly "in their innate capacity for intellectual and emotional development" and concluded that the "practical international problem is that of learning to share the resources of this planet amicably with persons of materially different nature", and that "this problem is being obscured by entirely well-intentioned efforts to minimize the real differences that exist". The revised statement titled "" (1951) was accompanied by Fisher's dissenting commentary. Fisher eventually received many awards for his work, and he was dubbed a Knight Bachelor by Queen Elizabeth II in 1952. He was also awarded the Linnean Society of London's prestigious Darwin–Wallace Medal in 1958. Fisher was opposed to the conclusions of Richard Doll and Austin B. Hill that smoking causes lung cancer. He compared the correlations in their papers to a correlation between the import of apples and the rise of divorce in order to show that correlation does not imply causation. To quote his biographers Yates and Mather, "It has been suggested that the fact that Fisher was employed as consultant by the tobacco firms in this controversy casts doubt on the value of his arguments. This is to misjudge the man. He was not above accepting financial reward for his labours, but the reason for his interest was undoubtedly his dislike and mistrust of puritanical tendencies of all kinds; and perhaps also the personal solace he had always found in tobacco." After retiring from the University of Cambridge in 1957, Fisher emigrated, and he spent some time as a senior research fellow at the Australian CSIRO in Adelaide, South Australia. He died and was buried in Adelaide in 1962. Personality and beliefs. Fisher was noted for his loyalty to his friends. Once he had formed a favourable opinion of any man, he was loyal to a fault. A similar sense of loyalty bound him to his culture. He was a patriot, a member of the Church of England, politically conservative, and a scientific rationalist. Much sought after as a brilliant conversationalist and dinner companion, he very early on developed a reputation for carelessness in his dress and, sometimes, his manners. In later years he was the archetype of the absent-minded professor. He knew the scriptures well and H. Allen Orr describes him in the "Boston Review" as a "deeply devout Anglican who, between founding modern statistics and population genetics, penned articles for church magazines". But he was not dogmatic in his religious beliefs. In a 1955 broadcast on Science and Christianity, he said: Fisher was an ardent promoter of eugenics, which also stimulated and guided much of his work in the genetics of humans. The last third of his book "The Genetical Theory" concerned the applications of these ideas to humans, and presented the data available at that time. He presented a theory that attributed the decline and fall of civilizations to its arrival at a state where the fertility of the upper classes is forced down. Using the census data of 1911 for Britain, he showed that there was an inverse relationship between fertility and social class. This was partly due, he believed, to the rise in social status of families who were not capable of producing many children but who rose because of the financial advantage of having a small number of children. Therefore he proposed the abolition of the economic advantage of small families by instituting subsidies (he called them allowances) to families with larger numbers of children, with the allowances proportional to the earnings of the father. He himself had two sons and six daughters. According to Yates and Mather, "His large family, in particular, reared in conditions of great financial stringency, was a personal expression of his genetic and evolutionary convictions." Between 1929 and 1934 the Eugenics Society also campaigned hard for a law permitting sterilization on eugenic grounds. They believed that it should be entirely voluntary, and a right, not a punishment. They published a draft of a proposed bill, and it was submitted to Parliament. Although it was defeated by a 2:1 ratio, this was viewed as progress, and the campaign continued. Fisher played a major role in this movement, and served in several official committees to promote it. In 1934, Fisher moved to increase the power of scientists within the Eugenics Society, but was ultimately thwarted by members with an environmentalist point of view, and he, along with many other scientists, resigned. Bibliography. A selection from Fisher's 395 articles. These are available on the University of Adelaide website: Books by Fisher. Full publication details are available on the University of Adelaide website:
1014906	Honey 2 is a dance film which is a sequel to the 2003 film "Honey". It stars Katerina Graham, Randy Wayne, Melissa Molinaro, Lonette McKee (reprising her role from "Honey") and Audrina Patridge. The film was released to cinemas in Britain on June 10, 2011 and direct to DVD in North America. Plot. The legacy of legendary dancer and choreographer Honey Daniels lives on in spirited 17-year-old Maria Ramirez (Katerina Graham). After a brush with the law, Maria has returned to her gritty Bronx roots to rebuild her life with nothing but a talent for street dance and a burning ambition to prove herself. She finds refuge in the place that made her feel most alive as a kid at the rec center where Honey's exuberant classes first ignited her passion for dance. Keeping on a straight and narrow means living with Honey's mom Connie (Lonette McKee) and holding down a job just to make ends meet. But a rare night out at a local dance club gives her an opportunity to let loose with a joy and energy she had almost forgotten. Maria's killer moves catch the eye of Brandon (Randy Wayne), a rec center volunteer, who invites her to help him transform a group of gifted but undisciplined dancers called the HD's. Maria's skills also attract the attention of her old boyfriend Luis (Christopher 'War' Martinez), the charismatic leader of the award winning 718 dance crew, who hopes to lure her back into the street world she is trying to escape. In the meantime, she and Brandon begin a romantic relationship, mainly rooted in their mutual passion for dance. Seeing a chance at creating a new and meaningful life, Maria pours her heart and soul into dance and begins training the HDs to compete on the television dance competition "Dance Battlezone" which means going up against the 718 and Luis. Like Honey before her, Maria rediscovers the thrill of dancing as she finds out who she truly is and where she belongs. Reception. Response to the film from critics was very negative, scoring only a 5% as listed on Rotten Tomatoes.
629015	Alan Dawson in "Emergency Ward 10" Inspector Reg Lawson in "Homicide" Lawrence Hammill in "The Castle" John Conroy in "" Inspector Craddock in "Murder, She Said" "Murder at the Gallop" "Murder Most Foul" "Murder Ahoy!" --> Charles William "Bud" Tingwell, AM (3 January 192315 May 2009) was an Australian film, television, theatre and radio actor. One of the veterans of Australian film, he acted in his first motion picture in 1946 and went on to appear in more than 100 films and numerous TV programs in both the United Kingdom and Australia. Early life and military service. Tingwell was born in the Sydney suburb of Coogee, the son of William Harvey Tingwell and Enid (née Green). As an adolescent, his father encouraged him to be an accountant, but Tingwell failed the entrance exam. While still at school, he became a cadet at Sydney radio station 2CH, soon becoming the youngest radio announcer in Australia.
1058730	Once Upon a Forest is a 1993 animated film produced by Hanna-Barbera in association with HTV Cymru/Wales, Ltd. and released on June 18, 1993 by 20th Century Fox.
903850	Leonardo Aurellio Randy "Leo" Fitzpatrick (born August 10, 1978) is an American actor. Biography. Leo Fitzpatrick was born in West Orange, New Jersey. He was discovered at age 14 by director Larry Clark at Washington Square Park in New York City, skateboarding. Fitzpatrick was trying to perform certain skating tricks, and every time he was unsuccessful, he would scream and curse. Clark cast him in the movie "Kids" and later in his follow-up feature, "Bully".
1017302	Carl Ng (吳嘉龍, born March 27, 1976) is a Hong Kong actor and model. He is the son of Richard Ng. Early life. The third of four children, Ng was born in Hong Kong and is of mixed ethnicity. His father is comedy actor Richard Ng, while his mother, a British woman, worked as a hair stylist for Bruce Lee in the 1970s. At the age of 12, he moved with his family to live in England, where he would remain for the next thirteen years. As a child he had no desire to become an actor like his father, but while studying global corporate strategy at the University of Westminster he began attending evening drama classes at the Tony Grecos Acting Studio. Career. After graduating, Ng took up acting full time, working as a waiter or cook in various restaurants until he started gaining roles in West End and Off West End plays. However, he became dissatisfied with the work he was getting, saying: "I was seen as neither Asian nor Caucasian. Either that or I'm cast in stereotyped roles." In 2002, Ng took a six-month break from acting, working as a scuba diving instructor in Thailand. He then moved back to Hong Kong, where he again waited on tables before landing a number of prominent modelling jobs, featuring in advertisements for Motorola and Sony MiniDisc. Since 2000 he has appeared in a number of films, including "Heat Team", "Yesterday Once More", "Colour Blossoms", and "Half Twin". Regarding his choice in film roles, Ng has said: "I do gravitate towards darker roles, roles that other people hesitate to touch. I find them intriguing and an opportunity to try something different." He has appeared alongside his father in several productions, including the 2008 TV film "Pulau Hantu". In 2010, Ng was cast in the lead role of a biographical film based on the life of Cheng Guorong, aka "Brother Sharp", a Chinese man who became a minor celebrity while living homeless on the streets of Ningbo after pictures of him were posted online. The film was due to start production in September 2010. Charity work. Ng has been involved with a number of AIDS benefits. While working in London he took part in a production of "Elegies for Angels, Punks and Raging Queens", the proceeds from which were given to a local AIDS centre. As of 2006, Ng was working with the Society for AIDS Care in Hong Kong, as well as a teen support group that deals with topics such as safe sex.
1055716	The Hairy Bird (original and Australian), also released under the titles Strike! (Canada) and All I Wanna Do (US), is a 1998 comedy film written and directed by Sarah Kernochan. It stars Kirsten Dunst, Monica Keena, Heather Matarazzo and Rachael Leigh Cook as students of the fictional Miss Godard's Preparatory School for Girls, and Lynn Redgrave as the school's headmistress. The film takes place in 1963 and focuses on several students' plotting and sabotage of a proposed merger for the school to go coed. The film's setting, in 1963, is based loosely on Kernochan's experiences at Rosemary Hall around that time. Filming was done in Toronto, Ontario, Canada at the Trafalgar Castle School in Whitby. The song "The Hairy Bird" plays during the film's end credits; it was written by Kernochan and sung by a group which includes Kernochan and five of her Rosemary Hall classmates, including Glenn Close. Plot. The film takes place at an elite New England boarding school in the era between the Bay of Pigs Invasion and the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Odette "Odie" Sinclair (Hoffmann) is forcibly transferred by her parents to Miss Godard's Preparatory School for Girls after her parents find out that she has planned to have sex with her boyfriend, Dennis (Matthew Lawrence). Upon arrival to the school, which is run by the headstrong headmistress Miss McVane (Redgrave), Odette is introduced to her roommates, the intelligent and charismatic Verena von Stefan (Dunst) and the promiscuous Tinka Parker (Keena). Verena and Tinka are the school's primary troublemakers; both mock an uptight hall monitor named Abigail "Abby" Sawyer (Cook), who has a penchant for tattletaling, and Verena regularly buys cigarettes from a lunch cook and is constantly late for classes. After a brief hazing period, Odie is welcomed into the D.A.R. (Daughters of the American Ravioli), a club of several girls at the school who have greater aspirations than those of their peers; the members congregate in the school's attic, where they have access to canned ravioli stored above the cafeteria. The club is led by Verena, and consists of several other girls, including Theresa "Tweety" Goldberg (Matarazzo), a bulimic who self-induces vomiting by drinking ipecac syrup and plans to be a child psychologist; and Maureen "Momo" Haines (Merritt Wever), a well-spoken science nerd and aspiring biologist. Verena has plans to start a fashion magazine like "Vogue", while Tinka plans to be an "actress-folk singer-slut". Odette declares her interest in politics, but pines to finish what she started with Dennis and lose her virginity. The D.A.R. begins planning a rendezvous for Odie and Dennis, but when it is discovered that Miss Godard's is considering going co-ed with the nearby St. Ambrose boys' academy, the girls become divided on the matter and ultimately the club breaks up, leaving Verena and Momo to plan a sabotage for an upcoming dance with the St. Ambrose boys. Meanwhile, the board of trustees for the school deliberates on the matter, which include Abby's parents. Miss McVane detests the merger, but can do little about it because of the school's financial problems. As the St. Ambrose dance arrives, Verena and Momo concoct a plan to cast the boys' academy in a bad light, by spiking the fruit punch with alcohol from the chemistry lab and feeding them Tweety's ipecac to induce vomiting during their choir performance; Verena then plants empty liquor bottles in their school bus. The same night, Dennis arrives at the academy dressed in a St. Ambrose uniform and meets Odette for their rendezvous in the attic of the school. Tweety and Tinka have a change of heart on the co-ed integration after Tweety is humiliated by some St. Ambrose students. With the help of a group of teenage male townies called "The Flat Critters", led by Snake (Kartheiser) who has a crush on Tinka, they end up sending the intoxicated St. Ambrose boys home with a poor reputation. Miss McVane recognizes Verena as the mastermind behind the sabotage. Despite Miss McVane's appreciation for Verena's efforts, she is forced to expel Verena for having been caught fraternizing in her undergarments with a St. Ambrose boy. The following week at the end of the year ceremony, the announcement of the merger is made by Mrs. Sawyer, much to the disapproval of the girls, including Abby. The students, led by Odie, hole up inside the school dormitories and demand a student body vote count as a single vote on the board of trustees. Meanwhile, a media circus surrounds the school, and the board of trustees agree to a student vote. Ultimately, the votes against the integration outnumber those for it, and the students donate their personal savings to help with the school's debt.
238738	Jamie Lynn Spears (born April 4, 1991) is an American actress, singer, and the younger sister of recording artist Britney Spears. In 2005, she rose to fame for her portrayal of Zoey Brooks in the Nickelodeon sitcom "Zoey 101". Life and career. Early life and career beginnings. Spears was born in McComb, Mississippi to James and Lynne Spears. She attended Parklane Academy, where she was a cheerleader and a member of the basketball team. She finished her education via online correspondence and received her GED in February 2008 through Tangipahoa Parish School System Adult Education Center. In February 2002, Spears made her acting debut in the Paramount Pictures drama film "Crossroads" which starred her sister, Britney, who portrayed the central character Lucy Wagner. Spears made a cameo, playing the younger version of Britney's character.
1164285	Aimee Garcia (born November 28, 1978) is an American actress, known for her roles as Veronica Palmero on the sitcom "George Lopez" and Jamie Batista on the Showtime drama "Dexter". Life and career. Garcia was born in Chicago, Illinois. She was cast as Maria on The WB's "Greetings from Tucson" and appeared at the "Global Frequency" television pilot as Aleph. She had a role in "Cadet Kelly", and also co-starred alongside Anthony Anderson in the TV series "All About the Andersons", where she played Lydia. In 2006, she appeared on "George Lopez" as George Lopez' wife's niece. Garcia starred alongside actress/singer Jessica Simpson in the 2008 comedy/drama "Major Movie Star". She also played a brief part in the movie "D-War" and narrated the Adam Sandler film "Spanglish". As of 2009, she was on the Peter Berg NBC medical drama "Trauma" as the EMT Helicopter Pilot Marisa Benez. In 2011, it was announced she would play Jamie Batista on Showtime's "Dexter", as well as a criminal on CBS's "Hawaii Five-0".
1162711	Noble Henry Willingham, Jr. (August 31, 1931 – January 17, 2004) was an American television and film actor. He was best known for his role as C.D. Parker on the series "Walker, Texas Ranger" from 1993 to 1999. Early life. Willingham was the son of Ladelle (née Speights) and Noble Henry Senior, a railroad worker and a farmer. He was born in the small town of Mineola, in Wood County east of Dallas, Texas. After graduating in 1953 from North Texas State University in Denton, he earned a master's degree in educational psychology from Baylor University in Waco, Texas. Career. Willingham appeared in more than thirty feature films, including "Chinatown" (1974),"The Boys in Company C" (1978), Norma Rae (1979), "Harry's War" (1981), "Independence Day" (1983), "Good Morning, Vietnam" (1987), the HBO Movie "The Heist" (1989), "City Slickers" (1991), "The Last Boy Scout" (1991), "The Distinguished Gentleman" (1992), "City Slickers II" (1994), "" (1994), and "Up Close & Personal" (2001). Willingham was teaching high school government and economics in Houston before he followed his dream of becoming an actor. He auditioned for a part in "The Last Picture Show" (1971), which was filmed in Texas. He won the role, which led to another appearance, in 1973's "Paper Moon". On television, Willingham had a recurring role in the ABC series "Home Improvement" with Tim Allen as John Binford, and appeared as a guest star in the 1975 CBS family drama series "Three for the Road". He also guest starred on "Murder, She Wrote", " (1989)", "Northern Exposure", "Rockford Files", "Tucker's Witch" with Tim Matheson and Catherine Hicks, and "Quantum Leap". His additional television credits include "A Woman With A Past", "", and "Unconquered". He also played the conductor in "Kenny Rogers as The Gambler" (1980), he appeared in the 1986 miniseries "Dream West", and appeared in "Badge of the Assassin" (1985) and "Men Don't Tell" (1993).
1431846	Clayne Crawford (born April 20, 1978) is an American actor.
1039410	Richard Edward Pasco, CBE (born 18 July 1926) is a British stage, screen and TV actor. Early life. Pasco was born in Barnes, London, the son of Phyllis Irene (née Widdison) and Cecil George Pasco. He was educated at the King's College School, Wimbledon. He became an apprentice stage manager at the Q Theatre, before studying at the Central School of Speech and Drama, where he won the gold medal. He then spent three years with the Birmingham Repertory Company. Career. One of his earliest screen appearances was as Teddy in "Room at the Top" (1959). His other films include "Sword of Sherwood Forest" (1960), "The Gorgon" (1964) and "Rasputin, the Mad Monk" (1966), all for Hammer Studios. During his lengthy stage career, which began in 1943, he has worked with the Old Vic, the Royal Court, the Royal Shakespeare Company and the National Theatre. Pasco played the part of Frank Rice in the original stage production of John Osborne's play "The Entertainer" (1957) with Laurence Olivier. One of his most memorable performances was in John Barton's 1974 production of "Richard II" for the RSC (alternating the title role and that of Bolingbroke with Ian Richardson). Among his radio successes were his performances of BBC Radio 4's "Morning Story" for BBC Pebble Mill producer David Shute. His TV credits include the lead role of Brutus in "Julius Caesar" (1979) by William Shakespeare in the BBC's Shakespeare cycle. His later work includes "Mrs. Brown" (1997), the "Inspector Morse" episode, "Dead on Time", "A Dance to the Music of Time" (1997), and "Hetty Wainthropp Investigates" (1998).
695667	Javed Sheikh (, also spelled Javaid) (born 8 October 1954) is a Pakistani actor, director and producer who has devoted his career to the film industry of Lollywood, Bollywood and Pollywood films. Career. Born in Pakistan's fourth-largest city, Rawalpindi, Javed Sheikh made his acting debut in the Lollywood film "Dhamaka", released on 14 December 1974.
1105311	Thomas Simpson FRS (20 August 1710 – 14 May 1761) was a British mathematician, inventor and eponym of Simpson's rule to approximate definite integrals. The attribution, as often in mathematics, can be debated: this rule had been found 100 years earlier by Johannes Kepler, and in German is the so-called Keplersche Fassregel. Biography. Simpson was born in Market Bosworth, Leicestershire. The son of a weaver, Simpson taught himself mathematics, then turned to astrology after seeing a solar eclipse. He also dabbled in divination and caused fits in a girl after 'raising a devil' from her. After this incident, he and his wife had to flee to Derby. They later moved to London. From 1743, he taught mathematics at the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich. Apparently, the method that became known as Simpson's rule was well known and used earlier by Bonaventura Cavalieri (a student of Galileo) in 1639, later rediscovered by James Gregory (who Simpson succeeded as Regius Professor of Mathematics at the University of St Andrews) and was only attributed to Simpson. Thomas Simpson first formulated, in 1750, a generalization of the Fermat point problem that was later popularized by Alfred Weber in 1909. In its simplest form, the Fermat problem consists in locating a point D with respect to three points A, B, and C in such a way that the sum of the distances between D and each of the three other points is minimized. The Simpson-Weber triangle problem consists in locating a point D with respect to three points A, B, and C in such a way that the sum of the transportation costs between D and each of the three other points is minimized. In 1971, Luc-Normand Tellier found the first direct (non iterative) numerical solution of the Fermat and Simpson-Weber triangle problems. Long before Von Thünen’s contributions, which go back to 1818, the Fermat point problem can be seen as the very beginning of space economy. It was formulated by the famous French mathematician Pierre de Fermat before 1640.
583817	Vyabari is a 2007 Tamil drama film directed by Sakthi Chidambaram. Produced by Shakti Chidambaram, the film S. J. Suryah, Tamanna Bhatia and Vadivelu. This film is based on the film "Multiplicity". Plot. Suryaprakash (S. J. Suryah) is a business man who wants to become richer than Bill Gates and in the process, he loses out on family and social life. So he tells a scientist (Nasser) to make a clone of him so that he can keep concentrating on business and the clone can take his place at home. Tamanna is college girl named Savitri who does a research project on Suryaprakash and begins to love him. Suryaprakash is not interested in Savitri but, he marries her to make use of her cooking talent in order to widen his business. Suryaprakash after singing and dancing with both models Namitha and Malavika and humiliating his brother-in-law Vadivelu, finally understand the value of family after his mother (Seetha) dies. Box office. The film was declared a massive flop. The film wouldnot bring a public opinion itself. It was finally a collective failure.
1068074	Killing Zoe is a 1994 film, written and directed by Roger Avary. It stars Eric Stoltz, Jean-Hugues Anglade, and Julie Delpy. The story details a safe cracker named Zed who returns to France to aid an old friend in performing a doomed bank heist. "Killing Zoe" is regarded as a respected "cult" favorite and has been labeled by Roger Ebert as "Generation X's first bank caper movie." Plot. Zed (Eric Stoltz), a professional safe-cracker, comes to Paris to help a childhood friend, Eric (Jean-Hugues Anglade), with a bank heist.
590530	Raja Harishchandra ( "Rājā Hariścandra") is a 1913 Indian silent film, directed and produced by Indian icon Dadasaheb Phalke, and is the first full-length Indian feature film. The film was based on the legend of Raja Harishchandra, recounted in the "Ramayana" and "Mahabharata". The film marked a historic benchmark in the film industry in India. Only one print of the film was made and shown at the Coronation Cinematograph. It was a commercial success and paved the way for more such films. Plot. The film opens with a scene of a tableaux patterned on the painting by Raja Ravi Varma, of Raja Harishchandra and his wife with their son. The film revolves around the noble and righteous king, Harishchandra, who first sacrifices his kingdom, followed by his wife and eventually his children to honour his promise to the sage Vishwamitra. Though, in the end, pleased by his high morals, the Gods restore his former glory, and further bestow him with divine blessings. Cast. D.D. Dabke, a Marathi stage actor played the lead role of Raja Harischandra. The female lead role of Taramati, Harischandra's wife was also played by a male actor called Anna Salunke and Phalke's son Bhalachandra D. Phalke was the child artist who donned the role of Rohtash, son of Harischandra. Sage Vishwamitra's role was played by G.V. Sane. The story was an adaptation from the Hindu mythology and was scripted by Ranchhodbai Udayram and Dada Saheb Phalke. Other artists in the film were: Production. Dhundiraj Govind Phalke, popularly addressed in reverence, as Dada Saheb Phalke, who eventually came to don the title "father of Indian Cinema", was the director, script writer and producer of the film. He started a studio in Dadar Main Road. He wrote the screen play, and created the sets for the film and started shooting the film himself. The film was Dada’s first feature film venture of full film length of 3700 ft (in four reels) about 50 minutes of running time, and it took seven months 21 days to complete the film. The film was screened at the Coronation Cinema in 1913 before invited audience of the representatives of the press and guests. The film received wide acclaim and was a commercial success. Phalke followed it up by making films such as Satyavan Savitri, Satyawadi Raja Harish Chandra(1917), Lanka Dahan(1917), Sri Krisna Janma(1918) and Kaliya Mardan(1919). Phalke was greatly influenced by the style of painter Raja Ravi Verma in the making of his films. Just as Verma brought Hindu mythology on canvas, Phalke brought it in motion pictures. He would make many films based on mythological stories from "Ramayana", "Mahabharata" and others. The film had an all-male cast as no woman was available for playing female leads. Phalke struggled to get woman, including nautch girls, to agree to act in film. He hence had to cast a delicate-looking man to play the role of Queen Taramati, Harishchandra's wife. Phalke discovered Salunke, who used to work in a restaurant as a cook, for this role. Salunke would later play the role of both Rama and Sita in Phalke's 1917 film "Lanka Dahan" and become the most popular actor and actress of his time. Dadasaheb's wife cooked food alone, without any help, for the whole cast and crew, which were more than 500 people. She also washed the clothes and costumes, helped in the posters and production of the film, and co-operated with the cast, satisfying them with food and water. "Harishchandrachi Factory" is a 2009 film based on the making of "Raja Harischandra". The title is based on the fact that, when the film was made, working in films was taboo, so Dada Saheb advised his artists to tell others that they were working in the factory of one 'Harishchandra'. Classification as first Indian film. Some have argued that "Raja Harischandra" does not deserve the honour of being called the first Indian film because Dadasaheb Torne's film "Shree Pundalik" was released on 18 May 1912 in Mumbai, one year before Phalke's film. However, "Shree Pundalik" is a cinematographic recording of play, using a single, fixed camera; it is one of a number of such Indian films that predated "Raja Harishchandra". Additionally, the cameraman for "Shree Pundalik" was a Briton, and the film stock was processed in London. Release. The film premiered on 21 April 1913 at the Olympia Theatre, Grant Road for a selective audience that included famous personalities of Bombay (Mumbai) and editors of many newspapers. It was first shown in public on 3 May 1913 at Bombay's Coronation Cinema, Girgaon, where crowds thronged the roads outside the hall, as it marked the beginning of the Indian film industry. The film was so successful that Dada Saheb had to make more prints to show the film in rural areas as well. The film was a grand success and soon established Phalke as a producer and paved the way for the Indian film industry. Extant Prints. The original film was in four reels, and the National Film Archive of India, Pune has only the first and last reels. Some film historians believe that they belong to a 1917 remake of the film, by the same name.
1039588	Rory Kinnear (born 17 February 1978) is an English actor who has worked with the Royal Shakespeare Company and the Royal National Theatre. He played Bill Tanner in "James Bond" movies "Quantum of Solace" and "Skyfall", and in various video games of the franchise. He also won a Laurence Olivier Award for portraying Fopling Fluter in a 2008 version of "The Man of Mode", and a British Independent Film Award for his performance in the 2012 film "Broken". Early life. Kinnear was born in London, England. The son of actors Roy Kinnear and Carmel Cryan, Rory Kinnear has two sisters, Kirsty and Karina. Through his father he is the grandson of the international rugby union and rugby league player Roy Muir Kinnear, and he is the godson of Michael Williams. Educated at Tower House School and St Paul's School, London, he read English at Balliol College, Oxford and then studied acting at London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art. Career. Kinnear's performances in Phyllida Lloyd's production of "Mary Stuart" and Trevor Nunn's "Hamlet", in which he played Laertes, met with acclaim. He also achieved recognition as the outrageous Sir Fopling Flutter in "The Man of Mode" at the National Theatre, winning a Laurence Olivier Award and Ian Charleson Award. Other notable theatre work includes the lead in Thomas Middleton's "The Revenger's Tragedy", the role of Pyotr in Gorky's "Philistines" and the role of Mitia in a stage adaptation of the Nikita Mikhalkov film "Burnt by the Sun", all for the National Theatre. Further to his theatre work he received particularly positive reviews for his sympathetic portrayal of Denis Thatcher in "The Long Walk to Finchley" (2008), a BBC dramatisation of the early years of Margaret Thatcher's political career, which also starred Andrea Riseborough and Samuel West. He portrayed Bill Tanner in the Bond films "Quantum of Solace" (2008) and "Skyfall" (2012). In 2010 he played Angelo in "Measure For Measure" at the Almeida Theatre. Later in 2010 he played the title role in "Hamlet" at the National Theatre. The two portrayals won him the best actor award in the Evening Standard drama awards for 2010. In 2010, he played "Flugkapitän" Jürgen Rahl in the BBC Radio drama "Slipstream" as a disaffected German pilot who joins a mission to steal an alien spacecraft harboured by the Nazis. He also starred alongside Lucy Punch and Toby Stephens in the BBC Two series "Vexed". Broadcast on 19 October 2010, he was the co-lead in the BBC4 TV drama, "The First Men in the Moon" written by and co-starring Mark Gatiss. In 2011, he provided narration during the BBC Proms production of 'Henry V – suite' arranged by Muir Mathieson during their Film Music Prom. He appeared in the lead role of Prime Minister Michael Callow in 'The National Anthem', the first instalment of Charlie Brooker's miniseries "Black Mirror". In July 2012, Kinnear appeared as Bolingbroke in "Richard II", a BBC Two adaptation of the play of the same name, with Ben Whishaw as King Richard and Patrick Stewart as John of Gaunt. Kinnear appeared in "The Last of the Haussmans" at the Royal National Theatre during the summer of 2012. The production was broadcast to cinemas around the world on 11 October 2012 through the National Theatre Live programme. He starred as Iago opposite Adrian Lester in the title role of "Othello" in 2013 at the National Theatre throughout the summer of 2013. He starred in the BBC Two show Count Arthur Strong as Michael and also appeared in the Channel 4 drama Southcliffe. From September 2013 the Bush Theatre in London staged Rory's debut play "The Herd" directed by Howard Davies.
585629	Aagathan (Malayalam : ആഗതന്‍) is a 2010 Malayalam film directed by Kamal starring Dileep, Sathyaraj, Charmee Kaur and Lal. Plot. The film begins with the song “manju mazhakattil” showing the family of young Gautham Menon moving into Srinagar and the getting used to the Kashmir life. Later a group of terrorists siege the village and kill Guatham’s parents. Gautham’s older sister pulls him away from the killers and hides behind woods. A terrorists finds them and a gunshot is heard. Later his sister is seen to be in the Hospital in critical stage and the Doctor asks him to pray for her. The song continues and the shows Gautham growing to a teenager winning accolades from school. He runs to the hospital to share the joy with his still hospitalized sister, but sees her dying in the hospital bed. The story turns to the present where an adult Gautham Menon (Dileep) go sees the Old doctor uncle (Babu Nampoothiri) who was a friend of his late father and his mentor during his childhood. Gautham says his company posted him in India and he can choose his posting between Chennai and Bangalore. He goes to see an old Army personnel, Major George Joseph (Lal), army who was discharged of his duties for having squabbles with superiors while drunk. He tells Gautham that he had his family killed in an accident resulted from his drunk driving. Gautham reveals himself to Major as the kid from the past who was compassionately consoled by him after the military operation that killed the terrorists that attacked Gautham’s village. Meanwhile a journalist comes to visit Rtd. General Hareendranath Varma (Satyaraj) to publish his biography. The General reluctantly accepts the offer. Later he sees his mother trying to call Shreya, daughter of Varma, asking her to stop by while en route to Bangalore, that they could proceed her marriage with an NRI boy. Knowing the intentions of Grandma, Shreya (Charmee Kaur) dodges the calls saying she can hardly hear her while travelling on the bus. The bus hits an old woman. Gautham, sitting next to Shreya, carries the women to bus demanding to take her to hospital. He asks the help of Shreya to carry her to the hospital. The driver takes the bus leaving behind Gautham and Shreya at the hospital. Later the relatives of the victim come to hospital and takes money off Goutham as compensation. Gautham and Shreya leave and had to wait till 10PM to catch the next Bus to Bangalore, where Shreya has to pay all the expenses. Shreya finds Gautham gone in the morning, but after repaying her the expenses and a note left behind. She is picked up by her cousin and her husband (Biju Menon). Incidentally Gautham also rents the house owned by Biju Menon’s brother and befriends with his family, though he tactfully dodges Shreya every time she sees him. Shreya develops a fondness towards Gowtham, despite not knowing anything about him including his name. Meanwhile her Grandma arrives to Bangalore and Biju Menon comes up with the proposal of Gowtham for Shreya. Grandma likes Gowtham upon seeing him. But Shreya, already in love with ‘stranger’, does not agree to it. Later ‘stranger’ reveals himself to Shreya as the Gowtham. Varma invites Gowtham to his farmhouse to meet him. Gowtham wins everybody’s heart with his polite and gentle manner. Later he beats the General in a chess game and gains his admiration. That moment Gowtham reveals himself as a survivor of the terrorist attack foiled by Varma’s army which upsets the general. Gowtham speaks to the General in Private and reveals the truth that his sister was cruelly raped by the then commanding officer Varma after killing all the terrorists knocking her unconscious for the rest of her life. Varma asks Major George, who was a silent witness to his cruelty, to report it as a terrorist act thereby hiding the truth. Gowtham swears to the General that he will make him reveal the truth to everyone. Gowtham gets close to everyone in the family which annoys Varma who tries everything to get rid of him. Gowtham proves to Varma that Shreya is madly in love with him. Varma takes Gowtham out for a ride and threatens to kill him by pointing a gun, but Gowtham has already texted Shreya to follow them, thereby foiling Varma’s attempt. Later Varma almost succeed in killing Gowtham by locking him in the wine preserving barrel, but Gowtham escapes with the help of Lawrence (Innocent). He challenges Varma to make him reveal the secret in two days at the engagement ceremony. A large party of Generals ex colleagues, including Major George, is invited to the function by Goutham using Varma’s email id. It is also revealed that the journalist chronicling Varma’s biography has also been sent by Gowtham to trap him. The media people are also invited. At the function, Varma presents himself in the Army General’s uniform. He reveals the secret to all the invited guests in the guise of a dirty plan by Gowtham to blackmail him. Varma also says that if anyone among the guests believes the story, he will shoot himself. Gowtham challenges General to shoot him if the story is a scam. Though the General points the gun towards Gowtham, he cannot pull himself to shoot him, thereby silently admitting the crime. Embarrassed, he leaves the scene and kills himself after writing down the confession to the President of India and returning all the accolades and awards he received during his service. The film ends with Shreya sitting in an airport receiving a letter passed on to her. She reads it to find it from Gowtham asking if she still has got feelings for him. She sees him sitting a bit far smiling at her. Reception. The film received mixed reviews from both critics and audience. Veeyen of Nowrunning.com commented "Aagathan has an 'I know what's round the corner' quality all over it despite a stunning backdrop and an unusually subtle soundtrack. It's a psychodrama gone wrong, precisely because the denouement that it hopes to cash on is a bit too obvious, and comes at the wrong instant". The film acclaimed well by audience by the choreography done in the film. Box office. The film had a hard competition with "Chattambinadu", "Ividam Swargamanu", "Happy Husbands", "Drona 2010" and Dileep's other film "Bodyguard". The film was declared an average success at box office Soundtrack. The film's soundtrack, composed by Ouseppachan and lyrics penned by Kaithapram, was met with positive reviews. Shreya Ghoshal, who performed one of the tracks, won the Best Female Playback Singer Award at the 13th Asianet Film Awards. She also won the Kerala Film Critics Award for Best Female Playback Singer.
582394	Raavan is a 2010 Indian thriller film directed, written and produced by Mani Ratnam. It stars Abhishek Bachchan, Aishwarya Rai and Vikram in the lead roles while Govinda, Ravi Kishan, Nikhil Dwivedi, Priyamani and Tejaswini Kolhapure feature in key supporting roles. This film was the Bollywood debut of Vikram. It was simultaneously released in Tamil as "Raavanan" with a slightly different cast, which would also be dubbed into Telugu and other regional languages. The film's score and soundtrack is composed by A. R. Rahman. The film was released on 18 June 2010. The film's premiere was held in London on 16 June 2010. Plot. The film opens with shots showing Beera Munda (Abhishek Bachchan), a bandit, jumping off a cliff into the water. His gang is busy distracting the police and a few police vehicles are set ablaze. Ragini Sharma (Aishwarya Rai), on a boating trip, is kidnapped by Beera. Dev Pratap Sharma (Vikram), her husband and a superintendent of police, is informed of her abduction. A brief montage of shots showcases the story of Beera. He is seen as a local hero, a sort of Robin Hood - who runs a parallel government, with his brothers - Mangal (Ravi Kishan) and Hariya (Ajay Gehi). Though considered a terrorist by the local police, Beera is respected by the villagers. He kidnaps Ragini hoping to avenge the death of his sister Jamuni (Priyamani). Ragini refuses to die at the hands of a bandit and jumps off the cliff, but is unable to kill herself. This prompts Beera to postpone her killing, as it is useless to kill someone who has no fear of death. Dev and his team enter the forests with the aid of Sanjeevani Kumar (Govinda), a forest guard. Despite searching deep in the forests, Dev is unable to hunt down Beera. Meanwhile, Beera and Mangal infiltrate the police tents when Dev is not present. By chance they stumble upon Inspector Hemant (Nikhil Dwivedi), Dev's junior and his assistant. Beera kidnaps Hemant and takes him to his hideout, where Mangal shaves off his hair, snatches all his clothes and pin him deep into the soil, only his head sticking out from the ground. Ragini discovers Hemant in this condition and reproaches Beera and Mangal for such inhuman acts. Beera eventually tells Ragini the story of his sister's death; Dev had led an encounter against Beera during Jamuni's wedding. Dev's shot grazed Beera in the neck. Beera escaped, but Hemant captured and took Jamuni to the police station. She was kept in police custody all night and was serially raped by the policemen, when she refused to reveal Beera's whereabouts. Beera returns home to find Jamuni distraught and traumatized. The next day, she commits suicide by drowning in a nearby well. Hearing Beera's history and the reason for his blood-thirst, Ragini feels sorry for him. Eventually, they both seem to develop some weakness for each other. While Beera reveals his feelings openly to Ragini, she tries to hide hers as she is still not sure about them. Meanwhile, Sanjeevani Kumar sneaks into the place where Ragini was kept under watchful protection. He tells her of Dev's relentless search for her, but at that moment Mangal comes from behind and overpowers and captures Sanjeevani. He is taken as prisoner in front of Beera, whom he warns of the consequences of keeping another man's wife in his house. He also tells him to return Ragini to Dev, or be responsible for the destruction of his people. Beera bluntly refuses to follow his advice. Unhappy that his brother is preparing for war, Hariya convinces Beera to allow him to offer a truce to Dev. Hariya goes with Sanjeevani to their camp. Dev initially seems to agree, but when Hariya comes out in the open, Dev shoots him to death. An enraged Beera sets the police tents on fire by an ambush attack with his gang. Dev and Beera come face to face for a final confrontation on an old, rickety mountain bridge. Dev fights Beera with brute force, but Beera manages to outwit him. He almost lets Dev fall to his death but saves him because his wife was waiting for him. Beera releases Ragini and leaves. Dev and Ragini re-unite after fourteen days. However, Dev yells at an invisible Beera, vowing to come back and destroy him. While riding a train back to their hometown, Dev accuses Ragini of infidelity and informs her that it was Beera who told him so. Furious, Ragini leaves Dev to meet Beera through Mangal. When she does, she asks him what Beera had told Dev. Beera replies that he had said he protected Ragini for all the fourteen days and nothing else. They quickly realize Dev lied, hoping Ragini would lead him to his hideout. Dev appears with a police team and confront the duo, reminding Beera of the vow. Ragini stands in front of Beera to save him, but Beera pushes her out of the line of fire. He is shot multiple times. Ragini's true feelings comes to surface when she tries to save Beera with all her might. Content that Ragini too has feelings for him, Beera falls off the cliff to his death with a smile. Production. Shooting began in Athirappilly Falls and the forest nearby the falls.The crew make a huge set at the end of October 2008. During filming, Mani Ratnam became ill which delayed the filming for a few months in 2009. However, the film began its last schedule in August 2009. The film finished filming and went into post production by October 2009. Manikandan was hired as the film's DOP or cinematographer, however he walked out in May 2009 and was replaced by Santosh Sivan. This film have numerous action scenes and stunts performed by the actors. The stunts are directed by Mani Ratnam and are choreographed by Peter Hein, who received Filmfare action award for the Hindi version of "Ghajini" and "Anniyan". The Kerala martial art Kalarippayattu is also featured in the film. Dancer Astad Deboo choreographed a passionate chase scene and tandav dance between Abhishek and Aishwarya for the film. Indian fashion designer Sabyasachi Mukherjee designed Aishwarya Rai's costumes in the film. "Raavan" has been shot in numerous locations around India including the forests of Karnataka (Tumkur), Kerala (Athirappilly Falls), Ooty, Jhansi, Kolkata, Mahabaleshwar and in the Malshej Ghats in Maharashtra. Reception. Critical response. Among Indian film critics on the review-aggregation website ReviewGang, the film scored 4.5/10 based on 12 reviews. Baradwaj Rangan of The New Indian Express rated the film 4/5 and said "Raavan falls for Sita (and vice versa) in an intriguingly idiosyncratic take on the Ramayana - if you can get past the lead performances, that is" Rajeev Masand of IBN gave the film 1.5/5 and said, "Despite some eye-watering camerawork and a stunning action piece in the film's climax, the film -- especially its first half -- is a carelessly edited mess of long scenes that make little sense when strung together". Noyon Jyoti Parasara of AOL rated it 2.5/5 and stated " Raavan is more a choreographed musical-cum-psychological drama but without proper character backing. What makes the movie worth watching is the peaks in the second half, of course apart from the imagery." Taran Adarsh of Bollywood Hungama rated it 1.5/5 and said, "On the whole, "Raavan" is a king-sized disappointment, in terms of content". Sukanya Venkatraghavan of Filmfare rated the film 3/5 and said, ""Raavan" has its moments but it lacks depth. The first half is fairly riveting but the second half slowly slips into a coma". Nikhat Kazmi of Times of India rated it favourably at 3.5/5 saying, "There are enough punches in the second half to keep the momentum going, but by and large, the film scores mostly on art and aesthete". Raja Sen of Rediff rated it 2/5 and said, ""Raavan" truly and tragically fails us is in taking one of our greatest epics, and making it unforgivably boring". Parimal Rohit of Buzzine Bollywood said, ""Raavan" is ultimately a clever film, as it pushed the envelope on how one goes about defining who is good and who is evil." Among U.S. and U.K. film critics sampled on the Rotten Tomatoes aggregate site, "Raavan" rated 64%, with eleven reviews. Cath Clarke of "The Guardian" gave the film a rating of 2/5 and found it sexist, while "New York Post" critic Lou Lumenick wrote, "If you're not a fan of Bollywood movies — which have long resisted crossover attempts in this country despite the success of hybrids such as "Slumdog Millionaire" — Mani Ratnam's action melodrama "Raavan" probably isn't going to make a convert out of you." However, Frank Lovece of "Film Journal International" found it a "cracklingly stylish, suspenseful psychological drama" with "a visual sense that evokes David Fincher at his darkest", and admired the dance numbers, "one taking place somewhat naturalistically at a wedding, the other essentially a stunning war dance." "The New York Times" and the "Los Angeles Times" likewise gave it positive reviews: Rachel Saltz of the former made it a "Times" "Critic's Pick" and lauded Ratnam as "a talented visual storyteller who directs action crisply and fills the screen with striking images" including "an eye-popping climactic battle", while Kevin Thomas of the latter said the film "is replete with dizzying camerawork, myriad complications, violent mayhem, broad humor, usual musical interludes, a cliffhanging climactic confrontation and a finish that strikes a note of poignancy." Box office. "Raavan" opened "below expectations" at the Indian box office, with the Hindi version earning Rs 60 million (Rs 6 crore) on its opening day. and 23.83 crore through its first week. In North America, "Raavan" opened in 120 theaters and ranked #15 on the domestic weekend box office chart with $482,760. As of 24 June, it had collected $573,314 in this market. The film was declared a flop by Box Office India. Soundtrack. The soundtrack for the film is composed by A. R. Rahman with lyrics penned by Gulzar. It features six songs and an additional song that was performed by Rahman at the audio launch. It was released on 24 April 2010 by T-Series. As "Raavan" became a major anticipated project, following the success of Rahman's previous album, several false rumours about the soundtrack of the film were disseminated to websites and magazines. Many songs claimed to be songs from Raavan, like "Pairon Pe Jannat Hain", "Kaadhale" etc. and another set of fake tracklists were spread through internet. The audio release was scheduled on March 2010 but since the release date of the film was changed, the audio release was changed to April last week. The tracklist was officially published on 21 April and the music was launched officially on 24 April by Aishwarya Rai and Abhishek Bachchan. However, CDs were available in some stores on 23 April itself. The soundtrack features 6 songs composed by A. R. Rahman with lyrics penned by Gulzar. During the audio release, an additional track was performed by Rahman, titled "Jaare Ud Jaare", which was not included in the CD. The song was cited to be an "instant composition" by Rahman, "The night before the launch, Rahman closeted himself in his Mumbai studio and worked through the night to compose the song", the source adds. This song is believed to be included in the later stages. The soundtrack also features three more additional songs that were featured in the movie. However the official tracklist have only 6 songs. The soundtrack is especially noted for the use of rich instruments, Indian as well as Middle Eastern. Several new singers are introduced through this film. Critical reception. The soundtrack for the movie has received positive reviews, with most reviewers hailing the album to be one of Rahman's best recent works. "The Hindu" said, "Raavan is further proof that A.R. Rahman always saves some of his best stuff for old friend Mani Ratnam. There's no escaping Raavan. Or Rahman. They will get you." According to "The Times of India", Raavan is an interesting audio track, although Rahman's earlier associations with Mani Ratnam remain unforgettable. A review on "Bollywood Hungama" said, "There are number of gems in the album, most notably being "Ranjha Ranjha", "Beera Beera" and "Thok De Killi". Go for it, this one is not to be missed as it has Rahman coming up with one of his best soundtracks in recent times." A review by "The Hindustan Times" said, The trio (Rahman, Gulzar and Mani) has brought out a lethal combination presenting a soundtrack that is fresh, high on energy and in tune with the soul of the movie. "Buzzine Bollywood" said the soundtrack is one of the best of 2010 "due to its top-shelf talent" and "is a solid balance of powerfully rich instrumentals and beautifully soft melodies." "PlanetBollywood.com" said, "Raavan is a fascinating and diverse soundtrack that deserves repeated listening to be fully appreciated. Forget anything else this year, you owe it to yourself to discover the music on offer here. There is a lot of experimentation as heard in "Beera" and "Thok Di Killi". Also that experimentation extends to the singers- just check out the amazing talent and fresh faces on show here, most of whom we have never heard before! Elsewhere you will find other reasons to rejoice in the music ("Ranjha Ranjha" and "Behene De") and although arguably it never consistently reaches Rahman’s best (the music doesn't always have multiple layers to peel away), Raavan is still his most varied, folksy and interesting soundtrack in a long while. Mani Ratnam is surely happy and so should you be. A strong contender for soundtrack of the year!" According to "Rediff"'s Sukanya Verma, "A. R. Rahman stays true to the element of Ratnam's vision as there's never any attempt to show off or introduce unnecessary elements. The outcome is exquisite. Or should I say expected." A review by "NDTV" said, "The album is a musical treat and impresses thoroughly. When Rahman teams up with Gulzar and Mani Ratnam, the result is pure magic. Awards and nominations. Won Nominated Nominated
1064595	Midnight in Paris is an American 2011 romantic comedy fantasy film written and directed by Woody Allen. Taking place in Paris, the film follows Gil Pender, a screenwriter, who is forced to confront the shortcomings of his relationship with his materialistic fiancée and their divergent goals, which become increasingly exaggerated as he travels back in time each night at midnight. The movie explores themes of nostalgia and modernism. Produced by Spanish group Mediapro and Allen's Gravier Productions, the film stars Owen Wilson, Rachel McAdams, Marion Cotillard, Léa Seydoux, Kathy Bates and Adrien Brody. It premiered at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival and was released in North America in May 2011. The film opened to critical acclaim and has commonly been cited as one of Allen's best films in recent years. In 2012, the film won both the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay and the Golden Globe Awards for Best Screenplay; and was nominated for three other Academy Awards: Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Art Direction. It was shown on Channel 3 on Spanish television with subtitles and won a Goya Award, the Spanish equivalent of an American Academy Award. Plot. Gil Pender, a successful but creatively unfulfilled Hollywood screenwriter, and his fiancée, Inez, are in Paris, vacationing with Inez's wealthy, conservative parents. Gil is struggling to finish his first novel, centered around a man who works in a nostalgia shop, but Inez dismisses his ambition as a romantic daydream and encourages him to stick with the more lucrative screenwriting. While Gil is considering moving to Paris (which he notes, much to the dismay of his fiancée, is at its most beautiful in the rain), Inez is intent on living in Malibu. By chance, they are joined by Inez's friend Paul, a pedantic pseudo-intellectual who speaks with great authority but questionable accuracy on the history and art of the city. This is best revealed when he pontificates on a Picasso which Gil had seen the night before and discourses on the exact meaning of the painting - much to the disgust of the admiring group. Inez admires him, but Gil finds him insufferable. One night, Gil gets drunk and becomes lost in the back streets of Paris. At midnight, a 1920s Peugeot Type 176 car draws up beside him, and the passengers—dressed in 1920s clothing—urge him to join them. They go to a party for Jean Cocteau where Gil comes to realize that he has been transported back to the 1920s, an era he idolizes. He encounters Cole Porter, Alice B. Toklas, Josephine Baker, Zelda and F. Scott Fitzgerald, who take him to meet Ernest Hemingway. Hemingway agrees to show Gil's novel to Gertrude Stein, and Gil goes to fetch his manuscript from his hotel. However, as soon as he leaves, he finds he has returned to 2010 and the bar has disappeared. Gil attempts to bring Inez to the past with him the following night, but while they wait, she becomes impatient, and peevishly returns to the hotel. Just after she leaves, the clock strikes midnight and the same car arrives, this time with Hemingway inside it. He takes Gil to meet Stein, who agrees to read his novel and introduces him to Pablo Picasso and his mistress Adriana, to whom Gil is instantly attracted. Stein reads aloud the novel's first line: While Inez shops for furniture, Gil meets Gabrielle, an antiques dealer and fellow admirer of the Lost Generation. Gil later discovers Adriana's diary from the 1920s on a book stall by the Seine and discovers that she was in love with him. Reading that she dreamed of receiving a gift of earrings from him and then making love to him, Gil attempts to steal a pair of earrings from Inez to give to Adriana, but is thwarted by Inez's early return from a trip. Gil purchases earrings for Adriana and, returning to the past, declares his love for her. As they kiss, they are invited inside a horse-drawn carriage by a richly-dressed couple and are transported back to the 1890s Belle Époque, an era Adriana considers Paris's Golden Age. They are taken to Maxim's Paris, and eventually to the Moulin Rouge where they meet Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Paul Gauguin, and Edgar Degas. When Gil asks what they thought the best era was, the three determine that the greatest era was the Renaissance. The enthralled Adriana is offered a job designing ballet costumes, and proposes to Gil that they stay. Gil, however, upon observing that different people long for different "golden ages", undergoes an epiphany, and realizes that despite the allure of nostalgia, it is better to accept the present for what it is. Adriana elects to stay in the 1890s, and they part. Having re-written the first two chapters Gil retrieves his novel from Stein, who praises his progress as a writer and tells him that Hemingway likes it but questions why the main character has not realized that his fiancée (based on Inez) is having an affair with a pedantic character (based on Paul). Gil returns to 2010 and confronts Inez. She admits to having slept with Paul, but dismisses it as a meaningless fling. Gil breaks up with her and decides to move to Paris. Inez's parents agree with Gil when he tells her that they are not right for each other. Amid Inez's fury, Gil calmly leaves, after which Inez's father confesses to her and his wife that he had Gil followed, though the detective mysteriously disappeared (It is revealed that he was transported to the 18th century). Taking a walk across the Seine at midnight, Gil meets Gabrielle and, after it starts to rain, offers to walk her home and learns that she shares his love of Paris in the rain. Cast. The cast includes (in credits order): This is the second time McAdams and Wilson co-starred as a couple; they did so before in 2005's "Wedding Crashers". In comparing the two roles, McAdams describes the one in "Midnight in Paris" as being far more antagonistic than the role in "Wedding Crashers". Allen had high praises for her performance and that of co-star Marion Cotillard. Cotillard was cast as Wilson's other love interest, the charismatic Adriana. Carla Bruni, singer-songwriter and wife of former French President Nicolas Sarkozy, was recruited by Allen for a role as a museum guide. There were false reports that Allen re-filmed Bruni's scenes with Léa Seydoux, but Seydoux rebuffed these rumours revealing she had an entirely separate role in the film. Allen also shot down reports that a scene with Bruni required over 30 takes: "I am appalled. I read these things and I could not believe my eyes...These are not exaggerations, but inventions from scratch. There is absolutely no truth." He continued to describe Bruni as "very professional" and insisted he was pleased with her scenes, stating that "every frame will appear in the film." Production. Writing. Allen employed a reverse approach in writing the screenplay for this film, by building the film's plot around a conceived movie title, 'Midnight in Paris'. Allen originally wrote the character Gil as an east coast intellectual, but he rethought it when he and casting director Juliet Taylor began considering Owen Wilson for the role. "I thought Owen would be charming and funny but my fear was that he was not so eastern at all in his persona," says Allen. Allen realized that making Gil a Californian would actually make the character richer, so he rewrote the part and submitted it to Wilson, who readily agreed to do it. Allen describes him as "a natural actor". Filming. Principal photography began in Paris in July 2010. Allen states that the fundamental aesthetic for the camera work gave the film a warm ambiance. He describes that he likes it (the cinematography), "intensely red, intensely warm, because if you go to a restaurant and you're there with your wife or your girlfriend, and it's got red-flecked wallpaper and turn-of-the-century lights, you both look beautiful. Whereas if you're in a seafood restaurant and the lights are up, everybody looks terrible. So it looks nice. It's very flattering and very lovely." To achieve this he and his cinematographer, Darius Khondji, used primarily warm colors in the film's photography, filmed in flatter weather and employed limited camera movements, in attempts to draw little attention to itself. This is the first Woody Allen film to go through a digital intermediate, instead of being color timed in the traditional photochemical way. According to Allen, its use here is a test to see if he likes it enough to use on his future films. Allen's directorial style placed more emphasis on the romantic and realistic elements of the film, than the fantasy elements. He states that he "was interested only in this romantic tale, and anything that contributed to it that was fairy tale was right for me. I didn't want to get into it. I only wanted to get into what bore down on his (Owen Wilson's) relationship with Marion." The film opens with a -minute postcard-view montage of Paris, showing the usual and iconic tourist sites. Kenneth Turan of the "Los Angeles Times" describes the montage as a stylistic approach that lasts longer than necessary to simply establish location. According to Turan, "Allen is saying: Pay attention — this is a special place, a place where magic can happen." "Midnight in Paris" is the first Woody Allen film shot entirely on location in Paris, though both "Love and Death" (1975) and "Everyone Says I Love You" (1996) were partially filmed there. Filming locations include Giverny, John XXIII Square (near Notre Dame), Montmartre, the Palace of Versailles, the Opéra, the Sacré-Cœur, the Île de la Cité itself, and streets near the Panthéon. The street from which Gil is taken back into the past by the vintage car is the Rue Saint-Étienne du Mont. Marketing. The film is co-produced by Allen's Gravier Productions and the Catalan company Mediapro and was picked up by Sony Pictures Classics for distribution. It is the fourth film the two companies have co-produced, the others being "Sweet and Lowdown", "Whatever Works" and "You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger". In promoting the film, Allen was willing to do only a limited amount of publicity at the film's Cannes Film Festival, during its debut in May. Wilson was already committed to promoting Pixar's "Cars 2", which opened in late June, several weeks after Allen's film arrived in theaters. Due to these challenges and the relatively small ($10 million) budget for promotion, Sony Classics had to perform careful media buying and press relations to promote the film. The film's poster is a reference to Vincent van Gogh's 1889 painting "The Starry Night". Release. Box office. The film made its debut at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival on Wednesday, May 11, where it opened the festival as a first-ever screening for both professionals and the public; it was released nationwide in France that same day, Wednesday being the traditional day of change in French cinemas. It went on limited release in six theaters in the United States on May 20 and took USD$599,003 in the first weekend, spreading to 944 theaters three weeks later, when it went on wide release. "Midnight in Paris" achieved the highest gross of any of Allen's films, before adjusting for inflation, in North America. , the film earned $56,293,474 in North America, overtaking his previous best, "Hannah and Her Sisters", at $40 million. Critical reception. "Midnight in Paris" received an enthusiastic critical response; Rotten Tomatoes reports that 93% of critics surveyed have given the film a positive review; based on a sample of 202 American reviews, with an average score of 7.8/10. It summarises the consensus, "It may not boast the depth of his classic films, but the sweetly sentimental "Midnight in Paris" is funny and charming enough to satisfy Woody Allen fans." The film has received Allen's best reviews and score on the site since 1994's "Bullets Over Broadway". The website Metacritic, which assigns normalized scores to film reviews, gave the film 81 out of 100, based on 40 reviews, indicating "universal acclaim". The film received some generally positive reviews after its premiere at the 64th Cannes Film Festival. Todd McCarthy from "The Hollywood Reporter" praised Darius Khondji's cinematography and claimed the film "has the concision and snappy pace of Allen's best work". A. O. Scott of "The New York Times" commented on Owen Wilson's success at playing the Woody Allen persona. He states that the film is marvelously romantic and credibly blends "whimsy and wisdom". He praised Khondji's cinematography, the supporting cast and remarked that it is a memorable film and that "Mr. Allen has often said that he does not want or expect his own work to survive, but as modest and lighthearted as "Midnight in Paris" is, it suggests otherwise: Not an ambition toward immortality so much as a willingness to leave something behind – a bit of memorabilia, or art, if you like that word better – that catches the attention and solicits the admiration of lonely wanderers in some future time." Roger Ebert gave the film stars out of 4. He ended his review thus: This is Woody Allen's 41st film. He writes his films himself, and directs them with wit and grace. I consider him a treasure of the cinema. Some people take him for granted, although "Midnight in Paris" reportedly charmed even the jaded veterans of the Cannes press screenings. There is nothing to dislike about it. Either you connect with it or not. I'm wearying of movies that are for "everybody" — which means, nobody in particular. "Midnight in Paris" is for me, in particular, and that's just fine with "moi"." Richard Roeper, an American film critic, gave "Midnight in Paris" an "A"; referring to it as a "wonderful film" and "one of the best romantic comedies in recent years". He commented that the actors are uniformly brilliant and praised the film's use of witty one-liners. In "The Huffington Post", Rob Kirkpatrick said the film represented a return to form for the director ("it's as if Woody has rediscovered Woody") and called "Midnight in Paris" "a surprising film that casts a spell over us and reminds us of the magical properties of cinema, and especially of Woody Allen's cinema." "Midnight in Paris" has been compared to Allen's "The Purple Rose of Cairo" (1985), in that the functioning of the magical realism therein is never explained. David Edelstein, "New York", commended that approach, stating that it eliminates, "the sci-fi wheels and pulleys that tend to suck up so much screen time in time-travel movies." He goes on to applaud the film stating that, "this supernatural comedy isn't just Allen's best film in more than a decade; it's the only one that manages to rise above its tidy parable structure and be easy, graceful, and glancingly funny, as if buoyed by its befuddled hero's enchantment." Peter Johnson of PopCitizen felt that the film's nature as a "period piece" was far superior to its comedic components, which he referred to as lacking. "While the period settings of "Midnight in Paris" are almost worth seeing the film . . . it hardly qualifies as a moral compass to those lost in a nostalgic revelry," he asserts. Joe Morgenstern of "The Wall Street Journal" acknowledged the cast and the look of the film and, despite some familiarities with the film's conflict, praised Allen's work on the film. He wrote, "For the filmmaker who brought these intertwined universes into being, the film represents new energy in a remarkable career.". Peter Bradshaw of "The Guardian", giving the film 3 out of 5 stars, described it as "an amiable "amuse-bouche"" and "sporadically entertaining, light, shallow, self-plagiarising." He goes on to add that it's "a romantic fantasy adventure to be compared with the vastly superior ideas of his comparative youth, such as the 1985 movie "The Purple Rose of Cairo"." More scathing is Richard Corliss of "Time", who describes the film as "pure Woody Allen. Which is not to say great or even good Woody, but a distillation of the filmmaker's passions and crotchets, and of his tendency to pass draconian judgment on characters the audience is not supposed to like. . . . his "Midnight" strikes not sublime chimes but the clangor of snap judgments and frayed fantasy." Quentin Tarantino named "Midnight in Paris" as his favorite film of 2011. The film was well received in France. The website Allocine (Hello Cinema) gave it 4.2 out of 5 stars based on a sample of twenty reviews. Ten of the reviews gave it a full five stars, including "Le Figaro", which praised the film's evocation of its themes and said "one leaves the screening with a smile on one's lips". Faulkner estate. The William Faulkner estate later filed a lawsuit against Sony Pictures Classics for the film's bit of dialogue, "The past is not dead. Actually, it's not even past," a paraphrasing of an often-quoted line from Faulkner's 1950 book "Requiem for a Nun" ("The past is never dead. It's not even past."), claiming that the paraphrasing was an unlicensed use of the estate. Faulkner is directly credited in the dialogue. Julie Ahrens of the Fair Use Project at the Stanford University's Center for Internet and Society was quoted as saying in response to the charge, "The idea that one person can control the use of those particular words seems ridiculous to me. Any kind of literary allusion is ordinarily celebrated. This seems to squarely fall in that tradition." Sony's response stated that they consider the action "a frivolous lawsuit". In July 2013, a federal judge in Mississippi dismissed the lawsuit on fair use grounds. Home media. The soundtrack was released on December 9, 2011, and released on Blu-ray and DVD on December 20, 2011.
1166139	Susan "Susie" Essman (born May 31, 1955) is an American stand-up comedian, actress, writer, television producer, and voice artist. She is best known for her role as Susie Greene on the HBO television sitcom "Curb Your Enthusiasm". She is also known for her portrayal of "Mittens" in "Bolt". Early life. Essman was born in 1955 and was raised in the middle-class New York City suburb of Mount Vernon. Her father, Leonard Essman, was an internist; he died in 2001. Her mother, Zora, taught Russian at Sarah Lawrence College. Essman is Jewish. She received her bachelor's degree from SUNY Purchase College. Career. Stand-up comedy. Essman has been traveling and appearing at clubs throughout the country for more than two decades. Her first half-hour special appeared on Comedy Central in 1992; as much of her comedy draws from her ethnic background, she has been featured in such documentaries as, "Heroes of Jewish Comedy" and "A History of Jewish Comedy". On October 15, 2004, she performed at the Friars Club roast of Donald Trump, in which she lampooned the tycoon with lines like "Donald, did you enjoy your meal? I heard your hair ordered the salmon" and "I'm so not your type. I'm smart, my boobs are real and I speak English." Essman made her UK standup debut at the Corn Exchange at the Newbury Comedy Festival in July 2007. While in England, she appeared on the British television show "8 Out of 10 Cats". Essman is best known for her role as Susie Greene, the wife of Jeff Greene (portrayed by Jeff Garlin), on the HBO comedy series "Curb Your Enthusiasm". Essman told the New York Times that by the show's third season, she could not "walk down the street anymore without people stopping her and begging her to say character's catchphrase 'You fat fuck.'" In 2007, "Slate" named Essman's character one of the best on television, and a reason the publication looked forward to the return of the show. She also provided the voice of Helen Higgins on the Comedy Central series "Crank Yankers"; she was an occasional correspondent on the first season of the network's "The Daily Show". She made memorable comic cameos in three 1988 films — ""Crocodile" Dundee II", "Baby Boom" and "Punchline". She appeared on Comedy Central's Roast of Bob Saget on August 17, 2008 and provided the voice of "Mittens" (the cat) in the Disney animated film, "Bolt", and reprised the role in the 2009 short "Super Rhino". She also made an appearance on the Regis Philbin version of "Million Dollar Password".
1044518	Eye of the Devil is a 1966 British film with occult and supernatural themes directed by J. Lee Thompson and starring Deborah Kerr and David Niven. The film was set in rural France and filmed at the Château de Hautefort and in England. The film was based on the novel "Day of the Arrow" by Robin Estridge and was initially titled "Thirteen" Plot. David Niven plays the owner of a vineyard, who is called back to the estate when it falls on hard times. Accompanied by his wife (Deborah Kerr), the couple are confronted by a beautiful witch (Sharon Tate), who also lives on the estate with her brother (David Hemmings). As time passes it becomes clear that a blood sacrifice is expected to return the vineyard to its former glory. Production. "Eye of the Devil" was filmed in 1965 with Kim Novak initially cast as the wife. But in November 1965, and with only two weeks of shooting to be completed, Kim injured her back in a riding incident. While doing an important scene on location in France, she was thrown from a horse. Unable to complete the picture she was replaced by Deborah Kerr. As a result, many scenes had to be reshot, with Novak seen only in some long shots. However, David Hemmings recalls in his autobiography that he witnessed a bitter argument between Kim Novak and Martin Ransohoff near the end of filming led Kim Novak to be sacked and the film to be reshot with Deborah Kerr. The film went through several directors including Michael Anderson, the first director, Sidney J. Furie, and Arthur Hiller before J. Lee Thompson was brought in to complete the film. Terry Southern was brought in to do an uncredited "tighting and brightning" of the screenplay. It featured the first film performance of Tate, cast by Filmways executive Martin Ransohoff, who hailed her as his great discovery. Finally released two years later, it attracted little attention. A "The New York Times" review referred to Tate's "chillingly beautiful but expressionless" performance. Although the film was not a commercial success in the United States when first released, it was popular in Europe, and it has acquired a degree of cult status, largely due to its surreal themes, and the 1969 murder of Tate. The film is also notable for its distinguished supporting cast, which includes veteran British actors Donald Pleasence, Flora Robson, Emlyn Williams, Edward Mulhare and John Le Mesurier. To give the pagan rites some authenticity, Alex Sanders, an English occultist and Wiccan, was hired as an consultant to the film.
1060931	A Fish Called Wanda is a 1988 heist-comedy film written by John Cleese and Charles Crichton. It was directed by Crichton and stars Cleese, Jamie Lee Curtis, Kevin Kline, and Michael Palin. The film is about a jewel heist and its aftermath. Kline won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance as Otto. Cleese and Palin won BAFTA Awards for Best Lead and Best Supporting for their acting. Plot. London-based gangster George Thomason and his right-hand man, Ken Pile, an animal lover with a bad stutter, plan a jewel heist. They bring in two Americans to help: a con artist, Wanda Gershwitz, and "weapons man" Otto West, an Anglophobe who fancies himself an intellectual. Wanda and Otto are lovers, but hide this fact from George and Ken, pretending to be brother and sister, so Wanda can work her charms on them. The robbery goes well: the thieves get away with a large sum in diamonds. However, they are briefly spotted during their getaway by Mrs. Coady, an elderly lady walking her three dogs. The group then hide the loot in a safe in an old workshop. Soon after, Wanda and Otto betray George to the police and he is arrested. They return to collect the loot, only to find that George and Ken have moved it. Wanda, who was planning to double-cross Otto as well, decides to seduce George's unhappily married lawyer, Archie Leach, who must endure his vindictive wife, Wendy, and spoiled daughter, Portia, to find out where the diamonds are located. Otto becomes insanely jealous, and his interference, combined with instances of bad luck, lead Wanda and Archie's liaisons to go disastrously wrong. Wanda reveals that she likes Archie but would only stay with a rich man. He eventually calls off their attempted affair. Meanwhile, George gives Ken the task of killing Mrs. Coady, the Crown's only eyewitness. During his various attempts to kill her, Ken accidentally kills off her three Yorkshire Terriers one by one. This causes him grief, as well as grave bodily harm as each attempt goes wrong. However, Mrs. Coady suffers a fatal heart attack when her last dog is killed, so Ken is ultimately successful in his mission. Wanda and Otto want George to remain in jail, but with no witness he may get off. At his trial, Wanda gives evidence that will lead to a conviction rather than an acquittal. Archie, stunned by her unexpected testimony, fluffs his cross-examination and inadvertently calls her "darling". Enraged, George starts a brawl that leads to everyone fleeing the courtroom. Wendy is attending the trial, and Archie's antics confirm her suspicions of his (unconsummated) affair. She confronts Archie and states that she plans to divorce him. With his career and his marriage both in ruins, Archie resolves to cut his losses, steal the loot himself, and flee with Wanda to South America. Promised less jail time, George tells Archie that Ken knows where the diamonds are. Archie hurries out and sees Wanda attempting to flee the courthouse. They review what has happened and he asks why he should take her to South America with him; she counters that she has the key to the safe deposit box. While the court drama is unfolding, Otto has been trying to get Ken to reveal the location of the diamonds. He torments Ken by eating the fish in his aquarium one by one, leaving the fish called Wanda until the end. Ken gives away the location of the diamonds at a hotel near Heathrow Airport. Otto is leaving just as Archie runs into the building; Otto steals Archie's car, taking Wanda with him. Ken tells Archie, as quickly as he can given his stutter, where they are going. The two give chase. The protagonists all end up at Heathrow. Otto and Wanda recover the diamonds, but Wanda quickly double-crosses Otto and locks him in a cupboard. Otto escapes and is briefly captured by Archie, only to turn the tables. He is about to kill Archie, but Archie manages to distract Otto by pointing out that Americans are not always winners, as shown by the Vietnam War. While they are arguing, Otto is run over by a steamroller driven by Ken, seeking vengeance for the live fish Otto ate. Archie joins Wanda on board the plane, which taxis for takeoff. Through the plane window, Otto, who has somehow survived the steamroller attack, curses them until, as the plane takes off, he finally drops off. Reception. The film was an enormous critical and commercial success. Kline received wide acclaim and won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his work. Cleese and Crichton received an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Screenplay. Crichton was also nominated for Best Director, Cleese won a BAFTA for Best Actor in a Leading Role and Curtis received nominations for Leading Actress at the Golden Globes and BAFTA awards. Michael Palin won a BAFTA for Best Supporting Role. In 2000, the readers of "Total Film" magazine voted "A Fish Called Wanda" the 37th greatest comedy film of all time. In 2004 the same magazine named it the 41st greatest British film of all time. In 2000, the American Film Institute ranked the film 21st on AFI's 100 Years...100 Laughs, its list of the 100 funniest movies ever made. The film is number 27 on Bravo's "100 Funniest Movies". It is also included in the "Reader's Digest" "100 Funniest Films" list. As of September 2013, the movie holds a 93% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Sequels and adaptations. The principal cast reunited in 1997 for "Fierce Creatures" (dubbed an "equal" rather than a sequel or prequel, by Kline), playing different roles and meeting less success. In 2008, it was reported that John Cleese and his daughter, Cynthia (who played his screen daughter, Portia), had started to work on a stage musical version of the film.
719690	Paloma Baeza (born 1 May 1975) is a British actress and director of English and Mexican descent.
1054025	Stanley Clements (July 16, 1926 – October 16, 1981) was an American actor and comedian. Stanley Clements was born Stanislaw Klimowicz in Long Island, New York. Young Stan realized that he wanted a show-business career while he was in grammar school, and when he graduated from college he toured in vaudeville for two years. He then joined the touring company of the "Major Bowes Amateur Hour". In 1941, he was signed to a contract by 20th Century Fox and appeared in several B films for the studio. After a short stint with the East Side Kids, he set out on his own again, this time landing roles in more prestigious pictures. He was featured in the Bing Crosby hit "Going My Way", and scored a great success as a jockey in the Alan Ladd feature "Salty O'Rourke". His career was interrupted by military service in World War II, and when he returned, he began appearing in lower-budgeted films, including "Johnny Holiday" (cast against type as a psychopath). He starred in a series of action/detective pictures at Allied Artists for producer Ben Schwalb and director Edward Bernds. Schwalb soon became staff producer for The Bowery Boys, and when he needed a replacement for Leo Gorcey in 1956, he asked Clements to step in. Clements comfortably settled into the role of Huntz Hall's sidekick, beginning with "Fighting Trouble", and co-starred in the final seven Bowery Boys comedies. The series finally ended in 1958, and Clements went on to a steady career of supporting roles in film and TV until his death from emphysema in 1981. One of his last jobs was an appearance in a nationally advertised commercial for Pringle's potato chips. Stanley Clements died of emphysema in Pasadena, California, and is buried at Riverside National Cemetery in Riverside, California.
584224	Eeenadu () is a 2009 Telugu film, a remake of the 2008 Hindi film "A Wednesday!". Directed by Chakri Toleti, and starring Kamal Haasan and Venkatesh in the lead roles. It was simultaneously made in Tamil cinema as "Unnaipol Oruvan" with Mohanlal playing Venkatesh's role. The film was a critical and commercial success. Plot. In the opening frame, the recently dismissed Hyderabad Police Commissioner - Eashwar Prasad (Daggubati Venkatesh) standing at the lakeshore, describes in a voice-over about his termination due to a common man walked into his life and turning everything topsy-turvy. This scene leads into the flashback. An unnamed man (Kamal Haasan) is shown strategically placing a travel bag within a train in a railway station, bus and in a multiplex at Hyderabad. He proceeds to place another bag, under the false pretense of lodging an FIR, in the toilet of a police station located at Lakdi-ka-pool, Hyderabad. He then arrives on the rooftop of a building under construction near Raj Bhavan road and sets up his base of operations, equipped with various modern technology gadgets and instruments. He calls up Eashwar and informs him that 5 bombs have been placed in different locations throughout Hyderabad, which are programmed to explode simultaneously within four hours. The common man demands that he would like to negotiate with a senior Government official. Eashwar seeks the services of the Chief Secretary(Lakshmi) to act as the negotiator. Eashwar also alerts his team involved in intelligence research and surveillance, tapping all the available resources in gathering preliminary information and tracing the location of the caller. Meanwhile, the caller tips off TV9 news reporter Shilpa Rajkumar (Anuja Iyer), telling her to reach Lakdi-ka-pool police station immediately as it is going to be "the most important day of her life". Eashwar initially suspects the anonymous caller to be bluffing, but his doubts are dispelled as the caller, to prove his seriousness and the police force's helplessness, reveals that a bomb has been planted in the police station. When the bomb disposal squad find the bomb, there is only 3 minutes left. The common man calls Eashwar and tells him the instructions to deactivate the bomb. Based on these, the bomb is defused. Shilpa reaches the scene on the caller's instructions and reports about the situation. There is intense debate between Eashwar and the Chief Secretary on who would act as the negotiator with the common man. The chief minister does not want to get into this and the Chief Secretary also does not want to take upon the responsibility. Hence, Eashwar himself takes on the role of the negotiator with the common man. The common man demands the release of four terrorists, Abdullah, Inayadullah, Ahamadullah and Karamchand Lala,three from charlapally jail and one from Rajhamundry who have been involved in and arrested for many of the major terrorist attacks and activities that have happened in the country during the previous decade. Eashwar cleverly uses Shilpa to fake a report on live television that four terrorists are being relocated to an undisclosed common site, turning the caller's tool back onto him. Eashwar's men find out that the caller is using advanced software to automatically switch the numbers and locations of his mobile phone SIM card every minute, rendering their manpower and the obsolete equipment useless and prompting them to employ the services of a young hacker, who turns out to be an IIT dropout. In the meantime, Eashwar is also able to obtain a facial composite of the caller with help of the police officer to whom the caller had approached to lodge the fake FIR during the earlier scenes of the film; but much of the time passes without any concrete results on the identity or the location of the caller. Ultimately, Eashwar agrees with the caller's demand and puts two of his best men, Arif Khan (Ganesh Venkatraman) and Gautham Reddy (Dr.Bharath Reddy), in charge of handing over the four terrorists along with cell phones at the old Begumpet Airport (end of Runway no. 4). The caller also demands reporter Shilpa to reach the nearest police station at Begumpet. Once there, the caller confirms the identity of all the four men via a conference call with Arif and Eashwar, and then asks Arif and Gautham to unlock their handcuffs and leave them alone at a particular spot. Gautham orders his men to do as told but at the last moment, Arif decides not to hand over Abdullah to ensure all the information regarding the locations of the bombs can be forced out from the caller. Gautham argues with Arif and demands he do as ordered but Arif forcefully grabs the terrorist and starts walking away. As they leave behind the remaining three, the caller, unaware of the ongoing fiasco, uses a cell phone placed in a rigged jeep at the spot to detonate an explosion in which all the three terrorists perish. Arif relays this information to Eashwar, which is confirmed by the anonymous caller as he reveals that he is just a "stupid common man", not belonging to any terrorist outfit, and his plan was not to free the terrorists but to kill them, avenging all the terrorist attacks they had helped carry out in Hyderabad and other major cities of India, thus "cleaning the roach-infested house". Eashwar tries to reason with him and tries to find out his religion, the justification for this action, any personal incidents that prompted him to take such an action etc. The common man narrates an incident of how a Muslim woman was being tortured and molested by communal people. The common man also says that he can take actions for the sufferings meted out to people from other communities too. The caller threatens to blow up the remaining bombs across the city unless Arif and Gautham kill Abdullah. The Chief Secretary (Lakshmi) tells Eashwar that the Chief Minister has to know about the Current Situation but Eashwar disagrees and tells her that he'll face the consequences, and orders Arif to kill the terrorist. As Shilpa reports the scene on television, the young hacker traces the caller's location but refuses to reveal it saying that the caller was actually "brainy", and compared to him, the hacker was only one among the billions. But Eashwar looks in the hacker's computer, discovers the location and leaves abruptly towards the site. The caller calls up Eashwar, as he is on the way, for a final time to further reveal that he had not planted any other bomb in the city. At this point, Eashwar surprisingly declares he already knew there were no more bombs which makes it clear that his decision to kill the last terrorist wasn't taken in fear but in confidence. Eashwar reaches the caller's location just as the latter is leaving the place, having destroyed all his gadgets and equipment, leaving behind no evidence. The two meet briefly when Eashwar, identifying the anonymous caller on the basis of the face sketch, offers the man a ride home and introduces himself. Both shake hands, when Eashwar's voice-over cuts back as he says the man told him his real name but his name doesn't have any significance. The film ends on an idealistic note, with Eashwar admitting that they all knew the common man was disturbed because of the insecure environment and the incompetence of the governing authorities but he never imagined him to go to such lengths and have the guts to do something like that. He also repeats that the facts of this incident cannot be found in any written record but only in the memories of those who actually witnessed it, and acknowledges that although the incidence has ambiguous moral significance, he personally feels that whatever happened, happened for the best. Production. Casting. While Kamal Haasan was cast as the lead role in the film, Venkatesh's confirmation of presence in the film followed. Ganesh Venkatraman who debuted in the 2008 film "Abhiyum Naanum" was later confirmed for a supporting role. Dr.Bharath Reddy who played as cop in Telugu Film "Siddam" is playing another a supporting cop role. Ajith Kumar was earlier rumoured to be given a special role in the film. UTV Motion Pictures have been confirmed to distribute the film along with Rajkamal International, Haasan's home production company who is also producing the film. The film will be directed by Chakri, a US-based filmmaker and a close friend of Haasan. Chakri previously played the role of Govind's friend, Sai Ram in "Dasavathaaram" and the role of a child who takes stills photographs of Kamal in the 1983 Telugu film "Saagara Sangamam". Neeraj Pandey provided the film's dialogue and screenplay. The music was composed by Kamal Haasan's daughter Shruthi Haasan. The title was changed from "Thalaivan Irukkiran" to "Unnaipol Oruvan" in early April 2009. Filming. The film started its first filming schedule on 6 February 2009. It was a quickie that completed shooting in 65 days. The movie was released on the 19th of September. The Telugu version opened with good reviews and was successful at the Box office. Soundtrack. The music is composed by Shruti Haasan, daughter of Kamal Haasan. The album contains 4 songs and a remix. The songs are featured throughout the film. Kamal Haasan and singer Blaaze contributed lyrics. The audio launch was held on 6 September 2009 at Sathyam Cinemas.
1064832	Takers (formerly known as "Bone Deep") is a 2010 American crime action thriller film directed by John Luessenhop from a story and screenplay written by Luessenhop, Gabriel Casseus, Peter Allen, John Rogers, and Avery Duff. It features an ensemble cast that includes Matt Dillon, Chris Brown, Idris Elba, T.I., Jay Hernandez, Paul Walker, Hayden Christensen, and Zoë Saldaña. The film was released on August 27, 2010. The film follows a group of professional bank robbers (Michael Ealy, Chris Brown, Hayden Christensen, Paul Walker, Idris Elba) who specialize in spectacular robberies, as they are pulled into one last job by a recently paroled cohort (T.I.) only to be pitted against a hard-boiled detective (Matt Dillon) and his partner (Jay Hernandez) who interrupt their heist. Plot. Two detectives, Jack Welles (Matt Dillon) and Eddie Hatcher (Jay Hernandez), investigate a daring heist by a group of well-organized bank robbers. The crew, led by Gordon Cozier (Idris Elba), consists of John (Paul Walker), A.J. (Hayden Christensen), and brothers Jake (Michael Ealy) and Jesse (Chris Brown) Attica. The crew is without a former member, Ghost (T.I.), who was caught during a previous robbery 5 years ago. In his absence, Jake has begun a relationship with his former girlfriend Lilly (Zoe Saldana), who has accepted his proposal. Ghost surprises the crew after getting paroled. He insists he harbors no ill feelings toward the crew for abandoning him and draws them into a heist of an armored car for a $20 million payoff. The crew tells him that they will not do the job unless there is a solid plan, and Ghost agrees. Meanwhile, Welles leads a raid on a Russian gang hideout, and finds evidence of a large heist being planned. Ghost is linked to the gangsters when his name turns up amongst the evidence at the hideout, as he had made ties with the Russian gangsters while in prison. Welles goes to find Ghost, and follows him to a meeting with Gordon, John, and Jesse, running the licence plate on Gordon's Range Rover and getting his information. The crew meets to plan the heist, in which it is discovered that two trucks will travel together but that all the money is kept in the lead truck with the rear providing officers for back-up and perhaps providing a decoy function as well. The plan is to explode a crater-like hole on a city street causing the lead truck containing the $20 million to plummet into an underground tunnel connected to the sewer system to provide for a getaway. Ghost poses as a traffic cop to redirect all traffic save for the armored trucks, which he directs to the target point. Meanwhile, to cover themselves in case Ghost is setting them up, John (Walker) heads to the top of a nearby garage to take out Ghost with a sniper rifle in case things go sour. The armored trucks are late but moments before John shoots Ghost, they finally show up, having been detained in traffic. The trucks are directed down the street towards the planned explosion point but stop short because of a bicyclist in the road. The blast, having been perfectly timed to the time the trucks had turned the last corner, occurs too far forward because the lead driver had stopped short to avoid the bicyclist, and the ruse is up. The lead driver radios the police while armed guards pile out of the rear truck. A gunfight ensued between the robbers in the crater and the guards on the street until John, coming down from his sniping position, commandeers the rear truck, and rams the lead truck into the crater, before driving into the crater himself. John and the other robbers pack the cash into bags and flee by heading down a variety of different tunnels with the plan of connecting into various subway lines to make their escape. Welles and Hatcher show up on the scene and, after learning of the robber's escape through the sewer system, remembers a map of the city subway system from the Russian gang hideout, and deduces that they must be escaping through the stations marked on the map where the sewers intersect the subway. They rush to the nearest station where they find Jesse, and a chase ensues, during which Jesse (Brown) is cornered and is forced to shoot Detective Hatcher in his escape. Jesse escapes, while Welles stops to aid his partner, who dies from his wound. Jesse reconvenes with the rest of the crew at a hotel room and admits to the shooting of Hatcher and this almost results in a confrontation between Jesse and Gordon. It is now revealed that Ghost had previously cut a deal with the Russian gangsters to kill his former crewmates in exchange for half of the heist's take. Ghost gives the Russians the hotel room number, then escapes out the bathroom window, just before the Russians storm the room and attempt to kill the crew. A.J. dies in the ensuing firefight, but the rest of the crew is able to kill the Russians and flee the building before the police arrive. Jake and Jesse return home where, to his horror, Jake finds Lilly's lifeless body. The police surround their home and shoot the two when they make a suicide charge outside. Gordon and John separate to make their escape but realize Ghost intends to take all of their money, which is being held by Scott (Johnathon Schaech), a well-connected fence. Ghost sneaks onto Scott's private plane and kills him, taking their laundered money in two large suitcases. Gordon and Detective Welles arrive and a three-way Mexican standoff results in which Ghost hits both Gordon and Welles. As Ghost prepares to finish off Gordon, John arrives and shoots him dead. He and an injured Gordon take the money and drive off, with Gordon's sister Naomi (Marianne Jean-Baptiste) in tow. A gravely-wounded Welles manages to call 911 for help on his cell phone. As John and Gordon drive off, John asks Gordon "Are we good?" and Gordon replies by saying "All signs point to it." (a reoccurring dialogue between the two characters, usually used before a job). The film ends without revealing whether either Gordon or Welles survive their injuries. Critical reception. "Takers" received negative reviews from critics, garnering a 27%, or 4.5/10 rating, on review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, with the site's consensus being "Takers boasts some gripping set pieces and keeps things moving quickly, but its two-dimensional characters, clichéd script, and brazenly derivative plot make it hard to recommend." Yahoo Movies critics gave the movie an average C grade saying, "Takers is almost a good little heist movie." Author Stephen King, in his end of the year Entertainment Weekly column, listed it at #5 of his best films of 2010. He says that "the climax does strain credulity, but the characters feel real & the armored-car heist is the best action sequence in 2010" (EW 12/3/10 page 26). Box office. The film was number one at the box office during its opening weekend, making $20,512,304. Takers made its US debut on approximately 2,600 screens at 2,206 locations. According to Box Office Mojo, "The heist thriller tripled the start of "Armored", and it came in only a bit behind last summer's higher-profile "The Taking of Pelham 123". Its initial attendance was also nearly 50 percent greater than similar titles like "Dead Presidents", and "Street Kings"." Takers was made available on Blu-ray Disc and DVD on January 18, 2011. Prequel. According to humormillmag.com, Screen Gems is planning on producing a prequel of how the crew came together as well as how T.I.'s character would end up in jail, leading to the events of the original film. Awards & Nominations. BET Awards Black Reel Awards California on Location Awards NAACP Image Awards
1039696	Robert "Bob" Peck (23 August 1945 – 4 April 1999) was an English stage, television and film actor who was best known for his roles as Ronald Craven in the television serial "Edge of Darkness" and as gamekeeper Robert Muldoon in the film "Jurassic Park". Early life. Robert Peck was born into a working class family in Leeds, West Riding of Yorkshire, on 23 August 1945. He went to Leeds Modern School in Lawnswood. Peck was educated at the Leeds College of Art where he received a Diploma in Art and Design. Career. Stage career. Before breaking into film and television work, Peck was a regular actor with the Royal Shakespeare Company alongside Ian McKellen, Donald Sinden and Judi Dench. He made a memorable appearance on stage in the Royal Shakespeare Company production of "The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby", originally by Charles Dickens, playing two characters: John Browdie and Sir Mulberry Hawk — he also appeared playing the two characters in a later television adaptation of the play. He also played the character of Macduff in the Trevor Nunn's acclaimed 1976 stage and television versions of William Shakespeare's "Macbeth", and re-appeared in another production of Macbeth in 1982. According to Peck's fellow Royal Shakespeare Theatre performer and veteran actor Sir Ian McKellen, Peck is the actor he considers he "learned the most from". "The Edge of Darkness". Peck's television career began in the 1970s, with his first television roles being in the BBC's "Thirty-Minute Theatre" anthology series in 1972, in which he appeared in the episode "Bypass". He also appeared in various other successful television productions such as "Z-Cars" and "Play for Today". He also appeared in the films "Royal Flash" and "Parker". In 1985 television writer Troy Kennedy Martin, who had previously written the screenplay for the film "The Italian Job" and created the popular police procedural television series "Z-Cars" (which Peck appeared in during the 1970s); cast Peck in the starring role of policeman Ronald Craven in his television miniseries "Edge of Darkness", a crime drama/political thriller, which follows Peck's character as he attempts to unravel the truth behind the brutal murder of his daughter, portrayed by Peck's co-star in the series Joanne Whalley. Another of Peck's co-stars in the series was US actor Joe Don Baker, along with fellow UK actors Charles Kay and Ian McNeice. The series was broadcast on BBC Two in six episodes from the 4 November to the 9 December 1985, in six parts entitled "Compassionate Leave", "Into the Shadows", "Burden of Proof", "Breakthrough", "Northmoor" and "Fusion". During its run the show attracted four million viewers and spirraled Peck to fame, bagging him a British Academy Television Award for Best Actor at the British Academy of Film and Television Arts Awards. After the series ended, Peck had become a figure of popularity and a national favourite. Film success. After gaining popularity for his starring role in "Edge of Darkness", Peck had become a national favourite and began appearing in films. After a few theatre appearances, Peck made his first appearance as a main character in a film again playing a policeman, John Graham, based in Kenya 1950, who takes under his wing the son of a murdered black priest in the 1987 film "The Kitchen Toto". He also appeared in the 1987 film "On the Black Hill", adapted from the 1982 novel of the same name by Bruce Chatwin. However, the film role that really launched his career as a film actor was his portrayal of the android Byron in the 1989 post-apocalyptic science-fiction adventure film "Slipstream", in which he appeared alongside other big names including Mark Hamill, Bill Paxton, F. Murray Abraham, Ben Kingsley and Robbie Coltrane. During the late-1980s he also appeared in television shows including "The Storyteller", "The Jim Henson Hour" and "Screen One". Peck's image and popularity increased with appearances in films including the 1990 film "Lord of the Flies" as the Marine Officer. He also appeared in the television shows "Screen Two", "Screenplay" and "A TV Dante". He also appeared in the television movies "The Black Velvet Gown" and "An Ungentlemanly Act". In 1993, Peck made his biggest film appearance, when he was cast as park gamekeeper Robert Muldoon in the blockbuster smash hit "Jurassic Park", directed by Steven Spielberg from the 1990 novel of the same name by Michael Crichton, in which Peck appeared alongside several other big names including Sam Neill, Jeff Goldblum, Laura Dern, Richard Attenborough, Samuel L. Jackson and Wayne Knight. Peck's appearance in "Jurassic Park" brought him almost as much success as his role in "Edge of Darkness" did. After appearing in Steven Spielberg's "Jurassic Park", Peck appeared in the popular television show "The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles" in 1993 playing General Targo in one episode. He also played Italian Romantic composer Giuseppe Verdi in a television movie documenting the life and success of the composer. Later years. In the later years of his life and career, Peck appeared in more films portraying the roles of Captain Sebastian Belger in "Merisairas", Françoise's father in "Surviving Picasso", Ravn in "Smilla's Sense of Snow", Harry Briggs in "" and Denton (based on Lancelot Dent) in the film "The Opium War" (Chinese name "Yapian zhangzheng"). He also appeared in the direct-to-TV film "The Scold's Bridle" (1998). In 2000, a year after Peck's death from cancer, the stop-motion animated film "The Miracle Maker", was released, in which Peck voiced the character of Joseph of Arimathea. The film was dedicated to Peck's memory. Awards. Peck won a British Academy Television Award for Best Actor at the British Academy of Film and Television Arts in 1986 for his portrayal of maverick policeman Ronald Craven in the television miniseries "Edge of Darkness". Personal life. Peck married actress Jill Baker in 1982, and they had three children Hannah (born 1983), George (born 1986) and Milly (born 1990). Peck and Baker enjoyed a seventeen-year marriage which only ended when Peck died in 1999. Peck shared a close off-screen friendship with his "Edge of Darkness" co-star Ian McNeice, who attended Peck's funeral and read a eulogy at the event. Death. In November 1994, Peck was diagnosed with an undisclosed type of cancer. Peck was said to be undergoing chemotherapy and radio therapy and his agent claimed that he was making a recovery. Nevertheless, Peck died at his home in London, England on 4 April 1999, at the age of 53. Peck's funeral took place in London, and his good friend and "Edge of Darkness" co-star Ian McNeice read a eulogy at the service. He was cremated in London and his ashes were given to his family. He is survived by his widow, the actress Jill Baker and his three children Hannah, George and Milly.
1551503	Bronagh Gallagher (born April 1972) is a singer and actress from Derry, Northern Ireland. During her teens she got involved, through school, in drama and music activities, and joined a local amateur dramatics group, the Oakgrove Theatre Company. At one time she was a backing singer in a local band, The Listener. Her big break came when she starred as Bernie in "The Commitments". She has also appeared in such films as "Thunderpants", "You, Me & Marley", "Divorcing Jack", "Pulp Fiction", "", "Last Chance Harvey", "Sherlock Holmes" and "Grabbers", and on stage in a Théâtre de Complicité production of "The Street of Crocodiles" and The National Theatre's production War Horse as Rose Narracott. Her first album "Precious Soul" was released in 2004 on the Salty Dog Records label and was produced by John Reynolds. The album features collaborations with Brian Eno on the songs "He Don't Love You" and "Hooks". Gallagher wrote most of the music on the album, played the drums and sang lead vocals. In 2009, she starred alongside a well-known cast on the MySpace/Vertigo Films production "Faintheart" and starred in the BBC Three comedy TV series "Pramface" in 2012. Bronagh starred as the mother of young Nick in the BBC drama "Nick Nickleby". This was a 5 part day time TV series written by Joy Wilkinson, updating Charles Dickens' Nicholas Nickleby to care homes in the 21st century. The first episode was broadcast on BBC1 at 2:15 p.m. (GMT)on Monday 5 November 2012 with subsequesent episodes broadcast at the same time slot each day that week.
584902	Sri Ramadasu is an epic Telugu film released on 30 March 2006 and was directed by K. Raghavendra Rao. The film stars Akkineni Nagarjuna in the lead role and Sneha, Akkineni Nageswara Rao, Nassar and Nagendra Babu in the supporting roles. Music was composed by M. M. Keeravani, who composed 19 songs for the film. Cinematography and editing were handled by S. Gopal Reddy and Sreekar Prasad respectively. Along with being critically acclaimed, the film became a major hit at box office. Plot. The film starts with the penance of Sage Bhadra who becomes a hill with the blessings of Lord Rama. In later centuries, Dammakka, the tribal lady and worshiper of Lord Rama unearths and looks after the idols of Rama on the hill and awaits someone who can construct a temple there. On the other hand, Gopanna and his cousin Kamala fall in love and marry after a small conflict with their parents. After the marriage, Tanisha, the emperor of Golconda, with the recommendation of Akkanna and Madanna (the uncles of Gopanna), appoints Gopanna as Tehsildar of Husnabad. Thus, a Muslim who had been the Tehsildar to the place is dethroned for the sake of Gopanna. That ignites disgust among a few groups who attempt to murder Gopanna. However, Dammakka saves him while he lies unconscious on the bank of Godavari. She shows him the place of Bhadragiri and Gopanna becomes an ardent devotee of Rama. After a series of incidents, he decides to construct the Rama Mandir on the hill. He collects funds from people and with the help of Kabirdas, his guru, completes the construction of temple. Lord Rama, Lakshmana, Seetha and Anjaneya live in invisible forms in the place during the construction. They keep on guarding Gopanna until he accomplishes his mission. Thus, with immense bhakthi on Lord Rama, Gopanna becomes Ramadasu. The enemies of Ramadasu pass on negative message to Tanisha about him, stating that he constructed the temple with money taken from other people without the king's permission. Exasperated, Tanisha imprisons Ramadasu. After many ordeals faced by Ramadasu in prison, Lord Rama and Lakshmana appear to Tanisha in a dream and pay the required amount to him. Then Tanisha releases Ramadasu from prison and discovers that the two who cleared the debt were Lord Rama and Lakshmana. After being released from prison, Ramadasu is frustrated that he never obtained a darshanam (appearance/glimpse) of Rama. He realizes that Rama is in his heart and cuts open his chest. Sri Rama and Sitamma appear from his heart and heal his wounds. Rama offers Gopanna the chance to go to Vaikunta as a living man, a boon granted to few. When Gopanna asks what is there in Vaikunta (The Highest Heaven), Rama says there is only happiness and no need to pray. However, Gopanna can only find happiness in saying Rama's name. As the only man ever to refuse Vaikuntha, Rama grants his wish: Ramadasu's spirit will remain forever in the Bhadrachalam Temple. The movie ends with Kancherla Gopanna, now Sri Ramadasu, looking down fondly at the temple in modern day. Music. The film has nineteen songs composed by M. M. Keeravani: Release. "Sri Ramadasu" was released in 229 screens including 173 in Andhra Pradesh 18 in Karnataka, two in Chennai, one in Mumbai and 25 overseas. Box-office performance. The film had a 100-day run in 67 centres and collected over 30 crores.
154486	"Def Jam's How to Be a Player" is a 1997 comedy film, starring Bill Bellamy, Natalie Desselle and Bernie Mac. The film was directed by Lionel C. Martin, and written by Mark Brown and Demetria Johnson. The film is rated R for crude humor, and sex-related activities. The "How to Be a Player Soundtrack", released by Def Jam Recordings on August 5, 1997, featured the hit single "Big Bad Mama" by Foxy Brown featuring Dru Hill. Plot outline. Drayton "Dray" Jackson (Bill Bellamy) is a playboy with only one goal in his life: to have sex with as many women as possible. While he is doing that, he is busy trying to keep these women a secret from his girlfriend, Lisa (Lark Voorhies). But, Dray's sister, Jenny, (Natalie Desselle-Reid) and her friend Katrina (Mari Morrow) strategize to invite all the women Dray has been playing to the same party that he is attending. He begins to make the moves on his sister's friend, almost succeeding until the one girl he really has true feelings for shows up at the door.
1065237	August Rush is a 2007 drama film directed by Kirsten Sheridan and written by Nick Castle, James V. Hart, and Paul Castro, and produced by Richard Barton Lewis. Deciding to run away to New York City, musical prodigy Evan Taylor begins to unravel the mystery of who he is. All the while Evan Taylor's mother is searching for him whilst his father is searching for her. Plot. In 1995, Lyla Novacek (Keri Russell) is a cellist in an orchestra under strict rule of her father (William Sadler). Louis Connelly (Jonathan Rhys Meyers) is the lead singer of "The Connelly Brothers", an Irish rock band. Lyla and Louis have a chance meeting and sleep together on a rooftop near Washington Square Park while a guitarist plays. Lyla heads back to Chicago. Louis waits for Lyla as they had agreed before heading to the hotel Lyla was staying at, but Lyla doesn't acknowledge him. He turns to his music in the hopes she'll hear it and reconnect with him but becomes discouraged. Meanwhile, Lyla eventually realizes she is pregnant. After an argument with her father, Lyla runs into the street and is struck by a car. Due to the accident trauma, she gives birth prematurely, and her father secretly puts her son up for adoption, allowing her to believe that the baby died. Eleven years later, Evan Taylor (Freddie Highmore) is living in a boys' orphanage outside New York City. Evan has the savant-like ability to hear music wherever he is. He is convinced that his parents will find him. He meets Richard Jefferies (Terrence Howard), a social worker. Soon, Evan runs away to New York City, "following the music" in the hope it will lead him to his family. He wanders the city until finding a boy named Arthur (Leon Thomas III) performing in Washington Square Park.
1103198	James Joseph Sylvester FRS (3 September 1814 – 15 March 1897) was an English mathematician. He made fundamental contributions to matrix theory, invariant theory, number theory, partition theory and combinatorics. He played a leadership role in American mathematics in the later half of the 19th century as a professor at the Johns Hopkins University and as founder of the American Journal of Mathematics. At his death, he was professor at Oxford. Biography. Sylvester was born James Joseph in London, England. His father, Abraham Joseph, was a merchant. James adopted the surname Sylvester when his older brother did so upon emigration to the United States—a country which at that time required all immigrants to have a given name, a middle name, and a surname. At the age of 14, Sylvester started attending the University of London, where he was a student of Augustus De Morgan. His family withdrew him from the University after he was accused of stabbing a fellow student with a knife. Following this, he attended the Liverpool Royal Institution. Sylvester began his study of mathematics at St John's College, Cambridge in 1831, where his tutor was John Hymers. Although his studies were interrupted for almost two years due to a prolonged illness, he nevertheless ranked second in Cambridge's famous mathematical examination, the tripos, for which he sat in 1837. However, Sylvester was not issued a degree, because graduates at that time were required to state their acceptance of the Thirty-Nine Articles of the Church of England, and Sylvester - who was of Jewish origin - refused to do so. For the same reason, he was unable to compete for a Fellowship or obtain a Smith's prize. In 1838 Sylvester became professor of natural philosophy at University College London. In 1841, he was awarded a BA and an MA by Trinity College, Dublin. In the same year he moved to the United States to become a professor at the University of Virginia for about six months, and returned to England in November 1843. On his return to England he studied law, alongside fellow British lawyer/mathematician Arthur Cayley, with whom he made significant contributions to matrix theory while working as an actuary. One of his private pupils was Florence Nightingale. He did not obtain a position teaching university mathematics until 1855, when he was appointed professor of mathematics at the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich, from which he retired in 1869, because the compulsory retirement age was 55. The Woolwich academy initially refused to pay Sylvester his full pension, and only relented after a prolonged public controversy, during which Sylvester took his case to the letters page of "The Times". One of Sylvester's lifelong passions was for poetry; he read and translated works from the original French, German, Italian, Latin and Greek, and many of his mathematical papers contain illustrative quotes from classical poetry. Following his early retirement, published a book entitled "The Laws of Verse" in which he attempted to codify a set of laws for prosody in poetry. In 1877 Sylvester again crossed the Atlantic Ocean to become the inaugural professor of mathematics at the new Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland. His salary was $5,000 (quite generous for the time), which he demanded be paid in gold. In 1878 he founded the "American Journal of Mathematics". The only other mathematical journal in the U.S. at that time was the "Analyst", which eventually became the "Annals of Mathematics". In 1883, he returned to England to take up the Savilian Professor of Geometry at Oxford University. He held this chair until his death, although in 1892 the University appointed a deputy professor to the same chair. Sylvester invented a great number of mathematical terms such as "graph" (combinatorics) and discriminant. He coined the term "totient" for Euler's totient function φ("n"). His collected scientific work fills four volumes. In 1880, the Royal Society of London awarded Sylvester the Copley Medal, its highest award for scientific achievement; in 1901, it instituted the Sylvester Medal in his memory, to encourage mathematical research after his death in Oxford, Oxfordshire, England. In Discrete geometry he is remembered for Sylvester's Problem and a result on the orchard problem. Sylvester House, a portion of an undergraduate dormitory at Johns Hopkins University, is named in his honor. Several professorships there are named in his honor also.
582937	Majhdhaar is an Indian Bollywood film directed by Esmayeel Shroff. The cast of the movie includes Salman Khan, Manisha Koirala and Rahul Roy. Plot. Judge Krishna (Rahul Roy) and Radha (Manisha Koirala) are in love. Due to class conflicts, they are unable to marry, but continue with a very intimate relationship, which results in Radha getting pregnant. Then Gopal (Salman Khan) enters Radha's life, and he falls in love with her. Radha, who is still in love with Krishna, is unable to express her feelings for Gopal. Circumstances become favorable for Gopal and he succeeds in marrying Radha, and subsequently, Radha gives birth to a baby girl, Shanti. Leaving the child with Gopal, Radha then leaves him, never to return. Krishna and Gopal meet and become close friends, little knowing of their mutual love. Why did Radha leave Gopal? What will be the outcome of Gopal and Krishna's friendship when they both come to know of their love for Radha?
591915	Veeraswamy Ravichandaran or V. Ravichandaran (; born 30 May 1961) is an Indian actor, director, producer, music director, editor and lyricist who primarily works in the Kannada film industry. He is the son of notable film producer N. Veerasami. As a producer, he continues to run his father's production house, "Sri Eswari Productions", which produces his own films. Majorly credited for his technical excellence, high degree of quality, precise approach, apt selections of subjects whether it is straight or remakes and always vouching for a pleasant atmosphere in films, Ravichandran has been in the industry for 20 years with many firsts to his credit. He is fondly and popularly known as the "Crazy Star" of Kannada cinema. He is also called as "Kanasugara" (dreamer) among the film circles. Film career. As an actor. Ravichandran started his film career in the early 1980s and acted in many movies produced by his father and grandfather along with well-known actors of the Kannada industry, including Vishnuvardhan, Ambarish, Prabhakar and Rajesh. His first movie was "Khadeema Kallaru". Ravichandran's initial movies were box-office hits. His major commercial success as a leading actor prior from "Premaloka", a romantic comedy movie starring Juhi Chawla in the female lead role. Post-"Premaloka", Ravichandran starred in several hits, most notably "Ranadheera" (which was a remake of Subhash Ghai's "Hero"), "Anjada Gandu", "Yuddha Kaanda", "Ramachaari", "Halli Meshtru", "Gadibidi Ganda", "Annayya", Sipayi, "Yaare Neenu Cheluve", "Mangalyam Tantunanena" "Preethsod Tappa" and "Malla". Ravichandran best pairs with South Indian actress Kushboo. His role as a mentally challenged adult in "Ramachaari" won him critical praise and was featured at the Ontario Film Festival. He has stuck to mostly stereotyped roles: a police officer ("Shanti Kranti" and "Abhimanyu"), lover ("Premaloka", "Anjada Gandu", and "Preethsod Tappa"), pop singer ("Yuga Purusha", and "Gadibidi Ganda"), rustic "Sipayi, Halli Meshtru", and "Malla", and lawyer ("Brahma Vishnu Maheshwara "and "Yudha Kaanda"). He continues to act and has a few projects awaiting release. He persuaded Chiranjeevi to play a guest role in Sipayi. He introduced Juhi Chawla in his 1987 movie "Premaloka" before she showed up in "Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak" (1988). Poonam Dhillon paired with Ravichandran in "Yuddha Kaanda". Ravichandran has introduced a number of actresses from other parts of Indian cinema to Kannada cinema, including Juhi Chawla, Kushboo, Mohini and Shilpa Shetty.. Ravichandran also got 5 awards As director. Ravichandran shot to instant fame when "Premaloka", which he produced, directed, and starred in, became one of the landmark films in Kannada film history. It was made with a budget of a crore rupees, the most expensive Kannada film in its time. It starred Juhi Chawla as the female lead. Also Vishnuvardhan, Ambarish, Tiger Prabhakar and other superstars of that period played guest role in the movie. "Premaloka" also established Hamsalekha, who would teamed up with Ravichandran for a long period and gave consistently popular music for the next 10 years. "Premaloka" broke several records and defined much of Ravichandran's later film making. It set the stage for lavish productions in the Kannada film industry, and inspired a generation of directors. Ravichandran is generally credited with introducing a culture of producing big-budget films in Kannada. Ravichandran initially acted in and directed movies produced by his own banner, Eswari Productions. After "Premaloka", he accepted acting offers from other producers. He has worked with directors of the Kannada film industry such as S. V. Rajendra Singh Babu and D. Rajendra Babu. His association with director D. Rajendra Babu has resulted in several hits including "Naanu Nanna Hendthi", "Annayya", "Ramachaari", "Yaare Neenu Cheluve" and "Sriramachandra". However all these films were remakes. He has also remade a few hit Telugu and Bollywood movies in Kannada. Ravichandran is close friends with producer Rockline Venkatesh, with whom he worked on "Yaare Neenu Cheluve", "Nanu Nanna Hendthiru", "Preethsod Thappa" and "Ondagona Baa". Ravichandran is known to be a perfectionist and artists recall him re-shooting a single scene or sequence until it was perfect. He is known to have shot entire sequences again after the first cuts of the movie failed to satisfy him. However, after a lean patch in the late 1990s, Ravichandran is said to have made amends to this and churned out quickies. As producer. Ravichandran first movie as a producer is not from his father company, he started his own company(Ravi Cine Creation)and produced ""Prema Matsara"" he announced the date of release with list of theatre on the Muhurth day itself. The movie turned out a break even financially for him.The second movie he produced was ""Kadima Kallaru"" and also appeared in a small role for the first time and this was his first movie as actor. It was financial disaster in the box office. Then he produced ""Chakravuya"" and the interesting point was the story was rejected from big wigs of KFI like Puttana Kanagal, Dr.Rajkumar etc. This movie turned out one of the biggest hit of the decade and then he remade this movie in Hindi starring Amitabh Bachchan and Sridevi (Inqilaab). Ravichandran is known to produce very expensive movies in an industry that has a limited market. "Premaloka" was the costliest movie of its time. Although his later films were comparatively less expensive, their budgets exceeded that of other Kannada films by several lakhs of rupees. In 1991, Ravichandran released "Shanti Kranti", the costliest movie ever made in South India till then. Considered his "magnum opus", the film was shot over four years with a budget of 40 million rupees, and was simultaneously made in Kannada, Telugu, and Tamil. "Shanti Kranti" turned out to be a huge failure at the box office. Ravichandran also released another film the same year. Made with a modest budget, "Ramachaari" became one of the biggest blockbusters of the year. Music director. Ravichandran is credited with "discovering" the talented Hamsalekha. Together, they worked in over 50 films and created several popular numbers. However, the duo parted company after "Preethsod Thappa", only to work again in "Ondagona Baa", which was a commercial and musical failure. In Hamsalekha's absence, Ravichandran took up the role of a music director and created a few popular tunes in "Ekangi" and "Aham Premasmi". But critics generally consider him a below average music director. He also got a state award as the best musical director. Ravichandran started his own audio company, Eswari Audio which later was renamed into Eshwari Entertainments. For his brother's debut movie, "Aham Premaasmi", he bypassed the entire music industry and sold the music cassettes through cable operators to beat piracy and brought " Digital Grading " Technology to Kannada Film Industry and also brought color technicians from abroad. Acclaim and criticism. He is known as a non-conformist, and created his own style of filmmaking. Most of his movies show very little influence of other directors except "Premaloka", which contains traces of "Grease 2". Notable aspects of his filmmaking include a curious combination of close-ups, abrupt fast-cuts, and innovative camera angles. He is renowned in the Kannada film industry for his understanding of the technical aspect of cinema. His movies are lavishly mounted and stand out for superior production values distinguished for cinematography, sound, lighting, and special effects. Even directors of industry learn technical aspects from his film. A distinct directorial feature is his innovative shooting of songs. Song-picturization in movies Ravichandran has directed often involve elaborate and richly-mounted settings.He sold the Premaloka audio more than 50 lakh units and is the highest sold Indian audio also. his flop movies also became popular like "Ekangi","Shanti kranti" and many more.
1165656	Nancy Jane Kulp (August 28, 1921 – February 3, 1991) was an American character actress best known as Miss Jane Hathaway on the popular CBS television series "The Beverly Hillbillies". Early life. Kulp was born in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, as the only child of Robert I. Kulp, a traveling salesman, and his wife, Marjorie S. Kulp. The family moved from Mifflintown, Pennsylvania, to Dade County, Florida, sometime before 1935. Kulp received a bachelor's degree in journalism from the Florida State University in 1943, then known as the Florida State College for Women, and she started pursuing a master's degree in English and French at the University of Miami. She was a member of the Pi Beta Phi sorority. Early in the 1940s she worked as a feature writer for the "Miami Beach Tropics" newspaper, writing profiles of celebrities, including Clark Gable and the Duke and Duchess of Windsor. In 1944 Kulp left the University of Miami to volunteer for service in the US Naval Reserve during World War II. As a member of the WAVES (Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service), Ltjg. Kulp received several decorations, including the American Campaign Medal, the National Defense Medal, and the Good Conduct Medal. She left the service in 1946. Kulp married Charles Malcolm Dacus on April 1, 1951, in Dade County, Florida; they divorced in 1961. Late in life Kulp indicated to author Boze Hadley in a 1989 interview that she was a lesbian. "As long as you reproduce my reply word for word, and the question, you may use it... I'd appreciate it if you'd let me phrase the question. There is more than one way. Here's how I would ask it: 'Do you think that opposites attract?' My own reply would be that I'm the other sortI find that birds of a feather flock together. That answers your question." Acting career. Around the beginning of her marriage, Kulp moved to Hollywood, California, to work in a studio publicity department, where director George Cukor convinced her that she should work in front of a camera. She made her film debut as a character actress in 1951 in "The Model and the Marriage Broker". She then appeared in other films, including "Shane", "Sabrina", and "A Star is Born". Kulp has an uncredited bit part in a crowd scene as a fan of Donald O'Connor in one of the opening scenes in "Anything Goes". After working in television on "The Bob Cummings Show", she returned to movies in "Forever, Darling", "The Three Faces of Eve", "The Parent Trap", and "The Aristocats". Kulp was once described as television's most homely girl or, as one reviewer put it, possessing the "face of a shriveled balloon, the figure of a string of spaghetti, and the voice of a bullfrog in mating season." Others described her as tall and prim and praised her comedic skills. Television appearances. In 1955 Kulp joined the cast of "The Bob Cummings Show" (a.k.a. "Love That Bob") with Bob Cummings, portraying pith-helmeted neighborhood bird-watcher Pamela Livingstone. In 1956 she appeared in the episode "Johnny Bravo" of Clint Walker's ABC\Warner Brothers series "Cheyenne", with Clint Walker. Kulp appeared in 1955-1956 as Anastasia in three episodes of the NBC sitcom "It's a Great Life". In 1960, she appeared as Emma St. John in the episode "Kill with Kindness" of the ABC-WB detective series, "Bourbon Street Beat", starring Andrew Duggan. Kulp appeared in one episode of "I Love Lucy". In the 1957 episode "Lucy meets the Queen," Kulp portrayed an English maid, showing Lucy and Ethel how to properly curtsy before the Queen. She also appeared in episodes of "The Real McCoys", "Perry Mason" (The Case of the Prodigal Parent, 1958), "The Jack Benny Program", "87th Precinct", "Pete and Gladys", "The Twilight Zone," and "The Outlaws", and she briefly played a drunken waitress with slightly slurred speech in a 1959 episode of "Maverick", featuring James Garner, entitled "Full House." Kulp played a housekeeper in a pilot for "The William Bendix Show", which aired as the 1960-61 season finale of CBS's "Mister Ed" under the episode title "Pine Lake Lodge." In 1962 she landed her breakout role of Jane Hathaway, the love-starved bird-watching perennial spinster, on CBS's "The Beverly Hillbillies" television series. She remained with the show until its cancellation in 1971. In 1967, she received an Emmy Award nomination for her role. In 1966, she appeared as Wilhemina Peterson in the film "The Night of the Grizzly", starring Clint Walker and Martha Hyer. After "The Beverly Hillbillies" Kulp appeared on "The Brian Keith Show" and "Sanford and Son". She also appeared in Broadway productions, including "Morning's at Seven" in 1981. Political career. In 1984, after working with the Democratic State Committee in her home state of Pennsylvania "on a variety of projects" over a period of years, Kulp ran for the United States House of Representatives as a Democrat from Pennsylvania, but she lost. As an opponent of a Republican incumbent, Bud Shuster, in a Republican district and in a year in which President Ronald Reagan won a reelection by a landslide, Kulp was the underdog despite the otherwise favorable climate for liberal Democrats in Pennsylvania as a whole. To her dismay "Hillbillies" co-star Buddy Ebsen supported Shuster and even appeared in a radio commercial in which he called Kulp "too liberal". Ebsen claimed that Kulp exploited her celebrity status, and that she did not have a grasp of the issues. Shuster defeated Kulp with 67 percent of the vote. After her political defeat Kulp worked for Juniata College in Pennsylvania as an artist in residence. Later she taught acting and retired to a farm in Connecticut and later to Palm Desert, California. Death. Kulp was diagnosed with cancer in 1990, and she underwent chemotherapy. By 1991 the cancer had spread, and Kulp died on February 3 at a friend's home in Palm Desert, California. Her remains are interred at Westminster Presbyterian Cemetery in Mifflintown, Pennsylvania.
659696	Crazy on the Outside is a 2010 comedy film starring and directed by Tim Allen. The film marks Allen's feature film directorial debut, and is notable for reuniting Allen with co-stars from many of his previous films (Sigourney Weaver from "Galaxy Quest", Ray Liotta from "Wild Hogs", Kelsey Grammer from "Toy Story 2" and Julie Bowen from "Joe Somebody"). Plot. Thomas Zelda (Tim Allen) has been paroled from prison for being involved in movie piracy. He is picked up by his eccentric sister Vicky (Sigourney Weaver) who is revealed to be a habitual liar (she claims it's so people aren't hurt by the truth). He arrives at Vicky's home where he plans to spend some time putting his life back together when it's revealed that his grandmother was told (by Vicky) that he went to France instead of prison. Due to her heart condition, Tommy keeps up the story leading to a euphemism where France means "prison" (Vicky's husband asks Tommy if he thinks he'll go "back to France" soon). During dinner, Gray (Ray Liotta), Tommy's old partner from the movie piracy business, shows up and his sister runs him off. The next day, Tommy meets with his parole officer, Angela Popadopolous (Jeanne Tripplehorn), who requires him to work at a pirate-themed restaurant called "Pirate Burger" as part of his parole. He informs Angela that he wants to start up his father's painting business instead, but is told that he is required to work at the restaurant. While on the job, he sees Christy (Julie Bowen), his "dead" ex-girlfriend come up to the drive-through window. Realizing Vicky lied to him, he takes the delivery car to see Christy leading them to spend the night together. The next morning, it is revealed that Christy is engaged to Frank (Kelsey Grammer) and Tommy is forced to escape the apartment. Since he took the delivery car without permission, he is fired from "Pirate Burger" and risks going back to jail for breaking the terms of his parole. He is given another chance and goes back to work. That night, he is "kidnapped" by Gray and Gray tries to persuade him to get back into the piracy business. Tommy refuses stating that he wants to "go straight". Tommy is called to make a delivery. He arrives at the apartment of Angela. Her son is trying to play matchmaker to get her to start dating again. While there, he notices that the apartment is in need of a paint job. Tommy decides to show Angela the kind of work he can do. With the help of two ex-con coworkers (Rick and Edgar) from Pirate Burger, he breaks into Angela's apartment while she's away and repaints the living room. Meanwhile, the fictional story about Tommy's "France" trip continues to evolve including a relationship with Simone, a French astronaut who was killed on the launchpad so that Tommy's mother would not fly everyone to France to meet her (because she does not exist). Angela is furious at Tommy for breaking and entering but understands what he was trying to do and doesn't press charges. She sets him up to paint a judge's home. While doing the job, Angela shows up to check on Tommy's work and invites him to observe her son's little league team. Later, the judge's wife who is impressed by the work invites Tommy to paint the upstairs as well. While getting tools together, Edgar and Rick prepare the upstairs for painting and knock the judge's wife's diamond ring off the dresser. Wanting to do something nice for Tommy, Edgar steals the ring and gives it to Christy as a "gift from Tommy". Tommy, who doesn't know that the theft has occurred, joins Angela at the little league game and they begin to express feelings for each other. They set up a formal date. When Tommy arrives at Angela's apartment for the date, Angela is furious over the theft and demands the ring back. He goes to Pirate Burger to confront Edgar and Rick, but they have disappeared. He steals the delivery car (his vehicle refuses to start) and calls Edgar and Rick. They inform him of the ring's location and he drives to Christy's house to get the ring back. After a short confrontation with Frank and Christy, he gets the ring and returns it to Angela. The manager of Pirate Burger presses charges on Tommy and he goes back to jail. Gray shows up to bail him out and, disillusioned with his attempts to "go straight", Tommy teams back up with Gray. Meanwhile, Angela's son shows up at Vicky's house wanting to see Tommy but he is not there. Vicky finds Tommy with Gray at the airport and makes up a story about Angela's son going missing. Tommy chooses to abandon Gray at the airport (after Gray pushes Vicky to the ground) to find Angela's son. When he shows up at Angela's apartment, he finds out that Vicky has lied to him again. Tommy's concern for the well being of her son softens Angela's animosity towards him. At the behest of Vicky, Tommy invites Angela to come to a dinner at Vicky's house. Angela shows up for the dinner. A story Vicky told Tommy's grandmother about Angela being Tommy's "grief counselor" falls apart when Angela informs her that she is actually Tommy's parole officer and the France story falls apart also. The movie ends with Vicky trying to act surprised but no one is buying it. Reception. The film has received extremely negative reviews. Review aggregate Rotten Tomatoes reports that 8% of critics have given the film a positive review based on 12 reviews, with an average score of 2.6/10. The film has been deemed "Rotten" by the aggregate.
1077309	Edward Norton Lorenz (May 23, 1917 – April 16, 2008) was an American mathematician and meteorologist, and a pioneer of chaos theory. He discovered the strange attractor notion and coined the term "butterfly effect."
1070801	Plot. On their way to a maneuver, a wildly mixed group of Japanese soldiers with a tank, an APC, a patrol boat and a helicopter suddenly find themselves stranded 400 years in the past and under attack by samurai forces. Their designated leader, Lieutenant Yoshiaki Iba (Sonny Chiba), befriends and joins forces with Nagao Kagetora, the war leader of lord Koizumi. Seeing the stranded soldiers' war machinery in action, Kagetora persuades Iba to aid him in his struggle for supremacy in Japan. In the meantime, however, Iba finds himself facing the desperation of his men who want to return to their own time. Some make contact with the locals - one of the soldiers, Mimura, even finds himself a consort who keeps following him - whilst others freak out, running away in a desperate attempt to return home, or rebelling against rules and restrictions and try to live a pirate's life. Finally, his force shrunk from 21 men to 11, Iba manages to calm his troops by telling them that by fighting history and thus creating a time paradox they might be able to return home. Iba joins Kagetora and fights by his side. Finally, Iba and the soldiers face Takeda Shingen's forces in battle. But their trust in their advanced weaponry costs them dearly: Shingen's forces outmaneouver them at every turn, the soldiers lose all their vehicles and major weapons, and five of them die on the battlefield. In a desperate attempt, Iba forces his way to Shingen's command post and kills him in a sword duel. As Iba and his remaining men go to join Kagetora in Kyoto, the latter is put under pressure by his family and the Shogun Ashikaga Yoshiaki to get rid of Iba. Reluctantly conceding, Kagetora intercepts Iba's group at an old temple. But as Iba prepares to kill Kagetora for his betrayal, he is shot by him. The other soldiers are killed by Kagetora's archers, and Mimura's consort delivers the coup-de-grace to her lover. Kagetora shows remorse by burying Iba and his men with all due honors. In the end, only one of the soldiers survives, who had left the group to help a boy and his family, whose father had been killed. Equipment. Initially, the producers approached the Japan Ground Self-Defense Force (JGSDF) for props and vehicles, but the army cut their support after reading that soldiers go AWOL in the script. For that reason, old and sometimes out-dated equipment (like M3 submachine guns) had to be used. The tank featured in the movie was even built entirely from scratch. The vehicles, including a tank and a helicopter, continue to run despite there being no replenishing fuel supply in the 16th century – a logical problem which was resolved in the remake.
1034456	Patricia Lawlor Hayes, OBE (22 December 1909 – 19 September 1998) was an English comedy actress. Hayes was born in Streatham, London. As a child Hayes attended the Sacred Heart School in Wandsworth. She was featured in many radio and television comedy shows between 1940 and 1996, including "Hancock's Half Hour", "Ray's a Laugh", "The Arthur Askey Show", "The Benny Hill Show", and "Till Death Us Do Part". She was cast in support roles for films including "The Bargee" (1964), "The NeverEnding Story" (1984), "A Fish Called Wanda" (1988) and featured as Fin Raziel in the Ron Howard film "Willow" (also 1988). She also played the part of Henry Bones in the BBC Children's Hour radio programme "Norman and Henry Bones - The Boy Detectives" during the late 1940s. Her most substantial television appearance was in the title role of "Edna, the Inebriate Woman" ("Play for Today", 1971) for which she won a BAFTA award. She provided the character voice for comedy puppet performances for television and DVDs - e.g. Gran (Woodland Animations, 1982). She is the mother of British actor Richard O'Callaghan (born Richard Brook) by her marriage to the late Valentine Brook, whom she divorced. She never remarried. She was formerly the head of the (British) Catholic Stage Guild, which her son, Richard, now chairs. Patricia Hayes died in September 1998 in Surrey but went on to appear posthumously in "Crime and Punishment" (2002).
1060277	Famke Beumer Janssen (; ; born 5 November 1964) is a Dutch actress, director, screenwriter, and former fashion model. She is known for playing the villainous Bond girl Xenia Onatopp in "GoldenEye" (1995), Jean Grey/Phoenix in the "X-Men" film series (2000–2013), and Lenore Mills in "Taken" (2008), and its sequel, "Taken 2" (2012). In 2008, she was appointed a Goodwill Ambassador for Integrity by United Nations. She made her directorial debut with "Bringing Up Bobby" in 2011. Early life and education. Janssen was born in Amstelveen, Noord-Holland, Netherlands. Her first name, Famke, means "girl" in West Frisian, the native language of the Dutch province Friesland. She has two sisters, director Antoinette Beumer and actress Marjolein Beumer. In addition to her native Dutch, Janssen speaks English and French. She also learned German, but has not kept up with it. Following her high school graduation, Janssen studied economics for a year at the University of Amsterdam, which she later called "the stupidest idea I ever had." In the early 1990s, she enrolled at Columbia University to study creative writing and literature. Career. In 1984, Janssen moved to the United States to begin her professional career as a fashion model. She signed with Elite Model Management and worked for Yves Saint Laurent, Chanel, and Victoria's Secret. She starred in a 1988 commercial for the perfume Exclamation by Coty, Inc. Her looks have been compared to Hedy Lamarr and other 1940s films stars. After retiring from modelling in the early 1990s, Janssen had guest roles on several television series, including a starring role in the 1992 ' episode "The Perfect Mate", as empathic metamorph Kamala, opposite Patrick Stewart, with whom she later starred in the "X-Men" film series. That same year, Janssen was offered the role of Jadzia Dax in ', but turned it down to pursue film roles. Her first film role was alongside Jeff Goldblum in the 1992 crime drama film "Fathers & Sons". In 1995, Janssen appeared in Pierce Brosnan's first James Bond film, "GoldenEye", as femme fatale Xenia Onatopp. She also appeared in "Lord of Illusions" with Scott Bakula. In an attempt to fight against typecasting after her Bond girl performance, Janssen began seeking out more intriguing support roles, appearing in John Irvin's "City of Industry", Woody Allen's "Celebrity", Robert Altman's "The Gingerbread Man", and Ted Demme's "Monument Ave." Denis Leary, her co-star in "Monument Ave.", was impressed by how easily she blended in, initially not recognizing her as she was already in character. In the late 1990s, she also appeared in "The Faculty", "Rounders", "Deep Rising", and "House on Haunted Hill". In 2000, Janssen played superhero Dr. Jean Grey in "X-Men". She reprised the role in "X2" (2003) and again in "" (2006) as well as portraying a darker role of Jean Grey's alternate personality, Phoenix, for which she won a Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actress. She returned as Jean Grey in the film "The Wolverine" (2013). In 2002, Janssen landed the role of villainess Serleena in "Men in Black II", but had to abandon the film due to a death in her family. In addition, Janssen had a prominent role in the second season of the popular TV series "Nip/Tuck", as the seductive and manipulative life coach Ava Moore, which earned her Hollywood Life's Breakthrough Artist of the Year Award. She reprised her role in the final two episodes of the series. In 2007, she starred in "Turn the River", for which she was awarded the Special Recognition Best Actress Award at the Hamptons International Film Festival. The following year, she starred in Luc Besson's "Taken". Janssen also continued to work in television, appearing in TV pilots for NBC's cop drama "Winters" and Showtime's "The Farm", a "The L Word" spin-off set in a women's prison. Both pilots were rejected by their respective networks. Janssen also provided the Dutch-language narration for the Studio Tram Tour at all Disney theme parks. In 2011, Janssen made her directorial début with the drama "Bringing Up Bobby". She also wrote the screenplay to the film, which stars Milla Jovovich, Bill Pullman, and Marcia Cross. She reprised her role as Lenore Mills in "Taken 2" (2012) and starred as the main villain Muriel in "" (2013). Janssen starred in the series "Hemlock Grove" (2013) where she plays the role of Olivia Godfrey. Personal life and activism. Janssen was married to writer and director Kip Williams, son of architect Tod Williams, from 1995 to 2000. Janssen appeared with her dog Licorice, a brindle Boston Terrier, in a 2007 PETA campaign to raise awareness for animal rights. The campaign used the slogan "Be an Angel for Animals." On 28 January 2008, she was appointed a Goodwill Ambassador for Integrity for the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime at a United Nations anti-corruption conference held in Nusa Dua, Bali.
1070546	Gray Matters is a 2006 romantic comedy film directed by Sue Kramer, starring Heather Graham, Tom Cavanagh and Bridget Moynahan. It premiered on October 21, 2006 at the Hamptons International Film Festival and had a United States limited theatrical release on February 23, 2007. Plot. Gray Baldwin (Heather Graham), a family oriented and quiet bachelorette, lives a close-knit life with her brother, Sam (Tom Cavanagh). Their lifestyle is generally co-dependent, involving them living together, going to dance classes together, etc. Gray and Sam's relationship has never been thought of as strange, but once a dinner party guest mistakes the siblings as a couple, Gray and Sam decide to venture outside of one another. While discussing with each other what they can do about their single lifestyles, and how they can "hook each other up" with a significant other, their conversation continues to the park, where Gray spots a possible girlfriend for Sam, Charlie Kelsey (Bridget Moynahan). Gray introduces herself, then Charlie to Sam, and they instantly bond, agreeing to see each other again. To Gray's surprise, Charlie and Sam become engaged the morning after their meeting. Charlie and Sam are so madly in love with one another, they plan to go to Las Vegas the following morning and elope there, and invite Gray along. Gray is a little hesitant, but agrees when Charlie says they can have a "mini bachelorette party". Gray agrees and the three make their way to Vegas. While in Vegas, Gray takes Charlie out for a hen night, and after many drinks, the two share a drunken but passionate kiss. The next morning, Charlie doesn't remember anything, but Gray hasn't slept the whole night, due to the bond she felt with Charlie. The situation makes Gray finally realize that she is attracted to women, but is falling in love with her sister-in-law.
1064006	American Dreamz is a 2006 comedy/parody film that satirizes both American politics and popular entertainment. Director/producer/writer Paul Weitz has stated that the movie is meant to satirize both the TV show "American Idol" and the Bush Administration. Reviews were lukewarm and business was disappointing. The roman à clef movie boasts characters who are parody versions of President George W. Bush, American Idol winner Kelly Clarkson, Vice President Dick Cheney, and television personality Simon Cowell. Plot. On the morning after his re-election, US President Joseph Staton (Dennis Quaid) decides to read the newspaper for the first time in four years. This starts him down a slippery slope. He begins reading obsessively, reexamining his "black-and-white" view of the world in a more "gray-seeming" way, and holing up in his bedroom in his pajamas. Frightened by the President's apparent nervous breakdown, his Chief of Staff (Willem Dafoe) pushes him back into the spotlight, booking him as a guest judge on the television ratings juggernaut (and the President's personal favorite), the weekly talent show "American Dreamz", a show similar in format to the modern-day "American Idol". America cannot seem to get enough of "American Dreamz", hosted by self-aggrandizing, self-loathing Martin Tweed (Hugh Grant), ever on the lookout for the next insta-celebrity. His latest crop of hopefuls includes Sally Kendoo (Mandy Moore), a conniving steel magnolia with a devoted, dopey veteran boyfriend William Williams (Chris Klein), and Omer Obeidi (Sam Golzari). Because Omer's mother died in the Middle East in an American attack, he joined a group of jihadists. He was an actor in an instruction film for terrorists, but he was too clumsy, and his interest in Western music was frowned upon. Therefore he was sent to the U.S. to await further instructions, but the leaders expected they could not use him. He moved to Southern California to live with his extended family there, including his effeminate cousin Iqbal (Tony Yalda) and Shazzy (Noureen DeWulf). Iqbal hoped to be selected to participate in "American Dreamz", but in a misunderstanding Omer was selected instead. Iqbal becomes his manager. Omer's terrorist organization now sees an opportunity: Omer is instructed to make it to the finale, and kill the President in a suicide attack. He succeeds in getting to the finale. Security is bypassed by assembling the bomb after the security check, in the toilet, from small parts smuggled in. Small pieces of explosive are disguised as chewing gum. Omer agrees, but changes his mind and disposes of the bomb in the trash can. Sally is the other finalist. Earlier she dumped William. He went into the army, was wounded in Iraq, and came back to the U.S. For the purpose of the show, Sally pretends she still loves William. However, he sees Sally having sex with Martin, and is furious. After he finds the bomb in the trash can, he comes on stage and threatens to detonate it. While the other people evacuate, William starts singing and Martin, who refuses to let go of the camera, films it. As William reaches the end of the song, he detonates the bomb by walking into the camera, killing both himself and Martin. The film then cuts to shots of people dialing up their cell phones to vote in for the winner. It is eventually revealed that William Williams is the surprise winner of "American Dreamz". The end of the film reveals what each of the characters went on to do after the end of last season. Omer went on to become a successful star of his own Broadway revue. At the end of the film he appears in a scene from the musical "Grease". The President makes his wife his new Chief of Staff. And Sally Kendoo becomes the new host of "American Dreamz". Box office. "American Dreamz" opened on April 21, 2006 and made $3.7 million in its first weekend, placing ninth. The film had a total domestic gross of $7.2 million and an international gross of $9.2 million, for a total gross of $16.4 million. It had its widest release in its opening weekend, opening in 1,500 theatres across the USA, and ended its national release after only four weeks on May 28, 2006. In the Netherlands, the film debuted at #7, dropping to #10 in its second week. As of June 14, 2006, the film has grossed a total of €92,432 in the Netherlands. In Spain, the film debuted at #11, earning $109,681 in 50 theatres. The following week dropped to #15, grossing $58,467. Reception. On the review website Rotten Tomatoes, 41% of critics gave the film positive reviews, based on 152 reviews, and an average rating of 5.2/10, with the consensus: "This overly silly satire aims at too many targets with arrows too dull to make relevant social commentary." Soundtrack. The film's soundtrack was released April 18, 2006 by Lakeshore Records. DVD. American Dreamz was released on DVD in the United Kingdom on July 2, 2006, and was released in America on October 17, 2006. It was then released in Australia later that year.
581955	Kal Ho Naa Ho (English: "There May Or May Not Be A Tomorrow"), sometimes abbreviated as KHNH, is a 2003 Bollywood romantic comedy-drama film, directed by debutante director Nikhil Advani. The film was written by Niranjan Iyengar and Karan Johar and produced by Yash Johar and Karan Johar under the Dharma Productions banner. The music of the film was composed by Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy, with lyrics written by Javed Akhtar. The film features Jaya Bachchan as Jennifer Kapur, Shahrukh Khan as Aman Mathur, Saif Ali Khan as Rohit Patel, and Preity Zinta as Naina Catherine Kapur. It also features Lilette Dubey, Reema Lagoo, Sushma Seth and Delnaaz Paul in supporting roles. The film narrates the story of an uptight student, Naina Kapur, who falls in love with her neighbour, Aman Mathur, a terminally ill patient. Meanwhile, Aman tries to play matchmaker for Naina and her friend, Rohit Patel. Made on a budget of 30 crore, "Kal Ho Naa Ho" released on 28 November 2003 to positive critical reviews. Additionally, it was screened at the Valenciennes, Era New Horizons, Marrakech International and Helsinki Film Festival. Kal Ho Naa Ho was declared hit in India by Box Office India.The film was a commercial success, with a lifetime gross of 77.95 crore and emerged as the second highest grossing film, domestically and the highest grossing film in the overseas market, that year. When adjusted for inflation its total worldwide gross is 130 crore. The following year, "Kal Ho Naa Ho" won two National Film Awards and seven Filmfare Awards. Plot. Naina Catherine Kapur (Preity Zinta) is an angry young woman living in New York City. Her father committed suicide when she was young, leaving her mother Jennifer Kapur (Jaya Bachchan) alone with her and her two younger children, Shiv (Atith Naik) and Gia (Jhanak Shukla). The restaurant that Jennifer operates is financially faltering. Furthermore, Naina's paternal grandmother, Lajjo (Sushma Seth), blames Jennifer for the suicide and refuses to accept Gia (who was adopted by Jennifer) as her granddaughter, blaming her for bringing bad luck to the family. The only bright spot in Naina's life is her bumbling MBA classmate Rohit Patel (Saif Ali Khan). Meanwhile, Aman Mathur (Shah Rukh Khan) shifts to Naina's neighbourhood. Noticing the sadness of his new neighbours, he intervenes. His well-meaning interference in their activities, his help in reviving their financial standing, and his general optimism soon change their lives for the better. Although Naina is initially reluctant to enjoy Aman's presence, she grows to like him and eventually falls in love with him. Also, Rohit, who has been in love with Naina, is too scared to ask her out. On Aman's encouragement, he calls Naina for lunch where she reveals to Rohit about her love for Aman. Heartbroken, Rohit informs Aman about this. Naina goes to Aman's house to ask him out where Aman lies to her that he is married to Priya (Sonali Bendre). Aman, it is revealed, is dying of a severe heart condition. Also, Priya is not his wife, but his long time friend and doctor. Knowing that his lifespan is limited, he sacrifices his love for Naina and plays matchmaker between Rohit and her. After collaborating with Rohit, Aman plans a strategy that will make Naina fall for Rohit in six days.This eventually works by the end of the sixth day, but after later arriving in Rohit's house during a conversation between Aman and him, Naina finds out that Rohit sought Aman's help to attain her love. She leaves his house in anger, where Aman and Rohit chase her to the to a train station. Rohit confesses his love for her, but Naina says that he does not truly love her, and only wanted to break her heart. But Aman, desperate to make Naina realize how much Rohit loves her, pulls out Rohit's diary from his pocket and reads a fraction of it. It states how much Rohit loves her and what he would do for her happiness. However, it is later revealed that Rohit's diary was blank and that Aman had actually confessed his own feelings for Naina, pretending they were Rohit's. That night, Naina goes out with Jennifer, who convinces her to get married to Rohit. Coincidentally, that same night, Rohit asks her out to apologize, and also proposes to her. Naina, realizing how much Rohit loves her, accepts the proposal and there is a celebration at the Kapur household when Rohit later phones Aman to tell him what had happened. Meanwhile, Aman's health deteriorates. The tension within Naina's family also stops when Aman, after accidentally intercepting a personal letter addressed to Jennifer, reveals that Gia is Naina's half-sister through their father's extramarital affair. Jennifer's acceptance of her husband's infidelity is what led to his suicide. Lajjo finally accepts Gia, and the now-united family prepares for Rohit and Naina's wedding. After attending the engagement ceremony, Aman's health deteriorates. Naina, in a chance-encounter meets Priya and learns the truth about Aman's health condition. When she approaches and accuses Aman of lying, he convinces her to get married to Rohit, she accepts and they embrace. Rohit and Naina get married. After their marriage, Aman hugs them tight. Few hours later, he wakes up in hospital. Aman's loved ones visit him. After the visit, he makes Rohit promise that "In the next birth Naina will be his." Aman dies in hospital with Rohit by his side and Naina looking through the window. Twenty years later, an older Naina relates the story to a grown-up Gia, telling her how Aman taught her to love: herself, life in general, and Rohit. It is revealed that Naina and Rohit have a daughter of their own. Naina ends her story by narrating that while every wife dreams of finding a friend in her husband, she was lucky to find a husband in her friend. Production. The film was written by Karan Johar with dialogue from Niranjan Iyengar and directed by debutane director Nikhil Advani. It was the last film to be produced by Yash Johar before his death on 26 June 2004. The choreography was by Farah Khan. Manish Malhotra designed the costumes of the three lead actors. Pre-production of the film began in 2003. Kareena Kapoor was initially the first choice for Naina, but due to differences over her fees, she refused the role. Preity Zinta was the immediate next choice. Shooting began in 2003 in New York City. A major portion of the movie was shot in Toronto due to production costs in New York City. Release. The film was released in India on 28 November 2003. This film is the second Bollywood film to attain wide release in Germany in early 2005 (the first was "Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham"). Since the film's release, Bollywood movies have become increasingly popular in Germany, and other Indian films have also been shown on prime time television and have sold well on DVD. The movie was released in Poland in May 2006 as "Gdyby jutra nie bylo" (If Tomorrow Never Comes), and in France in 2005 as "New-York Masala". Reception. Critical reception. "Kal Ho Naa Ho" was well received by critics. Taran Adarsh gave the film 4 out of 5 stars and said: "Yes, "Kal Ho Naa Ho" does live up to the expectations. Yes, the SRK-Karan Johar magic does cast a spell the third time around. The film works, courtesy SRK's incredible performance and Karan's deft writing." Archana Vohra from NDTV gave the film 3 out of 5 stars, stating, "Advani ... seems to have come up with an innovative way to present a done to death plot," later adding that "irrespective of the frills, fancy clothes and well-dressed stars, the film does strike a chord and is a brilliant debut by Nikhil Advani." Rediff.com, in a positive review, wrote, "The film is fresh in treatment and storytelling. Shah Rukh excels as the supercool Aman. You understand why it is difficult for Karan to work with any other actor, because SRK steals the show with a designer-made role. Given SRK's performance, it is all the more important to take note of Saif, whose Rohit Patel will be remembered just as much as his Sameer in Dil Chahta Hai. Saif is first-rate, and your heart goes out to this under-rated actor. Preity Zinta slips into character beautifully. Right from the preppy spectacles to her no-nonsense demeanor, Preity captures the spirit of Naina Kapur. She has never looked so pretty. "Kal Ho Naa Ho" will carry you with its exuberance." Mayank Shekhar in his review for "Mid-Day" gave it 3.5 stars out of 5 and wrote, "Yes, this is soft-focus, sweet background score, 'life is simplistic' escapist cinema. But the bottom line: at the end of the day, it works and is worth your entertainment bucks. And that’s saying a lot." In a positive review, Dave Kehr from "The New York Times" concluded, "This is a rich meal that may best be reserved for stomachs accustomed to such bountiful fare." Komal Nahta from "Outlook", in a three-star review, remarked, "Johar has packaged the drama so very contemporarily that the final product holds its own. Undoubtedly, [the film is one of the cleverest love triangles in Hindi cinema." Ziya Us Salam wrote for "The Hindu", "Watch "Kal Ho Naa Ho". It is like life. It gives you reason to be disappointed, just as it gives you reason to hope." In a four-star review, Jitesh Pillai of "Filmfare" wrote, "Anyone (which means almost everyone) who has loved and lost will recognize that Kal Ho Naa Ho is a bittersweet valentine to unrequited love. Nikhil Advani makes the sensational debut that other directors only dream of." Anupama Chopra, in a positive review, wrote, "Advani, who learned family film formula with masters Aditya Chopra and Karan Johar, emerges as a distinctive voice with his first film. Written by Johar, the film revisits old ground-NRIs, wedding song, snazzy club number and Shah Rukh-but also evolves the formula. It has technical pizzazz (split screens, in-camera dialogue) and an urbane wit despite snags like sub-plots with pat endings or a lame pre-interval portion. The dialogue by Niranjan Iyengar is perfectly pitched and the performances uniformly good." Chopra included the film in her list of "Top Ten Movies of The Year", ranked fifth. The film also received some mixed reviews, Ram Kamal Mukherjee from "Stardust" praised the film's performances, technical aspects and its entertainment value, but noted several flaws in its "logistic part". Rama Sharma from "The Tribune" concluded, ""Kal Ho Na Ho" is a usual filmi love web with a cosmopolitan appeal and a lot of comedy packed in the first half." Jami Bernard from "New York Daily News" wrote, "Bollywood musicals, those big, loud, colorful extravaganzas from India, are an acquired taste and much of "Kal Ho Naa Ho" doesn't translate easily," though he further noted, "All three leads grow on you." Box office. "Kal Ho Naa Ho" was the second top-grossing movie of the year. It had a total gross of 50.75 crore in India and was declared a Hit in India by Box Office India. It also made an additional 12 crore in the USA and 9 crore in the UK and thus collecting a total of 27 crore from the overseas market, where it was a Blockbuster. The film became the top-grossing Bollywood film abroad that year. "Kal Ho Naa Ho" made a total of 77 crore worldwide. When adjusted for inflation its total gross worldwide is 130 crore. Soundtrack. The soundtrack of the film was released on 27 September 2003 by Sony Music at Mumbai's Taj Lands End's banquet hall, Salcette in various formats and consists of seven tracks. The music is conducted by award-winning trio Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy, with lyrics authored by Javed Akhtar. The music went on to do well at the charts, and became one of the most successful music albums of the year. Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy won their first Filmfare Best Music Director Award for this soundtrack, as well as the National Film Award for Best Music Direction. Unlike with many other Hindi productions, the film's makers also complied with international copyright laws and obtained the license to use Roy Orbison's "Oh, Pretty Woman" for an extended musical sequence taking place in the streets in New York. Post its release, the album was met with high critical and commercial success, with sales of over 2,300,000 copies. The title song was featured in "Outlook"'s list of "Bollywood's Timeless Melodies", making it the only contemporary selection on the list. The soundtrack was also listed in the top five of BBC Asian Network's Top 40 Soundtracks of all time. Background. Karan Johar decided to end the association with the composer duo Jatin-Lalit since they publicly stated that they were upset with his decision to use other music directors for "Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham". This marked the beginning of the collaboration of Shankar Ehsaan Loy with Karan Johar, which continues to date. Development. The theme of the title song "Kal Ho Naa Ho" is composed by Loy, and Shankar arranged the groove. The song "Pretty Woman" by Roy Orbison was reused in the film, and the rights were acquired. Awards. "Kal Ho Naa Ho" received many nominations awards and. The awards it won are highlighted in bold: External links. Online Watch on youtube http://justblabs.com/kal-ho-naa-ho-2003/
1165138	Douglas Osborne "Doug" McClure (May 11, 1935 – February 5, 1995) was an American actor whose career in film and television extended from the 1950s to the 1990s. He is best known for his role as the cowboy Trampas during the entire run from 1962 to 1971 of the NBC western television series, "The Virginian", loosely based on the Owen Wister novel. Background. McClure was born in Glendale, California, to an English-born mother, Clara Elsie (née Barker) (1907–1997); she had moved to the United States in 1915 when her widowed mother married an American, Frank S Artman. Clara Barker was naturalised as an American citizen in 1918, and married Donald Reed McClure (1904–1965) in 1929. Doug McClure had an older brother, Donald Reed McClure (1931–2003). Clara McClure married Frank Clapp in 1971, six years after Donald McClure's death. Career. McClure's acting career included such films as "The Enemy Below", "South Pacific", "The Unforgiven", and "Because They're Young", before landing the part of Trampas on "The Virginian" – a part that would make him famous. He also starred in four other series: McClure had a minor part in 1957 as an Army officer in "California Gold Rush in Reverse" on the syndicated anthology series "Death Valley Days". The episode is a dramatization of the race in 1848 between the Army and the Navy to be the first to deliver gold nuggets from California to Washington, D.C.
1760684	A Beautiful Soul is an American drama film directed by Jeffrey W. Byrd and produced by Holly Carter and Dominique Telson. Plot. R&B superstar Andre Stephens (Deitrick Haddon) is on top of the world. He has success, fame, and fortune but spiritually he has lost his way. However, his "perfect" life is shattered when his entourage is brutally attacked, leaving Andre and his best friend Chris Johnson (Robert Ri'chard) clinging to life. On a spiritual journey that exists in a place that is neither on Earth nor in Heaven, Andre is given the opportunity to reevaluate his life and his faith. Andre realises he has a long way to go at church before being great. Production. The film was shot in 10 days on location in Los Angeles, California.
1053471	Byron Mann () is an actor who has made films in both Hollywood and Asia. He is perhaps best known for his performance as Ryu in "Street Fighter" and Silver Lion in "The Man with the Iron Fists". Early life. Mann attended Diocesan Boys' School, an all-boys high school, where he was active in community theatre as both an actor and a writer. After graduating, Byron moved to California to study and received a degree in philosophy at UCLA, even though acting remained important to him. After college, Byron attended USC Law School, but took a sabbatical after the first year. Back in Hong Kong, he received an acting role in the NBC Movie TV movie "Last Flight Out". He returned to Los Angeles, California, graduated from USC Law, passed the California bar, and pursued acting full-time. Career. He starred in films such as "Red Corner" and "The Corruptor," and in the television show "Dark Angel," and has also co-starred in "Catwoman" and "Invincible." He is best known as Ryu in "Street Fighter" (alongside Jean-Claude Van Damme and Raúl Juliá) and Koh in the manga-based movie "Crying Freeman". In 2012, Mann starred with Russell Crowe and Lucy Liu in "The Man with the Iron Fists", directed by RZA, and presented by Quentin Tarantino.
1071708	Inspired by the historical rivalry between the Genji and Heike clans, which ushered in the era of samurai dominance in Japanese history, "Sukiyaki Western Django" is set "a few hundred years after the Genpei War". The Genji and Heike gangs face off in a town named "Yuta" in "Nevata", when a nameless gunman comes into town to help a prostitute get revenge on the warring gangs. The film contains numerous references both to the historical Genpei War and to Wars of the Roses, as well as the films "Yojimbo" and "Django". Plot. A lone gunman travels to the town of Yuta, which is run by the warring clans of the white-colored Genji and red-colored Heike. After ignoring requests from both clans to join them, he is given shelter by a woman named Ruriko, who takes care of her mute grandson Heihachi. Ruriko tells the gunman that many years ago, the town prospered in gold mining until both clans fought over the gold and drove away the population. The Heike-aligned sheriff tells the gunman that in the midst of the chaos, a Heike man named Akira married a Genji woman named Shizuka and lived peacefully with their son Heihachi, until Heike leader Kiyomori murdered Akira in cold blood, rendering Heihachi mute from the trauma. Seeking protection for her son, Shizuka became a prostitute for the Genji. Since then, Heihachi has been tending to a trio of red and white roses, waiting for the day they bloom. Later that day, the gunman wins a challenge from the Genji henchman Yoichi to have Shizuka for the night. Before he proceeds with her, he is told by Genji leader Yoshitsune that he is reminiscent of the legendary female gunslinger Bloody Benten. Later, Shizuka warns the gunslinger that Yoshitsune sent some men to retrieve a new weapon for Yoichi to use on him. The gunslinger tells Shizuka to take her son and leave town tomorrow. The next morning, following a tip-off from Shizuka, the sheriff informs Kiyomori of the Genjis' plans. The Heikes ambush the wagon, with Kiyomori acquiring a Gatling gun stored inside a coffin. Meanwhile, as the Genjis race toward the wagon raid, Ruriko, Shizuka and Heihachi are fleeing from town when Shizuka runs back to save the roses. She is mortally shot through the heart by Yoichi. The gunman attempts to intervene, but is forced to drop his guns before being tortured by the Genji thug. Ruriko's servant Toshio suddenly appears and throws a gun at her before she guns down Yoichi and his henchmen - thus revealing herself to be Bloody Benten. In retaliation for the wagon raid, the Genjis blow up the Heikes' fortress. While the native doctor Piripero tends to the gunman's wounds, Ruriko has Toshio retrieve some guns from the elderly Piringo, who reveals to him that he trained her to be a gunslinger and Akira was their son. Ruriko plans to settle the score with the Genjis once and for all by planting a chest loaded with gold nuggets in the middle of town as bait. The Genjis take the bait and are gunned down by the gunslinger and Ruriko while the surviving Heikes make their way back to town. Ruriko takes down the Heikes and Kiyomori, avenging her son's death, but is fatally shot by the sheriff, who in turn is shot down by a mortally wounded Toshio and impaled with a tombstone cross by Piripero. The gunman and Yoshitsune square off in a final showdown, with the Genji leader deflecting the gunman's bullets with his katana. But when Yoshitsune slices the gunman's revolver, the gunman reveals a Derringer under his left sleeve before delivering the killing blow. After burying their loved ones, the gunman takes a fistful of gold from the treasure chest, telling Heihachi that the rest is his. As he rides off through the snow, Heihachi looks at the roses and slowly utters, "Love". The ending text reveals that a few years later, Heihachi travels to Italy and becomes the gunslinger known as "Django". No one knows if the roses have bloomed. Soundtrack. The film's soundtrack composed by Kôji Endô was released on CD on September 5, 2007. It features , a Japanese remake of the original "Django" theme song by veteran enka singer Saburō Kitajima. Western critical reception. When "Sukiyaki Western Django" premiered as part of the "Midnight Madness" program at the Toronto International Film Festival, it received mixed reviews. Cam Lindsay of "Exclaim!" magazine wrote admiringly: "The fast-paced action is well staged on a set that borrows from both western and samurai traditions; Miike mixes both good old gunplay (a Gatling gun that’s housed in the original film’s iconic coffin) and martial arts swordplay, which intermingle cohesively until the last fight. Perhaps the most remarkable aspect of Miike’s western is his decision to use a Japanese cast to speak English. Supported by English subtitles, it’s a peculiar choice that at first feels like a novelty, only to fade into the film’s absorbing environment. "Sukiyaki Western Django" feels very much like a genuine western, and with it Miike demonstrates his mastery of working a genre film until it becomes a creation of his very own." On the other end of the spectrum, Will Sloan of "Inside Toronto" wrote: "This is a crazy, fast-paced spectacle of a movie, with some stunning action scenes and gorgeously colourful production design. The problem is, it’s an empty spectacle. Miike pays homage to the spaghetti westerns of Sergio Leone and Sergio Corbucci, but forgets that those directors genuinely loved the kitschy pop culture they emulated instead of regarding it with smug superiority. "Kill Bill" was a comic book, yes, but Tarantino allowed his actors room to create characters the audience could care about, while Miike, by having his cast speak awkward English, is perversely trying to keep their characters two-dimensional and keep the audience distant...Ultimately, "Sukiyaki Western Django" is an exhausting experience. This is not a film you become involved in – it isn’t funny or engaging. Rather, it’s one that you’re supposed to watch with a cool, hip sense of ironic detachment, sitting in the audience and saying to yourself, “Aren’t I cool for laughing at this?” How could anyone enjoy such a self-conscious time at the movies?" The film is currently rated at 56% on Rotten Tomatoes, based on 52 reviews with the consensus as "Inventive and off-kilter, the newest feast from J-Horror director Takashi Miike is super-sensory, self-referential and somewhat excessive." Manga. On June 8, 2007, a manga adaptation by Kotobuki Shiriagari began serialization on Shogakukan's "Big Comic Superior".
1056193	The Tuxedo is a 2002 American comedy–action film directed by Kevin Donovan and starring Jackie Chan and Jennifer Love Hewitt. It is a spy spoof that involves a special tuxedo that grants its wearer special abilities and a corporate terrorist threatening to poison the United States' fresh water supply with bacteria that spills electrolytes into the blood and totally dehydrates the host. Plot. Jimmy Tong (Jackie Chan) is a taxi driver notorious for his speed and ability to get his customer anywhere in the least amount of time. His reputation lands him a job as the personal chauffeur of the mysterious but wealthy Clark Devlin (Jason Isaacs). Jimmy does not really know what his new boss' job might be, but Devlin's friendly nature, imperturbable demeanor, and willingness to offer Jimmy advice wins Jimmy over and the two become friends. Jimmy has no idea that Devlin is a spy, and when an attempt to kill Devlin with a car bombing sends him into a coma, Jimmy ends up with Devlin's recent case notes and a special watch that controls Devlin's rather unusual tuxedo. The tuxedo is a gadget capable of granting its wearer special abilities (including martial arts, speed, the ability to dance, and various acrobatics) which Jimmy must use to stop the terrorist group responsible for Devlin's attempted murder. Headed by the notorious Dietrich Banning (Ritchie Coster), the goal of the Banning Corporation is to take over the global drinking water supply, starting with the poisoning of major US reservoirs by means of genetically-modified water strider insects. By pure chance Jimmy is joined by a genius scientist with aspirations of field work, Delilah "Del" Blaine (Jennifer Love Hewitt). Blaine is completely new to field work and is delighted to be on assignment with Devlin, only to be very confused by Jimmy as he impersonates Devlin, relying on the tuxedo's special abilities to compensate for his lack of skill and training. At first, Blaine thinks Jimmy is weird and annoying, and then a fraud when Jimmy's impersonation is finally exposed. She confiscates his borrowed tuxedo and attempts to stop the evil Dietrich Banning on her own by feigning a desire to become a turncoat for Banning Corporation. Meanwhile Jimmy is ready to give up and go back to his life as a taxi driver, but while packing his belongings he discovers that Devlin had ordered a second tuxedo for Jimmy himself, believing that Jimmy could also be a great agent. Using his own tuxedo, Jimmy defeats the villain, Banning, and his henchmen. In the final scene, he and Blaine admit a tentative attraction for each other and walk away to buy coffee. Soundtrack. Initially scored by Christophe Beck, John Debney was brought in to rescore the film (incorporating Beck's thematic material). Both composers ultimately had cues included in the final version. Varèse Sarabande released a soundtrack album on October 1, 2002, including different cues written by the composers for the same scenes. Cues by Debney are in italics, cues by Beck in bold. Release. Box office. On a reported budget of $50 million, the movie grossed $50,547,998 in the United States. In its opening weekend the film grossed a moderate $15 million from 3,022 theaters. The film total worldwide gross is $104,391,623 USD. Reception. The Tuxedo received negative reviews and the film has been referred to "one of Chan's worst". Roger Ebert of the "Chicago Sun-Times" commented that "The movie is silly beyond comprehension, and even if it weren't silly, it would still be beyond comprehension" but does comment that the film has its good moments. He gave the film one and a half stars out of four. Out of 137 reviews on Rotten Tomatoes, only 30 were positive, giving the film a "Rotten" score of 22%.
1044049	Dawn Addams (21 September 1930 – 7 May 1985) was an English actress, particularly in Hollywood motion pictures of the 1950s and on British television in the 1960s and 1970s. Life and career. She was born Victoria Dawn Addams in Felixstowe, Suffolk, England, the daughter of Ethel Mary (née Hickie) and Captain James Ramage Addams. Her mother died when she was young, and she spent her early life in Calcutta, India. Her heart shaped face and beautiful physique soon attracted the attention of talent agents. Unlike another English actress, Elizabeth Taylor, whom she resembled only slightly, Addams retained her English accent. Her film career began in 1951, and a year later she co-starred with Peter Lawford in "The Hour of 13". In 1953 she appeared in a small role in the ground-breaking film "The Moon is Blue", the film which helped end the system of religious censorship of Hollywood films, which had been in place since 1934. She also embarked on a USO tour the same year to help entertain troops in Korea, followed by a small but heavily publicised role as Richard Carlson's model girlfriend in the science fiction film "Riders to the Stars" (1954). Another notable performance was as the female lead opposite actor-director-filmmaker legend Charlie Chaplin in his final comedy to star himself "A King in New York" (1957). During the 1960s and 1970s she appeared mainly in British TV shows and French films.
900816	Emanuelle in America is a 1977 Italian sexploitation film, the third in a series starring Laura Gemser, made to cash in on the success of the French film "Emmanuelle" and its sequels. It was the second in the series to be directed by Joe D'Amato, and the first to feature scenes of depraved sex (one controversial scene shows a naked woman masturbating a horse) and extreme violence (featuring simulated snuff footage), something not found in the French films.
1170100	Kiel Urban Mueller (July 26, 1944, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania—December 28, 1990, Rancho Mirage, California), professionally known as Kiel Martin, was an American actor best known for his role as lovable rogue Detective John "J.D." La Rue on the 1980s television drama "Hill Street Blues." Martin was married twice, first to Claudia Martin (1944–2001), who was actor/crooner Dean Martin's daughter by his first wife, Betty MacDonald. They had one child, a daughter named Jesse. The marriage ended in divorce in 1971. His second marriage, to Joanne La Pomaroa, also ended in divorce. Like his character on "Hill Street Blues", Martin battled alcoholism and like his character, was able to manage it.
1601155	Pierrot le fou is a 1965 French film directed by Jean-Luc Godard, starring Anna Karina and Jean-Paul Belmondo. The film is based on "Obsession", a novel by Lionel White. It was Jean-Luc Godard's tenth feature film, released between "Alphaville" and "Masculin, féminin". The title translates as Pete the madman, but the film is usually released under its French title internationally. The film was the 15th highest grossing film of the year with a total of 1,310,580 admissions in France. The film was selected as the French entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 38th Academy Awards, but was not accepted as a nominee. Plot. Ferdinand Griffon (Jean-Paul Belmondo) is unhappily married and has been recently fired from his job at a TV broadcasting company. After attending a mindless party full of shallow discussions in Paris, he feels a need to escape and decides to run away with his baby-sitter, an ex-girlfriend, Marianne Renoir (Anna Karina), leaving his wife and children and bourgeois lifestyle. Following Marianne into her apartment and finding a corpse, Ferdinand soon discovers that Marianne is being chased by OAS gangsters, two of whom they barely escape. Pierrot (the unwelcome nickname Marianne gives to Ferdinand during their time together) and Marianne go on a traveling crime spree from Paris to the Mediterranean Sea in the dead man's car. They lead an unorthodox life, always on the run. Settling down in the French Riviera after having burnt the dead man's car (full of money) and sunk a second car into the Mediterranean Sea, their relationship becomes strained. Ferdinand ends up reading books, philosophizing and writing in his diary. Marianne becomes bored of the Robert Louis Stevenson-ness of their living situation and insists they return to town, where in a night-club they meet one of their pursuers. The gangsters waterboard Ferdinand and depart. In the confusion, Marianne and Ferdinand are separated, with Marianne traveling in search of Ferdinand and Ferdinand settling in Toulon. After their eventual reunion, Marianne uses Ferdinand to get a suitcase full of money before running away with her real boyfriend, to whom she had previously referred as her brother. Pierrot shoots Marianne and her boyfriend, and, in the climactic scene, paints his face blue and decides to blow himself up by tying sticks of red and yellow dynamite to his head. Regretting his decision at the last second, he tries to extinguish the fuse, but, due to the dynamite obstructing his vision, fails and is blown up. Themes and style. Like many of Godard's films, "Pierrot le fou" features characters who break the fourth wall by looking into the camera. It also includes startling editing choices; for example, when Pierrot throws a cake at a woman in the party scene, Godard cuts to an exploding firework just as it hits her. The film has many of the characteristics of the then dominant pop art movement, making constant disjunctive references to various elements of mass culture. Like much pop art the film uses visuals drawn from cartoons and employs an intentionally garish visual aesthetic based on bright primary colors. "Pierrot le fou" is sometimes seen as an early and paradigmatic example of postmodernism in film. The film's postmodern elements include its parodic but affectionate attitude towards American pop culture, its deliberate mixing of high and low art, its frequent dissection of popular movie conventions, and its use of a decentered, collage-like (or paratactic) narrative structure. The central character of Ferdinand also embodies Jameson's notion of the postmodern citizen as a victim of "compensatory decorative exhilaration" or a mass media-addled mindset in which individuals lose the ability to distinguish truth from fiction or important issues from trivial ones. Production. Sylvie Vartan was Godard's first choice for the role of Marianne but her agent refused. Godard considered Richard Burton to play the role of Ferdinand but gave up the idea. As with many of Godard's movies, no screenplay was written until the day before shooting, and many scenes were improvised by the actors, especially in the final acts of the movie. The shooting took place over two months, starting in the French riviera and finishing in Paris (in reverse order from the edited movie). Jean-Pierre Léaud was an uncredited assistant director on the movie (and also appears briefly in one scene). The American film director in the party scene is Sam Fuller as himself. The Criterion Collection has released "Pierrot le fou" on Blu-ray Disc in September 2008. It was one of its first titles released on Blu-ray Disc. However, the Blu-ray Disc was discontinued after Criterion lost the rights to Studio Canal.
1063152	Archibald Marshall Bell (born September 28, 1942) is an American actor. He has appeared in many character roles in movies and television. He is known for roles in "" (1985), "Stand by Me" (1986), "Twins" (1988) and "Total Recall" (1990). Early life. He was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma, where he lived until age 13. His family then moved to Denver, Colorado. Bell attended boarding school at St. Paul's, Concord, New Hampshire, but was expelled. He then went to the Fountain Valley School in Colorado Springs, where he became interested in acting after performing as Elwood Dowd in the play "Harvey". Bell was discouraged by others, however, who told him he was not a good enough actor, and did not act again for over 20 years. He attended the University of Colorado, majoring in sociology, and served three years in the Army. He eventually became a consultant, teaching business executives to improve their speaking skills. He is married to Milena Canonero, a renowned Oscar-winning costume designer. In the early 1980s, British director/producer Alan Parker offered Bell a small role in a movie at the suggestion of American producer Fred Roos. Career. Bell's movie debut was in the role as Ronsky in Alan Parker's drama "Birdy" (1984). After "Birdy", he played Gerry Jones in the Fred Roos comedy "Seven Minutes in Heaven" (1985). His first major role was as the cruel Coach Schneider in the slasher/horror "" (1985). Bell played Mr. Lachance, Gordie's grieving father, in the adventure/drama "Stand by Me" (1986); the ruthless hitman, Webster, in the comedy "Twins" (1988) starring Arnold Schwarzenegger and Danny DeVito; and George, who has mutant Martian resistance leader, Kuato, attached to his stomach, in director Paul Verhoeven's blockbuster science fiction/adventure "Total Recall" (1990) starring Schwarzenegger, Sharon Stone and Rachel Ticotin. He made his TV acting debut in the series "The Oldest Rookie" in 1987, playing Det. Gordon Lane. Bell starred as Ford Plasko in the short-lived series "G vs E". His many guest appearances include "Hill Street Blues", "Wiseguy", "Tales from the Crypt", "The X-Files", "Millennium", "Deadwood" and "House". He has also appeared in a TV commercial for IBM. Other movie roles include Lips' Cop in the action/crime thriller "Dick Tracy" (1990) opposite Warren Beatty; the title role of a frightening homeless man terrorizing Bill Paxton's character in the comedy/thriller "The Vagrant" (1992) opposite Paxton and Michael Ironside; General Owen in the science fiction/adventure "Starship Troopers" (1997); the warden, Marshall Krutch, in the award-winning biopic "Capote" (2005) opposite Philip Seymour Hoffman; John Leshing in the family/mystery "Nancy Drew" (2007) opposite Emma Roberts; and Principal Rocker in the comedy "Hamlet 2" (2008). Bell also played the voice acting role as Mr. Sesehund in the animated feature "Heidi 4 Paws" (2008). He and Michael Ironside starred in three movies: Total Recall, The Vagrant, and Starship Troopers. Marshall Bell is now voicing Jack Taggart in the animated short The Xtacles. Bell stars in the upcoming comedy "The Rock 'n Roll Dreams of Duncan Christopher". Over the last 3 years, Bell has played the role of United States' founding father Alexander Hamilton in several television commercials for Citizen Bank Marshall Bell and his wife, Milena, live in West Hollywood, California.
1015995	Anita Yuen Wing-yi is a Hong Kong film and television actress. She was the winner of the 1990 Miss Hong Kong Pageant. Pageant career. At the age of 18, Yuen entered the Miss Hong Kong 1990 pageant. She was a heavy favorite to win the crown from the semifinal to final. During the semifinals on August 5, 1990, she won the Miss Photogenic award. She had a semifinal score of 485, placing 3rd overall. The finals were held on August 21, 1990. She eventually beat out another big favorite, Helen Yung who was 1st runner up and the winner of 2 other awards. Yuen later represented Hong Kong at the Miss Chinese International 1991 pageant, held on February 2, 1991. She took 1st runner up for Hong Kong. She also competed at the Miss Universe 1991 pageant in Las Vegas, Nevada. She failed to make the top 10 and was placed 60th. Film career. Yuen is best known for her role as the female lead in Derek Yee's 1993 tear-jerker "C'est la vie, mon chéri" (1993). She is also well-remembered in her cross-gender comic role opposite Leslie Cheung in "He's a Woman, She's a Man" (1994). The two roles won for her the Hong Kong Academy Best Actress awards. She also gave a powerful performance in, for instance, "The Chinese Feast", co-starring together with Leslie Cheung. Apart from her role in a great many films, she has also acted in a number of Mainland-Taiwan television serials, such as Hua Mu Lan, opposite Vincent Zhao. Personal life. Her husband is Hong Kong actor and singer Julian Cheung. In May 2006, Yuen announced that she was 3 months pregnant with their first child. Their son, Morton Cheung, was born on November 12, 2006. On June 23, 2007, Yuen was a guest on TVB's "Be My Guest" with host Stephen Chan revealing that she and Julian were secretly married in the United States, San Francisco, back in 2001.
1044602	The Reptile is a 1966 horror film made by Hammer Film Productions. It was directed by John Gilling, and starred Noel Willman, Jacqueline Pearce, Ray Barrett, Jennifer Daniel, and Michael Ripper. Plot synopsis. At the turn of the 20th century in the fictional village of Clagmoor Heath in Cornwall several locals are dying from what is deemed to be the "Black Death". Harry Spalding (Ray Barrett) inherits his late brother’s cottage and arrives with his new bride, Valerie (Jennifer Daniel) . The inhabitants of the village keep clear of the newly arrived couple, and only the publican, Tom Bailey (Michael Ripper), befriends them. Bailey explains that the hostility exhibited by the townspeople is the result of many mysterious deaths in the community. The sinister Dr. Franklyn (Noel Willman), the owner of the nearby Well House, is the only resident in the vicinity of the cottage, and he lives with his daughter Anna (Jacqueline Pearce). The Doctor treats his daughter with cruel contempt, and she is attended by a silent Malay servant (Marne Maitland).
583141	Stanley Ka Dabba (Hindi: स्टैनली का डब्बा) is a 2011 Hindi film written, directed and produced by Amole Gupte, starring Divya Dutta, Partho Gupte (son of Amol Gupte), Divya Jagdale, Raj Zutshi, and Amole Gupte. The film was released on May 13, 2011. Plot. Stanley (Partho Gupte) is a fourth grader at Holy Family school in Mumbai and is very popular among his friends. He is talented and well liked by his peers. The English teacher, Ms. Rosy, (Divya Dutta) is particularly impressed with his creativity, wit, and humor. Stanley is shown with a bruised face in the opening scene of the movie. On being questioned about it by Ms. Rosy, he concocts an elaborate story, much to her amusement. His humorous essays and offhand poem recitations make him her favorite in class. However his imagination is not always rewarded (his science teacher (Divya Jagdale) rebukes his attempt at constructing a light house as part of the class project since it does not adhere to the topics covered in class).
1064115	Shark Tale is a 2004 American computer-animated comedy film produced by DreamWorks Animation. It tells the story of a young fish named Oscar (voiced by Will Smith) who falsely claims to have killed the son of a shark mob boss to win favour with the mob boss' enemies and advance his own community standing. The film additionally features the voices of Jack Black as Lenny, Renée Zellweger as Angie, Angelina Jolie as Lola, Martin Scorsese as Sykes and Robert De Niro as Don Lino.
1065203	Beth Grant (born September 18, 1949) is an American actress. She is a character actress known for often playing characters who are conservatives, religious zealots, or sticklers for rules. She is currently a series regular on the television comedy "The Mindy Project" portraying the role of Beverly Janoszewski. Early life. Grant was born in Gadsden, Alabama, and is an alumna of East Carolina University. Career. She has appeared in dozens of films, including three Oscar Best Pictures: "Rain Man"; "Speed"; "To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar"; "Love Field"; "Donnie Darko"; "A Time to Kill"; "Little Miss Sunshine"; "Child's Play 2"; "Daltry Calhoun"; "City Slickers 2"; "Don't Tell Her It's Me"; "Matchstick Men"; "Factory Girl"; "The Wizard"; "Sordid Lives"; "The Rookie"; "All About Steve"; "No Country for Old Men", "Extract", "Crazy Heart", "Rango," and "Hollywood to Dollywood" (as herself).
1062237	Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio (born November 17, 1958) is an American actress and singer. She first became known for her role in "Scarface" in 1983, and became famous for her role as Carmen in "The Color of Money" (1986), for which she was nominated for an Academy Award and a Golden Globe award in 1986. She is also known for her roles in films such as "The Abyss" (1989) and "" (1991). Early life. Mastrantonio was born in Lombard, Illinois to Mary Dominica (née Pagone) and Frank A. Mastrantonio, both of Italian descent, who owned a bronze foundry. She was raised in Oak Park, Illinois and attended the University of Illinois. Career. Film. Mastrantonio first appeared on screen in Brian De Palma's "Scarface" (1983) as Gina, sister of Al Pacino's Tony Montana. She achieved prominence for her Oscar and Golden Globe-nominated role in "The Color of Money" (1986) opposite Paul Newman and Tom Cruise.
581865	Mamta Kulkarni is a former Bollywood Leading Actress. During the 90s, she was part of several commercial successes such as "Aashiq Awara" (1993), "Waqt Hamara Hai" (1993), "Krantiveer" (1994), "Karan Arjun" (1995), "Sabse Bada Khiladi" (1995), "Baazi" (1996), "China Gate" (1998), "Beqabu" (1995),
1042737	Reach for the Sky is a 1956 British biographical film about aviator Douglas Bader, based on the 1954 biography of the same name by Paul Brickhill. The film stars Kenneth More and was directed by Lewis Gilbert. It won the BAFTA Award for Best British Film of 1956. Plot. In 1928, Douglas Bader joins the Royal Air Force (RAF) as a cadet. Despite a friendly reprimand from Air Vice-Marshal Halahan for his disregard for service discipline and flight rules, he successfully completes his training and is posted to No. 23 Squadron at RAF Kenley. In 1930, he is chosen to be among the pilots for an aerial exhibition. Later, although his flight commander has explicitly banned low level aerobatics (as two pilots have been killed trying just that), he is goaded into it by a disparaging remark by a civilian pilot. He crashes. Mr Joyce, surgeon at the Royal Berkshire Hospital, has to amputate both legs to save Bader's life. During his convalescence, he receives encouragement from Nurse Brace. Upon his discharge from the hospital, he sets out to master prosthetic legs. At a stop for some tea, he meets waitress Thelma Edwards. Once he can walk on his own, he starts courting her. Despite his undiminished skills, he is refused flying duties simply because there are no regulations covering his situation. Offered a desk job instead, he leaves the RAF and works unhappily in an office. He and Thelma marry. As the Second World War starts, Bader talks himself back into the RAF. He is soon given command of a squadron comprising mostly dispirited Canadians who had fought in France. Improving morale and brazenly circumventing normal channels to obtain badly needed equipment, he makes the squadron operational again. They fight effectively in the Battle of Britain. Bader is then put in charge of a new, larger formation of five squadrons. Later, he is posted to RAF Tangmere and promoted to wing commander. In 1941, Bader has to bail out over France. He is caught, escapes, and is recaptured. He then makes such a nuisance of himself to his jailers, he is repeatedly moved from one POW camp to another, finally ending up in Colditz Castle. He is liberated after four years of captivity. The war ends (much to Thelma's relief) before Bader can have "one last fling" in the Far East. On 15 September 1945, the fifth anniversary of the greatest day of the Battle of Britain, Bader, now a group captain, is given the honour of leading eleven other battle survivors and a total of 300 aircraft in a flypast over London. Aircraft. The following aircraft were used in the filming of "Reach to the Sky". Production. To depict the various Royal Air Force bases realistically, principal filming took place in Surrey at RAF Kenley, and around the village of Bagshot. Studio work was completed at the Pinewood Studios, Iver Heath, Buckinghamshire, England, UK. Available wartime combat aircraft including Hawker Hurricane and Supermarine Spitfire fighters were arranged to take on the aerial scenes. According to Ben Mankiewicz on TCM, Richard Burton was producer Danny Angel's first choice for the lead but he dropped out. More's fee was £25,000. Mankiewicz also noted that More arranged to meet Bader to prepare for the role. They played a round of golf; much to More's surprise (as he was a good golfer), Bader beat him decisively. Reception. The film fared well with the public, being the most popular film in the UK for 1956. When the film was released in North America in 1957, the American release version was slightly altered with 12 minutes edited out. Rank made a concerted effort to ensure the film was successful in America, sending Kenneth More over to do a press tour, but the public was not enthusiastic.
1103580	Multigrid (MG) methods in numerical analysis are a group of algorithms for solving differential equations using a hierarchy of discretizations. They are an example of a class of techniques called multiresolution methods, very useful in (but not limited to) problems exhibiting multiple scales of behavior. For example, many basic relaxation methods exhibit different rates of convergence for short- and long-wavelength components, suggesting these different scales be treated differently, as in a Fourier analysis approach to multigrid. MG methods can be used as solvers as well as preconditioners. The main idea of multigrid is to accelerate the convergence of a basic iterative method by "global" correction from time to time, accomplished by solving a coarse problem. This principle is similar to interpolation between coarser and finer grids. The typical application for multigrid is in the numerical solution of elliptic partial differential equations in two or more dimensions. Multigrid methods can be applied in combination with any of the common discretization techniques. For example, the finite element method may be recast as a multigrid method. In these cases, multigrid methods are among the fastest solution techniques known today. In contrast to other methods, multigrid methods are general in that they can treat arbitrary regions and boundary conditions. They do not depend on the separability of the equations or other special properties of the equation. They have also been widely used for more-complicated non-symmetric and nonlinear systems of equations, like the Lamé system of elasticity or the Navier-Stokes equations. Algorithm. There are many variations of multigrid algorithms, but the common features are that a hierarchy of discretizations (grids) is considered. The important steps are: Computational cost. This approach has the advantage over other methods that it often scales linearly with the number of discrete nodes used. That is: It can solve these problems to a given accuracy in a number of operations that is proportional to the number of unknowns.
520268	Wapakman is a Philippine superhero film directed by Topel Lee and starring eight-division world boxing champion Manny Pacquiao. It was released on December 25, 2009 as an entry to the 2009 Metro Manila Film Festival. Reception. The film was not well received by the public, and on the first day of opening landed last place in the box-office in the two-week Metro Manila Film Festival. It was also one of two films (the other being "Nobody, Nobody But... Juan" starring Dolphy) to not win an award during the festival.
1055791	Steve Pink (born February 3, 1966) is an American actor, screenwriter and director. He is the director of the comedy films "Accepted" and "Hot Tub Time Machine", and the co-writer of the films "Grosse Pointe Blank" and "High Fidelity". Life and career. He is an Evanston Township High School, Columbia College Chicago, and University of California-Berkeley alumnus (graduating in 1989 with a degree in Peace and Conflict Studies), and a contemporary of John Cusack, Jeremy Piven, and D.V. DeVincentis. Together, Pink, Cusack and DeVincentis formed a production company, New Crime Productions, which produced both "Grosse Pointe Blank" and "High Fidelity". In 2010, he directed "Hot Tub Time Machine". He was also a producer on the 20th Century Fox release "Knight and Day", starring Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz. It has also been announced that Pink will direct the remake of 1984 cult classic "The Toxic Avenger". Pink stated that "'The Toxic Avenger' is exactly what the country -- wait, that's not big enough -- what the world needs right now,".
1163257	Peggy Lipton (born August 30, 1946) is an American actress and former model. She was an overnight success and is best known for her role as "flower child" Julie Barnes in the iconic counterculture TV show "The Mod Squad" (1968-1973). Appearing in numerous TV series since her noted role as Norma Jennings in David Lynch's surreal "Twin Peaks," Lipton has had a more than 40-year career in television, film, and stage.
566937	Dear Wendy is a 2004 film directed by Thomas Vinterberg, and starring Jamie Bell, Bill Pullman, Mark Webber and Alison Pill. It is a co-production between Denmark, Germany, France and the United Kingdom. The script was written by Lars von Trier. The film performed poorly at the box office and received very poor reviews, frequently being compared unfavourably to von Trier's award-winning "Dogville", released the previous year. Despite the poor critical response, Vinterberg won the Silver St. George for Best Director at the 27th Moscow International Film Festival. Plot. The teenage members of a group of self-proclaimed pacifists decide to carry guns. They call themselves The Dandies. Their club is assembled from the young misfits in a fictional small American mining town, Electric Park. It is started after the main character, Dick Dandelion (Jamie Bell), buys what he thinks is a toy gun as a gift. His co-worker tells him the gun is real, and the two start shooting and studying in their spare time. They later recruit other outcasts, young men (and one young woman) who do not, or cannot, work in the mine, including one boy in leg braces and his younger brother Freddie.
501347	Richard Romanus (born February 8, 1943) is an American actor. Among other roles, he has appeared in Martin Scorsese's "Mean Streets", and provided voices for Ralph Bakshi's animated films "Wizards" and "Hey Good Lookin'." He played Richard La Penna, Lorraine Bracco's ex-husband, later husband again, in four episodes of "The Sopranos" from 1999–2002. In 1999 he co-wrote the Christmas film "If You Believe" along with his wife Anthea Sylbert, which was nominated for a Best Original Screenplay award by the Writers Guild of America. Personal life. Romanus was born in Barre, Vermont, the son of Eileen (née Maloof) and Dr. Raymond Romanus. His younger brother, Robert, is also an actor. They both appeared in some episodes of "MacGyver" in the 1980s. He is of Lebanese descent. In 2004, Romanus moved to the Greek island of Skiathos with his wife Anthea and since then he has focused his creative talent on writing prose. He has since written his memoirs, entitled 'Act III' co-published by Aiora Press, Athens and Armida Publications, Nicosia, in 2011 documenting his move to the said island; 2011 also saw the release of Romanus' first novel, 'Chrysalis', by Armida Publications. In 2012, 'Act III' was short-listed for the International Rubery Book Award. Filmography. This is a list of films that have featured Richard Romanus.
1376892	The Search for Santa Paws is a 2010 direct to video film. The movie is a prequel to "Santa Buddies", as well as a spin-off from the "Air Buddies" film franchise and the tenth film in the "Air Bud" franchise. It was released on November 23, 2010. Plot. When Santa Claus (Richard Riehle) travels to New York City and gets hit by a cab, loses his memory and gets the crystal that keeps him eternal is stolen, it's up to his new friend, his puppy named Paws (Zachary Gordon) to save him. Meanwhile, a young orphan named Quinn (Kaitlyn Maher) arrives at a foster home run by a strict and no-nonsense woman named Ms. Stout (Wendi McLendon-Covey) who does not approve of anything that children love: toys, Christmas decorations, singing, and even pets. She has a furnace which she uses to burn all the toys she confiscates from the girls. Despite the harsh rules that she has to respect while staying at the foster home, Quinn eventually befriends the girls, including Janie (G. Hannelius) and Willamina "Will" (Madison Pettis). In order to save Christmas, Eli (Danny Woodburn) and Eddy (Richard Kind) the uncanny elf dog have to go to New York City to save Santa and Paws. But when Santa (Bud) is in the hospital, it takes the help of Quinn and Will to save Santa. When Kate and James take Bud from the hospital, Paws tells Eli to put his crystal next to Santa, but then he wakes up to find that Paws is a stuffed animal. They rush back to the North Pole and Paws turns into a full-grown dog named Santa Paws (Mitchel Musso) and Christmas is back on. Ms. Stout is fired from her job taking care of the orphan girls at the foster home, much to the excitement of the girls, and Will and Quinn are both adopted by James and Kate Hucklebuckle. Reception. Angela Walker, writing for ChristianCinema.com, gave the DVD three stars out of five, but said that the film fits the normal Disney DVD formula. However she went on to say that the film was predictable and a little clichéd, but that kids would enjoy it and that the film adds to the "spirit of Christmas". Sequel. A sequel, "" was released on November 20, 2012.
1089865	Urbain Jean Joseph Le Verrier (; 11 March 1811 – 23 September 1877) was a French mathematician who specialized in celestial mechanics and is best known for his part in the discovery of Neptune. Biography. Early years. Le Verrier was born at Saint-Lô, Manche, France, and studied at École Polytechnique. He briefly studied chemistry under Gay-Lussac, writing papers on the combinations of phosphorus and hydrogen, and phosphorus and oxygen. He then switched to astronomy, particularly celestial mechanics, and accepted a job at the Paris Observatory. He spent most of his professional life there, and eventually became that institution's Director, from 1854 to 1870 and again from 1873 to 1877. In 1846, Le Verrier became a member of the French Academy of Sciences, and in 1855, he was elected a foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. Le Verrier's name is one of the 72 names inscribed on the Eiffel Tower. Career. Early work. Le Verrier's first work in astronomy was presented to the "Académie des Sciences" in September 1839, entitled "Sur les variations séculaires des orbites des planètes" ("On the Secular Variations of the Orbits of the Planets"). This work addressed the then most-important question in astronomy: the stability of the Solar System, first investigated by Laplace. He was able to derive some important limits on the motions of the system, but due to the inaccurately-known masses of the planets, his results were tentative. From 1844 to 1847, Le Verrier published a series of works on periodic comets, in particular those of Lexell, Faye and DeVico. He was able to show some interesting interactions with the planet Jupiter, proving that certain comets were actually the reappearance of previously-known comets flung into different orbits. Discovery of Neptune. Le Verrier's most famous achievement is his prediction of the existence of the then unknown planet Neptune, using only mathematics and astronomical observations of the known planet Uranus. Encouraged by physicist Arago, Director of the Paris Observatory, Le Verrier was intensely engaged for months in complex calculations to explain small but systematic discrepancies between Uranus's observed orbit and the one predicted from the laws of gravity of Newton. At the same time, but unknown to Le Verrier, similar calculations were made by John Couch Adams in England. Le Verrier announced his final predicted position for Uranus's unseen perturbing planet publicly to the French Academy on 31 August 1846, two days before Adams's final solution was privately mailed to the Royal Greenwich Observatory. Le Verrier transmitted his own prediction by 18 September in a letter to Johann Galle of the Berlin Observatory. The letter arrived five days later, and the planet was found with the Berlin Fraunhofer refractor that same evening, 23 September 1846, by Galle and Heinrich d'Arrest within 1° of the predicted location near the boundary between Capricorn and Aquarius. There was, and to an extent still is, controversy over the apportionment of credit for the discovery. There is no ambiguity to the discovery claims of Le Verrier, Galle, and d'Arrest. Adams's work was begun earlier than Le Verrier's but was finished later and was unrelated to the actual discovery. Not even the briefest account of Adams's predicted orbital elements was published until more than a month after Berlin's visual confirmation. Adams made full public acknowledgement of Le Verrier's priority and credit (not forgetting to mention the role of Galle) when he gave his paper to the Royal Astronomical Society in November 1846: Tables of the planets. Early in the 19th century, the methods of predicting the motions of the planets were somewhat scattered, having been developed over decades by many different researchers. In 1847, Le Verrier took on the task to "... embrace in a single work the entire planetary system, put everything in harmony if possible, otherwise, declare with certainty that there are as yet unknown causes of perturbations...",
1376616	John Kassir is an American actor, voice artist, and comedian who is best known as the voice of the Crypt Keeper in HBO's "Tales from the Crypt" franchise. Kassir is also best known for his role as Ralph in the Off-Broadway show "Reefer Madness", as well as its film adaptation, as well as his voice work as Buster Bunny (Taking over for Charlie Adler late in the final season of Tiny Toon Adventures), Ray "Raymundo" Rocket on "Rocket Power", the mischievous raccoon Meeko in "Pocahontas" and its direct-to-video sequel, Jibolba in the "Tak and the Power of Juju" video game series, and the current voices of Pete Puma in "The Looney Tunes Show", and Deadpool in ' and the ' series. He has also recently done the voice of Rizzo for the newest Spyro game, , and voiced Ghost Roaster in . He is also known for his various roles in season 1 of The Amanda Show. Career. Kassir played the Bulgarian kicker, Zagreb Shkenusky, for 7 years in the HBO comedy series "1st & Ten", about a fictional football team. His other live action credits include sketch-acting on "The Amanda Show" and a portrayal of Shemp Howard in a biopic about "The Three Stooges", produced by Mel Gibson, and Ralph in "Reefer Madness: The Movie Musical". He was also able to get his own Pee-wee Herman style show in 1997 called "Johnnytime", which aired for two seasons on the USA network. He also appeared as The Atom in the "Justice League of America" pilot episode, which, despite not being picked up, was released as a film in some markets. John has appeared in over a dozen feature films, starred in eight TV pilots (six of which went to series and two of which lasted on air for over six years each) and guest starred in dozens of TV series in both comic and dramatic roles. Kassir beat out both Michael Winslow and Charles Fleischer to become the voice of the Crypt Keeper. As a standup comic, he has opened for the likes of Lou Rawls, Tom Jones, The Temptations and Four Tops on their TNT tour, Bobby Vinton, Richard Belzer, and Harry Blackstone, Jr. among others. John has also appeared on stage performing improvisation with Robin Williams, though Williams did not realize this was happening. More recently, John has specialized in voice-over work for animation, video games, and other productions. Notable in this regard has been his acting the roles of Ray "Raymundo" Rocket on "Rocket Power". He also provided the voice for the mercenary Deadpool in the video games ' and ', as well as for Sauron and Pyro, two other well-known characters. He was also featured in the very first commercial for the Nintendo cornerstone video game series "The Legend of Zelda" in the United States in 1987. A few of his many theater credits include: originating the role of Kenny in "Three Guys Naked From The Waist Down" (also starring Scott Bakula), for which he was nominated for both a Drama Desk and an Outer Critics Circle award. John also originated the role of Ralph in the musical "Reefer Madness", on stage and in the film version. He provided the voice of the mischievous raccoon Meeko in Disney's 1995 animated feature "Pocahontas" and '. Also, he provided the voice of Buster Bunny in four "Tiny Toon Adventures" cartoons (following Charlie Adler's departure from the role). He played the villainous Scuttlebutt in . He also made one voice appearance in an episode of "Ben 10" as Zombozo. He voiced the character Adam MacIntyre and others in the video game "Dead Rising". Recently, his voice is featured in the games "Shadows of the Damned" and '. In 2011, he voiced Crazy Smurf in the film "The Smurfs", and in 2012, he voiced Jealousy as well as Gumball, Penny, Leslie, Carrie & Darwin when he possesses them in "The Amazing World of Gumball" episode "The Flower". Kassir appeared in Bryan Singer's "Jack the Giant Slayer" (2013), along with Bill Nighy, as Fallon, the two-headed leader of the giants; Nighy played the big head while Kassir played the small head. Personal life. Kassir was born in Baltimore, Maryland. He was married to actress Julie Benz from May 1998 to December 2007. They have both done voice overs in the Xbox game Halo 2. According to an interview about "Tales from the Crypt", he collected comic books as a kid growing up.
582111	Chandni (Hindi: चांदनी, Translation: "Moonlight") is a 1989 Hindi film, starring Sridevi, Rishi Kapoor and Vinod Khanna. It was directed by Yash Chopra. "Chandni" was a blockbuster in 1989 and is one of the most successful films of Indian cinema. The huge profits of this musical brought an end to Chopra's lean phase. The platinum success of its music was instrumental in bringing back music into Hindi films and ending an era of violence in Bollywood productions.
1379696	The Soul of a Man is a 2003 documentary film directed by Wim Wenders as the second installment of the documentary film series "The Blues" produced by Martin Scorsese. The film explores the musical careers of blues musicians Skip James, Blind Willie Johnson and J. B. Lenoir.
1056143	The Final Season is a 2007 baseball film starring Sean Astin, Rachael Leigh Cook, Tom Arnold, Powers Boothe, Brett Claywell, Michael Angarano, and Marshall Bell and directed by David Mickey Evans. Sports Action by ReelSports. The film wrapped production in 2006 in Shellsburg, Iowa, and Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and was released in the United States and Canada on October 12, 2007, by Yari Film Group. The film premiered three times at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York City, New York. The film also premiered in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, on October 7, 2007. Plot. The true story of Kent Stock (Sean Astin), who in the early 1990s, takes the job of a lifetime as head coach of the Norway High School baseball team, a school which had won 19 State titles and equated baseball with life. Kent must win over his players and convince them and himself that he can fill their former coach's shoes all while dealing with the reality that this will be the team's final season due to an impending merger with a nearby school.
1064028	Robert Joy (born August 17, 1951) is a Canadian actor. He is best known for his roles as Dr. Sid Hammerback in "", Charlie in "Land of the Dead", Lizard in "The Hills Have Eyes", Dave in "Atlantic City", and Jim in "Desperately Seeking Susan". Early life. Joy was born in Montreal, Quebec, Canada and grew up in St John's, Newfoundland. He is the son of Flora Louise (née Pike) and Clifton Joseph Joy. He attended Corpus Christi College, Oxford, on a Rhodes Scholarship and Memorial University of Newfoundland. Career. Joy played Madonna's punk musician boyfriend Jim in 1985's "Desperately Seeking Susan", and the Dutch-Israeli Hans in the 1986 Alliance/CTV production "Sword of Gideon", an adaptation of George Jonas's book,
1502401	Tammy Lee Grimes (born January 30, 1934) is an American actress and singer. Early life. Grimes was born in Lynn, Massachusetts, the daughter of Eola Willard (née Niles), a naturalist and spiritualist, and Nicholas Luther Grimes, an innkeeper, country-club manager, and farmer. She attended high school at the then-all-girls school, Beaver Country Day School, in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts. She attended Stephens College in Columbia, Missouri, and then studied acting at New York City's prestigious Neighborhood Playhouse. Career. Known for a speaking voice that has been compared to a buzz saw,[http://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803095908578] a "lyric baritone" singing voice that one critic called "a low, throaty quiver, a hum that takes wings", and "the stage personality of a daffy but endearing pseudo-English eccentric", Grimes made her debut on the New York stage at the Neighborhood Playhouse in May 1955 in "Jonah and the Whale". She made her Broadway stage debut as an understudy for Kim Stanley in the starring role in "Bus Stop" in June 1955. In 1956, she appeared in the off-Broadway production, "The Littlest Revue", and in 1959 had the lead role in the Broadway production of Noël Coward's play "Look After Lulu!", after she was discovered in a nightclub by the playwright. She starred in the 1960 musical comedy "The Unsinkable Molly Brown" for which she won a Tony Award (Best Featured Actress in a Musical) for what "The New York Times" called her "buoyant" performance as a rough-hewn Colorado social climber. She portrayed the title character, a Western mining millionairess who survived the sinking of the Titanic. In 1964, she appeared in the episode "The He-She Chemistry" of Craig Stevens's CBS drama" Mr. Broadway". She made two separate appearances on the early '60s TV series "Route 66". On May 16, 1960, Grimes acted and sang as Mehitabel in an abridged version of the musical Archy and Mehitabel as part of the syndicated TV anthology series Play of the Week presented by David Susskind. The cast included Bracken, Tammy Grimes, and Jules Munshin. Tammy Grimes was originally chosen to play the part given to Elizabeth Montgomery in the hit television situation comedy "Bewitched", but was let out of her contract when Noël Coward asked her to star in "High Spirits", a Broadway musical directed by Coward based on his play "Blithe Spirit". In 1966, Grimes starred in her own ABC television series, "The Tammy Grimes Show", in which she played a modern-day heiress who loved to spend money. Receiving "unfavorable critical reaction and poor ratings", it ran for only a month, although an additional six episodes had already been made."The Tammy Grimes Show" remains one of the shortest series in television history. Returning to the Broadway stage in 1969 after almost a decade of performing in what "The New York Times" called "dubious delights", Grimes appeared in a revival of Noël Coward's "Private Lives" as "Amanda", winning the Tony Award for Best Actress. Clive Barnes in "The New York Times" review called her performance "outrageously appealing. She plays every cheap trick in the histrionic book with supreme aplomb and adorable confidence. Her voice moans, purrs, splutters; she gesticulates with her eyes, almost shouts with her hair. She is all campy, impossible woman, a lovable phony with the hint of tigress about her, so ridiculously artificial that she just has to be for real". During her career, she spent several seasons at the Stratford Festival of Canada in Stratford, Ontario and has appeared in a number of television series and motion pictures. Grimes has also entertained at various New York City night clubs and recorded several albums of songs; she also recited poetry as part of a 1968 solo act in the Persian Room of the Plaza Hotel. Her voice can be heard in romantic duets on some of Ben Bagley's anthology albums of Broadway songs under his Painted Smiles record label. In 1982, she hosted the final season of "CBS Radio Mystery Theater". In 1983 Grimes was dismissed from her co-starring role in the Neil Simon play "Actors and Actresses", reportedly due to an inability to learn her lines. In 2003, Grimes was inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame. She also appeared in the rotating cast of the Off-Broadway staged reading of "Wit & Wisdom". In 2004 she joined the company of "Tasting Memories", a "compilation of delicious reveries in poetry, song and prose," with a starry rotating cast including Kitty Carlisle Hart, Rosemary Harris, Philip Bosco, Alvin Epstein, Joy Franz and Kathleen Noone. In 2005 Grimes worked with director Brandon Jameson to voice UNICEF's multi-award winning tribute to Sesame Workshop. In recent years, Grimes has showcased her talents in a critically acclaimed one-woman show. Personal life. Grimes married Canadian actor Christopher Plummer in August 1956, with whom she had a daughter, actress Amanda Plummer. They were divorced in 1960. Her second husband was actor Jeremy Slate, whom she married in 1966 and divorced a year later. Her third husband was composer Richard Bell (died 2005), whom she married in 1971. In 1965 Grimes made headlines after she had been beaten and injured twice in four days by what were described as "white racists". According to a report, "Miss Grimes said she believed the attacks were related to her association with several Negro entertainers and recent appearances in public with Sammy Davis Jr., the Negro actor, who was said to be staging a night club act for her". Work. Discography. Grimes released three known one-off singles during the 1960s, none of which charted: Her debut solo album, "Julius Monk presents Tammy Grimes" (1959), featured the music from her one-woman show at the NYC nightclub Downstairs at the Upstairs. The album was re-released on the AEI label in 1982. In the early 1960s, she recorded two more albums, one of which was "Tammy Grimes", Columbia Records, 1962. They were re-released on one CD, as "The Unmistakable Tammy Grimes." She is featured on the following Original Cast Recordings: The Littlest Revue, The Unsinkable Molly Brown, High Spririts, 42nd Street, and Sunset, as well as a TV Cast Album of the televised version of George M Cohan's "45 Minutes from Broadway". All have been released on CD, though High Spirits in now out of print. Tammy Grimes also did the introductory narration for the American rebroadcast of the BBC's 1981 radio production of The Lord of the Rings. She recorded an album of children's stories, read out loud, called "Hooray for Captain Jane" in the early 1970s. Recorded "Gorey by Grimes" in 1980, giving her voice to numerous Edward Gorey stories. On cassette (Caedmon CP 1651) and LP (Caedmon TC 1651). Out of print.
1164627	Anne Jackson (born Anna June Jackson; September 3, 1926) is an American actress of television, stage, and screen. Life and career. Jackson, the youngest of three sisters, was born in Millvale, Pennsylvania, the daughter of Stella Germaine (née Murray) and John Ivan Jackson, a barber who ran a beauty parlor. Jackson's mother was of Irish Catholic background and Jackson's father, whose original name was John Jchekovitch, immigrated from Croatia in 1918. Jackson trained at New York City's Neighborhood Playhouse and The Actor's Studio. She made her Broadway debut in 1945. Her theatre credits include "Summer and Smoke", "Arms and the Man", "Luv", "The Waltz of the Toreadors", "Mr. Peters' Connections", and "Lost in Yonkers". She was nominated for the 1956 Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Play for Paddy Chayefsky's "Middle of the Night". Jackson's screen credits include "The Tiger Makes Out", "The Secret Life of an American Wife", "How to Save a Marriage and Ruin Your Life", "Lovers and Other Strangers", "Dirty Dingus Magee", and "The Shining". Her many television appearances include "Armstrong Circle Theatre", "Academy Theatre", "The Philco Television Playhouse", "Studio One", "The Untouchables", "The Defenders", "Gunsmoke", "Marcus Welby, M.D.", "Rhoda", "Highway to Heaven", "Law & Order", and "ER". She narrated Stellaluna on an episode of the PBS series "Reading Rainbow", aired on October 12, 1994. Jackson has been married to actor Eli Wallach, with whom she has acted frequently, since March 5, 1948. They have three children, Peter, Katherine, and Roberta. Her marriage to Wallach, now over 65 years, is one of the longest and most successful in Hollywood history. She currently teaches at the HB Studio in Manhattan, and continues to act in cameo roles.
1030201	The Pornographer () is a 2001 French-Canadian drama film written and directed by Bertrand Bonello who co-wrote the music score with Laurie Markovitch. The film features explicit sexual scenes by pornographic actress Ovidie. It won the FIPRESCI Prize (International Critics Week) at the 2001 Cannes Film Festival and was nominated for the Stockholm Film Festival for Bronze Horse.
739167	David William Duchovny (born August 7, 1960) is an American actor, writer, and director. He is best known for playing Fox Mulder on "The X-Files" and Hank Moody on "Californication", both of which have earned him Golden Globe awards. Early life. Duchovny was born in New York City, New York. He is the son of Margaret "Meg" (née Miller), a school administrator and teacher, and Amram "Ami" Ducovny (1927–2003), a writer and publicist who worked for the American Jewish Committee. His father was Jewish, from a family that immigrated from Poland and Ukraine. His mother is a Lutheran emigrant from Aberdeen, Scotland. His father dropped the "h" in his last name to avoid the sort of mispronunciations he encountered while serving in the Army. Education. Duchovny attended Grace Church School and The Collegiate School For Boys; both are in Manhattan. He graduated from Princeton University in 1982 with a B.A. in English Literature. He was a member of the Charter Club, one of the university's eating clubs. In 1982, his poetry received an honorable mention for a college prize from the Academy of American Poets. The title of his senior thesis was "The Schizophrenic Critique of Pure Reason in Beckett's Early Novels". Duchovny played a season of junior varsity basketball as a shooting guard and centerfield for the varsity baseball team. He received a Master of Arts in English Literature from Yale University and subsequently began work on a Ph.D. that remains unfinished. The title of his uncompleted doctoral thesis was "Magic and Technology in Contemporary Poetry and Prose." At Yale, he was a student of popular literary critic Harold Bloom. Career. Duchovny appeared in an advertisement for Löwenbräu beer in 1987. He appears in two scenes in "Working Girl" (1988). He had a recurring role as a transvestite DEA agent on the series "Twin Peaks" and played the narrator/host in the long-running Showtime erotica/softcore TV series "Red Shoe Diaries". In 1992, he played the role of Rollie Totheroh, in the biographic film "Chaplin", directed by Richard Attenborough, and based on the life of Charlie Chaplin. In 1993, Duchovny began starring in the science fiction series "The X-Files" as FBI Special Agent Fox Mulder, a conspiracy theorist who believed his sister had been abducted by aliens. The show emerged as a cult hit and quickly became one of The Fox Network's first major hits. Also in 1993, Duchovny was cast alongside Brad Pitt and Juliette Lewis, in the Dominic Sena-directed thriller, "Kalifornia". During "The X-Files" run, in between the fifth and sixth seasons, Duchovny co-starred alongside Gillian Anderson in a 1998 motion picture that continued the "X-Files" storyline, titled "The X-Files: Fight the Future". He remained with the series until quitting in 2001, partly because of a contract dispute that occurred after season seven finished filming. Duchovny appeared in half of the season eight episodes, but did not appear in season nine until the series finale in 2002. He also provided the voice for a parody of his Fox Mulder character in an episode of "The Simpsons", titled "The Springfield Files". Duchovny was nominated for four "Emmy Awards." Duchovny caused controversy when it became public that he was the primary reason for which filming of "The X-Files" series was moved from Vancouver, British Columbia, to Los Angeles in 1998. Many residents of Vancouver were upset with Duchovny over scripted jokes on Late Night with Conan O'Brien about the city's heavy rainfall; he joked, "Vancouver is a very nice place, if you like 400 inches of rainfall a day" (Duchovny's character Fox Mulder would later reference this joke in the Season 5 episode Schizogeny). He also stated, "Of course, I'm tired of the rain. But if I wasn't married to a woman that lives in L.A. I'd stay in Vancouver. It's a lovely city." During the run of "The X-Files", he also made several guest appearances in the cult TV satire "The Larry Sanders Show", playing himself, but adding a strong attraction to Sanders. In the final episode of the series, he performed a parody of Sharon Stone's 'flashing' scene from "Basic Instinct" and a parody of "Dr. Hannibal Lecter" being introduced to Agent "Clarice Starling" in "The Silence of the Lambs". Duchovny has guest hosted "Saturday Night Live" twice (May 13, 1995 and May 9, 1998). Both shows were season finales. In 2000 he starred in the feature film "Return to Me", a romantic comedy/drama directed by Bonnie Hunt and co-starring Minnie Driver and Carroll O'Connor. In 2001 Duchovny played a hand model in the Ben Stiller comedy, "Zoolander". He also played the role of Ira Kane in the movie "Evolution" alongside Seann William Scott that same year. He appeared in a celebrity edition of "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?" in May 2000. He got to the $250,000 question, but answered his $500,000 question incorrectly and lost $218,000, leaving him with $32,000. He appeared on "Celebrity Jeopardy!" in 1995 and 2010. Duchovny provided the voice of Ethan Cole in the 2005 video game, "Area 51", as well as that of the title character "XIII" in the 2003 video game "XIII". In 2003 Duchovny starred in the 84th episode of the HBO show "Sex and the City". He played the role of Jeremy, Carrie Bradshaw's high-school ex-boyfriend, who has committed himself to a Connecticut mental health facility. In 2005 Duchovny, who had already made his directorial debut with an episode of "The X-Files", wrote, directed, and appeared in the feature film "House of D". The film starred Anton Yelchin, Robin Williams, and Duchovny's wife Téa Leoni in a coming-of-age tale. It received mostly poor reviews and little box office success. Duchovny also directed an episode of "Bones" (Episode 211, "Judas on a Pole") during its second season. Duchovny currently plays Hank Moody, a troubled novelist in Showtime's series "Californication". The portrayal landed him a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in a Television Comedy or Musical in 2007. According to X-Files creator Chris Carter, Duchovny turned out to be one of the best-read people he knew. After getting the role, Duchovny thought the show wouldn't last for long or that it wouldn't make as much impact as it did. Executive producer Frank Spotnitz called portraying actor Duchovny "amazingly smart". He further stated that Duchovny was behind some of the main characteristic ideas behind Mulder. Personal life. Duchovny married actress Téa Leoni on May 6, 1997. In April 1999, Leoni gave birth to a daughter, Madelaine West Duchovny. Their second child, a son, Kyd Miller Duchovny, was born in June 2002. Duchovny is a former vegetarian and, as of 2007, is a pescetarian. On August 28, 2008, Duchovny announced that he had checked himself into a rehabilitation facility for treating sex addiction. On October 15, 2008, Duchovny's and Leoni's representatives issued a statement revealing they had separated several months earlier. A week later, Duchovny's lawyer said that he plans to sue the "Daily Mail" over an article it ran that claimed he had an affair with Hungarian tennis instructor Edit Pakay while still married to Leoni, a claim that Duchovny has denied. On November 15, 2008, the "Daily Mail" retracted their claims. After getting back together, Duchovny and Leoni once again split on June 29, 2011.
137883	The Assassination of Trotsky is a 1972 British film directed by Joseph Losey with a screenplay by Nicholas Mosley. It starred Richard Burton as Leon Trotsky, as well as Romy Schneider and Alain Delon. Years later, "The Assassination of Trotsky" was included as one of the choices in the book "The Fifty Worst Films of All Time". Plot. Exiled from the Soviet Union in 1929, Leon Trotsky travels from Turkey to France to Norway, before arriving in Mexico in January 1937. The film begins in Mexico City in 1940, during a May Day celebration. Trotsky has not escaped the attention of the Soviet ruler of the Soviet Union, Joseph Stalin, who sends out an assassin named Frank Jacson. The killer decides to infiltrate Trotsky's house by befriending one of the young communists in Trotsky's circle.
1063941	Eileen Dietz (born January 11, 1944, Bayside, New York) is an American actress who is best known for her appearances in many horror films such as the face of the demon in The Exorcist and for her portrayal of characters on the soap operas "Guiding Light" and "General Hospital". Early life and career. As a child, Dietz appeared in commercials with her twin sister Marianne DeFossey, and beginning at the age of 12 she started studying acting at the Neighborhood Playhouse. She made her television debut in 1963 in a small guest role on "The Doctors". Shortly thereafter she landed a recurring role on the soap opera "Love of Life". She made her film debut starring in the 1966 movie "Teenage Gang Debs" as Ellie. The following year she portrayed Penny Wohl in the critically acclaimed independent film "David Holzman's Diary". The film never got much in the way of theatrical distribution despite having Dietz's nude scene featured in Life Magazine's photo spread and in the book of the film. She didn't recall if she auditioned for the role of Penny but she added, "it was a fun shoot." Dietz spent much of the late 1960s and early 1970s appearing in theatre productions. She notably appeared Off-Broadway as the Young Girl in the premiere of Bruce Jay Friedman's "Steambath" at the Truck and Warehouse Theater in 1970. In 1972, she portrayed an androgynous runaway in the premiere of Joyce Carol Oates' "Ontological Proof of My Existence". Her portrayal in the play led to an invitation to do a screen test for "The Exorcist". She was cast in two memorable roles in the film: The Demon (better known as The Face of Death), and the 'Possessed Regan' (the Linda Blair character). For this role, Dietz actually only appeared on film for 8–10 seconds. After "The Exorcist", Dietz had a highly active career on television during the 1970s, appearing as a guest star on such shows as "Planet of the Apes", ', "Barnaby Jones", and "Happy Days" among others. She also portrayed the recurring role of Linette Waterman in the soap opera "The Guiding Light" and appeared in the films "You Light Up My Life" (1977) and ' (1979). In 1980, Dietz joined the cast of "General Hospital" as Sarah Abbott, a role she played for several years. She also appeared as a guest star on "Trapper John, M.D." (1982) and in the horror film "Freeway Maniac" (1989). More recent film credits include "Naked in the Cold Sun" (1997), "Hurricane Festival" (1997), "Bad Guys" (2000), "Exorcism" (2003), "The Mojo Cafe" (2004), "Neighborhood Watch" (2005), "Constantine" (2005), "Karla" (2006), "Creepshow III" (2006), "Dog Lover's Symphony" (2006), and "Tracing Cowboys" (2008). 2009 was a very busy year for Dietz. She had several films coming out, including "Stingy Jack", "H2: Halloween 2", "See How They Run", "The Queen of Screams" (2009), "Butterfly", "Second Coming of Mary", "Legend of the Mountain Witch", and "Monsterpiece Theatre Volume 1". Personal life. Dietz is married to Thomas Albany, that have been married since 1984. Her other sister, Denise Dietz, is a successful author.
724386	Ueto's breakthrough came when she was cast as a high school student suffering from gender identity disorder (GID), in the sixth season of the long-running TBS drama "3-nen B-gumi Kinpachi-sensei". Her critically acclaimed performance led to several leading roles and endorsements, eventually establishing herself as one of Japan's most recognizable faces. As one of Japan's most ubiquitous celebrities, Ueto constantly appears on billboards, shop windows and train adverts, and has held the annual title of CM Queen five times since 2004. She has also ventured onto the big screen, in the lead role in Ryuhei Kitamura's blockbuster "Azumi" (2003), which earned her a Japan Academy Award for Best Actress nomination, its sequel, "" (2005), and the film adaption of "Thermae Romae" (2012). Biography. 1985–1999: Early life and career. Aya Ueto was born in Nerima, Tokyo to an Hokkaidan father and an Okinawan mother. Her parents divorced shortly after Ueto's debut. She has two brothers; Shun, two years older, and Makoto, sixteen years older. Despite growing up in a relatively poor household, Ueto studied piano, modern ballet, swimming and gymnastic. She did not have ambitions to become an entertainer; she wanted to become a pre-school teacher. However, after hearing about one of her friends' experience as an extra on a TV drama, she decided she too "wanted to appear on TV." Unbeknownst to her daughter, Ueto's mother entered her into the 7th Japan Bishōjo Contest. Aged only twelve, Ueto won the special jury prize at the contest. She revealed later on that her real motivation for doing well was to "win the two million yen cash prize to buy a house for her family," however because what she won was an ad hoc prize decided that day, there was no monetary reward. After her discovery, she joined the talent agency Oscar Promotion and began acting and singing lessons. In July 1998, Ueto joined the idol group Z-1. The group landed a regular spot on the variety shows "Kaishingeki TV! Utaemon" and "The Yoru mo Hippare", and debuted on Toshiba EMI a year later with the single "Vibe!" In 1999, Ueto obtained her first role in the film "Satsujinsha: Killer of Paraiso", in which her lines were entirely in English. 2000–2005: Breakthrough and solo debut. In 2000, Ueto portrayed the supporting role of Momo Fuchigami in the Fuji TV drama "Namida o Fuite", starring Yōsuke Eguchi. The drama garnered strong ratings and gave Ueto her then biggest exposure yet. In 2001, Ueto appeared on the annual Victor Kōshien poster, which, in the past, kick-started the careers of Noriko Sakai and Miho Kanno. Later that year, she was cast in the role of Nao Tsurumoto, a student suffering from gender identity disorder (GID), in the sixth season of the TBS drama "3-nen B-gumi Kinpachi-sensei". The role propelled her to stardom and earned her a Golden Arrow Award for Best Newcomer. In January 2002, it was announced that Ueto would continue her music career as a solo artist under Pony Canyon subsidiary label, Flight Master. During her summer break from school, she appeared in a 5-episode arc of the long-running drama "Wataru Seken wa Oni Bakari", and starred alongside Akiko Yada and Hiroshi Abe in the TBS drama "My Little Chef". Ueto released her first solo single, "Pureness," in August 2002. The song debuted at number 4 on the Oricon Weekly Singles chart, making it the first debut single by a female artist with no commercial tie-in to enter the top five in three years. In between filming her first feature film, "Azumi", Ueto released her second single, "Kizuna," and launched "Seventeen's Map", a radio show on Nippon Hōsō. The program would go on to last four-and-a-half years, changing names after each of her birthdays to "Eighteen's Road", "Nineteen's Nine", "Hatachi ni High Touch!", and "21 Peace!". In early 2003, Ueto starred in a remake of the 1993 drama "Kōkō Kyōshi", alongside Naohito Fujiki. She released her third single, "Hello," followed by her first studio album, "Ayaueto". In April 2003, it was revealed that Ueto had taken a leave of absence from school to focus on her career. In a 2007 interview, she stated that, at the time, she was only getting two hours of sleep, trying to juggle work and school. In May 2003, Ueto launched her first tour, "Ueto Aya First Live Tour Pureness 2003", released a fourth single, "Message/Personal," and "Azumi" opened nationwide. Ueto won several awards for her performance in "Azumi". She swooped the Newcomer of the Year category of the Élan d'Or Awards, Japan Movie Critic Awards, Japanese Academy Awards, and Golden Arrow Awards; becoming the only actress to win two consecutive Golden Arrows for Newcomer of the Year. Ueto received a nomination for Outstanding Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role at the Japanese Academy Awards and won the Popularity Award. In July 2003, Ueto landed her first TV leading role in the TBS drama "Hitonatsu no Papa e", for which her fifth single, Kanshō, served as theme song. Despite low ratings, the single was well received on the charts, peaking at number 9. In January 2004, Ueto starred as Hiromi Oka in the live-action adaption of the popular manga "Ace wo Nerae!". The drama earned her a The Television Drama Academy Award for Best Lead Actress. Ueto's seventh single, "Ai no Tameni.," served as theme song for the drama and became her best-selling single. In March 2004, "Message" was released and became her best-selling album. In December 2004, Ueto released her third studio album, "Re.", starred alongside Ryūnosuke Kamiki in the film adaption of Risa Wataya's award-winning novel, "Install", which premiered at the 17th Tokyo International Film Festival, and performed as top-batter at the 55th Kōhaku Uta Gassen. With eighteen advertising contracts for sixteen companies, Ueto was crowned CM Queen of 2004. In 2005, Ueto appeared in the NHK taiga drama "Yoshitsune", portrayed twin sisters in a remake of the drama "Koto", and starred in the sequel to "Azumi", "". In April 2005, she starred in the TV Asahi-produced live-action adaption of another popular manga, "Attack No. 1". "Yume no Chikara," the theme song for the drama, became her ninth top ten single. Ueto next starred in two TV movies produced to commemorate TBS' 50th anniversary: "Misora Hibari Tanjō Monogatar", a Misora Hibari biopic co-starring Izumi Pinko, and "Nada Sōsō, Kono Ai ni Ikite", co-starring Hitomi Kuroki. She launched her second tour, "Ueto Aya Live Tour 2005: Genki Hatsu Ratsū?", released her twelfth single, "Kaze wo Ukete," and first remix album, "Uetoayamix". Ueto was appointed mascot girl for the 2005 FIFA Club World Championship and covered the tournament as a special presenter for NTV. 2006–2007: Intermingling success and struggles. In 2006, Ueto attended her Coming of Age ceremony, acted as special presenter for NTV's coverage of the 2006 Winter Olympics and made a guest appearance as herself in the anime "Meitantei Conan", for which she was chosen as special supporter. She released her thirteenth single, "Egao no Mama de," followed by her fourth studio album, "License". Ueto starred in "Celeb", the first episode of the drama adaption of the cell phone novel "Tsubasa no Oreta Tenshitachi". Her episode was the highest rated of the series. The drama marked Ueto's first appearance on a Fuji TV drama in six years, since "Namida wo Fuite" (2000). She starred alongside Ryo Nishikido in a modern-day remake of the 1970 drama, "Attention Please", which became her most successful drama to date. It spawned two specials: "Attention Please: Yōko, Hawaii ni Tobu" (2007) and "Attention Please: Sydney, Australia" (2008). Ueto next starred in the Yukihiko Tsutsumi-directed comedy, "Shimokita Sundays". The drama failed to capture audiences and was one of the worst-rated of the summer. In September 2006, Ueto released her first compilation album, "", which peaked at number 5. In December 2006, she hosted the 32nd Radio Charity Musicthon and acted as special presenter for NTV's coverage of the 2006 FIFA Club World Cup. In 2007, Ueto starred in the two-part Yoshiko Ōtaka biopic, "Ri Kouran". In March 2007, Ueto released "Way to Heaven," her first single in over a year, and made a guest appearance in the eighth season finale of the TBS drama "Wataru Seken wa Oni Bakari". In April 2007, Ueto was cast in a remake of the Korean drama "Hotelier", which recorded low ratings. The theme song, "Namida no Niji," was released in May 2007. The single marked Ueto's first foray into songwriting. In an interview with Oricon Style, she revealed that the reason she insisted on not writing her own lyrics until then was because she felt "shy" about "opening herself completely" to her audience. Ueto held her third tour, "Ueto Aya Best Live Tour 2007 Never Ever", in the summer of 2007. At the release event of the concert DVD, she stated that the tour refreshed her after a year of ups and downs. Ueto next starred alongside Hideaki Itō in the TBS period piece "Wachigaiya Itosato", and alongside Yō Ōizumi in the Fuji TV drama, "Abarenbō Mama", which was well received by critics and audiences alike. 2008–present. In 2008, Ueto won the Asakusa Entertainment Newcomer Prize, which is awarded to the most prominent entertainers based in Tokyo. She starred in her first NTV drama, "Hokaben". In August 2008, Ueto became the first actress to ever appear on official postage stamps by releasing an original set with photos taken from her 2007 tour. She made a secret guest appearance at the 2008 Kobe Collection runway show, where she modeled for Emanuel Ungaro. In October 2008, Ueto next starred in her ninth TV drama leading role in the Fuji TV comedy "Celeb to Binbō Taro", alongside Shūchishin member, Yūsuke Kamiji. Ueto attended the premiere of Saki Fukuda's first feature film "Sakura no Sono", in which she makes a supporting appearance, at the 21st Tokyo International Film Festival. In December 2008, Ueto hosted two of the year's biggest festivities: the M-1 Grand Prix and 50th Japan Record Awards. She hosted the former for the third consecutive year. In January 2009, Ueto launched her first wedding dress collection, in collaboration with bridal shop Joyful Eli, entitled "U Aya Ueto Dresses". While she has designed her own tour merchandise in the past, namely the T-shirt line "Buddy" in 2005, "U" marks Ueto's first official foray into fashion design. A second collection was announced in July 2009. In April 2009, she starred alongside SMAP leader Masahiro Nakai in her first Getsuku drama, "Konkatsu!". Ueto next co-starred with Hayato Ichihara in the Shunji Iwai-produced CG animation film, "Baton", created in commemoration of the Port of Yokohama's 150th anniversary. The film, reunited her with "Azumi" director Ryuhei Kitamura. In June 2009, after a two year hiatus, Ueto resumed her singing career by releasing the Kohmi Hirose-produced single "Smile for...," followed by her fifth studio album, "". In November 2009, Ueto co-starred with Tetsuya Watari in the Sugako Hashida-written and Fukuko Ishii-produced TV movie, "Kekkon". In 2010, Ueto launched her third and fourth wedding dress collections, starred alongside Kin'ya Kitaōji in the Fuji TV drama "Zettai Reido", and made a cameo appearance in Shun Oguri's directorial debut, "Surely Someday". In August 2010, Ueto co-starred with Masaaki Uchino for the first time since "Ace o Nerae!" (2004) in her first NHK drama leading role, "Jūnensaki mo Kimi ni Koishite". In September 2010, Ueto portrayed blind singer-songwriter Satoko Tatemichi in the TV movie "Ai wa Mieru". Ueto next co-starred with Yutaka Takenouchi in her second Getsuku drama, "Nagareboshi". The drama was very well received by critics and audiences alike and was the second best rated of the fall season. Ueto was nominated for Best Supporting Actress at the Nikkan Sports Drama Grand Prix and won the Television Drama Academy Award for her role in "Nagareboshi". Boasting advertising contracts with 13 different companies, Ueto was crowned CM Queen for a second consecutive year, making it the fifth time she has held the title. In February 2011, Ueto launched her fifth wedding dress collection. In July 2011, Ueto reprised the role of detective Izumi Sakuragi for a second season of "Zettai Reido". Ueto was confirmed to appear in the series finale of the long-running drama "Wataru Seken wa Oni Bakari", scheduled to air in September 2011. She will also star alongside Hiroshi Abe for the first time in ten years, since "My Little Chef" (2002), in the film adaptation of "Thermae Romae" (2012). Filming started in Rome on March 14 and is expected to finish in early May. Personal life. Ueto dated Japanese singer and actor Gō Morita of the boy band V6 for eight years before splitting in April 2010. In October 2010, it was reported that she was in a relationship with Exile leader Hiro. In September 2012, Ueto announced via a handwritten letter posted on her official website that her and Hiro had registered their marriage on Ueto's 27th birthday. In April 2011, Ueto joined veteran actors Tetsuya Watari, Hiroshi Tachi in handing out food and other relief supplies to disaster victims in the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami-stricken area of Ishinomaki in Miyagi. Ueto is close friends with tarento and singer Becky. The pair have been appearing on television together since they met on the morning show "Oha Star" in 2000.
593116	1940 Lo Oka Gramam () is a 2008 Telugu film directed by Narsimha Nandi. It has Bala Aditya and Sri in the lead roles and also features Rallapalli, Mukkuraju, Rama Krishna, Rajitha, Sri Latha and Sai Lakshmi. It is based on the classic "Ghosha" written by Gurazada Appa Rao. The director mentions that "naayuDu pilla" by Gudipati Venkatachalam (Chalam) inspired him to develop the story. It is produced by Nandireddy Narasimha Reddy.
689163	Macon County Line is 1974 American independent film directed by Richard Compton and produced by Max Baer, Jr. Both Baer and Compton also wrote the film, and Baer stars as a vengeful county sheriff out for blood after his wife is brutally killed by a pair of drifters.
952734	Luis Fernando "Trikz" Da Silva, Jr. (born 3 August 1982) is an American basketball player and actor. Luis, who has been referred to as "The World's Best Ball Handler" gained notoriety after headlining the 2001 Nike Freestyle ad campaign and highly recognized as the new up and coming of Hollywood stars, one of the most recognized Portuguese American actors been the face of Steve & Barry's Starbury clothing line tour. Early Life and career. Da Silva was born in Elizabeth, New Jersey. In a 2001 episode of "This American Life", an extended interview with Da Silva detailed his rise to fame. During this interview, Da Silva explained that he was the first street ball athlete ever to be signed to an advertising contract by Nike. Da Silva's signing with Nike preceded other future street ball players and had an immediate and lasting impact on the sport of basketball as well as sports advertising. He performed with Alicia Keys, in 2001 in New York City’s Niketown while promoting the well known Nike campaign. He was subsequently mentioned in Scoop Jackson’s main division , titled ‘Sole Provider’, which recognized the best of Nike’s 35-year chronicle. In 2003, Luis was also the youngest player signed to the Harlem Wizards Show basketball team. After such great exposure through his endorsements, Midway Games offered Luis a lead in the newly developed video game, L.A. Rush, which sold 1 million units internationally. He has also worked with Midway performing the video game motion capturing for NBA Ballers, , , NBA 2K8, NBA 2K9 and AND 1 Streetball video games. He has been featured in magazines SLAM and DIME and on the front page of the Wall Street Journal and the cover of TIME overseas. In 2006, Stephon Marbury and Steve & Barry's announced that Da Silva would hit the road on the Starbury SLAM Tour(SM), with the first of many appearances at Steve & Barry's stores and schools across 120 cities in 60 days to perform his unique style of Hip Hop-themed basketball wizardry in front of kids and parents. Andy Todd, president of Steve & Barry's, said "Trikz is not only a phenomenal performer; he's also a phenomenal guy who kids will enjoy seeing and hearing." In August 2007, Da Silva fulfilled a childhood dream when he was invited to participate in a Harlem Globetrotters mini-camp in Houston, TX and two days into the camp was offered a contract to join the legendary team. In October 2008, the Maryland Nighthawks announced that they selected Luis "Trikz" da Silva with the 14th overall pick as part of their official "Travel team" of the PBL this year, and are set to tour China and other Asian countries during the season. In 2009, Da Silva achieved a personal goal of setting a Guinness World Records of 24 consecutive neck catches of a basketball. In 2009, Da Silva became the youngest person ever inducted into the City of Elizabeth Athletic Hall Of Fame. Da Silva has been working on creating his niche in the film industry in such films as "The Brave One" (co-starring Academy Award winner Jodie Foster) and "Pride & Glory" (co-starring Edward Norton & Colin Farrell). Da Silva has produced and directed an instructional DVD entitled "Freestyle 101" which has been created into an Apple application available on iTunes and Apple store. This DVD is a streetball tutorial that is devoted to inspiring children, adolescents and adults to use basketball in a creative and challenging way of physical fitness. He also became a vegan in 2010 to set an example for others of living a healthy lifestyle through diet and exercise. Da Silva performed with Sean Combs because of his hit single, "Dirty Money - Hello, Good Morning (NCAA Edition)" for the time of the 2010 NCAA Finals half-time Show commercial Da Silva also performed during the 2010 World Basketball Festival, in New York City, during the Jay-Z performance taking place in the Radio City Music Hall, all presented by Nike. March 2011 marks the release of Da Silva's "Freestyle 101" DVD onto Amazon.com, which is a full-length 47-minute instructional DVD designed to teach and motivate anyone interested in learning basketball's most extraordinary trick moves. This is exclusive DVD is only available for purchase at Amazon.com in a collaborative effect with Nightowl Productions and Freestyle Dreams Media. In 2011, Da Silva plays a new role in the summer blockbuster "Fast Five" alongside Vin Diesel and Paul Walker. He appeared alongside Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum in the 2012 comedy, "21 Jump Street". With the release of 2013 "Dead Man Down", in which Luis is again working with Colin Farrell, Da Silva gained his most note-worthy role as “Terry”, the henchman of a notorious gang. His performance landed him on the red-carpet with fellow co-stars Terrence Howard, Noomi Rapace and Dominic Cooper. This lead role is followed up by a role in the 2013 summer hit “The Heat” featuring Sandra Bullock and Melissa McCarthy.
1181652	Bonnie Leigh McKee (born January 20, 1984) is an American singer, songwriter, and actress. Named Rolling Stone Magazine's "Best Secret Weapon" in 2011, McKee has co-written eight #1 singles, that have sold more than 25 million copies worldwide. She teamed up with pop superstar Katy Perry to co-write the hits "California Gurls," "Teenage Dream," "Last Friday Night (T.G.I.F.)," "Part of Me," "Wide Awake," and "Roar." McKee also co-wrote "Dynamite" by Taio Cruz, which became the second best-selling song by a British artist in the digital era. Throughout her career as a songwriter, Bonnie McKee has collaborated with Britney Spears, Miranda Cosgrove, Christina Aguilera, Ke$ha, Kylie Minogue, Avril Lavigne, Kelly Clarkson, Carly Rae Jepsen, Leona Lewis, Adam Lambert, Max Martin, Dr. Luke, Benny Blanco, Mark Foster, Josh Abraham, Greg Kurstin, Anne Preven, and many others. Dubbed a "key player in pop music" by Hit Songs Deconstructed, she is professionally represented by Pulse Recording and Dr. Luke's Prescription Songs. Life and career. Early life. Bonnie McKee was born in Vacaville, California. She began singing at age 4, and was a classically trained pianist at age 7. After relocating to Seattle, Washington, she became a member of the Seattle Girls Choir Prime Voci at age 12, and toured throughout North America and Europe. She recorded two albums with the choir, including "Jackson Berkey Meets The Seattle Girls' Choir" and "Cantate 2000". She briefly attended The Bush School, where she spent a week in a recording studio with her classmates. A few songs from this recording session became the initial demos for her first EP, including the song "When It All Comes Down." 2004–2005: "Trouble". By age 15, McKee was writing songs and performing in the Seattle area. A friend helped get her EP to Nic Harcourt, a popular disc jockey in Los Angeles and host of KCRW's "Morning Becomes Eclectic". He helped spark a major record label bidding war after playing the song "Somebody" on his radio program for several weeks. After signing a recording contract with Reprise Records at age 16, she moved to Los Angeles to begin work on her debut album with producer Rob Cavallo. "Trouble" was commercially released on September 28, 2004. McKee performed the single "Somebody" on "Jimmy Kimmel Live!", and the song was featured in the motion picture "Win a Date with Tad Hamilton!" The music video for "Somebody" was directed by Wayne Isham, and was featured on MTV's "Buzzworthy" and VH1's "You Oughta Know". "Trouble" received positive reviews in Blender, Nylon, The Los Angeles Times, and Teen People. 2006–2011: Songwriting and acting roles. Following her release from Reprise Records, McKee spent many hours in the recording studio, learning how to use Pro Tools and crafting new songs. She also focused on acting, landing a role in the motion picture "August Rush," and appearing on the television series' "" and "American Dreams" In 2011, she appeared as a guest judge on Bravo's "Platinum Hit" with hosts Kara Dioguardi and Jewel In 2009, McKee was introduced to music producer Lukasz "Dr. Luke" Gottwald, by her manager Josh Abraham. Gottwald had collaborated with McKee's longtime friend Katy Perry on her debut album "One of the Boys". They (along with Max Martin and Benny Blanco) began writing songs together, ultimately producing the hits that would appear on Perry's second album, the worldwide multi-platinum, "Teenage Dream". The singles "California Gurls," "Teenage Dream" and "Last Friday Night (T.G.I.F)" each topped the Billboard Hot 100 chart and sold millions of copies around the world. They also helped McKee earn BMI Pop Awards in 2011 and 2012 for her role as a songwriter. Other successful collaborations between McKee, Gottwald and Martin include Britney Spears' "Hold It Against Me," Taio Cruz's "Dynamite," Rita Ora's "How We Do (Party)," and Katy Perry's singles from "", "Wide Awake" and "Part of Me." 2012–present: Songwriting, "American Girl," second studio album. In the past year, McKee co-wrote two songs that appeared on Adam Lambert's album "Trespassing", which debuted at #1 on the "Billboard" 200 Album Chart. She also appeared as a featured performer on "Thunder" from Rusko's album "Songs", released on Mad Decent. As a songwriter, she has collaborated Christina Aguilera, Kesha, Carly Rae Jepsen, Kylie Minogue, Cody Simpson, Rita Ora, and others. McKee recently signed a recording contract as a solo artist with Epic Records, and is currently at work on her second studio album. She has garnered recent attention for her fashion sense, appearing on E! Entertainment Television's "Fashion Police," and gracing the pages of the New York Times, New York Post, and Schön! Magazine. In 2013, McKee won 3 more BMI Pop awards for her songwriting work on Katy Perry's "Wide Awake" and "Part of Me" as well as Britney Spears' "Hold It Against Me." McKee's second album is scheduled for release in Spring 2014. The lead single will be "American Girl," which she has performed live. McKee has described it as a "summer banger." The song was released on July 23, 2013. She posted a video for "American Girl" on YouTube on June 26, 2013 which featured several cameo appearances by Katy Perry, Nicole Scherzinger, Carly Rae Jepsen, Kesha, Jenny McCarthy, Kelly Osbourne, Adam Lambert, Jason Derulo, Becky G, Joan Rivers, Macklemore, Karmin, Taio Cruz, Tommy Lee of Mötley Crüe, Kiss, Jane Lynch, George Takei, Kathy Griffin, Lance Bass, Jewel and other artists. Songwriting discography. Number-one singles. The following singles co-written by Bonnie McKee have reached a #1 chart position in North America and/or the United Kingdom Awards and nominations. BMI Pop Music Awards
1048884	Davy Crockett and the River Pirates is a 1956 live-action Walt Disney adventure film starring Fess Parker as Davy Crockett. It was shot in Cave-In-Rock, Illinois. This film acts as a prequel to 1955's "Davy Crockett, King of the Wild Frontier" and is an edited compilation of the fourth and fifth stories featuring the Disney television series "Davy Crockett": This is the ninth live-action film produced by Walt Disney Productions. Plot. Keelboat Race. Davy Crockett and George "Georgie" Russel are loaded with pelts as they make their way to the Mississippi River after a successful season of trapping and hunting in Kentucky. There they encounter Mike Fink, a blowhard keelboat captain who refuses to take them downriver, unless they pay a ridiculously high fee. That evening, Fink gets Georgie drunk and convinces him to keelboat race down the Mississippi with the season's pelts as wager.
1073168	Bullet Ballet (バレット・バレエ) is a Japanese film directed by and starring Shinya Tsukamoto, and co-starring Hisashi Igawa, Sujin Kim, Kirina Mano, Takahiro Murase, Tatsuya Nakamura and Kyoka Suzuki.
589812	Ghar Ghar Ki Kahani is a 1970 Bollywood drama film directed by T. Prakash Rao. The film stars Balraj Sahni, Nirupa Roy & Om Prakash in lead roles. Plot. Shankarnath (Balraj Sahni), is an Honest Government employee on the other hand his subordinate Sadhuram (Om Prakash) is a corrupt employee. Shankarnath, even though employed in a supervisory capacity, nets only Rs.630/-, and is unable to accede to any of the demands placed by his three school-going children, Ravi, Roopa, and Raja. When the trio declare a hunger-fast until their demands are met, he decides to let them run the household expenses, for a period of six months, by giving Ravi his entire salary. Ravi thinks that he can save a lot of money and get stuff for himself and his siblings - but things go seriously wrong when Raja loses money while gambling; relatives descend on them during Diwali; cash is stolen; and his mother, Padma (Nirupa Roy), becomes seriously ill.
583322	Jai Veeru is a Hindi action film directed by Puneet Sira, and starring Fardeen Khan, Kunal Khemu, Dia Mirza, Arbaaz Khan and Anjana Sukhani. The film was released on 13 March 2009. It is a remake of the 1996 action, "Bulletproof". The title of the film is named after the famous characters, Jai and Veeru from the film "Sholay". Plot. Veeru (Kunal Khemu) is a small time crook working for a large drug importer, Tejpal (Arbaaz Khan). He is unaware that his best friend Jai (Fardeen Khan) is an undercover cop, seeking evidence against Tejpal. During a raid on Tejpal's warehouse, Veeru accidentally shoots Jai in the head but he miraculously survives and makes a full recovery. Veeru then flees the state, and is subsequently arrested. Jai is assigned the task of returning Veeru to testify against Tejpal. They confront each other, and seem to find their friendship still exists. They both decide to be friends again, when Veeru claims he has Tejpal's diary, which includes all his secrets and whereabouts. When they go to catch him, Tejpal shoots Veeru, while Jai attacks Tejpal and kills him. By the time the police get there, Jai has already let Veeru flee, and Jai is arrested for what he has done. Since then, lives on the friendship of "Jai Veeru". Soundtrack. The soundtrack of the film is composed by Bappa Lahiri while the lyrics are penned by Shravan Kumar. Box office. "Jai Veeru" had something for the hardcore masses but nothing for the elite/classes. Its business, therefore, is restricted to the single screens, but multiplexes are terrible. It was a great film, disappointing multiplexes. It did a business of 5 Crores in all over circuits.
485379	Harold William Kuhn (born 1925) is an American mathematician who studied game theory. He won the 1980 John von Neumann Theory Prize along with David Gale and Albert W. Tucker. A Professor-Emeritus of Mathematics at Princeton University, he is known for the Karush–Kuhn–Tucker conditions, for developing Kuhn poker as well as the description of the Hungarian method for the assignment problem. Recently, though, a paper by Carl Gustav Jacobi, published posthumously in 1890 in Latin, has been discovered that anticipates by many decades the Hungarian algorithm. He is known for his association with John Forbes Nash, as a fellow graduate student, a lifelong friend and colleague, and a key figure in getting Nash the attention of the Nobel Prize committee that led to Nash's 1994 Nobel Prize in Economics. Kuhn and Nash both had long associations and collaborations with Albert W. Tucker, who was Nash's dissertation advisor. Kuhn co-edited "The Essential John Nash", and is credited as the mathematics consultant in the 2001 movie adaptation of Nash's life, "A Beautiful Mind". His oldest son is historian Clifford Kuhn, noted for his scholarship on the American South and for collecting oral history. Another son, Nick Kuhn, is a professor of mathematics at the University of Virginia. His youngest son, Jonathan Kuhn, is Director of Art and Antiquities for the New York City Department of Parks & Recreation.
1163789	Philip St. John Basil Rathbone, MC (13 June 1892 – 21 July 1967) was a South African-born British actor. He rose to prominence in the UK as a Shakespearean stage actor and went on to appear in over 70 films, primarily costume dramas, swashbucklers and, occasionally, horror films. He frequently portrayed suave villains or morally ambiguous characters, such as Murdstone in "David Copperfield" (1935) and Sir Guy of Gisbourne in "The Adventures of Robin Hood" (1938). His most famous role, however, was heroic — that of Sherlock Holmes in fourteen Hollywood films made between 1939 and 1946 and in a radio series. His later career included roles on Broadway, as well as self-ironic film and television work. He received a Tony Award in 1948 as Best Actor in a Play. Early life. Born as Philip St. John Basil Rathbone in Johannesburg to English parents, Edgar Philip Rathbone, a mining engineer and scion of the Liverpool Rathbone family, and Anna Barbara (née George), a violinist, he had two older half-brothers, Harold and Horace, as well as two younger siblings, Beatrice and John. Basil was the great-grandson of the noted Victorian philanthropist, William Rathbone V. The Rathbones fled to Britain when Basil was three years old after his father was accused by the Boers of being a spy after the Jameson Raid. Rathbone was educated at Repton School in Repton, Derbyshire, and was employed by the Liverpool and Globe Insurance Companies. On 22 April 1911, Rathbone made his first appearance on stage at the Theatre Royal, Ipswich, Suffolk, as Hortensio in "The Taming of the Shrew", with Sir Frank Benson's No. 2 Company, under the direction of Henry Herbert. In October 1912, he went to the United States with Benson's company, playing such parts as Paris in "Romeo and Juliet", Fenton in "The Merry Wives of Windsor", and Silvius in "As You Like It". Returning to Britain, he made his first appearance in London at the Savoy Theatre on 9 July 1914, as Finch in "The Sin of David". That December, he appeared at the Shaftesbury Theatre as the Dauphin in "Henry V". During 1915, he toured with Benson and appeared with him at London's Court Theatre in December as Lysander in "A Midsummer Night's Dream". The Great War. At the end of 1915, Rathbone was called up via the Derby Scheme into the British Army as a private with the London Scottish Regiment, joining a regiment that also counted in its ranks his future professional acting contemporaries Claude Rains, Herbert Marshall and Ronald Colman at different points through the conflict. After basic training with the London Scots in early 1916 he received a commission as a lieutenant in the 2nd Battalion of the Liverpool Scottish, where he served as an intelligence officer and eventually attained the rank of captain. Rathbone's younger brother John was killed in action on June 4, 1918. It was after this that Rathbone convinced his superiors to allow him to scout enemy positions during daylight rather than at night, as was the usual practice to minimize the chance of detection. Rathbone describes it thus in his autobiography "Camouflage suits had been made for us to resemble trees. On our heads were wreaths of freshly plucked foliage, or faces and hands were blackened with burnt cork." As a result of these highly dangerous daylight raids In September 1918, he was awarded the Military Cross for "conspicuous daring and resource on patrol". Richard Van Emden in his book "Famous 1914-18" speculates this extreme bravery may have been a form of guilt or a need for vengeance following his brother's death
584003	Madhumitha (born Swapna Madhuri on August 20, 1981) is an Indian actress, who has appeared in films in various South Indian industries, frequently in Tamil and Telugu films. She has appeared in "Puttintiki Ra Chelli", "Kudaikul Mazhai", "Aanivaer" and "Arai En 305-il Kadavul". Career. Madhumitha started her acting career under her birth name Swapna Madhuri with the 2002 Telugu film "Sandade Sandadi" (2002) doing a pivotal supporting role. She continued essaying supporting roles in a couple of Telugu films like "Manmadhudu" (2002) along with Akkineni Nagarjuna and Sonali Bendre, "Ammailu Abbailu" (2003) and "Puttintiki Ra Chelli" (2004) sharing screen space with Arjun and Meena, with the latter in particular becoming a high commercial success, running for 275 days in theatres. She then got introduced to the Tamil film industry by R. Parthiban in his film "Kudaikul Mazhai" (2004), enacting the lead female role and changing her screen name to Madhumitha, named after her character in the film. Though the film wasn't a major success, Madhumitha received several offers from Tamil directors. She played leading roles in several Tamil films like "Amudhey" (2005), "Englishkaran" (2005) opposite Sathyaraj and Namitha and "Naalai" (2006), which, however, did not fetch her any recognition, despite being moderate successes. She then appeared in the 2007 Tamil independent film "Aanivaer", a film about the Sri Lankan Civil War, in which she enacted the role of doctor. Since the film was released in many Western Tamil diasporal regions, she became widely noticed by the Tamil audience, winning accolades for her performance. In 2008, she appeared in the Tamil comedy film "Arai En 305-il Kadavul", directed by Simbudevan, acting along with comedy actors Santhanam and Ganja Karuppu, essaying the role of a sex worker, which fetched her much critical acclaim. She was next seen in "Yogi", opposite director-turned-actor Ameer Sultan, and "Solla Solla Inikkum", both which failed to achieve commercial success. Her performance in the former as a young mother living in the Chennai slums, was critically praised, winning her a nomination for the Best Supporting Actress Award at the 3rd Vijay Awards. Personal life. Madhumitha married her longtime boyfriend, actor Shiva Balaji on 1 March 2009 at Kalinga Function Place in Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh. Shiva Balaji was her co-actor in her film "Englishkaran", eventually marrying him, after romancing for 3 three years. The engagement was held on 21 August 2008 in Hyderabad.
588662	Yaariyan () is a 2008 Punjabi film, produced by Pinky Basrao starring Gurdas Maan as the male lead and Bhumika Chawla playing his love interest. Directed by Deepak Grewal, the film also stars Om Puri and Gulshan Grover who have their roots in Punjab. There is also a special appearance by Asrani. Music. Sachin Ahuja, Jaidev Kumar and Onkar composed the music while the film score is composed by Aadesh Shrivastava. The song listing is as follows.
1055158	The Apu Trilogy is a trilogy consisting of three Bengali films directed by Satyajit Ray: "Pather Panchali" ("Song of the Little Road"), "Aparajito" ("The Unvanquished") and "Apur Sansar" ("The World of Apu"). The films – completed 1955-1959 – were based on two Bengali novels written by Bibhutibhushan Bandopadhyay: "Pather Panchali" (1929) and "Aparajito" (1932). The original music for the trilogy was composed by Ravi Shankar. Produced on a shoestring budget of Rs. 150,000 ($3000) using an amateur cast and crew, the trilogy was a milestone in Indian cinema and remains one of the finest examples of Parallel Cinema. The three films went on to win many national and international awards, including three National Film Awards and seven awards from the Cannes, Berlin and Venice Film Festivals. They are today frequently listed among the greatest films of all time and considered one of the greatest film trilogies ever made. Plot. The films are a "coming of age" narrative in the vein of a bildungsroman, describing the childhood, education and early maturity of a young Bengali named Apu (Apurba Kumar Roy) in the early part of the 20th century. The first film "Pather Panchali" ("Song of the Little Road") is about Apu's early experiences in rural Bengal, as the son of a poor but high caste family. His father Harihar, a Brahmin, has difficulty in supporting his family. After the death of Apu's sister, Durga, the family moves to the holy city of Benares. In the second film "Aparajito" ("The Unvanquished"), the family's finances are still precarious. After his father dies there, Apu and his mother Sarbajaya come back to a village in Bengal. Despite incessant poverty, Apu manages to get formal schooling and turns out to be a brilliant student. The growing Apu comes into conflict with his mother. Later, when his mother dies too, he has to learn to live alone. In the third film "Apur Sansar" ("The World of Apu"), attempting to become a writer, Apu accidentally finds himself pressured to marry a girl who has rejected her mentally ill bridegroom. Their blossoming marriage ends in her death in childbirth, after which the despairing Apu abandons his child, but eventually returns to accept his responsibilities. Production. In 1950, Ray had decided that "Pather Panchali", the classic bildungsroman of Bengali literature, published in 1928 by Bibhutibhusan Bandopadhyay, would be the subject matter for his first film. This semi-autobiographical novel describes the growing up of Apu, a small boy in a Bengal village. He went ahead with the film after meeting Jean Renoir during filming of "The River" (1951) and after watching the Italian neorealist film "Bicycle Thieves" (1948) while he was in London. Besides the influence of European cinema and Bengali literature, Ray is also indebted to the Indian theatrical tradition, particularly the "rasa" theory of classical Sanskrit drama. The complicated doctrine of "rasa" "centers predominantly on feeling experienced not only by the characters but also conveyed in a certain artistic way to the spectator. The duality of this kind of a "rasa" imbrication" shows in "The Apu Trilogy". Ray gathered an inexperienced crew, although both his cameraman Subrata Mitra and art director Bansi Chandragupta went on to achieve great acclaim. The cast consisted of mostly amateur artists. Shooting started in late 1952, using Ray's personal savings. He had hoped once the initial shots had been completed, he would be able to obtain funds to support the project; however, such funding was not forthcoming. "Pather Panchali" was shot over the unusually long period of three years, because shooting was possible only from time to time, when Ray or production manager Anil Chowdhury could arrange further money. With a loan from the West Bengal government, the film was finally completed and released in 1955 to great critical and popular success, sweeping up numerous prizes and having long runs in both India and abroad. During the making of the film, Ray refused funding from sources who demanded a change in script or the supervision of the producer, and ignored advice from the government (which finally funded the film anyway) to incorporate a happy ending in having Apu's family join a "development project". Even greater help than Renoir's encouragement occurred when Ray showed a sequence to John Huston who was in India scouting locations for "The Man Who Would Be King". The sequence is the remarkable vision Apu and his sister have of the train running through the countryside. It was the only sequence Ray had filmed due to his small budget. Huston notified Monroe Wheeler at the New York Museum of Modern Art that a major talent was on the horizon. In India, the reaction to the film was enthusiastic, "The Times of India" wrote that "It is absurd to compare it with any other Indian cinema [...] "Pather Panchali" is pure cinema". In the United Kingdom, Lindsay Anderson wrote a glowing review of the film. However, the reaction was not uniformly positive. After watching the movie, François Truffaut is reported to have said, "I don’t want to see a movie of peasants eating with their hands." Bosley Crowther, then the most influential critic of "The New York Times", wrote a scathing review of the film that its distributor Ed Harrison thought would kill off the film when it got released in the United States, but instead it enjoyed an exceptionally long run. Ray's international career started in earnest after the success of his next film, "Aparajito" ("The Unvanquished"). This film shows the eternal struggle between the ambitions of a young man, Apu, and the mother who loves him. Many critics, notably Mrinal Sen and Ritwik Ghatak, rank it even higher than the first film. Aparajito won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival. The film is also notable for introducing the technique of bounce lighting, to recreate the effect of daylight on sets, pioneered by the cinematographer Subrata Mitra. Ray had not thought about a trilogy while making "Aparajito", and it occurred to him only after being asked about the idea in Venice. The final installation of the series, "Apur Sansar" ("The World of Apu") was made in 1959. Just like the two previous films, a number of critics find this to be the supreme achievement of the trilogy (Robin Wood, Aparna Sen). Ray introduced two of his favourite actors Soumitra Chatterjee and Sharmila Tagore in this film. The film finds Apu living in a nondescript Kolkata house in near-poverty. He becomes involved in an unusual marriage with Aparna, the scenes of their life together forming "one of the cinema's classic affirmative depiction of married life", but tragedy ensues. After "Apur Sansar" was harshly criticised by a Bengali critic, Ray wrote an article defending it—a rare event in Ray's film making career (the other major instance involved the film "Charulata", Ray's personal favourite). His success had little influence on his personal life in the years to come. Ray continued to live with his mother, uncle and other members of his extended family in a rented house. Critical reception. This trilogy is considered by critics around the globe to rank among the greatest achievements of Indian film, and is established as one of the most historically important cinematic debuts. "Pather Panchali" won at least thirteen international prizes (including Best Human Document at the 1956 Cannes Film Festival), followed by eleven international prizes for "Aparajito" (including the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival) and numerous other awards for "Apur Sansar" (including the Sutherland Trophy at the London Film Festival). When Ray made "Pather Panchali", he worked with a cast and crew most of whom had never been previously involved in the film medium. Ray himself at the time of directing "Pather Panchali" had primarily worked in the advertising industry, although he had served as assistant director on Jean Renoir's 1951 film "The River". From this foundation, Ray went on to create other highly acclaimed films, like "Charulata", "Mahanagar", and "Aranyer Dinratri", and his international success energised other Bengal filmmakers like Mrinal Sen and Ritwik Ghatak. This extract from the South African author J. M. Coetzee, talks of the music in the "Apu trilogy", which is based on Indian classical music. From Coetzee's "Youth": At the Everyman Cinema there is a season of Satyajit Ray. He watches the Apu trilogy on successive nights in a state of rapt absorption. In Apu's bitter, trapped mother, his engaging, feckless father he recognizes, with a pang of guilt, his own parents. But it is the music above all that grips him, dizzyingly complex interplays between drums and stringed instruments, long arias on the flute whose scale or mode - he does not know enough about music theory to be sure which - catches at his heart, sending him into a mood of sensual melancholy that last long after the film has ended. On Rotten Tomatoes, "Pather Panchali" has a 97% fresh rating based on an aggregate of 34 reviews, and has been included in its list of top 100 foreign films. "Aparajito" has a 93% fresh rating based on an aggregate of 14 reviews, and "The World of Apu" has a 100% fresh rating based on an aggregate of 16 reviews. This makes "The Apu Trilogy" one of the highest-rated film trilogies of all time (97%, 93%, 100%), along with the "Toy Story" trilogy (100%, 100%, 99%), "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy, the original "Star Wars" trilogy (94%, 97%, 78%), and the Before Trilogy (100%, 95%, 98%). Legacy. "Sight & Sound", the British Film Institute's film magazine, listed "Pather Panchali" several times in its Critics' Poll of all-time greatest films, in 1962 (ranked #11), 1982 (ranked #79), 1992 (ranked #6) and 2002 (ranked #22). "The World of Apu" appeared in 1982, ranked at #42. In the 1992 edition, both "Aparajito" and "The World of Apu" were tied at #127, while "The Apu Trilogy" was ranked separately at #88. In a combined list of "Sight & Sound" critics' and directors' poll results in 2002, "Pather Panchali" was ranked at No. 28, "The World of Apu" at No. 93 and "Aparajito" at #160. If the votes are combined, then "The Apu Trilogy" as a whole would be ranked at No. 14 in 1982, No. 4 in 1992 and No. 14 in 2002. In 1988, John Kobal's poll of critics and filmmakers ranked "The Apu Trilogy" at No. 35 on the list. In 1998, the Asian film magazine "Cinemaya"'s critics' poll of all-time greatest films ranked "The Apu Trilogy" at No. 7 on the list, while "Pather Panchali" alone was ranked at No. 2 on the same list. If the votes are combined, then "The Apu Trilogy" would be ranked at #1. In 1999, "The Village Voice" ranked "Pather Panchali" at No. 12 (tied with "The Godfather") in its top 250 "Best Films of the Century" list, based on a poll of critics, while "The Apu Trilogy" was ranked separately at No. 54 in the same poll. If the votes are combined, "The Apu Trilogy" would be ranked at #5. In 2000, an audience poll of best Asian films conducted by "MovieMail" ranked "The Apu Trilogy" at No. 2 on the list. "Pather Panchali" was included in various other all-time greatest film lists, including "Time Out" magazine's "Centenary Top One Hundred Films" in 1995, the "San Francisco Chronicle" "Hot 100 Films From the Past" in 1997, the "Rolling Stone" "100 Maverick Movies of the Last 100 Years" in 1999, and the British Film Institute's Top Fifty "Must See" Children's Films in 2005. In 1996, "The World of Apu" was included in Movieline Magazine's "100 Greatest Foreign Films". In 2002, "Pather Panchali" and "The World of Apu" featured in "The New York Times Guide to the Best 1,000 Movies Ever Made". "The Apu Trilogy" as a whole was included in film critic Roger Ebert's list of "100 Great Movies" in 2001 and in "Time" magazine's All-Time 100 best movies list in 2005. It was also ranked No. 17 in "Empire" magazine's "The 100 Best Films of World Cinema" in 2010. Influence. According to Michael Sragow of "The Atlantic Monthly" in 1994: Across the world, filmmakers such as Martin Scorsese, James Ivory, Abbas Kiarostami, Elia Kazan, Carlos Saura, Isao Takahata, Philip Kaufman, Wes Anderson and Danny Boyle have been influenced by "The Apu Trilogy", with many others such as Akira Kurosawa praising the work. In Gregory Nava's 1995 film "My Family", the final scene is duplicated from the final scene of "Apur Sansar". Similar influences and references to the trilogy can be found, for example, in recent works such as "Sacred Evil", Key's 2004 visual novel "Clannad", Paul Auster's 2008 novel "Man in the Dark", the "Elements trilogy" of Deepa Mehta and even in films of Jean-Luc Godard. The technique of bounce lighting pioneered by Subrata Mitra, to recreate the effect of daylight on sets, has also had a profound influence on the development of cinematography. Ravi Shankar's soundtracks to the films were also a major influence on The Beatles, specifically George Harrison.
1061106	Oliver James Platt (born January 12, 1960) is an American actor. He starred in the Showtime original series, "The Big C" with Laura Linney. Early life. Platt was born in Windsor, Ontario, Canada, to American parents Sheila Maynard, a clinical social worker who worked in Islamabad, and Nicholas Platt, a career diplomat who served as U.S. ambassador to Pakistan, Zambia, and the Philippines. He has an older brother, Adam Platt, a "New York Magazine" restaurant critic, and a younger brother, Nicholas Platt, Jr. His family moved back to the United States when Platt was three months old. Platt's paternal great-great-grandfather was diplomat and lawyer Joseph Hodges Choate. Platt's maternal great-grandparents were equestrian Arthur Scott Burden and socialite Cynthia Roche; he is a second cousin once removed of Diana, Princess of Wales and of her brother Charles Spencer, 9th Earl Spencer, through his great-great-grandparents, MP James Roche and heiress Frances Work. When asked about Diana, Platt said, "I never met her. It's a non-story. I'd love to tell you we were confidantes. The truth is I don't know much more about it than you do." Because of his father's career as an ambassador, much of Platt's childhood was spent in Asia, the Middle East, and Washington, D.C. Platt attended twelve different schools, including the American School in Japan, and has said "Even now I find myself envying people who have neighborhoods and roots." Platt's family made frequent trips back to Washington, where they held Redskins season tickets. Platt is also a fan of the Boston Red Sox. When he was nine years old, Platt and his family visited the Kennedy Center in Washington, where he watched a performance that helped inspire his acting career. "One of the performances that really made me want to be an actor started out with this probably 20-minute rambling, drunken monologue by this bum. And it was a young Morgan Freeman. I'll never forget it. This guy was just so riveting. He stood there on stage alone before the curtain went up, and he held this audience utterly rapt. Including myself, obviously." According to Platt, drama departments gave his childhood some stability, "It was something of a survival mechanism, in that it gave me a little subculture to plug into wherever I ended up. Kids need that. I certainly did." He attended a progressive boarding school named Colorado Rocky Mountain School in Carbondale Colorado. Platt majored in drama at Tufts University, where he met and became close friends with Hank Azaria. He spent three years working in theatre in Boston, Massachusetts, which he said had a "wealth of serious amateur theatre at that time…I played many roles, and it was the best training I could have had." Platt travelled with Shakespeare and Company, based in Lenox, Massachusetts, touring schools to earn his Equity card, before moving to New York. Platt's early career involved Off-Broadway and regional theatre, and he appeared onstage with the New York Shakespeare Festival, Lincoln Center Theater, Manhattan Theatre Club and other companies across many genres. He obtained an agent while working at Manhattan Punch Line Theatre, and met actor Bill Murray at his cousin's Christmas party. Murray attended Platt's show and recommended Platt to director Jonathan Demme, who cast him in "Married to the Mob" in 1988. Platt attributes his breakthrough to appearing at the Punch Line Theater. Career. Platt makes his decisions about accepting acting roles based on the role being "different from what I just did...I do have to be interested in the role". After "Married to the Mob", he appeared in "Working Girl" (1988), "Flatliners" (1990), "Beethoven" (1992), "The Three Musketeers" (1993), "A Time to Kill" (1996) and "Bulworth" (1998). In 1998, Platt and Stanley Tucci played two deadbeat actors who improvise with unsuspecting strangers in "The Impostors". Tucci and Platt developed the characters while working on a play at Yale University in 1988, Tucci later completing the screenplay and directing the film. In 1999, Platt played the wealthy and eccentric crocodile enthusiast Hector in David E. Kelley's "Lake Placid", alongside Bill Pullman and Bridget Fonda. Platt described Hector as "pretty abrasive and obnoxious at times, but, I hope, he has a way of growing on you. I think David originally thought of him as a great white hunter sort of guy, but when I signed on for the role he sort of wrote him in a different direction." The short-lived drama "Deadline" provided Platt's first lead role on television. Created by Dick Wolf, who also created "Law & Order", "Deadline" focused on the lives of newspaper journalists in New York City. Platt starred as Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist Wallace Benton, an "unlikely hero". The strong cast, which also included Bebe Neuwirth and Hope Davis, could not compensate for sub-standard writing and the series was soon canceled. After "Deadline"'s failure, Platt avoided work on television until he read a script for "The West Wing" and signed on for a guest role. He received an Emmy nomination for his portrayal of no-nonsense White House Counsel Oliver Babish, brought in during season two to compile a defense for President Bartlet and others who covered up his non-disclosure of multiple sclerosis. His role in the television series "Huff" as Russell Tupper from 2004 to 2006 was well-received, especially by creator Robert Lowry, who said, "Oliver plays an alcoholic, drug-addicted, sexaholic, workaholic, womanizing misogynist who is adorable. I don't know any actor who could do that. I originally saw Russell as a blond stud, but when I saw what Oliver could do, I realized how much better, richer, and less predictable he was than my idea of the character ... Oliver is very committed to the idea that story and dialogue be character-driven and unique". Platt's work was nominated for two Emmy awards and a Golden Globe. In 2005, Platt acted in Harold Ramis's film "The Ice Harvest" as an unhappy businessman with a trophy wife and two stepchildren who becomes involved with a friend who has stolen $2 million from a Mafia boss. He also played a lard merchant named Papprizzio in Lasse Hallström's "Casanova", who competes with Casanova (Heath Ledger) for marriage to Francesca (Sienna Miller). Platt won the New York Film Critics Online Award for best supporting actor for his role in "Casanova". A Broadway production named "Shining City" was Platt's Broadway debut in 2006. The play was set in Dublin, and Platt's role was the tortured protagonist, John. "Shining City"'s director said, "There is one word to describe Oliver. It's 'humanity.' He's got that everyman quality. He's a contradictory human being with flaws and strengths. And he's loveable. He can simultaneously make you laugh and break your heart. Oliver has brought to the role of John what I expected and more: tremendous inventiveness and sensitivity." Platt visited Dublin to prepare for the role and ensure his performance was authentic. He was nominated for a Tony award for "Best Performance by a Leading Actor in a Play". In 2007, Platt played the part of Yankees owner George Steinbrenner in the ESPN mini-series "The Bronx Is Burning". Platt signed onto the project after John Turturro was confirmed as Billy Martin, because, "This thing lives or dies by that portrayal ... I think it's great casting. God knows he has the intensity." Platt starred in the pilot episode of "The Thick of It", a remake of the British show of the same name in 2007. The series was not picked up by ABC. Platt starred as Nathan Detroit, alongside Lauren Graham as Miss Adelaide, in the Broadway revival of "Guys and Dolls" which began performances at the Nederlander Theatre on February 3, 2009 and officially opened on March 1, 2009. The production closed on June 14, 2009 after 113 performances. Platt starred as the White House Chief of Staff Carl Anheuser in Roland Emmerich's "2012", a disaster film released November 13, 2009. In August 2010, he was cast in the role of "The Man in Black" in 2011's "X-Men" spin-off, "", directed by Matthew Vaughn. In October 2012, he starred in the romantic comedy "The Oranges" alongside Hugh Laurie and Leighton Meester and will next appear in the action film "Chinese Zodiac" and as the voice of Wiser the Owl in the animated film "Dorothy of Oz". Personal life. Platt married Mary Camilla Bonsal Campbell (known as Camilla) on 12 September 1992 at the First Congregational Church in Kittery Point, Maine. He now focuses on film and television more than theater because, "I've got a wife and three kids, so film is just the most viable thing for me right now. I still love the theater, but the commitment in time and energy to do live theater is so great, and, frankly, the financial rewards are just not as attractive. When you have a family, you have to think about those things." Platt's older daughter, named Lily, was born in 1995. His son George was born in 1997, and his younger daughter, Claire, was born in 1999. Platt has an open airline ticket when filming so he can return home frequently because his family does not accompany him to filming locations. Tufts University considered offering its Light on the Hill award to Platt in 2008, which is given to distinguished alumni. Tufts Community Union President Neil DiBiase said Platt was unable to make it to Tufts that semester, and he "would rather wait to find a better opportunity for him to come to campus when his schedule is more available. The point of the award is to get alumni back to campus." The 2008 award was instead given to Jeff Kindler, chief executive of pharmaceutical company Pfizer.
589642	Baaz (Hindi: बाज़, Urdu: باز) is an Hindi film released in 1953, directed by Guru Dutt. This film is Guru Dutt's first starring film, an action film packed with adventure staged mainly on a ship. Plot. The 16th century, the Malabar Coast. General Barbosa (KN Singh) signs a treaty with the queen (Sulochana) of a small state giving the Portuguese right to trade in exchange for military protection. With the help of the queen's nephew Jaswant (Ramsingh), he begins to meddle in the administration as well. He arrests merchant Ramzan Ali and his friend Narayan Das. Das' daughter Nisha (Geeta Bali) tries to save her father but is caught by Barbosa and both are sold to a cruel Portuguese pirate Cabral. Cabral kills Narayan Das. Nisha rouses her fellow slaves to revolt against Cabral and once Cabral is killed Nisha becomes a pirate queen pillaging all Portuguese ships in sight. One such ship includes heir to the throne Prince Ravi (Guru Dutt), a Portuguese woman Rosita (Kuldip Kaur) and a court astrologer (Johnny Walker). Nisha spares their lives as Ravi had saved her life earlier. They inevitably fall in love. Ravi joins the mutineers without revealing his identity. Back on shore, Ravi learns Jaswant is to be crowned king. Ravi is arrested and sentenced to death. Nisha saves him and they join forces with other local chiefs to defeat Barbosa.
1502362	Gregory Jbara (; born September 28, 1961) is an American film, television and stage actor. Early life. Jbara was born in Nankin Township (now Westland), Michigan, the son of an advertising office manager and an insurance claims adjuster. He is of Lebanese and Irish descent. After graduating from Wayne Memorial High School in Wayne, Michigan, Jbara attended the University of Michigan from 1979 to 1981. He majored in Communication Studies and took classes in Theatre and Musical Theatre. He left Michigan to attend the Juilliard School's drama division (1982–1986, "Group 15") where he received his Bachelor of Fine Arts degree. Both of Jbara's brothers also have careers in the entertainment industry. Mike, formerly President and CEO, WEA Corp., was named President of Alternative Distribution Alliance worldwide in June 2013. Brother Dan has made his career primarily as a reality show producer. Jbara also has a sister, Judy, who is Director of Client Relations for Beer Financial Group. Career. Jbara originated the role of "Jackie Elliot" (known as "Dad") in the Broadway production of "Billy Elliot the Musical", which opened on November 13, 2008. For his portrayal of "Dad" Jbara received the Outer Critics Circle, Drama Desk, and Tony awards for Best Featured Actor in a Musical during the 2008-2009 Broadway awards season. On May 5, 2005, Sardi's caricatures of "Dirty Rotten Scoundrels" stars Butz, Gleason, Jbara and Scott were unveiled in a ceremony hosted by fellow co-star Sara Gettelfinger. ("Scoundrels" star John Lithgow had already been caricatured at Sardi's.) In a 2008 "Grand Rapids Press" interview, Jbara (noting the importance of being caricatured at the landmark Broadway restaurant) said, "You don't remember a year later who won the Tonys, but that picture will be in Sardi's for the rest of my life." Jbara received the "BackStageWest Garland 2000 Award" for his performance in the West Coast premiere of George Furth's play, "Precious Sons", co-starring Nora Dunn, Michael Malota, Ginger Williams and Adam Wylie. In 2006, Jbara received a Special Award from the New England Theatre Conference for his achievement in theatre. Jbara appeared as TV Land's on-camera spokesperson in eight different spots featuring three generations sitting on a couch: grandpa (William Severs), father/boomer (Jbara) and teenage son (Dylan Kepp). The spots focused, humorously, on the contrasts among those generations and were first shown on TV Land during the TV Land Awards broadcast on April 22, 2007.
657830	Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac (Japanese title: 誰かが私にキスをした "Dareka ga watashi ni kiss wo shita", Someone Kissed Me) is a 2010 drama film starring Japanese actress Maki Horikita, Japanese actors Kenichi Matsuyama and Yuya Tegoshi, and American actor Anton Yelchin based on a book written by Gabrielle Zevin. Production. On November 24, 2008, it was announced that a movie was to be produced that involved both American and Japanese actors and staff with Maki Horikita and Kenichi Matsuyama in the lead roles. The director of the movie was Hans Canosa who had been active in American movies. The script was written by Gabrielle Zevin the author of the novel “Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac” on which this movie was based on. When the movie was announced it was given the working title of “Lost Memories”. Filming began on November 26, 2008 and ended at the beginning of January 2009. Originally, it was planned to film and produce the movie in America. However, the director decided that it would be better to make the movie in Japan where the cultural aspects of the setting would enrich the story. Therefore, he took the project to the Japanese movie companies after which production began. The high school setting in the original story was changed to an international school for the movie and apart from the staff and cast everything concerned with filming the movie used Japanese methods. This meant that the movie contained approximately a quarter of the English conversation as was in the original story. Release. The release date for the movie was not disclosed for a long time following the announcement that it was to be produced. However, it was officially announced on October 11, 2009 that the movie would open in March 2010. At the same time as the announcement, the title of the movie was changed from “Lost Memories” to “Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac”. When it opened at 247 cinemas screens throughout Japan, it was listed as 10th on the Japanese Box office rankings (according to Kogyo Tsushinsha) for the first two days between March 27 to 28, 2010 and made 48,909,800 yen with 8,598 people going to see the movie.
1062015	James Todd Spader (born February 7, 1960) is an American actor best known for his eccentric roles in films such as "Pretty in Pink", "Less Than Zero", "Sex, Lies, and Videotape", "Crash", "Stargate", "Secretary", and "Lincoln". His most famous television roles are those of the colorful attorney Alan Shore in "The Practice" and its spin-off "Boston Legal", for which he won three Emmy Awards, and Robert California in "The Office". He currently stars as Raymond "Red" Reddington in "The Blacklist". He is set to play Ultron in Marvel Studios' upcoming film "". Early life. Spader was born in Boston, Massachusetts, the son of Jean (née Fraser) and Stoddard Greenwood "Todd" Spader, both teachers. One of Spader's great-great-grandfathers was William Ingersoll Bowditch (of the historic William Ingersoll Bowditch House); Spader's ancestors also include deaf educator Laurent Clerc, mathematician Nathaniel Bowditch, American Revolution general Joshua Babcock, and Lieutenant-Governor of Nova Scotia Paul Mascarene. During his early education, Spader attended The Pike School (where his mother taught art) and enrolled in the Brooks School (where his father taught), for one year, in North Andover, Massachusetts. Spader later transferred to Phillips Academy, but dropped out of school in the eleventh grade to pursue acting at the Michael Chekhov School in New York City. Before becoming a full-time actor, Spader held a variety of jobs including being a yoga instructor, busboy, truck driver, stable boy, and railroad-car loader. Career. Spader's first major film role was in 1981 as Brooke Shields' brother in "Endless Love", and his first starring role was in "Tuff Turf" alongside good friend Robert Downey, Jr. However, he did not rise to stardom until 1986, when he played Molly Ringwald's arrogant rich playboy foil Steff in "Pretty in Pink". He starred opposite Andrew McCarthy, another friend, in "Mannequin", and in the film adaptation of "Less Than Zero", where he played a drug dealer named Rip. Supporting roles in movies such as "Baby Boom" and "Wall Street" followed until his critical breakthrough in 1989. In "Sex, Lies, and Videotape", he played a sexual voyeur named Graham Dalton who complicates the lives of three Baton Rouge residents. For this performance, he received the Best Actor Award at the Cannes Film Festival. His roles in the early 1990s included playing a young, affluent widower opposite Susan Sarandon in "White Palace", John Cusack's best friend in "True Colors", and a poker-playing drifter who collides with Mandy Patinkin in "The Music of Chance". In 1994, he starred as Egyptologist Daniel Jackson in the blockbuster film "Stargate". He played car-accident fetishist James Ballard in the controversial Canadian film "Crash" in 1996 and assassin Lee Woods in "2 Days in the Valley". In 1997, Spader guest starred in an episode of "Seinfeld" as an angry recovering alcoholic who refuses to apologize to George for making fun of him. In 2000, he played a drug-addicted detective tracking down serial killer Keanu Reeves in "The Watcher". In 2002, he starred as Maggie Gyllenhaal's sadistic boss in the critically acclaimed "Secretary". From 2004 to 2008, Spader starred as the lead character Alan Shore in the television series "Boston Legal", in which he reprised his role from the television series "The Practice". Spader won the Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series "Emmy Award" for his portrayal of Alan Shore in 2004, on "The Practice" and won it again in 2005 and 2007, for "Boston Legal". With the 2005 Emmy Win, Spader became one of the few actors (along with co-star William Shatner as Denny Crane) to win an Emmy award while playing the same character in two different series. Even rarer, Shatner and Spader each won a second consecutive Emmy while playing the same character in two different series. Spader also won the Satellite Award for Best Actor in a Series, Comedy or Musical for "Boston Legal" in 2006. In October 2006, Spader narrated "", the first episode of Discovery Channel's documentary series "Discovery Atlas". "Boston Legal" castmate Candice Bergen would follow him in narrating France Revealed. He has also done the voice-over in several television commercials for Acura. Spader starred as a lead character in "Race", a play written and directed by David Mamet, alongside Richard Thomas, David Alan Grier and Kerry Washington. It opened on December 6, 2009 at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre on Broadway. The show closed on August 21, 2010 after 297 performances. In March 2011, Spader was named to star in "By Virtue Fall", a film written and to be directed by Sheldon Turner. Also set to star in the film are Eric Bana, Carla Gugino, Ryan Phillippe, Treat Williams and Kim Coates. , the movie is in pre-production, and set to be released 2013. Spader was one of a number of prominent guest stars in "Search Committee," the final episode of season 7 of "The Office". He portrayed a man named Robert California. On June 27, 2011, Ricky Gervais (an executive producer on the show) announced Spader was to join the cast on a permanent basis. Spader planned to stay only through the eighth season, and while the original plan was just to do the guest appearance, executive producer Paul Lieberstein said, "those two scenes became a season." On August 29, 2013, Marvel Studios announced that Spader will join the "" cast as villainous robot Ultron. Scheduled for a 2015 release, the film is the sequel to the 2012 release "The Avengers". Spader currently stars in NBC's television series, "The Blacklist", which began in September 2013. He portrays the fictional Raymond "Red" Reddington, one of the FBI's most wanted fugitives. Personal life. Spader met his first wife, Victoria Kheel, a decorator, while working in a yoga studio, after he moved to New York in the 1980s. They married in 1987 and have two sons, Elijah and Sebastian. Spader filed for divorce from Kheel in 2004 and, , has plans to marry his girlfriend (and former "Alien Hunter" co-star), Leslie Stefanson, with whom he had another son in August 2008.
1066824	Paul Balthazar Getty (born January 22, 1975) is an American film actor and member of the band Ringside. He is known for the roles of Thomas Grace on the American action drama "Alias" and Tommy Walker on the ABC drama "Brothers & Sisters". Early life. Getty was born Paul Balthazar Getty in Tarzana, California, and raised in San Francisco before being educated in the United Kingdom at the Gordonstoun School, a boarding school that has educated three generations of the British Royal Family. His great-grandfather was Jean Paul Getty, founder of the Getty Oil Company, and at one time one of the richest men in the world. His grandfather was Sir Paul Getty; his father was John Paul Getty III. His mother, Gisela (née Schmidt), is a professional photographer and documentary filmmaker. His parents divorced in 1993. He has a maternal half-sister, Anna (born 1972). Career. Getty began his acting career at age 14 in 1989. He auditioned for the lead role in the movie "Lord of the Flies" after being spotted by a casting director, Robin Joy Allan, in his art class at school. During the 1990s and early 2000s, he appeared in the films "Young Guns II", "Natural Born Killers", "Judge Dredd", "White Squall", "Lost Highway", "Big City Blues", "The Center of the World", "Deuces Wild", "Ladder 49", "Feast", and the television miniseries "Traffic". Getty guest-starred on the television series "Charmed" as Richard Montana, a male witch romantically linked with Paige Matthews. He appeared in the fifth season of the hit show "Alias" as Agent Thomas Grace. He starred, alongside "Alias" costar Ron Rifkin, in the ABC prime time drama "Brothers & Sisters", which first aired in September 2006. Getty played the role of Thomas "Tommy" Walker, third-born of the five Walker siblings. In late 2008, media reports indicated Getty's contract as a full-time series regular in "Brothers & Sisters" would not be renewed due, in part, to budgetary and storyline considerations. In the Season 4 premiere, Getty was still listed in the principal cast, but he did not appear. Getty made his return to the series in the sixth episode of Season 4. Although he no longer appeared in every episode, he continued to make appearances on the show until its cancellation. Personal life. In 2000, Getty married fashion designer Rosetta Millington. They have four children: a son, Cassius Paul, and three daughters (Grace, Violet, and June Catherine). He had a well-publicized affair with British-American actress Sienna Miller but eventually returned to his wife. As a teen he was a member of the Los Angeles graffiti subculture. Social initiatives. Getty is on the board of directors for The Lunchbox Fund, a non-profit organization providing daily meals to township school students in Soweto, South Africa.
1056742	Revenge of the Pink Panther is the sixth film in "The Pink Panther" film series. Released in 1978, it was the last entry released during the lifetime of series star Peter Sellers, who died in 1980. It is also the last entry to be distributed solely by United Artists, which merged with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in 1981. The opening credits were animated by DePatie-Freleng Enterprises. Plot. Philippe Douvier, on the outside a respected business man, but secretly the leader of the French Connection, is facing a falling out with their New York Mafia drug trading partners because they believe him not capable of properly conducting business. To demonstrate otherwise, Douvier's aide Guy Algo suggests to have the man killed who is currently presenting the greatest danger to their trade: Chief Inspector Jacques Clouseau—a plan which Douvier sanctions after some consideration. Douvier's attempt to blow Clouseau up with a bomb fails, and the subsequent attempt by a Chinese martial artist called Mr. Chong (an uncredited appearance by the Founder of American Kenpo, Ed Parker) is thwarted when Clouseau accidentally knocks him out of a window, believing him to be his (Clouseau's) valet Cato, who had orders to keep his employer alert by means of random attacks. That night, Douvier anonymously calls Clouseau and poses as an informant to tell him the whereabouts of an important criminal involved in the French Connection. Despite being warned by Cato that it has to be a trap, Clouseau—concluding that it is so obvious that it couldn't possibly be a trap—drives toward the location, but his car and clothes are stolen at gunpoint by a transvestite criminal named Claude Rousseau (Sue Lloyd). Rousseau drives into the trap and is killed by Douvier's men. Subsequently the majority of people believe Clouseau to be dead and, as a result of this assumption, Clouseau's mad boss, ex-Commissioner Charles Dreyfus (Herbert Lom), is deemed sane and is to be released from the Mental Asylum to try to crack the case (despite the fact that Dreyfus was apparently killed in "The Pink Panther Strikes Again"), while Douvier's plans continue. In Rousseau's clothes, Clouseau is taken to the mental asylum (a scene featuring a cameo by Andrew Sachs, whose character apparently believes himself to be Hercule Poirot), but escapes into Dreyfus' room. Dreyfus faints at the sight of Clouseau, whom he believed dead, whereupon Clouseau disguises himself as Dreyfus and is driven home in a car by operative François. At home, Clouseau finds Cato, who (despite having turned Clouseau's apartment into a Chinese-themed brothel) is relieved to see him alive. Having settled Clouseau's initial anger at Cato, the two plan their revenge on the person who ordered Clouseau's assassination, taking advantage of the belief that Clouseau is dead to conduct their investigations. Dreyfus, led to believe that the man he saw was Claude Rousseau, is assigned to read a eulogy at Clouseau's funeral. His objections are overridden by political necessity when it is revealed that the speech was composed by the police chief's wife, who was apparently fond of Clouseau. During the recital, Dreyfus is unable to control his laughter at the statements he is obliged to speak, but conceals his amusement by giving the impression that he is weeping rather than laughing. But when Clouseau surreptitiously reveals himself among the attendants of the funeral, Dreyfus faints into the burial pit moments before the master of ceremonies completes his oration. Shortly after his wife threatens him with a divorce, Douvier, needing her respectability and her silence pertaining to his crimes, tells his secretary/paramour Simone LeGree (Dyan Cannon) that their courtship must end. Angry, Simone storms out of Douvier's office. Because she was quite intimately involved in his business, Douvier gives orders to have Simone killed at a nightclub called Le Club Phut (a play on the word "clubfoot"). Having been told by a seafaring informant (Alfie Bass) of the possibility of trouble at the nightclub, Clouseau and Cato investigate and accidentally save Simone from being murdered by Douvier's assassins; Simone takes Clouseau (whom she considers her savior) home. At Simone's flat, Clouseau tells Simone that he is the supposedly dead Chief Inspector; although Simone does not believe him at first, he eventually convinces her of the truth, prompting her to reveal that Douvier ordered Clouseau's assassination as part of his attempt to impress the American Godfather. When another duo of assassins force their way in, Clouseau and Simone escape into the flat below, in which lives Dreyfus. Dreyfus overhears Simone telling Clouseau of Douvier's plans to meet with the New York Mafia Godfather, Julio Scallini, in Hong Kong, but again faints when he sees Clouseau. Clouseau, Cato, and Simone travel from Paris to Hong Kong and tail Douvier, unaware that Dreyfus has also arrived. Clouseau impersonates Scallini, while Simone distracts the real Scallini so that Clouseau can uncover Douvier's plans. He succeeds, but the plan goes awry when Clouseau's disguise is exposed. A car chase begins, terminating in a crash at the Hong Kong docks. Here, Dreyfus recognizes Clouseau, loses his mind again and tries to kill Clouseau, chasing him into a firework warehouse. Inside, Dreyfus inadvertently sets the stored fireworks alight, and the resulting explosions sow chaos between all the participants, which eventually leads to the arrests of Douvier and Scallini. Clouseau is awarded for their arrest by the President of France. Thereafter, he and Simone spend an evening together. Theme music. The theme music, and much of the soundtrack from this entry in the series, draw heavily from the "disco" trends of the late 1970s. The theme itself was reworked to include a more dancy bassline, electric piano, and guitar solo. Opening animation. The opening animated titles in the film were designed by DePatie-Freleng Enterprises, who had been involved with the series since the animated titles of the original 1963 film, "The Pink Panther". It was the first time since "Inspector Clouseau" in 1968 that DePatie-Freleng animated the opening titles of a Pink Panther film ("Return" and "Strikes Again" having been done by Richard Williams' Studio). They later went on to produce the animated television series "The All-New Pink Panther Show". "Trail of the Pink Panther" and "Curse of the Pink Panther" would be animated by the retitled Marvel Productions. "Romance of the Pink Panther". "Romance of the Pink Panther" is a Pink Panther film Sellers was working on, and willing to make without Edwards, before Sellers' fatal heart attack. UA considered recasting the role before convincing Blake Edwards to return to the series. Edwards chose to replace Clouseau with a new character rather than replace Sellers as Clouseau and to utilize outtakes from "The Pink Panther Strikes Again" to set up a transitional film ("Trail of the Pink Panther") with new linking footage shot on the set of the new film ("Curse of the Pink Panther").
1759828	The Giant Mechanical Man is an American dramedy film written and directed by Lee Kirk. It debuted at the 2012 Tribeca Film Festival and was distributed by Tribeca Films. Plot. Janice is a woman in her 30’s who has yet to learn how to navigate adulthood, and Tim is a devoted street artist who finds that shows as a silver-painted street performer pay the bills and leads his girlfriend to break up with him. Janice is evicted from her apartment and forced to move in with her overbearing sister (Malin Akerman). Janice receives pressure to date an egotistical self-help guru (Topher Grace). However, she meets Tim when they both end up working at the zoo. As Janice and Tim begin working together at the zoo, they slowly develop a lighthearted connection that evolves into a quality friendship. They incidentally bump into each other a couple of times away from work, and eventually end up agreeing to go out on a date. The date goes exceedingly well, and they end up sleeping together; then developing a great connection via conversation afterward. Janice's sister, Jill, spends most of the movie trying to create a relationship between Janice and Doug, which really is something in which Janice has no interest. While on a semi-forced date with Doug, Janice walks by Tim while he's in his Mechanical Man costume and does not realize it is him. At this opportune moment, Doug has his arm around her and goes in for a kiss as they turn the corner out of Tim's line of sight. Janice declines his advances but Tim, unfortunately, doesn't see. Tim is very hurt and cuts off contact with her, which is confusing to her since she doesn't know that he saw her and Doug together. As she leaves a movie theater where Tim was supposed to join her and meet Jill, she sees the Giant Mechanical Man again, and takes the opportunity to confess her situation to him. As she continues talking, he reveals himself to be Tim, and they clasp hands as they face each other and smile. Credits roll, and short scenes appear hinting at a happy relationship unfolding over an indeterminate period of time. Production. Filming began in November 2010 in Detroit, Michigan. Many scenes were shot in the Detroit Zoo. Reception. As of July 2013, the film holds a 71% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes, which indicates generally positive reviews. Variety's John Anderson gave the film a positive review, stating that the film "will meet most audiences' standards for 'charming.'" Anderson also noted that Grace's "hair-flipping delivery virtually steals the movie." Mike McGranaghan gave the film three out of four stars, stating that "Jenna Fischer and Chris Messina do exceptional work here, making the characters immensely likable. You can relate to them even if you've never quite walked a mile in their shoes. The stars share a nice chemistry as well, creating a bond that brings real warmth to the story's emotional ending." McGranaghan noted that the film "wears its indie quirks on its sleeve a little too much. Some of those quirks feel forced, especially the stuff with Topher Grace's self-possessed creep."
1057620	River of No Return is a 1954 American Western film directed by Otto Preminger and starring Robert Mitchum and Marilyn Monroe. The screenplay by Frank Fenton is based on a story by Louis Lantz, who borrowed his premise from the 1948 Italian film "The Bicycle Thief". Plot. Set in the Northwestern United States in 1875, the film focuses on taciturn widower Matt Calder (Mitchum), who recently has been released from prison after serving time for killing a man while defending another one. He arrives in a tent city in search of his ten-year-old son Mark (Tommy Rettig), who was left in the care of dance hall singer Kay (Monroe) during his absence. Matt promises Mark, a virtual stranger to him, the two will enjoy a life of hunting, fishing and farming on their homestead.
1102360	Jacques Salomon Hadamard ForMemRS (; 8 December 1865 – 17 October 1963) was a French mathematician who made major contributions in number theory, complex function theory, differential geometry and partial differential equations. Biography. The son of a teacher, Amédée Hadamard, of Jewish descent, and Claire Marie Jeanne Picard, Hadamard was born in Versailles, France and attended the Lycée Charlemagne and Lycée Louis-le-Grand, where his father taught. In 1884 Hadamard entered the École Normale Supérieure, having been placed first in the entrance examinations both there and at the École Polytechnique. His teachers included Tannery, Hermite, Darboux, Appell, Goursat and Picard. He obtained his doctorate in 1892 and in the same year was awarded the "Grand Prix des Sciences Mathématiques" for his essay on the Riemann zeta function. In 1892 Hadamard married Louise-Anna Trénel, also of Jewish descent, with whom he had three sons and two daughters. The following year he took up a lectureship in the University of Bordeaux, where he proved his celebrated inequality on determinants, which led to the discovery of Hadamard matrices when equality holds. In 1896 he made two important contributions: he proved the prime number theorem, using complex function theory (also proved independently by Charles Jean de la Vallée-Poussin); and he was awarded the Bordin Prize of the French Academy of Sciences for his work on geodesics in the differential geometry of surfaces and dynamical systems. In the same year he was appointed Professor of Astronomy and Rational Mechanics in Bordeaux. His foundational work on geometry and symbolic dynamics continued in 1898 with the study of geodesics on surfaces of negative curvature. For his cumulative work, he was awarded the Prix Poncelet in 1898. After the Dreyfus affair, which involved him personally because his wife was related to Dreyfus, Hadamard became politically active and a staunch supporter of Jewish causes though he professed to be an atheist in his religion. In 1897 he moved back to Paris, holding positions in the Sorbonne and the Collège de France, where he was appointed Professor of Mechanics in 1909. In addition to this post, he was appointed to chairs of analysis at the École Polytechnique in 1912 and at the École Centrale in 1920, succeeding Jordan and Appell. In Paris Hadamard concentrated his interests on the problems of mathematical physics, in particular partial differential equations, the calculus of variations and the foundations of functional analysis. He introduced the idea of "well-posed problem" and the "method of descent" in the theory of partial differential equations, culminating in his seminal book on the subject, based on lectures given at Yale University in 1922. Later in his life he wrote on probability theory and mathematical education. Hadamard was elected to the French Academy of Sciences in 1916, in succession to Poincaré, whose complete works he helped edit. He was elected a foreign member of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR in 1929. He visited the Soviet Union in 1930 and 1934 and China in 1936 at the invitation of Soviet and Chinese mathematicians. Hadamard stayed in France at the beginning of the Second World War and escaped to southern France in 1940. The Vichy government permitted him to leave for the United States in 1941 and he obtained a visiting position at Columbia University in New York. He moved to London in 1944 and returned to France when the war ended in 1945. He was awarded the CNRS Gold medal for his lifetime achievements in 1956. He died in Paris in 1963, aged ninety-seven. Hadamard's students included Maurice Fréchet, Paul Lévy, Szolem Mandelbrojt and André Weil. On creativity. In his book "Psychology of Invention in the Mathematical Field", Hadamard uses introspection to describe mathematical thought processes. In sharp contrast to authors who identify language and cognition, he describes his own mathematical thinking as largely wordless, often accompanied by mental images that represent the entire solution to a problem. He surveyed 100 of the leading physicists of the day (approximately 1900), asking them how they did their work. Hadamard described the experiences of the mathematicians/theoretical physicists Carl Friedrich Gauss, Hermann von Helmholtz, Henri Poincaré and others as viewing entire solutions with "sudden spontaneousness". Hadamard described the process as having four steps of the five-step Graham Wallas creative process model, with the first three also having been put forth by Helmholtz: Preparation, Incubation, Illumination, and Verification.
1165324	Rory Calhoun (August 8, 1922 – April 28, 1999) was an acclaimed American television and film actor, screenwriter, and producer. Early life. Born Francis Timothy McCown in Los Angeles, California, Calhoun spent his early years in Santa Cruz, California. The son of a professional gambler, he was of Irish and English ancestry. He was only nine months old when his father died; Calhoun's mother remarried, and he occasionally went by Frank Durgin, using the last name of his stepfather. At age thirteen, he stole a revolver, for which he was sent to the California Youth Authority's Preston School of Industry reformatory at Ione, California. He escaped while in the adjustment center (jail within the jail). After robbing several jewelry stores, he stole a car and drove it across state lines. This made it a federal offense, and when he was recaptured, he was sentenced to three years in the penitentiary at Springfield, Missouri. After finishing his sentence, he was transferred to San Quentin prison on other charges. He remained there until he was paroled shortly before his twenty-first birthday. Career. After his release from San Quentin, Calhoun worked at a number of odd jobs. In 1943, while riding horseback in the Hollywood Hills, he met actor Alan Ladd, whose wife was an agent. Susan Carol Ladd landed Calhoun a one-line role in a Laurel and Hardy comedy, "The Bullfighters", credited under the name Frank McCown. Shortly afterwards, the Ladds hosted a party attended by David O. Selznick employee Henry Willson, an agent known for his assortment of young, handsome and marginally talented actors to whom he gave new, unusual names. Willson signed McCown to a contract and initially christened him "Troy Donahue"; it was soon changed to "Rory Calhoun". Willson carefully groomed his new client and taught him the social manners he had never learned in prison. Calhoun's first public appearance in the film capital was as Lana Turner's escort to the premiere of Alfred Hitchcock's "Spellbound" (1945), a Selznick production. The glamorous blonde and her handsome companion attracted the paparazzi, and photos appeared in newspapers and fan magazines. Selznick then began loaning his contract player to other studios; subsequently, Calhoun appeared in "Adventure Island" with Rhonda Fleming, "The Red House" with Edward G. Robinson, and "That Hagen Girl" with Shirley Temple. As Calhoun's career gained momentum, he next appeared in several westerns, musicals and comedies, including "Way of a Gaucho" with Gene Tierney, "With a Song in My Heart" with Susan Hayward, "How to Marry a Millionaire" (as the love interest of Betty Grable) and "River of No Return". The last two films featured Marilyn Monroe. Willson maintained careful control over his rising star, arranging his social life and ending his engagement to French actress Corinne Calvet. In 1955, Willson disclosed information about Calhoun's years in prison to "Confidential" magazine in exchange for the tabloid not printing an exposé about the secret homosexual life of Rock Hudson, another Willson client. The disclosure had no negative effect on Calhoun's career and only served to solidify his bad boy image.
485504	Robert M. Axelrod (born May 27, 1943) is an American political scientist. He is Professor of Political Science and Public Policy at the University of Michigan where he has been since 1974. He is best known for his interdisciplinary work on the evolution of cooperation, which has been cited in numerous articles. His current research interests include complexity theory (especially agent-based modeling), and international security. Axelrod is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. Biography. Axelrod received his B.A. in mathematics from the University of Chicago in 1964. In 1969, he received his Ph.D. in political science from Yale University. He taught at the University of California, Berkeley from 1968 until 1974. Among his honors and awards are membership in the National Academy of Sciences, a five-year MacArthur Prize Fellowship, the Newcomb Cleveland Prize of the American Association for the Advancement of Sciences for an outstanding contribution to science. He was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1985. In 1990 Axelrod was awarded the inaugural NAS Award for Behavior Research Relevant to the Prevention of Nuclear War from the National Academy of Sciences. Recently Axelrod has consulted and lectured on promoting cooperation and harnessing complexity for the United Nations, the World Bank, the U.S. Department of Defense, and various organizations serving health care professionals, business leaders, and K-12 educators. Axelrod was the President of the American Political Science Association (APSA) for the 2006-2007 term. He focused his term on the theme of interdisciplinarity. In May 2006, Axelrod was awarded an honorary degree by Georgetown University.
1062267	Blowup, or Blow-Up, is a 1966 film directed by Michelangelo Antonioni about a fashion photographer, played by David Hemmings, who believes he may have witnessed a murder and unwittingly taken photographs of the killing. It was Antonioni's first entirely English-language film. The film also stars Vanessa Redgrave, Sarah Miles, John Castle, Jane Birkin, Tsai Chin and Gillian Hills as well as sixties model Veruschka. The screenplay was written by Antonioni and Tonino Guerra, with English dialogue by British playwright Edward Bond. The film was produced by Carlo Ponti, who had contracted Antonioni to make three English-language films for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (the others were "Zabriskie Point" and "The Passenger"). The plot was inspired by Julio Cortázar's short story, "Las babas del diablo" or "The Devil's Drool" (1959), translated also as "Blow Up" in "Blow-up and Other Stories", and by the life of Swinging London photographer David Bailey. The film was scored by jazz pianist Herbie Hancock, although the music is diegetic, as Hancock noted: "It's only there when someone turns on the radio or puts on a record." Nominated for several awards at the Cannes Film Festival, "Blowup" won the Grand Prix. The American release of the film with its explicit content (by contemporary standards) by a major Hollywood studio was in direct defiance of the Production Code. Its subsequent outstanding critical and box office success proved to be one of the final events that led the code to be finally abandoned in 1968 in favour of the MPAA film rating system. Plot. The plot is a day in the life of a glamorous fashion photographer (Hemmings), inspired by the life of an actual "Swinging London" photographer, David Bailey. It begins after spending the night at a doss house where he has taken pictures for a book of art photos. He is late for a photo shoot with Veruschka at his studio, which in turn makes him late for a shoot with other models later in the morning. He grows bored and walks off, leaving the models and production staff in the lurch. As he leaves the studio, two teenage girls who are aspiring models (Birkin and Hills) ask to speak with him, but the photographer drives off to look at an antiques shop. Wandering into Maryon Park, he takes photos of two lovers. The woman (Redgrave) is furious at being photographed. The photographer then meets his agent for lunch, and notices a man following him and looking into his car. Back at his studio, Redgrave arrives asking for the film, but he deliberately hands her a different roll. She in turn writes down a false telephone number to give to him. His many enlargements of the black and white film are grainy but seem to show a body in the grass and a killer lurking in the trees with a gun. He is disturbed by a knock on the door, but it is the two girls again, with whom he has a romp in his studio and falls asleep. Awakening, he finds they hope he will photograph them but he tells them to leave, saying, "Tomorrow! Tomorrow!" As evening falls, the photographer goes back to the park and finds a body, but he has not brought his camera and is scared off by a twig breaking, as if being stepped on. The photographer returns to his studio to find that all the negatives and prints are gone except for one very grainy blowup showing the body. After driving into town, he sees Redgrave and follows her into a club where The Yardbirds, featuring both Jimmy Page and Jeff Beck on guitar, are seen playing. At a drug-drenched party in a house on the Thames near central London, he finds both Veruschka – who had told him that she was going to Paris, and when confronted, she says she is in Paris – and his agent (Peter Bowles), whom he wants to bring to the park as a witness. However, the photographer cannot put across what he has photographed. Waking up in the house at sunrise, he goes back to the park alone, but the body is gone. Befuddled, he watches a mimed tennis match, is drawn into it, picks up the imaginary ball and throws it back to the two players. While he watches the mime, the sound of the ball being played is heard. As the photographer watches this mimed match alone on the lawn, his image fades away, leaving only the grass as the film ends. Noted cameos. Several people known in 1966 are in the film; others became famous later. The most widely noted cameo was by The Yardbirds, who perform "Stroll On" in the last third. Antonioni first asked Eric Burdon to play that scene but he turned it down. As Keith Relf sings, Jimmy Page and Jeff Beck play to either side, along with Chris Dreja. After his guitar amplifier fails, Beck bashes his guitar to bits, as The Who did at the time. Antonioni had wanted The Who in "Blowup" as he was fascinated by Pete Townshend's guitar-smashing routine. Steve Howe of The in Crowd recalled, "We went on the set and started preparing for that guitar-smashing scene in the club. They even went as far as making up a bunch of Gibson 175 replicas ... and then we got dropped for The Yardbirds, who were a bigger name. That's why you see Jeff Beck smashing my guitar rather than his!" Antonioni also considered using The Velvet Underground (signed at the time to a division of MGM Records) in the nightclub scene, but, according to guitarist Sterling Morrison, "the expense of bringing the whole entourage to England proved too much for him". Michael Palin, later of Monty Python, can be seen briefly in the sullen nightclub crowd and Janet Street-Porter dances in stripy Carnaby Street trousers. A poster on the club's door bears a drawing of a tombstone with the epitaph, "Here lies Bob Dylan Passed Away Royal Albert Hall 27 May 1966 R.I.P.", harking to Dylan's switch to electric instruments at this time. Beside the Dylan are posters bearing a caricature of Prime Minister Harold Wilson. Filming locations. The opening mimes were filmed on the Plaza of "The Economist" Building in Piccadilly, London, a project by 'New Brutalists' Alison and Peter Smithson constructed between 1959–64. The scene in which men leave The Spike was shot on Consort Road, Peckham. The park scenes were at Maryon Park, Charlton, south-east London, and the park is little changed since the film. The street with maroon shopfronts is Stockwell Road and the shops belonged to motorcycle dealer Pride & Clarke. The scene in which the photographer sees the mysterious woman from his car and follows her was in Regent Street, London. He stops at Heddon Street where the album cover of David Bowie's "Ziggy Stardust" was later photographed. Outside shots of the photographer's studio were at 77 Pottery Lane, W11, and 39 Princes Place, W11. Photographer Jon Cowan leased his studio at 39 Princes Place to Antonioni for much of the interior and exterior filming, and Cowan's own photographic murals are featured in the film. The exterior for the party scene towards the end of the film was shot outside 100 Cheyne Walk, in Chelsea. The interior, which is believed to be the same address, was shot in the apartment of London antiques dealer Christopher Gibbs. Reception. Box office. The film was distributed in North America by MGM shell company Premier Pictures. Writing about Antonioni for "Time" in 2007, the film writer Richard Corliss states that the film grossed "$20 million (about $120 million today) on a $1.8 million budget and helped liberate Hollywood from its puritanical prurience". According to "Variety", the movie earned $5,900,000 in North American rentals in 1967. Critical reception. Film critic Andrew Sarris said the movie was "a mod masterpiece". In "Playboy" magazine, film critic Arthur Knight wrote that "Blowup" would be "as important and germinal a film as "Citizen Kane", "Open City" and "Hiroshima, Mon Amour" – perhaps even more so". "Time" magazine called the film a "far-out, uptight and vibrantly exciting picture" that represented a "screeching change of creative direction" for Antonioni; the magazine predicted it would "undoubtedly be by far the most popular movie Antonioni has ever made". Bosley Crowther, film critic of "The New York Times", called it a "fascinating picture, which has something real to say about the matter of personal involvement and emotional commitment in a jazzed-up, media-hooked-in world so cluttered with synthetic stimulations that natural feelings are overwhelmed". Crowther had reservations, describing the "usual Antonioni passages of seemingly endless wanderings" as "redundant and long"; nevertheless, he called "Blowup" a "stunning picture – beautifully built up with glowing images and color compositions that get us into the feelings of our man and into the characteristics of the mod world in which he dwells". Even film director Ingmar Bergman, who generally disliked Antonioni, acknowledged its significance: "He's done two masterpieces, you don't have to bother with the rest. One is "Blow-Up", which I've seen many times, and the other is "La Notte", also a wonderful film, although that's mostly because of the young Jeanne Moreau." Of the film's ending, Roger Ebert wrote: "What remains is a hypnotic conjuring act, in which a character is awakened briefly from a deep sleep of bored alienation and then drifts away again. This is the arc of the film. Not 'Swinging London.' Not existential mystery. Not the parallels between what Hemmings does with his photos and what Antonioni does with Hemmings. But simply the observations that we are happy when we are doing what we do well, and unhappy seeking pleasure elsewhere. I imagine Antonioni was happy when he was making this film." MGM did not gain approval for the film under the MPAA Production Code in the United States. The code's collapse and revision was foreshadowed when MGM released the film through a subsidiary distributor and "Blowup" was shown widely in North American cinemas. In popular culture. "Blow Out" (1981), directed by Brian De Palma and starring John Travolta – which alludes to "Blowup" – used sound recording rather than photography as its motif. While writing the screenplay of the thriller film "The Conversation" (1974) – also about sound recording – Francis Ford Coppola explained in the DVD commentary to that film that he was inspired by "Blow Up". In the comedy film "High Anxiety" (1977), directed by Mel Brooks, a minor plot line involves a bumbling chauffeur who takes a picture showing the evil assassin (wearing a latex mask of Brooks' character's face) firing a gun at point-blank range at someone; he makes blow-ups until he can see the "real" Brooks' character, standing in the elevator in the background. (Technically, the chauffeur does not make blow-ups; the joke is that he simply makes bigger and bigger enlargements until he has one the size of a wall.) In "Blade Runner" (1982), there is a photo-scanning sequence in which Deckard (Harrison Ford) scans a photograph and then electronically pans to and blows up specific portions of the photographic image to find clues for his investigation. The romantic comedy film "I Could Never Be Your Woman" (2007) pays homage to the scene from "Blowup" in which Hemmings's character straddles model Veruschka from above while taking her photograph – this time with Paul Rudd and Michelle Pfeiffer. Antonioni's film also inspired the Bollywood film "Jaane Bhi Do Yaaron" (1983), directed by Kundan Shah, in which two photographers inadvertently capture the murder of Bombay Municipal Commissioner on their cameras and later discover this when the images are enlarged. The park in which the murder occurs is named "Antonioni Park". In the tenth episode of the third series of the BBC programme, "Monarch of the Glen" (2000–2005), Molly MacDonald (Susan Hampshire) clarifies for her husband, Hector (Richard Briers), that it was Antonioni who wanted her for "Blowup" when she was a London model in the 1960s. The music video for Amerie's "Take Control" from the album "Because I Love It" (2007) and the original video for Seal's "Kiss From a Rose" were influenced by the film. Both the film ' (1997), and its sequel, ' (1999) feature a parody/homage to Veruschka's photo shoot in "Blowup".
394126	Welcome to Dongmakgol (), released in the UK as Battle Ground 625, is a 2005 South Korean film. Based on the same-titled long-running stage play by filmmaker/playwright Jang Jin, Park Kwang-hyun's debut film was a commercial and critical success. The story is set in Korea during the Korean War in 1950. Soldiers from both the North and South, as well as an American pilot, find themselves in a secluded village, its residents largely unaware of the outside world, including the war.
1061409	Jean Merilyn Simmons, OBE (January 31, 1929 – January 22, 2010) was a British actress. One of J. Arthur Rank's 'well-spoken young starlets,' she appeared predominantly in films, beginning with those made in Great Britain during and after World War II, followed mainly by Hollywood films from 1950 onward. Early life and career. Simmons was born in Lower Holloway, London, England, to Charles Simmons and his wife, Winifred (Loveland) Simmons. Jean was the youngest of four children with siblings Edna, Harold and Lorna. She began acting at the age of 14. During World War II, the Simmons family was evacuated to Winscombe in Somerset. Her father, a physical education teacher (who had represented Great Britain in the 1912 Summer Olympics), taught briefly at Sidcot School, and sometime during this period Simmons followed her elder sister on to the village stage and sang songs such as "Daddy Wouldn't Buy Me a Bow Wow". Returning to London and just enrolled at the Aida Foster School of Dance, she was spotted by the director Val Guest, who cast her in the Margaret Lockwood vehicle "Give Us the Moon". Small roles in several other films followed including the high profile "Caesar and Cleopatra", produced by Gabriel Pascal. Pascal saw potential in Simmons and in 1945 he signed her to a seven-year contract. Prior to moving to Hollywood, she played the young Estella in David Lean's version of "Great Expectations" (1946) and Ophelia in Laurence Olivier's "Hamlet" (1948), for which she received her first Oscar nomination. It was the experience of working on "Great Expectations" that caused her to pursue an acting career more seriously: Playing Ophelia in Olivier's "Hamlet" made her a star while still in her teens, although she was already well known for her work in other British films, including her first starring role in the film adaptation of "Uncle Silas", and "Black Narcissus" (both 1947). Olivier offered her the chance to work and study at the Bristol Old Vic, advising her to play anything they threw at her to get experience; she was under contract to the Rank Organisation who vetoed the idea. Rank was unhappy at this time also that Stewart Granger was pursuing his young star and, (according to the actor's account), confronted Granger ("a shop-worn thirty-four"), at a meeting at the Dorchester Hotel saying that what was going on was wrong since he was a married man with two children. Granger told Rank he had been divorced for six months, and left. In 1949 Simmons starred with Granger in "Adam and Evelyne". In 1950 Rank sold Simmons's contract to Howard Hughes, who then owned the RKO studio in Hollywood. That year she was voted the fourth most popular star in Britain. In 1950 she married the English actor Stewart Granger, with whom she appeared in several films, successfully making the transition to an American career. She made four films for Hughes, including "Angel Face", directed by Otto Preminger. According to David Thomson "if she had made only one film – "Angel Face" – she might now be spoken of with the awe given to Louise Brooks." A court case freed her from the contract with Hughes in 1952. In 1953 she starred alongside Spencer Tracy in "The Actress", a film that was one of her personal favourites. Among the many films she appeared in during this period were "The Robe" (1953), "Young Bess" (1953), "Désirée" (1954), "The Egyptian" (1954), "Guys and Dolls" (1955) – "in which she's delightfully proper (and improper) as the Salvation Army officer Sarah Brown" – "The Big Country " (1958), "Elmer Gantry" (1960), (directed by her second husband, Richard Brooks), "Spartacus" (1960), "All the Way Home" (1963) – a film of James Agee's novel, "A Death in the Family" – and "The Happy Ending" (1969), again directed by Brooks and for which she received her second Oscar nomination. In the opinion of film critic Philip French, a film of 1958, "Home Before Dark", saw her give "perhaps her finest performance as a housewife driven into a breakdown in Mervyn LeRoy's psychodrama."
1415948	Susan Fleming (February 19, 1908 - December 22, 2002) was an American actress known as the "Girl with the Million Dollar Legs" for a role she played in the W. C. Fields film "Million Dollar Legs" (1932). Her big stage break which led to her Hollywood career was as one of the famed "Ziegfeld Girls" in the Ziegfeld Follies. Career. Fleming was from New York City and went to school in Forest Hills, Queens. After starring in the Ziegfeld Follies productions on Broadway, she started appearing in movies. One of her earliest film roles was a starring role in "Range Feud" as Judy Walton, the love interest of John Wayne. Fleming combined her dancing and cinematic interests in the 1932 movie "Million Dollar Legs", in which she played the daughter of W. C. Fields' character. As part of a publicity stunt for the film, her legs were insured for the eponymous million dollars. Fleming was unhappy with Hollywood, stating in a 1995 interview that she found "nothing more boring than working on a movie... I hated it!". At a dinner party held in the home of Samuel Goldwyn, she was seated next to Harpo Marx and found him fascinating. Despite his silent persona in films, she found Marx to be "a warm, fun, darling man to talk to". She pursued him relentlessly, dating for four years and proposing marriage to him on three separate occasions before he accepted. She ended her Hollywood career when she married Marx on September 28, 1936. Fleming's wedding to Marx was revealed to the public when President of the United States Franklin D. Roosevelt sent the couple a telegram of congratulations in November. Marx had sent a thank you letter to Roosevelt in appreciation for a signed photograph of the President, in which Marx had stated that he was "in line for congratulations, too, having been married since September" in an unspecified "little town up North". Personal life. Fleming was happy to leave show business, serving as Marx's "valet" and raising their four adoptive children. In addition to his widespread interest in playing musical instruments, including his trademark harp, Fleming helped foster her husband's interest in painting; she would make elaborate frames for his paintings, as well as creating her own works of art. The two collected many artworks, which Fleming donated widely after her husband's death. They moved to Palm Springs, California, a few years after the completion of the 1949 film "Love Happy", the last movie the Marx Brothers made together under that name. In Palm Springs, Fleming became active in local community affairs, and was elected to the Palm Springs Unified School District Board of Education. Marx died at age 75 on September 28, 1964, their 28th wedding anniversary. Following his death, Fleming became more involved in local activities, including the local League of Women Voters. She became an advisory planning commissioner for Rancho Mirage, California, and headed an organization dedicated to preserving development on the fragile desert hillsides. She served a total of 18 years on the district board of education and ran and lost in a campaign for the California State Assembly. Honoring her contributions, a Golden Palm Star on the Palm Springs, California, Walk of Stars was dedicated to her in 2002. In a 1981 decision later overruled by the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in a case brought by Fleming, federal judge William C. Conner ruled that the producers of "A Day in Hollywood / A Night in the Ukraine" had improperly used the Marx Brothers characters in their Broadway theatre production and that the publicity rights of the comedians, even after their deaths, overrode the First Amendment issues raised by the show's creators. In April 1980, Conner refused to issue a preliminary injunction and allowed producer Alexander H. Cohen to open as planned. Fleming's autobiography, "Go Tell", about her life with Harpo Marx, was never published. Death. Fleming outlived Marx by almost forty years during which time she was an artist and activist in the Palm Springs area. She died at age 94 on December 22, 2002, of a heart attack at Eisenhower Medical Center in Rancho Mirage. She was survived by a daughter, three sons, five grandchildren; and two great-grandchildren.
1067258	The Valley of Gwangi is a 1969 American western-fantasy film directed by Jim O'Connolly and written by William Bast. It stars James Franciscus and, in their final film appearances, Richard Carlson and Gila Golan. It was filmed in Technicolor with creature effects provided by Ray Harryhausen, the last dinosaur-themed film to be animated by him. Harryhausen had inherited the project from his mentor Willis O'Brien, the special effects master behind the original King Kong, who had planned to make The Valley of Gwangi decades earlier and died six years before this completed film was realized. Plot. In Mexico at the turn of the 20th century, a beautiful cowgirl named T.J. Breckenridge (Gila Golan) hosts a struggling rodeo. Her former lover Tuck Kirby (James Franciscus), a heroic former stuntman working for Buffalo Bill's Wild West show, wants to buy her out. Along the way, he is followed by a Mexican boy named Lope (Curtis Arden), who intends to join the rodeo on a quest for fame and fortune. T.J. is not interested in Tuck because of this, but Tuck is still attracted to T.J., especially when T.J. jumps off a diving board on her horse. T.J. finally accepts Tuck when he saves a matador from a bull and the two kiss on the lips.
1056777	Nuns on the Run is a 1990 British comedy film starring Eric Idle and Robbie Coltrane, also featuring Camille Coduri and Janet Suzman. It was written and directed by Jonathan Lynn and produced by HandMade Films. Many of the outdoor scenes were shot in Chiswick. The soundtrack was composed and performed by Yello. Plot. The film opens with two common thugs, Brian Hope (Eric Idle) and Charlie McManus (Robbie Coltrane) pulling off a bank heist with their mob, but their boss is killed and replaced with a new, rather brash one, Mr. "Case" Casey. Disapproving of Casey's methods, Brian and Charlie wish to leave, and a corrupt auto dealer, Norm, on Casey's payroll, desiring the same, tells Casey of this. Casey kills Norm to make an example of him, apparently intending to spare Brian and Charlie. Meanwhile, Brian meets and begins a romantic relationship with Faith Thomas (Camille Coduri), a short sighted aspiring psychology student. Brian and Charlie ultimately come up with a plan to betray their gang and flee the country, whilst robbing a Triad gang of their ill-gotten money through drug dealing. However, Casey, no longer trusting Brian and Charlie, plans to betray them at the same time, ordering his hit men, Abbott and Morley, to kill them during the robbery. Brian and Charlie's plan, to rob the Triads and flee, goes well until their car runs out of petrol, as Brian had forgotten to refill it. They flee the gunfight on foot and hide in a nunnery, dressing up as Nuns and introducing themselves to the Sister Superior, Liz (Janet Suzman) as Sisters Euphemia (Brian) and Inviolata (Charlie). Enraged, Casey places a bounty on Brian and Charlie's heads. Faith, who witnessed the gunfight and saw Brian and Charlie enter the nunnery, goes to the nunnery to find them, but she is taken to the infirmary after Sister Liz notices a gunshot wound on Faith's arm (inflicted by Morley, who wanted to silence her). Brian spots her, and confronts her in her room, telling her that he is married and wants her to leave them alone for her safety. Faith lets slip that she is going to the church to confess. Brian, worried that the priest, Father Seamus, may advise Faith to go to the police, enlists Charlie's help in distracting Father Seamus long enough for Brian to impersonate him. During the confession, Faith admits that she does love Brian, and Brian advises her to "keep her trap shut" and lie to the police if she has to. However, as Faith leaves the church, the Triads abduct her and interrogate her about their stolen money. Faith tells them that Casey will most likely have it, as Brian and Charlie worked for him. The Triads release her, but she bumps into a pole and bangs her head when she falls over, ending up in the hospital. Brian attempts to call Faith at her home to renew their relationship, but she does not answer. They break into her apartment, but at the same time, Morley and Abbott come looking for her. They narrowly escape through the window, at the cost of leaving their nun attire behind. That night, after narrowly avoiding the Triads, Brian and Charlie sneak back into the nunnery through the window of a rather eccentric nun, Sister Mary, who wakes up and starts a commotion. Brian and Charlie make it to their rooms just in time and slip into their spare nun clothes. Once alone, Charlie convinces Brian that their best option now is to take their money and just go to the airport, but Brian learns that Faith is in the hospital and goes to see her as a nun. Brian begs Charlie to let him bring Faith with them, but Charlie refuses, spotting a Triad posing as a janitor, waiting for them. Brian and Charlie prepare to carry out their plan, but Sister Mary spots them and recognises them as the two men who broke into her room by noticing Charlie's growing beard. They tie her up and break into the cupboard to regain their confiscated money, but the other nuns catch them and they are forced to tell them the truth before making a run for it. Unfortunately, Abbott sees them steal a man's truck with the money and he and Morley give chase, as do Sisters Liz and Mary. Abbott contacts Casey, who joins the chase, as do the Triads, who were watching him. Brian directs Charlie to the hospital, where he tells Faith the truth whilst Charlie distracts their enemies and the police. Ultimately, Casey, Morley and Abbott meet their individual fates as Brian and Charlie escape from the hospital with Faith, disguised as nurses and stealing an ambulance. The Triads spot them, but are unable to give chase due to injuries sustained from their previous encounters with Brian and Charlie. Sisters Liz and Mary find a briefcase of money left behind accidentally by Brian and Charlie, and decide to donate it to a drug rehabilitation clinic. At the airport, Brian and Charlie book a flight to Brazil for themselves and Faith, but a security guard appears and demands to speak with anyone called Hope or McManus. The final scene shows Faith on the plane to Brazil, apparently alone, until Brian and Charlie appear before her, disguised as flight attendants. Reception. The movie received mixed reviews from critics, and was criticised for its lack of depth and excessive use of nuns for humour. "Nuns on the Run" currently holds a 47% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Box Office. The film was successful in the US on limited release, making $658,835 in first screenings at 76 theaters. "Nuns on the Run" grossed $10,959,015 US dollars, according to Box Office Mojo.
583383	Joshilaay is an 1989 Indian Hindi film directed by Sibte Hassan Rizvi and released in 1985. The movie stars Sunny Deol, Anil Kapoor, Meenakshi Sheshadri, Sridevi.
1062133	Salvatore "Sal" Mineo, Jr. (January 10, 1939February 12, 1976), was an American film and theatre actor, best known for his performance as John "Plato" Crawford opposite James Dean in the film "Rebel Without a Cause". He was twice nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, for his roles in "Rebel Without a Cause" and "Exodus". Early life and career. Mineo was born in the Bronx, the son of coffin makers Josephine (née Alvisi) and Salvatore Mineo, Sr. He was of Sicilian descent; his father was born in Italy and his mother had been born in the United States of Italian origin. His mother enrolled him in dancing and acting school at an early age. He had his first stage appearance in "The Rose Tattoo" (1951), a play by Tennessee Williams. He also played the young prince opposite Yul Brynner in the stage musical "The King and I". Brynner took the opportunity to help Mineo better himself as an actor. As a teenager, Mineo appeared on ABC's musical quiz program "Jukebox Jury", which aired in the 1953-1954 season. Mineo made several television appearances before making his screen debut in 1955 in the Joseph Pevney film "Six Bridges to Cross". He beat out Clint Eastwood to the role. Mineo had also successfully auditioned for a part in "The Private War of Major Benson" as a cadet colonel opposite Charlton Heston. "Rebel Without a Cause". His breakthrough as an actor came in "Rebel Without a Cause", in which he played John "Plato" Crawford, the sensitive teenager smitten with Jim Stark (played by James Dean). His performance resulted in an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor, and his popularity quickly developed. Mineo's biographer, Paul Jeffers, recounted that Mineo received thousands of letters from young female fans, was mobbed by them at public appearances and further wrote, "He dated the most beautiful women in Hollywood and New York." In "Giant" (1956), Mineo played Angel Obregon II, a Mexican boy killed in World War II; but many of his subsequent roles were variations of his role in "Rebel Without a Cause", and he was typecast as a troubled teen. In the 1959 Disney adventure "Tonka", for instance, Mineo starred as a young Sioux named White Bull who traps and domesticates a clear-eyed, spirited wild horse named "Tonka" who becomes the famous Comanche, the lone survivor of Custer's Last Stand. In "Multiculturalism and the Mouse: Race and Sex in Disney Entertainment" (2006), Douglas Brode states that the casting of Mineo as White Bull again "ensured a homosexual subtext". By the late 1950s the actor was a major celebrity, sometimes referred to as the "Switchblade Kid"—a nickname he earned from his role as a criminal in the movie "Crime in the Streets". In 1957, Mineo made a brief foray into pop music by recording a handful of songs and an album. Two of his singles reached the Top 40 in the United States Billboard Hot 100. The more popular of the two, "Start Movin' (In My Direction)", reached #9 on "Billboard"'s pop chart. It sold over one million copies and was awarded a gold disc. He starred as drummer Gene Krupa in the movie "The Gene Krupa Story", directed by Don Weis with Susan Kohner, James Darren and Susan Oliver. Mineo made an effort to break his typecasting. His acting ability and exotic good looks earned him roles as the Native American boy in "Tonka", and as a Jewish emigrant in Otto Preminger's "Exodus", for which he won a Golden Globe Award and received another Academy Award nomination as Best Supporting Actor. Career decline and attempted revival. By the early 1960s he was becoming too old to play the type of role that had made him famous and he was not considered appropriate for leading roles. He auditioned for David Lean's film "Lawrence of Arabia", but was not hired. Mineo was baffled by his sudden loss of popularity, later saying "One minute it seemed I had more movie offers than I could handle, the next, no one wanted me." The high point of this period was his portrayal of Uriah in "The Greatest Story Ever Told". Mineo also appeared on "The Patty Duke Show" in its second season (1964). The episode was called "Patty Meets a Celebrity". There are stories he attempted to revive his career by camping out on the front lawn of Francis Ford Coppola's home for a chance to win the role of Fredo in "The Godfather", but the role went to John Cazale. Mineo guest starred in an episode of ABC's "Combat!" in 1966, playing the role of a G.I. wanted for murder. His role as a stalker in "Who Killed Teddy Bear?", co-starring Juliet Prowse, did not seem to help. Although his performance was praised by critics, he found himself typecast anew, now as a deranged criminal. He never entirely escaped this; one of his last roles was a guest spot on the 1975 TV series "S.W.A.T.", playing a Charles Manson-like cult leader.
639367	, also known as "The Tragedy of Belladonna", is a 1973 feature film produced by the Japanese animation studio Mushi Production and distributor Nippon Herald Films. Directed and co-written by Eiichi Yamamoto and inspired by Jules Michelet's non-fiction book "Satanism and Witchcraft", it is the third and final film in the Animerama trilogy and the only one to be neither written nor directed by Osamu Tezuka (he left Mushi Production during the film's early stages to concentrate on his comics and his conceptual-stage contribution is uncredited). "Belladonna" is also of a more serious tone than the more comedic first two Animerama films. Its visuals consist mostly of still paintings panned across and are strongly influenced by western art, such as Aubrey Beardsley, Gustav Klimt and classic tarot illustrations. The film was a commercial failure and contributed to Mushi Pro becoming bankrupt by the end of the year. The film was entered into the 23rd Berlin International Film Festival. It follows the story of Jeanne, a peasant woman who is raped which leads to her being accused of witchcraft, and is notable for its graphic and suggestively erotic, violent and psychedelic imagery. The film was released in Europe and Japan, but no official DVD with English subtitles exists. It has played in America, however.
581862	Salim Khan (born 24 November 1935) is an Indian actor and screenwriter. In Hindi cinema, Khan is best known for being one half of the prolific screenwriting duo of Salim-Javed. He is the father of Bollywood actor Salman Khan. Personal life. Khan was born in Indore in the Central Provinces and Berar (Now Madhya Pradesh) during British rule. Khan's father was a police officer, while his mother had died when he was still young. In 1964, he married Sushila Charak, a Maharashtrian Rajput from Mumbai, Maharashtra, India. Salim and Sushila have four children together: Salman Khan, Arbaaz Khan, Sohail Khan and Alvira Khan. In 1981, Salim married the entertainer Helen. They have adopted a daughter named Arpita Khan. Career. Khan debuted after director K.n l Amaranth saw him at a wedding and was impressed by his good looks. He asked him to come to Mumbai, where he hired him as an actor for Rs. 400 a month. Khan acted in various movies, in large and small parts, for seven years. He was unable to capture the public's interest, and, as a result, his career had stalled. Khan appeared in such films as "Teesri Manzil" (1966), "Sarhaadi Lootera" (1966) and "Diwaana" (1967), in total he has acted in 25 films. He met Javed Akhtar on the sets of "Sarhaadi Lootera".Salim khan used to assist writer/director Abrar Alvi at first and Javed Akhtar used to assist Kaifi Azmi.Abrar Alvi and Kaifi Azmi were neighbours,from there on Salim Khan and Javed Akhtar became friends and both of them ventured into script writing. Javed used to write dialogues and then became a film script writer, now a well known lyricist. The duo hit it off and formed a scriptwriting team that came to be known as Salim-Javed. Their first big success was the script for "Seeta Aur Geeta" (1972). They also had hits in "Yaadon Ki Baaraat" (1973), "Zanjeer" (1973), "Deewaar" (1975), "Sholay" (1975), "Trishul" (1978), "Kranti" (1981), "Zamaana" (1985) and "Mr. India" (1987). Salim-Javed, many a times described as "the most successful scripwriters of all-time",
1079110	The Passion of Anna is a 1969 Swedish drama film written and directed by Ingmar Bergman. Its original Swedish title is En passion, which means "A passion". Bergman was awarded Best Director at the 1971 National Society of Film Critics Awards for the film. Plot. The audience is introduced to Andreas Winkelman, a man living alone and emotionally desolate after the recent demise of his marriage. He meets Anna, who is grieving the recent deaths of her husband and son. She uses a cane as a result of the car crash that killed them. While Anna uses Andreas' phone, he listens to her conversation, after which she departs visibly distraught. Anna has left her handbag behind and Andreas searches it, finding and reading a letter from her husband that will later prove she is deceptive. Andreas is friends with a married couple, Eva and Elis (mutual friends of Anna) who are also in the midst of psychological turmoil. Elis is a photographer who organizes his work based on emotion. Eva feels Elis has grown tired of her and has problems sleeping. One night while Elis is away, Eva visits Andreas, as she is bored and lonely. They listen to music and drink wine, which makes them drowsy, and finally Eva sleeps for several hours. When she wakes up, they have sex. Afterward, she explains that during her only pregnancy years ago, she went to the hospital to treat her insomnia. The medicine they gave her helped her condition but killed the child. She conveys that it allowed her and Elis to share a moment of emotional affinity. Andreas visits Elis whom he promised could photograph him. Elis leaves the room for a moment and Eva enters. In their conversation, Eva reveals that Anna has moved in with Andreas, and though she is not displeased (as she likes both of them), she warns him to be wary of Anna. Elis enters the room; when Eva asks him why he looks angry, he says he only gets angry at human trifles (alluding to the affair). Their relationship is not passionate but Andreas and Anna start off relatively content. Anna appears zealous in her faith and steadfast in her search for truth, but gradually her delusions surface-reinforced by what Andreas read in the letter. For his part, Andreas is unable to overcome his feelings of deep humiliation about himself and remains disconnected, further dooming the relationship with Anna, as he prefers solitude and freedom to companionship. Throughout the film, an unknown person among the island community commits acts of animal cruelty, hanging a dog and violently killing cattle. A friend of Andreas is wrongly accused of these crimes, leading the community to threaten and beat him, catalyzing his suicide. Within a few days of the friend's death, Anna and Andreas have a physical fight during which they reveals their strong distaste for each other. Afterwards Anna lays in bed while Andreas follows two firetrucks that passed his home. They were headed to a large barn fire. When Andreas arrives, he is told that the unknown man who is the true culprit of the animal cruelty covered a barn full of animals in gasoline and lit it on fire, locking the animals in. It is obvious to the community that Andreas' friend was unjustly abused and committed suicide because of flimsy human suspicion, therefore, chances for healing are lost. Anna shows up at the fire in her car. Andreas gets in. As they drive down the road beside the sea, Andreas explains that he desires his solitude again and that their parting will not be difficult as neither one truly loved the other. He also reveals that he knows the truth about her husband. Anna begins to speed the car while he talks. He asks if she is going to kill him like she killed her husband and they fight over the wheel, eventually he stops the car in the flat ground beside the road. He tells her she is out of her mind. Anna drives away while Andreas paces back and forth on the side of the road. Analysis. Bergman uses his deconstructionist devices, cutting occasionally to his actors being interviewed about their characters, scratched lenses, and uncorrected muted colour, and inserts others' footage into reels. There is a black and white filmed dream sequence (that alludes to his earlier film, Shame) to contrast with Nykvist's muted colour photography.
1044841	Sir Michael Scudamore Redgrave, CBE (20 March 1908 – 21 March 1985) was an English stage and film actor, director, manager and author. Youth and education. Redgrave was born in Bristol, Gloucestershire, England, the son of the silent film actor Roy Redgrave and actress Margaret Scudamore. He never knew his father, who left when he was only six months old to pursue a career in Australia. His mother subsequently married Captain James Anderson, a tea planter, but Redgrave greatly disliked his stepfather. He studied at Clifton College and Magdalene College, Cambridge. Clifton College's theatre, The Redgrave Theatre, is named after him. He was a schoolmaster at Cranleigh School in Surrey before becoming an actor in 1934. There he directed the boys in "Hamlet", "King Lear" and "The Tempest", but managed to play all the leading roles himself. The 'Redgrave Room' at the school was later named after him. In the new Guildford School of Acting building which opened in January 2010, there is the Sir Michael Redgrave Studio. Theatre career. Redgrave made his first professional appearance at the Playhouse in Liverpool on 30 August 1934 as Roy Darwin in "Counsellor-at-Law" (by Elmer Rice), then spent two years with its Liverpool Repertory Company where he met his future wife Rachel Kempson. They married on 18 July 1935. 1930s. Offered a job by Tyrone Guthrie, he made his first professional appearance in London at the Old Vic on 14 September 1936, playing Ferdinand in "Love's Labours Lost". During 1936–37 he also played Mr Horner in "The Country Wife", Orlando in "As You Like It", Warbeck in "The Witch of Edmonton" and Laertes to Laurence Olivier's Hamlet. His hit of the season was Orlando. Edith Evans was his Rosalind and the two fell very much in love. As he later explained: "Edith always had a habit of falling in love with her leading men; with us it just went rather further." "As You Like It" transferred to the New Theatre in February 1937 when he again played Orlando. At the Embassy Theatre in March 1937 he played Anderson in a mystery play, "The Bat", before returning to the Old Vic in April, succeeding Marius Goring as Chorus in "Henry V". Other roles that year included Christopher Drew in Daisy Fisher's comedy "A Ship Comes Home" at the St Martin's Theatre in May and Larry Starr in Philip Leaver's comedy "Three Set Out" at the Embassy in June, before joining John Gielgud's Company at the Queen's Theatre, September 1937 to April 1938, where he played Bolingbroke in "Richard II", Charles Surface in "The School for Scandal" and Baron Tusenbach in "Three Sisters". Other roles included: Second World War. Once the London theatres were re-opened, after the outbreak of war, he played: Redgrave joined the Royal Navy as an ordinary seaman in July 1941, ("HMS Illustrious") but was discharged on medical grounds in November 1942. Having spent most of 1942 in the Reserve he managed to direct "Lifeline" (Norman Armstrong) starring Frank Pettingell at the Duchess Theatre in July; and "The Duke in Darkness" (Patrick Hamilton) starring Leslie Banks at the St James's Theatre in October, also taking the role of Gribaux. Resuming his stage career he played/directed: Post-war years. Joining the Old Vic Company at the New Theatre for its 1949–50 season, he played: 1950s. Redgrave joined the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre company at Stratford-upon-Avon and for the 1951 season appeared as Prospero in "The Tempest" as well as playing Richard II, Hotspur and Chorus in the Cycle of "Histories", for which he also directed "Henry IV Part Two". After appearing as Frank Elgin in "Winter Journey" at the St James's April 1952, he rejoined the Stratford company in 1953 (together with his actress wife Rachel Kempson) appearing as Shylock, King Lear and Antony in "Antony and Cleopatra", also playing Antony when the company transferred to the Prince's Theatre in November 1953 before touring in the Netherlands, Belgium and Paris.
1073670	Shondrella Dupre Avery (born April 26, 1971) is an American actress. She currently lives in the California area. Career. Avery began her career as a stand-up comic. She and her family produced four different "workout" spots for up-and-coming and seasoned comics throughout Los Angeles County, while working a corporate job. Avery felt she had to produce her own spots because the famed clubs only allowed three minutes. She's been quoted as saying, "It takes me three minutes to say my name." Her first big break came in 2001 during a Fourth of July Celebration on Martha's Vineyard hosted by local politicians related to her high school friend. She and good friend Tony Rock (brother to Chris Rock) performed, with an overwhelming response.
394186	Song Kang-ho (born January 17, 1967) is a leading South Korean film actor.
1065201	The Brady Bunch Movie is a 1995 American comedy film based on the 1969–1974 television series "The Brady Bunch". The film features all the original regular characters, all played by new actors. It also took the unusual route of placing the original sitcom characters, with their 1970s fashion sense and 1970s sitcom family morality, in a contemporary 1990s setting, and parodied the resulting culture clash. The film was followed by "A Very Brady Sequel" in 1996 and a television film called "The Brady Bunch in the White House" in 2002. Plot. The film opens with a montage of scenes reflecting life in the 1990s, with heavy traffic, rushing commuters, and homeless people on the street. Larry Dittmeyer (Michael McKean), an unscrupulous real estate developer, explains to his boss that almost all the families in his neighborhood have agreed to sell their property as part of a plan to turn the area into a shopping mall. The only exception is one family, which prompts his angry boss to ask, "What's their story?" which leads into the opening blue-box credits of "The Brady Bunch". The concept of the film is that although it is set in the 1990s, the Brady family are still portrayed as their 1970s television incarnations and are unaware of the disparity between their lives and their surroundings. The parents, Mike (Gary Cole) and Carol (Shelley Long), are having breakfast prepared by their housekeeper, Alice (Henriette Mantel), while the six children prepare for school. Jan (Jennifer Elise Cox) is jealous of her elder, popular sister Marcia (Christine Taylor); Cindy (Olivia Hack) is tattling about everything she's hearing; Greg (Christopher Daniel Barnes) is dreaming of becoming a singer; Peter (Paul Sutera) is nervous that his voice is breaking; Bobby (Jesse Lee) is excited about his new role as hall monitor at school. Cindy gives Mike and Carol a tax delinquency notice (which was earlier mistakenly delivered to the Dittmeyers) stating that they face foreclosure on their house if they do not pay $20,000 in back taxes. The two initially ignore the crisis, but when Mike's architectural design is turned down by two potential clients, he tells Carol that they may have to sell the house. Cindy overhears this and tells her siblings and they look for work to raise money to save the house, but their earnings are nowhere near enough to reach the required sum. In a subplot, Marcia is asked by popular Doug Simpson (Shane Conrad) to go to the school dance with him, when she had already promised to go with nerdy Charlie Anderson (R.D. Robb). She explains the "difficulty" of the choice to her friend, Noreen (Alanna Ubach), unaware that she is a lesbian and is herself attracted to Marcia. Marcia ends up breaking her promise to Charlie. On the night of the dance, Doug takes her to a lookout point where he French kisses her, only for her to say that she's not interested. He abandons her at the side of the road, but she is rescued when a limousine arrives. She later arrives at the dance and introduces the star performer of the night, Davy Jones. He gets a rousing reception from the teachers, and when the backing rock band charges up his performance, the kids respond, too. Marcia apologizes to Charlie, who forgives her and asks her to dance with him. Larry discovers that the Bradys have past-due property taxes and confronts Mike, only to learn that he has finally sold one of his designs and has the money he needs. Larry secretly meets with the client, claiming (falsely) that Mike's design resulted in a building collapse, which causes him to lose his advance. On the night before the Bradys have to move out, Marcia suggests that they enter a "Search for the Stars" contest, the prize of which is exactly $20,000. Jan, having originally suggested this and been rejected, runs away from home. Cindy sees her leave and tattles, and the whole family goes on a search for her. They use their car's C.B. radio, and their transmission is heard by Schultzy (Ann B. Davis), a driver who picks up Jan and convinces her to return home. The next day, the children join the "Search for the Stars" contest with a dated performance that receives poor audience response compared to the more modern performances of other bands. However, the judges — Jones, Micky Dolenz, and Peter Tork, all of the 1960s band The Monkees — vote for them, who win the contest as a result. The tax bill is paid and their neighbors withdraw their homes from the market, foiling Larry's plan and securing the neighborhood. The film ends with the arrival of Carol's mother (Florence Henderson), who finally convinces Jan to stop obsessing over Marcia, only for Cindy to start feeling jealous of Jan. In the end credits, the Bradys are in their traditional blue boxes, but are updated for the time and include various humorous outtakes, such as Marcia taking over Jan's box, and grandma coming into Peter's box. Cast. "Note": Robert Reed died three years before the film was released. Production. The film was shot almost entirely in Los Angeles, California, with the Brady house being located in Sherman Oaks. The school scenes were shot at Taft High School in Woodland Hills. Some scenes were filmed at Bowcraft amusement park in Scotch Plains, NJ.
1035829	Phyllida Ann Law (born 8 May 1932) is a Scottish actress. Early life. Law was born in Glasgow, the daughter of William and Megsie Law. She was married to actor Eric Thompson from 1957 until his death in 1982. Their daughters, Emma and Sophie Thompson, are both actresses. She has appeared in many documentaries and interviews concerning her late husband's work on "The Magic Roundabout". Career. Law has worked extensively in television, including appearances in "Dixon of Dock Green", "Rumpole of the Bailey" and the 1972 adaptation of the Lord Peter Wimsey tale "The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club". She appeared in films such as "Peter's Friends" (1992), "Much Ado About Nothing" (1993) (playing Ursula alongside daughter Emma's Beatrice), and "The Winter Guest" (1997) (playing Elspeth alongside daughter Emma's Frances). She was in the original London cast of "La Cage aux Folles" at the London Palladium in 1986, playing the role of Jacqueline. In 2004 she guest-starred on "Rosemary & Thyme" episode titled 'Orpheus in the Undergrowth' as May Beauchamp. In 2007 she guest-starred in two "Doctor Who" spin-off adventures: as Bea Nelson-Stanley in "The Sarah Jane Adventures" story "Eye of the Gorgon" and as Beldonia in the audio drama "Doctor Who: The Bride of Peladon". Also in 2007 she played Aunt Auriel in the drama "Kingdom" starring Stephen Fry. In 2008 she appeared as a guest star in "Foyle's War". In November 2009, Law published her first book. "Notes to my Mother-In-Law" concerns the 17 years Thompson's mother-in-law lived with the family from the mid-1960s until her death. In January 2010, she appeared with Tony Slattery on "Ready Steady Cook". She starred alongside John Hurt in a short film entitled 'Love at First Sight' which was shortlisted for an Oscar in 2012.
1058423	Margaret Denise Quigley (born May 22, 1979), professionally known as Maggie Q, is an American actress, animal rights activist and former fashion model. As of 2010, she stars in the title role on The CW's action-thriller series "Nikita". Early life. Quigley was born and raised in Honolulu, Hawaii. Her father is of Irish and Polish descent and her mother is a Vietnamese immigrant. Her parents met while her father was stationed in Vietnam during the war. Q grew up with four siblings. Q attended Mililani Waena Elementary School and Wheeler Intermediate School. She then attended Mililani High School, where she was on the cross country, track and field, and swim teams. She won the title of "Best Body" senior year, and graduated from Mililani High School in 1997. Career. At the suggestion of a friend, Q began modeling in Tokyo at the age of 17, before making an unsuccessful move to Taipei, and finally trying in Hong Kong. She has said it was not easy for her: "I had twenty bucks in my pocket. I mean, I literally did the same thing that my mother did when she left Vietnam... didn't speak the language... had no money." But, it was in Hong Kong that she was selected by Jackie Chan, because he saw a potential action star. His intensive training taught her the importance of professionalism and always doing her own stunts. Q later said, "I had never done a day of martial arts in my life when I started in the business. I couldn’t even touch my toes." In 1998, she started her acting career in the TV drama "House of the Dragon", which was a huge hit in Asia. In 2000, Q made her film debut as Anna in the horror film "Model from Hell", and went on to star as an FBI agent Jane Quigley in the action thriller "Gen-Y Cops" the same year. Her appearance in "Gen-Y Cops" impressed Jackie Chan so much that she was cast in "Manhattan Midnight" and "Rush Hour 2". In 2002, she starred as martial artist assassin Charlene Ching in the action film "Naked Weapon". In 2005, Q played Harmony in the German-Singaporean TV mini-series "House of Harmony", opposite Fann Wong. The same year she also co-produced the animal treatment documentary "Earthlings" narrated by Joaquin Phoenix. In 2006, she starred alongside Tom Cruise in "". She played Zhen, the only female member of the IMF team. In 2007, she appeared as Mai Linh in the Bruce Willis movie "Live Free or Die Hard", the fourth film in the "Die Hard" series, and as Maggie in "Balls of Fury". In 2008, Q played fictional Cao Ying, a granddaughter of the warlord Cao Cao in "", her first ancient Chinese costume performance. That same year, she also appeared in the drama/thriller movie "Deception" starring Ewan McGregor and Hugh Jackman, as Tina, an investment banker who introduced Jackman's character to an exclusive anonymous sex club list. Q also stars in the video game "" as the seductive lead character, federal agent Chase Linh, who is the player's only contact to the Tri-City Police. In 2010, she became the lead character, an assassin gone rogue, on the new CW series, "Nikita", a revamp of the movie/TV title. Q since the premiere of Nikita has been incorrectly stated as the first Asian American series lead in an American television drama, this is not true as it was actually the actress Anna May Wong who was the first Asian American series lead of an American television series with her show "The Gallery of Madame Liu-Tsong" which aired back in 1951. Personal life. Maggie Q is outspoken on the subject of animal rights and has taken part in PETA Asia's campaigns promoting vegetarianism. In a PETA ad, she posed nearly nude in a bed of crimson chili peppers to spread the word that going vegetarian is the best way to "spice up your life" as well as help animals, your health, and the environment. A second ad for PETA Asia features her wearing a bikini made entirely of strategically placed lettuce leaves next to the tagline "Turn Over a New Leaf – Try Vegetarian!" A vegetarian for many years, she once said that giving up meat is one of the most rewarding decisions she has ever made. "I feel better, I have more energy on and off the set, and I have the satisfaction of knowing that I'm doing something to help stop animal suffering." In 2008, Maggie Q was named PETA Asia-Pacific's "Person of the Year." The same year, the organization also listed Q as one of the "Best-Dressed Celebrities" of 2008. She has since taken the step to cut all animal products from her diet by becoming a vegan. She was also responsible for the removal of all real fur from the wardrobe on the set of "".
393874	BA:BO (바보) is a 2008 South Korean film. Based on a popular webcomic, the film was directed by Kim Jeong-kwon, and stars Cha Tae-hyun and Ha Ji-won in the lead roles. Plot. Ji-ho is a promising pianist who has been studying and playing abroad for years, but her career takes a blow when she is struck with stage fright. Returning home, Ji-ho is reunited with her old school friend, Seung-ryong, who, although now in his twenties, has been left with the mind of a six year old following an accident. Seung-ryong's only family is his younger sister, Ji-in, and he takes care of her by trying to sell toast outside her school, much to her embarrassment. Ji-in later becomes ill, and Seung-ryong's other friend, Sang-soo, falls into trouble with some gangsters. With all of his friends and family facing problems, Seung-ryong becomes an unlikely saviour. Background. "BA:BO" was adapted from a popular webcomic of the same name created by Kang Full, which ran from January to April 2004. Director Kim Jeong-kwon, himself a fan of the comic, was approached directly by Kang, and described the film as being faithful to the source material. Box office. "BA:BO" was released in South Korea on February 28, 2008, and was ranked third at the box office on its opening weekend, grossing $2,302,058. By April 6 the film had grossed a total of $6,450,178, and as of March 23 the total number of tickets sold was 951,573.
1100530	Gerhard Karl Erich Gentzen (November 24, 1909 – August 4, 1945) was a German mathematician and logician. He made major contributions to the foundations of mathematics, proof theory, especially on natural deduction and sequent calculus. He died in 1945 after the Second World War, because he was deprived of food after being arrested in Prague. Life and career. Gentzen was a student of Paul Bernays at the University of Göttingen. Bernays was fired as "non-Aryan" in April 1933 and therefore Hermann Weyl formally acted as his supervisor. Gentzen joined the Sturmabteilung in November 1933 although he was by no means compelled to do so. Nevertheless he kept in contact with Bernays until the beginning of the Second World War. In 1935, he corresponded with Abraham Fraenkel from Jerusalem and was implicated by the Nazi teachers' union as one who "keeps contacts to the Chosen People." In 1935 and 1936, Hermann Weyl, head of the Göttingen mathematics department in 1933 until his resignation under Nazi pressure, made strong efforts to bring him to the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. Between November 1935 and 1939 he was an assistant of David Hilbert in Göttingen. Gentzen joined the NSDAP in 1937. In April 1939 Gentzen swore the oath of loyalty to Adolf Hitler as part of his academic appointment. From 1943 he was a teacher at the University of Prague. Under a contract from the SS Gentzen evidently worked for the V-2 project. After the war he starved to death in Prague, after being arrested like all other Germans in Prague on May 7, 1945 and deprived of food. Work. Gentzen's main work was on the foundations of mathematics, in proof theory, specifically natural deduction and the sequent calculus. His cut-elimination theorem is the cornerstone of proof-theoretic semantics, and some philosophical remarks in his "Investigations into Logical Deduction", together with Ludwig Wittgenstein's aphorism that "meaning is use", constitute the starting point for inferential role semantics. One of Gentzen's papers had a second publication in the ideological "Deutsche Mathematik" that was founded by Ludwig Bieberbach who promoted "Aryan" mathematics. Gentzen proved the consistency of the Peano axioms in a paper published in 1936. In his Habilitationsschrift, finished in 1939, he determined the proof-theoretical strength of Peano arithmetic. This was done by a direct proof of the unprovability of the principle of transfinite induction, used in his 1936 proof of consistency, within Peano arithmetic. The principle can, however, be expressed in arithmetic, so that a direct proof of Gödel's incompleteness theorem followed. Gödel used a coding procedure to construct an unprovable formula of arithmetic. Gentzen's proof was published in 1943 and marked the beginning of ordinal proof theory.
629347	Erskineville Kings is a Radical Media production made for Palace Films on a minimal budget and directed by newcomer Alan White. It was released on 1 January 1999.
1059880	White Chicks is a 2004 American buddy cop comedy film directed by Keenen Ivory Wayans and written and produced by Keenen Wayans, Shawn Wayans and Marlon Wayans. The film was produced by Columbia Pictures and Revolution Studios. The plot revolves around whiteface drag, as two African American FBI agents disguise themselves as two White American women. Plot. Kevin Copeland (Shawn Wayans) and Marcus (Marlon Wayans) are two FBI agents that are posing undercover as two shop owners when three men walk in, with what appears to be ice cream, and ask for the payment for the "ice cream". Kevin and Marcus put on a play for them until they reveal themselves to be FBI. They subdue the delivery men and open the containers and realize it really is ice cream, vanilla. Just then, another three guys walk in, saying that the "ice cream" is here, and then realize the two are FBI. They have a shootout and then, flee along with the real delivery men, confusing Kevin and Marcus. They get scolded by the chief. The chief holds a briefing for socialite kidnappings that were assumed to be done by Ted Burton, and that the Wilson sisters, Brittany and Tiffany Wilson, are the next target. He says he needs someone to be their bodyguard, simultaneously, Kevin and Marcus walk in saying they want in on the case, and the chief accepts them. They pick up the Wilsons at the airport and drive them to the Hamptons. In the car, the sisters explain why they're there. Then, they say that their pomeranian likes fresh air and tells Kevin to open a window, but the dog almost falls out of the window, making Kevin drive uncontrollably until they fall out of the road. The sisters get scars and refuse to leave the motel they've stopped at. Kevin has an idea, which Marcus reluctantly agrees with, and calls Josh, a make-up artist who disguises them as the Wilson sisters. At the hotel, while posing as the Wilson sisters, Kevin and Marcus meet Brittany and Tiffany's three best friends, Karen, Tori and Lisa; as well as their rivals - also sisters - Megan and Heather Vandergeld. They also encounter Karen's abusive boyfriend, Heath, a broke, out-of-work actor and Russ, Heath's best friend and The Vandergeld Sisters' party boy. They also go out shopping, making a hilarious scene at the mall, and making Gina, Marcus's wife, suspect he's cheating on her. Latrell Spencer (Terry Crews), a wealthy black man that prefers white women, takes an interest in Marcus, thinking that he is actually the real Tiffany Wilson. While at a magazine reception, Kevin and Marcus embarrass the Vandergeld sisters. A date with Marcus/Tiffany is then auctioned off to Latrell during a charity dinner. Kevin takes advantage of the situation and asks Denise Porter, a reporter he met who's doing a piece on Warren Vandergeld, out on a date, pretending that he is Latrell, as Denise has a history of dating rich men. When Marcus goes on his date with the real Latrell, and makes Latrell want him/her even more, Kevin steals the keys to Latrell's car and house. When Kevin and Denise arrive at Latrell's house, Kevin is mauled by Latrell's giant dog, prompting Denise to leave, but eventually falls for him. Through this date, Kevin learns that Burton turned on Mr. Vandergeld and tucked away $100 million, this sets the motive for the scheme.
587933	Simhasanam or Simhaasanam () is a South Indian Telugu film released in 1986 with double action by super star Krishna, who also directed the film. The film was simultaneously made in Hindi as "Singhasan". The film is a Block buster and broke many records in Telugu film industry. The film is based on Janapada Katha. Jayaprada, Radha and Mandakini acted as the heroines. The film was the first 70 mm Stereophonic sound movie in Telugu cinema. Plot. The kingdom of Dasharna’s has a brave and able army chief by the name Vikrama Singha (Krishna). Princess Alaknanda Devi (Jayapradha) is in love with him. The chief minister contrives to dethrone the king and procure the throne for his son. But as long as Vikrama Singha is present, his plans cannot bear fruit. So he traps Vikrama Singha by getting false witnesses to testify that he has tried to kill the princess. Vikrama Singha is exiled. Meanwhile, the neighbouring kingdom of Avanti has the crown prince Aditya Vardhana (Krishna) who looks exactly like Vikrama Singha. The Raj Guru of Avanti contrives to procure the throne for his son. Vikrama Singha finally foils the chief minister’s plans to acquire the throne of Dasharna. At the same time he poses as Aditya Vardhana of Avanti and overcomes many hurdles to retain both the thrones of Avanti and Dasharna.
582244	Bhool Bhulaiyaa (English: "The Maze") is a 2007 Bollywood psychological comedy horror film directed by Priyadarshan. It constitutes the official remake of the 1993 Malayalam film, "Manichitrathazhu", starring Mohanlal. which was already remade into several Indian films. "Bhool Bhulaiyaa" features Akshay Kumar, Vidya Balan, Ameesha Patel and Shiney Ahuja in pivotal roles with Paresh Rawal and Rajpal Yadav in supporting roles. The music of the film was composed by Pritam and the lyrics were written by Sameer. It received mostly positive reviews and a huge box-office success. The film began shooting on 18 February 2007 for a 41-day schedule at Jaipur, India and was released on 12 October 2007. Plot. Badri (Manoj Joshi) heads a Brahmin family whose ancestral palace is believed to be haunted by the ghost of Manjulika, a Bengali classical dancer. Siddharth (Shiney Ahuja) and Avni (Vidya Balan), the son and daughter-in-law of Badri's elder brother, return to their native village from America and decide to stay in their ancestral palace. Here, Siddharth is crowned as the king, his right to the throne. Events take a twist when Avni opens a forbidden locked room that contains the ghost of Manjulika. Unnatural events start taking place inside the palace. Avni falls in love with the place and learns about Manjulika and her tragic story. Badri and Batuk Shankar (Paresh Rawal) try to ward off the evil eye with the help of a priest, Shri Yagyaprakashji Bharti (Vikram Gokhale), but unfortunately the priest has gone to London and is unsure when he might return. Siddharth starts suspecting Radha (Amisha Patel) for all the strange occurrences. He thinks she has gone crazy since he was supposed to marry her, but married Avni instead. He calls his friend, psychiatrist Dr. Aditya Shrivastav (Akshay Kumar), to try to figure out what the problem is with Radha. Once Aditya reaches the palace, things become comical, as everyone thinks he is a fool, though he is very intelligent. Aditya eventually realizes that Radha is not at fault, and that someone else behind it all. One night, he encounters Manjulika and dares her to strike. The ghost angrily vows to take her revenge on the auspicious day of Durgashtami. During the engagement of Nandini, Siddharth's cousin, and Sharad Pradhan (Vineeth), Avni spills food on Sharad and takes him away to get him cleaned. When Aditya and Siddharth search for her, they see that there is a struggle between Avni and Sharad, and quickly intervene. Siddharth thinks that Sharad was violating Avni, but Aditya tells him that Avni is the real culprit. It is revealed that Avni has dissociative identity disorder, a disease that affects the person's identity, making them think they're someone else. Aditya explains that Avni is the one making all the strange things happen around the palace. He reveals that he visited Avni's hometown to gather information about her childhood and has factual evidence. He then tells the half-convinced Siddtharth to provoke Avni in order to make him realize that something is wrong. When Siddharth provokes her, Avni shows the dark personality of Manjulika before returning to her usual self, much to the horror and concern of Siddharth, who asks Aditya to save Avni. During "Durgashtami", Aditya and Siddharth see Avni consumed in Manjulika's identity, dressed as her and dancing to the tunes Manjulika had been dancing to with her love, Shashidhar, before the king murdered him. The tragic love story of the old king Vibhuti Narayan, who loved Manjulika, who in turn loved Shashidhar, is revealed. Avni imagines herself as Manjulika and Sharad as Shashidhar, dancing in the court of the king. Avni completely assumes the identity of Manjulika and tries to kill her own husband Siddharth; she sees him as the king who had killed Manjulika's lover. To cure Avni, Aditya triggers Manjulika's personality and makes her promise to leave Avni if she gets the opportunity to kill the king and take her revenge. The priest Shri Yagyaprakashji Bharti arrives and with his help, during the ritual of "Durgashtami", Aditya lays out an intricate plan to trick Manjulika into thinking she is killing the king when she is actually slaying a dummy. After the "murder", Manjulika, now content, leaves Avni forever. Avni is healed and everything ends well. Aditya tells Radha, whom he has taken a liking to, that he will send his parents over if she is interested in marrying him, to which a happy Radha gives her silent consent. Production. Casting. Originally Aishwarya Rai and Katrina Kaif were the first female choices for "Bhool Bhulaiyaa". They turned down the offer and were replaced by Vidya Balan and Ameesha Patel. Vidya Balan had to take Kathak lessons for this film. Incidentally, Vineeth played the same role in the Rajnikanth-starrer "Chandramukhi" (2005), which was the Tamil remake of "Manichithrathazhu". Soundtrack. The soundtrack of the film was composed by Pritam with lyrics provided by Sameer and Sayeed Quadri. The title track "Bhool Bhulaiyaa" became a chartbuster. Box office. "Bhool Bhulaiyaa" had an excellent opening and was declared a "Blockbuster", netting in India. The film had collected worldwide gross.
583011	Humko Deewana Kar Gaye (translation: You Made Me Crazy) is a 2006 Bollywood romantic drama film directed, produced by Raj Kanwar, Bhushan Kumar & Kishan Kumar and stars Akshay Kumar and Katrina Kaif. Bipasha Basu, Anil Kapoor and Manoj Joshi also star in the movie in supporting roles.The film is inspired by Hollywood romantic movie "Notting Hill". Some scene are exactly copied in movie such as scene of fridge where Akshay Kumar asked for drinks to Katrina,Scene where Akshay spills coffee on Katrina on the street,Scene of night stay in Akshay kumar Apartment.The film is produced by the Indian music company, T-Series and Inderjit Films Combine. The movie's score and soundtrack is composed by Anu Malik with lyrics by Sameer. Himesh Reshammiya rendered a special song for the film which became extremely popular. The film released on 14 April 2006. The music of the film released on 2 February 2006. Synopsis. Aditya (Akshay Kumar), an automobile engineer, is as passionate about cars as Shakespeare was about writing. Not only is he an engineer, he is also a test driver for the company. Aditya is engaged to Sonia (Bipasha Basu), a fashion designer about to make her mark. Aditya and Sonia are not on the same wavelength; Sonia is a 21st-century modern woman for whom career comes first. As much as Aditya tries to overlook these facts, they keep coming in the way of their relationship. The marriage date is fixed, and Aditya has to leave for Canada to learn about a new car model to be launched in India. Meanwhile, Sonia leaves to Paris for a fashion show. Aditya arrives in Canada and meets his sister Simran (Bhagyashree) and her husband and son, who all live in Canada. Destiny makes Aditya continually bump into Jia (Katrina Kaif), daughter of business tycoon Yashwardhan Birla. She has come to Canada alone to shop for her wedding with the business giant Karan Oberoi (Anil Kapoor). She is a simple girl with a thirst for true love. She had everything she could ask for in her childhood but never time from her ever-so-busy father. Now, the man her father has chosen for her hardly has any time for her either. She finds a friend in Aditya, and as the two spend time together, their friendship grows. Aditya gets a chance from the company to participate in a car rally. He persuades Jia to participate with him and they win. On returning from the rally, their car gets stuck in the snow and they have to spend the night together. They share intimate moments, which make them forget that they are engaged to others. Soon, they realize they are falling in love. When Jia tells Aditya that she believes her father is responsible for her mother's death, Aditya tells this to his best friend and roommate, Nawab. On a drunken night, Nawab tells his other friend, who is a reporter. The reporter then publishes this in the newspaper. Jia, extremely hurt, returns to India to marry Karan. Aditya also returns to India to get married to Sonia, and does not attempt to meet Jia. Sonia turns out to be the designer for Jia's wedding. Mr Oberoi asks Aditya to come to the wedding, and Sonia persuades him to attend. Jia's friend and Karan's secretary, Jenny, bumps into Nawab, who reveals that it was his fault that Jia's secret was published in the papers. But it is too late—the wedding ceremony is over and Jia and Karan are married. Jia then goes to meet Aditya to apolgize. They confess their love for each other, but agree never to meet again. However, Karan catches them talking, and questions Jia. She says that she only loves Karan and Aditya is just a good friend.
584923	Sri Rama Rajyam is a 2011 devotional Telugu film directed by Bapu based on the epic Ramayana. The film depicts Lord Rama's rule of Ayodhya after he returns home from Lanka, his separation from Sita and her reclusive life in the forest as she raises their children Lava and Kusa. The film bagged seven Andhra Pradesh State Nandi Awards, including the Nandi Award for Best Feature Film – (Gold) for the year 2011. It features Nandamuri Balakrishna as Lord Rama with Nayantara as Sita in the lead roles. Akkineni Nageswara Rao, Srikanth and Sai Kumar appear in supporting roles. Music of the film is composed by Ilaiyaraaja. Yalamanchali Sai Babu produced the film under Sri Sai Baba Movies banner. The film was critically acclaimed and a commercial success in overseas. The film had a special screening at International Film Festival of India on 28 November 2011. Plot. Lord Shrirama (Balakrishna) retains his wife Sita (Nayantara) comes back to their kingdom Ayodhya, after killing Ravana. And Shrirama will continue his charisma in ruling the kingdom after his Pattabhishekam. One day he hears the sweet news that Sita is pregnant. Everything looks fine, but on one day Shrirama came to know that people in his kingdom are having discussions about Sita’s character, as she spent some time in Ravana’s place. So, Rama decides himself to leave Sita and she is sent to the forest. There she was protected by Valmiki and was given shelter in his Ashram. Later she gives birth at Ashram to twins; Lava and Kusa. What are the incidents that happens next forms the Sri Rama Rajyam Story. Release. The film was released on 17 November 2011. The film has been released in Tamil on 27 July, the Malayalam version was released as well. Producer Sai Babu has said that a good response has come from Malayalam movie lovers and is planning to release the Hindi version soon. Critical reception. Upon release, the film received positive reviews from critics. "Jeevi" from "Idlebrain" gave a three and half stars commented "Bapu comes up with an interesting and sensible film in the form of Sri Ramarajyam. Go and watch it!". "CNN-IBN" which gave a four stars, said "Sri Rama Rajyam is one film that the Telugu film industry can be proud of. 'Sri Rama Rajyam' is a well-known story, so it's a challenge to remake such a classic, but Bapu's good work turns the remake into another classic. Filmgoers, who look for classics, should not miss this film". "Deccan Chronicle" rated three stars explains "Superstar Balakrishna finally stepped into his legendary father NTR's shoes and impressed audiences playing the role of Lord Rama. Veteran director Bapu deserves all the praise he gets for remaking the classic "Lava Kusa" (1963) and retaining the soul of the original". NDTV described as "In all, Sri Rama Rajyam is a feel-good film that brilliantly showcases our ancient culture". "Oneindia.in" noted "Sri Rama Rajyam is a feel good film that showcases our ancient culture, heritage and values. The way Bapu managed to make the film into a visual and musical delight is extraordinary and it is a film that can give you an enriching experience while entertaining you in good measure". Rediff gave three stars said "Kudos to Bapu and Saibabu for recreating the Ramayana magic on celluloid. Only Bapu, the veteran director, could have executed this mammoth task so well. Sri Ramarajyam is an optical feast. Go for it". Sify gave verdict as "Good" and says "The movie holds ample strength to live up to the expectations at the box office. Bapu and his associate Ramana does not deviate much from Lava Kusa, and they took great pains to see that the element of exaggeration is completely checked". Box office. The film has completed 50 days on 5 January 2012 in 49 centres at the Box office. The film has completed 100 days on 24 February 2012. Soundtrack. The audio of the film was released on 15 August 2011 and the launch was held at Bhadrachalam under Bhadradri Ramayya and Seetamma’s Sannidi on the same day. The soundtrack was composed by Ilaiyaraaja and it features 15 tracks. Lyrics for all the songs were penned by Jonnavithhula Ramalingeswara Rao.
1166343	Enrico Colantoni (born February 14, 1963) is a Canadian actor, probably best known for portraying Elliot DiMauro in the sitcom "Just Shoot Me!", Keith Mars on the television series "Veronica Mars", and Sergeant Greg Parker on the television series "Flashpoint". He has also had supporting roles in such films as "The Wrong Guy", "Galaxy Quest", "A.I. Artificial Intelligence", and "Contagion", and guest appearances on "Monk", "Numb3rs", "Stargate SG-1" and "Bones". Colantoni currently plays a recurring role on "Person of Interest" as crime boss Carl Elias. Early life and education. Colantoni was born in Toronto, Ontario, the son of Gina, a garment worker, and Quintino Colantoni, a labourer and truck driver. Both his parents were immigrants from Italy, and his brother, Det. Sgt. Hector Colantoni, is a retired police officer with the Toronto Police Service. He attended the University of Toronto studying psychology and sociology, but transferred to the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York. Colantoni graduated from the Yale School of Drama, winning the Carol Dye Award. Career. He appeared in the Canadian TV police drama "Flashpoint" as Sgt. Greg Parker, (also airing in the U.S. on ION Television, and airing previously on CBS). He took the role because his brother has been a Toronto policeman for the past 30 years. Philanthropy. Since 2011, Enrico has been heavily involved with The Tema Conter Memorial Trust, an organization that assists first responders and other service personnel deal with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. He became their official spokesperson and has been involved in their annual tribute gala in Toronto every year since. He has also been involved in the Companion Animal Protection Society's campaign to boycott commercial pet stores, creating a video to raise awareness about the topic. Personal life. He lives in Toronto, Canada and has two children, Quintin and Madelyn. On November 11, 2011 he married long-time girlfriend Rosanna.
582084	Delhi-6 is a Drama Film created is in () is a 2009 Hindi-language Indian drama film directed by Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra and starring Abhishek Bachchan, Sonam Kapoor, Om Puri, Waheeda Rahman, Rishi Kapoor, Atul Kulkarni, Deepak Dobriyal and Divya Dutta. The story is reportedly based on Mehra's growing up years in Chandni Chowk area of Old Delhi. The number 6 refers to the Postal Index Number (PIN) code of Chandni Chowk area of Old Delhi, a shortened form of 110006. It is Mehra's third film after "Aks" and "Rang De Basanti". The acclaimed score and soundtrack was composed by A. R. Rahman. It released on 20 February 2009 and won the Nargis Dutt Award for Best Feature Film on National Integration at 57th National Film Awards. Plot. Roshan (Abhishek Bachchan) accompanies his dying grandmother Annapurna (Waheeda Rahman) to their ancestral property in crowded Delhi. Roshan is initially stunned by the mad rush of neighbours: Ali Baig (Rishi Kapoor) the renaissance man, feuding brothers Madangopal (Om Puri) and Jaigopal (Pavan Malhotra), their wives and families, Mamdu (Deepak Dobriyal) the "halwai", Gobar (Atul Kulkarni) the simpleton, Sethji and many others. Roshan eventually warms to the place and wholeheartedly embraces the sense of community. He accompanies his grandmother to the "Ramleela"s, hangs out at Mamdu's sweet stall, plays with the children, and gradually becomes steeped in the culture. Roshan is also slowly exposed to some sobering realities. When Annapurna faints (due to fluctuating blood sugar levels) and they scramble to get her to a hospital, he finds the roads choked by traffic because of an impromptu ceremony around a cow in labour; he is further surprised when his grandmother, despite her stupor, stumbles forth to seek the blessings of a sacred cow; and he is astounded when the local police seem to encourage the practice. Roshan begins to understand the feuds and social issues in the community. Madangopal's sister Rama (Aditi Rao Hydari) is unwed (at an age when spinsterhood is a significant social no-no) and Jaigopal's electrical business is going nowhere. The lecherous old local money lender Lala Bhairam (Prem Chopra) is married to a young woman who, in turn, is having an affair with a young photo-studio hand Suresh (Cyrus Sahukar). Suresh is a double timer who is also pursuing Madangopal's daughter Bittu (Sonam Kapoor). Bittu secretly wants out of the stuck-in-time Old Delhi; she secretly prepares to audition for a popular reality show Indian Idol in the hope that she will win her way to Mumbai. Roshan comes to appreciate Ali Baig's cosmopolitan tastes and is surprised to learn that he fancied his mother many years ago and has since never married. And Roshan comes to empathise with the lower-caste trash collector girl Jalebi (Divya Dutta) who must endure untouchability at social functions except for when some of the brutish locals seek company. Roshan crosses paths with the loutish inspector Ranvijay who blithely stretches his authorities to manhandle the locals and becomes acquainted with the assembly-woman who displays political power at every opportunity. In the meantime, the news media is all abuzz with tales of a fearsome terror known only as the "Kala Bandar" (The Black Monkey). This miscreant (never shown clearly in the film) attacks people, steals and has caused the death of a few innocent people. (These deaths are mostly accidental, as in the example of a pregnant housewife who was supposedly startled by a silhouette and fell down a flight of stairs or the unfortunate man who was briefly zapped by a live electric wire.) Nonetheless, the local news picks up on every move by the "kala bandar" and loudly blares about all his exploits. Jaigopal, the self-proclaimed electronics genius, theorises that the "kala bandar" likely has an electrical circuit (to zap his victims) and may be electrocuted by water; this rumour is quickly propagated. The film takes several turns. After some initial friction, Roshan and Bittu warm to each other. Roshan intervenes when Bittu is about to receive a prospective suitor arranged by Madangopal. He echoes Bittu's desire to pursue other dreams; this drives the suitor away and brings Madangopal's wrath upon him. He gradually begins to fall in love with her but is confused when Bittu expresses her affections for Suresh (she believes he will support her dreams). Around this time, the "kala bandar" attacks Old Delhi. The simple-minded locals bring in a "tantrik Shani baba" to exorcise the demonic influence of the "kala bandar". After an extended "havan" ceremony, the "tantrik baba," clearly an self-aggrandizing actor who dislikes the inter-religious equality practised in the community, speculates that the local mosque must have been built over the ruins of a temple that was demolished for the purpose. He thus initiates a vicious cycle of animosity in the previously harmonious Hindu-Muslim community. After the initial peaceful demonstrations (by rallies and angry meetings), a mob goes on rampage and attacks some of the Muslims and their shops. This prompts one Muslim shop-owner, Mamdu, to set fire to the tree temple. Roshan attempts to make peace but is rebuffed because of his mixed religious parentage. The locals ultimately settle on the fact that the "kala bandar" is hiding out in the "sooni galli" (a dark lane known to harbour evil presences) and must be destroyed. They command the simpleton Gobar to fetch a lock of hair from the evil enemy so that the "tantrik" can burn it and complete the exorcism. Roshan becomes aware of Bittu's plan to elope with Suresh and that Suresh is a low-life two timer. He dons a monkey mask and outfit and stealthily follows Bittu by leaping across the rooftops. In the meantime Gobar ventures into the "sooni galli" where Jalebi gives him a lock of her hair so he may return in triumph and bring peace to the community. At that moment, Roshan (in his monkey outfit) intercedes in Bittu and Suresh's rendezvous and causes the cowardly Suresh to flee. Bittu raises a loud alarm before Roshan unmasks himself, Roshan tells Bittu he loves her where she also responds to his feelings,the two share a hug, whereupon the angry locals storm the place. Believing Roshan to be the "kala bandar", they beat him to within an inch of his life and Mamdu shoots him. Then, Gobar comes up with a startling deduction about the reality of the "kala bandar"; that the "kala bandar" is in fact the vices residing inside the people of Delhi 6 and something that the people must defeat within themselves. In the end the neighborhood realizes this and helps Roshan to reach a hospital with the help of an ambulance. But while on the way, Roshan does not respond to the treatment leaving people to believe that he died. In the meanwhile Roshan meets his grandfather (pretends to be after his death) in the terrace of a building in Delhi. Roshan's grandfather (Amitabh) reveals that there is a Kala Bandar in his heart and that is why he wanted to ask forgiveness to his mom for not accepting their inter-religious marriage. After that he said he will meet him once again. Roshan responds to his treatment and everyone is happy that he is not dead. The film ends with Roshan understanding the diversity of Delhi 6.
1068253	Blood and Wine is a 1996 neo-noir thriller directed by Bob Rafelson from a screenplay written by Nick Villiers and Alison Cross. It features Jack Nicholson, Stephen Dorff, Jennifer Lopez, Judy Davis and Michael Caine. Rafelson has stated that the film forms the final part of his unofficial trilogy with Nicholson, with whom he made "Five Easy Pieces" and "The King of Marvin Gardens" in the 1970s. Plot. Alex Gates (Jack Nicholson) is a wealthy wine merchant who has distanced himself from his alcoholic wife Suzanne (Judy Davis) with his philandering, and from his stepson Jason (Stephen Dorff) with his indifference. Alex is heavily in debt, and cases the house of his clients, the Reese family. After he steals a valuable diamond necklace with the help of his Cuban mistress Gabriela (Jennifer Lopez) and his safe-cracker partner Victor (Michael Caine), things start to fall apart fast.
1064264	Planet Terror is a 2007 American action horror science-fiction film written, cinematographied, scored, co-edited, produced and directed by Robert Rodriguez, about a group of people attempting to survive an onslaught of zombie-like creatures as they feud with a military unit, including a go-go dancer searching for a way to use her "useless talents." The film, a tribute to the zombie film genre, stars Rose McGowan, Freddy Rodriguez, Josh Brolin, Marley Shelton, Naveen Andrews, Michael Biehn, Jeff Fahey, Stacy Ferguson and Bruce Willis. "Planet Terror" was released theatrically in North America as part of a double feature with Quentin Tarantino's "Death Proof" under the title "Grindhouse" in order to replicate the experience of viewing exploitation films in a "grindhouse" theater. "Planet Terror" was released on April 6, 2007, and ticket sales were significantly below box office analysts' expectations, despite mostly positive reviews. In much of the rest of the world, each feature was released separately, with "Planet Terror" and "Death Proof" screened in extended versions. Two soundtracks were also released for the features and include music and audio snippets from the film. The film released separately in international theatrical markets, and on DVD in the United States and Canada on October 23, 2007. Plot. In rural Texas, go-go dancer Cherry Darling (Rose McGowan) decides to quit her low-paying job and find another occupation. She runs into her mysterious ex-boyfriend El Wray (Freddy Rodriguez) at the Bone Shack, a BBQ restaurant owned by JT Hague (Jeff Fahey) and his sheriff brother (Michael Biehn). Meanwhile, a group of officials at a nearby US military base, led by the demented Lt. Muldoon (Bruce Willis), are making a business transaction with a chemical engineer named Abby (Naveen Andrews) for mass quantities of a deadly biochemical agent known as DC2 (codename "Project Terror"). When Muldoon learns that Abby has an extra supply on hand, he attempts to take Abby hostage, and Abby intentionally releases the gas into the air. The gas reaches the town and turns most of its residents into deformed bloodthirsty psychopaths, referred to as "sickos" by the surviving humans. The infected townspeople are treated by the sinister Dr. William Block (Josh Brolin) and his unhappy, unfaithful bisexual anesthesiologist wife Dakota (Marley Shelton) at a local hospital. Random zombie attacks begin along the highway, causing El Wray, with Cherry as his passenger, to crash his truck. In the aftermath, several zombies tear off Cherry's right leg. Also falling victim, fatally, is Tammy (Stacy "Fergie" Ferguson), who was on her way to into town to reunite with her former lover Dakota. When Tammy's body arrives at the hospital, Dr. Block recognizes her and by comparing text messages on the cellular phones of Tammy and his wife, realizes Dakota was about to leave him. He then attacks Dakota with her own anesthetic syringe needles, stabbing her repeatedly in the hands, rendering them useless, before locking her in a closet to tend to other patients, including Cherry, who is still alive. El Wray is detained by Sheriff Hague based on past encounters between the two men. As the patients transform into zombies, El Wray leaves the police station and arrives at the hospital, attaching a wooden table leg to Cherry's stump. As El Wray and Cherry fight their way out of the zombie-infested hospital, Dakota escapes to her car, but in struggling to open its door with her numbed hands, accidentally breaks her left wrist. She eventually manages to drive away. Meanwhile, Block becomes infected and others, including Cherry and El Wray, take refuge at the Bone Shack. Dakota retrieves her son Tony and takes him to her father, Earl McGraw, a Texas Ranger. Tony, who was given a revolver by his mother, accidentally shoots himself in the face after being told not to point it at himself. Cherry and El Wray make love in JT's bedroom. Due to a missing reel, what happens immediately following this is unknown, but when the film returns, Sheriff Hague has been shot in the neck by one of his own officers, and zombies are massing outside the Bone Shack, which is set on fire. Dakota, Earl, and Tony's crazed babysitter twins arrive at the Bone Shack. With Sheriff Hague badly injured, the group decides to flee to the Mexican border, before being stopped by a large mob of zombies. Muldoon's men arrive, and kill the zombies before arresting the group. They learn from Abby that the soldiers are stealing Abby's supply of the gas because they are infected with it and the only treatment is by constant inhalation of the gas, which delays mutation. They also learn that a small percentage of population is immune to the gas, suggesting a possible treatment, which is why Muldoon quarantined the survivors. As Cherry and Dakota are taken away by two soldiers (Quentin Tarantino credited as "Rapist #1" and Greg Kelly credited as "Rapist #2"), the others defeat the security guards. J.T. sustains a gunshot wound in the process, and the group searches for Muldoon. Discovered by El Wray and Abby, Muldoon explains that he killed Osama bin Laden before he and his men were infected with DC2 and were ordered to protect the area. El Wray offers a respectful recognition of Muldoon's military service before he and Abby shoot the mutating Muldoon. Meanwhile, Cherry is forced to dance by Rapist #1 while being held at gunpoint. Cherry attacks by breaking her wooden leg across the rapist's face and stabbing him in his eye with the stump. Dakota, after realizing she has regained feeling in her hands, quick-draws her syringe launcher and stuns Rapist #2. El Wray and Abby arrive to rescue Cherry and Dakota, and El Wray replaces Cherry's broken wooden leg with a modified M4 Carbine with a M203 grenade launcher attachment. She promptly kills Rapist #1 and several zombies with it. J.T., wounded and lying beside his dying brother, stays behind to detonate explosives to eliminate the zombies still in the complex while the others flee. The survivors make plans to escape by stealing helicopters but must fight past the remaining zombies. Abby dies (and hope for a cure with him) when a ballistic projectile blows his head up. An infected Block then arrives and is killed by Earl, shortly before the survivors use the blade tips of their transport helicopter to decapitate all the remaining zombies. However, while saving Cherry from a zombie, El Wray is fatally wounded. In the epilogue, Cherry (now sporting a minigun prosthetic leg) leads the group and many more survivors to the Caribbean beach at Tulum, Mexico, where they start a peaceful new society during a world-wide zombie outbreak. In the final moments of the film, it is revealed that Cherry Darling has given birth to El Wray's daughter (alluded to earlier during El Wray's final scene when he puts his hand on her stomach and restates his motto "I never miss"). In a post-credits scene Dakota's son Tony is sitting on the beach at the survivor's "base" playing with his turtle, scorpion, and tarantula. History and development. Robert Rodriguez first came up with the idea for "Planet Terror" during the production of "The Faculty". "I remember telling Elijah Wood and Josh Hartnett, all these young actors, that zombie movies were dead and hadn't been around in a while, but that I thought they were going to come back in a big way because they’d been gone for so long," recalled Rodriguez, "I said, 'We've got to be there first.' I had script I’d started writing. It was about 30 pages, and I said to them, 'There are characters for all of you to play.' We got all excited about it, and then I didn't know where to go with it. The introduction was about as far as I'd gotten, and then I got onto other movies. Sure enough, the zombie invasion happened and they all came back again, and I was like, 'Ah, I knew that I should've made my zombie film.'" The story was reapproached when the idea for "Grindhouse" was developed by Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino. "Planet Terror" is preceded by a fake trailer for a film titled "Machete", starring Danny Trejo and Cheech Marin, as it had during the original "double feature" presentation of "Grindhouse". Rodriguez wrote "Machete" in 1993 as a full feature for Danny Trejo. "I had cast him in "Desperado" and I remember thinking, 'Wow, this guy should have his own series of Mexican exploitation movies like Charles Bronson or like Jean-Claude Van Damme.' So I wrote him this idea of a federale from Mexico who gets hired to do hatchet jobs in the U.S. I had heard sometimes FBI or DEA have a really tough job that they don't want to get their own agents killed on, they'll hire an agent from Mexico to come do the job for $25,000. I thought, 'That's Machete. He would come and do a really dangerous job for a lot of money to him but for everyone else over here it's peanuts.' But I never got around to making it." It was later announced that the trailer will be made as a feature film "Machete". As for the reference to "Project Terror," Rodriguez paid homage to the late night horror show "Project Terror" which aired in Rodriguez's hometown of San Antonio, Texas on KENS-TV during the 1970s and early 1980s. Production. Directing. According to actress Marley Shelton, "(Rodriguez and Tarantino) really co-directed, at least "Planet Terror". Quentin was on set a lot. He had notes and adjustments to our performances and he changed lines every once in a while. Of course, he always deferred to Robert on "Planet Terror" and vice versa for "Death Proof". So it's really both of their brainchild." Tarantino has stated, "I can't imagine doing "Grindhouse" with any other director in the way me and Robert did it because I just had complete faith and trust in him. So much so that we didn't actually see each other's movie completed until three weeks before the film opened. It was as if we worked in little vacuums and cut our movies down, and then put them together and watched it all play, and then made a couple of little changes after that, and pretty much that was it." Rodriguez acted as cinematographer on "Planet Terror", as he had previously done on some of his earlier films. Casting. Many of the cast members had previously worked with Rodriguez. Before appearing in "Grindhouse", Marley Shelton had auditioned for "The Faculty", but Rodriguez chose not to cast her. She was eventually cast in the role of the Customer in the opening sequence of "Sin City". Bruce Willis had appeared in "Sin City". Tom Savini had previously acted in "From Dusk Till Dawn", Michael Parks reprises the role of Earl McGraw, a role the actor first portrayed in "From Dusk Till Dawn", and Quentin Tarantino himself appears in a small role, as he also does in "Death Proof". Special effects. The film uses various unconventional techniques to make "Planet Terror" appear more like the films that were shown in grindhouse theaters in the 1970s. Throughout the feature and the "Machete" trailer, the film is made to look damaged; five of the six 25,000 frame reels were edited with real film damage, plug-ins, and stock footage. "Planet Terror" makes heavy use of digital effects throughout the film, mostly for Cherry's fake leg. During post-production the effects teams digitally removed McGowan's right leg from the shots and replaced it with computer-generated props — first a table leg and then an assault rifle. During shooting for these scenes, McGowan wore a special cast which restricted her leg movement to give her the correct motion. Editing. During pre-production, Tarantino and Rodriguez came up with the idea of inserting a "missing reel" into the film. "(Quentin) was about to show an Italian crime movie with Oliver Reed," Rodriguez recalls, "and he was saying, 'Oh, it's got a missing reel in it. But it's really interesting because after the missing reel, you don't know if he slept with a girl or he didn't because she says he did and he says that he didn't. It leaves you guessing, and the movie still works with 20 minutes gone out of it.' I thought, 'Oh, my God, that's what we’ve got to do. We've got to have a missing reel!' I'm going to use it in a way where it actually says 'missing reel' for 10 seconds, and then when we come back, you're arriving in the third act. [...] The late second acts in movies are usually the most predictable and the most boring, that's where the good guy really turns out to be the bad guy, and the bad guy is really good, and the couple becomes friends. Suddenly, though, in the third act, all bets are off and it's a whole new story anyway." Music. The music for "Planet Terror" was composed by Robert Rodriguez. Inspiration for his score came from John Carpenter, whose music was often played on set. A cover version of The Dead Kennedys' "Too Drunk to Fuck" performed by Nouvelle Vague was also featured in the film. A soundtrack album was released on April 3, 2007, alongside the soundtrack for "Death Proof". Theatrical release. "Planet Terror" was released in the United States and Canada alongside "Death Proof" as part of a double feature under the title "Grindhouse". Both films were released separately in extended versions internationally, approximately two months apart. The Dutch poster artwork for "Planet Terror" claimed that the film would feature "coming attractions" from Quentin Tarantino. In the United Kingdom, "Planet Terror" was released in cinemas on November 9, 2007. In reaction to the possibility of a split in a foreign release, Tarantino stated, "Especially if they were dealing with non-English language countries, they don't really have this tradition ... not only do they not really know what a grind house is, they don't even have the double feature tradition. So you are kind of trying to teach us something else." Alternative versions. With the exception of "Grindhouse" and "Single Theatrical" versions of the movie, Rodriguez shot an alternative version where Tony Block did not accidentally shoot himself and survives throughout the film. The official theatrical version features a snippet of Tony on the beach after the end credits and snippets of scenes from this version appears on Rodriguez's "10 Minute Film School" feature on "Planet Terror" DVD. Rodriguez mentioned that this version is especially made for his son Rebel, and has shown Rebel the film with the happy ending rather than the version where he is dead. He also mentioned that Tony's death makes his "horror film... more horrifying in his way". Home release. "Planet Terror" was released on DVD on October 16, 2007 in a two-disc special edition featuring the extended version of the film presented in a "flat" 1.78:1 screen ratio (the theatrical version in "Grindhouse" was matted to 2.35:1), audio commentary with Rodriguez, an audience reaction track, several behind the scenes featurettes about casting and special effects, and a "10 Minute Film School" segment, in which Rodriguez confirmed that a box set of the two films will be available soon, and that his 10 Minute Cooking School on Texas BBQ will appear on it. The film was released on Blu-ray on December 16, 2008. This version ports over the features from the DVD special edition, and also includes a "scratch-free" version of the movie, which doesn't feature the aforementioned intentional "damaged" look to the print. However, all American home video releases of the film are the extended version only and do not include the theatrical cut. In mid-February 2009, Germany also released a steel box collector's edition for "Planet Terror" which comes with the famous BBQ sauce recipe and 2 scratch-and-sniff discs of the film which smell like the BBQ sauce. The pack also contains a limited edition "Planet Terror" blood pack. The "Grindhouse" double feature was released on Blu-ray Disc in October 2010.
591054	Bama Vijayam (; ) is a 1967 Tamil film directed by K. Balachander. It is a family story narrated as a full-length comedy. The film features an ensemble cast including Rajasree, T. S. Balaiah, Nagesh, Sowcar Janaki, Kanchana, Jayanthi, Major Sundarrajan, R. Muthuraman, Srikanth and Kumari Sachu. Music is by M. S. Viswanathan. Plot. A middle-class joint family is living happily run by the responsible father Ethiraj, a retired headmaster. He has three sons – Maheshwaran, Raman, and Krishnan. Maheswaran is a Hindi professor, married to Parvathy and they have 5 children. Raman, a clerk in high-court is married to Seetha and they have two children. Krishnan, a medical representative is married to Rukmani. Apart from them, Sumathi, the younger sister of Seetha also stays in the same house, as she is pursuing higher studies in the same city. Though it’s a joint family, the father has set up his three sons in three different portions in the same house, and takes turns to eat in each of his son’s house, to avoid any possibility of problems between them. The sons give their salaries to their father, and all the financial matters are dealt by him efficiently. He is respected and feared by everyone in the family. Wrong-doers in the house-hold are made to stand on a bench by him as punishment. Meanwhile, a popular film actress Bama moves into the bungalow next to their house. The three daughters-in-law & the sons meet her while they’re all in the terrace, and try to make friends with her. Bama is very polite, and accepts their invitation to come to their house on 16th of that month. Now, the three ladies in the house start making fuss about the condition of their house, saying that they do not have enough facilities in their house to show to Bama that there are well-off. The husbands try to convince them but they force their husbands to agree to whatever they ask. Eventually the men give in and start buying things for their own houses. They paint the house, get stuff like radio, fan, sofa, for their own portions. The father tries in vain to make everyone understand that they should live for themselves within their standards. They get all the things for the house – a few for rent, a few for installment, and also borrow money with a high interest rate. They even go to the extent of hiring a male servant to stay in the house. The ladies start arguing whose portion should Bama visit first when she comes to their house. Finally, Parvathy makes the other two ladies agree by showing a diamond necklace that she borrowed from her friend. They decide to pass the necklace through the windows so that Bama would think that everyone has diamond necklaces. On the day of Bama’s visit, Parvathy decides to lock three of her five children inside a room, so that Bama wouldn’t know that she is old enough to have 5 kids. Seetha sees this, and she decides to hide her spectacles, so that Bama wouldn't guess her age too. When Bama arrives, she goes to Seetha's portion first. Seetha has to go and get the diamond necklace from Parvathy. Meanwhile, Raman tells Bama about his and his bothers' jobs. When Seetha comes, she lies to Bama that Raman is an advocate in high court, to which both Bama and Raman look surprised. Bama asks Seetha what the time is, but Seetha can't see the time in her wrist watch without the spectacles. Parvathy sees this and laughs. Later when Bama goes to Parvathy's portion, Parvathy lies that her husband is college principal. When she tells that she has only two children, Seetha lets the other three kids out of the locked room. Bama thinks that the kids are orphans, and Parvathy who doesn't know English agrees that the kids are orphans. Seetha makes fun of this. Finally, when Bama arrives at Krishnan's part of the house, she gets a spectacular welcome with red carpet, flowers and her favourite drinks. They even take a few snaps with her. The ladies are amazed by Bama's simplicity like glass bangles, her politeness. Even then they don't take a cue, but they show-off too much in front of her. They keep meeting her for picnics in her shooting spots. Krishnan gets an installment car for the ladies to roam, Raman gets telephone connection through' his office citing his father's "illness", which the ladies use to talk to Bama everyday. The three men gradually get close to Bama, and this angers their wives. After a series of humorous incidents, the false news of Maheshwaran having an illegal contact with Bama is published in a newspaper, thus leading to more trouble. However after some time, the publisher apologizes it and decides to make it a denied rumour and all ends well for everyone. Soundtrack. Music is composed by M.S. Viswanathan, with lyrics by Kannadasan. Reception. "Bama Vijayam" was a huge success and was remade in Telugu, again directed by K. Balachandar. It was also remade in Hindi as "Teen Bahuraniyan" in 1968, with Sowcar Janaki, Kanchana and Jayanthi reprising their roles. In an interview with "The Hindu", Crazy Mohan said that "no attempt at comedy could ever match ‘Bama Vijayam'".
1065228	What Planet Are You From? is a 2000 science fiction comedy film starring Garry Shandling, Annette Bening, John Goodman, Greg Kinnear, Linda Fiorentino and Ben Kingsley. It was directed by Mike Nichols. Plot. A denizen (Garry Shandling) of a faraway planet occupied only by highly evolved males is ordered by his superior (Ben Kingsley) to find a female human, impregnate her and bring the baby back to the planet. The visitor to Earth ends up in Phoenix, Arizona, where he assumes the name Harold Anderson and takes a job in a bank. There he meets a womanizing co-worker (Greg Kinnear), who goes to Alcoholics Anonymous meetings strictly to meet women. Harold accompanies him to one and meets Susan (Annette Bening), a recovering alcoholic.
586119	Oru Pennum Randaanum (Translation: "A Woman and Two Men"; ) is a 2008 Malayalam feature film written and directed by Adoor Gopalakrishnan. The film has four separate chapters, each based on independent short stories written by Thakazhi Sivasankara Pillai. The film is about four crimes of different nature that happen in different contexts and situations. The setting is the Princely State of Travancore, South India in the 1940s. The Second World War being fought in Europe at that time had terrible impact on the colonial British India with increasing scarcity of basic commodities and rising unemployment. The stories in this film span from crimes committed by the deprived to the comparatively privileged landed gentry. Plot. The four chapters of the film tell stories, which are independent of each other. The only connection between them is the recurring theme of crime. With the flow of the movie, there is an increase in the complexity of the crimes.
520635	Virgilio Hilario (born August 11, 1976), better known by his stage name Jhong Hilario, is a Filipino actor and dancer. He is part of the dance group Streetboys in the Philippines. As an actor, Hilario has acted in movies such as "Muro Ami", released in 1999, in which he portrayed Butong; "D' Anothers" (2005), and "Dekada '70" (2002). Hilario started his career in 1993 as a member of the dance group Streetboys. He made his debut as an actor in 1996.
643266	John Cocke (May 30, 1925 – July 16, 2002) was an American computer scientist recognized for his large contribution to computer architecture and optimizing compiler design. He is considered by many to be "the father of RISC architecture." He attended Duke University, where he received his Bachelor's degree in Mechanical Engineering in 1946 and his Ph.D. in Mathematics in 1953. Cocke spent his entire career as an industrial researcher for IBM, from 1956 to 1992. Perhaps the project where his innovations were most noted was in the IBM 801 minicomputer, where his realization that matching the design of the architecture's instruction set to the relatively simple instructions actually emitted by compilers could allow high performance at a low cost. He is one of the inventors of the CYK algorithm (C for Cocke). He was also involved in the pioneering speech recognition and machine translation work at IBM in the 1970s and 1980s, and is credited by Frederick Jelinek with originating the idea of using a trigram language model for speech recognition. Cocke was appointed IBM Fellow in 1972. He won the Eckert-Mauchly Award in 1985, ACM Turing Award in 1987, the National Medal of Technology in 1991 and the National Medal of Science in 1994, The Franklin Institute's Certificate of Merit in 1996, the Seymour Cray Computer Science and Engineering Award in 1999, and the The Benjamin Franklin Medal in 2000.
1200324	Akiva D. "Kiv" Schaffer (born December 1, 1977) is an American writer for "Saturday Night Live", film director, songwriter, member of The Lonely Island and actor. Life and career. Schaffer was born in Berkeley, California to Jewish parents. He majored in film at University of California, Santa Cruz. Schaffer directed, co-wrote, and edited the majority of the SNL Digital Shorts. He was the director of '"Lazy Sunday", "I Just Had Sex", "Natalie's Rap", "Dick in a Box", "Peyton Manning for the United Way", "Iran So Far", "Jizz in My Pants", "Boombox", and sang with Samberg and T-Pain in "I'm on a Boat". He also sang in "The Creep" with Samberg and Taccone. He also sang in "Diaper Money" and part of the call-and-response in "We're Back!" On the Internet, Schaffer directed The Lonely Island's "The 'Bu", the group's record-breaking contribution to Channel 101, which was a parody of "The OC" and also starred Sarah Chalke ("Roseanne", "Scrubs") as Melissa, as well as Samberg and Taccone. Schaffer has also contributed to several other Channel 101 productions as part of The Lonely Island. Schaffer has directed four music videos for the band We Are Scientists and one for Eagles of Death Metal. Schaffer also directed and acted in the film "Hot Rod", starring Andy Samberg, Jorma Taccone, Bill Hader, Danny McBride, Isla Fisher, Ian McShane and Sissy Spacek, which was produced by SNL's Lorne Michaels. "Hot Rod" only earned 14 million dollars back of its 25 million dollar production budget during its entire theatrical run. Schaffer was on hiatus from "Saturday Night Live" from January until March to do prep work on "The Adventurer's Handbook" starring Jonah Hill, Jason Segel, and Jason Schwartzman. Hill and writing partner, Max Winkler, wrote the script. Schaffer was credited as an executive producer on the film "MacGruber". The film was co-written and directed by Jorma Taccone. Other songs include "Jack Sparrow" on The Lonely Island's second album, "Turtleneck & Chain". After co-writing the MTV Movie Awards for two years with his Lonely Island collaborators, Schaffer returned in 2009 to help co-produce the show which was hosted by Andy Samberg. His second feature film directorial project, "The Watch", was released on July 27, 2012. "The Watch" earned US$67.9 million during its theatrical run. He is married to comedy writer and actress Liz Cackowski, with whom he has two children. Awards. In 2007, Schaffer won an Emmy for his participation in the production of "Dick in a Box". He was nominated for an Emmy for the song "Motherlover." He was featured in "People"'s Sexiest Bachelor with Andy Samberg, as Sexiest Best Friends. He has also won two Writers Guild of America Award and a Peabody Award for his work on "Saturday Night Live". The Lonely Island was nominated in 2009 for a People's Choice Award and a Grammy Award.
587904	Nutan Prasad (12 December 1945 – 30 March 2011), born Tadinada Varaprasad, was a Tollywood actor. He started his film acting career in the early 1970s. Career. Nutan Prasad started his acting career with the play "Naa Votu" in Guntur He started acting in films with the movie "Andala Ramudu" starring Akkineni Nageshwara Rao in the year 1973. He continued his venture with movies like "Needaleni Aadadi", but he was first recognized in the movie "Muthyala Muggu" when he acted as a villain along with Rao Gopal Rao. His acting career reached its peak with the movie "Rajadhiraju" in which he acted as Satan. The movie became very popular due to his acting and the song "Kotta devudandi babu kotta devudandi", which is still popular today. Prasad, although he acted with all the generation of heroes, was particularly popular with the second generation heroes. Movies like "Patnam vachina pativratalu", "Khaidi" ("Village munsab"), "Magamaharaju", "Srivariki premalekha", "Kathanayakudu", and "Aha Naa Pellanta", all continued his winning streak. In 1989, while shooting for the film "Bamma Maata Bangaru Baata", he had an accident and broke his back. This left him paralysed from the waist down and he had to use a wheelchair. He then quit acting in movies. Once in a while he appeared in guest roles. He also did voiceover and commentary for serials and movies. He dubbed for late Gummadi Venkateswara Rao in "Aayanakiddaru" (1995) as the artiste had issues with his voice at that time. Later on, Nutan Prasad became the narrator of the hit crime reality show in ETV-2 "Neralu Ghoralu". He was quite appreciated by the Telugu TV audience for his part in Neralu Ghoralu. He died after prolonged illness at the age of 65 years on 30 March 2011 in Hyderabad. He is survived by a son (Nutan Kumar) and two daughters. Filmography. The partial filmography of Nutan Prasad is :
586057	Rajamanikyam (, is a 2005 Malayalam film, the directorial debut of Anwar Rasheed, written by T. A. Shahid, and starring Mammootty in the title role. The star cast included Rahman, Manoj K Jayan, Cochin Haneefa, Ranjith, Salim Kumar, Saikumar, Bheeman Raghu, Sindhu Menon, and Padmapriya. The music is composed by Alex Paul with lyrics by Gireesh Puthenchery. The film was produced by Siraj Valiyaveettil under the banner of Valiyaveettil Movie International. It tells the story of Bellary Raja; alias Rajamanikyam, a cattle baron who tries to unite his warring siblings. The film, upon release got extreme positive reviews and is one of the highest grossing movie in the history of Malayalam Cinema. Plot. In a village in Southern Kerala bordering Tamil Nadu lives a wealthy man named Raja Rathnam Pillai (Saikumar). Following the demise of his first wife, he marries Muthu Lakshmi Ammal so that the child from his marriage will not grow up without the love and care of a mother. Unknown to him, Muthu Lakshmi already has a son, whom she calls by the name Muthu. On the night of the wedding, Muthu knocks at the door of Raja Rathnam Pillai, demanding that he be shown his mother. Once Raja Rathnam comes to know the truth, he takes Muthu into his care, giving him love, affection and a new name, "Rajamanikyam". Muthu returns the favour duly, as when Raja Rathnam's son ends up killing one of the children of the village, he takes the blame and leaves the village. Several years later, Raja Rathnam's two grown-up children, Rajaselvam (Manoj K. Jayan) and Rani Rathnam (Sindhu Menon), start fighting for their father's wealth. Rajaselvam, aided by his childhood buddy Simon Nadar (Ranjith) also notches up a plot to frame his own father in a murder case. As a result, Raja Rathnam is arrested, but dies of a heart attack while being taken to prison. After his death the two siblings call the family lawyer to read out Raja Rathnam's will in public. But to their surprise, they find that control of all the assets of their father have been given to a cattle dealer in Bellary, known by the name of Bellary Raja (Mammootty). They fail to recognize that Bellary Raja is none other than Rajamanikyam. How Rajamanikyam returns to his home town to unite the warring siblings forms the rest of the story. During the course of the movie, Rajaselvam and Rani Rathnam tries to thwart Bellary Raja in order to regain control of their father's wealth. But Bellary Raja never falls for any of their attempts and he uses educated Raju(Rahman) to stabilize the assets of his stepfather and prevents it from getting into the hands of his siblings, thereby preserving it. Raja effectively uses the help of his thug friends to restore order in the establishment. Simon and Rajaselvam send a goon to kill Bellary from his blind side. However Bellary thwart the attempt, causing him minor wound. , Rajaselvam and Simon Nadar get into an argument. Simon Nadar, who wants to harm Rajaselvam, betrays him and he is held by one of his old trade partner, who demands a lot of money for the release of Rajaselvam. Rani, unknown to this, blame Rajamanikyam in order deny them their control on their father's wealth. Rajamanikyam comes to his rescue, pays the required amount of money to release Rajaselvam. He emotionally reveal that Bellary is non other than Rajaselvam's stepbrother and Rani's elder brother. Feeling regret to fulfill his father's wish to unite their family, He leave and prepare to go back. At night Rajaselvam, being drunk came to Bellary and apologize to him where both of them settle their old enmities. He ask Bellary not to leave them and reveal the truth behind their father's death. Towards the end of the movie, Rajaselvam and Simon Nadar get into an argument which turns into a fight. Selvam , beaten badly by Simon and his goons was about to be killed. However Bellary and his men came to rescue and fight off Simon.
1015906	Fat Choi Spirit () is a 2002 Hong Kong comedy film produced and directed by Johnnie To and Wai Ka-Fai, and starring Andy Lau, Gigi Leung, Louis Koo, Cherrie In and Lau Ching-Wan.
1056122	Debbie Rochon (born November 3, 1968 in Vancouver, British Columbia) is a Canadian B-movie actress and former stage performer, best known for her work in independent horror movies and counter-culture films. Biography. Rochon's early life was fraught with tragedy and misfortune. After her parents were deemed unfit to raise her, she was remanded to foster care at age 10. Shuttled from one foster home to the next, Rochon ran away to Vancouver. When she was 14 and still homeless, she was attacked and robbed by a homeless man, who assaulted her with a knife and slashed her on her upper right arm, leaving Rochon with a large vertical scar. In 1981, alerted to an open casting call by another homeless youth, Rochon was cast as a rock concert extra in "Ladies and Gentlemen, The Fabulous Stains". By age 17, she had saved up enough money to move to New York City. Rochon worked with off-off Broadway theater companies, performing in over 25 stage productions. She garnered her first printed review in "Back Stage" which read: "Debbie Rochon acquitted her self well as the cocaloony bird in Tennessee Williams' "The Gnadiges Fraulein."" Rochon focused on the cinema and worked on over two hundred independent features. The Hubcap Awards founder Joe Bob Briggs crowned Rochon runner-up Best Actress of the year in 1994 for her work on "Abducted II: The Reunion". In 1995 she was recognized for her work as the conniving television producer in "Broadcast Bombshells", winning the Barbarella Award. She was a featured guest player on Fox’s "New York Undercover". In 2002 Rochon was crowned Scream Queen of the Decade (1990–1999) by "Draculina" magazine, based on reader voting. She also received Best Psychette Award 2002 (Best Female Psycho in a Movie) for her work in . She has won over a dozen more awards for her film work. She is perhaps best known for her work with Troma Entertainment. First appearing as Edna Purlmutte for the satirical "The Troma System", she went on to appear in "Tromeo and Juliet", "Terror Firmer", "" and episodes of "Troma's Edge TV". In November 2006, Troma released "Debbie Rochon Confidential" featuring previously unreleased footage from Rochon's years working with Troma. In 2003, while working on an unreleased film in Tennessee, Rochon suffered an accident with a prop machete which resulted in the near-severing of the four fingers of her right hand. After extensive surgery and physical therapy, she has regained limited use of the hand. In 2004, Rochon won MicroCinemaFest's "Best Comedy Actress" award for her work in "Dr. Horror's Erotic House of Idiots". She also co-hosted the 2005 Village Halloween Parade with Dee Snider. The following year, she and Snider began broadcasting Fangoria Radio on Sirius Satellite Radio, a weekly talk show of horror movie news and reviews. The show ran from 2006 till 2010. She appears regularly at Fangoria's Weekend of Horrors conventions and others. In 2008 she appeared in new horror ventures, including the Michigan-made film "DOG", "Savaged", "The Colour from the Dark", "Psychosomatika", and "Beg". She can also be seen in the After Dark-released film "Mulberry Street", directed by Jim Mickle, which had a theatrical run as part of the Horrorfest series in 2007. Rochon resides in New York City and works for the horror magazines "Fangoria" "((Phantom of the Movies' Videoscope magazine))" and "((Tenebre Magazine))." One of the most critically acclaimed titles of Rochon's is the Italian-made H.P. Lovecraft-based film "Colour from the Dark", in which she plays the possessed wife of a farmer during the war-ravaged period 1943. She appeared in a 2009 documentary "". In 2009, Rochon starred as Alice in "Slime City Massacre", a follow-up to the cult film "Slime City", both directed by Gregory Lamberson. She presented the movie on the Premiere at 2010 Beloit International Film Festival on 18 February 2010. Rochon is featured in the 2008 novel "Bad Moon Rising" by Jonathan Maberry. She is one of several real-world horror celebrities who are in the fictional town of Pine Deep when monsters attack. Other celebrities include Tom Savini, Jim O'Rear, Brinke Stevens, Ken Foree, Stephen Susco, Joe Bob Briggs, James Gunn, and Mem Shannon. Rochon appeared in a new feature film by Sean Pomper Productions, "Killer Hoo Ha". On 11 December 2009 Brimstone and Sean Pomper were guests on Rochon's Fangoria Radio show and discussed the film. Rochon portrayed Madam Won Ton in the 2011 horror comedy film "Won Ton Baby!" by James Morgart. Debbie Rochon served as a model for the esteemed illustrator Dave Stevens and appears in his final work, a book titled Brush with Passion: The Art and Life of Dave Stevens. Model acting. Debbie Rochon has appeared on countless film-related magazine covers including:
1266369	Gabriel Over the White House is a 1933 American Pre-Code film starring Walter Huston that has been variously described as a "bizarre political fantasy" or a "comedy drama" that "is surprisingly socialist in tone (albeit veering toward National Socialism)" and which "posits a favorable view of fascism." The picture was directed by Gregory La Cava, produced by Walter Wanger and written by Carey Wilson based upon the novel "Rinehard" by Thomas Frederic Tweed, who did not receive screen credit, and received the financial backing and creative input of William Randolph Hearst.
1059303	Chiwetelu Umeadi "Chiwetel" Ejiofor, OBE ( ; born 10 July 1977) is a British actor. He has received numerous acting awards and nominations, including the 2006 BAFTA Awards Rising Star, three Golden Globe Awards' nominations, and the 2008 Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actor for his performance in "Othello". Early years. Ejiofor was born in London's Forest Gate, to Nigerian parents who belonged to the Igbo ethnic group. His father, Arinze, was a doctor, and his mother, Obiajulu, was a pharmacist. In 1988, when Ejiofor was 11, during a family trip to Nigeria for a wedding, he and his father were driving to Lagos after the celebrations when their car was involved in a head-on crash with a lorry. His father was killed, but Ejiofor survived. He was badly injured, and received the scars on his forehead. Ejiofor began acting in school plays at the age of thirteen at Dulwich College and joined the National Youth Theatre. He then got in to The London academy of music and dramatic art but had to leave after his first year, after getting a role in Steven Spielberg film Amistad. He played the title role in "Othello" at the Bloomsbury Theatre in September 1995, and again at the Theatre Royal, Glasgow in 1996 when he starred opposite Rachael Stirling, who played Desdemona. Career. Ejiofor made his film debut in the television film "Deadly Voyage" in 1996. He went on to become a stage actor in London. In Steven Spielberg's "Amistad", he gave support to Djimon Hounsou's Cinque as interpreter Ens. James Covey. In 1999, he appeared in the British film "". In 2000, he starred in "Blue/Orange" at the Royal National Theatre (Cottesloe stage), and later at the Duchess Theatre. That same year, his performance as Romeo in William Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet" was nominated for the Ian Charleson Award. Ejiofor was awarded the Jack Tinker Award for Most Promising Newcomer at the 2000 Critics' Circle Theatre Awards. For his performance in "Blue/Orange", he received the 2000 "London Evening Standard" Theatre Award for Outstanding Newcomer and a 2001 nomination for the Laurence Olivier Theatre Award Best Supporting Actor. Ejiofor had his first leading film role in 2002's "Dirty Pretty Things", for which he won a British Independent Film Award for best actor. In the following year, he was part of the ensemble cast of "Love Actually", starred in a BBC adaptation of Chaucer's "The Knight's Tale" and also starred in the BBC series "Trust". Also in 2003, he starred in the lead role of Augustus in the radio production of Rita Dove's poetic drama "The Darker Face of the Earth", which premiered on the BBC World Service on 23 August of that year, marking the International Day for the Remembrance of the Slave Trade and its Abolition. He starred alongside Hilary Swank in 2004's "Red Dust", portraying the fictional politician Alex Mpondo of post-apartheid South Africa. He played the central part of Prince Alamayou in Peter Spafford's radio play "I Was a Stranger", broadcast on BBC Radio 4 on 17 May 2004, and he played the god Dionysus, alongside Paul Scofield's Cadmus and Diana Rigg's Agave, in Andrew Rissik's play, "Dionysus", based upon Euripides' "Bacchae", also broadcast by the BBC. He also received acclaim for his performance as a complex antagonist The Operative in the 2005 film "Serenity". Ejiofor played a revolutionary in the 2006 film "Children of Men". His singing and acting performance in "Kinky Boots" received Golden Globe and British Independent Film Award nominations. He was also nominated for the 2006 BAFTA Rising Star Award, which recognises emerging British film talent. Ejiofor's performance in "" received a 2007 Golden Globe nomination for best actor in a mini-series or film made for TV. In 2007, Ejiofor starred opposite Don Cheadle in "Talk to Me", a film based on the true story of Ralph "Petey" Greene (played by Cheadle), an African-American radio personality in the 1960s and '70s. He performed on stage in "The Seagull" at the Royal Court Theatre from 18 January to 17 March 2007. Ejiofor is considered one of the leading candidates to play T'Challa/Black Panther in the proposed Black Panther film based on the Marvel comic books character. In 2007, Ejiofor reprised his role as Othello at the Donmar Warehouse, alongside Kelly Reilly as Desdemona, and Ewan McGregor as Iago. The production received favourable reviews, with particularly strong praise for Ejiofor. "Chiwetel Ejiofor produces one of the most memorable performances of Othello in recent years". He was awarded the Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actor for his performance. Ejiofor was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2008 Birthday Honours. In the same year, he made his directorial debut in the short film "Slapper", which he also wrote, based on an idea by editor/director Yusuf Pirhasan. Ejiofor appeared alongside John Cusack in the 2009 film "2012". The film went on to gross over $700 million, and is among the list of highest-grossing films of all time and placing 5th of top films of 2009. In 2013, Ejiofor appeared in the leading role in the BBC Two drama series "Dancing on the Edge", playing the part of band creator Louis Lester.
1712169	Born to Win is a 1971 black comedy film directed by Ivan Passer. Plot. The film follows Jay Jay (Segal), a former hair dresser who has become a drug addict. He lives his new life by doing deals for Vivian (Elizondo) from time to time. One day he meets Parm (Black), a free spirited girl. The two fall in love. Jay Jay's drug habit grows, and he soon resorts to robbery. On the threat of arrest, he works alongside two dirty policemen by becoming a narc, and reports on his former fellow junkies. Yet, as the movie continues, Jay Jay sinks deeper into turmoil with feelings of self-hatred. Reception. "Born to Win" received primarily mediocre reviews but many critics did make note that there was a form of brilliance within it. "Chicago Sun-Times" film critic Roger Ebert said of the film, "...a good-bad movie that doesn't always work but has some really brilliant scenes." Roger Greenspun of "New York Times" wrote, "...is only Passer's second movie, and it is a dreadful disappointment — but not without its reasons, and not, I think, without some honor."
1016362	Aces Go Places, (), also known in the United States as "Diamondfinger" or "Mad Mission 1", is a 1982 Hong Kong action/comedy film directed by Eric Tsang, and starring Sam Hui and Karl Maka. Plot. A suave, smooth burglar named King Kong tries to make up for his thieving ways by teaming up with an Albert 'Baldy' Au, a bumbling Taishanese police detective from the United States. Both work together to try to find a set of stolen diamonds; the diamonds are also being tracked by a European criminal known as 'White Gloves'. The two heroes are supervised by Superintendent Nancy Ho, who has a temper.
583438	Faasle is a 1985 Bollywood film produced and directed by Yash Chopra. The film stars Sunil Dutt, Rekha, Farooq Shaikh, Deepti Naval, Raj Kiran, Rohan Kapoor, Farha, Sushma Seth and Alok Nath. The film is the debut film for Rohan Kapoor son of singer Mahinder Kapoor and actress Farha, niece of Shabana Azmi. The films music is by Shiv-Hari.This film was panned by the critics for bad storyline and editing.
1169204	Maudie Prickett (October 25, 1914 – April 14, 1976) was an American film and television character actress. Career. Born in Portland, Oregon, Prickett often portrayed maids, busybodies, spinsters, and nosy neighbors. She made ten appearances as recurring character Rosie, a maid, in the 1960s NBC sit-com "Hazel" starring Shirley Booth, Don DeFore, Whitney Blake, and Bobby Buntrock. One of her most notable film appearances was as a maid at the Plaza Hotel in New York City named Elsie in Alfred Hitchcock's "North by Northwest" in 1959. Other television credits include nine appearances as Ms. Gordon on CBS's "The Jack Benny Program" and five appearances as various characters on ABC's "Bewitched". In 1959, she played a secretary, Miss Sanders, to the Howard McNear character, Wilbur Wilgus, on ABC sitcom, "The Donna Reed Show". Prickett played Alice MacAvity in 1954 in the NBC sitcom "It's a Great Life", featuring Frances Bavier. She guest-starred in the 1957-1958 NBC sitcom "Sally", starring Joan Caulfield, and on CBS's "Dennis the Menace", with Jay North. She appeared as a dentist's secretary in the episode "The Dentist" on another CBS sitcom, "Angel", starring Annie Fargé. Parley Baer played Dr. Mathews in the episode. Prickett appeared in 1962 in the short-lived ABC/Warner Brothers sitcom, "Room for One More", starring Andrew Duggan, and played a regular character in 1966 on the even more short-lived "Tammy Grimes Show". Prickett was cast in the 1950s westerns "The Adventures of Kit Carson" and "26 Men", true stories of the Arizona Rangers. She portrayed Miss Taisy, Lois Lane's nurse in the classic "Adventures of Superman" series starring George Reeves and Phyllis Coates.
582474	Ratna Pathak Shah (born 18 March 1963) is an Indian actress best known for her portrayal of Maya Sarabhai in Sarabhai vs Sarabhai and as a major supporting mother in Jaane Tu Ya Jaane Na and also in Golmaal 3. Early life. Ratna Pathak was born in Mumbai, India to Bollywood actress, Dina Pathak. She is the younger sister of actress Supriya Pathak. Pathak is an alumna of the National School of Drama, Delhi. Career. As well as appearing in many successful films, including "Mirch Masala", Ratna Pathak appeared as the wife in "The Perfect Murder". She also acted in the hit comedy sitcom Sarabhai vs Sarabhai. She has been acting in a number of high quality comedy serials on the Indian television. In July 2008 she appeared in the successful film Jaane Tu Ya Jaane Na as the mother of the protagonist. Naseeruddin Shah played her husband, as a deceased character who talks to her from a portrait. She has also acted in several Russian plays and as well as co-founding is an active member of "Motley Theatre Group". She appeared in the successful fim Golmaal 3 opposite Mithun Chakraborty. She was a part of the Padma Shri and Padma Bhushan Selecting Committee for 2012 Awards. Personal life. Ratna Pathak is married to Naseeruddin Shah. They have two sons Imaad Shah and Vivaan Shah. Naseeruddin Shah has a daughter, Heeba Shah, from his first marriage.
1063674	The Salton Sea is a 2002 American neo-noir crime thriller film directed by D. J. Caruso, and starring Val Kilmer and Vincent D'Onofrio. Filming was done in Mecca, California (Box Canyon and Painted Canyon) and the Salton Sea. Plot. While playing the trumpet in a burning room, the protagonist's voice is heard in narration. His story begins with him posing as "Danny Parker", a speed freak addicted to methamphetamine, who hangs out with friends while indulging in drugs. He also moonlights as an informant for two corrupt cops, Gus Morgan (Doug Hutchison) and Al Garcetti (Anthony LaPaglia). He is trying to set up a large meth score with notorious drug dealer Pooh Bear (D'Onofrio), an eccentric psychopath who lost his nose to excessive snorting of "Gack" (meth), while also attempting to set up a sting operation for Morgan and Garcetti. When he returns home, Danny sheds his clothes and his personality, and basks in his past life as trumpet player "Tom Van Allen". He reveals to an abused neighbor named Colette (Deborah Kara Unger) that he was once happily married, only to watch as his wife was gunned down by masked thieves during a stopover at the Salton Sea. When meeting with Pooh Bear, Danny becomes fearful of Pooh Bear's displays of bizarre homicidal behavior, so he tapes a gun to the bottom of a table.
1016061	The Twins Effect, also known as Vampire Effect in the United States, is a 2003 Hong Kong film directed by Dante Lam and Donnie Yen. The film was derived from Cantopop group Twins, starring both members Charlene Choi and Gillian Chung in the leading roles. Co-stars include Edison Chen and Ekin Cheng. Jackie Chan makes a special appearance in the film as well. Following its release on March 8, 2003, "The Twins Effect" was a box-office success in Hong Kong, became the highest grossing domestic film of the year. The film gained huge popularity, mainly from fans of Twins. Plot. An evil vampire duke seeks to kill and collect the blood of a royal family of European vampires in order to become all powerful. The last surviving member of the family, Prince Kazaf, flees to Hong Kong with his servant Prada. There, they are introduced by estate agent Momoko to live in an abandoned church. Vampire hunter Reeve is depressed after his partner Lila is killed by vampires. He decides to train Lila's younger sister, Gypsy, to inherit her sister's duty and fight the vampire duke. However, Reeve's own sister, Helen, sees Gypsy as a rival. At the same time, Kazaf meets Helen and falls in love with her, after which he intends to lead the life of a human being, but he is tracked down by the duke. Helen helps Kazaf and lets him hide in her home, where they are later discovered by Gypsy. Meanwhile, Reeve falls into the duke's trap while hunting vampires. Helen and Gypsy team up to save him. Alternate version. After its release in Hong Kong, the film was renamed to "Vampire Effect" and some sequences were slightly altered. The new version was released in the United States in DVD as well. The following are some differences between "Vampire Effect" and "The Twins Effect": DVD releases. There are five versions of DVD, along with VCD, released in Hong Kong.
1061156	Stephen Dorff (born July 29, 1973) is an American actor, known for portraying Stuart Sutcliffe in "Backbeat", Johnny Marco in Sofia Coppola's "Somewhere", and for his roles in "Blade", "Cecil B. DeMented", and "Space Truckers". Early life. Dorff was born in Atlanta, Georgia, the son of Nancy and Steve Dorff, who is a composer and music producer. and Dorff has stated that he was "kinda brought up half-Jewish". He was raised in Los Angeles, where his father worked, and began acting as a child, appearing in commercials for Kraft and Mattel. Dorff attended several private schools, and was expelled from five of them. Career. Dorff started acting in the late 1980s, landing only minor roles at first. He made guest appearances in television programs such as "Diff'rent Strokes", " Blossom", "Roseanne", "Married With Children". He appeared in the television movies "In Love and War", "I Know My First Name is Steven" and "What a Dummy". Dorff's first major film role was in "The Gate" (1987), a horror film about a boy who, along with a friend, discovers a hole in his back yard that is a gateway to Hell. In 1992 he starred in "The Power of One" opposite Sir John Gielgud and Daniel Craig. He is known for his part as the evil vampire Deacon Frost in the superhero horror film, "Blade (1998)". Dorff played Candy Darling in "I Shot Andy Warhol" (1996), a film about Valerie Solanas, the woman infamous for shooting pop-art icon Andy Warhol. In 1996, he starred in the movie "Space Truckers". He was one of the first actors to act in the first digitally downloadable movie, SightSound.com's "Quantum Project", also starring John Cleese. He played the protagonist, XIII, of a live action TV series of the comic/video game of "XIII". In 2004, Dorff starred in the music video for "Everytime" by Britney Spears, playing Spears' boyfriend. He appeared in the 2009 films "Public Enemies" and "Black Water Transit". He played Dale Massey in the 2003 thriller "Cold Creek Manor", alongside Dennis Quaid and Sharon Stone. Dorff recently starred in the drama "Somewhere", directed by Sofia Coppola. In an interview with The Chic Spy, he described what landing the role meant to him after the loss of his mother, "It almost felt like a savior, this movie, because I felt like it helped me … I was real empty inside so this was an incredible thing that made me smile.”
1015789	The Bride with White Hair is a 1993 Hong Kong film directed by Ronny Yu, starring Brigitte Lin and Leslie Cheung.
1748940	Plot. The short film is of a boy who lives and works on a farm. When going to sell vegetables at a market, his cart breaks down. Two strangers, a frog and a mole, offer him a strange seed in exchange for the vegetables. The boy accepts and finds the seed grows into a miniature planet. It continues growing as he tends to it, forming an atmosphere, weather systems and life. After being taken back to the city, he meets the strangers who sold the seed to him. They release the planet into a galaxy of similar planets where it will grow for years until becoming a true planet.
1016106	Seven Swords is a 2005 Hong Kong "wuxia" film produced and directed by Tsui Hark, starring Donnie Yen, Leon Lai, Charlie Yeung, Sun Honglei, Lu Yi and Kim So-yeon. The story is loosely adapted from the novel "Qijian Xia Tianshan" by Liang Yusheng. However, except for some characters' names, the film is completely unrelated to the novel. "Seven Swords" was used as the opening film to the 2005 Venice Film Festival and as a homage to Akira Kurosawa's "Seven Samurai" (1954). Plot. In the mid-17th century, the Manchus take over the sovereignty of China and establish the Qing Dynasty. While nationalistic sentiments start brewing within the "jianghu" (martial artists' community), the Qing government immediately imposes a ban forbidding the common people from practising martial arts. The warlord Fire-Wind sees the new law as an opportunity for himself to make a fortune and he offers to help the government execute the new rule. Greedy, cruel and immoral, Fire-Wind ravages northwest China with his army, killing thousands of fighters as well as innocent civilians. His next goal is to attack Martial Village, which houses a large number of martial artists. Fu Qingzhu, a retired executioner who served the government in the previous Ming Dynasty, feels an urge to stop Fire-Wind's brutality, and he sets forth to save Martial Village. He brings with him two young villagers, Han Zhibang and Wu Yuanying, to Mount Heaven to seek help from Master Shadow-Glow, a reclusive swordsman and sword-forger. Shadow-Glow allows his four students (Chu Zhaonan, Yang Yuncong, Xin Longzi and Mulang) to accompany the trio on their quest. He also gives each of them a special sword he forged, and the seven of them title themselves "Seven Swords". The Seven Swords return to Martial Village in the nick of time and succeed in defeating and driving away Fire-Wind's soldiers. In order to buy time for the villagers to prepare for an evacuation, the Seven Swords advance to Fire-Wind's base and cause damages by burning their barn and poisoning their horse. During the raid, Chu Zhaonan encounters Fire-Wind's Korean slave girl, Green Pearl, and brings her along as they make their escape. As the party makes its exodus, strange things start happening along the way. Their food and water supplies are mysteriously poisoned, and their trail is marked by signs leading the enemy to them. The Seven Swords realise that there is a spy among them and understand that they must eliminate him/her before Fire-Wind catches up. Green Pearl immediately becomes a suspect because she does not speak their language. The situation is further complicated by a romantic affair between Chu Zhaonan and Green Pearl. Once, Green Pearl leads Chu into a trap unintentionally and manages to escape despite suffering serious injuries. In a bid to save Green Pearl from a net cast by Fire Wind, Chu throws his sword into the air to free Green Pearl. In return, the sword is seized by Fire Wind and Chu is captured. Green Pearl manages to convey the message to the other swordsmen before she dies. The other six swordsmen travel to Fire-Wind's base and engage him in a fierce battle to rescue Chu Zhaonan. During the Swords' absence, the spy, Qiu Dongluo, set fire to the entrance to the cave to inform the Qing officials of the villagers' whereabouts and thus revealing his identity and begins killing the unsuspecting villagers systematically. He is discovered by the village chief's daughter, Liu Yufang, and eventually killed by her. However, Liu is traumatised by the experience and turns hysterical. Meanwhile, the Seven Swords defeat and slay Fire-Wind, forcing his army to retreat temporarily. The swordsmen return to the hideout, only to find that all the villagers have been killed, except for Liu Yufang and the children. Han Zhibang calms Liu down and decides to stay behind and protect the survivors. The Seven Swords realise that the only way to save the "jianghu" is to persuade the emperor to withdraw the Martial Arts Ban. Liu tells Han that she can take care of the survivors and Han rides away to join his comrades as they travel towards the capital city. Reception. "Seven Swords" received generally negative reviews. It holds a 27% "rotten" rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 15 reviews. Production. The film was the first of a planned six part film franchise. During the shooting of the ending finale fight, Donnie Yen accidentally injured Sun Honglei near the corner of his eye after mistakenly thinking that Sun was trained in martial arts. Sun was rushed from Xinjiang to a hospital in Beijing on the night of 7 December. Sun immediately returned to the set a day later, insisting on finishing his scenes, and his eyesight was not affected. Casting. The role of Chu Zhaonan was in fact offered to Korean actor Song Seung-heon with a reported pay of US$400,000 (It is unknown whether Donnie Yen was paid this amount for the role). Both Song Seung-heon and Leon Lai (who was given the role of Yang Yuncong due to his performance in "The Sword of Many Lovers" and Tsui Hark said that he was "hoping to see another side of him (Leon Lai)") trained in horseback riding and swordplay for their respective roles but Song dropped out near the start of the filming period in order to work on other projects. Yen was offered the role of Chu Chaonan after Song dropped out, and Yen, after "understanding the gravity" of the situation, took up the role without hesitation. Lu Yi has said once that he will never do a wuxia / martial arts project ever again but when he was offered the role of Han Zhibang he immediately took it up due to the all-star cast tied to the project and that he will probably never get another chance to work with such a strong cast ever again. The role of Prince Dokado was at first offered to Hu Jun but was turned down for some unknown reason, and was later offered to Wang Xueqi but he apparently also turned it down as well and it eventually went to Michael Wong. Li Yuan auditioned for a role as one of the Seven Swords and was even picked by Tsui Hark himself but owing to some commercial reasons, the role was given to a more prominent actor instead. Release. The production manager and scriptwriter of "Seven Swords", Cheung Chi-sing, revealed that the initial cut made by Angie Lam was four hours long. However, the distributors were worried that such a lengthy running time would limit screening arrangements and affect box office performance, so Tsui Hark re-edited it to two versions - 150 minutes and 120 minutes. Finding the 120 minutes version suffering from underdeveloped relationships, the investors opted for the 150 minutes (2.5 hours) version for the theatrical run. Sequel. Tsui Hark intended "Seven Swords" to be a hexalogy, however the prospects for the second instalment have not come to fruition. In 2008, Tsui was known to be still developing the script for the sequel in between production and/or direction of other projects; the actual release and production for the sequel had yet to officially be announced. It is believed that Tsui is completing scripts for both the second and third instalments of the film to complete the hexalogy in successive development and production. As of 2011, there has been no news of "Seven Swords" at all, and there is speculation that it would not be completed as planned. The last known news about the film was in its pre-production phase between 2007-2008, yet neither Tsui Hark nor anyone attached to the film made any statement of commitment to the planned hexalogy for about 3-4 years. While unconfirmed, it is believed the film has been stalled or quietly scrapped due to lack of interest in completing the story.
1074451	Ghost Cat, also released as "Mrs. Ashboro's Cat or The Cat That Came Back", is a 2003 Animal Planet television film starring Ellen Page and Nigel Bennett. It was directed by Don McBrearty and written by Larry Ketron. The film is based on the novel by Beverly Butler. The film is rated PG for "mild thematic elements and some peril". Plot. A widower (Ontkean) and his teen daughter (Page) move into a house that was once owned by the friendly Mrs. Ashboro and her pet cat, Margaret. Strange things begin happening, and it soon becomes clear that the ghost of Mrs. Ashboro's cat, who died on the same day as its owner, is haunting the house. But for what reason?
1017487	Once Upon a Time in China and America, also known as Once Upon a Time in China VI, is a 1997 Hong Kong martial arts action film co-written and produced by Tsui Hark and directed by Sammo Hung, who also worked on the film's fight choreography. The film is the sixth and final installment in the "Once Upon a Time in China" film series. It also saw the return of Jet Li as Chinese folk hero Wong Fei-hung, who was replaced by Vincent Zhao in the fourth and fifth films. Plot. Wong Fei-hung, Clubfoot and 13th Aunt cross the Pacific Ocean to America to visit Bucktooth So, who has opened a Po-chi-lam clinic there. While traveling by carriage through the wilderness, they pick up a friendly cowboy named Billy, who is almost dying of thirst. When the party stops to have lunch, a bunch of hostile Native Americans ambush them. Wong, Clubfoot and 13th Aunt escape unharmed but their carriage slides off a cliff and falls into a river. 13th Aunt and Clubfoot are rescued and taken to Bucktooth So's clinic. However, Wong hits his head on a rock and loses his memory as a consequence. He is saved by a Native American tribe. Back in town, the mayor makes oppressive rules with the intention of causing trouble for the Chinese people living there, while Billy tries to stop him. Meanwhile, the tribe that rescues Wong encounters a more powerful rival tribe. The rival leader, a fearsome warrior, injures Fierce Eagle (the chief's son) on Wong's side. However, to everyone's surprise, Wong defeats the rival leader and half of his men with his kung-fu, causing the rival tribe to flee in fear. Wong is eventually brought back to the town where his companions attempt to help him recall his past. When Wong finally regains his memory, he forgets everything that has happened during the period when he suffered from amnesia. In the meantime, the mayor is in debt and decides to hire a Mexican bandit to help him rob the bank, so that he can abscond the town with a ton of cash. The robbery is successful and the mayor frames the people in Po-chi-lam for it. Wong and the others are arrested and almost hanged. Just then, the Mexican bandit discovers that the mayor has paid him US$400,000 less, so he returns to town to claim his money. In the ensuing fight, the mayor is killed and Wong manages to capture the bandit to clear his name. At the end of the film, Billy is elected as the new mayor while Wong, 13th Aunt and Clubfoot return to China. Box office. Jet Li's return to the series - and, in all likelihood, the final installment of the franchise - opened on the weekend of Chinese New Year, and faced stiff competition from director hung's own film titled Mr. nice guy. Still, it grossed an excellent HK$30,268,415. Mandarin version. A sync-sound Mandarin soundtrack features a number of the Chinese actors speaking their own language (including Jet Li, Patrick Lung - Richard Ng speaks Cantonese however), whilst others are dubbed.
113259	Vanessa Madeline Angel (born 10 November 1966) is an English actress and former model. She played the role of Lisa on the television series "Weird Science". She is also known for her role as Claudia in the film "Kingpin". Early life. Vanessa Angel, who has said this is her birth name and not a stage name, was discovered by a model-management agent in a London cafe as a teenager. At 16, she was signed by Ford Models and moved to New York City. During her modelling stint, Angel appeared on the covers of "Vogue" and "Cosmopolitan". She was also contracted as the "Diet Pepsi" Girl. Career. Angel's first film role was in the 1985 American comedy, "Spies Like Us", in which she played a soldier in the Soviet Strategic Missile Forces who sleeps with Dan Aykroyd; she also appears in the accompanying Paul McCartney video. In 1990, she appeared in a small role in the film "King of New York". Angel continued to appear in films throughout the early 1990s. After a leading guest-spot on TV's "The Equalizer", she played the recurring roles of Megan on "Baywatch" and Detective Peggy Elliott on "Reasonable Doubts". She guest-starred in two episodes of "Melrose Place", playing what she described as "this crazy, drugged out, bisexual supermodel who kissed character played by Daphne Zuniga!" In 1994, she starred in the television series "Weird Science". The show ran for five seasons, ending in 1998. In 1995, Angel was cast in the role of Xena, a guest spot on "", but due to an illness was unable to take the role, which eventually went to Lucy Lawless. During the series run of "Weird Science", Angel landed the female lead in the Farrelly brothers film, "Kingpin". She played roles in "Kissing a Fool" with David Schwimmer, followed by a role in the 1999 film, "Made Men". In 2004, she appeared in "", as Scott Baio's wife. Angel has also had roles in the Sci-Fi Pictures Original telefilm "Sabretooth" (2002) and "The Perfect Score "(2004). In 2000, she guest starred in three episodes of the Sci-Fi Channel's "Stargate SG-1", playing Anise, a Tok'ra archaeologist/scientist whose host is named Freya. Her first appearance is in the season-four episode "Upgrades", and she appeared in the two following episodes, "Crossroads" and "Divide and Conquer". In 2005, Angel played herself in the season-two episode of "Entourage" entitled "I Love You Too". In 2007, she completed the independent film "Blind Ambition". and later appeared in the Farrellys' "Hall Pass". She played a guest role as Alison in the fifth season of "Californication". Angel started a clothing line in 2009, VANE LA.
585260	Panneer Pushpangal () is a 1981 Tamil film directed by Bharathi-Vasu about a high school romance set in a hills station school located in Ooty. Plot. "Panneer Pushpangal" is a love story between Suresh and Shantikrishna supported by their teacher Prathap Pothen. Remake. This film is a remake of "A Little Romance", a 1979 romantic comedy film starring Laurence Olivier with Thelonious Bernard and Diane Lane as the two young lovers. The film has been dubbed in Malayalam as "Panineer Pookkal" and was a success. Soundtrack. Lyrics by Gangai Amaran Production. A photographer friend of his dad's opined that Suresh could make it as a lead actor and with a portfolio, Suresh approached director C. V. Sridhar to feature in his films, but his effort went in vain. He then met director duo Santhana Bharathi and P. Vasu who decided to cast him their venture, "Panneer Pushpangal", while simultaneously he was cast in the lead role in Bharathiraja's "Alaigal Oivathillai" presenting him with a dilemma of which film to choose. He chose the former, but both films went on to becoming large commercial successes during the period.
582090	Wake Up Sid is a 2009 Bollywood coming of age film. It is directed by Ayan Mukerji, produced by Karan Johar's Dharma Productions, distributed by UTV Motion Pictures, and has visual effects by the Prime Focus Group. The film takes place in contemporary Bombay and tells the story of spoiled, careless rich-kid Sid Mehra (Ranbir Kapoor), a college student who is taught the meaning of life by Aisha (Konkona Sen Sharma), an aspiring writer from Calcutta. It was critically and commercially successful. Ranbir Kapoor won numerous awards for his performance. Plot. Siddharth "Sid" Mehra (Ranbir Kapoor) is the spoiled, carefree son of wealthy businessman Ram Mehra (Anupam Kher). A resident of Mumbai, his only interest is to have fun and spend his father's money. Thus, he spends little time at college and is not prepared for the final exams. His father, not being aware of this fact, tells Sid it is time to join his company, which Sid reluctantly does only after his father tempts him with the promise of a new car. Sid meets Ayesha (Konkona Sen Sharma), an aspiring writer. On their first meeting, they go out on a walk along the streets of Bombay. Sid shows her the city and takes her by the sea. They strike a chord instantly and a friendship ensues. Sid helps her to find and furnish her own apartment. She also lands a job with "Mumbai Beat", (based on "Time Out! Mumbai")[http://www.timeoutmumbai.net/film/film_details.asp?code=266&source=5] a hip magazine run by the handsome editor-in-chief Kabir (Rahul Khanna). On the eve of her 27th birthday, Ayesha invites Sid to her place. When Sid tentatively explores moving their relationship beyond friendship, he finds that Aisha perceives him as boyish and immature. Despite feeling hurt, he maintains his friendship with her. When the exam results come out, Sid finds that he failed. His failure leads to an intense family fight that ends with him moving out. With nowhere to go, Sid (who has never been on his own) asks Ayesha if he can stay with her. Ayesha is initially happy to have the company. Eventually, Sid's bad habits revive themselves, as he leaves her place a mess and throws tantrums. When she finds out he has not eaten all day, Ayesha is amused by the fact that Sid cannot cook and does not know how to feed himself. Over time, Sid learns that to care for himself, he has to begin cooking and cleaning. He also realizes he must work, and Ayesha helps him become a photography intern at the magazine she works for. Ayesha is ecstatic when Kabir selects her article for the magazine and asks her on a date. However, she realizes she does not have much in common with him. She then understands that she is in love with Sid. As Sid begins working, he finds meaning in life. He begins to see for the first time how his behavior has hurt his loved ones and that he needs to change his ways. After he is hired as full-time staff and receives his first paycheck, he confronts his father. They reconcile and Sid's father asks him to come home. Sid, who often feels a burden on Ayesha, tells her that he won't be dependent on her charity anymore and expects her to be thrilled. He doesn't realise that Ayesha has fallen in love with him and thus is furious to hear that he is leaving. His departure is a hostile one. When Sid returns home, he thinks constantly of Ayesha, though he does not consider that she might share his feelings, since she told him they can only be friends. When the latest issue of "Mumbai Beat" arrives, Sid reads Ayesha's column and is startled to discover that it is about her feelings for him. As it starts raining, he rushes to meet her at the same beach where they had gone the day they met. Sid expresses his love for her and the two embrace. Release. Box office. "Wake Up Sid" opened well in India and overseas markets. Its opening weekend gross was Rs 215 million (Rs 21.5 crore) of which the India gross stood at Rs 170 million (Rs 17 crore). It was number one in the box office during its first and second weeks, number four during its third week, and number three during its fourth week. In the United Kingdom, the film collected $165,934, while in the US, the collections stand at $717,977. By its fourth week, it grossed $348,351 in New Zealand and the United Kingdom. "Do Knot Disturb" also released during the same time, but "Wake Up Sid" got a larger portion of the audience. After grossing about Rs. 46.72 crore, the film was declared a hit. Critical reception. "Wake Up Sid" was well received by a number of critics. Subhash K. Jha (film critic and author of "The Essential Guide to Bollywood") gave "Wake Up Sid" a rave review stating that it is, "a triumph on many levels. It takes the protagonist's predictable but yet kinetic voyage into self-realization to a level where the languorous plot exudes a beam of light that cuts right across the radiant narrative [...] The most obtainable component of young Ayan Mukherjee's artless narrative is the remarkable rhythms of the ordinary and the unostentatious in the narrative. All the relationships in the plot are potentially predictable and cliched. Ayan takes the age-old dramatic conflicts of our commercial cinema into quiet supremely understated corridors." Rajeev Masand of CNN-IBN gave the film three out of five stars, stating that "Wake Up Sid", "has its heart in the right place and it marks the breakout of a bright, shining star who has come into his own so early in his acting career. Watch it, and be awestruck by Ranbir." Taran Adarsh of Bollywood Hungama gave the film four out of five stars as well as a "thumbs up" stating that it is "strongly recommended." Mayank Shekhar of the "Hindustan Times" gave it 3.5 out of four stars and states, ""Wake Up Sid" belongs to a sweet genre that, without doubt, flows on from Farhan Akhtar's "Dil Chahta Hai": part Hollywood; part Bollywood; mostly coming-of-age; subtly romantic; largely original; authentic in feel; light in weight; English in expression; Hindi in language." Avijit Ghosh of "The Times of India" gave it three and half out of four stars and suggests that, ""Wake Up Sid" becomes a sort of template of how GenNow navigate their lives: deal with their own little rebellions, find meaning to their own definitions of independence and handle their own set of mistakes. It feels good when the two friends finally meet in driving rain under the grey skies by the sea. Refreshing and heart-warming, "Wake Up Sid" really puts you in the mood for love." Noyon Jyoti Parasara of AOL India gave it three and half out of five stars and praised the director saying, "Ayan Mukerji arrives in style and manages to leave his own mark on the film despite having a producer like Karan Johar whose other productions always tend to have his stamp. "Wake Up Sid" really puts you in the mood for love." Joginder Tuteja of the Indo-Asian News Service (IANS) calls the film "flawless" and gave it three and a half stars. He states: "There are five things that make "Wake Up Sid" a delightful affair. It has a constant flow throughout; no over the top or understated drama; no ultra emotional strangulation of audiences; absolutely no yuppie cool dude act; and last but not the least, this is an original and refreshing story." Rachel Saltz of "The New York Times" argues that: "With no big production numbers (songs play over montage sequences), a quiet style and credible characters, "Wake Up Sid" is Bollywood in an indie mood, a film for people like Aisha and Sid: young and educated. It may not be as hip as "Bombay Beat", the magazine where the two work, but it shows that Mr. Mukherji is a director to watch." Controversy. On 2 October, Maharashtra Navnirman Sena supporters protested to halt the screening of "Wake Up Sid" in Mumbai and Pune. The MNS objected the use of the word "Bombay" instead of "Mumbai" in the movie. Awards. 2010: Filmfare Awards Soundtrack. The soundtrack has music composed by Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy with lyrics by Javed Akhtar. The music was released on 21 August 2009. One song in the film has been composed by Amit Trivedi who scored the background music for the film. Reception. The reactions towards the music were favorable. Chandrima Pal of Rediff gave the album a 3.5 stars, stating that, "the music sticks to the brief. It is hip, urban and bubbly, and unhurried. And thanks to Shankar Ehsaan Loy's musicianship, it is a slick, well-balanced production". Joginder Tuteja (Bollywood Hungama) gave it 3 stars out of possible 5, suggesting that, "this may not really turn out to be the best seller of the year but should certainly be a perfect fit for the narrative." Sequel. Rishi Kapoor and Ranbir Kapoor confirmed the possibility of a sequel to the film.
583509	Plot. When the Kalakar Theatre Company, a theatre group in Goa, attempts to stage a political drama, the local authorities close down the play and force them to perform a more traditional play, a stage version of "Mughal-E-Azam". The company then discovers that an underworld don is engineering a bomb blast to shake confidence in the Indian government. The drama company forms a plan to save the entire city from the blast. The actors, led by their producer Uday (Paresh Rawal), are assisted by RAW agent Arjun Rastogi (Rahul Bose) in their efforts to foil the bombing. Arjun falls in love with Uday's wife, Shabnam (Mallika Sherawat) who also becomes involved with an ISI agent (Kay Kay Menon). Performing multiple roles in disguise, the characters eventually save the entire nation from the bomb blast.
1060196	Nurse Betty is a 2000 American comedy film directed by Neil LaBute starring Renée Zellweger as a Kansas waitress who suffers a nervous breakdown after witnessing her husband's murder, and starts obsessively pursuing her favorite soap actor (Greg Kinnear). Morgan Freeman and Chris Rock play the hitmen who killed her husband and subsequently pursue her to Los Angeles. For her performance, Zellweger won the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy. Plot. In a small Kansas town, Betty (Renée Zellweger), a kind and considerate diner waitress, is a fan of the soap opera "A Reason to Love." She has no idea that her husband, Del (Aaron Eckhart), a car salesman, is having an affair with his secretary and that he intends to leave Betty to pursue a relationship with the secretary. She also doesn't know that her husband supplements his income by selling drugs out of the car dealership. When she calls to leave a message about borrowing a Buick LeSabre for her birthday, her husband tells Betty to take a different car, as the LeSabre (unknown to Betty) has stolen drugs hidden in the trunk. Two hitmen, Charlie and Wesley (Morgan Freeman and Chris Rock), show up at the house with Betty's husband. The hitmen torture Betty's husband into revealing that he has hidden the drugs in the trunk of a car, but Wesley wants to scalp him anyway. Betty witnesses the murder and experiences a fugue state, escaping the reality of murder into the comforting fantasy of the soap opera. In her mind, she assumes the identity of one of the characters in the daytime drama, a nurse. That evening, Sheriff Eldon Ballard (Pruitt Taylor Vince), local reporter (Crispin Glover), and several policemen examine the crime scene while Betty calmly packs a suitcase. She seems oblivious to the murder, even with the investigation going on right in her house. At the police station, a psychiatrist examines her. Betty spends the night at her friend's house, sleeping in a child's bedroom with the innocence of a little girl. In the middle of the night, she gets into her car and drives off. Betty's next stop is a bar in Arizona, where the lady bartender talks about her inspiring vacation in Rome, and Betty tells her that she was once engaged to a famous surgeon (describing the lead character from "A Reason to Love" – not the actor who portrays him, but the character himself). Meanwhile, the two hitmen are trying to find her, as they have finally realized that she must have the car with the drugs. As they search, Charlie begins falling in love with his image of Betty, to Wesley's consternation. In Los Angeles, Betty tries to get a job as a nurse while looking for her long-lost "ex-fiancé." She is turned down due to having "forgotten" her résumé and references but manages to get a job in the pharmacy due to her help in saving the life of the victim of a drive-by shooting. Despite an injunction against touching any patients, Betty becomes popular with them and their families. She ends up living with Rosa (Tia Texada), a Hispanic legal secretary who has had a series of painful love affairs and offers to help Betty find her surgeon friend. Rosa learns that "David" is just a soap opera character, and she goes to the pharmacy window to confront her. Betty thinks her friend is jealous and is impervious to the revelation. The lawyer has an idea and supplies tickets to a charity function where George McCord (Greg Kinnear), the actor portraying David, will be appearing. Betty meets George at the function. George is inclined to dismiss her as an over-imaginative fan, but something about her compels him to walk back and talk to her some more. He begins to think that Betty is an actress determined to get a part in the soap opera, so he decides to play along. After three hours of her "staying in character," he takes her home. George begins falling in love with her, and he and his producer decide to bring her onto the show as a new character: Nurse Betty. When Betty arrives on set, she falls out of her fantasy world back into real life, as seeing the inner workings of a television show snaps her back into reality. After two failed takes, she realizes that she is on a set and that the people she thought were real are just characters portrayed by actors. George confronts her for being a "crazy person," and Betty walks out. Now recovered, Betty begins to tell Rosa what happened when the two hitmen come into the house to decide what to do with them after they find the car with the drugs outside Rosa's house. The killers are in turn interrupted by the reporter and Sheriff Ballard from Betty's hometown who have also tracked her down. A standoff ensues in which Ballard pulls out a gun from an ankle holster and shoots and kills Wesley, who is distracted by watching a re-run airing of "A Reason to Love." At this point, Wesley is revealed to be Charlie's son. Charlie, rather than be arrested, decides not to kill Betty and commits suicide in the bathroom.
1055553	Human Traffic is a British independent film written and directed by Welsh filmmaker Justin Kerrigan. The film explores themes of coming of age, drug and club cultures, as well as relationships. It includes scenes provoking social commentary and the use of archive footage to provide political commentary. The plot of the film revolves around five twenty-something friends and their wider work and social circle, the latter devotees of the club scene, taking place over the course of a drug-fuelled weekend in Cardiff, Wales. A central feature is the avoidance of moralising about the impact of 1990s dance lifestyle; instead the film concentrates on recreating the "vibe, the venues and the mood" of the dance movement from the 1988-89 "second summer of love" to the film's release in 1999. In the first 25 minutes of the film Lee, the 17 year old brother of central character Nina, enthuses "I am about to be part of the chemical generation" and lists, using the slang of the period, a series of drugs that he might experiment with later that night. The film is narrated by one of the stars, John Simm, featuring numerous cameo appearances. It is also the film debut of Danny Dyer as well as referencing another drug culture film of the era, "Trainspotting". With an original budget of £340,000, the production eventually came in for £2,200,000; the film was a financial success, taking in £2,500,000 at the UK box office alone, also enjoying good VHS and DVD sales. "Human Traffic" was critically well-received with largely positive reviews, and has achieved cult status, especially amongst subcultures such as the rave culture. Problems between Kerrigan and producer Allan Niblo ensured that a sequel never materialized, and Niblo's 2004 DVD re-release of the film, "Human Traffic: Remixed", was not well received. Synopsis. The film is an ensemble piece in which the five protagonists plan, enjoy and come down from a weekend out in Cardiff; all motivated at least in part by the need for a weekend escape from the difficulties and contradictions of their daily lives. Jip, the male lead, is suffering from sexual anxiety brought on by a series of unsuccessful liaisons. Koop, Jip's best friend, is jealous of his girlfriend Nina's easygoing and popular nature. Nina is being sexually harassed in a job she had no choice but to take after having failed a college interview. Lulu, Jip's best female friend and "dropping partner", has suffered infidelity in her last 3 relationships. Moff, the newest member of the group having met Jip at a warehouse party after moving from London to Cardiff, is unemployed and scrapes a living as a small time dealer, despite his father being a senior policeman. The five friends become very close, take drugs such as cannabis, ecstasy and cocaine, and "live for the weekend". The film follows the exploits of the five friends as well as various characters they meet along the way. They go to pubs and clubs on Friday, taking along Nina's 17-year old brother Lee whose waning enthusiasm for his first drugs experience is played out in a cameo debate between Jip and a doctor. Jip gives up his ticket to Lulu, whom he has talked into coming out and is forced to talk his way into the club as the group are a ticket short. The club scene is then examined through a series of cameos including two attempts by older journalists to understand the club scene. The ensemble then joins a house party, where Lulu and Jip finally kiss and attempt unsuccessfully to make love; whereas the established couple, Koop and Nina, argue over Koop's perceptions about her behaviour. Later, the group finds out "what goes up must come down" as the effects of their drug use begin to hit home leaving them coping with feelings of illness and paranoia. They recover Lee from a group of younger partygoers he has spent the night with and make their way home. On returning home, some of the group's issues are resolved whilst some are thrown into sharper relief. Jip makes love to Lulu, overcoming his sexual paranoia. Koop and Nina's issues are set aside. Lee has made it through the weekend without any of his concerns being realised. Moff, however, is still caught up in the paranoia caused by his extensive drug use. He argues with his parents again and is seen walking alone around Cardiff looking dejected. However, Moff joins his friends for an end of the weekend drink and having raged about his difficulties with drugs is soon joking about his excesses with his friends. The film finishes with Jip and Lulu kissing in the street after the manner of classic Hollywood films. Production. Concept. 25 years old at the time, Welsh filmmaker Justin Kerrigan wrote the film along with producer Allan Niblo, Kerrigan's teacher and "mentor" at film school. Kerrigan wanted the film to be as realistic as possible in depicting young people's lives in contemporary Britain, as well as realistically portraying drug culture and club culture, both walks of life in which Kerrigan had experience in. Kerrigan based much of the film on his own exploits, and eventually took over in a director capacity. In an edition of UK gay lifestyle magazine "Attitude", actor Danny Dyer spoke about the film being partly inspired by the 1999 BBC television drama "Loved Up" (which also featured an early appearance from Lena Headley), and which had similar themes to the film. There were rumours that Kerrigan and producer Allan Niblo fell out during filming. Locations. Much of the film was shot in Cardiff, where the film also takes place. Nina's workplace, a fictionalised McDonalds, was filmed at UCI 12 Cinemas, Atlantic Wharf Leisure Village, Hemingway Road. The public house during the Friday night scene was shot at Gassy Jacks, Salisbury Road, Cathays, Cardiff. The Emporium nightclub on Cardiff High Street was used as the exterior of the fictional "Asylum" club, and Club X on Charles Street stood in as the interior. The Philharmonic public house on St Mary's Street is where the Sunday pub scene was filmed, and Jip and Lulu's Sunday night walk home was also filmed in St Mary's Street. Themes. Alienation. Inter-generation alienation is a significant theme of the film including being directly referenced in a pub scene in which the main, minor and bit players sing a revised version of the United Kingdom national anthem 38 minutes into the film. Many of the characters have family troubles which cause conflict with family members. Jip's mother is a prostitute; Koop's father lives in a fantasy world under residential psychiatric care since his wife left him. Moff still lives at home and is shown as being in continual tension with father and embarrassed when he is caught masturbating by his mother. The family relationships of the female leads are explored in less detail, although one scene portrays Lulu giving only limited details of her weekend to an uncle and aunt who are dressed as clergy. At least one contemporary review suggests that these relationships are not adequately explored in the film. Work and unemployment. The film is also indifferent to the work ethic. Jip works at a clothing retail outlet and is comedically represented as a 'wage slave'; particularly in a scene where he is shown being anally raped by his boss, who has a barcode on his forehead and forcibly covers Jip's mouth with a £20 note. Nina has similar misgivings about her job at a fast-food restaurant where all the employees are shown bodypopping robotically and she quits her work following sexual harassment. Moff argues with his father about preferring to be unemployed whilst Lulu is shown not enjoying her college experience. Drugs and the counter culture. All the characters identify strongly with the 1990s counter-culture: all are drug users to a greater or lesser extent; Jip idolises Bill Hicks; Koop dreams of being a DJ; Moff's bedroom is festooned with anti-establishment posters. Lulu gives an extended speech about her individuality whilst Nina revels in becoming unemployed. Jip concludes his narration by saying "We're all fucked up in our own way, y'know, but we're all doing it together. We're freestylin' on the buckle wheel of life, trapped in a world of internal dialogue. Like Bill Hicks said: 'It's an insane world, but I'm proud to be part of it.'" Although there is significant dialogue about drug use contained in the film (specifically MDMA (ecstasy), marijuana, and one sarcastic discussion about heroin and crack cocaine), the only drug use by main characters is a scene where Jip and Koop are having an intimate conversation at a house party and they are seen cutting up a line of white powder. They are never actually shown snorting it, but nonchalantly rub it into their gums during a discussion. Later at the same party Nina and Lulu are seen sharing a spliff on a balcony and Ernie, one of the protagonist's in Howard Marks' monologue 'Spliff Politics' is also seen smoking a large spliff. Reception. The film generated mixed reviews, garnering 59% positive reviews on Rotten Tomatoes. Film critic Colm Keaveny proclaimed this film to be Danny Dyer's "finest hour", and Irish critic James Murphy called Dyer's performance "truly remarkable". The film garnered 11 international awards and was nominated for a BAFTA. Leonard Maltin gave the film two and a half stars, describing it as "a writer’s film if there ever was one". Soundtrack. An important part of this film is the soundtrack; which includes some of the most famous contemporary dance music producers. These include Armand Van Helden, CJ Bolland, Fatboy Slim, Jacknife Lee, Pete Heller, Ferry Corsten, Carl Cox, Dillinja, Felix Da Housecat, Orbital, Aphrodite, Death in Vegas, Primal Scream, Liquid Child, Underworld, Age of Love, Energy 52, Brainbug and Lucid. "Human Traffic: Remixed". In 21 October 2002 distributors VCI announced the DVD release of "Human Traffic: Remixed", promising a "modernised" soundtrack with new contemporary (2002) tracks, previously cut scenes, and "state-of-the-art CGI effects." On 18 October "The Guardian" revealed that rather than being a "director's cut", it was the work of producer Allan Niblo, Kerrigan's tutor and "mentor" at film school. In fact Kerrigan only learnt about the project two weeks before the release was due. He explained: "I joke about it. How I signed over the copyright (to Niblo) for a pound and then never even saw the pound. When I finished I was £25,000 in debt. I've never made a penny from the film. Legally I don't have a leg to stand on, but I signed the contract because I was very naive and very broke. Now I'm just broke." No longer able to afford living in London, where he had moved after the film's release, Kerrigan was preparing to return to his native Cardiff. Although shot on a budget of £340,000 and UK box office taking of £2.5 million, Niblo maintained that the film had not made a profit, stating: "the investment is still unrecouped." John Simm was highly critical of the new release, describing it as "cynical exploitation" and complained of Niblo's attempts to get him to appear in a sequel when he had only been paid a nominal fee for the first film. Simm said that he only appeared in "Human Traffic" because of Kerrigan's involvement. American version. The version of the film released in the United States was heavily edited to remove certain British cultural references and terminology that it was presumably felt American audiences would be unable to identify with or understand. These are mostly in the form of re-dubbed dialogue, such as Jip saying that he and Lulu "recently became dropping partners" being changed to "clubbing partners"; Nina's speech to the journalists in which she says she is looking forward to getting into some "hardcore Richard and Judy" becoming "hardcore "Jerry Springer""; and Jip's allusion to "Only Fools and Horses" with "he who dares, Rodders," being rendered as "he who dares wins".
1183975	Angie Stone (born Angela Laverne Brown; December 19, 1961) is an American R&B and soul singer-songwriter, record producer, and occasional actress. She has been nominated for three Grammy Awards. She has been most successful on the R&B charts, with four Top 10 albums, including a number one album, and ten singles, including a Top 10. She has sold over 1.4 millions albums in the U.S. and over 5 millions albums worldwide. Personal life. Stone was born in Columbia, South Carolina, where she began singing gospel music at First Nazareth Baptist Church, under the leadership of Reverend Blakely N. Scott. She has a daughter and son. Her daughter Diamond (born 1984) is from her marriage to Rodney Stone (also known as Lil' Rodney C!, from the hip hop group Funky Four Plus One). Diamond contributed background vocals to her 2007 song "Baby". Diamond and gave birth to Stone's grandson in 2008; and another grandbaby in July 2012. During the 1990s Stone dated neo soul singer D'Angelo. Their son Michael was born in 1998. Stone lives in Atlanta, Georgia with Michael and fiancé Ashanti Graves, an airline auditor who has two children of his own. Musical career. In the early 1980s, Stone (then known as Angie B.) was a member of The Sequence, a female hip hop/funk trio consisting of Cheryl The Pearl and Blondie. They were the second rap group signed to the Sugar Hill Record Label after auditioning for Sylvia Robinson backstage at a Sugar Hill Gang concert in South Carolina. They had a hit in 1980 with "Funk You Up", which reached number fifteen on the U.S. Top Black Singles chart, and a minor hit with "Monster Jam" featuring rapper Spoonie Gee. The Sequence enjoyed a series of rap hits as the first female rap group during the early years of Hip Hop. Such hits as "Funky Sound (Tear The Roof Off)" kept The Sequence touring with many of the Soul Bands of the day. She then worked with Mantronix, before singing background on Lenny Kravitz's fifth studio album, "5". The Sequence faded into obscurity as Hip Hop changed from its original party sound to a more gritty street art form. Stone emerged during the 1990s as part of the R&B trio Vertical Hold which released the popular single "Seems You're Much Too Busy" as well as two albums: "A Matter of Time" (1993) and "Head First" (1995). In 1996, she teamed up with Gerry DeVeaux (Lenny Kravitz's cousin) and together with Charlie Mole they formed Devox. They recorded one album, "Devox Featuring Angie B. Stone". Released in Japan by Toshiba EMI and selected cuts featured on Gerry DeVeaux's "Front Of The line" via the UK Expansion Records, which also included Stone-penned material. Stone shared songwriting credits on D'Angelo's first two studio albums, "Brown Sugar" (1995) and "Voodoo" (2000), as well as providing backing vocals on tour with him. Her solo debut album, "Black Diamond", was released on September 28, 1999 on Arista Records; the album would eventually be certified gold by the RIAA. She has since also released, on Clive Davis' J Records, "Mahogany Soul" on October 16, 2001 (which also went gold), and "Stone Love" on July 6, 2004. Much of Stone's solo material has significant soul influences and features notable samples. For example, her first solo single, "No More Rain (In This Cloud)" samples Gladys Knight & the Pips' 1972 song "Neither One of Us (Wants to Be the First to Say Goodbye)", while "Wish I Didn't Miss You" samples The O'Jays' 1972 song "Back Stabbers". Stone sings the theme song for the UPN/The CW's sitcom "Girlfriends". During an interview to BBC 1Xtra on August 27, 2006, Stone announced that she had signed to the reworked Stax Records. Her fourth studio album |- "The Art of Love & War" was released on October 15, 2007. The lead single is "Baby" and features Betty Wright. Its music video features cameo appearances by comedian Mike Epps and "America's Next Top Model, Cycle 3" winner Eva Pigford. The song was nominated for Best R&B Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals at the 2008 Grammy Awards. Angie released her fifth studio album titled ""Unexpected"" in the UK on February 8, 2010 on Stax Records. Speaking to noted UK R&B writer Pete Lewis of the award-winning Blues & Soul in January 2010, she explained her ideas behind 'Unexpected': "Being as I've delivered four decent albums already, I felt it was safe to switch up and do something different this time. And musically overall I just wanted to have FUN! I wanted to do something that embodied a jam kinda feel, so that we could have some fun in concert and show people everything doesn't always have to be so serious." Tours. Stone recently finished a stand-up theatre play tour entitled "Issues: We've Got Them All" in which she had a leading role. She appeared on the VH1's reality television series "Celebrity Fit Club" for the fourth season, which began on August 6, 2006. While on the show, Stone lost eighteen pounds, the second lowest loss in the history of the show. Stone has had various Summer Festival dates lined up across America and also three headlining American shows in June and another two in the Netherlands in August. Stone toured with "Sisters in the Spirit" in 2007; toured in Europe in May/June 2008; toured on various Summer Festivals in the U.S. in summer 2008 (including three headlining June shows); and two in the Netherlands in August 2008. Angie Stone appeared at London's Indigo2 (at The O2) on 23 July 2012.
1043891	Coral Browne (23 July 1913 – 29 May 1991) was an Australian-American stage and screen actress. Career. Coral Edith Brown was the only daughter of a restaurant owner. She and her two brothers were raised in Footscray, a suburb of Melbourne, where she studied at the National Gallery Art School. Her amateur debut was as "Gloria" in Shaw's "You Never Can Tell", directed by Frank Clewlow. Gregan McMahon snapped her up for her professional debut as "Margaret Orme" in "Loyalties" at Melbourne's Comedy Theatre on 2 May 1931 (she was still billed as "Brown", the "e" being added in 1936), aged 17. At the age of 21, with just £50 and an introduction to famed actress Marie Tempest from Gregan McMahon, she emigrated to England where she became established as a stage actress, notably as leading lady to Jack Buchanan in Frederick Lonsdale's "The Last of Mrs Cheyney", W Somerset Maugham's "Lady Frederick" and Alan Melville's "Castle in the Air". She was a regular performer in productions at The Savoy Theatre and was resident in the hotel for many years, including throughout World War II. When the original British touring production of "The Man Who Came To Dinner" ran into financial difficulty and could not be produced in London, Browne borrowed money from her dentist and bought the rights to the play, successfully staging it at The Savoy Theatre in London. She received royalties from the play from all future productions. She began film acting in 1936, with her more famous roles being Vera Charles in "Auntie Mame" (1958), Mercy Croft in "The Killing of Sister George" (1968), and Lady Claire Gurney in "The Ruling Class" (1972). In 1969, Browne appeared in the poorly received original production of Joe Orton's controversial farce "What the Butler Saw" in the West End at the Queen's Theatre with Sir Ralph Richardson, Stanley Baxter, and Hayward Morse. While touring the Soviet Union in a Shakespeare Memorial Theatre (later the Royal Shakespeare Company) production of "Hamlet" in 1958, she met spy Guy Burgess. This meeting became the basis of Alan Bennett's script for the television movie "An Englishman Abroad" (1983) in which Browne played herself, apparently including some of her conversations with Burgess. Burgess who had found solace in his exile by continually playing the music of Jack Buchanan, asked Browne if she had known him. "I suppose so", the actress replied, "we nearly got married". Her other notable film of this period, "Dreamchild" (1986) concerned the author Lewis Carroll. In the film, Browne gave an affecting account of the later life of Alice Liddell who had inspired the tale "Alice in Wonderland". Personal life. Browne married actor Philip Pearman in 1950 and remained married to him until his death in 1964. While making the film, "Theatre of Blood" (1973), she met actor Vincent Price; they married on 24 October 1974. They appeared together in the short-lived 1979 CBS TV series, "Time Express". She became a naturalized United States citizen in 1987 as a gift to Price who later converted to Catholicism for her (she had converted many years previously). Browne died on 29 May 1991 in Los Angeles, California, from breast cancer; she was 77. She had no children from her marriages. Awards. Browne was awarded the BAFTA Television Award for Best Actress in 1984 for her role in "An Englishman Abroad". She later received the London Evening Standard British Film Awards for Best Actress in 1986 for "Dreamchild". In 1976, the Los Angeles Theatre Critics named her Best Actress for her role in "Travesties", at the Mark Taper Forum, Los Angeles. Personality. Browne's outrageous razor wit was renowned, and endless anecdotes of her circulated in theatrical circles. At the first night of Peter Brook's production of "Oedipus" during which a giant golden phallus was unveiled onstage meeting stunned theatrical silence, Browne, centre stalls, turned to her companion and apparently surreptitiously, but in a skilled stage whisper reverberating throughout the house, projected confidentially to her companion, Charles Gray's ear, " . . No-one we know !" Theatre critic Ned Sherrin was once asked to meet a young friend of his parents who was visiting London from South Africa and took him to a restaurant. Browne was at a nearby table. As she left she greeted Ned and then, looking at the very good-looking young man, said "Had the trip wires out at Waterloo again have we darling?" Station receives the trains from Southampton, the port of entry for most overseas visitors to Britain. When told by the Royal Shakespeare Company that there was no suitable role in their upcoming production of "King Lear" for her husband, Philip Pearman, she demanded a script and running through it she found the page she was looking for. "There you are", she said, "the perfect part. A small camp near Dover." Browne's language was colourful, and an unauthorized biography of her, "This Effing Lady", was published. She was a devout Catholic (by conversion). The two aspects came together in a story of her standing outside Brompton Oratory after Sunday mass when an actor came up to her with gossip about who was sleeping with someone else's wife. She stopped him in his tracks with: "I don't want to hear this filth. Not with me standing here in a state of fucking grace." The younger Australian performer Barry Humphries paid tribute to Browne at her memorial service with an appropriate poem: "She left behind an emptiness/A gap, a void, a trough/The world is quite a good deal less/Since Coral Browne fucked off."
582100	Rahul Khanna () is an Indian actor. Early life and background. Khanna was born and raised in Mumbai. His father is Bollywood matinee idol & politician, Vinod Khanna, his mother is ex-model Gitanjali Taleyarkhan and his younger brother is Bollywood actor, Akshaye Khanna. Khanna studied at the Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute and the School of Visual Arts in New York City. Career. Khanna began his career as a VJ (video jockey) with MTV Asia in 1994. Throughout his 4-year stint he enjoyed immense popularity, an enormous fan following across Asia and consistently glowing media coverage. Film. He made his feature film debut in Deepa Mehta's "1947 Earth", alongside Aamir Khan . His performance garnered him several awards including the Filmfare Best Male Debut Award for Best Debut. He has since also appeared in Mehta's "Bollywood/Hollywood" (2003).
1236300	Brian Goodman is an American film and television director, writer, and actor. Brief background. At 12, Goodman quit school and started living on the streets. He sold drugs, married young, and served time in prison for his criminal activity. It was not until he saw Brian's Song that Goodman made a decision to become an actor. However, when Goodman came out of prison, he would steal from drug dealers. After deciding what he was going to do with his life, he went on an audition for a low-budget film called Southie with Donnie Walhberg. Goodman also began writing. In 2008, Goodman co-wrote (with Donnie Wahlberg) and directed the Ethan Hawke/Mark Ruffalo film What Doesn't Kill You. Goodman has also had recurring and guest-starring roles in a number of different films and television series, including all thirteen episodes of Line of Fire (as Donovan Stubbin) and three episodes of Lost as Ryan Pryce. Some of his other appearances include 2001 film The Last Castle, 2006 film , two episodes of 24 and a recurring role on the first two seasons of Rizzoli & Isles. His recurring role on "Rizzoli & Isles" lead to him becoming a main cast member starting with the season 3 premiere.
135036	Bradford Tatum is an American actor, known for his role as Michael Hubbs in the cult favorite stoner film, "The Stoned Age" (1994). He also played the bully, John Box in controversial director Victor Salva's "Powder" (1995). In 1999, Bradford wrote, directed, and starred in the indie film "Standing on Fishes". Bradford is married to actress Stacy Haiduk, whom he guest starred with in the "seaQuest DSV" episode "Nothing But the Truth". In 2006, Tatum released indie film "Salt: A Fatal Attraction", which he wrote, produced and starred in. This film also featured his wife, Stacy Haiduk, and daughter, Sophia Tatum.
1060323	Anthony Charles Edwards (born July 19, 1962) is an American actor and director. He has appeared in various movies and television shows, including "Fast Times at Ridgemont High", "Top Gun", "Zodiac", "Miracle Mile", "Revenge of the Nerds", "Northern Exposure", and "ER". Early life. Edwards was born in Santa Barbara, California, the son of Erika Kem (née Weber), an artist/landscape painter, and Peter Edwards, an architect. He has two older sisters, Heidi and Ann-Marie, and two older brothers, Peter and Jeffrey. Edwards was encouraged by his parents to attend college before pursuing his interest in acting. He received a scholarship to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts in England and studied theatre at University of Southern California but by the age of nineteen was being offered enough acting work to enable him to leave college. Career. Edwards's early work includes a co-starring role in the TV series "It Takes Two" with Richard Crenna and Patty Duke Astin as his parents and Helen Hunt as his sister. He made an cameo in the hit 1982 film "Fast Times at Ridgemont High" as "Stoner Bud." In 1984, He starred in the hit comedy film "Revenge of the Nerds" playing the main role of Gilbert Lowe, a sensitive and well meaning nerd, Lewis' (played by Robert Carradine) best friend and would later be president of the tri-lambs. He reprised the role of Gilbert again in the sequel ' (1987), with his character in an broken leg after ""Playing a game of chess."" In 2000, his character, Gilbert would appear in footage from "Revenge of the Nerds" in the TV documentary '.
1174783	Charlie Dore (born 1956, Pinner, Middlesex) is an English singer-songwriter and actress. Although best known as a singer-songwriter, Dore has a multi-faceted career that includes acting in film, TV and radio, comedy-improvisation and composition for film and TV. She studied drama at the Arts Educational School, Tring and London. Early years. Dore worked for two years in repertory in Newcastle at the Tyneside Theatre Company, starting in the touring company, Stagecoach, where she performed in theatres, schools, streets, a psychiatric hospital, Oxford University and the Swan Hunter shipyard canteen. She later progressed to the more conventional auditorium, where she appeared in several shows directed by Michael Bogdanov, including a rock musical version of the Bacchae, "Orgy" by C.P. Taylor, "Oh, What a Lovely War!" and Joe Orton's "What the Butler Saw". Moving back to London she worked in fringe theatre and then joined Thames TV's long-running series "Rainbow" for 18 months, writing and performing songs with Julian Littman, whom she had met at drama school, and Karl Johnson, an actor-musician from the Tyneside Theatre Company. A friend, blues guitarist Sam Mitchell, asked her to deputise for him at Obelisk, a Westbourne Grove pancake house where he played at on Monday nights. Dore co-opted Julian Littman and Karl Johnson to help pad out the long sets required and the band grew, eventually including Karl's brother Stuart Johnson on banjo and dobro, and various guests on fiddle, mandolin and guitar. This was the basis of her first band, Hula Valley. The band played a selection of bluegrass, western swing and hillbilly music as Dore was yet to start her own songwriting. As the band grew and changed shape and name, from Prairie Oyster to Fresh Oyster to Charlie Dore's Back Pocket, original material started to flow and the band played the London pub and club circuit, regularly appearing at The Hope & Anchor, The Half Moon, Dingwalls and the Rock Garden. During this period the band personnel was still changing and included, among others, Charlie Gaisford, Ian McCann, Keith Nelson, Gus York, Garrick Dewar and Pick Withers on drums, who was also playing with the early Dire Straits. First album. She was spotted by Island Records and signed to a solo recording and publishing deal by Chris Blackwell in 1978, later that year being flown to Nashville, Tennessee to work with producer Audie Ashworth at his Crazy Mama's studio. Dore continued to work with Littman, her guitarist and co-writer and the first album, "Where To Now", featured many of the Nashville A team, including Charlie McCoy, Reggie Young, Sonny Curtis and David Briggs. Island employed Joe Boyd to re-mix the album, but thought the album 'too country' and drafted in the British record producers Alan Tarney and Bruce Welch to re-record several tracks, including "Fear of Flying" and "Pilot of the Airwaves". The latter went on to become an enduring radio favourite, reaching #13 on the US Billboard Hot 100, earning Dore the "Record World" New Female Artist of the Year, an ASCAP award and charting in Canada, Australia and Europe. Although an airplay hit, the single only reached only number 66 on the UK Singles Chart, and Dore left Island for a deal with Chrysalis Records. Chrysalis teamed Dore with the record producer, Glyn Johns, but the company were not happy with the result, and Dore was flown to Los Angeles to re-record the entire album with producer Stewart Levine. On 5 November 1990, "Pilot of the Airwaves" was the final track played by Radio Caroline as an unlicensed offshore radio station. Second album. The second album, "Listen" featured most of Toto as the studio band and although Dore remained a fan of both producer and band, she is well documented as saying that the re-making of the album represented an identity crisis for her as both a writer and performer. She toured with her UK band throughout 1981 and 1982, representing the UK in Tokyo at the Yamaha Song Festival and won the Silver prize at the Seoul Song Festival with her song "Sister Revenge". Actress. In 1983 she starred opposite Jonathan Pryce and Tim Curry In Richard Eyre's film, "The Ploughman's Lunch" and during the 1980s more acting work followed, including leading roles in "Hard Cases" and "A Killing on the Exchange" for ITV, "South of the Border" for BBC and two productions, "Whistle Stop" and "The Big Sweep" with People Show, the UK's longest running fringe theatre group. Dore also appeared in Eric Idle's comedy for BBC radio, "Behind The Crease", directed by Harry Thompson. This was a second collaboration, the first being a duet with Idle, "Harry", which Idle had written and performed with Dore as a jokey birthday present for his friend Harry Nilsson. Nilsson surprised Idle by including the original recording on his 1980 "Flash Harry" album. Songwriter. During this time she started to have success as a writer for other artists, initially scoring a US number 4 with "Strut", co-written with Littman for Sheena Easton and going on to have her songs recorded by artists including Tina Turner, George Harrison, Celine Dion, Paul Carrack, Ricky Ross, Worlds Apart, and Jimmy Nail, for whom she co-wrote "Ain't No Doubt", a UK number 1. Comedy. In 1990, she co-founded comedy-improvisation troupe, Dogs On Holiday, which hosted and performed at its own Soho venue, The Hurricane Club. The club, which ran for six years on Saturday nights with a mixture of improvisation and stand-up, played regular host to the emerging careers of comedians such as Mark Lamarr, Harry Hill and Jo Brand and also enjoyed a guest visit from Robin Williams, who joined the team onstage for the an evening of improvisation. Solo album. In 1995 Dore ventured back into the recording studio to record her own album, "Things Change" (Black Ink/Grapevine), which included the original version of "Refuse To Dance", featuring actor Alan Rickman (this song was later covered by Celine Dion on her multi-platinum album "The Color of My Love"). The album also included "Time Goes By", which was remixed by Italian team Souled Out and produced a European dance hit, reaching number 6 in Italy and number 1 in Israel. Recent career. Over the next decade she continued to produce hits for artists including the German pop idols No Angels, Lisa Stansfield, Hayley Westenra, Status Quo and a second track for Celine Dion, "Rain, Tax (It's Inevitable)", co-written with another long-standing collaborator, Terry Britten, which appeared on the multi-platinum selling "A New Day Has Come" album. Between 2001 and 2003, Dore and Littman provided the score for two series of BBC drama, "Two Thousand Acres of Sky". and also a film, "Roman Road" (Zenith 2004). During this time she also collaborated with Simon Rogers, one half of underground dance group Slacker, to produce "Space County", a collection of ambient country music. In 2005, Dore released "Sleep All Day and Other Stories", a return to her acoustic country-folk roots, followed by "Cuckoo Hill" in 2006. Both albums won her excellent reviews, as well as the International Acoustic Music Awards Grand Prize for the song, "Looking for My Own Lone Ranger". ""File under treasure"", wrote Charlie Gillett in "The Observer" 's Music Magazine. In 2008, Dore won Overall Grand Prize as well as Best Folk Award at the 4th Annual International Acoustic Music Awards. 2009 saw the release of "The Hula Valley Songbook", a collection of American hillbilly, western swing and popular favourites of the 1930s, based around the set list performed by her first band and originally recorded by artists such as Jimmie Rodgers, Al Bowlly and Milton Brown. Dore toured the UK with her band, Littman, Dudley Phillips, Steve Simpson and Jake Walker, collectively known as the Hula Valley Orchestra, also opening for Jools Holland and his Rhythm & Blues Orchestra for several of his summer concerts. In October 2009: Dore's cover of "Here Comes the Sun", a Hawaiian reggae version produced with Littman, was included in "Mojo" magazine's tribute album, "Abbey Road Revisited". It was the biggest selling edition of the magazine to date. In April 2011, Dore released "Cheapskate Lullabyes", which included an unplugged rendition of "I'm Cleaning Out My House" from her previous album, "The Hula Valley Songbook". It was released on CD and digitally through iTunes.
1201325	Disco Godfather (also known as The Avenging Disco Godfather) is a 1979 action film starring Rudy Ray Moore and Carol Speed, directed by J. Robert Wagoner and released by Transvue Pictures. Commonly considered a blaxploitation film, the plot centers on Moore's character, a retired cop, who owns and operates a disco and tries to shut down the local angel dust dealer after his nephew (played by Julius Carry) gets "whacked out" on the drug. The Disco Godfather's trademark phrase is his encouragement of the disco patrons to "Put your weight on it, put your weight on it, put your weight on it!". The film also served as the debut of Keith David, who has an unbilled bit part as a patron in the nightclub, as well as the afore-mentioned Carry.
358492	Paul Frees (June 22, 1920 – November 2, 1986) was an American voice actor and character actor.
592199	Pancharangi (Kannada: ಪಂಚರಂಗಿ) is a 2010 Indian Kannada language romantic comedy film with philosophical overtones directed and produced by Yograj Bhat starring Diganth and Nidhi Subbaiah in the lead roles. The music has been composed by Mano Murthy, story and screenplay is written by Pawan Kumar. The film was predominantly shot in the coastal locales of Karnataka state. It is a story that unfolds in a span of two days and tackles issues like education, love, profession, marriage, family, life and relationships in a "fun and non-preachy way." As a film with minimal budget under Bhat's maiden home production, it fared well at the box-office. The popular song "Lifeu Ishtene" was a runaway success and it was used as the title of Pawan Kumar's debut film. Plot. A family goes to a village near Mangalore to finalize a bride for the elder son, Lucky, played by Pavan Kumar. Lucky is a US-based software professional, and is a teetotaler, always abiding by the pressure and demands of his parents, so much to the fact that he does not have the courage to speak out that he already has a girlfriend. Bharath Kumar, the youngest son, the character played by Diganth, is a carefree individual with weird ideas on life. Bharath meets a tomboyish girl, Ambika, who is the house-owner's niece, and they begin to mingle well due to the nature of their personalities. However, following a few unusual twists and turns, the alliance is called off and the groom's family members walk out due to embarrassment. Ambika, who has now developed a strong feeling of love towards Bharath, goes ahead and confronts him. And finally, Bharath too says yes. Production. The film was shot mostly in the coastal areas of Karnataka, especially in the villages Ucchila, Kaapu in the Udupi district. St Mary's Island near Malpe was used for song picturisation, with some additional scenes in Bangalore. This was the fourth time Diganth has been cast as the main protagonist of the movie in a Yogaraj Bhat film. In addition to Diganth and Nidhi, the rest of the cast is the standard esemble of Anant Nag, Padmaja Rao, Sudha Belavadi and Raju Talikote, accompanied by senior artists such as Nagendra Shah. Pawan Kumar, who has worked with Bhat on the story and screenplay of the movie, plays a supporting role himself. Critical reception. Although the movie was mentioned in the circles as a typical Yograj Bhat movie, the film went on to become a box office success garnering significant returns in its first week itself. The "Lifeuu Ishtene" song from the movie describing the stark realities of middle-class urban life was the highlight of the movie, and has already spawned several mock versions in Kannada. The success of the movie has bolstered the career opportunities of Diganth and Nidhi and it completed 50 days. Rediff review summed it up calling it a good family entertainer. Availability of high quality pirated DVDs with English subtitles within 50 days of the film's release dented the gross collection of the film. Soundtrack. The audio of the movie was released on 14 August 2010 by Sonu Nigam, Puneeth Rajkumar in the presence of cast and crew of the movie. The music for the movie is scored by Mano Murthy, who has scored for many of the earlier movies of Yogaraj Bhat.
1015899	Lam Suet () is a Hong Kong actor. Biography. Lam was born in Tianjin, and came to Hong Kong as a youth in 1979 to receive inheritance money left by his grandfather. Soon after all the money had been squandered and Lam had to work various odd jobs to make a living. In the mid-eighties he got employment on movie sets through the help of friends. He has done different roles, from lighting and props to stage manager and set and script supervisor. Lam gradually developed an interest in acting and by his own account, pestered various directors until they relented and gave him tiny roles. There are two pivotal persons in Lam's acting career. The first is Stephen Chow, who befriended him in his early days as a crew member and cast him in movies like "The God of Cookery" (1996) and "Kung Fu Hustle". The second person is director Johnnie To. Lam has been in over 80 films since 1996 and at least 20 of those have been directed or produced by To. Known for his weight and size, his roles are often as a bumbling secondary character providing comic relief from the most intense nature of To's films. He is perhaps most famous for his various supporting roles in To's films, notably as the bumbling taxi driver Yip in the award winning film "Breaking News" (2004). The most notable To-Lam collaborations include "The Mission", which garnered Lam Best Supporting Actor nominations at the Hong Kong Film Awards and the Golden Horse Award, and "PTU". Lam was nominated for a Golden Horse Award for Best Supporting Actor and took home the Golden Bauhinia Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role in "PTU". He has also had interesting roles in movies like "Wu yen" (2001), as the effeminate Prime Minister, and in "Diva - Ah Hey" (2003), in which he played Charlene Choi's loving and supportive father. Lam has been married for almost a decade. His wife is 10 years his junior and is from the same hometown.
1110465	Remember the Daze is a 2007 drama film released in theaters in April 2008. The film was directed by Jess Manafort. The plot of the movie has been described as "a glimpse into the teenage wasteland of suburbia 1999 that takes place over 24-hours, and the teenagers who make their way through the last day of high school in the last year of the past millennium." The film is very similar to another coming-of-age film titled "Dazed and Confused". The film has been selected as one of the eight films competing in the Narrative Competition at the 2007 Los Angeles Film Festival which took place June 21-July 1. This was the world premiere of the film. In February 2008, the movie's title was changed from "The Beautiful Ordinary". It was released in two theaters in LA, one in New York and one in Washington, D.C. on April 11, 2008 and was released on DVD on June 3, 2008. The movie was filmed primarily in Wilmington, North Carolina during May 2006. Plot. The film takes place in a small suburban town in North Carolina in 1999. It's the last day of school and kids just want to have fun. That, at least, is the plan. Critical reception. The film received generally mixed to negative reviews from critics. As of April 11, 2008, the review aggregator Metacritic reported the film had an average score of 39 out of 100, based on 4 reviews.
709938	Supergator is a 2007 horror film from Roger Corman starring Brad Johnson and Kelly McGillis. The music was by Damon Ebner. Background. After Corman produced "Dinocroc" in 2004, he wanted to create a sequel to be named "Dinocroc 2". However, Sci-Fi Channel turned down the project after claiming that sequels did not do well for them. Corman decided to go ahead with the project, but under the name "Supergator". Plot. Professor Scott Kimsy is an American geologist monitoring a local volcano when the Supergator, a Deinosuchus recreated from fossilized, preserved DNA escapes from a secret bio-engineering research center/laboratory. Along the way, it eats many people, including two lovers, three drunken teens, three models, two tourists and a fisherman. It also eats Alexandra Stevens and Ryan Houston.
1166451	Jill Banner (November 8, 1946 – August 7, 1982) was an American film actress, possibly best recalled for her role as Virginia, the "spider baby" in the 1964 cult horror-comedy film "Spider Baby". She also had roles as James Coburn's flower child friend in "The President's Analyst" (1967), and a couple of hippie girls in Jack Webb's television series, "Dragnet". Early life. Jill Banner was born Mary Molumby in Bremerton, Washington. After her father's death in 1949, Molumby and her mother lived in South Dakota and Iowa, near several of their Irish relatives, finally ending up in the Los Angeles suburb of Glendale. She studied at the Hollywood Professional School, a K-12 school for working professional children run by Maurice and Bertha Mann, where classes typically ran from 8:45 AM to 12:45 PM, allowing the students the afternoon off to pursue various jobs or performing careers. The school assemblies, called "Aud. Calls", were early showcases for the talents of students aspiring to be dancers, singers, and actors. She graduated in 1964.
584563	Rajavin Parvaiyile (; ) is a 1995 Tamil film directed by Janaki Soundar starring Vijay and Indraja in the lead roles, with Ajith Kumar appearing in a supporting role. The film, which featured music composed by Ilaiyaraaja, was released in August 1995. Plot. Vijay is the son of a poor and his only aim in life is to study to get a good job. Meanwhile the daughter of the richest man of the village falls in love with Vijay. But he keeps shunning her and getting away from her. She decides to know the reason of his behaviour. Vijay narrates a flash back story of his friend's (Ajith) unsuccessful love story with Gayathri and ended up committing suicide after his lover's marriage. So he hates love. Vijay later he falls in love with a girl, meanwhile issues of class arise in the village, but finally Vijay and his lover overcome all the issues and unite together. Production. The film notably featured Ajith Kumar and Vijay together at an early stage of their careers, with the pair later going on to become two leading actors in the Tamil film industry. The film was made at a time when Ajith Kumar was yet to deliver a full fledged successful film, while Vijay appeared in primarily his father's productions. Music. The music composed by Ilaiyaraaja. The lyrics were written by Vaali, Muthulingham, Kamakodiyan.
1072381	Godzilla vs. Gigan, (released in Japan as is a 1972 Japanese Science Fiction Kaiju film produced by Toho. Directed by Jun Fukuda with special effects by Teruyoshi Nakano, the film starred Hiroshi Ishikawa, Yuriko Hishimi and Minoru Takashima. The 12th film of the Godzilla series, this film featured the return of Godzilla's greatest foe King Ghidorah. Producer Tomoyuki Tanaka was displeased with the previous film, Godzilla vs Hedorah, and wanted to return the series to the more traditional route of well known monsters and an alien invasion plot. This was the last film in which Godzilla was portrayed by Haruo Nakajima who had played the character since the first film in 1954. The film received a limited theatrical release in the United States in 1978 by Cinema Shares as Godzilla on Monster Island. Plot. Giant insectoid aliens from a dying planet in "Space Hunter Nebula-M" plot to colonize the Earth. The aliens assume the forms of dead humans and work as the development staff of the peace-themed theme park, World Children's Land, the centerpiece of which is "Godzilla Tower". The Nebula-M aliens plan to use the space monsters Gigan and King Ghidorah, guided by two "Action Signal Tapes," to wipe out human civilization.
1270707	Robert Earl Jones (February 3, 1910 – September 7, 2006) was an American actor. One of the first prominent black film stars, he was best known for his leading roles in films such as "Lying Lips" (1939) and later in his career for supporting roles in blockbusters such as "The Sting" (1973) and "The Cotton Club" (1984). He is the father of actor James Earl Jones. Biography. Early life. Born in Mississippi, the specific location of his birth is unclear as some sources indicate Senatobia, while others suggest nearby Coldwater. Additionally, his date of birth has been variously reported by different sources as between 1900 and 1911. The most likely date is 1910 as reported by the United States Social Security Administration. Career. Jones had to leave school to become a sharecropper, and later he became a prizefighter before making his way, via Chicago, to New York City and a career on stage and in film. Under the name "Battling Bill Stovall", he was a sparring partner of Joe Louis. Altogether Jones appeared in more than twenty films, including "The Cotton Club" (1984) and "The Sting" (1973). Jones was a living link with the Harlem renaissance of the 1920s and 1930s, having worked with Langston Hughes early in his career. In New York in the 1930s Jones worked with young people on the Works Progress Administration, the largest New Deal agency, through which he met Langston Hughes, who cast him in his 1938 play, "Don't You Want to Be Free?" Jones told the New York Times in 1974:
1059846	Deborah "Debi" Mazar ( or ; born August 13, 1964) is an American actress, perhaps best known for her "Jersey Girl"-type roles; as sharp-tongued women in independent films; and for her recurring role as press agent Shauna Roberts on the HBO series "Entourage." Early life. Mazar was born in Jamaica, Queens, New York, the daughter of Nancy and Harry Mazar. Her father was born in the Latvian SSR, Soviet Union, from a Jewish family, but raised in the Roman Catholic Church. She had no knowledge of her heritage until her twenties. Her mother was raised a Roman Catholic, briefly converted to Judaism, then became a Buddhist, and later joined Jehovah's Witnesses until she was disfellowshipped for taking a blood transfusion. Career. Mazar began her career as a hip hop b-girl in New York City. Her first television appearance was on the pilot for a hip hop television dance show, "Graffiti Rock" in 1984. She appeared in five of Madonna's music videos -– "Papa Don't Preach," "True Blue" (both 1986), "Justify My Love" (1990), "Deeper and Deeper" (1992) and "Music" (2000). Mazar has played a number of minor-yet-colorful supporting roles in a variety of films, including Sandy, a friend of Henry Hill's mistress. "Goodfellas" (1990); "The Doors" (1991); "Bullets Over Broadway" (1994); and as Spice (of Sugar and Spice, with Drew Barrymore as Sugar) in "Batman Forever" (1995). She gained her first real following from playing a character on "Civil Wars" in the early 1990s. When that series was cancelled her character was brought over as a recurring role between 1993 and 1994 season of the TV drama "L.A. Law". She played the villain Regina in the family film "Beethoven's 2nd" (1993). She has appeared in independent films "Inside Monkey Zetterland" and "Nowhere" and her short-lived sitcom, "Temporarily Yours". She also appeared as the genie in the Space Monkeys' music video, "Sugarcane". Mazar appeared on a "Friends" episode in its eighth season ("The One Where Rachel Has a Baby, Part One"). Mazar played "Doreen, the Evil Bitch," a crazed pregnant woman who shares a hospital room with Rachel. From 2000 to 2002 she played Jackie on the television drama "That's Life". She also provided the voice of Maria Latore in the video games "Grand Theft Auto III" (2001) and "" (2004). From 2004 to 2011, She had a supporting role on "Entourage" as press agent Shauna Roberts. She also had a recurring role on the sitcom "Living with Fran", playing Fran Drescher's character's cousin, Merrill. She did a two-episode stint on the television series "Ugly Betty", where she played Leah Stillman, a scam artist who claims to be a lawyer.
394096	A Tale of Two Sisters (; lit. "Rose Flower, Red Lotus") is a 2003 South Korean psychological horror film written and directed by Kim Ji-woon. The film is inspired by a Joseon Dynasty folktale entitled "Janghwa Hongryeon jeon", which has been adapted to film several times. The plot focuses on two sisters who, after returning home from a psychiatric hospital, experience increasingly disturbing events involving both them and their stepmother. "A Tale of Two Sisters" opened to very positive critical review and won Best Picture at the 2004 Fantasporto Film Festival. It is both the highest-grossing Korean horror film and the first to be screened in American theatres. An American remake titled "The Uninvited" was released in 2009. Plot. A teenage girl named Su-mi is being brought to a psychiatrist. Although the psychiatrist attempts to elicit a response from her, she is unresponsive until a picture of her family is shown in front of her. She is taken home by her father, Moo-hyeon, along with her timid sister, Su-yeon. There, they are met by their difficult stepmother, Eun-joo. During their stay, both sisters encounter a ghostly woman at night. Additionally, tensions grow worse between the sisters and their stepmother especially after bruises are discovered on Su-yeon's arms, oblivious to Moo-hyeon. Later, at a dinner party, a guest and relative convulses from a condition she has. The guest, while convulsing, notices the same ghost woman under the kitchen sink the sisters have been seeing. Eun-joo also notices the woman the next day and insists to Moo-hyeon that strange events have become frequent since Su-mi and Su-yeon returned. Her pet bird is killed and found in Su-yeon's bed. Thoughtlessly and in a fit of rage, she locks Su-yeon in the wardrobe, and after Su-yeon is freed, Moo-hyeon asks Su-mi why she is making trouble. Su-mi insists that the stepmother harasses Su-yeon, locking her in the closet. Moo-hyeon informs her that Su-yeon is dead, and that she is not getting better.
1070037	Virginia Anna Adelaide Weidler (March 21, 1927 – July 1, 1968) was an American child actress, popular in Hollywood films during the 1930s and 1940s. Early life and career. Virginia Weidler made her first film appearance in 1933. Over the next few years, she was cast in minor roles for RKO and Paramount Pictures. Neither studio made more extensive use of her and when Paramount did not extend her contract, she was signed by MGM in 1938. Her first film for MGM was with their leading male star Mickey Rooney in "Love Is a Headache" (1938). The film was a success and Weidler was now cast in larger roles, most often as precocious tom-boys. She was one of the all-female cast of the 1939 film "The Women", as Norma Shearer's daughter. Her next major success was "The Philadelphia Story" (1940) in which she played Dinah Lord, the witty younger sister of Tracy Lord (Katharine Hepburn). As a teenager she was less popular with audiences. After a string of box-office disappointments, her film career ended with the 1943 film "Best Foot Forward". At her retirement by age 17, she had appeared in more than forty films, and had acted with some of the biggest stars of the day, including Clark Gable and Myrna Loy in "Too Hot to Handle", Bette Davis in "All This and Heaven Too" and Judy Garland in "Babes on Broadway". Family. On March 27, 1947, Weidler married Lionel Krisel. They had two sons, Ronnie and Gary. Ron is a commercial photographer. Gary had a long career with Disney that began in 1972. He moved up in executive positions, notably as the initial President of Disney Television Animation, a division created in 1984. Her older brother, saxophonist George Weidler, (1926–1989) was married to Doris Day from March 1946 to May 1949. Prior to her birth, Weidler's German-born father, Alfred Weidler, (1886–1966) had been an architect in Hamburg, Germany, but moved the family to Los Angeles in 1923 and went on to become a model builder with 20th Century Fox. Her mother, Margaret "(née" Meyer), had been an opera signer in Germany under the stage name Margaret Louise Therese. One of her brothers-in-law, William Krisel (born 1925), is an influential modernist architect in Southern California. Death. Weidler refused to be interviewed for the remainder of her life, living in private. She remained married to Krisel until her death on July 1, 1968, when she suffered a heart attack in Los Angeles at age 41.
1048036	Szamanka (, "The Shaman") is a Polish-French-Swiss film, released in 1996, directed by Andrzej Żuławski and adapted from a screenplay by Manuela Gretkowska. The film, which was controversial upon its release in Poland, is about the obsessive relationship between an anthropology professor and a disturbed woman only known as the "Italian". The name of the film comes from the mummified shaman that is studied by the professor. Plot. In Warsaw, a student only known as the "Italian" (Polish: "Włoszka", played by Iwona Petry) is on the search for an apartment. The Italian, who is beautiful and a free spirit, is originally from the countryside. During her search she meets anthropology professor Michał (Bogusław Linda), who is renting her an apartment that was occupied by his brother. The business is concluded by a violent sex scene between the two in the empty apartment. Michał is engaged with Anna (Agnieszka Wagner), an architect and daughter of his director. During excavations with his students and his younger colleague Juliuz (Paweł Deląg) he finds the well-conserved body of a shaman more than two thousand years old. In the laboratory they try to determine the cause of the shaman's death, which does not seem to be natural. The life of Michał is turned upside down by the discovery of the shaman's body and his increasingly obsessive love affair with the Italian. For the Italian, he breaks with his fiancée Anna and his friends. He tries to tame the Italian, but she resists his domination, always unforeseeable and rebellious. In the laboratory, during one moment of illumination, Michał comes into contact with the spirit of the shaman. He reveals to him that he was killed by a woman who wanted to capture his magic power. Michał, who finally regards himself as free and lucid breaks up with the Italian. She does not accept his decision, and bludgeons Michał to death and eats his brain. Production. The screenplay had been written by Manuela Gretkowska, a Polish writer and feminist. The screenplay had initially been rejected by Polish Television due to its controversial content. The production was then financed by "Canal + Polska", "Visa Films", the French "Compagnie des Films" and several private investors. Actor Iwona Petry was chosen by Director Żuławski after he met her accidentally in a cafe in Warsaw. Petry, who at this time was a sociology student, had no previous acting experience. Although there were rumors in the Polish press that Żuławski used voodoo to improve the performance of Petry, she was in fact trained by French coach Harmel Sbraire, who had previously worked with Juliette Binoche. Bogusław Linda was chosen for the role of Michał because of his star status in Poland. Żuławski and Linda had a difficult relationship on the set and the two were even bitterly commenting on each other in the Polish press. Nevertheless, after completion of the film Żuławski called Linda a "charismatic actor". The soundtrack was written by composer Andrzej Korzyński, who had also written the soundtrack for Żuławski's previous films "Possession", "The Silver Globe" and "My Nights Are More Beautiful Than Your Days". The soundtrack is an electronic score and relies on two main themes. The first main theme, "Szamanka" is used primarily in mood transition scenes. The second main theme "Zdrowas Mario" is used first in the sex scene between the "Italian" and Michał. The film was shot both in Warsaw and Kraków. In Warsaw shooting took place at the Central Station, in the Praga Północ district and in the main administration building of the Polish railway PKP. In Kraków the film was shot at the Central Station and the University of Science and Technology. Responses. The film generated some controversy in Poland due to its explicit depiction of sex and its criticism of traditional morality and Catholicism. Due to its scandalous nature the film was also nicknamed "Last Tango in Warsaw" by Polish critics. Polish authorities permitted only a limited release, allowing only two late screenings a day in select theaters. In Poland the film sold about 400,000 tickets. In France, the film had a limited theatrical release and sold 11,150 tickets. Szamanka was also screened during the Venice Film Festival in 1996.
1184062	Cornell Iral Haynes, Jr. (born November 2, 1974), better known by his stage name, Nelly, is an American hip hop recording artist, entrepreneur, investor and occasional actor from St. Louis, Missouri. Nelly embarked on his music career with Southern hip hop group St. Lunatics, in 1993 and signed to Universal Records in 1999. Under Universal, Nelly began his solo career in the year 2000, with his debut album "Country Grammar", of which the title-track was a top ten hit. The album debuted at number three on the "Billboard" 200 and went on to peak at number one. "Country Grammar" is Nelly's best-selling album to date, selling over 8.4 million copies in the United States. His following album "Nellyville", produced the number-one hits "Hot in Herre" and "Dilemma" (featuring Kelly Rowland). Other singles included "Work It" (featuring Justin Timberlake), "Air Force Ones" (featuring Murphy Lee and St. Lunatics), "Pimp Juice" and "#1". With the same-day dual release "Sweat" and "Suit" (2004) and the compilation "Sweatsuit" (2006), Nelly continued to generate many chart-topping hits. "Sweat" debuted at number two on the US "Billboard" 200 chart, selling 342,000 copies in its first week. On the same week of release, "Suit" debuted at number one, selling around 396,000 copies in its first week on the same chart. Nelly's fifth studio album, "Brass Knuckles", was released on September 16, 2008, after several delays. It produced the singles "Party People" (featuring Fergie), "Stepped on My J'z" (featuring Jermaine Dupri and Ciara) and "Body on Me" (featuring Akon and Ashanti). In 2010, Nelly released the album "5.0". The lead single, "Just a Dream", has appeared in the top ten of several singles charts and were certified platinum in the United States. The second single is "Move That Body" (featuring T-Pain and Akon). "Gone" is the sequel to Nelly's 2002 worldwide number one single "Dilemma", also with Rowland, and serves as third single from Nelly's album. He won Grammy Awards in 2003 and 2004 and had a supporting role in the 2005 remake film "The Longest Yard" with Adam Sandler and Chris Rock. He has two clothing lines, Vokal and Apple Bottoms. He has been referred to by Peter Shapiro as "one of the biggest stars of the new millennium", and the RIAA ranks Nelly as the fourth best-selling rap artist in American music history, with 21 million albums sold in the United States. On December 11, 2009, "Billboard" ranked Nelly the number three Top Artist of the Decade. Life and career. 1974–00: Early life and career beginnings. Nelly was born in Austin, Texas, where his father was serving in the military. When he was seven, his parents divorced. Nelly moved with his mother from inner city St. Louis to suburban University City, Missouri as a teenager. While still in high school, Nelly formed the St. Lunatics, who enjoyed local popularity with their single "Gimme What Ya Got". When a major record deal failed to appear, Nelly decided to go solo. He was signed to Universal Music Group by A&R Kevin Law. Law told HitQuarters that very few people at the record company liked Nelly when he was first signed, with the feedback he received from his colleagues on the rapper's music being "extraordinarily negative". Nelly was unusual for being a rapper from the Midwest at a time when the hip-hop scenes were centered around the East Coast, West Coast and the South. The label used this to their advantage by branding Nelly as a star of the Midwest, hoping to inspire pride in the people of St Louis and the surrounding region. Nelly was signed together with St. Lunatics. Kevin Law and Country from Fo'Reel Entertainment decided to do a solo record with Nelly first and then return to St. Lunatics the following year. 2000–03: Breakthrough with "Country Grammar" and "Nellyville". The label released his major label debut "Country Grammar" in 2000. The success of its title track as a single (#7 on the Hot 100 and #1 Hot Rap Tracks) led to the album debuting at number three in the Billboard 200 in the U.S. Other singles from the album included "E.I."; "Ride wit Me", featuring his brother City Spud; and "Batter Up", featuring the St. Lunatics. The album was certified 9× platinum by the RIAA on April 27, 2004. In 2002, Nelly's second album "Nellyville" was released, debuting at #1 on Billboard's Top 200 Music Albums; its lead single "Hot in Herre" was a number-one hit. Other singles included "Dilemma" featuring Kelly Rowland of Destiny's Child, "Work It" featuring Justin Timberlake, "Air Force Ones" featuring Murphy Lee and the St. Lunatics, "Pimp Juice", and "#1". This album was highly successful and was certified 6x multi-platinum on June 27, 2003. "Hot in Herre" won the Grammy Award for Best Male Rap Solo Performance in 2003. In 2003 Nelly released "". It featured the hit single "Iz U" from the soundtrack to Walt Disney's The Haunted Mansion. The music video of a Tip Drill Remix became a source of controversy due to perceptions of misogynistic depictions of women. The controversy forced Nelly to cancel an appearance at a bone marrow drive at Spelman College, an historically black college in Atlanta, Georgia. Similar claims of misogyny also surrounded Nelly's single "Pimp Juice". RIAA have certified the album Platinum. For the "Bad Boys II" soundtrack album, Nelly contributed the single "Shake Ya Tailfeather" featuring Diddy and Murphy Lee. Another number-one hit, "Shake Ya Tailfeather" won the 2004 Grammy Award for Best Rap Performance by a Duo or Group. 2004–08: Continued success, "Sweat", "Suit" and "Brass Knuckles". On September 14, 2004, Nelly released two albums, "Sweat" and "Suit". "Suit", an R&B-oriented album, debuted at number one on the "Billboard" albums chart, and "Sweat", a rap-oriented album, debuted at number two. From "Suit", the slow ballad "Over and Over", an unlikely duet with country music star Tim McGraw, became a crossover hit. On the 2004 NBC television concert special "Tim McGraw: Here and Now", McGraw and Nelly performed the song. A feud with another St. Louis-based rapper, Chingy, came up near the end of the year. "Tsunami Aid: A Concert for Hope", a 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake benefit concert special produced by NBC, featured Nelly. In the winter of 2005 came "Sweatsuit", a compilation of tracks from "Sweat" and "Suit" with three new tracks. "Grillz", produced by Jermaine Dupri, was a number-one hit. To date both albums have sold over 5 million units in the United States. "Brass Knuckles" was released on September 16, 2008, after several delays, Initial release dates for the album targeted October 16 and November 13. Its original lead single was "Wadsyaname", a ballad-oriented track produced by Ron "NEFF-U" Feemstar and sampling the piano riff from "All My Life" by K-Ci & JoJo. Nelly later confirmed that "Wadsyaname" was never going to be on "Brass Knuckles". Nelly recorded "Party People", featuring Fergie and produced by Polow da Don, which turned out to be his first official single off the album. "Stepped On My J'z" was the next single, produced by Jermaine Dupri and featuring Dupri and Ciara; following that was "Body on Me", produced by Akon and featuring Akon and Ashanti. Nelly appeared on Rick Ross's third single, "Here I Am", which also featured label mate Avery Storm. 2009–10: Collaborations and "5.0". In the summer of 2009, Nelly made a public announcement in Las Vegas about the yet-to-be-titled album. In October 2009, Nelly did an interview with SOHH.com and said that the album was going to be released sometime in 2010. In an interview with Semtex TV, Nelly told reporters that he planned to release the album under the name "Nelly". In April 2010, Nelly's cousin Michael Johnson was murdered in Missouri, Nelly said that he delayed releasing the album because of this. Guests featured on the album were, T-Pain, Chris Brown, Akon, Plies, T.I., Kelly Rowland, Birdman, DJ Khaled, Avery Storm and Diddy-Dirty Money. In May 2010, Nelly confirmed that the title of the album was "5.0". The album was released on November 16, 2010. The album's lead single "Just a Dream" was released on August 17, 2010, through iTunes along with the promotional single "Tippin' In da Club". The two songs were released to Mainstream and Rhythm/Crossover radio on August 10, 2010. "Just a Dream" made its first chart appearance debuting on the US "Billboard" Hot 100 at number 12 and peaking at number 3 in its fourth week. The song also debuted at number 3 on the "Billboard" Digital Songs chart, selling 888,000 downloads in its first week. "Just a Dream" is Nelly's highest-charting song since his 2005 single "Grillz" and debuted at number 7 on the "Billboard" Rap Songs. The song entered the Canadian Hot 100 in August 2010, at number 32 It debuted in Australia (ARIA Charts) on the Singles Chart at number 3, in New Zealand Singles Charts at number 29, and in Switzerland (Media Control AG) at number 52. The second single "Move That Body", which features T-Pain and Akon, was released on October 12, 2010. The song made its first chart appearance debuting on the US "Billboard" Hot 100 at number 54 and has reached a current peak at number 29 in Australia. Nelly is featured on the second single by singer Mohombi entitled "Miss Me", produced by RedOne. On November 13, 2010, Nelly appeared on the Pacquiao vs. Margarito pay-per-view, at the Cowboys Stadium in Arlington, Texas. "Gone" is the sequel to Nelly's 2002 worldwide number-one single "Dilemma", also with Rowland, and serves as third single from Nelly's album. 2011–present: "M.O." and "The Next: Fame Is at Your Doorstep". On December 24, 2011, Nelly released his first ever official solo mixtape, entitled "O.E.MO", which stands for "On Everything MO". The mixtape features guest appearances from T.I., 2 Chainz, Bei Maejor, St. Lunatics and more.
68193	Alan David Sokal (; born 1955) is a professor of mathematics at University College London and professor of physics at New York University. He works in statistical mechanics and combinatorics. He is best known for his criticism of postmodernism, resulting in the Sokal affair in 1996 when his deliberately nonsensical paper was published by Duke University's "Social Text". Academic career. Sokal received his B.A. from Harvard College in 1976 and his Ph.D. from Princeton University in 1981. He was advised by Arthur Wightman. In the summers of 1986-1988, Sokal taught mathematics at the National Autonomous University of Nicaragua, when the Sandinistas were heading the elected government. Research interests. Sokal’s research lies in mathematical physics and combinatorics. In particular, he studies the interplay between these fields based on questions arising in statistical mechanics and quantum field theory. This includes work on the chromatic polynomial and the Tutte polynomial, which appear both in algebraic graph theory and in the study of phase transitions in statistical mechanics. His interests include computational physics and algorithms, such as Markov chain Monte Carlo algorithms for problems in statistical physics. He also co-authored a book on quantum triviality. Sokal affair. Sokal is best known to the general public for the Sokal Affair of 1996. Curious to see whether the then-non-peer-reviewed postmodern cultural studies journal "Social Text" (published by Duke University Press) would publish a submission which "flattered the editors' ideological preconceptions," Sokal submitted a grand-sounding but completely nonsensical paper entitled "Transgressing the Boundaries: Toward a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity." The journal did in fact publish it, and soon thereafter Sokal then revealed that the article was a hoax in the journal "Lingua Franca", arguing that the left and social science would be better served by intellectual underpinnings based on reason. He replied to leftist and postmodernist criticism of the deception by saying that his motivation had been to "defend the Left from a trendy segment of itself." The affair, together with Paul R. Gross and Norman Levitt's book "Higher Superstition", can be considered to be a part of the so-called Science wars. Sokal followed up by co-authoring the book "Impostures Intellectuelles" with Jean Bricmont in 1997 (published in English, a year later, as "Fashionable Nonsense"). The book accuses other academics of using scientific and mathematical terms incorrectly and criticizes proponents of the strong program for denying the value of truth. The book had mixed reviews, with some lauding the effort, some more reserved, and others pointing out alleged inconsistencies and criticizing the authors for ignorance of the fields under attack and taking passages out of context. In 2008, Sokal revisited the Sokal affair and its implications in "Beyond the Hoax".
584529	Arunachalam is a 1997 Tamil action-comedy film directed by Sundar C and written by Crazy Mohan. The film features Rajinikanth, Rambha and Soundarya in the lead roles, with Jaishankar and Ravichandran in other pivotal roles. The soundtrack and background score for the film was composed by Deva, while U. K. Senthil Kumar handled the cinematography. The film completed a 100 day run all over the State. The film is based on the U.S. movies, Brewster's Millions, which are based on a novel of the same name written by written by George Barr McCutcheon in 1902. The film opened in April 1997 to mixed reviews from film critics but went on to win three Tamil Nadu State Film Awards, including an award for Best Film. Plot. Rajnikanth finds himself to be an orphan. He travels from his village to Madras. There he meets Janakaraj, who gives him a job. By some magical situation, Rajni discovers himself to be a son of a dead millionaire—through Visu. Visu is the guardian of Rajni's father's trust. If Rajni wants his inheritance, he has to follow certain rules. He can get an inheritance of 30 billion if he can spend 300 million in a month. The three conditions are: no contributions to charities, not to own any assets at the end of the month, and, above all, no one else must not know. If Rajni fails to spend the money according to the rules, all the money will go to his father's trust which is managed by V.K.Ramasamy, "Nizhalgal" Ravi, Kitty and Raghuvaran. These four form a team of "villains". They want to spoil Rajni's efforts and get all the money for the trust and then to loot the money. Rambha is Visu's daughter and she is appointed as the accountant for Rajni for 30 days. Soundtrack. The music was Composed by Deva. Production. After the success of "Muthu" in 1995, Rajinikanth took a year out dabbling in politics and taking a sabbatical before announcing that his next film would be "Arunachalam" written by Crazy Mohan. It was announced that the film would be produced to help eight of his struggling film industry colleagues and it was incorrectly earlier reported that the film would be produced under his newly floated Rajini Arts banner. It was indicated that some of the people who the film would go on to cause benefits for included Kalakendra Govindharajan who introduced Rajinikanth in his production "Apoorva Raagangal" (1975), Kalaignyanam who featured Rajinikanth in the lead role for the first time with his production "Bairavi" (1978) and brothers Ramji and Babji who produced some of the actor's early hits, "Kaali" (1980) and "Garjanai" (1980). Furthermore collections would also be shared between the family of Sathya Studio Padmanabhan, actress Pandari Bai, actor V. K. Ramasamy and producer Madurai Nagaraja. Initial reports had also titled the film as "Kuberan" and "Meshtri", but "Arunachalam" was eventually retained. The plot of the film was inspired by George Barr McCutcheon's novel "Brewster's Millions". Initially the lead heroine of the film was expected to be either Manisha Koirala, who had appeared in successive blockbusters in "Bombay" and "Indian", or Meena who had featured in Rajinikanth's previous film, "Muthu". Simran and Shalini was also linked to the role, before Soundarya and Rambha were signed on as heroines. The initial cast list released to the media also had Jayaram in the cast of the film as well as Vignesh, who was later replaced by Raja. Manorama was also surprisingly added to the cast after causing controversy the previous year by lashing out at Rajinikanth's political motives.
589936	Mahanagar (, "Mahānagar"; English: The Big City) is a 1963 Bengali drama film directed by Satyajit Ray and starring Madhabi Mukherjee in the leading role of Arati. Based on a short story, "Abataranika" by Narendranath Mitra, it narrates the story of a housewife who disconcerts her traditionalist family by getting a job as a saleswoman. It marks the first screen appearance of Jaya Bhaduri (now Jaya Bachchan), who later went on to become one of Bollywood's leading actresses. Shot in the first half of 1963 in Calcutta, this was also first film directed by Ray, which was set entirely in his native Calcutta, reflecting contemporary realities of the urban middle-class, where women going to work is no longer merely driven by ideas of emancipation but has become an economic reality. The film examines the effects of the confidence working woman on patriarchial attitudes and social dynamics. Besides "The Apu Trilogy", the film, according to veteran film critic Philip French is one of Ray's greatest films. Plot. Set in Calcutta during the 1950s "Mahanagar" explores the evolving independence of middle-class women of the city. Arati (Madhabi Mukherjee), a home maker, takes up a job as a door-to-door saleswoman to meet the increasing financial pressure on her family. Despite familial adversity and societal obstacles the initially hesitant and nervous Arati soon begins to prosper in her field and gradually starts to enjoy her new-found financial and psychological independence. Her initially supportive husband, Subrata (Anil Chatterjee), who now starts to feel insecure decides to ask Arati to quit but is finally forced to let her continue to work once he loses his job. Arati now becomes the sole breadwinner of the family and also befriends an English-speaking, Anglo-Indian (representative of the legacy of the British Raj) colleague Edith (Vicky Redwood), a move which raises suspicion and increases conflict within her family. Awards. Satyajit Ray won the Silver Bear for Best Director at the 14th Berlin International Film Festival in 1964. Upon its delayed (1968) release in the United States, it drew praise from Roger Ebert, Pauline Kael and others. The film was selected as the Indian entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 36th Academy Awards, but was not accepted as a nominee. The film won All India Certificate of Merit for the Third Best Feature Film in 1963 at 11th National Film Awards.
900355	Mondo cane ("A Dog's World", 1962) is a documentary written and directed by Italian filmmakers Paolo Cavara, Franco Prosperi and Gualtiero Jacopetti. The film consists of a series of travelogue vignettes that provide glimpses into cultural practices around the world with the intention to shock or surprise Western film audiences. These scenes are presented with little continuity, as they are intended as a kaleidoscopic display of shocking content rather than presenting a structured argument. Despite its claims of genuine documentation, certain scenes in the film are either staged or creatively manipulated to enhance this effect. "Mondo cane" was an international box-office success and inspired the production of numerous, similar exploitation documentaries, many of which also include the word "Mondo" in their title. These films collectively came to be recognized as a distinct genre known as mondo films. In addition, the film's success led Jacopetti and Prosperi to produce several additional documentaries, including "Mondo cane 2", "Africa addio", and "Addio zio Tom", while Cavara directed "La donna nel mondo", "Malamondo", as well as the anti-Mondo drama "Wild Eye" (Occhio selvaggio). Despite general critical condemnation of exploitation cinema, "Mondo cane" won the 1962 David di Donatello for best production and was also nominated for numerous other awards. Synopsis. At the beginning, there is a scene with a dog pound. At the dog pound, a dog is presumably killed by other dogs through the camera's point of view. At Castellaneta, Italy, there is a statue dedicated to Rudolph Valentino. In the US, Rossano Brazzi has his shirt torn off by his fans. In New Guinea, there is manhunting. Back at the US, bikini-clad girls woo sailors. Back at New Guinea, pigs are slaughtered for a long-waited feast. In Pasadena, California, pet owners mourn their beloved at a pet cemetery. Meanwhile, at Taipei, Taiwan, dogs are butchered and skinned alive for their meat. In Italy, chicks are painted for Easter. In France, geese are force-fed for "foie gras". In Sydney, Australia there are the Life Savers Girls. Nuclear contamination takes its toll of animals on Bikini Atoll. Fishermen at the Malaysian village of Raiputh get even with sharks by shoving sea urchins down their throats. On the island of Tiberia, Italy, men in red robes guard the bones of their ancestors. On the Reeperbahn Strasse of Hamburg, Germans drink excessively and act incredibly stupid. Tokyo has a massage parlor for men who were drunk. In Macao, the dead are covered in make-up for the funeral. In Singapore there is a hotel for the dying. Cars are smashed at a junkyard of Los Angeles and reduced to cubes. In Czechoslovakia, Yves Klein makes his paintings with the help of some female models and some musicians to express his favorite color, blue. In Honolulu, tourists are showered with leis and witness the Hula Dance. In Nepal, Gurkha soldiers perform a rite of passage by dressing up in women's clothing and bulls are beheaded for ritualistic purposes. In Portugal, there is the running of the bulls and bull fights where matadors challenge the bulls. At Garoka, New Guinea, there are indigenous tribes who go to church. The film concludes with a cargo cult at Port Moresby, New Guinea. Production. In the beginning, as Cavara (who took the helm for European and Euro-Asiatic zone) and his supervisor Stanis Nievo' interviews revealed, "Mondo Cane" was a unique project conceived with "La donna nel Mondo", and worked at the same time (1960-62). Reception. Awards. "Mondo cane" was nominated for two awards for the 1962 film season. It won the David di Donatello for Best Production (Migliore Produzione) by the Accademia del Cinema Italiano, which it shared with "Una vita difficile". It was also nominated for the Palme d'Or at the 15th Cannes Film Festival, which it lost to "O Pagador de Promessas". The movie's theme song, "More", was written by Riz Ortolani and Nino Oliviero and was given new lyrics in English by Norman Newell. In 1963, the song was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Song, where it lost to "Call Me Irresponsible" from the film "Papa's Delicate Condition". Influence. The film spawned several direct sequels, starting with Jacopetti and Prosperi's own "Mondo Cane 2" (also known as "Mondo Pazzo"), released the following year. Much later, in the 1980s, two more sequels emerged: "Mondo Cane Oggi: L'Orrore Continua" and "Mondo Cane 2000: L'Incredible". The franchise continued into the nineties with two sequels from the German Uwe Schier; despite the fact that they were the fifth and sixth films in the series, they were titled "Mondo Cane IV" and "Mondo Cane V". As well as encouraging sequels, "Mondo Cane'"s shock-exploitation-documentary-exquisite corpse style is credited with starting a whole genre: the mondo film. Examples of mondo film include "Mondo Bizarro", "Mondo Daytona", "Mondo Freudo" (1966), "Mondo Mod", "Mondo Infame" and "Mondo Hollywood"; later examples include the "Faces of Death" series. The film also inspired lampooning, including "Mr. Mike's Mondo Video", written by "Saturday Night Lives Michael O'Donoghue and starring members of the contemporary cast of that program. In 2010 Mike Patton released a musical album in tribute to the film, also called "Mondo Cane".
996486	Michael Lorenzo Urie (born August 8, 1980) is an American actor, television producer and director, best known for his portrayal of Marc St. James on the ABC dramedy series "Ugly Betty". Early life, education and personal life. Urie was born in Dallas and raised in Plano, Texas. He is of Scottish and Italian descent. He graduated from Plano Senior High School in 1998. Urie then studied at Collin County Community College before being accepted at the Juilliard School in New York City. There he was a member of the Drama Division's "Group 32" (1999–2003), which also included Jessica Chastain. Urie graduated from Juilliard in 2003. In June 2009 Urie referred to himself as "a member of the LGBT community" on his website. In an interview with "The Advocate" in 2010 he said that he was in a relationship with a man and identifies as "queer". He said it never felt wrong when he was with women previously. Career. Urie, while still a student at Juilliard performed in the world premiere of "Love and Happiness" (2001) at the Consolati Performing Arts Center, starring as a sixteen-year-old trying to get rid of his mother's boyfriend. In addition to this, he appeared in student productions of "Sylvia" (1998) and "Locked Away" (1999) at Quad C Theatre.
583946	Singam (English: "Lion") is a 2010 Indian Tamil action-masala film directed by Hari, starring Suriya and Anushka Shetty in the lead. The film, produced by K. E. Gnanavel Raja in association with Reliance Big Pictures, and distributed by Sun Pictures, was released on 28 May 2010. Upon release, the film was dubbed into Telugu and released as "Yamudu". The film's success led to remakes in Kannada as "Kempe Gowda", in Hindi as "Singham", and in Bengali as "Shotru". The sequel, "Singam II", which released in July 2013, was a high commercial success as well. Plot. The film begins in Nallur, a small village in Thoothukudi district in southern Tamil Nadu. Duraisingam (Suriya), is the honest police sub inspector of Nallur, assisted by his bumbling colleague Erimalai (Vivek). He belongs to Nallur with his father having a respectable status in the village. His family business is provision stores and Duraisingam wants to join it, but he joined police due to his father's wishes. He resolves most of the problems in his village with non-violence and mutual counselling. He uses force only when the situation demands it, thereby gaining much reputation and love from the villagers. Mahalingam (Nassar) is an industrialist in Chennai and a friend of Singam’s father (Radha Ravi). He comes to the village with his beautiful daughter Kavya (Anushka Shetty). Eventually Singam and Kavya fall in love with each other. Everything seems to be smooth-running until Chennai-based Mayil Vaaganam (Prakash Raj), a big-time extortionist with shady mafia dealings who blackmails people by complaining to the Income Tax Department, is required to travel to Nallur to sign a conditional bail. He instead, sends one of his allies to do the formalities, much to the anger and rage of Singam who demands Mayil sign the bail in person. Humiliated, Mayil reaches Nallur but is unable to take any revenge on Singam fearing the immense love and devotion of the entire village towards Singam. Using his political contacts, he gets Singam transferred to Chennai to teach him a lesson. Singam, unaware of Mayil’s hand behind his transfer, joins Thiruvanmiyur police station. His co-worker, Sub-Inspector Ravi (Bose Venkat), hates Mayil for his crimes but is unable to take any action because of Mayil’s political powers. The assistant commissioner (Nizhalgal Ravi), Singam's senior, is on Mayil's payroll and takes care in concealing and eliminating the evidence of Mayil’s crimes from the eyes of the law. The police commissioner (Ajay Rathnam) also does not help Singam as there is no evidences against Mayil and the assistant commissioner and in turn, warns him to stay away from Mayil's case. Unable to take on Mayil in his stronghold, Singam wants to return to his village but is stopped by Kavya who encourages him to fight against the evil and not run like a coward. Being mentally tortured by Mayil, Singam arrests Mayil’s henchman (Adithya) in a fake case of illegally smuggling alcohol. He thwarts off the assistant commissioner in full view of the public when the assistant commissioner, bounded by his duties to Mayil, tries to protect the henchman. Meanwhile Mayil kidnaps Kavya’s younger sister for ransom. Rescuing her, with unexpected help from the Home Minister (Vijayakumar) Singam successfully traces the origins of the kidnapping racket to Mayil. Singam also gets promoted to Assistant Commissioner of the specially-formed Anti-kidnapping Task Force. Mahalingam, who was hostile to Singam following an altercation with Singam's father back at Nallur, softens up and agrees to give him Kavya's hand in marriage. The police officers, including the police commissioner, and the assistant commissioner, now on Singam's side, decide to help Singam fight Mayil. They manage to kill Mayil's henchman in an encounter at an hospital and begin to target everyone and everything related to Mayil. In retribution, Mayil starts targeting everyone close to Singam, including Kavya, whom he shoots but is saved by Singam, and Ravi, who is hacked to death by Mayil's henchmen. To escape the arrest warrant issued out to him, Mayil kidnaps the Karnataka Home Minister's daughter. He falsely tells Singam that he is going to Pondicherry with her when actually he is going to Nellore in Andhra Pradesh to put the police off the track. However Singam manages to pursue them till Gudur near Nellore, where he rescues the home minister's daughter and kills Mayil in an encounter. The film ends with Singam and Kavya heading back to Nallur, when Singam is stopped briefly by the Home Minister and assigned an undercover mission, to which he willingly agrees. Production. Development. After Suriya had finished K. S. Ravikumar's "Aadhavan", discussions regarding his subsequent project, notably his 25th film, were held. Initially, reports emerged that it was going to be directed by Prabhu Deva. At the launch of his film "Seval" in May 2009, however, director Hari announced officially that he would direct Suriya's 25th film titled "Singam" and that he had finished penning the script. Becoming Suriya's third film with Hari following "Aaru" and "Vel", it was announced that the project would release in July 2010. Suriya's cousin, K. E. Gnanavel Raja was announced as the producer. Casting. Though initial reports suggested that Yuvan Shankar Raja would score the music, Devi Sri Prasad was chosen as the music director, thus becoming his third venture with Suriya. Suriya was revealed to play a police officer in the film, the second time in his career after "Kaakha Kaakha". Anushka was chosen to play the female lead, after several actresses were considered and approached. Priyan was chosen as the lead camera man and V.T. Vijayan as the editor. Filming. After completing "Seval", Hari joined the cast and crew to start the filming in 2009. The shooting began in Thirunelveli district and was carried on in southern parts of Tamil Nadu. A scene from the song "Stole my Heart" was shot in Muscat Park that was choreographed by Brindha. Afterwards, some scenes where shot in Andhra Pradesh as well as Karnataka. The main scenes were shot in Thiruvanmiyur, Chennai. During December, Hari announced that the film wouldn't have a formal audio launch as per his previous films and that the shooting would get over quickly. The trailers were released on 24 February. Sun Pictures acquired the distribution rights, and Sony Music bought the music for a hefty price. Release. The film released worldwide on 28 May 2010. Telugu dubbed version titled "Yamudu" released on 2 July 2010. Box office. The total box office collection from Chennai alone was 53.8 million. In Malaysia, the movie grossed $1,471,508. The film also made about $USD 12,956 from UK. Critical response. This film garnered positive reviews reviews. "Behindwoods" gave 2.5 out of 5 and stated that Hari has "concocted and packaged his masala contents in the right proportion and has served a tasty dish", while praising Suriya for having "diligently worked towards balancing the niche and the mass" and proving "once again that he can deliver a commercial masala flick with as finesse as he can deliver a performance-oriented film". "Sify" described the film as a "predictable entertainer that follows the age old formula", citing that it was Suriya who "carries the film to the winning post. His passion and the way he brings an ordinary regular larger-than-life hero character alive on screen is lesson for other commercial heroes". "Rediff" also gave 2.5 out of 5 stating that the film was an "unapologetic, entertainer and has Suriya in every frame. Lovers of commercial potpourri will definitely get their money's worth." "Indiaglitz" wrote that "Singam" was the "king of the masses, who love action and commercial films". A "Times of India" critic gave 3.5 out of 5, claiming that "even with a sleepy narration in the first 30 minutes or so, "Singam" is worth a watch." Soundtrack. The film's soundtrack, released on 11 May 2010, was scored by Devi Sri Prasad, marking his third collaboration with Suriya after "Maayavi" and "Aaru".
938077	Danika is a 2006 horror film directed by Israeli Ariel Vromen. It stars Marisa Tomei, Craig Bierko and Regina Hall. The film was released on DVD in the US on December 26, 2006. Plot. Danika Merrick (Marisa Tomei) suffers from increasingly disturbing paranoid hallucinations. Most of her hallucinations involve threats to her family and media-fuelled fears such as child kidnappings, car accidents, her children lying, and terrorism. Danika confides to her husband, Randy (Craig Bierko), and Evelyn (Regina Hall), her psychiatrist. The movie begins with Danika apologizing for being late, and being scolded by her bank manager about incorrect collections. Her manager leaves the office instructing Danika to correct the errors, and remain in the office.
1181228	John Francis Bongiovi, Jr. (born March 2, 1962), known as Jon Bon Jovi, is an American musician, singer, songwriter, record producer and actor, best known as the founder and lead singer of rock band Bon Jovi, which was formed in 1983.
583704	Pudhiya Mugam (; ) is a 1993 Tamil thriller film directed by Suresh Chandra Menon. It stars Vineeth, Suresh Chandra Menon and Revathi as prime characters. The film featured an acclaimed soundtrack by A. R. Rahman. Pudhiya Mugam is an adaptation of the television film 'Twist of Fate', which tells the story of a Nazi officer who undergoes plastic surgery and becomes a member of the Israeli Defence Forces, and a hero for them. Plot. Vineeth and his fiancée Kasturi while romancing in Sri Lanka sees a murder which results in the death of his fiancée. He avenges her death by killing the people responsible, and becomes an assassin, and is on the run from the police, and be. He undergoes extensive plastic surgery on his face and leaves for Chennai, India to start a new life with a new face and identity.
1063278	Carey Hannah Mulligan (born 28 May 1985) is an English actress. She made her film debut as Kitty Bennet in "Pride & Prejudice" (2005). She has had roles in several British television programmes such as "Doctor Who", "Bleak House", and "Northanger Abbey". In 2008, she made her Broadway debut in the revival of Chekhov's "The Seagull" to critical acclaim.   In 2009, she gained widespread recognition for her performance as Jenny in "An Education", for which she was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role, and for which she won a BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role.  She was also nominated for a Golden Globe and a Screen Actors Guild Award. She has gone on to star in "The Greatest", "Never Let Me Go", "Drive", "Shame", "The Great Gatsby", and "Inside Llewyn Davis".
1063038	Early life. Watanabe was born in Koide, Niigata. His mother was a school teacher and his father taught calligraphy. Due to a number of relocations for his parents' work, he spent his childhood in the villages of Irihirose and Sumon, both now part of the city of Uonuma, and in Takada, now part of the city of Jōetsu. He attended Niigata Prefectural Koide High School, where he was a member of the concert band club, playing trumpet, which he had played since childhood. After graduation from high school, in 1978 he aimed to enter Musashino Academia Musicae, a conservatory in Tokyo. However, he had never received a formal musical education, and because his father had collapsed when Ken was in junior high school and was unable to work there was difficulty in finding the money for tuition. In part because of these problems, Watanabe gave up entering the conservatory. Career. Japanese roles. After graduating from high school in 1978, Watanabe moved to Tokyo to begin his acting career, getting his big break with the Tokyo-based theater troupe En. While with the troupe, he was cast as the hero in the play "Shimodani Mannencho Monogatari", under Yukio Ninagawa's direction. The role attracted critical and popular notice. In 1982, he made his first TV appearance in "Michinaru Hanran" ("Unknown Rebellion"), and his first appearance on TV as a samurai in "Mibu no koiuta". He made his feature-film debut in 1984 with "MacArthur's Children". Watanabe is mostly known in Japan for playing samurai, as in the 1987 "Dokuganryu Masamune" ("One eyed dragon, Masamune") the 50-episode NHK drama for which he is now best known. He played the lead character, Matsudaira Kurō, in the television jidaigeki "Gokenin Zankurō", which ran for several seasons. He has gone on to earn acclaim in such historical dramas as "Oda Nobunaga", "Chushingura", and the movie "Bakumatsu Junjo Den". In 1989, while filming Haruki Kadokawa's "Heaven and Earth", Watanabe was diagnosed with acute myelogenous leukemia. He returned to acting while simultaneously undergoing chemotherapy treatments, but in 1991 suffered a relapse. As his health improved his career picked back up. He co-starred with Koji Yakusho in the 1998 "Kizuna", for which he was nominated for the Japanese Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. In 2002, he quit the En (Engeki-Shudan En) theatre group where he had his start and joined the K-Dash agency. The film "Sennen no Koi" ("Thousand-year Love", based on "The Tale of Genji") earned him another Japanese Academy Award nomination. In 2006, he won Best Lead Actor at the Japanese Academy Awards for his role in "Memories of Tomorrow (Ashita no Kioku)", in which he played a patient with Alzheimer's Disease. International films. Watanabe was introduced to most Western audiences when he was cast in the 2003 film "The Last Samurai" by prominent Japanese film producer Yoko Narahashi. His performance as Katsumoto earned him an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor. Watanabe appeared in the 2005 film "Memoirs of a Geisha", playing Chairman Iwamura. That same year, he also played Ra's al Ghul's decoy in Christopher Nolan's Batman film reboot, Batman Begins. In 2006, he starred in Clint Eastwood's "Letters from Iwo Jima", playing Tadamichi Kuribayashi. He has voiced Ra's al Ghul's decoy in the "Batman Begins" video game. He has filmed advertisements for American Express, Yakult, and NTT DoCoMo. In 2004, he was featured in "People Magazine" 's "50 Most Beautiful People" edition. In 2009, he appeared in "The Vampire's Assistant". In 2010, he co-starred in "Inception", where he stars as Saito, a mark-turned-benefactor businessman of the film's heist team. Personal life. In 1983 Watanabe married his first wife, Yumiko. In March 2005, following two years of arbitration, he and Yumiko were divorced. He got to know Kaho Minami when they were acting together in a suspense drama for TV Tokyo. Around the time of his divorce the two began seriously dating, and were married on December 3 of the same year. The couple's relationship was initially kept out of the mass media. It wasn't until an "unidentified guest" accompanying Watanabe at a New York premiere of his film "Sayuri" seen in an Associated Press photo was found to be Minami that their marriage was publicly announced. Watanabe formally adopted Minami's son from her previous marriage to director Hitonari Tsuji, and for a time the three of them lived in Los Angeles. In order to increase the amount of time the family could spend together, considering Ken's work requiring him to travel so much, they later returned to Japan. Initially Minami and Ken did not hold any wedding ceremony, but in 2010, marking their fifth anniversary, they announced that they had held a ceremony in Los Angeles. Watanabe has two biological children and an adopted son. His oldest son, Dai Watanabe (born 1984) is an actor, and his daughter Anne Watanabe (born 1986) is also an actress and fashion model. In August 2008, Dai had his first child, making Ken a grandfather at the age of 48. In 1989 Watanabe was diagnosed with bone marrow leukemia, but he later recovered. In 2006 Watanabe revealed in his autobiography "Dare? - Who Am I?" that he has hepatitis C. At a press conference held 23 May 2006 in Tokyo's Ginza district, he said he was in good condition but was still undergoing treatment. On March 13, 2011, he launched a YouTube page to raise awareness about the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami and invited celebrities to add their videos. In his video in English, he made a call to action to support the victims and to raise funds in the relief effort. In conjunction, he has created his own website for the cause.
1057071	Anna Katherine Popplewell (born 16 December 1988) is an English film, television and theater actress. She is known for her role as Susan Pevensie in "The Chronicles of Narnia" film series since 2005. Early life. Popplewell, eldest of three children, is the daughter of Andrew Popplewell and Dr. Debra Lomas, a dermatologist. She was born in London. She has two younger actor siblings: Lulu Popplewell, who starred as Daisy in "Love Actually", and Freddie Popplewell, who starred as Michael Darling in the film "Peter Pan". Her paternal grandfather, Sir Oliver Popplewell, is a distinguished former judge. She attended North London Collegiate School and was senior student 2006–08. She was admitted to Oxford University in 2007 where she studied English at Magdalen College. Career. Popplewell began acting at the age of six, taking classes at the Allsorts Drama School. She began acting professionally in the TV production "Frenchman's Creek" in 1998. She made her film debut in 1999 in the film "Mansfield Park" and has since appeared in supporting roles in films like "The Little Vampire" (2000) and "Girl with a Pearl Earring" (2003) with Scarlett Johansson. In 2001 she appeared as Victoria in the BBC serial "Love in a Cold Climate". Her first major role was in the film ' (2005) where she played Susan Pevensie. She has a phobia of mice, which required a double to do part of her scene at the Stone Table in "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe". She reprised her role in the sequel, ', in which she acted with William Moseley, Skandar Keynes, Georgie Henley and Ben Barnes. The film opened in cinemas 16 May 2008. She also made a cameo appearance in the third "Narnia" film, "", despite her character's absence in the book on which it is based. She was awarded the Cuppers Prize in 2007 for Best Supporting Actress in a student production of "Five Kinds of Silence". In December 2007, she played Lady Macbeth in a student production of "Macbeth" at the OFS Studio in Oxford. In 2008 she performed as the character Wendla in the controversial play Spring Awakening. In 2012 she played the character Chyler Silva in the live action 5-part mini series "". In March 2013 it was announced that Popplewell will star in the CW Television Network's pilot "Reign". She is slated for the role of Lola, a friend of Mary, Queen of Scots. Filming will take place in Ireland and Canada.
1162238	Kym Elizabeth Whitley (born June 7, 1961) is an American actress and comedian. Personal life. Whitley was born in Shaker Heights, Ohio. She attended Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee. In January 2011, Whitley adopted a son named Joshua Kaleb. Career. Whitley's major acting roles include "My Brother and Me" and "Sparks". She made guest appearances in several television sitcoms, including "The Parent 'Hood", "Married... with Children", "Moesha", "That's So Raven", "The Parkers" and "Curb Your Enthusiasm". She also hosted the short lived BET show, "Oh Drama"(2000) She also had a small role in "Next Friday" as Craig's aunt Suga. She was one of "The Adults" in the earlier seasons of "All That". "The Adults", as they were called, were grown-up featuring cast members that appeared in sketches with the regular cast. In the early spring of 2010, Whitley was a co-host with R&B musician, Brian McKnight on the short-lived talk show, "The Brian McKnight Show".
343189	The Phenix City Story is a 1955 film noir directed by Phil Karlson for Allied Artists and written by Daniel Mainwaring and Crane Wilbur. The drama features John McIntire and Richard Kiley, among others. Plot. In a corrupt Alabama town, the law can do little to stop the criminal activities of Rhett Tanner, particularly in the wide-open "red-light district" area. Most of the police don't even try, being on Tanner's payroll. Albert "Pat" Patterson is urged to run for office and clean up Phenix City, but he wants no part of a thankless, impossible job. He is content to welcome home son John from military service. But soon violence breaks out, John getting caught in the middle when Clem Wilson, a thug who works for Tanner, and others assault innocent citizens. Patterson finally agrees to get involved in reforming the town, but as soon as he is elected, he is killed. It is up to John to avenge his father, but his own family ends up at risk. Production. The film depicts the real-life 1954 assassination of Albert Patterson, who had just been elected Alabama Attorney General on a platform of cleaning up Phenix City, Alabama, a city controlled by organized crime. Patterson was murdered in Phenix City, and the subsequent outcry resulted in the imposition of martial law on the city by the state government. Some prints of the film include a 13-minute newsreel-style preface including newsman Clete Roberts interviewing many of the actual participants. Reception. Critical response. When the film was released in 1955, Bosley Crowther, fim critic for "The New York Times", gave it a positive review, writing, "In a style of dramatic documentation that is as sharp and sure as was that of "On the Waterfront" — or, for a more appropriate comparison, that of the memorable "All the King's Men" — scriptwriters Crane Wilbur and Dan Mainwaring and director Phil Karlson expose the raw tissue of corruption and terrorism in an American city that is steeped in vice. They catch in slashing, searching glimpses the shrewd chicanery of evil men, the callousness and baseness of their puppets and the dread and silence of local citizens. And, through a series of excellent performances, topped by that of John McIntyre as the eventually martyred crusader, they show the sinew and the bone of those who strive for decent things." Film critic Bruce Eder wrote, "One of the most violent and realistic crime films of the 1950s, "The Phenix City Story" pulses with the bracing energy of actual life captured on the screen in its establishing shots and key scenes, and punctuates that background with explosively filmed action scenes. Director Phil Karlson showed just how good he was at merging well-told screen drama with vivid verisimilitude, and leaving no seams to show where they joined. Filmed on location in Alabama with a documentary-like look, the movie captured the ambiance and tenor of its Deep South setting better than almost any other fact-based movie of its era." DVD release. Warner Bros. released the film on DVD on July 13, 2010, in its "Film Noir Classic Collection, Vol. 5".
520359	Aubrey Miles (born Aubrey Sandel on March 16, 1978) is a Filipina television host, singer and actress. Early life and education. Miles was born in Caloocan, Philippines, to Victorino Sandel and Maria Perla Santos. She was the third child of the couple's four children.
1376555	Dana Hill (born Dana Lynne Goetz; May 6, 1964 – July 15, 1996) was an American actress and voice actress with a raspy voice whose childlike appearance limited her to playing adolescent roles into her thirties. Hill is best known for having played Audrey Griswald in "National Lampoon’s European Vacation", and roles in "Shoot the Moon" and "Cross Creek". Early health issues. Dana Lynne Goetz was born in 1964 to Sandy Hill and Ted Goetz, a director of commercials. A diagnosis of Type I diabetes at an early age ended a promising athletic future. A 1982 article in "People" magazine reported that at age 10 Hill had placed third nationwide in the 880-yard run and fourth in the mile run. A few weeks later she collapsed on the track, which resulted in the diagnosis. The diabetes affected her height (at 18 she was 5' 0" and 82 pounds) and caused lifelong health complications.
589727	Barsaat Ki Raat ('A Rainy Night') is a 1960 Bollywood film starring Bharat Bhushan, Madhubala, Shyama, Mumtaz Begum and K.N. Singh. It was directed by P. L. Santoshi. Although Madhubala gets top billing, the main character is played by Shyama. This film was released in black-and-white and is widely considered to be a classic. The film became particularly popular for its qawwali songs and was one of the biggest hits at the box-office in 1960. '"Barsaat Ki Raat" was also one of the last films to star celebrated actress Madhubala. Story. The story features a number of innovative themes while maintaining the basic form of a love story. It has particularly strong female characters who are independent-minded and choose their own loves and destiny. The conflicts are not so much between the wishes of the parents and children about whom to marry, as is a common theme in Indian movies, but it is on the more complex level of the conflicts among the main characters and the duplicitous signals men and women send each other. The movie glorifies the lives of "singing girls" not often regarded highly in Indian society. Although it is set with Muslim characters, the movie seamlessly shows the universality of sensual love. Music. The song and dance does not occur randomly as is often the case in Indian movies; instead it is an integral part of the story-line, which involves a poet and singer as well as poetry competitions that were once common. Female singers: Asha Bhonsle, Kamal Barot, Lata Mangeshkar, Sudha Malhotra, Suman Kalyanpur Male singers: S. D. Batish, Balbeer, Bande Hasan, Manna Dey, Mohammad Rafi Music Director: Roshan Lyricist: Sahir Ludhianvi
1723050	Sita Sings the Blues is a 2008 animated film written, directed, produced and animated entirely by American artist Nina Paley (with the exception of some fight animation by Jake Friedman in the "Battle of Lanka" scene), primarily using 2D computer graphics and Flash Animation. It intersperses events from the "Ramayana", light-hearted but knowledgeable discussion of historical background by a trio of Indian shadow puppets, musical interludes voiced with tracks by Annette Hanshaw and scenes from the artist's own life. The ancient mythological and modern biographical plot are parallel tales, sharing numerous themes. Plot. The "Ramayana". The film uses a pared-down adaptation of the legend that retains many of its finer details while adopting a perspective sympathetic towards Sita; in the director's words, the film is "a tale of truth, justice and a woman’s cry for equal treatment."
588126	Mundhanai Mudichu (English: "Saree Knot") is a 1983 Tamil film directed by Balakumaran with K. Bhagyaraj along with Urvasi in the lead roles. The movie marked the debut of Urvashi in Tamil cinema. The film was a blockbuster and was remade in Hindi as "Masterji" in the year 1985 with Rajesh Khanna and Sridevi in lead roles. It was also remade in Kannada as "Halli Meshtru" with Ravichandran. Plot. Parimalam (Urvasi) is a mischievous nubile lady who perennially plays pranks on unsuspecting villagers, aided by her gang of preteen children. These often end her and the gang in the panchayat. A widower (K. Bhagyaraja) enters the village with his infant child (Sujitha) to take up the vacant teacher's post in the local school and is immediately pranked by Parimalam's gang upon his arrival. Parimalam's playful nature transforms into love when she learns that he's a widower. She tries many ways to win the teacher's heart, but fails every time. The teacher believes that a stepmother could not care for his child. As a desperate measure to attain him, Parimalam falsely accuses the teacher of molesting her. She even swears upon the teacher's child's life to prove her case at the panchayat. The teacher is then forced to marry her against his wishes. However, he vows never to touch Parimalam and to remain forever in celibacy. Parimalam relentlessly tries to seduce him by various methods. All her advances are ignored by the husband. Faced with the prospect of never attaining her husband's love, Parimalam decides to take the drastic measure of going through a tubal litigation procedure. With this she hopes that her husband will understand that she would never ill treat his son as a stepmother. Shocked upon hearing of Parimalam's decision, the husband rushes to the hospital to prevent her from undergoing the procedure. He reaches the hospital to find Parimalam unconscious on the bed and assumes she has already undergone treatment. However, the doctor assures him that she has not been operated as he found Parimalam to be a virgin and realized that she must have wanted the operation under duress. The story ends with the couple happily united and in the process of planning for another child.
1063675	A Perfect Murder is a 1998 American thriller film directed by Andrew Davis and starring Michael Douglas, Gwyneth Paltrow and Viggo Mortensen. It is a modern remake of Alfred Hitchcock's 1954 film "Dial M for Murder", though the characters' names are all changed, and over half the plot is completely rewritten and altered. Loosely based on the play by Frederick Knott, the screenplay was written by Patrick Smith Kelly. Plot. Steven Taylor (Michael Douglas) is a Wall Street hedge fund manager whose investments and speculations allow him to live an extravagant upper class lifestyle with his much younger wife Emily (Gwyneth Paltrow). Unfortunately for Taylor, his illegal investments are unraveling; to alleviate the pressure being put on him by large upcoming margin payments he will need his wife's personal fortune (roughly 100 million dollars) to maintain that status and lifestyle. Emily seems a faithful wife, but in reality she is having an affair with a painter, David Shaw (Viggo Mortensen), and is considering leaving her husband. Emily thinks she is safe, but Steven knows everything about the affair. He has also been able to uncover David’s past as an ex-convict whose real name is Winston Lagrange and who has a history of conning rich women out of their money. Steven goes to David's loft, where Emily has accidentally left her wedding ring. Once there he confronts the con man and reveals his knowledge of David's past. Steven then makes him an offer of $500,000 cash to murder his wife. At first David wants nothing to do with the plan, claiming instead that Emily and he are in love. David asks what is to stop him from going straight to Emily or to the police with this information. Steven replies that it would be his word against David's, and that he knows of a previous crime David committed in Boca Raton, Florida, taking off with a lady's bearer bonds. Steven has an acquaintance who has a photograph of the suspect and all they would need is David's real name. Steven then reminds David that he already has two strikes against him, and this third arrest would be enough to send him to prison for fifteen years without parole. Steven instructs David to come by his apartment at around 12 o' clock the following day. Steven has already laid out a detailed plan which will supply him with a firm alibi. He will hide Emily's latchkey outside the service entrance to his apartment. Steven will then go out for his regular card game, during which time his wife usually stays in and takes a bath. David is to sneak in and at 10 pm, when Steven phones Emily, kill her and make it look like a robbery. The following evening, when Emily arrives home, Steven removes the key from her keychain and hides it as planned. She has decided to tell Steven about her affair and asks him to stay home to talk; he refuses however and then leaves. At 10 o'clock that night Steven takes a break from his card game and uses his cellphone to make a call to an automated bank number while using a second phone to call his house. Emily leaves her bath to answer the phone but is attacked in the kitchen by a masked assailant; during their struggle she manages to kill the attacker by stabbing him in the neck with a meat thermometer. Steven returns and is shocked to find his wife alive and the hired killer dead. Before the police arrive he takes the key from the killer's pocket and puts it back on Emily's keychain. Police arrive, led by Detective Karaman (David Suchet), who asks the couple questions about the night's events. When they remove the assailant's mask it is not David but someone he hired to do the job. Steven takes Emily to her mother's house, from where Emily attempts to call David to let him know that she is all right. David, who was under the impression that she was dead, and drunk, does not answer in time. Steven has noticed Emily making a call so he uses the redial button; David picks up and he and Steven arrange a meeting. They meet on a ferry boat, recap what happened and decide to wait until Steven has another plan. Emily tells her mother that she is planning to leave Steven. When she returns home, Emily lets her husband know she will be staying with her friend Raquel. She learns of Steven's serious financial trouble and Raquel questions her about the inheritance he would receive if she died. Emily tells the detective about this development, acknowledging that Steven might have a motive in her attack. David has made a tape of Steven detailing the whole plan and demands the money promised earlier for her murder. Emily meanwhile has noticed that the key on her keychain does not belong to their home; suspecting something she goes to the apartment of the dead assailant, having previously remembered the address from his file shown to her by the police detective. Once there, she discovers that her key unlocks his door. Emily confronts her husband with this and the knowledge of his financial problems. To her amazement he exposes David's sordid past and accuses him of being a blackmailer who has been conning her and threatening him for some time. When he saw the attacker's dead body in their kitchen he assumed it was David and took the key from his pocket so as not to implicate Emily in any way. Steven goes to David's loft to pay him but finds a note directing him to meet in a public place. The phone rings and Steven picks up thinking it's David, but it's a ticketing agent confirming David's train out of the city. Steven meets David in a park and hands over the money; David gives him a copy of the tape and then leaves to board a train to Montreal. Once on the train and assuming he is safe he opens the bathroom door in his cabin; Steven lunges out and stabs him. A dying David claims to have the last laugh because he sent another copy of the tape to Emily. Steven rushes home to try to get the tape before she can. At the apartment, he finds the mail still unopened while Emily is on the terrace. He hides the money and tape in his safe before Emily enters the room. Thinking he is safe, Steven takes a shower, but Emily sees the empty bag that contained the money. She manages to open the safe, finds the tape and listens to it. Steven returns and she reminds him that she still has not found her key. Emily pretends to leave to pick up food for dinner. Steven goes to the service entrance where he originally left the key for David to find. He finds it, and realizes that the killer had put the key back after using it to unlock the door. Emily confronts him, revealing that she knows everything now. Steven attacks her, but she has a gun and kills him. In the final scene, the police investigate the scene as Karaman and Emily listen to the tape, and Emily then confesses what happened. Karaman shows gratitude and says "May God be with you" in Arabic. Emily responds "And you as well". Alternative ending. An alternative ending exists and is presented (with optional commentary) on the DVD. In this version, Steven comes back from finding the key replaced where he had hidden it and Emily confronts him in the kitchen rather than in their foyer. The scene plays out with the same dialogue, but Steven never physically attacks her. He still tells her that the only way she'll leave him is dead, and she shoots him. But this time Steven says "You won't get away with this" before dying and Emily purposely injures herself, making it look like self-defense. Comparisons to the original film. In Hitchcock's "Dial M For Murder", the characters played by Ray Milland and Grace Kelly are depicted as living in a modest London flat, although it is implied that they are quite wealthy, as Milland's character, Tony Wendice, is a retired tennis champion. Similarly, Michael Douglas and Gwyneth Paltrow's characters are also shown as an extremely wealthy couple. Both Kelly and Paltrow's characters are shown as striking blondes. Both films make use of the mystery of the fact that no key was found on the dead man when he was killed by both Kelly and Paltrow's characters, as both their husbands had removed them, in an attempt to pin the crime on their wives. Towards the beginning of "Dial M For Murder", when Kelly and her lover's character, Mark Halliday (Robert Cummings), are shown together in the Wendice flat, and Milland comes home, Kelly greets him with "There you are!" and kisses him. Presumably in homage to the original film, Douglas's character greets Paltrow exactly the same way when she arrives home to their apartment at the beginning of "A Perfect Murder". The title 'A Perfect Murder' matches the translation that was made in some countries of the Hitchcock's film, known in Italian as 'Il delitto perfetto' and in Spanish as 'Crimen perfecto'; in French it was 'Le crime était presque parfait'. Reception. Box office. The film opened in second place at the box office behind "The Truman Show", taking $16,615,704 during its first weekend. It ended up with a total worldwide gross of $128,038,368. Critical response. The film received mixed reviews from critics: Stephen Holden of "The New York Times" called it a "skillfully plotted update of Frederick Knott's play". Roger Ebert wrote " works like a nasty little machine to keep us involved and disturbed; my attention never strayed". Meanwhile, James Berardinelli wrote that the film "has inexplicably managed to eliminate almost everything that was worthwhile about "Dial M for Murder", leaving behind the nearly-unwatchable wreckage of a would-be '90s thriller." "A Perfect Murder" holds a 55% "Rotten" rating on Rotten Tomatoes and a score of 50/100 ("mixed or average reviews") from Metacritic.
1082335	Fernando Casado Arambillet (20 September 1917 – 9 March 1994), best known as Fernando Rey, was a Spanish film, theatre, and TV actor, who worked in both Europe and the United States. A suave, international actor best known for his roles in the films of surrealist director Luis Buñuel ("Tristana", 1970; "Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie", 1972; "That Obscure Object of Desire", 1977) and as a drug lord in "The French Connection" (1971), he appeared in more than 150 films over half a century. The debonair Rey was described by "French Connection" producer Philip D'Antoni as "the last of the Continental guys". He achieved his greatest notoriety after he turned 50: "Perhaps it is a pity that my success came so late in life", he told "The Times" of Madrid in 1973. "It might have been better to have been successful while young, like El Cordobés in the bullring. Then your life is all before you to enjoy it." Biography. The beginnings. Rey was born in La Coruña, Spain, the son of Captain Casado Veiga. He studied architecture, but the Spanish Civil War interrupted his university studies which led him to his success. In 1936, Rey began his career in movies as an extra, sometimes even getting credited. It was then that he chose his stage name, Fernando Rey. He kept his first name, but took his mother's second surname, Rey, a short surname with a clear meaning ("Rey" is Spanish for "King"). In 1944, his first speaking role was the Duke of Alba in José López Rubio's "Eugenia de Montijo". Four years later, he acted the part of Felipe I el Hermoso, King of Spain, in the Spanish cinema blockbuster "Locura de amor".
1060387	Amy Ryan (born November 30, 1969) is an American actress. She has been nominated for an Academy Award and Golden Globe for her performance in "Gone Baby Gone" (2007) and is also known for her roles in HBO's "The Wire", playing Port Authority Officer Beadie Russell; HBO's "In Treatment", playing psychiatrist Adele Brousse; and NBC's "The Office", playing human resources representative Holly Flax. Early life. Ryan was born in Queens, New York City. Ryan is her mother's maiden name. She is of English, Irish, and Polish descent. Growing up in the 1970s, Ryan and her sister delivered the "Daily News" by bike. At a young age, Ryan attended the Stagedoor Manor Performing Arts Center in upstate New York. At 17, she graduated from New York's High School of Performing Arts. Hired for the national tour of "Biloxi Blues" right out of high school, Ryan worked steadily off-Broadway for the next decade. Theatre. Ryan made her off-Broadway debut in the Westside Theatre's 1987 production of "A Shayna Maidel", playing the role of Hanna. The following year she was seen in the Second Stage Theatre Company's revival of "The Rimers of Eldritch". Additional off-Broadway credits include "As Bees In Honey Drown", "Crimes of the Heart" and "Saved". She also worked in regional theater, where she originated roles in new plays by Neil LaBute, Arthur Miller and Neil Simon. On Broadway she has appeared as Tess in "The Sisters Rosensweig", Natasha in the 1997 revival of "The Three Sisters", and Peggy in the 2001–2002 revival of "The Women." Ryan has been nominated for the Tony Award for Best Performance by a Featured Actress in a Play twice: in 2000, for her portrayal of Sonya Alexandrovna in "Uncle Vanya", and in 2005, for her performance as Stella Kowalski opposite John C. Reilly in "A Streetcar Named Desire." Television. Following a brief stint playing a runaway on "As the World Turns", Ryan was cast in television series such as "I'll Fly Away", in which she played a high school temptress, and "Brooklyn Bridge", where she played Marion Ross's character in flashbacks. After roles on "ER" and "Chicago Hope", Ryan became a series regular on "The Naked Truth" as Téa Leoni's spoiled stepdaughter. In 1993, she made her first appearance on NBC's "Law & Order", appearing in several episodes over the years. By 2001, director Sidney Lumet cast her in "100 Centre Street" playing three different roles (Ellen, Paris and Rebecca). Ryan went on to feature prominently in the second season of HBO's "The Wire", playing Port Authority Officer Beadie Russell. She appeared for a six-episode arc on "The Office" as dorky HR rep Holly Flax. She reprised her role on "The Office" in seasons 5 and 7. Ryan joined the cast of HBO's "In Treatment" for its third season, playing the therapist of Dr. Paul Weston. Film. Because of the deletion of the scene wherein she played Eric Stoltz's wife in Allison Anders's "Grace of My Heart," Ryan made her 1999 movie debut in "Roberta". She then briefly appeared in "You Can Count on Me", which starred Laura Linney and Mark Ruffalo, and the mystery/thriller "Keane". Albert Brooks chose her to play his wife in "Looking for Comedy in the Muslim World" in 2005, and 2007 brought both "Dan in Real Life" and "Before the Devil Knows You're Dead". Her role as a star-struck sheriff's wife in "Capote" earned her positive reviews, but it was playing a hardened welfare mom in Ben Affleck's "Gone Baby Gone" that finally brought her national attention. After being voted Best Supporting Actress for "Gone Baby Gone" by the National Board of Review, as well as the critics circles in New York, Los Angeles, Boston, San Francisco and Washington, DC, Ryan's performance was also nominated for a Golden Globe Award, a Screen Actors Guild Award, and an Oscar for Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting role at the 80th Academy Awards. Ryan appeared in "Changeling" (2008), directed by Clint Eastwood, and opposite Matt Damon in Paul Greengrass's "Green Zone" (2010). In September 2010, she completed filming a role in Philip Seymour Hoffman's directorial film debut, "Jack Goes Boating", taking over the role of Connie originally played by Beth Cole in the stage version. Personal life. Ryan gave birth to her first child with fiancé Eric Slovin, Georgia Gracie, on October 15, 2009. She and Slovin married in 2011.
582193	Darna Mana Hai (, , English: "Getting Scared is Forbidden") is a Bollywood Anthology film, released on 25 July 2003. It was considered a unique and innovative attempt by (joint) producer Ram Gopal Varma and director Prawal Raman to provide Indian audiences with a horror film which consists of six different short stories. It stars a host of Bollywood celebrities including Saif Ali Khan, Vivek Oberoi, Aftab Shivdasani, Shilpa Shetty, Sameera Reddy, Isha Koppikar, Nana Patekar, Sohail Khan, and more. Plot. Darna Mana Hai interweaves six stories into one film. Seven friends get stuck in the middle of a forest when their car breaks down, and they find refuge in an abandoned house. To keep each other amused, they tell each other horror and supernatural stories that they have heard over a bonfire. Shruti (Sameera Reddy) is the bravest of the lot and seems unafraid of any of the stories that are told. Story 1 - On the Way. The first story revolves around a married couple, Karan (Sohail Khan) and Anjali (Antara Mali), who get stuck in the middle of a forest. After their car suddenly stops, Karan gets out to investigate the problem. After his disappearance and his constant cries for help from the desolated forest, Anjali gets out and runs into the forest to rescue him. She finds Karan's torch covered in blood and is stalked by an unseen person or supernatural being. Panicking, Anjali runs around and finds a hand reaching out of a swamp. She then becomes terrified to find that the hand is wearing a watch identical to her husband's. After failed attempts to rescue him, the hand disappears. Someone creeps up on her and as Anjali screams, it turns out to be Karan. Karan seems completely normal and fine while Anjali, whimpering, attempts to tell him that she heard him screaming. However, Karan tells her that he heard her screams from the forest when he went to retrieve water. She looks at the torch she found, which is suddenly clean of the blood it was covered in. She then hurries back to the car with Karan, telling him to get them both out of there. After quickly fixing the car problem with the water, Karan and the panicked Anjali climb into the car and drive off. After seeing Anjali's anxious and worried state, Karan puts his arm around her as she leans on him and closes her eyes. He then smirks and looks into the rearview mirror of the car, in which his reflection is not visible and Anjali seems to be leaning on nothing. This conveys that he did die in the swamp and is now a ghost. After this story, one of the friends around the bonfire go into the forest. Story 2 - No Smoking. The second story is about a photographer, Anil (Saif Ali Khan), who checks into an inn while on his way to Mumbai. The manager and owner (Boman Irani) of the lodge is a strange and eccentric man who insists that smoking is strongly prohibited in his inn. When Anil tries to go outside for a smoke, the man restricts him, telling him about the diseases that come along with smoking. The owner then locks Anil inside the lodge and tells him that in a matter of months, he can cure his smoking addiction. The owner takes Anil to a basement of sorts and shows him piles of dead bodies, telling him that he tried to prevent them but these people would not stop smoking. After a few months, Anil is now seen working at the lodge, acting strange and eccentric himself. When a customer walks in smoking and asks him for a room, Anil tells him that smoking is strongly prohibited. When the customer displays indifference, Anil proceeds to shoot the man with a gun. The story ends with Anil and the owner sitting together, smiling and watching T.V. as an ad against smoking runs as a commercial. This story is similar to the story sung in The Eagles' Hotel, California. It also shares many thematic elements with Alfred Hitchcock's thriller "Psycho". After this story, a second friend in the group around the bonfire goes into the forest. Story 3 - Homework. The third story is that of a school teacher, (Raghuvir Yadav). He confronts a strange student, Pramila, who is always punished for not completing her homework. Later, she suddenly becomes a bright student and starts doing her homework regularly. But ironically, on her homework, the teacher sees that she has drawn an (Om), depicting the sign of God. This disturbs him and causes him to act strangely. After a few weeks, he decides to go to Pramila's house. Teacher confronts her and he explains that he once murdered his intelligent friend in jealousy and thinks Pramila is a reincarnation of his friend. He says that he drew the Om sign to prove it. By the end of the story, the teacher loses his sanity and he will keep on writing mathematics basic on the road. After this story is told, the third friend in the group also enters the forest. Story 4 - Apples. The fourth story centers on a housewife (Shilpa Shetty), who buys mysterious apples from a strange vendor (Rajpal Yadav). When she gets home, her husband (Sanjay Kapoor) eats one of the apples and finds it very tasty. The wife worries that something might happen to him after eating the apples, as she finds the vendor very suspicious. The next morning, when she wakes up, she is shocked to find an apple next to her instead of her husband. She is even more shocked when she realizes that her husband has turned into an apple after eating it. She runs outside and is astonished to see apples everywhere on the ground, after every person who has eaten them turned into them. The vendor then appears with an evil look, offering her his last apple for free. Story 5 - Ghostly Lift. In the fifth story an elderly man named John (Nana Patekar) is standing at a graveyard. A young man in sunglasses, Amar (Vivek Oberoi), drives by and gives John a lift. Amar asks John why he was at the graveyard, as he thinks that John's wife is dead so he might have come to visit her grave. But John says that it is actually he who is dead. Amar dismisses it as a joke. After some more conversation, Amar gets irritated by John's strange behavior. Amar then stops the car, gets out and asks John to get out. John then explains that he works for MTV Bakra (a program similar to Punk'd) and Amar is the first person not to get scared. Amar says that he was not scared because he knew beforehand that John was not a ghost. He says that he knew this because he himself is a ghost. John thinks that Amar is now trying to play a prank to get back at him. Amar then takes off his sunglasses, revealing that his eyes are hollow. When John sees this, he dies of shock. Back to the friends around the bonfire, one by one, each friend had gone into the forest after each story was told. After the fifth story, only two friends are left, as none of the five have returned. The two of them start talking about other things when a man suddenly appears, sitting at a corner. The strange man (revealed to be Sushant Singh) approaches the two and tells them that he has heard the five stories. He asks the boy out of the two friends to tell a story and narrates the following. Story 6 – Stop/Move. The sixth and final story is about a young student, Purab (Aftab Shivdasani), and his love interest, Abhilasha (Isha Koppikar). Purab contemplates suicide because Abhilasha rejects his advances and nobody else in his college likes him either. He sadly rants about not being special in front of an idol. Later, he discovers that he has developed an extraordinary ability - he can immobilize a particular person just by saying “Stop” to them. Purab uses his ability to freeze Abhilasha, and later imitates it to her by immobilizing a number of students in their college. Abhilasha, frightened of Purab's power, agrees to date him. Thereafter, Purab goes to his house and uses his power on his father on the way to his room. In his room, he, in delight of his ability, starts making plans to use his power. As he looks into the mirror, he says "Stop", which freezes him on the spot. His father finds him like that in his room, with a victorious smile frozen on his face. He is immediately rushed to the hospital but nothing can be done for him now. Ending. The strange man tells the two friends that it is his turn now to tell a story. He tells them a story that they are partly familiar with. His story is the following: A group of seven friends are travelling when their car breaks down one night. They seek shelter under a ruined shack and start telling stories to each other to kill time. After each story, one friend in the group (supposedly frightened) goes out into the forest and gets killed, one by one, until only two are left. The two friends that are left stop telling stories to each other and the killer, who is now bored, comes out to them. The killer appears to be the very same strange man that is narrating this story. He says that his only reason for the murders is fear because he cannot stand it and would kill anyone who is scared. The man then kills the boy. The girl, Shruti (Sameera Reddy), runs into the forest as fast as she can but the killer catches up with her and stabs her. She manages to kill the man before falling unconscious. When day breaks, Shruti awakes and walks up to the main road to find that the place is swarming with police and her friends' bodies are being taken into ambulances. Then she sees the killer standing by a car, smiling. Shruti points at the man and tries to tell the police that he is the murderer, but the police take no notice of her and appear not to hear her. The killer then points at a body, which she shockingly discovers to be her own. She realizes that she too is dead and is now a ghost, and watches their bodies being taken away with tears in her eyes. As she is watching, she is soon joined by the ghosts of her friends and the killer. Box office. The film, which opened on July 2003, was one of the most acclaimed film of that year. it received 4 star ratings by many critics and was termed a path breaking cult film. the film was called a radical and daring attempt in new age cinema and received accolades for its brilliant direction execution and performances. Darna Mana Hai opened to a 90% opening in all multiplexes and recovered its Cost Of Production in the initial 3 days after that it was declared a hit. Soundtrack. The soundtrack features 6 songs composed by Salim-Sulaiman, with lyrics by Lalit Marathe. Track listing:
582887	Phir Teri Kahani Yaad Aayee is a Bollywood film released on Zee TV in 1993. It was produced by Jonny Bakshi and Nitin Keni, directed by Mahesh Bhatt, and starred his daughter Pooja Bhatt in the lead female role. The lead male role was played by Rahul Roy. Pooja Bedi and Avtar Gill played supporting roles in the movie. This movie is believed to be based upon the real life story between the director Mahesh Bhatt and Parveen Babi. Plot. Alcoholic movie director, Rahul (Rahul Roy) ends up in a Rehabilitation Centre. Once there, he finds out that there is an inmate, Pooja (Pooja Bhatt), who is schizophrenic and has deep ranging mental problems. After an initial clash of personalities, the two become fast friends, and find that they are in love with each other. But Pooja's paranoia and instability makes any relationship impossible, and as a result she is hospitalized in a mental institution. Shortly thereafter there is a fire at the institution, and Pooja is killed in it. Rahul is devastated by Pooja's death, and is unable to take her off of his mind. One of his movie actresses, Seema (Pooja Bedi), and his brother Rohit, attempt to divert his mind, without much success. Then Rahul starts getting phone calls from a girl whose voice resembles Pooja's. Near the end it is found out that Pooja is alive, and she was the one who had burned down the mental institution because "she didn't like it there". Rahul and Pooja run away from the cops and Pooja's dad who wants her back in mental hospital is trying to trace her. They roam the jungle and change places but they are caught by the police in a town and at the climax Pooja snatches a gun from a police officer and shoots herself saying she doesn't want to go back to the mental hospital, she wants to be with Rahul. Her father and Rahul helplessly watch her die.
1040802	Ian McNeice (born 2 October 1950) is an English actor and voice actor. He found fame portraying government agent Harcourt in the 1985 television miniseries "Edge of Darkness", and went on to feature in popular films such as "The Englishman Who Went Up a Hill But Came Down a Mountain", "", and "Frank Herbert's Dune". He played Bert Large in the comedy drama series "Doc Martin" from 2004 onwards, and The Newsreader in historical drama "Rome" from 2005 onwards. Early life. McNeice was born in Basingstoke, Hampshire. His acting training started at the Taunton School in Somerset, followed by the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art (LAMDA) and two years at the Salisbury Playhouse. The next few years were spent in theatre, including a four-year career with the Royal Shakespeare Company and a production of "Nicholas Nickleby" on Broadway. Career. McNeice's television breakthrough was as Harcourt in the award-winning series "Edge of Darkness". He played the alcoholic sous chef Gustave LaRoche on the television series "Chef!", and went on to appear in the 2000 miniseries "Frank Herbert's Dune" as the evil Baron Vladimir Harkonnen, a role he later reprised for the 2003 sequel "Children of Dune". His television appearances have included all five series of "Doc Martin", in which he plays Bert Large, as well as the third episode of the second series of "Lewis". He appears as the Newsreader in the HBO/BBC production "Rome". McNeice has also appeared in a number of films, including "84 Charing Cross Road", "Day of the Dead", "No Escape", "From Hell", and "The Englishman Who Went Up a Hill But Came Down a Mountain". His breakthrough into American films occurred when he played Fulton Greenwall in "" (1995). He played the Nazi Gerhard Klopfer in the 2001 BBC/HBO television film "Conspiracy". Since then, he has been in "Around the World in 80 Days" (2004) and the 2005 supernatural thriller "White Noise". He also appeared as Potiphar in "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat". McNeice gave his distinctive voice and accent to voice-acting roles like the Vogon character Kwaltz, director of the Vogon Constructor Fleet, in the 2005 film adaptation of Douglas Adams' "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy". In 2007, he made his "Doctor Who" debut when he guest-starred as villain Zeus in the Big Finish BBC Digital Radio 7 drama "Immortal Beloved". He had a cameo role as Joachim von Kortzfleisch, a German general who refused to put his troops under the command of officers plotting to depose Hitler's government, in "Valkyrie". McNeice was initially cast in the role of Illyrio Mopatis in the HBO pilot of "Game of Thrones", but the role was then given to Roger Allam due to scheduling conflicts. He appeared as Winston Churchill in four episodes of "Doctor Who" in 2010 and 2011; he had previously played Churchill in the 2008 premiere production of the Howard Brenton play "Never So Good", and later played him again in the 2012 stage version of "The King's Speech".
1065100	Baby Geniuses (also known as Baby Talking (ベイビー・トーキング) in Japan) is a 1999 family-oriented comedy film directed by Bob Clark, rated PG for "some rude behavior and dialogue". It stars Kathleen Turner and Christopher Lloyd. Computer-generated imagery effects were used to digitally superimpose moving lips over babies' mouths, an effect similarly used in "Clutch Cargo", but many critics pointed the effect out as being unnerving. The catchphrases for the movie are "Think Innocent, Think Helpless, Think Again!" and "Naps are History". This movie is also considered as one of the worst movies of all time. In 2004 it was followed by a sequel, "", which had an even worse critical reaction than the original and bombed at the box-office. Both films currently reside in Internet Movie Database's Bottom 100 list. Another sequel, "Baby Geniuses and the Mystery of the Crown Jewels" was released directly to video in 2013. Plot. Two scientists, Dr. Elena Kinder (Kathleen Turner) and Dr. Heep (Christopher Lloyd), use genius baby studies to fund BabyCo's theme park "Joyworld". According Dr. Kinder's Research, Babies are supposed to be little geniuses that have tons of universal knowledge and speak a secret yet impossible-to-translate baby prelanguage called "Babytalk", But at age two, Babies are due to 'cross over', learn to talk, and forget their universal knowledge. But most of the Babies who were raised in Dr. Kinder's research facility were adopted from the Pasadena orphanage, transformed into geniuses thanks them getting breeded by the Kinder Method, used as experiments to crack the code to a secret yet impossible-to-translate baby language called "Babytalk" (If it was even possible for parents to understand what babies are saying) and spent most of their playtime in the Babyco Hyper-developmental Habitat in Dr. Kinder's research facility. And Dr. Kinder and Dr. Heep have dedicated their vast underground research facility to researching on babies and using babies as experiments to crack the code to a secret impossible-to-translate baby language called "Babytalk" and to prove that her method of baby care is superior.
1062441	The Piano is a 1993 New Zealand romantic drama film about a mute pianist and her daughter, set during the mid-19th century in a rainy, muddy frontier backwater on the west coast of New Zealand. The film was written and directed by Jane Campion, and stars Holly Hunter, Harvey Keitel, Sam Neill, and Anna Paquin. It features a score for the piano by Michael Nyman which became a best-selling soundtrack album. Hunter played her own piano pieces for the film, and also served as sign language teacher for Paquin, earning three screen credits. The film is an international co-production by Australian producer Jan Chapman with the French company Ciby 2000. "The Piano" was a success both critically and commercially, grossing $40.2 million, against its $7 million budget. Hunter and Paquin both received high praise for their respective roles as Ada McGrath and Flora McGrath. In March of 1994, "The Piano" won 3 Academy Awards out of 8 nominations: Best Actress for Hunter, Best Supporting Actress for Paquin, and Best Original Screenplay for Campion. Paquin, who at the time was 11 years old, is the second youngest Oscar winner ever in a competitive category, after Tatum O'Neal, who also won Supporting Actress in 1974 for "Paper Moon", at 10. Plot. "The Piano" tells the story of a mute Scotswoman, Ada McGrath, whose father sells her into marriage to a New Zealand frontiersman, Alistair Stewart. She is shipped off along with her young daughter Flora. The voice that the audience hears is not her speaking voice, but her mind's voice. Ada has not spoken a word since she was six years old and no one, including herself, knows why. She expresses herself through her piano playing and through sign language for which her daughter has served as the interpreter. Flora later tells two women in New Zealand that her mother has not spoken since the death of her husband that died as a result of being struck by lightning. Ada cares little for the mundane world, occupying herself for hours every day with the piano. It is never made explicitly clear why she ceased to speak. Flora, it is later learned, is the product of a relationship with a teacher whom Ada believed she could control with her mind, making him love her, but who "became frightened and stopped listening," and thus left her. Ada, Flora, and their belongings, including the piano, are deposited on a New Zealand beach by the ship's crew against her angry objections. As there is no one there to meet them, they spend the night alone, sheltering under a tiny tent made of a hoop skirt frame. The following day, Alistair arrives with a Māori crew and his friend Baines, a fellow forester and a retired sailor, who has adopted many of the Māori customs, including tattooing his face and socializing with the Māori instead of his own race (save Alistair). There are insufficient men to carry everything and Alistair abandons the piano, again eliciting objections from Ada. Alistair proves to be a shy and diffident man, who is jokingly called "old dry balls" by his Māori cohorts. He tells Ada that there is no room in his small house for the piano. Ada, in turn, makes no effort to befriend him and continues to try to be reunited with her piano. Unable to communicate with Alistair, she goes, with Flora, to Baines and asks to be taken to the piano. He agrees, and the three spend the day as she plays tunes on the beach. While he socially aligns himself with the Māori, Baines has steadfastly refused any sexual activity with Māori women. But he clearly finds Ada attractive due to her passion for music. Baines eventually retrieves the instrument and suggests that Alistair trade itand lessons from Adafor some land that Alistair wants. Alistair consents, oblivious to the budding attraction between Ada and Baines. She is surprised to find that he has had the piano put into perfect tune after its rough journey. Because he is sexually aroused by Ada's playing, he asks to simply listen rather than learn to play himself, and then offers to let her buy the piano back, one key at a time, by letting him do "things he likes" while she plays. While Ada and Alistair have had no sexual, or even mildly affectionate, interaction even though they are married, she negotiates to buy the piano back by allowing him to do things in exchange for only the black keys. However, after several days, Baines chooses to return the piano to Ada, saying to her that he feels that their arrangement "is making you a whore, and me, wretched", and that what he really wants is for her to actually care for him, which he doesn't think she can do. Despite Ada having the piano back, she ultimately finds herself missing Baines watching her as she plays, and thus, having realized her own feelings for him, she returns to him one afternoon, where they submit to their desire for one another. Alistair, having begun to suspect something going on between them, hears them making love as he walks by Baines' house, and then watches them through a crack in the wall. Outraged, he follows her the next day and confronts her in the forest, where he attempts to force himself on her, despite her resistance. He then boards up his home with Ada inside so she won't be able to visit Baines while Alistair is working on his timberland. After this, Ada avoids Baines and feigns affection with Alistair, though her caresses only serve to frustrate him more because when he makes a move to touch her in return, she pulls away. Eventually resolving to trust her, he removes the barriers from the house, and believes Ada will be true to her word that she won't see Baines. Soon after, Ada sends her daughter with a package for Baines, containing a single piano key with an inscribed love declaration that says "Dear George you have my heart Ada McGrath". Flora has begun to accept Alistair as her "papa" and is angered by her mother's infidelity. She brings the piano key instead to Alistair. After reading the love note burnt onto the piano key, Alistair furiously returns home and cuts off Ada's index finger with an axe to deprive her of the ability to play her piano, while Flora watches on in horror. He then sends Flora to Baines with the severed finger wrapped in cloth, with the message that if Baines ever attempts to see Ada again, he will chop off more fingers. However, later that night, while touching Ada in her sleep, Alistair hears what he believes to be Ada's voice inside of his head, asking him to let Baines take her away. Deeply shaken, he goes to Baines' house and confesses this to him. Ultimately, he decides to send Ada and Flora away with Baines and dissolve their marriage once Ada has recovered from her injuries. They depart from the same beach on which she first landed in New Zealand. While being rowed to the ship with her baggage and the piano tied onto a Maori longboat, Ada insists that Baines throw the piano overboard. As it sinks, she deliberately tangles her foot in the rope trailing after it. She is pulled overboard but, deep underwater, changes her mind and kicks free and is pulled to safety. In an epilogue, Ada describes her new life with Baines and Flora in Nelson, where she has started to give piano lessons in their new home, and her severed finger has been replaced with a silver finger made by Baines. Ada says that she imagines her piano in its grave in the sea, and herself suspended above it, which "lulls me to sleep." Ada has also started to take speech lessons in order to learn how to speak again. The film closes with the Thomas Hood quotation, from his poem "Silence," which also opened the film: "There is a silence where hath been no sound. There is a silence where no sound may be in the cold grave under the deep deep sea." Production. Casting the role of Ada was a difficult process. Sigourney Weaver was Campion's first choice, but she turned down the role because she was taking a break from film at the time. Jennifer Jason Leigh was also considered but she couldn't meet with Campion to read the script because she was committed to shooting the film "Rush". Isabelle Huppert met with Jane Campion and had vintage period-style photographs taken of her as Ada, and later said she regretted not fighting for the role as Hunter did. The casting for Flora occurred after Hunter had been selected for the part. They did a series of open auditions for girls age 9 to 13, focusing on girls who were small enough to be believable as Ada's daughter (as Holly Hunter is a rather short actress at 5' 2"). Anna Paquin ended up winning the role of Flora over 5,000 other girls. Alistair Fox has argued that "The Piano" was significantly influenced by Jane Mander's "The Story of a New Zealand River". Robert Macklin, an associate editor with "The Canberra Times" newspaper, has also written about the similarities. The film also serves as a retelling of the fairytale "Bluebeard", which is hinted at further in the inclusion of "Bluebeard" as a piece of the Christmas pageant. In July of 2013, Campion revealed that she originally intended for the main character to drown in the sea after going overboard after her piano. Production on the film started in April 1992, filming began on 11 May 1992 and lasted until July of 1992, and production officially ended on 22 December 1992. Reception. Reviews for the film were overwhelmingly positive. Roger Ebert wrote: ""The Piano" is as peculiar and haunting as any film I've seen" and "It is one of those rare movies that is not just about a story, or some characters, but about a whole universe of feeling." Hal Hinson of "The Washington Post" called it " evocative, powerful, extraordinarily beautiful film." On the film site Rotten Tomatoes, "The Piano" earned a 90% "Certified Fresh" rating. On Metacritic, it holds a score of 89 out of 100, indicating "universal acclaim". At the 1993 Cannes Film Festival, the film shared the Palme d'Or Best Film Award with Chen Kaige's "Farewell My Concubine", and Holly Hunter was awarded the Best Actress Award. In 1994, the film won 3 Academy Awards; Best Actress (Holly Hunter), Best Supporting Actress (Anna Paquin) and Best Original Screenplay (Jane Campion). Anna Paquin was the second youngest person after Tatum O'Neal to win an Academy Award. Holly Hunter is notable for being one of three actresses — along with Marlee Matlin (for her American sign language performance in "Children of a Lesser God") and Jane Wyman (for her deaf-mute role in "Johnny Belinda") − to receive an Academy Award for Best Actress in the post-silent era for a non-speaking role (her voice is only heard off-screen in a few scenes). The film made its US premiere at the Hawaii International Film Festival. Soundtrack. The score for the film was written by Michael Nyman, and included the acclaimed piece "The Heart Asks Pleasure First"; additional pieces were "Big My Secret", "The Mood That Passes Through You", "Silver Fingered Fling", "Deep Sleep Playing" and "The Attraction Of The Peddling Ankle". This album is rated in the top 100 soundtrack albums of all time and Nyman's work is regarded as a key voice in the film, which has a mute lead character ("Entertainment Weekly", 12 October 2001, p. 44). Home media. The film was released on DVD in 1997 by LIVE Entertainment and on Blu-ray on 31 January 2012 by Lionsgate, but already released in 2010 in Australia.
587589	Chiranjeevi (born Konidala Siva Sankara Vara Prasad on 22 August 1955) is an Indian film actor, producer, politician and a member of the Indian National Congress. He is the Minister of State with independent charge for Ministry of Tourism, Government of India. Prior to politics, Chiranjeevi has worked primarily in Telugu Cinema including Tamil, Kannada and Hindi films. He made his acting debut in 1978 through the film "Punadhirallu". However, "Pranam Khareedu" released earlier at the box office. Owing to his box-office appeal, popular entertainment magazines, "Filmfare", and India Today quoted him "Bigger than Bachchan", a reference to Bollywood’s Amitabh Bachchan. In 1987, He became the first south Indian actor to be invited at the 59th Academy Awards ceremony. News magazine "The Week" hailed him as "The new money machine". "Gharana Mogudu" was the first Telugu film to gross over ₹ 10 crore at the box office. The film made Chiranjeevi the highest paid actor in India, of the time, catapulting him to hit the cover pages of noted national weekly magazines in India. He was paid a remuneration of ₹ 1.25 crores for the 1992 film "Aapad Bandhavudu". In 2013, He inaugurated the Incredible India "Exhibition", a joint participation of the Ministry of Tourism and Ministry of Information and Broadcasting at the 66th Cannes Film Festival. He represented "Incredible India" at the 14th International Indian Film Academy Awards ceremony held at Macau. In a film career spanning more than thirty years, Chiranjeevi was starred in 149 feature films. In 1987, He was starred in "Swayamkrushi" which was screened at the Moscow Film Festival. In 1988, He co-produced "Rudraveena", which won the National Film Award for Best Feature Film on National Integration. He has won four state Nandi Awards and ten Filmfare Awards South. Chiranjeevi was honoured with the Padma Bhushan, India's third highest civilian award, for his contributions towards Indian cinema. In 2006, he was presented an honorary doctorate from Andhra University.
1162558	Hugh Marlowe (January 30, 1911May 2, 1982) was an American film, television, stage and radio actor. Biography. Marlowe was born Hugh Herbert Hipple in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and began his stage career in the 1930s at the Pasadena Playhouse in California. Marlowe was usually a secondary lead or supporting actor in the films he appeared in.
571473	Lion of Judah is a Christian animated comedy-drama film produced by Animated Family Films and starring Scott Eastwood and Ernest Borgnine. It is the sequel to the Christmas short film "Once Upon A Stable", taking place 30 years earlier in a Bethlehem stable as The Stable-Mates witness the birth of "The King". Lion of Judah was released to select theaters starting on June 3, 2011, with a domestic DVD release for Easter 2012. Production. The film was animated at the Character Matters Animation Studio in Cape Town, South Africa. It was converted to Stereoscopic 3D for theaters and was released in the United States by Rocky Mountain Pictures on June 3, 2011. Reception. The film received extremely negative reviews, with a rating of 0% on Rotten Tomatoes. It also has a mixed-reviewed 58% audience rating. Home media. "The Lion of Judah" was released on DVD and Blu-ray Disc by Warner Home Video on March 27, 2012.
1058386	Soul Men is a 2008 American musical comedy film directed by Malcolm D. Lee, and starring Samuel L. Jackson, Bernie Mac, Sharon Leal and Sean Hayes. This was Bernie Mac's final film appearance, before his death on August 9, 2008. The film was released on November 7, 2008. Bernie Mac and Isaac Hayes both died in unrelated circumstances on August 9 & 10 of 2008, respectively. Director Lee said the film was heavily re-edited to soften the tone of the film, as a tribute to the two actors. Plot. Main summary. Two former backup soul singers, Louis Hinds (Samuel L. Jackson) and Floyd Henderson (Bernie Mac), who have not spoken to each other in 30 years, reluctantly agree to travel across the country together to a reunion concert to honor their recently deceased lead singer, Marcus Hooks (John Legend). Cleo (Sharon Leal), a beautiful young woman in an abusive relationship, accompanies them as a new singer; she is believed to be Floyd's daughter but is really Louis'. A few problems come their way, involving Cleo's wanna-be gangsta rapper boyfriend, Lester (Affion Crockett), Floyd's fling with Rosalee (Jennifer Coolidge) and a lot more leading up to their big performance at the Apollo Theater, and the duo reform a bond that they lost 30 years ago. Plot. Louis Hinds and Floyd Henderson are two former members of the legendary R&B male group, The Real Deal, along with frontman Marcus Hooks. After years of success since 1972, the group disbanded in 1979, with Marcus becoming a solo superstar, while Louis getting dragged into poverty and crime, and Floyd becoming successful again as a spirited entrepreneur. The latter is then seen in the back of the car with his nephew, Duane (Mike Epps), his wife and two kids. The whole time he is looking pretty disgruntled while the kids are picking their noses and laughing really loud at the TV in the car. Soon Floyd is in the backyard of his new home while Duane keeps telling him how good he has it now that he’s retired. Floyd calls him smart because he moved in and took his carwash business and tricked him into retiring. He also moved him far away into the valley so nobody would hear Floyd yell about it. Duane reminds him that he was on the floor hollering because he recently fell and had to get a hip replacement. He says he moved him out there so he would be close to a place with good elderly healthcare and mentions it’s a nice place because he’s in a golf course community and has a nice house. Floyd gives up the fight and goes to his destined way of life. He starts by playing golf and hits the ball into the water. He then tries to sleep and it’s almost 4am and he still has no luck so he decides to masturbate himself to sleep. The next morning he goes outside to get the paper and sees a woman across the street. She stops to wave at him and soon they’re in bed together. On the nightstand it’s shown that he popped a Viagra and seems to be going well with the woman until it seems that her very large breasts don’t do it for him because they’re sagging all over him. She then grinds even harder on him and it almost gives him a heart attack and they both finish. He seems unsatisfied and to make matters worse she falls asleep on him and snores really loud. The next day, Floyd goes to the doctor trying to diagnose his sleeping problem. The doctor then tells him to turn around to check him from behind. Floyd figures he needs to check his prostate and protests that it has nothing to do with him sleeping. The doctor says it may affect his sleeping habits and he needs to double-check everything. Floyd reluctantly gives in while the doctor starts to ease his fingers in. Floyd starts singing and his voice pitches higher the deeper the doctor gets in. As he’s leaving the office, the doctor tells Floyd nothing’s wrong with him and gives him a prescription for sleeping pills. The doctor tells him not to be so hard on himself just because he’s retired. As Floyd walks out the doctor yells after him to not take the pills with alcohol unless he wants to kill himself. The doctor laughs but by the look on Floyd’s face it doesn’t seem like a bad idea because he’s so unhappy. Back at his place he’s flipping through channels and has a bottle of alcohol with the pills when a report comes up that Marcus Hooks is dead. Shocked, Floyd spits out all the pills he was about to swallow. They mention he’ll be honored at the Apollo with many of the singers from his generation when suddenly the phone rings. Next shown is a phone against the wall ringing when a man answers the phone. He yells for Louis to come to the phone and it’s at a mechanic shop. Louis comes to answer the phone and his boss tells him he better not be doing anything illegal or he’ll send his monkey face back to prison really fast. Louis takes the phone and angrily wraps the cord around his boss’ neck choking him. He makes fun of his unibrow and makes a racial slur at him and slams him against the wall. Frightened, his boss runs off when Louis takes the call. On the other end it’s the record label executive Danny Epstein (Sean Hayes). Louis doesn’t know who he is so he mentions he was their old manager’s son. He then tells of Marcus’ death and tells Louis of the tribute asking him to come back to perform at the Apollo that weekend. While Louis is on the phone, his boss and a group of other guys are waiting with wrenches in their hands waiting for him. Louis asks Danny if Floyd will be there and Danny says yes. Louis says no he won’t do it and hangs up the phone. That night, Louis gets off the bus bruised and bleeding obviously from his boss and his crew. He goes to his apartment but notices before he enters the door’s open. He creeps in the door and sees Floyd going through his things. Floyd turns around and says hello but Louis instantly knocks him out. Floyd gets up yelling at Louis when he argues that Floyd should’ve called him. Floyd says how since he doesn’t have a landline to connect to. Floyd makes a proposal for them to go to the Apollo saying it would be a good way to make a comeback. Louis says he isn’t interested and has a lifestyle to maintain. Floyd asks him what lifestyle since he’s living so poorly. Floyd says that Louis must not be interested in the money. Louis then asks how much they’re offering and he tells him $40,000. Louis says that isn’t enough money unless Floyd’s willing to split it to where Louis gets 60% and Floyd only gets two0%. Floyd says no they always split the money 50-50. Louis mentions Floyd’s carwash knowing that he’s rich. Floyd says since his nephew stole his business he’s living on a fixed income. Floyd asks Louis if he saved any of his money. Louis tells him he didn’t then Floyd asks him if he ever collected any of the royalties since he remembers making at least $30,000 from them. Louis tells him he gambled them all away playing poker. Louis tells Floyd to leave because that’s all he’s interested in taking. Floyd walks out mad, talking to himself in the hallway. He then knocks on Louis’ door again and says he hates the deal Louis is making but will go along with it because he never gives in and is a trooper. He brags that he’ll be going back to his expensive hotel to eat a nice steak dinner and will be back to take Louis on the next flight leaving at 6am. Louis says he doesn’t fly and he doesn’t get up until 8am. Floyd leaves upset. The next day the two are in Floyd’s car (the mother ship) driving on the highway. Louis takes his gun out and Floyd asks him why he’s packing. Louis says he doesn’t go anywhere without it in a flag flying (racist) state to protect himself. Floyd then takes the gun out his hand while Louis tells him to give it back since he doesn’t know what he’s doing. Of course Floyd doesn’t listen and carelessly shoots one of the side mirrors. It freaks him out so much he swerves the car all over the road cutting off a lot of cars. Still freaked out he doesn’t pay attention and drives the wrong way running over construction cones while Louis yells that he’s about to drive into the construction workers. He almost hits a cement truck lying down the cement and just in time gets out of the way but almost hits one of the workers. He then swerves out of the construction zone and cuts another car off. Louis yells that Floyd should’ve never had the gun in the first place while Floyd still drives ahead so traumatized he can’t respond. They then drive through southern California, Nevada, and a part of Arizona. That night they arrive in a town in Arizona and Louis notices their name is on a kiosk. He asks Floyd why the group name is up there and he explains since they have a big show at the Apollo they need the practice since they haven’t been on stage in over 30 years. They soon change in the back in their old blue suits that are in some serious need of being updated. Looking in the mirror Floyd reassures Louis they look good when he mentions that Floyd better be careful or one of his buttons will pop off and hit somebody. Floyd ignores the comment and goes to pick something up when the back of his suit jacket rips. Louis laughs at him and they prepare to go on stage. The DJ gives them a welcome and at first forgets their name. He then reads it and the duo starts to perform. It goes well until a very drunk patron gets too excited and starts dancing in front of the stage and runs on the stage dancing with The Real Deal. Louis tries to hit a high note but because he’s rusty it doesn’t sound well. The drunken man then grabs Louis and he gets mad enough to knock him down. The man isn’t at all affected by it and falls asleep on stage. While Floyd tries to dance around, a button on his pants flies off hitting a man in the eye. Louis then starts choking and coughing really hard. He then runs around stage yelling for some water. Floyd still tries to hold the show together but it still isn’t working when Louis jumps off the stage to take a random glass of water from a table and downs it. Suddenly the man who fell asleep wakes up grabbing Floyd’s leg yelling that he loves another woman yelling her name. Louis gets back on stage saying he can’t perform. Floyd tells him they can’t quit now because they have an audience. Louis says he can’t finish when the man grabs his leg and Louis kicks him off. Floyd says the reason they broke up is because of Louis’ attitude when Louis yells they really broke up because Floyd stuck his Johnson in his girlfriend. He angrily leaves the stage when Floyd stands in embarrassment because Louis yelled it in front of everyone. The next day in the car Floyd asks Louis if they’re going to talk about what happened. Louis admits he was rusty last night when Floyd says that’s insulting rust. He fires back that Floyd was stiff in his moves when he says his hip replacement was the reason he had a hard time moving. But Floyd says he wasn’t talking about last night’s performance he was referring to the woman that came between them, Odette. Louis says Floyd stole his girl and married her and he was hurt. Floyd tells Louis she left him too and he was also hurt. Louis tells him he’s glad that he got back what he did to him and they pull over to change one of the tires. Floyd takes Louis’ gun out and starts playing with it when Louis yells to put it back. Floyd tells him he knows what he’s doing when Louis reminds him of their last fiasco. Floyd reassures him he knows how to handle a piece just when he shoots the tire out. Because it almost hit Louis he yells at Floyd that he tried to kill him when Floyd tells him he didn’t he just didn’t aim right. Just then one of their old songs comes on when Marcus was still apart of the group. They both dance together like they used to and sing along. Back at the record label, Danny’s intern, Phillip (Adam Herschman), tells him that he can’t get in touch with The Real Deal. He mentions he’s a big fan of them and would love to see them perform, as would all their fans. Danny tells him he doesn’t care about the fans he has a big venue coming up worth a lot of money and for Phillip to just get those old guys to New York. Phillip leaves to try to get them to the Apollo. Back on the road, Floyd and Louis stop in Amarillo, Texas and do a show that night at a line-dancing bar. The show’s going well, so well Louis gets off stage and line dances with the crowd. When they finish their number the crowd goes wild and they perform an encore. When the show’s done, they sign autographs while having drinks. Louis scolds Floyd for doing an encore without the crowd asking, saying it was unprofessional. Floyd brushes him off when he sees a woman (Jennifer Coolidge) looking at him from across the bar. Floyd looks at her and says he remembered why he missed being on the road so much. He then takes her to his room and of course pops a Viagra. She tells him she’s never been with anybody like him before. He thinks she means she’s never been with a black man before but she tells him she meant she’s never been with anybody as old as him. He tells her she’s no spring chicken either but changes his tune and says to combine their years of experience together for the night. She then tells him she has a lot of hair down there. He says since he came up in the 1960s he’s used to it but when she pulls her pants down he looks horrified that there’s more than he was prepared for. He then brushes it off again when she asks him if he’s ever had a velveteen rabbit performed on him. He says no and she turns around to take her dentures off. He freaks out but it’s too late because she’s already started. The next morning, Floyd walks out on the balcony still erect because the woman had him going all night long. Next door Louis laughs at him. Floyd brags that he went all night and she still wants to go all morning teasing Louis because he spent the night alone. At the same time a much younger and better looking woman comes to the balcony with Louis and starts kissing him. Floyd looks shocked and a little upset that Louis beat him until his woman comes out back and looks over. The younger woman looks over and yells mom. Louis and Floyd freak out just when a man starts banging on one their doors. The young girl says that’s her father/the older woman’s husband. They both freak out and get all their belongings. They throw everything over the back of their balconies and run off. They’re back on the road when the car brakes down. They call for roadside assistance and when the mechanic finishes up, Floyd opens his wallet to get the cash when he notices it’s empty. Louis laughs at him when he opens his wallet and notices his is empty too realizing the two women robbed them in their sleep. They call Phillip asking if he can get them some money to make it to New York. He says he’ll try to help them out and asks Danny for the money. Danny refuses so Phillip realizes that he’ll have to come up with another way to help Louis and Floyd. Since they had to stop in Oklahoma, Floyd says he knows where he can ask for money. They stop in a neighborhood in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Louis realizes that it’s Odette’s house and refuses to go inside. He then hits Floyd making him fall down. Floyd tells him since he’s got a bad heart he can’t get up and he tells Louis to get him his pills. But when Louis turns around to get the pills, Floyd gets up while Louis says that he has enough medication to open a drugstore. When he gives him the bottle he needs, it’s too late because Floyd’s already at the door. Louis gives in and rings the doorbell. Lester (Affion Crockett) answers the door very rudely. They tell him who they are and that they’re looking for Odette Whitfield. Lester rudely says he doesn’t know who they are but then yells for his girlfriend to come answer the door because two old guys are looking for someone he doesn’t know. He leaves and Louis and Floyd go inside. Soon Cleo (Sharon Leal) comes to see who they are. They ask where Odette is and she tells them her mother’s dead. They both look shocked because nobody told them she died and weren’t even aware of a funeral. They introduce themselves but the whole time Lester’s yelling for her to come back because he needs something. She leaves annoyed while Louis and Floyd are in shock that Odette had a child and never told them. Floyd goes in Cleo’s purse to find her wallet for her ID. It states the year and date of birth making Floyd wonder if he’s the father. He puts it back when she comes back telling them she doesn’t have time for them to be there and leaves again. Floyd tells Louis it would make sense if the was the father because her birthday matches to 9 months before Odette left him. Louis tells him he’s got it wrong just when they hear a beat from one of their old songs. They then walk to see where it’s coming from. They go to the garage where Lester is sampling their record with the DJ, Pay-Pay (Fatso-Fasano) and Zig Zag (Jackie Long). It’s not very good because most of his lyrics are pretty hackneyed and something any other rapper has said. Plus Zig Zag is pressing the button to make gun shot noises so it’s very cliché. Louis and Floyd look pretty pissed and make Lester stop and they begin to argue about him horribly sampling their record. Lester says he’s sorry but gets upset enough to step and crush their record. Just when Louis is about to beat the snot out of him, Cleo comes in telling them to stop. She yells at Lester to calm down because it’s her house when Floyd and Louis try to chime in. But Cleo yells she doesn’t remember them being around when her mother was dying of cancer. She kicks Lester out the house and tells Floyd and Louis since they need a place to stay she’s going to make them dinner. After dinner they sit at the piano talking about her mother. Louis looks outside seeing Lester dealing drugs on the front porch pretty pissed this is going on right outside Cleo’s house. At the piano, Cleo tells Floyd her mother told her she had the best times with the two of them. Floyd offer’s her to go with them to the Apollo and tomorrow they stop in Memphis. Cleo says no she has to stay home and work. Floyd tells her it would be fun but Cleo tells him she doesn’t have time for fun looking at Lester outside her house. That night they get ready to go to bed in the guest bedroom. It probably used to be her room when she was little because the bed’s small and the room’s pink and purple. They say goodnight when Louis jumps up yelling at Floyd. He yells that Floyd’s been taking Viagra again when Floyd tells him he thought he took his cholesterol pills. Louis yells he’s already been to prison before and doesn’t need that happening to him again. Later that night, Louis comes from the bathroom at the same time hearing the piano. He sneaks downstairs and hears Cleo singing. He peaks through the door seeing her singing and playing the piano. Impressed he stays downstairs to listen to her. The next morning, Louis sees Floyd’s phone ringing. He answers it since Floyd’s in the bathroom and it’s Phillip. He tells Louis that he was able to solve their cash flow problems because he took $10,000 from his parents’ savings account. Louis thanks him and tells him to meet them at the Peabody hotel in Memphis that night. Ready to leave they go to the front porch and ask Cleo if she’s changed her mind. She turns around with a bruise under her eye. Floyd asks her what happened and she lies saying nothing. They already know so Louis goes in the house seeing Lester eating and watching TV with a gun on the table. He asks Lester why he hit Cleo. Lester tells him he’s the guy with the gun and points it to Louis when Louis turns it around on him grabbing his arm dragging him to the front porch. He makes Lester apologize to Cleo for hitting her and for sampling The Real Deal’s record. He also makes Lester give them his money when he protests that he doesn’t have any money. Louis says he does because he saw him dealing dope yesterday on the front porch. He makes Lester force it out of his underwear and makes Floyd take it. Floyd looks grossed out but takes it because they need the cash. Lester screams that he’s breaking his arm when Louis says no if he were he would twist it harder and he eventually does. Lester walks away yelling he’s lucky he doesn’t have his other arm or Louis would be dead. Louis tells him he’s seen guys like him on the yard everyday who would’ve never made it out alive in prison. Lester leaves calling him all kinds of things when Cleo laughs and decides to go to Memphis. They arrive in Memphis and try to check into the Peabody hotel. It doesn’t go well because an alarm goes off showing a wild party they had back on the 1970s with Bootsy Collins. Floyd at first doesn’t remember until Louis reminds him of the incident in one of the rooms. He then remembers when Louis gives his card. That also sets off an alarm with a ton of pictures with Louis with thousands of naked women. Phillip decides to step in as their manager and gives them his credit card to get 4 rooms. It works and he decides to get them some outfits to perform in. While getting massages, Phillip runs in with their outfits excited about the show. They go to the Orpheum with Cleo and see all their old buddies ready to perform. It all goes well until Floyd sees a woman there and calls her name out hoping she didn’t take what happened in Baltimore too personally. Not over what happened she punches him really hard and leaves. They then panic about what to do until they ask Cleo if she knows all their songs. She says she does but one of their friends says he isn’t singing with an amateur. Floyd tells him to show some respect because she’s Odette Whitfield’s daughter. They quiet down and then go on stage. The show starts out well with Floyd and Louis singing and dancing. Cleo then starts singing along and does so well the crowd cheers her on. At the same time Isaac Hayes sees her and is also impressed. After doing a great show, they walk outside pumped from their performance when Cleo tells them Isaac Hayes wrote a few songs that he thought would be perfect for her. They look concerned but she assures them she’ll be careful. In front of the hotel, Phillip is parking their car when Lester walks up to him with a gun. The only difference is he’s in a cast because his arm was broken so badly. He limps over to the car; gun in hand, asking Phillip about The Real Deal. He tells Lester, scared to death, he’s their manager. Lester then comes up with an evil idea. Cleo gets a knock on the door and it’s Floyd. He comes to her room to congratulate her and try to tell her he’s her father. But she interrupts him telling him he’s not her father. She knows he’s out there because he sends her money from time to time in a private account. Her mother told her it was from his royalties yet he never made himself known. Floyd figures out that it’s Louis giving her the money and that he never gambled the royalties away. In other words he got his wife, Odette, pregnant. Floyd knocks on Louis’ door and punches him really hard yelling he knocked up his wife. Louis runs away but Floyd keeps going after him. They fight the whole time knocking everything over. They break the TV, ruin the furniture and crash into the wall. Louis asks Floyd if he told Cleo and he says no he didn’t. Floyd asks Louis why he never told her. Louis said she was better off without him. It wouldn’t have made sense for her mother to tell her—her father was a selfish, alcoholic, drug addict who ruined everything he touched. Floyd then looks over in horror when Louis asks him what’s wrong. Louis turns around and the hotel staff is standing in the doorway with Cleo meaning they heard everything. She runs away upset with Louis and Floyd chasing after her. Outside, Lester’s kidnapped Phillip holding a gun to him. He’s in the car with Zig-Zag and Pay-Pay waiting for The Real Deal for revenge. He sees Cleo catch a cab and then sees Louis chasing after her. Lester gets out the car with his gun just when Floyd comes outside and the hotel staff drops their bags outside the door. Just when Lester is about to shoot, Phillip blows the horn really loud in their car to notify the two. Louis catches Lester in enough time to attack him knocking the gun out of his hand. Scared, Pay-Pay drives the car off leaving Lester behind. Louis picks up the gun to threaten Lester but the cops pull up making Louis and Floyd put their hands up minus Lester because he’s on the ground. Both Louis and Floyd are sitting in the jail cell mad. Louis tells Floyd they probably aren’t going to make it to the Apollo while Floyd tells him he’s pathetic. Louis said he didn’t want to go on the road anyways when Floyd says he saved him from rotting away and dying alone. Soon the bailiff comes to the cell telling Floyd he can go but locks Louis back in telling him he needs a lawyer to get out because he violated his parole by crossing state lines and having possession of a weapon. Floyd looks upset and tells him he doesn’t need him and he’ll do the show alone. He goes to the car and sits on Louis’ prescription realizing he’s dying. Back at the jail, Louis uses his phone call to call Cleo to apologize for never telling her about him and never being there. He tries to finish but the machine cuts him off. Floyd feels bad and goes back to the cell with a gun and holds the bailiff hostage making him go inside the cell while getting Louis out. They run off now both fugitives of the law. On the road Floyd says he needs to abandon the mother ship. Louis seems shocked but when they drive by a diner they see Lester’s car that Pay-Pay and Zig-Zag were driving. They’re in the diner eating when Louis and Floyd steal the car. By the time they notice the car’s being stolen it’s too late when Floyd and Louis drive off. The next morning they hear someone beating in the trunk of the car. They pull over and open the trunk seeing Phillip in only his underwear in the trunk. Freaked out he asks to pee for a second and goes to relieve himself. They then drive to the payphone and Phillip calls Danny. Danny picks up when Phillip gives him the status of where they are. At the same time Louis and Floyd are on the news with the footage of Floyd holding the bailiff hostage. Danny gets upset telling Phillip he’s fired and that Louis and Floyd are off the show. Phillip hangs up mad and tells them what Danny said. Floyd starts crying that they probably won’t make it to New York by that night since they’re fugitives of the law. Louis tells him it isn’t over until they say it’s over. He tells Floyd that he was right about him and that he’d given up on life. He was glad that Floyd came to get him instead of giving up on him. They then agree the 3 of them will go to New York. That night they arrive in Harlem ready for the big show. They make it past the cops and security to the back dressing room. They get a knock on the door and Phillip answers to see Isaac Hayes there to wish them good luck and he also has Cleo with him. Phillip leaves them alone and finds Danny in the hallway talking to one of the producers. Danny gets upset saying that he fired Phillip but Phillip also tells him he’s not alone. Danny gets outraged that Floyd and Louis are there and he goes to their dressing room telling them they aren’t allowed to be there. It’s true because the cops and detective are looking for the two in the audience. Floyd asks to have a word with Danny outside and they leave. In the dressing room Louis apologizes to Cleo for abandoning her all those years and tells her how proud he is of her. She forgives him and they make up. Outside the room, Danny looks shocked obviously because Floyd told him Louis is dying. He asks how long Louis has when Floyd responds he doesn’t know. Danny feels terrible so he agrees he’ll let them perform at the tribute. The show’s about to start when Louis starts coughing very severely. He can’t even get off the couch. Phillip panics and runs to get Danny. Danny runs to their dressing room when Floyd tells Louis to hang in there since he’s on his last leg. Louis tells him he’s not dying he just has a really bad kidney stone that hurts but he’s not dying. Floyd tells him his aunt used to take those pills and she used them because she was dying. Louis says he’s fine he’s just in bad condition making Floyd very upset since that was why he broke him out of jail. Danny tells them to just get ready and hide somewhere so the cops don’t find them. The two find a hiding place so good nobody can find them. In a very dark place, Floyd and Louis ask where they are. Louis offers to use his lighter when Floyd says no or they might burn. So Floyd takes out his cell phone and they realize they’re in the piano casket with Marcus Hooks. They freak out because they’re in a casket with a dead man but soon notice things on his fingers and wrists. Floyd also notices his old watch on Marcus’ wrist and almost chokes him when Louis tells him it’s not worth it since he’s dead. Floyd’s still upset that Marcus stranded them and went solo without them and was also a kleptomaniac. Louis said he did it because he knew he’d have a better career and he did. Louis then apologizes for trying to take most of the money and that he’ll split it 50-50 with Floyd. Floyd thanks him but admits there was no money involved. He just lied to get Louis to perform but tells him he can’t say it wasn’t worth it. Surprisingly Louis doesn’t get mad and agrees that it was worth the ride. They then feel the casket moving forward obviously to the stage. In front of the stage Danny freaks out because he can’t find the rest of The Real Deal while the detective is also trying to find the two. When the casket stops, Floyd and Louis open the doors and the crowd cheers for them. They then get on the stage and perform. The police force almost goes to arrest them but Danny stops them asking for 1 song. The detective agrees and lets them perform. The Real Deal then introduces Cleo and she does a solo act making the crowd go even wilder. Everyone’s dancing along even the cops and when the detective’s caught, he then emphasizes they only get one song. A caption comes up telling The Real Deal had to serve a shortened sentence on good behavior and later did a comeback tour. The next caption shows Phillip in the audience as their new manager. He then says he’s their manager and all the women surrounding him attack him for an autograph. They then finish their number and the end pauses with them in a still shot. Reception. "Soul Men" received generally mixed reviews from film critics. Based on 73 reviews, Rotten Tomatoes reported that 45% of critics stated that "Soul Men" features lively performances from Bernie Mac and Samuel L. Jackson, and some hilarious moments, but ultimately suffers from an unoriginal script. On Metacritic, another review aggretator, reported that critics gave the film an average score of 49/100, based on 23 reviews. The film opened at #6 with $5,000,000 behind "Zack and Miri Make a Porno", "Changeling", ', "Role Models", and ' (which Bernie Mac was also in). At the conclusion of its domestic theatrical run on February 5, 2009, the film's gross was $12,082,391 which makes the film a flop. DVD sales. The film was released on DVD on February 10, 2009 and by the 5th week, about 483,360 units have been sold, bringing in $9,443,721 in revenue. This does not include Blu-ray Disc sales.
1073825	Kathleen Kinmont (born February 3, 1965) is an American actress who starred in film and on television. Kinmont is perhaps best known for starring in horror movies. Career. Katheen Kinmont Smith was born in Los Angeles, California, the daughter of actress Abby Dalton. Her first feature film role was in the comedy "Hardbodies" (1984). Her best-known roles include the horror movie ' (1988) as Kelly Meeker and in "Bride of Re-Animator" as the title character. She played the title role in ', which she reprised in the sequel "". Her most recent film was "Lime Salted Love" (2005). She starred on television series such as "Santa Barbara" as Marilyn Cassidy in 1992 and her big role was in the 1990s syndicated television series "Renegade" as Cheyenne Phillips from 1992-1996. She was married to Lorenzo Lamas, who starred as the main character on the series. She was reportedly dropped from the series in 1996 when she made derogatory comments in the press about Lamas future wife Shauna Sand, who had been making appearances on the show. They later divorced. She is also divorced from actor Jere Burns. She has made guest appearances on such television seriess as "Dallas", "Baywatch", "Silk Stalkings", "V.I.P." and "Days of our Lives". Kathleen is currently involved in a variety of projects as a writer, director and director of photography. She also has a flourishing photography business in the Los Angeles area, and has just released a yoga video called "Kathleen Kinmont's Restorative Core Yoga". In 2012, she contributed several articles on the topic of divorce through "The Huffington Post".
520575	Bituing Walang Ningning (lit. "Star Without Sparkle") is a Filipino television serial drama. It began airing on ABS-CBN on May 15, 2006, and ended on October 6 that year. For most of its run, the soap opera was the network's highest rating show in primetime. The station referred to the TV series as "SineSerye", meaning "Movie Serialized TV Series". The series was supposed to end on September 25, 2006 but ended on September 6 due to coverage of the Special concert staged at the Araneta Colesseum and a taped interview for the series on the 19th and also rehearsals tapings and dubbings which were occurring during the run. The finale was in 5 parts for its finale week and also introduced its current Primetime Series and Pilot Maging Sino Ka Man on the 6th with its Pilot moved to a different timeslot and would also be the replacement of the Phenominal Series. On October 8, 2006 a "Himig of Pasasalamat Concert" was staged at the Araneta with all of the characters which was also televised live the series also showed a glimpse of behind the scenes footage and also sung the themes from its successful Album produced by Star Records and Viva Records although it was said that some parts of the series was supposed to also be produced by Viva such as songs sung by Sarah Geronimo herself and the theme of the song originally popularized by Cuneta in the film. Origin. The story originally became popular in the Philippines as a serialized comic strip (Komiks) created by Nerissa Cabral. The original story was then made into a movie with the same title in 1985 by Viva Films. The movie starred Sharon Cuneta (as Dorina Pineda), Cherie Gil (as Lavinia Arguelles), and Christopher de Leon (as Nico Escobar). The movie was released on March 16, 1985. It was produced by Vic del Rosario, Jr. and directed by Emmanuel H. Borlaza. The film is also the source of one of Philippine cinema's most recognized lines: ""You're nothing but a second-rate, trying hard copycat!"" (Lavinia to Dorina), a line that was also used in the TV series & also second line (Dorina to Lavinia) ""Amanos"". Television Series. In 2006, ABS-CBN bought the rights from Nerissa Cabral to turn the film into a TV series. She agreed to do the remake with the conditions of Sarah Geronimo portraying the role of Dorina Pineda and that the story will stay true to the fan-star relationship depicted in the original story. Synopsis. Emilio and Rosa Mia are a loving couple expecting their first child. Rosa Mia is an aspiring singer, working at cheap bars to earn a living while Emilio is security guard where Rosa Mia works. When the bar owner learns of their relationship and Rosa Mia’s pregnancy, talk show host fires them from the club leaving them jobless and destitute. But although poor, they remain optimistic about their future together. One night, as Emilio was out job hunting, Rosa Mia starts to labor. With no one to help, she runs out in the pouring rain to get to the hospital. Fortunately, Emilio arrives and sees Rosa Mia struggling; but by then, it’s too late to go to the hospital and Rosa Mia gives birth to a baby girl out in the streets. They name the baby Emilia Rose. Emilia Rose develops lung problems and this causes her to be sickly and be in and out of hospitals. Desperate because of rising hospital costs, Rosa Mia accepts a month-long singing engagement in Cebu, leaving Emilio to take care of the baby on his own. So when out on his new job as a security guard in another club, Emilio brings his baby with him. But on one occasion, his boss sends him off to deliver a package in a different club. While on this errand, Emilio leaves the baby with an acquaintance because he can’t bring the baby inside with him. This is Adora, a rose vendor outside the clubs of Malate. Adora agrees to take care of the baby for a few minutes, waiting outside the club for Emilio to return. Unknown to Adora, Emilio gets arrested inside the club because the package turns out to filled with drugs. Adora waits all night but Emilio never returns. Adora then brings the baby home with her. The loss of Emilia Rose and Emilio’s subsequent imprisonment lead to bitterness and separation between Emilio and Rosa Mia. Adora on the other hand falls for the baby and decides to raise her as her own, calling her Adorina, Dorina for short. Meanwhile, with the loss of her child, Rosa Mia pours herself in her singing until she gets discovered by Lauro Calma, a record producer. He develops Rosa Mia to be a star, asking her not to reveal to anyone that she’s married and had a child. Rosa Mia agrees. Soon Rosa Mia rises to fame, and becomes the Sensational Diva. Dorina & Lavinia. Dorina grows up to be happy child with Adora. They both enjoy music and are big fans of Rosa Mia. Meanwhile, another up and coming singer emerges in the scene. She is Lavinia. Her ambitious mother, Barbara, tells Lavinia to befriend Rosa Mia to speed up her popularity. Lonely and vulnerable, Rosa Mia takes Lavinia under her wing, seeking a replacement for the daughter she pines for even after so many years. With Rosa Mia’s help, Lavinia also becomes very popular. But it’s not enough for Barbara. She wants Lavinia to be on top. So Barbara connives with Larry Calma, the son of Rosa Mia’s manager, Lauro. Larry wants to prove himself to his father so he handles Lavinia and connives with Barbara to knock off Rosa Mia from the top spot, leaving Lavinia as the ultimate and most popular singer. Through intrigue and character assassination, they succeed. Rosa Mia falls from grace and loses her reputation and popularty so she turns her back from showbusiness and returns to singing in small clubs. Soon, Dorina begins to idolize Lavinia. She goes to her every concert, show and personal appearances to catch a glimpse of her idol and offer her Sampaguita. But Dorina also loves to sing. With the help of Adora and her best friend Oman, Dorina joins singing contests until she eventually wins in a nationwide and televised singing contest. She gains the attention of all, including Nico Escobar, the boyfriend of Lavinia. Lavinia – Nico – Dorina. Nico is in love with Lavinia. But it becomes clear that Lavinia is too involved in her career. She refuses to marry him for fear she won’t be as popular anymore. Bitter and angry, Nico plans to show Lavinia that her career should not be the most important priority in her life so he plans to develop another singer to compete with Lavinia and knock her out of the top spot. Nico uses Dorina to accomplish this. With his friend Zossimo, Nico puts up Zoni Records to develop Dorina’s singing career. Dorina’s Love. Soon after, Dorina finds herself admiring Nico and develops feelings for him, but she doesn’t know how Nico feels about her. Dorina’s interest in Nico comes as a blow for her best friend Oman and her band-mate Gary who are both in love with Dorina. Dorina vs. Lavinia. Soon, Dorina gains fame and Lavinia becomes threatened by this. After a big event, Lavinia becomes so enraged by Dorina’s great performance and attention of all that she attacks Dorina and calls her a copycat. This then spurs Dorina to fight back. Dorina & Rosa Mia. Nico and Zossimo find a song once composed by Rosa Mia before she left the music scene. They buy the song from Rosa Mia and ask her to help Dorina with her singing. At first, Rosa Mia refuses after what happened with Lavinia. But eventually she can’t resist Dorina and agrees to help her out. They soon become close, not knowing of their real relationship with each other. Dorina & Emilio. Not long after, Emilio is released from prison with the goal of finding Adora and his daughter. He later succeeds and finds Adora, only to learn that his daughter is Dorina, the singer he’s been admiring even when still in prison. Emilio then decides not to tell Dorina of their real relationship for fear of destroying Dorina’s career and all that she has worked hard for. But to be close to his daughter, Emilio takes on a job as Dorina’s driver/bodyguard. The Stage is Set. Things are falling into place. Dorina is unwittingly with her real parents, Emilio and Rosa Mia, and it is only a matter of time for the truth to surface. This is Adora’s dilemma. Will she give Dorina to her real parents or fight to keep her till the end? Lavinia is threatened by Dorina’s growing popularity. Lavinia will continue to fight to remain on top but this time, Dorina won’t take it sitting down. This will lead to a showdown between the two. With her ever growing popularity, who is the right man for Dorina? Nico, who moulded her into a great star? Gary, who Dorina makes beautiful music with? Or Oman, the loyal and trustworthy best friend? And what about Dorina herself? Will she find true happiness basking in the limelight of success? Ending. Dorina now knows her real parents at the last concert her emotions flow to the last song she is now once reunited with her family. RosaMia and Emilio are now back together and everythings is back to normal but even though Adora is gone in the story there are life lessons learned in their lives and in the ending Nico forgives Lavina, and Oman and Dorina are now together. Ratings. Bituing Walang Ningning garnered 29.2% (Mega Manila) for its pilot episode against its rival show Extra Challenge, which garnered 32% on the same day. The show continued to plunge down and soar up from the low to high 20s, and was pitted against many Telefantasyas, such as Captain Barbell after Extra Challenge ended. Although it was ABS-CBN's highest rated show for almost all of its run in Mega Manila Area, it was constantly beaten by programs on GMA Network. However for its final episode, Bituing Walang Ningning shot up to 34.8% making it a stagering success against its GMA 7 counterpart Atlantika which got 26% allowing Bituing to be no.1 for its final episode challenging GMA Network's dominance in Mega Manila Area. In the nationwide ratings, released by AGB Nielsen Phils., Bituing Walang Ningning became the 2nd highest rating TV show for the year 2006, garnering a whopping 45.1%, with the a daily ratings of 40% and above. In Mega Manila, its highest rating is 35.6%, the lowest was 25.3% with an average of 29.7%. While in Nationwide ratings, its highest rating was 48.3% while the lowest was 36.4%, and the average of 42.5%. Weekly Ratings (Mega Manila). Source: AGBNMR Philippines Cast. The following table summarizes the main cast. Innovations in the TV series. A number of plot and character differences were introduced in the TV version, in part to extend the limited story line of the movie: Soundtrack. The Bituing Walang Ningning soundtrack is jointly produced by Viva Records and Star Records. The soundtrack was released in May 2006, before the series began airing and features performances by cast members. The album reached Gold status selling more than 15,000 copies nationwide. The tracks in the original soundtrack are: The soundtrack was repackaged in July 2006 and re-released with two additional tracks:
591487	Moammar Rana (), is Pakistani actor. He is known for his various Lollywood movie credits, and has also worked on the small screen in Pakistani soap operas such as "Dil, Diya, Dehleez" and Ishq Ibadat. Career. Rana appeared in the film "Kudiyon Ko Dale Dana" as a second lead actor. He got his first break in "Deewane Tere Pyar Ke". He has also appeared in the films "Channa Sachi Muchi", "Fire", "Jhoomar", and "Koi Tujh Sa Kahan" alongside Veena Malik.
774601	The Saddest Music in the World is a 2003 Canadian film directed by Guy Maddin, budgeted at $3.8-million (a large budget in Canadian terms) and shot over 24 days. The film was Maddin's first collaboration with Isabella Rossellini, who subsequently appeared in a number of Maddin's films, and co-created a film with him about her father Roberto Rossellini.
1163561	Regis Francis Xavier Philbin (; born August 25, 1931) is an American media personality, actor and singer of Irish and Arb%C3%ABresh%C3%AB descent, known for hosting talk and game shows since the 1960s. Sometimes called (alternatively attributed to James Brown) "the hardest working man in show business", he holds the Guinness World Record for the most time spent in front of a television camera. His trademarks include his excited manner, his New York Bronx accent, his wit, and irreverent ad-libs. He is most widely known for "Live! with Regis and Kelly" (previously "Live! with Regis and Kathie Lee"), "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire", "Million Dollar Password", and for hosting the first season of "America's Got Talent". Philbin's final episode of "Live! with Regis and Kelly" aired on November 18, 2011. Early life and career. Philbin was born in the Bronx, New York City. His father, Francis "Frank" Philbin, a U.S. Marine who served in the Pacific, was of Irish heritage. His mother, Filomena "Florence" (née Boscia), was of Arb%C3%ABresh%C3%AB descent. They lived in the Van Nest section of the Bronx. Philbin was raised Roman Catholic. He was supposedly named "Regis" because his father wanted him to attend the prestigious Regis High School. It was long believed that Philbin was an only child, but on the February 1, 2007, broadcast of "Live with Regis and Kelly", Philbin announced that he did have a brother, Frank M. Philbin (March 1, 1951 – January 27, 2007), who had died from non-Hodgkin lymphoma several days earlier. Philbin said his brother, 20 years younger than he, had asked to not be mentioned on television or in the press. Philbin attended Our Lady of Solace grammar school in the Bronx, and graduated from Cardinal Hayes High School in the Bronx in 1949 before attending the University of Notre Dame, where he graduated in 1953 with a sociology degree. He later served in the United States Navy as a supply officer, then went through a few behind-the-scenes jobs in television and radio before moving into the broadcasting arena.
1049033	"Don't Go in the House" is a 1979 horror film written and directed by Joseph Ellison, and co-written by Ellen Hammill and Joe Masefield. It gained notoriety as a video nasty, and remains banned in some countries. Plot. Donald "Donny" Kohler is deeply disturbed individual who was emotionally and physically scarred by burns inflicted on him by his mother. As a child, whenever Donny did something she saw as "wicked", she would hold his bare arms over a gas stove in an effort to "burn the evil out of him". Due to this, Donny developed an obsession with fire, and human combustion.
149879	"L'Atalante" (also released as "Le Chaland qui passe") is a 1934 French film written and directed by Jean Vigo and starring Michel Simon, Dita Parlo and Jean Dasté. In the film Dasté plays a captain who honeymoons with his new wife, Parlo, on a canal barge with the ship's first mate Père Jules (Michel Simon) and the cabin boy (Louis Lefebvre). The newlyweds struggle until Parlo leaves the boat to explore the sights of Paris, leading Dasté to abandon her until she is found by Père Jules and they are reunited. After the difficult release of his controversial short film "Zero for Conduct", Vigo initially wanted to make a film about Eugène Dieudonné, whom Vigo's father (famous anarchist Miguel Almereyda) had been associated with in 1913. After Vigo and his producer Jacques-Louis Nounez struggled to find the right project for a feature film, Nounez finally gave Vigo an unproduced scenario by Jean Guinée about barge dwellers. Vigo re-wrote the story with Albert Riéra and Nounez secured a distribution deal with the Gaumont Film Company with a budget of ₣1 million. Vigo used many of the technicians and actors from "Zero for Conduct", such as cinematographer Boris Kaufman and actor Jean Dasté. He also worked with such established film stars as Michel Simon and Dita Parlo.
1100061	Akshay Venkatesh (born 21 November 1981) is an Indian Australian mathematician. His research interests are in the fields of counting, equidistribution problems in automorphic forms and number theory, in particular representation theory, locally symmetric spaces and ergodic theory. He is the only Australian to have won medals at both the International Physics Olympiad and International Mathematics Olympiad, which he did at the age of 12. Early years. Raised in Perth, Western Australia, where he attended Scotch College, Venkatesh attended extracurricular training classes for gifted students in the state mathematical olympiad program. In 1993, whilst aged only 11, he competed at the 24th International Physics Olympiad in Williamsburg, Virginia, winning a bronze medal. The following year in 1994, he switched his attention to mathematics, and after placing second in the Australian Mathematical Olympiad, he won a silver medal in the 6th Asian Pacific Mathematics Olympiad, before winning a bronze medal in the International Mathematics Olympiad held in Hong Kong that year. He completed his secondary education that year, turning 13 at the end of the year. He entered the University of Western Australia the following year as the youngest ever student at the institution and was awarded First Class Honours in Pure mathematics in 1997, the youngest ever to achieve this feat, as well as being awarded the J. A. Woods Memorial Prize for being the leading graduating student of the year. Research career. Venkatesh commenced his PhD at Princeton University in 1998 under Peter Sarnak, which he completed in 2002, producing the thesis "Limiting forms of the trace formula". He was supported by the Hackett Fellowship for postgraduate study. He was then awarded a postdoctoral position at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he served as a C.L.E. Moore instructor, until his selection as a Clay Research Fellow in 2004. He was awarded the Salem Prize and the Packard Fellowship in 2007. His research interests are the enumeration of arithmetic objects using upper bounds for the number of rational points on algebraic varieties, and also the analytic theory of automorphic forms, with an interest in quantum chaos and geodesic flows, L-functions, and applications to spectral theory and equidistribution. He also won the 2008 SASTRA Ramanujan Prize. The $10,000 prize was given at the International Conference on Number Theory and Modular Forms, held at SASTRA University, Kumbakonam, Ramanujan’s hometown. Venkatesh has made far-reaching contributions to a wide variety of areas in mathematics, including number theory, automorphic forms, representation theory, locally symmetric spaces and ergodic theory, by himself, and in collaboration with several mathematicians. Venkatesh provides a very novel and more direct way of establishing sub-convexity in numerous cases, going beyond the foundational work of Hardy-Littlewood-Weyl, Burgess, and Duke-Friedlander-Iwaniec that dealt with important special cases. Venkatesh held a Clay Research Fellowship from the Clay Mathematics Institute from 2004 to 2006, and was an associate professor at the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences at New York University. Since September 1, 2008, he has been a professor at Stanford University.
1063659	Rescue Dawn is a 2006 war drama film directed by Werner Herzog, based on an adapted screenplay written from his 1997 documentary film, "Little Dieter Needs to Fly". The film stars Christian Bale, and is based on the true story of German-American pilot Dieter Dengler, who was shot down and captured by villagers sympathetic to the Pathet Lao during an American military campaign in the Vietnam War. Steve Zahn, Jeremy Davies, Pat Healy and Toby Huss also have principal roles. The film project, which had initially come together during 2004, began shooting in Thailand in August 2005. Executive producers were Freddy Braidy, Jimmy De Brabant, Michael Dounaev and Gerald Green among others. The film was made by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Gibraltar Films and Thema Production. It was distributed by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer theatrically in the U.S., and by Pathé Distribution, Hopscotch Films and Central Film GmbH in foreign markets. In home media format, the film was distributed by MGM Home Entertainment. It was originally scheduled to be released by MGM in December 2006, but was held back for limited release in the United States until 2007, with the full release on July 27 following a limited release in New York City, Toronto and Los Angeles on July 4. The film score was written by German composer Klaus Badelt, after previously working with Herzog in his 2001 film "Invincible". The soundtrack was released on June 26, 2007, while the DVD and Blu-ray Disc versions of the film were released on November 20. The film grossed $5,490,423 in US ticket receipts, and earned $1,686,720 outside the US to give a total gross of revenue of $7,177,143. The film was considered a financial failure due to its $10 million budget costs. The film recouped its losses from $24,747,717 of DVD rental and sales. Preceding its theatrical run, the film was generally met with positive critical reviews before its initial screening in cinemas. Following its cinematic release, the film was nominated for multiple awards, including a Golden Satellite Award and an Independent Spirit Award. It also won an award from the San Diego Film Critics Society for actor Christian Bale in the category of "Body of Work". Plot. Dieter Dengler (Christian Bale), a German-born U.S. Navy pilot in squadron VA-145, is shot down in his A-1 Skyraider over Laos in February 1966, while on a combat mission. He survives the crash only to be pursued, and ultimately captured, by the Pathet Lao. Dengler is given the chance for leniency by the Province Governor (François Chau) if he signs a document condemning America, but he refuses. He is tortured and taken to a prison camp. There he meets fellow American military soldiers and pilots, such as Gene DeBruin (Jeremy Davies) and Duane W. Martin (Steve Zahn), some of whom have been captive for years. Dengler begins planning an escape, much to the disbelief of his fellow combatants, who have been downtrodden through physical and psychological torture by the camp guards. Eventually, all the prisoners agree to escape, only Dengler and Martin follow through with the plan as the others disappear and are not seen again in the film. Dengler and Martin try to reach the Mekong River to cross over into Thailand, but Martin is killed by a mob of angry villagers. Eventually, Dengler is rescued by an American helicopter but sequestered in a hospital due to the secret nature of his mission. He is visited by some of his squadron who covertly take him back to his ship, where he is welcomed as a hero by the crew. Production. Development. "Rescue Dawn" is based on the true story of Dieter Dengler, the charismatic pilot who was shot down in Laos while on a covert attack mission flying for the United States Navy during the Vietnam War. A few months after being captured in 1966, Dengler and other POWs who were being held captive targeted July 4 for their mass escape. The prisoners had overheard the guards in mid-June planning to kill all of them and return to their villages because a drought had caused a severe shortage of food and water. The POWs decided they could not wait any longer to make their escape. Dengler and fellow POW Duane W. Martin made their eventual run from their prisoner camp into dense jungle. Martin was killed by an enraged Laotian villager but Dengler was able to continue on. Two rescue helicopters were scrambled to rescue Dengler, dropping a cable down to the human figure they spotted below. They winched him on board. Fearful that he could be a Viet Cong suicide bomber the crew pinned the man to the helicopter deck and searched him. His backpack turned out to contain only a half-eaten snake. Dengler, exhausted by his ordeal whispered: "I am an American pilot. Please take me home." Director Herzog's fascination with the cruelties of man and nature interested him in the 1997 documentary "Little Dieter Needs to Fly" about Dengler's experiences in captivity. He chose to revisit the story in a cinematic theatrical version with Christian Bale portraying Dengler. Compared to "Little Dieter Needs to Fly", "Rescue Dawn" understates the suffering of the prisoners, including omitting some of the worst torture experienced by Dengler. Herzog did not want to glorify the prisoners' woes, as the film is rated PG-13. Filming. The film was shot in 44 days in Thailand. In preparation for the roles, the actors playing the prisoners spent several months losing weight. Since weight gain is accomplished more quickly than weight loss, the film was shot in reverse, with Bale fully regaining his weight during the course of the shoot. The film includes the first major occurrence of digital visual effects in Herzog's career. Because very few authentic A-1 Skyraiders remained flightworthy at the time of the production, the shots of Dengler's flight while airborne were created digitally. The crash itself, however, is live action. Music and soundtrack. The original motion picture soundtrack for "Rescue Dawn", was released by the Milan Records label on June 26, 2007. It features classical musical songs composed with the considerable use of the cello and piano musical instruments. The score for the film was orchestrated by Klaus Badelt. Original songs written by musical artists Ernst Reijseger, Patty Hill, Craig Eastman, and Jack Shaindlin among others, were used in between dialogue shots throughout the film. Peter Austin edited the film's music. Track listing: Historical accuracy. The film depicts six prisoners in the camp, while in real life there were seven. Herzog says that he found the scripting to be difficult with seven characters, and that six was a more manageable number. Jerry DeBruin, brother of Gene DeBruin (portrayed by Jeremy Davies), has created a website critical of Herzog and the film, claiming that several characters and events have been falsely portrayed. On the same website, Pisidhi Indradat, the other survivor of the group, has also stated that the film contains inaccuracies. The website claims that during his imprisonment, DeBruin taught his cellmates English, shared his food, and even returned after escaping to help an injured cell mate. In the film, Dengler formulates the entire escape plan along with uncuffing the handcuffs with the nail. According to Jerry DeBruin, the prisoners waited for two weeks before telling him of the plan, which had been devised before his arrival. Herzog acknowledged that DeBruin acted heroically during his imprisonment, refusing to leave while some sick prisoners remained. Herzog states he was unaware of this fact until after the film had been completed; however, Pisidhi Indradat and Jerry DeBruin state they made multiple attempts to meet with Herzog to ensure the film's accuracy but to no avail. Herzog states that this narrative aspect probably would have been included had he learned it earlier. In real life, Dengler spoke English with a German accent. For this film, Bale spoke with an American accent. Reception. Critical response. Among mainstream critics in the U.S., the film received almost exclusively positive reviews. Rotten Tomatoes reported that 90% of 156 sampled critics gave the film a positive review, with an average score of 7.5 out of 10. At Metacritic, which assigns a weighted average out of 100 to critics' reviews, the film received a score of 77 based on 36 reviews. Various critics included the film on their lists for the top 10 best films of the year; such as V.A. Musetto of the "New York Post", who called it one of the best films of 2007. Kirk Honeycutt, writing in "The Hollywood Reporter", said actor Bale's performance was "most complex and compelling". He praised the director Herzog for his use of "lush jungle locations in Thailand, eloquent camera work and an unobtrusive but powerful music score" which brought to life the "story of a man in the wilderness battling the elements on his own terms." Roger Ebert in the "Chicago Sun-Times" called it "perhaps the most believable that Herzog has made." while exclaiming, "There is nothing in it we cannot, or do not, believe. I was almost prepared to compare it to the classic storytelling of John Huston when I realized it had crucial Herzogian differences." In the "San Francisco Chronicle", Walter Addiego wrote that the film was "an old-fashioned prisoner-of-war movie that becomes much more because of writer-director Werner Herzog's admiration for the remarkable true story of its protagonist, Dieter Dengler." He thought the director "found an actor capable of conveying the Herzog-ian hero — wounded, a holy fool, a crackpot, a dreamer of outsized dreams — in everyone." Scott Bowles of "USA Today", said the film was "cold and unforgiving and chilling to behold". He declared: "War stories don't get much more harrowing or detached than "Rescue Dawn", and that's both blessing and curse for the Werner Herzog film." The film however, was not without its detractors. Rick Groen of "The Globe and Mail", felt that, "The strangely hybrid result, half Herzog and half Hollywood, plays like its own battleground. Sometimes, the tension is fascinatingly productive; other times, all we get is the worst of both worlds". Left equally unimpressed was Paula Nechak of the "Seattle Post-Intelligencer", who called the film "a noble effort that can't quite make itself unique in a saturated genre". She added, director Herzog "already has covered much of the tropical terrain of his long-delayed action film in his 1997 documentary "Little Dieter Needs To Fly"." Alternatively, J. Hoberman of "The Village Voice", said the film "rivals "Apocalypto" as a jungle marathon, has all this and more." He also noted, "Bale even looks authentically starved (as in "The Machinist"). But seeing Dengler's adventure staged hardly seems more real than hearing his account—although, as conventionally framed and lit as it is, "Rescue Dawn" is the closest thing to a 'real' movie that Herzog has ever made."
1055381	Fitzcarraldo is a 1982 film written and directed by Werner Herzog and starring Klaus Kinski as the title character. It portrays would-be rubber baron Brian Sweeney Fitzgerald, an Irishman known as Fitzcarraldo in Peru, who has to pull a steamship over a steep hill in order to access a rich rubber territory. The film is derived from the real-life story of Peruvian rubber baron Carlos Fitzcarrald. Plot. Brian Sweeney "Fitzcarraldo" Fitzgerald (Klaus Kinski) is a European living in Iquitos, a small city in Peru in the early part of the 20th century. He has an indomitable spirit, but in essence is little more than a dreamer with one major failure already behind him — the bankrupted and incomplete Trans-Andean railways. A lover of opera and a great fan of the famous tenor Enrico Caruso, he now dreams of building an opera house in Iquitos. This will require considerable amounts of money, and the most profitable industry in Peru at the time is rubber. The areas known to contain rubber trees have been parceled up by the Peruvian government and are leased for exploitation. Fitzcarraldo investigates getting into the rubber business. He is shown a map by a helpful rubber baron, who points out the only remaining unclaimed parcel in the area. He explains why no one has yet claimed the parcel: while it straddles the Ucayali River, the parcel is cut off from the Amazon by a treacherous set of rapids. However, Fitzcarraldo notices that the Pachitea River, another Amazon tributary, comes within several hundred meters to the Ucayali upstream of the parcel. To make his dream a reality, he leases the inaccessible parcel from the government. With the selfless underwriting of his paramour, Molly (Claudia Cardinale), a successful brothel owner, he buys a steamer (which he christens the "Molly Aida") from the same rubber baron, raises a crew and sets off up the Pachitea, the parallel river. This river is known to be more dangerous the farther one gets from the Amazon because of the unfriendly tribes that inhabit the area. Fitzcarraldo's plan is to reach the point where the two rivers nearly meet and then, with the manpower of enlisted natives, physically pull his three-story, 320-ton steamer over the muddy 40° hillside across a portage, from one river to the next. Using the steamer, he will then collect rubber on the upper Ucayali and bring it down the Pachitea to market. The majority of the ship's crew, at first unaware of Fitzcarraldo's plan, abandon the expedition soon after entering the territory of the natives, leaving him with only the captain, engineer, and cook. However, the natives are impressed by him and his ship, becoming his labor force without really understanding his intentions. After a devastating first attempt, the ship is successfully pulled over the mountain with a complex system of pulleys, worked by the natives and aided by the ship's engine. However, when the crew falls asleep after a drunken celebration, the chief of the natives severs the rope securing the ship to the shore, sending it floating down the river and crashing through the rapids. His reasoning for this is to appease the river gods, who would otherwise be angered that Fitzcarraldo defied nature by circumventing them. Though the ship manages to traverse the rapids without major damage, they find themselves back in Iquitos with nothing to show for it. A despondent Fitzcarraldo sells the ship back to the rubber baron, but first sends the captain on one last voyage. He returns with the entire cast of the opera house, including Caruso. The entire city comes to the shore as Fitzcarraldo, standing atop the ship, proudly displays the cast. The 1982 book "Fitzcarraldo: The Original Story" from Fjord Press (ISBN 0-940242-04-4) reproduces Herzog's first version of the story before the screenplay was written. Production. The story was inspired by the real life Peruvian rubber baron Carlos Fermín Fitzcarrald; in the 1890s, Fitzcarrald did bring a steamship across an isthmus from one river into another, but it weighed only 30 tons (rather than over 300), and was carried over in pieces to be reassembled at its destination. In his autobiographical film "Portrait Werner Herzog", Herzog has stated that the film's spectacular production was partly inspired by the engineering feats of ancient standing stones. The film production was an incredible ordeal, and famously involved moving a 320-ton steamship over a hill without the use of special effects. Herzog believed that no one had ever performed a similar feat in history, and likely never will again, calling himself "Conquistador of the Useless". Three similar-looking ships were bought for the production and used in different scenes and locations, including scenes that were shot aboard the ship while it crashed through rapids, injuring three of the six people involved in the filming. Casting of the film was also quite difficult. Jason Robards was originally cast in the title role, but he became ill with dysentery during early filming and, after leaving for treatment, was forbidden by his doctors to return. Herzog then considered casting Jack Nicholson, and even playing Fitzcarraldo himself, before Klaus Kinski accepted the role. By that point, forty percent of shooting with Robards was complete, and for continuity Herzog was forced to begin a total reshoot with Kinski. Mick Jagger was originally cast as Fitzcarraldo's assistant Wilbur, but due to the delays his shooting schedule expired and he departed to tour with the Rolling Stones. Herzog dropped Jagger's character from the script altogether and reshot the film from the beginning. Klaus Kinski himself was a major source of tension, as he fought virulently with Herzog and other members of the crew; a scene from the documentary "My Best Fiend" depicts Kinski raging at production manager Walter Saxer over trivial matters, such as the quality of the food. Herzog notes that the native extras, contrary to Kinski's feeling of closeness to them, were greatly upset by his shows of anger. In "My Best Fiend", Herzog says that one of the native chiefs offered, in all seriousness, to murder Kinski for him, but that he declined because he needed Kinski to complete filming. In one scene, when the crew is eating dinner while surrounded by the natives, the clamor the chief incites over Fitzcarraldo was, according to Herzog, his exploiting their hatred of Kinski. Brazilian actor Grande Otelo and singer Milton Nascimento play minor parts. Locations used for the film include: Manaus, Brazil; Iquitos, Peru; Pongo de Mainique, Peru; an isthmus between the Urubamba and the Camisea Rivers, Peru at -11.737294,-72.934542. Music. The soundtrack album (released in 1982) contains music by Popol Vuh, taken from the albums "Die Nacht der Seele" (1979) and "Sei still, wisse ich bin" (1981), performances by Enrico Caruso, and others. The film uses excerpts from Verdi's "Ernani", Leoncavallo's "Pagliacci" ("Ridi, Pagliaccio"), Puccini's "La bohème", Bellini's "I puritani", and from Richard Strauss' orchestral work "Death and Transfiguration". Reception. The film holds an 83 percent Fresh rating on the movie aggregate Rotten Tomatoes. The movie critic Roger Ebert gave the movie four stars in his original 1982 review and later added it to his "Great Movie" collection in 2005. Related works. Les Blank's 1982 documentary "Burden of Dreams", about the production of the film, documents the many hardships of the production. Blank's footage, some of which also appears in Herzog's "Portrait Werner Herzog" and "My Best Fiend", contains some of the only surviving footage of Robards and Jagger in "Fitzcarraldo", as well as many scenes documenting the ship's journey over the mountain. Herzog's personal diaries from the production were published in 2009 as the book "Conquest of the Useless", published by Ecco Press. The book includes an epilogue with Herzog's views on the Peruvian jungle 20 years later. The "Metalocalypse" episode "Dethcarraldo" parodies elements of the film, including a scene where a massive boat is pulled over a mountain. In her parody "From the diary of Werner Herzog" in the "The Boston Phoenix" in 1983, Cathleen Schine describes the history of a fictitious film "Fritz: Commuter" as "a nightmarish tale of a German businessman obsessed with bringing professional hockey to Westport, Connecticut." Awards. The film won the German Film Prize in Silver for Best Feature Film. The film was nominated for the BAFTA Award for Best Foreign Film, the Palme d'Or award of the Cannes Film Festival, and the Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Language Film. Herzog won the award for Best Director at the 1982 Cannes Film Festival.
1265268	Just Imagine is a 1930 science fiction musical comedy directed by David Butler. The film is probably best known for its art direction and special effects in its portrayal of New York City in an imagined 1980. Plot. The film starts with a preamble showing life in 1880, where the people believed themselves the "last word in speed". It switches to 1930, with the streets crowded with automobiles and lined with electric lights and telephone wires. It then switches to 1980, where the tenement houses have morphed into 250-story buildings, connected by suspension bridges and multi-lane elevated roads. J-21 sets his airplane on "hover" mode and converses with the beautiful LN-18. He describes how the marriage tribunal had refused to consider J-21's marital filing and applications, and LN-18 is going to be forced to marry the conceited and mean MT-3. J-21 plans to visit LN-18 that night. RT-42 tries to cheer him up by taking him to see a horde of surgeons experimentally revive a man from 1930, who was struck by lightning while playing golf, and was killed. The man is taken in hand by RT-42 and J-21, where it is revealed that airplanes have replaced cars, numbers have replaced names, pills have replaced food and liquor, and the only legal babies come from vending machines. That night, LN-18 feigns a headache, and her father and the atrocious MT-3 decide to go to "the show" without her. The second they are gone, RT-42 and J-21 appear and woo B-27 and LN-18 respectively. MT-3 and LN-18's father return quite early, as MT-3 was highly suspicious, and RT-42 and J-21 hide. However, the game is foiled by the moronic Single O, the man from 1930, becoming addicted to pill-highballs, getting drunk, and trying to get some more pill-highballs off of J-21.
1060336	Funny Lady is a 1975 film starring Barbra Streisand, James Caan, Omar Sharif, Roddy McDowall, and Ben Vereen. A sequel to the 1968 film "Funny Girl", it is a highly fictionalized account of the later life and career of comedienne Fanny Brice and her marriage to songwriter and impresario Billy Rose. The screenplay was by Jay Presson Allen and Arnold Schulman, based on a story by Schulman. The primary score was by John Kander and Fred Ebb, whose first success as a team had been the song "My Coloring Book," which had been written for Kaye Ballard, but was recorded by Streisand in 1962, who popularized it. It was directed by Herbert Ross. Production. Although she was contractually bound to make one more film for producer Ray Stark (Fanny Brice's one-time son-in-law), Streisand balked at doing the project. She told Stark "that it would take litigation to make her do a sequel." However, Streisand liked the script, which showed Fanny to be "...tougher, more acerbic, more mature...", and she agreed to do the film. The first actor to read for the role of Billy Rose was Robert Blake. Other actors were mentioned, including Al Pacino and Robert De Niro, but ultimately James Caan was chosen. Streisand explained: "It comes down to whom the audience wants me to kiss. Robert Blake, no. James Caan, yes." Stark, unhappy with the scenes shot by the original cinematographer, lured an ailing James Wong Howe out of retirement to complete the film. It proved to be his final project, and it earned him an Academy Award nomination. Studio heads forced Ross to trim the film to a manageable 136 minutes prior to its release. Much of Vereen's performance ended up on the cutting room floor, together with a recreation of Brice's "Baby Snooks" radio show and dramatic scenes involving her and her daughter. In addition to Howe, Oscar nominations went to Ray Aghayan and Bob Mackie for Best Costume Design, John Kander and Fred Ebb for Best Original Song ("How Lucky Can You Get?"), Peter Matz for Best Scoring of an Original Song Score and/or Adaptation, and the sound crew. Streisand, Caan, and Vereen all received Golden Globe Award nominations, as did Kander and Ebb and the film itself, but it was shut out of any wins in both competitions. Box office. The film grossed $40,055,897 at the U.S. box office, making it the eighth highest grossing picture of 1975. James Caan thought there were "too many cooks messing around" the film, although he liked his performance. Awards. The film was nominated for five Academy Awards: It was also nominated for six Golden Globe awards including Best Picture Musical/Comedy, Best Actress for Barbra Streisand, and Best Actor for James Caan. Soundtrack. The soundtrack entered the Billboard Album Chart at number 6 and was certified gold. The original 1975 Arista soundtrack, with all songs by Kander and Ebb, unless otherwise noted: Side 1 Side 2 The CD versions in print since 1998 are slightly different, relisted to match the order in the film, and with a couple of alternate versions and a bonus track:
1376295	Liliana Berry Davis Mumy (born April 16, 1994) is an American actress. Her most notable roles are as Jessica Baker in the "Cheaper by the Dozen" movies with Steve Martin, Lucy Miller in The Santa Clause 2: The Mrs. Clause & with Tim Allen, Mertle Edmonds on the Disney Channel original series "", Panini on the Cartoon Network original series "Chowder" and Wadi on another Cartoon Network original series "The Secret Saturdays". Her father is actor Bill Mumy, famous for his roles in the classic science fiction TV series "Lost in Space" and "Babylon 5". Personal life. Mumy was born in San Marcos, California, the daughter of Eileen Joy (née Davis), a childbirth educator, and former child star Bill Mumy. She is the sister of child actor Seth Mumy. Mumy is close friends with "Cheaper by the Dozen" co-star Morgan York. She graduated from Laurel Hall School in North Hollywood, CA and attended Campbell Hall School. She left there and had recently graduated from Notre Dame High School in Sherman Oaks, CA. Career. Mumy has appeared in several motion pictures. Her most recent and notable film appearances are in "Cheaper by the Dozen", "Cheaper by the Dozen 2", "The Santa Clause 2", as well as "". In 2002, Mumy played Audrey Fremont, the daughter of her father Bill's character Anthony, in a sequel to the classic "The Twilight Zone" episode "It's a Good Life" called "It's Still a Good Life". Mumy provided the voice of Mertle Edmonds (Lilo's longtime ex-friend) on "Stitch! The Movie" and ', and voicing a character with a smaller role on ' as Haley's rival at school. She is also the voice of Twinkle on "Higglytown Heroes" and the voice of Human Kimberly on Nickelodeon's "Catscratch". Lesser roles included TV appearances playing young Donna on "That '70s Show" and guest starring in "Scrubs" as a girl at her birthday party (whose face J.D. daydreams of shoving into her cake). She also voiced Panini in the cartoon "Chowder", airing on Cartoon Network and played Lula in "The Cleaner" in 2008. She also voiced a fiesty, fashionable, pink-loving, golden retriever puppy named Rosebud in the Disney movies "Snow Buddies", "Space Buddies", and "Santa Buddies". In June 2012, Mumy started voice work as 'Beth' in "Bravest Warriors", the new animated series created by Pendleton Ward, produced by Frederator Studios for their new channel, Cartoon Hangover, a premium content partner of YouTube.
1664234	Sydney Tamiia Poitier (born November 15, 1973) is an American television and film actress. Early life and family. Born in Los Angeles, Poitier is the daughter of Bahamian actor Sidney Poitier and Canadian former actress Joanna Shimkus. Her mother is of Lithuanian, and Irish decent. She has an older sister, Anika. She also has four older half-sisters, Beverly, Pamela, Sherri and Gina, from her father's first marriage. Poitier attended Tisch School of the Arts where she earned a Bachelor's degree in acting. She also studied at Stella Adler Studio of Acting. Career. Poitier began her career in the late 1990s. In 2001, she landed her first role on television in the NBC drama series "First Years". The series was canceled after three episodes. In 2003, she starred in the UPN sitcom "Abby". That series was also canceled after during its first season. Later that same year, she had a recurring role in "Joan of Arcadia", where she played Rebecca Askew, the love interest of Joan's older brother, Kevin (Jason Ritter). She was also a regular on the first season of "Veronica Mars".
1043769	10 Rillington Place is a 1971 British crime drama film starring Richard Attenborough, John Hurt and Judy Geeson adapted by Clive Exton from the book "Ten Rillington Place" by Ludovic Kennedy. The film dramatises the case of British serial killer John Christie, who committed most or all of his crimes in the titular terraced house, and the miscarriage of justice involving Timothy Evans. Plot. Christie strangled at least eight women (including the baby Geraldine Evans), the first two victims being buried in the back garden of the house in 10 Rillington Place during World War II. After Evans moved into the building with his wife Beryl and infant daughter Geraldine in 1949, Christie convinced his new tenants that he could help Beryl terminate her unwanted pregnancy; he then raped and strangled Beryl. He told Evans that she had died accidentally, and that Evans should leave town until the investigation died down. Evans entrusted Christie with his daughter, whom Christie then murdered as well.
900351	Goodbye Uncle Tom () is a 1971 Italian film directed by Gualtiero Jacopetti and Franco Prosperi and features music by Riz Ortolani. "Addio Zio Tom" is a pseudo-documentary in which the filmmakers go back in time and visit antebellum America, using period documents to examine, in graphic detail, the racist ideology and degrading conditions faced by Africans under slavery. Because of the use of published documents and materials from the public record, with actors playing the role of the historical figures, the film labels itself a documentary, and portrays slave life as a non-stop orgy of violence, rape and torture committed by whites against their black slaves. The Directors' cut of "Addio Zio Tom" draws parallels between the horrors and slavery and the rise of the Black Power Movement, represented by Eldridge Cleaver, LeRoi Jones, Stokely Carmichael, and a few others. The film ends with an unidentified man's fantasy re-enactment of William Styron's "The Confessions of Nat Turner." This man imagines Nat Turner's revolt in the present, including the brutal murder of the whites around him, who replace the figures Turner talks about in Styron's novel as the unidentified reader speculates about Turner's motivations and ultimate efficacy in changing the conditions he rebelled against. American distributors felt that such scenes were too incendiary, and forced Jacopetti and Prosperi to remove more than thirteen minutes of footage explicitly concerned with racial politics for American and other Anglophone audiences.
1063774	Megamind is a 2010 American 3D computer-animated superhero action comedy film directed by Tom McGrath. It was produced by DreamWorks Animation and distributed by Paramount Pictures. The film was released in the United States in Digital 3D, IMAX 3D and 2D on November 5, 2010. It features the voices of Will Ferrell, Tina Fey, Jonah Hill, David Cross and Brad Pitt. The film tells the story of a super-intelligent alien supervillain, Megamind, who after a long-lasting battle one day actually destroys his nemesis, the much-loved superhero Metro Man. Having the fictional Metro City for himself, Megamind finds out that his villainy has no purpose and thus creates a new superhero for him to fight. "Megamind" received generally positive reviews from critics, praising its strong visuals, but criticizing its unoriginality. With a budget of $130 million, the film grossed over $321 million worldwide, and despite being a moderate box office success, it became one of the lowest grossing DreamWorks' CG animated films. A short film, titled "", was released on February 25, 2011, on the "Megamind" DVD and Blu-ray. Plot. Megamind (Will Ferrell) is a super-intelligent alien, and the supervillain of Metro City. He continually battles - and loses - against his nemesis, Metro Man (Brad Pitt), a rivalry that has extended since the two arrived on Earth as infants. On the day of dedication of a museum in Metro Man's honor, Megamind escapes from jail, rejoins his sidekick Minion (David Cross), and kidnaps reporter Roxanne Ritchi (Tina Fey) to lure Metro Man into a copper-lined observatory. Inside, Metro Man weakens because copper drains his powers and is killed by a death ray that Megamind fires at the observatory from an orbiting satellite. Megamind revels in his victory, but this is short-lived as without a nemesis, his villainy has no purpose. While saying good-bye to Metro Man's statue and attempting to destroy the Metro Man museum because it brings back too many painful memories, Megamind uses a holographic disguise of the curator, Bernard (Ben Stiller), after Roxanne hears his voice. She unwittingly gives him the idea of creating a serum containing Metro Man's DNA to inject in a worthy target, thus creating a new superhero for Megamind to fight. Later, as Megamind finishes the serum in his lair and locates a worthy target, Roxanne sneaks into the lair, and in the resulting chaos, Megamind injects the serum into Roxanne's dimwitted camera man, Hal (Jonah Hill). Megamind disguises himself as Hal's "space dad" to groom the new hero into shape to fight Megamind in a few days; Hal takes the superhero alias of "Tighten," a result of mishearing Megamind's suggestion of Titan. During this, Megamind, in the Bernard disguise, continues to see Roxanne and becomes close to her, unaware that Hal also has romantic feelings for her. Minion expresses discontent at Megamind's lack of villainy and they break their friendship when Minion finds out he has fallen for Roxanne. On the night before the battle, while dining with Roxanne, and gaining their first kiss together, the holographic disguise fails revealing his identity, and Roxanne angrily rejects him in the rain upon finding out Megamind's true feelings towards her, dismissing the idea that they could ever be together. Furthermore, he loses track of his invisible car that has the anti-serum to restore Hal to normal. Heartbroken, he vows to fight Hal the next day, but Hal does not show up at the appointed time. Megamind finds a bitter and equally heart-broken Hal (who witnessed Roxanne and "Bernard" having dinner) having used his powers for ill-gotten gains. Megamind is horrified at this change and attempts to convince Hal to be a "hero" by revealing how he has manipulated Hal by revealing his space dad and Bernard disguises. Hal realizes he has been toyed with and battles Megamind. When defeated, Megamind is shocked to learn that Hal actually wants to kill him and tries to escape. Megamind attempts to capture Hal in a copper-lined trap, but it fails to weaken Hal, which confuses him, and the villain is forced to flee Metro City, while Hal begins to threaten the city with his powers. Megamind meets with Roxanne who takes him to Metro Man's secret lair, which happens to be the schoolhouse both Megamind and Metro Man attended in their childhood, and the two are surprised to find Metro Man there. The former hero explains that on the fateful day, he had an epiphany and pretended to have a weakness for copper and be killed as to forgo the superhero career and become a musician. He refuses to help stop Hal. Roxanne tries to convince Megamind that he could be the hero, but Megamind has resigned himself to be the villain and turns himself in at prison. When Hal kidnaps Roxanne and threatens her life if Megamind does not fight him, Megamind has a change of heart and requests the warden to let him go, surprised to find the warden is Minion in disguise, having returned to help out. Megamind rescues Roxanne but is defeated after Metro Tower's pinnacle thrown by Hal pierces his chest. But Metro Man shows up and chases Hal away while dying Megamind reveals he is actually Minion in holographic disguise (and only his armor is destroyed) and Metro Man is actually Megamind. Tighten runs away, but upon realizing "Metro Man" said Metro City in Megamind's trademark way which sounds similar to monstrosity, comes back after Roxanne turned Megamind back to his original form. In the fray, Megamind discovers his misplaced invisible car. He grabs the anti-serum and heroically defuses the serum out of Hal with it, reverting the superhero to a normal man. Hal is taken away to jail while Roxanne convinces Metro City's citizens that Megamind chose to be their hero. Later, Megamind and Roxanne's relationship has become close, and the city welcomes Megamind as their new protector, while a disguised Metro Man, hidden in the crowd with his grown beard, quietly congratulates him. During the credits, Minion washes Megamind's pants when Bernard (who was dehydrated by Megamind at the Metro Man museum) emerges from the washing machine and is knocked out by Minion. Production. The film was written by Alan J. Schoolcraft and Brent Simons. It was first titled "Master Mind", and then "Oobermind". Ben Stiller was originally cast as Megamind, and later Robert Downey, Jr., but Will Ferrell was ultimately given the role, due to "scheduling conflicts" for Downey. Lara Breay and Denise Nolan Cascino were the film's producers, and Ben Stiller and Stuart Cornfeld were the executive producers. Justin Theroux and Guillermo del Toro worked as creative consultants on the film. Del Toro only came onboard three weeks before the end of production, but went on to have a more substantial role in subsequent Dreamworks Animation films. The opening of the film, where Megamind is falling to his apparent death, was del Toro's idea. Music. Megamind: Music from the Motion Picture is a soundtrack to the film of the same name, composed by Hans Zimmer and Lorne Balfe, and released on November 2, 2010 by Lakeshore Records. Release. Marketing. "Megamind" was presented at the 2010 San Diego Comic-Con International, with Tom McGrath, Tina Fey, Jonah Hill, and Will Ferell, who was dressed as Megamind. Home media. "Megamind" was released on both Blu-ray Disc and DVD on February 25, 2011, accompanied with an all new short titled "". "The Button of Doom" also had its television premiere on Nick, which was aired on February 26, 2011. It was the seventh best selling DVD of 2011 with over 3 million units sold and total sales of $43 million.
584973	Tholi Prema (English: "First Love") is a 1998 Telugu romantic comedy film directed by Karunakaran and produced by G.V.G Raju. It stars Pawan Kalyan and Keerthi Reddy in lead roles. The film was later remade in Hindi as "Mujhe Kucch Kehna Hai" starring Tusshar Kapoor and Kareena Kapoor and in Kannada as "Preethsu Thappenila" with Ravichandran. It was dubbed in Tamil as "Aanandha Mazhai". Plot. Balu (Pawan Kalyan) is the youngest son in his family and a careless guy. His father always scolds him, but his uncles and mother dote on him and so do his brothers. He has a bunch of friends (played by Ali, Venu Madhav and others) and hangs around with them. On one occasion, Balu's father is angry with him; Balu leaves the house to be left alone for a while (on the eve of Diwali). He chances to see Anu (Keerthi Reddy) on the road with some kids and he falls for her. She has returned from the USA to spend time with her grandfather (P.J. Sharma). Anu is impressed with Balu when he saves a kid's life on the motorway; she tries to get his autograph but fails. Balu leaves for Ooty for his studies and accidentally meets Anu on the way when his taxi breaks down. Anu gives Balu a lift and leaves her driver to help the taxi driver. While on the way, Anu's car slips into a valley due to a rash lorry driver. Balu makes an effort to save Anu and rescues her to safer ground. Trying to save Anu, Balu slips off into a valley. Anu is depressed that Balu sacrificed himself to save her, searches for him and loses hope. Balu is saved by a truck driver and admitted to a hospital. On his return, Anu meets Balu at his house to express her gratitude. Balu thinks of proposing his love but is warned by his sister (Munny). Balu develops a friendship with Anu but never dares to express his love. Vasuki gets married and leaves. At the same time, Anu gets admission into Harvard University (USA) and is about to leave. They remain silent until they reach the airport. Just before Anu leaves, she realizes that she would miss him and they agree to meet after realizing their goals.
774504	The Barbarian Invasions () is a 2003 French-Canadian comedy-drama film written and directed by Denys Arcand. It is the sequel to Arcand's earlier film "The Decline of the American Empire" and is followed by "Days of Darkness". The film was produced by companies from both Canada and France, including Telefilm Canada, Société Radio-Canada and Canal+. It was released in 2003 and won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film at the 76th Academy Awards in 2004. Plot. Continuing seventeen years after Arcand's "The Decline of the American Empire", the film centres on an exploration of the characters first met in the original film and their children, newly introduced. The older generation are still largely social-democrats and proponents of Quebec nationalism, but both political and economic developments after the “Quiet Revolution” of the 1960s, as well as their own aging, make their left-wing stance seem somewhat anachronistic. The plot revolves around the character Rémy's battle with terminal cancer, and the efforts of Sébastien, his estranged son to make his dying father more comfortable in his last days. Finally the father and son travel to Vermont in the United States to receive medical care. Sébastien, at the request of Rémy's ex-wife Louise, has reluctantly returned from London where he has a successful career in quantitative finance - anathema to his father's socialist persuasions. However, this background helps Sébastien to navigate and manipulate Quebec's healthcare system (portrayed as somewhat overloaded in the film) to secure better care for his father. In the process, he also gathers the various other friends and family members from Rémy's past who come to visit and comfort him. During Rémy's last days, he and his friends travel to the cottage of the first film, and discuss philosophy, politics, and past sexual and intellectual exploits. Reception. "The Barbarian Invasions" has received positive reviews from numerous critics. As of January 2010, the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reported that 82% of critics gave the film positive reviews, based on 123 reviews. Metacritic reports that the film has an average score of 71 out of 100, based on 35 reviews. Roger Ebert of the "Chicago Sun Times" gave the movie four stars and called it "a movie with brains, indignation, irony and idealism." Conversely, Peter Bradshaw, writing for "The Guardian", disdained the movie, calling it "grotesquely overpraised," "shot through with middlebrow sophistication, boorish cynicism, unfunny satire, a dash of fatuous anti-Americanism and unthinkingly reactionary sexual politics." In 2004, the Toronto International Film Festival ranked the film tenth in the Top 10 Canadian Films of All Time.
1162482	Severn Teakle Darden, Jr. (November 9, 1929 – May 27, 1995) was a comedian and actor, and an original member of The Second City Chicago-based comedy troupe as well as its predecessor, the Compass Players. He is perhaps best known from his film appearances for playing the human leader Kolp in the fourth and fifth "Planet of the Apes" films. Background. Born in New Orleans, Louisiana, he attended the University of Chicago. Darden’s offbeat and intellectual sense of humor, appropriate for someone who attended the University of Chicago and in fact a major element in the style of The Second City at that time, is evident throughout his work.
394288	Aachi & Ssipak is a 2006 animated South Korean film directed by Jo Beom-jin and featuring the voices of Ryoo Seung-bum, Im Chang-jung, and Hyun Young.
1377948	Matthew "Matt" Prokop (born July 29, 1990) is an American actor, known for his role as Jimmie "The Rocket" Zara in "" and Josh Rosen in the Disney Channel Original Movie, "Geek Charming". Life and career. Prokop was born in Victoria, Texas, and moved to Los Angeles at the age of 16 to pursue his acting career. He is represented by Management 360 and APA. He has also appeared in an episode of "Hannah Montana". Prokop has appeared sporadically in various movies and TV shows. Prokop landed a role in the Brendan Fraser film "Furry Vengeance", playing Fraser's son. He played the role of Josh Rosen in the Disney Channel Original Movie "Geek Charming" based on author Robin Palmer's novel. His first role in "The Glades" was a brief appearance on "Hannah Montana", followed by a walk-on role on "The Office". He recently guest starred on "Medium" as Kyle Covington. Prokop has been dating his fellow Geek Charming costar Sarah Hyland (who plays Haley on the hit ABC mockumentary "Modern Family") for the past four years; they also live together.
1068331	Nicholas and Alexandra is a 1971 biographical film which tells the story of the last Russian monarch, Tsar Nicholas II of Russia, and his wife, Tsarina Alexandra. The film was adapted by James Goldman from the book by Robert K. Massie. It was directed by Franklin J. Schaffner. It won Academy Awards for Best Art Direction-Set Decoration (John Box, Ernest Archer, Jack Maxsted, Gil Parrondo, Vernon Dixon) and Best Costume Design (Yvonne
995725	Man of Aran is a 1934 British fictional documentary (ethnofiction) film directed by Robert J. Flaherty about life on the Aran Islands off the western coast of Ireland. It portrays characters living in premodern conditions, documenting their daily routines such as fishing off high cliffs, farming potatoes where there is little soil, and hunting for huge basking sharks to get liver oil for lamps. Some situations are fabricated, such as one scene in which the shark fishermen are almost lost at sea in a sudden gale. Additionally, the family members shown are not actually related, having been chosen from among the islanders for their photogenic qualities. George Stoney's 1978 documentary How the Myth was Made, which is included in the special features of the DVD, relates that the Aran Islanders had not hunted sharks in this way for over fifty years at the time the film was made. "Man of Aran" is Flaherty's re-creation of culture on the edges of modern society, even though much of the primitive life depicted had been left behind by the 1930s. It is impressive, however, for its drama, for its spectacular cinematography of landscape and seascape, and for its concise editing. The UK rock band British Sea Power was asked to record a new soundtrack for the film's 2009 DVD release, performing the score at a series of live events in the UK including one accompanying the film itself at the British Film Institute. "The Cripple of Inishmaan" by Martin McDonagh is a play set on the Aran Islands at the time of the filming of "Man of Aran". The film won the Mussolini Cup for best foreign film at the 2nd Venice International Film Festival. Flaherty's legacy is subject of the 2010 British Universities Film & Video Council award-winning and FOCAL International award-nominated documentary '"A Boatload of Wild Irishmen", written by Professor Brian Winston of University of Lincoln, UK, and directed by Mac Dara Ó Curraidhín. In the staged climactic sequence of "Man of Aran", Flaherty said he'd been accused of "trying to drown a boatload of wild Irishmen".
1047946	Man of Marble () is a 1976 Polish film directed by Andrzej Wajda. It chronicles the fall from grace of a fictional heroic Polish bricklayer, Mateusz Birkut (played by Jerzy Radziwiłowicz), who became the Stakhanovite symbol of an over-achieving worker, in Nowa Huta, a new (real life) socialist city near Kraków. Agnieszka, played by Krystyna Janda in her first role, is a young filmmaker who is making her "diploma film" on Birkut, whose whereabouts seems to have been lost two decades later. The title refers to the propagandistic marble statues made in Birkut's image. It is somewhat of a surprise that Wajda would have been able to make such a film, "sub silentio" attacking the Socialist Realism of Nowa Huta, revealing the use of propaganda and political corruption during the period of Stalinism, and presaged the loosening grip of the Soviets that came with the Solidarity Movement, though it has been acknowledged by Polish film historians that due to censorship the script languished in development hell since 1962. Agnieszka has trouble making the film from archival sources and museum collections and people who answer her questions vaguely. Her father suggests that if he were making a film on someone, he would like to find that person first. With this inspiration, Agnieszka tracks down Mateusz's son, Maciej, in the Gdańsk Shipyard. (Both father and son, Mateusz and Maciej, are played by the same actor: Jerzy Radziwiłowicz.) Agnieszka learns from Maciej that his father died years ago. The ending of "Man of Marble" leaves the death of Mateusz Birkut ambiguous. In his script, Wajda had wanted to reveal that Mateusz had been killed in clashes at the shipyards in 1970, a major confrontation that prefigured the rise of Solidarity ten years later, but he was prevented by censorship. In 1981, Wajda filmed "Man of Iron", a follow-up to "Man of Marble", which depicts Maciej's subsequent involvement in the Polish anti-Communist workers' movement. "Man of Iron" explicitly states that Mateusz was killed in the clashes of 1970. Accolades. The film was entered into the Un Certain Regard section at the 1978 Cannes Film Festival and won the FIPRESCI Prize.
1743594	"Brave Story" has spawned into a substantial media franchise. The novel was adapted into a manga by Yoichiro Ono and Miyabe herself, who wrote the new story for the manga, which was serialised in Shinchosha's "Weekly Comic Bunch". Shinchosha collected the chapters of "Brave Story" in twenty "tankōbon" volumes and released them from April 2004 to May 2008. In the manga version Wataru is slightly older and already in high school. In 2006 the novel was rereleased in two new editions, a three volume softcover version of the earlier hardcover release intended for mature readers and a light novel version marketed for younger readers. These were intended to create interest in the animated film adaption by Gonzo released in Japan by Warner Bros. later that year on July 8, 2006. The film was nominated for "Animation of the Year" at the 2007 Japanese Academy Awards and also released on home video in Australia, the United Kingdom, France, Taiwan and Germany. The novel was loosely adapted into three video games: Sony Computer Entertainment's PSP game, ""; Namco Bandai's Nintendo DS game, "Brave Story: My Dreams and Wishes" and Sony Computer Entertainment's PlayStation 2 game, "Brave Story: Wataru's Adventure". Plot. Wataru Mitani is a quiet and unassuming fifth grader in Japan. A new student called Mitsuru Ashikawa begins attending Wataru's school, though he is in a different class. There are also rumors circulating about the Daimatsu building, an empty, unfinished building near Wataru's school: witnesses claimed to have seen a ghost wandering behind the building's blue tarps. One day after school, while out with his uncle, Wataru witnesses an old man entering the abandoned building. Wataru follows him into the building and stumbles into the strange world of Vision. In Vision, he is told that the portal he crossed, called the Porta Nectere, opens only once every ten years for ninety days. People from his world are strictly forbidden to enter Vision unless they obtain the status of Traveler from "the gatekeeper". Unfortunately, he is also told he will forget everything of his visit. Upon re-entering the Porta Nectere, he is awoken by his uncle to find that Vision was a dream; Wataru supposedly fell from the stairs of the Daimatsu building. Wataru's uncle brings Wataru home only to discover a terrible truth: the boy's parents are divorcing and his father is running off with his mistress, leaving his wife and Wataru behind. Both Wataru and his mother are shocked, and to add to Wataru's stress, he finds his memories of Vision slipping away. Later, Wataru's father's lover confronts Wataru's mother over who Wataru's father really loves. After this encounter, Wataru's mother attempts suicide by leaving on the gas in the house. Mitsuru visits him, warns him of the gas, and tells him to go to Vision if he wants to change his fate. Wataru struggles to remember, but he finally goes to the Daimatsu building to cross the portal to Vision. Thus, Wataru's journey in Vision begins. When he arrives in Vision, Wataru meets an old man who calls himself the Wayfinder. He tells Wataru what he must do to change his destiny: Wataru has to collect five gemstones to go to the Tower of Destiny, where the Goddess grants each Traveler one wish. Each stone has a different quality: charity, bravery, faith, grace, and the power of darkness and light. Wataru encounters friends and foes during his adventures, and he ultimately comes to terms with the nature of himself. Production. On March 10, 2006, Gonzo announced the establishment of a charity enterprise “Our Brave Fund”. ¥10 for every box office ticket purchased for the "Brave Story" film is donated to United Nations Children's Fund, which aims to "assist children infected with HIV and its repercussions in Asian and African nations, particularly children in the Republic of Malawi" with the funds. The production cost of the movie was estimated to be one billion yen. Manga artist Yoichiro Ono comments that although he has kept his drawing style as close as he could to boys' manga, the story's is aimed at an adult audience and resulted in the first volume of the manga being "a lot more serious than it ended up being... and more mature". Media. Novel. "Brave Story" was written and illustrated by Miyuki Miyabe. Kadokawa Shoten released both volumes of the novel on March 3, 2003. A special volume was released by Kadokawa Shoten on April 7, 2003. An official guide book was released by Kadokawa Shoten on July 3, 2006. The English-language version of the novel is licensed by Viz Media. Viz Media released the novel as a 824-page book on August 14, 2007. It was translated into English by Alexander O. Smith. The novel is to be re-issued by Viz Media under its imprint, Haikasoru. Manga. The manga adaptation of "Brave Story", written by Miyuki Miyabe and illustrated by Yoichiro Ono, came about after the novel won the Batchelder Award. The manga serialization in Shinchosha's shōnen magazine (aimed at teenage boys) "Weekly Comic Bunch" ended on March 14, 2008. Shinchosha collected the individual chapters into 20 "tankōbon" volumes, and released them from April 9, 2004 to May 9, 2008. Tokyopop licensed the manga for an English-language release in North America. The first "Brave Story" volume was published on June 12, 2007. "Brave Story" is also licensed in France by Kurokawa. Film. An animated film adaptation of "Brave Story" was produced by Gonzo. Directed by Koichi Chigira and produced by Daisuke Sekiguchi, Hiroyoshi Koiwai and Koji Kajita, it was released in Japanese cinemas by Warner Bros. on July 8, 2006. Warner Brothers is handling worldwide distribution of the Brave Story movie. Warner Brothers announced their planned release of "Brave Story" on DVD, Blu-ray, HD DVD and UMD on November 12, 2006. The movie was licensed in Australia by Madman Entertainment, in the United Kingdom by Optimum Releasing, in France by Kaze and in Germany by Anime-Virtual. Juno Reactor composed the soundtrack for "Brave Story". "Brave Story" was showcased by Pony Canyon during the 2007 American Film Market. Pony Canyon promoted "Brave Story" along with "Umizaru 2: Test of Trust" at the 2008 American Film Market. Optimum Releasing released the film in the United Kingdom on September 8, 2008. The movie's ending theme was by Aqua Timez. Games. Sony Computer Entertainment released the role-playing game, on PlayStation Portable in Japan on July 6, 2006. In United States, the game was released by Xseed Games on July 31, 2007. Both were developed by Game Republic. On July 6, 2006, Namco Bandai released an adventure Nintendo DS game, called . Sony Computer Entertainment released PlayStation 2 game, on July 6, 2006. Soundtracks. On July 24, 1996, Avex Trax released a soundtrack of "Brave Story", which was sung by TRF using the lyrics of Tetsuya Komuro. On July 5, 2006, Sony Music Entertainment released an animation soundtrack CD for "Brave Story"; Juno Reactor composed the songs. On November 29, 2006, Avex Trax released a "Brave Story" soundtrack, which featured lyrics composed by Tetsuya Komuro and Takahiro Maeda, and sung by TRF. Another soundtrack CD of Brave Story was released by Universal Music on September 3, 2008 that had lyrics written by Yuki Sakurai and was sung by Rice. Reception. Viz Media was awarded the Batchelder Award in 2008 for publishing "Brave Story" novel. Matt Paddock from Game Vortex ponders on the "family dynamics and the pain of divorce or marital dysfunction is still so great in Japan that readers there are transfixed by this kind of stuff. Sad to say that American readers are probably inclined to care a bit less when Wataru's mom and dad are splitting up, since at least half of most marriages fail for whatever reason these days." He criticises Miyabe for not introducing the "fantasy world much earlier to capture the imagination of her readers". Katherine Dacey from Pop Culture Shock describes "Miyabe’s dark fantasy" as "a Frankenbook, stitched together from pieces of "EverQuest", "Guin Saga", "Harry Potter", "The Lord of the Rings", "Star Wars", and "The Wizard of Oz" to create an entertaining, surprisingly adult adventure story whose seams sometime show." "Brave Story" was ranked fifth on an About.com poll for the best shōnen manga of 2007. A.E. Sparrow from IGN commends "Brave Story" manga for Yochiro Ono's artwork and he compares them to "some of the more recent manhwa (Korean) titles that have also come out of the Tokyopop camp". Mania.com's Nadia Oxford comments that the " unforgiving landscape" of the fantasy world "Vision" "seems to somehow reflect the mental state of its inhabitants". Scott Campbell from ActiveAnime commends the manga for its "detailed art and involving story". Snow Wildsmith from Teenreads commends Miyabe's "talent for switching between reality and fantasy, action and pathos, humor and seriousness, which helps make her story both more interesting and more believable". Anime News Network's Carlo Santos criticises the manga for its opening plotline by saying it is a "remarkably bland rendition of the "young hero sucked into alternate world" formula, and it's easy to mistake this at first for some kind of lame-duck "Rayearth"/"Twelve Kingdoms" clone". Katherine Dacey from Pop Culture Shock comments on "Brave Story" "distinguishes itself from dozens of similar series by fleshing out Wataru’s personal life. Wataru is no swaggering shonen stereotype: he’s insecure, hesitant, and crushed to learn that his dream girl has the hots for someone else." She also commends Wataru's parents sudden divorce "leaving Wataru to comfort his dumbfounded and grief-stricken mother while coming to terms with his own sense of loss. These scenes add an unexpected emotional depth to the story, demonstrating Wataru’s essential decency while providing him with a powerful motive for saving the world: he loves his mother". The "Brave Story" film was nominated for "Animation of the Year" at the 2007 Japanese Academy Awards. John Li from MovieXclusive commends the film for its animation, saying "pleasing soft pastel colors and the occasional computer animation is still refreshing and pleasant to look at". Mark Schilling from "The Japan Times" compares Wataru to "Doraemon"'s Nobita. He compares "the "quest for five jewels" motif" to the "Dragon Ball" series and "The Chronicles of Narnia". John Smith from Impuse Gamer commends the film for its "beautiful animation techniques and some great sound sequences". Mania.com's Chris Beveridge commends the Blu-ray Disc version of "Brave Story" for being "very expansive in its use of the surround channels during some of the action sequences". He also commends the film for its visual quality saying, "on our 50" set at 720p, the only "problems" I could find was that I had to be six inches (152 mm) from the screen and looking at the pixels to see some of the shiftiness in the animation in the scenes where dark blues and blacks mix". Mania.com's Dani Moure compares the film's "old-fashioned" character designs to Studio Ghibli's. Anime News Network's Brian Hanson criticises the film as "being one of the worst-looking big-budget anime films of recent memory, the story is a mash of bizarre coincidences held together haphazardly by forced and annoying bouts of exposition, with irritating and one-dimensional characters chirping throughout". "Brave Story: New Traveler" was generally well received by critics earning aggregated scores of 76% from Meta Critic and 79% from GameRankings. Joe Dodson from GameSpot commends "Brave Story: New Traveler" for its visual and sound effects but criticises its "homogenous and never-ending" monsters. GamePro commends the game for "vibrant graphics, small load times and solid presentation on the whole" but criticises it for "some too-familiar aspects of story and gameplay, story may be too "kiddy" for some." Louis Bedigian from GameZone commends the game's graphics saying that the game "pays homage to the 3D Final Fantasy games". Matt Paddock from Game Vortex commends the game on its faithful translation by saying, "if any of the "Harry Potter" books had been translated as faithfully, the game versions of Rowling's work would be selling gold and platinum right now". GameFAQs's Kashell Triumph commends the game's character designs, describing them as, "well designed, detailed, expressive, and fluid". Greg Miller at IGN criticises the game for having "a set of the exact same events -- random battles, dungeon, random battles, boss". GameSpy's Steve Steinberg criticises the game for its first three hours of gameplay as it shows "very slowly and methodically—the basics of a generic and less-than-compelling game".
1056526	That Obscure Object of Desire (; ), released in 1977, was the final film directed by Luis Buñuel. Set in Spain and France against the backdrop of a terrorist insurgency, the film tells the story of an aging Frenchman who falls in love with a young woman who repeatedly frustrates his romantic and sexual desires. Plot. A dysfunctional and sometimes violent romance between Mathieu (Fernando Rey), a middle-aged, wealthy Frenchman, and a young, impoverished and beautiful flamenco dancer from Seville, Conchita, played by Carole Bouquet "and" Angela Molina. The two actresses each appear unpredictably in separate scenes, and differ not only physically, but temperamentally as well. Most of the film is a "flashback," told by Mathieu; the framing, non-flashback story elements appear only at the start and end of the film. The movie opens with Mathieu travelling by train from Seville to Paris. He's trying to distance himself from his young girlfriend Conchita. As Mathieu's train is ready to depart he finds that a bruised and bandaged Conchita is pursuing him. From the train he pours a bucket of water over her head. He believes this deters her, but she sneaks aboard. Mathieu's fellow compartment passengers witness his rude act. These include a mother and her young daughter, a judge who is coincidentally a friend of Mathieu's cousin, and a psychologist who coincidentally is a dwarf. They inquire about his motivation for such an act and he then explains the history of his tumultuous relationship with Conchita. The story is set against a backdrop of terrorist bombings and shootings by left-wing groups. Conchita, who claims to be 18 but looks older, vows to remain a virgin until marriage. She tantalizes Mathieu with sexual promises but never allows him to satisfy his sexual desire. At one point she goes to bed with him wearing a tightly laced canvas corset, which he cannot untie, making it impossible to have sexual intercourse. Conchita's antics cause the couple to break up and reunite repeatedly, each time frustrating and confusing Mathieu. Eventually, Mathieu finds Conchita dancing nude for tourists in a Seville nightclub. At first he becomes enraged. Later, however, he forgives her and buys her a house. In a climactic scene, soon after moving into the house, Conchita refuses to let Mathieu in at the gate, tells him that she hates him, and that kissing and touching him make her sick. Then, to prove her independence, appears to have sex with a young man in plain view of Mathieu. After this, Conchita attempts to reconcile with Mathieu, insisting that the sex was fake and that her "lover" is in reality a homosexual friend. However, during her explanation, Mathieu beats her (she then says "Now I´m sure you love me"), causing her bandaged and bruised state seen earlier in the film. Just as the fellow train passengers seem satisfied with this story, Conchita reappears from hiding and dumps a bucket of water on Mathieu. However, the couple apparently reconciles yet again when the train reaches its destination. After leaving the train, they walk arm in arm, enjoying the streets of Madrid. Later in a mall in Paris, loudspeakers announce that a strange alliance of extremist groups intends to sow chaos and confusion in society through terrorist attacks. The announcement adds that several right-wing groups plan to counterattack. As the couple continues their walk, they pass a seamstress in a shop window mending a bloody nightgown. They begin arguing just as a bomb explodes, apparently claiming their lives. Casting. Spanish actor Fernando Rey (who frequently worked with Buñuel in his later years) plays Mathieu, but his voice is dubbed by Michel Piccoli. The film is notable for its use of two actresses, Carole Bouquet and Angela Molina, in the single role of Conchita; the actresses switch roles in alternate scenes and sometimes even in the middle of scenes (at one point, Molina walks behind a curtain and Bouquet emerges a second later). In his autobiography, "My Last Sigh" (1983), Buñuel explains (pp. 46–47) the decision to use two actresses to play Conchita: The book does not identify the actress who had caused the "tempestuous argument," though Buñuel makes it clear (p. 250) that she was neither Carole Bouquet nor Angela Molina. In "Luis Buñuel: The Complete Films" (2005), editors Bill Krohn and Paul Duncan identify the actress as Maria Schneider, writing (pp. 177–78) the following in regard to the idea of using two actresses to play Conchita: Responses. The film was not financially successful, but it became a critical favorite, garnering Best Foreign Language Film nominations at both the Golden Globes and the Academy Awards (where it was also nominated for Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium) but failing to win at either. The critics associations were slightly more generous, with the National Board of Review, and the Los Angeles Film Critics Association both giving it the Best Foreign Language Film awards in 1977. Luis Buñuel won Best Director at the National Board of Review and National Society of Film Critics awards. He was also nominated at the French César Awards.
1263528	Percy William Kilbride (July 16, 1888 – December 11, 1964) was an American character actor. He made a career of playing country hicks, most memorably as Pa Kettle in the "Ma and Pa Kettle" series of feature films. Early life. Kilbride was born in San Francisco, California, the son of Owen Kilbride, a Canadian, and his wife Elizabeth Kilbride (née Kelly), who was born in the state of Maryland. Career. Kilbride began working in the theater at the age of 12 and eventually left to become an actor on Broadway. He first played an 18th-century French dandy in "A Tale of Two Cities". His film debut was as "Jakey" in the Pre-Code Carole Lombard film, "White Woman" (1933). He left Broadway for good in 1942, when Jack Benny insisted that Kilbride reprise his Broadway role in the film version of "George Washington Slept Here". According to Benny, Percy Kilbride was the same character offscreen and on: quiet and friendly but principled, refusing to be paid more or less than what he considered a fair salary. Kilbride followed up the Benny film with a featured role in the Olsen and Johnson comedy "Crazy House". In 1945, he appeared in "The Southerner". Ma and Pa Kettle. In 1947, he and Marjorie Main appeared in "The Egg and I", starring Fred MacMurray and Claudette Colbert as a sophisticated couple taking on farm life. Main and Kilbride were featured as folksy neighbors Ma and Pa Kettle, and audience response prompted the popular "Ma and Pa Kettle" series. Pa Kettle became Kilbride's most famous role: the gentle-spirited Pa seldom raised his voice, and was always ready to help friends — by borrowing from "other" friends, or assigning any kind of labor to his Indian friends Geoduck and Crowbar. Kilbride became ill while filming "Ma and Pa Kettle at Waikiki" in 1953. Director Lee Sholem cleverly staged new scenes with a stunt double, conserving Kilbride's energy for dialogue and close-ups. The film was finally released in 1955; it was Kilbride's last picture. Death. On September 21, 1964, Kilbride and his friend and acting colleague, Ralf Belmont, were struck by a car while walking near Kilbride's home, at the corner of Yucca and Cherokee Streets, in Hollywood. Belmont died instantly; Kilbride died three months later from head injuries, having undergone brain surgery on November 11. He was 76 years old and a veteran of World War I. Kilbride was buried near his hometown, San Francisco, at Golden Gate National Cemetery, in San Bruno, California. Kilbride left his estate to four nephews and a sister-in-law.
581617	Deewana Mujh Sa Nahin is a Bollywood movie produced in 1990. The film was an Average success at the box office, even though it took a good opening and was expected to be a hit. Plot. Ajay Sharma (Aamir Khan) is a photographer, Anita (Madhuri Dixit) is a model, both of them work for the same agency. Ajay has fallen in love with Anita, and thinks that she is also in love with him. But Anita only takes him for a friend. She gets engaged to Vikram (Jainendra), and the marriage is to take place soon. Ajay still believes that Anita loves him, and he also starts making preparation for his marriage with Anita. Anita must now take appropriate steps to stop Ajay's obsession with her, before the matter gets out of hand. However Anita realizes the person whom she is marrying does not love her and the situation turns such that she realizes Ajay's love for her and the film ends on happy note. Though the film contained the hit pair of Aamir and Madhuri, it crashed miserably at the box office.
1164672	Herbert Manfred "Zeppo" Marx (February 25, 1901 – November 30, 1979) was an American film star, musician, engineer, theatrical agent and businessman. He was the youngest of the five Marx Brothers. He appeared in the first five Marx Brothers feature films, from 1929 to 1933, but then left the act to start his second career as an engineer and theatrical agent. Zeppo Marx was a multi-millionaire due to his engineering efforts. Early life. Marx was born in New York City. His parents were Sam Marx (called "Frenchie" throughout his life), and his wife, Minnie Schoenberg Marx. Minnie's brother was Al Schoenberg, who changed his name to Al Shean when he went into show business. He was half of Gallagher and Shean, a noted vaudeville act of the early 20th century. Marx's family was Jewish. His mother was from Dornum in East Frisia; and his father was a native of Alsace, and worked as a tailor. Name. There are different theories as to where Zeppo got his stage name: Groucho said in his Carnegie Hall concert in 1972 that the name was derived from the Zeppelin airship. Zeppo's ex-wife Barbara Sinatra repeats this in her 2011 book, "Lady Blue Eyes: My Life with Frank". His brother Harpo offers a different account in his 1961 autobiography, "Harpo Speaks!," claiming (p. 130) that there was a popular trained chimpanzee named Mr. Zippo, and that "Herbie" was tagged with the name "Zippo" because he liked to do chinups and acrobatics, as the chimp did in its act. The youngest brother objected to this nickname, and it was altered to "Zeppo." Career. Marx appeared in the first five Marx Brothers movies, as a straight man and romantic lead, before leaving the team. According to a 1925 newspaper article, he also made a solo appearance in the Adolphe Menjou comedy "A Kiss in the Dark", but no copy of the film is known to exist, and it is not clear if he actually appeared in the finished film. In "Lady Blue Eyes", Barbara Sinatra claims that Marx was considered too young to perform with his brothers, and it wasn't until Gummo joined the Army that Marx was asked to join the act as a last-minute stand-in at a show in Texas. Marx was supposed to go out that night with a Jewish friend of his. They were supposed to take out two Irish girls, but Marx had to cancel to board the train to Texas. His friend went ahead and went on the date, and was shot a few hours later when he was attacked by an Irish gang that disapproved of a Jew dating an Irish girl. As the youngest and having grown up watching his brothers, Zeppo could fill in for and imitate any of the others when illness kept them from performing. "He was so good as Captain Spaulding "Animal Crackers" that I would have let him play the part indefinitely, if they had allowed me to smoke in the audience," Groucho recalled. However, a comic persona of his own that could stand up against those of his brothers did not emerge. As critic Percy Hammond wrote, sympathetically, in 1928: One of the handicaps to the thorough enjoyment of the Marx Brothers in their merry escapades is the plight of poor Zeppo Marx. While Groucho, Harpo and Chico are hogging the show, as the phrase has it, their brother hides in an insignificant role, peeping out now and then to listen to plaudits in which he has no share. Though Marx continued to play straight in the Brothers' movies at Paramount, he did occasionally get to be part of classic comedy moments in them—in particular, his role taking dictation from Groucho in "Animal Crackers" (1930). He also played a pivotal role as the love interest of Ruth Hall in "Monkey Business" (1931). The popular assumption that his character was superfluous was fueled in part by Groucho. According to Groucho's own story, when the group became the Three Marx Brothers, the studio wanted to trim their collective salary, and Groucho replied "We're twice as funny without Zeppo!" Offstage, Marx had great mechanical skills and was largely responsible for keeping the Marx family car running. Marx later owned a company which machined parts for the war effort during World War II, Marman Products Co. Inglewood, CA, later known as the Aeroquip Company. This company produced a motorcycle, called the Marman Twin and the Marman clamps used to hold the "Fat Man" atomic bomb inside the B-29 bomber, "Bockscar". He also founded a large theatrical agency with his brother Gummo, and invented a wristwatch that would monitor the pulse rate of cardiac patients and give off an alarm if they went into cardiac arrest. During his time as a theatrical agent, he and Gummo, although primarily Gummo, represented their brothers, among many others. Personal life. On April 12, 1927, Marx married Marion Benda. The couple adopted two children, Timothy and Thomas, in 1944 and 1945, and later divorced on May 12, 1954. On September 18, 1959, Marx married Barbara Blakeley, whose son, Bobby Oliver, he wanted to adopt and give his surname, but Bobby's father would not allow it. Bobby simply started using the last name "Marx". Blakeley claims in her book, "Lady Blue Eyes", that Marx never made her convert to Judaism. Blakeley was of Methodist faith and claims that Marx told her she became Jewish by "injection". Blakeley also claims in her book that Marx wanted to keep her son out of the picture, adding a room for him onto his estate, which was more of a guest house as it was separated from the main residence. It was also decided that Blakeley's son would go to military school which, according to Blakeley, pleased Marx. Marx owned a house on Halper Lake Drive in the Rancho Mirage, California, which was built off the fairway of the Tamarisk Country Club. The Tamarisk Club had been set up by the Jewish community, which rivaled the gentile club called "The Thunderbird". His neighbor happened to be Frank Sinatra. Marx would later attend the Hillcrest Country Club with friends like Sinatra, George Burns, Jack Benny, Danny Kaye, and Milton Berle. Blakeley became involved with the Cedars-Sinai hospital, and had arranged to show "Spartacus" (featuring Kirk Douglas) for charity, selling tickets, and organizing a post-screening ball. At the last minute, Blakeley was told she could not have the film, so Marx went to the country club and spoke to Sinatra, who agreed to let him have an early release of a film he had just finished called "Come Blow Your Horn". Sinatra also flew everyone involved to Palm Springs for the event. Marx was a very jealous husband, and hated for Blakeley to talk to another man. Blakeley claims that Marx grabbed Victor Rothschild by the throat at a country club because she was talking to him. Blakeley had caught Marx on many occasions with other women; the biggest incident was a party Marx had thrown on his yacht. After the incident, Marx took Blakeley to Europe, and accepted more invitations to parties when they arrived back in the States. Some of these parties were at Sinatra's compound; he often invited Blakeley and Marx to his house two or three times a week. Sinatra would also send champagne or wine to their home, as a nice gesture. Blakeley and Sinatra started to see one another behind Marx's back. The press eventually caught up to Blakeley, snapping photos of her and Sinatra together, or asking Blakeley questions whenever they would spot her. Marx and Blakeley divorced in 1973. Marx let Blakeley keep the 1969 Jaguar he had bought her, and agreed to pay her $1,500 a month for ten years. Sinatra upgraded Blakeley's Jaguar to the latest model. Sinatra also gave her a house to live in. The house belonged to Eden Hartford, Groucho Marx's third wife. Blakeley and Sinatra continued to date, and were constantly hounded by the press until the divorce between Marx and Blakeley became final. Blakeley and Sinatra would later marry. In 1977, Groucho's heirs filed a lawsuit against Erin Fleming, a woman who was living with Groucho and who also was thought to be extremely abusive towards him. Marx was called to testify, but he only had positive remarks to make about Fleming. Marx became sick with cancer in 1978. He sold his house, and moved to a house on the fairway off Frank Sinatra Drive. The doctors thought the cancer had gone into remission, but it came back. Marx called Blakeley, who took him to the doctor's office. Marx spent his last days with Blakeley's family. The last surviving Marx Brother, Zeppo died of lung cancer at the Eisenhower Medical Center in Rancho Mirage at the age of 78. His remains were cremated and scattered over the Pacific Ocean. In his will, Marx left Bobby Marx a few possessions and enough money to finish law school. Both Sinatra and Blakeley attended his funeral. Legacy. Several critics have challenged the notion that Marx did not develop a comic persona in his films. James Agee considered Marx "a peerlessly cheesy improvement on the traditional straight man." Along similar lines, Gerald Mast, in his book "The Comic Mind: Comedy and Movies", notes that Zeppo's comedic persona, while certainly more subtle than his brothers', is undeniably present: added a fourth dimension as the cliché of the [romantic juvenile, the bland wooden espouser of sentiments that seem to exist only in the world of the sound stage. [... He is] too schleppy, too nasal, and too wooden to be taken seriously. Danél Griffin, film critic for the University of Alaska Southeast, elaborates on Mast's theory: Zeppo's parts were always intended to be a parody of the juvenile role often found in sappy musicals of the 1920s-30s era. Sometimes, he would just have a few lines, and he would otherwise be reduced to standing in the background with a big smile on his face. In these roles, he was a lampoon of the infamous extra, always grinning widely as a needless decoration, and always stiff and wooden. In other films, Zeppo would have a more significant role as the romantic lead, but he would still always be stiff, wooden, and, yes, with a big smile on his face. Either way, he could never be considered a "real" straight man. He was a sappy distortion of the real thing, and sort of the gateway through which we connected with the other Brothers. We perceived him as the "normal, good-looking" one of the bunch, but was he really? Wasn't there something about that line from "The Cocoanuts", 'You can depend upon me, Mr. Hammer,' that was a little too ... happy? Roger Ebert called Zeppo 'superfluous,' and that is the point of his character in the five Paramount films. He was the straight man only in pure Marxian sense—while his Brothers spat on movie clichés, he imitated them, proving in his own way to be quite a brilliant comedian. While this seemingly modern reconsideration of Marx's comedic contributions could be interpreted as merely a contemporary examination of his role in the Paramount pictures, film reviewers were apparently in on the joke as far back as the release of "The Cocoanuts" in 1929. "The New York Times" review of the movie, for example, ranks all four Marx Brothers equally—"When the "four" Marx brothers are on the screen, it's a riot" added and goes on to specifically describe each of the brothers' unique style of comedy, and specifically praises Zeppo as "the handsome but dogged straight man with the charisma of an enamel washstand." In her book "Hello, I Must be Going: Groucho & His Friends", Charlotte Chandler defends Marx as being "the Marx Brothers' interpreter in the worlds they invade. He is neither totally a straight man nor totally a comedian, but combines elements of both, as did Margaret Dumont. Zeppo's importance to the Marx Brothers' initial success was as a Marx Brother who could 'pass' as a normal person. None of Zeppo's replacements (Allan Jones, Kenny Baker and others) could assume this character as convincingly as Zeppo, because they were actors, and Zeppo was the real thing, cast to type" (562). Marx's comic persona is further highlighted in the "letter scene" of "Animal Crackers". In his book "Groucho, Harpo, Chico, and Sometimes Zeppo", Joe Adamson analyzes the scene, showing how it reveals Marx's ability to one-up Groucho with simple, plain-English rebuttals. In the scene, Zeppo is told to take a letter to Groucho's lawyer. Adamson notes, There is a common assumption that Zeppo = Zero, which this scene does its best to contradict. Groucho dictating a letter to anybody else would hardly be cause for rejoicing. We have to believe that someone will be there to accept all his absurdities and even respond somewhat in kind before things can progress free from conflict into this genial mishmash. Groucho clears his throat in the midst of his dictation, and Zeppo asks him if he wants that in the letter. Groucho says, 'No, put it in the envelope.' Zeppo nods. And only Zeppo could even try such a thing as taking down the heading and the salutation and leaving out the letter because it didn't sound important to him. It takes a Marx Brother to pull something like that on a Marx Brother and get away with it. In the same book, Adamson goes on to note Marx's position as the campy parody of the juvenile romantic in his analysis of "Horse Feathers". This tongue-in-cheek observation bolsters the theory of Marx's stiffness as a deliberate comic persona: Each Marx Brother has his own form of comedy. Zeppo is at his funniest when he opens his mouth and sings. It has taken forty years, of course, for the full humor to come across. For a normal comedian this may be bad timing, but for a Marx Brother it's immortality. Almost every crooner of 1932 looks stilted and awkward now, but with Zeppo, who was never very convincing in the first place, the effect crosses the threshold into lovable comedy. "I think you're wonderful!" he oozes charmingly to Thelma Todd, and we "know" he never met her before shooting started. Allen W. Ellis writes in his article "Yes, Sir: The Legacy of Zeppo Marx": Indeed, Zeppo is a link between the audience and Groucho, Harpo and Chico. In a sense, he "is" us on the screen. He knows who those guys are and what they are capable of. As he ambles out of a scene, perhaps it is to watch them do their business, to come back in as necessary to move the film along, and again to join in the celebration of the finish. Further, Zeppo is crucial to the absurdity of the Paramount films. The humor is in his incongruity. Typically he dresses like a normal person, in stark contrast to Groucho's greasepaint and 'formal' attire, Harpo's rags, and Chico's immigrant hand-me-downs. By most accounts, he is the handsomest of the brothers, yet that handsomeness is distorted by his familial resemblance to the others—sure, he's handsome, but it is a decidedly peculiar, Marxian handsomeness. By making the group four, Zeppo adds symmetry, and in the surrealistic worlds of the Paramount films, this symmetry upsets rather than confirms balance: it is chaos born of symmetry. That he is a plank in a maelstrom, along with the very concept of 'this guy' who is there for no real reason, who joins in and is accepted by these other three wildmen while the narrative offers no explanation, are wonderful in their pure absurdity. 'To string things together in a seemingly purposeless way,' said Mark Twain, 'and to be seemingly unaware that they are absurd, is the mark of American humor.' The 'sense' injected into the nonsense only compounds the nonsense. In a eulogy for Marx written in 1979 for "The Washington Post", columnist Tom Zito writes: Thank goodness for Zeppo, who never really cracked a joke on screen. At least not directly. He just took it from Groucho, in more ways than one. ... If Groucho, Chico and Harpo were the funny guys, Zeppo was the Everyman, the loser who'd come running out of the grocery store only to find the meter maid sticking the parking ticket on his Hungadunga. It turns out Marx did have one surprising fan, as revealed in Marc Eliot's 2005 biography of Cary Grant. Grant, a teenager performing in Vaudeville under his real name, Archie Leach, loved the Marx Brothers. And as Eliot puts it, While the rest of the country preferred Groucho, Zeppo, the good-looking straight man and romantic lead, was Archie's favorite, the one whose foil timing he believed was the real key to the act's success. In his book "The Anarchy of the Imagination: Interviews, Essays, Notes", noted filmmaker Rainer Werner Fassbinder includes Marx on his list for the ten greatest film actors of all time.
1267790	William Surrey Hart (December 6, 1864 – June 23, 1946) was an American silent film actor, screenwriter, director and producer. He is remembered for having "imbued all of his characters with honor and integrity." Biography. Hart was born in Newburgh, New York, to Nicholas Hart (c1834-1895) and Rosanna Hart (c1839–1909). William had 2 brothers, who died very young, and 4 sisters. His father was born in England, and his mother was born in Ireland.
1040835	Louise Delamere (born 1969) is an English actress, best known for her role as Lia in the Channel 4 comedy drama "No Angels". Early life. Delamere was born in Wallasey, on the Wirral in Cheshire. She was a classmate of the Boo Radleys band members at St Mary's College. She studied acting at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama, where she lived with and was a close friend of her classmate David Tennant. Career. Delamere has appeared in Agatha Christie's "Poirot: Evil Under The Sun" in which she played Arlena Stewart, an actress who is murdered on a beach. She was featured in the "Cadfael" episode "The Holy Thief" and appeared in the BBC crime show "Waking The Dead" as Elaine Ashcroft, again playing a murder victim in the fourth season finale "Thin Air". She also had a role in the television drama "The Chatterley Affair" and has appeared in "Torchwood". She played the recurring character Marion James in the fifth series of "Waterloo Road". In episode 1 of the 2006 third season of the TV series "Blue Murder", Louise played a double role as Lynne Aziz, an attractive strong calculating attorney, with a brief appearance as a disturbed twin sister, Paula Hickson, whose murder by her husband in the first few minutes of the show instigates mass confessions from her family for the similar murder of her husband upon his release from prison. Personal life. Delamere is married to Stephen Mangan. They have two sons: Harry (October 2007) and Frank (2010). She has three brothers; her younger brother is the actor Matthew Delamere, and one of her older brothers is the director Robert Delamere.
1061268	Apocalypse Now is a 1979 American epic war film set during the Vietnam War, directed and produced by Francis Ford Coppola and starring Marlon Brando, Robert Duvall, and Martin Sheen. The film follows the central character, U.S. Army special operations officer Captain Benjamin L. Willard (Sheen), of MACV-SOG, on a mission to kill the renegade and presumed insane U.S. Army Special Forces Colonel Walter E. Kurtz (Brando). The screenplay by John Milius and Coppola came from Milius's idea of adapting Joseph Conrad's novella "Heart of Darkness" into the Vietnam War era. It also draws from Michael Herr's "Dispatches", the film version of Conrad's "Lord Jim" which shares the same character of Marlow with "Heart of Darkness", and Werner Herzog's "Aguirre, the Wrath of God" (1972). The film drew attention for its lengthy and troubled production as "" documented: Brando showed up on the set overweight, Sheen suffered a heart attack, and severe weather destroyed several expensive sets. The film's release was postponed several times while Coppola edited millions of feet of footage. Upon release, "Apocalypse Now" earned widespread critical acclaim and its cultural impact and philosophical themes have been extensively discussed since. Honored with the Palme d'Or at Cannes, and nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture and the Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture – Drama, the film was also deemed "culturally, historically or aesthetically significant" and was selected for preservation by the National Film Registry in 2000. In the Sight and Sound Greatest Films poll, the film was ranked #14. Plot. U.S. Army Captain and special operations veteran Benjamin L. Willard (Martin Sheen) has returned to Saigon since his involvement in the ongoing Vietnam War, where he drinks heavily and destroys his hotel room. One day Willard is called upon by military intelligence officers Lt. General Corman (G. D. Spradlin) and Colonel Lucas (Harrison Ford) about a top-secret assignment to follow the Nung River into the remote jungle, find rogue Special Forces Colonel Walter E. Kurtz (Marlon Brando) and kill him. Kurtz apparently went insane and began practicing "unsound" methods of dehumanization with his own private army of Montagnard troops inside neutral Cambodia, having established among them a cult-like following. Willard joins a Navy patrol boat, or PBR, commanded by "Chief" (Albert Hall) and crewmen Lance (Sam Bottoms), "Chef" (Frederic Forrest) and "Mr. Clean" (Laurence Fishburne). For escort through the Viet Cong-filled coastal mouth of the Nung River, they rendezvous with reckless Lieutenant Colonel Bill Kilgore (Robert Duvall), who commands a squadron of attack helicopters. Initially scoffing at them, Kilgore befriends Lance as both are keen surfers. Citing the favorable surfing conditions at the mouth of the river, Kilgore agrees to escort Willard and his PBR associates, along the way unleashing a devastating napalm airstrike on the locals and playing "Ride of the Valkyries" over the helicopter loudspeakers. While the beach is being taken, Kilgore orders Lance and other soldiers to surf it amid continuing enemy fire. Willard then gathers his men back onto the PBR, which had been transported via helicopter, and they begin their journey upriver. Willard sifts through files of Kurtz, learning that he was a once-promising, model officer and could have eventually been promoted to general. Exploring the riverbank, Willard and Chef encounter a tiger. The crew later visits a USO supply depot and watch a show featuring Playboy Playmates that quickly goes awry. Afterwards, the crew come across and inspect a sampan for weapons, but Mr. Clean snaps, machine-gunning the Vietnamese civilians on board. When they discover one woman is still alive but badly injured, Willard coldly shoots her dead to prevent any further delay of his mission. Chief and Willard begin to butt heads; Willard believes himself to be in command of the PBR, while Chief prioritizes other objectives over Willard's still-secret mission. On entering the chaos of a US outpost at a bridge under constant attack without any apparent commanding officer, Willard learns that a soldier was sent on an earlier mission, identical to his own, with the same objective of killing Kurtz; however, this soldier ending up defecting, apparently joining Kurtz's followers, and has not been heard from since.
110160	Judah Friedlander (born March 16, 1969) is an American actor and comedian, best known for playing the role of writer Frank Rossitano on the NBC sitcom "30 Rock". Friedlander is also known for his role as Toby Radloff in the film "American Splendor", a role garnered him favorable reviews and a nomination for best supporting actor at the 2004 Independent Spirit Awards. Earlier in his career he was recognized as "the hug guy" from the music video for the 2001 Dave Matthews Band single "Everyday". Friedlander is known for his distinctive look, which includes oversized glasses, shaggy hair, a t-shirt and trucker hat — often emblazoned with bombastic slogans such as "World Champion" — and a generally unkempt appearance. It is a look he maintains as a stand-up comedian, during most of his public appearances, and which he has employed in some of his acting roles. Early life. Friedlander was born in Gaithersburg, Maryland, the son of Shirley and Art Friedlander. His father was of Russian Jewish descent and his mother, a native of Pittsburgh, is Croatian American. As a child, Friedlander drew political cartoons and made animated films. He first tried stand-up comedy in 1989 at the age of 19 while attending New York University. Career. Stand-up comedy. Friedlander has performed stand-up comedy regularly throughout his entertainment career. He continued to perform stand-up several nights a week in New York City while working on the sitcom "30 Rock". Friedlander has stated that he is most relaxed when doing stand-up and that he considers stand-up to be his first true love, preferring it to acting. He stated in 2012 that stand-up comedy is "still the most important thing I do from an artistic standpoint."
1043867	John Justin (24 November 1917 – 29 November 2002) was a British stage and film actor. John Justinian de Ledesma was born in London, England, the son of a well-off Argentine rancher. Though he grew up on his father's ranch, he was educated at Bryanston School, Dorset. He developed an interest in flying and became a qualified pilot at the age of 12, though he was not allowed to fly solo at the time because of his age. The acting bug bit him early. By the age of 16, he had joined the Plymouth Repertory. In 1937, he briefly trained with the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, but did not like it and soon joined the repertory company of John Gielgud. In 1938, he auditioned for and won the role for which he is perhaps best remembered, Ahmad in the 1940 version of "The Thief of Bagdad", opposite Sabu. World War II broke out during the film's production. After completing the picture, Justin joined the Royal Air Force, serving as a test pilot and flying instructor. He also worked on two films, "The Gentle Sex" (1943) with Leslie Howard, and "Journey Together" (1944) with Edward G. Robinson. With the war's end, Justin returned to acting. He made more films, such as David Lean's "The Sound Barrier" (1952), "Island in the Sun" (1957) and "Lisztomania" (1975), but his strong preference was for the stage. He became a member of the Old Vic company in 1959. He made his Broadway debut in 1960 in the play "Little Moon of Alban". In 1979 he played the ghoulish lover in the BBC's dramatisation of Le Fanu's "Strange Incident in the Life of Schalcken the Painter", one of its Christmas ghost stories. Justin was married three times, first to dancer and choreographer Pola Nirenska. His second marriage, to actress Barbara Murray, lasted from 1952 to 1964; they had three daughters. From 1970 to his death in 2002, he was married to Alison McMurdo.
1166362	Erika "Riki" Lindhome (born March 5, 1979) is an American actress, comedian and musician. She is best known for television roles in shows including "Gilmore Girls", "House", "The Big Bang Theory" and "United States of Tara" and, with Kate Micucci, formed the musical comedy duo Garfunkel and Oates. She hosts the Nerdist podcast "Making It". Early life. Riki Lindhome was born in Coudersport, Pennsylvania in 1979, and grew up in Portville, New York. She is of Swedish heritage. Lindhome studied at Syracuse University and was part of the sketch comedy group "Syracuse Live". After graduating in 2000, Lindhome embarked on an acting career and without an agent was able to land a small role on the sitcom "Titus" and a minor role in the popular television series "Buffy the Vampire Slayer". Career. In 2003 Lindhome got her first big break, earning a spot in Tim Robbins's Actor's Gang theater group and appearing in the play "Embedded". She was one of four actors from the play to then be cast in the Academy Award-winning film "Million Dollar Baby", where she played Mardell Fitzgerald, the sister of main character Maggie Fitzgerald played by Hilary Swank. In 2005 Lindhome played a recurring role on "Gilmore Girls" as Juliet, a classmate of Rory's (Alexis Bledel), and in 2006 wrote, produced and co-directed an award-winning short film called "Life is Short" which starred herself, Alexis Bledel, Samm Levine, and Seth MacFarlane. Lindhome also appeared in the 2006 film "Pulse" and in 2007 was one of many actresses to appear in the music video for Nickelback's "Rockstar". She also appeared in advertisements for McDonalds McGriddles, Saturn and Domino's Pizza. In 2008 Lindhome had a minor role in the Angelina Jolie film "Changeling" playing the role of an "Examination Nurse". She continued to guest star on several popular television series including "The Big Bang Theory" and "Criminal Minds" and "Pushing Daisies". In 2009, she starred in the feature film remake of the Wes Craven classic "The Last House on the Left". During the 2007 writer's strike Lindhome decided to make sure her career was well-rounded, pursuing more writing and director opportunities. Lindhome performs as part of the Los Angeles area comedy-folk duo Garfunkel and Oates with Kate "Oates" Micucci as Riki "Garfunkel" Lindhome. In 2011 Lindhome co-wrote a video with "Glee" castmember Heather Morris for Funny or Die called "Nuthin' But A Glee Thang", a parody of the Dr. Dre song "Nuthin' but a 'G' Thang" featuring Snoop Dogg, co-starring Sofia Vergara and Glee castmembers Matthew Morrison, Cory Monteith, Harry Shum, Jr. & Naya Rivera. She also hosts a Nerdist Industries podcast called "Making It". In 2012, Lindhome tried her hand at Shakespeare, appearing as a villain in Joss Whedon's adaptation of "Much Ado About Nothing".
582684	Raza Murad is an Indian actor working primarily in Hindi films. He has acted in over 200 Bollywood films. He has portrayed a wide variety of roles from sympathetic brothers and brotherly figures in the 70s to villainous roles in the 80s and later. Personal. He is the son of renowned Bollywood character actor Murad. He is also the first cousin of Zeenat Aman, his uncle being pa, writer of Mughal-e-Azam and Pakeezah. His niece Sonam was also an actress who is married to Rajiv Rai. Another niece Sanober Kabir has acted in a number of movies, and is a very popular stage performer. He has a son Ali Murad and a daughter Ayesha Murad who are also interested in becoming a part of the Bollywood fraternity. Career. Raza Murad started his career in mid 60s and initially played sympathetic brothers and brotherly figures in the 70s. From the 80s and on he has mainly played either supporting roles of a father, uncle or villainous roles. He studied in Film and Television Institute of India, Pune, from 1969 to 1971 and got the Diploma in Film acting. He has a very rich and memorable baritone voice. One of his most memorable performances as a character actor has been the role of a despondent poet in the 1973 hit film, "Namak Haraam" alongside Amitabh Bachchan and Rajesh Khanna. He has had major roles in some of the most successful films of Bollywood like Raj Kapoor's "Prem Rog", "Heena" and "Ram Teri Ganga Maili" and in other big hits like "Khud-Daar", "Ram Lakhan", "Tridev", "Pyar Ka Mandir", "Aankhen", "Mohra" and "". In 1993 he appeared in Ek Hi Raasta alongside Ajay Devgan as a terrorist who attempts to rule India. Recently he played a supporting role in Ashutosh Gowarikar's "Jodhaa Akbar". He starred in a number of Punjabi films such as "Jatt Punjabi". He was awarded the lifetime achievement award for his contribution towards Punjabi Cinema at the PTC Punjabi film awards in February 2011. He has film fare record of 7 villain nomination's, winning only 1. He is currently acting in Madhubala - Ek Ishq Ek Junoon. Down South, he has also acted in several Telugu films including Megastar Chiranjeevi's 2002 blockbuster hit Indra (film).
711917	Flicka 2 is a 2010 direct-to-DVD film and sequel to "Flicka" (2006). This is a movie about a city girl who finds herself in the country not by choice and befriends a horse. Both girl and horse not wanted; have to find a common bond. The film stars Patrick Warburton, Tammin Sursok and Clint Black. Plot. After the death of her mother, Carrie McLaughlin (Tammin Sursok) has been living with her grandmother in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. When her grandmother needs to go to a nursing home, Carrie has to move in with her father Hank (Patrick Warburton), a rancher in Wyoming, whom she hasn't seen since she was a baby. Initially reluctant to adapt to country living, Carrie soon meets Flicka, a beautiful black Mustang that previously had belonged to Carrie's cousin Katy (Alison Lohman), who asked Hank to look after Flicka when her father sold their own ranch. Flicka is wild and dangerous and, according to the ranchers, longs for Katy. However, when Carrie is attacked by a rattlesnake, Flicka saves her and the two form a bond. Carrie also meets Jake (Reilly Dolman), an attractive ranch hand hoping to become a country singer, and Amy Walker (Emily Tennant), the proud and arrogant daughter of a neighbour. Although Jake and Carrie take an immediate liking to each other, there is instant animosity between Carrie and Amy, mainly because Amy also likes Jake. When Carrie disobeys her father's rules regarding visits to the nearest town, Hank decides to punish Carrie by temporarily relocating Flicka to the farm of one of his ranch hands, Toby (Clint Black). After a midnight visit by Carrie, Flicka tries to follow Carrie home to Hank's ranch, but accidentally ends up on the ranch belonging to Amy's father HD Walker (Ted Whittall). Upon entering the Walker ranch, Flicka damages a fence and releases some of HD's prize cows. At Amy's request, HD asks for Flicka as payment for the damage, threatening to turn it into a lawsuit if Hank refuses. Amy then starts training with Flicka for a championship, but performs poorly during the actual competition because of Flicka's fear of the crowd and camera flashes from the audience. HD and Amy decide to have Flicka slaughtered the next day, but Carrie frees the horse during the night and sets her free to join a nearby herd of Mustangs. One year later, Carrie, Hank, and Toby are riding in the mountains when they encounter the same herd of Mustangs, including Flicka and her newborn foal.
1062688	Four Weddings and a Funeral is a 1994 British romantic comedy film directed by Mike Newell. It was the first of several films by screenwriter Richard Curtis to feature Hugh Grant. The film was an unexpected success, becoming the highest-grossing British film in cinema history at the time, with worldwide box office in excess of $245.7 million, and receiving an Academy Award nomination for Best Picture. Plot. The film follows the adventures of a group of friends through the eyes of Charles (Hugh Grant), a debonair but "faux pas"-prone Briton, who is smitten with Carrie, an American (Andie MacDowell), whom Charles repeatedly meets at weddings and at a funeral. The first wedding is that of Angus (Timothy Walker) and Laura (Sara Crowe), at which Charles is the best man. Charles and his collection of single friends wonder if they will ever get married. At this wedding, Charles meets Carrie for the first time and spends the night with her. Carrie teases him by pretending that, now they have been to bed together, they will also have to get married, to which Charles endeavours to respond before realising she is joking. She then goes back home to America, observing that they may have missed an opportunity.
589370	Iftekhar Khan, often mononymously credited as Iftekhar (इफ्तिखार) (February 22, 1920 - March 4, 1995) was a character actor in Bollywood films, especially known for his roles as police officers. Career. Iftekhar made his acting debut in 1937, with the film "Qazzak Ki ladki". He acted in over 400 films in a career that spanned from the 1950s through to the early 1990s. Like many of the older character actors who populated the Bollywood universe of the 1960s and 70s, Iftekhar had been a lead actor in his youth during the 'golden age' of Bollywood in the 1940s and 50s. His roles ranged from father, uncle, great-uncle, grandfather, police officer, police commissioner, courtroom judge and doctor. He also did negative roles in 'Bandini', 'Sawan Bhadon', 'Khel Khel Mein' and 'Agent Vinod'. In the 1960s and 70s, Iftekhar graduated to playing uncle, father, and what came to be his specialty: police inspector roles. Generally he played 'sympathetic' characters but, on occasion, he played the heavy. One of his most memorable roles as a heavy was as Amitabh Bachchan's corrupt industrialist mentor in Yash Chopra's classic "Deewaar" (1975). Another of Iftekhar's classic roles was as the police inspector in Parkash Mehra's "Zanjeer". It was a small part, but the scene where Iftekhar reprimands the near hysteric Amitabh Bachchan for taking the law into his own hands is incredibly powerful. Another important role as a police officer was played by him in 1978's Amitabh Bachchan's blockbuster hit "Don". Besides "Deewaar" and "Zanjeer" Iftekar had character roles in many of the classics of 1960s and 70s Bollywood cinema: Bimal Roy's "Bandini", Raj Kapoor's "Sangam", Manoj Kumar's "Shaheed", "Teesri Manzil", "Teesri Kasam", "Johny Mera Naam", "Hare Rama Hare Krishna", "Don", "The Gambler" and "Sholay" to name but a few. Apart from Hindi films he appeared in two episodes of the American TV series "Maya" in 1967 as well the English language films "Bombay Talkie" (1970) and "City of Joy" (1992). His sister Veena, original name Tajour Sultana (1926-2004) was an actress and acted in movies like " Taj Mahal" for which she got the 'Best Supporting Actress Award", Pakeezah, Do Raste, Ashirwad, " Parichay" and others. Filmography. Self:
1033890	Leigh Lawson (born 21 July 1945) is a British film and stage actor, director and writer. Life and career. Lawson was born in Atherstone, Warwickshire. Trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, Lawson has acted in film and television since the early 1970s, and has directed plays in the West End and on Broadway. He has worked with the National Theatre, Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) and with film directors such as Roman Polanski and Franco Zeffirelli. He has been quoted as saying that the only time in his career when he didn't feel he should be somewhere else doing something else was when he was with the RSC. Lawson's portrayals in films include Bernardo in "Brother Sun, Sister Moon" (1972) and Alec d'Urberville in "Tess" (1979). He played the leading role as Alan Lomax in the television drama series "Travelling Man" (1984–85), and guest starred in television series such as "The Duchess of Duke Street" (1976), "Disraeli" (1978), "Feuer und Schwert - Die Legende von Tristan und Isolde" (1982), "The Ray Bradbury Theatre" (1988), and "Silent Witness" (2005–2007). He also guested, with his wife Twiggy, playing themselves in an episode of the comedy series, "Absolutely Fabulous" (2001). Lawson's talents have extended to other areas. In 1999, he co-wrote and directed the musical "If Love Were All", which tells of the friendship between Gertrude Lawrence and Noël Coward. "The Dream: An Actor's Story", a theatrical memoir about the day-to-day life of a working actor, was published in September 2009. (ISBN 978-1-84002-867-6) Personal life. In 1976, Lawson and his first wife, Mondy, were divorced. He met actress Hayley Mills in 1975 when they performed in London's West End in "A Touch of Spring"; and the following year, she bore him a son, Jason. Lawson also became stepfather to Crispian Mills, Hayley's son with director Roy Boulting. During that time, he appeared alongside Hayley's father Sir John Mills in the film "The Devil's Advocate" (1977). The Lawson-Mills liaison ended in the early 1980s. He met model Twiggy in 1984. In 1988, they both worked in the film "Madame Sousatzka" and were married on 23 September that year in Tony Walton's back yard in Sag Harbor, Long Island. The couple reside in West London, where Lawson looks after his wife's business affairs and her involvement with Littlewoods catalogue. Lawson and Twiggy also own a home in Southwold, Suffolk. He adopted Twiggy's daughter Carly, who took his surname. Lawson has played an active role in his children's lives, including his nephew, club DJ Saul Dismont, who is the son of Lawson's sister and Bermuda politician Russell Dismont.
1036814	Gemma Chan (born on 29 November 1982) is an English actress and former model. She is best known for her roles as Charlotte in season four of the Showtime and ITV2 series "Secret Diary of a Call Girl"; Ruth in Channel 4's award-winning series "Fresh Meat"; Mia Bennett in the BBC's "Doctor Who" "The Waters of Mars" with David Tennant and Lindsay Duncan and Soo Lin in "Sherlock", the modern-day adaptation of Sherlock Holmes for BBC One, with Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman. Early life and education. Gemma Chan was born at Guy's Hospital in London, England on 29 November 1982. Chan's Chinese father was raised in Hong Kong and was an engineer, whereas her mainland Chinese mother, who emigrated from pre-Cultural Revolution Communist China via Hong Kong with her younger sister and her parents, Gemma's maternal grandparents, grew up in Greenock, Scotland and was a pharmacist at Guy's Hospital. Chan was raised near Sevenoaks, a town in west Kent, in South East England and attended Newstead Wood School for Girls in London. She later went on to read law at Worcester College, Oxford. Following graduation, Chan successfully gained a training contract offer as a graduate at leading law firm Slaughter and May; but, realising that her heart wasn't in the law and that her passion lay in drama and performance, she decided to pursue an acting career and gained admission and studied at the prestigious and notoriously tough Drama Centre London. Spotted at her showcase by British film producer Damian Jones, she then signed to acting agent Nicki van Gelder. Career. Modelling career. In 2006, Gemma was one of the models in season one of "Project Catwalk", the UK version of "Project Runway". She was one of the top three models who made it to the final, although her designer did not win the final challenge. Gemma has also been photographed by Rankin for a campaign for Nivea Visage, having previously worked as a model in order to fund her studies and drama school training, appearing in campaigns for Nokia and Selfridges and numerous magazines including "Elle", "Cosmopolitan" and "The Sunday Times Style". Television career. Chan appeared in the autumn 2009 special of the BBC's "Doctor Who" (""The Waters of Mars"") with David Tennant and Lindsay Duncan, which aired 15 November 2009 in the UK, playing geologist Mia Bennett. She was cast as a series regular in "Secret Diary of a Call Girl" alongside Billie Piper, the fourth and final series airing on ITV2 in the UK and Showtime in the US in 2011. Her other recent television projects include "Fresh Meat", Channel 4's BAFTA nominated and British Comedy Award winning sitcom; "Sherlock", BBC One's contemporary adaptation of Sherlock Holmes, alongside Benedict Cumberbatch as Holmes and Martin Freeman as Dr. Watson which began airing on 25 July 2010 to overwhelmingly positive reviews and went on to win the BAFTA for Best Drama Series in 2011; and the fourth series of the BAFTA and Emmy award winning British sitcom "The IT Crowd" for Channel 4.
340673	"I'm Reed Fish" is an American film based on a story by Reed Fish, and released theatrically on June 1, 2007. The film was directed by Zackary Adler and stars Alexis Bledel, Jay Baruchel, and Schuyler Fisk. Jay Baruchel won the Best Actor award at the U.S. Comedy Arts Festival in 2007 for his role of Reed Fish. The film was released to DVD on September 4, 2007 Plot. Reed Fish (Jay Baruchel) has followed in the footsteps of his late father, doing an early-morning radio show with the town's mayor, Maureen (Katey Sagal), through which the eccentric locals of Mud Meadows voice their complaints and have them addressed. Reed produces the show with his old high school buddy, Frank (Victor Rasuk), and he's engaged to be married to another high school classmate, Kate Peterson (Alexis Bledel), whose dad (Blake Clark) owns several businesses in town. Reed's plans are upended when his high school sweetheart, Jill (Schuyler Fisk), comes back to town. She's supposed to be away at law school, but confides to Reed that she quit school two years earlier, and has been working as a waitress while she fruitlessly pursues a career in music. Reed encourages her to play on Open Mike Night at the local bar. He inspires her to find her voice, which leads to some complications in his relationship with Kate, forcing Reed to reexamine every aspect of his safe, secure life. Reception. "Variety" described the film as a "Charming, rural version of a pre-wedding panic...flawlessly in tune to small-town rhythms. Pitch-perfect dialogue, quietly dynamic helming and small-scale action on a widescreen canvas make for a very appealing film." The New York Times called the film "a rural coming-of-age tale that's so laid-back that its cast is almost horizontal." In a 2010 interview, performer Reggie Watts said that he "loved it," describing it as "kind of a like a "Ferris Bueller's" in the woods."
1065118	Sextette is a 1978 American comedy/musical motion picture released by Crown International Pictures. The film stars Mae West. Other actors in the cast included Timothy Dalton, Dom DeLuise, Tony Curtis, Ringo Starr, Keith Moon, George Hamilton, Alice Cooper and Walter Pidgeon. Directed by Ken Hughes and produced by Daniel Briggs, Robert Sullivan and Harry Weiss for the production company Briggs and Sullivan, the script was dramatized for the screen, by Herbert Baker, from the play "Sex," which West herself had originally written. Costumes were designed by Edith Head. Filmed at Paramount Studios, "Sextette" was Mae West's final movie. Featured were cameos by Rona Barrett, Regis Philbin and George Raft, all of whom appeared as themselves. West had made her movie debut in Raft's "Night After Night" (1932). Plot. The legendary American movie star and sex symbol Marlo Manners (Mae West) is in London, England, where she has just married for the sixth time. She and her new husband, Sir Michael Barrington (Timothy Dalton), then depart for a honeymoon suite at a posh and exclusive hotel that has been reserved for them by her manager, Dan Turner (Dom DeLuise). The hotel is also the location of an international conference, where leaders have come together to resolve tensions and problems that threaten the survival of the world. As the chairman, Mr. Chambers (Walter Pidgeon) is trying to call the meeting to order, the delegates are crowding to the windows in an effort to catch a glimpse of Marlo when she arrives. As they enter the lobby, Marlo, now Lady Barrington, and her husband, a knight, are swarmed by admirers and reporters. When asked, "Do you get a lot of proposals from your male fans?" she quips, "Yeah, and what they propose is nobody’s business." Once inside their suite, the couple are unable to go to bed and have sex because of constant interruptions due to the demands of her career, such as interviews, dress fittings and photo sessions, as well as the various men, including some former husbands, diplomat Alexei Andreyev Karansky (Tony Curtis), director Laslo Karolny (Ringo Starr), gangster Vance Norton (George Hamilton), and an entire athletic team from the U.S., who all want to have sex with her. Meanwhile, the evil Turner desperately searches for an audiotape containing his client's memoirs, in order to destroy it. Marlo has recorded extensive details about her affairs and scandals, with a lot of dirt about her husbands and lovers. Ex-husband Alexei, who is the Russian delegate at the conference, threatens to derail the intense negotiations unless he can have another sexual encounter with her. Marlo is expected to work "undercover" to ensure world peace. Release. Soon after filming ended, the film's producers had difficulty in finding a major studio to distribute the film. As a result, producers scheduled several highly publicized sneak previews in order to garner support. The first sneak preview was held on the Paramount Pictures lot and the second was held at the Fox Bruin Theater. At the Bruin Theater, West received a standing ovation after the film's end. After failing to find a distributor, the producers decided release the film themselves. "Sextette" premiered at the Cinerama Dome in March 1978. West was moved when she was greeted by thousands of young fans who showed up at the openings, there and in San Francisco. Arthur Knight wrote in the "Hollywood Reporter" about "a kind of odd gallantry in the octogenarian Mae's loyalty to her public". Box office and critical reception. Upon its premiere, most critics panned the film. "Variety" dubbed it "a cruel, unnecessary and mostly unfunny musical comedy." "The New York Times" called "Sextette" "embarrassing", and that "Granny should have her mouth washed out with soap, along with her teeth." Film critics Vincent Canby and Rex Reed also gave the film negative reviews. "Sextette" earned $31,000 in its first week, largely due to West's appearance at the premiere. The film went on to earn about $20,000 in the United States before being pulled from theaters. Production. Filming. "Sextette" became the source of several urban legends. One such persistent rumor is that Mae West could not remember any of her lines and had to wear a concealed earpiece under her wig to have her lines fed to her. Tony Curtis later commented that West could not hear well, and thus required the earpiece. Retelling the story in an episode of the program "The Dame Edna Experience," he said that because of the frequency of her earpiece she accidentally picked up police radio frequencies, and at one point mistakenly stated, "There's a 608!" In reality, West wore an earpiece so director Ken Hughes could feed her lines because Hughes had rewritten most of the dialogue because he and West both felt the script was weak. As a result, West had no time to study the script to memorize her lines. Hughes repeatedly denied the story that West's earpiece picked up police signals and that West repeated them. Director Ken Hughes did later state that West was unable take direction which caused problems in filming. Hughes recalls one incident involving a scene West filmed in an elevator which took an entire day to film. After the scene was filmed, Hughes wrapped production for the day. West apparently did not hear Hughes' call to wrap and remained in the elevator for half an hour before being let out. Home media releases. "Sextette" was later released on VHS in the 1980s. In April 2011, Scorpion Entertainment released the film on Region 1 DVD in the United States. In July 2011, "Sextette" was released as part Mill Creeks Entertainment's "Dangerous Babes", a budget priced three-DVD set that includes eleven other Crown Pictures films.
1044795	Stewart Granger (6 May 191316 August 1993) was an English film actor, mainly associated with heroic and romantic leading roles. He was a popular leading man from the 1940s to the early 1960s rising to fame through his appearances in the Gainsborough melodramas. Early life. He was born James Lablache Stewart in Old Brompton Road, west London, the only son of Major James Stewart, OBE and his wife Frederica Eliza (née Lablache). Granger was educated at Epsom College and the Webber Douglas Academy of Dramatic Art. He was the great-great grandson of the opera singer Luigi Lablache and the grandson of the actor Luigi Lablache. When he became an actor, he was advised to change his name in order to avoid being confused with the American actor James Stewart. (Granger was his Scottish grandmother's maiden name.) Off-screen friends and colleagues continued to call him Jimmy for the rest of his life, but to the general public he became Stewart Granger. Career. In 1933, he made his film debut as an extra. It was at this time he met Michael Wilding and they remained friends until Wilding's death in 1979. Years of theatre work followed, initially at Hull Repertory Theatre and then, after a pay dispute, at Birmingham Repertory Theatre. Here he met Elspeth March, a leading actress with the company, who became his first wife. At the outbreak of war, Granger enlisted in the Gordon Highlanders, then transferred to the Black Watch with the rank of second lieutenant. But Granger suffered from stomach ulcers - he was invalided out of the army in 1942. Early Stardom. His first starring film role was in the Gainsborough Pictures period melodrama "The Man in Grey" (1943), a film that helped to make him a huge star in Britain. A string of popular but critically dismissed films followed, including "The Magic Bow" in which Granger played Niccolò Paganini and "Madonna of the Seven Moons" (1945) which the critic Leslie Halliwell called "novelettish balderdash killed stone dead by stilted production". An exception was "Saraband for Dead Lovers" (1948), an Ealing Studios production. The screenplay was by John Dighton and Alexander Mackendrick, who would later direct "The Ladykillers" (1955) and "Sweet Smell of Success". Granger was cast as the outsider, the handsome gambler who is perceived as 'not quite the ticket' by the established order, the Hanoverian court where the action is mostly set. Granger stated that this was one of few films of his of which he was proud. In 1949 Granger was reported as earning around £30,000 a year. That year Granger made "Adam and Evelyne", starring with Jean Simmons. The story, about a much older man and a teenager whom he gradually realises is no longer a child but a young woman with mature emotions and sexuality had obvious parallels to Granger's and Simmons's own lives. Granger had first met the very young Jean Simmons when they both worked on Gabriel Pascal's "Caesar and Cleopatra" (1945). Three years on, Simmons had transformed from a promising newcomer into a star - and a very attractive young woman. They married the following year in a bizarre wedding ceremony organised by Howard Hughes - one of his private aircraft flew the couple to Tucson, Arizona, where they were married, mainly among strangers, with actor Michael Wilding as Granger's best man. After Granger's stage production of Leo Tolstoy's "The Power of Darkness" (a venture he had intended to provide a vehicle for him to star with Jean Simmons) had been very poorly received when it opened in London at the Lyric Theatre on 25 April 1949, the disappointment, added to dissatisfaction with the Rank Organisation, led his thoughts to turn to Hollywood. Hollywood. In 1949, Granger made the move; MGM was looking for someone to play H. Rider Haggard's hero Allan Quatermain in a film version of "King Solomon's Mines". On the basis of the huge success of this film, released in 1950 and co-starring Deborah Kerr and Richard Carlson, he was offered a seven-year contract by MGM. Following two less successful assignments, "Soldiers Three" and "The Light Touch", in 1952, he starred in "Scaramouche" in the role of Andre Moreau, the bastard son of a French nobleman, a part Ramón Novarro had played in the 1923 version of Rafael Sabatini's novel. Soon after this came the remake of "The Prisoner of Zenda" (1952), for which his theatrical voice, stature (6'3"; 191 cm) and dignified profile made him a natural. In 1952 he and Jean Simmons sued Howard Hughes for $250,000 damages arising from an alleged breach of contract. The case settled out of court. In "Moonfleet" (1955), Granger was cast as an adventurer, Jeremy Fox, in the Dorset of 1757, a man who rules a gang of cut-throat smugglers with an iron fist until he is softened by a 10-year-old boy who worships him and who believes only the best of him. The film was directed by Fritz Lang and produced by John Houseman, a former associate of Orson Welles. "Footsteps in the Fog" was the third and final film Granger and Jean Simmons made together - Simmons played a Cockney housemaid who finds that her adventurer employer (Granger) has poisoned his rich wife in order to inherit her wealth. "Bhowani Junction" (1956), was adapted from a John Masters novel about colonial India on the verge of obtaining independence. Ava Gardner played an Anglo-Indian (mixed race) woman caught between the two worlds of the British and the Indians, and Granger the British officer with whom (in a change from the novel) she ultimately fell in love. His films "The Little Hut" (1957), a coy sex comedy, and "Gun Glory" (1957), a Western story of redemption, both bombed. "North to Alaska" with John Wayne, 'a brawling comedy western', was the last Hollywood film Granger made. Granger had turned down a significant role in the 1959 film "Ben-Hur", reportedly because he did not want to work with Charlton Heston. Granger had become a successful cattle rancher but he left Hollywood in the wake of the break up of his second marriage. International career. In Germany, Granger acted in the role of Old Surehand in three Western films adapted from novels by German author Karl May, with French actor Pierre Brice (playing the fictional Indian chief Winnetou), in "Unter Geiern" ("Frontier Hellcat") (1964), "Der Ölprinz" ("Rampage at Apache Wells") (1965) and "Old Surehand" ("Flaming Frontier") (1965). He was united with Pierre Brice and Lex Barker, also a hero of Karl May films, in "Gern hab' ich die Frauen gekillt" ("Killer's Carnival") (1966). In the German Edgar Wallace film series of the 1960s, he was seen in "The Trygon Factor" (1966). He lated estimated he made more than $1 1/2 million in the 1960s but lost all of it. He subsequently replaced actor Lee J. Cobb, Charles Bickford and John McIntire on NBC's "The Virginian" as the new owner of the Shiloh ranch on prime-time TV for its ninth year (1971). He appeared in "The Wild Geese" (1978) as an unscrupulous banker, who hires a unit of mercenary soldiers (Richard Burton, Roger Moore, Richard Harris and others) to stage a military coup in an African nation. His character then makes a deal with the existing government, and betrays the mercenaries. Retirement. In the 1970s Granger retired from acting and went to live in southern Spain, where he invested in real estate. He returned to acting in 1981 with the publication of his autobiography, claiming he was bored. Granger spent the last decade of his life appearing on television (including portraying Sherlock Holmes in an American TV movie version of The Hound of the Baskervilles with William Shatner also in the cast, and a guest role in the ABC series "The Fall Guy" starring Lee Majors) and on the stage. He even starred in a German soap-opera called "Das Erbe der Guldenburgs" ("The Guldenburg Heritage") (1987). One of his last roles was in the 1989-90 Broadway production of "The Circle" by W. Somerset Maugham, opposite Glynis Johns and Rex Harrison in Harrison's final role. The production actually opened at Duke University for a three-week run, followed by performances in Baltimore and Boston before opening 14 November 1989 on Broadway. Personal life. He was married three times: Stewart Granger claimed in his autobiography that Deborah Kerr had approached him romantically in the back of his chauffeur-driven car at the time he was making "Caesar and Cleopatra". Although married to Elspeth March, he states that he and Kerr went on to have an affair. Deborah Kerr disputed this claim, commenting, "He should be so lucky." In 1956, Granger became a naturalised citizen of the United States. He died in Santa Monica, California from prostate cancer at the age of 80. Appraisal. In 1970, Granger said "Stewart Granger was quite a successful film star, but I don't think he was an actor's actor." Among the films Granger was announced to star in but ended up being made with other actors included "Ivanhoe" (1951), "Mogambo" (1953), "The King's Thief" (1955) and "Man of the West" (1958). Filmography. Box office ranking. At the peak of his career, exhibitors voted Granger among the top stars at the box office: External links. GRid=8122
1067718	Honeymoon in Vegas is a 1992 comedy film directed by Andrew Bergman and starring Nicolas Cage, James Caan and Sarah Jessica Parker. Plot. Jack Singer (Cage) has sworn to his mother while she was on her deathbed that he would never get married. Years later, he goes back on his promise and proposes to his girlfriend, Betsy (Parker), and quickly arranges a Las Vegas marriage. They check into the Bally's Hotel. Before the wedding, however, a wealthy professional gambler, Tommy Korman (Caan), sees Betsy and notices a striking resemblance to his beloved late wife. He arranges a crooked poker game (with Jerry Tarkanian as one of the other players) where Jack borrows $65,000 after being dealt a straight flush (7-8-9-10-Jack of clubs), only to lose to the gambler's higher straight flush (8-9-10-Jack-Queen of hearts); Tommy, however, promises to erase the debt - if he can spend the weekend with Singer's fiancée. After getting Korman to agree to no sex, the desperate couple agrees. Jack tries desperately to get Betsy back and discovers that Tommy has taken her to Hawaii, where he has a vacation home. The gambler also has a taxi driver friend, Mahi Mahi (Pat Morita), and asks him to keep Jack as far as possible from him and Betsy. Jack discovers this, steals the taxi, and finds Tommy at the Kauai Club, where he's attacked by Tommy and arrested. After having Dr. Molar bail him out of jail, Mahi Mahi meets him outside and admits that Korman left for Vegas with Betsy and is forcing her to marry him. Mahi races Jack to the airport. Betsy decides she cannot go through with the wedding and escapes from Tommy.
70052	Maria M. Klawe (pronounced ) is a computer scientist and the fifth president of Harvey Mudd College (since July 1, 2006). Although born in Toronto in 1951, she became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 2009. She was previously Dean of the School of Engineering and Applied Science at Princeton University. Biography. Klawe was born in Toronto in 1951. She lived in Scotland from ages 4 to 12, and then returned to Canada, living with her family in Edmonton, Alberta. Klawe studied at the University of Alberta, dropped out to travel the world, and returned to earn her B.Sc. in 1973. She stayed at Alberta for her graduate studies, and in 1977 she earned her Ph.D. there in mathematics. She started a second Ph.D., in computer science, at the University of Toronto, but was offered a faculty position there before completing the degree. She spent eight years in the industry, serving at IBM Almaden Research Center, in San Jose, California, first as a research scientist, then as manager of the Discrete Mathematics Group and manager of the Mathematics and Related Computer Science Department. She and her husband Nick Pippenger then moved to the University of British Columbia, where she stayed for 15 years and served as head of the Department of Computer Science from 1988 to 1995, vice president of student and academic services from 1995 to 1998, and dean of science from 1998 to 2002. From UBC she moved to Princeton and then Harvey Mudd College. Previously a Canadian national, Klawe was among 5,996 persons who became citizens of the United States at a ceremony held at the Los Angeles Convention Center on Thursday, Jan. 29, 2009. Later in 2009, she joined the board of directors of the Microsoft Corporation.
531510	Robert Alan "Bob" Wall (born August 22, 1939) is an American actor and martial artist. Biography. Wall is a former karate champion. He is featured in a number of films, most notably three appearances with martial arts master Bruce Lee. Bob Wall appeared in the film "Way of the Dragon" with Lee, along with Chuck Norris. Among the martial arts Bob Wall has studied Okinawa-te karate under Gordon Doversola. In 1966, Wall along with karate champion Joe Lewis opened the famous Sherman Oaks Karate Studio in Sherman Oaks, California. In 1968 Lewis sold his share of the studio to Chuck Norris. He also had a supporting role in Lee's most famous film (in the western world) "Enter the Dragon". He later appeared in "Game of Death", Bruce Lee's incomplete film re-cut in 1978. More recently, in 2009, Wall starred as a bodyguard in the film "Blood and Bone". An urban legend surrounding the making of "Enter The Dragon" claims that he never quite got along with Bruce Lee and that the fight on the parade ground where he smashed the bottles was more than just a managed fight. However, Wall and others present at the time deny this story, stating the tale was blown out of proportion and that Wall and Lee were actually good friends. Wall has studied several arts under many notable masters. They include Judo under "Judo" Gene LeBell, Okinawan Shorin-Ryu under Joe Lewis, and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu under the Machado Brothers. Personal. Wall is a 9th degree black belt under Chuck Norris and the co-founder and CEO of a martial arts organization known as "World Black Belt Inc." Wall has been married to his wife Lillian for 40 years and has two adult daughters: Shana and Kara.
1262243	The Zapruder film is a silent, color motion picture sequence shot by private citizen Abraham Zapruder with a home-movie camera, as U.S. President John F. Kennedy's motorcade passed through Dealey Plaza in Dallas, Texas on November 22, 1963, thereby unexpectedly capturing the President's assassination. Though not the only film of the shooting, it has been called the most complete, giving a relatively clear view from a somewhat elevated position, and on the side from which the president's head wound is visible. It was an important part of the Warren Commission hearings and all subsequent investigations of the assassination, and is one of the most studied pieces of film in history. Of greatest notoriety is the film's capture of the fatal shot to President Kennedy's head when his limousine was almost exactly in front of, and slightly below, Zapruder's position. Creation. Holding a high-end Model 414 PD Bell & Howell Zoomatic Director Series Camera, Zapruder stood on a concrete pedestal along Elm Street in Dealey Plaza. He filmed from the time the presidential limousine turned onto Elm Street. The sequence contains 486 frames, or 26.6 seconds of Kodachrome II 8 mm safety film, running at 18.3 frames per second. After Secret Service agent Forrest Sorrels promised Zapruder that the film would only be used for an official investigation, the two men sought to develop the footage as soon as possible. As television station WFAA's equipment was inadequate, Eastman Kodak's Dallas film processing facility developed the film and Jamieson Film Company produced three copies. Zapruder gave two of the copies to the Secret Service. Media interest in the footage was so great that CBS's Dan Rather agreed to producer Don Hewitt's order that he go to Zapruder's home, "sock him in the jaw", copy the film, return it, and let the network's lawyers deal with the consequences. After ending their telephone conversation Hewitt realized his mistake and immediately called Rather back to countermand the order. On the morning of November 23, however, CBS lost the bidding for the footage to "Life" magazine's $150,000 offer. Rather was the first to report on the footage on national television after seeing it, although the inaccuracies in his description would contribute to many conspiracy theories about the assassination. After having a nightmare in which he saw a sign in Times Square read "See the President's head explode!", Zapruder insisted that frame 313 be excluded from publication. The November 29, 1963 issue of "Life"—which featured the "LIFE" logo in a black box instead of the usual red box—published about 30 frames of the Zapruder film in black and white. Frames were also published in color in the December 6, 1963 special "John F. Kennedy Memorial Edition", and in issues dated October 2, 1964 (a special article on the film and the Warren Commission report), November 25, 1966, and November 24, 1967. Subsequent history. The Zapruder frames used by the Warren Commission were published in black and white as Commission Exhibit 885 in volume XVIII of the Hearings and Exhibits. Frames of the film have also been published in several magazines, and the film was featured in several movies. Copies of the complete film are available on the Internet. One of the first-generation Secret Service copies was lent to the Federal Bureau of Investigation in Washington, which made a second-generation copy on November 25. After study of that copy in January 1964, the Warren Commission judged the quality to be inadequate, and requested the original. "Life" brought the original to Washington in February for the Commission's viewing, and also made color 35mm slide enlargements from the relevant frames of the original film for the FBI. From those slides, the FBI made a series of black-and-white prints, which were given to the commission for its use. In October 1964, the U.S. Government Printing Office released 26 volumes of testimony and evidence compiled by the Warren Commission. Volume 18 of the commission's hearings reproduced 158 frames of the Zapruder film in black and white. However, frames 208–211 were missing, a splice was visible in frames 207 and 212, frames 314 and 315 were switched, and frame 284 was a repeat of 283. In reply to an inquiry, the FBI's J. Edgar Hoover wrote in 1965 that 314 and 315 were switched due to a printing error, and that the error did not exist in the original Warren Commission exhibits. In early 1967, "Life" released a statement that four frames of the camera original (208–211) had been accidentally destroyed, and the adjacent frames damaged, by a "Life" photo lab technician on November 23, 1963. "Life" released the missing frames from the first-generation copy it had received from Zapruder with the original. (Of the Zapruder frames outside the section used in the commission's exhibits, frames 155–157 and 341 were also damaged and spliced out of the camera original, but are present in the first-generation copies.) In 1966, assassination researcher Josiah Thompson, while working for "Life", was allowed to examine a first-generation copy of the film and a set of color 35mm slides made from the original. He tried to negotiate with "Life" for the rights to print important individual frames in his book, "Six Seconds in Dallas". "Life" refused to approve the use of any of the frames, even after Thompson offered to give all profits from the book sales to "Life." When Thompson's book was published in 1967, it included very detailed charcoal drawings of important individual frames, plus photo reproductions of the four missing frames. Time Inc. filed a lawsuit against Thompson and his publishing company for copyright infringement. A U.S. District Court ruled in 1968 that the Time Inc. copyright of the Zapruder film had not been violated by invoking the doctrine of fair use. The court held that "there is a public interest in having the fullest information available on the murder of President Kennedy. Thompson did serious work on the subject and has a theory entitled to public consideration … t has been found that the copying by defendants was fair and reasonable." In 1967, "Life" magazine hired a New Jersey film lab, Manhattan Effects, to make a 16 mm film copy of the original Zapruder film. Pleased with the results, they asked for a 35 mm internegative to be made. Mo Weitzman made several internegatives in 1968, giving the best to "Life" and retaining the test copies. Weitzman set up his own optical house and motion picture postproduction facility later that year. Employee and assassination buff Robert Groden, hired in 1969, used one of Weitzman's copies and an optical printer to make versions of the Zapruder film using close-ups and minimizing the camera's shakiness. Prior to the 1969 trial of New Orleans businessman Clay Shaw for conspiracy in connection with the assassination, a copy of the film several generations from the original was subpoenaed from Time Inc. in 1967 by New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison for use at Shaw's grand jury hearing. Garrison unsuccessfully subpoenaed the original film in 1968. The courtroom showings of Garrison's copy in 1969 were the first time it had been shown in public as a film. Noted conspiracy theorist Mark Lane, author of "Rush to Judgment", was in New Orleans at the time to assist Garrison in his investigation. Lane 'borrowed' Garrison's copy of the Zapruder film (with a wink and a nod from Garrison) and had several copies printed at a local lab. These low quality copies began circulating among assassination researchers and were known to many journalists as well. The underground circulation of these copies and the secret screenings to a select few who had the opportunity to see them added an additional aura of mystery to the film, enhancing the idea that there was a secret to be found in it that was being kept hidden from the general public. On March 6, 1975, on the ABC late-night television show "Good Night America" (hosted by Geraldo Rivera), assassination researchers Robert Groden and Dick Gregory presented the first-ever network television showing of the Zapruder home movie. The public's response and outrage to that first television showing quickly led to the forming of the Hart-Schweiker investigation, contributed to the Church Committee Investigation on Intelligence Activities by the United States, and resulted in the House Select Committee on Assassinations investigation. In April 1975, in settlement of a royalties suit between Time Inc. and Zapruder's heirs that arose from the ABC showing, Time Inc. sold the original film and its copyright back to the Zapruder family for the token sum of $1. Time Inc. wanted to donate the film to the U.S. government. The Zapruder family initially refused to consent, but in 1978 the family transferred the film to the National Archives and Records Administration for appropriate preservation and safe-keeping, while still retaining ownership of the film and its copyright. Director Oliver Stone paid approximately $85,000 to the Zapruder family for use of the Zapruder film in his motion picture "JFK" (1991). On October 26, 1992, President George H. W. Bush signed into law the John F. Kennedy Records Collection Act of 1992 (the "JFK Act"), which sought to preserve for historical and governmental purposes all records related to the assassination of President Kennedy. The Act created the President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection at the National Archives. The Zapruder film was automatically designated an "assassination record" and therefore became official property of the United States government. When the Zapruder family demanded the return of the original film in 1993 and 1994, National Archives officials refused to comply. On April 24, 1997, the Assassination Records Review Board, which was created by the JFK Act, announced a "Statement of Policy and Intent with Regard to the Zapruder Film". The ARRB re-affirmed that the Zapruder Film is an "assassination record" within the meaning of the JFK Act and directed it to be transferred on August 1, 1998 from its present location in NARA's film collection to the John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection maintained by NARA. As required by law for such a seizure under eminent domain, payment to Zapruder's heirs was attempted. Because the film is unique, the film's value was difficult to ascertain; eventually, following arbitration with the Zapruder heirs, the government purchased the film in 1999 for $16 million. The Zapruder family retained copyright to the film, which was not seized. In 1997, the film was digitally replicated and restored under license of the Zapruder family. The 1998 documentary "Image of an Assassination: A New Look at the Zapruder Film" shows the history of the film, as well as various versions of the restored film. In December 1999, the Zapruder family donated the film's copyright to The Sixth Floor Museum, in the Texas School Book Depository building at Dealey Plaza, along with one of the first-generation copies made on November 22, 1963, and other copies of the film and frame enlargements once held by "Life" magazine, which had been since returned. The Zapruder family no longer retains any commercial rights to the film, which are now entirely controlled by the museum. The relevant history of the film is covered in a book by David Wrone called "The Zapruder Film: Reframing JFK's Assassination" (2003). Wrone is a professor of history who tracks the "chain of evidence" for the film. Authenticity. Zapruder testified before the Warren Commission that the frames published in Commission Exhibit 885 were from the film that he took. Some researchers of the assassination have claimed that three other films of part of the assassination (the Orville Nix, Marie Muchmore and Charles Bronson films), together with numerous still photographs, are inconsistent with the Zapruder film, suggesting that they are fraudulent; some researchers of the assassination have claimed that the extant Zapruder film is not authentic. These claims have been countered. In 1998, Roland Zavada, a product engineer from Kodak who led the team that invented Kodachrome II, studied the film at the behest of the National Archives and concluded that the film was an “in camera original” and that any alleged alterations were not feasible. Any attempt to create a false "in camera original" by copying Zapruder's film would leave visible artifacts of "image structure constraints of grain; contrast and modulation transfer function losses.…It has no evidence of optical effects or matte work including granularity, edge effects or fringing, [or contrast buildup." --> Dispute over completeness. The Zapruder film has often been seen as a "complete record of the Kennedy assassination". This view is, however, challenged by Max Holland, author of "The Kennedy Assassination Tapes", and the professional photographer Johann Rush in a joint editorial piece published by "The New York Times" on November 22, 2007. Holland and Rush point out that Zapruder temporarily stopped filming at frame 132, when only police motorcycles were visible. When he resumed filming, frame 133 already shows the presidential motorcade in view. This pause could have great significance for the interpretation of the assassination, Holland and Rush suggest. One of the sources of controversy with the Warren Report has been its difficulty in satisfactorily accounting for the sequencing of the assassination. A specific mystery concerns what happened to one of the alleged three shots that missed (and how Oswald came to miss at what was assumed to be close range). Holland and Rush argue that the break in the Zapruder film might conceal a first shot earlier than analysts have hitherto assumed, and point out that in this case a horizontal traffic mast would temporarily have obstructed Oswald's view of his target. In the authors' words, "The film, we realize, does not depict an assassination about to commence. It shows one that had already started." The evidence offered by Holland and Rush to support their theory was challenged in a series of 2007–08 articles by computer animator Dale K. Myers and assassination researcher Todd W. Vaughan, who defended the prevailing belief that Zapruder's film captured the entire shooting sequence. Cultural effect. The film's 1975 broadcast on "Good Night America" ignited widespread public distrust in the findings of the Warren Commission. Perhaps the most controversial effect was the suggestion that an assassin or assassins other than Oswald were involved. The film has been featured in films or other media, such as the Oliver Stone film "JFK", which used the clearest copy of the film available to the public prior to the late 1990s. For example, after the final shot, Jacqueline Kennedy can be seen mouthing what appears to be the words, "Oh, my God!" A closeup from the portion of the film showing the fatal shot to Kennedy's head is also shown in the Clint Eastwood film "In the Line of Fire". Some critics have stated that the violence and shock of this home movie led to a new way of representing violence in 1970s American cinema, both in mainstream films, and particularly in indie and underground horror movies. Actor Freddie Prinze was fascinated by the Zapruder film, and watched it frequently in the time leading up to his 1977 suicide. In the 2004 revival of Stephen Sondheim's musical "Assassins", the film was projected onto Lee Harvey Oswald's white shirt during the climax of the show. In 1994, the Zapruder film footage was deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" by the United States Library of Congress and was selected for permanent preservation in the National Film Registry. Author J. G. Ballard focuses on Kennedy and the Zapruder film in a number of his works, such as "The Atrocity Exhibition". Abraham Zapruder is sometimes presented as an ancestor of all citizen journalists. In the Don DeLillo novel "Underworld", there is a screening of a bootleg copy of Zapruder film, at which the film is played over and over on multiple televisions at varying speeds. The music video of Lana Del Rey's "National Anthem" shows a sort-of re-enactment of the Zapruder film. Other films of the assassination. Films and still photographs by at least 32 photographers in Dealey Plaza at or around the time of the shooting are known, including: F. Mark Bell, Charles Bronson (not the actor of the same name), Malcolm Couch, Elsie Dorman, Robert J. E. Hughes, John Martin, Charles Mentesana, Marie Muchmore, Orville Nix, Patsy Paschall, and Tina Towner, along with the "Babushka lady", who was never identified, though Beverly Oliver, a former dancer with connections to Jack Ruby, later claimed to have been the woman. The films by Orville Nix, Marie Muchmore, and Charles Bronson depict the fatal head shot seen in the Zapruder film, and the films of Bronson and Hughes show the open sixth floor window of the Texas School Book Depository. On February 19, 2007, a film shot by George Jefferies was released. The color 8 mm film, taken on Main Street in Dallas approximately 90 seconds before the shooting, has the best view of Jackie Kennedy in the motorcade and the positions of the Secret Service agents before the shooting, and also clearly shows that President Kennedy's suit coat was bunched up around the neckline. This fact would seem to repudiate theories identifying the mismatch between the wound in the President's back and the holes in his suit and shirt as evidence that more than three shots were fired.
584609	Mugavaree () is a 2000 Tamil drama film directed by V. Z. Durai and produced by S. S. Chakravarthy. The film features Ajith Kumar in the lead role as a struggling musician with Jyothika, Raghuvaran, Vivek and K.Vishwanath playing supporting roles. The music is composed by Deva, whilst the film featured award-winning cinematrography by P. C. Sriram. The story revolves around the conflicting emotions of ambition, love and responsibility that the protagonist, Sridhar played by Ajith Kumar, goes through in his quest to become a successful music composer. The film opened in February 2000 to critical acclaim and commercial success. Plot. Sridhar (Ajith Kumar) has been trying to become a music director for eight years. In spite of having earned an M.A., his only dream is to become a music director (he even calls the eight-year wait a "penance"). His family, consisting of his father (K. Vishwanath), his brother Shiva (Raghuvaran), his sister-in-law Shantha (Sitara) and his sister (Preitha Raghav), is fully supportive of him. He runs into Viji (Jyothika) and their friendship soon blossoms into love. She helps him get a foot in the door in the industry but bad luck spoils his chances. When Viji's sister's marriage is finalised suddenly, Viji's father (Jaiganesh) asks her to get married too. But he is understandably worried when he learns that Sridhar is unemployed and following a dream that has not been realised for 8 years.Her father even offers a job to him also. But he refuses to do that since his primary goal is to become music director. The matters ends there when her father arranges marriage with some other. He fails in love. Back in Sridhar's home, Shiva suffers a heart attack. To support his family he takes up a job. But he continues with hope that in future his dream may come true. The film initially ended with Sridhar's hope lost and his future looking bleak but the climax was changed after release to a short clip is shown of a few years later of Sridhar living his dream, implying that it finally came true. Production. The director, V. Z. Durai revealed that he had approached S. S. Chakravarthy to make the film with Ajith Kumar after failing to get noticed for a long period, getting rejected by four producers for the script. Chakravarthy was supportive and maintained a close link with the film from shoot til post-production, and also played a part in roping in Jyothika for the film. Prior to the release of the film, Ajith who has happy with the final product gifted a car to the director. The success of the film led to the producer and the director signing another film together, "Kadhal Sadugudu" featuring Vikram and Priyanka Trivedi. Release. The film opened to positive reviews from critics with a reviewer citing that "Durai's presentation and supporting characters lack the depth necessary to make this a commercially successful venture". Rediff.com also gave the film a positive review citing that the real "winners" are "Ajith Kumar, the actor, and P. C. Sriram, the cinematographer". The critic claimed that Ajith "brilliantly portrays the vulnerable and sad Sridhar". A third reviewer also praised the film claiming that Ajith "comes up with another good performance, conveying the hopes and frustrations of a struggling music director well", whilst Jyothika "looks cute and also proves her acting credentials" and Raghuvaran is "dignified as usual". The film went on to win the second prize for Tamil Nadu State Film Award for Best Family Film, whilst Brindha won Tamil Nadu State Film Award for Best Choreographer for her work in the film's songs. Soundtrack. The film's score and chart-topping soundtrack was composed by Deva.
1055015	Marked for Death is a 1990 action film directed by Dwight H. Little. It stars Steven Seagal as John Hatcher, a former DEA troubleshooter. Upon moving back to his home town, Hatcher finds it taken over by a gang of vicious Jamaican drug dealers. The gang is led by Screwface using a combination of fear and Obeah, a Jamaican syncretic religion of West African and Caribbean origin similar to Haitian vodou and Santería as practiced in Cuba.
1063209	Men in Black II (MIIB) is a 2002 American science fiction action comedy spy film starring both Tommy Lee Jones and Will Smith. The film also stars Lara Flynn Boyle, Johnny Knoxville, Rosario Dawson, Tony Shalhoub and Rip Torn. The film is a sequel to the 1997 film "Men in Black" and was followed by "Men in Black 3", released in 2012. This series of films is based on the Malibu / Marvel comic book series "The Men in Black" by Lowell Cunningham. A video game partly based on the film was released in 2002 titled "". Plot. In 2002, five years after the first "Men in Black", Agent J (Will Smith) is now the top operative for the MIB, the New York City-based agency that secretly monitors and regulates extraterrestrials' activity on Earth. J has no permanent partner since agent K resigned, and Agent L (from the first film) returned to work in a morgue. Subsequent partners have not lived up to J's standards.
1063871	Miguel José Ferrer (born February 7, 1955) is an American actor and voice actor mostly known for villainous roles, notably Bob Morton, the designer of the titular character in "RoboCop" (1987), the short-tempered FBI agent Albert Rosenfield in "Twin Peaks" and Vice President Rodriguez in "Iron Man 3". He also voiced the villainous Hun leader Shan Yu in "Mulan" (1998). Non-villainous roles include Dr. Garret Macy on "Crossing Jordan". Early life. Ferrer was born in Santa Monica, California, the oldest of five children of Puerto Rican Academy Award-winner José Ferrer and American singer Rosemary Clooney. Ferrer's siblings are Maria, Gabriel, Monsita, and Rafael, also an actor. Ferrer was raised in Hollywood, and as a teenager his interests shifted toward music. He played the drums on Keith Moon's "Two Sides of the Moon". Ferrer's friend, Bill Mumy ("Will Robinson" on the television classic "Lost In Space"), cast him as a drummer in the series "Sunshine," his first television role. Career. Ferrer began his career in the early 1980s making guest appearances on episodic television. In 1983, he was given a small part as a waiter in "The Man Who Wasn't There". He also had a small part in "" (1984) as the "Excelsior" helm officer. He had a major role in the 1987 action movie "RoboCop" as aspiring, cocaine-snorting corporate executive Bob Morton. Since then, Ferrer has been cast in many major movies, usually in the role of flamboyant villains with a sense of humour. Ferrer's notable roles include a sinister biker in "Valentino Returns", an overzealous engineer in "DeepStar Six", a resourceful vigilante in "Revenge", Commander Arvid Harbinger in the comedy "Hot Shots! Part Deux", Lloyd Henreid in the Stephen King mini series "The Stand", and a drug informant in "Traffic". He has occasionally taken on lead parts as well, such as "The Harvest" and "The Night Flier". In the early 1990s, Ferrer appeared on three primetime TV series simultaneously: as D.A. Todd Spurrier in "Shannon's Deal" (1989–1991), as Cajun cop Beau Jack Bowman in "Broken Badges" (1990–1991), and as cynical, wittily abrasive FBI forensics specialist Albert Rosenfield in "Twin Peaks" (1990–91). Ferrer reprised the role of Albert in the movie "" (1992). He played another medical examiner on the small screen, Dr. Garret Macy, in the television crime/drama series "Crossing Jordan" (2001–07). Ferrer performed as the voice of the Heretic leader in the video game "Halo 2", as well as the protagonist, Jack, in the video game "BioShock". In 1999, at the 41st Grammy Awards, he was nominated for "Best Spoken Word Album for Children" in Disney's "The Lion King II", "Simba's Pride Read-Along". In 2003, Ferrer made his New York stage debut in the off-Broadway production of "The Exonerated". Ferrer played a supervillain called The Weatherman in the failed 1997 TV pilot, "Justice League of America". Later in the year, Ferrer provided the voice for a similar character, Weather Wizard, in the "" episode "". Ferrer also voiced Aquaman in another "Superman: Animated" episode, "A Fish Story". Ferrer has also provided voice-over roles in the TV series "Robot Chicken" (2006) and "American Dad!" (2007). Ferrer played Jonas Bledsoe on NBC's short-lived update of the "Bionic Woman" series. Ferrer also starred in another short-lived NBC series, "Kings", in 2009 as a military commander of Gath. He played Los Angeles Police Lieutenant Felix Valdez in the 2011 Lifetime police procedural drama, "The Protector". Also in 2011 he started a multiple episode guest role on the final season of "Desperate Housewives". He currently has a recurring role in "" as NCIS assistant director Owen Granger. On February 6, 2013 Miguel Ferrer was promoted to a series regular for the fifth season. He also appeared in the 2013 film "Iron Man 3" as the Vice-President. Personal life. He is divorced from actress Leilani Sarelle and has two sons, Lukas and Rafael, from that marriage, and a son Jose Robert from a relationship with Kate Dornan. He has been married to Lori Weintraub since 2005. His brother Gabriel Ferrer is married to singer Debby Boone. Gabriel and Debby are the parents of young artist Gabi Ferrer and her twin, Dustin Ferrer. His other brother, Rafael Ferrer, is also an actor. He is actor George Clooney's cousin on his mother's side.
589684	Deb Mukherjee (or Mukherji) () is a Bengali Indian actor. He is the father of director Ayan Mukerji. He is part of the famous Mukherjee family which spans four generations. His family has been in the Bollywood industry since the 1940s. His family includes his father Sashadhar Mukherjee, the owner of Filmalaya studios, who produced "Love in Shimla" (1960). His brothers are Joy Mukherjee a successful actor in the 60's and Shomu Mukherjee, the husband of actress Tanuja. His nieces are actresses Kajol and her sister Tanisha. Other members of the Mukherjee family include Rani Mukerji and Sharbani Mukherjee, and part of the Mukherjee-Samarth family.
940118	Matthew Adam Garber (25 March 1956 – 13 June 1977) was a British child actor, best known for his role as Michael Banks in the 1964 film Mary Poppins. He also starred in two other Disney films, "The Three Lives of Thomasina" and "The Gnome-Mobile", all of which he had co-starred alongside actress Karen Dotrice. Ten years after retirement, Garber contracted hepatitis which later spread to his pancreas. He died of pancreatitis at the age of 21. Early life. Born in Stepney, London to parents who had both performed on stage, he attended St Paul's Primary School in Winchmore Hill and Highgate School in Highgate, North London from September 1968 until July 1972. He had a younger brother, Fergus Garber, who was born in 1964, the year Matthew played Michael Banks. His father's name was recorded by the school he had attended as L.L. Garber. Garber was considered a spirited and bright boy by a 1967 Disney press release, noting his enjoyment on pulling practical jokes on his friends, playing sports, and reading adventure, mythology and poetry books. Career. As a friend of the Garber family, Karen Dotrice's father, Shakespearian actor Roy Dotrice, called Garber to the attention of Disney Casting, where his use of "artful dodges, like squinting, screwing up his nose, and brushing his hair back with one hand" made his screen debut at age seven in Disney's "The Three Lives of Thomasina". In 1964, both Garber and "Thomasina" co-star Dotrice were hired to play Jane and Michael, the children of George Banks (David Tomlinson), who gets more than he bargained for when he hires a nanny named Mary Poppins (Julie Andrews). Disney's live-action/animated film adaptation of the "Mary Poppins" book series by P. L. Travers won five Academy Awards and made its stars world-famous. Garber and Dotrice teamed up again in 1967 in the "The Gnome-Mobile", as the grandchildren of a rich lumber mogul (Walter Brennan) who stumble across a gnome forest and are asked to help keep the gnomes from dying off. Dotrice recalled, "He was how he looked — an imp, and I loved being his shadow. I can't imagine making movies would have been half as much fun without him. He loved being naughty, finding and jumping off of small buildings on the back lot. While I was Victorian proper and wouldn't let myself get dirty or muddy, Matthew had a great sense of fun and danger. He was a daredevil and could have been a race car driver. And he did live a full life over his 21 years." Later years. Garber had unknowingly contracted hepatitis while in India in 1976. By the time his father was able to get him home to London several months later, the disease had spread to his pancreas and was untreatable. Garber's brother Fergus, who was 13 at the time of Matthew's death, denied any suggestion that Matthew was using drugs and said the hepatitis likely came from eating bad meat. On 13 June 1977, Garber died at the Royal Free Hospital in Hampstead, London, of haemorrhagic necrotising pancreatitis, aged 21. Garber's body was cremated at St. Marylebone Crematorium (East Finchley) London on 16 June. However, Fergus did not attend the funeral and did not know if any memorial had ever been erected for Matthew. Garber's parents had both died in the decade following their eldest son's death. Garber was posthumously named a Disney Legend in 2004. Fergus Garber accepted on his behalf. On the "Mary Poppins" 40th Anniversary DVD, Karen Dotrice said she regretted not keeping in touch with Garber before his death.
582351	Tere Naam ("In your name") is a 2003 Bollywood musical romantic drama film. It is directed by Satish Kaushik and written by Bala, starring Salman Khan and Bhoomika Chawla in her Hindi film debut. The film is a remake of Bala's own directional venture, Tamil film "Sethu" (1999). The film is supposedly based on a true story as the DVD cover says "Unfortunately a true love story", though during the end credits a fictitious disclaimer is shown. Before the release of the film media speculated the film was based on Khan's real life relationship with actress Aishwarya Rai. "Tere Naam" was release on 15 August 2003 and was major success at the box office. Salman was highly praised for his portrayal of Radhe Mohan and is widely considered to be his finest performances, till date. "Tere Naam" was nominated for a total of 24 Awards, winning 7 of them, including 8 Filmfare Award nominations. In 2011 Kaushik announced a sequel to "Tere Naam", thus he is currently working on the script. Plot. Radhe Mohan (Salman Khan), a rowdy ex-college boy who, after a ragging (hazing) session, loses his heart to first year student Nirjara (Bhumika Chawla), a traditional Brahmin girl. Just when Nirjara reciprocates his love, Radhey is attacked by a gang of thugs, loses his mind and is admitted to an ashram where, it is hoped, the more traditional means of treatment could have a therapeutic effect on him. Eventually he returns to normal, and rushes back to Nijaras house, only to find that she has committed suicide, because her family were forcing her to marry another man. After accepting this fact he returns to the ashram. In the end it shows Swamiji tending to nothing meaning that Radhey has been cured and has left the ashram fine except for the fact that he lost his love. Reception. Box office. "Tere Naam" was an average grosser. The film altogether grossed and was declared an "average grosser" at the box office. It was also the sixth highest grossing Bollywood film of 2003. Home Video. In addition to the DVD mentioned above, the film became available on Blu-ray Disc on 13 December 2010 by Eros International. Awards. Winner: Nominated: Soundtrack. The soundtrack of the film contains 10 songs. The music is composed by Himesh Reshammiya and Sajid-Wajid with lyrics penned by Sameer. The songs of the film were extremely popular and it was one of the best soundtracks of 2003.
1557999	Emil Sitka (December 22, 1914January 16, 1998) was a veteran American actor who appeared in hundreds of movies, short films, and television shows, and is best known for his numerous appearances with The Three Stooges—nearly 40. He is one of only two actors to have worked with all six Stooges (Shemp Howard, Moe Howard, Larry Fine, Curly Howard, Joe Besser, Joe DeRita) on film in the various incarnations of the group (Harold Brauer was the other). He is remembered mostly for a line of dialogue he keeps repeating in the Three Stooges short, "Brideless Groom", where he appears as the justice of the peace attempting to marry Shemp and Dee Green: "Hold hands, you lovebirds!" Early life. Sitka, whose numerous appearances with the Three Stooges earned him the nickname "the Fourth Stooge," was born in Johnstown, Pennsylvania in 1914. He was the oldest of five children, born of Hungarian immigrant parents. His father, Emil Sitka, a coal miner, died of black lung disease when Sitka was 12 years old, and his mother, Helena Matula Sitka, was hospitalized, unable to take care of the children. His siblings were placed in foster homes, but Sitka went to live in a church in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania with a Catholic priest for the next few years. At this time, he became an altar boy and made plans to enter the priesthood, and had his first acting opportunity in the church's annual Passion Play. At the age of 16, he and one of his brothers traveled across the U.S.A., riding the rails hobo-style, looking for work. After a year, they returned to Pittsburgh, where Sitka found a job working in a factory. He stayed there until the great St. Patrick's Day Pittsburgh Flood of 1936, after which he departed to pursue his dream of acting in Hollywood, California. Acting career. Early acting experience. Sitka found inexpensive lodging in a small acting theater, doing handiwork to pay his rent, and gradually acting in small parts in the theater. With time and experience, the parts became larger, and eventually Sitka was directing plays as well. Since the theater did not pay, Emil always kept a job as a civil engineer to pay the bills as well as his acting career at night. By 1946, he had played dozens, if not hundreds of roles; this breadth of experience would help him in his later film career, playing everything from butler to lawyer to businessman to construction worker. In films. In 1946, Sitka was leading his own acting troupe when he was spotted by a talent scout for Columbia Pictures. He was told to contact Jules White, director of many of the Three Stooges short films and head of Columbia Shorts Department, to be cast in a short film that White was directing — starring Barbara Jo Allen as her character "Vera Vague", not the Three Stooges. The short film, "Hiss and Yell", was nominated for an Academy Award. Several months and many films later, he was cast in his first Three Stooges film — "Half-Wits Holiday". At the time, Sitka did not know who the Three Stooges were. Sitka's first Three Stooges film—and Curly Howard's last. Sitka's first Three Stooges' film was "Half-Wits Holiday". It was a remake of their "Hoi Polloi". Both films were adaptations of George Bernard Shaw's play "Pygmalion" (1913). The Three Stooges' films dealt with the idea that two professors bet on the outcome of turning the Three Stooges into gentlemen—with predictable results. Sitka played Sappington, the upper-crust butler, who was an excellent foil for the Three Stooges—and the target of several pies as well. Sitka's most famous scene was when he approached a woman with a cocktail and stated, "Your drink madam," and was plastered with a pie. Without changing expression he says, "Pardon me madam" and walks off. Despite this bittersweet beginning, Sitka went on to appear in dozens of Three Stooges short films, as well as most of their feature films and the live action segments for "The New Three Stooges" 1965 cartoon series. He worked in both short films and feature films with others as well, including Lucille Ball, Milton Berle, Red Skelton, Tony Curtis, Alan Hale, Walter Brennan, Dan Blocker, Joey Bishop, Bob Denver, and many others. However, Sitka is best remembered for his association with the Three Stooges, and with one line in particular which he repeated several times: "Hold hands, you lovebirds!" from "Brideless Groom". Almost a Middle Stooge. In January 1970, Larry Fine suffered a stroke during the filming of "Kook's Tour". Plans were in the works for Sitka to replace him as the Middle Stooge in 1971, but nothing other than a promotional picture was ever made. Sitka named his character "Harry" (rhymes with "Larry"). Two feature film offers for the Stooges had been considered, but this proposed version of the group would never transpire. One of the film offers was "Blazing Stewardesses", which would go on to feature the surviving members of the Ritz Brothers. "Hold hands, you lovebirds". In the 1947 Three Stooges short "Brideless Groom", Shemp Howard must be married before 6:00 p.m. in order to inherit $500,000.00. After striking out, Shemp finally finds a girl willing to marry him, and they rush off to a justice of the peace (Sitka). As he starts the ceremony, initially telling the couple to "join hands, you lovebirds", the other girls that turned down Shemp's proposal burst in, having heard of the inheritance. A free-for-all then ensues, with poor Sitka being struck again and again, attempting to start the ceremony, each time more disheveled and his "hold hands, you lovebirds" a bit weaker. Because of the widespread distribution of this short (it is one of four Three Stooges shorts that slipped into public domain and was broadcast countless times on local television stations as a result—one station in Richmond, Virginia ran it almost every Sunday afternoon for years in the 1980s), this scene is the one that Sitka has become best known for. Notably, a clip of this short is featured in "Pulp Fiction", for which Sitka's name even appears in the credits as "Hold Hands You Lovebirds". He continued his association with the Stooges for the next 25 years, and in 1975, was offered the chance to finally join the trio. Later years. Sitka continued with the acting career, more out of love for acting than the need for money (including a cameo as a supermarket customer in the 1989 horror film "Intruder", in which he said his signature line), appearing in films as late as 1992. He was in demand at various Three Stooges conventions, and had numerous requests from Three Stooges fans to appear at their wedding to say "Hold hands, you lovebirds!" Personal life. Sitka and first wife Donna Driscoll married in the 1940s and divorced in the 1960s. He married longtime girlfriend Edith Weber in the 1970s; they were married until her death in 1981. Sitka had six children: daughters Eelonka and Little-Star; and sons Rudigor, Storm, Darrow, and Saxon. Saxon carries on his father's legacy by appearing at Stooge conventions as often as possible. Death. While hosting several Stooge fans in his home in June 1997, Sitka suffered a massive stroke and never regained consciousness. He died on January 16, 1998 in Camarillo, California. He is interred at Conejo Mountain Memorial Park. As a tribute to his tenure with the Stooges, Sitka's gravestone reads "Hold hands, you lovebirds!"
1065047	"Look Who's Talking Too" is the 1990 sequel to director Amy Heckerling's 1989 comedy "Look Who's Talking". The film stars John Travolta and Kirstie Alley as the parents of Mikey (voiced by Bruce Willis), a toddler coping with the newest addition to the family, baby Julie (voiced by Roseanne Barr). In addition to this, he is having trouble using a potty, and the unorthodox advice he gets from his playmate, Eddie (voiced by Damon Wayans), doesn't make his problem any better. Plot. The film picks up in between the events of Mollie and James saving baby Mikey from almost being hit by a car, and him going into the hospital with James to see his new baby sister. It opens with Mollie and James preparing to have sex, with him ensuring her. Mikey gets scared of a monster and calls for his parents, to which James comes in and goofs around with some of Mikey's toys, causing Mikey to forget about the monster and fall asleep. James retuns to the master bedroom only to see Mollie asleep as well, but he gets her back in the mood and they continue. The film cuts to his sperm cells traveling toward her egg; however, it teases them since the diaphragm is blocking them from getting it. One manages to get around it, and a baby girl is conceived. They tell Mikey that he's got to be potty-trained. Mollie discovers she's pregnant. Mikey learns that with his new baby sister on the way, he has to be a responsible big brother. When she is about to be born, her umbilical cord gets caught around her neck, putting her in distress. She is born through a C-section and is taken to the nursery. She is named Julie. James works diligently at his job as a taxi driver, but he is struggling to support a family. It is not helped one day when he takes Mikey to work in his cab, who fools around with the fare box and costs James a customer. When Mollie's parents see James has aviation skills, they take advantage of their connections to get him a job as a corporate jet pilot. James struggles with ornery customers at this job too, but deals with it for the sake of Mollie and the kids. When she and Mikey meet, he says hello, Even though he was excited about becoming a big brother, he gets jealous of her immediately. A One day, Mikey and his playmate, Eddie, try to walk off with her stroller and decide to ditch her at the zoo. Mollie stops the boys and when she does, she catches them with a crack pipe (which greatly disgusts and frightens her). She and James fight about her brother Stuart staying there (and the fact he keeps a loaded gun in the apartment) which leads to her kicking James out. Stuart soon develops a romance with her best friend Rona and they even start dating. Mikey is upset about James being gone and out of anger, he tears up one of Julie's favorite stuffed penguins (which she calls ""her friend, Herbert""). James occasionally hangs out with his kids (including scamming their way into a movie theater) and has fun with them. Meanwhile, Mikey is having trouble using a potty so he gets some advice from Eddie, who's already potty trained. However, he warns him about Mr. Toilet Man, who's actually just a figment of their imaginations. One day, Julie sees Herbert's head and decides to learn to walk and leave. She manages to walk without support. Mollie sees this, gets excited, and calls James and Stuart. Mikey realizes one night that he hasn't been very nice to her and decides to try to do so. Mollie realizes that she needs James to help her. She dresses up in an attempt to get back together with him (although it never occurs to her to ask him back or kick her gun-toting brother out). A few days later, Mikey uses the toilet and calls his parents, who are immensely proud of him. Mollie exclaims that she hasn't felt that happy about him since he was born. One night, Mollie watches the news and learns that storms are all around the area. She goes to get to James before he takes off, leaving Stuart with Mikey and Julie. At some point in time, a burglar breaks in and runs when he comes in with his unloaded gun. He is completely oblivious to the fact that he left an oven mitt on the hot stove, causing it to catch on fire. It falls off the stove onto some newspapers, causing a bigger fire. Mikey and Julie panic. He pushes her out of the apartment and saves them both. Mollie and James catch up with Stuart and ask where Mikey and Julie are. The couple see the smoke in the apartment and run in to retrieve them, just to find the two kids arriving in the elevator. James runs in, gets the fire extinguisher, and puts out the fire. The police arrive soon afterwards and arrest the thief. Rona arrives and once she hears about how Stuart helped save the day, she falls deeper in love with him. She asks him to marry her and he agrees. The next day, James, Mollie, and her parents talk, while Mikey explains to Julie why he saved her from the fire and they start to get along. Production. The famous TriStar Pictures theme music, composed by Dave Grusin, was played during the scene when baby Julie practices walking. A variation exists at the beginning of the logo when Bruce Willis (voice of Mikey) was doing a Mister Ed imitation. The bum teaser at the end of the original "Look Who's Talking" portrayed Joan Rivers, under the pseudonym "Baby Guess", providing the voice of baby Julie. Due to scheduling conflicts, she declined the role. Also appearing are Olympia Dukakis, Elias Koteas, and Gilbert Gottfried. Further vocal talents include Damon Wayans in a supporting role as Mikey's friend Eddie. Mel Brooks makes a cameo appearance as the voice of Mr. Toilet Man. This film was followed by another sequel, "Look Who's Talking Now", in 1993. Baby actors in the film included Lorne Sussman and Megan Milner. Alternative versions. On Fox Family, instead of James saying "Don't make me look like an asshole," he said, "Don't make me look like a jackass." When the film airs on ABC Family, many of the film's deleted scenes (such as Mollie threatening Mikey with a spanking if he takes his sister away again) are shown. One notable addition is a running gag where Mollie chats with her friends and folks and it ignites a daydream of James cheating on her. There is even one sequence where she imagines him as John Lennon and parodying his activism. Reception. Unlike its predecessor from the previous year, it received mostly negative reviews, reading a 17% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes. It grossed $47,789,074 at the box office, making it a moderate, but not total success at the box office. It was also nominated for two Razzie Awards including Worst Supporting Actor for Gilbert Gottfried and Worst Supporting Actress for Roseanne Barr.
147375	Larry Hankin is an American actor, performer, director and producer. Hankin is known for his roles in TV shows "Friends" (as "Mr. Heckles") and "Seinfeld"; as well as for his major role in the movie "Escape from Alcatraz" with Clint Eastwood. He played a significant role in the Adam Sandler movie "Billy Madison". He had cameo appearances in three John Hughes films, "Home Alone", "Planes, Trains and Automobiles" and "She's Having A Baby", as well as minor roles in "The Sure Thing" and "Running Scared". Hankin also appeared in "Married... with Children", as well as one of the Halloween specials of "Home Improvement". Hankin and Curtis Armstrong played the hippie entrepreneurs who purchased Buy the Book on "Ellen". In "Seinfeld", Hankin portrayed Tom Pepper, the actor cast as Kramer on the pilot-within-a-TV-show "Jerry". In real life, he had actually auditioned for the role of Kramer when "Seinfeld" began production. Larry David initially felt that Hankin best matched his idea of what the character would be like in comparison to his real-life inspiration, Kenny Kramer, but Michael Richards ultimately landed the role. He appears in seasons three and five of "Breaking Bad" as junkyard owner Old Joe. Hankin also played Mickey the Bartender in a "WKRP in Cincinnati" episode called Hotel Oceanview that also has a cameo from "Dr. Joyce Brothers", as Vicky Von Vicky. In 1980, he shared an Academy Award nomination for Outstanding Short Film, Live action, for "Solly's Diner".
1043895	Nine Hours to Rama is 1963 CinemaScope British film, directed by Mark Robson, and based on a 1962 book by Stanley Wolpert of the same name. The film was written by Nelson Gidding and was filmed in England and parts of India. It stars Horst Buchholz, Diane Baker, Jose Ferrer, and Robert Morley. Synopsis. The film is a fictional narrative set in the nine hours in the life of Nathuram Godse (Horst Buchholz) that lead up to his assassination of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (J.S. Casshyap). As he prepares for the shooting at Gandhi's residence, flashbacks recall Godse's troubled life of violence with Muslims, his problems with his family, and his involvement with two women (Valerie Gearon and Diane Baker). Meanwhile, one Officer Das (Jose Ferrer) is attempting to find the killer before it is too late.
582780	Hungama is a 2003 Bollywood comedy film film co-written and directed by Priyadarshan. It stars Paresh Rawal, Aftab Shivdasani, Akshay Khanna, and Rimi Sen. It was an adaptation of 1980 Superhit Telugu film "Gopala Rao Gari Ammayi" and the 1984 hit Poochakkoru Mookkuthi also directed by Priyadarshan. The film was a super hit at the box office. Plot. Anjali (Rimi Sen) has run away from a small village to get a job in Mumbai, where she hopes to make enough money to pay off the debts her family owes their landlord or else she will have to marry the landlord's son, Raja (Rajpal Yadav). Once she arrives in the city, the only way she can find cheap lodging is by pretending to be married to a total stranger, Nandu,(Aftab Shivdasani) an aspiring musician, an arrangement thought up by local milkman and fixer, Bholu (Amin Gazi). Anjali and Nandu initially don't get along but must make do to retain their low-rent accommodation.
1036190	Joanna Lamond Lumley, OBE, FRGS (born 1 May 1946) is an English actress, voice-over artist, former model and author, who starred in the British television series "Absolutely Fabulous" as Edina Monsoon's best friend, Patsy Stone, as well as in "The New Avengers", "Sapphire & Steel", "Jam & Jerusalem" and "Sensitive Skin". In film she has appeared in "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" (1969), "Trail of the Pink Panther" (1982) and "James and the Giant Peach" (1996). She later appeared in "Maybe Baby" (2000), "Ella Enchanted" (2004) and "Corpse Bride" (2005). She appears alongside Leonardo DiCaprio in the upcoming Martin Scorsese crime drama, "The Wolf of Wall Street" (2013). She has also appeared in several stage roles and in 2011 was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Play for her performance in "La Bête". She has spoken out as a human rights activist for Survival International and the Gurkha Justice Campaign and is now considered a "national treasure" of Nepal because of her support. She is an advocate for a number of charities and animal welfare groups such as Compassion in World Farming and Vegetarians' International Voice for Animals. She also won the Special Recognition Award at The National Television Awards in 2013. , she is planning, in collaboration with the designer Thomas Heatherwick a pedestrian bridge across the Thames in London, 'Garden Bridge'. This is planned to feature trees and gardens. Early life. Joanna Lamond Lumley was born on 1 May 1946 in Srinagar, in the princely state of Kashmir and Jammu, which was then part of British India. Her parents were Major James Rutherford-Lumley, who served in the 6th Gurkha Rifles, a regiment of the British Indian Army, and Beatrice Rose Weir. They married in 1941. After the independence of India in 1947, the Lumleys moved to Kent, England. The family also spent time in Malaya (now Malaysia). Lumley was educated at St Mary's Convent School in St Leonards-on-Sea, Sussex, England, and afterwards attended the Lucie Clayton Finishing School, after being turned down by the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art at the age of 16. Career. Lumley spent three years as a photographic model, notably for Brian Duffy by whom she was photographed with her son. She also worked as a house model for Jean Muir. Over forty years later, she participated in another photoshoot – again with her son – for Duffy as part of a retrospective of the photographer's work. Lumley appeared in an early episode of the "Bruce Forsyth Show" in 1966. She appeared in a British television advertisement for Nimble bread first screened in 1969. Lumley did not receive any formal training at drama school. Her acting career began in 1969 with a small role in the film "Some Girls Do" and as a Bond girl in "On Her Majesty's Secret Service"; she played the English girl among Blofeld's 'Angels of Death' and had two lines. She went on to have a brief but memorable role in "Coronation Street", in which her character turned down Ken Barlow's offer of marriage. She appeared as "Jessica" on the big screen in "The Satanic Rites of Dracula", released in the UK on 13 January 1974, which was the last of Hammer Film's Dracula series starring Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee. She has worked with Tim Burton on two film projects, in "James and the Giant Peach" (1996) and "Corpse Bride" (2005). She has also appeared alongside Hugh Laurie in the British romantic comedy "Maybe Baby" (2000) and alongside Anne Hathaway in "Ella Enchanted" (2004). She has appeared twice in "Agatha Christie's Marple", in the episodes; 'The Body in the Library' (2004) & 'The Mirror Crack'd from Side to Side' (2009). In 2010 she appeared in a 4-episode guest arc on the BBC drama, "Mistresses" as Vivienne Roden. In 2012 she was cast in the Martin Scorsese crime drama, "The Wolf of Wall Street". Major roles. Throughout her career, she has specialised in playing upper class parts, and her distinctive voice has reinforced this. Lumley's first major role was as Purdey in "The New Avengers", a revival of the secret agent series "The Avengers". Although critical reaction to the series was lukewarm, the casting of Lumley was seen as inspired and following the tradition of iconic Avengers actresses Honor Blackman, Diana Rigg and Linda Thorson. In 1979 she appeared in another series which acquired a following: "Sapphire & Steel", with David McCallum. Conceived as ITV's answer to "Doctor Who", Lumley played a mysterious elemental being ("Sapphire") who, with her collaborator, "Steel", dealt with breaches in the fabric of time. Over a decade later Lumley's career was boosted by her portrayal of the louche, solipsistic and frequently drunken fashion director Patsy Stone, companion to Jennifer Saunders' Edina Monsoon in the BBC comedy television series "Absolutely Fabulous" (1992–1996), (2001–2004), and (2011–2012). Other work has included: "Lovejoy" as widow Victoria Cavero, "In the Kingdom of the Thunder Dragon" (1996), a film about a journey made by her grandparents in Bhutan, and "A Rather English Marriage" (nominated for a BAFTA for Best Actress 1999) and "Dr Willoughby" (1999). In 1995, she provided the voice of Annie the rag doll in the animated series "The Forgotten Toys". In 1999, she also provided the voice for Sims the chicken in the BAFTA award winning animated series "The Foxbusters". In 2000, she co-produced a new drama series "The Cazalets". She has also appeared in a TV series on Sarawak, where she spent time in her childhood. She has demonstrated her ability to go beyond stereotypical images, most notably in the monologue series of playlets "Up In Town" (2002), written by Hugo Blick, and focusing on a society hostess's realisation that her star is fading. Lumley starred as the elderly Delilah Stagg in the 2006 sitcom "Jam & Jerusalem" with Dawn French, Jennifer Saunders and Sue Johnston. In July 2007, she starred in the second series of the drama "Sensitive Skin" where she played the main character Davina Jackson. The BBC said this will be the final series of the dark comedy. She starred in David Hirson's "La Bête" – Comedy Theatre, London, 26 June – 28 August 2010 with David Hyde Pierce and Mark Rylance, directed by Matthew Warchus. She also starred in "La Bête" at the Music Box Theatre, Broadway, New York which opened on 14 October 2010. She was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Play, for her performance. Media work. As the possessor of one of the most recognised voices in the United Kingdom, Lumley has gained prominence as a voice-over artist. Users of AOL in the United Kingdom are familiar with Joanna Lumley's voice. She recorded the greetings "Welcome to AOL" and "You have email" for that company. She also did a voice over for the BBC series "Posh Nosh" as a voice-over usually saying "From the Posh Nosh range (a faux product)." She appeared as a guest host on Channel 4's "The Friday Night Project", which aired on 3 August 2007. From 2005 to 2006 she appeared in adverts for insurance brokers Privilege. Lumley has also appeared on the last run of ITV1's "Parkinson" as a guest, on 27 October 2007, discussing the subject of young girls across the UK and how they need to behave better if they hope to be successful. She was asked to write the introduction to a re-edition in November 2007 of the book called "The Magic Key To Charm" written by the pioneering female journalist Eileen Ascroft. This is a book of tips to women, first written by Ascroft in 1938 about how to be glamorous. "I thought it was absolutely enchanting, it's how young women were told how to behave in the old days and I think it might be just coming back for a bit of a revival," she explained in the interview. "Because, I have to say I adore our young ones and I think we have got some of the prettiest and loveliest girls in the world but I think sometimes the behaviour gets a bit bad and I think the girls let themselves down. They are so pretty and so lovely but they should behave better, I think, then they will be more successful." In 1999 she appeared in the Comic Relief "Doctor Who" parody "The Curse of Fatal Death" as the final incarnation of the Doctor. She also appeared with Jennifer Saunders, Dawn French and Sienna Miller in the French and Saunders pastiche of "Mamma Mia" for "Comic Relief" 2009 in which she played the role of Tanya (named Patsy in the spoof). In 2004 Lumley appeared as the "Woman with the Sydney Opera House Head" in Dirk Maggs's long-awaited radio adaptation of the third book of the Douglas Adams series "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy". In 2005 she published her autobiography, "No Room for Secrets", which was serialised by "The Times", for which she was once a regular contributor. In September and December 2008 and April 2009, the BBC aired "Joanna Lumley in the Land of the Northern Lights", a documentary about her search to see the Northern Lights in northern Norway. In May 2009 she supported the Green Party during the 2009 European Elections campaign. For Lumley, the work of Green MEPs in the European Parliament in pursuing human rights and animal rights made the Green Party "the obvious choice" and urged UK voters "to cast a positive vote for a better future by voting Green in the European Elections." Lumley also appeared in literature to support changing the British electoral system from first-past-the-post to alternative vote for electing Members of Parliament to the House of Commons in the Alternative Vote referendum in 2011. In 2009 she portrayed a rock star, believed to be dead for 35 years, but more predominantly, her twin, in the "Counter Culture Blues" episode of the British television mystery series "Lewis" (known in the U.S. as "Inspector Lewis"). In 2010 she donated £1,000 to Caroline Lucas's campaign to become the first Green MP during the 2010 General Election campaign. In 2011, Lumley appeared in "Uptown Downstairs Abbey", the Comic Relief parody of the critically acclaimed historical television dramas Downton Abbey and Upstairs Downstairs. Playing herself and the character of Mrs. Danvers, she starred alongside Jennifer Saunders, Kim Cattrall, Victoria Wood, Harry Enfield, Patrick Barlow, Dale Winton, Olivia Colman, Tim Vine, Simon Callow, Michael Gambon and Harry Hill. In recent years, Lumley has worked extensively with ITV, and in 2010 Lumley was executive producer and presenter of "Joanna Lumley's Nile", where she journeys up the River Nile from sea to source in Ethiopia, for ITV. This was broadcast in four parts on ITV1 beginning on 12 April 2010, and repeated in June 2013. Lumley travelled again for ITV in 2011, this time visiting Greece for a four-part series titled "Joanna Lumley’s Greek Odyssey". The series aired on ITV1 beginning on 13 October. Once again, in 2012, Lumley travelled for ITV, now in search of Noah's Ark. The trip, that encompassed 3 continents and also involved dangerously venturing into Iran, will air in late-2012 as a single 90-minute documentary titled "Joanna Lumley’s Ark". Activism. As an activist, Lumley is best known for her support for Gurkhas, the exiled Tibetan people and government, the Kondha indigenous people of India and the Prospect Burma charity, which offers grants to Burmese students, for whom she broadcast a BBC Radio 4 charity appeal in 2001. Her father was a decorated Gurkha officer who fought in World War II. Gurkha Justice Campaign. In 2008 she became the public face of a campaign to provide all Gurkha veterans who served in the British Army before 1997 the right to settle in Britain. Those serving after 1997 had already been granted permission, but the UK Government has not extended the offer to all of the Gurkhas, who are natives of Nepal. They have served Britain for more than 200 years with over 50,000 dying in service, and 13 have been awarded the Victoria Cross. On 20 November 2008, Lumley led a large all-party group including Gurkhas starting from Parliament Square to 10 Downing Street with a petition signed by 250,000 people. She supports the Gurkha Justice Campaign. On 24 April 2009, she stated that she was "ashamed" of the UK administration's decision to affix five criteria to the Gurkhas' right to settle in the UK. With the support of both Opposition parties and Labour rebel MPs on 29 April 2009, a Liberal Democrat motion that all Gurkhas be offered an equal right of residence was passed, allowing Gurkhas who served before 1997 residence in the UK. Following the Government defeat, the Minister for Immigration Phil Woolas announced that a further review would be completed by the middle of July. On 5 May, Lumley said that she had received private assurances of support from a senior member of the Royal Family, and attended a meeting with British Prime Minister Gordon Brown at 10 Downing Street the following day. Afterwards, she described the meeting as "extremely positive", and praised Mr Brown, saying, "I trust him. I rely on him. And I know that he has now taken this matter into his own hands and so today is a very good day." However, on the day following the meeting with Brown, five Gurkha veterans who had applied for residency in the United Kingdom received letters telling them that their appeals had been rejected – many saw this as a betrayal, despite the fact that for the letters to have been received the day after the meeting they might have been sent before it (and certainly after the 29 April Commons vote). Ms Lumley confronted Phil Woolas at the BBC Westminster studios about the issue and, after pursuing him around the studio, the pair held an impromptu press conference in which Woolas agreed to accept Gurkha Justice Campaign input in developing new guidelines by July while giving sympathetic treatment to Gurkhas not meeting the then current immigration guidelines before the development of new guidelines. Following a Commons Home Affairs Committee meeting in which talks were held between campaigners, the Ministry of Defence and the Home Office on 19 May, Gordon Brown announced to the House of Commons on 20 May that the Home Secretary Jacqui Smith would make a statement on the issue the following day. Ms Smith subsequently announced that all Gurkha veterans who had served four years or more in the British Army before 1997 would be allowed to settle in Britain. As a result of her campaigning skills, there were calls for Joanna Lumley to stand as a Member of Parliament at the forthcoming general election. However, she has dismissed the suggestion. During an appearance on "Friday Night with Jonathan Ross" on 29 May, she reiterated that she had no desire to run for election to the House of Commons. In July 2009, Lumley went on a visit to Nepal, upon her arrival at Tribhuvan International Airport she was greeted by crowds of Gurkha supporters, Lumley said in a statement, "I feel so humbled by the fact I'm going to meet so many ex-Gurkhas and their families, and see where they are and how they live." Whilst there, Lumley was hailed 'Daughter of Nepal' by the crowds of fans at the airport. In August 2010, Lumley teamed up with British food company Sharwood's to help develop a limited edition Mango Chutney with Kashmiri Chilli, an ingredient from her birthplace. Sharwood’s will donate 10p from each jar sold to the Gurkha Welfare Trust. Work for Survival International. Lumley has long been a supporter of Survival International and the cause of indigenous rights, and narrated Survival's documentary, "Mine: story of a sacred mountain". The film tells the story of the remote Dongria Kondha tribe in India and their battle to stop a vast bauxite mine from destroying their land and way of life. In defence of the Dongria, she has said, "It greatly disturbs me that a British company will be responsible for the destruction of these wonderful people. I urge the public to support the Dongria, who simply want to be allowed to live in peace. Unlike so many of India's rural poor, the Dongria actually live very well in the Niyamgiri hills, and it's a terrible irony that what Vedanta is proposing to do in the name of 'development' will actually destroy this completely self-sufficient people." Lumley also contributed her writing for the book "We Are One: A Celebration of Tribal Peoples", released in October 2009 with profits going in support of Survival. A collection of photographs, statements from tribal people and essays from international authors, the book explores the richness of the cultures of indigenous peoples around the world and the risks to their existence. In her essay for the book, Lumley speaks of the Dongria way of life and the threats they face in the name of corporate interests, and calls for action to stop such decisions. Patron of Tree Aid. Lumley has been a patron of the UK charity Tree Aid, since 1993. Tree Aid is a charity which enables communities in Africa's drylands to fight poverty and become self-reliant, while improving the environment. Patron of PENHA. Joanna Lumley is also a patron of the Pastoral and Environmental Network in the Horn of Africa, or "PENHA".. PENHA is an international NGO, founded in 1989 and based on the commitment of professionals and development workers from the Horn of Africa to address issues of pastoral concerns from a regional prospective. Lumley's commitment to support the pastoral communities of the Horn of Africa is of paramount importance to PENHA. Patron of Peter Pan Moat Brae Trust. Ms Lumley is patron of the Peter Pan Moat Brae Trust. Moat Brae was the favourite place for author J.M. Barrie to play as a child and the house and gardens are said to have inspired Barrie to create Peter Pan. The trust is undertaking a £4 million fundraising project to renovate the Georgian house and gardens to operate as an educational and cultural centre for local schools and JM Barrie enthusiasts and scholars. Patron of Trust in Children. Joanna Lumley is patron of the UK charity "Trust in Children" which aims to help children from poor backgrounds to access education and opportunities for non-academic development. Patron of Action on Addiction. Ms Lumley was patron of Action on Addiction, a UK-based charity that works with people affected by drug and alcohol addiction, from 1999-2000. Patron of The Friends of Kadzinuni. Joanna has been Patron of The Friends of Kadzinuni since it was established in 2003, a small charity based in Keyworth, Nottinghamshire, UK which is enabling the village of Kadzinuni, (40 km north of Mombasa, near Kilifi) to be transformed into a self sufficicent wealth creating community by focusing on facilitating community led developments for Healthcare Education and Agriculture. UK Registered Charity No. 1098881. Website www.kadzinuni.org.uk Influence. In February 2013 she was assessed as one of the 100 most powerful women in the United Kingdom by Woman's Hour on BBC Radio 4. Personal life. Following her rise to fame, Lumley revealed that she had been an unmarried mother during the 1960s when it was socially unacceptable; her son, James, was born in 1967. James Lumley's natural father is the photographer Michael Claydon and is of Anglo Indian ethnicity. The first of her two subsequent marriages was to comedy writer Jeremy Lloyd ("Are You Being Served?" see early career). In 1986, she married conductor Stephen Barlow; they live in London. They also have a house near the village of Penpont in Southern Scotland. Lumley is a grandmother to her son's two daughters, Alice and Emily. She was listed as one of the fifty best-dressed over 50s by the "Guardian" in March 2013. Lumley was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire in 1995. She is also a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society (FRGS). She was made an honorary Doctor of Letters by the University of Kent in July 1994. In 2006, she was awarded an honorary degree from the University of St. Andrew's and in July 2008, she was also awarded an honorary doctorate from Queen's University Belfast. Alongside her work for the Gurkhas, Lumley is a supporter of many charities, including Suffolk Family Carers and Kids for Kids. She has been a vegetarian for forty years, and a keen supporter of animal rights charities, including CIWF and Viva!. She has donated signed books for the literacy and international development charity Book Aid International. She is patron of the Born Free Foundation and passionate about the Free Tibet campaign. Other charities supported include Mind, ActionAid, SANE, Kidasha (formerly CWS) which works on behalf of children in Nepal, and the Spike Milligan statue memorial fund. Lumley was named an Honorary Patron of the University Philosophical Society, Trinity College, Dublin.. Lumley supports the Burma Campaign UK, an NGO that aims to stop the oppression of the Burmese people by the military regime. Books. As author. She has also narrated a number of audiobooks and provided forewords for works by other authors.
1059202	Paul Bartel (August 6, 1938 – May 13, 2000) was an American actor, writer and director. Bartel was perhaps most known for his 1982 hit black comedy "Eating Raoul", which he wrote, starred in and directed. Life and career. Bartel was born in Brooklyn, NY, the son of Jesse and William Bartel, who was an advertising executive. Bartel was openly gay; this influenced his career choice, as he found himself more accepted and afforded more opportunities within the independent film industry than he would have in Hollywood. In 1979, he was a member of the jury at the 29th Berlin International Film Festival. Bartel appeared in over 90 movies and TV episodes, including such titles as "Eat My Dust" (1976), "Rock 'n' Roll High School" (1979), "Get Crazy" (1983) and "Amazon Women on the Moon" (1987). He frequently co-starred with friend and former Warhol girl Mary Woronov; the pair appeared in 17 films together, often as husband-and-wife. Bartel also directed 11 low-budget films, many of which he also acted in or wrote. His started in 1968 with the short "The Secret Cinema", a paranoid delusional fantasy of self-referential cinema. He graduated to features in 1972 with the horror-comedy "Private Parts". He would go on to direct such cult films as "Death Race 2000" (1975), "Eating Raoul" (1982), "Lust in the Dust" (1985) and "Scenes from the Class Struggle in Beverly Hills" (1989). Death. Bartel died May 13, 2000 of a heart attack two weeks after liver cancer surgery; he was 61 years old. His final screen appearance was a posthumous role as "Dad" alongside Mary Woronov ("Mom") in the 2001 independent film "Perfect Fit". Tribute. The Belgian horror movie "Calvaire" paid a tribute to the late Bartel — the mad innkeeper character is named "Paul Bartel".
1056692	The Inn of the Sixth Happiness is a 1958 American 20th Century Fox film based on the true story of Gladys Aylward, a tenacious British maid, who became a missionary in China during the tumultuous years leading up to World War II. Directed by Mark Robson, who received an Academy Award for Directing nomination, the film stars Ingrid Bergman as Aylward and Curt Jürgens as her love interest, Colonel Lin Nan, a Chinese officer with a Dutch father. Robert Donat, who played the mandarin of the town in which Aylward lived, died before the film was released. The musical score was composed and conducted by Malcolm Arnold. The cinematography was by Freddie Young.
1056740	The Return of the Pink Panther is the fourth film in the The Pink Panther series, released in 1975. The film stars Peter Sellers in the role of Inspector Clouseau. The film was a commercial hit and revived a previously dormant series. Herbert Lom reprises his role as Chief Inspector Charles Dreyfus from "A Shot in the Dark" (1964). The character of Sir Charles Lytton, the notorious Phantom, is now played by Christopher Plummer rather than David Niven (as in "The Pink Panther", 1964), who was unavailable. The Pink Panther diamond once again plays a central role in the plot. Plot. In the fictional country of Lugash, a mysterious thief breaks into the National Museum, sneaks past its elaborate security system, and makes off with the fabled Pink Panther diamond, leaving a white monogrammed glove with a gold-tinted "P" as a calling card. The Lugash Secret Police are brought in to investigate, and the Shah of Lugash requests the assistance of Inspector Clouseau (Peter Sellers). Clouseau has been temporarily demoted to beat cop by his boss, Chief Inspector Charles Dreyfus (Herbert Lom), who despises Clouseau to the point of obsession. There are talks about him being reinstated as Inspector of the Sûreté, much to Dreyfus' chagrin, but after an incident during a bank robbery, Dreyfus suspends him for six months. However, the French government forces Dreyfus to reinstate Clouseau so that he can go to Lugash to investigate the theft of the Pink Panther. Clouseau's investigations at the Lugash National Museum, which he nearly destroys, lead him to believe that Sir Charles Lytton (Christopher Plummer), the notorious Phantom, is re-creating the most famous heist of his career. Clouseau is delighted at this, and sees his chance to get revenge on Lytton for framing him and temporarily sending him to prison in the first film. Sir Charles, having read about the theft, realizes that he has been framed. He goes to Lugash to investigate and clear his name. Although Clouseau fails to uncover any leads concerning the theft, his bumbling allows him to survive several attempts on his life by a mysterious assassin. After staking out (and nearly demolishing) Lytton Manor in Nice, Clouseau is tricked into leaving France. He follows Sir Charles' wife, Lady Claudine (Catherine Schell) to a resort hotel in Gstaad, Switzerland, where his attempts to investigate her repeatedly fail. Meanwhile, Sir Charles manages to discover the identity of the true thief - his wife (Lady Claudine). Because they were both bored with their quiet retirement, she stole the diamond for her own excitement, and sent her husband on a wild goose chase. Sir Charles makes a daring escape from Lugash and goes to Gstaad to find his wife and the diamond. Inspector Clouseau, who has unknowingly been on the trail of the real thief all along, receives a telephone call from Chief Inspector Dreyfus telling him to arrest Lady Claudine. However, when Clouseau calls Dreyfus back to ask why, he is informed that Dreyfus has gone on vacation and will not be back until the following week. Dreyfus, now revealed as the assassin trying to kill Clouseau, prepares to shoot him with a sniper rifle as soon as he enters Lady Claudine's room. Lady Claudine playfully confesses the theft to her husband, and hands the diamond over to him, so he can go about proving his innocence. They are cornered by Colonel Sharki (Peter Arne) of the Lugash Secret Police, who intends to kill them both. It turns out he has been using the theft of the diamond as an excuse to purge his political opponents. Clouseau barges into the room to arrest the Lyttons. Sir Charles points out that Colonel Sharki is going to kill them all. Suddenly, Dreyfus opens fire on the room, and accidentally kills Sharki while aiming at Clouseau, who ducks at the last minute to check his fly. The Lyttons escape during the fray. For his work in recovering the Pink Panther, Clouseau is promoted to Chief Inspector, and vows to bring Sir Charles to justice. Lady Claudine's fate is not revealed to the audience, but it is implied she was not arrested. Dreyfus is committed to a lunatic asylum, where he is straitjacketed and placed inside a Padded cell, vowing revenge on Clouseau as the animated Pink Panther enters the room. Production notes. In the early 1970s, Blake Edwards wrote a 15-20 page outline for another "Pink Panther" film and presented it to series producer Walter Mirisch. The producer loved the idea, but the franchise's main backer, United Artists, rejected the film as they had no intention to work with Edwards nor Peter Sellers, whose careers had declined. The film was financed entirely by British producer Lew Grade as part of a deal with Edwards. UA agreed to give "The Return of the Pink Panther" to Grade in exchange for world distribution and a share of the profits. Richard Williams, the creator of "Who Framed Roger Rabbit", "The Thief and the Cobbler", and "", did the animated open and close titles for this picture and "The Pink Panther Strikes Again", due to DePatie-Freleng's work on the "Pink Panther" shorts and other cartoon projects for TV and film. Williams got help animating this from two animation legends, Ken Harris and Art Babbitt. Catherine Schell can be seen laughing on at least two occasions in the film - once when Clouseau impersonates a telephone repairman to infiltrate her home, and again when he meets her in a restaurant and pretends to be "Guy Gadbois", a ladies' man. This magnifies the impression that Lady Lytton sees Clouseau as "cute" rather than as a real threat. These scenes are frequently proferred as classic examples of corpsing, and it was not uncharacteristic of Sellers to goad his fellow actors to break character, but Schell has maintained in various interviews that she always considered it in character for Lady Lytton to be amused at Clouseau's antics. Carol Cleveland, known to many for her regular appearances on "Monty Python's Flying Circus", has a small part as a swimming pool diver.
589911	Rabi Ghosh () (24 November 1931 – 4 February 1997) was an actor from India. He is best known for his comic roles in Bengali movies, though his versatile acting talent has stunned viewers and critics alike in various kind of roles. He was a regular in Satyajit Ray cinemas. Rabi Ghosh was a renowned actor in Bengali theatre and TV as well. Early life. He was born on 24 November 1931 in Kolkata. His real name was Robi Ghosh Dostidar. In 1949 he completed his matriculation from the South Suburban Main School. After completing his intermediate in science, he joined the Asutosh College for graduation. He used to work in Bankshal Court from 1953 to 1959. He got married to actress Anubha Gupta. After her demise, he re-married Baishakhi Devi on 24 November 1982. Career. Rabi Ghosh’s role in the play “Angar” was noticed by director Aurabinda Mukhopadhay. Robi made his debut in a small role in his film “Ahoban” in 1959. His breakthrough was in Tapan Sinha's "Galpo Holeyo Sotti", and his role in Satyajit Ray’s Goopy Gyne Bagha Byne (1968) became a landmark in his career. Abhijan (1962), Aranyer Din Ratri (1970) Hirak Rajar Deshe (1980), Goopy Bagha Phire Elo (1991), Padma Nadir Majhi (1993) are some of his memorable movies. He was also a noted theatre personality who was a student of Utpal Dutta’s Little Theatre Group. He had also traveled extensively abroad for his performances in Berlin (1969), Mauritius (1988), USA and Europe in (1995). He also directed the movie “Nidhiram Sardar”. In 1970, he also participated in the world-famous Berlin Film Festival as the lead actor of Goopi Gyne Bagha Byne. He was the founder of the theatre group “Chalachal”. In 1960 he was awarded Ultorath Award for his outstanding performance in the play “Angar”. He died on 4 February 1997.
810358	The Kid & I is a 2005 American comedy film starring Tom Arnold and Eric Gores. Plot. Former actor Bill Williams (Tom Arnold) is about to commit suicide over his ruined career. He throws out all his stuff and gives his clothes to a poor alcoholic. The man drinks Bill's vodka and takes half of his pills messing up his suicide plan and takes off. Bill drinks his alcohol and then takes the pills not knowing he won't die. He then lies down in the bathtub and closes his eyes. Three days later a demented film agent named Johnny Bernstein (Henry Winkler) shows up at the apartment with a business offer for him. He says a billionaire, Davis Roman (Joe Mantegna) will hire Bill to write and co-star in a movie exactly like "True Lies" so that his son, Aaron Roman (Eric Gores), whose favorite film is "True Lies", can live out his dream of being an actor and star of an action movie. Not knowing much about the boy or the billionaire, Bill agrees to do the project since he would make thousands by the end of the movie. Later at the park, Bill meets the drunk who took his drugs and alcohol. His name is Guy Prince (Richard Edson), a broke loser who hasn't had a job in almost 13 years. Bill finds he has a lot in common with Guy and asks him if he wants to be an actor. Guy agrees and he becomes Bill's unconventional "best" friend. Johnny, Bill and Guy later show up at the lavish Roman mansion, meeting with Davis and his wife, Shelby (Shannon Elizabeth). They are a nice couple which makes Bill think they have a nice normal son. However, when Aaron shows up Bill becomes uncomfortable and assumes he will be making a bad film with a mentally impaired person. He attempts to back out of the offer when his ex-wife, producer Susan Mandeville (Linda Hamilton), comes in with a film crew and tells everybody she will be producing the movie. Shortly after she shows up, Davis tells Bill about how normal Aaron is despite having cerebral palsy. Bill, remembering the money he will receive, agrees again to make the movie. Aaron is tenacious and happy to see Bill in person. He excitedly tells Bill about his interesting movie ideas as they begin to write the script. Though some of Aaron's ideas were unrealistic Bill becomes confident they will be able to shoot the movie. Aaron decides to call the movie Two Spies. Guy is enjoying himself as well as he flirts with the local women and spends time drinking all the Roman family's beer and wine. Aaron tells Bill he wants to kiss a beautiful women at the end while in a hot tub. He has his actress/model crush, Arielle Kebbel in mind. Bill agrees to the idea. Susan helps keep the movie on track by taking the production to a big movie studio in California. The actors show up, including Arielle Kebbel, which pleases a lovestruck Aaron. A pushy, overweight police woman becomes Bill's movie girlfriend. Guy plays a character named Lester Loser who gets blown up by a terrorist's bomb. Aaron's character rescues a dog and delivers it to the government officials it belongs to. Bill is happy with the movie's progress until he discovers it will only be shown at Aaron's birthday party. He quickly becomes depressed and angry with himself again. To make matters worse, Aaron forgot his dog allergies and has a bad reaction. His overprotective mother Bonnie is furious when she finds out his attack and arrives to take Aaron home for the summer. She convinces Aaron that Bill is bad and the boy begins to believe it. He leaves to be with his mother for the rest of the year. Davis still offers to pay Bill for the incomplete movie but Bill refuses. Guy and Bill go home, where Guy begins to throw all his money away on beer. He is soon broke again, living in a trailer attached to a car. Distraught, Bill avoids any contact with Susan and plans his next suicide attempt. Bill watches some of the film's footage and starts to see not everything is lost for him and Aaron. He flies out to where Aaron and Bonnie (Brenda Strong) live. He then convinces Bonnie that finishing the film will be a positive experience. Bonnie agrees and a very happy Aaron flies back to California to shoot the long awaited hot tub scene with Arielle. On the night of Aaron's birthday hundreds of people show up at the local movie theater where Two Spies is booked. Susan gets a lot of attention from reporters and tells everybody she believes in Aaron. Davis, Shelby and a surprising Bonnie all like the movie. Arnold Schwarzenegger (himself) and Jamie Lee Curtis (herself) show up at the screening to surprise Bill and wish Aaron a happy birthday. Guy tells Bill he'll drink less and wants a career in show business. Johnny even considers distributing the movie worldwide because the screening went so well. Bill is happy again and tells Aaron he wants to continue working with him. The closing scene has Aaron in the hot tub with Arielle as they give each other a tender and romantic kiss. Plot of "Two Spies". A dog belonging to the daughter of a family of government officials is kidnapped, and two agents are sent out to rescue the dog from its kidnappers who might be possible terrorists. Characters. The main characters are: Production. Gores is the son of Alec Gores, a billionaire technology investor and founder of the Gores Technology Group, best known for its acquisition and resale of Brøderbund. The younger Gores has cerebral palsy and his father hired Arnold, a neighbor in Los Angeles, to make a sequel to Eric's favorite film, "True Lies" (1994), in which Arnold co-starred. The plot of "The Kid & I" closely parallels the actual situation. The profits for this movie are going to United Cerebral Palsy, a lobby group for disabled people in Washington, D.C.. Jamie Lee Curtis makes a cameo appearance in this movie as herself. The film is also second film appearance by Arnold Schwarzenegger since he became Governor of California.
1105261	Nicholas Constantine Metropolis (Greek: , June 11, 1915 – October 17, 1999) was a Greek American physicist. Work. Metropolis received his BSc (1937) and PhD (1941) degrees in physics at the University of Chicago. Shortly afterwards, Robert Oppenheimer recruited him from Chicago, where he was at the time collaborating with Enrico Fermi and Edward Teller on the first nuclear reactors, to the Los Alamos National Laboratory. He arrived in Los Alamos, on April 1943, as a member of the original staff of fifty scientists. After World War II. After World War II, he returned to the faculty of the University of Chicago as an assistant professor. He came back to Los Alamos in 1948 to lead the group in the Theoretical Division that designed and built the MANIAC I computer in 1952 that was modeled on the IAS machine, and the MANIAC II in 1957. (He chose the name MANIAC in the hope of stopping the rash of such acronyms for machine names, but may have, instead, only further stimulated such use.) (John von Neumann may have encouraged him to use this acronym.) From 1957 to 1965 he was Professor of Physics at the University of Chicago and was the founding Director of its Institute for Computer Research. In 1965 he returned to Los Alamos where he was made a Laboratory Senior Fellow in 1980. Monte Carlo method. At Los Alamos, in the 1950s, a group of researchers led by Metropolis, including John von Neumann and Stanislaw Ulam, developed the Monte Carlo method. Generally speaking, the Monte Carlo method is a statistical approach to solve deterministic many-body problems. In 1953 Metropolis co-authored the first paper on a technique that was central to the method now known as simulated annealing. This landmark paper showed the first numerical simulations of a liquid. The algorithm for generating samples from the Boltzmann distribution was later generalized by W.K. Hastings to become the Metropolis-Hastings algorithm. He is credited as part of the team that came up with the name Monte Carlo method in reference to a colleague's relative's love for the casinos of Monte Carlo. Monte Carlo methods are a class of computational algorithms that rely on repeated random sampling to compute their results. In statistical mechanics applications prior to the introduction of the Metropolis algorithm, the method consisted of generating a large number of random configurations of the system, computing the properties of interest (such as energy or density) for each configuration, and then producing a weighted average where the weight of each configuration is its Boltzmann factor, formula_1, where formula_2 is the energy, formula_3 is the temperature, and formula_4 is the Boltzmann constant. The key contribution of the Metropolis paper was the idea that Associations and honors. Metropolis was a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics and the American Mathematical Society. In 1987 he became the first Los Alamos employee honored with the title "emeritus" by the University of California. Metropolis was also awarded the Pioneer Medal by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, and was a fellow of the American Physical Society. The Nicholas Metropolis Award for Outstanding Doctoral Thesis Work in Computational Physics is awarded annually by the American Physical Society. Acting career. Metropolis played the part of a scientist in the Woody Allen film "Husbands and Wives" (1992). Personal life. Metropolis had a son, Christopher, and two daughters, Penelope and Katharine. He was an avid skier and tennis player until his mid-seventies. He died at a nursing home in Los Alamos, New Mexico. Anecdotes. In his memoirs, Stanislaw Ulam remembers that a small group, including himself, Metropolis, Calkin, Konopinski, Kistiakowsky, Teller and von Neumann, spent several evenings at Los Alamos playing poker. They played for very small sums, but: "Metropolis once described what a triumph it was to win ten dollars from John von Neumann, author of a famous treatise on game theory. He then bought his book for five dollars and pasted the other five inside the cover as a symbol of his victory." In another passage of his book, Ulam describes Metropolis as "a Greek-American with a wonderful personality."
1059206	The Two Jakes is a 1990 American Neo-noir mystery film, and a sequel to the 1974 film "Chinatown".
589439	The Great Gambler is a 1979 Bollywood action thriller film, starring Amitabh Bachchan, Zeenat Aman, Neetu Singh and Prem Chopra. The film which is known in Hindi as "Sabse Bada Zuari" () was directed by Shakti Samanta. It did decent business in Mumbai and has attained cult status.This film was a thriller and its story is based on international gangsters, Spies and secret agents of different countries' intelligence agencies and their undercover operations. This film had high production values and major portion of this film was shot in international locations including Cairo,Lisbon,Venice,Rome and Goa. The Great Gambler has been widely appreciated for its action, direction and cinematography. Synopsis. Jai (Amitabh Bachchan) is an expert gambler, has been for as long as he can remember, and has never lost a game. These skills bring him to the attention of the underworld don Ratan Das (Madan Puri), who is interested in hiring him to win large amounts of money from rich people and then influencing them into doing whatever he wants. Jai agrees to do so, and plays successfully, though unknowingly to entrap Nath (Jagdish Raj) who works for the government. After losing large amounts of money, he is blackmailed into revealing the blueprints of a top-secret military laser weapon that can hit any target within 50 miles. When the Indian police come to know of this, they assign the case to Inspector Vijay (also Amitabh Bachchan), who is asked to apprehend Jai at any cost. The only problem is that Inspector Vijay is Jai's look-alike, and is not at all a good gambler.
1105406	__NOTOC__ Albert William Tucker (28 November 1905 – 25 January 1995) was a Canadian mathematician who made important contributions in topology, game theory, and non-linear programming. Albert Tucker was born in Oshawa, Ontario, Canada, and earned his B.A. at the University of Toronto in 1928 and his M.A. at the same institution in 1929. In 1932, he completed his Ph.D. at the Princeton University under the supervision of Solomon Lefschetz, with a thesis entitled "An Abstract Approach to Manifolds". In 1932–33 he was a National Research Fellow at Cambridge, Harvard, and the University of Chicago. He then returned to Princeton to join the faculty in 1933, where he stayed till 1974. He chaired the mathematics department for about twenty years, one of the longest tenures. His extensive relationships within the field made him a great source for oral histories of the mathematics community. His Ph.D. students include Michel Balinski, David Gale, Alan Goldman, John Isbell, Stephen Maurer, Marvin Minsky, Nobel Prize winner John Nash, Torrence Parsons, Nobel Prize winner Lloyd Shapley, Robert Singleton, and Marjorie Stein. Although he wasn't his dissertation advisor, Tucker did advise and collaborated with Harold W. Kuhn on a number of papers and models. In 1950, Albert Tucker gave the name and interpretation "prisoner's dilemma" to Merrill M. Flood and Melvin Dresher's model of cooperation and conflict, resulting in the most well-known game theoretic paradox. He is also well known for the Karush–Kuhn–Tucker conditions, a basic result in non-linear programming, which was published in conference proceedings, rather than in a journal. In the 1960s, he was heavily involved in mathematics education, as chair of the AP Calculus committee for the College Board (1960–1963), through work with the Committee on the Undergraduate Program in Mathematics (CUPM) of the MAA (he was president of the MAA in 1961–1962), and through many NSF summer workshops for high school and college teachers. In the early 1980s, Tucker recruited Princeton history professor Charles Gillispie to help him set up an oral history project to preserve stories about the Princeton mathematical community in the 1930s. With funding from the Sloan Foundation, this project later expanded its scope. Among those who shared their memories of such figures as Einstein, von Neumann, and Gödel were computer pioneer Herman Goldstine and Nobel laureates John Bardeen and Eugene Wigner. Albert Tucker noticed the leadership ability and talent of a young mathematics graduate student named John G. Kemeny, whose hiring Tucker suggested to Dartmouth College. Following Tucker's advice, Dartmouth recruited Kemeny, who became Chair of the Mathematics Department and later College President. Years later, Dartmouth College recognized Albert Tucker with an honorary degree. Tucker died in Hightstown, N.J. in 1995 at age 89.
629390	John Barry Humphries, AO, CBE (born 17 February 1934) is an Australian comedian, satirist, artist, and author. Humphries is best known for writing and playing his on-stage and television alter egos Dame Edna Everage and Sir Les Patterson. He is also a film producer and script writer, a star of London's West End musical theatre, an award-winning writer and an accomplished landscape painter. For his delivery of dadaist and absurdist humour to millions, biographer Anne Pender described Humphries in 2010 as not only "the most significant theatrical figure of our time … the most significant comedian to emerge since Charlie Chaplin". Humphries' characters have brought him international renown, and he has also appeared in numerous films, stage productions and television shows. Originally conceived as a dowdy Moonee Ponds housewife who caricatured Australian suburban complacency and insularity, Edna has evolved over four decades to become a satire of stardom, the gaudily dressed, acid-tongued, egomaniacal, internationally feted Housewife Gigastar, Dame Edna Everage. Humphries' other major satirical character creation was the archetypal Australian bloke "Barry McKenzie", who originated as the hero of a comic strip about Australians in London (with drawings by Nicholas Garland) which was first published in "Private Eye" magazine. The stories about "Bazza" (Humphries' nickname, as well as an Australian term of endearment for the name Barry) gave wide circulation to Australian slang, particularly jokes about drinking and its consequences (much of which was invented by Humphries), and the character went on to feature in two Australian films, in which he was portrayed by Barry Crocker. Humphries' other satirical characters include the "priapic and inebriated cultural attaché" Sir Les Patterson, who has "continued to bring worldwide discredit upon Australian arts and culture, while contributing as much to the Australian vernacular as he has borrowed from it", gentle, grandfatherly "returned gentleman" Sandy Stone, iconoclastic 1960s underground film-maker Martin Agrippa, Paddington socialist academic Neil Singleton, sleazy trade union official Lance Boyle, high-pressure art salesman Morrie O'Connor and failed tycoon Owen Steele. Early childhood. Humphries was born in the suburb of Kew in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, the son of Louisa and Eric Humphries, a construction manager. His grandfather was an immigrant to Australia from Manchester, England. His father was well-to-do and Barry grew up in a "clean, tasteful and modern home" in Camberwell, then one of Melbourne's new 'garden suburbs'. His early home life set the pattern for his eventual stage career—his parents bought him everything he wanted, but his father in particular spent little time with him so he spent hours playing at dressing-up in the back garden. His parents nicknamed him "Sunny Sam", and his early childhood was happy and uneventful, but in his teens Humphries began to rebel against the strictures of conventional suburban life by becoming "artistic" – much to the dismay of his parents who, despite their affluence, distrusted "art". A key event took place when he was nine – his mother gave all his books to The Salvation Army, cheerfully explaining: "But you've read them, Barry". Humphries responded by becoming a voracious reader, a collector of rare books, a painter, a theatre fan and a surrealist. Dressing up in a black cloak, black homburg and mascaraed eyes, he invented his first sustained character, "Dr Aaron Azimuth", agent provocateur, dandy and Dadaist. Education. Educated at Camberwell Grammar School, Humphries has been awarded his place in the Gallery of Achievement there. As his father's building business prospered, Humphries was sent to Melbourne Grammar School where he spurned sport, detested mathematics, shirked cadets "on the basis of conscientious objection" and matriculated with brilliant results in English and Art. Humphries himself described this schooling, in a "Who's Who" entry, as "self-educated, attended Melbourne Grammar School". Humphries spent two years studying at the University of Melbourne (Queen's College), where he studied a combined degree in Laws and Arts (with a double major in Philosophy and Fine Arts). During this time he became Australia's leading exponent of the deconstructive and absurdist art movement, Dada. The Dadaist pranks and performances he mounted in Melbourne were experiments in anarchy and visual satire which have become part of Australian folklore. An exhibit entitled "Pus in Boots" consisted of a pair of Wellington boots filled with custard; a mock pesticide product called "Platytox" claimed on its box to be effective against the platypus, a beloved and protected species in Australia. He was part of a group that made a series of Dada-influenced recordings in Melbourne from 1952–53. "Wubbo Music" (Humphries has said that "wubbo" is a pseudo-Aboriginal word meaning "nothing") is thought to be one of the earliest recordings of experimental music in Australia. Other exhibits include "Creche Bang", a pram covered in meat and "Egg and Spoon Race", a spoon with a sheep's eye. Humphries was legendary for his provocative public pranks. One infamous example involved Humphries dressing as a Frenchman, with an accomplice dressed as a blind person; the accomplice would board a tram, followed soon after by Humphries. At the appropriate juncture Humphries would force his way past the "blind" man, yelling "Get out of my way, you disgusting blind person", kicking him viciously in the shins and then jumping off the tram and making his escape in a waiting car. An even more extreme example was his notorious "sick bag" prank. This involved carrying on to an aircraft a tin of Golden Circle fruit salad, which he would then surreptitiously empty into an air-sickness bag. At the appropriate point in the flight, he would pretend to vomit loudly and violently into the bag. Then, to the horror of passengers and crew, he would proceed to eat the contents. One April Fools' Day Humphries placed a roast dinner and glass of champagne in an inner-city rubbish bin. Later in the morning, when there were many businesspeople queuing at a nearby building, Humphries approached the group as a dirty, dishevelled man. He walked to the bin, opened the lid and proceeded to lift the roast and glass of champagne and drink from the glass. Much to the amazement of watchers-by, he found a suitable seating area and began to eat the meal. Such stunts were the early manifestations of a lifelong interest in the bizarre, discomforting and subversive. Early career in Australia. Humphries had written and performed songs and sketches in university revues, so after leaving university he joined the newly formed Melbourne Theatre Company (MTC). It was at this point that he created the first incarnation of what became his best-known character, Edna Everage. The first stage sketch to feature Mrs Norm Everage, called "Olympic Hostess", premiered at Melbourne University's Union Theatre on 12 December 1955. In his award-winning autobiography, "More Please" (1992), Humphries relates that he had created a character similar to Edna in the back of a bus while touring country Victoria in "Twelfth Night" with the MTC at the age of twenty. He credited his then mentor, Peter O'Shaughnessy, that without his "nurturing and promotion, the character of Edna Everage would have been nipped in the bud after 1956 and never come to flower, while the character of Sandy Stone would never have taken shape as a presence on the stage". In 1957 Humphries moved to Sydney and joined Sydney's Philip Street Revue Theatre, which became Australia's leading venue for revue and satirical comedy over the next decade. His first appearance at Phillip St was in the satirical revue "Two to One", starring veteran Australian musical star Max Oldaker, with a cast including Humphries and future "Number 96" star Wendy Blacklock. Although he had originally assumed Edna's debut Melbourne appearance would be a one-off, Humphries decided to revive "Olympic Hostess" for Phillip Street and its success helped to launch what became a fifty-year career for the self-proclaimed "Housewife Megastar". The next Phillip St revue was "Around the Loop", which again teamed Oldaker, Gordon Chater, Blacklock and Humphries, plus newcomer June Salter. Humphries revived the Edna character (for what he said would be the last time) and the revue proved to be a major hit, playing eight shows a week for 14 months. During this period Humphries was living near Bondi and while out walking one day he had a chance meeting with an elderly man who had a high, scratchy voice and a pedantic manner of speech; this encounter inspired the creation of another of Humphries' most enduring characters, Sandy Stone. In September 1957, Humphries appeared as Estragon in "Waiting for Godot", in Australia's first production of the Samuel Beckett play at the Arrow Theatre in Melbourne directed by Peter O'Shaughnessy who played Vladamir. In 1958 Humphries and O'Shaughnessy collaborated on and appeared in the "Rock'n'Reel Revue" at the New Theatre in Melbourne where Humphries brought the characters of Mrs Everage and Sandy Stone into the psyche of Melbourne audiences. In the same year, Humphries also made his first commercial recording, the EP "Wild Life in Suburbia", which featured liner notes by his friend, the Modernist architect and writer Robin Boyd. London and the 1960s. In 1959 Humphries moved to London, where he lived and worked throughout the 1960s. He became friends with leading members of the British comedy scene including Dudley Moore, Peter Cook, Alan Bennett, Jonathan Miller, Spike Milligan, Willie Rushton and fellow Australian expatriate comedian-actors John Bluthal and Dick Bentley. Humphries performed at Cook's comedy venue The Establishment, where he became friends with and was photographed by leading photographer Lewis Morley, whose studio was located above the club. He contributed to the satirical magazine "Private Eye", of which Cook was publisher, his best-known work being the cartoon strip "The Wonderful World of Barry McKenzie". The bawdy cartoon satire of the worst aspects of Australians abroad was written by Humphries and drawn by New Zealand born cartoonist Nicholas Garland. The book version of the comic strip, published in the late' 60s, was for some time banned in Australia. Humphries appeared in numerous West End stage productions including the musicals "Oliver!" and "Maggie May", by Lionel Bart, as well as stage and radio productions by his friend Spike Milligan. At one time he was invited to play the leading role of Captain Martin Bules in "The Bed-Sitting Room", which had already opened successfully at The Mermaid Theatre, and was transferring to the West End. Humphries performed with Milligan in the 1968 production of Treasure Island, in the role of Long John Silver. He described working with Milligan as "one of the strangest and most exhilarating experiences of my career". In 1961 when Humphries was in Cornwall with his wife, he fell over a cliff near Zennor and landed on a ledge 50 m (150 ft) below, breaking bones. The rescue by helicopter was filmed by a news crew from ITN. The footage of the rescue were shown to Humphries for the first time on a 2006 BBC show, "Turn Back Time". Humphries' first major break on the British stage came when he was cast in the role of the undertaker Mr Sowerberry for the original 1960 London stage production of "Oliver!" He recorded Sowerberry's feature number "That's Your Funeral" for the original London cast album (released on Decca Records) and reprised the role when the production moved to Broadway in 1963, where it became the first London stage musical to be transplanted to Broadway and receive the same critical and audience reception it had received in Britain. However, the song "That's Your Funeral" was omitted from the RCA Victor original Broadway cast album so Humphries is not heard at all on it. In 1967 he starred as Fagin in the Piccadilly Theatre's revival of "Oliver!" which featured a young Phil Collins as the Artful Dodger. In 1997 Humphries reprised the role of Fagin in Cameron Mackintosh's award winning revival at the London Palladium. In 1967 his friendship with Cook and Moore led to his first film role, a cameo as "Envy" in the hit film "Bedazzled" starring Cook and Moore with Eleanor Bron, and directed by Stanley Donen. The following year he appeared in "The Bliss of Mrs. Blossom" with Shirley MacLaine. In the late '60s Humphries contributed to BBC-TV's popular "The Late Show" (which featured "Oz" magazine editor Richard Neville) but Humphries found his true calling with his one-man satirical stage revues, in which he performed as Edna Everage and other character creations including Les Patterson and Sandy Stone. "A Nice Night's Entertainment" (1962) was the first such revue. It and "Excuse I: Another Nice Night's Entertainment" (1965) were only performed in Australia. In 1968 Humphries returned to Australia to tour his one-man revue "Just a Show"; this production transferred to London's Fortune Theatre in 1969. Humphries gained considerable notoriety with "Just a Show". It polarised British critics but was successful enough to lead to a short-lived BBC television series "The Barry Humphries Scandals", one of the precursors to the Monty Python series. 1970s. In 1970 Humphries returned to Australia, where Edna Everage made her movie debut in John B. Murray's "The Naked Bunyip". In 1971–72 he teamed up with producer Phillip Adams and writer-director Bruce Beresford to create a film version of the Barry McKenzie cartoons. "The Adventures of Barry McKenzie" starred singer Barry Crocker in the title role and featured Humphries—who co-wrote the script with Beresford—playing three different parts. It was filmed in England and Australia with an all-star cast including Spike Milligan, Peter Cook, Dennis Price, Dick Bentley, Willie Rushton, Julie Covington, Clive James and broadcaster Joan Bakewell. Like several other films of the time which have since been categorised as belonging to the Ocker genre of Australian film, it was almost unanimously panned by Australian film critics, but became a huge hit with audiences. In fact, the film became the most successful locally made feature ever released in Australia up to that time, paving the way for the success of subsequent locally made feature films like "Alvin Purple" and "Picnic at Hanging Rock". Another artistic production undertaken at this time was a 1972 collaboration between Humphries and the Australian composer Nigel Butterley. Together they produced "First Day Covers", a collection of poems about suburbia – read in performance by Edna Everage – with accompanying music by Butterley. It included poems with titles such as "Histoire du Lamington" and "Morceau en forme de 'meat pie'". Film roles. Since the late 1960s Humphries has appeared in numerous films, mostly in supporting or cameo roles. His credits include the UK sex comedy "Percy's Progress" (1974), David Baker's "The Great Macarthy" (1975) and Bruce Beresford's "Barry McKenzie Holds His Own" (1974) in which Edna was made a Dame by then Australian Prime Minister Gough Whitlam. Other film credits include "Side by Side" (1975) and "The Getting of Wisdom" (1977). The same year, he had a cameo as Edna in the Robert Stigwood musical film "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" (which became infamous as one of the biggest film flops of the decade), followed in 1981 by his part as the fake-blind TV-show host Bert Schnick in "Shock Treatment", the sequel to "The Rocky Horror Picture Show". He was more successful with his featured role as Richard Deane in "Dr. Fischer of Geneva" (1985); this was followed by "Howling III" (1987), a cameo as Rupert Murdoch in the miniseries "Selling Hitler" (1991) with Alexei Sayle, a three-role cameo in Philippe Mora's horror satire "Pterodactyl Woman from Beverly Hills" (1994), the role of Count Metternich in "Immortal Beloved" (1994), as well as roles in "The Leading Man" (1996), the Spice Girls' film "Spice World", the Australian feature "Welcome to Woop Woop" (1997), and "Nicholas Nickleby" (2002), in which he donned female garb to play Nathan Lane's wife. Humphries has featured in various roles in comedy performance films including "The Secret Policeman's Other Ball" (1982) and "A Night of Comic Relief 2" (1989). In 1987 he starred as Les Patterson in one of his own rare flops, the disastrous "Les Patterson Saves the World", directed by George T. Miller of "Man From Snowy River" fame and co-written by Humphries with his third wife, Diane Millstead. In 2003 Humphries had a small role in the animated film "Finding Nemo". In it he plays Bruce, a shark who attempts to curb his addiction to fish eating. He nearly falls off the wagon due to his catching a whiff of fish blood. Playing this role, given his own struggles with alcoholism, is perhaps a good example of Humphries' penchant for self-deprecation. During 2011 Humphries travelled to New Zealand to perform the role of the Goblin King in the first installment of Peter Jackson's three-part adaptation of Tolkien's "The Hobbit". The first film was released in December 2012, with the other two parts due in December 2013 and December 2014. At the press conference in Wellington, NZ, just before the film's world premiere, Humphries commented: One-man shows. Humphries' forte has always been his one-man satirical stage revues, in which he appears as Edna Everage and other character creations, most commonly Les Patterson and Sandy Stone. The remarkable longevity he has enjoyed with Dame Edna has endured for more than fifty years, but in 2012 he announced his retirement from live performance. Humphries' one-man shows, which are typically two-and-a-half hours long, alternate satirical monologues and musical numbers and consist of entirely original material, laced with ad-libbing, improvisation and audience participation segments. Humphries mostly performs solo, but he is occasionally joined on stage by supporting dancers and an accompanist during the musical numbers. Only one actor ever regularly shared the stage with Humphries, and this was during the Edna segments - New Zealand actress Emily Perry played Edna's long-suffering bridesmaid Madge Allsop, whose character never spoke. Humphries has presented many successful shows in London, most of which he subsequently toured internationally. Although he eventually gained worldwide popularity, he encountered stiff resistance in the early years of his career: his first London one-man show "A Nice Night's Entertainment" (1962) received scathing reviews and it was several years before he made a second attempt. He gained considerable notoriety with his next one-man revue "Just a Show", staged at London's Fortune Theatre in 1969. It polarised the critics but was a hit with audiences and became the basis of a growing cult following in the UK. He built on this with his early '70s shows including "A Load of Olde Stuffe" (1971) and "At Least You Can Say You've Seen It" (1974–75). He finally broke through to widespread critical and audience acclaim in Britain with his 1976 London production "Housewife, Superstar!" at the Apollo Theatre. Its success in Britain and Australia led Humphries to try his luck with the show in New York in 1977, but it proved to be a disastrous repeat of his experience with "Just a Show". Humphries later summed up his negative reception by saying: "When "The New York Times" tells you to close, you close". His next show was "Isn't It Pathetic at His Age" (1978) and like many of his shows, the title derives from the sarcastic remarks his mother often made when she took Humphries to the theatre to see superannuated overseas actors touring in Australia during his youth. His subsequent one-man shows include: He has made numerous theatrical tours in Germany, Scandinavia, the Netherlands, and in the Far and Middle East. In 2003 he toured Australia with his show, "Getting Back to My Roots (and Other Suckers)". Farewell tour. In March 2012, Humphries announced his retirement from live entertainment, stating that he is "beginning to feel a bit senior" and is looking to retire from show business. Humphries announced his Australian "Farewell Tour", titled "Eat, Pray, Laugh!", to begin in Canberra on 22 July 2012 and to conclude in Perth on 3 February 2013, although it was extended until 10 February. The tour includes appearances by Dame Edna, Sir Les Patterson and Sandy Stone, including a new character 'Gerard Patterson', Les's brother and paedophilic Catholic priest. The tour has been widely praised. Dan Ilic of "Timeout Sydney" stated that Humphries delivers "a show that almost feels like a blue print for the foundations for the last fifty years of Australian comedy". Helen Musa of "CityNews" gave a similarly positive review, referring to Humphries being "as virile, as vulgar and as magnificent as ever" thanks to a "well researched" script. Arts blog "Critter Away" referred to Humphries' characters as being "still fresh" and "a testament to laugh-out-loud satire". Dame Edna. Dame Edna Everage is undoubtedly one of the most enduring Australian comic characters of all time, and one of the longest-lived comedic characterisations ever devised. Originally conceived in 1956, Edna has long since transcended her modest origins as a satire of Australian suburbia to become one of the most successful, best-known and best loved comedy characters of all time. She has grown over the years to become, in the words of journalist Caroline Overington: Like her ever-present bunches of gladioli, one of the most popular and distinctive features of Edna's stage and TV appearances has been her extravagant wardrobe, with gaudy, custom-made gowns that satirically outdo the most outrageous creations of Hollywood showbiz designers such as Bob Mackie. Her costumes, most of which were created for her by Australian designer Bill Goodwin, routinely incorporate Aussie kitsch icons such as the flag, Australian native animals and flowers, the Sydney Opera House and the boxing kangaroo. As the character evolved, Edna's unseen family became an integral part of the satire, particularly the travails of her invalid husband Norm, who suffered from an almost lifelong onslaught of an unspecified prostate ailment. Her daughter Valmai and her gay, hairdresser son Kenny became intrinsic elements of the act, as did her long-suffering best friend and New Zealand bridesmaid, Madge Allsop. Throughout Edna's career (until Perry's death in 2008) Madge was played by English actress Emily Perry, who has the distinction of being the only other actor ever to appear on stage with Humphries in his stage shows, as well as making regular appearances in Dame Edna's TV programmes. Dame Edna is notable as one of the few satirical characters to make a successful transition from stage to TV without losing popularity in either genre. The talk show format provided a perfect outlet for Humphries' rapier wit and his legendary ability to ad-lib, and it enabled Edna to draw on a wide and appreciative pool of fans among fellow actors and comedians, with scores of top-rank stars lining up to be lampooned on her shows. As other Australian actors have begun to make a wider impression in international film and television, Edna has not hesitated to reveal that it was her mentorship which helped "kiddies" like "little Nicole Kidman" to achieve their early success. Sir Les Patterson. Sir Les Patterson is one of the three major Humphries characters still current (the third being Sandy Stone). Typically, Patterson alternates with Edna and Sandy Stone in Humphries stage shows and he typically features in pre-recorded segments in Dame Edna's TV shows. He is the polar opposite of Dame Edna, dishevelled, uncouth, lecherous and coarse. Television roles. Humphries' numerous television appearances in Australia, the UK and the US include "The Bunyip", a children's comedy for the Seven Network in Melbourne. In the UK he made two highly successful series of his comedy talk show "The Dame Edna Experience" for London Weekend Television. The series boasted a phalanx of superstar guests including Liza Minnelli, Sean Connery, Roger Moore, Charlton Heston and Jane Seymour. These enormously popular programs have since been repeated worldwide and the special "A Night on Mount Edna" won Humphries the "Golden Rose of Montreux" in 1991. He wrote and starred in ABC-TV's "The Life and Death of Sandy Stone" (1991), and presented the ABC social history series "Barry Humphries' Flashbacks" (1999). His other television shows and one-off specials include "Dame Edna's Neighbourhood Watch" (1992), "Dame Edna's Work Experience" (1996), "Dame Edna Kisses It Better" (1997) and "Dame Edna's Hollywood" (1991–92), a series of three chat-show specials filmed in the US for the NBC and the Fox network. Like "The Dame Edna Experience", these included an array of top celebrity guests such as Burt Reynolds, Cher, Bea Arthur, Kim Basinger and Barry Manilow. Edna's most recent television special was "Dame Edna Live at the Palace" in 2003. He starred in the Kath & Kim telemovie "" in late 2005. In 2007, Humphries returned to the UK's ITV to host another comedy chat-show called "The Dame Edna Treatment", a similar format to "The Dame Edna Experience" from 20 years earlier. The series once again boasted a collection of top celebrity guests such as Tim Allen, Mischa Barton, Sigourney Weaver, Debbie Harry, and Shirley Bassey. In March 2008, Humphries joined the judging panel on the BBC talent show "I'd Do Anything" to find an unknown lead to play the part of Nancy in a West End revival of the musical "Oliver!". In May 2013, Australia's ABC Network announced that Humphries would be joining the cast of Australian telemovie series, Jack Irish. He will play a high profile judge in the third movie in the series. Success in the United States. In 2000 Humphries took his "Dame Edna: The Royal Tour" show to North America winning the inaugural Special Tony Award for a Live Theatrical Event in 2000 and won two National Broadway Theatre Awards for "Best Play" and for "Best Actor" in 2001. Asked by an Australian journalist what it was like to win a Tony Award, he said "it was like winning a thousand Gold Logies at the same time". Dame Edna's new-found success in America led to many media opportunities, including a semi-regular role in the hit TV series "Ally McBeal". "Vanity Fair" magazine invited Dame Edna to write a satirical advice column in 2003 although after an outcry following a remark about learning Spanish, the column was discontinued. Personal life. Humphries has been married four times. His first marriage, to Brenda Wright, took place when he was 21 and lasted less than two years. He has two daughters, Tessa and Emily, and two sons, Oscar and Rupert, from his second and third marriages, to Rosalind Tong and Diane Millstead respectively. His eldest son Oscar is editor of the art magazine "Apollo" and a contributing editor at "The Spectator". His fourth wife, Lizzie Spender, is the daughter of British poet Sir Stephen Spender. In the 1960s, throughout his sojourn in London, Humphries became increasingly dependent on alcohol and by the last years of the decade his friends and family began to fear that his addiction might cost him his career or even his life. His status as 'a dissolute, guilt-ridden, self-pitying boozer' was undoubtedly one of the main reasons for the failure of his first marriage and was a contributing factor to the collapse of the second. Humphries' alcoholism reached a crisis point during a visit home to Australia in the early 1970s. His parents finally had him admitted to a private hospital to 'dry out' when, after a particularly heavy binge, he was found unconscious in a gutter. Since then he has abstained from alcohol completely and still regularly attends Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) meetings. He was one of the many friends who tried vainly to help Peter Cook, who himself eventually died from alcohol-related illnesses. Humphries was good friends with the English poet John Betjeman until Betjeman’s death in 1984. Their friendship began in 1960 after Betjeman, while visiting Australia, heard some of Humphries’ early recordings and wrote very favourably of them in an Australian newspaper. Their friendship was, in part, based around numerous mutual interests, including Victorian architecture, Cornwall and the music hall. Humphries appears in the upcoming 2013 documentary "Chalky" about his longtime friend and colleague Michael White, who produced many of Humphries' first "Dame Edna" shows in the UK. Other notable friends of Humphries include the Australian painter Arthur Boyd, the author and former politician Jeffrey Archer, whom Humphries visited during Archer’s stay in prison, and the Irish comedian Spike Milligan. Humphries has spent much of his life immersed in music, literature and the arts. A self-proclaimed 'bibliomaniac', his house in West Hampstead, London supposedly contains some 25,000 books, many of them first editions of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Some of the more arcane and rare items in this collection include the telephone book of Oscar Wilde, "Memoirs of a Public Baby" by Philip O'Connor, an autographed copy of "Humdrum" by Harold Acton, the complete works of Wilfred Childe and several volumes of the pre-war surrealist poetry of Herbert Read. He is a prominent art collector who has, as a result of his three divorces, bought many of his favourite paintings four times. He at one time had the largest private collection of the paintings of Charles Conder in the world and he is a notorious fan of the Flemish symbolist painter Jan Frans De Boever, relishing his role as 'President for Life' of the De Boever Society. He himself is a landscape painter and his pictures are in private and public collections both in his homeland and abroad. Humphries has also been the subject of numerous portraits by artist friends, including Clifton Pugh (1958, National Portrait Gallery) and John Brack (in the character of Edna Everage, 1969, Art Gallery of New South Wales). He is a lover of avant-garde music and a patron of, amongst others, the French composer Jean-Michel Damase and the Melba Foundation in Australia. Humphries is a patron and active supporter of the Tait Memorial Trust in London. A Charity established by Isla Baring OAM, the daughter of Sir Frank Tait of JC Williamson's to support young Australian performing artists in the UK. When Humphries was on the BBC's "Desert Island Discs" radio programme in 2009, he made the following choices: ""Mir ist der Ehre widerfahren"" from Strauss’ "Der Rosenkavalier"; Gershwin's "Things are Looking Up" sung by Fred Astaire; "Love Song" composed by Josef Suk; "On Mother Kelly's Doorstep" sung by Randolph Sutton; ""Der Leiermann"" from Schubert's "Winterreise" song cycle; the 2nd movement of Poulenc's Flute Sonata; Mischa Spoliansky's ""Auf Wiedersehen""; and "They are not long the weeping and the laughter" from Delius' "Songs of Sunset". In terms of his personal politics, cultural historian Tony Moore, author of "The Barry McKenzie Movies", writes of Humphries as: "A conservative contrarian while many in his generation were moving left, Humphries nevertheless retained a bohemian delight in transgression that makes him a radical". Other work. Humphries is the author of many books including two autobiographies, two novels and a treatise on Chinese drama in the goldfields. He has written several plays and has made dozens of recordings. His first autobiography "More Please" won the J. R. Ackerley Prize for Autobiography in 1993. Biographical Studies. He has been the subject of several critical and biographical studies and a TV documentary: Awards received. Humphries has been nominated four times for a British Academy Television Award (BAFTA TV), all in the Best Light Entertainment Performance category:
485264	John Maynard Smith, F.R.S. (6 January 1920 – 19 April 2004) was a British theoretical evolutionary biologist and geneticist. Originally an aeronautical engineer during the Second World War, he took a second degree in genetics under the well-known biologist J. B. S. Haldane. Maynard Smith was instrumental in the application of game theory to evolution and theorized on other problems such as the evolution of sex and signalling theory. Biography. Early years. John Maynard Smith was born in London, the son of the surgeon Sidney Maynard Smith, but following his father's death in 1928, the family moved to Exmoor, where he became interested in natural history. Quite unhappy with the lack of formal science education at Eton College, Maynard Smith took it upon himself to develop an interest in Darwinian evolutionary theory and mathematics, after having read the work of old Etonian J.B.S. Haldane, whose books were in the school's library despite the bad reputation Haldane had at Eton for his communism. On leaving school, Maynard Smith joined the Communist Party of Great Britain and started studying engineering at Trinity College Cambridge. When the Second World War broke out in 1939, he defied his party's line and volunteered for service. He was rejected, however, because of poor eyesight and was told to finish his engineering degree, which he did in 1941. He later quipped that "under the circumstances, my poor eyesight was a selective advantage—it stopped me getting shot". The year of his graduation, he married Sheila Matthew, and they later had two sons and one daughter (Tony, Carol, and Julian). Between 1942 and 1947, he applied his degree to military aircraft design. Second degree. Maynard Smith then took a change of career, entering University College London (UCL) to study fruit fly genetics under Haldane. After graduating he became a lecturer in Zoology at UCL between 1952 and 1965, where he directed the "Drosophila" lab and conducted research on population genetics. He published a popular Penguin book, "The Theory of Evolution", in 1958 (with subsequent editions in 1966, 1975, 1993). He became gradually less attracted to communism and became a less active member, finally leaving the Party in 1956 like many other intellectuals, after the Soviet Union brutally suppressed the Hungarian Revolution (Haldane had left the party in 1950 after becoming similarly disillusioned). University of Sussex. In 1962 he was one of the founding members of the University of Sussex and was a Dean between 1965–85. He subsequently became a professor emeritus. Prior to his death the building housing much of Life Sciences at Sussex was renamed the John Maynard Smith Building, in his honour. "Evolution and the Theory of Games". In 1973 Maynard Smith formalised a central concept in evolutionary game theory called the evolutionarily stable strategy (ESS), based on a verbal argument by George R. Price. This area of research culminated in his 1982 book "Evolution and the Theory of Games". The Hawk-Dove game is arguably his single most influential game theoretical model. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1977. In 1986 he was awarded the Darwin Medal. He also developed and recovered from colon cancer. Evolution of sex and other major transitions in evolution. Maynard Smith published a book entitled "The Evolution of Sex" which explored in mathematical terms, the notion of the "two-fold cost of sex". During the late 1980s he also became interested in the other major evolutionary transitions with the biochemist Eörs Szathmáry. Together they wrote an influential 1995 book "The Major Transitions in Evolution", a seminal work which continues to contribute to ongoing issues in evolutionary biology. A popular science version of the book, entitled "The Origins of Life: From the birth of life to the origin of language" was published in 1999. In 1991 he was awarded the Balzan Prize for Genetics and Evolution "For his powerful analysis of evolutionary theory and of the role of sexual reproduction as a critical factor in evolution and in the survival of species; for his mathematical models applying the theory of games to evolutionary problems" (motivation of the Balzan General Prize Committee). In 1995 he was awarded the Linnean Medal by The Linnean Society and in 1999 he was awarded the Crafoord Prize jointly with Ernst Mayr and George C. Williams. In 2001 he was awarded the Kyoto Prize. In his honour, the European Society for Evolutionary Biology has an award for extraordinary young evolutionary biology researchers named "The John Maynard Smith Prize". "Animal Signals". His final book, "Animal Signals", co-authored with David Harper was published in 2003 on signalling theory. Death. He died of mesothelioma, sitting in a high-backed chair, surrounded by books—at his home in Lewes, East Sussex, on 19 April 2004. He was survived by his wife Sheila and their children.
475520	Todd James "T. J." Miller (born June 4, 1981) is an American actor and stand-up comedian. Life and career. Miller was born in Denver, Colorado. He attended Graland Country Day School, East High School and George Washington University in Washington, D.C. where he was a member of the comedy group GWU recess and the Lambda chapter of Phi Sigma Kappa. Arteriovenous malformation. Miller described learning about his arteriovenous malformation on his right frontal lobe on the Pete Holmes podcast "You Made It Weird". He became more philosophical, narrated his behaviors, and was unable to sleep while filming Yogi Bear in New Zealand. His brain surgery was successful, though there was a 10% chance of fatality. Television. Miller appears frequently as a member of the "round table" on "Chelsea Lately". He appeared as Marmaduke Brooker in the TV series "Carpoolers" which ran for 13 episodes on ABC in 2007-2008. He portrays Robbie V. on the Disney channel cartoon Gravity Falls. On December 13, 2010, October 28, 2011, and June 14, 2012 he performed stand-up on "Conan". On November 15, 2011, T. J. Miller's stand-up special "No Real Reason" premiered on Comedy Central. In 2011, he hosted a special called "Mash Up", which was picked up in 2012 for a full season by Comedy Central. "Mash Up" premiered to rave reviews. Miller currently stars in Fox's "The Goodwin Games" as Jimmy Goodwin. Film acting. In Miller's film debut, "Cloverfield", he appeared onscreen for only a few minutes, but his voice was heard in almost every scene as the character who videotaped most of the events depicted. In 2009, he played Cessna Jim in ' and the dim-witted grindcore musician Rory in Mike Judge's comedy "Extract". In 2010, he co-starred in "She's Out of My League" as Stainer, provided the voice of Tuffnut in the animated film "How to Train Your Dragon", played Brian the Concierge in "Get Him to the Greek" and appeared in a supporting role in the film "Unstoppable". He also played Dan in "Gulliver's Travels", released in December 2010. Miller played the supporting character of Ranger Jones in the live-action "Yogi Bear" 2010 film. Unlike his character on the cartoon show, he is "dumb-but-not-in-a-funny-way," according to the "Buffalo News". Miller was cast in the part after two auditions; as a joke, he sent Warner Bros. an improvised video audition with an actual bear, though he had already been offered the part before they received it. In 2011, he appeared in the film "Our Idiot Brother". He also had a cameo as administrative personnel for "Rolling Stone" in the 2012 film "Rock of Ages". Miller is set to star in the upcoming movie "Search Party" alongside Adam Pally. This film serves as the directorial debut of frequent Todd Phillips cohort Scot Armstrong. In May 2013, Miller was cast in 2014 Michael Bay film '. Music. On September 12, 2011, Miller released a comedy rap concept album titled, "The Extended Play E.P." The album features comedians Bo Burnham, Doug Benson, Pete Holmes and hip-hop artists Ugly Duckling and Johnny Polygon. In 2012, Miller released "The Extended Play E.P. Illegal Art Remix Tape." Also in 2012, Miller released "Mash Up Audiofile" on Comedy Central Records to mixed reviews.
1184170	Taylor Alison Swift (born December 13, 1989) is an American singer-songwriter. Raised in Wyomissing, Pennsylvania, Swift moved to Nashville, Tennessee at the age of fourteen to pursue a career in country music. She signed with the independent label Big Machine Records and became the youngest songwriter ever hired by the Sony/ATV Music publishing house. The release of Swift's eponymous debut album in 2006 established her as a country music star. "Our Song", her third single, made her the youngest person to single-handedly write and perform a number one song on the country chart. She received a Best New Artist nomination at the 2008 Grammy Awards. Swift's second album, "Fearless", was released in 2008. Buoyed by the pop crossover success of the singles "Love Story" and "You Belong with Me", "Fearless" became the best-selling album of 2009 and was supported by an extensive concert tour. The record won four Grammy Awards, with Swift becoming the youngest ever Album of the Year winner. Swift's third album, 2010's "Speak Now", sold over one million copies in its first week of US release and was supported by the Speak Now World Tour. The album's third single, "Mean", won two Grammy Awards. Swift's fourth album, "Red", was released in 2012. Its opening US sales of 1.2 million were the highest recorded in a decade, with Swift becoming the only female artist to have two million-plus opening weeks. The singles "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together" and "I Knew You Were Trouble" were worldwide hits. The Red Tour is visiting worldwide venues in 2013 and 2014. Swift is known for her narrative songs about her experiences as a teenager and young adult. As a songwriter, she has been honored by the Nashville Songwriters Association and the Songwriters Hall of Fame. Swift's other achievements include seven Grammy Awards, twelve Billboard Music Awards, eleven American Music Awards, seven Country Music Association Awards and six Academy of Country Music Awards. She has sold over 26 million albums and 75 million digital single downloads worldwide. "Forbes" estimates that she is worth over $220 million. In addition to her music career, Swift has appeared as an actress in the crime drama "" (2009), the ensemble comedy "Valentine's Day" (2010), the animated film "The Lorax" (2012) and the sitcom "New Girl" (2013). As a philanthropist, Swift supports arts education, children's literacy, natural disaster relief, LGBT anti-discrimination efforts, and charities for sick children. Early life. Taylor Alison Swift was born on December 13, 1989 in Reading, Pennsylvania. Her father, Scott Swift, is a Merrill Lynch financial adviser. Scott was raised in Pennsylvania and is the descendant of three generations of bank presidents. Her mother, Andrea (née Finlay), is a homemaker who previously worked as a mutual fund marketing executive. Andrea spent the first ten years of her life in Singapore, before settling in Texas; her father was an oil rig engineer who worked throughout Southeast Asia. Swift has a younger brother, Austin, who attends the University of Notre Dame. She and her brother were raised in the Presbyterian faith. She spent the early years of her life on an eleven-acre Christmas tree farm in Cumru Township, Pennsylvania. She attended preschool and kindergarten at the Alvernia Montessori School, run by Franciscan nuns, and was later educated at the Wyndcroft School, a co-ed private school. When Swift was nine years old, the family moved to a rented house in the suburban town of Wyomissing, Pennsylvania, where she attended West Reading Elementary Center and Wyomissing Area Junior/Senior High School. Swift summered at her parents' waterfront vacation home in Stone Harbor, New Jersey and has described it as the place "where most of my childhood memories were formed." Swift's family owned several Quarter horses and a Shetland pony and her first hobby was English horse riding. Her mother first put her in a saddle when she was nine months old and she later competed in horse shows. At the age of nine, Swift became interested in musical theatre. She performed in many Berks Youth Theatre Academy productions and traveled regularly to Broadway for vocal and acting lessons. Swift then turned her attention to country music; Shania Twain's songs made her "want to just run around the block four times and daydream about everything." She spent her weekends performing at local festivals, fairs, coffeehouses, karaoke contests, garden clubs, Boy Scout meetings and sporting events. At the age of eleven, after many failed attempts, Swift won a local talent competition by singing a rendition of LeAnn Rimes's "Big Deal", and was given the opportunity to appear as the opening act for Charlie Daniels at a Strausstown amphitheater. This growing ambition began to isolate Swift from her middle school peers. After watching a "Behind the Music" episode about Faith Hill, Swift felt sure that she needed to go to Nashville, Tennessee to pursue a music career. At the age of eleven, she traveled with her mother to Nashville for spring break to leave a demo of Dolly Parton and Dixie Chicks karaoke covers with record labels along Music Row. She received label rejections and realized that "everyone in that town wanted to do what I wanted to do. So, I kept thinking to myself, I need to figure out a way to be different." At the age of twelve, Swift was shown by a computer repairman how to play three chords on a guitar, inspiring her to write her first song, "Lucky You". She had previously won a national poetry contest with a poem entitled "Monster in My Closet" but now began to focus on songwriting. In 2003, Swift and her parents started working with New York-based music manager Dan Dymtrow. With Dymtrow's help, Swift modelled for Abercrombie and Fitch as part of their "Rising Stars" campaign, had an original song included in a Maybelline Cosmetics compilation CD and took meetings with major record labels. After performing original songs at an RCA Records showcase, the eighth-grader was given an artist development deal and began making frequent trips to Nashville with her mother. When Swift was fourteen, her father transferred to the Nashville office of Merrill Lynch and the family relocated to a lakefront house in Hendersonville, Tennessee. Swift later described this as "an incredible sacrifice" for her family to make. "My parents saw that I was so obsessed, that I wasn't going to drop it, that it wasn't some adolescent phase." In Tennessee, she attended Hendersonville High School for her freshman and sophomore years. Later, to accommodate her touring schedule, Swift transferred to the Aaron Academy, a private Christian school which offered homeschooling services. She earned her high school diploma in 2008, having completed her final two years of course work in twelve months. Music career. 2004–08: Career beginnings and "Taylor Swift". Swift moved to Nashville at the age of fourteen. As part of her artist development deal with RCA Records, she had writing sessions with experienced Music Row songwriters such as Troy Verges, Brett Beavers, Brett James, Mac McAnally and The Warren Brothers. She eventually formed a lasting working relationship with Liz Rose. Swift saw Rose performing at an RCA songwriter event and suggested that they write together. They began meeting for two-hour writing sessions every Tuesday afternoon after school. Rose has said that the sessions were "some of the easiest I've ever done. Basically, I was just her editor. She'd write about what happened in school that day. She had such a clear vision of what she was trying to say. And she'd come in with the most incredible hooks." Swift also began recording demos with producer Nathan Chapman. After performing at a BMI Songwriter's Circle showcase at The Bitter End, New York, Swift became the youngest songwriter ever hired by the Sony/ATV Tree publishing house. Swift left RCA Records when she was fifteen; the company wanted her to record the work of other songwriters and wait until she was eighteen to release an album, but she felt ready to launch her career with her own material. She also parted ways with manager Dan Dymtrow, who later took legal action against Swift and her parents. "'I genuinely felt that I was running out of time," Swift later recalled. "I wanted to capture these years of my life on an album while they still represented what I was going through." At an industry showcase at Nashville's Bluebird Cafe in 2005, Swift caught the attention of Scott Borchetta, a DreamWorks Records executive who was preparing to form his own independent record label, Big Machine Records. She became one of the label's first signings, with her father purchasing a three per cent stake in the fledgling company at an estimated cost of $120,000. As an introduction to the country music business, Borchetta arranged for Swift to intern as an artist escort at the CMA Music Festival. Swift began working on her eponymous debut album shortly after signing her record deal. After experimenting with veteran Nashville producers, Swift persuaded Big Machine to hire her demo producer Nathan Chapman. It was his first time to record a studio album but Swift felt they had the right "chemistry." Swift wrote three of the album's songs alone, including two singles, and co-wrote the remaining eight with writers such as Liz Rose, Robert Ellis Orrall and Angelo Petraglia. Musically, the album has been described as "a mix of trad-country instruments and spry rock guitars." "Taylor Swift" was released in October 2006. "The New York Times" described it as "a small masterpiece of pop-minded country, both wide-eyed and cynical, held together by Ms. Swift's firm, pleading voice." "The New Yorker"'s Sasha Frere-Jones described the sixteen-year-old Swift as a "prodigy." He noted that "Our Song" "stop me in my tracks" and praised the lyrics: "He's got a one-hand feel on the steering wheel, the other on my heart." "Rolling Stone" described Swift as "bright-eyed but remarkably seasoned," and admired "Our Song"'s "insanely hooky sing-song melody that's as Britney as it is Patsy." Big Machine Records was still in its infancy upon the release of the lead single "Tim McGraw" in June 2006, and Swift and her mother helped "stuff the CD singles into envelopes to send to radio." She spent much of 2006 promoting "Taylor Swift" in a radio tour and later commented, "Radio tours for most artists last six weeks. Mine lasted six months." Swift baked cookies and painted canvases to gift to radio station programmers who played her music. She made many television appearances, including on the Grand Ole Opry, "Good Morning America", and "TRL". Swift, a self-described "kid of the internet," used Myspace to build a fanbase. This was, at the time, "revolutionary in country music." Borchetta has said that his decision to sign a sixteen-year-old singer-songwriter initially raised eyebrows among his record industry peers but Swift tapped into a previously unknown market: teenage girls who listen to country music. Following "Tim McGraw", four further singles were released throughout 2007 and 2008: "Teardrops on My Guitar", "Our Song", "Picture to Burn" and "Should've Said No". All were highly successful on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart, with "Our Song" and "Should've Said No" both reaching number one. "Our Song" made Swift the youngest person to single-handedly write and sing a number one country song. "Teardrops on My Guitar" became a minor pop hit; it reached number thirteen on the "Billboard" Hot 100. The album sold 39,000 copies during its first week of release and, as of March 2011, has sold over 5.5 million copies worldwide. Swift also released a holiday album, "," in October 2007 and an EP, "Beautiful Eyes", in July 2008. Swift toured extensively in support of "Taylor Swift". In addition to her own material, Swift played covers of songs by Beyoncé, Rihanna, John Waite, Lynyrd Skynyrd and Eminem. She conducted meet-and-greet sessions with fans before and after her concerts; these lasted for up to four hours. As well as festival and theater dates, Swift performed as an opening act for several country artists' concert tours. In late 2006, she opened for Rascal Flatts on the final nine dates of their Me & My Gang Tour, after the previous supporting act Eric Church was fired. Swift later sent Church her first gold record with a note: "Thanks for playing 'too long' and 'too loud' on the Flatts tour. I sincerely appreciate it. Taylor." In 2007, she served as the opening act on twenty dates for George Strait's tour, several dates on Kenny Chesney's Flip-Flop Summer Tour, selected dates on Brad Paisley's Bonfires & Amplifiers Tour and several dates for Tim McGraw and Faith Hill's joint Soul2Soul II Tour. Swift again opened for Rascal Flatts on their Still Feels Good Tour in 2008. Swift and Alan Jackson were jointly named the Nashville Songwriters Association's Songwriter/Artist of the Year in 2007, with Swift becoming the youngest person ever to be honored with the title. She also won the Country Music Association's Horizon Award for Best New Artist, the Academy of Country Music Awards's Top New Female Vocalist award and the American Music Awards's Favorite Country Female Artist honor. She was also nominated for a 2008 Grammy Award in the category of Best New Artist, but lost to Amy Winehouse. 2008–10: "Fearless", VMA controversy and Grammy backlash. Swift's second studio album, "Fearless", was released in November 2008. Swift wrote seven of the album's songs alone, including two singles, and co-wrote the remaining six with songwriters Liz Rose, John Rich, Colbie Caillat and Hillary Lindsey. She co-produced the album with Nathan Chapman. Musically, it has been said that the record is characterized by "loud, lean guitars and rousing choruses," with the occasional "bit of fiddle and banjo tucked into the mix." "The New York Times" described Swift as "one of pop's finest songwriters, country's foremost pragmatist and more in touch with her inner life than most adults." "The Village Voice" felt she displayed "preternatural wisdom and inclusiveness," "masterfully avoiding the typical diarist's pitfalls of trite banality and pseudo-profound bullshit." "Rolling Stone" described her as "a songwriting savant with an intuitive gift for verse-chorus-bridge architecture" whose "squirmingly intimate and true" songs seemed to be "literally ripped from a suburban girl's diary." Music critic Robert Christgau characterized Swift as "an uncommonly-to-impossibly strong and gifted teenage girl." Swift promoted "Fearless" heavily upon its release. An episode of "The Ellen DeGeneres Show" was dedicated to the album launch and Swift appeared on many other chat shows. She communicated with fans using social media platforms such as Twitter and personal video blogs. The lead single from the album, "Love Story", was released in September 2008 and became the second best-selling country single of all time, peaking at number four on the "Billboard" Hot 100 chart. Four more singles were released throughout 2008 and 2009: "White Horse", "You Belong with Me", "Fifteen" and "Fearless". "You Belong with Me" was the album's highest-charting single, peaking at number two on the "Billboard" Hot 100. The album debuted at number one on the "Billboard" 200 Album Chart with sales of 592,304 and has since sold over 8.6 million copies worldwide. It was the top-selling album of 2009 and brought Swift much crossover success. Swift carried out her first headlining tour in support of "Fearless". As part of the 105-date Fearless Tour, Swift played 90 dates in North America, six dates in Europe, eight dates in Australia and one date in Asia. She sang a cover of Justin Timberlake's "What Goes Around... Comes Around" nightly, intertwined with her own "You're Not Sorry". Swift invited John Mayer, Faith Hill and Katy Perry to perform one-off duets with her at various dates during the North American tour, while Justin Bieber, Kellie Pickler and Gloriana were the support acts. The tour was attended by more than 1.1 million fans and grossed over $63 million. "", a concert film, was aired on television and later released on DVD and Blu-ray. Swift also performed as a supporting act for Keith Urban's Escape Together World Tour. In addition to tour dates, the singer paid tribute to a number of fellow artists in televised performances. She performed a cover of Alan Jackson's "Drive (For Daddy Gene)" at the "CMT Giants: Alan Jackson" event, took part in a joint, televised concert with rock band Def Leppard in Nashville, and performed a cover of George Strait's "Run" at a televised ACM event honoring Strait as the Artist of the Decade. Swift sang her song "Fifteen" with Miley Cyrus at the 51st Grammy Awards and performed a self-penned rap skit with T-Pain at the CMT Awards. Swift also recorded a number of side-projects. She released a cover of Tom Petty's "American Girl" through Rhapsody in 2009 and made her stage entrance to Petty's recording of the song until 2013. She contributed backing vocals to John Mayer's "Half of My Heart", a single featured on his fourth album. She co-wrote and recorded "Best Days of Your Life" with Kellie Pickler and co-wrote two songs for the – "You'll Always Find Your Way Back Home" and "Crazier" – with Martin Johnson and Robert Ellis Orrall, respectively. Swift also provided vocals for Boys Like Girls's "Two Is Better Than One", written by Martin Johnson. She contributed two songs – including "Today Was a Fairytale" – to the "Valentine's Day" soundtrack and recorded a cover of Better Than Ezra's "Breathless" for the "Hope for Haiti Now" album. Swift became the first country music artist to win an MTV Video Music Award when "You Belong with Me" was named Best Female Video in 2009. Her acceptance speech was interrupted by rapper Kanye West, who had been involved in a number of other award show incidents. In the event's press room, Swift, a fan of West's music, denied having "any hard feelings" towards him. The incident received much media attention and inspired many Internet memes. A few days later, Swift told an interviewer that West offered her a personal apology, which she accepted: "He was very sincere." She refused to discuss the incident in subsequent interviews so as not to make a "bigger deal" of it: "It happened on TV, so everybody saw what happened ... It's not something I feel like we need to keep talking about." It has been said that the incident and subsequent media attention turned Swift into "a bona-fide mainstream celebrity." Swift won four Grammy Awards in 2010, from a total of eight nominations. "Fearless" was named Album of the Year and Best Country Album, while "White Horse" was named Best Country Song and Best Female Country Vocal Performance. She was the youngest ever artist to win Album of the Year. During the ceremony, Swift sang "Rhiannon" and "You Belong with Me" with Stevie Nicks. Her vocal performance received negative reviews and sparked a widespread media backlash. Her vocals were described variously as "badly off-key," "strikingly bad" and "incredibly wretched." While "The New York Times" found it "refreshing to see someone so gifted make the occasional flub" and described Swift as "the most important new pop star of the past few years," music analyst Bob Lefsetz predicted that her career would end "overnight." He publicly appealed to Swift's father to hire a "crisis publicity agent" to manage the story because "Taylor's too young and dumb to understand the mistake she made." Stevie Nicks, writing in "Time", defended the singer: "Taylor reminds me of myself in her determination and her childlike nature. It's an innocence that's so special and so rare. This girl writes the songs that make the whole world sing, like Neil Diamond or Elton John ... The female rock-'n'-roll-country-pop songwriter is back, and her name is Taylor Swift. And it's women like her who are going to save the music business." "Fearless" won many other accolades and has become the most awarded album in country music history. Swift became the youngest ever artist and one of only six women to be named Entertainer of the Year by the Country Music Association. "Fearless" also won the Association's Album of the Year award. Swift was the youngest ever artist to win the Academy of Country Music's Album of the Year honor. The American Music Awards honored Swift with Artist of the Year and Favorite Country Album plaudits. She was awarded the Hal David Starlight Award by the Songwriters Hall of Fame and was named Songwriter/Artist of the Year by the Nashville Songwriters Association. "Billboard" named her 2009's Artist of the Year. Swift was included in "Time"s annual list of the 100 Most Influential People in 2010. 2010–12: "Speak Now" and world tour. Swift released her third studio album, "Speak Now", in October 2010. She wrote all fourteen songs alone and co-produced the record with longtime collaborator Nathan Chapman. Musically, it has been said that the album "expands beyond country-pop to border both alternative rock and dirty bubblegum pop." "The New York Times" described the album as savage, musically diverse and "excellent too, possibly her best." "The Village Voice" remarked that the album demanded "a true appreciation of Swift's talent, which is not confessional, but dramatic: Like a procession of country songwriters before her, she creates characters and situations—some from life—and finds potent ways to describe them." Music critic Robert Christgau found the album's songs "overlong and overworked" but remarked that "they evince an effort that bears a remarkable resemblance to care—that is, to caring in the best, broadest, and most emotional sense." "Rolling Stone" described Swift as one of the best songwriters in "pop, rock or country": "Swift might be a clever Nashville pro who knows all the hitmaking tricks, but she's also a high-strung, hyper-romantic gal with a melodramatic streak the size of the Atchafalaya Swamp." Swift carried out an extensive promotional campaign prior to "Speak Now"'s release. She appeared on various talk shows and morning shows, and gave free mini-concerts in unusual locations, including an open-decker bus on Hollywood Boulevard and a departure lounge at JFK airport. She took part in a "guitar pull" alongside Kris Kristofferson, Emmylou Harris, Vince Gill and Lionel Richie at LA's Club Nokia; the musicians shared the stage and took turns introducing and playing acoustic versions of their songs to raise money for the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum. The album's lead single, "Mine", was released in August 2010 and five further singles were released throughout 2010 and 2011: "Back to December", "Mean", "The Story of Us", "Sparks Fly" and "Ours". "Speak Now" was a major commercial success, debuting at number one on the US "Billboard" 200 chart. Its opening sales of 1,047,000 copies made it the sixteenth album in US history to sell one million copies in a single week. As of February 2012, "Speak Now" has sold over 5.7 million copies worldwide. Swift toured throughout 2011 and early 2012 in support of "Speak Now". As part of the thirteen-month, 111-date world tour, Swift played seven shows in Asia, twelve shows in Europe, 80 shows in North America and twelve shows in Australasia. Swift invited many musicians to join her for one-off duets during the North American tour. Appearances were made by James Taylor, Jason Mraz, Shawn Colvin, Johnny Rzeznik, Andy Grammer, Tal Bachman, Justin Bieber, Selena Gomez, Nicki Minaj, Nelly, B.o.B, Usher, Flo Rida, T.I., Jon Foreman, Jim Adkins, Hayley Williams, Hot Chelle Rae, Ronnie Dunn, Darius Rucker, Tim McGraw and Kenny Chesney. During the North American tour leg, Swift wrote different song lyrics on her left arm for each performance and has said that the lyrics should be viewed as a nightly "mood ring." Swift performed many acoustic cover versions during her North American tour. In each city, she paid tribute to a homegrown artist. She has said the cover versions allowed her to be "spontaneous" in an otherwise well-rehearsed show. The tour was attended by over 1.6 million fans and grossed over $123 million. Swift's first live album, "", featuring all seventeen performances from the North American leg of the tour, was released in November 2011. At the 54th Grammy Awards, Swift's song "Mean" won Best Country Song and Best Country Solo Performance. She also performed the song during the ceremony. Bob Lefsetz, one of the most vocal critics of her 2010 Grammy performance, believes the song is addressed to him. Lefsetz had previously been a supporter of the singer's career, and Swift and Lefsetz had corresponded occasionally by email and telephone. "Time" felt she "delivered her comeback on-key and with a vengeance" while "USA Today" remarked that the criticism in 2010 seemed to have "made her a better songwriter and live performer." Swift won various other awards for "Speak Now". She was named Songwriter/Artist of the Year by the Nashville Songwriters Association in both 2010 and 2011. She was named Entertainer of the Year by the Academy of Country Music in both 2011 and 2012 and was named Entertainer of the Year by the Country Music Association in 2011. Swift was the American Music Awards's Artist of the Year in 2011, while "Speak Now" was named Favorite Country Album. "Billboard" named Swift 2011's Woman of the Year. While Swift was completing her fourth album in the summer of 2012, James Taylor invited her to appear as a special guest during his Tanglewood set; they performed "Fire and Rain", "Love Story" and "Ours" together. Taylor, who first met Swift when she was eighteen, has said that, "we just hit it off. I loved her songs, and her presence on stage was so great." During this period, Swift also contributed two original songs to . "Safe & Sound" was co-written and recorded with The Civil Wars and T-Bone Burnett. John Paul White has said working with Swift was "a revelation ... It truly was a collaboration." It was released as the album's lead single and, as of January 2013, has sold over 1.4 million copies in the United States. It won Best Song Written For Visual Media at the 2013 Grammy Awards and was nominated for Best Original Song at the 70th Golden Globe Awards. Swift's second contribution to the album, "Eyes Open", was written solely by the singer and produced by Nathan Chapman. In addition, Swift contributed vocals to "Both of Us", a Dr. Luke-produced single from B.o.B's second album "Strange Clouds". 2012–present: "Red" and media scrutiny. Swift's fourth studio album, "Red", was released in October 2012. She wrote nine of the album's sixteen songs alone. The remaining seven were co-written with Max Martin, Liz Rose, Dan Wilson, Ed Sheeran and Gary Lightbody. Nathan Chapman served as the album's lead producer but Jeff Bhasker, Butch Walker, Jacknife Lee, Dann Huff and Shellback also produced individual tracks. Chapman has said he encouraged Swift "to branch out and to test herself in other situations." Musically, while there is experimentation with heartland rock, dubstep and dance-pop, it is "sprinkled among more recognisably Swiftian fare." Jon Caramanica of "The New York Times" found "Red" "less detailed and more rushed than her usual fare" but placed it at number two on his end-of-year list, characterizing it as the album on which Swift "stops pretending she’s anything but a pop megastar, one with grown-up concerns, like how two bodies speak to each other and how taste in records can be a stand-in for moral turpitude." "The Times" praised her "sublime" lyrics, particularly those on the "brooding" "All Too Well". "Rolling Stone" enjoyed "watching Swift find her pony-footing on Great Songwriter Mountain. She often succeeds in joining the Joni/Carole King tradition of stark-relief emotional mapping ... Her self-discovery project is one of the best stories in pop." As part of the "Red" promotional campaign, representatives from 72 worldwide radio stations were flown to Nashville during release week for individual interviews with Swift. She also appeared on many television chat shows and performed at award ceremonies in the US, the UK, Germany, France, Spain and Australia. The album's lead single, "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together", became Swift's first number one on the US "Billboard" Hot 100 chart. Five further singles have been released: "Begin Again" (for country radio), "I Knew You Were Trouble", "22", "Everything Has Changed" (all for pop and international radio) and "Red" (for country radio). "Red" debuted at number one on the "Billboard" 200 with first-week sales of 1.21 million copies; this marked the highest opening sales in a decade and made Swift the first female to have two million-selling album openings. As of May 2013, "Red" had sold over 5.2 million copies worldwide. In her career, as of November 2012, she had sold in excess of 26 million albums and 75 million song downloads. The North American leg of Swift's Red Tour ran from March to September 2013. She played 66 dates across North America, including thirteen stadium shows. The Red Tour will visit stadiums across Australia in December 2013. Swift invited special guests such as Carly Simon, Tegan and Sara, Jennifer Lopez, Luke Bryan, Patrick Stump of Fall Out Boy, Ellie Goulding, Nelly, Sara Bareilles, Cher Lloyd, B.o.B, Gary Lightbody, Train, Neon Trees, Rascal Flatts and Hunter Hayes to duet with her on various nights of the tour. Swift has collaborated with a number of other artists in the "Red" era. She co-wrote "Sweeter Than Fiction" with Jack Antonoff for the "One Chance" movie soundtrack. She provided guest vocals for a Tim McGraw song entitled "Highway Don't Care", featuring guitar work by Keith Urban; the trio performed the song live on three occasions. Swift performed "As Tears Go By" with The Rolling Stones in Chicago as part of their 50 & Counting tour. She also joined Florida Georgia Line on stage during their set at the 2013 Country Radio Seminar to sing "Cruise". Swift won three MTV Europe Music Awards in 2012, including the honors for Best Female and Best Live Act. She was named Best Female Country Artist at the 2012 American Music Awards. The Nashville Songwriters Association's 2012 Songwriter/Artist Award went to Swift for the fifth year in a row. "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together" was nominated for Record of the Year at the 2013 Grammy Awards while "I Knew You Were Trouble" won Best Female Video at the 2013 MTV Video Music Awards. In the "Red" era, Swift's romantic life became the subject of intense media scrutiny. "Gawker" remarked that Swift had dated "every man in the universe." The Westboro Baptist Church protested Swift's concerts, labelling her "the whorish face of doomed America," while Abercrombie and Fitch marketed a slogan t-shirt with a "slut-shaming" Swift reference. "The New York Times" asserted that her "dating history has begun to stir what feels like the beginning of a backlash" and questioned whether Swift was in the midst of a "quarter-life crisis." "The Village Voice" suggested that Swift's embrace of "traditional femininity" was the cause of the backlash: "She's young, she can be contentiously dramatic, she puts herself in the center of her stories, and obviously she's dated a lot of famous people in a relatively short amount of time. But none of that is exceptionally rare." At the Golden Globes award ceremony, comediennes Tina Fey and Amy Poehler poked fun at Swift's serial dating reputation, with Fey warning her to "stay away" from young men in the audience: "She needs some 'me' time to learn about herself." Swift was later asked about the incident in a "Vanity Fair" profile: “I was just sort of like, Oh well, you know, I can laugh at myself. But what it ended up adding to was this whole kind of everyone jumping on the bandwagon of ‘Taylor dates too much’—which, you know, if you want some big revelation, since 2010 I have dated exactly two people.” Elsewhere in the article, whilst discussing what the journalist describes as "the Golden Globes, and mean girls in general," Swift approvingly quoted Madeline Albright's remark that ‘There’s a special place in hell for women who don’t help other women.’ Swift began writing songs for her fifth album in July 2013. While she hopes to re-team with some past collaborators, she also has "a really long list of the people I admire and I would really love to go and contact ... I never want to make the same record twice. Why do it? What's the point? It's so overwhelming that when you're starting a project there are such endless possibilities if you're willing to evolve and experiment." Artistry. Influences. One of Swift's earliest musical memories is listening to her maternal grandmother, Marjorie Finlay (née Moehlenkamp), sing at church. In her youth, Finlay was a television host in Puerto Rico and performed in operas in Singapore and Thailand. As a very young child, Swift enjoyed Disney movie soundtracks: "My parents noticed that, once I had run out of words, I would just make up my own." Later, her parents exposed her to artists including James Taylor, Simon & Garfunkel and Def Leppard. Swift has said she owes her confidence to her mother, who helped her prepare for class presentations as a child. She also attributes her "fascination with writing and storytelling" to her mother. Swift enjoyed both reading and writing poetry and was particularly drawn to the works of Shel Silverstein and Dr. Seuss. She remains interested "in any writing from a child's perspective" and has cited "To Kill a Mockingbird" as one of her favorite books. Swift was introduced to country music by "the great female country artists of the '90s ... Shania, Faith, the Dixie Chicks." She was drawn to both the sound and storytelling of country music. Shania Twain, both as a songwriter and performer, was her biggest musical influence. Faith Hill was Swift's childhood role model and she tried to copy "everything she said, did, wore." Swift admired the Dixie Chicks's defiant attitude and their ability to play their own instruments. The band's "Cowboy Take Me Away" was the first song Swift learned to play on the guitar. She then began to explore the music of older country stars, including Patsy Cline, Loretta Lynn, Tammy Wynette and Dolly Parton. Lynn's "Fist City" is one of Swift's favorite country songs. She believes Parton is "an amazing example to every female songwriter out there." Other mainstream country influences include Miranda Lambert, Dwight Yoakam, George Strait, Garth Brooks, Kenny Chesney, Reba McEntire, Alan Jackson, Martina McBride, LeAnn Rimes, Tim McGraw and Brad Paisley. Swift also admires alt-country artists such as Ryan Adams, Patty Griffin, Lori McKenna and Bon Iver. Swift has been influenced by many artists outside the country genre. As a pre-teen, she enjoyed bubblegum pop acts including Hanson and Britney Spears; she still has "unwavering devotion" for Spears. In her high school years, Swift listened to emo bands such as Dashboard Confessional, Fall Out Boy, The All-American Rejects and Jimmy Eat World. She was also a fan of contemporary female singer-songwriters including Michelle Branch, Pink, Alanis Morissette, Ashlee Simpson, Kelly Clarkson, Fefe Dobson and Avril Lavigne. Swift closely followed the musical supervision on the television dramas "The O.C." and "Grey's Anatomy", downloading "every" song featured. She was a fan of hip hop music, particularly the rhyming patterns used by artists such as Eminem: "Pride a lifestyle is something that both country and hip-hop share." Swift also drew inspiration from the catalogues of veteran artists. She describes Stevie Nicks as a "hero" who "has inspired me in so many ways." Tom Petty, she has said, "is on a pedestal for me." She is "obsessed" with Sixties acts like The Shirelles, Doris Troy and The Beach Boys. Influence also came from older female pop rock singers including Pat Benatar, Melissa Etheridge, Sarah McLachlan, Shawn Colvin and Linda Ronstadt. Swift lists Paul McCartney, Bruce Springsteen, Emmylou Harris, Kris Kristofferson and Carly Simon as her career role models: "They've taken chances, but they've also been the same artist for their entire careers." McCartney, both as a Beatle and a solo artist, makes Swift feel "as if I've been let into his heart and his mind": "Any musician could only dream of a legacy like that." She admires Springsteen because he is "so musically relevant after such a long period of time." She aspires to be like Harris as she grows older: "It’s not about fame for her, it’s about music." Swift says of Kristofferson: "He shines in songwriting ... He's just one of those people who has been in this business for years but you can tell it hasn't chewed him up and spat him out." She admires Simon's "songwriting and honesty": "She's known as an emotional person but a strong person." Peer recognition. Swift's work has received praise from veteran artists. Neil Young describes her as "a great writer": "I like Taylor Swift. I like listening to her. I kind of like watching her respond to all the attacks. I like the ways she's defining herself. So I keep my eye on it." Stephen Stills has defended Swift's confessional writing style: “How many times do people want to make fun of for writing a song about getting dumped? I’m sorry, that’s what you do as a songwriter ... Wear your heart on your sleeve, then just write about it. Fuck ‘em. If I was young, I would be one of Taylor Swift’s conquests because I would stalk her.” James Taylor, who has performed with Swift on two occasions, has said that "we just hit it off. I loved her songs, and her presence on stage was so great." Judy Collins points to Swift as an example of a current star who is continuing on the lineage of being an independent-minded artist. Kris Kristofferson claims that "she blows me away. It's amazing to me that someone so young is writing such great songs. She's got a great career ahead of her." Janis Ian notes that Swift "changed the face of music, songwriting and guitar playing for girls ... There is an authenticity there." Stevie Nicks believes Swift writes "songs that make the whole world sing, like Neil Diamond or Elton John ... It's women like her who are going to save the music business." She remarked that the younger singer's "Today Was A Fairytale" has "stayed in my heart forever. And it just reminds me of me in a lot of ways." Steven Tyler of Aerosmith believes she is "beyond talented." Jon Bon Jovi describes her as "the real deal in every way, shape and form. She's a writer, she's a singer, she's a beautiful girl ... Like, she's going to be around." Dolly Parton is "extremely impressed with her, especially with her songwriting ... I'm real impressed with the depth of her sometimes. She's got the qualities that could last a long time." Melissa Etheridge remarks: "I love her soul, her spirit. I think she’s going to surprise people and I think she’s going to be around for a long time." Swift has also received songwriting praise from contemporaries. John Mayer was a supporter of Swift's early career; the duo recorded a duet and performed in concert together on two occasions: "You could put her in a time machine in any era and she would have a hit record." She has also received praise from Drake, Alicia Keys, Tegan and Sara, Grimes, Kesha, Katy Perry, Kelly Clarkson and Lady Gaga. Ryan Adams has said that "every tune of hers is like the one you wait a whole lifetime to write." Kathleen Hanna is "totally into Taylor Swift. I think she has super-clever lyrics, and I love that she writes her own music." Shirley Manson remarked that she is "exceedingly talented at songwriting ... She drew her own door and walked right through it. We should applaud her balls for bucking the system. That's what artists are supposed to do." Lena Dunham, the creator and star of HBO's television series "Girls", has described Swift as her "artistic kindred spirit." Lyrical themes and style. Thematically, "The Guardian" has noted that Swift was "fantastically good at regarding teenage life with a kind of wistful, sepia-toned nostalgia" over the course of her first two albums. "New York Magazine" has remarked that few singer-songwriters have written "great records so explicitly about their teens ... Her nearest antecedent might be sixties-era Brian Wilson, the one true adolescent auteur before she came along." Comparisons have also been drawn with Janis Ian. Fairytale imagery featured on Swift's second album, "Fearless". She explored the disconnect "between fairy tales and the reality of love." Her third and fourth albums addressed more adult relationships. In addition to romance and love, Swift's songs have discussed parent-child relationships ("The Best Day", "Never Grow Up", "Ronan"), friendships ("Fifteen", "Breathe", "22"), alienation ("The Outside", "A Place In This World", "Tied Together with a Smile", "Mean") and career ambitions ("Change", "Long Live", "The Lucky One"). Her defining quality as a songwriter, it has been said, is "a determination to register and hang onto fleeting feelings and impressions, a pre-emptive nostalgia for a present (and sometimes even a future) that she knows will some day be in the past." Swift frequently includes "a tossed-off phrase to suggest large and serious things that won't fit in the song, things that enhance or subvert the surface narrative." "The New Yorker" has said that her songs, "though they are not subversive, have a certain sophistication ... Sentimental songs are laced with intimations of future disillusionment." Structurally, "Slate" notes that Swift has "effortless, preternatural mastery of pop conventions: Very few songwriters can build better bridges than she does." "Rolling Stone" has described her as "a songwriting savant with an intuitive gift for verse-chorus-bridge architecture." "The Village Voice" has noted that Swift uses third-verse POV reversals frequently. She has a tendency to use the same images repeatedly. In the words of "The Guardian", "she spends so much time kissin' in the rain that it seems a miracle she hasn't developed trenchfoot." However, "to Swift's credit, she explores new lyrical motifs over the course of fourth album." "American Songwriter" describes Swift as "a great songwriter, who writes with an unmatched and almost unnatural acuity ... Even her earliest material is characterized by thoughtful – perhaps meticulous – word choice and deliberate melodic construction, with nary a lazy rhyme or aimless tune to be found." While reviews of Swift's work are "almost uniformly positive," "The New Yorker" has said she is generally portrayed "more as a skilled technician than as a Dylanesque visionary." Swift uses autobiographical detail in her work. Listening to music as a child, she felt confused "when I knew something was going on in someone's personal life and they didn't address it in their music." "The New York Times" believes that "righting wrongs is Ms. Swift's raison d'être." In her songs, Swift often addresses the "anonymous crushes of her high school years" and, more recently, fellow celebrities. John Mayer, the presumed subject of "Dear John", has said the song "humiliated" him: "I think it's kind of cheap songwriting. I know she's the biggest thing in the world, and I'm not trying to sink anybody's ship, but I think it's abusing your talent to rub your hands together and go, 'Wait till he gets a load of this!'" "The Village Voice" has downplayed this aspect of Swift's songwriting: "Being told What Songs Mean is like having a really pushy professor. And it imperils a true appreciation of Swift's talent, which is not confessional, but dramatic." "New York Magazine" believes the media scrutiny over her decision to use autobiographical detail "is sexist, inasmuch as it’s not asked of her male peers": "It’s a relief to see Swift, the ur-nice-girl, refuse to give the mea culpa that many journalists she's talked to have sought." The singer herself has said that all her songs are not factual and are often based on observations. Aside from her liner note clues, Swift tries not to talk specifically about song subjects "because these are real people. You try to give insight as to where you were coming from as a writer without completely throwing somebody under the bus." Musical and vocal style. Swift's music contains elements of country, country pop, pop and pop rock. She self-identifies as a country artist. "Rolling Stone" asserts that, "she might get played on the country station, but she's one of the few genuine rock stars we've got these days." Swift's own definition of country music "is really pretty simple. It's when someone sings about their life and what they know, from an authentic place ... One guy will write about how he grew up on a farm and fell in love and raised kids on that same farm. Some people sing about how, when they get sad, they go to the bar and drink whiskey. I write songs about how I can't seem to figure out relationships and how I'm fascinated by love." She has said there will be "a huge temptation" to make an alt-country record as her career progresses. "The New York Times" notes that, "There isn't much in Ms. Swift's music to indicate country – a few banjo strums, a pair of cowboy boots worn onstage, a bedazzled guitar – but there's something in her winsome, vulnerable delivery that's unique to Nashville." "The New Yorker" believes she is "considered part of Nashville's country-pop tradition only because she writes narrative songs with melodic clarity and dramatic shape—Nashville's stock-in-trade." "The Guardian" has said that Swift "cranks melodies out with the pitiless efficiency of a Scandinavian pop factory." Swift's voice has been described as "sweet but soft." In studio recordings, the "Los Angeles Times" identifies Swift's "defining" vocal gesture as "the line that slides down like a contented sigh or up like a raised eyebrow, giving her beloved girl-time hits their air of easy intimacy." "Rolling Stone", in a "Speak Now" review, remarked: "Swift's voice is unaffected enough to mask how masterful she has become as a singer; she lowers her voice for the payoff lines in the classic mode of a shy girl trying to talk tough." In another review of "Speak Now", "The Village Voice" noted that her phrasing was previously "bland and muddled, but that's changed. She can still sound strained and thin, and often strays into a pitch that drives some people crazy; but she's learned how to make words sound like what they mean." In a live setting, Swift, according to "The Hollywood Reporter", "does her best, but certainly doesn't have the pipes to go toe-to-toe with the likes of Christina Aguilera or Carrie Underwood." Her live vocals have been described as "flat," "thin, and sometimes as wobbly as a newborn colt." However, Swift has received praise for refusing to correct her pitch with Auto-Tune. In an interview with "The New Yorker", Swift characterized herself primarily as a songwriter: "I write songs, and my voice is just a way to get those lyrics across." Scott Borchetta of Big Machine Records has conceded that Swift is "not the best technical singer" but describes her as the "best communicator that we've got." Swift's vocal presence is something that concerns her and she has "put a lot of work" into improving it. It was reported in 2010 that she continues to take vocal lessons. She has said that she only feels nervous performing "if I'm not sure what the audience thinks of me, like at award shows." Public image. Swift has high Q Score and Davie-Brown Index ratings, reflecting a high level of public awareness (90 percent) and popularity (80 percent) in the United States. The singer considers it her "responsibility" to be conscious of her influence on young fans. A "Rolling Stone" journalist who profiled Swift in 2009 remarked upon her polite manners: "If this is Swift's game face, it must be tattooed on because it never drops." In 2012, "Rolling Stone" remarked upon Swift's "ease with glad-handing ... it's not hard to imagine her running for office someday" while "The Hollywood Reporter" referred to her as "the Best People Person Since Bill Clinton." It has been said that she is "the kind of driven, intensely ambitious person who’d thrive regardless of her profession." A 2012 "Vogue" cover story described Swift as "clever and funny and occasionally downright bawdy" in person. "Grantland" describes Swift as "dorky" and "openly neurotic in a way you'd never see from a blonde country princess like Faith Hill or Carrie Underwood. She is more like Diane Keaton in "Annie Hall": overly gracious and eager to please but full of a nonstop, nervous, fluttering energy." There has been much media commentary about Swift's surprised reactions when she is recognized at award ceremonies. Swift laughingly noted that "people make so much fun of me." Although she sometimes tries to act blasé, "it's just hard when you get excited about stuff. It's like, if you win an award, isn't that crazy? ... How do you sit there and be like 'Oh, another Grammy. I guess I'm gonna get that now'?" In the early years of her career, Swift's signature look consisted of sundresses and cowboy boots. This fashion style is still copied by many of the young fans who attend her concerts. At formal events, Swift became known for "sparkly, beaded dresses." Her naturally curly hairstyle is replicated by fans, and Swift has remarked: "I remember straightening my hair because I wanted to be like everybody else, and now the fact that anybody would emulate what I do? It's just funny." She was asked by "Vogue" to cut bangs for a cover shoot in late 2011, and now straightens her hair. Swift favors retro style and it has been said that she has the look of "a nineteen-thirties movie siren ... red lipstick, thick mascara." She was named an Icon of American Style by "Vogue" in 2011. She has named Françoise Hardy, Jane Birkin, Brigitte Bardot, and Audrey Hepburn as her own style inspirations. Product endorsements. While promoting her self-titled debut record, Swift appeared as a spokesmodel for l.e.i. jeans and as the face of Verizon Wireless' Mobile Music campaign. In the "Fearless" era, she launched a l.e.i. sundress range at Wal-Mart, and designed American Greetings cards and Jakks Pacific dolls. She became a spokesperson for the NHL's Nashville Predators and Sony Cyber-shot digital cameras. She performed in a commercial for the Band Hero video game, with Rivers Cuomo, Pete Wentz and Travis Barker appearing as her backing band. In the "Speak Now" era, Swift became a CoverGirl spokesmodel, launched two Elizabeth Arden fragrances, Wonderstruck and Wonderstruck Enchanted, and released a special edition of her album through Target. While promoting her fourth album "Red", Swift offered exclusive album promotions through Target, Papa John's and Walgreens. She became a spokesmodel for Diet Coke and Keds sneakers, released her third Elizabeth Arden fragrance entitled "Taylor by Taylor Swift", and continued her partnerships with Sony Electronics and American Greetings. She also maintains an unofficial brand tie-in with Ralph Lauren. Acting career. Swift made her acting debut in a 2009 episode of CBS's "", playing a rebellious teenager. "The New York Times" noted that the character allowed Swift to be "a little bit naughty, and credibly so." "Rolling Stone" felt she "held her own" and "does a good job with the script" while the "Chicago Tribune" said she "acquits herself well." Later that year, Swift both hosted and performed as the musical guest for an episode of "Saturday Night Live". "Entertainment Weekly" described her as "this season's best Saturday Night Live host so far," noting that she "was always up for the challenge, seemed to be having fun, and helped the rest of the cast nail the punchlines." Proving "admirably resilient in a wide variety of sketch roles," "Swift inspired more of a female, girly-in-the-best-sense sensibility in SNL than it's shown since the Tina Fey-Amy Poehler days." Swift made her feature film acting debut in the 2010 ensemble comedy "Valentine's Day", playing the ditzy Valley girlfriend of a high school jock. The "Los Angeles Times" felt the performance suggested "serious comedic potential" while the "San Francisco Chronicle" found her "very funny." "Time" remarked that Swift portrayed her character "rather charmingly"; "The Boston Globe" described her as "adorably dorky." "Salon" asserted that she was "one of the few actors not wasted in "Valentine's Day". Her overgrown-pixie look and odd, widely set eyes lend her a little bit of Marilyn and a little bit of Lucille Ball: She's Taylor-made for comic greatness." However, "Variety" found her "entirely undirected ... she needs to find a skilled director to tamp her down and channel her obviously abundant energy." The "Daily News" described her performance as "painfully clunky" while "Slant Magazine" found her "unwatchable." In 2012, Swift voiced the character of Audrey, a tree lover, in the animated film "The Lorax". In 2013, Swift made a brief cameo on the sitcom "New Girl". In 2014, she will co-star in the film adaptation of "The Giver" alongside Jeff Bridges and Meryl Streep. Philanthropy. Swift's philanthropic efforts have been recognised by the Do Something Awards, The Giving Back Fund and the Tennessee Disaster Services. In 2012, Michelle Obama presented Swift with The Big Help Award for her "dedication to helping others" and "inspiring others through action." Also that year, Kerry Kennedy of the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights presented Swift with the Ripple of Hope Award because of her "dedication to advocacy at such a young age ... Taylor is just the kind of woman we want our daughters to be." Swift is a supporter of arts education. In 2010, she donated $75,000 to Nashville's Hendersonville High School to help refurbish the school auditorium's sound and lighting systems. In 2012, she pledged $4 million to fund the building of a new education center at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum in Nashville. The 7,500-square-foot building is scheduled to open in 2014 and will facilitate new programs and workshops for teenagers and senior citizens. The space will include three classrooms and an exhibit space, and will house interactive activities such as a musical petting zoo and a "wet" classroom space to make concert posters and other art projects. Museum officials have decided to name it The Taylor Swift Education Center and the singer will be involved in an advisory capacity. Also in 2012, Swift partnered with textbook rental company Chegg to donate $60,000 to the music departments of six US colleges. Swift promotes children's literacy. In 2009, she donated $250,000 to various schools around the country that she had either attended or had other associations with. The money was used to buy books, fund educational programs and help pay teachers' salaries. In 2010, she took part in a live webcast, "Read Now! with Taylor Swift", broadcast exclusively in US schools to celebrate Scholastic's Read Every Day campaign. In 2011, Swift donated 6,000 Scholastic books to Reading Public Library, Pennsylvania and, in 2012, she donated 14,000 books to Nashville Public Library, Tennessee. Most of the books were placed in circulation; the rest were gifted to children from low-income families, preschools and daycare centers. In 2012, she co-chaired the National Education Association's Read Across America campaign and recorded a PSA encouraging children to read. Also in 2012, Swift promoted the "power of reading" in a second live Scholastic webcast, broadcast directly to US classrooms. In 2013, through the Reach Out and Read initiative, she donated 2,000 Scholastic books to the Reading Hospital Child Health Center's early literacy program. Throughout her career, Swift has donated money to help victims of natural disasters. In 2008, she donated the proceeds from her merchandise sales at the Country Music Festival to the Red Cross's disaster relief fund. Later that year, she donated $100,000 to the Red Cross to help the victims of the Iowa flood of 2008. In 2009, Swift supported the Victorian Bushfire Appeal by joining the lineup at Sydney's Sound Relief concert, reportedly making the biggest contribution of any artist to the Australian Red Cross. In 2010, she took part in the Hope for Haiti telethon; she performed and answered phone calls from viewers wishing to donate money. She also recorded a song for the "Hope for Haiti Now" album. In response to the May 2010 Tennessee floods, Swift donated $500,000 during a telethon hosted by WSMV. Later that year, she donated $100,000 to help rebuild a playground in Hendersonville, Tennessee which was damaged by floodwater. In 2011, Swift used the final dress rehearsal for the North American leg of her Speak Now tour as a benefit concert for victims of recent tornadoes in the United States, raising more than $750,000. She also donated $250,000 to Alabama football coach Nick Saban's charity, Nick's Kids, to aid in the tornado relief efforts of West Alabama. In 2012, Swift supported Architecture for Humanity's Restore the Shore MTV telethon in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy. Swift opposes LGBT discrimination. Following the 2008 murder of Larry King, she recorded a Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network PSA to combat hate crimes. On the first anniversary of King's death, Swift told "Seventeen" that her parents taught her "never to judge others based on whom they love, what color their skin is, or their religion." In 2011, the music video for Swift's anti-bullying song "Mean" dealt in part with homophobia in high schools; the video was later nominated for an MTV VMA social activism award. "The New York Times" believes she is part of "a new wave of young (and mostly straight) women who are providing the soundtrack for a generation of gay fans coming to terms with their identity in a time of turbulent and confusing cultural messages." The singer is involved with a number of charities which provide services to sick children. In 2008, she donated a pink Chevy pick-up truck to the Victory Junction Gang Camp; the truck is used to transport sick children from the airport to the camp. In 2009, after performing at the BBC Children in Need annual telethon, she donated $20,000 to the cause. In 2011, as the Academy of Country Music's Entertainer of the Year, Swift donated $25,000 to St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, Tennessee. This figure was matched by the Academy. In 2012, Swift participated in the Stand Up to Cancer telethon, performing "Ronan", a song she wrote in memory of a four-year-old boy who died of neuroblastoma. The song was made available for digital download, with all proceeds donated to cancer-related charities. Swift has met with many sick fans through the Make-A-Wish Foundation. She has also made private visits to hospitals such as St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, the Walter Reed Army Medical Center, the Ronald McDonald House, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Children's Hospital & Medical Center and Vanderbilt Children's Hospital. Swift has encouraged young people to volunteer in their local community as part of Global Youth Service Day and has promoted The @15 Fund, a social change platform underwritten by Best Buy, which gives teenagers the opportunity to direct the company's philanthropy. In 2007, she launched a campaign to protect children from online predators, in partnership with the Tennessee Association of Chiefs of Police. Also in 2007, she supported an Allstate campaign which promotes safe teenage driving. In 2009, Swift recorded a Sound Matters PSA to make listeners aware of the importance of listening "responsibly." She appeared in a Got Milk? campaign in 2010. Swift has donated auctionable items to a large number of charities, including the Elton John AIDS Foundation, the UNICEF Tap Project, Oxfam International, Habitat for Humanity, MusiCares and Feeding America. She has also performed at a number of benefit concerts, including for the Food Bank For New York City, the Reading, Writing & Rhythm Foundation, Christmas for Kids and Shriners Hospitals for Children. Personal life. Wealth. Swift lives between a three-bedroom duplex penthouse in Midtown Nashville, Tennessee and a three-bedroom cottage in Beverly Hills, California. She owns an eight-bedroom summer home in coastal Watch Hill, Rhode Island. In addition, Swift purchased a four-bedroom mansion in Belle Meade, Tennessee for her parents. She owns a Dassault Falcon 900 private jet and an airport hangar at Nashville International Airport. According to "Forbes"'s Celebrity 100 list, released annually in the month of May, Swift earned $18 million in 2009, $45 million in 2010, $45 million in 2011, $57 million in 2012 and $55 million in 2013. Relationships. Swift dated singer Joe Jonas from July to October 2008, and actor Taylor Lautner from October to December 2009. She was romantically linked to musician John Mayer from late 2009 until early 2010. She dated actor Jake Gyllenhaal from October to December 2010. Following their break-up, they were seen together in January and February 2011. Swift dated political heir Conor Kennedy from July to September 2012. She dated One Direction singer Harry Styles from October 2012 to January 2013. Musicians including Jonas and Mayer have written songs about Swift. Politics. Swift says she registered to vote on her eighteenth birthday. During the 2008 presidential campaign, she supported the Every Woman Counts campaign, aimed at engaging women in the political process, and was one of many country stars to record a public service announcement for the Vote (For Your) Country campaign. She stated: "I don't think it's my job to try and influence people which way they should vote." Following President Obama's inauguration, she told "Rolling Stone" that she supported the president: "I've never seen this country so happy about a political decision in my entire time of being alive. I'm so glad this was my first election." In 2010, former U.S. President George H. W. Bush attended the taping of a Swift television special in Kennebunkport, Maine, and later described Swift as "unspoiled" and "very nice." In 2012, Swift was presented with a Kids' Choice Award in recognition of her charitable work by Michelle Obama, who praised her as someone who "has rocketed to the top of the music industry but still keeps her feet on the ground, someone who has shattered every expectation of what a 22-year old can accomplish." Swift later described the First Lady as "a role model." In a 2012 interview, Swift remarked that, although she tries to keep herself “as educated and informed as possible,” she doesn’t “talk about politics because it might influence other people." She has spoken of her interest in American history and has read books about Abraham Lincoln, John Adams, the Founding Fathers and Ellis Island. Swift is a friend of the Kennedy family and has spoken of her admiration for Ethel Kennedy. Awards and nominations. Swift has been the recipient of seven Grammy Awards, eleven American Music Awards, seven Country Music Association Awards, six Academy of Country Music Awards, and twelve Billboard Music Awards. As a songwriter, she has been honored by the Nashville Songwriters Association and the Songwriters Hall of Fame.
1162095	Mark Andrew Consuelos (born March 30, 1971) is an American television and film actor. Personal life. Consuelos was born in Zaragoza, Spain, to a Mexican father and an Italian mother. He is the youngest of three children, he has a brother, who is a doctor, and a sister, who is a lawyer. Consuelos has lived in Italy and the United States since childhood. He grew up in Lebanon, Illinois, and later in Tampa, Florida. He attended Bloomingdale High School in Valrico, Florida, and then went to University of Notre Dame before transferring to and graduating from the University of South Florida with a degree in marketing, in 1994. During his time at the University of South Florida he worked as a male stripper to pay for his education. In 1995, Consuelos met Kelly Ripa, his co-star on "All My Children". The two eloped on May 1, 1996. The couple has three children: Michael Joseph (born June 2, 1997), Lola Grace (born June 16, 2001), and Joaquin Antonio (born February 24, 2003). Career. Consuelos had a starring role in the educational serial "Connect With English", which aired on public television stations as part of the Annenberg/CPB Project. In February 1995, Consuelos had his breakthrough when he landed the role of Mateo Santos on the soap opera "All My Children". There, he fell in love with his on-screen love interest Kelly Ripa, and secretly married her in Las Vegas, in May 1996. At the time, he lived on co-star Winsor Harmon's sofa; Harmon was one of the few to know that co-stars Ripa and Consuelos were not only dating, but married. Ripa and Consuelos continued to tape episodes of "All My Children" until 2002, when Ripa wished to focus more on her other job: taking over for Kathie Lee Gifford as host of what then became "Live! with Regis and Kelly" then, "Live! with Kelly" and now, subsequently "Live! with Kelly and Michael". Consuelos is a regular guest co-host. Since leaving "All My Children", Consuelos has starred in the feature film "The Great Raid", which debuted in theatres in 2005. In 2006, he appeared in the movie "My Super Ex-Girlfriend" as "Steve", and in 2007 he appeared in "Wedding Daze". He has been seen on the Lifetime series "Missing", with Vivica A. Fox. He also had a part in Ugly Betty. Consuelos hosted two reality dating shows, "Age of Love" and "Science of Love", both airing on NBC in 2007. He guest-starred on "Third Watch", "Friends", "American Family," "Fortune Hunter", "SeaQuest" and "Hope & Faith". On October 3, 2008 he performed the marriage ceremony for Howard Stern and model/actress Beth Ostrosky at the Le Cirque restaurant in New York City. The two couples had grown close, which was why Stern asked Consuelos to perform the wedding ceremony. Consuelos agreed, and took it upon himself to seek ordination to make it an official ceremony for Stern and Ostrosky. The guest list for the wedding included Joan Rivers, Barbara Walters, Billy Joel and wife Katie Lee, Jimmy Kimmel, Sarah Silverman, and Stern's radio co-host Robin Quivers. A weekly live episode of the "Oprah Winfrey Show" premiered in the show's 23rd season with a panel consisting of Mark Consuelos, Ali Wentworth, Oprah Winfrey, and Gayle King. The panel discussed the week's news and highlighted events in the media and on the show. In the 2009–10 season, Winfrey hosted this segment on her own. Fridays Live did not return for the show's 25th season. In 2012 Consuelos guest-starred on an episode of ' titled "". He played Michael, the prime suspect in a brutal rape during Fleet Week. Consuelos is not new to the "Law & Order" franchise, he had guest-starred in the sixth season episode "" of ' as the U.S. Attorney involved in a case where the judge's life is threatened. Consuelos portrayed Spivey, a recurring character, in "American Horror Story: Asylum", the second season of the anthology horror series. Awards and honors. In 1998 and 1999, Consuelos won the American Latino Media Arts Award for "Outstanding Actor in a Daytime Soap Opera." Consuelos won "Hottest Romance" along with Ripa in 1997 at the Soap Opera Awards.
1058632	Capricorn One is a 1978 British thriller movie about a Mars landing hoax. It was written and directed by Peter Hyams and produced by Lew Grade's (British) ITC Entertainment. It stars Elliott Gould with James Brolin, Sam Waterston and O. J. Simpson as the astronauts. Although "Capricorn One" is thematically a typical 1970s government-conspiracy thriller with similarities to Hyams's subsequent film "Outland", the story was inspired by conspiracy theories surrounding the Apollo Moon landings. Plot. At an unspecified time, Capricorn One—the first manned mission to Mars—is on the launch pad. Such NASA authorities as Dr. James Kelloway (Hal Holbrook) realize, too late, that a faulty life-support system supplied by a corrupt NASA contractor will kill the astronauts during the flight. As the manned space program needs a success to continue, they find themselves forced to falsify the landing rather than cancel the mission. Minutes before launch, the bewildered crew of Air Force Colonel Charles Brubaker (James Brolin), Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Peter Willis (Sam Waterston), and Navy Commander John Walker (O. J. Simpson) are removed from Capricorn One and flown to an abandoned United States Army Air Corps desert base. The launch proceeds on schedule, but the public is unaware that the spacecraft is empty. At the base, the astronauts are informed they will help counterfeit the television footage during the flight to and from Mars, and that it is their patriotic duty to participate for the sake of national morale and prestige. Initially they refuse, but Kelloway, himself under extreme duress (from whom, what, or where is never clearly specified) to go through with the hoax, threatens their families if they do not cooperate, claiming a bomb will explode on a plane carrying the family members. The astronauts remain in captivity during the flight and are filmed landing on Mars within a studio located at the base. They also appear in a live TV broadcast talking to their wives in a normal dialogue - despite the fact that radio signals take at least several minutes to reach Earth from their location in space. The conspiracy is known to only a few officials, until alert technician Elliot Whitter (Robert Walden) notices that ground control receives the crew's television transmissions before the spacecraft telemetry arrives. Whitter mysteriously disappears before he can finish sharing his concerns with journalist friend Robert Caulfield (Elliott Gould). Caulfield discovers that all evidence of his friend's life has been erased and begins investigating the mission, surviving several attacks on himself and his reputation. Upon returning to Earth, the empty spacecraft unexpectedly burns up due to a faulty heat shield during re-entry. The captive astronauts quickly realize that something has gone badly wrong with the re-entry process, and that officials can never release them because doing so would automatically expose the hoax. Knowing that the only logical solution for their captors is to kill them during the cover-up process, they escape in a Learjet, which runs out of fuel soon after take-off. Forced to crash-land and stranded in the desert, they attempt to return to civilization while being pursued by "black helicopters" (actually, olive drab in the film). Brubaker is the only one to avoid capture. Caulfield's investigation leads him to the desert, where he finds the military base and the set. With the help of crop-dusting pilot Albain (Telly Savalas), he rescues Brubaker before the men in the helicopters can capture or kill him. The film ends with Caulfield and Brubaker arriving at the astronauts' memorial service, exposing the conspiracy in front of television cameras and scores of witnesses who are astonished at his arrival. Production. Peter Hyams began thinking about a film of a space hoax while working on broadcasts of the Apollo missions for CBS. Hyams became a successful television writer and director and began writing the script for "Capricorn One" in the mid-1970s, but "Peeper"'s failure jeopardized his career. Hyams and his friend, producer Paul Lazarus, were able to obtain the support of Lew Grade, head of production company ITC Entertainment, who agreed to a $4.8 million budget. To stay within the budget, NASA's cooperation was needed. Lazarus had a good relationship with the space agency from "Futureworld". The filmmakers were thus able to obtain government equipment as props despite the negative portrayal of the space agency, including a prototype lunar module. The film was originally scheduled to debut in February 1978, but good preview screenings and delays in "Superman" caused it to move to June. "Capricorn One" became the year's most-successful independent film. Other media. Two novelizations of the film were written and published by separate authors. The first was written by Ken Follett (written under the pseudonym Bernard L. Ross) and published in the United Kingdom, the other written by Ron Goulart and published in the United States. The Follett novel is notable for giving Robert Caulfield more development than the movie does, including giving him something of a relationship with CBS reporter Judy Drinkwater (who has more time here than in the movie) and ending the book with him and Judy (the story saves his career and results in his being employed by CBS).
582473	Ra.One is a 2011 Indian science fiction superhero film directed by Anubhav Sinha, and starring Shah Rukh Khan, Kareena Kapoor, Armaan Verma, Arjun Rampal, Shahana Goswami and Tom Wu in pivotal roles. The script, written by Sinha and Kanika Dhillon, originated as an idea that Sinha got when he saw a television commercial, and which he subsequently expanded. The film follows Shekhar Subramanium (Khan), a game designer who creates a motion sensor-based game in which the antagonist (Ra.One) is more powerful than the protagonist (G.One). The former escapes from the game's virtual world and enters the real world; his aim is to kill Lucifer, the game ID of Shekhar's son and the only player to have challenged Ra.One's power. Relentlessly pursued, the family is forced to bring out G.One from the virtual world to defeat Ra.One and protect them. Principal photography began in March 2010 and took place in India and the United Kingdom, and was overseen by an international crew. The post-production involved 3-D conversion and the application of visual effects, the latter being recognised as a technological breakthrough among Indian films. With a budget of at least , "Ra.One" was one of the most expensive Indian films at the time of release. The producers also spent on the film's promotions, which involved a nine-month publicity campaign, brand tie-ups, merchandise, video games and viral marketing. "Ra.One" was initially scheduled to release on 3 June 2011, but delays due to a lengthy post-production process and escalating costs pushed back the release date. The film also faced controversies involving plagiarism, content leaks and copyright challenges. Consequently, "Ra.One" was theatrically released on 26 October 2011, the beginning of the five-day Diwali weekend, in 2D, 3D and dubbed versions, with three international premieres being held between 24 and 26 October 2011. The film witnessed the largest international theatrical release for an Indian film as of 2011, and was preceded by high audience and commercial expectations. Upon release, critics endorsed mixed opinions of the film, with general praise for the visuals and music, and criticism of the script and direction. Commercially, the film became the third highest-grossing Bollywood film of 2011 and broke a number of opening box office records, though it failed to sustain at the box office after its extended opening weekend. Box office website Box Office India deemed "Ra.One" a domestic "hit" and overseas "super hit". The film subsequently won a number of awards for its technical aspects, notably one National Film Award, one Filmfare Award and four International Indian Film Academy Awards. However, it also received dishonorable awards like "Worst Film," namely two Golden Kela Awards and one Ghanta Award. Plot. Shekhar Subramanium (Khan), a game designer who works for the London-based Barron Industries, has delivered a number of commercial failures; an irate Barron (Tahil) gives him his last chance to develop a successful game. To impress his sceptical son Prateek (Verma), and upon the request of his wife Sonia (Kapoor), Shekhar uses his son's idea that the antagonist should be more powerful than the protagonist. His colleague, computer programmer Jenny (Goswami), uses Shekhar's face as a model for that of the game's protagonist G.One ("Good One"), while the shape-shifting antagonist Ra.One ("Random Access Version One") is made faceless. Another colleague, Akashi (Wu), implements the characters' movements. The game, named "Ra.One", contains three levels, the final level being the only one in which either character can be killed. Each character possesses a special device – the "H.A.R.T" (Hertz Amplifying Resonance Transmitter) which gives them their powers. Upon reaching the last level, the characters gain a gun with one bullet; the other character can be killed by this bullet but only if his H.A.R.T is attached. When "Ra.One" undergoes final tests, Akashi notices unusual glitches but chooses to ignore them. When the game is officially launched, it receives a standing ovation from the audience; an enamored Prateek insists on playing it immediately. He logs in under the ID "Lucifer" and proceeds to the second level, but is interrupted by Akashi. Ra.One, unable to end his turn with Lucifer and angry that a player has proceeded so far, becomes determined that Lucifer will die. He uses a wireless technology (which Jenny had introduced in a conference) to enter the real world, a process which causes the mainframe to malfunction. Akashi informs Shekhar, who partially understands the situation and rushes home, fearing for his son's life. Meanwhile, Ra.One kills Akashi and assumes his form; he goes to find Lucifer, and meets Shekhar in the process. In an attempt to save his son, Shekhar claims that he is Lucifer, but his lie is exposed when Ra.One scans his identity card. Consequently, Ra.One kills Shekhar and makes it look like a car accident. Sonia, devastated after Shekhar's death, tells Prateek that the family will return to India after Shekhar's funeral. A suspicious Prateek notices digital patterns on the fateful road and realises that Ra.One has come to life. He convinces Jenny of the same when they see the destroyed game laboratory, and the latter tries to bring G.One into the real world. Meanwhile, Ra.One chases the family on their way to the airport, but G.One enters the real world and causes a gas explosion which temporarily destroys Ra.One. G.One takes Ra.One's H.A.R.T. and accompanies the family to Mumbai after Sonia realises that she needs him. Subsequently, Ra.One returns to life, takes the form of a billboard model (Rampal), and tracks down G.One to Prateek's birthday party. Hypnotizing Sonia, he assumes her form to kidnap Prateek. Ra.One then instructs G.One to give him his H.A.R.T. back, and sends the real Sonia in a malfunctioning local train. The train crashes into the Chatrapati Shivaji Terminus, but G.One saves Sonia in time. To save Prateek, he returns to the virtual world and fights Ra.One; both reach the third level, the former left with little power. G.One tricks Ra.One into shooting him without his H.A.R.T. attached, leaving Ra.One helpless; furious, the latter creates ten copies of himself. Prateek, unable to identify the real Ra.One, asks G.One to quote Shekhar: ""If you join the forces of evil, its shadows shall always follow you"". The pair realise that only one of the ten Ra.Ones has a shadow: the original one. G.One shoots and destroys him, absorbs Ra.One's remains and disappears. Six months later, Prateek and Sonia return to London, where the former manages to restore G.One to the real world. Cast. The major characters of "Ra.One" were essayed by protagonists Shahrukh Khan and Kareena Kapoor, and primary antagonist Arjun Rampal. Supporting roles were played by Tom Wu, Shahana Goswami and child artist Armaan Verma. The film featured cameo appearances by Rajnikanth, Sanjay Dutt and Priyanka Chopra, the latter two being characters in a dream sequence. Additional minor roles were essayed by Dalip Tahil and Satish Shah, and an important voice-over was provided by Amitabh Bachchan. Khan performed both as Shekhar and G.One. The titular character Ra.One was enacted by three actors – Rampal, Wu and Kapoor, signifying the character's shape-shifting ability. Khan was the first actor to be cast in the film. Three actors had initially been considered for the lead female role; Kapoor was ultimately chosen because she insisted on playing the part. Rampal accepted the role of Ra.One after Sinha expressed a strong desire to cast him in the film. Wu was contracted to the film in July 2010, and Goswami was cast one month later. Bachchan agreed to be a part of the film after being requested by Khan and Sinha. Several cast members prepared extensively for their roles; Rampal and Kapoor followed special diets to lose weight, and Verma learnt capoeira. Khan and Verma performed their own stunts, and Kapoor subsequently did so as well despite initial reluctance. However, the cast did encounter problems during production. Khan faced difficulties with his superhero suit and prosthetic makeup, and injured his left knee. The decision to cast Rampal was met with scepticism due to "questionable acting abilities," a statement Sinha criticised. In addition, Rampal encountered back problems (which were treated by the time production began), prompting speculation of a possible replacement by Vivek Oberoi. Jackie Chan had initially been approached for the role of Akashi, but he declined the offer. Rajnikanth suffered from health problems which caused a delay in the filming of his cameo appearance. Dutt faced a scheduling conflict with "Agneepath" (2012), which was later resolved. Production. Development. According to director Anubhav Sinha, the idea of "Ra.One" originated when he saw an advertisement on television which showed children remotely controlling a human. He was attracted to the concept and wrote a script based on it. Sinha then approached Khan, who liked the story and decided to produce the film under his production company Red Chillies Entertainment. Sinha was apprehensive of retaining Khan's support after the former's previous film "Cash" (2007) became a commercial failure, but Khan reportedly "remained unchanged". Khan felt that the film possessed significant commercial potential, in addition to being a fulfilment of his "childhood dream" to be a superhero and to fly. He stated that he wanted to "make a film that gives me the right to deserve the iconic status that I've got for 20 years." He also said that he wanted to make a film dedicated to father-son relationships, which were, in his opinion, "neglected" in Bollywood. Khan's idea was to make a simple family drama which expanded into an action film. He declined to make the film in English to increase its appeal for Western audiences, feeling that "cracking Hollywood on their terms" was unnecessary. Both Khan and Sinha credited their children for providing encouragement, and regularly "approving" the film's execution. Red Chillies Entertainment continued to work on other projects before finalising the production aspects of "Ra.One". After providing the visual effects for "My Name Is Khan" (2010), the studio focused solely on "Ra.One" and did not take up any other films. Khan initially approached a number of directors to helm the film, including Aditya Chopra and Karan Johar, but they declined; eventually, Sinha was made the film's director. To prepare the film's premises and characterisation, Sinha spent several months viewing video clips, digital art portals and comic books. Sinha and Khan also watched around 200 superhero films from all over the world. The storyboards were designed by Atul Chouthmal, who was contracted after he met Khan at Yash Raj Studios. While the former began work on the storyboards, the producers hired a storyboard artist from Hollywood. Chouthmal revealed that Khan and the other artist differed on their visions of the film, and so he was brought back. Before filming, Khan reportedly took tips from actor Kamal Hassan regarding the production of large-scale films, having been impressed by Hassan's "Dasavathaaram" (2008). The title of the film received significant media attention due to it being the name of the antagonist rather than the protagonist. The move was considered innovative, and noted as a sign of the "rising importance of the villain in Bollywood." According to Sinha, the title had not been planned as such, and was ultimately chosen because "Ra.One" "sounded cooler" than "G.One". Khan was advised to name the film after his own character; he declined to do so, citing the inter-dependence between good and evil. He also called Alfred Hitchcock as his inspiration, and pointed out that the antagonists in films like "Sholay", "Mr. India" and "Sadak" were better remembered than the protagonists. Principal photography. The crew of "Ra.One" featured both Indian and overseas personnel. Nicola Pecorini served as the director of photography, with V. Manikandan providing assistance. Andy Gill and Spiro Razatos were hired as the stunt supervisors, and Nino Pansini was hired as the stunt cinematographer. Sabu Cyril and Marcus Wookey were responsible for the production design. The film's producer was Bobby Chawla, but Gauri Khan later stepped in after the former suffered a brain haemorrhage. Filming took place at a number of studios, notably Filmistan Studios, Film City and Yash Raj Studios in India and the Black Hangar Studios in the UK. Principal photography was initially set to begin in Miami, but the idea was abandoned due to budget constraints. The first phase of filming began in Goa on 21 March 2010 and continued until May. The second and third phases took place in London with the entire cast, beginning in July 2010 and ending in August. The next phase was split into two schedules; the first schedule commenced at Filmistan Studios in the first week of September 2010, while the second schedule began in December 2010 and took place over a seven-day period. The remaining portions were filmed in July 2011 at Film City. A cameo appearance and a music video were filmed in the weeks leading up to the release, the former at the Whistling Woods Studios in Mumbai. "Ra.One" featured three major action sequences, which were filmed in sets and real locations across Mumbai and London. The cinematography borrowed ideas from video games, such as rapid transitions between first-person and third-person perspectives. Procedures such as bullet time were also incorporated into the film. The production design was closely associated with the lighting and cinematography to facilitate smooth filming. However, filming faced a number of difficulties including increasing costs, delays and safety constraints. In addition, differences between Khan and Sinha caused tensions on the sets. Post-production. As with the filming crew, the post-production crew of the film included both Indian and overseas personnel. Prime Focus carried out the film's 3-D conversion, with London-based colorist Richard Fearon performing the color grading. Red Chillies VFX partnered with a number of visual effects studios around the world, and undertook the incorporation of the visual effects under the supervision of Jeffrey Kleiser. Nvidia provided the information technology–based software utilised for the effects, while Edwark Quirk supervised over the computer-generated imagery used in the film. Resul Pookutty was responsible for the film's sound design. The idea for converting the film to 3-D was put forth during filming, and was implemented in July 2011 due to a revived interest in 3-D films. The process required 2,600 artists to convert 4,400 shots of the film. The sound design involved bridging the real and the virtual world, and the required sound enhancements were achieved by using the Dolby Surround 7.1 system. Incorporating the visual effects began in April 2010, and was preceded by extensive research. 1,200 artists worked for 2½ years to complete the visual effects work. A number of complex procedures were executed, including cubical transformations and the design of the faceless form of Ra.One. Despite precautions, the post-production faced significant delays owing to the digital inter-mediation, increased work-load due to the 3-D and dubbed versions of the film, and delays in the completion of the visual effects. The post-production also faced budget constraints and witnessed an overuse of CGI according to the cinematographer. The delays left only two days for printing the film and sending it to theatres, generating significant anxiety over a possible delay in the release. Khan subsequently kept strict tabs on the progress of work, and postponed his knee surgery to complete the film on time. Costumes. The body suits worn by Khan and Rampal were designed by Robert Kurtzman and Tim Flattery, and made by a team of specialists based in Los Angeles. Sinha spent around three months conceptualising the costumes, watching various superhero films to design a costume not created already. He then wrote a 23-page document with his sketches and details of what he wanted, and gave it to the designers to work upon. To create the suit, Khan was required to enter a small chamber where a warm latex-like liquid was released up to his neck and allowed to solidify, forming the mould which was then peeled off his body. The suit was joined by a concealed zipper and subsequently modified. Computer-generated embellishments such as light beams and electricity were added to the suits after Khan expressed dissatisfaction with the initial rushes of the film. A total of 21 costumes were made for the film, with each suit reportedly costing . Khan's suit was made of reinforced latex, coloured steel-blue and fitted with micro-computer circuitry. Rampal's suit was made of three-inch thick solid rubber, and was red in color. Both actors were required to wear additional suits inside their body suits to prevent skin contact. Wearing the suits created a number of difficulties for the actors. It took 20 minutes to put on the suits and 40 minutes to remove them. In addition, the non-porous nature of the suits created intense heat inside, causing excessive perspiration despite the presence of special air conditioning ducts. Khan later felt that the suits' conception had been a mistake since filming occurred during the day; digital adjustments to the suits brought "all the efforts to naught." Manish Malhotra designed the look and the costume of Kareena Kapoor for the song "Chammak Challo", which received widespread media coverage. Kapoor wore a red "sari" draped in the style of a "dhoti". Since the release of the song, the costume was termed a "fashion rage," becoming popular in India and some overseas countries. Fashion experts applauded the costume and Kapoor's ability to carry it off "stunningly," though certain experts dismissed the naming of the "sari" color. Soundtrack. The soundtrack of "Ra.One" was composed by Vishal-Shekhar, with the lyrics being written by Atahar Panchi, Vishal Dadlani and Kumaar. A. R. Rahman provided the background score for a single sequence. Sinha announced that R&B singer Akon and the Prague Philharmonic Orchestra would be a part of the soundtrack; the former lent his vocals for "Chammak Challo" and "Criminal", while the latter performed in "Bhare Naina". The composers obtained the official license to use Ben E. King's "Stand By Me," on which they based the song "Dildaara." The soundtrack contains fifteen tracks, including seven original songs, four remixes, three instrumentals and an international version of "Chammak Challo". The music rights were bought by T-Series for . The Hindi version of the soundtrack was released on 12 September 2011; the Tamil and Telugu versions were released on 10 October 2011, featuring six tracks each. Release. Statistics. In India, the Hindi version of "Ra.One" was released across more than 4,000 plus screens worldwide- 3,100 screens in 2,100 theatres, breaking the record for the widest Bollywood release previously held by "Bodyguard" (2011). The Tamil and Telugu versions were released on 275 prints and 125 prints respectively. A week before the release, multiplex owners throughout India decided to allot 95% of the total available screen space to the film. Overseas, "Ra.One" was released in 904 prints. This including 600 prints in Germany, 344 prints in the USA, 200–300 prints in South Korea, 202 prints in the UK, 79 prints in the Middle East, 75 prints in Russia, 51 prints in Australia, 49 prints in Canada and 25 prints in New Zealand and Taiwan. In early October 2011, a partnership deal was being finalised by the distributors to allow the film to be released in China across 1,000 prints. In addition, the film was released in Pakistan and non-traditional territories like Brazil, Spain, Italy, Greece and Hong Kong. The 3D version was released in 550 screens across the world. "Ra.One" was noted for the extensive use of digital prints, reportedly making up 50–60% of the total release; in India, the film was exhibited in over 1,300 digital theatres, breaking the record previously held by "Bodyguard". The wide digital release was implemented to lower distribution costs, make the film accessible to a wider audience and reduce piracy. However, despite the measures taken, pirated versions of "Ra.One" were available on the Internet within hours of the film's release. Marketing. The producers of "Ra.One" spent for the film's marketing, out of which was utilised for internet promotions alone. The film's first theatrical poster was released in December 2010, and was followed by the release of two teaser trailers during the 2011 ICC Cricket World Cup. The first theatrical trailer premiered three months later. Khan and Sinha undertook a multi-city tour during which they unveiled a 3,600 feet-long piece of fan mail to collect audience messages. The official website of "Ra.One" was launched on 31 May 2011, and an official YouTube channel for the film was subsequently unveiled. On 20 October 2011, Khan held a live chat with fans on Google Plus, the first time an Indian film personality had done so. Rampal's look in the film, which had been kept secret, was revealed in late October 2011. The film's marketing utilised merchandise and games to facilitate the creation of a franchise. Khan partnered with Seventymm to market merchandise related to the film, which included toys, tablets and apparel. On 14 October 2011, a gaming tournament featuring games like "Call of Duty" was conducted in Mumbai and telecast live on YouTube. Red Chillies Entertainment partnered with Sony Computer Entertainment Europe to create "Ra.One – "The Game"," a game for PlayStations which was released on 5 October 2011. The producers further collaborated with UTV Indiagames to design a social game titled "Ra.One Genesis", with an independent plot based on G.One, in addition to designing digital comics based on the film's characters. Screenings. In May 2011, the first rushes of "Ra.One" were shown to the cast of Khan's other home production "Always Kabhi Kabhi" (2011). Subsequently, the film was screened for test audiences to study and gauge the film's appeal across different age groups. A few days prior to the theatrical release, Khan arranged a special screening of the film's final cut in Yash Raj Studios, where he invited close friends, his family and the film's crew. Between 24 and 26 October 2011, "Ra.One" had international premieres in Dubai, London and Toronto, all of which were chosen due to their international significance and large South Asian populations. The premiere in Dubai was held on 24 October 2011 at the Grand Cinemas, Wafi. A high-profile dinner and charity auction followed, where Khan raised AED30,000 (approximately US$8,200) to build a workshop for children with special needs. The premiere included three simultaneous screenings of the film, for which tickets were placed on sale for the public. The premiere in London took place at the O2 Cineworld the following day, and the premiere in Toronto took place at the TIFF Bell Lightbox on 26 October 2011. "Ra.One" was submitted to the Central Board of Film Certification on 14 October 2011 to receive its viewership rating. The Board raised strong objections to the film's action scenes, fearing that they would influence young children to emulate the stunts. The police and the Indian Railways security force had made similar objections to the train-based stunts in the film, claiming that youngsters would "blindly imitate them" and hence put their lives at risk. The film was finally passed with a 'U' certificate without cuts, but under the condition that prominent disclaimers were shown, stating that the stunts were computer-generated and should not be imitated. The British Board of Film Classification rated the film 12A for "moderate fantasy violence". In March 2012, a "Mid-Day" report alleged that "Ra.One" had received a favourable rating, pointing out that the producers had violated the rules by meeting the Board officials during the screening. Controversies. The film faced allegations of plagiarism with similarities to ' (1991), the "Batman" series, "Iron Man" (2008), "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" (2010) and ' (2010). Khan denied the allegations, saying, "I got inspired from a lot of superhero movies but the movie is original. In fact, "Ra.One" will be the first superhero-based movie in the world in which the superhero lives in a family." "Ra.One" also faced technical controversies. On 3 June 2011, three days after its launch, the official website of the film was hacked by suspected Pakistani cyber criminals who stated that the act was in revenge for a similar attack on a Karachi press club website. The hackers defaced the homepage and left a note threatening the Indian Press Club. Despite precautions, the song "Chammak Challo" was leaked several months before the official release of the soundtrack. Khan clarified that the leaked song was a "rough version" of the actual song, and that the person responsible for the leak was being looked for. He subsequently refuted claims that the leak had been engineered as a publicity stunt. A few days before the release, screenwriter Yash Patnaik claimed that "Ra.One" resembled a concept that he had developed several years before. Patnaik appealed to the Bombay High Court to delay the film's release, until he was given due credit or 10% of the film's overall profit. The court, observing "prima facie" evidence that there had been copyright violations, asked the filmmakers to deposit with the court on 21 October 2011 before releasing the film. However, Patnaik challenged the court's decision and demanded that the producers give him credit and not cash. Sinha later claimed that he alone had developed the film's story. Television and home media. The television broadcasting rights for "Ra.One" were bought by Star India for a then-record sum of , surpassing "3 Idiots" (2009). The Indian television premiere of "Ra.One" took place on 21 January 2012 on STAR Gold, garnering a 28% market sharefor the channel and a TVR of 6.7. Star India subsequently syndicated the television screening rights to Disney XD, where it premiered on 2 June 2012. In May 2012, International Media Distribution announced that "Ra.One" would be televised on Comcast and Cox, as a part of the celebrations of the Asian Pacific American Heritage Month. Discovery Channel tied up with Red Chillies Entertainment to produce a one-hour program titled ""Revealed: The Making of Ra.One"," which aired on the channel on 30 March 2012. The program discussed the making of the film in detail, including the visual effects and the challenges faced while filming.
586183	Romeoo is a 2007 Malayalam romantic comedy film written by Rafi Mecartin and directed by Rajasenan, starring Dileep, Vimala Raman, Sruthi Lakshmi and Samvrutha Sunil in the lead roles. The film received mostly negative reviews upon release but managed to become an above average grosser at the box office. Plot. Manu Krishnan (Dileep) is a male nurse in a reputed hospital. He is the Son of Ratheesh Kumar, a film junior artist. He has a special relationship with Dr. Priya (Vimala Raman), but is also in love with Leena (Samvrutha Sunil), the star contestant in the popular music reality show. Manu later in search of a job goes to an Agraharam to take care of a mentally ill patient and a girl from the Agraharam, Bhama (Sruthi Lakshmi) falls in love with him. Now the three girls want to marry Manu but none of their parents want to have Manu as son-in-law. The rest of the movie is about the trouble Manu has to take when the three meet and whom does he marry. He ends up with Dr. Priya.
1048687	Natura contro (), also known in English as The Green Inferno and Cannibal Holocaust II, is a 1988 Italian cannibal film directed by mondo director Antonio Climati. Climati had no intention of making a sequel to "Cannibal Holocaust", and the title was used by distributors of the film to on the success and notoriety of the earlier film. Until recently, the film was relatively obscure. It is best known among cult fans as the film that ended the cannibal genre, which, by then, had virtually fallen extinct. In 2002, British distributor VIPCO released "Natura Contro" on VHS and DVD as "Cannibal Holocaust II", the film's most common release. This was the last film directed by Climati, who had gained notoriety as a major player in the mondo documentary film genre. Although fictional, this film deals with many common of mondo films, including customs and locales, and cruel violence. Strangely, however, the film appears to show compassion towards animals, while a main of mondo films is often real violence towards animals. Plot. The film centers around a group of four friends, Jemma Demien (Deseligny), Mark (Merlo), Fred (Merlo), and Pete (Federci), who head into the Amazon jungle to find a lost professor (Ricci), believed to be dead until Jemma recovered his lighter. She rounds up the three men to head into the jungle and to find the legendary Imas tribe, who possess an equally legendary treasure and with whom the professor is believed to be found. After Jemma happens upon the lighter, she immediately telephones Pete, who agrees with her plan and hires Fred and Mark to successfully steal a seaplane, in which the three men fly down to the River Amazon to meet Jemma. United, they then head to a town, Fort Angel, to hire a guide named Juan Garcia (Borgese). When Garcia refuses to help, they decide to head out by themselves, but first, they need more gasoline. They find a man named Don Pedro, who runs a business that transports monkeys from the wild to zoological gardens. After Pete a monkey for him, Don Pedro agrees to give them gasoline if they catch monkeys for him. The group heads into the jungle by canoe (with guides supplied by Don Pedro), where Pete uses a trumpet to greet on the river. Before they reach their destination and set camp, a small electric ray swims up a guide's anus. At the campsite, the group suffer an attack by bats, before moving on to hunt monkeys. A guide instructs the group how to use a blowpipe, and the hunt begins. They bag several monkeys with darts, and even more with nets. The local natives, however, who eat the monkeys as food, become , and capture the hunters. Jemma is forced to act like a monkey, Mark is covered in and bitten by red ants, and Pete is hung tightly to a tree, until he negotiates their release by giving the natives a tape recorder (a reference to the original "Cannibal Holocaust"). Now free, they return to give the monkeys to Don Pedro and continue on their way. Jemma tells her friends of a contact she knows in a local tribe who can find the Imas tribe. When they arrive at the tribe's village, however, they find that the contact and most of the men of the tribe have been slaughtered by gold prospectors, who are also looking for the Imas and their treasure. Our four heroes decide that they must stop these gold hunters (Alessandri) before they reach the Imas. A young tribal girl, Kuwala (Quintero), also knows where to find the Imas, and agrees to take them there if they help rescue her sister, who was kidnapped by the prospectors. While at the village, they rescue a leopard from a tiger trap. When they set out again, the group meets a river snake fisherman (Maunsell). He gives them shelter for the night if they help him catch anacondas. Jemma must also fight off unwanted from the fisherman. The next morning, they fly off and finally locate the gold prospectors' camp. They sneak in and overpower the men in one cabin to rescue Kuwala's sister (D'Arc), but are captured shortly afterwards. All five are taken to the camp's leader, who turns out to be Juan Garcia. Garcia threatens to have the men's penises bitten off by a snake if Kuwala doesn't tell him where the Imas are located. Kuwala agrees, and tells him that the Imas are on an "island in the shape of a ring, where three rivers meet. It's called 'The Island of the Imas.'" At that moment, the other four fight back against their captors and escape with Kuwala and her sister. They steal a barrel of gasoline and two canoes, tie the canoes to the plane, and the plane drags the excess of people down river. While setting up their next camp site, Kuwala's sister is taken by the river current and begins to drown. Mark flies the plane down the river, while Fred barefoot skis behind it to save her, only for Fred and the others to be caught by child smugglers (Corazzari), except for Mark, who escapes in the aircraft. The smugglers the children they kidnap from local tribes and ship them to various buyers, who want to harvest their organs. Mark returns to set fire to some bushes outside the smugglers' hideout, smoking them out. The others rescue the children and escape back into the jungle. During the escape, however, Jemma is bitten by a venomous snake. Kuwala guides them to another local tribe, where they use their tribal medicine to restore Jemma to health. After partaking in a tribal ritual, they get back on their way. Finally, the group locates the Island of the Imas, only to find that the gold prospectors have beaten them there. Fred, Mark, and Pete head onto the island, while the others stay behind. There they find several mutilated bodies, tortured to death by the prospectors, two of whom they find and overcome, taking their weapons. They then become in a battle between the tribe and the intruders, in which the hunters are finally outnumbered and slaughtered. In the aftermath, they find Professor Korenz, who has been into the tribe. Jemma and the others make their way to the reunion, where Professor Korenz reveals that the tribe is not the Imas, nor do they even exist. Jemma, however, after taking several photographs of the tribe, tells the professor that they should leave and claim that they have, in fact, discovered the Imas tribe, for and funding when they return home. They betray Pete, Mark, and Fred, by stealing the aircraft and flying back without them, so there would be no one to refute their "discovery" of the Imas.
1055006	Harris Yulin (born November 5, 1937) is an American actor who has appeared in over a hundred film and television series roles. Life and career. Yulin was born in . He was married to actress Gwen Welles until her death in 1993. His first prominent film role was in the Brian De Palma film "Scarface" (1983) as Mel Bernstein. In 1989, he played the role of loud and obnoxious Judge Stephen Wexler in "Ghostbusters II". He appeared in "", in the episode "Duet". During the second season of "24", he played the Director of the National Security Agency, Roger Stanton. He was nominated for a 1996 Emmy for his portrayal of crime boss, Jerome Belasco, in the television series, "Frasier". In the series "Buffy the Vampire Slayer", he played Quentin Travers, head of the Watchers' Council. Yulin also appeared in Season 3 of "Entourage", in the episode "Return of the King", as studio head Arthur Gadoff. In 2009, he performed in "The People Speak", a documentary feature film that uses dramatic and musical performances of the letters, diaries, and speeches of everyday Americans, based on historian Howard Zinn's "A People's History of the United States".
584419	Aanai (English: Order) is a 2005 Tamil language film written and directed by Selva. It stars 'Action King' Arjun, Namitha and Keerthi Chawla in the lead, while Vadivelu, Sanghavi and Manoj K. Jayan play pivotal roles. D. Imman composed the soundtrack, while Shiva was the cinematographer for the venture which released in December 2005. The film is a remake of the Hollywood film Man on Fire starring Denzel Washington and Dakota Fanning. The film's Hindi remake titled Ek Ajnabee starring Amitabh Bachchan in the lead released a week later. Production. Selva (director), who had directed Arjun in "Karna" (1995) and the long delayed "Manikanda" (2006) was signed by Vasan Visual Ventures to work with him again. The actor signed on for a hiked price of one crore rupees, following the success of his previous film "Giri". The unit had a 15-day shooting stint in Hyderabad in February 2005, with two of the lead actresses Namitha and Sanghavi involved in the shoot. The film featured a new editing technique tried by Satish and Harsha, while the team shot three songs with Arjun and Namitha in London, notably near the London Eye and Windsor Castle. Another song was shot with Arjun and Namitha at the Mohan Studio in Chennai, with the actor notably wearing four inch heels to make up for height difference with the actress. During the making of the film, allegations arose that Arjun had been sending lewd messages to Namitha, which led to a brief furore on sets. Release. The film had a brief delay in getting released due to the failure of the actor's previous film, "Chinna", though the film finally released across Tamil Nadu in early December 2005. A critic from Sify.com noted "what could have been an edge-of-the-seat thriller ends up as a badly made mass-masala movie", concluding that the film is "disappointing". Soundtrack. The soundtrack album was composed by D. Imman. Tracklist
1042468	Terence Longdon (14 May 1922 – 23 April 2011) was an English actor. Longdon, born in Newark-on-Trent, Nottinghamshire was best known for his lead role in the 1950s-1960s British TV series "Garry Halliday" where he played a Biggles-like pilot who flew into various adventure situations. In film he was Drusus, Messala's personal aide in the film "Ben-Hur". He was also known for his character actor roles in British television productions such as "The Sandbaggers", "Danger Man", and "The Avengers". He was also in some of the early "Carry On" films. He also had a role in the 1958 film "Another Time, Another Place" starring alongside Sean Connery and Lana Turner. Terence Longdon lived on the border of Gloucestershire and Warwickshire. He died on 23 April 2011.
1350224	Nikita Sergeyevich Mikhalkov (; born October 21, 1945) is a Soviet and Russian filmmaker, actor, and head of the Russian Cinematographers' Union. Mikhalkov was born in Moscow into the distinguished, artistic Mikhalkov family. His great grandfather was the imperial governor of Yaroslavl, whose mother was a Galitzine princess. Nikita's father, Sergei Mikhalkov, was best known as writer of children's literature, although he also wrote lyrics to his country's national anthem on three different occasions spanning nearly 60 years—two different sets of lyrics used for the Soviet national anthem, and the current lyrics of the Russian national anthem. Mikhalkov's mother, poet Natalia Konchalovskaya, was the daughter of the avant-garde artist Pyotr Konchalovsky and granddaughter of another outstanding painter, Vasily Surikov. Nikita's older brother is the filmmaker Andrei Konchalovsky, primarily known for his collaboration with Andrei Tarkovsky and his own Hollywood action films, such as "Runaway Train" and "Tango & Cash". Career. Early acting career. Mikhalkov studied acting at the children's studio of the Moscow Art Theatre and later at the Shchukin School of the Vakhtangov Theatre. While still a student, he appeared in Georgi Daneliya's film "I Step Through Moscow" (1964) and his brother Andrei Konchalovsky's film "Home of the Gentry" (1969). He was soon on his way to becoming a star of the Soviet stage and cinema. Begins directing. While continuing to pursue his acting career, he entered VGIK, the state film school in Moscow, where he studied directing under filmmaker Mikhail Romm, teacher to his brother and Andrei Tarkovsky. He directed his first short film in 1968, "I'm Coming Home," and another for his graduation, "A Quiet Day at the End of the War" in 1970. Mikhalkov had appeared in over twenty films, including his brother's "Uncle Vanya" (1972), before he co-wrote, directed and starred in his first feature, "At Home Among Strangers" in 1974, an Ostern set just after the 1920s civil war in Russia. Gains international reputation. Mikhalkov established an international reputation with his second feature, "A Slave of Love" (1976). Set in 1917, it followed the efforts of a film crew to make a silent melodrama in a resort town while the Revolution rages around them. The film, based upon the last days of Vera Kholodnaya, was highly acclaimed upon its release in the U.S. Mikhalkov's next film, "An Unfinished Piece for Player Piano" (1977) was adapted by Mikhalkov from Chekhov's early play, "Platonov," and won the first prize at the San Sebastian Film Festival. In 1978, while starring in his brother's epic film "Siberiade", Mikhalkov made "Five Evenings," a love story about a couple separated by World War II, who meet again after eighteen years. Mikhalkov's next film, "Oblomov" (1980), with Oleg Tabakov in the title role, is based on Ivan Goncharov's classic novel about a lazy young nobleman who refuses to leave his bed. "Family Relations" (1981) is a comedy about a provincial woman in Moscow dealing with the tangled relationships of her relatives. "Without Witnesses" (1983) tracks a long night's conversation between a woman (Irina Kupchenko) and her ex-husband (Mikhail Ulyanov) when they are accidentally locked in a room. The film won the Prix FIPRESCI at the 13th Moscow International Film Festival. In the early 1980s, Mikhalkov resumed his acting career, appearing in Eldar Ryazanov's immensely popular "Station for Two" (1982) and "A Cruel Romance" (1984). At that period, he also played Henry Baskerville in the Soviet screen version of "The Hound of the Baskervilles". He also starred in many of his own films, including "At Home Among Strangers," "A Slave of Love," and "An Unfinished Piece for Player Piano". International success. Incorporating several short stories by Chekhov, "Dark Eyes" (1987) stars Marcello Mastroianni as an old man who tells a story of a romance he had when he was younger, a woman he has never been able to forget. The film was highly praised, and Mastroianni received the Best Actor Prize at the 1987 Cannes Film Festival and an Academy Award nomination for his performance.
1105189	Felix E. Browder (; born July 31, 1927) is a United States mathematician. Felix Browder was born in Moscow. He was a child prodigy who entered MIT in 1944 and graduated in 1946 with his first degree in Mathematics. At MIT he achieved the rank of a Putnam Fellow in the William Lowell Putnam Mathematical Competition. In 1948 (at age 20), he received his doctorate from Princeton University. He is known for his research in nonlinear functional analysis, including the theory of semigroups, monotone operators, and fixed points of Cesàro sums of non-expansive operators. He is a professor of mathematics at Rutgers University. Browder was the recipient of the 1999 National Medal of Science. He also served as president of the American Mathematical Society from 1999 to 2000. Felix Browder is the father of Bill Browder, CEO of Hermitage Capital Management, and is the brother of two other research mathematicians, William Browder (an algebraic topologist) and Andrew Browder (a specialist in function algebras). Their father, Earl Browder, was the leader of the Communist Party USA until his expulsion after World War II.
1016238	So Close is a 2002 Hong Kong action film directed by Corey Yuen, starring Shu Qi, Zhao Wei and Karen Mok. The film's English title is derived from The Carpenters' song "Close to You", which has a prominent role in the film. Plot. Lynn and her sister Sue are computer hackers, assassins and espionage specialists who use their late father's secret satellite technology to gain an advantage over their rivals and law enforcement agents. At the beginning of the film, they infiltrate a high security building and assassinate Chow Lui, the chairman of a top company in Hong Kong. After their successful mission, a police inspector named Kong Yat-hung is assigned to investigate the case and she manages to track down the assassins. In the meantime, Chow Lui's younger brother Chow Nung, who hired Lynn and Sue to kill his brother so that he can become the chairman, wants to kill the assassins to silence them. The cat-and-mouse chase becomes more complicated as both the police and the thugs are out to get Lynn and Sue. Sue has always been playing the role of the assistant by staying on the computer and helping to disable the security systems and giving instructions on navigating the area, while Lynn, who is older and more experienced, does all the field work. Sue is jealous and thinks that Lynn refuses to let her participate more actively because she is less adept, but actually Lynn is trying to protect her sister from danger. Their relationship becomes strained when Lynn falls in love with her friend's cousin Yen and wants to give up her job and marry Yen. Sue intends to continue her career as a contract killer so that she can prove that she is as good as her sister. Kong Yat-hung tracks down Sue in a bakery, where Sue is buying a birthday cake, and this leads to a frantic car chase. When Sue realises that she is being cornered by the police, she calls Lynn at home and asks her sister for help. At the same time, Chow Nung's assassins break into the house and kill Lynn and frame Kong Yat-hung for the murder. Sue escapes from the police and finds out the true identities of her sister's killers from the CCTVs in the house. She goes to see Kong Yat-hung and offers to help her clear her name, but Kong must assist her in avenging her sister. Left with no choice, Kong Yat-hung agrees to team up with Sue to hunt down and kill Chow Nung and his henchmen. Reception. "So Close" holds an average rating of 6.7/10 based on 37 reviews on Rotten Tomatoes and an average score of 66/100 based on 18 reviews on Metacritic.
1069183	Buddha Mountain is a 2010 drama film directed by Li Yu and starring Fan Bingbing, Sylvia Chang, Bolin Chen, Fei Long. It was produced by Laurel Films, a small independent production company owned by Fang Li and based in Beijing. Laurel Films also produced Li Yu's previous film "Lost in Beijing". This film chronicles the lives of three youths who have no intention of sitting exams and getting into universities and a retired Chinese opera singer who is mourning the death of her son. The film explores themes of teenage confusion, angst, and rebellion and the impermanence of life. Plot. When singing on a pub stage, Nan Feng (Fan Bingbing) knocks a man unconscious. Nan Feng, her boyfriend Ding Bo (Chen Bolin), and another friend eat and drink by the roadside, saying it's so good to hit that man. Then they cross the railway and back home. The next day, Ding Bo, waiting on the motorcycle and doing some bossiness by transporting passengers. Because he has no license, when the city officers come, he immediately leaves. When Ding Bo back home, he finds his father (Fang Li) is tiding his mother's picture on the wall. Ding Bo doesn't want his father to touch, so he denies. Fatso is rubbed by some mobsters when he is walking on the road. He refuses the mobsters’ order to buy some beers for them. In the night, Nan Feng and Fasto go to the mobsters’ place to make revenge. Nan Feng breaks a beer bottle on her head and everyone is shocked. Then Nan Feng kisses a girl. One young mobster asks Fatso to let Nan Feng go away. One day, Nan Feng, Ding Bo and Fatso go to find room for rent. They knock at the door, Chang Yueqin (Sylvia Chang) opens the door to let them in. After bargain, they make the deal and then cross the railway back home. Then we see Teacher Chang wearing performance cloth practices Peking Opera. We know she is a Peking opera Teacher. A cop knocks in to let Teacher Chang to make her son’s death certificate. Teacher Chang is too reluctant, and then the cop takes the materials away to help Teacher Chang to take the procedure. Nan Feng is taking a shower when the cell phone rings, she answers the phone. In her words, we know that this phone call is made by her mother, and Nan Feng wants her mother and father make a divorce because of her father's drinking all the time. Nan Feng, Ding Bo and Fatso rent a man-cab to take their things to new place. When they leave, Nan Feng holds a big bear toy with a sad mood. In new house, they are forced to wake up in the morning by the sound Teacher Chang practicing opera. Nan Feng misuses the newspaper as the toilet paper and eats Teacher Chang’s soup by mistake. Then we see Teacher Chang opens a garage, a crash-damaged car is in it. Nan Feng, Ding Bo and Fatso attend the remarriage ceremony of Ding Bo’s father. During the ceremony, Ding Bo wants to drink together with the bride, but his father refuses that. Then Ding Bo and his father have a fight. At last, Nan Feng and her friends leave. In the morning, Fatso changes the disk in the DVD player so Teacher Chang can’t practice opera with the music. In the pub, the boss talks to Nan Feng that the man she hit is in the hospital and wants 20000 RMB as compensation. Nan Feng asks her boss, are you still a friend? Then she leaves. On the launch table in a restaurant, Ding Bo tells Nan Feng he has sold the motorcycle for 3000 RMB, and gives the money to Nan Feng. They joke to sell blood and fresh to earn money. Back home, Ding Bo finds his jeans are destroyed, so he searches the house but unconsciously find 20000 RMB in a suitcase above a closet, then he steals the money and gives it to Nan Feng. Nan Feng back to the pub with Ding Bo and Fatso, gives the money to the boss. On their way home, they buy some fake bills. When they back, they put them in the suitcase in order to blind Teacher Chang. Then they down stairs the house, finding Teacher Chang is leaving from the garbage. They wander what’s in it. Because the door unlocked, they get in and find the destroyed car. The car can still work, so they drive to the road, listening to Xu Wei’s song in the car, singing “when we are child, we want to go outside to look the world’s prosperity, but now we are floating everywhere and have no home”. Nan Feng sees a cliff when they refuel the car, so they take a visit. When they up the cliff, they find a destroyed Buddha temple with destroyed sculptures in it. Teacher Chang is very angry when they come back. Then we see Nan Feng, Ding Bo and Fatso sitting on the railway, with confused eyes. Nan Feng, Ding Bo, Fatso and Teacher Chang are eating the supper when someone knocks the door. They open the door and come in a disabled girl. Teacher Chang is shocked when she see the girl, then Nan Feng and his friends know there’s something between them, so they leave. The girl says to Teacher Chang: I have to come to see him. Chang says: are you here to celebrity his birthday? Or remind me that he is dead? Chang opens the cake box, finding a cake in it with cream-decoration words “you are in heaven, also in my heart”. Chang says: this is too romantic, my son died because you want romantic, can you leave me and my son alone? Then the girl leaves. In the night, Chang sitting in the car cries a lot. At the meantime, Nan Feng and his friends are watching fireworks at the top of a building. When they home, they find Chang suicide herself by cutting wrist and take her to hospital immediately. Finally, Teacher Chang is rescued. Nan Feng and her friends again get in the train secretly, they laughing, shouting, and crying on the train. They are waiting for a train home at Buddha mountain railway station. When they back home, they put 2800 RMB in the suitcase. The repaired car driven by Ding Bo stopped in front of them when they are eating by the road. Then they get in the car and stopped at a destroyed building. By the flashback scenes, we know this building was destroyed by the 2008 Sichuan earthquake. They took a picture helped by a monk in front of the destroyed Buddha temple. In the pub, Nan Feng sees Ding Bo kissing a girl, and then she goes out. Ding Bo follows, but Nan Feng doesn’t want to see him. Back home, Nan Feng lying in the bed cries. Teacher Chang asks her if she misses parents, Nan Feng says no. The next day, Nan Feng back to her home by the train. Ding Bo receives a short message when he is sleeping. The message is: I’ve left and never come back again, sent by Nan Feng. In the morning, Ding Bo talks to Teacher Chang, says he is jealous of her.
1187697	Porscha Lee Coleman (born July 12, 1985) is an American actress, singer, dancer, and TV host, who is best known for her guest starring television role as Erica Willis on the UPN series "The Parkers," Rachel in the Disney Channel Original Movie "Pixel Perfect", and on MTV's improvisation show "Wild 'n Out". She attended Millikan Middle School Performing Arts Magnet in Sherman Oaks, California, and Hollywood High School Performing Arts Magnet in Hollywood, California. Coleman is also a correspondent, appearing on Black Entertainment Television, hosting on "106 & Park", "Spring Bling," and . She is a recurring guest co-host on "Maury (TV series)". She currently lives in the California area. Music. In 2001, she appeared on the "Great Pretenders", a television music game show on Fox Family, hosted by former pop trio Wild Orchid. Contestants lip sync and dance to their favorite songs and are judged by a live studio audience, for the chance to win various prizes. Coleman won singing Jennifer Lopez's, Waiting for Tonight. In 2007, she appeared on "Jimmy Kimmel Live!", singing with Tyga. In 2008, Coleman appeared as a singer on "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno" performing with Gym Class Heroes. Her single "Take It," features Academy Award-winning rap group, Three 6 Mafia. The music video debuted as New Joint of the Day on Black Entertainment Television's, "106 & Park". Films. In 2004, she appeared as Rachel in the Disney Channel Original Movie, "Pixel Perfect," and in "Woman Thou Art Loosed" with Kimberly Elise and veteran actress, Loretta Devine. In 2009, Coleman appeared in "Janky Promoters" starring Ice Cube and Mike Epps. Television. She has made guest and recurring appearances on TV shows including "The Parkers", "7th Heaven", "My Wife and Kids", and "Boston Public". Coleman appeared in a comedy sketch alongside, Andy Dick which aired during the 2004 "Teen Choice Awards".
586585	Allah Ke Banday () is a 2010 Bollywood crime drama film produced by Ravi Walia and directed by Faruk Kabir. Plot. Allah Ke Banday tells the tale of two 12 year old boys (Vijay and Yakub) who grow up in the slums of India. Wanting to make a name for themselves in the mafia world, they start delivering drugs. Their friend(Zakir Hussain) dresses as a transgender, in an act where they loot people. Things go wrong when they are sent to a juvenile reformatory after being wrongly convicted for a murder. They learn life is much tougher in the reformatory than the world they came from. They are tortured by the warden and senior inmates. But instead of reforming they develop a more sinister plan in their quest for ultimate power. Unexpected events force the two men to decide between redemption and their quest for power. Will they find redemption, if so, at what price?
1100061	Akshay Venkatesh (born 21 November 1981) is an Indian Australian mathematician. His research interests are in the fields of counting, equidistribution problems in automorphic forms and number theory, in particular representation theory, locally symmetric spaces and ergodic theory. He is the only Australian to have won medals at both the International Physics Olympiad and International Mathematics Olympiad, which he did at the age of 12. Early years. Raised in Perth, Western Australia, where he attended Scotch College, Venkatesh attended extracurricular training classes for gifted students in the state mathematical olympiad program. In 1993, whilst aged only 11, he competed at the 24th International Physics Olympiad in Williamsburg, Virginia, winning a bronze medal. The following year in 1994, he switched his attention to mathematics, and after placing second in the Australian Mathematical Olympiad, he won a silver medal in the 6th Asian Pacific Mathematics Olympiad, before winning a bronze medal in the International Mathematics Olympiad held in Hong Kong that year. He completed his secondary education that year, turning 13 at the end of the year. He entered the University of Western Australia the following year as the youngest ever student at the institution and was awarded First Class Honours in Pure mathematics in 1997, the youngest ever to achieve this feat, as well as being awarded the J. A. Woods Memorial Prize for being the leading graduating student of the year. Research career. Venkatesh commenced his PhD at Princeton University in 1998 under Peter Sarnak, which he completed in 2002, producing the thesis "Limiting forms of the trace formula". He was supported by the Hackett Fellowship for postgraduate study. He was then awarded a postdoctoral position at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he served as a C.L.E. Moore instructor, until his selection as a Clay Research Fellow in 2004. He was awarded the Salem Prize and the Packard Fellowship in 2007. His research interests are the enumeration of arithmetic objects using upper bounds for the number of rational points on algebraic varieties, and also the analytic theory of automorphic forms, with an interest in quantum chaos and geodesic flows, L-functions, and applications to spectral theory and equidistribution. He also won the 2008 SASTRA Ramanujan Prize. The $10,000 prize was given at the International Conference on Number Theory and Modular Forms, held at SASTRA University, Kumbakonam, Ramanujan’s hometown. Venkatesh has made far-reaching contributions to a wide variety of areas in mathematics, including number theory, automorphic forms, representation theory, locally symmetric spaces and ergodic theory, by himself, and in collaboration with several mathematicians. Venkatesh provides a very novel and more direct way of establishing sub-convexity in numerous cases, going beyond the foundational work of Hardy-Littlewood-Weyl, Burgess, and Duke-Friedlander-Iwaniec that dealt with important special cases. Venkatesh held a Clay Research Fellowship from the Clay Mathematics Institute from 2004 to 2006, and was an associate professor at the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences at New York University. Since September 1, 2008, he has been a professor at Stanford University.
395992	Choi Ji-woo (born Choi Mi-hyang on June 11, 1975) is a South Korean actress. She is most famous for starring in the television melodramas "Winter Sonata", "Beautiful Days" and "Stairway to Heaven". Career. Choi Mi-hyang was first discovered when she won a talent audition organized by MBC in 1994, then made her acting debut in an "MBC Best Theater" episode in 1995. Afterwards, she adopted the stage name "Choi Ji-woo."
1030749	United 300 is an American short film that parodies "United 93" (2006) and "300" (2007). It won the MTV Movie Spoof Award at the MTV Movie Awards 2007. The short was created by Andy Signore along with some of his friends. During his speech, he said, roughly, "The film was not making fun of a tragedy; it was a tribute to those who stood up against tyranny". Synopsis. The film is about the 300 Spartans defending the passengers against German terrorists. The Spartans defend the entryway to the cockpit of the plane in a parallel to how the Spartans in "300" defended the narrow pass of Thermopylae.
582527	Sahil Khan is an Indian actor, who appears in Bollywood films. He made his debut in N. Chandra's comedy film, "Style" (2001), and later went on to appear in its sequel, "Xcuse Me" (2003), and also in "Aladin" (2009). Early life. Born in Kolkata, Sahil Khan was brought up in Delhi. Sahil comes from a prominent business family in Kolkata. His father is a Pathan and his mother is of Chinese origin. Career. Sahil Khan arrived in Mumbai with a dream to represent India as a professional body builder and started training hard for this. He started his career with musical video of Stereo Nation "Nachange Saari Raat". Later, through the music video "Oh Laila" by Sanjay F. Gupta, he was spotted by director N. Chandra who cast him in his next feature film. He made his film debut as a lead along with Sharman Joshi in N. Chandra's 2001 comedy film "Style", which was a hit. He followed it up with "Shortcut", and later sequel to "Style", "Xcuse Me" (2003). 2005 saw his film with bold theme, "Double Cross", opposite Negar Khan. In 2009, he appeared alongside Amitabh Bachchan, in "Aladin", despite having Sanjay Dutt as well in the cast, the film flopped. In 2010, he starred in "", alongside Tanushree Dutta and wrestler The Great Khali. Personal life. He was married to actress-model Negar Khan, and divorced in 2005. Presently he stays in Lokhandwala suburb of Mumbai. Apart from acting, he owns a lounge in a suburb in Mumbai. In 2009, he formed a film production company with Ayesha Shroff, wife of actor Jackie Shroff.
83730	The Damned United is a 2009 British sports drama film directed by Tom Hooper and adapted by Peter Morgan from David Peace's bestselling novel "The Damned Utd", a largely fictional book based on the author's interpretation of Brian Clough's ill-fated tenure as football manager of Leeds United in 1974. It was produced by BBC Films and Left Bank Pictures, with additional funding from Screen Yorkshire and Columbia Pictures. Sony Pictures Entertainment distributed the film. The film was originally proposed by Stephen Frears, but he pulled out of the project in November 2007. Hooper took his place and film was shot from May to July 2008. The film marks the fifth collaboration between screenwriter Peter Morgan and actor Michael Sheen. The film was released in the United Kingdom on 27 March 2009, and in North America on 25 September. Plot. After failing to qualify for the 1974 World Cup, England manager Alf Ramsey is replaced by Don Revie (Colm Meaney), the highly successful manager of Leeds United. Revie's replacement is Brian Clough (Michael Sheen), the former manager of Derby County and a fierce critic of Leeds, because of their violent and physical style of play under Revie's management. Furthermore, Clough's longtime assistant, Peter Taylor (Timothy Spall), has not joined him.
1102360	Jacques Salomon Hadamard ForMemRS (; 8 December 1865 – 17 October 1963) was a French mathematician who made major contributions in number theory, complex function theory, differential geometry and partial differential equations. Biography. The son of a teacher, Amédée Hadamard, of Jewish descent, and Claire Marie Jeanne Picard, Hadamard was born in Versailles, France and attended the Lycée Charlemagne and Lycée Louis-le-Grand, where his father taught. In 1884 Hadamard entered the École Normale Supérieure, having been placed first in the entrance examinations both there and at the École Polytechnique. His teachers included Tannery, Hermite, Darboux, Appell, Goursat and Picard. He obtained his doctorate in 1892 and in the same year was awarded the "Grand Prix des Sciences Mathématiques" for his essay on the Riemann zeta function. In 1892 Hadamard married Louise-Anna Trénel, also of Jewish descent, with whom he had three sons and two daughters. The following year he took up a lectureship in the University of Bordeaux, where he proved his celebrated inequality on determinants, which led to the discovery of Hadamard matrices when equality holds. In 1896 he made two important contributions: he proved the prime number theorem, using complex function theory (also proved independently by Charles Jean de la Vallée-Poussin); and he was awarded the Bordin Prize of the French Academy of Sciences for his work on geodesics in the differential geometry of surfaces and dynamical systems. In the same year he was appointed Professor of Astronomy and Rational Mechanics in Bordeaux. His foundational work on geometry and symbolic dynamics continued in 1898 with the study of geodesics on surfaces of negative curvature. For his cumulative work, he was awarded the Prix Poncelet in 1898. After the Dreyfus affair, which involved him personally because his wife was related to Dreyfus, Hadamard became politically active and a staunch supporter of Jewish causes though he professed to be an atheist in his religion. In 1897 he moved back to Paris, holding positions in the Sorbonne and the Collège de France, where he was appointed Professor of Mechanics in 1909. In addition to this post, he was appointed to chairs of analysis at the École Polytechnique in 1912 and at the École Centrale in 1920, succeeding Jordan and Appell. In Paris Hadamard concentrated his interests on the problems of mathematical physics, in particular partial differential equations, the calculus of variations and the foundations of functional analysis. He introduced the idea of "well-posed problem" and the "method of descent" in the theory of partial differential equations, culminating in his seminal book on the subject, based on lectures given at Yale University in 1922. Later in his life he wrote on probability theory and mathematical education. Hadamard was elected to the French Academy of Sciences in 1916, in succession to Poincaré, whose complete works he helped edit. He was elected a foreign member of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR in 1929. He visited the Soviet Union in 1930 and 1934 and China in 1936 at the invitation of Soviet and Chinese mathematicians. Hadamard stayed in France at the beginning of the Second World War and escaped to southern France in 1940. The Vichy government permitted him to leave for the United States in 1941 and he obtained a visiting position at Columbia University in New York. He moved to London in 1944 and returned to France when the war ended in 1945. He was awarded the CNRS Gold medal for his lifetime achievements in 1956. He died in Paris in 1963, aged ninety-seven. Hadamard's students included Maurice Fréchet, Paul Lévy, Szolem Mandelbrojt and André Weil. On creativity. In his book "Psychology of Invention in the Mathematical Field", Hadamard uses introspection to describe mathematical thought processes. In sharp contrast to authors who identify language and cognition, he describes his own mathematical thinking as largely wordless, often accompanied by mental images that represent the entire solution to a problem. He surveyed 100 of the leading physicists of the day (approximately 1900), asking them how they did their work. Hadamard described the experiences of the mathematicians/theoretical physicists Carl Friedrich Gauss, Hermann von Helmholtz, Henri Poincaré and others as viewing entire solutions with "sudden spontaneousness". Hadamard described the process as having four steps of the five-step Graham Wallas creative process model, with the first three also having been put forth by Helmholtz: Preparation, Incubation, Illumination, and Verification.
1688784	James “Jim” Rash (born July 15, 1970) is an American actor, comedian, producer, and Academy Award-winning screenwriter. He is best known for playing Dean Pelton on the NBC sitcom "Community. Early life. Rash was born in Charlotte, North Carolina. He attended Charlotte Latin School in Charlotte, and after graduating there spent a post-graduate year at the Lawrenceville School, located in Lawrenceville, New Jersey. He later attended University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he was a member of Pi Kappa Alpha. Career. Rash played Mr. Grayson/Stitches, a sidekick to the supervillain 'Royal Pain' in the 2005 film "Sky High" and as the recurring character Fenton on "That '70s Show", and "Andrew the Whore House Guy" on "Reno 911!". He also guest starred in the last episode of "Friends", and played the role of Head T.A. Philip in "Slackers". Since 2009, Rash has starred on "Community" as Dean Craig Pelton. Rash and comedy partner Nat Faxon moved into screenwriting. They wrote a pilot, "Adopted" in 2005, about an adult who finds out his parents are not his birth parents. Yet, they were not cast and the show didn't take off. Their screenplay, based on Kaui Hart Hemmings' novel "The Descendants", was on the 2008 edition of the Black List, a list of the most popular unproduced scripts in Hollywood. The film was produced in Hawaii, directed by Alexander Payne, starred George Clooney, and was released on November 18, 2011 to critical acclaim. Payne, Faxon and Rash received a Golden Globe nomination and won an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay for their work. Rash and Faxon co-wrote and directed the film "The Way, Way Back", which received a standing ovation at its premiere at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival. Parts of the film are actually based on Rash's life as a teenager. Rash is a member of the Los Angeles improvisational and sketch comedy troupe The Groundlings.
692410	Gerrit Graham (born November 27, 1949) is an American actor and songwriter. He has appeared in such films as "Used Cars", "TerrorVision", "National Lampoon's Class Reunion" and "Greetings", where he worked with Brian De Palma for the first time. He would again work with De Palma on "Hi, Mom" and "Home Movies", as well as "Phantom of the Paradise", where he played flamboyant glam-rocker Beef. He has also appeared in two different roles on the "Star Trek" television series; as the Hunter of Tosk on ', and as a member of the Q Continuum (adopting the name Quinn) in the ' episode "". He was also the voice of Franklin Sherman in the animated series "The Critic" as well as a recurring role as Dr. Norman Pankow on the sitcom "Parker Lewis Can't Lose." Graham attended but did not graduate from Columbia University—class of 1970. He has written songs with Bob Weir of Ratdog. He is an avid Winnebago enthusiast, and spent many hours "'bago-izing" while not on set.
1484770	Nicholas Campbell (born 24 March 1952), sometimes credited as Nick Campbell, is a Canadian actor and filmmaker, who has won three Gemini Awards for acting. The movies "Naked Lunch", "Prozac Nation" and the TV series "Da Vinci's Inquest" are some examples of his acting work. Early life. Campbell was born in Toronto, Ontario, Canada and raised in Montreal. He went to Toronto's Upper Canada College and Kingston's Queen's University where he originally studied pre-Law but later switched to English and Drama. He continued his studies in England studying five years at the London Drama Studio and at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA). Campbell spent 40 weeks touring the country with the York Theatre Royal Repertory Company. His debut film role was in "The Omen," released in 1976. After he returned from England he divided his time between Toronto, Los Angeles, and New York. In the 1990s he moved back to Canada. Career. His over 40 starring film and television credits include series leads on "Diamonds" and "The Hitchhiker." Starting his acting career in the movies he had small roles in "A Bridge Too Far" (1977), "The Eagle Has Landed" (1976) and in the Bond movie "The Spy Who Loved Me" (1977). Campbell was third-billed in the 1985 movie "Certain Fury." Playing Billy Quinn in CBC's "Major Crime" (1997) he won a Gemini Award for best actor for his work. His television credits also include the role of Bobby Kennedy in "Hoover vs. The Kennedys" (Gemini nominee for best actor in a miniseries), "Going Home" (nominated for BAFTA Award), and "The Valour and the Horror". Other works include "The Sleep Room", "Diana Kilmury: Teamster" (Gemini nomination for best supporting actor in a drama) and "The Diary of Evelyn Lau." Campbell has also worked extensively with David Cronenberg, appearing in such films as "Naked Lunch", "The Dead Zone", "Fast Company", and "The Brood". Campbell has made guest appearances on TV shows including ', "Airwolf", "Blue Murder", (Gemini Award for Best Performance by an Actor in a Guest Role Dramatic Series in 2001) "A Nero Wolfe Mystery", "Street Legal", and '. In addition to his acting career, Campbell is also an accomplished filmmaker. He wrote and directed the documentary "Stepping Razor; Red X" (Genie nomination for best documentary). "Da Vinci's Inquest". Campbell's role as coroner Dominic Da Vinci in "Da Vinci's Inquest" brought him critical acclaim. "Da Vinci's Inquest" was nominated for many Gemini Awards. Of the 11 Geminis the show won, it received three for best writing in a dramatic series and three for best dramatic series. Campbell received the Gemini Award for best performance in a continuing leading dramatic role for his work on the series. Campbell also directed a number of episodes of "Da Vinci’s Inquest". In 2005, "Da Vinci's Inquest" ended its run. In "Da Vinci's City Hall," which ran the following season, the character followed his real-life inspiration, Vancouver Mayor Larry Campbell (no relation to Nicholas), into municipal politics. No more episodes are planned, but there is talk of a series of TV films that would continue the narrative.
589101	Baseraa is a 1981 Indian Bollywood film. The film was produced by Ramesh Behl, and directed by Ramesh Talwar. The film stars Shashi Kapoor, Raakhee, Rekha, Poonam Dhillon, Raj Kiran, A.K. Hangal and Iftekar. The music of the film is by R.D. Burman.
581962	Vidya Balan (pronounced ; born 1 January 1978) is an Indian actress. She has established a successful career in Hindi language films of Bollywood and is the recipient of one National Film Award, five Filmfare Awards, and five Screen Awards. She is known for portraying strong female protagonists and has been acknowledged in the media for breaking stereotypes of a Hindi film heroine. Vidya aspired to a career in film from a young age, and had her first acting role in the 1995 sitcom "Hum Paanch". She pursued a master's degree in sociology from the University of Mumbai and simultaneously made several unsuccessful attempts to start a career in film. She subsequently featured in various television commercials and music videos, and in 2003 made her feature film debut as the protagonist of the independent Bengali drama "Bhalo Theko". In 2005 Vidya garnered praise for her first Hindi film, the musical drama "Parineeta", and followed it with a leading role in the highly successful 2006 comedy film "Lage Raho Munna Bhai". This initial success was followed by roles in the romantic comedies "Heyy Babyy" (2007) and "Kismat Konnection" (2008) which met with negative comments from the critics.
1090259	Marcel Grossmann (, April 9, 1878 – September 7, 1936) was a mathematician of Jewish ancestry, and a friend and classmate of Albert Einstein. Grossmann was a member of an old Swiss family from Zurich. His father managed a textile factory. He became a Professor of Mathematics at the Federal Polytechnic Institute in Zurich, today the ETH Zurich, specializing in descriptive geometry. Career. In 1900 Grossmann graduated from "Zurich Polytechnikum" and became an assistant to the geometer W. Fiedler. He continued to do research on non-Euclidean geometry and taught in high schools for the next seven years. In 1902, he earned his doctorate from the University of Zurich with the thesis "On the Metrical Properties of Collinear Structures". In 1907, he was appointed full professor of descriptive geometry at the "Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule". It was Grossmann who emphasized the importance of a non-Euclidean geometry called Riemannian geometry (also elliptic geometry) to Einstein, which was a necessary step in the development of Einstein's general theory of relativity. Abraham Pais's book on Einstein suggests that Grossman mentored Einstein in tensor theory as well. Grossmann introduced Einstein to the absolute differential calculus, started by Christoffel and fully developed by Ricci-Curbastro and Levi-Civita. Grossmann facilitated Einstein's unique synthesis of mathematical and theoretical physics in what is still today considered the most elegant and powerful theory of gravity: the general theory of relativity. The collaboration of Einstein and Grossmann led to a ground-breaking paper: "Outline of a Generalized Theory of Relativity and of a Theory of Gravitation", which was published in 1913 and was one of the two fundamental papers which established Einstein's theory of gravity. As a professor of geometry, Grossmann organized summer courses for high school teachers. In 1910, he became one of the founders of the Swiss Mathematical Society. Grossmann died of multiple sclerosis in 1936. The community of relativists celebrates Grossmann's contributions to physics by organizing Marcel Grossman meetings every three years.
582670	Jo Jeeta Wohi Sikandar ('He who wins is the conqueror') is a 1992 Bollywood sports drama film directed by Mansoor Khan (who earlier directed "Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak"). The film stars Aamir Khan, Ayesha Jhulka, Mamik Singh, Deepak Tijori & Kulbhushan Kharbanda in the lead roles, whilst the brother of Aamir, Faisal Khan makes a special appearance. The music was by Jatin Lalit. It was remade in 2003 Bengali film "Champion" starring Bengali Superstar Jeet and inspired 1999 Telugu film "Thammudu" and 2001 Tamil film "Badri". The film won the Filmfare award for best movie that year. Plot. The movie is set in Dehradun in north India. The movie opens with the description of the various colleges in the city. The Rajput college has students from affluent backgrounds with each student being an heir to a multimillion fortune. In contrast, the Model college has students from poor local households. Other colleges include Xaviers college and Queens college, the latter being an all-girls college with the guys from all three colleges trying to woo them. The highlight of the town is the annual inter-college sports championship with a marathon cycle race as the prime event. In the beginning of the film, the race is contested between Ratan Lal Sharma of Model college and Shekhar Malhotra of Rajput college with the latter winning the race because Ratan had an inferior bike. After the race both are felicitated by their respective schools. Shekhar being rich and now the local champion is cocky and arrogant. Sanjay Lal Sharma a.k.a. Sanju is Ratan's younger brother and is everything that Ratan is not. He's a carefree youngster who is full of himself and is always in trouble with his father Ramlal, who wants him to act more maturely and become responsible like Ratan. Sanju and his little gang, which includes Anjali (who has a crush on Sanju), bunk sports to smoke cigarettes and roam around town. Anjali and her dad run a vehicle repair shop and Anjali's father asks his daughter to stay away from Sanju. Ramlal and his family run a small cafe which is the hangout spot for most of the college students. A number of scuffles occur between Sanju and Shekhar because of Shekhar's attempts to humiliate Ratan and his dad. Enter Devika (Pooja Bedi), who immediately catches the fancy of both Sanju and Shekhar. Initially she leans towards Shekhar but one day she misses her bus on the way to a picnic to meet Shekhar. Meanwhile Sanju asks Anjali for a car so that he can roam around town. While on his way he spots Devika and leaves his friends at the paan shop and gives Devika a lift. Devika upon reaching her destination finds Shekhar with another girl and goes along with Sanju who, although not rich, brags about his wealth. Sanju's lie is ultimately revealed when Devika sees him dancing in the Model college group during a dance competition. After the show, Sanju and Devika break up that evening and in heated argument, Sanju fights with Shekhar and his friends. Sanju is almost overpowered when his brother intervenes and chases Shekhar and his friends away. Ratan Lal asks Sanju for the money he had given him to deposit in the bank (which he spent on Devika) which leads to a heated argument between Sanju and his dad. Next morning, Ramlal leaves for town and Ratan is out cycling. A heated argument and fight ensue, which end in tragedy when Ratan accidentally falls off a cliff. While Ratan is in hospital, Sanju recollects his childhood with Ratan. When his father returns, he reconciles with him. With Ratan in the hospital, Sanju becomes more responsible and starts to care for his father and bed ridden brother. He decides that he will participate in the race with the help of Anjali and give it his best for Ratan. During his training, he realises his true feelings for Anjali and the two accept each other. A day before the race, Sanju finds out about the real cause of the accident and confronts Ratan who tells him that he didn't say anything because Sanju had become responsible and closer to all of them. Ratan asks Sanju to give his best in the race if he wants to do something for him. With his new cycle, Sanju participates in the race. The race begins evenly with both Sanju and Shekhar going head to head. Somewhere in the middle, the two fall and a scuffle ensues between Sanju and Shekhar and his friends. During this, other cyclists take the lead. Shekhar heads back on track with his friends holding Sanju back. Sanju breaks free and joins the race, catching up with Shekhar during the final laps of the race and finally beating him in the closing moments, giving Model college, his father & brother their long awaited victory. Music. The music for the movie composed by Jatin Lalit and lyrics were penned by Majrooh Sultanpuri. It was nominated for Best Music at the Filmfare Awards 1993. The soundtrack, their second collaboration, helped to launch their career. "Pehla Nasha" was the third film song in Indian cinema (the first one being "Baare Baare" from "Naagarahaavu" a 1972 film starring Vishnuvardhan & Aarthi and the second one being Kamala Hassan starrer tamil movie Michael Madana Kama Rajan in 1990) to be shot in complete slow motion and the trend caught up subsequently with many films and music videos. Pehla Nasha was the most popular track of the album become a cult song. Other popular tracks were Humse Hai Sara Jahan, Rooth Ke Humse and Aare Yaaro Mere Pyaro. Box office. Jo Jeeta Wohi Sikandar grossed in India. Locations. Though the movie was set in Dehradun, it has been shot predominantly in various locations in the south of India, primarily Kodaikanal.
1104662	Cahit Arf (11 October 1910 – 26 December 1997) was a Turkish mathematician. He is known for the Arf invariant of a quadratic form in characteristic 2 (applied in knot theory and surgery theory) in topology, the Hasse–Arf theorem in ramification theory, Arf semigroups, and Arf rings. Biography. Cahit Arf was born on 11 October 1910 in Selanik (Thessaloniki), which was then a part of the Ottoman Empire. His family migrated to Istanbul with the outbreak of the Balkan War in 1912. The family finally settled in İzmir where Cahit Arf received his primary education. Upon receiving a scholarship from the Turkish Ministry of Education he continued his education in Paris and graduated from École Normale Supérieure. Returning to Turkey, he taught mathematics at Galatasaray High School. In 1933 he joined the Mathematics Department of Istanbul University. In 1937 he went to Göttingen, where he received his PhD from the University of Göttingen and he worked with Helmut Hasse and Josue Cruz de Munoz. He returned to Istanbul University and worked there until his involvement with the foundation work of Scientific and Technological Research Council (TÜBİTAK) upon President Cemal Gursel's appointment in 1962. After serving as the founding director of the council in 1963, he joined the Mathematics Department of Robert College in Istanbul. Arf spent the period of 1964–1966 working at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey. He later visited University of California, Berkeley for one year. Upon his final return to Turkey, he joined the Mathematics Department of the Middle East Technical University and continued his studies there until his retirement in 1980. Arf received numerous awards for his contributions to mathematics, among them are: İnönü Award in 1948, Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TÜBİTAK) Science Award in 1974, and Commandeur des Palmes Academiques (France) in 1994. Arf was a member of the Mainz Academy and the Turkish Academy of Sciences. He was the president of the Turkish Mathematical Society from 1985 until 1989. Arf died on December 26, 1997 in Bebek, Istanbul, at the age of 87. His collected works were published, in 1988, by the Turkish Mathematical Society. Influence. Arf's influence on Turkish Mathematics was profound. Although he had very few formal students, many of the mathematicians of Turkey, at some time of their careers, had fruitful discussions on their field of interest with him and had received support and encouragement. He facilitated the now-celebrated visit of Robert Langlands to Turkey (now famous for the Langlands program, among many other things); during which Langlands worked out some arduous calculations on the epsilon factors of Artin L-functions. Arf's portrait is depicted on the reverse of the Turkish 10 lira banknote issued in 2009. Middle East Technical University Department of Mathematics organizes a special lecture session called the Cahit Arf lecture each year in memory of Arf. Cahit Arf Lectures. Previous Cahit Arf lectures held at Middle East Technical University include:
1063731	Bottle Rocket is a 1996 comedy-drama film directed by Wes Anderson. It was co-written by Anderson and Owen Wilson. In addition to being Wes Anderson's directorial debut, "Bottle Rocket" was the debut feature for brothers Owen Wilson and Luke Wilson, who co-starred with James Caan and Robert Musgrave. The film was a commercial failure but launched Anderson's career by drawing attention from critics. Director Martin Scorsese later named "Bottle Rocket" one of his top-ten favorite movies of the 1990s. "Bottle Rocket" is also the name of a short film directed by Anderson—shot in 1992 and released in 1994—on which the feature-length film was based. The film was shot entirely in Dallas, Fort Worth, and Hillsboro, Texas. Plot. In Texas, Dignan (Owen Wilson) "rescues" Anthony (Luke Wilson) from a voluntary psychiatric unit, where he has been staying for self-described exhaustion. Dignan has an elaborate escape planned and has developed a 75-year plan that he shows to Anthony. The plan is to pull off several heists, and then meet up with a Mr. Henry, a landscaper and part-time criminal known to Dignan. As a practice heist, the two friends break into Anthony's house, stealing specific items from a list. Afterward, critiquing the heist, Dignan reveals that he took a pair of earrings, not specified on the list. This upsets Anthony, as he had bought those earrings for his mother. Anthony visits his little sister at her school so she can return the earrings. Dignan recruits Bob Mapplethorpe (Robert Musgrave) as a getaway driver because he is the only person they know with a car. The three of them buy guns and return to Bob's house to plan their next heist, which will be at a local bookstore. The group bickers as Dignan struggles to describe his intricate plan. The group steals a small sum of money from the bookstore and "go on the lam" at a hotel. Anthony meets Inés (Lumi Cavazos), a maid, and the two spark a romance despite Inés's lack of English. Bob learns that his marijuana crop has been discovered by police and that his older brother has been arrested. Bob leaves to help his brother. Before leaving, Anthony gives Dignan an envelope for Inés. Dignan delivers the envelope to Inés while she is cleaning a room, not knowing the envelope has most of his and Anthony's money inside. Inés does not open the envelope and hugs Dignan to say goodbye. As Dignan is leaving, Inés asks an English-speaking male friend of hers to chase after Dignan and tell him she loves Anthony. When he delivers the message he says, "Tell Anthony I love him". Dignan fails to realize he is speaking for Inés and does not deliver the message. Taking an abandoned Alfa Romeo Spider, Dignan and Anthony continue with the 75-year plan, but the car breaks down. Anthony reveals that the envelope Dignan gave to Inés contained the rest of their cash. The two get in a fight and go their separate ways. Narrating a letter to his sister, Anthony says he and Bob have settled into a routine that is keeping them busy. Dignan, who has joined Mr. Henry's gang, tracks Anthony down and they reconcile. Dignan invites Anthony into a job with Mr. Henry and Anthony accepts on the condition that Bob is allowed in. The trio meet the eccentric Mr. Henry (James Caan) and plan to rob a safe at a cold storage facility. Mr. Henry becomes a role model for the trio, standing up to Bob's abusive brother and tutoring Dignan on success. He invites the trio to a party at his house and visits the group at the Mapplethorpes' house, which he compliments. Anthony learns of Inés's love for him and contacts her. She has learned some English and the two rekindle their relationship. With two accomplices from Mr. Henry's landscaping company, the group conducts their heist at the factory, but the plan quickly falls apart. As the police arrive, Dignan has locked himself out of the escape van and is arrested. During the heist, Mr. Henry loads furniture from Bob's house into a truck. Anthony and Bob visit Dignan in prison and tell him how Mr. Henry robbed Bob's house. Dignan begins rattling off an escape plan and tells his friends to get into position for a get-away. After a tense moment the two realize Dignan is joking. Dignan says to Anthony, "Isn't it funny that you used to be in the nuthouse and now I'm in jail?" as he walks back into the prison. Reviews. "Bottle Rocket" received generally positive reviews from film critics. It maintains a 80% 'fresh' rating on Rotten Tomatoes. It has a 60/100 weighted average score on Metacritic, which translates to "Mixed or average reviews". Home media. On November 25, 2008, "Bottle Rocket" was released on DVD and Blu-ray as part of The Criterion Collection. This is Anderson's fourth film to be released in the collection after "Rushmore", "The Royal Tenenbaums" and "The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou". The original short film it was based on is included as a special feature.
1635570	Three Times (最好的時光; "Zuì hǎo de shí guāng"; lit. 'Best of Times') is a 2005 Taiwanese film directed by Hou Hsiao-Hsien. It features three chronologically separate stories of love between May and Chen, set in 1911, 1966 and 2005, using the same lead actors, Shu Qi and Chang Chen. The film was nominated for the "Palme d'Or" at the 2005 Cannes Film Festival, it won the Golden Apricot at the 2006 Yerevan International Film Festival, Armenia, for Best Feature Film and received positive reviews. Background. "Three Times" was originally meant to be an omnibus collection of short films, with Hou Hsiao-hsien directing only one of the segments. The producers were unable to rustle the financing to be able to hire three directors, so instead, Hou took over production.[http://www.variety.com/index.asp?layout=cannes2005&content=review&reviewid=VE1117927202&categoryId=1724] Plot. A Time for Love. (Chinese: 戀愛夢; pinyin: "liàn ài mèng") Set in Kaohsiung in 1966, with dialogue in Taiwanese Hokkien. A Time for Freedom. (Chinese: 自由夢; pinyin: "zì yóu mèng") Set in Dadaocheng in 1911, with dialogue presented only through on-screen captions. The theme of freedom joins with the theme of love - the young courtesan dreams of liberty and Taiwan itself at this time was occupied by the Japanese. A Time for Youth. (Chinese: 青春夢; pinyin: "qīng chūn mèng") Set in Taipei in 2005, with dialogue in Mandarin. Critical reception. "Three Times" received generally positive, sometimes ecstatic reviews when it was released in North America. It currently holds an 85% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes.'[http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/three_times/] Most critics agreed that the opening segment, "A Time for Love", was the most successful, and that the final segment, "A Time for Youth" (which was frequently compared to Hou's "Millennium Mambo") was the least successful. Response was somewhat mixed for the second segment, "A Time for Freedom", with many critics likening it to Hou's "Flowers of Shanghai". Roger Ebert, who championed the film at Cannes, gave it four stars in his review for the "Chicago Sun-Times":"Three stories about a man and a woman, all three using the same actors. Three years: 1966, 1911, 2005. Three varieties of love: unfulfilled, mercenary, meaningless. All photographed with such visual beauty that watching the movie is like holding your breath so the butterfly won’t stir"[http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060622/REVIEWS/60620004/1023] Kay Weissberg in "Variety" was very positive:"Synthesizing Hou Hsiao-hsien's ambivalent relationship with time and memory, "Three Times" forms a handy connecting arc between the Taiwanese helmer's earlier work and the increasingly fragmentary direction of his recent films. Best appreciated by those familiar with his slow rhythms and pessimistic take on contempo life, pic presents three stories using the same leads set in three time periods to explore love and how the present circumscribes lives."[http://www.variety.com/index.asp?layout=cannes2005&content=review&reviewid=VE1117927202&categoryId=1724] Stephen Whitty of the "Star-Ledger" was not impressed:"According to one American critic, "Three Times" is "why cinema exists." Only if you think that cinema has no higher calling than presenting a long series of gorgeously lit close-ups of beautiful actresses are you likely to agree." Jim Jarmusch: "Hou Hsiao-hsien is not only the crowning jewel of contemporary Taiwanese cinema, but an international treasure. His films are, for me, among the most inspiring of the past thirty years, and his grace and subtlety as a filmmaker remain unrivaled. Film after film, Hou Hsiao-hsien is able to adeptly balance a historical and cultural overview with the smallest, most quiet and intimate details of individual interactions. His narratives can appear offhand and non-dramatic, and yet the structures of the films themselves are all about storytelling and the beauty of its variations. And Hou's camera placement is never less than exquisite.
589320	Paidi Jairaj, Jayraj or Jai Raj (Telugu: పైడి జైరాజ్) (September 28, 1909 – August 11, 2000) was a renowned film actor, director and producer. He was recipient of Dadasaheb Phalke Award for lifetime achievement in 1980. Personal Life. Jairaj was born in Karimnagar, State] on September 28, 1909. A close relative of Sarojini Naidu, he received his education in Hyderabad. He developed interest in films during his graduate studies at Nizam College and left for Bombay in 1929. He started his acting career in 1929 with silent movie Star Kling Youth. But subsequently he acted in about 11 silent movies including Triangle of Love, Mathru Bhoomi, All for Lover, Mahasagar Mothi, Flight into Death, My Hero etc. During the talkie period, from 1931 onwards, he started with Shikari in Urdu and English languages. Subsequently he was one of the top heroes for about two decades along with Shantaram, Pruthviraj Kapoor, Motilal etc., He acted with top heroines like Nirupa Roy, Shobhana Samarth, Shakeela, Sashikala, Devika Rani, Meena Kumari, Chand Usmani, Madhuri, Jebunnisa, Khursheed with some big successes. Bhabhi film put him in the list of top heroes. The movies most remembered for his action are some of the historical films like Rajputani, Shajahan, Amar Singh Rathod, Veer Durgadas, Pruthviraj Chauhan, Rana Pratap, Tippu Sultan, Razia Sultana, Allauddin, Jai Chitod, Rana Hameer and many others. His body built, action and speech are best suited for these legendary characters. In the Shahid-e-Alam film, he acted as Chandrasekhar Azad. He acted in about 170 films mostly in Hindi and Urdu, and some Marathi and Gujarati films. He directed a few films like Mohar, Mala (1943), Pratima, Rajghar and Saagar (1951). He produced the film Saagar in 1951. Though he was born a Telugu person, he did not act in any Telugu films. Government of India honoured him by presenting Dadasaheb Phalke Award for his lifetime service to Indian film industry in 1980. He married a Punjabi lady Savithri. He had two sons and three daughters. He died in Bombay on August 11, 2000.
1102719	Hassler Whitney (23 March 1907 – 10 May 1989) was an American mathematician. He was one of the founders of singularity theory, and did foundational work in manifolds, embeddings, immersions, and characteristic classes, as well as in geometric integration theory. Biography. Life. Hassler Whitney was born on March 23, 1907, in New York City, where his father Edward Baldwin Whitney was the First District New York Supreme Court judge. His mother, Josepha (Newcomb) Whitney, was an artist and active in politics. His paternal grandfather was William Dwight Whitney, professor of Ancient Languages at Yale University, linguist, and Sanskrit scholar. Whitney was the great grandson of Connecticut Governor and US Senator Roger Sherman Baldwin, and the great-great-grandson of American founding father Roger Sherman. His maternal grandparents were astronomer and mathematician Simon Newcomb (1835-1909) and Mary Hassler Newcomb (the granddaughter of the first superintendent of the Coast Survey Ferdinand Hassler). His great uncle was the first to survey Mount Whitney. Throughout his life he pursued two particular hobbies with excitement: music and mountain-climbing. An accomplished player of the violin and the viola, Whitney played with the Princeton Musical Amateurs. He would run outside, 6 to 12 miles every other day. As an undergraduate, with his cousin Bradley Gilman, Whitney made the first ascent of the Whitney Gilman ridge on Cannon Mountain, New Hampshire in 1929. It was the hardest and most famous rock climb in the East. He was a member of the Swiss Alpine Society and climbed most of the mountain peaks in Switzerland. He married Margaret R. Howell, May 30, 1930; children: James Newcomb, Carol, Marian; married Mary Barnett Garfield, January 16, 1955; children: Sarah Newcomb, Emily Baldwin; and married Barbara Floyd Osterman, February 8, 1986. Death. Whitney divorced his second wife he married Barbara Floyd Osterman on 8 February 1986. He was nearly 79 years old at the time of his third marriage. Three years later on May 10, 1989, Whitney died, after suffering a stroke, in Mount Dents Blanches, Switzerland: his ashes were placed on the top of that mountain by Oscar Burlet, another mathematician and member of the Swiss Alpine Club. Academic career. Whitney attended Yale University where he received a baccalaureate degree in physics in 1928 and in music in 1929. He earned a Ph.D. in mathematics at Harvard University in 1932. His doctorate was awarded for a dissertation "The Coloring of Graphs" written under the supervision of George David Birkhoff. He was Instructor of Mathematics at Harvard University, 1930–31, 1933–35; NRC Fellow, Mathematics, 1931–33; Assistant Professor, 1935–40; Associate Professor, 1940–46, Professor, 1946–52; Professor Instructor, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton University, 1952–77; Professor Emeritus, 1977–89; Chairman of the Mathematics Panel, National Science Foundation, 1953–56; Exchange Professor, Collège de France, 1957; Memorial Committee, Support of Research in Mathematical Sciences, National Research Council, 1966–67; President, International Commission of Mathematical Instruction, 1979–82; Research Mathematicians, National Defense Research Committee, 1943–45; Construction of the School of Mathematics. He was a member of the National Academy of Science; Colloquium Lecturer, American Mathematical Society, 1946; Vice President, 1948–50 and Editor, American Journal of Mathematics, 1944–49; Editor, Mathematical Reviews, 1949–54; Chairman of the Committee vis. lectureship, 1946–51; Committee Summer Instructor, 1953–54;, American Mathematical Society; American National Council Teachers of Mathematics, London Mathematical Society (Honorary), Swiss Mathematics Society (Honorary), Académie des Sciences de Paris (Foreign Associate); New York Academy of Sciences. Honors. In 1969 he was awarded the Lester R. Ford Award for the paper in two parts ""The mathematics of Phisical quantities"" (1968a, 1968b). In 1976 he was awarded the National Medal of Science. In 1980 he was elected honorary member of the London Mathematical Society. In 1983 he received the Wolf Prize from the Wolf Foundation, and finally, in 1985, he was awarded the Steele Prize from the American Mathematical Society. Work. Research. Whitney's earliest work, from 1930 to 1933, was on graph theory. Many of his contributions were to the graph-coloring, and the ultimate computer-assisted solution to the four-color problem relied on some of his results. His work in graph theory culminated in a 1933 paper, where he laid the foundations for matroids, a fundamental notion in modern combinatorics and representation theory independently introduced by him and B. L. van der Waerden in the mid 1930s. In this paper Whitney proved several theorems about the matroid of a graph : one such theorem, now called Whitney's 2-Isomorphism Theorem, states: Given and are graphs with no isolated vertices. Then and are isomorphic if and only if and are 2-isomorphic. Whitney's lifelong interest in geometric properties of functions also began around this time. His earliest work in this subject was on the possibility of extending a function defined on a closed subset of ℝ"n" to a function on all of ℝ"n" with certain smoothness properties. A complete solution to this problem was found only in 2005 by Charles Fefferman. In a 1936 paper, Whitney gave a definition of a smooth manifold of class "" "r", and proved that, for high enough values of "r", a smooth manifold of dimension "n" may be embedded in ℝ2"n"+1, and immersed in ℝ2"n". (In 1944 he managed to reduce the dimension of the ambient space by 1, provided that "n" > 2, by a technique that has come to be known as the "Whitney trick".) This basic result shows that manifolds may be treated intrinsically or extrinsically, as we wish. The intrinsic definition had been published only a few years earlier in the work of Oswald Veblen and J.H.C. Whitehead. These theorems opened the way for much more refined studies: of embedding, immersion and also of smoothing: that is, the possibility of having various smooth structures on a given topological manifold. He was one of the major developers of cohomology theory, and characteristic classes, as these concepts emerged in the late 1930s, and his work on algebaic topology continued into the 40s. He also returned to the study of functions in the 1940s, continuing his work on the extension problems formulated a decade earlier, and answering a question of Laurent Schwartz in a 1948 paper "On Ideals of Differentiable Functions". Whitney had, throughout the 1950s, an almost unique interest in the topology of singular spaces and in singularities of smooth maps. An old idea, implicit even in the notion of a simplicial complex, was to study a singular space by decomposing it into smooth pieces (nowadays called "strata"). Whitney was the first to see any subtlety in this definition, and pointed out that a good "stratification" should satisfy conditions he termed "A" and "B". The work of René Thom and John Mather in the 1960s showed that these conditions give a very robust definition of stratified space. The singularities in low dimension of smooth mappings, later to come to prominence in the work of René Thom, were also first studied by Whitney. In his book "Geometric Integration Theory" he gives a theoretical basis for Stokes' theorem applied with singularities on the boundary: later, his work on such topics inspired the researches of Jenny Harrison. These aspects of Whitney's work have looked more unified, in retrospect and with the general development of singularity theory. Whitney's purely topological work (Stiefel–Whitney class, basic results on vector bundles) entered the mainstream more quickly. Teaching activity. Teaching the Youth. In 1967, he became involved full-time in educational problems, especially at the elementary school level. He spent many years in classrooms, both teaching mathematics and observing how it is taught. He spent four months teaching pre-algebra mathematics to a classroom of seventh graders and conducted summer courses for teachers. He traveled widely to lecture on the subject in the United States and abroad. He worked toward removing the "mathematics anxiety," which he felt leads young pupils to avoid mathematics. Whitney spread the ideas of teaching mathematics to students in ways that relate the content to their own lives as opposed to teaching them rote memorization. Selected publications. Hassler Whitney published 82 works: all his published articles, included the ones listed in this section and the preface of the book , are collected in the two volumes and .
1166269	Clare Carey (born June 11, 1967) is a film and television actress. Background. Carey was born at a Catholic mission in Zimbabwe where her father (a doctor) and mother (a teacher) were serving. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband and two children. Career. Though having acted in many films, Carey is best known for her recurring roles in episodic television, most notable for her role as Kelly Fox on the American sitcom "Coach" and her role as Macy Carlson, the Olsen twins' mother on the short-lived ABC Family sitcom "So Little Time". She has also had recurring roles on "Point Pleasant", in the role of Sarah Parker, "Jericho" as bartender Mary Bailey, and "Crash" as Christine Emory and made a guest-star appearance in Eli Stone as a lawyer opposing Eli in court. Carey also did a cameo in the award-winning indie film "La Cucina", which premiered on Showtime in December 2009. She plays Rachel Hunter's girlfriend. She also played a part in "NCIS" episode "Life Before His Eyes" as Ann Gibbs, the mother of Leroy Jethro Gibbs, played by Mark Harmon.
1712267	Terence Hill (born Mario Girotti; 29 March 1939) is an Italian actor. He is best known for starring in multiple action and western films (so-called spaghetti westerns) together with his longtime film partner and friend Bud Spencer. Life and career. Hill was born in Venice, Italy. His mother, Hildegard (Thieme), was German, from Dresden, and his father, Girolamo Girotti, was an Italian chemist. As a child, he lived in the small town of Lommatzsch, Germany from 1943 to 1945 during World War II, surviving the Dresden Bombing. After being discovered by Italian filmmaker Dino Risi for "Vacanze col Gangster" ("Holiday with the Gangster", 1951) at an early age of 12, he had, after 27 movies in Italy (including "Gli sbandati"), a major film role in Luchino Visconti's "The Leopard" ("Il Gattopardo", 1963). In 1964, he returned to Germany and there, appeared in a series of Heimatfilmen, adventure and western films, made after novels by German author Karl May. In 1967, he returned to Italy to act in "God Forgives... I Don't!" ("Dio perdona... Io no!", 1968). He changed his name to Terence Hill in the same year. The name was made up, as a publicity stunt, by the film producers; he had to choose from a list of twenty names and picked the one with his mother's initials. In a Q&A, he dismissed as a journalist's invention the rumour that it might have been taken from the Roman playwright Terence and his wife's surname (his wife was Lori Zwicklbauer; she later took her husband's surname). In the following years, he starred in many action and Spaghetti Westerns together with his longtime colleague and friend Bud Spencer. The pair were notable for their comedy films, successful not only in Italy, but also abroad. They made a large number of Italian Westerns and other films together. Many of these have alternate titles, depending upon the country and distributor. Possibly their most famous film is the 1971 western "Lo chiamavano Trinità" ("They Call Me Trinity") and the 1972 sequel "Continuavano a chiamarlo Trinità" ("Trinity Is STILL My Name!"). He has stated in interviews that "Il mio nome è Nessuno" ("My Name Is Nobody", 1973), in which he co-starred with the American Henry Fonda, is his personal favorite of all his films.
1084301	Beach Party (1963) was the first of several beach party films from American International Pictures (AIP) aimed at a teen audience. It was directed by William Asher and written by Lou Rusoff. The main actors included Robert Cummings, Dorothy Malone, Frankie Avalon, and Annette Funicello. This film is often credited with creating the beach party film genre. One of the unique aspects of the AIP beach films is the absence of parents or any other authority figures. This gang of independent, fun-loving teenagers are free to do whatever they want and live on their own terms. This first film includes a romantic sub-plot about two adult characters (Cummings and Malone) that was repeated only once in subsequent films, in 1964's "Bikini Beach".
674872	Kebab Connection is a 2004 German-Turkish comedy film, with some slapstick, set in Hamburg. Plot. Ibo (Denis Moschitto) is a young Turkish-German man who is an aspiring filmmaker. A clash of cultures and pre-parental anxiety ensues after Ibo's German girlfriend, Titzi (Nora Tschirner), announces that she's pregnant. Ibo's father (Güven Kıraç) is upset at his son for wanting to start a family with a non-Turkish German woman while Titzi is upset at Ibo over his hesitance in taking on fatherly responsibilities. Other themes are the competition of a Turkish kebab restaurant and a Greek taverna, a gang trying to extort the owner of the kebab restaurant, Ibo's quest to make the first German Kung-Fu movie and the pursuit of both Titzi and her roommate of spots at a prestigious drama academy.
1047318	The Inbetweeners Movie is a 2011 British coming-of-age comedy film based on the E4 sitcom "The Inbetweeners", written by series creators Damon Beesley and Iain Morris and directed by Ben Palmer. The film follows the misadventures of a group of teenage friends on holiday in Crete after the end of their final year at school together, and currently serves as an ending to the TV series. It stars Simon Bird, Joe Thomas, James Buckley and Blake Harrison. The film was released on 19 August 2011 in the UK and Ireland. A sequel will be released in August 2014. Plot. Friends Will McKenzie, Simon Cooper, Jay Cartwright, and Neil Sutherland have finished their A-levels and are about to leave Rudge Park Comprehensive, much to the relief of Mr. Gilbert, their sardonic, mean sixth form tutor. Within their final week of school, Jay's grandfather dies, Simon is dumped by his girlfriend Carli D'Amato, and Will's divorced father tells him he has married his much younger mistress. The boys decide to go on holiday together and Neil books them on a trip to Malia, Crete.
581766	Raageshwari Loomba (born 25 July 1977) is an Indian pop singer, actress, model, television anchor, former MTV and Channel V VJ, a yoga expert and a motivational speaker. She entered in the fifth season of the reality television show "Bigg Boss" and was named 'Positive Raaga and the messenger of peace'. Biography. Raageshwari was born in Mumbai to Trilok Singh Loomba, a National Award-winning musician and government servant, and his wife Veera. She has an elder brother, Rishabh who is a filmmaker. The Sanskrit word "Raageshwari" means 'the goddess of Ragas' and 'wife of the Lord'. Raageshwari attended the Auxilium Convent High School. As a child model, she did the rounds of several advertising agencies with her father. At the age of 13, she was noticed by director Shekhar Kapoor and auditioned at a photo shoot for the lead role opposite Bobby Deol but did not secure the part. As a teenager, Raageshwari signed her first film as an actor, "Zid" (released in 1994). She took a month off from school to complete the shooting but managed to secure a distinction in her Class X exams. She then acted in hit films, including David Dhawan's "Aankhen" (1993) and "Main Khiladi Tu Anari" (1994). Later, Raageshwari forayed into television, acting as VJ for the popular countdown shows, "BPL Oye". In a later version of the show, she also wrote her own scripts and won innumerable awards. She was given the nickname "Ragz", while working on "BPL Oye" with Sunil Sahjwani and his team. She was an instant hit with teenagers and young kids.
1063910	Mayte Michelle Rodríguez (born July 12, 1978), simply credited as Michelle Rodriguez, is an American actress, screenwriter and disc jockey. Rodriguez got her breakout role in the independent film "Girlfight" (2000), which was met with critical acclaim for her performance as a troubled boxer, and earned her several awards, including the Independent Spirit Award and Gotham Award for Best Debut Performance. The following year, she made her Hollywood debut starring as Letty Ortiz in the blockbuster film "The Fast and the Furious" (2001), and would reprise the role with its sequels "Fast & Furious" (2009) and "Fast & Furious 6" (2013). During her career, she has appeared in a number of successful action-themed films, playing tough, independent roles in films including "Blue Crush", "S.W.A.T.", "" and James Cameron's record-breaking "Avatar." She is also known for her reprising roles as Shé in Robert Rodriguez's action exploitation films "Machete" and "Machete Kills" and as Rain Ocampo in the science-fiction franchise "Resident Evil" and "."
1164598	William "Will" Sasso (born May 24, 1975) is a Canadian actor and comedian, most notable for his 5 seasons as a cast member on "MADtv" from 1997–2002 and for starring as Curly in the 2012 film reboot of "The Three Stooges". Early life. Sasso was born in Ladner, British Columbia, Canada. His parents are Italian immigrants. He graduated from Delta Secondary School in Delta, British Columbia in 1993. He credits his determination to become an actor and his respect for comedy to an "unhealthy addiction to television". Career. At the age of 15 he landed his first agent and quickly began booking roles in television and film. Before moving from Vancouver to Los Angeles, California, Sasso starred for five seasons as quirky teen `Derek Wakaluk' on the award-winning Canadian dramatic series "Madison". "MADtv". By the end of its second season (1996–1997), "MADtv" experienced its first big cast turnover. Three of the show's repertory performers (Bryan Callen, Orlando Jones and Artie Lange) left the cast. As a result, in 1997, casting executives at FOX had to cast replacements for the show. Sasso (along with Alex Borstein and Aries Spears) was selected to join the "MADtv" third season cast as a regular cast member. Sasso is known for quirky characters such as the accident prone handyman Paul Timberman, Eracist member Hugh, singer Michael McCloud, "Talkin' American" host Rui Peranio and Mexican luchador Señor Bag of Crap. Sasso also does many celebrity impersonations, including impersonations of Arnold Schwarzenegger, Chris Farley, Steven Seagal, Bill Clinton, Drew Carey, Elton John, Elvis Presley, Fred Durst, George W. Bush, James Gandolfini (as himself and Tony Soprano), James Lipton, Jesse Ventura, Kenny Rogers, Lance Bass, Louie Anderson, Paul Shaffer, Randy Newman, Richard Simmons, Robert De Niro, The Rock, Steve Austin, Wayne Newton, William Frawley (as Fred Mertz from "I Love Lucy"), and William Shatner (as himself and as James T. Kirk). Will began developing several network television projects with Disney/Touchstone for ABC in 2001 and in 2002, Sasso left "MADtv" to pursue the next stage of his career. Professional Wrestling. Sasso is a professional wrestling fan, and has made appearances with multiple American pro wrestling promotions. Sasso engaged in a worked shoot angle with former world champion wrestler Bret Hart, which began on February 6, 1999 during Hart's second guest appearance on "MADtv". In a sketch lampooning the election of Jesse Ventura to gubernatorial office, Hart "broke character" and attacked the cast members for making light of wrestling, apparently injuring Sasso. He then appeared in a later episode at the curtain call during the ending credits and again attacked Sasso in an "unscripted" assault. Sasso then appeared at ringside during the February 8, 1999 episode of "WCW Monday Nitro", where Hart again attacked him. Sasso retaliated by interfering in Hart's match against Roddy Piper, making him lose the match and the WCW United States Championship. This led to a grudge match on the February 15, 1999 episode of "Nitro", where Sasso appeared with castmate Debra Wilson, who turned on Sasso, making it a one-sided match. Sasso's impersonation of Steve Austin impressed the WWF (as it was then still known, before its name changed to WWE) so much that they asked him to be part of the February 7, 2002 episode of "WWF SmackDown!", appearing alongside Chris Jericho and Austin himself, as a means to promote Austin's upcoming "MADtv" appearance. Sasso also appeared in the audience at WrestleMania X8, and can clearly be seen in the front row during the match between Ric Flair and The Undertaker. On the live April 9, 2012 broadcast of WWE Raw, he appeared along with the other actors in "The Three Stooges" movie, alternating between Curly and Hulk Hogan impersonations. He was chokeslammed by Kane. Sasso also appered on a
1060445	Seann William Scott (born October 3, 1976) is an American comedic actor who is best known for playing the role of Steve Stifler in the "American Pie" series. He also played roles in the films "Final Destination", "Road Trip", "Dude, Where's My Car?", "Evolution", "Bulletproof Monk", "The Rundown", "The Dukes of Hazzard", "Role Models", "Cop Out", and "Goon". Early life. Scott, the youngest of seven children, was born in Cottage Grove, Minnesota. He is the son of Patricia Anne ("née" Simons), a homemaker, and William Frank Scott, a factory worker. His eldest brother, Daniel, co-founded the Weekly Alibi after graduating from University of Wisconsin-Madison. He was inspired to become an actor while working at the local movie theater and seeing all the movies he could watch free. Career. Scott's first commercial success came with the 1999 film "American Pie", as Steve Stifler, a role he reprised in three sequels, "American Pie 2" (2001), "American Wedding" (2003), and "American Reunion" (2012). For his supporting role in the first film, Scott was paid only $8,000. As Scott demanded more screentime, he was granted the lead role in the third film "American Wedding", though he only received second billing. Though the character of "Steve Stifler" propelled Scott into the public consciousness, the actor has mentioned in a variety of interviews his fear of typecasting, which has led him to choose to play different types of characters post-"American Pie", such as a hapless nerd in the film "Final Destination" and a harmless stoner character in "Dude, Where's My Car?", alongside Ashton Kutcher. He made an appearance in Kevin Smith's "Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back" as a guitar-playing animal rights activist and has a starring part as a police officer in "Southland Tales", where he re-unites with fellow actor Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, with whom he had previously worked in "The Rundown". Scott hosted the MTV Movie Awards 2003 alongside Justin Timberlake. The two performed several skits, including scenes from "The Matrix Reloaded", which are on "The Matrix Reloaded" DVD. He has also hosted "Saturday Night Live" and appeared as a guest co-host on "Live with Regis and Kelly". He co-starred in "Cop Out", Kevin Smith's action comedy, alongside Bruce Willis and Tracy Morgan. Personal life. On March 16, 2011, Scott was admitted to a treatment facility for "health and personal issues". His representatives declined to confirm any details about the decision, including specifying the facility. On April 13, 2011, it was reported that Scott had successfully completed the treatment program. In March 2012, Scott confirmed that he was engaged to model Lindsay Frimodt. In January 2013, "US Weekly" reported that this engagement had ended and that the two had split as friends.
1036658	Richard Michael "Rik" Mayall (born 7 March 1958) is an English comedian, writer and actor. Mayall is best known for his comedy partnership with Adrian Edmondson, his over-the-top, energetic portrayal of characters, and as a pioneer of alternative comedy in the early 1980s. He appeared in numerous sitcoms including "The Young Ones", "Blackadder", "The New Statesman" and "Bottom" and the big screen in comedy films "Drop Dead Fred" and "Guest House Paradiso". Early life. Mayall, the second of four children, was born in Harlow, Essex to John and Gillian Mayall. He has an older brother, Anthony, and two younger sisters, Libby and Kate. When Mayall was three years old, he and his parents—who taught drama—moved to Droitwich Spa, Worcestershire, where he spent the rest of his childhood and performed in his parents' plays. After attending The King's School, Worcester, Mayall went to the Victoria University of Manchester in 1976 to study drama, where he befriended his future comedy partner Ade Edmondson. He also met Ben Elton and Lise Mayer, with whom he later co-wrote "The Young Ones". Career. Edmondson and Mayall gained their reputation at the Comedy Store, from 1980. The double act, ""20th Century Coyote"", became popular. Mayall also developed solo routines using characters such as Kevin Turvey and a pompous anarchist poet named Rick. This led to Edmondson and Mayall, along with Comedy Store compere Alexei Sayle and other upcoming comedians including Nigel Planer, Peter Richardson, French and Saunders, Arnold Brown and Pete Richens, to set up their own comedy club called "The Comic Strip" in the Raymond Revue Bar, a strip club. Mayall's popularity led to a regular slot for Kevin Turvey on "A Kick Up the Eighties", first broadcast in 1981. He appeared as "Rest Home" Ricky in Richard O'Brien's "Shock Treatment", sequel to "The Rocky Horror Picture Show". He played Dentonvale's resident attendant as the love interest to Nell Campbell's Nurse Ansalong. Mayall's television appearances as Kevin Turvey in 1977 along with Johnathan PP Seller warranted a mockumentary based on the character entitled "Kevin Turvey – The Man Behind The Green Door", broadcast in 1982. The previous year, he appeared in a bit role in "An American Werewolf in London". His stage partnership with Edmondson continued, often appearing together as "The Dangerous Brothers", hapless daredevils whose hyper-violent antics foreshadowed their characters in "Bottom". Mayall also made a cameo appearance in the 1983 gothic horror film, "The Keep" directed by Michael Mann. Channel 4 offered the Comic Strip group six short films, which became "the Comic Strip Presents...", debuting on 2 November 1982. The series, which continued sporadically for many years, saw Mayall play a wide variety of roles. It was known for anti-establishment humour and for parodies such as "Bad News on Tour", a spoof "rockumentary" starring Mayall, Richardson, Edmondson and Planer as a heavy metal band. At the time "The Comic Strip Presents..." was negotiated, the BBC took an interest in "The Young Ones", a sitcom written by Mayall and then-girlfriend Lise Mayer, in the same anarchic vein as "Comic Strip". Ben Elton joined the writers. The series was commissioned and first broadcast in 1982, shortly before "Comic Strip". Mayall played Rik, a pompous sociology student and Cliff Richard devotee. Despite the sitcom format, Mayall maintained his double-act with Edmondson, who starred as violent punk Vyvyan. Nigel Planer (as hippie Neil) and Christopher Ryan (as "Mike the cool person") also starred, with additional material written and performed by Alexei Sayle. The first series was successful and a second was commissioned in 1984. The show owed a comic debt to Spike Milligan, but Milligan was disapproving of Mayall, and once wrote: "Rik Mayall is putrid – absolutely vile. He thinks nose-picking is funny and farting and all that. He is the arsehole of British comedy." In 1986 Rik Mayall played the Detective in the Video of Peter Gunn by Art Of Noise Featuring Duane Eddy. Becoming a household name. Mayall continued to work on "The Comic Strip" films. He returned to standup, starring on "Saturday Live" — a British version of the American "Saturday Night Live" — first broadcast in 1985. He and Edmondson had a regular section as "The Dangerous Brothers", their earlier stage act. In 1985, Mayall debuted another comic creation. He had starred in the final episode of "The Black Adder" in 1983 as "Mad Gerald". He returned to play Lord Flashheart in the "Blackadder II"-episode entitled "Bells". A descendant of this character, Squadron Commander Flashheart, was in the "Blackadder Goes Forth" episode "Private Plane". In the same episode, he was reunited with Edmonson, who played German flying ace Baron von Richthofen the "Red Baron", in a scene where he comes to rescue Captain Blackadder from the Germans. Nearly a decade later, Mayall also appeared in "" as Robin Hood. In 1986, Mayall joined with Planer, Edmondson and Elton to star in "Filthy Rich & Catflap" as Richie Rich in what was billed as a follow-up to "The Young Ones". The idea of "Filthy Rich and Catflap" was in reaction to comments Jimmy Tarbuck made about the "Young Ones". The series primary focus was to highlight the "has been" status of light entertainment. While Mayall received positive critical reviews, viewing figures were poor and the series was never repeated on the BBC. In later years, release on video, DVD and repeats on UK TV found a following. Mayall suggested the series did not last because he was uncomfortable acting in an Elton project, when they had been co-writers on "The Young Ones". 1987 saw Mayall co-star with Edmondson in the ITV sit-com "Hardwicke House". Due to adverse reaction of press and viewers, ITV withdrew the series after two episodes. The same year, Mayall had a number one hit in the UK Singles charts when he and his co-stars from "The Young Ones" teamed with Cliff Richard to record "Living Doll" for the inaugural "Comic Relief" campaign. Mayall played Rick one last time in the stage show and has supported the "Comic Relief" cause ever since. He appeared on the children's television series "Jackanory". His crazed portrayal of Roald Dahl's "George's Marvellous Medicine" proved memorable. However, the BBC received complaints "with viewers claiming both story and presentation to be both dangerous and offensive.".
581753	Ru Ba Ru is a 2008 Indian drama film directed by the debutant director Arjun Bali. Filmed in Hindi, the film revolves around the relationship between a live-in couple caught amidst their busy professional careers. The film stars actors Randeep Hooda and a relative newcomer Shahana Goswami in the leading role. Rati Agnihotri, Kulbhushan Kharbanda and Jayant Kriplani play the supporting roles. This movie is an adaptation of Junger's film "If Only" (2004). Plot. Tara (Shahana Goswami), an aspiring actress and singer, and Nikhil (Randeep Hooda)play, a young professional in an advertising firm have been in a relationship since a few years. Kulbhushan Kharbanda is a taxi driver. Tara wants to cement their relationship by having him meet her parents as a commitment to a marriage. But Nikhil, who is workaholic and professionally ambitious, is always pre-occupied with his work. Saying that he is happy with the way things are between the two of them, he stashes away her proposal for marriage. Trouble brews between them when Nikhil constantly forgets little things about her and their relationship. He begins to take Tara, her family and friends for granted. When Tara cannot take this behavior of Nikhil anymore, she decides to take matters in her own hand. That's when a strange magical, mystical force intervenes, and what happens next forms the rest of the story. Tara is hit by a taxi, and dies in the hospital. Nikhil is left helpless and sobbing. however, next morning he finds Tara lying on the bed besides him alive! This makes him realise that he's been given a second chance to patch up and rectify his mistakes...all is well, until at the end another tragedy occurs... Production. Debutant director Arjun Bali previously worked on advertisements before venturing into commercial cinema. Randeep Hooda, who had previously worked in action films such as "D" (2005) and "Risk" (2007), thought of experimenting with a romantic film hoping that it might bring him the much elusive success in the Bollywood film industry. When Bali approached Hooda with the film's story, the latter instantly liked the title. The film was titled "Ru Ba Ru", which transliterates into soul to soul, with actress-model Mandira Bedi's suggestion. For the film, Hooda shaved his moustache away as he "wanted to look soft and romantic." While saying that his character in the film was quite similar to his real life persona, Hooda thought it was great working with relative newcomer Shahana Goswami. Goswami previously featured in "Yun Hota Toh Kya Hota" (2006), "Honeymoon Travels Pvt. Ltd." (2007) and "Rock On!!" (2008), the former two being cameo appearances. She was signed on for this film before her graduation. Ironically, the characters she portrays in "Rock On!!" and this film were strikingly similar. Due to this, she was worried that this might typecast her in her future films. Multiple Music-Directors: Satyadev Barman with Ranjit Barot, Strings with Shuja Haider (Speed of Sound) and Sameer Uddin composed the music of the film, while the soundtrack lyrics is written Shuja Haider, Soumik Sen, Chester Misquitta, Aditya Narayan, Arjun Chandramohan Bali and Akshay Verma. Shuja Haider, Ranjit Barot, Sunidhi Chauhan, Kunal Ganjawala, Vijay Prakash, Suzanne D'Mello and Shreya Ghosal featured as singers in the soundtrack. Release and reception. The film, which released on 12 September 2008, earned average reviews by the critics. sify.com "and indiafm.com "[http://www.bollywoodhungama.com/movies/review/12998/index.html"said Debutante director Arjun Bali's choice of the subject may be debatable, but you can't shut your eyes to the fact that he has handled the subject with dexterity."Rediff.com" appreciated the performance of the lead actors, Randeep Hooda and Shahana Goswami and added that the adaptation of Hollywood film "If Only" (2004) could have been better. Movie reviewers from "The Economic Times", "Sify.com" and "NDTV" corroborated the fact that the film was an Indian adaptation of the Hollywood film. When asked in an interview about this, Hooda evaded a direct answer. Instead he became defensive and said that every film is inspired in some way or other, and that there have been films around before-and-after aspect of life.
592229	Malavallii Huche Gowda Amarnath (Ambareesh) or M. H. Amarnath (Ambaresh) (Kannada:ಅಂಬರೀಶ್) (known as Rebel-Star and Mandyada Gandu ಕನ್ನಡ: ಮಂಡ್ಯದ ಗಂಡು) born 29 May 1952 at Maddur Taluk in Mandya District of Karnataka state is an Indian film actor and also a prominent politician from Karnataka state. He's currently the MLA winning the assembly election of the Mandya constituency, by a margin of 42,937 votes. He is the present Minister of Housing for the Karnataka State. Early years. Ambareesh was born in Doddarasinakere village near Maddur of Mandya district in Karnataka. His grandfather was the legendary violinist Tirumakudalu Chowdiah (the famous Chowdiah Memorial Hall and Choudayya Road in Bangalore are named after him.) Ambareesh was the sixth of seven children and the youngest among the brothers. Born as Amarnath to his father, Mysore Huche Gowda, Ambareesh's childhood was very much under his famous, musician, and maternal grandfather's shadow. Theirs was a large joint family in Mysore and that's where he started his formal studies. Film career. In the golden era of Kannada movies, the 1970s, Puttanna Kanagal was the name that spelled magic in the Kannada industry. A maker of several big hits, he was respected by critics as well as the masses. He was known as a man who could even make a stone emote. In 1971, Puttanna was hunting for new faces to cast in his new movie "Naagarahaavu" and Ambareesh's good friend, Sangram suggested his name for a screen test against his wishes. When the day of the screen test dawned, Ambareesh went into hiding and Sangram was left desperately hunting for him. Ambareesh had hid in a bullock cart. When he managed to locate him, he had to drag him to the studios (the famous Premier studios in Mysore). The enigmatic director took one look at him and asked him go put on his makeup and get ready for his test. Ambi was sure that he would flunk. He was tested for a small but powerful part of an eve-teasing college boy and he was okayed for the part. The film introduced Dr.Vishnuvardhan, another future superstar as the hero, who went on to create history in the Karnataka movie industry. Ambareesh played a small role named Jaleel; his famous dialogue "Bulbul maatadakkilva" garnered a lot of attention and the Kannada film industry got a new young villain. He played the same role when the film was remade in Hindi as "Zehreela Insaan". Ambareesh became a hero with a film titled "Amarnath" where he was introduced by V.K. Ramesh (art director). But his first success as a hero was in Antha directed by his close friend Rajendra Singh Babu. The year was 1980 and the film was a record-breaking hit. The movie was remade into Hindi, Tamil and Telugu. He played a famous role called Kanwar Lal; his famous dialogue was "Kutte, Kanwar nahi, Kanwar Lal bolo." Ambareesh has acted in about 208 films, including Puttanna Kanagal movies like "Paduvaaralli Pandavaru", "Shuba Mangala" and "Ranganayaki". As in 2010, Ambareesh had acted in most films as lead in Kannada films, surpassing Superstar Dr.Rajkumar's record of 206 films as lead actor and Superstar Dr.Vishnuvardhan, one of his best friend's record of 220 films (including Kannada, Hindi, Telugu, Tamil and Malayalam films) as a lead actor. The record has not been broken yet. He has also supported many actors at the beginning of their career. Dr. Vishnuvardhan and Dr. Ambareesh were very close friends in personal life and they have been role models for their friendship to many newcomers who usually don't gel well due to their egos. Though the first film had Vishnu in the lead while Ambi just came in two scenes in a negative role, there were absolutely no differences between the two. Ambareesh played the angry young man of the 1980s, and several films were tailor-made accordingly. The earliest of them was the political satire "Antha" (1981), directed by Rajendra Singh Babu and remade into Hindi and Tamil. This controversial film was the first in India to depict politicians and government officials as corrupt and villainous. "Chakravyuha (Film)" and "New Delhi" were made on the same lines, the first remade into Hindi as "Inqulaab", starring Amitabh Bachchan and the second a remake of the Malayalam hit of the same name. His other notable films include "Ranganayaki", "Tony", "Rani Maharani", "Olavina Udugore", "Hrudaya Haaditu", "Hongkongnalli Agent Amar", "Mannina Doni" and "Oda Huttidavaru". His performance in "Masanada Hoovu", "Elu Suttina Kote" and the Malayalam film "Gaanam" were critically acclaimed. He also showed the ggreat performance in mamateya madilu,elu sutinaa kote and mouna raga. He also acted with legend Rajkumar. He is well known as Mandyada Gandu, Kaliyuga Karna (for his generosity), and Rebel Star. He has been awarded the State award best actor for antha and best supporting role for masanada hoovu, NTR Award by Andhra Pradesh Government,filmfare best actor award for olavina hudugore and Film Fare Award (lifetime achievement award). He was the first Kannada actor to inaugurate the Mysore Dasara festival from the government of Karnataka. He also won the Karnataka Government's Dr.Vishnuvardhan State Award in the year 2011. Political career. He stepped into politics through congress later went to Janta Dal and was elected to the 12th Lok Sabha from Mandya Parliamentary Constituency as member of the Janata Dal. He then joined to the Indian National Congress and has since continued to represent the same Mandya Lok Sabha constituency for two more terms. He was minister of state for Information and Broadcasting in the 14th Lok Sabha, but resigned over his dissatisfaction with the Cauvery Dispute Tribunal award, though the resignation was not formally accepted. He was defeated in the May 2009 General Elections.he helped in elections for H.D.kumarswamy(in kanakapura parliament election in 90s),S.M. Krishna and K.R pete Krishna During the course of his public life, he has held the following positions: Personal life. Amabareesh married actress Sumalatha on 8 December 1991 at the age of 39 and they have a son named Abishek. He first met his wife on the sets of "Aahuti" directed by T. S. Nagabharana where she played his female co-star. They have shared screen in Aahuti, Avatara Purusha, Sri Manjunatha and Kallarali Hoovagi. Partial Filmography. ! style="background:#B0C4DE;" | Year ! style="background:#B0C4DE;" | Film ! style="background:#B0C4DE;" | Role ! style="background:#B0C4DE;" | Notes
1633486	Omari Hardwick (born January 9, 1974) is an American actor, known for his roles in the TV series "Saved" and "Dark Blue", and in the movies Spike Lee's "Miracle at St. Anna" (2008), "The A-Team" (2010), "Kick-Ass" (2010) and Tyler Perry's "For Colored Girls" (2010). In 2003 and 2004, he participated award-winningly in the National Poetry Slam; and he also played football. In 2011, Hardwick received his best films reviews to date for his role as "Troy" in the critically acclaimed indie hit "I Will Follow" (2011). Hardwick has guest starred on an episode of NBC's "Chase" as Chris Novak, a hard luck criminal facing prison. In 2010, Hardwick was featured in the urban lifestyle publication, "Prominence Magazine" for its Holiday issue. Awards/Nominations. Black Reel Awards
589454	Director-producer J. Om Prakash included in "Aas Paas" (1981) yet another brief "Lucky Mascot" screen appearance of his grandson -- future Hindi film superstar actor Hrithik Roshan, but then aged only 7 -- as the (uncredited) boy dancing in the song "Shehar Main Charchi Hai" who winks at Hema Malini and passes her a love note from Dharmendra. Plot. Arun meets Seema by accident and both are attracted to each other. But Seema has a questionable background, which do create doubts in the minds of Arun and his mother. Arun is then involved in an accident, and everyone believes he is dead. Seema is devastated, and takes to alcohol, singing and dancing in a bar, and is raped by a man. Then Arun returns, and Seema is overjoyed to see him, but is hesitant to tell him about what had occurred. Arun takes Seema to his home, and introduces them to his family, namely his mom, his sister, Priti, and his brother-in-law, Prem. Seema is stunned and shocked when she sees Prem, for she recognizes him as the man who had raped her. Now Seema must decide to keep this terrible secret to herself and get married to Arun, or simply disappear from his life altogether
1180899	Stephen Peter "Steve" Marriott (30 January 1947 – 20 April 1991) was an English musician, songwriter and frontman of two notable rock and roll bands, spanning over two decades. Marriott is remembered for his powerful singing voice which belied his small stature, and for his aggressive approach as a guitarist in the mod rock bands- Small Faces (1965–1969) and Humble Pie (1969–1975 and 1980–1981). Marriott was inducted posthumously into the Rock and Roll Hall Of Fame in 2012 as a member of Small Faces. In Britain, Marriott became a popular, often-photographed mod style icon through his role as lead singer and guitarist with the Small Faces in the mid to late 1960s. Marriott was influenced from an early age by his heroes including Buddy Holly, Booker T & the MG's, Ray Charles, Otis Redding, Muddy Waters and Bobby Bland. In later life Marriott became disillusioned with the music industry and turned his back on the big record companies, remaining in relative obscurity. He returned to his music roots playing the pubs and clubs around London and Essex. Marriott died on 20 April 1991 when a fire, thought to have been caused by a cigarette, swept through his 16th century home in Arkesden, Essex. He posthumously received an Ivor Novello Award in 1996 for his Outstanding Contribution to British Music, and was listed in "Mojo" as one of the top 100 greatest singers of all time. Black Sabbath frontman, Ozzy Osbourne, named Marriott the fourth greatest singer and Clem Burke of Blondie named him the sixteenth greatest singer and wrote under his name, "greatest rock singeThe 100 Greatest Singers: Inside the Ballots The last letter of the comment appears to have been just cut off in reproduction. Letter "r" added without confirmation 11 December 2009. Paul Stanley of Kiss has said, "He had a great voice" and went on to say, "Steve Marriott was unbelievable". Keith Richards listed Marriott as one of his five favourite artists of all time. Steve Perry, of Journey fame, has claimed that, "One of my favourite vocalists was Steve Marriott." While discussing Kevin DuBrow with Billboard.com, Quiet Riot bassist Rudy Sarzo said "If there was anybody that Kevin would say 'I try to sing like,' it would be Steve Marriott." Early years. Steve Marriott was born on 30 January 1947 at East Ham Hospital, Forest Gate, (now London, E7), England to parents Kay and Bill Marriott who lived at Strone Road, Manor Park. Born three weeks premature and weighing just 4 lb. 4 oz., he developed jaundice and was kept in hospital four weeks before being well enough to go home. Marriott came from a working class background and attended Monega Junior School. His father Bill worked as a printer and later owned a jellied eels stall called 'Bill's Eels' outside the Ruskin Arms. For a short time he also sold pie and mash. Kay worked at the Tate & Lyle factory in Silvertown. Bill was an accomplished pub pianist and the life and soul of many an 'East End' night. Marriott's father bought him a ukulele and harmonica which Steve taught himself to play. Marriott showed an early interest in singing and performing, busking at local bus-stops for extra pocket money and winning talent contests during the family's annual holiday to Jaywick Holiday camp near Clacton-on-Sea. In 1959 at the age of twelve, Marriott formed his first band with school friends Nigel Chapin and Robin Andrews. They were called 'The Wheels', later the 'Coronation Kids', and finally 'Mississippi Five'. They later added Simon Simkins and Vic Dixon to their line-up. From a young age, Marriott was a huge fan of American singer Buddy Holly and would mimic his hero by wearing large-rimmed spectacles with the lenses removed. He wrote his first song, called "Shelia My Dear," after his aunt Shelia to whom he was close. Those who heard the song said it was played at a jaunty pace in the style of Buddy Holly and his bandmates also nicknamed him 'Buddy'. They would play the local coffee bars in East Ham and perform Saturday morning gigs at the Essoldo Cinema in Manor Park. Marriott was a cheeky, hyperactive child, according to his mother Kay, and well known by his neighbours in Strone Road for playing pranks and practical jokes. While he was a pupil at local Sandringham Secondary Modern School, Marriott was said to be responsible for starting a deliberate fire in a classroom, though he always denied this. In 1960, Bill Marriott spotted an advertisement in a London newspaper for a new Artful Dodger replacement to appear in Lionel Bart's popular musical "Oliver!", based on the novel "Oliver Twist" by Charles Dickens, at the "New Theatre" (now called the Noël Coward Theatre) in London's West End, and without telling his son, applied for him to audition. At the age of thirteen, Marriott auditioned for the role. He sang two songs, "Who's Sorry Now" by Connie Francis, and "Oh, Boy!" by Buddy Holly. Bart was impressed with Marriott's vocal abilities and hired him. Marriott stayed with the show for a total of twelve months, playing various boys' roles during his time there, for which he was paid £8 a week. Marriott was also chosen to provide lead vocals for the Artful Dodger songs "Consider Yourself", "Be Back Soon," and "I'd Do Anything," which appear on the official album to the stage show, released by "World Record Club" and recorded at the famous Abbey Road Studios. In 1961 the Marriott family moved from Strone Road to a brand new council flat in Daines Close, Manor Park. Following Marriott's successful acting debut in "Oliver!", his family encouraged him to pursue an acting career. In 1961 he auditioned and was accepted as a student at the Italia Conti Academy of Theatre Arts in London. Because his family were unable to afford the private school fees, it was mutually agreed the fees would be deducted from acting work the school found him. After Marriott's enrollment at the Italia Conti Academy, he quickly gained acting roles, working consistently in film, television and radio, often typecast as the energetic Cockney kid. Soon he lost interest in acting and turned his attention back to his first love, which was music. His parents were devastated and his decision to give up acting caused a family rift. As a result, he left the family home for a short period to stay with friends. In 1963, Marriott wrote "Imaginary Love" and touted it around the big record labels in London. On the strength of "Imaginary Love", Marriott secured a Decca Records deal as a solo artist with Dick Reagan (also an agent for Cliff Richard). Marriott's first single was a song written by Kenny Lynch, "Give Her My Regards", with Marriott's self-penned song as the B-side. The single was released in July 1963 and promptly vanished. In the same year Marriott formed the Moments, originally called the Frantiks. The Frantiks recorded a cover version of Cliff Richard's song "Move It" with ex-Shadows drummer Tony Meehan, who was brought in to help with production. Despite the single being hawked around the major record companies, no one was interested and the song was consequently never released. They then changed the band's name to the Moments or 'Marriott and his Moments'. They played support for artists such as the Nashville Teens, the Animals, Georgie Fame and John Mayall, playing venues such as the 100 Club in Soho, London, and the Crawdaddy Club in Richmond. The Moments gained a loyal following, and for a short time had their own fanzine "Beat '64", dedicated to 'Steve Marriott's Moments', started by Stuart Tuck. They are noted as performing a total of 80 gigs in 1964. The group was asked to record a single for the American market, a cover version of the Kinks' UK hit song "You Really Got Me", released on the World Artists record label (1964). When their version of "You Really Got Me" failed to get attention, Marriott was dropped from the band, with members claiming he was too young to be a lead singer. Small Faces. Between leaving the Moments and joining The Small Faces, Steve Marriott joined The Checkpoints. Chris Clements : "He actually approached us ( The Checkpoints ) and said he needed to fullfill some gigs that were pending. This was in 1965, he was with us for a couple of months. We rehearsed at The Kentish Drovers in the Old Kent Road in South London. He got us to learn James Brown numbers, which at the time we weren't very up in. One particular memory sticks in my mind. When we rehearsed with him, he almost spoke the words of the song, rather than sang the words. He was listening to us, making sure we got the backing right, so he didn't put himself out vocally. But when we did the first gig with him, out came this fantastic soul voice, we all looked at each other, and our mouths fell open ! When doing the gigs, we would pick him up outside the Brewery in Romford road Essex. He always had a small case with his harmonicas in. His harmonica playing was excellent. Our transport at that time was a converted ambulance, and Steve would always sit up front with the owner driver, ( a man in his early 50's ) rather than sit in the back talking to us. He seemed to me to be a bit of a loner. Even when I had a conversation with him, he always seemed to be looking past me, as though in a hurry to be somewhere else. He was quite a heavy smoker as I recall. We did various venues in Essex, around the Basildon area. He had no guitar, he would use our lead guitarists red Fender Strat. Steve would put many guitar breaks in the James Brown songs. So we would all huddle around our drummer Gary Hyde who would watch Steve. When Gary stopped, we stopped, when Gary started, we started, so by using those tactics the gigs went well. We had photos taken at the various venues at that time, I wish someone would dig them out from wherever, I would love to see them". On 28 July 1964, Marriott first saw his future Small Faces partners, Ronnie Lane and 16-year-old drummer Kenney Jones. They were all performing at the Albion in Rainham, with their bands. Lane and Marriott met again by chance in the J60 Music Bar, a music shop in High Street North, Manor Park, where Marriott was working after his recent departure from the Moments. Lane came in looking to purchase a bass guitar, and afterwards was invited to Marriott's home to listen to his extensive collection of rare American R&B import records. With their shared love of R&B the trio were soon firm friends. Marriott was invited by Lane and Jones to perform with "the Outlaws" (previously called "the Pioneers") at the band's regular gig the Earl of Derby in Bermondsey. However the trio each ended up completely drunk and Marriott enthusiastically destroyed the piano he was playing, much to the amusement of Lane and Jones. The landlord sacked them and the band was finished. According to David Bowie on a 1999 episode of "VH1 Storytellers", in 1964 he and his good friend Marriott planned to form an R&B duo called 'David and Goliath'. Instead, Marriott, Lane and Jones decided to form their own band, with Steve bringing along his acquaintance, Jimmy Winston (Winston was later replaced by Ian McLagan). Marriott's friend Annabel, an ex-student from the Italia Conti, came up with the band's distinctive name after commenting that they all had "small faces"; the name stuck in part because they were all (apart from Winston) small (none being over 5 ft 6 in tall), and the term "face" in English mod culture was the name given to a well-known and respected mod. Small Faces were signed to Don Arden within six weeks of forming and quickly became a successful mod band highly regarded by the youth cult's followers when their debut single "Whatcha Gonna Do About It" hit the UK singles chart. Later, they were said to be one of many influences on the formation and musical style of British hard rock group Led Zeppelin. Marriott is reputed to have been Jimmy Page's benchmark when selecting a lead singer, and there are unmistakable stylistic and timbral similarities between the voices of Marriott and Robert Plant, Led Zeppelin's lead singer. In fact, Plant was a fan of Small Faces and a regular at their early gigs where he also ran small errands for them. Zeppelin's classic song "Whole Lotta Love" is said by some to be a direct take of Marriott's version of the classic song "You Need Lovin'", originally written by Willie Dixon and recorded by American blues singer Muddy Waters. Small Faces would regularly perform "You Need Lovin'" in their live set, and the song also appears on their debut album "Small Faces", released by Decca in May 1966. However Marriott bore no animosity to Plant. He is quoted as shouting "Go on my son!" and wishing him luck when he first heard Plant's version on the radio. Arden paid the band a wage of £20 a week each, along with accounts in clothes shops in Carnaby Street. On Boxing Day, 1965, Arden arranged for them to move into a rented house, 22 Westmoreland Terrace, Pimlico. In his autobiography, McLagan describes the house as "party central", a place where the likes of Marianne Faithfull, Brian Epstein, Pete Townshend and other celebrities would hang out. Marriott was just 18 years old. Marriott wrote or co-wrote most of Small Faces' hit singles. In an interview in 1984, Marriott was asked what his best Small Faces songs were: "I think 'All or Nothing', that I wrote, takes a lot of beating. To me, if there's a song that typifies that era, then that might be it. Words regardless, cos it's only a silly love song, but the actual feel and arrangement of the thing, and maybe 'Tin Soldier'". In 1967, Marriott wrote the evocative rock-ballad "Tin Soldier" to woo model Jenny Rylance. They first met in 1966 and Marriott was immediately smitten, but Rylance was dating up-and-coming singer Rod Stewart and so the two became friends. She later broke up with Stewart and had a brief romantic liaison with Marriott, but much to his disappointment ended it to go back to Stewart. Rylance and Stewart later split for good after a rocky four-year relationship; when Marriott found out he pursued her relentlessly, leading him to write "Tin Soldier". The song was a hit for the band in 1967 and for Marriott a personal triumph. He and Rylance were married at Kensington Register Office, London, on 29 May 1968. His daughter, Mollie Marriott, is beginning to make a name for herself as a singer, appearing at Small Faces conventions and other gigs. Later they moved into Beehive Cottage in Moreton, Essex. The property was jointly purchased with Ronnie Lane and wife Susan and was where Marriott established his music studio, "Clear Sounds". In 1967, after a dispute over unpaid royalties, relations between the Small Faces and Don Arden broke down and Arden sold them on to Andrew Loog Oldham, who owned the Immediate Records label. The band were much happier at Immediate, spending more time in the recording studio and far less time playing live; however, they lost the dynamic live sound that had made them famous. After the success of the group's number one hit concept album "Ogdens' Nut Gone Flake" Marriott was keen for the group to evolve and wanted to bring in ex-Herd frontman Peter Frampton, but McLagan, Jones and Lane refused. Marriott started to feel the band had reached the end creatively and began to spend more time with Frampton and Greg Ridley. After rumours in the press about the band splitting up, which were always officially denied, Marriott quit the group, storming off stage during a disastrous live performance on New Year's Eve, 1968. In a 1984 interview with NME reporter Paolo Hewitt on the subject of leaving the band, Marriott said: "You grow apart for Christsakes. You're talking about people living together from the ages of seventeen to twenty-two and that's a growing up part of your life and we got to hate each other, no doubt about it. We didn't speak to each other for fucking years. Maybe ten years." – Marriott
1169777	Alyson Reed (born January 10, 1958) is an American dancer and actress. Life and career. Reed grew up in Anaheim, California and attended Anaheim High School, where she graduated in 1976. She was a varsity songleader for two years, and was ASB President as a senior. She began ballet at age 4 and performing in musicals at age 7. She began working professionally at age 12. Alyson performed as Alice in Wonderland at the Disneyland theme park. Reed made her Broadway debut in "Dancin in 1978. Additional theatre credits include "Dance a Little Closer", "Cabaret", "A Grand Night for Singing", and '. She was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Musical for "Cabaret" and the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Actress in a Musical for "Marilyn". In 1992, she starred opposite Michael O'Keefe in the national touring company of "A Few Good Men" in the role of Lt. Cmdr. Galloway, and also toured as Cassie/Val in A Chorus Line, and Catherine in Pippin. Reed's most notable screen role was Cassie in Richard Attenborough's film adaptation of "A Chorus Line", and she also appeared in the comedy "Skin Deep" with John Ritter. Her many television credits include "Matlock", "L.A. Law", "Murder, She Wrote", "Frasier", "Law & Order", "Without a Trace", "ER", "Judging Amy", "Chicago Hope", "The X Files", "", "Nip/Tuck", "Crossing Jordan", "Numb3rs", "Boston Legal", "NYPD Blue" and "Desperate Housewives". Most recently, she has become known to younger viewers for the role of Ms. Darbus in the popular Disney Channel movie "High School Musical" and its sequel "High School Musical 2" (although her role in that film was only one scene). She reprised her role as Ms. Darbus in "".
501383	Jason Fuchs (born March 5, 1986) is an American television and film actor and screenwriter. Early life. Fuchs was born in New York City, to a family of Hasidic Jewish background on his father's side. He went on to enroll and graduate from Columbia University. Career. He has been acting since he was 7 years old, making his debut at Lincoln Center in the play "Abe Lincoln in Illinois" with Sam Waterston. Fuchs has also guest-starred on "Cosby", "The Sopranos", "The Beat", ', ', "Ed", and "All My Children". His first feature film role was as Marvin in the 1996 movie "Flipper", co-starring Elijah Wood. In 1998 he appeared in two movies, "Louis & Frank" and "Jane Austen's Mafia!". Fuchs also starred in 2003 film "The Hebrew Hammer", co-starring Adam Goldberg. In 2004, Fuchs took the role in "Winter Solstice". Fuchs wrote, produced and starred in the 2006 short film "Pitch", which made its premiere at the 2006 Cannes Film Festival. He next appeared in "Holy Rollers", a movie inspired by actual events in the late nineties when Hasidic Jews were recruited as mules to smuggle ecstasy from Europe into the United States. He played a brother of Justin Bartha, alongside Jesse Eisenberg and Ari Graynor.
1066753	Nobel Son is a 2007 American black comedy about a dysfunctional family dealing with the kidnapping of their son for ransom following the father's winning of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. The film features Alan Rickman as the prize-winning professor and Mary Steenburgen as his wife, with Bryan Greenberg as their kidnapped son. Principal photography for "Nobel Son" started on October 6, 2005 in Venice Beach, California and ended on November 17, 2005. The official trailer and website were released on January 12, 2007. Plot. Eli Michaelson (Alan Rickman), a self-involved chemistry professor, learns he has been awarded the Nobel Prize. After verbally abusing his wife, son, colleagues, and nominal girlfriend, he heads off to Sweden with his wife, Sarah (Mary Steenburgen), to collect his award. His son, Barkley (Bryan Greenberg), misses the flight. Barkley Michaelson has chosen to study not chemistry but anthropology, and this perceived failure triggers constant torrents of abuse from his father. His missing the flight, though, is the apparently innocent result of having been kidnapped by the deranged Thaddeus James (Shawn Hatosy), who claims to be Eli Michaelson's son by the wife of a former colleague. Thaddeus successfully obtains a ransom of $2 million, which he then splits with Barkley, who, it appears, has orchestrated the kidnapping to obtain money from his father. Shortly after Barkley's release, Thaddeus rents a garage apartment from the Michaelsons and begins to charm Eli with his knowledge of chemistry. Barkley undertakes a campaign of psychological terror aimed at Thaddeus and his girlfriend, performance artist City Hall (Dushku). This ultimately results in the death of Thaddeus and commitment to a mental hospital for City. Meanwhile, Barkley kidnaps Eli and threatens to expose the scientific fraud that led to Eli receiving a Nobel prize that he did not deserve. Eli's long suffering wife, Sarah, demands a divorce while praising her son for his devious behavior. In the final scenes, Sarah, Barkley, and Sarah's police detective boyfriend, Max Mariner (Pullman) are seen on a tropical beach. Mariner appears to have been in the dark through most of the movie, but has figured out towards the end that he wants to be with Sarah and can live with the theft of $2 million from her scoundrel husband. Eli is seen in his classroom unrepentantly flirting with another student. He has lost his wife, son, and the money, but it's unclear whether he still has his Nobel Prize. Cast. Cameos include Ted Danson and Tracey Walter as university colleagues of Eli Michaelson, and Ernie Hudson as a police detective aiding in the ransom negotiation. Release. The film was screened from April 28 – May 2, 2007 at the 2007 Tribeca Film Festival in New York City. The entire cast attended the premiere and all of the screenings were sold-out. It received broadly negative reviews, with only a 23% "rotten" rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Manohla Dargis, writing for "The New York Times" described the film as "an aggressively noisy exercise in style over substance about nasty people doing nasty things to one another." Roger Ebert gave it a positive review. The film was also called "entertaining" by a reviewer on Ain't It Cool News. Over a year after its initial public screening at the Tribeca Film Festival, "Nobel Son" was picked up for distribution by Freestyle Releasing and was released in theaters on December 5, 2008.
1164957	Ken Berry (born November 3, 1933) is an American sitcom actor, dancer and singer. Berry has had success in multiple television shows, one being with his friend and mentor, Andy Griffith. Berry starred in the successful comedies "F Troop", "The Andy Griffith Show" spin-off "Mayberry R.F.D.", and "The Carol Burnett Show" spin-off "Mama's Family". He also appeared on Broadway in "The Billy Barnes Revue", has headlined as George M. Cohan in the musical "George M!" and provided comic relief for the medical drama "Dr. Kildare", with Richard Chamberlain in the 1960s. Early life and career. Berry was born in Moline in Rock Island County in northwestern Illinois, one of two children of the accountant, Darrell Berry, and his wife, Bernice. His older sister, Dona Rae, rounded out the family. Berry is of Swedish-English descent. Berry realized he wanted to be a dancer and singer at the age of twelve, as he watched a children's dance performance during a school assembly. He dreamed of starring in movie musicals and would go to the movie theater to see Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly in some of his favorite of their films including "Easter Parade", "Royal Wedding", "On the Town", and "Summer Stock". After seeing a school performance, Berry immediately started tap dance class and, at the age of fifteen, won a local talent competition sponsored by radio and television big band leader Horace Heidt. Heidt asked Berry to join his traveling performance ensemble, "The Horace Heidt Youth Opportunity Program", which was a popular touring group. Berry's parents drove him to Los Angeles to live with the rest of the troupe at the Horace Height ranch in the San Fernando Valley. He toured the U.S. and parts of Europe for 15 months with the program, dancing and singing for the public and at post-World War II United States Air Force bases overseas. Berry made lasting relationships with several of his co-cast members and Horace's son, Horace Heidt Jr., who later launched a big band and radio career. Army service. A few months after high school graduation Berry's family drove him back to Los Angeles so that he could pursue acting. But before doing so, at the age of twenty, Berry volunteered for induction into the United States Army, and he was assigned to Fort Bragg in North Carolina. His first year in the Army was spent in the Artillery division, and one day, after coming back from maneuvers, his sergeant announced a talent contest on base. The winner would go to New York City to appear on Arlene Francis' "Soldier Parade". Berry, who always carried his tap shoes with him, went to the only place that had a floor he would not ruin by dancing on it: the latrine. He worked out a routine and a few hours later won the contest. He headed to New York for a week and his television debut. Berry's second and final year was as a part of the Special Services Corps, under the command of Sergeant Leonard Nimoy. As a part of Special Services, he toured the country's Army bases and officers' clubs entertaining the troops, as well as visiting colleges for recruiting purposes. Soon another talent competition was held, this time it was the All Army Talent Competition, to find service personnel to appear on Ed Sullivan's "Toast of the Town". Berry placed third in the "Specialty Act" category with the song "There'll Be Some Changes Made" and was on his way back to New York City and television. Film career. The Sullivan appearance was to take place shortly before Berry would muster out of the Army, and although he thought it presumptuous to write the Hollywood studios asking them to watch his performance on "Toast of the Town", Nimoy did not, and sent telegrams to several studios and talent agents asking them to watch Berry on the show. The performance led to an offer from Twentieth Century Fox and a screen test at Universal Studios prior to his arrival back in Hollywood. He signed with an agent as soon as he arrived in town. Berry accepted Universal's offer and began as a contract player. Soon he was being groomed to take over for Donald O'Connor in the "Francis the Talking Mule" movie series; however, Mickey Rooney became available and got the part. While at Universal, Berry took full advantage of the studio's talent development program and later, under the GI Bill of Rights, he took jazz dance, ballet, vocal, and additional acting classes. Unfortunately, the movie musicals Berry dreamed of being in had already seen their heyday by the time he reached Hollywood. Little did he know that acting, which he once thought of as "something I would do between song and dance routines", would become the basis of his career. Berry went on to star in the 1969 musical comedy "Hello Down There" – reissued as "Sub a Dub Dub" – as Mel Cheever, the nemesis to Tony Randall and Janet Leigh, and with Denver Pyle in 1976's "Guardian of the Wilderness", the story of Galen Clark, the man who created Yosemite National Park. Berry also earned broader success as a Disney star in the films "Herbie Rides Again" in 1974, with Helen Hayes and Stefanie Powers, and "The Cat From Outer Space" in 1978, with Sandy Duncan and McLean Stevenson. Las Vegas. In 1956, after being released from Universal, Berry returned to Las Vegas where he opened for and joined Abbott & Costello in their stage act, doing sketches and song and dance routines at the Sahara Hotel and Casino. While working with Abbott & Costello, he met Dee Arlen, an actress whom he credits with getting him his first big break from which almost all of his other opportunities would come. This was Berry's first performance on the Las Vegas strip. Then, in 1957, Berry was asked by Ken Murray, a well-known vaudeville performer, to join his stage variety show, "The Ken Murray Blackouts". The Blackouts played to standing-room-only audiences, and Berry was asked to choreograph and perform the opening number for the show when it played the Riviera Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas. Berry eventually returned to Las Vegas again in the 1970s at the invitation of Andy Griffith. Griffith, along with Berry and Jerry Van Dyke, played Caesars Palace, where Berry performed song and dance numbers sandwiched by Andy and Jerry's stand-up routines. "The Billy Barnes Review". Actress Dee Arlen referred Berry for a role in the show "In League with Ivy" at the Cabaret Concert Theatre, a nightclub in Los Angeles. This show was where he met famed composer–impresario Billy Barnes who was the play's composer. Barnes would bring Berry into "The Billy Barnes Review" ensemble, his next break, and he would perform in many of Barnes' shows in the coming years. While performing with Barnes, Berry worked with other performers including Berry's future wife, Jackie Joseph, as well as Joyce Jameson, Bert Convy, Patti Regan, Ann Morgan Guilbert, Lennie Weinrib, and sketch writer/director Bob Rodgers. Several cast albums were made. In November 1959, the original cast of the Broadway show was replaced two weeks after a legal dispute with the producers over a canceled performance. The cast had missed their flight from Chicago after a promotional appearance on "Playboy's Penthouse" and refunds had to be made to the ticket holders. He performed in several stage shows in Los Angeles; the press dubbed him "another Fred Astaire" and "the next Gene Kelly". His talent was also compared to that of Flamenco Dancer José Greco, legend Donald O'Connor, Ray Bolger, and Jack Donohue. Television career. Arthur Godfrey. From 1946 to 1958, Arthur Godfrey had an evening television show called "Arthur Godfrey's Talent Scouts". The show was a talent contest, and the winner would get a week's work on Godfrey's morning television program, which was simulcast on radio. One week in 1957, Berry won, performed his week on the show, and was then asked back for six more weeks. He traveled with Godfrey and performed on remote broadcasts in an Omaha stock yard, in Seattle at a lumber camp, at the Boeing aircraft plant, and at the San Diego Zoo. Berry was responsible for coming up with a new routine for every show, which were aired daily. Carol Burnett. The Billy Barnes Review was popular with Hollywood, and one evening Carol Burnett was in Los Angeles and saw Berry in the show. She was appearing on "The Garry Moore Show" in New York and convinced the producers to sign Berry as a guest star. Burnett became a key ally for Berry, using him on her own special, which eventually became CBS's "The Carol Burnett Show". Ken was one of Burnett's most frequent guest stars along with Jim Nabors and Steve Lawrence. A notable dramatic performance by Berry was 1982's "Eunice" special, which was based on "The Carol Burnett Show" sketch, "The Family". "The Family" was somewhat of a pilot for "Mama's Family". Berry played Phillip, Eunice's brother, in the special; however he went on to play Vinton, a different brother on "Mama's Family". His collaborations with Carol Burnett continued, and they appeared together in the 1972 color remake of the Burnett's Broadway hit, "Once Upon A Mattress" for CBS; and in the 1993 Long Beach theatrical production of "From the Top". Lucille Ball. Berry's tenure with "The Billy Barnes Review" also led to another important connection in his career when he was spotted by Lucille Ball. Ball quickly asked him to join her new talent development program she was starting at Desilu, similar to the "talent pools" – known as talent "programs" – that the other studios had. He was under contract with Desilu for six months, performing for both Ball and Barnes at the same time. The reviews for "The Billy Barnes Review" were largely positive, and additional investors contributed the extra money needed to move the show from the York Playhouse to Broadway, which meant he had to take leave from Desilu. After returning from New York in 1960, Berry was brought back to Desilu to play Woody, a bell hop, in ten episodes of CBS's "The Ann Sothern Show" which was set in a swanky New York hotel called the Bartley House. The character Woody served as a "Greek chorus of one" on the series. Later, in 1968, Ball asked Berry to guest star on "The Lucy Show", where he played a bank client needing a loan to start a dance studio. Ken performed a tribute to the classic Fred Astaire number "One for My Baby" and a duet with Ball for a rendition of "Lucy's Back in Town". Additional television roles. After numerous smaller roles, Berry was eventually cast as one of three comic relief characters on "Dr. Kildare", from 1961-1966. A regular on the series, Berry played Dr. Kapish. "F-Troop" and "Mayberry R.F.D.". Berry continued doing guest roles and thought that he would at least be able to make a career as a day player, but while doing a small part on the short-lived George Burns-Connie Stevens sitcom "Wendy & Me", both Burns and Stevens recommended him for the pilot of "F-Troop" for ABC, a western spoof where he played the accident-prone but lovable Captain Parmenter. His first weekly role starring in a sitcom, Berry "danced around the house for weeks". Berry's co-stars were Forrest Tucker and Larry Storch, both well-known performers. Berry called his time on "F-Troop" "two years of recess" as the entire cast spent time between takes trying to make each other laugh. His grace and agility allowed him to perform choreographed pratfalls over hitching posts, sabers, and trash cans as the accident-prone Captain Parmenter. In 1967, during the second year of "F-Troop", Dick Linke – who was Berry's manager, and also managed Andy Griffith and Jim Nabors – pitched an "F-Troop" stage show to Bill Harrah, founder of Harrah's Entertainment, which included a casino and hotel in Reno, Nevada. Harrah went for it and Berry, Larry Storch, Forrest Tucker, and James Hampton put together a show, hiring writers and a choreographer to assist. It was while performing the Reno show that they received word that "F-Troop" had been canceled due to a financial dispute between the production company and the studio. The next year Berry was cast in a guest starring role on "The Andy Griffith Show" as Sam Jones, a widowed farmer. The role was his introduction to Mayberry and he would take over the lead role once Griffith left the show. In 1968 Ken led the cast of the newly titled "Mayberry R.F.D.". Since many of the actors who played the regular characters stayed with the show when Griffith left, the continuity kept the ratings high. Series writers used his "trouper" talents in stories around church revues and talent contests. On the 1970 "Mayberry R.F.D." episode "The Charity", he and co-star Paul Hartman did a soft shoe dance together. Berry would sometimes end a show on the porch at dusk, serenading others with such songs as "Carolina Moon". In spite of finishing in a respectable 15th place for season three, "Mayberry R.F.D." was canceled in 1971 in what was called "the rural purge", where shows set in a bucolic locale ("The Beverly Hillbillies", "Green Acres", and "Petticoat Junction") were replaced with the more "hip" fare of Norman Lear ("All In The Family") and "The Mary Tyler Moore Show". After "Mayberry R.F.D.", Berry went on to star in several made for TV movies, and his own summer replacement variety show on ABC called "The Ken Berry 'Wow' Show" in 1972, which ran for five episodes. This show was an opportunity for future stars Steve Martin, Cheryl Ladd and Teri Garr. Later television. In 1973 Sherwood Schwartz wrote a "Brady Bunch" spin-off called "Kelly's Kids", which featured Berry as the adoptive father of three diverse boys (black, white, and Asian). The pilot failed to interest ABC. Over the next two decades Berry constantly guest starred on many other shows throughout his career including "The Bob Newhart Show", "The Julie Andrews Hour", several of Mitzi Gaynor's specials, "The Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour", "The Donny & Marie Show", "Love Boat", "Fantasy Island", "CHiPS", and "The Golden Girls". "Mama's Family". In 1983, Berry was cast as Vinton Harper in "Mama's Family", a spin-off from "The Carol Burnett Show". This was an opportunity to work with successful comic-actors including the versatile Vicki Lawrence, Dorothy Lyman, Rue McClanahan, Betty White, and Beverly Archer during the six seasons of the show. "Mama's Family" aired on NBC from 1983 to 1984 and in repeats until 1985. It was then picked up for first-run syndication from 1986 to 1990. The complete run totaled 130 episodes. During and after "Mama's Family", Berry toured the U.S. in various theatrical performances, including multiple performances of "Sugar" with co-stars such as Donald O'Connor, Mickey Rooney, Soupy Sales, and Bobby Morse, "The Music Man" with Susan Watson (Patrick Swayze and Lisa Niemi were in the chorus), "I Do! I Do!" with Loretta Swit, and Gene Kelly's "A Salute to Broadway" with Howard Keel and Mimi Hines. Kelly, Berry's idol, was to direct the production, but fell ill. Commercials. In his younger years, Berry signed with a modeling agency that put him in a variety of spots, including advertisements for tissues, cigarettes, cereal, and a car commercial. Years later, after signing with a commercial agent, Berry was a spokesman in commercials for Kinney Shoes from the mid-1970s to the early 1980s, singing and dancing to the "Great American Shoe Store" jingle. Record albums. Berry's first recording experience came with the Billy Barnes cast albums: one from the Broadway performance of "The Billy Barnes Review" and the second in "Billy Barnes' L.A". Then, in after an appearance on "The Andy Williams Show", Williams asked Berry to record a solo album on his new Barnaby label. Backed by a full orchestra, "Ken Berry RFD" was released in 1970. Personal life. Berry married Jackie Joseph, a Billy Barnes castmate on May 29, 1960. They eventually adopted two children, John and Jennifer. They divorced in 1976. Berry has "loved cars and anything with wheels" since he was a young child, particularly smaller cars, and maintains a 1966 Mini Moke. An avid motorcyclist, he would camp and ride the local Los Angeles mountain ranges to relax. Credits.
1060007	Alison Marion Lohman (born September 18, 1979) is an American actress. She has had lead roles in the films "White Oleander", "Where the Truth Lies", "The Big White", "Matchstick Men", "Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind", "Flicka" and "Drag Me to Hell" as well as smaller parts in "Big Fish", "Gamer", and "Beowulf". She has also been on several television shows including "7th Heaven", "Crusade", "Tucker", and "Pasadena". Early life. Lohman was born and raised in Palm Springs, California, the daughter of Diane (née Dunham), a patisserie owner, and Gary Lohman, a Minnesota-born architect. She has one younger brother, Robert (born 1982). She has two cats, Monk and Clint. In her first school year, Lohman was diagnosed with combined type attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and put on medicine for it, which she still uses as an adult. Afterwards, she had straights A's in all her school subjects, except in drama, because she was too shy. At age nine, she played Gretyl in "The Sound of Music" at the Palm Desert's McCallum Theater. Two years later, she won the Desert Theater League's award for "Most Outstanding Actress in a Musical" for the title role in "Annie". By the age of 17, Lohman had appeared in 12 different major productions and had been a backing singer for the likes of Frank Sinatra, Bob Hope and the Desert Symphony. As a senior, she was an awardee of the National Foundation for Advancement in the Arts and was offered the chance to attend the Tisch School of the Arts, but declined. Career. In 1997, after graduating from high school, Lohman moved to Los Angeles to pursue a screen acting career. For the next few years, her work consisted of science fiction B-movies (such as "Kraa! The Sea Monster" and "Planet Patrol"), television productions (including the made-for-TV movie "Sharing the Secret") and children's films (such as "Delivering Milo" and "The Million Dollar Kid"). Also included was the dark urban drama "White Boy". Lohman starred in "White Oleander", an adaptation of Janet Fitch’s novel, alongside Michelle Pfeiffer, Robin Wright Penn and Renée Zellweger and directed by Peter Kosminsky. Though the film was unsuccessful at the box office (it opened to $5.6 million in 1,510 theaters), it received generous reviews and Lohman's performance met with wide critical acclaim, being described as her "breakthrough role" by media sources. The following year, she appeared in "Matchstick Men", directed by Ridley Scott. She starred with Nicolas Cage and Sam Rockwell, and though it was not a box office success either, Lohman continued to receive critical praise. Later that year, she appeared in Tim Burton’s "Big Fish", which continued her trend of appearing in acclaimed but commercially unsuccessful films. In 2005, she appeared in Atom Egoyan's "Where the Truth Lies". The film originally received an NC-17 rating for its graphic sexual content, and failed at the box office afterwards. Some critics (such as Roger Ebert) felt that she was well-suited for the role. Her next feature, "The Big White", featured her alongside actors Robin Williams, Holly Hunter and Tim Blake Nelson, but nevertheless went direct-to-video. In the same year, Lohman voiced the title character in the English language re-dubbing of "Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind". Lohman's next film was the drama "Flicka", which was released on October 20, 2006. At the age of 25, Lohman played a 16-year-old girl who befriends a wild mustang in the film. Lohman had never ridden a horse prior to filming and trained rigorously for a month. She said that she was "constantly thrown emotionally and physically" while working with the horses for this role. "Flicka" went on to become a surprise hit in the DVD market. She then played a recovering heroin addict in "Things We Lost in the Fire". The actress was then signed to replace Ellen Page in Sam Raimi's critically acclaimed horror film, "Drag Me to Hell", which was released on May 29, 2009. Lohman, who is frequently cast as a teenager, has said that she believes she "lookyounger and act[s younger" than her age. Personal life. Lohman married filmmaker Mark Neveldine in Watertown, New York on August 19, 2009, at St. Anthony's Catholic Church. In 2010, she gave birth to the couple's first child, a boy, Billy Neveldine in Bucharest, Romania, one of the settings of Neveldine's 2012 film "". News of the child's birth, which appears to be the reasoning behind her acting absence, was not revealed until August 2011.
1016110	Shinjuku Incident (, ) is a 2009 Hong Kong action crime drama thriller film written and directed by Derek Yee, and also produced by and starring Jackie Chan. The film was distributed by Chan's own film company, JCE Movies Limited. It was stated in many press reports that the genre of the film would be closer to drama, Film director Derek Yee said, "People are too familiar with the image of a fighting Jackie Chan. It's time for him to move on to drama." In a recent interview, Chan himself describes the film as, "maybe one percent action. Heavy drama." The film was originally to be released on 25 September 2008 but was delayed to the first quarter of 2009. It premiered at the 2009 Hong Kong International Film Festival and was released on 2 April 2009 in Hong Kong. Plot. In the early 1990s, a tractor mechanic nicknamed "Steelhead" (Jackie Chan) illegally enters Japan from China in search of his fiancée, Xiu-Xiu (Xu Jinglei) with the help of his "brother" Jie (Daniel Wu). Jie has taught Steelhead how to make a living by teaching him the trades of the underworld. One day, while illegally working as part of a clean-up crew in the sewers, Steelhead and his Chinese comrades are spotted by the police. Unwilling to get caught, Steelhead and the others run for their lives. In the ensuing turn of events, Steelhead saves Detective Kitano from drowning, and in gratitude, Kitano decides to stop pursuing Steelhead. One night, while working in a restaurant with Jie, Steelhead finds Xiu-Xiu with Yakuza leader Eguchi (Masaya Kato). Saddened by seeing his fiancée with another man, he spends the night with Jie drinking and partying with hookers. Once sober, Steelhead decides to become a legal citizen of Japan by any means possible. Steelhead and his Chinese friends then go on an aggressive money laundering operation, but leave Jie out of it due to his kind hearted nature. Unfortunately, Taiwanese triad leader, Gao (Jack Kao), discovers one of his pachinko machines has been tampered with (fixed by Steelhead's group) and vows to punish the culprit. Jie gets caught playing the tampered pachinko machine and is taken to a dark alleyway where Gao slices Jie's face and cuts off his right hand while trying to get information. Upon learning that Jie is held by the Taiwanese gang, Steelhead and the rest of their group go and collect Jie.
1104499	Sathamangalam Ranga Iyengar Srinivasa Varadhan FRS (born 2 January 1940) is an Indian American mathematician who is known for his fundamental contributions to probability theory and in particular for creating a unified theory of large deviations. He is also the Jury Chair for the Infosys Prize 2013 for the discipline of Mathematical Sciences. Early life and education. Srinivasa Varadhan, known also as Raghu to friends, was born in Chennai (previously Madras) in 1940. Varadhan received his undergraduate degree in 1959 from Presidency College, Madras, and then moved to the Indian Statistical Institute in Kolkata. He was one of the "famous four" (the others were R. Ranga Rao, K. R. Parthasarathy, and Veeravalli S. Varadarajan ) in ISI during 1956-1963. He received his doctorate from ISI in 1963 under C. R. Rao, who arranged for Andrey Kolmogorov to be present at Varadhan's thesis defense. Since 1963, he has worked at the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences at New York University, where he was at first a postdoctoral fellow (1963–66), strongly recommended by Monroe D. Donsker. Here he met Daniel Stroock, who became a close colleague and co-author. In an article in the "Notices of the American Mathematical Society", Stroock recalls these early years: “Varadhan, whom everyone calls Raghu, came to these shores from his native India in the fall of 1963. He arrived by plane at Idlewild Airport and proceeded to Manhattan by bus. His destination was that famous institution with the modest name, The Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences, where he had been given a postdoctoral fellowship. Varadhan was assigned to one of the many windowless offices in the Courant building, which used to be a hat factory. Yet despite the somewhat humble surroundings, from these offices flowed a remarkably large fraction of the postwar mathematics of which America is justly proud.” Varadhan is currently a professor at the Courant Institute. He is known for his work with Daniel W. Stroock on diffusion processes, and for his work on large deviations with Monroe D. Donsker. Varadhan is married to Vasundra Varadhan who is also an academic (in media studies in the Gallatin School of Individualized Study). They have two sons, one of whom died in the September 11 attacks in 2001. His other son, Ashok, is a trader in New York City. Awards and honours. 's awards and honours include the National Medal of Science (2010) from President Barack Obama, "the highest honor bestowed by the United States government on scientists, engineers and inventors". He received also the Birkhoff Prize (1994), the Margaret and Herman Sokol Award of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, New York University (1995), and the Leroy P. Steele Prize for Seminal Contribution to Research (1996) from the American Mathematical Society, awarded for his work with Daniel W. Stroock on diffusion processes. He was awarded the Abel Prize in 2007 for his work on large deviations with Monroe D. Donsker. In 2008, the Government of India awarded him the Padma Bhushan. He also has two honorary degrees from Université Pierre et Marie Curie in Paris (2003) and from Indian Statistical Institute in Kolkata, India (2004). Varadhan is a member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences (1995), and the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters (2009). He was elected to Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1988), the Third World Academy of Sciences (1988), the Institute of Mathematical Statistics (1991), the Royal Society (1998), the Indian Academy of Sciences (2004), the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (2009), and the American Mathematical Society (2012).
1016312	Fist of Fury 1991 (新精武門1991) is a 1991 Hong Kong film directed by Choh Chung-Sing, and starring Stephen Chow in the lead role. Aside from a few parodied scenes, the film bears no other similarities to the Bruce Lee film "Fist of Fury" except in title only. A sequel "Fist of Fury 1991 II" was released the following year. Plot. Chow, as in several of his other films, stars as Sing, a mainland country boy hoping to earn a living in Hong Kong. Upon reaching Hong Kong, he finds his luggage stolen, but soon becomes fast friends with the thief, Smart. Together, they try to improve their financial situation through various odd jobs, until Smart discovers Sing's special ability, his extremely strong right arm, and then convinces him to enter a martial arts tournament in the hopes of winning the prize money. The two soon learn that they need to be registered with a school in order to compete. Some scenes do bear some resemblance to Bruce Lee's Fist of Fury including the dojo fight where the Japanese man is forced to eat the sign.
1180519	Murray Seafield Saint-George Head (born 5 March 1946) is an English actor and singer, most recognized for his international hit songs "Superstar" (from the 1970 rock opera "Jesus Christ Superstar") and "One Night in Bangkok" (the 1984 hit from the musical "Chess", which topped the charts in various countries), and for his 1975 album "Say It Ain't So". He has been involved in several projects since the 1960s and continues to record music, perform concerts and make appearances on television either as himself or as a character actor. Life and career. Murray Head was born in London to Seafield Laurence Stewart Murray Head (1919 – 22 March 2009), a documentary filmmaker and a founder of Variety Films, and Helen Shingler, an actress. (Helen played Mme Maigret alongside Rupert Davies in the BBC's 1960s television adaptation of the "Maigret" novels written by Georges Simenon). His younger brother is "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" star Anthony Head. Head was educated at the Lycée Français Charles de Gaulle in South Kensington, London and Hampton School in Hampton, London. Head began writing songs as a child, and by the mid-1960s he had a London-based recording contract. He had limited success until asked by Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber to play Judas Iscariot on the original concept album version of "Jesus Christ Superstar", which, with the Trinidad Singers, yielded the song "Superstar" which peaked at No. 14 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in 1971. He made his film debut in "The Family Way" (1966), which featured Hayley Mills, Hywel Bennett and John Mills in the leading roles. Head won a leading role in the Oscar-nominated film "Sunday Bloody Sunday" (1971), alongside Peter Finch and Glenda Jackson. Despite these successes, he received little public attention in the next ten years (except for his single release, "Say It Ain't So Joe" in 1975). In 1973, he appeared in a radio drama, "The Fourth Tower of Inverness". In 1979, Head appeared in the final episode of the ITV program "Return of the Saint". Head reappeared in the spotlight in 1984 as the American on the concept album for the musical "Chess". The song "One Night in Bangkok" featured Head on lead vocal. It became the last significant Broadway/West End number to be a hit on American and German radio up until "No Matter What" by Boyzone in 1996. "One Night in Bangkok" was a major pop hit on both sides of the Atlantic. Head performed the role of world chess champion Frederick "Freddie" Trumper in the London West End stage production of "Chess" that premiered on 14 May 1986. The show ran in London until 8 April 1989. After that, Head had little recording success in the UK or the United States. This fact would later be underscored in a radio segment featured on "The Kevin and Bean Show" on Los Angeles's KROQ FM, in which the hosts would phone Head in the morning to find out "What's Up with Murray Head?" Fluent in French, he has released a number of albums in that language. The song "Une femme un homme", a duet with Marie Carmen, released in 1993 became a radio hit in French-speaking Canada. In 1999, Head co-wrote the screenplay to "Les Enfants du Siècle". He has appeared on television in the UK on "The Bill", "Casualty" and "Judge John Deed". He also played an artist called Jack Hollins on ITV's "Heartbeat" from 2005-06. On 15 March 2010 he appeared in the BBC drama "Doctors" playing a pop singer, Pete Perry, trying to make a comeback, in which Head sang Robert Johnson's "Love in Vain". In Canada, he was part of the cast of the 2002 television mini-series "Music-Hall", which played on the Radio-Canada network. Head appeared on the album cover of the Smiths' compilation album "Stop Me", taken from a still of the film "The Family Way". Personal life. Head married Susan Ellis Jones in 1972; they divorced in 1992. He has two daughters: Katherine and Sophie.
1056590	The Umbrellas of Cherbourg () is a 1964 French musical film directed by Jacques Demy, starring Catherine Deneuve and Nino Castelnuovo. The music was written by Michel Legrand. The film dialogue is all sung as recitative, even the most casual conversation. "Umbrellas" is the middle film in an informal "romantic trilogy" of Demy films that share some of the same actors, characters and overall look; it comes after "Lola" (1961) and before "The Young Girls of Rochefort" (1967). The film was very successful in France with a total of 1,274,958 admissions. Plot. Madame Emery and her beautiful 16-year-old daughter Geneviève (Deneuve) sell umbrellas at their tiny (and financially struggling) boutique in the coastal town of Cherbourg in Normandy, France, in the late 1950s. Guy (Castelnuovo), is a handsome young auto mechanic who lives with, and cares for, his sickly aunt, godmother Elise. Guy and Geneviève are deeply in love; they want to get married, and they want to name their first child "Francoise". Madeleine (Ellen Farner) is the quiet, shy, dedicated young caregiver who looks after of Guy's aunt; Madeleine also has feelings for Guy, but has not expressed this. Suddenly Guy is drafted and must leave to become a soldier in the Algerian War. The night before Guy leaves, he and Geneviève pledge their undying love. Then they make love (apparently for the first time) and the very next day, Guy leaves.
1505724	Kings Go Forth is a 1958 black-and-white World War II film starring Frank Sinatra, Tony Curtis, and Natalie Wood. The screenplay was written by Merle Miller from the novel of the same name by Joe David Brown, and the film was directed by Delmer Daves. The plot involves friends of different backgrounds manning an observation post in Southern France who fall in love with the same French girl. She proves to be of American Mulatto ancestry. Themes of racism and miscegenation provide the conflict elements between the leading characters, something that was out of the ordinary for films of the time, while the setting during the so-called "Champagne Campaign" remains unique. Plot summary. In the final year of World War II, units of the US Army are in the foothills of the Alps between France and Italy, trying to dislodge a unit of German soldiers from a supply post in the middle of a small village. 1st Lt. Sam Loggins (Frank Sinatra) is in charge of a reconnaissance unit that has just lost its radioman. A truckload of fresh young soldiers arrive, one of whom, Corporal Britt Harris (Tony Curtis) admits to radio training and experience—Harris is immediately appointed the unit's radioman by Loggins. Harris reveals himself at once as a lady's man and a schemer, acquiring girlfriends, food, and other luxury items. Corporal Lindsay (Edward Ryder), in charge of the unit's paperwork and logistics, reveals Harris' story to Loggins: Harris is the son of a wealthy textile mill owner in New Jersey—in order to avoid criminal charges of trying to bribe a member of the local Draft Board with a car, Harris has "volunteered" for combat duty in Europe. Harris does show bravery while rescuing a group of men trapped in a minefield and while attacking a German bunker single-handed, but Loggins still has his reservations about the man. The Colonel (Kark Swenson) grants Loggins and his unit leave in the seaside town of Nice. While walking by himself on a quay, Loggins is attracted to Monique Blair (Natalie Wood) -- they go to dinner, and she explains she was born in America, but has lived in France since she was a small child. She's unwilling to go out with Loggins again. Loggins ask her to meet him in the same cafe the next week at 8PM. The next week, Loggins waits at the cafe, Monique doesn't show, and he walks out despondent, only to be asked to have a drink by an older American woman who has apparently been waiting for him. He finds out it is Monique's mother, who was checking him out, he passed, and she takes him to her palatial home to join Monique. The two spend a great deal of time together. One night he tells her he loves her, and Monique finally reveals to him that she is afraid to get involved with a US soldier because her now-dead father was a Negro, and she has seen the general bigotry all American soldiers seem to have. Loggins is confused and leaves, not sure about his feelings. Back at the US Army camp, the Colonel and Loggins agree the battle is at a standstill—the US needs better idea of what the Germans have set up in the village. Loggins suggest a covert mission to put an observer in a church tower in the middle of town; the Colonel says he'll pass the idea on up to Headquarters. Loggins decides to put aside the former prejudices he would have had about Monique's parentage, and goes to see her. She and her mother are delighted to see Loggins. Loggins invites Monique to go out on a date with him. They end up going to a smokey jazz cafe, where they are surprised to see Harris play a fantastic jazz solo on a trumpet, to the acclaim of the entire French crowd. Harris joins Loggins and Monique at their table, and Loggins is left on the sidelines as Harris and Monique are immediately drawn to each other. Outside, Harris and Monique kiss. After Loggins takes Monique home, she asks Loggins to tell Harris about her Negro father. Loggins does so, and it doesn't seem to bother Harris. The next weekend, Loggins and Harris return to Nice to visit Monique. Once again, Loggins is forced to the sidelines as the handsome and smooth-talking Harris takes over. Loggins returns to his hotel room alone. Harris and Monique stay out most of the night. When Harris returns to the hotel, he tells Loggins he's asked Monique to marry him, and she has said yes. Loggins is shattered, but he puts on a brave face. He tells Harris about the paperwork he will need to fill out to get the army's permission to marry. When they return to their unit, Harris immediately asks for the marriage permission form. Two months pass, and Harris still hasn't received an answer from the army on his request to marry. One day, while talking to Corporal Lindsay, Loggins finds out that Harris had indeed picked up the completed paperwork 3 weeks earlier. In fact, Harris had told the corporal that the whole thing was a gag. Loggins is furious when he hears this. Meanwhile, the Colonel tells Loggins that Headquarters has approved Loggins' covert operation. Loggins says it's a two-man operation, and he want to bring Harris as his radioman—Loggins also asks for a few hours leave to take care of some personal matters in town. The colonel agrees to both of Loggins' requests. Loggins and Harris go to the Blair mansion, and Loggins forces Harris to admit to Monique that Harris is not going to marry her. Monique runs away in tears. Harris tries to explain himself to Loggins ("it was a kick"), and Loggins punches him out. Loggins then goes out to find Monique. It turns out she had tried to drown herself, but a fisherman fished her out of the water while she was still alive. Loggins tries to talk to her, but she doesn't want to talk to him.
146756	James Badge Dale (born May 1, 1978) is an American actor. He is known for various roles in film and television, including his starring role in the AMC drama series "Rubicon", Chase Edmunds in the third season of "24", Robert Leckie in the HBO miniseries "The Pacific" and State Trooper Barrigan in Martin Scorsese's "The Departed".
1060763	Before Sunrise is a 1995 romantic drama film directed by Richard Linklater and written by Linklater and Kim Krizan. The film follows Jesse Wallace (Ethan Hawke), a young American, and Céline (Julie Delpy), a young French woman, who meet on a train and disembark in Vienna, where they spend the night walking around the city and getting to know each other. The plot is minimalist, since aside from walking and talking, not much happens. The two characters' ideas and perspectives on life and love are detailed. Jesse is a romantic disguised as a cynic, and Céline is seemingly a romantic, albeit with some doubts. Taking place over the course of one night, their limited time together is always on their minds, and leads to their revealing more about themselves than they normally would, since both believe they will never see one another again. Jesse and Céline make an appearance in Linklater's 2001 film "Waking Life". A 2004 sequel, "Before Sunset", picks up the story nine years after the events of the first film, and a 2013 sequel, "Before Midnight", picks up the story eighteen years on. Plot. The film starts in the summer of 1994 with Jesse meeting Céline on a train from Budapest and striking up a conversation with her. Jesse is going to Vienna to catch a flight back to the United States, whereas Céline is returning to university in Paris after visiting her grandmother. When they reach Vienna, Jesse convinces Céline to disembark with him, saying that 10 or 20 years down the road, she might not be happy with her marriage and might wonder how her life would have been different if she had picked another guy, and this is a chance to realize that he himself is not that different from the rest; in his words, he is "the same boring, unmotivated guy." Jesse has to catch a flight early in the morning and does not have enough money to rent a room for the night, so they decide to roam around in Vienna. After visiting a few landmarks in Vienna, they share a kiss at the top of the Wiener Riesenrad at sunset and start to feel a romantic connection. As they continue to roam around the city, they begin to talk more openly with each other, with conversations ranging from topics about love, life, religion, and their observations of the city. Céline tells Jesse that her last boyfriend broke up with her six months ago, claiming that she "loved him too much". When questioned, Jesse reveals he had initially come to Europe to spend time with his girlfriend who was studying in Madrid, but they had broken up when she was avoiding him while he was there. He decided to take a cheap flight home, via Vienna, but it did not leave for two weeks so he bought a Eurail pass and traveled around Europe. When they are walking alongside the Donaukanal ("Danube canal") they are approached by a man who, instead of begging, offers to write them a poem with a word of their choice in it. Jesse and Céline decide on the word "milkshake", and are soon presented with the poem "Delusion Angel" (written for the film by the poet David Jewell). In a traditional Viennese café, Jesse and Céline stage fake phone conversations with each other, playing each other's friends they pretend to call. Céline reveals that she was ready to get off the train with Jesse before he convinced her. Jesse reveals that after he broke up with his girlfriend, he bought a flight that really was not much cheaper, and all he really wanted was an escape from his life. They admit their attraction to each other and how the night has made them feel, though they understand that they probably will not see each other again when they leave. They simply decide to make the best of what time they have left, ending the night with the implication of a sexual encounter between them. At that point, Jesse explains that if given the choice, he would marry her instead of never seeing her again. The film ends the next day at the train station, where the two hastily decide not to exchange any contact information but instead agree to meet together at the same place in six months time, just as the train is about to leave. Production. "Before Sunrise" was inspired by a woman whom writer/director Richard Linklater met in a toy shop in Philadelphia in 1989. They walked around the city together, conversing deep into the night. Originally, in the screenplay, who the two people were and the city they spend time in was vague. Linklater realized that because the film is so much a dialogue between a man and a woman he knew that it was important to have a strong woman co-writer. He chose Kim Krizan, who had small roles in his two previous films "Slacker" and "Dazed and Confused". According to Linklater, he "loved the way her mind worked – a constant stream of confident and intelligent ideas". Linklater and Krizan talked about the concept of the film and the characters for a long time. He wanted to explore the "relationship side of life and discover two people who had complete anonymity and try to find out who they really were". He decided to put Jesse and Céline in a foreign country because "when you're traveling, you're much more open to experiences outside your usual realm". He and Krizan worked on an outline. They wrote the actual screenplay in 11 days. Linklater spent nine months casting the film because he saw so many people but had trouble finding the right actors for the roles of Jesse and Céline. When Linklater first considered casting Hawke, he thought that the actor was too young for the part. Linklater saw Hawke at a play in New York City and reconsidered after talking to the actor. For Céline, Linklater met Julie Delpy and liked her personality. After they did a final reading, Linklater knew that Delpy and Hawke were right for the roles. Once Delpy and Hawke agreed to do the film, they went to Austin and talked with Linklater and Krizan for a few days. Themes. "Before Sunrise" revolves largely around the twin themes of self-fulfillment and self-discovery through a significant other, charging the concept through the introduction of a twelve-hour time constraint in which the goals implicit to the two themes have to be realized. They are underlined by the poem "Delusion Angel", which evokes a longing for complete and unifying, possibly even redeeming, understanding between two partners in a world which is itself unknowable, and over which one can exercise no control. An important role is played by the theme of spontaneous and uninhibited response to one's environment. It is reflected by the actions of Jesse and Céline, whose joint stream of consciousness, initiated by a previously unmeditated decision to leave the train together, allows them to temporarily detach themselves from the world, and enter a realm where only the other's company is of importance. It is worth noting that when the morning arrives Jesse remarks that he and Céline have again entered "real time". It could be argued that "Before Sunrise" subsumes its main themes under that of life. In one scene, Céline and Jesse visit the Friedhof der Namenlosen, the Cemetery of the Nameless in Simmering. The people buried in the cemetery have found anonymity in death; by learning to know and understand one another, Céline and Jesse experience and embrace life, suspending their own mortality. The film leaves audience members to decide for themselves whether Jesse and Céline will actually meet again in six months. Critic Robin Wood has written that after he published an essay on the film (in a 1996 issue of "CineAction"), Linklater wrote him to say that "neither he nor the two actors ever doubted that the date would be kept." The film takes place on June 16, Bloomsday. Release. "Before Sunrise" had its world premiere at the 1995 Sundance Film Festival. It was released in the United States on January 27, 1995. Critical reception. It was entered into the 45th Berlin International Film Festival where Linklater won the Silver Bear for Best Director. The film received high critical praise at the time of its release and currently has a 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes and a 77 metascore on Metacritic. Film critic Roger Ebert gave "Before Sunrise" three out of four stars and described Julie Delpy as "ravishingly beautiful and, more important, warm and matter-of-fact, speaking English so well the screenplay has to explain it (she spent some time in the States)". In her review for the "New York Times", Janet Maslin wrote, ""Before Sunrise" is as uneven as any marathon conversation might be, combining colorful, disarming insights with periodic lulls. The film maker clearly wants things this way, with both these young characters trying on ideas and attitudes as if they were new clothes". Hal Hinson, in his review for the "Washington Post" wrote, ""Before Sunrise" is not a big movie, or one with big ideas, but it is a cut above the banal twentysomething love stories you usually see at the movies. This one, at least, treats young people as real people". In his review for the "Los Angeles Times", Peter Rainer wrote, "It's an attempt to make a mainstream youth movie with a bit more feeling and mysteriousness than most, and, in this, it succeeds". Marjorie Baumgarten, in her review for "The Austin Chronicle", wrote, ""Before Sunrise" represents a maturation of Linklater's work in terms of its themes and choice of characters". In his review for "The New Yorker", Anthony Lane wrote, "Just once, for a single day, Jesse and Céline have given life the sort of shape and charge that until now they have found only in fiction, and may never find again". "Entertainment Weekly" gave the film an "A-" rating and Owen Gleiberman wrote, "Small movies can be as daring as big ones, and Linklater, in his offhand way, is working without a net here. "Before Sunrise" may be the closest an American has come to the discursive talk gamesmanship of Eric Rohmer". Online film critic James Berardinelli has cited the film as "the best romance of all time". "Entertainment Weekly" rated "Before Sunrise" #25 on their Top 25 Modern Romances list. In a 2008 "Empire" poll, "Before Sunrise" was ranked as the 200th greatest movie of all time. In 2010 British newspaper "The Guardian" ranked "Before Sunrise/Before Sunset" #3 on their critic's list of 25 best romantic films of all time, and #2 in an online reader's poll. Box office. The film grossed $1.4 million in 363 theaters on its opening weekend, and went on to make $5.5 million, more than double its $2.5 million budget. Sequel. "Before Sunset" was released in 2004 with the same actors and director to equally positive reviews, with the review-gathering site Rotten Tomatoes logging a 95% "Fresh" rating. A second sequel, "Before Midnight", was released in 2013, again to rave reviews. Jesse and Céline also had a very short scene together in Richard Linklater's 2001 "Waking Life". In this scene the two are together in bed talking, though since the movie is all about lucid dreaming, and from the plot points established in "Before Sunset", the thought is that this scene never existed in real life.
1058122	Jansen Panettiere (born September 25, 1994) is an American voice and film actor, and the younger brother of actress Hayden Panettiere. Early life. Panettiere was born in Palisades, Rockland County, New York, to Lesley R. Vogel, a former soap opera actress, and Alan Lala "Skip" Panettiere, a fire department lieutenant. Career. Jansen had a supporting role in the Disney Channel Original Movie "Tiger Cruise", which starred Hayden (this is one of only two productions to date in which both siblings have featured onscreen, the other being the forthcoming "The Forger" - Jansen lent his voice to "Racing Stripes", in which Hayden appeared). He played the voice of Truman X in "The X's". He starred as Lucas Malloy in the made-for-television Nickelodeon film "The Last Day Of Summer", which first showed July 20, 2007 on Nickelodeon. It was released on DVD on August 28, 2007. His next film, "The Perfect Game", was going to be released in theaters on August 8, 2008, but Lionsgate Films decided to push it back to Spring 2009, almost a year after the original release date of April 22, 2008. "The Perfect Game" is directed by William Dear, is based on the true story of how a group of boys from Monterrey, Mexico become the first non-U.S. team to win the Little League World Series. Panettiere also co-stars with Gavin MacLeod in "The Secrets of Jonathan Sperry", a film directed by Rich Christiano about faith and friendship. He appeared with Martin Sheen, Jamie Lee Curtis and Christine Lahti, as Elliott Perry in Dustin Lance Black's play "8", a reenactment of the Perry v. Schwarzenegger trial, at the Wilshire Ebell Theatre on March 3, 2012. The performance was broadcast on YouTube to raise money for the American Foundation for Equal Rights. Awards and nominations. In 2008 Panettiere was nominated for a Young Artist Award at the Young Artist Awards for Best Performance in a TV  Movie, Miniseries or Special by a Leading Young Actor for "The Last Day of Summer" (2007; TV).
1034113	Stratford Johns, born Alan Edgar Stratford-Johns, (22 September 1925 - 29 January 2002 ) was a popular English stage, film and television actor who is best remembered for his starring role as Detective Inspector Charlie Barlow in the innovative and long-running BBC police series "Z-Cars". Early life. Johns was born in Pietermaritzburg and grew up in South Africa, where his parents had emigrated. After serving in the South African navy during World War II, Johns worked for a time in accountancy, but soon became involved in amateur theatre. Career. In 1948, he bought a one-way ticket to Britain and learned his craft working in repertory theatre at Southend-on-Sea for almost five years. He began to appear in British films from the mid-1950s, including a role in the classic Ealing comedy "The Ladykillers" (1955). He ran a small hotel in London during the 1950s, and was a member of the English Stage Company at the Royal Court Theatre during the Angry Young Men period when new playwrights, including John Osborne, introduced new themes to British theatre. His most famous character, Barlow, was noted for his hard edges, owing much to the changes in characterisation pioneered at the Royal Court. In 1962 he won the part of Barlow in "Z-Cars" and soon became one of the most familiar and popular faces on British television. During the long run (1962–1965) of "Z-Cars", he transferred his character to the spin-off series, "Softly, Softly" (1966–1969), and later "" (1969–1972). He also played the voice of the mysterious "Guvner" in "The Great St Trinian's Train Robbery" (1966). In the 1970s he starred in a third spin-off series, "Barlow at Large" (1971,1973), which saw the character transferred to British Intelligence: it was later retitled simply "Barlow" (1974–1975). Although the Barlow character remained popular (and appeared in another spin-off, in which he investigated the "Jack The Ripper" murders), ratings for these solo spin-offs declined, and the final series ended in 1975. Barlow was seen once more in 1976, in the series "Second Verdict". Johns appeared as President of the Council Bradshaw in the 1970 award-winning film "Cromwell" with Richard Harris in the role of Cromwell and Sir Alec Guinness as King Charles 1st. In 1973 Johns was named BBC TV Personality of the Year by the Variety Club of Great Britain. He also landed a cameo role as the apartheid-supporting Namib mine superintendent Zimmerman in the mini-series "Master of the Game", although he went uncredited for the role. Johns later appeared in the much-maligned Ken Russell films "Salome's Last Dance" and "The Lair of the White Worm" (both 1988), followed by the title-character in the mid-1980s Channel 4 series "Brond". His many stage credits include Daddy Warbucks in the original West End run of "Annie" - he can be heard on the original London cast album - and the Ghost of Christmas Present in the original Birmingham cast of the stage adaptation of the film musical "Scrooge" (1970), on the recording of which he can also be heard. His guest appearances on TV include "The Avengers", "Department S", "Neverwhere", the "Doctor Who" serial "Four to Doomsday" (1982) and the "Blake's 7" episode "Games". He had a prominent role as Calpurnius Piso in the BBC's acclaimed adaptation of Robert Graves' "I, Claudius" (1976); he played Magwitch in the BBC's 1981 adaptation of Dickens' "Great Expectations", and the jailer in "The Secret Life of Albie Sachs". Johns appeared in the 1984 pop video for 'Young at Heart' recorded by The Bluebells. With him were veteran Scottish actress Molly Weir and Scots singer/actress Clare Grogan. In 1993, Johns appeared in the BBC period drama "Scarlet and Black" alongside a young Ewan McGregor and Rachel Weisz. He was also the author of the children's book "Gumphlumph"; in the mid-1960s, at the height of his fame as Barlow, he read it on the children's television series "Jackanory". "Gumphlumph" would be revived, again with Johns narrating, for the TV-am children's programme "Rub-A-Dub-Tub" in the 1980s. Personal life. He married Nanette Ryder in 1955; they had four children. He ran the small hotel in St Martins Lane called the St Martins Hotel; it was managed by Elizabeth Kissick-Jones, formerly Hartnell, who was the aunt of his wife Nannette. The hotel was very popular with actors and he ran it until 1976. After several years of poor health, Johns died from heart disease in 2001, aged 76.
1047704	Ek Chotisi Love Story (English: "One Small Love Story") is a 2002 romantic film directed by Shashilal K. Nair. The film is an adaptation of Krzysztof Kieślowski's "A Short Film About Love" ("Krótki film o miłości" 1988). Plot. It is a story of 15-year-old Aditya (Aditya Seal) and his voyeuristic love of his nameless neighbor (Manisha Koirala) featuring bathroom masturbation scenes — which are virtually unseen in Bollywood. Soon Aditya’s hobby turns into infatuation as he begins to follow her movements closely. He feels sexually drawn towards her when he sees her coming out of her bath, her hair dripping wet. He feels jealous when he catches her making love with her boyfriend (Ranvir Shorey).
1059102	Vincent Gallo (born 11 April 1961) is an American film director, writer, model, actor and musician. Though he has had minor roles in mainstream films such as "Goodfellas", "Arizona Dream", "The Funeral" and "Palookaville", he is most associated with independent movies, including "Buffalo '66", which he wrote, directed, scored and starred in and "The Brown Bunny", which he also wrote, directed, produced, starred in and photographed. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Gallo was a painter in the New York City art scene showing with famed art dealer Annina Nosei, performed in a rap duo and was part of the first hip-hop television broadcast "Graffiti Rock", and played in an industrial band called Bohack which released an album title "It Took Several Wives". In the early 2000s, he released several solo recordings on WARP records. Gallo is known for his outspoken views and generally sarcastic nature, once stating: "I stopped painting in 1990 at the peak of my success just to deny people my beautiful paintings; and I did it out of spite." Gallo was awarded the Coppa Volpi for Best Actor at the 67th Venice International Film Festival for his performance as a wordless escaping Muslim prisoner in Jerzy Skolimowski's "Essential Killing". His own feature film "Promises Written in Water", which he wrote, directed, produced and starred in, also screened in Competition at the festival. In spring 2012 Gallo took part in the three-month exposition of Whitney Biennial. Vincent Gallo is set to headline the 3rd Annual San Frandelic Summer Fest in San Francisco, CA on August 3, 2013. Early life. Gallo was born in Buffalo, New York, the son of Janet, a hair-dresser, and Vincenzo Vito Gallo, also a hairdresser and professional gambler. Both of his parents emigrated from Sicily, Italy. Films. During Gallo's artistic period in the 1980s, when he worked as a musician and painter in New York City, he also began experimenting with film. He made the short film "If You Feel Froggy, Jump" and appeared in a film called "Downtown 81" (1981) with painter Jean-Michel Basquiat. In 1984, Gallo acted in "The Way It Is" (1985) by Eric Mitchell, which included actors Steve Buscemi and Rockets Redglare. After starring in the obscure 1989 film "Doc's Kingdom", he began acting in small parts in more well-known films such as "Goodfellas", "The House of the Spirits", and "The Perez Family". French director Claire Denis hired Gallo to act in several films such as the "short film "Keep It for Yourself", the made-for-TV "U.S. Go Home", and its follow-up feature "Nénette et Boni" (1996)." In 1998, his debut film "Buffalo '66" was nominated for, but did not win, an award for "Best First Feature" at the Independent Spirit Awards. Gallo made this drama for $1.5 M, serving as writer, director, lead actor, and composer/performer of the soundtrack. The release of Buffalo '66 "gained him a solid fan base." In 2003, Gallo starred in and directed the film "The Brown Bunny," which chronicles a motorcycle racer's cross-country road trip, and co-starred Chloë Sevigny. The film, which contained a scene of Sevigny performing unsimulated oral sex upon Gallo, received an overwhelmingly negative critical response to its Cannes premier and became a media scandal, in part due to Gallo's use of a still image from a sex scene on a promotional billboard. According to Andrea LeVasseur of "Allmovie", "The Brown Bunny" "premiered to much derision at the 2003 Cannes Film Festival." in 2003 regarding Ebert's statement that "The Brown Bunny" was the worst film in the history of Cannes. Gallo retorted by calling Ebert a "fat pig with the physique of a slave trader" and put a hex on Ebert, wishing him colon cancer. Ebert then responded – paraphrasing a statement made by Winston Churchill – that, "although I am fat, one day I will be thin, but Mr. Gallo will still have been the director of "The Brown Bunny"." Gallo and Ebert later made up, and Ebert ended up giving a thumbs up to the finished version of The Brown Bunny. In 2010, Gallo won the Volpi Cup for Best Actor at the 67th Venice International Film Festival for his role in "Essential Killing", although he doesn't have a single line in the film. He did not attend the ceremony to accept his award in person, leaving the duty to the film's director Jerzy Skolimowski, who tried to get the actor to reveal himself, leading the audience in a chant of his name. Gallo was not in attendance. He will co-star with Kōichi Satō and Yoo Ji-tae in Junji Sakamoto's 2013 film, "Human Trust". Music. Gallo played electric bass and sang in the mid-1970s in several adolescent garage bands such as Blue Mood, a progressive rock cover band named Zephyr (not the late 1960s band) which did one performance in New York State, The Good (with Bernie Kugel and Larry Galanowitz), The Detours and the Plastics. At the age of 16, Gallo moved to New York City and was a later member of the band, Gray, with visual artist Jean-Michel Basquiat (who was not yet famous). Gray played at clubs such as Max's Kansas City, CBGB's, Hurrahs, and the Mudd Club. A few of Gray's recordings appear on the soundtrack for the film Downtown 81. Gallo played in a band called Bohack which recorded an album entitled "It Took Several Wives". When Bohack disbanded, Gallo turned his attention to acting, directing, and composing in films. He wrote songs for the soundtrack of the 1998 film "Buffalo 66". He played in a rock band with Lukas Haas called Bunny, and Gallo put out his own CD which he wrote. performed and produced under Warp Records, titled "When." On August 3, 2013 Vincent Gallo headlined the 3rd Annual San Frandelic Summer Fest in San Francisco, CA. . Music videos. Gallo directed music videos for the songs "Going Inside" by John Frusciante, and "Anemone" by L'Arc-en-Ciel. He also starred in the music video for Cosmopolitan Bloodloss by Glassjaw. Gallo also appeared as a model in H&M Spring 2009 Collection alongside Eva Herzigova. Personal life. Gallo is a supporter of the Republican Party, and has been seen at a New York fashion show with George W. Bush's daughters Barbara and Jenna. He has stated that his fantasy is "becoming more like the stereotype of the Republican Party." He also wishes to look "more like conservative journalist George Will." In his own words, Gallo "considered himself a radical, always, but an extremely conservative radical." Gallo is godfather to Chris Squire's son Cameron and is helping Squire with his autobiography. Gallo currently serves as the HOA president at his Arts District loft in Downtown Los Angeles. He makes a fictionalized appearance in Caspar Vega's book "The Eclectic Prince". Filmography. Writer/director. Feature films Short films
1103233	Felix Hausdorff (November 8, 1868 – January 26, 1942) was a German mathematician who is considered to be one of the founders of modern topology and who contributed significantly to set theory, descriptive set theory, measure theory, function theory, and functional analysis. Life. Hausdorff studied at the University of Leipzig, obtaining his Ph.D. in 1891. He taught mathematics in Leipzig until 1910, when he became professor of mathematics at the University of Bonn. He was professor at the University of Greifswald from 1913 to 1921. He then returned to Bonn. When the Nazis came to power, Hausdorff, who was Jewish, felt that as a respected university professor he would be spared from persecution. However, his abstract mathematics was denounced as "Jewish", useless, and "un-German" and he lost his position in 1935. Though he could no longer publish in Germany, Hausdorff continued to be an active research mathematician, publishing in the Polish journal "Fundamenta Mathematicae". After Kristallnacht in 1938 as persecution of Jews escalated, Hausdorff became more and more isolated. He wrote to George Pólya requesting a research fellowship in the United States, but these efforts came to nothing. Finally, in 1942 when he could no longer avoid being sent to a concentration camp, Hausdorff committed suicide together with his wife, Charlotte Goldschmidt Hausdorff, and sister-in-law, Edith Goldschmidt Pappenheim, on 26 January. They are buried in Bonn, Germany. Work. Hausdorff was the first to state a generalization of Cantor's Continuum Hypothesis; his Aleph Hypothesis, which appears in his 1908 article Grundzüge einer Theorie der geordneten Mengen, and which is equivalent to what is now called the Generalized Continuum Hypothesis. In 1909, while studying partially ordered sets of real sequences, he stated what is now known as the Hausdorff Maximal Principle; he was the first to apply a maximal principle in algebra. In his 1914 classic text, Grundzüge der Mengenlehre, he defined and studied partially ordered sets abstractly; using the Axiom of Choice, he proved that every partially ordered set has a maximal linearly ordered subset. In this same book, he axiomatized the topological concept of neighborhood and introduced the topological spaces that are now called Hausdorff spaces. In 1914 using the Axiom of Choice, he gave a "paradoxical" decomposition of the 2-sphere as the disjoint union of four sets A, B, C, and Q, where Q is countable and the sets A, B, C, and B ∪ C are mutually congruent. This later inspired the Banach–Tarski paradoxical decomposition of the ball in 3-space. Hausdorff also published philosophical and literary works under the pseudonym "Paul Mongré". "Paul Mongre" published a number of books and articles on the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, as well as a number of reviews of contemporary literature and drama. Mongre-Hausdorff also published a satirical play which performed in a dozen German cities. In the course of attempts to refute Nietzsche's doctrine of "the eternal return of the same," Hausdorff was led to Cantor's set theory, which set Hausdorff on the road to his set-theoretical discoveries. Hausdorff's Nietzschean philosophical writings appear in volume VII of his collected works. A project to publish Hausdorff's works and biography, along with a description of his mathematical contributions, in nine volumes, is underway, edited by E. Brieskorn, F. Hirzebruch, W. Purkert, R. Remmert, E. Scholz.
1102817	Leonardo Pisano Bigollo (c. 1170 – c. 1250)known as Fibonacci, and also Leonardo of Pisa, Leonardo Pisano, Leonardo Bonacci, Leonardo Fibonacciwas an Italian mathematician, considered by some "the most talented western mathematician of the Middle Ages." Fibonacci is best known to the modern world for the spreading of the Hindu–Arabic numeral system in Europe, primarily through his composition in 1202 of "Liber Abaci" ("Book of Calculation"), and for a number sequence named the Fibonacci numbers after him, which he did not discover but used as an example in the "Liber Abaci". Life. Fibonacci was born around 1170 to Guglielmo Bonacci, a wealthy Italian merchant. Guglielmo directed a trading post (by some accounts he was the consul for Pisa) in Bugia, a port east of Algiers in the Almohad dynasty's sultanate in North Africa (now Béjaïa, Algeria). As a young boy, Fibonacci traveled with him to help; it was there he learned about the Hindu–Arabic numeral system. Recognizing that arithmetic with Hindu–Arabic numerals is simpler and more efficient than with Roman numerals, Fibonacci travelled throughout the Mediterranean world to study under the leading Arab mathematicians of the time. Leonardo returned from his travels around 1200. In 1202, at the age of 32, he recorded what he had learned in "Liber Abaci" ("Book of Abacus" or "Book of Calculation"), and thereby popularized Hindu–Arabic numerals in Europe. Fibonacci became an amicable guest of the Emperor Frederick II, who enjoyed mathematics and science. In 1240 the Republic of Pisa honored Fibonacci, referred to as Leonardo Bigollo, by granting him a salary. Fibonacci died in Pisa, but the date of his death is unknown, with estimates ranging from 1240 to 1250. "Liber Abaci". In the "Liber Abaci" (1202), Fibonacci introduced the so-called "modus Indorum" (method of the Indians), today known as Arabic numerals (Sigler 2003; Grimm 1973). The book advocated numeration with the digits 0–9 and place value. The book showed the practical importance of the new numeral system by applying it to commercial bookkeeping, conversion of weights and measures, the calculation of interest, money-changing, and other applications. The book was well received throughout educated Europe and had a profound impact on European thought. Fibonacci sequence. "Liber Abaci" also posed, and solved, a problem involving the growth of a population of rabbits based on idealized assumptions. The solution, generation by generation, was a sequence of numbers later known as Fibonacci numbers. The number sequence was known to Indian mathematicians as early as the 6th century, but it was Fibonacci's "Liber Abaci" that introduced it to the West. In the Fibonacci sequence of numbers, each number is the sum of the previous two numbers. Fibonacci began the sequence not with 0, 1, 1, 2, as modern mathematicians do but with 1, 2, etc. He carried the calculation up to the twelfth place (fourteenth in modern counting), that is 233, though another manuscript carries it to the next place: 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89, 144, 233, 377. Fibonacci did not speak about the golden ratio as the limit of the ratio of consecutive numbers in this sequence. Legacy. In the 19th century, a statue of Fibonacci was constructed and erected in Pisa. Today it is located in the western gallery of the Camposanto, historical cemetery on the Piazza dei Miracoli. Fibonacci is also a character in the children's book "Crusade in Jeans" by Thea Beckman. There are many mathematical concepts named after Fibonacci, for instance because of a connection to the Fibonacci numbers. Examples include the Brahmagupta–Fibonacci identity, the Fibonacci search technique, and the Pisano period. Beyond mathematics, namesakes of Fibonacci include the asteroid 6765 Fibonacci and the art rock band The Fibonaccis.
1039577	Roger Allam (born 26 October 1953) is an English actor, known primarily for his stage career, although he has performed in film, television and radio. He most famously played Inspector Javert in the original London production of the stage musical "Les Misérables "and Douglas Richardson in the award-winning radio series "Cabin Pressure." Life and career. Allam was educated at Christ's Hospital and Manchester University. His father was vicar of St Mary Woolnoth. He has been nominated four times for the Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actor, winning twice. He has also been nominated for, and won, the Laurence Olivier Award for Best Supporting Actor. He played Mercutio, in the Royal Shakespeare Company, in 1983. He has also appeared in many radio dramas for the BBC. In 2001, he starred in BBC Radio 4's adaptation of "Les Misérables", as Valjean. In 2000 he played Hitler at the Royal National Theatre in David Edgar's "Speer". He won an Olivier Award as Best Actor 2001, for his role as Captain Terri Denis in a revival of "Privates on Parade", opening in December 2001 at the Donmar Warehouse, Covent Garden. In November 2002 at the Comedy Theatre he co-starred with Gillian Anderson in Michael Weller's romantic comedy "What the Night Is For".
726380	L.A. Zombie is a 2010 queer cinema zombie film written and directed by Bruce LaBruce. It premiered in competition at Locarno International Film Festival in Switzerland in 2010. The film exists in two versions, an hour-long one that was showcased at various festivals and theatres, and a one-hundred and three minute hardcore cut released on DVD. Plot. An extraterrestrial zombie (who may just be a schizophrenic vagrant, and whose appearance constantly shifts between that of a corpse, a tusked beast with irregular genitals, and a normal man) emerges from the sea, and begins making its way to Los Angeles. A motorist notices the zombie walking along a deserted road, picks it up, and dies in an accident moments later. The zombie recovers from the crash, and reanimates the driver by penetrating a wound in the man's chest with its monstrous penis. The ghouls have sex, which ends with the first zombie ejaculating black semen, and stumbling away as the motorist sits among the wreckage of his vehicle, in awe of what had just transpired. The zombie reaches Los Angeles, and after perusing shopping carts full of discarded objects, ventures to the L.A. River, where it sees a white collar criminal being shot to death by his partner. The zombie drags the deceased lawbreaker to a soiled mattress, and resurrects him via coitus with the bullet wounds in the man's back. The undead criminal and the zombie have sex, which is followed by the zombie wandering away, washing itself, and going to a café, where it purchases a cup of coffee. The zombie steals some clothing, and finds the dumped body of a gang member who was shot in the head. The zombie brings the hood back to life by molesting the hole in his forehead, and has sex with him. A group of homeless are then shown meeting at an abandoned sofa, but flee when they discover the body of a fellow bum who had overdosed in a cardboard box. The zombie happens upon the scene, and after ignoring a homeless man who is merely passed out, resurrects and engages in sex with the dead one. In a BDSM dungeon, four men have an orgy, and later all of them are killed by a pair of drug dealers when they refuse to pay for low-quality cocaine. The zombie witnesses the massacre through a window, enters the building, and instigates a gory circle jerk after bringing back the shot leathermen. The zombie then goes to a cemetery, cries tears and blood as it reminisces about its lovers, and digs up a grave as it begins to storm. Production. "L.A. Zombie" began production in 2009, filming on location in Los Angeles. One scene was shot at the L.A. River, in the exact location of the "Thunder Road" race sequence from the musical "Grease". The film was first released as a soft-core independent feature and then a gay pornographic film at a later date. Release. On January 30, 2010, the film had a sneak preview at the Peres Project Exhibit in Berlin, Germany as part of the show "L.A. Zombie: The Movie That Would Not Die". A collection of silk screened portraits by Bruce LaBruce from the film were also shown at the exhibit, mostly pictures showcasing Sagat as a zombie. The Locarno International Film Festival screened "L.A. Zombie" in competition from August 4–16 of 2010. The film was due to have its second and third screening as part of the Melbourne International Film Festival in Australia on the 7th and 8 August 2010. However, the Australian Film Classification Board advised festival organisers that the film could not be screened as it was likely to be refused classification. Under Australian law, films that are refused classification may not be imported, sold, or distributed, which precludes screening at public events. In defiance of this censorship, the Melbourne Underground Film Festival, which occurs concurrently with MIFF but screens films regarded as too controversial for the mainstream event, held an illegal screening of "L.A. Zombie" on the 29th of August. While police did not attend or stop the screening on the night, they did raid the home of director Richard Wolstencroft on the morning of November 11, 2010. Wolstencroft admitted to police that an August 29 screening had occurred, but claimed to have destroyed the only copy of the film afterwards. The court ruled that he pay $750 to the Royal Children's Hospital. "L.A. Zombie" held its UK premiere at the Raindance Film Festival in London on October 1, 2010. It was reported that "at least one-third of the audience walked out stupefied". TLA Releasing picked up the U.S. release for the film, and set November 12, 2010 as the DVD date. The DVD release is an uncut version, longer than the film festival release's runtime. In New Zealand, the film was first screened at the Out Takes LGBT film festival in Auckland and Wellington. Unlike Australia, New Zealand's Office of Film and Literature Classification gave the film an R18 certificate, which means that it can be screened as long as the audience is aged eighteen and over. The Society for Promotion of Community Standards called for review of the decision, while GayNZ.com welcomed its release. SPCS failed to have the film prohibited after the review and it was resultantly screened at the Out Takes film festival in Auckland and Wellington in early June 2011. Reception. Fangoria referred to "L.A. Zombie" as a "strangely introspective indie film" and concluded that is was well done and thoughtful, and that "The joy of the film is that it doesn't do what you expect it to, yet it always seems sincere". Film Forward stated "This sometimes sexy, sometimes chilling horror-porn-art house piece has a strong message, yet it feels like Bruce LaBruce light. There's none of the raw energy that made "The Raspberry Reich" (2004) a revelation, and there's not enough of the thought-provoking, satirical humor that embodied his last one, "Otto; or Up with Dead People" (2008). A score of two stars out of five was awarded by Moria, which wrote "One suspects the true purpose behind "L.A. Zombie" is that Bruce LaBruce is less a pornographic filmmaker than a gleeful agitator who latches onto pornography solely for its outrage value". The Torontoist found the film incredibly exploitative, giving it zero stars and beginning its review with "A spiritless, pointless amalgam of gory zombie picture and hardcore porn, "L.A. Zombie" is the confluence of two cultural crosscurrents that nobody asked for. Shot on crummy-looking digital and realized by the incompetent Bruce LaBruce, it looks like a homework assignment cranked out by the insufferably pretentious kid in the Tom Savini master class".
585265	Mella Thirandhadhu Kadhavu () is a 1986 Indian Tamil language film directed by R. Sundarajan starring Mohan, Radha, Amala and Senthil . The film's score and soundtrack are composed by Ilaiyaraaja and M. S. Viswanathan. This movie is a box office hit. Plot. Tulasi (Radha) is a village girl. One day she gets a letter from her cousin Subramani(Mohan). She gets excited as they were close friends in childhood but Mohan left with his family to city. Subramani visits the village for his college thesis about folk songs. Tulasi is in love with Subramani but she is confused whether Subramani also loves her. Tulasi's father passes away due to heart attack. When Subramani's mother arranges a marriage for Subramani with Tulsi he refuses. Because of this her mother died in frustration. Then Tulasi comes to her Uncle's house. Later a flashback comes in which Subramani is in love with Noorjahan (Amala). Since Banu used to come to the music college with veil he has not seen her face. On a day when they plan to meet Noorjahan dies after she steps into quick sand. Finally whether Tulasi marries her beloved cousin Subramani is the story.
584175	Dishyum (2006) is a Tamil film directed by Sasi. The film stars Jiiva, Sandhya, Undapakru, Venkat Prabhu, Nassar and Anee Malavika. The film's score and soundtrack are composed by Vijay Antony of Sukran fame. The story tells a love relationship between a stuntman and an art student providing plenty of exciting scenes along the way. Plot. The movie is all about an affair between a stuntman and a student who pursues courses on arts and sculpture. A case of persons of two different thoughts and two extremes coming together. Risk Bhaskar (Jiiva), a stuntman in films, comes across Cinthya (Sandhya), a college student. A couple of meetings help them to get acquainted with each other. Through Baskar she comes to know of the difficulties stuntmen face in their everyday work. Life is a daily risk for them, she understands. Cinthya’s care and affection makes Baskar develop love towards her. However coming to know that she is not interested in reciprocating his love, he wants to leave from her life. Missing his company, Cinthya calls on him and urges him to be himself and continue their friendship. Not wanting to miss his company, Cinthya promises to marry Baskar in case if she develops a love towards him in future or if not they would part as friends after sometime. Baskar, a happy-go-lucky youngster, tries all means to impress Cinthya. However, Malar (Anee Malavika), Cinthya's mother, coming to know of their relationship opposes it. Meanwhile, she loses her husband Jayachandran (Nassar), a fire and rescue personnel, while he is dousing a major blaze. She immediately decides to get her daughter married and even arranges her wedding. The rest is about interesting turn of events and an answer to the question whether Baskar and Cinthya reunite. Soundtrack. The lyrics were penned by Vairamuthu, Vijay Anthony and Pugazhendhi.
1068656	Million Dollar Mermaid (also known as The One Piece Bathing Suit in the UK) is a 1952 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer biographical musical film of the life of Australian swimming star Annette Kellerman. It was directed by Mervyn LeRoy and produced by Arthur Hornblow Jr. from a screenplay by Everett Freeman. The music score was by Adolph Deutsch, the cinematography by George J. Folsey and the choreography by Busby Berkeley.
1758009	Sinbad and the Minotaur is an Australian 2011 fantasy B-Movie directed by Karl Zwicky serving as an unofficial sequel to the 1947 Douglas Fairbanks Jr. film and Harryhausen's Sinbad trilogy. It combines Arabian Nights hero Sinbad the Sailor with the Greek legend of the Minotaur. Plot. Sinbad, his black first mate Karim and beautiful slave girl Tara embark on a voyage to Crete in search of King Minos's treasure believed to be hidden within the fabled Labyrinth. They are pursued by the evil Sorcerer Al Jibbar who bears a striking resemblance to Sokurah, the antagonist of the Seventh Voyage of Sinbad. Al Jibbar's cannibal henchman is seemingly immortal, capable of surviving grievous wounds and highly skilled in the ways of the Indian Jettis, strongmen capable of torturing and killing prisoners with their bare hands.
1060466	In & Out is a 1997 American romantic comedy film directed by Frank Oz and starring Kevin Kline, Joan Cusack, Matt Dillon, Tom Selleck, Debbie Reynolds, Bob Newhart, and Wilford Brimley. The screenplay was written by screenwriter Paul Rudnick. Joan Cusack was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance. The film was inspired by Tom Hanks's tearful speech when he accepted his 1994 Oscar (for his role in "Philadelphia"), in which he mentioned his high-school drama coach Rawley Farnsworth, and his former classmate John Gilkerson, "two of the finest gay Americans, two wonderful men that I had the good fortune to be associated with". The film became one of mainstream Hollywood's few attempts at a comedic "gay movie" of its era, and was widely noted at the time for a 10-second kiss between Kevin Kline and Tom Selleck. Plot. Howard Brackett (Kevin Kline) is a well-liked English literature teacher, living a quiet life in the fictional town of Greenleaf, Indiana, with his fiancée and fellow teacher Emily Montgomery (Joan Cusack), who recently lost 75 pounds. The town is filled with anticipation over the nomination of Cameron Drake (Matt Dillon), Howard's former student, in the Best Actor category at the Academy Awards for his portrayal of a gay soldier in "To Serve and Protect". Cameron does indeed win the Best Actor award, and in his acceptance speech, thanks Howard, adding, "…and he's gay." Howard's family (Debbie Reynolds, Wilford Brimley, Gregory Jbara, Kate McGregor-Stewart, Alice Drummond, Selma Blair), friends (Debra Monk, Ernie Sabella, Joseph Maher, William Duell), students (Shawn Hatosy, Zak Orth, Lauren Ambrose, Alexandra Holden), co-workers (Lewis J. Stadlen, Deborah Rush, Kevin Chamberlin), and Emily are naturally shocked, but that is nothing compared to Howard's own reaction of disbelief and indignation, and he angrily tries to reassure those who know him that he is heterosexual. Reporters invade his hometown, harassing him for interviews following the awards night telecast, and Howard is placed under the scrutiny of his boss, Principal Tom Halliwell (Bob Newhart), who is uncomfortable with the attention being brought to the school. Although the other reporters leave after getting their story, one stays behind: on-camera entertainment reporter Peter Malloy (Tom Selleck), who wants to wait the week out so he can cover Howard's wedding to Emily. Howard continues to be harassed and dismayed by the changed attitudes of everyone around him, and decides that he must sleep with Emily in order to prove his heterosexuality. Howard tries, but cannot go through with it due to his conflicting emotions and Emily's concern for his well-being. Howard crosses paths with Peter, who reveals he's gay and, trying to provide a helpful ear, narrates his own experience in coming out to his family. Howard still insists that he is not gay, prompting Peter to kiss him. Although shocked, Howard reacts somewhat positively to the kiss, vindicating Peter's instinct all along on the matter. Howard's final measure to restore his heterosexuality is the use of a self-help audio cassette, although that fails as well. During the wedding ceremony, Emily recites her vow without hesitation, but when Howard is prompted by the minister, he instead says, "I'm gay." The wedding is off, and although Peter is proud of Howard, Howard is angry with himself for hurting Emily. Things take a turn for the worse when he is fired from the school because of his outing. Despite being fired, Howard attends the graduation ceremony to support his students. When one student (Shawn Hatosy) who got into college with Howard's hard work, learns that he was dismissed for being gay, he and his classmates proclaim themselves, one by one, to be gay as well, to show their support of Howard and to thumb their noses at the school board. Howard's family follows suit, as do his friends, and all the townsfolk assembled (in a scene reminiscent of Spartacus). Having learned of the ensuing media blitz while in Los Angeles, Cameron flies to his hometown, with his supermodel girlfriend (Shalom Harlow), to support his former teacher and although Howard doesn't win 'Teacher Of The Year', Cameron presents him with his Oscar. Howard's wedding-crazy mother finally gets a wedding - her own, when she and her husband decide to renew their vows. Howard, Peter and the rest of the townsfolk attend the reception, and among the crowd are Emily and Cameron, who appear to have begun a relationship. Everyone dances to the Village People's song "Macho Man". Production. Filming took place in five residential towns in Passaic and Morris counties in New Jersey; Northport, on Long Island, Warwick, and Purchase, New York. The opening scene was filmed in Clinton, New Jersey by the Clinton Red Mill. The high school used in the filming was Pompton Lakes High School. The restaurant scene between Selleck and Dillon, as well as the resulting outdoor scene with Cusack, was filmed at the Homestead Rest in Sparta Township, New Jersey. The restaurant scene between Kevin Kline and Tom Selleck was filmed at The Shipwreck Diner in Northport, New York. Soundtrack. A soundtrack was released on Tuesday, September 23, 1997, featuring previously recorded songs as well as Marc Shaiman's instrumental music composed for the film. Release. Critical reception. The film was well received by critics. The performances were widely praised, especially those of Cusack, who eventually earned an Oscar nod, and Kline. The film also gained attention for depicting homosexuality in a "mainstream" comedy about "Middle America" which, Rita Kempley Howe wrote in the "Washington Post", "manages to simultaneously flaunt and flout gay stereotypes." Critics also noted its generally asexual treatment of homosexuality: Janet Maslin commented in the "New York Times" that the film is not one "to associate gayness with actual sex," while "TV Guide" quipped that it "finally gets discussion about gay people out of the bedroom and into the record store." Despite generally positive reviews, several critics, even those who were complimentary, felt that the ending was weak and did not live up to the rest of the film. The film has a 73% "fresh" rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 49 reviews.
1060283	Kate Mara (born February 27, 1983) is an American television, stage and film actress. She starred in "House of Cards" as Zoe Barnes and appeared in "24" as computer analyst . She made her film debut in 1999 with "Random Hearts". She appeared in "Brokeback Mountain" (2005), "We Are Marshall" (2006), "Shooter" (2007), "Transsiberian" (2008), "Stone of Destiny" (2008) and "The Open Road" (2009). Kate is the older sister of actress Rooney Mara. Early life. Mara was born and raised in Bedford, Westchester County, New York, to Timothy Christopher Mara, a scout and the vice president of player evaluation for the New York Giants and his wife, Kathleen McNulty Mara (née Rooney). Her sister, Rooney Mara, is also an actress.
819694	Theresa Elizabeth "Teri" Polo (born June 1, 1969) is an American actress known for her role of Pam Focker in the film "Meet the Parents" (2000) and its two sequels, "Meet the Fockers" (2004) and "Little Fockers" (2010). She was one of the stars in the sitcom "I'm with Her", as well as the political drama series "The West Wing". Early life. Polo was born Theresa Elizabeth Polo in Dover, Delaware. Her mother, Jane (née Gentry), is a homemaker, and her father, Vincent Polo, is a stereo systems designer. She studied ballet for 12 years beginning at age five. By age 13, she was attending New York's School of American Ballet. After winning a modeling contest, she moved to New York City at the age of seventeen to pursue an acting career.
1034054	Edward Albert Arthur Woodward, OBE (1 June 1930 – 16 November 2009) was an English stage and screen actor and singer. After graduating from the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA), Woodward began his career on stage, and throughout his career he appeared in productions in both the West End in London and on Broadway in New York. He came to wider attention from 1967 in the title role of the British television spy drama "Callan", earning him the 1970 British Academy Television Award for Best Actor. Among his film credits, Woodward starred as Police Sergeant Neil Howie in the 1973 cult British horror film "The Wicker Man", and in the title role of the 1980 Australian biopic "Breaker Morant". From 1985 Woodward starred as British ex-secret agent and vigilante Robert McCall in the American television series "The Equalizer", earning him the 1986 Golden Globe Award for Best Television Drama Actor. Early life. Woodward was an only child, born in Croydon, Surrey to working class parents Edward Oliver Woodward, a metalworker, and Violet Edith Woodward (née Smith). As a boy he was bombed out of his home three times during the Blitz. He attended Eccleston Road, Sydenham Road and Elmwood High School in Wallington, as well as Kingston Day Commercial School, all in Surrey. He then attended Kingston College. Career. Theatre. Woodward wanted to become an actor but initially in the post-war period became an associate member of RADA while taking amateur roles. Wanting to train as a journalist he eventually took work in a sanitary engineer's office before attending RADA from age 16. He was reputedly torn between becoming an actor or a professional footballer. Woodward was on the books of Leyton Orient and Brentford, making three appearances in the Football League for the latter; however, a serious knee injury kept him out of the game for over a year. His professional acting debut was in the Castle Theatre, Farnham, in 1946. After graduation from RADA he worked extensively in repertory companies as a Shakespearean actor throughout England and Scotland, making his London stage debut in R.F. Delderfield's "Where There's A Will" in 1955 and also appeared in the film adaptation that same year, his first film, and then "Romeo and Juliet" and "Hamlet" (1955). Having established himself, he also worked in Broadway theatre in New York and in Australia. Woodward first appeared on Broadway in "Rattle of a Simple Man" (1963) and the musical comedy "High Spirits" (1964–1965), which won three Tony Awards, followed by the 1966 comedy "The Best Laid Plans". In 1970, after Woodward played Sidney Carton in the West End musical "Two Cities" based on Dickens's novel, Laurence Olivier invited him to choose his own role in the Royal National Theatre, and he chose "Cyrano de Bergerac" (1971). In 2004, Woodward, alongside Australian actor Daniel MacPherson, appeared as God in a revival of "The Mystery Plays" at Canterbury Cathedral. From a cast of hundreds of local actors, Joseph McManners and Thomas James Longley also featured with smaller speaking roles. Film. He made occasional appearances until taking the role of Police Sergeant Neil Howie in the thriller "The Wicker Man" in 1973. Many critics have cited the final scene in "The Wicker Man" as one of the greatest visual shots in cinema history. Woodward was offered a cameo role in the 2005 remake but declined. He also appeared in the 1982 film "Who Dares Wins," also known as "The Final Option", as Commander Powell. Woodward played the title role in the 1980 Australian biographical film drama "Breaker Morant", which was highly acclaimed, and his presence brought the film worldwide attention. Woodward also had a supporting role in the 2007 action comedy "Hot Fuzz". His last lead film role was that of the Reverend Frederick Densham in "A Congregation of Ghosts"; the story of an eccentric vicar who is said to have alienated his congregation and preached to cardboard cut-outs.
1103086	Sir Simon Kirwan Donaldson FRS (born 20 August 1957), is an English mathematician known for his work on the topology of smooth (differentiable) four-dimensional manifolds. He is now Royal Society research professor in Pure Mathematics and President of the Institute for Mathematical Science at Imperial College London. Biography. Donaldson's father was an electrical engineer in the physiology department at the University of Cambridge, and his mother earned a science degree there. Donaldson gained a BA degree in mathematics from Pembroke College, Cambridge in 1979, and in 1980 began postgraduate work at Worcester College, Oxford, at first under Nigel Hitchin and later under Michael Atiyah's supervision. Still a graduate student, Donaldson proved in 1982 a result that would establish his fame. He published the result in a paper "Self-dual connections and the topology of smooth 4-manifolds" which appeared in 1983. In the words of Atiyah, the paper "stunned the mathematical world" (Atiyah 1986). Whereas Michael Freedman classified topological four-manifolds, Donaldson's work focused on four-manifolds admitting a differentiable structure, using instantons, a particular solution to the equations of Yang-Mills gauge theory which has its origin in quantum field theory. One of Donaldson's first results gave severe restrictions on the intersection form of a smooth four-manifold. As a consequence, a large class of the topological four-manifolds do not admit any smooth structure at all. Donaldson also derived polynomial invariants from gauge theory. These were new topological invariants sensitive to the underlying smooth structure of the four-manifold. They made it possible to deduce the existence of "exotic" smooth structures—certain topological four-manifolds could carry an infinite family of different smooth structures. After gaining his DPhil degree from Oxford University in 1983, Donaldson was appointed a Junior Research Fellow at All Souls College, Oxford, he spent the academic year 1983–84 at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, and returned to Oxford as Wallis Professor of Mathematics in 1985. After spending one year at Stanford University, he moved to Imperial College London in 1998. Awards and honours. Donaldson received the Junior Whitehead Prize from the London Mathematical Society in 1985 and in the following year he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society and, also in 1986, he received a Fields Medal. He was, however, turned down for fellowship of the Institute of Mathematics and its Applications on the grounds that he applied too soon after his doctorate. He was awarded the 1994 Crafoord Prize. In February 2006, Donaldson was awarded the King Faisal International Prize for science for his work in pure mathematical theories linked to physics, which have helped in forming an understanding of the laws of matter at a subnuclear level. In April 2008, he was awarded the Nemmers Prize in Mathematics, a mathematics prize awarded by Northwestern University. In 2009 he was awarded the Shaw Prize in Mathematics (jointly with Clifford Taubes) for their contributions to geometry in 3 and 4 dimensions. In 2010, he was elected a foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. Donaldson was knighted in the 2012 New Year Honours for services to mathematics. In 2012 he became a fellow of the American Mathematical Society. Donaldson's work. A thread running through Donaldson's work is the application of mathematical analysis (especially the analysis of elliptic partial differential equations) to problems in geometry. The problems mainly concern 4-manifolds, complex differential geometry and symplectic geometry. The following theorems rank among his most striking achievements: Donaldson's recent work centers on a difficult problem in complex differential geometry concerning a conjectural relationship between algebro-geometric "stability" conditions for smooth projective varieties and the existence of "optimal" Kähler metrics, typically those with constant scalar curvature (see for example cscK metric). Definitive results have not yet been obtained, but substantial progress has been made (see for example Donaldson 2001). In the case of Fano manifolds and Kähler-Einstein metrics a proof was given in 2012 by Chen, Donaldson and Song. See also Donaldson theory.
1015023	Drawing Restraint 9 is a 2005 film project by visual artist Matthew Barney consisting of a feature length 35mm film, large-scale sculptures, photographs, drawings, and books. The Drawing Restraint series consists of 19 numbered components and related materials. Some episodes are videos, others sculptural installations or drawings. Barney created "Drawing Restraint 1-6" while still an undergraduate at Yale University and completed "Drawing Restraint 16" in 2007 at London's Serpentine Gallery. With a soundtrack composed by Björk, "Drawing Restraint 9" is an unconventional love story set in Japan. The narrative structure is built upon themes such as the Shinto religion, the tea ceremony, the history of whaling, and the supplantation of blubber with refined petroleum for oil. The film primarily takes place aboard the Japanese factory whaling vessel, the Nisshin Maru, in the Sea of Japan, as it makes its annual journey to Antarctica. Two storylines occur simultaneously on the vessel: one on deck and one beneath. The narrative on deck involves the process of casting a 25 ton petroleum jelly sculpture (one of Barney’s signature materials), which rivals the scale of a whale. Below deck, the two main characters participate as guests in a tea ceremony, where they are formally engaged after arriving on the ship as strangers. As the film progresses, the guests go through an emotional and physical transformation slowly transfiguring from land mammals into sea mammals, as they fall in love. The petroleum jelly sculpture simultaneously passes through changing states, from warm to cool, and from the architectural back to the primordial. The dual narratives, the sculptural and the romantic, come to reflect one another until the climactic point at which they become completely mutual. "Drawing Restraint 9" premiered at the 62nd Venice Film Festival and was screened at the Toronto International Film Festival in September 2005. IFC Films acquired the U.S. theatrical rights to "Drawing Restraint 9" and distributed the film to screen in 18 cities across the U.S. in the fall of 2006. Narrative & Imagery. The film opens with the careful, ceremonial wrapping of two unidentifiable organic objects in several layers of carefully folded decorative paper, an activity known in Japanese as "tsutsumi" or "orikata", sealed with twine and gold field emblems and finished with a sliver of white shell. The centre strips of the field emblems, a recurring symbol in Barney's works, are then pulled off, a frequently repeated motif throughout the film. The scene moves to Nagasaki bay where a celebratory procession of dancers, animals and floats approaches the docks as the crew of the whaling ship finish construction on the shore. After the opening credits, a field emblem mould is assembled on the deck of the "Nisshin Maru" and filled with molten petroleum jelly from one of the vehicles in the celebratory procession. One of the 'Occidental Guests', played by Björk, waits on another shore with her gaze directed out to sea. The other Occidental Guest, Matthew Barney, waits on a docking rig in a large fur coat. In a third location a group of young women at the water's edge, pearl divers, apply grease to each other's skin in preparation for the dive. Separately, the Occidental Guests are picked up by small motorised vessels and carried towards the "Nisshin Maru". The pearl divers enter the water with their collection barrels, hyperventilate to improve their lung capacity and make the first dive. Mayumi Miyata is shown playing the "shō" over the scene with a string of pearls entwined in her hair and hanging down her exposed back. The pearl divers come across a long, floating mass of compacted organic material, a sculpture from Barney's repertoire titled and here representing ambergris, an extremely valuable organic material produced as waste by whales. Whilst they keenly examine it, the "Nisshin Maru" leaves dock in a festive cloud of coloured ribbons and excited, screaming children. In the ship's galley, the chef cleans his knives and utensils, boils shrimp and cuts blocks of grey, layered jelly into plated portions using a field emblem mould. The central strip of the top layer of each field emblem is incised in order to allow the ship's crew, to whom the jelly is served, to pull it away. The chef goes through the ship's mess, filling each central void with shrimp and pomegranate seeds. In the whaling bay the crew, bantering in Japanese, 'harpoon' a mock whale made from a black bin bag painted with the stylised features of a whale and stuffed with whole shrimp that burst out of the ruptured plastic after a direct hit from a crewman. A building component, reminiscent of a spine and covered with the debris of the shrimp, is victoriously hoisted aloft on a harpoon. In the screened room the Male Guest takes off his shoes and falls asleep. The barber, carrying his shaving kit and swigging from an open can of beer, slips in quietly and shaves a wide strip through the center of the Guest's hair. The next morning, the harpoon vessel "Yushin Maru" sets out. It eventually snares the log of ambergris and the "Nisshin Maru" winches it up into the flensing bay through the back of the ship. Below deck, the Female Guest wanders through the corridors in a thin towel following her bath. She is encouraged to sit before a mirror in another preparation room by an amah, who carefully combs and arranges her hair into an ornate, traditional style using pieces of organic marine material arranged on combs, pins and boards. Another amah attends to the Male Guest, replacing his shorn eyebrows and hair with similar objects. Both Guests are stripped and redressed in ceremonial costume of skins and furs, with a base layer of damp fabric resembling thick kelp. The female Guest's eyebrows are shaved, her face painted with a thick layer of white foundation, and her lips painted over with the small, red pout of a Shinto bride. Both Guests also carry a large conch shell strapped to their backs, flensing knives with horn handles and a small bone instrument resembling a folded fan. Meanwhile on deck, the field emblem sculpture has hardened in the mould and the crew use flensing tools and a winch to strip the central piece out of the mould. In the furnace room, the needle on a pressure gauge vibrates towards the end of the scale and the rivets on the machinery give. The ship begins to flood with molten grease. In the infirmary, a small Japanese boy with an extrusion of white fur from his mouth vomits grey liquid. The Female Guest falls as the ship pitches and the Male Guest leans over to help her up and remove her ceremonial hood. The two examine each other, finding strange holes on the back of each other's necks which they lovingly caress. They passionately kiss as the room begins to flood and the storm rages outside. With their flensing knives they alternate cutting deep strips from the flesh of the other's legs at a slow, ritualistic pace with minimal apparent sensation of pain, at one stage rolling such a strip into a rough imitation of sushi and eagerly consuming it. On deck, the ambergris log is inserted between the two halves of the field emblem sculpture into the void left by the excised strip. A troupe of small children wearing white robes carry in a box and set of plastic ritual equipment shaped as whaling tools. They also carry two wooden barrels, one containing shrimps and other a viscuous grey substance. Two of the children proceed to cement the shrimp around the base of the ambergris using the grey substance to bind it. The crew later return to winch the ambergris back out of the sculpture, leaving only the cemented shrimp base. At dawn the mould is then removed from the sculpture, which then collapses into a large pile of congealed petroleum jelly with the assistance of the long-handled flensing knives, and the ambergris is lowered back down into the hold to lie alongside the plastic 'spine' where it begins to disintegrate. The remainder of the field emblem sculpture is dismantled by knives and winches and the ambergris has attained the shape of the plastic spine it lies joined with. Back in the tea room, the Occidental Guests remove the last of each other's legs by slicing at the thigh. They wearily embrace, then dive beneath the water together. Their severed stumps become the waving tails of whales. A clown-like figure with matted hair and coloured face-paint, identified by Barney as the "petrolatum spirit", approaches the ambergris with a hose and raises a new flag on deck. The Occidental Guests complete their metamorphosis into whales. At the coast, as the "Nisshin Maru" continues its journey at sea, a winch drags a wedge-shaped block up the sloping bay to the docks. A pearl diver surfaces with her mouth dripping with pearls. The docking slope collapses under the weight of the block and pearls spill into the ocean, landing on the ocean bed in the perfect form of two overlapping circles. The film ends on Mayumi Miyata playing the shō. Soundtrack. The Drawing Restraint 9 soundtrack was composed by Björk and was released on One Little Indian, July 25, 2005. It features the "shō" (Japanese mouth organ) playing of Mayumi Miyata, who appears playing her instrument near the start and conclusion of the film. Vocals for the opening scenes – featuring the English translation of the text of a letter from a Japanese citizen to General MacArthur thanking him for lifting the U.S. moratorium on whaling off the nation's coasts adapted by Barney and set to the harp (Zeena Parkins) and celeste (Jónas Sen) by Björk – were provided by Will Oldham.
66391	Marin Mersenne, Marin Mersennus or le Père Mersenne (8 September 1588 – 1 September 1648) was a French theologian, philosopher, mathematician and music theorist, often referred to as the "father of acoustics" . Mersenne was "the center of the world of science and mathematics during the first half of the 1600s." Life. Marin Mersenne (pronounced Mehr-SENN) was born of peasant parents near Oizé, Maine (present day Sarthe, France). He was educated at Le Mans and at the Jesuit College of La Flèche. On 17 July 1611, he joined the Minim Friars, and, after studying theology and Hebrew in Paris received his full holy orders in 1613.
1103886	Luis A. Caffarelli (born December 8, 1948) is an Argentine mathematician and leader in the field of partial differential equations and their applications. Caffarelli obtained his Masters of Science (1968) and Ph.D. (1972) at the University of Buenos Aires. He currently holds the Sid Richardson Chair at the University of Texas at Austin. He also has been a professor at the University of Minnesota, the University of Chicago, and the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences at New York University. From 1986 to 1996 he was a professor at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. In 1991 he was elected to the National Academy of Sciences. He has been awarded "Doctor Honoris Causa" from l'École Normale Supérieure, Paris; Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, and Universidad de La Plata, Argentina. He received the Bôcher Memorial Prize in 1984. Caffarelli received great recognition with his breakthrough paper "The regularity of free boundaries in higher dimensions" published in 1977 in "Acta Mathematica". Since then, he has been considered one of the world's leading experts in free boundary problems and nonlinear partial differential equations. He developed several regularity results for fully nonlinear elliptic equations including the Monge-Ampere equation. He is also famous for his contributions to homogenization. Recently, he has taken an interest in Integro-differential equations. One of his most cited and celebrated results regards the "Partial regularity of suitable weak solutions of the Navier–Stokes equations", obtained in 1982 in collaboration with Louis Nirenberg and Robert V. Kohn. In 2003 Konex Foundation from Argentina granted him the Diamond Konex Award, one of the most prestigious awards in Argentina, as the most important Scientist of his country in the last decade. In 2005, he received the prestigious Rolf Schock Prize of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences "for his important contributions to the theory of nonlinear partial differential equations". He also received the Leroy P. Steele Prize for Lifetime Achievement in Mathematics in 2009. In 2012 he was awarded the Wolf Prize in Mathematics (jointly with Michael Aschbacher) and became a fellow of the American Mathematical Society. Bibliography. In addition to over two hundred articles in refereed academic journals, Caffarelli has coauthored two books:
1170093	Rebecca Lucile Schaeffer (November 6, 1967 – July 18, 1989) was an American model and television and film actress. Schaeffer began her career as a teen model before moving on to acting. In 1986, she landed the role of Patricia "Patty" Russell in the CBS sitcom "My Sister Sam". After the series was canceled in 1988, Schaeffer appeared in several films, including the black comedy "Scenes from the Class Struggle in Beverly Hills", which was released six weeks before her death. In July 1989, Schaeffer was fatally shot in the doorway of her Los Angeles apartment building by Robert John Bardo. Bardo, then 19 years old, was obsessed with Schaeffer and had been stalking her for three years. He was sentenced to life imprisonment for her murder. Schaeffer's death prompted the passage of anti-stalking laws in California. Early life and career. Schaeffer was the only child of Dr. Benson Schaeffer, a child psychologist and Danna Schaeffer, a writer and instructor at Portland Community College. She was raised in Portland where she attended Lincoln High School. She initially had aspirations to become a rabbi but began modeling during her junior year in high school. Schaeffer appeared in department store catalogs and also appeared in television commercials and as an extra in a television film. In August 1984, Schaeffer moved to New York City by herself where she enrolled in Professional Children's School and continued her modeling career. At , Schaeffer was considered too short for high fashion modeling and struggled to find work. In 1985, she moved to Japan in hopes of finding more modeling jobs but still encountered difficulty due to her height. She returned to New York City and decided to focus on an acting career.
1099829	The curse of dimensionality refers to various phenomena that arise when analyzing and organizing data in high-dimensional spaces (often with hundreds or thousands of dimensions) that do not occur in low-dimensional settings such as the three-dimensional physical space of everyday experience. There are multiple phenomena referred to by this name in domains such as numerical analysis, sampling, combinatorics, machine learning, data mining and databases. The common theme of these problems is that when the dimensionality increases, the volume of the space increases so fast that the available data becomes sparse. This sparsity is problematic for any method that requires statistical significance. In order to obtain a statistically sound and reliable result, the amount of data needed to support the result often grows exponentially with the dimensionality. Also organizing and searching data often relies on detecting areas where objects form groups with similar properties; in high dimensional data however all objects appear to be sparse and dissimilar in many ways which prevents common data organization strategies from being efficient. The term "curse of dimensionality" was coined by Richard E. Bellman when considering problems in dynamic optimization.Republished:
1033340	Gemma Craven (born Rita Gemma Gabriel; 1 June 1950) is an award-winning Irish actress. She is best known for her role as Joan Parker, the frigid wife of Arthur (Bob Hoskins), in the BBC TV drama "Pennies From Heaven" (1978). Biography. Gemma Craven's family moved from Dublin to England in 1960, and she attended the same school as Helen Mirren, St Bernard's Convent High School for Girls in Westcliff-on-Sea in Essex. She appeared as Cinderella in the film "The Slipper and the Rose" (1976) opposite Richard Chamberlain. Cast as an unknown, she was spotted by one of the producers while performing at the Bristol Old Vic in a production of The Threepenny Opera. The local press touted the event as her own "Cinderella" story. The musical gave Craven an opportunity to shine with her impressive singing talents. In London's West End, she starred opposite Tom Conti in the musical "They're Playing Our Song" for which she won a Laurence Olivier Award for her performance, the lead role in "South Pacific" and in Noël Coward's "Private Lives" opposite Marc Sinden, Tony Anholt and his wife Tracey Childs which toured throughout 1991 and into 1992. She also played Josie in Boy George's "Taboo" and features on the OCR singing "Independent Woman". She appeared as Joan Parker, the frigid wife of Arthur (Bob Hoskins), in the original television version of Dennis Potter's "Pennies From Heaven" (1978) and has made guest appearances on "Robin of Sherwood" (1985), "The Bill", "The Morecambe and Wise Show", "The Two Ronnies" and "Father Ted" (episode "And God Created Woman"). in the popular English drama "Midsomer Murders" episode, "Shot at Dawn" as Judy Hicks, the wife of Dave Hicks (Brian Capron). Her most substantial film role was as Minna Wagner opposite Richard Burton's Richard Wagner, in the 1983 film "Wagner". She also made an appearance in "The Mystery of Edwin Drood" (1993). On radio, she played the part of Helen in the BBC Radio 4 comedy "Clare in the Community". She appeared on Irish television in the popular medical drama series "The Clinic" which runs weekly on RTÉ One. In November/December 2008, Craven appeared in "Hollyoaks Later" as Erin "Ma" Fisher - Mother to Malachy, Kris and Bernadette. Personal life. Craven was married from 1981-1984 to actor Frazer Hines. Craven now lives in Blackpool with "Lord Odin" who changed his name, by deed poll, from his birth name of Gary Womack. (Previously, Womack had his name changed to Mickey Mouse.)
591096	Anuranan (English: Resonance) is the directorial debut by Bengali filmmaker Aniruddha Roy Chowdhury. The film premiered at the 2006 International Film Festival of India. "Anuranan" (meaning "resonance" in Bengali) explores the relationships of two married couples, and the impacts and consequences of their relationships. Synopsis. Rahul, a creative and sensitive individual, arrives at a lonely hill station in Sikkim to help build a new holiday resort. The friendship between the two couples, Rahul and Nandita and Amit and Preeti, paves the way for a deeper bond between Rahul and Preeti. Towards the end of the movie, this ""anuranan"" between the two is misunderstood by society, including Amit. This misunderstanding intensifies when Rahul suddenly dies, leaving Nandita lonely. The fact that the love between Rahul and Nandita was pure does not prevent Nandita from falling prey to the rumors as well. All the four main characters are depicted as lost and lonely. Production. The film was shot on location in India and the UK. Director Aniruddha Roy-Chowdhury describes the scenery of the hill station in the mountains as making the Kanchenjunga "the third character" in the movie. "Anuranan" is the first Bengali film to be shot in London. Songs. The film features music composed by tabla player Tanmoy Bose.
1067770	Kimberly Jan "Kim" Dickens (born June 18, 1965) is an American actress. Early life. Dickens was born in Huntsville, Alabama, graduated from that city's Lee High School, and attended Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, where she majored in communication (BA degree). Soon after graduation, she went to New York City to continue her studies at the Lee Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute and graduated at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. She is also active in Open Stage Theatre. In the late 1990s she moved to Los Angeles. Acting career. Dickens made her stage debut in a student production of David Mamet's "Sexual Perversity in Chicago" at Vanderbilt University. She has appeared in several indie movies including "Palookaville"; "Voice from the Grave"; "Truth or Consequences, N.M."; "Heart Full of Rain"; "Zero Effect" with Bill Pullman, Ben Stiller, and Ryan O'Neal; and "Great Expectations". In Los Angeles, she played in "Mercury Rising" with Bruce Willis and Alec Baldwin, and other commercial Hollywood productions such as "Committed"; "Hollow Man"; "The Gift"; "House of Sand and Fog" with Ben Kingsley, and "Thank You for Smoking". She also had roles in several television movies and shows including "Two Mothers for Zachary"; "Big Apple"; "Out of Order"; "Deadwood"; "Things Behind the Sun"; "Friday Night Lights"; and "Lost". She currently stars as chef Janette Desautel on HBO's "Treme". Dickens also appeared in Season 6 of the FX series "Sons of Anarchy" as Collette Jane, the operator of an escort service who becomes involved with the namesake motorcycle club.
1266102	Ruth Chatterton (24 December 1892 – 24 November 1961) was a celebrated American actress, novelist, and early aviatrix. Early life. Chatterton was born in New York City, on Christmas Eve 1892, to Walter Smith and Lillian Reed Chatterton. She was of English and French extraction, and a descendant of the English poet Thomas Chatterton. Her parents separated while she was still quite young. In order to help support her family financially, she left school at fourteen and began her career on Broadway. Career. Chatterton started off as a chorus girl in a stage play and by the age of eighteen had become a star of the American stage. Her greatest success onstage came in 1914 when she starred in the play "Daddy Long Legs," adapted from the novel by Jean Webster. In 1924, she married British actor Ralph Forbes, who starred opposite her that same year in "The Magnolia Lady", a musical versional of the A.E. Thomas and Alice Duer Miller hit "Come Out of the Kitchen". Chatterton moved to Hollywood with Forbes in 1928, and with the help of Emil Jannings, was cast in her first film role in "Sins of the Fathers". That same year she was signed to a contract by Paramount Pictures. This was followed by roles in "The Doctor's Secret" (1929), "The Dummy" (1929), and MGM's "Madame X" (1929). She received her first nomination for Academy Award for Best Actress for her role in the latter film. The following year she received a second Academy Award nomination for Best Actress for her role in "Sarah and Son" (1930), portraying an impoverished housewife who rises to fame and fortune as an Opera singer. Her stage experience enhanced many of her film performances when the "silents" segued to the "talkies". Although her first "talkies" were merely filmed stage productions, her enunciation and acting were appreciated by the public and critics alike. When she left Paramount, her initial studio, for Warner Brothers (along with Kay Francis and William Powell), it was noted that the brothers Warner needed an infusion of "class". She co-starred in the film "Dodsworth" (1936), for Samuel Goldwyn, which is widely regarded as her finest film (giving what many consider an Oscar worthy performance, though she wasn't nominated). Due to her age and the studios' focus on younger, more bankable stars, she moved to England and continued to star in films there. Chatterton's final film was "A Royal Divorce" (1938). She came out of retirement in the 1950s, and appeared on U.S. television in several plays, including a TV adaptation of "Dodsworth" on CBS's "Prudential Playhouse," alongside Mary Astor and Walter Huston. Her last television appearance was as Gertrude in a 1953 adaptation of "Hamlet", with Maurice Evans in the title role, on the "Hallmark Hall of Fame". Later life. Having left acting, she began a successful writing career, producing several novels. She was also one of the few aviatrices at the time, and was good friends with Amelia Earhart. Chatterton crisscrossed the U.S. several times solo. She served as sponsor of the Sportsman Pilot Mixed Air Derby and the annual Ruth Chatterton Air Derby during the 1930s; she also opened the National Air Races in Los Angeles in 1936. She taught British film and stage actor Brian Aherne to fly, an experience he described at length in his autobiography. Chatterton's first husband was actor Ralph Forbes; they were married from 1924 to 1932. The day after her divorce from Forbes was finalized, Chatterton married her frequent film co-star and fellow Warners player, Irish-born actor George Brent. They divorced in 1934. Chatterton's third and last husband was Barry Thomson, to whom she was married from 1942 to his death in 1960. She had no children. Chatterton died of a cerebral hemorrhage at the age of 68 in Norwalk, Connecticut in 1961. She was cremated and is interred in a niche in the 'Lugar Mausoleum' (Section 11, Lot 303) at Beechwoods Cemetery in New Rochelle, New York. Occasional, much-younger co-star Bette Davis recalled that Chatterton was "very kind" to her at Warners when Davis was starting out on her career (she was referring to when she played an ingenue supporting part in Chatterton's film "The Rich Are Always with Us"). Pauline Kael referred to her as "the great Ruth Chatterton". Chatterton has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6263 Hollywood Blvd.
658035	Henry Ernest Dudeney (10 April 1857 – 23 April 1930) was an English author and mathematician who specialised in logic puzzles and mathematical games. He is known as one of the country's foremost creators of puzzles. His last name is pronounced with a long "u" and a strong accent on the first syllable, as in "scrutiny". Early life. Dudeney was born in the village of Mayfield, East Sussex, England, one of six children of Gilbert and Lucy Dudeney. His grandfather, John Dudeney, was well known as a self-taught mathematician and shepherd; his initiative was much admired by his grandson. Dudeney learned to play chess at an early age, and continued to play frequently throughout his life. This led to a marked interest in mathematics and the composition of puzzles. Chess problems in particular fascinated him during his early years. Career. Although Dudeney spent his career in the Civil Service, he continued to devise various problems and puzzles. Dudeney's first puzzle contributions were submissions to newspapers and magazines, often under the pseudonym of "Sphinx." Much of this earlier work was a collaboration with American puzzlist Sam Loyd; in 1890, they published a series of articles in the English penny weekly "Tit-Bits". Dudeney later contributed puzzles under his real name to publications such as "The Weekly Dispatch", "The Queen", "Blighty", and "Cassell's Magazine". For twenty years, he had a successful column, "Perplexities", in "The Strand Magazine", edited by the former editor of "Tit-Bits", George Newnes. Dudeney continued to exchange puzzles with fellow recreational mathematician Sam Loyd for a while, but broke off the correspondence and accused Loyd of stealing his puzzles and publishing them under his own name. Some of Dudeney's most famous innovations were his 1903 success at solving the Haberdasher's Puzzle (Cut an equilateral triangle into four pieces that can be rearranged to make a square) and publishing the first known crossnumber puzzle, in 1926. He has also been credited with discovering new applications of digital roots. Dudeney was a leading exponent of verbal arithmetic puzzles; his were always alphametic, where the letters constitute meaningful phrases or associated words. Previously, it had been claimed (though not by Dudeney himself) that he was the inventor of verbal arithmetic. This was later refuted by the counter example of a verbal arithmetic puzzle published in the USA in 1864. Omission of detailed puzzle rules in the cited farm journal, suggests they were already popular in America by 1864, when Dudeney was 7 years old. The popularity of these puzzles guarantees they'd be well known by then to Sam Loyd, an American puzzler and early Dudeney puzzle collaborator. Loyd has gained notoriety (at the expense of credibility) for his own claims of invention now exposed as false. Loyd even falsely claimed to have invented the verbal arithmetic puzzle. For another example of Loyd's pervasive deceit, see 15 puzzle. Dudeney experienced Loyd's duplicity and intellectual theft first hand, eventually publicly equating Loyd with the Devil. Personal life. In 1884 Dudeney married Alice Whiffin (1864–1945). She later became a very well known writer who published many novels as well as a number of short stories in "Harper's Magazine" under the name "Mrs. Henry Dudeney". In her day, she was compared to Thomas Hardy for her portrayals of regional life. The income generated by her books was important to the Dudeney household, and her fame gained them entry to both literary and court circles. After losing their first child at the age of four months in 1887, the Dudeneys had one daughter, Margery Janet (1890–1977). She married (John) Christopher Fulleylove, son of John Fulleylove and one of an esteemed family of English artists. The Fulleyloves emigrated to North America, first living in Canada and eventually settling first in Oakland, Michigan, and later New York. They had three sons: John Gabriel (died in infancy), James Shirley, and Julian John ("Barney"); and two daughters: Catherine and Elizabeth Ann ("Nancy"). Alice's personal diaries were edited by Diana Crook and published in 1998 under the title "A Lewes Diary: 1916–1944". They give a lively picture of her attempts to balance her literary career with her marriage to her brilliant but volatile husband. In April 1930, Dudeney died of throat cancer in Lewes, where he and his wife had moved in 1914 after a period of separation to rekindle their marriage. Alice Dudeney survived him by fourteen years and died on 21 November 1945, after a stroke. Both are buried in the Lewes town cemetery. Their grave is marked by a copy of an 18th-century Sussex sandstone obelisk, which Alice had copied after Ernest's death to serve as their mutual tombstone. In addition to puzzles, Dudeney had hobbies including billiards, bowling, and especially croquet. He was a skilled pianist and organist, interested in ancient church music and plainsong. Dudeney was a devout Anglican who regularly attended services, studied theology, and on occasion wrote tracts defending church positions.
1503882	Katie Finneran (born January 22, 1971) is an American actress of film, stage, and television noted for her Tony Award-winning performances in the Broadway play "Noises Off" in 2002, and the musical "Promises, Promises" in 2010. Personal life. She was raised in Miami, Florida, where she attended the New World School of the Arts for high school. Finneran is of Irish descent and was raised Roman Catholic. Finneran attended Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh for one year before moving to New York City at age 19 to study acting with Uta Hagen.Outside of acting, Finneran has had many "day jobs" to augment her income, including a ringside girl at a boxing ring, waitress, and perfume spray girl at Bloomingdale's. In a ceremony presided over by actor and Buddhist priest in training Peter Coyote, Finneran married actor Daren Goldstein on August 22, 2010, and on February 3, 2011 gave birth to a son, Ty Michael Goldstein. They welcomed their second son, Wes, in July of 2012. Film. Finneran's biggest film role was a leading role in the remake of George A. Romero's "Night of the Living Dead". Her film credits include "You've Got Mail", "Chicken Little", "Liberty Heights", "Bewitched", "", and "Death to Smoochy". Her recently film was "Movie 43" in which she played Angie and also appeared alongside Hugh Jackman and Kate Winslet. Television. Finneran is perhaps best known for her role of Sharon Tyler on the critically acclaimed, short-lived Fox television series "Wonderfalls". She was also featured as a part of the cast on the Fox show "The Inside", in the short-lived CBS sitcom "Bram and Alice", and in many guest roles in shows like "Frasier", "Sex and the City" and "Oz". In 2007 Finneran was featured in the new series "Drive". She played the sister of the main character, Alex Tully (Nathan Fillion). In the DVD for the full series of "Wonderfalls", Finneran said that when asked if she felt nervous about playing lesbian immigration attorney Sharon Tyler on "Wonderfalls" she replied, "I'd rather have people think that I'm a lesbian than a lawyer." In 2012, she co-starred in the Fox sitcom "I Hate My Teenage Daughter". Currently, she plays Leigh Henry on the NBC sitcom, "The Michael J. Fox Show"
1163536	Martha Raye (August 27, 1916 – October 19, 1994) was an American comic actress and standards singer who performed in movies, and later on television. She was honored in 1969 with an Academy Award as the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award recipient for her volunteer efforts and services to the troops. Early years. Raye's life as a singer and comedic performer began in very early childhood. She was born at St. James Hospital in Butte, Montana, as Margy Reed. Her father was an immigrant of Irish descent, and her mother was raised in Milwaukee and Montana. Raye's parents, Peter F. Reed, Jr. and Maybelle Hazel Hooper, were performing in a local vaudeville theatre as "Reed and Hooper." Two days after Martha was born, her mother was already back on stage, and the little girl first appeared in their act when only three years old. She performed with her brother Bud, and soon the two children became such a highlight that the act was renamed "Margie and Bud." Some show business insiders speculated that the lyrics of a Judy Garland song from "A Star Is Born", "I was born in a trunk in the Princess Theater in Pocatello, Idaho", was inspired by the circumstances of Raye's birth. She continued performing from that point on and even attended the Professional Children's School in New York City, but received so little formal schooling (getting only as far as the fifth grade) that she often had to have scripts and other documents read to her by others. Career. In the early 1930s, Raye was a band vocalist with the Paul Ash and Boris Morros orchestras. She made her first film appearance in 1934 in a band short titled "A Nite in the Nite Club". In 1936 she was signed for comic roles by Paramount Pictures, and made her first picture for Paramount. Her first feature film was "Rhythm on the Range" with crooner Bing Crosby. From 1936 to 1939, she was a featured cast member in 39 episodes of Al Jolson's weekly CBS radio show, "The Lifebuoy Program” aka “Cafe Trocadero.” In addition to comedy, Martha sang both solos and duets with Jolson. Over the next 26 years, she would eventually appear with many of the leading comics of her day, including Joe E. Brown, Bob Hope, W. C. Fields, Abbott and Costello, Charlie Chaplin and Jimmy Durante. She joined the USO soon after the US entered World War II. She was known for the size of her mouth, which was large in proportion to the rest of her face, thus earning her the nickname The Big Mouth. She later referred to this in a series of commercials for Polident denture cleaner in the 1980s: "So take it from The Big Mouth: new Polident Green gets tough stains clean!" Her large mouth would come to relegate her motion picture work to largely supporting comic parts, and was often made up in such a way that it appeared even larger than it was to begin with. In the Disney cartoon "Mother Goose Goes Hollywood", she is caricatured dancing alongside Joe E. Brown, another actor known for having a big mouth. In the Warner Bros. cartoon "The Woods Are Full Of Cuckoos" (1937), she was caricatured as a jazzy scat-singing donkey named "Moutha Bray". USO. During World War II, the Korean War and the Vietnam War, she travelled extensively to entertain American troops despite her lifelong fear of flying. In October 1966 she went to Soc Trang, South Vietnam, to entertain the troops at the base which was the home base of the 121st Aviation company known as the Soc Trang Tigers and their gunship platoon known as the Vikings, and the 336th Aviation company known as the Warriors and their gunship platoon known as the Thunderbirds. Shortly after her arrival, both units were called out on a mission to extract supposed POWs from an area nearby. Raye decided to hold her troupe of entertainers there until the mission was completed so that the servicemen could all watch her show. She often served as a nurse on these trips. During that time, as a serviceman flying a "Huey Slick" helicopter carrying troops recalled, it had received combat damage severe enough to force its return to base at Soc Trang: I was the pilot of that "slick" which had received major damage to the tail-rotor drive shaft from a lucky enemy rifle shot. The maintenance team at the staging area inspected, and determined that a one-time flight back to base camp would be okay but grounded the aircraft after that. Upon arriving back at Soc Trang, I informed Martha (she came right up to us and asked how things were going) that we had a gunship down in the combat area and additional efforts were being made to extract the crew. I don't recall if we had received word of the death of the pilot at that time. Martha stated that she and her troupe would remain until everyone returned from the mission. As there were no replacements, the servicemen could not return to the mission. While the servicemen waited, Raye played poker with them and helped to keep everyone's spirits up.
1100863	Laurent Lafforgue (; born 6 November 1966) is a French mathematician. He has made outstanding contributions to Langlands' program in the fields of number theory and analysis, and in particular proved the Langlands conjectures for the automorphism group of a function field. The crucial contribution by Lafforgue to solve this question is the construction of compactifications of certain moduli stacks of shtukas. The monumental proof is the result of more than six years of concentrated efforts. In 2002 at the 24th International Congress of Mathematicians in Beijing, China he received the Fields Medal together with Vladimir Voevodsky. Career. He won 2 silver medals at International Mathematical Olympiad (IMO) in 1984 and 1985. He entered the École Normale Supérieure in 1986. In 1994 he received his Ph.D. under the direction of Gérard Laumon in the Arithmetic and Algebraic Geometry team at the Université de Paris-Sud. Currently he is a research director of CNRS, detached as permanent professor of mathematics at the Institut des Hautes Études Scientifiques (I.H.E.S.) in Bures-sur-Yvette, France. He received the Clay Research Award in 2000. His younger brother Vincent Lafforgue is also a notable mathematician. On May 22, 2011, Lafforgue was awarded an honorary Doctor of Science from the University of Notre Dame.
1100584	Isadore Manuel Singer (born April 24, 1924) is an Institute Professor in the Department of Mathematics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is noted for his work with Michael Atiyah proving the Atiyah–Singer index theorem in 1962, which paved the way for new interactions between pure mathematics and theoretical physics. He was born in Detroit, Michigan, and received his undergraduate degree from the University of Michigan in 1944. After obtaining his M.S. and Ph.D. from the University of Chicago in 1948 and 1950 respectively, he taught at UCLA and MIT, where he has spent the majority of his career. He was chair of the Committee of Science & Public Policy of the United States National Academy of Sciences, a member of the White House Science Council (1982–88), and on the Governing Board of the United States National Research Council (1995–99). Awards and honors. Singer is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He is a member of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters. In 2012 he became a fellow of the American Mathematical Society. Among the awards he has received are the Bôcher Memorial Prize (1969) and the Steele Prize for Lifetime Achievement (2000), both from the American Mathematical Society, the Eugene Wigner Medal (1988), the National Medal of Science (1983), the Abel Prize (2004, shared with Michael Atiyah), and the James Rhyne Killian Faculty Achievement Award from MIT (2005).
1273217	"Talkin' Dirty After Dark" (1991) is a comedy film starring Martin Lawrence. The film was directed by Topper Carew, who also wrote the film. Carew also directed, created, and produced Lawrence's TV show, "Martin". In addition to Lawrence the film also stars John Witherspoon, Tom Lister, Jr., and Mark Curry. The film was released in March 1991 and went on to gross one million dollars at the box office; it was only available in limited release. The film was generally panned by critics, although it has established a cult following thanks to airings on cable networks like HBO, Cinemax, and BET. The film was shot on location in Los Angeles, California. Synopsis. Stand up comedian Terry (Lawrence) is a local funny man who is in a lot of trouble. He can't pay his $67 phone bill. He drives a car that has only one gear, reverse. He is struggling trying to make it at a local comedy club called Dukie's. Finally, he is having an affair with the owner's wife in an attempt to get more attention at the club. It turns out that the owner, Dukie, is trying to hook up with the star attraction of his club, Aretha, whose boyfriend threatens to hurt anybody who laughs at her. What follows is a night of comedy, romance, comedy, action, comedy, and Terry achieving his initial goal: getting $67 to pay his phone bill.
1687090	Digital Monster X-Evolution is also the first and, so far, only Digimon movie to be done entirely in CG (CG animation by Imagi Animation Studios), as well as the only Digimon movie not related to one of the Digimon anime series. It is frequently referred to among fans by the commonplace portmanteau, "Digimon X-Evolution". Plot. The Digital World had become so overpopulated that the super computer, Yggdrasil, that governed the Digital World could no longer handle it. His solution was to destroy the majority of Digimon with the X-Program. He chose a very small percentage to be moved to a new Digital World because he planned to destroy the old Digital World. Those who were not chosen but survived anyway and moved to the new world had a rare gift known as the X-Antibody, which, when activated, both changed their appearance and made them more powerful. Yggdrasil is protected by the Royal Knights, who he orders to eliminate the X-Antibody Digimon.
589380	Kamini Kaushal (born 16 January 1927) is a Hindi film and television actress, most noted for her roles in films like "Neecha Nagar" (1946) which won the 1946 Palme d'Or (Golden Palm) at Cannes Film Festival and "Biraj Bahu" (1955) which won her the Filmfare Best Actress Award in 1955. Early life. Kaushal (Uma Sood) was born to a botanist and professor at Government College, Lahore, British India (now in Pakistan). She did her B.A. (honours) in English literature from Kinnaird College in Lahore. Her sister died leaving behind very young children and Uma married (or was made to marry) her sister’s husband. Her husband, Sood, was an officer in the Bombay Port Trust. Career. There is a mention of her having been a stage actress in Delhi. Kaushal worked as a radio artist before she was discovered by Chetan Anand as the lead for his film "Neecha Nagar". This movie was done before her marriage and released in 1946. After "Neecha Nagar" she returned to Lahore and after marriage settled in Bombay. Soon offers started coming in and in the coming decades Kamini Kaushal worked with all the top leading men of her time such as Ashok Kumar, Raj Kapoor and Dilip Kumar ("Shaheed" (1948), "Nadiya Ke Paar" (1949), "Shabnam" (1949) and "Arzoo" (1950).) She learnt Bharatnatyam at Mumbai's Sri Rajarajeswari Bharata Natya Kala Mandir, where Guru T. K. Mahalingam Pillai, doyen among nattuvanars taught. In 1965 she moved to playing character roles with a film called "Shaheed". As a character artist she was a fixture in seven Manoj Kumar films right up to "Dus Numbari" in 1976. Kaushal has had a long stint in films with releases until 2003. She made the transition to character roles very easily and has excelled in them ever since. Dilip Kumar in his biography has admitted his attraction to her. He said that she was his first love. But she never accepted his proposals and remain uninterested towards him as she was married. She stepped into writing children's stories. Her stories used to be published in the children's magazine "Paraag" and she dabbled in television doing serials like "Chand Sitare" on Doordarshan. In 1986, Kaushal made an animation film "Meri Pari". Kaushal worked in the highly popular serial, "Shanno Ki Shaadi" on STAR Plus. She played the role of Bebe, the grandmother of Shanno, the main protagonist played by Divya Dutta.
582110	Lamhe (Hindi: लम्हे, translation: Moments) is a 1991 Hindi film directed by Yash Chopra and starring Sridevi and Anil Kapoor. The story was written by Honey Irani. It was inspired from the 1986 film "Anokha Rishta" starring Rajesh Khanna. "Lamhe" was shot in two schedules in Rajasthan and London. Over the years it has been hailed as a classic and is regarded as a modern masterpiece and possibly Yash Chopra's finest film. Sridevi received acclaim for her double role, winning the Filmfare Award for Best Actress. Although a commercial failure in India, it became a success in the U.K. Despite its commercial failure, "Lamhe" went on to win several awards and features in "Outlook" magazine's list of Bollywood's Best Films. It has been cited as Yash Chopra's personal favourite of the movies he has done. This was one of the last films that the famous Dr. Rahi Masoom Reza scripted as a writer. He died a couple of months after its release. Plot. Virendra "Viren" Pratap Singh (Anil Kapoor) travels to Rajasthan with his governess, affectionately called Dai Jaa (Waheeda Rehman). He meets the beautiful Pallavi (Sridevi) and falls in love with her. However, she happens to be older than he is, though this does not bother Viren. During a property dispute and a court case, Pallavi's father dies of a heart attack. She is shattered and goes into isolation. At the wake, Viren goes to console her, when she runs past Viren — towards Sidhharth, the man she loves. Viren is heartbroken but, to fulfill Pallavi's father's dying wish, he arranges the wedding between Sidhharth and Pallavi. Allowing Pallavi to live her life happily, Viren leaves for London.
582413	Ranvir Shorey (born 18 August 1972) is an Indian actor and former VJ. Since making his debut in "Ek Chhotisi Love Story" (2002), he has starred in a number of high-profile films such as "Jism" (2003) and "Lakshya" (2004). He has also starred in the critically acclaimed films "Traffic Signal", "Bheja Fry" (2007) and the critical and commercial hit "Mithya (2008). Career. Along with friend and co-star Vinay Pathak, he was the host of the successful talk show "Ranvir Vinay Aur Kaun?" and "The Great Indian Comedy Show" which aired on STAR One. He made his debut opposite Manisha Koirala in the film "Ek Chhotisi Love Story" (2002). The film was a box office failure. His next film "Jism" (2003) was a hit but he had a minor role in the film. It was not until 2006 that he got noticed in the comedy "Khosla Ka Ghosla". The film was released to much acclaim and his comic role was praised. He also did a role of playing Nanoo in the comedy "Pyaar Ke Side Effects" alongside Rahul Bose as his funny friend. He also appeared in the multi-starrer "Honeymoon Travels Pvt. Ltd." (2007) which was moderately successful. He has also appeared in a Yash Raj Films, titled "Aaja Nachle" which was released in November 2007. "Mithya", which was released in February 2008, has Ranvir Shorey as the lead actor and has been critically acclaimed. Recently Ranvir was seen in movies like "Ugly Aur Pagli" and a box office hit "Singh Is Kinng". Personal life. He did his early schooling from Dayanand Model Sr. Sec School, Jalandhar. He is a close friend of actor and director Rajat Kapoor and actor Vinay Pathak. Ranvir Shorey used to date Pooja Bhatt, but he finally got married to his longtime girlfriend actress Konkona Sen Sharma on September 3, 2010. The couple, who got engaged in 2008, reportedly exchanged wedding vows in an intimate ceremony at their Goregaon residence. "The Times of India" reported that his wife, Konkona, gave birth to their first child, Haroon, on March 15, 2011 at a South Mumbai hospital.
592215	Gandhada Gudi (; ) is a 1973 Kannada movie. Starring Dr. Rajkumar, directed by Vijay and produced by M.P. Shankar. Its the 150th movie of Dr. Rajkumar. Vishnuvardhan, the Kannada moviedom's angry young man, excelled in a villainous role, though his character is redeemed at the fag end of the movie. Similar movie was then made in Telugu as Adavi Ramudu (1977), starring N. T. Rama Rao. Because of the film's success, there was a sequel made called Gandhada Gudi II, starring Shivrajkumar, the son of Dr.Rajkumar. Plot. Kumar (Rajkumar) is a range forest officer who goes to the Nagarhole National forest to protect the natural resources. His main rival is the poacher Anand (Vishnuvardhan) who unknown to him has been kidnapped and raised by Venkatappa Naika (Balakrishna) to extract revenge on his father. In the final scenes Anand will catch Kumar's mother and asks Kumar to not interfere in his business or he will set fire to the forest, but Kumar shoots him, fatally injuring Anand in the chest. Venkatappa then comes in climax and reveals that Anand is Kumar's own brother and he had done this to take revenge on his family. He tries to kill Kumar, but Anand kills him and dies on the lap of his mother. Production. The film has brilliant cinematography of the Nagarhole and Bandipur forest in Mysore which is the birth place of Dr Vishnuvardhan. The entire cast has given excellent dimensions to their role especially Vishnuvardhan who was acting in his third movie in a negative character. Reception. Gandhada Gudi was a box office-hit, which fetched around Rs. 35 lakh in 1973. The title song, filmed on Karnataka and Kannada, is very melodious and popular among the Kannadigas. The song can be heard even today on any festival or function in Karnataka. The power-packed dialogues, confrontation and fighting scenes between Rajkumar and Vishnuvardhan are the main highlights of this movie. At that time, Rajkumar was an established leader in the Kannada moviedom, while Vishnuvardhan had acquired the image of an angry young man, with the super-successful Nagarahaavu.
1044636	Scars of Dracula is a 1970 British horror film directed by Roy Ward Baker for Hammer Studios.
567007	Pelle the Conqueror () is a 1987 Danish-Swedish drama film co-written and directed by Bille August that tells the story of two Swedish immigrants to Denmark, a father and son, who try to build a new life for themselves. It stars Pelle Hvenegaard as the young Pelle, with Max von Sydow as his father. Critically acclaimed, it won the Palme d'Or at the 1988 Cannes Film Festival, the 1988 Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Language Film, and the 1988 Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. Plot. Based upon the famous 1910 novel of the same name by Danish writer Martin Andersen Nexø, the film is set in the end of the 19th century. A boat filled with emigrants from Sweden arrives at the Danish island of Bornholm. Among them are Lasse Karlsson and his son Pelle who have moved to Denmark to find work after the death of Pelle's mother. They find employment at a large farm, but find themselves treated as the lowest form of life. It is only as Pelle starts to speak Danish that he begins to gain in confidence, but is still discriminated against as a foreigner. But neither boy nor father is willing to give up their dream of finding a better life than that which they left in Sweden. Production. The film is a co-production between companies in Denmark and Sweden, with the screenplay adapted by Bille August, Per Olov Enquist, Janus Billeskov Jansen, Max Lundgren, and Bjarne Reuter from the 1910 novel of the same name by Martin Andersen Nexø. This adaptation was directed by August, with a score composed by Stefan Nilsson. Reception. The film received very positive reviews; it currently holds a 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Accolades. "Pelle the Conqueror" won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, 1988; it was submitted to the Academy by the Danish government, giving Denmark its second consecutive win after "Babette's Feast". Max von Sydow was nominated for, but did not win, the Academy Award for Best Actor, losing to Dustin Hoffman for "Rain Man". The film also won the Palme d'Or at the 1988 Cannes Film Festival and the Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Language Film. It was listed in "The New York Times Guide to the Best 1000 Movies Ever Made" the same year.
673898	Horst Werner Buchholz (4 December 1933 – 3 March 2003) was a German actor, remembered for "The Magnificent Seven", in which he played the role of Chico, and "One, Two, Three" and "Nine Hours to Rama". He appeared in over sixty films during his acting career from 1952 to 2002. Life and work. Buchholz was born in Berlin, the son of Maria Hasenkamp. He never knew his biological father, but took the surname of his stepfather Hugo Buchholz, a shoemaker, whom his mother married in 1938. In 1941, his half-sister, Heidi, was born. She gave him the nickname "Hotte" which he retained for the rest of his life. During World War II he was evacuated to Silesia and at the end of the war found himself in a foster home in Czechoslovakia. He returned to Berlin as soon as he could. He barely finished his schooling before seeking theatre work, first appearing on stage in 1949. He soon left his childhood home in East Berlin to work in West Berlin. He established himself in the theatre, notably the Schiller Theatre, and also on radio. He expanded into film after dubbing work, accepting small and uncredited parts from 1952. He had a marginally larger role in "Marianne de Ma Jeunesse" (1954) directed by Julien Duvivier. He won a Best Actor award at Cannes for his part as Mischa Bjelkin in Helmut Käutner's "Himmel ohne Sterne". His youthful good looks next brought him a part in "Teenage Wolfpack" (1956). His breakthrough film was "Bekenntnisse des Hochstaplers Felix Krull" (1957) in which he played the lead, it was directed by Kurt Hoffmann and based on the novel by Thomas Mann. In 1958 Buchholz married French actress Myriam Bru, and they had two children. Their son, Christopher Buchholz, became an actor and also produced a documentary about his father. Horst Buchholz began appearing in foreign films from 1959 when he co-starred in the British production "Tiger Bay" with Hayley Mills. He followed that with "The Magnificent Seven" (1960) and the Berlin-set "One, Two, Three" (1961) directed by Billy Wilder. He also starred in the dramatic 1961 romance, "Fanny", with Maurice Chevalier and Leslie Caron. A versatile actor, he took the parts as they arose and appeared in comedies, horror films, wartime dramas and other genres. His best work was in the 1960s: the critical quality of the films in which he took part diminished from the mid-1970s, with poorly regarded made-for-television films and episodic television making up the majority of his appearances, except in "The Saviour", directed in 1971 by the French film critic Michel Mardore. In certain films he was allowed to show his skills such as the bleak "I skrzypce przestaly grac" (1988), and Roberto Benigni's Oscar-winning "Life Is Beautiful" (1997). He died unexpectedly in the Berlin Charité from pneumonia which he had incurred by the operation of a hip fracture at the age of sixty-nine. This was a city to which his loyalty was constant, and he was buried there in the Waldfriedhof Heerstrasse in Berlin.
1598287	Lady Frankenstein (Italian: La Figlia di Frankenstein) is a 1971 Italian horror film directed by Mel Welles. It stars Joseph Cotten, Rosalba Neri (under the pseudonym Sara Bey), Mickey Hargitay and Paul Müller. The script was written by cult writer Edward di Lorenzo. Plot. The films opens with a trio of grave robbers (led by a man named Lynch) delivering a corpse to Baron Frankenstein (Cotten) and his assistant Dr. Marshall (Müller), for obvious reanimation purposes. Baron Frankenstein's daughter Tania (Neri/Bay) arrives from school, having completed her studies in medicine, and is greeted by her father and his servant, the handsome but mildly retarded Thomas. Tania reveals to her father that she has always understood his work with "animal transplants" to be a cover for his work reanimating corpses, and that she intends to follow in his footsteps and help him in his work. The next day, Frankenstein, Tania, and Marshall witness the execution of a criminal who is hanged down a well, and it is implied that his body will be harvested for their experimentation.
1062674	James McAvoy ( ; born ) is a Scottish actor. He made his acting debut as a teen in 1995's "The Near Room" and continued to make mostly television appearances until the late 2000s. His notable television work includes "State of Play", "Shameless", and "Frank Herbert's Children of Dune". Besides screen acting, McAvoy has appeared on stage with "Three Days of Rain" in 2009, and in 2011 he did voice work for animated films including "Gnomeo & Juliet" and "Arthur Christmas". Starting in 2003, McAvoy began to build his film resume with "Bollywood Queen". That film was followed with ' (2005), a commercial hit. His performance in Kevin Macdonald's "The Last King of Scotland" earned him not only critical praise, but several award nominations. 2007's critically acclaimed "Atonement" marked the breakthrough in McAvoy's career. It also earned him a Golden Globe Award nomination and his second BAFTA nomination. Another big point in the actor's career was starring in "Wanted" (2008). Since then, he is notable for playing Charles Xavier in the 2011 superhero film ', a role he will reprise in "" in 2014. Early life and family. McAvoy was born in Glasgow, Scotland, the son of Elizabeth (née Johnstone), a psychiatric nurse, and James McAvoy, Sr., a builder. He was brought up as a Roman Catholic. His parents divorced when he was seven, which McAvoy took hard. McAvoy's mother suffered from poor health and subsequently decided it was best that he live with his maternal grandparents, Mary and butcher James Johnstone, in the nearby Drumchapel area of Glasgow, in a terraced council house. His mother lived with them intermittently. The actor has regularly visited his grandparents. He has a sister, Joy, and a younger half-brother, Donald. McAvoy has not been in contact with his father since childhood. According to his father, McAvoy avoided any contact with him after the elder McAvoy moved in with his new partner. Nonetheless, the actor considers himself to have had a good upbringing. He attended St. Thomas Aquinas Secondary in Jordanhill, Glasgow, a Catholic school, and briefly considered joining the Catholic priesthood. In a 2006 interview, McAvoy admitted that part of the reason why he considered becoming a priest was that he wanted to use it as an excuse to travel. During his education, he worked at a local bakery. Career. Early career. McAvoy's acting debut came at the age of 15 in "The Near Room" (1995). He later admitted that he was not very interested in acting when joining the movie, but was inspired to study the craft after developing feelings for his co-star, Alana Brady. He continued to act while still a member of PACE Youth Theatre. McAvoy eventually graduated from the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama in 2000. Throughout the early 2000s, McAvoy made guest appearances in television shows and began working on movies. In 2001, the actor appeared in a play entitled "Out in the Open". His performance in the play as a gay hustler impressed filmmaker Joe Wright so much that he stayed on his radar and offered McAvoy parts in his movies, but to no avail, as the actor turned them down for years.
1015808	Miriam Yeung, RN, (born 3 February 1974) is a Hong Kong actress and Cantopop singer. Before entering the entertainment business, she was a registered nurse at the Princess Margaret Hospital in Hong Kong. She studied at the Holy Family Canossian College Kowloon. She entered the entertainment industry after coming third in the TVB 14th annual New Talent Singing Awards competition in 1995, and has steadily gained popularity ever since. Singing career. As a singer, Yeung has had many songs that have been mainstream hits and award winners, such as "Why Aquarius" (可惜我是水瓶座), "Maiden's Prayer" (少女的祈禱), ""Sisters" (姊妹), " and "Small City, Important Matter" (小城大事). ""Small City, Important Matter"" and ""Maiden's Prayer"" have won ""Best Song of the Year Award"" in 2004 and 2000. She has also been awarded with ""Most Popular Female Singer"", ""2006 CRHK Chik Chak 903 Music Awards Favourite Female Singer"", ""Female Singer Golden Award"", and ""HK'S TOP 10 OUTSTANDING YOUTH 2005"" which further attested her huge popularity. Yeung's last album with Gold Label, ""Unlimited"", was released on 15 December 2006. Her music contract with Gold Label also ended on that day, and she joined Amusic soon after. Yeung's album, Meridian, was released on 14 August 2007. All the songs that appear in the album were personally chosen by Leon Lai, as were the album's photographs. In 2008, Yeung was asked to perform the Cantonese version of " It's A Small World" at the grand opening of "It's A Small World" at Hong Kong Disneyland. After eight years, Yeung releases her third mandarin album "Ready or Not" on 8 March 2011. Film career. As an actress, Yeung is known for performing in comedic films; often as a silly, naive, and clumsy girl. For example, in one of her very popular films, "Love Undercover", she played a newly graduated police officer who failed every test as a cadet and had entertaining and nonsensical ways of completing her assignments. She tried different roles to good reviews both in 2003 and 2004. In "Sound of Colors" co-starring Tony Leung Chiu Wai, Yeung played a blind woman who found love in an unexpected way through a series of fate twisting events. The following year, she tried a darker role, in the "Three...Extremes" segment "Dumplings". Yeung played Ching, a former TV actress, who fears of growing old and losing her looks, while trying to keep her cheating husband from abandoning her. She seeks out Mei (Bai Ling), who shares with Ching the horrific secret ingredient in her dumplings that keep her young. Yeung's greatest critical achievement of her acting career to date came in 2005 when she was nominated for Best Actress in Leading Role at the Golden Horse Film Festival and Awards for her character, Fung Siu-Man, in the comedy "Drink, Drank, Drunk". Yeung's only film of 2006 was "2 Become 1", a "dramedy" which was released early that year. She co-starred with Taiwanese actor/singer Richie Ren for a second time, after starring with him in "Elixir of Love" in 2004. Yeung played Bingo, a woman who is an advertising executive that lives a somewhat carefree lifestyle. She meets a clinical psychologist, V (Richie Ren), one day, and discovers a lump on her breast. The movie chronicles her fight against breast cancer. Yeung's next film, "Hooked on You", was released on 28 June 2007 in Hong Kong. The film was directed by Law Wing-Cheong, and co-starred Eason Chan. This will also be the fourth time Yeung and Chan have collaborated with each other in a film, the first being 8 years ago in the film "Rumble Ages". In "Hooked On You", Yeung plays Miu, a fishmonger who sets out a plan to change her life before she turns the age of thirty. The film has been well received by critics, with LoveHKFilm.com praising "As of June 30th, it's hard to think of a 2007 Hong Kong movie that's better than this one." Yeung won her first Best Actress award for Love in the Buff at the 32nd Hong Kong Film Award.
1179387	Leonard Albert "Lenny" Kravitz (born May 26, 1964) is an American singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, record producer, actor and arranger, whose "retro" style incorporates elements of rock, soul, R&B, funk, reggae, hard rock, psychedelic, folk and ballads. In addition to singing lead and backing vocals, Kravitz often played all the guitar, bass, drums, keyboards and percussion himself when recording. He is known for his elaborate stage performances and music videos. He won the Grammy Award for Best Male Rock Vocal Performance four years in a row from 1999 to 2002, breaking the record for most wins in that category as well as setting the record for most consecutive wins in one category by a male. He has been nominated for and won other awards, including American Music Awards, MTV Video Music Awards, Radio Music Awards, BRIT Awards and Blockbuster Entertainment Awards. On December 1, 2011, Kravitz was made an Officer of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. He plays the role of Cinna in "The Hunger Games film series". Early life. Kravitz was born in New York City on May 26, 1964. He is the son of Roxie Roker, an actress known for her character Helen Willis in the 1970s hit television sitcom "The Jeffersons", and Sy Kravitz, an NBC television news producer. His father was from a Russian Jewish family (with origins in what now is Ukraine). His mother was of Bahamian and African-American descent, and was from a Christian family. During his early years, Kravitz did not grow up in a religious environment. After a spiritual experience when he was thirteen, he started attending church, becoming a non-denominational Christian. Kravitz was named after his uncle, Private First Class Leonard M. Kravitz, who was killed in action in the Korean War at the age of 20, while defending against a Chinese attack and saving most of his platoon; he was posthumously awarded the Distinguished Service Cross but was denied the Medal of Honor. Kravitz grew up spending weekdays on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, with his parents, attending P.S.6 for elementary school, and weekends at his grandmother Bessie (Mitchell) Roker's house in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn. Kravitz began banging on pots and pans in the kitchen, playing them as drums at the age of three. At the age of five, he wanted to be a musician. He began playing the drums and soon added guitar. Kravitz grew up listening to the music his parents listened to: R&B, jazz, classical, opera, gospel, and blues. "My parents were very supportive of the fact that I loved music early on, and they took me to a lot of shows," Kravitz said. Around the age of seven, he saw The Jackson 5 perform at Madison Square Garden, which became his favorite group. His father, who was also a jazz promoter, was friends with Duke Ellington, Sarah Vaughan, Count Basie, Ella Fitzgerald, Bobby Short, Miles Davis and other jazz greats. Ellington even played "Happy Birthday" for him one year when he was about 5. He was exposed to the soul music of Motown, Stax, James Brown, Aretha Franklin, Al Green, Stevie Wonder, Curtis Mayfield, Gladys Knight, The Isley Brothers and Gamble and Huff growing up who were key influences on his musical style. Kravitz often went to see New York theater, where his mother worked. His mother encouraged his dreams of pursuing music. In 1974, the Kravitz family relocated to Los Angeles when Kravitz's mother landed her role on "The Jeffersons". At his mother's urging, Kravitz joined the California Boys Choir for three years, where he performed a classical repertoire, and sang with the Metropolitan Opera. He took part in Mahler's Third Symphony at the Hollywood Bowl. It was in Los Angeles that Kravitz was first introduced to rock music, listening to Led Zeppelin, Kiss, Aerosmith, Jimi Hendrix, Pink Floyd, Cream, and The Who. "I was attracted to the cool style, the girls, the rock 'n' roll lifestyle," Kravitz said. Kravitz's other musical influences at the time included Fela Kuti, Bill Withers, Marvin Gaye, Pharoah Sanders and Miles Davis; John Lennon and Bob Marley proved later to be influential as well. Kravitz attended Beverly Hills High School. Maria McKee, actor Nicolas Cage and musician Slash were his classmates. In 1978, Kravitz was accepted into the school's well-respected music program. He taught himself to play piano and bass, and made friends with Zoro who would later become his long-time collaborator. Kravitz wanted to be a session musician. He also appeared as an actor in television commercials during this time. Career. 1989–90: Virgin Records and career debut. With record labels still telling him his music wasn't "black enough" or "white enough," Kravitz decided to record an album on his own. Kravitz had met recording engineer/keyboardist/bassist Henry Hirsch in 1985 when recording a demo at his Hoboken, New Jersey recording studio. The two shared an interest in using real instruments and vintage recording equipment, as well as a love of R&B, jazz, and rock. Kravitz would go on to collaborate with Hirsch on most of his albums. Kravitz began working on his debut album with Hirsch over the next year and a half, with Kravitz's father paying for the studio time. Kravitz met saxophonist Karl Denson and invited him to play on the song, "Let Love Rule." Kravitz was so impressed with his playing that Denson played on much of the album. Denson toured with Kravitz for the next five years. In October 1988, after completing most of the recording, Kravitz approached friend Stephen Elvis Smith who had served as the Music Supervisor on Lisa Bonet's spin-off of "The Cosby Show", "A Different World". Smith had also worked with Kravitz' mother Roxie Roker, on the hit sitcom "The Jeffersons". Kravitz urged Smith to manage his career and assist him in finding a record deal. In less than a month of shopping the recordings, five labels (Warner Bros, Elektra, Geffen, Capitol and Virgin) were in a bidding war for Kravitz. Eventually a deal was made with Virgin Records in January 1989, and signed by Virgin A & R executive Nancy Jeffries. The label was excited about the music he was making, music inspired by his relationship with wife Bonet and their new daughter, Zoe. On Smith's urging, Kravitz dropped the name Romeo Blue and reclaimed the Lenny Kravitz moniker. About his time as Romeo Blue, Kravitz said, "Ultimately, it got me back to myself. And when I finally did accept myself for myself, music started flowing out of me." Kravitz released his début album "Let Love Rule" on September 6, 1989, a combination of rock and funk with a general 1960s vibe. Music critics were mixed: some felt Kravitz was a gifted new artist, others felt he was overpowered by his musical influences. The album was a moderate success in the United States, but became an instant hit outside of the US, especially in Europe. Lisa Bonet directed the debut music video for the title track, "Let Love Rule." Stephen Smith signed Kravitz with talent booking agency CAA, who soon were fielding offers for Kravitz, first on a club tour, and then in opening slots for Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, Bob Dylan and David Bowie. Having played essentially all of the instruments on the album, Kravitz had to quickly assemble a touring band to support the Let Love Rule release. They included a childhood friend, Zoro on drums (formerly of Bobby Brown's band), Adam Widoff (guitar), Lebron Scott (bass guitar, recruited out of Curtis Mayfield's band after seeing them perform in a NYC club), Kenneth Crouch (keyboards) and Karl Denson on saxophone. In May 2009, a 20th Anniversary Deluxe Edition of "Let Love Rule" was released worldwide by Virgin. The double disk includes a booklet with rare photos, and 18 additional demos, bonus tracks and live recordings. Kravitz launched a LLR(20) tour of Europe and the United States in support of the re-release. 1991–2001: Popularity established. In 1990, Kravitz produced the song "Justify My Love" for Madonna, which he co-wrote with Ingrid Chavez. The song, which appeared on her greatest hits album "The Immaculate Collection" and created controversy because of its explicit video, went to number 1 for two consecutive weeks. When MTV banned the video, the video was quickly made available for sale at record stores, and immediately sold over 500,000 copies. Kravitz separated from Lisa Bonet in 1991, amid rumors of an affair between him and Madonna. Kravitz has denied any infidelity. Kravitz and Bonet divorced in 1993. In 1991, Kravitz produced the self-titled album "Vanessa Paradis" for French singer and actress Vanessa Paradis. He played most of the instruments and co-wrote most of the songs on the album. He also released his second album, "Mama Said," which was his first album to reach the Top 40. The songs on the album were about Bonet and dedicated to her, documenting his depression over their breakup. Kravitz's biggest single yet, "It Ain't Over 'Til It's Over," went to number 2 on the "Billboard" Hot 100. The single "Always on the Run," a tribute to his mother, featured Slash on guitar. "Stand By My Woman" and "What Goes Around Comes Around" followed. Sean Lennon co-wrote and played piano on the song "All I Ever Wanted". In 2001, Kravitz participated in a benefit auction for the Red Hot Organization, in conjunction with Amazon.com to increase public AIDS awareness, which ran from February 28 until April 11, 2001. The event featured rare RHO memorabilia and the work of "Rolling Stone" photographer Mark Seliger. In 1993, Kravitz wrote "Line Up" for Aerosmith's Steven Tyler, and appeared on Mick Jagger's solo album, "Wandering Spirit", in a cover of the Bill Withers soul classic "Use Me", and played guitar on the title track of David Bowie's "The Buddha of Suburbia". That year Kravitz also got to work with idols Al Green and Curtis Mayfield. In 1993, "Are You Gonna Go My Way" was released, reaching number 12 on the "Billboard" 200 and Kravitz earned a BRIT Award for best international male artist in 1994. The title track won a MTV Video Music Award for Best Male Video for the video produced by Mark Romanek, in which Kravitz slung his dreadlocks and wore high-heeled platform boots. During the presentation of the MTV Video Music Awards, he performed the song with John Paul Jones of Led Zeppelin on bass. Several singles from the album would follow including, "Believe," "Is There Any Love In Your Heart," and "Heaven Help/Spinning Around Over You." This album was the first to feature guitarist Craig Ross, who has also played on all his subsequent albums. One song, "Eleutheria," was influenced by the island Eleuthera in The Bahamas where Kravitz built a house and recording studio at that time. In 1993, he also released the EP "Spinning Around Over You", which included four live tracks from his "Universal Love Tour". A feature documentary about his 1994 tour entitled "Alive From Planet Earth" was directed by Doug Nichol and released. In 1994, Kravitz recorded a funk-rock version of the song "Deuce," for the KISS cover album "". The track featured Stevie Wonder on harmonica and background vocals. This song was one of three radio singles from the album, and was also the album's lead-off track. Roxie Roker, Kravitz's mother, died in California on December 2, 1995, of breast cancer at the age of 66. In 1995, Lenny Kravitz released the album "Circus," which went to number 10 on the "Billboard" chart on the back of his past achievement. However, the album only had two hit singles: "Rock and Roll Is Dead" and "Can't Get You Off My Mind." With "5" (1998), Kravitz embraced digital technology such as Pro Tools and samplers for the first time. "5" introduced his music to an even wider audience thanks to the hit single "Fly Away" being featured prominently in both car manufacturer and airline commercials. "5" would reach number 28 on the "Billboard" 200, with "Fly Away" reaching number 12 on the "Billboard" Hot 100 and number 1 in the United Kingdom. He would win the first of his four consecutive Grammy for Best Male Rock Vocal Performance at the Grammy Awards of 1999. Other hits from the album included "If You Can't Say No", that was also remixed by dance producer Brian Transeau, and "I Belong to You." For the I Belong to You video Lenny can be seen without his signature dreadlocks. In 1999 he produced and sang with Cree Summer on her solo album Street Faerie. His cover version of The Guess Who's hit "American Woman" won him another Grammy at the Grammy Awards of 2000 and helped The Guess Who's song reach a new audience. Kravitz's version of the song originally came from the soundtrack of "" and was added to "5" as a bonus track in 1999. Kravitz worked on two songs for Michael Jackson's "Invincible" album released in 2001; a snippet of "Another Day" has leaked, and the full version was officially released on the album Michael in 2010 . Kravitz released a "Greatest Hits" album in 2000. It proved to be his most successful album, reaching #2 on the "Billboard" 200 and selling nearly 11 million copies worldwide and ultimately becoming one of the most commercially successful albums of the decade. The single "Again" earned him his third consecutive Grammy for the Best Male Rock Vocal in the Grammy Awards of 2001 and peaked at number 4 on the US "Billboard" Hot 100. Kravitz also co-wrote the song "God Gave Me Everything" with Mick Jagger in this period, appearing on Jagger's 2001 solo album "Goddess in the Doorway" and in the film "Being Mick." 2001–05: "Lenny" and "Baptism". Kravitz released his sixth album "Lenny" in October 2001. The album was recorded in Miami. Kravitz wrote the song "Bank Robber Man" after the Miami Police Department detained and cuffed him while walking to the gym with his trainer because police stated that he matched the description of a bank robber. Kravitz did not have any identification with him at the time and the police on the scene did not believe that he was indeed Lenny Kravitz. The bank teller who was robbed was then brought to the scene and said Kravitz was not the bank robber. Miami Police later sent officers to Kravitz's home to apologize for the detention. When asked if he thought the incident was a case of racial profiling, Kravitz said he wasn’t sure although some of the lyrics in the song suggest otherwise. The first single from the album, "Dig In", went to number 1 in Argentina and the top 10 in Italy and Portugal. The video for "Dig In" was originally supposed to be shot at the top of the Empire State Building on September 12, 2001 but the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001 caused the location to be moved. The video was later shot off the coast Miami. He won his fourth Grammy in 2002. "Stillness of Heart", "Believe in Me", and "If I Could Fall In Love" were subsequent singles from the album. Kravitz was the subject of a photo book by former chief photographer for "Rolling Stone", Mark Seliger. Published in November 2001, Seliger captures Kravitz on tour, with family, with friends and in posed portraits. Jay-Z invited Kravitz to appear on the track "Guns and Roses" on his 2002 "". Kravitz would also join P. Diddy, Pharrell and Loon on the track "Show Me Your Soul" from the "Bad Boys II Soundtrack". In September 2002, Kravitz appeared alongside other rock stars in the episode "How I Spent My Strummer Vacation" of "The Simpsons". In early 2003, Kravitz released the track "We Want Peace" as a download-only track as a protest against the 2003 invasion of Iraq, he performed this alongside famous Iraqi singer Kazem Al Saher at Rock The Vote. The track reached #1 on the world internet download charts and MP3.com download chart. Kravitz also appeared on "Unity", the official album of the 2004 Athens Olympics, and performed a cover of "Have You Ever Been (To Electric Ladyland)" on the album "". In late 2004, Kravitz dated actress Nicole Kidman and reportedly dedicated his hit song "Lady" to her. They split in 2005. Kravitz's seventh album "Baptism" was released in May 2004. The first single was "Where Are We Runnin'?". The single "California" failed to be commercially successful, but "Storm", featuring Jay-Z, reached the charts. "Calling All Angels" was successful in various countries and a huge hit in Brazil, however it was "Lady" that became the album's surprise hit, making the US Top 30 and propelling "Baptism" to gold status. Also in 2004, he appeared on N.E.R.D's album "Fly or Die". From March 2005, Kravitz toured all over the world with the tour "Electric Church", which ended at the Brixton Academy, London in July 2005. Kravitz served as the opening act for Aerosmith who are long term friends of Kravitz on their fall 2005 tour. The tour began on October 30 at the Mohegan Sun Arena in Uncasville, Connecticut. The night before that tour started, October 29, 2005, Lenny's father TV Producer Sy Kravitz died. During that first show, Lenny broke the news to the stunned crowd and stated it was not a time to be sad but rather a time to celebrate because he is now in Heaven. Lenny then dedicated "Let Love Rule" to his father. That tour was so successful that it was extended through February 25, 2006 and ended in Anaheim, California. 2006–09: Live Earth, charity work, and "It Is Time for a Love Revolution". In January 2006, Kravitz contributed "Breathe" to absoluttracks, a project sponsored by Absolut Vodka. This song was re-mixed by ten musical producers and distributed via the internet. Kravitz appeared in the audience of Madonna's Confessions Tour (2006) during numerous shows. He later joined Madonna live on stage to play guitar on the song, "I Love New York," at the last of four Paris shows. Lately, Kravitz has founded a design firm named Kravitz Design, stating if he hadn't been a musician he would have been a designer. Kravitz Design, focused on interior and furniture design, has designed residential spaces, as well as a chandelier for the crystal company Swarovski, named "Casino Royale." On July 7, 2007, Kravitz performed at the Brazilian leg of Live Earth in Rio de Janeiro, making him one of three major international rock stars to perform two huge free concerts at the world-famous Copacabana Beach along with Macy Gray and the Rolling Stones. Kravitz had already played there on March 21, 2005, drawing 300,000 people on a concert of his own. The Live Earth concert, with eight other acts on the bill, including Pharrell and Macy Gray, took 400,000 to the beach. Also in 2007, Kravitz released a version of "Cold Turkey" by John Lennon on the charity CD "". Kravitz also spent time recording his latest album, "It Is Time for a Love Revolution", released February 5, 2008. On September 25, 2007, the Fats Domino tribute album "Goin' Home ; A Tribute To Fats Domino" was released. Kravitz was on the song "Whole Lotta Lovin'" along with Rebirth Brass Band, Troy "Trombone Shorty" Andrews, Fred Wesley, Pee Wee Ellis and Maceo Parker. Kravitz performed at the Grey Cup halftime show in Toronto at the Rogers Centre on November 25, 2007, where the Saskatchewan Roughriders beat the Winnipeg Blue Bombers 23-19. The original video for "I'll Be Waiting" was shot in Central Park in New York City with Marc Webb directing but that video was later shelved and a new version, which Kravitz co-directed with Philip Andelman, was filmed in Lenny's New York City recording studio. The video premiered on VH1's Top 20 Countdown at number 3. On January 17, 2008, Kravitz embarked on a 9 city mini-tour to promote his new album "It Is Time for a Love Revolution". The tour started in Santa Monica, California and ended in New York City on February 1. The tour was done in association with Myspace and called the "Get on the Bus" tour. At each stop on the tour, they would pick up one contest winner and their guest and they rode on the "Love Revolution" bus until the end of the tour. Steven Tyler of Aerosmith, a close friend of Lenny's would appear at The Orpheum Theater in Boston. The New York City winner, Tyrone Good was presented a train ticket from Penn Station to travel to Philadelphia and rode with the tour the rest of the way starting in Philadelphia (The Electric Factory), Boston (The Orpheum Theater), and finally New York City (The Hammerstein Ballroom). The winners were featured in the YRB February Edition alongside Lenny Kravitz in a magazine pull-out. The photo shoot took place at the Electric Factory in Philadelphia on stage. The winner's pull out was featured in another issue of YRB which had Lil' Wayne on the cover. On February 11, 2008, Kravitz was admitted to Miami Hospital suffering from severe bronchitis. He had been suffering from a series of severe respiratory tract infections since mid-January, and the illness developed into bronchitis. Kravitz's illness had forced him to postpone Canadian dates and his trip to Europe to promote his album "It Is Time for a Love Revolution". On March 19, 2008 he canceled the South American part of his tour due to the same illness. The decision affected planned concerts in Colombia, Mexico, Brazil and Argentina. In Argentina Kravitz had a performance in the biggest rock festival there, Quilmes Rock Fest. On July 15, 2008, Lenny was honored in Milan, Italy with the key to the city in a special toast ceremony for his work with the United Nations Millennium Campaign to end world poverty. Kravitz made his feature film acting debut in "Precious" which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January 2009. During the Italian leg of his 53 date Let Love Rule (20)09 European tour, Kravitz had been instructed to cancel some shows due to a bad bout of bronchitis. Under strict orders from his doctor, the singer was told to rest so that he could make a quick recovery and return to the stage for the rest of his tour. Shows scheduled for Rome on June 5 and Brescia on June 6 were postponed to late July. 2009–12: U2 tour and "Black and White America". Kravitz's next album, tentatively titled "Funk", was tentatively re-titled "Negrophilia" and was due out sometime in 2010. This is believed to be a project that Kravitz has been working on since 1997. Some of the original tracks for "Funk" were recorded while he was in New Orleans at Allen Toussaint's studio while taking a break for several months from recording in New York City. A video on Kravitz's Twitter page shows him working on one of the songs for the album, called "Super Love", in his GTS studios in the Bahamas. Another video shows him working on another track titled "Life Ain't Never Been Better Than It Is Now" in his GTS Studios. On his Twitter page, Kravitz said that the album title was "Negrophilia" but then "felt like something else". Eventually the album was later named "Black and White America". The album was released on August 22, 2011 in Europe and August 30, 2011 in the U.S. On February 20, 2011 the first single "Come on Get It" was released. On June 6, 2011 the second single "Stand" was released. It was announced that Kravitz would be supporting U2 on their 360 Tour on the second North American leg in 2010. Kravitz agreed to support them for four shows. Though the shows were postponed until 2011, Kravitz remained committed for four of the shows. In June 2010 it was announced that Kravitz would guest star on an episode of the upcoming season of "Entourage". On May 23, 2011, Lionsgate announced that Kravitz would be joining the cast and crew of "The Hunger Games", as Katniss' creative stylist, Cinna. The movie was released on March 23, 2012. On December 1, 2011, Kravitz was honored with one of the highest cultural awards in France when he was made an Officer of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by French cultural minister Frederic Mitterrand in Paris. Kravitz stated he was "particularly touched" to receive the award in France as his success in the country pre-dated his success in the United States and still enjoys great record sales in the country today. Kravitz joins other American recipients such as Martin Scorsese, George Clooney, and Bob Dylan. On February 26, 2012, he performed at the Daytona International Speedway (several songs carried live on Fox) for the Daytona 500, the opening race of the 2012 NASCAR Sprint Cup season. A sample of "Are You Gonna Go My Way" was used in American singer Chris Willis's single "Too Much In Love", released on August 16, 2011. On November 22, 2012, Lenny Kravitz performed during halftime of the Jets-Patriots Thanksgiving night game. Personal life. In 1985, Kravitz's parents divorced, which had a profound impact on him. His relationship with his father became extremely strained. Kravitz focused on his music to help him get through this period. That year, Kravitz met actress Lisa Bonet backstage at a New Edition concert. Bonet worked on "The Cosby Show", the number one rated show on television. They were close friends for two years before falling in love. Like Kravitz, Bonet is half African American and half Russian Jewish. Kravitz moved back to New York City where "The Cosby Show" was produced in 1987, moving in with then girlfriend Bonet. Kravitz and Bonet eloped to be married on November 16, 1987, her 20th birthday, in a Las Vegas ceremony. Kravitz, still known as Romeo Blue at the time, suddenly found himself in the headlines of tabloid newspapers. They had a daughter, Zoë Isabella Kravitz, born on December 1, 1988. Kravitz and Bonet divorced in 1993. In 2001, he began dating model Adriana Lima. In 2002, the couple was engaged, but less than a year later, the engagement was called off.
586683	Poonam Dhillon (born on 18 April 1962) is an Indian Hindi film, theatre and TV actress. A former Femina Miss India (1977), Dhillon has acted in over 80 films. She is best known for her 1979 film, "Noorie", for her six films with Rajesh Khanna "Red Rose", "Dard", "Nishaan", "Zamana", "Awam" (from 1980 to 1987) and "Sohni Mahiwal" (1984), "Samundar", "Saveray Wali Gaadi" (1986) and "Naam" (1986). Career. Dhillon first gained fame when she was crowned Miss Young India at the age of 16. Director Yash Chopra noticed her and offered her a role in the film "Trishul" (1978) where she performed the song "Gapoochi Gapoochi gum gum" with co-star Sachin Pilgaonkar. Chopra then gave her the title role in "Noorie" (1979), which he produced. For this, Dhillon was nominated for Filmfare Award for Best Actress. Subsequently she did about 90 films in Hindi, including "Sohni Mahiwal", "Red Rose", "Teri Kasam", "Dard", "Nishana", "Yeh Vada Raha", "Samunder", "Romance", "Kasam", and "Sitamgar". She was often paired with Rajesh Khanna and together, they performed in "Dard", "Nishaan", "Zamana" and "Awam" and "Red Rose", "Jai Shiv Shankar". She featured in six films opposite Rajesh Khanna. She did a cameo in Judaai as a favor to producer Boney Kapoor after Juhi Chawla dropped out. She also appeared in regional films such as "Nyay Danda," (Bengali), "Yuddha Kaanda" (Kannada) and "Ishtam" (Telugu). She has done Hindi theater, "The Perfect Husband" which won the best comedy play award in 2005 and which completed Golden Jubilee run. Then did two the plays "The Perfect Wife" co-starring Sooraj Thapar and "Pyaar Mein Kabhi Kabhi" with Asif Sheikh. Currently she is doing a play called "U TURN" which is the Hindi adaptation of Marathi play Dhillon ventured into the make-up van business, pioneering the concept in the Indian film industry. She runs a make-up van company, "VANITY".
1151539	Assault in the Ring (formerly "Cornered: A Life in the Ring") is a 2008 sports documentary film about a controversial boxing match held at Madison Square Garden on June 16, 1983. The fight has drawn comparisons to the Antonio Margarito-Miguel Cotto controversy. Synopsis. The documentary examines a boxing match that took place between undefeated prospect Billy Collins Jr and Luis Resto. The fight was on the undercard for a bout between Roberto Durán and Davey Moore. Resto unexpectedly beat the highly touted Collins in a 10-round unanimous decision; however, after the fight, Resto's gloves are found to be missing a significant amount of padding, an illegal tampering which allowed Resto to inflict greater damage on Collins during the fight. What began as a boxing match turned into a life altering moment for both participants - Collins' career dreams ended and Resto and his trainer Panama Lewis landed in prison for their illegal actions. The subsequent investigation and trial have led many to declare this bout the darkest day in boxing history. The documentary is shot by former boxing manager Eric Drath, who hears the story of Luis Resto from various boxers. Drath feels compelled to try to exonerate Resto, whose life is in shambles in the aftermath of the fight and subsequent incarceration and ban from boxing. Drath says he believes Resto when he tells him he had no knowledge of the tainted gloves. In the course of the investigation, however, Drath uncovers a transcript of a police interview Resto gave during the criminal investigation. In the transcript, which was not admitted during Resto's assault trial, Resto admits that Panama Lewis had taken the gloves into the bathroom with Lee Black. When Drath confronts Resto with this evidence, Resto finally admits that Lewis had indeed taken the gloves. The documentary then focuses on Resto admitting this knowledge to members of Collins' and his own family and asking for forgiveness. In the course of this journey, which takes him from the Bronx, to Virginia, to Miami, to Nashville, Resto admits he knew during the course of the fight that the gloves had been tampered with. He then admits he knew well before the fight that not only had the gloves been tampered with but that his hands were encased in plaster of paris. The documentary also shows the disparity between the lives of the two main figures, Resto and Panama Lewis. While Resto's life is in ruins, losing his family and career and spending ten years living in the basement of the gym where he used to train, Lewis, while still officially banned from boxing, is still very active in the boxing community. Lewis is shown at the press conference for an upcoming fight featuring Zab Judah, one of the fighters he trains, where he is still accepted by some in the boxing community while Resto is a pariah even with his own family. Lewis is still clearly making a good living as a trainer in the sport he is "banned" from, as evidenced by his gold chains and watches and stays at posh hotels, while Resto must catch a bus for seven hours to see his family. Resto implicated Panama Lewis as the brain behind the conspiracy to taint the gloves, but many questions still remain. What was Lewis's motive for gambling his livelihood and reputation on a Collins-Resto fight? Collins was still a prospect while Resto was considered journeyman. While Resto's motives remain unclear, there were unproven allegations that a cocaine dealer had wagered a large sum of money on Resto to win. Initially adamant that Lewis was the one who took the gloves into the bathroom, when confronted by Lewis in the parking lot of a gym, he appears to back off his allegations somewhat, admitting that cornerman Artie Curley had wrapped at least one of his hands. In addition to investigating Lewis as the primary factor to the incident, the documentary also speaks about the Collins family's litigious nature following the incident, suggesting that perhaps the family had taken advantage of Billy's injuries to get a large settlement from the state of New York State Athletic Commission, as well as forbidding Collins from further fights. The documentary suggests that this was possibly done to keep Billy from getting back in the ring, which likely would have invalidated the insurance claim they had made against the boxing organization. Reviews. Punches in the Ring, Effects Far Beyond By NEIL GENZLINGER Published: July 31, 2009 The encounter it delves into couldn’t have been uglier, but Eric Drath’s “Assault in the Ring,” a documentary that will be broadcast on Saturday on HBO, has an unexpected elegance. It’s a carefully etched example of the ripple effect at work in real life, a study in how a single, brief incident can have shattering consequences that string out for decades in multiple directions.
1062228	Geraldine FitzGerald (24 November 1913 – 17 July 2005) was an Irish-American actress and a member of the American Theatre Hall of Fame. Early life. FitzGerald was born in Greystones, County Wicklow, south of Dublin, the daughter of Edith and Edward FitzGerald, who was an attorney. Her father was Catholic and her mother a Protestant who converted to Catholicism. She studied painting at the Dublin School of Art and inspired by her aunt, the actress/director Shelah Richards, Geraldine Fitzgerald began her acting career in 1932 in theatre in her native Dublin before moving to London where she studied painting at the Polytechnic School of Art and was taken to Twickenham Studios where she played a small role in a British film 1934. She quickly came to be regarded as one of the British film industry's most promising young performers and her most successful film of this period was "The Mill on the Floss" (1937). Career. Her success led her to America and Broadway in 1938, and while appearing opposite Orson Welles in the Mercury Theatre production of "Heartbreak House", she was seen by the film producer Hal B. Wallis who signed her to a seven-year film contract. She achieved two significant successes in 1939; she received a nomination for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her role as Isabella Linton in "Wuthering Heights" and had an important role in "Dark Victory", with both films achieving great box office success. She appeared in "Shining Victory" (1941) and "Watch on the Rhine" (1943) for Warner Bros., and "Wilson" (1944) for Fox, but her career was hampered by her frequent clashes with the management of the studio, and the suspensions that resulted. She lost the role of 'Brigid O'Shaughnessy', the villainess of "The Maltese Falcon" due to her clashes with Jack Warner. Although she continued to work frequently throughout the 1940s, the quality of her roles diminished and her career began to lose momentum. She became a U.S. citizen during World War II in a display of solidarity with her adopted country. In 1946, shortly after completing work on "Three Strangers", she left Hollywood to return to New York City where she married her second husband Stuart Scheftel, a grandson of Isidor Straus. She returned to Britain to film "So Evil My Love" (1948) and received strong reviews for her performance as an alcoholic adultress. In 1951 she appeared in "The Late Edwina Black" before returning to America. The 1950s provided her with very few opportunities in film, but in the 1960s she asserted herself as a character actress, and her career enjoyed a revival. Among her successful films of this period were "Ten North Frederick" (1958), "The Pawnbroker" (1964) and "Rachel, Rachel" (1968). Her other films include "The Mango Tree" (1977) (for which she received an Australian Film Institute "Best Actress" nomination), "Arthur" (1981), "Poltergeist II: The Other Side" (1986) and "" (1988). From the 1940s she began to act more on stage and she won acclaim for her performance in the 1971 revival of "Long Day's Journey Into Night". She also achieved success as a theatre director, becoming one of the first women to receive a Tony Award nomination for directing (1982) for the production "Mass Appeal". She also appeared frequently on television in such series as "Alfred Hitchcock Presents", "Robert Montgomery Presents", "Naked City", "St. Elsewhere" and "Cagney and Lacey". In 1983, she played Rose Kennedy in the mini-series "Kennedy". In 1986, Fitzgerald starred alongside Tuesday Weld and River Phoenix in the critically acclaimed CBS television movie "" about domestic elder abuse, and in 1987, she played the title role in the TV pilot "Mabel and Max", (Barbra Streisand's first television pilot production). She received an Emmy Award nomination for a guest role playing Anna in "The Golden Girls" Mother's Day episode in 1988 (Fitzgerald played another character in the episode "Not Another Monday"). She won a Daytime Emmy award for her appearance in the episode 'Rodeo Red and the Runaways' on NBC Special Treat. In 1976 she began a career as a cabaret singer with the show "Streetsongs" which played three successful runs on Broadway and was the subject of a PBS television special. Geraldine Fitzgerald has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for her contributions to television, at 6353 Hollywood Boulevard. Personal life. She was the mother of the TV, film and theater director Michael Lindsay-Hogg ("Let It Be" and "Brideshead Revisited") by her first marriage (to Sir Edward Lindsay-Hogg, 4th Bt.) and a daughter, Susan Scheftel by her second marriage to American businessman Stuart Scheftel, grandson of Macy's co-owner and "Titanic" victim Isidor Straus. Her son's resemblance to Orson Welles, with whom she had worked and been linked with romantically in the late 1930s, led to rumors Welles was the boy's father. Fitzgerald never confirmed this to her son, but in his 2011 autobiography Lindsay-Hogg reported that his mother's friend Gloria Vanderbilt had revealed that Welles was his natural father. She was a great aunt of actress Tara Fitzgerald. Fitzgerald died at age 91 in New York City following a long battle with Alzheimer's Disease.
1165703	Kenneth Tobey (March 23, 1917 – December 22, 2002) was an American stage, television, and film actor. Early years. Born in Oakland, California, Tobey was headed for a law career when he first dabbled in acting at the University of California Little Theater. That experience led to a year-and-a-half of study at New York's Neighborhood Playhouse, where his classmates included fellow University of California at Berkeley alumnus Gregory Peck, and Eli Wallach and Tony Randall. Throughout the 1940s, Tobey acted on Broadway and in stock; he made his film debut in a 1943 short, "The Man of the Ferry". He made his Hollywood film debut in a Hopalong Cassidy western, and went on to appear in scores of features and on numerous television series. He was a sentry guard who was dressed down by General Savage (played by Gregory Peck) in "Twelve O' Clock High". A brief comedy bit in "I Was a Male War Bride" caught the attention of director Howard Hawks, who promised to use Tobey in something more substantial. "The Thing from Another World". In 1951, Tobey was cast in Hawks' production "The Thing from Another World", playing Captain Patrick Hendry, a United States Air Force pilot and leader of the arctic polar station's dogged defense against the movie's title character, portrayed by James Arness. That role led to other science fiction film roles in the 1950s, usually cast in the role of a military man, particularly "The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms" (1953), and "It Came from Beneath the Sea" (1956). He played the sheriff in "The Vampire" (1957). Television. Tobey appeared in the episode "Counterfeit Plates" of the 1952-1953 CBS series "Biff Baker, U.S.A." an espionage drama starring Alan Hale, Jr. He was cast too in the 1954-1955 CBS legal drama, "The Public Defender", starring Reed Hadley. He guest starred in three episodes of NBC's western anthology television series, "Frontier". His "Frontier" roles were Wade Trippe in "In Nebraska" (1955) and as Gabe Sharp in "Out from Texas" and "The Hostage" (1956). In 1955, he also portrayed legendary frontiersman Jim Bowie on ABC's "Davy Crockett", a Walt Disney Production starring Fess Parker in the title role. After Bowie's death at the Battle of the Alamo, Tobey played a second character, Jocko, in the two final "Crockett" episodes. Thereafter, he appeared in the syndicated religion anthology series, "Crossroads" in the role of Mr. Alston in the 1957 episode "Call for Help". He appeared with John Bromfield in the syndicated "Sheriff of Cochise".
1169716	Peter Leeds (May 30, 1917 – November 12, 1996) was an American actor, who appeared on television more than eight thousand times and also had many film, Broadway, and radio credits. The majority of his work took place in the 1950s and 1960s. Working with many well-known comedians, he became popular as a straight man to their antics. Beyond situation comedies, Peter Leeds was also a dramatic actor, a Broadway performer, and a regular on many variety shows. He made three guest appearances on "Perry Mason", including the role of murderer Bill Emory in the 1958 episode, "The Case of the Sun Bather's Diary." Peter Leeds was also a popular voice-over artist, being heard on over 3,000 radio shows, and accompanied Bob Hope on 14 international USO tours. Early life. A native of Bayonne, New Jersey, Leeds received his training at the Neighborhood Playhouse. He made his film debut with a bit part in "Public Enemies" (1941). He received a scholarship from the John Marshall Law School, where he attended for one year. He also attended The Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theatre in New York City. Leeds was noticed by the Group Theater of New York, through which he received a scholarship and graduated. Co-stars. Leeds worked with hundreds of well-known actors, including Bob Hope, Lucille Ball, Milton Berle, Carol Burnett, Red Skelton, Jack Benny, Jerry Lewis, Dean Martin, and Johnny Carson. He appeared four times with David Janssen in the crime drama, "Richard Diamond, Private Detective". Leeds was cast as George Colton in nine episodes of the 1960s CBS sitcom, "Pete and Gladys", starring Harry Morgan and Cara Williams. He guest starred on an episode of the 1962-1963 ABC drama series, "Going My Way", starring Gene Kelly.
586191	Vanaprastham - The Last Dance (English title: Pilgrimage, ) (1999) is an Indian-French-German produced feature film directed by Shaji N. Karun. It stars Mohanlal, Suhasini Mani Ratnam, Mattannur Sankarankutty Marar, Kalamandalam Gopi and Venmani Haridas. The film's music is composed by Zakir Hussain. The film was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize at the AFI Los Angeles International Film Festival (AFI Fest) in 1999. It was screened in the Un Certain Regard section at the 1999 Cannes Film Festival. It is considered one of Mohanlal's best performances and gave him international acclaim. IBN Live ranked the film #9 in its list of greatest Indian films of all time. Plot. The story revolves around a male Kathakali dancer Kunhikuttan (Mohanlal), an admirable and respected performer but a member of a lower caste. He struggles to come to terms with the rejection and estrangement of his father, a member of an upper caste who denies his son. Poor, unhappy, and stuck in an arranged marriage that provides no relief, he gets by for the sake of his daughter. One night, whilst performing as Arjuna from the epic Mahabarata on stage, his dance is witnessed by Subhadra (Suhasini), a well educated member of an upper caste family. Defying the norms of India's rigid caste system, they have a son, but it soon becomes clear that Subhadra loves the character Arjuna from his stage performances, and not Kunhikuttan the dancer. More in love with the valiant, noble hero of the Mahabarata, than the dancer Kunhikuttan, she rejects him and refuses to let him see his son. Denied access to his son, and rejected by his father, Kunhikuttan returns to the stage, leaving behind his hero roles to play demonic characters, reaching within the dark corners of his mind, becoming increasingly resentful and full of anger, until one last dance which brings the feature to a stunning end. Awards. The film has been nominated for the following awards since its release: 1999 AFI Fest (USA) 2000 Istanbul International Film Festival (Turkey) 2000 Bombay International Film Festival (India) 2000 National Film Awards (India) 1999 Kerala State Film Awards '"1999 Filmfare Award "'Other Awards Soundtrack. First film in india made in panavision film with dolby stereo.
1164924	James Christopher Read (born July 31, 1953) is an American actor, best known for his role of George Hazard in the "North and South" television miniseries. Biography. Early life. Read was born in Buffalo, New York, as the second of three children in family (has an older brother and a younger sister). He started acting as a student of law at the University of Oregon where he graduated in 1976. He studied acting in New York and then did several off Broadway and regional theatres such as "The Denver Center Theatre Company", where he had a couple of leading roles and spent three seasons. In 1998, he earned his Masters Degree in psychology from Pepperdine University. Career. Read is best known for his role as George Hazard in the three "North and South" TV miniseries (1985, 1986 and 1994) based on the John Jakes trilogy of novels of the same name (his co-star; Patrick Swayze taught him how to ride a horse), and for his co-starring role in the movie "Beaches". He had a recurring role on The WB series "Charmed" as Victor Bennett and was also a regular during the first season of "Remington Steele". Recently, he could be seen as Ken Davis in the ABC family drama "Wildfire" and an ambassador Franklin Fairchild in 2010 television series "Persons Unknown". In 2008, he directed an episode of "Wildfire". In 2009, he performed in ""Better Angels"" as Abraham Lincoln at the Colony Theatre in Burbank, California. Personal life. The lefthanded, 6'2" Read is married to actress Wendy Kilbourne, whom he met on the set of "North and South". They live in Santa Barbara, California and had three children together. Their son Jackson was born in 1990 and their daughter Sydney (born 1995). Their middle child (a daughter), Willa was stillborn. Following her death in 1994, Read thought of giving up acting (as he did in 1984, after his brother's unexpected death). Kilbourne is not his first wife; between 1973 and 1978, he was married to Lora Lee. He is interested in sailing, tennis and music. Filmography. Movies. The following groups theatrical, television and special movies : Television series. The following groups miniseries and series with regular and semi-regular appearances : The following groups television series with his guest-appearances :
1163884	Ana Kristina Gasteyer (born May 4, 1967) is an American actress of stage, film, and television. She is best known as a cast member on the sketch comedy series "Saturday Night Live" from 1996 to 2002. She currently stars on the ABC sitcom "Suburgatory", playing the character Sheila Shay. Early life. Gasteyer was born in Washington, D.C., the daughter of Mariana Roumell-Gasteyer, an artist, and Phil Gasteyer, the mayor of Corrales, New Mexico. Her maternal grandparents were Romanian and Greek. She graduated from Sidwell Friends School and Northwestern University. Her freshman year she lived on the fourth floor of Willard Residential College on campus, and majored in voice. She later became a theater major. Career. Gasteyer developed comedy experience with the famed Los Angeles improv – sketch comedy group The Groundlings. She played small roles on "Seinfeld" (as a doomed customer of The Soup Nazi), as well as on the shows "Party of Five", "Frasier", "Hope & Gloria" and "NYPD Blue". In 1996 Gasteyer joined the cast of "Saturday Night Live". Among her most popular characters were high school music teacher Bobbie Mohan-Culp, National Public Radio "Delicious Dish" host Margaret Jo McCullen, Lilith Festival feminist singer Cinder Calhoun, and her impression of Martha Stewart. After six seasons, Gasteyer left "SNL" in 2002. Since then, she has appeared in various television programs and films as well as in stage productions. In 2004, Gasteyer played the mother of the main character Cady Heron (Lindsay Lohan) in the feature film "Mean Girls", written by "SNL" castmate Tina Fey. The film also featured other former "SNL" castmates, including Fey, Tim Meadows, and Amy Poehler. She also appeared in the 2005 Showtime movie musical "Reefer Madness" as Mae, the doomed girlfriend of Jack and owner of the Reefer Den. Gasteyer starred in a revival of "The Threepenny Opera" on Broadway as Mrs. Peachum, along with Jim Dale, Alan Cumming, and Cyndi Lauper. The production ran from March 24 through June 25, 2006. On June 24, 2005, Gasteyer originated the role of Elphaba in the Chicago sit-down production of the musical "Wicked". The production opened July 13, 2005. Gasteyer was nominated for a Jefferson Award for her performance. She played her final performance on January 22, 2006, replaced by her standby Kristy Cates. She later reprised the role in the Broadway production from October 10, 2006, through January 7, 2007. On April 12, 2007, it was announced that Gasteyer has joined the cast of the new musical, "Writing Arthur", for the 2007 New Works Festival for TheatreWorks in California which ran from April 14–22. Gasteyer performed in Chicago in the Stephen Sondheim musical "Passion" at Chicago Shakespeare Theater from October 2, 2007 to November 11, 2007. She was originally cast as Gloria in the Encores! Summer Series production of "Damn Yankees", but due to injury during rehearsals, she was replaced by Megan Lawrence. Gasteyer took part in the reading of the Broadway musical version of "The First Wives Club." She starred as Kitty Dean in the Broadway play, "The Royal Family" which began performances at the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre on September 15, 2009 and officially opened on October 8, 2009. The show concluded its run on December 13, 2009. Gasteyer also starred as Frisco Kate Fothergill in the City Centers Encores! production of "Girl Crazy", running from November 19–22, 2009. She returned to "Saturday Night Live" for a special Mother's Day episode on May 8, 2010, and for another Mother's Day episode on May 11, 2012 Gasteyer appeared in season eight of "Curb Your Enthusiasm" as Larry David's girlfriend. She currently stars as Sheila Shay on the ABC comedy, "Suburgatory". In November 2011, she became a series regular on the show. As of March 2013, she is currently a spokeswoman of the Weight Watchers diet plan. Personal life. Gasteyer and her husband, Charlie, have two children, a daughter, Frances, born in June 2002, and a son, Ulysses, born in March 2008.
1062970	The Birdcage is a 1996 American comedy film directed by Mike Nichols, and stars Robin Williams, Gene Hackman, Nathan Lane, and Dianne Wiest. Dan Futterman, Calista Flockhart, Hank Azaria, and Christine Baranski appear in supporting roles. The script was written by Elaine May. It is a remake of the 1978 Franco-Italian film, "La Cage aux Folles", by Jean Poiret and Francis Veber, starring Michel Serrault and Ugo Tognazzi. Plot. Val Goldman and Barbara Keeley are engaged to be married, and wish to have their families meet. Val's father, Armand, owns The Birdcage, a South Beach drag club. His domestic partner is Albert, who appears regularly as "Starina", the show's star drag queen. Barbara's father is ultraconservative Republican Ohio Senator Kevin Keeley, who is seeking re-election as the co-founder of the "Coalition for Moral Order". Fearing their reaction if they learn the truth about Val's parents, Barbara tells her parents that Armand is a cultural attaché to Greece, that Albert is a housewife, and that they divide their time between Greece and Florida; she also changes the family's last name from Goldman to Coleman to hide their Jewish background. Kevin receives a phone call telling him that Senator Jackson, Kevin's colleague and co-founder of the Coalition for Moral Order, has been found dead in the bed of an underage African-American prostitute; the event receives a large amount of coverage in the media. Louise Keeley proposes a visit to meet their new in-laws as a diversion to save Kevin's political career, and Barbara's marriage into a white, "traditional, wholesome" all-American family will give the Senator excellent public relations material. Barbara phones Val in South Beach about the lies she has told her parents. Val convinces Armand to go along with the farce. Armand has the house redecorated in an austere manner, and begins remaking himself as an unassuming, conventional, heterosexual American male. He contacts Val's biological mother, Katherine, and she agrees to join in the charade he is planning. Despite the changes to the house and Katherine's help, Armand realizes that Albert's outlandish, effeminate mannerisms will reveal the true nature of the Goldman household. Armand asks Albert not to be present for the dinner party that evening; Albert is hurt and angry and threatens to leave Armand. A compromise is reached where Albert will act as Val's uncle, but this soon falls apart when Albert cannot convincingly pretend to be heterosexual. Another argument ensues and Albert locks himself in his bedroom. As the evening draws nearer, Agador, the Goldman's flamboyant gay housekeeper, has been made into a butler and chef for the evening, despite the fact that he cannot cook and never wears shoes. The Keeleys arrive at Armand's residence, but Katherine, who is to play Val's mother, is stuck in traffic. Kevin and Louise are worried that Armand's nervousness is because he has heard about the Jackson scandal and is uncomfortable having the Keeleys in his house. Suddenly, Albert emerges dressed as a middle-aged mother. Armand and Val are horrified, fearing that Katherine's arrival will destroy the illusion. Agador has prepared nothing for dinner but a bizarre soup containing shrimp and hard-boiled eggs. Despite the many challenges facing them, Armand, Val and Barbara all act the part and interact with Albert as "Mrs. Coleman". Before dinner, Louise notices that the soup bowls depict men in homoerotic poses in a classical Greek style. Armand insists that she is mistaken and promptly fills everyone's bowl with the soup before the Keeleys can take a closer look. The primary topic of conversation is politics and, despite many potential pitfalls, Albert wins over the Senator with a very right-wing tirade on the moral collapse of American society. Louise is still suspicious due to the terrible dinner and Armand's frequent exits from the dining room. Kevin defends Albert as a true lady and remarks that Armand is just a "pretentious European". Val leaves a note for Katherine on the front door informing her not to come inside, but two paparazzi photographers, hoping for a scoop, remove the note. Katherine arrives and introduces herself as "Mrs. Goldman". Kevin demands to know why there are two Mrs. Colemans; Val realizes that he cannot keep lying and pulls off Albert's wig, explaining to the Keeleys that while Katherine is his biological mother, Albert is his primary mother figure. Kevin and Louise are taken aback upon learning that Albert and Armand are gay Jewish nightclub owners. Louise breaks down and as Kevin announces that they are leaving, he demands that Barbara come with them. However, the Keeleys have been followed by paparazzi and are trapped as news crews arrive. The Goldmans, Keeleys, Katherine and Agador consider the best plan of action. Val and Barbara explain why they deceived Kevin and Louise and are forgiven, but the Keeleys fear being tangled up in a scandal if spotted in a gay nightclub. Albert choreographs the Keeleys' escape by dressing them in drag and having them leave the club as the night's show ends. The plan works and none of the media crews recognize Kevin, Louise or Barbara. The group leaves South Beach with Katherine. Val and Barbara are married in an interfaith ceremony attended by both families. Soundtrack. A number of songs written by Stephen Sondheim were used in the film. The song that Albert rehearses during the sequence with the gum-chewing dancer is entitled "Little Dream" and was written specifically for use in the film. Albert's first song as "Starina" is "Can That Boy Foxtrot," cut from Sondheim's Follies. The song that Armand and Katherine sing and dance to in her office, "Love Is in the Air," was originally intended as the opening number for the musical "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum" in 1962. The song was cut from the show and replaced with "Comedy Tonight." Reception. "The Birdcage" opened on March 8, 1996 and grossed $18,275,828 in its opening weekend, topping the box office. It remained at #1 for the next three weeks before being derailed by the openings of "Primal Fear" and "A Thin Line Between Love and Hate". By the end of its 14-week run, the film had grossed $124,060,553 domestically and $61,200,000 internationally, coming down to a $185,260,553 worldwide total. The film holds a 77% "Fresh" rating at the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, based on 43 critic reviews, which are summarized by the site thus: "Mike Nichols wrangles agreeably amusing performances from Robin Williams and Nathan Lane in this fun, if not quite essential, remake of the French-Italian comedy La Cage aux Folles." The review aggregator "Metacritic" reported that the film received "generally favorable" reviews, with a score of 72% based on 18 reviews. The Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) praised the film for "going beyond the stereotypes to see the character's depth and humanity. The film celebrates differences and points out the outrageousness of hiding those differences." The film was also nominated for a GLAAD Media Award. The film was nominated for American Film Institute's 2000 list, "100 Years...100 Laughs".
1518128	Killing Bono is a 2011 British-Irish comedy film directed by Nick Hamm, based on Neil McCormick's 2003 memoir "Killing Bono: I Was Bono's Doppelgänger". The film loosely recreates the story of young Irish rocker McCormick and his younger brother, Ivan, who attempt to become rock stars but can only look on as their secondary school friends form U2 and become the biggest band in the world. The film stars Ben Barnes as Neil McCormick, Robert Sheehan as Ivan McCormick, and Martin McCann as Irish singer Bono. It also features Pete Postlethwaite in his final film role. The movie, which was shot in Northern Ireland, was funded by Northern Ireland Screen and was released by Paramount Pictures (the distributor of U2's film "Rattle and Hum") in the United Kingdom on 1 April 2011. Sony Music Entertainment released the movie's soundtrack worldwide. The European premiere was held in the Savoy Cinema in Dublin.
1102466	In mathematics, approximation theory is concerned with how functions can best be approximated with simpler functions, and with quantitatively characterizing the errors introduced thereby. Note that what is meant by "best" and "simpler" will depend on the application. A closely related topic is the approximation of functions by generalized Fourier series, that is, approximations based upon summation of a series of terms based upon orthogonal polynomials. One problem of particular interest is that of approximating a function in a computer mathematical library, using operations that can be performed on the computer or calculator (e.g. addition and multiplication), such that the result is as close to the actual function as possible. This is typically done with polynomial or rational (ratio of polynomials) approximations. The objective is to make the approximation as close as possible to the actual function, typically with an accuracy close to that of the underlying computer's floating point arithmetic. This is accomplished by using a polynomial of high degree, and/or narrowing the domain over which the polynomial has to approximate the function. Narrowing the domain can often be done through the use of various addition or scaling formulas for the function being approximated. Modern mathematical libraries often reduce the domain into many tiny segments and use a low-degree polynomial for each segment. Optimal polynomials. Once the domain and degree of the polynomial are chosen, the polynomial itself is chosen in such a way as to minimize the worst-case error. That is, the goal is to minimize the maximum value of formula_1, where "P"("x") is the approximating polynomial and "f"("x") is the actual function. For well-behaved functions, there exists an "N"th-degree polynomial that will lead to an error curve that oscillates back and forth between formula_2 and formula_3 a total of "N"+2 times, giving a worst-case error of formula_4. It is seen that an "N"th-degree polynomial can interpolate "N"+1 points in a curve. Such a polynomial is always optimal. It is possible to make contrived functions "f"("x") for which no such polynomial exists, but these occur rarely in practice. For example the graphs shown to the right show the error in approximating log(x) and exp(x) for "N" = 4. The red curves, for the optimal polynomial, are level, that is, they oscillate between formula_2 and formula_3 exactly. Note that, in each case, the number of extrema is "N"+2, that is, 6. Two of the extrema are at the end points of the interval, at the left and right edges of the graphs. When a maximum of "P"−"f" occurs at "xi", then And when a minimum of "P"−"f" occurs at "xi", then So, as can be seen in the graph, ["P"("x") − "f"("x")] − ["Q"("x") − "f"("x")] must alternate in sign for the "N" + 2 values of "xi". But ["P"("x") − "f"("x")] − ["Q"("x") − "f"("x")] reduces to "P"("x") − "Q"("x") which is a polynomial of degree "N". This function changes sign at least "N"+1 times so, by the Intermediate value theorem, it has "N"+1 zeroes, which is impossible for a polynomial of degree "N". Chebyshev approximation. One can obtain polynomials very close to the optimal one by expanding the given function in terms of Chebyshev polynomials and then cutting off the expansion at the desired degree. This is similar to the Fourier analysis of the function, using the Chebyshev polynomials instead of the usual trigonometric functions. If one calculates the coefficients in the Chebyshev expansion for a function: and then cuts off the series after the formula_11 term, one gets an "N"th-degree polynomial approximating "f"("x"). The reason this polynomial is nearly optimal is that, for functions with rapidly converging power series, if the series is cut off after some term, the total error arising from the cutoff is close to the first term after the cutoff. That is, the first term after the cutoff dominates all later terms. The same is true if the expansion is in terms of Chebyshev polynomials. If a Chebyshev expansion is cut off after formula_11, the error will take a form close to a multiple of formula_13. The Chebyshev polynomials have the property that they are level – they oscillate between +1 and −1 in the interval [−1, 1]. formula_13 has "N"+2 level extrema. This means that the error between "f"("x") and its Chebyshev expansion out to formula_11 is close to a level function with "N"+2 extrema, so it is close to the optimal "N"th-degree polynomial. In the graphs above, note that the blue error function is sometimes better than (inside of) the red function, but sometimes worse, meaning that it is not quite the optimal polynomial. Note also that the discrepancy is less serious for the exp function, which has an extremely rapidly converging power series, than for the log function. Chebyshev approximation is the basis for Clenshaw–Curtis quadrature, a numerical integration technique. Remez' algorithm. The Remez algorithm (sometimes spelled Remes) is used to produce an optimal polynomial "P"("x") approximating a given function "f"("x") over a given interval. It is an iterative algorithm that converges to a polynomial that has an error function with "N"+2 level extrema. By the theorem above, that polynomial is optimal. Remez' algorithm uses the fact that one can construct an "N"th-degree polynomial that leads to level and alternating error values, given "N"+2 test points. Given "N"+2 test points formula_16, formula_17, ... formula_18 (where formula_16 and formula_18 are presumably the end points of the interval of approximation), these equations need to be solved: The right-hand sides alternate in sign. That is, Since formula_16, ..., formula_18 were given, all of their powers are known, and formula_31, ..., formula_32 are also known. That means that the above equations are just "N"+2 linear equations in the "N"+2 variables formula_33, formula_34, ..., formula_35, and formula_4. Given the test points formula_16, ..., formula_18, one can solve this system to get the polynomial "P" and the number formula_4. The graph below shows an example of this, producing a fourth-degree polynomial approximating formula_40 over [−1, 1]. The test points were set at −1, −0.7, −0.1, +0.4, +0.9, and 1. Those values are shown in green. The resultant value of formula_4 is 4.43 x 10−4 Note that the error graph does indeed take on the values formula_42 at the six test points, including the end points, but that those points are not extrema. If the four interior test points had been extrema (that is, the function "P"("x")"f"("x") had maxima or minima there), the polynomial would be optimal. The second step of Remez' algorithm consists of moving the test points to the approximate locations where the error function had its actual local maxima or minima. For example, one can tell from looking at the graph that the point at −0.1 should have been at about −0.28. The way to do this in the algorithm is to use a single round of Newton's method. Since one knows the first and second derivatives of "P"("x")−"f"("x"), one can calculate approximately how far a test point has to be moved so that the derivative will be zero. After moving the test points, the linear equation part is repeated, getting a new polynomial, and Newton's method is used again to move the test points again. This sequence is continued until the result converges to the desired accuracy. The algorithm converges very rapidly. Convergence is quadratic for well-behaved functions—if the test points are within formula_46 of the correct result, they will be approximately within formula_47 of the correct result after the next round. Remez' algorithm is typically started by choosing the extrema of the Chebyshev polynomial formula_13 as the initial points, since the final error function will be similar to that polynomial.
1054900	Jack the Bear is a 1993 American drama film directed by Marshall Herskovitz, written by Steven Zaillian based on the novel by Dan McCall, and starring Danny DeVito. Plot. Jack Leary (Robert J. Steinmiller Jr.), his younger brother Dylan (Miko Hughes), and father John (Danny DeVito) start over in Oakland, California in 1972, following the death of the boys' mother. John hosts the local late-night show "Midnight Shriek", entertaining the audience during horror films as "Al Gory." He is devoted to his two sons, though his drinking problem disrupts the smooth running of the household, as some of his parental duties fall to Jack. One of the Learys' neighbors, a young man named Norman Strick (Gary Sinise) who walks with a cane due to a twisted leg, shows up at their home one Halloween evening, seeking a donation for a racially-prejudiced candidate. John refuses. John gets drunk, and his performance on his TV show mimics the racially-charged beliefs of his neo-Nazi neighbor. He is subsequently asked to take time off from his show. The morning after John's performance, Jack finds Norman's dog, Cheyenne, dead on their front lawn. John apologizes for his actions on television, but Norman refuses to shake John's hand. Jack has a young love affair with Karen Morris (Reese Witherspoon), but she breaks up with him. He begins to take out his anger on Dylan. Dylan disappears and next-door neighbor Dexter (Justin Mosley Spink) claims Norman kidnapped him. Jack calls the police and he and John are extremely worried until Dylan is found in a nearby forest. Being abandoned in the woods for so long has left Dylan traumitized and appears left unable to speak from it. Norman has vanished, and days later, Dylan still has not spoken. John takes out his frustration by going to the Strick home with a bat. Norman is not there, and after John briefly terrorizes the man's parents, John destroys Norman's beloved T-Bird with the bat. John, fearful of his current state, lets his in-laws take the boys to their Los Angeles home. Jack decides to sneak back to Oakland. John, meanwhile, decides to try and give up drinking and spends the day trying to get his job back. Jack arrives home, while he's still out, and falls asleep to the TV. John arrives home and shortly after, Jack is awoken by the electricity going off. We see someone walking with a cane, indicating that Norman has gained entry to the home. Jack knows there is an intruder, and he accidentally knocks John out with a bat. Norman says "Home run, Jack", and chases Jack upstairs and out the bathroom window. Jack jumps for a branch in a nearby tree, and Norman pursues him. John has recovered, and yells from the window, warning the neo-Nazi to stay away from his son. Jack screams for his father. As Norman crawls toward him, Jack watches in horror as the man falls into his neighbor's yard and is attacked and killed by the neighbor's Doberman Pinschers. Soon after, Norman's parents move away and Dylan returns home. John gets his job back, but shows more comical horror films, like Abbott and Costello.
1100049	Claire Voisin (born 4 March 1962) is a French professor of mathematics and was director of research at the Institut de mathématiques de Jussieu at the for several years. On October 15, 2012, École Polytechnique announced that it "celebrates its recruitment of Claire Voisin" to a part-time Professorship. She is married to Jean-Michel Coron, who was also a plenary speaker at the 2010 International Congress of Mathematicians. They have five children. Work. She is noted for her work in algebraic geometry particularly as it pertains to variational Hodge structures and mirror symmetry, and has written several books on Hodge theory. This area of mathematics is recognized as one of the most difficult in existence at this time, a reviewer from the American Mathematical Society writing that "the task of reviewing Claire Voisin’s two-volume work Hodge Theory and Complex Algebraic Geometry is a daunting one, given the scope of the subject matter treated, namely, a rather complete tour of the subject from the beginning to the present, and given the break-neck pace of Voisin’s clear, complete, but “take no prisoners” exposition." The Hodge conjecture is one of the seven Clay Mathematics Institute Millennium Prize Problems which were selected in 2000, each having a prize of a million dollars to the person that solves one of these problems. In 2002 Voisin proved that rational Hodge classes on a compact Kähler variety are false. Her work on the subject "has rapidly become a reference." Voisin won the European Mathematical Society Prize in 1992, and the Servant Prize awarded by the Academy of Sciences in 1996. She received the Sophie Germain Prize in 2003 and the Clay Research Award in 2008 for her disproof of the Kodaira conjecture, another problem in complex algebraic geometry. In 2007 she was awarded the Ruth Lyttle Satter Prize in Mathematics for her solutions of two long standing mathematical problems, "the Kodaira problem (On the homotopy types of compact Kähler and complex projective manifolds), and Green's conjecture (Green's canonical syzygy conjecture for generic curves of odd genus), and Green's generic syzygy conjecture for curves of even genus lying on a K3 surface". Green's conjecture attracted a huge amount of effort by algebraic geometers over twenty years before finally being settled by Voisin. She was invited at the 1994 International Congress of Mathematicians (Zurich) in the section 'Algebraic Geometry', and she was also invited as a plenary speaker at the 2010 International Congress of Mathematicians, Hyderabad, India. She is a member of the Selection Committee for Mathematics for judging of the Shaw Prize, and recently a Visiting Fellow of the Moduli Spaces program which is organised by Isaac Newton Institute for Mathematical Sciences. She is also a member of the national mathematical institutes of France, Germany, the USA and Italy.
1057496	Map of the Human Heart is the title of a 1993 film by New Zealand director Vincent Ward. It was screened out of competition at the 1992 Cannes Film Festival. The film, set mostly before and during World War II, centres on the life of a Canadian Inuit boy, Avik (played as a child by Robert Joamie and as an adult by Jason Scott Lee), who joins the Royal Canadian Air Force and eventually, as a crewmember of a Lancaster bomber, participates in the notorious firebombing of Dresden. Throughout his life, Avik is haunted by love for a Métis girl, Albertine (played by Anne Parillaud), and by a belief that he brings misfortune to those around him. The film also stars Patrick Bergin, who plays a pivotal role as both surrogate father to Avik and his primary rival in Albertine's love. Jeanne Moreau has a minor role as a Québécois nun. John Cusack also has a small but important role as the mapmaker to whom Avik relates his incredible tale. The film's re-creation of the firebombing of Dresden is one of the most graphic and powerful sequences in the film. On the day Ward finished shooting those scenes, he received word that his father, who had actually participated in the historical firebombing of Dresden, had died. This is why Ward chose to dedicate the film to him. There are two other scenes in the movie which received much attention. The first one is a pivotal love scene that takes place on top of an English military blimp (not in a cabin or gondola but actually on top of the blimp), the other is the final scene of the film which has a twist ending.
589032	Nutan Behl (née Samarth) (4 June 1936 – 21 February 1991), better known as Nutan, was an Indian actress. She appeared in more than 70 Hindi films in a career spanning over four decades. Regarded as one of the finest female actors in the history of Hindi cinema, Nutan was noted for playing unconventional parts, and her performances often received praise and accolades. Nutan started her career at the age of 14 in the 1950 film "Hamari Beti", directed by her mother Shobhna Samarth. She subsequently starred in such films as "Nagina" and "Humlog " (both 1951). Her role in "Seema" (1955) garnered her wider recognition and a Filmfare Award for Best Actress. She continued playing leading roles through the 1960s until the late 1970s and went on win the award on four other occasions for her roles in "Sujata" (1959), "Bandini" (1963), "Milan" (1967) and "Main Tulsi Tere Aangan Ki" (1978). Some of her other films of this period include "Sone Ki Chidiya" (1958), "Anari" (1959), "Chhalia" (1960), "Tere Ghar Ke Saamne" (1963), "Saraswatichandra" (1968), "Anuraag" (1972) and "Saudagar" (1973). In the 1980s, Nutan started playing character roles and continued working until shortly before her death. She portrayed mostly motherly roles in such films as "Saajan Ki Saheli" (1981), "Meri Jung" (1985) and "Naam" (1986). Her performance in "Meri Jung" earned her a sixth and last Filmfare Award, this time in the Best Supporting Actress category. Nutan holds the record of five wins of the Best Actress Award at Filmfare, which was held only by her for over 30 years until it was matched by her niece Kajol in 2011; she is overall the most-awarded actress in the female acting categories at Filmfare, with six awards alongside Jaya Bachchan.In 1974, she was awarded the Padma Shri by the Government of India. Nutan was married to Rajnish Behl from 1959 till her death of cancer in 1991. Their son, Mohnish Behl is a character actor in Hindi films and television. Early life. Nutan was born into a Marathi family of four children as Nutan Samarth to director-poet Kumarsen Samarth and his actress wife Shobhna Samarth. Nutan was the eldest child of actress Shobhna Samarth. She had three other siblings, 2 younger sisters and a younger brother. Her younger sister Tanuja is also an actress, and Chatura, who did not work in Bollywood. Her parents separated when she was still a child. Kajol, Tanuja's daughter, is an actress. Career. Nutan is related to many of the screen stars of the past fifty years (see "Mukherjee-Samarth family (film)").
1058464	102 Dalmatians is a 2000 live-action film, produced by Walt Disney Pictures and starring Glenn Close as Cruella de Vil. It is the sequel to "101 Dalmatians", a live-action remake of the 1961 Disney animated feature of the same name. In the film, Cruella de Vil attempts to steal puppies for her "grandest" fur coat yet. Glenn Close and Tim McInnerny were the only actors from the first film to return for the sequel. The film was released on VHS and DVD on April 3, 2001, and re-released on DVD on September 16, 2008. Plot. After three years in prison, Cruella de Vil (Glenn Close) has been cured of her lust for fur coats through mental therapy under Dr. Pavlov (David Horovitch), and is deemed eligible for parole. Cruella is released into the custody of the probation office on the proviso that she will be forced to pay the remainder of her fortune, eight million pounds, to all the dog shelters in the borough of Westminster should she ever repeat her crime again. Cruella redubs herself "Ella", mends her working relationship with her manservant Alonso (Tim McInnerny), and has him lock away all her fur coats, having developed an aversion to fur during the therapy. Cruella's probation officer, Chloe Simon (Alice Evans), however, feels uneasy about trusting Cruella, believing that someone capable of committing the crimes she did to be incapable of changing. For her part, Chloe is the new owner of the now-adult Dipstick, one of Pongo and Perdita's puppies, having purchased him from Roger and Anita Dearly. Dipstick and his mate, Dottie, have recently given birth to three puppies, one of them, named Oddball, lacking completely in spots. In order to mend her reputation, Cruella buys the Second Chance Dog shelter, owned by Kevin Shepherd (Ioan Gruffudd) and which is facing financial problems. Cruella quickly becomes a success with the dogs, though Chloe is still skeptical and even confronts Kevin over his decision to allow Cruella near the dogs. Meanwhile, however, Dr. Pavlov discovers a side effect to his therapy: when the subjects are submitted to loud noises or sonics, such as Big Ben's chimes, their brainwaves are affected and they revert to their original states. Dr. Pavlov, however, decides to cover it up rather than warn Kevin. Inevitably, during a meeting with Chloe, Big Ben rings and Cruella suffers a psychotic break, returning to her ruthless, fur-loving self once again. Now more determined than ever to obtain her spotted dalmatian fur coat, Cruella enlists the help of a renowned but controversial furrier, Jean-Pierre LePelt (Gérard Depardieu), to steal one hundred and two dalmatian puppies, the new three to be used for a hood. Meanwhile, Kevin and Chloe begin to develop a romantic relationship. Over dinner, Kevin tells Chloe that if Cruella violates her parole, her entire fortune will go to him, since his dog shelter is the only one in the borough of Westminster. Cruella, however, uses this to her advantage and has Kevin framed for the theft of the puppies, the police using his previous record of dognapping and his being the beneficiary of Cruella's fortune as sufficient evidence to arrest him. Cruella invites the devastated Chloe to dinner at her house with several other guests and their dogs, and she accepts, but while she is away, LePelt breaks into her apartment and steals the three puppies despite trouble with Dottie. Chloe gets wind of this and rushes home, but arrives too late just before Kevin, who also learned of the dognapping and escaped from prison with help from his dogs and talking parrot, Waddlesworth (Eric Idle ). After finding a ticket for the Orient Express (Which is being pulled by Flying Scotsman) dropped by LePelt, Kevin and Chloe rush to the station but are too late to stop Cruella and LePelt. Oddball escapes from confinement but manages to sneak aboard the train with Waddlesworth's help. In Paris, Kevin and Chloe follow Cruella and LePelt to the skinning factory and discreetly begin helping the captured puppies escape, but they are seen and locked in the cellar just as the puppies flee. Cruella goes after them alone while Alonso, after being berated once too many times, finally rebels against his employers and defeats LePelt in a heated battle. Alonso frees Kevin and Chloe and they give chase to an abandoned bakery, where the puppies and Kevin's dogs combine their efforts and finally overcome Cruella by trapping her inside a wedding cake and sending her into the street, where she is arrested along with a ranting LePelt. In the aftermath, Kevin and Chloe are awarded the remnants of Cruella's fortune by Alonso himself, and they celebrate together as they see that Oddball's spots have finally begun to appear. Production. The early working title was "101 Dalmatians Returns". Production began in December 1998 through January 1999 to mid November/December 1999. The film was set to be released on June 30, 2000 but was pushed back to November 22, 2000. Oxford Prison was used for the scene as Cruella walked out of prison. "102 Dalmatians" was filmed partially in Paris. In 2000, Disney released the soundtrack to the movie, including the funky version of the now familiar "Cruella De Vil," sung by Mark Campbell (of Jack Mack and the Heart Attack fame). Box office. The film opened at the third position behind M. Night Shyamalan's "Unbreakable" and "How the Grinch Stole Christmas". The film did well at the box office, earning $66,957,026 in the U.S. and $116,654,745 overseas, bringing its total to $183,611,771 worldwide. Video game. A video game based on the film, that was entitled "", was released in 2000, with Frankie Muniz as the voice of Domino and Molly Marlette as the voice of Oddball.
1748949	Arrietty, titled in Japan and The Secret World of Arrietty in North America, is a 2010 Japanese animated fantasy film directed by Hiromasa Yonebayashi and scripted by Hayao Miyazaki and Keiko Niwa. It is based on "The Borrowers" by Mary Norton, an English author of children's books, about a family of tiny people who live secretly in the walls and floors of a typical household, borrowing items from humans to survive. The film stars the voices of Mirai Shida, Ryunosuke Kamiki, Shinobu Otake, Keiko Takeshita, Tatsuya Fujiwara, Tomokazu Miura and Kirin Kiki, and tells the story of a young Borrower (Shida) befriending a human boy (Kamiki), while trying to avoid being detected by the other humans. Toshio Suzuki produced the film and Studio Ghibli provided the animation. Ghibli announced the film in late 2009 with Yonebayashi making his directorial debut as the youngest director of a Ghibli film. Miyazaki supervised the production as a developing planner. The voice actors were approached in April 2010, and Cécile Corbel wrote the film's score as well as its theme song. Released in Japan on July 17, 2010, "Arrietty" received very positive reviews, all of which praised the animation and music. It also became the highest grossing Japanese film at the Japanese box office for the year 2010, and grossed over $145 million worldwide. The film also won the Animation of the Year award at the 34th Japan Academy Prize award ceremony. Two English language versions of the film were produced, a British dub produced by Studio Canal which was released in the United Kingdom on July 29, 2011, and an American dub released by Walt Disney Pictures in North America on February 17, 2012. Plot. A boy named Sho/Shawn tells the audience he still remembers the week in summer he spent at his mother's childhood home with his maternal great aunt, Sadako/Jessica, and the house maid, Haru. When Sho/Shawn arrives at the house on the first day, he sees a cat, Niya/Nina, trying to attack something in the bushes but it soon gives up after it is attacked by a crow. Shawn then discovers Arrietty, a Borrower, emerging from the bushes and returning to her home through an underground air vent. Later at night, Arrietty's father, Pod, takes Arrietty on her first "borrowing" mission above the floorboards to show her how he "borrows" sugar and tissue. After obtaining a sugar cube from the kitchen, they walk within a wall to reach a beautifully intricate dollhouse (with working electric lights and kitchen utilities) in Sho/Shawn's bedroom, to get tissue. However, Arrietty is spotted by Sho/Shawn while retrieving a piece of tissue from a tissue box and loses the sugar cube. Sho/Shawn asks her not to leave and although Arrietty hesitates, she still leaves the room with her father. The next day, Sho/Shawn leaves the dropped sugar cube beside the underground air vent where he first saw Arrietty. Pod warns Arrietty not to take it because their existence must be kept secret from humans, but his daughter nevertheless sneaks out to visit Sho/Shawn in his bedroom. She drops the sugar cube he left on the floor, letting him know that she is there. Without revealing herself otherwise, she tells Sho/Shawn to leave her family alone and that they do not need his help. On her return, Arrietty is intercepted by her father. Realizing they have been detected, Pod and his wife Homily decide that they must move out of the house. Sho/Shawn learns from Sadako/Jessica that some of his ancestors had seen Borrowers in the house, and had the dollhouse custom-built in the hopes that Borrowers would use it. The Borrowers had not been seen since, however, and the dollhouse stayed in Sho/Shawn's room. Pod returns injured from a borrowing mission and is helped home by Spiller, a Borrower boy he met on the way. He informs them that there are other places the Borrowers could move to. While Pod is recovering, Sho/Shawn removes the floorboard concealing the Borrower household and replaces their kitchen with the kitchen from the dollhouse, in hopes the Borrowers would be more accepting of his knowledge of their existence. However, the Borrowers are frightened by this and instead speed up their moving process. After Pod recovers, he goes to explore some of the places Spiller has suggested. Arrietty goes to bid farewell to Sho/Shawn, but in the course of conversation he suggests to her that the Borrowers are becoming extinct. Realizing that he has upset his small friend, Sho/Shawn reveals he has had a heart condition since birth and will have an operation in a few days. The operation does not have a good chance of success. He believes that there is nothing he can do about it, saying that eventually every living thing dies. Arrietty convinces Sho/Shawn that he will fight for the life he has now nevertheless. Meanwhile, Haru notices the floorboards have been disturbed. Sadako/Jessica is out and Sho/Shawn is still in the garden speaking with Arrietty. Haru unearths the Borrowers' house and captures Homily. Alerted by her mother's screams, Arrietty leaves Sho/Shawn in the garden and goes to investigate. Saddened by her departure, Sho/Shawn returns to his room. Haru locks him in and calls a pest removal company to capture the other Borrowers alive. With the help of Sho/Shawn, Arrietty rescues Homily. Sadako returns soon after the pest removal company's arrival and sends them away. Haru and Sadako/Jessica discover that the Borrowers have left, and that Sho/Shawn has destroyed any trace of their presence. The Borrowers stop for dinner during their move, and Sho/Shawn's cat, Niya/Nina, spots Arrietty. Niya/Nina leads Sho/Shawn to Arrietty. He gives her a sugar cube, and tells her the Borrowers' fight for survival has given him hope to live through the operation. Arrietty gives Sho/Shawn her hair clip as a token of remembrance and they go their separate ways. Arrietty, Pod, and Homily leave in a teapot with Spiller. Spiller comforts Arrietty by giving her a red berry after she joins him on the teapot's top. The Disney dubbed version contains a final monologue, where Sho/Shawn states he returned to the home a year later, indicating that the operation had been successful. He is happy to hear rumors of objects disappearing in his neighbors' homes. Production. Development. On December 16, 2009, Studio Ghibli announced "Karigurashi no Arrietty" as their film for next year. This film is based on the novel "The Borrowers" by the British writer Mary Norton. The novel won the Carnegie Medal for children's literature in 1953, and had already been adapted into two films and a TV series at the time. Studio Ghibli founders Isao Takahata and Hayao Miyazaki had been contemplating an adaptation of this novel for around 40 years. The director of the film was announced as the animator Hiromasa Yonebayashi on the same day. Hiromasa Yonebayashi was one of the animators for the Studio Ghibli films "Howl's Moving Castle", "Ponyo", and "Spirited Away". He was also the reserve director for the film "Tales from Earthsea". Miyazaki was announced as the production planner for the film. Casting. The Japanese voice cast of the film was announced on April 13, 2010. Actress Mirai Shida was cast as the voice of Arrietty. "Arrietty" was Shida's first voice acting role. In addition, Ryunosuke Kamiki, who has voiced characters in other Studio Ghibli films like "Spirited Away" and "Howl's Moving Castle", was cast as Sho. His most recent voice role was in the 2009 film "Summer Wars". Kamiki said that he "was very happy to meet up with the staff" he previously knew when he worked on other Studio Ghibli films. Besides them, the film’s cast includes Tomokazu Miura, Shinobu Otake, Keiko Takeshita, and Kirin Kiki. The four actors have previous voice acting experience, but none of them have been in a Studio Ghibli film before. Miura and Otake were respectively cast as Arrietty's parents Pod and Homily. In addition, Takeshita voiced Sho's aunt and Kiki voiced one of the helpers in the human family. On January 8, 2011, actress and singer Bridgit Mendler was cast as Arrietty for the film's North American release. Besides Mendler, the cast included Will Arnett, Amy Poehler, Carol Burnett, and David Henrie. The film had a different voice cast for the United Kingdom release, making it the first Ghibli film to have different voice actors for each of its English-language releases. The cast included Saoirse Ronan, Tom Holland, Mark Strong, Olivia Colman, Phyllida Law, and Geraldine McEwan. Music. Arrietty's Song. "Arrietty's Song" is a song performed by French (Bretonne) recording artist musician Cécile Corbel. Corbel also performed the film's theme song, "Arrietty's Song", in Japanese, English, German, Italian and Breton. Background. Corbel became known to Ghibli filmmakers when she sent them a fan letter showing her appreciation of their films, together with a copy of her own album. After hearing the album of her music she had sent them, they thought they should collaborate with her for the music of this film. Release. The song made its public debut in a presentation of the song by singer Corbel and percussionist Marco in Apple's store in Shibuya, Tokyo, on August 8, 2010. Some of the Japanese theme songs for this film, including "Arrietty’s Song" was first released online through the iTunes Store, mora and Musico on December 19, 2009. Subsequently, the official album containing all of the theme songs of this film was released on July 14, 2010. The album's listing on the Oricon charts peaked at the 31st position. Separately, the song "Arrietty’s Song" was released as a singles album on April 7, 2010. Summertime. "Summertime" is a song performed by American pop recording artist Bridgit Mendler for the film's North American release. The song was written by Mendler and released on February 2, 2012. Background. The song premiered on Radio Disney on February 1, with its release on iTunes on February 2, 2012. In an interview with Kidzworld about what the song is about, Mendler said: "It’s not based on personal experience but I think the whole summertime, kind of cheerful, innocent thing was relatable for the movie and something they liked. The movie is about imagery and there are some good images in that song." Music video. The music video premiered on Disney Channel on January 10. It was directed by Art Spigel, director of the "Disney Channel Games", and was filmed on-location at Disney Golden Oak Ranch in Los Angeles, California. Release. "Arrietty" was first released in Japanese cinemas on July 17, 2010, by Japanese film distributor Toho. The film was officially released at a ceremony attended by the film's cast and Yonebayashi. Corbel performed the film's theme song at the event. In addition, Yonebayashi hinted that he wanted the film to beat the record of over 12 million audiences set by previous Studio Ghibli film, "Ponyo". The film was screened in 447 theaters throughout Japan during its debut weekend. In the United Kingdom, the film was released on July 29, 2011 by Optimum Releasing. The film was released in the United States on February 17, 2012 by Walt Disney Pictures, with the title "The Secret World of Arrietty". The North American dub was directed by Gary Rydstrom, produced by Frank Marshall and Kathleen Kennedy and written by Karey Kirkpatrick. A screening of the North American release was held on January 21, 2012 in New York City. The film opened in least 1,522 screens during its general release, surpassing "Ponyo"'s roughly 900 screens to be the largest yet for a Ghibli production in the country. Home media. "Arrietty" was released in both Blu-ray Disc and DVD formats within Japan. The DVD version of the film consists of two discs in the region 2 format. The Blu-ray version consists of a single disc in the Region A format. Both versions were released in Japan on June 17, 2011, and both contain English and Japanese subtitles. StudioCanal (previously known as Optimum Releasing) released the movie on both region 2 DVD and region B Blu-Ray format in the United Kingdom on January 9, 2012. A DVD/Blu-Ray Double Play "Collector's Edition" was also released, featuring art cards. The film was released by Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment as a Blu-ray and DVD combo on May 22, 2012 in North America. Reception. Box office. "Arrietty" earned $19,202,743 in North America and $126,368,084 in other territories for a worldwide total of $145,570,827. It is the 4th highest-grossing anime film in the United States, and the highest not based on a game franchise. "Arrietty" debuted at the first position in the Japanese box office. More than one million people went to see the film during its opening weekend. It grossed around 1.35 billion yen that weekend. Distributor Toho announced that as of August 5, 2010, the film managed to gross more than 3.5 billion yen and attracted more than 3.7 million viewers. According to the Motion Picture Producers Association of Japan, "Arrietty" is the top grossing Japanese film in their box office for the year for 2010; it grossed approximately 9.25 billion yen ($110.0 million). In France, the film was well received by the public. More than 100,000 people went to catch the film on its debut week in France, allowing the film to gross more than US$1.4 million that week. Overall, ticket sales for "Arrietty, le petit monde des chapardeurs" in France totaled just shy of 740,000 between its release on January 12, 2011, and March 1, 2011. In the United Kingdom, the film generated £76,000 ($120,232) in its first weekend. In North America, "Arri­etty" opened on 1,522 theaters, a record for a Studio Ghibli film. The film opened in ninth place with $6.45 million during the 3-day President's Day weekend and went on to earn $8.68 million during the 4-day weekend. This was the largest opening ever for a Studio Ghibli film (beating "Ponyo"s $3.6 million). The film also scored the best weekend per-theater average in North America for the studio ($4,235 against "Ponyo"s $3,868). "Arrietty" closed in theaters on June 8, 2012 with $19 million. In total earnings, its highest grossing countries outside Japan and North America were France ($7.01 million), South Korea ($6.86 million) and Hong Kong ($1.75 million). Critical reception. "Arrietty" has received very positive reviews from film critics; Rotten Tomatoes sampled 120 reviews and judged 94% of them to be positive. Metacritic, which assigns a weighted average score, rated the film 80 out of 100 based on 27 reviews. Cristoph Mark of "The Daily Yomiuri" praised the film, saying that the film is "likely a perennial favorite among children". He particularly liked the film effects, which he described as "Drops of water loom large and drip like syrup; the ticking of a clock reverberates through the floor and the theater's speakers; tissue paper is large and stiff...", adding that these effects gives the audience "a glimpse into their own world, but from a different perspective". Mark Schilling of "The Japan Times" gave the film a rating of four out of five stars, and said that the film "speaks straight to the heart and imagination of name="thejapantimes" /> Schilling also praised the film's animation, saying that [Studio Ghibli animators are past masters at creating the illusion of presence and depth without effects. However, he also said that some scenes in the film "threatens to devolve into the sappy, the preachy, and the slapsticky" but noted that these scenes were "mercifully brief". Steve Rose, the reviewer for "The Guardian" gave the film four out of five stars and praised the film, describing it as "a gentle and entrancing tale, deeper and richer than more instantly gratifying fare." Rose also described the film as "the soul food of the animation world," however, he did note that this film "doesn't match previous hits such as "Spirited Away" or "Princess Mononoke" in terms of epic scale or adult appeal", even though it bears many of their hallmarks: bright, detailed animation..." Deborah Young of "The Hollywood Reporter" gave a positive review of the film. She said that the film "remains essentially a film for children". Young later went on to say that the relationship with Sho and Arrietty "touches the heartstrings with gentle yearning", and praised Yonebayashi for its direction. In the opening remarks made by David Gritten of "The Telegraph", he said that the film was "ravishingly colourful and textured". He also praised the animation, saying that "animation doesn’t get better than Arrietty." Gritten gave the film a rating of 4 stars out of 5 stars. In his review for Special Broadcasting Service, Don Groves gave a mixed review of the film and said that "Arrietty" was a "very slender, minor work." Groves also criticized the film's storyline, calling it a "a gentle, humourless, uncomplicated tale of friendship in an alien environment." However, he praised the voice acting as "generally is as professional as would expect." Groves gave the film a rating of 3.5 stars out of 5 stars. Zac Bertschy of Anime News Network gave the North American version of "Arrietty" an overall grade of "B". Bertschy praised the voice acting in the film and also praised the intricate details of the film's backgrounds, but said that "there isn't more going on here, even when it comes to the film's basic story", however, he later went on to say that it is "foolish to deny the simple, warm, and familiar pleasures of Arrietty's world". Leslie Felperin of "Variety" praised the film as "old school, mostly in a good way." She also praised the film for its animation, as well as Yonebayashi's direction. Felperin noted however, that the film lacked its "approach to storytelling that made Studio Ghibli's other so compelling." Manohla Dargis of "The New York Times" praised the film for its hand-drawn animation and Yonebayashi's direction. Dargis later went on to say that the film has "a way of taking [the audience where may not expect." Kenneth Turan of the "Los Angeles Times" described the film as "beautiful, gentle and pure". Turan also praised the detail and animation in the film, as well as its storyline. He also praised Karey Kirkpatrick and Gary Rydstrom for their adaptation of the film, as well as their casting decisions for the British and North American versions. Lisa Schwarzbaum, the reviewer for "Entertainment Weekly", gave the film a "B+" and praised "Arrietty" for its animation. Schwarzbaum later went on to say that the result is a "dreamy, soft-edge hybrid, equally interested in observing raindrops and the worries of a race of minuscule beings [the Borrowers." Merchandise. Comics. "Arrietty" was adapted into a Japanese manga series. This manga adaptation was first published by Tokuma Shoten Publishing Co., Ltd. within Japan, and was released in four separate volumes. Viz Media released the English version of this manga adaptation of the film within North America in January 2012.
582404	Saurabh Shukla is an Indian film, theater and television actor, director and screenwriter. Early life. Shukla's family left Gorakhpur for Delhi when he was two years old. After completing his schooling, he did his graduation from Khalsa College, Delhi. His professional career began in 1984 with his entry into theatre. Career. Shukla began serious theatre in 1986 with roles in plays like "A View From The Bridge" (Arthur Miller), "Look Back In Anger" (John Osborne), "Ghashiram Kotwal" (Vijay Tendulkar) and "Hayvadan". In 1991, he joined the NSD Repertoire Company — the professional wing of the National School of Drama — as actor. The next year he got his first break when Shekhar Kapur, impressed with his work, created a role for him in "Bandit Queen". Shukla also did the role of Vijay Anand's sidekick Gopi in the 1994 Doordarshan crime drama "Tehkikaat". The series was directed by Karan Razdan, but Kapur directed the first episode. These days also he is doing a comic theater play 2 to Tango, 3 to Jive. Shukla's biggest break came when he co-wrote the script for Ram Gopal Varma's 1998 cult classic "Satya" and essayed the role of gangster Kallu Mama in the film. He won the Star Screen Award for Best Screenplay alongside Anurag Kashyap. "Why do I make realistic films, like Satya? Because that's the kind of films I like to do. Capturing reality is very difficult and challenging," he said in a 2000 interview to Rediff.com, making it clear that his prefers realism in his scripts. In the same interview he also talked about his preferred genre of film making — black comedy: In 2003, he wrote the screenplay for "Calcutta Mail". He received his first award for this film, the Zee Cine Award for Best Screenplay. In 2008, he acted in his first international film, the Golden Globe and Academy Award winning "Slumdog Millionaire", as the character Constable Srinivas.
1061196	Martin Henry Balsam (November 4, 1919February 13, 1996) was an American actor. He is known for his Oscar-winning role as Arnold Burns in "A Thousand Clowns" and his role as Detective Milton Arbogast in "Psycho". Early life. Martin Balsam was born in The Bronx borough of New York City to Jewish parents, Lillian (née Weinstein) and Albert Balsam, who was a manufacturer of ladies sportswear. He attended DeWitt Clinton High School, where he participated in the drama club. He studied at the Dramatic Workshop of The New School in New York with the influential German director Erwin Piscator and then served in the United States Army Air Forces during World War II. Career. Martin Balsam made his professional debut in August 1941 in a production of "The Play's the Thing" in Locust Valley. In early 1948, he was selected by Elia Kazan to be a member in the recently formed Actors Studio. Balsam would go on to perform in several episodes of the Studio's dramatic television anthology series, broadcast between September 1948 and 1950. He appeared in many other television drama series, including "Decoy" with Beverly Garland, "The Twilight Zone" (episodes "The Sixteen Millimeter Shrine" and "The New Exhibit"), as a psychologist in the pilot episode, "Five Fingers", "", "The Eleventh Hour", "Breaking Point", "Alfred Hitchcock Presents", "The Fugitive", and "Mr. Broadway", as a retired U.N.C.L.E. agent in "The Man from U.N.C.L.E." episode, "The Odd Man Affair", and guest starred in the two-part "Murder, She Wrote" episode, "Death Stalks the Big Top". He also appeared in the "Route 66" episode, "Somehow it Gets to be Tomorrow". Balsam appeared in such films as "On the Waterfront", "12 Angry Men" (as Juror #1), "Time Limit", "Breakfast at Tiffany's", "The Carpetbaggers", "Seven Days in May", "The Anderson Tapes", "Hombre", "Catch-22", "Tora! Tora! Tora! (as Admiral Husband E. Kimmel)", "Little Big Man", "The Taking of Pelham One Two Three", "All the President's Men", "Murder on the Orient Express","The Delta Force", and "The Goodbye People".
1161395	Nicholas Rocco "Nick" DiPaolo (born January 31, 1962; Danvers, Massachusetts) is an American stand-up comedian, Emmy nominated writer, actor and radio host. He is best known for his biting and often food related jokes. He was formerly the co-host of "The Nick & Artie Show" alongside comedian Artie Lange. Career. DiPaolo has written and performed three stand up specials for "Comedy Central Presents", appeared in the HBO Young Comedians Special and an hour-long comedy special "Raw Nerve", which he wrote, performed and produced. It premiered on Showtime on April 30, 2011.
588027	Thiranottam is an unreleased 1978 Malayalam-language Indian feature film directed by Priyadarshan and produced by Suresh Kumar, starring Ravi Kumar, Manianpilla Raju and Mohanlal in his debut role. He played Kuttappan, a mentally disabled servant in the movie. The film was completed and censored, but was not released. Trivia. Mohanlal's first shoot took place on 4 September 1978 at 11:30 AM on Kesavadev Road, in front of Mohanlal's house in Mudavanmugal. The film was created by Mohanlal and his friends: Maniyan Pilla Raju, Suresh Kumar, Unni, Priyadarshan, Ravi Kumar and others. Maniyan Pilla Raju played the film's central character. The film was completed and censored, but was not released. Later it was released in a Kollam theatre with the permission of the President of India. It took more than 25 years to release the movie. By that time, Mohanlal had become a megastar in the Malayalam film industry.
1063089	Blair Erwin Underwood (born August 25, 1964) is an American television, film, and stage actor and director. He played headstrong attorney Jonathan Rollins from the NBC legal drama "L.A. Law", a role he portrayed for seven years. He has gained critical acclaim throughout his career, receiving numerous Golden Globe Award nominations, three NAACP Image Awards and 1 Grammy Award. In recent years, he has appeared on "The New Adventures of Old Christine", "Dirty Sexy Money" and "In Treatment" and was in NBC's "The Event". Early life. Underwood was born in Tacoma, Washington, the son of Marilyn Ann Scales, an interior decorator, and Frank Eugene Underwood, Sr., a United States Army colonel. Because of his father's military career, Underwood lived on bases and Army Posts in the United States and Stuttgart, Germany, during his childhood. Blair attended Petersburg High School in Petersburg, Virginia. He went on to attend the Carnegie Mellon School of Drama in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and is an honorary member of the Phi Beta Sigma fraternity. Career. After his film debut, "Krush Groove", Underwood's 1985 appearance on "The Cosby Show" landed him a short stint on the ABC soap opera "One Life to Live" as Bobby Blue, which eventually led to his performance on the TV series "L.A. Law", where he appeared from 1987 to 1994. In 1996 he was featured in the July issue of "Playgirl". Underwood broke into film with roles in "Just Cause" (1995), "Set It Off" (1996) and "Deep Impact" (1998). He also had a supporting role as a geneticist in "Gattaca". In 2000, he played the lead role in the short-lived television series "City of Angels". In 2003, he guest starred in four episodes on the HBO series "Sex and the City" playing Cynthia Nixon's love interest. In 2004, he played the role of Roger De Souza opposite Heather Locklear in NBC's "LAX". He gained acclaim as the sexy grade school teacher in the CBS sitcom "The New Adventures of Old Christine" opposite Julia Louis-Dreyfus for two years. In 2007, he guest starred in an episode of the NBC series "". His latest role is as the recurring character Alex in the HBO series "In Treatment". Underwood has received three NAACP Image Awards, for his film work in "Rules of Engagement", and his television work in "L.A. Law", "City of Angels", "Murder in Mississippi" and "Mama Flora's Family". Underwood was voted one of "People" 's "50 Most Beautiful People" in 2000, and one of "TV Guide" 's "Most Influential Faces of the 90s". In 2007, Underwood co-authored the novel "Casanegra: A Tennyson Hardwick Novel" with husband-and-wife team Steven Barnes and Tananarive Due. In 2010–2011, Underwood portrayed United States President Elias Martinez in the NBC drama series "The Event", which premiered in Fall 2010. Underwood portrayed the role of Saint Mark in "The Truth & Life Dramatized audio New Testament Bible", a 22-hour, celebrity-voiced, fully dramatized audio New Testament, based on the RSV-CE translation. He is currently playing the lead role of Stanley in the Broadway revival of "A Streetcar Named Desire".
585567	Bhramaram is a 2009 Malayalam thriller film of road-movie genre, written and directed by Blessy, starring Mohanlal, Suresh Menon, Murali Gopy and Bhumika Chawla. Plot. Unni (Suresh Menon) is a share broker in Coimbatore and leads a comfortable life with his wife Latha (Lakshmi Gopalaswamy) and daughter Lakshmi/Lechu (Baby Niveditha). Into the cosiness of such a living intrudes a stranger (Mohanlal) who introduces himself as Jose. Cashing in on Unni's forgetfulness, Jose goads him into believing that he is Unni's 7th grade classmate. However, a sense of insecurity pervades, with the unwelcome guest – alcoholic and somewhat eccentric – pitching for an extended stay. Unni's misgivings about the 'mystery man' and his ulterior motives proves true, when his confidant and classmate, Dr Alex Varghese (Murali Gopy), on consultation, reaffirms his doubts that they had no schoolmate in the name of Jose. Soon, they discover to their horror that the stranger is that man whose arrival they have been dreading for a long time now, Sivankutty. It is eventually revealed that Unni and Alex ruined Sivankutty's life by framing the latter for a murder which they had committed. The duo realises that it is payback time and that they're at the receiving end. Death is looming over their head. Soundtrack. The soundtrack features two songs composed by Mohan Sithara, with lyrics by Anil Panachooran. Reception. The film got mostly positive reviews. The film was widely appreciated for Mohanlal's performance. Many directors had commented on the style of making and maintaining suspense. The film got overwhelmingly positive reviews from critics. Awards. Kerala State Film Awards Filmfare Awards Asianet Film Awards Annual Malayalam Movie Awards (Dubai) Amrita Mathrubhumi Film Awards State Film Critics Awards Vanitha Film Awards Kairali TV – World Malayali Council Film Awards Federation of Film Societies Jaihind TV Film Awards Jaycee Award South Cine Awards Surya Film Awards The Sathyan Memorial Film Awards
744139	Samrat Chakrabarti is a British-American actor and musician of Indian descent. Biography. Early life. Born in London, England to Indian Hindu Bengali immigrant parents from Kolkata, India. He performed in Indian community functions in Boston, Massachusetts, where he was exposed to music, poetry and the plays of Rabindranath Tagore. Acting career. Having acted all through school, Chakrabarti's feature film debut came in 2004 in Spike Lee's "She Hate Me". Early in his career, he starred opposite Molly Shannon in "The Wedding Weekend" and then in Manish Acharya's "Loins of Punjab Presents". He also had a role in the Australian film, "The Waiting City". His film, "The War Within", was nominated for an Indie Spirit Award while "Bombay Summer", starring Tannishtha Chatterjee won Best Film at the 2009 MIAAC Film Festival. Chakrabarti starred opposite Rebecca Hazelwood in "Kissing Cousins" and made an appearance in the Yash Raj-produced Bollywood film, "New York". Chakrabarti played the character Rishi, a menacing gangster in Ajay Naidu’s "Ashes". He will be seen soon in "Murder in the Dark", produced by "Napoleon Dynamite"’s Chris Wyatt. Chakrabarti has also appeared in television productions. He has appeared on "In Treatment" (HBO) as Irrfan Khan’s son, "30 Rock" (NBC) opposite Alec Baldwin, "Bored to Death" (HBO), "" (NBC) opposite Chris Noth, "Law & Order" (NBC), "Love Monkey" (CBS), "The Sopranos" (HBO) and "All My Children". Chakrabarti was a recurring character on FX’s "Damages" opposite Ted Danson. Music career. Samrat Chakrabarti is also an established international musician. In 1994, he founded Brandeis University's award-winning all male a cappella group, VoiceMale, for which he continues to contribute arrangements and original compositions, including "Please Don't Go," which appears on the album "Suit Up" and arrangements for the national a cappella compilation "Voices Only 2009". He won a U.S. CARA for Best Original Pop/Rock Song for his composition "What's It all About". He is a former member of the a cappella group Five O' Clock Shadow. He was also a part of the group The Hyannis Sound. In 1998, Chakrabarti produced an untitled album for his musical group, JYDE, and composed the song "Startving". Chakrabarti has also composed the theme song "Dhol Beat" for "Loins of Punjab", the and Sundaram Tagore’s "Natvar Bhavsar: Poetics of Color".
1017806	The Super Inframan () is a Hong Kong Science fiction Tokusatsu film produced by Shaw Brothers Studio in 1975. Based upon the huge success of the Japanese tokusatsu shows Ultraman and Kamen Rider in Hong Kong, this film features the same type of "henshin", monster/robot action and costumed derring-do, coupled with Chinese kung fu action. This film also has some historical importance: The film was directed by Hua Shan, written by science fiction writer Ni Kuang, produced by Runme Shaw and the cinematography was by Tadashi Nishimoto (as Lan Shan Ho). There was a little help from Japan, also; Music from "Ultra Seven" (1967) and "Mirrorman" (1971) (both composed by Toru Fuyuki) is used here. And the Inframan/Science Headquarters/monster costumes were provided by Ekisu Productions, which had done costumes for many Toei Superhero shows of the same period. The film also starred Danny Lee as the superhero himself, and Bruceploitation star Bruce Le in a supporting role (He still got to display some of his martial art skills in many scenes of the film). The following year, Joseph Brenner brought this film to the US, and retitled it simply Infra-Man (or Inframan), with the advertising campaign slogan "The Man Beyond Bionics!" attempting to capitalize upon the "Six Million Dollar Man"'s success on American network television at the time. The film is released later in DVD on 2004 in both Japan and Hong Kong. Plot. Demon Princess Elzebub plots to conquer the Earth. She destroys a few major cities in China to prove her power to a terror-stricken humanity. Returning to her lair in Inner-Earth, she awakens her army of Skeleton Ghosts and various Ice Monsters to wreak havoc on the surface.
1103515	William Gilbert Strang (born November 27, 1934 in Chicago), usually known as simply Gilbert Strang or Gil Strang, is an American mathematician, with contributions to finite element theory, the calculus of variations, wavelet analysis and linear algebra. He has made many contributions to mathematics education, including publishing seven mathematics textbooks and one monograph. Strang is the MathWorks Professor of Mathematics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He teaches Introduction to Linear Algebra and Computational Science and Engineering and his lectures are freely available through MIT OpenCourseWare.
578538	Blissfully Yours () is a 2002 Thai romance film directed by Apichatpong Weerasethakul. It won the Un Certain Regard prize at the 2002 Cannes Film Festival. Plot. Min is an illegal Burmese immigrant living in Thailand who has contracted a mysterious rash. His girlfriend, Roong, and an older woman, Orn, take him to see a doctor. But the doctor is unable to do anything because Min is forbidden to speak, since he might reveal he is Burmese. Nonetheless, as is customary in Thai hospitals, some medicine is prescribed. Orn is not satisfied, however, and she stops to buy some more supplies and then goes to her husband's office, where she concocts some lotion made with from store-bought creams and chopped vegetables and instructs Roong to slather it on Min. Roong works in a factory, painting ceramic figurines. It's painstaking work, and she does not want to work after having worked overtime the day before. She feigns an illness and takes off with Min. She drives into the countryside, with the plan of having a picnic in the forest where she and Min can make love. Orn, meanwhile, is longing for love. She steals her husband's motorcycle and goes into the jungle to meet Tommy, a worker at the factory. They have sex just off the roadside, but are interrupted when the motorcycle is stolen. Tommy chases after the thief and disappears. Unsatisfied, Orn wanders deeper into the woods and stumbles upon Min and Roong, who have just finished making love. Roong leads Orn into a stream where they both rub some lotion on Min. They then dry off and lay down by the river bank. Title sequence and soundtrack. The opening title credits roll about 45 minutes into the film, during Roong and Min's drive into the jungle. Roong turns on the car radio and the music playing is a Thai-language version of "Summer Samba (So Nice)", composed by Marcos Valle and sung by the Thai artist, Nadia. Alternate versions. Because of its graphic sex scenes, the film was censored in Thailand, with about 10 minutes cut from the Thai DVD release.
1582093	In numerical analysis, the Kahan summation algorithm (also known as compensated summation ) significantly reduces the numerical error in the total obtained by adding a sequence of finite precision floating point numbers, compared to the obvious approach. This is done by keeping a separate "running compensation" (a variable to accumulate small errors). In particular, simply summing "n" numbers in sequence has a worst-case error that grows proportional to "n", and a root mean square error that grows as formula_1 for random inputs (the roundoff errors form a random walk). With compensated summation, the worst-case error bound is independent of "n", so a large number of values can be summed with an error that only depends on the floating-point precision. The algorithm is attributed to William Kahan. Similar, earlier techniques are, for example, Bresenham's line algorithm, keeping track of the accumulated error in integer operations (although first documented around the same time) and the Delta-sigma modulation (integrating, not just summing the error). The algorithm. In pseudocode, the algorithm is: Worked example. This example will be given in decimal. Computers typically use binary arithmetic, but the principle being illustrated is the same. Suppose we are using six-digit decimal floating point arithmetic, "sum" has attained the value 10000.0, and the next two values of "input(i)" are 3.14159 and 2.71828. The exact result is 10005.85987, which rounds to 10005.9. With a plain summation, each incoming value would be aligned with "sum" and many low order digits lost (by truncation or rounding.) The first result, after rounding, would be 10003.1. The second result would be 10005.81828 before rounding, and 10005.8 after rounding. This is not correct. However, with compensated summation, we get the correct rounded result of 10005.9. Assume that "c" has the initial value zero. The sum is so large that only the high-order digits of the input numbers are being accumulated. But on the next step, "c" gives the error. So the summation is performed with two accumulators: "sum" holds the sum, and "c" accumulates the parts not assimilated into "sum", to nudge the low-order part of "sum" the next time around. Thus the summation proceeds with "guard digits" in "c" which is better than not having any but is not as good as performing the calculations with double the precision of the input. However, simply increasing the precision of the calculations is not practical in general; if "input" is already double precision, few systems supply quadruple precision and if they did, "input" could then be quadruple precision! Accuracy. A careful analysis of the errors in compensated summation is needed to appreciate its accuracy characteristics. While it is more accurate than naive summation, it can still give large relative errors for ill-conditioned sums. Suppose that one is summing "n" values "x""i", for "i"=1...,"n". The exact sum is: With compensated summation, one instead obtains formula_3, where the error formula_4 is bounded above by: where ε is the machine precision of the arithmetic being employed (e.g. ε≈10−16 for IEEE standard double precision floating point). Usually, the quantity of interest is the relative error formula_6, which is therefore bounded above by: In the expression for the relative error bound, the fraction Σ|"xi"|/|Σ"xi"| is the condition number of the summation problem. Essentially, the condition number represents the "intrinsic" sensitivity of the summation problem to errors, regardless of how it is computed. The relative error bound of "every" (backwards stable) summation method by a fixed algorithm in fixed precision (i.e. not those that use arbitrary precision arithmetic, nor algorithms whose memory and time requirements change based on the data), is proportional to this condition number. An "ill-conditioned" summation problem is one in which this ratio is large, and in this case even compensated summation can have a large relative error. For example, if the summands "xi" are uncorrelated random numbers with zero mean, the sum is a random walk and the condition number will grow proportional to formula_1. On the other hand, for random inputs with nonzero mean the condition number asymptotes to a finite constant as formula_9. If the inputs are all non-negative, then the condition number is 1. Given a condition number, the relative error of compensated summation is effectively independent of "n". In principle, there is the O("n"ε2) that grows linearly with "n", but in practice this term is effectively zero: since the final result is rounded to a precision ε, the "n"ε2 term rounds to zero unless "n" is roughly 1/ε or larger. In double precision, this corresponds to an "n" of roughly 1016, much larger than most sums. So, for a fixed condition number, the errors of compensated summation are effectively "O"(ε), independent of "n". In comparison, the relative error bound for naive summation (simply adding the numbers in sequence, rounding at each step) grows as formula_10 multiplied by the condition number. This worst-case error is rarely observed in practice, however, because it only occurs if the rounding errors are all in the same direction. In practice, it is much more likely that the rounding errors have a random sign, with zero mean, so that they form a random walk; in this case, naive summation has a root mean square relative error that grows as formula_11 multiplied by the condition number. This is still much worse than compensated summation, however. Note, however, that if the sum can be performed in twice the precision, then ε is replaced by ε2 and naive summation has a worst-case error comparable to the O("n"ε2) term in compensated summation at the original precision. By the same token, the Σ|"xi"| that appears in formula_4 above is a worst-case bound that occurs only if all the rounding errors have the same sign (and are of maximum possible magnitude). In practice, it is more likely that the errors have random sign, in which case terms in Σ|"xi"| are replaced by a random walk—in this case, even for random inputs with zero mean, the error formula_4 grows only as formula_11 (ignoring the "n"ε2 term), the same rate the sum formula_15 grows, canceling the formula_1 factors when the relative error is computed. So, even for asymptotically ill-conditioned sums, the relative error for compensated summation can often be much smaller than a worst-case analysis might suggest. Alternatives. Although Kahan's algorithm achieves formula_17 error growth for summing "n" numbers, only slightly worse formula_18 growth can be achieved by pairwise summation: one recursively divides the set of numbers into two halves, sums each half, and then adds the two sums. This has the advantage of requiring the same number of arithmetic operations as the naive summation (unlike Kahan's algorithm, which requires four times the arithmetic and has a latency of four times a simple summation) and can be calculated in parallel. The base case of the recursion could in principle be the sum of only one (or zero) numbers, but to amortize the overhead of recursion one would normally use a larger base case. The equivalent of pairwise summation is used in many fast Fourier transform (FFT) algorithms, and is responsible for the logarithmic growth of roundoff errors in those FFTs. In practice, with roundoff errors of random signs, the root mean square errors of pairwise summation actually grow as formula_19. Another alternative is to use arbitrary precision arithmetic, which in principle need do no rounding at all at the cost of much greater computational effort. A way of performing exactly rounded sums using arbitrary precision that is extended adaptively using multiple floating-point components, to minimize computational cost in common cases where high precision is not needed, was described by Shewchuk. Another method that uses only integer arithmetic, but a large accumulator was described by Kirchner and Kulisch; a hardware implementation was described by Müller, Rüb and Rülling. Computer languages. In principle, a sufficiently aggressive optimizing compiler could destroy the effectiveness of Kahan summation: for example, if the compiler simplified expressions according to the associativity rules of real arithmetic, it might "simplify" the second step in the sequence codice_1 to codice_2 then to codice_3, eliminating the error compensation. In practice, many compilers do not use associativity rules (which are only approximate in floating-point arithmetic) in simplifications unless explicitly directed to do so by compiler options enabling "unsafe" optimizations, although the Intel C++ Compiler is one example that allows associativity-based transformations by default. The original K&R C version of the C programming language allowed the compiler to re-order floating-point expressions according to real-arithmetic associativity rules, but the subsequent ANSI C standard prohibited re-ordering in order to make C better suited for numerical applications (and more similar to Fortran, which also prohibits re-ordering), although in practice compiler options can re-enable re-ordering as mentioned above. In general, built-in "sum" functions in computer languages typically provide no guarantees that a particular summation algorithm will be employed, much less Kahan summation. The BLAS standard for linear algebra subroutines explicitly avoids mandating any particular computational order of operations for performance reasons, and BLAS implementations typically do not use Kahan summation. The standard library of the Python computer language specifies an fsum function for exactly rounded summation, using the Shewchuk algorithm to track multiple partial sums.
583227	Well Done Abba is a 2010 political satire Hindi film directed by Shyam Benegal, starring Boman Irani, Minissha Lamba and Sameer Dattani in pivotal roles. It is the remake of the 2007 Marathi film, Jau Tithe Khau. It was based on three short stories: "Narsaiyyan Ki Bavdi" by Jeelani Bano, "Phulwa Ka Pul" by Sanjeev and "Still Waters" by Jayant Kripalani. The screenplay was written by Jayant Kripalani and Ashok Mishra, who also wrote the dialogues. It won the 2009 National Film Award for Best Film on Social Issues. Plot. The film tells the story of Armaan Ali (Boman Irani), a Muslim driver working in Mumbai, who takes a one month leave from his employer to find a groom for his daughter Muskaan (Minissha Lamba), who lives in a village near Hyderabad, India. Armaan does not turn up for three months, and his employer makes the difficult decision to sack him, but he asks his boss to listen to why he could not come. Getting soft, his employer allows him to drive to Pune where he has a meeting. Armaan starts the story from here. In Armaan's village, many problems include a rising drought situation and financial difficulties due to the antics of his twin brother, who has a bad reputation for debt addiction and theft. In the opening, a man named Arif demands 500 rupees from Armaan. Eventually, Muskaan pays the debt to Arif and Armaan's brother is arrested, later on released. To solve the drought problem, he goes to a government office to build a well, with a friend. There, he goes through stages such as explaining what he wants and even having his photo taken. Muskaan, on the other hand falls in love with Arif, of which Armaan does not approve at first but later is pleased with. Armaan does not receive the well he wanted and sits in despair. He and Muskaan try to tell the police inspector about the well that was 'stolen', but the inspector finds the story rather silly and is even stubborn enough to not listen to what they have to say. Disturbed, Armaan and Muskaan launch a protest with several villagers against the police inspector, later on to the justice minister, where the minister punishes the inspector for his slack behaviour. The inspector, realising his mistakes and behaviour, then starts to approach the people in a more orthodox way. The justice minister then allows the government people to build the well for the villagers and punishes them all for not doing what they are supposed to do. With the drought problem solved, Armaan decides that Muskaan should marry an Arab sheikh. Muskaan does not accept her father's offer and even has an argument about this. The issue is even more heated when she receives a letter from her friend, Sakina, which involved her getting beat up by her sheikh husband and getting kicked out, shocking Armaan and Sakina's mother. Disturbed, Armaan then decides that Muskaan should marry Arif, much to her delight. With the two of Armaan's problems solved, he ends his story at an awards ceremony, which in his perspective was a 'big drama', as the stage literally collapsed, delighting people. With his employer convinced, he then allows Armaan to work for him again. Production. BIG Pictures and Reliance BIG Entertainment Ltd collaborated with director Shyam Benegal to bring "a satirical comedy ‘Well Done Abba’ on the celluloid". The film was shot at Film City, Mumbai, the Mumbai–Pune Expressway, Ramoji Film City and Ibrahimpatnam near Hyderabad. "Vihir Chorila Geli", a Marathi film, in based on similar story starring Laxmikant Berde and Ashok Saraf. Critical reception. The film received favourable reviews from top critics in India. It received 6.5/10 at ReviewGang. Anupama Chopra of NDTV writes "The end result is that Well Done Abba is heart-felt and intermittently funny", while Nikhat Khazmi of the "Times of India" writes "The film is a sheer delight, with the events unfolding in a breezy, comic vein which keeps the ribs relentlessly tickling". Noyon Jyoti Parasara of AOL.in gave it 3 out of 5 and pointed out, "Leaving aside the last 15 minutes which were not required at all, this film actually entertains." Vinayak Chakravorty of "Mail Today" gave it three stars. Music. "Well Done Abba"'s music is by Shantanu Moitra and the main promotional song "Jab Bhi Muh Kholta" was composed by Vishal Khurana. The lyrics are penned by Ashok Mishra, Swanand Kirkire and Ila Arun.
1017908	Intimate Confessions Of A Chinese Courtesan (Chinese: 愛奴, pinyin: Ai Nu) is a 1972 Shaw Brothers film directed by Chor Yuen and starring Lily Ho. Plot. She’s got a killer secret! In one of the most outrageous and taboo-smashing Shaw Brothers classics, sweet young Ainu (Lily Ho, Water Margin) is abducted and sold off to the popular Four Seasons brothel run by lusty madam (Betty Pei Ti, Clans of Intrigue), who falls for her nubile charge and entrusts her with a number of martial arts secrets like “Ghost Hands,” which allows a fighter to plunge into an opponent’s chest. Soon murder erupts within the brothel, and a policeman must race against time to prevent a vicious revenge plot from reaching its blood-spattered conclusion.
1105311	Thomas Simpson FRS (20 August 1710 – 14 May 1761) was a British mathematician, inventor and eponym of Simpson's rule to approximate definite integrals. The attribution, as often in mathematics, can be debated: this rule had been found 100 years earlier by Johannes Kepler, and in German is the so-called Keplersche Fassregel. Biography. Simpson was born in Market Bosworth, Leicestershire. The son of a weaver, Simpson taught himself mathematics, then turned to astrology after seeing a solar eclipse. He also dabbled in divination and caused fits in a girl after 'raising a devil' from her. After this incident, he and his wife had to flee to Derby. They later moved to London. From 1743, he taught mathematics at the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich. Apparently, the method that became known as Simpson's rule was well known and used earlier by Bonaventura Cavalieri (a student of Galileo) in 1639, later rediscovered by James Gregory (who Simpson succeeded as Regius Professor of Mathematics at the University of St Andrews) and was only attributed to Simpson. Thomas Simpson first formulated, in 1750, a generalization of the Fermat point problem that was later popularized by Alfred Weber in 1909. In its simplest form, the Fermat problem consists in locating a point D with respect to three points A, B, and C in such a way that the sum of the distances between D and each of the three other points is minimized. The Simpson-Weber triangle problem consists in locating a point D with respect to three points A, B, and C in such a way that the sum of the transportation costs between D and each of the three other points is minimized. In 1971, Luc-Normand Tellier found the first direct (non iterative) numerical solution of the Fermat and Simpson-Weber triangle problems. Long before Von Thünen’s contributions, which go back to 1818, the Fermat point problem can be seen as the very beginning of space economy. It was formulated by the famous French mathematician Pierre de Fermat before 1640.
234610	Adam LaVorgna (born March 1, 1981) is an American actor, known for his role on the television series "Brooklyn Bridge", and in the films "Milk Money", "Beautician and the Beast", and "I'll Be Home for Christmas". and as Robbie Palmer on 7th Heaven
1057462	Downloading Nancy is a 2008 drama film directed by Johan Renck, starring Maria Bello and Jason Patric. It is loosely based on the death of Sharon Lopatka who sought out someone who would torture her to death. The film premiered at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival, where it was nominated for a Grand Jury Prize. Plot. From the press release: Dead to everything except painful pleasure, an unhappily married woman, Nancy, leaves her silent husband behind to meet a fellow broken soul in search of a final release. Louis is a quiet dispenser of pleasure, Nancy is the mechanism set to self-destruct. Beyond therapy, beyond medication, beyond feeling, Nancy is left with the only coping mechanism she ever knew, violence. Together, they journey through the darkest recesses of the human mind before finding solace in each other's arms. For Nancy, solace can only come from death, for Louis, it can only come from Nancy. Nancy's husband Albert is left with an empty house, filled with only the memory of his wife's unbearable loneliness and a final, endless understanding of how bleak life could be. The relationship between Louis and Nancy straddles the thin line between pleasure and pain, crossing over into a film that is as emotional as it is unnerving. Reception. The film received mostly negative reviews, garnering a score of 17% on Rotten Tomatoes, which summarized it as "slickly made but mostly unpleasant". "Variety" called the film a "forbidding and morbid piece of psycho-sadomasochism" with a "swimming-in-the-deep-end performance by Maria Bello that is the definition of fearless". It also notes: Performances are cranked up to red-line neurotic levels, while production values intently contribute to creating an artificially bleak world where it's understandable scarcely anyone would want to spend time, even for the duration of this movie. Salon.com, in a report about the films at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival, wrote: One film that will not be acquired by anybody at Sundance – I'll just crawl out on a limb with this one – is "Downloading Nancy" ... Bello's skin-peeling, ultra-depresso performance is wrenching and brave, calling for both emotional and physical nakedness. Can a film with those attributes also be insulting garbage? It's a difficult aesthetic-philosophical conundrum, but having sat through this damn thing I now have an answer. "I just had the experience of being there at the screening at Sundance and watching the door flap open and closed," says Rufus Sewell, who plays Nancy's husband Albert in the film. "I didn't expect so many people to walk out at Sundance." Despite the controversy, Sewell continues to staunchly support the film. "I was delighted. ...t's a film I'm very proud of, whether you consider that it fails or succeeds, whether you like it or don't like it. I'm proud to be in it."
137611	Story of O (, ) is an erotic novel published in 1954 about love, dominance and submission by French author Anne Desclos under the pen name Pauline Réage. Desclos did not reveal herself as the author for forty years after the initial publication. Desclos claims she wrote the novel as a series of love letters to her lover Jean Paulhan, who had admired the work of the Marquis de Sade. Plot. Published in French by Jean-Jacques Pauvert, "Story of O" is a tale of female submission about a beautiful Parisian fashion photographer named O, who is taught to be constantly available for oral, vaginal, and anal intercourse. She is regularly stripped, blindfolded, chained and whipped; her anus is widened by increasingly large plugs; her labium is pierced and her buttocks are branded. The story begins when O's lover, René, brings her to the château of Roissy, where she is trained to serve the members of an elite club. After this initial training, as a demonstration of their bond and his generosity, René hands O to his elder stepbrother Sir Stephen, a more dominant master. René wants O to learn to serve someone whom she does not love, and someone who does not love her. Over the course of this training, O falls in love with Sir Stephen and believes him to be in love with her as well. During the summer, Sir Stephen sends O to Samois, an old mansion solely inhabited by women for advanced training and body modifications related to submission. There she agrees to receive permanent marks of Sir Stephen's ownership, in the form of a brand and a steel tag hanging from a labia piercing.
1054414	My Boss's Daughter is a 2003 romantic comedy film starring Ashton Kutcher, Tara Reid and Terence Stamp. Plot. Tom Stansfield (Ashton Kutcher) is a researcher at a publishing company who works under the tyrannical Jack Taylor (Terence Stamp). Tom has a crush on his boss' daughter, Lisa Taylor (Tara Reid), who is completely controlled by her overprotective father. She reveals to Tom that her father is making her house-sit on the same night as a party she wants to attend, but Tom convinces her to stand up to her father and attend the party anyway. Lisa asks him to come to their house that night, leading Tom to think that she has invited him to the party; in reality, she just wants him to fill in for her - he reluctantly agrees. A comedy of errors ensues, including the return of Lisa's older brother, Red, on the run from drug dealers. Red dumps drugs into the toilet, and instead returns a bag of flour to the drug dealer. One of Tom's tasks is to guard their owl, O-J, which lives in an open cage (it has not been able to fly due to a deep depression, from the loss of a prior mate). When the bird drinks from the toilet polluted with drugs, it flies away. Jack Taylor's ex-secretary Audrey goes to the house to try to earn her job back. After fighting with her boyfriend, she stays over at the house. Lisa returns home after finding out that her boyfriend Hans is cheating on her. Tom hides from her everything that happened and she spends some time with him thinking he is homosexual. He clarifies to her that he's a heterosexual and she starts to like him. Audrey's friend thinks she has breast cancer and asks Tom to feel her breasts. Lisa walks in on them and is disgusted by the situation. T.J., the drug dealer, finds out about the fake drugs and threatens to kill Tom if he doesn't return him his money. T.J. tries to open a safe and steal the money. However, Tom gives him sleeping pills mixed with alcohol which sends him into a coma. Because they think T.J. is dead, Audrey and her friends bury him. Later, T.J. escapes from the grave and threatens to kill Lisa. With Red's help, Tom rescues Lisa and she falls in love with him. He then goes to get her father, but on the way back the owl gets into the car making Tom lose control of the car and crash into the house. They find police officers in the house looking for T.J., who ends up getting arrested. Jack Taylor is enraged by the damages done to the house and throws Tom out. The next day, Jack Taylor hears his son explaining to Lisa how she should stand up to their father and goes back to Tom. Jack realizes his mistakes and gives Tom a promotion. Release. The movie was released by Dimension Films on August 22, 2003, opened at #10 at the U.S. Box office and grossed $4,855,798 on its opening weekend. It was released domestically in 2,206 theaters grossing $15,550,605 in the United States. The film was also released in foreign theaters grossing further $2,640,400 with its highest grossing of $691,999 in Russia and its lowest in the Czech Republic totaling $18,191,005 worldwide. Reception. Based on 60 reviews collected by Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an overall approval rating from critics of 9% with an average score of 2.4/10. Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 top reviews from mainstream critics, the film has received an average score of 16 (based on 18 reviews). The film received three Razzie Award nominations including Worst Actor (Ashton Kutcher), Worst Supporting Actress (Tara Reid) and Worst Screen Couple.
309883	Ryan Timothy Malgarini (born June 12, 1992) is an American actor. Life and career. Malgarini was born in Renton, Washington. He became interested in acting as a result of watching his grandmother, Gloria Malgarini's, involvement in commercials. At the age of five, Malgarini was delighted to spot her in a commercial for "Senior Dimensions," a Nevada-based healthcare provider, he pointed at the television and said, "I want to do that!" From that point on Malgarini would appear as an extra for some of his grandmother's commercials. Malgarini was soon appearing in commercials for McDonald's and Washington Mutual. He also took acting classes at the famed Young Actors Space in Los Angeles which earned him an agent and a manager.
1163526	William Penn Adair "Will" Rogers (November 4, 1879 – August 15, 1935) was an American cowboy, vaudeville performer, humorist, social commentator and motion picture actor. He was one of the world's best-known celebrities in the 1920s and 1930s. Known as "Oklahoma's Favorite Son," Rogers was born to a prominent Cherokee Nation family in Indian Territory (now part of Oklahoma). He traveled around the world three times, made 71 movies (50 silent films and 21 "talkies"), wrote more than 4,000 nationally-syndicated newspaper columns, and became a world-famous figure. By the mid-1930s, Rogers was adored by the American people. He was the leading political wit of the Progressive Era, and was the top-paid Hollywood movie star at the time. Rogers died in 1935 with aviator Wiley Post, when their small airplane crashed in Alaska. Rogers' vaudeville rope act led to success in the Ziegfeld Follies, which in turn led to the first of his many movie contracts. His 1920s syndicated newspaper column and his radio appearances increased his visibility and popularity. Rogers crusaded for aviation expansion, and provided Americans with first-hand accounts of his world travels. His earthy anecdotes and folksy style allowed him to poke fun at gangsters, prohibition, politicians, government programs, and a host of other controversial topics in a way that was readily appreciated by a national audience, with no one offended. His aphorisms, couched in humorous terms, were widely quoted: "I am not a member of an organized political party. I am a Democrat." Another widely quoted Will Rogers comment was "I don't make jokes. I just watch the government and report the facts."
628188	"Crocodile" Dundee II is a 1988 Australian adventure and comedy film. It is a sequel to the 1986 film ""Crocodile" Dundee", and was followed by 2001's "Crocodile Dundee in Los Angeles". Actors Paul Hogan and Linda Kozlowski reprise their roles as Mick Dundee and Sue Charlton, respectively; here shown opposing a Colombian drug cartel. The film was shot on location in New York City and Northern Territory, Australia. It cost $14 million to make. Plot. A year has passed since the events of ""Crocodile" Dundee", and Mick Dundee and Sue Charlton are living happily together in New York. Although Mick's ignorance of city life is a hazard when he attempts to continue his former lifestyle, like blast fishing in Manhattan's waters, Sue's writing has made him a popular public figure. He later goes to work for Leroy Brown, a stationery salesman trying to live up to his self-perceived 'bad guy in the streets' image. While working for the DEA in Colombia, Sue's ex-husband Bob (mentioned, but not seen, in the first movie) takes photographs of a drug cartel leader's murder of an unknown person, and is spotted by one of the cartel's sentries. He sends the photographs to Sue, before being murdered. Colombian Cartel leader Luis Rico, and his brother and top lieutenant, Miguel, go to New York City to retrieve the photos. The gangsters hold Sue hostage, leading Mick to ask Leroy for help. Leroy contacts a local street gang, whom Mick asks to create a distraction by caterwauling at the mansion's perimeter, leading most of the cartel's guards on a wild goose chase while Mick rescues Sue. Rico is arrested but soon escapes police custody, and after a failed attempt to kill Sue, Mick decides to take Sue to Australia in order to fight on familiar ground. In Walkabout Creek, Mick is enthusiastically welcomed back by his friends. After provisioning, he and Sue take refuge in his personal land, named Belonga Mick ("Mick's Place"). Here, Sue discovers that Mick owns land equal to the size of New York State, including a gold mine. Rico and his men track their quarry to Australia where they hire some local thugs to assist them, but their Aboriginal tracker abandons them when he hears that their quarry is Mick. As a replacement, the gangsters kidnap Mick's friend Walter and force him to guide them, but Mick saves his friend by faking an attempt on Walter's life. They then lead the gangsters on a false trail through the Outback territory, during which Mick, with the help of his Aboriginal friends, manages to reduce the opposition's numbers one by one, leaving the rest increasingly nervous. In the end, he retrieves Walter from Rico and Miguel, leaving the latter to face him alone. Tired of chasing Dundee, Rico sets a bushfire to corner Mick, but Mick regains the upper hand, captures Rico, and switches clothes with him in order to lure Miguel into a vulnerable position. Sue and Walter mistake Mick for Rico and try to shoot him. Walter hits Mick, and Rico tries to escape but is shot by Miguel, losing his balance and falling to his death from a cliff. Miguel is in turn shot and killed by Sue. Though thinking at first that Mick is dead, they later re-unite with him, and Sue and Mick embrace. When Mick asks her whether she is ready to go home, Sue replies "I "am" home", concluding the film. Release. The film opened 25 May 1988 in the United States and Canada. Reception. The film did well at the box office but not with critics. It was sixth-highest-grossing film of the year in the United States and earned more than $240 million worldwide. For its first six days of American release, its box office receipts of US$29.2 million exceeded those of "Rambo III" at $21.2 million. ""Crocodile" Dundee II" received generally negative reviews from critics. Janet Maslin of "The New York Times" deemed the sequel to be inferior, noting "the novelty has begun to wear thin, even if Mr. Hogan remains generally irresistible." Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes assessed a "Rotten" score of 12% with an average 3.7/10 rating. Box office. ""Crocodile" Dundee II" was also a worldwide hit, but not as big as its predecessor. The film grossed $24,916,805 in Australia, which is equivalent to $48,843,593 in 2009 dollars. The film was released theatrically in the United States by Paramount Pictures in May 1988. It grossed $75 at the domestic box office. It was the second highest grossing film that year for Paramount (second only to "Coming to America") and the sixth highest grossing film at the United States box office.
1038239	Robbie Coltrane, OBE (born Anthony Robert McMillan; 30 March 1950) is a Scottish actor, comedian and author. He is known for his roles as Rubeus Hagrid in the "Harry Potter" films, as Valentin Dmitrovich Zukovsky in the James Bond films "GoldenEye" and "The World Is Not Enough" and as Dr. Eddie "Fitz" Fitzgerald in the British TV series "Cracker" during the 1990s. Early life. Coltrane was born Anthony Robert McMillan in Rutherglen, South Lanarkshire, Scotland, the son of Jean McMillan Ross (née Howie), a teacher and pianist, and Ian Baxter McMillan, a general practitioner who also served as a forensic police surgeon. He has an older sister, Annie, and a younger sister, Jane. Coltrane is the great-grandson of Scottish businessman Thomas W. Howie. He was educated at Glenalmond College, an independent school in Perthshire, from which he was nearly expelled after hanging the prefects' gowns from the school clocktower. Though he later described his experiences there as deeply unhappy, he played for the rugby First XV, was head of the school's debating society and won prizes for his art. From Glenalmond, Coltrane went on to Glasgow School of Art, where he was ridiculed for "having an accent like Prince Charles" (which he quickly disposed of, though not before gaining the nickname "Lord Fauntleroy"), and thereafter the Moray House College Of Education (part of the University of Edinburgh) in Edinburgh, Scotland. Coltrane later called for public schools to be banned and used to be known as "Red Robbie", rebelling against his conservative upbringing through involvement with Amnesty International, Greenpeace, the Labour Party and the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. Career. Coltrane moved into acting in his early twenties, taking the stage name Coltrane (in tribute to jazz saxophonist John Coltrane) and working in theatre and stand-up comedy. Appearing in the 1981 BBC television comedy series "A Kick Up the Eighties", his comic skills also brought him roles in the "The Comic Strip Presents" (1982) series and the comedy sketch shows "Alfresco" (1983–1984) and "Laugh??? I Nearly Paid My Licence Fee" (1984). Coltrane soon moved into films, obtaining roles in movies such as "Flash Gordon" (1980), "Death Watch" (1980), "Scrubbers" (1983), "Krull" (1983), "The Supergrass" (1985), "Defence of the Realm" (1985), "Absolute Beginners" (1986), "Mona Lisa" (1986) and appeared as "Annabelle" in "The Fruit Machine" (1988). On television, he also appeared in "The Young Ones", "Tutti Frutti" (1987), as Samuel Johnson in "Blackadder" (1987) (a role he later reprised in the more serious "Boswell and Johnson's Tour of the Western Islands" (1993)), and in a number of stand-up and sketch comedy shows. He played the part of Falstaff in Kenneth Branagh's "Henry V" (1989) He co-starred with Eric Idle in "Nuns on the Run" (1990), and played the Pope in "The Pope Must Die" (1991). He also played a would-be private detective obsessed with Humphrey Bogart in the TV play "The Bogie Man". His roles went from strength to strength in the 1990s with the TV series "Cracker" (1993–1996, returning in 2006 for a one-off special), in which he starred as forensic psychologist Dr. Edward "Fitz" Fitzgerald. The role won him three BAFTA awards. After that, he gained roles in bigger films, such as the James Bond films "GoldenEye" (1995) and "The World Is Not Enough" (1999), a major supporting role in "From Hell" (2001), as well as half-giant Rubeus Hagrid in the "Harry Potter" films (2001–2011). J.K. Rowling, author of the Harry Potter series, had Coltrane at the top of her list to play Hagrid and, when asked who she would like to see in the role, responded “Robbie Coltrane for Hagrid” in one quick breath. Coltrane has also presented a number of popular documentary programmes for the British ITV network based around his twin passions for travel and transportation. "Coltrane in a Cadillac" (1993) saw him cross North America from Los Angeles to
1129807	Kathryn Leigh Scott (born Marlene Kringstad; January 29, 1943) is an American television and film actress who is best remembered for playing several roles on "Dark Shadows". Early life. Scott was born Marlene Kringstad in Robbinsdale, Minnesota to Ole and Hilda Kringstad, both of Norwegian descent. Career. Upon arriving in New York City she worked as a Playboy Bunny and changed her name to Kathryn Leigh Scott. In 1966, she was cast as Maggie Evans the waitress-turned-governess on the ABC-TV cult serial "Dark Shadows". During her tenure at the show, she played Josette du Pres (a lover of Barnabas Collins (Jonathan Frid), who was killed at Widow's Hill in 1795); Rachel Drummond (a governess in 1897); Kitty Soames (aka Lady Hampshire on the second-half of the 1897 storyline); and Maggie Collins (aka Maggie Evans), who married Quentin Collins (David Selby) in "Parallel Time" (1970). She appeared in "House of Dark Shadows", a MGM picture based on the "Dark Shadows" TV series in 1970. That same year in September, she decided to leave the show to move to France with her boyfriend and photographer Ben Martin, whom she later married. A few months later, "Dark Shadows" ended its five year run in April 1971.
1060487	Forbidden Planet is a 1956 science fiction film directed by Fred M. Wilcox, a screenplay by Cyril Hume, and starring Walter Pidgeon, Anne Francis, and Leslie Nielsen. The characters and isolated setting have been compared to those in William Shakespeare's "The Tempest", and its plot does contain certain story analogs and a reference to one section of Jung's theory on the collective subconscious. "Forbidden Planet" is the first science fiction film in which humans are depicted traveling in a starship of their own creation. It was also the very first science fiction film set entirely on another world in interstellar space, far away from the planet Earth. "Forbidden Planet" is considered one of the great science fiction films of the 1950s, a precursor of what was to come for the science fiction film genre in the decades that followed. "Forbidden Planet" features special effects for which A. Arnold Gillespie, Irving G. Ries, and Wesley C. Miller were nominated for an Academy Award; it was the only major award nomination the film received. The film features the first groundbreaking use of an entirely electronic musical score by Louis and Bebe Barron. "Forbidden Planet" also featured Robby the Robot, the first film robot that was more than just a mechanical "tin can" on legs; Robby displays a distinct personality and is a complete supporting character in the film. Plot. Early in the 23rd century, the United Planets Cruiser C57-D travels to the planet Altair IV, 16 light-years from Earth, to discover the fate of an expedition sent 20 years earlier. Soon after entering orbit, the cruiser receives a transmission from Dr. Edward Morbius, the expedition's master of languages and their meanings. He warns the starship to stay away, saying he cannot guarantee their safety; he also states further assistance is not necessary. Commander John J. Adams ignores the warning and insists on landing coordinates. They are met on landing by Robby the Robot, who takes Adams, Lieutenant Jerry Farman, and Lieutenant "Doc" Ostrow to Morbius's home. There, Morbius explains that an unknown "planetary force" killed nearly everyone and then vaporized their starship, "Bellerophon", as the survivors tried to lift off the planet. Only Morbius, his wife (who later died of natural causes), and their daughter Altaira were somehow immune. Morbius fears that the C57-D and its crew will meet the same fate. Altaira, having only known her father, becomes attracted to several of the Earthmen. Later the next night, equipment aboard the C57-D is sabotaged, though posted sentries never see the intruder. Adams and Ostrow confront Morbius the following morning. They learn he has been studying a highly advanced native species, the Krell, a race that mysteriously died suddenly 200,000 years before, just as they were on the verge of achieving their crowning scientific triumph. In a Krell laboratory Morbius shows Adams and Ostrow a device he calls a "plastic educator", a device capable of measuring and enhancing intellectual capacity; he uses it to display a three-dimensional, moving thought projection of Altaira. The "Bellerophon"s captain tried the machine and was instantly killed. When Morbius first used this machine, he barely survived; he later discovered his intellect had been permanently doubled. His increased intelligence enabled him, along with information from a stored Krell library, to build Robby and the other "technological marvels" in his home. Morbius then takes them on a tour of a vast cube-shaped underground Krell machine complex, 20 miles (30 km) square, still functioning and powered by 9,200 thermonuclear reactors. In response to the sabotage, Adams orders a defensive force field fence deployed around the starship. This proves useless when the intruder returns undetected and murders Chief Engineer Quinn. Later, Dr. Ostrow is confused by a casting made from one of the large footprints the intruder left behind: its contradictory features appear to violate all known evolutionary laws. When the intruder returns, the C57-D's crew is prepared. They quickly discover that the creature is invisible. Its roaring image becomes visible as it stands within the fence's force field, further enhanced by the crew's directed high-energy weapons fire, all of which has no effect. Several of the crew are killed during the battle, including Astrogator Jerry Farman. Back in the Krell lab, Morbius is startled awake by Altaira's screaming; at that same instant, the large creature suddenly vanishes from the C57-D's landing site. Later, while Adams confronts Morbius at his home, Ostrow sneaks away to use the Krell educator; he is fatally injured. As he lay dying, Ostrow explains to Adams that the Great Machine was built to materialize anything the Krell could imagine, projecting matter anywhere on the planet. However, with his dying breath, he also says the Krell forgot one thing: "Monsters from the Id!" When confronted by Adams, Morbius counters by pointing out there are no Krell still alive. Adams pointedly asserts that Morbius' subconscious mind, expanded by the "plastic educator", can now access the Great Machine, recreating the Id monster that killed the original expedition; Morbius refuses to accept this conclusion. After Altaira declares her love for Adams in defiance of her father's wishes, Robby detects the creature approaching the house. Morbius commands the robot to kill it, but Robby knows it is a manifestation of his master. His programming to never harm humans comes into conflict with Morbius' command, and Robby shuts down. Powered by the Great Machine, the creature melts through the indestructible metal doors of the Krell laboratory where Adams, Altaira, and Morbius have taken refuge. Morbius finally accepts the truth: the creature is an extension of his own mind, "his evil self". He is fatally injured trying to stop the creature, which then disappears. Morbius directs Adams to activate a floor switch (a Morbius self-destruct mechanism) and warns them that the Krell furnaces will now overload; they must be 100 million miles away within 24 hours. From deep space, with the C57-D safely on course back to Earth, Adams, Altaira, Robby, and the rest of the crew witness the destruction of Altair IV on the ship's viewscreen. Production. The screen story by Irving Block and Allen Adler, written in 1952, was originally titled "Fatal Planet". The later screenplay draft by Cyril Hume renamed the film "Forbidden Planet", because this was believed to have greater box-office appeal. Block and Adler's drama took place in the year 1976 on the planet Mercury. An Earth expedition headed by John Grant was sent to the planet to retrieve Dr. Adams and his daughter Dorianne, who have been stranded there for twenty years. From then on, its plot is roughly the same as that of the completed film, though Grant is able to rescue both Adams and his daughter and escape the invisible monster stalking them. The film sets were constructed on a Metro Goldwyn Mayer (MGM) sound stage at its Culver City film lot and were designed by Cedric Gibbons and Arthur Longeran. The film was shot entirely indoors, with all the Altair IV exterior scenes simulated using sets, visual effects, and matte paintings. A full-size mock-up of roughly three-quarters of the C57-D starship was built to suggest its full width of 170 ft (51 m). The ship was surrounded by a huge, painted cyclorama featuring the desert landscape of Altair IV; this one set took up all of the available space in one of the Culver City sound stages. Later, C57-D models, special effects shots, and the full-size set details were reused in several different episodes of the television series "The Twilight Zone", which were filmed by CBS at the same MGM studio location in Culver City. At a cost of roughly $125,000, Robby the Robot was very expensive for a single film prop at this time. Both the electrically controlled passenger vehicle driven by Robby and the truck/tractor-crane off-loaded from the C57-D starship were also constructed specially for this film. Robby the Robot later starred in the science fiction film "The Invisible Boy" and appeared in many TV series and films that followed; like the C57-D, Robby (and his passenger vehicle) appeared in various episodes of CBS' "The Twilight Zone", usually slightly modified for each appearance. The animated sequences of "Forbidden Planet", especially the attack of the "Id Monster", were created by the veteran animator Joshua Meador, who was loaned out to MGM by Walt Disney Pictures. According to a "Behind the Scenes" featurette on the film's DVD, a close look at the creature shows it to have a small goatee beard, suggesting its connection to Dr. Morbius, the only character with this physical feature; the bellowing, now visible Id monster, caught in the crewman's high-energy beams during the attack, is a direct reference to and visual pun on MGM's familiar roaring mascot Leo the Lion, seen at the very beginning of "Forbidden Planet" and the studio's other films of the era. Release. "Forbidden Planet" was first released across the U. S. on April 1, 1956 in CinemaScope, Metrocolor, and in some theaters, stereophonic sound, either by the magnetic or Perspecta processes. The Hollywood premiere was held at Grauman's Chinese Theatre, and Robby the Robot was on display in the lobby. "Forbidden Planet" ran every day at Grauman's Theater through the following September. The film initially earned theatrical rentals totaling $1.6 million in North America during 1956.
628908	Richard Roxburgh (born 23 January 1962) is an Australian actor, who has starred in many Australian films and television series and has appeared in supporting roles in a number of Hollywood productions, usually as villains. Early life. Roxburgh was born in Albury, New South Wales to John (d. July 2011) and Mary Roxburgh; he is the youngest of six children. He studied economics at the Australian National University in Canberra, but decided to become an actor, and was admitted to the National Institute of Dramatic Art (NIDA) on his second audition attempt. Acting career. Roxburgh came to public attention for his acclaimed portrayal of corrupt New South Wales Police Force detective Roger Rogerson in the 1995 television miniseries "Blue Murder". He appeared in several Australian film and stage productions through the 1990s, including a critically acclaimed turn as Hamlet in the 1994 Company B production at the Belvoir St Theatre. In December 2007, he played the lead character, Roland Henning, who suffered writer's block in Michael Gow's play, "Toy Symphony", at the Belvoir Street Theatre Sydney, winning the 2008 Helpmann Award for best male actor in a play. In 2000, Roxburgh appeared in the first of several international blockbuster films when he appeared as henchman Hugh Stamp in the John Woo-directed "", which was filmed in Sydney. Also filmed in Sydney was Baz Luhrmann's "Moulin Rouge!" (2001), in which Roxburgh played the Duke of Monroth. Roxburgh appeared as three iconic characters over the next three years: he played Sherlock Holmes in 2002's "The Hound of the Baskervilles", Holmes's nemesis Professor Moriarty in 2003's "The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen", and Count Dracula in 2004's "Van Helsing". He is one of only two actors to have played all three of these characters, the other being Orson Welles, who played them in separate radio programs. Roxburgh directed his first film, "Romulus, My Father" starring Eric Bana, released in 2007. This film won (and was nominated for several more) the AFI Award in December 2007. In 2008 and 2009, he played the lead role of Art Watkins in the ABC drama series "East of Everything". In July 2010, Roxburgh played former Australian Prime Minister Bob Hawke in a telemovie based on Hawke's life. Late in 2010, Roxburgh co-created and appeared in the lead role of the ABC1 television eight-episode drama series "Rake". He stars in "Matching Jack", which was released in August 2010, and "", released in September 2010. Roxburgh played Vanya opposite Cate Blanchett, Hugo Weaving and John Bell in Sydney Theatre Company's 2010 production of Anton Chekov's "Uncle Vanya". Personal life. Roxburgh was in a relationship with fellow actor and NIDA graduate Miranda Otto, whom he met on the set of the film "Doing Time for Patsy Cline" in 1997. Their relationship ended in 2000. During production of the film "Van Helsing", Roxburgh met Italian actress Silvia Colloca, whom he married on 25 September 2004. They have two sons, Raphael Jack Domenico Roxburgh, who was born 10 February 2007, and Miro Gianni David Roxburgh, who was born 1 October 2010. Awards. Australian Film Institute/AACTA Film Crities Circle of Australia Awards Logie Awards
1163826	Cynthia Jane "Cindy" Williams (born August 22, 1947) is an American actress best known for starring in the television situation-comedy series "Laverne & Shirley", in the role of Shirley Feeney, and for her role as Laurie Henderson in the classic film "American Graffiti". Early life. Williams was born in Van Nuys, California, to Francesca (née Bellini) and Beachard Williams. She has one sibling, a sister, Carol Ann Williams. She graduated from Birmingham High School. She attended Los Angeles City College. To date she has appeared in 19 films. Career. After college, Williams began her professional career by landing national commercials, which included Foster Grant sunglasses and TWA. Her first roles in television, among others, were on "Room 222", "Nanny and the Professor" and "Love, American Style". Having honed her skills at The Actors Studio West, Williams picked up important film roles early in her career: George Cukor's "Travels with My Aunt" (1972); as Ron Howard's high school sweetheart in George Lucas's "American Graffiti" (1973); and Francis Ford Coppola's "The Conversation" (1974). She auditioned for Lucas's next project, "Star Wars", but lost the role of Princess Leia to Carrie Fisher. In 1975, Williams was cast as a fun-loving brewery worker, Shirley Feeney, in an episode of "Happy Days", alongside Penny Marshall, who played her best friend/roommate Laverne De Fazio. The girls were introduced as female companions of Fonzie (Henry Winkler), and their appearance proved so popular that Garry Marshall, producer of "Happy Days" and Penny Marshall's brother, commissioned a spin-off for the characters. Williams continued her role on the very successful "Laverne & Shirley" from 1976 until 1982. Although praised for her portrayal of Shirley, Williams left the show after the second episode of the show's eighth and final season, after she became pregnant with her first child. Williams and co-star Marshall had also been feuding for quite some time, and this had also spurred her decision to leave. In 1990, Williams returned to series TV in the short-lived CBS sitcom "Normal Life", and a couple years later, reunited with former "Laverne & Shirley" producers Thomas L. Miller and Robert L. Boyett to star in their family sitcom "Getting By" (1993–94). She has guest starred on several television shows, including two episodes of "8 Simple Rules". She has performed onstage in the national tours of "Grease, Deathtrap" and "Moon Over Buffalo", and a regional production of "Nunsense". She reunited with her "L&S" co-star Eddie Mekka in a November 2008 regional production of the Renée Taylor-Joseph Bologna comedy play "It Had to Be You". Williams made her Broadway debut as daffy "Mrs. Tottendale" in "The Drowsy Chaperone" at the Marquis Theatre on December 11, 2007, succeeding JoAnne Worley in the role originated by Georgia Engel. She made a guest appearance on illusionist David Copperfield's first CBS TV special in 1978. She assisted Copperfield in the Zig Zag Girl and a length-wise sawing-in-half illusions.
520284	When Love Begins is a 2008 Filipino romance film directed by Jose Javier Reyes and starring Aga Muhlach and Anne Curtis. The film was released by Star Cinema. Plot. Benedicto "Ben" Caballero is an environmentalist who disapproves of deforestation for villages in mountainous regions in the country.He is more concerned of the environment than that of getting along with his siblings.It is revealed that he was a former lawyer and that he quit because of a matter between right or wrong,and not about winning or losing.He focuses on nature-for him,it's all about saving the planet. He visits Boracay and meets a Michelle "Mitch" Valmonte after an accident.Mitch is a carefree party girl who works for her father's company.She and Ben get to know each other and develop special interests for each other. But making a relationship without any commitment is one problem they both have to deal with.It goes well at first,but the relationship ends because of its impossibilities. Ben then discovers that Mitch's father owns the company that ordered the deforestation and construction of a new village in which he is against.This leads them separate ways and try to forget about their so called relationship. But is this the end? Will Mitch and Ben face the trials of a relationship that will never happen? Reception. The Star Cinema and Viva Films’ romantic drama When Love Begins has already grossed P 69,277,632.90 on its first two weeks of running. Its total gross is 89.38 Million.
1068468	Ken Park is a 2002 drama-erotic film written by Harmony Korine, who based it on Larry Clark's journals and stories. The film was directed by Clark and Ed Lachman. The film is an international co-production of the United States, the Netherlands, and France. The film revolves around the abusive and/or dysfunctional home lives of several teenagers, set in the city of Visalia, California. Plot. The opening of the film depicts teenager Ken Park (nicknamed "krap nek") skateboarding across Visalia. He arrives at a skate park, where he casually sits in the middle of it, sets up a camcorder, and shoots himself in the head with a handgun. His death is used to set up the rest of the film, which follows the lives of four other teens he used to hang out with, shortly after the suicide. The film cuts frequently between subplots, with no overlap of characters or events from one subplot to another until the end. As Tate is being arrested, Shawn, Claude, and Peaches meet and have sex as a threesome. The film finally reveals the motive behind Ken Park's suicide: he had impregnated his girlfriend, who responded to his suggestion of abortion by asking if he regretted his mother not aborting him. Concluding that he did, he skates off to kill himself. Production. Clark attempted to write the first script for "Ken Park", basing it on personal experiences and people with whom he had grown up. Dissatisfied with his own draft, he hired Harmony Korine to pen the screenplay. Clark ultimately used most of Korine's script, but rewrote the ending. The film was given a $1.3 million budget. The arrangement was to film using digital video, but Clark and Lachman used 35mm film instead. Distribution. Although it was sold for distribution to some 30 countries, the film was not shown in the United Kingdom after director Larry Clark assaulted Hamish McAlpine, the head of the UK distributor for the film, Metro Tartan. Clark is alleged to have been angry over McAlpine's remarks about 9/11. Clark was arrested and spent several hours in custody, and McAlpine was left with a broken face. The film has not been released in the United States since its initial showing at the Telluride Film Festival in 2002. Clark says that this is because of the producer's failure to get copyright releases for the music used.
1068305	My Science Project is an American 1985 comedy science fiction film directed by Jonathan R. Betuel. Although not performing as well, the movie follows on heels of other teen-sci-fi/comedy films released the same year, such as "Back to the Future," "Real Genius" and "Weird Science." Plot. The movie begins in 1957 with a scene of a United States military operation to secure a crashed UFO in a hangar bay. A man, (President Dwight D. Eisenhower), enters to see the craft and simply orders his men to "get rid of it." Forwarding to 1985, a senior high school student named Michael Harlan, (John Stockwell), whose only interest is muscle cars, reluctantly searches for something to turn in for his final science class project. While on what his bookworm friend Ellie Sawyer (Danielle von Zerneck), thinks is a date, Michael breaks into a government aircraft boneyard and stumbles upon a hidden fallout shelter. There he finds a glowing, plasma globe-like, piece of equipment and grabs it just as a military guard approaches and chases him away. The next day Michael cleans up the device in auto shop class and unwittingly activates it where it begins drawing power from a nearby boombox. His friend Vince Latello (Fisher Stevens), convinces him to attach the device's "terminals" to an automotive battery whereupon the device emits a swirl of colorful energy that manifests into an Ancient Egyptian vase. As the two leave the auto shop for their next class, they soon realize they inexplicably lost two hours of time and missed their final science exam. After a series of other strange happenings surrounding the machine, Michael takes the device, referred to as "the gizmo," to his ex-hippie science teacher Dr. Roberts (Dennis Hopper), who quickly realizes it is a portal to another dimension. While bathing in the cosmic energy of the gizmo and contemplating the wonders of the universe, Roberts suddenly warps away only leaving behind his peace symbol medallion. Michael tries to disconnect the machine from the power outlet, but is unable to. His only solution is to destroy the power lines leading to town before the warp spreads out of control. Meanwhile, Ellie remains behind with the gizmo, but is knocked unconscious when Sherman (Raphael Sbarge), a nerdy kid at the school, tries to tamper with it. Michael and Vince obtain dynamite from the backroom of a hardware store owned by Michael's father (Barry Corbin), and then race to outrun a wave of energy traveling along the power lines before it reaches the local power plant. They successfully blow up a tower, stopping the wave, and quickly return to the school. There they find the whole building is now consumed in a vortex of space/time where objects and people from the past and future begin to manifest around them. They eventually run into a crazed Sherman who tells them that Ellie is in danger and fears that the world is ending. Dragging Sherman along, Mike and Vince grab weapons they find from a platoon of fallen Vietnam War soldiers and make their way to the science lab. After battling a T-rex in the gymnasium and a mob of post-apocalypse mutants, they reach Ellie and successfully deactivate the gizmo. Things appear to return to normal just as emergency crews and police show up at the scene. Moments later, Dr. Roberts appears, rejoicing after an unexpected trip to Woodstock, and proudly gives Michael an "A" grade on his science project under the condition that he gets rid of the machine because it's something mankind is not ready for. Roberts is then arrested by the local sheriff (Richard Masur), who thinks he blew up the power lines - as Michael had accidentally left Robert's peace medallion at the hardware store. As promised, Michael returns the gizmo back to the junkyard where he found it and then spends the rest of the night with Ellie. Different title in Sweden. The distributors of the movie in Sweden thought it should be marketed as a mix of "Ghostbusters" and "Back to the Future". It was subsequently renamed "TimeBusters". Reception. The film was critically panned. It currently holds 20% on Rotten Tomatoes, based on 4 "rotten" reviews and one "fresh". New York Times critic Stephen Holden wrote on August 10, 1985; ""My Science Project" is a cheerful teen-age adventure film that in its snappier moments resembles a far less clever and less expensive "Back to the Future." Despite a plot that has few interesting twists and a shoestring budget, the film glimmers with moments of drollery."" Box Office. The movie was not a success. On its first weekend, it only peaked at #14 with $1,504,118, averaging $1,499 per theater. It ended grossing $4,122,748 in domestic box-office.
578597	Jeeja Due Suai Du (), also known as Raging Phoenix, is a 2009 Thai martial arts film starring Yanin "Jeeja" Vismistananda, in her second film performance. It is directed by Rashane Limtrakul, with martial arts choreography by Panna Rittikrai. Plot. Deu (Jija Yanin) meets three masters of drunken martial arts -- "Dog Shit", "Pig Shit", and Sanim, when they foil an attempt to abduct her. She convinces them to train her in their martial arts style, and learns that they have come together to defeat the Jaguar Gang, who abduct "special" young women. She falls for Sanim while he trains her—but learns that he is still in love with Pai—his fiancee who was abducted by the Jaguar Gang three years before, during what was supposed to be their wedding. After rescuing more women using her newfound skills, Deu is twice tested by the until now hidden fourth member of the team -- "Bull Shit". She learns that The Jaguar gang only abducts women with a certain "smell", a smell that Deu has, which they use to make a special perfume—and that the secret of her new kung fu is not simply drunkenness, but emotional pain. However, Kee Ma (Dog Shit) is a "Sniffer," and is able to find the smell. To locate out the Jaguar Gang's hideout, Deu is used as a decoy. It works too well, as Deu is abducted but the team fails to find the hideout where she was taken. Deu, having been drugged, tries to escape and finds out the reason why the Jaguar gang abducts these specific women. The women's tears have a chemical substance which is able to improve health. Deu is then caught, but not before knocking some vials of the tears onto the floor which causes them to break. Kee Ma is able to smell the tears and shows the others into the hideout where they have a big fight. Sanim tries to take Deu away from the fighting but instead finds Pai. Before they are able to take Pai away, they meet the leader of the Jaguar Gang, London (Roongtawan Jindasing). They attempt to escape from London with the drugged and limp Pai, but London corners them near a sequence of rope bridges, and the real fight begins. Finally, London is temporarily defeated, and Sanim and Pai are left dangling over the edge of a bridge with Deu holding onto both of them. Sanim then sacrifices himself for Pai and lets go of Deu's hand. London recovers and takes both Deu and Pai to where the rest of the team is being beaten by two Jaguar Members. As they are knocked out, Deu rouses herself using the pain of Sanim's passing, and fights with London and the other two members in turn, defeating each of them. Martial art. The main fighting style for the film, Meyraiyuth, is a fictional drunken style of B-boying infused Muay Thai which strongly resembles Capoeira. Reception. The movie received mostly positive praise.
1166257	Alan Rosenberg (born October 4, 1950) is an American actor of both stage and screen. From 2005 to 2009, he was president of the Screen Actors Guild, the principal motion picture industry on-screen performers' union. Early life. Rosenberg was born and raised in Passaic, New Jersey. He was raised in Conservative Judaism. Alan's late brother, Mark, was a political activist in the 1960s, later a film producer; his first cousin is musician/songwriter Donald Fagen, co-founder of the group Steely Dan. Alan's parents gave him money to apply to graduate school. Rosenberg said that upon graduating in 1972 from Case Western Reserve University, he found another passion, poker, and subsequently gambled away most of the money his parents sent him, leaving him only able to afford one application, to the Yale School of Drama. Rosenberg dropped out halfway through his second year, after his heart was broken by classmate Meryl Streep. Career. Rosenberg is perhaps best known for his character Eli Levinson which appeared in both the series "Civil Wars" and the popular "L.A. Law". In 1979, he appeared in the movie "The Wanderers", as Turkey. He is also well known for his character Ira Woodbine in the sitcom "Cybill". More recently he was seen in the legal drama "The Guardian" as Alvin Masterson. Rosenberg supplied the voice of the bounty hunter Boba Fett on NPR's adaptation of "". Rosenberg is also known for his appearance as the crazed "Mad Bomber" in the 1986 cult-classic "Stewardess School" and Paul Bartel's screwball comedy "Not for Publication" opposite Nancy Allen (1984). In 1991, he appeared in the TV film "The Boys". In 1995, he received an Emmy Award nomination for a guest-starring role in the hit drama "ER". He starred in the Temptations miniseries in 1998, as long-time manager Shelly Berger. In 1999, he began a recurring role as the hospital legal counsel, Stuart Brickman, on "Chicago Hope". Halfway through their final season he was added to the opening titles as a series regular. He appeared on Broadway in "What's Wrong With This Picture" and "Lost In Yonkers", and off-Broadway in "Isn't It Romantic", "A Prayer for My Daughter", and "Kid Champion". He most recently starred at the Delaware Theatre Company production of "Partners", written by Allan Katz. He was elected the 24th president of Screen Actors Guild (SAG) on September 23, 2005. Rosenberg succeeded Melissa Gilbert, who served as president since 2001 and chose not to run for a third two-year term. Rosenberg received 39.99 percent (10,748 total votes) of the nationwide vote of the Guild’s general membership, defeating Morgan Fairchild and Robert Conrad. In 2005, he appeared as shady defense attorney Adam Novak in an episode of "" co-starring alongside his real life wife Marg Helgenberger. Novak was portrayed as a womanizer who encountered Catherine (Helgenberger) in a bar and later became the prime suspect in two homicides. He appeared once again in the 2007 episode "Leaving Las Vegas" as a lawyer defending a client who turned out to be guilty of two separate crimes, and yet the evidence failed to pin him down, resulting in a not guilty verdict which annoyed Catherine so much that she began to undergo further investigation. In 2006, he appeared in a very small part as Bruce Steinerman, the divorce attorney of James Wilson in the television-series "House M.D.", adding yet another legal character to his CV. In 2007, he started hosting a Public Television program, "Life: Part 2", produced in St. Paul, Minnesota. He moderates panel discussions about issues that baby boomers face as they age. Personal life. Originally married to actress Robin Bartlett, Rosenberg met Marg Helgenberger in New York in 1984, while guest-starring on her soap "Ryan's Hope". The two became friends and started dating in 1986. They married in 1989 and have one son, Hugh Howard Rosenberg (born October 21, 1990). On December 1, 2008, Rosenberg and Helgenberger announced their separation. On March 25, 2009, Helgenberger filed for divorce. As a result of Helgenberger's mother's 27 year battle against breast cancer, Helgenberger and Rosenberg became involved in the fight against breast cancer. Marg helped her mother fight breast cancer. They have hosted a benefit called "Marg and Alan's Celebrity Weekend" every year in Omaha, Nebraska since 1999.
1067162	Real Steel is a 2011 American science fiction sports drama film starring Hugh Jackman and Dakota Goyo, co-produced and directed by Shawn Levy and released by DreamWorks Studios based on the 1956 short story "Steel" by Richard Matheson, though screenwriter John Gatins placed the film in U.S. state fairs and other "old-fashioned" Americana settings. "Real Steel" was in development for several years before production began on June 11, 2010. Filming took place primarily in the U.S. state of Michigan. Animatronic robots were built for the film, and motion capture technology was used to depict the brawling of computer-generated robots and animatronics. "Real Steel" was publicly released in Australia on , 2011, and in the United States and Canada on , 2011, to mixed reviews and grossed $295 million at the box office. The film was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects at the 84th Academy Awards. Plot. In 2020, human boxers have been replaced by robots. Charlie Kenton (Hugh Jackman), a former boxer, owns the robot Ambush. He enters his fighter in unsanctioned matches and exhibition fights. At a county fair, Ambush is destroyed by a bull belonging to promoter Ricky (Kevin Durand), when Charlie fails to notice the bull advancing when he was flirting with a pretty woman in the crowd after he thought he had downed the bull. Having made a bet that Ambush would win, Charlie now owes Ricky $20,000, money he doesn't have, so Charlie has to run away. Charlie is told his ex-girlfriend has died, and that he must attend a hearing about the future of his son Max (Dakota Goyo). Max's wealthy aunt Debra (Hope Davis) and her husband Marvin (James Rebhorn) want full custody, which Charlie gives them after Marvin agrees to pay him $100,000, half in advance, on the condition that Charlie takes Max for three months while the couple are away on a second anniversary. Charlie and Max meet Bailey Tallet (Evangeline Lilly), a friend of Charlie's who runs her dad's boxing gym, Charlie's old coach. Charlie buys a secondhand World Robot Boxing league (WRB) robot, the once-famous Noisy Boy and arranges for it to fight the illegal circuit's champion, Midas. The fight starts well for Charlie, but due to both his inexperience with Noisy Boy's controls and his own overconfidence, Charlie ends up losing control of Noisy Boy and Midas destroys it. Charlie breaks into a junkyard with Max to steal scraps that he can use to build a new robot. Max falls over a ledge, where he is saved by getting snagged on the arm of a buried robot. After Charlie pulls Max up, Max digs out the entire robot and finds his branding, Atom. Charlie takes it back to Bailey's gym to overhaul it. They discover Atom is an obsolete Generation-2 sparring bot from 2014. Atom was designed to sustain massive damage. Atom also has a "shadow function" which allows him to follow or copy human movement. Max insists and Charlie agrees since he needs the money, on having Atom fight an unsanctioned match against the robot Metro. Atom wins, earning back some of Charlie's money. Max later upgrades Atom to take vocal commands, using parts from Charlie's old robots, and convinces Charlie to train Atom. Atom's later string of wins attracts the WRB's attention, and they offer Atom a professional fight against the robot Twin Cities. Charlie accepts and Atom wins again, thanks to Charlie's boxing experience allowing him to take advantage of a small tell in Twin Cities' punch. Reveling in the attention, Max tries to get back at the wealthy Farra Lemkova (Olga Fonda) who made fun of Atom by challenging WRB champion Zeus who was designed by genius Tak Mashido (Karl Yune) under her sponsorship. Ricky and two henchmen corner Charlie after the fight, giving him a beating and stealing his money. Charlie decides to return Max to his aunt, saying that is for the best, but an angry Max tells him that the only thing that he wanted was for Charlie to fight for him. Charlie refuses Marvin's money. He later visits Bailey, who convinces him to fight for his son. He then goes to Debra's house, apologizes to Max and convinces Debra to allow Max to come with him for the fight against Zeus.
584213	12B is a 2001 Tamil romantic film directed and co-written by Jeeva. The film featured Shaam in his debut along with Simran and Jyothika in the leading roles. Vivek, Moon Moon Sen and Sunil Shetty play other pivotal role in the film which had music composed by Harris Jayaraj. The film released in September 2001 to positive reviews but performed averagely at the box office. Plot. The film begins with a young man named Shakthi (Shaam) leaving his house one morning for a job interview, when he spots a beautiful girl Jothika aka Jo (Jyothika) walking down the street. He's both attracted to and distracted by her. He begins to follow her and in the process, accidentally misses his bus and is mugged. The film then pauses at this point as a voice over begins to tell the viewer that we are about to examine how Shakthi's life will be impacted, by missing the bus or by catching the bus. The Shakthi who makes the bus, gets to the job interview on time and gets the job of a bank manager and a beautiful young colleague Priya (Simran) falls in love with him. The catch there is that this Shakthi is still in love with the same woman who his alternate self (who missed the bus) loves, but try as he may, something keeps preventing him from getting to her. That thing turns out to be his alternate self (that is the him who missed the bus). He is well off in life but miserable because he can't get the girl he loves. The Shakthi who missed the bus, arrives late at the interview and is thrown out. On his way home, he passes by a junkyard where he spots an old friend (Vivek) who gives him a job as a mechanic and life goes on. The next day, while crossing the street, he spots the girl from the day before and begins to follow her again until he is able to get her attention and they begin a relationship. One day, Jo's uncle (Sunil Shetty) comes to visit and it is revealed that he too is in love with her and wants to marry her. Due to some misconceptions Jo and Shakthi (who missed the bus) separate. On the other end, Priya expresses her love for Shakthi (who made it to the bus). The climax scene is cliched and Shakthi (who makes the bus) while reciprocating his love for Priya meets with an accident. At the same moment Shakthi (who missed the bus) is also grievously hurt in the same freak accident while he tries to patch up with Jo. Shakthi and his alternate self are admitted in the hospital. The film ends with Priya wailing over the death of Shakthi (who makes to the bus) catching a glimpse of Shakthi (who missed the bus) patching up with Jo at the hospital. Production. Shaam had modelled for four years in Bangalore before model coordinator Biju Jayadevan introduced him to director Jeeva, who was auditioning for a debutant for his debut venture, "12B". Shaam recollects that during his first meeting with Jeeva, he handed over his portfolio and introduced himself in English, when Jeeva heard him out, and then said, “Repeat what you just said, in Tamil" and Shaam did, and was subsequently signed on the next day after a meeting with producer Vikram Singh, Shaam's voice was dubbed by Television actor Vishwa. The promos of the film were critically praised with Shaam signing on to appear on several projects before "12B" even released. The film also brought together two of the Tamil film industry's leading actresses in the period in Simran and Jyothika. The pair had previously co-starred in S. J. Surya's "Vaali" (1999) but had shared no scenes, for which Jeeva had been the cinematographer. Vivek also played a pivotal role of a mechanic while Hindi actors Sunil Shetty and Moon Moon Sen were also signed to appear in supporting roles. The film also featured Jeeva's assistant director, Srinath, in a minor supporting role; while Shiva who later appeared in the lead role in "Chennai 600028" and "Tamil Padam", makes a cameo appearance in a party scene. While cinematographer Jeeva made his debut as a director, the producer Vikram Singh for his banner Film Works also worked on a Tamil film for the firs time. "12B" featured Harris Jayaraj scoring the music, while Thotta Tharani designs the sets, editing is by Lennin-Vijayan, dance choreography by Raju Sundaram and stunts arranged by Vikram Dharma. Jeeva revealed that the film would be titled "12B" after a bus he used to take during his college days. The basic premise of the film was taken from the 1998 English film, "Sliding Doors" by Peter Howitt, which also follows alternate tracks. A romantic song was shot on Shaam and Simran at picturesque locations in Jordan, and this became the first time that a Tamil film had been shot there, with Rekha Prakash choreographing it. Some sequences needed to be shot in the USA with about 300 dancers involved, buy the team later recreated the sets in a studio in Chennai. Release. "12B" opened to above average reviews, with the critic from The Hindu mentioning that the film is like "moving through a maze, because for many it could be confusion confounded, at least for the most part of the first half". About performances, the critic added that "Shyam in the hero's garb is an apt choice and looks more like a Madhavan clone and for a newcomer, Shyam is absolutely at ease in dance and fights", while "Simran does a commendable job in the climax". Rediff.com concluded "full marks to the intention - considerably less for the execution" and went on to praise the performances and the technical aspect of the film, while mentioning that a "drawback would be the languid pace -- there is not enough tension built into the film and, for large chunks of time, the story remains static, with the result that you do not empathise with the characters" and specially mentioned Simran's portrayal as "Simran continues with her policy of shifting gradually from glam roles to the more sedate, serious ones and proves to have what it takes." The film performed modestly at the box office, with average collections reported. Jeeva later went on record stating that he felt the film had not been promoted properly and could have done better business had it been.
582096	Tezaab (Hindi: तेज़ाब, Urdu: تیزاب, translation: "Acid"), released on 11 November 1988, is an Indian Hindi movie. The film gave actress Madhuri Dixit her first big break and reaffirmed Anil Kapoor's status, after a successful "Mr India" (1987). The film was produced and directed by N. Chandra. The music is by Laxmikant-Pyarelal. "Tezaab" is known for the song "Ek Do Teen," which was a chart success. It ran in theatres for more than 50 weeks becoming a golden jubilee, and it was the highest blockbuster at the box office for the year 1988 in Bollywood. Plot. Inspector Gagan Singh gets a tip about an infamous Tadipar (exiled criminal) "Munna", entering in his jurisdiction, so he checks Munna's file. Singh is shocked to find that Munna is none other than NCC Cadet Mahesh Deshmukh, an aspiring officer, whom he had met years ago in a bank. In front of the very eyes of Singh & Mahesh, a robbery took place and Mahesh's parents were killed. Singh never got to know what happened to Mahesh. Nevertheless, Singh tracks Munna and asks him to surrender. Munna tells him that he has to save his love Mohini from the clutches of dreaded gangster Lotiya Pathan. He reveals that he shifted to Mumbai with his sister Jyoti after the incident. He met a girl named Mohini and fell in love with her. Mohini's father Shyamlal didn't like this relationship. Shyamlal was a drunkard who mooched off the money earned by his dancer wife. When she finally stood up to him, Shyamlal burned her face with sulphuric acid. She died soon afterwards, following which Shyamlal forced Mohini to follow her mother's steps. Shyamlal has taken a loan from Lotiya and the only way to repay it is to make Mohini dance. But Mohini does not give up and continues meeting Mahesh. Shyamlal traps Mahesh along with Guldasta, a local tea vendor and sends duo behind bars for six months in charge for trespassing house with intention of robbery. Shyamlal meets Chote Khan, younger brother of Lotiya who joined him after completing his term for robbery case. Chote Khan was arrested due to Mahesh. Lotiya doesn't know Mahesh's identity. Shyamlal instantly recognizes Mahesh and explains everything to Lotiya. Chote goes to Mahesh's house and tries to rape Jyoti as revenge. Mahesh averts this and kills Chote. Mahesh is arrested and sentenced to one year jail, after which he becomes Munna and gets exiled. After serving his sentence, Mahesh starts destroying Lotiya's empire with help of his friends. As a revenge, Lotiya kidnaps Mohini. Shyamlal now deals with Munna to get Mohini rescued. Mahesh rescues her, but she is shocked to see that Mahesh is sending her back to her father. On learning the whole story from Munna, Singh allows him to complete his task. After saving Mohini, Munna surrenders unconditionally to Singh, whereupon he gets arrested and sent to prison. After a retrial, Munna is acquitted of his charges and plans to start a new life at Goa. However, Jyoti convinces him to accept Mohini again. Guldasta reaches Mohini's home and explains Munna's actions to her. Shyamlal is enraged and tries to stop Mohini from leaving. Guldasta and Shyamlal have a fight in which both die. Mohini meets Munna again. However, Lotiya, learning of Munna's acquittal conspires to kill him at a Dockyard. Baban gets tip of Lotiya's conspiracy and challenges Lotiya. Lotiya gets enraged and a fight between him and Baban ends in Lotiya getting defeated. Baban wants to kill Lotiya in the fit of rage but Munna intercepts him and stops him from committing murder. Meanwhile, Lotiya regains his strength and goes to attack Munna with a club. Baban dies deflecting the attack. Munna fight back Lotiya and was about to kill him. But the Inspector Singh stops him from killing Lotiya. In another attempt of Lotiya trying to kill Munna, Inspector Singh kills Lotiya with his service revolver and the movie comes to an end. Awards. Anil Kapoor won the Filmfare Best Actor Award, while Madhuri Dixit was nominated for Best Actress. Alka Yagnik won the Filmfare Best Female Playback Award. This film introduced the Filmfare Best Choreography Award, which was given to Saroj Khan for the song "Ek Do Teen" picturised on Madhuri Dixit.
1044578	Lust For a Vampire (also known as "Love for a Vampire" or "To Love a Vampire") is a 1971 British Hammer Horror film directed by Jimmy Sangster, starring Yutte Stensgaard, Michael Johnston and Barbara Jefford. It was given an "R" rating in the United States for some violence, gore, strong adult content, and nudity. It is the second film in the so-called Karnstein Trilogy loosely based on the J. Sheridan Le Fanu novella "Carmilla". It was preceded by "The Vampire Lovers" and followed by "Twins of Evil" (1971). The three films do not form a chronological development, but use the Karnstein family as the source of the vampiric threat and were somewhat daring for the time in explicitly depicting lesbian themes. Production of "Lust For a Vampire" began not long after the release of "The Vampire Lovers". The film has a cult following although some Hammer Horror fans have accused it of being overly camp and silly. Its most noted scene shows Yutte Stensgaard drenched in blood and partially covered by blood-soaked rags, although the filmed scene is not as explicit as that shown in a promotional still. Other notable actors in the film are Ralph Bates, Harvey Hall (who has a different role in each film of this series), David Healy and popular radio DJ Mike Raven. Synopsis. In 1830, at a finishing school in Styria, Mircalla arrives as a new student. A visiting author, Richard Lestrange, instantly falls in love with her; but Mircalla is a vampire—Carmilla Karnstein—who has been resurrected by her vampiric family. As students in the school, inhabitants of the nearby village and those who suspect Mircalla is responsible start to die, suspicion turns toward the Karnsteins and their ominous castle. Production. Jimmy Sangster replaced Terence Fisher as director at very short notice. Partially due to censorship restraints from the British Board of Film Classification, this film and its sequel had increasingly less overt lesbian elements in the story. Carmilla, for example, in this film falls in love with a man. Ingrid Pitt was offered the lead but turned it down. Peter Cushing was supposed to have appeared in the film but bowed out to care for his sick wife. Cushing was replaced by Ralph Bates, who described "Lust for a Vampire" as "one of the worst films ever made". Bates had earlier appeared in "Taste the Blood of Dracula" with Madeline Smith, who starred in the previous Karnstein film, "The Vampire Lovers". Critical reception. "The Hammer Story: The Authorised History of Hammer Films" panned the film, calling it a "cynical and depressing exercise...", noting that "...one can only imagine what Fisher, Cushing and Bray's craftsmen might have made of Gates' reasonably literate draft."
584845	J.D. Chakravarthy (born Nagulapati Srinivasa Chakravarthy; ) is an Indian film actor and director known for his works in South Indian film industry and Bollywood. He has starred in Hindi films like "Shiva", "Satya", "Vaastu Shastra" and "Aag". He made his film directing debut, with "Darwaza Bandh Rakho". He then went on to direct story 5 of "Darna Zaroori Hai", which was archived at the New York Institute of Technology, as part of the film course, "Homam" and "Sidham". He is best known in Telugu cinema for his performances in "Money", Money Money, "Gulabi", "Anaganaga Oka Roju", "Premaku Velayara", "Wife of V. Varaprasad", "Egire Paavurama", "Bombay Priyudu", "Pape Naa Pranam", "Deyyam", "Mrugam" and "Madhyanam Hathya". Background. Chakravarthy was born on April 16th 1970 in a Telugu Brahmin family to a carnatic singer Dr. Santha Kovela Nagulapati and Suryanarayana Rao Nagulapati. He did his schooling in St. George's Grammar School, and B.E. from CBIT, Hyderabad. He debuted in 1989 through Ram Gopal Varma's debut Telugu film, "Siva" in a negative role as a student named J.D., and a supporting role in a Malayalam movie "Ennodishtam Koodamo" before devoting all his time to films under his mentor's Ram Gopal Varma's production. His first Hindi film in a lead role, released in theaters on 3 July 1998. "Satya" was critically acclaimed and was a commercial blockbuster. Career. Even though his career started at Annapurna Studios with "Siva", his talent got recognition with "Satya" in Telugu and Hindi as well. He has worked on handful of Telugu films directed by ace film makers of the time like Krishna Vamsi, S. V. Krishna Reddy, K. Raghavendra Rao, Kodi Ramakrishna, E. V. V. Satyanarayana, Shiva Nageswara Rao and Vamsy. In 2002, he essayed a role of Sri Lankan Tamil Eelam fighter Dhileepan, in Mani Ratnam's Tamil film, "Kannathil Muthamittal". He has returned to Telugu film industry with "Homam". He has had a role in director Vishnuvardhan's recent Tamil film "Sarvam", starring Arya and Trisha.
633263	Colm J. Meaney (; Irish: "Colm Ó Maonaigh"; born 30 May 1953) is an Irish actor widely known for playing Miles O'Brien in ' and '. He is second only to Michael Dorn in most appearances in "Star Trek" episodes. He has guest-starred on many TV shows from "Law & Order" to "The Simpsons", and currently stars as railroad magnate Thomas Durant on AMC's hit drama series "Hell on Wheels". He has also had a significant career in motion pictures, appearing in the film "The Damned United"; all three film adaptations of Roddy Doyle's "The Barrytown Trilogy"; "Get Him to the Greek" and "". Early life. Meaney was born in Dublin. He started studying acting when he was fourteen years of age, and entered the Abbey Theatre School of Acting after secondary school. He became a member of the Irish National Theatre and worked for the next eight years in England, touring with several theatre companies. Career. Meaney's first television appearance was in "Z-Cars" on BBC1 in 1978. He guest-starred on shows such as "Remington Steele" and "Moonlighting" before embarking on a successful film career; he received a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actor for his role in "The Snapper". Meaney first appeared on ' in its 1987 pilot episode, "Encounter At Farpoint", as an unnamed helm officer. His character became a frequently recurring one, and was given the name of Miles O'Brien as he became more prominent in the crew as Transporter Chief. In 1993, Meaney left "The Next Generation" for a more prominent regular role in its spin-off ', and remained on that show until its final episode in 1999. With 225 total appearances on "Star Trek", he has made more appearances on the franchise than any other actor except Michael Dorn. Meaney played Colum O'Hara in the 1994 miniseries "Scarlett", the sequel to "Gone With the Wind". He has played a minor recurring role as Cowen, leader of the Genii on the Sci-Fi Channel (now Syfy) series "Stargate Atlantis", guest-starred on "Law & Order", "" and appeared as Bob O'Donnell on the ABC show "Men In Trees". He was the only actor to appear in all three film adaptations of Roddy Doyle's "The Barrytown Trilogy," wherein he played the father of the Rabbitte family. Due to rights issues, the family name was changed from film to film. His stage appearances include the Old Vic production of Eugene O'Neill's "A Moon for the Misbegotten". Meaney starred in British comedy film "Three and Out" released in the UK on 25 April 2008. In July of the same year An Post (Irish mail agency) issued a postage stamp showing Meaney as Joe Mullen in the film "Kings". In 2009 Meaney co-starred with Gerard Butler and Jamie Foxx in "Law Abiding Citizen" wherein he played Detective Dunnigan. In March 2009 Meaney guest-starred as an Irish bartender on the St. Patrick's Day episode of "The Simpsons", "In the Name of the Grandfather". In the same month the film "The Damned United" was released, chronicling the 44-day period in which Brian Clough was manager of Leeds United. Meaney played the former Leeds manager Don Revie. He also co-starred in "Soldiers of Fortune" with Christian Slater and Ving Rhames. In 2013, Meaney co-starred with Steve Coogan in . Personal life. Meaney's first marriage in 1977 was to Irish actress Bairbre Dowling, with whom he had a daughter, Brenda, in 1989. They divorced in 1994. He married a second time in March 2007 to French costume designer, Ines Glorian, with whom he had a daughter, Ada, in 2005. He currently lives in the Majorcan town of Sóller. He is unrelated to the science fiction writer John Meaney; the latter has a brother named Colm Meaney. Meaney is an outspoken supporter of the Irish Republican political party Sinn Féin. While not currently a member, he has said that he had joined the party when he was 14. In October 2011, On RTE Radio 1 program "Mirriam Meets", Meaney supported the Sinn Féin politician Martin McGuinness in his Irish presidential election bid. When asked by Mirriam if McGuinness's past (ie the thousands of deaths caused by the PIRA) did not concern him, he replied condemning those who criticised McGuinness for his past and suggested that "the peaceful way" had not worked. Meaney went on to say "... to stand up and defend your community in that context, I don't think is a crime".
1038347	Nichola Ann Burley (born 26 December 1986) is an English actress known for her roles in "Born Equal", "Drop Dead Gorgeous", "Goldplated", "Donkey Punch" and Carly in StreetDance 3D. Early life. Burley was born in Harehills, Leeds, West Yorkshire. A former pupil of Leeds' Intake High School, Bramley Burley also attended the Northern School of Contemporary Dance in the city as well as spending 5 years at the Walton School of Theatre Dance. Career. Burley's acting career began in 2005 when she appeared as Michelle in the Dominic Savage film "Love + Hate". She's had guest roles in "The Ghost Squad", in November 2005, and "Shameless" in February 2006. In September 2006 Channel 4 show "Goldplated" debuted with Burley playing a main role in the ensemble cast. Although a second series was never commissioned due to low ratings. In November 2006 she received much praise for her role as Zoe, in Savage's improvised, one-off BBC drama "Born Equal". The BBC described the show as one which "addresses social inequality in Britain today." Directed and written by Savage again, the film also starred Robert Carlyle, Anne-Marie Duff and Colin Firth. As part of her research for the show she travelled to meet young runaways in London. She has also starred as Cathy McAleer in BBC Three show "Drop Dead Gorgeous" throughout its first series in 2006 and its second in 2007. In 2010 she appeared in the dance film StreetDance3D as the lead role alongside George Sampson, Diversity and Flawless. She portrays Isabella Linton in a 2011 film adaptation of "Wuthering Heights". She appeared as Witney Whitehead in the BBC drama "Candy Cabs" which began on 5 April 2011. She also starred in one episode of crime drama "Lewis" on ITV 1. Her stage credits include the title role in "Bollywood Jane" at the West Yorkshire Playhouse throughout June 2007 and Constanza in a Sheffield revival of Peter Schaffer's "Amadeus".
1078494	Freakdog is a 2008 horror film by Paddy Breathnach, that originally went under the title Red Mist. Plot. The film circles around four medical students who, while out partying one night, spike the drink of an unknowing and loner colleague nicknamed "Freakdog"; it turned out to be a very powerful sedative that accidentally puts him into a coma. The students, not wanting to be involved or else risk their futures for their crime, abandon his body on a road and drive off as fast as they can, hoping someone will come across his body and help him. When they learn about his condition becoming fatal, one of the students (Arielle Kebbel) attempts to revive him using an experimental drug. The result has horrible and unintended consequences which leads to the colleague having out of body experiences that seem to possess the students who poisoned him and abandoned him, which he is using as means to exact vengeance by possessing their bodies and through them, framing them for murdering each other while they desperately find a way to stop him. Production. Although set in the United States, the film was shot on location in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Reception. The film received a limited cinema release and reviews of the film were generally poor. Rotten Tomatoes gave it only 8% based on twelve reviews. Release. The film premiered on 22 August 2008 as part of the UK Fright Fest. Home media. The DVD and Blu-ray was released on February 10, 2009 in the United States. In the UK and Ireland, the film was released on 3 July 2009 as "Red Mist".
1066975	The Daytrippers is a 1996 independent drama film written and directed by Greg Mottola. It stars Hope Davis, Stanley Tucci, Parker Posey and Liev Schreiber. Plot. Eliza (Davis) discovers a love letter that may prove that her husband (Tucci) is having an affair, so she decides to go to New York City and confront him. Her family, including her sister, Jo, and her fiancé, Carl, as well as her parents, Jim and Rita, go along for the ride in the family station wagon from Long Island. Release and reception. "The Daytrippers" was released on March 5, 1997. The film opened to 52 theaters and grossed $35,988 in its opening weekend. Overall, the film grossed $2,099,677 domestically. The movie received positive reception and the movie review site Rotten Tomatoes currently gives the film a 73% "Fresh" rating.
520434	Antonello Joseph "AJ" Sarte Perez (17 February 1993 – 17 April 2011) was a Filipino actor. He was a member of ABS-CBN's Star Magic in Batch 13. He portrayed one of the lead characters in the 2009 miniseries "Your Song Presents: Underage". In 2010, he played his first main role on primetime in the television series, "Sabel". He died at the age of 18, in a vehicular accident in Moncada, Tarlac midnight of April 17, 2011. Background. Perez was born on February 17, 1993 to a Bicolana mother, Maria Victoria "Marivic" (née Sarte) and Bacolodnon father, Gerardo "Gerry" Perez. He had a younger brother, Angello (nicknamed Gello) who is five years his junior. He was a nephew of Albay Governor Joey Salceda. He dated Steph Ayson, from February 14, 2010 until his death. He attended high school at La Salle Greenhills in Greenhills, Mandaluyong City, and graduated on March 20, 2011. He planned to take up Marketing at the De La Salle University because he wanted to help run the family business. Career. Perez was discovered by ABS-CBN in a TV commercial for Milo. He attended self-enhancement workshops with ABS-CBN Talent Center and was one of the new talents launched by Star Magic on its 13th Anniversary in 2006. The same year, Perez, along with the rest of Star Magic Batch 13, made a cameo appearance in the "Komiks" special episode "Bampy". He then appeared in "Star Magic Presents:" "All About A Girl" along with Piolo Pascual and Lauren Young—his first team up with Young—they would then subsequently appear in several TV shows opposite each other. He was later cast as Josh Smith, his first regular TV appearance, in the youth-oriented TV series "Star Magic Presents: Abt Ur Luv". In December 2006, he made his film debut in the award-winning Star Cinema film "Kasal, Kasali, Kasalo", where he played the younger brother of Judy Ann Santos. In 2007, Perez's Josh Smith was promoted to a lead character in "Star Magic Presents: Abt Ur Luv" and subsequently crossed over to "Abt Ur Luv Ur Lyf 2", after the show was revamped. In the latter part of the year, he reprised his role as Otap in "Sakal, Sakali, Saklolo"—the sequel of "Kasal, Kasali, Kasalo." In January 2008, Perez appeared in '—the film, an entry to the 33rd Metro Manila Film Festival, was originally set for a December 2007 release date. When "Abt Ur Luv Lyf 2" ended its two-year run, Perez went to appear in two seasons of "Star Magic Presents: Astigs"—namely: ' and "". He was later cast as Bayani Mendoza in the supernatural drama "Lobo". Perez made a guest appearance in the ""Bato"" episode of the romantic fantasy TV series "Love Spell" and in the "Imposible" episode of the musical anthology "Your Song". He also joined "ASAP '08" as one of the "Dynamite Dance Crew" and appeared in the film "Magkaibigan" and the direct-to-video film "Kelly! Kelly! (Ang Hit na Musical)". In 2008, Robi Domingo joined Perez and the remaining members of "ASAP"s "Dynamite Dance Crew", Chris Gutierrez, Dino Imperial, Sam Concepcion, Arron Villaflor and Enchong Dee to form "ASAP"s "Gigger Boys". The group was later cast in the TV adaptation of the 1981 film "Boystown" -- "Your Song Presents": "Boystown". Earlier, Perez appeared in another TV adaptation -- "Your Song Presents: Underage"—where he played a gay role. He then went to appear in two Star Cinema films; ' and '. Perez appeared in the romantic comedy film "Babe, I Love You" and, alongside Robi Domingo and Sam Concepcion, in the multi-narrative horror film "Cinco" in 2010. His last film appearance was in the comedy film "Mamarazzi". He appeared as Jeffrey in the ""Kakambal ko'y Manika"" episode of "Wansapanataym". In December 2010, Perez was cast in "Sabel", where he played his first leading role in a teleserye with Jessy Mendiola and Joseph Marco. His last TV appearance was in the ""Tsinelas"" episode of the drama anthology "Maalaala Mo Kaya", which he finished filming before his death. He played Edgar, the older of the two orphaned boys who walked from Manila to Samar to search for their relatives. The episode also starred Bugoy Cariño. It aired posthumously on April 30, 2011 and earned Perez a posthumous nomination in the 2011 Golden Screen TV Awards for an Outstanding Performance by an Actor in a Single Drama/Telemovie Program. Perez had earlier appeared as a guest judge in "Showtime". Before the accident, Perez was in talks to appear in the Philipppine remake of "Maria la del Barrio" and was also set to play a lead role in "Way Back Home", the film debut of Kathryn Bernardo and Julia Montes. Death. On April 17, 2011, Perez had just finished a show in Dagupan and was riding an ABS-CBN service van on his way home with his father Gerardo, and four others. The driver of the van tried to overtake a trailer truck but collided with a Partas provincial passenger bus along MacArthur Highway in Barangay San Julian, Moncada, Tarlac. He was declared dead on arrival at the Rayos-Valentin Hospital in Paniqui, Tarlac at 12:10 a.m. Initial reports said that the cause of his death is "multiple head injuries". The autopsy, however, revealed that his broken ribs pierced his heart and lungs thus causing his death. Perez's funeral was held at La Salle Green Hills chapel on April 17–18 before he was transferred in The Christ the King Parish along Greenmeadows Avenue in Quezon City on April 19–26, 2011. President Benigno Aquino III paid his respects on the final night of Perez's wake. Perez was buried at the Manila Memorial Park in Parañaque City on April 26, 2011. His favorite blanket, a pair of rubber shoes, and a watch he gave his younger brother were reportedly placed inside the casket. ABS-CBN filed a case of reckless imprudence on the driver of the van that carried Perez and four others. The driver is an employee of Southbend Express Services, Inc., a service contractor of ABS-CBN. Perez's family wanted to donate his corneas to blind singer Fatima Soriano after his mother saw her interview with Boy Abunda in "The Bottomline". However, Soriano's doctor explained this is not possible because Soriano's problem is her retinas, and only corneas can be transplanted. Perez's corneas were eventually donated to a 28-year-old man and an 8-year old-boy. In August 2011, the Eye Bank Foundation of the Philippines posthumously honored Perez as the foundation's poster boy. The event was attended by the Perez family and the recipients of the actor's corneas.
1375613	Kevin Michael Richardson (born October 25, 1964) is an American actor and voice actor who is well known for his deep voice and playing a wide variety of characters since the early 1990s. He is also known for being the voice of Chairman Drek in the video game "Ratchet & Clank", Tartarus in the video game "Halo 2", Robert Hawkins in "Static Shock", Kilowog in "", and as Captain Gantu in "Lilo & Stitch". He currently provides the voices of Principal Brian Lewis in "American Dad!", Bulkhead in "Transformers Prime", The Shredder in the 2012 incarnation of the "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" and Mr. Gus in "Uncle Grandpa." Early life. A classically-trained actor and a native of the Bronx, New York, Richardson first gained recognition as one of only eight U.S. high school students selected for the National Foundation for the Arts' "Arts '82" program. As a result of this he earned a scholarship to Syracuse University and a spot on a PBS special directed by the esteemed late John Houseman. Career. Richardson has usually portrayed villainous characters due to his deep and powerful voice. His credits include Captain Gantu from "Stitch! The Movie", Shnitzel from Chowder (The first episode; later replaced by John DiMaggio), Goro in "Mortal Kombat", the second voice of Skulker on "Danny Phantom", Sarevok in the "Baldur's Gate" series, in ', Crunch Bandicoot in the "Crash Bandicoot" games, Tartarus from "Halo 2", Ultimate Supreme Executive Chairman Drek in "Ratchet & Clank", Antauri in "Super Robot Monkey Team Hyperforce Go!", Openly Gator from "Queer Duck", Doctor Payne and other characters on "The Proud Family", Darth Laser (an obvious parody of Darth Vader) on "Fairly Oddparents", Maurice the Aye-Aye from "The Penguins of Madagascar", and the voice of Exile in the late 1990s cartoon "Road Rovers". Richardson replaced Keith David as the voice of Tombstone on "The Spectacular Spider-Man". In 2001, he voiced Barney Rubble on the TV animated movie ', his version of Barney Rubble's voice was more similar to the early Mel Blanc voice than to the Ed Norton imitation, which Blanc later used on the original "Flintstones". In 2004 he became the first African-American to voice the Joker for the Kids WB animated series, "The Batman". In 2008, he did the voice of Bishop for "Wolverine and the X-Men". Later, he did the voice of Nick Fury on "The Super Hero Squad Show". He often plays characters based on and satirizing comedian Bill Cosby, such as on "Family Guy" ("Brian Does Hollywood", where Stewie is a contestant on Cosby's "Kids Say the Darndest Things"; and "The Boondocks". He also voices Cleveland Brown, Jr. and Lester Krinklesac and numerous others on "The Cleveland Show". Richardson's voice roles (in 2011) included Panthro in the 2011 "Thundercats" series, Martian Manhunter on "Young Justice", and , one of the lead characters on "". He played Kilowog in ', the video game sequel to the live-action film "Green Lantern", and later reprised the role in the animated series '. Personal life. Richardson married his wife Monica in May 2006. They have two children. Filmography. Television guest appearances. "Teen Titans Go!" Trigon
1071895	Some of Kitano's earlier films are dramas about Yakuza gangsters or the police. Described by critics as using an acting style that is highly deadpan or a camera style that approaches near-stasis, Kitano often uses long takes where little appears to be happening, or editing that cuts immediately to the aftermath of an event. Many of his films express a bleak or nihilistic philosophy, but they are also filled with humor and affection for their characters. Kitano's films leave paradoxical impressions and can seem controversial. The Japanese public knows him primarily as a TV host and comedian, and he is well remembered for the leading role of the comedy show "Oretachi Hyōkin-zoku" (1981–1989) and for the game show "Takeshi's Castle" (1986–1989). He hosts a weekly television program called "Beat Takeshi's TV Tackle", a kind of panel discussion among entertainers and politicians regarding controversial current events. In 2010, the Fondation Cartier pour l'art contemporain in Paris held a one-man show displaying his paintings and installations. A room in the basement played a 12-hour loop of his work as a TV host. Biography. Kitano was born in Umejima, Adachi, Tokyo in 1947. After dropping out of Meiji University, where he studied engineering for four years, he found work as an elevator operator in a strip club and learned a great deal about the business from the comedian Senzaburo Fukami. When one of the club's regular performers fell ill, Kitano took his place on stage, and a new career was born. Early biography up to "Sonatine" (1993). In the 1970s, he formed a comic duo with his friend Kiyoshi Kaneko. They took on the stage names "Beat Takeshi" and "Beat Kiyoshi"; together referring to themselves as "Two Beat" (sometimes romanized as "The Two Beats"). This sort of duo comedy, known as "manzai" in Japan, usually features a great deal of high-speed back-and-forth banter between the two performers. Kiyoshi played the straight man ("tsukkomi") against Takeshi's funny man ("boke"). In 1976, they performed on television for the first time and became a success, propelling their act onto the national stage. The reason for their popularity had much to do with Kitano's material, which was much more risqué than traditional "manzai". The targets of his jokes were often the socially vulnerable, including the elderly, the handicapped, the poor, children, women, the ugly and the stupid. Complaints to the broadcaster led to censorship of some of Kitano's jokes and the editing of offensive dialogue. Kitano confirmed in a video interview that he was forbidden to access the NHK studios for five years for having exposed his body during a show when it was totally forbidden. Although Two Beat was one of the most successful acts of its kind during the late 1970s and 1980s, Kitano decided to go solo and the duo was dissolved. Some autobiographical elements relating to his "manzai" career can be found in his 1996 film "Kids Return". Beat Kiyoshi has a bit part in Kitano's 1999 film "Kikujiro" as "Man at the bus stop". Kitano had also become a popular television host. "Takeshi's Castle" was a game show hosted by Kitano in the 1980s, featuring slapstick-style physical contests. Many of Kitano's routines involved him portraying a gangster or other harsh character, and his first major film role, in Nagisa Oshima's "Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence" (where he starred opposite Tom Conti, Ryuichi Sakamoto and David Bowie), featured him cast as a tough (but sympathetic) POW camp sergeant during World War II. After several other roles, mostly comedic, in 1989 he was cast as the lead in "Violent Cop", playing a sociopathic detective who responds to every situation with violence. When the original director (Kinji Fukasaku) fell ill, Kitano offered to step in, and rewrote the script heavily. The result was a financial and critical success in Japan, and the beginning of Kitano's career as a filmmaker. Kitano's second film as director and first film as screenwriter, released in 1990, was "Boiling Point". Masahiko Ono plays the lead role of a young man whose baseball coach is threatened by the local yakuza. He and a friend travel to Okinawa to purchase guns so they can get revenge, but along the way they are befriended by a psychotic gangster played by Kitano, who is plotting his own revenge. With complete control of the script and direction, Kitano uses this film to cement his style: shocking violence, bizarre black humor and stoically shot 'still' scenes. In spite of this, the film was considered a failure and did not recover its production costs upon initial release. Kitano's third film, "A Scene at the Sea", was released in 1991. It featured no gangsters, but instead a deaf garbage collector who is determined to learn how to surf after discovering a broken surfboard while working. A young girl (also deaf) follows his progress and is quick to assist him wherever possible. Kitano's more delicate, romantic side came to the fore here, along with his trademark deadpan approach. The film garnered numerous nominations and awards, including Best Film at the prestigious Blue Ribbon Awards. Foreign audiences (that would outnumber his domestic audience in the coming years) began to take notice of Kitano after the 1993 release of "Sonatine". Kitano plays a Tokyo yakuza who is sent by his boss to Okinawa to help end a gang war there. He is tired of gangster life, and when he finds out the whole mission is a ruse, he welcomes what comes with open arms. "Sonatine" (1993) to "Battle Royale" (2000). The 1995 release of "Getting Any?" ("Minna Yatteruka!") showed Kitano returning to his comedy roots. This "Airplane!"-like assemblage of comedic scenes, all centering loosely around a Walter Mitty-type character trying to have sex in a car, met with little acclaim in Japan. Much of the film satirizes popular Japanese culture, such as "Ultraman" or "Godzilla" and even the Zatoichi character that Kitano himself would go on to play eight years later. That year Kitano also appeared in the film adaptation of William Gibson's 1995 "Johnny Mnemonic", although his on-screen time was greatly reduced for the American cut of the film. In August 1994, Kitano was involved in a motorscooter accident and suffered injuries that caused the paralysis of one side of his body, and required extensive surgery to regain the use of his facial muscles. (The severity of his injuries was apparently due to the fact that he was not wearing a helmet.) As reported by Dan Edwards, Kitano later stated that the accident was actually an "unconscious suicide attempt". Edwards has also speculated that the depression leading to the accident may explain the nihilistic atmosphere of his early films. Kitano made "Kids Return" in 1996, soon after his recovery. At the time it became his most successful film yet in his native Japan. After his motorscooter accident, Kitano took up painting. His bright, simplified style is reminiscent of Marc Chagall. His paintings have been published in books, featured in gallery exhibitions, and adorn the covers of many of the soundtrack albums for his films. His paintings were featured prominently in his most critically acclaimed film, 1997's "Hana-bi". Although for years already Kitano's largest audience had been the foreign arthouse crowd, "Hana-bi" cemented his status internationally as one of Japan's foremost modern filmmakers. Among his most significant roles were Nagisa Oshima's 1999 film "Taboo", where he played Captain Hijikata Toshizo of the Shinsengumi. "Kikujiro", released in 1999, featured Kitano as a ne'er-do-well crook who winds up paired up with a young boy looking for his mother, and goes on a series of misadventures with him. He hosted "Koko ga Hen da yo Nihonjin" (English translation, "This doesn't make sense, Japanese people!") which was a Japanese TV show that was broadcast weekly from 1998 to 2002, a talk show where a large panel of Japanese-speaking foreigners from around the world debate current issues in Japanese society. Another of his shows is "Sekai Marumie TV" ("The World Exposed"), a weekly collection of various interesting video clips from around the world, often focusing on the weird aspects of other countries. On this show, he plays a childlike idiot, insulting the guests, and usually appearing wearing strange costumes during the show. Kitano played Kitano in the 2000 film "Battle Royale", a controversial Japanese blockbuster set in a bleak dystopian future where a group of teenagers are randomly selected each year to eliminate each other on a deserted island. A good deal of controversy came to surround "Battle Royale" when the novel and film for "The Hunger Games" were subsequently released because of the vast similarities in theme and plot. After "Battle Royale" (2000). The 2000 film "Brother", shot in Los Angeles, had Kitano as a deposed and exiled Tokyo yakuza setting up a drug empire in L.A. with the aid of a local gangster played by Omar Epps. Despite a large buzz around Kitano's first English language film, the film was met with tepid response in the US and abroad. "Dolls" in 2002 had Kitano directing but not starring in a film with three different stories about undying love; it met with largely favorable critical and public reception. Following the disappointing response to the film "Brother" and the film "Dolls", Kitano received a sequence of unsympathetic reviews from the press in the United States. Criticism was less severe in Europe and Asia though many commentators were not as lavish with their praise as they had been with previous Kitano films. 2003's "Zatōichi", in which Kitano directed and starred, silenced many of these dissenters. With a new take on the character from Shintaro Katsu's long-running film and TV series, "Zatōichi" was Kitano's biggest box office success in Japan, did quite well in limited release across the world, and won countless awards at home and abroad, including the Silver Lion award at the Venice Film Festival. Kitano turned to Keiichi Suzuki (鈴木 慶一, born August 28, 1951), the Japanese composer, and Kitano collaborated with him for the complete soundtrack to his "Zatoichi" film. Kitano's film, "Takeshis"' was released in Japan in November 2005 as the first installment in his surrealist autobiographical series. This was followed in 2007 by his second surrealist autobiographical film "Glory to the Filmmaker!" (appearing as Beat Takeshi), and a third one in 2008 titled "Achilles and the Tortoise". In between these films, Kitano appeared in a number of other television projects and smaller projects. In 2007 he appeared in "Dots and Lines" (a TV mini-series) as Jūtarō Torikai. Also in 2007, Kitano appeared in "To Each His Own Cinema" as the projectionist (in the segment "Rencontre unique") as Beat Takeshi, and in the TV movie "Wada Akiko Satsujin Jiken". In 2008, he did the voice-over in "The Monster X Strikes Back: Attack the G8 Summit", for the Take Monster (as Beat Takeshi). Kitano has written over fifty books of poetry, film criticism, and several novels, a few of which have also been adapted into movies by other directors. Kitano used to be a regular collaborator with composer Joe Hisaishi, who has created scores for many of his films. However, they have not worked together since making "Dolls", following Kitano's successful efforts with composer Keiichi Suzuki from the soundtrack for "Zatoichi". Kitano's 2010 film "Outrage" screened at the 2010 Cannes Film Festival. His 2012 film "Outrage Beyond" screened in competition at the 69th Venice International Film Festival. He also appeared in Yasuo Furuhata's 2012 film, "Dearest". In September 2012, Takeshi Kitano said that the producers wanted him to make the third "Outrage" film depending on the box office. As reported by Macnab, the making of a third "Outrage" film would complete the first crime film trilogy for Takeshi Kitano. Other rare examples in the crime film genre to become a trilogy include the original "Dirty Harry" trilogy (1971-1976) and the "Godfather Trilogy" (1972-1990). Kitano returned to Keiichi Suzuki (鈴木 慶一, born August 28, 1951), the same Japanese composer he had used for the original "Outrage" film, for the complete sequel soundtrack. This complete soundtrack for "Outrage Beyond" was their third film collaboration.
582231	Main Aurr Mrs Khanna is a Bollywood romance film starring Salman Khan, Kareena Kapoor and Sohail Khan in pivotal roles with Dino Morea, Nauheed Cyrusi, Yash Tonk and Bappi Lahiri in supporting roles while Preity Zinta and Deepika Padukone make a special appearance. Directed by debutant Prem Soni, the film, which revolves around the theme of extramarital affair, is a joint production of Sohail Khan Productions and UTV SpotBoy Pictures. The film is produced by Sohail Khan and Ronnie Screwvala, and was released on 16 October 2009. Plot. Raina (Kareena Kapoor) meets Samir (Salman Khan) while at an orphanage. They both talk to each other and it's love at first sight. Samir and Raina get married despite Samir's parents disapproval.
1265600	Alice White (August 24, 1904, Paterson, New Jersey – February 19, 1983, Los Angeles, California) was an American film actress. Early life and career. She was born Alva White of French and Italian parents. Her mother, a former chorus girl died when Alice was only three years old. She attended Roanoke College in Virginia and then took a secretarial course at Hollywood High School also attended by future actors Joel McCrea and Mary Brian. After leaving school she became a secretary and "script girl" for director Josef Von Sternberg. After clashing with Von Sternberg, White left his employment to work for Charlie Chaplin, who decided before long to place her in front of the camera.
1060430	Invasion of the Body Snatchers is a 1956 American science fiction film directed by Don Siegel and starring Kevin McCarthy and Dana Wynter. Daniel Mainwaring adapted the screenplay from Jack Finney's 1954 novel "The Body Snatchers". The story depicts an extraterrestrial invasion in a small California town. The invaders replace human beings with duplicates that appear identical on the surface but are devoid of any emotion or individuality. A local doctor uncovers what is happening and tries to stop them. In 1994, "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". Plot. Psychiatrist Dr. Hill is called to the emergency ward of a hospital, where a frantically screaming man is held in custody. Dr. Hill agrees to listen to his story. The man identifies himself as Dr. Miles Bennell, and recounts the events leading to his arrest in the flashback that follows. In the town of Santa Mira, California, Miles Bennell, a local doctor, sees a number of patients who believe their loved ones have been replaced by impostors. Another patient is a former girlfriend of his, the recently divorced Becky Driscoll. Becky tells him that her cousin Wilma has the same fear about her Uncle Ira. Dr. Dan Kauffman, a psychiatrist in the town, assures Bennell that the cases are nothing but "epidemic mass hysteria". That same evening Bennell's friend Jack Belicec finds a body with what appear to be his features, though it's not yet fully developed. The next body found is a copy of Becky in the cellar of her house. When Bennell calls Kauffman to the scene, the bodies have mysteriously disappeared and Kauffman suspects Bennell of falling for the same hysteria. The following night Bennell, Becky, Jack and Jack's wife Teddy again find duplicates of themselves, emerging from giant pods. They conclude that the townspeople are being replaced in their sleep by perfect physical copies. Miles tries to call long distance for help from federal authorities, but the phone operator claims that no long-distance calls are possible. Jack and Teddy drive away to get help. Bennell and Becky discover that most inhabitants have already been replaced, and are now devoid of any humanity. They flee to Bennell's office to hide for the night. The next morning they see that truckloads of pods are being sent to neighboring towns, to replace even more humans. Kauffman and Jack, both of whom are now "pod people," arrive at Bennell's office and reveal that an extraterrestrial life form is responsible for the invasion. After the takeover, they explain, life loses its frustrating complexity because all emotions and sense of individuality have vanished. Bennell and Becky manage to escape and hide in a mine outside of town. While Bennell inspects a nearby farm where more pods are being grown, Becky falls asleep and is instantly taken over. She informs the "pod people" where to find Bennell, who runs onto the next highway, frantically screaming to passing motorists, "They're here already! You're next! You're next!" Bennell finishes his story. Dr. Hill and the doctor on duty doubt his account until a highway accident victim is hospitalized, who had been found under a load of giant pods. The men realize that Bennell's story is fact and begin to alert the authorities. Novel and screenplay. Jack Finney's novel ends with the extraterrestrials leaving earth after they find many humans offering too much resistance, despite having almost no reasonable chance against the invaders. Also, the "pod people" have a life span of no more than 5 years. As a result, 5 years after taking over the last human being, the invaders would have to look for a new planet with new life forms as hosts – leaving behind a depopulated earth. Production. Budgeting and casting. "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" was originally scheduled for a 24-day shoot and a budget of USD $454,864. The studio later asked Wanger to cut the budget significantly. The producer proposed a shooting schedule of 20 days and a budget of $350,000. Initially, Wanger considered Gig Young, Dick Powell, Joseph Cotten and several others for the role of Miles. For Becky he thought of casting Anne Bancroft, Donna Reed, Kim Hunter, Vera Miles and others. With the lower budget, however, he had to abandon these choices and cast Richard Kiley, who had just starred in "The Phenix City Story" for Allied Artists. Kiley turned the role down and Wanger cast two relative newcomers in the lead roles: Kevin McCarthy, who had just starred in Siegel's "An Annapolis Story", and Dana Wynter, who had done several major dramatic roles on television. Sam Peckinpah had a small part as Charlie, a meter reader. Peckinpah worked as a dialogue coach on five Siegel films in the mid-1950s, including this one. Principal photography. Originally producer Wanger and Siegel wanted to shoot "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" on location in the town Jack Finney described in his novel: Mill Valley, just north of San Francisco. In the first week of January 1955, Siegel, Wanger and screenwriter Daniel Mainwaring visited Finney to talk about the film version and to take a look at Mill Valley. The location proved to be too expensive and Siegel and some Allied Artists executives found locations resembling Mill Valley in Sierra Madre, Chatsworth, Glendale, the Los Feliz neighborhood and in Bronson and Beachwood Canyons - all of which would make up the town of "Santa Mira" for the film. In addition to these outdoor locations, much of the film was shot in the Allied Artists studio on the east side of Hollywood. The film was shot by cinematographer Ellsworth Fredericks in 23 days between March 23 and April 18, 1955. The cast and crew worked a six-day week with only Sundays off. The production went over schedule by three days because of night-for-night shooting that Siegel wanted. Additional photography took place in September 1955, filming a frame story which the studio insisted on (see Original intended ending). The final budget was $382,190. Post-production. The project was originally called "The Body Snatchers" after the Finney serial. However, Wanger wanted to avoid confusion with the 1945 Val Lewton film "The Body Snatcher". The producer was unable to come up with a title and accepted the studio's choice, "They Come from Another World" that was assigned in summer 1955. Siegel protested this title and suggested two alternatives, "Better Off Dead" and "Sleep No More", while Wanger offered "Evil in the Night" and "World in Danger". None of these were chosen, as the studio finally settled on "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" in late 1955. The film was released at the time in France under the mistranslated title ""L'invasion des profanateurs de sépultures"" (literally: "Invasion of the defilers of tombs"), which remains unchanged today. Wanger wanted to add a variety of speeches and prefaces. He suggested a voice-over introduction for Miles. While the film was being shot, Wanger tried to get permission in England to use a Winston Churchill quotation as a preface to the film. The producer also tried to get Orson Welles to voice the preface and a trailer for the film. He wrote speeches for Welles' opening on June 15, 1955, and spent considerable time trying to persuade Welles to do it, but was unsuccessful. Wanger considered science fiction author Ray Bradbury instead, but this did not happen, either. Mainwaring eventually wrote the voice-over narration himself. The studio scheduled three previews for the film on the last days of June and the first day of July 1955. According to Wanger's memos at the time, the previews were successful. However, later reports by Mainwaring and Siegel contradict this, claiming that audiences could not follow the film and laughed in the wrong places. In response, the studio removed much of the film's humor, "humanity" and "quality," according to Wanger. He scheduled another preview in mid-August that did not go well. The studio decided to change the film's title to a more conventional science-fiction one. In later interviews, Siegel pointed out that it was studio policy not to mix humor with horror. Wanger saw the final cut in December 1955 and protested the use of the Superscope format. Its use had been a part of the early plans for the film, but the first print was not made until December. Wanger felt that the film lost sharpness and detail. Siegel had originally shot "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" in the aspect ratio. Superscope was a post-production lab process designed to create an anamorphic print from non-anamorphic source material that would be projected at an aspect ratio of 2.00:1. Original intended ending. Both Siegel and Mainwaring were satisfied with the film as shot. It was originally intended to end with Miles screaming hysterically as truckloads of pods pass him by. The studio, wary of such a pessimistic conclusion, insisted on adding a prologue and epilogue to the movie that suggested a more optimistic outcome to the story which is thus told mainly in flashback. In this version the movie begins with a ranting Bennell kept in custody in a hospital emergency ward. He then tells an arriving doctor (Whit Bissell) his story. In the closing scene, pods are discovered at a highway accident, thus confirming his warning. The Federal Bureau of Investigation is notified, though it is left ambiguous whether they intervene in time to save the Earth. Mainwaring scripted this framing story and Siegel shot it on September 16, 1955, at the Allied Artists studio. In a later interview Siegel complained, "The film was nearly ruined by those in charge at Allied Artists who added a preface and ending that I don't like." In his autobiography, Siegel added that "Wanger was very much against this, as was I. However, he begged me to shoot it to protect the film, and I reluctantly consented […]". While the Internet Movie Database states that the film's original ending had been reinstated for a re-release in 1979, Steve Biodrowski of "Cinefantastique" magazine claims that the film is still being released with its additional footage, including a screening at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in 2005, honouring director Don Siegel. Though disapproved of by most reviewers, George Turner (in "American Cinematographer") and Danny Peary (in "Cult Movies") endorsed the subsequently added frame story. Nonetheless, Peary emphasised that the additional scenes changed significantly what he saw as the film's original intention (see Themes). Theatrical release. When the film was released domestically in February 1956, many theatres displayed several of the pods (made of paper) at theatre lobbies and entrances along with large lifelike black and white cutouts of McCarthy and Wynter running frantically away from a crowd. The movie made over $1 million in its first month. In 1956 alone the movie made over $2.5 million in the US. When the British issue (which had cuts imposed by the British censors) took place in late 1956, the film made over a half million dollars in ticket sales. Themes. Some reviewers found a comment on the dangers faced of America turning a blind eye to McCarthyism, or of bland conformity in postwar Eisenhower-era America. Others have viewed it as an allegory for the loss of personal autonomy in the Soviet Union or communist systems in general. For the BBC, David Wood summarised the circulating popular interpretations of the film as follows: "The sense of post-war, anti-communist paranoia is acute, as is the temptation to view the film as a metaphor for the tyranny of the McCarthy era." Danny Peary in "Cult Movies" pointed out that the addition of the framing story had changed the film's stance from anti-McCarthyite to anti-communist. In W.S. Poole's "Monsters in America", the film is argued to be an indictment of the damage to the human personality caused by reductionist modern ideologies both of the Right and the Left. In "An Illustrated History of the Horror Film", Carlos Clarens saw a trend manifesting itself in Science Fiction films, dealing with dehumanization and fear of the loss of individual identity, being historically connected to the end of "the Korean War and the well publicized reports coming out of it of brainwashing techniques". Comparing "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" with Robert Aldrich's "Kiss Me Deadly" and Orson Welles' "Touch of Evil", Brian Neve found a sense of disillusionment rather than straightforward messages, with all three films being "less radical in any positive sense than reflective of the decline of screenwriters' great liberal hopes". Despite the general agreement among film critics regarding these political connotations of the film, lead actor Kevin McCarthy said in an interview included on the 1998 DVD release that he felt no political allegory was intended. The interviewer stated that he had spoken with the author of the original novel, Jack Finney, who also professed to have intended no specific political allegory in the work. In his autobiography, "I Thought We Were Making Movies, Not History", Walter Mirisch writes: "People began to read meanings into pictures that were never intended. "The Invasion of the Body Snatchers" is an example of that. I remember reading a magazine article arguing that the picture was intended as an allegory about the communist infiltration of America. From personal knowledge, neither Walter Wanger nor Don Siegel, who directed it, nor Dan Mainwaring, who wrote the script nor the original author Jack Finney, nor myself saw it as anything other than a thriller, pure and simple." Don Siegel spoke more openly of an existing allegorical subtext, but denied a strictly political point of view: "[…] I felt that this was a very important story. I think that the world is populated by pods and I wanted to show them. I think so many people have no feeling about cultural things, no feeling of pain, of sorrow. […] The political reference to Senator McCarthy and totalitarianism was inescapable but I tried not to emphasize it because I feel that motion pictures are primarily to entertain and I did not want to preach." Reaction. Critical reception. Largely ignored by critics on its initial run, "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" received wide critical acclaim in retrospect and is considered one of the best films of 1956. The film holds a 98% "Fresh" rating on the review aggregate website Rotten Tomatoes. In recent years, critics have hailed the film as a "genuine Sci-Fi classic" (Dan Druker, Chicago Reader), "influential, and still very scary" (Leonard Maltin) and one of the "most resonant" and "one of the simplest" of the genre (Time Out). Legacy. In 1993, "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". In June 2008, the American Film Institute revealed its "Ten top Ten"—the best ten films in ten "classic" American film genres—after polling over 1,500 people from the creative community. "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" was acknowledged as the ninth best film in the science fiction genre. The film was also placed on AFI's "100 Years... 100 Thrills", a list of America's most heart-pounding films. The film was included on Bravo's "100 Scariest Movie Moments". Similarly, the Chicago Film Critics Association named it the 29th scariest film ever made. "Time" magazine included "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" on their list of 100 all-time best films, the top 10 1950s Sci-Fi Movies, and Top 25 Horror Films. DVD releases. The film was released on DVD in 1998 by US-label Republic (an identical re-release by Artisan followed in 2002). It includes the Superscope version plus a version in the Academy ratio. The latter is not the original full frame edition but a pan and scan-reworking of the Superscope edition, losing even more visual information. DVD editions also exist on the British (including a computer colourized version), German (as "Die Dämonischen") and Spanish market (as "La Invasión de los Ladrones de Cuerpos"). Olive Films released a Blu-ray version of the film in 2012 in the Superscope Aspect Ratio. Related works. Listed are only works directly connected to Jack Finney's novel or Don Siegel's film, not thematically related works like Robert Heinlein's "The Puppet Masters" and its dramatizations, Val Guest's "Quatermass 2" or Gene Fowler's "I Married a Monster from Outer Space".
591898	Rekha, also known as Akshara, is an Indian film actress, who predominantly acts in Kannada films and also appears in Tamil and Telugu films. While pursuing modelling, she made her acting debut in the 2001 Kannada film "Chitra" and has since starred in over 30 films in various South Indian languages. Career. Rekha was born and brought up in Bangalore, Karnataka. She did her schooling at the Basava Residential Girls School in Kengeri, Bangalore. She was doing her BBA correspondence course from the University of Madras, while modelling part-time and trying to pursue an acting career. She was eventually signed by Jayashree Devi for the Ramoji Rao-produced college drama "Chitra", in which she played a NRI student. The same year, she starred in "Huchcha", a Kannada remake of "Sethu" alongside Sudeep and made her debut in Telugu cinema with Sreenu Vaitla's "Anandam", all three ventures becoming commercially successful. She later appeared in "Majestic" opposite Darshan and the Telugu film "Dongodu" featuring Ravi Teja in the lead, while making her Tamil debut with Sabapathy's triangular love story "Punnagai Poove". 2003 she also had her first and till date only Hindi release, "Mudda" with Arya Babbar and was seen in a supporting role in the female-oriented "Three Roses" that featured Rambha, Jyothika and Laila Mehdin in the lead. She was paired with Ganesh in his first feature film appearance in "Chellata" as well as in "Hudugaata" the next year, both emerging commercial successes. After her subsequent releases that year bombed at the box office, she starred in the bilingual "Ninna Nedu Repu" / "Netru Indru Naalai" and in Ramesh Arvind's directorial "Accident", which became critically acclaimed, while making special appearances in the films "Mast Maja Maadi", "Raaj The Showman" and "Yogi". In 2010, she had a single release, "Appu Pappu", while her most recent release was "Boss", paired with Darshan again. She is currently working on projects such as "Prema Chandramama", "Jolly Boy" alongside Diganth, directed by Sabapathy again, and "Thulasi".
589989	Aap To Aise Na The (meaning-you were not like this) is 1980 Hindi Movie directed by Ambrish Sangal and starring Raj Babbar, Ranjeeta Kaur, Deepak Parashar, Madan Puri, Om Shivpuri.
1162605	Jane Withers (born April 12, 1926) is an American actress. Beginning a prolific career as a child actress at the age of three, Withers is a Young Artist Award–Former Child Star "Lifetime Achievement" Award honoree, best known for being one of the most popular child film stars of the 1930s and early 1940s, as well as for her portrayal of "Josephine the Plumber" in a series of TV commercials for Comet cleanser in the 1960s and early 1970s. Early life. Withers was born in Atlanta, Georgia to parents Ruth and Walter Withers who taught Bible class at the local Presbyterian church. She began her career as a child actress at the age of three, first on local radio broadcasts in Atlanta as "Dixie's Dainty Dewdrop". In the early 1930s, Withers and her mother moved to Hollywood where she worked as a child model and a bit part player in several films in 1932 and 1933. "Bright Eyes". Withers's big break came when she landed a supporting role in the 1934 Shirley Temple film "Bright Eyes". Her character Joy Smythe was spoiled and obnoxious, a perfect foil to Temple's sweet personality. In a 2006 interview on TCM's "Private Screenings" with Robert Osborne, Withers recalled that she was hesitant to take this role because she had to be so "mean" to Shirley Temple and she thought the public would hate her for it. In the movie, she tells Temple: "There ain't any Santa Claus, because my psychoanalyst told me!" Withers received positive notices for her work, and was awarded a long-term contract with Fox. Child stardom. Through the remainder of the 1930s she starred in several movies every year, including "Ginger" (1935), "The Farmer Takes a Wife" (1935) and "Little Miss Nobody" (1936), usually cast as a wholesome, meddlesome young girl in films less sugary than Temple's vehicles. Moviegoers flocked to see her films, and Withers became one of the top 10 box-office stars in 1937 and 1938. Her popularity was such that Fox gave her "name" co-stars: the Ritz Brothers (in "Pack Up Your Troubles") and Gene Autry (in "Shooting High"). Withers also took a flyer in screenwriting: she wrote the original story filmed as "Small Town Deb", under the pseudonym "Jerrie Walters." In 1979, Withers was honored by the Young Artist Foundation with its very first Former Child Star "Lifetime Achievement" Award recognizing her outstanding achievements within the film industry as a child actress. Depictions in fiction. Withers was the heroine of two novels, "Jane Withers and the Hidden Room" (1942, by Eleanor Packer) and "Jane Withers and the Phantom Violin", (1943, by Roy J. Snell), published by Whitman Publishing Company, where "the heroine has the same name and appearance as the famous actress but has no connection ... it is as though the famous actress has stepped into an alternate reality in which she is an ordinary person." However, in 1944's "Jane Withers and the Swamp Wizard" (1944, by Kathryn Heisenfelt), "the heroine is identified as a famous actress". The stories were probably written for a young teenage audience and are reminiscent of the adventures of Nancy Drew. They are part of a series known as "Whitman Authorized Editions", sixteen books published between 1941-1947 that featured a film actress as heroine. Withers kept working in the 1940s; she made sixteen films for Fox, Columbia, and Republic Pictures. Her "sweet sixteen" birthday party was filmed by Paramount for the "Hedda Hopper's Hollywood" series. Withers received excellent notices for her dramatic performance in Lewis Milestone's "The North Star". Marriages. In 1947, in her early twenties, Withers retired for several years from acting, after marrying wealthy Texas oil man, William P. Moss, Jr., (they wed on September 20, 1947), and had three children by him — William, Wendy, and Randy. The marriage was not a happy one and lasted only six years until their divorce on July 20, 1955. On October 23, 1955, she remarried, this time to Kenneth Errair, one-quarter of the harmonizing group "The Four Freshmen". They had two children, Ken and Kendall Jane. The same year, she earned a supporting role in the film classic, "Giant". Relationship with James Dean. In 1955, while filming the movie "Giant", Withers developed a friendship with James Dean. In the DVD special features she tells the story that Dean had a favorite pink cowboy shirt he wore all the time. He never let it go the laundry for fear it would be lost like the other shirts he had. Withers convinced him to let her wash it for him. She did this often and when he left to go to the race he gave her his shirt to wash and have ready for him when he came back. James Dean died that day in the fateful fatal car wreck in California. Withers still keeps his shirt and the fond memories of him. Josephine the Plumber fame. Withers appeared in various television series in the early 1960s, including the CBS sitcom "Pete and Gladys", in the role of Wilma in the 1962 episode "Step on Me"; the CBS anthology series "General Electric Theater", hosted by Ronald W. Reagan; and the CBS adventure series "The Aquanauts", starring Keith Larsen and Jeremy Slate. She was cast in 1963 as Edith Swinney in the episode "How to Get Rid of Your Wife" on CBS's "The Alfred Hitchcock Hour". By the middle 1960s, she gained recognition again as "Josephine the Plumber", a character in a long-running and popular series of television commercials for Comet cleanser, and the veteran TV-ad pitchwoman's beloved character lasted into the 1970s, and even further in the 1980s when her niece, JoAnn or Jo, would show her customers a picture of her Aunt Josephine. During this time, Withers also continued to do voice-over work and occasional guest-starring appearances on television. A December 15, 2008, "Advertising Age" article about Flo, the Progressive Insurance TV commercial character played by Stephanie Courtney, said that Flo, "... is a weirdly sincere, post-modern Josephine the Plumber who just really wants to help. She has: The brand is flourishing."
1164949	Joy Behar (; born Josephina Victoria Occhiuto; October 7, 1942) is an American comedian, writer, actress and was a co-host on the ABC talk show "The View". She hosted "The Joy Behar Show" on HLN from 2009 to 2011 and "" on Current TV, from 2012 until the channel switched formatting in August 2013. Early life and career. Behar was born Josephina Victoria Occhiuto in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, New York, to a Catholic family of Italian descent. Her mother, Rose ("née" Carbone), was a seamstress, and her father, Gino Occhiuto, was a truck driver for Coca-Cola. Behar earned a BA in sociology from Queens College in 1964 and a MA in English education from the State University of New York at Stony Brook in 1966. From the late 1960s to the early 1970s, she taught English at Lindenhurst Senior High School in Lindenhurst, New York. Career. Early years. Behar started her career in show business in the early 1980s as a stand up comedian, including appearances on ABC's "Good Morning America", and "The New Show", a short lived Lorne Michaels NBC project. In 1987 she had a talk show on Lifetime Television called "Way Off Broadway". From there she continued to work the comedy club circuit, was a regular on NBC's "Baby Boom", and had minor film roles including "Cookie", "This Is My Life", and "Manhattan Murder Mystery". She also was a WABC radio talk show host, and made appearances on HBO Comedy Specials "One Night Stand" and "Women Of The Night 2". "The View". In 1997, Behar became one of the original panel members of the ABC daytime talk show "The View", which was co-created by Barbara Walters. Behar originally appeared only on the days when Walters was off, but she ultimately became a permanent co-host. Behar occasionally hosted a segment called "Joy's Comedy Corner" in which she presented both established and up-and-coming comedians. Behar had well-publicized disputes with Star Jones, a former co-host of the program. On March 27, 2006, Jones phoned in to the show to discuss a recent operation that she had undergone. After talking with the show's co-hosts, Behar abruptly stated to Jones, "OK, Star. That's enough about you. On to us. Bye. Keep your tits perky!" Jones then responded, "Even today, you are still a bitch." In August 2009, Behar and the other co-hosts, Whoopi Goldberg, Elisabeth Hasselbeck, Sherri Shepherd, and Barbara Walters, won the Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Talk Show Host following over a decade of nominations for the show. On March 7, 2013, it was announced that Behar would be leaving the show at the end of the current season. She told Deadline, "It seemed like the right time...You reach a point when you say to yourself, 'Do I want to keep doing this?' There are other things on my plate I want to do — I’ve been writing a play, I’ve been neglecting my standup". Her last show was on August 9, 2013 in which the program staged a "This is Your Life" style tribute to Behar. "The Joy Behar Show". Beginning in 2007, she occasionally filled in as a guest host on "Larry King Live". On June 11, 2009, Behar announced that she would be hosting her own news/talk program on CNN's HLN beginning in the fall of 2009, titled "The Joy Behar Show". She did not leave "The View", but worked on both shows simultaneously. Despite reportedly being the network's second highest-rated show, HLN decided to cancel the talk show after only two years. The final broadcast of the "The Joy Behar Show" aired on December 15, 2011. "Joy Behar: Say Anything!". In June 2012, it was formally announced that Behar would be getting another talk show, "", premiering September 4, 2012 on the Current TV network. Its content is expected to be in line with her previous HLN series. Before the new show's launch, Behar began acting as fill-in host for Eliot Spitzer's Current TV talk show, "Viewpoint with Eliot Spitzer", starting on July 18, 2012. The show ended in August 2013 due to Current TV being purchased by Al Jazeera and being replaced by Al Jazeera America. Other work. Behar has also made theater appearances in "The Food Chain" and "The Vagina Monologues." Behar wrote a book of humorous essays and stories called "Joy Shtick – Or What is the Existential Vacuum and Does It Come with Attachments?", published in 1999. She has also written a children's book called "Sheetzucacapoopoo: My Kind of Dog", published in 2006. Behar frequently incorporates her Italian-American culture into her comedy and once told Charlie Rose on his PBS program that her grandmother kept a picture of Mussolini in her home. She appeared on the eighth season of Bravo's Celebrity Poker Showdown and finished in fourth place, behind Robin Tunney, Christopher Meloni and Macy Gray, but ahead of Andy Dick. She played for the U.S. Fund for UNICEF. Behar played the part of "Dr. Lucy" in the 2011 comedy film "Hall Pass". Personal life. From 1965 to 1981, Behar was married to Joe Behar, a college professor. Their daughter, Eve, was born in 1970. In February 2011, Behar became a grandmother when her daughter had a son, Luca. Since 1982, Behar has been in a relationship with Steve Janowitz, whom she called her "spousal equivalent". In March 2009, Behar announced on "The View" that she might eventually marry Janowitz, but she called off the engagement three months later because she wanted people to stop talking about it. Behar and Janowitz married on August 11, 2011; Behar chose to maintain her last name. The couple resides in Manhattan, New York. She has identified herself as agnostic. Awards and nominations. GLAAD Media Award Daytime Emmy Award
587622	Śankarabharanam or Shankarabharanam (Telugu: శంకరాభరణం, ) is a 1979 blockbuster, Telugu film, directed by K. Viswanath and produced by Poornodaya Movie Creations. The soundtrack, composed by KV Mahadevan, led to an increase in usage of Indian classical music in Indian cinema. The film is listed among CNN-IBN's list of hundred greatest Indian films of all time.
1054479	District 13 (French title "Banlieue 13" or "B13"), is a 2004 French action film, directed by Pierre Morel and written and produced by Luc Besson. The film is notable for its depiction of parkour in a number of stunt sequences that were completed without the use of wires or computer generated effects. Because of this, some critics have drawn comparisons to the popular Thai film "". David Belle, regarded as the founder of parkour, plays Leïto, one of the protagonists in the film. Plot. In 2010, social problems such as violence, drugs and organized crime have overrun the poorer suburbs of Paris, especially Banlieue 13, commonly referred to as B13, a ghetto with a population of some two million. Unable to control B13 the authorities construct a high wall topped by barbed tape around the entire area forcing the inhabitants within to survive without education, proper utilities or police protection behind the containment wall. Police checkpoints stop anybody going in or out. Three years later an almost feudal system has developed amongst the street gangs of B13. The area is now flooded with hard drugs such as heroin and completely controlled by gangsters. Certain blocks are ruled over by various transexuals and one high rise apartment block is looked after by an athletic and street-wise man known as Leïto (David Belle). Leïto hates drugs and injustice and wages a one-man war against a neighboring gang lord named Taha Bemamud (Bibi Naceri) to keep his own building and people safe and free of drugs. Leïto captures 20 kg of cocaine from Taha, worth over a million euro, which incites Taha to send his thugs to recover the merchandise, led by the towering K2 (Tony D'Amario). Leïto destroys the cocaine by using bleach and uses parkour to evade Taha's thugs through the building and across rooftops. Taha kidnaps Leïto's younger sister Lola (Dany Verissimo) to use against him, but Leïto manages to invade Taha's base, rescue his sister, and kidnap Taha in turn. Leïto takes Taha to the police office at the edge of the district perimeter, but the police are in the process of abandoning their position on orders from the French Ministry, and are also threefold outnumbered by Taha's gang. The police release Taha and allow him to take Lola with him to avoid a confrontation. In addition, they put Leïto in a cell also to contain the situation, but Leïto kills the police chief in the process for handing over Lola. Six months later, outside of B13 in the affluent areas of Paris, an undercover police captain named Damien Tomaso (Cyril Raffaelli) infiltrates an underground casino and attempts to arrest Carlos Montoya, the gangster who owns it. His extraction procedure fails, however, forcing him to fight his way through an army of thugs to escape the casino. Upon the mission's completion, Damien immediately receives another assignment from his chief and also the Defence Secretary of France, Mr Krüger. He is told that Taha has stolen an experimental neutron bomb that is set to detonate in 24 hours. His mission is to convince Leïto, imprisoned for months, to lead him to Taha's base so that he can disarm the bomb. Damien attempts to pass himself off as a fellow prisoner and helps Leïto escape to B13, but Leïto sees through Damien's act and abandons him. After fighting off some of the local thugs, Damien locates Leïto and admits the truth. They team up to disarm the bomb and rescue Lola. The pair surrenders to Taha in order to gain access to his base. There, they discover that Taha has rigged the warhead to a missile launcher, pointed towards the center of Paris and is prepared to blackmail the government with it. Taha demands a high ransom, which is refused by Damien's government contact. The pair escape, and while Taha's thugs pursue them, he discovers that the government has emptied all of his offshore accounts in the Bahamas and elsewhere. One of Taha's men asks how Taha will pay them. Frustrated, Taha tries to shoot the member who asked him that only to discover that his gun is empty. Taha offers money from a safe he possesses but knowing that with Tahas accounts emptied, there is no reason to endure his ruthlessness any longer, the thugs shoot and kill Taha. This leaves K2, a more sympathetic leader, in charge and K2 has a moment of reconciliation with Leïto, suggesting that peace is possible in the future within B13. Leïto and Damien fight their way to the tower building holding Lola and the bomb. They are confronted by their final obstacle: Yeti, a substantial henchman left by Taha to block their access to the bomb. Damien underestimates Yeti and tries attacking him, but is gradually overpowered. Leito helps out Damien and gains the upper hand with the henchman by tying him up with an electricity cord. Damien then picks up a brick and smashes it on Yeti's head, knocking him out. Having defeated Yeti, Damien calls his contact to receive the deactivation code, 9293709B13. Leïto recognizes the code as a reference to the bomb's location (92 and 93 are the two area codes of the "departements" that make up District 13), the day's date (7 September), and the district, B13. Leïto deduces that the government has set them up and the code will actually detonate the bomb instead of deactivating it. He fights Damien to prevent him, who chose to believe in the government over Leito, from entering the code. The timer runs out and the bomb does not detonate, proving Leïto's theory. The pair return to the government building with the bomb and use it to force Mr Krüger admit that he had planned to blow up B13 as a means to get rid of it. The confession is then revealed to have been filmed and is immediately broadcast by pirate television transmission across all channels. The pair's actions cause a major scandal that sparks public support for B13. Soon the rest of the government promises to tear down the containment wall and bring back schools and police to B13. Leïto and Damien depart as friends, and Lola kisses Damien to encourage him to visit B13 in the future. Reception. "District 13" received mostly positive reviews and holds a rating of 81% on Rotten Tomatoes, based on 108 reviews. Sequel. Filming of a sequel, originally titled ""Banlieue 14"", began in August 2008 in Belgrade, Serbia, and continued until October 2008. David Belle and Cyril Raffaelli both reprised their original roles of Leito and Damien, respectively. The film with Luc Besson again producing and writing the screenplay. The title for the sequel was officially changed to "" in the post-production stages. It was released in France on February 18, 2009, and the United Kingdom on October 2, 2009.
1062541	Curtis Lee Hanson (born March 24, 1945) is an American film director, film producer and screenwriter. His directing work includes "The Hand That Rocks the Cradle" (1992), "L.A. Confidential" (1997), "Wonder Boys" (2000), "8 Mile" (2002), and "In Her Shoes" (2005). Early life. Hanson was born in Reno, Nevada and grew up in Los Angeles, the son of Beverly June (Curtis), a real estate agent, and Wilbur Hale "Bill" Hanson, a teacher. Hanson dropped out of high school, finding work as a freelance photographer and editor for "Cinema" magazine. Film career. In 1970, Hanson co-wrote "The Dunwich Horror", an adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft's short story. Hanson wrote and directed his next feature "Sweet Kill" in 1973, then in 1978 wrote and produced "The Silent Partner", starring Elliott Gould and Christopher Plummer. As the 1980s and 1990s began, he directed a string of comedies and dramas. He did thrillers, too: many of them would deal with people who would lose a sense of control or security when facing danger and the threat of death. Some, like the financial executive in "Bad Influence" and the police officers in "L.A. Confidential" unexpectedly walk into violence and disaster. In the 1990s Hanson found box-office success with "The Hand That Rocks the Cradle" and "The River Wild", and significant critical acclaim with "L.A. Confidential", an adaptation of the James Ellroy novel. The film was nominated for 9 Academy Awards including Best Picture and Best Director, and won 2, for Best Adapted Screenplay, a credit Hanson shared with Brian Helgeland, and Best Supporting Actress (Kim Basinger). Hanson's later works include "In Her Shoes", "Wonder Boys", "8 Mile", and "Lucky You". Hanson claims to be heavily influenced by Alfred Hitchcock and Nicholas Ray. He previously stated that Ray's film "In a Lonely Place" was among many that he watched in preparation for the filming of "L.A. Confidential". In "8 Mile", Kim Basinger's character is watching Elia Kazan's "Pinky" on television, a film about a mixed race girl passing as white - an homage to the themes of racial mixing and boundary crossing that are features of most of Hanson's work. Hanson's 2011 film was "Too Big to Fail", based on the 2009 Andrew Ross Sorkin book of the same name about the early rounds of the financial crisis of 2007–2010. The HBO film featured an all-star cast, including William Hurt as Treasury Secretary and former Goldman Sachs CEO Henry Paulson and Cynthia Nixon as his liaison to the press; James Woods as Richard Fuld of Lehman Brothers; and Paul Giamatti as Ben Bernanke. Hanson resides in Southern California.
940070	The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh is a 1977 American animated musical film produced by Walt Disney Productions and distributed by Buena Vista Distribution. It is the 22nd animated feature in the Walt Disney Animated Classics series and first released on March 11, 1977.
587642	Anveshana () is a 1985 Telugu film directed by Vamsy. The film stars Karthik, Bhanupriya, Kaikala Satyanarayana, and Sharat Babu in important roles.The film was also dubbed in Tamil as "Paadum Paravaigal". Plot. The story of an Ornithologist and a Police investigator coming to a forest and trying to solve the mystery of a series of killings allegedly by a man-eating tiger but soon find out it is a serial killer and the identity is revealed in the end.
1061144	Quills is a 2000 period film directed by Philip Kaufman and adapted from the Obie award-winning play by Doug Wright, who also wrote the original screenplay. Inspired by the life and work of the Marquis de Sade, "Quills" re-imagines the last years of the Marquis' incarceration in the insane asylum at Charenton. It stars Geoffrey Rush as the Marquis de Sade, Joaquin Phoenix as the Abbé du Coulmier, Michael Caine as Dr. Royer-Collard, and Kate Winslet as laundress Madeleine "Maddie" LeClerc. Well received by critics, "Quills" garnered numerous accolades for Rush, including nominations for an Oscar and a Golden Globe. The film was a modest art house success, averaging $27,709 per screen its debut weekend, and eventually grossing $17,989,277 internationally. Cited by historians as factually inaccurate, "Quills" filmmakers and writers said they were not making a biography of de Sade, but exploring issues such as censorship, pornography, sex, art, mental illness, and religion. It was released with an 18 rating from the British Board of Film Classification due to "strong horror, violence, sex, sexual violence, and nudity". Plot. "Quills" begins during the Reign of Terror, with the incarcerated Marquis de Sade (Geoffrey Rush) penning a story about the libidinous Mademoiselle Renard, an aristocrat who meets the preeminent sadist in her executioner. Several years later, the Marquis is confined to the asylum at Charenton, overseen by the enlightened Abbé du Coulmier (Joaquin Phoenix). The Marquis has been publishing his work through laundress Madeleine "Maddy" LeClerc (Kate Winslet), who smuggles manuscripts through an anonymous horseman to a publisher. The Marquis' latest work, "Justine", is published on the black market to great success. Napoleon orders all copies of the book burned and the author shot, but his advisor, Delbené, tempers this contentious idea with one of his own: send traditionalist Dr. Royer-Collard (Michael Caine) to look in at Charenton and silence the Marquis. Meanwhile the Abbé teaches Madeleine to read and write and resists his growing attraction to her. Dr. Royer-Collard arrives, informing the Abbé that the Marquis' "therapeutic writings" have been distributed for public consumption. Horrified, the Abbé rejects Royer-Collard's offers of several archaic "treatments" and asks to speak with the Marquis himself, who promptly swears obedience (winking at Madeleine through a peephole). Royer-Collard takes his leave for the time being and travels to the Panthemont Convent in Paris to retrieve his promised bride, the underage Simone. They are given a run-down chateau by the Emperor, with a handsome young architect, Prioux, on hand for its renovation. The hasty marriage incites much gossip at the asylum, prompting the Marquis to write a farce to be performed at a public exhibition. The audacious play, titled ""The Crimes of Love"", is interrupted when the inmate Bouchon molests Madeleine off-stage, prompting her to hit him in the face with an iron. Royer-Collard shuts down the public theater and demands that the Abbé do more to control the Marquis. Infuriated, the Abbé confiscates the Marquis' quills and ink, prompting more subversive behavior, including a story written in wine on bedsheets and in blood on clothing. This results in further deprivation, eventually leaving the Marquis naked in an empty cell. One of the maids reveals that Madeleine has been helping the Marquis. Madeleine is whipped on the order of Dr. Royer-Collard until the Abbé stops him by offering himself instead and declaring that she will be sent away. That night she visits his chamber to beg him to reconsider sending her away and confesses her love for him in the process, prompting him to kiss her passionately. He abruptly breaks away at the realization of what he is doing. Madeleine is angry with him the next day and the Abbé is shown as sexually frustrated. While this is occurring at the asylum, Simone has been violently introduced to the adult world by her husband. She unrepentantly purchases a copy of the Marquis de Sade's "Justine", seduces Prioux, and the young lovers run off together. She leaves behind a letter explaining her actions and her copy of "Justine". Upon finding this, Dr. Royer-Collard seizes on the Marquis as the source of his troubles and embarks upon a quest for revenge. About to be sent away from Charenton for her role in assisting the Marquis, Madeleine begs a last story from him, which is to be relayed to her through the asylum patients. Bouchon, the inmate at the end of the relay, is excited by the story, breaks out of his cell, and kills Madeleine. The asylum is set afire by the pyromaniac Dauphin and the inmates break out of their cells. Madeleine's body is found by her blind mother and the Abbé in the laundry vat. The Abbé is completely devastated by Madeleine's death and Bouchon is captured and imprisoned inside an iron dummy. The Abbé blames the Marquis for Madeleine's death and prods him into a fury. The Marquis claims he had been with Madeleine in every way imaginable, only to be told she had died a virgin. The Abbé cuts out the Marquis' tongue as punishment for his involvement. In a later scene, the Abbé has sex with the corpse of Madeline in a dream. The Marquis' health declines severely, though perverse as ever, he decorates his oubliette with a story, using feces as ink. As the Abbé finishes reading the last rites, he offers the Marquis a crucifix to kiss, which he swallows and chokes on, thus committing suicide. A year later, the new Abbé du Maupas arrives at Charenton and is given the grand tour. The asylum has been converted into a print shop, with the inmates as its staff. The books being printed are the works of the Marquis de Sade. At the end of the tour, the new Abbé meets his predecessor, who resides in the Marquis' old cell. Yearning to write, he begs paper and a quill from the Abbé, who is herded off by Royer-Collard, now overseer of the asylum. However, the peephole opens, and Madeleine's mother thrusts paper, quill, and ink through. The Abbé begins to scribble furiously, with the Marquis providing the narration. Production. Principal photography began in England on 5 August 1999, with Oxfordshire, Bedfordshire, and London standing in for early 19th century France. Oscar-winning production designer Martin Childs ("Shakespeare in Love") imagined the primary location of Charenton as an airy, though circuitous place, darkening as Royer-Collard takes over operations. The screenplay specifies the way the inmates' rooms link together, which plays a key role in the relay of the Marquis' climactic story to Madeleine. Screenwriter/playwright Doug Wright was a constant presence on set, assisting the actors and producers in interpreting the script and bringing his vision to life. Oscar-nominated costume designer Jacqueline West created the intricate period costumes, using each character as inspiration. West previously worked with director Philip Kaufman on his crime drama "Rising Sun". For Joaquin Phoenix's Abbé, costumers designed special "pleather" clogs to accommodate the actor's veganism. In one scene, Rush's Marquis de Sade wears a suit decorated in bloody script, which West described as "challenging" to make. It features actual writings of de Sade and costumers planned exactly where each sentence should go on the fabric. Before production began, West gave Winslet a copy of French painter Léopold Boilly's "Woman Ironing" to give her a feel for the character, which Winslet said greatly influenced her performance. Casting directors Donna Isaacson and Priscilla John recruited a number of actors from a disabled actor's company to play the parts of many of the inmates at Charenton. Music. The "Quills" soundtrack was released by RCA Victor on 21 November 2000 featuring the music of Oscar-winning composer Stephen Warbeck ("Shakespeare in Love"). Featuring experimental instrumentation by The Quills Specialist Band on such instruments as the serpent, shawm, and bucket, most reviewers were intrigued by the unconventional and thematic score. Cinemusic.net reviewer Ryan Keaveney called the album a “macabre masterpiece,” with an “addicting and mesmerizing” sound. "Urban Cinephile" contributor Brad Green described the album as a “hedonistic pleasure” that “captures the spirit of an incorrigible, perverse genius.” Soundtrack.net's Glenn McClanan disliked the “lack of unifying unified themes and motifs” that may have served each individual scene, but made the film feel “incoherent.” Au Clair de la Lune. Though not included on the soundtrack, the opening notes of "Au Clair de la Lune", a traditional French children's song, recur throughout the film, usually hummed by the Marquis. The song is originally sung by John Hamway during the opening scene of a beheading which was filmed in Oxford. The English translation provides some illumination as to its selection as a theme for the Marquis: Release. Box office. Distributed by Fox Searchlight Pictures in 2000, "Quills" premiered in the United States at the Telluride Film Festival on 2 September 2000. It was given a limited release on 22 November 2000, with a wider release following on 15 December 2000. The film earned $249,383 its opening weekend in nine theaters, totaling $7,065,332 domestically and $10,923,895 internationally, for a total of $17,989,227. Home media. "Quills" was released on NTSC VHS and Region 1 DVD on 8 May 2001, with PAL VHS and Region 2 DVD to follow on 29 October 2001. The DVD contains a feature-long commentary track by screenwriter/playwright Doug Wright and three featurettes: “Marquis on Marquee,” “Creating Charenton,” and “Dressing the Part.” Also included are the theatrical trailer, a television spot, a photo gallery, a music promotional spot, and a feature called “Fact & Film: Historical and Production Information.” Reaction. Critical reception. Reviews were generally positive, with a 75% "fresh" rating at the review aggregate site Rotten Tomatoes and an average score of 70/100 at Metacritic. Elvis Mitchell of "The New York Times" complimented the "euphoric stylishness" of Kaufman's direction and Geoffrey Rush's "gleeful...flamboyant" performance. Peter Travers for "Rolling Stone" wrote about the "exceptional" actors, particularly Geoffrey Rush's "scandalously good" performance as the Marquis, populating a film that is "literate, erotic, and spoiling to be heard." Stephanie Zacharek of Salon.com enthused over the "delectable and ultimately terrifying fantasy" of "Quills", with Rush as "sun king," enriched by a "luminous" supporting cast. The film was not without its detractors, including Richard Schickel of "Time" magazine, who decried director Philip Kaufman's approach as "brutally horrific, vulgarly unamusing," creating a film that succeeds only as "soft-gore porn." Eleanor Ringel Gillespie of the "Atlanta Journal-Constitution" concurred, finding "Quills" "shrill, pretentious, sophomoric and often just plain dumb." Kenneth Turan of the "Los Angeles Times" dismissed the film as an "overripe contrivance masquerading as high art", while de Sade biographer Neil Schaeffer in "The Guardian" criticized the film for historical inaccuracies and for simplifying de Sade's complex life (see below). Accolades. "Quills" received three Oscar nominations at the 73rd Annual Academy Awards for Actor in a Leading Role (Geoffrey Rush, previous winner for the 1996 movie Shine), Art Direction (Art: Martin Childs, Sets: Jill Quertier), and Costume Design (Jacqueline West). The film was also nominated by the Hollywood Foreign Press, organizers of the Golden Globes, for Best Actor in a Drama (Geoffrey Rush) and Best Screenplay (Douglas Wright). The National Board of Review selected "Quills" as its Best Film of 2000. Historical inaccuracy. Neil Schaeffer, whose "The Marquis de Sade: A Life" was used by Director Philip Kaufman as reference, in a review published in "The Guardian", criticized the film for historical inaccuracies and for simplifying de Sade's complex life. Schaeffer especially criticized the depiction of the de Sade as a "martyr to the oppression and censorship of church and state" and the films' sacrificing facts "to a surreal and didactic conclusion that has no connection with the truth, and is probably overwrought even as a twist of a fictional plot", namely that "the seemingly good people are all bad underneath, are all hypocrites, while the seemingly bad person, de Sade, probably has some redeeming qualities". Schaeffer detailed a number of disparities between fact and film: Schaeffer relates that de Sade's initial incarceration "had nothing to do with his writing" but with sexual scandals involving servants, prostitutes and his sister-in-law. He also criticized the opening scene's implication that the reign of terror caused the "sanguinary streak" of de Sade's writing, when "his bloodiest and best work, "120 Days of Sodom", was written in the Bastille - obviously before the revolution" and not at Charenton, as suggested by the film. In contrast to the film, the historical de Sade was "not at the height of his literary career nor of his literary powers" while at Charenton, nor did he cut the "tall, trim figure of the Australian actor Geoffrey Rush" but was of middling height and, at the time, of a "considerable, even a grotesque, obesity". The manuscripts smuggled out of the asylum were not the novel "Justine", which features prominently in the film but was published thirteen years before de Sade's incarceration at the asylum. De Sade's smuggled works were not particularly outrageous, mostly consisting of conventional novels and a number of plays he worked on throughout his life in hopes of having them performed. Most of these were soundly rejected by publishers. De Sade was, in fact, involved in the theater productions at Charenton, though none like the play featured in "Quills." The plays performed were popular, conventional Parisian dramas. The government shut the Charenton theater down on May 6, 1813, years before the real Dr. Royer-Collard had any influence at Charenton. Schaeffer criticized also the film's treatment of de Sade's personal relations regarding his wife (who had formally separated from him after the revolution), the chambermaid (who did not serve as a liaison to a publisher but with whom he had a sexual relationship from her early teens until shortly before his death) and his "companion of many years", who had a room at Charenton (and actually smuggled out the manuscripts) but is ignored by the film. Furthermore, "De Sade's hideous death in the movie is nothing like the truth, for he died in his sleep, in his 74th year, as peacefully as any good Christian". Schaeffer argues that the main point of de Sade's life and writing was not, "as movie-makers and reviewers alike seem to think [...] to oppose censorship" but "to push the limits - sexual, spiritual, and political - as a means of feeling out the limits of his times and of his own mind." Schaeffer criticized that the film "simplifies de Sade into a modern "victim" and over-emphasises his potential as a focus for liberal-political meanings when, in fact, his life and perhaps his literary intentions - if you think of him as a satirist - can be seen as an object lesson, warning against the excesses of cultural relativism and nihilism; a very modern lesson, it would seem." Schaeffer advised the viewer to distinguish between de Sade and the protagonist of the film: "To see if "Quills" is valid in its own terms, let the viewer imagine it is about someone else, let us say the Marquis de Newcastle, and that the scene is Bedlam and then see if the movie makes any sense."
1518096	Killer Bitch is a 2010 British film written and directed by Liam Galvin. Produced by Yvette Rowland, Liam Galvin & John Fleming.
583774	Iyarkai is a 2003 Tamil film directed by S. P. Jananathan and produced by A.E.Gunasekaran. The film stars Shaam, Arun Vijay, Kutti Radhika and Seema Biswas. This film was a low-budget production and the soundtrack was composed by Vidyasagar. This love story is set against the backdrop of a lost ship on an island. It enjoyed relative success in the Kollywood box office. The soundtrack was a great hit but most importantly, the film won the "National Film Award for Best Feature Film in Tamil" for 2003, competing with "Virumaandi" and "Pithamagan" as that year's submissions. This movie is loosely based on Dostoyevsky's "White Nights". Plot. Iyarkai is a familiar love triangle that plays out in unfamiliar surroundings. It revolves around a girl and the two men who love her but by placing the happenings in a port town of Rameswaram, the director manages to give the proceedings a fresh feeling. Marudhu (Shaam), an orphan and sailor, lands in Rameswaram and decides to give up his sailing life and settle down there. He develops a liking for Nancy (Radhika), who sells fruits and other items to sailors on ships that have arrived at the port. But Nancy still holds a candle for the captain of a ship that docked there three years ago. The captain (Arun Vijay) had promised her that he would return in a year but three years later, Nancy has still not given up hope. She is in a dilemma whether to choose the captain or Marudhu and finally selects the former leaving mixed feelings of joy and sorrow. Soundtrack. Music : Vidyasagar
567710	Jungledyret Hugo is a Danish media franchise featuring the cartoon adventures of an anthropomorphic mammal named Hugo. Created by Danish author and filmmaker Flemming Quist Møller and produced at A. Film A/S, the franchise currently consists of two animated features, an animated television series, and a third film done in CGI. The first two films were translated, edited, and released in the United States on a single DVD in 2005 by Miramax.
520454	John Paulo Quiambao Prats (born February 14, 1984 in Manila, Philippines) is a Filipino actor, comedian, dance icon, TV host, model and entrepreneur. He started as a child star in year 1992. He is the older brother of actress and former child-star Camille Prats. His father is from Manila while his mom hails from Pampanga. Prats is a member of ABS-CBN's circle of homegrown talents named Talent Center, now called Star Magic and co-managed by ALV Talent Circuit from year 2005 to present. In 2008 he renewed a contract with ABS-CBN for three more projects, including his special guest appearance of I Love Betty La Fea.
899767	Claudia Cardinale (born 15 April 1938) is an Italian actress who appeared in some of the most prominent European films of the 1960s and 1970s. The majority of Cardinale's films have been either Italian or French. Early life. Claudia Cardinale was born Claude Joséphine Rose Cardinale in La Goulette, a neighborhood of Tunis, French Tunisia. Her mother, Yolande Greco, was born in Tunisia to Sicilian emigrants from Trapani. Her father was a Sicilian railway worker, born in Gela. Her native languages were French, Tunisian Arabic, and the Sicilian language of her parents. She did not learn to speak Italian until she had already begun to be cast for Italian films. Career. In 1957, Cardinale won the Italian embassy's 'Most Beautiful Italian Girl in Tunisia' contest. The contest included a trip to the Venice Film Festival, bringing Cardinale to the attention of the Italian movie industry. Her feature film debut was "Goha" (1957), a French-Tunisian co-production. After attending the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia of Rome for two months, she signed a seven-year contract with the Vides studios. In 1958, she had a role in the major international success "I soliti ignoti (Big Deal on Madonna Street)". Her early career was largely managed by studio producer Franco Cristaldi, to whom Cardinale was married from 1966 until 1975. Throughout the 1960s, she appeared in some of the most acclaimed Italian and European films of the period, including Luchino Visconti's "Rocco e i suoi fratelli" ("Rocco and His Brothers" 1960) and "Il Gattopardo" ("The Leopard", 1963), Philippe de Broca's "Cartouche" (1963), Federico Fellini's "Otto e mezzo" ("8½" 1963), and Sergio Leone's epic "Once Upon a Time in the West" (1968). In her early Italian films, another actress dubbed Cardinale because her naturally deep, hoarse voice (which later became one of the reasons of her success) contrasted with her feminine appearance. It's also said that she initially spoke Italian with a slight French accent – something that, reportedly, bothered Italian audiences of the time. Not until "8½" was she allowed to dub her own dialogue. Because Cardinale was not interested in leaving Europe for extended periods of time, she never made a real attempt to break into the American market. The list of her Hollywood films includes "The Pink Panther" (1963), "Circus World" (1964), "Blindfold" (1965), "The Professionals" (1966), "Don't Make Waves" (1967), and "Son of the Pink Panther" (1993). A photograph of Cardinale was featured in the original gatefold artwork to Bob Dylan's album "Blonde on Blonde" (1966), but because it was used without Cardinale's permission, the photo was removed from the cover art in later pressings. In Visconti's "Vaghe stelle dell'Orsa" (known as "Sandra" in the USA and "Of A Thousand Delights" in the UK, 1965) she plays a Holocaust survivor who may have had an incestuous relationship with her brother. In Comencini's "La storia" (from Elsa Morante's novel), Cardinale plays a widow raising a son during World War II, and gave another well-received performance. Other memorable performances include Valerio Zurlini's "Girl with a Suitcase" and Mauro Bolognini's "Libera, Amore Mio". Cardinale has remained active through the decades. Her later films include "Qui comincia l'avventura" (1975), "Fitzcarraldo" (1982), "Un homme amoureux" (1987), "Mayrig" (1991), "Li chiamarono... briganti!" (1999), "And now... Ladies and Gentlemen" (2002), and the critically acclaimed gay-themed "Le fil" ("The String", 2010) playing a Tunisian mother with a tempestuous relationship with her French-educated gay son. Cardinale has been honoured at nearly every major film festival. She was a tributee at the 2010 Telluride Film Festival and was the guest of honour at the 47th Antalya "Golden Orange" International Film Festival. She won the Golden Orange Best Actress Award for the movie "Signora Enrica" (2010) from the Antalya Film Festival in Turkey. She has been given lifetime achievement awards from festivals in Canada, France, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Turkey, Armenia, Russia, Bulgaria, Egypt, Tunisia, Morocco, Australia, the UK and US. The "Los Angeles Times Magazine", in a February 2011 online feature, named Cardinale among the 50 most beautiful women in film history. Personal life. Claudia Cardinale was married to Italian film producer Franco Cristaldi from 1966 until their divorce in 1975. She has lived with Pasquale Squitieri, an Italian film director, since 1975. Claudia has two children: Patrizio, who was born out of wedlock when she was 19 and later adopted by Cristaldi, and Claudia, whose biological father is Squitieri. Cardinale is a political liberal who has supported feminist and gay rights causes over the years. She has frequently stated her pride in her Tunisian background (she was raised speaking fluent Arabic) and her roots in Arabic culture – as evidenced by her book "Ma Tunisie" and her appearance as herself in the Tunisian film "Un été à La Goulette" ("A Summer in La Goulette"). She wrote an autobiography, with Anne Mori, "Moi Claudia, Toi Claudia". Cardinale has been a regular attendee of the Academy Awards. She was awarded an honorary Golden Lion at the 1993 Venice Film Festival, and an honorary Golden Bear award at the 2002 Berlin Film Festival. Cardinale has been a UNESCO goodwill ambassador for the Defense of Women's Rights since 1999. She was a goodwill ambassador for the UNESCO World Water Day for 2006, supporting that year's theme of "Water and Culture" by declaring her support for Powerstock, a sustainable electronic music festival that proposes a "water-consciousness" for youth culture and seeks to make sustainability an integral part of mainstream culture.
1165514	Eugene Barton "Gene" Evans (July 11, 1922 – April 1, 1998) was an American actor. Background. Evans was born in Holbrook, Arizona, but reared in Colton, California. His acting career began while he was serving in World War II. He performed with a theatrical troupe of GIs in Europe. Evans made his film debut in 1947 and appeared in dozens of films and television programs. He specialized in playing tough guys such as cowboys, sheriffs, convicts, and sergeants. Acting career. Evans appeared in numerous films produced, directed, and written by Samuel Fuller. In his memoirs "A Third Face", Fuller described meeting Evans when casting his Korean War film "The Steel Helmet" (1950). Fuller threw an M1 Garand rifle at Evans, who caught it and inspected it as a soldier would have done. Evans had been a United States Army engineer in World War II. Fuller kept Evans and refused John Wayne for the role. and fighting to keep him despite Robert L. Lippert and his partner wanting Larry Parks for the role. Fuller walked off the film and would not return until Evans was reinstated. Evans also appeared in Fuller's "Fixed Bayonets!", "Hell and High Water", "Shock Corridor" and lost thirty pounds to play the lead in "Park Row". Evans portrayed the authoritarian but wise father, Rob McLaughlin, on the 1956-1957 CBS television series "My Friend Flicka", based on a Western novel and film of the same name set in Wyoming. He appeared with Anita Louise, who played his wife, Nell; Johnny Washbrook, who played his son, Ken; and fellow character actor Frank Ferguson, who played the ranch handyman, Gus Broeberg, who addressed Evans as "Captain", a reference to Rob McLaughlin's service in the Union Army during the American Civil War. In 1958, Evans co-starred as Major Al Arthur in the film, "Damn Citizen", based on the life of crusading State Police superintendent Francis Grevemberg of Louisiana, played by Keith Andes. Grevemberg twice ran unsuccessfully for governor of Louisiana. In 1960, Evans was cast as Otis Stockert in "The Frontiersman" on the NBC western series "Wichita Town", with Joel McCrea. That same year, he was cast as Boone Hackett in the episode "Die Twice" of the CBS western series "Johnny Ringo", with Don Durant. Evans was cast in 1960 as United States Army Sergeant Dan Phillips, with James Griffith as Corporal Sam Giler, Ron Hagerthy as Phelan, and Stuart Randall as the historical General Winfield Scott, in the episode "The Quota" of another NBC western series, "Riverboat". In the story line, Phillips shanghais Grey Holden (Darren McGavin) and a crew member of the river vessel, the "Enterprise", to meet the Army's "quota" of new recruits. Evans was cast as Walter Kopek, an undercover agent of the United States Treasury Department, in the episode, "The Moonshiners" (February 24, 1963), of the CBS anthology series, "GE True", hosted by Jack Webb. In the story line, Kopek moved against a bootlegging operation in Florida run by the mobster Bill Munger (Robert Emhardt). James Griffith, with whom Evans had appeared on "Riverboat", is cast in this episode as Stan Woolman. In 1966 Evans appeared on the CBS courtroom drama series "Perry Mason" as Sheriff "Moose" Dalton in "The Case of the Scarlet Scandal."
581124	Abodh () is a 1984 Bollywood film directed by Hiren Nag. It marked the debut of actress Madhuri Dixit. Plot. Naive, childish and precocious, Gauri lives in a small town with her parents. At a fair, she gets into an argument with Shankar. Shortly thereafter, Gauri is told that her marriage has been arranged. At first Gauri is thrilled, then changes her mind when she finds out that her groom is Shankar, but finally reconciles herself to this marriage. After she re-locates to Shankar's residence, she spends much of her time playing with Shankar's little brother. Her husband starts to realize that Gauri has not matured yet. He is unable to get intimate with her. Gauri soon becomes bored, and re-locates to her parents' house, where she resides for several months. It is here that she truly grows up, realizing the importance of marriage and intimacy. She then returns to Shankar's house, where she is welcomed back - though not quite warmly enough. Gauri starts to realize that her childishness has created distance between her and Shankar. He re-locates to study in another town. For several months, the family does not get any news about him. Shankar's father Gajanan Singh visits the hostel where his son is supposed to be staying. However, Gajanan finds that Shankar has left the hostel. For 3 months, Shankar goes missing. In the end, Shanker meets Gauri's childhood friend Ratna by chance. After talking to Ratna, Shankar realises that Gauri has matured and loves him. He goes running back to meet Gauri. They both reconcile.
584075	Sadaf Mohammed Sayed (born on 17 February 1984), better known as Sadha, is an Indian actress who mainly appears in South Indian cinema. Her most notable films include "Jayam", "Anniyan" and "Unnale Unnale". Personal Life. Sadha was born to a Muslim family in Ratnagiri, Maharashtra. Her father is a doctor and her mother a bank executive. She did her schooling at Ratnagiri's Sacred Hearts Convent High School and then shifted to Mumbai for her higher education but as she was destined to be an actress, she was offered dir Teja's teenage love story "Jayam" in Telugu which went on to become a blockbuster of the year. Sadha is a current resident of Mumbai and has a house in Hyderabad. Career. After making a remarkable debut with "Jayam", Sadha appeared in the Tamil movie "Anniyan" opposite Vikram directed by none other than Shankar, which is her most successful movie to date. Since then, she has appeared in a number of films across movie industries in India, in different languages including "Monalisa" in Kannada and "Click" in Hindi.
1712396	Jack Richard Nelson Betts (born April 11, 1929), also credited as Hunt Powers, is an American actor of film, stage, and television. A member of the Actors Studio, he started his career as a leading man in spaghetti westerns, before taking a career in supporting roles in American films. Among his numerous television appearances were four roles on the CBS drama series "Perry Mason", including the role of Bert Nickols in the 1961 episode, "The Case of the Impatient Partner," murder victim George Parsons in the 1964 episode, "The Case of the Wooden Nickels," and murder victim Bruce Strickland in the 1966 episode, "The Case of the Fanciful Frail.
1463299	S. (Sundararaman) Ramanan (born 20 July 1937) is an Indian mathematician who works in the area of algebraic geometry, moduli spaces and Lie groups. He is one of India's leading mathematicians and internationally recognised as an outstanding expert in Algebraic Geometry, especially in the area of modulii problems. He has also done some very beautiful work in Differential Geometry: His joint paper with M.S. Narasimhan on Universal Connections has been very influential: It enabled (among other things) S.S. Chern and B. Simons to introduce what is known as the Chern-Simons invariant which has proved useful in Theoretical Physics. He completed his PhD at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, under the direction of M. S. Narasimhan, with whom he collaborated for decades. He later pursued a lengthy career at TIFR, with many international visits. He picked up the methods of modern differential geometry from the French mathematician Jean-Louis Koszul, and later successfully applied it for his research centred around algebraic geometry. He has also made important contributions to the topics of abelian varieties and also vector bundles. He was a senior colleague of M. S. Raghunathan and influenced him considerably. Vijay Kumar Patodi who proved part of the Atiyah-Singer index theorem, was found and encouraged by Ramanan, and Patodi's PhD was done under the combined direction of Narasimhan and Ramanan. He has a considerable number of students. Mathematicians influenced by Ramanan include N. Mohan Kumar, Shrawan Kumar, D. S. Nagaraj, Kapil H. Paranjape, Jaya Iyer, Annamalai Ramanathan and several others. He was very close to, and has closely collaborated with, many Western mathematicians of note, like the late Raoul Bott, who was at Harvard University. While in TIFR as distinguished professor, he was one of the important figures in the school of mathematics in India. He now continues his contributions via teaching at the Chennai Mathematical Institute, where he is adjunct professor. He is a great lecturer and expositor, and has written a graduate level book on Global Calculus. He is married to Anuradha Ramanan and has two daughters: Sumana Ramanan, who is a journalist and editor, now a senior editor at the Hindustan Times, Mumbai, and Kavita Ramanan, who is also a mathematician, now a professor at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, USA. The honours awarded to prof. Ramanan include the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize in 1979, the Third World Academy of Sciences Prize for Mathematics in 2001 and the Ramanujan Medal. He has been a visiting professor at many leading universities in the world. In 1978 he gave one of the prestigious 50-minute invited talks at the International Congress of Mathematicians in Helsinki, and has also been a speaker at many major international conferences. In 1999, he was extended the privilege of speaking on some aspects of the work of André Weil, one of the greatest mathematicians of 20th century, on the occasion of his being awarded the prestigious Inamouri Prize. He is an alumnus of the Vivekananda College in Chennai.
582396	Khosla Ka Ghosla (; translation: "Khosla's Nest") is a 2006 Indian comedy drama film directed by Dibakar Banerjee in his directorial debut. It stars Anupam Kher and Boman Irani. Though made on a small budget this film managed to do very well at the box office. It won the National Film Award for Best Feature Film in Hindi for 2006. It was remade into Tamil in 2008 as Poi Solla Porom. The film's story and screenplay are by Jaideep Sahni, who had previously written "Company" (2002) and "Chak De! India" (2007). Plot. Kamal Kishore Khosla (Anupam Kher) is a middle-class man living in New Delhi. He is a simple man with simple tastes. The film begins with a dream sequence where Khosla sees his death, the irony being that nobody really cares about his demise; instead his children and neighbours are more occupied with banal small talk. Waking up from this nightmare, Khosla goes to visit a site where he has purchased a plot of land to build a house. He is accompanied by his family — wife, elder son Balwant a.k.a. Bunty (Ranvir Shorey), younger son Chironji Lal a.k.a. Cherry (Parvin Dabas) (who does not like his name and wishes to change it), and his daughter. Kamal Kishore has invested all of his savings (Rs.3 million) into buying the plot; Cherry is not too interested in his father's future plans of settling together in the new house. He is a software engineer and, although a source of pride for his father, he finds his current lifestyle too drab and has planned to shift to the US by taking up a job there. However, he has not let his family in on his plans. The only person Cherry discusses his plan with are Asif Iqbal (Vinay Pathak), the agent helping him with his passport and visa paperwork. Much later, he shares this with his close friend Meghna (Tara Sharma) — who has a very visible romantic interest in him (one which he does not seem to fully realise) — she, however, feels hurt and angered by his choice to desert her and his family. Just when Cherry reveals his migration plans to his family, who are all disturbed by it, during a routine family visit to their land, they find the plot encroached upon by someone. Probing further reveals that the squatters are part of a property usurping nexus headed by the corrupt and powerful Kishan Khurana (Boman Irani). Upon being urged so by the property dealer who had facilitated the purchase of the plot, Kamal Kishore and Bunty visit Khurana. Khurana places before them, a demand for Rs.1.5 million to vacate the plot, an amount which Khosla neither has nor agrees to pay. Kamal Kishore appeals to authorities and agencies, including the police, lawyers, political parties, NGOs and social activists for help. None of them offers more than to get the amount demanded by Khurana reduced by a few lacs, in exchange for a hefty commission for mediating, of course. Spurred by his father's helplessness, Bunty gets help from a gang of local strongmen (pahalwans) who demolish the boundary walls built by Khurana's men and take possession of the plot back by force. This success is short-lived as the corrupt Khurana has the police in his pocket and Kamal Kishore is arrested on trumped up charges of trespass. Released at Khurana's guileful behest after spending a day in the jail, Khosla's will is broken and pride battered. After the catastrophic event Khosla tells his family (especially Cherry) to avoid taking any further action as he is not capable of fighting back and wants Cherry to concentrate on the job that he's arranging abroad. Cherry discusses the grim situation with Asif Iqbal who is revealed to have been an old partner of Khurana's and who has been cheated by him, usurping Asif's own ancestral land. Asif offers to help the Khoslas with a group of Meghna's friends, turn the tables on Khurana and beat him at his own game, duping him Rs.3.5 million in cash. From that money, Kamal Kishore pays a renegotiated 1.2 million to Khurana and gets possession of his plot back, and the remaining spoils are split between the Khoslas, Asif and Meghna's friends. The turmoil suffered throughout by the family and the victory of their efforts stirs emotions that bring Cherry close to Meghna and his family. Cherry scraps his plans of migrating to the US, marries Meghna and settles with his family in their new abode built on their plot. As an additional favour, his father allows him to change his name from Chironji Lal to Chirag. As for Khurana, he is left looking bitter, having finally tasted his own medicine.
1099994	William "Vilim" Feller (July 7, 1906 – January 14, 1970), born Vilibald Srećko Feller, was a Croatian-American mathematician specializing in probability theory. Early life and education. Feller was born in Zagreb to Ida Oemichen-Perc, a Croatian-Austrian Catholic, and Eugen Viktor Feller, who was born to a Polish Jew named David Feller and an Austrian named Elsa Holzer. Eugen was a famous chemist and created "Elsa fluid" named after his mother. According to Gian-Carlo Rota, Feller's father's surname was a "Slavic tongue twister", which William changed at the age of twenty—but as can be seen, this claim was false. His christened name, Vilibald, was chosen by his Catholic mother for the saint day of his birthday. In his school documentation, the small municipality of Donja Stubica in Zagorje is mentioned. This is the birthplace of his father, who was an apothecary and owner of a company producing hygienic utensils and cosmetics. William finished his elementary and middle education in Zagreb, as well as two years of his math study. From 1925, he continued his study in Göttingen, Germany where he gained the doctoral degree in 1926 under the supervision of Richard Courant, with his work "Über algebraisch rektifizierbare transzendente Kurven". Work. Feller held a docent position at the University of Kiel beginning in 1928. Because he refused to sign a Nazi oath, he fled the Nazis and went to Copenhagen, Denmark in 1933. He also lectured in Sweden (Stockholm and Lund). As a refugee in Sweden, Feller reported being troubled by increasing fascism at the universities. He reported that the mathematician Torsten Carleman would offer his opinion that Jews and foreigners should be executed. Finally, in 1939 he arrived in the U.S. where he became a citizen in 1944 and was on the faculty at Brown and Cornell. In 1950 he became a professor at Princeton University. The works of Feller are contained in 104 papers and two books on a variety of topics such as mathematical analysis, theory of measurement, functional analysis, geometry, and differential equations in addition to his work in mathematical statistics and probability. Feller was one of the greatest probabilists of the twentieth century, who is remembered for his championing of probability theory as a branch of mathematical analysis in Sweden and the United States. In the middle of the 20th century, probability theory was popular in France and Russia, while mathematical statistics was more popular in the United Kingdom and the United States, according to the Swedish statistician, Harald Cramér. His two-volume textbook on probability theory and its applications was called "the most successful treatise on probability ever written" by Gian-Carlo Rota. By stimulating his colleagues and students in Sweden and then in the United States, Feller helped establish research groups studying the analytic theory of probability. In his research, Feller contributed to the study of the relationship between Markov chains and differential equations, where his theory of generators of one-parameter semigroups of stochastic processes gave rise to the theory of "Feller operators". Results. Numerous topics relating to probability are named after him, including Feller processes, Feller's explosion test, Feller–Brown movement, and the Lindeberg–Feller theorem. Feller made fundamental contributions to renewal theory, Tauberian theorems, random walks, diffusion processes, and the law of the iterated logarithm. Feller was among those early editors who launched the journal "Mathematical Reviews".
1057146	The Passion of Darkly Noon is a 1995 film written and directed by Philip Ridley, starring Brendan Fraser in the title role, and co-starring Ashley Judd and Viggo Mortensen. Plot. Darkly Noon (Fraser) is a young man who has spent his entire life as a member of an ultraconservative Christian cult. After a violent altercation that results in the dissolution of the cult and the death of Darkly's parents, a disoriented Darkly wanders into a forest in the Appalachian region of North Carolina and is rescued from exhaustion by a coffin transporter named Jude (Loren Dean) and his friend Callie (Ashley Judd). Callie nurses Darkly back to health, but Darkly is frustrated by the conflict between his religious past and his attraction to his new companion. Darkly's frustration intensifies when Clay (Viggo Mortensen), Callie's mute boyfriend who builds the coffins Jude sells, returns home after being away for a few days. When Darkly encounters Clay's mother, Roxy (Grace Zabriskie), his internal conflicts grow even stronger. Roxy despises the relationship between Clay and Callie, and tells Darkly that Callie is a witch bent on destroying Roxy's family. Finally, in the film's climax, Darkly's rage boils over. Having wrapped himself in barbed wire and armed with one of Clay's chisels, he bursts into Callie and Clay's house, intent on murdering the couple, whom he discovers having sex. After a scene of horrific destruction, Darkly is finally tamed by Callie's confession that she loves him. Unfortunately for Darkly, Jude arrives, rifle in hand, to rescue Callie and Clay. Jude shoots Darkly, who laments, "Who will love me now?" as he lies dying. Title source. Darkly received his unusual name from a passage in the bible, (1 Corinthians 13), ""Now we see through a glass, darkly..."". Critical reception. "Entertainment Weekly" called "The Passion of Darkly Noon" "an unintended comedy with a scorcher of an ending", citing poor acting, over-the-top dialogue and implausible plot twists. Conversely, "Fangoria" magazine praised the film effusively, citing especially the performance of Brendan Fraser.
591988	Sanju Weds Geetha is a 2011 Kannada film in the romance genre starring Srinagar Kitty and Ramya in the lead roles. It was directed and written by actor-director Nagashekar and produced by Pramod Narayan. While Jassie Gift composed the soundtrack, Sadhu Kokila composed the background score. The film released on 1 April 2011. The film was hugely successful at the box-office upon release and won many critical acclaims and awards including the Filmfare Awards South and Suvarna Film Awards in various categories. Plot. "Sanju Weds Geetha" begins with Sanju graduating in computer science with top marks — immediately after which he leaves to his native Kodagu. There he meets Geetha who is seen helping a beggar on the street, and he is instantly infatuated. He pursues her to like him, too. After several attempts, the strict and strong-willed Geetha gives into Sanju's good nature and they soon become very close. When Geetha reveals a dark childhood story to Sanju that involves her being abused by her cousin, Sanju looks past the incident and likes her even more. The evil cousin finds out about the romance between Sanju and Geetha and then he misbehaves with Geetha. She forces Sanju to marry her soon; he agrees and tell her that they will be marrying the very next day. Geetha runs away from her house. On the way, the evil cousin abducts and takes advantage of her. Sanju finds out something is amiss and finds Geetha and rescues her from the cousin. He gives the evil cousin a chase then he hunts him down and kills him. Sanju is sentenced for life for the murder. When Geetha visits him in jail, he asks her to marry someone else. She becomes more depressed. On one occasion Geetha visits one of their previous meeting spots. She slips from the lookout, hurts her head, and loses her memory. A series of tragic events follow leading to the ultimate death of Sanju and Geetha. Soundtrack. Jassie Gift's music and Kaviraj's lyrics for the movie have been widely appreciated and is considered one of the top chartbusters. Jassie Gift reused the composition of "Gaganave Baagi" for the song "Arikil Ninnalum" in the Malayalam film "Chinatown".
1044141	Aubrey Morris (born 1 June 1926 in Portsmouth, Hampshire) is a British actor perhaps best known for his appearances in the cult 1970s films "A Clockwork Orange" and "The Wicker Man". His grandparents were from Kiev and escaped the Russian pogroms, arriving in London in about 1890. The family moved to Portsmouth at the turn of the 20th century. Morris was one of nine children born to Morry and Becky Morris. An elder brother, Wolfe Morris, was also an accomplished actor. Work. Morris has starred in over fifty films, including Woody Allen's "Love and Death" (1975), Ken Russell's "Lisztomania" (1975), and Gene Wilder's "The Adventure of Sherlock Holmes' Smarter Brother" (1977). He has been in many television programmes since the late-1950s. Although most of his television appearances have been in Britain, such as "Z Cars" and "Lovejoy", he has also made some appearances in U.S. programmes, such as a 1998 Columbo movie titled "Ashes to Ashes". Morris has managed to star in a significant number of shows and films that are regarded by many as cult classics. Together with the character he played (usually present in just one episode in the case of television series), these include:
1060734	Gregory Oliver Hines (February 14, 1946 – August 9, 2003) was an American actor, singer, dancer and choreographer. Early years. Born in New York City to Maurice Hines Sr. and Alma Hines, Gregory Hines began tapping when he was around three years old, and began dancing semi-professionally at the age of five. Since then, he and his older brother Maurice performed together, studying with choreographer Henry LeTang. Gregory and Maurice also learned from veteran tap dancers such as Howard Sims and The Nicholas Brothers whenever they performed in the same venues. The two brothers were known as "The Hines Kids", making nightclub appearances, and later as "The Hines Brothers". When their father joined the act as a drummer, the name changed again in 1963 to "Hines, Hines, and Dad". Career. Hines performed as the lead singer and musician in a rock band called Severance in the year of 1975-1976 based in Venice, California. Severance was one of the house bands at an original music club called Honky Hoagies Handy Hangout, otherwise known as the 4H Club. In 1986, he sang a duet with Luther Vandross, entitled "There's Nothing Better Than Love", which reached the number 1 position on the "Billboard" R&B charts. Hines made his movie debut in Mel Brooks's "History of the World, Part 1". Critics took note of Hines's comedic charm, and he later appeared in such movies as "The Cotton Club", "White Nights" alongside Mikhail Baryshnikov, "Running Scared", "Tap" and "Waiting to Exhale". On television, he starred in his own series in 1997 called "The Gregory Hines Show" on CBS, as well as in the recurring role of Ben Doucette on "Will & Grace". In 1999, Hines made his return to television with Nick Jr.'s "Little Bill", as the voice of Big Bill in which he Emmy Award for Outstanding Performer In An Animated Program. Hines made his Broadway debut with his brother in "The Girl in Pink Tights" in 1954. He earned Tony Award nominations for "Eubie!" (1979), "Comin' Uptown" (1980) and "Sophisticated Ladies" (1981), and won the Tony Award and Drama Desk Award for "Jelly's Last Jam" (1992) and the Theatre World Award for "Eubie!". In 1989, Gregory Hines created "Gregory Hines' Tap Dance in America," which he also hosted. The PBS special featured seasoned tap dancers such as Savion Glover and Bunny Briggs. He also co-hosted the Tony Awards ceremony in 1995 and 2002.
394008	A Good Day To Have An Affair () is a 2007 South Korean film. The story deals with two lonely housewives who get involved in extramarital affairs. Plot. Two bored housewives have affairs with two different men that they meet in online chatrooms. As their online relationships develop offline, they often pass each other unwittingly in the hallways of the motels where they meet their lovers. One day, the lady known as “Dew” is in a motel room with her college-aged lover. Suddenly, her husband bursts through the door, along with police officers that he has brought along. The other lady, known as “Small Bird”, is in an adjacent room listening to what’s going on in Dew's room. Small Bird whispers to her lover to be quiet, because the police officer in the other room is her husband. Trivia. 바람피다 is a Korean idiom that means "to cheat". 바람 = wind, 피다 = to smoke. When you cheat on your spouse, you go back home so fast that even the wind burns (a rough translation). The actor that played Dew's husband, Park Sang-myun, is the same man who played the aloof husband in "My Wife is a Gangster" (2001).
1061193	Lee J. Cobb (December 8, 1911February 11, 1976) was an American actor. He is best known for his performance in "12 Angry Men" (1957), his Academy Award-nominated performance in "On the Waterfront" (1954), and one of his last films, "The Exorcist" (1973). He also played the role of Willy Loman in the original Broadway production of Arthur Miller's 1949 play "Death of a Salesman" under the direction of Elia Kazan. On television, Cobb costarred in the first four seasons of the popular, long-running western series "The Virginian". He typically played arrogant, intimidating, and abrasive characters, but often had roles as respectable figures such as judges. Background. Born Leo Jacob in New York City, to a Jewish family of Russian and Romanian extraction. He grew up in The Bronx, New York, on Wilkins Avenue, near Crotona Park. His parents were Benjamin (Benzion) Jacob, a compositor for a foreign-language newspaper, and Kate (Neilecht). Cobb studied at New York University before making his film debut in "The Vanishing Shadow" (1934). He joined the Manhattan-based Group Theatre in 1935. Career. Cobb did summer stock at Pine Brook Country Club located in the countryside of Nichols, Connecticut, in the 1930s and early 1940s. Pine Brook was the summer home of the Group Theatre (New York) from 1931 until the 1940s. During World War II Cobb served in the First Motion Picture Unit of the Army Air Force. Cobb entered films in the 1930s, successfully playing middle-aged and even older men while he was still a youth. He was cast as the Kralahome in the 1946 non-musical film "Anna and the King of Siam". He also played the sympathetic doctor in "The Song of Bernadette" and appeared as James Coburn's supervisor in the spy spoofs "In Like Flint" and "Our Man Flint". He reprised his role of Willy Loman in the 1966 CBS television adaptation of "Death of a Salesman", which included Gene Wilder, James Farentino, Bernie Kopell and George Segal. Cobb was nominated for an Emmy Award for the performance. Mildred Dunnock, who had co-starred in both the original stage version and the 1951 film version, again repeated her role as Linda, Willy's devoted wife. In 1957 he appeared in Sidney Lumet's "12 Angry Men" as the abrasive Juror #3. In 1959, on CBS' "DuPont Show of the Month", he starred in the dual roles of Miguel de Cervantes and Don Quixote in the play "I, Don Quixote", which years later became the musical "Man of La Mancha". Cobb also appeared as Wyoming ranch owner Judge Henry Garth in the first four seasons of the long-running NBC western television series "The Virginian". His co-stars were James Drury, Doug McClure, Roberta Shore, Gary Clarke, Randy Boone, Clu Gulager and Diane Roter. In 1968 his performance as King Lear with Stacy Keach as Edmund, René Auberjonois as the Fool and Philip Bosco as Kent achieved the longest run (72 performances) for the play in Broadway history. One of his final film roles was that of police detective Lt. Kinderman in the 1973 horror film "The Exorcist". Political activity. Cobb was accused of being a possible Communist in testimony before the House Un-American Activities Committee because of his past involvement in left-wing political causes and his support of political and charitable organizations alleged to be Communist fronts. He was called to testify before HUAC but refused to do so for two years until, with his career threatened by the blacklist, he relented in 1953 and gave testimony in which he named 20 people as former members of the Communist Party USA. Later, Cobb explained why he "named names", saying: When the facilities of the government of the United States are drawn on an individual it can be terrifying. The blacklist is just the opening gambit—being deprived of work. Your passport is confiscated. That's minor. But not being able to move without being tailed is something else. After a certain point it grows to implied as well as articulated threats, and people succumb. My wife did, and she was institutionalized. The HUAC did a deal with me. I was pretty much worn down. I had no money. I couldn't borrow. I had the expenses of taking care of the children. Why am I subjecting my loved ones to this? If it's worth dying for, and I am just as idealistic as the next fellow. But I decided it wasn't worth dying for, and if this gesture was the way of getting out of the penitentiary I'd do it. I had to be employable again. Following the hearing he resumed his career and worked with Elia Kazan and Budd Schulberg, two other HUAC "friendly witnesses", on the 1954 film "On the Waterfront", which is widely seen as an allegory and apologia for testifying. Death. Cobb died of a heart attack in February 1976 in Woodland Hills, California, and was buried in Mount Sinai Memorial Park Cemetery in Los Angeles. He was survived by his second wife, Mary Hirsch. His death came the day before his "Exodus" (1960) co-star Sal Mineo was murdered. He was inducted, posthumously, into the American Theatre Hall of Fame in 1981. Lee J. Cobb's wife from 1940 to 1950s was Yiddish-theater and film actress Helen Beverley (1916—2011), daughter — Julie Cobb.
1078589	Age of the Dragons is a 2011 fantasy film starring Danny Glover and Vinnie Jones, directed by Ryan Little. A fantasy-themed reimagining of Herman Melville's classic novel, "Moby Dick", it was released in the United Kingdom on March 4, 2011. Plot. Harpooner Ishmael (Corey Sevier) joins Ahab (Danny Glover) and his crew on the "Pequod", in this instance an armored land boat that hunts for dragons. The seven-strong crew ostensibly seeks the precious "vitriol", a highly explosive liquid substance found inside the fire-breathing winged creatures, which powers the mythical realm they live in. Ishmael joins their quest, and soon learns that in fact, Ahab's mission is one of revenge on a particular great white dragon that decades ago scarred and injured him, and also killed his sister. Forced to hide from the sunlight due to the burn wounds on his body, Ahab now tries to kill all dragons, and especially the white one. Conflict arises through a romantic entanglement between Ishmael and Ahab's adopted daughter, Rachel (Sofia Pernas), which causes hostility from the jealous hothead Flask (Larry Bagby). In the white dragon's lair, Ahab's secrets are revealed and Rachel must choose between following him on his dark quest or escaping to a new life with Ishmael. She chooses the latter and in a final confrontation, Ahab's spear, which was tied to his foot, becomes entangled in the White Dragon's neck. The creature flies off with a screaming Ahab, until he is slammed against a rock pillar and silenced. The white dragon flies off into the distance, with Ahab's body clinging on to it. Development. The film was originally going to be called "Dragon Fire". On February 3, 2010 it was announced that Danny Glover and Vinnie Jones had joined the cast, and that filming would begin in Utah the following week. The film's budget was around $5 million, and was the first film developed by distribution company Metrodome. A video from the set was revealed on March 5, 2010. Several of the scenes were filmed at Castle Amphitheater in Provo, Utah behind the Utah State Hospital. Other filming locations included Stone Five Studios in the Riverwoods Business Park. Glover was quoted as saying "This is a great idea ... it's going to be fun." The trailer for the film was released on October 15, 2010. Reception. The film received almost universal negative reviews in the British press. "The Guardian" (1 star out of 5): “A textbook lesson in how not to adapt a literary classic – though it's so spectacularly bad, it could well achieve mythical status of its own . . . The deadly serious tone just makes it funnier; there's not a whale in sight but this movie blows.” Whilst "The Observer" stated　“This crude picture, shot in snow-covered Utah, where the Pequod becomes a battle engine on large wooden wheels, is unamusingly ridiculous.”
1484596	Diego Klattenhoff (born 1979) is a Canadian actor best known for playing Mike Faber in the Showtime series "Homeland". He also played Derek in "Whistler" and Ivan in "Men in Trees". Early life. Klattenhoff was born in Nova Scotia, Canada. When he was young, he wanted to be a professional baseball player. Moving to Toronto at the age of 19, Klattenhoff started to pursue an acting career. While studying in theater workshops for a number of years, he adapted to the Toronto life-style while being a bartender. He likes various physical activities in his free time, including playing baseball, hockey, golf and swimming. Career. Diego Klattenhoff studied with some of Canada's most respected acting coaches, including David Rotenberg, Bruce Clayton and Rae Ellen Bodie. Klattenhoff's first notable acting role was in "Mean Girls", starring Lindsay Lohan and Rachel McAdams. He followed that with a string of appearances in notable TV shows like "Smallville" and "Stargate SG-1", and films like "Lucky Number Slevin". Since 2006, he has been getting recurring roles like Young Jacob in "At the Hotel", Derek in Canada's CTV's "Whistler", Ivan Palacinke in "Men in Trees", and Mike Callahan in "Mercy". He currently plays the role of Mike Faber in "Homeland", a Marine major whose best friend returns to the US after disappearing in Iraq seven years earlier. The series won Best Drama at the 2013 Golden Globes for its first season. Diego, returns to season 3 of Homeland as a recurring character, the show is set to premiere on September 29, 2013. Additional credits for Diego Klattenhoff include guest starring roles on numerous films, movies of the week, and television series such as "Psych", "Supernatural", "24", and "Falling Skies", among many others. Klattenhoff also starred in J. J. Abrams' Television Movie, "Anatomy of Hope." Diego was also seen in the 2013 Guillermo del Toro film "Pacific Rim" and the 2013 Sci-fi thriller "After Earth"
1163238	Jean E. Smart (born September 13, 1951) is an American film, television, and stage actress. She is known for her comedic roles, one of the best known being her role as Charlene Frazier Stillfield on the CBS sitcom "Designing Women". She later gained critical acclaim for dramatic work, with her portrayal of Martha Logan on "24". Smart recently appeared as Regina Newly on the ABC sitcom "Samantha Who?" from 2007 to 2009, which garnered the actress an Emmy Award in 2008. She played Governor Pat Jameson during the first season of the CBS-TV remake of "Hawaii Five-0". Early life. Smart was born in Seattle, Washington, the daughter of Kay and Douglas Smart, a teacher. The second of four children, she was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes when she was thirteen. She is a 1969 graduate of Ballard High School, located in Seattle; it was there that she gained an interest in acting in the drama program. She graduated from the University of Washington Professional Actors Training Program with a BFA. Smart is a member of the University of Washington chapter of the Alpha Delta Pi sorority. Career. After graduating from college, Smart began her career appearing in regional theater while still living in Seattle (Seattle Repertory Theater, Ashland (Oregon) Shakespeare festival, etc.). She moved to NYC in the mid 1970s with college friend and fellow actress, Elizabeth Wingate (Lavery), and began working in Off-Broadway productions almost immediately. Before long she made her Broadway debut portraying Marlene Dietrich in the 1981 play "Piaf", a role which she would later reprise for the 1984 television version. Also in 1981, Smart was nominated for a Drama Desk Award for her performance in the Off-Broadway play "Last Summer at Bluefish Cove".
1016017	Brigitte Lin () or Brigitte Lin Ching Hsia (born 3 November 1954) is a Taiwanese actress. She was a popular actress, regarded as an icon of Chinese cinema, who acted in both Taiwanese and Hong Kong movies. She retired in 1994, although she had a minor role in the 1998 film "Bishonen". Biography. She was born in Taipei, and was "discovered" in 1972 by a film producer, and first appeared in many Taiwanese romance films based on the novels of Chiung Yao. Her movie debut is in "Chuangwai". She later switched over to making movies in Hong Kong. At the height of her popularity she was arguably one of the most sought-after actresses in the Chinese film industry. She starred in more than 100 movies. In Hong Kong movies, Lin made a career of playing transgender roles: in "Peking Opera Blues" she plays a tomboy who dresses in male Western clothes; in "New Dragon Gate Inn" she is a woman who dresses as a man, and in "Swordsman II" and "III" she plays a male sorcerer who castrates himself for power and so is now slowly turning into a woman. She had a good working relationship with Tsui Hark, acting in many of the films he directed (like "Peking Opera Blues") and produced ("Swordsman II"). She married businessman Michael Ying in 1994 and left the film industry. She has two daughters, born in 1997 and 2001. She made her first public appearance since her marriage at a screening of "Ashes of Time Redux" at the 2008 New York Film Festival.
1063247	Lea Kathleen Thompson (born May 31, 1961) is an American actress, television director and television producer. She is known for her role as Lorraine Baines in the "Back to the Future" trilogy and as the title character in the 1990s NBC sitcom "Caroline in the City". Other films she is known for include "All the Right Moves", "The Beverly Hillbillies", "Howard the Duck", "Jaws 3-D", "Red Dawn", and "Some Kind of Wonderful". Since 2011 she has co-starred as Kathryn Kennish in the ABC Family series "Switched at Birth". Early life. Thompson was born in Rochester, Minnesota, the daughter of Barbara Anne (née Barry), a singer and musician, and Clifford Elwin "Cliff" Thompson. She studied ballet as a girl and practiced three to four hours every day. She was dancing professionally by the age of 14. She won scholarships to several ballet schools, including the American Ballet Theatre, the San Francisco Ballet, and the Pennsylvania Ballet. Thompson danced in more than 45 ballets with the American Ballet Theatre. She also danced with the Pennsylvania Ballet, the Minnesota Dance Theatre and the Ballet Repertory. Her brother Andrew also took ballet classes and went on to become a professional. Thompson was told by ballet legend and then ABT artistic director Mikhail Baryshnikov that she was "a beautiful dancer, but too stocky." Due to this (as well as some small nagging past injuries), she decided to give up dancing in favor of an acting career. She moved to New York at age 20 and performed in a number of Burger King advertisements in the 1980s along with Sarah Michelle Gellar and Elisabeth Shue, her eventual co-star in "Back to the Future Part II" and "Back to the Future Part III". Career. Thompson's first significant film roles came in 1983, with "Jaws 3-D" and "All the Right Moves" (the latter opposite Tom Cruise). These were followed by "Red Dawn" (1984) and "The Wild Life" (1984). In a 2008 interview, she explained that she learned tactics and how to shoot and field strip Soviet weapons for the film "Red Dawn".
1068403	Summer Catch is a 2001 romantic comedy film starring Freddie Prinze, Jr., Jessica Biel and Matthew Lillard. The film was directed by Mike Tollin, marking his feature film directorial debut. The story takes place on Cape Cod, but the majority of the film was shot in Southport, North Carolina. Plot. Ryan Dunne is a local baseball prospect who gets an opportunity to play in the Cape Cod Baseball League for the Chatham Athletics. Dunne was born and raised in Chatham, Massachusetts and dreams of playing in the major leagues. He helps his dad with his landscaping business and takes care of Veteran's Field, where the Chatham A's play. Ryan falls in love with Tenley Parrish, whose family vacations on the Cape on Shore Road in Chatham. Ryan is distracted by Tenley and feels a lot of pressure from scouts, family, the Parish family, and friends. Then-Philadelphia Phillies' players Mike Lieberthal, Doug Glanville, and Pat Burrell, along with outfielder Ken Griffey, Jr., make appearances at the end of the film. Other notable cameos in the movie include Kevin Youkilis, Curt Gowdy, Hank Aaron & Carlton Fisk. Reception. "Summer Catch" received extremely negative reviews from critics, where it holds a 7% rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 83 reviews. Box office. The film opened at #6 at the U.S. box office raking in $7,018,593 USD in its opening weekend. "Summer Catch" went on to gross $19 million worldwide, failing to bring back its $34 million budget. Production. The film was also not filmed in New England because the spring season was too cold so the actual production site was in Southport, North Carolina. The Chatham A's baseball field that was used in the film was actually built from a field that had been abandoned for about 20 years. Within about eight weeks the field was complete with batting cages and a press box ready to film. Since the filming of the movie, the field has once again been abandoned and is simply an overgrown field. The majority of the people cast for the roles of the teammates were actual minor-league baseball players. Only seven of the 35 people cast for the roles of the teammates were actors. The baseball players had to attend a four-week training camp during which they learned how to ignore the cameras on the field and to feel and act more as a team. All of the actors had to practice every day.
1065101	"Porky's" is a 1982 Canadian-American sex comedy film about the escapades of teenagers at the fictional Angel Beach High School in Florida in 1954. Released in the United States in 1982 with an R rating, the film spawned three sequels: "" (1983), "Porky's Revenge!" (1985), and "Pimpin' Pee Wee" (2009), and influenced many writers in the teen film genre. Despite generally negative critical reception and claims of the film being misogynistic, "Porky's" was a box office success. Plot. A group of Florida high school students plan on losing their virginity. They go to Porky's nightclub believing that they can hire a prostitute to satisfy their sexual desires. Porky takes their money but humiliates the kids by dumping them in the swamp. When the group demand their money back, the sheriff, who turns out to be Porky's brother, arrives to drive them away, but not before his minions extort the rest of their money and cause them more embarrassment. After Mickey (who returned to Porky's for revenge) is beaten so badly he has to be hospitalized, the gang becomes hellbent on exacting revenge on Porky and his brother, eventually succeeding in sinking his establishment in the swamp. Porky and his men, joined by the sheriff, chase after the group, but they make it across the county line (where Porky's brother is out of jurisdiction), where they are met by a group of the local police officers, one of whom is Mickey's older brother Ted, and the high school band. After Ted repeatedly damages Porky's car, he says that all charges against Porky for driving an unsafe vehicle will be dropped if the night's events are forgiven. Because the boys were too young to be legally allowed in Porky's in the first place, Porky and his brother have no choice but to agree. The film ends with the group getting their revenge and Pee Wee finally losing his virginity. In a subplot, the boys also peep on female students in their locker room shower. After (apparently) several unsuccessful attempts, Tommy, Billy and Pee Wee finally see several girls showering, but Pee Wee gives them away when he shouts at a particularly fat girl (who has been blocking his view) to move so he can see. While a few girls run out, most stay, finding the situation funny. To test their attitude, Tommy sticks his tongue out through his peephole, but gets it smeared with soap. Infuriated, he drops his pants and sticks his penis through the opening just before female coach Beulah Balbricker (who has a running feud with Tommy) walks into the shower area. Spotting the protruding member, she sneaks up on Tommy, grabs his protruding part and pulls with all her might. Tommy manages to pull free and escape, but Beulah is now determined to prove that the offending member (which has a mole on it) belongs to Tommy, going so far as to request that Principal Carter hold a police-type line-up of the boys in the nude so she can identify it. However, Carter balks at such a request, and while the other basketball coaches laugh almost uncontrollably, Coach Brackett suggests getting the police involved. When this gets even Carter laughing, Balbricker leaves in a huff. The film ends with Ms. Balbricker sneaking out of the bushes to ambush Tommy and actually dragging his pants down, but she is pulled off of him by police and dragged away screaming that she saw "it" and that she can identify him. The film ends as Tommy breaks the fourth wall and saying "Jeez!" to the audience. Reception. Critical response. "Porky's" received mixed to negative reviews. The film holds a 32% "Rotten" rating on the review aggregate website Rotten Tomatoes, based on reviews from 22 critics. Film critics Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert were offended by "Porky's" and later called it one of the worst films of 1982. In particular, they criticized the film for its objectification and degradation of women and the childish nature of its antagonists. Box office. Although it was written and directed by an American and was filmed in Miami, Florida, "Porky's" was produced by the Canadian company Astral Media. As a result, "Porky's" can be classed as the highest-grossing Canadian film of all time in Canada's domestic box office, with a total of C$111 million by 1999. In October 2006, "Bon Cop, Bad Cop" appeared to surpass "Porky's" in nominal box office revenues, but as of the end of its theatrical run, "Bon Cop, Bad Cop" had not surpassed the inflation-adjusted revenues for "Porky's". Sequels. The first two "Porky's" films were directed by Bob Clark and produced by Harold Greenberg, who founded Astral Communications (now known as Astral Media). James Komack directed the third film, "Porky's Revenge". Clark based the original "Porky's" on actual occurrences at Boca Ciega High School in Gulfport, Florida and Fort Lauderdale High School in the early 1960s, and on a venue called Porky's Hide Away in Oakland Park, Florida. Following the success of "Porky's" in America and Europe there was a sequel in 1983 titled "". The sequel was poorly accepted by the critics, and was less commercially successful than the original. Bob Clark didn't want to make another film in the series, so director James Komack made the third and last part of the saga. The film was called "Porky's Revenge", and was the worst of the series both critically and commercially. It was also made in Israel. Home media. On May 22, 2007, 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment released all three films in an "Ultimate Collection" box set. Remake. In 2002, Howard Stern acquired the remake rights and has long hoped to produce a remake of the film. The potential remake ran into legal trouble in 2011 when two other production companies stepped forward claiming to own the rights to the franchise. A VOC sequel, "Pimpin' Pee Wee" was filmed in 2009.
1062390	Big Fish is a 2003 American fantasy adventure film based on the by Daniel Wallace. The film was directed by Tim Burton and stars Ewan McGregor, Albert Finney, Billy Crudup, Jessica Lange, and Marion Cotillard. Other roles are performed by Helena Bonham Carter, Matthew McGrory, and Danny DeVito among others. Finney plays Edward Bloom, a former traveling salesman from the Southern United States with a gift for storytelling, now confined to his deathbed. Bloom's estranged son, a journalist played by Crudup, attempts to mend their relationship as his dying father relates tall tales of his eventful life as a young adult, played by Ewan McGregor. Screenwriter John August read a manuscript of the novel six months before it was published and convinced Columbia Pictures to acquire the rights. August began adapting the novel while producers negotiated with Steven Spielberg who planned to direct after finishing "Minority Report" (2002). Spielberg considered Jack Nicholson for the role of Edward Bloom, but eventually dropped the project to focus on "Catch Me If You Can" (2002). Tim Burton and Richard D. Zanuck took over after completing "Planet of the Apes" (2001) and brought Ewan McGregor and Albert Finney on board. The film's theme of reconciliation between a dying father and his son had special significance for Burton, as his father had died in 2000 and his mother in 2002, a month before he signed on to direct. "Big Fish" was shot on location in Alabama in a series of fairy tale vignettes evoking the tone of a Southern Gothic fantasy. The film received award nominations in multiple film categories, including four Golden Globe Award nominations, seven nominations from the British Academy of Film and Television Arts, two Saturn Award nominations, and an Oscar and a Grammy Award nomination for Danny Elfman's original score. Plot. At his son's wedding party, Edward Bloom (Albert Finney) tells the same tale he's told many times over the years: on the day Will (Billy Crudup) was born, he was out catching an enormous uncatchable fish, using his wedding ring as bait. Will is annoyed, explaining to his wife Joséphine (Marion Cotillard) that because his father never told the straight truth about anything, he felt unable to trust him. He is troubled to think that he might have a similarly difficult relationship with his future children. Will's relationship with his father becomes so strained that they do not talk for three years. But when his father's health starts to fail, Will and the now pregnant Joséphine return to Alabama. On the plane, Will recalls his father's tale of how he braved a swamp as a child, and met a witch (Helena Bonham Carter) who showed him his death in her glass eye. With this knowledge, Edward knew there were no odds he could not face. Edward continues telling tall tales, claiming he spent three years confined to a bed as a child because his body was growing too fast. He became a successful sports player, but found the town of Ashton too small for his ambition, and set off with the misunderstood giant Karl (Matthew McGrory). Edward discovers the hidden town of Spectre, where everyone is friendly to the point of comfortably walking around barefoot. Edward leaves because he does not want to settle anywhere yet, but promises to the town mayor's daughter Jenny (Hailey Anne Nelson) that he will return. Karl and Edward begin working at a circus; Edward works without pay, as he has been promised by the ringmaster Amos Calloway (Danny DeVito) that each month he will learn something new about a girl he fell in love with (at first sight). Three years later, having only learned trivia about her, Edward discovers Amos is a werewolf. In return for his refusal to harm him in his monstrous state, Amos tells Edward the girl's name is Sandra Templeton (Alison Lohman) and she studies at Auburn University. Edward learns Sandra is engaged to Don Price (David Denman), whom Edward always overshadowed during his days in Ashton. Sandra makes Edward promise not to fight Don. Don beats Edward up when he learns about his feelings for her, but this only disgusts Sandra into ending their engagement and falling for Edward. Edward later reveals that Don died from a heart attack on the toilet bowl at an early age (as Don saw in the Witch's eye). During his recovery, Edward is conscripted by the army and sent to the Korean War. He parachutes into the middle of a show entertaining North Korean troops, steals important documents, and convinces Siamese twin dancers Ping and Jing to help him get back to the United States, where he will make them stars. He is unable to contact anyone on his journey home, and the military declares him dead. This limits Edward's job options when he does return home, so he becomes a traveling salesman. Meeting the poet Norther Winslow from Spectre again, he unwittingly helps him rob a bank, which is already bankrupt. Edward suggests Winslow work at Wall Street, and Winslow thanks Edward for his advice by sending him $10,000, which he uses to buy a dream house. Still unimpressed by his father's stories, Will demands to know the truth, but Edward explains that is who he is: a storyteller. Will finds Spectre, and meets an older Jenny (Helena Bonham Carter), who explains that Edward rescued the town from bankruptcy by buying it at an auction and rebuilding it with financial help from many of his previous acquaintances. Will suggests his father had been having an affair with Jenny, to which she replies that while she had indeed fallen in love with him, Edward could never love any woman other than Sandra. When Will returns home, he is informed his father had a stroke and is at the hospital. He goes to visit him there and finds him only partly conscious, and unable to speak at length. Since Edward can no longer tell stories, he asks Will to tell him the story of how it all ends: escaping from the hospital, they go to the river where everyone in Edward's life appears to bid him goodbye. Will carries his father into the river where he becomes what he always had been: a very big fish. Edward then dies, knowing his son finally understands his love of storytelling. At Edward's funeral, Will is shocked to see Amos and Karl (who is taller than average, though not an actual giant) arrive, while Josephine catches sight of Norther Winslow speaking with Ping and Jing (who are merely identical, not conjoined). Will finally realizes the truth of his father's stories. When his own son is born, Will passes on his father's stories, remarking that his father became his stories, allowing him to live forever. Themes. The reconciliation of the father-son relationship between Edward and William is the key theme in "Big Fish". Novelist Daniel Wallace's interest in the theme of the father-son relationship began with his own family. Wallace found the "charming" character of Edward Bloom similar to his father, who used charm to keep his distance from other people. In the film, Will believes Edward has never been honest with him because Edward creates extravagant myths about his past to hide himself, using storytelling as an avoidance mechanism. Edward's stories are filled with fairy tale characters (a witch, mermaid, giant, and werewolf) and places (the circus, small towns, the mythological city of Spectre), all of which are classic images and archetypes. The quest motif propels both Edward's story and Will's attempt to get to the bottom of it. Wallace explains: "The father's quest is to be a big fish in a big pond, and the son's quest is to see through his tall tales." Screenwriter John August identified with Will's character and adapted it after himself. In college, August's father died, and like Will, August had attempted to get to know him before his death, but found it difficult. Like Will, August had studied journalism and was 28 years old. In the film, Will says of Edward, "I didn't see anything of myself in my father, and I don't think he saw anything of himself in me. We were like strangers who knew each other very well." Will's description of his relationship with Edward closely resembled August's own relationship with his father. Director Tim Burton also used the film to confront his thoughts and emotions concerning the death of his father in 2000: "My father had been ill for a while... I tried to get in touch with him, to have, like in this film, some sort of resolution, but it was impossible." Religion and film scholar Kent L. Brintnall observes how the father-son relationship resolves itself at the end of the film. As Edward dies, Will finally lets go of his anger and begins to understand his father for the first time: In a final gesture of love and comprehension, after a lifetime of despising his father's stories and his father as story-teller, Will finishes the story his father has begun, pulling together the themes, images and characters of his father's storied life to blend reality and fantasy in act of communion and care. By unselfishly releasing the anger he has held about his father's stories, Will gains the understanding that all we are is our stories and that his father's stories gave him a reality and substance and a dimension that was as real, genuine, and deep as the day-to-day experiences that Will sought out. Will comes to understand, then, that his father—and the rest of us—are our stories and that the deeper reality of our lives may, in fact, not be our truest self. Production. Development. About six months before it was published, screenwriter John August read a manuscript of "" (1998) by author Daniel Wallace. August read the unpublished novel following the death of his father. In September 1998, August convinced Columbia Pictures to acquire the film rights on his behalf. August worked hard to make the episodic book into a cohesive screenplay, deciding on several narrators for the script. In August 2000, producers Bruce Cohen and Dan Jinks began discussions for Steven Spielberg to direct. Spielberg planned to have DreamWorks co-finance and distribute "Big Fish" with Columbia, and planned to have filming start in late-2001, after completing "Minority Report" (2002). Spielberg courted Jack Nicholson for the role of Edward Bloom, Sr. and towards this end, had August compose two additional drafts for Nicholson's part. August recalls: "There was this thought that there wasn't enough for Jack Nicholson to do in the movie so we built new sequences. Pieces got moved around, but it wasn't a lot of new stuff being created. It ended up being a really good intellectual exercise in my explaining and defending and reanalyzing pieces of the story." Spielberg eventually left "Big Fish" when he became distracted with "Catch Me If You Can" (2002), and DreamWorks also backed out of the film. With Spielberg no closer to committing, August, working with Jinks and Cohen, considered Stephen Daldry as a potential director. "Once Steven decided he wasn't going to do it, we put the script back to the way it was," recalls Jinks. "Steven even said, 'I think I made a mistake with a couple of things I asked you guys to try.'" August took his favorite elements from the previous drafts, coming up with what he called "a best-of "Big Fish" script. "By the time we approached Tim Burton, the script was in the best shape it had ever been." Burton had never been particularly close to his parents, but his father's death in October 2000 and his mother's in March 2002 affected him deeply. Following the production of "Planet of the Apes" (2001), the director wanted to get back to making a smaller film. Burton enjoyed the script, feeling that it was the first unique story he was offered since "Beetlejuice" (1988). Burton also found appeal in the story's combination of an emotional drama with exaggerated tall tales, which allowed him to tell various stories of different genres. He signed to direct in April 2002, which prompted Richard D. Zanuck, who worked with Burton on "Planet of the Apes", to join "Big Fish" as a producer. Zanuck also had a difficult relationship with his own father, Darryl F. Zanuck, who once fired him as head of production at 20th Century Fox. Casting. For the character of Edward Bloom, Burton spoke with Jack Nicholson, Spielberg's initial choice for the role. Burton had previously worked with Nicholson on "Batman" (1989) and "Mars Attacks!" (1996). In order to depict Nicholson as the young Bloom, Burton intended to use a combination of computer-generated imagery and prosthetic makeup. The director then decided to cast around for the two actors in question. Jinks and Cohen, who were then working with Ewan McGregor on "Down with Love" (2003), suggested that Burton cast both McGregor and Albert Finney for Edward. Burton later compared McGregor's acting style to regular colleague Johnny Depp. Viewing Finney's performance in "Tom Jones" (1963), Burton found him similar to McGregor, and coincidentally found a "People" magazine article comparing the two. McGregor, being Scottish, found it easier performing with a Southern American English accent. "It's a much easier accent to do than a standard American accent because you can really hear it. You can get your teeth into it. Standard American is much harder because it's more lyrical." The same dual casting applied to the role of Bloom's wife, Sandra, who would be played by Jessica Lange and Alison Lohman. Burton commented that he was impressed with Lohman's performance in "White Oleander" (2002). Burton's girlfriend, Helena Bonham Carter, was also cast in two roles. Her prosthetic makeup for The Witch took five hours to apply. "I was pregnant throughout filming, so it was weird being a pregnant witch," the actress reflected. "I had morning sickness, so all those fumes and the make-up and the rubber...it was hideous." Burton personalized the film with several cameos. While filming in Alabama, the crew tracked down Billy Redden, one of the original banjo-players from "Deliverance" (1972). Redden was working as a part-owner of a restaurant in Clayton, Georgia, and he agreed to reprise his role in the Spectre vignette. As Edward Bloom first enters the town, Redden can be seen on a porch plucking a few notes from "Dueling Banjos". Burton was pleased with the result: "If you're watching the film and don't recognise the solitary, enigmatic figure on the porch, that's fine. But if you do – well, it just makes me so happy to see him and I think other people will feel the same way." Original "Big Fish" author Daniel Wallace makes a brief appearance as Sandra's economics teacher in the "Courtship of Sandra Templeton" scene. Filming. Burton planned to have filming start in October 2002, but principal photography in Alabama did not begin until January 13, 2003. Apart from filming in Paris for one week in May, "Big Fish" was entirely shot in Alabama, mostly in Wetumpka. and Montgomery (such as the Cloverdale neighborhood) Brief filming also took place in Tallassee and on the campus of Huntingdon College. Scenes for the town of Spectre were filmed on a custom set located on an island between Montgomery and Millbrook, Alabama. Principal photography for "Big Fish" in Alabama lasted from until the first week of April. and is estimated to have generated as much as $25 million for the local economy. Burton filmed all the dramatic hospital scenes and most of those involving Finney first, before moving on to the McGregor section of Bloom's life. Although McGregor was on set from the very beginning of filming, Burton chose to shoot all Finney's scenes first. Location filming in Alabama experienced a setback due to weather problems. During the production of the Calloway circus scenes, a tornado watch was issued and flooding on the set interrupted filming for several weeks. Despite the delays due to weather, Burton was able to deliver the film on budget and on schedule. The director attempted to use as limited an amount of digital effects as possible. However, because he wanted to evoke a Southern Gothic fantasy tone for "Big Fish", color grading techniques were applied by Sony Pictures Imageworks. Stan Winston Studios, with whom Burton worked with on "Edward Scissorhands" (1990) and "Batman Returns" (1992), designed Helena Bonham Carter's prosthetic makeup and created the animatronics. Scenes with Karl the Giant were commissioned using forced perspective filmmaking. Music. The soundtrack was composed by regular Burton collaborator Danny Elfman. Burton approached Pearl Jam during post-production to request an original song for the soundtrack and closing credits. After screening an early print of the film, Pearl Jam vocalist Eddie Vedder went home and wrote "Man of the Hour", completing the demo by the next day. It was recorded by the band four days later. Guitarist Mike McCready stated, "We were so blown away by the movie...Eddie and I were standing around talking about it afterwards and were teary-eyed. We were so emotionally charged and moved by the imagination and humanity that we felt because of the movie." Release. Columbia Pictures planned to wide release "Big Fish" in the United States on November 26, 2003 before pushing it back to December 10 for a limited release. The film premiered on December 4, 2003 at the Hammerstein Ballroom in Manhattan. The domestic wide release in the U.S. came on January 9, 2004, with the film appearing in 2,406 theaters and earning $13.81 million in its opening weekend. The film eventually grossed $66.81 million in U.S. totals and $56.11 million in foreign countries, with a total of $122.92 million worldwide. Critical response. "Big Fish" received positive reviews from film critics. Based on 212 reviews collected by Rotten Tomatoes, 77% of the critics positively reviewed "Big Fish", for an average score of 7.2/10. By comparison, Metacritic calculated an average score of 57/100, based on 43 reviews. Observations modeled the film after "Forrest Gump" (1994). ""Big Fish" turns into a wide-eyed Southern Gothic picaresque in which each lunatic twist of a development is more enchanting than the last," Owen Gleiberman of "Entertainment Weekly" wrote. "It's like "Forrest Gump" without the bogus theme-park politics." Peter Travers from "Rolling Stone" magazine praised Burton's direction, feeling it was a celebration of the art of storytelling and a touching father–son drama. Mike Clark of "USA Today" commented that he was most fascinated by the casting choices. "Equally delightful is the Alison Lohman character's evolution into an older woman (Jessica Lange). It's a metamorphosis to equal any in screen history." Internet reviewer James Berardinelli found the fairy tale approach reminiscent of "The Princess Bride" (1987) and the films of Terry Gilliam. ""Big Fish" is a clever, smart fantasy that targets the child inside every adult," Berardinelli said, "without insulting the intelligence of either." Roger Ebert, unmoved in a negative review, wrote "there is no denying that Will has a point: The old man is a blowhard. There is a point at which his stories stop working as entertainment and segue into sadism." Richard Corliss of "Time" magazine was disappointed, finding the father-son reconciliation storyline to be over-dramatically cliché. "You recall "The Boy Who Cried Wolf"? Edward Bloom is the man who cried fish." "Big Fish" was placed at 85 on Slant Magazine's best films of the 2000s. Home media. The Region 1 DVD was released on April 27, 2004, and Region 2 was released on June 7. The DVD features a Burton audio commentary track, seven featurettes and a trivia quiz. A special edition was released on November 1, 2005, with a 24-page hardback book entitled "Fairy Tale for a Grown Up". The film was released on Blu-ray Disc on March 20, 2007. Accolades. "Big Fish" received the most nominations at the 61st Golden Globe Awards without a single win, including Best Motion Picture (Musical or Comedy), Best Supporting Actor (Finney), Best Original Score and Best Original Song (Pearl Jam's "Man of the Hour"). At the 57th British Academy Film Awards, the film received seven nominations from the British Academy of Film and Television Arts, including Best Film, Best Direction (Tim Burton), Best Adapted Screenplay (John August), Best Actor in a Supporting Role (Albert Finney), Best Production Design (Dennis Gassner), Best Visual Effects (Kevin Scott Mack, Seth Maury, Lindsay MacGowan, Paddy Eason) as well as Best Makeup and Hair (Jean Ann Black and Paul LeBlanc). Finney received another nomination for Best Actor at the 30th Saturn Awards, where the film was also nominated for Best Fantasy Film. At the 76th Academy Awards, Danny Elfman was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Score. In 2005, Elfman received a nomination at the 47th Grammy Awards for the Best Score Soundtrack Album for a Motion Picture.
759155	Oleg Nikolaevich Taktarov (; born August 26, 1967) is a retired Russian mixed martial artist and actor. He is a practitioner of Sambo and Judo and has competed in the Ultimate Fighting Championship and Pride Fighting Championships. Taktarov was the UFC 6 tournament champion and holds notable wins over Marco Ruas, David "Tank" Abbott, Mark Kerr, and Anthony Macias. Taktarov is known for being exceptionally calm during fights and for using a variety of rarely seen, acrobatic Sambo take-downs. All of Taktarov's losses were by knockout or decision; he was never submitted in an MMA fight. Early life. Taktarov was born in the closed city Arzamas-16 (today known as Sarov), USSR, before his family moved to Gorky, an industrial centre of Russia. Oleg’s father, a construction worker, wanted his son to become involved in sport, and so took him to a gymnasium at the nearby city of Sarov, with the intention of enrolling Oleg in ice hockey or weightlifting. But the twelve-year-old Taktarov had other ideas after observing athletes practicing judo. At first it appeared his father would have his way because the Sarov judo division had a policy of not accepting people from outside their city, but the instructor was impressed by the bright and well-mannered Oleg, and took him under his wing. "I liked judo and stuck with it. Then I found that there were similarities between judo and sambo (Russian unarmed self-defense system), and as Sarov was the only Sambo gymnasium specializing in leg locks, I decided to compete in both styles," says Taktarov. Surprisingly, the intelligent and soft-spoken Oleg intended becoming a scientist. He hadn’t planned to make a career of grappling. But in the former Soviet Union it was mandatory for all male youths to serve a minimum of two years in the military. Prior to entering the army, Taktarov competed against two men - one, his training partner - for a place in the military’s sporting division. During the last bout, his adversary applied an ankle lock to Oleg. "He had a good lock on my ankle, and I heard the ligaments pop, but I couldn’t submit because the competition was too important to me. There were two other guys in my weight category and only one position in the army’s sport division, so I had to win. I threw him and he fell on his head and couldn’t continue," says Taktarov. Oleg went on to serve his time as a self-defense instructor, which included training an elite sector of the KGB in unarmed combat and counter-intelligence for three years. During this period Oleg suffered severe stomach pains and reported to his superior officer. The officer ignored Oleg’s plea for medical attention and ordered him back on duty. "He was the kind of guy who shouldn’t have been there," understates a cool Taktarov. The young soldier decided to go AWOL and travelled to a nearby hospital where a doctor successfully removed Oleg’s appendix, informing his patient that he would have died if he’d waited another fifteen minutes. After completing his national service, Oleg traveled with another martial artist to the Republic of Latvia for a no-rules tournament. "My friend and I were at a car yard and he was going to buy a car. The Latvian special police didn’t like us because we were speaking Russian, and decided to throw us in gaol. But some of the organizers were looking for us, and luckily they found us, so we were released fifteen minutes before the competition started, which meant we had no time to warm up." Fortunately this did not stop Taktarov from becoming the tournament champion. Four times Oleg won the European and Asian jiu-jitsu Championships, and twice won the World Sambo Championships. "At the age of twenty-six I was undefeated and had won everything I could at the time. So I traveled to the United States with the intention of becoming an actor, but I found that it wasn’t easy to get started in the movies, so I decided to fight because I had to think about an income and improving my English." Oleg also commenced working in theaters to improve his acting skills. Mixed martial arts career. Ultimate Fighting Championship. On November 12, 1993, the first Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) were held in Denver, Colorado, where fighters from all martial arts codes were invited to compete for a purse of US$50,000, in a no-holds-barred elimination tournament billed as being, "not for the faint-hearted". The show-down was held inside the eight-sided ring, known as The Octagon, that measures 32 feet across, and is surrounded by a five-foot-high chain fence. In April, 1995, Oleg entered UFC 5 in Charlotte, North Carolina, billed as "The Russian Bear". "It (the title) sounds alright to me now, but before...I was called this by the manager I had then, who was from Texas. He thought that Texas was the capital of the world," laughs Oleg. "He didn’t know any other places existed. He just knew that Russia had bears and vodka, and he couldn’t call me ‘The Russian Vodka’." When Oleg entered UFC 5 he was regarded by the organizers as "The X-Factor". His friend and Lion's Den fighter, Guy Mezger, had spoken highly of Taktarov, but the Russian was an unknown quantity. Before the tournament, competitors were interviewed pulling macho faces and growling, whilst boasting how they were going to win the event and destroy their opponents. By contrast, Oleg coolly said he was from Gorky, Russia, and smiled an infectious smile at the cameras. Held in Charlotte, North Carolina, the competition claimed to have eight contenders representing eight different martial arts, but as Royce Gracie had previously stated, many of the UFC competitors were now abandoning their own arts to copy his grappling techniques. The fact that a fighter was listed as representing the art of Tae Kwon Do did not mean he would be using TKD striking techniques against his opponent. In UFC 5, the program had Oleg Taktarov listed as representing the Russian discipline of Sambo. "At first I was kind of disappointed because in Russia they would have regarded me as a jiu-jitsu exponent because it was a new art I was practicing back there, whereas many people were already doing judo and sambo in Russia. Here in America, people categorized me as a sambo artist because it was unique and unusual, and that’s what they liked. But I don’t mind now," says Taktarov. Between UFC 5 and UFC 6 (where he won the tournament, beating David "Tank" Abbott in the finals), Taktarov lived and trained with Ken Shamrock's Lion's Den fighting team. Taktarov started his American training with Gene LeBell and Gokor Chivichyan. Despite badly injuring his knee in training shortly before the event, Takatarov entered the UFC 5 tournament, winning his first fight but losing in the semi-finals to eventual champion Dan Severn by stoppage due to a cut. The fight was stopped by the referee because of profuse bleeding above Taktarov's eye due to a cut caused by knees from Severn while Oleg was seeking an armbar from the guard. Taktarov disputes this loss to this day, saying that he could have continued to fight and that he does not consider this cut stoppage to be an actual loss. After losing at UFC 5, Taktarov went to live and train with his friend Ken Shamrock's Lion's Den training camp. Taktarov talked about his experience in an interview: "For a month Ken and I fought together. The guys who later became good fighters, like Frank Shamrock or Guy Mezger, were not any competition for me at the time. The only guy I trained with was Ken, and we had battles behind closed doors. Nobody was allowed to watch them." Taktarov returned at UFC 6 where, in the semifinal bout, Anthony Macias was brought in to replace Patrick Smith due to injury. The fight ended in 12 seconds with Taktarov submitting Macias via front choke becoming the fastest submission in UFC history. Taktarov went on to defeat a much larger David "Tank" Abbott by rear naked choke after 17 grueling minutes to win the UFC 6 tournament. Taktarov displayed incredible heart and willpower during the fight and had to be taken to the hospital afterwards due to the high altitude of Casper, Wyoming. Well respected by Bob & Ken Shamrock, Taktarov, being the reigning tournament champion, was set up to fight his friend and reigning UFC Champion Ken Shamrock in UFC 7 for the UFC Superfight Championship. Taktarov again displayed an incredible amount of heart in this fight, taking a lot of punishment but refusing to quit. The fight had a 30 minute time limit and went into three minutes of overtime, finishing as a draw at 33 minutes. Taktarov then entered the UFC's Ultimate Ultimate 1995 tournament. Oleg advanced to the finals of the tournament, defeating UFC 5 finalist Dave Beneteau and highly regarded UFC 7 champion Marco Ruas in the process. Taktarov met Dan Severn in the finals in a rematch of their fight at UFC 5. After 30 minutes the judges awarded Dan Severn a decision victory based on points scored during the bout. On November 21, 2003, at UFC 45, the UFC conducted a poll amongst the fans to determine the most popular fighters in the history of the UFC. The fans voted Oleg as one of the top 10 most popular fighters in the history of the UFC. Post-UFC. Taktarov fought in the first ever Pride 1 show on Oct 11, 1997 facing Canadian heavyweight and UFC veteran Gary Goodridge. Unfortunately for Oleg, he suffered a frightening knockout loss. After being knocked unconscious, the hulking 'Big Daddy' landed a scary right hook on the prone Taktarov. Oleg had to be carried out on a stretcher. He later fully recovered. In one of his recent interviews he attributed Goodridge's victory to the peak of the anabolic steroid cycle that Goodridge allegedly went through prior to the fight. Taktarov further asserted that Goodridge's following performances (i.e. a string of losses) clearly indicated the downtrend of the steroid cycle. Perhaps the most famous non-UFC fight of his MMA career is when he faced Renzo Gracie in the MARS Reality Fighting event. The anticipated ground battle never took off and he lost by KO by an up kick as he was looking for a leg submission. Oleg faced his rival Marco Ruas once again in Brazil in a super fight at the World Vale Tudo Championships. It was agreed that there would be no judges for this bout, and when time ran out, it was ruled a draw. Oleg faced Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu expert Sean Alvarez in Pentagon Combat an event held in Brazil. Wearing boxing trunks, he displayed boxing skills by knocking out his opponent. In Russia, for a specialized event Oleg faced Dolph Lundgren in a celebrity boxing match and won via split decision. Return to mixed martial arts. Prior to making a successful comeback to the sport in 2007, Taktarov's last bout was in 2001. Taktarov announced in an online radio interview in November 2007 his plans to return to MMA with BodogFight. He won his debut match against John Marsh at 33 seconds into the 2nd round of the match by submission (kneebar). He then fought UFC 14 and UFC 15 heavyweight champion Mark Kerr, again winning by kneebar. Taktarov is now retired from mixed martial arts. Acting career. After temporarily retiring from mixed martial arts, Taktarov focused on his acting career, and starred in the movies "15 Minutes", "Bad Boys II", "", "Air Force One", and the 2002 version of "Rollerball". He also appeared in the first episode of season 3 of "Alias" entitled "The Two" and in the "NCIS" season 5 finale "Judgement Day". He has also appeared in a few Russian productions, and was cast in a few releases from 2007, such as "We Own the Night". Taktarov also released several instructional Sambo videos and has made an instructional video with Vladimir Vasiliev entitled "Russian Mega Fighting". Taktarov more recently starred in Robert Rodriguez's franchise reboot, "Predators", directed by Nimród Antal.
584344	Rettaichuzhi is a 2010 Indian Tamil-language drama film written and directed by newcomer Thamira. It stars ace filmmakers K. Balachander and Bharathiraja in lead roles along with Anjali, debutant Aari, Manobala, Ilavarasu, Karunas and Jayachitra in supporting roles. The film released on 23 April 2010. The film, failed to succeed at the box office Plot. The film unfolds in a village in Thirunelveli. Ramasamy (K Balachander) is an influential man in the village and he is a devoted to the principles of Congress since his childhood. He is against Singaravelan (Bharathiraja), a Communist. Their feud runs for over four decades. Even their grand children are against each other and they form gangs to express their enmity. However a romance in the family changes the warm atmosphere. Susheela (Anjali), brought up in Singaravelan's house is a school teacher who is in love with one Murthy (Aari). Understanding their true love, the children forget their enmity and try to bring both families together and get them wedlocked. Did they succeed in their attempts forms the climax. Reception. The film had a huge hype prior to its release due to Tamil cinema veterans K.Balachander and Bharathiraja coming together for the first time together in a film. The film received poor reviews from almost all reviewers for its mediocre script, amateurish screenplay, acting and non-existing entertainment factor. Sify labelled it as one of the "Biggest Bore" of 2010, The Hindu called it as a different film with more minuses than pluses. The film was one of the biggest flops of 2010 and was a major financial blow for director Shankar and his production house S Pictures.
1102145	Baron Augustin-Louis Cauchy (; 21 August 1789 – 23 May 1857) was a French mathematician who was an early pioneer of analysis. He started the project of formulating and proving the theorems of infinitesimal calculus in a rigorous manner, rejecting the heuristic principle of the generality of algebra exploited by earlier authors. He defined continuity in terms of infinitesimals and gave several important theorems in complex analysis and initiated the study of permutation groups in abstract algebra. A profound mathematician, Cauchy exercised a great influence over his contemporaries and successors. His writings cover the entire range of mathematics and mathematical physics. "More concepts and theorems have been named for Cauchy than for any other mathematician (in elasticity alone there are sixteen concepts and theorems named for Cauchy)." Cauchy was a prolific writer; he wrote approximately eight hundred research articles and five complete textbooks. He was a devout Roman Catholic, strict Bourbon royalist, and a close associate of the Jesuit order. Biography. Youth and education. Cauchy was the son of Louis François Cauchy (1760–1848) and Marie-Madeleine Desestre. Cauchy had two brothers, Alexandre Laurent Cauchy (1792–1857), who became a president of a division of the court of appeal in 1847, and a judge of the court of cassation in 1849; and Eugene François Cauchy (1802–1877), a publicist who also wrote several mathematical works. Cauchy married Aloise de Bure in 1818. She was a close relative of the publisher who published most of Cauchy's works. By her he had two daughters, Marie Françoise Alicia (1819) and Marie Mathilde (1823). Cauchy's father (Louis François Cauchy) was a high official in the Parisian Police of the New Régime. He lost his position because of the French Revolution (July 14, 1789) that broke out one month before Augustin-Louis was born. The Cauchy family survived the revolution and the following Reign of Terror (1794) by escaping to Arcueil, where Cauchy received his first education, from his father. After the execution of Robespierre (1794), it was safe for the family to return to Paris. There Louis-François Cauchy found himself a new bureaucratic job, and quickly moved up the ranks. When Napoleon Bonaparte came to power (1799), Louis-François Cauchy was further promoted, and became Secretary-General of the Senate, working directly under Laplace (who is now better known for his work on mathematical physics). The famous mathematician Lagrange was also no stranger in the Cauchy family. On Lagrange's advice, Augustin-Louis was enrolled in the École Centrale du Panthéon, the best secondary school of Paris at that time, in the fall of 1802. Most of the curriculum consisted of classical languages; the young and ambitious Cauchy, being a brilliant student, won many prizes in Latin and Humanities. In spite of these successes, Augustin-Louis chose an engineering career, and prepared himself for the entrance examination to the École Polytechnique. In 1805 he placed second out of 293 applicants on this exam, and he was admitted. One of the main purposes of this school was to give future civil and military engineers a high-level scientific and mathematical education. The school functioned under military discipline, which caused the young and pious Cauchy some problems in adapting. Nevertheless, he finished the Polytechnique in 1807, at the age of 18, and went on to the École des Ponts et Chaussées (School for Bridges and Roads). He graduated in civil engineering, with the highest honors. Engineering days. After finishing school in 1810, Cauchy accepted a job as a junior engineer in Cherbourg, where Napoleon intended to build a naval base. Here Augustin-Louis stayed for three years, and although he had an extremely busy managerial job, he still found time to prepare three mathematical manuscripts, which he submitted to the "Première Classe" (First Class) of the Institut de France. Cauchy's first two manuscripts (on polyhedra) were accepted; the third one (on directrices of conic sections) was rejected. In September 1812, now 23 years old, after becoming ill from overwork, Cauchy returned to Paris. Another reason for his return to the capital was that he was losing his interest in his engineering job, being more and more attracted to abstract beauty of mathematics; in Paris, he would have a much better chance to find a mathematics related position. Although he formally kept his engineering position, he was transferred from the payroll of the Ministry of the Marine to the Ministry of the Interior. The next three years Augustin-Louis was mainly on unpaid sick leave, and spent his time quite fruitfully, working on mathematics (on the related topics of symmetric functions, the symmetric group and the theory of higher-order algebraic equations). He attempted admission to the First Class of the Institut de France but failed on three different occasions between 1813 and 1815. In 1815 Napoleon was defeated at Waterloo, and the newly installed Bourbon king Louis XVIII took the restoration in hand. The Académie des Sciences was re-established in March 1816; Lazare Carnot and Gaspard Monge were removed from this Academy for political reasons, and the king appointed Cauchy to take the place of one of them. The reaction by Cauchy's peers was harsh; they considered his acceptance of membership of the Academy an outrage, and Cauchy thereby created many enemies in scientific circles. Professor at École Polytechnique. In November 1815, Louis Poinsot, who was an associate professor at the École Polytechnique, asked to be exempted from his teaching duties for health reasons. Cauchy was by then a rising mathematical star, who certainly merited a professorship. One of his great successes at that time was the proof of Fermat's polygonal number theorem. However, the fact that Cauchy was known to be very loyal to the Bourbons, doubtless also helped him in becoming the successor of Poinsot. He finally quit his engineering job, and received a one-year contract for teaching mathematics to second-year students of the École Polytechnique. In 1816, this Bonapartist, non-religious school was reorganized, and several liberal professors were fired; the reactionary Cauchy was promoted to full professor. When Cauchy was 28 years old, he was still living with his parents. His father found it high time for his son to marry; he found him a suitable bride, Aloïse de Bure, five years his junior. The de Bure family were printers and booksellers, and published most of Cauchy's works. Aloïse and Augustin were married on April 4, 1818, with great Roman Catholic pomp and ceremony, in the Church of Saint-Sulpice. In 1819 the couple's first daughter, Marie Françoise Alicia, was born, and in 1823 the second and last daughter, Marie Mathilde. Cauchy had two brothers: Alexandre Laurent Cauchy, who became a president of a division of the court of appeal in 1847, and a judge of the court of cassation in 1849; and Eugène François Cauchy, a publicist who also wrote several mathematical works. The conservative political climate that lasted until 1830 suited Cauchy perfectly. In 1824 Louis XVIII died, and was succeeded by his even more reactionary brother Charles X. During these years Cauchy was highly productive, and published one important mathematical treatise after another. He received cross appointments at the Collège de France, and the Faculté des Sciences of the University. In exile. In July 1830 France underwent another revolution. Charles X fled the country, and was succeeded by the non-Bourbon king Louis-Philippe (of the House of Orléans). Riots, in which uniformed students of the École Polytechnique took an active part, raged close to Cauchy's home in Paris. These events marked a turning point in Cauchy's life, and a break in his mathematical productivity. Cauchy, shaken by the fall of the government, and moved by a deep hatred of the liberals who were taking power, left Paris to go abroad, leaving his family behind. He spent a short time at Fribourg in Switzerland, where he had to decide whether he would swear a required oath of allegiance to the new regime. He refused to do this, and consequently lost all his positions in Paris, except his membership of the Academy, for which an oath was not required. In 1831 Cauchy went to the Italian city of Turin, and after some time there, he accepted an offer from the King of Sardinia (who ruled Turin and the surrounding Piedmont region) for a chair of theoretical physics, which was created especially for him. He taught in Turin during 1832–1833. In 1831, he had been elected a foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. In August 1833 Cauchy left Turin for Prague, to become the science tutor of the thirteen-year-old Duke of Bordeaux Henri d'Artois (1820–1883), the exiled Crown Prince and grandson of Charles X. As a professor of the École Polytechnique, Cauchy had been a notoriously bad lecturer, assuming levels of understanding that only a few of his best students could reach, and cramming his allotted time with too much material. The young Duke had neither taste nor talent for either mathematics or science, so student and teacher were a perfect mismatch. Although Cauchy took his mission very seriously, he did this with great clumsiness, and with surprising lack of authority over the Duke. During his civil engineering days, Cauchy once had been briefly in charge of repairing a few of the Parisian sewers, and he made the mistake of telling his pupil this; with great malice, the young Duke went about saying that Mister Cauchy started his career in the sewers of Paris. His role as tutor lasted until the Duke became eighteen years old, in September 1838. Cauchy did hardly any research during those five years, while the Duke acquired a lifelong dislike of mathematics. The only good that came out of this episode was Cauchy's promotion to Baron, a title that Cauchy set great store by. In 1834, his wife and two daughters moved to Prague, and Cauchy was finally reunited with his family, after four years of exile. Last years. Cauchy returned to Paris and his position at the Academy of Sciences late in 1838. He could not regain his teaching positions, because he still refused to swear an oath of allegiance. However, he desperately wanted to regain a formal position in Parisian science. In August 1839 a vacancy appeared in the Bureau des Longitudes. This Bureau had some resemblance to the Academy; for instance, it had the right to co-opt its members. Further, it was believed that members of the Bureau could "forget" about the oath of allegiance, although formally, unlike the Academicians, they were obliged to take it. The Bureau des Longitudes was an organization founded in 1795 to solve the problem of determining position on sea – mainly the longitudinal coordinate, since latitude is easily determined from the position of the sun. Since it was thought that position on sea was best determined by astronomical observations, the Bureau had developed into an organization resembling an academy of astronomical sciences. In November 1839 Cauchy was elected to the Bureau, and discovered immediately that the matter of the oath was not so easily dispensed with. Without his oath, the king refused to approve his election. For four years Cauchy was in the absurd position of being elected, but not being approved; hence, he was not a formal member of the Bureau, did not receive payment, could not participate in meetings, and could not submit papers. Still Cauchy refused to take any oaths; however, he did feel loyal enough to direct his research to celestial mechanics. In 1840, he presented a dozen papers on this topic to the Academy. He also described and illustrated the signed-digit representation of numbers, an innovation presented in England in 1727 by John Colson. The confounded membership of the Bureau lasted until the end of 1843, when Cauchy was finally replaced by Poinsot. All through the nineteenth century the French educational system struggled with the question of separation of Church and State. The Catholic Church sought freedom of education; the Church found in Cauchy a staunch and illustrious ally in this struggle. He lent his prestige and knowledge to the École Normale Écclésiastique, a school in Paris run by Jesuits, for training teachers for their colleges. He also took part in the founding of the Institut Catholique. The purpose of this institute was to counter the effects of the absence of Catholic university education in France. These activities did not make Cauchy popular with his colleagues who, on the whole, supported the Enlightenment ideals of the French Revolution. When a chair of mathematics became vacant at the Collège de France in 1843, Cauchy applied for it, but got just three out of 45 votes. The year 1848 was the year of revolution all over Europe; revolutions broke out in numerous countries, beginning in France. King Louis-Philippe, fearful of sharing the fate of Louis XVI, fled to England. The oath of allegiance was abolished, and the road to an academic appointment was finally clear for Cauchy. On March 1, 1849, he was reinstated at the Faculté de Sciences, as a professor of mathematical astronomy. After political turmoil all through 1848, France chose to become a Republic, under the Presidency of Louis Napoleon Bonaparte, nephew of Napoleon Bonaparte, and son of Napoleon's brother, who had been installed as the first king of Holland. Soon (early 1852) the President became the Emperor of France, and took the name Napoleon III. Not unexpectedly, the idea came up in bureaucratic circles that it would be useful to require a loyalty oath from all state functionaries, including university professors. Not always does history repeat itself, however, because this time a cabinet minister was able to convince the Emperor to exempt Cauchy from the oath. Cauchy remained a professor at the University until his death at the age of 67. He received the Last Rites and died at 4 a.m. on May 23, 1857. His name is one of the 72 names inscribed on the Eiffel Tower. Work. Early work. The genius of Cauchy was illustrated in his simple solution of the problem of Apollonius—describing a circle touching three given circles—which he discovered in 1805, his generalization of Euler's formula on polyhedra in 1811, and in several other elegant problems. More important is his memoir on wave propagation, which obtained the Grand Prix of the French Academy of Sciences in 1816. Cauchy's writings covered notable topics including: the theory of series, where he developed the notion of convergence and discovered many of the basic formulas for q-series. In the theory of numbers and complex quantities, he was the first to define complex numbers as pairs of real numbers. He also wrote on the theory of groups and substitutions, the theory of functions, differential equations and determinants. Wave theory, mechanics, elasticity. In the theory of light he worked on Fresnel's wave theory and on the dispersion and polarization of light. He also contributed significant research in mechanics, substituting the notion of the continuity of geometrical displacements for the principle of the continuity of matter. He wrote on the equilibrium of rods and elastic membranes and on waves in elastic media. He introduced a 3 × 3 symmetric matrix of numbers that is now known as the Cauchy stress tensor. In elasticity, he originated the theory of stress, and his results are nearly as valuable as those of Siméon Poisson. Number theory. Other significant contributions include being the first to prove the Fermat polygonal number theorem. Complex functions. Cauchy is most famous for his single-handed development of complex function theory. The first pivotal theorem proved by Cauchy, now known as "Cauchy's integral theorem", was the following: where "f"("z") is a complex-valued function holomorphic on and within the non-self-intersecting closed curve "C" (contour) lying in the complex plane. The "contour integral" is taken along the contour "C". The rudiments of this theorem can already be found in a paper that the 24-year-old Cauchy presented to the Académie des Sciences (then still called "First Class of the Institute") on August 11, 1814. In full form the theorem was given in 1825. The 1825 paper is seen by many as Cauchy's most important contribution to mathematics. In 1826 Cauchy gave a formal definition of a residue of a function. This concept regards functions that have poles—isolated singularities, i.e., points where a function goes to positive or negative infinity. If the complex-valued function "f"("z") can be expanded in the neighborhood of a singularity "a" as where φ("z") is analytic (i.e., well-behaved without singularities), then "f" is said to have a pole of order "n" in the point "a". If "n" = 1, the pole is called simple. The coefficient "B"1 is called by Cauchy the residue of function "f" at "a". If "f" is non-singular at "a" then the residue of "f" is zero at "a". Clearly the residue is in the case of a simple pole equal to, where we replaced "B"1 by the modern notation of the residue. In 1831, while in Turin, Cauchy submitted two papers to the Academy of Sciences of Turin. In the first he proposed the formula now known as Cauchy's integral formula, where "f"("z") is analytic on "C" and within the region bounded by the contour "C" and the complex number "a" is somewhere in this region. The contour integral is taken counter-clockwise. Clearly, the integrand has a simple pole at "z" = "a". In the second paper he presented the residue theorem, where the sum is over all the "n" poles of "f"("z") on and within the contour "C". These results of Cauchy's still form the core of complex function theory as it is taught today to physicists and electrical engineers. For quite some time, contemporaries of Cauchy ignored his theory, believing it to be too complicated. Only in the 1840s the theory started to get response, with Pierre-Alphonse Laurent being the first mathematician, besides Cauchy, making a substantial contribution (his Laurent series published in 1843). Cours d'Analyse. Cauchy gave an explicit definition of an infinitesimal in terms of a sequence tending to zero. Namely, such a null sequence "becomes" an infinitesimal in Cauchy's and Lazare Carnot's terminology. Sources disagree if Cauchy defined his notion of infinitesimal in terms of limits. Some have argued that such a claim is ambiguous, and essentially a play of words on the term "limit". Similarly, some sources contest the claim that Cauchy anticipated Weierstrassian rigor, and point out internal contradictions in post-Weierstrassian Cauchy scholarship relative to Cauchy's 1853 text on the sum theorem. Barany recently argued that Cauchy possessed a kinetic notion of limit similar to Newton's. Regardless of how Cauchy viewed the rigor of using infinitesimal methods, these methods continued in practice long after "Cours d'Analyse" both by Cauchy and other mathematicians and can be justified by modern techniques. Taylor's theorem. He was the first to prove Taylor's theorem rigorously, establishing his well-known form of the remainder. He wrote a textbook (see the illustration) for his students at the École Polytechnique in which he developed the basic theorems of mathematical analysis as rigorously as possible. In this book he gave the necessary and sufficient condition for the existence of a limit in the form that is still taught. Also Cauchy's well-known test for absolute convergence stems from this book: Cauchy condensation test. In 1829 he defined for the first time a complex function of a complex variable in another textbook. In spite of these, Cauchy's own research papers often used intuitive, not rigorous, methods; thus one of his theorems was exposed to a "counter-example" by Abel, later fixed by the introduction of the notion of uniform continuity. Argument principle, stability. In a paper published in 1855, two years before Cauchy's death, he discussed some theorems, one of which is similar to the "Argument Principle" in many modern textbooks on complex analysis. In modern control theory textbooks, the Cauchy argument principle is quite frequently used to derive the Nyquist stability criterion, which can be used to predict the stability of negative feedback amplifier and negative feedback control systems. Thus Cauchy's work has a strong impact on both pure mathematics and practical engineering. Output. Cauchy was very productive, in number of papers second only to Leonhard Euler. It took almost a century to collect all his writings into 27 large volumes: His greatest contributions to mathematical science are enveloped in the rigorous methods which he introduced; these are mainly embodied in his three great treatises: His other works include: Politics and religious beliefs. Augustin-Louis Cauchy grew up in the house of a staunch royalist. This made his father flee with the family to Arcueil during the French Revolution. Their life there was apparently hard; Augustin-Louis's father, Louis François, spoke of living on rice, bread, and crackers during the period. A paragraph from an undated letter from Louis François to his mother in Rouen says: In any event, he inherited his father's staunch royalism and hence refused to take oaths to any government after the overthrow of Charles X. He was an equally staunch Catholic and a member of the Society of Saint Vincent de Paul. He also had links to the Society of Jesus and defended them at the Academy when it was politically unwise to do so. His zeal for his faith may have led to his caring for Charles Hermite during his illness and leading Hermite to become a faithful Catholic. It also inspired Cauchy to plead on behalf of the Irish during the Potato Famine. His royalism and religious zeal also made him contentious, which caused difficulties with his colleagues. He felt that he was mistreated for his beliefs, but his opponents felt he intentionally provoked people by berating them over religious matters or by defending the Jesuits after they had been suppressed. Niels Henrik Abel called him a "bigoted Catholic" and added he was "mad and there is nothing that can be done about him", but at the same time praised him as a mathematician. Cauchy's views were widely unpopular among mathematicians and when Guglielmo Libri Carucci dalla Sommaja was made chair in mathematics before him he, and many others, felt his views were the cause. When Libri was accused of stealing books he was replaced by Joseph Liouville which caused a rift between him and Cauchy. Another dispute concerned Jean Marie Constant Duhamel and a claim on inelastic shocks. Cauchy was later shown, by Jean-Victor Poncelet, that he was in the wrong.
566957	Flickering Lights (Danish: Blinkende Lygter) is a 2000 Danish action-comedy directed by Anders Thomas Jensen. Plot. Four small-time gangsters from Copenhagen trick a gangster boss: they steal over 4,000,000 Danish kroner which they were supposed to bring him. Trying to escape to Barcelona they are forced to stop in the countryside, in an old, wrecked house, hiding there for several weeks. Slowly, one after another, they realize that they would like to stay there, starting a new life, renovating the house and forming it into a restaurant. But they can't avoid being caught up by their past.
583687	Alaipayuthey is a 2000 Tamil romantic drama film directed by Mani Ratnam, starring Madhavan and Shalini, the film explores the tensions of married life and the maturing of love. The film's score and soundtrack were composed by A. R. Rahman. The film's story is mostly recollected in flashbacks by the character Karthik (Madhavan). Karthik and Shakti (Shalini) fall in love against the backdrop of Chennai and its suburban trains, against the wishes of their parents. The film was well received by critics and it did well at the Tamil and Telugu box-offices primarily for its music and realistic portrayal of romance and married life. It was dubbed into Telugu as "Sakhi". The film made its European premiere at the Berlin International Film Festival in 2001. It was shown at various film festivals nationally and internationally. It also carried a very popular soundtrack, composed by A. R. Rahman. "Alaipayuthey" was later remade in Hindi cinema as "Saathiya", directed by Shaad Ali in 2002, starring Rani Mukherjee and Vivek Oberoi. Plot. Karthik (Madhavan) is an engineering graduate who happens to lay eyes on Shakti (Shalini), a medical student, at a wedding. The two meet regularly after their that on suburban trains, to and from work and university. Karthik and Shakti eventually fall in love. Karthik's father Varadarajan, a lawyer, learns of the relationship and meets Shakti's dad Selvaraj. He asks Selvaraj, a railways employee, for his consent to a marriage between the two young lovers. However, upon meeting, the two parents disagree and the wedding is called off. Shakti decides not get married without her parents' consent, and the relationship is called off altogether. Unable to stay separated for very long, coupled with chance meetings, Karthik and Shakti find themselves resuming their relationship, albeit secretly, without the knowledge of their respective families. They decide to get married, without telling anyone, but carry on living with their parents, hoping that a time will come when both families will see eye to eye and can be told of the development. With the help of their friends, and Shakti's older sister Poorni (Swarnamalya), they marry legally, and they continue to meet without their parents' knowledge. Poorni gets an engagement proposal soon after. Poorni is willing to marry the suitor - Raghu. The prospective groom's father offers his second son's hand in marriage to Shakti. Shakti's mother Saroja urges her to accept the marriage proposal, unaware of the fact that Karthik and Shakti are already together. Shakti eventually tells the truth, and Poorni's engagement is called off. Karthik and Shakthi are thrown out of their homes. With the help of friends, Shakti and Karthik move into an apartment, in development. They cope for a while, however it's not too long before the couple start arguing over various issues that the two seemed so much more tolerant of before they got married. The tension escalates. Shakti learns that her father is seriously ill back home. She and Karthik decide it would be best to visit him. Upon arrival they get the news that her father has died. Wracked with guilt, the two return home, their relationship taking a turn for the worse. The two stop talking to each other. Meanwhile, Karthik takes it upon himself to sort out Poorni's adjourned marriage proposal to Raghu. He arranges a blind date between the two, which initially fails, backfiring on Karthik, however, with more meetings, Poorni and Raghu become closer. This development takes place without Shakti's knowledge. She and her husband have not spoken to each other for a long time. Karthik waits until Poorni and Raghu's marriage is confirmed before telling Shakti. Poorni is desperate to tell her sister the news herself. Whilst hugging Karthik, thanking him for his efforts, Shakti witnesses their close contact and misunderstands it, leading to an even bigger argument, and a trade of insults. Shakti eventually learns of her husband's efforts in getting her sister married, and wants to thank him. Karthik sets off to the railway station to get his wife. She had left the hospital where she works and neither is on the train she usually takes. Karthik waits for his wife. Meanwhile, in a hurry to rush home, Shakti meets with a car accident, which leaves her fighting for her life. She is hit by a car driven by a lady (Kushboo in a special appearance). The woman's husband IAS Officer Ram (Arvind Swamy) ensures that Karthik is informed about the accident. Finally Karthik meets his wife in the hospital. In these turn of events Karthik understands the true meaning of love. The movie ends with Shakti coming out from coma and hugging Karthik on the hospital bed. Production. Mani Ratnam opted to make a romantic film with relative newcomers after the commercial failure of his 1998 Hindi film "Dil Se.." and signed on small screen actor Madhavan to make his acting debut in Tamil films. Madhavan had done a sandalwood talc ad for Santosh Sivan in 1996 and the veteran cinematographer gave photographs of the actor to Mani Ratnam during the casting process of "Iruvar". The director had made Madhavan audition for a role in the film but turned him down citing that "he thought his eyes were too young" and assured "that they would work together some other time". In 1999, Mani Ratnam rang Madhavan up suddenly and told him to "Come down and we will do a photo session. I am starting a film with you", much to the actors' surprise. Mani Ratnam initially wanted to cast a debutant in the lead female role as well and carried out a screen test with Vasundhara Das, before signing on Shalini to play the role in the film in April 1999. Swarnamalya was selected to play the role of Poorni after the director spotted her on a television show and subsequently asked her to screen test for the film. The actress appeared without make-up in the film and also dubbed her own lines. Theatre actor, Karthik Kumar of Evam, also marked his film debut with a minor supporting role as a potential suitor to Shakti. The film also required two leading actors to appear in supporting roles with Kushboo roped in to do a role. After considering either Shahrukh Khan, Mammooty or Mohanlal, Mani Ratnam signed Arvind Swamy to play another role, with "Alaipayuthey" becoming the pair's fourth production together. P. C. Sriram renewed his collaboration with Mani Ratnam after seven years, with the director toggling between Santosh Sivan and Rajiv Menon for his other projects. A. R. Rahman was initially signed on just to compose the background score for the film as the film was originally planned to be "songless", however after a change of heart, nine songs were recorded. The film began without an official launch, like other Mani Ratnam projects, and it was initially expected that filming would be wrapped up under four months. During the first seven days of the shoot, Mani Ratnam filmed portions featuring Shalini and made Madhavan stay on the sets and watch his process of film-making. The first scene the actor shot was the post-interval scene featuring Shakti's mother played by Jayasudha. The team shot in Srinagar in late for 25 days, becoming the last production team to shoot in the area until 2003 as a result of the Kashmir conflict. A "meet the stars" publicity event was held at Music World in Spencer Plaza in March 2000, with the gathering being described as a success. About the production process, Madhavan revealed that he learnt about the technical aspects of film-making from the director and mentioned that he even learned the entire script of the film, irrespective of whether I was in the scene or not claiming that working with Mani Ratnam inspires that sort of involvement and dedication. Release. The Hindu cited the film saying, "The wavy movements are not restricted to the title card alone. Alaipayuthey goes backward and forward in time and the movement holds a thin thread of suspense too. The oscillation from joy and levity to seriousness and sorrow creates impressive waves", The lead pair performance was praised saying, "Shalini once again proves that she is a natural performer while Madhavan sails through the litmus test with ease". Similarly Indolink.com mentioned that "Mani's directorial mind and heart sways beautifully like his film" and that the film is "worth seeing with the whole family". However Rediff.com gave the film a middling review citing that the film is "old wine in an old bottle" and that "the only person who scores good marks in the film is P. C. Sreeram", describing "he has used his camera like a paint brush and the strokes are so stunningly beautiful that, once the film is over, one remembers only the visual treat". In regard to performances, the critic mentions that Madhavan "looks pleasant and handsome and does his job splendidly until the end, where he looks totally lost in the most crucial scene" and that Shalini "is very beautiful but not as open as she used to be as a child star". "Alaipayuthey" was dubbed and released as "Sakhi" in Telugu and was later remade in Hindi cinema as "Saathiya", by Mani Ratnam's assistant Shaad Ali in 2002, starring Rani Mukherjee and Vivek Oberoi. It was the first time where the director had sold off production rights' of his films to be remade in another language as he had previously opted to dub and release the film himself. The film began a successful film career for Madhavan and launched him as a "romantic hero". He has since gone on to become a regular part of the cast in Mani Ratnam's productions and featured in leading roles in "Dumm Dumm Dumm" (2001), "Kannathil Muthamittal" (2002), "Aaytha Ezhuthu" (2004) and "Guru" (2007). Meanwhile Shalini had already agreed to call time on her career before release due to her pending marriage with Ajith Kumar and "Alaipayuthey" became her penultimate release. Swarnamalya also received several film offers after her critically acclaimed performance, but consecutive failures of eight of her ten movies since failed to catapult her into the leading bracket of actors. Several other directors have made cultural references to "Alaipayuthey", with both scenes and songs being alluded in their films. The scene where Madhavan proposes Shalini in the train was spoofed in "Boss Engira Bhaskaran" where Arya tries to do the same with Nayantara but fails. When Madhavan saw that film, he said "It was a plesant shock to see this clip feature in BEB. It was such a sweet tribute to me. After watching this sequence, I was quite amused to see how thin I was back then!" Soundtrack. The music score that accompanies the film was composed by A. R. Rahman. It met widespread critical acclaim, selling over six lakh cassettes, and went on to win the Filmfare Best Music Director Award for 2000. The soundtrack features 10 songs composed by Rahman, with lyrics by Vairamuthu, except for the title song "Alai Payuthey" (which was created by the 18th century Carnatic music composer Oothukkadu Venkatasubramanya Iyer, who also set it to the raagam Kaanada). The song "Yaro Yarodi" later appeared in the 2008 Hollywood film, "The Accidental Husband". Songs and background score of the film are still considered as A.R. Rahman's one of the finest work and are still very popular throughout Tamil Nadu.
1056446	The Last Metro () is a 1980 drama film made by Les Films du Carrosse, written and directed by the French filmmaker François Truffaut, and starring Catherine Deneuve and Gérard Depardieu. The film is set during the time of the French occupation and demonstrates passive resistance through culture in the story of a small Parisian theatre surviving censorship, antisemitism and material shortages to emerge triumphant at the war’s end. In 1981, the film won ten Césars for: best film, best actor (Depardieu), best actress (Deneuve), best cinematography, best director (Truffaut), best editing, best music, best production design, best sound and best writing. It received Best Foreign Film nominations in the Academy Awards and Golden Globes. "The Last Metro" was one of Truffaut's most successful productions, grossing $3,007,436 in the United States; this was also true in France, where it had 3,384,045 admissions, making it one of his most successful films in his native country. Plot. Set during the German occupation of Paris during the Second World War, it tells the story of Lucas Steiner, a Jewish theatre director and his Gentile wife, Marion Steiner, who struggles to keep him concealed from the Nazis in their theatre cellar while she performs both his former job as the director and hers as an actress. The title "The Last Metro" refers to the fact that during the occupation it was imperative that Parisians catch the last train (Métro) home. This was to avoid breaking the strict curfew imposed by the Nazis. During the winter months of occupied Paris, there was no way to obtain coal, and the only manner in which people could keep warm was attending plays in theatres, which ended just before the last train left. Production. Truffaut had wanted to create a film set during the French occupation period for a long time, as his uncle and grandfather were both part of the French Resistance, who were once caught while passing messages. This event was eventually recreated in "The Last Metro". Truffaut was stimulated by the actor Jean Marais’ autobiography and by other documents of theatre people from during the occupation of which he based the film upon. This film was one instalment—dealing with theatre—of a trilogy on the entertainment world that Truffaut had planned. The instalment that dealt with the film world was 1973's "La Nuit Américaine" ("Day for Night"), which had won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. Truffaut completed the screenplay for the third instalment, "L'Agence Magique", which would have dealt with the world of music hall. In the late 1970s he was close to beginning filming, but the failure of his film "The Green Room" forced him to look to a more commercial project, and he filmed "Love on the Run" instead. Truffaut began casting in September 1979, and he wrote the role of Marion especially with Catherine Deneuve in mind for her energy. Gérard Depardieu initially did not want to be involved in the film, as he did not like Traffaut’s directing style, however he was later convinced. Most of the filming took place in an abandoned chocolate factory on Rue du Landy in Clichy, which was converted into a studio. During shooting Deneuve suffered an ankle sprain from a fall, resulting in having to shoot over scenes at short notice. Scriptwriter Suzanne Schiffman was also hospitalised with a serious intestinal obstruction. The film shoot lasted fifty-nine days and ended on April 21, 1980. Themes. A recurring theme in Truffaut’s films has been linking film making and film watching. "The Last Metro" is self-conscious in this respect. In the opening the film mixes documentary footage with period re-creations alongside shots of contemporary film posters. Truffaut commented “this film is not concerned merely with anti-semitism but intolerance in general” and a tolerance is shown through the characters of Jean Poiret playing a homosexual director and Andrea Ferreol plays a lesbian designer. As in Truffaut's earlier film "Jules et Jim", there is a love triangle between the three principal characters: Marion Steiner (Deneuve), her husband Lucas (Heinz Bennent) and Bernard Granger (Depardieu), an actor in the theatre's latest production.
582897	Khullam Khulla Pyaar Karen (Hindi: खुल्लम खुल्ला प्यार करें, Urdu: کھلم کھلا پیار کریں) is a Bollywood movie starring Govinda and Preity Zinta. Due to complications the film kept on getting delayed therefore it was not released until 2005. Synopsis. Damani (Prem Chopra) and Goverdhan (Kader Khan) are bitter enemies but when they get word from their boss Trikal Annaa (Sadashiv Amrapurkar) to stop the rivalry, they are forced to shake hands. They soon decide to get their children married to each other. Goverdhan tells his son Vicky (Mohnish Behl) to go to Surat to meet Damani's daughter Priti (Preity Zinta). Whilst going to Surat, Vicky offers a lift to Raja (Govinda) but the car has an accident and falls into the river. Some people manage to rescue Raja but not Vicky. Using this as an advantage and knowing about Vicky's purpose, he poses himself as Vicky and makes his way to Surat. He meets Priti and falls in love with her. At first when Priti meets Raja (under the guise of Vicky), she hates him but soon she falls in love with him. Goverdhan soon gets word that Vicky has met Priti and both have agreed to marry. Then to his shock, the real Vicky comes home and announces that he never made it to Surat and he did not meet Priti. Goverdhan makes his way to Surat to find out who is there posing as his son...
1367738	A Force of One is a 1979 martial arts film starring Jennifer O'Neill, Ron O'Neal, Clu Gulager, Bill Wallace and Chuck Norris . The film was directed by Paul Aaron and written by Pat E. Johnson and Ernest Tidyman. Plot summary. When a team of undercover narcotics officers is targeted by a serial killer, the police recruit karate champion Matt Logan (Chuck Norris) to bring the murders to an end. Logan soon discovers that a traitor within the police ranks is behind the killings. Critics nicknamed the film "A Farce of One."
1059171	Remember the Titans is a 2000 American sports film produced by Jerry Bruckheimer and directed by Boaz Yakin. The plot was conceived from a screenplay written by Gregory Allen Howard. The film is based on the true story of African American coach Herman Boone portrayed by Denzel Washington, as he tries to introduce a racially integrated team at the T. C. Williams High School in Alexandria, Virginia during the early 1970s. Actor Will Patton portrays Bill Yoast, an assistant coach making a transition to help out Boone. The real life portrayal of athletes Gerry Bertier and Julius Campbell, played by Ryan Hurst and Wood Harris, appear within the harmonized storyline; while Kip Pardue and Kate Bosworth also star in principal roles. A joint collective effort to commit to the film's production was made by the film studios of Walt Disney Pictures, Technical Black, Run It Up Productions Inc., and Jerry Bruckheimer Films. It was commercially distributed by Buena Vista Pictures. "Remember the Titans" explores civil topics, such as racism, discrimination and athletics. On September 29, 2000, the film's soundtrack was released by Walt Disney Records. It features songs written by several recording artists including Creedence Clearwater Revival, The Hollies, Marvin Gaye, James Taylor and Cat Stevens. "Remember the Titans" premiered in theaters nationwide in the United States on September 29, 2000 grossing $115,654,751 in domestic ticket receipts. It earned an additional $21,051,932 in business through international release to top out at a combined $136,706,683 in gross revenue. The film was considered a financial success due to its $30 million budget costs. Preceding its theatrical run, the film was generally met with favorable critical reviews before its initial screening in cinemas. Plot. In 1971, at the segregated T. C. Williams High School, a black head coach Herman Boone (Washington) is hired to lead the school's football team. Boone takes over from the current coach Bill Yoast (Patton), nominated for the Virginia High School Hall of Fame. As a show of respect, Boone offers an assistant coordinator coaching position to Yoast. Yoast at first refuses Boone's offer, but reconsiders after the white players pledge to boycott the team if he does not participate. Dismayed at the prospect of the students losing their chances at scholarships, Yoast changes his mind and takes up the position of defensive coordinator. Black and white football team members frequently clash in racially motivated conflicts at their football camp, including some between captain Gerry Bertier (Hurst), and Julius Campbell (Harris). But after forceful coaxing and rigorous athletic training by Boone, the team achieves racial harmony and success. After returning from football camp, Boone is told by a member of the school board that if he loses even a single game, he will be fired. Subsequently, the Titans go through the season undefeated while battling racial prejudice, before slowly gaining support from the community. Just before the state semi-finals, Yoast is told by a member of the school board that he will be inducted into the Hall of Fame after the Titans "lose" one game, implying he wants Boone to be fired over his race. During the game, it becomes apparent that the referees are biased against the Titans. Yoast warns the head official that he will go to the press and expose the scandal unless it is refereed fairly. The Titans win, but Yoast is told that his actions have resulted in his loss of candidacy for induction. While celebrating the victory, Bertier is in an automobile accident, after driving through an intersection. Although Bertier could not play due to injury, the team goes on to win the championship. Ten years later Bertier dies in a second car accident and team coaches and athletes reunite to attend his funeral. Production. Filming. Filming locations for the motion picture included Atlanta, Georgia. Music and soundtrack. On September 19, 2000, the soundtrack was released on the Walt Disney Records label. The film score was orchestrated by musician Trevor Rabin and features music composed by various artists. From the instrumental score, the track "Titans Spirit", was the only cue (of the 12 composed) added to the soundtrack. It is also the only piece of music on the soundtrack album not to have been previously released. "Titans Spirit" was a seven-minute exploration of the motion picture's energetic themes that projected from Washington as he spoke during filming. It has been used on numerous sports telecasts, particularly those on NBC, which utilized the score during its closing credits for the Salt Lake 2002, Athens 2004, Torino 2006, Beijing 2008, Vancouver 2010 and the London 2012 Olympic Games as well as with the final closing credits montage for their 12-year run with the NBA in 2002. The song was also played as veteran New York Mets players crossed home plate during the closing ceremonies at Shea Stadium, and as the New York Yankees were awarded their rings from their 2009 World Series championship. It was also used during the 2008 Democratic National Convention to accompany the celebration and fireworks at Invesco Field after future president Barack Obama gave his nomination acceptance speech, immediately following his speech upon winning the 2008 Presidential Election. Release. Home media. Following its release in theaters, the Region 1 widescreen Pan and scan edition of the motion picture was released on DVD in the United States on March 20, 2001. A Special Edition widescreen format of the film was also released on March 20, 2001 along with a widescreen Director's cut version on March 14, 2006.
946936	Dennis Keith Rodman (born May 13, 1961) is a retired American Hall of Fame professional basketball player, who played for the Detroit Pistons, San Antonio Spurs, Chicago Bulls, Los Angeles Lakers, and Dallas Mavericks in the National Basketball Association (NBA). Born in Trenton, New Jersey, he was nicknamed "The Worm" and was known for his fierce defensive and rebounding abilities.
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1059309	The Legend of Zorro is a 2005 sequel to "The Mask of Zorro" (1998), both directed by Martin Campbell. Antonio Banderas and Catherine Zeta-Jones reprise their roles as the titular hero and his spouse, Eléna, and Rufus Sewell stars as the villain, Count Armand. The film, which takes place in San Mateo County, California, was shot in San Luis Potosí, Mexico with second-unit photography in Wellington, New Zealand. Plot. In 1850 (9 years after the events of the first film), California is voting on whether to join the United States of America as a state. A wild gunman, Jacob McGivens, attempts to steal some ballots, but Zorro chases after him and recaptures the votes. In their scuffle, McGivens pulls off Zorro's mask. A pair of Pinkerton agents recognize him as Don Alejandro de la Vega. Zorro fashions a makeshift mask from his costume and rides off on his stallion, Toronado, to deliver the votes to the governor. Upon returning to his mansion, Alejandro is greeted by his loving wife, Eléna (Catherine Zeta-Jones). Eléna believes that Alejandro can now give up being Zorro, but Alejandro is sure that the people will still need him. The next day, after sending their son, Joaquin to school, Eléna is confronted by the Pinkertons, who disclose their knowledge of Zorro's identity. Soon after, Alejandro is served with divorce papers from Eléna, which she was forced to do.
583561	Suchitra Krishnamoorthi is an Indian actress, writer, painter and singer. Career. Suchitra started her career with the TV series "Chunauti" while still in school in the year 1987-88.She acted in a production of "", a musical based on the famous comic strip "Peanuts". She played the character Lucy. She was a successful model in the early nineties, endorsing products such as Palmolive soap, Clearasil, Sunrise Coffee, Limca and Colgate toothpaste. In 1994, she made her breakthrough in films with "Kabhi Haan Kabhi Naa", a commercial and critically acclaimed hit, opposite Shahrukh Khan. She also starred in Kilukkampetti opposite Malayalam Superstar Jayaram. She simultaneously pursued a music career in the mid- to late 1990s, releasing the pop albums "Dole Dole""Dum Tara", "Aha", and "Zindagi", whose title track was composed by Andrew Lloyd Webber [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WB838rGEdKM. Having given up her showbiz career for early marriage, she returned nearly ten years later in the film "My Wife's Murder" (2005), opposite Anil Kapoor. The film garnered rave reviews for Suchitra as a performer. She also starred in "Karma, Confessions and Holi" in 2009 — an Indo-American coproduction with an ensemble cast of stars including Naomi Campbell, Sushmita Sen and Vincent Curatola. The film failed at the box office. The year 2010 saw the release of "Rann", a film about the Indian media, directed by Ram Gopal Varma with a cast including Amitabh Bachchan and Riteish Deshmukh. Suchitra played the role of a media executive named Nalini Kashyap. Suchitra is a classically trained vocalist in the Gwalior gharana style of Indian classical music. She studied the art form for over ten years. She is an accomplished poet and painter, having trained in India, London and New York. She has exhibited her paintings in galleries across India and around the globe. Her art, Suchitra proclaims, is a divine blessing from Lord Ganesha. Having never painted or even sketched in her life before, Suchitra held a paintbrush in her hand for the first time on 27 September 2004 during the Ganesh Chathurthi festival, at the encouragement of her neighbour. Suchitra is a writer whose views were first noticed via her blogs. Her many blogs — first on www.intentblog.com, a site where she was invited to share her views by Deepak Chopra, "art in a body part" and "give me another break," and subsequently on her own site have put Suchitra in the midst of many a controversy. Suchitra's debut novel, "The Summer of Cool", was released by Penguin India in January 2009 and met with huge success. It is her first in four called the "Swapnalok Society" series. Based on the ethos of growing up in a typical co-operative housing society in Mumbai, this genre and these stories have struck a chord with young urban Indians. The second book in the series is called "The Good News Reporter" and was well received. "Drama Queen", a first person memoir by Suchitra is scheduled for release in September 2013. In September 2012, Suchitra launched The Candlelight Company ("http://www.thecandlelightcompany.com/") specializing in therapeutic organic candles for wellness. Personal life. Suchitra married Shekhar Kapur, a renowned filmmaker from India. They have a daughter named Kaveri. In February 2007, the couple got divorced. Suchitra is actively involved in charitable work and is associated with a few NGOs.
587955	Julie Ganapathi is a 2003 South Indian motion picture. It is a remake of the 1990 American film "Misery", itself an adaptation of the Stephen King novel. Plot. Julie Ganapathy (Saritha) is a staunch fan of a popular television show, "Manga". Over the years, Julie grows to identify herself obsessively with the main character of the show. The author of the series, Tenkasi Balakumaran (Jayaram), leaves his home for a few days to be alone to write the last few episodes of "Manga". On his way back home after completing his work, his vehicle gets into an accident which leaves him seriously injured and crippled. Julie rescues Balamurugan and takes him home but is revealed to be emotionally unstable, and deliriously obsessed with the character in Bala's story. Julie asks Bala to allow her to read the scripts for the concluding episodes that he has just completed. Over the next few days she reads the story and finds the ending not to her liking. She forces him to re-write the ending by various means, forcing him to escape his captor's clutches before it is too late. Soundtrack. The music was composed by Ilaiyaraja. Enakku Piditha Paadal was sung by Shreya Ghoshal. Enakku Piditha Paadal (male version) - vijay yesudas. minmini paravaigal - k.j. yesudas.
1058906	"Kickin' It Old Skool" is a 2007 American comedy film directed by Harvey Glazer and written by Trace Slobotkin. The film's cast includes Jamie Kennedy, Bobby Lee, Maria Menounos, Michael Rosenbaum, and Vivica A. Fox. This movie was released on April 27, 2007 and grossed $2.49 million in its opening weekend. The movie is about a young breakdancer who hits his head during a talent show and slips into a coma for twenty years. Waking up in 2006, he looks to revive his and his team's career with the help of his girlfriend and his parents.
582123	Mohabbatein (translation: "Love Stories"), is a 2000 Indian romantic musical film directed by Aditya Chopra. It was Chopra's second directorial venture after "Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge" and was filmed at India and England. The film stars Amitabh Bachchan and Shahrukh Khan in pivotal roles, along with six young debutantes. Aishwarya Rai appeared in flashbacks as Khan's lover. The film's soundtrack was composed by Jatin-Lalit, while the lyrics were penned by Anand Bakshi. "Mohabbatein" is most notable for being the first time that Bachchan and Khan appeared on-screen together. The film went on to do well both critically and commercially. It became the second highest grossing film of the year and was thus declared a superhit. It also won several awards including the Filmfare Critics Award for Best Actor and the Filmfare Award for Best Supporting Actor, given to Khan and Bachchan respectively. Plot. Narayan Shankar (Amitabh Bachchan) is the strict headmaster of Gurukul, a prestigious all-boys university. Narayan wants the best out of his students, and places emphasis on tradition, honor and discipline. He has run the university for 25 years, over that time has forbid the students from any kind of romance — anyone he catches falling in love will be expelled. The film focuses on three of the school's students: Sameer (Jugal Hansraj), Vicky (Uday Chopra) and Karan (Jimmy Shergill) who all fall in love. Sameer is in love with Sanjana (Kim Sharma), his childhood friend. Vicky falls for Ishika (Shamita Shetty), a student at the all-girls university next door to Gurukul. Karan becomes smitten with Kiran (Preeti Jhangiani), a girl he sees one night at a train station. All three know that if they're caught they'd be expelled, so they at first do not pursue their love interests. Raj Aryan (Shah Rukh Khan) joins Gurukul as a music teacher. He challenges the status quo and slowly introduces changes that Narayan disapproves of. Raj is a strong believer of love, and when he learns the stories of the three boys, he encourages them to follow their hearts. The boys take his advice, but are disappointed: Sameer discovers that Sanjana has a boyfriend; Vicky only makes Ishika dislike him when trying to woo her; Karan learns that Kiran is married to a pilot who is assumed dead. Raj tells the boys to not be disheartened, and tells them that his love, Megha (Aishwarya Rai) is dead, but he continues to love her and imagines that she is still by his side. Raj encourages the boys to continue to stay loyal to their loves. One day Raj throws a party in Gurukul, inviting the students from the girls' school from next door as part of his plan to spread love in Gurukul. Narayan is furious and threatens to fire him. Raj then reveals he was a student at Gurukul years ago, and he fell in love with Megha, who was Narayan's only daughter. Narayan had Raj expelled without ever seeing his face, and afterward Megha committed suicide. Raj returned to Gurukul as a teacher in the hopes of changing Narayan's ways and honoring his love for Megha. Raj promises that before he leaves Gurukul, he will fill it with so much love that even Narayan will not be able to remove it. Narayan accepts this challenge, and allows Raj to continue as a teacher for a while longer.
1059602	Ginnifer Michelle Goodwin (born Jennifer Michelle Goodwin; May 22, 1978), is an American television and film actress. She is best known for her role as Margene Heffman on "Big Love", and for her roles in films like "Mona Lisa Smile", "Something Borrowed", and "He's Just Not That Into You". She currently has a lead role as Mary Margaret Blanchard/Snow White in the ABC series "Once Upon a Time". Early life. Goodwin was born in Memphis, Tennessee. Her father, Tim Goodwin, formerly owned and operated a recording studio, and her mother, Linda (née Kantor), is a former educator and "stay-at-home mom", who later worked for FedEx and Apple. Goodwin changed her name from "Jennifer" to "Ginnifer" to distinguish her name, and to assist in pronunciation of her name in her regional dialect. Her younger sister, Melissa Goodwin, is a stop motion animator on shows such as the Emmy Award-winning "Robot Chicken", on which Ginnifer has also appeared as voice talent. Goodwin was raised in her mother's Jewish faith. In her youth, Goodwin was affiliated with the North American Federation of Temple Youth, and was active in BBYO at the Jewish Community Center in Memphis; she had a bat mitzvah. After graduating from Lausanne Collegiate School in 1996, Goodwin attended Hanover College (majoring in Theatre) for one year before moving on to earn her Bachelor of Fine Arts from Boston University. While a student at BU, she performed in numerous student short films, as well as several college and local stage productions. Goodwin was given the "Excellence in Acting: Professional Promise Award" by the Bette Davis Foundation, and graduated with honors. After her time at Boston University, she studied in England at Stratford Upon-Avon’s Shakespeare Institute, in conjunction with the Royal Shakespeare Company. The following year she earned an "Acting Shakespeare Certificate" at London’s Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. Career. Goodwin first had roles in the popular NBC television programs "Law & Order" and "Ed" before appearing in the Comedy Central television movie "Porn 'n Chicken". She later had substantial roles in the films "Mona Lisa Smile", "Win a Date with Tad Hamilton!", "Walk the Line"—in which she portrayed Vivian Liberto, Johnny Cash's first wife—and "Birds of America". She also played Dori Dumchovic in the dark comedy "Love Comes to the Executioner". Goodwin played a leading role as Margene Heffman, the third wife in a polygamous family, on the HBO original series "Big Love", which concluded on March 20, 2011. Ginnifer has recurring voice roles in the Cartoon Network show, Robot Chicken, the animation of which her younger sister Melissa Goodwin is involved. In 2008, Max Mara honored Goodwin with a "Face of the Future" award, an award recognizing up and coming women in film. Also, Goodwin was one of the celebrities featured in Gap's Fall 2008 ad campaign. Goodwin starred as Gigi in "He's Just Not That into You", which was released in February 2009. For this role she received a nomination for the People's Choice Award for Breakout Movie Actress. In April 2009 she began filming "Ramona and Beezus" (playing "Aunt Bea"). In 2011, Goodwin plays Mary Margaret Blanchard, a teacher in Storybrooke, Maine, as well as fairy tale heroine Snow White, in the revisionist fantasy adventure television program, "Once Upon a Time", which debuted on ABC.
1059613	Christopher McDonald (born February 15, 1955) is an American actor. He is known for his roles as Shooter McGavin in "Happy Gilmore", Tappy Tibbons in "Requiem for a Dream", and Mel Allen in the HBO film "61*". Personal life. McDonald was born in New York City, the son of Patricia, a nursing professor and real estate agent, and James R. McDonald, an educator and high school principal. He is of Irish ancestry. He was raised in upstate Romulus, New York, and is a graduate of Hobart College in Geneva, New York. McDonald is married to Lupe Gidley, and together they are the parents of four children. Career. McDonald has numerous film and television roles to his name, often as a supporting actor and often portraying antagonistic characters. In addition to the above, his credits also include "Breakin, "Grease 2", "The Boys Next Door", "Thelma & Louise", "Grumpy Old Men", "Quiz Show", "Flubber", "The Faculty", "The Perfect Storm", "House Arrest", "Dirty Work", ', "Broken Flowers" and "". He was featured as Ward Cleaver in the movie version of "Leave It to Beaver" and famous baseball broadcaster Mel Allen in "61*". In 1994, he starred in the film "Terminal Velocity" as an aggressive Russian mafia villain alongside Charlie Sheen. He appeared on the "Dating Game" in 1978 as one of the three bachelors but did not get picked for the date. In the realm of television, along with recurring roles on the television series "Family Law", "North Shore", "Veronica's Closet", "Good Advice", and "Harry's Law", McDonald has also made guest appearances on "Cheers", "Riptide", "Knight Rider", "The Sopranos", "Psych", both the 1985 and the 2002 versions of "The Twilight Zone", "Home Improvement", "Las Vegas", the "Law & Order" franchise, "Stargate Universe" and "" as Lt. Richard Castillo in the season 3 episode "Yesterday's Enterprise". McDonald's voice work includes the determined government agent Kent Mansley in the animated film "The Iron Giant". He also voiced Jor-El (Superman's father) in ' and subsequently an older version of Superman in "Batman Beyond". He has recalled great affection for these roles, saying that he enjoyed them because he was (and continues to be) such a fan of Superman and because they were in such contrast to his less than sympathetic on screen roles that he is famous for. He subbed for Burt Reynolds as Boss Hogg in '. In 2009, McDonald also lent his voice talents in the Thomas Nelson audio Bible production known as The Word of Promise. In this dramatized audio, McDonald played the characters of Luke the Evangelist. The project also featured a large ensemble of well known Hollywood actors including Jim Caviezel, Lou Gossett Jr., John Rhys-Davies, Jon Voight, Gary Sinise, Jason Alexander, Marissa Tomei and John Schneider. He was also in Peter Gabriel's music video for the song "The Barry Williams Show" with McDonald as the eponymous lead. He also replaced Robert De Niro in the "Midnight Run" movie franchise; he played "Jack Walsh" in three TV films - "Another Midnight Run", "Midnight Runaround", and "Midnight Run for Your Life". He portrayed baseball player Joe DiMaggio in the ESPN original series "The Bronx Is Burning".
1054774	A Serbian Film () is a 2010 Serbian horror film and Srdjan Spasojevic's first feature film. Spasojevic directed, co-wrote and produced the film. It tells the story of a down-on-his-luck porn star who agrees to participate in an "art film", only to discover that he has been drafted into a snuff film with child rape and necrophilic themes. The film stars Serbian actors Srđan Todorović and Sergej Trifunović. Upon its debut on the art film circuit, the film received substantial attention for its graphic depictions of rape, necrophilia, and child sexual abuse. The Serbian state investigated the film for crime against sexual morals and crime related to the protection of minors. The film has been banned in Spain, Australia, New Zealand, Malaysia, and Singapore, rejected in Norway, and temporarily banned from screening in Brazil where a decision to repeal the film has not been made yet. Plot. Milos is a semi-retired porn star, who lives with his wife, Marija, and six-year-old son, Petar. His brother, Marko, is a corrupt police officer, who is attracted to Marija. Marija is curious about her husband's past and is concerned about the family’s income. Lejla, a former co-star, offers Milos a starring role in an art film directed by Vukmir, an independent pornographer, who wishes to cast Milos for his powerful erection. Having already caught Petar watching one of his films and unaware of the details of Vukmir's film, Milos is hesitant to participate and continue his career, but accepts to secure his family’s financial future. While meeting Vukmir, Milos passes a bald man and his entourage, regarding them warily. Shooting begins at an orphanage, where Vukmir feeds Milos instructions through an earpiece given by Vukmir's driver, Raša, while a film crew follows him. Milos sees young girl Jeca physically abused and scolded by her mother, who has disgraced her deceased war hero husband's memory by becoming a whore. In a dark room, screens show Jeca seductively eating an ice pop, while Milos is fellated by a nurse. Then, Milos is instructed to receive it from the mother, while Jeca watches. Milos refuses, but is forced to continue. Marko later informs him that Vukmir is a former psychologist and has worked in children's TV and state security. Vukmir meets a hesitant Milos afterward to explain his artistic style, showing a film of a woman giving birth to a newborn, which is immediately raped by Raša, in what the director terms "newborn porn". The horrified Milos storms out and drives away. At a road junction, he is approached and seduced by Vukmir's female doctor. A bloodied Milos wakes up in his bed some time later with no memory of what has happened. He returns to the now abandoned set and finds a number of tapes. Viewing them, Milos discovers that he was drugged to induce an aggressive, sexually aroused, and suggestible state. At Vukmir's manipulative direction, Milos beats and rapes Jeca's mother before decapitating her to induce rigor mortis and, later, a catatonic Milos is sodomized by Vukmir's security. He then watches footage of Lejla voicing concern for Milos, only to be restrained as her teeth are removed. A masked man then enters the room and suffocates her during fellatio. The footage continues as Milos is led to Jeca's home, where an elderly woman praises him for killing her mother and offers Jeca as a "virgin commune". Milos refuses and escapes through a window to an alleyway, where he watches a girl pass by as she is being pursued by a pair of thugs. He begins masturbating and is assaulted by the thugs before they are killed by Raša, who then takes Milos back to a warehouse with Vukmir. At the warehouse, Vukmir's doctor administers more drugs after which Milos overpowers her, sticking the syringe into her throat. He is then taken into a room to have intercourse with two hidden comatose bodies under a sheet. As Milos is guided onto one body, the masked man from Lejla’s movie enters and begins raping the other. Vukmir then reveals the masked man to be Marko, his victim to be Marija and finally, that Milos is raping Petar. An enraged Milos lunges at Vukmir and smashes his head against the floor, initiating a brawl during which Marija bludgeons Marko to death with a sculpture. Milos wrestles a gun from a guard and shoots all, but the one-eyed Raša, who he kills by sticking his erect penis into his empty eye socket. A dying Vukmir praises Milos' actions as truly worthy of film. Milos, having recalled his actions, including locking his wife and son in their basement before passing out earlier, returns home to find them. He and his wife come to a mutual understanding that he, his wife, and his child, should die together, so the three gather in bed and embrace before Milos fires a fatal shot through himself, Petar, and Marija. Sometime later a new film crew, including the bald man from earlier, enters the bedroom. One of the security guards begins to unzip his pants and the director (the unknown bald man) advises him to "start with the little one". Production. Srđan Spasojević co-wrote the screenplay with the assistance of Aleksandar Radivojević, Serbian horror film critic best known for his work on the script of the Serbian blockbuster "Tears for Sale". "A Serbian Film" is a domestic film specifically made for foreign presentation, one of many such works of Dragoljub Vojnov. The financing was raised through Contra Film, the Serbia-registered company specifically setup for that purpose. During the casting process there was concern on the filmmakers' part that first choices for the main protagonist roles - established main stream cinema stars in Serbia and other former Yugoslav countries Srđan Todorović and Sergej Trifunović - would shy away from the film due to its risque and extreme content, but it turned out to be unfounded as both accepted the parts immediately. For budgetary reasons, the film was shot with Red One digital camera.
1164788	Edward Francis "Eddie" Jemison, Jr. (born 1963) is an American film and television actor. He is known for his roles in the "Ocean's Eleven" trilogy and the television series "Hung". Life and career. Jemison was born in New Orleans, Louisiana, the son of Rosalie (née Centanni) and Edward Francis Jemison. He is of Irish and Italian descent. He was raised in Kenner, Louisiana and attended a Catholic secondary school, Archbishop Rummel High School. He graduated from Louisiana State University where he was a member of the Delta Chi Fratenity. He has made multiple appearances on "Late Night with David Letterman", and starred in television pilots for NBC and ABC. Jemison is a veteran of the Chicago theatre scene. His stage credits include "The Wizards of Quiz" at the National Jewish Theatre; "Only Kidding" at the Wisdom Bridge Theatre; "Loot" at Tulane Repertory; "A Christmas Carol" at the Goodman Theatre; "Talking to Myself" and "Holiday Memories" at the Northlight Theatre; and "T Bone N Weasel" at Victory Gardens. Jemison also performed in "The Two Gentlemen of Verona" and "As You Like It" at the Chicago Shakespeare Theater. In mid-1990s, before starting a film career, he starred in a series of Bud Light commercials with the tagline "Yes, I am". Offered a contract to continue playing the wildly popular character, Eddie instead chose to pursue music for a time, which prompted the creation of the now famous "Budwieser Frogs". Online Eddie recently starred in the web-series Self-Storage.
1170138	Jeanne Carmen (August 4, 1930 – December 20, 2007) was an American model, pin-up girl, trick-shot golfer, and B movie actress. Early life and career. Jeanne Laverne Carmen was born in Paragould, Arkansas. As a child she picked cotton before running away from home at age 13. As a teen, she moved to New York City and landed a job as a dancer in "Burlesque", with Bert Lahr. Later she became a model, appearing in several men's magazines. She also became a trick golfer, appearing with Jack Redmond.
1063116	Adrienne Jo Barbeau (born June 11, 1945) is an American actress and the author of three books. Barbeau came to prominence in the 1970s as Broadway's original Rizzo in the musical "Grease", and as Carol Traynor, the divorced daughter of Maude Findlay (played by Bea Arthur) in the sitcom "Maude". In the early 1980s, Barbeau was a sex symbol, starring in several horror and science fiction films, including "The Fog", "Creepshow", "Swamp Thing", and "Escape from New York". During the 1990s, she became known for providing the voice of Catwoman on "" and subsequent Batman cartoon series. In the 2000s (decade), she appeared in the HBO series "Carnivàle" as Ruthie the snake dancer. Early life. Barbeau was born and raised in Sacramento, California, the daughter of Armene (née Nalbandian) and Joseph Barbeau, who was a public relations executive for Mobil Oil. Her mother was of Armenian descent and her father's ancestry included French-Canadian, Irish, and German. She has a sister, Jocelyn, and a half brother on her father's side, Robert Barbeau, who still resides in the Sacramento area. She attended Del Mar High School in San Jose, California. In her autobiography, Barbeau says that she first caught the show business bug while entertaining troops at army bases throughout Southeast Asia, touring with the San Jose Civic Light Opera. Career. 1960s to 1989. In the late 1960s, Barbeau moved to New York City and worked "for the mob" as a go-go dancer. She made her Broadway debut in the chorus of "Fiddler on the Roof", and later took the role of Hodel, Tevye's daughter; Bette Midler played her sister. She left "Fiddler" in 1971 to play the leading role of Cookie Kovac in the off-Broadway nudie musical "Stag Movie." Barbeau, as Cookie Kovac, and Brad Sullivan, as Rip Cord, were "quite jolly and deserve to be congratulated on the lack of embarrassment they show when, on occasion, they have to wander around stark naked. They may not be sexy but they certainly keep cheerful," wrote "The New York Times" theater critic Clive Barnes in an otherwise negative review. Barbeau went on to star in more than 25 musicals and plays, including "Women Behind Bars", "The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas", and "Grease". She received a Theater World Award and a 1972 Tony Award nomination for her portrayal of tough-girl Rizzo in "Grease." During the 1970s Barbeau starred as Carol, the daughter of Bea Arthur's title character in the comedy series "Maude", which ran from 1972 to 1978. She also appeared in the same role in All In The Family along with Arthur. In her autobiography, "There Are Worse Things I Could Do", she remarked: "What I didn't know is that when I said lines I was usually walking down a flight of stairs and no one was even listening to me. They were just watching my breasts precede me." During the last season of "Maude", Barbeau did not appear in the majority of the episodes. In a 2009 "Entertainment Tonight" TV interview, Barbeau mentioned that she had good on- and off-camera chemistry with Arthur; she said that the two stayed close until Arthur's death on April 25, 2009. Barbeau and Arthur reunited on camera during a 2007 taping of "The View," reminiscing about their long-running friendship and their years as costars on "Maude". Regarding the character of Maude, Barbeau has said: "Thousands of people came up to me and said, 'I've got an aunt who's just like Maude, my mother is just like Maude.' I think many, many people related to Bea's character, in that way. There were others who found her too abrasive who didn't like the character, and that big woman with a low voice, saying those things." Regarding Bea Arthur's desire to entertain the audience of "Maude", she said: "I at least was; and I'm sure that Bea was very proud of being something that was socially significant that was entertaining people, and making them laugh, at the same time, slipping her philosophy." Regarding Bea Arthur's decision to leave the show, Barbeau said: "I think she was tired, but I also knew she wanted to go out strong, yet, we were still in the Top 20, right through the sixth season, but I think she was probably feeling, 'How many more scripts are there'?, and you know, where we can be as good as we've been!" Of her overall experience on "Maude", she said: "It was wonderful, all the way through, and so much of that was because of Bea, because, we had such a great group of people that we were working with, who, we were like a family." For more than 35 years, until Bea Arthur's death in 2009, she and Barbeau continued to be good friends, long after the cancellation of "Maude". The death of Arthur's mother in 1986 drew her and Barbeau even closer. Barbeau was cast in numerous television films and shows such as "The Love Boat", "Fantasy Island", "Valentine Magic on Love Island", and "Battle of the Network Stars". In her autobiography she claimed: "I actually thought CBS asked me to be on "Battle of the Network Stars" because they thought I was athletic. My husband clued me in: who cared if I won the race, as long as I bounced when I ran?" The popularity of Barbeau's 1978 cheesecake poster confirmed her status as a sex symbol. Barbeau's popularity stemmed partly from what critic Joe Bob Briggs referred to as the "two enormous talents on that woman," and her typecasting as a "tough broad." Despite her initial success, she said at the time that she thought of Hollywood as a "flesh market", and that she would rather appear in films that "explore the human condition" and "deal with issues". Barbeau was cast by her then-husband, director John Carpenter, in his 1980 horror film, "The Fog", which was her first theatrical film appearance. The film was released in on February 1, 1980, and was a theatrical success, grossing over $21 million in the United States alone, and establishing Barbeau as a genre film star. She subsequently appeared in a number of early-1980s horror and science fiction films, a number of which have now become cult film classics, including "Escape from New York" (also from Carpenter), "Creepshow", and "Swamp Thing". Of her screen work with Carpenter, Barbeau has stated: "John is a great director. He knows what he wants and he knows how to get it. It's simple and it's easy with him." She also appeared in the high-grossing Burt Reynolds comedy "The Cannonball Run" (1981) and as the shrewish wife of Rodney Dangerfield in "Back to School" (1986). Barbeau also starred along with talk show host Bill Maher and Shannon Tweed in "Cannibal Women in the Avocado Jungle of Death" (1989). 1990s - present. In the 1990s, Barbeau mostly appeared in made-for-television films such as Scott Turow's "The Burden of Proof" in 1992, as well as playing Oswald's mother on "The Drew Carey Show" and gaining new-found fame among animation fans as Catwoman on ' and "Gotham Girls". Coincidentally, Barbeau's on-screen son on "The Drew Carey Show", Diedrich Bader, would go on to perform the voice of Batman on the animated series '. She also worked as a television talk show host and a weekly book reviewer for KABC talk radio in Los Angeles. In 1999, she guest starred in the "" episode "" as Romulan Senator Kimara Cretak. In 1994, she also appeared in the "Babylon 5" episode "Spider in the Web" as Amanda Carter. In 1998, Barbeau released her debut album as a folk singer, the self-titled "Adrienne Barbeau". She starred in the cartoon series "Totally Spies!" doing the voice of villainess Helga Von Guggen in seasons 1, 2 and 4. From 2003 to 2005, she starred in the HBO series "Carnivàle". From March to May 2006, she starred as Judy Garland in the off-Broadway play "The Property Known as Garland". Barbeau played a cameo role in Rob Zombie's "Halloween", a "reimagining" of the 1978 film of the same name, written and directed by her first husband, John Carpenter. Her scene was cut from the theatrical version of the film but is included in the DVD version. In 2009, Barbeau was cast as "The Cat Lady" in the family comedy "The Dog Who Saved Christmas", as Scooter's Mom in the 3D animated feature "Fly Me to the Moon" and as a hospice patient in the love-story "Reach For Me" Also in 2009, Barbeau has guest-spots in the first episode of Showtime's hit series "Dexter" (season 4), as well as on "Grey's Anatomy". She voiced the Greek goddess Hera in the video game "God of War III" released for the PlayStation 3 in March 2010. In August 2010 she began a role on the long running ABC daytime drama "General Hospital". In 2012 she voiced UNSC scietist Dr. Tilson in the highly-anticipated game "Halo 4", released on the Xbox 360 in November 2012. She reprised her role as Catwoman in an animated remake of the third trailer for "The Dark Knight Rises". This trailer was made to both celebrate the upcoming movie as well as to promote Hub's ten episode marathon of "Batman: The Animated Series". Personal life. Barbeau was married to director John Carpenter from January 1, 1979 to 1984. The two met on the set of his 1978 TV movie, "Someone's Watching Me!". The couple had a son, John Cody (born May 7, 1984) shortly before they separated. During their marriage, the couple remained "totally outside Hollywood's social circles." Barbeau married actor/playwright/producer Billy Van Zandt on December 31, 1992. The two met in 1991 when Barbeau was cast in the west coast premiere of his play, "Drop Dead!" Billy is the half-brother of musician/actor Steven Van Zandt. She gave birth to twin boys, Walker Steven and William Dalton Van Zandt, on March 17, 1997, at age 51, claiming she was the only one on the maternity ward who was also a member of AARP. Bibliography. Barbeau's autobiography "There Are Worse Things I Could Do" was published in 2006 by Carroll & Graf, rising to #11 on the Los Angeles Times best-sellers list. In July 2008, her first novel, "Vampyres of Hollywood", was published by St. Martin's Press. The novel was co-written by Michael Scott. The sequel "Love Bites" was published in 2010. Popular culture references. Captain Murphy, a character from the animated television series "Sealab 2021", has an obsession with Barbeau and mentions her in several episodes. In the episode "I Robot" he ponders becoming an "Adrienne Barbeaubot" with laser beam eyes and "D-Cups Full of Justice." In the episode "I Robot Really" Captain Murphy succeeds in having his brain placed inside a robot body which he calls The Barbeau-bot. The Barbeau-bot not only has "D-Cups of Justice" but also chainsaw hands with laser targeting. Barbeau was mentioned in Adult Swim cartoons by the same people as far back as Space Ghost Coast to Coast episode 32. Also, an episode of "Sabrina, the Teenage Witch" (Season 6, episode 5) includes a storyline in which Miles is obsessed with Adrienne Barbeau. He buys a cardboard cut-out of her, and she guest stars at the end of the episode. Upon meeting her, Sabrina compliments Barbeau for her performance as Senator Cretak in the aforementioned "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine" episode. In the "Mystery Science Theater 3000" episode featuring the movie "The Thing That Couldn't Die" Mike Nelson is being sent people he's thinking of by a race of omnipotent beings in one of the "host segments." The person appears and begins to beat up Mike in a manner similar to Finnegan in the classic "" episode "Shore Leave". Mike thinks of Adrienne Barbeau at the insistence of one of his robot companions. Adrienne is played by Mike Nelson's real-life wife Bridget Jones Nelson.
583695	Kizhakku Cheemayile is a 1993 Tamil film directed by Bharathiraaja. It has music composed by A. R. Rahman. The film involves a touching sentimental story between a brother and a sister. Radhika and Vijayakumar have been highly praised for their roles in the film.
1790555	Anneke Wills (born Anna Katarina Willys, 20 October 1941) is an English actress, best known for her role as the Doctor Who companion Polly in the long-running BBC science fiction television series "Doctor Who". Biography. Wills' parents, Alaric and Anna Willys planned to buy a house in the South of France but their plan was ended by the outbreak of World War II. Alaric Wills's gambling debts forced his wife to find work while he became a captain in the British Army and an absent figure. Anna was occupied as a companion to a blind aristocrat, gardener, teacher - moving Anneke and her brother Robin around the country.
1066441	Dan in Real Life is a 2007 American comedy-drama film directed by Peter Hedges, starring Steve Carell and Juliette Binoche. Plot. Dan Burns (Steve Carell) is a newspaper advice columnist, a widower, and a controlling father to his children Jane (Alison Pill), Cara (Brittany Robertson) and, Lilly (Marlene Lawston) in the New Jersey suburbs. His column is in contention to be syndicated nationally. The family takes a trip to the Rhode Island home of his parents (Dianne Wiest and John Mahoney) to visit his family—including his New York City-based brother, Mitch (Dane Cook), a personal trainer—for an annual family get together. Cara does not want to go, as she does not want to leave her boyfriend Marty (Felipe Dieppa) whom she claims to have fallen in love with in just three days. But Dan insists that it is not possible to fall in love in three days and makes her go. The morning after his arrival, Dan's mother encourages him to go into town for a bit to give his daughters some space. Dan visits a bookstore and a customer named Marie (Juliette Binoche) mistakes him for an employee. Dan and Marie have an obvious connection and continue to talk over breakfast. Marie agrees to meet with Dan again before leaving but tells Dan that she has a boyfriend. Dan returns to his parents' house and happily announces he has met someone new, only to find that Marie is there, her boyfriend being Dan's brother, Mitch.
589548	Besharam (Hindi: बेशर्म; translation: "Shameless") is a 1978 Hindi movie produced and directed by veteran character actor Deven Verma. This is his first directorial venture and first time with Amitabh Bachchan under his banner. The film stars Amitabh Bachchan, Sharmila Tagore, Amjad Khan, A. K. Hangal, Iftekhar, Nirupa Roy and Deven Verma. The film's music was composed by Kalyanji Anandji. An innocent man sets out to find the truth about his father's death. He finds himself in a dangerous battle with the criminal underworld. Plot. After Digvijay Singh (Amjad Khan) implicates him as a corrupt person, Ramchandra (A. K. Hangal), a teacher commits suicide. After this incident, his obedient and simple son Ram Kumar (Amitabh Bachchan), an insurance agent, faces many difficulties. Resolved to fight against the injustice in society and uncover the criminal elements, he joins forces with the Police Commissioner (Iftekar) and transforms himself into Prince Chandrashekar, a top notch diamond businessman from South Africa. Few years later, Digvijay Singh becomes a powerful person in the city with dubious personality. He seems to be a decent industrialist Dharamdas while smuggling drugs, running many criminal activities and keeps poisonous snakes to kill his enemies and traitors. Ram Kumar loves Rinku (Sharmila Tagore) unaware that she is Dharamdas' sister. Disguised as Prince Chandrashekar, Ram wins the heart of Dharmdas' beloved Manju (Bindu), gets close to him and enter his business. Finally he succeeds in arresting him. This was Sharmila Tagore's romantic lead with Amitabh Bachchan again after Faraar.
1091030	James Clerk Maxwell (13 June 1831 – 5 November 1879) was a Scottish mathematical physicist. His most prominent achievement was to formulate a set of equations that describe electricity, magnetism, and optics as manifestations of the same phenomenon, namely the electromagnetic field. Maxwell's achievements concerning electromagnetism have been called the "second great unification in physics", after the first one realised by Isaac Newton. With the publication of "A Dynamical Theory of the Electromagnetic Field" in 1865, Maxwell demonstrated that electric and magnetic fields travel through space as waves moving at the speed of light. Maxwell proposed that light is in fact undulations in the same medium that is the cause of electric and magnetic phenomena. The unification of light and electrical phenomena led to the prediction of the existence of radio waves. Maxwell helped develop the Maxwell–Boltzmann distribution, which is a statistical means of describing aspects of the kinetic theory of gases. He is also known for presenting the first durable colour photograph in 1861 and for his foundational work on analysing the rigidity of rod-and-joint frameworks (trusses) like those in many bridges. His discoveries helped usher in the era of modern physics, laying the foundation for such fields as special relativity and quantum mechanics. Many physicists regard Maxwell as the 19th-century scientist having the greatest influence on 20th-century physics, and his contributions to the science are considered by many to be of the same magnitude as those of Isaac Newton and Albert Einstein. In the millennium poll—a survey of the 100 most prominent physicists—Maxwell was voted the third greatest physicist of all time, behind only Newton and Einstein. On the centenary of Maxwell's birthday, Einstein himself described Maxwell's work as the "most profound and the most fruitful that physics has experienced since the time of Newton." Life. Early life, 1831–39. James Clerk Maxwell was born on 13 June 1831 at 14 India Street, Edinburgh, to John Clerk, an advocate, and Frances Cay. His father was a man of comfortable means, of the Clerk family of Penicuik, holders of the baronetcy of Clerk of Penicuik; his father's brother being the 6th Baronet. He had been born "John Clerk", adding the surname Maxwell to his own after he inherited a country estate in Middlebie, Kirkcudbrightshire, from connections to the Maxwell family, themselves members of the peerage. James was the first cousin of the artist Jemima Blackburn. Maxwell's parents did not meet and marry until they were well into their thirties, and his mother was nearly 40 years old when he was born. They had had one earlier child, a daughter named Elizabeth, who died in infancy. When Maxwell was young his family moved to Glenlair House, which his parents had built on the Middlebie estate. All indications suggest that Maxwell had maintained an unquenchable curiosity from an early age. By the age of three, everything that moved, shone, or made a noise drew the question: "what's the go o' that?". In a passage added to a letter from his father to his sister-in-law Jane Cay in 1834, his mother described this innate sense of inquisitiveness: Education, 1839–47. Recognising the potential of the young boy, his mother Frances took responsibility for James' early education, which in the Victorian era was largely the job of the woman of the house. She was however taken ill with abdominal cancer, and after an unsuccessful operation, died in December 1839 when Maxwell was only eight years old. James's education was then overseen by his father and his sister-in-law Jane, both of whom played pivotal roles in his life. His formal schooling began unsuccessfully under the guidance of a sixteen-year-old hired tutor. Little is known about the young man John Maxwell hired to instruct his son, except that he treated the younger boy harshly, chiding him for being slow and wayward. John Maxwell dismissed the tutor in November 1841, and after considerable thought, sent James to the prestigious Edinburgh Academy. He lodged during term times at the house of his aunt Isabella. During this time his passion for drawing was encouraged by his older cousin Jemima. The ten-year-old Maxwell, having been raised in isolation on his father's countryside estate, did not fit in well at school. The first year had been full, obliging him to join the second year with classmates a year his senior. His mannerisms and Galloway accent struck the other boys as rustic, and his having arrived on his first day of school wearing a pair of homemade shoes and a tunic, earned him the unkind nickname of "Daftie". Maxwell never seemed to resent the epithet, bearing it without complaint for many years. Social isolation at the Academy ended when he met Lewis Campbell and Peter Guthrie Tait, two boys of a similar age who were to become notable scholars later in life. They would remain lifelong friends. Maxwell was fascinated by geometry at an early age, rediscovering the regular polyhedra before he received any formal instruction, but much of his talent went overlooked. Despite winning the school's scripture biography prize in his second year his academic work remained unnoticed until, at the age of 13, he won the school's mathematical medal and first prize for both English and poetry. Maxwell’s interests ranged far beyond the school syllabus, and he did not pay particular attention to examination performance. He wrote his first scientific paper at the age of 14. In it he described a mechanical means of drawing mathematical curves with a piece of twine, and the properties of ellipses, Cartesian ovals, and related curves with more than two foci. His work, "Oval Curves", was presented to the Royal Society of Edinburgh by James Forbes, who was a professor of natural philosophy at Edinburgh University, but Maxwell was deemed too young to present the work himself. The work was not entirely original, since René Descartes had also examined the properties of such multifocal ellipses in the seventeenth century, but Maxwell had simplified their construction. University of Edinburgh, 1847–50. Maxwell left the Academy in 1847 at the age of 16 and began attending classes at the University of Edinburgh. He had the opportunity to attend the University of Cambridge, however, Maxwell decided, after his first term, to complete the full course of his undergraduate studies at Edinburgh. The academic staff of Edinburgh University included some highly regarded names, and Maxwell's first year tutors included Sir William Hamilton, who lectured him on logic and metaphysics, Philip Kelland on mathematics, and James Forbes on natural philosophy. Maxwell did not find his classes at Edinburgh University very demanding, and was therefore able to immerse himself in private study during free time at the university, and particularly when back home at Glenlair. There he would experiment with improvised chemical, electric, and magnetic apparatuses, but his chief concerns regarded the properties of polarised light. He constructed shaped blocks of gelatine, subjected them to various stresses, and with a pair of polarising prisms given to him by William Nicol he would view the coloured fringes which had developed within the jelly. Through this practice Maxwell discovered photoelasticity, which is a means of determining the stress distribution within physical structures. At the age of 18, Maxwell contributed two papers for the Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. One of these, "On the Equilibrium of Elastic Solids", laid the foundation for an important discovery later in his life, which was the temporary double refraction produced in viscous liquids by shear stress. His other paper was "Rolling Curves", and just as with the paper "Oval Curves" that he had written at the Edinburgh Academy, Maxwell was again considered too young to stand at the rostrum and present it himself. The paper was delivered to the Royal Society by his tutor Kelland instead. University of Cambridge, 1850–56. In October 1850, already an accomplished mathematician, Maxwell left Scotland for the University of Cambridge. He initially attended Peterhouse, but before the end of his first term transferred to Trinity, where he believed it would be easier to obtain a fellowship. At Trinity, he was elected to the elite secret society known as the Cambridge Apostles. In November 1851, Maxwell studied under William Hopkins, whose success in nurturing mathematical genius had earned him the nickname of "senior wrangler-maker". In 1854, Maxwell graduated from Trinity with a degree in mathematics. He scored second highest in the final examination, coming behind Edward Routh, and thereby earning himself the title of Second Wrangler. He was later declared equal with Routh, however, in the more exacting ordeal of the Smith's Prize examination. Immediately after earning his degree, Maxwell read his paper "On the Transformation of Surfaces by Bending" to the Cambridge Philosophical Society. This is one of the few purely mathematical papers he had written, and it demonstrated Maxwell's growing stature as a mathematician. Maxwell decided to remain at Trinity after graduating and applied for a fellowship, which was a process that he could expect to take a couple of years. Buoyed by his success as a research student, he would be free, apart from some tutoring and examining duties, to pursue scientific interests at his own leisure. The nature and perception of colour was one such interest, and had begun at Edinburgh University while he was a student of Forbes. Maxwell took the coloured spinning tops invented by Forbes, and was able to demonstrate that white light would result from a mixture of red, green and blue light. His paper, "Experiments on Colour", laid out the principles of colour combination, and was presented to the Royal Society of Edinburgh in March 1855. Maxwell was this time able to deliver it himself. Maxwell was made a fellow of Trinity on 10 October 1855, sooner than was the norm, and was asked to prepare lectures on hydrostatics and optics, and to set examination papers. However, the following February he was urged by Forbes to apply for the newly vacant Chair of Natural Philosophy at Marischal College, Aberdeen. His father assisted him in the task of preparing the necessary references, but died on 2 April at Glenlair before either knew the result of Maxwell's candidacy. Maxwell accepted the professorship at Aberdeen, leaving Cambridge in November 1856. Marischal College, Aberdeen, 1856–60. The 25-year-old Maxwell was a fifteen years younger than any other professor at Marischal; however, he still engaged himself with his new responsibilities as head of a department, devising the syllabus and preparing lectures. He committed himself to lecturing 15 hours a week, including a weekly "pro bono" lecture to the local working men's college. He lived in Aberdeen during the six months of the academic year, and he spent the summers at Glenlair, which he had inherited from his father. He focused his attention on a problem that had eluded scientists for two hundred years: the nature of Saturn's rings. It was unknown how they could remain stable without breaking up, drifting away or crashing into Saturn. The problem took on a particular resonance at that time because St John's College, Cambridge, had chosen it as the topic for the 1857 Adams Prize. Maxwell devoted two years to studying the problem, proving that a regular solid ring could not be stable, and a fluid ring would be forced by wave action to break up into blobs. Since neither was observed, Maxwell concluded that the rings must be composed of numerous small particles he called "brick-bats", each independently orbiting Saturn. Maxwell was awarded the £130 Adams Prize in 1859 for his essay "On the stability of Saturn's rings"; he was the only entrant to have made enough headway to submit an entry. His work was so detailed and convincing that when George Biddell Airy read it he commented "It is one of the most remarkable applications of mathematics to physics that I have ever seen." It was considered the final word on the issue until direct observations by the "Voyager" flybys of the 1980s confirmed Maxwell's prediction. In 1857, Maxwell befriended the Reverend Daniel Dewar, who was then the Principal of Marischal; and, through him Maxwell met Dewar's daughter, Katherine Mary Dewar. They were engaged in February 1858, and married in Aberdeen on 2 June 1858. On the marriage record, Maxwell is listed as Professor of Natural Philosophy in Marischal College, Aberdeen. Seven years Maxwell's senior, comparatively little is known of Katherine, although it is known that she helped in his lab and worked on experiments in viscosity. Maxwell's biographer and friend, Lewis Campbell, adopted an uncharacteristic reticence on the subject of Katherine, though describing their married life as "one of unexampled devotion". In 1860, Marischal College merged with the neighbouring King's College to form the University of Aberdeen. There was no room for two professors of Natural Philosophy, and Maxwell, despite his scientific reputation, found himself laid off. He was unsuccessful in applying for Forbes's recently vacated chair at Edinburgh, the post instead going to Tait. Maxwell was granted the Chair of Natural Philosophy at King's College London instead. After recovering from a near-fatal bout of smallpox in the summer of 1860, Maxwell headed south to London with his wife. King's College London, 1860–65. Maxwell's time at King's was probably the most productive of his career. He was awarded the Royal Society's Rumford Medal in 1860 for his work on colour, and was later elected to the Society in 1861. This period of his life would see him display the world's first light-fast colour photograph, further develop his ideas on the viscosity of gases, and propose a system of defining physical quantities—now known as dimensional analysis. Maxwell would often attend lectures at the Royal Institution, where he came into regular contact with Michael Faraday. The relationship between the two men could not be described as being close, because Faraday was 40 years Maxwell's senior and showed signs of senility. They nevertheless maintained a strong respect for each other's talents. This time is especially noteworthy for the advances Maxwell made in the fields of electricity and magnetism. He examined the nature of both electric and magnetic fields in his two-part paper "On physical lines of force", which was published in 1861. In it he provided a conceptual model for electromagnetic induction, consisting of tiny spinning cells of magnetic flux. Two more parts were later added to and published in that same paper in early 1862. In the first additional part he discussed the nature of electrostatics and displacement current. In the second additional part, he dealt with the rotation of the plane of the polarization of light in a magnetic field, a phenomenon that had been discovered by Faraday, and now known as the Faraday effect. Later years. In 1865, Maxwell resigned the chair at King's College London and he returned to Glenlair with Katherine. In his paper "On reciprocal figures, frames and diagrams of forces" (1870) he discussed the rigidity of various designs of lattice, and he wrote the textbook "Theory of Heat" (1871) and the treatise "Matter and Motion" (1876). Maxwell was also the first to make explicit use of dimensional analysis, in 1871. In 1871, he became the first Cavendish Professor of Physics at Cambridge. Maxwell was put in charge of the development of the Cavendish Laboratory, and supervised every step in the progress of the building and of the purchase of the collection of apparatus. One of Maxwell's last great contributions to science was the editing (with copious original notes) of the research of Henry Cavendish, from which it appeared that Cavendish researched, amongst other things, such questions as the density of the Earth and the composition of water. Maxwell died in Cambridge of abdominal cancer on 5 November 1879 at the age of 48. His mother had died at the same age of the same type of cancer. Maxwell is buried at Parton Kirk, near Castle Douglas in Galloway, near where he grew up. The extended biography "The Life of James Clerk Maxwell", by his former schoolfellow and lifelong friend Professor Lewis Campbell, was published in 1882. His collected works were issued in two volumes by the Cambridge University Press in 1890. Personality. As a great lover of Scottish poetry, Maxwell memorised poems and wrote his own. The best known is "Rigid Body Sings", closely based on "Comin' Through the Rye" by Robert Burns, which he apparently used to sing while accompanying himself on a guitar. It has the opening lines A collection of his poems was published by his friend Lewis Campbell in 1882. Descriptions of Maxwell remark upon his remarkable intellectual qualities being matched by social awkwardness. Maxwell was an evangelical Presbyterian, and in his later years became an Elder of the Church of Scotland. Maxwell's religious beliefs and related activities have been the focus of a number of papers. Attending both Church of Scotland (his father's denomination) and Episcopalian (his mother's denomination) services as a child, Maxwell later underwent an evangelical conversion in April 1853, which committed him to an antipositivist position. Scientific legacy. Electromagnetism. Maxwell had studied and commented on electricity and magnetism as early as 1855 when "On Faraday's lines of force" was read to the Cambridge Philosophical Society. The paper presented a simplified model of Faraday's work, and how the two phenomena were related. He reduced all of the current knowledge into a linked set of differential equations with 20 equations in 20 variables. This work was later published as "On physical lines of force" in March 1861. Around 1862, while lecturing at King's College, Maxwell calculated that the speed of propagation of an electromagnetic field is approximately that of the speed of light. He considered this to be more than just a coincidence, and commented "We can scarcely avoid the conclusion that light consists in the transverse undulations of the same medium which is the cause of electric and magnetic phenomena." Working on the problem further, Maxwell showed that the equations predict the existence of waves of oscillating electric and magnetic fields that travel through empty space at a speed that could be predicted from simple electrical experiments; using the data available at the time, Maxwell obtained a velocity of . In his 1864 paper, "A dynamical theory of the electromagnetic field", Maxwell wrote, "The agreement of the results seems to show that light and magnetism are affections of the same substance, and that light is an electromagnetic disturbance propagated through the field according to electromagnetic laws". His famous equations, in their modern form of four partial differential equations, first appeared in fully developed form in his textbook, "A Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism" in 1873. Most of this work was done by Maxwell at Glenlair during the period between holding his London post and his taking up the Cavendish chair. Maxwell expressed electromagnetism in the algebra of quaternions and made the electromagnetic potential the centrepiece of his theory. In 1881, Oliver Heaviside replaced Maxwell’s electromagnetic potential field by ‘force fields’ as the centrepiece of electromagnetic theory. Heaviside reduced the complexity of Maxwell’s theory down to four differential equations, known now collectively as Maxwell's Laws or Maxwell's equations. According to Heaviside, the electromagnetic potential field was arbitrary and needed to be "murdered". The use of scalar and vector potentials is now standard in the solution of Maxwell's equations. A few years later there was a debate between Heaviside and Peter Guthrie Tait about the relative merits of vector analysis and quaternions. The result was the realisation that there was no need for the greater physical insights provided by quaternions if the theory was purely local, and vector analysis became commonplace. Maxwell was proven correct, and his quantitative connection between light and electromagnetism is considered one of the great accomplishments of 19th century mathematical physics. Maxwell also introduced the concept of the "electromagnetic field" in comparison to force lines that Faraday described. By understanding the propagation of electromagnetism as a field emitted by active particles, Maxwell could advance his work on light. At that time, Maxwell believed that the propagation of light required a medium for the waves, dubbed the luminiferous aether. Over time, the existence of such a medium, permeating all space and yet apparently undetectable by mechanical means, proved impossible to reconcile with experiments such as the Michelson–Morley experiment. Moreover, it seemed to require an absolute frame of reference in which the equations were valid, with the distasteful result that the equations changed form for a moving observer. These difficulties inspired Albert Einstein to formulate the theory of special relativity, and in the process Einstein dispensed with the requirement of a luminiferous aether. Colour analysis. Maxwell contributed to the field of optics and the study of colour vision, creating the foundation for practical colour photography. From 1855 to 1872, he published at intervals a series of valuable investigations concerning the perception of colour, colour-blindness and colour theory, being awarded the Rumford Medal for "On the Theory of Colour Vision". In the course of his 1855 paper on the perception of colour, Maxwell proposed that if three black-and-white photographs of a scene were taken through red, green and blue filters, and transparent prints of the images were projected onto a screen using three projectors equipped with similar filters, when superimposed on the screen the result would be perceived by the human eye as a complete reproduction of all the colours in the scene. During an 1861 Royal Institution lecture on colour theory, Maxwell presented the world's first demonstration of colour photography by this principle of three-colour analysis and synthesis. Thomas Sutton, inventor of the single-lens reflex camera, did the actual picture-taking. He photographed a tartan ribbon three times, through red, green and blue filters, as well as a fourth exposure through a yellow filter, but according to Maxwell's account this was not used in the demonstration. Because Sutton's photographic plates were in fact insensitive to red and barely sensitive to green, the results of this pioneering experiment were far from perfect. It was remarked in the published account of the lecture that "if the red and green images had been as fully photographed as the blue," it "would have been a truly-coloured image of the riband. By finding photographic materials more sensitive to the less refrangible rays, the representation of the colours of objects might be greatly improved." Researchers in 1961 concluded that the seemingly impossible partial success of the red-filtered exposure was due to ultraviolet light. Some red dyes strongly reflect it, the red filter used does not entirely block it, and Sutton's plates were sensitive to it. Kinetic theory and thermodynamics. Maxwell also investigated the kinetic theory of gases. Originating with Daniel Bernoulli, this theory was advanced by the successive labours of John Herapath, John James Waterston, James Joule, and particularly Rudolf Clausius, to such an extent as to put its general accuracy beyond a doubt; but it received enormous development from Maxwell, who in this field appeared as an experimenter (on the laws of gaseous friction) as well as a mathematician. Between 1859 and 1866, he developed the theory of the distributions of velocities in particles of a gas, work later generalised by Ludwig Boltzmann. The formula, called the Maxwell–Boltzmann distribution, gives the fraction of gas molecules moving at a specified velocity at any given temperature. In the kinetic theory, temperatures and heat involve only molecular movement. This approach generalised the previously established laws of thermodynamics and explained existing observations and experiments in a better way than had been achieved previously. Maxwell's work on thermodynamics led him to devise the thought experiment that came to be known as Maxwell's demon, where the second law of thermodynamics is violated by an imaginary being capable of sorting particles by energy. In 1871, he established Maxwell's thermodynamic relations, which are statements of equality among the second derivatives of the thermodynamic potentials with respect to different thermodynamic variables. In 1874, he constructed a plaster thermodynamic visualisation as a way of exploring phase transitions, based on the American scientist Josiah Willard Gibbs's graphical thermodynamics papers. Control theory. Maxwell published a paper "On governors" in the "Proceedings of Royal Society", vol. 16 (1867–1868). This paper is considered a central paper of the early days of control theory. Here "governors" refers to the governor or the centrifugal governor used to regulate steam engines. Legacy. His name is honoured in several ways:
1163883	Cheri Oteri (born Cheryl Ann Oteri; September 19, 1962) is an American comic actress, best known for her roles as a cast member on "Saturday Night Live" from 1995 to 2000. Personal life. Oteri was born Cheryl Ann Oteri in Upper Darby, Pennsylvania, the daughter of Gaetano Thomas Oteri, who founded and was the CEO of a music publishing company, "Of Music". She grew up with three siblings, Denise, Brian and Tommy Jr., in Upper Darby and attended Archbishop Prendergast High School in Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania. Career. After moving to Los Angeles at age 28, Oteri worked at A&M Records for four years and eventually joined a comedy troupe called The Groundlings. In 1995, the producers of "Saturday Night Live" attended a performance with the intention of auditioning fellow Groundlings member Chris Kattan. Oteri performed a monologue during one of Kattan's costume changes, which led to Oteri herself being invited to audition for "SNL". She was hired as a repertory performer in September 1995 as part of an almost entirely new cast, which was brought in after the show's disastrous 1994-1995 season. Kattan would not join the cast of "SNL" until midway through the season. She has also appeared in several Hollywood movies, including "Scary Movie", "Inspector Gadget", "Liar Liar", "", "Shrek the Third" and "Southland Tales". She starred in two TV pilots that did not make it to air, "Loomis" and "With You in Spirit". She has also made guest appearances on television shows, such as "Just Shoot Me!", "Strangers with Candy" and as an emotionally unstable nanny on "Curb Your Enthusiasm". In 2009, Oteri became a regular voice cast in the Fox animated comedy series, "Sit Down, Shut Up". She voices Helen Klench, the unappreciated librarian who often gets mistaken for objects, such as brooms or toilet brushes. The series premiered on April 19, 2009 and moved to Comedy Central in May 2010. Kenan Thompson, Kristin Chenoweth, Tom Kenny, Justin Brown, Nick Kroll, Henry Winkler, Will Arnett and Will Forte are the other main cast members. She also played a tooth fairy on Imagination Movers, a regular on the Playhouse Disney block. She recently starred in the AMC web series "Liza Life Coach" in 2010. Oteri appeared in the pilot episode of "Glory Daze", which premiered on TBS on November 16, 2010.
1060675	Christopher Whitelaw "Chris" Pine (born August 26, 1980) is an American actor in films and television. Best known for his role as James T. Kirk in the 2009 film "Star Trek", and its sequel, "Star Trek Into Darkness" (2013), he has also starred in over 15 other films, including: "" (2004), "Just My Luck" (2006), "Smokin' Aces" (2007), "Unstoppable" (2010), "This Means War" (2012), and "Rise of the Guardians" (2012). Early life. Pine was born in Los Angeles, California. His father, Robert Pine, is an actor who appeared in "CHiPs" as Sergeant Joseph Getraer, and his mother, Gwynne Gilford, is a former actress who is now a practicing psychotherapist. He has an older sister, Katie. His maternal grandmother, Anne Gwynne (née Marguerite Gwynne Trice), was a Hollywood actress, and his maternal grandfather, Max M. Gilford (born Max Goldfarb), was an attorney who was elected president of the Hollywood Bar Association. Pine's ancestry includes Russian Jewish (from his maternal grandfather), English, Welsh, German, and French. He has stated, "I definitely have a spiritual outlook... I am not a religious guy, I am probably agnostic". Pine attended Oakwood School for high school and received a bachelor's degree in English from the University of California, Berkeley, in 2002. He also studied English at the University of Leeds in the United Kingdom for one year. After graduation, he studied at the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco. Career. 2003–present. Pine's first acting role was in a 2003 episode of "ER"; the same year, he also appeared in episodes of "The Guardian" and '. In 2004, he appeared in "Why Germany?", a short film, and in '. Pine played the part of Nicholas Devereaux, the love interest of Anne Hathaway's character in the film, which was released in August of that year to a strong box office. In 2005, Pine appeared in an episode of the series "Six Feet Under", as well as in "Confession", an independent film that was released directly to video, and "The Bulls", another short film. Pine appeared in the made-for-television film "Surrender, Dorothy" which aired in early 2006. He also played Jake Hardin in the American film "Just My Luck", a romantic comedy in which he starred opposite Lindsay Lohan, who played Ashley Albright. The film was released on May 12, 2006. Later that year, Pine appeared in the comedy "Blind Dating" and in the action film "Smokin' Aces". In 2007, he starred opposite Scott Wolf in the Los Angeles production of Neil LaBute's play "Fat Pig", winning positive reviews for his depiction of a competitive, alpha-male friend. He portrayed real-life Napa Valley vintner Bo Barrett in the 2008 film "Bottle Shock". In 2007, Pine turned down a role in a film adaptation of "White Jazz", to accept the part of James T. Kirk in the 2009 "Star Trek" film, which was released to critical and viewer acclaim in May of that year. That same month, he made a brief appearance promoting the film on "Saturday Night Live", with co-stars Zachary Quinto and Leonard Nimoy. During the rest of summer 2009, he appeared in the Los Angeles production of the Beau Willimon play "Farragut North". In September 2009, his film "Carriers" was released (having been filmed in 2007). His other 2009 roles included "" (voice work only) and the independent film "Small Town Saturday Night". Pine appeared in the Los Angeles production of the black comedy "The Lieutenant of Inishmore" during the summer of 2010, for which he won the LA Drama Critics Circle Award, and at the MTV VMAs on September 12, 2010.
1031450	Louis and the Nazis is a British documentary that was televised on 21 December 2003. It was directed by Stuart Cabb and written by Louis Theroux. The documentary ran for 80 minutes. Louis travels to California to meet the man dubbed "the most dangerous racist in America", Tom Metzger. Louis meets him, his family and his publicity manager as well as following him to skinhead rallies and on a visit to Mexico. He also encounters the Nazi-pop folk duo Prussian Blue and their mother and maternal grandfather. Louis Theroux would revisit the subjects of the documentary in his book "The Call of the Weird: Travels in American Subcultures". Reception. The "New Zealand Listener" described the documentary "Louis and the Nazis is the most brilliant TV programme I wish I’d never seen." The "Times" described the documentary as "sinister and unsettling". The "Guardian" gave the program a positive review also.
898747	Killer Nun (also known as Suor Omicidi, or Deadly Habits) (1978) is an Italian nunsploitation film directed/co-written by Giulio Berruti and co-written by Alberto Tarallo. The film was originally banned in Britain in 1983, but was finally re-released uncut in DVD format there in 2006, after changes in British censorship policy. Synopsis. "Killer Nun" (1978) was produced in Italy. It features Anita Ekberg as Sister Gertrude, who is recovering from neurosurgery, although her Mother Superior (Alida Valli) dismisses Sister Gertrude's fears about rushed recovery. Unfortunately, soon enough, it becomes clear that Sister Gertrude's fears were legitimate, as the hapless nun spirals into psychosis and addiction to morphine and heroin at the geriatric hospital where she works. As well as initiating a lesbian affair with Sister Matthieu (Paola Morra), Sister Gertrude expels concerned Dr Poirret (Massimo Serato) from the hospital, and a reign of terror is initiated, in which Sister Gertrude inflicts humiliating calisthenics on one group of elderly inmates, stomps on an elderly woman's dentures, reads gory hagiographic details of the lives of tortured saints to her hapless charges and is judged to have thrown an elderly man engaged in sex with a nurse out of a window. As if this weren't enough, Sister Gertrude goes into a nearby town, picks up a man at a bar, and has impersonal heterosexual sex as well. A handsome new doctor (Joe Dallesandro) arrives and becomes suspicious of Sister Gertrude, and finally the Mother Superior is convinced that she must do something about her aberrant behaviour... but is Sister Gertrude really the perpetrator of murder, or is someone trying to frame her? Nunsploitation. "Killer Nun" (Suor Omicida) was an example of the nunsploitation genre, which centres on aberrant secularised behaviour from religious women. Unlike other examples of the genre, usually set in medieval or Renaissance locations, "Killer Nun" is firmly set in the present day, and has no pretensions to social commentary or any remarks about the role of women religious within the Church or the larger society. In the United Kingdom, Mary Whitehouse denounced it as one of the "video nasties" subgenre of violent horror cinema, which 'might' adversely affect human behaviour. Although it was originally on a 'DPP list' of 'objectionable' films in the United Kingdom, compiled by the Director of Public Prosecutions in 1983 as a result of the aforementioned moral panic and released with 13 seconds of cuts in 1993, liberalised British film, video and DVD censorship policy meant that the DVD version of the film was re-released there in 2006, uncut. Home video and classification details. The film has been released on DVD in America by Blue Underground, in Germany by Koch Media and in the UK by Shameless Screen Entertainment. Color: Color
585550	Puthiya Mukham (Malayalam: പുതിയ മുഖം, English: "The New Face") is a 2009 Malayalam action film directed by Diphan and starring Prithviraj Sukumaran. The shooting locations were Kochi, Palakkad, and Malaysia. The music was
1066932	30 Minutes or Less is a 2011 American action comedy film directed by Ruben Fleischer starring Jesse Eisenberg, Danny McBride, Aziz Ansari and Nick Swardson. It is produced by Columbia Pictures and funded by Media Rights Capital. Plot. Nick (Jesse Eisenberg) is a slack, marijuana-fuelled pizza delivery driver who has trouble completing the "30 Minutes Or Less" policy that his employer issues, leading to a reprimand from his boss Chris (Brett Gelman). Nick's school teacher friend Chet (Aziz Ansari) discovers that Nick has slept with and still has feelings for Chet's twin sister Kate (Dilshad Vadsaria). It is also revealed that Chet was the reason Nick's parents divorced, because he told Nick's father that his wife had been cheating on him with a lifeguard. After a heated argument, the two end their friendship. Meanwhile, two older delinquents named Dwayne King (Danny McBride) and his friend Travis Cord (Nick Swardson) are miserable living under the shadow of Dwayne's domineering father the Major (Fred Ward), incidentally a multi-million dollar state lottery winner. Dwayne confides in lap-dancer Juicy (Bianca Kajlich) about his contempt for his father, who is squandering Dwayne's presumed inheritance while nowhere near dying anytime soon. Juicy tells him she knows a hit-man who will kill Dwayne's dad for $100,000, so that Dwayne can receive the inheritance 'sooner'. At Travis's suggestion, he and Dwayne devise a plot to kidnap a complete stranger and strap a remote-controlled bomb to his chest, to compel him to rob a bank for them for the hit money Dwayne needs. After seeing an advertisement for the pizzeria that Nick works at, they order a pizza and wait for a driver to come to their hideout. When Nick arrives, Dwayne and Travis (who are wearing a gorilla and monkey mask) assault him and Travis chloroform's Nick. When Nick wakes up, he finds a vest rigged with explosives strapped and buckled onto his torso, with both a timer and a cellular phone-activated trigger. Disguised, Dwayne and Travis tell him his situation: if he does not rob a bank within 10 hours, the bomb will detonate. For effect, Dwayne demonstrate another bomb blowing up a stuffed Teddy bear. Dwayne states that if Nick dares going to the police, they will remotely detonate the bomb, as they will be monitoring him. They leave Nick their number to call them and send a frantic Nick on his way. In his panic, Nick goes to a school where Chet is working and desperately pleads with him to help. After plans to deactivate or remove the bomb are dashed, Chet says he has no choice but to rob the bank. Still uneasy, Nick asks Chet to assist him. Chet reluctantly agrees. After purchasing toy guns, spray paint, energy drinks and ski masks for the robbery, Nick suggests stealing Chet's family friend's Datsun 280ZX so that the police will be unable to track the license plate number of Nick's Mustang. Nick then stops by his workplace to tell off his boss and quit, then goes to see Kate and say some cryptic 'final' words to her. Nick and Chet go to the bank, hold it up and obtain money upon forcing a bank employee named Sandra (Rebecca Cox) to empty the vault. The bag of money, rigged with a dye pack, accidentally explodes inside the bank, and Chet forces Sandra to get another bag of money. Meanwhile, the bank manager has pulled the alarm, forcing Nick and Chet to flee quickly as Dwayne and Travis, outside, watch the commotion. A police officer arrives, but when Nick shows him the bomb vest, he runs away. More police arrive, and after a car chase that ends up with Nick and Chet crashing the 280ZX, the two successfully evade capture by sneaking onto a city bus. Nick calls Dwayne and tells him he has the money. Dwayne says he and Travis will meet him at an abandoned rail-yard to make the exchange. Dwayne and Travis go to a restaurant instead as Dwayne calls up Juicy to get her hit-man ally and to head to the rail-yard. When Dwayne asks Travis to be the one to detonate the bomb if the time comes, Travis starts to become unsettled. After getting his Mustang, Nick waits for Dwayne and Travis at the rail-yard while Chet hides nearby to avoid disclosing his involvement in the scheme. Instead of Dwayne and Travis however, Juicy and the hit-man Chango (Michael Peña) are the ones who arrive to pick up the money. Nick hands Chango the money and expects Chango to give him the code which will deactivate the bomb. Chango claims he doesn't know what the code is. When Nick keeps asking him for the code, Chango gets aggravated and holds Nick at gunpoint. Chet runs in and beat down Chango with a metal bar while Nick incapacitates Juicy. The two grab the money and escape. As Travis is giving Dwayne a haircut, Dwayne ends up getting a call from Nick who berates Dwayne for not giving Chango the code to the bomb, and dares him to detonate the bomb with the money at his side. Pulling over near an abandoned factory, Nick tells Chet that this is a tactic for when the third call is made to them, the details to leave the money and the codes will be made. Overly frustrated by the turn of events and when Nick doesn't answer the phone again, Dwayne activates the speed dial number on his phone for the bomb to explode, but finds that Travis altered the numbers while Dwayne wasn't looking because he was getting nervous about Dwayne's gradually violent attitude. When Dwayne thinks that Nick is calling him, it is instead Chango who informs him about what had happened during the exchange. When Dwayne comments that he is a pawn in his plan with Travis shaking his head not to go into further details, Chango states that the deal is off and that he'll be coming after Dwayne next. Rethinking their plan, the two head to Kate's apartment in their masks and kidnap her while she was in the restroom. Meanwhile, Chango breaks into the Major's house to find information regarding Dwayne's location and finds a hand-drawn map to the scrapyard. While there, the Major attacks him with a pen gun as Chango asks why he is protecting Dwayne if he is the one that called the hit. The Major is then shot in the stomach by Chango after a struggle. Upon applying some peroxide, Chango uses the information he found in Dwayne's room to head to the scrapyard. After Chet's next attempts to remove the bomb vest, Dwayne calls Nick to let him know that he has Kate and if he doesn't meet at the scrapyard to give him the money, he will kill her. Nick arrives at the scrapyard and exchanges the money for Kate. Dwayne gives Nick the code (which is Dwayne's favorite sexual position: 69 69 69) to deactivate and unbuckle the bomb with just minutes to spare. Dwayne then tells Nick to walk away, but Nick deduces that as soon as Nick and Kate turn around they will be shot and their bodies will be burned. Dwayne agrees by having them at gunpoint but Nick has Chet fake having a sniper on them by pointing with his laser pointer. Dwayne and Travis believe him and drop their weapons and leave with the money. However, Nick is brutally knocked out by Chango who now has Dwayne at gunpoint, demanding for the money. Dwayne gives him the money but Chango decides to still kill him. Travis, who has a flamethrower, torches Chango. While being burned and on the ground, Chango successfully shoots Dwayne in the shoulder and shoots the gas tank on Travis's back and it explodes.
586337	Kolilakkam () is a 1981 Malayalam film directed by P.N.Sundaram, and starring Jayan. This was Jayan's last film before his death. His death happened during the shooting of this movie in which he was supposed to board a moving helicopter from a bike. The helicopter carrying him hit the ground while he was still hanging on the foot board. Jayan died on the spot. The film was an uncredited remake of the 1965 Yash Chopra Hindi movie, "Waqt". Summary. "Kolilakkam" followed the "lost and found" formula. Three brothers are separated in their childhood and how they reunite forms the story. Jayan, Sukumaran and M.G. Soman played the brothers, while Madhu and K. R. Vijaya, played their parents. Incident. On 16 November 1980, Jayan was killed in an accident on the set of "Kolilakkam". The climax scene of the movie was being filmed in Sholavaram, near Chennai, Tamil Nadu. Jayan always performed his own stunts, and for this movie he was performing a particularly dangerous stunt that involved him boarding an airborne helicopter from a moving motorbike. The shot was accepted by the director in the first take; altogether three shots were filmed. According to the film's production executive, Jayan insisted on another take as he was not satisfied. During the take, the pilot lost control and crashed the helicopter while Jayan was hanging below. Box office. Kolilakkam was a blockbuster hit known as the last film of legendary actor Jayan.This was one of the longest running & the highest grossing movie of that year and the highest grossing malayalam movie released ever until 1988
1350411	Teheran 43 is a 1981 USSR-France-Switzerland drama film made by Mosfilm, "Mediterraneo Cine" and "Pro Dis Film", directed by Aleksandr Alov and Vladimir Naumov. The film was the leader of Soviet distribution in 1981 and had 47.5 million viewers. It won the Golden Prize at the 12th Moscow International Film Festival in 1981. Alternative titles. The film was shown internationally under the following names: Plot. The movie is about an assassination attempt on Winston Churchill, Joseph Stalin and Franklin Delano Roosevelt during the Teheran Conference 1943. "Teheran 43" starts in 1980 in Paris. The memories of hero Andrei take the story back to 1943. The Germans planned to assassinate the three men. 37 years later, the German agent Max lives with Françoise, a young Parisian woman, who hides him. But another Nazi, Scherner, is hunting down Max who failed to carry out the planned assassinations. Max trusts Françoise, but he doesn't know that she works for Scherner. Another plot in the movie is the romance between Andrei and the French woman Marie in 1943, followed in 1980. Soundtrack. The music score for the movie was composed by Georges Garvarentz and Mieczysław Weinberg. Charles Aznavour's theme song "Une Vie D'amour" (Russian: Вечная любовь,"Vechnaya lyubov"), performed by Aznavour and Mireille Mathieu, became very popular in Russia as well as abroad. Its popularity is attributed to the success of the film, and today is considered by many to be one of Aznavour's best songs.
1049124	Amazing Grace and Chuck is a 1987 film starring Gregory Peck, Jamie Lee Curtis and William Petersen. The film was directed by Mike Newell. Plot. Chuck Murdock, a 12-year-old boy from Montana, the son of a military jet pilot, becomes anxious after seeing a Minuteman missile on a school field trip, which is intensified by a nightmare of a fork dropping after being told that the speed and effectivess would be done "before a dropped fork hits the floor". Chuck protests the existence of nuclear weapons by refusing to play baseball, which results in the forfeit of a Little League game by his team. "Amazing Grace" Smith, a fictional Boston Celtics player, played by NBA star Alex English, catches a blurb about the story in his newspaper and decides to emulate Chuck, saying he will no longer participate in professional basketball unless there are no more nuclear weapons. This gives it nationwide coverage, inspiring more pro athletes to join the protest against nuclear weapons. Smith then moves to Montana to meet with Chuck and buys an old barn, which he and the other athletes renovate into their residence. Smith's agent, Lynn (Jamie Lee Curtis) is unsure about what he hopes to accomplish but decides to support him and Chuck. The film reaches a climax when the President of the United States personally meets with Chuck, admiring his resolve but at the same time explaining the practical difficulties of disarmament.
1173057	Alvin Nathaniel Joiner (born September 18, 1974), better known by his stage name Xzibit (pronounced “exhibit”), is an American rapper, actor, and television host. He is known as the host of the MTV show "Pimp My Ride", which brought him mainstream success. Before hosting the show, he achieved fame in the West Coast hip-hop scene as a rapper, debuting with his acclaimed "At the Speed of Life" and gathering chart success with his follow-up albums "Restless", "Man vs. Machine" and "Weapons of Mass Destruction", working with high-profile artists such as Eminem, Cypress Hill, Snoop Dogg, Ice Cube, Dr. Dre, Knoc-turn'al, Timbaland, Limp Bizkit, Alice Cooper, Game and 50 Cent, as well as being one of the first out internationally, working with overseas acts such as Russian superstar Timati, Raptile from Germany, Bliss N Eso from Australia and Adil Omar from Pakistan. Early life. Born as Alvin Nathaniel Joiner on September 18, 1974 in Detroit, Xzibit grew up with a single mother. His father left the family early to pursue a career as a preacher, forcing his mother to raise a young Alvin and his four siblings (an older sister and brother as well as a little brother and younger sister) alone. After her death he had to move in with his father. His father remarried and relocated to Albuquerque, New Mexico. Xzibit lived in Albuquerque from age 10 to 17, this is when he began writing rhymes. However, Xzibit had numerous run-ins with the law and ultimately ended up moving to California to live with his sister. It was here where he first began to rap and pursue a music career. He later reconciled with his father, who can be heard on his second studio album. Career. 1994–1999: Career beginnings, "At the Speed of Life" and "40 Dayz & 40 Nightz". Xzibit started to rap at the age of 14, shortly after his relocation from Albuquerque to Los Angeles, then under the pseudonym “Exhibit A”. He marked his first appearance on a professional record in February 1995 on The Alkaholiks’ "Coast II Coast", on the song “Hit and Run” and also appeared on King Tee’s "IV Life" shortly after, on the track “Free Style Ghetto”. After touring with Likwit Crew the same year, Xzibit signed to Loud Records and released his acclaimed debut album, "At the Speed of Life" in October 1996, which peaked at number 74 on the "Billboard" Hot 200 and reached 38 on the Canadian Albums Chart. The album produced his first breakthrough single “Paparazzi” which peaked at No. 86 on the "Billboard" Hot 100 and proved very successful in Germany, where it peaked at number 11 on the German Singles Chart. After spending the next two years with further building his reputation as a West Coast underground artist and touring with the Likwit Crew, he released his second album, "40 Dayz & 40 Nightz" on August 25, 1998 which charted in the U.S. at number 58 and 50 in Canada. Like its predecessor, it was well received by critics and is widely seen as a Classic West Coast Hip-hop record. It spawned four singles, the most successful being “What U See Is What U Get” charting at number 50 in the United States. With his growing following in the West, he caught the eye of rapper and producer Dr. Dre, who secured him high-profile guest spots, such as joining Snoop Dogg on the Dre-produced hit “Bitch Please” of his album "No Limit Top Dogg", and appearing on Dr. Dre’s 6x platinum album "2001", on the songs “Lolo”, “Some L.A. Niggaz”, and “What’s the Difference” with Eminem. He closed the year 1999 with his acting debut, starring in the "The Breaks". 2000–2003: "Restless" and "Man vs. Machine". Xzibit started the year with the release of a compilation album "Likwit Rhymes", which featured mostly previously unreleased material from his earlier recordings and a guest spot on "Bitch Please II", along with Eminem, Snoop Dogg, Dr. Dre and Nate Dogg. His breakthrough came with his third studio album "Restless", with Dr. Dre as executive producer and guest appearances by Snoop Dogg, Nate Dogg, Eminem, Dr. Dre and the Alkaholiks, among others, which sold almost 2 million copies and was certified platinum. It spawned three singles, the most successful being “X”, which peaked at number 76 in the U.S., 14 in the UK and 4 in Germany. The album climbed to number 12 in America. Dr. Dre invited Xzibit to perform on his American "Up in Smoke Tour" in mid-2000, which featured Snoop Dogg, Eminem, and Ice Cube, among many others. The same year, he also starred in the direct-to-video crime film "Tha Eastsidaz" by the group of the same name and was a playable character in the football game "Madden NFL 2001". He continued to star in films involving fellow rap artists such as "The Wash", co-starring Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg, in 2001 and "The Slim Shady Show" and "8 Mile", co-starring Eminem, in 2001 and 2002, respectively. He released two concert films in 2001, "Xzibit: Restless Xposed", centered around the recording of his third studio album and various live-performances and was also seen in "Tha Alkaholiks: X.O. The Movie Experience" by the rap group of the same name. He also released a compilation album of songs that featured him, entiteld "You Better Believe It". In 2002, he guest-starred in the comedy series "Cedric the Entertainer Presents" as Mack Daddy in the eponymous episode and released his fourth studio album "Man vs. Machine" with mostly similar guest appearances like its predecessor, which spawned three singles, which all failed to chart in the "Hot 100", although “Multiply” reached number 39 in the UK and 33 in Germany. The album itself went gold, although Xzibit was unhappy with the crafting and promotion of his newest product, ending the cooperation with Dr. Dre. The album is his highest charting album to date, reaching number 3 in the U.S. and 8 in Canada. He starred in "8 Mile" and "The Country Bears" the same year. He continued to collaborate with his closest West Coast colleagues, primarily Ras Kass and Saafir, with whom he formed The Golden State Project rap collective, and Tha Alkaholiks, along with bigger names like Snoop Dogg and Eminem, whom he accompanied on his "All Access Europe" tour in 2003. 2003–2007: "Pimp My Ride", "Weapons of Mass Destruction" and "Full Circle". The popular MTV show "Pimp My Ride" boosted his popularity even further, as it introduced him to a major audience in 2004. The show starred him as the host, who brings an individual’s wrecked car to West Coast Customs, where it undergoes a rejuvenation. He continued hosting the show until its cancellation in 2007, those years can easily be seen as the most successful in his career. Musically, he started the year off with the release of his second compilation album "Appetite for Destruction" featuring 50 Cent on one track, consisting mostly of tracks from his Dre period and songs that didn’t make the cut for his fifth studio album "Weapons of Mass Destruction", which was released in December 2004, entering the charts at 43 in the U.S. For this album, he reunited with Columbia Records, after having parted ways with producer and mentor Dr. Dre. The album managed to go gold, but yet again Xzibit was unhappy with the promotion and backing of his label, claiming that they were trying to promote him like Jessica Simpson, leaving the label in anger and going independent. His single “Hey Now (Mean Muggin)” featuring Keri Hilson marked his last chart success on the Billboard "Hot 100", peaking at number 93, while the second single “Muthafucka” failed to chart. Aside from his music and "Pimp My Ride", he starred in the movie "Full Clip", alongside Busta Rhymes, guest-starred in ' in the episode ', released a concert documentary with his new group, eponymously titled "Strong Arm Steady" and hosted the 2004 MTV Europe Music Awards in Rome. In 2005, he collaborated with shock rock legend Alice Cooper on a track entitled “Stand” from the album “Dirty Diamonds”. This represented Cooper’s first-ever foray into rap music. This year marks his most busy one, also being featured in three video games, ', where he lent his voice and likeness to the warden Abbott and ' and "NFL Street 2", where he was a playable character. The following year, he mainly focused on acting, getting roles in the Hollywood blockbusters "Derailed" as Dexter, ' as Zeke and "Hoodwinked", where he voiced Chief Ted Grizzly. In 2006, he starred in the drama "Gridiron Gang" as Malcolm Moore and made two guest-appearances in the animated sitcom "The Boondocks". The year also saw the release of his sixth studio album "Full Circle" released independently on Koch Records. The album charted at position 50 but was a commercial flop, selling merely 120,000 copies in the U.S.. None of the three singles were able to chart, although “Concentrate” climbed at number 68 in Germany. The album featured Kurupt, T-Pain and The Game, whom he assisted on his album "Doctor's Advocate", where he rapped on the track “California Vacation”. He also worked on two video games that year, ' and "Pimp My Ride". The year 2007 saw him hosting the final season of "Pimp My Ride" only, although he competed in the Gumball 3000 2007 rally, where he lost his driver’s license, due to a speed limit violation. 2008–present: Musical hiatus, focus on acting and "Napalm". After the cancellation of "Pimp My Ride" in 2007, 2008 was the first year where Xzibit did not release an album in his former two year cycle. Though starring in two movies ' as Mosley Drummy and "American Violet" as Darrell Hughes, this year marked a significant financial downstep for him, earning merely $70,000, opposed by almost $500,000 one year prior. He was also featured on The Alkaholiks "Tha Alkaholiks: Live from Rehab" concert film that year. In 2009, he played the mob leader Big Fate in the acclaimed ' and reprised his role as Abbott in the enhanced remake of 2004's "The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay", "", while Sony released his first greatest hits album, entitled "The Greatest Hits". Even though his financial troubles were increased even further, as he had to file for bankruptcy in July 2009 and January 2010, although both attempts were dismissed and his houses and belongings liened. In 2010 he had a guest-spot in the crime series "Detroit 1-8-7", in the episode "Royal Bubbles / Needle Drop". He also had the role of the Jabberwock in "Malice n Wonderland", a short film based on the novel "Alice in Wonderland", included on the re-release of the eponymous Snoop Dogg album, entitled "More Malice". After having guest-starred three times in the , he was added to the permanent cast of "", where he is a part of the design team. After a four year hiatus, he planned to release his seventh studio album "MMX" in 2010, but due to label issues the album was not released by the end of year. In March 2011, he teamed up with Extreme Music, to release a new compilation of material titled "Urban Ammo 2". Xzibit produced, composed and performed all 40 tracks on the compilation album, created primarily for professional music users and music supervisors in need of material for their movie/television productions. Xzibit enlisted veteran director Matt Alonzo to shoot the videos for the two singles, which are titled “Man on the Moon” and “What It Is”, both featuring Young De. In April 2011 he teamed up with Pakistani rapper Adil Omar for a single off his debut album The Mushroom Cloud Effect titled “Off The Handle” which is produced by longtime collaborator Fredwreck, and was released on May 24, 2011, also with a video by Matt Alonzo. On May 29, 2011, Xzibit announced via Twitter that the new album was to be renamed, quote from his Twitter: “MMX (2010) was the tend. title of the new album. Of course that wont work now, so I decided the body of work has earned the title: RESTLESS2” On October 19, 2011 it was announced that the title of the album has been changed to "Napalm". Xzibit said that the album is 75 percent done and that it should be released by the beginning of next year. On October 9, 2012, "Napalm" was released and Xzibit had also made an appearance on the BET Cypher in the 2012 BET Hip Hop Awards. On October 29, 2012, Xzibit announced the "Collateral Damage" tour with the first 16 shows in Canada starting in early November. The Xbox 360 sponsored tour eventually grew to 18 shows and Xzibit announced this was the first leg on a global tour that would continue into 2013. On November 19, 2012, Xzibit was announced as a partner in The Bonita Spirits Company's ultra-premium tequila "Bonita Platinum". The company claims Bonita Platinum is the world's only five-times distilled tequila. Internet meme. Xzibit has gained something of a cult status in a pictorial internet meme. The meme is based on the closure of "Pimp My Ride" episodes, where Xzibit says to contestants something along the lines of “We heard you like TV, so we put a TV in your car so you can watch TV while you drive”. This phrasing has been adopted as the basis for the meme, producing ironic and idiosyncratic phrases such as “Yo dawg, we heard you like cars so we put a car in yo’ car so you can drive while you drive” . The memes invariably start with the phrase “yo dawg”. Two contrasting images of Xzibit’s face – one smiling with laughter and one looking confused and taken aback – have also gained popularity as a meme. Controversy. Rove McManus. In June 2007, Xzibit left the "Rove Live" studios in Australia before a scheduled appearance. Media outlets reported that it was due to Xzibit not being given stand-alone billing on the program, even though he had not even been booked in advance. According to Xzibit, he walked off the set after taking offence to comments made by a "Rove" staffer, who after informing Xzibit that his performance time would be shorter than the rapper might have liked, allegedly said: “You know, we came a long way just having you on the program.” Xzibit took this as a racist remark, although the staffer claimed that they were merely referring to his status as a late booking. Gumball 3000. In the Gumball 3000 2007 rally, Xzibit drove a black Jaguar XJ220. During the first day of the rally, Dutch police seized his driver’s licence for doing 160 km/h in a 100 km/h zone. After the penalty, his co-driver, producer Fredwreck Nassar took over the wheel and they were allowed to continue. In an interview with Dutch radio personality Reinout "Q-Bah" van Gendt, Xzibit says that he mistook the kilometers for miles (100 mph = 160 km/h). Ultimately, he never got his license back from the Dutch police and had to apply for a new one in the United States. Xzibit competed again in the 2013 Gumball 3000. Tax evasion. According to public records, as of late 2010 Xzibit owed more than $959,523 in delinquent federal taxes. He also tried to file for bankruptcy twice, in July 2009 and January 2010, but both times his bankruptcy filings were dismissed due to various reasons. The problems started after "Pimp My Ride" was cancelled: in 2007 he earned $497,175, and after the cancellation his 2008 income was reported as $67,510.
581929	Jodhaa-Akbar is an Indian epic historical drama film released on 15 February 2008. It is directed and produced by Ashutosh Gowariker, the director of the Academy Award-nominated "Lagaan" (2001). It stars Hrithik Roshan and Aishwarya Rai in lead roles. This film also marks the debut of newcomer Abir Abrar. Extensive research went into the making of this film which began shooting at Karjat. The film centres around the romance between the Muslim Mughal Emperor Akbar the Great, played by Hrithik Roshan, and the Hindu Princess Jodhabai who becomes his wife, played by Aishwarya Rai. The music is composed by acclaimed composer A. R. Rahman. The soundtrack of the movie was released on 19 January 2008. The film has won the Audience Award for Best Foreign Language Film at the São Paulo International Film Festival, two awards at the Golden Minbar International Film Festival, seven Star Screen Awards and five Filmfare Awards, in addition to two nominations at the 3rd Asian Film Awards. Plot. Jodhaa Akbar is a sixteenth-century love story about a political marriage of convenience between a Mughal emperor, Akbar, and a Rajput princess, Jodhaa. Political success knew no bounds for Emperor Akbar (Hrithik Roshan). After having secured the Hindu Kush, his empire extends from Afghanistan to the Bay of Bengal, to the Narmada River. Through a shrewd blend of diplomacy, intimidation and brute force, Akbar won the allegiance of the Rajputs. This allegiance was not universal. But little did Akbar know that when he married Jodhaa (Aishwarya Rai), a fiery Rajput princess, in order to further strengthen his relations with the Rajputs, he would in turn be embarking upon a new journey – the journey of true love. The daughter of King Bharmal of Amer, Jodhaa resented being reduced to a mere political pawn in this marriage of alliance, and Akbar's biggest challenge now lies in winning the love of Jodhaa – a love hidden deep below resentment and extreme prejudice. Historical accuracy. Many of the events portrayed in the movie are based on real events. Certain Rajput groups claimed Jodhaa was married to Akbar's son, Jahangir, not Akbar. The film was not released in 30 cinema theatres in Rajasthan. The concept of the film itself is not accurate as there is no trace of a loved one or a favourite wife associated with Akbar, in legend, or in contemporary literature. Akbar's marriage with Jodhabai was merely a political alliance and was not followed by a love story or courting of any sort. After his marriage with Jodha, Akbar had subsequently married many other Rajput women for marital alliances. Further, Akbar's chief wife was his first wife, Empress Ruqaiya Sultan Begum, as stated in the autobiography of Jahangir: the "Jahangirnama", while his other prominent wife was Salima Sultan Begum, both of whom were politically powerful and were not portrayed in the film.
1064519	Butterflies Are Free is a 1972 film based on the play by Leonard Gershe. The 1972 film was produced by M.J. Frankovich, released by Columbia Pictures, directed by Milton Katselas and adapted for the screen by Gershe. It was released on 6 July 1972 in the USA. Goldie Hawn and Edward Albert starred. Eileen Heckart received an Academy Award for her performance. While the original play was set in Manhattan, New York, the screenplay written for the 1972 film was set in an unknown location in San Francisco. Plot. In the San Francisco of the 1970s, Don Baker (Edward Albert), who was born blind, has lived all his life with his mother (Eileen Heckart). Don moves out into a apartment on his own, but Don finds himself all alone. He has made a contract that his mother will not come to see him for at least two months. One month has passed.
430749	Bonnie Francesca Wright (born 17 February 1991) is an English actress, fashion model, screenwriter, director and producer. She is best known for playing Ginny Weasley in the "Harry Potter" film series. Early life and education. Wright was born in London, England, the second child of Sheila Teague and Gary Wright, owners of the jewellery company Wright & Teague. She has an older brother, Lewis. Wright attended Prior Weston Primary School and later the King Alfred School in North London for her secondary education. During the filming of "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 1" and "Part 2", Wright began attending London's University of the Arts: London College of Communication, to study as a Film and Television Production Manager. She plans to continue acting and to work behind-the-scenes after filming "Harry Potter". Career. Acting. 2001–2011: "Harry Potter Series". Wright auditioned for the role of Ginny Weasley because her brother said she reminded him of the character. Wright appears in the first film, "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone", only in a small scene set at London King's Cross railway station, where her character and her mother Molly meet Harry Potter as four of her older brothers board the Hogwarts express. Her role became much more prominent in the second film, "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets", in which her character begins studies at Hogwarts and encounters a secret diary that begins to control her actions. She also opened the titular chamber in the same film under the influence of Tom Riddle, the main antagonist of Harry Potter series. Wright was seen in third film, "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban" chatting with Hermione in one background and had few dialogues. However, her character had a bonafide supporting role in the fourth film, "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire", with dialogue sprinkled across several scenes and perhaps her most screen-time yet. In "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix" Wright played the central role, joining Dumbledore's Army and eventually participating in the climactic battle between the DA and the Order of the Phoenix with Lord Voldemort and the Death Eaters. Wright's central role continued in "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" where she became an important chaser of the Gryffindor Quidditch team and ultimately Harry Potter's love interest. In "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" Parts 1 and 2, Wright again reprised her central role for the last time. In these films she was seen particularly in scenes before the three protagonists went in search of Horcruxes, The Battle of Hogwarts and In the Epilogue set nineteen years later. Wright has also provided the voice of Ginny in the video game versions of "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix"; "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" and "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 1". Wright is one of the thirteen actors who has appeared in all eight films of the Harry Potter franchise.All the "Harry Potter" films were critical and high commercial successes. All the films as of 2013 have find places in List of highest-grossing films. Deathly Hallows Part 2 Stands at fourth position in that list. Wright received positive reviews for her performances as Ginny Weasley throughout the globe. "Variety" wrote, "Bonnie Wright’s Ginny intrigues as the sort of initial plain Jane who keeps growing on you." Comingsoon.net wrote "that If someone told me eight years ago that Bonnie Wright, introduced as Ginny Weasley in the first movie, would turn into such a strong dramatic actress who could carry scenes as well as the three leads, I wouldn't have believed it," and Film School Rejects who also wrote "Ginny (Bonnie Wright) in particular shines through, building on the power she gained in the last film to become an independent young woman that proves more complex with every scene". While Indian critic Taran Adarsh said, " Wright makes her impact feel nicely and beautifully as Ginny Weasley throughout the Harry Potter Series." "Harry Potter" author J. K. Rowling gave a speech during the world premiere of the eighth and final film "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2" on 7 July 2011 in London, England. She announced that there are seven Harry Potter film series cast members whom she refers to as "The Big Seven", and she named Wright as one of the seven members, alongside with Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint, Emma Watson, Tom Felton, Matthew Lewis and Evanna Lynch. 2002–present: Other acting work. Wright appeared in two TV movies that were "Stranded" (2002) as the younger version of Sarah Robinson and "" (2004), where she played the younger version of writer Agatha Christie. In 2007, she had a guest role on the Disney Channel's "The Replacements" voicing Vanessa in the second season premiere called "London Calling". Wright signed to appear in "Sweat", a short film which is part of a project of five films called "Geography of the Heart", a feature length anthology film about "the complexity of intimacy, shot in five international locations around the world." Wright portrays Mia and the film has a set release of 2014. Wright starred in "The Philosophers", an American production which began filming July 2011 in Jakarta, Indonesia. The film also stars Rhys Wakefield and James D'Arcy and her "Harry Potter" co-star Freddie Stroma. The film is directed by John Huddles. Wright plays Georgina, one of the students. The film premiered at Neuchâtel International Fantastic Film Festival on 7 July 2013. In June 2012, Wright joined the film "Before I Sleep" starring David Warner, Tom Sizemore, Cynthia Gibb, Eric Roberts, Eugene Simon, Campbell Scott and Chevy Chase. The film will premiere at the 2013 "Heartland Film Festival"
1063986	Adam Charles Goldberg (born October 25, 1970) is an American actor, director, producer, and musician. Personal life. Goldberg was born in Santa Monica, California, the son of Donna (née Goebel) and Earl Goldberg, a former lifeguard. His father is Jewish and his mother is a non-practicing Roman Catholic of Irish, French, and German descent. As an adult, Goldberg does not practice any religion. He lives in Los Angeles with his dog, Digger. Career. Goldberg's first major screen role was in the Billy Crystal film "Mr. Saturday Night" (1992). His career-making role was arguably that of the tough, wise-cracking infantryman Mellish in Steven Spielberg's 1998 film "Saving Private Ryan". While having played multiple lead characters, as in the short-lived 2005 Fox series "Head Cases" and "The Hebrew Hammer", Goldberg has mostly been cast in supporting roles.
582078	Sonam Kapoor (born 9 June 1985) is an Indian actress and a former model. She is the daughter of Indian film actor Anil Kapoor. Kapoor garnered international recognition as a spokesperson for the French beauty brand L'Oréal. Kapoor made her acting debut in 2007 in Sanjay Leela Bhansali's "Saawariya" opposite Ranbir Kapoor and subsequently featured in the offbeat drama "Delhi-6" (2009). She earned her first commercial success with the romantic comedy "I Hate Luv Storys" (2010), and followed with films such as "Aisha", and " Mausam" (2011). Whilst the former brought her acknowledgment as a fashionista and praise for her unique sense of style; the latter earned her critical appreciation for her performance. In 2013, Kapoor received immense recognition from critics for her role in the commercially successful romantic drama "Raanjhanaa" which is referred as her best performance to date. She subsequently featured in the biographical sports film "Bhaag Milkha Bhaag", her second consecutive huge success in 2013. Kapoor has thus established herself as one of the most popular and promising contemporary actresses in Hindi cinema. Early life. Kapoor was born in the suburb of Chembur, Mumbai on 9 June 1985. She is the daughter of actor Anil Kapoor and ex-model Sunita Kapoor and the granddaughter of filmmaker Surinder Kapoor. The family moved to a house in the suburb of Juhu, where her parents still reside, when she was one month old. Kapoor is the eldest of three children; the others are sister Rhea Kapoor and brother Harshvardhan. She is the niece of producer Boney Kapoor, actor Sanjay Kapoor and producer Sandeep Marwah. Producer Mona Shourie Kapoor and actress Sridevi are her aunts. She is also the first cousin of actor, Arjun Kapoor, Anushala Kapoor and second cousin of actor Ranveer Singh from her mothers side. She attended the Arya Vidya Mandir school in Juhu and then enrolled in the United World College of South East Asia, boarding school in Singapore, to do her International Baccalaureate. She studied theatre and arts in Singapore for 2 years. She also studied Political Science and Economics from University of East London. She speaks English, Hindi, Urdu, Punjabi and Marathi and is a well trained classical dancer. Career. 2004–08: Early work and film debut. Before starting her career off as an actress, Sonam and Ranbir Kapoor worked as assistant directors under Sanjay Leela Bhansali in 2004, and assisted him during the making of his film, "Black" which was released in early 2005. She made her acting debut alongside newcomer, Ranbir Kapoor in Bhansali's "Saawariya" (2007), which failed to do well at the box office, but her performance opened to mixed to good reviews by critics. Taran Adarsh of Bollywood Hungama commented saying, "Sonam Kapoor is an average actor. However, her role doesn't give her the opportunity to display histrionics. She looks gorgeous at places, but plain ordinary at times." GlamSham.com wrote, "As for Sonam, she matches Ranbir, step for step. A gorgeous looker, she carries off her role with aplomb as the one who is looking for her love to return. Her huge eyes portray her emotions and her confidence is personified in every frame; whether she is playfully fooling around with Ranbir or anxiously looking out for her Imaan (Salman Khan) to return. It looks like these two were born to act. The chemistry between the two is awesome." Naresh K. D. of apunkachoice.com said, "Sonam, though undoubtedly gorgeous, seems ill at ease with her part. In one close-up shot just after her introduction, her face – supposed to express sadness – is completely bereft of emotion. In the second half, however, she manages to sink her teeth better into her character." Sonam had no release in 2008, although, was nominated for the Filmfare Award for Best Female Debut, though lost out to actress Deepika Padukone for "Om Shanti Om", which, coincidentally was released alongside "Saawariya". 2009–12: Initial success and professional setbacks. In 2009, Kapoor appeared in Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra's "Delhi-6", opposite Abhishek Bachchan. The film flopped at the box office and received mixed critical reviews, but her performance was praised and she received recognition from within and outside the film industry. Critic Rajeev Masand commented, "Sonam Kapoor is the revelation in Delhi 6. She's a firecracker, instinctive and uninhibited in what isn't even a conventional female lead". Sonia Chopra, film criric from Rediff commented, "Sonam Kapoor is an earnest and effortless performer so she does make you like the character somewhat, despite the typical Delhi-girl recipe". In 2010, she appeared in Punit Malhotra's "I Hate Luv Storys" opposite Imran Khan. The film went on to become her first box office success, collecting over at the domestic box office. Kapoor also garnered positive reviews for her performance as film critic Taran Adarsh from Bollywood Hungama commented saying, "Sonam is a revelation. From salwars ["Saawariya", "Delhi 6"] to skirts in "I Hate Luv Storys", Sonam finally gets a role that does justice to her as an actress. The ease and class with which she carries off the glam look is fantastic. She's like a whiff of fresh air and you actually wonder, is she the same girl from "Saawariya" and "Delhi 6"? In fact, "I Hate Luv Storys" will only multiply Imran and Sonam's fan base manifold." She next appeared in the romantic comedy, "Aisha", opposite Abhay Deol, which was a decent success at the box office, as it was declared an "average" grosser. Kapoor also received mainly positive to mixed reviews for her performance. Film critic Sonia Chopra of Sify.com gave a favourable review stating, "Sonam Kapoor gives an ace performance as the somewhat nasty-sometimes angelic Aisha. With this role rendered so perfectly, Sonam has proven herself to be an actor to watch out for, capable of belting out an entire range of emotions". NDTV Movies also gave a positive review as they wrote, "But the film belongs to Sonam Kapoor, make no mistake of that. She makes the best of a rather rare opportunity for an Indian leading lady to be part of a Bollywood film that salutes Victorian mores and Delhi's elitist affectations in one clean cool sweep". However, Rajeev Masand of IBN Live only gave a mixed review, as he said, "...doesn't help that Sonam Kapoor offers a cardboard cutout personality to the lead. She plays the airhead convincingly and pulls off the flighty princess part, but flounders when it comes to drumming up tears, anger or hurt", after criticising the writing of the character. Sonam's first release in 2011, "Thank You" was a critical failure, although the film was a moderate success at the box office, as its collections surpassed the mark. Despite this, Kapoor's performance garnered mainly negative reviews from top critics, as entertainment site One India wrote, "Sonam Kapoor looks terribly out of sync in the film. Her make up in Thank You is just not right at all, she sometimes looks glamorous and sometime pale on-screen." The same year, she made an appearance at the 64th Cannes Film Festival representing L'Oréal, the brand she endorses in India. Her second film of the year was the romance film "Mausam", in which she and co-star Shahid Kapoor had four different looks representing each of the four seasons. The film received mixed reviews and was a failure at the box office. However, Kapoor's performance was appreciated by most prominent critics. Taran Adarsh commented, "For Sonam, "Mausam" will prove to be a turning point in her career. Astonishing – that would be the right word to describe her work this time around. The confidence with which she handles the distinct characterization speaks volumes". Saibal Chatterjee of NDTV commented, "Sonam Kapoor may still have some way to go as an actress, but she conveys the essential vulnerability of a girl forever under duress, bringing out just the right mix of feminine fragility and native resolve." Her first release of 2012 is "Players", a remake of "The Italian Job", alongside Abhishek Bachchan, Bipasha Basu and Neil Nitin Mukesh. The film received mixed to negative reviews and didn't do well at the box office. Her performance received mainly mixed reviews from top critics. Taran Adarsh of Bollywood Hungama stated that, "It's an image transformation for Sonam in PLAYERS. She has never done a full-on glamorous role before and "Players" should change the perception. However, the rawness, as an actor, shows in a variety of scenes." However, Martin D'Souza, of glamsham.com said, "But it is Sonam Kapoor who disappoints. I get the feeling that the poor girl is trying too hard to play this 'oomphy' character. She is either overawed by Bipasha or is rattled by the recent spate of her flops." Later that year, Kapoor made her second appearance at the Cannes Film Festival. 2013–present: Success and recent work. Kapoor made her third appearance at the Cannes Film Festival in May 2013. Her first release of 2013, "Raanjhanaa", opened to a positive critical reception and proved to be a commercial success, netting nett approx domestically in the first week. Kapoor's portrayal of Zoya Haidar, a headstrong but emotional middle class girl, earned her positive reviews throughout the globe, with Taran Adarsh of Bollywood Hungama noting that "The actor in Sonam was waiting for a role that would make the spectator sit up and notice it and the one in "Raanjhanaa" gives her that opportunity. The headstrong and emotional persona comes across so well in this film. In addition, like "Delhi 6", she's devoid of makeup and that makes the character so appealing. This film is a huge leap frontward for Sonam as an actor." Komal Nahta agrees, saying that "Sonam Kapoor looks very pretty and plays Zoya beautifully. The character of Zoya has tremendous range and Sonam does full justice to it. Her transition is amazing." Rajeev Masand adds that " does some of her best work here, going smoothly from innocent to manipulative to cynical, without ever losing Zoya’s inherent vulnerability." Joginder Tuteja also writes positively, saying that "Sonam is a revelation and though she has seen appreciation coming her way in earlier films, this one would stand out as a milestone and her career best till date. Playing well on the front foot in an author backed role, she delivers, and how. Moreover, her act in the last 15–20 minutes of the film go on to stun you". She next appeared in the biographical sports film "Bhaag Milkha Bhaag" opposite Farhan Akhtar and Pakistani actress Meesha Shafi. Her role Biro was of Akhtar's former love-interest. The film opened to tremendous critical acclaim and was termed as a huge box office success on the second day of release itself. Moreover, her performance also met with positive reviews. Mohar Basu of entertainment site Koi Moi wrote, "Sonam Kapoor has a lovely tinge in her little role in her limited screen time, she will flatter you enough that you actually feel bad that Milkha and Biro eventually part ways!". Taran Adarsh of Bollywood Hungama also mentioned, "Sonam puts her best foot forward as well. Although the character is brief, she shines in those pertinent moments nonetheless". Gayatri Shankar of Zee News stated, "Sonam, though has very little screen time, does her bit quite well". Joginder Tuteja of Movie Talkies also gave a positive review saying, "Sonam Kapoor has a very minor role and after "Raanjhanaa", we wish we could have got to see more of her in this film". Kapoor began shooting for Yash Raj Film's next co-starring Ayushmann Khurrana on 5 February 2013. The film is directed by Nupur Asthana (of "Mujhse Fraaandship Karoge" fame) and is slated for a late 2013 release. She has also been signed on for Rhea Kapoor's next, a remake of the 1980 film "Khubsoorat" starring Rekha. Kapoor and director Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra also confirmed her presence as the lead actress of his next film, a mythological adventure thriller opposite her "I Hate Luv Storys" co-star Imran Khan. Other work. Philanthropy. In 2009, Kapoor participated in the International Indian Film Academy Awards, also known as "IIFA" charity fashion show. In 2012, Kapoor asked for fans to donate to the Ogaan Cancer Foundation for her birthday. They also collaborated to create an awareness for breast cancer. Endorsements. Kapoor says she only endorses in the brands she believes in. Kapoor has endorsed brands such as "Electrolux", "Spice Mobile" and "Mont Blanc". She has also endorsed for an international skin care brand and a brand with her father, Anil Kapoor. Kapoor has also shot for a diamond jewellery print ad and commercial, which is a sub-brand of "Gem and Jewellery Export Promotion Council". Kapoor is also currently the face of an international cosmetic and beauty brand "L'Oreal". According to reports, Kapoor's fee for endorsements is , thus making her one of the highest paid celebrities for endorsements in India. In the media. Public image. Due to her being from a film background, Kapoor has always been in the media spotlight since a young age. Her debut alongside Ranbir Kapoor was also heavily hyped due to the stated reason. Kapoor is known for having a "outspoken" and "bold" personality, as perceived from various media interactions, how she presents herself in public and her choice of films. Since the release of "Aisha" (2010), Kapoor has been widely recognised as a "fashionista", due to her unique sense of style. Therefore, she regularly features on fashion magazine covers based in India, such as "Stardust" and Filmfare. Kapoor was also widely appreciated by Simi Garewal for being a fashionista and for her performances in her films. Kapoor has also featured on the covers of many Indian editions to international magazines such as "Vogue", "FHM", "Maxim", "GQ", "NOTCH", "Grazia", "Verve", "Elle" and "Femina". Kapoor also tops in best-dressed lists, and constantly attracts media attention for what she wears at events and film promotions. In January 2012, fashion designer and model Victoria Beckham posted a picture of Kapoor wearing a dress designed by her on micro-blogging site Twitter, saying, "Beautiful actress @sonamakapoor wearing #victoriabeckham", to which Kapoor replied back by saying "Your dress makes me beautiful! Thank you! @victoriabeckham". A marketing manager of one of the brands she endorses also praised her sense of style saying, "She comes across as an honest person and is highly fashionable". Controversies. In November 2010, Kapoor appeared on "Koffee With Karan", a popular chat show along with actress Deepika Padukone. Her comments on her rumoured ex-boyfriend Ranbir Kapoor led to a lot of controversy among Bollywood inner-circles. During an interview in June 2012, Kapoor made seemingly negative remarks on fellow actress Katrina Kaif, as she stated, "I don’t know how she does it. You need a certain kind of commitment and a certain kind of shamelessness to do certain things and you get that may be with stardom, with confidence in your talent, with who you are as a person, and I need to develop that before I do that kind of films – over the top films. I need to learn how to do it as I was terrible in those movies." Although, Kapoor later stated that the media misinterpreted her on these comments, as she was only trying to compliment Kaif. Personal life. Kapoor prefers to keep her personal life away from media attention. There have been numerous reports regarding her dating life, however, she has never confirmed these. During the filming of Kapoor's debut film, "Saawariya" it was widely speculated that she was in a romantic relationship with co-star, Ranbir Kapoor. However, it was denied by both the actors. After the films release, it was reported the couple had broken up. Later, it was reported that she is in a relationship with her "I Hate Luv Storys" director, Punit Malhotra, although, despite the fact that this was also denied by both, it was continued to be reported. In January 2013, it was believed the couple had separated. Kapoor has also stated that her closest friends in the industry are actors Kareena Kapoor, Asin Thottumkal, Jacqueline Fernandez, Imran Khan and Dhanush, and fashion designer Shehla Khan. Awards. Honors & Achievements. 2013 vogue beauty awards beauty of the year (Won)
590621	Daana Veera Soora Karna is a 1977 Telugu mythological film produced and directed by N. T. Rama Rao. He played three pivotal roles: Karna, Duryodhana, and Krishna. The film also starred his sons Nandamuri Harikrishna and Nandamuri Balakrishna, who played the roles of Arjuna and Abhimanyu respectively, while Sharada, Chalapathi Rao, Kaikala Satyanarayana and Gummadi Venkateswara Rao essayed other important roles. Production. The film was completed in 43 working days, which was a record, given that each of the three characters played by N. T. Rama Rao (NTR) took at least three hours to put the makeup and two hours to remove it. NTR never used to see the rushes before the release; thus they edited the film within days, without seeing the rushes. Kannappa, who earlier worked for NTR's "Manushulanta Okkate" worked for this film, too. As there was no time for the work to be checked, one can notice the wire work in a couple of scenes, but the audience never bothered about that. Mayasabha work was not completed by the time of the shooting. So, NTR took close-ups while the paintings were done and long shots once it was completed, in order to save time. However, this detail did not reflect on the screen. Harikrishna and Balakrishna also painted the sets along with the art department personnel. Characterization. Many films were based on Mahabharata in Telugu; the difference between those films and this one is the characterization of Duryodhana. While making the Sree Krishna Pandaveeyam itself, NTR projected Duryodhana as 'Suyodhana' with a positive touch to the role. In this film, he projected Duryodhana as a well-educated person who knew dharma and other things much better than anyone. Some people even say that the title of the movie could actually have been "Maanadhana veera suyodhana" — such is the importance and characterization of Suyodhana. Location. This is the first film shot in Ramakrishna Cine Studios in Hyderabad that was started on 7 June 1976 by Tamil superstar M. G. Ramachandran. On the same day, he clapped the muhurth shot for this film. This is the 248th film for N. T. Rama Rao, fifth film for both Balakrishna and Harikrishna's, and the third film on Ramakrishna Cine Studios banner. While NTR was busy with the DVSK, Krishna was busy with the production of "Kurusketram". While the former was completely made locally in Ramakrishna Cine Studios, Kurukshetram was shot in Mysore, Rajasthan, and other places with huge settings. Three people who worked for both the films were C. Narayana Reddy, Kaikala Satyanarayana (Duryodhana in "Kurukshetram"), and Gummadi Venkateswara Rao (Dharmaraju in "Kurukshetram"). Roles. Initially, NTR wanted ANR to play the role of Krishna as heilm "Chankya Chandragupta" if he was given a choice. NTR's original plan at that time was to make "Chanakya Chandragupta" with him in the role of Chanakya and Balakrishna in the role of Chandragupta. When ANR offered to do the role of Chanakya, NTR made changes accordingly and did the role of Chandragupta. However, the script was not ready yet, and there was news that Krishna was planning the film "Kurukshetram" with a story line similar to "Dana Veera Soora Karna". Thus, NTR started "DVS Karna" immediately, with an intent to release the film for Sankranthi at any cost. Sharada, who worked with NTR in "Jeevita Chakram" many years prior, acted as Draupadi. She had a lot of doubts before agreeing to do the role. Most of all, she was nervous to work with NTR as she was aware of his strictness. On the first day of the shooting, she was so nervous that she took a lot of takes for her part. After the shooting for the day, NTR talked to her and made her more comfortable. After that film, she did many films with him. Actually her re-entry into the films in her second innings was with the NTR's "Chandashasanudu". Chalapathi Rao did three roles (Jarasandha, Atiratha, Indra) and also appears in two other getups as disguises of Indra, while Jayabhaskar did a dual role (Surya, Ekalavya). It was NTR who gave a chance to Dhulippala as Sakuni in the film "Sree Krishna Pandaveeyam". For this film also, he was chosen for the same role for a remuneration of Rs. 1116/-! Balakrishna played the role of Abhimanyu, which got him very good recognition. Hariskrishna did the role of Arjuna. After "Thatamma Kala", this was the second and the last film where all the three of them worked together. This was the only film in which you can see NTR's daughters, even for a second, on the screen in the dance scene of "Jaabili Kante Challanidi". Though the complete song was shot, ANR suggested that the scene should be deleted and NTR took out the song before the censor. However, one can still see his daughters on the screen for a moment. The scene of Indra meeting Karna asking him his Kavacha Kundalas is also a famous scene in the movie. Script and dialogues. After much mulling over and asking around, they finally zeroed in on Kondaveeti Venkatakavi to write the script and dialogues for the film. At that time, he was the principal of a Sanskrit college. Kondaveeti Venkatakavi (KVK) is an atheist, and he thus rejected the offer. When NTR personally went and requested, he was unable to say no and both NTR and KVK started working on the script. With this film, KVK got lot of name. Dialogues of the film became very popular. The film's dialogues were released as LP and audiocassettes and sold very well. HMV, the company that released the audio, claims that there are considerable sales of the cassettes, and CDs, even now. Particular scenes such as the first meeting of Karna and Suyodhana, Sakuni's encouragement to Suyodhana to go to the raajasUya yaagam, the Mayasabha scene and the subsequent mental upset of Suyodhana, the scene that precedes Draupadi's vastraapaharaNam, and the raayabaaram scene are all famous for their lengthy and complicated dialogues. The dialogues were immensely popular even though they were in chaste bookish Telugu (graanthikamu). Notable is the "positive spin" that the dialogues give to Suyodhana's character without changing the original story any much, particularly in scenes such as vastraapaharaNam and raayabaaram, where he projects himself as the good guy and Pandavas and Krishna as crooked minds. While most mythological and folkloric movies since the 1950s were all in more or less colloquial tongue (vaaDuka bhaasha), this movie from the 1970s used graanthika bhaasha completely. Release. The film was censored on 12 January 1977 and was released on 14 January. ("DVS Karna" was released with 30 prints in all, but Gemini was unable to print all 30 prints in the short time given, and thus the film was released in 14 centers on the first day and in 16 centers the next day.) The film ran for 100 days in 9 centers and 250 days in Hyderabad Shanti Theatre. "DVS Karna"'s cost was less than ten lakhs. It earned more than one crore in the first run itself! Another record of the film was that it was sold for 60 lakhs for the repeat run in 1994 with 30 prints and earned more than one crore in the repeat run too! (The distributors invested ten thousand per area and got a one scope print per district from Gemini Labs). "DVS Karna" can be claimed to be one of the lengthiest films in Telugu film industry and even in the Indian film industry on the whole! Its running time is 4 hrs 17 minutes. Out of this, NTR can be seen on the screen for nearly four hours, which is also a record! (Though Raj Kapoor's magnum opus "Mera Naam Joker" runs for 4 hrs 24 minutes, the film was later trimmed by forty minutes.) A Russian cultural group that visited India at that time saw the film and was wonderstruck with the film, and NTR's abilities that sustained and entertained a lengthy film! Trivia. "DVS Karna" was the first Telugu film to collect more than Rs.1 Crores in those days with second and third release. In the first twenty years after its release, "DVS Karna" sold the highest number of tickets beating all the new releases for the year in 13 years. "Lava Kusa" is the only other movie with re-run value beyond three releases.
1070768	Gates of Heaven is a 1978 documentary film by Errol Morris about the pet cemetery business. It was made when Morris was unknown and did much to launch his career.
499719	Mannat "(Eng: Wish)" is a Punjabi Film directed by Gurbir Singh Grewal. This movie is produced by famous Bollywood producer, Anuradha Prasad. Film is distributed by B.A.G. Films. It was released in October 2006. It stars Jimmy Shergill, Kulraj Randhawa, Manav Vij and Kanwaljit Singh. It was debut film of Kulraj Randhawa, a famous TV actress and it is the second Punjabi Film of Jimmy Shergill, after Yaaran naal baharan. Plot overview. During the year 1985, reminiscent of an era of turmoil in Punjab, an army officer (Nihal Singh) falls in love with a local village girl named Prasinn Kaur. Their romance ultimately leads to a marriage but the fate has tragedy in store for them. Nihal's unit is dispatched to Siachen Glacier and he has to leave his pregnant wife under the care of a couple who are his neighbours. However, due to an unfortunate incident, Prasinn dies after giving birth to a baby girl. Her neighbour, who is desperate to become a mother steals the child. From here the misery of the army officer starts. A twist in the story sends him to prison for serving a life term. After completing the sentence his search for his daughter starts again. This story is all about love, passion, hatred, betrayal and romance. Motivated from a true incident, which the director came across in 1996, the film brings out various facts of human behavior in a true Punjabi flavour and spirit. Music. The songs of the movie 'Mannat' are quite hit in Punjab. Songs are "Pani Diyaan Challan" and "Umran Di Sanjh". Songs are sung by Playback Singer Feroz Khan, Alka Yagnik, Rani Randeep, Shafqat Ali Khan, Arvinder Singh, Simarjit Kumar and Bhupinder Singh.
1167234	Maia Luisa Brewton (born September 30, 1977) is an American actress who enjoyed success in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Brewton was born in Los Angeles, California. She is probably best known as the Mighty Thor-obsessed kid, Sara Anderson, in "Adventures in Babysitting", and as Shelly Lewis on one of the Fox Network's earliest shows, "Parker Lewis Can't Lose". In addition to these more prominent roles, Brewton starred in the movies "Sky Trackers" with Pamela Sue Martin and "A Family for Joe" with Robert Mitchum. She also co-starred in the hit film "Back to the Future" as Sally Baines, the younger sister of Lorraine Baines played by Lea Thompson. Her television credits include "21 Jump Street", "Highway to Heaven", "Trapper John, M.D." and "The Wonder Years". She also played Margaret Ann Culver in the short-lived television series, "Lime Street" with co-stars Robert Wagner and Samantha Smith. Apart from her film and television roles, Maia Brewton acted in various theatre productions, most notably at the City Garage Theatre in Santa Monica, California. Personal life. A 1998 graduate of Yale University (where she was a member of Manuscript Society and Just Add Water), Maia is an attorney. Maia married her partner, Lara Spotts, in 2008. The couple have twin boys, Rizzo and Calder.
1057075	Zero Effect is a 1998 mystery film written and directed by Jake Kasdan (son of writer/director Lawrence Kasdan). It stars Bill Pullman as "the world's most private detective" Daryl Zero and Ben Stiller as his assistant Steve Arlo. The plot of the film is loosely based on the Arthur Conan Doyle short story "A Scandal in Bohemia". The film was shot in Portland, Oregon. It was scored by The Greyboy Allstars. It was screened in the Un Certain Regard section at the 1998 Cannes Film Festival. Plot. Daryl Zero (Bill Pullman) is the world's greatest detective, but is also a socially maladroit misanthrope. Among his quirks is that he never meets or has direct contact with his clients, instead conducting business through his assistant, Steve Arlo (Ben Stiller). Throughout the movie, Zero provides narration as he reads lines from his proposed autobiography. Zero and Arlo are hired by Portland area millionaire Gregory Stark (Ryan O'Neal). Stark has lost the key to a safe deposit box and is being blackmailed by an unknown person who forces him to follow elaborate instructions to deliver the cash payments. Zero quickly discovers that the blackmailer is Gloria Sullivan (Kim Dickens) an EMT with a mysterious past. Zero refuses to reveal Gloria's identity to Stark until Zero understands why she is blackmailing Stark. Zero becomes attracted to Gloria, compromising his trademark objectivity. Stark pressures Arlo to reveal the blackmailer's identity so that he can have that person killed. Arlo must also deal with Zero's somewhat absurd demands on his time, which increasingly interfere with Arlo's relationship with his girlfriend Jess. Zero eventually discovers that Stark had been obsessed with Gloria's mother following a brief romantic relationship when the two were in college. She later blackmailed Stark with the threat of exposing him as a rapist, so he had her killed. However, she had already given birth to their daughter Gloria, who was discovered and raised by the hitman who killed her. Gloria grew up knowing that Stark was behind her mother's murder, and when her adoptive father contracted a terminal illness, she used the information to pay for medical treatment. At the meeting to deliver the final blackmail payment, Stark collapses from a heart attack and Gloria is compelled to save his life. She then flees the country with Zero's assistance. Soundtrack. Released in January 1998, the official soundtrack for the film includes: Television pilot. In 2001 Kasdan attempted to resurrect the character Daryl Zero for the NBC television network. He shared the screenwriting duties with Walon Green and directed the pilot. He was also one of the producers. The series was intended to be a prequel, tracing the early adventures of Zero as he and Arlo became a team. The pilot stars Alan Cumming as Daryl Zero and features Krista Allen and Natasha Gregson Wagner. NBC did not pick up the pilot. External links.
1161278	Constance "Connie" Ray (born July 10, 1956) is an American film and television actress and playwright. Among her highest profile appearances are "Thank You for Smoking" (2006) and "Stuart Little" (1999), and the television drama "ER" (1997). She also appeared in "Ice Princess" (2005) and on "George Lopez" (2002). Ray wrote the bluegrass gospel musical "Smoke On The Mountain", which opened Off Broadway in 1990, "Sander's Family Christmas" and "Smoke on the Mountain Homecoming"; three of the most produced musicals in the US for the last twenty years. Connie Ray studied acting at East Carolina University. She earned an MFA from Ohio University in the early 1980s.
1061001	Barton Fink is a 1991 American film written, directed, and produced by the Coen brothers. Set in 1941, it stars John Turturro in the title role as a young New York City playwright who is hired to write scripts for a film studio in Hollywood, and John Goodman as Charlie, the insurance salesman who lives next door at the run-down Hotel Earle. The Coens wrote the screenplay in three weeks while experiencing difficulty during the writing of "Miller's Crossing". Soon after "Miller's Crossing" was finished, the Coens began filming "Barton Fink", which had its premiere at the Cannes Film Festival in May 1991. In a rare sweep, "Barton Fink" won the Palme d'Or, as well as awards for Best Director and Best Actor (Turturro). Although it was celebrated almost universally by critics and nominated for three Academy Awards, the film grossed only a little over $6 million at the box office, two-thirds of its estimated budget. The process of writing and the culture of entertainment production are two prominent themes of "Barton Fink". The world of Hollywood is contrasted with that of Broadway, and the film analyzes superficial distinctions between high culture and low culture. Other themes in the film include fascism and World War II; slavery and conditions of labor in creative industries; and how intellectuals relate to "the common man". Because of its diverse elements, the film has defied efforts at genre classification, being variously referred to as a film noir, a horror film, a "Künstlerroman", and a buddy film. The feel of the Hotel Earle was central to the development of the story, and careful deliberation went into its design. There is a sharp contrast between Fink's living quarters and the polished, pristine environs of Hollywood, especially the home of Jack Lipnick. On the wall of Fink's room there hangs a single picture of a woman at the beach; this captures Barton's attention, and the image reappears in the final scene of the film. Although the picture and other elements of the film (including a mysterious box given to Fink by Charlie) appear laden with symbolism, critics disagree over their possible meanings. The Coens have acknowledged some intentional symbolic elements while denying an attempt to communicate some holistic message. The film contains allusions to many real-life people and events, most notably the writers Clifford Odets and William Faulkner. The characters of Barton Fink and W. P. Mayhew are widely seen as fictional representations of these men, but the Coens stress important differences. They have also admitted to parodying film magnates like Louis B. Mayer, but they note that Fink's agonizing tribulations in Hollywood are not meant to reflect their own experiences. "Barton Fink" was influenced by several earlier works, including the films of Roman Polanski, particularly "Repulsion" (1965) and "The Tenant" (1976). Other influences are Stanley Kubrick's "The Shining" and Preston Sturges's "Sullivan's Travels". The film contains a number of literary allusions to works by William Shakespeare, John Keats, and Flannery O'Connor. There are also religious overtones, including references to the Book of Daniel, King Nebuchadnezzar, and Bathsheba. Plot. Barton Fink is enjoying the success of his first Broadway play, "Bare Ruined Choirs". His agent informs him that Capitol Pictures in Hollywood has offered him a thousand dollars per week to write film scripts. Barton hesitates, worried that moving to California would separate him from "the common man," his focus as a writer. He accepts the offer, however, and checks into the Hotel Earle, a large and unusually deserted building. His room is sparse and draped in subdued colors; its only decoration is a small painting of a woman on the beach, arm raised to block the sun. In his first meeting with Capitol Pictures boss Jack Lipnick, Barton explains that he chose the Earle because he wants lodging that is (as Lipnick says) "less Hollywood." Lipnick promises that his only concern is Barton's writing ability and assigns his new employee to a wrestling film. Back in his room, however, Barton is unable to write. He is distracted by sounds coming from the room next door, and he phones the front desk to complain. His neighbor, Charlie Meadows, is the source of the noise and visits Barton to apologize, insisting on sharing some alcohol from a hip flask to make amends. As they talk, Barton proclaims his affection for "the common man," and Charlie describes his life as an insurance salesman. Later, Barton falls asleep, but is awoken by the incessant whine of a mosquito. Still unable to proceed beyond the first lines of his script, Barton consults producer Ben Geisler for advice. Irritated, the frenetic Geisler takes him to lunch and orders him to speak with another writer for assistance. While in the bathroom, Barton meets the novelist William Preston (W.P.) "Bill" Mayhew, who is vomiting in the next stall. They briefly discuss movie writing and arrange a second meeting later in the day. When Barton arrives, Mayhew is drunk and yelling wildly. His secretary, Audrey Taylor, reschedules the meeting and confesses to Barton that she and Mayhew are in love. When they finally meet for lunch, Mayhew, Audrey, and Barton discuss writing and drinking. Before long, Mayhew argues with Audrey, slaps her and wanders off, drunk. Rejecting Barton's offer of consolation, she explains that she feels sorry for Mayhew since he is married to another woman who is "disturbed." With one day left before his meeting with Lipnick to discuss the movie, Barton phones Audrey and begs her for assistance. She visits him at the Earle, and after she admits that she wrote most of Mayhew's scripts, they are assumed to have sex; Barton later confesses to Charlie they did so. When he wakes up the next morning, he, again, hears the sound of the mosquito, finds it on Audrey's back, and slaps it dead. When Audrey does not respond, he turns her onto her side only to find that she has been violently murdered. He has no memory of the night's events. Horrified, he summons Charlie and asks for help. Charlie is repulsed but disposes of the body and orders Barton to avoid contacting the police. After a meeting with an unusually supportive Lipnick, Barton tries writing again and is interrupted by Charlie, who announces he is going to New York for several days. Charlie leaves a package with Barton and asks him to watch it. Soon afterward, Barton is visited by two police detectives, who inform him that Charlie's real name is Karl Mundt – "Madman Mundt." He is a serial killer wanted for several murders; after shooting his victims, they explain, he decapitates them and keeps the heads. Stunned, Barton returns to his room and examines the box. Placing it on his desk without opening it, he begins writing and produces the entire script in one sitting. After a night of celebratory dancing, Barton returns to find the detectives in his room, who, after handcuffing him to the bed, then reveal Mayhew's murder. Charlie appears, and the hotel is engulfed in flames. Running through the hallway, screaming, Charlie shoots the policemen with a shotgun. As the hallway burns, Charlie speaks with Barton about their lives and the hotel, breaks the bed frame Barton is cuffed to, then retires to his own room, saying as he goes that he has paid a visit to Barton's parents and uncle in New York. Barton leaves the hotel, carrying the box and his script. Shortly thereafter he attempts to telephone his parents, but there is no answer. In a final meeting, a disappointed Lipnick, in uniform as he attempts to secure an Army reserve commission, angrily chastises Barton for writing "a fruity movie about suffering," then informs him that he is to remain in Los Angeles, and that – although he will remain under contract – Capitol Pictures will not produce anything he writes so he can be ridiculed as a loser around the studio while Lipnick is in the war. Dazed, Barton wanders onto a beach, still carrying the package. He meets a woman who looks just like the one in the picture on his wall at the Earle, and she asks about the box. He tells her that he knows neither what it contains nor to whom it belongs. She assumes the pose from the picture. Production. Background and writing. In 1989, filmmakers Joel and Ethan Coen began writing the script for a film eventually released as "Miller's Crossing". The many threads of the story became complicated, and after four months they found themselves lost in the process. Although biographers and critics later referred to it as writer's block, the Coen brothers rejected this description. "It's not really the case that we were suffering from writer's block," Joel said in a 1991 interview, "but our working speed had slowed, and we were eager to get a certain distance from "Miller's Crossing"." They went from Los Angeles to New York and began work on a different project. In three weeks, the Coens wrote a script with a title role written specifically for actor John Turturro, with whom they'd been working on "Miller's Crossing". The new movie, "Barton Fink", was set in a large, seemingly-abandoned hotel. This setting, which they named the "Hotel Earle", was a driving force behind the story and mood of the new project. While filming their 1984 film "Blood Simple" in Austin, Texas, the Coens had seen a hotel which made a significant impression: "We thought, 'Wow, Motel Hell.' You know, being condemned to live in the weirdest hotel in the world." The writing process for "Barton Fink" was smooth, they said, suggesting that the relief of being away from "Miller's Crossing" may have been a catalyst. They also felt satisfied with the overall shape of the story, which helped them move quickly through the composition. "Certain films come entirely in one's head; we just sort of burped out "Barton Fink"." While writing, the Coens created a second leading role with another actor in mind: John Goodman, who had appeared in their 1987 comedy "Raising Arizona". His new character, Charlie, was Barton's next-door neighbor in the cavernous hotel. Even before writing, the Coens knew how the story would end, and wrote Charlie's final speech at the start of the writing process. The script served its diversionary purpose, and the Coens put it aside: ""Barton Fink" sort of washed out our brain and we were able to go back and finish "Miller's Crossing"." Once production of the first movie was finished, the Coens began to recruit staff to film "Barton Fink". Turturro looked forward to playing the lead role, and spent a month with the Coens in Los Angeles to coordinate views on the project: "I felt I could bring something more human to Barton. Joel and Ethan allowed me a certain contribution. I tried to go a little further than they expected." As they designed detailed storyboards for "Barton Fink", the Coens began looking for a new cinematographer, since their associate Barry Sonnenfeld – who had filmed their first three movies – was occupied with his own directorial debut, "The Addams Family". The Coens had been impressed with the work of English cinematographer Roger Deakins, particularly the interior scenes of the 1988 film "Stormy Monday". After screening other films he had worked on (including "Sid and Nancy" and "Pascali's Island"), they sent a script to Deakins and invited him to join the project. His agent advised against working with the Coens, but Deakins met with them at a cafe in Notting Hill and they soon began working together on "Barton Fink". Filming. Filming began in June 1990 and took eight weeks (a third less time than required by "Miller's Crossing"), and the estimated final budget for the movie was US$9 million. The Coens worked well with Deakins, and they easily translated their ideas for each scene onto film. "There was only one moment we surprised him," Joel Coen recalled later. An extended scene called for a tracking shot out of the bedroom and into a sink drain "plug hole" in the adjacent bathroom as a symbol of sexual intercourse. "The shot was a lot of fun and we had a great time working out how to do it," Joel said. "After that, every time we asked Roger to do something difficult, he would raise an eyebrow and say, 'Don't be having me track down any plug-holes now.'" Three weeks of filming were spent in the Hotel Earle, a set created by art director Dennis Gassner. The film's climax required a huge spreading fire in the hotel's hallway, which the Coens originally planned to add digitally in post-production. When they decided to use real flames, however, the crew built a large alternate set in an abandoned aircraft hangar at Long Beach. A series of gas jets were installed behind the hallway, and the wallpaper was perforated for easy penetration. As Goodman ran through the hallway, a man on an overhead catwalk opened each jet, giving the impression of a fire racing ahead of Charlie. Each take required a rebuild of the apparatus, and a second hallway (sans fire) stood ready nearby for filming pick-up shots between takes. The final scene was shot near Zuma Beach, as was the image of a wave crashing against a rock. The Coens edited the film themselves, as is their custom. "We prefer a hands-on approach," Joel explained in 1996, "rather than sitting next to someone and telling them what to cut." Because of rules for membership in film production guilds, they are required to use a pseudonym; "Roderick Jaynes" is credited with editing "Barton Fink". Only a few filmed scenes were removed from the final cut, including a transition scene to show Barton's movement from New York to Hollywood. (In the movie, this is shown enigmatically with a wave crashing against a rock.) Several scenes representing work in Hollywood studios were also filmed, but edited out because they were "too conventional". Setting. The spooky, inexplicably empty feel of the Hotel Earle was central to the Coens' conception of the movie. "We wanted an art deco stylization," Joel explained in a 1991 interview, "and a place that was falling into ruin after having seen better days." Barton's room is sparsely furnished with two large windows facing another building. The Coens later described the hotel as a "ghost ship floating adrift, where you notice signs of the presence of other passengers, without ever laying eyes on any". In the movie, residents' shoes are an indication of this unseen presence; another rare sign of other inhabitants is the sound from adjacent rooms. Joel said: "You can imagine it peopled by failed commercial travelers, with pathetic sex lives, who cry alone in their rooms." Heat and moisture are other important elements of the setting. The wallpaper in Barton's room peels and droops; Charlie experiences the same problem, and guesses heat is the cause. The Coens used green and yellow colors liberally in designing the hotel "to suggest an aura of putrefaction". The atmosphere of the hotel was meant to connect with the character of Charlie. As Joel explained: "Our intention, moreover, was that the hotel function as an exteriorization of the character played by John Goodman. The sweat drips off his forehead like the paper peels off the walls. At the end, when Goodman says that he is a prisoner of his own mental state, that this is like some kind of hell, it was necessary for the hotel to have already suggested something infernal." The peeling wallpaper and the paste which seeps through it also mirror Charlie's chronic ear infection and the resultant pus. When Barton first arrives at the Hotel Earle, he is asked by the friendly bellhop Chet (Steve Buscemi) if he is "a trans or a res" – transient or resident. Barton explains that he isn't sure, but will be staying "indefinitely". The dichotomy between permanent inhabitants and guests reappears several times, notably in the hotel's motto, "A day or a lifetime", which Barton notices on the room's stationery. This idea returns at the end of the movie, when Charlie describes Barton as "a tourist with a typewriter". His ability to leave the Earle (while Charlie remains) is presented by critic Erica Rowell as evidence that Barton's story represents the process of writing itself. Barton, she says, represents an author who is able to leave a story, while characters like Charlie cannot. In contrast, the offices of Capitol Pictures and Lipnick's house are pristine, lavishly decorated, and extremely comfortable. The company's rooms are bathed in sunlight, and Ben Geisler's office faces a lush array of flora. Barton meets Lipnick in one scene beside an enormous, spotless swimming pool. This echoes his position as studio head, as he explains: "...you can't always be honest, not with the sharks swimming around this town ... if I'd been totally honest, I wouldn't be within a mile of this pool – unless I was cleaning it." In his office, Lipnick showcases another trophy of his power: statues of Atlas, the Titan of Greek mythology who declared war on the gods of Mount Olympus and was severely punished. Barton watches dailies from another wrestling film being made by Capitol Pictures; the date on the clapperboard is 9 December, two days after the attack on Pearl Harbor. Later, when Barton celebrates the completed script by dancing at a USO show, he is surrounded by soldiers. In Lipnick's next appearance, he wears a colonel's uniform, which is really a costume from his company. Lipnick has not actually entered the military, but declares himself ready to fight the "little yellow bastards". Originally, this historical moment just after the United States entered World War II was to have a significant impact on the Hotel Earle. As the Coens explained: "e were thinking of a hotel where the lodgers were old people, the insane, the physically handicapped, because all the others had left for the war. The further the script was developed, the more this theme got left behind, but it had led us, in the beginning, to settle on that period." The Picture. The picture in Barton's room of a woman at the beach is a central focus for both the character and camera. He examines it frequently while at his desk, and after finding Audrey's corpse in his bed he goes to stand near it. The image is repeated at the end of the film, when he meets an identical-looking woman at an identical-looking beach, who strikes an identical pose. After complimenting her beauty, he asks her: "Are you in pictures?" She blushes and replies: "Don't be silly." The Coens decided early in the writing process to include the picture as a key element in the room. "Our intention," Joel explained later, "was that the room would have very little decoration, that the walls would be bare and that the windows would offer no view of any particular interest. In fact, we wanted the only opening on the exterior world to be this picture. It seemed important to us to create a feeling of isolation." Later in the film, Barton places into the frame a small picture of Charlie, dressed in a fine suit and holding a briefcase. The juxtaposition of his neighbor in the uniform of an insurance salesman and the escapist image of the woman on the beach leads to a confusion of reality and fantasy for Barton. Critic Michael Dunne notes: "can only wonder how 'real' Charlie is. ... In the film's final shot ... viewers must wonder how 'real' [the woman is. The question leads to others: How real is Fink? Lipnick? Audrey? Mayhew? How real are films anyway?" The picture's significance has been the subject of broad speculation. "Washington Post" reviewer Desson Howe said that despite its emotional impact, the final scene "feels more like a punchline for punchline's sake, a trumped-up coda". In her book-length analysis of the Coen brothers' films, Rowell suggests that Barton's fixation on the picture is ironic, considering its low culture status and his own pretensions toward high culture (speeches to the contrary notwithstanding). She further notes that the camera focuses on Barton himself as much as the picture while he gazes at it. At one point, the camera moves past Barton to fill the frame with the woman on the beach. This tension between objective and subjective points of view appears again at the end of the film, when Barton finds himself – in a sense – inside the picture. Critic M. Keith Booker calls the final scene an "enigmatic comment on representation and the relationship between art and reality". He suggests that the identical images point to the absurdity of art which reflects life directly. The film transposes the woman directly from art to reality, prompting confusion in the viewer; Booker asserts that such a literal depiction therefore leads inevitably to uncertainty. Genre. The Coens are known for making films that defy simple classification. Although they refer to their first film, "Blood Simple", as a relatively straightforward example of detective fiction, the Coens wrote their next script, "Raising Arizona", without trying to fit a particular genre. They decided to write a comedy, but intentionally added dark elements to produce what Ethan calls "a pretty savage film". Their third film, "Miller's Crossing", reversed this order, mixing bits of comedy into a crime film. Yet it also subverts single-genre identity by using conventions from melodrama, love stories, and political satire. This trend of mixing genres continued and intensified with "Barton Fink"; the Coens insist the film "does not belong to any genre". Ethan has described it as "a buddy movie for the '90s". It contains elements of comedy, film noir, and horror, but other film categories are present. Actor Turturro referred to it as a coming of age story, while literature professor and film analyst R. Barton Palmer calls it a "Künstlerroman", highlighting the importance of the main character's evolution as a writer. Critic Donald Lyons describes the movie as "a retro-surrealist vision". Because it crosses genres, fragments the characters' experiences, and resists straightforward narrative resolution, "Barton Fink" is often considered an example of postmodernist film. In his book "Postmodern Hollywood", Booker says the movie renders the past with an impressionist technique, not a precise accuracy. This technique, he notes, is "typical of postmodern film, which views the past not as the prehistory of the present but as a warehouse of images to be raided for material". In his analysis of the Coens' films, Palmer calls "Barton Fink" a "postmodern pastiche" which closely examines how past eras have represented themselves. He compares it to "The Hours", a 2002 film about Virginia Woolf and two women who read her work. He asserts that both films, far from rejecting the importance of the past, add to our understanding of it. He quotes literary theorist Linda Hutcheon: The kind of postmodernism exhibited in these films "does not deny the "existence" of the past; it does question whether we can ever "know" that past other than through its textualizing remains". Certain elements in "Barton Fink" highlight the veneer of postmodernism: the writer is unable to resolve his modernist focus on high culture with the studio's desire to create formulaic high-profit films; the resulting collision produces a fractured story arc emblematic of postmodernism. The Coens' cinematic style is another example; when Barton and Audrey begin making love, the camera pans away to the bathroom, then moves toward the sink and down its drain. Rowell calls this a "postmodern update" of the notorious sexually suggestive image of a train entering a tunnel, used by director Alfred Hitchcock in his 1959 film "North by Northwest". Style. "Barton Fink" uses several stylistic conventions to accentuate the story's mood and give visual emphasis to particular themes. For example, the opening credits roll over the Hotel Earle's wallpaper, as the camera moves downward. This motion is repeated many times in the film, especially pursuant to Barton's claim that his job is to "plumb the depths" while writing. His first experiences in the Hotel Earle continue this trope; the bellhop Chet emerges from beneath the floor, suggesting the real activity is underground. Although Barton's floor is presumably six floors above the lobby, the interior of the elevator is shown only while it is descending. These elements – combined with many dramatic pauses, surreal dialogue, and implied threats of violence – create an atmosphere of extreme tension. The Coens explained that "the whole movie was supposed to feel like impending doom or catastrophe. And we definitely wanted it to end with an apocalyptic feeling". The style of "Barton Fink" is also evocative – and representative – of films of the 1930s and '40s. As critic Michael Dunne points out: "Fink's heavy overcoat, his hat, his dark, drab suits come realistically out of the Thirties, but they come even more out of the films of the Thirties." The style of the Hotel Earle and atmosphere of various scenes also reflect the influence of pre-WWII filmmaking. Even Charlie's underwear matches that worn by his film-ic hero Jack Oakie. At the same time, camera techniques used by the Coens in "Barton Fink" represent a combination of the classic with the original. Careful tracking shots and extreme close-ups distinguish the film as a product of the late 20th century. From the start, the film moves continuously between Barton's subjective view of the world and one which is objective. After the opening credits roll, the camera pans down to Barton, watching the end of his play. Soon we see the audience from his point of view, cheering wildly for him. As he walks forward, he enters the shot and the viewer is returned to an objective point of view. This blurring of the subjective and objective returns in the final scene. The shifting point of view coincides with the movie's subject matter: filmmaking. The film begins with the end of a play, and the story explores the process of creation. This metanarrative approach is emphasized by the camera's focus in the first scene on Barton (who is mouthing the words spoken by actors offscreen), not on the play he is watching. As Rowell says: "hough we listen to one scene, we watch another. ... The separation of sound and picture shows a crucial dichotomy between two 'views' of artifice: the world created by the protagonist (his play) and the world outside it (what goes into creating a performance)." The film also employs numerous foreshadowing techniques. Signifying the probable contents of the package Charlie leaves with Barton, the word "head" appears sixty times in the original screenplay. In a grim nod to later events, Charlie describes his positive attitude toward his "job" of selling insurance: "Fire, theft and casualty are not things that only happen to other people." Symbolism. Much has been written about the symbolic meanings of "Barton Fink". Rowell proposes that it is "a figurative head swelling of ideas that all lead back to the artist". The proximity of the sex scene to Audrey's murder prompts Lyons to insist: "Sex in "Barton Fink" is death." Others have suggested that the second half of the movie is an extended dream sequence. The Coens, however, have denied any intent to create a systematic unity from symbols in the film. "We never, ever go into our films with anything like that in mind," Joel said in a 1998 interview. "There's never anything approaching that kind of specific intellectual breakdown. It's always a bunch of instinctive things that feel right, for whatever reason." The Coens have noted their comfort with unresolved ambiguity. Ethan said in 1991: ""Barton Fink" does end up telling you what's going on to the extent that it's important to know ... What isn't crystal clear isn't intended to become crystal clear, and it's fine to leave it at that." Regarding fantasies and dream sequences, he said: The homoerotic overtones of Barton's relationship with Charlie are not unintentional. Although one detective demands to know if they had "some sick sex thing", their intimacy is presented as anything but deviant, and cloaked in conventions of mainstream sexuality. Charlie's first friendly overture toward his neighbor, for example, comes in the form of a standard pick-up line: "I'd feel better about the damned inconvenience if you'd let me buy you a drink." The wrestling scene between Barton and Charlie is also cited as an example of homoerotic affection. "We consider that a sex scene," Joel Coen said in 2001. Sound and music. Many of the sound effects in "Barton Fink" are laden with meaning. For example, Barton is summoned by a bell while dining in New York; its sound is light and pleasant. By contrast, the eerie sustained bell of the Hotel Earle rings endlessly through the lobby, until Chet silences it. The nearby rooms of the hotel emit a constant chorus of guttural cries, moans, and assorted unidentifiable noises. These sounds coincide with Barton's confused mental state, and punctuate Charlie's claim that "I hear everything that goes on in this dump". The applause in the first scene foreshadows the tension of Barton's move west, mixed as it is with the sound of an ocean wave crashing – an image which is shown onscreen soon thereafter. Another symbolic sound is the hum of a mosquito. Although his producer insists that these parasites don't live in Los Angeles (since "mosquitos breed in swamps; this is a desert"), its distinctive sound is heard clearly as Barton watches a bug circle overhead in his hotel room. Later, he arrives at meetings with mosquito bites on his face. The insect also figures prominently into the revelation of Audrey's death; Barton slaps a mosquito feeding on her corpse, and suddenly realizes she's been murdered. The high pitch of the mosquito's hum is echoed in the high strings used for the movie's score. During filming, the Coens were contacted by an animal rights group who expressed concern about how mosquitoes would be treated. The score was composed by Carter Burwell, who has worked with the Coens since their first film. Unlike earlier projects, however – the Irish folk tune used for "Miller's Crossing" and an American folk song as the basis for "Raising Arizona" – Burwell wrote the music for "Barton Fink" without a specific inspiration. The score was released in 1996 on a compact disc, combined with the score for the Coens' film "Fargo". Several songs used in the film are laden with meaning. At one point Mayhew stumbles away from Barton and Audrey, drunk. As he wanders, he hollers the folk song "Old Black Joe". Composed by Stephen Foster, it tells the tale of an elderly slave preparing to join his friends in "a better land". Mayhew's rendition of the song coincides with his condition as an oppressed employee of Capitol Pictures; it foreshadows Barton's own situation at the movie's end. When he finishes writing his script, Barton celebrates by dancing at a USO show. The song used in this scene is a rendition of "Down South Camp Meeting", a swing tune. Its lyrics (unheard in the film) state: "Git ready (Sing) / Here they come! The choir's all set." These lines echo the title of Barton's play, "Bare Ruined Choirs". As the celebration erupts into a melee, the intensity of the music increases, and the camera zooms into the cavernous hollow of a trumpet. This sequence mirrors the camera's zoom into a sink drain just before Audrey is murdered earlier in the film. Sources, inspirations, and allusions. Inspiration for the film came from several sources, and it contains allusions to many different people and events. At one point in the picnic scene, as Mayhew wanders drunkenly away from Barton and Audrey, he calls out: "Silent upon a peak in Darien!" This is the last line from John Keats's 1816 sonnet "On First Looking into Chapman's Homer". The literary reference not only demonstrates the character's knowledge of classic texts, but the poem's reference to the Pacific Ocean matches Mayhew's announcement that he will "jus' walk on down to the Pacific, and from there I'll ... improvise". The title of Barton's play, "Bare Ruined Choirs", comes from line four of Sonnet 73 by William Shakespeare. The poem's focus on aging and death connects to the movie's exploration of artistic difficulty. Other academic allusions are presented elsewhere, often with extreme subtlety. For example, a brief shot of the title page in a Mayhew novel indicates the publishing house of "Swain and Pappas". This is likely a reference to Marshall Swain and George Pappas, philosophers whose work focuses on themes explored in the movie, including the limitations of knowledge and nature of being. One critic notes that Barton's fixation on the stain across the ceiling of his hotel room matches the protagonist's behavior in the short story "The Enduring Chill" by author Flannery O'Connor.
751561	Gospel Hill is a 2008 film directed and produced by Giancarlo Esposito, who also stars in the film. The film was released on February 10, 2009 on DVD in the United States after being at numerous film festivals. Plot. "Gospel Hill" tells the intersecting story of two men in the fictional South Carolina town of Julia. Danny Glover plays John Malcolm, the son of a slain civil rights activist Paul Malcolm (Samuel L. Jackson, in an uncredited role). Jack Herrod (Tom Bower) is the white former sheriff who never officially solved the murder. Their paths begin to cross when a development corporation comes to town with plans to raze Julia's historic African-American community of Gospel Hill, now fallen into disrepair, to build a golf course. John Malcolm's wife Sarah (Angela Bassett), a schoolteacher, seems alone in her opposition to the project, which is being endorsed by Gospel Hill's prominent African-American physician, Dr. Palmer (Esposito). Meanwhile, a young white teacher (Julia Stiles) comes to town and falls for a handsome young landscaper (Taylor Kitsch), whose business is booming thanks to Dr. Palmer's patronage.
1075528	Minnie and Moskowitz is a film by John Cassavetes, starring his wife, Gena Rowlands, and actor Seymour Cassel in the title roles of Minnie and Moskowitz, respectively. Plot. Following a break-up, Minnie Moore, a museum curator, becomes disillusioned by love and meaningful relationships. But after a seemingly chance encounter, she meets Seymour Moskowitz, a parking-lot attendant. After this event, Moskowitz falls in love with Minnie, trying desperately to get her to love him back. Production. It was one of a small number of low-budget (less than $1 million) films bankrolled by Universal Studios in the early 70s, in an attempt to copy the success of "Easy Rider". Several months after the film's release, Universal Studios decided to shorten the running time by cutting out a scene near the beginning of the film, even though it violated their contract with Cassavetes. All releases (including the Anchor Bay DVD) since that time are missing this scene. Reception. In 1973, Cassavetes was nominated for a Writers Guild of America Award for Best Comedy Written Directly for the Screen.
520463	♙ Raymond Oliver Cruz Ilustre, better known by his screen name Rayver Cruz (born July 20, 1989), is a Filipino actor, dancer and singer. Personal life. Rayver is a member of the Cruz family, a noted family line in the Philippine entertainment industry. He has two older brothers, Rodjun Cruz and Omar Cruz-Ilustre. His father, Rodolfo Cruz, Sr. (1934–2009), recently died from kidney failure. He is currently part of ABS-CBN contract talents. Rayver also appears on the noontime variety show ASAP XV. He finished Grade 6 in Maria Montessori School in Visayas Ave Quezon City. He is a talent of Star Magic. Cruz started as a child actor in the GMA show "Kiss Muna" but later moved to ABS-CBN. His first lead role was via the primetime TV series "Spirits" as Red in (2005) with actress Maja Salvador. He played another lead role as Mythos in the primetime show "Rounin" in (2007). Rayver is also a cousin of singer actress Sheryl Cruz, Sunshine Cruz, Geneva Cruz, and Donna Cruz. And the ex-boyfriend of The Popstar Princess, Sarah Geronimo
1555142	Sarah Jane Hyland (born November 24, 1990) is an American actress best known for her role as oldest sibling Haley Dunphy on the ABC sitcom "Modern Family". Early life. Hyland was born in Manhattan, New York, the daughter of actors Melissa Canardo and Edward James Hyland. She is the older sister of actor Ian Hyland, who is four years younger. Hyland attended the Professional Performing Arts School in Manhattan alongside Andrea Bowen, Taylor Momsen, Gregory Malek-Jones and Paul Iacono. Career. Hyland has been acting since she was five years old, with her first role as Howard Stern's daughter in "Private Parts". She went on in her career to portray such roles as Molly in the 1999 remake of "Annie", and has played Brooke Shields' daughter, Maddie Healy, in "Lipstick Jungle" on NBC. Hyland is featured in an Olive Garden commercial along with actress Molly Culver, and has also appeared on Broadway playing the young Jackie O in "Grey Gardens" the musical. Hyland currently plays Haley Dunphy on the ABC sitcom "Modern Family", for which she has won a Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Comedy Series, along with the rest of the show's cast. Since 2009, Hyland has been dating and living with actor Matt Prokop, whom she met while auditioning for "". In 2011, Hyland and Prokop co-starred in the Disney Channel Original Movie "Geek Charming". In 2012, Hyland appeared in the movie "Struck by Lightning" alongside Chris Colfer. In May 2012, Hyland revealed that she has had a lifetime battle with kidney dysplasia. Hyland received a kidney transplant, donated by her father, on April 13, 2012. In September 2012, it was announced that she will be part of a Nintendo 3DS ad campaign. Dianna Agron and Gabby Douglas are part of the campaign as well.
1592106	Clara Peller (August 4, 1902 – August 11, 1987), was a retired manicurist and American character actress who, at the age of 81, starred in the 1984 "Where's the beef?" advertising campaign for the Wendy's fast food restaurant chain, created by the Dancer Fitzgerald Sample advertising agency. Life and career. Born in Illinois, Clara Peller lived for most of her early life in Chicago, although she later moved to the suburban North Shore area to be near her daughter. Married at age 20 to a local jeweler, she was divorced eight years later, with two children, a boy and a girl. She worked for 35 years as a manicurist at a local Chicago beauty salon. At age 80, Peller was hired as a temporary manicurist for a television commercial set in a Chicago barbershop. Impressed by her no-nonsense manners and unique voice, the agency later asked her to sign a contract as an actress for the agency. Though hard of hearing and suffering from emphysema, which limited her ability to speak long lines of dialogue, Peller was quickly utilized in a number of TV spot advertisements, including a new commercial for the Wendy's Restaurant chain. Wendy's campaign. First airing on January 10, 1984, the Wendy's commercial portrayed a fictional fast-food competitor entitled "Big Bun", where three elderly ladies are served an enormous hamburger bun containing a minuscule hamburger patty. While two of the women are so engaged, they are interrupted by an irascible Peller, who searches in vain for customer assistance while making the outraged demand: "Where's the beef!". Sequels featured a crotchety Peller yelling her famous line in various scenes, such as storming drive-thru counters, or in telephone calls to a fast-food executive attempting to relax on his yacht, the 'S.S. Big Bun'. Peller's "Where's the beef" line became an instant catchphrase across the United States. The diminutive octogenarian actress made the three-word phrase a cultural phenomenon, and herself a cult star. At Wendy's, sales jumped 31% to $945 million in 1985 worldwide. Wendy's senior vice president for communications, Denny Lynch, stated at the time that "with Clara we accomplished as much in five weeks as we did in 14½ years." Former Vice-President Walter Mondale also used the line against rival Senator Gary Hart in his bid for the Democratic nomination in the 1984 presidential campaign. While hugely popular, the advertising campaign proved to be short-lived, at least for Wendy's. Peller had made actor scale wages - $317.40 per day - for the initial Wendy's TV commercial of the campaign in January 1984. Her fee for subsequent work as a Wendy's spokesperson was not disclosed, though Peller admitted in an interview with "People" magazine to having earned US$30,000 from the first two commercials and profits from product tie-in sales. Wendy's later alleged that the company had paid Peller a total of $500,000 for her work on the campaign, though Peller denied earning that much. The actress had interpreted her Wendy's agreement as allowing her to participate in any commercials for products that did not compete with Wendy's hamburgers. She subsequently signed a contract with the Campbell Soup Company to appear in an advertisement for Prego Pasta Plus spaghetti sauce. In the Prego commercial, Peller examines the Prego sauce and after wondering "Where's the beef?" declares, "I found it! I really found it". However, after the Prego commercial aired on television in 1985, Wendy's management decided to terminate her contract, contending that the Prego commercial implies "that Clara found the beef at somewhere other than Wendy's restaurants". In announcing the dismissal, Wendy's Denny Lynch stated, "Clara can find the beef only in one place, and that is Wendy's". Peller's response was short and swift: "I've made them millions, and they don't appreciate me." Following the conclusion of the "Where's the beef" campaign, Wendy's Restaurants entered a prolonged two-year sales slump. Vice President Lynch later admitted that consumer awareness of the Wendy's brand did not recover for another five years, with the advent of a new, humorous line of TV commercials featuring the brand's founder, Dave Thomas. Final appearances and death. Despite the setback with Wendy's, Peller continued to make the most of her new-found fame, granting numerous press interviews and making several guest TV appearances. She regularly amused interviewers and friends by claiming not to know exactly how old she was, once telling a frustrated Social Security clerk (who was given three different ages by Ms. Peller) that she was "whichever one will get me Social Security". On April 14, 1984, Peller made an uncredited cameo appearance on "Saturday Night Live" which was guest hosted that night by 1972 Democratic presidential candidate George McGovern. She also made an appearance in the low-rated, low-budget 1985 Neal Israel comedy, "Moving Violations", alongside John Murray, Sally Kellerman, Fred Willard, and Jennifer Tilly, where she played the straight-man friend to Nedra Volz's character who was a haphazard driver needing to renew her license at traffic school. In that film, Peller uttered “Where’s the bags?”—a reference to her Wendy’s commercials fame. In Larry Cohen’s "The Stuff", she appeared with Abe Vigoda in a commercial shouting, “Where’s the stuff?” On April 7, 1986, she even made an appearance at WWE’s "Wrestlemania 2" pay-per-view event at Chicago’s Rosemont Horizon where she was the guest time keeper for the 20-man invitational over-the top-rope Battle royal involving both wrestlers and NFL players of the 1970s and ’80s, including members of the then Super Bowl champions the Chicago Bears. Peller was just one of a host of celebrities who were involved in the PPV classic. Peller died on August 11, 1987, in Chicago, one week after her 85th birthday. She is buried in Waldheim Jewish Cemetery.
589575	Lalita Pawar (18 April 1916 – 24 February 1998) was a prolific Indian actress, who later became famous as a character actress, appearing in over 700 films in Hindi and Marathi cinema, where she gave hits like, "Netaji Palkar" (1938), made by Bhalji Pendharkar, New Hana Pictures’ "Sant Damaji", Navyug Chitrapat’s "Amrit", written by VS Khandekar, and Chhaya Films’ "Gora Kumbhar". Her other memorable roles were in film, "Anari" (1959), "Shri 420" and "Mr & Mrs 55", and the role of Manthara, in Ramanand Sagar's television epic serial, "Ramayan". Biography. Born Amba Laxman Rao Shagun, on 18 April 1916, into an orthodox family in Yevle in Nashik, where her father Laxman Rao Shagun was a rich silk and cotton piecegoods merchant, she started her acting career at age nine in the film, "Raja Harishchandra" (1928), and later went on to play lead roles in silent era and 1940's films, in a career that lasted until the end of her life, spanning seven decades. She co-produced and acted in a silent film, "Kailash" (1932), and later produced another film, "Duniya Kya Hai" in 1938, a talkie. In 1942, as a part of a scene in the movie "Jung-E-Azadi", actor Master Bhagwan was to slap her hard. Being a new actor, he accidentally slapped her very hard, which resulted in facial paralysis and a burst left eye vein. Three years of treatment later, she was left with a defective left eye; thus she had to abandon lead roles, and switch to character roles, which won her much of her fame later in life
1065320	Michael Elliot "Mike" Epps (born November 18, 1970) is an American stand-up comedian, actor, film producer, writer and rapper. He is best known for playing Day-Day Jones in "Next Friday" and the sequel-to-the-sequel, "Friday After Next", and also appearing in "The Hangover", as "Black Doug". He was the voice of Boog in "Open Season 2" (the sequel to "Open Season"), but was replaced by Matthew J. Munn in "Open Season 3". As of 2010, Epps was the executive producer on a documentary about the life story of a former member of Tupac Shakur's Outlawz, "Napoleon: Life of an Outlaw". He is also known for playing L.J. in ' and ' in 2004 and 2007 respectively. Early life. Epps was born at Wishard Hospital in Indianapolis, Indiana, the son of Mary Reed and Tommy Epps. Epps' natural comedic ability was encouraged at an early age, and he began performing stand-up as a teenager. Epps moved to Atlanta where he worked at the Comedy Act Theater, before moving to Brooklyn to star in "Def Comedy Jam" in 1995. Epps ended up on the "Def Comedy Jam" tour and starred in two of HBO's "Def Comedy Jam" broadcasts. Career. Stand-up comedy. Epps began his professional career by joining the "Def Comedy Jam" tour in 1995 and starred in two of HBO's Def Comedy Jam broadcasts. Movie career. Epps' first on-screen appearance came in Vin Diesel's directorial debut, "Strays" in 1997. In 1999, Epps was then cast as Ice Cube's co-star (effectively, Chris Tucker's replacement) in the sequel, "Next Friday". This came after weeks of auditions after Ice Cube attended a stand-up set Epps did, and then asked Epps to try out for the part of Day-Day Jones. His role as Day-Day Jones was a breakthrough for the new actor, who was already familiar to much of the audience from his stand-up work . Later that year, Epps had a cameo in "3 Strikes", and supported Jamie Foxx in "Bait". Epps had a voice role in the 2001 movie "Dr. Dolittle 2" as Sonny, and finished the year with a featured role as comical pimp Baby Powder in "How High", starring Method Man and Redman. Epps reunited with Ice Cube in 2002 as the bumbling thief to Ice Cube's bounty hunter in "All About the Benjamins", and again re-teamed with Cube in the continuing "Friday" saga's latest entry "Friday After Next". Epps also got to voice another bear character (Boog) in the 2008 film "Open Season 2" after Martin Lawrence declined the role. In 2010, Epps also released a stand-up comedy special, "Under Rated & Never Faded", and hosted the "2010 BET Hip Hop Awards". Epps' name has become synonymous with a particular style of humor, through his appearance with several other African-American artists in the same genre. Aside from featuring Cube, the common thread of these films was the hilarious prominence of marijuana-smoking comic characters, like the ones portrayed by Epps. Epps most recently starred alongside Jordin Sparks and Whitney Houston in the 2012 remake of Sparkle, in his first non-comedic role as the main antagonist, Satin. A stand-up comic by day, an evil and abusive drug kingpin by night in engaged in an affair with the titular character's sister. Epps' performance was well-received by critics and audiences. Epps is currently working on a baseball-themed movie, entitled "Bad Behavior", alongside teen quartet Mindless Behavior, in which he plays their coach, André Parker. Music. Epps recently had a small part in the song "A Bay Bay" by Hurricane Chris, doing the Rick James move. He appeared in the music video "Gangsta Nation" by Westside Connection. He also hosted a Jim Jones and Skull Gang album entitled "Jim Jones & Skull Gang Present A Tribute To Bad Santa Starring Mike Epps". Epps has also made a song called "Trying To Be a Gangsta" with Pooh Bear. Epps also has a song called "Big Girls", which came out in 2008. It was originally recorded by Bow Wow, and featuring Yung Joc. The song is currently on iTunes and can be found on his album, "Funny Bidness - Da Album", which was released October 27, 2009. Epps also has featured in rapper French Montana's 'Mac wit da Cheese' mixtape which was released April 19, 2009. Epps is also featured on the Dom Kennedy song "Intro/Hard Work" on his FutureStreet/DrugSounds mixtape. Part of his standup in "Under Rated & Never Faded" was sampled for the song "I'm on Everything" by Bad Meets Evil on their first EP, "". Also on Runaway, Born Sinner the second album from rapper J. Cole. Super Bowl XLVI. Epps served as the "Super Bowl ambassador" in his native Indianapolis for the 2012 Super Bowl. He was featured in commercials promoting the Super Bowl Village and he made special appearances in the Village during the week of the Super Bowl. Personal life. Epps married Michelle McCain in July 2006; they currently live in Beverly Hills, California. He met her while filming "The Fighting Temptations" (in which they appeared alongside Cuba Gooding, Jr. and Beyoncé). McCain had a minor, non-speaking role in the movie as Epps' character's girlfriend. Epps has also dedicated his time and money to the Tupac Amaru Shakur Foundation for the Arts in Georgia. Epps has a daughter, Bria Epps, from a previous relationship (b. 1999). Television. The game motting jackie
584538	Thevar Magan ( "Son of the Thevar") is a 1992 Indian Tamil film produced, written and starring Kamal Hassan in the title role. It was directed by Bharathan and also stars Sivaji Ganesan, Nassar, Revathi and Gouthami in pivotal roles. The film score and soundtrack are composed by Ilaiyaraaja. The film was a blockbuster and completed a 175-day run at the box office. India chose this film as its entry for the Best Foreign Language Film for the 65th Academy Awards. The film was screened at the Toronto Film Festival in 1994. The film won five National Film Awards, including the Best Tamil Film Award, Best Supporting Actress Award (Revathi), and a Special Jury Award (Sivaji Ganesan). The film was dubbed into Telugu under the title "Kshatriya Putrudu". While S. P. Balasubrahmanyam provided dubbing for Kamal Hassan, Kongara Jaggayya provided voice for Sivaji Ganesan. It was later remade into the Hindi film "Virasat" (1997) by Priyadarshan and in Kannada as "Tandege Takka Maga" (2006) by S. Mahendar. Plot. Saktivelu (Kamal Haasan) returns home to his father, Periya Thevar’s (Sivaji Ganesan) village in Tamil Nadu, after completing his education in London. Much to his father’s annoyance, he brings his westernized girlfriend (Gautami) with him to meet his family. Periya Thevar is deeply offended since it is tradition that the family elders choose the youngster's spouses. To make things worse, Saktivelu reveals his plans on opening a chain of restaurants in Chennai which saddens Periya Thevar as he wanted his son to help the villagers improve their lifestyle with his level of education. Periya Thevar is a well respected village chief. His younger half-brother (Kaka Radhakrishnan) and nephew Maya Thevar (Nassar) hold a huge grudge against him over a falling out. The entire village suffers from a spillover of this longstanding family feud as most of the village and its surrounding areas that fall within its jurisdiction is divided between the brothers. Since Maya Thevar always tries to one up Periya Thevar, it puts them at loggerheads with each other. Saktivelu spends time in the village with his girlfriend by re-visiting his childhood memories. They come across an old temple which has been closed off on Maya Thevar’s instructions. He insists on entering and his friend and servant Esaki (Vadivelu) breaks open the lock for them to look around. Maya Thevar hears of this and a brutal riot is started among the two village factions. Periya Thevar, in order to quell the situation, contemplates on apologizing to his opponents. Sakthivelu feels it should be him or Esaki who should apologize. When Saktivelu asks for Esaki, he learns that Maya Thevar has amputated Esaki’s hand for opening the temple. In order to prevent further escalation of the situation Saktivelu, with permission from his father, enlists the help of his friends in the government and opens the temple for all legally. Slighted by this, Maya Thevar hires goons to break a dam protecting a part of the village faction that supports Periya Thevar. Although one of the villagers spots one of the goons near the dam, he does not think much of it. The dam is damaged by explosives used by the goons which results in flooding of half the village. This results in numerous deaths including infants which deeply saddens Saktivelu. He spots the goon who placed the explosives again in the village and gives chase. After capturing, he hands the goon over to the police but the goon does not speak of Maya Thevar's involvement due to fear for his own family's safety. Later Maya Thevar closes a portion of his land, preventing the public from reaching the main road easily. Sakthivelu and his father invite them for talks at village Panchayat to resolve the standoff due the riots and flooding. In the village panchayat, accusations fly from both sides. With no evidence backing up the truth, Maya Thevar accuses Periya Thevar for orchestrating various attacks on his brother's family. Disrespected and broken, Periya Thevar returns to his home and passes away shortly. Saktivelu takes over his father’s duties as the head of the village. As time passes, this incident dies down. The villagers express concern to Saktivelu about going around the piece of land belonging to Maya Thevar’s side of the village everyday to work in their farm which causes a much longer travelling time. Saktivelu reasons with the owner of the land to open it up for all villagers to pass so that their long commute is shortened. Although understanding and willing, the land owner is afraid of Maya Thevar’s backlash especially since he has a daughter (Revathi). Saktivelu assuages his fear by arranging marriage between a well-to-do person from his village to the land owner's daughter. Everybody involved happily agrees and the land owner opens up the land for everyone. On the day of the wedding, the groom runs away, fearing Maya Thevar. The landowner and his daughter are distraught over this claiming that it is a huge disrespect to his family. He opines that even if someone marries his daughter, they have to live in constant fear. Saktivelu then gets permission from the landowner and weds his daughter. Although Saktivelu still has feelings for his girlfriend and his new bride is very shy, they overcome their awkwardness and move on. Soon, his girlfriend returns and learns the truth. Although saddened by the turn of events, she understands the situation and leaves. Saktivelu, too, closes the chapter about his girlfriend and starts his new life with his wife. Maya Thevar, agitated by the opening of the land, plants a bomb during the village festival. This results in deaths on both sides of the village. Both factions of the village, wanting revenge, go after Maya Thevar and his family. Saktivelu protects the innocent family and helps them get away from the villagers. Appreciative of Saktivelu's efforts to protect them, they give away Maya Thevar's hiding location. Saktivelu goes to meet Maya Thevar and asks him to surrender to the police before the villagers kill him. Maya Thevar’s rabid hatred for Saktivelu makes him reject his offer of help. Maya Thevar, blaming Saktivelu for all his problems, tries to kill Saktivelu. In the struggle that follows, Saktivelu accidentally kills Maya Thevar. Although other villagers are willing to take the blame for the kill, Saktivelu gives himself up to the police. Awards and honours. 1993 National Film Awards (India) Filmfare Awards South Soundtrack. The soundtrack features 9 songs composed by Ilaiyaraaja to lyrics written by Vaali. The song "Inji Idupazhaka" was inspired from "Yeh Dil Deewana Hai", composed by S. D. Burman for the film "Ishq Par Zor Nahin".
137563	Dark Tide is a 2012 American action thriller film directed by John Stockwell, produced by Jeanette Buerling and Matthew E. Chausse and written by Ronnie Christensen and Amy Sorlie. The film is based on a story by Amy Sorlie and stars Halle Berry, Olivier Martinez, and Ralph Brown. Plot. Kate is a shark expert whose business has been failing since a shark attack killed a fellow diver under her command. Once dubbed "the shark whisperer", Kate is haunted by the memory of the attack and unable to get back into the water. With bills piling up and the bank about to foreclose on Kate's boat, Kate's ex-boyfriend Jeff presents her with a lucrative opportunity to lead a thrill-seeking millionaire businessman on a dangerous shark dive – outside the cage. Battling her self-doubts and fear, Kate accepts the proposal and sets a course for the world's deadliest feeding ground – Shark Alley Production. Production began in July 2010 in False Bay, Cape Town, South Africa, and shot for six weeks on a small boat with real great white sharks. The production then moved to the UK for three weeks filming in Pinewood Studios on the underwater stage. The soundtrack was written and performed by Mark Sayfritz.
520515	Martina Aileen de las Alas, popularly known as Ai-Ai delas Alas, is a Filipino comedienne and film actress, dubbed as the Philippine Queen of Comedy and Comedy Concert Queen. Delas Alas first gained nationwide recognition for her movie "Ang Tanging Ina" which became a blockbuster hit. Due to the movie's popularity, it received a TV series spin-off with Alas again taking the lead role. The movie eventually received two sequels; ""Ang Tanging Ina N'yong Lahat"" and ""Ang Tanging Ina Mo (Last na 'To!)"". Personal life. Delas Alas is the daughter of Engr. Rosendo de las Alas (1920–2008) and was adopted by her spinster aunt Justa delas Alas. She earned a Mass Communication degree from Far Eastern University (FEU) in 1985. She was married to actor Miguel Vera and had two children. She also had a son from her previous relationship. Before acting, she worked as a saleslady in a department store and also as a stand-up comic in comedy bars along Metro Manila. She married 28-year old American businessman, Jed Salang on April 3, 2013. Salang was 20 years her junior. The marriage was short lived and Delas Alas confirmed their split on May 19. Career. Delas Alas has done several movies including blockbuster hit "Ang Tanging Ina" produced by Star Cinema. It was followed by more comedy films like "Volta" where she played a superhero, which was followed by a TV series. In the noon-time television show "MTB: Ang Saya Saya" she was one of the lead hosts. In prime-time teleseries, she played an important role in the TV remake of "Bituing Walang Ningning" as Dorina's mother. She also released her first album with Star Records entitled "Ang Tanging Ina Nyo", featuring six novelty tunes, with tracks including "Tanging Ina Nyo", "Volta", "Dance-phabet", "Tong Twalya", "Si Manloloko" and "Super Papa". She has also acted in the films "Ang Cute Ng Ina Mo", "Ang Tanging Ina N'yong Lahat" and "Pasukob".
1065648	Play Misty for Me is a 1971 American psychological thriller film, directed by and starring Clint Eastwood, in his directorial debut. Jessica Walter and Donna Mills co-star. The original music score was composed by Dee Barton. Plot. Dave Garver (Clint Eastwood) is a KRML radio jockey who broadcasts nightly from a studio in Carmel-by-the-Sea, California, often incorporating poetry into his program. At his favorite bar, seemingly by coincidence, he encounters a woman named Evelyn Draper (Jessica Walter). Dave drives Evelyn home, where she reveals that their meeting was not coincidental; she deliberately sought him out after hearing the bar mentioned on his radio show. He guesses correctly that she is a frequent caller who always requests the jazz standard "Misty", then he and Evelyn make love. From this point on, Evelyn displays her borderline personality disorder. She begins by showing up at Dave's house uninvited. She also disrupts a business meeting, mistakenly accusing Dave's lunch companion of being a date. Despite his efforts to let Evelyn down easily, she alternately feels abandoned, lonely and angry. She attempts suicide in his home. Then, after Dave rejects her one time too many, Evelyn breaks into his home, where his housekeeper finds her maniacally vandalizing his possessions. Evelyn viciously attacks the woman with a knife and is subsequently committed to a psychiatric hospital. Dave rekindles a relationship with his ex-girlfriend, Tobie Williams (Donna Mills), and for a while, all is well. Evelyn is nowhere to be seen. One night, Evelyn calls the studio to request "Misty," but mainly to let him know that she has been released and is moving to Hawaii. She quotes from an Edgar Allan Poe poem, "Annabel Lee". That night, while Dave is asleep, she tries to kill him with a butcher knife. Evelyn flees and Dave contacts the police. Tobie is told all the gory details about Evelyn and is cautioned to stay away from Dave until the woman is caught. She plays it safe and spends time at home with a girl who answered her ad for a roommate. The girl's name is Annabel. She doesn't realize that Annabel is Evelyn in disguise until she notices the scars from Evelyn's suicide attempt. Before she can get away, Tobie is taken hostage. Evelyn also murders McCallum (John Larch), a police detective who had come to check on Tobie. At the radio station, Dave makes the connection between Tobie's roommate and the quote from "Annabel Lee." When he calls Tobie to warn her, Evelyn answers and says she and Tobie are waiting for him. Dave switches from a live show to taped music and rushes to the house, where he finds Tobie bound and gagged. Evelyn attacks again with the butcher knife. Unable to take it from her, he punches Evelyn, knocking her out a window and down a cliff. Dave and Tobie look down at Evelyn's battered body as Dave's voice on the taped radio show dedicates "Misty" to Evelyn one final time. Production. Before Malpaso Productions co-founder Irving Leonard died, he and Eastwood discussed a final film, one giving Eastwood the artistic control he desired by making his directorial debut. The film was "Play Misty for Me". Eastwood reflected on his new role: The script was originally conceived by Jo Heims, a former model and dancer turned secretary, and was polished by Dean Riesner. The idea of another love interest, with a level-headed girlfriend Tobie added to the plot, was a suggestion by Sonia Chernus, an editor who had been with Eastwood when he was initially spotted for "Rawhide". The film paved the way for many later stalker films (such as "Fatal Attraction"), particularly those with a psychotic female antagonist, and also those where the villain made an unexpected return. The TV series Starsky and Hutch copied almost all of the plot for their Season 3 story "Fatal Charm", embarrassingly aired on TV in the UK just days after "Play Misty for Me" was televised. The story-line was originally set in Los Angeles, but at Eastwood's insistence, the film was shot in the more comfortable surroundings of the actual Carmel-by-the-Sea, California, where he could shoot scenes at the local radio station, bars, and restaurants and at friends' houses. Eastwood has also long made Carmel his home, and was elected mayor there in 1986. Filming commenced in Monterey, California in September 1970, and although this was Eastwood's debut as film director, Don Siegel stood by to help and also had an acting role in the film as a bartender. Frequent collaborators of Siegel's, such as cinematographer Bruce Surtees, editor Carl Pingitore and composer Dee Barton, made up part of the filming team. Additional scenes were shot at the Monterey Jazz Festival in September 1970, featuring jazz greats Johnny Otis, Cannonball Adderley, and future Weather Report founder Joe Zawinul. (The commentator mentions: "That was the Cannonball Adderley group. They are playing at the Monterey Jazz Festival with Duke Ellington, Woody Herman, Joe Williams and many others. Now we are gonna hear from 'The Gator Creek Organization' and 'Feeling Fine'...".) "The Sardine Factory" is a real restaurant, still at the same location as in the film, at Prescott and Wave Street, just one block up from Cannery Row in Monterey. The radio station, KRML, was an actual jazz station in Carmel, whose studios were relocated to the Eastwood Building at San Carlos and 5th, in the same building as the Hog's Breath Inn (a restaurant that Eastwood owned). After a brief dark period in 2010, the radio station returned to the air in 2011. The rights to the song "Misty" were obtained after Eastwood saw Errol Garner perform at the Concord Music Festival in 1970. Eastwood also paid $2,000 for the use of the song "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face" by Roberta Flack. Meticulous planning and efficient directorship by Eastwood enabled the film to be made nearly $50,000 short of its $1 million budget, and it was completed four or five days ahead of schedule. The film features a romantic montage (views of Garver and Tobie peacefully roaming by the seaside and through the woods), backed by Flack's recording, an Ewan MacColl torch song. Flack's version (after staying at Number 1 for six weeks during the spring) became the 1972 Billboard Hot 100 top single of the year. The film's title can be seen on a cinema marquee in the beginning sequence of Siegel's later film starring Eastwood, "Dirty Harry". Reception. "Play Misty for Me" premiered in October 1971 at the San Francisco Film Festival and was widely released in November. The film was a financial success, grossing $10.6 million at the box office against a budget of only $725,000. It earned over $5 million in domestic rentals. The film has been given mostly positive reviews, with an 83% "fresh" rating on Rotten Tomatoes. In his 1971 review of the film, Roger Ebert wrote, ""Play Misty for Me" is not the artistic equal of "Psycho", but in the business of collecting an audience into the palm of its hand and then squeezing hard, it is supreme." Critics such as Jay Cocks in "Time", Andrew Sarris in the "Village Voice", and Archer Winsten in the "New York Post" all praised Eastwood's directorial skills and the film, including his performance in the scenes with Walter. Accolades. Jessica Walter was nominated for the 1972 Golden Globe Award for Best Actress - Drama. Jane Fonda received the award for "Klute". "Play Misty for Me" was number 26 on Bravo!'s "30 Even Scarier Movie Moments."
590753	Anjali Devi () (born 24 August 1927) is a veteran Telugu & Tamil actress and producer. She is well known for her mythological role as Sita in "Lava Kusha" and roles in movies like "Suvarna Sundari" and "Anarkali". In Hindi cinema, she is better known for her roles in 'Devta' opposite Gemini Ganeshan and 'Sati Savitri' opposite Mahipal and 'Bhakta Prahlad'. The songs picturised on her like 'Tum gagan ke chandrama ho', 'jeevan dor tumhi sang bandhi', 'kabhi to miloge, jeevan sathi' from 'Sati Savitri' are still quite popular. Biography. She is from Peddapuram, East Godavari district in Andhra Pradesh, India, and later settled in Chennai. Anjali Devi was born to Nukayah as Anjani Kumar (birth name) later changed to Anjani Kumari when acting in dramas. Director C. Pullaiah garu changed her name to Anjali Devi. She was a theater artist before entering into movies. Her film debut was as Lohitasya in "Raja Harishchandra" in 1936. Her first movie as a heroine was "Kashtajeevi" by L. V. Prasad In 1940, but that movie was abandoned after three reels shooting. Later, C.Pullayya discovered her and give her the opportunity to star as Mohini in Gollabhama. Based on her acting ability and looks, she became a star overnight in 1947. She eventually acted in more than 350 Telugu films and also in a few Tamil and Kannada films as the heroine. She married P. Adinarayana Rao, a music director, in 1940. They have two sons. Together, they produced many Telugu films under the banner of Anjali Pictures. She acted in "Lava Kusha", a milestone film and the first color film in the Telugu film industry in 1963. She acted in various roles, such as a damsel, angel, dancer, demon, goddess, traditional woman and later in motherly roles. Her granddaughter, Saila Rao, is also an actress. Career. As actress. In 1936 she appeared in a minor role in "Raja Harishchandra" and then played the lead role in L. V. Prasad's "Kashtajeevi". She is well known for playing Sita in "Lava Kusha" and her performances in films like "Suvarna Sundari" and "Anarkali" were also appreciated. She has acted in nearly 500 films, which includes Telugu, Tamil and Kannada language films. "Brundavanam" (1992), "Anna Vadina" (1993) and "Police Alludu" (1994) were the last few films of her career. In Balaiah's "Police Alludu" and "Anna Vadina" she appeared alongside Brahmanandam. As producer. In 1955 she produced the film "Anarkali", in which she herself played the lead role of Anarkali, with Akkineni Nageswara Rao as Salim. Then she produced V. Madhusudan Rao's "Bhakta Tukaram" and "Chandipriya". Bollywood and Tollywood actress Jayapradha played the lead role in her film "Chandipriya" alongside Shobhan Babu and Chiranjeevi. As a producer she has produced 27 films.
480030	David Boreanaz (pronounced , ; born May 16, 1969) is an American actor, television producer, and director, known for his role as the vampire Angel on the supernatural drama series "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" and "Angel", and as FBI Special Agent Seeley Booth on the television crime drama "Bones". Early life. David Boreanaz was born on May 16, 1969 in Buffalo, New York, where his father, Dave Roberts (né Boreanaz), was working as a weather forecaster and children's show host as Dave Thomas, for ABC affiliate WKBW-TV, and his mother, Patti Boreanaz, was a travel agent. He is of Italian descent on his father's side (the surname Boreanaz is of Northern Italian origin). His mother is of half Slovak and part Irish, German, French, and Swiss descent. When Boreanaz was nine years old, the family moved to the Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, area after his father took a job at WPVI-TV, the ABC affiliate in Philadelphia. Boreanaz attended Rosemont School of the Holy Child in his early years and then high school at Malvern Preparatory School in Malvern, Pennsylvania and graduated from Ithaca College in Ithaca, New York in 1991. Career. David Boreanaz's first paid acting appearance was a 1993 guest spot on the American sitcom, "Married... with Children", as Kelly's two-timing biker boyfriend, who gets pummeled by her father, Al. He was cast in the television series "Buffy the Vampire Slayer", after being suggested for the role to Marti Noxon by one of Boreanaz's neighbors, after walking his dog past their house. In the cult series, he played the mysterious Angel, a vampire cursed with a soul as punishment for his past sins. The show became enormously successful and Boreanaz starred in a spin-off series, "Angel", which gave the character a chance to evolve and concentrated on Angel's battle for redemption for the sins he committed before he regained his soul. He appeared on "Buffy" from 1997 to 1999, at which point he began starring in "Angel", which ran until 2004, with some guest appearances on "Buffy" after his departure. Boreanaz's only starring role in a major theatrical film was in 2001's slasher horror film, "Valentine", alongside Denise Richards and Katherine Heigl. In 2002, he had a supporting role in a Lifetime television movie titled "I'm with Lucy". He was also to appear in the 2002 film Resident Evil as the main character, but turned down the role. In 2003, he appeared in the music video for singer Dido's hit single "White Flag", and was the voice of Leon (Squall Leonhart) in the video game "Kingdom Hearts", but he did not reprise his role in the sequel. In 2005, Boreanaz began starring opposite Emily Deschanel on the current prime time television series, "Bones". He also appeared in "These Girls", a Canadian film in which he played a biker; the film received a limited theatrical release in Canada in March 2006, after premiering at the Toronto Film Festival and the Vancouver International Film Festival. He has also starred in the independent films "Mr. Fix It" and "Suffering Man's Charity" (released on DVD as "Ghost Writer"), as well as the direct-to-DVD sequel "" in which he starred alongside Tara Reid. In 2006, he starred in another DVD release, "The Hard Easy", which also starred Nick Lachey. In that same year, he also voiced Hal Jordan in the direct to video DC Comics animated feature "". In the season three finale of his TV series "Bones", Boreanaz's character Seeley Booth is seen in his bathtub reading an issue of Green Lantern, the character he voiced in that feature. As well as being a producer on "Bones" since its third season, Boreanaz also directed a number of episodes, including "The Bones That Foam," "The Parts in the Sum of the Whole," "The Bullet in the Brain," and "The Blackout in the Blizzard." It has also since been reported by Hart Hanson, the creator of "Bones," that Boreanaz has directed and starred in the series' 100th episode airing in the fifth season. Boreanaz will be starring in independently made fantasy drama "Officer Down". In the 2011 movie "The Mighty Macs," Boreanaz plays the role of Ed Rush, NBA referee and husband of Immaculata basketball coach Cathy Rush, released to theaters on Friday, October 21, 2011. Personal life. Family. Boreanaz wed actress Jaime Bergman in November, 2001. They have two children. Affair with Rachel Uchitel. In 2010, Boreanaz, admitted to having an extramarital affair with Rachel Uchitel, one of the same women Tiger Woods was alleged to have cheated on his wife with. Shortly after Boreanaz's admission of the affair, text messages emerged on the Internet showing that indeed the affair was sexual in nature. At the time of Boreanaz's affair Jaime Bergman, his wife, was pregnant. Reconstructive surgery. In 2004, Boreanaz underwent reconstructive surgery on the anterior cruciate ligament of his left knee, a result of a running injury he suffered in high school that was not fully corrected at that time. His recovery did not prevent "Angel" production from continuing, but did limit his mobility and physical activities in several episodes, including his directorial debut, "Soul Purpose".
403316	Joseph Angelo D'Allesandro III (born December 31, 1948), better known as Joe Dallesandro, is an American actor and Warhol superstar. Although he never became a mainstream film star, Dallesandro is generally considered to be the most famous male sex symbol of American underground films of the 20th century, as well as a sex symbol of gay subculture. Dallesandro starred in "Flesh" as a teenage street hustler. "Rolling Stone" magazine in 1970 declared his second starring vehicle, "Trash", the "Best Film of the Year", making him a star of the youth culture, sexual revolution and subcultural New York art collective of the 1970s. Early life. He was born in Pensacola, Florida and raised in New York. His father, Joseph Angelo D'Allesandro II, was in the U.S. Navy, and his mother was 16-year-old Thelma Testman. By the time Dallesandro was five, his mother was serving five years in a Federal Penitentiary for interstate auto theft. Dallesandro and his brother, Bobby, were taken to New York with their father, who worked as an electrical engineer. Both boys were eventually placed into the Angel Guardian Home in Harlem, prior to being fostered by a couple in Brooklyn. The family later moved to North Babylon. The senior Dallesandro would visit them about once a month at their foster parents' home. Dallesandro was initially happy living with his foster parents, but he began to resent them thinking that they were preventing him from living with his father. Dallesandro began acting out and became aggressive. He repeatedly ran away from his foster home until his father finally relented and allowed him to live with him. At the age of 14, Dallesandro and his brother moved to Queens to live with their paternal grandparents and their father. At 15, he was expelled from school for punching the principal, who had insulted his father. After his expulsion, Dallesandro began hanging out with gangs and started stealing cars. In one such instance, Dallesandro panicked and smashed the stolen car he was driving through the gate of the Holland Tunnel. He was stopped by a police roadblock and shot once in the leg by police who mistakenly thought he was armed. Dallesandro managed to escape being caught by police, but was later arrested when his father took him to the hospital for his gunshot wound. He was sentenced to Camp Cass Rehabilitation Center for Boys in the Catskills in 1964. The following year, Dallesandro ran away from Camp Cass. He supported himself by nude modeling, appearing most notably in short films and magazine photos for Bob Mizer's "Athletic Model Guild". Career. Underground film career. Dallesandro met Andy Warhol and Paul Morrissey in 1967 while they were shooting "Four Stars", and they cast him in the film on the spot. Warhol would later comment "In my movies, everyone's in love with Joe Dallesandro." Dallesandro played a hustler in his third Warhol film, "Flesh" (1968), where he had several nude scenes. "Flesh" became a crossover hit with mainstream audiences, and Dallesandro became the most popular of the Warhol stars. "New York Times" film critic Vincent Canby wrote of him: "His physique is so magnificently shaped that men as well as women become disconnected at the sight of him." As Dallesandro's underground fame began to cross over into the popular culture, he graced the cover of "Rolling Stone" in April 1971. He was also photographed by some of the top celebrity photographers of the time: Francesco Scavullo, Annie Leibovitz, Richard Avedon. Dallesandro also appeared in "Lonesome Cowboys" (1968), "Trash" (1970), "Heat" (1972), a sardonic re-imagining of "Sunset Boulevard" with Sylvia Miles, "Andy Warhol's Frankenstein" and "Andy Warhol's Dracula" (both 1974) also directed by Morrissey. These last two films were shot in Europe. After filming was complete, Dallesandro chose not to return to the U.S. Mainstream career. He continued to star in films made mainly in France and Italy for the rest of the decade, returning to America in the 1980s. He made several mainstream films during the 1980s and 1990s. One of his first notable roles was that of 1920s gangster Lucky Luciano in Francis Coppola's "The Cotton Club". Working with manager/attorney Stann Findelle, his career enjoyed a resurgence. He had roles in "Critical Condition" (1987) opposite Richard Pryor, "Sunset" (1988) with Bruce Willis and James Garner, "Guncrazy" (1992) with Drew Barrymore, "Cry-Baby" (1990), and Steven Soderbergh's 1999 film "The Limey".
1032417	Thunderpants is a 2002 family film about a boy whose incredible capacity for flatulence gets him a job as an astronaut. The film was directed by Pete Hewitt, whose previous work included "Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey" (1991), and "The Borrowers" (1997). The script was written by Phil Hughes, based on a story by Peter Hewitt about a boy who dreams to be a spaceman, but has a problem with flatulence. Plot. Born with two stomachs, Patrick Smash (Bruce Cook) is uncontrollably and devastatingly flatulent. No more than thirty seconds after his birth, he first broke wind, horrifying his parents (Bronagh Gallagher, and Victor McGuire) and doctor (Robert Hardy). As he grew up, Patrick's farts became so uncontrollable and destructive that his father had to flee their home, as he was often injured by the sheer power of his son's awesome gaseous emissions, whose force is so strong that it can blow people over. Patrick is bullied at school as a result of his condition, but eventually finds strength in his disorder, ultimately gaining revenge on the school bully Damon (Joshua Herdman) by passing gas in his face, leaving him scarred for life. Patrick's only friend is child prodigy Alan A. Allen (Rupert Grint), who has anosmia, and, therefore, lacks the ability to smell. Alan and Patrick team up to make Thunderpants, reinforced short trousers strong enough to contain Patrick's emissions. Suddenly, Patrick learns that Alan went to America with the government to assist astronauts who are trapped in outer space, and Patrick finds that his condition may be of use to the spacemen in peril. Reception. Critical reception. The film has received a rating of 60% at the film review website Rotten Tomatoes, based upon 5 reviews. "Empire" magazine wrote in their review that "Thunderpants" is "a well-made, quirky oddity for adults, but a laugh riot for kids and Beano nostalgists...underneath all the expelled air it’s really just a simple tale of a boy finding his talent and making the most of it". The hosts of the RedLetterMedia web series "Best of the Worst" shared similar sentiments when reviewing the film with the consensus being that the movie was too charming and well-made to be considered a "bad" movie. During an appearance on "The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien", Paul Giamatti referred to this film as one of the high points in his career. Awards and nominations. "Thunderpants" was nominated for one award in 2002, in the Children's Section of the International Festival of Films for Children and Young People. The film was given the award at the ceremony.
1161238	Gilbert C. "Gil" Gerard (born January 23, 1943) is an American actor, most notable for his role as Captain William "Buck" Rogers in the 1979–1981 television series "Buck Rogers in the 25th Century". Early life. Gerard was born in Little Rock, Arkansas to a college instructor mother and a salesman father. While attending Little Rock Catholic High School for Boys, he was involved in acting. He worked at a Kroger grocery store in his teens. In 1960, he attended Maryknoll Seminary, in Glen Ellyn, Illinois and played the title role in an all male production of "The Music Man". He attended the University of Central Arkansas but dropped out before graduation. Career. Gerard was employed as an industrial chemist, and within a few years of starting he became regional manager of a large chemical company headed by governor Winthrop Rockefeller. Gerard's employers said they would appoint him as the firm's vice president if he undertook a master's degree course, so he quit rather than explain that he did not have a college degree.
1102700	Raoul Bott, ForMemRS (September 24, 1923 – December 20, 2005) was a Hungarian mathematician known for numerous basic contributions to geometry in its broad sense. He is best known for his Bott periodicity theorem, the Morse–Bott functions which he used in this context, and the Borel–Bott–Weil theorem. Early life. Bott was born in Budapest, Hungary, the son of Margit Kovacs and Rudolph Bott. His father was of Austrian descent, and his mother was of Hungarian descent; Bott was raised a Catholic by his mother and stepfather. Bott grew up in Slovakia and spent his working life in the United States. His family emigrated to Canada in 1938, and subsequently he served in the Canadian Army in Europe during World War II. Career. Bott later went to college at McGill University in Montreal, where he studied electrical engineering. He then earned a Ph.D. in mathematics from Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh in 1949. His thesis, titled "Electrical Network Theory", was written under the direction of Richard Duffin. Afterward, he began teaching at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. Bott continued his study at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. He was a professor at Harvard University from 1959 to 1999. In 2005, Dr. Bott died in San Diego after a battle with cancer. With Richard Duffin at Carnegie Mellon, Bott studied existence of electronic filters corresponding to given positive rational functions . In 1949 they proved a fundamental theorem of filter synthesis. Duffin and Bott extended earlier work by Otto Brune that requisite functions of complex frequency "s" could be realized by a passive network of inductors and capacitors. The proof, relying on induction on the sum of the degrees of the polynomials in the numerator and denominator of the rational function, was published in Journal of Applied Physics, volume 20, page 816. In his 2000 interview with Allyn Jackson of the American Mathematical Society, he explained that he sees "networks as discrete versions of harmonic theory", so his experience with network synthesis and electronic filter topology introduced him to algebraic topology. Bott met Arnold S. Shapiro at the IAS and they worked together. He studied the homotopy theory of Lie groups, using methods from Morse theory, leading to the Bott periodicity theorem (1956). In the course of this work, he introduced Morse–Bott functions, an important generalization of Morse functions. This led to his role as collaborator over many years with Michael Atiyah, initially via the part played by periodicity in K-theory. Bott made important contributions towards the index theorem, especially in formulating related fixed-point theorems, in particular the so-called 'Woods Hole fixed-point theorem', a combination of the Riemann–Roch theorem and Lefschetz fixed-point theorem (it is named after Woods Hole, Massachusetts, the site of a conference at which collective discussion formulated it). The major Atiyah–Bott papers on what is now the Atiyah–Bott fixed-point theorem were written in the years up to 1968; they collaborated further in recovering in contemporary language Ivan Petrovsky on Petrovsky lacunas of hyperbolic partial differential equations, prompted by Lars Gårding. In the 1980s, Atiyah and Bott investigated gauge theory, using the Yang–Mills equations on a Riemann surface to obtain topological information about the moduli spaces of stable bundles on Riemann surfaces. He is also well known in connection with the Borel–Bott–Weil theorem on representation theory of Lie groups via holomorphic sheaves and their cohomology groups; and for work on foliations. He introduced Bott–Samelson varieties and the Bott residue formula for complex manifolds and the Bott cannibalistic class. Awards. In 1964, he was awarded the Oswald Veblen Prize in Geometry by the American Mathematical Society. In 1983, he was awarded the Jeffery–Williams Prize by the Canadian Mathematical Society. In 1987, he was awarded the National Medal of Science. In 2000, he received the Wolf Prize. In 2005, he was elected an Overseas Fellow of the Royal Society of London. Students. Bott had 20 Ph.D. students, including Stephen Smale, Lawrence Conlon, Daniel Quillen, Peter Landweber, Robert MacPherson, Robert W. Brooks, Robin Forman and Kevin Corlette.
582688	Kunwara is an Indian Hindi film directed by David Dhawan, released on 14 July 2000. The film stars Govinda, Urmila Matondkar, Nagma, Om Puri and Johnny Lever in lead roles. The film is a remake of Bavagaru Bagunnara? Plot. Raju (Govinda) and Urmila (Urmila Matondkar) meet in New Zealand and fall in love. They plan to meet again very soon in India. On the way, Raju meets a woman named Sharmila (Naghma), a heartbroken, suicidal pregnant woman who tells Raju of her cruel boyfriend. In order to save her respect, Raju decides to play her husband and they return together Sharmila's home, where he meets her family. However, soon enough, Raju finds out that Urmila is none other than Sharmila's sister. Reception and awards. "Kunwara" received mostly negative reviews from critics, although some of the performances were received well. Sukanya Verma from Rediff.com wrote, "Don't ask any questions. Don't look for any kind of logic. Go with the flow. Otherwise, you're not ready for this David Dhawan-Govinda flick." Taran Adarsh of Bollywood Hungama criticised the film, concluding, "Kunwara has the super-successful David Dhawan-Govinda combination as its strong point, but the film pales in comparison to the hits the two have delivered earlier. The film may start off well, but it lacks a good script to sustain after the initial curiosity subsides." "Kunwara" was nominated for two awards in the same category at the annual Filmfare Awards: Music. The soundtrack of the film contains 8 songs. The music is composed by Aadesh Shrivastava, with lyrics authored by Sameer
1167065	Dominique Ellen Dunne (November 23, 1959 – November 4, 1982) was an American stage, film and television actress. Dunne made appearances in several television movies and series during the late 1970s and early 1980s. Her only film role was as the oldest daughter, Dana Freeling, in the 1982 horror film "Poltergeist".
688742	Supervixens is a 1975 sexploitation film by American filmmaker Russ Meyer. The cast features Meyer regulars Charles Napier, Uschi Digard, and Haji. The film also features Shari Eubank (in a dual role) in one of her only two film roles ever and Christy Hartburg in her only film role ever. Plot. Gas station attendant Clint Ramsey, who works at "Martin Bormann's Super Service" in the desert, finds himself too irresistible to a series of women, all of whom have the word "Super" in their given names. In the beginning, he is married to the hypersexual, demanding, and jealous SuperAngel (Shari Eubank), who constantly harasses him at work. She orders him home at once when she calls Clint and overhears a female customer, SuperLorna (Christy Hartburg), hitting on him at work. Clint finds SuperAngel's constant accusations and arguing a turnoff and, back at home, they fight after he rejects her aggressive advances. A neighbor calls the police as Clint leaves for a local bar, where the bartender is the very scantily clad SuperHaji (Haji). Meanwhile, SuperAngel seduces Harry Sledge (Charles Napier), the cop who responded to the police call. He is impotent and unable to perform. She repeatedly taunts and insults him over this, which finally results in him killing her by stomping her brutally in a bathtub, then throwing a radio in the water which was plugged into the wall socket. Sledge burns down the house, then tries to pin the murder on Clint. Clint claims being in the pub all night, but SuperHaji has her revenge on him (from insulting her breast size earlier) by refusing to confirm his alibi. Clint is then forced to flee. In his rush to escape, Clint hitchhikes a ride from a man (John LaZar) and his girlfriend SuperCherry (Colleen Brennan). During the drive, SuperCherry comes on to him and puts his hand over her breast, but then pulls it back. She then tries to give him a handjob over his pants, but he continues to resist her advances. The driver takes offense to Clint rejecting his girlfriend, but she says he probably just wants a closer contact. She again attempts and fails to seduce him and he asks the driver to let him get out. The driver follows him out and beats and robs him. Clint is found by an old farmer who takes him to his farm to heal from his injuries and Clint agrees to work for the farmer for a week to repay him. The farmer has a younger Austrian mail-order bride, SuperSoul (Uschi Digard), who is hypersexual. After energetically satisfying her husband, she comes knocking on Clint's door at night. She immediately pushes him into his bed where she proceeds to mount and rape him, until he manages to overpower her. However, she does the same the following day and this time overpowering him after jumping him from behind in the barn. Looking for SuperSoul, the farmer finds them in the barn, then chases Clint away and punches SuperSoul. Fleeing from the farm, Clint meets a motel owner and his deaf daughter, SuperEula (Deborah McGuire), who convinces him to take a ride with her in her dune buggy to have sex in the desert. They are caught by her father and chased out of town. Clint eventually meets up with SuperVixen (also played by Shari Eubank) at "Supervixen's Oasis", a roadside diner. SuperVixen is (inexplicably) a friendly and giving reincarnation of SuperAngel, whose ghost now appears nude between scenes to comment on the plot from atop a bedspring balanced on a mesa. Clint and SuperVixen fall in love and are inseparable, although their common nemesis, Harry Sledge, arrives on the scene and plots ending the lives of the now happy couple. Cultural references. As a groundbreaker cultural revolutionaire, Meyer was ever watchful for adding sly remarks about American Society. Especially insightful are these:
1162772	Jack Kruschen (March 20, 1922 – April 2, 2002) was a Canadian-born character actor who worked primarily in American film, television and radio. Career. Radio. Born in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Kruschen began his radio career while still in high school, and during the 1940s, he became a staple of West Coast radio drama. He had several roles in programs made especially for the Armed Forces Radio Service (AFRS) broadcast for the benefit of members on active duty in the military in the 1940s and 1950s. He had regular or recurring roles on "Broadway Is My Beat" (as Sgt. Muggavan), and "Pete Kelly's Blues" (as Red, the bass player), as well as frequent episodic roles on anthology series, Westerns and crime dramas. He was heard on such high-profile series as "Escape", "Dragnet", "Gunsmoke" (usually as law abiding locals), "Crime Classics", "Frontier Gentleman", "Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar", "Nightbeat" and "Suspense." Films. His movie career is highlighted by his performance as neighbor Dr. Dreyfuss in Billy Wilder's "The Apartment" (for which he received an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor). Other film assignments included George Pal's "The War of the Worlds" (as Salvatore, one of the first three victims, a role he reprised on the "Lux Radio Theater" adaptation), in Cecil B. DeMille's final film, "The Buccaneer", as astronaut Sam Jacobs in the 1959 cult classic "The Angry Red Planet", "The Unsinkable Molly Brown" (as saloon owner Christmas Morgan), "Abbott and Costello Go to Mars", "Lover Come Back", "McLintock!" (with John Wayne and Maureen O'Hara), "Follow That Dream" (with Elvis Presley), "Cape Fear," starring Gregory Peck and Robert Mitchum, and "Money to Burn" with Eve McVeagh. Stage. Kruschen appeared as Maurice Pulvermacher in the original 1962 Broadway production of "I Can Get It for You Wholesale" with neophyte singer/actress, 19-year old Barbra Streisand. In 1969, he co-starred in the London staging of the musical "Promises, Promises", reprising his film role in this show based on "The Apartment". Television. Kruschen was performing on television as early as 1939, appearing in dramas on Don Lee's experimental television station in Los Angeles, where he was seen on some 200 TV sets with three-inch screens. His TV career included guest villain Eivol Ekdol, a villainous magicians' craftsman on "Batman". He also was seen in 12 episodes of "Dragnet", as well as "Zorro", in a recurring role across three seasons on Bonanza (Italian grapegrower Giorgio Rossi,) as Tully the bartender in the 1960-1961 series "Hong Kong" (that launched Aussie actor Rod Taylor into his film career). In 1969, Kruschen co-starred with Stefanie Powers in an unsold ABC sitcom pilot, "Holly Golighty", adapted from Truman Capote's "Breakfast at Tiffany's". The husky, mustachioed Kruschen seemed to specialize in playing benevolent ethnic paternal figures and had roles in "Columbo (The Most Dangerous Match, 1973)", "Barney Miller," "Busting Loose", "The Incredible Hulk," and, in later years, "Murphy Brown", '. He appeared in the recurring role of 'Grandpa Papadopolis' on the situation comedy "Webster" (1985 to 1987), and in the early 1990s, as another Greek grandfather and as Pam and Jesse's grandfather 'Papouli' ('Iorgos Katsopolis') on "Full House", appearing in only two episodes before his character dies in his sleep, in episode, 'The Last Dance'. Kruschen's final on-screen appearance was in the 1997 film Til There Was You" (with Sarah Jessica Parker), Dylan McDermott, and Jeanne Tripplehorn, as 'Mr. Katz'. Personal life and death. Kruschen was married to Marjorie Ullman from January 1947 to 1961, and his second marriage was to Violet Rafaella Mooring from 1962 to 1978 (her death). He was married a third time to Mary Pender from July 23, 1979 until April 2, 2002 when he died in Chandler, Arizona while vacationing. He had been in ill health for some time. He was 80. Though he died on April 2, his death wasn't widely reported to the media, until late May 2002. He is survived by his third wife Mary Pender; his two children from his second wife Violet Rafaella Mooring; his grandchildren; and a sister.
774786	Visiting Hours (also known as "Get Well Soon" and "The Fright") is a 1982 slasher film starring Michael Ironside, Lee Grant, Linda Purl, William Shatner and Lenore Zann. It was directed by Jean-Claude Lord and written by Brian Taggert. Plot. Deborah Ballin (Grant), a feminist activist, inspires the wrath of misogynistic psychopath and serial killer Colt Hawker (Ironside) on a TV talk show. He attacks her, but she survives and is sent to County General Hospital.
1062058	John Vincent Hurt, (born 22 January 1940) is an English actor. Among other honours, he has received two Academy Award nominations, a Golden Globe Award, and four BAFTA Awards, with the fourth being a Lifetime Achievement recognition. Hurt is known for his leading roles as John Merrick in "The Elephant Man", Winston Smith in "Nineteen Eighty-Four", Mr. Braddock in "The Hit", Stephen Ward in "Scandal", Quentin Crisp in "The Naked Civil Servant" and "An Englishman in New York", and Caligula in "I, Claudius". Recognisable for his distinctive rich voice, he has also enjoyed a successful voice acting career, starring in films such as "Watership Down", the animated "The Lord of the Rings" and "Dogville", as well as the BBC television series "Merlin". He portrayed an incarnation of the Doctor in the 2013 "Doctor Who" episodes "The Name of the Doctor" and "The Day of the Doctor". Hurt initially came to prominence for his role as Richard Rich in the 1966 film "A Man for All Seasons", and has since appeared in films such as: "Alien", "Midnight Express", "Rob Roy", "V for Vendetta", "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull", the "Harry Potter" film series, the "Hellboy" films, and "Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy". Hurt is one of Britain's best-known, most prolific and sought-after actors, and has had a versatile film career spanning six decades. He is also known for his many Shakespearean roles. His character's final scene in "Alien" is consistently named as one of the most memorable in cinematic history. Early life. John Hurt was born in Chesterfield, Derbyshire, where his father was vicar of Shirebrook. He is the son of Phyllis (née Massey), an amateur actress and engineer, and Arnould Herbert Hurt, a mathematician who became an Anglican clergyman. Hurt has an older brother, Br. Anselm (born Michael), a Roman Catholic convert who became a monk and writer at Glenstal Abbey, to whose books his younger brother John has contributed. Hurt also has an adopted sister, Monica. Hurt's father was a vicar at St John's Church in Sunderland. In 1937, he moved his family to Derbyshire, where he became Perpetual Curate of Holy Trinity Church. When Hurt was five, his father became the vicar of St Stephen's Church in Woodville, Derbyshire and remained there until 1952. In 1945, Hurt's father founded 1st Woodville (St Stephen's) Scout Group which is still going strong today.
1061243	Close Encounters of the Third Kind is a 1977 science fiction film written and directed by Steven Spielberg and features actors Richard Dreyfuss, François Truffaut, Melinda Dillon, Teri Garr, Bob Balaban, and Cary Guffey. It tells the story of Roy Neary, an everyday blue collar worker in Indiana, whose life changes after an encounter with an unidentified flying object (UFO). "Close Encounters" was a long-cherished project for Spielberg. In late 1973, he developed a deal with Columbia Pictures for a science fiction film. Though Spielberg received sole credit for the script, he was assisted by Paul Schrader, John Hill, David Giler, Hal Barwood, Matthew Robbins, and Jerry Belson, all of whom contributed to the screenplay in varying degrees. The title is derived from ufologist J. Allen Hynek's classification of close encounters with aliens, in which the third kind denotes human observations of actual aliens or "animate beings". Douglas Trumbull served as the visual effects supervisor, while Carlo Rambaldi designed the aliens.
583356	Toonpur Ka Super Hero (Translation: "Toonpur's Super Hero") is a 2010 3D animation film written by Raaghi Bhatnagar and directed by Kireet Khurana. The film features Ajay Devgan, Kajol, Sanjai Mishra, Tanuja and Mukesh Tiwari in lead roles along with a number of animated characters. The film was remade in English in early 2011.
584736	Kirat Bhattal professionally known as Kirat or Keerath in South India (born 26 January in Monrovia, Liberia) is an Indian film actress. She debuted in modelling roles and then made a breakthrough in the Tamil film industry. Acting career. After completing her education at the Lawrence School, Sanawar, Kirat debuted in the Safi ad and then went onto to various other campaigns like "Fair and Lovely", "Siyaram" and the Lakme adverts with a fellow Indian, Raima Sen, who has since gone on to make it big in the Bollywood film industry. Then Kirat modelled for "Sri Kumaran Silks" in Chennai to stake her claims in South India.
630213	Ryan Kwanten (born 28 November 1976) is an Australian actor. He played Vinnie Patterson from 1997 to 2002 on the Australian soap-opera "Home and Away". After his stint ended he joined the American teen-oriented drama "Summerland" portraying Jay Robertson. In 2008, he was cast as Jason Stackhouse in "True Blood". Early life. Kwanten was born in Sydney, Australia to Eddie Kwanten, a worker at NSW Maritime, and Kris, a lifeline op-shop coordinator. His father is Dutch. Kwanten has two brothers, Mitchell, who is a musician and Lloyd, who is a doctor. He attended St Paul's College in Manly and later earned a degree in commerce from the University of Sydney. Career. Kwanten began acting on the television shows "A Country Practice", "Hey Dad..!" and "". In 1997, he joined the cast of the Australian soap opera "Home and Away", playing lifeguard Vinnie Patterson. He eventually chose to leave the series in 2002, shortly after his character married and became a father. Kwanten had previously guested on the serial as Robbie Taylor in 1994. Moving to the United States, Kwanten was cast as Jay Robertson in the Lori Loughlin-starring series "Summerland", which ran from 2004 to 2005. He appeared in the films "Flicka", with Maria Bello, Alison Lohman and Tim McGraw, and "Dead Silence", a horror movie in which he played the leading role. Kwanten appeared in a "" episode that aired on 2 December 2008, in which he portrayed Dominic Pruitt, a US Marine Corps Master Sergeant accused of raping and murdering a fellow Marine and her unborn baby. In 2009, he starred in the film "Don't Fade Away" with Mischa Barton and Beau Bridges. Kwanten currently plays the role of Jason Stackhouse in "True Blood," an HBO television series based on Charlaine Harris' Southern Vampire Mysteries. He stars in the psychological thriller "Red Hill", which was directed by Patrick Hughes. Kwanten earned one of the lead roles in the Joe Lynch horror film "The Knights of Badassdom". In October 2010, it was announced that Kwanten will play Charles Manson in the upcoming, yet-to-be-titled biopic, directed by Brad Anderson. In 2012, he helped Mystery Guitar man to shoot a video called Dual Action, which has been posted onto YouTube. In 2013, Kwanten played Marvel character Venom/Eddie Brock in the short film "".
1162164	Jason Robert Hervey (born April 6, 1972) is an American actor, television producer and former public relations agent. He is best known for his role as "Wayne Arnold" on "The Wonder Years". Early life and acting. Hervey was born in Los Angeles, the son of Marsha, a talent agent, and Alan Hervey, a retail sales manager. In his early career, Hervey had small parts in films including "Back to the Future" and "Pee-wee's Big Adventure" and "Meatballs Part II", and was a recurring character in the final season of "Diff'rent Strokes". His big break came as a cast member of the successful family drama "The Wonder Years", as the older brother of Fred Savage's character. He ranked at #71 on VH1's 100 Greatest Kid Stars for the role. Hervey's role on "The Wonder Years" led to a later guest appearance on the animated show "Justice League Unlimited". He appeared alongside Savage in the episode "Hawk and Dove", where Hervey provided the voice of the younger, more passive brother Don Hall, opposite Savage's role of the older and more aggressive brother, in a complete role reversal from "The Wonder Years". Hervey was the voice of Eddie McDowd on the Nickelodeon hit show "100 Deeds for Eddie McDowd" for season 2. He made a brief appearance in the 1993 adventure game "Return to Zork" as the troll king. Public relations. Hervey served as the Senior Vice-President of Media and Communications for HealthSouth Corporation, based in Birmingham, Alabama. Hervey relocated to Birmingham to assume the post. He worked for the company from late 2001 until late 2003, during events that would lead to a massive fraud scandal. He later sued his employer, demanding $300,000 in compensation. Producing. After a guest appearance on World Championship Wrestling television during his tenure on "The Wonder Years", Hervey obtained a backstage position as an executive producer for WCW, which he held until the company's closure in 2001. During this time, he became friends with then-WCW Vice President Eric Bischoff, with whom he formed Bischoff/Hervey Productions. Their company has produced several sports and reality television shows, including "I Want to Be a Hilton", "Scott Baio Is 45...and Single", and Hulk Hogan's Celebrity Championship Wrestling, alongside Hogan. When Bischoff joined Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (TNA) in January 2010, Hervey also joined the promotion as an executive producer. He co-created the reality show "TNA Reaction". Hervey appeared in a backstage segment with Eric Young on the June 16, 2011, edition of "Impact Wrestling" which was his last appearance. Hervey is credited in "The Eddie Guerrero Story: Cheating Death, Stealing life" with coming up with the idea for the Latino World Order (LWO). Reality shows. Hervey appeared in an episode of "Hogan Knows Best" alongside Eric Bischoff, talking about energy drinks, and in several episodes of "Scott Baio Is 45...and Single". In 2002, he made a brief appearance on the VH1 special "I Love the '80s". Along with Baio, he co-hosts VH1's "Confessions of a Teen Idol", a reality show in which former teen idols attempt to revitalize their entertainment careers.
394264	My Girl and I is a 2005 South Korean film directed by Jeon Yun-su. It is a remake of the Japanese film "Crying Out Love, In the Center of the World", adapted from the novel "Socrates in Love" by Kyoichi Katayama. Plot. Song Hye Kyo's debut movie "My Girl and I" is a heartwarming story about true love and happiness. The film starts in modern day Korea where we see Kim Su Ho (Cha Tae-hyun) return to his hometown after ten years to attend a reunion with his high school friends. He sadly strolls as he hears a female voice in his head calling out his name. The next scene shows us Su Ho's three friends celebrating and talking about Su Ho. They doubt that he'll attend their reunion because he apparently hasn't gotten over some girl. It is said that on that day of their reunion, it is the death anniversary of a girl named Su-eun. To everyone's surprise, Su Ho enters and warmly greets his friends. After celebrating, the four friends go to a lighthouse where Su Ho's friend shouts, "Bae Su-eun, my friend's brain is small but is filled with endless thoughts of you. Please let my friend go." Su Ho becomes emotional and starts to cry. The next scene is a flashback wherein a younger Su Ho is rescued from drowning by a pretty girl. Her beeper got lost in the process of rescuing him but she just walked away. Su Ho then wakes up and thinks that his friends had saved him from drowning. The next scene leads us to a music class. Su Ho and his classmates were asked to sing in chorus. He sang normally just like the other students but was distracted when his classmate, Bae Su-eun started staring at him. Su Ho suddenly became conscious and curious at the same time. After all, Su-eun is the prettiest girl in their high school, so why should she show interest in the ordinary-looking Su Ho? Su-eun notices the expression on Su Ho's face and quickly looks away. Su Ho's classmate and friend sits in front of him, sighs and says "What will I do? I have to concentrate on my studies." He told Su Ho that Su-eun always stares at him in class. Su Ho just shrugged for he thought that Su-eun may actually be interested in him but was not. Su Ho and Su-eun pass by each other in the hallway. They were about to walk past each other when they got into each other's way. They repeatedly tried several methods so that they could easily pass but it often resulted in Su Ho blocking Su-eun's way and vice versa. Finally, Su Ho held Su-eun's shoulders and passed by the small space to Su-eun's right. Su Ho was about to walk away when Su-eun called him. She asked him to buy her a croquette (bread stuffed with vegetables or meat) which naturally surprised Su Ho. He knew that if he and Su-eun ate together, other people might think that they're going out and it would be hard for both of them but especially for him because Su-eun had many suitors from all over the school. But in the end, Su Ho still bought two croquettes and when the other students noticed, they immediately assumed that the two were dating. Word spread fast and soon the captain of the Judo club who had his eyes set on Su-eun sought Su Ho. He threatened to beat Su Ho but Su Ho immediately said that he wasn't seeing Su-eun. By chance, Su-eun passed by and when the captain asked if she was seeing Su Ho, she quickly replied that they are indeed going out. The captain got really mad and threw Su Ho down the floor. Su Ho's friends arrived to rescue him and immediately they escaped. Su Ho and Su-eun stayed by the boardwalk where a lighthouse stood. The two spoke for a while wherein Su-eun hinted to Su Ho that she saved him but he was really really slow minded and he couldn't comprehend what she was trying to say. Su-eun asked him to get her a beeper for she lost hers because of him. Su Ho didn't understand and she got irritated and called him a dummy. Later, they watched the sun set together. Su Ho then walked Su-eun home and she wrote her beeper number on a piece of fruit for she was afraid that her parents and especially her strict and "scary" father would find out. Although her beeper was lost, she could still receive and leave messages on its system. That night, Su-eun and Su Ho confessed their feelings for each other. The next day, Su Ho was called out of class because his grandfather supposedly collapsed. He quickly went to his grandfather's home and found him alive and looked normal. Turns out, he just faked a stroke so that he could share the story of his first love to Su Ho. Again, by chance, Su-eun arrived bringing Su Ho's bag. Although reluctant at first, Su Ho's grandfather shared his story to a complete stranger. When he was young, Su Ho's grandfather joined the army and was assigned to a different region in Korea. He was separated from his first love, Soon-Im. He left her a necklace to remember him by. Years passed and soon he became an undertaker. Once, he was asked to prepare a funeral and as it turned out, the dead man was Soon-Im's husband. They couldn't even say a word to each other and soon he married another woman, Su Ho's grandmother. Su Ho then realizes that he loves Su-eun and he wishes for her to be his destiny so that they wouldn't suffer the same fate as his grandfather. Using a payphone, Su Ho left a message on Su-eun's beeper. In it he said that he wished she could be his destiny, completely unaware that she was behind him until she replied, "Me too." From that day on, Su Ho and Su-eun officially became a couple. Su Ho's friends proposed an outing—an overnight stay in Fog Island. As Su Ho and Su-eun arrived together at the pier, he finds out that his friends tricked him so that he and Su-eun would have some time alone. He made up lies to cover up but she was smart and knew that it was only the two of them alone. At first, Su-eun seemed mad but then she herself bought two tickets to Fog Island. At the island their love deepened even more. One night, they had their first kiss. Things were going so well until one day, Su-eun fainted and her body started to weaken. Su Ho rushed her to the hospital and tried to live his life normally. He visited her every day. What he thought was just simple anemia turned out to be leukemia. Su Eun was going to die even if the doctors try to operate on her. Her one last wish was to go back to Fog Island, where their love bloomed. Another woman also had a last wish before she died—Soon-Im. She wished to be reunited with her first love, Su Ho's grandfather. He even prepared her funeral and was reunited with his first love, the woman he had loved for 50 years. One day, when Su Ho visited the hospital, Su-eun expressed her last wish and before she could say anything else, he brought out two ferry tickets for Fog Island. On the day of their departure, a typhoon struck and all trips were cancelled. Su Ho desperately tried to convince the authorities to let them travel but to no avail. As he was arguing with the management, Su-eun felt even weaker and she knew it was already her time. She said her last words and wished for Su Ho in her mind. As he was apologizing to her about the storm, she collapsed into Su Ho and died. Ten years later, Su Ho returned to Fog Island and found Su-eun's bag in the lost and found section. Inside the bag was her diary which she updated every day. There was one entry that was written during their trip to Fog Island. It seems Su-Eun had planted seeds in the hill during their visit and promised herself that when those seeds became flowers, she'll come back with Su Ho to that island, year after year, after year. The hill covered with flowers will be her gift to him. Su Ho quickly went to the hill and was overjoyed to see it covered with purple flowers. He felt Bae Su-eun's presence around him as memories of his first and true love filled his heart.
586164	Rajavinte Makan (; ) is a 1986 Malayalam film directed by Thampi Kannanthanam and starring Mohanlal, Suresh Gopi, Ambika, and Ratheesh. The film was scripted by Dennis Joseph.
1163458	Vera Miles (born August 23, 1930) is an American actress who worked closely with Alfred Hitchcock, most notably as Lila Crane in the classic masterpiece "Psycho", reprising the role in the 1983 sequel, "Psycho II". Her other popular films include "The Wrong Man", "The Searchers", "Follow Me Boys!" and "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance". Early life. Miles was born Vera June Ralston in Boise City, Oklahoma, to Thomas and Burnice (née Wyrick) Ralston. She had three elder siblings. She grew up first in Pratt, Kansas, and later lived in Wichita, Kansas, where she worked nights as a Western Union operator-typist and graduated from Wichita North High School in 1947. She was crowned Miss Kansas in 1948 and was the third runner-up in the Miss America contest. When she appeared as a contestant on the April 4, 1951, edition of the Groucho Marx quiz show "You Bet Your Life" described as "a beauty contest winner", Marx asked her about some of the titles she held. She replied, "I was first Miss Chamber of Commerce and then Miss Wichita and then Miss Kansas and Miss Texas Grapefruit and recently I've been chosen Miss New Maid Margarine and I had the honor to represent Kansas in the Miss America pageant."
1380730	Robert Moorhouse "Bobby" Coleman III (born May 5, 1997) is an American child actor. He is best known for his roles in the films "Martian Child", as the title character, and "The Last Song". Life and career. Coleman was born in Los Angeles, California, the son of Doris Berg and Robert Moorhouse Coleman, Jr. He is the younger brother of actress Holliston Coleman, and lives with his family in the Los Angeles area. Coleman began acting at the age of five in commercials, and has since appeared in several film and television productions. Coleman had brief appearances in a number of series such as "Medium" and "JAG", before moving into film roles. He appeared in the feature films "Must Love Dogs" and "Friends with Money", and also had a recurring role in the television series "Surface", before taking leading roles in the films "The Good Mother" and "Take". He played the title lead role in the film "Martian Child", his second role alongside John Cusack and is set to appear with his sister in "Proving Ground: From the Adventures of Captain Redlocks", in which he will play the younger brother of his real-life sister. They are both set to star together again in the science-fiction adventure film, "". He appeared in the 2010 film "The Last Song" as Jonah Miller, the younger brother of Miley Cyrus's character.
1059484	Beverly Hills Chihuahua is a 2008 family comedy film produced by Walt Disney Pictures. It is directed by Raja Gosnell and was released on October 3, 2008. The films stars Piper Perabo, Jamie Lee Curtis and Manolo Cardona as the human leads and Drew Barrymore, George Lopez and Andy Garcia in voice-over roles. The plot centers around a Chihuahua, Chloe, who gets dognapped in Mexico and has to escape from an evil Doberman, El Diablo, with a help from a lonely German Shepherd, Delgado, and a hyperactive male Chihuahua, Papi, who has a desperate crush on her. A sequel called "Beverly Hills Chihuahua 2" was released on direct-to-DVD on February 1, 2011, and another, "" was released on September 18, 2012. Plot. In Beverly Hills, California, Heiress Vivian "Viv" Ashe leaves her richly pampered pet chihuahua, Chloe, with her irresponsible niece, Rachel, while she embarks on a business trip for ten days. Papi, the gardener Sam's pet Chihuahua of Mexican descent, has a crush on Chloe, which she constantly rejects. Rachel decides to go to Mexico with her friends and stay at a hotel by the beach. When Rachel leaves Chloe alone in the hotel room to go dancing at a club, Chloe goes looking for her. Chloe gets dog-napped as she tries to find Rachel and is sent to the dog fights in Mexico City. There, she meets a street-smart German Shepherd named Delgado.
1165175	Richard Allen York, known as Dick York (September 4, 1928 – February 20, 1992), was an American actor. He is best remembered for his role as the first Darrin Stephens on the ABC television fantasy sitcom, "Bewitched". His best known motion picture role was as teacher Bertram Cates in the 1960 film "Inherit the Wind". Early life. Born in Fort Wayne, Indiana, York grew up in Chicago, where a Catholic nun first recognized his vocal promise. He began his career at the age of 15 as the star of the CBS radio program "That Brewster Boy." He also appeared in hundreds of other radio shows and instructional films before heading to New York City, where he acted on Broadway in "Tea and Sympathy" and "Bus Stop." He performed with stars including Paul Muni and Joanne Woodward in live television broadcasts and with Janet Leigh, Jack Lemmon and Glenn Ford in movies, including "My Sister Eileen" and "Cowboy." It was while filming the 1959 movie "They Came to Cordura" with Gary Cooper and Rita Hayworth that York would receive a permanently disabling back injury. In York's own words: "Gary Cooper and I were propelling a handcar carrying several 'wounded' men down railroad track. I was on the bottom stroke of this sort of teeter-totter mechanism that made the handcar run. I was just lifting the handle up as the director yelled 'cut!' and one of the "wounded" cast members reached up and grabbed the handle. I was suddenly, jarringly, lifting his entire weight off the flatbed—one hundred and eighty pounds or so. The muscles along the right side of my back tore. They just snapped and let loose. And that was the start of it all: the pain, the painkillers, the addiction, the lost career." In 1960, he played the role of Bertram Cates (modelled on John Thomas Scopes, of "Monkey Trial" fame) in the film version of "Inherit the Wind." York went on to star with Gene Kelly and Leo G. Carroll in the ABC television comedy/drama "Going My Way." York was cast in the series as Tom Colwell, who operates a secular youth center. York appeared in dozens of episodes of now-classic television series, including "Justice", "Alfred Hitchcock Presents", "The Americans", "Wagon Train", and CBS's "The Twilight Zone" and "Route 66". "Bewitched". York was cast as the first Darrin Stephens in the 1960s sitcom, "Bewitched". The show was a huge success and York was nominated for an Emmy Award in 1968. Because of his back injury, which sometimes caused him to seize up in debilitating pain in later years, the scripts for some of his final episodes on "Bewitched" were written around his being in bed or on the couch for the entire episode. One day, during the fifth season of the sitcom: "I was too sick to go on. I had a temperature of 105, full of strong antibiotics, for almost 10 days. I went to work that day but I was sick. I lay in my dressing room after being in make-up, waiting to be called on the set. They knew I was feeling pretty rotten, and they tried to give me time to rest. I kept having chills. This was the middle of the summer and I was wearing a sheepskin jacket and I was chilling. I was shaking all over. Then, while sitting on a scaffolding with Maurice Evans, being lit for a special effects scene: They were setting an inky - that's a little tiny spot that was supposed to be just flickering over my eyes. That flickering, flickering flickering made me feel weird. And I'm sitting on this platform up in the air...and I turned to Gibby, who was just down below, and I said, 'Gibby, I think I have to get down.' He started to help me down and that's the last thing I remember until I woke up on the floor. That's about all I remember of the incident...and I'd managed to bite a very large hole in the side of my tongue before they could pry my teeth apart." From York's hospital bed, he and director Bill Asher discussed York's future. "Do you want to quit?" Asher asked. "If it's all right with you, Billy," York replied. With that, York left the show to devote himself to recovery. From season six until the series ended in 1972, the role of Darrin Stephens was played by actor Dick Sargent. Sargent was originally offered the role of Darrin in 1964, but turned it down to do a short-lived sitcom called "Broadside". Later years. Largely bedridden, York battled not only his back pain but an addiction to prescription pain killers. In his memoir, "The Seesaw Girl and Me", published posthumously, he describes the struggle to break his addiction and to come to grips with the loss of his career. The book is in large part a love letter to his wife, Joan (née Alt), the seesaw girl of the title, who stuck with him through the hard times. York eventually beat his addiction and tried to revive his career. He appeared on several prime-time television series including "Simon & Simon" and "Fantasy Island". York, a three pack a day smoker, spent his final years battling emphysema. While bedridden in his Rockford, Michigan, home, he founded "Acting for Life", a private charity to help the homeless and others in need. Using his telephone as his pulpit, York motivated politicians, business people, and the general public to contribute supplies and money. Despite his suffering, York said, "I've been blessed. I have no complaints. I've been surrounded by people in radio, on stage and in motion pictures and television who love me. The things that have gone wrong have been simply physical things." York died of complications from emphysema at Blodgett Hospital in East Grand Rapids, Michigan, on February 20, 1992. He was sixty-three years old. York is buried in Plainfield Cemetery in Rockford, Michigan.
589956	Do Jasoos is a 1975 Hindi film. Produced and directed by Naresh Kumar, the film stars Raj Kapoor, Rajendra Kumar, Aruna Irani, Prem Chopra, Farida Jalal and Asit Sen. The music is by Ravindra Jain. Plot. Dharamchand and Karamchand, (Raj Kapoor and Rajendra Kumar) are two detectives who are on the trail of a millionaire's missing daughter(Bhavana Bhatt). In their efforts to save the girl, who is an eye-witness to a murder, they fall headlong into a series of comic situations because
578487	The Bodyguard 2 () is a 2007 Thai action-comedy film written, directed by and starring Petchtai Wongkamlao. A prequel to his 2004 film, "The Bodyguard", "The Bodyguard 2" tells the origins of Petchtai's bodyguard character, and like the first film, it features a host of cameo appearances by Thai celebrities, including action star Tony Jaa. With a budget of over 100,000,000 baht, the film was the most expensive in Thai cinema before "Ong Bak 2" surpassed it in late 2008. Plot. Khamlao is a secret agent for the country of Wongnaileum, which shares the common Isan dialect and culture with its neighboring country, Thailand (similar to Laos). He is dispatched to Bangkok on a secret mission to track down some terrorists. To do so, he goes undercover as a luk thung singer working for a record label that serves as a front company for dealers in weapons of mass destruction. As he probes deep inside the record company, he finds that the company's executive secretary is actually a CIA agent, assigned to the same mission. Meanwhile, Khamlao's wife, Keaw, discovers that Khamlao had lied to her about his job in Thailand. The end of the film leaves where the first film starts.
900217	Lisa and the Devil (Italian: Lisa e il diavolo) is a 1974 Italian horror film directed by Mario Bava. The film is notable for its controversial release in the US, where it was heavily recut/refilmed and released as "The House of Exorcism". The film was released in Spain as "El diablo se lleva a los muertos" ("The Devil Carries The Dead"). It stars Elke Sommer and Telly Savalas. The story involves a young American tourist, who stays the night at the home of a family of Spanish aristocrats whose house is plagued by supernatural evil and dark secrets involving necrophilia. The US version includes new material that recasts the film as an "Exorcist" clone, with the main character possessed and recounting to the priest who's seeking to save her the story of how she became possessed.
1066295	Funny Bones is a 1995 comedy-drama film from Disney's Hollywood Pictures. It was written, directed and produced by Peter Chelsom, co-produced by Simon Fields, and co-written by Peter Flannery. The music score was by John Altman and the cinematography by Eduardo Serra. Set in Las Vegas and Blackpool, England, the film stars Oliver Platt, Jerry Lewis, Lee Evans, Leslie Caron, Richard Griffiths, Sadie Corre, Oliver Reed, George Carl, Freddie Davies and Ian McNeice. Plot. Tommy Fawkes is the son of comedy legend George Fawkes. After his own Las Vegas comedy act flops with his beloved father in the audience, Tommy returns to Blackpool, England, where he spent the summers of his childhood. Disguised with a new identity, Tommy intends to seek out unique performers and purchase their acts. During this time, Tommy encounters his father's old comedy partners, Bruno and Thomas Parker. Once great performers, they now work as ghouls on a ghost train at Blackpool Pleasure Beach Circus. Bruno's son Jack is a brilliant comic, but psychologically troubled. He has also been manipulated by a corrupt policeman known as Sharkey into stealing valuable wax eggs from smugglers. Tommy meets Jack's mother Katie, and even though Tommy is in disguise, she suspects that he is somehow connected to the family. Tommy eventually realises that his father stole his original act from the Parker brothers. He then reveals himself to be Tommy Fawkes and Katie tells him that Jack is his half-brother. Tommy phones his father about the revelation and George gets on the next plane to Blackpool. As part of their reconciliation, George arranges for the Parkers to top the bill at a Blackpool Tower Circus event. However, Jack is still hounded by Sharkey and cannot perform. During an elaborate Egyptian act, Katie gets rid of Sharkey via a sarcophagus, which is then kidnapped by the smugglers. The wax eggs contained a mystical, ancient Chinese rejuvenating powder. Jack had previously placed the powder within a makeup tin, which Bruno and Thomas accidentally use, helping them to perform brilliantly. Toward the end of the show, Jack is seen climbing a giant pole chased by a policeman. Jack smacks the policeman in the face with a glass bottle and the policeman begins to fall. However, Jack is strong enough to hold him in mid air and then the camera reveals that Tommy is the policeman. Jack then says to Tommy, "They're beginning to like you." Jack laughs and Tommy, suddenly no longer afraid, gazes at the audience and finds the feeling he was searching for all his life. Home media. "Funny Bones" was released on DVD on September 2, 2003.
1775389	Michael "Mike" McShane (born June 25, 1955) is an American actor, singer, and improvisational comedian. He appeared in the early 1990s on the original British television show "Whose Line Is It Anyway?". He voiced Marlon, Caracticus P. Doom and various other characters in Cosgrove Hall's "Avenger Penguins". Biography. Born and adopted in Hancock Michigan and raised in Roeland Park, Kansas, He attended San Francisco State University McShane had performed on stage, on television, and in film, and was an alumnus of Los Angeles Theatresports. One of his larger TV roles was as Kramer's nemesis Franklin Delano Romanowski (FDR) on "Seinfeld". He also had a cameo role as a doomed hypnotherapist in the film "Office Space" and played the friendly scientist, Professor Keenbean, in the 1994 movie "Ri¢hie Ri¢h" as well as Friar Tuck in Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves. He also co-starred with Sir John Geilgud, Emily Watson and Rosemary Harris in "A Summer's Day Dream" for BBC "Performance" series. In 1995, McShane starred as Harley in the BBC Screen Two TV Movie "Crazy For A Kiss", about a young boy who is sent to a mental institution for teenagers in Kansas. Touted as being somewhat autobiographical of McShane's childhood, the film has never been released on video or DVD. McShane appeared in "Tom and Huck" as Muff Potter and on "Brotherly Love" as the experienced but wisecracking mechanic, Lloyd. He provided the voice for Cid in the video games "Final Fantasy X" and "Final Fantasy X-2".He appeared in "Tower of Terror", a TV movie based on the Disney attraction as "Q" along with Steve Guttenberg and Kirsten Dunst. He had also appeared with Tony Slattery in the comedy sketch show "S&M", starred with Sandi Toksvig in the sitcom "The Big One", and provided voice work in the anime ', as D's sarcastic possessed left hand. He also provided the voice of Detective Twitch in the HBO animated series Spawn. Other voice work by McShane includes the characters of Tuck and Roll, the twin pill bugs in "A Bug's Life" and the video game of the same name in 1998,he also provided the voice of Shalulu in Disney's redub of Castle in the Sky. He also portrayed Baron Rakan Harkonnen in the 2001 strategy game '. He also voiced Rabbit's dastardly neighbour Wolf in Granada's "Don't Eat the Neighbours", "Thunderpig", several characters in "", Hands in the Disney film "Treasure Planet", a Mountain Man in "King of the Hill", Quozmir in "Dave the Barbarian" and Rumpelstiltskin in "Happily N'Ever After". He also narrated several episodes of "Animated Tales of the World". In 2003, McShane underwent gastric bypass surgery, losing a significant amount of weight. In 2005 he made an appearance as Dr. Phelps in Malcolm in the Middle. In 2006 he was in a production of "Talk Radio" directed by Stewart Lee, with Stephen K. Amos, Phil Nichol. It was the first dramatic production in the Udderbelly, a performing space housed in a giant, inverted purple cow. McShane appeared as the voice of Audrey II (as well as playing a number of peripheral characters) in the London revival of "Little Shop of Horrors" at the Menier Chocolate Factory in Southwark between December 2006 and February 2007. The show was a critical success and was sold out for the duration of its run, and Mike had been contracted to continue in the role following the show's transfer to the West End at the Duke of York theatre. In September 2007 he took part in the British Library's celebration of Jack Kerouac, reading excerpts from On The Road on the 50th Anniversary of its publication. In 2008, McShane appeared as a guest performer in Paul Merton's Impro Chums, a live improv show, and was asked to join the permanent company for three UK tours, and is still ongoing with the group. and as Dr. Vaabit in episode 5 of BBC's Sitcom Lab Rats, and has appeared twice on the BBC radio programme Just a Minute. In 2012, Mike wrote and starred in, alongside Suki Webster, a play called "Mon Droit" based on the incident of the discovery of a body in St. James Park in London. The deceased was an American with a psychological condition known as De Clerembault's Syndrome, and believed he was receiving messages from Queen Elizabeth the Second to come and be her paramour. It was received favorably, and Mike was nominated for Best Actor by The Stage magazine. In September 2012, McShane appeared as the character Grayle in the television series "Doctor Who" in the series 7 episode "The Angels Take Manhattan." In November 2012, Mike starred as a CIA military consultant in the new BBC Three comedy series, "Bluestone 4-2". In February 2013, Mike created the role of Louis B. Mayer in the new musical "The Tailor Made Man" at The Arts Theatre in Londons' West End, garnering rave reviews. On 17 May 2013, Radio 5 Lives breakfast show accidentally announced Mike McShane had died. This was following the death of Paul Shane on 16 May 2013. A retraction was issued.
1063257	Michael Francis Moore (born April 23, 1954) is an American filmmaker, author, social critic, and political activist. He is the director and producer of "Fahrenheit 9/11", which is the highest-grossing documentary of all time and winner of the Palme d'Or. His films "Bowling for Columbine" (2002) and "Sicko" (2007) also placed in the top ten highest-grossing documentaries, and the former won the Academy Award for Documentary Feature. In September 2008, he released his first free movie on the Internet, "Slacker Uprising", which documented his personal quest to encourage more Americans to vote in presidential elections. He has also written and starred in the TV shows "TV Nation" and "The Awful Truth". Moore's written and cinematic works criticize globalization, large corporations, assault weapon ownership, U.S. Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, the Iraq War, the American health care system, and capitalism. Personal life. Moore was born in Flint, Michigan and raised in Davison, a suburb of Flint, by parents Veronica (née Wall), a secretary, and Frank Moore, an automotive assembly-line worker. At that time, the city of Flint was home to many General Motors factories, where his parents and grandfather worked. His uncle LaVerne was one of the founders of the United Automobile Workers labor union and participated in the Flint Sit-Down Strike. Moore was brought up Catholic, and has Irish ancestry. He attended parochial St. John's Elementary School for primary school and later attended St. Paul's Seminary in Saginaw, Michigan, for a year. He then attended Davison High School, where he was active in both drama and debate, graduating in 1972. As a member of the Boy Scouts of America, he achieved the rank of Eagle Scout. At the age of 18, he was elected to the Davison school board. At the time he was the youngest person elected to office in the U.S. Moore married producer Kathleen Glynn on October 19, 1991. He filed for divorce on June 17, 2013. Moore is a Catholic, but has said he disagrees with church teaching on subjects such as abortion and same-sex marriage. Following the Columbine High School massacre, Moore acquired a life membership to the National Rifle Association (NRA). Moore said that he initially intended to become the NRA's president and dismantle it, but he soon dismissed the plan as too difficult. Observers such as Dave Kopel noted that there was no chance of that happening; authors David T. Hardy and Jason Clarke wrote about how Moore failed to discover that the NRA selects a president not by membership vote but by a vote of the board of directors. In 2005 "Time" magazine named Moore one of the world's 100 most influential people. Also in 2005, Moore founded the annual Traverse City Film Festival in Traverse City, Michigan. In 2009, Moore co-founded the Traverse City Comedy Festival, also held in Traverse City, where Moore helped spearhead the renovation of the historic State Theater in downtown. Career. Moore dropped out of the University of Michigan–Flint following his first year (where he wrote for the student newspaper "The Michigan Times"). At 22 he founded the alternative weekly magazine "The Flint Voice", which soon changed its name to "The Michigan Voice" as it expanded to cover the entire state. In 1986, when Moore became the editor of "Mother Jones", a liberal political magazine, he moved to California and "The Michigan Voice" was shut down. After four months at "Mother Jones", Moore was fired. Matt Labash of "The Weekly Standard" reported this was for refusing to print an article by Paul Berman that was critical of the Sandinista human rights record in Nicaragua. Moore refused to run the article, believing it to be inaccurate. "The article was flatly wrong and the worst kind of patronizing bullshit. You would scarcely know from it that the United States had been at war with Nicaragua for the last five years." Moore believes that "Mother Jones" fired him because of the publisher's refusal to allow him to cover a story on the GM plant closings in his hometown of Flint, Michigan. He responded by putting laid-off GM worker Ben Hamper (who was also writing for the same magazine at the time) on the magazine's cover, leading to his termination. Moore sued for wrongful dismissal, and settled out of court for $58,000, providing him with seed money for his first film, "Roger & Me." Writing. Moore has written or co-written eight non-fiction books, mostly on similar subject matter to his documentaries. "Stupid White Men" (2001) is ostensibly a critique of American domestic and foreign policy but, by Moore's own admission, is also "a book of political humor." "Dude, Where's My Country?" (2003), is an examination of the Bush family's relationships with Saudi royalty, the Bin Laden family, and the energy industry, and a call-to-action for liberals in the 2004 election. Several of his works have made bestseller lists. Acting. Moore has dabbled in acting, following a 2000 supporting role in "Lucky Numbers" as the cousin of Lisa Kudrow's character, who agrees to be part of the scheme concocted by John Travolta's character. He also had a cameo in his "Canadian Bacon" as an anti-Canada activist. In 2004, he did a cameo, as a news journalist, in "The Fever", starring Vanessa Redgrave in the lead. Television. Between 1994 and 1995, he directed and hosted the BBC television series "TV Nation", which followed the format of news magazine shows but covered topics they avoid. The series aired on BBC2 in the UK. The series was also aired in the US on NBC in 1994 for 9 episodes and again for 8 episodes on Fox in 1995. His other major series was "The Awful Truth", which satirized actions by big corporations and politicians. It aired on Channel 4 in the UK, and the Bravo network in the US, in 1999 and 2000. Moore won the Hugh M. Hefner First Amendment Award in Arts and Entertainment for being the executive producer and host of "The Awful Truth", where he was also described as "muckraker, author and documentary filmmaker". Another 1999 series, "Michael Moore Live", was aired in the UK only on Channel 4, though it was broadcast from New York. This show had a similar format to "The Awful Truth", but also incorporated phone-ins and a live stunt each week. Music videos. Moore has directed several music videos, including two for Rage Against the Machine for songs from "The Battle of Los Angeles": "Sleep Now in the Fire" and "Testify". He was threatened with arrest during the shooting of "Sleep Now in the Fire", which was filmed on Wall Street; the city of New York City had denied the band permission to play there, although the band and Moore had secured a federal permit to perform. He also directed the videos for R.E.M. single "All the Way to Reno (You're Gonna Be a Star)" in 2001 and the System of a Down song "Boom!". Political views. Although Moore has been noted for his political activism, he rejects the label "political activist" saying such a description is redundant as a citizen of a democracy: "I and you and everyone else has to be a political activist. If we're not politically active, it ceases to be a democracy." According to John Flesher of the Associated Press, Moore is known for his "fiery left-wing populism," and publications such as the Socialist Worker Online have hailed him as the "new Tom Paine." Moore was a high-profile guest at both the 2004 Democratic National Convention and the 2004 Republican National Convention, chronicling his impressions in "USA Today". He was criticized in a speech by Republican Senator John McCain as "a disingenuous film-maker." Moore laughed and waved as Republican attendees jeered, later chanting "four more years." Moore gestured his thumb and finger at the crowd, which translates into "loser." During September and October 2004, Moore spoke at universities and colleges in swing states during his "Slacker Uprising Tour". The tour gave away ramen and underwear to students who promised to vote. One stop during the tour was Utah Valley State College. A fight for his right to speak resulted in massive public debates and a media blitz. The Utah event was chronicled in the documentary film "This Divided State". Despite having supported Ralph Nader in the 2000 presidential election, Moore urged Nader not to run in 2004 so as not to split the left vote. On "Real Time with Bill Maher", Moore and Maher knelt before Nader to plead with him to stay out of the race. Moore drew attention in 2004 when he used the term "deserter" when he introduced Retired Army Gen. Wesley K. Clark at a Democratic Presidential debate in New Hampshire. Noting that Clark had been a champion debater at West Point, Moore told a laughing crowd, "I know what you're thinking. I want to see that debate" between Clark and W. Bush – "the general versus the deserter." Moore said he was referring to published reports in several media outlets including "The Boston Globe" which had reported that "there is strong evidence that Bush performed no military service as required when he moved from Houston to Alabama to work on a U.S. Senate campaign from May to November 1972."
1055033	Terror Tract is a 2000 anthology dark comedy/horror film featuring John Ritter as a real-estate agent trying to sell a variety of houses to a young couple; each with a horror story associated with it. The segment "Make Me an Offer" is the overall plot of the filmwith Ritter and the three segments dramatized are the different, horrifying stories behind each house. Ritter as the estate agent is desperately trying to close a deal with them to meet a sales target that afternoon, but is confounded each time by his honesty which compels him to tell the grisly stories associated with each house he shows the couple. Plot. In the first story, "Nightmare", a businessman discovers his wife cheating on him and plans to shoot the boyfriend and make it look like she did it, then hung herself. But the boyfriend manages to kill him and dumps the body in a nearby lake, but then needs the car keys from the pocket of the body to get rid of a telltale car. The wife has had a number of terrible nightmares that her husband comes back from the dead to get revenge on her and when the door creaks open she blasts the figure behind it only to find she has killed her boyfriend. She is found hanged by the law, but her body is covered in water and you are led to believe that the dead man killed her finally. Starring: In the second tale, "Bobo," the Gatleys are a perfect family with father and daughter having a perfect relationship. Then the daughter finds a small monkey in their tree and persuades her father to allow it indoors. The monkey, tame around the daughter, hates everyone else. The monkey alienates his daughter from him and after it bites Ron, he puts it near a cage next to the (big) dog who hates it. Next morning the dog is found stabbed to death and the monkey gone. The police don't want to know about monkeys so Ron bribes an animal catcher to get it but he ends up stabbed to death too so again Ron has to hide the body. His wife and daughter now doubt his sanity as he goes after the monkey with a gun but it alludes him, and his bear trap, and then it kills his wife. Beyond anger he goes to his daughter's room where he suspects the monkey is. It attacks him and he loses his rifle but manages to trap the monkey only to see his daughter holding the rifle pointed at him. He shouts at her to give him the gun but she shoots him. She tells the police what happened when they finally turn up, and never says another word after that. Starring: The third story, "Come To Granny", involves a troubled teenager with psychic abilities who visits a therapist. He tells her of his crazy visions in which he sees the Granny killer killing his victims. When he has these visions it looks to bystanders that he is having a fit. A vision when with his girlfriend drives her away, and she too becomes a victim of the killer, something he has seen previously. He warns the therapist that she is to be the next victim of the vicious serial killer but she thinks that he is the killer and runs from him. He falls onto her letter spike in trying to reach her and is badly injured but slowly follows her. She manages to get the lift but out comes Granny with a cleaver and Sean who was trying to give her a gun to defend herself collapses (and dies?). Starring: The film ends with the couple refusing to buy any of the houses. The real estate agent finds out he has failed to meet a deadline and his son is put on the phone and you get the impression that something bad is going to happen to him. The estate agent goes mad and stabs Mr Doyle in the neck and as he collapses to the floor with blood spurting from his neck, starts stabbing him in the back. Mrs Doyle after an effort gets the front door open and runs out to see a neighbour about to use a lawn mower on a cat buried up to its neck. As she gets in the car to drive off, the estate agent tries to get her, and Bobo the murderous monkey appears on her windscreen. As she drives off screaming, she see people being shot at, a human leg hanging out of a wheelie bin, an explosion, a car trying to run over a man and so on as she tries to get as far away as possible from this evil area.
885427	State of Siege (French title: État de Siège) is a 1972 French film directed by Costa Gavras starring Yves Montand and Renato Salvatori. Summary. Yves Montand plays Philip Michael Santore, an official of the United States Agency for International Development (an organisation sometimes used as a front for training foreign police in counterinsurgency methods). Posted to a fictional South American country in the early 1970s, Santore is kidnapped by a group of urban guerrillas. The story is based by Costa Gavras on an actual incident in Uruguay in 1970 when U.S. Embassy official Dan Mitrione was kidnapped and killed. Using Santore's interrogation by his captors as a backdrop, the film explores the often brutal consequences of the struggle between the repressive government of Montevideo and the leftist Tupamaro guerrillas. Using death squads, the government decimates the revolutionary group, whose surviving members vote to execute the smugly calculating Santore, who is accused of arranging training in torture and political manipulation. In the finale a replacement U.S. official arrives, watched from the crowd by a defiant and angry survivor of the radical group. Response. The film opened to positive reviews from critics and is regarded as one of Costa-Gavras' finest works since the 1969 film "Z". While it was released one year later in American theaters, a storm of controversy developed. Many U.S. officials hated the movie and even stated that it was a heap of lies about U.S. involvement in Latin America and other third world countries. In Washington, D.C., it was removed from a special screening at the John F. Kennedy Center, only to be run uncut on a local TV station. Before the 1970s ended, many who decried the film as false found themselves admitting involvement in Latin America, this during the investigations and committee hearings on the CIA and other government groups. Music. Mikis Theodorakis used the same melodies that he later used in Canto General. Awards. The film was nominated to the Golden Globes as Best Foreign Language Film and won the UN Award at BAFTA Awards.
629301	Beautiful Kate is a 2009 Australian film directed by Rachel Ward and starring Rachel Griffiths, Bryan Brown, Sophie Lowe and Ben Mendelsohn. Rachel Ward adapted the script from a 1982 novel of the same name by Newton Thornburg; this was the first novel by Thornburg used for a movie since "Cutter's Way" (1981). The film was shot on location in the Flinders Ranges. The film premiered in June 2009 at the Sydney Film Festival and was released in limited release across Australia on 6 August 2009. Plot. A writer, Ned Kendall (Mendelsohn), is returning to the remote and isolated family home inhabited by his sister Sally (Griffiths), to say goodbye to his father, Bruce (Brown), who is dying. Ned also brings his fiancee, Toni (Dermody), who has trouble getting used to the isolation and harshness of rural Australia. Ned starts reliving memories of his childhood, many involving his beautiful twin sister Kate (Lowe) and his older brother Cliff (McFarlane). These memories awaken long-buried secrets from the family's past. He begins writing, and his fiance reads that he had an awkward sexual encounter with Kate, and leaves him without giving him a chance to explain. Kate continues to entice Ned despite his obvious revulsion, and after a drunken night out with friends, the young Ned (O'Donnel) goes for a swim in the family dam. He is joined by Kate, who seduces and subsequently has sex with him on the banks of the dam. Ned shows immediate remorse while Kate remains unperturbed. After Ned's refusal to have further sexual relations with Kate, Kate instigates a fight between the brothers by suggesting that Ned made unwanted advances towards her. As punishment, Bruce makes Ned accompany Kate to the Christmas dance. During the dance, Ned leaves Kate, who is left to go home with Cliff. Ned leaves separately and on his way home he finds his sister's dead body in Cliff's crashed car, and then finds that Cliff has hung himself. Fearing that Ned will tell Bruce the truth about Kate, Sally reveals that she knew of Ned and Kate's secret. She also reveals that the car's clock stopped on impact of the crash and no one could figure out what took Kate and Cliff so long to get home from the Christmas dance. Sally speculates that Kate also had sexual relations with Cliff, who then crashed the car in which Kate dies. She tells Ned she believes that Cliff's guilt from his part in Kate's death was multiplied knowing he had committed incest. But Bruce still believes that Kate was an innocent victim, the best of his children, and she doesn't want him shattered with the truth. Ned then makes amends with Bruce and says that he is sorry for blaming him over Cliff's suicide. He doesn't tell Bruce the truth about Kate and lets him die still believing that Kate was everything he thought she was. Before he leaves, he tells Sally that Bruce died never knowing that she was his greatest achievement. Reception. The film currently holds a 94% Fresh Rating on Rotten Tomatoes. "Beautiful Kate" received four and a half stars from both Margaret Pomeranz and David Stratton on "At The Movies". Until the debut of the Paul Hogan-starring "Charlie & Boots" in early September, "Beautiful Kate" held the title of the largest opening weekend for an Australian title for 2009. Box Office. With an estimated budget of $4.3 million (ref. imdb), "Beautiful Kate" grossed $1,618,490 at the box office in Australia.
590572	Vasantha Maligai ('Joyful Palace') is a 1972 Tamil film, directed by K.S. Prakash Rao, as a remake of the hit Telugu film, Prem Nagar (1971). The producer, D. Ramanaidu, made a third version of the film in Hindi, also titled Prem Nagar, which was released in 1974. Vasantha Maligai ran in the theatres for nearly 750 days, and Sivaji Ganesan and Vanisri were both highly praised for their acting. In the Telugu version, the lead roles were played by Akkineni Nageswara Rao and Vanisree, and in Hindi by Rajesh Khanna and Hema Malini. A digitally restored version of the film was released in March 2013. Plot. Anand (Sivaji Ganesan) is a rich playboy and alcoholic. He has an older brother by the name of Vijay (K.Balaji). Anand, who has been abroad, boards a plane home. The air hostess, Latha, (Vanisri) is working a shift on this flight. After the plane lands, the scene changes to Latha's home where we meet her father (Sundarajan), mother (Pandari Bai), two brothers, and a sister. Her elder brother resides at home with his wife. Being the eldest, Latha is the strongest earning member of the family. The struggle begins when Latha's mother objects to her being an air hostess. She begs her to change profession so that she can be home at more decent hours. The scene now changes to Anand who is celebrating his birthday in a pub near his home. Vanisri arrives at the same pub for a job interview with the manager. However, the manager, a lustful man, in the guise of interviewing her, shuts the door and tries to rape her. While leaving the pub, Anand hears Latha screaming and pushes the door. He fights the manager, rescues Latha, and then drives her home. The next day, Latha goes to Anand's house to return the coat he lent her during the crisis. She then asks him for a job. He agrees and gives her a job as his caretaker. The next day he shows her around his house and she meets his mother, brother, and sister-in-law. Latha soon notices that Anand is an alcoholic and, therefore, wishes to resign, but the servant begs her not to because Aanand's behaviour has changed for the better since meeting her. Anand's fiancé comes to his home, and starts ranting that she no longer wishes to marry him because he is an alcoholic. Meanwhile, his sister-in-law, who concludes that Latha has come to steal Anand's affections, disturbs Anand's mother with these comments, as well as by the comments of his fiancée. Latha, however, assures the mother, after everyone has left the table, that she will in fact try and stop Anand from drinking. Later on she catches Anand drinking with his servant(Nagesh). His servant runs away upon seeing her, but Anand continues to drink. Latha throws the glass after arguing with him, and Anand gets so furious that he throws a glass bottle onto Latha's forehead. But he soon realises what he has done, and destroys all his bottles, promising Latha that he will never drink again. He confides in her the anguish of his soul, how when he was very young both his father and his Ayya died. After this transformative incident, Anand announces to everyone that he is going to build a new palace for himself and the girl that he truly loves. He will call the palace 'Vasantha Maligai.' Anand brings Latha to this new house; everyone else in his family goad Latha to find out who this mysterious woman is that Anand loves. Latha, too, is curious to meet the girl of Anand's heart. He then shows her her own reflection in a separate room revealing that she is the girl of his affections. However, Vijay witnesses this, and runs to tell his mother. He conjures a story that Latha has stolen his wife's jewellery. Hearing this, Anand is influenced and becomes suspicious of Latha. He asks Latha about it, but she runs away utterly dejected that Anand could suspect her of such wrongdoing. Fortunately, Anand hears his servant (Nagesh) whisper to another servant about how this was Vijay's malicious plan. Anand confesses his ignorance and apologises. But Latha will not forgive him. Anand loses his balance and becomes seriously ill. Meanwhile, Latha receives a marriage proposal. Anand's mother goes to apologise to Latha but, instead, Latha hands her an invitation to her wedding. She shows this to Anand, who then decides to attend the wedding. Latha is shocked to see him; she meets him privately to reconcile their differences but, unfortunately, her sister-in-law spots them and announces it to the guests. All depart, leaving Latha with her family. Then, all of a sudden, Anand's mother enters the room and declares that Latha should marry Anand. When Latha arrives at the palace, she is shocked to see Anand's condition. She does not know that out of desperation and lovesickness he had drunk poison. As soon as Latha enters the room Anand faints. The scene changes to the hospital where we see a recovered Anand. And upon seeing Latha and his family in the hospital room he is emotionally revived. The film ends on the blissful note of Latha hugging Anand. Reception. Reviews. M. Suganth of "The Times of India" rated the film 4.5 out of 5 stars said, "To be frank, the opening 20 minutes are as choppy a ride as that experienced by the characters in the introductory scene." He also said, "But forget K V Mahadevan's songs, forget Krishnarao's dazzling sets and forget the leading man. This film still holds up so well – 40 years after its release – because of the writing and characterization. Yes, for a film that is dismissed as melodramatic romance, the writing (Balamurugan) is quite nuanced" and concluded, ""Vasantha Maligai" is further proof that old is indeed gold." Box office. "Vasantha Maligai" was one of the biggest blockbusters of Ganesan and ran for over 750 days in theatres. It held the record of running the highest continuous House Full Shows in Madras. "Vasantha Maligai" had a remarkable 271 continuous House Full Shows in all the three release theatres viz., Shanthi, Crown & Bhuvaneswari. Vasantha Maligai was also very successful in Sri Lanka where it ran more than 250 days. Re-release. A digitally restored version of "Vasantha Maligai" was due to be released on 7 December 2012, but was ultimately released on March 2013. The restoration was done by P. Srinivasan of "Sai Ganesh Films" at a cost of , consuming 5 months of work. The film had a poor opening, grossing in the opening week. Home media. "Vasantha Maligai" is included alongside various Sivaji Ganesan hit films in the compilation DVD "8 Ulaga Adhisayam Sivaji".
1165209	John Dehner (December 3, 1915 - March 14, 1992) was an American actor in radio, television, and films, playing countless roles, often as a droll villain. Between 1941 and 1988, he appeared in over 260 films and television programs. Prior to acting, Dehner had worked as an animator at Walt Disney Studios, and later became a radio disc jockey. He was also a professional pianist. Radio. Dehner had an extensive career as a radio actor, appearing as a lead or supporting player in such series as "Gunsmoke" and "Philip Marlowe." He starred as Paladin in the radio version of "Have Gun — Will Travel", one of the few times a show began on television and then was later adapted for radio. On CBS Radio in 1958, he starred in "Frontier Gentleman", a western series that opened with a trumpet theme by Jerry Goldsmith and this introduction: Written and directed by Antony Ellis, the short-lived series followed the adventures of journalist Kendall as he roamed the Western United States in search of stories for "The Times". Television and films. Dehner appeared with Maudie Prickett in the 1953 episode "Bad Men of Marysville" of the syndicated Western television series "The Adventures of Kit Carson", starring Bill Williams. He guest starred on the 1955-1956 NBC Western anthology series, "Frontier" and in the CBS Cold War drama, "Crusader", starring Brian Keith. He played the sheriff-turned-outlaw Henry Plummer in an episode of the 1954-1955 syndicated "Stories of the Century", starring Jim Davis as Matt Clark, the fictitious detective of the Southwest Railroad.
1156043	Burt Ward (born July 6, 1945) is an American television actor and activist. He is best known for his portrayal of Robin in the television series "Batman" (1966–68) and its theatrical film spin-off. Early life. Ward was born Bert John Gervis, Jr., in Los Angeles, California. At the age of two, Ward was listed in the magazine "Strange as It Seems" as the world's youngest professional ice skater. Growing up, he was an avid reader of comic books like "Superman" and "Superboy", and enjoyed the action-adventure show "Adventures of Superman". He acquired the nickname "Sparky" in youth, possibly from the sparks his skates used to kick up during his routines or energetic nature. He excelled in high school sport activities such as football, track, and wrestling; he was also a member of the chess club and earned a black belt in Taekwondo. After graduation, he enrolled in college, while working part-time for his father's real estate company. "Batman". At the age of 19, Ward auditioned for the part of Robin. He and Adam West were up against Lyle Waggoner and Peter Deyell for the roles of Batman and Robin, respectively. Selected for the role of Robin, Ward thought people would find "Gervis" (the "G" is soft, as in "gentleman") hard to pronounce and adopted his mother's maiden name "Ward". He also changed the spelling of "Bert" to "Burt" to add "punch". Unlike the series' lead, Adam West, Ward was required to do some dangerous stunt work, because his costume revealed more of his face, making it impractical for all of his stunt scenes to be performed by a stuntman. According to a 2000 "A&E Biography" interview of his series' co-star, the "Dynamic Duo" had a lot of fun, both on and off the set. At the height of "Batman's" popularity, Ward recorded a series of tracks under the production of Frank Zappa. The first two, "Boy Wonder, I Love You" (which Zappa wrote) and "Orange Colored Sky," were released as a single on November 14, 1966. Two other tracks from these sessions, "Teenage Bill of Rights" and "Autumn Love", remained unreleased. During the first months of shooting, Ward was paid $350 per week. By the series' end, he was earning up to $600 a week. The series only lasted two and a half seasons, for a total of 120 episodes; according to Ward in an interview, this was because of the high cost of production. It was still high in the ratings, but ABC was losing a great deal of money. Later, NBC offered to pick it up for a fourth season, but the offer was withdrawn after learning that the sets had been destroyed. Adam West and Burt Ward recreated their TV roles of Batman and Robin in the 20th Century Fox film "Batman: The Movie" released on July 30, 1966. Burt said of Adam West, his mentor and friend for more than four decades, "We were completely opposite. Adam has been in many shows, tremendous, terrific background, but very "Mr. Hollywood". He wanted his tea at 4 in the afternoon, and me, I'm just like this kid that does not care, having a great time. And I think that's one of the reasons that the public like them because Adam was very introspective and I'm just this exuberant kid." In 1969, a year after "Batman"'s cancellation, West's mother Audrey died, bringing the two men closer together. They have been reunited many times at conventions and TV reunion specials. In turn, Ward also made three guest-appearances with West on three separate cartoons: one was a 2002 episode of "The Simpsons", eight years later in 2010 on an episode of "SpongeBob SquarePants", and in 2013 for one of the final episodes of "Futurama". Post-"Batman" career. After the end of "Batman", Ward found himself hard-pressed to find other acting jobs. He re-emerged to act in more than 30 made-for-television films such as "Virgin High". Although reportedly wanted by the producer, Ward did not get the Dustin Hoffman part in "The Graduate" because he chose to renew his contract with the "Batman" TV show, and 20th Century Fox did not want to dilute his popularity and identification as Robin. In 1985, DC Comics named Ward as one of the honorees in the company's 50th anniversary publication "Fifty Who Made DC Great" for his work on the Batman series. In June 1995, Ward wrote a tell-all autobiography called "Boy Wonder: My Life in Tights" (ISBN 0-9647048-0-3), which described his time playing Robin.
750994	Martin Gardner (October 21, 1914May 22, 2010) was an American popular mathematics and science writer specializing in recreational mathematics, but with interests encompassing micromagic, stage magic, literature (especially the writings of Lewis Carroll and G.K. Chesterton), philosophy, scientific skepticism, and religion. He wrote the "Mathematical Games" column in "Scientific American" from 1956 to 1981 and the "Notes of a Fringe-Watcher" column in "Skeptical Inquirer" from 1983 to 2002 and published more than 100 books. Biography. Youth and education. Gardner, son of a petroleum geologist, grew up in and around Tulsa, Oklahoma. He showed an early interest in puzzles and games and his closest childhood friend, John Bennett Shaw, later became "the greatest of all collectors of Sherlockian memorabilia". He attended the University of Chicago where he earned his bachelor's degree in philosophy in 1936. Early jobs included reporter on the "Tulsa Tribune", writer at the University of Chicago Office of Press Relations, and case worker in Chicago's Black Belt for the city's Relief Administration. During World War II, he served for four years in the U.S. Navy as a yeoman on board the destroyer escort "USS Pope (DE-134)" in the Atlantic. His ship was still in the Atlantic when the war came to an end with the surrender of Japan in August 1945. After the war, Gardner returned to the University of Chicago. He also attended graduate school for a year there, but he did not earn an advanced degree. In 1950 he published an article in the "Antioch Review" entitled "The Hermit Scientist," a pioneering work on what would later come to be called pseudoscientists. It was Gardner's first publication of a skeptical nature and two years later it was published in a much expanded book version: "In the Name of Science", his first book. Early career. In the early 1950s, Gardner moved to New York City and became a writer and designer at "Humpty Dumpty" magazine where for eight years he wrote features and stories for it and several other children's magazines. His paper-folding puzzles at that magazine (sister publication to "Children's Digest" at the time, and now sister publication to "Jack and Jill" magazine) led to his first work at "Scientific American." For many decades, Gardner, his wife Charlotte, and their two sons lived in Hastings-on-Hudson, New York, where he earned his living as an independent author, publishing books with several different publishers, and also publishing hundreds of magazine and newspaper articles. Appropriately enough — given his interest in logic and mathematics — they lived on Euclid Avenue. The year 1960 saw the original edition of his best-selling book ever, "The Annotated Alice", various editions of which have sold over a million copies worldwide in several languages. "Mathematical Games". For over a quarter century (1956-1981), Gardner wrote a monthly column on the subject of "recreational mathematics" for "Scientific American". It all began with his free-standing article on hexaflexagons which ran in the December 1956 issue. The "SA" editor suggested he write a regular feature and the January 1957 issue contained his first column, entitled "Mathematical Games". The columns were first collected in book form in 1959 as "The Scientific American Book of Mathematical Puzzles and Diversions". Fourteen more followed over the next four decades. In the 1980s the column began to appear only irregularly. Other authors began to share the column and the May 1986 issue saw the final installment under that title. In 1979, Gardner and his wife semi-retired and moved to Hendersonville, North Carolina. Gatherings for Gardner. Gardner was famously shy and declined many honors when he learned that a public appearance would be required if he accepted. (He once told Colm Mulcahy that he "never gave a lecture in his life and that he wouldn't know how to.") However, in 1993 Atlanta puzzle collector Tom Rodgers persuaded Gardner to attend an evening devoted to Gardner's puzzle-solving efforts, called "Gathering for Gardner". The event was repeated in 1996, again with Gardner in attendance, which convinced Rodgers and his friends to make the gathering a regular event. It has been held since then in even-numbered years near Atlanta, and the program consists of any topic which could have been touched by Gardner during his writing career. The event's name is abbreviated to "G4G"n"", with "n" being replaced by the number of the event (the 2010 event thus was "G4G9"). Gardner attended the 1993 and 1996 events. Personal life. Gardner's wife died in 2000 and two years later he returned to Norman, Oklahoma where his son, James Gardner, was a professor of education at the University of Oklahoma. He died there on May 22, 2010. Views and interests. Recreational mathematics. Martin Gardner was important in sustaining and nurturing interest in recreational mathematics in the U.S. for a large part of the 20th century. He is best known for his decades-long efforts in popular mathematics and science journalism, particularly through his "Mathematical Games" column in "Scientific American". Ironically, Gardner had problems learning calculus and never took a mathematics course after high school. He was the editor of a children's magazine named "Humpty Dumpty's Magazine for Little Children" in 1956 when he was asked by the publisher of "Scientific American" about the possibility of starting a regular column about recreational mathematics, following his submission of an article about flexagons. The "Mathematical Games" column ran from 1956 to 1981 and was the first introduction of many subjects to a wider audience, including: Many of these articles have been collected in a series of books starting with "Mathematical Puzzles and Diversions", first published in 1956. In 1981, on Gardner's retirement from "Scientific American", the column was replaced by Douglas Hofstadter's "Metamagical Themas", a name that is an anagram of "Mathematical Games". Gardner never really retired as an author, but rather he continued to do literature research and to write, especially in updating many of his older books, such as "Origami, Eleusis, and the Soma Cube", ISBN 978-0-521-73524-7, published 2008. Gardner also wrote a "puzzle tale" column for "Asimov's Science Fiction" magazine (1977-1986), producing 111 columns in all. Pseudoscience. Gardner's uncompromising attitude toward pseudoscience made him one of the foremost anti-pseudoscience polemicists of the 20th century. His book "Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science" (1952, revised 1957) is a classic and seminal work of the skeptical movement. It explored myriad dubious outlooks and projects including Fletcherism, creationism, food faddism, Charles Fort, Rudolf Steiner, Scientology, Dianetics, UFOs, dowsing, extra-sensory perception, the Bates method, and psychokinesis. This book and his subsequent efforts ("Science: Good, Bad and Bogus", 1981; "Order and Surprise", 1983, "Gardner's Whys & Wherefores", 1989, etc.) earned him a wealth of detractors and antagonists in the fields of "fringe science" and New Age philosophy, with many of whom he kept up running dialogs (both public and private) for decades. In 1976, Gardner was a founding member of the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (CSICOP), and he wrote a column called "Notes of a Fringe Watcher" (originally "Notes of a Psi-Watcher") from 1983 to 2002 for that organization's periodical "Skeptical Inquirer". These have been collected in five books: "New Age: Notes of a Fringe Watcher" (1988), "On the Wild Side" (1992), "Weird Water and Fuzzy Logic" (1996), "Did Adam and Eve Have Navels" (2000), and "Are Universes Thicker than Blackberries" (2003). Gardner was a senior CSICOP fellow and prominent skeptic of the paranormal. On August 21, 2010, Gardner was posthumously honored with an award recognizing his contributions in the skeptical field, from the Independent Investigations Group during its 10th Anniversary Gala. Religion and philosophy. Gardner had an abiding fascination with religious belief. He was a fideistic theist, professing belief in a god as creator, but critical of organized religion. He has been quoted as saying that he regards parapsychology and other research into the paranormal as tantamount to "tempting God" and seeking "signs and wonders". He stated that while he would expect tests on the efficacy of prayers to be negative, he would not rule out a priori the possibility that as yet unknown paranormal forces may allow prayers to influence the physical world. Gardner wrote repeatedly about what public figures such as Robert Maynard Hutchins, Mortimer Adler, and William F. Buckley, Jr. believed and whether their beliefs were logically consistent. In some cases, he attacked prominent religious figures such as Mary Baker Eddy on the grounds that their claims are unsupportable. His semi-autobiographical novel "The Flight of Peter Fromm" depicts a traditionally Protestant Christian man struggling with his faith, examining 20th century scholarship and intellectual movements and ultimately rejecting Christianity while remaining a theist. He described his own belief as philosophical theism inspired by the theology of the philosopher Miguel de Unamuno. While critical of organized religions, Gardner believed in a god, asserting that this belief cannot be confirmed or disconfirmed by reason or science. At the same time, he was skeptical of claims that any god has communicated with human beings through spoken or telepathic revelation or through miracles in the natural world. Gardner's philosophy may be summarized as follows: There is nothing supernatural, and nothing in human reason or visible in the world to compel people to believe in any gods. The mystery of existence is enchanting, but a belief in "The Old One" comes from faith without evidence. However, with faith and prayer people can find greater happiness than without. If there is an afterlife, the loving "Old One" is probably real. "an atheist the universe is the most exquisite masterpiece ever constructed by nobody", from G. K. Chesterton, was one of Gardner's favorite quotes. Gardner has said that he suspects that the fundamental nature of human consciousness may not be knowable or discoverable, unless perhaps a physics more profound than ("underlying") quantum mechanics is some day developed. In this regard, he said, he was an adherent of the "New Mysterianism". Literary criticism and fiction. Gardner was considered a leading authority on Lewis Carroll. His annotated version of "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" and "Through the Looking Glass", explaining the many mathematical riddles, wordplay, and literary references found in the Alice books, was first published as "The Annotated Alice" (Clarkson Potter, 1960), a sequel published with new annotations as "More Annotated Alice" (Random House, 1990), and finally as "The Annotated Alice: The Definitive Edition" (Norton, 1999) combining notes from the earlier editions and new material. The book arose when Gardner, who found the Alice books 'sort of frightening' when he was young but found them fascinating as an adult, felt that someone ought to annotate them and suggested to a publisher that Bertrand Russell be asked; when the publisher did not manage to get past Russell's secretary, Gardner was asked to take the project. The book has been Gardner's most successful, selling over half a million copies. Gardner's interest in wordplay led him to conceive of a magazine on recreational linguistics. In 1968 he pitched the idea to Greenwood Periodicals and nominated Dmitri Borgmann as editor. The resulting journal, "Word Ways", carried many articles from Gardner; as of 2013 it continues to publish his submissions posthumously. In addition to the 'Alice' books, Gardner produced “Annotated” editions of G. K. Chesterton’s "The Innocence Of Father Brown" and "The Man Who Was Thursday" as well as of celebrated poems including "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner", "Casey at the Bat", "The Night Before Christmas", and "The Hunting of the Snark"; the last also written by Lewis Carroll. Gardner occasionally tried his hand at fiction of a kind always closely associated with his non-fictional preoccupations. His "roman à clef" novel was "The Flight of Peter Fromm" (1973) and his short stories were collected in "The No-Sided Professor and Other Tales of Fantasy, Humor, Mystery, and Philosophy" (1987). Gardner published stories about an imaginary numerologist named Dr. Matrix and "Visitors from Oz" (1998), based on L. Frank Baum's Oz books, which reflected his love of Oz. (He was a founding member of the International Wizard of Oz Club, and winner of its 1971 L. Frank Baum Memorial Award.) Gardner was a member of the all-male literary banqueting club, the Trap Door Spiders, which served as the basis of Isaac Asimov's fictional group of mystery solvers, the Black Widowers. Controversy. Although personally shy and almost never willing to make public appearances, Gardner was an avid controversialist through the medium of his many publications and letters. Best known are his stances against pseudoscience (especially parapsychology) and conservative Christianity, but over the years he held forth on many contemporary issues, arguing for his points of view in a wide range of fields, from general semantics to fuzzy logic to watching TV (he once wrote a negative review of Jerry Mander's book "Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television"). His philosophical views are described and defended in his book "The Whys of a Philosophical Scrivener" (1983, revised 1999). Under the pseudonym "George Groth", Gardner panned his own book for the "New York Review of Books". Although Gardner was a fierce critic of paranormal claims, under his "George Groth" pseudonym he wrote an article for "Fate" magazine (October 1952, pp. 39–43) titled "He Writes with Your Hand," which touted the psychic abilities of mentalist Stanley Jaks as genuine. Gardner was known for his sometimes controversial philosophy of mathematics. He wrote negative reviews of "The Mathematical Experience" by Philip J. Davis and Reuben Hersh and "What is mathematics, really?" by Hersh, each of which were critical of aspects of mathematical Platonism, and the first of which was well received by the mathematical community. While Gardner was often perceived as a hard-core Platonist, his reviews demonstrated some formalist tendencies. Gardner maintained that his views are widespread among mathematicians, but Hersh has countered that in his experience as a professional mathematician and speaker, this is not the case.
631267	Stories of Lost Souls is a compilation of eight cinematic stories of lonely souls in unexpected situations starring many of cinema's biggest names including Josh Hartnett, Hugh Jackman, Keira Knightley, Cate Blanchett, James Gandolfini, Paul Bettany, Illeana Douglas and directed by eight different directors including Deborra-Lee Furness and Mark Palansky. "Stories of Lost Souls" was executive produced by Thomas Bannister. Segments. Some versions of the film do not feature "Sniper 470" but start with "The Same" and feature "Supermarket". "Directed by Mark Palansky - Starring Josh Hartnett - Starring Jason Acuña, Jacqui Maxwell" A creepy house. Every night a dwarf awaits for his beautiful neighbor to return. He will do anything to win the girl of his dreams, including one terrible crime: He kills another one of his neighbors and, for some unknown reason, chops off that neighbors legs. When he exits the crime scene, the girl sees him and uncovers her own legs, which look like porcelain (?). "Directed by Deborra-Lee Furness - Starring Hugh Jackman, Michael Gambon, Joanna Lumley, and Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio" The story revolves around a group of people waiting in line for a performance. "Directed by Andrew Upton - Starring Cate Blanchett" The haunting story of a woman slipping into insanity. Julie-Anne, a marginally successful career woman, is preparing dinner for her gruff and unsympathetic mother. As she cooks the mashed potatoes and sausages, she tells an indifferent audience of her mother and cat about a recent promotion at work. As she rants about her job it becomes apparent that she is in the middle of a mental breakdown that culminates in burned sausage and mashed potatoes all over the floor. "Directed by Col Spector - Starring Keira Knightley" The story of a seductive temptress at a New Year's Eve party. " Written by Tristram Pye and Directed by Toa Stappard - Starring Paul Bettany" A fast car. Two men talking in a hotel bar. Seven questions in eight minutes. And it is 9 pm on Euston Road. Figure it out.
995701	Cannibal Tours is a 1988 documentary film by Australian director and cinematographer Dennis O'Rourke. While it borrows heavily from ethnographic modes of representation, the film is a biting commentary on the nature of modernity. The film follows a number of European and American ecotourists as they travel from village to village throughout the Sepik River area in Papua New Guinea, driving hard bargains for local handcrafted items, paying to view formerly sacred ceremonies and taking photographs of every aspect of "primitive" life. With some prodding, the tourists unwittingly reveal an unattractive and pervasive ethnocentrism to O'Rourke's cameras. The tourists thus become somewhat dehumanized by the camera, even as the tourists themselves are busy exoticizing even the most mundane aspects of Sepik River life.
586794	Dombivali Fast () is a critically acclaimed Marathi film directed by Nishikanth Kamat. It is the story of a middle class bank employee, Madhav Apte, an ordinary, law-abiding and honest citizen who faces constant frustration with the injustice and corruption that pervades in all walks of his life. The film portrays Apte's mental breakdown as he reaches his breaking point, and his rampage as a vigilante across Mumbai to set things right. The film stars Sandeep Kulkarni in the lead with Shilpa Tulaskar and Sandesh Jadhav. The film bears resemblance to the 1993 Hollywood film Falling Down, starring Michael Douglas. Kamat remade the film in Tamil as "Evano Oruvan" with R. Madhavan playing the lead. Plot. Madhav Apte is a common man with strong principles. He has strong values and does not believe in bending any rules for anybody, even when the future of his children is involved. He fights with people around when he sees injustice and corruption, which include his colleagues, his boss, shop keepers, school principal and even his wife. His principles and his behavior is a cause of fights between his wife and him. She is tired of him only preaching of changing the world but not doing anything about it.
1428123	Anna Kashfi (born September 30, 1934) is an Anglo-Indian former film actress, who had a brief Hollywood career in the 1950s and is best known for having been married to Marlon Brando. Early life and origins. Johanna O'Callaghan was born in Darjeeling and raised in Calcutta, India and, later, Cardiff, Wales, where the family moved in 1947. William P. O'Callaghan was a London-born steel worker of Irish descent, who had been a traffic superintendent on the Indian State railways; his wife was English and told the press ""there is no Indian blood in my family or my husband's family"". In her book, "Brando for Breakfast", published in 1979, however, Kashfi claimed that she really is half-Indian and that the press incorrectly believed that William O'Callaghan was her real father when he was, she stated, her stepfather. Kashfi wrote that her biological father was Indian and that she was the result of an "unregistered alliance" between her parents. Film director Edward Dmytryk, who directed the actress in her first film, stated that he knew her real surname was Irish but he said he assumed that she was half-Indian. Career. She worked as a waitress in Cardiff and in a butcher shop before moving to London, where she became a model The actress made her debut screen appearance using the stage name "Anna Kashfi" as a Hindu girl in "The Mountain" (1956) for Paramount with Spencer Tracy and Robert Wagner. In her next film she co-starred with Rock Hudson as a Korean girl in "Battle Hymn" (1957). This was followed by "Cowboy" (1958) with Glenn Ford and Jack Lemmon in which she played a Mexican. Her next and last film during this period was "Night of the Quarter Moon" (1959). She made a few appearances on television, including the series "Adventures in Paradise", though drug and alcohol problems reportedly contributed to the premature end of her acting career Personal life. Kashfi married Marlon Brando on October 11, 1957, and they were divorced on April 22, 1959. She had met Brando in the summer of 1956 and dated all through that year and all through 1957. According to "The New York Times" (October 14, 1957), though Kashfi's parents had been identified as the O'Callaghans, she did not identify them as her parents on her marriage license, instead stating that her father was Devi Kashfi and her mother was Selma Ghose; a friend of the bride stated that Kashfi's purported Indian father had died six weeks before the Brandos' wedding. The O'Callaghans' were adamant that Kashfi was their child, and William O'Callaghan was quoted in "Time" magazine as saying, "That's our daughter, and both me and missus were born in London." The magazine further stated that ""MGM, which likes Johanna-Anna in her off-shoulder sari, first hedged, then admitted her identity."" The Brandos had a son, Christian Devi Brando, (1958–2008), and fought bitterly over custody of the boy, with Brando eventually obtaining custody. Kashfi married James Hannaford, a salesman, in 1974. In the 1990s, her son, Christian, whom she called "Devi", was tried for killing his half-sister Cheyenne Brando's boyfriend, Dag Drollet. Christian Brando died of pneumonia in Los Angeles in 2008, aged 49. Kashfi has one grandson, Michael Brando (born 1988).
584492	Arjun Sarja is an Indian film actor and director. He has primarily acted in Tamil and Kannada films and also appeared in Malayalam and Telugu films. Personal life. Arjun Sarja was born in a Kannada family in Bangalore to a popular Kannada film actor Shakthi Prasad. He had one elder brother Kishore Sarja, who has directed Kannada films. He is married to Niveditha (Asha Rani), a former actress who has acted in a Kannada movie called "Rathasapthami". Kannada actor Rajesh is his father-in-law. Sarja has two daughters, Aishwarya and Anjana. Aishwarya Arjun will be making her acting debut in 2013. His nephews Chiranjeevi Sarja and Dhruva Sarja both act in Kannada movies. Another nephew of Arjun, Bharat Sarja, will also be making his acting debut in 2013. He is a black belt holder in Karate. Film career. He has acted in over 200 films in five different languages. Sarja started as actor in Kannada film "Putaani Agent 1-2-3" with director Rajender Singh Babu. Other movies inclde Simhada Mari Sainya, Male Banthu Male, Pooja Phala in Kannada, he moved to Tamil and Telugu films. His first Tamil film was "Nandri" in 1984, but the film that really catapulted him to the big league was Shankar's "Gentleman" (1993). His other films in Tamil include "Jai Hind" (1994), "Karnaa" (1995), "Kurudhipunal" (1995), "Sengottai" (1996), "Mudhalvan" (1999), "Rhythm" (2000), "Vedham" (2001), "Ezhumalai" (2002), "Giri" (2004), "Marudhamalai" (2007) and "Mankatha" (2011). In Telugu, he debuted in the 1985 movie "Maa Pallelo Gopaludu" by Kodi Ramakrishna, after which he had acted in four films in his direction. Sarja has also directed and produced some films. In 1991 when he was unhappy about his career, he directed the film "Sevagan" besides producing, directing and act in it. The film became a hit at the box office. Sarja won a Tamil Nadu State Film Award for Best Actor for "Gentleman" 1993 and a Karnataka State Film Award for Best Actor for "Prasad" 2012.
1268116	Nita Naldi (November 13, 1894 – February 17, 1961) was an American silent film actress. She was usually cast in the role of the "femme fatale"/"vamp", a persona first popularized by actress Theda Bara. Early life. Born Mary Dooley in New York City into a working class Irish family in 1894, the daughter of Julia (Cronin) and Patrick Dooley. She was named for her great aunt, Mary Nonna Dunphy, who founded Academy of the Holy Angels in Fort Lee, New Jersey, which young Mary Dooley attended in 1910. Her father left the family in 1910, and her mother died in 1915. Left with the care of two teenage siblings Naldi began to seek work. She took odd jobs including artists' model and cloak model. Eventually she entered vaudeville with her brother Frank. By 1918 she debuted on Broadway as a chorus girl at the Winter Garden in "The Passing Show of 1918".
1063229	Robert Douglas Thomas Pattinson (born 13 May 1986) is an English actor, model, musician and producer. Pattinson started his career by playing Cedric Diggory in "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire". He later landed the leading role of Edward Cullen in the film adaptations of the "Twilight" novels by Stephenie Meyer, and came to worldwide fame, thus establishing himself among the highest paid and most bankable actors in Hollywood. In 2010, Pattinson was named one of "TIME" magazine's 100 Most Influential People in The World, and also in the same year "Forbes" ranked him as one of the most powerful celebrities in the world in the Forbes Celebrity 100. Since the "Twilight" series ended in 2012, Pattinson has ventured into doing small independent films. Early life. Pattinson was born in London, England. His father, Richard, imported vintage cars from America, and his mother, Clare, worked for a modelling agency. Pattinson has two elder sisters, singer Lizzy Pattinson, and Victoria Pattinson. Growing up in the Barnes suburb of London, he attended Tower House School until he was 12, and then The Harrodian School. He became involved in amateur theatre at the Barnes Theatre Company. He auditioned and was cast in a small role in "Guys and Dolls". He next auditioned for Thornton Wilder's "Our Town" and was cast as George Gibbs. He also played in "Anything Goes" and "Macbeth". He caught the attention of an acting agent in a production of "Tess of the d'Urbervilles" and began looking for professional roles. Career. Modelling. Pattinson began modelling at the age of 12, but his workload began to decrease four years later. In December 2008, he blamed the lack of modelling work on his masculine appearance: "When I first started I was quite tall and looked like a girl, so I got lots of jobs, because it was during that period where the androgynous look was cool. Then, I guess, I became too much of a guy, so I never got any more jobs. I had the most unsuccessful modelling career." Pattinson appeared in the advertising campaign for Hackett's autumn 2007 collection. In June 2013, Pattinson was announced as the new face of Dior Homme fragrance and featured in the advertising campaign titled "1000 LIVES", directed by Romain Gavras and photographed by Nan Goldin. This campaign has also featured the track Whole Lotta Love by English rock band Led Zeppelin. Early career. Pattinson had supporting roles in the made for television film "" in 2004 and in director Mira Nair’s "Vanity Fair", although his scenes in the latter were deleted and only appear on the DVD version. In May 2005, he was scheduled to appear in the UK premiere of "The Woman Before" at the Royal Court Theatre, but was fired shortly before the opening night and was replaced by Tom Riley. Later that year he played Cedric Diggory in "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire". For this role he was named that year's "British Star of Tomorrow" by "The Times" and had more than once been hailed as "the next Jude Law". In 2006, Pattinson appeared in The Haunted Airman a psychological thriller, aired on BBC Four on 31 October, he earned favourable reviews. The Stage praised Pattinson that "he played the airman of the title with a perfect combination of youthful terror and world weary cynicism." On 19 February 2007, he appeared in a supporting role in a one-off television drama based on the best-selling novel by Kate Long The Bad Mother's Handbook. 2008–2012. In 2008, Pattinson landed the coveted role of Edward Cullen in the film "Twilight", based on Stephenie Meyer's best-selling novel of the same name. According to "TV Guide", Pattinson was initially apprehensive about auditioning for the role of Edward Cullen, fearful that he would not be able to live up to the "perfection" expected from the character. The film was released on 21 November 2008 and turned Pattinson into a moviestar overnight. Though the film received mixed reviews, critics praised his and co-star Kristen Stewart's chemistry in the film. The "New York Times" called Pattinson a "capable and exotically beautiful" actor and Roger Ebert said he was "well-chosen" for the role. His other release of 2008, "How to Be", was a low-budget comedy drama film written and directed by Oliver Irving. It screened at number of film festivals, earned mixed reviews from critics. Pattinson then starred as Salvador Dalí in the film "Little Ashes" a Spanish-British drama Directed by Paul Morrison. He also starred in a short film "The Summer House" directed by Daisy Gili. This short film later re-released as a part of an anthology film titled Love & Distrust, comprising 5 short films following eight individuals from diverse backgrounds on their quest for true contentment.
1060857	Samantha Mathis (born May 12, 1970) is an American actress. The daughter of actress Bibi Besch, Mathis made her film debut in "Pump Up the Volume" (1990), and later co-starred or appeared in such films as "Little Women" (1994), "The American President" (1995), "Broken Arrow" (1996), "American Psycho" (2000), and "" (2012). Early life. Mathis was born in Brooklyn, New York, the daughter of the Austrian-born actress Bibi Besch, and granddaughter of Austrian actress Gusti Huber. Her parents divorced when she was two years old, and Mathis was raised by her mother. She relocated with her mother to Los Angeles at the age of five. Mathis's mother discouraged her from pursuing acting, but growing up on locations, in theaters, and in acting classes, Mathis knew she wanted to act. She decided to become an actress at the age of twelve. Career. Mathis began acting professionally at the age of 16. Her first job was a commercial for "Always Slender Pads - Just For Teens." She costarred in the television series "Aaron's Way" and "Knightwatch" from 1988 to 1989. Her first starring role in a feature film was that of Nora in "Pump Up the Volume" (1990), opposite Christian Slater, whom she briefly dated at the time. Mathis dyed her natural blonde hair black for the role in an effort to change her image from sweet and innocent to strong-willed. Mathis appeared in the television movies "Extreme Close-up," "83 Hours 'til Dawn," and "To My Daughter" in 1990. Mathis and Slater had voice roles in the animated film "" (1992). She next appeared in the comedy "This Is My Life" (1992), written and directed by Nora Ephron, playing an insecure teenager. Mathis appeared in the play "Fortinbras" in New York City in October 1992. "Super Mario Bros." (1993), in which she played Princess Daisy from the popular Nintendo video game, was a box-office bomb.
1162389	Christina Moore (born April 12, 1973) is an American actress. She is most notable for her membership in the main cast of comedians on sketch comedy series "MADtv", for replacing Lisa Robin Kelly as Laurie Forman on "That '70s Show" during the sixth season and for portraying Candy Sullivan in the TNT show "Hawthorne". She had a recurring role in "90210". Early life. Christina Moore was born in Palatine, Illinois. She became interested in performing as a young girl at her family's church by getting involved with the singing and performing programs. When she was in high school, she toured with a children's musical theatre troupe throughout the city of Chicago.
1067562	The Million Dollar Hotel is a 2000 American drama film based on a concept story by Bono and Nicholas Klein; directed by Wim Wenders; and starring Jeremy Davies, Milla Jovovich, and Mel Gibson. The film features music by U2 and various artists and was released on the soundtrack, "". Plot. A group of very different people live in a hotel in Los Angeles, California including the romantically involved Tom Tom (Davies) and Eloise (Milla Jovovich). The events that unfold are the result of the death of an important resident; the son (Tim Roth) of a billionaire media mogul. His father commissions an FBI agent (Gibson) to look into his death. Production. The story was originally developed by Bono in 1987 when filming the music video for "Where the Streets Have No Name". The movie had an estimated budget of $8 million, but opened to only $29,483 in US box office, with little more success in subsequent weeks or in other countries. It also received very poor reviews, obtaining 25 of 100 on Metacritic and 25% on Rotten Tomatoes, although it won the Silver Bear at the Berlin International Film Festival in 2000. In an October 2000 press conference in Sydney, before the Australian release of the film, Mel Gibson said, "I thought it was as boring as a dog's ass." He later explained: It was at the end of a day where I had done 6,000 interviews, some guy was ragging on the film and it just slipped out. Later, I thought 'God, why did I say that? I'm an idiot! I produced this film. I'm distributing it!' It was pretty thoughtless of me, because a lot of people worked very hard on that film, and the fact is there are moments of genius in it. The soundtrack is by U2, and it's phenomenal. So I really regret saying that. I have written a lot of apology letters about it.
606057	Crimes of the Future is a 1970 Canadian film written, shot, edited and directed by David Cronenberg. Like his earlier "Stereo" it lasts about an hour and stars Ronald Mlodzik. Also like "Stereo" it was shot silent with a commentary added afterwards. The commentary is spoken by the character Adrian Tripod. This film is set in 1997. Summary. "Crimes of the Future" details the wanderings of Tripod (Mlodzik), sometime director of a dermatological clinic called the House of Skin, who is searching for his mentor, the mad dermatologist Antoine Rouge. Rouge has disappeared following a catastrophic plague resulting from cosmetic products, which has killed the entire population of sexually mature women. Tripod joins a succession of organisations including Metaphysical Import-Export and the Oceanic Podiatry Group, and meets various individuals and groups of men who are trying to adjust themselves to a defeminized world. One man parodies childbirth by continually growing new organs which are removed from his body. Eventually Tripod comes upon a group of paedophiles which is holding a 5 year-old girl, and they urge him to mate with her. He senses the presence of Antoine Rouge. Reception. Kim Newman, in his 1988 book "Nightmare Movies", has described "Crimes of the Future" as being "more fun to read about in synopsis than to watch", and as proving, along with "Stereo", that "it's possible to be boring and interesting at the same time." The film has received a 'fresh' rating of 60% on Rotten Tomatoes.
582555	Chitrangada (born 28 March 1976) is an Indian film actress. She is best known for starring in "Hazaaron Khwaishen Aisi" (2005) and for her first mainstream commercial film, "Desi Boyz" (2011). She is married to Indian golfer Jyoti Randhawa. Early life. Chitrangada Singh was born in Jodhpur, Rajasthan. Her brother is golfer Digvijay Singh. As a girl, she was known for looking like the late actress Smita Patil. "You have outdone Smita Patil", said Shekhar Kapur, when he saw Chitrangada Singh's performance in her debut movie "Hazaaron Khwaishein Aisi" (2003). She received training in Kathak (a classical dance) and enjoyed acting. Career. She began her career in Delhi as a model before making the transition to the silver screen. After completing her education, she entered modeling, where her ad credits include ICICI bank and Alukkas Jewellery, and gradually shifting to music videos, she performed in Gulzar's "Sunset Point." It was in a music video of singer Abhijeet Bhattacharya, that she was spotted by Sudhir Mishra’s production manager. Subsequently, she made her much acclaimed debut with Sudhir Mishra's film "Hazaaron Khwaishein Aisi" in 2003. The role got her wide acclaim: a "Washington Post" review noted her for giving "her character a deep sense of dignity and decency." After that Chitrangada acted in the 2005 film "Kal: Yesterday and Tomorrow". Chitrangada made her debut as an item girl in Shirish Kunder's "Joker". Also she is to lend her voice to a score in the movie. She took a break from acting from 2005 to 2008. In 2008, she made her comeback with the leading role opposite Sanjay Suri in the director Onir's romantic-comedy, "Sorry Bhai!". Its release over the weekend of the Mumbai terror attacks proved disastrous at the box office.
395983	Kim Tae-hee (Korean: 김태희, born 29 March 1980) is a South Korean actress and model. She is best known for her roles in Korean dramas such as "Iris", "Love Story in Harvard", "My Princess", "Stairway to Heaven", and "Jang Ok-jung, Living by Love". Early life. Kim Tae-hee was born on 29 March 1980 in Busan, South Korea. She is the second of three children. Kim has an older sister and a younger brother, Lee Wan, who is also an actor and appeared in her television series "Stairway to Heaven". Kim moved to Ulsan as a child. She had an average of ‘100′ for all subjects throughout her three years in middle school. She enrolled at Ulsan Girls High School, and later moved to Seoul to attend college. Career. Kim began her career as a model and in television commercials, and she made her film debut in "Last Present". She rose to stardom via her portrayal of the evil stepsister in the popular SBS TV series "Stairway to Heaven". Her other TV projects include the supernatural KBS series "Forbidden Love" and the SBS campus romance "Love Story in Harvard". Both series were successful, and for her performance in "Forbidden Love" she was honoured with the Best Female Newcomer award. Kim then turned to film, starring in "The Restless" and the romantic comedy "Venus and Mars". In 2009 she returned to the small screen in the action thriller "Iris" with Lee Byung-hun. It was one of the most expensive dramas ever produced and was a critical and commercial success with an average rating of 30%. It was the top rated program every week after its debut. She also played a horse jockey who dreams of winning the Grand Prix championship in the film "Grand Prix". After the success of "Iris", she played the lead in the romantic comedy "My Princess" alongside Song Seung-heon. "My Princess" began airing on 5 January 2011. Her character was Lee Seol, an ordinary college student who discovers that she is a princess. In late 2011 she starred in her first Japanese drama "Boku to Star no 99 Nichi" as Han Yuna, a big South Korean star. One day she meets an ordinary, and pretty boring, 30-year-old man who somehow makes her fall head over heels in love with him. In 2013, Kim starred in her first historical drama "Jang Ok-jung, Living by Love" as the infamous royal concubine Jang Hui-bin. Personal life. In 2005, she graduated from the prestigious Seoul National University with a degree in Fashion Design and was the president of the SNU Women’s Ski Club. On 2 January 2013 her agency confirmed her relationship with singer Rain stating “It is true that they have met, but at the present time they are slowly beginning to know more about each other with good and positive feelings,” and “It has been about a month since their first meeting.” Endorsements. Kim is one of the most popular and in-demand product endorsers in Korea. She has been a spokesperson for popular brands including Cyon, Paris Baguette, LG, iriver, Hera, Ohui, Vivian, Daewoo Matiz, Klasse, Samsung, Beans Avenue, Olympus, My House/Root, Crencia, KT Smard Card, Calli, ZEC, BC Card, Maxwell House, S-Oil, Corn Silk Tae, Toyota and Prugio.
583289	Vikram Gokhale (occasionally credited as Vikram Gokhle) is a well known Indian film, television and stage actor, notable for his roles in Marathi theatre and Hindi films and television. He is the son of another well known veteran Marathi theater and film actor Chandrakant Gokhale.
592681	Visakha Express is a Suspense Thriller Movie directed by Mullapudi Vara. The film stars Allari Naresh, Rajiv Kanakala, Preeti Jhangiani, and Sindhu Tolani.The basic plot of the story is taken from Alfred Hitchcock's Strangers On A Train (1951),which is about the two strangers and exchange of murders. Plot. Two strangers Dr.Raja (Rajiv Kanakala) and Ravi Varma (Allari Naresh) meet each other on a train,Visakha Express.Raja is annoyed with the problems caused by his drunkard father (Kota Srinivasa Rao) and in an unconscious situation shares his problems with Ravi Varma.Few days later,his father injures himself in an accident and brought to hospital,who dies of poisoning and the blame is put on the doctor.In fact, it is Ravi Varma who designs the death as on the train.He insists Raja to kill his unfaithful wife in exchange of murdering his father.The flashback in the tale is then revealed when ravi varma introduces his wife(preeti jingania) to Raja that Raja and ravi varma's wife were lovers during their collage life and even have plans to marry.But Raja is a short tempered man and gets angry his lovers father cancelling their marriage.And it is also revealed that Ravi varma knows every thing and wwants to kill his wife in the hands of Raja.Police are in search of Raja,he do not want to kill his ex-lover Ravi varma is forcing him to kill so that Raja could live a happy life without police behind him.Can he do this???
1103118	Sir William Timothy Gowers, FRS (; born 20 November 1963) is a British mathematician. He is a Royal Society Research Professor at the Department of Pure Mathematics and Mathematical Statistics at the University of Cambridge, where he also holds the Rouse Ball chair, and is a Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge. In 1998 he received the Fields Medal for research connecting the fields of functional analysis and combinatorics. Education. Gowers attended King's College School, Cambridge as a choirboy in the King's College choir, and then Eton College as a King's Scholar. He completed his Ph.D., with a dissertation entitled "Symmetric Structures in Banach Spaces," at Trinity College, Cambridge in 1990, supervised by Béla Bollobás. Academic Work. Between 1991 and 1995 he was a member of the Department of Mathematics at University College London. He used combinatorial tools in proving several of Stefan Banach's conjectures on Banach spaces and in constructing a Banach space with almost no symmetry, serving as a counterexample to several other conjectures. With Bernard Maurey he resolved the "unconditional basic sequence problem" in 1992, showing that not every infinite-dimensional Banach space has an infinite-dimensional subspace that admits an unconditional Schauder basis. His proof of Szemerédi's theorem by Fourier-analytic methods has also been influential. He has worked in combinatorics, particularly on regularity for graphs and hypergraphs. Honours. In 1996 he received the Prize of the European Mathematical Society, and in 1998 the Fields Medal for research on functional analysis and combinatorics. In 1999 he became a Fellow of the Royal Society and in 2012 was knighted by the British monarch for services to mathematics He also sits on the selection committee for the Mathematics award, given under the auspices of the Shaw Prize. Popularization Work. Gowers has written several works popularizing mathematics, including "Mathematics: A Very Short Introduction" (2002), which describes modern mathematical research for the general reader. He was consulted about the 2005 film "Proof", starring Gwyneth Paltrow and Anthony Hopkins. Recently, he has edited "The Princeton Companion to Mathematics" (2008), which traces the development of various branches and concepts of modern mathematics. For his work on this book, he won the 2011 Euler Book Prize of the Mathematical Association of America. Blogging. After asking on his blog whether "massively collaborative mathematics" was possible, he solicited comments on his blog from people who wanted to try to solve mathematical problems collaboratively. The first problem in what is called the Polymath Project, Polymath1, was to find a new combinatorial proof to the density version of the Hales–Jewett theorem. After 7 weeks, Gowers wrote on his blog that the problem was "probably solved". In 2009, with Olof Sisask and Alex Frolkin, he invited people to post comments to his blog to contribute to a collection of methods of mathematical problem solving Contributors to this Wikipedia-style project, called Tricki.org, include Terence Tao and Ben Green
1060443	Jason Matthew Biggs (born May 12, 1978) is an American actor best known for his role as Jim Levenstein in the "American Pie" series of teen comedy films and the current voice of Leonardo in "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Early life and education. Biggs was born on May 12, 1978 in the Pompton Plains section of Pequannock Township, New Jersey. His mother, Angela (née Zocco), is a nurse, and his father, Gary Louis Biggs, is a shipping company manager. Biggs' father is of English and Italian descent and Biggs' mother is of Sicilian descent; his last name is derived from his English ancestry. He was raised Roman Catholic. He grew up in Hasbrouck Heights and attended Hasbrouck Heights High School there. Biggs had success in tennis while in high school. Biggs attended Montclair State University for three weeks before dropping out.
1063284	Jonathan Niven "Jon" Cryer (born April 16, 1965) is an American actor, screenwriter, film director, and film producer. He is the son of Gretchen and David Cryer. Cryer made his motion picture debut in the 1984 romantic comedy "No Small Affair", but found greater fame in the 1986 John Hughes-written film "Pretty in Pink". In 1998, he wrote and produced the independent film "Went to Coney Island on a Mission from God... Be Back by Five". Although Cryer gained subsequent fame by starring in these films, it took several years to find success on television. The shows in which Cryer starred, such as "The Famous Teddy Z", "Partners", and "The Trouble With Normal", did not last long. In 2003, Cryer was cast as Alan Harper on the CBS sitcom "Two and a Half Men", for which he won two Primetime Emmy Awards in 2009 and 2012. Cryer received a star on The Hollywood Walk of Fame for Television in 2011. Early life. Cryer was born in New York City, New York. His mother, Gretchen (née Kiger), is a playwright, songwriter, actress, and singer; his father, Donald David Cryer, is an actor and singer who originally studied to be a minister. Cryer's paternal grandfather, Rev. Dr. Donald W. Cryer, was a well-known Methodist minister. He has two sisters, Robin and Shelly. He also has a step-sister, Hannah Douglas-Cryer. Cryer has English, German, Swiss-German, Dutch, Scottish, and Swedish ancstry. When Cryer was twelve years old, he decided that he wanted to become an actor. When his mother heard this, she thought he should have a backup plan, and joked: "Plumbing is a pretty good career." Cryer attended Stagedoor Manor Performing Arts Training Center for several summers as a teenager, and is a 1983 graduate of the Bronx High School of Science. He was classmates with screenwriter and film director Boaz Yakin. To his mother's "great disappointment", Cryer skipped college and went to study acting at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) in London, United Kingdom. Career. Cryer's first professional acting effort was as David in the Broadway play "Torch Song Trilogy", replacing Matthew Broderick, whom he "closely resembled". Cryer was later an understudy and replacement for Broderick in Neil Simon's "Brighton Beach Memoirs" in 1989. This resemblance to Broderick became something of a running joke, even referenced numerous times on his hit series "Two and a Half Men", where his character posed as Broderick in order to get star treatment on various occasions. At age 19, Cryer appeared in the 1984 romantic comedy film "No Small Affair", in the lead role as Charles Cummings, after the original production with Matthew Broderick was shut down due to a heart attack by director, Martin Ritt. He went on to have small roles in films and television movies, and he made his breakthrough as Phil "Duckie" Dale in the John Hughes-scripted film "Pretty in Pink". In an interview with the "Daily News", Cryer's mother said that after "Pretty in Pink", she started getting calls from teenage girls from all over the world, who would leave hysterical, giggling messages on her answering machine. In 1989, he got the lead role in the TV comedy series, "The Famous Teddy Z". His performance gained poor reviews and the show was canceled after the first season. One year later, he starred with Charlie Sheen in the Jim Abrahams comedy "Hot Shots!", which was received very positively. Cryer is frequently linked to the Brat Pack. In a March 2009 interview on Anytime with Bob Kushell, Cryer stated that he had auditioned for "St. Elmo's Fire" but was not cast in a role. In 1993, he was asked to audition for the role of Chandler Bing on "Friends", while doing a play in London. His reading was videotaped by a British casting agent but the tape failed to arrive in the U.S. before the network had made its final decision. In 1995, he was cast as Bob in the sitcom "Partners", which, like his prior show "The Famous Teddy Z", was canceled after its first season. In an interview with "Time Out New York" he stated, "Hey, every show I'm in goes down. Think about this: George Clooney was in 28 pilots, or something. It means nothing". After guest starring on shows such as "Dharma & Greg" and "The Outer Limits", he successfully wrote and produced the film, "Went to Coney Island on a Mission from God... Be Back by Five". It debuted in 1998 at the Los Angeles Film Festival and gained positive reviews from critics. Leonard Maltin from "Playboy Magazine" called it "A breath of fresh air". In 2000, he was cast as the lead in a comedy series called "The Trouble With Normal". For the third time, Cryer starred in a show which was canceled after its first season. Cryer's long run of unsuccessful TV projects finally ended three years later. Against the wishes of CBS executives (who were aware of his past failures), he was cast in 2003 to portray Alan Harper on the hit comedy series "Two and a Half Men". To date, he has earned seven Primetime Emmy Award nominations and two wins for his acting work on the show. In a comment on the show's high ratings, he said: "When you’re on a show that's fighting for survival every week, you stop trusting your instincts, because you think, ‘My instincts haven't worked so far.’ But when people clearly like the show and are watching it in great numbers, it takes a huge amount of pressure off you. It allows you to trust your instincts and go with what has worked for you before." After former co-star Charlie Sheen's departure from the series, Cryer's character has since become the show's central character, mainly due to the show's retooled plot. Before being cast for "Two and a Half Men", Cryer auditioned for the role of Gaius Baltar on the Sci-Fi Channel's reimagined "Battlestar Galactica", but the role went to James Callis. In 2008, Cryer appeared with Laurence Fishburne and James Cromwell in the film "Tortured", and in 2009 co-starred with James Spader in the film "Shorts". Cryer made a guest appearance on the sitcom series "Husbands" in its second season. He was initially cast to voice the lead character in the DisneyToon Studios animated film "Planes", a spin-off of Pixar's "Cars", but later dropped out and was replaced by Dane Cook. Personal life. Cryer married British actress Sarah Trigger in 1999, with whom he has a son, Charlie Austin. The pair divorced in 2004. In February 2007, on an episode of "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno", he announced that he would marry entertainment reporter Lisa Joyner; the couple married in Mexico in June 2007. On September 29, 2009, Jon and Lisa announced that they adopted a baby girl, whom they named Daisy. During the 2008 presidential election campaign, Cryer attended a fundraiser hosted by the McCain campaign and, according to most news reports, endorsed Senator John McCain. Cryer's spokeswoman, Karen Sanfilippohis, stated: "Jon is not a Republican. The mistake was made because in 2008 he attended events for both parties. It seems the Republican Party was very quick to align him with their group of supporters. He did attend events for both parties, because he wanted to hear what both sides had to say. He's not really political."
1044593	Hands of the Ripper is a 1971 British horror film directed by Peter Sasdy for Hammer Film Productions. Plot. It is set in London in Edwardian times, and stars Angharad Rees as Anna, a vulnerable young woman who is exploited by her guardian (Dora Bryan), a medium, and haunted by the subconscious memory of her mother's murder by her father - Jack the Ripper. She is taken in by a Freudian psychiatrist (Eric Porter), who is determined to find out the cause of her by-now-murderous impulses. Production. The film also stars Jane Merrow, Keith Bell and Derek Godfrey. The film was an early starring role for Angharad Rees. Later
1563130	Fully Flared is a street skateboarding video by the Lakai footwear company, featuring video parts from its team riders. The film is directed by Ty Evans, Spike Jonze, and Cory Weincheque. In 2007, it won "Best Video of the Year" at the Transworld Skateboarding Awards, while Guy Mariano won both the "Best Street" and "Best Video Part" awards at the same event. Introduction feature. The introduction features the skateboarders performing tricks in a vacant urban space, consisting of obstacles, blocks, and stair sets, while explosions occur. Presented in slow motion, the introduction feature is accompanied by a soundtrack from electronic music group, M83. Originally, Evans, Jonze, and Howard played with different ideas that were significantly more dangerous than what was eventually featured. The introduction was eventually filmed three weeks prior to the premiere. Production. Overall the film took about four years to make. Some team members had a lot of left over footage and are now planning to use it for other videos. Most of the video was filmed with Sony DCR-VX1000 cameras and Panasonic HVX200 (which Ty Evans gained access to towards the end of filming) high-definition footage is used for second angles. Filming. The main group filming was Aaron Meza and Chris Ray. In Europe, an Italian filmer named Fedrico Vitetta - who’d been living with Oliver Barton in Spain for a year - took on the role. Then was conceptual help from Rick Howard and Spike Jonze. Finally, Johannes Gamble helped with all the effects work. Release. The video's release was postponed for about two years, mainly due to important team additions.
588135	Tanay Hemant Chheda (Marathi: तनय हेमंत छेडा; born 27 June 1996) is an Indian child actor. He is best known for his performances in the critically acclaimed films "Taare Zameen Par (Like Stars on Earth)" (2007) and "Slumdog Millionaire" (2008), with the latter earning him the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture and a nomination for Best Ensemble at the Black Reel Awards of 2008.
643266	John Cocke (May 30, 1925 – July 16, 2002) was an American computer scientist recognized for his large contribution to computer architecture and optimizing compiler design. He is considered by many to be "the father of RISC architecture." He attended Duke University, where he received his Bachelor's degree in Mechanical Engineering in 1946 and his Ph.D. in Mathematics in 1953. Cocke spent his entire career as an industrial researcher for IBM, from 1956 to 1992. Perhaps the project where his innovations were most noted was in the IBM 801 minicomputer, where his realization that matching the design of the architecture's instruction set to the relatively simple instructions actually emitted by compilers could allow high performance at a low cost. He is one of the inventors of the CYK algorithm (C for Cocke). He was also involved in the pioneering speech recognition and machine translation work at IBM in the 1970s and 1980s, and is credited by Frederick Jelinek with originating the idea of using a trigram language model for speech recognition. Cocke was appointed IBM Fellow in 1972. He won the Eckert-Mauchly Award in 1985, ACM Turing Award in 1987, the National Medal of Technology in 1991 and the National Medal of Science in 1994, The Franklin Institute's Certificate of Merit in 1996, the Seymour Cray Computer Science and Engineering Award in 1999, and the The Benjamin Franklin Medal in 2000.
1062475	Ryan Thomas Gosling (born November 12, 1980) is a Canadian actor, director, writer and musician. He began his career as a child star on the Disney Channel's "Mickey Mouse Club" (1993–95) and went on to appear in other family entertainment programs including "Are You Afraid of the Dark?" (1995), "Goosebumps" (1996), "Breaker High" (1997–98) and "Young Hercules" (1998–99). His first serious role was as a Jewish neo-Nazi in "The Believer" (2001), and he then built a reputation for playing misfits in independent films such as "Murder by Numbers" (2002), "The Slaughter Rule" (2002), and "The United States of Leland" (2003). Gosling came to the attention of a wider audience in 2004 with a leading role in the romantic drama "The Notebook", for which he won four Teen Choice Awards and an MTV Movie Award. His performance as a drug-addicted teacher in "Half Nelson" (2006) was nominated for an Academy Award and his performance as a socially inept loner in "Lars and the Real Girl" (2007) was nominated for a Golden Globe Award. Also in 2007, he starred in the courtroom thriller "Fracture". After a three-year acting hiatus, Gosling starred in "Blue Valentine", earning him a second Golden Globe nomination. 2011 proved to be a landmark year for the actor as he appeared in three mainstream films – the romantic comedy "Crazy, Stupid, Love", the political drama "The Ides of March" and the thriller "Drive" – and received two Golden Globe nominations. In 2013, he starred in the period crime feature "Gangster Squad", the generational drama "The Place Beyond the Pines", and the violent revenge film "Only God Forgives". Gosling's band, Dead Man's Bones, released their self-titled debut album and toured North America in 2009. He is a co-owner of Tagine, a Moroccan restaurant in Beverly Hills, California. He is a supporter of PETA, Invisible Children and the Enough Project and has travelled to Chad, Uganda and eastern Congo to raise awareness about conflicts in the regions. Early life. Ryan Thomas Gosling was born in London, Ontario. He is the son of Thomas Ray Gosling, a traveling salesman for a paper mill, and Donna, a secretary who qualified as a high school teacher in 2011. His father is of part French-Canadian descent. Gosling's parents were Mormons, and Gosling has said that the religion influenced every aspect of their lives. Because of his father's work, they "moved around a lot" and Gosling lived in both Cornwall, Ontario, and Burlington, Ontario. His parents divorced when he was a child, and he and his older sister Mandi lived with their mother, an experience Gosling has credited with programming him "to think like a girl". Gosling was educated at Gladstone Public School, Cornwall Collegiate and Vocational School and Lester B. Pearson High School. He "hated" being a child, was bullied in elementary school and had no friends until he was "14 or 15". In Grade 1, having been heavily influenced by the film "First Blood", he took steak knives to school and threw them at other children during recess. This incident led to a suspension. He was unable to read and was diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), prescribed Ritalin, and placed in a class for special-needs students. Consequently, his mother quit her job and homeschooled him for a year. Gosling has said that homeschooling gave him "a sense of autonomy that I've never really lost". Gosling performed from an early age. He and his sister sang together at weddings; he performed with Elvis Perry, his uncle's Elvis Presley tribute act, and was involved with a local ballet company. Performing boosted his self-confidence as it was the only thing he received praise for. He developed an idiosyncratic accent because, as a child, he thought having a Canadian accent didn't sound "tough". He began to model his accent on that of Marlon Brando. He dropped out of high school at the age of seventeen to focus on his acting career. Acting career. Child actor (1993–1999). In 1993, at the age of twelve, Gosling attended an open audition in Montreal for a revival of Disney Channel's "Mickey Mouse Club". He was given a two-year contract as a mouseketeer and moved to Orlando, Florida. He appeared on-screen infrequently because other children were considered more talented. Nonetheless, he has described the job as the greatest two years of his life. Fellow cast members included Justin Timberlake, Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera and Gosling has credited the experience with instilling in them "this great sense of focus." He became particularly close friends with Timberlake and they lived together for six months during the second year of the show. Timberlake's mother became Gosling's legal guardian after his mother returned to Canada for work reasons. Gosling has said that, while he and Timberlake are no longer in touch, they are still supportive of each other. Following the show's cancellation in 1995, Gosling returned to Canada and continued to appear in family entertainment television series including "Are You Afraid of the Dark?" (1995), "Goosebumps" (1996) and "Breaker High" (1997–98). At the age of eighteen, he moved to New Zealand to film the Fox Kids adventure series "Young Hercules" (1998–99). While he initially enjoyed working on the series, he began to long for an opportunity to play a variety of characters and decided not to accept any more television work. Move to independent film (2000–2003). At the age of nineteen, Gosling decided to move into "serious film". He was dropped by his agent and initially found it difficult to secure work because of the "stigma" attached to children's television. After a supporting role in the football drama "Remember the Titans", Gosling secured a lead role as a young Jewish neo-Nazi in 2001's "The Believer". Director Henry Bean has said he cast Gosling because his Mormon upbringing helped him understand the isolation of Judaism. Kevin Thomas of the "Los Angeles Times" praised an "electrifying and terrifyingly convincing" performance while Todd McCarthy of "Variety" felt his "dynamite performance" could "scarcely have been better". The film won the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival and Gosling has described it as "the film that kind of gift-wrapped for me the career that I have now." Because of the controversial nature of the film, it was difficult to secure financial backing for a full theatrical release and the film was instead broadcast on Showtime. The film was a commercial failure, grossing just $416,925 worldwide from a production budget of $1.5 million. In 2002's "Murder by Numbers", Gosling and Michael Pitt portrayed a pair of high school seniors who believe they can commit the perfect murder. Sandra Bullock starred as a detective tasked with investigating the crime. Lisa Schwarzbaum of "Entertainment Weekly" described him as "a phenomenal talent even in junk like this" while Todd McCarthy of "Variety" felt that the "strong and "charismatic" young actors were "let down by the screenplay". The film was a minor commercial success, grossing $56 million worldwide from a production budget of $50 million. His second screen appearance of 2002 was in "The Slaughter Rule" which explores the relationship between a high school football player and his troubled coach in rural Montana. Gosling has said that the opportunity to work with David Morse made him "a better actor". Stephen Holden of "The New York Times" described Gosling as "major star material" with a "rawness and an intensity that recall the young Matt Dillon" while Manohla Dargis of the "Los Angeles Times" was won over by his "raw talent". The film was released in just three US theaters and grossed $13,411. In 2003, Gosling starred in "The United States of Leland" as a teenager imprisoned for the murder of a disabled boy. He was drawn to the role because it was unusual to find a character that was "emotionally disconnected for the whole film." Roger Ebert of the "Chicago Sun-Times" felt that the "gifted actor does everything that can be done with Leland, but the character comes from a writer's conceits, not from life." A.O. Scott of "The New York Times" noted that he "struggles to rescue Leland from the clutches of cliché" while David Rooney of "Variety" felt that his "one-note, blankly disturbed act has none of the magnetic edge of his breakthrough work in "The Believer"". The film grossed $343,847 in the United States and was not released overseas. "The Notebook" and "Half Nelson" (2004–2009). Gosling came to the attention of a mainstream audience in 2004 after starring opposite fellow Canadian Rachel McAdams in the romantic drama "The Notebook", a film adaptation of Nicholas Sparks' novel. Gosling portrayed Noah Calhoun and commented on the role: "It gave me an opportunity to play a character over a period of time – from 1940 to 1946 – that was quite profound and formative." Gosling sought to imbue his character with "quiet strength" and was inspired by the performance of Sam Shepard in "Days of Heaven". Filming took place in Charleston, South Carolina, in late 2002 and early 2003. Although Gosling and McAdams became romantically involved in 2005, they had a combative relationship on set. "We inspired the worst in each other," Gosling has said. "It was a strange experience, making a love story and not getting along with your co-star in any way." At one point, Gosling asked director Nick Cassavetes to "bring somebody else in for my off-camera shot" because he felt McAdams was uncooperative. "The New York Times" praised the "spontaneous and combustible" performances of the two leads and noted that, "against your better judgment, you root for the pair to beat the odds against them." Desson Thomson of "The Washington Post" praised Gosling's "beguiling unaffectedness" and noted that "it's hard not to like these two or begrudge them a great love together". The film grossed over $115 million worldwide and, with adjustments for inflation, it remains the most commercially successful film of Gosling's career as of 2012. Gosling won four Teen Choice Awards and an MTV Movie Award. "Entertainment Weekly" has said that the movie contains the All-Time Best Movie Kiss while the "Los Angeles Times" has included a scene from the film in a list of the 50 Classic Movie Kisses. "The Notebook" has appeared on many Most Romantic Movies lists. In 2005, Gosling appeared as a disturbed young art student in "Stay", a psychological thriller co-starring Naomi Watts and Ewan McGregor. In an uncomplimentary review of the film, Manohla Dargis of "The New York Times" said that Gosling "like his fans, deserves better." Todd McCarthy of "Variety" felt that the "capable" McGregor and Gosling "deliver nothing new from what they've shown before". The film grossed $8 million worldwide. Gosling was unfazed by the negative reaction: "I had a kid come up to me on the street, 10 years old, and he says, 'Are you that guy from "Stay"? What the f--- was that movie about?' I think that's great. I'm just as proud if someone says, 'Hey, you made me sick in that movie,' as if they say I made them cry.” Gosling next starred in 2006's "Half Nelson" as a drug-addicted junior high school teacher who forms a bond with a young student. To prepare for the role, Gosling moved to New York for one month before shooting began. He lived in a small apartment in Brooklyn and spent time shadowing an eighth grade teacher. Kenneth Turan of the "Los Angeles Times" described "a mesmerizing performance ... that shows the kind of deep understanding of character few actors manage." Ruthe Stein of the "San Francisco Chronicle" drew comparisons with Marlon Brando and declared that "nobody who cares about great acting will want to miss his performance". Roger Ebert felt the performance "proves he's one of the finest actors working in contemporary movies." He was nominated for an Academy Award. The film grossed $4 million at the worldwide box office. In 2007, he was invited to join the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Gosling played an introvert who falls in love with a sex doll in the gently comedic 2007 film "Lars and the Real Girl". He drew inspiration from James Stewart's performance in "Harvey". Roger Ebert felt "a film about a life-sized love doll" had been turned into "a life-affirming statement of hope" because of "a performance by Ryan Gosling that says things that cannot be said". Ann Hornaday of "The Washington Post" described his performance as "a small miracle ... because he changes and grows so imperceptibly before our eyes." However, Manohla Dargis of "The New York Times" felt "the performance is a rare miscalculation in a mostly brilliant career." He was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor - Motion Picture Musical or Comedy. The film was a box office failure, failing to recoup its $12 million production budget. Gosling starred opposite Anthony Hopkins in the 2007 courtroom thriller "Fracture". He originally turned down the role, but changed his mind when Hopkins signed on. He spent time shadowing lawyers and observing courtroom proceedings in preparation for the role. Claudia Puig of "USA Today" declared that "watching a veteran like Hopkins verbally joust with one of the best young actors in Hollywood is worth the price of admission". Manohla Dargis of "The New York Times" felt it was a treat to watch "the spectacle of that crafty scene stealer Anthony Hopkins mixing it up with that equally cunning screen nibbler Ryan Gosling ... Each actor is playing a pulp type rather than a fully formed individual, but both fill in the blanks with an alchemical mix of professional and personal charisma." The film grossed over $91 million worldwide. Gosling was due to begin filming "The Lovely Bones" in 2007. However, he left the production two days before filming began because of "creative differences" and was replaced by Mark Wahlberg. Gosling had been cast as the father of the murdered teenage girl and initially felt he was too young for the role. The director Peter Jackson and the producer Fran Walsh persuaded him that he could be aged with hair and make-up changes. Before shooting began, Gosling gained 60 pounds in weight and grew a beard in order to appear older. Walsh then "began to feel he was not right. It was our blindness, the desire to make it work no matter what." Gosling later said, "We didn't talk very much during the preproduction process, which was the problem ... I just showed up on set, and I had gotten it wrong. Then I was fat and unemployed." He has said the experience was "an important realisation for me: not to let your ego get involved. It's OK to be too young for a role." Widespread recognition (2010–2012). Following a three-year absence from the big screen, Gosling starred in five movies in 2010 and 2011. "I’ve never had more energy,” Gosling has said. “I’m more excited to make films than I used to be. I used to kind of dread it. It was so emotional and taxing. But I’ve found a way to have fun while doing it. And I think that translates into the films.” He has also spoken of feeling depressed when not working. In 2010, he co-starred with Michelle Williams in Derek Cianfrance's directorial debut, "Blue Valentine". The low-budget marital drama was mainly improvised and Gosling has said "you had to remind yourself you were making a film". Mick LaSalle of the "San Francisco Chronicle" felt he "brings a preternatural understanding of people to his performance" while A.O. Scott of "The New York Times" found him "convincing as the run-down, desperate, older Dean, and maybe a bit less so as the younger version". Owen Gleiberman of "Entertainment Weekly" noted that he "plays Dean as a snarky working-class hipster, but when his anger is unleashed, the performance turns powerful." However, Wesley Morris of "The Boston Globe" felt the performance was an example of "hipsterism misdirected". He was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Drama. The film was a box office success, grossing over $12 million worldwide from a production budget of $1 million. Gosling's second on-screen appearance of 2010 was in "All Good Things", a mystery film based on a true story. He played the role of New York real-estate heir Robert Durst, who was investigated for the disappearance of his wife (played by Kirsten Dunst). Gosling found the filming process to be a "dark experience" and did not undertake any promotional duties for the film. When asked if he was proud of the film, he replied, "I'm proud of what Kirsten does in the movie." Peter Travers of "Rolling Stone" felt he "gets so deep into character you can feel his nerve endings." Mick La Salle of the "San Francisco Chronicle" found the "chameleonic Gosling is completely convincing as this empty shell of a man". Betsy Sharkey of the "Los Angeles Times" felt that the film belonged to Dunst, but noted that Gosling "is good too". The film grossed $644,535 worldwide. Also in 2010, Gosling narrated and produced "ReGeneration", a documentary that explores the cynicism in today’s youth towards social and political causes. 2011 saw Gosling expand his horizons by appearing in three diverse, high-profile roles. He appeared in his first comedic role in "Crazy, Stupid, Love" opposite Steve Carell and Emma Stone. Gosling took cocktail-making classes at a Los Angeles bar in preparation for his role as a smooth-talking ladies' man. Ann Hornaday of "The Washington Post" said his "seductive command presence suggests we may have found our next George Clooney". Peter Travers declared him "a comic knockout" while Claudia Puig of "USA Today" felt he reveals a "surprising" "knack for comedy." He was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor - Motion Picture Musical or Comedy. The film was a box office success, grossing over $142 million worldwide. With adjustments for inflation, it is the second most successful of Gosling's career. Gosling's first action role was in "Drive", based on a novel by James Sallis. Gosling portrayed a Hollywood stunt performer who moonlights as a getaway driver and he has described the film as a "violent John Hughes movie": "I always thought if "Pretty in Pink" had head-smashing it would be perfect". Roger Ebert compared Gosling to Steve McQueen and stated that he "embodies presence and sincerity ... he has shown a gift for finding arresting, powerful characters can achieve just about anything. Joe Morgenstern of the "Wall Street Journal" pondered "the ongoing mystery of how he manages to have so much impact with so little apparent effort. It's irresistible to liken his economical style to that of Marlon Brando." The film was a box office success, grossing $70 million worldwide from a production budget of $15 million. In his final appearance of 2011, Gosling was directed by George Clooney in the political drama "The Ides of March", in which he played an ambitious press secretary. Gosling partly decided to do the film to become more politically aware: "I'm Canadian and so American politics aren't really in my wheelhouse." Joe Morganstern of the "Wall Street Journal" said that Gosling and Philip Seymour Hoffman "are eminently well equipped to play variations on their characters' main themes. Yet neither actor has great material to conjure with in the script." In a generally tepid review, Kenneth Turan of the "Los Angeles Times" asserted that it was "certainly involving to see the charismatic Gosling verbally spar with superb character actors like Hoffman and Giamatti." Mick LaSalle of the "San Francisco Chronicle" felt there was "one aspect to the character that Gosling can't quite nail down, that might simply be outside his sphere, which is idealism." He was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Drama. The film grossed $66 million worldwide. Recent and upcoming projects (2013–present). In 2013's "Gangster Squad", a crime drama, Gosling portrayed Sgt. Jerry Wooters, a 1940s LAPD officer who attempts to outsmart mob boss Mickey Cohen. He was reunited with Emma Stone as his love interest, after their earlier pairing in "Crazy, Stupid Love". Stone has said she hopes they will find more projects to work together on. A.O. Scott of "The New York Times" described the film as an excuse for the cast "to earn some money trying out funny voices and suppressing whatever sense of nuance they might possess." Christy Lemire of the "Boston Globe" criticized Gosling's "weird, whispery voice" and his "barely developed, one-note" character. However, Betsy Sharkey of the "Los Angeles Times" felt that there was a "a seductive power" in the scenes shared by Gosling and Stone: "But like too much else in the film, it's a scenario that is only half played out." In "The Place Beyond the Pines", a generational drama directed by "Blue Valentine"'s Derek Cianfrance, Gosling portrayed Luke, a motorcycle stunt rider who robs banks in order to provide for his family. The shoot was described by Gosling as "the best experience I have ever had making a film." Scott Foundas of "The Village Voice" was unimpressed: "Gosling's character verges on parody ... Gosling uses a soft, wounded half-whisper that tells us this is all some kind of put-on ... It's a close variation on the role Gosling played to stronger effect in Nicolas Winding Refn's existential Hollywood thriller, "Drive", where it was clear the character was meant to be an abstraction." A. O. Scott of the "New York Times" praised the performance: "Mr. Gosling’s cool self-possession — the only thing he was allowed to display in “Drive” — is complicated, made interesting, by hints of childlike innocence and vulnerability." David Denby of "The New Yorker" remarked that he "reprises his inexorable-loner routine". The film has grossed $35 million worldwide from a production budget of $15 million. Later that year, Gosling starred in the violent revenge drama "Only God Forgives", directed by "Drive"'s Nicolas Winding Refn. Gosling undertook Muay Thai training in preparation for the role and has described the script as "the strangest thing I’ve ever read". David Edelstein of "New York Magazine" stated: "Gosling looked like a major actor as a skinhead in "The Believer" and a star in "Half Nelson". Then he stopped acting and started posing. His performance in "Only God Forgives" (would God forgive that title?) is one long, moist stare". Peter Debruge of "Variety" remarked that "the wallpaper emotes more than Ryan Gosling." Stephen Holden of the "New York Times" criticised Gosling's inability "to give his automaton any suggestion of an inner life". Peter Travers of "Rolling Stone" commented that Gosling, while "meant to be a blank page for us to write on, often looks merely blank". Betsy Sharkey of the "Los Angeles Times" was disappointed by Gosling's performance: "Gosling moves through "Only God Forgives" like a mannequin waiting to be brought to life ... has never been less dimensional". Sara Stewart of the New York Post was unimpressed: "Gosling reprises his man-of-few-words persona ... Enough already." Gosling has two projects awaiting release. He filmed an appearance in an as-yet-untitled film by Terrence Malick. The film costars Christian Bale, Cate Blanchett, Rooney Mara, Haley Bennett, Val Kilmer and Michael Fassbender. When asked to provide details of the film or his role, Gosling replied, "I can't comment. A 'Chatty Cathy' that one." Gosling had previously signed up to work with Malick in 2004 on the biographical film "Che". However, Malick left the project to direct "The New World" and Gosling later dropped out with scheduling conflicts. In the spring of 2013, Gosling filmed his directorial debut "How to Catch a Monster", a "fantasy noir" that is his own original screenplay. Christina Hendricks, Ben Mendelsohn, and Matt Smith star in the film. On 20 March 2013, Gosling announced that he was taking a break from acting, stating,“I’ve lost perspective on what I’m doing. I think it’s good for me to take a break and reassess why I’m doing it and how I’m doing it. And I think this is probably a good way to learn about that.” Music career. In 2007, Gosling made a solo recording called "Put Me in the Car" available for download on the Internet. Also that year, Gosling and his friend Zach Shields formed indie rock band Dead Man's Bones. The two first met in 2005 when Gosling was dating Rachel McAdams and Shields was dating her sister, Kayleen. They initially conceived of the project as a monster-themed musical but settled on forming a band when they realized putting on a stage production would be too expensive. They recorded their self-titled debut with the Silverlake Conservatory's Children's Choir and learned to play all the instruments themselves. Gosling contributed vocals, piano, guitar, bass guitar and cello to the record. The album was released through ANTI- Records on October 6, 2009. "Pitchfork Media" was won over by the "unique, catchy and lovably weird record" while "Prefix" felt the album was "rarely kitschy and never inappropriate". However, "Spin" felt the album "doesn't reverse the rule that actors make dubious pop musicians" and "Entertainment Weekly" criticized its "cloying, gothic preciousness". In September 2009, Gosling and Shields had a three-night residency at LA's Bob Baker Marionette Theater where they performed alongside dancing neon skeletons and glowing ghosts. They then conducted a thirteen-date tour of North America in October 2009, using a local children's choir at every show. Instead of an opening act, a talent show was held each night. In September 2010, they performed at Los Angeles' FYF Festival. In 2011, the actor spoke of his intentions to record a second "Dead Man's Bones" album. No children's choir will be featured on the follow-up album because "it's not very rock 'n' roll". Charity work. Gosling is supportive of various social causes. He has worked with PETA on a campaign to encourage KFC and McDonalds to use improved methods of chicken slaughter in their factories, and on a campaign encouraging dairy farmers to stop de-horning cows. Gosling volunteered in Biloxi, Mississippi in 2005, as part of the clean-up effort following Hurricane Katrina. He is a supporter of Invisible Children Inc, a group that raises awareness about the LRA in Central Africa. In 2005, Gosling travelled to Darfur refugee camps in Chad. He was a speaker at Campus Progress's National Conference in 2008 where he discussed Darfur. As part of his work with the Enough Project, he visited Uganda in 2007 and eastern Congo in 2010. Personal life. Gosling lives in New York City. He co-owns Tagine, a Moroccan restaurant in Beverly Hills, California. He bought the restaurant on an impulse and said he spent "all money" on it. He spent a year doing the renovation work himself and now oversees the restaurant's menus. Gosling was arrested by LAPD officers on March 17, 2005. He pleaded "no contest" to a misdemeanor charge of "exhibiting speed", despite being originally charged with "driving under the influence of alcohol and/or drugs" and "driving with a blood alcohol content of 0.08 or greater." He was sentenced to two years of probation and ordered to pay $849 in fines. Relationships. Gosling dated American actress Sandra Bullock for a year from 2002 to 2003. He had a two-year relationship with fellow Canadian actress Rachel McAdams from mid-2005 to mid-2007. They briefly reunited in the summer of 2008. Gosling has been in a relationship with American actress and model Eva Mendes since September 2011.
1064984	Alexa Ellesse Vega (born August 27, 1988) is an American actress and singer. She is best known for her role as Carmen Cortez in the "Spy Kids" film series and Shilo Wallace in the film "Repo! the Genetic Opera". In 2009, she starred as the title character Ruby Gallagher in the ABC Family series "Ruby & The Rockits". Early life. Vega was born in Miami, Florida. Her father is Colombian and her mother, Gina Rue, is an American former model. Vega has six siblings: paternal half-sister Margaux Vega (b. 1981), sister Krizia Vega (b. 1990), sister Makenzie Vega (b. 1994; starred in "Saw" and "Sin City"), maternal half-sister Greylin James (b. 2000), maternal half-brother Jet James (b. 2005), and maternal half-brother Cruz Hudson Rue (b. 2009). She moved with her family to California when she was four years old. Career. Acting career. In 1996, Vega starred as young Jo Harding in "Twister". She guest-starred in numerous television shows and films, including "ER", "Follow the Stars Home", "Ghost Whisperer", and "The Bernie Mac Show". She became known worldwide in 2001 for her role as Carmen Cortez in "Spy Kids". The first "Spy Kids" film was a huge success, and subsequently two sequels, ' and ' were filmed. During the shooting of the three films, she performed most of her own stunts. Vega reprised the role in the 2011 sequel, "". In 2003, she was named one of that year's hottest teen celebrities in the July 2003 issue "Vanity Fair". In 2004, Vega finished filming two films: "Sleepover" and "State's Evidence". Then the following year she starred in the Lifetime television film entitled "Odd Girl Out" as a victim of cyber-bullying. She also filmed for another made-for-TV movie, "Walkout". In June 2006, she finished filming "Remember the Daze", which was released in limited theaters on April 2007. She also finished filming "Repo! the Genetic Opera", which was released in 2008. Vega has also been confirmed as the lead role in "Helix", written and directed by Aram Rappaport, which began filming in Chicago in March 2008. Vega was originally cast in the 2009 Robert Rodriguez film "Shorts", however, due to her being in Australia for the filming of "Broken Hill", she had to be recast. She was replaced by Kat Dennings. In 2009, she played Ruby Gallagher on the ABC Family television sitcom "Ruby & The Rockits", which also starred Patrick and David Cassidy. The series was not renewed for a second season. Vega played Wick in the 2012 film "The Devil's Carnival", a film from director Darren Lynn Bousman and screenwriter Terrance Zdunich, who previously worked with Vega in "Repo! The Genetic Opera". Throughout 2012, Vega starred in the independent thriller, "2br/1ba", directed by Rob Margolies and co-stars with Spencer Grammer and Kathryn Morris. Vega also starred in the Lifetime Channel movie "The Pregnancy Project" and her animated film "The Clockwork Girl" was completed. Vega's film "The Mine" which was filmed in 2010 got a limited release/screening. Vega also voiced Christina in the animated series "Unsupervised" and had a guest role on "Royal Pains". Vega played the young heroine in Aerosmith's music video "Legendary Child". As of 2013, Vega finished work on the films "23 Blast", "Machete Kills", "Bounty Killer", "Wicked Blood", "The Remaining", & "The Hunters" which will have release dates throughout 2013 and 2014. Vega also had a role on the "Big Time Rush" series finale "Big Time Dreams", playing herself. Music career. She recorded three songs for the soundtracks while playing Carmen Cortez in the "Spy Kids" films. She released her debut single, "Isle of Dreams", to coincide with the release of "". She also released "Game Over", for . Another song, "Heart Drive" featuring Bobby Edner, was also recorded for "Spy Kids 3". She also has recorded songs for the movie "Repo! The Genetic Opera", released in 2008.
1059887	Mike Binder (born June 2, 1958) is an award winning American film director, screenwriter, producer and actor. Life and career. A native of Detroit, Mike Binder grew up in Birmingham, one of the city's suburbs, and attended Camp Tamakwa, which formed the basis for his 1993 film "Indian Summer". Beginning his career as a screenwriter and standup comedian, he had a banner month in March 1990 with the March 9 theatrical premiere of his first screenplay, "Coupe de Ville", directed by Joe Roth and co-produced by Mike, and his own HBO stand up comedy special, broadcast the following night, March 10. Binder's own directorial debut was with his second screenplay, 1992's "Crossing the Bridge". His standing in the industry further increased with his 20-episode 2001-02 HBO comedy series, "The Mind of the Married Man", which he co-wrote, co-directed and starred in as the central character "Micky Barnes". His independently-produced film "The Sex Monster" won "Best Film" and Binder won "Best Actor" at the 2001 Comedy Arts Festival in Aspen. Binder wrote and directed three mid-2000s films in which he also played supporting roles. The first, "The Upside of Anger", starring Joan Allen and Kevin Costner, premiered at the January 2005 Sundance Film Festival; thirteen months later, "Man About Town" with Ben Affleck, was first seen at the February 2006 Santa Barbara International Film Festival and, after another thirteen months, "Reign Over Me" with Adam Sandler, was released in March 2007. The three films were produced by Alex Gartner ("Upside of Anger"), Michael Rotenberg ("Man About Town" and "Reign over Me"), and Binder's younger brother, Jack Binder, with whom Mike formed Sunlight Productions. As an actor Binder was featured in Steven Spielberg's "Minority Report" with Tom Cruise, and Rod Lurie's "The Contender" with Joan Allen, Gary Oldman, and Jeff Bridges. His latest film is Rebecca Miller's 2009 "The Private Lives of Pippa Lee" with Robin Wright Penn, Alan Arkin, and Julianne Moore. As a writer, he has written screenplays for Steven Spielberg, Tom Cruise, Julia Roberts, Robert Zemeckis, Jim Carrey, Adam Sandler, and Tim Allen.
1016260	Echoes of the Rainbow (; romanisation: "Shui Yuet Sun Tau"; literally "Time, the Thief") is a 2010 Hong Kong drama film directed by Alex Law and starring Simon Yam and Sandra Ng. It won the Crystal Bear for the Best Film in the Children’s Jury "Generation Kplus" category at the 2010 Berlin Film Festival. It tells the story of a working family in Hong Kong whose eldest son, a popular boy and star athlete, becomes ill with leukemia. The film is set in 1960s British Hong Kong and was shot on the historical Wing Lee Street in Sheung Wan. It was financed by the Hong Kong government's Film Development Fund. Plot. Eight-year-old Jin-Er (who goes by the nickname Big Ears) lives with his parents and his sixteen-year-old brother Desmond in a shoe shop on Wing Lee Street in late 1960s Hong Kong. Jin-Er looks up to his brother, who is a champion runner at the local high school, earns top grades, is a talented musician, and is very popular; Jin-Er's parents and teachers often scold him for not being as good as his big brother. Desmond has a girlfriend, Fang Fei, who comes from a wealthy family, and whose family moves away to the United States to escape the "lawless" situation in Hong Kong. Desmond gradually becomes aware of the inequalities in Hong Kong society of that time, both through interactions with a cocky British policeman who extorts money from his father in exchange for letting them keep their shop (and who insists that Desmond will never "make it big" because his English isn't good enough) and through his first time seeing the inside of Fang Fei's family's mansion. Most of this is told through Jin-Er, the film's narrator. Not long before Fang Fei leaves, Desmond's grades start declining and he takes third place in a race he had hoped to win. One day he collapses suddenly after a typhoon nearly destroys the family's house, and his father takes him to the hospital, where he is diagnosed with leukemia. His parents search for a doctor who can cure him but find none, and his condition worsens until he has to remain in the hospital, where the nurses treat him poorly and extort money from his parents in exchange for basic care. Jin-Er, who spends much of his free time stealing trinkets around town, tries to offer them all to his brother in attempt to cheer him up, but Desmond doesn't accept any of them. Fang Fei returns from the United States and visits him in the hospital, where they share their first kiss, but Desmond dies shortly thereafter. Years later Jin-Er, narrating retrospectively, remarks that "time is the greatest thief". In the film's final scene, Jin-Er and his mother are shown visiting Desmond's grave, and Jin-Er, now a teenager, recounts a lesson Desmond had taught him about double rainbows. Reception. "China Daily" placed the film on their list of the best ten Chinese films of 2010.
720040	Miss Conception (original title "Buy Borrow Steal") is a 2008 comedy film directed by Eric Styles and starring Heather Graham. Graham plays a woman who learns she has only one month left to conceive a child. When her baby-phobic long-term boyfriend (Tom Ellis) goes to film a documentary on a remote island with a spoiled former supermodel, she is forced to find alternate ways to conceive with the help of her friend Clem (Mia Kirshner). The film was produced by Miromar Entertainment and Blue Angel Films. Plot. Georgina Salt (Heather Graham) is a young English contractor living in London who longs to have a baby, which she sees as the one thing missing from her life. In the opening scene, Zach, Georgina's long-time boyfriend, is talking on the phone with his sister, who has just had a baby girl. Georgina is obviously more interested in the baby than Zach. After Zach gets off the phone, the couple goes back into their bedroom where Georgina seduces Zach. Zach, however, uses a condom, much to the dismay of Georgina. The next day, Georgina goes shopping for a present for Zach's sister's baby with her mother. Georgina is taken away by the baby items around her and is saddened by it. When a doctor's ad for his clinic for women who want to get pregnant, but may not be able to conceive for much longer, Georgina's mother mentions her aunt. Presuming that her aunt was a lesbian, Georgina was never surprised that her aunt had no children, however her mother informs her that she was simply unable to have children; she was too late. A frantic Georgina spends £150 on a blanket, to the surprise of her mother, before leaving the store. At Zach's sister's house, Georgina is taken by the baby and is allowed to hold her as Zach goofs off with his sister's belly sculpture. After breaking the sculpture, Zach blames it on her three-year-old son and the couple soon leave. In the car, Georgina gets upset with Zach over the statue and she is about to ask him a question before he cuts her off saying, "I do not hate babies." Georgina jumps to the conclusion that he does hate babies and demands that he pull over and lets her out. Zach goes to a friend's house to 'crash' while Georgina heads home. Prior to this event, Georgia had gone to the clinic to see how many eggs she had left; her best friend Clem goes with her and receives the call that the two of them are to return. The doctor informs Georgina that she only has one egg left and that she'd be ovulating for four days. The two women go out on a 'date' with a young man named Justin, who is completely taken aback when Georgina announces that she has one egg left. Clem and Justin help Georgina form a plan to sleep with a random stranger. On day one, Georgina has an "open house" to rent out her apartment in order to lure men inside. The first few are turned away due to their looks or their gender preference. Finally, a man of great quality comes along, however just before he and Georgina kiss, Zach calls. Georgina kicks the man out and talks to Zach, Alexandra, however says, "Zach, darling, will you zip me up?" An angry Georgina hangs up the phone and Zach isn't too pleased with Alexandra. Alexandra is the daughter of a rich man who is funding Zach's latest documentary; she is also the reason why Georgina was unable to speak to Zach before he left for a trip. On day two, Georgina goes to a funeral to pick up a man overcome with "emotions" and isn't thinking too well. She takes him back to her apartment, leaves to get wine and as she is in the kitchen he discovers her "PLAN" sheet that has all the details about her seducing him on it. He is disgusted and leaves, as Georgina tries to explain herself. Day three, Georgina finds herself with Clem at a night club. They see a very good looking young man, dancing very seductively and attracting all the girls' attention, and Georgina goes to seduce him. Before successfully seducing the man, she rips her dress in several places to make herself more sultry. At the hotel, Georgina is about to go all the way with him, before she excuses herself to go to the bathroom. While she is taking out her breast pads and washing her mouth out, he steals some of her money and a card before leaving. Georgina comes out to find the lights off and him gone. After cursing her stupidity – and noticing her money and card gone – she goes home. During this time, Zach is seen trying to hurry back to London and has to take the ferry because Alexandra had taken the last ticket going to London. Georgina and Clem purchase sperm from the Internet and go out to buy a turkey baster. At this time, Georgia reveals to Clem that she only wants Zach, before she says that she can't believe that the future father of her child is a turkey baster. Georgina, seeming desperate at this point, turns to one of her employees who reveals that he is infertile just before the two of them can have sex. She then plans to go through with the artificial insemination, reading the directions as the sperm arrives. Her mother arrives with a birthday cake and Georgina accidentally squirts the sperm on the cake. Clem intends Justin, her so-called pet, to impregnate Georgina. A nervous Justin doesn't seem to want to go through with it. They go to a hotel room and Justin can't seem to get off, nor is he comfortable with this idea. Justin can't do it and backs out. She begins to spank him, before she is thrown out of the hotel by the staff. She runs into a friend of Zach's and is comforted by him. While hugging him, Zach walks in and assumes that they are having an affair and slaps his friend before leaving. Georgina runs after him, but loses him. She misses her chance to get pregnant and mopes around because she lost both her chance to have a baby and Zach. Ben, Zach's friend, comes over to check on Georgina and the two begin to talk about how awkward the situation was just as the doorbell rings. Clem gets it and turns out that it's Zach, who is outraged to find Ben and Georgina holding hands. He slaps Ben again, who, in turn, punches Zach. The two have a scuffle, during which Ben tells Zach that while Georgia is OK, she isn't Clem. Clem, hearing this, asks him to repeat that and after establishing that he likes Clem and not Georgina, he gets off Zach and goes to Clem. Georgina asks about Alexandra, who Zach admits is beautiful, but says that isn't all he looks for in a person. She isn't impressed by his reasoning, however Zach continues on trying to explain that he loves her and had never stopped. Zach reveals that he wants children too, however an upset Georgina leaves and Ben has to explain to Zach what had been going on. At work, Georgina's worker reveals that he understands why she left and leaves before Zach comes in with a dozen roses. Four months later, while Georgina is running her breasts and belly feel sore and goes to a clinic for a pregnancy test. She receives a call informing her that she is, in fact, pregnant. At a birthday party for Zach, it is revealed that they are engaged and Georgina tells him that she’s pregnant. Zach is overjoyed about the news. Critical reception. As of March 21, 2011, the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reported that 8% of critics rated the film positively based on 12 reviews. Metacritic reported the film had an average score of 33 out of 100 based on 5 reviews, indicating a generally negative response.
1163766	Leslie William Nielsen, OC (11 February 192628 November 2010) was a Canadian-American actor and comedian. Nielsen appeared in more than one hundred films and 1,500 television programs over the span of his career, portraying more than 220 characters. Born in Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada, Nielsen enlisted in the Royal Canadian Air Force and worked as a disc jockey before receiving a scholarship to Neighborhood Playhouse. Making his television debut in 1948, he quickly expanded to over 50 television appearances two years later. Nielsen made his film debut in 1956, and began collecting his roles in dramas, westerns, and romance films between the 1950s and the 1970s. Nielsen's performance in the films "Forbidden Planet" and "The Poseidon Adventure" received positive reviews as a serious actor, although he is primarily known for his comedic roles during the 1980s and the early 1990s. Although Nielsen's acting career crossed a variety of genres in both television and films, his deadpan delivery in "Airplane!" marked a turning point in his career, one that would make him, in the words of film critic Roger Ebert, "the Olivier of spoofs." Nielsen enjoyed further success with "The Naked Gun" film series, based on an earlier short-lived television series "Police Squad!" in which he also starred. Nielsen's portrayal of comedic characters seemingly oblivious to (and complicit in) their absurd surroundings gave him a reputation as a comedian. Nielsen was recognized with a variety of awards throughout his career, and was inducted into the Canada and Hollywood Walks of Fame. Early life. Nielsen was born on 11 February 1926 in Regina, Saskatchewan. His mother, Mabel Elizabeth (née Davies), was a Welsh immigrant, and his father, Ingvard Eversen Nielsen, was a Danish-born Constable in the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. Nielsen had two brothers; his older brother, Erik Nielsen (1924–2008), was Deputy Prime Minister of Canada from 1984 to 1986. Ingvard was a troubled man who beat his wife and sons, and Leslie longed to escape. As soon as he graduated from high school at 17, he joined the Royal Canadian Air Force, even though he was legally deaf (he wore hearing aids most of his life). His half-uncle, Jean Hersholt, was an actor best known for his portrayal of Dr. Christian in the long-running radio series of the same name and the subsequent television series and films. In a 1994 "Boston Globe" article, Nielsen explained, "I did learn very early that when I would mention my uncle, people would look at me as if I were the biggest liar in the world. Then I would take them home and show them 8-by-10 glossies, and things changed quite drastically. So I began to think that maybe this acting business was not a bad idea, much as I was very shy about it and certainly without courage regarding it. My uncle died not too long after I was in a position to know him. I regret that I had not a chance to know him better." Nielsen spent several years living in Fort Norman (now Tulita), Northwest Territories where his father was stationed with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. At the age of 17, following his graduation from Victoria School of Performing and Visual Arts in Edmonton, Nielsen enlisted in the Royal Canadian Air Force and was trained as an aerial gunner during the latter part of World War II (but was too young to be fully trained or sent overseas). He worked briefly as a disc jockey at a Calgary, Alberta radio station, before enrolling at the Lorne Greene Academy of Radio Arts, Toronto. While studying in Toronto, Nielsen received a scholarship to the Neighborhood Playhouse. He noted, "I couldn't refuse, but I must say when you come from the land of the snow goose, the moose and wool to New York, you're bringing every ton of hayseed and country bumpkin that you packed. As long as I didn't open my mouth, I felt a certain security. But I always thought I was going to be unmasked: 'OK, pack your stuff.' 'Well, what's the matter?' 'We've discovered you have no talent; we're shipping you back to Canada.'" He moved to New York City for his scholarship, studying theater and music at the Neighborhood Playhouse, while performing in summer stock theatre. Afterward, he attended the Actors Studio, until making his first television appearance in 1948 on an episode of "Studio One", alongside Charlton Heston, for which he was paid US$75. Career. Early career. Nielsen's career began in dramatic roles on television during what is known as "Television's Golden Age", appearing in almost 50 live programs in 1950 alone. Nielsen reported that for his salary that there " was very little gold, we only got $75 or $100 per show." His distinctive voice narrated several documentaries and commercials but, with a handful of exceptions, his early work as a dramatic actor was uneventful. Hal Erickson of Allmovie noted, "...much of Nielsen's early work was undistinguished; he was merely a handsome leading man in an industry overstocked with handsome leading men." In 1956 he made his feature film debut in the Michael Curtiz-directed musical film "The Vagabond King". In the "Seattle Post-Intelligencer", Nielsen pointed out that he remembers Curtiz as "a sadist, a charming sadist, but a sadist". Nielsen would go on to call this film "The Vagabond Turkey". Though the film was not a box office success, Nielsen caught the eye of producer Nicholas Nayfack who offered him an audition for a role in the science fiction film "Forbidden Planet", resulting in Nielsen being signed to a long-term contract by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM). "Forbidden Planet" became an instant success, and roles in other MGM films such as "Ransom!" (1956), "The Opposite Sex" (1956) and "Hot Summer Night" (1957) followed. In 1957 he won the lead role opposite Debbie Reynolds in the romantic comedy "Tammy and the Bachelor", which, as a "Chicago Tribune" critic wrote in 1998, made people consider Nielsen as both a dramatic actor and a handsome romantic lead. However, dissatisfied with the quality of the films he was offered, calling the studios " a Tiffany, which had forgotten how to make silver", Nielsen left MGM, but not before auditioning for the role of Messala in the 1959 historical piece "Ben-Hur". Stephen Boyd was eventually given the role. After leaving the studios, Nielsen landed the lead role in the Disney miniseries "The Swamp Fox", as American Revolutionary War hero Francis Marion. In a 1988 interview he reflected on the series, stating, "That was a great experience, because the Disney people didn't do their shows like everyone else, knocking out an episode a week. We only had to do an episode a month, and the budgets were extremely high for TV at that time. We had location shooting rather than cheap studio backdrops, and very authentic costumes." Eight episodes were produced and aired between 1959 and 1961. His television appearances include parts in "Justice", "Alfred Hitchcock Presents", "The Virginian", and "The Wild Wild West". In 1961, he was the lead in a taut Los Angeles police drama called "The New Breed". He guest starred in a 1964 episode of "Daniel Boone" with Fess Parker and, in a minor but credited role, Jay Silverheels. In 1968, he had a major role in the pilot film for the popular police series "Hawaii Five-O", and later appeared in one of the seventh season episodes. In 1969, he had the leading role as a police officer in "". In 1972, Nielsen appeared as the ship's captain in the all-star disaster epic "The Poseidon Adventure". He also starred in the William Girdler-directed 1977 action film "Project: Kill". His last dramatic role before portraying mainly comedy roles was the 1979 Canadian disaster film "City on Fire" in which he played a corrupt mayor. In 1980, he guest starred as Sinclair on the CBS miniseries "The Chisholms". "Airplane!" and "The Naked Gun". Nielsen's supporting role of Dr. Rumack in 1980's "Airplane!" was a major watershed in his career. The ethos of the movie, a parody of dramatic disaster films such as "Zero Hour!" and "Airport", is largely based on building a comedy around actors who were then known exclusively for their dramatic roles (other stars included Robert Stack, Peter Graves, and Lloyd Bridges). Nielsen was the movie's linchpin, his deadpan delivery contrasting with the continual absurdity surrounding him. When asked, "Surely you can't be serious?", he responds with a curt, "I am serious. And don't call me Shirley." In several interviews he later reflected on the significance of the comedic line: "I thought it was amusing, but it never occurred to me that it was going to become a trademark. It's such a surprise...the thing comes out, people say, 'What did he say?!'" Nielsen also stated that he was "...pleased and honored that had a chance to deliver that line." The comedic exchange was at #79 on the American Film Institute's AFI's 100 Years...100 Movie Quotes. The American Film Institute also included the film in its list of the top ten comedy films of all time. Critics praised the film, which also proved to be a success with audiences. The film's directors, Jim Abrahams, David Zucker, and Jerry Zucker, chose Nielsen for the role based on his ability to play "a fish in water", stating that "You could have cast funny people and done it with everybody winking, goofing off, and silly...we wanted people to be oblivious to the comedy." For Nielsen, "Airplane!" marked a shift from dramatic roles to a new focus on deadpan comedy. When it was suggested that his role in "Airplane!" was against type, Nielsen protested that he had "always been cast against type before," and that comedy was what he always really wanted to do. The directors, interested in the success of the new comedy, decided to bring a similar style of comedy to television, casting Nielsen in the lead role in their new series, "Police Squad!". The series introduced Nielsen as Frank Drebin, the stereotypical police officer modeled after serious characters in earlier police TV series. "Police Squad"'s opening sequence was based on the 1950s cop show "M Squad", (which starred Lee Marvin), which opened with footage of a police car roving through an after-dark urban setting with a big band playing a jazz theme song in the background. The voice-over and the show's organization into "acts" with an epilogue was homage to Quinn Martin police dramas including "The Fugitive", "The Streets of San Francisco", "Barnaby Jones", "The F.B.I.", and "Cannon". Much like in "Airplane!", Nielsen portrayed a serious character whose one-liners appeared accidental next to the pratfalls and sight gags around him. Although the show was quickly canceled, lasting only six episodes after being juggled between time slots, Nielsen received an "Emmy Award" nomination for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series. Non-comedic roles included "Prom Night" (1980) and "Creepshow" (1982), both horror films. His last dramatic role was as Allen Green, a violent john killed in self-defense by Barbra Streisand's prostitute character, Claudia Draper, in Martin Ritt's courtroom drama "Nuts" (1987). Six years after the cancellation of "Police Squad!", its directors decided to make a feature length version for theaters. Titled "". The film returned Nielsen to his role as Frank Drebin. It involved a comical scheme of a ruthless drug kingpin using hypnosis in an attempt to assassinate Queen Elizabeth II. Drebin, like the doctor in "Airplane!", seemed unaware of the absurdity around him even when unintentionally contributing toward it. Nielsen later said in an interview that he had done many of his own stunts, "You have an idea of how you're going to do something, and it's your vision... unless you do it, it really doesn't stand a chance." This movie grossed over $78 million at the box office and was well received by critics. Ebert's 3½–star review (out of four) noted, "You laugh, and then you laugh at yourself for laughing." ' spawned two sequels: ' (1991) and "" (1994). "Naked Gun 2½" grossed more than the original, with $86,930,400, while "Naked Gun 33⅓" grossed $51,132,600 in receipts. Nielsen remained open to the prospects of acting in a fourth "Naked Gun" film, although he doubted that it would ever be produced—"I don't think so," he said in 2005. "If there hasn't been one by now, I doubt it. I think it would be wonderful." Nielsen briefly appeared on the World Wrestling Federation program in the summer of 1994 on "WWF Monday Night Raw"; capitalizing on his Frank Drebin character, Nielsen (and George Kennedy) were hired as "super-sleuths" to unravel the mystery of The Undertaker who had disappeared at January's Royal Rumble event. At SummerSlam 1994, in a "Naked Gun" parody, they were hot on the case (in fact, they were literally standing on a case). Although they did not actually find The Undertaker, the case had been closed (the literal case had been shut) and thus, they solved the mystery. Later comedies. Nielsen attempted a variety of similar roles with none achieving the prominence of Frank Drebin. These films mostly emulated the style of "The Naked Gun" series with varying degrees of critical and commercial success: many were panned by critics and most performed poorly. In 1986, Nielsen played against recent type as a dramatic (and unsympathetic) character in the comedy, "Soul Man". In 1990, Nielsen also appeared as a Frank Drebin-style character in a series of advertisements in the United Kingdom for Red Rock Cider. Although "The Naked Gun" series parodied police dramas in general, Nielsen's later parody films focused on specific targets. Critics panned "Repossessed" (1990) and ' (2001), parodies of "The Exorcist" and ', respectively. Both films attempted the absurdist comedy Nielsen is recognized for, but were poorly received. Even a leading role in a Mel Brooks comic horror parody, "", failed to generate much box office excitement, although it did gain somewhat of a following on its later release to video. Both 1996's "Spy Hard" and 1998's "Wrongfully Accused", a parody of James Bond films and "The Fugitive", respectively, received more popularity on home video but were not well received by critics. His attempt at children's comedies met with additional criticism. "Surf Ninjas" (1993) and "Mr. Magoo" (1997) faced scathing reviews. Several critics were disappointed that Nielsen's role in "Surf Ninjas" was only "an extended cameo" and film critic Chris Hicks recommended that viewers "...avoid any comedy that features Leslie Nielsen outside of the "Naked Gun" series." Jeff Miller of the "Houston Chronicle" panned "Mr. Magoo", a live action remake of the 1950s cartoon, by saying, "I'm supposed to suggest how the film might be better but I can't think of anything to say other than to make the film again." Nielsen's first major slapstick success since "The Naked Gun" came in a supporting role in "Scary Movie 3" (2003). His appearance as President Harris proved popular enough for a second appearance in its sequel, "Scary Movie 4" (2006). This became the first time Nielsen reprised a character since his appearances as Frank Drebin. In one scene, Nielsen appeared almost fully nude, and one critic referred to the scene as putting "the 'scary' in "Scary Movie 4"." Nielsen also hosted a series of instructional golf videos beginning with 1993's "Bad Golf Made Easier". The videos were not serious, instead combining absurdist comedy with golf techniques. The series were popular enough to spawn two additional sequels, "Bad Golf My Way" (1994) and "Stupid Little Golf Video" (1997). Nielsen also co-wrote a fictional autobiography titled "The Naked Truth". The book portrayed Nielsen as a popular actor with a long history of prestigious films. Final years. Even in his eighties, Nielsen continued to have an active career. He performed serious roles on screen and stage (such as his one-man theatre show "Darrow", in which he played Clarence Darrow), as well as providing voice-overs and on-camera appearances for commercials; cartoons like "Zeroman" where he had the leading role/voice; children's shows, such as "Pumper Pups", which he narrated, in addition to comedic film roles. The sibling relationship with his elder brother, the Honourable Erik Nielsen, a former Deputy Prime Minister of Canada, served as the premise of an HBO mockumentary entitled "The Canadian Conspiracy" in which Leslie Nielsen appeared, along with other prominent Canadian-born media personalities. He was a celebrity contestant on CBS's "Gameshow Marathon", where he played "The Price Is Right", "Let's Make a Deal", "Beat the Clock", and "Press Your Luck" for charity. Beginning in February 2007, Nielsen began playing a small role as a doctor in the humorous yet educational television show "Doctor*Ology". The show chronicles real-life medical techniques and technology, and airs on the Discovery Channel. In an interview, Nielsen admitted his admiration for the doctors on the show: "There are any number of things that you think about when you ponder if you hadn't been an actor, what would you be, and I've always said I'd like to be an astronaut or a doctor. I have such admiration for doctors. I just don't know how you go around to thank them enough for coming up with the world's most remarkable new discoveries." In 2007, Nielsen starred in the drama "Music Within". In 2008, he portrayed a version of Uncle Ben for "Superhero Movie", a spoof of superhero films. He then appeared in the 2008 parody film "An American Carol", which David Zucker directed, produced, and co-wrote. He appeared in the 2009 parody "Stan Helsing". Nielsen portrayed the Doctor in the Spanish horror comedy "Spanish Movie", a spoof comedy like "Scary Movie", but making fun of popular Spanish films. Nielsen appeared in over 100 films and 1,500 television programs over the span of his career, portraying over 220 characters. Personal life. Nielsen married four times: nightclub singer Monica Boyar (1950–1956), Alisande Ullman (1958–1973), Brooks Oliver (1981–1983) and Barbaree Earl (2001–2010). Nielsen had two daughters from his second marriage, Maura and Thea Nielsen. Nielsen was a fan of golf, and he often played it in his free time. Nielsen joked about his view on golf, "I have no goals or ambition. I do, however, wish to work enough to maintain whatever celebrity status I have so that they will continue to invite me to golf tournaments." Nielsen's interest in the sport led him to star in several comedic instructional films. Nielsen stated in several interviews that he had a few medical problems such as hearing impairment. He was legally deaf and wore hearing aids for most of his life. Because of this impairment, he publicly supported the Better Hearing Institute. Later in life, Nielsen also suffered from knee osteoarthritis. He participated in an educational video from The Arthritis Research Centre of Canada (ARC), demonstrating the physical examination of a patient with knee osteoarthritis: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kCBu3Y7pbuQ. Achievements. Among his numerous awards, in 1995 Leslie Nielsen received UCLA's Jack Benny Award for his comedic roles. In 1988, he became the 1,884th personality to receive a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6541 Hollywood Blvd. In 2001 he was inducted into Canada's Walk of Fame. The following year he was made an Officer of the Order of Canada, although he was also a naturalized U.S. citizen. With his American status, he maintained his Canadian heritage: "There's no way you can be a Canadian and think you can lose it ... Canadians are a goodly group. They are very aware of caring and helping." On 19 May 2005, during the centennial gala of his birth province, Saskatchewan, Leslie Nielsen was introduced to HM Queen Elizabeth II. In 1997, a Golden Palm Star on the Palm Springs, California, Walk of Stars was dedicated to him. On 20 February 2002, Nielsen was named an honorary citizen of West Virginia and an "Ambassador of Mountain State Goodwill". Nielsen visited the state many times to speak and visit friends. In 2003, in honor of Nielsen, Grant MacEwan College named its school of communications after him. Also in 2003, the Alliance of Canadian Cinema, Television and Radio Artists awarded him the ACTRA Award of Excellence.
1041212	House of 9 is a 2004 thriller film directed by Steven R. Monroe and starring Dennis Hopper and Kelly Brook. It premiered at the Cannes Film Festival on 20 May 2004, and had a limited release in the United States in 2005. Nine strangers have been abducted and locked inside a house. A mysterious voice called The Watcher (voiced by Jim Carter) tells them that they are to play a game: the last person alive can leave the house and win five million dollars. The film is presented with "live feeds" from hidden surveillance cameras, showing the nine people turning from cooperative escape attempts to a killing fest. Plot. The film opens up with surveillance camera views of a mansion and its rooms; the views alternate among images of nine people being kidnapped. Lea (Kelly Brook), an abductee, wakes up in a bedroom. She notices others in nearby bedrooms, and runs to the main door, bangs at it, and shouts to be let out. She finds the windows are all walled with bricks; even the basement door is blocked. She has a panic attack and passes out. Lea is awakened by Father Duffy (Dennis Hopper), a priest who is with a group of seven people. A voice (The Watcher (Jim Carter)) comes over a speaker which announces they are gathered to play a game. Their friends and family are being "taken care of", so they won't be found. Also, they were chosen "not based on who they are, but what they are". It is like a reality show, only much graver: the rules are that the winner is the last one left alive; he or she would then be freed, and also receive compensation of five million U.S. dollars. The players discuss the situation. They try to break down the door using a dining table as a battering ram, and then try to dig and break through other holes, but nothing works. A sound from the kitchen reveals a dumbwaiter with food. In the dining room, the players introduce themselves. Father Duffy is a priest. Jay is a cop with a pistol. Lea is a dancer. Claire is a tennis player. Francis is a musician, and Cynthia is his wife. Al B is an ambitious rapper that covets Jay's gun, and assumes anything said about him is racially motivated. Shona is a drug addict with an ankle bracelet monitor; some players hope that this may attract outside help. Max Roy (Peter Capaldi) is a clothes designer. After dinner, the players choose bedrooms. Cynthia and Francis take one, and Duffy gets his own; the others share. Jay and Lea talk about their families, until someone sneaks in and tries to steal Jay's gun. Jay and Lea foil the attempt and assemble everyone in the hallway where they all argue. Afterwards, Jay tells Lea that he only trusts her and Duffy. The players open a wine cabinet and have drinks, except for Duffy, who returns to his room. Lea goes for a walk and Jay sits at his bed. Francis leaves with a glass stopper; he breaks it in the bathroom, and hides some shards under the toilet lid. Shona, Claire and Max get drunk. Al B flirts and dances with Cynthia, until Francis arrives. The two men fight, but when Cynthia intervenes, Al B pushes her and knocks the back of her head against the stone railing, which causes her death. Jay "arrests" Al B, and locks him in a room using a pipe. The players are shocked at Cynthia's death. Al B screams to be let out. Duffy brings him food, but he escapes and attacks Jay with the pipe; he beats him to a pulp. With his dying breath, Jay gives Duffy his gun. Al B slowly backs into the room and shuts the door. The next day, the six remaining players find food and wine, along with a card that says "Good work". They run to Al B's room and find that he has hanged himself. Duffy and Lea stand in shock, while the other players leave to eat. Francis retreats and show signs of a mental breakdown. Shona and Claire argue, and it escalates to the point where Claire kills Shona. Meanwhile, Francis goes after Lea, who is washing her face in the bathroom. He rips the light fixture from the wall and throws it into the sink, electrocuting her. Claire tells Duffy that she killed Shona in self-defense. Duffy leaves to look for Lea, and finds her on the bathroom floor. Francis arrives, and pretends to act surprised. Meanwhile, Claire goes to get food, but sees Max. She offers to form an alliance with him; he accepts. Francis attacks Duffy with the assumption he would not retaliate with the gun, but Duffy shoots him in the stomach. As Claire turns around to the sound, Max wraps his belt around her neck. Duffy returns to the foyer and sees Max strangle Claire. Max explains that "she was stealing food", but refuses Duffy's pleas to stop. Duffy shoots Max in the head. The gunshot awakens Lea, who had survived the electrocution. She barricades the door and rushes to the shower, but knocks the toilet lid and discovers the glass shards that Francis hid. She tears a shower curtain and wraps it around one of the shards. Duffy asks Claire if she is okay, but he is stabbed in the back by Francis, and he drops the gun. Francis retrieves it and shoots Claire. Duffy pleads for his life, but Francis uses the last round to shoot him. He then declares victory, repeatedly shouting "I Win!" Upstairs, Lea makes a commotion when she fumbles with the toilet cover. Francis hears the noise and heads upstairs. Lea hides under the bed when Francis walks in the room. After seeing that Lea is no longer in the bathroom, he spots her, and toys with her briefly before pulling her out. In the ensuing struggle, Lea stabs Francis in the leg with the shard, and runs to a balcony. Francis charges her, and they flip over the railing. Lea lands on top of Francis, but when she gets up, she realizes the shard had pierced Francis in the heart. The front door opens, revealing a bright light, and a bag on the floor. Lea walks to the door, picks up the bag, and leaves. Alternate endings. The DVD includes two alternate endings. In the first ending, as Lea steps into the light, she is knocked unconscious, and wakes up in her apartment bed. She notices the bag, a small TV set and a videotape. She opens the bag and sees a pile of cash. She plays the tape, and sees the camera footage of the foyer (all the bodies are gone and everything is cleaned up). The Watcher says she just became a member of the world's most exclusive survival club, and that he is very proud. The picture then goes to the bedrooms where there are nine new people passed out on the floor. Lea stares at the screen in shock as The Watcher says, "Happy viewing..." In the second "originally intended" ending, as Lea leaves the house, she is led into another house where she meets four people. Each of them have a bag of money. The camera zooms in on Lea; a fearful look grows as she realizes that the game is not over. DVD. The DVD was released on February 14, 2006 in the US.
1067637	Spring Breakdown is a comedy film starring Amy Poehler, Parker Posey, and Rachel Dratch. Three years after principal photography, and after the film's owner, Warner Independent Pictures, was shut down by its parent company, it was released direct-to-video in 2009. Plot. The film begins with Gayle, Becky and Judi performing in McCormick State College's Senior Talent Show in 1992. The three of them were the 'losers' and geeks in college but were always hopeful about their future. The next scene then jumps to 15 years later. Gayle is now a guide dog trainer for the visually handicapped. She asks her client out on a date but gets rejected after he touches her face. Becky is an office manager for Senator Hartmann. Judi and her fiance, William, go for relationship counseling and insist that there are no secrets between them. Becky returns home only to find her cat, Honey, dead. The three of them hold their usual 'make your own pizza party' and play their usual 'movie game'. They decided to go on a trip to Tempe, Arizona to the Wimmin's Music Festival. Senator Hartmann announces to her team that she is the potential next vice president. In order to ensure success, she has to make sure that she has a good reputation and background. Ashley, her daughter, just broke up with her boyfriend because she is not slutty enough. In order to win him back and not disappoint her mother, she decides that she will be going to South Padre for her spring break. She wants her to think that she is 'just like her mother was back in the days' - the most popular girl in her sorority and 'always up for a good time'. In order to make sure that Ashley does not act out, Senator Hartmann sends Becky to go to South Padre to keep an eye on her. Throughout the trip, Gayle becomes very close to a group of girls called The Sevens who are Ashley's nemesis. Judi returns home and discovers that William is actually gay and he ends up breaking off with her. Judi meets us with Becky and Gayle and the three of them decide to go to South Padre to relive the college days that they never had. Even though the girls are appalled with the state of the place, Gayle and Judi fit into the crowd easily. They spend the next few days getting wasted while Becky keeps to the main reason of her being there. Gayle and Judi eventually persuade Becky into relaxing. One night at a foam party, Ashley finds out that Becky was actually sent by her mother and feels betrayed because she thought they were friends. They engage in a cat fight and end up in jail. That night, William goes to find Judi and asks for a second chance. Then Judi bails Becky and Ashley out of jail. She announces to everyone that she is going to marry William. Gayle declares that she's going to be in the All Girl Talent Show with The Sevens because she is finally going to win. This leads to an argument, and Judi leaves to get married, while Becky and Gayle prepare separately for the talent contest. At the airport, Judi finally admits to herself that William is gay and tells him she can't marry him. Gayle falls out with Mason, the leader of The Sevens, just before they go on stage. Senator Hartmann appears backstage and wants to bring Ashley back home by force. They have a confrontation and Ashley begs her mother to let her compete in the show, and her mother relents. As the group begins to perform, the pianist passes out (drunk) and Judi returns just in time to replace her. They perform, with begrudged success. The film ends with the three of them back home, at their usual 'make your own pizza party' playing their usual 'movie game'. Production and release. "Spring Breakdown" was filmed in 2006 and was initially created by Rogue Pictures as an "R-rated spring-break farce"; it was then sold to Warner Independent Pictures as a PG-13 film and underwent a long post-production period. The score to "Spring Breakdown" was composed by Deborah Lurie who recorded her score with the Hollywood Studio Symphony conducted by Blake Neely and recorded by Greg Dennen at the Eastwood Scoring Stage at Warner Brothers. In April 2008, co-star Missi Pyle believed the box-office performance of "Baby Mama" would determine whether Warner Bros. released this film theatrically. The film was screened at the Sundance Film Festival in January 2009 as part of Park City at Midnight before going direct-to-video. Reception. Sundance called "Spring Breakdown" an "outlandish, quick-witted romp that jubilantly leaves none immune to ridicule" and a film that "chews up our geeky gals and spits them out triumphant powerhouses—confident that being who they truly are is way cooler than fitting in." "Variety" magazine called the film "energetic but uninspired" with a "party-boatload of comedic talent is fairly wasted" and notes:
1084002	Deathstalker and the Warriors from Hell, also known as Deathstalker III: The Warriors from Hell, is a 1988 sword and sorcery fantasy film. It is the third film in the "Deathstalker" tetralogy. Plot summary. The film, which takes place in a fantasy setting, opens at a festival featuring Deathstalker and the wizard Nicias. Deathstalker once saved Nicias and the two go from village to village obtaining money by Nicias foretelling the future and showing his magic. During the festival, a hooded woman arrives to see Nicias. She is actually the princess Carissa bringing a magical stone hoping that Nicias has the other one, which when united, will at long last uncover the magical and rich city of Arandor of whom Nicias is the last of the city’s descendants. Nicias does not possess the second stone, but knows it is south in Southland which is ruled by the evil sorcerer Troxartes. Troxartes has the second stone and wants the first so he can harness its power and rule more. The festival is attacked by Troxartes’s black-clad right-hand man Makut and his horse soldiers looking for the stone. Amid the slaughter and chaos, Nicias teleports away while the princess is saved from capture by Deathstalker and the two escape. She is nonetheless killed by a few of the unknowing soldiers and passes the stone and knowledge on to Deathstalker. He travels to the hot and wooded Southland where he meets the twin sister of Carissa, the feisty Princess Elizena who was sent from the North to marry Troxartes. Makut is searching for Deathstalker now and finds him again so Deathstalker hides in Elizena’s tent but is alerted by her after she sees he held her with a twig instead of a knife. He escapes into an impenetrable valley where he is given shelter by two wild women, Marinda and her mother. Marinda has sex with Deathstalker and then lead him to their horses so he can escape since Makut has entered the valley. The mother, outraged at Marinda’s absence, leads Makut to the horses, but Deathstalker has escaped. Learning that he is up against Deathstalker, Troxartes uses his power to awaken all the dead foes he defeated to catch the “legend.” Elizena’s guards were killed by Makut after he thought they were aiding Deathstalker. She accidentally meets Deathstalker who is camping in the woods. In the morning she leaves and is found by Troxartes who takes her back to his castle as his bride. Deathstalker trails them and infiltrates the castle by night, but is found by Troxartes himself who asks for the stone until Deathstalker is knocked unconscious and the stone retrieved. Troxartes figures out there is actually a third stone needed to harness the power so he puts his mistress to torture Deathstalker for the knowledge, but he escapes and ties her up. Heading for the stones, Nicias unknowingly teleports right near Troxartes in the castle who jovially captures him and intends to put him in his army if his magic cannot find the third stone. In the woods at night, Deathstalker finds Marinda and runs into a few of the undead warriors near a camp fire recognizing Gragas who was killed in a fair fight between Deathstalker earlier. They are forced to do Troxartes’s bidding because their souls are kept secure in jars so Deathstalker makes a deal to get the jars if they will help him against Troxartes. He also tells Marinda to go alert the northern band to come help in the fight against the castle. Elizena learns she is just being kept alive until the third stone is found so she leads Deathstalker to where Nicias is being kept. The third stone is accidentally discovered to have been hidden in the castle all along. The northern band arrives and the souls are released by Deathstalker so the undead warriors turn on Troxartes and his band. In the ensuing battle, Makut is killed by an arrow during a duel between Deathstalker. Troxartes kills Marinda and is then killed by Deathstalker during the fight. The three stones are united at last and it reveals the secret city of Arandor and peace is brought to the land. Deathstalker rides off into the sunset for further adventures. Production. It is the only "Deathstalker" sequel not to use stock footage from other Deathstalker films, only borrowing footage from "The Raven" for some of the exterior shots of Troxartes’s castle turrets. Reception. Influence. This movie appeared on the seventh season of "Mystery Science Theater 3000". In the episode, Mike Nelson, Tom Servo, and Crow T. Robot mock lead actor John Allen Nelson's inability to maintain a consistent accent throughout the film, as well as his character's irritating cockiness that causes them to root against him for most of the movie. They also ridicule Makut's helmet, which has enormous metal bat wings welded on each side. Thom Christopher's physical appearance and poor line delivery in the film also prove to be fodder for several jokes; at one point, Tom Servo comments that he cannot take an "arch nemesis who's 5'8" and bald" seriously. The wizard Nicias prompts numerous jokes as well, primarily Lord of the Rings comments that compare his appearance to Gandalf, Saruman, and Radagast the Brown. The film's lame attempt at a battle scene prompts Nelson to say, "This is one of the most ambitiously bad movies we have ever done." The episode's stinger (following the end credits) is Marinda's mother angrily declaring "Potatoes are what "we" eat!" Soundtrack. The movie's theme tune is a recycling of James Horner's theme for Roger Corman's "Battle Beyond the Stars", which has been re-used by Corman himself for several of his films, including "Space Raiders" and "Sorceress". The film also includes an excerpt of Brian Eno's "Prophecy Theme" from the soundtrack of the 1984 David Lynch version of "Dune". External links.
402285	Molly Sims (born May 25, 1973) is an American model and actress. She rose to prominence for her appearances in the "Sports Illustrated" Swimsuit Issues and her role as Delinda Deline in the NBC drama "Las Vegas". Personal life. Sims was born on May 25, 1973, in Murray, Kentucky. She is the daughter of Dottie and Jim Sims. She has an older brother, Todd. Following her graduation from high school, Sims enrolled in Vanderbilt University. In 1993, when Sims was 19 years old, she dropped out to pursue a career in modeling. At Vanderbilt, she was a member of Delta Delta Delta. She married the American film producer Scott Stuber on September 24, 2011. On June 19, 2012, she gave birth to their first child, Brooks Alan Stuber. Career. Sims was an official spokesmodel for Old Navy ads known for using the tag line "You gotta get this look!" She appeared in the "Sports Illustrated" "Swimsuit Issue" in 2000, 2001, 2002, 2004 and 2006 as well as MTV's "House of Style". In the 2006 issue of "Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue" she appeared in a photo wearing a bikini designed by Susan Rosen worth $30 million that was made of diamonds. She is a "CoverGirl" model and is signed to Next Models Management in New York City. She appeared as Delinda Deline, for all five seasons of the series "Las Vegas". She has appeared in several comedy films, such as "The Benchwarmers", "Yes Man", "The Pink Panther 2" and "Fired Up". She has also appeared in "We Are All Made of Stars" music video by Moby in 2002. In 2004, Sims launched Grayce by Molly Sims, a jewelry line which consists of necklaces, earrings, rings and bracelets. The collection is available at HSN, Henri Bendel, Scoop, Ron Herman and Matches London. On December 6, 2008 Sims appeared in the video for The Lonely Island's "Jizz in My Pants" as the girl with Andy Samberg in the beginning of the skit. Community involvement. Sims is a Global Ambassador for Population Services International's Five & Alive program, which addresses health crises facing children under the age of five and their families. She is also an ambassador for Operation Smile.
1066946	The Walker is a 2007 American-British drama film written and directed by Paul Schrader. It is an independent production and is the latest installment in Schrader's "night workers" series of films, starting with "Taxi Driver" in 1976, followed by "American Gigolo" in 1980 and "Light Sleeper" in 1992. Synopsis. Carter Page III, a middle-aged gay man in Washington, D. C., is a "walker", a single man who escorts other men's wives to social events so the husbands do not have to. One of the women he escorts, Lynn Lockner, is the wife of a United States senator and is carrying on an affair with a lobbyist. When she finds the lobbyist murdered, she embroils Carter in an investigation that leads to the highest levels of the federal government. Production. Schrader completed the script for "The Walker" in 2002. Initially the film was to be a direct sequel to "American Gigolo", with Julian Kaye (played by Richard Gere) as the lead character. The director originally wanted Kevin Kline to play the lead. Critical reception. The film received positive reviews in its premiere run in the Berlin, Sydney, and Cambridge film festivals. "The Walker" was released direct-to-DVD but played in an independent film theater for two weeks in Dorris, California. The film received mixed reviews from critics. As of December 7, 2007, the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reported that 51 percent of critics gave the film positive reviews, based on 39 reviews. On Metacritic, the film had an average score of 55 out of 100, based on seven reviews.
1044649	Frankenstein and the Monster From Hell is a 1974 British horror film, directed by Terence Fisher and produced by Hammer Film Productions. It stars Peter Cushing, Shane Briant and David Prowse. Filmed at Elstree Studios in 1972 but not released until 1974, it was the final chapter in the "Hammer Frankenstein" saga of films as well as director Fisher's last film. Plot. The aged Baron Victor Frankenstein (Cushing) is housed at an insane asylum where he has been made a surgeon at the asylum, and has a number of privileges, as he holds secret information on Adolf Klauss, the asylum's corrupt and perverted director (John Stratton). The Baron, under the alias of Dr. Carl Victor, uses his position to continue his experiments in the creation of man. When Simon Helder (Briant), a young doctor and an admirer of the Baron's work, arrives as an inmate for bodysnatching, the Baron is impressed by Helder's talents and takes him under his wing as an apprentice. Together they work on the design for a new creature. Unbeknownst to Simon, however, Frankenstein is acquiring body parts by murdering his patients. The Baron's new experiment is the hulking, ape-like Herr Schneider (Prowse), a homicidal inmate whom he has kept alive after a violent suicide attempt and on whom he has grafted the hands of a recently deceased sculptor (Bernard Lee). Since Frankenstein's hands were badly burned in the name of science (possibly in "The Evil of Frankenstein" or "Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed"), the shabby stitch-work was done by Sarah (Madeline Smith), a beautiful mute girl who assists the surgeon, and who is nicknamed "Angel". Simon tells the Baron that he is a surgeon, and the problem is solved. The Baron reveals that Sarah is the daughter of the director, Adolf Klauss, and has been mute ever since he tried to rape her. Soon new eyes and a new brain are given to the creature. When the creature – lumbering, hirsute and dumb – is complete, it becomes bitter and intent on revenge. It ultimately runs mad on a killing spree in the asylum, killing several inmates, including Klauss. Eventually, it is fully overpowered and destroyed by a mob of inmates. Simon is devastated by the loss of life and reports to Frankenstein; however, the Baron feels that it was the best that could happen to such a creature, and is already considering a new experiment with other involuntary donors. The three start tidying up the laboratory whilst Frankenstein ponders who should be first to "Donate"... Production. This was the sixth and last time that Peter Cushing portrayed the role of the obsessively driven Baron Frankenstein, a part he originated in 1957's "The Curse of Frankenstein". Cushing had long been known throughout his career for his meticulous attention to detail, even in the planned handling and usage of props. For this film, he helped to design the wig that he wore, but years afterward regretted the outcome, and jokingly quipped that it made him look more like stage and screen actress Helen Hayes. But Cushing's dedication to his role was never truly dampened, and at age 59, looking somewhat gaunt and fragile, he still insisted upon performing a daring stunt which required him to leap from a tabletop onto the hulking creature's back, spinning wildly in circles to subdue the monster gone amok with a sedative. David Prowse makes his second appearance as a Frankenstein laboratory creation in this film, his first having been in "The Horror of Frankenstein". He's the only actor to have played a Hammer Frankenstein's monster more than once. During the DVD commentary session for this movie, Prowse said that his daily transformation into "The Monster From Hell" went fairly quickly, being able to suit up and pull on the mask in only about 30 minutes – whereas his time in the make-up chair for his previous Hammer monster role typically required several tedious hours. Critical reception. "Frankenstein and the Monster from Hell" has received a mixed reception from critics. Of the film, "The Hammer Story: The Authorised History of Hammer Films" wrote: "Terence Fisher's haunting, melancholy swansong would be an epitaph for Hammer horror itself." Time Out wrote, "Fisher's last film is a disappointment." The film itself performed poorly at the box office.But despite this, the film currently holds an average three star rating (6.3/10) on IMDb and has fared better with modern critics. It was released in certain markets with another Hammer film, "Captain Kronos – Vampire Hunter".
673598	Die Nibelungen (The Nibelungs) is a series of two silent fantasy films created by Austrian director Fritz Lang in 1924: "Die Nibelungen: Siegfried" and "Die Nibelungen: Kriemhild's Revenge".
1062570	Face/Off is a 1997 American action thriller film directed by John Woo, starring Nicolas Cage and John Travolta. The two both play an FBI agent and a terrorist, sworn enemies who assume the physical appearance of one another. The film exemplifies Woo's signature gun fu and heroic bloodshed action sequences, and has Travolta and Cage each playing two personalities. It was the first Hollywood film in which Woo was given complete creative control and was acclaimed by both audiences and critics. Eventually grossing $245 million worldwide, "Face/Off" was a financial success. Plot. FBI Special Agent Sean Archer (played by John Travolta) has a personal vendetta against civil freelance terrorist Castor Troy (played by Nicolas Cage) after Castor killed Archer's son Michael while trying to assassinate Archer. Archer learns of Castor's brother, Pollux Troy (played by Alessandro Nivola), making arrangements for a private jet, and sets a trap to capture both Castor and Pollux. During the operation, Castor gloats about a bomb he has planted somewhere in Los Angeles, but he is knocked into a coma during the firefight. Though Castor and Pollux are captured, and the plans for the bomb found in Pollux's suitcase, Archer has no clue to its location. He agrees to undergo an experimental face transplant surgery, giving him the appearance of Castor; this process is only known to his immediate supervisors and Dr. Walsh who performs the surgery. The medical operation is a success: Archer's hair, muscles and other necessary physical parts are altered into Castor's and his face is switched with Castor's, whose now faceless head is bandaged and Archer's face is stored in a tank of water. Archer (now played by Nicolas Cage) is taken to an offshore high security penitentiary, Erewhon Prison, and meets with Pollux, eventually gaining his confidence to learn the bomb's location. During this, Castor unexpectedly wakes from his coma and discovers the face transplant and Archer's plan. He contacts his agents who force Dr. Walsh to place Archer's face on him, and then kill him and Archer's superiors. Just as Archer contacts the police to pass along the information, Castor (now played by John Travolta) arrives at the prison and taunts Archer, revealing he will now take over his life, including Archer's wife Eve (played by Joan Allen) and teenage daughter Jamie. Castor frees Pollux and "locates" his bomb and deactivates it, earning praise from the FBI. His offbeat personality earns Castor respect, whereas Archer was more prone to ruining celebrations with reminders of the loss of life involved. Simultaneously, Archer escapes from Erewhon during a riot, during which all guards are slaughtered and the prison is completely destroyed, and soon locates Castor's old hideout. There, he meets several of Castor's gang, including Castor's ex-girlfriend Sasha Hassler (played by Gina Gershon) and Castor's and her son, Adam, who resembles Michael at that age. Though initially believing that Adam should be sent to child protective services, Archer finds Sasha to be a caring mother trying to raise her son all alone in rough conditions and feels bad for threatening her earlier. Meanwhile after rescuing Jamie from being raped, Castor reaches out to her and learns that she hasn't forgiven Archer for failing to prevent the death of her younger brother, Michael. When Castor learns of the prison break, he suspects that Archer will connect with his gang, and leads an FBI raid of his headquarters. During the battle, many of Castor's gang are killed, while Archer kills Pollux, infuriating Castor. Castor is berated by the FBI Assistant Director in Charge, Victor Lazarro, but in his anger, Castor kills him, feigning that Lazarro suffered a heart attack. Castor is promoted to acting Assistant Director in Charge, making him virtually untouchable. Meanwhile, Archer returns to his home and convinces Eve, a doctor herself, that he is Archer, which she later confirms via a blood sample she takes from Castor who is sleeping next to her. She helps tend to his wounds, and explains that Castor will be at Lazarro's funeral the next day in a local church. Archer waits to confront Castor after the funeral, but finds that Castor has taken Eve hostage. A gunfight ensues between Castor, Archer and Castor's gang, under Archer's orders. Sasha helps rescue Eve, but takes a bullet in protecting Archer; he promises to look after Adam as she dies. Castor attempts to take Jamie hostage, but she retaliates by using a butterfly knife that Castor had taught her how to use. Castor tries to escape using a nearby speedboat, followed closely by Archer. The two boats crash ashore, and the two men turn to melee. Castor, finding himself being overpowered, attempts to damage Archer's own face on himself as to make it unusable by Archer, but Archer kills him using a spear gun. As the FBI arrive, Eve is able to explain Archer's true identity. Despite Castor previously incinerating anyone with purported knowledge of how to conduct such a specialized surgery, the FBI manages to, quite easily, put together a crack surgical team, which may very well be made-up of evil geniuses that were toying with face-swapping technology all along, in virtually no time at all. With the face transplant surgery reversed, Archer (once again played by John Travolta) returns to his family, helping to welcome Adam into his family, fulfilling his promise to Sasha. Production. "Face/Off" was a spec script which writers Mike Werb and Michael Colleary tried to sell to a studio from as early as 1990. It took numerous studios, producers and rewrites before John Woo became attached several years later. For the Archer character, John Woo considered casting either Michael Douglas or Jean-Claude Van Damme whom he had worked with in "Hard Target". When the film was eventually made, Douglas served as an executive producer. Werb and Colleary have cited "White Heat" (1949) and "Seconds" (1966) as influences on the plot. When John Woo was initially offered the chance to direct, he declined unless the studio agreed to give him more creative control than he had received on his previous American films. Travolta had previously starred in Woo's "Broken Arrow" (Cage was later to star in another Woo film, "Windtalkers"). Woo set the movie in the present so he could focus on the psychological elements of the story, such as how the feud between the two men affects those close to them — such as Sasha and Adam and Archer's family. The names Castor and Pollux come from a pair of brothers in Greek mythology that make up the Gemini constellation. The story itself, most notably the hatred between Archer and Troy, is very similar to that of Hector and Achilles, who fought against each other in the Trojan War. Additional influences may have come from the fact that the Greek and Roman god of archery, Apollo, was closely related with the city of Troy. The Archer is also the symbol of the Sagittarius constellation, symbolizing the clash between the opposing Sagittarius and Gemini constellations. Pollux is held at Erehwon, a prison so secret that even the inmates do not know its location. "Erehwon" is "nowhere" in reverse, an idea that also occurs in an allegorical novel by Samuel Butler. The battle in the church, which includes doves flying around, is similar to the final confrontation in Woo's classic 1989 Hong Kong film "The Killer". Costing $80 million to make, "Face/Off" made heavy use of action set pieces including several violent shootouts and a boat chase while being filmed in the Los Angeles area. The boat scene at the end of the film was shot in San Diego. Release. "Face/Off" was released in North America on June 27, 1997 and earned $23 million on its opening weekend. It went on to become the 11th highest domestic and 14th worldwide grossing film of 1997, earning a domestic total of $112,276,146 and $133,400,000 overseas for a total of worldwide gross of $245,676,146. It was a successful box office hit. The Region 1 DVD of "Face/Off" was one of the first films to be released on the format on October 7, 1998. A 10th Anniversary Collectors Edition was released on DVD September 11, 2007 and HD DVD October 30, 2007 in the United States. The new DVD is a 2-disc set including 7 deleted scenes, an alternate ending and several featurettes. The film was released on Blu-ray Disc in the United Kingdom on 1 October 2007 by Buena Vista Home Entertainment, and was released in the United States on 20 May 2008 by Paramount Home Entertainment. Reception. "Face/Off" received mostly positive reviews from critics and garnered high box office earnings, making it a critical and financial success. The role reversal between Travolta and Cage was a subject of praise, as were the stylized, violent action sequences. Critic Roger Ebert of the "Chicago Sun-Times" gave the film three out of four and remarked that "Here, using big movie stars and asking them to play each other, Woo and his writers find a terrific counterpoint to the action scenes: All through the movie, you find yourself reinterpreting every scene as you realize the "other" character is "really" playing it." "Rolling Stone"s Peter Travers said of the film, "You may not buy the premise or the windup, but with Travolta and Cage taking comic and psychic measures of their characters and their own careers, there is no resisting "Face/Off". This you gotta see." Richard Corliss of "Time Magazine" said that the film "isn't just a thrill ride, it's a rocket into the thrilling past, when directors could scare you with how much emotion they packed into a movie." Some critics felt the film's violence was excessive, and that the action sequences dragged out too long. Barbara Shulgasser of the "San Francisco Examiner" called the movie "idiotic" and argued that "a good director would choose the best of the six ways and put it in his movie. Woo puts all six in. If you keep your eyes closed during a Woo movie and open them every six minutes, you'll see everything you need to know to have a perfectly lovely evening at the cinema." The review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes currently gives the film a "Fresh" rating of 91% based on 82 reviews, with an average rating of 7.9/10. The site's consensus reads: "Travolta and Cage play cat-and-mouse (and literally play each other) against a beautifully stylized backdrop of typically elegant, over-the-top John Woo violence." On Metacritic, the film received a metascore of 82 out of 100 from 25 critics, indicating "Universal acclaim". The film was nominated for the Academy Award for Sound Editing at the 70th Academy Awards, but lost to "Titanic". "Face/Off" also won the Saturn Awards for Best Directing and Writing, and the MTV Movie Awards for Best Action Scene (the speedboat chase) and Best Duo for Travolta and Cage. Soundtrack. The "Face/Off" soundtrack was released by Hollywood Records on July 1, 1997, the week following the film's release. Several pieces of music and songs were used in the film but not included in the soundtrack. These include:
1063121	Eli Raphael Roth (born April 18, 1972) is an American film director, producer, writer and actor. He is known for directing the horror film "Hostel" and its sequel, "". He is also known for his role as Donny "The Bear Jew" Donowitz in Quentin Tarantino's "Inglourious Basterds" for which he won both a SAG Award (Best Ensemble) and a BFCA Critic's Choice Award (Best Acting Ensemble). Journalists have included him in a group of filmmakers dubbed the Splat Pack because of their explicitly violent and bloody horror films. Early life. Roth was born in Newton, Massachusetts, to Dr. Sheldon Roth, a psychiatrist/psychoanalyst and clinical professor at Harvard Medical School, and Cora Roth, a painter. His grandparents emigrated from Austria, Hungary, Russia, and Poland; Roth was raised Jewish. Besides English, he can speak French, Italian and Russian. Roth began shooting films at the age of eight, after watching Ridley Scott's "Alien" (1979). He made over 100 short films with his brothers Adam and Gabriel before graduating from Newton South High School and attending film school (the Tisch School of the Arts) at New York University, from which he graduated in 1994. To fund his films while in college Roth worked as an online cybersex operator for "Penthouse Magazine", posing as a woman, as well as a production assistant on feature films. By the age of 20, and while still a student at NYU, Roth ran the office of producer Frederick Zollo, eventually leaving after graduation to devote himself to writing full-time. Roth collected unemployment and found work on Howard Stern's "Private Parts" as Howard's night time assistant, staying at Silvercup Studios in Queens at night working on his scripts while Howard slept. Actress Camryn Manheim gave Roth one of his first jobs in Hollywood, putting him on as an extra on "The Practice" when he first moved to Los Angeles. Roth would stay in Manheim's dressing room working on his scripts while she filmed the show. The two had met and become friends while Roth was working for Fred Zollo in New York City. Roth also met Manheim's cousin Howie Nuchow (former EVP of Mandalay Sports Entertainment and also from the Boston, MA area) at Camryn's family passover seder—this led to Roth's first animation project "Chowdaheads" in the year that followed. Roth also co-wrote a project called "The Extra" with Manheim; Manheim would later sell the pitch to producer (and former CEO and Chairman of Fox Studios) Bill Mechanic's Pandemonium company. Film career. In his final years (1993/1994) at NYU film school, Roth wrote and directed a student film called "Restaurant Dogs" as a homage to Quentin Tarantino's "Reservoir Dogs". The film was nominated for a Student Academy Award in 1995, and won its division (Division III.) Through his internship with producer Fred Zollo in years prior, Roth met David Lynch and remained in contact with him over the years, eventually producing content for Lynch with his fledgling website in the late 1990s. Roth met film and TV composer Angelo Badalamenti through Lynch; he would later use Badalamenti's music in his first feature film. He also met a member of special effects company KNB EFX through Lynch; KNB EFX would later contribute to his first feature. Roth moved from NYC to LA in 1999; shortly thereafter he wrote, directed, edited, produced, animated, and provided voices for a series of animated shorts called "Chowdaheads" for Mandalay Sports Entertainment. The shorts were intended to be shown between "WCW Monday Nitro" pro wrestling matches, but the C.E.O. of WCW who had green lit the project was fired the weekend before they were supposed to be aired, and they were never actually broadcast, despite being completed. Roth's friend Noah Belson co-wrote the shorts and provided the other character voices After receiving financial backup from the website Z.com to deliver a 5-minute pilot, Roth wrote, directed, animated and produced a series of stop-motion shorts in mid-2000 called "The Rotten Fruit". The company (z.com) folded shortly after several episodes were completed, and the domain name "z.com" was picked up by Nissan years later to promote their sports car of the same name. A portion of the work for "The Rotten Fruit" was done at the Snake Pit studios in Burbank using miniature sets, poseable clay and foam figures, two high-end digital still cameras, and a pair of Macintosh computers. Roth's friend Noah Belson co-wrote the shorts and performed the character voices along with Roth. "Cabin Fever". In 1995, a year after graduating from NYU, Roth cowrote "Cabin Fever" with his roommate and friend from NYU, Randy Pearlstein. Roth based the premise of the script on his own encounter with a skin infection he contracted while riding Icelandic ponies at a family friend's farm he was visiting in Selfoss, Iceland, in 1991. Much of the script was written while Roth was working as a production assistant in 1996 for Howard Stern's movie "Private Parts". The film was made in 2001 on a budget of $1.5 million raised from private investors. Roth sold the film to Lionsgate at the 2002 Toronto Film Festival for $3.5 million, the biggest sale of the festival that year. The film was released in 2003 and was Lionsgate's highest grossing film of the year, earning $22 million at the U.S. box office and $35 million worldwide. Lionsgate used the theatrical success of "Cabin Fever" to raise the money to purchase Artisan Entertainment. Lionsgate stock rose from $1.98 a share at the time "Cabin Fever" was purchased at the Toronto Film Festival to nearly $6 a share after "Cabin Fever" was released theatrically. The film made Roth a new star in the horror genre. In his 2004 Premiere Magazine interview for "Kill Bill," Quentin Tarantino called "Cabin Fever" his favorite new film and Roth "the future of horror." "Hostel". Roth's second feature film, "Hostel", was made in 2005 on a budget of a little more than $4 million. It opened to No. 1 at the box office in January 2006, taking in $20 million over its opening weekend. It went on to gross $80 million worldwide in box office, and more than $180 million worldwide on DVD. In April 2006 on Eli Roth's birthday, "Hostel" opened on DVD at No. 1. Although the story is set in Slovakia, all the exteriors were shot in the Czech Republic.
591896	Ullasa Utsaha () is a 2009 Kannada language a remake of Telugu Hit Movie Ullasamga Utsahamga film starring Ganesh and Bollywood Star Yami Gowtham(Gautam) in lead roles. It is directed by Devaraja Palan and produced by B.P. Thyagaraju. Music is being composed by music director G. V. Prakash Kumar for the first time in Sandalwood. Production. Ullasa Utsaha Kannada film starring Ganesh and Hindi TV actress turned into Bollywood Star Yami Gautam has completed nearly 60 percent of the shooting. Two songs were shot at Switzerland. Thyagaraj is the producer of the film. Plot. The protagonist (Ganesh) is an irresponsible young son of a garage owner (Rangayana Raghu). He falls in love with a girl (Yami Gautam) who stays in his locality and does everything possible to woo her. She is not in the least interested with him, rather thinks of him as a nuisance. She is in love with an old childhood friend she hasn't met since a long time, and has run away from a marriage arranged by her step mother to get her money. Many fights with the hero later, she eventually trusts him to take her to meet her childhood friend. Making. Ullasa Utsaha is the remake of the recent Telugu hit, "Ullasanga Utsahanga". The hero Yasho Sagar, a Kannadiga by birth recommended Ganesh to be the hero of the remake. Ganesh felt it was a tailor made role for him and agreed to act. The film later ran into some trouble when papers reported that its heroine Shraddha Arya dropped out of the film three days into the first schedule due to personal reasons. However, the producers and Ganesh maintained that she was never involved with the film. For a short while the film progressed without a heroine. A few weeks later Yami - a television artist from Chandigarh - was cast. GV Prakash who scored the original film will also be scoring the remake. Soundtrack. The official soundtrack contains seven songs composed by G. V. Prakash Kumar. All the songs except two are re-used from the original Telugu version. The audio of the film was released on 16 August 2009. External links. Reliese date 19th Feb 2010
586002	Rajan P Dev (29 May 1951 – 29 July 2009) was an Indian film and stage actor. He was born in Cherthala in the Alappuzha district of the former state Thiru-Kochi (present day Kerala). He had acted in over 140 films in Malayalam, Tamil, Telugu and Kannada language films. He was noted for his villain roles laced with a touch of humour. He came into limelight for his characterisation of Kochuvava in the play "Kattukuthira". Rajan P. Dev died in Kochi Wednesday 29 July 2009 due to a liver disease. Stage career. Rajan P. Dev, born to noted stage actor S. J. Dev and Kuttyamma, started his acting career with various professional play troupes in Kerala. His father remained one of his major influences. He was noted for his performances in various plays in the troupe of senior stage actor N. N. Pillai. He was cast by S. L. Puram Sadanandan to do the pratagonist role of Kochuvava in his play Kattukuthira. The play, which was staged in over 100 venues and Dev became immensely popular all over Kerala. Along with his successful stage career, Dev launched his film career. Despite his success in films, he maintained a steady relationship with stage plays. He founded the play troupe Jubilee Theatres; and for its plays he did creative contributions in various departments. The last play by Jubilee Theatres, a satire titled "Amminipuram Gramapanchayat" had its lyrics and music by Dev. Film career. Dev launched his film career with "Ente Mamattikkuttiyammakku" (1983), directed by Fazil. When his superhit play "Kattukuthira" was made into a film, the role went to Thilakan. Dev expressed his disappointment on this in a magazine interview, which caught the attention of director Thampy Kannanthanam. He invited Dev to play the villain role of Carlos in his film "Indrajalam" (1990), starring Mohanlal. Just like his character Kochuvava, Carlos also became immensely popular so much so that for some years since then Dev was often referred to as Carlos, much like "Keerikkadan" Jose another popular villain character of that time. The role of Carlos proved to be career defining for Dev, as he was showered with villain roles in a number of films. Several of Dev's villain roles had a touch of comedy, but could not get out of the typical villain character mould. He got a break from this with "Aniyan Bava Chetan Bava" (1995) directed by Rajasenan, in which he played "Aniyan Bava", the younger brother to "Chettan Bava", played by Narendra Prasad. The film established his versatility. He went on to act in full fledged comedy roles after it, most notably in films "Sphadikam" (1995), "Thommanum Makkalum" (2005) and "Chota Mumbai" (2007). He still continued to act his signature villain roles. He expanded his career to Tamil, Telugu and Kannada films starting with "Gentleman" (1993), directed by S. Shankar. He acted in over 50 films in those languages, most of which were villain roles. Out of about 150 films he acted in, about 35 of the roles he played were of corrupt police officers, another testimonial to the several typecasted roles he had to act in. Dev has directed three films: "Achammakuttiyude Achayan" (1998), "Maniyarakkallan" and "Achante Kochumolku" (2003). He was planned to direct two more films titled "Kayal Rajavu" and "Simham", starring Mammootty and Jayasurya, respectively. Death. Rajan P. Dev died in Kochi Wednesday 29 July 2009 at 6.30 in the morning. He was admitted at Lakeshore hospital after vomiting blood. He was under treatment for liver disease for a long time. He is survived by his wife Santha, daughter Ashamma and son Jubin Raj. Funeral ceremony was held on Thursday, at 11 am at St. Xavier's church, Angamaly. The last film that he had acted was "Ringtone (film)", directed by Ajmal.
688010	Ginger Lynn (born Ginger Lynn Allen; December 14, 1962) is an American pornographic model, prominent in 1980s videos. She also had occasional roles in low-budget B-movies. AVN has ranked her at #7 in a list of the 50 greatest porn stars of all time. After ending her adult-entertainment career she began using her full name of Ginger Lynn Allen and found work in a variety of B-movies. She had a late career comeback to the adult industry and made a brief series of movies. During this two-year period she toured the country doing interviews for radio shows and appearances at adult-entertainment stores. Adult film career. Born in Illinois, Ginger Lynn Allen moved to California in 1982 after hearing about her grandfather's heart attack. Following her grandfather's death, a male friend came to live with her and became her "first nice boyfriend". Allen was the major financial supporter in the relationship and needed to find a higher-paying job. When she answered an advertisement from the World Modeling Agency in September 1983, she was immediately hired and did a pictorial for "Penthouse", which brought her to the attention of the adult film industry. Allen began as a nude model and then began performing in hardcore sex films as Ginger Lynn by December of 1983. Her first pornographic film role was in "Surrender in Paradise", in which she starred with Jerry Butler. Allen's "girl next door" good looks led to a quick rise in her popularity and eventually she became one of the most popular female performers in adult-entertainment history. She had her own line of videos through Vivid Entertainment with director Bruce Seven. Allen received the Best New Starlet award in 1985 and is an inductee to the X-Rated Critics Organization (XRCO) and Adult Video News (AVN) Halls of Fame. Career highlights include her performance as the neighbor who introduces Tom Byron to sex in "Kinky Business" (1984) and her work in "Slumber Party" with Eric Edwards. Allen's work was also distinguished by explicit and inventive "dirty talking" during her performances. She was the first Vivid Entertainment "Vivid Girl", beating out the then-underaged Traci Lords. She was later called to testify on Lords' behalf against porn producers; she refused, and according to her, was then targeted by the Internal Revenue Service for falsification of a tax return. Allen had at least six scenes with porn legend John Holmes early in her career and was the first onscreen female partner of prolific porn actor Peter North. In February 1986, Allen decided to stop making adult videos and establish a career in mainstream films using her full name. She appeared in several non-adult films, television shows and even interactive movie segments of the Wing Commander computer games. She started her career in mainstream features with a small part in the western "Young Guns II", which co-starred her former boyfriend Charlie Sheen's brother, Emilio Estevez. Allen returned to the adult-film industry in 1999 for three movies: "Torn" (1999), "White Lightning" (2000) and "New Wave Hookers 6" (2000). In December 2005 she appeared in "" (2005) playing the supporting role of Nurse Sanders. In March 2006 she became a host of Playboy Radio's Sirius Satellite Radio show, "Night Calls Radio", with former adult film actress Christy Canyon. In June 2007 Allen performed for two of Kink.com's hardcore websites, Ultimate Surrender and Sex and Submission. In 2008, Allen appeared in the films "Dirty Rotten Mother Fuckers" with James Deen (24 years younger than her) and "Seasoned Players 4" with Tom Byron, then performed in more than a dozen hardcore releases in each of the next two years. Personal life. Lynn had a long-term relationship with Los Angeles radio personality Ralph Garman. She had a two-year relationship with Charlie Sheen from 1990 to 1992, including accompanying him through drug rehabilitation. Lynn met Sheen in early 1990 on the set of "Young Guns II", having left adult movies five years previously. In 1991 Lynn was convicted in a federal tax-evasion case and ended up serving 4½ months in prison. Charlie Sheen and Martin Sheen wrote letters to the court in support of Allen during her trial. She also spent time in a rehabilitation center during this period because of cocaine abuse. Lynn and Sheen's relationship continued until Sheen was called upon to testify in the Heidi Fleiss trial. Although their relationship was not monogamous, the revelation that he had been with prostitutes was the start of the end of their relationship. In a 2003 interview, she described herself as the "single mother of a five-year-old son." Despite the well-known allegations that Sheen is physically violent towards women, Lynn said she never saw the actor become abusive in the slightest, "Not one time did he raise his voice. No violence," she said. Health. Allen was diagnosed with cervical cancer in 2000. She underwent a total hysterectomy and some chemotherapy, and is regarded as cancer-free.
1356209	Automaton Transfusion is an independent horror film written and directed by Steven C Miller.
715175	Jonathan Simon "Jon" Speelman (born 2 October 1956) is an English Grandmaster chess player, mathematician and chess writer. Early life and education. He was educated at Worcester College, Oxford, where he studied mathematics, earning a doctorate. Career. A winner of the British Chess Championship in 1978, 1985 and 1986, Speelman has been a regular member of the English team for the Chess Olympiad, an international biennial chess tournament organized by FIDE, the World Chess Federation.
584664	Vaadaa is a 2010 Tamil action film directed by A. Venkatesh. The film featured Sundar C. in the lead role, and finally released after several postponements on October 15, 2010. Plot. Vetrivel is a person who lives as a temporary driver in Rishikeh, Uttranchal. Annamalai is the owner of Annamalai Transports but not the building-cum-residence of the transports and the staff. He is very innocent and funny. Vivek always arranges a marriage bride for himself but in one way or another Sundhar C. will stop the marriage. Anjali is an ardent fan of MGR and she feels her husband should also be like him. She is the very beautiful and attractive daughter of the Annamalai Transport building owner and she comes to Rishikesh to check the building's condition and to collect the yearly rent. She meets Sundhar C. and falls in love. Sundhar C. also falls in love with Anjali and reveals his past to her. Sundar C. was a highly accomplished district collector and was transferred to Tanjore. He gets himself in a cat-and-mouse chase with local goon Naachiyaar. Naachiyaar's son kidnaps Sundhar C.'s friend's sister who was engaged to another man & tries to rape her. But Sundhar C. comes in and saves the girl and destroys Naachiyaar's son's reproductive capacity. Naachiyaar's son dies in hospital. The marriage of the girl happens happily. Naachiyaar kills Sundhar C.'s friend brutally for revenge. Then the governor comes to Tanjore and CBCID informs that an attempt will be made on governor's life at a Tanjore meeting. Sundhar C. is told to protect the governor as he trained for IPS first and was an excellent shooter. But the governor is killed and Sundhar C. is framed by the DGP himself. The rest of the film shows how Sundhar C. proves himself (he does) and again stops another marriage of Vivek after returning to being a collector.
585103	Andarivaadu () is a 2005 Tollywood comedy film directed by Srinu Vytla. The film stars Chiranjeevi, Rimi Sen, Tabu and Prakash Raj. This movie was commercially successful though not critically acclaimed.It has been dubbed in hindi as" EK AUR HIMMATWALA" Story. Govinda Rajulu (Chiranjeevi) is a "mesthri" who drinks a lot and lives a care-free life. His son Siddartha (Chiranjeevi), on the other hand, is a popular TV show host and is a more disciplined man — the opposite of his dad. The son gets his father married to Shanti (Tabu) to sober him.
1057851	College Road Trip is a 2008 American family comedy film directed by Roger Kumble and starring Martin Lawrence, Raven-Symoné, Brenda Song, Margo Harshman, and Donny Osmond. The film centers on college-bound teen Melanie Porter (Raven-Symoné), who goes on a road trip to different colleges with her father. The film was released by Walt Disney Pictures in the United States on March 7, 2008. Plot. The film is about Melanie Porter (Raven-Symoné), a 17-year-old college-bound girl who is getting ready to graduate from high school and really wants to go to Georgetown University. However, her father James Porter (Martin Lawrence), the chief of police in the quiet Chicago suburb where they live, is overprotective of Melanie, and isn't ready for her to leave and study so far away from home. Chief Porter has other plans for Melanie; he wants her to go to Northwestern University which is only 28 minutes away from home. Porter also receives problems from disagreements with his real estate agent wife, Michelle (Kym E. Whitley), the family pig Albert, who continuously annoys him, and his young son Trey, who spends much time with the pig. Melanie gets invited to an interview at Georgetown after a college recruiter saw her performance at a mock trial. Her two best friends, Nancy (Brenda Song) and Katie (Margo Harshman), offer to take her on their college road trip to Pittsburgh. Melanie is all set to go with her friends until her father surprises her with his own college road trip to Washington, D.C.. On their way, Melanie reluctantly visits Northwestern to take a tour. They meet an almost-"too"-happy father and daughter duo, Doug (Donny Osmond) and Wendy (Molly Ephraim), who are on their own college road trip. Porter has planted actors at Northwestern, one screaming at Melanie they lost an eye at Georgetown. Melanie almost falls for it until one of the actors says to her "Yeah, the chief's a pretty smart guy", since he never met Porter. Their car soon breaks down and they find Trey in the trunk with Albert and a supply of oxygen. They stop at a hotel (thanks to Albert's navigating) but end up causing trouble when Albert eats coffee beans and becomes hyperactive. They run into Doug and Wendy again, who offer Melanie and Porter a ride since Porter's car broke down. Later, Melanie and her father ride on a tour bus where they try to work out their differences. At one destination, Nancy and Katie show up and take Melanie to a sorority house. Porter, due to a misunderstanding, and the owner not letting him in to check on her, sneaks into the house. After hearing that his daughter has faith in him, he decides to leave the next morning. Unfortunately, after Melanie leaves, he gets caught by the owner and brutally tased. Porter's mother comes to bail him out, and opens up about her own past fears when her son went to the Army, but still believed in her son to go his own path. Porter and Melanie end up forgiving each other at the airport. After dropping off Trey, they skydive to make the interview at Georgetown. Melanie is nervous, but Porter tells her she can do it and that they didn't come all this way for nothing. She then is accepted into Georgetown, which Wendy is accepted into too. In the end, James copes with letting go and the final scene shows the Porter and Greenhut families at Thanksgiving dinner. Melanie introduces her friend Tracy (who turns out to be a male). James accepts this, and Wendy announces her engagement to Scooter (Lucas Grabeel), a chipper young man who behaves exactly like Doug. This causes Doug to finally snap and attack him. Deleted scenes include an alternate opening where James foils a bank robbery and a phone conversation where Michelle Porter, a real estate agent, is listening to Melanie's and James's complaints while Michelle is in the middle of showing a house to a couple. The couple think Michelle is talking to another buyer and decide to buy the house themselves. Production. Cinco Paul and partner Ken Daurio wrote the most recent draft. The movie was born out of the Disney Writers Program by Carrie Evans and Emi Mochizuki. The movie was produced by Andrew Gunn/Gunn Films and directed by Roger Kumble. Filming began July 8, 2007. Symone's character original first name was Rachael. Promotion. To promote the movie in the United States, Raven-Symoné appeared on WWE WrestleMania XXIV, "Chelsea Lately", MTV's "TRL", "Live with Regis and Kelly", "The View", BET's "106 & Park",The Cheetah girls and "The Oprah Winfrey Show". The theme song of the movie was "Double Dutch Bus", sung by Raven-Symoné. The music video for the song appeared on Disney Channel and was included in her self-titled album. The music video included scenes from the movie. Disney Channel TV spots were aired promoting the film in the United States. The first trailer appeared alongside "Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium" and "Enchanted". Advertising for the film used the tagline "They just can't get there fast enough." The film did not receive a cinema release in Australia. Although promotions for the film aired on Disney Channel Australia, a confirmed date for the movie to begin screening in theatres was never given. The film was released direct-to-DVD instead. Release. Critical reception. The film received mainly negative reviews from critics. The review aggregator at Rotten Tomatoes reported that 13% of critics gave the film positive reviews. Metacritic reported the film had an average score of 34 out of 100, based on 46 reviews. The "New York Times" gathered positive reviews toward the leading cast's performance. Despite the fact that Martin Lawrence received positive reviews from several magazines, Rotten Tomatoes criticized his appearance yet again. 411 Mania gave it a final score of 7.5 out of 10 based on several reviews and managed to give it a positive DVD and film review. The film also received positive reviews from Blu-ray.com, "Kansas City Star" and several other publications including the "Pittsburgh Post Gazette". The film also received negative reviews from "USA Today" and "San Francisco Chronicle". Box office. In its opening weekend, the film grossed approximately $13.6 million in 2,706 theaters in the United States and Canada, ranking #2 at the box office. The movie continued on to gross $31,117,834 to finish off the month and closed with earnings above $45 million in domestic territories. Home media. The film was released on DVD and Blu-ray on July 15, 2008. Both the DVD and BD releases contain the following bonus features. "College Road Trip" sold 439,809 copies in the first week of release pulling in $8,030,648 of additional revenue for the franchise. It has sold a total of 1,004,834 copies since its release and made a total of $18,461,049 in DVD sales. Book. In May 2008, Disney Press released a book based on the movie written by Alice Alfonsi. The novel has the printed original movie poster as the cover.
1064300	Tobin Bell (born Joseph Henry Tobin, Jr.; August 7, 1942) is an American film and television character actor, known for his portrayal of John Kramer/Jigsaw of the "Saw" film series. After years of work doing stand-ins and background work on films, he got his first major acting job in "Mississippi Burning" (1988) and went on to star in made-for-television films and guest star in television shows throughout the 1990s.
584922	Madhu Shalini is an Indian film actress and model, who has appeared in Telugu and Tamil language films. She has previously worked as a television anchor as well. Career. Madhu Shalini was born and brought up in Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh, her father being a businessman and her mother an advocate. Like her mother she also learned Kuchipudi, before taking part in a beauty contest, which she won and which paved her way for a modelling career. After working as a television anchor for a short while, she soon ventured into film business, turning an actress. She made her feature film debut with the 2005 Telugu film "Naa Pranam Kante Ekkuva" directed by music composer Shashi Preetam, which was largely panned by critics. Her next film, E. V. V. Satyanarayana's "Kithakithalu" opposite Allari Naresh, released in 2006, went to become a very successful venture. The same year, she had appeared in two more Telugu films, namely Teja's "Oka V Chitram" as part of an ensemble cast, and "Aganthakudu". 2007 she starred in the Telugu action comedy "State Rowdy", a remake of the successful Tamil K. S. Ravikumar-directorial "Aethiree", with Madhu Shalini essaying a Brahmin girl character, played by Kanika in the original. She made her Tamil film debut later that year with the low-budget feature "Pazhaniappa Kalloori", which released without publicity and vanished shortly. She later signed to play the lead female in D. Sabhapathy's Telugu project "Happy Journey", while she also agreed to appear in the director's next Tamil venture, "Pathinaaru", which, despite being heavily delayed, became her next release. Though the film received mixed reviews and fared averagely at the box office, Madhu Shalini's performance as Indhu received positive reviews, with critics citing that she performed her role "with consummate ease", was "adequate in her role", and acted "like a pro". Her subsequent release, "Karalu Miriyalu", likewise, released to negative reviews, while her performance, however, met with favorable remarks from critics, with one reviewer claiming that she "looks pretty and dishes out a pleasing work", further noting that it was a pity that she does not get to work in any "big projects". She eventually got her big break as she was cast by noted National Film Award-winning filmmaker Bala for his comedy flick "Avan Ivan". She disclosed that Bala selected her without even auditioning her, after numerous girls were auditioned for the role, with none of them measuring up to Bala's expectations. Madhu Shalini would play a college student in the film, for which she did not apply any makeup, while also dubbing for herself for the first time.
1752837	The Adventures of the Wilderness Family (aka "The Wilderness Family") is a 1975 family movie that stars Robert Logan, George Buck Flower and Susan Damante-Shaw. The film had two sequels, "The Further Adventures of the Wilderness Family" in 1978 and "Mountain Family Robinson" in 1979. The filming location was the Gunnison National Forest in the state of Colorado. The film is rated G in the USA. Plot. Skip Robinson is a construction worker who lives with his family in Los Angeles, California. They are tired of it and decide to move to the mountains with no plans to return due to the smog and congestion. After building their own cabin, they settle in to find out that their environment isn't always as peaceful as it may appear. A pack of wolves, an angry lioness, and a locally notorious grizzly bear harass the Robinsons, in their otherwise happy new home.
1059210	My Favorite Year is a 1982 American comedy film written by Dennis Palumbo and Norman Steinberg, and directed by Richard Benjamin, which tells the story of a young comedy writer. It stars Peter O'Toole, Mark Linn-Baker, Jessica Harper, Joseph Bologna, Lou Jacobi, Bill Macy, Lainie Kazan, Selma Diamond, Cameron Mitchell, and Gloria Stuart. O'Toole was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor. The film was adapted into an unsuccessful 1992 Broadway musical of the same name. Plot. Benjy Stone (Mark Linn-Baker), the narrator, tells of the summer (in his "favorite year" of 1954) he met his idol, swashbuckling actor Allan Swann (Peter O'Toole). In the early days of television, Benjy works as a junior comedy writer for a variety show starring Stan "King" Kaiser (Joseph Bologna). As a special upcoming guest, they get the still famous (though largely washed-up) Swann. However, when he shows up, they realize that he is a roaring drunk. Kaiser is ready to dump him, until Benjy intervenes and promises to keep him sober during the week leading up to the show. As Benjy watches out for Swann (or at least tries to keep up with him), they learn a lot about each other, including the fact that they both have family they try to hide from the rest of the world. In Benjy's case, it's his Jewish mother (Lainie Kazan), who is married to a Filipino former bantamweight boxer, Rookie Carroca (Ramon Sison), and Benjy's embarrassing relatives, such as uncouth Uncle Morty (Lou Jacobi). For Swann, it is his young daughter, Tess (Katie McClain), who has been raised entirely by her mother, one of his many ex-wives. He stays away, but continues to keep tabs on her secretly, frustrated that he cannot muster the courage to re-connect with her. During the week of rehearsals, Kaiser is threatened by corrupt union boss Karl Rojeck (Cameron Mitchell), who does not appreciate being parodied on the show. "Accidents" start happening when Kaiser refuses to stop performing the "Boss Hijack" sketches. In a subplot, Benjy tries, clumsily and over-enthusiastically, to win the affections of co-worker K. C. Downing (Jessica Harper). Swann advises him on the right approach, which includes crashing a party at the home of K.C.'s affluent parents. The night of the show finally arrives, but minutes away from going on-air, Swann suffers a panic attack when Benjy informs him that the show is broadcast live. (He is accustomed to getting many takes to get his lines right, exclaiming, "I'm not an actor, I'm a movie star!") Swann gets drunk, and bolts from the studio, but is confronted by Benjy, who angrily tells him that he always thought of Swann as the swashbuckling hero he saw on the big screen, and that deep down, Swann possesses those qualities as a person. As Benjy puts it, "Nobody's that good an actor!" As the "Boss Hijack" sketch gets underway, Rojeck's men show up backstage and begin beating up Kaiser. The fight spills onto the stage during the live broadcast (with the audience thinking that it is part of the comedy sketch). Swann and Benjy observe the melee from a balcony, when the audience suddenly notices Swann and breaks into enthusiastic applause. Swann grabs a rope and swings into action (dressed as a Musketeer for a later skit), saving Kaiser in front of an appreciative if still clueless audience. Benjy narrates the epilogue, relating that Swann, his confidence bolstered, finally gets up the nerve to visit his daughter the next day and the two apparently have a heartfelt reunion. Relationship to real life. Mel Brooks, executive producer of the film, was a writer for the Sid Caesar variety program "Your Show of Shows", early in his career. Movie swashbuckler Errol Flynn was a guest on one episode, and this real-life occurrence inspired Dennis Palumbo's largely fictional screenplay. Swann was obviously based on Flynn, while Benjy Stone is loosely based on both Brooks and Woody Allen, who also wrote for Caesar. According to Brooks, the character of Rookie Carroca also was based on a real person, a Filipino sailor in the U. S. Navy who was his neighbor in Brooklyn. Much like Alan Brady on "The Dick Van Dyke Show", King Kaiser represented Sid Caesar ("Kaiser" is the German equivalent of the Roman title Caesar). Selma Diamond, another former "Your Show of Shows" writer (who inspired Rose Marie's 'Sally Rogers' character on "The Dick Van Dyke Show"), appears as a costume mistress.
1063347	Gone Baby Gone is a 2007 American mystery film directed by Ben Affleck (making his feature-length directorial debut) and starring his brother Casey Affleck. The screenplay by Ben Affleck and Aaron Stockard is based on the novel of the same name by Dennis Lehane, author of "Mystic River" and "Shutter Island". The plot centers on two private investigators, Patrick Kenzie and Angela Gennaro, hunting for an abducted four-year-old girl from the Boston neighborhood of Dorchester. Plot. Private investigator Patrick Kenzie and his partner/girlfriend Angie Gennaro witness a televised plea by a woman named Helene McCready for the return of her missing daughter Amanda, who was abducted with her favorite doll "Mirabelle". Patrick and Angie are then hired by the child's aunt Beatrice to find Amanda and discover that Helene and her boyfriend "Skinny Ray" had recently stolen money from Cheese, a local Haitian drug lord. After Ray is murdered, Patrick and Angie join the police detectives investigating the case, Remy Bressant and Nick Poole, to arrange a trade of the money for Amanda. Captain Jack Doyle shows Patrick a telephone transcript of the drug lord setting up an exchange for Amanda. The exchange at a nearby quarry in Quincy is botched and Amanda is believed to have drowned, as her doll is found in the quarry and returned to Helene. Doyle, whose own daughter was killed years before, takes responsibility for the death and goes into early retirement. Two months later, a seven-year-old boy is abducted in Everett and Patrick receives information that the boy was taken by a known child molester. After entering his house and finding evidence of the abducted boy, Patrick returns with Remy and Nick to rescue him. They are seen by the residents and Nick is shot. Patrick enters the house during the shootout and finds one of the residents dead. He retreats into the child molester's room, where he finds the boy's dead body; he then shoots the child molester in the back of the head in a fit of rage. Nick later dies of his wounds. Trying to alleviate Patrick's guilt over the events at the house, Remy unthinkingly confides that he once planted evidence on someone with the help of "Skinny Ray" — whom he had initially told Patrick he didn't know. After Nick's funeral, Patrick speaks to a police officer, who tells him that Remy had been asking about the drug lord's stolen money before the drug lord knew it was missing. Patrick then questions Beatrice's husband Lionel in a bar and pieces together that Lionel and Remy had conspired to stage a fake kidnapping in order to take the drug money for themselves and to save Amanda from her mother's neglectful parenting. At that point, Remy (trying to cover for his earlier mistake) enters the bar, while wearing a latex mask and holding a shotgun, and stages a robbery. He points the shotgun at Lionel's head, but the bartender shoots Remy twice in the back. Remy flees and is pursued by Patrick to the rooftop of a nearby building, where he dies. Patrick is questioned by the police about Remy's death and learns that the police never had a phone transcript like the one that Doyle had shown him prior to the botched exchange. Patrick and Angie drive to Doyle's home, where Patrick finds Amanda living happily with Doyle and his wife; Doyle was part of the phony kidnapping all along. Patrick threatens to call the authorities, but Doyle attempts to convince him that Amanda is better off living with them than with her mother. Patrick leaves and discusses the choices with Angie, who says she will leave him if he calls the police, since she believes that Amanda is much better off with the Doyles. In the next scene, the police arrive, Doyle is arrested, Amanda is returned to her mother amidst heavy publicity, and Patrick and Angie break up. Patrick later visits Amanda as Helene is about to leave on a date with someone she met during the publicity over her daughter's disappearance. Helene informs Patrick that Beatrice has been forbidden to visit and is upset about her husband's arrest. Helene has no babysitter for Amanda and when asked, she tells Patrick that Dottie (Helene's friend) will watch her, even though she has yet to ask Dottie herself. Patrick volunteers to watch Amanda, who is holding her old doll and watching television. Patrick asks Amanda about Mirabelle, only to hear Amanda inform him that her doll's name is "Annabelle" — implying that Helene did not even know the name of her daughter's favorite toy. Release. Released on October 19, 2007, the film has grossed an estimated $20,300,218 domestically and $13,909,570 in other territories for a worldwide total of $34,209,788. The UK release was originally set for December 28, 2007, but was pushed back to June 6, 2008, due to the disappearance of Madeleine McCann. The Malaysian release was originally set for September 20, 2007, but was postponed to March 27, 2008, due to the kidnapping and murder of eight-year-old Nurin Jazlin. Critical reception. The film was a favorite among critics and audiences alike. The movie won an assortment of awards, including Best First Film for Ben Affleck from the Austin Film Critics Association. As of March 22, 2009, the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reported 94% of critics gave the film positive reviews, based on 163 reviews. The review aggregator Metacritic reported the film had an average score of 72 out of 100, based on 34 reviews. Peter Travers of "Rolling Stone" raved "The brothers Affleck both emerge triumphant in this mesmerizing thriller," while the "New York Post" called it "a twisty, morally ambiguous and satisfying neo-noir." Patrick Radden Keefe criticized the film for overstating the case in an otherwise laudable attempt to "capture Boston in all its sordid glory," writing that "The result is not so much what "Mean Streets" did for New York as what "Deliverance" did for Appalachia." In the U.K., "Gone Baby Gone" received extremely positive reviews, including a five-star rating from Chris Tookey of the "Daily Mail". Ryan's performance in particular was singled out for acclaim, resulting in wins for the Broadcast Film Critics Association Award for Best Supporting Actress and National Board of Review Award for Best Supporting Actress, as well as nominations for the Academy Award, Golden Globe Award, and Screen Actors Guild Award. In an issue of "Vrij Nederland", Dutch critic and writer Arnon Grunberg called the book good, but the movie better, saying ""Gone Baby Gone" might not be a perfect film, but it's definitely an important one, if only to raise the question: 'What is home?'" Top 10 lists. The film appeared on 65 critics' top ten lists of the best films of 2007. Home media. The film was released on DVD and Blu-ray on February 12, 2008. Extras include an audio commentary by Ben Affleck and Aaron Stockard, deleted scenes, and two behind-the-scenes featurettes. The film was released on DVD and Blu-ray in Australia on September 10, 2008, in which the ending depicts Monaghan's character imploring Affleck's character to return the child to her biological mother.
1015954	Takeshi Kaneshiro (Japanese and Chinese: , romaji: "Kaneshiro Takeshi", Pinyin: "Jīnchéng Wǔ", pronounced , born October 11, 1973) is a Japanese actor and singer of mixed heritage - his father is Okinawan and his mother is Taiwanese. Name. "Kaneshiro" is a common Okinawan name. In kanji, is "Kaneshiro" and is "Takeshi" (given name), with Japanese readings. He appears as ("Kaneshiro Takeshi") in Japanese media. Since personal names are commonly written in Chinese characters in both Chinese and Japanese naming conventions, with surnames before given names, this gives Kaneshiro the freedom whether to distinguish himself as a Japanese or not when working in Chinese-speaking countries by preserving or removing the space between his surname and given name. Biography. Kaneshiro's mother is Taiwanese and his father is from Okinawa, Japan. He was born and raised in Taipei but holds Japanese citizenship as well. The son of a Japanese businessman and a Taiwanese homemaker, he has two elder brothers, one is his senior by seven years, the other just by one. After graduating from Taipei Japanese Junior High School, he enrolled at English-based Taipei American School, which enabled him to converse in English. While he was studying there, he began doing television commercials and decided to quit school to pursue a singing and acting career. He is multilingual, fluent in Mandarin, Taiwanese Hokkien and Japanese, and to lesser degrees in English and Cantonese. Career. In 1992, Kaneshiro made his singing debut, entering the business with the nickname Aniki, meaning 'older brother' in Japanese. His debut album was "Heartbreaking Night" (1992). Contracted to EMI, he wrote many of his own Mandarin and Cantonese songs. The following year, his popularity propelled him into acting and he no longer produces any commercial music. His film debut was "Executioners" (1993) and this was followed by Wong Kar-wai's "Chungking Express" (1994) and a string of other Hong Kong films. Later, Kaneshiro starred in the Japanese television mini-series "God, Please Give Me More Time" (1998), allowing him to branch into Japanese films such as "Returner" (2002). Kaneshiro's work, however, is more heavily concentrated in China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. In 2008 and 2009 he starred in "Red Cliff", a high budget film by Hong Kong director John Woo. He has also played the romantic lead in Zhang Yimou's "House of Flying Daggers", and starred alongside Jet Li and Andy Lau in "The Warlords". Kaneshiro has also become well known in the video game industry portraying the samurai warrior Samanosuke in Capcom's "Onimusha". In a June 2007 article on the film site Ain't It Cool News, it was revealed that Kaneshiro was going to be in the "Onimusha" film, reprising his role as Samanosuke and for a 2011 release, but that project was derailed. The producer Samuel Hadida had to delay the filming of "Onimusha", which has resulted in the film's Japanese cast working on other film projects during the delay, and being unavailable to start filming. These factors were enough that French director Christophe Gans will now direct an adaptation of Leo Perutz's novel "The Swedish Cavalier" first, taking over the reins from Gilles Mimouni. Satomi Ishihara and Tsuyoshi Ihara remain attached to the project. In 2003, Kaneshiro was featured in the magazine "Time" and was coined as becoming the Asian film industry's Johnny Depp. Moreover, Kaneshiro was interviewed by CNN in the TalkAsia segment in 2006. Outside of the entertainment business, Kaneshiro has acted as a spokesperson and model for Emporio Armani (2008) as well as, Prada (1998), Lifecard credit card company, VAIO personal computer, Honda, Lipice lips moisturizer, SonyEricsson, Pocari Sweat soft drink, Morinaga chocolate, Volvic, GEOS (eikaiwa) (language school), Petronas oil company, Japan Asia Airways, Hyundai Motor Company, Toyota MarkX ZiO, Mitsubishi Galant, NTT docomo the predominant mobile phone operator in Japan, NTT Yellow Pages, Shiseido, Lycos, UCC Ueshima Coffee Co., Kadokawa Shoten a well-known Japanese publisher based in Tokyo, Rice Burger, Roasted barley tea, One2Free (HK), and Kiwi cold drink, and the most recent Biotherm Homme since 2005. Personal life. Kaneshiro is a practicing Buddhist, having converted in 1997, and has said his mother is also a devout Buddhist. Kaneshiro is known for trying to avoid the media spotlight. He has been quoted as saying “If one day I get married and have kids, I will probably be one of those men who really care for the family. I will eat at home every day, and help with the chores and take care of the children.” Awards. Takeshi Kaneshiro is one of 10 recipients of the Green Planet Film Award (23 March 2010) in the category "10 Best International Actors of the Decade (Asia)".
1551485	Grabbers is a 2012 Irish-British monster movie directed by Jon Wright and written by Kevin Lehane. The film stars Richard Coyle, Ruth Bradley, Bronagh Gallagher and Russell Tovey among an ensemble cast of Irish actors. Plot. An idyllic remote Irish island is invaded by enormous bloodsucking tentacled creatures from the sea. With islanders turning up decapitated and drained of blood, the inhabitants learn that the creatures—called Grabbers—are allergic to alcohol, making intoxicated people toxic to eat. Overrun and under attack, the hopeless locals realize that in order to stay alive through a storm that's keeping everyone trapped on the island, they're going to have to band together at the pub and do their best to survive the night. Production. The film began shooting in Donegal and Northern Ireland on November 29, 2010, filming through adverse, freak winter weather conditions that included extreme gale force storms and blizzards. The film completed filming on Feb 2, 2011 and spent the remainder of 2011 in post-production, completing its extensive VFX. The film was released nationwide in Ireland on August 10, 2012. Reception. The film premiered at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival to mostly positive reviews. Damon Wise of "Empire" film magazine described it as "a romantic but surprisingly scary monster movie that feels like a lost Amblin flick, shaken and stirred with a dash of "The Guard". A finely crafted tribute to a long-lost style of filmmaking stands up in its own right too." "Total Film" summed it up as, "Slimy, booze-soaked monster madness of the best kind. Funny, gory and with some feckin' good CGI. Grand." Dread Central said, "As intense as it is hilarious [... this one definitely delivers. Tremendous acting and spectacular special effects. One of the most enjoyable creature films we have seen in recent history." Jordan Hoffman of U.S. cable channel IFC summed the film up as "a delightful romp", while Upcoming Movies gave it four stars and called it a "fun, monster movie roller coaster" with a "mix of laughs and scares". Film School Rejects called it "highly enjoyable" and "a midnight monster movie delight". The film again garnered positive reviews at the Edinburgh International Film Festival in June 2012. "The Daily Telegraph"s Robbie Collin called it a "cherishable Irish B-picture [...] with an unimprovable premise". It was announced as one of the "Best of the Fest" of the 2012 line-up. Kim Newman of "Screen Daily" said of the film: "Kevin Lehane’s smart script is canny enough to sidestep the expectations of fans who might think they know how films like this are supposed to play out, while the monsters are as well-realised as anything in far more costly productions." The film continued its festival run screening at Karlovy Vary International Film Festival, Taormina Film Fest, Fantasia Film Festival, PIFAN and the European Fantastic Film Festival of Strasbourg where it won the Audience Prize for Best Film and at NIFFF where it won two awards: the Audience Award for best film and the Titra Film Award. It held its Irish première in July 2012 as the opening film of the 24th Galway Film Fleadh with "The Irish Times" saying: ""Grabbers" has an atmosphere all its own: the humour is earthy without being patronising; the action sequences are both absurd and properly exciting." It was nominated for four IFTAs at the 2013 Irish Film and Television Awards. Bronagh Gallagher for Best Supporting Actress, Kevin Lehane for Best Feature Script, producers David Collins and Martina Niland of Samson Films, alongside Forward Films and High Treason Productions were nominated for Best Film and Ruth Bradley was nominated and won for Best Actress.
1060271	Bad Santa is a 2003 American Christmas comedy film directed by Terry Zwigoff, and starring Billy Bob Thornton, Bernie Mac, and Lauren Graham, with Tony Cox, Brett Kelly, Lauren Tom, and John Ritter in supporting roles. It was Ritter's last film appearance before his death in 2003. The Coen brothers are credited as "executive producers". The film was screened out of competition at the 2004 Cannes Film Festival. An unrated version was released on DVD on March 5, 2004 and on Blu-ray Disc on November 20, 2007 as Bad(der) Santa. A director's cut DVD was released in November 2006; it features Zwigoff's cut of the film (including an audio commentary with him and the film's editor), which is three minutes shorter than the theatrical cut and ten minutes shorter than the unrated version. Plot. Willie T. Stokes (Billy Bob Thornton) and Marcus (Tony Cox) are professional heistmen, that take on the Santa Claus routine for the children at a different shopping mall every year as a front for the opportunity to on Christmas Eve, disable the mall security system, clean out the safe and then flee. Willie is an alcoholic, a sex addict and is getting gradually unable to perform the Santa routine much to Marcus' dismay. This year, Willie and Marcus are hired at a mall in Phoenix, Arizona and Willie's vulgar remarks shock the prudish mall manager Bob Chipeska (John Ritter) who brings Willie to the attention of security chief Gin Slagel (Bernie Mac). During the festivities, Willie meets bartender Sue (Lauren Graham), and the two strike up a relationship. During his shift as Santa, Willie is visited by Thurman (Brett Kelly), an exceedingly naive, overweight boy, who believes Willie is actually Santa and is the target of taunts from a skateboarding gang. When Willie is in the parking lot, he is attacked by a man (Ajay Naidu) who insists he is not gay; Thurman believing Santa needs his assistance joins in and the man not wanting to expose the kid to adult matters, leaves. Willie gives Thurman a ride home, and through much misleading verbal discourse, learns that the boy lives in an affluent house with just his very senile grandmother. Thurman reveals that his mother left, and his father is away 'exploring mountains' (when he is actually in jail for embezzlement). As Thurman has no suspicion that Willie is not Santa, makes no resistance when Willie breaks into the house safe and takes his father's BMW. When Willie is caught having sex with a heavyset woman in a mall dressing room, Gin gets suspicious. When Willie goes to his motel room and sees someone ransacking his room, he inquires a bystanding prostitute as to who is in his room and suspects that the police may be on to him. Willie then takes advantage of Thurman's naivety and takes sanctuary in his house enduring Thurman's relentless barrage of questions. Marcus berates Willie for shamelessly taking advantage of Thurman, and states that Willie's becoming more unreliable due to his alcoholism. Thurman visits Willie during his shift as Santa after receiving a wedgie from his bullies. After seeing Thurman hurt himself by accidentally cutting his hand, Willie grows fonder towards him, showing him how to defend himself against bullies. Later, while Willie gives Thurman a letter, telling him to give it to the police to explain what will really happen on Christmas Eve at the mall, he notices Thurman has a black eye from the kids who bully him. As a result, Willie attacks the bullies to get them to leave Thurman alone. Whilst Willie and Sue are fooling around, Thurman interrupts in order to give Willie his present – a wooden pickle he made himself.
1072005	Plot. The story follows Yu Honda (Takahiro Nishijima), a young teenage Catholic attempting to live his life in a faithful and orderly manner. His father, Tetsu, has become a devout Catholic priest following the death of Yu's mother, and operates his own church. Yu's father asks Yu to confess his sins, but Yu believes he is a good person, who has little to confess. At first he makes up sins, but his father sees right through him, and Yu sets out to commit real sins. Because of this, he falls in with a questionable crowd. Yu is taught by his new friends to steal, fight, and take stealth photographs up women's skirts. Yu promptly becomes a skilled "panty shot" photographer. He is perceived as a pervert, but he is never aroused by these photographs. After Yu loses a bet with his friends, he agrees to go into the city dressed as a woman and kiss a girl he likes. When they go into the city, Yu and his friends come across a young teenage girl named Yoko (Hikari Mitsushima), who is surrounded by a group of thugs. Yu, still dressed as a woman, then helps Yoko beat up the gang of thugs. Afterwards he kisses Yoko and runs away. He falls in love with her – the first time he's been in love with a girl - but Yoko falls for his disguise and develops feelings for his alter ego Sasori, or "Miss Scorpion". Meanwhile, Yu is being followed by Aya Koike (Sakura Ando), a member of the cult "Zero Church", who has become infatuated with him after she catches him taking a picture of her panties. Aya, who we are shown was sexually abused to the point that she became psychotic and set out on a series of violent sprees, including shooting every student in her class and cutting her father's penis off, devises a plan to bring Yu's entire family into the Zero Church, planning to gain the favour of Yoko by masquerading as Sasori. Aya manipulates those around Yu, and Yoko and Yu's family become caught up in the Zero Church. Yu desperately tries to free Yoko from the Zero Church by kidnapping her, but fails to persuade her to leave, as she does not trust him and is convinced he is a pervert. Armed with a sword, Yu then breaks into the building where the Zero Church are present and once again tries to escape with Yoko. Aya, who is present along with Yu's family, fights back, but resorts to suicide by driving the sword through her stomach.
1050485	The Tamarind Seed is a 1974 American-British romantic drama film written and directed by Blake Edwards and starring Julie Andrews and Omar Sharif. Based on the 1971 novel "The Tamarind Seed" by Evelyn Anthony, the film is about a British Home Office functionary and a Soviet air attaché who are lovers involved in Cold War intrigue. "The Tamarind Seed" was the first film produced by Lorimar Productions. The film score was composed by John Barry. Plot. An attractive British Home Office assistant named Judith Farrow (Julie Andrews) is on vacation on the Caribbean island of Barbados after ending a failed love affair with married group captain Richard Paterson (David Baron), an important British minister. She meets Feodor Sverdlov (Omar Sharif), a Soviet military attaché who is also on vacation staying in an adjacent bungalow. The two spend time together exploring the island, visiting museums, and going out to dinner. When British intelligence learns that Sverdlov is spending time with the mistress of a British minister, they begin monitoring their actions. Judith and Sverdlov share details about their private lives—about her husband who died in a car crash, her recent unhappy affair, his unhappy marriage, and his disillusion with the Soviet Union. During one of their outings, Judith becomes fascinated by the story of a slave who was hanged from a tamarind tree and how that tree has since born seeds in the shape of a human head. The skeptical Sverdlov thinks the story is a mere fairy tale. On her way back to London, she opens an envelope he gave her and finds a tamarind seed. British intelligence officer Jack Loder (Anthony Quayle) is convinced that Sverdlov is planning to recruit Judith as a spy. Loder is already concerned about an unknown Soviet spy within the British government with the code name "Blue". When he meets with British minister Fergus Stephenson (Dan O'Herlihy), he learns that Stephenson suspects that his wife was given secret intelligence information and wants the man identified. Loder knows that his own assistant George MacLeod (Bryan Marshall) has been having an affair with Stephenson's wife Margaret (Sylvia Syms) and is the source of the leak. Later, Stephenson reveals to Paterson that British intelligence knows about his affair, and that his former mistress has been identified as a security risk based on her contact with Sverdlov. Paterson is instructed to break off all communication with her. Loder visits Judith in her London apartment and interrogates her about Sverdlov, who is assigned in Paris to Soviet General Golitsyn. Loder instructs her that if he contacts her again she should tell him immediately. Meanwhile, when Sverdlov returns to his Paris office, he is told that his longtime secretary was taken ill and returned to Russia, replaced by another secretary he suspects is a plant. He tells General Golitsyn that he's made a contact in Barbados, and that he believes he can recruit her. Soon after, Sverdlov meets Judith in London, and she reveals that British intelligence knows about them—just as he suspected. He tells her that he's told the general that he intends to recruit her—a pretense for seeing her again. Meanwhile, Stephenson's suspicious wife Margaret figures out that her husband's cigarette lighter is a miniature camera and that her husband is in fact a Communist spy. She does not know that British intelligence has been searching for the identity of her husband—given the code name Blue. Soon after, Judith receives an important message for Sverdlov, who is back in Paris. When she phones him, he asks her to deliver it to him in Paris. When she arrives, she conveys the message—that his former secretary was taken to Lubyanka for interrogation by the KGB, and that he should not return to Russia. When Sverdlov shows interest in seeking asylum in the West, Judith contacts her former lover Paterson, who communicates her request to Loder. The next night, Sverdlov is brought to Judith's apartment to meet Loder and asks for asylum. He offers to provide the identity of the secret Communist spy Blue, in return for a safe new life in Canada. Loder agrees to the deal. To help Sverdlov pull off the defection, she agrees to accompany him back to Barbados so that his cover story with the Soviets will be convincing. Loder agrees to help arrange their rendezvous. Meanwhile, at a party at the British ambassador's house in Paris, Paterson's wife reveals to Stephenson's wife that she overheard Judith tell her husband about a Soviet official looking to defect. Stephenson's wife reveals this news to her husband, who suspects Sverdlov to be the defector. The next day, Stephenson meets his Soviet contact and communicates the information. In Paris, Sverdlov meets with General Golitsyn and assures him that he only needs a few more days with Judith to recruit her. At the Soviet embassy, Sverdlov steals part of the secret file on the Communist spy known as Blue—papers he intends to offer to British intelligence in exchange for his asylum. As he is leaving, however, he is spotted hiding the papers inside his jacket. When General Golitsyn is informed, he orders Sverdlov's public assassination at Heathrow Airport in London before he can fly to Barbados with Judith. At the airport, the Soviet assassins await his arrival, but Sverdlov avoids them with the help of Loder. General Golitsyn sends his assassins to Barbados to complete their deadly mission. Meanwhile, Loder meets with Stephenson and updates him on Sverdlov's defection and the secret Blue files that will reveal the identity of the Soviet spy in the British government. In Barbados, Judith and Sverdlov enjoy a beautiful sunset together and finally make love. The next morning, the Soviet assassins arrive at the island by boat disguised as vacationing businessmen. They blow up Sverdlov's bungalow with napalm grenades, and an fierce gunfight ensues between the killers and the British intelligence agents protecting Sverdlov. Afterwards, news reports indicate that Sverdlov was killed and Judith was taken to the hospital. Back in London, after telling Stephenson that the Blue files were destroyed in the fire, Loder reveals to his assistant that he knows that Stephenson is Blue and will be taken care of in time. Loder then travels to Barbados to visit Judith who is recovering from her injuries. He tells her that Sverdlov was not killed as reported, but taken out of the bungalow just before the attack. He is safe in Canada, and if she wants to visit him, it could be arranged. Sometime later, Judith and Sverdlov are reunited in Canada. Production. Filming locations. "The Tamarind Seed" was filmed on location in Barbados, Eaton Square, Belgravia in London, England, and Paris, France. Reception. Critical response. In her 1974 review in "Movietone News", Kathleen Murphy wrote that the film was a good example of the concept of "the community of two" against the backdrop of complex international forces waging a Cold War. Murphy writes:
581727	Vaada Raha () is a Hindi film, released on 11 September 2009. It stars Bobby Deol in the lead role and Kangna Ranaut and Atul Agnihotri in special appearances. It is directed by Samir Karnik. Some part of the film was shot in Ephesus, Turkey. Plot. After receiving a generous grant from the American Medical Association to find a cure for cancer, Dr. Duke Chawla Bobby Deol, who always gives hope to his patients, proposes to his sweetheart, Pooja Kangana Ranaut, and both arrange to get married soon. While returning home that night, he meets with an accident and wakes up in the East West Hospital paralyzed from the neck down with virtually no chance of recovery. Shattered and devastated, he is in for more trauma and shock when he finds out that Pooja will have nothing to do with him anymore. Upset, bitter and in despair, he loses his will to live, refuses to take medicine nor any treatment, and awaits death. One day, Roshan Dwij Yadav a young boy enters Duke's life to rekindle the candle of hope again. Reception. The film was given the above average verdict. Music. The music directors of the film are Monty Sharma and Babbu Mann.
1165640	Spring Dell Byington (October 17, 1886 – September 7, 1971) was a professional American actress. Her career included a seven-year run on radio and television as the star of "December Bride". She was a key MGM contract player appearing in films from the 1930s through the 1960s. Early life. Byington was born in Colorado Springs, Colorado to Professor Edwin Lee Byington (1852–1891), an educator and superintendent of schools in Colorado, and Helene Maud (née Cleghorn). Byington had one sibling, a younger sister, Helene Kimball Byington. After Edwin Lee's death, Helene decided to send her younger daughter, Helene, to live with her parents, Arthur and Charlotte Cleghorn, in Port Hope, Ontario, while Spring remained with family in Denver. Her mother moved to Boston and became a student at the Boston University School of Medicine, where she graduated in 1896. After graduation, she moved back to Denver, Colorado, and began a practice with fellow graduate, Dr. Mary Ford. Byington played in amateur shows in her school days, and graduated from North High School in 1904. Shortly afterward, at age 14, Byington became a professional actress with the Elitch Garden Stock Company. Her mother had been a friend of Mary Elitch. When their mother died in 1907, Byington and Helene were legally adopted by their aunt Margaret Eddy. Byington stated in an interview in 1949 that she had tried her hand at newspaper reporting. However, as she was already of legal majority age, she took her inheritance to begin an acting career in New York, saying that she enjoys it, and "I can't do anything else very well." Career. Stage. In 1908, Byington joined a repertory company that was touring Buenos Aires, Argentina. Between 1908 and 1916, the company performed American plays translated into Spanish and Portuguese in Argentina and Brazil. Upon returning to New York, Byington divided her time between working in Manhattan and staying with her daughters. Her daughters were living with friends J. Allen and Lois Babcock, in Leonardsville Village, New York (Madison County), who were taking care of them while Byington worked in the city. She began touring in 1919 with a production of "Birds in Paradise", which brought the Hawaiian culture to the mainland, and in 1921 began work with the Stuart Walker Company, for which she played roles in "Mr. Pim Passes By", "The Ruined Lady" and "Rollo's Wild Oats", among others. This connection landed her a role in her first Broadway performance in 1924, George S. Kaufman and Marc Connelly's "Beggar on Horseback" which ran for six months. She renewed the role in March and April 192, and continued on Broadway with an additional 18 productions in the ten years from 1925 to 1935. These included roles in Kaufman and Moss Hart's "Once in a Lifetime", Rachel Crothers's "When Ladies Meet," and Dawn Powell's "Jig Saw". Films, radio and television. In her last years on Broadway, Byington began work in films. The first was a short film titled "Papa's Slay Ride," released in in 1930, where she played the role of "Mama," and the second role, and most famous, was in "Little Women" in 1933, as "Marmee," with Katharine Hepburn as her daughter "Jo". 1935, Midshipman Roger Byam's (Franchot Tone) mother in "Mutiny on the Bounty". She became a household name during "The Jones Family" series of films, and continued as a character actress in Hollywood for several years. In 1938, Byington was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for "You Can't Take it With You", which was won by Fay Bainter for "Jezebel" (in which Byington also had a role as antebellum society matron, Mrs. Kendrick). During World War II, Byington worked in radio, and decided to continue working in this medium as her film career began to dwindle after the war. In 1952, she joined CBS Radio to become the lead role of the widowed Lily Ruskin, in the sitcom "December Bride". In 1954, Desilu Productions produced a pilot of the show for a television sitcom, also starring Byington. The pilot was successful, and the new hit sitcom aired in its first two seasons immediately following "I Love Lucy". "December Bride" broadcast 111 episodes through 1959. Byington guest starred as herself in the CBS sitcom "Dennis the Menace", starring Jay North, in the 1961 episode titled "Dennis Birthday", with character actor Vaughn Taylor also appearing in this segment. From 1961 to 1963, Byington was cast as the wise, matronly housekeeper, Daisy Cooper, in the NBC Western series "Laramie", starring John Smith and Robert Fuller. On "Laramie", Daisy serves as a surrogate grandmother to orphaned Mike Williams, played by the child actor Dennis Holmes. After "Laramie", Byington guest starred as Mrs. Jolly on Dennis Weaver's NBC sitcom, "Kentucky Jones". Her role before her death from cancer was in 1967, as Larry Hagman's mother on NBC's "I Dream of Jeannie". Her final role was in 1968 as Mother General on ABC's "The Flying Nun", starring Sally Field. Byington, and her series "December Bride," are profiled in "The Women Who Made Television Funny: Ten Stars of 1950s Sitcoms", by David C. Tucker, published by McFarland & Company in 2007. Personal life. Byington spoke some Spanish, which she learned during the time spent with her husband in Buenos Aires, and she studied Brazilian Portuguese in her golden years. In July 1958 she confided to reporter Hazel Johnson that she had acquired a "small coffee plantation" in Brazil the month before and was learning Portuguese. "Miss Byington explained that she first listens to a 'conditioning record' before she goes to sleep. An hour later, her Portuguese lessons automatically begin feeding into her pillow by means of a small speaker." Byington was fascinated by metaphysics and science fiction novels, including George Orwell's "1984". She surprised her co-stars in "December Bride" with her knowledge of the Earth's satellites, and the constellations in the night sky. In August 1955, Byington began taking flying lessons in Glendale, California, but the studio made her stop the lessons because of insurance problems. In January, 1957, she testified in the trial of the Sica brothers as a character witness in behalf of the DaLonne Cooper, who was a friend and the Script Supervisor for "December Bride". Marriage and engagement. Spring Byington married Roy Chandler in 1909; the manager of the theater troupe she worked with in Buenos Aires. They remained in Buenos Aires until 1916, when Spring returned to the New York to give birth to her first daughter, Phyllis Helene. Her second daughter, Lois Irene, was born in 1917. The couple divorced in about 1920. Between then and the mid-1930s, she devoted her time to developing her career. In the late 1930s, Byington was once again engaged to be married; this time to an Argentine industrialist. Following an engagement of a couple of years and several months before they were to be married, he died unexpectedly. Following this, she chose to devote her life to her career and family. Death. On September 7, 1971, Byington died of rectal cancer at her home in the Hollywood Hills. At her request, her body was donated to medical research. For her contribution to the film and television industry, Byington has two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, one for films at 6507 Hollywood Blvd., and one for television at 6233 Hollywood Blvd.
1071940	Biography. Early life. Miike was born in Yao, Osaka, Japan, an area inhabited by the working class and immigrants. His family was originally from Kumamoto Prefecture. During World War II, his grandfather was stationed in China and Korea, and his father was born in Seoul. His father worked as a welder and his mother as seamstress. Although he claimed to have attended classes only rarely, he graduated from Yokohama Vocational School of Broadcast and Film (Yokohama Hōsō Eiga Senmon Gakkō) under the guidance of renowned filmmaker Shohei Imamura, the founder and Dean of that institution. Career. Miike's first films were television productions, but he also began directing several direct-to-video V-Cinema releases. Miike still directs V-Cinema productions intermittently due to the creative freedom afforded by the less stringent censorship of the medium and the riskier content that the producers will allow. Miike's theatrical debut was the film "The Third Gangster" (Daisan no gokudō). However it was "Shinjuku Triad Society" (1995) that was the first of his theatrical releases to gain public attention. The film showcased his extreme style and his recurring themes, and its success gave him the freedom to work on higher-budgeted pictures. "Shinjuku Triad Society" is also the first film in what is labeled his "Black Society Trilogy", which also includes "Rainy Dog" (1997) and "Ley Lines" (1999). He gained international fame in 2000 when his romantic horror film "Audition" (1999), his violent yakuza epic "Dead or Alive" (1999), and his controversial adaptation of the manga "Ichi the Killer" played at international film festivals. He has since gained a strong cult following in the West that is growing with the increase in DVD releases of his works. His latest film "" premiered In Competition at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival. His 2013 film "Straw Shield" was nominated for the Palme d'Or at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival. Themes of his work. Miike has garnered international notoriety for depicting shocking scenes of extreme violence and sexual perversions. Many of his films contain graphic and lurid bloodshed, often portrayed in an over-the-top, cartoonish manner. Much of his work depicts the activities of criminals (especially yakuza) or concern themselves with non-Japanese living in Japan. He is known for his black sense of humor and for pushing the boundaries of censorship as far as they will go. Despite his notorious reputation, Miike has also directed movies in a range of genres. He has created lighthearted children's films ("Zebraman" and "The Great Yokai War"), period pieces ("Sabu"), subdued pictures such as the road movie "The Bird People in China", a teen drama (Andoromedeia), a farcical musical-comedy-horror in "The Happiness of the Katakuris", and even a video game adaptation in "Ace Attorney". Other less controversial works include "Ley Lines" and "Agitator", which are character-driven crime dramas. While Miike often creates films that are less accessible and target arthouse audiences and fans of extreme cinema, such as "Izo" and the "Box" segment in "Three... Extremes", he has created several mainstream and commercial titles such as the horror film "One Missed Call" and the fantasy drama "The Great Yokai War". Miike claims that "Starship Troopers" is his favorite movie. He admires film directors Akira Kurosawa, Hideo Gosha, David Lynch, David Cronenberg, and Paul Verhoeven. Controversies. One of his most controversial films was the ultra-violent "Ichi the Killer" (2001), adapted from a manga of the same name and starring Tadanobu Asano as a sadomasochistic yakuza enforcer. The extreme violence was initially exploited to promote the film: during its international premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2001, the audience received "barf bags" emblazoned with the film's logo as a promotional gimmick (one typically flamboyant gory killing involves a character slicing a man in half from head to groin, and severing another's face, which then slides down a nearby wall). However, the British Board of Film Classification refused to allow the release of the film uncut in Britain, citing its extreme levels of sexual violence towards women. In Hong Kong, 15 minutes of footage were cut. In the United States it has been shown uncut (unrated). An uncut DVD was also released in the Benelux. In 2005, Miike was invited to direct an episode of the Masters of Horror anthology series. The series, featuring episodes by a range of established horror directors such as John Carpenter, Tobe Hooper and Dario Argento, was supposed to provide directors with relative creative freedom and relaxed restrictions on violent and sexual content (Some violent content was edited from the Dario Argento-directed episode "Jenifer"). However, when the Showtime cable network acquired the rights to the series, the Miike-directed episode "Imprint" was deemed too disturbing for the network. Showtime cancelled it from the broadcast lineup even after extended negotiations, though it was retained as part of the series' DVD release. Mick Garris, creator and executive producer of the series, described the episode as "amazing, but hard even for me to watch... definitely the most disturbing film I've ever seen". While "Imprint" has yet to air in the United States, it has aired on Bravo in the UK, on FX in Mexico, Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, France, Guatemala, Honduras, Israel, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Turkey, Uruguay and Venezuela, on Nelonen in Finland and on Rai Tre in Italy. Anchor Bay Entertainment, which has handled the DVD releases for the Masters of Horror series in the US, released "Imprint" on R1 DVD on September 26, 2006. Other work. In 2005 Takashi Miike directed a Kabuki style stage-play entitled Demon Pond. The DVD recording of this has been released by Cinema Epoch. Quotes. ""I go to the dentist, not a shrink."" (interview with Daniel Robert Epstein) ""Me, a 'Master of Horror'? I'm the guy that made 'Salaryman Kintarō'!"" (Miike about his movie for the Masters of Horror series).
292440	Grey Gardens is a 1975 documentary film by Albert and David Maysles. Ellen Hovde and Muffie Meyer also directed, and Susan Froemke was the associate producer. The film depicts the everyday lives of two reclusive socialites, a mother and daughter both named Edith Beale, who lived at Grey Gardens, a decrepit mansion at 3 West End Road in the wealthy Georgica Pond neighborhood of East Hampton, New York. The film was screened at the 1976 Cannes Film Festival but was not entered into the main competition. In 2010 the film was selected by the Library of Congress for preservation in the United States National Film Registry as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". Background. Edith Ewing Bouvier Beale (1895–1977), known as "Big Edie", and her daughter Edith Bouvier Beale (1917–2002), known as "Little Edie", were the aunt and the first cousin, respectively, of former U.S. First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. The two women lived together at Grey Gardens for decades with limited funds in increasing squalor and isolation.
358144	Rabbit of Seville is a 1949 Warner Bros. "Looney Tunes" theatrical cartoon short released in 1950. It was directed by Chuck Jones and written by Michael Maltese. The cartoon, in a plotline reminiscent of "Stage Door Cartoon", features Bugs Bunny being chased by Elmer Fudd into the stage door of the Hollywood Bowl, whereupon Bugs tricks Elmer into going onstage, and participating in a break-neck operatic production of their chase punctuated with gags and accompanied by musical arrangements by Carl Stalling, focusing on Rossini's overture to "The Barber of Seville". Stalling's arrangement is remarkable in that the overture's basic structure is kept relatively intact; some repeated passages are removed and the overall piece is conducted at a faster tempo to accommodate the cartoon's standard running length. In 1994 it was voted #12 of the 50 Greatest Cartoons of all time by members of the animation field. Summary. The cartoon opens with people filing in to see "The Barber of Seville". In the back of the theater, Bugs is chased by Elmer who is shooting his gun and runs through an open back door. Elmer, now behind the curtain, doesn't see it rise when Bugs raises the curtain. The conductor, after a brief confused look at his watch, shrugs, then starts the orchestra, which causes Elmer to turn wide-eyed towards the audience. Bugs then steps out from behind a stage door, dressed in a barber's outfit, and ropes Elmer into getting a shave, rendering him "nice and clean" at the expense of the integrity of Elmer's facial features ("although your face looks like it might have gone through a machine"). After recovering, Elmer starts the chase again (speaking his only line in the cartoon: "Oh, wait till I get that wabbit!"), but is stopped by Bugs dressed as a temptress (possibly Rosina from the actual Barber of Seville opera), singing, "What would you want with a rabbit? Can't you see that I'm much sweeter? I'm your little señorit-er. You're my type of guy, let me straighten your tie, and I shall dance for you." He then ties Elmer's shotgun into a bowtie (no dialogue is heard from this point onwards until the end) and snips off Elmer's pants suspender buttons. After being thoroughly embarrassed when his pants fall down, Elmer sees through Bugs' disguise, he tries shooting him, but is blown back into the barber's chair. Bugs has another go with Elmer's scalp, beginning with a scalp massage with his hands and feet, turning his head into a fruit salad bowl (complete with cherry on top). Elmer chases Bugs again, but Bugs plays a snake charmer to get an electric shaver to chase Elmer. Elmer disables the shaver with a shotgun blast and chases Bugs back to the barber's chairs. Bugs and Elmer raise their chairs to dizzying heights, and Bugs cuts loose a stage sandbag which bonks Elmer, causing Elmer to wander around in a daze until he's back (yet again) in Bugs' barber chair. Bugs then puts Elmer in a revolving door to further daze him. Before Bugs' third go-round with Elmer's scalp, he gives one of his feet a pedicure with a can opener, hedge clippers, file and red paint. That is followed by growing a beard on Elmer's face and shaving it with a miniature mower, and finally a mud masque for the face which Bugs handles like cement. Then it's back to the scalp as Bugs massages it with hair tonic first, then adds "Figaro Fertilizer", causing hair to grow from Elmer's head which sprouts into flowers. A short 'arms chase' ensues as a result where Bugs and Elmer chase each other off stage with bigger weapons (first axes, then guns, then cannons). Finally, Bugs ends the chase by offering flowers, chocolates and a ring to Elmer, who ducks offstage and comes back as the blushing bride. The tune then briefly switches to the "Wedding March" by Mendelssohn, before finishing with Bugs carrying his 'bride' up a long flight of stairs, through a false doorway (opening up onto thin air), and drops Fudd down into a wedding cake labeled "The Marriage of Figaro". Bugs then looks at the camera, smirks, and says in the same way as his catchphrase, "Eh, next!" Availability. Rabbit of Seville is available, uncensored, uncut and digitally remastered, on Disc 1 of the and on disc 1 of the .
1062363	Sexy Beast is a 2000 Anglo-Spanish crime drama film written by Louis Mellis and David Scinto, directed by Jonathan Glazer and starring Ray Winstone, Ben Kingsley and Ian McShane. Produced by Jeremy Thomas, it was Glazer's debut feature film, who had previously directed music videos and commercials for companies such as Guinness and Levi's. The film earned Kingsley an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor. In 2004 the magazine "Total Film" named "Sexy Beast" the 15th greatest British film of all time. Plot. Ex-con and expert safe-cracker Gary "Gal" Dove (Ray Winstone) has served his time behind bars and blissfully retired to a Spanish villa with his beloved ex-porn star wife Deedee (Amanda Redman). He also has the company of longtime friend Aitch and his wife Jackie. Their idyllic life is shattered by the arrival of an old criminal associate, sociopath Don Logan (Ben Kingsley), who is intent on enlisting Gal in a bank heist back in London. Organising the heist is Teddy Bass (Ian McShane), a powerful crime lord, who has learned about the bank's vault from Harry, the bank's chairman whom he met at an orgy. Dove politely but firmly declines Logan's many demands to join the heist, but Logan will not back down. After revealing a lingering infatuation with Jackie, Logan also makes several unwelcome attempts at reconnecting with her. Logan eventually grows angry, hurling torrents of abuse at the group while at the same time spitefully painting himself as a victim of their betrayal. After storming away in a rage, Logan boards a plane back to London, only to be kicked off for refusing to put out his cigarette. Seething with hatred, Logan returns to Dove's home with ominous intentions, smashing a glass beer bottle into his former friend's ear. Deedee shoots Don with a shotgun, immobilising him. The four friends join in their efforts to kill him, first beating him, stomping him, shooting him again and finally crushing his skull.
1039922	Kate Ashfield (born 28 May 1972) is a British actress, best known for her award-winning roles as Jody in the Anglo-German film "Late Night Shopping", as Sadie MacGregor in the British film "This Little Life" and as Liz in the 2004 film "Shaun of the Dead". Biography. Ashfield was born Kate Ashfield in Birmingham, England. She was educated at the King Edward VI Camp Hill, in Birmingham, and was one of the first girls to join the sixth form of King Edward VI Five Ways. Ashfield appeared in "As You Like It" and was involved in a number of local youth theatre groups. She trained at Rose Bruford College. Career. She has since appeared in many films, television and theatre productions. Her first film role came in 1994 as Ella in John Wells' film "Princess Caraboo." One of Ashfield's first stage appearances was in the 1995 Royal Court Theatre production of "Blasted" by Sarah Kane. She has since performed in numerous plays associated with the In-yer-face theatre movement, and was invited to speak on the subject at the University of the West of England's 2002 "In-Yer-Face?: British Drama in the 1990s" conference. In 2009 she appeared in a short film "War School", raising awareness on the use of child soldiers. The film won the CTRL.ALT.SHIFT film competition, where the public were able to 'Take action' and buy a football, in which all proceeds went to the "Coalition to Stop the use of Child Soldiers". She has featured in "The Diary of Anne Frank" and "Collision", and will next work on the thriller "Hush." In April 2011, she appeared as the then Manchester United club secretary Alma George in the BBC TV drama "United", which was centred on the Munich air disaster in 1958.
584122	Kuruvi () is a 2008 Tamil action film. Directed and co-written by Dharani and produced by Udhayanidhi Stalin, it stars Vijay, Trisha Krishnan and Suman in the lead roles. Vivek, Ashish Vidyarthi, Manivannan and Malavika played other roles in the movie. The film opened to Indian audiences after several delays, on 3 May 2008 to average reviews.First few scenes are ispired by 2004 Malayalam movie Vettam starred Dileep and last few scenes are inspired from 2005 Telugu film "Chatrapathi" directed by Telugu director Rajamouli. It was dubbed into Telugu as "Dopidi" And Hindi As Jo Jeeta Wohi Baazigar Plot. Vetrivel (Vijay) is a race car driver who lives with his large family in Chennai. His father, Singamuthu (Manivannan) had gone to Kadapa in Andhra Pradesh for work at a colliery and never returned, prompting Vetrivel and his family to think he is dead. Vetrivel comes to know that a gentleman named Koccha (Suman) owes his father a huge sum of money. Finding that Koccha is based in Malaysia, Vetrivel and his friend Pons (Vivek) fly to Malaysia, as "Kuruvi", the trade jargon for low-level contraband carriers. He steps into the group at a time when internal rivalry and problems are surfacing in Koccha's family. Koccha's darling sister Devi (Trisha Krishnan) has refused to marry the former's business associate Konda Reddy's (Ashish Vidyarthi) brother, the boy approved by her family members. Irritated and preoccupied, nobody wants to devote any time or attention to resolve Vetrivel's problem. Vetrivel is abused, harassed, suffers more ill-treatment and is thrown out of Koccha's place without any help rendered. These callous actions enrage the young man. Totally enraged, with a do-or-die attitude, deciding to get his work done no matter who gets hurt, Vetri becomes a veritable suicide machine and launches into a terrific scuffle with the dangerous gang. Determined to return only after the issue is solved to his satisfaction, motivated by an urge to reveal the truth, Vetrivel conceals himself in Koccha's palace-like residence. He returns to India after stealing a large diamond that was in Koccha's possession. Devi follows Vetrivel and comes to India too, having fallen in love with Vetrivel. Knowing that Vetrivel has taken his diamond Koccha and his gang visit Vetrivel's house and threaten his family. After confronting Koccha, Vetrivel comes to know that his father in not dead, but is being held as bonded labor along with many innocent people in Kadapa. Singamuthu had discovered diamonds at the collieries but refused to allow Koccha and Konda Reddy to illegally mine the diamonds, saying that the diamonds should go to the government. He had been held in Kadapa since. Vetrivel goes to Kadapa and discovers a slave camp run by Koccha and Konda Reddy at the collieries, where a womanising rowdysheeter, Kadapa Mohan, is torturing the inmates. Vetrivel first encounters Koccha in Kadapa and throws him into a moving train, paralysing him. Then he single handedly takes on Kadapa Mohan and Konda Reddy, killing them. When the paralysed Koccha sees Konda Reddy's dead body, he recovers and attempts to shoot Vetrivel, but is then arrested by a special task force led by Raj (Nassar). Singamuthu and the others who were imprisoned in the slave camp, are finally freed. Reception. The film was made at a cost of 16 crore and opened to very mixed reviews and was average at the box office. Behindwoods rated the movie with 2.5 out of 5 stars and called "If you go to see Kuruvi with lowered expectations, you may end up liking it. But those who are looking for big build-up sequences and large Ghilli-like payoffs - stay away.".
589694	Anoop Kumar (Bengali: অনুপ কুমার) (9 January 1925 – 20 September 1998), born Kalyan Kumar Ganguly (Bengali: কল্যাণ কুমার গাঙ্গুলি), was an Indian film actor who appeared in over seventy-five Bollywood films. Personal life. Kalyan was born into a Bengali Hindu Brahmin family of Kulin Brahmins in Khandwa, Central Provinces and Berar (now in Madhya Pradesh). His father Kunjalal Ganguly (Gangopadhya) was a lawyer and his mother Gouri Devi came from a wealthy family. Anoop Kumar was the third of four siblings, the other three being Ashok Kumar (the eldest), Sati Devi (elder sister), and Kishore Kumar (the youngest). Career. Anoop Kumar is best remembered for his role in the movie "Chalti Ka Naam Gaadi".
1657491	Lance Darnell Gross (born July 8, 1981) is an American actor, best known for his role as Calvin Payne on the TBS sitcom Tyler Perry's House of Payne, as well as appearing in other Tyler Perry productions such as the Meet The Browns (2008) film and (2013). He also co-starred in 2010's "Our Family Wedding" alongside Forest Whitaker, Carlos Mencia, America Ferrera and Regina King. Early life and career. Gross was born and raised in Oakland, California and graduated from Bonanza High School. He went on to attend Howard University, where he passed up the opportunity of becoming a Pro Track & Field athlete in order to pursue his dream of acting. He received a Bachelor of Arts in theater and then trained at The Ivanna Chubbuck Studio as well as the Tasha Smith Acting Studio. Gross began his career by modelling for Karl Kani and appearing in music videos for artists such as Mary J. Blige, Rihanna, and Mariah Carey. In 2006, he had minor roles in Eve and The Bernie Mac Show. It was while he was performing in the Tasha Smith Acting Studio that he was discovered by Tyler Perry, who happened to be watching a night class. He was consequently cast as Calvin Payne on Perry's new sitcom House of Payne, a role for which he has been awarded four NAACP Image Awards for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series. 2008 saw Gross make his film debut in the romantic comedy Meet The Browns. His next big screen appearance was in Our Family Wedding in 2010 alongside America Ferrera, in which they portrayed a recently engaged young couple who's wedding preparations are disrupted by their families. In 2012 he starred in the independent film "The Last Fall", the story of a retired NFL player dealing with financial and family difficulties. Awards & Nominations. NAACP Image Awards
1167185	Phyllis St. Felix Thaxter (November 20, 1919 – August 14, 2012) was an American actress. Early life. Phyllis St. Felix Thaxter was born in Portland, Maine to Sidney St. Felix Thaxter, who would later become a Justice of the Maine Supreme Court, and his wife, a former actress. Career. She had frequently worked on Broadway since 1940. When Dorothy McGuire went to Hollywood, Phyllis replaced her in the play Claudia. In 1944, she signed a contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Her movie debut was opposite Van Johnson in the wartime film "Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo". Thaxter played Joan Alris Ellis, a woman suffering from split personality in the film-noir "Bewitched" in 1945. In 1948, she played a cattle owner's daughter alongside Barbara Bel Geddes in "Blood on the Moon".
582376	Girish Raghunath Karnad (born 19 May 1938) is a contemporary writer, playwright, screenwriter, actor and movie director in Kannada language. His rise as a playwright in 1960s, marked the coming of age of Modern Indian playwriting in Kannada, just as Badal Sarkar did in Bengali, Vijay Tendulkar in Marathi, and Mohan Rakesh in Hindi. He is a recipient of the 1998 Jnanpith Award, the highest literary honour conferred in India.
1746052	"Hana Yori Dango" was serialized in Shueisha's bi-weekly "Margaret" magazine from October 1992 to September 2003, and was collected into 37 tankōbon volumes. The manga has been adapted into a 51-episode anime series (which closely follows the manga) and an anime film. The manga has been licensed by Viz Media for publication in the United States. The manga series has also been adapted into live-action television drama series in Japan, Taiwan and Korea it was also adapted into two live-action films. "Boys Over Flowers" won the 41st Shogakukan Manga Award for Shōjo. "Hana Yori Dango" is also the best-selling shōjo manga in Japan of all time, having sold 54 million copies as of 2005. Plot. The violinist Rui Hanazawa, Tsukasa's best friend, becomes Tsukushi's first serious romantic interest. He is a quiet and cool guy, but he has a soft spot for his close friend and Tsukushi's idol, the model Shizuka Todou, whom he harbored feelings for since childhood. His character is a bit complex, and always has changing feelings for Tsukushi, but above all cares about her a lot. The other two members of the F4 are Akira Mimasaka, the laid-back peacemaker of the group, and Sojirou Nishikado, an unrepentant playboy. They both usually have at least one girlfriend at any one time; Akira prefers older women because the women of his household (his mother and two younger sisters) are quite childish. Sojirou is happy to be in casual relationships with many women, although we later discover that at one time he was in love with a childhood friend. Over time, Tsukushi's feelings towards Tsukasa evolve, as she begins to appreciate the degree of change that occurred in Tsukasa once he fell in love with her. Tsukasa becomes fiercely loyal to Tsukushi and believes in her beyond all doubt, and slowly gets her to see him in a different light. However, because of the difference in their family background, Tsukushi and Tsukasa's relationship received a lot of opposition from Tsukasa's mother. Tsukasa's mother then tries all ways and means to break the pair up. Media. Manga. "Hana Yori Dango" was serialized in Shueisha's bi-weekly "Margaret" magazine from October 1992 to September 2003 and was collected into 37 volumes. The manga has been licensed by Viz Media for publication in the United States. It has also been published by Glénat in France and by Planeta DeAgostini in Spain. In July 2006, a short story based on the manga was published in issue 15 of "Margaret" magazine. Another two-installment short story was published in January 2007. Both short stories were done by Yoko Kamio. Anime. In 1997, an anime series was produced by Toei Animation and broadcast by Asahi Broadcasting Corporation. It was shown from 8 September 1996 to 31 August 1997, with a total of 51 episodes. The storyline is closely based on the manga version with little changes to the storyline. The opening episode of this anime series features Tsukushi dancing with F4 and the whole of the student population. Episode list. An anime film was also produced in 1997. However, this film deviated from the plot of the actual manga, and was set in an alternate universe. The characters were placed into new roles to suit the film's plot. In this film, Tsukushi is an aspiring dancer that is attempting to win a role in a large stage production. Live-action adaptations. Television series. Hana Yori Dango had been adapted into several live-television dramas:
1039850	Hayley Elizabeth Atwell (born 5 April 1982) is an English actress, known for her work in stage productions such as "A View from the Bridge", and in films such as "Cassandra's Dream", "The Duchess", "" and "The Pillars of the Earth". Early life. Atwell was born in London, the only child of Allison (née Cain), a motivational speaker, and Grant Atwell, a massage therapist, photographer, and shaman. Atwell's mother is English and her father, an American from Kansas City, Missouri, is of part Native American descent. Atwell has dual citizenship of the UK and the US. Her parents separated when she was two years old. After secondary education at Sion-Manning Roman Catholic Girls' School, West London, Atwell took A-levels at the London Oratory School and trained at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama graduating in 2005. Career. Her first feature film role was in Woody Allen's 2007 film "Cassandra's Dream", in which she took the part of a stage actress opposite Ewan McGregor and Colin Farrell. In 2008, she appeared in the film "The Duchess" as Bess Foster and the film "Brideshead Revisited" as Lady Julia Flyte, earning praise and nominations from the British Independent Film Awards and the London Film Critics' Circle Awards. In January 2009, Atwell made her West End début in Lindsay Posner's revival of "A View from the Bridge" at the Duke of York's Theatre which earned her a Laurence Olivier Award nomination. Atwell appeared as "415" in AMC Television's November 2009 miniseries, "The Prisoner", a remake of the 1967–68 series by the same name. In 2010 Atwell starred as Freya Deverell in the successful Channel 4 adaptation of William Boyd's novel Any Human Heart. Atwell played Agent Peggy Carter in the 2011 superhero film '. MTV Networks' NextMovie.com named her one of the "Breakout Stars to Watch for in 2011". Atwell also voiced the character in the 2011 movie tie-in video game, '. She will reprise the role in the film's 2014 sequel, "" and "Agent Carter" stated to be release in 2013. In 2013, it was announced that Atwell would play Gerda Taro, the German war photographer and photojournalist, in the upcoming film "Close Enough", alongside Tom Hiddleston who will be playing Robert Capa.
1068062	Savage Grace is a 2007 film directed by Tom Kalin and written by Howard A. Rodman, based on the book "Savage Grace" by Natalie Robins and Steven M.L. Aronson. The story is based on the dysfunctional, allegedly incestuous relationship between heiress and socialite Barbara Daly Baekeland and her son, Antony. The film stars Julianne Moore, Stephen Dillane, Eddie Redmayne, Elena Anaya and Hugh Dancy. It was an official selection at the 2007 London Film Festival, the 2007 Sundance Film Festival and the 2007 Cannes Film Festival. Plot. The film is based on the true story of Barbara Daly Baekeland (Moore), her husband Brooks Baekeland (Dillane), heir to the Bakelite plastics fortune, and their only child Antony (Redmayne), who was diagnosed with schizophrenia. The story begins with Antony's birth and follows the family to the time of his arrest for the murder of his mother. Critical reception. Critics gave the film mixed reviews. The review aggregator "Rotten Tomatoes" reported that 38 percent of critics gave the film positive reviews, based on 89 reviews — with the consensus that "though visually compelling, the lamentable characters in "Savage Grace" make for difficult viewing." Metacritic, another review aggregator, reported the film had an average score of 51 out of 100, based on 28 reviews. Peter Bradshaw writing in "The Guardian" gave the film four out of five stars, describing it as "a gripping, coldly brilliant and tremendously acted movie." Accolades. It was nominated for an Independent Spirit Award for Best Screenplay in 2008. Sam Green. After the film opened, Baekeland's former lover, Samuel Adams Green (played by Dancy in the film), wrote an article pointing out elements in the film possibly misleading for those trying to reach back to the reality inspiring it. Referring to the "ménage à trois" scene of Barbara, Antony, and Sam having sex, he wrote: Green then took legal action against the film makers, which was still unresolved at the time of his death.
1102458	Joseph Liouville (; ; 24 March 1809 – 8 September 1882) was a French mathematician. Life and work. Liouville graduated from the École Polytechnique in 1827. After some years as an assistant at various institutions including the École Centrale Paris, he was appointed as professor at the École Polytechnique in 1838. He obtained a chair in mathematics at the Collège de France in 1850 and a chair in mechanics at the Faculté des Sciences in 1857.
1164274	Jason Sudeikis ( ; born September 18, 1975) is an American actor, voice actor, writer and comedian. He began his career in improv comedy. In 2003, he was hired as a sketch writer for "Saturday Night Live" and became a cast member from 2005 to 2013. He has appeared on television in "30 Rock", "The Cleveland Show", "Eastbound & Down", and other shows. He is also known for his roles in the films "Hall Pass", "Horrible Bosses", "Epic" and "We're the Millers". Early life. Sudeikis was born Daniel Jason Sudeikis in Fairfax, Virginia. His mother, Kathryn (née Wendt), was formerly a travel agent at Brennco and was president of the American Society of Travel Agents. His father, Daniel Joseph Sudeikis, is a vice president of business development. His uncle (mother's brother) is actor George Wendt, who is best known for his role as Norm Peterson on "Cheers". His maternal grandmother's father was photographer Tom Howard. Sudeikis is of Lithuanian and Irish descent on his father's side, and German and Irish ancestry on his mother's. As a child, Sudeikis moved with his family to Overland Park, Kansas, which he has described as his hometown. He attended Brookridge Elementary School before transferring to Holy Cross Catholic School; both are located in Overland Park. He began high school at the Jesuit Rockhurst High School in 1990, later transferring due to academic reasons to Shawnee Mission West High School. Sudeikis occasionally referenced Kansas in "Saturday Night Live" sketches. He is also a longtime Kansas Jayhawks fan and has worked University of Kansas themes and well-known Lawrence, Kansas, locations into several sketches on "SNL". Career. Early career. Sudeikis began performing at ComedySportz (now Comedy City) in Kansas City. After moving to Chicago, Sudeikis studied at the Annoyance Theatre and ImprovOlympic, where he was one of the founding members of the long-form team J.T.S. Brown. He was later cast in The Second City's National Touring Company, and also performed with Boom Chicago in Amsterdam. In the early 2000s, he became a founding member of Second City Las Vegas. He continues to frequently perform at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre's weekly improv show "ASSSCAT 3000" in New York City. "Saturday Night Live". In 2003, while a regular performer at Second City Las Vegas, Sudeikis was hired as a sketch writer for "Saturday Night Live", and would occasionally make bit appearances as audience members or extras. In May 2005, he became a featured player on the show, and was upgraded to repertory status at the beginning of the show's 32nd season on September 30, 2006. In July 2013, Sudeikis announced that he is leaving "Saturday Night Live". Other work. Sudeikis had a recurring role on the NBC series "30 Rock" with friend Tina Fey in early 2007, appearing in a total of seven episodes. He played Floyd DeBarber, a love interest of Tina Fey's character Liz Lemon. He made another appearance as Floyd in a 2008 episode, and appeared again in the Valentine's Day episode airing February 11, 2010, along with Jon Hamm and Dean Winters. Sudeikis last appeared in three episodes towards the end of the show's 4th season in 2010. Sudeikis did voice work for the videogame "Grand Theft Auto IV", playing the role of right-wing radio host Richard Bastion. He also appeared in the 2008 comedy "What Happens in Vegas", playing the role of Cameron Diaz's ex-fiancé. In July 2008, Sudeikis co-starred with Bill Hader and Joe Lo Truglio in the Lorne Michaels-produced web-series "The Line" on Crackle. Sudeikis appeared in the film "The Bounty Hunter", released in March 2010. He co-starred alongside Jennifer Aniston and Gerard Butler, playing a colleague of Aniston's character, who falls in love with her. Sudeikis was a voice actor on the FOX animated comedy series "The Cleveland Show". Sudeikis provided the voice for Holt Richter, Cleveland's wannabe hipster neighbor, as well as the voice of Terry Kimple, Cleveland's hard-partying high school buddy, who now works with Cleveland at the cable company. After previously being credited as a recurring guest in season one, Sudeikis was bumped up to a series regular beginning in season two. In May 2010, Sudeikis joined the cast of the 2011 Seth Gordon comedy "Horrible Bosses", which also starred Jamie Foxx, Kevin Spacey, Jennifer Aniston, Colin Farrell, Charlie Day, and Jason Bateman. Sudeikis co-hosted "WWE Raw" with "Going the Distance" co-stars Charlie Day and Justin Long on August 16, 2010, at the Staples Center in Los Angeles. Sudeikis also played his first lead film role, alongside Owen Wilson, in the 2011 Farrelly brothers comedy "Hall Pass". He had worked with Day when he played the role of Schmitty on It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, and reprised the role on that show's 7th season finale. He hosted the 2011 MTV Movie Awards on June 5, 2011, at the Gibson Amphitheatre. In 2012, Sudeikis had a recurring role on the third season of the HBO series "Eastbound & Down" playing both Shane, Kenny Powers battery mate on the Myrtle Beach Mermen, and Shane's twin brother Cole. Sudeikis became the voice for a line of advertisements of the Applebee's casual dining chain that began running in 2012. Sudeikis features in the video for Mumford and Sons song "Hopeless Wanderer". Personal life. Sudeikis married actress and "30 Rock" writer Kay Cannon on June 26, 2004, after having dated five years prior to that. They separated in 2008 and their divorce was finalized in 2010. He dated actress January Jones, who hosted "Saturday Night Live" in November 2009, from July 2010 to January 2011. Sudeikis started dating actress Olivia Wilde in November 2011. On January 12, 2013, Sudeikis and Wilde announced their engagement. Sudeikis has two sisters, Lindsay and Kristin. Lindsay is a teacher at Dominican Academy, an all-girls high school in New York. Kristin is an established choreographer and dancer in New York and has appeared on "30 Rock". On May 11, 2012, his father's family history was traced on the NBC program "Who Do You Think You Are?", on the third season of the NBC series.
1169642	Peggy Ann Garner (February 3, 1932 – October 16, 1984) was an American actress.
832677	Jaid Barrymore (born May 8, 1946) is an American actress and model, best known for being the mother of actress Drew Barrymore. Early life. Barrymore was born Ildikó Jaid Makó to a concert violinist mother and an artist father in West Germany. Her parents were Hungarian World War II refugees and she was born in a displaced persons camp in Brannenburg, West Germany, later growing up in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania. Personal life. Barrymore married John Drew Barrymore in 1971, with whom she had a daughter, actress Drew Barrymore. They divorced in 1984. Jaid Barrymore appeared in "Playboy" magazine in September 1995, eight months after her daughter Drew's pictorial was featured in the magazine. Barrymore, often criticized for her frequent club hopping with her then very young daughter at places such as NY's Studio 54, (about 6 years old at the time), has had a long-term tumultuous and difficult relationship with her daughter. Throughout the years she has had cameos and bit parts in movies, mostly after her daughter's rise to fame.
674288	Anatomy 2 () is a 2003 German thriller film written and directed by Stefan Ruzowitzky that stars Franka Potente. It's the sequel to the 2000 film "Anatomy". The story moves to Berlin for this film. Plot. Early on Benny, a member of the Anti-Hippocratic Society, slashes himself in front of Professor Mueller LaRousse and an audience. The main character is the young neurosurgeon Jo from Duisburg, who wants to complete his practical course at a large hospital in Berlin. He hopes to join the research group of Mueller LaRousse because his younger brother has Muscular Dystrophy, which was the cause of their father's death... Paula Henning (Franka Potente) has become a police investigator investigating the Anti-Hippocratic society. The Anti-Hippocrats perform surgeries in blood red surgical gowns.
1742868	"Tokyo Godfathers" was Kon's third animated movie, which he wrote and directed. Keiko Nobumoto, noted for being the creator of the "Wolf's Rain" series and a head scriptwriter for "Cowboy Bebop", co-wrote the script with Kon. "Tokyo Godfathers" received an Excellence Prize at the 2003 Japan Media Arts Festival. Themes. The movie puts an emphasis on the theme of "coincidences". Movie critic George Peluranee notes that "Tokyo Godfathers is a film that shows
1102701	Pierre René, Viscount Deligne (; born 3 October 1944) is a highly influential Belgian mathematician. He is known for work on the Weil conjectures, leading finally to a complete proof in 1973. He is the winner of the 2013 Abel Prize. Life. He was born in Etterbeek, attended school at Athénée Adolphe Max and studied at the Université libre de Bruxelles (ULB). After completing a doctorate under the supervision of Alexander Grothendieck, he worked with him at the Institut des Hautes Études Scientifiques (IHÉS) near Paris, initially on the generalization within scheme theory of Zariski's main theorem. In 1968, he also worked with Jean-Pierre Serre; their work led to important results on the l-adic representations attached to modular forms, and the conjectural functional equations of L-functions. Deligne's also focused on topics in Hodge theory. He introduced weights and tested them on objects in complex geometry. He also collaborated with David Mumford on a new description of the moduli spaces for curves. Their work came to be seen as an introduction to one form of the theory of algebraic stacks, and recently has been applied to questions arising from string theory. Perhaps Deligne's most famous contribution was his proof of the third and last of the Weil conjectures. This proof completed a programme initiated and largely developed by Alexander Grothendieck. As a corollary he proved the celebrated Ramanujan–Petersson conjecture for modular forms of weight greater than one; weight one was proved in his work with Serre. Deligne's paper (1974) contains the first proof of the Weil conjectures, Deligne's contribution being to supply the estimate of the eigenvalues of Frobenius, considered the geometric analogue of the Riemann hypothesis. From 1970 until 1984, when he moved to the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, Deligne was a permanent member of the IHÉS staff. During this time he did much important work outside of his work on algebraic geometry. In joint work with George Lusztig, Deligne and Lusztig applied étale cohomology to construct representations of finite groups of Lie type; with Michael Rapoport, Deligne worked on the moduli spaces from the 'fine' arithmetic point of view, with application to modular forms. He received a Fields Medal in 1978. In terms of the completion of some of the underlying Grothendieck program of research, he defined absolute Hodge cycles, as a surrogate for the missing and still largely conjectural theory of motives. This idea allows one to get around the lack of knowledge of the Hodge conjecture, for some applications. He reworked the tannakian category theory in his paper for the "Grothendieck Festschrift", employing Beck's theorem – the Tannakian category concept being the categorical expression of the linearity of the theory of motives as the ultimate Weil cohomology. All this is part of the "yoga of weights", uniting Hodge theory and the l-adic Galois representations. The Shimura variety theory is related, by the idea that such varieties should parametrize not just good (arithmetically interesting) families of Hodge structures, but actual motives. This theory is not yet a finished product – and more recent trends have used K-theory approaches. Awards. He was awarded the Fields Medal in 1978, the Crafoord Prize in 1988, the Balzan Prize in 2004, the Wolf Prize in 2008, and the Abel Prize in 2013. In 2006 he was ennobled by the Belgian king as viscount. In 2009, Deligne was elected a foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. Hand-written letters. Deligne wrote multiple hand-written letters to other mathematicians in the 1970s. These include
583162	Aarti Chabria (born 21 November 1982) is an Indian actress and a former model, who appears in Hindi, Telugu and Kannada movies. Early life. Born in Mumbai, Chabria comes from a Hindu family. Career. Aarti Chabria began modeling at 3 years of age. She was the Farex Baby, and appeared in several commercials including Maggi Noodles, Pepsodent tooth paste, Clean and Clear face wash, Amul Frostick ice cream, LML Trendy Scooter, Krack Cream. After completing her education, Chabria shot to fame when she was crowned "Miss India WorldWide 2000" in November 1999. She then appeared in the music videos - Sukhwinder Singh's "Nashi Hi Nasha", Adnan Sami's "Roothe Hue Hai Kyo" (from album "Tera Chehra") and another titled "Madhubala". Her first leading role in a Bollywood film was "Tumse Achcha Kaun Hai" in 2002, but before that she had appeared in a cameo role in "Akansha" and "Lajja" in 1989 and 2001 respectively. She portrayed the roles of an NRI tapori in "Awara Paagal Deewana", of a woman with a split personality in "Raja Bhaiya", a belle who is a bar dancer, in love with an underworld don in "Shootout at Lokhandwala", a housewife in "Daddy Cool" and a small town girl Suvarnalata in love with gold in "Dus Tola".She also acted in several South Indian (Telugu and Kannada) films as lead actress and was nominated for the same. She was the winner of the fourth season of "Fear Factor - Khatron Ke Khiladi" in 2011.
901617	Raymond "Ray" Park (born 23 August 1974) is a British actor, stuntman and martial artist, best known for playing Darth Maul in ', Toad in "X-Men", Snake Eyes in ', and "", and Edgar on "Heroes". Early life. Park was born in Glasgow, Scotland. He was brought up in Govan, Glasgow, and eventually moved with his family to London.
586633	Shwaas (Marathi: श्‍वास, "The Breath") is a Marathi film, released in 2004. It was India's official entry to the 2004 Oscars and was ranked 6th in the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film category. Its storyline is based on real-life incident in Pune. A low-budget of Indian rupee 30 lakhs (3 million), "Shwaas" won the National Award for best film in 2004, nearly 50 years since a Marathi film ("Shyamchi Aai") last earned this title. Directed by debutant Sandeep Sawant, the film was shot in 30 days at Sindhudurg, Konkan, Pune and at KEM Hospital in Mumbai. The post-production took one and half years to complete. "Shwaas" was acknowledged as a "significant turn for Marathi cinema" which had been going through a low patch. After its success, it was released in Hindi, Bengali and Tamil languages. Background. Vishwanath Nayak, one of the eight producers, a chartered accountant for Arun Nalawade, a Marathi stage actor, suggested him to make a film. Later, Arun came across a story by writer Madhavi Gharpure, published in the Diwali edition of a magazine and thought that it would make a wonderful film storyline. The distribution plan for "Shwaas" was in place even before production began. In the initial stages, the film was taken to as many villages as the team could manage; marriage halls, school auditoriums and makeshift venues were all used for screening. All this despite the fact that the film has no songs, no heroes, heroines or recognizable stars of Marathi film industry. Plot. An old villager (Vichare) brings his 8-year-old grandson Parshuraam (also known as Paarsha) to a doctor in Pune to diagnose the child's eyes. They are accompanied by child's maternal uncle Diwarkar. On the first day Vichare is asked to sign usual papers before admission in hospital. Upon asking, he learns that the papers say the doctor would not be responsible if anything goes wrong. Vichare, the rustic grandfather finds these terms unacceptable. A medical social worker named Asawari who is present there, quickly comes in and explains the practice to Vichare. She calms down Vichare and accompanies them during the first appointment with the doctor. Dr. Sane quickly diagnoses child as a victim of retinoblastoma — a rare retinal cancer. After consulting with other colleagues in US and UK doctor finds that only way to save child's life is to perform an operation that will leave the child blind. As per rule, doctor explains this and insists child be informed of this before surgery. He cannot be operated without this knowledge as it was against ethics. Asawari (Amruta Subhash) who helps the doctor in convincing the grandfather and the grandson, tries to keep track of Vichare and persuades him not fall prey to other doctors promising false medicines. She tries to befriend Parshya in order to explain him what is going to happen. However, she finds it is too difficult to explain to him that he will turn blind. The film then depicts the grandfather's struggle to accept the reality that the only way to save his grandson is at the cost of his eyesight. He tries various ways to come to terms with the situation and his personal agony is shown in scenes, like taking second opinion, explaining his grandson the reality and his desire to show him everything possible before his grandson loses his eyesight. For some reason, the surgery has to be postponed by a day. That afternoon, grandfather and grandson disappear from the hospital ward and a frantic search follows. Confronted by an angry surgeon on their return, the grandfather states quite simply that he wanted to show Parshya the sights of the city for one last time. "Shwaas" has been applauded for scenes which depict the difficulty faced by the doctors to explain to grandfather and Parshya that nothing can be done and the truth is but inevitable. It shows the medical fraternity in a very positive light, with the doctors and nurses being extremely supportive and doing the best they can, and helping the village with the best facilities. The last shot where Parshya returns home wearing dark glasses, waving to his family and friends from the boat was widely appreciated by film critics. Reviews. The film received 40% positive ratings at Rotten Tomatoes. Awards. The film received numerous awards at both national and state level. "Shwaas" won the Maharashtra State Film Award and then India's highest National Film Award, bringing the coveted Golden Lotus to Marathi cinema for the first time since 1954. Ashwin Chitale won the best child artist award. Bid for Oscar. "Shwaas" was India's official entry to the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 77th Academy Awards (the Oscar awards), 2004. The team faced financial problems to showcase and promote their film at the Oscars. People from all classes came forward with contributions. A school in Jogeshwari organized its children to make lamps and sell them and made a contribution of Rs.30,000. Another group of students wiped and cleaned cars to collect some money. A division of standard 10 students in Nasik collected Rs.10 each and their teacher added some more to donate Rs.1001. A Marathi theatre group that performs the Marathi play "Yada Kadachit" collected around Rs.65,000.
1065393	Donald Joseph "DJ" Qualls (born June 10, 1978) is an American actor and comedian known for his work in films such as "The New Guy", "Road Trip", and "Hustle & Flow", and for appearances on television series such as "Legit, Supernatural", "Scrubs", "Lost", " "and "The Big Bang Theory". Early life. Qualls was born to Debbie and Connie Qualls in Nashville, Tennessee, and was one of five children. He was raised in Manchester, Tennessee, and attended school nearby. He was diagnosed with Hodgkin's lymphoma at age 14, and after two years of treatment, his cancer was said to be in remission.
1084603	Mackenzie Brooke Smith (born February 6, 2001) is a child actress, most notable for her recurring role on ' as , the daughter of Catherine Weaver. She also appeared in the holiday motion picture "Four Christmases," alongside Reese Witherspoon and Vince Vaughn. Smith can also be seen guest starring in television series like Til Death", "Pushing Daisies", "Desperate Housewives" and "The Middle". Career. Best known for her recurring role in "" as , the daughter of Catherine Weaver and . Smith can be seen in "The Passenger" as Claire Currie. She had a small role in "Road to the Altar" as Brooke, a girl who plays with her sister in a hair and makeup shop. Smith also had a small part in "Pushing Daisies" as the younger Lily Charles in the episode "Kerplunk". In 2010, Smith can also be seen in two episode of "Desperate Housewives" as Rachel Miller. She was also seen in "The Middle" as Megan, a young girl that goes to school with Brick Heck.
1016083	House of Fury () is a 2005 Hong Kong martial arts comedy film written and directed by Stephen Fung, and also produced by Jackie Chan, and starring Fung, Gillian Chung, Michael Wong and Anthony Wong. "House of Fury" features a collaboration between Anthony Wong and Michael Wong, they both reunited for the first time since 1998 film "Beast Cops". Plot. Terry Yue Siu-bo, a single father who single handedly raises his two children, Natalie and Nicky, to young adulthood after his wife's death. Nicky works as a dolphin trainer at Ocean Park and Natalie goes to school with Ella. Her boyfriend, Jason, is a musician who does not speak Cantonese very well, and in his first scene, gives Natalie a pet pig. Siu-bo works as a Chinese traditional bonesetter and has kung fu skills, which he has passed on to his children, who display prowess while fighting each other in sibling disputes. Siu-bo tells exaggerated stories to his children and their friends, but they think they don't believe them to be true thus causing a lot of embarrassment to Nicky and Natalie. A figure an ex-CIA Agent from Siu-bo's past appears, and kidnapping Siu-bo and demands information about a former spy whom Siu-bo knew. The children then unite their skills in a desperate attempt to save their father, and while at it, learn of his great past as a G4 agent assigned to protect former spies. DVD release. On June 22, 2009, DVD was released by Cine Asia in a 2 disc ultimate edition at the UK in Region 2.
1103411	Yuri Ivanovitch Manin (; born 1937) is a Soviet/Russian/German mathematician, known for work in algebraic geometry and diophantine geometry, and many expository works ranging from mathematical logic to theoretical physics. Life and career. Manin gained a doctorate in 1960 at the Steklov Mathematics Institute as a student of Igor Shafarevich. He is now a Professor at the Max-Planck-Institut für Mathematik in Bonn, and a professor at Northwestern University. Manin's early work included papers on the arithmetic and formal groups of abelian varieties, the Mordell conjecture in the function field case, and algebraic differential equations. The Gauss–Manin connection is a basic ingredient of the study of cohomology in families of algebraic varieties. He wrote an influential book on cubic surfaces and cubic forms, showing how to apply both classical and contemporary methods of algebraic geometry, as well as nonassociative algebra. He also indicated the role of the Brauer group, via Grothendieck's theory of global Azumaya algebras, in accounting for obstructions to the Hasse principle, setting off a generation of further work. He has also written on Yang-Mills theory, quantum information, and mirror symmetry. Manin had over 40 doctoral students, including Vladimir Berkovich, Mariusz Wodzicki, Alexander Beilinson, Ivan Cherednik, Alexei Skorobogatov, Vladimir Drinfeld, Vyacheslav Shokurov, Arend Bayer and Victor Kolyvagin, as well as foreign students including Hà Huy Khoái, now the most senior mathematician in Vietnam. He was awarded the Schock Prize in 1999 and the Cantor Medal in 2002. In 1994, he was awarded the Nemmers Prize in Mathematics. In 2010, he received the Bolyai Prize of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences.
1038242	Jennifer Ann "Jenny" Agutter, OBE (born 20 December 1952) is an English film and television actress. She began her career as a child actress in the mid-1960s, starring in the BBC television series "The Railway Children" and the film adaptation of the same book, before taking adult roles and moving to Hollywood. She played Jessica 6 in "Logan's Run", Jill Mason in "Equus", Alex Price in "An American Werewolf in London", and Joanne Simpson in "Child's Play 2". Since the 1990s she has worked in sound recording, and she is a patron of the Cystic Fibrosis Trust. After a break from acting she has appeared in several television series since 2000, including the British series "Spooks". Early life. Agutter was born in Taunton, Somerset, England. She is the daughter of Catherine (née Lynam) and Derek Brodie Agutter, a former British Army officer and entertainment organiser. As a child, she lived in Dhekelia (Cyprus) and Kuala Lumpur (Malaya). She was discovered at Elmhurst Ballet School when a casting agent looked for a young English-speaking girl for a film. She did not get the part, but he recommended her to the producers of "East of Sudan" (1964). Career. Television and film. Agutter came to television audiences as Kirsty in the twice-weekly BBC series, "The Newcomers". The character Kirsty was the daughter of the new managing director of Eden Brothers, the fictional firm that was at the centre of the series. Agutter could appear only during school holidays. At this stage of her career she was listed in credits as Jennifer.
520865	Aiza Seguerra (born 17 September 1983) is a Filipina actress, singer-songwriter and guitarist. After participating on Eat Bulaga!'s Little Miss Philippines 1987 she became a child star starring in several movies and TV shows. Later in her teens, she pursued a career in music spawning her major hit single, "Pagdating ng Panahon" (When the Time Comes). Career. She first appeared as a three-year-old contestant of Eat Bulaga!'s "Little Miss Philippines". After impressing the show's main hosts, Vic Sotto and Joey de Leon, she subsequently became part of the show from 1987 to 1997. As a child star, she appeared in more than 30 movies and TV shows to date. She often portrayed the role of actor and fellow Eat Bulaga! host Vic Sotto’s daughter in numerous films. She portrayed the role of Aiza Kabisote, daughter of Enteng Kabisote in Okey Ka Fairy Ko! from 1987 to 1997. She only appeared in six movies for Regal Films. At age 14, she competed in Bong Revilla's Invitational Shootfest '98, and has won several awards in the sport. During her late teens she began pursuing a career in music; singing and playing the guitar. Her single "Pagdating ng Panahon" became a major hit in 2001 and it enabled her to start a music career. Seguerra won The Singing Bee on July 8, 2008 after Rachel Alejandro gave up her throne as defending champion due to other engagements. She defeated her co-contestant singer Bituin Escalante. Seguerra won P1,040,000 for a second time on July 10, raising her total winnings now to P 2,080,000.
1165232	Larry "Bud" Pennell (born February 21, 1928), aka Alessandro Pennelli, is an American television and film actor. Mainly a supporting actor, he is best known for his role as "Dash Riprock", the conceited, image-conscious, and macho Hollywood movie star courting "Elly May Clampett" (played by Donna Douglas) in the hit CBS television series, "The Beverly Hillbillies". Biography. Pennell was born in Uniontown in Fayette County in southwestern Pennsylvania, near Pittsburgh, USA. According to his page on BaseballReference.com, Pennell was a power-hitting left-handed first baseman and outfielder in the Boston Braves organization between 1948 and 1953. He was portrayed in Hall of Famer Eddie Mathews' autobiography as a fun-loving teammate. 1950s. Pennell started acting in 1955, as "Oliver Brown" in the movie "Seven Angry Men" (1955), a low-budget movie about abolitionist John Brown, starring Raymond Massey. That role led him to a lead in "Hell's Horizon" (1955), with John Ireland and Hugh Beaumont, also in 1955. After a few small parts in movies, Pennell drifted between television and film appearances. In 1959, he played opposite Jimmy Stewart (as "John Michael ('Chip') Hardesty") in the hit movie "The FBI Story" (1959), in the role of "George Crandall". After 1959 and into the 1960s, he primarily made guest appearances in such television series as "Death Valley Days", "The Alaskans", "The Outlaws", "Sea Hunt", "Wagon Train", "The Big Valley", "The Virginian", and "Dragnet". 1960s. In 1961, he was given a lead role in the syndicated television series, "Ripcord", an action/adventure series about skydiving, in which he co-starred, as Ted McKeever, with Ken Curtis as his older mentor, becoming somewhat of a television idol; the show ran for seventy-six episodes between 1961 and 1963. In 1965, Pennell played in Karl May's "Old Surehand" (1965) as The General. Pennell's debut on the "The Beverly Hillbillies" came January 20, 1965, in the episode "Elly in the Movies" (Season 3, Episode 16; 88th overall). Milburn Drysdale (played by Raymond Bailey) invests some of Jed Clampett's (Buddy Ebsen) money in a movie studio, Mammoth Pictures. Jed is distracted and upset that Elly May has not found any suitors in California. Elly May is bored at home, and jealous of Kitty Devine in the previous episode ("The Movie Starlet"), so Drysdale, to smooth things over, helps convince Jed and Jane Hathaway (Nancy Kulp) to let her star in a movie. Dash doesn't know that she (Elly May) is the co-star of the movie and daughter of the studio owner (Jed), and mistakenly thinks that Jane Hathaway is. The next episode, "Dash Riprock, You Cad!", which aired the following week on January 27, 1965, also included Sharon Tate (as Janet Trego), the beautiful actress who was murdered in 1969 by the Manson Family. Tate appeared in 15 episodes as Trego.
1162771	Pert Kelton (October 14, 1907 – October 30, 1968) was an American vaudeville, movie, radio and television actress. She was the first actress who played Alice Kramden in "The Honeymooners" with Jackie Gleason and was a prominent comedic supporting film actress in the 1930s. She performed in a dozen Broadway productions between 1925 and 1968. Films. Kelton was a young comedienne in A-list movies during the 1930s, often as the leading lady's wisecracking friend. She had a memorable turn in 1933 as dance hall singer "Trixie" in "The Bowery" alongside Wallace Beery, George Raft, Jackie Cooper and Fay Wray. Directed by Raoul Walsh, the film depicts Steve Brodie, the first man to supposedly jump off the Brooklyn Bridge and live to brag about it. Kelton sings to a rowdily appreciative crowd in an energetic dive, using a curious New York accent to good comedic effect, with Beery and Raft arguing over her attentions afterward. As the witty young Minnie in Gregory LaCava's pre-Code comedy "Bed of Roses" (1933), she plays a bawdy prostitute (along with Constance Bennett) fond of getting admiring men helplessly drunk before robbing them, at least until getting caught and tossed back into jail. Kelton has all the best lines, surprisingly wicked and amusing observations that would never be allowed in an American film after the Hollywood Production Code was adopted. The movie remains realistic in terms of the interactions of the characters and features an early turn by Joel McCrea as the leading man, a small boat skipper who pulls Bennett from the river after she dives to escape capture. She played Mrs. Paroo in The Music Man. Ironically, given her later blacklisting, Kelton's last movie for years was called "Whispering Enemies" (1939). Her next screen appearance was on television in "The Honeymooners" and other sketches on the Gleason show. Kelton's abrupt departure due to the blacklist was explained away as a result of "heart problems". Radio. During the 1940s, she was a familiar radio voice on such programs as "Easy Aces", "It's Always Albert", "The Stu Erwin Show" and the 1941 soap opera "We Are Always Young". In 1949, she did the voices of five different characters on radio's "The Milton Berle Show". She was also a regular cast member of "The Henry Morgan Show". In the early 1950s, she played the tart maid in the Monty Woolley vehicle, "The Magnificent Montague". Television. Kelton was the original Alice Kramden in "The Honeymooners" comedy sketches on the DuMont Television Network's "Cavalcade of Stars". These sketches formed the eventual basis for the 1955 CBS sitcom "The Honeymooners". Jackie Gleason starred as her husband Ralph Kramden, and Art Carney as their upstairs neighbor Ed Norton. Elaine Stritch played Trixie, the burlesque dancer wife of Norton, for one sketch before being replaced by Joyce Randolph. Kelton appeared in the original sketches, generally running about 10 to 20 minutes, shorter than the later one-season half-hour series and 1960s hour-long musical versions.
1059352	Brad Sullivan (November 18, 1931 – December 31, 2008) was an American actor known for character roles in television and on film and stage. Biography. Early life and career. Born in Chicago, Illinois, Bradford E. Sullivan served in the Korean War and then attended the University of Maine. After touring with a stage company, he moved to New York City and studied at the American Theatre Wing. He made his Off-Broadway debut in "Red Roses for Me" in 1961, and went on to appear in the London, England company of the musical "South Pacific".
1102733	In mathematics, tables of trigonometric functions are useful in a number of areas. Before the existence of pocket calculators, trigonometric tables were essential for navigation, science and engineering. The calculation of mathematical tables was an important area of study, which led to the development of the first mechanical computing devices. Modern computers and pocket calculators now generate trigonometric function values on demand, using special libraries of mathematical code. Often, these libraries use pre-calculated tables internally, and compute the required value by using an appropriate interpolation method. Interpolation of simple look-up tables of trigonometric functions is still used in computer graphics, where only modest accuracy may be required and speed is often paramount. Another important application of trigonometric tables and generation schemes is for fast Fourier transform (FFT) algorithms, where the same trigonometric function values (called "twiddle factors") must be evaluated many times in a given transform, especially in the common case where many transforms of the same size are computed. In this case, calling generic library routines every time is unacceptably slow. One option is to call the library routines once, to build up a table of those trigonometric values that will be needed, but this requires significant memory to store the table. The other possibility, since a regular sequence of values is required, is to use a recurrence formula to compute the trigonometric values on the fly. Significant research has been devoted to finding accurate, stable recurrence schemes in order to preserve the accuracy of the FFT (which is very sensitive to trigonometric errors). On-demand computation. Modern computers and calculators use a variety of techniques to provide trigonometric function values on demand for arbitrary angles (Kantabutra, 1996). One common method, especially on higher-end processors with floating-point units, is to combine a polynomial or rational approximation (such as Chebyshev approximation, best uniform approximation, and Padé approximation, and typically for higher or variable precisions, Taylor and Laurent series) with range reduction and a table lookup — they first look up the closest angle in a small table, and then use the polynomial to compute the correction. Maintaining precision while performing such interpolation is nontrivial, however; and methods like Gal's accurate tables, Cody and Waite reduction, and Payne and Hanek reduction algorithms can be used for this purpose. On simpler devices that lack a hardware multiplier, there is an algorithm called CORDIC (as well as related techniques) that is more efficient, since it uses only shifts and additions. All of these methods are commonly implemented in hardware for performance reasons. For very high precision calculations, when series-expansion convergence becomes too slow, trigonometric functions can be approximated by the arithmetic-geometric mean, which itself approximates the trigonometric function by the (complex) elliptic integral (Brent, 1976). Trigonometric functions of angles that are rational multiples of 2π are algebraic numbers, related to roots of unity, and can be computed with a polynomial root-finding algorithm in the complex plane. For example, the cosine and sine of 2π ⋅ 5/37 are the real and imaginary parts, respectively, of a 37th root of unity, corresponding to a root of a degree-37 polynomial "x"37 − 1. Root-finding algorithms such as Newton's method are much simpler than the arithmetic-geometric mean algorithms above while converging at a similar asymptotic rate; the latter algorithms are required for transcendental trigonometric constants, however. Half-angle and angle-addition formulas. Historically, the earliest method by which trigonometric tables were computed, and probably the most common until the advent of computers, was to repeatedly apply the half-angle and angle-addition trigonometric identities starting from a known value (such as sin(π/2) = 1, cos(π/2) = 0). This method was used by the ancient astronomer Ptolemy, who derived them in the "Almagest", a treatise on astronomy. In modern form, the identities he derived are stated as follows (with signs determined by the quadrant in which "x" lies; These were used to construct Ptolemy's table of chords, which was applied to astronomical problems. Various other permutations on these identities are possible: for example, some early trigonometric tables used not sine and cosine, but sine and versine). A quick, but inaccurate, approximation. A quick, but inaccurate, algorithm for calculating a table of "N" approximations "s""n" for sin(2π"n"/"N") and "c""n" for cos(2π"n"/"N") is: for "n" = 0...,"N" − 1, where "d" = 2π/"N". This is simply the Euler method for integrating the differential equation: with initial conditions "s"(0) = 0 and "c"(0) = 1, whose analytical solution is "s" = sin("t") and "c" = cos("t"). Unfortunately, this is not a useful algorithm for generating sine tables because it has a significant error, proportional to 1/"N". For example, for "N" = 256 the maximum error in the sine values is ~0.061 ("s"202 = −1.0368 instead of −0.9757). For "N" = 1024, the maximum error in the sine values is ~0.015 ("s"803 = −0.99321 instead of −0.97832), about 4 times smaller. If the sine and cosine values obtained were to be plotted, this algorithm would draw a logarithmic spiral rather than a circle. A better, but still imperfect, recurrence formula. A simple recurrence formula to generate trigonometric tables is based on Euler's formula and the relation: This leads to the following recurrence to compute trigonometric values "s""n" and "c""n" as above: for "n" = 0, ..., "N" − 1, where "w""r" = cos(2π/"N") and "w""i" = sin(2π/"N"). These two starting trigonometric values are usually computed using existing library functions (but could also be found e.g. by employing Newton's method in the complex plane to solve for the primitive root of "z""N" − 1). This method would produce an "exact" table in exact arithmetic, but has errors in finite-precision floating-point arithmetic. In fact, the errors grow as O(ε "N") (in both the worst and average cases), where ε is the floating-point precision. A significant improvement is to use the following modification to the above, a trick (due to Singleton, 1967) often used to generate trigonometric values for FFT implementations: where α = 2 sin2(π/"N") and β = sin(2π/"N"). The errors of this method are much smaller, O(ε √"N") on average and O(ε "N") in the worst case, but this is still large enough to substantially degrade the accuracy of FFTs of large sizes.
1163218	Michael Anthony Richards (born July 24, 1949) is an American actor, comedian, writer and television producer, best known for his portrayal of Cosmo Kramer on the television sitcom "Seinfeld". During the show's run, he received the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series three times. Richards began his career as a stand-up comedian, first stepping into a national spotlight when he was featured on Billy Crystal's first cable TV special. He went on to become a series regular on ABC's "Fridays". Prior to "Seinfeld", he made numerous guest appearances on a variety of television shows including "Cheers", "Night Court", "Miami Vice" and "St. Elsewhere". His film credits include "So I Married an Axe Murderer", "Airheads", "Young Doctors in Love", "Problem Child", "Coneheads", "UHF", and "Trial and Error", one of his few starring roles. During the run of "Seinfeld", he made a guest appearance in "Mad About You". After "Seinfeld", Richards starred in his own sitcom, "The Michael Richards Show", which lasted less than one season.
744026	James Patrick "Jamey" Sheridan (born July 12, 1951) is an American actor. He was born in Pasadena, California. Life and career. He has had a prolific acting career in theater, television, and feature film productions. Born to a family of actors, he made it to Broadway and earned a Tony nomination in 1987 for his performance in the revival of Arthur Miller's "All My Sons". After several TV movie appearances, Sheridan landed a starring role as lawyer Jack Shannon on "Shannon's Deal", which ran for one season in 1990. His later television roles include Dr. John Sutton on "Chicago Hope" (from 1995 to 1996). Sheridan started his film career in the late 1980s with small roles. By the 1990s, he was playing the token family man, a role he would continue in both film and television, such as 1991's "All I Want for Christmas". He also has played villains. In 1994 he played the character of Randall Flagg in the miniseries adaptation of Stephen King's "The Stand". Other roles include Marty Stouffer in "Wild America" and the psychotic neighbor in "Video Voyeur: The Susan Wilson Story". After a long history of performing Shakespeare on the stage, Sheridan appeared in Campbell Scott's production of "Hamlet" in 2000 as well as the Hamlet-inspired modern noir film "Let the Devil Wear Black" (1999). He co-starred in the improvisational film "The Simian Line" in 2001. He has also given supporting performances in "The Ice Storm", "Cradle Will Rock", "Life as a House", and numerous TV movies. More recently, Sheridan played Capt. James Deakins in the television series "". Late in the 2004–2005 season, Sheridan began wearing an eyepatch as he began showing the symptoms of Bell's palsy. This was written into the show; however, Deakins was written out of the series at the end of the 2005–2006 season, at Sheridan's request. His character was replaced by Capt. Danny Ross, played by Eric Bogosian. Sheridan played alongside Jane Seymour in the Hallmark Channel movie "Dear Prudence" as Detective Eddie Duncan. On November 6, 2008, Sheridan guest starred as an evening news anchor on the ABC dramedy "Eli Stone". From 2009 to 2010, Sheridan starred in NBC's "Trauma" as Dr. Joseph "Joe" Saviano. In 2010 Sheridan starred in the movie "Handsome Harry", a drama. He will also be joining an ensemble cast in the political film "Game Change", playing speechwriter Mark Salter. In fall 2011, Sheridan played Vice President William Walden in the first season of Showtime's drama/thriller "Homeland"; the show was renewed for a second season consisting of 12 episodes, with Sheridan returning as a regular.
1057446	RocketMan is a 1997 science fiction comedy film directed by Stuart Gillard, and starring Harland Williams, Jessica Lundy and William Sadler. It was produced by Walt Disney Pictures and Caravan Pictures, and was released on October 10, 1997. Plot. NASA is training for the first manned mission to Mars. Due to a supposed glitch in the computer navigation system, NASA looks for the original programmer of the software to see why the software seems to be broken. Fred Z. Randall (Harland Williams), the eccentric programmer who wrote the software, meets Paul Wick (Jeffrey DeMunn), the flight director of the Mars mission; William "Wild Bill" Overbeck (William Sadler), the commander of the Mars mission; and astronaut Gary Hackman (Peter Onorati), the computer specialist. After a display of hard headed stubbornness by Gary, he's hit in the head by a model of the "Pilgrim 1" Mars lander, resulting in a skull fracture. NASA decides to replace him instead of delaying the mission. Fred is brought to NASA to see if he has what it takes to be an astronaut; he, along with Gordon Peacock, go through a series of exercises, which sees Fred do well, even going as far to break every record that Bill had. In the end, Fred gets the job. While getting ready to go on the space shuttle, Fred chickens out and refuses to go on the mission. Bud Nesbitt (Beau Bridges), who Wick claims is the cause of the Apollo 13 accident, tells Fred about the three commemorative coins given to him by President Johnson. He gave one coin to Neil Armstrong, another to Jim Lovell, and finally shows Randall a gold coin reading, "Bravery". "It hasn't done me much good," Bud says. "Maybe it'll mean something to you one day." Fred, along with Commander Overbeck, geologist Julie Ford (Jessica Lundy), and Ulysses, a chimpanzee being trained at the time, will look for fossils on the planet, Mars. To save on resources, crew members are put into "hypersleep" for eight months while the shuttle heads towards Mars. Ulysses purposely takes Fred's "hypersleep chamber" for his own and Fred has to sleep in Ulysses' chimp-shaped chamber. He sleeps for only 13 minutes and has to stay up for eight months. While looking at Mars weather data Fred notices severe sandstorms that could endanger the crew. He contacts Bud at Houston and tells him about the storms that are forecast to hit the landing site. If the crew get caught in the storms, they could be lost forever. Bud tells Wick about the situation but Wick ignores him. The crew makes it to Mars, after Overbeck barks at Fred for being awake the whole time, and using all the food, except food that the former despises (anchovy paste, creamed liver, and gefilte fish), for painting. They land the Pilgrim on the Martian surface. As Overbeck prepares to be the first to step on mars, Fred slips and lands first followed by Overbeck. Then Fred says "It wasn't me" and then a "USA Today" newspaper shows up with the headline saying "First Words On Mars (next line) 'It wasn't me!'". A day after the crew lands, the sandstorms arrive ahead of schedule. After almost losing Overbeck and Ulysses in the sandstorm, the crew immediately flies off the Alien surface. Wick is replaced by Bud after they learned that Wick didn't trust his NASA crew. The ship almost makes it out of the sandstorm until rocks kicked up by the wind hits the lander. "Pilgrim 1" having lost its power, begins to spin out of control. Fred has to rewire the entire system, reboot it and power everything back up in less than 2 minutes or they will crash. With less than 20 seconds, he has to complete the circuit. He frantically searches for something and finally shoves the commemorative coin into the slot, allowing the lander to regain power. The crew safely return to the space shuttle orbiting Mars. Fred then asks Julie to dance with him in zero gravity to When You Wish upon a Star. As Fred gets ready for "hypersleep" one last time, Ulysses climbs into his "hypersleep chamber" once again, forcing Fred to stay up again for another eight months on the journey back home. After the credits, the crew's flag pole on Mars is shown missing its flag. It is revealed that Randall's American flag boxers, which were earlier used as a replacement for the original flag, had been stolen by a Martian. Production. The film was shot on location at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas and in Moab, Utah for the scenes on the surface on Mars. Reception. The film mainly received negative reviews, with a 24% rating on review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes. However, Roger Ebert gave the film a positive review, giving it 3 out of 4 stars. Home media. The film was one of the inaugural Disney titles released on DVD which soon went out-of-print. In April 2006, the Disney Movie Club began distributing a DVD re-release.
339798	Thomas Harriot (Oxford, "ca." 1560 – London, 2 July 1621) — or spelled Harriott, Hariot, or Heriot — was an English astronomer, mathematician, ethnographer, and translator. He is sometimes credited with the introduction of the potato to the British Isles. Harriot was the first person to make a drawing of the Moon through a telescope, on July 26, 1609, over four months before Galileo. After graduating from Oxford University, Harriot travelled to the Americas, accompanying the 1585 expedition to Roanoke island funded by Sir Walter Raleigh and led by Sir Ralph Lane. Harriot was a vital member of the venture, having translated and learned the Carolina Algonquian language from two Native Americans, Wanchese and Manteo. On his return to England he worked for the 9th Earl of Northumberland. At the Earl's house, he became a prolific mathematician and astronomer to whom the theory of refraction is attributed. Biography. Early life and education. Born in 1560 in Oxford, England, Thomas Harriot attended St Mary Hall, Oxford. His name appears in the school's registry dating from 1577. Roanoke. After his graduation from Oxford in 1580, Harriot was first hired by Sir Walter Raleigh as a mathematics tutor; he used his knowledge of astronomy/astrology to provide navigational expertise, help design Raleigh's ships, and serve as his accountant. Prior to his expedition with Raleigh, Harriot wrote a treatise on navigation. In addition, he made efforts to communicate with Manteo and Wanchese, two Native Americans who had been brought to England. Harriot deciphered a phonetic alphabet to transcribe their Carolina Algonquian language. Harriot and Manteo spent many days in one another's company; Harriot interrogated Manteo closely about life in the New World and learned much that was to the advantage of the English settlers. In addition, he recorded the sense of awe with which the Native Americans viewed European technology: He made only one expedition, around 1585-86, and spent some time in the New World visiting Roanoke Island off the coast of North Carolina, expanding his knowledge by improving his understanding of the Carolina Algonquian language. As the only Englishman who had learned Algonkin prior to the voyage, Harriot was vital to the success of the expedition. His account of the voyage was published in 1588 (probably written in 1587). The "Report" contains an early account of the Native American population encountered by the expedition; it proved very influential upon later English explorers and colonists. He wrote: "Whereby it may be hoped, if means of good government be used, that they may in short time be brought to civility and the embracing of true religion." At the same time, his views of Native Americans' industry and capacity to learn were later largely ignored in favour of the parts of the "Report" about extractable minerals and resources. As a scientific adviser during the voyage, Harriot was asked by Raleigh to find the most efficient way to stack cannonballs on the deck of the ship. His ensuing theory about the close-packing of spheres shows a striking resemblance to atomism and modern atomic theory, which he was later accused of believing. His correspondence about optics with Johannes Kepler, in which he described some of his ideas, later influenced Kepler's conjecture. Later years. He was dedicated to work for Henry Percy, 9th Earl of Northumberland with whom he also resided at Syon House, which was run by Henry Percy's cousin Thomas Percy. Harriot's sponsors began to fall from favour: Raleigh fell from favour, and Harriot's other patron Henry Percy, the Ninth Earl of Northumberland, was imprisoned in 1605 in connection with the Gunpowder Plot as he was the second cousin of one of the conspirators, Thomas Percy. Harriot himself was interrogated and briefly imprisoned but soon released. Walter Warner, Robert Hues, William Lower and other scientific peers were present around the Earl of Northumberland's mansion as they worked and lent a hand in the teaching of the family's children. Halley's Comet in 1607 turned Harriot's attention towards astronomy. In early 1609 he bought a "Dutch trunke" (telescope), invented in 1608, and his observations were amongst the first uses of a telescope for astronomy. Harriot is now credited as the first astronomer to draw an astronomical object after viewing it through a telescope: he drew a map of the Moon on July 26, 1609, preceding Galileo by several months. He also observed sunspots in December 1610. Death. In 1615 or 1616, Harriot wrote to an unknown friend with medical expertise, describing what would have been the reason for the eruption of a cancerous ulcer on his lip. This progressed until 1621, when he was living with a friend named Thomas Buckner on Threadneedle Street, where he died. Sources cited below are among several that describe his condition as a cancer of the nose. In either case, Harriot apparently died from skin cancer. He died on 2 July 1621, three days after writing his will (discovered by Henry Stevens). His executors posthumously published his "Artis Analyticae Praxis" on algebra in 1631; Nathaniel Torporley was the intended executor of Harriot's wishes, but Walter Warner in the end pulled the book into shape. It may be a compendium of some of his works but does not represent all that he left unpublished (more than 400 sheets of annotated writing). It isn't directed in a way that follows the manuscripts and it fails to give the full significance of Harriot's writings. Legacy. He also studied optics and refraction, and apparently discovered Snell's law 20 years before Snellius did, although it was previously discovered by Ibn Sahl; like so many of his works, this remained unpublished. In Virginia he learned the local Algonquian language, which may have had some effect on his mathematical thinking. He founded the "English school" of algebra. He is also credited with discovering Girard's theorem, although the formula bears Girard's name as he was the first to publish it. His algebra book "Artis Analyticae Praxis" (1631) was published posthumously in Latin. Unfortunately the editors did not understand much of his reasoning and removed the parts they did not comprehend such as the negative and complex roots of equations. Because of the dispersion of Harriot's writings the full annotated English translation of the "Praxis" was not completed until 2007. The first biography of Harriot was written in 1876 by Henry Stevens of Vermont but not published until 1900 fourteen years after his death. The publication was limited to 167 copies and so the work was not widely known until 1972 when a reprint edition appeared. John W. Shirley the editor (1908-1988) went on to publish "A Sourcebook for the Study of Thomas Harriot" (1981) The papers of John Shirley have been deposited in the University of Delaware Library. Harriot's accomplishments remain relatively obscure because he did not publish any of his results and also because many of his manuscripts have been lost; those that survive are sheltered in the British Museum and in the archives of the Percy family at Petworth House (Sussex) and Alnwick Castle (Northumberland). An event was held at Syon House, West London, to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Harriot's first observations of the moon on 26 July 2009. This event, Telescope400, included the unveiling of a plaque to commemorate Harriot by Lord Egremont. The plaque can now be seen by visitors to Syon House, the location of Harriot's historic observations. His drawing made 400 years earlier is believed to be based on the first ever observations of the moon through a telescope. The event (sponsored by the Royal Astronomical Society) was run as part of the International Year of Astronomy (IYA). The original documents showing Harriot's moon map of c. 1611, observations of Jupiter's satellites, and first observations of sunspots were on display at the Science Museum, London, from 23 July 2009 until the end of IYA. The observatory in the campus of the College of William and Mary is named in Harriot's honour. A crater on the Moon was belatedly named after him in 1970; it is on the Moon's far side and hence unobservable from Earth. The Thomas Harriot College of Arts and Sciences at East Carolina University in Greenville, NC is named in recognition of this Harriot's scientific contributions to the New World such as his work "A Briefe and True Report of the New Found Land of Virginia".
629332	Bryan Neathway Brown, AM (born 23 June 1947) is an Australian actor. Early life. Brown was born in Sydney, the son of John (Jack) Brown and Molly Brown, a house cleaner who worked as a pianist in the early days of the Langshaw School of Ballet. He grew up with his younger sister Kristine, in the south-western Sydney suburb of Panania and began working at AMP as an actuarial student. He started to act in amateur theatre performances, where he discovered a passion for acting. Career. Brown went to England in 1964, eventually winning minor roles at the Old Vic. He returned to Australia and became a member of the Genesian Theatre, Sydney. He appeared in Colleen Clifford's production of "A Man for All Seasons", before joining the Queensland Theatre Company. He made his cinema debut in 1977 with a small role in "The Love Letters from Teralba Road" and appeared in several more Australian films over the next two years such as "Stir". In 1980, Brown became known to international audiences for his performance in "Breaker Morant". While he continued appearing in Australian productions, he also appeared in American TV mini-series, winning popularity in the United States in "A Town Like Alice" (1981). He is best known to American television audiences for his Golden Globe and Emmy nominated role as Luke O'Neil in "The Thorn Birds" (1983), starring Richard Chamberlain and Rachel Ward, whom he later married. He starred in several international productions including "Tai-Pan" with Joan Chen, "Gorillas in the Mist" with Sigourney Weaver, and "Cocktail" with Tom Cruise. He generally plays Australians, but assumed a Scottish accent for the film "Tai-Pan" and the TV series "Against the Wind". In the 1990s and more recently, Brown appeared in American and Australian TV productions and movies, such as "Two Hands" (1999), as well as in British TV commercials. Production work. Brown's production company made the series "Twisted Tales" and "Two Twisted" (similar to "Alfred Hitchcock Presents"). The second series had an additional twist: both stories in each episode were connected in some way, and the audience was invited to try to spot the connection. Honours and awards. Brown was inducted into the Logie Hall of Fame in 1989. He received the Australian Film Institute Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role for "Breaker Morant" (1980) and for "Two Hands" (1999). In June 2005, Brown was made a Member of the Order of Australia "for service to the community through a range of charitable organisations committed to providing assistance and support to families and young people and to the Australian film and television industry." Personal life. When Bryan Brown was first introduced to Rachel Ward on the set of the TV miniseries "The Thorn Birds" in 1983, he read her palm and predicted she would have three children. They married a few months after filming wrapped. They have three children—Rosie, Matilda (who is also an actress) and Joe. He is a strong supporter of Australian republicanism.
1086118	Marissa Ribisi (born December 17, 1974) performed in the films "Dazed and Confused, True Crime, The Brady Bunch Movie, Pleasantville", and "Don's Plum" and television shows such as "Felicity", "Friends", "Grace Under Fire", "Watching Ellie", and "Tales of the City". Early life. Ribisi was born Santina Marissa Ribisi in Los Angeles, California. Marissa and her twin brother, Giovanni, were delivered by Bibbe Hansen, the mother of musical artist and Marissa's future husband, Beck. Her mother, Gay (née Landrum), is a manager of actors and writers, and her father, Al Ribisi, is a musician. Ribisi began acting when she was nine years old. Her twin brother, Giovanni, is also an actor. Career. Ribisi first appeared on television in 1988, playing a minor red-haired character named Ginger in "She'll Get Over It", an episode of "My Two Dads". This was followed by similar brief appearances in "Baywatch" ("Old Friends" 1990), "DEA" (1991), and the miniseries "Tales of the City" (1993), playing a receptionist.
1064737	Frances Lee McCain (born July 28, 1944), also known as Lee McCain, is an American actress. Early life and education. McCain was born in York, Pennsylvania and grew up in New York, Illinois, Colorado and California. She graduated from Ripon College with a BA in Philosophy and then studied acting for 3 years at the Central School of Speech and Drama in London, England. She completed a Master's degree in Psychology at the California Institute of Integral Studies in 2000. Acting career. She returned to New York where she appeared on Broadway in Woody Allen's "Play it Again Sam", and off-Broadway in Lanford Wilson's "Lemon Sky", creating the role of Carol. She joined the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco under William Ball and played a variety of roles in repertory. "Apple's Way" TV show (1974-75) and other 1970s work. She began her career in film and television after appearing opposite Jon Voight and Faye Dunaway in "A Streetcar Named Desire", eventually co-starring with Ronny Cox as the female lead in her own television series, CBS-TV's "Apple's Way" in 1974. She appeared in a variety of television series and miniseries throughout the 1970s, including the Quincy ME episode "Eye Of The Needle" playing a Holistic practitioner. In 1978 she played Charles Grodin's wife in Albert Brooks' debut feature film, "Real Life". 1980s acting work. In the 1980s, she was cast in several major films, usually always playing the mother of a main character. In 1984, she co-starred in the blockbuster film "Gremlins" as Lynn Peltzer, the mother of main character, Billy Peltzer. Also that year, she played Ethel McCormack, mother to Kevin Bacon's character, in "Footloose". In 1985 she appeared in the hit film "Back to the Future" as Stella Baines, the mother to the character played by Lea Thompson. In 1986, she played the role of Mrs. Lachance, the mother of Gordie Lachance (played by Wil Wheaton), in the hit drama film "Stand by Me". Later work. She continued to work in television after relocating to the San Francisco Bay Area in the late 1980s and also appeared in "Scream" (1996) as the mother of Rose McGowan's character, and "Patch Adams" (1998). Present work. Frances Lee McCain received a Master's Degree in Psychology from the California Institute of Integral Studies in 2000, and continues to work in Theater extensively in the San Francisco Area.
252650	Agner Krarup Erlang (1 January 1878 – 3 February 1929) was a Danish mathematician, statistician and engineer, who invented the fields of traffic engineering and queueing theory. By the time of his relatively early death at the age of 51, Erlang created the field of telephone networks analysis. His early work in scrutinizing the use of local, exchange and trunk telephone line usage in a small community to understand the theoretical requirements of an efficient network led to the creation of the Erlang formula, which became a foundational element of present day telecommunication network studies. Life. Erlang was born at Lønborg, near Tarm, in Jutland. He was the son of a schoolmaster, and a descendant of Thomas Fincke on his mother's side. At age 14, he passed the Preliminary Examination of the University of Copenhagen with distinction, after receiving dispensation to take it because he was younger than the usual minimum age. For the next two years he taught alongside his father. A distant relative provided free board and lodging, and Erlang prepared for and took the University of Copenhagen entrance examination in 1896, and passed with distinction. He won a scholarship to the University and majored in mathematics, and also studied astronomy, physics and chemistry. He graduated in 1901 with an MA and over the next 7 years taught at several schools. He maintained his interest in mathematics, and received an award for a paper that he submitted to the University of Copenhagen. He was a member of the Danish Mathematicians' Association (TBMI) and through this met amateur mathematician Johan Jensen, the Chief Engineer of the Copenhagen Telephone Company (KTAS in Danish), an offshoot of the International Bell Telephone Company. Erlang worked for the CTC (KTAS) from 1908 for almost 20 years, until his death in Copenhagen after an abdominal operation. He was an associate of the British Institution of Electrical Engineers. Contributions. While working for the CTC, Erlang was presented with the classic problem of determining how many circuits were needed to provide an acceptable telephone service. His thinking went further by finding how many telephone operators were needed to handle a given volume of calls. Most telephone exchanges then used human operators and cord boards to switch telephone calls by means of jack plugs. Out of necessity, Erlang was a hands-on researcher. He would conduct measurements and was prepared to climb into street manholes to do so. He was also an expert in the history and calculation of the numerical tables of mathematical functions, particularly logarithms. He devised new calculation methods for certain forms of tables. He developed his theory of telephone traffic over several years. His significant publications include: These and other notable papers were translated into English, French and German. His papers were prepared in a very brief style and can be difficult to understand without a background in the field. One researcher from Bell Telephone Laboratories is said to have learned Danish to study them. The British Post Office accepted his formula as the basis for calculating circuit facilities. A unit of measurement, statistical distribution and programming language listed below have been named in his honour.
1084223	Deathsport is a 1978 science fiction B-movie produced by Roger Corman, directed by Allan Arkush and Nicholas Niciphor. The film stars David Carradine and Playboy Playmate Claudia Jennings. It would also be one of Jennings' final movies before her tragic death. Plot. 1,000 years in the future, after the Neutron Wars, the world is divided into a barbaric collection of city states, surrounded by wastelands where only mutant cannibals and independent warriors, known as Range Guides, can live. The city state of Helix is planning war on another, Tritan. Hoping to prove their newest weapon's superiority, the "Death Machines" (laser equipped Dirt bikes), they create a new Death Sport. The death penalty has been replaced by Death Sport, where criminals battle each other to the death for their freedom. Lord Zirpola (David McLean) is using the "Death Machines" against some Range Guides he managed to capture. One of the guides, Kaz Oshay (Carradine), forges a bond with the female guide Deneer (Jennings) and vows to escape with her and find her child who was taken by mutants before her capture. After enduring torture and facing his mother's killer, Ankar Moor (Richard Lynch), Oshay and Deneer are forced into the Death Sport motocross field, which is mined with explosives. They easily defeat the other riders and escape into Helix city with two other prisoners, Doctor Karl (William Smithers) and his son Marcus (Will Walker). During the escape, though, the doctor is killed. Eventually they rescue Deneer's child from mutant cannibals, and battle the other Death Machine riders who followed them. Finally safe, Deneer delivers Marcus to Tritan, while Kaz Oshay faces his nemesis Ankar Moor in "honorable" combat, using Whistlers (plastic swords that sound like music). After a bloody battle Kaz decapitates Ankar, becoming the greatest guide alive. The film ends with him and Deneer riding their horses off into the sunset. Production. The movie was a follow up to "Death Race 2000" (1975). Nicholas Niciphor, a recent graduate of USC, was given the job of rewriting and directing the movie. Shooting was problematic and he ended up being fired. Allan Arkush was called in to complete the movie, recutting it and adding new scenes. Arkush later claimed that: Mostly we just blew up motorcycles. Lots of them. We also set some mutants on fire. And the stunning Claudia Jennings got naked. David Carradine... smoked a lot of high-grade weed and helped us to blow stuff up... Sad to say, I couldn't save the picture. In a 1990 letter to "Psychotronic Video" magazine ("Psychotronic Video" #7), David Carradine described writer & director Nicholas Niciphor as "a very talented and crazy guy". He claimed Niciphor "physically attacked" Claudia Jennings and Carradine "beat up" Niciphor in response. In 1991, Niciphor countered these claims in a letter to the same magazine ("Psychotronic Video" #9) where he claimed he and two stunt men physically removed Jennings from a motorcycle when Niciphor realized she was drunk and apparently high on cocaine (Jennings had a well known cocaine addiction in the late 70's). He also claims Carradine "would smoke hashish & marijuana openly on the set". Niciphor went on to say that later in the shoot, Carradine hit him in the right eye with a karate fist during training for a fight scene and was not sure if this was "an accident" or "purposeful" as retribution for the Jennings incident. Release. The movie was not as successful at the box office as "Death Race 2000" and a proposed follow up, "Deathworld", was not made. On August 3, 2010, Shout! Factory released "Deathsport" along with the 1982 film "Battle Truck" on a double-feature Collector’s Edition DVD. Soundtrack. The film was scored by Andy Stein and featured guitar riffs from Jerry Garcia.
1016496	Bio Zombie () is a 1998 Hong Kong zombie comedy film, starring Jordan Chan. It spoofs George A. Romero's "Dawn of the Dead" and shows many similarities to Peter Jackson's "Braindead". Plot. This movie takes place in a mall where two young men and other people work. They do not seem to get along very well due to a lack of customers. One night the two young men give an apparently dying businessman a soft drink, which is in actuality an experimental Iraqi biological weapon that turns him into a flesh-eating zombie. Returning to the mall, the man escapes and begins infecting the population, forcing a small group of misfits to band together in order to survive. Cast. Voice cast (English version):
65565	Pierre-Louis Moreau de Maupertuis (; 28 September 1698 – 27 July 1759) was a French mathematician, philosopher and man of letters. He became the Director of the Académie des Sciences, and the first President of the Prussian Academy of Science, at the invitation of Frederick the Great. Maupertuis made an expedition to Lapland to determine the shape of the Earth. He is often credited with having invented the principle of least action; a version is known as Maupertuis' principle – an integral equation that determines the path followed by a physical system. His work in natural history has its interesting points, since he touched on aspects of heredity and the struggle for life. Biography. Maupertuis was born at Saint-Malo, France, to a moderately wealthy family of merchant-corsairs. He was educated in mathematics by a private tutor, and upon completing his formal education his father secured him a largely honorific cavalry commission. After three years in the cavalry, during which time he became acquainted with fashionable social and mathematical circles, he moved to Paris and began building his reputation as a mathematician and literary wit. In 1723 he was admitted to the Académie des Sciences. His early mathematical work revolved around the vis viva controversy, for which Maupertuis developed and extended the work of Isaac Newton (whose theories were not yet widely accepted outside England) and argued against the waning Cartesian mechanics. In the 1730s, the shape of the Earth became a flashpoint in the battle among rival systems of mechanics. Maupertuis, based on his exposition of Newton (with the help of his mentor Johan Bernoulli) predicted that the Earth should be oblate, while his rival Jacques Cassini measured it astronomically to be prolate. In 1736 Maupertuis acted as chief of the French Geodesic Mission sent by King Louis XV to Lapland to measure the length of a degree of arc of the meridian. His results, which he published in a book detailing his procedures, essentially settled the controversy in his favor. The book included an adventure narrative of the expedition, and an account of the Käymäjärvi Inscriptions. On his return home he became a member of almost all the scientific societies of Europe. After the Lapland expedition, Maupertuis set about generalizing his earlier mathematical work, proposing the principle of least action as a metaphysical principle that underlies all the laws of mechanics. He also expanded into the biological realm, anonymously publishing a book that was part popular science, part philosophy, and part erotica: "Vénus physique". In that work, Maupertuis proposed a theory of generation (i.e., reproduction) in which organic matter possessed a self-organizing “intelligence” that was analogous to the contemporary chemical concept of affinities, which was widely read and commented upon favorably by Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon. He later developed his views on living things further in a more formal pseudonymous work that explored heredity, collecting evidence that confirmed the contributions of both sexes and treated variations as statistical phenomena. In 1740 Maupertuis went to Berlin at the invitation of Frederick II of Prussia, and took part in the Battle of Mollwitz, where he was taken prisoner by the Austrians. On his release he returned to Berlin, and thence to Paris, where he was elected director of the Academy of Sciences in 1742, and in the following year was admitted into the Académie française. Returning to Berlin in 1744, again at the desire of Frederick II, he was chosen president of the Prussian Royal Academy of Sciences in 1746, which he controlled with the help of Leonhard Euler until his death. His position became extremely awkward with the outbreak of the Seven Years' War between his home country and his patron's, and his reputation suffered in both Paris and Berlin. Finding his health declining, he retired in 1757 to the south of France, but went in 1758 to Basel, where he died a year later. Maupertuis' difficult disposition involved him in constant quarrels, of which his controversies with Samuel König and Voltaire during the latter part of his life are examples. Evolution. Some historians of science point to his work in biology as a significant precursor to the development of evolutionary theory, specifically the theory of natural selection. Other writers contend that his remarks are cursory, vague, or incidental to that particular argument. Mayr's verdict was "He was neither an evolutionist, nor one of the founders of the theory of natural selection he was one of the pioneers of genetics". Maupertuis espoused a theory of pangenesis, postulating particles from both mother and father as responsible for the characters of the child. Bowler credits him with studies on heredity, with the natural origin of human races, and with the idea that forms of life may have changed with time. Maupertuis was a strong critic of the natural theologians, pointing to phenomena incompatible with a concept of a good and wise Creator. He was also one of the first to consider animals in terms of variable populations, in opposition to the natural history tradition that emphasized description of individual specimens. The difficulty of interpreting Maupertius can be gauged by reading the original works. Below is a translation from "Vénus Physique", followed by the original French passage: Ne pourrait-on pas dire que, dans la combinaison fortuite des productions de la nature, comme il n'y avait que celles où se trouvaient certain rapport de convenance qui puissent subsister, il n'est pas marveilleux que cette convenance se trouve dans toutes les espèces qui existent actuellement? Le hasard, dirait-on, avait produit une multitude innombrable d'individus; un petit nombre se trouvait construit de manière que les parties de l'animal pouvaient satisfaire à ses besoins; dans un autre infiniment plus grand, il n'y avait ni convenance, ni ordre: tous ces derniers ont péri; des animaux sans bouche ne pouvaient pas vivre, d'autres qui manquaient d'organes pour la génération ne pouvaient se perpétuer... les espèces que nous voyons aujourd'hui ne sont que la plus petite partie de ce qu'un destin aveugle avait produit... A nearly identical argument may be found in Maupertuis' 1746 work (translation: ). King-Hele (1963) points to similar, though not identical, ideas of thirty years later by David Hume in his Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion (1777). The chief debate that Maupertuis was engaged in was one that treated the competing theories of generation (i.e. preformationism and epigenesis). His account of life involved spontaneous generation of new kinds of animals and plants, together with massive elimination of deficient forms. These ideas avoid the need for a Creator, but are not part of modern thinking on evolution. The date of these speculations, 1745, is concurrent with Carolus Linnaeus's own work, and so predates any firm notion of species. Also, the work on genealogy, coupled with the tracing of phenotypic characters through lineages, foreshadows later work done in genetics. Least Action Principle. The principle of least action states that in all natural phenomena a quantity called ‘action’ tends to be minimized. Maupertuis developed such a principle over two decades. For him, action could be expressed mathematically as the product of the mass of the body involved, the distance it had traveled and the velocity at which it was traveling. In 1741, he gave a paper to the Paris Academy of Sciences, "Loi du repos des corps", ("Law of bodies at rest"). In it he showed that a system of bodies at rest tends to reach a position in which any change would create the smallest possible change in a quantity that he argued could be assimilated to action. In 1744, in another paper to the Paris Academy, he gave his "Accord de plusieurs lois naturelles qui avaient paru jusqu’ici incompatibles" ("Agreement of several natural laws that had hitherto seemed to be incompatible") to show that the behaviour of light during refraction – when it bends on entering a new medium – was such that the total path it followed, from a point in the first medium to a point in the second, minimised a quantity which he again assimilated to action.
1054501	Head Office is a 1985 American comedy film, produced by HBO Pictures in association with Silver Screen Partners. It stars Judge Reinhold, Eddie Albert, Lori-Nan Engler, Jane Seymour, Richard Masur, Michael O'Donoghue, Ron Frazier, Merritt Butrick and was directed and written by Ken Finkleman. Plot. Jack Issel (Judge Reinhold) is a natural-born slacker who has just graduated from business school and joined I.N.C., a large American corporation based in Chicago. On his trip up the corporate ladder, he sees the dirty underside of the corporate world and how it corrupts people. His two mentors, the stuffy and buttoned up corporate president Scott Dantley (Michael O'Donoghue) and the head vice president Bob Nixon (Ron Frazier), in fact, show him first-hand how to cheat and blackmail one's way to the top. Jack is further aided by his personnel officer Max (Richard Masur) who tells Jack that money and power come before people in the corporate world. Jack's supervisor and the public relations vice president, Jane Caldwell (Jane Seymour), also tells Jack exactly the same thing as Jack learns that Jane is a shady vixen who's hell-bent on sleeping her way to the top by seducing every man she meets to get ahead in what she sees as a man's world. Unsure of his abilities, and often incompetent, Jack can't figure out why he keeps getting promoted. Could it have something to do with his father (George Coe) being an influential (but corrupt) Senator? Among the numerous subplots, Jack meets and falls in love with a young woman named Rachel (Lori-Nan Engler), who turns out to be the radical, left-wing daughter of the ruthless chairman of the board, Pete Helmes (Eddie Albert), who is revealed to be promoting Jack so he can gain Jack's father, Senator Issel's support to close down a textile plant in a small upstate town called Allenville, and move it into the Latin American country of San Marcos for company self-interest. Jack spends the rest of the movie trying to stop I.N.C. from closing down the plant, and trying to win Rachel's heart to prove that he can be a good businessman. This film has a surprisingly strong supporting cast in the many interrelated and unrelated subplots who include such established stars as Danny DeVito, as a tax evader named Frank Steadman, and Rick Moranis as a screaming burnout executive named Howard Gross, who have roles in the first 20 minutes of the movie that are little more than cameos. Other subplots include an executive named Mike Hoover (Wallace Shawn), another burnout who learns that he is dying from an unknown terminal illness and everyone wanting, including his coke-sniffing best friend Al Kennedy (Bruce Wagner) trying to steal his job. John Hudson (Merritt Butrick) is also a recent recruit at I.N.C. and one of Jack Issel's classmates whom resorts to trickery to get ahead in the business. Midway through the movie, most of the subplots end without a resolution and the rest of the movie focuses entirely on the Jack-Rachel situation. Within a week of his employment, the further promoted Jack, with Max in tow, travel upstate to the town of Allenville to give a press conference on the closing of the textile plant where Rachel has organized a huge protest of thousands of workers and townspeople protesting the closing of the plant. The mob of townspeople attack and destroy Jack and Max's limousine, much to the chagrin of the company limo driver Sal (Don Novello). At the same time, to impress Rachel, rather than tell a fabricated public relations story about the closing of the plant, Jack tells the truth to the reporters about I.N.C. reasons which are entirely of self-interest, while both the enraged Helmes and Jack's father watch the event on their TV sets. This does win over Rachel's affections and that night, she and Jack spend the night together. The following morning, while Helmes decides to fire Jack, he sees that Jack's actions have drawn nationwide media attention whom hail Jack Issel as an honest businessman. Helmes changes his mind about firing Jack and invites him to his house that weekend where Jack runs into Rachel again and finally learns that she is Helmes' daughter. Helmes tries to win over Jack's loyalty to I.N.C. by inviting him to a dinner reception at the councel offices of a fictitious Latin American country of San Marcos where a dinner reception is taking place where Jack is expected to give a $2 million bribe to a political rival of the San Marcos dictator General Sanchez as another I.N.C. ploy to win the support of the dictatorship government for further business proposes. At the reception, Jack sneaks Rachel into the building where they finally learn the truth about Helmes plans for Jack, as well as his plans for I.N.C.'s business with the country of San Marcos. Stealing the suitcase with the $2 million cash-bribe money, Jack and Rachel flee from the building security forces in a climatic chase and escape from the building and expose I.N.C.'s plans to the press. As a result, the textile plant in Allenville is saved, Pete Helmes is forced to resign from I.N.C. in disgrace, and Jack and Rachel both inherit the majority of I.N.C. stockholder shares. The final scene has Jack, now the new chairman of the board at I.N.C., traveling in Pete Helmes helicopter, to the offices with Sal as his pilot. Location. The film was largely filmed in Toronto, Ontario, part of a growing trend in the late 1970s and throughout the 1980s of making American films there. Scenes were also filmed in nearby Oshawa, Ontario at the Parkwood Mansion which doubled as the mansion residence of Pete Helmes.
584840	Choodalani Vundi () is a 1998 Tollywood film directed by Gunasekhar and produced by Ashwini Dutt. This film stars Chiranjeevi, Soundarya, Prakash Raj, and Anjala Zaveri. The film collected around 16 crores, the highest at that time. It was later remade into Tamil as Calcutta and Hindi as "Calcutta Mail" with Anil Kapoor and Rani Mukerji. The movie was later dubbed in Hindi as "Meri Zindagi Ek Agnipath". Plot. Ramakrishna (Chiranjeevi) is a mechanic whose life changes when he meets Priya (Anjala Zaveri) at a train station. She sees him and feels some inexplicable connection and runs away with him to flee her father's (Prakash Raj) goons. They end up living in the forest with their son, but her father, who is an underworld don, kidnaps her so that he can marry her off to another don's son. Ramakrishna confronts her father and in the onsueing confusion Priya takes the bullet meant for her husband and dies. Their son because of the shock loses his voice and Ramakrishna is jailed. Prakash Raj takes the boy away to Kolkata, where the story originally started. Rama Krishna with the help of Padmavathi (Soundarya) finds his son. Cast. Chiranjeevi ... Ramakrishna Soundarya ...Padmavathi Prakash Raj...Mahendra Anjala Zaveri...Priya Dhulipala...Mahendra`s Father Brahmanandam
689523	The Hottest State is a 2006 drama film directed and written by Ethan Hawke, based on Hawke's 1996 novel of the same name. The film debuted at the Venice Film Festival on September 2, 2006, and received a limited theatrical release in the United States on August 24, 2007. It ran for 5 weeks and grossed $137,341 internationally. The film was subsequently issued on DVD in December 2007. Synopsis. The film tells the story of a 20-year-old actor William (Mark Webber) who falls in love for the first time with an aspiring singer Sarah (Catalina Sandino Moreno). As their love blossoms and languishes, young William reexamines himself and his relationship with his mother Jesse (Laura Linney) and estranged father Vince (Ethan Hawke). Soundtrack. The score for the film is composed by Grammy-winning musician Jesse Harris. Aside from the inclusion of two score tracks, the album is composed of sixteen original songs recorded by such musicians as Willie Nelson, Norah Jones, Cat Power, Bright Eyes, and Feist. It was also named one of "The Top 10 CDs of 2007" by the "New York Daily News".
1057622	They Live by Night is a 1948 American film noir, based on Edward Anderson's Depression era novel "Thieves Like Us". The film was directed by Nicholas Ray (his first feature film) and starred Farley Granger as "Bowie" Bowers and Cathy O'Donnell as "Keechie" Mobley. The movie is the prototype for the "couple on the run" genre, and is generally seen as the forerunner to the movie "Bonnie and Clyde". Robert Altman directed a version of the novel titled "Thieves Like Us" in 1974. Plot. Bowie (Granger) escapes from prison with bank robbers Chicamaw (DaSilva) and T-Dub (Flippen). Bowie was unfairly convicted of murder. The three plan to rob a bank. Bowie needs the money to hire a lawyer to prove he's innocent. Bowie, injured in an auto accident, finds refuge with the daughter of the owner of a gas station, Keechie (O'Donnell). They marry and plan to live an honest life. But then Chicamaw and T-Dub return and demand that Bowie come with them for one more job. Bowie refuses but finds that he is unable to escape from being hunted by the law. He meets a tragic end after he is betrayed. Keechie carries on and is pregnant with their child. Production. The novel "Thieves Like Us" by Edward Anderson had been bought by RKO in 1941 for $10,000. After numerous writers tried to make a screenplay out of it, nothing became of it. According to producer John Houseman, "I found the book and gave it to Nick to read, and he fell madly in love with it--as indeed I did, but Nick particularly was very familiar with that territory. He'd been there when he worked with the Lomaxes, he'd been there when he worked for the Department of Agriculture, and so on. And that whole Depression stuff was terribly his stuff. So he sat down and wrote the treatment. I'd come home at night and we'd go over it; I'd edit it a little, that's all, and it was very, very good.". Houseman would repeatedly send in treatments, fronting for the novice Ray. Houseman, who had considerable authority as a producer, was aware of Ray's passion for the project, and there was never any doubt that Ray would direct the film. Much to the dismay of Ray and Houseman, however, RKO didn't see any commercial value in the story, especially because Ray had had no previous film directing experience. In early 1947, producer Dore Schary became Production Chief over RKO with hopes of turning it into Hollywood's most adventurous studio. Schary became known for his liberal values and for giving novice directors the chance to make their debuts. Schary read Ray's treatment and on February 10, Ray signed a contract to RKO with a note by Schary specifying that "It is the intention to have him direct his first project "Thieves Like Us"." Houseman hired Charles Schnee to write the screenplay, but he was concerned that he wouldn't alter Ray's treatment. Ray and Schnee worked together to make the treatment into a true script without any problems, and a completed script was submitted to RKO in May 1947. On June 23, 1947, Ray began shooting his first film. The first scene shot was the opening scene of the film: a tracking shot of Bowie, T-Dub, and Chickamaw escaping from prison in a stolen car. Ray decided to use a helicopter, which had previously been used for establishing shots of landscapes, but never before had it been used to shoot action. This film is sometimes considered the first to use a helicopter for this purpose and predates James Wong Howe's celebrated final shot for "Picnic" by eight years. Four takes were required, with the second one being in the final cut. For the rest of the day Ray used the helicopter for other scenes of the movie. Making "They Live by Night" under Houseman and Schary's guidance remained probably the only time in Ray's career when he had complete creative control, and not unlike Orson Welles's debut "Citizen Kane" (1941), also made at RKO for Houseman, Ray experimented with sound and cinematography. Ray's biographer notes that "Only Welles similarly tried to define acoustic and even verbal textures as much as the visual." Renowned film editor Sherman Todd also urged Ray to experiment and break rules. Exteriors were filmed both on location and at RKO's movie ranch in Encino, but Todd blended sequences so well together that audiences didn't notice the difference. Filming completed in October 1947. Despite an excellent preview, the studio didn't know how to market the film, and Howard Hughes's takeover of RKO exacerbated the situation. Hughes shelved the film for two years before releasing it to a single theater in the UK to enthusiastic reviews (one such rave review came from Gavin Lambert, who eventually became a screenwriter for Ray), and it was finally released in the US in November 1949 under the title "They Live by Night," after being changed from "Thieves Like Us" (the source novel's name), "The Twisted Road", "I'm a Stranger Here Myself", and "Your Red Wagon." The title, chosen from an audience poll, was favored by Hughes. During those two years, however, many wealthy persons involved in the entertainment industry of Hollywood had their own personal screening rooms and viewed the film, which led to further employment of its cast and crew -- Alfred Hitchcock cast Farley Granger in "Rope" (1948) upon seeing this film, and Humphrey Bogart, greatly impressed by Ray's direction, hired him to direct his own independent production "Knock on Any Door" (1949) at Columbia Pictures. Casting. Farley Granger recounts that he was at Gene Kelly's house for a party. Ray had also been invited and just sat and stared at Granger. Granger asked guest Ethel Merman about Ray's behavior, who replied that Ray was in the middle of casting his first movie and had taken a professional interest in Granger. Houseman arranged to have Granger test for RKO, which went very well; Ray was determined that he had found his Bowie and then asked Granger if there was an actress whom he felt comfortable with. Granger replied with Cathy O'Donnell, who was also brought in to make a test. Both Granger and O'Donnell were under contract to Samuel Goldwyn and had limited acting experience behind them—Granger had been in two films before being drafted for World War II while O'Donnell had just made the classic "The Best Years of Our Lives" (1946) but Ray was fiercely loyal and fought for both of them. Granger later said that " and John Houseman were among the few people who fought for me in my career. They said no, we will not make the film without him. When Nick believed in you, he was very loyal." In his autobiography, Granger lists "They Live by Night" as one of his two or three favorite films. Many of the supporting cast and minor characters were played by personal friends of Houseman and Ray, although RKO contract player Robert Mitchum expressed interest in playing Chicamaw, saying that like Ray he knew all about the Depression-era South and had once been in a chain gang. Mitchum went so far as to shave his head and dye it black for the role (in the original novel Chicamaw is an Indian), but because Mitchum was a rising star and had recently received an Oscar nomination, the role of a bank robber was deemed unfit for him. He and Ray did end up working together on projects, including "The Lusty Men". The role of Chicamaw went to Howard Da Silva, who had made an impression in Marc Blitzstein's musical "The Cradle Will Rock" (1937), produced by Houseman. Many minor roles were played by actors and friends of Ray's from his time in the New York theater, including Marie Bryant from "Beggar's Holiday" (the nightclub singer), Curt Conway (the man in the tuxedo at the night club), and Will Lee (the jeweler). Actor Byron Foulger appears uncredited as the owner of the cabin where the couple try to hide out. Later film version. Another movie based on the same book was released in 1974: Robert Altman's "Thieves Like Us". Reception. Box-office. The film recorded a loss of $445,000. Critical response. When the film was released, film critic Bosley Crowther gave the film a positive review, writing, "A commonplace little story about a young escaped convict 'on the lam' and his romance with a nice girl whom he picks up and marries is told with pictorial sincerity and uncommon emotional thrust in RKO's latest item, "They Live by Night," at the Criterion. Although it—like others—is misguided in its sympathies for a youthful crook, this crime-and-compassion melodrama has the virtues of vigor and restraint ... "They Live by Night" has the failing of waxing sentimental over crime, but it manages to generate interest with its crisp dramatic movement and clear-cut types." More recently, film critic Dennis Schwartz also reviewed the film favorably, writing, "Nicholas Ray's ("Rebel Without a Cause") debut feature is a gem. It's a film noir set during the Great Depression about a 23-year-old prison escapee, Bowie (Granger), who was serving a life sentence for murder ... What Ray does very well is make this into a love story, one that is emotionally moving ... The dark, expressionist photography and the love between these two in such dark settings gives this very ordinary story a poetical elegance."
1059039	Your Highness is a 2011 American fantasy stoner comedy film from director David Gordon Green of "Pineapple Express", starring "Pineapple" leads Danny McBride and James Franco, with Natalie Portman and Zooey Deschanel. Written by McBride and Ben Best, the film was released on April 8, 2011. The film, panned by critics, grossed $26 million worldwide on a budget of $50 million. Plot. Thadeous and Fabious are sons of King Tallious in the Kingdom of Mourne. They are warriors: Fabious is dashing and skilled and Thadeous is lazy and ineffectual. While celebrating his latest victory over the evil sorcerer, Leezar, who has been ravaging Tallious's kingdom, Fabious introduces the virgin Belladonna whom he freed from a tower and wishes to marry. Though his brother makes him the best man, Thadeous skips the wedding after overhearing Fabious's Knights Elite, led by Boremont, talk about him negatively. The wedding is then crashed by Leezar, who reveals himself to be the one who placed Belladonna in the tower. Leezar re-kidnaps Belladona and flees. Returning to the castle with his servant Courtney, Thadeous is given an ultimatum: join Fabious on his quest to rescue Belladonna or be banished from Mourne. Visiting the Great Wise Wizard, Thadeous and Fabious learn that Leezar is attempting to fulfill a prophecy of a warlock having sex with a maiden when the two moons converge, impregnating her with a dragon that will allow him to take over King Tallious' kingdom. To destroy Leezar, they are given a magic compass that would lead them to the Blade of Unicorn, located within a labyrinth. On the way there, they learn Fabious's slave, Julie, has been reporting to Leezar of their progress and that the Knights Elite are serving the warlock. Fabious sends his mechanical bird Simon to tell the king of the betrayal by the Knights Elite and request reinforcements. Then Thadeous, Fabious and Courtney are captured by nymphs under their leader, Marteetee, who imprisons them at an arena, where Fabious kills off Marteetee's finest warrior. In retaliation, Marteetee summons a hydra-like monster to kill them. Thadeous and Fabious are rescued by Isabel, a warrior seeking revenge for her father's murder at Marteetee's hands. Later that night, Thadeous learns that Isabel is also after Leezar for the slaughter of her brothers. The next day, the party learns too late that Isabel stole the compass from Thadeous. Fabious decides to find the Blade of Unicorn alone as Thadeous and Courtney go to a tavern, where they find Isabel and steal the compass back. But finding that his brother has been captured by Leezar's men, Thadeous wins Isabel over as they join forces, entering the labyrinth where they encounter a minotaur. After becoming separated from the others, Thadeous retrieves the Blade of Unicorn and slays the minotaur. Thadeous and his group make their way to Leezar's castle and free Fabious, giving him the Sword of Unicorn. As the others kill off Julie, Boremont's men, and Leezar's three witches, Fabious uses the Blade of Unicorn to end Leezar's life before he can rape Belladonna, saving the kingdom. After their victory, Isabel leaves for another quest, and the heroes return home. Fabious and Belladonna marry. Thadeous is approached by Isabel, who reveals that she has fallen in love with him. However, for them to have sex, he must first slay the witch that cast a spell on her, locking her in a chastity belt. Though not in the mood to go out, Isabel's suggestion convinces him to go on a new adventure. Production. Filming began in the summer of 2009 in Northern Ireland and concluded in October 2009. Marketing. A red-band trailer was released on IGN and Funny or Die. On December 21, 2010, a green-band trailer was released online, and shown before "Little Fockers" and "The Dilemma". On March 23, 2011, a second red-band trailer was released. Reception. "Your Highness" received generally negative reviews on Rotten Tomatoes, with an approval rating of 26% based on 159 reviews. While critics praised Portman's performance, they disliked McBride and the film's reliance on curse words as humour. Roger Ebert gave the film one star out of four, calling it "juvenile excrescence that feels like the work of 11-year-old boys in love with dungeons, dragons, warrior women, pot, boobs and four-letter words." "Entertainment Weekly" gave it a C+, with Natalie Portman favorably reviewed as "fierce and funny as a babe warrior...good with dirty words". The "L.A. Times" noted the "uneven but fun sword-and-sandals sendup...is at its best when it's at its silliest", while the lowbrow humor is "sometimes witless and sometimes winning comedy...begins with grade-school-level graffiti being scrawled across storybook pages and goes up and down from there. Still, the fun can be infectious...a farce within a farce...tawdry tale of the bothered and bewildered Kingdom of Mourne". David Edelstein of the "New York" magazine gave a favourable review, describing the film as "a cunning weave of low and high". Yahoo! described the "Raunchy Sex Comedy Wrapped Up in a Noble Quest" as "overall, sets and scenery were fantastic and photography was incredible...a juvenile, puerile piece of foolishness wrapped up as a Period Piece...more in common with "American Pie" than it did to "Lord of the Rings". Richard Corliss, who admired McBride's and Green's earlier work, said he felt a "kind of head-swiveling awe in "Your Highness"‘s concentration of aimless inanity, in the purity of its devotion to its own louche principles. Like members of some post-Dadaist collective, the filmmakers have dedicated themselves to memorializing every first, wrong impulse that popped into their heads, while ruthlessly excising any vestige of wit or narrative niceties as being too linear, dude."
1060673	Kathryn Bridget Moynahan (born April 28, 1970), known as Bridget Moynahan, is an American model and actress. After graduating from Longmeadow High School in 1989, Moynahan pursued a career in modeling. She was signed by a modeling agency, which led her to appear in department store catalogs and magazines. After doing television commercials, she began taking acting lessons, in order to change occupations. Moynahan made her television debut in a guest appearance in the comedy series "Sex and the City" in 1999, where she would later have a recurring role as the character Natasha. She made her feature film debut in "Coyote Ugly". She was then cast in a supporting role in "Serendipity" (2001). Moynahan has appeared in various films, including the action film "The Sum of All Fears" (2002), spy-thriller "The Recruit" (2003), the science-fiction movie "I, Robot" (2004), and the political thriller "Lord of War" (2005). Moynahan starred in the ABC television series "Six Degrees", which premiered in September 2006. The show was canceled after one season. Moynahan completed work in Elizabeth Allen's "Ramona and Beezus", which was released in July 2010. Moynahan has starred in the CBS drama "Blue Bloods" since September 2010. Early life. Moynahan was born in Binghamton, New York, the daughter of Irish American parents Mary Bridget (née Moriarty), a former school teacher, and Edward Bradley Moynahan, a scientist and former administrator at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. She has two brothers, Andy and Sean. When she was seven, her parents moved to Longmeadow, Massachusetts. Moynahan attended Longmeadow High School, where she was active in school athletics, captaining the girls' soccer, basketball and lacrosse teams. In 1989, she graduated from Longmeadow High School. She has said that during her childhood, she was a tomboy. Career. Early work. After graduating from Longmeadow High School, Moynahan pursued a modeling career, though admits she never read fashion magazines growing up. She had accompanied a friend to a modeling audition in Springfield, Massachusetts and was signed by the modeling agency in place of her friend. She began her career appearing in department store catalogs in Springfield, during which time, she attended the University of Massachusetts Amherst. In her freshman year, Moynahan moved to New York at age 18 and, a year later, began appearing in magazines such as "Vogue" and "Elle", as well as appearing on covers of other widely known magazines. In an interview given in July 2004, Moynahan, discussing her early work, said: "It was a crazy world that paid a lot of money. I liked being a model, but I knew it would never last, so I looked into acting." During that time, she began doing soap and shampoo commercials, in addition to taking acting and art classes, which led her to pursue a career in acting. She studied acting at the Caymichael Patten Studio in New York and, in 1999, made her television debut as Natasha in HBO's romantic comedy "Sex and the City". She would later have a recurring role in the show, until the divorce of her character from Mr. Big (Chris Noth). The following year, she appeared in smaller film roles, including parts in "In the Weeds" and "Whipped". Breakthrough. Moynahan made her feature film debut in the 2000 comedy-drama "Coyote Ugly" as Rachel, a bartender/dancer in a wild New York bar, a role that is considered Moynahan's breakthrough. She had accepted the role because she "thought it was interesting that the whole movie revolved around five women ... and my character was so strong and independent." The film garnered generally unfavorable critical reviews, but was a box office success, earning $133 million worldwide. Her next role was a supporting role in 2001 film "Serendipity" as Hally, the fiancée of John Cusack's character. Moynahan was then cast opposite Ben Affleck and Morgan Freeman in the action film "The Sum of All Fears", based on Tom Clancy's book of the same name. Moynahan plays Dr. Catherine Muller, a strong, independent woman, and love interest for Affleck's Jack Ryan. Dave Larsen of the "Dayton Daily News" reported that the subplot involving Moynahan and Affleck was "the film's weakest point." "The Sum of All Fears" received ambivalent reviews, but was a commercial success, earning $193 million at the box office. Her next role was as a CIA trainee in "The Recruit" (2003). The movie was not well received, with Mike Clark of "USA Today" commenting that "The Recruit" is "less-than-middling melodrama whose subject matter and talent never click as much as its credits portend." In 2004, Moynahan starred alongside Will Smith in Alex Proyas' science fiction movie "I, Robot", loosely based on Isaac Asimov's short story collection of the same name. Moynahan portrays Dr. Susan Calvin, as a specialist in robot psychology. Upon release, "I, Robot" received mixed reviews, though critics enjoyed Moynahan's performance. Daniel Neman of "Richmond Times-Dispatch", who disliked the film, concluded that she "turns in an able performance as Dr. Calvin, the convenient character." With revenue of $347 million worldwide, the film remains Moynahan's most commercially successful picture to date. Her next movie was in 2005's "Lord of War", a political crime thriller, as Ava Fontaine Orlov, the wife of Nicolas Cage's character. In 2006, "Maxim" magazine named her number 96 on its annual "Hot 100" list. In September 2006, away from film, Moynahan starred as Whitney Crane in the ABC television drama series "Six Degrees", co-starring alongside Jay Hernandez, Erika Christensen, Hope Davis, Dorian Missick, and Campbell Scott. The series centered around six residents of New York City and their respective relationships and connections with one another, based on the idea of six degrees of separation. It debuted on September 20, 2006, and was watched by almost 13.3 million viewers. "Six Degrees" debuted to varied reception, with David Hinckley of the "New York Daily News" writing, "In theory, it's an intriguing concept for a series. But in practice, "Six Degrees" doesn't work at all in drawing you in at the start." The series was canceled after one season in May 2007. Moynahan's next film role was in the November 2006 thriller "Unknown", about a group of individuals kidnapped, and trying to work together how to escape from their captors. She was next seen in 2007, in "Gray Matters", co-starring alongside Heather Graham and Tom Cavanagh, before being cast in Henry Bean's comedy-drama "Noise", as Helen Owen, the wife of David Owen (Tim Robbins). The movie was screened at a special presentation at the 2007 Rome Film Festival and was released in theaters in 2008. In December 2008, Moynahan guest starred in two episodes of the ABC television comedy-drama "Eli Stone", playing the titular character's (Jonny Lee Miller) former girlfriend. Returning to film, as the last feature she starred in was 2007's "Noise", Moynahan appeared in "Ramona and Beezus", playing the mother to Joey King and Selena Gomez's characters. The film was directed by Elizabeth Allen and released in July 2010. The following year, Moynahan starred alongside Aaron Eckhart, Michelle Rodriguez, and Michael Peña in the action science fiction feature "" (2011). Away from film, Moynahan stars in the CBS television drama "Blue Bloods", playing a prosecutor named Erin Reagan. Personal life. Moynahan was in a three-year relationship with screenwriter Scott Rosenberg. Moynahan dated NFL quarterback Tom Brady from 2004 until December 14, 2006. On February 18, 2007, Moynahan's representative confirmed to "People" that she was more than three months pregnant and that Brady was the father. In August 2007, she gave birth to a baby boy, John, at Saint John's Health Center in Santa Monica. In a July 2008 interview in "Harper's Bazaar", Moynahan discussed her willingness to raise her son (nicknamed "Jack") as a single mother. Despite media reports that Moynahan and Brady have an acrimonious relationship, it was revealed that the two have maintained "a civil relationship" since the birth of their son. She and director Joseph "McG" Nichol began dating in late 2010, after having met on an airplane. Moynahan resides in Pacific Palisades, California. In November 2009, it was announced that Moynahan had signed a deal with Garnier to appear in television and print advertising promoting their Skincare products (Ultra-Lift).
1237533	Second in Command is a 2006 action film directed by Simon Fellows, starring Jean-Claude Van Damme. It was released direct-to-video in the United States, Belgium, and Germany on May 2, 2006. It has been rated R by the MPAA for violence and some language. The film was made in Bucharest, Romania. Plot summary. Navy Commander Sam Keenan (Jean-Claude Van Damme) is a decorated U.S. Navy SEAL, sent to the Eastern European nation of Moldavia. Keenan is sent to the U.S. Embassy in Moldavia's capital city to become the new Security Attaché there. When he arrives, Keenan learns that Moldavia is in the middle of a civil war. At the embassy, Keenan meets with Ambassador George Norland (Colin Stinton), who makes Keenan the deputy ambassador. Recently, the U.S. installed a new government in Moldavia, and it is a government led by Moldavia's newly-elected president Yuri Amirev (Serban Celea). Amirev wants the nation to be run as a democracy, but under the command of Anton Tavarov (Velibor Topic), Communist insurgents have caused a riot at the presidential palace, threatening the fragile democracy. The insurgents are loyal to dictative former president Alexei Kirilov (Costel Lupea), who is a communist who abused Moldavia's people. To raise the tension, Kirilov orders one of his snipers to kill a protester: thinking the shot came from the palace guards, the insurgents storm the palace, demanding Amirev's head. Keenan volunteers to bring Amirev to the embassy. But events reach critical mass, and the insurgents open fire. Keenan barely makes it back with Amirev, but the fight isn't over yet. Fifty Americans are holed up in the embassy, and Tavarov and his massive army have arrived at the gates, with plans to crash the building and drag Amirev out by any means necessary. To add to Keenan's problems, Norland is killed by a rocket that was launched by one of Tavarov's men. To defend the embassy, Keenan has only 15 Marines, CIA bureaucrat Frank Gaines (William Tapley), limited ammunition, and his martial arts skills to hold Tavarov's army off until American reinforcements arrive. To make matters worse, Keenan's girlfriend, reporter Michelle Whitman (Julie Cox), is one of the hostages. With Tavarov's crew getting in position for attack, a power struggle takes place between Keenan and Gaines; with help hours away, it will be up to Keenan to rescue the hostages. Reception. The film opened in 24th place with $1.04 million in the rentals chart. The film currently holds average rating 5/10 stars on Internet Movie Database. Forty percent of Rotten Tomatoes users liked the movie. Plot Error. The true hierarchy of the security of the embassy is ignored in this film. For example, the commander of a Marine Security Guard (MSG) detachment is a non-commissioned officer, typically a Gunnery Sergeant but occasionally a Staff Sergeant. Never a commissioned officer as portrayed in the film. Additionally, MSGs do not report to any military commanders at an embassy, and in fact military attache's are prohibited from giving MSGs orders. MSGs rather report to a civilian commander - specifically the DSS special agent assigned as the RSO.
582631	Khamosh is 1985 Indian thriller directed and produced by Vidhu Vinod Chopra. The film starred Bollywood actors such as Naseerudin Shah, Shabana Azmi, Amol Palekar, Soni Razdan and Pankaj Kapoor. It, however, did not do well at the box office due to the reason that this film seemed like a 'play' on the stage and not like a motion film. There was no song in the film, no romance, no love scene, no comedy and lack of proper editing. The film became notable for actors Amol Palekar, Soni Razdan and Shabana Azmi portraying fictional versions of themselves. It is a suspense movie, wherein the murderer is among the group of people living together in a hotel, and the actual murderer is well hidden in the plot until the very end. Plot. Soni Razdan is a budding actress. Shah is a military man. Amol Palekar is an established actor. Shabana Azmi is a fellow actresS. Ajit Vachani is a film producer and Pankaj Kapoor is his mentally unstable brother. Sushma Seth plays Mrs. Bhal, a retired actress now doing character roles and pushing her reluctant daughter into the film industry to obtain fame and fortune. The filming unit enters Pahalgam in Kashmir for their next film. Razdan mysteriously commits suicide. The police are about to call it an open and shut case when Shah enters the scene. He pretends to be a special officer sent to investigate the case, but his cover is blown. The police come to arrest him just as he about to accuse Mrs Bhal of Razdan's murder as he had found Razdan's missing earring hidden under Mrs Bhal's mattress in her hotel room. Shah then reveals his true identity as Razdan's estranged brother and states that some days before the "suicide", Razdan had sent him a letter that she had gotten the lead role for a prestigious project. As such, he refuses to believe that she committed suicide. The crew accept that Razdan had indeed got the coveted role, but they are less enthusiastic about co-operating now with the police and investigation of her murder. The only person who believes that Razdan was murdered is Azmi, who heard Razdan practising her lines until late at night. Azmi realises that Razdan was portraying a village girl who spoke no English, but that she had started shouting something in English before she became silent. She agrees to help Shah catch the culprit, and they join forces but more murders happen - first with Mrs Bhal, then the male housekeeper. Eventually, all clues point to Vachchani, who confesses that his brother Kapoor killed Razdan in a rage when she spurned his advances. Vachchani confesses that he was just covering for him, because his brother was mentally ill. Kapoor goes on a shooting spree, killing Vachchani in the process. It seems like the mystery has been solved but Shah realizes two things : 1] Kapoor's revolver had already been emptied before he "shot" his brother dead. 2] Vachchani had posted a mysterious letter to his lawyer. Azmi knows where the actual gun used to kill Vachchani is but finds it missing from the props and costumes box. But as she is leaving, the actual killer comes and puts the gun back. It is then revealed that Palekar is the real killer. This also gets revealed to Shah when he reads Vachchani's letter to his lawyer, which was his confession. Palekar explains to Azmi that his aim was to be a top politician but Razdan got in the way when she became pregnant with his child. He had no intentions to marry her but she had threatened to make the news public. Vachchani had witnessed the murder from outside but had agreed to become his accomplice, and for some money agreed to cover up the truth. Palekar killed the others as they were a risk. He then tries to kill Azmi as well after revealing all this information but Shah gets there just in time and fatally shoots Palekar.
1102318	Archimedes of Syracuse (;  BC –  BC) was a Greek mathematician, physicist, engineer, inventor, and astronomer. Although few details of his life are known, he is regarded as one of the leading scientists in classical antiquity. Among his advances in physics are the foundations of hydrostatics, statics and an explanation of the principle of the lever. He is credited with designing innovative machines, including siege engines and the screw pump that bears his name. Modern experiments have tested claims that Archimedes designed machines capable of lifting attacking ships out of the water and setting ships on fire using an array of mirrors. Archimedes is generally considered to be the greatest mathematician of antiquity and one of the greatest of all time. He used the method of exhaustion to calculate the area under the arc of a parabola with the summation of an infinite series, and gave a remarkably accurate approximation of pi. He also defined the spiral bearing his name, formulae for the volumes of solids of revolution, and an ingenious system for expressing very large numbers. Archimedes died during the Siege of Syracuse when he was killed by a Roman soldier despite orders that he should not be harmed. Cicero describes visiting the tomb of Archimedes, which was surmounted by a sphere inscribed within a cylinder. Archimedes had proven that the sphere has two thirds of the volume and surface area of the cylinder (including the bases of the latter), and regarded this as the greatest of his mathematical achievements. Unlike his inventions, the mathematical writings of Archimedes were little known in antiquity. Mathematicians from Alexandria read and quoted him, but the first comprehensive compilation was not made until "c." 530 AD by Isidore of Miletus, while commentaries on the works of Archimedes written by Eutocius in the sixth century AD opened them to wider readership for the first time. The relatively few copies of Archimedes' written work that survived through the Middle Ages were an influential source of ideas for scientists during the Renaissance, while the discovery in 1906 of previously unknown works by Archimedes in the Archimedes Palimpsest has provided new insights into how he obtained mathematical results. Biography. Archimedes was born "c". 287 BC in the seaport city of Syracuse, Sicily, at that time a self-governing colony in Magna Graecia. The date of birth is based on a statement by the Byzantine Greek historian John Tzetzes that Archimedes lived for 75 years. In "The Sand Reckoner", Archimedes gives his father's name as Phidias, an astronomer about whom nothing is known. Plutarch wrote in his "Parallel Lives" that Archimedes was related to King Hiero II, the ruler of Syracuse. A biography of Archimedes was written by his friend Heracleides but this work has been lost, leaving the details of his life obscure. It is unknown, for instance, whether he ever married or had children. During his youth, Archimedes may have studied in Alexandria, Egypt, where Conon of Samos and Eratosthenes of Cyrene were contemporaries. He referred to Conon of Samos as his friend, while two of his works ("The Method of Mechanical Theorems" and the "Cattle Problem") have introductions addressed to Eratosthenes. Archimedes died "c". 212 BC during the Second Punic War, when Roman forces under General Marcus Claudius Marcellus captured the city of Syracuse after a two-year-long siege. According to the popular account given by Plutarch, Archimedes was contemplating a mathematical diagram when the city was captured. A Roman soldier commanded him to come and meet General Marcellus but he declined, saying that he had to finish working on the problem. The soldier was enraged by this, and killed Archimedes with his sword. Plutarch also gives a account of the death of Archimedes which suggests that he may have been killed while attempting to surrender to a Roman soldier. According to this story, Archimedes was carrying mathematical instruments, and was killed because the soldier thought that they were valuable items. General Marcellus was reportedly angered by the death of Archimedes, as he considered him a valuable scientific asset and had ordered that he not be harmed. The last words attributed to Archimedes are "Do not disturb my circles" (), a reference to the circles in the mathematical drawing that he was supposedly studying when disturbed by the Roman soldier. This quote is often given in Latin as "Noli turbare circulos meos," but there is no reliable evidence that Archimedes uttered these words and they do not appear in the account given by Plutarch. The tomb of Archimedes carried a sculpture illustrating his favorite mathematical proof, consisting of a sphere and a cylinder of the same height and diameter. Archimedes had proven that the volume and surface area of the sphere are two thirds that of the cylinder including its bases. In 75 BC, 137 years after his death, the Roman orator Cicero was serving as quaestor in Sicily. He had heard stories about the tomb of Archimedes, but none of the locals was able to give him the location. Eventually he found the tomb near the Agrigentine gate in Syracuse, in a neglected condition and overgrown with bushes. Cicero had the tomb cleaned up, and was able to see the carving and read some of the verses that had been added as an inscription. A tomb discovered in a hotel courtyard in Syracuse in the early 1960s was claimed to be that of Archimedes, but its location today is unknown. The standard versions of the life of Archimedes were written long after his death by the historians of Ancient Rome. The account of the siege of Syracuse given by Polybius in his "Universal History" was written around seventy years after Archimedes' death, and was used subsequently as a source by Plutarch and Livy. It sheds little light on Archimedes as a person, and focuses on the war machines that he is said to have built in order to defend the city. Discoveries and inventions. Archimedes' principle. The most widely known anecdote about Archimedes tells of how he invented a method for determining the volume of an object with an irregular shape. According to Vitruvius, a votive crown for a temple had been made for King Hiero II, who had supplied the pure gold to be used, and Archimedes was asked to determine whether some silver had been substituted by the dishonest goldsmith. Archimedes had to solve the problem without damaging the crown, so he could not melt it down into a regularly shaped body in order to calculate its density. While taking a bath, he noticed that the level of the water in the tub rose as he got in, and realized that this effect could be used to determine the volume of the crown. For practical purposes water is incompressible, so the submerged crown would displace an amount of water equal to its own volume. By dividing the mass of the crown by the volume of water displaced, the density of the crown could be obtained. This density would be lower than that of gold if cheaper and less dense metals had been added. Archimedes then took to the streets naked, so excited by his discovery that he had forgotten to dress, crying "Eureka!" (!," meaning "I have found it!"). The test was conducted successfully, proving that silver had indeed been mixed in. The story of the golden crown does not appear in the known works of Archimedes. Moreover, the practicality of the method it describes has been called into question, due to the extreme accuracy with which one would have to measure the water displacement. Archimedes may have instead sought a solution that applied the principle known in hydrostatics as Archimedes' principle, which he describes in his treatise "On Floating Bodies". This principle states that a body immersed in a fluid experiences a buoyant force equal to the weight of the fluid it displaces. Using this principle, it would have been possible to compare the density of the golden crown to that of solid gold by balancing the crown on a scale with a gold reference sample, then immersing the apparatus in water. The difference in density between the two samples would cause the scale to tip accordingly. Galileo considered it "probable that this method is the same that Archimedes followed, since, besides being very accurate, it is based on demonstrations found by Archimedes himself." In a 12th-century text titled "Mappae clavicula" there are instructions on how to perform the weighings in the water in order to calculate the percentage of silver used, and thus solve the problem. The Latin poem "Carmen de ponderibus et mensuris" of the 4th or 5th century describes the use of a hydrostatic balance to solve the problem of the crown, and attributes the method to Archimedes. Archimedes' screw. A large part of Archimedes' work in engineering arose from fulfilling the needs of his home city of Syracuse. The Greek writer Athenaeus of Naucratis described how King Hiero II commissioned Archimedes to design a huge ship, the "Syracusia", which could be used for luxury travel, carrying supplies, and as a naval warship. The "Syracusia" is said to have been the largest ship built in classical antiquity. According to Athenaeus, it was capable of carrying 600 people and included garden decorations, a gymnasium and a temple dedicated to the goddess Aphrodite among its facilities. Since a ship of this size would leak a considerable amount of water through the hull, the Archimedes screw was purportedly developed in order to remove the bilge water. Archimedes' machine was a device with a revolving screw-shaped blade inside a cylinder. It was turned by hand, and could also be used to transfer water from a body of water into irrigation canals. The Archimedes screw is still in use today for pumping liquids and granulated solids such as coal and grain. The Archimedes screw described in Roman times by Vitruvius may have been an improvement on a screw pump that was used to irrigate the Hanging Gardens of Babylon. The world's first seagoing steamship with a screw propeller was the "SS Archimedes", which was launched in 1839 and named in honor of Archimedes and his work on the screw. Claw of Archimedes. The Claw of Archimedes is a weapon that he is said to have designed in order to defend the city of Syracuse. Also known as "the ship shaker," the claw consisted of a crane-like arm from which a large metal grappling hook was suspended. When the claw was dropped onto an attacking ship the arm would swing upwards, lifting the ship out of the water and possibly sinking it. There have been modern experiments to test the feasibility of the claw, and in 2005 a television documentary entitled "Superweapons of the Ancient World" built a version of the claw and concluded that it was a workable device. Heat ray. The 2nd century AD author Lucian wrote that during the Siege of Syracuse ("c." 214–212 BC), Archimedes destroyed enemy ships with fire. Centuries later, Anthemius of Tralles mentions burning-glasses as Archimedes' weapon. The device, sometimes called the "Archimedes heat ray", was used to focus sunlight onto approaching ships, causing them to catch fire. This purported weapon has been the subject of ongoing debate about its credibility since the Renaissance. René Descartes rejected it as false, while modern researchers have attempted to recreate the effect using only the means that would have been available to Archimedes. It has been suggested that a large array of highly polished bronze or copper shields acting as mirrors could have been employed to focus sunlight onto a ship. This would have used the principle of the parabolic reflector in a manner similar to a solar furnace. A test of the Archimedes heat ray was carried out in 1973 by the Greek scientist Ioannis Sakkas. The experiment took place at the Skaramagas naval base outside Athens. On this occasion 70 mirrors were used, each with a copper coating and a size of around five by three feet (1.5 by 1 m). The mirrors were pointed at a plywood of a Roman warship at a distance of around 160 feet (50 m). When the mirrors were focused accurately, the ship burst into flames within a few seconds. The plywood ship had a coating of tar paint, which may have aided combustion. A coating of tar would have been commonplace on ships in the classical era. In October 2005 a group of students from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology carried out an experiment with 127 one-foot (30 cm) square mirror tiles, focused on a wooden ship at a range of around 100 feet (30 m). Flames broke out on a patch of the ship, but only after the sky had been cloudless and the ship had remained stationary for around ten minutes. It was concluded that the device was a feasible weapon under these conditions. The MIT group repeated the experiment for the television show "MythBusters", using a wooden fishing boat in San Francisco as the target. Again some charring occurred, along with a small amount of flame. In order to catch fire, wood needs to reach its autoignition temperature, which is around 300 °C (570 °F). When "MythBusters" broadcast the result of the San Francisco experiment in January 2006, the claim was placed in the category of "busted" (or failed) because of the length of time and the ideal weather conditions required for combustion to occur. It was also pointed out that since Syracuse faces the sea towards the east, the Roman fleet would have had to attack during the morning for optimal gathering of light by the mirrors. "MythBusters" also pointed out that conventional weaponry, such as flaming arrows or bolts from a catapult, would have been a far easier way of setting a ship on fire at short distances. In December 2010, "MythBusters" again looked at the heat ray story in a special edition featuring Barack Obama, entitled "President's Challenge". Several experiments were carried out, including a large scale test with 500 schoolchildren aiming mirrors at a of a Roman sailing ship 400 feet (120 m) away. In all of the experiments, the sail failed to reach the 210 °C (410 °F) required to catch fire, and the verdict was again "busted". The show concluded that a more likely effect of the mirrors would have been blinding, dazzling, or distracting the crew of the ship. Other discoveries and inventions. While Archimedes did not invent the lever, he gave an explanation of the principle involved in his work "On the Equilibrium of Planes". Earlier descriptions of the lever are found in the Peripatetic school of the followers of Aristotle, and are sometimes attributed to Archytas. According to Pappus of Alexandria, Archimedes' work on levers caused him to remark: "Give me a place to stand on, and I will move the Earth." () Plutarch describes how Archimedes designed block-and-tackle pulley systems, allowing sailors to use the principle of leverage to lift objects that would otherwise have been too heavy to move. Archimedes has also been credited with improving the power and accuracy of the catapult, and with inventing the odometer during the First Punic War. The odometer was described as a cart with a gear mechanism that dropped a ball into a container after each mile traveled. Cicero (106–43 BC) mentions Archimedes briefly in his dialogue "De re publica", which portrays a fictional conversation taking place in 129 BC. After the capture of Syracuse "c." 212 BC, General Marcus Claudius Marcellus is said to have taken back to Rome two mechanisms, constructed by Archimedes and used as aids in astronomy, which showed the motion of the Sun, Moon and five planets. Cicero mentions similar mechanisms designed by Thales of Miletus and Eudoxus of Cnidus. The dialogue says that Marcellus kept one of the devices as his only personal loot from Syracuse, and donated the other to the Temple of Virtue in Rome. Marcellus' mechanism was demonstrated, according to Cicero, by Gaius Sulpicius Gallus to Lucius Furius Philus, who described it thus: This is a description of a planetarium or orrery. Pappus of Alexandria stated that Archimedes had written a manuscript (now lost) on the construction of these mechanisms entitled . Modern research in this area has been focused on the Antikythera mechanism, another device from classical antiquity that was probably designed for the same purpose. Constructing mechanisms of this kind would have required a sophisticated knowledge of differential gearing. This was once thought to have been beyond the range of the technology available in ancient times, but the discovery of the Antikythera mechanism in 1902 has confirmed that devices of this kind were known to the ancient Greeks. Mathematics. While he is often regarded as a designer of mechanical devices, Archimedes also made contributions to the field of mathematics. Plutarch wrote: "He placed his whole affection and ambition in those purer speculations where there can be no reference to the vulgar needs of life." In "Measurement of a Circle", Archimedes gives the value of the square root of 3 as lying between (approximately 1.7320261) and (approximately 1.7320512). The actual value is approximately 1.7320508, making this a very accurate estimate. He introduced this result without offering any explanation of how he had obtained it. This aspect of the work of Archimedes caused John Wallis to remark that he was: "as it were of set purpose to have covered up the traces of his investigation as if he had grudged posterity the secret of his method of inquiry while he wished to extort from them assent to his results." It is possible that he used an iterative procedure to calculate these values. In "The Quadrature of the Parabola", Archimedes proved that the area enclosed by a parabola and a straight line is times the area of a corresponding inscribed triangle as shown in the figure at right. He expressed the solution to the problem as an infinite geometric series with the common ratio : If the first term in this series is the area of the triangle, then the second is the sum of the areas of two triangles whose bases are the two smaller secant lines, and so on. This proof uses a variation of the series which sums to . In "The Sand Reckoner", Archimedes set out to calculate the number of grains of sand that the universe could contain. In doing so, he challenged the notion that the number of grains of sand was too large to be counted. He wrote: "There are some, King Gelo (Gelo II, son of Hiero II), who think that the number of the sand is infinite in multitude; and I mean by the sand not only that which exists about Syracuse and the rest of Sicily but also that which is found in every region whether inhabited or uninhabited." To solve the problem, Archimedes devised a system of counting based on the myriad. The word is from the Greek "murias", for the number 10,000. He proposed a number system using powers of a myriad of myriads (100 million) and concluded that the number of grains of sand required to fill the universe would be 8 vigintillion, or 8. Writings. The works of Archimedes were written in Doric Greek, the dialect of ancient Syracuse. The written work of Archimedes has not survived as well as that of Euclid, and seven of his treatises are known to have existed only through references made to them by other authors. Pappus of Alexandria mentions "On Sphere-Making" and another work on polyhedra, while Theon of Alexandria quotes a remark about refraction from the "Catoptrica". During his lifetime, Archimedes made his work known through correspondence with the mathematicians in Alexandria. The writings of Archimedes were collected by the Byzantine architect Isidore of Miletus ("c". 530 AD), while commentaries on the works of Archimedes written by Eutocius in the sixth century AD helped to bring his work a wider audience. Archimedes' work was translated into Arabic by Thābit ibn Qurra (836–901 AD), and Latin by Gerard of Cremona ("c." 1114–1187 AD). During the Renaissance, the "Editio Princeps" (First Edition) was published in Basel in 1544 by Johann Herwagen with the works of Archimedes in Greek and Latin. Around the year 1586 Galileo Galilei invented a hydrostatic balance for weighing metals in air and water after apparently being inspired by the work of Archimedes. Apocryphal works. Archimedes' "Book of Lemmas" or "Liber Assumptorum" is a treatise with fifteen propositions on the nature of circles. The earliest known copy of the text is in Arabic. The scholars T. L. Heath and Marshall Clagett argued that it cannot have been written by Archimedes in its current form, since it quotes Archimedes, suggesting modification by another author. The "Lemmas" may be based on an earlier work by Archimedes that is now lost. It has also been claimed that Heron's formula for calculating the area of a triangle from the length of its sides was known to Archimedes. However, the first reliable reference to the formula is given by Heron of Alexandria in the 1st century AD. Archimedes Palimpsest. The foremost document containing the work of Archimedes is the Archimedes Palimpsest. In 1906, the Danish professor Johan Ludvig Heiberg visited Constantinople and examined a 174-page goatskin parchment of prayers written in the 13th century AD. He discovered that it was a palimpsest, a document with text that had been written over an erased older work. Palimpsests were created by scraping the ink from existing works and reusing them, which was a common practice in the Middle Ages as vellum was expensive. The older works in the palimpsest were identified by scholars as 10th century AD copies of previously unknown treatises by Archimedes. The parchment spent hundreds of years in a monastery library in Constantinople before being sold to a private collector in the 1920s. On October 29, 1998 it was sold at auction to an anonymous buyer for $2 million at Christie's in New York. The palimpsest holds seven treatises, including the only surviving copy of "On Floating Bodies" in the original Greek. It is the only known source of "The Method of Mechanical Theorems", referred to by Suidas and thought to have been lost forever. "Stomachion" was also discovered in the palimpsest, with a more complete analysis of the puzzle than had been found in previous texts. The palimpsest is now stored at the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore, Maryland, where it has been subjected to a range of modern tests including the use of ultraviolet and light to read the overwritten text. The treatises in the Archimedes Palimpsest are: "On the Equilibrium of Planes, On Spirals, Measurement of a Circle, On the Sphere and the Cylinder, On Floating Bodies, The Method of Mechanical Theorems" and "Stomachion". Notes. a. In the preface to "On Spirals" addressed to Dositheus of Pelusium, Archimedes says that "many years have elapsed since Conon's death." Conon of Samos lived , suggesting that Archimedes may have been an older man when writing some of his works. b. The treatises by Archimedes known to exist only through references in the works of other authors are: "On Sphere-Making" and a work on polyhedra mentioned by Pappus of Alexandria; "Catoptrica", a work on optics mentioned by Theon of Alexandria; "Principles", addressed to Zeuxippus and explaining the number system used in "The Sand Reckoner"; "On Balances and Levers"; "On Centers of Gravity"; "On the Calendar". Of the surviving works by Archimedes, T. L. Heath offers the following suggestion as to the order in which they were written: "On the Equilibrium of Planes I", "The Quadrature of the Parabola", "On the Equilibrium of Planes II", "On the Sphere and the Cylinder I, II", "On Spirals", "On Conoids and Spheroids", "On Floating Bodies I, II", "On the Measurement of a Circle", "The Sand Reckoner". c. Boyer, Carl Benjamin "A History of Mathematics" (1991) ISBN 0-471-54397-7 "Arabic scholars inform us that the familiar area formula for a triangle in terms of its three sides, usually known as Heron's formula — "k" = √("s"("s" − "a")("s" − "b")("s" − "c")), where "s" is the semiperimeter — was known to Archimedes several centuries before Heron lived. Arabic scholars also attribute to Archimedes the 'theorem on the broken chord' ... Archimedes is reported by the Arabs to have given several proofs of the theorem." d. "It was usual to smear the seams or even the whole hull with pitch or with pitch and wax". In Νεκρικοὶ Διάλογοι ("Dialogues of the Dead"), Lucian refers to coating the seams of a skiff with wax, a reference to pitch (tar) or wax.
1044869	Anthony Dawson (18 October 1916 – 8 January 1992) was a Scottish-born actor, best known for his supporting roles in British films. Born in Edinburgh, he made his film debut in 1943's "They Met in the Dark", going on to appear in such classic British films as "The Way to the Stars" (1945), "The Queen of Spades" (1948), and "The Wooden Horse" (1950), before relocating to America in the early 1950s. It was while there that he appeared in Alfred Hitchcock's "Dial M for Murder" (1954), playing C. A. Swann/Captain Lesgate. In the film, he is blackmailed by Tony Wendice (Ray Milland) into murdering his wife Margot (Grace Kelly). In his unpublished memoirs, "Rambling Recollections", Dawson reminisced about getting the part: He had two other memorable roles on his return to England, including the evil Marques Siniestro in Hammer's "The Curse of the Werewolf" (1961), and henchman Professor Dent in the first James Bond film, "Dr. No" (1962). Throughout his career he could often be found in the films of director Terence Young, including the aforementioned "Dr. No", "They Were Not Divided" (1950),"Valley of Eagles" (1951), "The Amorous Adventures of Moll Flanders" (1965), "Triple Cross" (1966), "Red Sun" (1971), "Inchon" (1982), and "The Jigsaw Man" (1983). Young also cast him as the physical presence of Ernst Stavro Blofeld in his Bond films "From Russia with Love" (1963), and "Thunderball" (1965), stroking the ubiquitous white cat. His face was never seen, however, and Blofeld's voice was provided by Eric Pohlmann. Dawson appeared alongside fellow Bond veterans Adolfo Celi, Lois Maxwell, and Bernard Lee in the Italian Bond knockoff "OK Connery". After the early 1960s his roles got progressively smaller, but he continued to act until the early 1990s. He died in January 1992, in Sussex, aged 75, after succumbing to cancer.
586503	Chehraa (English: "Face"), starring Bipasha Basu, Dino Morea, Preeti Jhangiani, and Irrfan Khan, is a Bollywood thriller, released in February 18, 2005. Synopsis. Megha (Bipasha Basu) is a college student, in love with her classmate Aakash (Dino Morea). One day, Megha disappears from college for the spectacular task of killing her father to save her mentally challenged mother.
588923	Shantaram Rajaram Vankudre (18 November 1901 – 30 October 1990) referred to as V. Shantaram was an Indian filmmaker, film producer and actor. He is most known for his films like "Dr. Kotnis Ki Amar Kahani" (1946), "Amar Bhoopali" (1951), "Jhanak Jhanak Payal Baaje" (1955), "Do Aankhen Barah Haath" (1957), "Navrang" (1959), "Duniya Na Mane" (1937), "Pinjra" (1972), "Chani", "Iye Marathiche Nagari" and "Zunj". He directed his first film, ""Netaji Palkar"" in 1927. In 1929, he founded the Prabhat Film Company along with Vishnupant Damle, K.R. Dhaiber, S. Fatelal and S.B. Kulkarni, which made "Ayodhyecha Raja", the first Marathi language film in 1932 under his direction. He left Prabhat in 1942 to form "Rajkamal Kala Mandir" in Mumbai. In time, 'Rajkamal' became one of most sophisticated studios of the country. He was praised by Chaplin for his Marathi film "Manoose". Chaplin reportedly liked the film very much. Early life. Shantaram was born Shantaram Rajaram Vankudre on 18 November 1901 in the erstwhile princely state of Kolhapur (in present day Maharashtra) viswakarma in Maharashtrian family. Career. V. Shantaram started his film career doing odd jobs in Maharashtra Film Co. owned by Baburao Painter at Kolhapur. He went on to debut as an actor in the silent film, Surekha Haran in 1921. Shantaram, fondly known as Annasaheb, had an illustrious career as a filmmaker for almost six decades. He was one of the early filmmakers to realize the efficacy of the film medium as an instrument of social change and used it successfully to advocate humanism on one hand and expose bigotry and injustice on the other. V. Shantaram had a very keen interest in music. It is said that he "ghost wrote" music for many of his music directors, and took a very active part in the creation of music. Some of his songs had to rehearsed several times before which they were approved by V. Shantaram. The Dadasaheb Phalke Award, was conferred on him in 1985. He was awarded the Padma Vibhushan in 1992. His autobiography "Shantarama" was published in Hindi and Marathi. Shantaram died on 30 October 1990 in Mumbai. The V. Shantaram Award was consitituted by Central Government and Maharashtra State Government. The V. Shantaram Motion Picture Scientific Research and Cultural Foundation, established in 1993, offers various awards to film makers. The award is presented annually on 18 November. Personal life. Shantaram married thrice. His first marriage was to Vimla. He then married actress Jayashree, with whom he had three children-Marathi film director Kiran, actress Rajshree and Tejasri. His third wife, actress Sandhya, was his co-star in "Do Aankhen Barah Haath" as well the heroine of his films like "Jhanak Jhanak Payal Ba", "Navrang", "Jal Bin Machli Nrutya Bin Beejli", and "Sehra". His other children are Prabhat Kumar, Sarojini, Charushila and Madhura, who is married to Pandit Jasraj is the mother of Durga Jasraj. He introduced Rajshree and Jeetendra in the 1964 film "Geet Gaya Patharon Ne". He also introduced his niece Ranjana Deshmukh into the marathi film industry through Chandanachi Choli Ang Ang Jaali, directed by Kiran Shantaram in 1975. Ranjana dominated the Marathi silver screen in 70s and 80s.He used to live at Panhala.His son has maintained his house and converted it in a hotel Valley View. Filmography. Source: IMDB
584096	Dhill () is a 2001 Tamil action film directed by Dharani. The film stars Vikram and Laila in the lead roles, while Ashish Vidyarthi, Nassar and Vivek play supporting roles. The film's score and soundtrack are composed by Vidyasagar, while Gopinath handled the camera work. The film released in July 2001 to positive reviews and box office success. Plot. Dhil is the story about Kanagavel (Vikram) whose only dream is to become a police officer. He succeeds in passing the exams and wins a girlfriend, Asha (Laila). One night after having dinner at a restaurant near the beach Velu goes to pay the bill leaving Asha behind. At that moment a corrupt police officer Shankar (Ashish Vidyarti) drinks and behaves indecently to Asha. He then attempts to rape her but is beaten up by Velu severely and receives a scar on his face. Angered by this he seeks revenge against Velu. The rest of the story shows how Velu fights Shankar and his goons finally killing the corrupt police. Production. Vikram, after the success of the critically acclaimed "Sethu", chose to sign on to appear in an action film directed by his Loyola College batchmate (classmate) Dharani. The director had previously worked under the name of Ramani and had made the Mammootty starrer "Ethirum Pudhirum" in 1999. To appear trim in the role of the aspiring police officer, Vikram went on a strict diet eating only fruits and drinking juice. He revealed that for the film when bulking, he was on 25 egg whites and one whole cooked chicken a day and also employed a body builder to train him. Vikram often helped out during the shooting of the film by helping suggest changes to scenes. The film also marked the Tamil debut of Hindi actor Ashish Vidyarthi, who has since gone on to appear in several other prominent films. The actor had to wear prosthetic make-up for the film, noting that it took over one hour to put on. Release. The film opened to positive reviews with a critic from "The Hindu" claiming that "Vikram has the ability and potential" and that "Vikram has once again proved that his success in "Sethu" was not a fluke". Ayappa Prasad from Screen Magazine noted that " Dhill stands out for its convincing storyline and a good performance by Vikram who has strained a lot to be a good action hero who can also emote". "Dhill" subsequently went on to become Vikram's first success in the masala film genre and led the way for more such films in the same genre for him.
1042589	Sir Donald Alfred Sinden CBE (born 9 October 1923) is an English actor in theatre, film, television and radio as well as an author. Early career. He made his first stage appearance at the Brighton Little Theatre (of which he later became President) in January 1941, playing Dudley in "George and Margaret" in place of his cousin, Frank, who had been called up to war and so was unable to appear. He broke into professional acting after appearing with the Mobile Entertainments Southern Area company (known as MESA) in modern comedies for the armed forces during the Second World War and later trained as an actor at the Webber Douglas Academy of Dramatic Art. In the 1940s in Hove, he befriended Lord Alfred Douglas (known as Bosie), who had been Oscar Wilde's lover. On 23 March 1945, he was one of only two people who attended his funeral. He is now believed to be the last person alive to have met Bosie. Rank Organisation. In 1953 he was contracted for seven years to the Rank Organisation at Pinewood Studios and subsequently starred in many outstanding British films of the 1950s including "The Cruel Sea", "Mogambo", "Doctor in the House", "Above Us The Waves", "Doctor at Large", "The Siege of Sidney Street", "Twice Round the Daffodils" and with a very young Adam Faith in "Mix Me a Person". In 1956 a profile was written on him which stated:
1209153	Bring It On Again is a 2004 direct-to-video cheerleading comedy film starring Anne Judson-Yager and Bree Turner, directed by Damon Santostefano and written by Claudia Grazioso, Brian Gunn and Mark Gunn. This film, which is a sequel to "Bring It On", has a tenuous link to the previous film, featuring only a similar plot of competing cheerleading teams that have to try something different in order to win. There are no recurring cast members or canonical references to the previous film. "Bring It On Again" is also the only straight to video sequel of the four that followed "Bring It On" that shared the same producers. No one else involved in the original film participated in the creation of this film, nor in any of the following. The film does stylistically refer to its predecessor during the end credits, both of which feature outtakes and clips of the cast having fun dancing and singing. Plot. Whittier (Anne Judson-Yager) arrives at the fictional California State College hoping to join the national champion varsity cheerleading team. She meets up with her friend from cheerleading camp, Monica (Faune Chambers), and they're both impressive at the tryouts. Head cheerleader Tina (Bree Turner) is ready to ask them to join the team, but Greg (Bryce Johnson) goes a step further, telling Tina that Whittier will be the next head cheerleader. This angers Tina's pal Marni (Bethany Joy Lenz), who had the position staked out, but at the urging of Dean Sebastian (Kevin Cooney), Tina goes along with the plan, taking Whittier under her wing. Whittier meets Derek (Richard Lee Jackson), a campus D.J. who immediately takes a shine to her. But Tina is very demanding and controlling. She warns Whittier that Derek is not the type of boy she should be dating. Monica is bothered by Tina's meddling, but Whittier momentarily lets her cheerleading ambition get the better of her, and breaks it off with Derek. Then Tina, upset with Monica's sassy attitude, forces Whittier to choose between her friendship and the squad. Whittier and Monica get fed up and quit the team, but Whittier's school spirit cannot be suppressed. With Monica's help, she gathers up the outcasts from the drama club, the dance club, and other groups that have lost their funding and forms a ragtag squad of her own, determined to battle the varsity squad for a spot at the national championship. The two teams end up competing for the spot at nationals, with Whittier's squad ultimately winning. Afterward Whittier offers Tina a spot on her squad, which Tina refuses but ends up wanting. The film ends with Tina sucking up to Whittier and Monica, deciding she wants to be on their squad after all.
584036	Thillalangadi (; ) is a 2010 Indian Tamil-language action comedy masala film directed by M. Raja that stars his brother Jayam Ravi, Shaam and Tamannaah in lead roles, and an extensive supporting cast including Prabhu Ganesan, Suhasini Maniratnam, comedians Vadivelu and Santhanam among others essaying pivotal roles. A remake of the 2009 Telugu film, "Kick" Starring Ravi Teja and Ileana D'Cruz. The film features soundtrack composed by Yuvan Shankar Raja, whilst Thaman's original score has been reused. The film, produced by Raja's father Mohan and to be distributed by Sun Pictures, released on July 23, 2010 to mixed reviews. "Thillalangadi" depicts story of Krishna (Jayam Ravi), a brilliant student, who has excelled in all aspects of life but loves to have a 'kick' in his life. He would do anything just to experience this 'kick'. Plot. Krishna (Jayam Ravi) is a happy-go-lucky youth who excels in every field, but always does strange and dangerous things to obtain a certain "kick"- a thrill or excitement that he craves. One such activity is secretly double-crossing his childhood friend Dass (Sathyan) while helping him elope. At this point, he meets Nisha (Tamannaah) who is shocked at his recklessness and writes him off as crazy. Krishna, however, sets his sights on Nisha and woos her in a very unorthodox way; he begs her "not" to fall in love with him. After a host of comical situations involving Krishna's caring but easy-going parents (Prabhu and Suhasini), local thugs (John Vijay and Mayilsamy), and an ever-present comic relief named Jackson (Vadivelu), Nisha accepts Krishna's love. However she sets a condition; Krishna must stay in a well-paying job- he had resigned from other jobs due to lack of "kick"- and only then will she agree to marry him. Krishna accepts, but soon resigns again for the same reason and tries to hide it from Nisha. When she finds out, Nisha breaks up with him and leaves him for good. Some months later, Nisha's parents arrange for her to meet a prospective suitor in Malaysia. Though reluctant, she meets the suitor- Krishna Kumar (Shaam), a tough and honest policeman. She narrates the story of her affair with Krishna, and Krishna Kumar reveals that he is tracking a dangerous thief who has stolen large amounts of money from wealthy (mostly corrupt) politicians. At Malaysia, Nisha, her sister (Sanchita Shetty) and Jackson run into Krishna again, but learn that he has lost his memory and can't remember his past life. Nisha sees this as an opportunity to start their relationship again from scratch. However, it is revealed that Krishna isn't really suffering from amnesia; he has faked his condition by convincing an actual amnesiac, Paul (Santhanam) that he is a doctor, and tricked him into diagnosing his condition falsely. Nisha is initially upset, but realizes that it was done due to his love for her, and she has hidden her own feelings from him. They reconcile. Meanwhile, it is revealed that the thief whom Krishna Kumar has been tracking is none other than Krishna himself. His motives are simple; he steals ill-gotten money from politicians to pay for operations of children suffering from cancer. After manipulating various people (Nalini, Ganja Karuppu, etc.) and stealing from them, he is finally caught in the act by Krishna Kumar. Krishna is still unfazed however, celebrating his failure at a street party. He dares Krishna Kumar to catch him in his final crime- stealing money from MLA Rajaraam (Radha Ravi). After many harrowing stunts, Krishna pulls it off successfully. Krishna Kumar is demoted from his job for his failure, and is shocked to learn that his replacement is none other than Krishna, who promises to "guard" Rajaraam's remaining money. Knowing what's in store for the politicians, Krishna Kumar leaves with a new respect for his foe. Soundtrack. The "Thillalangadi" soundtrack is composed by Yuvan Shankar Raja, working together with director M. Raja for the first time. The soundtrack album features 7 songs, two of which have been reused from the original version, composed by Thaman, as per Raja's wish. The lyrics are penned by Na. Muthukumar and Viveka. The audio was released on 2 July 2010 at the Sun TV studios and premiered on Sun Music in the evening. The background score was taken from the original, scored by Thaman, too, but he wasn't credited in the film. Production. Development. After the Telugu film "Kick", directed by Surender Reddy and starring Ravi Teja, Ileana D'Cruz and Shaam in lead roles, which was released in early May 2009, went on to become highly successful at the box office, 'Editor' Mohan, father of M. Raja and Jayam Ravi, bagged the remake rights for the Tamil version, paying an "astronomical amount", less than one month later. While Mohan himself would produce the film, Mohan's elder son, M. Raja, was made the director, directing again his brother Jayam Ravi, who would later bag the lead role in the film. It is, noticeably, the fifth "remake project" of this combo, featuring 'Editor' Mohan as the producer, M. Raja as the director and Jayam Ravi as the lead actor, after "Jayam", "M. Kumaran son of Mahalakshmi", "Something Something ... Unakkum Enakkum" and "Santosh Subramaniam". Casting. For the lead role, played by Ravi Teja in the original version, several popular actors, including Vijay and Madhavan were considered and approached. As per reports, this film was planned to be Vijay's 51st film, which, however, turned out to be not true. Finally, Jayam Ravi was roped in for the role, teaming up once again with his father and brother. The lead female role, originally played by Ileana D'Cruz, was eventually bagged by Tamannaah Bhatia. Initially, the crew had planned to sign Ileana for the same role in Tamil as well and approached her, but her father is said to have refused the offer as he didn't want his daughter to play the same role again. Also actress Bhanu, who had starred in the films "Thaamirabharani" and the very recently released "Azhagar Malai", was approached for the role. However, she, too, reused the offer as she felt the role was too glamorous and she wouldn't fit the role. Whilst all his earlier remakes had the actress, who played the role in the original film, in the Tamil version as well, M. Raja, for the first time, was not able to sign the actress of the original Telugu version. Meanwhile, Shaam, who played a vital role in the Telugu version, took up the same the role in Tamil, whilst Prabhu Ganesan was roped in for a "significant role" and Vadivelu and Santhanam were roped in for the film's comedy portions. Prabhu Ganesan would be playing the role of Ravi's father, which was played by Sayaji Shinde in the original version. It was said, that yesteryear actor Karthik Muthuraman was initially considered and approached for the role, before Prabhu Ganesan was finally confirmed. Suhasini Mani Ratnam was roped in to enact Ravi's mother character. Unlike in Raja's earlier remakes, which all had music scored by the composer who scored the original version and the same songs as well (except for "M. Kumaran Son Of Mahalakshmi"), composer Yuvan Shankar Raja was roped in for the musical score this time, replacing Thaman, who composed the music of "Kick". Apart from Vadivelu and Santhanam, the film stars an array of comedians such as Livingston, Mayilsamy, Kanja Karuppu, Manobala, Thyagu and Sathyan as well. Filming. The film was formally launched on 19 August 2009 at AVM Studios. The first shot, featuring Jayam Ravi and Tamannaah, was directed by S. Shankar, with actor Vijay giving the inaugural clap shot. The launch was attended by many prominent people from the Tamil film industry as Tamil Film Producers Council chief Ramanarayanan, KRG, Abirami Ramanathan, S. A. Chandrasekhar, R. B. Chowdhary, Ram Kumar, Kasthuri Raja, PL Thenappan, actor Karthi and actress Kushboo Sundar among others. The film was shot at various locations, including Chennai (India), Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia), Bangkok (Thailand) and Singapore. The crew, including director Raja, Jayam Ravi, manager Senthil, cinematographer Rajsekhar and art director Milan had been looking for locations in Malaysia in August 2009, after which the film shooting began. At first, shooting was held in Chennai for nearly 20 days, following which the crew flew to Malaysia, where a major portion of the film was to be shot, where the original film was shot as well. By mid-November, the crew had completed a 30-day schedule in Malaysia. The shoot in Malaysia involved an action sequence, filmed by three cameras simultaneously, which was shot on busy roads with special permissions from the local police authorities and a song sequence featuring Ravi and Tamannaah. Shooting was held also at the famous Petronas Twin Towers and on the Singapore-Malaysian railway line. During the 30-day filming, the September 2009 Sumatra earthquakes occurred, which the team luckily survived. In late January 2010, a special song ("Solpechu Ketkadha Sundari"), widely publicized as the "360 degree song" was shot. It was filmed using a Nero motion control camera that revolves on a 360 degree angle set, which was handled by an Australian specialist Scott and would later look like a single shot. This song, choreographed by Shobi, which would feature 15 Jayam Ravis and 5 Tamannaahs, was completed in around 45 hours, on which alone nearly Rs. 75 lakhs was said to be spent. Reception. The film had a solo release on July 23, 2010, opening to mixed and negative reviews as did the original version, too. Whilst Sify.com rated the film as "below average" film and added that it is "boring", a reviewer from Behindwoods.com gave 2.5 out of 5, describing the film as an "enjoyable entertainer". Pavithra Srinivasan from Rediff.com cited the film as a "ridiculous pot-boiler" and criticized Jeyam Ravi's lacking punch and wafer-thin story line, giving the film a mere 1.5 out of 5. Meanwhile, a Indiaglitz.com reviewer cited that "the brothers have come out with an engrossing fare, but only in parts", adding that is "interesting in parts", but would have been "more shining and bright, had few loose ends been stitched together. A critic from Times of India also criticized the film saying that it "lacks that light touch needed to carry off the candyfloss content." as well as Jayam Ravi's performance describing his character as "a ham of what is simply a ridiculously featherweight character." Chennai Online said "the film somehow manages to entertain with comedy elements." Box Office. The movie had an excellent opening and collected 2.72 crore in Chennai.the movie ended up as an average grosser at the box office.
138069	Sarah Sanguin Carter (born October 30, 1980) is a Canadian actress best known for her role as Maggie in the TNT science fiction series "Falling Skies". Early life and education. Carter was born in Toronto and raised in Winnipeg, Manitoba. She attended Balmoral Hall School where she was a dancer and took part in school plays including "The Wizard of Oz", in which she played Dorothy. She was in the prestigious Royal Winnipeg Ballet. Carter was also on the debate team and named one of the top three public speakers in the world. She competed in various countries including Austria, England and Argentina. After graduating high school, Carter moved to Switzerland where she studied fine arts at Neuchâtel Junior College for one year. She subsequently attended Ryerson Theatre School in Toronto. At some point Carter took time off from acting, spending time in India and Cuba, where she worked in an orphanage. Career. Carter's early television career included appearances in "Wolf Lake", "Dark Angel", and "Undeclared", and she was also cast in minor screen roles in "Final Destination 2" and "Mindstorm", where she appeared alongside Eric Roberts, Michael Ironside, and Antonio Sabato Jr. Carter first appeared as a major character in a television role in 2003 when she played Allie Bennett in "Black Sash" and the following year she also appeared in three episodes of "Smallville", she played fan favorite Alicia Baker, who has a romantic relationship with Clark Kent. In 2006, Carter starred in the film "", playing the character Helena Douglas, a fighter who enters a martial arts contest. The following year she also starred in the film "Killing Zelda Sparks" as Zelda Sparks. Carter's later television career has included playing the character Madeline Poe, a rookie prosecutor in "Shark" between 2006 and 2008, appearing in all 38 episodes of the series. In 2009 she also appeared in three episodes of "", as the character , a forensic school graduate. More recently, Carter has become a regular character, Maggie, on the TNT series "Falling Skies", which debuted in June 2011. An apocalyptic alien invasion story, season 2 began on June 17, 2012 and concluded on August 19, 2012. Season 3 premiered June 9, 2013. Music career. Carter released a solo album "Before Three" in December 2009. She is part of the duo SanguinDrake, founded in 2010. To date (December 2012) the band has released four self-produced music videos on their website. On May 12, 2012 Sanguindrake released their first album "Pretty Tricks". Philanthropy. On June 19, 2011, Carter was one of thirty-five climbers that scaled Mount Shasta to raise money for the Breast Cancer Fund, for which she is a spokesperson. Her mother and aunt have both had breast cancer. She has also hiked the West Coast Trail.
1099702	Abraham de Moivre (26 May 1667 in Vitry-le-François, Champagne, France — 27 November 1754 in London, England; ) was a French mathematician known for de Moivre's formula, one of those that link complex numbers and trigonometry, and for his work on the normal distribution and probability theory. He was a friend of Isaac Newton, Edmund Halley, and James Stirling. Among his fellow Huguenot exiles in England, he was a colleague of the editor and translator Pierre des Maizeaux. De Moivre wrote a book on probability theory, "The Doctrine of Chances", said to have been prized by gamblers. De Moivre first discovered Binet's formula, the closed-form expression for Fibonacci numbers linking the "n"th power of the golden ratio "φ" to the "n"th Fibonacci number. Life. Early years. Abraham de Moivre was born in Vitry in Champagne on May 26, 1667. His father, Daniel de Moivre, was a surgeon who, though middle class, believed in the value of education. Though Abraham de Moivre's parents were Protestant, he first attended Christian Brothers' Catholic school in Vitry, which was unusually tolerant given religious tensions in France at the time. When he was eleven, his parents sent him to the Protestant Academy at Sedan, where he spent four years studying Greek under Jacques du Rondel. The Protestant Academy of Sedan had been founded in 1579 at the initiative of Françoise de Bourbon, the widow of Henri-Robert de la Marck.
1060917	Samuel Pack "Sam" Elliott (born August 9, 1944) is an American actor. His physique, thick horseshoe moustache, deep, resonant voice, and Western drawl lend to frequent casting as cowboys and ranchers. Early life. Sam Elliott was born in Sacramento, California, to a physical training instructor mother and a father who worked for the Department of the Interior. He moved from California to Oregon with his family during his teenage years, where he graduated from David Douglas High School in Portland. He attended Clark College in Vancouver, Washington, where he completed a two-year program and was cast as one of the leads in "Guys and Dolls". The local newspaper suggested that Elliott should be a professional actor. Soon after, Elliott declared he was going to Hollywood to become a star. Elliott is a member of the Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity at Cal State L.A.. He worked in construction while studying acting in Los Angeles. Elliott also lived for a short time in Princeton, West Virginia. Career. Elliott began his career as a character actor; his appearance, voice and bearing were ideally suited to Westerns. One of his first film roles was as 'Card Player #2' in "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" (1969).
777504	Finding Amanda is a 2008 comedy film directed by Peter Tolan and starring Matthew Broderick and Brittany Snow. The plot revolves around a television producer with a penchant for drinking and gambling, who is sent to Las Vegas to convince his troubled niece to enter rehabilitation.
1163115	Kim Coles (born January 11, 1962) is an American actress and comedian, best known for her role as a cast member on the sketch comedy, "In Living Color", and as Synclaire James on the Fox series, "Living Single". Career. Coles has appeared on many television shows, including "Frasier" ("Dr." Mary Thomas), "Six Feet Under", "Celebrity Mole" and "The Geena Davis Show". Early in her career, she appeared as one of the hosts of "It's Showtime at the Apollo". She was an original cast member on the sketch comedy series "In Living Color" that appeared on the FOX network. After leaving "In Living Color", she then got the role as Synclaire James on "Living Single". She appeared as the mother of Spirit on UPN's "One on One". Coles is a published author; her book is called "I'm Free But It Will Cost You", ISBN 978-0-7868-8322-6, Hyperion Books, 1998. Coles appeared on "" and was the first contestant to be eliminated. At the reunion of the show, she was one of two celebrities (the other was Michael Boatman) to correctly guess that Frederique van der Wal was the series' saboteur, Kathy Griffin was the winner, and Erik von Detten was the runner-up. Coles also joined other celebrities for a weight loss journey on the VH-1 reality show, "Celebrity Fit Club". After 16 weeks, she lost a total of 24 lbs, and dropping nearly 4 percentage points in body fat, going from 34.7% to 31%. She accomplished this with the help of her team, "Ralphie's Angels". She lost 10.2% of her body weight, dropping down to 196 lbs. Coles was a regular panelist on the 2000 revival of "To Tell the Truth" during its second season. She was also featured as a guest host on two episodes of "The View". Coles was a co-host of the syndicated daytime television show "In The Loop With iVillage" alongside "The Apprentice" winner Bill Rancic and fellow season one contestant Ereka Vetrini. She has recently joined the cast of "10 Items or Less" on TBS.
1350253	Gentlemen of Fortune (, translit. "Dzhentlmeny udachi") is a Soviet comedy, filmed at Mosfilm. The stars of the film include famous Soviet actors such as Savely Kramarov, Yevgeny Leonov, Georgy Vitsin, and Radner Muratov. The film was the leader of Soviet distribution in 1972 having 65.02 million viewers. Plot summary. The movie follows the story of an amiable kindergarten director named Troshkin who looks exactly like a criminal nick-named Docent (Доцент, literally "associate professor") that has stolen Alexander the Great's helmet at an archaeological excavation. Docent and his gang are caught by militsiya, but Docent is imprisoned in a different jail than his mates. Since Troshkin looks identical to Docent, the militsiya send him undercover to prison with the real criminals to get information about the stolen helmet. He must pretend to be the real felon Docent, so in order to be convincing, Troshkin, a well-educated and good-natured man, has to learn slang and manners of criminals. Film director. The film was directed by Aleksandr Seryj who had just came out of prison. Georgi Daneliya assisted him and wrote the script. Seryj used his prison experience to design many situations in the movie, and he also introduced numerous expressions from Russian criminal slang (known as Fenya).
1163687	Victor John Mature (January 29, 1913 – August 4, 1999) was an American stage, film and television actor. Early life. Mature was born in Louisville, Kentucky. His father, Marcello Gelindo Maturi, later Marcellus George Mature, was an Italian-speaking immigrant from the town Pinzolo, in the Italian part of the former County of Tyrol (now Trentino in Italy, at that time Austrian-Hungarian Empire); he was a cutler. His mother, Clara P. (Ackley), was Kentucky-born and of Swiss heritage. An older brother, Marcellus Paul Mature, died at 11 in 1918 from osteomyelitis. Victor Mature was educated at parochial schools, the Kentucky Military Institute and the Spencerian Business School. He briefly sold candy and operated a restaurant before moving to California. Film career. Mature went to study and act at the Pasadena Community Playhouse. For three years he lived in a tent and was spotted by an agent for Hal Roach while acting in "To Quito and Back". This led to a contract with Roach, who cast him in a small role in "The Housekeeper's Daughter" then gave Mature his first leading role was as a fur-clad caveman in "One Million B.C." (1940). This was followed up with "Captain Caution". In 1941 Mature's contract was bought out by 20th Century Fox who used him to star opposite actresses such as Betty Grable and Rita Hayworth. He also supported Gertrude Lawrence on Broadway in "Lady in the Dark". World War II. In July 1942 Mature attempted to enlist in the U.S. Navy but was rejected for color blindness. He enlisted in the U.S. Coast Guard after taking a different eye test the same day. He was assigned to the , which was doing Greenland patrol work. After 14 months aboard the "Storis", Mature was promoted to the rate of Chief Boatswain's Mate.
1715722	David Gale (December 13, 1921 – March 7, 2008) was a distinguished American mathematician and economist. He was a professor emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley, affiliated with the departments of mathematics, economics, and industrial engineering and operations research. He has contributed to the fields of mathematical economics, game theory, and convex analysis.
1163841	Raymond Hart Massey (August 30, 1896 – July 29, 1983) was a Canadian/American actor. Early life. Massey was born in Toronto, Ontario, the son of Anna (née Vincent), who was American-born, and Chester Daniel Massey, the wealthy owner of the Massey-Harris Tractor Company and son of Hart Massey and grandson of founder Daniel Massey. His branch of the Massey family immigrated to Canada from England. He attended secondary school briefly at Upper Canada College, before transferring to Appleby College in Oakville, Ontario, and taking several courses at University of Toronto, where he was an active member of the Kappa Alpha Society. He later graduated from Balliol College, Oxford. At the outbreak of World War I, Massey joined the Canadian Army, serving with the artillery on the Western Front. He returned to Canada suffering shell-shock and was engaged as an Army instructor for American officers at Yale University. In 1918, he was sent to serve in Siberia, where he made his first stage appearance, entertaining American troops on occupation duty. Severely wounded in action in France, he was sent home, where he eventually worked in the family business, selling farm implements. Acting career. Drawn to the theatre, he first appeared on the London stage in 1922. His first movie role was in "High Treason" in 1927. In 1929, he directed the London premiere of "The Silver Tassie". He played Sherlock Holmes in "The Speckled Band", the first sound film version of the story, in 1931. In 1934, he starred in "The Scarlet Pimpernel" and, in 1936, he starred in H. G. Wells's "Things to Come". In 1944, Massey played the District Attorney in ""The Woman in the Window"" with Edward G. Robinson and Joan Bennett Despite being Canadian, Massey became famous for his quintessential American roles such as the abolitionist John Brown in "Santa Fe Trail" (1941) and again in the low-budget film "Seven Angry Men" (1955 ). His second portrayal of Brown was much more sympathetic, presenting him as a well-intentioned but misguided figure, while in "Santa Fe Trail" he was presented as a wild-eyed lunatic.
1131123	Patricia "Patti" Deutsch (born December 16, 1945 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania) is a voice artist and comedic actress. In the 1970s she was a frequent panelist on "Match Game". "Match Game". Deutsch was a regular celebrity panelist on "Match Game". Her answers could be very bizarre (e.g., "A red moth eaten sofa that was rejected by the homeless shelter."), and would rarely match. She became a fixture in the challenging "number-six seat," so called by the panelists because it was tough to come up with something clever after five panelists already offered their response. Episodes of "Match Game" featuring Deutsch continue to air on GSN. Deutsch also appeared as a guest on the new GSN interstitial program "GSN Live" on March 7, 2008. On the 2009 GSN Game Show Awards, Deutsch, along with frequent panelists Joyce Bulifant and Nancy Dussault accepted an award on behalf of "Match Game". Voice and television work. In the 1970s Deutsch did voice-over work on Hanna Barbera's "The Smurfs" and "Capitol Critters" cartoon series. She also provided the voice for "Mrs. Dave," the mother of "Dr. Dave" on the popular Nickelodeon cartoon, "As Told by Ginger". During the early years of the show "The Electric Company", she did some voice work for some of the vignette cartoons alongside actor and show writer Paul Dooley. Her recent work includes "Monsters, Inc." and "The Emperor's New Groove".
587731	Alluda Majaka is a 1995 Tollywood action-comedy film produced by Devi Vara Prasad under the Devi Films banner. The film starred Chiranjeevi, Ramya Krishna and Rambha in the lead roles, with Kota Srinivasa Rao, Lakshmi and Ooha essaying supporting roles. The movie was directed by E. V. V. Satyanarayana and the story and screenplay was by Posani Krishna Murali.
590868	Gundamma Katha (Telugu: గుండమ్మ కథ) is a 1962 Telugu, drama film produced by B. Nagi Reddy and Chakrapani. The film is partially inspired by Shakesphere's, The Taming of the Shrew. The blockbuster film has completed fifty years of its release on 7 June 2012 The plot revolves around the story of a proud mother, "Gundamma" and the way she was brought on track by her two young sons-in-law. The film was later remade into Tamil as "Manithan Maravillai". The ensemble cast, starred N. T. Rama Rao, Suryakantham, S. V. Ranga Rao, Akkineni Nageswara Rao, Jamuna Ramanarao, Savitri, Ramana Reddy, Rajanala Kaleswara Rao, Chaya Devi, L. Vijayalakshmi and Haranath Plot. Gundamma (Suryakantham) is a rich widow who has a daughter Saroja (Jamuna Ramanarao), and son Prabhakar (Haranath) and a step daughter Lakshmi (Savitri). Both the girls are beautiful and intelligent. Saroja is a teen spoiled by her mother's pampering whereas Lakshmi is treated as a servant in her own house. Ramabhadraiah (S. V. Ranga Rao), who has two sons of marriageable age, is searching for suitable brides. Gundamma is interested in pursuing an alliance with Ramabhadraiah’s family for her daughter Saroja and sends a word through a middleman. It happens that he used to be a good friend of Gundamma's late husband. She wants to overcome the obstacle of her elder step daughter by getting her married to a down-and-out guy so she doesn’t have to get jeered for neglecting her step daughter. Kanchu Gantaiah (Ramana Reddy), Gundamma's manager and a cousin somehow wants Saroja to marry his son Bhupati (Rajanala) who happens to be a delinquent and is in a prison. Meanwhile, Ramabhadraiah and his sons knew about Gundamma's avarice and her treatment of her children and decide to play a game to teach her a lesson. After deciding that Lakshmi will make a suitable match for his first son Anjaneya Prasad a.k.a. Anji (N. T. Rama Rao) and Saroja for his second son Raja (Akkineni Nageswara Rao), Ramabhadraiah, asks his sons to enact a drama to bring Gundamma and her overbearing daughter on track. The first son enters Gundamma's house as Anji, a street worthy servant and wins her heart instantly and even a place in her house as a helping hand. The second son Raja, with the aid of his cousin Padma (L. Vijayalakshmi), who happens to be Saroja's friend, enters as Ramabhadraiah's son, woos her, and ends up winning her heart. The servant son, with his humility and wit, wins Lakshmi's heart and asks Gundamma for Lakshmi's hand in marriage. Gundamma heeds under the impression that she will never find a more obliging and humble fool who would ever be at her behest. Anji marries Lakshmi. Meanwhile, Gundamma is impressed by the second son for Saroja and is making plans for the wedding. However, she receives a letter from Ramabhadraiah that he is no longer interested in the alliance on hearing rumours that Gundamma poisoned her husband to death. Meanwhile Saroja wants to marry Raja at all costs Gundamma obliges again after coerced by Anji that a son in law in her own house will not raise a voice and that she can relish the company of her beloved daughter even after her marriage. After Saroja’s marriage Prabhakar is fascinated by Padma and wants to marry her and Anji accommodates that by convincing Gundamma. It is not long Gundamma and Saroja realises that Raja is a drunkard and a thief and Gundamma reverses her stance for Prabhakar’s marriage with Padma, which happens though. Raja intensifies his acting as a drunkard and pretends that he is not Ramabhadraiah's real son and is a vagabond and a wanted thief. As Gundamma's problems are starting, Padma's paternal aunt Durgamma (Chaya Devi), a terror to even Gundamma enters their household. The cat fights which ensue between Gundamma' and Durgamma go out of control after a while. Raja deserts Saroja and then writes a letter to her asking her to accompany him. Saroja realises now, obliges and leaves Gundamma's house against her wishes. Gundamma is shattered with all these problems and at such a time, Gantaiah's son Bhupati, just released from prison, torments her even more. Thus Gundamma, in the absence of Prabhakar is confined to the out house of her own house by Padma's boisterous aunt and Gantaiah's prison educated son. Meanwhile, Anji also leaves the house with his wife Lakshmi. It is a sweet turn for Lakshmi when Anji places her in the bungalow of Ramabhadraiah proclaiming her to be the mistress of the house and the daughter in law of Ramabhadraiah. She forgets her lifelong misery but still holds concern for her stepmother Gundamma and Saroja. Saroja is introduced as a gardener in the same bungalow by Raja and is humiliated by Ramabhadraiah as a servant. Saroja's conceit and arrogance break thus making her a well behaved wife. Meanwhile Gundamma is transformed into a humble woman following all of life's tortures in a short span. Lakshmi visits Gundamma and seeing her in a state of despair, evicts Durgamma and Bhupati with the help of Anji and brings Gundamma along to Ramabhadraiah’s house. In the interim, Saroja leaving Ramabhadraiah’s house in insult encounters Lakshmi who reveals to her that they both are now Ramabhadraiah’s daughters-in-law and that Raja being a drunkard and thief and the events that followed were all enacted by his sons, now their husbands. Gundamma is happy to see both of them are married into a good family and continues to live on with Ramabhadraiah’s family. Soundtrack. Gundamma Katha is acclaimed both for the plot as well as the exemplary songs in the movie. Music is provided by Ghantasala and all the songs are mellifluous and thoughtfully scripted.
586151	Kauravar (Malayalam: കൗരവര്‍) is a 1992 Malayalam film directed by Joshiy, written by Lohithadas, and starring Mammootty, Vishnuvardhan, Thilakan, Murali, Babu Antony and Bheeman Raghu. The film was remade into Kannada in 2001 by the title Devasura and starring "Devraj" and "B. C. Patil". Plot. A gang led by Aliyar (Thilakan) holds a grudge against Police Officer Haridas (Vishnuvardhan) who was responsible for the death of Antony's (Mammootty) wife and daughter 12 years ago and sent Antony to jail. When Antony is finally freed, he reunites with his old gang and they plan to kill Haridas. Antony then discovers that his daughter who he thought had died is actually still alive and was raised by Haridas as one of his daughters. Antony meets his long-lost daughter but Aliyar and gang are not ready to leave Haridas. Antony pleads to the gang to leave Haridas alone but fails to stop them. During the struggle, Antony gets shot by Aliyar and in his defence kills Aliyar. Reception. The movie was a big hit among family audience. It ran for 150 days. The film dubbed in Telugu as "Kankanam" and became a big hit in Andhra Pradesh too. The film dubbed in Tamil as Shatriya Vamsam and became a big hit in TamilNadu also.
1130107	Billy Warlock (born March 26, 1961) is an American actor best known for playing Eddie Kramer, a lifeguard on the first three seasons of Baywatch and in the reunion movie in 2003, as well as for numerous daytime roles, most notably Frankie Brady on "Days of our Lives" and A. J. Quartermaine on "General Hospital". Early life. Warlock was born William Alan Leming in Gardena, California, the son of Dick Warlock, a successful Hollywood stunt man who did stunts for Kurt Russell and was the stunt driver in the Disney picture, "The Love Bug". His siblings include Lance Warlock and a sister, Rhonda. After graduation from Birmingham High School in Van Nuys, California in 1979, Billy's father got him a stunt job as Robin Williams stunt double in a Mork & Mindy episode, one that was produced by Gary Marshall. Several months later, he auditioned for Marshall and got his first major television role as Flip, Roger's brother (and the Cunninghams nephew), in the tenth season of "Happy Days". Career. Fans of daytime TV probably know him best for roles on soap operas such as "Days of our Lives" and "General Hospital". Warlock appeared as Frankie Brady on "Days of our Lives" from 1986 to 1988, from 1990 to 1991, and again beginning in June 2005. He was let go from the soap and his final airdate was November 2006. In Spring 2007, he joined the cast of "The Young and the Restless" in the role of Ben Hollander, Jack Abbott's campaign manager. Warlock appeared on the show from May 2007 to January 2008. He appeared as A. J. Quartermaine on "General Hospital" from June 13, 1997, to December 11, 2003, and for several visits in 2005 from February 4 to February 11 when his character was presumed dead and from March 15 until April 26 when his character was actually murdered in his hospital room by Dr. Asher Thomas (Larry Poindexter) after he kidnapped his biological son, Michael Corinthos (Dylan Cash). During the summer of 2010, Warlock appeared on "As the World Turns" as Anthony Blackthorn. Aside from his soap career, Warlock is one of the original cast members of "Baywatch", where he played lifeguard Eddie Kramer for the first three seasons as well as appearing in the reunion movie in 2003. He also was on the short-lived TV Series "The Hat Squad", with Nestor Serrano and Don Michael Paul from 1992 to 1993, as well as portraying Lyle Menendez in the 1994 TV movie "". His film roles include "Lovely But Deadly" (1981), directed by David Sheldon, as well as "Hotshot" (1987), directed by Rick King. He played the lead role in the body horror movie "Society" (1989), directed by Brian Yuzna. Personal life. Warlock was previously engaged to Erika Eleniak, his "Baywatch" co-star who portrayed Shauni McClain. He was previously married to soap actress Marcy Walker, but later divorced. He is currently married to former "Days of our Lives" co-star Julie Pinson, who played Billie Reed. They married on August 26, 2006, in Las Vegas, Nevada.
1040544	Susan Lynch (born 5 June 1971) is an actor from Northern Ireland. Early life. Lynch was born in Corrinshego, Newry, County Armagh, Northern Ireland to an Italian mother and Irish father. Her brother is actor John Lynch, she has a sister, Pauline, who is a drama teacher at St. Paul's High School, Bessbrook and a brother named Seamus. She is married to the actor Craig Parkinson. Career. She trained at the Central School of Speech and Drama, and in August 2004, she starred in "The Night Season" at the Royal National Theatre in London. In 2008 was one of the leads in "The Last Days of Judas Iscariot" at the Almeida Theatre. Her film roles include "Beautiful Creatures", "Waking Ned Devine", and the title role in "Nora". Awards. On 3 December 2000, she received three Irish Film and Television Academy Awards, including Best Leading Actress for her work in the film "Nora".
1166264	Conrad Stafford Bain (February 4, 1923 – January 14, 2013) was a Canadian-born American actor. His television credits include a leading role as Phillip Drummond in the sitcom "Diff’rent Strokes" and as Dr. Arthur Harmon on "Maude". Personal life. Conrad Bain was born in Lethbridge, Alberta, the son of Jean Agnes (née Young) and Stafford Harrison Bain,
1062723	The Godfather Part II is a 1974 American crime epic that Francis Ford Coppola produced, directed, and co-wrote with Mario Puzo, starring Al Pacino, Robert Duvall, Diane Keaton, and Robert De Niro. Partially based on Puzo's 1969 novel "The Godfather", the film is both sequel and prequel to "The Godfather", presenting parallel dramas: one picks up the 1958 story of Michael Corleone (Pacino), the new Don of the Corleone crime family, protecting his family business ventures in the aftermath of an attempt on his life; the prequel covers the journey of his father, Vito Corleone (De Niro), from his harrowing childhood escape from Sicily in 1901 to the desperate founding of his family enterprise in New York City. The film was released in 1974 to great critical acclaim, some deeming it superior to the original. Nominated for eleven Academy Awards and the first sequel to win for Best Picture, its six Oscars included Best Director for Coppola, Best Supporting Actor for De Niro and Best Adapted Screenplay for Coppola and Puzo. Pacino won the BAFTA Award for Best Actor and was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor. Like its predecessor, the sequel remains a highly influential film in the gangster genre. In 1997, the American Film Institute ranked it as the 32nd-greatest film in American film history and it kept its rank 10 years later. It was selected for preservation in the U.S. National Film Registry in 1993. A sequel, "The Godfather Part III", was released 16 years later in 1990. Plot. On the occasion of the 1958 first communion party for his son, Michael Corleone has a series of meetings in his role as the Don of his crime family. With Nevada Senator Pat Geary, he discusses the terms of a fourth state gaming license for the Corleones, but the two only trade insults and demand payoffs. Johnny Ola arrives to express support for Michael on behalf of Florida gangster Hyman Roth. At the same time as the Don tries to manage his depressed sister Connie and older brother Fredo, Corleone caporegime Frank Pentangeli is upset that his boss will not help him defend New York against the Rosato brothers, who work for the Jewish Roth. That night, Michael survives an assassination attempt at his home and puts consigliere Tom Hagen in charge, reassuring him of their fraternal bond. In Miami, Michael tells Roth that Pentangeli was behind the assassination attempt; he then tells Pentangeli that Roth ordered it and asks him to cooperate. Pentangeli meets the Rosatos; their men ambush him, saying they act on Michael's orders, but a passing policeman interrupts them and they flee, leaving Pentangeli for dead. Geary finds himself in Fredo's brothel with a dead prostitute and no memory of how he got there; he accepts Tom's offer of "friendship" to cover up the incident. After witnessing a rebel suicide bombing in Havana, Cuba, Michael becomes convinced of the rebels' resolve to overthrow the dictator Fulgencio Batista. Fredo brings Michael the money for a deal with Roth, but instead of turning it over to Roth, Michael asks who put out the hit on Pentangeli. Roth is reminded of his late friend Moe Greenedead in a spate of Corleone killingsaying, "This is the business we've chosen. I didn't ask who gave the order because it had nothing to do with "business"!" As they go to the President's New Year's Eve party, Michael tells Fredo that he knows Roth plans to kill him as he leaves the party and later Fredo reveals that he knew Johnny Ola, despite his previous denial. Michael's bodyguard strangles Ola but is killed by police before he can finish off the ailing Roth. Michael embraces his brother, revealing that he knows he was behind the plot on his life but the party breaks up as word spreads that the rebels are taking over, and Fredo flees in the chaos. Back home, Tom informs Michael that Roth is recovering in Miami and that Kay's pregnancy has miscarried. In Washington, D.C., a Senate committee investigating the Corleone family cannot find evidence to implicate Michael until a surprise witness is called. Pentangeli, ensconced in FBI witness protection and ready to avenge the attempt on his life, is prepared to confirm accusations against Michael until his Sicilian brother attends the hearing at the Don's side; Pentangeli denies his sworn statements and the hearing dissolves in an uproar.
585738	College Kumaran is a 2008 Malayalam film directed by Thulasidas, starring Mohanlal and Vimala Raman. Mohanlal took a remuneration of 1.25 crores for this movie, which was the first time an actor from the Malayalam movie industry received a fee of 8 figures. It was a box office flop. Plot. Kumaaran, or as students call him, Captain (Mohanlal), was the star of Mahatma college before he joined the army. Now an ex-military officer, Kumaaran is running the canteen of Mahatma College after a tragic incident that took his father and sister's life.
1162511	Support Your Local Gunfighter is a 1971 comic western film starring James Garner, directed by Burt Kennedy, and written by James Edward Grant. The film shares many cast and crew members and plot elements with the earlier "Support Your Local Sheriff!" but is not a sequel. It actually parodies "Yojimbo" and its remake "A Fistful of Dollars", using the basic storyline of a stranger who wanders into a feuding town and pretends to work as an enforcer for both sides. Plot. Latigo Smith (Garner), a gambler and confidence man, is traveling by train in frontier-era Colorado with the rich and powerful Goldie (Marie Windsor). Goldie is besotted with Latigo and wants desperately to marry him, a fate that he wants no part of. He manages to slip off the train at Purgatory, a jerkwater mining town. Assessing the situation, he discovers that two rival companies of miners, led by Taylor Barton (Harry Morgan) and Colonel Ames (John Dehner), are racing each other to find a "mother lode" of gold buried somewhere nearby. Massive dynamite blasts periodically rock the town to its foundations, creating or embellishing various moments of comic relief throughout the film. Latigo consults the town doctor (Dub Taylor) about an embarrassing problem that is not immediately revealed, but turns out to be a Goldie-related tattoo that he learns, to his chagrin, cannot be removed. Latigo's seminal weakness is gambling; he soon loses all of his money, and more, at roulette, playing his "lucky" number (23/black). After hearing a rumor that the infamous gunslinger "Swifty" Morgan (Chuck Connors) is expected in town, Latigo concocts a scam: With the help of amiable ne'er-do-well Jug May (Jack Elam) impersonating Swifty, he schemes to pay off his debts and skip town before the real Swifty makes his appearance. In the process, Latigo attracts the attention of Patience "The Sidewinder" Barton (Suzanne Pleshette), the hot-tempered daughter of Taylor, who desperately wants to escape this backwater frontier existence, attend "Miss Hunter's College on the Hudson River, New York, For Young Ladies of Good Families", and a live a life of refinement in New York City. Latigo falls hard for Patience, and when he and Jug side with the Bartons in a dispute, Ames sends a telegram to Swifty informing him of the situation. Swifty arrives in town and immediately challenges the hapless Jug to a gunfight; but at the appointed time and place, Latigo is there in place of Jug, sitting atop a donkey loaded with crates of dynamite in an attempt to bluff the gunfighter. Swifty calls Latigo's bluff; but as he draws his six-shooter, a particularly massive mining blast startles him, and he shoots himself in the foot. The blast also panics the donkey, who charges into the Bartons' saloon with Latigo aboard, blowing the building to smithereens; but the blast uncovers the mother lode, which conveniently sits beneath the Bartons' land. The resulting inferno also fortuitously burns off Latigo's troublesome tattoo, while miraculously leaving him uninjured. Latigo finally wins big at roulette, betting $10,000 of the Bartons' money (on 23/black). Latigo and Patience, now both rich beyond their wildest dreams, are married. Jug narrates the outcomes from the back of a train carrying the happy couple off to the east coast: Patience doesn't get to go to Miss Hunter's College, but sends her seven daughters there; Swifty is still trying to get his boot off; and Jug becomes a big star in Italian westerns.
1163834	Christopher Nash "Chris" Elliott (born May 31, 1960) is an American actor, comedian and writer. He is best known for his comedic sketches on "Late Night with David Letterman", starring in the cult comedy series "Get a Life" and for his recurring role as Peter MacDougall on "Everybody Loves Raymond". Since 2009, Elliott has had a recurring role on "How I Met Your Mother" as Mickey Aldrin, father to main character Lily. He is also known for appearing in movies such as "Cabin Boy", "There's Something About Mary", "Scary Movie 2" and "Groundhog Day". Since 2011, Elliott has starred in the Adult Swim series "Eagleheart". Early life. Elliott was born in New York City, New York, and is the youngest of five children of Lee and Bob Elliott, who was part of the successful comedy team Bob and Ray. He grew up on the Upper East Side. Career. Elliott became known in the mid-late 1980s, when he was a writer and performer on "Late Night with David Letterman", playing an assortment of recurring oddball characters. His characters on the show included: In 1986 Elliot starred in the Cinemax special "FDR: A One Man Show," a spoof comedy about the life and times of the president. He looked and sounded nothing like the man; he portrayed events from Roosevelt's life that never happened, such as a Japanese bombing of the White House, and his crossing the Potomac in a rowboat. By the end of the show, he had performed Gallagher's shtick of smashing watermelons and other soft fruits on stage. Many of Elliott's early film roles were as a supporting actor in non-comedies such as Michael Mann's "Manhunter" and James Cameron's "The Abyss". In 1990, Elliott created and starred in his own sitcom, which was called "Get a Life", about a 30-year-old paperboy named Chris Peterson who lived at home with his parents. Elliott's real-life father, Bob Elliott, appeared in the show as Chris' father. The January 1999 issue of "TV Guide" called the "Zoo Animals on Wheels" episode the 19th funniest TV moment of all time. In 1993, Elliott teamed up with producer Brad Hall and directed a series of critically acclaimed short films that Elliott showed when appearing on "Late Show with David Letterman". Elliott became a cast member of "Saturday Night Live" in 1994. Also that year, Elliott starred in his first movie—entitled "Cabin Boy"—which also featured a short appearance by Elliott's old boss, David Letterman, and was produced by Tim Burton. It was nominated for a Razzie Award for Worst New Star. In 2007 Elliott began reappearing on the "Late Show with David Letterman" with fellow former Letterman writer Gerard Mulligan. On average, these bits appear once per month. His other television credits include the chowder taster on "Throwdown with Bobby Flay", airdate 09/02/09, and the voice of Dogbert on the short-run show "Dilbert" for UPN. He played a serial killer in the series "Third Watch" in episodes 5, "The Hunter, Hunted," and 6, "Greatest Detectives in the World" from season six. He played the role of Peter in the last three seasons of "Everybody Loves Raymond" and a role in a semi-autobiographical sitcom pilot for CBS, entitled "You've Reached the Elliotts", playing a man who tries to balance a modest show business career with his home life. As of 2009, Elliott has played the estranged father of "How I Met Your Mother" character Lily Aldrin, whose relationship has strengthened as the show has progressed. As well as multiple appearances on "King of Queens", Elliott made guest appearances on the "Late Show", "That '70s Show" episode "2000 Light Years From Home", and "According to Jim". Since February 3, 2011, Elliott has starred in the Adult Swim series "Eagleheart", produced by Conan O'Brien's production company, Conaco. Elliott also appeared in a series of commercials for Tostitos tortilla chips in the late 1990s. Author. Elliott has written three books spoofing history or pseudo-history. "" is a comedic fictionalized biography about growing up with his famous father, spoofing Christina Crawford's "Mommie Dearest". "The Shroud of the Thwacker" is a historical novel about Elliott's investigation of a serial killer in 1882 New York City, spoofing London's infamous Jack the Ripper case. "Into Hot Air" tells the story of Chris climbing Mount Everest with a group of celebrities tagging along to underwrite the trek as he investigates his Uncle Percy's failed Everest expedition. Personal life. Elliott has been married since 1986 and has two daughters: Abby and Bridey. Abby was a cast member of "Saturday Night Live" from 2008 until 2012, making Chris Elliott the first "SNL" cast member to be the father of another. His father Bob Elliott of the popular comedy duo Bob & Ray co-starred on a "SNL" Christmas episode in the 1978-1979 season fourth season, making for three generations of Elliotts on "SNL". In the summer of 2008, Elliott and his family returned to Connecticut, purchasing a home in Old Lyme, Connecticut.
582329	Dus (, translation: "Ten") is a 2005 Bollywood action spy thriller film directed by Anubhav Sinha and produced by Nitin Manmohan. It stars Sanjay Dutt, Sunil Shetty, Abhishek Bachchan, Shilpa Shetty, Zayed Khan and Esha Deol in lead roles.
1046950	The Thousand Plane Raid (aka The One Thousand Plane Raid) is a 1969 film directed by Boris Sagal. It stars Christopher George and Laraine Stephens. Although claimed to be derived from Ralph Barker's "The Thousand Plane Raid", the storyline inaccurately portrays the first raid as a 8th Air Force mission while the actual attack was undertaken by 1,047 Royal Air Force bombers against the city of Cologne, Germany in May 1942. Plot. In 1943, Colonel Greg Brandon (Christopher George), stationed at an United States Army Air Forces 8th Air Force, 103rd Bomb Group base in England, repeatedly attempts to persuade superiors that massive daylight bombing will hasten the end of World War II. In spite of the mission's extreme difficulty, his plan is finally put into effect against a German aircraft factory. During preparation for the raid, Brandon alienates his men by insisting that normal bombing operations continue. His disdain for cautious Lieutenant Archer (Ben Murphy) and brash RAF Wing Commander Trafton Howard (Gary Marshal) further antagonizes his associates, including his girl friend, WAC Lieutenant Gabrielle Ames (Larraine Stephens). When his bomber crashes the morning of the mission, Brandon boards a bomber manned by Archer and Howard. During the effective air raid, he is impressed by Archer's courage and Howard's judgment. Production. The film was shot in a budget-conscious manner. The main sets were in Santa Maria, California, and principal photography took place in winter 1968. The local village and airport realistically portrayed a typical British wartime base. Period-style maintenance shops, an operations center and a wartime-style control tower were added to re-create the fictional Steeple Bassington base. Additional studio work was completed at the Samuel Goldwyn Studios in Hollywood. Aerial sequences included a mix of stock wartime footage, including the "" (1944), some of it colorized to match original footage. The air-boss was legendary Hollywood stunt pilot Frank Tallman, but the most spectacular scene was a low-flying B-17 scene flown by Don Lykins. Another crash scene was taken from "Twelve O'Clock High", the famous crash-landing carried out by Paul Mantz, another of Hollywood's leading stunt pilots, and Tallman's one-time partner in Tallmantz Aviation, before his death in 1965. Three Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress bombers (DB-17P 44-83684 from The Air Museum at Ontario, California, DB-17P 44-83525 [N83525, from Tallmantz Aviation at Santa Ana, California, and B-17F 42-29782 from Aircraft Specialties at Mesa, Arizona, were used in the production. Reception. Critical reviews commented on the "stereotyped adventure yarn" aspect of the production while noting that the aerial footage was often exciting. Home video. This film is not available on home video and is not often shown on television.
1068005	Roger Ashton-Griffiths (born 19 January 1957) is an English character actor, screenwriter and film director. He graduated from Lancaster University (BMus) and the University of East London (MA Fine Art), and began his career as a singer with English National Opera at the London Coliseum. He has appeared in numerous high-profile films, including Terry Gilliam's "The Brothers Grimm" and "Brazil", "A Knight's Tale", Martin Scorsese's "Gangs of New York", Roman Polanski's "Pirates", Peter Greenaway's "The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover", Woody Allen's "You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger" and Olivier Dahan's "Grace of Monaco". He has also worked extensively in television, including "Margaret", "The Tudors", and will be portraying Mace Tyrell in Season 4 of "Game of Thrones".
583794	Maasilamani is a Tamil film released in 2009, distributed by Sun Pictures. It stars Nakul, Sunaina, Pavan, Santhanam, Srinath, Karunas, M. S. Baskar, Delhi Ganesh, and others. Plot. Masi (Nakul) is an orphan living in a lower middle class colony. With a heart of gold, he is a popular guy who takes up local issues, fights for them and is considered as a rowdy by those who don’t know him. Enter the heroine Divya (Sunaina), a rich upper middle class girl who is a dance instructor and with whom Masi falls in love at the first sight. But Divya shows aversion to his rowdisam and gets offended with his proposal. Masi doesn’t lose heart and attempts to win Divya’s family by being a goody boy and dons another name, Mani. Except Divya, all are aware that both Mani and Masi is one person. Later when Divya finds out the truth, she gets into dilemma as whom she has to choose.
1082421	Crimen Ferpecto ("Ferpect Crime") is a 2004 Spanish black comedy film co-written, produced and directed by Álex de la Iglesia. Plot. Rafael is a women's clothing clerk at a large Madrid department store, Yeyo's. His department is filled with beautiful, comely young women whom Rafael routinely seduces. When Rafael vies for a management position with Don Antonio, a men's clothing clerk whom Rafael despises, a fluke causes Don Antonio to win the promotion. He fires Rafael and a fight ensues in which Rafael accidentally kills Don Antonio. Lourdes, an ugly and unassuming clerk at the store, witnesses the outcome of the fight, helps Rafael incinerate the body, and provides an alibi for the police. Rafael wins his coveted promotion, but at a terrible cost: Lourdes blackmails Rafael into an unwanted relationship. He is forced to fire his many former lovers, to marry Lourdes (she proposes on a live reality TV show) and to support clown-like women's clothing of her design. Rafael becomes so depressed he begins to hallucinate, seeing the ghost of Don Antonio who suggests Rafael should kill Lourdes. As the police are also pressing him again, he causes a fire in the department store and fakes his death, in front of his wife and a police officer. Five years later, he (with a false identity) has a small business selling ties and socks, but Lourdes' clown-like clothes are a success and she becomes a millionaire. The spelling of the title is, as explained in the movie, a deliberate mistake. Reception. The film received very positive reviews from critics, 85% of critics gave the film a positive review based on 53 reviews and an average score of 7.1/10 according to Rotten Tomatoes.
589786	Vidya Sinha (born 15 November 1947, Mumbai) is an Indian actress who has acted in Bollywood films, most known for "Rajnigandha" (1974) and "Chhoti Si Baat" (1975). Film career. She began modelling and acting at the age of 18. Her first movie was Raja Kaka opposite Kiran Kumar. However, fame came to her through a low-budget, alternative cinema break-away hit Rajnigandha, directed by her mentor Basu Chatterjee. The movie, although having none of the trappings of a typical Bollywood blockbuster, was a major box office success. This was followed by many more small-budget art-house films like Choti Si Baat (1975), and later by more mainstream, bigger budget Bollywood productions like Pati Patni Aur Woh (1977). She is known for her pleasant roles in various movies she acted during her active career life. Personal life. Sinha was born on 15 November 1947 in Mumbai. Her father, Rana Pratap SIngh, was an Indian film producer. She married Venkateshwaran Iyer in 1968, when Vidya was 21, with the blessings of parents. It was after all this, and with her husband's encouragement and support, that Vidya stepped into films after she was offered the part of an ordinary middle-class girl. Her first film, Rajnigandha, released in 1974, was an unexpected runaway hit. It was a low-budget, no-frills film, shot in an urban middle-class milieu; the heroine, Vidya, belonged to exactly this stratum and totally looked the part. After the success of this film, Vidya did roles of the same type in several other films over a period of 12 years. By the mid-1980s, this type of role was no longer feasible in the Hindi film industry and Vidya was unwilling to shed her clothes and do indecent films. She winded down her film work and finally called it a day by 1986. Her daughter, Janhavi, was born in 1989. The next few years were spent in taking care of Janhavi, as well as, her ailing husband. Mr. Iyer died in 1996. With her daughter's encouragement, Vidya gradually returned to acting, working in TV serials like Bahu Rani (2000), Hum Do Hain Na, Bhabhi, Kavyanjali (2004), etc. Vidya is currently seen in the hit Zee TV show, Qubool Hai. Her last film appearance was in Salman Khan's Bodyguard.
774979	Perfect Pie is a play written by Judith Thompson, and first staged at Toronto's Tarragon Theatre in 2000, with Judith Thompson also directing. The assistant director for the original production was Caroline Azar. The original cast starred Nancy Palk (Patsy), Tara Rosling (Young Patsy), Sonja Smits (Francesca), and Liisa Repo-Martell (Marie - Francesca's original name). Music for the production was composed and performed by Bill Thompson. The story concerns the childhoods of Patsy and Marie and the impact it had on their later lives. Much of the dialogue is centered around their prom night when Marie was abused by more than one boy. The play deals with a number of complex themes, such as child abuse and rape. In 2002, it was adapted by Judith Thompson into a film directed by Barbara Willis Sweete, and starring Wendy Crewson, Barbara Williams, Rachel McAdams, Alison Pill, and Tom McCamus. The play was originally written as a monologue in 1993. It was published in book form by Playwrights Canada Press on September 1, 2000.
1058011	Joshua Michael "Josh" Peck (born November 10, 1986) is an American actor, comedian, and voice actor. He is best known for playing Josh Nichols in the Nickelodeon live-action sitcom "Drake & Josh". He began his career as a child actor in the late 1990s and early 2000s, and became known to young audiences after his role on "The Amanda Show". He has since acted in films such as "Mean Creek", "Drillbit Taylor", "The Wackness", "ATM", and "Red Dawn", along with voicing Eddie in the "Ice Age" franchise. Early life. Peck was born in Manhattan, New York City, where he attended The Professional Performing Arts School. His parents were unmarried at the time of his birth and he has never met his biological father. He grew up with his Jewish mother, Barbara, who is a career coach, and his maternal grandmother. Peck had asthma during his childhood, and often stayed indoors watching old sitcoms. He was inspired to become involved in stand-up comedy when he was eight years old. He performed in children's musical theater at New York's TADA! Youth Theater when he was nine years old. Career. Peck subsequently appeared in local children's theatre and performed stand-up comedy at Caroline's Comedy Club for the Audrey Hepburn foundation. At the age of 13, he was offered a role on Nickelodeon's "The Amanda Show" and, at his mother's suggestion, accepted the part and moved to Los Angeles to further pursue an acting career. Peck made his film debut in "Snow Day" (2000), and appeared regularly on "The Amanda Show" until the end of its run in 2002. He also starred opposite Alex D. Linz and Zena Grey in the theatrical film, "Max Keeble's Big Move", which was released on October 5, 2001. In 2001, he guest starred in an episode of the popular NBC drama "ER" called "Thy Will Be Done". During this period, Peck appeared in several independent films, including "Spun" and 2004's "Mean Creek", for which he received critical praise. He was cast as Josh Nichols, opposite Drake Bell's Drake Parker, in another Nickelodeon sitcom, "Drake & Josh", which began airing in 2004 and gained Peck recognition among young audiences. Peck's character, Josh Nichols, was smart, funny, and organized, but was always being tormented along with Drake by Megan Parker (Miranda Cosgrove), Drake's younger sister. Both characters sing in a remake of the song "Soul Man" by Sam and Dave. In 2006, Bell and Peck starred in their own TV movie called "Drake & Josh Go Hollywood", and in 2007, they starred in a sequel called '. Josh was nominated for Favorite Television Actor at the 2008 Nickelodeon Kids' Choice Awards for his work on "Drake & Josh". Peck also made his debut as a director in the "Drake & Josh" episode, Battle of Panthatar. He has also appeared in the series finale of "What's New, Scooby-Doo?", an episode of ' called Operation: C.A.K.E.D.-F.I.V.E., and the direct-to-video New Line Cinema film "Havoc". Peck returned to the character of Josh Nichols in 2008 for the television film "Merry Christmas, Drake and Josh". In 2006, Peck appeared in the independent film "Special", which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, and voiced Eddie, one of two possum brothers, in the animated sequel, ', which was released on March 31 of that year. Peck played a high school bully in 2008's "Drillbit Taylor", and starred in the films "The Wackness" (released July 2008), "American Primitive", "Safety Glass", and reprised his role as Eddie in '. In 2011, Peck had a cameo role on the hit Nickelodeon show "Victorious" as an audience member for a play Jade wrote. In 2012, Peck starred in the remake of "Red Dawn", and once again reprised his role as Eddie, in "". Personal life. Peck's favorite actors and inspirations are Richard Pryor, Oprah Winfrey, Jackie Gleason, Jerry Lewis, Bill Cosby, Ben Kingsley, and Morgan Freeman. Peck, like his "Drake & Josh" co-star and real-life best friend, Drake Bell, plays the piano. In the third season of "Drake & Josh", Peck was significantly thinner than he used to be, and by the fourth season of the show, he had lost even more weight. Peck stated: "I made a conscious effort to lose weight because I knew I could be happier as well as being healthier. I started by going on a diet a year and a half ago and I got a personal trainer, but I definitely have a healthier lifestyle now. Also I feel that because I do so much television, I am a better role model. I don't really understand why I should be a role model, but I know that kids do look up to me, so it is my responsibility to motivate people and be inspiring. I hope that I can do that for kids. It doesn't really matter what you look like though".
582612	Archana Puran Singh (born 26 September 1962) is an Indian television presenter, personality and film actress. She is most known for comedy roles in Bollywood movies and as a judge on comedy shows, like Sony TV India's "Comedy Circus". Puran Singh became popular when she played inconic comic roles of Miss Briganza in "Kuch Kuch Hota Hai", Preeto in "Mohabbatein" and lately Zohra in "Bol Bachchan" going through the role of Priyanka Chopra's boss in "Krrish". Archana Puran Singh has been judging the television reality comedy show known as "Comedy Circus" since 2006 and is the only judge to have appeared in all episodes. Career. In Mumbai, she started doing ad-films and was successful after her most famous ad for Band-Aid. The ad was produced by Jalal Agha. Noticing her talent he cast her in the lead role in his serial, "Mr and Mrs". Her next big break came with Pankaj Parasher's "Karamchand". Film career. She made her film debut in 1987, in "Jalwa" opposite Naseeruddin Shah. Although it was a big hit, Archana failed to catch the eye of the leading producers and directors; she received offers mainly for B-grade movies most of which were short on content and more on soft porn. Later, she did small roles in big banner films like "Agneepath" (1990), "Saudagar" (1991), "Shola aur Shabnam" (1992), "Aashiq Awara" (1993), and "Raja Hindustani" (1996); she did item songs in films like the Govinda-starrer thriller "Baaz" and Suniel Shetty starrer "Judge Mujrim". Thereafter, she has largely restricted herself to supporting roles in Hindi films, often in comedies. Some of her recent films include "Love Story 2050", "Mohabbatein", "Krrish", "Kuch Kuch Hota Hai", "Masti" and "Bol Bachchan". Amongst these, she is possibly best remembered for essaying the role of the flirtatious college professor Miss Braganza in the blockbuster "Kuch Kuch Hota Hai" and for 2006 hit "Krrish" as Priya (Priyanka Chopra)'s boss. In 2009 she starred in the Punjabi film "Tera Mera Ki Rishta". TV career. She became a television anchor, with her popular TV show "Wah, Kya Scene Hai" on Zee TV in 1993, which was followed by the highly successful, "Uncensored", in which she introduced High Society (HS) and Low Society (LS) concept, and sitcoms like, "Jaane Bhi Do Yaaron", "Shrimaan Shrimati" and "Archana Talkies" on Sony TV India. Later in her career, she received offers from television producers and most of her serials were successful like "Junoon" and "Shriman Shrimati". She started hosting chat shows featuring celebrity guests. In 2005, she was a contestant in the dance reality show, "Nach Baliye (Season 1)", in which she participated with her husband, Parmeet Sethi; they were eliminated in the sixth episode. In 2006, she and her husband hosted another dance reality show "Jhalak Dikhhla Jaa" (season 1). Thereafter, she appeared as a judge on comedy shows, including Sony TV India's "Comedy Circus". She appeared as a judge in "Comedy Circus (season 1)" (2007) and "Comedy Circus (season 2)" (2008). In January 2008, she hosted "Kaho Na Yaar Hai" on Star Plus, along with her husband, Parmeet Sethi. With the end of "Comedy Circus (season 2)" in September 2008, it was followed by another show, "Comedy Circus – Kaante Ki Takkar". After "Comedy Circus – Kaante Ki Takkar", she was the judge of "Comedy Circus – Teen Ka Tadka", "Comedy Circus Ke Superstar", "Comedy Circus Ka Jaddo", "Jubilee Comedy Circus" and "Comedy Circus Ke Taansen". Comedy Ka Naya Daur-Tabla toad, Kahaani Comedy Circus ki and the current "Comedy circus ke ajoobe" and "Comedy Circus Ke Mahabali". Personal life. She is married to actor Parmeet Sethi and they have two children, Aaryamann and Ayushmaan.
1377605	The Adventures of the American Rabbit (released in the UK as simply The American Rabbit) is an animated film released in 1986 by Clubhouse Pictures, and subsequently on DVD by MGM. Plot. The story begins just after the birth of Robert Rabbit (Barry Gordon). As his parents and friends welcome him into the world, a mysterious old rabbit who walks with a cane greets young Rob and disappears. Neither parent knows who he is, each assuming that he was from the opposite side of the family. Rob grows up as a normal child, skilled at sports and playing the piano, and the old rabbit shows up a few times to inquire about Rob's talents and attitude before disappearing. One day, when his parents become endangered by a falling boulder, Rob sprints towards them and changes into a striped and star-spangled superhero on golden rollerskates. The old rabbit reappears and tells Rob that he is the American Rabbit, capable of changing into superhero form when he sprints and changing back to normal when he says his own name. As Rob moves to the big city, he decides to keep his secret identity hidden. He finds a job as a piano player in the Panda Monium, a nightclub run by a panda named Teddy and a female rabbit named Bunny O'Hare. The club is harassed by a gang of jackals who run a Mafia-style protection racket. When Teddy refuses to buy insurance from the Jackals, they return on their motorcycles and wreck the club during a White Brothers show, while Rob is too focused on his playing to drive them off as the American Rabbit. Bunny O'Hare and Teddy organize a march and rally the next day. Walt (Kenneth Mars), the Jackals' well-dressed boss, orders them to ride their motorcycles in the march. They cause a distraction while Walt's buzzard destroys the cables that support a bridge the marchers are crossing, but their plot is thwarted by the American Rabbit. Teddy then announces his plans to do a cross-country tour with the White Brothers, which will allow him to raise enough money to rebuild the Panda Monium. An irritated Walt orders the Jackals to kidnap a gorilla (Lorenzo Music) named Ping Pong and turn him against the American Rabbit. They take him to a secret lair in the Grand Canyon and threaten to drown him unless he fights the American Rabbit for them, but Rob discovers that Ping Pong is missing. He sends Teddy, Bunny, and the White Brothers rafting down the river and is captured by the Jackals, but manages to turn into the American Rabbit and rescue Ping Pong. Rob and the gang decide to go to New Orleans to play at The Hog and Frog, but find that it has been burnt down. O'Hare sees an advertisement for a band to play at the Paradise club. They end up with the club until Rob realizes that the manager is part of the Jackal gang. Rob and his friends board a boat, where they are trapped inside while Walt and his crew engulf the boat in flames. Rob becomes the American Rabbit and manages to get everybody off the boat before it explodes. Bunny O'Hare starts to worry about Rob, but the American Rabbit assures her that he's fine. He promises to search for Rob and learn more about the mysterious fire, and overhears Walt and the Jackals planning to head to New York, where their master plan is afoot. The American Rabbit heads back into the water, where he transforms back into Rob and swims to shore. He suggests to Teddy that they should go to New York. Worried that they do not have instruments, Teddy tells them that he's got connections (who turn out to be penguins). Meanwhile, Walt and the Jackals kidnap a chocolate-making moose and his son and rent the Statue of Liberty for a day. They rig it with dynamite, and Walt threatens to blow up the visiting public if they refuse to serve him. The American Rabbit discovers the dynamite, follows Walt's voice to his hiding place, and clobbers him. Walt's clothes are the only thing that remain; it is revealed that "Walt" is actually the buzzard, Vultor. Perching on the detonator for the dynamite, he forces the Rabbit to deliver an announcement to the public: Vultor and the Jackals are in total control of the city, those who oppose them will be killed, and those who obey them will be rewarded with chocolate. Greatly ashamed by his failure to defeat Vultor and protect his friends, Rob disappears into the city. With the American Rabbit out of the picture, Vultor and the Jackals begin to enact their laws upon the city. However, the people turn on the Jackals when they fail to keep their promises and maintain order in the city, and Teddy, Bunny, Ping Pong, and the White Brothers free the moose and his son. Vultor curses the Jackals, dismissing them as traitors for sympathizing with the people's frustration, and swears to destroy the American Rabbit (and the city) with his doomsday switch. Rob, still humiliated by his earlier defeat, catches a taxi and tells the driver that he's a failure. The taxi driver turns out to be the elderly rabbit from the beginning of the film, who advises Rob that he "can't win 'em all," but he can make "a power play of his own." Rob notices a poster for Niagara Falls, which spurs him back to action. He uses his powers to stop the flow of the water that runs the city's hydroelectric turbines, cutting the power to the city and deactivating the doomsday switch. A furious Vultor faces the American Rabbit for a final showdown, but the Rabbit chases him into a blizzard and refuses his offer to join forces. Vultor makes one last attempt to kill the American Rabbit by diving at him, but misses and plunges to his death. The American Rabbit returns as Rob to rescue his friends, and gets a kiss from Bunny O'Hare. Production. An American/Japanese co-production between Murakami-Wolf-Swenson (now Fred Wolf Films Dublin) and Toei Animation, "The Adventures of the American Rabbit" was based upon the poster character of the same name created by pop artist Stewart Moskowitz. The artist's characters were adopted as the mascots for many major Japanese companies, hence the film's backing by Japanese investors and the participation of the aforementioned Toei Animation. Legendary animator Shingo Araki was among the animation staff working on the film. The screenplay was written by Norman Lenzer, from the ABC television movie "The Point!". It was co-directed by Fred Wolf, and longtime Toei Animation director Nobutaka Nishizawa. Reception and release. The film was among the first to be released by Clubhouse Pictures, a division of independent distributor, Atlantic Releasing, which specialized in children's entertainment. It was not well received by critics or audiences through its original run. The film made $291,126 during its opening weekend from 242 screens and ran for two months, grossing $1,268,443. Charles Solomon of "The Los Angeles Times" said, "Both the writing and the animation in "The Adventures of the American Rabbit" are so inept that the viewer expects the governor to interrupt the film and declare the theater a disaster area!" MGM Home Entertainment released "American Rabbit" on DVD in February 2005. It was presented in fullscreen (as opposed to its original widescreen release) and contained no extras.
589097	Khamoshi (Hindi: ख़ामोशी, Urdu: خاموشی, translation: "Silence") is a 1969 black-and-white Hindi film directed by Asit Sen, starring Rajesh Khanna and Waheeda Rehman. It especially remembered for its songs with haunting music by Hemant Kumar and some haunting lyrics by Gulzar in songs like "Tum pukar lo…tumhara intezaar hai" sung by Hemant Kumar, "Woh shaam kuch ajeeb thi" by Kishore Kumar and "Humne dekhi hai in aankhon ki mehekti khushboo" sung by Lata Mangeshkar. Though what really made this film stand out was the B&W cinematography by Kamal Bose, who won the Filmfare Award for its work. The film is considered Waheeda Rehman's finest acting feat, as she carries the entire film through her powerful yet understated acting, she received a Filmfare nomination for it. The film was shot in Calcutta. The film is based on Bengali short story titled, 'Nurse Mitra' by noted Bengali writer, Ashutosh Mukherjee, and is an almost frame by frame remake of director Asit Sen's own Bengali film, "Deep Jwele Jaai" (1959) starring Suchitra Sen. Background. Director Asit Sen (not to be confused with the actor-comedian Asit Sen) acted in the original Bengali film Deep Jwélé Jaai (1959) in a role, which was essayed by Dharmendra in Khamoshi, where the movie-goers actually could not recognise him because it was a dark scene marked with the baritone voice of Hemant Kumar. Later he revealed himself in an interview in the 1990s. After he success in off-beat films, "Mamta" (1966) and "Anokhi Raat" (1968), Sen wanting to make it big in Bombay as well decided to remake his Bengali hit. Actress Waheeda Rehman suggested the name of actor Rajesh Khanna, having been impressed by his work in "Aakhri Khat" (1966), though she later said, that Sanjeev Kumar would have been a better choice, as "he was not mature enough to enact such a complex character. " as compared with Basanta Choudhury in the Bengali original, while her own performance came "nowhere near Suchitra Sen", though she credited director for helping her lot during difficult scenes.
1072306	Gamera the Brave, released in Japan as , is a kaiju film released in 2006, produced by Kadokawa Pictures. This is the 12th "Gamera" film and the first produced by Kadokawa Pictures after they purchased a percentage of the remaining assets of Daiei Motion Picture Company, the original company responsible for the "Gamera" films. Plot. Precipitated by the premise that Gamera self-destructed to destroy several Gyaos in 1973, the tale picks up thirty three years later, when the son of one of the survivors of that incident finds an unusual egg, from which a baby turtle hatches. The boy, Toru, raises the creature, quickly realizing it as remarkable in that it hovers and breathes fire. The creature quickly outgrows the house, is relocated by Toru and his friends to maintain secrecy, and then disappears. Concurrently, many shipping disasters occur in the area, the cause of which is the kaiju Zedus (ジーダス), which soon thereafter rampages through the city. It corners Toru and his friends, but the boy's former pet, now significantly larger, intercedes. The young Gamera is wounded in the fight and captured by government officials, who hook the creature up to a machine which infuses it with liquid derived from mysterious red stones found in the vicinity of egg, and which scientists theorise gives Gameras their power. Zedus attacks again, and the Gamera, now larger, goes out to battle him. The human characters determine that the still-immature Gamera must consume the red stone which Toru had found with the egg in order to fully realize its powers. The egg is located and, with some difficulty, delivered to Toru, who throws it into the Gamera's mouth during the battle. The Gamera's power of rocket-propelled flight manifests, and it defeats Zedus by breathing a fireball at it. The kaiju escapes further government investigation with Toru's assistance, and flies off as the boy wishes him farewell.
190836	Madeinusa is a 2005 film set in the fictional indigenous village of Manayaycuna ("the town no-one can enter" in Quechua) in the Peruvian Andes. The story covers three days in the lives of the villagers and a stranger from Lima. The stranger, Salvador (Carlos de la Torre), is unwelcome because he has arrived at the beginning of the "Holy Time," a syncretic religious festival spanning Good Friday and Easter Sunday. The villagers of Manayaycuna believe that during "Holy Time" God, symbolized by an effigy of Christ, is dead and, therefore, nothing is a sin. The drama centers around the encounter of the eponymous Madeinusa (Magaly Solier), a teenaged girl selected as the festival's Mater Dolorosa and daughter of the village mayor, with Salvador.
1238484	Real Men is a 1987 comedy/science fiction film starring James Belushi and John Ritter as the heroes: suave, womanizing CIA agent Nick Pirandello (Belushi) and weak and ineffectual insurance agent Bob Wilson (Ritter). Plot. The film opens with Agent Pillbox (played by John Ritter) walking through a forest, when he is shot and killed by an unseen assassin. Pillbox had been engaged on a dry run for a meeting that was to take place with a group of aliens seeking to help humans eliminate a chemical that will end all life on Earth, which scientists accidentally dumped in the ocean. The fee for this lifesaving miracle? The aliens want a glass of water. However, the Russians, along with a rogue element in the FBI, would like to get to the aliens first because they have also offered something called the "Big Gun" - a gun so big that it could destroy a planet. Since the aliens have dealt with Pillbox, he is the only one they trust. Tough guy government agent Nick Pirandello is recruited to escort a meek office worker named Bob Wilson (also played by Ritter) whom FBI computers have found as a lookalike for the deceased Agent Pillbox. However, Wilson is no agent, having been easily pushed around by a group of bullies who lived down the street, and by a milkman who was trying to seduce his wife. Pirandello is unconventional, and likes to do things his way. He meets Wilson at Wilson's home, with Russian agents close on his tail. Their first meeting is to say the least awkward, with Wilson thinking he's an intruder and trying (poorly, yet comically) to attack him, culminating in a shoot-out with the Russians that devastates Wilson's house. With Wilson now reluctantly in tow, they travel across the country via the "long scenic route" in order to meet with the Aliens somewhere near Washington, D.C. Despite being told the truth, Wilson repeatedly tries to escape (believing the agent crazy and a kidnapper) until Pirandello shows him a piece of alien technology that was gifted to him. Now a believer, Wilson is willing to do the job, but is still just a weakling compared to Agent Pirandello, that is, until a chance meeting with corrupt FBI agents dressed as clowns. After being lied to, and told he's a sleeper "Super Agent", he charges into battle. Though he's knocked out with one punch by the clowns, Pirandello defeats them, but makes the waking/groggy Wilson believe he did it, though he admits the sleeper agent story was a lie. It proved effective though as Wilson gains a new macho attitude that he'd never had. As Wilson grows stronger, Pirandello grows weaker, because he fell in love with a woman (whom he later found was a dominatrix) he met in a bar in Pittsburgh. After Pirandello abandons the mission, Wilson is left on his own. During a final shootout staged in the woods between rogue FBI element and Wilson, Pirandello finally comes to his senses and rejoins the mission. Wilson completes his quest and they receive the "good package" to save humanity. Wilson returns to his home to find it completely rebuilt. Using his new-found machismo, he deals with the bullies and the amorous milkman, bringing the final curtain to the film.
587605	Bhairava Dweepam is a very successful Tollywood folk movie that was released by the banner of Chandamama Vijaya Combines in the year 1994. The movie was starred by Nandamuri Balakrishna, Roja Selvamani, Rambha, Kaikala Satyanarayana, Manorama, K. R. Vijaya, Babu Mohan, Giri Babu, Subhalekha Sudhakar, B. Padmanabham, Vijayakumar, Suthi Velu and many more. Produced by B. Venkatarama Reddy, Music by Madhavapeddi Suresh, Story, Screenplay & Direction by Singeetam Srinivasa Rao. Plot. Jayachandra Maharaja (Vijay Kumar) of the Chandraprabha Dynasty deserts Vasundhara (K. R. Vijaya), a woman who gives birth to his son. Vasundhara, loses the child in a cyclone while crossing a river. She is fouf the hermitage revives her. Vasundhara, on learning of the loss of her son attempts suicide. Concerned, Jamadagni creates a mystical flower on a bush, and tells Vasundhara that the flower will be in fresh and in bloom as long as her son is alive and well. Meanwhile, the child is found by tribals and taken to their village, Kotala Kona. The village chieftain and his wife adopt the child and name him Vijay (Nandamuri Balakrishna). Once Vijay and Kondanna (Babu Mohan) goes for a tree of water, which gives immortality. From there Vijay hears a song by a princess Padma Devi (Roja Selvamani) in a Vasanta Vanam (Garden). He admires her beauty and escapes from the scene. The soldiers report this incident in the court of Brahmananda Bhupati (Kaikala Satyanarayana) of Kartikeya Dynasty. Vijaya intrudes into the castle to the see Padma secretly. He speaks with padma and escapes from the king's castle successfully with his sword fight skill. As a result, Padma falls in love with Vijay. Brahmananda Bhupati invites the young warriors to Swayamvara. Vijay and Kondanna arrives to the castle in disguise. At the same time Uttar (Giri Babu) & Dakshin (Subhalekha Sudhakar), sons of Jayachandra Maharaja's second wife too arrive to the castle. Confused Brahmananda Bhupati allows both parties to stay in the castle for one day. After a song with Padma, Vijay's disguise is revealed in the castle. In a very far away Island, Bhairava, a wizard – who aims at winning immortality, is performing kshudra puja for the giant sculpture of dark goddess. Wanting to sacrifice a virgin's blood for the dark goddess, at a night, with his magic, he brings Padma, along with the bed, to the Island. In the trance Padma gives a word to the dark goddess that she will come back on the next full moon day for her offering. The same night, Bhairava sends Padma back her castle. Next morning Brahmananda Bhupati calls in a court doctor to medicate Padma. The doctor reveals that she was affected by black magic. Brahmananda Bhupati is made to mistake that a tribal man like Vijay could have performed such black magic. Vijay is secured with the chains and brought into the castle by the soldiers. When Brahmananda Bhupati reveals that Padmani was taken ill, Vijay unchains himself and meets Padma in the castle. Padma reveals what happened at that full moon night. Vijay escapes from the chase of soldiers, but falls unconscious at a place near Jamadagni Ashram. Vasundhara and few men see Vijay in unconsciousness. After the death of Queen, Uttar and Dakshin grabs the throne of Chandraprabha Dynasty, by leaving their father alone in a desert. In Jamadagni Ashram Vijay comes out from unconsciousness. Vasudhara and Vijay could not recognize to each other. Vijay reveals the princess Padma has a life threat on coming full moon night. Vasudhara blesses Vijay, by tying a magical rope to his arm. The wizard fog comes again into the castle to put all into unconscious. Vijay sees Padma along with her cot is magically flying into the air. He jumps and hangs to a side of the flying bed. He is pulled down by some roots which come up from a cave near to the Island of Bhairava. Vijay slays the roots which results a hermit cursed nymph to regain her form. As a gratitude, the nymph blesses Vijay with a magical ring and reveals that Bhairava is about to sacrifice Padma on a full moon night. Vijay enters the cave in which the Bhairava is performing Kshudrapuja to the dark goddess. Bhairava advices Padma to have a bath and wear sacrificial costume. At the pool in the cave Vijay brings back Padma from the trance. With the help of the magical ring, Vijay takes Padma on the bed, whilst Bhairava is performing puja facing towards the dark goddess. Bhairava sends a two headed dragon to stop Vijay taking Padma on the Cot. The dragon separates Vijay from the cot, but the bed reaches the castle. Vijay kills the dragon in the air. The dragon bursts out and Vijay is dropped down into the sea. A couple of naughty devils (Suthi Velu) and (Kovai Sarala) finds Vijay falling unconscious on the desert shore of the sea. With the magic, the devils bring Vijay to consciousness. Their story was that they were devils in the court of Bhairava. They stood against the evil sorcery, for why Bhairva stuffed them in a bottle and threw the bottle at the shore of the sea, sharing a border with the desert. They were redeemed out when a blind man had kicked the bottle. To feed the hungry blind man, they grab the fruits from Tuumburadeva (God of music) temple. When the blind man is about to eat the plate of fruits, a white flying horse prevents him eating by kicking the plate. Thence the devils are making him to eat, but the horse is preventing him to eat by kicking the plate. The devils plead Vijay to convince the horse and make the blind man to eat the food, so that they can take the leave. Vijay with his art of music convinces the horse. With Vijay's plead to the horse, the blind man regains his previous form of king. The naughty devils reveals to Vijay that Sata-ratna (100 gem) Necklace found in Yakshini Loka, would protect Padma from the threat of Bhairava. Vijay directs the king to Kotala Kona. Brahmananda Bhupati announces that he would give half of the dynasty along with his daughter in marriage, to the one who saves his daughter. As directed by the naughty devils Vijay travels towards the east and reaches Yakshini Loka, where he meets Lilliputs. In a comic incident Vijay saves Lilliputs. The Lilliputs help Vijay to reach Yakshini Loka and shows the locked room in which the necklace is placed. A Yakshini (Rambha) start to dance on seeing Vijay, whilst the Lilliputs begin to find the key for opening the door. In the dance Vijay finds the key tied to the ankle of Yakshini. In false romance with Yakshini, the Lilliput steals the key. Vijay enters into the room by facing hurdes and then enters a room of glasses. In the room of glasses he fights with a dreadful monster, which has life in the glasses. The case of necklace appears upon Vijay killing the monster by breaking the glasses. Yakshini curses Vijay who is rushing out with the necklace. To the curse Vijay totally loses his handsomeness and turns into a very ugly man. Yakshini reveals that the necklace will lose its power if Vijay reveals out any one who he is. On a full moon night, Vijay, in the form of an ugly man, enters the castle with the necklace and pleads Padma to wear it. Padma and others could not recognize who the ugly man is. In the panic, Padma wears the necklace, which drives off the death fog entering the castle. Brahmananda Bhupati remembers of his promise and arranges for the marriage between the ugly man and Padma. Bhairava sends a devil in the disguise of a priest by name Mattepa Sastri (Padmanabham) to upset the marriage. Mattepa Sastri says that the necklace was stolen by the ugly man from Vijay. In anger Padma throws the necklace down. As a result, the necklace loses its power and Mattepa Sastri vanishes from there along with Padma and appears at Bhairavudu. Brahmananda Bhupati realizes that the ugly man was Vijay. Vijay returns to Jamadagni Ashram to meet Vasundhara. The ugly man reveals his flashback. Vasundhara realizes that the ugly man to be her son and reveals that Chandraprabha Maharaja to be his father. Vijay invokes the horse. Vasundhara prays for a goddess and takes all the ugly of her son. Vijay regains his shape to her prayer and goes to the Bhairava Dweepa on the white horse to save Padma from the sacrifice. In the fight Vijay slays the head of Bhairava with the sacrificial sword. Bhairava dies and it results in the collapse of the dark goddess along with the ruin of the cave. Vijay escapes out with Padma. The nymph appears again and regains the shape of his mother. Vijay reaches the castle with Padma. The movie ends with the happy marriage of Padma with Vijay and the union of Chandraprabha Dynasty and Kartikeya Dynasty.
1164156	Benjamin Sherman "Scatman" Crothers (May 23, 1910 – November 22, 1986) was an American actor, singer, dancer and musician known for his work as Louie the Garbage Man on the TV show "Chico and the Man", and as Dick Hallorann in "The Shining" in 1980. He was also a prolific voiceover artist, and provided the voices of Meadowlark Lemon in the animated TV version of The Harlem Globetrotters, Jazz the Autobot in "The Transformers", the title character in "Hong Kong Phooey", and Scat Cat in the 1970 film "The Aristocats". Early life. Crothers was born in Terre Haute, Indiana. He got the name Scatman when he auditioned for a radio show in 1932 at the former WSMK (now WING) in Dayton, Ohio. The director didn't think his given name was catchy enough, so Crothers quickly concocted the handle Scat Man, although this talent, scat singing, would develop later. He continued to enjoy this talent throughout his career, even teaching scat singing to college students. Later, the nickname was condensed to Scatman by Arthur Godfrey. In his early career, he also associated with many Cleveland-based acts and frequently played on the scene in Ohio. Career. Crothers started his musical career as a 15-year-old drummer in a speakeasy band in his home town of Terre Haute. He played a variety of instruments, including drums and guitar, on jazz club band circuits in his early days as an entertainer. Among the people he performed for was notorious gangster, Al Capone. Crothers formed his own band in the 1930s and traveled to Oakland California with the band in 1948, he played piano at the Port O' Call and Walt's 405 Club. He also appeared in a 1950 episode of The Phil Harris/Alice Faye Radio Program performing "Chattanoogie Shoe Shine Boy" with Harris who introduced him as Scatman Roth. He left Oakland to stay in Los Angeles in 1952. Film. Crothers made his official debut in the movie "Meet Me at the Fair" (1953). He worked in both movies and television, often taking bit parts. He also made musical shorts and played drums with Slim Gaillard in the mid-1940s. Crothers then landed a major supporting role in the 1970 animated film "The Aristocats" from Walt Disney Productions, providing the voice of "Scat Cat". He also performed the film's theme song "Ev'rybody Wants to be a Cat". Good friends with Jack Nicholson, he appeared in four of his films: "The King of Marvin Gardens" (1972), "The Fortune" (1975), "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" (1975), and "The Shining" (1980). His later film appearances included the role of a wizened fable-telling convict in the extremely controversial Ralph Bakshi animated film "Coonskin" (1975), as a train porter in "Silver Streak" (1976), as a liveryman in "The Shootist" (1976), as a ringmaster of a struggling wild west show in "Bronco Billy" (1980), the Baseball coach and school teacher in "Zapped!" (1982), an angel in "Two of a Kind" (1983) and finally Mr. Bloom, a magician in the guise of an old man in the "Kick the Can" segment of '. Crothers reprised his role as the Autobot warrior Jazz in ', though due to the fact that the film was intended partially as a showcase for new characters being introduced to the toyline and upcoming season three canon, Jazz's role is minimal at best, appearing only a few times in the course of the film. He is among the characters from the original Autobot lineup of the previous two seasons who survives the film. Some sources erroneously list him as a dancer in the Duke Ellington short, "Symphony in Black" (1935), who is first seen dancing with a woman in his apartment before taking her out. Later, he encounters his jilted lover, played by the also uncredited Billie Holiday. They briefly have words, he pushes her down and exits with his new girlfriend before her song. This role was actually played by Earl Snakehips Tucker, who also appears at the end of the short. Television. Even though Crothers worked in television at the beginning of his career, he really came into his own in the medium doing voiceover work on several animated series, beginning with his voicework in Disney's "The Aristocats". In the 1970s, fans recognized his distinctive voice as "Hong Kong Phooey", and the voice of Meadowlark Lemon in the "Harlem Globetrotters" cartoon series. In 1966 an animated special from the Hanna-Barbera studios aired called "The New Alice in Wonderland (or What's a Nice Kid Like You Doing in a Place Like This?)", a hip take on the Lewis Carroll story that featured Sammy Davis, Jr. as a swingin', beatnik Cheshire Cat; the special was followed up by an audio adaptation for records (on Hanna-Barbera's HB Records label), but with Davis exclusive to the Reprise label, Crothers provided the Cat's record voice, and an even more exuberant spin on the character. Additionally, he made guest appearances on many popular shows, including "Dragnet" in 1967, "Bewitched" and "McMillan & Wife" in 1971, "Adam-12" in 1972 (as "George Strothers"), "Ironside" in 1973, "" and "Sanford and Son" in 1974, "Starsky and Hutch" in 1977, "Charlie's Angels" in 1978, "Magnum, P.I." in 1980, and "Taxi" in 1983. Also in 1980, he was on two episodes of "Lavern & Shirley" as a porter. In the 1980s, he gained a new fanbase, providing the voice of the smooth-talking, music-loving Autobot Jazz on the television series "The Transformers". During his appearance on "Sanford and Son" he joined Redd Foxx for two musical numbers. One of which was a memorable version of the standard "All of Me", where he accompanied Foxx on tenor guitar. Crothers starred in three short-lived 1980s television series: "One of the Boys" (1982), "Casablanca" (1983), and "Morningstar/Eveningstar" (1986).
1063995	Down with Love is a 2003 romantic comedy film, made as a pastiche of and homage to the early 1960s American romantic sex comedies. It was directed by Peyton Reed and stars Renée Zellweger and Ewan McGregor. The story follows a woman who advocates female independence in combat with a lothario, and patriarchal, even male chauvinist, society of the 1950s and early 1960s. Plot. New in New York City, Barbara Novak arrives at Banner House to present her new work, "Down with Love", a book the intent of which is to free women from love, teach them to enjoy sex without commitment, and to replace the need for a man with things such as chocolate. Following her rules would, she believes, help to give women a boost in the workplace and in the world in general. The men who run Banner House refuse to support the book. The only way Vikki Hiller, Barbara's editor, can find to promote the book is for Barbara to meet Catcher Block – a successful writer for the magazine "Know" and a notorious "ladies' man, man's man, man about town" – but he avoids her repeatedly by postponing their dates until she gets fed up, insults him, and walks out. Catcher's boss and best friend, Peter MacMannus, and Vikki take a liking to one another. However, their relationship revolves around Barbara and Catcher, and neither is brave enough to express their feelings for the other. Peter feels overshadowed by Catcher's strong personality, and Vikki wants to see emotional commitment in her lover. She even assumes Peter must be gay due to his perceived lack of interest. Barbara starts promoting her book with Vikki's help, and things take off when they get Judy Garland to sing the song "Down with Love" as a promotion to the book on "The Ed Sullivan Show". Sales skyrocket, as housewives and women around the world buy the book and rebel against their men; Catcher now wants to meet Barbara, but now it is "she" who rejects "him". It all comes to a boiling point when Barbara appears on a national TV show talking about a chapter from the book – "The Worst Kind of Man" – and cites Catcher Block as the perfect example. His date rejects him, which infuriates him. Catch swears he will prove Barbara is the same as every other woman, wanting the same things men do. He arranges for a casual meeting at a dry cleaner shop, taking advantage of the fact that Barbara has never met or seen him, and he poses as an astronaut, Major Zip Martin, attentive and polite. Barbara appears to be immediately infatuated with this man who seemingly has no idea who she is, in contrast to men who now avoid her, viewing her as the enemy since the publication of her book. "Zip" takes her to the most fashionable locations in New York while maintaining considerable sexual tension between them by feigning naivete and a desire to remain chaste until he is "ready" for a physical relationship. But he starts falling for her, and it gets harder to go through with his plan. When Barbara finds Catcher/Zip at a party he is almost caught out, and decides it is time to take everything to the next level: he tells Barbara that Catcher Block wants to interview him for an exposé on the NASA space program and asks her to accompany him. It is his own apartment, and he sets everything up to record her saying she loves him. But then it is she who reveals the truth: she knew he was really Catcher from the beginning, but she also lied as she is not Barbara Novak but Nancy Brown, once one of Catcher's many secretaries, who fell in love with him while working at "Know", but who turned him down when he asked her out because she did not want to be just another one in his long list of romances. She tells him she did this to be different from all the women he knew, and make him love her. They both realize that Catcher does love her, but as he is proposing, one of his many lovers appears and thanks Barbara for what she's done for womankind. Barbara realizes that she does not want love or him as she has become a real "down with love" girl. Vikki and Peter's relationship also changes when she insults him for helping Catcher. Peter realizes he is indeed like any other man and takes Vikki to Catcher's apartment to take things to the next level. Days later, Catcher is completely depressed; all his efforts to win Barbara back have failed. Even his exposé is ruined now that Barbara has told her story in her own magazine, "Now". Peter is also depressed as his relationship with Vikki is now apparently based only on sex. Catcher realizes he can do something and writes a new exposé "How Falling In Love With Barbara Novak Made Me A New Man". He learns there is an opening at "Now" and goes for an interview with her. There, he tells her how much she changed him, and it is obvious she wants him but turns him down anyway; he says he wished there could be a middle ground for them "somewhere between a blonde and a brunette", referring to her real persona, where she was a brunette. As he is leaving her office, he realizes she is not coming after him, but she surprises him on the elevator, showing him a bright red hair style: she has found the middle ground and she wants to be with him. They fly to Vegas to get married, influencing Vikki and Peter, who also decide to get married. The end credits show their marriage has resulted in a new book intended to end the battle of the sexes. The pair end by singing "Here's To Love". Style. The film is an affectionate pastiche of the sex comedies of the early 1960s with Doris Day, Rock Hudson and Tony Randall, such as "Pillow Talk" and "Lover Come Back". Randall played the third lead in all three Day-Hudson films and has a cameo role in "Down With Love", playing the owner of Novak's publishing house, as an homage to the previous films. It was to be his final screen performance. The film also features David Hyde Pierce (playing the typical Randall role as the somewhat nerdy best friend), Sarah Paulson, Rachel Dratch and Jeri Ryan in supporting roles. The sets, costumes, cinematography, editing, score, opening credits, and visual effects (including split-screen shots during phone calls heavily laced with double entendres between the two leads), are carefully designed to echo the style of 1960s comedies. The New York City skyline of 1962 was digitally recreated for backdrops. A greenscreen technique was used to simulate unconvincing 1960s rear projection using restored street footage from the late 1950s and early 1960s. The film begins with the 1960s logos for 20th Century Fox and for CinemaScope, a wide-screen process introduced in the 1950s, developed and owned by 20th Century Fox. The Regency Enterprises logo is in pink, and contains a saxophone jazz rendition of its theme. Reception and box office. "Down with Love" received 60% "Fresh" on Rotten Tomatoes. "Chicago Sun-Times" critic Roger Ebert spoke of the film fairly positively, saying parts were "fun", and describing Zellweger's speech at the end as "a torrent of words out from her character's innermost soul". The film underperformed, making less than $40 million at the box office worldwide. Soundtrack. The film's title comes from the song "Down with Love" as sung by Judy Garland, who is seen singing it on "The Ed Sullivan Show" in one scene. The song "Here's to Love" sung by Zellweger and McGregor during the closing credits (and in its entirety on the DVD release as a special feature) was a last-minute addition to the film. Songwriters Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman appear in the number as the pianist and the barman, respectively. According to the DVD commentary, it was added at the suggestion of Ewan McGregor, who pointed out the opportunity the filmmakers had to unite the stars of two recently popular musical films (his "Moulin Rouge!" and Zellweger's "Chicago"). The songs "Kissing A Fool" and "For Once In My Life", sung by Michael Bublé, previously appeared on Bublé's 2003 self-titled album.
1163246	Sir Cedric Webster Hardwicke (19 February 1893 – 6 August 1964) was an English stage and film actor whose career spanned nearly fifty years. His theatre work included notable performances in productions of the plays of Shakespeare and Shaw, and his film work included leading roles in a number of adapted literary classics. Life. Hardwicke was born in Lye, Worcestershire, the son of Jessie,"née" Masterson, and her husband Dr. Edwin Webster Hardwicke. He attended Bridgnorth Grammar School in Shropshire, after which he was intended to train as a doctor but failed to pass the necessary examinations. He turned to the theatre and trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA). In 1928, he married the English actress Helena Pickard. Hardwicke's son was the actor Edward Hardwicke. Stage career. Hardwicke made his first appearance on stage at the Lyceum Theatre, London, in 1912 during the run of Frederick Melville's melodrama "The Monk and the Woman", when he took over the part of Brother John. During that year he was at Her Majesty's Theatre understudying, and subsequently appeared at the Garrick Theatre in Charles Klein's play "Find the Woman", and "Trust the People". In 1913 he joined Benson's Company and toured in the provinces, South Africa and Rhodesia. During 1914 he toured with Miss Darragh (Letitia Marion Dallas, d. 1917) in Laurence Irving's play "The Unwritten Law", and he appeared at the Old Vic in 1914 as Malcolm in "Macbeth", Tranio in "The Taming of the Shrew", and the gravedigger in "Hamlet", among other roles. The First World War intervened in his career, and from 1914 to 1921 he served an officer in the British Army in France. Following his discharge, in January 1922 he joined the Birmingham Repertory Company, playing a range of parts from the drooping young lover Faulkland in "The Rivals" to the roistering Sir Toby Belch in "Twelfth Night". He played many classical roles on stage, appearing at London's top theatres, making his name on the stage performing works by Bernard Shaw, who said that Hardwicke was his fifth favourite actor after the four Marx Brothers. As one of the leading Shavian actors of his generation, Hardwicke starred in such Shavian works as "Caesar and Cleopatra", "Pygmalion", "The Apple Cart", "Candida", "Too True to Be Good", and "Don Juan in Hell", making such an impression that at age 41 he became the youngest actor to be knighted (this occurred in the 1934 New Year's Honours; Laurence Olivier subsequently took the record in 1947 when he was knighted at the age of 40). Other stage successes included "The Amazing Dr. Clitterhouse", "Antigone" and "A Majority of One", winning a Tony Award nomination for his performance as a Japanese diplomat. In 1928, while appearing with Edith Day, Paul Robeson and Alberta Hunter in the London production of "Showboat", he married Helena Pickard. In December 1935, Hardwicke was elected Rede Lecturer to Cambridge University for 1936, where took as his subject "The Drama Tomorrow". In the late 1930s he moved to the US, initially for film work (see below). In the early 1940s he continued his stage career touring and in New York. In 1944 Hardwicke returned to Britain, again touring, and reappeared on the London stage, at the Westminster Theatre, on 29 March 1945, as Richard Varwell in a revival of Eden and Adelaide Phillpotts' comedy "Yellow Sands", and subsequently toured in this on the continent. He returned to America late in 1945 and appeared with Ethel Barrymore in December in a revival of Shaw's "Pygmalion", and continued on the New York stage the following year. In 1946, he starred opposite Katharine Cornell as King Creon in her production of Jean Anouilh's adaptation of the Greek tragedy "Antigone". In 1948 he joined the Old Vic Company at the New Theatre to play Sir Toby Belch, Doctor Faustus, and Gaev in "The Cherry Orchard", but, according the critic and biographer W. A. Darlington, "it was about this time that he confessed to a friend that he was finding the competition in London too hot for him", and he moved permanently to the US. In 1951–1952, he appeared on Broadway in Shaw's "Don Juan in Hell" with Agnes Moorehead, Charles Boyer and Charles Laughton. Film and TV work. Hardwicke's first appearance in a British film was in 1931, and from the late 1930s he was in great demand in Hollywood. He played Dr. David Livingstone opposite Spencer Tracy's Henry Morton Stanley in the 1939 film "Stanley and Livingstone" and was also memorable that year as Frollo in "The Hunchback of Notre Dame", with Charles Laughton as Quasimodo. In 1940 he played Mr. Jones in a screen version of Joseph Conrad's novel "Victory". (Frollo and Jones are among the few truly evil characters that Hardwicke played.) He also starred in "The Ghost of Frankenstein" (1942), as the unfortunate Ludwig von Frankenstein, alongside Lon Chaney Jr. and Bela Lugosi. Hardwicke played in such films as "Les Misérables" (1935), "King Solomon's Mines" (1937), "The Keys of the Kingdom" (1944), "The Winslow Boy" (1948) and Olivier's "Richard III" (1955). He was also featured as King Arthur in the comedy/musical, "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court" (1949), singing "Busy Doing Nothing" in a trio with Bing Crosby and William Bendix, and as the Pharaoh Seti I in Cecil B. DeMille's 1956 film "The Ten Commandments". He appeared in a 1956 episode of "Alfred Hitchcock Presents" entitled "Wet Saturday" in which he portrayed Mr. Princey, an aristocratic gentleman who tries to cover up a murder to avoid public scandal. On 6 March 1958, he guest starred on NBC's country variety series, "The Ford Show, Starring Tennessee Ernie Ford". In the 1961–1962 television season, Hardwicke starred as Professor Crayton in Gertrude Berg's sitcom "Mrs. G. Goes to College", which ran for twenty-six weeks on CBS. The story line had Berg attending college as a 62-year-old widowed freshman studying under Hardwicke, with whom she had previously acted. Earlier, Hardwicke had guest starred on the Howard Duff and Ida Lupino CBS sitcom "Mr. Adams and Eve". He starred in "The Twilight Zone" episode "Uncle Simon" that first aired 15 November 1963. His final acting role was in the series "The Outer Limits" in the episode "The Forms of Things Unknown". Death. Hardwicke died August 6, 1964 at the age of 71 in New York from emphysema. He is buried in Golders Green Crematorium, London. Hardwicke left two volumes of memoirs: "Let's Pretend: Recollections and Reflections of a Lucky Actor", 1932 and "A Victorian in Orbit: as told to James Brough", 1962. He is commemorated by a sculpture by Tim Tolkien at Lye, commissioned by Dudley Metropolitan Borough Council. The memorial takes the form of a giant filmstrip, the illuminated cut metal panels illustrating scenes from some of Hardwicke's best-known roles, which include "The Hunchback of Notre Dame", "Things to Come", and "The Ghost of Frankenstein". It was unveiled in November 2005. Thorns School and Community College in neighbouring Quarry Bank has renamed its drama theatre in his honour, as the Hardwicke Theatre. He also has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
1265358	Una Merkel (December 10, 1903 – January 2, 1986) was an American Tony Award-winning stage and film actress. Life and career. Una Merkel was born in Covington, Kentucky, and grew up in Philadelphia and New York City. She was raised a Methodist. She bore a resemblance to actress Lillian Gish and began her career as a stand-in for Gish, most notably in the 1928 classic "The Wind", a late silent film. Merkel appeared in a few films during the silent era, including the two-reel "Love's Old Sweet Song" (1923) made by Lee DeForest in his Phonofilm sound-on-film process, and starring Louis Wolheim and Donald Gallaher. However, she spent most of her time in New York City working on Broadway.
1103350	Sir Andrew John Wiles, KBE, FRS (born 11 April 1953) is a British mathematician and a Royal Society Research Professor at Oxford University, specializing in number theory. He is most notable for proving Fermat's Last Theorem. Early life and education. Wiles is the son of Maurice Frank Wiles (1923–2005), the Regius Professor of Divinity at the University of Oxford and Patricia Wiles (née Mowll). His father worked as the Chaplain at Ridley Hall, Cambridge, for the years 1952–55. Wiles was born in Cambridge, England, in 1953, and he attended King's College School, Cambridge, and The Leys School, Cambridge. Wiles states that he came across Fermat's Last Theorem on his way home from school when he was 10 years old. He stopped by his local library where he found a book about the theorem. Fascinated by the existence of a theorem that was so easy to state that he, a ten-year old, could understand it, but nobody had proven it, he decided to be the first person to prove it. However, he soon realized that his knowledge was too small, so he abandoned his childhood dream, until it was brought back to his attention at the age of 33 by Ken Ribet's 1986 proof of the epsilon conjecture, which Gerhard Frey had previously linked to Fermat's famous equation. Mathematical career. Wiles earned his bachelor's degree in mathematics in 1974 after his study at Merton College, Oxford, and a Ph.D. in 1980, after his research at Clare College, Cambridge. After a stay at the Institute for Advanced Study in New Jersey in 1981, Wiles became a professor at Princeton University. In 1985–86, Wiles was a Guggenheim Fellow at the Institut des Hautes Études Scientifiques near Paris and at the École Normale Supérieure. From 1988 to 1990, Wiles was a Royal Society Research Professor at Oxford University, and then he returned to Princeton. He rejoined Oxford in 2011 as Royal Society Research Professor. Wiles's graduate research was guided by John Coates beginning in the summer of 1975. Together these colleagues worked on the arithmetic of elliptic curves with complex multiplication by the methods of Iwasawa theory. He further worked with Barry Mazur on the main conjecture of Iwasawa theory over the rational numbers, and soon afterward, he generalized this result to totally real fields. The proof of Fermat's Last Theorem. Starting in the summer of 1986, based on successive progress of the previous few years of Gerhard Frey, Jean-Pierre Serre and Ken Ribet, it became clear that Fermat's Last Theorem could be proven as a corollary of a limited form of the modularity theorem (unproven at the time and then known as the "Taniyama–Shimura-Weil conjecture"). The modularity theorem involved elliptic curves, which was also Wiles' own specialist area. The conjecture was seen by contemporary mathematicians as important, but extraordinarily difficult or perhaps inaccessible to proof. For example, Wiles' ex-supervisor John Coates states that it seemed "impossible to actually prove", and Ken Ribet considered himself "one of the vast majority of people who believed [it was completely inaccessible", adding that "Andrew Wiles was probably one of the few people on earth who had the audacity to dream that you can actually go and prove ."  Despite this, Wiles, who had a childhood fascination with Fermat's Last Theorem, decided to undertake the challenge of proving the conjecture at least to the extent needed for Frey's curve. He dedicated all of his research time to this problem for over 6 years in near-total secrecy, covering up his efforts by releasing prior work in small segments as separate papers and confiding only in his wife. In 1993, he presented his proof to the public for the first time at a conference in Cambridge. In August 1993 it was discovered that the proof contained a flaw in one area. Wiles tried and failed for over a year to repair his proof. According to Wiles, the crucial idea for circumventing, rather than closing this area, came to him on 19 September 1994 when he was on the verge of giving up. Together with his former student Richard Taylor, he published a second paper which circumvented the problem and thus completed the proof. Both papers were published in 1995 in a special volume of the "Annals of Mathematics". Recognition by the media. His proof of Fermat's Last Theorem has stood up to the scrutiny of the world's mathematical experts. Wiles was interviewed for an episode of the BBC documentary series "Horizon" that focused on Fermat's Last Theorem. This was renamed "The Proof", and it was made an episode of the Public Broadcasting Service's science television series "Nova". He has been a foreign member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences since 1996. He remains a citizen of the United Kingdom. Awards. Wiles has been awarded several major prizes in mathematics and science:
1053997	Henry Richard "Huntz" Hall (August 15, 1920; – January 30, 1999) was an American radio, theatrical, and motion picture performer noted primarily for his roles in the "Dead End Kids" movies, such as "Angels with Dirty Faces" (1938), which gave way to the "The Bowery Boys" movie franchise, a prolific and highly successful series of comedies in the 1940s and 1950s. Life and career. Henry Richard Hall was born in 1920 in New York City to Joseph Patrick Hall, an Irish immigrant air-conditioner repairman, and his wife Mary Ellen (Mullen). The 14th of 16 children, he was nicknamed "Huntz" because of his Teutonic-looking nose. Hall attended Catholic schools and started performing on radio at age 5. He appeared on Broadway in the 1935 production of "Dead End", a play written and directed by Sidney Kingsley. Hall was then cast along with the other Dead End Kids in the 1937 film "Dead End", directed by William Wyler and starring Humphrey Bogart. In 1948, Hall was arrested for possession of marijuana, but his 1949 trial resulted in a hung jury. Hall later played the increasingly buffoonish Horace DeBussy "Sach" Jones in 48 "Bowery Boys" films, gaining top billing when his longtime partner, Leo Gorcey, left the series in 1956. Hall and Gorcey reunited in "Second Fiddle to a Steel Guitar" (1966) and "The Phynx" (1969). He also appeared in other films, including his portrayal of Private Carraway in the war film, "A Walk in the Sun", in 1945. In 1967, he became one of the celebrities featured on the cover of The Beatles' album "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band". By 1976, Hall drove a brand-new Rolls-Royce, thanks to his offshore oil well investments. However, plans to produce a movie series, "The Ghetto Boys" (a take on "The Bowery Boys"), fell through. His son Gary (born Leslie Richard Hall) --who holds degrees from the University of California, Berkeley, the Episcopal Divinity School at Cambridge, Mass., and UCLA—became an Episcopal priest and in 2012 was appointed Dean of Washington National Cathedral. Huntz Hall himself remained active in Catholic lay affairs. In 1973, Hall took part in Princess Grace of Monaco's Council for Drug Abuse, which was part of the Catholic Office of Drug Education. In 1977 he played movie mogul Jesse Lasky in Ken Russell's film "Valentino." He performed in dinner theater productions before retiring in 1994. Death. Hall died from congestive heart failure on January 30, 1999 at the age of 78 in North Hollywood, California. He was interred in a niche at All Saints Episcopal Church in Pasadena, California.
1058953	Wet Hot American Summer is a 2001 satirical comedy film written by David Wain and Michael Showalter, and directed by Wain. The film takes place during the last day at a fictional Jewish summer camp in 1981, before closing for the summer. It stars Janeane Garofalo, David Hyde Pierce, Michael Showalter (and various other members of MTV's sketch comedy group "The State"), Marguerite Moreau, Paul Rudd, Molly Shannon, Christopher Meloni, Elizabeth Banks, Michael Ian Black, Bradley Cooper, Amy Poehler, Zak Orth, and A.D. Miles. The film was a commercial and critical flop, but has since received a cult following. Plot. On August 18, 1981, Camp Firewood, a summer camp located near Waterville, Maine, is preparing for its last day of summer camp, which means counselors have one last chance to have a romantic encounter with another person at Camp Firewood. The summer ultimately culminates in a talent show. Beth (Janeane Garofalo), the camp director, struggles to keep her counselors in order—and her campers alive—while falling in love with Henry (David Hyde Pierce), an astrophysics associate professor at the local college (actually Colby College). Henry has to devise a plan to save the camp from a piece of NASA's Skylab, which is falling to Earth. Coop (Michael Showalter) has a crush on Katie (Marguerite Moreau), his fellow counselor, but has to pry her away from her rebellious, obnoxious, and obviously unfaithful boyfriend, Andy (Paul Rudd). Only Gene (Christopher Meloni), the shell-shocked Vietnam war veteran and camp chef, can help Coop win Katie—with some help from a talking can of vegetables (voiced by H. Jon Benjamin). All the while, Gary (A.D. Miles), Gene's unfortunately chosen apprentice, and J.J. (Zak Orth) attempt to figure out why McKinley (Michael Ian Black) hasn't been with a woman; and Susie (Amy Poehler) and Ben (Bradley Cooper) attempt to produce and choreograph the greatest talent show Camp Firewood has ever seen. Production. Background. The film is based on the experiences Wain had while attending Camp Modin, a Jewish camp, located in Belgrade, Maine, and Showalter had at Camp Mohawk in the Berkshires in Cheshire, Massachusetts. During one scene, the counselors take a trip into Waterville, Maine, which is not far from the camp. It is also a parody of, and homage to, other films about summer camp such as "Meatballs" (1979) and "Indian Summer" (1993). According to Wain, they wanted to make a film structured like films such as "Nashville", "Dazed and Confused" and "Do the Right Thing"—"films that take place in one contained time period that have lots of different characters." Development. The film's financing took three years to assemble; in a June 2011 interview, Wain revealed the film's budget was $1.8 million; he noted that during the 2001 Sundance Film Festival, the film had been promoted as costing $5 million, in an attempt to attract a better offer from a distributor. Filming. Principal photography lasted 28 days, and it "rained on all of them"; Exterior shots were filmed catch-as-catch can, and, in many interior scenes, rain seen outside turns into sun as soon as characters step outside. The actors' breath can be seen in most outdoor scenes, and even in some indoor ones because of the extreme cold. The film was shot at Camp Towanda in Honesdale, Pennsylvania and is rated R for adult humor, language, and sexual content. Music. As the film is set in the early 1980s, the film's soundtrack features songs from many popular bands of the era, most notably Jefferson Starship, Rick Springfield, Loverboy, and KISS. Release. "Wet Hot American Summer" premiered at the 2001 Sundance Film Festival, where it was screened four times to sold-out crowds, though it failed to attract a distributor. Months later, USA Films almost sheepishly offered the filmmakers $100,000 for the film, with virtually no participation for the filmmakers, an offer the film's investors accepted. It premiered in New York City on July 27, 2001, then received a theatrical release limited to fewer than 30 cities: Toronto, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, Champaign, IL, Dallas, Austin, TX, Abilene, TX, Washington D.C., Seattle, Bellingham, WA, Langley, WA, Cleveland, Salt Lake City, Atlanta, Athens, GA, Chapel Hill, NC, Tryon, NC, Lafayette, IN, Boston, Providence, RI, Wilton, NH, Madison, WI, Columbia, MO, Minneapolis, Portland, OR, and Nashville, TN. Reception. The film received negative reviews from critics. Rotten Tomatoes gives the film a score of 31% based on 65 reviews. Metacritic gives a rating of 42% based on reviews from 24 critics.
585930	Kaviyoor Ponnnamma is an Indian film actress. Early life. As a five-year old, she learnt music and used to sing in stage shows. She did not see many movies. She started acting in dramas when she was 14 year old, starting off with "Mooladhanam" of Thoppil Bhasi. After five years, came her first movie "Kudumbini", in which she did the title role of the mother of two kids. Personal life. Ponnamma was married to producer Maniswami. The couple has a daughter Bindhu who is settled in United States. Her husband Maniswami died in 2011. Awards. Kerala State Film Awards:
1165430	Peter Paul Fix (March 13, 1901 – October 14, 1983) was an American film and television character actor, best known for his work in Westerns. Fix appeared in more than a hundred movies and dozens of television shows over a 56-year career spanning from 1925 to 1981. In the 1950s, Fix was best known for portraying Marshal Micah Torrance alongside Chuck Connors and Johnny Crawford in "The Rifleman". Career. Fix was born Peter Paul Fix in Dobbs Ferry, New York, to brewmaster Wilhelm Fix and his wife, the former Louise C. Walz. His mother and father were German immigrants who had left their Black Forest home and arrived in New York City in the 1870s. (The name "Fix" is of Latin/Germanic origin, and is derived from St. Vitus and means "animated" or "vital"). A veteran of the United States Navy during World War I, Fix became an incredibly busy character actor who obtained his start in local productions in New York. By the 1920s, he had moved to Hollywood, California, and performed in the first of almost 350 movie and television appearances. In the 1930s, he became friends with John Wayne. He was Wayne's acting coach and eventually appeared as a featured player in about twenty-seven of Wayne's films. Fix worked in early films such as "Lucky Star" (1929) and "Ladies Love Brutes" (1930), and became a regular performer for the film's director, Frank Borzage, on a further eight occasions. Fix later appeared as Richard Bravo in the 1950s cult classic, "The Bad Seed" (1956), The Sea Chase (1955) playing Heinz the cook, and in George Stevens' "Giant" (1956), playing Elizabeth Taylor's father. Though Fix is best-remembered for his recurring role as Marshal Micah Torrance on ABC's "The Rifleman", he also worked in many other series in guest-starring roles. On February 28, 1958, he appeared with Edd Byrnes as Frank Wilson, Sr., and Frank, Jr., respectively in the episode "The Golden Gun" on the ABC/Warner Brothers, western series, "Colt .45", starring Wayde Preston. Ron Hayes, Charles Fredericks, and Stuart Randall also appeared in this episode. Seven months later, Byrnes was cast in the new "77 Sunset Strip" ABC/WB production.
1165340	Herbert "Herb" Vigran (Sunday, June 5, 1910 – Saturday, November 29, 1986) was a well-known American character actor in Hollywood from the 1930s to the 1980s. Over his 50-year career, he made over 350 television and film appearances. Career. Vigran was a native of Cincinnati, Ohio, but his family moved to Fort Wayne, Indiana, where he was reared. He graduated with a law degree from Indiana University School of Law but later chose to pursue acting. After starting out on Broadway, he soon moved to Hollywood with no money and only the Broadway acting experience. In 1939, Vigran's agent helped him secure a lead in the radio drama "Silver Theatre". The actor had a $5 recording made of the radio show and used it as a demo to get other jobs with his unique voice. He performed in radio shows with the likes of Jack Benny, Bob Hope, Lucille Ball and Jimmy Durante.
1066517	Goodbye Solo is a 2008 American independent film written and directed by Ramin Bahrani. It premiered as an official selection of the 2008 Venice Film Festival where it won the international film critic's FIPRESCI award for best film, and later had its North American premiere at the 2008 Toronto International Film Festival. The film is distributed by Roadside Attractions. The film exhibits significant thematic and plot similarities to Abbas Kiarostami's 1997 film "Taste of Cherry".
1059597	School of Rock (also called The School of Rock) is a 2003 American musical comedy film directed by Richard Linklater, written by Mike White, and starring Jack Black. The main plot follows starving rock singer and guitarist, Dewey Finn (portrayed by Black), who is kicked out of his band No Vacancy and subsequently disguises himself as a substitute teacher at a prestigious prep school. After witnessing the musical talent in his students, Dewey forms a band of fifth-graders to win the upcoming Battle of the Bands and pay off his rent. The picture's supporting cast features Joan Cusack and Sarah Silverman. Plot. Dewey Finn (Jack Black) is a rock singer and guitarist in a fictional rock band, No Vacancy. The band is generally unpopular and downtrodden due to Dewey's arrogance and hyperactive stage antics during their performance at a nightclub. The next day, No Vacancy vote Dewey out from the band by replacing him with another guitarist named Spider (Lucas Babin). Furthermore, Dewey's submissive roommate and lifelong friend, Ned Schneebly (Mike White), is pressured by his girlfriend, Patty Di Marco (Sarah Silverman), to evict Dewey unless he gets a real job to pay off his growing rent debt. Dewey feels forced to give up his passion as a rock musician until he receives an urgent phone call intended for Ned from Rosalie Mullins (Joan Cusack), the principal of a prestigious prep school, Horace Green, asking Ned to fill in for a teacher who broke her leg.
1686314	Rahul Pandharipande (born 1969) is an Indian-American mathematician at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zürich (ETH) working in algebraic geometry. His particular interests concern the moduli of curves, Gromov-Witten theory, and the moduli of sheaves. He received his A.B. from Princeton University in 1990 and his Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1994. His advisor at Harvard was Joe Harris. After teaching at the University of Chicago and the California Institute of Technology, he joined the faculty as Professor of Mathematics at Princeton in 2002. In 2011, he accepted a Professorship at ETH Zürich. He frequently collaborates with Fields medalist Andrei Okounkov. He received the Clay Research Award in 2013. His father Vijay Raghunath Pandharipande was a renowned theoretical physicist who worked in the area of nuclear physics.
628905	Joel Edgerton (born 23 June 1974) is an Australian film and television actor. He is best known for his roles in 2000s and 2010s films like ' (2002), ' (2005), "Kinky Boots" (2005), "Animal Kingdom" (2010), "The Thing" (2011), "Warrior" (2011), "The Odd Life of Timothy Green" (2012), "Zero Dark Thirty" (2012) and "The Great Gatsby" (2013). Early life. Edgerton was born in Blacktown, Sydney, the son of Marianne, a homemaker, and Michael Edgerton, a solicitor/property developer. His brother, Nash Edgerton, is a stuntman and filmmaker. Edgerton graduated from The Hills Grammar School in 1991. Edgerton attended the Nepean Drama School at the University of Western Sydney, before moving on to various stage productions, most notably at Sydney Theatre Company – "Blackrock", "Third World Blues" and "Love for Love" – and Bell Shakespeare – "Henry V" – as well as television series. Career. Edgerton has appeared in such films as "Erskineville Kings", "King Arthur", "Ned Kelly", and, most notably, ' and ', portraying a young Owen Lars, stepbrother of Anakin Skywalker and uncle to Luke Skywalker. Edgerton's brother Nash was the stunt double for Ewan McGregor, who played Obi-Wan Kenobi in the "Star Wars" prequel trilogy. He is known for playing the role of Will on the series "The Secret Life of Us" for which he was nominated for an AFI award. In 2005, he lent his voice to the title character of "The Mysterious Geographic Explorations of Jasper Morello", an Academy Award-nominated animated short film. The same year, Edgerton appeared in the British comedy "Kinky Boots", in a lead role alongside Chiwetel Ejiofor, as the son of a deceased shoe maker who must find a niche market in the 21st century. He also had a significant role in the 2006 American film "Smokin' Aces". Edgerton was seen in the film "Whisper" with Josh Holloway in 2007; "The Square", which he co-wrote and was directed by his brother Nash; Acolytes, an Australian film about teenagers who get revenge on a serial killer; and Separation City, a comedy-drama which follows the collapse of two marriages. In 2009, he starred alongside Cate Blanchett as Stanley in the Sydney Theatre Company's acclaimed production of "A Streetcar Named Desire". Edgerton and Blanchett also appeared in a production of this play at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in December 2009. Edgerton had a major role in the MMA movie "Warrior", which received a 2011 release through Lions Gate Entertainment. Edgerton played the son of Nick Nolte's character and older brother of Tom Hardy's character. Joel also has a black belt in Karate. On 7 February 2010, he was cast in Matthijs van Heijningen Jr.'s 2011 prequel to "The Thing", portraying helicopter pilot Sam Carter. Edgerton played Tom Buchanan in Baz Luhrmann's 2013 remake of "The Great Gatsby". Joel Edgerton was honoured along with David Michôd and Teresa Palmer for their work in international roles with the coveted 2011 Australians in Film Breakthrough Award. Humanitarian causes. Joel Edgerton has been an ambassador for The Fred Hollows Foundation for a number of years and has strong personal ties to the organisation, which works to restore sight in poor countries and to improve Aboriginal health. In 2012 Edgerton visited Nepal where he saw sight restored first hand. Edgerton has described social activism and his involvement with The Fred Hollows Foundation as ‘an escape’ from the ‘materialistic life’ that often surrounds an actor.
582450	Zarine Khan is an Indian actress and model who appears in Indian films, mainly in the Hindi film industry. She has also appeared in Tamil films. Khan has been noted for looks very similar to Katrina Kaif ana Muneeza
1067395	Race with the Devil is a 1975 occult thriller and action film starring Peter Fonda, Warren Oates, Loretta Swit and Lara Parker. This was the second of three films Fonda and Oates would star in together ("The Hired Hand" was their first and "92 in the Shade" was their third). The film was a hybrid of the horror, action and car chase genres. Plot. Roger Marsh (Peter Fonda) and Frank Stewart (Warren Oates) own a successful motorcycle dealership in San Antonio. Together, with their wives Kelly and Alice (Lara Parker, Loretta Swit), along with Roger and Kelly’s small dog, they leave San Antonio in a recreational vehicle (RV) for a much anticipated ski vacation in Colorado.
674311	Ulli Lommel (born 21 December 1944), is a German actor and director, noted for his many horror films, and for his career as an actor on Rainer Werner Fassbinder's films. Career. Lommel started his career as an actor in films in 1960s. One of his earliest film roles was in Russ Meyer's "Fanny Hill". In 1969, he starred in Rainer Werner Fassbinder's directorial debut "Love Is Colder Than Death". The cast as an ensemble won an award at the German Film Awards in 1970.
1060997	Jennifer Anne Garner (born April 17, 1972) is an American actress and film producer. Garner garnered recognition on television for her performance as CIA officer Sydney Bristow in the thriller drama series "Alias", which aired on ABC for five seasons from 2001 to 2006. For her work on the series, Garner won a Golden Globe and a Screen Actors Guild Award. While working on "Alias", she gained minor roles in movies such as "Pearl Harbor" (2001), with her later husband Ben Affleck, and "Catch Me if You Can" (2002). Since then, Garner has appeared in supporting as well as lead roles on the big screen in projects including "Daredevil" (2003), "13 Going on 30" (2004), "Elektra" (2005), a spin-off of "Daredevil", and "Juno" (2007). Garner is married to actor and director Ben Affleck, with whom she has three children. Early life. Garner was born in Houston, Texas. Her mother, Patricia Ann (née English), was an English teacher from Oklahoma, and her father, William John "Bill" Garner, worked as a chemical engineer. When she was four years old, her father's job with Union Carbide relocated her family to Princeton, West Virginia, and then later to Charleston, West Virginia, where Garner resided until her college years. She has credited her older sister, Melissa Lynn Garner Wylie, who resides in Boston, Massachusetts, as a source of inspiration to her. Her younger sister is Susannah Kay Garner Carpenter. Garner's conservative upbringing included going to church every Sunday, not wearing make-up or a bikini, and waiting at least until the age of 16 to be allowed to get her ears pierced, which, she later joked, made her family "just a step away from being Amish." She said: "I'd hate to say it was strict. It was just not condoned. I never felt hemmed in." She began taking ballet lessons at the age of three and continued to dance throughout her youth, but she did not envision herself becoming a classical ballerina. Garner attended George Washington High School in Charleston and graduated in 1990. She holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in drama from Denison University, where she was initiated into the sorority Pi Beta Phi. Garner did not plan on becoming an actress: "I wanted to be a doctor, a librarian. ... (Acting) wasn't possible to me. The more I learned what there was to learn about this field, the more hungry I became for it. It comes out of wanting to learn more, as opposed to 'I want to be a star.' I never felt that way," she said. Career. Fashion. As of July 17, 2013, Jennifer Garner is the first and currently only celebrity spokesperson of Max Mara. Starting in September, the campaign will appear in Vogue, Harper's Bazaar, Elle, W, InStyle, The New York Times, and the International Herald Tribune. Acting. In 1994, Garner appeared in Atlanta productions of two Shakespeare plays, "The Merchant of Venice" and "A Midsummer Night's Dream", by the Georgia Shakespeare Company. In 1995, Garner started pursuing theater in New York City and earned $150 a week as an understudy in the play "A Month in the Country" for Roundabout Theatre Company. She was then cast in her first television role as part of a made-for-television movie "Zoya", based on the Danielle Steel novel. In the late 1990s, she made brief appearances in individual episodes of "Spin City" and "Law & Order" while also securing roles in two short-lived television series, "Significant Others" and "Time of Your Life". Garner made her first big screen appearance of the 21st century in the comedy "Dude, Where's My Car?", playing Ashton Kutcher's character's girlfriend. In 2001, she appeared as the supporting character of a nurse in the big-budget epic "Pearl Harbor", starring her future husband Ben Affleck. Later in 2001, J. J. Abrams, the producer of "Felicity", in which Garner had played a recurring role since 1998, approached Garner to audition for the role of Sydney Bristow in his new spy drama "Alias". Garner, who up until then had mostly played weepy waifs, did not learn that she "might have to throw a punch or kick" until the first few days of the audition. Told that she "throws like such a girl" and with no background in martial arts or gymnastics, she enrolled in a month-long, private Taekwondo class to prepare for the audition. Even as Garner was cast after several auditions, Abrams revealed that he remained panicked with the thought that she might not be able to pull off the role, especially as, on the first day of shooting, he was told by Garner herself, "I don't think I can do this." Garner later commented, "I was such a girlie-girl then. I didn't even know how to punch." While she performed many of the action sequences during the series herself, the dangerous explosions and complex fights were handled by her stunt double, Shauna Duggins. The first few episodes of season one of "Alias", which averaged about 10.2 million weekly viewers, earned Garner the award for "Best Actress in a Television Series — Drama" at the 2002 Golden Globe Awards. Garner's salary for the show began at $40,000 an episode and rose to $150,000 per episode by the series' end. During the show's run, Garner received four consecutive Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Television Series Drama nominations as well as Emmy Award nominations for her lead performance. She won the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Drama Series in 2005. That same year, during the fourth season, Garner directed the "Alias" episode "In Dreams", which aired in May. She received producer credit during the series' final season. The series concluded in May 2006 after a shorter fifth season that was abbreviated from 22 to 17 episodes due to Garner's pregnancy, which was written into the season's storyline. After the initial success of "Alias", Garner made a big screen cameo in the Steven Spielberg film "Catch Me if You Can" in 2002; Spielberg had seen her on the show and wanted her to play that small role. Her breakout film role came when she played Ben Affleck's love interest as Elektra Natchios in the action movie "Daredevil" (2003), an adaptation of the comic book. Garner stated that her training for "Daredevil" was more gruesome than her work on "Alias", and revealed that as she got hung up on wires several times during fight sequences, Affleck became "in charge of reaching up and saving She was involved in a potentially serious accident on the set of "Daredevil" when, entangled in wires with her arms stuck and unable to move while doing a flip, she came crashing towards a wall "head-first with such velocity, that [she was about to smash head into the wall". Recalling how she was rescued by Affleck, she said in 2003, "out of nowhere comes this 6 ft. 4 in. red devil who just kind of put his arms out and shouts: 'I've got her!' I'm telling you, it was like, 'I've got my own superhero.'" While "Daredevil" got mixed reviews, it was a box office hit. Garner starred in her first leading role in "13 Going on 30" (2004), a moderate commercial success. Reviewers praised her performance as "radiant" and "effervescent without ever being cloying", and "The Christian Science Monitor" commented that "while Garner is no Tom Hanks, she's consistently appealing". Her second lead role saw her reprising the character of Elektra in the 2005 "Daredevil" spin-off titled "Elektra", a box office disaster that was panned by critics. "The Boston Globe" stated, "Based on Garner's humorlessness, lack of vocal inflection, and generally bland disposition, "the Way" she has yet to grasp seems to be that of acting," whereas "USA Today" concluded that "Jennifer Garner ... is far more appealing when she's playing charming and adorable, as she did so winningly in "13 Going on 30". Garner performed the Frank Loesser song "My Heart Is So Full of You" on the 2006 charity album "Unexpected Dreams – Songs From the Stars". She appeared in the films "Catch and Release" (2006) and "The Kingdom" (2007) alongside Jamie Foxx, Jason Bateman and Ashraf Barhom. She then appeared in the Jason Reitman-directed comedy/drama feature "Juno", which became a sleeper box office hit, grossing over $230 million from a production budget of $7.5 million. After that film's premiere at the Toronto Film Festival, "Entertainment Weekly" declared Garner's work the best female supporting performance of the festival, saying, "The star of "Alias" and "The Kingdom" does no butt-kicking in this sweet comedy. Instead, as a young wife desperately hoping to adopt, she's funny, a bit tough, and unbelievably touching." Garner made her Broadway debut on November 1, 2007, playing Roxanne in "Cyrano de Bergerac" alongside Kevin Kline at the Richard Rodgers Theatre on Broadway. The show was originally set to run until December 23, 2007, but it was extended through January 6, 2008 due to the Broadway stagehand strike in late 2007. In 2010, Garner appeared in the ensemble romantic comedy "Valentine's Day", directed by Garry Marshall, which also starred Ashton Kutcher, Jessica Alba, Jessica Biel, Anne Hathaway, Julia Roberts, and former "Alias" co-star Bradley Cooper, among others. She portrayed Patrick Dempsey's girlfriend. The film was a commercial success, grossing over $215 million worldwide. In 2011, she starred in the 2011 remake of "Arthur". In that same year, Garner was invited to join the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. In 2012, Garner appeared in the films "The Odd Life of Timothy Green" and "Butter". She will next star in the 2013 film "Dallas Buyers Club", reuniting with Matthew McConaughey. On April 24, 2013 Garner started filming Summit and OddLot Entertainment's dramedy "Draft Day" in New York and Cleveland, Ohio, which also stars Kevin Costner. The film is directed and produced by Ivan Reitman. In April 2013, Garner joined Steve Carell in the Disney adaption of the popular children's book "Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day". Filming is set to be from August through October 2013 in Los Angeles. In May 2013, Garner joined the cast of the movie "Imagine" alongside Al Pacino, Annette Bening, Bobby Cannavale and Michael Caine. Filming is set to begin in late June or early July in Los Angeles. Producer. In 2006, Garner founded a production company called "Vandalia Films". The first film she produced was "Butter", released in American theaters in 2012. Personal life. Marriages and family. On October 19, 2000, Garner married actor Scott Foley, whom she had met on the set of "Felicity" in 1998. After separating from Foley in March 2003, Garner filed for divorce in May 2003, citing irreconcilable differences, and the two were officially divorced on March 30, 2004. Following her separation, Garner dated "Alias" co-star Michael Vartan from August 2003 to March 2004. Sometime in early to mid-2004, Garner started dating "Daredevil" co-star Ben Affleck and the two made their first public appearance as a couple by attending the Boston Red Sox's opening World Series games in October 2004. Since her relationship with Affleck, first as girlfriend and then as wife, Garner has been a tabloid staple. "Ben taught me that you cannot read that stuff, that it's poison," she said in 2009. On Garner's 33rd birthday, Affleck proposed to her with a diamond ring from Harry Winston. Affleck married Garner, who was four months pregnant at the time, on June 29, 2005 in a private ceremony in the Caribbean, officiated by family friend and Garner's "Alias" co-star, Victor Garber, at the Parrot Cay resort on the Turks and Caicos Islands. The couple have three children: daughters Violet Anne Affleck (born December 1, 2005) and Seraphina Rose Elizabeth Affleck (born January 6, 2009), and son Samuel Garner Affleck (born February 27, 2012). Stalker. Garner had been stalked since 2002 by a man, Steven Burky, who was eventually arrested in December 2009, after violating a 2008 restraining order. Burky was charged with two counts of stalking, to which he pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity; in March 2010, he was ruled insane and sent to the California state mental hospital with a court order to stay away from the Affleck family for 10 years if released from the hospital. In the media. In 2002, Garner topped the Maxim Hot 100 list. In December 2007, Garner was named "The Charleston Sunday Gazette-Mail's" 2007 West Virginian of the Year "for her dedication, work ethic and unique role as role model and ambassador for West Virginia." "People" named her one of 2012 Most Beautiful at Every Age.
170579	Pythagoras of Samos (, or simply ; c. 570 BC – c. 495 BC) was an Ionian Greek philosopher, mathematician, and founder of the religious movement called Pythagoreanism. Most of the information about Pythagoras was written down centuries after he lived, so very little reliable information is known about him. He was born on the island of Samos, and might have travelled widely in his youth, visiting Egypt and other places seeking knowledge. Around 530 BC, he moved to Croton, in Magna Graecia, and there set up a religious sect. His followers pursued the religious rites and practices developed by Pythagoras, and studied his philosophical theories. The society took an active role in the politics of Croton, but this eventually led to their downfall. The Pythagorean meeting-places were burned, and Pythagoras was forced to flee the city. He is said to have died in Metapontum. Pythagoras made influential contributions to philosophy and religious teaching in the late 6th century BC. He is often revered as a great mathematician, mystic and scientist, but he is best known for the Pythagorean theorem which bears his name. However, because legend and obfuscation cloud his work even more than that of the other pre-Socratic philosophers, one can give only a tentative account of his teachings, and some have questioned whether he contributed much to mathematics and natural philosophy. Many of the accomplishments credited to Pythagoras may actually have been accomplishments of his colleagues and successors. Whether or not his disciples believed that everything was related to mathematics and that numbers were the ultimate reality is unknown. It was said that he was the first man to call himself a philosopher, or lover of wisdom, and Pythagorean ideas exercised a marked influence on Plato, and through him, all of Western philosophy. Biographical sources. Accurate facts about the life of Pythagoras are so few, and most information concerning him is of so late a date, and so untrustworthy, that it is impossible to provide more than a vague outline of his life. The lack of information by contemporary writers, together with the secrecy which surrounded the Pythagorean brotherhood, meant that invention took the place of facts. The stories which were created were eagerly sought by the Neoplatonist writers who provide most of the details about Pythagoras, but who were uncritical concerning anything which related to the gods or which was considered divine. Thus many myths were created – such as that Apollo was his father; that Pythagoras gleamed with a supernatural brightness; that he had a golden thigh; that Abaris came flying to him on a golden arrow; that he was seen in different places at the same time. With the exception of a few remarks by Xenophanes, Heraclitus, Herodotus, Plato, Aristotle, and Isocrates, we are mainly dependent on Diogenes Laërtius, Porphyry, and Iamblichus for the biographical details. Aristotle had written a separate work on the Pythagoreans, which unfortunately has not survived. His disciples Dicaearchus, Aristoxenus, and Heraclides Ponticus had written on the same subject. These writers, late as they are, were among the best sources from whom Porphyry and Iamblichus drew, besides the legendary accounts and their own inventions. Hence historians are often reduced to considering the statements based on their inherent probability, but even then, if all the credible stories concerning Pythagoras were supposed true, his range of activity would be impossibly vast. Life. Herodotus, Isocrates, and other early writers all agree that Pythagoras was born on Samos, the Greek island in the eastern Aegean, and we also learn that Pythagoras was the son of Mnesarchus. His father was a gem-engraver or a merchant. His name led him to be associated with Pythian Apollo; Aristippus explained his name by saying, "He spoke ("agor-") the truth no less than did the Pythian ("Pyth-")," and Iamblichus tells the story that the Pythia prophesied that his pregnant mother would give birth to a man supremely beautiful, wise, and beneficial to humankind. A late source gives his mother's name as Pythais. As to the date of his birth, Aristoxenus stated that Pythagoras left Samos in the reign of Polycrates, at the age of 40, which would give a date of birth around 570 BC. It was natural for the ancient biographers to inquire as to the origins of Pythagoras' remarkable system. In the absence of reliable information, however, a huge range of teachers were assigned to Pythagoras. Some made his training almost entirely Greek, others exclusively Egyptian and Oriental. We find mentioned as his instructors Creophylus, Hermodamas of Samos, Bias, Thales, Anaximander, and Pherecydes of Syros. He is said too, to have been taught by a Delphic priestess named Themistoclea, who introduced him to the principles of ethics. The Egyptians are said to have taught him geometry, the Phoenicians arithmetic, the Chaldeans astronomy, the Magians the principles of religion and practical maxims for the conduct of life. Of the various claims regarding his Greek teachers, Pherecydes is mentioned most often. Diogenes Laertius reported that Pythagoras had undertaken extensive travels, and had visited not only Egypt, but Arabia, Phoenicia, Judaea, Babylon, and even India, for the purpose of collecting all available knowledge, and especially to learn information concerning the secret or mystic cults of the gods. Plutarch asserted in his book "On Isis and Osiris" that during his visit to Egypt, Pythagoras received instruction from the Egyptian priest Oenuphis of
1039653	Timothy Lancaster West, CBE (born 20 October 1934) is an English film, stage, and television actor. Early life and education. West was born in Bradford, West Riding of Yorkshire, the son of Olive (née Carleton-Crowe) and actor Harry Lockwood West, known as Lockwood West. He was educated at The John Lyon School, a boys' independent school in Harrow on the Hill in London, at Bristol Grammar School in Bristol, where he was a classmate of Julian Glover, and at Regent Street Polytechnic. Career. West worked as an office furniture salesman and as a recording engineer, before becoming an Assistant Stage Manager at the Wimbledon Theatre in 1956. Stage. West played repertory seasons in Newquay, Hull, Northampton, Worthing and Salisbury before making his London debut at the Piccadilly Theatre in 1959 in the farce "Caught Napping". He was a member of the Royal Shakespeare Company for three seasons: the 1962 Arts Theatre Experimental season ("Nil Carborundum" and "Afore Night Come"), the 1964 'Dirty Plays' season ("Victor", the premiere production of "Marat/Sade" and the revival of "Afore Night Come") and the 1965 season at Stratford and later at the Aldwych Theatre appearing in "The Comedy of Errors", "Timon of Athens", "The Jew of Malta", "Love's Labour's Lost" and Peter Hall's production of "The Government Inspector", in a company which included Paul Scofield, Eric Porter, Janet Suzman, Paul Rogers, Ian Richardson, Glenda Jackson and Peter McEnery. Timothy West has played Macbeth twice, Uncle Vanya twice, Solness in "The Master Builder" twice, and King Lear three times: in 1971 (aged 36) for Prospect Theatre Company at the Edinburgh Festival and on a worldwide tour; in 1991 in Dublin for Second Age and in 2003 for English Touring Theatre, on tour in the UK and at the Old Vic. Screen. Having spent years as a familiar face who never quite became a household name, West's big break came with the major television series, "Edward the Seventh" (1975), in which he played the title role from the age of twenty-three until the King's death; his real-life sons, Samuel and Joseph, played the sons of King Edward VII as children. Other screen roles have included "Nicholas and Alexandra" (1971), "The Day of the Jackal" (1973), "The Thirty Nine Steps" (1978), "Masada" (1981), "Cry Freedom" (1987) and Luc Besson's "" (1999). In Richard Eyre's "Iris" (2001) he plays Maurice and his son Samuel West plays Maurice as a young man. In lighter vein, West starred as patriarch Bradley Hardacre in Granada TV's satirical Northern super-soap "Brass" over three seasons (1982–1990). West appeared in the series Miss Marple in 1985 (in "A Pocket Full of Rye" as the notorious Rex Fortescue), and made a memorable appearance as Professor Furie in "A Very Peculiar Practice" in 1986. In 1997, he played Gloucester in the BBC television production of "King Lear", with Ian Holm as Lear. From 2001-2003, he played the grumpy and frequently volatile Andrew in the BBC drama series "Bedtime", with Sheila Hancock playing his long-suffering wife, Alice. At Christmas 2007, he joined the cast of sitcom "Not Going Out" as Geoffrey Adams, the father of two central characters. He reprised this role in two episodes of series two; Geoffrey Whitehead played the role in later seasons. In 2011, he appeared alongside John Simm and Jim Broadbent in BBC series "Exile", written by BAFTA-winning Danny Brocklehurst. In February 2013, West joined the cast of ITV soap "Coronation Street", playing Eric Babbage. West also presented eight series of the Central TV series about canals and narrowboating, "Water World". Directing. He was Artistic Director of the Forum Theatre, Billingham in 1973, where he directed "We Bombed in New Haven" by Joseph Heller, "The Oz Obscenity Trial" by David Livingstone and "The National Health" by Peter Nichols. He was co-artistic director of the Old Vic Theatre from 1980–81, where he directed "Trelawny of the 'Wells'" and "The Merchant of Venice". He was Director-in-Residence at the University of Western Australia in 1982. In 2004, he toured Australia with the Carl Rosa Opera Company as Director of the production of "H.M.S. Pinafore", also singing the role of Sir Joseph Porter. He was replaced in the singing role by Dennis Olsen for the Perth and Brisbane performances. Personal life. West is married to the actress Prunella Scales. One of their sons, Samuel West, is also an actor. West and Scales are both prominent supporters of the Labour Party. They are also patrons of the Lace Market Theatre in Nottingham, and of Conway Hall Sunday Concerts programme, the longest running series of chamber music concerts in Europe. West is an Ambassador of SOS Children's Villages, an international orphan charity providing homes and mothers for orphaned and abandoned children. He currently supports the charity's annual World Orphan Week campaign which takes place each February. Timothy West is patron of The National Piers Society, a charity dedicated to preserving and promoting seaside piers. He and Prunella Scales are patrons of Avon Navigation Trust, the charity that runs the River Avon from Stratford upon Avon to Tewkesbury. They both support ANT by attending the Stratford River Festival every year. [http://www.avonnavigationtrust.org]. West also supports Cancer Research UK. Timothy West is president of the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art and President of the Society for Theatre Research. Honours. In 1984, he was appointed CBE for his services to drama. Selected radio. Timothy West was a member of the BBC Radio Drama Repertory Company in 1962 and has taken part in over 500 radio broadcasts. Audiobooks. Timothy West has read many unabridged audiobooks, including the complete Barchester Chronicles and the complete Palliser novels by Anthony Trollope, and seven of George MacDonald Fraser's Flashman books. He has received four AudioFile Earphones Awards for his narration.
1669994	The Fox and the Child (French: "Le renard et l'enfant") is a 2007 French film directed by Luc Jacquet. Starring Bertille Noël-Bruneau, Isabelle Carré and Thomas Laliberté. The English version of the film is narrated by Kate Winslet. Plot. A young girl of about 10 years lives in a farm house in the Jura mountains in eastern France. One day in autumn, when she rides her bicycle to school through the forest, she observes a hunting fox. Of course, the fox escapes, but the girl yearns to meet the animal again. She spends most of her free time in the forests trying to find the fox during the following months, but she doesn't meet the fox again until winter comes. During the winter, she follows the fox's tracks far across the fields. Suddenly she compares her hand to the size of the tracks near to those she is following and discovers they are relatively fresh wolf tracks; she is alarmed as a wolf pack begins howling near her. She runs away panicked, falls and hurts her ankle. The ankle heals very slowly, so that she has to stay at home during the winter reading a book about foxes and other animals of the forest. When spring arrives, the girl is looking for fox holes and waits for the fox. The fox has young babies and moves holes because of her observations; therefore the girl decides to observe the fox from a greater distance. She finds the fox again and tries to get the animal accustomed to her. She feeds it with meat. Later she can even touch the fox and is led to the new den. Finally, the fox arrives at her house and she lets it inside, wanting to show it her bedroom. But the fox becomes distressed at not being able to find a way out and escapes by jumping through the closed window breaking the glass. The fox is hurt badly, but survives and the girl learns that she cannot keep wild animals as pets at home. Years later she tells the whole story to her son, as seen at the end of the film. Some versions (DVD English) leave out this scene and put the gist of its text over the scene before it. Around the film. The film was shot on the "Plateau de Retord" in (Ain), which the film director knows well because he spent his youth there, in the summer, as well as in the Abruzzo in Italy. The foxes in the film were played by six animals: Titus, Sally, Ziza, Scott, Tango and Pitchou. Titus was the fox who had been tamed by Marie-Noëlle Baroni. It died on March 17, 2008 at the advanced age of 12 years.
1055564	"Mini's First Time" is a 2006 comedy/drama film written and directed by Nick Guthe and produced by Trigger Street Productions. It was screened at the Tribeca Film Festival on May 1, 2006 and had a limited release on July 14, 2006. It was released on DVD on October 24, 2006 by HBO Films. Plot. Mini Drogues (Nikki Reed) is a clever and adventurous high school senior who is bored with her life. Mini prizes her "unique experiences" (she calls them "firsts"). For excitement, and to add to her list of firsts, Mini decides to try being a call girl. Her first client, however, has a guilty conscience and can't carry through with the act, which disappoints Mini. Her second client is decidedly more exciting — it's her stepfather Martin (Alec Baldwin). Martin is initially shocked when he learns of her identity (he initially blindfolded himself during intercourse as per Mini's request), but soon a torrid love affair blossoms between the two. In order to be together, Mini and Martin team up against Mini's mother Diane (Carrie-Anne Moss) to have her declared insane. When their plan fails, Mini convinces Martin to murder Diane despite his initial resistance to the idea and to try their best to make it look like Diane committed suicide; they soon attract the attention of a detective (Luke Wilson) who believes Mini and Martin killed Diane and a nosy neighbor (Jeff Goldblum) who is sexually obsessed with Mini. When Martin finds out about the day when Mini went over to their neighbor's house and received sexual pictures that he believes came from the neighbor, he and the neighbor get into a fight. Mini arrives to find Martin standing over the neighbor, ready to beat him into unconsciousness, when the police show up and arrest Martin. Mini visits Martin in jail and admits that the sexual pictures sent were actually from her in order to get Martin to think that the neighbor sent them. She also reveals that she assumed the police would eventually believe he killed Diane (since he was the more likely perpetrator). Mini, therefore, ends up getting away with murder, and inherits her mother's fortune. The film ends as Mini giving a valedictorian speech due to her mother's death, even though she had straight C's throughout the year, providing advice to the graduating class about how to live a good life that perversely alludes to her crimes without making her look too suspicious. The detective is present at the speech, clearly still suspicious of Mini, but knowing he will probably never be able to prove she is guilty of murder.
581710	Mission Istaanbul is a 2008 action thriller film starring Vivek Oberoi, Shriya Saran and Zayed Khan. The film, directed by Apoorva Lakhia, features Abhishek Bachchan and Peter Handley in a special appearance. Plot. The story is based on the life of India's top news reporter Vikas Sagar (Zayed Khan). He would do anything for his news report, even risk his life. Ambitious, popular and professional, Vikas is considered one of the most promising journalists in the business. Due to this reason, Uwais Hussain (Suniel Shetty), a senior producer at the controversial news channel "Al Johara" offers him an job as the head of the channel's India bureau. Vikas is going through a divorce with his wife Anjali (Shriya Saran), and to get his mind of things, Vikas accepts the offer and flies to Istanbul to start work for "Al Johara".
1163570	Donald Jay "Don" Rickles (born May 8, 1926) is an American stand-up comedian and actor. A frequent guest on "The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson", Rickles has acted in comedic and dramatic roles, but is widely known as an insult comic. Early life. Rickles was born in the New York City borough of Queens to Max Rickles, who had immigrated in 1902 with his parents Joseph and Frances Rickles (Rikhters) from Kaunas, Lithuania (then in the Russian Empire), and Etta (Feldman) Rickles, born in New York to immigrant parents from the Austrian Empire. His family was Jewish and spoke Yiddish at home. Rickles grew up in the Jackson Heights area. After graduating from Newtown High School, Rickles enlisted in the U.S. Navy and served during World War II on the USS "Cyrene" (AGP-13) as a seaman first class. He was honorably discharged in 1946. Two years later, he studied at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts and then played bit parts on television. Frustrated by a lack of acting work, Rickles began doing stand-up comedy performing in hotels in the Catskill Mountains in New York. He became known as an insult comedian by responding to his hecklers. The audience enjoyed these insults more than his prepared material, and he incorporated them into his act. When he began his career in the early 1950s he started calling ill-mannered members of the audience a "hockey puck". His style was similar to an older insult comic, "Mr. Warmth" Jack E. Leonard, though Rickles denies that Leonard influenced his style. Career. 1950s–1960s. While working in a Miami Beach nightclub known as "Murray Franklin's" early in his career, he spotted Frank Sinatra and remarked to him, "I just saw your movie, "The Pride and the Passion" and I want to tell you, the cannon's acting was great." He added, "Make yourself at home, Frank. Hit somebody!" Sinatra, whose pet name for Rickles was "bullet-head", enjoyed Rickles so much that he encouraged other celebrities to see Rickles' act and be insulted by him. Sinatra's support helped Rickles become a popular headline performer in Las Vegas. Rickles earned the nicknames "The Merchant of Venom" and "Mr. Warmth" for his insult comedy, in which he pokes fun at people of all ethnicities and walks of life. When he is introduced to an audience or on a television talk show, Spanish matador music, "La Virgen de la Macarena", will usually be played, subtly foreshadowing that someone is about to be metaphorically gored. Rickles has said, "I always pictured myself facing the audience as the matador." In 1958, Rickles made his film debut in a serious part in "Run Silent, Run Deep" starring Clark Gable and Burt Lancaster. Throughout the 1960s, he appeared frequently on television in sitcoms and dramatic series. Rickles guest-starred in "Get Smart" as "Sid", an old war buddy of Max who comes to stay with him. In an episode of the 1960s drama series "Run for Your Life", Rickles played a distressed comedian whose act culminates when he strangles a patron while imploring the patron to "Laugh!" Rickles took a dramatic turn in the Roger Corman film "X: The Man with the X-Ray Eyes" as a carnival barker out to exploit the title character. Rickles also appeared in the popular "Beach Party" film series. He recalled in his 2007 memoir that at a White House dinner, Barbara Bush teased him about his decision to appear in those films. Rickles' agent, Jack Gilardi, was married to Annette Funicello when Rickles was cast in the "Beach Party" films. Subsequently, Rickles began appearing more frequently on television talk shows, first appearing on "The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson" in 1965. He became a frequent guest and guest host, appearing more than 100 times on "The Tonight Show" during Carson's era. An early Carson-Rickles "Tonight" highlight occurred in 1968 when, while two Japanese women treated Carson to a bath and massage by foot, Rickles walked onto the set. At one point, he decided to play massage therapist to the prone and towel-clad Carson. Rickles leaned over and wrapped his arms around Carson, ad-libbing, "I'm so lonely, Johnny!" Carson broke into hysterical laughter, got up, grabbed Rickles, and tossed the suit-clad comedian into the bathtub. Rickles also made frequent appearances on "The Dean Martin Show" and became a fixture on The Dean Martin Celebrity Roasts specials, which continued until 1984. In 1968, Rickles released a live comedy album, "Hello, Dummy!", which reached #54 on The Billboard 200 album chart. The same year he starred in his own variety show on ABC, "The Don Rickles Show", with comedy writer Pat McCormick as his sidekick. The show lasted one season. During the 1960s, Rickles made guest appearances on "The Dick Van Dyke Show", "The Munsters", "The Addams Family", "The Mothers-in-Law", "Gilligan's Island", "Get Smart", "The Andy Griffith Show" and "I Dream of Jeannie". 1970s–1980s. In 1970, Rickles had a notable role as the con man Sgt. Crapgame in the hit film "Kelly's Heroes" with Clint Eastwood. In 1972, he starred in the sitcom "The Don Rickles Show" which lasted for 13 episodes. He also starred in a series of television specials. In his memoir, Rickles acknowledged that a scripted sitcom was not well-suited to his ad-lib style of performing. In 1973 Don Rickles was a popular comedian at The Dean Martin Roasts. In 1976, he starred in the sitcom "C.P.O. Sharkey", which lasted two seasons. The show is primarily remembered for the cigarette box incident when Johnny Carson did an impromptu surprise visit during an episode's taping because he was "incensed" that Rickles broke his cigarette box while he chatted with Bob Newhart (who was sitting in for Carson as the guest host of the "The Tonight Show") on the previous night's show. The incident was often replayed in "Tonight Show" retrospectives and was considered a highlight of the 1970s era of the show. Rickles occasionally appeared as a panelist on "Hollywood Squares" and was depicted in comic book form by Jack Kirby during his work on the "Superman's Pal Jimmy Olsen" series. 1980s–1990s. In the early 1980s, Rickles began performing with singer Steve Lawrence in concerts in Las Vegas. In 1983, the duo co-hosted the short-lived ABC-TV series "Foul-Ups, Bleeps & Blunders", an imitation of NBC's "TV's Bloopers & Practical Jokes". In 1985, when Frank Sinatra was asked to perform at Ronald Reagan's Second Inaugural Ball, he stipulated he would not perform unless Rickles was allowed to perform with him. Rickles considers this performance the highlight of his career. In 1990, he appeared in the second season of "Tales From the Crypt" in the episode "The Ventriloquist's Dummy". In 1992, he was cast in the film "Innocent Blood", directed by John Landis. In his memoir, Rickles wrote that he recalled that Landis was once a "Production Assistant" to director Brian G. Hutton during the filming of "Kelly's Heroes". During the filming of "Innocent Blood", Rickles would kid Landis by ordering him to get coffee or to run other errands befitting his one-time "gofer" status. In 1993, Rickles starred in another short-lived sitcom, "Daddy Dearest", with comedian Richard Lewis. In 1995, he made a return to film in two high-profile projects: a dramatic role as Robert De Niro's trusted colleague in Martin Scorsese's "Casino", and voicing Mr. Potato Head in the Pixar computer-animated film "Toy Story". He reprises the latter role in "Toy Story 2" and "Toy Story 3". In 1998 he portrayed a movie theater manager in "Dirty Work", starring Norm Macdonald and Artie Lange. Again in 1998, he was the voice of Cornwall, one of the heads of a two-headed dragon, in the movie "Quest for Camelot". 2000s–present. In February 2007, Rickles made a cameo appearance as himself in a strange, recurring dream sequence that was woven through an episode titled "Sub Conscious" of the CBS dramatic series, "The Unit". Rickles' memoir, titled "Rickles' Book", was released on May 8, 2007 by Simon & Schuster. "", a documentary about Rickles directed by John Landis, made its debut on HBO on December 2, 2007. Rickles won an Emmy Award for "Outstanding Individual Performance in a Variety or Music Program " besting a number of notable comics, including David Letterman, Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert. To this Rickles remarked, "Stephen Colbert's a funny man, but he's too young. He has got plenty of time to win awards, but this may be my last year and I think that I made it count. On second thought it was probably just a mercy award for an old man." Rickles reprised the role of Mr. Potato Head in the Toy Story Midway Mania! attraction at Disney California Adventure Park and Disney's Hollywood Studios. He voiced the character again in "Toy Story 3". In 2009, Rickles appeared on "" and met Griffin's mother, Maggie, to fulfill one item on Maggie's "bucket list". In 2010, he appeared in a commercial during Super Bowl XLIV as a talking rose. On June 27, 2010, he appeared on the 37th Annual Daytime Emmy Awards on CBS TV. In 2011, Rickles reunited with his "Casino"-co-star Joe Pesci in a Snickers advertisement highlighting the actors known for their "short fuses." Also in 2011, he made a surprise appearance as the late husband of Elka (Betty White) on the TV Land original comedy "Hot in Cleveland"—a "surprise" because Rickles' character was thought to be dead. Rickles remains very active on the stand-up comedy scene and has no plans to retire, as he recently stated in an interview. "I'm in good health. I'm working better than I ever have. The audiences are great. Why should I retire? I'm like a fighter. The bell rings and you come out and fight. My energy comes alive. And I still enjoy it." At 87, he's still a frequent guest on late night talk shows, including the "Late Show with David Letterman", "Jimmy Kimmel Live!", and "The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson". Style. It is well known that Rickles has nothing against the people he insults during his routines, and that it's all just part of the act. Although sarcastically nicknamed "Mr. Warmth" due to his offensive and insensitive stage personality, most know him to be quite genial and pleasant. In addition, many also say that being insulted by him is like "wearing a badge of honor". Rickles addressed his comedic style and whether he ever feared it might become too offensive in an interview with Jay Leno:
1067871	Trouble the Water is a 2008 documentary film produced and directed by Tia Lessin and Carl Deal, producers of "Fahrenheit 9/11". "Trouble the Water" is a redemptive tale of a couple surviving failed levees, bungling bureaucrats, and their own troubled past and a portrait of a community abandoned long before Hurricane Katrina hit, featuring music by Massive Attack, Mary Mary, Citizen Cope, John Lee Hooker, The Roots, Dr. John and Blackkoldmadina. "Trouble the Water" is distributed by Zeitgeist Films and premiered in theaters in New York City and Los Angeles on August 22, 2008, followed by a national release in more than 200 theaters. It had its television premiere on HBO and has been rebroadcast on National Geographic Channel and Turner Classic Movies. "Trouble the Water" is available on DVD. Synopsis. "Trouble the Water" opens the day the filmmakers meet 24-year-old aspiring rap artist and ex-drug dealer Kimberly Rivers Roberts and her husband Scott at a Red Cross shelter in central Louisiana, then flashes back two weeks, with Kimberly turning her new video camera on herself and her neighbors trapped in their Ninth Ward attic as the storm rages, the levees fail and the flood waters rise.
583267	Virendra Saxena (also Veerendra Saxena) is an Indian theater, film and television actor. He is an alumnus of the National School of Drama. Saxena is known for his character roles as well as his unique voice. He has acted in over 80 Indian films and few Hollywood films like White Rainbow, Cotton Mary, In Custody and also in many television serials. Personal life. Saxena was born in Mathura, Uttar Pradesh in India. He has married television star Samta and both now reside in Mumbai. Career. Saxena has worked with leading actors like Shahrukh Khan, Aamir Khan, Amitabh Bachchan, Akshay Kumar, John Abraham, Om Puri, Naseeruddin Shah and others. Saxena is a known name in Indian film and television industry and his acting has always been highly appreciated by viewers.
1073539	TJ Hassan (born May 23, 1981) is a film, television and stage actor. He is perhaps best known for several supporting and leading roles both in independent and mainstream films and television. Career. His first film role was in the Jerry Zaks directed 2008 biopic "Who Do You Love?", playing Lonnie Johnson, an American blues musician, opposite Alessandro Nivola and Chi McBride. Other supporting roles in films included "Lottery Ticket", "The Change-Up" and "For Colored Girls". Television appearances include guest starring as Major Brett Hagen, an Army psychiatrist on the Lifetime series "Army Wives", Detective Chico Cubbs on the Comedy Central-produced series "M'larky", along with Dan Fogler, Gilbert Gottfried, Jeffrey Ross, and Lennon Parham, and the ABC Family film "My Future Boyfriend". He was also the face of the 2010 Coke Zero Playbook of Possibilities campaign.
1066019	Terror Train is a 1980 slasher film, directed by Roger Spottiswoode and starring Jamie Lee Curtis, Ben Johnson and David Copperfield. It follows the members of a college fraternity who played a cruel prank on a shy kid named Kenny Hampson three years ago. They are having a costume party on a train; unbeknownst to them, someone has boarded the train with them and is killing them all one by one. Plot. At a college pre-med student fraternity New Year's Eve party, a reluctant Alana Maxwell is coerced into participating in a prank: she lures the shy and awkward pledge Kenny Hampson into a darkened room on the promise of a sexual liaison. However some other students have placed a woman's corpse in the bed. Kenny is traumatised by the prank and is sent to a psychiatric hospital. Three years later the members of the same fraternities and sororities hold a costume party aboard a train. Class clown Ed is disguised as Groucho Marx. Prank ringleader Doc Manley is disguised as a monk. Jackson is disguised as an alien lizard. Doc's girlfriend, Alana's best friend Mitchy, is disguised as a witch. Alana's boyfriend Mo is disguised as a bird. Also along are Carne, the train conductor, and Ken, the magician hired to entertain the crowd. As the train journeys into the icy wilderness, the students responsible for the prank are murdered one by one, with the killer assuming the mask and costume of each murder victim in turn. Carne discovers some bodies and sequesters the students in one car as the train begins its return journey. Alana recalls the prank, and, remembering that Kenny loved magic, suspects the magician is the killer. However the magician has disappeared, and is eventually found impaled inside his sword box. Alana is sequestered in a locked compartment for her safety, but the killer is still aboard, stalking her. The killer enters the compartment but Alana escapes, and is pursued by the killer through the train. The killer is revealed as Kenny, who was disguised as the magician's female assistant. Kenny refuses Alana's apology and forces her to kiss him, but the kiss causes Kenny to relive his memories of the prank, driving him deeper into insanity. Carne rushes to the scene and beats down Kenny with a firemans' shovel, causing him to fall out the open door of the baggage car to his presumable death. His body lands in the nearly frozen river and floats away as the train roars off. Production. To create the train for the film, the producers leased an actual Canadian Pacific Railway locomotive from the Steamtown Foundation. The train's engine was renumbered from its original 1293 to 1881, and, along with five passenger cars, painted black with silver stripes. Afterward, the Steamtown Foundation reverted the engine back to its original number and had it restored to a historic color and lettering scheme. As of February, 2002, Canadian Pacific Railway No. 1293 continued to be an "operable locomotive."
1058811	Clerks II is a 2006 American comedy film written and directed by Kevin Smith, sequel to his 1994 film "Clerks", and his sixth and latest feature film to be set in the View Askewniverse. The film stars Brian O'Halloran, Jeff Anderson, Rosario Dawson, Trevor Fehrman, Jennifer Schwalbach Smith, Jason Mewes and Kevin Smith, and picks up with the original characters from "Clerks": Dante Hicks, Randal Graves and Jay and Silent Bob 10 years after the events of the first film. The film was released on July 21, 2006; it screened out of competition at the 2006 Cannes Film Festival and won the Audience Award at the 2006 Edinburgh International Film Festival. Plot. Eleven years after the events of the first film, Dante (Brian O'Halloran) opens the Quick Stop convenience store to find that it is on fire; Randal (Jeff Anderson) had left the coffee pot on after closing the night before. As a result of the destruction of Quick Stop and the adjacent RST Video, Dante and Randal begin working at a Mooby's fast food restaurant along with Elias (Trevor Fehrman) and their manager Becky Scott (Rosario Dawson). A year later, Dante is planning to leave his minimum wage lifestyle in favor of a family life in Florida with his fiancée Emma Bunting (Jennifer Schwalbach), whose father will provide them with a home and a business to run. This leaves Randal bitterly disappointed, who fears that with Dante moving to Florida would leave him without his best friend. Jay and Silent Bob (Jason Mewes and Kevin Smith) have since followed Dante and Randal, and now loiter outside of Mooby's. Jay and Silent Bob no longer do drugs after they were arrested for the possession of drugs and were sent to rehab, and become devout Christians following their release. However, the duo continue selling drugs. Dante eventually confesses to Becky that he is worried about dancing at his wedding, so she takes him up onto the roof of the restaurant to teach him some moves. Dante soon lets go of his inhibitions and learns how to dance. When the song ends, Dante, caught up in the moment, tells Becky he loves her, and she reveals to him that she is pregnant; Dante and Becky had a one night stand on the prep table a few weeks before. Becky tells Dante not to tell anyone about the baby; however Dante tells Randal, and an angered Becky leaves when she learns that Dante told Randal. Randal encourages Dante to leave Mooby's in search for Becky, and in the meantime, sets up a surprise going away party for Dante. Randal hires "Kinky Kelly and the Sexy Stud," a donkey show with a fog machine. When Dante comes back, he mistakes the fog for a fire and calls the fire department, but upon discovering that it is not a fire, he proceeds to watch the show with Randal, Jay, Bob, and Elias. The group soon discovers that "Kinky Kelly" is, in fact, the donkey, while the man (Zak Knutson), whom Randal thought to be the pimp, is "The Sexy Stud". When Becky returns, Dante confesses his love for her. As they kiss, Emma arrives. She throws her engagement ring at Becky and angrily walks off. The fire and police departments soon arrive and discover the show. Dante, Randal, Elias, Jay, Silent Bob, and The Sexy Stud are detained and jailed. Although they are informed they will soon be released, Dante blames Randal for ruining his life and expresses his eagerness to start a new life without Randal, while Randal condemns Dante for wanting to move to Florida and his willingness to live his life under the standards of others. Amid the argument, Randal proposes that they buy the Quick Stop and re-open it, although Dante reacts by saying that neither two have the money to purchase the store. Jay and Silent Bob offer to lend them some money (from the royalties they collected following the events of "Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back") on the condition that they can loiter outside of the Quick Stop. Randal accepts their offer, but Dante remains skeptical, prompting Randal to emotionally confess his fear of losing Dante. As a result, Dante agrees to the proposition as well, and after his release, he proposes to Becky, who accepts. After the Quick Stop and RST Video are rebuilt, Elias applies for a job and is hired at RST Video. In the very last scene, with the store open, Dante says, "Can you feel it? Today is the first day of the rest of our lives", and the picture turns black 'n' white as a nod to the first film. Cast. The main characters from the original film are Dante, Randal, and Jay and Silent Bob. Walt Flanagan and Smith's mother, Grace Smith, both make cameos at the end of the film as customers in the new Quick Stop, reprising their roles in the original film. Flanagan is the customer who asks for a pack of cigarettes, while Grace Smith is the one who checks each gallon of milk for the expiration date. Long time View Askew actors Ben Affleck and Jason Lee make cameo appearances as Mooby's customers as does comedian/actress Wanda Sykes. Production. In 1999, the original title was slated to be Clerks 2: Hardly Clerkin (cf. Jerry Lewis's "Hardly Working"), as seen in the credits of "Dogma". Smith later modified the title to The Passion of the Clerks, lampooning the title of Mel Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ". According to the DVD documentary, the title was changed to simply Clerks II, due to negative reaction to the "Passion" title. The film was shot September–November 2005. It originally scheduled for a 2005 release, and then a January 2006 release, but the production was pushed back due to other projects and Kevin Smith's involvement in the romantic comedy "Catch and Release". Smith released production diaries on the "Clerks II" website (see links below). They chronicle the entire making of the film from the first rehearsals all the way through to the final release. Some of these web diaries are also available on the two-disc DVD of the film. Smith released a Web-only teaser trailer on the "Clerks II" website on January 9, 2006, and a web-only trailer on April 2, 2006. Smith also released several shorts featuring action figures from his previous films to promote the film. Before the release of the film, Smith had mentioned releasing an MP3 file commentary to be downloaded and listened to in movie theaters via iPod. Ultimately, theater owners and exhibitors objected, and the plan was scrapped. The abandoned commentary, featuring Smith, Scott Mosier and Jeff Anderson, is included on the DVD. The bookend Quick Stop scenes are in black and white (to simulate the original visual style of "Clerks"), while the rest of the film is in color. Smith has said that much of the film's color was desaturated almost to the point where the film had a similar texture to the first film. The contrast in color saturation used can be seen in the "ABC" sequence in which a more vibrant and saturated color temperature is used to give a warm and sunny look that adds to the playful nature of the piece. Locations. The Mooby's restaurant was a shut-down Burger King at 8572 Stanton Ave in Buena Park, California, (near Knott's Berry Farm), which has since been demolished. The final days of principal photography were filmed at the Quick Stop and R.S.T. Video stores in Leonardo, New Jersey, with some exceptions, the most notable being the go-kart scene, which was shot at Speedzone in Industry, California. The opening sequence where Randal and Dante are driving to work is a montage of Route 35, mostly in Middletown, NJ. Casting. Brian O'Halloran, Jeff Anderson, Jason Mewes, and Kevin Smith all reprised their roles from the first film. According to the DVD commentary, Kevin Smith originally wanted to cast his wife Jennifer Schwalbach Smith as Becky. Executive producer Harvey Weinstein objected, however, as he wanted a known actress to play the role, for marketing reasons. Other actresses that Smith had met with were Sarah Silverman and Bryce Dallas Howard, who both declined. Smith recalls having lunch with Howard, who said she was interested in the film but ultimately passed in order to do "Lady in the Water". Silverman said she didn't want to play the character Becky as she had been cast as girlfriends in numerous other productions and feared type-casting, but loved the script and would have been more than willing to play the part of Randal. Rachel Weisz was another name the studio considered, but Smith figured she would turn the role down and never offered her the part. Ellen Pompeo expressed an interest but could not commit due to scheduling difficulties with "Grey's Anatomy". Finally, the role was offered to Rosario Dawson, who loved the script. She later said that reading the "donkey show" scene sealed the deal for her. Jennifer Schwalbach Smith was given the secondary female role of Emma. Smith also cast his daughter Harley as the little girl Dante waves to in the window and his mother Grace as the Milk Maid, reprising her role from the first film. The character of Elias was played by Trevor Fehrman, who had previously worked with Jeff Anderson in his film, "Now You Know". Smith saw him in the film and was impressed enough to give him a part. In keeping with Smith's tradition of casting actors that he has previously worked with, both Jason Lee and Ben Affleck had parts in the film. Lee played Randal's old enemy, Lance Dowds, and Affleck played a random Mooby's customer. After finding no one else who could pull off being the Sexy Stud, Smith turned to crew member Zak Charles Knutson to fill the role. On "Clerks II"s MySpace account, a contest was held in which the first 10,000 MySpace users who added "Clerks II" as a friend would have their name in the theatrical and DVD end credits; The list follows the View Askew and Weinstein Company logos. The names are not present in the credits on the Region 2 DVD. Release. Rating. The film was originally planned to be released without an MPAA film rating, in order to avoid receiving an NC-17. Smith claimed "If we put it in front of the ratings board they'd be like, 'You're insane. We have to create a new rating for that.'" However, he later submitted it, and it received an R rating without any edits. Box office. The film opened in 2,150 theaters and grossed $10,061,132 domestically in its first weekend. The film's theatrical gross was $24,148,068 domestically, plus an additional $2,833,903 foreign, turning a profit on its reported budget of $5 million. Critical response. It received generally positive reviews from critics. At review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, reviews for "Clerks II" were mostly positive, with the film rated "fresh" overall (63% positive). , the critical consensus was that the film "dishes up much of the graphic humor and some of the insight that made the 1994 original a cult hit". Metacritic characterised the film's reception as "generally favorable", with metascore of 65 out of 100 from 29 reviews. In a review for "The New York Times", A.O. Scott notes the following: Justin Chang's review at "Variety" called it a "softer, flabbier and considerably higher-budgeted follow-up to Kevin Smith's 1994 indie sensation that nevertheless packs enough riotous exchanges and pungent sexual obscenities to make its 97 minutes pass by with ease." At an advance screening for critics, Joel Siegel walked out of the film approximately 40 minutes in, during a scene in which the characters attempt to procure a donkey for sexual purposes. Smith claimed on his website that Siegel "bellowed" the phrase "Time to go. This is the first movie I've walked out on in thirty fucking years." "TV Guide" film critic Maitland McDonagh, who said she was sitting next to Siegel, largely confirms Smith's account but insists that Siegel did not curse or "bellow." However, she reports that he left from the farthest possible exit, thereby making sure everyone noticed his departure. On his blog, Smith criticized Siegel for unprofessional conduct, in a profanity-laced tirade in which he referred to the critic performing sexual acts on director M. Night Shyamalan in regard to his praise for "The Village" before having seen it. Smith later confronted Siegel in a live interview on "Opie and Anthony"; Siegel apologized for cursing and causing a scene, and told Smith that he thinks he is a "fine filmmaker," while still defending his decision to walk out. British entertainer and film-critic Jonathan Ross has been largely critical of the film, saying he disliked it even more than the first film; he expressed distaste that the film was voted by viewers of his "Film 2006" show into the top ten of the year, in which it ranked sixth. It made other Best of 2006 lists, including being named movie of the year by MTV India, being voted the 3rd funniest film of 2006 by IMDb users. and the 9th best reviewed comedy by Rotten Tomatoes. The film received an eight-minute standing ovation at the 2006 Cannes Film Festival. Soundtrack. "Music from the Motion Picture Clerks II", the soundtrack to the film, was released on August 22, 2006 by Bulletproof Records. It includes songs from the film, which are of various artists and genres, as well as many soundclips of dialog from the film. One notable exception is that The Smashing Pumpkins' "1979", which was featured in the film, is not included. It has been replaced by All Too Much's "Think Fast", which was not featured in the film. Home media. The "Clerks II" DVD was released on November 28, 2006. "The Hollywood Reporter" reported that the film opened to #4 in terms of rental and DVD sales, and made approximately $6 million in rentals, or a quarter of the total box office gross of $24.2 million. "Clerks II" was released on HD DVD on January 16, 2007. The release featured the film in 1080p high definition on one disc and the same extras as the DVD, also presented in 1080p, on a second disc. After the conclusion of the high definition optical disc format war in February 2008, "Clerks II" was released on Blu-ray Disc on February 3, 2009 with two additional special features.
1066492	Kasi Lemmons (born Karen Lemmons on February 24, 1961) is an American film director and actress, most notable for her work on the films "Eve's Bayou", "The Caveman's Valentine" and "Talk to Me". Early life. Lemmons was born in St. Louis, Missouri, the daughter of a poet/psychotherapist mother and a biology teacher father. When Lemmons was eight years old, her parents divorced, and she and her mother and two sisters moved to Newton, Massachusetts. Her mother remarried when she was nine. Her passion for movies came at an early age, but becoming a director was her goal. “I wanted to do something more meaningful than going to auditions…”. Career. Acting. In 1979, Lemmons made her acting debut in the television movie "11th Victim" (1979). She performed with the Boston Children’s Theater at a young age and later attended New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts. She then transferred to University of California, Los Angeles to major in history. However, she eventually left U.C.L.A. and enrolled in the film program at the New School for Social Research. As a young child, Lemmons got her first role on TV on a local soap opera called "You Got a Right", a courtroom drama. She played the first and only black girl who integrated to an all-white school. Her acting credits include episodic parts on shows like "As the World Turns", "Murder, She Wrote", "The Cosby Show" or "ER" and films such as Spike Lee's "School Daze" (1988), "Vampire's Kiss" (1988), the Academy Award winner for Best Picture "The Silence of the Lambs" (1991), "Candyman" (1992), "Hard Target" (1993), "Fear of a Black Hat" (1993), "Gridlock'd" (1997) and "'Til There Was You" (1997). Filmmaking. In 1997, Lemmons directed the film "Eve's Bayou" starring Samuel L. Jackson, Lynn Whitfield, Debbi Morgan, Diahann Carroll, and Jurnee Smollett. Lemmons wrote a narrative that wove together family drama in the story of a ten-year old girl and her family. She created and directed the movie with an intentional use of universal significance. The movie is told by Eve, the main character who begins the movie in retrospective to the summer before when she notes, "Memory is a selection of images…some elusive, some printed indelibly on the brain the summer I killed my father, I was ten years old." Lemmons' friend gave some insight on the film, saying that it would be something really strong that grabs you at the beginning. The movie expresses certain themes and promotes an ambiance of mystery, sultry eroticism, and passion that transforms the characters throughout the movie. The film was not meant to be based on African-American film work; however, it was meant to perceive human relationships in a different way. It attracted more white audiences than black. Lemmons expressed in an interview with the "Washington Post" that the movie was about "friendship". The theme of following your dreams is prominent, and in the movie, the dreams are invested in another person. "It’s a story about activism and politics and community and how those things intersect. It’s a story about a man who had a voice that inspired…" The casting for Talk to Me was done by Lemmons as well. She specifically wanted Don Cheadle to be in her movie. She felt that Martin Sheen would fitting for the role of E. G. Sonderling, who was the head of the radio station. "He has the perfect balance of cool and conservative that we needed for the character and he’s wonderful in the movie." She also selected Mike Epps, Cedric the Entertainer, and Taraji Henson, the female lead, as actors for the movie. She had the opportunity to cast her husband, Vondie Curtis-Hall. The film was well-received among critics (currently holding a 80% rate of approval on review aggregator site Rotten Tomatoes) and won Lemmons an Independent Spirit Award for Best First Feature as well as a National Board of Review award for Outstanding Directorial Debut. In 2001 she directed Samuel L. Jackson in the film "The Caveman’s Valentine". The story line of this second film is about a homeless man whose effort was to solve a murder mystery. It involves "unexplained ambiguities surrounding him that include moth seraphs that emerge from dancers and forceful rays that are emitted from the Chrysler Building, home of his imaginary arch enemy." Although Lemmons’ presence as a director was evident, this film was deemed a failure. Lemmons addresses the failure in an interview with Alexander, saying that compared to "Eve's Bayou", the two movies are different and complicated they cannot be compared. She tells the Alexander that it was rebellious movie due to her success in the other movie. In 2002 Lemmons conceived and helmed the tribute to Sidney Poitier for the 74th Annual Academy Award show. Shortly afterwards it was announced that Lemmons would direct "The Battle of Cloverfield", a supernatural thriller about a small Southern town that becomes haunted by its ghosts, from her own script for producer Laura Ziskin and Columbia Pictures. In 2007 Lemmons directed the movie "Talk to Me" about an ex-con (played by Don Cheadle) who became a popular talk show host and community activist. The film and the actors were the target of much praise and Lemmons herself won an Image Award for Outstanding Directing in a Motion Picture. Lemmons is currently developing an adaptation of Broadway musical "Black Nativity" to be filmed in 2013 starring Academy Award winners Forest Whitaker and Jennifer Hudson as well as Academy Award nominee Angela Bassett. Lemmons is also attached to direct the Apartheid-set drama "Agaat", based on Marlene van Niekerk's novel, in addition to an adaptation of Zadie Smith's best-selling novel "On Beauty". Personal life. Lemmons has been married to actor and director Vondie Curtis-Hall since 1995. The couple have a son, Henry Hunter (born 1996), and a daughter, Zora (1999). Lemmons states that her husband is immensely supportive and feels that he is more relaxed than she is. Compared to how he works, she prefers the pressure of working on a set with the actors. As a director and a mother, Lemmons says that it gives her perspective. Her life outside of the movie set and Hollywood has kept her grounded. Though she is a Black woman, Lemmons identifies herself as an artist first and foremost in her career. “…I don’t wake up every day saying I’m a Black woman because it’s too given, but I wake up every day feeling like an artist and I feel I’m an artist.”
1040767	Peter Sallis, OBE (born 1 February 1921) is an English actor and entertainer, well known for his work on British television. Although he was born and brought up in London, his two most notable roles require him to adopt the accents and mannerisms of a Northerner. Sallis is known for his role as the main character Norman Clegg in the long-running British TV comedy "Last of the Summer Wine", set in a Yorkshire town. He was the longest serving cast member, appearing in all 295 episodes from 1973 onwards. He also appeared in all 13 of the episodes of the prequel series "First of the Summer Wine" as Norman Clegg's father. He also provides the voice of Wallace in the "Wallace and Gromit" films. Early life. Sallis was born on 1 February 1921 in Twickenham, Middlesex, the only child of Dorothy Amea (née Barnard) and Harry Sallis. After attending Minchenden Grammar School in North London, Sallis went to work in a bank. After the outbreak of World War II he joined the RAF. He failed to get into aircrew because he had a serum albumin disorder and he was told he might black out at high altitudes. He became a wireless mechanic instead and went on to teach radio procedures at RAF Cranwell. Sallis started as an amateur actor during his four years with the RAF when one of his students offered him the lead in an amateur production. His success in the role caused him to resolve to become an actor after the war, and so he trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts, making his first professional appearance on the London stage in 1946. Sallis married Elaine Usher at St John's Wood Church in London on 9 February 1957. Their son, Timothy Crispian Sallis was born in 1959. Career. Sallis became a notable character actor on the London stage in the 1950s and 1960s. His credits include the first West End production of "Cabaret" opposite Judi Dench in 1968. He also appeared in character parts in British films of the time, including a few for Hammer Films. In 1968, he was cast as the well-intentioned Coker in a BBC Radio production of John Wyndham's "The Day of the Triffids". His first notable television role was as Samuel Pepys in the BBC serial of the same name in 1958. In 1961, he appeared as Gordon in the "Find and Destroy" episode of "Danger Man". He appeared in the "Doctor Who" story "The Ice Warriors" in 1967, playing renegade scientist Elric Penley; and in 1983 was due to play the role of Striker in another Doctor Who story, "Enlightenment", but had to withdraw. He was Doctor Watson to Fritz Weaver's Sherlock Holmes in the Broadway musical "Baker Street" in 1967. He introduced what the critics considered the show's best musical number, "A Married Man." In 1970, he was cast in the BBC comedy series "The Culture Vultures", which saw him play stuffy Professor George Hobbs to Leslie Phillips's laid-back rogue Dr Michael Cunningham. During the production, Phillips was rushed to hospital with an internal haemorrhage and as a result, only five episodes were made. 1971 saw Sallis acting alongside Roger Moore and Tony Curtis in an episode of "The Persuaders!" entitled "The Long Goodbye". He appeared late in the episode as David Piper, a former clerk in a company who was elevated to a substantially higher position and salary as his reward for installing an explosive device in an aeroplane that killed its pilot. The pilot was a noted scientist whose research would have been detrimental to the company that employed Piper. Sallis was cast in a one-off pilot for "Comedy Playhouse" entitled "Of Funerals and Fish" (1973), which became "Last of the Summer Wine", as the unobtrusive lover of a quiet life, Norman Clegg. Sallis had already worked with Michael Bates, who played unofficial ring-leader Blamire in the first two series, on stage. The pilot was successful and the BBC commissioned a series. Sallis played the role of Clegg from 1973 to 2010, and was the only cast member to appear in every episode. In 1988 he appeared as Clegg's father in "First of the Summer Wine", a prequel to "Last of the Summer Wine" set in 1939.
582274	Dino Morea (born 9 December 1975) is an Indian actor who appears in Bollywood films and a former model. Early life. Dino Morea was born in Bangalore, India, to an Italian father and an Indian mother. He is the second of three brothers. Nicolo Morea is his older brother, and Santino Morea is his younger brother. His family moved to Bangalore, Karnataka, in 1996. He initially attended Bangalore Military School, Bangalore, graduated from St. Joseph's College in Bangalore and also went to Clarence High School. He was first noticed when he was modeling for a fashion company, and he soon received his first film offer. Career. Morea was supermodel and made his acting debut in "Pyaar Mein Kabhi Kabhi" opposite Rinke Khanna, which was a flop, but he got his breakthrough roles with Rajiv Menon's Tamil film "Kandukondain Kandukondain", the 2002 horror film "Raaz" and the thriller, "Gunaah". His other prominent films include, ', "Sssshhh...", "Rakht" and "Acid Factory". He was a contestant of reality show ' in 2010.
590912	Saridey Varalakshmi, popularly known as Telugu: ఎస్. వర లక్ష్మిS. Varalakshmi (13 August 1925 - 22 September 2009) was a veteran Telugu and Tamil actress and singer. She was popular for her roles and songs in Telugu movies like "Mahamantri Timmarasu" and "Sri Venkateswara Mahatyam" and Tamil movies like "Veerapandiya Kattabomman" and "Savale Samali". Life. Varalakshmi was born in Jaggampeta, Andhra Pradesh, India. She started her career as child artist in saint role in "Balayogini" (1937), when she was nine years old. Gudavalli Ramabramham was engaged by the pioneer filmmaker K. Subrahmanyam to direct the Telugu version of this movie. He spotted young Varalakshmi in Kurnool. Subramanyam later cast her in his classic "Seva Sadanam" (1938) with M. S. Subbulakshmi. She played a young friend of the heroine (M.S.), and they became close friends. She played a young girl’s role in "Parasuraman" (Tamil, 1940) along with T. R. Mahalingam. T. R. Sundaram, cast her in a major role in his box office hit ‘Aayiram Thalai Vaangi Apoorva Chinthamani’ (1947). The title role was played by V. N. Janaki. The film was a major success and Govindan and Varalakshmi made an attractive pair. T. R. Sundaram cast her again in the lead role in ‘Bhojan’ (1948). Her first successful movie was "Balaraju" in 1948 produced and directed by Ghantasala Balaramaiah. She later acted with all top heroes in Telugu and Tamil industries including Sivaji Ganesan ("Veerapandiya Kattabbomman"), M. G. Ramachandran ("Chakravarthi Thirumagal", "Maattukara Velan", "Needhikku Thalaivanangu"), Gemini Ganesan ("Poova Thalaiya"), N. T. Rama Rao ("Lava Kusha"), A. Nageswara Rao(ANR) ("Balaraju"), Chittor V. Nagaiah ("Naga Panchami"), Ranjan ("En Magan") and R. S. Manohar ("Maamiyaar"). She was also famous for her voice, and sung her songs in all movies she acted. Her roles as Sivaji's sister in "Veerapandiya Kattabomman", and important roles in "Poova Thalaiyaa", "Savale Samali", "Maattukkara Velan", "Raja Raja Chozhan" and "Neethikku thalaivanangu" won her critical acclaim as a talented singer and actress in Tamil movies. In her later career, she acted in mother and aunt roles. She married film producer A. L. Srinivasan and has two children. She continued to act after marriage in senior roles in Telugu and Tamil cinema. Death. Varalakshmi was bedridden during the last 6 months of her life after she fell and injured her back. She died on 22 September 2009. Honors and awards. She has received several awards commending her service to Tamil cinema. The most recent ones were: Filmography. Note: The lists are not comprehensive.
582934	Hum Tum Pe Marte Hain was a 1999 Bollywood romantic movie directed by Nabh Kumar 'Raju'. The music for the movie was composed by Uttam Singh and lyrics by Anand Bakshi. Plot. The story of the film revolves around two neighboring families. One family is headed by Sethji (Paresh Rawal) and the other by Devyani (Dimple Kapadia). Rahul (Govinda) is Sethji's son. He has just returned to his native town after completing his studies. Radhika (Urmila Matondkar), is Devyani’s sister-in-law, recently arrived from the village. Radhika and Rahul, predictably, fall in love. Devyani is impressed with her business associate, Dhananjay (Nirmal Pandey). She is also aware of Rahul and Radhika's clandestine meetings, so she offers Radhika's hand in marriage to Dhananjay, who delightedly accepts. Rahul has to prove his love to Dhananjay and Devyani.
1063379	Amanda Michelle Seyfried (; born December 3, 1985) is an American actress singer and model. She began her career as a child model when she was 11 and at 15 began her career as an actress, starting off with uncredited roles and moving on to recurring roles on "As the World Turns" and "All My Children". In 2004, Seyfried made her film debut in "Mean Girls". Her subsequent supporting roles were in independent films, such as "Nine Lives" (2005) and "Alpha Dog" (2006), and she also had a recurring role in the UPN TV show "Veronica Mars" (2004–2006). Between 2006 and 2011, she starred on the HBO series "Big Love". After that, Seyfried appeared in the 2008 musical feature film "Mamma Mia!". Her other appearances include leading roles in "Jennifer's Body" (2009), "Chloe" (2009), "Dear John" (2010), "Letters to Juliet" (2010), "Red Riding Hood" (2011), "In Time" (2011) and "Gone" (2012), Cosette in the musical film "Les Misérables" (2012), and Linda Lovelace in the biopic "Lovelace" (2013). Early life. Amanda Seyfried was born in Allentown, Lehigh County, Pennsylvania, on December 3, 1985. Her mother, Ann (née Sander), is an occupational therapist, and her father, Jack Seyfried, is a pharmacist. She is of mostly German descent, and also has some Scots-Irish and English ancestry. Seyfried graduated in 2003 from Allentown's William Allen High School. She has an older sister, Jennifer Seyfried, who is a musician in the Philadelphia organ-driven rock band, Love City. Career. Early work (1996–2005). During Seyfried's time modeling, she appeared in print ads for clothing companies including Limited Too with Leighton Meester. She stopped modeling when she was seventeen, and worked as a waitress in a retirement community. Seyfried took voice lessons, studied opera, and trained with a Broadway coach while still a teen. She began acting as an uncredited extra in the daytime drama television series "Guiding Light". From 2000 to 2001 she portrayed the recurring character Lucy Montgomery on the television show "As the World Turns". From 2002 to 2003 Seyfried played the recurring role of Joni Stafford on the American Broadcasting Company (ABC) broadcast show, "All My Children". In 2003 Seyfried auditioned to play the role of Regina George in "Mean Girls"; the role eventually went to Rachel McAdams. While she was initially considered to play the lead role of Cady Heron, played by Lindsay Lohan, the producers of the film decided that Seyfried should play Karen Smith, Regina's dim-witted "Plastic" friend and sidekick. The film was a box-office success, earning over $129 million in its theatrical run. Seyfried's performance in the film earned her, along with Lohan, Lacey Chabert, and McAdams, an MTV Movie Award in the category of "Best On-Screen Team". Seyfried auditioned to play the title character on UPN's television series "Veronica Mars". The role eventually went to Kristen Bell, and Seyfried portrayed the title character's murdered best friend, Lilly Kane. Her character was only shown in flashbacks. The show's creator, Rob Thomas, felt that Seyfried's portrayal as Lilly Kane was so outstanding that he used her more times in the show than he initially planned in the first season. Seyfried appeared in ten episodes from 2004–2005. In 2005 Seyfried played the lead character, Samantha, a role written by director Rodrigo García specifically for her, in one of the nine parts in the film "Nine Lives", composed of nine short films with different themes and an ensemble cast. For her performance in the film, Seyfried, along with the film's other female leads, won an award from the Locarno International Film Festival, for Best Actress. The same year she played supporting character, Mouse, in the independent film, "American Gun". In 2006 Seyfried appeared in five episodes of "Wildfire" as Rebecca and had lead role as Chrissy in the short film titled "Gypsies, Tramps & Thieves", by writer-director Andrea Janakas. Seyfried also contributed a minor role as Julie Beckley in "Alpha Dog". From 2004 to 2006 Seyfried made multiple guest appearances on television series, including "House, M.D.", "Justice", ', "American Dad!" and '. Breakthrough (2006–2011). Seyfried's profile gained prominence due to her role in the highly acclaimed HBO drama television series, "Big Love". The series centers on a fictional fundamentalist Mormon family, in which Seyfried plays Sarah Henrickson, Bill and Barb's first daughter, who struggles with her family's polygamous faith. "Big Love" premiered in the United States on March 12, 2006. In December 2009, HBO confirmed that Seyfried would return for the show's fourth season, but that it would be her last, as Seyfried wished to concentrate on her film career and upcoming projects. Following "Big Love" Seyfried had a supporting role, as Zoe, in the 2008 horror drama film, "Solstice", and she co-starred alongside Meryl Streep in "Mamma Mia!", a romantic comedy film adaptation of the 1999 musical of the same name. "Mamma Mia!" was Seyfried's first leading role. The film was the fifth highest grossing film of 2008, and as of January 2013 is the 73rd highest grossing film of all time. Her musical performance in "Mamma Mia!" was released on the film's soundtrack, for which she recorded five songs. As part of promotion for both the film and its soundtrack, Seyfried recorded a music video of the song, entitled "Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight)". In March 2008 Seyfried was cast in the comedy horror film, "Jennifer's Body". In the film Seyfried was cast as Anita "Needy" Lesnicki, the title character's best friend. The film, which premiered at the 2009 Toronto International Film Festival and was released to theaters on September 18, 2009, received mixed reviews from critics. The same year she was cast in the comedy-drama independent film "Boogie Woogie". She played Paige Oppenheimer, one of the lead roles in the ensemble movie. The movie was originally shown on June 26, 2009, at Edinburgh International Film Festival, and was officially shown in US theaters April 25, 2010. On February 22, 2009, Seyfried presented an award and performed at the 2009 Annual 81st Academy Awards ceremony. In early March 2009 director Zack Snyder had tapped Seyfried to portray the lead role, Baby Doll, in "Sucker Punch", but Seyfried had to drop out of the film due to scheduling conflicts with "Big Love". Seyfried starred alongside Channing Tatum in "Dear John", the film adaptation of the novel of the same name, that was written by Nicholas Sparks. The film was released on February 5, 2010, and received generally negative reviews, Seyfried wrote and recorded "Little House", a song which appears on one of the official soundtracks of "Dear John". Despite the reviews, "Dear John" became the first film to break up "Avatar"'s box office reign at number one at the United States box office and grossed $80 million in the US theatrically and $115 million worldwide. Seyfried appeared as the title character in the erotic thriller "Chloe", theatrically released by Sony Pictures Classics on March 26, 2010. "Chloe" originally premiered at the Toronto Film Festival in September 2009. In the film, Seyfried's character is an escort/prostitute who is hired to test a husband, because his wife feels that she cannot trust his fidelity. "Chloe" had enjoyed commercial success and became director Atom Egoyan's biggest moneymaker ever. Seyfried's performance in the film also received favorable reviews from critics; it also helped her to gain more industry acclaim and receive more opportunities to play more interesting roles. Later in 2010 Seyfried starred in the romantic-comedy film "Letters to Juliet", based on the book by Lise and Ceil Friedman, which was released to mixed reviews and was a box office success, generated $80 million worldwide. In 2010 she was named, and received an award as, the "Showest Breakthrough Female Star of The Year". She also won the "Scared-As-S**T" category for her performance in "Jennifer's Body" and was nominated for Best Female Performance for her movie "Dear John", at the 2010 MTV Movie Awards. Also in 2010, she was included in "Forbes"s "The 17 Stars To Watch" list, received 3 nominations in the Teen Choice Awards for Choice Movie Actress Drama and Choice Movie Chemistry with her co-star Channing Tatum for their film "Dear John". Seyfried was also nominated for Choice Movie Actress Romantic Comedy for "Letters to Juliet". In late January 2009 she became attached to appear in Myriad Pictures' adaptation of Oscar Wilde's comedy "A Woman of No Importance". The film was set to be released in 2011. In 2010, however, reports indicated that the film might not happen due to lack of financing. Although it was confirmed in 2009 that she would appear in the movie, "Albert Nobbs", she ultimately dropped out due to scheduling conflicts and was replaced by Mia Wasikowska. Seyfried played the starring role of Valerie in Catherine Hardwicke's "Red Riding Hood"; it was released on March 11, 2011, to mostly negative reviews, but was a moderate box office success, earning $90 million worldwide on a $42 million budget. She also played the lead role of Sylvia Weis in Andrew Niccol's "In Time", released in October 2011 to mixed reviews but with excellent box office receipts, grossing more than $172 million worldwide. Recent roles (2012–present). Seyfried starred in the thriller "Gone", released in early 2012. She played Cosette in the film adaptation of the musical, "Les Misérables". In 2013, Seyfried appeared in the comedy "The Big Wedding", and had a voice role in the animated movie "Epic". She will star in the drama "The End of Love", play Linda Lovelace in the biopic "Lovelace" (directed by Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman), appear in a dramedy titled "Pete and Goat", and play the title role in "The Girl Who Conned the Ivy League". She is also signed to play the role of Ann Burden in the dramatization of the Robert O'Brien post-apocalyptic novel Z for Zachariah. Personal life. Seyfried has stated that she suffers from anxiety and panic attacks. She also suffers from stage fright, and has never performed in theatre because of it. Seyfried has a taxidermy collection. Some of her collections contain a baby horse, a fox, an owl, a moose, a goat, a hybrid taxidermy deer, a couple of butterflies, and during an episode on Conan, Conan O' Brien gave her a taxidermy raccoon attached to a jet pack as a gift for her collection.
1001477	Lisa Olivia Munn (born July 3, 1980) is an American actress, comedian, model, television personality and author. She began her career being credited as Lisa Munn. Since 2006, she has been using the name Olivia Munn personally and professionally. Early life. Lisa Olivia Munn was born in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. She is of Chinese descent on her mother's side (though her mother was born and raised in Vietnam) and of German and Irish descent on her father's. Her mother, Kim Schmid, fled to Oklahoma after the Vietnam War ended in 1975. After college, she married Winston Munn, Munn's biological father. When Munn was age two, her mother married her second husband, a member of the United States Air Force. Although the family relocated many times, Munn was predominantly raised in Tokyo, Japan, where the military stationed her stepfather. During this time, she appeared in a number of local theater productions, and later became a model within the Japanese fashion industry. Her mother and stepfather divorced and she moved back to Oklahoma, where she attended Putnam City North High School for her junior and senior years and where she was a contemporary of Hinder bassist Mike Rodden, future Oklahoma state senator David Holt and author Aaron Goldfarb. She also attended the University of Oklahoma, majoring in journalism and minoring in Japanese and dramatic arts. After Munn graduated from college, she became an intern at the NBC affiliate in Tulsa, and later moved to Los Angeles to pursue an acting career. In 2004, she interned at Fox Sports Net and worked as a sideline reporter for college football and women's basketball. She has gone on to say that she disliked the experience, explaining "I was trying to be something I wasn't, and that made me really uncomfortable on live TV." Career. Soon after she moved to Los Angeles, Munn was cast in a small role in the straight to video horror film "Scarecrow Gone Wild". She appeared in rock band Zebrahead's video for their song "Hello Tomorrow" as the love interest of the lead singer Justin Mauriello. In late 2005, Munn began her role as Mily Acuna, a teen surfer, over two seasons of the TV drama "Beyond the Break" on The N network. She enjoys surfing and continues to practice the sport. She originally auditioned for the part of Kai, but the producers wanted a "local girl." She also appeared in the film "The Road to Canyon Lake". In 2006, Munn moved on to the G4 network, where she began co-hosting "Attack of the Show!" with Kevin Pereira on April 10. She replaced departing host Sarah Lane. The network, devoted to the world of video games and the video game lifestyle, was at first hesitant to hire Munn. Although she admits video games were her "weak point," she was confident in her technical knowledge. On the show, Munn was featured with journalist Anna David in a segment called "In Your Pants," which deals with sex and relationship questions from viewers. While working on "Attack of the Show!", Munn hosted "Formula D", a now defunct program about American drift racing, and an online podcast called "Around the Net" (formerly known as "The Daily Nut"), for G4. Munn left "Attack of the Show!" in December 2010 and was replaced by Candace Bailey. Munn appeared in the Rob Schneider movie "Big Stan". She played Schneider's character's receptionist Maria. Munn also had a significant role in the 2008 horror film "Insanitarium", in which she played a nurse at an insane asylum. She had roles in the 2010 movies "Date Night" and "Iron Man 2". Robert Downey, Jr. praised Munn for her improvisation skills and led the crew in a round of applause. Munn hosted Microsoft's Bing-a-thon, an advertisement on Hulu for the Microsoft search-engine Bing on June 8, 2009, alongside Jason Sudeikis. Munn appeared in ABC Family's "Greek", portraying Cappie's love interest, Lana. In May 2010, NBC announced that Munn would star in the upcoming television series "Perfect Couples". The half-hour romantic comedy premiered on January 20, 2011. The show was cancelled before it completed its first season run. On June 3, 2010, Munn debuted in her new role as a correspondent on Comedy Central's "The Daily Show". Her hiring prompted criticism from Irin Carmon of "Jezebel", who questioned Munn's credentials and accused the show's production of sexism in hiring Munn, whom Carmon characterized as a sex symbol. Carmon saw Munn's hiring as a perpetuation of the show production office's history as a male-dominated atmosphere marginalizing and alienating to women. A group of thirty-two female "Daily Show" production staff members condemned Carmon's piece as inaccurate and misinformed, as did Munn herself in an interview, in which she stated that Carmon's assertion was an insult both to her and to the rest of the "Daily Show" staff. In 2010, Munn guest-starred in NBC's "Chuck" as a CIA agent. In 2011, Munn appeared in the comedy film "I Don't Know How She Does It" as Momo. In 2012, Munn had a leading role in "The Babymakers". She appeared in "Magic Mike", directed by Steven Soderbergh. She plays Sloan Sabbith on HBO's "The Newsroom". She also appeared as Angie, Nick's stripper girlfriend in three episodes of FOX's "New Girl". In print. Munn has booked modeling campaigns for Nike, Pepsi and Neutrogena. She appeared on the Fall 2006 cover of "Foam" magazine in September, in "Men's Edge" magazine in August, and was featured in a pictorial in "Complex" in November 2006, where she later became a columnist. In February 2007, she appeared as "Babe of the Month" in a non-nude pictorial in "Playboy" magazine. She discusses this shoot in her book, "Suck it, Wonder Woman". Munn also appeared in the July/August 2007 issue of "Men's Health". In September 2007, she was featured in the Italian "Vanity Fair" for their "Hot Young Hollywood" Issue. Munn appeared in the Winter/Spring 2009 issue of "Men's Health Living". She was featured as the cover girl for the July/August 2009 issue of "Playboy", and later on the cover of the January 2010 and February 2011 U.S."Maxim". Munn appears on the cover of "FHM" Magazine's January 2012 issue. She was voted #2 by readers on "Maxim"s list of their 2012 Hot 100. Munn's book, "Suck It, Wonder Woman: The Misadventures of a Hollywood Geek" (ISBN 0-312-59105-5), was released on July 6, 2010. One critic said it offers glimpses into Munn's life but does not go into depth. Charity work. In 2011, Munn teamed up with Dosomething.org's Green Your School Challenge. She was a spokesperson for the campaign by filming a PSA regarding the challenge, and sat on the panel of judges that evaluated the entries. Munn helped PETA with a campaign that ultimately freed a sick elephant from a touring circus. Her blog for "The Huffington Post" was credited with encouraging fans to contact the USDA on the elephant's behalf. Munn posed for PETA's "I'd Rather Go Naked Than Wear Fur" campaign in April 2010, and again in January 2012. In February 2013, Munn fronted a PETA release of new footage showing cruelty to animals in Chinese fur farms. Personal life. Olivia Munn is in a relationship with Swedish actor Joel Kinnaman. She currently lives in Los Angeles, California, and New York City.
1068086	Justin Chatwin (born October 31, 1982) is a Canadian film and television actor. Life and career. Chatwin was born in Nanaimo, British Columbia, to an artist mother and an engineer father. He was raised Catholic. His film roles include "War of the Worlds", "The Invisible", "The Chumscrubber", ', "Taking Lives", ', and the Canadian film "Funkytown". Chatwin has also been in several television shows, including the miniseries "Taken" (two episodes in 2002) and "Lost" (one episode in 2006). He played the son of Kevin Nealon's character in the Showtime comedy series "Weeds", appearing only in the pilot and series finale. In Summer 2010, Chatwin was cast as a series regular on the Showtime dramedy "Shameless", portraying Steve/Jimmy Lishman. The second season premiered on January 8, 2012. The third season premiered on January 13, 2013.
1058261	Neal P. McDonough (born February 13, 1966) is an American film, television, actor and voice actor, best known for portraying Lieutenant Lynn "Buck" Compton in the HBO miniseries "Band of Brothers" (2001), Deputy District Attorney David McNorris on " Boomtown" (2002–2003), and Dave Williams on ABC's "Desperate Housewives" (2008–2009). Career. In 1991, McDonough won the Best Actor Dramalogue for "Away Alone". McDonough has made many television and film appearances since then, including "Band of Brothers", "Boomtown", "", "Minority Report" and "The Hitcher". In 1993, Neal McDonough played "Jason" in a NBC 1993 TV Movie starring Tim Daly & William O'Leary entitled "In The Line of Duty: Ambush In Waco". McDonough played Dave Williams on the fifth season of "Desperate Housewives". He also starred in the lead role on 2004 medical drama "Medical Investigation" for its one full season. McDonough was set to star in the ABC dramedy "Scoundrels", but was fired for refusing to do sex scenes for the show. He credits his family and his Catholic faith for his decision. McDonough portrays the role of "Jesus" in "The Truth & Life Dramatized audio New Testament Bible," a 22-hour, celebrity-voiced, fully dramatized audio New Testament which uses the Catholic edition of the RSV. In 2012, McDonough had a recurring role in the third season of FX's "Justified" as Robert Quarles, a Detroit gangster with a troubled past. He was recently cast as Police Chief Parker in Frank Darabont's TNT pilot "Lost Angels". Personal life. McDonough was born in Dorchester, Massachusetts, the son of Catherine (née Bushe) and Frank McDonough, motel owners who emigrated from Ireland, with his mother coming from County Tipperary and his father from County Galway. McDonough was raised Roman Catholic. He grew up in Barnstable, Massachusetts, graduated from Barnstable High School, and attended Syracuse University, where he was initiated and became a member of the Sigma Chi Fraternity and graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in 1988. His roommate in college was Brett Pollock, current broadcaster for the Omaha Storm Chasers of the Pacific Coast League. McDonough frequently appeared as "Captain Laser", inspiring young students to bring their studies to completion. From there, McDonough trained for a short time at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art (LAMDA). McDonough is married to Ruvé Robertson, with whom he has a son, Morgan "Little Buck" Patrick (born November 2005), and three daughters, Catherine Maggie (born May 14, 2007), London Jane (born January 11, 2010), and Clover Elizabeth (born August 15, 2011).
1371098	"Santa's Slay" is a 2005 Christmas black comedy horror film that stars former professional wrestler Bill Goldberg as Santa Claus. The movie was written and directed by David Steiman, a former assistant to Brett Ratner. It was shot in Edmonton and Wetaskiwin, Alberta. The film was released to home media by Lionsgate Home Entertainment. While filming the final zamboni scene in Bruderheim, Alberta one of their film trailers caught fire. Plot summary. On Christmas Eve of 2005, the Mason family is enjoying Christmas dinner when Santa Claus (Bill Goldberg) comes down the chimney and kills them all. Some of the deaths include Santa stabbing a man's hands to the table with steak knives, causing a girl to faint and fall back into a sharp pole that impales through her neck, Virginia's head is set on fire and is then drowned in eggnog, a man tries to fight Santa and gets pushed into a glass case and dies, Santa then grabs a leg from the table and smashes in a woman's head as she pleads, "I've been good!", the last girl tries to escape but Santa throws a star into her back, and lastly the man who got stabbed in the hands get a turkey leg lodged down his throat. This opening scene includes bit roles from several famous Jewish actors, including James Caan, Fran Drescher, Chris Kattan, and Rebecca Gayheart. Riding on his sleigh driven by his "hell-deer", Santa arrives at Hell Township and proceeds to kill the locals in various holiday-themed ways. In one of his slaughters, Santa kills the occupants of a local strip club frequented by Pastor Timmons (Dave Thomas), a crooked minister who manages to survive the massacre. Later, Santa murders the local Jewish deli owner Mr. Green (Saul Rubinek) using his own menorah. Meanwhile, teenager Nicholas Yuleson (Douglas Smith) is living with his crazy grandfather (Robert Culp), a crackpot inventor who has created a bunker in their basement to survive Christmas. When Nicholas asks Grandpa why he hates Christmas, he is shown "The Book of Klaus", which reveals the origins of Santa Claus. Apparently, Santa was the result of a virgin birth produced by Satan (just as Jesus was the result of a virgin birth produced by God- meaning that Santa is somewhat of an Antichrist). Christmas was "The Day of Slaying" for Santa until, in 1005 AD, an angel defeated Santa in a curling match and sentenced Santa to deliver presents on Christmas for 1000 years. This means that Santa is free to kill again in 2005. Upon arriving at the scene of Mr. Green's murder, Nicholas is taken to the police station for questioning. He is bailed out by his girlfriend Mary "Mac" Mackenzie (Emilie de Ravin), just before Santa arrives and kills all of the officers. Santa pursues them in a police car, but they are able to escape (thanks to a shotgun, left in Mac's truck by her gun-crazed father). They flee to Mr. Yuleson's bunker, with Santa still in pursuit. Nicholas and Mac manage to escape, care of Grandpa's snowmobile, but Grandpa is run over by Santa's "hell-deer" and killed. The two teens hide from Santa in a local high school, hoping that Santa's powers will end when Christmas ends, but are eventually forced to confront him in the gymnasium. They are almost killed by Santa on a Zamboni but are saved by Grandpa, who is actually the angel that originally defeated Santa. With Christmas ended and his powers gone, Santa flees in his sleigh but his "hell-deer" are shot down by Mac's father with a bazooka. Pastor Timmons is found dead in a Santa suit and is presumed to be the killer, while in fact the real Santa Claus is boarding a flight from Winnipeg to the North Pole. After the credits, Santa is looking over his naughty list, when he looks into the camera and says "Who's Next?"
1063538	Norbit is a 2007 American comedy film, directed by Brian Robbins. It stars Eddie Murphy and Thandie Newton. Produced by Davis Entertainment and Tollin/Robbins Productions, the film also stars Terry Crews, Clifton Powell, Lester "Rasta" Speight, Eddie Griffin, Katt Williams, Marlon Wayans, and Cuba Gooding, Jr. It was released by DreamWorks and distributed by Paramount Pictures on February 9, 2007. The movie received an Academy Award nomination for make-up, although the film also received multiple "wins" at the 2007 Golden Raspberry Awards. Even though it was negatively received by critics, the movie was a commercial success. Plot. Norbit Albert Rice (Eddie Murphy) and Kate Thomas (Thandie Newton) were the best of friends as children in an orphanage owned by their father figure, Mr. Wong (Eddie Murphy), but were separated when Kate was adopted. While being bullied by twins in the orphanage, Norbit is saved by Rasputia Latimore (Eddie Murphy), a fat, self-centered, overbearing, vain girl who makes Norbit her boyfriend and protects him from other kids. As they both grow up, Rasputia dominates every aspect of Norbit's life.
1164614	Ruth Carol Hussey (October 30, 1911 – April 19, 2005) was an American actress best known for her Academy Award-nominated role as photographer Elizabeth Imbrie in "The Philadelphia Story". Early life. Hussey was born in Providence, Rhode Island in 1911. Her father, George R. Hussey, died of the Spanish flu in 1918 when she was seven years old. Ten years later her mother married a family friend, William O'Rourke, who had worked at the family's mail order silver enterprise, the renown Baird-North Company in Providence. Following graduation from high school, she went on to attend Pembroke College graduating in 1936. She never landed a role in any of the plays she tried out for at Pembroke. She then studied drama in graduate school at the University of Michigan School of Drama, and worked as an actress with a summer stock company in Michigan for two seasons. Career. After working as an actress in summer stock, she returned to Providence and worked as a radio fashion commentator on a local station. She wrote the ad copy for a Providence clothing store and read it on the radio each afternoon. One day she was encouraged by a friend to try out for acting roles at the Providence Playhouse. The theater director there turned her down, saying the roles were cast only out of New York City. Later that week she journeyed to New York City and on her first day there she signed-up with a talent agent who booked her for a role in a play starting the next day back at the Providence Playhouse.
